Facts on File World News Digest Yearbook 2009: The Indexed Record of World Events, Volume 69

FACTS

ON FILE World News Digest

Yearbook

2009

The Indexed Record of World Events Volume 69

FACTS ON FILE News Services an imprint of Infobase Publishing

FACTS

ON FILE World News Digest

Yearbook

2009

The Indexed Record of World Events Volume 69

FACTS ON FILE News Services an imprint of Infobase Publishing

Facts On File

®

World News Digest With Index

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January 1–8, 2009

Volume 69, No. 3551

Israeli Ground Troops Invade Gaza Strip; U.N. Security Council Calls for Cease-fire More Than 750 Palestinians Killed. Israeli ground troops Jan. 3 invaded the Gaza Strip, in what the Israeli government said was a bid to stop the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) from launching rockets into southern Israel. Israeli aircraft and warships for the past eight days had been bombarding targets in Gaza affiliated with Hamas, after Hamas ended a six-month-old cease-fire. The United Nations Security Council Jan. 8 called on Israel and Hamas to reinstate a cease-fire, amid reports from aid groups that a humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the fighting was getting worse. [See 2008, p. 945A1] John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Jan. 8 said that according to Gaza authorities, 758 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli attacks started in late December. The dead included 257 children and 56 women. He said some 3,100 Gazans had reportedly been wounded, including 1,080 children and 465 women, and 20,000 people had been displaced. Nine Israeli soldiers had been killed since Israeli ground operations started, three of them in combat with Hamas militants, as of Jan. 8. Before the invasion, one soldier and three civilians had been killed by rockets fired from Gaza. Although Israeli officials maintained that their aim was to stop the rocket fire and not to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, it was widely speculated that Israel was trying to oust Hamas from power in the territory, which it had governed since June 2007. Lead-up to the Invasion—Israeli forces in the days before the ground assault had continued their bombardment of Hamas targets. An air strike Jan. 1 killed Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas leader with links to the organization’s military wing who had called for renewed suicide attacks on Israel. He had refused to go underground like most Hamas officials, and was the first senior leader of the group to be killed. Rayyan was killed in his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City, along with his four wives and nine of his children. Israeli forces Jan. 1–3 also destroyed Hamas security facilities, weapons storehouses, militants’ homes, smuggling tunnels un-

der the Gaza-Egypt border, and the parliament building and justice ministry in Gaza City. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Jan. 1 denied that there was a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel had been allowing some trucks carrying humanitarian goods into the territory, but aid groups said not enough supplies were being delivered. The Israeli military Jan. 2 said it had allowed more than two hundred foreignpassport holders—including many spouses of Palestinians—to leave the Gaza Strip. U.S. President George W. Bush Jan. 2 in a radio address blamed Hamas for putting Palestinian civilians at risk, by operating in residential areas. He said he was “deeply concerned” about humanitarian conditions in Gaza and that the U.S. would increase its aid. It was Bush’s first statement on the situation. The U.S. government had firmly backed Israel’s right to strike at Hamas in order to protect itself from rocket attacks. Israeli Ground Forces Split Gaza—Israeli troops and tanks late Jan. 3 poured over the Gaza border. By Jan. 4, they had taken control of the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim, which had been abandoned during Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza in 2005, and pushed to the Mediterranean Sea. The Israeli advance effectively cut the territory in half, in a line that ran just south of Gaza City. Israeli troops reportedly had also captured areas that had been used by Hamas to launch rockets. Israeli forces avoided pushing into Gaza City and other urban areas where it was anticipated that resistance would be heavier, instead operating mostly in open areas. Hamas fighters were reportedly refraining from engaging Israeli troops at close range, for the most part relying on mortars and improvised explosive devices. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak late Jan. 3 said, “This will not be easy or short. But we are determined.” Israel activated tens of thousands of reservists after the ground invasion started. Casualties Jan. 5 continued to mount on both sides, as some Israeli troops moved into eastern areas of Gaza City and clashed with Hamas fighters. Three Israeli soldiers

were killed when an Israeli tank mistakenly fired on them. Israel said some civilian casualties had resulted from attacks on militants operating in civilian areas. There was also reportedly intense fighting Jan. 6 in Gaza City and in Khan Yunis, in the south. Livni Jan. 5 had rejected efforts by European leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to negotiate a cease-fire.

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Israel Shells U.N. School, Killing 40—

Israeli soldiers Jan. 6 shelled a U.N.-run school in Jabaliya, killing at least 40 people according to Palestinian officials, including 10 children and five women. The Israeli military said it was returning fire at gun-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Israeli ground troops invade Gaza Strip; U.N. Security Council calls for cease-fire; more than 750 Palestinians killed.

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PAGE 1

Russia halts gas shipments to Ukraine. PAGE 3

111th Congress opens. PAGE 3

Obama taps Panetta for CIA director. PAGE 5

Obama rallies support for economic recovery plan. PAGE 6

Atta Mills narrowly wins Ghana’s presidential election.

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Hasina sworn in as Bangladeshi prime minister. PAGE 9

Sri Lankan army captures de facto rebel capital. PAGE 9

SPECIAL FEATURE

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A review of the top news stories of 2008. PAGES 10–12

© 2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Israeli Ground War in the Gaza Strip

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Israeli town of Nahariya, wounding two people. It was initially feared that the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah had fired the rockets and was going to reprise its 2006 war with Israel. However, Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack, and the Lebanese government condemned it. It was thought that the rockets had been fired by one of several Palestinian groups active in refugee camps on the Lebanese border. Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel from Gaza, although they caused no fatalities after the Israeli ground assault began. A Grad, or Katyusha, rocket Jan. 6 flew the farthest distance yet into Israel, wounding a baby in the town of Gadera, in the central part of the country. Gadera was more than 25 miles (40 km) north of Gaza, and only 20 miles from Tel Aviv. Egypt, France Negotiate Cease-fire Plan—

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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Jan. 6 unveiled a cease-fire proposal, brokered with France, that included provisions that addressed the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, ending the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the possibility of an international monitoring force to patrol Gaza’s borders. Israel said it was in “fundamental agreement” with the proposal, although details would have to be negotiated. The proposal received broad international support, including from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governed the West Bank. The U.N. Security Council Jan. 8 approved a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.” It did not mention Hamas rocket attacks on Israel or the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The resolution was approved, 14–0, with the U.S. abstaining. U.S. Secre-

Deir al-Balah

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men in the school, and claimed that several militants, including members of a mortar squad, were among the dead. U.N. officials denied that militants had been using the building. The shelling was one of the deadliest single attacks to take place in Gaza since Israeli operations started. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called the shelling—and two other attacks on U.N. facilities Jan. 5–6 that had killed three people—“totally unacceptable.” The U.N. had opened its schools throughout the territory to displaced Gazans, who could not flee the Gaza Strip due to an Israeli blockade. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency said 1,674 people had been staying at the Jabaliya school. In another controversial incident, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Jan. 8 said Israel had barred aid workers from a house full of wounded Gazans for several days. According to survivors, a house filled with over 100 members of the extended Samouni family in the Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, early Jan. 5 had been destroyed in an Israeli attack, killing some inside and leaving many more

wounded. Israeli troops allegedly did not allow relief workers access to the victims until Jan. 8, despite being aware of their plight. The Red Cross said it had rescued 100 people from the building, and had found 40– 50 bodies, but that more injured and dead might remain in the building. It charged that Israel had “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.” Israel said it was investigating the incident. Israel Jan. 6 said it would open up a “humanitarian corridor” to let aid and relief workers reach Gaza. Israel Jan. 7–8 ceased combat for three-hour periods on each day to facilitate aid distribution. However, the U.N. Jan. 8 said it was suspending aid operations after one of its drivers was allegedly killed by Israeli troops during the cease-fire that day, despite coordinating his movements with Israel and driving a U.N.-marked vehicle. Other aid organizations, including the ICRC, also said they would restrict their operations due to security concerns. Lebanese Rockets Hit Israel—Two rockets launched from Lebanon Jan. 8 hit the

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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FACTS ON FILE

U.N. Organs General Assembly—President of the 63nd session:

Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)—

Executive Director: Michel Sidibe (Mali)

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann (Nicaragua) [See 2008, p. 697C3] Security Council—The council consists of 15 member states. Five permanent members have veto power over resolutions. The 10 rotating seats are allocated on a regional basis. Five new members are selected each fall for two-year terms that begin the following January. [See 2008, p. 766B3]

U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF)—Executive Director: Ann Veneman (U.S.) [See 2005, p. 29A3]

Permanent—China (People’s Republic of), France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States Rotating—Terms end 2010: Austria, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Uganda Terms end 2009: Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Libya, Vietnam

U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—Director General: Koichiro

Secretariat—U.N. Secretary General: Ban Ki

Moon (South Korea) [See 2006, p. 779A1] Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)—

President: Leo Merores (Haiti) World Court (International Court of Justice)—

President: Rosalyn Higgins (U.K.) Major Agencies and Their Heads Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)—Di-

rector General: Jacques Diouf (Senegal) [See 1993, p. 892C1] International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)— Director General: Mohamed ElBaradei (Egypt) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)—President: Lennart Bage (Sweden) International Monetary Fund (IMF)—Managing

Director: Dominique Strauss-Kahn (France) [See 2007, p. 645C3]

tary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. agreed with the resolution but did not want to interfere with the Egyptian-French proposal. The U.S. Jan. 3 had blocked the introduction by Libya of another cease-fire deal negotiated by the Arab League. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama Jan. 6 had broken his silence on the fighting in Gaza, saying, “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me, and after January 20th [Inauguration Day], I’ll have plenty to say about the issue.” Obama promised to “engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East.” His transition team had previously deferred to Bush on the issue. Protests of the Israeli air strikes and ground assault on Gaza continued throughout the Arab world, Europe, Asia and the U.S. Polls showed that a large majority of Israelis supported the government’s actions. n

Other International News Russia Halts Gas Shipments To Ukraine. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned ener-

gy company, Jan. 1 cut off natural gas shipments to Ukrainian customers due to an ongoing dispute over Ukraine’s debts to Gazprom and stalled contract negotiations. Gazprom Jan. 7 shut off gas shipments to Ukraine that were intended for delivery to European customers. The reduction in outflow resulted in supply disruptions Jan. 2– 8 as far away as Germany. Southeastern European countries with small gas reserves were particularly hard-hit, as the shortages January 1–8, 2009

U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)—Secretary General: Supachai Panitch-

pakdi (Thailand) U.N. Development Program (UNDP)—Adminis-

trator: Kemal Dervis (Turkey) [See 2005, p. 354E3]

Matsuura (Japan) [See 1999, p. 775E1] U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP)—Executive Director: Achim Steiner (Germany) U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights

(UNHCHR )—High Commissioner: Navanethem Pillay (South Africa) [See 2008, p. 568E2] U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—High Commissioner: Antonio Guterres

(Portugal) [See 2005, p. 354G3] U.N. Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)—Director General: Kandeh Yumkella

(Sierra Leone) U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA)—Executive Director: Thoraya Ahmed Obaid (Saudi Arabia) [See 2000, p. 818C2] World Bank Group—President: Robert Zoellick (U.S.) [See 2007, p. 428A2] World Food Program (WFP)—Executive Director: Josette Sheeran (U.S.) [See 2006, p. 907E2] World Health Organization (WHO)—Director

General: Dr. Margaret Chan (China) [See 2007, p. 13D2]

came in the midst of a bitter cold snap. [See 2008, p. 985F3; 2007, p. 580A3; 2006, p. 18C1] Ukraine in December 2008 had paid Gazprom $1.5 billion, which Ukrainian officials said represented the country’s total debt to the company. However, Gazprom claimed that Ukraine owed as much as $615 million in late payment surcharges. The two sides had also been unable to agree on a new contract for 2009. Gazprom wanted to increase the price of gas, while Ukraine wanted to increase the tariff Russia paid for use of its gas pipelines. Gazprom Jan. 2 accused Ukraine of stealing gas intended for paying European customers. NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy, Ukraine’s state gas company, said Gazprom’s allegations were “untrue.” The company admitted to tapping at least 21 million cubic meters of Russian gas per day, which it said was necessary to maintain sufficient pressure in its pipelines. Putin Orders More Cuts—Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Jan. 5, speaking to Gazprom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Aleksei Miller on Russian state television, instructed Miller to cut gas output that day by an additional 65.3 million cubic meters, the amount Miller alleged Ukraine had siphoned off at the expense of paying European customers. Miller said Gazprom would continue to decrease output to Ukraine by the amount it determined the country was siphoning off per day. By Jan. 6, more than a dozen countries had reported delivery disruptions. Several Southeastern European countries along the so-called Western Balkan transit route said

gas shipments had almost completely stopped.

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Gazprom Halts All Shipments to Ukraine—

Gazprom Jan. 7 said it had completely halted all gas shipments to Ukraine, after it claimed the previous day that Ukraine had closed off its export pipelines. Ukrainian officials Jan. 6 denied the allegation, and claimed that Russia had suddenly shut off gas supplies. The European Union, which had initially called on Russia and Ukraine to settle the dispute independently, Jan. 5–6 entered negotiations with both countries to place international monitors along transport pipelines in Russia and Ukraine. However, Ukraine and Russia as of Jan. 8 were unable to agree on a monitoring plan. Putin, in what observers described as a concession, that day offered to pay a “market-based” tariff for use of Ukraine’s gas pipelines if Ukraine paid a market price for Russian gas. Putin Jan. 8 accused unnamed Ukrainian politicians of planning to use gas profits “as financial resources in future political campaigns.” Observers suggested he was referring to Ukraine’s president and prime minister, rivals expected to run against each other in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election. [See 2008, p. 986E1] n

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U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

111th Congress Opens

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Senate Democrats to Accept Ill. Appointee.

The 111th Congress opened Jan. 6, with the swearing-in of larger Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. However, two seats remained empty in the Senate, pending a disputed vote count in Minnesota and indecision over whether to accept Roland Burris (D), who had been appointed a week earlier by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The Senate of the 110th Congress had adjourned Jan. 2, and the House the following day. [See 2008, pp. 951F1, C2, 950A1] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and other top Democrats had initially declared that Burris would not be seated,

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Mark Wilson/Getty Images

UNITED NATIONS—2009

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G Former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris (D), speaking outside the Capitol Jan. 6, when he was barred from claiming the Senate seat he was appointed to by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).

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LEADERS OF THE 111TH CONGRESS

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Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.)

Born: March 26, 1940, Baltimore, Md. Education: Trinity College B.A. 1962 First elected: 1987 Former occupation: State party chairwoman Career: Pelosi was the daughter of former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. (D), who also served five terms in the House. She was elected to the House in 1987 in a special election to fill the seat vacated by the death of Rep. Sala Burton (D, Calif.), widow of Pelosi’s political mentor, Rep. Phil Burton (D, Calif.). She represented a liberal-leaning district that included San Francisco. [See 1987, p. 448B3] In her 20 years in the House, Pelosi built up a consistently liberal voting record. She was a strong supporter of abortion rights and opposed President George W. Bush’s tax cuts. In 2001, she was elected House minority whip when Rep. David Bonior (D, Mich.) resigned to pursue a gubernatorial bid. That was the highest position ever held by a woman in either house of Congress. Pelosi set another record for women in 2002 when she was promoted to minority leader, after Rep. Richard Gephardt (D, Mo.) gave up the post in response to the Democrats’ failure to regain the majority in midterm elections. [See 2002, p. 887D2; 2001, p. 793G1] After the Democrats won control of Congress in the November 2006 midterm elections, Pelosi was elected House speaker, becoming the first “Madam Speaker.” [See p. 1B1]

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House Majority Leader: Steny Hoyer (D, Md.)

Born: June 14, 1939, New York City Education: University of Maryland B.S. 1963; Georgetown University Law Center J.D. 1966 First elected: 1981 Former occupation: State senator Career: Hoyer won a special election to the House in 1981 when Rep. Gladys Spellman (D, Md.) was incapacitated by illness. He served as deputy majority whip from 1987 to 1989, and chaired the House Democratic Caucus from 1989 to 1994. [See 1989, p. 515G1; 1981, p. 342E2] Hoyer, who was seen as a moderate, in 2001 lost his bid to become minority whip when the party chose the more liberal Pelosi instead. He was elected whip in 2002 when she was promoted to House minority leader. [See 2002, p. 887B3; 2001, p. 793F1] The Democratic caucus in November 2006 elected Hoyer as majority leader, despite Pelosi’s support for his rival, Rep. John Murtha (Pa.). [See 2006, p. 876B3]

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House Minority Leader: John Boehner (R, Ohio)

Born: Nov. 17, 1949, Cincinnati, Ohio Education: Xavier University B.S. 1977 First elected: 1990

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calling his appointment illegitimate due to federal corruption charges against Blagojevich for attempting to sell Obama’s seat and other criminal schemes. However, Reid Jan. 7 reversed himself and met with Burris, signaling that the former Illinois attorney general, 71, would be accepted after all. Obama had initially supported Reid in his opposition to seating Burris. But Obama, in a meeting with Reid Jan. 5, reportedly urged him to seek an “amicable resolution” to the dilemma. The standoff had become awkward for Democratic leaders after black House members rallied behind Burris, who was 4

Former occupations: Businessman, state legislator Career: Boehner rose quickly in the House Republican ranks, becoming conference chairman after the party won control of the chamber in 1994. But he was ousted from the leadership after GOP election losses in 1998. Boehner became chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce in 2001, and helped shepherd Bush’s signature education reform, the No Child Left Behind Act. [See 2001, p. 998A2] In February 2006, after House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R, Texas) finalized his resignation, Boehner won the right to succeed him, defeating Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the majority whip and acting leader, and Rep. John Shadegg (Ariz.). [See 2006, p. 69C2] Following the Republican losses in the November 2006 elections, Boehner won the race for minority leader, beating Rep. Mike Pence (R, Ind.). [See 2006, p. 891A3] House Minority Whip: Eric Cantor (R, Va.)

Born: June 6, 1963, Richmond, Va. Education: George Washington University, B.A. 1985; College of William and Mary, J.D. 1988; Columbia University, M.S. 1989 First elected: 2000 Former occupations: lawyer; member of Virginia House of Delegates, 1992–2001 Career: Cantor, the only Jewish House Republican, served as the caucus’s chief deputy whip from 2002 to 2008. In November 2008, after the GOP lost seats for the second straight election cycle, he was seen as a top prospect to challenge Boehner for the position of minority leader, but opted to run for whip instead. The incumbent, Blunt, stepped aside to avoid a contest. [See 2008, p. 852D3] Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid (D, Nev.)

Senate Majority Whip: Richard Durbin (D, Ill.)

Born: Nov. 21, 1944, East St. Louis, Ill. Education: Georgetown University B.S. 1966, J.D. 1969 First elected: 1996 Former occupations: Lawyer, state political aide; U.S. House 1983–97 Career: Durbin became Senate minority whip in November 2004, when Reid moved up to minority leader. He was elected majority whip in November 2006. [See 2006, p. 876F2; 2004, p. 910C3] Senate Minority Leader: Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.)

Born: Feb. 20, 1942, Sheffield, Ala. Education: University of Louisville B.A. 1964; University of Kentucky College of Law J.D. 1967 First elected: 1984 Former occupations: County judge-executive, deputy assistant attorney general Career: McConnell from 1997 to 2001 chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a position he had unsuccessfully sought in 1990 and 1992. He was married to Elaine Chao, who served as labor secretary under Bush. [See 1996, p. 909E2; 1992, p. 853A2; 1990, p. 849F3] A long-standing opponent of legislative efforts to restrict campaign contributions, McConnell helped defeat several such bills before one, known as McCain–Feingold, was finally signed into law in 2002. He led a lawsuit against the law, but the Supreme Court upheld the legislation in 2003. [See 2003, p. 973C3; 2002, p. 226A3] McConnell was elected Senate majority whip in 2002. In November 2006, the Senate Republicans elected him minority leader. [See 2006, p. 876A3; 2002, p. 887F3]

Born: Dec. 2, 1939, Searchlight, Nev. Education: Southern Utah State University A.S. 1959; Utah State University B.A. 1961; George Washington University J.D. 1964 First elected: 1986 Former occupations: Capitol police officer 1961–64; Nevada state assembly 1969–70; Nevada lieutenant governor 1970–74; chairman, Nevada Gaming Commission 1977–81; U.S. House 1983–87 Career: Reid became Senate Democratic whip—the second-ranking party post—in 1999. He was elected by the caucus to replace Sen. Thomas Daschle (D, S.D.) as Senate minority leader after Daschle lost his seat in a November 2004 election. A Mormon who opposed abortion, Reid was seen as a centrist. [See 2004, p. 910C3] The Democrats elected Reid to serve as majority leader after they won control of the Senate in the 2006 midterm elections. [See 2006, p. 876F2]

Born: April 25, 1942, Oakland, Neb. Education: University of Arizona, B.A. 1964; University of Arizona, LL.B. 1966 First elected: 1994 Former occupations: lawyer; member of the U.S. House, 1987–1995 Career: Kyl served as chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 2003 to 2007. (The 1946 Congressional Reorganization Act established separate policy committees for the majority and minority parties in each house, with the aim of providing a forum for developing sound legislative proposals.) Kyl was elected chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the third-ranking leadership post, in 2006. In December 2007, he won an election for minority whip after Sen. Trent Lott (R, Miss.) announced his retirement and vacated the post. [See 2007, p. 822G3; 1946, p. 245K]

black, noting that Obama’s resignation left the Senate with no black members. Burris had actively campaigned to be seated. He appeared at the Capitol Jan. 6 to be sworn in, but was turned away by the Senate secretary, Nancy Erickson, because Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White (D) had refused to sign the certification of his appointment. Burris Jan. 2 had filed a petition in Illinois Supreme Court seeking to compel White to sign the certification. Reid Jan. 7 hosted Burris at a private meeting in his office, along with Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), the majority whip, or

second-ranking Senate Democrat. Afterwards, Reid said the Senate could consider Burris’s appointment if White signed the certification and Burris testified before a special impeachment committee of the Illinois state legislature that he had made no improper deal with Blagojevich for the appointment. Burris Jan. 8 testified before the committee at the state capitol in Springfield, Ill., declaring, “I would not participate in anybody’s quid pro quo.” The committee later that day voted unanimously to recommend that the full state House vote to impeach Blagojevich.

Senate Minority Whip: Jon Kyl (R, Ariz.)

FACTS ON FILE

MAJOR COMMITTEE CHAIRS AND CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

Following is a list of congressional leaders and House and Senate committee chairpersons of the 111th Congress: Committee Chairs* HOUSE

SENATE

Agriculture—Collin Peterson (Minn.) Appropriations—David Obey (Wis.) Armed Services—Ike Skelton (Mo.) Budget—John Spratt (S.C.) Education and Labor—George Miller (Calif.) Energy and Commerce—Henry Waxman (Calif.) Ethics—Gene Green (Texas)** Financial Services—Barney Frank (Mass.) Foreign Affairs—Howard Berman (Calif.) Homeland Security—Bennie Thompson (Miss.) Intelligence—Silvestre Reyes (Texas) Judiciary—John Conyers (Mich.) Natural Resources—Nick Rahall 2nd (W. Va.) Oversight and Government Reform—Edolphus Towns (N.Y.) Rules—Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) Science and Technology—Bart Gordon (Tenn.) Small Business—Nydia Velazquez (N.Y.) Transportation and Infrastructure—James Oberstar (Minn.) Veterans’ Affairs—Bob Filner (Calif.) Ways and Means—Charles Rangel (N.Y.) *All Democrats, except Lieberman **Pelosi had yet to name a replacement for Green, who had reached his term limit for serving on the committee.

Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry—Tom Harkin (Iowa) Appropriations—Daniel Inouye (Hawaii) Armed Services—Carl Levin (Mich.) Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs—Christopher Dodd (Conn.) Budget—Kent Conrad (N.D.) Commerce, Science and Transportation— John (Jay) Rockefeller 4th (W. Va.) Energy and Natural Resources—Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) Environment and Public Works—Barbara Boxer (Calif.) Ethics—Boxer Finance—Max Baucus (Mont.) Foreign Relations—John Kerry (Mass.) Health, Education, Labor and Pensions—Edward Kennedy (Mass.) Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs—Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.) Indian Affairs—Byron Dorgan (N.D.) Intelligence—Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) Judiciary—Patrick Leahy (Vt.) Rules and Administration—Charles Schumer (N.Y.) Small Business and Entrepreneurship—Mary Landrieu (La.) Special Committee on Aging—Herb Kohl (Wis.) Veterans’ Affairs—Daniel Akaka (Hawaii)

Congressional Leadership HOUSE

SENATE

Speaker—Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Majority leader—Steny Hoyer (D, Md.) Majority whip—James Clyburn (D, S.C.) Democratic Caucus chairman—John Larson (Conn.) Democratic Caucus vice chairman—Xavier Becerra (Calif.) Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman—Chris Van Hollen (Md.) Minority leader—John Boehner (R, Ohio) Minority whip—Eric Cantor (R, Va.) Republican Conference chairman—Mike Pence (Ind.) Republican Conference vice chairwoman— Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) National Republican Congressional Committee chairman—Pete Sessions (Texas)

President Pro Tempore—Robert Byrd (D, W. Va.) Majority leader, Democratic Caucus chairman—Harry Reid (D, Nev.) Majority whip—Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) Democratic Caucus vice chairman, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman—Charles Schumer (N.Y.) Democratic Conference secretary—Patty Murray (Wash.) Minority leader—Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) Minority whip—Jon Kyl (R, Ariz.) Republican Conference chairman—Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) Republican Conference vice chairman—John Thune (S.D.) National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman—John Cornyn (Texas)

Franken Declared Minn. Winner— After a drawn-out recount, Minnesota’s State Canvassing Board Jan. 5 certified comedian Al Franken (D) as the victor of the state’s Nov. 4, 2008, Senate election by a margin of 225 votes, out of 2.9 million cast, over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R). Coleman Jan. 6 filed a lawsuit challenging the result, alleging that the recount had been flawed. He argued that 650 more absentee ballots should have been counted, and that more than 100 ballots had been counted twice. The case would be decided by a threejudge panel of the state Supreme Court. Other News—In related developments: o Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) Jan. 3 appointed Denver schools superintendent January 1–8, 2009

Michael Bennet (D) to the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Ken Salazar (D, Colo.), Obama’s nominee for interior secretary. Bennet, 44, had been Denver’s schools chief since 2005, and had previously served as chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (D). He had never run for elected office, but signaled that he planned to run for a full term in 2010. o Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), the younger brother of President George W. Bush, Jan. 6 said he had decided not to run in 2010 for the Florida Senate seat held by Sen. Mel Martinez (R), who had said he planned to retire. o Cable television political talk show host Chris Matthews Jan. 7 said he had de-

cided not to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.) in 2010. Matthews, the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” had openly discussed a possible run with Pennsylvania Democratic officials even while pursuing a new contract with MSNBC. o Sen. Christopher Bond (R, Mo.) Jan. 8 said he would not run for reelection to a fifth term in 2010. o A lawyer for former Sen. Larry Craig (R, Idaho) Jan. 8 said he would not appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court to overturn his 2007 misdemeanor conviction for disorderly conduct in a men’s room at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. Craig had pleaded guilty after being arrested by an undercover police officer who alleged that Craig had solicited sex from him. Craig subsequently attempted to withdraw his plea, claiming that he had been pressured by the police. [See 2008, p. 950E2] n

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Presidential Transition Obama Taps Panetta for CIA Director.

Democratic officials Jan. 5 said Presidentelect Barack Obama had chosen former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as his nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Panetta, 70, had been chief of staff for President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997. He had also served Clinton as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1994, and had been a congressman from California from 1977 to 1993. However, he had relatively little direct experience with intelligence matters. [See 2008, p. 936A1; 1996, p. 835A1] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.), incoming chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jan. 5 raised concerns about Panetta’s qualifications. She said she had not been told of the choice in advance, adding, “My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.” The outgoing chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, W. Va.), and the senior Republican on the panel, Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.), also voiced doubts about Panetta. However, Feinstein Jan. 7 said she would support Panetta’s nomination after a conversation the previous day in which he assured her that he would build a team of intelligence veterans to assist him. Obama reportedly had telephoned both Feinstein and Rockefeller Jan. 6 to apologize for not consulting them on the nomination, and that day said Panetta “had to evaluate intelligence consistently on a day-to-day basis” as White House chief of staff. The selection of Panetta took longer than Obama’s other cabinet-level nominations, which had been completed two weeks earlier. The delay in settling on a nominee was attributed to objections by congressional Democrats to intelligence officials who had been involved in controversial Bush administration policies, such as the use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects. 5

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It had been previously disclosed that Obama had decided to nominate retired Adm. Dennis Blair as national intelligence director, assigned with coordinating the various U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA. It was reported Jan. 8 that Obama had chosen former top CIA official John Brennan as his top White House counterterrorism adviser. In December 2008, Brennan had withdrawn himself from consideration for CIA director, citing his support for severe interrogation practices. Richardson Quits Over Ethics Probe—

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, Jan. 4 withdrew from consideration for the post, citing a federal investigation into allegations that his state administration had steered contracts to a campaign contributor. Richardson said he and his staff had “acted properly in all matters.” But he said the federal probe might last for months, and he did not want to cause a distraction for the Obama administration. [See 2008, p. 880A3] A federal grand jury in Albuquerque, N.M., reportedly was probing state contracts worth more than $1.5 million that had been awarded in 2004 to CDR Financial Products of Beverly Hills, Calif., for advice on a transportation bond issue. CDR and its president and chief executive, David Rubin, had given about $100,000 to two of Richardson’s political organizations just before the firm won the contracts. Rubin, a leading Democratic donor, had given $28,700 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the national party’s executive arm, in 2008, and $3,300 to Obama’s presidential campaign. The New Mexico case was reportedly part of a nationwide probe of such alleged “pay-to-play” deals for lucrative contracts to provide bond market advice to state and local governments. Richardson had served as energy secretary and United Nations ambassador in the Clinton administration and was one of Obama’s rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He would have been the highest-profile Hispanic member of Obama’s cabinet. Two Hispanic cabinet nominees remained: Rep. Hilda Solis (D, Calif.), for labor secretary; and Sen. Ken Salazar (D, Colo.), for interior secretary. Other News—In related developments: o The House and Senate, in a joint session presided over by Vice President Dick Cheney, Jan. 8 certified the final tally of electoral votes for the Nov. 4, 2008, presidential election. As expected, Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.), received 365 electoral votes, while the Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took 173. o President George W. Bush Jan. 7 hosted a lunch at the White House for Obama and the three living former presidents: Democrats Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and Bush’s father and fellow Republican, George H.W. Bush. It was the first 6

White House meeting of all the living presidents since 1981, when Ronald Reagan hosted his predecessors, Carter and Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. [See 1981, p. 741D1] o Obama Jan. 4 joined his family at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., across Lafayette Square from the White House, where they planned to stay until Jan. 15, when they would move to Blair House, the official guesthouse for visiting dignitaries. Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, had said they were moving to the capital from Chicago before his Jan. 20 inauguration to allow their daughters— Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7—to begin school at Sidwell Friends Academy. o Obama Jan. 8 named Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine chairman of the DNC, succeeding former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. The committee members were expected to confirm the choice in a vote later in the month. o It was reported Jan. 7 that neurosurgeon and television correspondent Sanjay Gupta was the leading contender to be chosen as surgeon general by Obama. Gupta, 39, was chief medical reporter for CNN and was also a correspondent for CBS, as well as a professor at Emory University Medical School in Atlanta, Ga. o Obama Jan. 5 announced several nominations for high-level Justice Department posts, including Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan as solicitor general, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer. Obama also named Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen as head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which had gained notoriety under the Bush administration for approving harsh interrogation methods and other controversial antiterrorism programs. Johnsen, who served as deputy and acting chief of the office under Clinton, had been a sharp critic of its actions under Bush. [See 2008, p. 215E3] o It was reported Jan. 7 that Obama intended to retain Sheila Bair as chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Bair had clashed with other Bush administration officials during the ongoing financial crisis, advocating her own plan to modify mortgages to prevent an increase in home foreclosures, but was blocked by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. [See 2008, p. 849A1] o The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Jan. 8 held the first confirmation hearing for former Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D, S.D.), Obama’s nominee for health and human services secretary. [See 2008, p. 901F2] o Obama’s transition team Jan. 7 said Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein would be named to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein had been a prominent colleague of Obama’s at the University of Chicago Law School, and was known as a pioneer of a field of study known as law and behavioral economics, which sought to take account of actual human behavior,

rather than assuming that people always made rational decisions. n

Economy Obama Rallies Support for Recovery Plan.

President-elect Barack Obama Jan. 5 held meetings with congressional leaders in Washington, D.C., in an effort to rally bipartisan support for an economic recovery plan that was expected to cost some $775 billion over the next two years. Obama’s economic team the previous day had said the plan could include about $300 billion in tax breaks, more than what most lawmakers had expected, in what was seen as a bid to enlist the support of Republicans wary of the plan’s emphasis on government spending. [See 2008, p. 950C3] Obama at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Jan. 8 urged Congress to act quickly, in his first formal speech since winning the presidential election in November. He said an ongoing recession “was unlike any we have seen in our lifetime,” and warned that it “could linger for years” if Congress did not pass a recovery plan in the coming weeks. Obama had originally hoped to sign the plan into law shortly after his Jan. 20 inauguration, but lawmakers from both parties had said the legislation would not be ready before midFebruary, due to its size and complexity. January Financial Update (Close of trading Jan. 2 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

9034.69

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

931.80 1632.21 4561.79

Tokyo Stock Exchange

9043.12

Toronto Stock Exchange

9234.11

(see box, 2008, p. 951A1)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index) (Jan. 5)

(TSE Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

2.41% .27% $0.7093 $1.4497 $0.8226 $1.3850 92.277 13.7080 $.9234

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$875.40

Silver (per troy oz.)

$11.0800

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

$46.34

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Dec. 21, 2008)

$1.66 $6.6050

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through November; see 2008, p. 913G1)

Unemployment rate

1.1% 6.7%

(November; see 2008, p. 900B2)

Gross domestic product growth

-0.5%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized third-quarter 2008 rate, final report; see 2008, p. 937E2)

FACTS ON FILE

The tax breaks included a $500 cut for individuals and a $1,000 cut for families in lower- and middle-income tax brackets, although Obama had not specified an income ceiling that would determine eligibility for the cuts. Businesses would be able to retroactively apply losses from 2008 and 2009 to earlier years and immediately receive tax refunds, instead of waiting for the filing of their 2008 and 2009 returns. Businesses would also receive a $3,000 tax credit for every job they created or preserved. Government spending in the plan included investments in infrastructure projects, alternative-energy development, and aid to states to pay for Medicare health care costs. As details of the plan emerged, it came under some criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Following a meeting with Obama’s advisers, Democrats Jan. 8 questioned whether the tax cuts would stimulate the economy, since they said consumers were likely to pocket the money instead of spending it. Democrats also said the plan should include more investments in the country’s energy infrastructure, and provisions to revitalize the country’s slumping housing market. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) called for the repeal of tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest individuals, something Obama had pledged to do in the presidential campaign but was reportedly reconsidering. Republicans voiced concerns that the plan would drastically increase the budget deficit. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) Jan. 8 asked, “How much debt are we going to pile on future generations?” [See below]

Environment Bush Names Three Marine Monuments.

President George W. Bush Jan. 6 named three areas of the Pacific Ocean surrounding U.S. territories as national marine monuments, a designation that limited fishing, oil exploration and other commercial activity within them. In all, the three areas totaled some 195,280 square miles (505,775 sq km) and included portions of the Mariana Trench—the world’s deepest sea canyon—as well as uninhabited islands in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Rose Atoll in American Samoa and several uninhabited equatorial islands. The protected areas served as the habitat for a wide range of rare marine animals and birds. [See 2006, p. 513C3] Bush used the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish the monuments, after a two-year study identified the areas as biologically and geologically worthy of the designation. It was Bush’s second marine monument proclamation; the first was his naming of a 140,000-square-mile (363,000-sqkm) area of the Pacific Ocean that included an island chain and its surrounding waters as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument in 2006. Bush, despite his establishment of the monuments, had been widely criticized by environmental advocates for his environmental record in office. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, Jan. 7 reported that, under Bush, the National Marine Fisheries Service had failed to establish legally required protections for 14 threatened marine mammal species. n

Deficit Forecast to Reach $1.2 Trillion—

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Jan. 7 projected that the federal budget deficit would reach $1.2 trillion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. That would equal 8.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest percentage since 1945, and easily surpass the previous deficit record of $455 billion, set in fiscal year 2008. Additionally, the estimate did not include Obama’s $775 billion economic recovery plan. [See 2008, p. 746E1] The increase was attributed to a $700 billion financial rescue package passed in October 2008, and a government takeover of mortgage-financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008, which had not been added to the fiscal 2008 budget. Additionally, the economic downturn had led to increases in unemployment compensation and a shortfall in tax revenue. [See 2008, pp. 713A1, 629A1] Obama Jan. 6 had warned that the government could record “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.” However, in previous statements he had emphasized that there was a virtual consensus among economists that government spending was the most effective way to counter the current recession. Obama Jan. 6 pledged to “take extraordinary steps” to ensure that the government’s investments were “made wisely and managed well,” and said he considered budget reform an “absolute necessity.” n January 1–8, 2009

AFRICA

Ghana Atta Mills Narrowly Wins Presidential Election.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana Jan. 3 declared John Atta Mills of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party the winner of Ghana’s runoff presidential election. Atta Mills narrowly defeated Nana Akufo-Addo of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), 50.23%–49.77%. Atta Mills was sworn in Jan. 7, succeeding twoterm President John Kufuor of the NPP. [See 2008, p. 970C3; for facts on Atta Mills, see p. 7A3] The winner was announced after voting was conducted Jan. 2 in the Tain constituency, in the midwestern Brong Ahafo region— the only one of Ghana’s 230 electoral constituencies that did not vote in a nationwide presidential runoff held Dec. 28, 2008. (Voting had been delayed due to the late arrival of election materials on Dec. 28.) Prior to Jan. 2, Atta Mills had led Akufo-Addo by just 23,000 votes; there were about 53,000 registered voters in Tain. Atta Mills, a 64-year-old tax lawyer, had served as vice president under President Jerry Rawlings from 1997 to 2000. He had lost the presidential election to Kufuor in 2000 and 2004. In the first round of the presidential election in early December

FACTS ON ATTA MILLS

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John Evans Atta Mills won born July 21, 1944, in Tarkwa, in western Ghana. He received a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from the University of Ghana in 1967. He earned a Ph.D. in law from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and then continued his legal studies at Stanford University in the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship. Atta Mills went on to teach tax law at the University of Ghana for some 25 years. He also was a member of Ghana’s national field hockey team. Atta Mills served as Ghana’s tax commissioner from 1996 to 1997, under President Jerry Rawlings. He then served as vice president from 1997 to 2001. Atta Mills ran for president in 2000 as the candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, but lost to John Kufuor of the National Patriotic Party (NPP). He also lost to Kufuor in the 2004 presidential election. [See 2004, p. 996A1] Atta Mills was again nominated as the NDC’s candidate for Ghana’s 2008 presidential election. In the first round of voting Dec. 7, 2008, he placed a close second to NPP candidate Nana Akufo-Addo. Neither candidate received the 50% needed to win the election outright. A runoff vote was held Dec. 28, 2008; however, the tallies for the two candidates were so close that the final result was delayed until one of Ghana’s 230 constituencies, Tain—which could not vote that day— voted Jan. 2. The Electoral Commission Jan. 3 declared Atta Mills the winner with 50.23% of the vote, and he was sworn in Jan. 7. [See p. 7E2] Mills was married to Ernestina Naadu Mills, and they had one son.

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2008, he had placed a close second to Akufo-Addo; however, neither candidate had garnered more than 50% of the vote, necessitating a runoff. The NPP had threatened to boycott the Jan. 2 voting in Tain due to allegations that the opposition was intimidating the NPP’s supporters in the constituency. However, the vote went ahead as planned, and the NPP Jan. 3 appeared to accept the results. AkufoAddo, also a 64-year-old lawyer, Jan. 3 said, “I acknowledge the electoral commission’s declaration and congratulate Professor Mills.” Atta Mills stated that he would be a “president for all.” The election in Ghana, considered one of Africa’s most stable democracies, had been closely watched across the continent, after election-related disputes and violence in 2007 and 2008 in Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Ghana had returned to democracy in 1992 under Rawlings, after 35 years of political instability, military coups and dictatorships. Atta Mills’s inauguration marked the second peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected president to the next in Ghana’s history. [See 2008, pp. 974E1, 972F1, 971C2] Atta Mills would be in charge of overseeing the development of newly discovered oil deposits off Ghana’s coast. The NDC had also won a majority in parliament in elections held the same day as the first presidential round. According to the electoral commission, the NDC claimed 114 seats, compared with 107 for the NPP, 7

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in the 228-member parliament. Independents and minor party candidates filled the remaining seats. n

AMERICAS

Cuba Revolution’s 50-Year Anniversary Marked.

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The Cuban government Jan. 1 marked the 50-year anniversary of the communist revolution that brought former President Fidel Castro Ruz to power and ousted the U.S.backed military dictatorship of Gen. Fulgencio Batista. Castro, who in July 2006 had handed over day-to-day governing duties to his younger brother, Raul Castro Ruz, did not appear publicly as part of the commemoration. Fidel Castro, 82, had not been seen publicly since July 2006, when he was thought to have undergone surgery for an intestinal ailment. However, the Communist Party newspaper Granma that day published some of his remarks on the event. [See 2008, p. 117B3] Raul Castro, who formally assumed the office of president in February 2008, delivered a nationwide address from the eastern city of Santiago, where Fidel Castro had declared the revolution victorious 50 years earlier. In his speech, Raul Castro hailed his older brother and declared, “Today, the revolution is stronger than ever.” Although he had instituted relatively minor economic reforms since taking office, he did not suggest that any more were forthcoming. In contrast to 50 years earlier, when the nascent Castro regime was shunned by most of its neighbors, Cuba currently enjoyed good diplomatic relations with most Latin American countries. However, it remained hamstrung by U.S. trade sanctions and faced challenging economic conditions, many of which experts blamed on the failures of the country’s socialist economy. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had previously raised the possibility of easing travel and remittance restrictions imposed on Cuba. Raul Castro in a Jan. 2 televised address described Obama as “honest” and “sincere,” but added, “One man cannot change the destiny of a nation, much less the United States.” [See 2007, p. 702F3] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

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Germany Billionaire Hit by Financial Crisis Kills Self.

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Adolf Merckle, a billionaire whose company held controlling stakes in major German industrial companies, had committed suicide after suffering heavy losses amid the global financial crisis, his family announced Jan. 6. Merckle, 74, was one of Germany’s richest people. His holding company, Vermoegensverwaltung GmbH, had as much as $40 billion in annual revenue, and controlled about 120 companies, in industries such as pharmaceuticals and cement. He had been found dead on railroad tracks, having apparently been hit by a train, late Jan. 5 near his house in Blaubeuren, southern Germany. [See 2008, p. 841B3] n 8

Government Takes 25% Stake in Bank.

The German government Jan. 8 agreed to invest 10 billion euros ($13.7 billion) in Commerzbank AG, the country’s secondlargest bank, in exchange for a 25% stake of the bank’s stock. The government had already injected 8.2 billion euros into Commerzbank in November 2008, using a rescue fund created to help the nation’s banking sector weather the global financial crisis. The new agreement was the first in which the government had taken a direct stake in a bank, following similar recent moves by the U.S and British governments. Commerzbank was seen as requiring the assistance in order to complete its acquisition of Dresdner Bank AG, set in August. [See 2008, pp. 841B3, 664E1] n

Great Britain Bank of England Cuts Rate to Record Low.

The Bank of England, the British central bank, Jan. 8 cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point, to 1.5%, the lowest in the bank’s 315-year history. The British economy had already entered its first recession in 17 years, amid a global financial crisis. The rate cut followed the lead of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which had cut its benchmark rate to near zero in December 2008 in a bid to encourage the resumption of normal lending. [See 2008, pp. 913A1, 888E2] n

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Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills Shiite Pilgrims. A suicide bomber Jan. 4 blew himself up outside an important Shiite Muslim shrine in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 72 more. The attack took place as a crowd of pilgrims, many of them Iranian, had gathered at the shrine of Imam Musa Kadhim in the northern neighborhood of Kadhimiyah, for religious celebrations that were to culminate on the Jan. 7 Shiite holy day Ashura. The bomber, who authorities initially mistakenly said was female, reportedly joined a group of about 16 Iranians before blowing himself up. [See 2008, pp. 948A2, 842E2] Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Shiite shrines and festivities had been the target of attacks intended to heighten sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, among them a 2004 bombing of the Kadhimiyah shrine. Those tensions were thought to have eased in recent months. However, some officials said that the November 2008 reopening of a bridge across the Tigris River between Kadhimiyah and the predominantly Sunni Adhamiyah neighborhood had helped allow the attack to happen. Residents expressed outrage that the bomber had penetrated the numerous layers of security checks around the shrine, with some complaining that guards were not diligent in searching pilgrims. [See 2004, p. 135F1] Officials Jan. 6 announced a ban on women in the shrine area. Although the Jan. 4 bomber was eventually identified as

a man, women were generally not searched as closely as men, giving a female bomber a better chance of entering the premises. Ashura commemorated the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in a conflict that originated the Shiite-Sunni divide. Millions of pilgrims attended celebrations under heavy security across the country Jan. 7, with particularly large gatherings in the cities of Karbala, where Imam Hussein was entombed, and Najaf. In other violence, a suicide bomber Jan. 2 had attacked a gathering of tribal leaders in Yusufiya, just south of Baghdad, intended to promote sectarian reconciliation. U.S. and Iraqi officials gave varied accounts of the death toll, which ranged from 23 to 32 people. The meeting, of hundreds of members of the Qaraghul tribe, was held at the home of its leader, Mohammed Abdullah Al-Qaraghuli. The region encompassing Yusufiya had long been known as a stronghold of Sunni insurgents, although some local tribal leaders had opposed them and become targets of attack. A pair of roadside bombs Jan. 8 killed six Iraqi soldiers in an army convoy in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. Two more soldiers were killed that day by a roadside bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk. A car bomb Jan. 1 killed three policemen who had been inspecting the vehicle in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. The series of attacks early in the year raised concerns that tensions were increasing in advance of provincial elections scheduled for Jan. 31. U.S. Cedes Control of Green Zone—

The U.S. Jan. 1 formally handed over control to Baghdad’s Green Zone, a heavily fortified area of the capital where most Iraqi government and U.S. officials resided and worked, to the Iraqi government. U.S. forces would reportedly continue to be stationed at security checkpoints for at least the next 90 days as they trained Iraqi troops, and the U.S. would advise Iraq on the administration of the four-square mile (10-sq-km) zone. The handover was marked in a modest ceremony, one of a number of transitions that occurred Jan. 1. British forces formally turned over control of the southern city of Basra’s airport to Iraq. Also, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presided at a ceremony in which Iraq took control of the Republican Palace, the onetime headquarters of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who had been ousted in the U.S. invasion and later executed. The palace had recently served as the U.S. embassy; the U.S.’s newly constructed embassy was dedicated Jan. 5. Maliki at the ceremony hailed the recent security agreement with the U.S. that outlined the eventual withdrawal of its forces, saying that a year earlier, “the mere thought of forces withdrawing from Iraq was considered a dream.” The agreement, which took effect Jan. 1, instituted a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee to approve military operations, although U.S. soldiers remained under U.S. command. FACTS ON FILE

Blackwater Guards Plead Not Guilty—

Five former security guards with the U.S. military contractor Blackwater Worldwide Jan. 6 pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using a firearm in a violent crime, in connection with a 2007 Baghdad shooting incident in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed. The trial of the five men was scheduled to begin Feb. 1, 2010, in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with numerous pretrial motions expected from the defense. A sixth defendant had pleaded guilty, and was expected to testify against the others. [See 2008, p. 915G1] n

poverty in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. Hasina also vowed to combat government corruption and end the political bickering that had paralyzed the country in the years before the military takeover in January 2007. Hasina’s rival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jan. 1 had conceded defeat, even as she maintained that the elections had been rigged. International observers had proclaimed the elections free and fair. n

Sri Lanka Army Captures De Facto Rebel Capital.

SOUTH ASIA

Bangladesh Hasina Sworn In as Prime Minister. Sheikh Hasina Wazed Jan. 6 was sworn in as Bangladesh’s prime minister, following a landslide victory for her Awami League party in national parliamentary elections held in late December 2008. Her swearing-in restored democracy to Bangladesh after nearly two years of rule by a military-backed caretaker government. [See 2008, p. 989B3; for facts on Hasina, see p. 9D1] Hasina, 61, who had previously served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001, that day pledged to reduce food prices and fight FACTS ON HASINA

Sheikh Hasina Wazed was born Sept. 28, 1947, in the village of Tungipara, in what was then East Bengal, a province of Pakistan. She married nuclear scientist M.A. Wazed Miah in 1968, and graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1973. Following Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence, Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, became the country’s first president. Mujibur Rahman, his wife and their three sons were killed in 1975 in a military coup. Hasina and her sister, Sheikh Rehana, were in West Germany at the time. [See 1975, p. 614F3] After six years in exile, Hasina returned to Bangladesh in 1981 to oppose the military government of Gen. Hossein Mohammed Ershad. That year she was chosen as the president of her father’s party, the Awami League. She spent much of the next nine years either in jail or under house arrest, until Ershad resigned in 1990. [See 1990, p. 936D1] Hasina’s party lost subsequent elections, in 1991, to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Khaleda Zia; the two women would go on to be bitter political rivals. Hasina was elected to a five-year term as prime minister in 1996. One of her major legacies in office was to sign a peace treaty with rebels in southeastern Bangladesh. [See 1996, p. 453F2; 1991, p. 162A1] However, the Awami League was voted out of office in 2001. Following a military coup in 2007, Hasina was arrested on corruption charges stemming from her tenure as prime minister. She was released on bail in June 2008. [See 2008, p. 421F1] Hasina Jan. 6 was once again sworn in as prime minister, following a landslide victory for the Awami League in December 2008 elections. [See p. 9B1; 2008, p. 989B3] Hasina had a son and a daughter. January 1–8, 2009

The Sri Lankan government Jan. 2 announced that the army had captured the northern town of Kilinochchi, the de facto capital of the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The development was a significant symbolic victory for the government, which in the past year had steadily taken territory from the LTTE, a group that since 1983 had been fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s minority Tamils. Army troops Jan. 3 reportedly continued northward, seeking to oust the rebels from the Jaffna peninsula, the LTTE’s last stronghold. [See 2008, p. 799C1] Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a nationally televised address Jan. 2 described Kilinochchi’s capture as “an unparalleled victory.” He said, “For the last time, I call upon the LTTE to lay down their arms and surrender.” Rajapaksa and the majority of Sri Lankans were ethnically Sinhalese, and celebrations broke out that day on the streets of Colombo, the government capital. Rajapaksa in 2008 had formally annulled a six-year-old cease-fire, and vowed to defeat the LTTE militarily. The army in recent months had persistently claimed that it was on the verge of taking Kilinochchi, but the operation, which killed hundreds of fighters, was reportedly bogged down by heavy rains. Additionally, the rebels had reportedly created a 10-mile-deep (16-km) fortification around the town, composed of moats and earthen barriers. The government Jan. 7 officially reinstituted a ban on the LTTE, quashing hopes that the two sides could broker a political solution to the conflict in the near future. The government said the move followed a refusal by the LTTE to let hundreds of thousands of civilians in the north flee the fighting. The United Nations, which was sending food aid to civilians in rebel-held areas, had estimated that some 200,000 civilians had been displaced due to the army’s northern operation. Other News—In other Sri Lankan news: o A suspected LTTE suicide bomber Jan. 2 killed two airmen and wounded 30 others in an attack on the air force’s headquarters in Colombo. o An unidentified gunman Jan. 8 killed the prominent editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper, the Sunday Leader, which had accused government officials of corruption, including Rajapaksa’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the country’s defense minister. The editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga, was shot while caught in a traffic jam in Colombo.

o Gunmen Jan. 6 attacked the Colombo studios of MBC Networks, the country’s largest private broadcaster, after state media criticized MBC for its coverage of an LTTE suicide attack. n

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ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Friends and relatives of actor John Travolta, 54, and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, 46, Jan. 8 attended a memorial service near Ocala, Fla., for the couple’s 16-year-old son, Jett Travolta. The boy died Jan. 2 at the family’s vacation home in the Bahamas after apparently suffering a seizure and banging his head against a bathtub. The child, who had a history of seizures and other health problems, was the older of the Travoltas’ two children; the couple, who also had a daughter, had been married since 1991. The boy’s body had been cremated in the Bahamas Jan. 5, after an autopsy was performed there; autopsy results were not released. [See 2008, p. 892C2; 2005, p. 596D2] n

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O B I T UA R I E S BELL, Griffin Boyette, 90, U.S. attorney general, 1977–79, and the first of two men to hold the post during the administration of President Jimmy Carter; before heading the Justice Department, he had made his mark as both a corporate lawyer for a leading Atlanta, Ga. law firm, and a federal judge; returning to his private law practice after leaving government, he often helped major companies conduct internal probes of troublesome matters; he was also President George H.W. Bush’s personal lawyer during the Iran-contra arms-scandal probes of the early 1990s; born Oct. 31, 1918, in Americus, Ga.; died Jan. 5 at an Atlanta hospital, of pancreatic cancer complications. [See 1999, p. 160B2; 1994, p. 99C3, E3; Indexes 1992–93, 1989, 1985–87, 1983, 1976–81, 1972, 1969, 1965–67, 1963] PELL, Claiborne deBorda, 90, Rhode Island Democrat who served six terms in the U.S. Senate (1961–97); though hailing from an extremely wealthy family with roots in colonial America, he was genuinely concerned with the welfare of middle- and lower-income Americans; in 1972, he sponsored legislation creating the financial-aid program for college students known, since 1980, as the Pell Grants; he also sponsored the 1965 legislation that gave rise to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities; as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a post he held from 1987 through 1994, he played a leading role in the 1988 ratification of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; he also had a long-standing reputation as a bit of an eccentric, with, for example, a strong personal interest in extrasensory perception; born Nov. 22, 1918, in New York City; died Jan. 1 at his home in Newport, R.I., after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. [See 1996, pp. 827F3, 659C3; 1995, pp. 762G3, 666G3, 360A3; Indexes 1987–94, 1978–85, 1960–76] SUZMAN, Helen (born Helen Gavronsky), 91, South African antiapartheid campaigner who was a member of her country’s parliament from 1953 to 1989, representing a liberal constituency in the Johannesburg area; of Lithuanian-Jewish extraction, she trained as an economic historian before entering politics; she was for some years South Africa’s only woman MP, and from 1961 to 1974 its only opposition lawmaker; as an MP, she was especially concerned with the plight of prisoners, and for years was one of the few people permitted to visit African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, who was to become South Africa’s first black president in 1994, during his incarceration on Robben Island; in 1989, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II made her an honorary dame of the British Empire, one of her many awards; born Nov. 7, 1917, in Germiston, South Africa; died Jan. 1 at her Johannesburg home, after a brief illness. [See 1989, pp. 367B3, 115A2; 1987, p. 454C2; Indexes 1985–86, 1980, 1977, 1973, 1970–71, 1968, 1966] n

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A Review of the Top News Stories of 2008 A

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Obama Wins U.S. Presidential Election Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee, Nov. 4 won the U.S. presidential election, defeating Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Republican nominee. Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.), won the popular vote by a margin of 53% to 46%, and garnered 365 electoral votes, to 173 for McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Obama would become the first black president when he took office on Jan. 20, 2009. [See 2008, p. 801A1] Democrats also added to their majorities in the House and Senate in the Nov. 4 congressional elections. They would have 257 seats

INTERNATIONAL NEWS U.S. Financial Crisis Sparks Global Economic Slump

Myanmar Cyclone Kills at Least 77,000 People

Stock markets worldwide Dec. 31 ended the year at historic lows, as a financial crisis that began in the U.S. spread to markets around the world and sparked a global economic downturn. The crisis, which had its roots in the U.S. housing market, caused upheavals in the global financial system and led to unprecedented government intervention into markets. [See 2008, p. 947G1] The U.S. government Oct. 3 enacted a $700 billion program to stabilize the financial system, following the Sept. 15 collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The government Oct. 14 said it would spend $250 billion acquiring stakes in financial institutions, and Dec. 19 said it would extend $17.4 billion in loans to the country’s struggling car makers. The U.S. Federal Reserve introduced a raft of programs to inject liquidity into markets, and Dec. 16 for the first time cut its benchmark interest rate to near zero. The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Dec. 1 said the U.S. economy had entered a recession in December 2007. [See 2008, pp. 933A1, 913A1, 882C2, 865A1, 737A1, 713A1, 645A1] European countries, whose financial institutions had also invested heavily in the U.S. housing market, were compelled to shore up banks, boost lending and enact federal spending programs to spur economic growth. Asian countries were affected by falling demand for their exports in the U.S. and Europe. Emerging economies around the world were also hard hit, as Western companies decreased their investments abroad. [See 2008, pp. 927D1, 925A1, 911C3, 910D2, 886F3, 873F2, 781A1, 738C2] The financial crisis led to high levels of coordination between central banks around the world. Several countries received assistance from the International Monetary Fund. The Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies Nov. 15 pledged to reform the global financial system. [See 2008, pp. 890E3, 873C3, 846D2, 783C2, E2, 713A1] In a volatile year of trading, the price of oil rocketed to a record high in July, before falling precipitously toward the end of 2008, as investors predicted that demand for oil would subside as the global slowdown worsened. [See 2008, p. 948B1]

Cyclone Nargis May 2–3 struck Myanmar, killing at least 77,000 people (with nearly 56,000 still listed as missing) and displacing

Russia Invades Georgia After Assault on South Ossetia

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in the House, to 178 for the Republicans, in the 111th Congress. In the Senate, pending a recount in Minnesota, the Democrats would have at least 58 seats, including two independents who caucused with them, to at least 41 seats for the Republicans. [See 2008, p. 951F1] In the weeks following the election, Obama named choices for cabinet posts and other top administration positions. The biggest nomination was that of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) for secretary of state, announced Dec. 1. She had been Obama’s main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. [See 2008, p. 880A3]

Russian forces Aug. 8 invaded Georgia, a day after Georgia moved troops into South Ossetia, a Russian-aligned splinter region located within Georgia’s internationally recognized borders. Russian troops occupied parts of undisputed Georgian territory until October, when they withdrew to South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia. Russia’s actions drew harsh criticism from Georgia’s Western allies, which Oct. 22 pledged $4.5 billion to rebuild the country. [See 2008, pp. 927F3, 828C1, 549A1]

Kosovo Declares Independence From Serbia The Serbian province of Kosovo, administered by the United Nations since a 1999 war, Feb. 17 declared independence. Serbia, backed by Russia, rejected the declaration as a violation of its sovereignty. [See 2008, pp. 910G3, 99F1]

China Earthquake Kills 70,000 A strong earthquake May 12 struck Sichuan Province in southwestern China, killing nearly 70,000 people, according to the official death toll as of Dec. 31, with more than 18,000 still listed as missing. [See 2008, pp. 978G2, 321A1] 10

about 2.5 million. [See 2008, pp. 337F2, 301A1]

Middle East Israel Bombs Hamas in Gaza

Israeli forces Dec. 27–31 bombed facilities in the Gaza Strip linked to the militant Islamist group Hamas, killing over 320 Gazans. The attacks came after Hamas ended a six-month cease-fire with Israel Dec. 19. There had previously been a spate of heavy fighting in Gaza beginning Feb. 27, including an Israeli ground incursion March 1–3. [See 2008, pp. 945A1, 943A2, 137A1] Iraq Approves U.S. Security Agreement

Iraq Dec. 4 approved a security agreement with the U.S., which

authorized the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq past the end of 2008.

[See 2008, p. 889F1] The Iraqi army March 25–30 clashed with Shiite Muslim militiamen in Basra, in what was seen as a move by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government against radical Shiite cleric Moqtada alSadr’s Mahdi Army militia. [See 2008, p. 210A1] Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Resigns

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sept. 21 announced his resignation, amid a corruption probe. Elections that would determine his successor were scheduled for February 2009. [See 2008, p. 685G1]

South Asia Terrorist Attacks in India Kill More Than 170

A group of terrorists Nov. 26–29 launched attacks on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, killing more than 170 people. India accused Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating the attacks. [See 2008, pp. 871A1, 861A1] Pakistani President Musharraf Resigns

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Aug. 18 announced his resignation, ending his nine-year tenure in office amidst widespread calls for his ouster and mounting terrorist attacks within the country. Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Sept. 6 was elected Pakistan’s president. [See 2008, pp. 641E1, 565A1] U.S. Sets Troop Increase in Afghanistan

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dec. 20 said the U.S. could deploy between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009, to quell a resurgent Taliban insurgency that had led to record levels of violence. [See 2008, p. 988E2]

Africa Zimbabwe Power-Sharing Deal Stalls

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai Sept. 15 signed a power-sharing deal after a dis-

puted presidential election, but the deal had yet to be implemented as of Dec. 31. Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak had killed more than 1,600 and sickened some 30,300 as of Dec. 30. [See 2008, pp. 973G3, 659A1] ICC Charges Sudanese President Bashir

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court July 14 filed charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes FACTS ON FILE

against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir related to the government’s military campaign in the western Darfur region. [See 2008, pp. 973C2, 482C3] South African President Mbeki Resigns

South African President Thabo Mbeki resigned Sept. 25 under pressure from his ruling African National Congress party, which was controlled by Mbeki’s rival, Jacob Zuma. [See 2008, pp. 973A1, 679A1] Somali President Quits; Piracy, Violence Rise

Somali interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned Dec. 29, amid gains by Islamist insurgents, a humanitarian crisis and a rise in pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast. [See 2008, pp. 972F2, 847D2] Other News

Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan Dec. 14 launched a joint offensive against the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in northeastern Congo. [See 2008, p. 968E3]…Ethnic Tutsi rebels Aug. 28 launched an offensive in eastern Congo against government forces and ethnic Hutu militias, resulting in a humanitarian crisis. [See 2008, pp. 970E1, 794E2]…Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki April 13 announced the formation of a national unity cabinet with the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, and named ODM leader Raila Odinga to the newly created post of prime minister. [See 2008, pp. 971C2, 262B2]

Asia-Pacific

Europe Medvedev Wins Russian Presidential Election

Russian authorities Mar. 4 announced that Dmitri Medvedev had won Russia’s presidential election. He was sworn in May 7. The following day, former President Vladimir Putin was confirmed as Russia’s prime minister. [See 2008, pp. 316B2, 138A3]

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Irish Voters Reject European Union Treaty

Irish voters in a referendum June 12 rejected the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, which was designed to reform the 27-nation group’s institutions. At an EU summit, Ireland Dec. 11 said it would hold a second referendum on the treaty. [See 2008, p. 927F2] War Crimes Suspect Karadzic Apprehended

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Serbian officials July 21 announced that they had apprehended Radovan Karadzic, who in 1995 had been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the Netherlands, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. [See 2008, pp. 623G2, 497A1] Other News Silvio Berlusconi May 8 was sworn in as Italian prime minister after his coalition won parliamentary elections April 13–14, ousting the center-left government. It was the conservative media magnate’s third time serving as prime minister. [See 2008, p. 316A1]

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Americas

Protests Paralyze Thai Capital

Protesters Aug. 26 occupied the compound surrounding the Thai prime minister’s office and Nov. 25–28 took control of two airports in Bangkok, the capital, in an effort to oust the ruling People Power Party (PPP). After a Dec. 2 ruling disbanding the PPP, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the head of the opposition Democrat party, Dec. 15 was named prime minister. [See 2008, pp. 926F2, 886F1, 873A1, 622D3] U.S. Removes North Korea From Terrorism List

The U.S. Oct. 11 removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, after the two countries reached an agreement on verifying North Korea’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. However, a dispute emerged over the verification terms, stalling international talks on the issue. [See 2008, pp. 925E3, 741F2] Other News Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) March 22 was elected president of Taiwan, and subsequently steered Taiwan’s policy toward China on the more conciliatory path that his party favored. [See 2008, p. 204B3]…Taro Aso Sept. 24 took office as Japan’s prime minister, following the resignation of Yasuo Fukuda. [See 2008, p. 681D2]

Fidel Castro Steps Down as Cuban President

Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz Feb. 19 announced his resignation, after ruling the country since seizing power in a 1959 Marxist revolution. Raul Castro Ruz, Fidel Castro’s younger brother, Feb. 24 was named his successor. [See 2008, pp. 117B3, 97A1] Colombian Military Strikes FARC Camp in Ecuador

Colombia March 1 said its military earlier that day had killed

Raul Reyes, one of the highest-ranking members of the Marxist rebel group Revolultionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in

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fighting near the border with Ecuador. [See 2008, p. 149B3]…Colombian forces July 2 tricked FARC forces into releasing 15 hostages, among them former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio and three U.S. defense contractors. [See 2008, p. 452A1] Other News

In an unprecedented move, Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean Dec. 4 agreed to a proposal by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to suspend the Canadian Parliament’s session until Jan. 26, 2009, circumventing the possible ouster of Harper’s government by an opposition coalition. [See 2008, p. 885B1]

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UNITED STATES NEWS U.S. Politics Illinois Governor Accused of Corruption

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents Dec. 9 arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on corruption charges. Blagojevich was accused of corrupt schemes including a plot to sell Obama’s Senate seat. He was released on bond and remained in office, defying calls for his resignation. [See 2008, p. 893A1]

Civil Rights Calif. Ballot Initiative Reverses Gay Marriage Ruling

Voters in California Nov. 4 approved Proposition 8, which amended the state’s constitution to explicitly ban same-sex marriage. The California Supreme Court May 15 had ruled that samesex couples had a constitutional right to marry. [See 2008, pp. 811A1, 325A2]

Supreme Court Constitutional Right for Terrorism Suspects

The Supreme Court June 12 ruled, 5–4, that foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had a constitutional right to a writ of habeas corpus, allowing January 1–8, 2009

them to challenge their detention in federal courts. [See 2008, p. 389A1] Individual Right to Bear Arms Affirmed

The Supreme Court June 26 ruled, 5–4, for the first time in its history that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms for purposes of self-defense. [See 2008, p. 429A1]

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Business Financier Arrested for Massive Stock Fraud Bernard Madoff, founder of brokerage firm Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC, Dec. 11 was charged with securities fraud for a scheme that authorities said could lead to $50 billion in losses for investors worldwide. [See 2008, p. 917A1]

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Surveillance Update Passed, Signed

Bush July 10 signed a controversial bill that updated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), granting the government expanded wiretapping and surveillance powers within the U.S., and immunizing telecommunications companies that had assisted in the warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens from lawsuits. [See 2008, pp. 465D2, 433C1] 11

A Review of the Top News Stories of 2008 (continued) A

Terrorism First Convictions in Military Commissions

Terrorism detainees Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul were convicted Aug. 6 and Oct. 31, respec-

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tively, of war crimes under the legal system set up by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, becoming the first and second detainees convicted at trial at Guantanamo. Hamdan Nov. 25 was transported to his home country of Yemen to serve out his sentence. [See 2008, pp. 863G3, 817D3, 532A1] Other News

Military prosecutors at Guantanamo Feb. 11 filed capital charges against six detainees accused of assisting Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. The defendants included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attack; charges against one of the defendants, Mohammed al-Qahtani, were dropped May 13. [See 2008, pp. 329C2, 86A2]…A federal judge Nov. 20 ordered the U.S. to free five Algerian detainees being held at Guantanamo, ruling that the U.S. government had failed to present com-

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Other U.S. News The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio Dec. 16 said surgeons had performed the first partial face transplant in the U.S. sometime in the previous two weeks. [See 2008, p. 922E2]…The Food and Drug Administration April 21 linked contaminated batches of the bloodthinning drug heparin to the deaths of at least 81 people. [See 2008, p. 276F1]…The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) July 11 outlined a regulatory scheme that the federal government could use to regulate the release of man-made greenhouse gases linked to global climate change. However, in an unprecedented move, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson in an accompanying memo essentially disavowed the agency’s analysis. [See 2008, p. 488F2]

MISCELLANEOUS Sports

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pelling evidence against them. The U.S. Dec. 16 repatriated three of the five detainees to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they had citizenship; the other two remained at Guantanamo at the end of the year. [See 2008, pp. 920G2, 846G1]

Baseball—The Philadelphia Phillies Oct. 29 beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 4–3, to win the World Series, four games to one. [See 2008, p. 799D2] Basketball—Kansas April 7 beat Memphis, 75–68, in overtime to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s basketball tournament. Tennessee April 8 beat Stanford, 64–48, to win the women’s title. [See 2008, p. 245A2]…The Boston Celtics June 17 beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 131–92, to win the best-of-seven National Basketball Association finals, four games to two. [See 2008, p. 439A1] Cycling—Carlos Sastre of Spain July 27 won the 105th Tour de France; however, the race was again marred by doping scandals. [See 2008, p. 527G3] Drugs in Sports—Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Roger Clemens and his former trainer Feb. 13 testified before a House committee about their alleged roles in the distribution and use of performance-enhancing drugs. MLB officials Jan. 15 had appeared before the committee. [See 2008, pp. 992D3, 95A3]…Trevor Graham, a former coach of top track stars, May 16 was convicted of perjury in connection with a federal probe of a doping ring. [See 2008, p. 995F1] Football—Louisiana State Jan. 7 beat Ohio State, 38–24, to win the Bowl Championship Series national title game and claim the NCAA Division I-A football championship. [See 2008, p. 23A3]…The New York Giants Feb. 3 upset the New England Patriots, 17–14, to win Super Bowl XLII, thwarting New England’s bid to become the first team in National Football League history to go 19–0. [See 2008, p. 78F3] Golf—Tiger Woods of the U.S. June 16 won the U.S. Open, and June 18 said he would miss the rest of the season due to a knee injury. Ireland’s Padraig Harrington July 20 won the British Open and Aug. 10 won the Professional Golfers’ Association Championship. [See 2008, pp. 993D2, 563G1, 421C3]…The U.S. Sept. 21 beat Europe to reclaim the Ryder Cup. [See 2008, p. 686D2]…Annika Sorenstam of Sweden May 13 announced her retirement. [See 2008, p. 993E3] Hockey—The Detroit Red Wings June 4 beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3–2, to win the best-ofseven Stanley Cup, four games to two. [See 2008, p. 403A2] Horse Racing—Racehorse Big Brown May 3 won the Kentucky Derby and May 17 won the

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Preakness Stakes, but placed last in the June 7 Belmont Stakes, failing to win the Triple Crown. [See 2008, p. 403F3] Olympics—The XXIX Summer Olympic Games ended Aug. 24 in Beijing, China. The U.S. won the most medals, with 110, and China won the most golds, with 51. U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won a record eight golds. [See 2008, pp. 597E3, 579F1, 578A2]

Soccer—Spain June 29 beat Germany, 1–0, to win the European Championships. [See 2008, p. 458B3] Tennis—Rafael Nadal of Spain Aug. 18 took over the men’s top ranking from Switzerland’s Roger Federer, after beating Federer in the finals of the French Open June 8 and Wimbledon July 6. [See 2008, pp. 642B3, 477D3]

Awards Nobel Prizes: Peace—Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. Literature—Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, France. Chemistry—Martin Chalfie, Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura, all U.S. (Shimomura was Japanese-born). Economics—Paul Krugman, U.S. Physiology or Medicine—Harald zur Hausen, Germany, and Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, both France. Physics—Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, both Japan, and Yoichiro Nambu, U.S. (Japanese-born). [See 2008, p. 758D1] Films—Academy Awards: Best Picture: No Country for Old Men. Best Actor, Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose. Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men. [See 2008, p. 135G3]. Top-Grossing Film: The Dark Knight, $531.0 million. [See 2008, p. 997E2]

Deaths [For page references, see under DEATHS in the 2008 index.] Eddy Arnold, 89, country music singer, May 8; Sammy Baugh, 94, football player, Dec. 17; William F. Buckley Jr., 82, conservative intellectual, Feb. 27; George Carlin, 71, comedian, June 23; Aime Cesaire, 94, Martinican intellectual and politician, April 17; Youssef Chahine, 82, Egyptian filmmaker, July 27; Cyd Charisse, 86, actress and dancer, June 17; Arthur C. Clarke, 90, British-born science-fiction writer, March 19; Lansana Conte, 74?, Guinean leader, Dec. 22; Michael Crichton, 66, author of scientific thrillers, June 26; Jules Dassin, 96, film director, March 31; Mahmoud Darwish, 67, Palestinian

poet, Aug. 9; Michael DeBakey, 99, heart surgeon, July 11; Bo Diddley, 79, pioneering rocker, June 2; W. Mark Felt, 95, Watergate’s “Deep Throat,” Dec. 18; Mel Ferrer, 90, actor, June 2; Bobby Fischer, 64, chess player, Jan. 17; Steve Fossett, 63, adventurer, Feb. 15 (declared); Simon Gray, 71, British playwright, May 6 ; Joerg Haider, 58, Austrian right-wing politician, Oct. 11; Isaac Hayes, 65, soul singer and songwriter, Aug. 12; Jesse Helms, 86, polarizing North Carolina senator, July 4; Charlton Heston, 84, actor and NRA spokesman, April 5; Sir Edmund Hillary, 88, New Zealand–born conqueror of Mt. Everest, Jan. 11; Tony Hillerman, 83, mystery novelist, Oct. 26; Albert Hofmann, 102, Swiss chemist who synthesized LSD, April 29; Hua Guofeng, 87 or 88, Chinese Communist leader, Aug. 20; Freddie Hubbard, 70, jazz trumpeter, Dec. 29; Samuel Huntington, 81, political scientist, Dec. 24; Van Johnson, 92, actor, Dec. 12; Hamilton Jordan, 63, President Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff, May 20; Eartha Kitt, 81, singer, dancer and actress, Dec. 25; Tom Lantos, 80, Congress’s only Holocaust survivor, Feb. 11; Heath Ledger, 28, Australian-born actor, Jan. 22; Bernie Mac, 50, comedian and actor, Aug. 9; Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, 91?, Indian transcendental-meditation guru, Feb. 5; Miriam Makeba, 78, South African singer and ant-apartheid activist, Nov. 11; Dick Martin, 86, comedian and TV host, May 24; Howard Metzenbaum, 90, U.S. senator from Ohio, March 12; Anthony Minghella, 54, British filmmaker, March 18; Paul Newman, 83, actor, Sept. 26; Conor Cruise O’Brien, 91, Irish intellectual, diplomat and politician, Dec. 18; Odetta, 77, folk singer, Dec. 2; Bettie Page, 85, pin-up model, Dec. 11; Harold Pinter, 78, British playwright, Dec. 24; Suzanne Pleshette, 70, actress, Jan. 19; Sydney Pollack, 73, film director, May 26; Robert Rauschenberg, 82, visual artist, May 12; Alain Robbe-Grillet, 85, French novelist, Feb. 18; Tim Russert, 58, “Meet the Press” host, June 13; Yves Saint-Laurent, French designer, 71, June 1; Roy Scheider, 75, actor, Feb. 10; Paul Scofield, 86, British actor, March 19; Tony Snow, 53, Bush administration press secretary, July 12; Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 89, dissident Russian novelist, Aug. 3; Suharto, 86, Indonesian strongman, Jan. 27; Sir John Templeton, 95, financier and philanthropist, July 8; Studs Terkel, 96, oral historian, Oct. 31; David Foster Wallace, 46, novelist and essayist, Sept. 12; Paul Weyrich, 66, conservative political strategist, Dec. 18; John Wheeler, 96, physicist, April 13; Richard Widmark, 93, actor, March 24 January 1–8, 2009

Gaza Fighting Continues as Death Toll Tops 1,000 Progress Toward Cease-fire Seen. Fierce

fighting Jan. 9–15 continued to rage in the Gaza Strip between Israeli military forces and the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the territory. Israel the previous week had invaded Gaza in what it said was an attempt to stop militants from firing rockets into southern Israel, after conducting air attacks on Hamas since late December. Negotiators Jan. 14–15 were reported to be close to agreeing on an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire. [See p. 1C1] Gazan health officials said more than 1,090 Palestinians had died as of Jan. 15— including 375 children, 150 women and 14 medical workers—and some 5,000 had been injured. They also said tens of thousands of Gazans had been displaced by the fighting. Thirteen Israelis had been killed as of Jan. 15, including nine soldiers killed in ground operations in Gaza. Fighting Moves Into Gaza City— Israeli forces Jan. 10–11 pushed further into the suburbs of Gaza City, after having previously avoided urban areas where ambushes were considered more likely. A tank shell Jan. 10 killed eight Palestinians in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City. Israeli tanks Jan. 11 advanced into the southern Gaza City suburb of Sheikh Ajleen, where militants said they ambushed them. In the resulting heavy fighting, at least 20 Palestinian fighters were killed. Israeli planes also continued bombing targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including smuggling tunnels in Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border. Gaza City residents repeatedly received leaflets and telephone calls warning them to evacuate their homes. However, with the Gaza Strip borders closed and attacks taking place all over the territory, Gazans said they had nowhere to flee to. Heavy fighting Jan. 15 flared up again, as an Israeli air strike killed Hamas Interior Minister Said Siam in Jabaliya. Siam, the highest-ranking Hamas official to be killed in the Israeli offensive, was in charge of the organization’s police and security forces. Witnesses said the air strike also killed his brother, son and four neighbors. Also that day, Israel shelled the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza City, destroying a warehouse full of food and medical supplies. Israeli Defense Secretary Ehud Barak reportedly initially apologized to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later said a Hamas militant had been using the building as cover. A UNRWA spokesman denied that militants had been present. Israeli forces had allegedly struck U.N. facilities and personnel several times since the offensive started, including shelling a U.N. school in Jabaliya the previous week, killing some 40 Gazans. (The Israeli newspaper Haaretz Jan. 11 reported that, according to an Israeli military probe, the school had been hit by a stray Israeli mortar round, after Israeli forces attacked a nearby Hamas mortar team that had struck them. The Israeli military denied that account,

saying they had fired at militants sheltering in the building.) Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, although less frequently than earlier in the offensive. Several rockets Jan. 14 were launched into northern Israel from Lebanon. Israel said it had fired shells at the source of the rockets, and added that it considered “the Lebanese government and military as responsible to prevent such attacks.” No group took responsibility for the attack. The Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah had denied involvement in a previous rocket attack, and one of several Palestinian groups active on the Lebanese border was thought to have been responsible for that attack. The advocacy group Human Rights Watch Jan. 10 accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus in Gaza. White phosphorus was permitted for use in flares and to create smoke screens, but Human Rights Watch said that using it in densely populated areas could put civilians in danger of severe chemical burns. Gazan doctors reported treating patients with injuries consistent with those inflicted by the substance. The Israeli military did not address its use of white phosphorus, but said it “uses weapons in compliance with international law. Israel had banned Israeli and foreign journalists from Gaza since the offensive started. However, the Israeli military Jan. 12 and Jan. 15 escorted small groups of reporters into the territory. Israel Sees Military Progress— Olmert Jan. 11 at a cabinet meeting said, “Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself,” although he added that “more patience, determination and effort are still demanded.” Senior Israeli security officials said Israeli ground forces had confirmed killing some 300 militants; Hamas had an estimated total force of 15,000 fighters. They said Palestinian fighters were acting in a more uncoordinated and ineffective manner, but probably still had significant weapons stockpiles. Israeli officials also said some Israeli army reservists had been deployed in Gaza since Jan. 8. They suggested that the offensive might soon transition into a “third phase”— involving a push into urban areas and the increased use of reservists—after the aerial bombardment and initial ground invasion. Israeli officials claimed that according to intelligence reports, Hamas leaders within Gaza were increasingly open to a cease-fire, although those in exile in Damascus, Syria, were pressing to continue fighting. Khaled Meshal, Hamas’s political leader in Damascus, Jan. 10 had denounced the Israeli offensive as a “holocaust,” and said Hamas would not negotiate unless Israeli troops withdrew and opened the border crossings. An audio recording released Jan. 14 on the Internet, purportedly of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, called on Muslims to attack Israel and criticized Arab governments for not supporting Hamas. It was the first time a recording of bin Laden had been re-

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3552 January 15, 2009

B leased since May 2008. Al Qaeda and Hamas were ideological foes, but bin Laden often expressed support for the Palestinians against Israel. [See 2008, p. 386A1] U.N. Warns of Refugee Crisis—U.N. officials Jan. 12 warned of a growing refugee crisis in Gaza, as the number of Palestinians forced from their homes by the fighting had doubled over the past four days. The U.N. said some 30,000 Gazans were living in U.N. schools throughout the territory, while an estimated 60,000 were staying with relatives. It added that about a third of the 91 U.N. schools in Gaza were full. The UNRWA Jan. 9 said it would resume its distribution of food aid to Gazans after receiving security assurances from the Israeli military. The agency earlier in the day had suspended aid, after a U.N. driver the previous day had allegedly been shot and killed by Israeli forces.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Gaza fighting continues as death toll tops 1,000; progress toward cease-fire seen. PAGE 13

2.5 million jobs lost in U.S. in 2008. PAGE 14

Congress releases rest of financial rescue funds.

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Clinton pledges active diplomacy in confirmation hearing. PAGE 16

Burris sworn in as senator from Illinois. PAGE 18

Bush gives farewell speech. PAGE 18

Official confirms detainee torture at Guantanamo. PAGE 20

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Somali pirates free Saudi tanker after ransom drop. PAGE 21

South Africa reinstates corruption charges against Zuma. PAGE 21

Germany approves stimulus plan.

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Iraqi parliament speaker selection delayed. PAGE 23

Florida wins NCAA football title. PAGE 23

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Nine Israeli human rights groups Jan. 14 called for an investigation into whether Israel had committed war crimes. In addition to the refugee situation, they said Gaza’s medical, electrical and water systems had largely collapsed, and some Gazans were unable to access emergency aid. However, International Committee of the Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger, after visiting Gaza City Jan. 13, said the city’s primary hospital had enough medical supplies, and that doctors were coping with the inflow of injured Gazans. Earlier reports had indicated that the hospital had been overwhelmed by the wounded and dead. Iran’s state-run radio Jan. 13 reported that the Israeli navy had stopped an Iranian ship carrying humanitarian supplies bound for Gaza. Iran was a major backer of Hamas. Cease-fire Negotiations Move Forward—

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Hamas negotiators Jan. 14, at a meeting with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, said they were willing to call a cease-fire with Israel, although they called for further discussion over the opening of Gaza’s borders and the patrol of the GazaEgypt border against smugglers. (Israel refused to negotiate directly with Hamas because it considered Hamas to be a terrorist group.) Olmert and Barak Jan. 15 met to discuss the terms of a cease-fire. It had earlier been reported that Barak and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni supported a ceasefire, while Olmert was pressing for expanded military operations. An unnamed senior Israeli official said a one-year renewable truce was being discussed. The truce would reportedly set a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of border crossings. Livni late Jan. 15 flew to Washington, D.C., to confer with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Livni and Rice were expected to sign an agreement addressing Hamas’s smuggling of weapons across the Egyptian border. Keeping Hamas from using the smuggling tunnels to rearm was one of Israel’s main demands for a cease-fire. Israel and Hamas Jan. 9 had rejected a cease-fire proposed the previous day by a U.N. Security Council resolution. Olmert said it was “unworkable” because it did not mention Gazan rocket attacks on Israel, and he said Israel’s military “would go on defending citizens” until a solution was found to ensure that the rocket fire stopped and would not resume. Meanwhile, Hamas representatives said any cease-fire would be predicated on Israel withdrawing its troops from Gaza and opening the border crossings into the territory. Olmert Jan. 12 told the Associated Press (AP) that he had influenced the U.S.’s decision to abstain from the Security Council resolution vote. (The resolution had passed, 14–0, with only the U.S. abstaining.) Olmert said he had called U.S. President George W. Bush to demand that the U.S. abstain from the vote. U.S. officials denied Olmert’s account, and said the U.S. had abstained so as not to interfere with a cease-fire proposal backed by Egypt and France. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

2.5 Million Jobs Lost in 2008 Dec. Unemployment Rate Hits 16-Year High.

The Labor Department Jan. 9 reported that the U.S. had shed 2.5 million jobs in 2008, the largest yearly Unemployment loss since 1945, as 2008 7.2% an ongoing reces- December Previous Month 6.8% sion forced com- Year Earlier 4.9% panies to cut back on costs. The department reported that the unemployment rate in December 2008 rose to a 16-year high of 7.2% after seasonal adjustment, up from its November level of 6.8%. An estimated 524,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in December. [See 2008, p. 900B2] Jobs were lost in almost all areas of the economy, with the exception of education and health care. Government employment also increased. The report put pressure on lawmakers to pass a large economic recovery plan, including a mixture of federal spending and tax breaks, supported by President-elect Barack Obama, who was due to take office Jan. 20. Obama Jan. 9 described the unemployment situation as “dire,” and called for quick passage of the plan, saying, “For the sake of our economy and our people, this is the time to act without delay.” The House Jan. 15 unveiled a two-year stimulus plan that would cost $825 billion. [See p. 15E1] Economists said the official unemployment rate belied the severity of problems in the labor market, because it did not include “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, or those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought fulltime work. Counting those people, the rate would be 13.5%, up from 12.6% in November. 154.4 Million Jobs Held in December—

According to a household survey, 154.4 million people held jobs in December 2008, the Labor Department reported Jan. 9. The department counted 11.1 million people as unemployed. The department counted 642,000 workers as discouraged in December. Eight million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 33.3 hours in December, down from 33.5 in November, and the lowest average since 1964, when the department began tracking such data. Economists said the trend indicated that employers were cutting back work hours to keep costs down. Factory workers’ average overtime was 3.0 hours, down from 3.3 the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose five cents, to $18.36. The unemployment rate among whites in December was 6.6%, up from 6.2% in November. The jobless rate for blacks was 11.9%, up from 11.3% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 9.2%, up from 8.6% in November.

For men age 20 and over, December unemployment was 7.2%, up from 6.7% in November. For adult women, it was 5.9%, up from 5.6% the previous month. The teenage rate was 20.8%, up from 20.4% in November. For black teenagers it was 33.7%, up from 32.2% the previous month. n

Other Economic News Rest of Financial Rescue Funds Released.

The Senate Jan. 15 voted, 52–42, to reject a measure that would have blocked the release of the second half of a $700 billion financial rescue package enacted in October 2008, giving the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama access to $350 billion to stabilize the country’s fragile financial industry if necessary. The move came as two of the country’s largest banks, Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., struggled with rising losses and falling stock prices. The House that day unveiled a separate $825 billion economic recovery plan, which was comprised of a mix of tax breaks and new government spending. [See below, p. 6A3; 2008, p. 934B1] President George W. Bush Jan. 12 had formally requested the second half of the package, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), at Obama’s behest. Obama that day said it would be “irresponsible” for him take office Jan. 20 “without any potential ammunition should there be some sort of emergency or weakening of the financial system.” The Bush administration had already made commitments exceeding the initial $350 billion allotment. The Bush administration’s handling of the funds, most of which had been used to buy shareholder stakes in financial institutions, had been

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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widely criticized by lawmakers. They said TARP had failed to achieve one of its primary goals, which was to compel financial institutions to resume lending to businesses and consumers, following a crippling freeze in credit markets. Lawmakers also criticized Bush for not using TARP funds to prop up the slumping housing market, which had led to a rising number of home foreclosures. Under the TARP legislation, the release of the remaining funds could be blocked within 15 days of a formal request, if both the House and Senate approved the block. House members were reportedly against releasing the funds without first placing stricter restrictions on how they would be used. Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Jan. 9 had proposed legislation that would require the Treasury to use $40 billion in TARP funds to prevent foreclosures, and require financial institutions that received TARP aid to show more transparency in how the funds were spent. Obama heavily lobbied members of the Senate to defeat the measure to block the release of the $350 billion, as they were seen as more amenable to releasing the funds without imposing new, formal restrictions. The Senate’s rejection of the measure would make any House vote moot. Obama reportedly threatened to veto a measure blocking the funds’ release. In a bid to gather support, Lawrence Summers, who would be director of the National Economic Council in Obama’s administration, Jan. 15 sent a letter to Senators, pledging to use $50 billion–$100 billion of TARP funds to address the foreclosure crisis. Summers also wrote that financial institutions receiving TARP aid would have to limit the compensation of their executives and demonstrate that they were increasing lending. Six Republican Senators voted to release the funds, along with 46 Democrats. Obama after the vote said he shared the “frustration” of those who felt that Bush had not used the funds wisely, and promised to change the way the package was implemented and “keep faith with the American taxpayer.” $825 Billion Recovery Plan Proposed—

The House Appropriations Committee Jan. 15 unveiled an economic recovery program that would cost $825 billion over the next two years, in an attempt to combat an ongoing recession. The plan was composed of $550 billion in new government spending and $275 billion in tax relief for businesses and consumers. Obama Jan. 10 in a weekly radio and Internet address had supported such a plan, saying it would create or save three million to four million jobs. Rep. David Obey (D, Wis.), the committee chairman, Jan. 15 described the bill as “the largest effort by any legislative body on the planet” to spur economic growth, but warned that it still could prove “insufficient” due to the severity of the recession. The bill, already bigger than the $775 billion estimate previously proposed by Obama aides, was expected to increase in cost as it moved through Congress; the January 15, 2009

Senate was currently drafting its own version of the program. The bill proposed broad government investments in education ($117 billion), infrastructure projects ($90 billion) and alternative-energy development and energy conservation ($54 billion). States would receive $119 billion in aid to help pay for health care and other costs, and $106 billion would be used to extend unemployment benefits, provide health insurance for the needy and increase food stamp allowances. Individuals making less than $75,000 a year would receive a $500 payroll tax cut, and families making less than $150,000 would receive a $1,000 payroll tax cut. Businesses would be able to retroactively apply losses from 2009 to taxes paid as early as 2003, and immediately receive tax refunds, instead of waiting for their 2009 returns to be filed. An earlier Obama proposal to provide a $3,000 tax credit to businesses for every job they created was nixed, following criticisms that the provision could be easily abused. Republicans balked at the program’s cost. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) Jan. 15 claimed that the plan had received “no Republican input” and said it was “grounded in the flawed notion that we can simply borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.” Banks Remain Vulnerable—Media outlets Jan. 15 reported that Bank of America had appealed to the government for aid, as it struggled to close its acquisition of brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. The deal had been announced in September 2008, when losses stemming from the slumping housing market nearly pushed Merrill into bankruptcy. The two sides had finalized the deal Jan. 1. [See 2008, p. 738A1] Merrill was reportedly set to post a massive write-down on its assets for the fourth quarter of 2008, complicating Bank of America’s efforts to absorb the firm. Bank of America had already received a $25 billion capital injection from the government. Its share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Jan. 14 was $10.20, down about 30% for the year. Banking giant Citigroup Jan. 13 announced that it would sell a 51% stake in its Smith Barney retail brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley for $2.7 billion. Smith Barney would be run as a joint venture between Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. The split was expected to be the first step in a plan to shrink the company, which had reported huge losses in the past year due to investments in the housing market. Investors saw the move as an indication that Citigroup was trying to separate its core businesses from those that had become unprofitable. However, it remained unclear whether the plan would allow Citigroup, which had received $45 billion in government capital, to become financially viable. Its NYSE share price Jan. 14 fell $1.37, to $4.53. Separately, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a Citigroup director, Jan. 9 announced that he would retire. Rubin had come under criticism for pushing Citigroup to make riskier investments after joining the bank in 1999. [See 2008, p. 865E3] n

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

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*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

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Trade Deficit Fell to $40.4 Billion in Nov. ’08.

The Commerce Department Jan. 13 reported that the Trade Deficit seasonally adjust(in billions) ed U.S. trade def- November 2008 $40.44 icit in goods and Previous Month $56.69 $59.87 services for No- Year Earlier vember 2008 was $40.4 billion, down from a revised $56.7 billion in October, and a five-year low. Economists said the deficit drop came as a result of an ongoing recession, which suppressed U.S. demand for imports. Another central factor was the plummeting price of imported oil, with the average barrel of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange commanding an average of $66.72 in November, compared with $92.02 in October. [See 2008, p. 900C3] Imports decreased by $25 billion in November, to $183.2 billion. Besides oil, the change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials and consumer goods. Exports in November fell to $142.8 billion, an $8.7 billion drop from the preceding month, as demand for U.S. goods fell as a result of a global economic downturn. The change was led by decreased exports of industrial supplies and materials, and capital goods. n

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Retail Sales Fell 2.7% in December 2008.

The Commerce Department Jan. 14 reported that the value of retail sales in December 2008 was $343.2 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 2.7% below the revised figure for November, and the sixth straight monthly decline, as an ongoing recession depressed consumer spending. [See 2008, p. 921A3] n Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Jan. 14 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the previous six weeks. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. In its latest survey, the Fed found that economic activity had slowed in a “wide range of manufacturing industries,” due to an ongoing recession. [See 2008, p. 882G2] The Fed said the slumping housing market had “continued to worsen” and retail spending was “generally weak.” The Fed said credit markets were still frozen, making it difficult for consumers and businesses to gain access to loans. n 15

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Presidential Transition Clinton Pledges Active Diplomacy. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.) Jan. 13 testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a confirmation hearing for her nomination as secretary of state by President-elect Barack Obama. Clinton vowed to pursue active diplomacy, including direct engagement with nations such as Iran and Syria that had been shunned by the Bush administration. [See p. 5C3; 2008, p. 880A3] During their contest in the primary campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton had criticized Obama’s pledge to open talks with Iran and other nations whose leaders were perceived as hostile to the U.S. But she adopted Obama’s position at her confirmation hearing, saying that his administration would be “very open to looking to a positive, effective way of engaging with Iran.” Clinton also reaffirmed Obama’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, renew efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and deepen U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, despite the current Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. She deplored the “tragic humanitarian costs” of the latter conflict, but said the Obama administration would not negotiate directly with Hamas, the Islamist movement that controlled Gaza, unless it recognized Israel’s right to exist and renounced violence. [See pp. 23F1, 13A1; 2008, p. 988F2] Clinton said she would make it a top priority to press for treaties reducing stockpiles of nuclear arms. She also said she would focus on economic issues, declaring, “Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed and unpaid.” Clinton drew a warm response from members of the panel from both parties during her five hours of testimony, and was expected to easily win confirmation. However, Republicans on the committee raised the issue of possible conflicts of interest related to the international fund-raising activities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Clinton said there was no reason for such concerns, citing an agreement worked out in November 2008 between Obama’s transition team and her husband that required him to make annual disclosures of the identities of donors to his charitable foundation. His first such disclosure had revealed multimillion-dollar contributions from a number of foreign governments and business magnates. The Associated Press Jan. 13 reported that Sen. Clinton had intervened at least six times in matters directly concerning the business interests of donors who later contributed to Bill Clinton’s foundation. Sen. Richard Lugar (R, Ind.), the senior Republican on the committee, said he regretted that she did not see a need for further restrictions on her husband’s fundraising. However, he said he would vote for her anyway, telling her, “Your qualifications are remarkable.” 16

The committee Jan. 15 voted, 16–1, to send Clinton’s nomination to the full Senate. Sen. David Vitter (R, La.) cast the lone vote against her, citing Bill Clinton’s foundation as a “multimillion-dollar minefield of conflicts of interest.” Hearing Held for U.N. Nominee Rice—

Susan Rice, who had served in the State Department in the Clinton administration, Jan. 15 testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in her confirmation hearing for the position of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Obama. Rice currently worked at the Brookings Institution think tank and had advised Obama’s presidential campaign. During her testimony, Rice said that, if confirmed, her central priorities as U.N. ambassador would be to expand the U.N.’s ability to carry out peacekeeping missions, increase programs benefiting the world’s poorest citizens, push for unified action against climate change and arrest the spread of nuclear weapons. [See 2008, p. 880A3] Biden Visits Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan—

Vice President–elect Joseph Biden Jan. 9– 12 traveled to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq to meet with civilian and military leaders. Biden met Jan. 9 with Pakistani Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital; Jan. 10 with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, the Afghan capital; and Jan. 12 with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and other officials in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Biden made no public statements during his trip. As former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he traveled officially as a senator on a fact-finding mission, and was accompanied by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.). Biden Jan. 15 resigned his Senate seat. He had represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years, and was reelected to a seventh term in November 2008. Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) had named Biden’s former chief of staff, Edward Kaufman (D), to fill the seat for the next two years until a special election in 2010. [See 2008, p. 867A3] n Holder Confirmation Hearings Begin. Eric Holder Jr., President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Jan. 15 began his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If confirmed, Holder, a former judge who had served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, would be the first black attorney general. [See 2008, p. 880A3; 2007, p. 730A2] Senators questioned Holder about his tenure under Clinton, including his involvement in the pardoning of then-fugitive financier Marc Rich and members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group that had carried out terrorist acts. Holder stood by his recommendation that Clinton pardon 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), the Puerto Rican group, but admitted that he had failed to gather enough information about the Rich pardon before it was approved. [See 2002, p. 230G2; 1999, p. 959A1]

Holder called the controversy surrounding the Rich pardon “the most intense, most searing experience I’ve ever had as a lawyer.” However, he said he had learned from the debacle and suggested that he would “be a better attorney general, if confirmed, having had the Marc Rich experience.” Waterboarding Called Torture—During his testimony, Holder said waterboarding, a notorious interrogation technique that involved pouring water over a detainee’s cloth-covered face in order to simulate drowning, was “torture.” His position contradicted that of current Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who had refused to call the technique torture during his own confirmation testimony in 2007. Waterboarding, which in the past had been prosecuted as a war crime by the U.S., had been used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against at least three terrorism detainees in U.S. custody during their interrogation. Holder’s description of the technique as torture opened the door for possible criminal prosecutions of CIA interrogators, as well as high-level Bush administration officials who had signed off on its use. However, Holder did not say whether such prosecutions would occur, and noted that Obama had said he did not want to carry out prosecutions that would “criminalize policy differences where they might exist.” Holder also said he believed that some of the claims of executive authority made by the Bush administration had been erroneous and would be rolled back. He also rejected the Bush administration claim that the president had the right, in some situations, to violate U.S. law, saying, “No one is above the law.” Holder said he did not expect to challenge the immunity from lawsuits that had been granted to U.S. telecommunications companies that had assisted the Bush administration in its warrantless wiretapping program. However, he pledged that the Justice Department would work to make sure that the civil liberties of U.S. citizens were respected during terrorism and criminal investigations. In addition, Holder confirmed that Obama still intended to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, despite potential legal and logistical complications. Holder also suggested that he was open to prosecuting some of Guantanamo’s remaining detainees in U.S. courts. Politically Motivated Hiring to be Probed—

In his testimony, Holder said the Bush administration’s politically motivated hiring within the Justice Department was “appalling.” He added that, if confirmed, he would carry out a “damage assessment” to see how much those actions had compromised the ability of the department to effectively function. He did not say whether he would seek to remove unqualified department personnel who had been chosen for their political beliefs. (The department’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, had issued a series of reports alleging that senior officials had discriminated against liberal applicants. The latest FACTS ON FILE

report, issued Jan. 13, said Bradley Schlozman, a former senior official in the civil rights division, had violated civil-service laws and made false statements to Congress.) Napolitano Confirmation Hearing Held—

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), Obama’s nominee for homeland security secretary, Jan. 15 appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for her confirmation hearing. If confirmed, Napolitano, a former U.S. attorney under Clinton, would be the first woman to serve as homeland security secretary since the position was created in 2002. [See 2008, p. 867D2] In her testimony before the committee, Napolitano said the work of shaping the Department of Homeland Security, which had been constructed out of 22 separate agencies and divisions, was “not finished,” and suggested that she would push to improve the department rather than dismantling it, as some critics had called for. She highlighted cybersecurity, increased control over U.S. borders and effective response to accidents and natural disasters as some of her major priorities for the department. n Treasury Nominee Failed to Pay Taxes.

The Senate Finance Committee Jan. 13 canceled a confirmation hearing scheduled to take place that day for Obama’s Treasury secretary nominee, Timothy Geithner, after it was revealed that Geithner had failed to pay $34,000 in payroll taxes for salary he had received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2001 and 2004. The committee that day held a closed-door meeting with Geithner, who reportedly claimed that the failure to pay the taxes was an innocent mistake. The committee Jan. 14 scheduled Geithner’s confirmation hearing for Jan. 21, a day after Obama’s inauguration. [See 2008, p. 866G1] Obama Jan. 14 said he believed Geithner’s claim, and argued that Geithner, the current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was “uniquely qualified” to lead the Treasury. Many members of the committee also appeared to support Geithner, who had played a central role in the government’s recent attempts to stabilize financial markets. But Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the committee’s ranking Republican, Jan. 13 had said the charges were “serious,” and left open the possibility that they could disqualify Geithner from confirmation. According to information made available by the committee and Obama’s transition team, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audited Geithner in 2006, and found that he owed about $17,000 in back taxes and interest for Medicare and Social Security payments he should have made in 2003 and 2004, a sum Geithner then paid. Before Geithner was nominated in November 2008, Obama’s vetting team informed him that he had not paid the same taxes in 2001 and 2002. Geithner then paid the IRS an additional $26,000 in back taxes and interest. In all, including other, smaller infractions, Geithner had owed the IRS $48,000. January 15, 2009

Observers noted that U.S. citizens working for international institutions like the IMF often made mistakes in their tax payments. The IMF did not withhold payroll taxes, and U.S. employees were expected to pay those taxes directly to the IRS. The IMF also paid its U.S. employees the equivalent of a U.S. employer’s payroll tax contribution, which was also intended to be turned over to the IRS. Skeptics of Geithner’s claims said the IMF made it explicit to U.S. employees that they were responsible for paying those taxes. Geithner was also found to have hired an immigrant housekeeper whose authorization to live in the country had expired for three months during her employment. She later reapplied for authorization, and currently lived in the U.S. legally. Hearing for SEC Chief Nominee Held—

The Senate Banking Committee Jan. 15 held a hearing for Mary Schapiro, Obama’s nominee to be chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which she pledged to act “with full force and fervor against anyone who violates investors’ trust.” The SEC in recent months had been accused of lax regulation of the financial industry, allowing the spread of risky assets that then caused a crisis in markets worldwide. The SEC had also come under heavy criticism for its failure to detect a stock fraud allegedly carried out by financier Bernard Madoff, which could cost investors up to $50 billion in losses. [See p. 15D2; 2008, p. 955F1] Schapiro was currently the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), an oversight body set up by the industry. Lawmakers questioned her record as Finra chief, which critics said showed that she had been reluctant to take aggressive action against large financial institutions. Schapiro insisted that there were “no sacred cows” in the financial world, and that she would “vigorously prosecute those who have broken the law.” n Daschle Speaks on Health Care Reform.

Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D, S.D.), the Health and Human Services secretary nominee, Jan. 8 pledged before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to work with congressional Republicans in shaping a drastic reform of the U.S.’s health care system. Daschle’s was the first Senate hearing for a nominee of the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Daschle told Republicans, “I’m determined to work with each of you and use the regular order to produce the best product we can,” meaning the administration would seek Senate approval for reform legislation under ordinary rules, rather than special budget procedures that bypassed filibusters. [See p. 6F2] Daschle at the hearing also said he would work to fast-track the approval of cheaper generic medicines, bolster support for community and rural health care, embrace new health-care technology and eliminate political interference in federal science agencies. Daschle also faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee.

However, that committee delayed setting a hearing date because it was still examining Daschle’s complex tax records, the Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 15. Chu Confirmation Hearing Held— The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Jan. 13 held a confirmation hearing for Steven Chu, Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary. Chu, a 1997 Nobel Prize winner in physics, was widely considered to be qualified for the position but faced questioning from senators about past statements he had made on energy policy and the environment. [See 2008, p. 901G3; 1997, p. 778D3] Chu was questioned about remarks he had made in 2007, in which he referred to coal as “my worst nightmare,” and told the committee that the current methods for producing electricity by burning coal were unsustainable due to their emissions, which had helped fuel climate change. However, Chu said he did not intend to push for a moratorium on coal-plant construction, and that he favored additional research into so-called clean coal technologies, which aimed to minimize carbon emissions. Chu affirmed his support for a so-called cap-and-trade plan, under which permits were sold to businesses in order to contain emissions and create a financial incentive not to pollute, but said that such a system would need to be simple. He also expressed cautious support for an increase in the number of nuclear plants in the U.S., and spoke in favor of initiatives that would increase energy efficiency and fund research into biofuels.

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Interior Nominee Pledges Ethics Reform—

Sen. Ken Salazar (D, Colo.), nominee for secretary of the interior, Jan. 15 appeared for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Salazar said he would work to “clean up the mess” at the Interior Department, a reference to a recent ethics scandal in which department employees had sex and used illegal narcotics with employees from oil companies they were charged with regulating. [See 2008, pp. 956A1, 918E1] Salazar said he agreed with Obama’s plan to reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil by developing additional renewable energy sources. However, he was vague in response to questions on whether he supported the development of oil exploration and drilling projects on public land and on offshore rigs. Congressional Democrats had been strongly opposed to such projects for environmental reasons, but Obama during the presidential campaign said they would be part of his comprehensive energy plan. Jackson Indicates EPA Changes— Lisa Jackson, Obama’s nominee as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Jan. 14 attended her confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In a tacit criticism of the Bush administration, she promised to adhere to the law and scientific data in executing her duties. Jackson said she would not rule out applying older laws to situations that did not exist at the time of their passage, a position that left open the 17

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possibilty of using the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. [See 2008, pp. 918D2, 557F3] Vilsack Testifies for Agriculture Post—

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Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), Obama’s choice for agriculture secretary, Jan. 14 appeared for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. He voiced strong support for programs that would send locally grown fruit and vegetables to school lunch programs, and also advocated for big commodity farms, organic farming and renewable energy initiatives. He acknowledged difficulties for the ethanol industry, which had suffered amid the current economic slowdown, but stopped short of pledging to create a new federal program to boost it. [See 2008, pp. 918F1, 557B3] Vilsack pledged to enforce the provisions of the 2008 agriculture subsidy law (commonly known as the “farm bill”), which, amid some criticism, had earmarked $43 billion for farm subsidies through 2013. Both Democrats and Republicans praised Vilsack during the hearing, and committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) said he expected that Vilsack would be confirmed unanimously Jan. 20. [See 2008, p. 436F2] Education Nominee Viewed Favorably—

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Chicago schools chief executive Arne Duncan, Obama’s nominee for secretary of education, Jan. 12 appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which largely welcomed him as an innovative and diligent administrator. Duncan, during his tenure in Chicago, had been known for his judicious handling of a reform agenda, while also maintaining good relations with the Chicago Teachers Union. [See 2008, p. 918D3] During his confirmation hearing, Duncan pledged to work toward expanding access to both early childhood education and college. He also voiced support for charter schools and performance pay, by which teachers received bonuses for notable classroom improvement. He was vague on his opinion of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which measured school and student performance with standardized testing, and was likely to come up for debate after Obama’s administration took office. Duncan said he agreed with Obama that “we should neither bury NCLB nor praise it without reservation.” [See 2008, p. 905D1] Labor Pick Dodges Union Card Queries—

Rep. Hilda Solis (D, Calif.), Obama’s pick for labor secretary, Jan. 9 appeared before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. She expressed support for job training programs and workplace safety rules, but declined to answer Republicans queries about her position on the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill opposed by pro-business Republicans. [See 2008, p. 936E1; 2007, p. 143D3] Both Solis and Obama had co-sponsored the bill, which would allow workers to organize by signing union cards, as opposed to a system of periodic secret ballot votes. It was widely believed that the “card check” system would make it easier for workers to or18

ganize. Solis said she had not discussed the issue with Obama and therefore was unable to speak for his administration. Solis said that, if confirmed, she would work toward implementing more job training programs, especially for veterans and the unemployed. She also pledged to fight job discrimination and push for fair pay and safe workplaces. She noted that her parents, who immigrated from Mexico and Nicaragua, had both been union workers. Despite her silence on the card-check bill, observers considered Solis’s confirmation all but guaranteed after she received an endorsement from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, Utah), who opposed many of the pro-labor causes Solis had championed. n

Politics Burris Sworn in as Senator From Illinois.

Vice President Dick Cheney Jan. 15 swore in Roland Burris (D) as the new senator from Illinois, filling the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Burris took his seat after a reversal by Senate Democratic leaders, who had initially vowed to block his appointment by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D). [See p. 3D3] Blagojevich faced federal corruption charges for a variety of alleged schemes, including one to sell Obama’s seat to the highest bidder. He had been arrested early in December 2008, but remained in office and at the end of that month announced his appointment of Burris, 71, a former Illinois attorney general. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) had first responded by declaring that Burris could not be seated, citing the refusal of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White (D) to certify his appointment. However, Reid subsequently indicated that he would support the appointment if Burris obtained that certification and testified that he had not made any improper deal for the seat. White Jan. 9 signed a letter certifying Burris’s appointment, which was presented at the Senate Jan. 12 by Burris’s lawyers. Reid and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) Jan. 12 declared in a statement that Burris’s credentials “now satisfy Senate rules and validate his appointment.” Burris replaced Obama as the lone black member of the Senate. He would serve the remaining two years of Obama’s term, but said he had not yet decided whether to run for a full term in 2010. Blagojevich Impeached— The Illinois state House Jan. 9 voted, 114–1, to impeach Blagojevich, making him the first governor to be impeached in the state’s 190-year history. He faced a trial in the state Senate, expected to begin Jan. 26, and would be removed from office if convicted, on a two-thirds majority vote, of any of the 13 articles of impeachment. Blagojevich held a news conference after the vote, reiterating that he was innocent of the charges against him. “I believe that at the end of the day I will be properly exonerated,” he said. n

Bush Administration Bush Gives Farewell Speech. President George W. Bush Jan. 15 delivered a farewell address to the nation, admitting some “setbacks” during his presidency but insisting that he had always acted in the “best interests” of the U.S. He gave the 13minute speech in the East Room of the White House before an audience of 200, including invited guests and members of his cabinet. It was his last scheduled public appearance before the Jan. 20 inauguration of his successor, President-elect Barack Obama. [See p. 5C3; for a transcript of Bush’s speech, see p. 19A1] “Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks,” Bush said, adding, “There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right.” He continued, “You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make tough decisions.” He said his job had never returned to normal after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Alluding to the controversial antiterrorism policies he had approved subsequently, such as expanded wiretapping and harsh interrogation methods, as well as the invasion of Iraq, Bush said, “There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil.” Bush also reaffirmed the stark moral contrasts that had characterized his presidential rhetoric, saying, “I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise.” Bush was leaving office with extraordinarily low public approval ratings that made him one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. According to RealClearPolitics.com’s average of major national polls taken between Jan. 6 and Jan. 16, just 29% of respondents approved of Bush’s performance and 65% disapproved. The approval ratings ranged from a low of 22% in a New York Times poll to the high of 34% found by both a USA Today/ Gallup poll and a Fox News poll. Bush Jan. 12 had held his last news conference at the White House. He used the 47-minute session to mount a similar defense of his record. Referring to the criticism of his antiterrorism policies, he said, “All these debates will matter not if there is another attack on the homeland.” He acknowledged some mistakes, such as his speech on an aircraft carrier under a banner saying “Mission Accomplished,” soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where U.S. forces were still fighting nearly six years later. But he defended the widely criticized federal response to Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast in 2005. “Don’t FACTS ON FILE

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH’S FAREWELL SPEECH

Following is a transcript of George W. Bush’s last national address as U.S. president, delivered Jan. 15 [See p. 18A3]:

women of the United States armed forces. Our nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend us in this time of danger. I have cherished meeting these selfless patriots and their families. And America owes you a debt of gratitude. And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight: There has been no higher honor than serving as your commander-in-chief. Advancing Freedom The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace. This is the belief that gave birth to our nation. And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens. When people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror. When people have hope in the future, they will not cede their lives to violence and extremism. So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity. We’re standing with dissidents and young democracies, providing AIDS medicine to dying patients—to bring dying patients back to life, and sparing mothers and babies from malaria. And this great republic born alone in liberty is leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations. For eight years, we’ve also strived to expand opportunity and hope here at home. Across our country, students are rising to meet higher standards in public schools. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit is bringing peace of mind to seniors and the disabled. Every taxpayer pays lower income taxes. The addicted and suffering are finding new hope through faith-based programs. Vulnerable human life is better protected. Funding for our veterans has nearly doubled. America’s air and water and lands are measurably cleaner. And the federal bench includes wise new members like Justice Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them. Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy. These are very tough times for hardworking families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted. All Americans are in this together. And together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth. We will show the world once again the resilience of America’s free enterprise system. Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I’ve always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions. The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course. While our nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack. Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again. America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict. But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard. At the same time, we must continue to engage the

world with confidence and clear purpose. In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led. Good and Evil As we address these challenges—and others we cannot foresee tonight—America must maintain our moral clarity. I’ve often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense—and to advance the cause of peace. President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism. America is a young country, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself. And even in the toughest times, we lift our eyes to the broad horizon ahead. I have confidence in the promise of America because I know the character of our people. This is a nation that inspires immigrants to risk everything for the dream of freedom. This is a nation where citizens show calm in times of danger, and compassion in the face of suffering. We see examples of America’s character all around us. And Laura and I have invited some of them to join us in the White House this evening. We see America’s character in Dr. Tony Recasner, a principal who opened a new charter school from the ruins of Hurricane Katrina. We see it in Julio Medina, a former inmate who leads a faith-based program to help prisoners returning to society. We’ve seen it in Staff Sergeant Aubrey McDade, who charged into an ambush in Iraq and rescued three of his fellow Marines. We see America’s character in Bill Krissoff—a surgeon from California. His son, Nathan—a Marine—gave his life in Iraq. When I met Dr. Krissoff and his family, he delivered some surprising news: He told me he wanted to join the Navy Medical Corps in honor of his son. This good man was 60 years old—18 years above the age limit. But his petition for a waiver was granted, and for the past year he has trained in battlefield medicine. Lieutenant Commander Krissoff could not be here tonight, because he will soon deploy to Iraq, where he will help save America’s wounded warriors—and uphold the legacy of his fallen son. In citizens like these, we see the best of our country: resilient and hopeful, caring and strong. These virtues give me an unshakable faith in America. We have faced danger and trial, and there’s more ahead. But with the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great nation will never tire, never falter, and never fail. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your president. There have been good days and tough days. But every day I have been inspired by the greatness of our country, and uplifted by the goodness of our people. I have been blessed to represent this nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other: citizen of the United States of America. And so, my fellow Americans, for the final time: Good night. May God bless this house and our next president. And may God bless you and our wonderful country. Thank you.

pansion of government health care programs and the tobacco tax increase. The Democratic-controlled Congress had failed to override his veto in both instances. However, President-elect Barack Obama supported the expansion and was expected to sign it into law.

House Passes Children’s Insurance Funds.

ance, but who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid. The bill would provide an additional $32.3 billion over four and a half years for the program, allowing an additional four million children to join it, for a total enrollment of about 11 million. Funding for the program had been set to expire March 31. [See 2008, p. 35B2]

The House Jan. 14 voted, 289–139, to pass a bill that would expand funding for the state Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP or CHIP), which provided coverage to children in families too poor to afford private insur-

The bill would raise the federal tax on cigarettes by 61 cents per pack, to $1, to fund the program’s expansion. President George W. Bush in 2007 had twice vetoed similar bills, arguing against both the ex-

Fellow citizens: For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence— a time set apart. Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey that we have traveled together, and the future of our nation. Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy. In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people. Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose history reflects the enduring promise of our land. This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole nation. And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect [Barack] Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. Tonight I am filled with gratitude—to Vice President [Dick] Cheney and members of my administration; to [First Lady] Laura [Bush], who brought joy to this house and love to my life; to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna; to my parents, whose examples have provided strength for a lifetime. And above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me. I thank you for the prayers that have lifted my spirits. And I thank you for the countless acts of courage, generosity, and grace that I have witnessed these past eight years. Sept. 11 Attacks This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house—September the 11th, 2001. That morning, terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor. I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock. I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon, and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93. I remember Arlene Howard, who gave me her fallen son’s police shield as a reminder of all that was lost. And I still carry his badge. As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe. Over the past seven years, a new Department of Homeland Security has been created. The military, the intelligence community, and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] have been transformed. Our nation is equipped with new tools to monitor the terrorists’ movements, freeze their finances, and break up their plots. And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them. Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school. Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States. There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil. This is a tribute to those who toil night and day to keep us safe—law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, homeland security and diplomatic personnel, and the men and

tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed,” he said. [See 2007, p. 575E2; 2003, p. 321A1] n

Legislation

January 15, 2009

The House bill also contained provisions easing restrictions that barred legal immigrants from receiving Medicaid or enrolling in CHIP. Under a major 1996 welfare reform law signed by then-President Bill Clinton, legal immigrants under 21 or 19

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who were pregnant could not receive benefits for federal health care programs during their first five years of residency in the U.S. The bill would allow states to decide whether to continue those restrictions. Analysts estimated that elimination of the ban could allow another 400,000–600,000 children to gain health benefits. [See 1996, p. 622C2] n House Passes Two Wage Parity Bills. The House Jan. 9 passed two measures intended to eliminate wage disparities between men and women who worked similar jobs. The House voted, 247–171, to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to nullify a 2007 Supreme Court ruling which found that workers suing with a claim of a pay disparity had to do so within 180 days of first receiving an allegedly discriminatory paycheck. [See 2008, p. 310F1] Lilly Ledbetter, after whom the bill was named, had discovered her subpar pay at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Alabama plant after working there nearly 20 years. The measure would allow the statute of limitations period to renew after every instance in which a paycheck was issued. In a separate vote, the House passed, 256–163, a bill that shifted the burden of proof to employers in cases where employees alleged gender-based pay discrimination. Current law required the employee to prove an intention to discriminate; under the new bill, employers would have to show that the pay discrepancy was justified by a nondiscriminatory consideration. The bill also eliminated ceilings on compensatory and punitive awards in pay discrimination lawsuits. President-elect Barack Obama had indicated that he would sign both bills. n

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Official Confirms Detainee Torture. The Defense Department official in charge of the prosecution of terrorism detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Jan. 14 confirmed in an interview with the Washington Post that detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani had been tortured while in U.S. custody. It was the first time that a current official at Guantanamo had admitted that the U.S. had tortured a detainee. The official, Convening Authority Susan Crawford, said Qahtani’s “treatment met the legal definition of torture” and said she had ordered charges against him to be dropped as a result. [See 2008, pp. 902D3, 329C2] Qahtani, accused in connection with Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., had been captured in Afghanistan in 2002 following the U.S.-led invasion of the country. He had been subjected to socalled harsh interrogation techniques during his detention, including sleep deprivation, hooding, isolation and forced nudity. A 2005 Defense Department investigation of Qahtani’s interrogation found that he had been subjected to treatment that was “degrading and abusive,” but which fell within authorized parameters and did not constitute torture. According to Crawford, Qahtani had not been allowed to see anyone other than his 20

interrogators for 160 consecutive days during his detention, and had been questioned for 18–20 hours on 48 days in a 54-day period. She said that although the techniques used in his interrogation were allowed at the time they were used, “the manner in which they were applied was overly aggressive and too persistent.” She said the use of the techniques “had a medical impact on him” and had “hurt his health.” Qahtani’s interrogations had twice led to episodes of bradycardia, an extremely low heart rate, that were serious enough to require hospitalization. In February 2008, Guantanamo prosecutors had filed capital charges against Qahtani and five others accused of involvement or attempted involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, but the charges against Qahtani were thrown out by Crawford in May 2008. Crawford said that while she was certain that Qahtani had attempted to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks, she had dropped the charges and would block a second attempt to charge him because he had been tortured and had recanted all the confessions made under harsh interrogation. The Defense Department Jan. 13 issued a statement emphasizing that all the techniques used against Qahtani during his interrogation were allowed by department policies at the time they were used. The statement also noted that the Defense Department had subsequently “adopted new and more restrictive policies and improved oversight procedures for interrogation and detention operations.” n Hamdan Released By Yemeni Government.

An attorney for former U.S. terrorism detainee Salim Ahmad Hamdan Jan. 11 announced that Hamdan had been released by the Yemeni government on Jan. 8. Hamdan, who had worked for Al Qaeda international terrorist network head Osama bin Laden, had been the first person convicted of war crimes under the system of military trials set up at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the 2006 Military Commissions Act. [See 2008, p. 863G3] Hamdan had been sentenced in August 2008 to five years and six months’ imprisonment but had received credit for five years and one month already served. He had been flown from Guantanamo Bay to his home country of Yemen in November to finish serving his sentence. Judge Orders Release of Detainee—

Judge Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Jan. 14 ordered the release of a 21-year-old terrorism detainee who had been in U.S. custody since he was 14. Leon had previously ordered the government to release five other Guantanamo detainees, three of whom had subsequently been freed and sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina. [See 2008, p. 846D1] Leon found that the government’s case against the detainee, Chadian citizen Mohammed el Gharani, was based primarily on uncorroborated testimony from other Guantanamo detainees and did not support Gharani’s continued detention. Leon also questioned government claims that Ghara-

ni at age 11 had been a member of a British terrorism cell in 1998 while living with his parents in Saudi Arabia. n

Intelligence Intelligence Court Upholds Wiretap Request.

An special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Jan. 15 released an unclassified August 2008 ruling that said the government in 2007 had had the legal right to request a warrantless wiretap from a telecommunications company. The ruling was only the second ever publicly released by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. It applied only to the specific wiretap request, which the court said had additional civilliberties safeguards not included in the 2007 Protect America Act, a temporary law that had authorized the Bush administration to carry out warrantless wiretaps in the U.S. to gather foreign intelligence. [See 2008, pp. 465D2, 54F3] The case was brought by an unidentified telecommunications company that had been approached by the Bush administration with a surveillance request. The company argued that the request violated its customers’ Fourth Amendment rights, which guaranteed against unreasonable searches and seizures. The company reportedly complied with the request even as it challenged its legality in court, after being threatened with contempt charges. The court found that government surveillance of U.S. citizens was exempt from the Fourth Amendment if part of the purpose of such surveillance was to collect foreign intelligence related to national security, and if there were “several layers of serviceable” safeguards to protect civil liberties. The court did not rule on the legality of the 2007 law authorizing the warrantless surveillance, or the 2008 law that succeedn ed it, a revised version of FISA.

Supreme Court Evidence Found Valid Despite Police Errors.

The Supreme Court Jan. 14 ruled, 5–4, that evidence collected after an illegal arrest was sometimes admissible in court, as long as the arrest resulted from “isolated negligence,” and was not part of a wider disregard for the law by police. The ruling indicated contrary positions on the court over support for the so-called exclusionary rule, a judicially created rule that was intended to uphold a citizen’s Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable search and seizure. The case was Herring v. United States. [See 2008, p. 126E1] The case revolved around the 2004 arrest of Bennie Dean Herring in Coffee County, Ala. Police arrested Herring after being mistakenly told that there was an outstanding arrest warrant for him in a neighboring county, and then found him in possession of an illegal weapon and drugs. Herring had argued in lower courts that because the neighboring county’s arrest warrant had been rescinded, his arrest was the result of a computer error and therefore ilFACTS ON FILE

legal, and that the evidence was not admissible in court. However, he had been convicted and sentenced to a 27-month prison term. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said such evidence was admissible when its discovery had resulted from a “good-faith” error, and not from “systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements.” He also said judges should only suppress evidence as a last resort, and instead rule on individual cases by assessing the degree of police misconduct. He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the dissent, said the ruling would erode Fourth Amendment protections guaranteed by the exclusionary rule. “The most ‘serious impact’ of the court’s holding will be on innocent persons ‘wrongfully arrested based on erroneous information in a computer data base,’” she wrote. Ginsburg argued that the ruling would encourage sloppy police work. She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer. n Judge Sentencing Power Upheld. The Supreme Court Jan. 14 ruled, 5–4, that judges maintained discretionary fact-finding powers over whether people convicted of multiple crimes could serve their prison terms concurrently or consecutively. In the case, Oregon v. Ice, an Oregon state judge had made a factual finding regarding defendant Thomas Ice’s “willingness to commit more than one criminal offense,” and had effectively raised his sentence to 340 months, from 90 months. [See 2007, p. 48B2] The court’s decision was a break with a trend begun in 2000, when the court decided in Apprendi v. New Jersey that it was unconstitutional for judges to issue factual findings that increased a convict’s sentence, as that was a power reserved exclusively for juries. However, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the court’s opinion, said the “decision to impose sentences consecutively is not within the jury function that ‘extends down centuries into the common law.’” She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. [See 2000, p. 441F1] Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the dissent, said the decision “directly contradicts what we held eight years ago and have reaffirmed several times since.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas. n Obama, Biden Meet With Justices. President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jan. 14 visited the Supreme Court as guests of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Obama and Biden reportedly met with all of the members of the court, with the exception of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in the court’s West Conference Room. They were then taken on a tour of the justices’ private conference room. Roberts said he hoped that such visits would become a “congenial tradition.” [See p. 16A1] n January 15, 2009

AFRICA

Somalia Pirates Free Saudi Tanker After Ransom Drop.

Somali pirates Jan. 9 released the MT Sirius Star, a Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying two million barrels of oil that had been hijacked in November 2008. The ship was released after its owner, Vela International Marine Ltd., a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, parachuted a parcel filled with $3 million in ransom money onto the deck of the vessel, which had been anchored near the northern Somali port town of Harardhere. [See 2008, p. 972G3] The newly constructed tanker, which had a crew of 25 on board, was worth an estimated $150 million, and its cargo at the time of its capture had been valued at $100 million. (The price of oil had fallen since November 2008.) After the ransom drop, the band of at least 25 pirates reportedly left the ship and headed to shore via five speedboats. In a further twist to the story, one of the five speedboats sank, resulting in the deaths of five of the eight pirates it was carrying, as well as the loss of $350,000 in ransom money. The body of one of the missing pirates Jan. 11 washed ashore with $153,000. The U.S. Navy Jan. 8 had said it would lead an international force to combat piracy off Somalia’s coast, in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, to be coordinated by the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. The U.S., Russia, China and other European and Asian nations had dispatched warships in late 2008 in response to a sharp increase in piracy in the area, which was a major world shipping route. The rise in piracy was a result of the failure of Somalia’s weak transitional government to assert its authority in the country. Recently, Islamist insurgents had gained control of almost all of south and central Somalia. [See below] According to the International Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates as of Jan. 9 still held 14 captured vessels and 267 crew members. Ethiopian Troops Begin Withdrawal—

Several thousand Ethiopian troops, who had been propping up Somalia’s transitional government and battling the Islamist insurgency since December 2006, Jan. 2–13 withdrew from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, and most other areas of the country. Cheering Somalis reportedly lined the streets of Mogadishu Jan. 13 as the last soldiers from Ethiopia—Somalia’s traditional enemy—departed from the city. Some Ethiopian troops reportedly would remain in the border area between the two countries. [See 2008, p. 972G2] More than 2,600 African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops remained in Somalia, but they had been ineffective in stemming the advance of the Islamists and primarily served to protect the airport and presidential palace in Mogadishu. The forces of the transitional government were also seen as too weak to hold off the insurgents.

Amid the power vacuum that resulted from the Ethiopians’ departure, Islamist factions—which had formerly been united by the goal of driving the Ethiopians out of Somalia—clashed with each other over control of Mogadishu, including vacated Ethiopian military bases. The hardline Al Shabab group was reportedly battling more moderate Islamist groups for control of the country. Somalis traditionally practiced a moderate form of Islam, and some Somalis had reportedly turned against Al Shabab after it tried to impose strict Islamic law in areas that it controlled. The U.S. Jan. 12 began circulating a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for a U.N. peacekeeping force for Somalia to replace the AU force by June 1, and for the AU force to be strengthened in the interim. However, the New York Times Jan. 13 reported that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon had said more than 50 nations rejected a request to lead the force. Meanwhile, the transitional government had been haggling over the appointment of a new interim president to replace Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who had resigned in December 2008. According to the Times report, some factions of the government wanted to consult with moderate Islamist groups on the choice of a new president. The government had signed a power-sharing deal with moderate groups in October 2008 in neighboring Djibouti, which also called for a withdrawal of Ethiopian forces. However, others, including the parliament speaker and acting president, Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur, insisted that the new president be selected by the parliament alone. [See 2007, p. 82G3] The humanitarian situation in Somalia had become increasingly dire in recent months, as the insecurity caused by the Islamists’ advance forced civilians from their homes and hindered the operations of aid agencies. An estimated one million people had been displaced and were in need of assistance. The increase in clashes between Islamist factions was expected to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. n

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South Africa Zuma Corruption Charges Reinstated. A five-judge panel of South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeals Jan. 12 overturned a lower court decision that had dismissed, on procedural grounds, charges of corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering against Jacob Zuma, the president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party. The decision by the Supreme Court of Appeals—the second-highest court in the country—automatically triggered the reinstatement of the charges. Zuma’s lawyers Jan. 14 said they would appeal the decision. [See 2008, pp. 973B1, 660D2] The charges had first been filed in 2005, after then–South African Deputy President Zuma’s former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of corruption. Shaik’s conviction stemmed from allegations that he had funneled bribes to Zuma 21

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from a French arms company that was awarded a lucrative contract to supply the South African navy in the late 1990s. Soon after Shaik’s conviction, then–President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma, and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) subsequently filed corruption charges against him. Those charges were thrown out on a technicality in 2006, but the NPA refiled them in December 2007, just days after Zuma defeated Mbeki in an election for the ANC presidency. In September 2008, High Court Judge Chris Nicholson in Pietermaritzburg had again dismissed the charges against Zuma on a technicality, and controversially alleged that Mbeki and his allies had been behind the NPA’s decision to pursue the case. Later in September, Mbeki stepped down as South Africa’s president under pressure from the ANC’s National Executive Committee, which was controlled by Zuma’s supporters. ANC stalwart Kgalema Motlanthe took over as caretaker president and would serve out the remainder of Mbeki’s term. The ouster of Mbeki had led to the formation of a new political party, Congress of the People (COPE), by ANC dissidents. The decision by the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned Nicholson’s ruling. The appeals court also chided Nicholson for overstepping his authority by making statements regarding Mbeki’s alleged interference in the case. It said Nicholson’s ruling had been “unfortunately subverted…by making gratuitous findings against persons who were not called to defend themselves; by failing to distinguish between allegation, fact and suspicion.” Zuma had consistently proclaimed his innocence, and his supporters alleged that the charges were politically motivated. Zuma’s lawyers would appeal the ruling to the Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court. It was also reported that his allies were in discussions with the NPA to make a deal to drop the charges. As head of the ANC, which had been the dominant political party in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, Zuma had been widely expected to become the nation’s next president after elections set for the spring. (Under South Africa’s electoral system, voters selected members of parliament, who in turn elected the country’s president.) Analysts said the reinstatement of the charges weakened Zuma’s position and could give COPE a boost at the polls, but likely not enough to prevent Zuma from becoming president. ANC Launches Campaign— The ANC Jan. 10 launched its campaign for the spring elections at a rally in East London, in Eastern Cape province. In its campaign manifesto, the party promised to increase government spending in areas such as health care, education, job creation and rural development. Although the platform also promised to continue the free-market policies implemented by Mbeki, analysts said it had a populist focus on improving the lives of South Africa’s poor, many of whom had been left behind by the Mbeki administration’s pro-business policies. Un22

employment in the country was 23.2% in the third quarter of 2008, the most recent period reported on by the government. Addressing the rally, Zuma said the ANC would “put in place a comprehensive, state-led industrial policy that will direct public and private investment to support employment creation and broader economic transformation.” The platform also pledged to fight corruption in the ANC. That prompted Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance, another opposition party, to call for Zuma to “answer [corruption] charges in court, and, if he is to honor the undertaking in the ANC’s manifesto to step up the fight against corruption in its ranks, he should renounce his candidature for the presidency.” n

the previous year. Analysts said the government would need to restrict its spending to essential items as part of efforts to rein in inflation. [See p. 22C2; 2008, p. 22D3] Nearly half of the government’s budget was derived from the sale of oil, the price of which had dropped dramatically in recent months due to a decrease in demand spurred by a global economic slowdown. Several analysts expected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias to devalue the country’s currency, the bolivar, a move that would increase the government’s spending power. However, a devaluation would also contribute to inflation. n

AMERICAS

Nightclub Fire Kills More Than 65. A fire in a nightclub in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, Jan. 1 killed more than 65 people and injured more than 200 others. The cause of the fire, which occurred just after midnight during a New Year’s Eve celebration, was unclear. Witnesses alternately blamed electrical problems or in-club fireworks for the blaze. [See 2008, p. 467F2] Thai police estimated that about 1,000 people had been inside the club, Santika, at the time the fire broke out. They said 54 of the victims had died in the club, while at least 11 others had later died of their injuries after being hospitalized. At least 10 foreign nationals were reportedly killed in the fire, and more than 40 of the wounded were foreigners. Suriya Ritrabue, Santika’s owner, Jan. 5 turned himself in to the police, who were investigating allegations of criminal negligence and failure to observe minimum age laws at the nightclub. Separately, Interior Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul Jan. 7 announced that a new committee would begin monthly safety inspections of social venues. Clubs with spaces of more than 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) would be required to show proof that they had undergone building inspections. n

Venezuela U.S. Oil Aid Halted, Resumed. Citgo Petro-

leum Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), was suspending a threeyear-old program through which it provided heating oil to some 200,000 low-income homes in 23 states in the U.S., it was announced Jan. 5 by former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy 2nd (D, Mass.), chairman of Citizens Energy, a U.S. nonprofit entity that helped distribute the fuel. However, Citgo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Alejandro Granado Jan. 7 said the company had reversed its decision, and would continue to provide oil assistance in the U.S. during the winter season. [See 2005, p. 902C3] In 2007, Citgo had donated about $100 million worth of oil to the program. Kennedy Jan. 5 said he had been informed of Citgo’s suspension of the program shortly before Dec. 25, 2008, and had unsuccessfully attempted to convince Citgo executives to reverse the decision. Analysts said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias had likely ordered the program’s suspension because the government was facing significantly decreased revenue as a result of the falling price of oil. (Venezuela’s government was highly dependent on the sale of oil for generating revenue to fund its spending.) [See p. 22G2] Granado Jan. 7 said the company’s reversal had been made after Chavez considered the impact of the program on the U.S.’s poor. Separately, the New York Times Jan. 15 reported that Venezuela was courting bids from large Western oil companies to develop its oil fields. The move marked a change in Chavez’s position on private firms operating in Venezuela; in recent years, he had ordered the nationalization of the Venezuelan subsidiaries of several Westernowned and other private companies. n ’08 Inflation Rate Reaches 11-Year High.

Venezuela’s central bank Jan. 8 reported that the country’s inflation rate in 2008 was 30.9%, its highest level in 11 years. Economic growth dropped to 4.9%, from 8.4%

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Germany New Economic Stimulus Plan Unveiled.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Jan. 13 unveiled a new 50 billion euro ($67 billion) economic stimulus package of spending and tax measures through 2010, but vowed that the debt would be paid off as soon as possible. The package included about 18 billion euros in income and payroll tax cuts, as well as funding for education and transportation infrastructure projects. [See p. 23E1; 2008, p. 841B3] The plan supplemented a previous package set in November 2008, which had been widely criticized by economists as insufficient to help the European Union’s largest economy through the global financial crisis. Merkel had initially resisted additional spending, criticizing other EuroFACTS ON FILE

pean governments for abandoning budgetary discipline. The government Jan. 12 also said it would set up a 100 billion euro fund to provide loan guarantees to companies that could not obtain financing in the current credit crunch. n

Turkey 37 Detained in Alleged Coup Plot. Turkish police Jan. 7 detained 37 people, including three retired generals and nine active-duty officers, in connection with an alleged coup plot by a secular-leaning ultranationalist group intent on overthrowing the Islamic-based ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In July 2008, prosecutors had charged 86 people with involvement in the plot against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). [See 2008, p. 493E1] An Istanbul antiterrorism court Jan. 11 formally arrested 14 suspects in the coup plot. Opposition leaders said the probe and arrests were part of a political vendetta by the AKP against its secular enemies, who had unsuccessfully tried to have the party banned by Turkey’s highest court in 2008 for alleged violations of the nation’s secular constitution. Turkey’s military chief, Gen. Ilker Basbug, Jan. 8 met with Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul to discuss the detention of the officers. The military was considered one of the last bastions of Turkey’s old secular establishment, and had forced out four elected governments in recent decades. n

Other European News European Central Bank Cuts Interest Rate. The European Central Bank (ECB) Jan. 15

cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point, to 2%, matching its lowest previous level. The ECB handled monetary policy for the 16 countries that used the common euro currency, known as the eurozone. The ECB cited expectations that the current eurozone recession would continue to worsen. Its latest rate cut followed recent moves by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which had cut its benchmark rate to near zero in December 2008, and the Bank of England, which had cut its key rate to 1.5% earlier in January. [See p. 8C2; 2008, p. 888E2] n

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Iraq Parliament Speaker Selection Delayed.

The Iraqi parliament Jan. 11 said it would reconvene Jan. 17 to select a new speaker of parliament, after legislators had been unable to agree on which Sunni Muslim faction should get the position by the Jan. 9 deadline. The previous speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, had resigned in December 2008. Informal political agreements dictated that the parliament speaker be a Sunni Arab. [See p. 8D2; 2008, p. 948G2] January 15, 2009

Iyad al-Samarraie, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front (known in Arabic as Tawafiq), the largest Sunni coalition, Jan. 8 said he had been tapped for the position. Samarraie was also a top official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni party in parliament and part of the coalition. However, four Sunni deputies Jan. 10 accused the Iraqi Islamic Party of trying to force its coalition partners to accept Samarraie. The deputies said they would quit the Iraqi Accordance Front. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o U.S. Defense Department and military officials Jan. 14 said military commanders were designing plans for a quicker withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq than the current timetable called for, the New York Times reported Jan. 15. The officials said U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had not requested plans for a faster withdrawal, but they were anticipating such a request after his administration took office Jan. 20. Obama during his presidential campaign had promised to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. An agreement between the U.S. and Iraq finalized in December 2008 called for U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June, and from all of Iraq by the end of 2011. [See p. 16A1] o The U.S. military Jan. 13 announced that Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo would be court-martialed on murder and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from the 2007 discovery of four Iraqis who had been shot and dumped in a canal in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. He could receive a life sentence if convicted. [See 2008, p. 648C2] o The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) Jan. 13 released a report that said a $722 million contract awarded in 2004 to Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR)—a former unit of construction conglomerate Halliburton Co. that had since become an independent company—was marked by costly modifications, delays and poor oversight. The contract had been for rebuilding oil infrastructure in southern Iraq. [See below; 2008, p. 955D2] o A number of bombings Jan. 12 killed eight people and wounded at least 29 others in Baghdad. Most of the bombings had reportedly targeted Iraqi soldiers and police officers, but Iraqi officials said four of the dead and most of the wounded had been civilians. o Qassim Atta al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad’s security program, Jan. 11 announced that Iraqi forces Dec. 18, 2008, had captured Thayer Kadhim Abid Salman al-Surawi, the leader of the Iraqi terrorist group Ansar al-Sunna. Moussawi said Surawi had confessed under questioning to 13 crimes committed between 2006 and 2008, including a June 2008 bombing in Baghdad’s Huriya neighborhood that killed 40 people. Surawi also reportedly said he had connections with some Iraqi politicians. Ansar al-Sunna had been formed in 2001 by Kurdish extremists, and was reportedly linked to the international

terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See 2008, p. 406E2] o The U.S. State Department’s inspector general Jan. 9 released a report that said the department might have violated federal rules when it delegated management of its multibillion-dollar private security contract in Iraq to outside contractors. The report praised the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which oversaw State Department security contractors, for its successes in “ensuring the safety” of diplomats in Iraq. However, it said the bureau’s frequent use of contractors “strained the Department’s ability to effectively manage them.” [See p. 9A1; 2008, p. 935F3] n

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Florida Wins NCAA Football Title Beats Oklahoma in BCS Championship Game.

The University of Florida Gators Jan. 8 defeated the University of Oklahoma Sooners, 24–14, in Miami, Fla., to win the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national title game. With the win, the Gators, coached by Urban Meyer, claimed their second National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-A football championship in three seasons, and their third overall. [See 2008, pp. 929E2, A3, 26A3] The title game matched up two highpowered offenses led by Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford—the winner of the Heisman Trophy in 2008—and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, the 2007 Heisman winner. However, the game was not the high-scoring affair that many had predicted. The score was tied at seven at halftime. Florida built a 14–7 lead in the third quarter on a two-yard touchdown run by Percy Harvin. Oklahoma, coached by Bob Stoops, tied the score early in the fourth quarter, with an 11-yard touchdown pass from Bradford to Jermaine Gresham. Florida regained the lead later in the final quarter, with a 27-yard field goal by Jonathan Phillips, and sealed the victory with a four-yard touchdown pass from Tebow to David Nelson. Tebow was named the game’s most outstanding player. Florida, which finished the season with a record of 13 wins and one loss, Jan. 9 was automatically ranked number one in the USA Today final poll of college football coaches, under the rules of the BCS. Florida was also ranked atop the Associated Press (AP) poll of media members. Oklahoma (12–2) ended up fifth in both polls. Three other teams—the University of Utah (13–0), the University of Southern California (USC) (12–1) and the University of Texas (12–1)—laid claim to at least a share of the national title, based on their regular-season records and bowl game results. In the final AP poll, Utah was ranked second, followed by USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas Christian University (TCU), Penn State, Ohio State and Oregon. (Florida received 48 first-place votes, while Utah received 16 and USC, one.) In the coaches’ poll, USC was second, followed by 23

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Texas, Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama, TCU, Penn State, Oregon and Georgia. Utah was the only team in the nation to go undefeated, but because it played in the Mountain West Conference, it did not get a berth in the national title game. The Mountain West Conference was generally considered weaker than conferences such as the Big 12, to which Texas and Oklahoma belonged, and the Southeastern Conference (SEC), to which Florida belonged. Utah Jan. 2 had won the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, La., defeating the University of Alabama—an SEC team—31–17. After the final polls were released, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham asserted that his team should have been ranked number one. Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, Jan. 6 said he was investigating the BCS for possible violations of federal antitrust laws, arguing that the Mountain West and other conferences that did not receive automatic bids for BCS bowls were at an unfair disadvantage both competitively and financially. (Teams that played in BCS bowls received lucrative financial packages, as well as the prestige of playing in high-profile games.) Some observers criticized the investigation as a waste of taxpayers’ money. USC Jan. 1 had staked a claim to the national title by soundly defeating Penn State, 38–24, in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. And Texas Jan. 5 won the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., beating Ohio State, 24–21. Other Results—In other bowl results: o Tulsa Jan. 6 defeated Ball State, 45– 13, in the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Ala. o Connecticut Jan. 3 beat Buffalo, 38– 20, in the International Bowl in Toronto, Canada. o Mississippi Jan. 2 won the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, beating Texas Tech, 47–34. o Kentucky Jan. 2 beat East Carolina, 25–19, to win the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tenn. o Virginia Tech Jan. 1 won the Orange Bowl, beating Cincinnati, 20–7, in Miami. o Nebraska Jan. 1 beat Clemson, 26–21, in Jacksonville, Fla., to win the Gator Bowl. o Georgia Jan. 1 won the Capital One Bowl, defeating Michigan State, 24–12, in Orlando, Fla. o Iowa Jan. 1 beat South Carolina, 31– 10, in Tampa, Fla., to win the Outback Bowl. Other News—In other college football news: o Boston College Jan. 7 fired coach Jeff Jagodzinski, one day after he interviewed with the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL) for that team’s open coaching position. Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo had warned that he would fire Jagodzinski if he interviewed with the Jets, it was reported Jan. 5. DeFilippo Jan. 7 said he wanted a coach who “really wants to be at Boston College and will be here for the length of their con24

tract.” Jagodzinski did not get the Jets coaching job. [See 2008, pp. 993F1, 992G1] o Yale Jan. 7 hired Tom Williams, a defensive coach for the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, as its new head coach. Williams became Yale’s first black head coach, and just the second black head coach in the Ivy League. The first had been Norries Wilson, who was hired by Columbia in 2005. n

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Awards Bush Honors Three World Leaders. At his

last ceremonial appearance before leaving office, U.S. President George W. Bush Jan. 13 in the White House in Washington, D.C., bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on three foreign leaders who had been widely viewed as among his staunchest allies during his eight years as president. The three were former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez. Blair had been Britain’s prime minister from 1997 to 2007, Howard had been Australia’s prime minister from 1996 to 2007, and Uribe had been president of Colombia since 2002. [See 2008, pp. 788A2, 421D2; 2006, p. 434A1] n Golden Globes Ceremony Held. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association Jan. 11 presented its 66th annual Golden Globe Awards for excellence in film and television. Unlike in 2007, when a strike by the Writers Guild of America led to the cancellation of a formal awards ceremony, the awards once again were presented with typical lavishness, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. The ceremony was carried live on the NBC television network. [See 2008, p. 28B1] The major award winners in film were: Best Drama: Slumdog Millionaire Best Musical or Comedy: Vicky Cristina Barcelo-

na Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire Best Actress, Drama: Kate Winslet, Revolutionary

Road Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins,

Happy-Go-Lucky Best Actor, Drama: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell, In

Bruges Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, The

Reader Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark

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The major television winners were: Best Drama Series: “Mad Men” (AMC) Best Musical or Comedy Series: “30 Rock” (NBC) Best Miniseries or Movie: “John Adams” (HBO) Best Actress, Drama Series: Anna Paquin, “True Blood” (HBO) Best Actor, Drama Series: Gabriel Byrne, “In Treatment” (HBO) Best Actress, Musical or Comedy Series: Tina Fey, “30 Rock” (NBC) Best Actor, Musical or Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock” (NBC) Best Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Laura Linney, “John Adams” (HBO) Best Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Paul Giamatti, “John Adams” (HBO) n

Film Critics Society Bestows Awards. The

National Society of Film Critics Jan. 3 announced its annual awards. Best-picture honors went to Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary from Israel, written and directed by Ari Folman, about that country’s 1982 war with Lebanon. Sean Penn won best-actor honors for his portrayal of assassinated San Francisco, Calif., gay political leader Harvey Milk in Milk. British director Mike Leigh won bestdirector honors for Happy-Go-Lucky, a comedy about a bouncy London schoolteacher, while British actress Sally Hawkins was named best actress for her portrayal of that teacher. [See 2008, p. 28G1] n

People Outgoing U.S. First Lady Laura Bush had signed a book deal with Scribner, an imprint of publisher Simon & Schuster, it was announced Jan. 5. The memoir, which was to include a survey of her eight years in the White House, was set to be published in 2010. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. [See 2008, p. 952F3] n

O B I T UA R I E S ASHETON, Ron(ald), 60, guitarist with the Ann Arbor, Mich.–based rock band the Stooges, which, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, helped set the stage for the evolution of punk rock; the group’s drummer was his younger brother, Scott Asheton, while its lead singer was James Osterberg, better known as Iggy Pop; the group disbanded in 1974 but reunited in 2003, and toured widely over the next four years; born July 17, 1948, in Washington, D.C.; found dead Jan. 6 at his Ann Arbor home; toxicological tests were being conducted to try to determine the cause of death. MONTALBAN, Ricardo (Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Mexican-born stage, Montalban y Merino), 88,

screen and television actor; though he appeared in many Hollywood movies, from the late 1940s on, and was active in the theater, including on Broadway, he often complained about having been restricted to typically Latino or ethnic roles, and, in 1968, helped found an organization, Nosotros, to combat such typecasting; perhaps his best-known role was that of the debonair, white-suited television character Mr. Roarke, who presided over an imaginary tropical resort in the “Fantasy Island” series (1978–84); his sidekick on that show was a character named Tattoo, portrayed by diminutive, French-born actor Herve Villechaize, who committed suicide in 1993; during that era, Montalban was also the TV pitchman for the Cordoba, a luxury car introduced by Chrysler, whose seats, he claimed, were upholstered in “soft, Corinthian leather”; this became a bit of a joke, especially after people found out that there was no such thing as Corinthian leather; born Nov. 25, 1920, in Mexico City; died Jan. 14 at his home in Los Angeles, after battling congestive heart failure. [See 2003, p. 628C2; 2002, p. 680C2; 1993, p. 676F3; Indexes 1988, 1982, 1973, 1968–69, 1966, 1964, 1962, 1960, 1957, 1955, 1952, 1950] NEUHAUS, Richard John, 72, Canadian-born theologian who in the 1960s was a Lutheran pastor prominent in the U.S. civil rights and antiwar movements; in the 1970s, he veered rightward politically and in 1980 he became a registered Republican and backed the successful presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan; thereafter, religious conservatives became an increasingly powerful national political force; he advised President George W. Bush on religious issues, including faith-based initiatives, which gave federal funding to religious organizations that provided social services; having converted to Roman Catholicism in 1990, he was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1991; he was the author or editor of a number of influential books about the role of religion in society, notably The Naked Public Square (1984); born May 14, 1936, in Pembroke, Ontario; died Jan. 8 at a hospital in New York City, of a systemic infection that developed soon after he was diagnosed with cancer in November 2007. [See 1980, p. 819E2; 1969, pp. 242D3, 216F1; Index 1964] n

January 15, 2009

Obama Takes Oath of Office as 44th President; Biden Sworn in as Vice President First Black President Succeeds Bush.

Barack Hussein Obama Jan. 20 took the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States, succeeding George Walker Bush and putting the White House back in Democratic hands after a two-term Republican presidency. Obama, 47, the biracial son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, became the first black president of the U.S. [See p. 29B1; 2008, p. 801A1; for the text of Obama’s inaugural address, see p. 27A1; for a biography of Obama, see 2008, p. 583A1] Obama delivered an 18-and-a-halfminute inaugural address reminding the nation that it faced great challenges both at home and abroad, with an economic recession resulting from a global financial crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a continuing threat from the international Islamist terrorist network Al Qaeda. Calling for “a new era of responsibility,” he declared that the U.S. could meet all challenges if it drew on the values that had sustained it since its founding. Standing on a platform at the West Front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., before a crowd of well over one million people on the National Mall, Obama took the oath of office from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. just after noon, Eastern standard time. He placed his left hand on a Bible used for the swearing-in of President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. His wife, Michelle Obama, held the Bible, as their daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, looked on. There was some confusion between Obama and Roberts over the wording of the oath. Obama began his response before Roberts finished reciting the first phrase. Then Roberts asked Obama if he swore “that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully,” mangling

the wording in the Constitution, which read, “That I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.” Obama paused to allow Roberts to correct himself. Roberts then attempted to do so, prompting, “Faithfully the office of president of the United States.” Obama responded, still inaccurately, “The office of president of the United States faithfully.” Constitutional scholars mostly said there was scant basis for doubting the validity of the oath, but some suggested that it would be prudent of Obama to retake it. Roberts Jan. 21 readministered the oath correctly to Obama at the White House, this time without a Bible, before a small group of officials and reporters. Six of Obama’s predecessors had taken the oath twice. Calvin Coolidge had repeated the oath in private in 1923 amid doubts about the qualifications of his father, who had initially sworn him in after the death of President Warren Harding. In 1881, Chester Arthur took the oath in New York City following the assassination of James Garfield, and again in a public ceremony upon arriving in Washington. Four other presidents, because their inaugurations fell on a Sunday, were sworn in privately and repeated the oath in a public ceremony the following day. Minutes before Obama took the oath Jan. 20, former Sen. Joseph Biden (D, Del.) was sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Rev. Rick Warren, minister of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in Lake Forest, Calif., delivered the invocation, calling Obama’s inauguration as the first black president a “hinge-point of history.” Obama’s choice of Warren for the role had drawn criticism from liberal groups that cited Warren’s opposition to gay rights and abortion rights. Some ob-

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3553 January 22, 2009

B servers suggested that the choice of the Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire to lead a prayer at an official Jan. 18 preinaugural concert was intended to assuage those concerns. Robinson was a gay man whose consecration as a bishop had caused controversy in the Episcopal Church. [See 2008, pp. 936C3, 916A2] Opinion polls published Jan. 18 showed a high level of positive public expectations for Obama’s presidency, among them a New York Times/CBS News poll in which 79% of respondents said they were “optimistic” about it. Speech Focuses on Sobering Tasks—

In his speech, Obama delivered a sobering message on the daunting tasks that faced his administration and the nation, but warned against “a sapping of confidence across our land.” He declared, “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real,”

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Obama takes oath of office as 44th president; Biden sworn in as vice president; first black president succeeds Bush. PAGE 25

Obama reverses policies.

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Cecilio Ricardo/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images

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White House staff pay frozen, lobbying rules tightened. PAGE 29

Clinton confirmed as secretary of state. PAGE 29

Cease-fire ends Gaza Strip fighting; Israelis pull out; death toll placed at 1,300. PAGE 30

U.S. government aids Bank of America. PAGE 32

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Crippled jet lands safely in Hudson River. PAGE 33

Rwanda arrests Congolese Tutsi rebel leader. PAGE 34

Chinese GDP growth slowed in 2008. PAGE 35

North Korean ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim reported. PAGE 35

Russia-Ukraine gas standoff ends. PAGE 37 Barack Obama, with his wife Michelle Obama at his side, being sworn in as the 44th president of the U.S. Jan. 20 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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adding, “They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.” He said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” He signaled a pragmatic, rather than ideological, approach to public policy, saying, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” Obama paid tribute to American values: “honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity.” He said, “This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.” That was the only direct reference in his speech to his making history as the first black president. Signals Repudiation of Bush Legacy—

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Certain lines in Obama’s speech stood out as apparent repudiations of controversial parts of Bush’s legacy. In the first part of his speech, as he outlined his plans for reviving the economy, Obama vowed, “We will restore science to its rightful place.” That was taken to be a reference to Bush’s record of placing religious concerns above scientific ones on several key issues, such as the restrictions he had imposed on embryonic stem-cell research. [See 2007, p. 397G2] Then, as he turned to national security, Obama said, “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.” That was seen as an implicit criticism of Bush’s authorization of antiterrorism policies including harsh interrogation practices that had been condemned as torture, the prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the secret warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens’ telephone calls. Obama had pledged that one of his first executive orders would be to close Guantanamo. [See p. 28G1] However, Obama said there was plenty of blame to go around for the present economic crisis, citing “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” In a message to “all other peoples and governments who are watching today,” Obama said, “Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.” However, he also vowed to confront the nation’s enemies, warning, “For those for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

Inauguration Performances—The inaugural ceremonies, presided over by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.), featured several performances. Aretha Franklin, joined by a gospel choir, sang “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” Violinist Yitzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero played a new work by the composer John Williams, “Air and Simple Gifts,” based on a Shaker song that was also used in Aaron Copland’s 1944 ballet Appalachian Spring. The New York Times Jan. 22 reported on its Web site that the music heard at the inauguration was actually a recording made two days earlier by the quartet due to a judgment that the cold weather would make it impossible to keep instruments in tune. The members of the quartet said they had played along with the recording note for note, but their instruments were not amplified. Poet Elizabeth Alexander read a poem for the occasion, entitled, “Praise Song for the Day.” Rev. Joseph Lowery, a prominent leader in the 1960s civil rights movement, delivered a poetic benediction, urging racial reconciliation in rhyming cadences. Among the special guests seated behind Obama on the West Front was his stepgrandmother, Sarah Obama, 86, who had traveled from her home in Kisumu, his father’s ancestral village in Kenya, with other relatives. Obama was the first son of an immigrant to become president since James Buchanan, the son of an Irishman, who took office in 1857. After the ceremonies, the Obamas and Bidens led the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, emerging from their limousines to walk part of the way. The Obamas that night attended all 10 official inaugural balls. Obama’s inaugural committee had raised $41 million for the events, reviving the question of whether such private contributions—which were unlimited by law, unlike campaign contributions—gave big donors improper influence over the new president. In December 2008, the inaugural committee had announced that it was setting a $50,000 maximum for individual contributions, and would not accept money from corporations, lobbyists, non–U.S. citizens or political action committees. Bushes Depart for Texas—Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, left the inauguration ceremony in a U.S. Marine helicopter that took off from the East Front of the Capitol as the Obamas and Bidens waved from the steps. The Bushes had welcomed both couples to the White House for coffee that morning before the inauguration. The helicopter took the Bushes to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where they boarded a presidential airplane that flew them to Midland, Texas, where they were greeted by about 20,000 supporters. The former president said, “Tonight, I have the privilege of saying six words that I have been waiting to say for a while: It is good to be home.” He and his wife then returned to their ranch in Crawford, Texas. They had recently bought a house in Dallas

to serve as their main residence, close to Southern Methodist University, the future site of Bush’s presidential library and museum. [See 2008, p. 952F3] Former Vice President Dick Cheney attended the inauguration in a wheelchair, after reportedly pulling a back muscle while moving personal belongings to his new home in McLean, Va. After the inauguration, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) suffered a seizure during a congressional luncheon for Obama at the Capitol. Obama was among those who rushed to his side. Kennedy was taken by ambulance to Washington Hospital Center, and was released the next day. Kennedy, 76, had been undergoing treatment for brain cancer since it was diagnosed in May 2008. His early endorsement had helped clear Obama’s path to the Democratic presidential nomination. [See 2008, p. 375F2] First Cabinet Members Confirmed—After his inauguration, Obama Jan. 20 formally nominated the members of his cabinet. The Senate, which had already held confirmation hearings for most of the cabinet-level nominees, that day voted by unanimous consent to confirm seven of them. They were Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag. The highest-profile nominee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.), chosen for secretary of state, was confirmed a day later. Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas) had forced a delay for additional debate and a roll call vote, rather than a voice vote, on her nom(Continued on p. 28A1)

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FACTS ON FILE

TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Following is a transcript of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inaugural address: [See p. 25A1] My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank [former] President [George W.] Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans. That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights. Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction. This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions—that time has surely passed. Remaking America Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action: bold

January 22, 2009

and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its costs. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do. Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage. What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public’s knowledge will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government. Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched. But this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart—not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. Safety and Ideals As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more. Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint. We are the keepers of this legacy, guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We’ll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hardearned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we’ll work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you. For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth. And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering

in a new era of peace. To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it. Values and Responsibility As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service: a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment, a moment that will define a generation, it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all. For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate. Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship. This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny. This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed, why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall. And why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. So let us mark this day in remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.” America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

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ination. Cornyn cited the potential for conflicts of interest between her responsibilities as secretary of state and the global fund-raising of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for his charitable foundation. [See p. 29F2] Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Jan. 20 signed an order halting all pending federal regulations issued by the Bush administration until the Obama administration had time to subject them to a “legal and policy review.” President Ronald Reagan upon taking office in 1981 had started a recent practice of ordering such a review after a transfer of executive power from one party to the other. On the day before his inauguration, Obama marked Martin Luther King Day by contributing community service, helping to paint the interior of a shelter for homeless teenagers in Washington. He had called on his supporters across the nation to perform similar service that day. Obama Jan. 19 also visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and took part in a dinner honoring Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), his defeated Republican opponent in the presidential election. Obama and his family Jan. 17 had taken a whistle-stop train ride from Philadelphia, Pa., to Washington, following the route Lincoln had taken to his first inauguration. They were joined by Biden and his family in Wilmington, Del. Security Measures— The inauguration was held under elaborate security measures, with more than 35,000 civilian and military personnel standing guard and roads and bridges in the Washington area shut down. Thousands of people with tickets for designated viewing areas near the Capitol reportedly were caught in bottlenecks at checkpoints for several hours. U.S. counterterrorism officials Jan. 20 said they had investigated a threat of “uncertain credibility” against the inaugural events. The threat was attributed to Al Shabab, a radical Islamist insurgent group in Somalia that was said to be an affiliate of Al Qaeda. The Homeland Security Department said Obama’s transition team had been briefed on the threat. [See 2008, p. 972E3] The inauguration drew relatively few protesters, and no arrests were reported, although Bush and Cheney drew jeers from the crowd when they were introduced, and when Bush’s helicopter departed. n

Obama Administration Obama Reverses Bush Terrorism Policies.

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President Barack Obama Jan. 22 signed executive orders that mandated the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by Jan. 22, 2010, and restricted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the same interrogation tactics used by the military against terrorism detainees, among other orders. The signing of the orders effectively rolled back a series of pol28

icies instituted by the Bush administration as part of its so-called war on terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. [See p. 25A1; 2008, p. 958D3] At the public ceremony marking the signing of the orders, Obama said that, under his administration, “the United States will not torture” and suggested that “the orders that I signed today should send an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be as just as our cause.” White House counsel Gregory Craig Jan. 21 had briefed members of Congress about the contents of the planned orders. The move was praised by civil liberties activists and some congressional Democrats, including 2004 presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), who said Obama’s actions had made it “a great day for the rule of law.” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R, Mich.) criticized the move, saying that the changes had placed “hope ahead of reality” and asked what would be done with alleged Sept. 11, 2001, plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “and his fellow terrorist conspirators—offer them jail cells in American communities?” The administration did not say it had decided whether prisoners would be held inside the U.S. or if they would be released or charged. A poll conducted Jan. 13–16 by ABC News and the Washington Post found that 53% of U.S. residents opposed continuing to hold terrorism detainees at Guantanamo, versus 42% who favored continued their detention there. In addition, the poll found that 62% of those opposing continued detentions at the military prison were in favor of trying detainees in the U.S. court system rather than deporting the prisoners to their home countries to face trial. Orders Affect Interrogations, Prisons—

Under the new executive orders, all legal opinions concerning interrogation policy that were written by Bush administration lawyers between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22 were no longer to be treated as valid by any government employee, effectively rejecting multiple Bush administration claims about the president’s executive authority to hold terrorism detainees without trial during wartime. Analysts said that the change was largely symbolic, since many of the Bush administration’s more extreme claims had previously been reversed. The orders also required all government interrogators to use only the 19 noncoercive, nonviolent tactics set down in the publicly available Army Field Manual. The CIA had previously argued that the Army Field Manual techniques were too restrictive for its purposes, and had been exempted from adhering to the manual by Bush in 2007. The CIA was also ordered to close its international system of secret prisons for terrorism suspects as part of Obama’s executive orders. However, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee for national intelligence director, Jan. 22 left open the possibility that separate protocols to be established for intelligence agency interrogators might ultimately include certain techniques beyond those permitted in

the Army manual. The use of coercive techniques like waterboarding had reportedly been ruled out. The executive orders established multiple cabinet-level task forces intended to review Bush administration antiterrorism policies. The task forces would examine general U.S. detainee policy; inspect the CIA’s use of extraordinary rendition (in which terrorism suspects were secretly abducted and transferred between countries); review all remaining detainees at Guantanamo and make recommendations about whether they should be released or charged; and consider whether long-term CIA interrogation guidelines should differ from military interrogation guidelines in light of their separate missions. Following his inauguration as president, Obama Jan. 20 had ordered military prosecutors at Guantanamo to request 120-day delays in all pending hearings in order to allow the new administration time to consider its options and to review the cases of detainees who had been charged. Experts said that the Obama administration’s attempts to review the cases against all remaining detainees could be complicated by the detainee files left behind by the Bush administration, which reportedly contained many gaps and omissions. [See 2008, p. 902D3] One of Obama’s orders mandated a separate review of the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a U.S. legal resident who had been held since 2003 without trial at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler Jan. 22 asked the Supreme Court for a 30-day delay in the deadline for the government’s brief on a lawsuit filed by al-Marri’s lawyers contesting his continued detention, in order to allow the administration to formulate its position on the lawsuit. [See 2008, p. 903E1] Six Detainees Released—The Defense Department Jan. 17 announced that it had transferred six detainees from Guantanamo to their home countries, reducing the number of detainees still held at the prison to 244. One of the detainees, Haji Bismullah of Afghanistan, had been released after new information led an internal review panel at Guantanamo to conclude that he was not an enemy combatant; the other five detainees were transferred despite their status as enemy combatants. Four of the detainees were returned to Iraq, while Bismullah was sent to Afghanistan and another detainee was sent to Algeria. Ex-Detainee Alleges Mistreatment—The New York Times reported Jan. 6 that former Guantanamo detainee Muhammad Saad Iqbal had accused the U.S. government of mistreating him during his six years in U.S. custody. The Times reported that he had been held despite a lack of compelling evidence against him. He had been returned to his home country of Pakistan in August 2008. Iqbal had been captured in Indonesia in 2002 and had been sent by the U.S. to Egypt for interrogation, where he said he was drugged and subjected to repeated electric shocks. He was subsequently held FACTS ON FILE

and questioned at the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he claimed to have been subjected to sleep deprivation for more than six months, and then moved to Guantanamo in 2003. Iqbal Jan. 18 held a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, to demand U.S. compensation for his imprisonment, which he said had left him with continuing medical problems. n Staff Pay Frozen, Lobbying Rules Tightened.

President Barack Obama on his first full day in office Jan. 21 froze the salaries of his highest-paid staffers and imposed stricter limits on members of his administration who resigned to become lobbyists. He also issued orders to make administration records more easily accessible to requests for information from the public. [See p. 25A1] At a swearing-in ceremony for senior White House officials, Obama said the new rules symbolized the values he wanted his administration to display, declaring, “Transparency and rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.” Good-government advocates hailed the moves, calling the lobbying restrictions broader than any previous administration’s. The promise of less secrecy was called a sharp break from the Bush administration, which had frequently resisted requests for the disclosure of information. The salary freeze would affect White House officials who made more than $100,000 a year. Alluding to the current economic recession, Obama said, “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington.” Under the new lobbying rules, former Obama appointees in executive agencies would not be allowed to lobby the administration as long as Obama remained in office. Former lobbyists would not be allowed to work for federal agencies that they had lobbied within the past two years. Once they became eligible for an administration post, they would be required to recuse themselves from handling matters connected with their lobbying activities for a two-year period. Administration officials were also banned from accepting gifts from lobbyists. The new rules immediately complicated the confirmation processes of two highranking Obama nominees: William Lynn, nominated for deputy defense secretary, and William Corr, nominated for deputy health and human services secretary. Lynn had been a lobbyist for Raytheon Corp., a major defense contractor, and Corr had lobbied for a nonprofit group, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Corr reportedly had said he would recuse himself from tobacco issues. Obama aides acknowledged that both nominees were in violation of the new rules, but said waivers could be granted when doing so was deemed to be in the public interest. The Senate Armed Services Committee Jan. 22 postponed a confirmation vote for Lynn. Chairman Carl Levin (D, Mich.) said the committee would await word on “whether a waiver will be forthcoming and what the scope of the waiver will be.” Obama’s order on information disclosure reversed a 2001 order by President January 22, 2009

George W. Bush that gave federal agencies more leeway to ignore public requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Obama also declared that only the incumbent president had the authority to decide which records from previous administrations should be withheld from public disclosure. That reversed another Bush order that gave former presidents the right to claim executive privilege to prevent such disclosures. Holds Meeting on Iraq Pullout— Obama Jan. 21 also held an hour-long meeting with senior military and national security advisers, including Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the Middle East and Central Asia. The meeting reportedly focused on the Iraq war and Obama’s campaign pledge to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. Obama issued a statement saying that he had “asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq.” [See p. 38A1] Obama began the day in the Oval Office by reading a note left for him in the desk by former President George W. Bush. Then Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and their wives attended a National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Clergy from a range of faiths offered prayers, including several Christian denominations, Jews, Muslims and a Hindu. Obama to Continue Using E-Mail—

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Jan. 22 said Obama and his top aides had reached a compromise that would allow the president to keep using his BlackBerry handheld e-mail device “to keep in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends.” Gibbs added that “use will be limited” and the security of the device would be “enhanced.” Obama had been an enthusiastic user of his BlackBerry during the presidential campaign, but aides had raised concerns that e-mails he sent and received as president would be vulnerable to theft by hackers. They also warned that his e-mails would be considered presidential records and, as such, would be subject to eventual public disclosure. For that reason, none of Obama’s predecessors since the advent of e-mail had used it to communicate. n Clinton Confirmed as Secretary of State.

The Senate Jan. 21 voted, 94–2, to confirm former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.) as secretary of state. Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and David Vitter (La.) cast the two votes against her. Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas) had demanded a roll call vote, rather than a voice vote, and additional debate on the nomination, arguing that there were still questions about conflicts of interests related to Bill Clinton’s international fund-raising for his charitable foundation. [See p. 16A1] Mitchell, Holbrooke Named Envoys— In a ceremony at the State Department attend-

ed by Obama and Biden, Clinton Jan. 22 introduced two special envoys, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D, Maine) and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke. Mitchell would be responsible for ArabIsraeli affairs, while Holbrooke would handle Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mitchell, 75, had brokered the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland, ending the decades-old sectarian conflict between the mostly Roman Catholic republicans, who sought to end British rule, and the mostly Protestant unionists, who were loyal to Britain. [See 1998, p. 245A1] Mitchell had also chaired an international commission that investigated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2000–01 and made recommendations on how to resolve it. [See 2001, p. 525A1] Holbrooke, 67, was a veteran diplomat best known for brokering the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. [See 1995, p. 865A1]

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Transportation Pick Quizzed, Confirmed—

Former Rep. Ray LaHood (R, Ill.), President Barack Obama’s choice for transportation secretary, Jan. 22 was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote. LaHood Jan. 21 had appeared before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where he pledged to work toward developing an improved labor contract for air traffic controllers, modernize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and advocate for the increased funding of Amtrak. LaHood had served seven terms in the House, and became the first Republican member of Obama’s administration who was not a holdover from the previous one. [See 2008, p. 936B2] Some taxpayer advocacy groups raised questions about Lahood’s previous defense of earmarks, or funds for pet projects in lawmakers’ home districts, which ran contrary to Obama’s stated intention to curb them. According to a Jan. 14 Washington Post report, LaHood in 2008 had directed more than $8 million in federal funds toward projects that benefited Peoria, Ill.– based Caterpillar Inc., which produced construction and mining equipment. Caterpillar and its employees since 1998 had reportedly made more than $190,000 in campaign contributions to LaHood. LaHood had also been criticized for his ties to Illinois power broker William Cellini, head of the Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association. Cellini on Oct. 30, 2008, had been indicted by a federal grand jury for attempting to extort contributions for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) from a Chicagobased real estate investment firm. Cellini that day had asserted his innocence through a lawyer. [See p. 3D3; 1976, p. 597G2]

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Shinseki Confirmed for Veterans Post—

The Senate Jan. 20 confirmed by voice vote former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki as the Veterans Affairs (VA) secretary. Shinseki at a Jan. 14 hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs had pledged to reform the VA in order to provide proper care for the increasing number of wounded veterans from the wars in 29

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Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he would work to streamline and modernize the VA claims system and eliminate a massive backlog; restore benefits to many veterans who had lost them under the Bush administration; and secure appropriations bills to fund the department early, in order to alleviate delays and personnel shortages. [See 2008, p. 901C3] Senators at his confirmation hearing praised Shinseki for his testimony before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that the U.S. would need several hundred thousand troops to stabilize Iraq, far more than the Defense Department initially deployed. Donovan Confirmed as HUD Chief—

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The Senate Jan. 22 confirmed by voice vote Shaun Donovan, New York City’s housing commissioner, as the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary. Donovan at a Jan. 13 Senate Banking Committee hearing said that under his leadership, HUD would take a more active role in combatting the U.S.’s home foreclosure crisis and broader economic problems. Senators praised his qualifications for the job, and urged him to work to provide direct assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure and enact better oversight of the government-backed mortgage-financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [See 2008, p. 918F3] Other Confirmations—The Senate Jan. 22 unanimously confirmed Lisa Perez Jackson as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Mary Schapiro as chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Susan Rice as ambassador to the U.N. [See pp. 17B2, F3, 16A2] n Committee Approves Treasury Nominee.

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The Senate Finance Committee Jan. 22 voted, 18–5, to recommend that the full Senate confirm Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. The vote came after two days of hearings, in which senators grilled Geithner on his failure to pay $34,000 in payroll taxes for salary he had received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2001 and 2004. Geithner during his hearing Jan. 21 said, “These were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes. But they were unintentional.” [See p. 17C1] Geithner Jan. 21 said the administration of President Barack Obama would take “dramatic” steps to resolve an ongoing crisis in financial markets, saying, “In a crisis of this magnitude, the most prudent course is the most forceful course.” He promised to unveil a “comprehensive plan” in the coming weeks to encourage banks and other financial institutions to resume lending amidst a freeze in credit markets. Without providing specific details, Geithner said he would “reshape and redesign” a $700 billion financial rescue package enacted in October 2008, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Bush administration, which had already allocated more than half of the TARP funds, had been widely criticized by lawmakers for sending confusing signals to markets 30

and failing to stimulate lending. Geithner said he would offer a “clear plan.” Geithner Jan. 21 said he would consider a proposal to create a so-called “bad bank,” which would use TARP funds to purchase distressed assets from financial institutions. Many of those assets were backed by mortgages, and had seen their value plummet after the housing market entered a slump in 2006. Those assets were now virtually unsalable on the market, and weighed heavily on bank balance sheets, leading to large losses. Some senators said Geithner was uniquely qualified to become Treasury secretary, given his deep familiarity with the financial crisis and his close involvement with the government’s efforts to address it. However, some Republican critics identified him with the regulatory failures that contributed to the crisis and the shortcomings of the Bush administration’s response. Geithner also drew attention for saying, in written testimony submitted to the committee Jan. 22, that Obama believed that China was “manipulating” its currency, the yuan. The U.S. had long pressed China, which controlled the value of the yuan against the U.S. dollar, to allow it to rise from what critics called an artificially low level that made China’s exports cheaper and increased its trade surplus. But Geithner’s comment broke with an unspoken policy of the Bush administration, which had refrained from overtly accusing China of currency manipulation over fears that it would unnecessarily antagonize a major trading partner and the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities. Geithner said Obama would “use aggressively all the diplomatic avenues open to him to seek change in China’s currency practices.” Geithner said, “The question is how and when to broach the subject in order to do more good than harm.” Geithner did not say he would officially label China a currency manipulator in the Treasury’s annual currency report, due in the spring. Such a move would require the administration to take legal steps against China. Analysts said a tougher stance on China’s trade policies would please U.S. labor unions and manufacturers. However, they also said it could cool relations between the two countries at a time when the U.S. was dependent on Chinese Treasury bond purchases to fund its economic recovery plans. n Holder Confirmation Vote Delayed. Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee Jan. 21 used a procedural rule to force a one-week delay of the advance of attorney general nominee Eric Holder’s confirmation vote to the full Senate. Holder, who had served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, was still expected to be confirmed by the Senate. [See p. 16E2] Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.) said the delay would allow Republicans to ask Holder additional questions, suggesting that they had not been given sufficient time to probe his record. Republicans had raised concerns about Holder’s role in the 2001 pardoning of fugitive businessman Marc Rich,

as well as Holder’s views on the legality of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) said Holder was an important part of President Barack Obama’s national security team, adding that he was “extremely disappointed” with the delay. The position was currently filled by Acting Attorney General Mark Filip. Holder Criticized, Supported— Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Louis Freeh Jan. 16 testified before the committee on the second day of hearings connected to Holder’s nomination. He said Holder had been “used and co-opted” by Clinton in connection with the Rich pardon, which Freeh had opposed and called a “corrupt act,” but said he believed Holder would “never allow himself again to be put in that position.” Holder had previously admitted that he had failed to adequately study the proposed pardon, but suggested that he had learned from his mistake. The committee Jan. 16 heard testimony from witnesses opposed to Holder’s confirmation, including a man whose father had been killed in 1975 by members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican nationalist group that carried out terrorist attacks in New York City and Chicago. Under Clinton, Holder had signed off on the commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN members who had not been convicted of crimes that involved killed or wounded victims. n

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Cease-fire Ends Gaza Strip Fighting Israelis Pull Out; Death Toll Placed at 1,300.

Israel Jan. 17 announced that it would impose a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, effective 2:00 a.m. local time the following day. The Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the territory, Jan. 18 also said it would observe a cease-fire, ending the 22-day war between Israel and Hamas. Israeli troops Jan. 21 finished withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. [See p. 13A1] Israel Jan. 3 had invaded the Gaza Strip, with the stated aim of stopping Hamas from firing rockets into southern Israel. Israeli planes and ships had been bombarding Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip since Dec. 27, 2008. The United Nations Jan. 19 reported that, according to Gazan health officials, 1,314 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli offensive, including 412 children and 110 women. The death toll was reportedly likely to increase as more victims were unearthed from collapsed buildings. About 5,000 Palestinians were reported to have been wounded. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians and a soldier slain by rockets before the ground invasion began. Combat Continues Before Cease-fire—

Fighting had continued in Gaza Jan. 16–17 before the cease-fire was announced. There FACTS ON FILE

was a fierce battle Jan. 16 between Israeli tanks and Palestinian militants in Gaza City’s southwestern Tal Al Hawa neighborhood, reportedly killing several dozen Palestinians. Palestinians that day also reported that a shell had hit a house of mourning in the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, killing at least 10 people, and that a mother and five children had been killed in the Bureij refugee camp. Israeli tanks Jan. 17 fired on a U.N. school in the northern town of Beit Lahiyah, killing two young brothers and injuring their mother and 13 others. U.N. officials called for a probe into whether Israel had committed a war crime in targeting the school, which was housing 1,600 Gazan refugees. The Israeli military promised an investigation but said its soldiers had been defending themselves. It was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks that had hit U.N. facilities or personnel. Khaled Meshal, the Hamas political leader in exile in Damascus, Syria, Jan. 16 called for Palestinians to continue fighting against Israel, and said those Arab countries that had ties with Israel should break them off to protest the offensive. Qatar and Mauritania in response ceased all their relations with Israel. Also that day, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Israel’s closest ally in the region, said Israel should be ejected from the U.N. for disregarding a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire, and for shelling the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza City the previous day. Israel, U.S. Sign Antismuggling Pact—

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Jan. 16 signed a “memorandum of understanding” in Washington, D.C., aimed at stopping Hamas’s smuggling of weapons through tunnels underneath the GazaEgypt border. Under the agreement, the U.S. would provide technical assistance and work with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to block smugglers. Britain, Germany and France also agreed to cooperate in the antismuggling efforts. The agreement called for the deployment of international monitors. However, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Egypt would not be bound by the agreement and objected to foreign monitors being stationed on its soil. Israel had bombed the tunnels heavily during the offensive, and keeping Hamas from using them to rearm was one of the main Israeli demands for a long-term truce. Israeli officials said they had destroyed about 80% of the tunnels. In addition to importing weapons, smugglers also used tunnels to bring in civilian goods, circumventing an Israeli blockade of the territory. Israeli Cease-fire Announced— Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert late Jan. 17 in a televised address announced the ceasefire. He said Israel had “reached all the goals of the war,” showing its deterrent power and severely punishing Hamas. Olmert warned that if Hamas continued to January 22, 2009

fire rockets, “the Israeli army will regard itself as free to respond with force.” However, if Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, he said Israel would “consider leaving Gaza at a time that is suitable to us.” Olmert in his speech did not address whether Israel would accept any provisions of a cease-fire proposal being negotiated between Hamas and the Egyptian government, although he thanked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for his diplomatic efforts. Israel did not negotiate directly with Hamas because it considered the group to be a terrorist organization. Hamas officials criticized Israel for disregarding the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire proposal, and said they would continue fighting until Israeli forces had completely withdrawn from Gaza. Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel after the Israeli cease-fire took effect and before Hamas adopted its own cease-fire. Hamas Gives Israel a Week to Withdraw—

Hamas Jan. 18 announced that it would participate in the cease-fire, and gave Israel seven days to withdraw its troops from Gaza. Hamas officials earlier in the day had said they would not stop fighting until Israel withdrew its troops, opened Gaza border crossings and ended its blockade of the territory. However, Israel ignored the demands, and Hamas ordered the cease-fire later that day anyway. Both sides declared victory: Israeli politicians claimed they had dealt a serious blow to Hamas, while Hamas said it had survived a prolonged assault by the overwhelming might of the Israeli army. A Hamas leader in Damascus, Moussa Abu Marzouk, Jan. 18 in a televised statement said the organization would continue to negotiate with Egypt to end the blockade of Gaza. Israeli troops Jan. 18 began pulling out from Gaza, and had completed their withdrawal by Jan. 21. It had previously been reported that Israel was trying to complete the withdrawal before the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. There were scattered violations of the cease-fire Jan. 19–20, as Palestinian militants reportedly fired on Israeli troops or launched mortar shells at Israel, and Israeli troops returned fire. Gazans Jan. 18 began to emerge from cover and survey the damage to the territory. Over 100 corpses were exhumed that day from collapsed buildings, and 14 more were discovered Jan. 19. Gazan officials said over 4,000 buildings had been destroyed by the fighting, and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said total property damage amounted to $1.9 billion. Reconstruction Aid Disputed— European and Arab leaders Jan. 18 met in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to press for a more permanent truce. The European Union pledged to aid in rebuilding Gaza, but EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner Jan. 19 refused to funnel reconstruction funds through Hamas. Hamas had reportedly been paying compensation to Gazans who had been injured or who had lost family

members or their homes, in a bid to increase its popularity in the territory. Olmert Jan. 20 said Israel would not allow aid to enter Gaza if it would be controlled by Hamas. Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Kuwait Jan. 19 promised $1 billion in reconstruction aid. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Jan. 20 visited Gaza, where he described the Israeli invasion as an “outrageous and totally unacceptable attack.” He called on Israel to open the Gaza border crossings, and said they could be patrolled by a third party, such as the EU or Turkey, in order to prevent arms smuggling. However, Livni said the blockade would not end until Hamas released Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by the group in 2006.

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Obama Pledges Mideast Engagement—

Obama in a speech Jan. 22 promised that the U.S. would “actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” He said that in order for the truce to hold, Hamas had to stop its rocket fire into Israel; Israel had to completely withdraw its forces and open the Gaza crossings; and the U.S. and its allies had to “support a credible antismuggling and interdiction regime, so that Hamas cannot rearm.” Obama also said, “I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza.” It was his first public statement on the situation in Gaza. Obama the same day announced his appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell (D, Maine) as his special diplomatic envoy to the Middle East. [See p. 29G2] n

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United Nations Court Finds U.S. Execution Violated Ruling.

The United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, Jan. 19 unanimously ruled that the August 2008 execution of Mexican citizen Jose Medellin by the U.S. state of Texas violated a 2004 ICJ ruling. That ruling had called for Medellin and 50 other Mexican nationals to have their cases reconsidered by U.S. courts. The prisoners had been tried without being allowed access to legal help from Mexican consulates in the U.S., in apparent violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. [See 2008, p. 518A3] In the new ruling, the ICJ ordered U.S. courts to consider whether the cases of the 50 remaining Mexican nationals had been negatively affected by a lack of access to consular legal advice. Experts said that the ruling was nonbinding and could be enforced only by the unanimous vote of the U.N. Security Council, of which the U.S. was a permanent member. U.S. President George W. Bush had attempted to block Medellin’s execution in order to avoid violating the ruling; however, the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2008 had ruled that Bush lacked the power to interfere with state courts. n 31

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U.S. government Jan. 16 agreed to buy $20 billion in stock from Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp., as the bank struggled to complete its $50 billion acquisition of New York City–based brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. The government also agreed to partially guarantee against losses some $118 billion worth of Bank of America’s assets. With the latest agreement, the government since October 2008 had provided Bank of America with $45 billion in capital injections. [See p. 15C2] Bank of America had been hobbled by larger-than-expected losses at Merrill, which that day said it would record a $15.3 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, its last quarter as an independent company. The losses stemmed from write-downs on the value of a wide variety of assets, most of which were backed by mortgages from the slumping housing market or other loans. Bank of America that day posted its own fourth-quarter loss of $1.79 billion. Bank of America had claimed that the extent of Merrill’s losses had only been revealed after shareholders voted to approve the deal in early December 2008. The bank said the deterioration of Merrill’s assets had begun to accelerate in the second week of December, in tandem with broader financial markets. Despite those claims, Bank of America was criticized for failing to examine Merrill’s assets more closely in September 2008, when the acquisition was hastily arranged to prevent Merrill from entering bankruptcy. Bank of America Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman Kenneth Lewis Jan. 16 said he had considered canceling the purchase, but was persuaded that the deal’s dissolution would further destabilize fragile financial markets. He said, “I do think we were doing the right thing for the country.” Lewis had met with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. in midDecember, both of whom reportedly urged him to follow through on the deal and pledged government support. Bank of America Jan. 22 announced that former Merrill CEO John Thain had resigned from his position as chief of the combined company’s global banking and wealth-management unit. Thain, who had originally won plaudits for orchestrating Merrill’s sale, came under heavy criticism following Merrill’s fourth-quarter loss. Thain had also angered shareholders by approving bonus payments for Merrill employees before the deal with Bank of America was sealed Jan. 1, and about a month before Merrill normally issued bonuses, in what was seen as a move to prevent Bank of America from curtailing bonus payments. Thain was replaced by Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s general counsel. [See 2008, p. 955A1] Bank of America’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Jan. 22 ended at $5.71, down about 83% since September 2008. 32

Separately, Lewis Jan. 6 announced that he would forgo his 2008 bonus, becoming the latest banking executive to do so in the wake of large losses during the year. [See 2008, p. 953G3] Citigroup Posts Large Loss—New York City–based banking giant Citigroup Inc. Jan. 16 said it would record an $8.3 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, its fifth straight quarterly loss. Citigroup executives expected losses to continue in 2009, as an ongoing recession forced consumers to default on a wide array of loans. Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit that day unveiled a plan to split Citigroup into two entities, Citi Holdings and Citicorp. Citi Holdings would contain the bank’s unprofitable units and all the distressed assets on Citigroup’s books. Citicorp would then house profitable businesses that had been cleansed of those debilitating assets. But analysts remained skeptical that Citigroup could fully strip businesses of assets that had been spread throughout the financial system. Citigroup’s NYSE share price that day fell to $3.50, down 48% for the week. Rejecting widespread reports, Pandit that day said Citigroup was not “in a rush” to sell its more unprofitable units and dismantle a sprawling company that critics said was too unwieldy to manage. However, Citigroup Jan. 19 said its Nikko Cordial Securities brokerage, based in Japan, was up for sale. Citigroup Jan. 21 said Richard Parsons, a Citigroup board director and former chairman of media company Time Warner Inc., would succeed Sir Win Bischoff as the bank’s chairman. [See 2008, p. 828A3]

sures and had refused to answer many of the questions the committee had posed. [See p. 30D1; 2008, p. 901A1] The panel said the Treasury, which had thus far pledged more than half of the TARP’s funds to ailing financial institutions, had failed to encourage banks to resume lending amidst a freeze in credit markets. The panel said the Treasury had also failed to clarify how participating banks were using TARP money, leading to confusion among investors and consumers. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing TARP, Jan. 22 said he would require banks that received TARP aid to disclose how the funds had been spent. Barofsky’s statement came in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. The House Jan. 21 had voted, 260–166, to pass a bill that would place greater restrictions on how TARP funds were used. The bill would require banks to show that they were using TARP aid to increase lending, and compel the Treasury to use $40 billion in TARP funds to address the foreclosure crisis. The Senate, however, was not expected to consider the bill. The House Jan. 22 voted, 270–155, to block the release of the remaining TARP funds to President Barack Obama. The vote was symbolic, since the Senate the previous week had rejected a proposal to block the funds, allowing them to be released to the Obama administration. [See p. 14A3] n

Government Agrees to Sell IndyMac—

Caroline Kennedy Drops N.Y. Senate Bid.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Jan. 2 agreed to sell Pasadena, Calif.–based mortgage lender IndyMac Federal Bank (formerly known as IndyMac Bancorp) to a group of private investors for $13.9 billion. The FDIC had seized IndyMac in July 2008, after it collapsed due to losses on its mortgage assets. Under the terms of the deal, the FDIC would partially guarantee IndyMac’s mortgage portfolio against default. In return, the investor group, led by private-equity firm Dune Capital Management LP, would continue the FDIC’s loan-modification program, which was intended to help homeowners struggling to make their monthly payments. The FDIC, which insured consumer bank deposits, said the takeover of IndyMac could cost it as much as $9.4 billion. The FDIC, funded by premiums paid by the banking industry, had $34.6 billion in reserves at the end of the third quarter of 2008, down from $52.4 billion at the end of 2007. n

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy, Jan. 22 announced that she had withdrawn from consideration for the U.S. Senate seat that was being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.) due to her nomination as U.S. secretary of state. Gov. David Paterson (D) had the sole authority to name a replacement to fill Clinton’s seat until an election to be held in 2010. [See p. 29F2; 2008, p. 919D2] Kennedy issued a statement saying, “I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate.” Kennedy, 51, was a resident of New York City. She had sought to maintain her privacy for most of her adult life until emerging onto the national political stage in 2008 by endorsing the candidacy of then-Sen. Barack Obama (D, Ill.) for the Democratic presidential nomination and then helping to direct his search for a running mate. In December, Kennedy had announced her interest in Clinton’s Senate seat, despite having never run for elected office. She faced criticism that she was unqualified and motivated by a sense of family entitlement, particularly after her uncertain performance in a series of media interviews. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats, were seen as the two leading contenders for Paterson’s appointment after Kennedy dropped out. n

Treasury Financial Rescue Plan Criticized.

A five-member oversight panel created by Congress Jan. 9 released a report criticizing the Treasury Department for its handling of a $700 billion financial rescue package enacted in October 2008, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The panel reiterated several complaints it had made in a previous December 2008 report, saying the Treasury had not developed a clear strategy for stabilizing the financial system, had done little to stem a wave of home foreclo-

Politics

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Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Case Accepted. The Supreme Court Jan. 9 accepted the case Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Mukasey, in which it would consider the constitutionality of a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 5 of the law established so-called preclearance requirements, which mandated that any changes to voting procedures in nine states—Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia—and towns and counties in seven other states be approved by the Justice Department before they could be instituted. [See 2006, p. 572B2; 1965, p. 286B3] The preclearance requirements had been instituted mainly in the South in response to literacy tests and other schemes designed to prevent blacks from voting. They had originally been intended to last for only five years, but had instead been extended four times and had grown to apply to other minority groups. Gregory Coleman, a former Texas solicitor general, had brought the lawsuit against the Justice Department on behalf of a small municipality outside Austin, Texas, that did not exist at the time of the Voting Rights Act’s creation. Critics of the preclearance rules said they infringed on states’ sovereignty, and were a source of embarrassment to areas that had made strides in civil rights protections over the past 40 years. Other Cases Accepted—The high court Jan. 9 accepted three other cases. In Ricci v. DeStefano, the court would decide whether a civil service board in New Haven, Conn., was justified in throwing out the results of a civil service exam on which white firefighters significantly outperformed Hispanic and black firefighters. The court agreed to hear Horne v. Flores, in which it would consider a lower court ruling that Arizona had not spent enough money to aid residents attempting to overcome language barriers. In Iraq v. Beaty, the court would consider whether Iraqis who suffered under the regime of former President Saddam Hussein were entitled to remuneration from the current Iraqi government. The Justice Department had requested that the court hear the case and then rule that the current Iraqi government’s sovereignty granted it immunity from such claims. n

Accidents & Disasters Crippled Jet Lands Safely in Hudson River.

U.S. Airways Flight 1549, a commercial jet carrying 150 passengers and five crew members, Jan. 15 crash-landed in the Hudson River after both engines failed at an altitude of 3,200 feet (975 m), minutes after taking off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. All 155 people survived the water landing, and were quickly transported to land via nearby boats and ferries, which converged upon the sinking aircraft minutes after it landed. Some passengers were treated for hypothermia, but no major January 22, 2009

injuries were reported. [See 2006, p. 784A1; 1995, p. 736F2] It was widely reported that that the aircraft, an Airbus A320 twin-engine jetliner, was believed to have lost power in both engines after it struck a large flock of geese, and one or more were sucked into each engine. However, that conclusion had not yet been confirmed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which was investigating the accident. The pilot, Chesley Sullenberger III, had reported a “double bird strike” to aircraft controllers, and flew the disabled plane for about three and a half minutes in a path seeking to avoid densely populated New York City neighborhoods before splashing down in the icy waters of the Hudson. Witnesses and passengers described the crash-landing as controlled and smooth. After the landing and evacuation, the abandoned aircraft floated downstream to the southern end of the island of Manhattan, where it was moored and Jan. 17 pulled from the river. Investigators were able to recover cockpit voice recorders and the aircraft’s “black box” flight data recorder. The left engine had detached from the plane in the landing, but divers Jan. 21 located it about 50 feet underwater, and began making preparations to recover it. The same day, NTSB investigators said they had discovered a feather and “organic material” in the aircraft’s right engine. The NTSB was also investigating why the plane’s right engine had sustained a temporary power reduction during a Jan. 13 flight. However, the Wall Street Journal Jan. 21 reported that investigators did not think that incident was related to the Jan. 15 engine failure. A final NTSB report on the cause of the accident was not expected for several months. Sullenberger and the rest of the flight crew were lauded as heroes across the country in the days that followed the extraordinary water landing. Sullenberger had been a U.S. Airways pilot since 1980, and before that had served for seven years as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force after graduating from the Air Force Academy. He also ran an aviation-safety consulting firm. n

Environment Toxins Found High Near Coal Waste Spill.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Jan. 2 said water samples taken downriver from a coal waste spill in Tennessee showed the river had levels of arsenic greater than 100 times the acceptable amount, and five times the acceptable amount of lead. In late December, a retaining wall at the coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant, a power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) public utility, had burst, sending an estimated 5.4 million cubic yards (4.1 million cubic meters) of coal fly ash waste onto nearby land and into the Emory River, a tributary of the Tennessee River. [See 2008, p. 956G2] The EPA had previously said that water samples had shown elevated contaminant levels, but had not publicly released its data. The environmental group Appalachian Voices Jan. 1 had released the results

of its own tests of water downriver from the plant, which showed levels of several metals—including arsenic, lead and chromium—between two and 300 times higher than drinking water standards allowed. Activists said federal officials had failed to issue timely warnings regarding potential health dangers posed by the waste after the spill. TVA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tom Kilgore Jan. 8 said retaining walls at the Kingston plant had leaked twice in the past five years without being properly repaired. The Tennessee spill, thought to be the largest of its kind in U.S. history, had led to calls by environmentalists and some lawmakers for stricter regulation of waste ponds used to contain coal ash. Although waste from coal-fired power plants contained a range of toxins, the dumps that housed the material were subject to little or no federal regulation. Several studies had shown that exposure to coal waste caused a number of ailments in humans, including cancer and birth defects, and had devastated the ecosystems abutting the dumps. There were about 1,300 coal ash ponds similar to the one that broke in Tennessee across the U.S. Separately, up to 10,000 gallons (37,850 liters) of coal waste Jan. 9 spilled into a tributary of the Tennessee River from a waste pond at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant, near Stevenson, Ala. n

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tice Department Jan. 19 announced that President George W. Bush had commuted the prison sentences of two former Border Patrol officers who had been convicted of shooting an unarmed drug smuggler and attempting to cover up their actions. Bush did not comment on the commutations, which were the 10th and 11th of his presidency; he had also pardoned 190 people but later revoked one of the pardons. The actions were Bush’s final use of his authority to pardon and commute sentences. [See 2008, p. 959A2; 2007, p. 649C2] The two former agents, Igancio Ramos and Jose Compean, had been sentenced to 11 years and 12 years in prison, respectively, after being convicted of charges including violating their victim’s civil rights and assault with a firearm. The convictions of Ramos, 39, and Compean, 32, had been widely criticized by conservatives and anti-immigration groups. Following the commutations, Compean and Ramos were scheduled to be released from prison March 20 after serving two years and two months of their sentences. Bush left office without pardoning I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Nor did he, as some suggested he might, issue preemptive pardons to any administration figures involved in possible illegalities in its controversial antiterrorism policies. Bush had already commuted Libby’s two-and-ahalf-year sentence for perjury. Cheney Jan. 21 said he believed that Libby deserved a pardon. n 33

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Rwanda Arrests Congolese Tutsi Rebel Leader Move Comes Amid Joint Offensive. Rwandan authorities late Jan. 22 arrested former Congolese army Gen. Laurent Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi rebel leader who in August 2008 had launched an offensive against Congolese troops and ethnic Hutu militias in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The arrest came two days after as many as 4,000 Rwandan troops entered Congo’s eastern province of North Kivu, at the invitation of the Congolese government, and joined with Congolese forces in an operation against the Hutu militias, comprised mainly of Rwandan Hutu extremists who had fled that country after leading a genocide in 1994 that killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. [See 2008, p. 970E1] The arrest of Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), came as a surprise; it had been widely reported that he was being backed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan government. According to Rwandan and Congolese officials, he was arrested in Rwanda just over the Congo’s eastern border, after fleeing the joint offensive’s attack on his Congolese stronghold of Bunagana. Congo in 2005 had issued an international arrest warrant for Nkunda for atrocities allegedly committed by forces under his command in the eastern city of Bukavu in 2004. However, it was unclear whether Rwanda would turn him over to Congolese authorities. It was believed that about 2,000 fighters remained loyal to Nkunda. In the early 1990s, Nkunda had fought for the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Rwandan Tutsi rebel group that put a stop to the Rwandan genocide in July 1994 and drove the Hutu extremists into eastern Congo. (The leader of the RPF, Paul Kagame, was currently Rwanda’s president.) Nkunda then joined a Rwandan-backed Congolese rebel group led by Laurent Kabila—the father of current Congolese President Joseph Kabila—that ousted President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997. However, after assuming Congo’s presidency, Laurent Kabila broke with Rwanda, and Nkunda became a commander in another eastern Congo rebel group, the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for Democracy. The group eventually joined Congo’s coalition government at the end of that country’s 1998–2003 civil war, and Nkunda was given the position of general in Congo’s army. However, Nkunda never took up his army position, instead forming the CNDP, which he argued was needed to protect Tutsis in eastern Congo from the Hutu extremists. In late 2008, Nkunda’s forces launched an offensive that had routed the Congolese army, capturing a large swath of territory in eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda. The fighting exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that had existed in the region for years. At one point during the offensive, 34

Nkunda had appeared to widen his goals beyond protecting Congolese Tutsis, saying he wanted to “liberate” the entire country. In late December 2008, Nkunda’s representatives walked out of United Nations– brokered peace talks in Kenya, after refusing to agree to a cease-fire with government forces. Analysts said the arrest of Nkunda could have been linked to his opposition to the alliance formed by the governments of Congo and Rwanda to battle the Hutu militias, known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) or the Interhamwe. It was rumored that Congo had agreed to allow the Rwandan forces into its territory to pursue the FDLR and, in exchange, Rwanda had agreed to rein in Nkunda. (Rwandan forces had invaded Congo unilaterally twice in the late 1990s to pursue the Hutu extremists.) Nkunda had also been weakened by the Jan. 16 defection of his chief of staff, Bosco Ntaganda, who said he and his followers would join the Congolese army’s fight against the FDLR due to “a failure of political leadership” on the part of Nkunda. Ntaganda in 2008 had been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, for forcibly conscripting child soldiers between July 2002 and December 2003, and some observers speculated that he had agreed to join the army in exchange for protection from ICC prosecution by Congo’s government. Also, Ntaganda had allegedly been in charge of CNDP troops that were accused of massacring civilians in the eastern Congolese town of Kiwanja in November 2008. [See 2008, pp. 970E2, 361E3] Rwandan Forces Hunt Hutu Militias—

The Jan. 20 crossing of Rwandan troops into Congo was touted by both governments as an offensive to wipe out the FDLR, which was believed to number about 6,000 fighters. The joint offensive marked a shift in alliances in the region; Congo and Rwanda had previously had tense relations, with Rwanda accusing Congo’s government of supporting the FDLR and Congo in turn pointing to Rwanda’s alleged support of Nkunda’s forces. A December 2008 United Nations report had cited evidence of those accusations, reportedly embarrassing both governments. [See 2008, p. 970A2] As the fighting intensified and the humanitarian situation worsened in late 2008, the two governments reportedly reached an agreement to take decisive action against the armed groups that had been roaming eastern Congo with near impunity. A Congolese military spokesman Jan. 20 said the offensive was expected to last only 10 to 15 days, and would be commanded by the Congolese army. All groups operating in the region—including the Congolese army—had been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including mass rape, conscripting child soldiers, and the looting and destruction of villages. Also, all sides had also been accused of plundering eastern Congo’s vast mineral resources; many analysts said con-

trol of those resources was at the root of the conflict. The invitation extended to Rwandan forces by the government of Congolese President Joseph Kabila was criticized by some Congolese politicians, who cited Rwanda’s support for previous Congolese rebel movements that had committed atrocities, as well as its two invasions of eastern Congo in the 1990s. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo—the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC)—which numbered about 17,000 troops, Jan. 20 said it had not been informed of the operation. MONUC Jan. 22 called for a role in the offensive, saying its presence was needed to protect civilians. n

Africa News in Brief Central African Republic: New Cabinet Set.

Central African Republic President Francois Bozize Jan. 18 dissolved the government, paving the way for the formation of a new unity administration that had been agreed to at a national peace conference in December 2008. Bozize Jan. 19 reappointed Faustin-Archange Touadera as prime minister. Touadera later that day named a new cabinet that included two rebel leaders—one of them being Francois Naouyama of the Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy, who became minister of environment and ecology. Two opposition leaders were also named to the new cabinet. Fewer than one-third of the previous ministers retained their posts. However, the radical opposition Union of Active Forces of the Nation (UFVN) coalition refused to join the government. Also, the defense ministry Jan. 20 reported a rebel attack in the northern region of Ndele, the first such attack since the peace conference. [See 2008, p. 969E3] n Guinea: Junta Installs Government. Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, the head of Guinea’s ruling military junta, which had taken power after the death of authoritarian President Lansana Conte in December 2008, Jan. 14 named a new government. The government, comprised mainly of army officers and technocrats, shut out former members of Conte’s administration. In late December 2008, the junta, led by mid-level army officers, had appointed banker Kabine Komara as prime minister. The 15member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Jan. 10 suspended Guinea’s membership due to the coup. The U.S. Jan. 6 had said it was suspending about $15 million in aid to the country, and called for a return to civilian rule. Earlier that day, the junta had arrested former senior military officials under Conte who had been forced to resign after the coup. [See 2008, p. 971A1] n Rwanda: Ex-Minister Convicted in Genocide.

A court in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, Jan. 20 sentenced former Justice Minister Agnes Ntamabyariro to life in prison for incitement in connection with Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred. NtaFACTS ON FILE

mabyariro, who had a Hutu father and a Tutsi mother, had been convicted the previous day. Her crimes included ordering the murder of an Tutsi official in the southern city of Butare during the genocide. Ntamabyariro was the first high-ranking official of the former government to be convicted in a Rwandan court; most other officials had been tried before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. [See p. 34A1; 2008, p. 923A2] n

AMERICAS

Chile President Bachelet Sets Stimulus Plan.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria late Jan. 5 announced a $4 billion (2.63 trillion peso) stimulus package for the country, to be financed by tapping its sovereign wealth fund and through the sale of bonds. Under the plan, the government would provide tax rebates and increase spending on the country’s infrastructure by about $700 million. [See 2008, p. 819G2; 1999, p. 993F2] The plan also called for the government to provide the state-run copper mining company, Corporacion Nacional del Cobre (Codelco), with a $1 billion capitalization. Much of the money in the multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund had been accrued through Codelco’s sale of copper, which had cost as much as $4 per pound in 2008. However, in the wake of the global economic slowdown, copper had fallen to about $1.40 per pound, as demand for it declined. Low-earning workers between the ages of 18 and 24 and their employers would receive subsidies, and one-time payments equal to about $63 would be given to poor children. As a result of the increased spending, the government would run a deficit equal to about 2.9% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), its largest since 1990. n

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China GDP Growth Slowed in 2008. China’s National Bureau of Statistics Jan. 22 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown in 2008 by 9.0% from the previous year, confirming a slowdown in growth amid a global economic slump. The bureau Jan. 14 had released revised statistics for 2007, saying that GDP growth for that year was 13%, up from the previous estimate of 11.9%. [See below; 2008, pp. 773D1, 39F2] The 2008 growth figure was China’s first below 10% since 2002. The bureau said GDP in the fourth quarter had grown by 6.8% from the year-earlier period. The intensifying slowdown raised the possibility that China’s growth would dip below the government’s perennial 8% annual target, which the country had routinely reported exceeding in recent years. (However, some foreign economists expressed January 22, 2009

doubt about the precise underpinnings of China’s statistics, and suggested that they were manipulated to some extent by the authorities.) China was being hurt particularly hard by a decline in worldwide demand for its exports. The government Jan. 14 reported that exports had declined in December 2008 by 2.8% in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 1999. ’07 Growth Puts Economy in Top Three—

China’s Jan. 14 upward revision of its 2007 GDP data meant it had the third-largest economy in the world in that year, displacing Germany in the slot behind the U.S. and Japan. China’s GDP for the year was reported at 25.731 trillion yuan ($3.383 trillion), compared with Germany’s $3.321 trillion, Japan’s $4.4 trillion and the U.S.’s $13.8 trillion. However China’s per-capita GDP was only about $2,500, compared with $40,400 for Germany. China had surpassed Britain as the world’s fourth-largest economy in 2005. [See 2006, p. 132C3] n Death Sentences Issued in Milk Scandal.

A court in Shijiazhuang, in Hebei Province, Jan. 22 handed down death sentences to two men convicted in connection with the widespread contamination of dairy products with the chemical melamine, after trials held in December 2008. Another defendant was given a suspended death sentence, and three others were sentenced to life in prison. It had emerged in September 2008 that melamine had been added to milk produced by a number of dairies in order to boost its measured protein content in quality tests. At least six children had died after consuming tainted formula, and 300,000 were sickened. [See 2008, p. 979F1] One of the two condemned defendants, Zhang Yujun, was convicted of selling the melamine powder to dairies, while the other Geng Jinping, was convicted of producing poisonous food products. Tian Wenhua, the former chairwoman of the dairy company most extensively involved in the scandal, Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co., was sentenced to life in prison for allowing the production of tainted milk to continue even after becoming aware of the contamination. Also receiving a life term was Zhang Yanzhang, for buying the powder and reselling it to milk-collecting companies. The court, the Intermediate People’s Court, also gave 15 other people prison terms ranging from five to 15 years. Parents of sickened children demonstrated outside the courthouse, with some suggesting that, in addition to the defendants, the government bore responsibility for failing to adequately regulate the industry or to respond properly to the scandal. Class Action Filed With Highest Court—

Lawyers representing the families of 213 children made ill by tainted milk products Jan. 16 filed a class-action lawsuit in China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, the capital. The lawsuit against 22 dairy companies was a rare example of both a product liability case and

of a class action in China, and came after lower courts rejected other class-action melamine suits. It was not yet known whether the high court would accept the case. Among the plaintiffs were the families of four children who had died but were not included in the official count of six deaths attributed to the tainted milk products. A lawyer for the parents of one of the children who died Jan. 16 said they had become the first to accept compensation from a fund established by the 22 companies, with the government’s backing. Parents of a child who died were entitled to $29,000 in compensation, if they agreed not to pursue legal action against the producers. The fund would pay some $4,400 in compensation to the families of children with serious kidney damage, and those suffering from less serious illness would get about $290. n

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North Korea ‘Weaponized’ Plutonium Claim Reported.

A U.S. scholar, Selig Harrison, Jan. 17 said North Korean officials had told him they had “weaponized” most of the country’s stockpile of plutonium, an amount considered enough to make four or five nuclear bombs. It was the first time North Korea, which in 2006 had tested a nuclear device, had indicated how many weapons’ worth of plutonium it had processed. Harrison had recently visited North Korea for meetings with senior officials, and reported on them afterward in Beijing, China. [See 2008, p. 925F3] North Korea in a 2007 agreement in sixnation talks had agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a series of economic and diplomatic incentives. However, the process had stalled in late 2008 in a dispute with the U.S. over the procedures for verifying North Korea’s dismantling of its nuclear sites. Harrison, the Asia program director at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., said North Korea had invited him to visit just before the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama, so as to indirectly issue messages to the new administration. He said North Korea presented the information about the plutonium, of which it said it had weaponized 30.8 kilograms (68 lbs.), as an indication that it had to be dealt with as a “nuclear weapons state.” However, he said officials had not furnished evidence of that achievement or define precisely what they meant by “weaponized.” Harrison acknowledged that North Korea “could be bluffing” in an effort to strengthen its negotiating position with the Obama administration. He said North Korean officials had expressed hope for better relations with the U.S., which they said would be possible only if Obama first reversed what North Korea routinely called the U.S.’s “hostile policy.” The administration of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had participated in the six-nation talks that yielded the 2007 nuclear agreement, after previously abandoning contacts pursued under the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton. 35

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‘All-Out’ Hostility to South Declared—A uniformed North Korean military spokesman Jan. 17 delivered a televised message declaring an “all-out confrontational posture to smash” South Korea. The spokesman vowed “strong military measures,” prompting South Korea to put its border forces on heightened alert. The North Korean spokesman criticized the government of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak for its policy of placing new conditions on economic cooperation with North Korea. [See 2008, p. 887F1] U.S. in New Uranium Warning— Outgoing U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley in a speech Jan. 7 said that “some in the intelligence community have increasing concerns that North Korea has an ongoing covert uranium-enrichment program” in addition to the plutonium-based nuclear program it had acknowledged. The U.S. in 2002 had said that North Korea had admitted to conducting such a uranium program, something North Korea later disputed. It was later reported that U.S. intelligence officials had expressed greater uncertainty about whether the program was still ongoing. [See 2007, p. 124F1] U.S. intelligence officials’ concerns on the matter were reportedly renewed by traces of uranium found on materials handed over by North Korea as part of its declaration of its nuclear activities. However, there was reportedly disagreement among government agencies on whether the uranium traces showed evidence of having been enriched in North Korea, or could have been come from equipment that North Korea had acquired from Pakistan. Hadley said, in an interview published Jan. 19 by Britain’s Financial Times, “We strongly believe that there is an undetermined amount of highly enriched uranium in North Korea,” adding that, whether it was produced in North Korea or imported, “It’s got to be explained.” n

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New Bank Rescue Plan Set. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Jan. 19 announced a new £100 billion ($150 billion) rescue plan for the nation’s banks. The plan followed £37 billion in government capital injections for two of the country’s biggest banks, announced in October 2008, which had failed to stabilize the sector and encourage a return to normal lending in the global financial crisis. [See p. 8C2] Under the new plan, the Treasury, in exchange for a yet to be determined fee, would insure about 90% of risky assets held by banks “against exposure to exceptional future credit losses.” The banks would cover the first portion of losses, with the Treasury absorbing the rest, but details of the plan had yet to be settled. The government also said that in April it would start to guarantee securities backed by the highest-rated mortgage, consumer and corporate debt. The government would ex36

tend through the end of the year its previous guarantees for debt issued by the banks. The plan would also allow the Bank of England, the British central bank, to buy up to £50 billion in “high-quality” privatesector bank assets, including corporate bonds and other debt instruments. That would effectively allow the central bank to increase the money supply, giving it a new tool to fight the downturn. The bank had recently cut its key interest rate to 1.5%, leaving it with little room left to make an impact with further rate cuts. The government Jan. 19 also said it had reached an agreement to increase its stake in Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) to 70%, from 58%, by converting preferred shares into ordinary shares, which would save RBS £600 million a year. RBS was one of the two banks that had received emergency capital from the government in October; the other was Lloyds Banking Group, in which the government had taken a 43% stake. [See 2008, p. 983E3] The move took RBS a step closer to the possibility of full nationalization. But Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling that day rejected such an outcome, saying, “We have a clear view that British banks are best managed and owned commercially and not by the government.” RBS’s shares Jan. 19 fell 67%, after the bank reported that its 2008 losses could amount to as much as £28 billion. More than half of the losses were linked to RBS’s participation in a consortium that acquired Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding NV in 2007. The value of the ABN assets had eroded since the acquisition. [See 2007, p. 674A1] n

Russia Human Rights Lawyer, Journalist Shot Dead.

Prominent human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, 34, and student journalist Anastasia Baburova, 25, Jan. 19 were shot dead by a masked gunman in central Moscow, Russia’s capital. Markelov died instantly, and Baburova died at a hospital later that day. Investigators did not name suspects in the slaying, but said they suspected that Markelov was the intended target. Many observers compared the shooting, widely believed to be a contract killing, with the murder of journalist and rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead near her Moscow home in 2006. Her killer remained at large. [See 2008, p. 856F1] Markelov and Baburova were shot just after Markelov had told reporters that he would fight to reverse former Russian army Col. Yuri Budanov’s Jan. 15 early release from jail. Budanov in 2003 was convicted of abducting and killing Elza Kungayeva, an 18-year-old Chechen civilian, three years earlier. Chechnya was a majority Muslim region in Southern Russia. Kungayeva had been killed in the 1999–2001 second Chechen war between the Russian military and separatist Chechen rebels. Budanov had been sentenced to 10 years in jail, but was released early for good behavior. Markelov had represented Kungaye-

va’s family in her murder trial. [See 2004, p. 1016F2] Some Russian nationalists considered Budanov a military hero who had been unjustly tried for actions taken during the chaos of an armed conflict. However, Chechens largely considered Budanov a symbol of Russian military abuses in the region. Budanov, through his lawyer, Jan. 19 denied that he was connected with Markelov’s murder. The Kungayeva family, who lived in exile in Norway, Jan. 19 said Markelov had received recent death threats in response to his fight to keep Budanov in jail. However, observers said Markelov could have made many enemies during his career. His legal work had concentrated largely on military subjects and war crimes, and since 2006 he had served as the president of the Rule of Law Institute, a Russian civil liberties organization. He had also represented Umar Israilov, a Chechen who in 2006 had formally accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, 32, of abductions and torture. Israilov Jan. 13 was shot dead in Austria, where he had lived in exile. [See below] Victims Connected With Newspaper—

Both victims of the Jan. 19 slayings had been affiliated with Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper often critical of the Russian government, and where Politkovskaya had also worked. Baburova, who was a student at Moscow State University, worked as a freelance writer for the newspaper. According to Nadezhda Prusenkova, a Novaya Gazeta spokeswoman, Markelov had “handled almost every case opened as a result of the work of Anna Politkovskaya.” Four of Novaya Gazeta’s reporters had been murdered since 2000. Aleksandr Lebedev, one of the paper’s owners, Jan. 22 said the paper had submitted a request to the Federal Security Service (FSB) to allow reporters to carry firearms, because “law enforcement agencies are not carrying out their responsibilities.” It was illegal for civilians to carry arms in Russia without a special permit. Reaction—More than 1,500 people Jan. 20 gathered in central Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, to express outrage over Markelov’s murder. Kadyrov, who was known as a hardliner and an ally of Russia’s government, that day gave Markelov a posthumous award “for service to the Republic of Chechnya.” Hundreds of people the same day gathered in Moscow at the site of the shooting. Russian politicians from various parties Jan. 21 also condemned the murders. The Czech Republic, which currently held the six-month rotating European Union presidency, Jan. 20 called on Russia to “investigate Markelov’s murder, as well as previous attacks on human rights activists, journalists and members of nongovernmental organizations.” Chechen Dissident Killed in Austria—

Umar Israilov, 27, a former Chechen insurgent who had worked for Kadyrov but later accused him of human rights violations, Jan. 13 was shot dead in broad daylight in Vienna, the capital of Austria, which had granted FACTS ON FILE

him asylum. Israilov in 2006 had submitted a complaint against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights, in which he claimed that Kadyrov and his security forces from 2003 to 2005 had systematically employed abductions and torture to intimidate suspected Chechen rebels and their families. Israilov was reportedly gunned down by as many as four men, who had been waiting for him outside a grocery store. Austrian police the same day detained another Chechen in connection with Israilov’s murder. [See 2008, p. 731G3] Israilov in 2008 had reportedly been warned repeatedly by a Chechen government agent to drop his complaint against Kadyrov. Austrian officials Jan. 22 confirmed that Israilov had asked for police protection, but his request had been denied. About 100 Chechen immigrants the same day gathered in front of the Austrian presidential offices to demand a thorough investigation of the murder. Kadyrov had denied numerous accusations of human rights abuses. Some observers suggested that he was shielded from prosecution by his close ties with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had served as Russia’s president from 1999 to 2008. n

Other European News Russia-Ukraine Gas Standoff Ends. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Jan. 19 met in Moscow, Russia’s capital, and signed a 10-year contract that ended a bitter feud between their countries over natural gas prices and shipments. The quarrel had cut off deliveries of Russian gas to 18 countries in Eastern and Central Europe for nearly two weeks amid a bitter cold snap. As a result of the agreement, Russian gas deliveries to Europe resumed Jan. 20. [See p. 3F1] Europe imported about 25% of its natural gas from Russia, about 80% of which was delivered via Ukrainian pipelines. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy company, in January had shut off all gas deliveries to Ukraine, including those intended for customers in other countries, after it accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas. Ukraine denied the allegation. Ukraine and Gazprom had also failed to agree on a 2009 contract for gas deliveries to Ukrainian customers, or resolve a dispute over Ukraine’s alleged $615 million debt to the company. The European Union had initially considered the dispute a private matter between Russia and Ukraine, but later became frustrated by reduced gas shipments to Europe and intervened. Observers said the feud had shattered European confidence in Russia and Ukraine as energy suppliers, and that Ukraine could face difficulties in its drive to join the EU. Experts estimated that Gazprom had lost $1.5 billion as a result of the gas delivery shutdown. Agreement Sets Market-Based Prices—

Under the terms of the Jan. 19 agreement, the price of Russian natural gas sales to January 22, 2009

Ukraine would be pegged to a marketbased formula similar to what was used across Europe. Ukraine in 2009 would receive a 20% discount on that price, and would begin paying the full market price in 2010. Ukraine in 2009 was estimated to pay between $208 and $240 per 1,000 cubic meters (1,300 cubic yards) of gas, up from the $179.50 it paid in 2008. In turn, Ukraine would allow Russia to use its pipelines to transport gas to Europe at a discounted price in 2009. That price would also be renegotiated using a market formula for 2010 and beyond. Putin and Tymoshenko also agreed to eliminate intermediary gas companies widely perceived to be corrupt. Gazprom Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev Jan. 20 said an agreement had been reached on Ukraine’s alleged debt, but did not give details. [See 2008, p. 93C1] Pact Followed Failed Negotiations—

The Jan. 19 contract agreement came after several failed attempts to resolve the dispute. Russian and Ukrainian officials Jan. 11 had confirmed the signing of a mutual accord with the EU to install pipeline monitors in both countries. The agreement would have allowed Russia to ship gas to its European customers but not to Ukraine. It came after Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who Jan. 1 had taken over the 6-month rotating EU presidency, Jan. 10– 11 met with Putin in Moscow and with Tymoshenko in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. [See 2008, p. 986D1] However, it emerged Jan. 11 that Tymoshenko had attached an addendum to Ukraine’s copy of the accord. The attached declaration said Ukraine had not stolen any gas meant for European customers, and had paid all debts to Gazprom in full. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev (who was not related to Alexander Medvedev) said the additions were a “mockery of common sense and a violation of earlier achieved agreements,” and ordered the Russian government not to adopt the accord. Officials from Russia, Ukraine and the EU Jan. 12 signed a similar accord. However, Gazprom Jan. 13 said it had been unable to pump 76.6 million cubic meters of gas to Balkan customers because Ukraine had stolen the shipment. Ukrainian officials countered that Gazprom had shipped the gas through the wrong pipeliness, and that they would have had to cut off gas to much of eastern Ukraine if the Balkan deliveries were allowed. A breakthrough finally came Jan. 18, when Putin and Tymoshenko, after meeting privately for several hours in Moscow, said they had agreed on the fundamentals of a resolution. European Leader Blasts Countries—

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso Jan. 20 lashed out at Russia and Ukraine’s “really incredible” behavior, and suggested that they had failed to uphold the terms of previous EU-negotiated agreements. Barroso said he was “very disappointed…about the way the leadership in these two countries negotiated.” The episode soured European relations with Ukraine and Russia, and prompted European countries to consider ways to di-

versify their energy supply. Barroso the same day said the EU should dedicate $5 billion to bolster energy infrastructure in member states. Analysts said the reputation of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who was already unpopular in Ukraine, had suffered amid the ordeal. Russia had refused to negotiate with the Western-leaning Yushchenko. Tymoshenko, who was credited with sealing the contract deal with Putin, was expected to run against Yushchenko in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election. [See 2008, p. 986D1] n Riots Erupt in Latvia, Lithuania. Large antigovernment protests Jan. 13 and Jan. 16 gave way to riots in the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania. Both countries had flourished economically after they joined the European Union in 2004, but their economies, which had largely been supported by foreign loans, were hit hard by the current global economic crisis and credit crunch. Both countries’ economies were expected to contract in 2009. [See 2008, pp. 984G2, 887G3]

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Violence Outside Lithuanian Parliament—

Fifteen people Jan. 16 were injured and more than 80 detained after a riot erupted outside of the parliament building in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. About 7,000 people had gathered there that day to protest government reforms that raised taxes and cut public sector wages and pensions. Violence broke out as hundreds of protesters began throwing rocks and eggs at police and the parliament building. Riot police then attempted to break up the angry mob with tear gas and rubber bullets. The ensuing clash reportedly lasted several hours. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, whose center-right coalition government had taken office in November 2008, suggested that day that the riot had been planned in advance by “forces that are interested in destabilization and chaos in Lithuania.” Also Jan. 16, the country’s finance ministry announced that it planned to take out a $1.3 billion loan from the European Investment Bank in order to close a budget gap. 106 Arrested in Latvia—As many as 40 people Jan. 13 were injured and 106 arrested after a riot broke out near Latvia’s parliament building in Riga, the capital. The riot followed a peaceful demonstration that day, in which as many as 10,000 protesters called for early elections amid a crumbling economy. After most demonstrators had dispersed, several hundred people began to hurl cobblestones at government buildings, and some reportedly attempted to storm the parliament. They were rebuffed by riot police armed with tear gas and truncheons. Latvian President Valdis Zatlers Jan. 14 said he might submit a referendum proposal that would allow citizens to vote to dissolve the parliament. He condemned the violence, but said it was also necessary to understand “why people gathered.” He said trust in the Latvian government had “collapsed catastrophically.” n 37

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Several Iraqi politicians Jan. 16–21 were targeted in attacks throughout the country, ahead of provincial council elections scheduled for Jan. 31. Iraqi and U.S. officials had warned of increased violence in the runup to the elections, which would take place in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. They were the first provincial council elections since those of 2005, which had been boycotted by much of Iraq’s Sunni Muslim Arab population. Sunni participation in the upcoming elections was expected to reduce the clout of Shiite Muslim Arab and Kurdish parties in many provinces. [See p. 23F1; 2008, p. 948E2] Gunmen Jan. 16 killed a prominent candidate from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki’s Shiite-dominated Islamic Dawa party. The candidate, Haitham Kadhim alHusaini, was killed as he was leaving a campaign appearance in Jbala, in Babil province, south of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Dawa was engaged in a fierce political contest with another Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), for control of Iraq’s Shiite southern provinces, although the two parties were coalition partners in the federal government. A suicide bomber Jan. 18 killed a powerful Sunni tribal sheikh, Hassan Zaidan alLuhaibi, in the town of Gayara, in the northern province of Nineveh. The bombing also killed two other people. Luhaibi had been leading the political campaign of National Dialogue Front—one of the main Sunni parties—in Nineveh and Salahuddin provinces. (He had been barred from running himself because he had been a senior member of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.) Officials of Luhaibi’s party said he had been a supporter of a strong central government and against the greater regional autonomy proposed by some Kurdish and Shiite parties. He had also worked to reduce the power of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. A car bombing Jan. 21 narrowly missed a senior leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, another main Sunni party that was participating in the elections. The leader, Ziad alAni, was helping to coordinate the party’s political campaigns. The bombing hit Ani’s convoy as it was leaving the campus of the Islamic University, where he was a dean, in Baghdad’s northern Adhamiya district. The attack killed four bystanders. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Jan. 19 called on Iraqis to vote in the elections “despite not being totally satisfied with the previous electoral experience,” his office said. Sistani also reportedly said he “stands at an equal distance from all candidates.” He had endorsed parties in past elections. Maliki Jan. 16 ordered the replacement of the police chief of the southern Wasit province for not enforcing election laws. Dawa officials in December 2008 had reported that Wasit police officers were rip38

ping down campaign posters and replacing them with the posters of another candidate, who was the chief’s cousin. Local politicians said the dismissal of the chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul Haneen al-Amara, so soon before the elections indicated that Maliki was interfering in the province’s politics. Obama Calls for Withdrawal Plans—

U.S. President Barack Obama Jan. 21 on his first full day in office met with senior U.S. military and civilian security officials, and told them to draw up further plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Obama during his campaign had pledged to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. The U.S. and Iraq in December 2008 had signed an agreement calling for a withdrawal by the end of 2011. Military officials had reportedly prepared a number of withdrawal plans, which could pull soldiers out at varying speeds. [See pp. 29B2, 23B2] Ryan Crocker, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Jan. 22 warned against withdrawing from Iraq too quickly. He said such a move could lead to a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a loss of public faith in the Iraqi government. He also stressed the importance of the upcoming elections being regarded as “credible,” which he said would increase the confidence of the Iraqi people. Crocker, who had taken the post in March 2007, was expected to leave within two or three weeks. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The Associated Press (AP) Jan. 22 reported that a U.S. Army investigation had determined that a U.S. soldier’s electrocution was a case of negligent homicide. U.S. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth had been electrocuted in January 2008 at Camp Slayer military base in Baghdad. The U.S. Army criminal special agent at Camp Slayer, Amber Wojnar, Dec. 16, 2008, had reportedly sent an e-mail to Maseth’s mother, Cheryl Harris, saying that Maseth’s death had been reclassified as negligent homicide, rather than accidental. Wojnar said she had “credible information” that it had been caused by the negligence of U.S. contractor KBR Inc. and two of its supervisors. [See 2008, pp. 785B3, 176C1] o Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie Jan. 20 said an Iranian resistance group in exile in Iraq had planned to attack the Iraqi security headquarters with a suicide bomber. Rubaie, speaking on a visit to Tehran, the Iranian capital, said the Iraqi government had decided to expel the 3,500 members of the group—the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)—who remained in a camp in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, despite their claims that they would be executed or tortured by Iran. The MEK said the accusations were false and part of a conspiracy between the Iraqi and Iranian governments. The U.S. military had agreed to protect the MEK’s camp in exchange for the group disarming after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite the MEK’s classification as a terrorist group by Iraq, the U.S. State Department and the European Union. [See 2008, p. 935C3] n

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan Terrorists Reportedly Killed in U.S. Strike.

The Washington Post Jan. 8 reported on its Web site that two Pakistani-based leaders of international terrorist network Al Qaeda had been killed in a Jan. 1 missile strike launched by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft. The U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was believed to have conducted more than 30 such attacks in 2008, in a rampedup effort to neutralize suspected terrorists who had created safe havens in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas. International media outlets, citing unidentified intelligence sources, Jan. 9–10 backed the Post’s report. [See 2008, p. 875C1] The strike, which targeted a compound near the town of Karikot in the South Waziristan tribal area, reportedly killed Usama al-Kini, who was thought to be Al Qaeda’s head of operations in Pakistan, and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, Kini’s deputy. Kini and Swedan were Kenyan nationals who had been indicted in 1998 by a U.S. federal jury for their alleged roles in organizing terrorist attacks that year on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. [See 1998, p. 959D3] Kini, 32, whose given name was Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam, had reportedly been an Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan and Eastern Africa before becoming the group’s Pakistani chief in 2007. He was reportedly behind a spate of terrorist attacks in Pakistan over the past couple of years. They included an October 2007 assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, which killed more than 170 people, and a September 2008 truck bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, which killed more than 50 people. (Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007.) [See 2008, p. 685B3; 2007, p. 677A1] Al-Kini was thought to be the eighth senior Al Qaeda figure to be killed by Predator strikes in Pakistan since July 2008. U.S. officials said their deaths could inflict a heavy blow to the group’s operations. However, analysts said Al Qaeda operatives had also proven capable of quickly regrouping under new leadership. Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o Pakistani paramilitary forces Jan. 21 reportedly arrested seven Al Qaeda members during a raid in the village of Bara Qadeem, near Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). According to unidentified Pakistani officials cited in news reports, the captives included Zabi ul-Taifi, a Saudi national suspected of involvement in 2005 terrorist attacks in London that killed 52 people. [See 2005, p. 449A1] o U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell Jan. 16 said Saad bin Laden, a son of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, had been released from Iranian custody and was “probably” in Pakistan. Saad bin Laden had been placed under house FACTS ON FILE

arrest in Iran in 2003. The U.S. Treasury Department, in a statement announcing that it was freezing the assets of Saad bin Laden and three other suspected Al Qaeda members, Jan. 16 said that he had not been in Iranian custody “as of September 2008.” Intelligence officials said his arrest and release reflected the complicated dynamic between Iran’s Shiite Muslim regime and the Sunni Muslim Al Qaeda. They were seen as wary of each other, even as they were loosely allied in their opposition to the U.S. and Israel. [See 2003, p. 388B3] o Pakistani paramilitary forces Jan. 10– 11 battled hundreds of Islamic extremist militants in the Mohmand tribal area, leaving 40 militants and six Pakistani troops dead. Many of the militants were reportedly members of fundamentalist Sunni group the Taliban, which was currently waging an insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan. Taliban militants Jan. 9–11 had also fought alongside Sunni militants against rival Shiites in the Hangu district in NWFP, in clashes that left 40 dead. o Pakistan Jan. 2 reopened the Khyber Pass, a route used by U.S. and NATO forces to transport supplies from Pakistan to their troops in Afghanistan. The route had been closed in December, as the Pakistani military launched an offensive against Taliban militants who had conducted near-daily attacks on the route for several months. U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, Jan. 20 said the U.S. had secured agreements to open new supply routes to Afghanistan through its northern neighbors in Central Asia and Russia. Petraeus did not provide any specifics on the agreements. [See 2008, p. 988G3] n

Other South Asia News Pakistani ‘Agencies’ Blamed for Attacks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Jan. 6 said terrorist attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, in November 2008 “must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.” Pakistan denied the accusation, which was considered Singh’s most pointed to date. India had thus far accused Pakistani-based terrorist group Lashkar-eTaiba of organizing the attacks, but had only vaguely suggested that the group had received cooperation from Pakistani government “elements.” [See 2008, p. 990A2] Singh’s comments came a day after India submitted to Pakistan a dossier of purported evidence showing that the attacks had originated in Pakistan. The evidence included a confession from a suspect in Indian custody, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, the sole survivor of the 10 gunmen who had allegedly carried out the attacks. The evidence also included details of phone intercepts between the gunmen and their accomplices in Pakistan; data retrieved from satellite phones and global positioning system equipment used by the gunmen; and information about weapons that were recovered from the attacks. Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon Jan. 5 said the attacks were so soJanuary 22, 2009

phisticated and well-planned that it was unlikely that they could have been pulled off without the knowledge of someone in the Pakistani “establishment.” Menon declined to specify whether he was referring to Pakistan’s military spy agency, InterServices Intelligence (ISI), which had supported Lashkar-e-Taiba in the past and was suspected of operating outside the control of Pakistan’s civilian government. Menon repeated India’s demand that Pakistan extradite suspects in the attacks, a concession that analysts said Pakistan was unlikely to make. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Jan. 7 said, “Pakistan’s political and military leadership is one.” Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, ISI’s chief, in an interview published that day on the Web site of the German magazine Der Spiegel, asserted that his agency was taking orders from the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. Pasha said Pakistan and India faced a common enemy in terrorism. Also that day, Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s national security adviser, acknowledged to media outlets that Kasab was a Pakistani citizen. Pakistani officials had previously said they were unable to confirm Kasab’s citizenship, and Durrani hours after his statement was fired from his position for “irresponsible behavior.” Pakistani officials subsequently backed Durrani’s statement. The U.S. was attempting to tamp down tensions between the two countries. Richard Boucher, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, during a visit to Pakistan Jan. 5 said it was clear that the “attackers had links that lead to Pakistani soil.” However, he said the Pakistani government was determined to “find those responsible.” Pakistan Jan. 15 said it had detained 124 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its charity branch, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and had shut down five camps, 87 schools and six Web sites associated with the groups. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Arizona, Pittsburgh Advance To Super Bowl Cardinals to Appear in First Title Game.

The Arizona Cardinals Jan. 18 defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 32–25, to win the National Football Conference (NFC) championship game in Glendale, Ariz. Later that day, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Baltimore Ravens, 23–14, at home to win the American Football Conference (AFC) title. The two teams Feb. 1 would meet in Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla. [See 2008, p. 990G3] Arizona, coached by Ken Whisenhunt, would be playing in its first Super Bowl. In the regular season, the Cardinals had won the NFC West division with a record of just nine wins and seven losses, and had not been expected to advance far in the playoffs. The Steelers, coached by Mike Tomlin, had won the AFC North division with a 12– 4 record, tied for second-best in the Nation-

al Football League (NFL). They had last won the NFL title in 2006, beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL. On Feb. 1, the Steelers would be seeking a record sixth Super Bowl win. [See 2006, p. 100A1] Cardinals Overcome Eagles—The Cardinals in the Jan. 18 NFC championship game led 24–6 at halftime. The Cardinals’ veteran quarterback, Kurt Warner—a twotime league most valuable player (MVP) who had won the Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams in 2000—threw three touchdown passes in the first half to star receiver Larry Fitzgerald, including a 62-yard play in the second quarter. [See 2005, p. 655D3] The Eagles, led by quarterback Donovan McNabb, mounted a comeback in the second half, scoring 19 unanswered points in the third quarter and early fourth quarter to take a 25–24 lead. Warner then led the Cardinals on a 14-play, 72-yard game-winning touchdown drive that consumed seven minutes and 52 seconds. The drive was highlighted by three receptions by Fitzgerald and an eight-yard touchdown pass from Warner to Tim Hightower with 2:53 remaining. Earlier NFC Playoff Results—The Cardinals in the second round of the playoffs Jan. 10 defeated the favored Carolina Panthers, 33–13, in Charlotte, N.C., to advance to the NFC championship game. Warner completed 21 of 32 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns, while Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme threw five interceptions and also lost a fumble. The sixth-seeded Eagles Jan. 11 upset the New York Giants—the top seed in the conference—winning, 23–11, in East Rutherford, N.J., to move on the championship game. The Giants, the defending Super Bowl champions, had posted a 12–4 regular-season record, but lost three of their last four games. The Eagles led, 13– 11, at the end of the third quarter, and scored 10 unanswered points in the fourth to seal the victory. In the wild-card round, the Cardinals Jan. 3 had defeated the Atlanta Falcons, 30–24, in Glendale, and the Eagles Jan. 4 beat the Minnesota Vikings, 26–14, in Minneapolis, Minn. Steelers Outlast Ravens—The Steelers scored the first 13 points of the AFC championship game Jan. 18, with two field goals by Jeff Reed and a 65-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to wide receiver Santonio Holmes. The Ravens closed the gap to 13–7 before halftime with a three-yard touchdown run by Willis McGahee. Pittsburgh extended its lead to 16–7 late in the third quarter with a 46-yard field goal by Reed. Baltimore rookie quarterback Joe Flacco in the fourth quarter led his team on a 58-yard touchdown drive, capped by a one-yard run by McGahee to make the score 16–14. On the Ravens’ next drive, however, Steelers safety Troy Polamalu returned an interception 40 yards for a touchdown, giving the Steelers an insurmountable 23–14 lead with 4:24 remaining. 39

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Earlier AFC Playoff Results—The Steelers Jan. 11 defeated the San Diego Chargers, 35–24, at home to advance to the AFC championship game. Roethlisberger returned to lead the Steelers after suffering a concussion in the final game of the regular season in late December 2008. (The Steelers had earned a bye in the first round of the playoffs.) The Steelers led 14–10 at the half, and extended their lead to 21–10 in the third quarter. The third quarter proved to be the Chargers’ undoing, as the team ran only one offensive play—an intercepted pass—and had possession of the ball for just 17 seconds. In the other second-round AFC matchup, the Ravens Jan. 10 had upset the Tennessee Titans, the top seed in the conference, 13–10, in Nashville, Tenn. Veteran kicker Matt Stover made a 43-yard field goal with 57 seconds remaining to win the game for Baltimore. In the wild-card round, the visiting Ravens Jan. 4 beat the Miami Dolphins, 27–9, and the Chargers Jan. 3 had defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 23–17, in overtime in San Diego, Calif. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Awards Academy Award Nominations. The Acade-

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my of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Jan. 22 announced the nominees for its 81st annual Oscar awards, which would be presented Feb. 22. [See 2008, p. 44A1] The film with the most nominations was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which got 13, for categories including best picture, best director, best actor, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay. The film was based on a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and its title character, portrayed by Brad Pitt, was a man growing younger, instead of older, with the passage of time. The film with the next-highest number of Oscar nominations, 10, was Slumdog Millionaire, a British film set and shot in Mumbai, India, and with some of its dialogue in Hindi. Its title character was a young man from the Mumbai slums trying to make it big as a game-show contestant. The film was made for a relatively modest $15 million, in contrast to the $150 million budgeted for Benjamin Button. Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which dealt with the life of pioneering gay activist Harvey Milk, was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture, best director, best actor and best supporting actor. All five films nominated in the best-picture category also secured best-director nominations. Actress Kate Winslet secured a best-actress nomination for her role as a woman with a secret Nazi past in The Reader, but, to the surprise of many, did not get nominated for an acting Oscar for her portrayal of a tormented housewife in Revolutionary Road. Winslet Jan. 11 had achieved the rare distinction of winning two Golden Globe acting awards, one for Revolutionary Road (best actress in a drama) and the other for The Reader (best supporting actress). [See p. 24E2, F2] 40

The major nominees were: Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Frost/Nixon Milk The Reader Slumdog Millionaire Actor

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon Sean Penn, Milk Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler Actress

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married Angelina Jolie, Changeling Melissa Leo, Frozen River Meryl Streep, Doubt Kate Winslet, The Reader Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin, Milk Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Doubt Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona Viola Davis, Doubt Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler Director

David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon Gus Van Sant, Milk Stephen Daldry, The Reader Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire n

People The board of the financially troubled New York City Opera Jan. 14 announced that it had appointed impresario and conductor George Steel as its general manager and artistic director, effective Feb. 1. The post had originally been offered to European impresario Gerard Mortier, but he had backed out of it in November 2008, on the grounds that he would not have enough money to do an adequate job. Steel, 42, had recently assumed the post of general director of Texas’s Dallas Opera. [See 2008, p. 844A2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BERRI, Claude (born Claude Berel Langmann),

74, French film director and producer; he wrote or coauthored the scripts for some of his films, and acted in some of the earlier ones, including the farcical comedy Marry Me! Marry Me! (1968); among his later films was Lucie Aubrac (1997), about a heroine of the French Resistance during World War II; born July 1, 1934, in Paris; died Jan. 12 at a Paris hospital, after suffering a stroke. [See 2007, p. 184B3; 1987, pp. 944E2, 528C2; Indexes 1981, 1978, 1968–69] LENOTRE, Gaston (Albert Celestin), 88, French pastry chef who was the most celebrated professional in his field since Antonin Careme, an early 19th-century figure deemed the greatest French pastry maker in history; he opened his first Paris pastry shop in 1957 and eventually created a worldwide business, with shops in Germany, Japan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and elsewhere; born May 28, 1920, in Saint-Nicolas-du-Bosc, France; died Jan. 8 at his home in Sennely, France, of cancer. McGOOHAN, Patrick Joseph, 80, U.S.-born actor, raised in England, who got his start in British theater before becoming British television’s highest-paid

actor in the 1960s, as the star of a spy series called “Danger Man” (aired in the U.S. as “Secret Agent”); in the late 1960s, he created and starred in a short-lived TV series called “The Prisoner” that became a cult classic; only 17 episodes were ever filmed, in all of which he portrayed No. 6, a prisoner struggling with authority figures in a mysterious, high-tech prison; he also acted in films and made one appearance on Broadway, in 1985, as a British spy in Hugh Whitemore’s Pack of Lies; in 2000, he resurfaced as No. 6, voicing the role in an episode of the animated TV series “The Simpsons”; born March 19, 1928, in New York City; died Jan. 13 in Los Angeles, after a brief illness. [See 1995, p. 476D1; 1985, p. 292G2; Indexes 1979, 1974, 1963] MORGAN Jr., Charles, 78, civil rights lawyer, associated with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1964 to 1976, who argued a number of key cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, notably Reynolds v. Sims (1964), in which the high court ordered the Alabama legislature to reapportion districts so as to give black candidates a better chance of getting elected; he quit as director of the ACLU’s Washington, D.C., office in 1976 after making statements that the ACLU’s leadership said violated its commitment to nonpartisanship; born March 11, 1930, in Cincinnati, Ohio; died Jan. 8 at his home in Destin, Fla., of Alzheimer’s disease complications. [See 1983, p. 839B1; 1976, p. 680F2; Indexes 1973, 1971, 1964–67] POHLAD, Carl Ray, 93, owner of Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins franchise since 1984; under his ownership, the team won its only two World Series titles, in 1987 and 1991, but he was also vilified as one of baseball’s most miserly owners, despite having a personal fortune estimated at $3.6 billion; his wealth derived from banking, financial-services, realestate and various other interests; born Aug. 23, 1915, in Valley Junction, Iowa; died Jan. 5 at his home in Edina, Minn.; the cause of his death was not reported. [See 2002, p. 219F1; 1999, p. 807E3; Index 1997] SNODGRASS, W(illiam) D(eWitt), 83, poet, critic and academic who in 1960 won a Pulitzer Prize for his first volume of verse, Heart’s Needle, credited with ushering in the 1960s era of confessional poetry; in that collection, he used tightly controlled, yet straightforward language, to explore the failure of his first marriage, as a result of which he lost custody of his young daughter; his later work was sometimes more experimental; it included a highly controversial collection of dramatic monologues, The Fuehrer Bunker, written between 1977 and 1995 and set in the days preceding the collapse of Nazi Germany; he adapted part of that work for the stage, in a production seen briefly in New York City in 1981; born Jan. 5, 1926, in Wilkinsburg, Pa.; died Jan. 13 at his home in Erieville, N.Y., of lung cancer. [See 1981, p. 544A3; 1960, p. 154C1] WALTERS, Sir Alan (Arthur), 82, British economist who, in 1989, as an economic adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, clashed with then– Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, leading to Lawson’s resignation, an event that helped set the stage for Thatcher’s own political demise a year later; he had been knighted in 1983, during the first of his two stints as Thatcher’s economic adviser; born June 17, 1926, in Leicester, England; died Jan. 3 in London, after battling Parkinson’s disease. [See 1993, p. 778G3; 1991, p. 282E3; Indexes 1988–89] WYETH, Andrew (Andrew Newell Wyeth 3rd),

91, realist painter whose favorite subjects were people and landscapes drawn from the two communities in which he spent most of his life, rural Pennsylvania and coastal Maine; he was, along with Norman Rockwell, perhaps the most popular and commercially successful U.S. traditionalist painter of the 20th century, although many critics faulted his work as excessively facile and sentimental; he was a son of noted illustrator N.C. Wyeth, who died in a car crash in 1945; after his father’s death, his work became starker and more unsettling; three years later, he produced perhaps his most iconic painting, Christina’s World, showing a disabled woman dragging herself across a Maine field; the painting was acquired by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1948, and had been on display there ever since; in 1963, he became the first artist to be awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom; in the mid-1980s, controversy swirled about the revelation that he had painted 240 “secret” portraits of a woman named Helga, some of them nude; even at the time, some claimed that the whole affair was a publicity stunt calculated to drive up the value of the Helga paintings; in 2007, President George W. Bush presented him with a National Medal of Arts; he was the father of artist Jamie Wyeth, also a realist painter; born July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, Pa.; died in his sleep Jan. 16 at his Chadds Ford home. [See 2007, p. 795A2; 1990, p. 524F3; Indexes 1986–87, 1965, 1963, 1955, 1950] n

January 22, 2009

U.S. House Passes $819 Billion Economic Recovery Plan No Republicans Support Stimulus Bill.

The House Jan. 28 voted, 244–188, to pass an economic recovery plan that would cost $819 billion over the next two years, in an attempt to spark growth amidst a deepening recession. The legislation, considered one of the most expensive and far-reaching stimulus packages in U.S. history, received no Republican votes despite heavy lobbying from President Barack Obama. The Senate was expected to begin debate the following week on its own version of the bill, which could cost as much as $900 billion. [See p. 15E1] Obama Jan. 28 praised the House for passing the bill, saying, “We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.” Acknowledging that the bill would likely change as it was reconciled with the Senate’s version, he said, “I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk.” Obama had said he wanted to see a final version of the bill passed by Feb. 13, before Congress recessed for Presidents’ Day. House Republican leaders criticized the enormous amount of new federal spending that the bill would generate, with Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the minority whip, describing it as “beyond anyone’s imagination.” The plan contained nearly $545 billion in spending, and $275 billion in tax cuts for businesses and individuals. Eleven Democrats joined the House’s 177 Republicans in voting against the bill. The legislation would see the federal government greatly expand its influence in several areas of the economy and society. The bill proposed broad investments in infrastructure projects, alternative-energy development, health-care, education and assistance programs for lower-income workers. It included provisions intended to give a quick boost to the economy, which was typical of government stimulus plans, but contained other measures designed to have a more long-lasting effect. Still, Obama Jan. 27 had said that the recovery plan was just one element of the government’s attempts to right the economy. He said separate initiatives would assist the country’s ailing banking industry and resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets, which had severely reduced lending to consumers and businesses. [See p. 44B2] Legislation Details, Projections— The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Jan. 26 projected that by Sept. 30, 2010, the end of the 2010 fiscal year, the House economic recovery plan would have had a “noticeable impact on economic growth and employment.” The CBO said that $526 billion of the plan, or about 65%, would be spent by the end of fiscal 2010. The CBO said the bill’s provisions for tax cuts and aid to the needy and unemployed would have the quickest stimulative effects, while it would take a longer time for the economy to feel the impact of investments in infrastructure and alternative energy.

Individuals making less than $75,000 a year would receive a $500 payroll tax cut, and married couples making less than $150,000 a year would receive a $1,000 payroll tax cut. Workers who paid payroll taxes, but made too little to pay income taxes, would also be eligible for the cuts, a provision that had been strongly supported by Obama. House Republicans had argued that it amounted to government welfare. First-time home buyers and families with college students would also receive additional tax breaks. On a temporary basis, businesses would be able to retroactively apply losses from a current year to taxes paid up to five years previously, and immediately receive tax refunds, instead of waiting to file their current returns. Businesses could also cash in tax credits that they were unable to use because of mounting losses. The bill included provisions to bolster the ability of local governments to borrow money, which would make financing for construction and other projects more readily available. The bill would see the government spend $125 billion to support public education, in what observers described as an unprecedented move by the federal government to involve itself in an area traditionally handled by state and local governments. Among other initiatives, the funds would be spent renovating school and college buildings; preventing education-related job losses; and boosting school programs in poorer areas. About $50 billion was reserved for developing alternative sources of energy and energy-conservation projects. They included weatherizing government buildings and houses in low-income areas; developing a so-called “smart grid” that would use electricity more efficiently, and tap into wind and solar energy sources more easily; and tax credits for companies that developed renewable energy technologies. States would receive $87 billion in aid to ensure that Medicaid health services for the poor and disabled were not cut back during the recession. Eligibility for Medicaid would also be temporarily expanded to include a rising number of laid-off workers. The legislation would subsidize, for one year, 65% of premium payments under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), which allowed former employees to continue receiving company-sponsored health-care coverage. The bill also dedicated $20 billion to computerizing all medical records, an initiative that advocates said would significantly reduce costs and increase efficiency in the health-care system. About $30 billion in the bill was set aside for building and maintaining roads and bridges and $9 billion for investing in public transportation. The bill included several additional provisions to help the needy and recently unemployed. About $27 billion would be used to extend eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits through Dec. 31.

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3554 January 29, 2009

B An additional $9 billion would increase weekly benefits to $325, up from $300. Republican Proposals Defeated— The House, voting largely on partisan lines, Jan. 28 defeated two economic recovery proposals supported by Republicans. Lawmakers voted, 266–170, to defeat an alternative recovery plan composed entirely of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. They voted, 270–159, to defeat a measure that would have stripped the Democratic bill of some of its longer-term spending plans and its increased spending for infrastructure projects. Republicans’ opposition to the bill mostly centered around the inclusion of what they described as wasteful spending with little immediate stimulative impact. During negotiations, Democrats agreed to delete provisions that would have allocated $200 million to refurbishing the National

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. House passes $819 billion economic recovery plan; no Republicans support stimulus bill. PAGE 41

Obama addresses Muslim world in television interview. PAGE 42

International Criminal Court opens first trial.

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Illinois Gov. Blagojevich ousted by unanimous state Senate vote; convicted after swift impeachment trial. PAGE 43

Senate confirms Treasury Secretary Geithner. PAGE 44

Fed leaves interest rate at near zero. PAGE 45

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Guantanamo judge defies Obama delay request. PAGE 46

Bolivian voters endorse new constitution. PAGE 50

Iceland’s government collapses in financial crisis. PAGE 52

Afghan presidential election delayed until August. PAGE 54

P. Manning wins third NFL MVP award. PAGE 55

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Mall in Washington, D.C., and $335 million to family-planning programs. While Republicans lauded Obama for his highly public attempts to take their concerns into account, they complained that House Democrats had shut them out of the process and loaded the bill with longtime Democratic priorities that they had been unable to pass during the administration of President George W. Bush. Senators from both parties said they shared some of the House Republicans’ criticisms. Many argued that the recovery plan should be stripped of the long-term investments that would not have an immediate effect on the economy. Republicans argued that while many of the bill’s provisions were billed as temporary, they would pull the government into the workings of the economy to an extent unseen since the Great Depression. Supporters of the long-term investments said they were necessary to build a foundation on which the economy could grow in future years. Senators had already made clear that substantial revisions would be made to the House bill. More funds were expected to be funneled toward infrastructure projects. Additionally, senators wanted to include provisions to bolster the slumping housing market, which had eroded consumer wealth and crippled banks that had invested heavily in mortgages in recent years. The Senate bill was also expected to set aside $70 billion to shield middle-income taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT had been designed to prevent high-income taxpayers from using deductions to reduce their taxable income to little or nothing. But because it was not adjusted for inflation, it increasingly applied to taxpayers who were currently in middle-income brackets. The Senate bill could also contain more tax cuts for businesses, including a measure allowing them to defer tax payments on corporate debt they bought back at a discounted price. The House bill was also criticized for its inclusion of so-called “Buy America” provisions, which mandated that infrastructure and construction projects use U.S.-made steel and iron. Critics said the provisions were overly protectionist, and would lead the U.S.’s trading partners to shun purchases of U.S. goods in retaliation. The provisions could also violate U.S. trade pacts with other countries. n

Obama Addresses Muslim World In Television Interview Pledges Israeli-Palestinian Engagement.

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U.S. President Barack Obama Jan. 27 addressed the Muslim and Arab worlds and expressed hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, in the first formal televised interview of his administration. The interview, with Al Arabiya, a United Arab Emirates (UAE)–based Arabic-language satellite television network, had been recorded at the White House the previous day. [See pp. 30D3, 29A3]

Obama emphasized that the U.S. had to use “a language of respect” with Muslim countries, and added, “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.” Obama pledged that he would not “wait until the end of my administration to deal with Palestinian and Israeli peace. We’re going to start now.” However, he also said that Israel remained “a strong ally of the United States” and that he would “continue to believe that Israel’s security is paramount.” Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) a week and a half earlier had declared a cease-fire, ending a 22-day war in the Hamas–controlled Gaza Strip. [See below] Obama also said he was open to “potential avenues for progress” with Iran, although he charged that the country’s leaders were acting in ways that “are not conducive to peace and prosperity in the region.” Iran had been accused of attempting to covertly develop nuclear weapons and supporting terrorist groups. Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D, Maine), Jan. 26 departed on an eight-day tour, with scheduled stops in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France and Britain. He met Jan. 29 with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, but not with officials of Hamas, which the U.S. regarded as a terrorist organization. Obama in the Al Arabiya interview said the trip would primarily be a listening tour, although Mitchell would also work with Israel, Egypt and the PA to shore up the Gaza truce. Violence Disrupts Gaza Cease-fire—

One Israeli and one Palestinian Jan. 27 were killed on the Gaza Strip border, in the first significant violence since the ceasefire was declared. A bomb exploded near an Israeli military vehicle on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, killing one Israeli soldier and wounding three. Hamas said it was not clear who had planted the bomb, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed that Israel would respond to the attack. Israeli forces later in the day mounted an incursion into the Gazan town of Dier al-Balah, near the bombing site, killing a Palestinian farmer. An Israeli missile strike also hit a motorbike in the Gazan city of Khan Yunis, injuring an alleged Hamas militant and a bystander. Also that day, Israel closed the border crossings into Gaza, barring 185 trucks filled with humanitarian aid from entering the territory. Hamas officials involved in Egyptian-brokered negotiations had reportedly proposed a yearlong truce, in exchange for Israel ending its blockade of Gaza and opening the territory’s border crossings. However, Israel Jan. 23 had said it would continue to allow only humanitarian aid through the crossings. Israel had reportedly continued to launch air strikes on smuggling tunnels underneath the Gaza-Egypt border, which were used to import weapons for Hamas and consumer goods to supply the Gaza economy. The New York Times Jan. 24 re-

ported that Palestinians were rebuilding the tunnels, which had been heavily targeted during the Gaza fighting. Hamas Jan. 25 announced that it would distribute a total of $52 million in aid to Gazans who had lost property or whose relatives had been killed in the fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Jan. 25 said the Israeli government had created legal teams to defend Israeli soldiers accused of committing war crimes during the Gaza offensive. Israeli and international human rights groups had said Israeli forces had violated international law by using excessive force against civilians and blocking aid from reaching them, but no criminal charges had yet been filed. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) refused to air an appeal for aid for victims of the fighting in Gaza, saying that it would compromise the impartiality of its reporting on the conflict, it was reported Jan. 22. The appeal was produced by the Disaster Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization representing several prominent British aid organizations. The BBC’s decision was heavily criticized, with some protesters claiming that the network was bowing to pressure from Jewish and pro-Israeli groups, while others said it had grown overly sensitive after a series of unrelated controversies. Another British broadcaster, Sky News, joined the BBC in rejecting the appeal, but three other stations aired it Jan. 26. [See 2008, p. 824E1; 2006, p. 435B2] n

International Criminal Court Opens First Trial Congolese Warlord Lubanga in Dock. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in

The Hague, the Netherlands, Jan. 26 be-

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FACTS ON FILE

gan the first trial since the court—the world’s first permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide—was created in 2002. The defendant in the case was Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a warlord from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who was accused of war crimes for allegedly enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 as soldiers to engage in combat between eastern Congo’s ethnic Hema and Lendu groups. [See 2008, p. 970G2] Lubanga’s case was seen as an important test for the credibility and effectiveness of the ICC. He had been arrested by Congolese authorities in 2005, and turned over to the ICC in 2006. His trial had been delayed for several months in 2008 due to a dispute over the disclosure of evidence by the prosecution. Lubanga, 48, was an ethnic Hema who had allegedly founded the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC) rebel groups in eastern Ituri province during Congo’s 1998–2003 civil war. He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which related to alleged crimes committed between early September 2002 and Aug. 13, 2003, as head of the FPLC. (The ICC had jurisdiction only over crimes that occurred after it came into existence on June 1, 2002.) In his opening statement, the ICC’s lead prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Jan. 26 alleged that “Lubanga’s armed group recruited and trained hundreds of children to kill, pillage and rape. Hundreds of children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga’s crimes. They cannot forget what they suffered, what they did, what they saw.” Moreno-Ocampo also alleged that girls were abducted and used as sex slaves. The prosecution planned to call 34 witnesses, including former child soldiers and members of Lubanga’s militias. Evidence from another 93 victims would also be heard. Lubanga’s defense lawyers Jan. 27 claimed that their client was being unfairly singled out from among numerous militia leaders in Congo—including Laurent Kabila, father of current Congolese President Joseph Kabila—who had acted in a similar manner during the conflict. They also said Lubanga could not get a fair trial at the ICC, alleging that the prosecution had still not fully complied with judges’ orders to disclose evidence. The case against Lubanga suffered a setback Jan. 28 when the first prosecution witness initially stated that he had been abducted by the UPC as a child and forced to fight, but then recanted his testimony after a break in the proceedings. The witness had been testifying from behind a screen—but in view of Lubanga—to protect his identity. Deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda then asked for, and was granted, an adjournment in order to conduct a review of measures in place to protect the witness, both during the trial and after he returned to Congo. n January 29, 2009

Religion Pope Reinstates Dissident Bishops. Pope

Benedict XVI Jan. 24 reversed the excommunication of four ultraconservative bishops who belonged to the Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist sect. The faction, which had about 600 priests and 400,000 laity, had been created in 1970 by French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who had rejected the reforms of the Roman Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Lefebvre in 1988 had ordained the four bishops without the consent of the Vatican, and Pope John Paul II had excommunicated all five men in response. In a statement released Jan. 24, Bishop Bernard Fellay, director of the Society of St. Pius X, said that because of the gesture, “Catholics attached to tradition throughout the world will no longer be unjustly stigmatized and condemned for having kept the faith of their fathers.” [See 2008, p. 916A3; 2005, p. 752C3] The creation of the Society of St. Pius X was considered the only modern schism in the Roman Catholic Church. The group had not officially accepted the tenets of Vatican II, one of which affirmed that Jews were not collectively responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Cardinal Walter Kasper, liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations, Jan. 25 said the Pope had not consulted with him on the reinstatement of the bishops. Bishop Denies Holocaust, Angers Jews—

Benedict XVI’s move to reinstate the bishops received considerable attention because British Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the excommunicated bishops, in an interview broadcast Jan. 22 on Swedish television station STV, had said “historical evidence” was “hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed” in the Holocaust. He added, “I believe there were no gas chambers.” The remarks sparked an outcry from Jewish advocacy groups across the world. Williamson had also reportedly claimed that the U.S. government was responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and had written that women should not attend universities or wear trousers. [See 2007, p. 284E2; 1988, p. 510E1] The Vatican Jan. 27 released a statement from Fellay that said Williamson’s views did not “reflect the position of the society.” Fellay also asked for the Pope’s forgiveness for “the dramatic consequences” of Williamson’s statements. The same day, Oded Wiener, director general of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, the country’s highest religious body, in a letter to Kasper, suggested that unless Williamson recanted his statements and issued an apology, the office would “postpone” a planned March meeting between the rabbinate and Vatican officials. Also that day, the Society of St. Pius X ordered Williamson to maintain silence on historical issues. Benedict XVI Jan. 28, in his weekly address to the public, recalled that he had paid multiple visits to the grounds of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp, which he described as the site of the “brutal massacre of millions of Jews, innocent victims of a blind racial and religious hatred.” Wiener praised his statements as “a giant step forward.” [See 2005, p. 276A2] n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Illinois Gov. Blagojevich Ousted By Unanimous State Senate Vote

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Convicted After Swift Impeachment Trial.

The Illinois state Senate Jan. 29 voted, 59– 0, to convict Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on an article of impeachment and remove him from office, after a four-day trial. The Senate also voted unanimously to bar Blagojevich, 52, from ever again holding public office in Illinois. Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D), 60, was sworn in as governor an hour later. [See p. 18C2] The impeachment by the state House two weeks earlier had followed Blagojevich’s arrest on federal corruption charges in early December 2008, when he was accused of a number of criminal schemes, including a plot to sell President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. Blagojevich had boycotted the impeachment trial, complaining that its rules were unfair because they prevented him from issuing subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify. He spent the first three days of the trial in New York City, appearing in more than a dozen national television interviews to make his case to the public. However, after refusing to testify or be cross-examined under oath, Blagojevich Jan. 28 requested permission to make a closing argument at the end of the trial at the state capitol in Springfield, which was presided over by Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald of the state Supreme Court. The request was granted, and Blagojevich delivered a 45-minute speech Jan. 29, declaring his innocence. “I have done absolutely nothing wrong,” he said. He argued, “You haven’t proved a crime—and you can’t, because it hasn’t happened. How can you throw a governor out of office with incomplete or insufficient evidence?” He called the trial “an evisceration of the presumption of innocence.”

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Prosecution Cites Wiretap Evidence—

The impeachment prosecutor, David Ellis, cited the federal criminal complaint against Blagojevich, which quoted from wiretapped profanity-laced telephone conversations in which the governor and his aides allegedly discussed schemes to demand favors, such as campaign contributions, in exchange for state contracts or other official actions. Ellis also charged that Blagojevich had abused his powers by circumventing the will of the state legislature on various matters. In his closing argument, Ellis Jan. 29 said, “Our point was on his words, his secretly recorded words, and who in the world was more qualified to testify about the governor’s words than the governor himself?” The state Senate Jan. 27 had listened to a short excerpt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recordings of Blagojevich’s phone conversations. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, who was in charge of the federal probe of the governor, had released only five minutes of the tapes for use in the impeachment trial. 43

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In the recordings heard Jan. 27, Blagojevich was allegedly discussing with his brother, Rob Blagojevich, and a lobbyist, Lon Monk, a scheme to extract a $100,000 campaign contribution from a horse-racing executive, John Johnston, in exchange for the governor’s signature on a bill that would give racetracks a share of casino profits. Blagojevich still faced the threat of a federal indictment after his removal from office. He became the first Illinois governor to be impeached, and the first governor of any state to be removed from office by impeachment since Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham (R) in 1988. [See 2008, p. 136E3] Despite the charges against him, Blagojevich had appointed former state Attorney General Roland Burris (D) to Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. Democratic leaders in the Senate had initially rejected the appointment as tainted by the corruption allegations against the governor, but eventually relented and allowed Burris to be seated in mid-January. Obama Jan. 29 issued a statement on Blagojevich’s ouster, saying, “Today ends a painful episode for Illinois. For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted. I wish Governor Quinn the best and pledge my full cooperation as he undertakes his new responsibilities.” n

Obama Administration Senate Confirms Treasury Secretary. The

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Senate Jan. 26 voted, 60–34, to confirm Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. At his swearing-in hours later, Geithner said the Treasury would take “bold” steps to bolster the country’s weakened financial system, which had led to a protracted freeze in the country’s credit markets and was exacerbating an ongoing recession. [See pp. 41A1, 30D1] When first nominated by then–Presidentelect Barack Obama in November 2008, Geithner, 47, had been expected to sail through the confirmation process. However, his confirmation was held up after it was revealed that he had failed to pay $34,000 in payroll taxes for salary he had received from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2001 and 2004. Some lawmakers Jan. 26 said they had voted against his confirmation due to the tax controversy. Geithner, who as Treasury secretary would head the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), said the missed tax payments had resulted from an innocent mistake. He had since paid the IRS back taxes with interest. Some lawmakers also criticized Geithner’s record at the New York Fed, where he had been deeply involved in the government’s administration of a $700 billion financial rescue package, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Critics said the government had used the funds in a haphazard fashion, and had failed to encourage banks to resume lending to consumers and businesses, and to each other. More than half of the TARP funds had already been committed, mostly 44

to buying shareholder stakes in ailing financial institutions. But most senators saw Geithner as uniquely qualified to assume the post, due to his familiarity with the crisis and the government’s efforts to address it. The New York Fed Jan. 27 said William Dudley, 56, would replace Geithner as its president. Dudley had previously served as an executive vice president at the New York Fed, overseeing its financial markets unit. He had also worked as chief economist at Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc. [See p. 45B2]

tential losses, it could also cost nothing if the assets eventually recovered value. Obama had already pledged to use between $50 billion and $100 billion of the TARP funds to stem a rising number of home foreclosures. Administration officials left open the possibility that Obama would request Congress to authorize even more money to aid the financial sector. Obama was also currently working with Congress to pass an economic recovery plan that could cost as much as $900 billion over the next two years.

Bank Takeover Expectations Dampened—

Obama Jan. 29 lashed out at Wall Street bankers who had received billions of dollars in bonuses even as their companies lost money and received government aid, describing the bonuses as “shameful” and the “height of irresponsibility.” Obama was reacting to a report released by the New York State comptroller’s office the previous day, which said Wall Street employees living in New York City had received $18.6 billion in bonuses in 2008. It was a 44% decline from the previous year, but still the sixthhighest yearly bonus payout ever. Obama Jan. 29 said, “Part of what we’re going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility.” The administration had said it would seek to place tighter restrictions on executive pay at financial institutions that received TARP aid. Obama’s comments came as the political fallout from the financial rescue package intensified. At the Obama administration’s urging, Citigroup, which had received $45 billion in government aid, Jan. 27 said it had canceled plans to buy a $50 million corporate jet, after the purchase sparked a public outcry. John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co. until its 2008 acquisition by Bank of America, Jan. 26 publicly admitted that it had been “a mistake” to spend $1.2 million to renovate his office. Thain said he would personally reimburse Bank of America, which also had received $45 billion from the government. [See p. 32E1]

Geithner Jan. 28 countered widespread speculation that the government would have to effectively nationalize some of the country’s banks, saying, “We have a financial system that is run by private shareholders, managed by private institutions and we’d like to do our best to preserve that system.” Bank stocks that day climbed on the comments, but economists said it was likely that the government would have to increase its stake in banks, because they were badly in need of capital. With share prices of the country’s biggest banks at historic lows, any significant government investments would lead to large ownership stakes. [See p. 32A1] Geithner was reportedly consulting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Chairwoman Sheila Bair and Lawrence Summers, head of Obama’s National Economic Council, to formulate a comprehensive strategy for reviving the banking system and using the remaining TARP funds. They reportedly wanted to avoid the approach of the previous administration of President George W. Bush, which had been criticized for addressing the crisis on a case-by-case basis without a fully formed vision for normalizing the industry. The government was reportedly considering the creation of a so-called “bad bank,” which would purchase distressed assets from financial institutions. Many of those assets were backed by home mortgages, and had seen their value plummet after the housing market entered a slump in 2006. Those assets were now virtually unsellable on the market, and had led to large losses for banks. However, the bad bank proposal was fraught with technical difficulties. The prices of such assets were hard to determine, and the government ran the risk of overpaying for them at the expense of the taxpayer. If the government underpaid for them, it would lead to even greater losses for the banks. Additionally, there was an estimated $1 trillion–$2 trillion worth of such assets on the market, much more than what remained in the TARP fund. The government was also reportedly considering guaranteeing some of those assets against losses, a move it had employed in recent efforts to support banking giants Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. The strategy was intended to boost investor confidence in such assets, as well as in the banks themselves. While it would expose the government to billions of dollars of po-

Obama Blasts ‘Shameful’ Bonuses—

Lobbying, Political Influence Limited—

Geithner Jan. 27 announced that the Treasury would impose rules limiting the influence that lobbyists and politicians had on determining which financial institutions received TARP aid. The announcement followed media reports that the aid money had sparked a frenzy of lobbying activity on behalf of the banking sector. Additionally, reports had questioned the motivations of lawmakers who had pushed for TARP funds to be directed toward financial institutions in their home states. Geithner that day said, “American taxpayers deserve to know that their money is spent in the most effective way to stabilize the financial system. Today’s actions reaffirm our commitment toward that goal.” While details of the rules were yet to be released, the Treasury said it would limit its contacts with banking lobbyists, and publicize on its Web site a weekly log of all contacts made with lobbyists and public FACTS ON FILE

officials concerning particular financial institutions. To minimize the influence of politicians, the Treasury said its Office of Financial Stability would publish a “detailed description” to accompany every TARP disbursement, certifying that it had been made using objective criteria. China Responds to Currency Remarks—

China’s commerce ministry Jan. 23 released a statement denying that it had ever engaged in “so-called currency manipulation,” in what was widely seen to be a rebuttal to written statements submitted by Geithner during his Senate confirmation process. Geithner had written that Obama “believes that China is manipulating its currency,” the yuan, and that Obama would “use aggressively all diplomatic avenues” to seek a change in China’s practices. [See p. 30C2] The Chinese ministry said, “Directing unsubstantiated criticism at China on the exchange-rate issue will only help U.S. protectionism and will not help towards a real solution to the issue.” U.S. officials had long pressed China to allow the yuan to rise against the U.S. dollar from what critics described as an artificially low level that made China’s exports cheaper and increased its trade surplus. However, the Bush administration had refrained from labeling China a currency manipulator, over fears that it could antagonize one of the U.S.’s largest trading partners. Analysts said Obama could be taking a harder line against China’s currency practices, which might increase trade tensions between the two countries. Some said tensions could distract the two sides from working together to combat a global economic downturn. n Blair Confirmed as Intelligence Director.

The Senate Jan. 28 voted unanimously to confirm Dennis Blair, a retired four-star admiral and former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, as director of national intelligence. Blair was the third person to hold the position following its creation in 2004. His predecessor, Mike McConnell, had resigned Jan. 27. [See p. 6A1; 2001, p. 636F3] Blair Jan. 22 testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as part of his confirmation. He said, “The intelligence agencies of the United States must respect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people, and they must adhere to the rule of law.” The remarks were considered a break from the policies of former President George W. Bush, who had been criticized for authorizing the warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and condoning interrogation techniques that many described as torture. Blair promised that, if confirmed, “there will be no waterboarding on my watch. There will be no torture on my watch.” However, Blair declined to state if he believed that waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique that simulated drowning, constituted torture. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used waterboarding against at least three terrorism detainees since 2001 The U.S. had previously January 29, 2009

prosecuted waterboarding as a war crime, and Eric Holder Jr., President Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, had said that waterboarding was torture during his confirmation hearings. Blair Jan. 28 submitted written responses to additional questions posed by members of the committee. In his responses, Blair said he would investigate whether staff could be cut from the office of the director of national intelligence, and said that conflicting laws overseeing covert operations were a serious problem that served to “slow and degrade the conduct of operations in the field.” n

Economy Fed Leaves Interest Rate at Near Zero.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making body of the Federal Reserve, Jan. 28 voted, 8–1, to leave its benchmark federal-funds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. In a statement released that day, the Fed said an ongoing recession was “likely to warrant exceptionally low” interest rate levels “for some time.” [See 2008, p. 913A1] The Fed said that since its last interestrate meeting in December 2008, the U.S. economy had “weakened further.” It noted that “industrial production, housing starts and employment have continued to decline steeply, as consumers and businesses have cut back spending.” It said credit conditions remained “extremely tight,” and that “global demand appears to be slowing significantly.” [See pp. 46D2, 45C3, 14A2] The Fed also said it saw “some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth.” Analysts said the statement reflected concerns that a drop in demand could usher in a deflationary cycle, when falling prices decreased business revenue, leading to higher unemployment and a further drop in demand. [See p. 46C1] Adjusting the interest rate was the Fed’s primary tool for implementing monetary policy, and lowering the interest rate normally boosted lending. But with the federal funds rate near zero, the Fed had resorted to buying debt to reduce rates amidst a freeze in credit markets. The Fed said it was “ready to expand” its purchases of debt and mortgage-backed assets from mortgage-financing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The Fed in February was also expected to begin a $200 billion program to encourage purchases of assets backed by other consumer loans, such as auto, student and credit-card loans. The Fed said it was “prepared” to buy longer-term Treasury securities, another move that could lower interest rates. Increased purchases of Treasury securities would send their yields down, and those yields were widely used as a gauge for setting interest rates. However, the Fed had been reluctant to formally adopt the policy, which would further flood the market with new U.S. dollars. Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., cast the

lone dissenting vote, arguing that purchases of Treasury securities would be more effective than buying debt backed by mortgages and other consumer loans. Fed to Help Reduce Foreclosures—Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a letter to congressional leaders, Jan. 27 said the Fed would begin modifying the terms of home loans on its books in an attempt to stem a rising number of foreclosures. The Fed was thought to own tens of billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed assets, which it had acquired after the government intervened to rescue investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. and insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG). The precise amount was unknown, but thought to be less than $84 billion. [See 2008, pp. 645A1, 177A2] Bernanke did not provide details on how the program would work, but in the past had urged lenders to reduce the loan’s principal, or the size of the original loan. After housing prices started to slide steeply in 2006, homeowners were left repaying loans that were larger than the house’s value, tempting many to succumb to foreclosure. The Fed could also lower monthly interest rates or extend the loans’ maturity dates. n

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Housing Starts Fell 15.5% in Dec. 2008.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Jan. 22 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in December 2008 was 550,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was 15.5% below the revised rate for November of 651,000 units, and the survey’s lowest level since it began in 1959. The drop reflected the glut of existing homes that remained unsold on the market, as an ongoing recession depressed demand for housing. In all, an estimated 904,300 houses were started in 2008, down 33.3% from 2007. [See 2008, p. 937C3] Building permits were issued in December at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 549,000 units, 10.7% below November’s revised rate of 615,000. n

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Existing Home Sales Rose 6.5% in Dec. 2008. The National Association of Realtors (NAR)

Jan. 26 reported that sales of existing homes rose 6.5% in December 2008, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.74 million units, up from the revised November rate of 4.45 million units. The larger-than-expected spike was attributed to consumers taking advantage of plunging home prices. The NAR estimated that 45% of the sales were “distressed,” meaning that the homes had either been foreclosed on or sold for less than the amount the sellers owed on their mortgages. [See 2008, p. 937C2] Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist, said the climb in sales was a positive sign, but warned that the housing market was “still far from normal, balanced conditions.” Overall, 4.91 million existing homes were sold in 2008, down 13.1% from the previous year, and the fewest since 1997. The median sale price for existing homes in December was $175,400, down 15.3% from the $207,000 reported a year earlier. n New Home Sales Fell 14.7% in Dec. 2008.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Jan. 29 45

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reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes fell 14.7% in December 2008 from the previous month, as the housing market continued to slump amidst an ongoing recession. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 331,000 units, down from the revised November rate of 388,000, and the lowest level on record. In 2008, 482,000 new homes were sold, down 37.8% from the previous year. The median price of a new single-family home sold in December was reported to be $206,500. [See 2008, p. 937B2] n Durable Goods Orders Down in Dec. 2008.

The Commerce Department Jan. 29 reported that the value of durable goods orders in December 2008 was $176.8 billion, down 2.6% from the previous month, as an ongoing recession compelled businesses to reduce their purchases of so-called big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. Overall, durable goods orders in 2008 had fallen 5.7% from the previous year. [See 2008, p. 951D1] n Consumer Prices Fell 0.7% in Dec. 2008.

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The Labor Department Jan. 16 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices Inflation (CPI) paid for conDecember 2008 -0.7% sumer goods by Previous Month -1.7% all urban con12-Month Increase 0.1% sumers, declined 0.7% in December 2008 after adjustment for seasonal variation, after falling 1.7% in November. It was the third straight month that consumer prices had fallen, as an ongoing recession depressed consumer demand. The drop was led by a steep decline in energy prices, which fell by 8.3% in December. [See 2008, p. 913G1] “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, did not rise or fall in December. For the 12-month period through December, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was 0.1%. n

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Producer Prices Fell 1.9% in Dec. 2008.

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The Labor Department Jan. 15 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in December 2008 fell 1.9% after seasonal adjustment. It was the fifth straight month that producer prices had fallen, largely due to a steady slide in energy prices, which fell 9.3% in December. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, rose 0.2% in December. [See 2008, p. 921B3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 168.8% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $168.80 in December. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods dropped 4.2% in December, and prices for crude goods fell 5.3%. n Consumer Confidence Fell in January.

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The Conference Board business research group Jan. 27 reported that its index of consumer confidence fell to 37.7 in January, down from a revised 38.6 in December 2008. The index was at an all-time low, as consumers anticipated an ongoing recession would lead to further deterioration of business conditions and more job losses. The in46

dex’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See 2008, p. 951E1]n Leading Indicators Rose in December 2008.

The Conference Board business research organization Jan. 26 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.3% in December 2008, to 99.5. Based on revised data, the index had decreased 0.4% in November, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See 2008, p. 937A3] Four of the 10 indicators in December were “positive” contributors, led by real money supply and interest rate spread. Five indicators—led by building permits and average weekly manufacturing hours— were “negative.” Consumer expectations were neither positive nor negative. n Business Inventories Down in Nov. 2008.

The Commerce Department Jan. 14 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of November 2008 was $1.5 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 0.7% from the revised value at the end of October. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.41. [See 2008, p. 921D3] n Industrial Production Fell 2% in Dec. 2008.

The Federal Reserve Jan. 16 reported that its industrial production index decreased 2.0% in December 2008. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 1.3% in November. The overall index now stood at 103.6% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 105.7% for November. [See 2008, p. 937G2] Manufacturing production fell 2.3% in December. The output of utilities decreased 0.1%, and mining output decreased 1.6%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 73.6% of their total capacity in December. n

Politics Rep. Gillibrand Named to N.Y. Senate Seat.

New York Gov. David Paterson (D) at a news conference in Albany, the state capital, Jan. 23 announced his appointment of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Paterson settled on Gillibrand, who was just starting her second term in Congress, after Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, abruptly withdrew from consideration for the Senate seat the previous day. Paterson passed over another high-profile contender, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D), to choose Gillibrand. She was sworn in as a senator Jan. 27, to serve until a special election in 2010. [See p. 32E3] Gillibrand, 42, was a former corporate lawyer with a reputation as a formidable fund-raiser. She represented New York’s largely rural, traditionally Republican 20th Congressional District, which stretched along the Hudson River into the far north of the state, and extended west around Albany. In 2006, she had unseated incumbent Rep. John Sweeney (R). [See 2006, p. 854E3]

Gillibrand’s centrist voting record in the House set her apart from the liberal majority of New York’s Democratic congressional delegation, which mostly hailed from the New York City area. Most controversially, the National Rifle Association gun-rights group had given her a perfect rating. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who had supported Kennedy’s bid for the seat, issued a statement criticizing Gillibrand’s record on gun control. Her record on immigration— she had opposed any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants—also drew criticism from liberal and Hispanic groups. Gillibrand had been the only member of the New York Democratic delegation to vote against a $700 billion financial industry rescue—a bailout seen as critical for Wall Street. She voted against both versions of the bill, in September and October 2008. Gillibrand Jan. 25 said her “advocacy will be broader” on issues such as gun control, now that she was representing the entire state. She had begun a “listening tour” of the state the previous day with a trip to New York City, where she appeared at a rally held by black civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton. n

Terrorism Detainees Guantanamo Judge Defies Obama Request.

The head military judge at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Jan. 29 rejected a request from military prosecutors to delay by 120 days an arraignment hearing for terrorism detainee Abd al-Rahim alNashiri. Judge James Pohl ruled that such a delay would “not serve the interests of justice.” Newly inaugurated President Barack Obama had ordered Guantanamo prosecutors to seek the 120-day delays in pending cases, to allow the Obama administration to review the evidence against all 244 detainees remaining at Guantanamo. Two other judges, including one overseeing the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., had previously agreed to the requests. Nashiri was scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 9. [See p. 20E1; 2007, p. 817B1] Pohl said the request to delay the arraignment was “not reasonable” and that “Congress passed the [2006 Military Commissions Act], which remains in effect. The Commission is bound by the law as it currently exists, not as it may change in the future.” Experts said that if Nashiri—who was accused of plotting the October 2000 suicide bomb attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen—was arraigned by the military court, U.S. law would likely prohibit future attempts to try him in any U.S. court under double-jeopardy rules, even if the charges against him at Guantanamo were eventually dropped. Nashiri was one of three detainees known to have been subjected by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to waterboarding, a harsh interrogation tactic that had previously been prosecuted by the U.S. as a war crime. Separately, the CIA had admitted in December 2007 that FACTS ON FILE

it had taped interrogations of Nashiri and another detainee and later destroyed the tapes, triggering a criminal investigation. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Jan. 29 said the administration was “consulting with the Pentagon and the Department of Justice to explore our options” regarding the Nashiri case, but told reporters that the decision would not interfere with plans to review evidence against all detainees. Convening Authority Susan Crawford, the highest-ranking Defense Department official at Guantanamo, had the ability to drop charges against Nashiri without involving Pohl, which would not preclude the filing of new charges against him in the future. n

Abortion Obama Lifts Ban on International Funds.

President Barack Obama Jan. 23 ended a ban on the use of U.S. foreign aid funds by international family planning programs that provided abortions, or advice on obtaining one. Known both as the “Mexico City policy” and the “global gag rule,” the ban had first been instituted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, but had been overturned and reinstated by subsequent presidents. Former President George W. Bush had reinstated the policy as one of his earliest acts in office in 2001, after it was reversed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in 1993. [See 2007, p. 668A2; 1993, p. 47D3] Obama signed the memorandum rescinding the policy in a low-key ceremony late Jan. 23 with no reporters present, a move viewed as an attempt to tamp down the controversy surrounding abortion. He also waited until the day after the 26th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that women had a constitutional right to abortion. Clinton and Bush had chosen the anniversary date to issue their orders on the policy. “For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue,” Obama said. Antiabortion activists decried the move, while many women’s health advocates praised it. The reversal allowed international groups that offered abortions or information on the procedure to accept funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Obama also said he would work to restore U.S. financial support of the United Nations Population Fund, which had been defunded by Bush, who alleged that its cooperation with China’s one-child policy enabled forced abortions there. Separately, thousands of antiabortion demonstrators Jan. 22 marched in Washington D.C., in protest of Roe v. Wade. n

Environment Obama Issues Vehicle Emissions Rules.

President Barack Obama Jan. 26 issued two orders aimed at forcing automakers to design vehicles with lower greenhouse gas emissions. Obama instructed the EnvironJanuary 29, 2009

mental Protection Agency (EPA) to quickly reexamine granting California, 13 other states and Washington, D.C., a waiver that would allow them to regulate vehicle tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide more strictly than the federal government did. Obama also instructed the Department of Transportation to formulate fuel efficiency rules requiring new vehicles to reach a standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. [See 2008, p. 557F3; 2007, p. 843C3] The move was a shift from the positions of the Bush administration, which in December 2007 had rejected California’s request for the waiver, despite having granted the state dozens of similar exceptions in the past. At the time, the EPA had argued that recently passed fuel efficiency standards would achieve substantial emissions reductions, and that to allow individual states to impose tailpipe emissions rules would result in a complex patchwork of regulations. Automakers had also strenuously opposed approval of the waiver, as it would likely compel them to redesign their vehicle fleets on an accelerated schedule. They had filed several lawsuits as part of an effort to block states from setting stricter vehicle emissions standards. [See 2007, p. 845B3] EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at her recent Senate confirmation hearing had said she would “aggressively” reexamine the agency’s stance on the waiver. Although Obama could only order the EPA to reconsider granting the waiver, it was widely thought that the agency, under Jackson, would issue it. The standards that California wished to put into place would reduce emissions by 30% between 2009 and 2016. Because California was such a large market, efficiency standards implemented in vehicles sold there were usually also incorporated into cars sold throughout the U.S. The 14 states seeking to impose the stricter standards comprised nearly half the domestic market for cars. Three additional states had also indicated that they planned on adopting the emissions standards. Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, a governor-appointed panel charged with regulating the state’s air pollution, Jan. 21 had formally requested that Jackson reconsider the waiver issue. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) that day made a similar request of Obama. The Bush administration less than two weeks before Obama’s inauguration had also declined to issue new vehicle fuel efficiency rules, despite a 2007 law calling for a change in standards. In late 2008, the Transportation Department had circulated a proposal to raise the standards, but had never formalized them. The department would need to issue new rules by March in order for changes to be made in the 2011 model-year vehicle fleet. n

Legislation Equal Pay Measure Cleared, Signed. Pres-

ident Barack Obama Jan. 29 signed into law a bill that expanded the statute of limi-

tations for workers alleging pay discrimination based on gender. The bill was the first that Obama signed into law since becoming president Jan. 20. The signing ceremony was attended by lawmakers, civil rights advocates and Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama woman who had sought compensation after learning that she had been paid substantially less than her male counterparts during 20 years at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant. [See p. 20A1] The event also marked the most highprofile role to date that first lady Michelle Obama had taken in connection with a policy issue, as she hosted a reception after the ceremony for Ledbetter and others who supported the bill. The Senate Jan. 22 had approved the bill, known officially as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, in a 61–36 vote. The bill nullified a 2007 Supreme Court decision that a worker had only 180 days from the issuance of their first paycheck to file a claim against a company that had allegedly engaged in wage discrimination. Under the new law, the statute of limitations period would be renewed with each paycheck. The House had passed the bill in early January, then cleared it on Jan. 27 in a 250– 177 vote. n

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Automobiles Chrysler Finance Arm Receives Federal Loan.

The Treasury Department Jan. 16 announced that it would extend a five-year, low-interest, $1.5 billion loan to Chrysler Financial, Auburn Hills, Mich.–based Chrysler LLC’s financing wing. The loan was intended to boost available credit for private auto purchasers amid an economic downturn that had severely affected the auto industry. The funds came in addition to two federal aid packages announced in December 2008, in which auto financier GMAC LLC had received $6 billion, and Chrysler and Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Corp. (GM) had received $17.4 billion in loans. [See 2008, p. 953E1] After the loan was announced, Chrysler said it would offer loans to customers with lower credit ratings and unveil favorable financing programs. A Treasury spokesman the same day said Dearborne, Mich.–based Ford Motor Co., which had not received funds from the $17.4 billion rescue, had been in similar talks with the Treasury since December. Ford said it was not seeking a federal bailout for its daily operations, but was “maintaining ongoing dialogue with the government in ideas to help unfreeze the credit market.” It was reported Jan. 26 that the Treasury was also in talks with leaders in the auto parts sector, who were expected to petition the government for as much as $10 billion. Many auto parts makers were reportedly having difficulty securing loans necessary for daily operations. Chrysler in Partnership With Italy’s Fiat—

Chrysler Jan. 20 announced that it had negotiated a no-cash partnership deal with Italian automaker Fiat SpA. Under the 47

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terms of the deal, Fiat would receive a 35% ownership stake in Chrysler with options to increase it later, and would be able to use Chrysler facilities to build Fiat and Alfa Romeo models for sale in the U.S. In return, Chrysler would receive access to technologies for producing the kind of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles that Fiat was known for. Chrysler, in contrast, earned most of its revenue through sales of larger vehicles like sport utility vehicles, pick-up trucks and minivans. [See 2008, p. 953E1; 2005, p. 121B3] As a condition of the deal, which was expected to be completed in April, Fiat would partner with Chrysler only if the automaker received an additional $3 billion in government aid that it was eligible for. Chrysler had already received $4 billion from the U.S. government’s financial-sector rescue package. It was eligible to receive the additional $3 billion if the company submitted to the federal government a detailed restructuring plan by Feb. 17. Analysts suggested that Chrysler’s partnership with Fiat could help impove its prospects for long-term viability. However, the deal did not inject much-needed cash into Chrysler. Fiat had exited the U.S. car market in 1983, and in 2000 formed an alliance with GM that was dissolved in 2005. Auto Sales Plunge—U.S. auto sales in December 2008 fell sharply from their December 2007 level, according to statistics released Jan. 6 by Autodata Corp., an automotive research and statistics firm. GM’s sales fell by 31.2%, Chrysler’s sales declined by 53.1% and Ford’s sales dropped 32.3%. [See 2008, p. 881D3] GM, which hadheld the title of the world’s largest automaker for 77 consecutive years, Jan. 21 released global sales figures for 2008 that lagged behind those of Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. Ford Jan. 29 posted a loss of $14.6 billion for 2008, its worst annual results ever. The company the same day said it would draw $10.1 billion from its credit lines to boost its cash reserves. It also announced the elimination of 1,200 jobs in its financing wing. [See p. 51G1] GMAC Chairman Steps Down—J. Ezra Merkin, chairman of GMAC, Jan. 9 resigned amid concerns that a number of lawsuits filed against him could interfere with his administration of the company. Merkin, who also operated a hedge fund, had turned over more than $1.8 billion in investor dollars to disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, who in December was arrested and charged with securities fraud for running a Ponzi scheme allegedly responsible for the loss of as much as $50 billion in investor dollars. GMAC had lost about $8 billion during Merkin’s tenure as chairman, which began in November 2006. [See 2008, p. 955F1] Chrysler, GM Eliminate ‘Jobs Banks’—

Chrysler Jan. 22 announced that the company Jan. 26 would end its so-called jobs bank program, under which laid-off or idled auto employees were paid nearly 48

full wages under certain circumstances. GM Jan. 28 announced that it would eliminate its jobs bank Feb. 2. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union was required to give up the historically controversial program as one of the conditions of the $17.4 billion loan package. [See 2008, p. 933E1] n

Supreme Court Court Backs Worker in Harassment Case.

The Supreme Court Jan. 26 ruled unanimously that federal law protected workers from retaliation when they participated in workplace probes investigating harassment by a supervisor. The case was Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn. [See p. 47A3; 2008, p. 55C3] The plaintiff in the case, Vicky Crawford, and two other women had been fired from their jobs in the Tennessee school system after they cooperated in an internal investigation of sexual harassment by Gene Hughes, an employee relations director. (Hughes had reportedly received a reprimand for his behavior.) The school fired Crawford after accusing her of embezzlement, a charge never pursued by authorities. Lower courts had ruled against Crawford’s claim that the firing was retaliatory, saying Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act only protected against employer retaliation if the victim had initiated the harassment complaint. The court said Crawford had merely responded to supervisors’ questions about Hughes’s behavior. In the court’s opinion, Justice David H. Souter said, “Nothing in the statute requires a freakish rule protecting an employee who reports discrimination of her own initiative but not one who reports the same discrimination in the same words when her boss asks a question.” Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, in a separate opinion written by Alito, noted that the Court’s opinion “does not and should not extend beyond employees who testify in internal investigations or engage in analogous protected conduct.” n News in Brief. The Supreme Court Jan. 26 ruled unanimously that supervising prose-

cutors could not be sued for administrative misconduct following overturned convic-

tions. Thomas Goldstein, the original plaintiff in the case, Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, had served 24 years in jail before his conviction was overturned. He then attempted to sue a Los Angeles district attorney for allowing prosecutors in his office to use an unreliable source to build a case against him. [See 2008, p. 721C1] The court Jan. 26 unanimously ruled to

uphold antidumping duties on enriched uranium imported from France. (Selling at

artificially depressed prices was known as dumping.) The case was United States v. Eurodif. [See 2008, p. 310D2] The court Jan. 26 agreed to hear Maryland v. Shatzer, in which it would decide how long police had to respect a suspect’s

request for a lawyer before commencing an interrogation. The case arose after convicted child molester Michael Shatzer in 2003 had requested a lawyer when police began investigating a separate abuse case against him. The case was then abandoned for three years. After new evidence surfaced in 2006, Shatzer confessed to the crime and was subsequently convicted. He then appealed, claiming that his confession was invalid because his 2003 request for a lawyer had never been granted. [See 1990, p. 909C3] The court Jan. 21 declined without comment to hear Mukasey v. ACLU, letting stand a 2007 ruling striking down the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). COPA,

which penalized people who distributed material deemed harmful to minors over the Internet, had been passed by Congress in 1998, but was immediately challenged as unconstitutional, and had never taken effect. Judge Lowell Reed Jr., a federal judge in Philadelphia, Pa., in 2007 had ruled that web filtering software was as effective as federal laws in keeping objectionable material from children. The Bush administration in October 2008 had requested that the Supreme Court review the case. [See 2006, p. 211F3] The court Jan. 21 unanimously ruled in favor of the parents of a young girl who claimed that an older grade-school-aged boy had sexually harassed her on a school bus. The parents had been dissatisfied with

the school’s suggestion that the children ride on separate buses, as well as the school’s claims that the harassment could not be proven. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in the court’s decision, said a lower court had made a mistake when it had closed the parents’ means of furthering their harassment case. The court returned the case, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, to a lower court, which would consider whether the parents could sue the school under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as Section 1983. [See 1999, p. 382A1] The court Jan. 21 unanimously ruled in favor of five Utah police officers who in 2002 had entered a suspected drug dealer’s home without a warrant after he had already answered the door for one officer, who had pretended to be interested in purchasing drugs. The officers had then arrested the suspect for methamphetamine possession. The charges against him were later thrown out, and the suspect then sued the officers for violating his Fourth Amendment rights. The case was Pearson v. Callahan. [See 2006, p. 506B3] The court Jan. 16 agreed to hear Safford Unified School District v. Redding, in which the court would decide whether a 13-year-old girl’s rights had been violated when she was subjected to a strip search at her school in 2003. School officials had reportedly forced the girl, an honor student, to strip to her bra and underpants after she was accused of giving a friend two ibuprofen pills, a violation of school policies. [See 1997, p. 883C3] FACTS ON FILE

The court Jan. 16 agreed to hear Cuomo v. Clearing House Association, in which it would decide whether state officials could investigate national banks for discrimination. The case stemmed from a 2005 inquiry by then–New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into whether national banks— including Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.—had charged higher interest rates on real estate loans to black and Hispanic borrowers than white borrowers. [See 2005, p. 670E2] n

revelations in 2004 that a similar drug, Merck Inc.’s painkiller Vioxx, had been linked to a greater incidence of heart attacks and strokes. Separately, Pfizer Jan. 13 had announced that it was laying off up to 800 researchers in its laboratories, which had reportedly failed to meet expectations for product development. n

Medicine & Health First Embryonic Stem Cell Trial Approved.

Mergers & Acquisitions Drugmaker Pfizer to Acquire Wyeth.

Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical maker by sales, Jan. 26 announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase rival Wyeth in a $68 billion deal. The resulting company would become the fourth-largest of any kind in the U.S. in terms of market capitalization. Research firm Capital IQ said, if completed, the merger would be the largest since AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. completed a $70 billion deal in 2006. With the exception of government-managed mergers of banks, there had been a dearth of largescale business acquisitions since the onset of the global economic crisis in the latter half of 2008. [See 2002, p. 538E1] Under the terms of the deal, Wyeth shareholders would receive $33 and 0.985 shares of Pfizer stock for each of their shares. Pfizer said it would finance the deal with $22.5 billion from five banks, four of which had received rescue package funds from the federal government. However, Pfizer had secured the loans by agreeing to pay relatively high interest rates of 7%–9% on the loans, and the banks had secured guarantees that they could halt financing if Pfizer’s credit rating fell below a predetermined level. The merger was also expected to result in 19,000 layoffs, since there would be redundancies in the combined company’s 128,000-strong work force. The agreement would also likely result in the closing of the headquarters of either New York City– based Pfizer or Madison, N.J.–based Wyeth, resulting in further job losses in the already hard-hit New York City area. Analysts said Pfizer’s purchase of Wyeth would likely spur a round of further consolidation among drug companies. Pfizer’s acquisition was seen as an attempt to limit a significant loss of revenue resulting from the expiration in 2011 of its blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor, which garnered it about $13 billion per year in sales revenue; that was a significant portion of Pfizer’s total 2007 revenue of $48 billion. Pfizer Jan. 26 also announced that it would take a $2.3 billion one-time charge in order to set aside money to settle a probe by the Justice Department of its marketing of the painkiller Bextra. Prosecutors alleged that Pfizer had illegally promoted “off-label” uses of the drug which had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Bextra had been removed from the market in 2005, following January 29, 2009

Biotechnology company Geron Inc. Jan. 23 said it had received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first human clinical trial of a medical treatment that used human embryonic stem cells. Therapies involving human embryonic stem cells were controversial, since their creation required the destruction of human embryos, a procedure that some considered tantamount to murder. Menlo Park, Calif.–based Geron had requested the FDA’s approval for a clinical trial examining a stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries; company officials said they had received the approval Jan. 21. [See 2006, p. 596A1] In August 2001, then-President George W. Bush had ordered that federal funding for the creation of any new stem cell lines be halted. However, federal funding for research on existing stem cell lines was continued. President Barack Obama during his campaign had said he would overturn Bush’s prohibition and restore funding for new embryonic stem cell lines. The treatment Geron had sought approval for relied on a stem cell line in existence at the time of Bush’s ban in 2001. [See 2001, p. 618F3] Embryonic stem cells were thought to have an enormous potential for varied medical applications since they could be coaxed into developing into any type of human cell. Geron’s clinical trial was largely designed to test the safety of embryonic stem cells, but the company said researchers would be monitoring patients closely for any medical benefit. The clinical trial involved injecting stem cells grown into a cell type known as oligodendrocytes into patients’ spinal cords seven to 14 days after they had suffered an injury. The injected cells were intended to repair damaged cells and restore the ability of nerves to carry signals. n

Telecommunications FCC Chairman Resigns. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman

Kevin Martin Jan. 15 announced that he would resign, effective Jan. 20. Martin, 42, said he would be joining the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit leadership organization, as a communications fellow. He had led the FCC since 2005, and the commission under his leadership had cracked down on broadcast indecency and moved to reform cable television charges. Martin’s resignation came after it was reported Jan. 14 that President-elect Barack

Obama was likely to pick venture capitalist Julius Genachowski, 46, as the new FCC chairman. [See 2008, p. 958D2; 2005, p. 165F3] Genachowski, a close friend and Harvard Law School classmate of Obama’s, had spearheaded the Obama campaign’s innovative online efforts to reach out to volunteers and voters. He had also raised $500,000 for the campaign. If confirmed, he was expected to lead the FCC to concentrate more on Internet issues, including increasing the diversity of media ownership and so-called net neutrality, which would bar telecommunications companies or Internet service providers from favoring certain content distributed over their networks. In addition to the chair, there was one additional vacant commissioner’s seat, which was designated for a Republican, on the panel. n

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Consumer Affairs Salmonella Linked to Peanut Butter. The

Minnesota Department of Health Jan. 12 reported that it had linked an outbreak of salmonella infections to contaminated peanut butter. At least 500 people in 43 states had fallen ill from salmonella, with at least eight deaths linked to the outbreak, it was reported Jan. 29. Minnesota health officials had taken the lead in the salmonella investigation, in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other states’ health agencies. The CDC had announced the outbreak on Jan. 7, saying it had started Sept. 3, 2008. [See 2008, p. 678F1] Minnesota investigators Jan. 12 said King Nut brand peanut butter had tested positive for the strain of salmonella in the outbreak. Distributor King Nut Cos. of Solon, Ohio, Jan. 11 had issued a recall of the peanut butter, which had been produced by Peanut Corp. of America, based in Lynchburg, Va. Peanut Corp. Jan. 13 issued a nationwide recall of peanut butter produced at its Blakely, Ga., plant on or after July 1, 2008, but Jan. 28 extended that recall to encompass all its products made since Jan. 1, 2008. The FDA Jan. 27 said the plant had violated several federal manufacturing standards in 2007–08, and had knowingly shipped peanut butter contaminated with salmonella at least a dozen times in that period. Health officials had initially believed that the contamination was limited to peanut butter packed into bulk containers and sold to institutions such as schools and nursing homes. However, officials later discovered that peanut paste used in a variety of foods and food products was also contaminated. As of Jan. 28, the FDA had listed some 400 products that had been recalled, including snack bars, candies and other types of food. Health officials Jan. 21 said the Blakely plant had been conclusively identified as the sole source of tainted peanut products. n 49

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Liberia U.S. Court Sentences Taylor’s Son. Judge

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Cecilia Altonaga in U.S. District Court in Miami, Fla., Jan. 9 sentenced Charles McArthur Emmanuel, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, to 97 years in prison. Emmanuel, also known as Charles (Chuckie) Taylor Jr., in October 2008 had been convicted of torture, conspiracy to commit torture and carrying a firearm during a violent crime in connection with his role as head of a Liberian security force known as the Antiterror Unit from 1999 to 2003, while his father was president. (Charles Taylor was currently on trial for war crimes before the United Nations–backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, the Netherlands.) [See 2008, p. 906G3] Emmanuel’s conviction and sentencing were the first under a 1994 U.S. law that allowed a U.S. citizen or a person in the U.S. to be charged in a domestic court with torture committed in another country. n

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Bolivia Voters Endorse New Constitution. Voters

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in Bolivia Jan. 25 approved a new constitution backed by President Evo Morales Aima, 62%–38%, according to results tallied with 99% of ballots counted. Turnout was estimated at 90%. The document provided the majority indigenous population with new legal rights, and gave the federal government greater control of the country’s natural resources. [See 2008, p. 855F1] The new charter also revamped the country’s bicameral legislative branch by renaming it the “plurinational assembly,” and enlarged the Senate by nine seats, for a total of 36. The new seats were intended to increase the representation of indigenous groups in the legislature. The new constitution also called for the members of the Supreme Court to be elected, instead of named by the Senate. Also, the document concentrated the power to set energy, security, foreign and economic policy solely in the hands of the federal government. The constitutional changes would require the passage of more than 100 new laws. Voting had largely been divided by geography and ethnicity, with Indian populations in the country’s western highlands supporting the constitution. Those in the natural resource–rich eastern lowlands, who were mainly of European descent, tended to vote against the constitution because of its provisions on redistribution of farmland and fuel revenues, according to local media reports. In 2008, Bolivia had been riven between these two factions, and increasing violence between the groups had led to concerns that the country was headed toward civil war. [See 2008, p. 559B3] However, support for Morales was bolstered in August 2008, after he won the 50

support of some 67% of voters in a recall vote. Members of the opposition in October of that year had agreed to a series of amendments to the constitution that limited many of the reforms Morales had called for. However, the new constitution abolished the single five-year presidential term limit, clearing the way for Morales to run again in December. There were reports of some clashes between Morales supporters and the opposition in the run-up to the election. However, the polling had taken place largely without incident, and had been witnessed by observers from the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union and other international groups. n

Canada Liberals Support Budget, Government. Ca-

nadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, of the ruling Conservative Party, Jan. 27 presented a budget for the 2009 fiscal year to Parliament that included a C$39.9 billion (US$32.6 billion) economic stimulus plan. Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Jan. 28 said his party would support the budget if it were amended to mandate that the government provide three informational updates to Parliament over the course of the year. [See 2008, p. 885B1] Conservative House of Commons Leader Jay Hill said his party would agree to Ignatieff’s request. The moves increased the likelihood that the government of Prime Minster Stephen Harper, which held a plurality of seats in the Commons and required the support of at least one other party, would remain in power in the short term. In early December 2008, the country’s three main opposition parties—the centerleft Liberal Party, the leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) and the separatist Bloc Quebecois (BQ)—had agreed to form a coalition with more seats in the Commons than were controlled by the Conservative Party. The coalition said their move was in response to the Conservative Party’s 2009 budget plan, presented in November, which did not include stimulus measures. However, analysts suggested that the parties were motivated to form the coalition by an element of the budget plan that eliminated government subsidies to political parties, which the Liberals, in particular, depended on heavily. In response to the formation of the opposition coalition, Harper had asked Governor General Michaelle Jean, Canada’s titular head of state, to suspend Parliament until his government could present a budget to a reconvened Parliament Jan. 27. The Conservatives’ budget needed to win a simple majority of votes in the Commons, or else automatically trigger new elections. Ignatieff Jan. 28 said he would seek to amend the budget so that the government would have to issue the three progress reports in March, June and December. He said the results of the reports would determine whether the Liberals would continue to support the government. The BQ and the NDP maintained their opposition to the budget plan. NDP Leader

Jack Layton Jan. 28 derisively referred to Ignatieff’s plan as a “new coalition” between the Liberals and Conservatives. Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the BQ, said the coalition forged in December was “dead.” Budget Details—The budget plan was intended to increase Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.4% by the end of 2010. It included C$4.3 billion for increases in unemployment insurance, C$7.8 billion in aid for the country’s crumbling housing market, C$12 billion over a twoyear period for spending on infrastructure and C$4.1 billion over two years targeted to low-earning families. The budget estimated that the government would close the current fiscal year, ending March 31, with a deficit of C$1.1 billion. It projected that figure would grow to C$33.7 billion in the following fiscal year. n

El Salvador Former Rebels Gain in Municipal Elections.

According to results released Jan. 24, candidates of the leftist former guerrilla group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) made wide gains against the conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) party in nationwide municipal elections held Jan. 18, but failed to secure a majority in the country’s unicameral Legislative Assembly. [See 2006, p. 244B3] The FMLN secured 35 seats in the 84seat legislature, a gain of three seats from elections in 2006. Although Arena candidates won only 32 seats, the 11 seats secured by its ally, the National Conciliation Party (PCN), allowed the two parties’ coalition to maintain a slim majority in the legislature. Two smaller parties shared the remaining six seats. However, FMLN candidates won control of 96 of the country’s 262 mayoralities, a significant gain for the party, while Arena secured 122 races. The FMLN’s Violeta Menjivar, the incumbent mayor of San Salvador, the capital, was defeated by Norman Quijano of Arena. The result was seen as a blow to the FMLN, which had controlled the mayorship of the capital for the past 12 years. However, the wider election results were seen as a positive sign for the chances of FLMN presidential candidate Mauricio Funes in the upcoming presidential election, set for March 15. The FMLN was formed out of several rebel movements in the late 1980s in opposition to the U.S.-backed military government then ruling the country. n

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Japan Capital Injections for Companies Considered.

Japan’s economy, trade and industry ministry Jan. 27 said it was considering purchases, backed with public funds, of stock in companies having difficulty raising needed financing amid the current worldwide FACTS ON FILE

credit crunch. Although there was ample precedent in Japan for public capital injections into financial institutions, officials said the ministry’s plan to back stock buys in nonfinancial companies would require new legislation. [See 2008, p. 980C2] The plan would reportedly be aimed particularly at aiding small and mediumsized companies. The program would be led by the state-owned Development Bank of Japan, with the anticipated participation of private banks. The government would set aside 1.5 trillion yen ($17 billion) to partially cover the banks’ potential losses on the investments. To be eligible for the funding, companies would need to submit a plan for improving their earnings within three years. The release of the proposal sparked a rally in Japanese stocks, sending the benchmark Nikkei 225 index up 4.9% Jan. 27. Stimulus Passes Parliament— Japan’s Diet (parliament) Jan. 27 passed a 4.8 trillion yen ($54 billion) supplementary budget to fund an economic stimulus package unveiled by the government in October 2008. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan had blocked the government’s proposal in the upper house of the Diet, which it controlled. The upper house approved instead its own budget, which excluded two trillion yen in cash payments to the public that were part of the government package. Critics cited opinion polls showing that most Japanese thought the funds would be better spent in other ways, such as to help job creation and expand unemployment benefits. [See 2008, p. 855E2] However, in the case of a stalemate between the two chambers of parliament, the lower house, controlled by the governing coalition, prevailed, making for the budget’s passage. It was the second supplementary budget passed for the 2008 fiscal year, which would end March 31. [See 2008, p. 783A1] Prime Minister Taro Aso in a speech to parliament Jan. 28 pledged to pursue a speedy recovery with policies that would create 1.6 million new jobs and encourage workers to enter growing sectors. He also said the government would prepare to implement an increase in the 5% consumption tax in the 2011 fiscal year, so long as the economy had recovered by that time. Worsening Outlook Cited—Japanese government agencies in a series of January reports expressed a deteriorating outlook for Japan’s economy. In its monthly report, the Cabinet Office Jan. 20 said the economy was “worsening rapidly,” and the Bank of Japan, the central bank, two days later said it was likely to contract in both of the forthcoming fiscal years. The finance ministry Jan. 21 said Japan’s exports had fallen by 35% in December from a year earlier, the biggest monthly drop since it started keeping comparable statistics in 1980. n Founder’s Grandson to Lead Toyota. Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan Jan. 20 said Akio Toyoda, a grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda, would become the comJanuary 29, 2009

pany’s new president in June, succeeding Katsuaki Watanabe. The departure of Watanabe, who had been president since 2005, had been expected since Toyota announced in December that it would post its first operating loss in 70 years for the fiscal year ending March 31. [See 2008, p. 980F2; 2005, p. 979E3] Toyoda, 52, became the first member of the company’s founding family to serve as president since his uncle, Tatsuro Toyoda, who had left the post in 1995. Watanabe would become vice chairman. Toyota earlier Jan. 20 said its worldwide sales had fallen by 4%, to 8.97 million vehicles, in 2008, its first annual sales decline in 10 years. Nevertheless, Toyota for the first time exceeded General Motors Corp. (GM) of the U.S. in yearly sales; GM Jan. 21 said it had sold 8.35 million in 2008. [See p. 48D1; 2007, p. 299D3] The Japan Automobile Dealers’ Association Jan. 5 reported that domestic car sales had fallen 6.5% in 2008, to 3.212 million. Toyota and other Japanese carmakers had announced production cuts in response to the slump. n

main engine of its economy. [See 2008, pp. 981C2, 840F1] Lee also replaced Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong with Hyun In Taek. The unification ministry handled relations with North Korea, which had responded with increasing belligerence to the hard-line policy maintained by Lee since he took office in February 2008. Hyun was closely identified with Lee’s approach to North Korea. [See p. 36A1; 2008, p. 887F1]

North Korea

Ruling Coalition Gains Seats in By-Elections.

Election Scheduled, Ministers Replaced.

North Korea Jan. 7 announced that elections would be held for the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s nominal parliament, March 8. Under North Korea’s political system, the elections would be a formality, since only a single candidate, approved by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, would run for each seat in the legislature, which gave formal approval to decisions made by the party and supreme leader Kim Jong Il. [See 2008, p. 981A1; 1998, p. 638B2] Elections had been due to be held in 2008 in accordance with the five-year parliamentary term. (The previous elections had been held in August 2003.) Some foreign analysts suggested that the delay was due to a stroke that Kim was reported to have had in the fall of 2008. South Korea’s unification ministry Jan. 6 had said that at least five North Korean cabinet ministers with economy-related portfolios had been replaced. North Korea’s highly isolated, rigidly controlled economy had long been weak, and had been further hurt by a reduction in economic aid from South Korea. [See p. 51A3] n

South Korea Finance Minister Replaced in Shuffle.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak Jan. 19 shuffled his cabinet, replacing Kang Man Soo as finance minister with Yoon Jeung Hyun, a former chairman of the Financial Services Commission, the national financial regulatory agency. The current commission chairman and Lee’s top economic adviser were also replaced, in a move to revamp the government’s response to a global economic downturn that had sent South Korea’s currency, the won, plunging and sharply slowed exports, a

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Parliament Siege Over Trade Pact Ends—

Opposition lawmakers Jan. 6 ended a 12day sit-in at the National Assembly (parliament) they had conducted to physically prevent the consideration of a bilateral free trade agreement that the government had signed with the U.S. The siege was ended after the ruling Grand National Party agreed that the pact would not be taken up by parliament until after the Jan. 20 inauguration of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama, who had indicated he wished to see parts of the deal renegotiated. [See 2008, p. 981A2] n

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Thailand Thailand’s ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat Party, Jan. 11 won 20 of 29 contested parliamentary seats in by-elections across Thailand, according to preliminary results released by Thailand’s Election Commission. All the contested seats had previously been held by members of the rival People Power Party (PPP) and its allies before a December 2007 ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court disbanded the PPP. [See 2008, p. 981A3] The by-elections increased the ruling coalition’s strength in the 480-seat parliament to 255 seats, from 235. Under Thai law, the 30 members of parliament who served in Abhisit’s cabinet were not eligible to participate in any no-confidence votes brought by opposition parties, leaving the government vulnerable because of its slim majority. Analysts said that the strong showing by the Democrat Party and its allies pointed to the declining influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a political rival. Thailand had been wracked by political instability since a 2006 military coup that removed Thaksin from power. n Refugees Abandoned at Sea by Military.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper reported Jan. 12 that the Thai military had begun a policy of capturing seaborne refugees, detaining them off the coast of Thailand and then abandoning them at sea in vessels that lacked sails or motors. As many as 1,000 refugees had reportedly been abandoned as part of the policy and more than 500 were believed to be missing or dead. [See 2001, p. 176A1] The refugees were members of Myanmar’s oppressed Rohingya ethnic group and had been traveling from Bangladesh, which had a large Rohingya refugee population, in order to seek employment in Southeast Asia. The Rohingya were pre51

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dominantly Muslim, and analysts suggested that the decision to expel the refugees could have been motivated by concerns that some might join an Islamic insurgency based in southern Thailand. More Than 500 Missing— According to media reports, the Thai military on Dec. 18, 2008, forced about 408 refugees onto a boat that lacked sails or motors before towing the boat out to international waters. The military had reportedly killed at least four refugees in order to convince the remaining refugees to board the boat. The passengers were given only two barrels of water and four bags of rice and had drifted for 10 days before being discovered near India’s Andaman Islands Dec. 28. A total of 98 refugees were on the boat when it was found; more than 300 refugees had reportedly attempted to swim to shore after sighting land, but a search turned up only nine additional survivors. The military Dec. 30 reportedly set a second group of about 590 refugees adrift in four boats without sails or motors. Indonesia’s Jakarta Post reported Jan. 14 that one boat carrying 193 refugees had been discovered by fishermen off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh territory; the refugees were currently being held at an Indonesian naval base. A second vessel carrying about 150 refugees was also found, but the two remaining boats, which had carried a combined 237 people, were still unaccounted for. Thai Government Denies Allegations—

Lt. Col. Tara Soranarak, a representative of the Thai military, Jan. 16 told reporters that the military did not “push them [the refugees] back to the sea.” Tara also said that the country had an established “procedure to deport back the migrants to their home country after processing them through the Thai legal system.” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Jan. 20 said that the allegations of abuse and abandonment against the military were untrue, and stated, “Let’s be clear that Thailand has not violated the human rights of the refugees.” The South China Morning Post Jan. 15 had published photographs taken by an Australian tourist in Thailand that showed Thai soldiers publicly whipping detained refugees. Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya Jan. 29 said that the division of the military that had been linked with the alleged abuses was investigating the allegations but promised that “if the military investigation is not satisfactory, we’ll set up another group to do it.” He also described Thailand’s government as “very transparent” and told critics, “Don’t doubt before the investigation is complete.” The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Jan. 29 on its Web site that the United Nations was calling for Thailand to launch a full investigation into the claims, rather than leaving the investigation in the hands of the military. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) Jan. 20 called on the Thai military to grant it access to 80 refugees who were being detained on Thailand’s Koh Sai Deng island, as well as another 46 refugees whose ship had been 52

seized. U.N. officials Jan. 29 were allowed to meet with 12 of the refugees, all between the ages of 14 and 17, but were blocked from interviewing any of the adult refugees. Media sources reported that 66 of the refugees currently held by the Thai government Jan. 28 had been convicted of illegally entering Thailand, and received sentences of five days imprisonment. n

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Bulgaria Antigovernment Riot Breaks Out in Capital.

Police Jan. 14 arrested some 150 people after an antigovernment protest in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, turned into a riot. About 2,000 people had gathered outside the parliament building to call for the resignation of the socialist-led government, which was widely viewed as corrupt and ineffective. Dozens of people were reportedly injured in the melee, including 14 police officers. Police claimed that some of the protesters, who included students, farmers and environmental activists, had carried homemade explosives. About 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside parliament the following day, but no violence was reported. [See p. 37B3; 2008, p. 910C1] The protest’s organizers Jan. 14 said, “We are fed up with living in the poorest and most corrupt country” in the European Union. Reuters news service the same day reported that Bulgarian opinion polls showed that about 70% of citizens thought Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s government should resign. Bulgaria was slated to hold parliamentary elections in June. The riot came amid a gas shortage that had left thousands without heat. The shortage was caused by a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over Russia’s use of Ukraine’s gas pipelines to ship gas to Europe. [See p. 37D1] n

Great Britain Government Sets Aid for Carmakers.

The British government Jan. 27 said it would provide about £2.3 billion ($3.2 billion) in aid for the nation’s auto industry to help it survive the current recession. Business Secretary Peter Mandelson told the House of Commons, the lower chamber of Parliament, that the government was offering carmakers and parts suppliers access to £1.3 billion in loan guarantees from the European Investment Bank, an arm of the European Union, and £1 billion in loans from the British Treasury. [See p. 36E1; 2008, p. 933A1] Mandelson said the auto industry was “in the front line of the downturn, with output falling faster and further than any other sector.” However, he insisted that the state aid was “no bailout.” He said the loans were intended to make the industry “greener, innovative and more productive” by financing job training and cleaner engine technologies. The auto industry in Britain, mostly foreign-owned, employed some 800,000

workers and produced about 10% of the nation’s exports. In December 2008, the U.S. government had pledged $17.4 billion in emergency aid to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. France and Germany had responded with more modest measures to assist their auto industries. Britain’s initiative came days after the government announced a new rescue plan for the nation’s banks. n Economic Contraction Reported. Government data released Jan. 23 showed that the British economy had contracted by 1.5% in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with the previous quarter, or by 1.8% from a year earlier. That followed a 0.6% contraction in the third quarter, compared with the previous quarter. It was the first time since 1991 that British gross domestic product had contracted for two quarters in a row, which was a common criterion for a recession. [See pp. 52E2, 36E1] For all of 2008, GDP grew at a rate of 0.7%, the slowest since 1992. The British pound fell against the U.S. dollar in international exchange markets following the GDP report, continuing a recent decline. The pound closed at $1.38 that day, down nine cents for the week, at its lowest level since 1986. The government Jan. 21 had reported that the number of unemployed Britons rose to 1.92 million at the end of November 2008, the highest level since 1997. n

Iceland Government Collapses in Financial Crisis.

Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde and his cabinet Jan. 26 resigned under pressure from growing public protests over the collapse of the nation’s economy amid the global financial crisis. The fall of the government ended a nearly 18-year period in which Haarde’s Independence Party had been in government, promoting free-market policies and presiding over a booming economy that made Iceland one of the world’s richest nations until the recent implosion of its banking sector. Haarde had become prime minister in 2006. [See p. 53C1; 2008, p. 873D3; 2006, p. 476F1] In October 2008, the government had been forced to nationalize the country’s biggest banks to save them from bankruptcy, and suspended trading in the currency, the krona, after it plunged in value in international exchange markets. Iceland subsequently received $6 billion in emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and neighboring Nordic countries. The economy was projected to contract by nearly 10% in 2009, while unemployment and inflation were rising sharply. Since October, antigovernment demonstrations had been held outside the parliament building in Reykjavik, the capital. Protesters Jan. 21 surrounded Haarde’s car and pelted it with eggs and paint. The protests turned violent the next day, as police used tear gas against demonstrators for the first time in 60 years. FACTS ON FILE

Haarde Jan. 23 had announced that he was calling elections for May 9, two years early, and planned to step down as the leader of the Independence Party, which had governed in a coalition with the left-leaning Social Democratic Alliance. Haarde, 57, also said he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor in his esophagus. President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson Jan. 27 asked Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, leader of the Social Democrats, to form a new government that would hold office until the May elections. Gisladottir was expected to form a coalition with the anti-capitalist, environmentalist LeftGreen Party, the third-largest party in parliament. However, she had said Jan. 26 that she did not want to become prime minister because she had just undergone treatment for brain cancer. n

Other European News Greece, Spain, Portugal Credit Downgraded.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Jan. 14 downgraded Greece’s sovereign credit rating from A to A-minus, making it the first large Western European country to suffer such a downgrade since the current global financial crisis began. S&P delivered subsequent downgrades to Spain, whose rating was cut Jan. 19 to AA-plus, from the highest rating of AAA, and Portugal, which dropped Jan. 21 to AA-minus. S&P had also put Ireland on credit watch Jan. 9, meaning that it was at risk of a downgrade as well. [See pp. 52D2, 23E1] The downgrades came as European governments, faced with shrinking tax revenues, were boosting borrowing and adding to their budget deficits, in order to finance stimulus plans designed to help their economies weather the downturn. Those trends had led to a sharp widening of the spreads between the yields for 10-year government bonds issued by so-called peripheral European nations, such as Spain, Portugal and Greece, and benchmark German bonds, which investors viewed as more trustworthy. Spain became the first country with AAA-rated debt to be downgraded by S&P since Japan in 2001. Spain’s economy had enjoyed rapid growth over the previous 14 years, driven by a booming housing market. But the economy had entered a recession in the second half of 2008. Spain Jan. 23 reported that its unemployment rate had risen to 13.9% in December 2008, an eight-year record. That was the highest jobless rate in the eurozone, which comprised the 16 European countries that used the common euro currency. (Slovakia had joined the eurozone on Jan. 1, becoming the newest member.) The credit downgrades made it more expensive to insure sovereign debt against default, increasing borrowing costs for governments at the same time as they sought to finance more spending to stimulate their economies. European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet Jan. 21 dismissed as “unfounded” speculation that some memJanuary 29, 2009

bers might begin to drop out of the eurozone in order to regain the ability to set their own interest rates or devalue their currencies to ease the pressure on their economies. The ECB controlled monetary policy for the eurozone as a whole. n

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Iraq Government to Eject U.S. Security Firm.

The Iraqi government had told the U.S. that it would not give a new operating license to U.S. private security contractor Blackwater USA, which had been involved in several controversial shooting incidents in Iraq, the Washington Post reported Jan. 29. Moyock, N.C.–based Blackwater was the largest provider of security for U.S. State Department officials in Iraq. The interior ministry had informed the U.S. of its decision on Jan. 23, according to the Post. [See pp. 38A1, 9A1] Iraq had revoked Blackwater’s license after guards employed by the firm killed 17 Iraqi civilians in a September 2007 incident in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. However, Blackwater continued operating in Iraq, and the U.S. State Department renewed its contract. (The U.S. in December 2008 brought criminal charges against five guards in the incident.) Iraqi Interior Ministry Spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf Jan. 29 said Blackwater would not be issued a new license because it “acted inappropriately,” and alluded to the Baghdad shooting. Foreign security contractors had previously enjoyed immunity from Iraqi prosecution under a 2004 order from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which the U.S.-led coalition had installed to govern Iraq after its invasion in March 2003. However, Iraq had negotiated an end to the immunity in a new agreement that governed U.S-Iraqi relations, which took effect Jan. 1. Khalaf said that as soon as a joint U.S.– Iraqi committee finished creating guidelines for security contractors under the agreement, such companies “will be under the authority of the Iraqi government, and those companies that don’t have licenses, such as Blackwater, should leave Iraq immediately.” State Department spokesman Noel Clay said the U.S. would obey Iraqi law regarding Blackwater. A spokeswoman for Blackwater said she had not heard of the decision. Unnamed U.S. officials Jan. 29 said the U.S. had asked the two other large companies that provided security for the State Department to submit new contract proposals to take over Blackwater’s security responsibilities in Iraq. The two other companies were Herndon, Va.–based Triple Canopy Inc. and DynCorp International Inc., which was based in Falls Church, Va. Sunni Election Candidates Slain— Gunmen Jan. 29 assassinated three Sunni Muslim candidates who were running in provincial council elections scheduled for Jan. 31. The killings brought the total number of candidates slain since late December 2008 to six.

Gunmen shot and killed Omar Farouk al-Ani, of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic Party, in his home in the western Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Assassins killed Hazim Salim Ahmed, a candidate of the National Unity List, as he was leaving his house in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. He was a close friend of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who earlier in the day had visited Mosul. In Mandali—a town in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad—Abbas Farhan al-Azzawi, a candidate of the secular National Movement of Reform and Development, and two of his aides were shot and killed after a campaign rally. In other violence, gunmen Jan. 23 reportedly killed eight people—at least six of them members of the same family—in the Diyala town of Balad Ruz. An Iraqi police official said some of the women killed might have been prostitutes. The same day, Iraqi interior ministry security forces arrested an alleged leader of an Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militia in Wasit province, southeast of Baghdad, and turned him over to U.S. custody. The alleged leader, Mohammed al-Zameli, was accused of carrying out numerous attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces. U.S. soldiers early Jan. 24 raided a house in Hawija, west of the northern city of Kirkuk, and fatally shot an Iraqi couple, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said the soldiers—who were searching the house for members of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq—shot the woman when she reached under a mattress for a pistol and refused to show her hands, and then killed her husband when he attacked them. However, Iraqi neighbors of the couple said they had been shot without provocation. They also said the soldiers might have been U.S. special forces. Also, two U.S. helicopters early Jan. 26 crashed south of Kirkuk, killing four U.S. soldiers. It was unclear what had caused the crashes or whether the two helicopters had collided, although U.S. military officials said they had not been downed by enemy fire. However, a Sunni insurgent group known as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order or the Naqshbandi Army circulated leaflets claiming that it had shot down the helicopters with rockets. The crashes caused the largest U.S. loss of life in a single incident since a September 2008 helicopter crash killed seven soldiers. Other News—In other news: o Tens of thousands of Iraqis Jan. 28 voted early in provincial elections, which were scheduled for Jan. 31. Early voting was allowed for certain groups, including soldiers and police who would be providing security for the election, and some refugees. There were scattered reports of violence, including a bombing that killed a policeman in Mosul, and the killing of two other police officers by gunmen in Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk. (Elections were not scheduled to take place on Jan. 31 in Kirkuk province, due to disputes over 53

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the control of Kirkuk city by its various sectarian groups.) o Iraqi government spokesman Ali alDabbagh Jan. 26 released a statement saying that the government the previous day had reduced the fiscal 2009 budget for a second time, due to falling oil prices. Iraq derived most of its government revenue from oil exports. The latest reduction brought the budget to $62 billion, from $67 billion; the original budget of $80 billion had first been cut in November 2008. The new budget, which would be considered by parliament in February, assumed oil exports of two million barrels a day and a price of $50 a barrel. Crude oil prices Jan. 26 closed at $45.73 a barrel. o U.S. Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, Jan. 23 said he thought all 22,000 marines stationed in Iraq should be withdrawn later in 2009, and that 20,000 should be redeployed to Afghanistan, where the U.S. military was planning to bolster its forces to counter a growing insurgency. [See 2008, p. 734A1] n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Presidential Election Delayed Until August.

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Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission Jan. 29 announced that the country’s presidential election would be postponed to Aug. 20, largely due to instability stemming from an insurgency waged by the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group. Political opponents of President Hamid Karzai said the decision violated Afghanistan’s constitution, which called for an election 30 to 60 days before the end of a presidential term. Karzai’s term was due to end May 22. [See 2008, p. 988E2] Azizullah Lodin, the head of the commission, said that of Afghanistan’s 364 districts, 84 were not secure enough to conduct an election. Lodin said the commission was counting on an expected increase of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to provide greater stability in the coming months. There were currently about 70,000 U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces fighting the Taliban insurgency, and the U.S. was expected to deploy as many as 30,000 additional troops over the next 12 to 18 months. Lodin said other factors had led to the vote’s delay, including heavy winter snowfall, which had prevented the government from registering voters in mountainous areas. The commission was also reportedly well short of the estimated $223 million needed to fund the vote. In delaying the vote, the commission also postponed elections for provincial councils. Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Karzai, Jan. 29 said elections without the participation of the unstable provinces would be “illegitimate.” Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the United Nations, said the delay was a “pragmatic necessity.” But opposition lawmakers claimed that Karzai could not continue as president after May 22. Some called on the U.N. and the 54

Western military coalition to help establish a caretaker government that would rule in the transition period. Lodin argued that the country’s electoral laws allowed delays if the legitimacy of the elections was threatened, and that Karzai could remain president until a vote was held. Karzai had won a five-year term in Afghanistan’s first presidential election in 2004, and had previously led an interim government established after a U.S.-led force toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. However, during his tenure the Taliban’s insurgency had gained ground, leading to record levels of violence in 2008. Karzai had made clear his intention to run for reelection, and analysts said the current crop of announced candidates did not offer a serious challenge to his bid. Gates Calls for ‘Realistic’ Goals— U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Jan. 27 said Afghanistan was the U.S.’s “greatest military challenge,” but that U.S. goals in the conflict should be “modest” and “realistic.” Gates’s testimony on Afghanistan before the Senate—and a separate appearance before the House Armed Services Committee the previous day— were his first since new U.S. President Barack Obama took office a week earlier. The goals of the Obama administration were less lofty than those of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who had emphasized the importance of nourishing the country’s fledgling democracy. Gates, who had also served as defense secretary under Bush, Jan. 27 said, “Our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies.” Gates’s comments came as the Obama administration was revamping the U.S.’s strategy in Afghanistan. Obama had previously described Afghanistan as “the central front” in the U.S.’s fight against terrorist threats, and had pledged to devote greater military and diplomatic resources to the country than his predecessor. In addition to the U.S. troop increase, the Obama administration reportedly planned to take a more regional approach to the conflict by securing the involvement of Afghanistan’s neighbors, such as Pakistan and India. Obama was reportedly considering increased engagement with Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbor, which the Bush administration had considered part of an “axis of evil.” The idea had received tentative support from Western military officials, including NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. It was also reported that Obama planned to take a tougher stance than Bush on Karzai’s government, which was rife with corruption and had little or no control over wide swaths of the country. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her Senate confirmation hearing had described the government as “plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption,” and called it a “narco-state,” in reference to the country’s thriving opium trade. [See p. 29F2; 2008, p. 777E2]

Obama officials said there would be a greater focus on economic and social development. Gates in his Jan. 27 testimony said he wanted the U.S.’s NATO allies to “provide more civilian support.” The U.S. had long pushed its European allies in NATO to deploy more troops to the region, but the Afghan conflict was politically unpopular in much of Europe. British Defense Secretary John Hutton Jan. 15 had criticized European countries for “freeloading on the back of U.S. military security.” Other Developments—In other developments in Afghanistan: o Karzai Jan. 25 condemned a U.S. raid the previous day in the eastern province of Laghman, which he said had killed 16 civilians. Hundreds of villagers in Laghman Jan. 25 protested the alleged killings. The U.S. military claimed that 15 Taliban insurgents had been killed in the raid. Rising civilian casualties had caused a large public backlash against both the U.S. and Karzai’s government. [See 2008, p. 989D1] o A suicide bomber Jan. 17 killed a U.S. soldier and at least two Afghan civilians, and wounded about 20 others when he detonated his charge on a road between the German embassy and a U.S. military base in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Also that day, a helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, led to the death of one U.S. soldier. o A roadside bomb Jan. 9 killed three U.S. soldiers in the southern province of Zabul. Also that day, a suicide bomber killed at least six Afghans in the southwestern province of Nimruz. The previous day, a suicide bomber had killed two U.S. soldiers and three Afghans in the southern province of Kandahar. o Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Karzai Jan. 6 pledged to develop a “joint comprehensive strategy for combating terrorism,” in Zardari’s first visit to Afgahnistan. The agreement was seen as a positive development in relations between the two countries, since they had long accused each other of failing to rein in Islamic extremists and contributing to greater insecurity in the region. Zardari said he wanted to convey that the two countries “will stand shoulder to shoulder” in the fight against terrorists. [See p. 38A3] n

India Technology Company Chief Admits Fraud.

B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman and founder of technology company Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Jan. 7 resigned from his position after admitting that he had overstated the company’s profits, and that its reported cash balance of $1.1 billion was largely nonexistent. The revelation sparked concerns that other Indian companies had falsified their records, and that government regulation had failed to keep pace with India’s fast-growing economy. [See 2008, p. 911C3; 2005, p. 653F3] Raju, 54, had founded Satyam in 1987, and had overseen its growth into the FACTS ON FILE

fourth-largest technology company in India, with 53,000 employees and dozens of offices around the world. Satyam was one of several Indian companies to perform outsourced technology work and customer service for Western companies, an industry that had flourished since 2000. Satyam’s clients included some of the largest companies in the world, including Switzerland’s Nestle SA and the U.S.’s General Electric Co. However, India’s outsourcing industry hit a rut in 2008, as a global economic downturn forced Western companies to cut back on a wide variety of costs. Analysts said it was possible that the fall in Western revenue led to the unraveling of Raju’s scheme. They also said the fraud, one of the largest in India’s corporate history, could scare off Western investments in other Indian industries. In a letter to Satyam’s board of directors, Raju said Satyam had $66 million in cash, a stark reduction from the reported amount of $1.1 billion. Raju also said the company had actually made a $12.5 million profit for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2008, not the $136 million it had reported. Raju said he began overstating profits years ago, and that the difference between actual and reported profits eventually reached “unmanageable proportions.” He said, “Every attempt to eliminate the gap failed,” and that he felt as if he had been “riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.” Raju also disclosed that in the past two years he had secured $250 million in unreported loans by using Satyam shares as collateral. He said the loans were needed to run the company’s operations and that he had provided “all kinds of assurances” in order to obtain them. Raju also said a thwarted deal to purchase two construction companies from his sons in December 2008 had been an attempt to replace Satyam’s “fictitious assets with real ones.” Raju said no directors on the board had participated in the fraud, and that he had not made a personal profit from it. C.B. Bhave, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the country’s financial markets regulator, Jan. 7 said the scheme was of a “horrifying magnitude,” and that an investigation would be conducted. India’s Bombay Sensex index that day fell 7.2%, and Satyam’s share price fell 78%. Police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, where Satyam was headquartered, Jan. 9 arrested Raju and his brother, Rama Raju, Satyam’s managing director. Satyam’s chief financial officer, Vadlamani Srinivas, was arrested Jan. 11. The federal government Jan. 9 had dissolved Satyam’s board of directors, and later installed a new board, amidst concerns that a Satyam collapse could cause losses for companies worldwide that did business with Satyam. Investigators were also expected to focus on U.S. accounting company PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, whose Indian unit since 2000 had approved Satyam’s accounting records for regulators in the U.S., Europe and India. n January 29, 2009

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Football P. Manning Wins Third NFL MVP Award.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning Jan. 2 was voted the most valuable player (MVP) of the 2008 National Football League (NFL) regular season in balloting by 50 football writers and broadcasters conducted by the Associated Press (AP). It was the third time Manning garnered league MVP honors; he had also won for the 2004 season, and shared the award with Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair for the 2003 season. The only other player to win three NFL MVP awards was quarterback Brett Favre. [See 2008, p. 43E3; 2005, p. 23F2; 1997, p. 1011B2] Manning in the 2008 season completed 371 of 555 passes for 4,002 yards and 27 touchdowns, and had a passer rating of 95.0. In the MVP voting, he earned 32 votes. Miami Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington and Atlanta Falcons running back Michael Turner tied for second, with four votes each. (Pennington—who had led the Dolphins to the playoffs after being traded by the New York Jets to make way for their new quarterback, Favre—Dec. 31, 2008, had won the AP comeback player of the year award for the second time in three years.) [See 2008, pp. 991A2, 667C3] Other Awards—In other awards for the 2008 NFL season: o New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees Jan. 6 was named the offensive player of the year. Brees had passed for 5,069 yards in the 2008 season, the second-most of all time after Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino’s 5,084 passing yards in 1984. [See 2008, p. 991D2; 1984, p. 993B2] o Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison, who had a career-high 16 sacks and seven forced fumbles in 2008, Jan. 5 won the defensive player of the year award. [See 2008, p. 991D2] o Mike Smith of the Falcons Jan. 4 was named coach of the year. Smith led his team to a record of 11 wins and five losses in 2008, after the team had posted a 4–12 record in 2007 and lost star quarterback Michael Vick, who was jailed for running a dogfighting ring. [See 2008, pp. 992C2, 115F1] o New England Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo, who led the team in tackles in 2008, won the defensive rookie of the year award on Dec. 31, 2008. Other News—In other NFL news: o The Kansas City Chiefs Jan. 23 fired head coach Herman Edwards. [See 2006, p. 58A3] o New York City–based real estate developer Stephen Ross Jan. 20 completed a deal to become majority owner of the Dolphins. Ross paid Wayne Huizenga $1 billion for 95% of the team; Huizenga, who had owned the Dolphins since 1994, retained 5%. [See 2008, p. 155G1] o The Jets Jan. 19 hired Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan as

their new head coach, replacing Eric Mangini, who had been fired in December 2008. The Cleveland Browns Jan. 7 had named Mangini their new head coach; he succeeded Romeo Crennel, who was also fired in December. [See 2008, p. 992G1] o The St. Louis Rams Jan. 17 said New York Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo would become their new head coach. He replaced Jim Haslett, who had taken over as interim head coach in September 2008. [See 2008, p. 992A2] o The Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jan. 16 fired coach Jon Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen, after the team went 9–7 in 2008 and missed the playoffs. Tampa Bay the next day promoted Raheem Morris, an assistant, to replace Gruden, and named Mark Dominik general manager. [See 2002, p. 307G3] o The Detroit Lions—who had posted an all-time NFL worst 0–16 record in 2008—Jan. 15 reached an agreement with Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz to become their new head coach. The Lions had fired coach Rob Marinelli at the end of the 2008 season. [See 2008, p. 991C1] o The Kansas City Chiefs Jan. 13 named Scott Pioli as their new general manager, replacing Carl Peterson. Pioli had previously been the Patriots’ vice president for player personnel, where he helped put together three Super Bowl–winning teams. o Colts coach Tony Dungy Jan. 12 announced his retirement. Dungy, 53, in February 2007 had become the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl. In 13 seasons as coach of first the Buccaneers and then the Colts, he compiled a regularseason record of 139–69. Associate head coach Jim Caldwell replaced Dungy; he had been designated as Dungy’s successor in 2008. [See 2008, p. 115F1] o The Denver Broncos Jan. 12 hired Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as their new head coach. He succeeded Mike Shanahan, who had been fired in December 2008 after 14 seasons with the team. [See 2008, p. 992F1] o The Dallas Cowboys Jan. 7 announced that they had released cornerback and kick returner Adam Jones. In August 2008, the NFL had reinstated Jones after a 17-month suspension for off-field incidents that had led to multiple arrests. However, Jones had been suspended again by the league for six games after an altercation with a Cowboys bodyguard in October 2008. [See 2008, p. 667G3] n

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Awards ALA Announces Children’s Book Prizes. The American Library Association (ALA)

Jan. 26 at its midwinter meeting in Denver, Colo., announced the winners of the John Newbery Medal and the Randolph Caldecott Medal, the most prestigious honors for children’s literature in the U.S. [See 2008, p. 79E2] 55

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Conservative commentator William Kristol Jan. 26 ended his run as a weekly opinion columnist for the New York Times with a column that appeared in that day’s edition of the newspaper. The Times, which had given Kristol a one-year contract in December 2007, did not explain why the contract was not renewed. Kristol, 56, would resume writing a monthly column for the Washington Post, the Post announced Jan. 27. [See 2008, p. 44F2] Competing as Miss Indiana, Katie Stam, a 22-year-old communications major at the University of Indianapolis, Jan. 24 was crowned the winner of the 88th Miss America pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. Stam was the first Miss Indiana ever to win the contest. [See 2008, p. 96D3] n

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CALISHER, Hortense, 97, writer of complex, elusive works of fiction who published her last novel, Sunday Jews, in 2002, when she was in her 90s; many of her short stories first appeared in the New Yorker magazine and were later anthologized; born Dec. 20, 1911, in New York City, the setting for much of her work; died there Jan. 13. [See 1972, p. 1011D1, D2; 1969, p. 781D2; Indexes 1966–67, 1962–63] CROW, Trammell, 94, Dallas, Texas–based real estate developer whose Trammell Crow Co. was thought to be the largest such business in the U.S. in the mid-1980s; his major U.S. projects included the Dallas Market Center, the Peachtree Center in Atlanta, Ga., and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, Calif.; his company went public in 1997; born June 10, 1914, in Dallas; died Jan. 14 at his farm near Tyler, Texas. [See 1997, p. 322C3; 1988, p. 777C2] FREEMAN, Betty (born Betty Wishnick), 87, Southern California–based philanthropist who, beginning in 1961, gave well over 400 grants and commissions to composers of modern classical music, among them Americans John Cage and John Adams, Britain’s Harrison Birtwhistle, France’s Pierre Boulez and Finland’s Kaija Saariaho; some of the works composed with her aid ended up being dedicated to her, including Adams’s opera Nixon in China and Saariaho’s opera L’Amour de Loin; she was also an accomplished portrait photographer; born June 2, 1921, in Chicago; died

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Jan. 3 at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif., of pancreatic cancer. [See 2005, p. 768E2; 2002, p. 956D1–E1] KAPLICKY, Jan, 71, Czech-born architect, based in Britain since the late 1960s, who designed such eye-catching, futuristic structures as the Lord’s Media Centre at London’s Lord’s Cricket Ground (1999) and Selfridges & Co.’s department store in Birmingham, England (2003); his buildings were known for their undulating forms and use of unconventional materials; in 2007, he submitted the winning design in a contest for a new national library in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, but its octopus-like shape did not endear it to Czech politicians, who kept what would have been his first Czech project from being built; born April 18, 1937, in Prague; collapsed and died on a Prague street Jan. 14, of an apparent heart attack. LAGHI, Cardinal Pio, 86, career Vatican diplomat who in early March 2003 tried in vain to dissuade U.S. President George W. Bush from going to war against Iraq; in 1984, Laghi had overseen the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between the Vatican and the U.S., and had then served as the Vatican’s first papal nuncio to the U.S., until being recalled to Rome from Washington, D.C., in 1990, the year before Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal; born May 21, 1922, in Forli, Italy; died Jan. 10 at a Rome hospital, which had been treating him for a blood disorder. [See 2003, p. 159C2; 1997, p. 401F3; Indexes 1985, 1983, 1976] MORTIMER, Sir John (Clifford), 85, British barrister, novelist and playwright who created Horace Rumpole, the grumpy but cunning barrister played by Leo McKern in the television series “Rumpole of the Bailey,” carried on Thames Television from 1978 to 1992 and aired on public TV in the U.S.; he was also a memoirist and screenwriter; his first wife was novelist Penelope Mortimer, to whom he was married from 1949 to 1972; she died in 1999, a year after he was knighted; in 2004, he revealed that he had fathered a son in the 1960s with actress Wendy Craig; one of the children of his second marriage was actress Emily Mortimer; born April 21, 1923, in London; died Jan. 16 in Turville Heath, England, after years of ill health. [See 2008, p. 800C3; 2002, p. 588G2; 1999, p. 808G1; 1990, p. 8F3; Indexes 1965, 1963] NAESS, Arne Dekke Eide, 96, Norwegian philosopher who in the early 1970s founded the “deep ecology” movement, whose central principle was that humans were no more important than any other living things; he expounded his ideas in such books as Freedom, Emotion and Self-Subsistence (1975) and Life’s Philosophy: Reason and Feeling in a Deeper World (2002); born Jan. 27, 1912, in Slemdal, Norway, near Oslo; died Jan. 12 in Oslo. NEWMAN, David (Fathead), 75, jazz saxophonist and flutist; he came to the fore as a tenor saxophonist in bands led by rhythm and blues pioneer Ray Charles in the 1950s and early 1960s; he was also a jazz bandleader in his own right and a much-in-demand studio musician, who made noteworthy recordings with Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Art Blakey and other artists; born Feb. 24, 1933, in Corsicana, Texas; died Jan. 20 at a hospital in Kingston, N.Y., of pancreatic cancer. [See 2004, p. 452D2] O’HORGAN, Tom, 84, stage director who helped invigorate New York City’s experimental theater scene in the early 1960s before going on to direct two landmark Broadway rock musicals, Hair (1968) and Jesus Christ Superstar (1971); born May 3, 1924, in Chicago; died Jan. 11 at his home in Venice, Fla., after battling Alzheimer’s disease. [See 1985, p. 1005G3; 1981, p. 844F2; Indexes 1975, 1970–72, 1968] PEARSON, James Blackwood, 88, Kansas Republican who served in the U.S. Senate from 1962 to 1979, including two full six-year terms (1967–79); deemed one of the Senate’s more liberal Republicans, he was a relatively early GOP opponent of the Vietnam War, turning against it after the 1970 bombing of Cambodia during the presidency of Richard Nixon; born May 7, 1920, in Nashville, Tenn.; died Jan. 13 at his home in Gloucester, Mass., after four years on kidney dialysis. [See 1978, pp. 854E2, 606F1, 177F2; 1976, p. 828F1; Indexes 1962–75] ROGERS, Lorene Lane, 94, biochemist who in 1974 was named interim president of the University of Texas at Austin; the next year, she became president, a post she held until 1979; she was thought to have been the first woman to lead a major U.S. research university; born April 3, 1914, in Prosper, Texas; died Jan. 11 at an assisted living center in Dallas, Texas, not long after breaking a leg in a fall. [See 1974, p. 836E1] TORRES, Jose (Luis), 72, Puerto Rican–born boxer who won the world light-heavyweight championship in 1965 and made three title defenses before losing a close decision to Nigeria’s Dick Tiger in

1966; after retiring from the ring in 1969, he became a newspaper columnist, writing in English for the New York Post and in Spanish for New York’s El Diario Spanish-language newspaper; he also coauthored a 1971 biography of boxer Muhammad Ali, Sting Like a Bee, and in 1989 published a biography of boxer Mike Tyson, Fire and Fear; from 1984 to 1988, he was the first former professional boxer and the first Hispanic to chair the New York State Athletic Commission, which regulated boxing statewide; born May 3, 1936, in Puerto Rico’s Ponce municipality; died Jan. 19 at his Ponce home, of a heart attack linked to diabetes. [See 1985, p. 880D2; 1968, p. 183A3; Indexes 1965–66] UPDIKE, John Hoyer, 76, prolific novelist, short story writer, essayist, literary critic and writer of light verse hailed for his seemingly effortless mastery of the English language; his books appealed to a wide range of readers, and many of them became best-sellers; he was long associated with the New Yorker magazine, as a staff member for several years in the 1950s, and as a major contributor of short stories, essays and reviews for the balance of his literary career; one of his major MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

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The Newbery Medal for the best children’s book published in the U.S. in 2008 went to Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book, a story about a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard after his parents’ murder. Gaiman, 48, was a well-known writer of books for both children and adults, in a variety of genres including science fiction and graphic novel. Gaiman was Britishborn but was based in Minnesota, making him eligible for the Newbery award, which was only given to U.S. residents. [See 2005, p. 695A1] The Caldecott Medal for the top picture book for children went to Beth Krommes, for her mostly black-and-white illustrations for The House in the Night, a narrative poem written by Susan Marie Swanson. Krommes, 53, lived and worked in Peterborough, N.H. The Michael L. Printz Award, presented by the ALA for the best young-adult book (not necessarily written by a U.S. resident), went to Melina Marchetta for Jellicoe Road, a novel set in a boarding school. Marchetta was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1965, and still lived there. n

Author John Updike in 2004.

themes was middle-class, suburban adultery; he explored it in such novels as Couples (1968), The Witches of Eastwick (1984)—made into both a film and a theatrical musical—and his “Rabbit” tetralogy, which focused on Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a Pennsylvania man trying to recapture his youthful glory as a highschool basketball star; the series began with Rabbit, Run (1960), followed by Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990); the last two of these both won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1982 and 1991, respectively; the last of his works to be published in his lifetime was The Widows of Eastwick, a sequel to The Witches of Eastwick; it appeared in October 2008; born March 8, 1932, in Reading, Pa.; died Jan. 27 at a hospice in Danvers, Mass., of lung cancer. [See 2007, p. 552E2; 2006, p. 540A1; Indexes 2003–04, 2000, 1998, 1991, 1987, 1984, 1982, 1979, 1968–72, 1962–66, 1960] Van BRUGGEN, Coosje, 66, Dutch-born art historian and art critic; she was perhaps best known for her collaborations with Swedish-born Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, her husband since 1977, on a number of large, witty public sculptures installed in various places around the world; the first of these was Flashlight (1981), installed at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas; their final collaboration, Tumbling Tacks, was due to be installed in May in a museum near Oslo, Norway; born June 6, 1942, in Groningen; died Jan. 10 at her home in Los Angeles, of metastasized breast cancer. [See 2002, p. 1072B2] VENKATARAMAN, Ramaswamy, 98, lawyer who decades after helping to draft India’s constitution— adopted in 1950, three years after India gained its independence from Britain—served as India’s eighth president, from 1987 to 1992; he held the largely ceremonial post during a politically turbulent time that required him to appoint prime ministers three times; before becoming president, he had held several key cabinet posts, including those of finance minister and defense minister; born Dec. 4, 1910, in Rajamadam, India; died Jan. 27 at a hospital in New Delhi. [See 1991, pp. 453A1, F2, 373E1, 163A2; 1990, p. 831E1– A2; Indexes 1987–89, 1981–84] n

January 29, 2009

Iraqi Provincial Elections Bring Wins for Maliki Allies Voting Largely Free of Violence. Iraqi vot-

ers Jan. 31 went to the polls to elect provincial councils, which controlled local finances and gave out jobs and contracts. Very little violence was reported that day, in contrast to years past, when elections had been marked by numerous attacks on voters and politicians. Preliminary results released Feb. 5 indicated that parties supporting a strong central government, led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Islamic Dawa party, had won significant victories throughout the country. [See p. 53G2; 2005, p. 57A1] The elections took place in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. They were not held in the three northern provinces of the autonomous Kurdistan region, and in northern Kirkuk province, where control of the oilrich city of Kirkuk was being contested by its various sectarian groups. The elections were the first for the provincial councils since 2005. Then, Sunni Muslim Arabs had mostly boycotted the polls, resulting in councils that were largely controlled by Shiite Muslims and Kurds. More than 14,000 candidates representing 400 political parties and groups competed for 440 provincial council seats in the elections. Security was extremely tight, and there were few reports of election-related violence. In one of the few incidents, Iraqi forces shot two people with cameras and video recorders who were attempting to enter a polling place in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. Turnout, estimated at 51%, was lower than expected. That was attributed in part to security measures—including vehicle bans to thwart car bombers and curfews—making it hard for voters to get to the polls, and also because many displaced Iraqis were still registered at their old polling places. Dawa Gains in Baghdad, South—Dawa candidates and allied politicians in its State of Law coalition reportedly won strong pluralities in Baghdad and in the southern province of Basra. Maliki’s government in 2008 had launched offensives against Shiite militias in both provinces. State of Law candidates narrowly won pluralities in seven other provinces in largely Shiite southern Iraq, which would likely require them to form coalitions with other parties in order to govern. Although Dawa was a religious party that had advocated imposing Islamic law, Maliki positioned himself as a secular nationalist who supported a strong central government. Other parties that had adopted a nationalist line also did well, including two—the Free List and the Integrity and Rebuild List—that were supported by the movement of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The gains those parties made in Baghdad and in the south were seen as showing that Sadr retained influence, although it was thought to have waned in the year since the Baghdad and Basra offensives. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI)—a Shiite religious party and major rival both of Dawa and of Sadr’s movement— lost ground in southern Iraq. Although it had

predicted that it would win in Najaf, Babil, Qadisiya and Dhi Qar provinces, it lost to Dawa in all four areas. Voters reportedly turned against the ISCI because of its reputed links to Iran, its goal of creating an autonomous Shiite state in southern Iraq and the perception that it was a sectarian party that had failed to deliver basic public services. The Iraqi electoral commission Feb. 3 said it was investigating charges that the Iraqi Islamic Party—a Sunni religious movement that currently dominated the Anbar provincial council—had committed fraud in the western province. Sunni tribesmen there said they should have received more votes, and threatened to respond with violence if they did not win the election. Many of the tribesmen were former insurgents who had joined Awakening Councils, which had started as U.S.-allied armed groups fighting against extremists but had developed into a political force. Voter turnout in Anbar Jan. 31 was among the lowest in Iraq, at 42%. However, in a surprise outcome, the Feb. 5 preliminary results showed a party led by Saleh al-Mutlaq, a secular Sunni nationalist, eking out a narrow victory, with the Awakening Councils and the Iraqi Islamic Party coming in second and third. In the northern province of Nineveh, a new Sunni nationalist party, Al Hadba, won 48.4% of the vote, according to the preliminary count, the largest percentage of votes achieved by any party nationwide. Al Hadba took control of the council from the minority Kurds, who had politically dominated mostly Sunni Nineveh since the Sunni boycott of the 2005 elections. There had been reports of violations of election rules, including armed Kurdish pesh merga militia members entering polling places with weapons. A Sunni coalition, the Iraqi Accordance Front (known in Arabic as Tawafiq), wrested the provincial council of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, from Shiite control. Kurdish parties retained a significant minority on the council. There had been tension between all three groups in the ethnically mixed province. A suicide bomber Feb. 5 killed at least 14 people in the town of Khanaqin shortly before the preliminary election results were announced, in what Kurds said was a politically motivated attack. Female Suicide Bomber Recruiter Held—

The Iraqi military Feb. 3 showed reporters a video of a woman who confessed to recruiting female suicide bombers in Diyala province. The military said the woman, Samira Ahmed Jassim al-Azzawi, had been arrested Jan. 21. It said she was known by the code name “Umm al-Mu’mineen,” or “the mother of believers,” and was responsible for recruiting 80 women, who had carried out 28 bombings in Diyala and Baghdad. In the video, Azzawi said she had become a recruiter for Ansar al-Sunna—a Sunni insurgent group in Diyala that was affiliated with the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq—and convinced women to carry out the bombings. She said she targeted women with psychological and emotional problems, including victims of abuse.

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3555* February 5, 2009

B Some reports said insurgents would rape women, and then Azzawi would persuade the women that the only way to regain their honor was to become suicide bombers. Female suicide bombers had become an increasing security threat over the past two years. The U.S. military said there at been at least 32 suicide attacks by women throughout Iraq in 2008, compared with eight in 2007. Women could hide explosives under their full-length robes, known as abayas, and usually received less scrutiny at security checkpoints due to cultural sensitivities. However, Iraqi police were recruiting more women, who could search them more thoroughly. Hill Chosen as U.S. Ambassador— The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had tapped Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill as the next U.S. ambassa-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Iraqi provincial elections bring wins for Maliki allies; voting largely free of violence. PAGE 57

Unpaid taxes sink nomination of Daschle as U.S. health and human services secretary.

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Obama nominates GOP Sen. Gregg as commerce secretary. PAGE 60

U.S. GDP shrank at 3.8% rate in fourth quarter. PAGE 61

Obama sets limits on executive pay at government-rescued financial institutions. PAGE 61

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Moderate Islamist named Somali interim president. PAGE 66

Zimbabwean opposition agrees to join government. PAGE 67

Colombian rebels free six more hostages. PAGE 67

Steelers defeat Cardinals to win NFL’s Super Bowl XLIII. PAGE 70

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Serena Williams, Nadal win tennis’s Australian Open. PAGE 70 *First of two sections Section Two the 2008 Annual Index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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IRAQ CASUALTIES

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Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Feb. 5 [See p. 57A1; 2008, p. 948A3]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,239 31,010

Allied military deaths: 317

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Iraqi security forces deaths: 8,890 Iraqi civilian deaths: 90,588–98,889

(Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

C

dor to Iraq, it was reported Feb. 2. Hill would replace Ryan Crocker, who had retired in January. Hill was a veteran diplomat who had headed the Bush administration’s negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program, and had also helped to negotiate the 1995 Dayton accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. However, unlike Crocker, he had little experience in the Middle East and did not speak Arabic. [See p. 38C2; 2008, p. 926B1] n

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Global Slowdown Focus of Davos Forum.

Some 2,500 political and international business leaders Jan. 28–Feb. 1 gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, where an ongoing global economic downturn dominated discussion. The U.S. came under fire for its laissez-faire economic policies, and many participants warned the U.S. against adopting protectionist measures that would shield its own industries at the expense of global trade. [See 42E1; 2008, p. 47A2] Despite efforts by governments around the world in recent months to spur economic growth and stabilize the global financial system, the downturn continued to intensify. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Jan. 28 projected that the global economy would grow at a 0.5% rate in 2009, down from its November 2008 projection of 2.2%. Leading economies such as the U.S., Britain and Japan were forecast to contract. The IMF estimated that worldwide losses on U.S. debt could reach $2.2 trillion. The downturn stemmed in large part from a global proliferation of assets backed by U.S. home mortgages, which later plummeted in value when the U.S. housing market entered a slump. Financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe continued to sustain heavy losses from those assets, which had a cascading effect on other sectors of the global economy. Consumer demand had declined steeply, hurting export-dependent countries such as China, Japan and Russia. The United Nations International Labor Office Jan. 28 said the downturn could lead to the loss of as many as 51 million jobs worldwide by the end of 2009 “if the situation continues to deteriorate.” The office said 200 million workers, the majority of

them in emerging economies, could end up in extreme poverty. Harsh Criticisms From China, Russia—

The forum opened Jan. 28 with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao blaming the global downturn on “some economies” that had allowed an “excessive expansion of financial institutions” with little accompanying regulation. The comments were widely seen as directed toward the U.S., which had been accused of lax regulation that facilitated the spread of unsound mortgagebacked assets. Wen said those institutions had engaged in a “blind pursuit of profit” and lacked “self-discipline.” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that day mocked the U.S.’s capitalist-based financial system, saying, “A year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasized the U.S. economy’s fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects.” He added, “Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel Jan. 30 criticized what she described as an “unfettered” system of capitalism, and called for new “clear-cut rules” for global markets. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso Jan. 30 said he hoped the U.S. would move “toward a Europeanstyle model” of capitalism, with more social benefits in the areas of health care, education and social security. Despite the criticisms, Davos participants acknowledged that they would have to cooperate with the U.S. to resolve the economic crisis. Wen said any serious friction between China and the U.S. “will make both losers.” Putin acknowledged that Russia and the U.S. had “mutual interests” and “mutual dependencies.” Newly inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama did not attend the forum, or respond to the criticisms.

$900 billion. A spike in the availability of U.S. debt could decrease demand for sovereign debt from other countries, driving up their interest rates. The trend could also drive down the value of the U.S. dollar, which—as the world’s de facto reserve currency—could lead to a climb in global inflation. Gaza Invasion Sparks Heated Debate—

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Peres during a Davos panel Jan. 29 engaged in a heated argument over Israel’s 22-day invasion of the Gaza territory earlier in the month that had left a reported 1,300 Palestinians dead. The dispute reportedly started because Erdogan felt that the panel moderator had unfairly given Peres more time to speak, during which Peres defended Israel’s actions. Erdogan then angrily told Peres, “You kill people,” or “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill,” according to various reports, and left the event. Turkey was Israel’s strongest ally among its predominantly Muslim neighbors. Turkey had mediated peace discussions between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians. Turkish and other international media outlets reported that Peres later apologized to Erdogan privately, but Israeli officials denied those reports. n

Other International News Kyrgyzstan to Close U.S. Military Base.

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev Feb. 3, speaking in Moscow, the Russian capital, announced that Kyrgyzstan would close Manas Air Base, the only fully operational U.S. air base in Central Asia. The base was a strategically located transit point for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Warnings Against U.S. Protectionism—

A general consensus among economists at the forum was that protectionism by individual states would curb international trade and exacerbate the downturn. The U.S. again came under criticism, due to socalled “Buy America” provisions included in an economic recovery plan currently being debated in the U.S. Congress. The provisions required that government-funded construction projects use U.S.-made steel. French Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac Feb. 1 said, “It’s extremely preoccupying that one of the first acts of the new Obama administration could be a measure that is clearly protectionist.” Others said the Buy America provisions could violate U.S. treaty obligations with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. was also criticized for its recent efforts to assist its ailing auto industry, with Merkel Jan. 28 saying they could lead to a “distortion” in global auto sales. However, analysts noted that several European countries—including France, Britain and Sweden—in recent weeks had assisted domestic car makers. [See p. 52E2] Several participants also expressed concern about the amount of debt the U.S. would have to take on to fund its economic recovery plan, which could cost as much as

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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58

FACTS ON FILE

(NATO) forces and nonlethal supplies en route to Afghanistan. [See p. 54C1; 2008, p. 223B1; 2007, p. 885G2; 2006, p. 669E2] Bakiyev said the base would be closed because the U.S. had not met its demands that it pay more to lease the site. U.S. officials the same day said they had not received formal warning that Kyrgyzstan was planning to shut Manas. The move came just after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev extended a $2 billion loan and $150 million in aid to Kyrgyzstan. However, an unidentified U.S. official had said the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was not convinced Russia could supply the country with that much money. The move to close the base, which the Kyrgyz parliament was expected to approve in a Feb. 6 vote, could raise major complications for Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, where the U.S. planned to send an additional 30,000 troops. If the plan was approved, the base would be required to close within 180 days. Link Seen to Strategic Clash With Russia—

Despite Medvedev’s Feb. 3 assurance that Russia was “open to coordinated action” with U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, analysts suggested that Russia, by offering substantial aid to Kyrgyzstan, was attempting to reduce the U.S. presence in Central Asia, which it regarded as within its historic sphere of influence. Others suggested that the event was reflective of an ongoing confrontation between the U.S. and Russia on a broader array of strategic issues, but that the U.S. might ultimately regain use of the base if it offered Kyrgyzstan more money. The U.S. had previously leased the Manas base, which had opened in 2001 following that year’s Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., for $63 million per year, and also provided Kyrgyzstan with almost $90 million in aid annually. Bakiyev, in his announcement, said Kyrgyzstan had “repeatedly raised with the United States the matter of economic compensation for the existence of the base in Kyrgyzstan, but we have not been understood.” He also cited anti-U.S. sentiment in Kyrgyzstan, which had been exacerbated by a 2006 incident in which a U.S. soldier had shot and killed a Kyrgyz truck driver. Kyrgyz officials wanted to prosecute the soldier, but the U.S. Defense Department had not cooperated with Kyrgyz requests to revoke his immunity. A Feb. 4 statement from the Kyrgyz government asserted that the terrorist threat in Afghanistan had “been removed,” and added that NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan had caused too many civilian casualties. [See 2008, p. 989D1] U.S. officials Feb. 4 said they had begun exploring alternate locations for an air base in Europe and the Middle East. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the following day said Kyrgyzstan’s actions were “regrettable” and that “we hope to have further discussions with them.” However, she added that the U.S. would proceed in a “very effective manner no matter what the outcome of the Kyrgyzstan government’s deliberations might be.” n February 5, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Unpaid Taxes Sink Daschle Nomination Ties to Health Care Industry Also Scrutinized.

Former Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle (S.D.) Feb. 3 withdrew as President Barack Obama’s nominee for health and human services secretary after coming under scrutiny for failing to pay $128,000 in federal income taxes and for his lucrative ties to the health care industry. Daschle’s tax problem came after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won Senate confirmation a week earlier despite having failed to pay $34,000 in payroll taxes. [See pp. 44D1, 17E2] Daschle Jan. 2 had paid $140,167 in late taxes, penalties and interest that he owed for the years 2005–07, it was reported Jan. 30. Daschle owed most of the taxes for his use of a chauffeur and limousine provided by Leo Hindery Jr., a leading Democratic donor. Daschle had also failed to report more than $83,000 in consulting income from Hindery’s firm and to document about $15,000 in charitable deductions. Since losing his Senate seat in 2004, Daschle had worked as a consultant to InterMedia Advisors LLP, a private equity investment firm founded by Hindery. Obama Feb. 3 accepted the withdrawal of a second nominee, Mary Killefer, whom he had chosen for a new position as chief performance officer for the federal government. In 2005, the District of Columbia had placed a lien for $947 on her home for failing to pay unemployment taxes for a household employee. Killefer was an executive at corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Obama Admits Mistake—Before Daschle’s withdrawal, Obama Feb. 2 had reaffirmed his strong support for the nomination, saying he “absolutely” stood by it. However, in a series of Feb. 3 television interviews after Daschle withdrew, Obama said he blamed himself for having “screwed up,” and regretted that his loyalty to Daschle might have appeared to undermine the high ethical standards that he had set for his administration. In an interview on NBC News, Obama said, “I’ve got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules.” He added, “You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.” Obama had also drawn accusations of double standards on ethics after he set a new policy barring former lobbyists from administration jobs for at least two years, but then said he would grant waivers in certain cases. One of the first such exceptions was his nominee for deputy defense secretary, William Lynn 2nd, a former lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon Corp. [See p. 29B1] Daschle had been an early supporter of Obama’s presidential candidacy and was viewed as one of his closest advisers.

Obama had chosen Daschle to lead a major health care reform initiative aimed at achieving his campaign pledge of extending insurance coverage to most of the millions of people who lacked it in the U.S. Daschle’s former role as a Senate leader had been seen as a unique qualification for driving the ambitious plan through Congress. In addition to nominating Daschle for the cabinet post, Obama had named him to head a new White House office on health care reform, giving him unusual influence as a so-called health czar. Daschle Feb. 3 resigned from that post as well. Daschle Apologizes—Daschle Feb. 2 made a public apology for his unpaid taxes after attempting to explain the matter at a closed-door meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, which had to approve his nomination before it could be sent to the full Senate. Daschle said, “My failure to recognize that the use of a car was income and not a gift from a good friend was a mistake,” adding, “It was completely inadvertent. But that’s no excuse, and I deeply apologize to President Obama, to my colleagues and to the American people.” Committee Democrats said they accepted Daschle’s explanations and planned to vote for his confirmation, but Republicans expressed doubts. Aides said Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the senior Republican on the committee, was also concerned that Daschle might face conflicts of interest related to advisory and speaking fees that he had received from health care companies. The Finance Committee had also probed whether Daschle should have paid taxes on travel and entertainment provided to him and his wife by EduCap Inc., a student loan company under investigation by the committee and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for alleged violation of its nonprofit status. Daschle had flown on EduCap’s private jet to the Bahamas and the Middle East. Daschle had reported earnings of more than $5 million since going into the private sector after losing his 2004 reelection bid. In 2005, he had joined law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird as a “policy adviser,” but was not a registered lobbyist. [See 2005, p. 167B1] One of the clients to whom he gave policy advice was UnitedHealth Group Inc., one of the largest U.S. health insurers. Daschle had also earned a total of $220,000 in 2007–08 in fees for giving speeches to the health-care industry. In 2005, Daschle joined Hindery’s investment firm as chairman of the executive advisory board. Hindery had previously been chief executive of several leading telecommunications and cable companies. Hindery provided Daschle with $1 million a year in consulting fees and the use of a Cadillac limousine and chauffeur. Daschle had not reported the car service, valued at $255,000 in 2005–07, as income. He had also failed to report one monthly fee of $83,333 as income. Daschle reportedly had unsuccessfully recommended Hindery for the position of 59

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commerce secretary in the Obama administration. Labor Nomination Held Up by Taxes—

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Feb. 5 postponed a vote scheduled for that day on Obama’s nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis (D, Calif.) as labor secretary, after it was reported that her husband had paid about $6,400 that week to settle a number of tax liens. [See p. 18F1] USA Today reported that day that Los Angeles County records showed 15 outstanding liens against her husband, Sam Sayyad, and his auto repair business, for a total of $7,630. Some of the liens reportedly had been on file for as long as 16 years. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended Solis, saying, “She’s not a partner in that business.” He added, “So we’re not going to penalize her for her husband’s business mistakes.” Solis’s nomination had already been held up for weeks by Republicans questioning her previous sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act, a controversial bill that would make it easier for workers to organize unions, and her position as unpaid treasurer of American Rights at Work, a pro-labor group. n

Other Obama Administration News

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GOP Sen. Gregg Nominated for Commerce.

President Barack Obama Feb. 3 nominated Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) to be commerce secretary. Gregg, if confirmed, would be the third Republican in Obama’s cabinet, joining Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Obama’s original nominee for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), had withdrawn in January due to a federal investigation of state contracts given to a campaign contributor. [See pp. 59A2, 6B1; 2005, p. 998G1; 2004, p. 873B1] Gregg, 62, was the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and was known as a fiscal conservative. He had served in the Senate for 16 years and had previously been governor of New Hampshire and a congressman. Announcing the nomination, Obama said, “Now, clearly Judd and I don’t agree on every issue—most notably, who should have won the election.” He added, “But we do agree on the urgent need to get American businesses and families back on their feet,” referring to an ongoing recession. Gregg struck a similar note of pragmatism in his remarks, saying, “This is not a time for partisanship. This is not a time when we should stand in our ideological corners and shout at each other. This is a time to govern and govern well.” New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) Feb. 3 announced his appointment of Republican businesswoman Bonnie Newman, a onetime chief of staff for Gregg, to fill Gregg’s Senate seat for the last two years of his current term. Gregg had insisted that he would accept Obama’s cabinet nomination only if he was 60

replaced in the Senate by another Republican. The Democrats had a majority of at least 58 seats in the Senate, which could increase to 59 pending the outcome of a disputed Minnesota election. Gaining Gregg’s seat could have given the Democrats a majority of 60, the number needed to block filibusters by the minority party. Census Oversight Disputed—Black and Hispanic lawmakers and interest groups responded to the nomination by raising concerns about the Commerce Department’s oversight of the 2010 Census, noting that Gregg had opposed President Bill Clinton’s request for emergency funding for the 2000 census. Gregg had also voted for a 1995 Republican-backed budget plan that would have abolished the Commerce Department itself. [See 2008, p. 380E2] An unnamed senior White House official Feb. 4 said the Census Bureau would report directly to the White House, circumventing the commerce secretary, Congressional Quarterly reported on its Web site. Republican Reps. Darrell Issa (Calif.) and Patrick McHenry (N.C.) that day sent a letter to Obama warning that they would oppose any attempt to politicize oversight of the census, which would determine the number of congressional districts apportioned to each state, and the redrawing of districts based on population changes. Ex-Aide Probed in Lobbying Scandal—

The Associated Press (AP) Feb. 4 reported that Kevin Koonce, a former top aide to Gregg, had been implicated in an ongoing federal investigation into the influencepeddling schemes of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates. [See 2008, p. 950A3] The AP reported that Koonce, Gregg’s legislative director and counsel from 2002 through 2004, was cited in a plea agreement by lobbyist Todd Boulanger, who pleaded guilty Jan. 30 to plying public officials with gifts and favors in exchange for official actions that benefited his clients. Koonce, identified in the plea agreement as “Staffer F,” allegedly accepted more than $10,000 worth of tickets to sporting events, meals and drinks from Boulanger while he was working for Gregg. Koonce allegedly tried to add spending items and other amendments to legislation on Boulanger’s behalf. Gregg Feb. 4 issued a statement confirming that his office had been contacted by the Justice Department the previous day in connection with the probe. “Prior to this, I was not aware of any improper acts by the former staffer in question,” he said. Gregg added that he had been “informed that I am neither a subject nor a target of the investigation.” n Obama Updates Faith-Based Office. President Barack Obama Feb. 5 signed an executive order that created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a successor to a similar office created by former President George W. Bush. In addition to providing federal funding for faith-based programs as the Bush-era office had, the office would work toward reducing poverty and abortions, as

well as strengthening families and bolstering interfaith relations. [See pp. 47B1, 19C2; 2007, p. 415G3] Obama Jan. 29 tapped Joshua DuBois, 26, to head the religious office. DuBois, a Pentecostal pastor who was known for his close relationship with Obama, had been in charge of religious outreach efforts for Obama’s presidential campaign. The new office preserved the 11 religious office positions within several different federal agencies that Bush had created. Obama’s order also created a 25-seat advisory council within the office. The 15 council members he announced that day included prominent representatives from Baptist, Catholic, Jewish and Methodist groups, as well as a Muslim community organizer and an openly gay director of a nonprofit group. [See 2001, p. 66G2] Obama notably did not rescind a controversial policy enacted by Bush, which had allowed faith-based organizations receiving federal funds to selectively hire people of a certain religion. DuBois said the office would review the policy on a “case by case basis.” Obama while campaigning in July 2008 had said, “You can’t use [federal] grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion.” [See 2008, p. 445B2] At the signing, Obama said the “goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another, or even religious groups over secular groups,” and added that the office would work on behalf of community organizations “without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.” n Holder Confirmed as Attorney General.

The Senate Feb. 2 voted, 75–21, to confirm Eric Holder Jr. as attorney general. Holder, a former judge who had served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, was the first black attorney general and the 82nd person to hold the position. He was sworn in Feb. 3 in Washington, D.C. [See pp. 30F2, 16E2] Holder had attracted bipartisan support, including the backing of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Louis Freeh and James Comey, deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush, who cited his extensive relevant experience. However, Senate Republicans had held up Holder’s confirmation over concerns about his role in a pardon granted by Clinton to fugitive businessman Marc Rich and Holder’s belief that waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulated drowning, constituted torture. The Senate Judiciary Committee Jan. 28 voted, 17–2, to advance Holder’s nomination to a vote by the full Senate. Republican Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) were the only two members of the committee to vote against Holder. Both men cited Holder’s role in the Rich pardon in explaining their votes. Holder had previously apologized for failing to object to the pardon and said he had learned from the experience. n FACTS ON FILE

Economy GDP Shrank at 3.8% Rate in Fourth Quarter.

The Commerce Department Jan. 30 reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, its largest contraction since 1982. The contraction in GDP—a measure of the output of goods and services produced within a nation’s borders—came as a result of an ongoing U.S. recession and a global economic downturn, which pushed down consumer spending, business investment and exports. The department had previously reported that GDP had shrunk at a 0.5% rate in the third quarter, and its fourth quarter estimate would be revised twice. [See p. 41A1; 2008, p. 937E2] The rate of contraction was not as severe as most economists had expected, largely because consumer spending fell so steeply that businesses did not have time to adjust their orders. As a result, unsold business inventories that were counted as part of the nation’s production grew. Excluding the inventory increase, GDP in the fourth quarter contracted at a 5.1% rate. Consumer spending shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5%, due to mounting job losses and a freeze in credit markets. Exports contracted at a 19.7% rate, as the global economic slowdown deFebruary Financial Update (Close of trading Feb. 2 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

7,936.83

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

825.44 1,494.43 4,077.78

Tokyo Stock Exchange

7,873.98

Toronto Stock Exchange

8,624.83

(see box, p. 61A3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index)

(TSE Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

2.71% 0.39%

Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

$0.6324 $1.4281 $0.8039 $1.2844 89.61 14.4865 $0.8603

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$905.49

Silver (per troy oz.)

$12.4300

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Jan. 25)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

$40.08 $1.86 $6.2000

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

-0.7%

Unemployment rate

7.2%

(consumer price index 12-month increase through December 2008; see p. 46C1) (December 2008; see p. 14A2)

Gross domestic product growth

-3.8%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized fourth-quarter 2008 rate, final report; see p. 61A1)

February 5, 2009

pressed demand. U.S. business investments also fell as companies cut back on costs. Total government spending rose at a 1.9% rate, but analysts said state and local governments were cutting back due to falling tax revenues. The report placed increased pressure on the federal government to enact a stimulus package to resuscitate the flagging economy, an $819 billion version of which had been passed by the House earlier in the week. President Barack Obama that day described the country’s poor economic performance as a “continuing disaster for America’s working families,” and urged the Senate to move quickly to pass a package. The Dow Jones Industrial Average that day fell 148.15 points, or 1.8%, to end at 8,000.86. For the month, the Dow was down 8.8%, the largest January percentage decline in its history. [See p. 61A3] n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Limits to be Placed on Executive Pay.

President Barack Obama Feb. 4 announced new limits on executive pay for ailing financial institutions that received government aid. The announcement followed a public backlash against banking executives who continued to receive large compensation and expensive perks, even though their companies had sustained massive losses over the past year, leading to a destabilization of the broader economy. [See p. 44B3] Obama that day said, “This is America. We don’t disparage wealth...But what gets people upset—and rightfully so—are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.” Obama the previous week had described generous executive bonuses on Wall Street as “shameful,” and several companies had pulled back on more exorbitant expenses due to the public outcry. San Francisco, Calif.–based bank Wells Fargo & Co., which had received $25 billion in government aid, Feb. 3 had announced that it would cancel a four-day employee conference that was to be held at luxury hotels in Las Vegas, Nev. The new rules were expected to be adopted in the coming weeks, and some specifics had not been finalized. They would not retroactively apply to companies that had previously received government aid. Under the rules, “senior executives” at companies that received “exceptional assistance” from the government would have their yearly salaries capped at $500,000. Compensation above the cap would be paid in restricted stock, which could be cashed in only after the company paid back its debt to the government. “Exceptional assistance” was thought to be defined as federal aid that prevented a company’s collapse. Those companies would have to publicize their compensation guidelines for executives, and present them to shareholders for a nonbinding vote. The top 25 executives could have part of their salaries or bonuses rescinded if they misrepresented or misreported information that led to a higher payout. The top 10 executives would not

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

January 2 5

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9,034.69 8,952.89 9,015.10 8,769.70 8,742.46 8,599.18 8,473.97 8,448.56 8,200.14 8,212.49 8,281.22 Holiday 7,949.09 8,228.10 8,122.80 8,077.56 8,116.03 8,174.73 8,375.45 8,149.01 8,000.86

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Volume (in millions of shares) 1,035.9 1,313.9 1,327.7 1,220.2 1,187.2 1,149.7 1,297.6 1,298.7 1,406.1 1,634.6 1,609.4 Holiday 1,695.9 1,714.8 1,544.8 1,411.3 1,265.1 1,166.4 1,536.2 1,421.1 1,471.2

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be allowed to receive a severance package if they left the company, and the next 25 could receive no more than the equivalent of one year’s compensation. Company boards would have to develop guidelines for luxury expenditures—such as for corporate jets, office renovations and parties—and company chief executives would have to certify such expenditures. For companies that received more moderate assistance from the government, such as investments from a financial rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), senior executives could avoid the $500,000 cap by publicizing the details of their compensation packages and submitting them to a nonbinding shareholder vote. The top five executives in those companies would be limited to a one-year severance package. More than 350 financial institutions in the U.S. had received TARP aid. Obama administration officials said the pay limits were intended to change a corporate culture that rewarded chief executives handsomely no matter how poor the company’s performance. Analysts said the limits would be politically necessary if the Obama administration requested Congress to authorize more aid for the weakened financial industry, as many expected it to do. Democratic lawmakers praised the rules, which did not require congressional approval. Republicans were also supportive, but expressed some reservations about the government extending its reach into the private sector. Some banks criticized the rules, saying they would hinder their ability to recruit top talent.

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Regulator Says Treasury Overpaid—

Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP, Feb. 5 testified to the Senate Banking Committee that the Treasury had overpaid for assets bought using TARP funds. She said the Treasury Department under former President George W. Bush had paid $254 billion for stocks and assets that were valued at $176 billion at the time of their purchase. The cal61

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culation was made by examining transactions with 10 companies, and then extrapolating the findings. [See p. 32F2] Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, that day testified that the Treasury had to develop a “more complete strategy” for how it would manage the assets that were now on its books. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was expected to unveil the Obama administration’s TARP strategy the following week. Barofsky that day released a report warning that a $200 billion program to encourage purchases of assets backed by consumer loans was vulnerable to “fraud, waste and abuse.” The program would see the Treasury lend $20 billion in TARP funds to investors that bought such assets, in a bid to lower interest rates on the underlying loans amidst a freeze in credit markets. (The Federal Reserve would provide the remaining $180 billion in loans.) Barofsky said the plan, which would have the Treasury accept those assets as collateral, could enable investors to overstate the value of the assets and then keep the loan. [See p. 45F2; 2008, p. 865A1] The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, Jan. 30 had reported that banks receiving TARP aid lacked adequate oversight to ensure that they were using the funds to increase lending and stabilize their finances. The GAO said the Treasury had taken some steps to monitor how banks used TARP aid, such as implementing a monthly survey of some banks, but that it was still inadequate. The GAO that day reported that as of Jan. 23, the Treasury had spent $294 billion of the $700 billion authorized for TARP, $194 billion of which had been used to buy shareholder stakes in financial institutions. n

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Republican Party Elects First Black Chairman.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), the executive body of the Republican Party, Jan. 30 elected former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as its new chairman. Steele, 50, became the party’s first black leader. His election took place 10 days after the inauguration of the first black president, Democrat Barack Obama, amid warnings that the Republicans had to broaden their appeal to minorities if the party hoped to recapture the White House and Congress. [See p. 25A1; 2006, pp. 877E2, 853D2] Steele won in the sixth round of voting by the RNC, defeating five rival candidates, including another black contender, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. The incumbent RNC chairman, Mike Duncan of Kentucky, withdrew in the third round. Duncan, who had assumed the post in 2007 as the choice of President George W. Bush, blamed his poor showing on the desire of RNC members to free the party from the burden of Bush’s unpopularity. Another candidate, Chip Saltsman, former chairman of the Tennessee party, in December 2008 had sparked a racial controversy by distributing an album of 62

Christmas songs including one titled, “Barack the Magic Negro.” After his victory, Steele declared a new direction for the party. “We have an image problem,” he said, adding, “We’ve been misidentified as a party that is insensitive, a party unconcerned about the lives of minorities.” He insisted, “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Steele was known as a moderate Republican who had publicly criticized Bush at times. He had been the party’s nominee for a Maryland Senate seat in 2006, losing to Democrat Benjamin Cardin. Since then, he had frequently appeared as a political commentator on the cable television network Fox News, sometimes substituting for conservative talk show host Sean Hannity. Kaine Installed as DNC Chairman—The RNC’s counterpart, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Jan. 21 voted to approve Obama’s selection of Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine as its new chairman, replacing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. [See p. 6B2] n

Automobiles Chrysler, GM Announce Worker Buyouts. Auburn Hills, Mich.–based Chrysler LLC

and Detroit, Mich.–based General Motors Corp. (GM) had offered a new round of buyouts to almost all of their hourly employees, it was reported Feb. 3. The move was part of efforts by the companies to lower their production costs, as mandated by a $17.4 billion federal auto industry rescue package enacted in December 2008. [See p. 47D3; 2008, pp. 789C1, 396F1] Chrysler reportedly offered employees $50,000 to retire, plus a $25,000 voucher for a new Chrysler vehicle. If workers were willing to forgo retirement health care benefits, the lump sum payment increased to $75,000. Chrysler employees would have until Feb. 25 to accept the deal. GM reportedly offered workers $20,000 to retire, as well as a $25,000 vehicle voucher. GM workers could accept the buyout through the end of March. Under new, cost-saving contracts the automakers had negotiated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 2007, new hourly employees received about half the salary of workers hired under previous contracts. After the new contracts were ratified, the Michigan automakers had offered buyout packages, which tens of thousands of workers had accepted. However, with auto sales at historic lows, there had been few opportunities to hire lower-paid workers under the new contract. The Wall Street Journal Feb. 3 reported that GM had told UAW officials that the buyouts would “address the number of surplus employees and create the potential for hiring entry-level employees when the business environment improves.” [See below; 2007, p. 733E3] The buyout’s lump-sum payments were significantly lower than figures the companies had offered in the last round of buyouts, which had been announced in early 2008. Workers who accepted those buyouts had received as much as $140,000 at

GM and as much as $100,000 at Chrysler. Analysts suggested that many employees were likely to accept the current, less attractive buyout for fear of being laid off later. [See 2008, p. 88B1] Automakers Post Worst Sales in 27 Years—

Figures released Feb. 3 by Autodata Corp., a research and statistics firm, showed new auto sales at their lowest since 1982. Compared with sales in January 2008, GM’s sales plummeted 48.9%, Chrysler’s tumbled by 54.8%, and Dearborn, Mich.–based Ford Motor Co.’s sales declined by 40.3%. Ford had not received any funds from the federal rescue package. [See p. 48D1] Parts Suppliers Request $25.5 Billion—

The Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA), a group representing auto parts makers, Feb. 2 submitted to the Treasury Department a request for $25.5 billion in aid. In the request, MEMA warned, “Without immediate assistance to suppliers, the country will face massive job losses and the eventual breakdown of the entire automotive sector in the United States.” [See p. 47F3] n

Legislation Children’s Health Insurance Bill Signed.

President Barack Obama Feb. 4 signed into law a bill that significantly expanded funding for the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP or SCHIP). The Senate Jan. 29 had passed its version of the bill, 63–32, and the House Feb. 4 cleared the measure in a 290–135 vote. CHIP was a program that provided health insurance to children whose families were not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but who did not earn enough to purchase private coverage. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had twice vetoed similar bills. [See p. 19G1] The bill provided additional funding for the program over the next five years that would allow four million additional children to participate in it, for a total enrollment of about 11 million. The $32.8 billion additional cost of the expansion was funded through a 62-cent increase on the federal cigarette tax, raising it to $1.01 per pack. The bill required states to offer dental benefits to all enrolled in the program, and allowed children covered by private health care plans that did not provide dental care to receive it through CHIP. It also nullified an element of a 1996 welfare reform law that prevented legal immigrants who were under 21 or pregnant from receiving federal health care program benefits during their first five years of residency in the U.S. At the bill’s signing ceremony, Obama said he considered the measure a “down payment on my commitment to cover every single American,” a reference to his campaign pledge to reform the country’s health care system to ensure that everyone had insurance. n Congress Passes Delay of Digital TV Switch.

The House Feb. 4 passed, 264–158, a bill delaying by four months an upcoming national transition to digital television, until June 12. The Senate Jan. 26 had approved the delay by voice vote, but the House Jan. FACTS ON FILE

28 voted, 258–168, on the legislation, failing to achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass it under suspension of the rules. The Senate Jan. 29 passed the bill again, allowing the House to approve it with a simple majority. The White House said President Barack Obama would sign the bill. [See 2008, pp. 834F1, 749G1] The Nielsen Co. estimated that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that relied on free television broadcasts were unprepared for the switch, which would require them to buy a digital television or a converter box for their old television. (Cable or satellite television subscribers would not be affected.) Television stations previously would have been required to switch to digital signals, from analog, by Feb. 17; however, the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) said that government centers set up to field questions on the conversion were understaffed and needed more time. A program administered by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that issued $40 vouchers to defray the cost of converter boxes had reportedly reached its $1.34 billion spending limit, and millions of people were put on a waiting list for coupons whose original recipients had allowed them to expire. An additional $650 million in funding for the voucher program was included in an economic stimulus package being considered by Congress. [See p. 41A1] Democrats said the switch disproportionately affected low-income and elderly viewers. John Podesta, the cochairman of Obama’s transition team, Jan. 16 sent a letter to Congress expressing the incoming administration’s support for a delay. However, House Republicans, who mostly voted against the bill, said that the change would confuse matters even further and impose extra costs on television stations. n

Consumer Affairs Criminal Investigation Set in Peanut Recall.

Stephen Sundlof, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Jan. 30 announced that the FDA and the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into Lynchburg, Va.–based Peanut Corp. of America, whose peanut products had been linked to a widespread outbreak of salmonella poisoning in the U.S. [See p. 49C3] It was unusual for the FDA to publicly announce an ongoing criminal investigation, but it did so after several members of Congress called for one. The investigation began after the FDA discovered that the company had knowingly shipped salmonella-contaminated products at least 12 times in 2007–08. The FDA and other health agencies in January had linked peanut butter and other peanut products produced at Peanut Corp.’s Blakely, Ga., plant to an outbreak of salmonella thought to be the cause of February 5, 2009

some 575 illnesses and at least eight deaths. The discovery of the bacterium had also led to the recall of some 500 food products that contained peanut butter or other peanut products made at the plant, in what had grown into one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. The FDA Jan. 30 also revealed that a shipment of peanut products made by Peanut Corp. for export to Canada had been blocked from being returned to the U.S. in April 2008, after metal fragments were found in the food. The incident reportedly alerted the FDA that peanut products other than peanut butter were being made at the plant. The shipment was later destroyed. The incidents renewed calls for an overhaul of the FDA, which in recent years had been beset by a slew of regulatory failures that had led to widespread food and drug recalls. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Jan. 30 said President Barack Obama planned to announce a new FDA commissioner within the next few days. Obama Feb. 2 said his administration was “going to be doing a complete review of FDA operations,” as a result of the salmonella outbreak. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) Feb. 5 said it was suspending all of its contracts with Peanut Corp. It said contaminated peanut products made by the company had been sold to a federally managed, free school-lunch program. n

Labor Obama Signs Pro-Union Executive Orders.

President Barack Obama Jan. 30 signed three executive orders that reversed policies on federal contractors that were viewed by unions as anti-labor. Obama said the orders would “reverse many of the policies toward organized labor that we’ve seen these last eight years, policies with which I’ve sharply disagreed.” [See p. 60A1; 2001, p. 119E3] Under Obama’s first order, when federal agencies switched contractors, they were mandated to first offer positions to nonsupervisory workers employed under the old contract before searching for employees elsewhere. The rule had been in effect under the administration of former President Bill Clinton, but was rescinded by Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. Under the second order, federal contractors with commissions worth more than $100,000 were no longer required to post notices informing workers of their right not to be a member of a union. Instead, contractors would be required to post a “balanced notice of their employees’ rights” as stipulated by the National Labor Relations Act. Under the third order, federal contractors were barred from receiving reimbursement for expenses incurred from efforts to influence workers to accept or reject unionization. At the signing, Obama welcomed labor officials “back to the White House,” and asserted that he did not “view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it’s part of the solution.”

Unions See Membership Increase—The Bureau of Labor Statistics Jan. 28 reported that unions gained 428,000 members in 2008, the largest increase in 25 years. Most were reportedly government employees, who unionized more frequently than workers in the private sector, where employers were more likely to oppose union organizing. The proportion of all workers who were unionized in 2008 was 12.4%, up from 12.1% the previous year. [See 2008, p. 88B3] ‘Middle-Class Task Force’ Set—Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden Jan. 30 at the executive-order signing formally announced the creation of a Middle Class Working Families Task Force chaired by Biden. (They had first announced their plans for the task force in December 2008.) The task force, designed to identify ways to improve the quality of life for middle-class families, would hold its first public meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 27. Officials emphasized that the task force’s conclusions would be submitted directly to Obama, who could then back legislation or issue executive orders to implement them. [See 2007, p. 608B1] n

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Terrorism Detainees Request Canadian Resettlement.

Attorneys for three Chinese Muslim detainees who had been cleared for release from the U.S. military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 3 announced that their clients had asked the Canadian government to grant them political asylum. Two of the detainees had made the request the previous week, while the other had done so in October 2008. Canada had not yet responded to the requests, and had previously refused to resettle detainees from Guantanamo despite multiple requests by the Bush administration. [See 2008, p. 723C2] President Barack Obama had recently issued an executive order that required the closure of Guantanamo within one year, but had not yet decided what to do with the more than 240 remaining detainees. [See p. 28F1] The three men were part of a group of 17 detainees who belonged to the Uighur ethnic group native to the Xinjiang region of China. The U.S. government had previously determined that the detainees did not pose a threat and had authorized their release, but had been unable to find a country willing to accept them. U.S. officials had refused to return the men to China because of concerns that they could be tortured there. China accused the men of belonging to a separatist terrorist group. A federal judge in October 2008 had ordered the U.S. government to release the men and allow them to enter the U.S., but the Bush administration had appealed the ruling. A spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry Feb. 5 said that China opposed “any country accepting these people.” It addition, she expressed hope that the transfer of the Uighurs would be carried out “in accordance with international law,” which, 63

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according to the Chinese government, required the Uighurs to be returned to China. The Associated Press (AP) reported Feb. 5 that China had privately warned European nations not to accept the Uighurs. EU Parliament Calls for Resettlement—

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The European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union, Feb. 4 voted, 542–55, to recommend that EU member nations assist in the closing of Guantanamo by agreeing to accept some of the detainees there who had been found not to pose a threat to security. [See 2008, p. 958D3] The recommendation was nonbinding. Portugal and Germany had previously said they were considering accepting detainees, while the Netherlands had ruled out doing so. EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot Feb. 3 had suggested that EU countries that agreed to accept Guantanamo detainees could receive financial support. Yemeni’s Detention Upheld—Judge Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Jan. 28 ruled that a Guantanamo detainee who had been held by the U.S. for seven years had correctly been classified as an enemy combatant and should not be freed. The detainee, Ghaleb al-Bihani of Yemen, had admitted to involvement in Afghanistan’s Taliban Islamist movement, but said that he had been an assistant in one of the group’s kitchens, not a fighter. Leon ruled that “helping prepare the meals” for Taliban militants constituted support for the group, and quoted French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as saying, “An army marches on its stomach.” [See p. 20F2] n

Defense Obama Meets With Joint Chiefs at Pentagon.

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President Barack Obama Jan. 28 paid his first visit to the Pentagon since he took office the previous week. Obama met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reportedly discussed global strategic issues, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama during his campaign had promised to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, which some military officers said was too ambitious a schedule. However, Obama at the meeting reportedly indicated that he might be willing to alter the withdrawal schedule over military concerns about preserving security in Iraq. [See p. 29B2] In what was seen as a criticism of the Bush administration’s military policies, Obama told reporters after the meeting, “We have for a long time put enormous pressure on our military to carry out a whole set of missions, sometimes not with the sort of strategic support and the use of all aspects of American power, to make sure that they’re not carrying the full load.” He pledged to change that. Obama had said he wanted to shift U.S. foreign policy with toward more of a diplomatic, and less of a military, emphasis. n

Medicine and Health Lawsuits Filed Over ‘Conscience Rule.’

The attorneys general of seven states, led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blu64

menthal, Jan. 15 filed a federal lawsuit against a so-called right of conscience rule issued by the Bush administration that expanded protections for health care workers who refused to provide certain treatments on the basis of their moral or religious beliefs. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in December 2008 had issued the rule, in a move seen as an attempt to provide protection to health care workers opposed to abortion. [See 2008, p. 965G3] Connecticut was joined by California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Hartford, Conn. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America also filed a suit, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed another one on behalf of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. The rule allowed HHS to withhold federal funding for state and local hospitals and other health care facilities if they did not accommodate health care providers with moral, ethical or religious qualms about a particular treatment. Family planning advocates, women’s health activists and others had argued that the rule would imperil the ability of people to receive several types of health services, including emergency contraception after rape, end-of-life care and fertility treatments. The plaintiffs also argued that the rule conflicted with several state laws designed to guarantee women’s access to birth control and certain types of contraception. n UnitedHealth Settles Suits for $350 Million.

Health insurance provider UnitedHealth Group Inc. Jan. 15 said it had agreed to pay $350 million to settle several class-action lawsuits charging that it had systemically underpaid patients and doctors for treatment considered performed by “out-of-network” health practitioners. Health insurers had been given wide latitude to calculate “usual and customary” charges used to determine payments for out-of-network care. [See 2008, p. 218A3] In 2000, a group of plaintiffs, led by the American Medical Association physicians’ group and including several state medical societies and consumers, argued that insurers often pegged the costs of health care services far below the rates actually charged to patients, forcing them to pay a substantially larger portion of the costs. A lawyer for one of the plaintiffs said the settlement was not high enough, and Jan. 15 petitioned one of the judges overseeing the lawsuits not to accept it. UnitedHealth Jan. 13 had agreed to settle with New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over his investigation into the company’s use of a database run by its subsidiary, Ingenix Inc., used to calculate the “usual and customary” charges. Cuomo said his investigation, launched in February 2008, found that the Ingenix database routinely underpaid certain claims by 10%– 28%. Information in Ingenix databases was also used by most insurance companies to calculate out-of-network charges, meaning the settlement would have a nationwide effect on insurance payments.

Under the terms of the deal, UnitedHealth agreed to shut down Ingenix, and pay $50 million to establish a new, nonprofit database to calculate such claims. n News in Brief. The office of New York State Health Department Inspector General Joseph Fisch Jan. 27 issued a report which found that former state Health Commissioner Antonia Novello had abused her authority over her employees, often ordering them to perform personal errands for her. Novello, who was health commissioner from 1999 to 2006, had also served as U.S. surgeon general under Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. Fisch had reportedly asked prosecutors to consider whether to file felony charges against Novello for defrauding the government. [See 1989, p. 783C2] The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Jan. 15 issued final rules governing the regulation of genetically engineered animals, which did not include a requirement that food products be labeled as such unless the product differed substantially from those made from ordinary animals. Genetically engineered animals were those that had snippets of recombinant DNA (rDNA) inserted into their own DNA in order to foster desirable traits, such as fast growth. However, opponents of the practice said it could result in unforeseen harm. [See 2008, p. 792A3] The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, Jan. 15 reported that the FDA had failed to ensure that medical devices were effective or safe. Under the FDA’s approval system,

created in 1976, device manufacturers generally received marketing approval from the FDA after telling the agency that new devices functioned like similar, older ones, and were therefore safe. Congress in 1990 had ordered the FDA to enact more stringent reviews, but that call had gone unheeded. The GAO report found that the FDA from 2003 to 2007 had approved 228 devices without properly reviewing them. [See 2008, p. 73B3] Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. Jan. 15 agreed to pay about $1.42 billion to settle civil and criminal charges that it had illegally marketed its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa by promoting it for uses unapproved by the FDA, and had downplayed

the drug’s side effects. Lilly would pay a total of $615 million in penalties to resolve a criminal investigation launched by the Justice Department, and another $800 million to settle civil suits brought by federal and state governments, as well as other plaintiffs. Zyprexa, used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had garnered worldwide sales of $37 billion since being introduced in 1996. [See 2008, p. 967C1] A team of researchers reported in the Jan. 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that patients taking a type of drug known as atypical antipsychotics had twice the death rate from sudden cardiac failure than those not taking them. The researchers had studied the Medicaid records of 276,907 people aged 30–74, about onethird of whom had taken an antipsychotic drug between 1990 and 2005. In recent years a growing body of scientific evidence FACTS ON FILE

had called into question the efficacy, safety and cost of atypical antipsychotics, which had grown to represent about 90% of the market for antipsychotic drugs. The research was led by Wayne Ray, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and the Nashville Veterans Affairs Medical Center. [See 2006, p. 929B2] The office of the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Jan. 12 reported that the FDA had failed to enforce policies requiring drug manufacturers to disclose payments to researchers conducting clinical trials that

constituted potential conflicts of interest. The report said 42% of marketing applications submitted by drug and device manufacturers lacked such required disclosure information. The inspector general’s office said payments could affect the impartiality of the researchers, and lead to the approval of unsafe medicines or medical devices. Julie Gerberding, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Jan. 9 announced her resignation, effective Jan. 20, in an e-mail sent to agency employees. Gerberding in November 2008 had indicated that she expected to leave her position after President-elect Barack Obama took office. She would be replaced on an interim basis by CDC Chief Operating Officer (COO) Bill Gimson. [See 2002, p. 555B3]n

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg Undergoes Surgery. Jus-

tice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Feb. 5 underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. According to a statement released that day by the Supreme Court, Ginsburg had been informed of a small lesion in the center of her pancreas after a routine checkup in January at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The statement said she was likely to remain at Sloan-Kettering for seven to 10 days. [See 1999, p. 725C1] Ginsburg, 75, had been appointed to the court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, and was currently the sole female on the bench. She was treated for colon cancer in 1999. n

September 11 Attack Aftermath Deal Reached on Flight 93 Memorial. Families of Flight 93, a group representing the families of victims of United Airlines Flight 93—which crashed after being hijacked in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—and the National Park Service Jan. 16 reached an agreement to purchase more than 270 acres of the crash site near Shanksville, Pa., from a quarry company. The land was expected to become part of a planned 2,000-acre (809-hectare) park and memorial for the victims of Flight 93. Construction of the memorial was scheduled to begin in fall 2009. [See 2008, p. 633G3] The agreement to purchase the land had reportedly been delayed for years due to disputes between Svonavec Inc., which owned the land, and the National Park service. Svonavec had turned down an offer by the National Park Service to purchase the land February 5, 2009

for $250,000, as well as a later offer of $750,000 made by the Families of Flight 93. The Families of Flight 93 had asked President George W. Bush in December 2008 to instruct the Interior Department to seize the land needed for the memorial. The group had reportedly been concerned that further delays would keep the memorial from being completed in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks. Following the group’s request, the National Park Service agreed to share with Svonavec the results of a third independent assessment of the land’s value— which found that it was worth about $611,000—paving the way for a deal. Under the agreement, the price paid for the land would be determined by a federal court, following the filing of a condemnation suit. Svonavec would receive an additional payment of $200,000 to cover expenses, but would allow preconstruction work on the park and memorial to begin immediately. n

Environment News in Brief. Interior

Department officials Jan. 14 said they were again removing

gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region and the northern Rocky Mountains re-

gion from protections provided by the Endangered Species Act. Wolves in Wyoming would retain their endangered species protections because the department said that state had not done enough to ensure their viability. The administration of President George W. Bush had attempted to remove the wolves from the endangered species list three times, but had been blocked by court order each time. However, implementation of the rule was suspended Jan. 21 by Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, who had issued a blanket hold on all pending Bush administration regulations. [See p. 28A1; 2008, p. 791C2] The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of 26 large companies and several environmental organizations, Jan. 15 presented a detailed plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 2005 levels by a deadline of 2050. The plan called for the creation of a “cap-and-trade” system in which credits permitting a certain level of emissions would be sold to companies. The credits could then be sold or traded in a market. The group had released a similar but less detailed plan in 2006. [See 2007, p. 47B3] Plum Creek Timber Co., the country’s largest private land owner, Jan. 5 withdrew a request it had made to the U.S. Forest Service for a policy change that would have allowed it to pave roads in federally owned lands in order to develop housing on company-owned land. The company had used primitive existing roads for logging purposes, but in recent years had begun to develop land for vacation homes. Plum Creek said it withdrew its request in the wake of widespread opposition generated by press reports that the Bush administration was attempting to push the rule change through before President-elect Barack Obama, who was opposed to the plan, took office. [See 2000, p. 521B3] n

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Algeria CIA Station Chief Accused of Rape. The U.S.’s ABC News reported Jan. 28 on its Web site that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chief for Algiers, the capital of Algeria, had been accused of rape by two Algerian women and was currently under investigation by the U.S. State and Justice departments. The two alleged assaults had been reported independently by the women in September 2008, and the station chief, 41-year-old Andrew Warren, had been recalled to the U.S. the following month by David Pearce, the U.S. ambassador to Algeria. [See 2008, p. 257B3] Both of the alleged victims were Algerian citizens who currently lived in Europe, and said the crimes had occurred while they were visiting Algiers. Each had reported losing consciousness at Warren’s residence after consuming alcoholic drinks prepared by Warren, and one woman said that she had woken to find Warren in the act of raping her, while the other found evidence that she had been raped. The attacks allegedly took place in September 2007 and February 2008. Warren, a convert to Islam, had been interviewed by investigators in October 2008 about the allegations, and had admitted having sex with both women but maintained that the sex was consensual. ABC reported that investigators had discovered numerous recordings that Warren had apparently made secretly of himself having sex with women, including one of the accusers, who appeared semiconscious on the tape. Investigators were reportedly examining whether Warren had drugged women during his previous posting in Egypt. Analysts suggested that the allegations could hurt the image of the U.S. in Algeria, and complicate the partnership between the CIA and Algerian intelligence services, which had been working together to combat Algerian militants linked to the Al Qaeda international terrorist network. The Senate Intelligence Committee Jan. 29 was briefed by the CIA about the allegations, a day after the details of the case were made public by ABC News. Following the briefing, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.), the committee’s chairwoman, and Sen. Christopher Bond (R, Mo.), the highest-ranking Republican member of the committee, released a joint statement that called the alleged rapes “completely unacceptable” and announced their support for “the ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice.” n

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Kenya Kenyatta Named Finance Minister. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki Jan. 23 named former Trade Minister Uhuru Kenyatta the country’s new finance minister. Kenyatta—son of Kenya’s founding father, Jomo Kenyatta—was a close ally of Kibaki. He replaced acting Finance Minister John Mi65

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chuki, who had taken over from Amos Kimunya in July 2008 after Kimunya stepped down due to corruption allegations. Kimunya was reportedly cleared by an official inquiry in November 2008, although the results of the inquiry were never made public. Kibaki Jan. 23 named Kimunya trade minister. [See 2008, p. 971E3] n

Madagascar Capital’s Mayor Ousted Over Power Grab.

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Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana Feb. 3 fired Andry Rajoelina, the opposition mayor of Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo. Rajoelina Jan. 31 had declared himself the country’s leader, and earlier Feb. 3 said he would begin naming cabinet ministers if Ravalomanana did not resign by Feb. 7. [See 2007, p. 670A2] The 34-year-old Rajoelina, a charismatic former disc jockey and self-made advertising mogul, led the Tanora malaGasy Vonona (Young Malagasies Determined) movement. He had been elected in December 2007, soundly defeating the president’s favored candidate. Especially well liked among young people, he had spread his populist, antigovernment message through his radio and television station, Viva. Ravalomanana, a 59-year-old wealthy businessman who led the I Love Madagascar (TIM) party, had come to power in 2002 on a wave of popular support, and was easily reelected in 2006. He owned the Malagasy Broadcasting System, which operated MBS TV and Radio MBS, as well as Tiko, Madagascar’s largest food corporation. Rajoelina had criticized Ravalomanana’s government for failing to lift the majority of Malagasies out of poverty, and for his alleged authoritarian tendencies. However, it was reported that many Magalasies believed that the mayor was being backed by former President Didier Ratsiraka, whom Ravalomanana had defeated in a controversial 2001 election. [See below] The standoff between Ravalomanana and Rajoelina had begun in December 2008, when the president shut down the mayor’s television station after it aired an interview with Ratsiraka. In response to the shutdown, Rajoelina’s supporters held a series of demonstrations in Antananarivo, protesting rising food prices and accusing Ravalomanana of autocratic rule. The demonstrations came to a head Jan. 26–27, when rioters attacked stores, factories and a television station owned by Ravalomanana. Clashes between protesters and police left as many as 100 people dead. That led Rajoelina to declare himself the nation’s leader Jan. 31. He called for civil servants and schoolchildren to stay home Feb. 2, a call that largely went unheeded. Rajoelina then said he would move to impeach the president. In order to fire Rajoelina Feb. 3, Ravalomanana invoked a law that allowed him to dismiss elected officials who were not carrying out their duties. Andry Ralijaona, an official in the president’s office, said, “For the past two months, the mayor has not spent much time fulfilling his real duties; he only went into the streets to excite the 66

crowds and create trouble.” He added, “The roads are not fixed; the rubbish is not cleared; and there are strange decisions, like the way he uses the symbols of his political party to decorate Antananarivo without consulting the people.” Ravalomanana appointed Guy Rivo Randrianarisoa as the capital’s caretaker mayor. Also Feb. 3, the Constitutional Court rejected a petition filed by Rajoelina for the court to remove Ravalomanana from his position. The court said only the country’s parliament had the power to take such action. (Parliament was controlled by Ravalomanana’s party.) At least 1,500 Rajoelina supporters Feb. 4 protested in front of city government offices in Antananarivo. At the rally, Rajoelina named Michel Ratsivalaka to serve as mayor, reasoning that he had stepped down from the position to become Madagascar’s new leader and therefore had the power to appoint his own successor. Rajoelina also proclaimed that he still planned to name a transitional government if Ravalomanana did not step down by Feb. 7. The African Union (AU), which was meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, for its annual summit, Feb. 2 condemned Rajoelina’s power grab. Madagascar had faced a similar situation in 2001–02, when both Ravalomanana, then mayor of the capital, and longtime President Ratsiraka claimed victory in a December 2001 presidential election. The country was at a stalemate for several months, until the Constitutional Court in April 2002 declared Ravalomanana the winner and Ratsiraka in July fled the country. [See 2002, p. 567C2] n

Ahmed, a former schoolteacher, was a founder of the Union of Islamic Courts, which had taken power over much of the country in 2006, ruling with the support of radical Islamists who later formed Al Shabab. The Union of Islamic Courts was ousted by transitional government forces, with strong support from Ethiopian troops, at the end of that year. Ethiopia withdrew its forces earlier in January—with the last troops reportedly leaving Jan. 25—widening the field for various factions’ and clans’ struggle for power. In exile in Djibouti, Ahmed had led a moderate faction of the opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), which had reached a peace deal with the transitional government in 2008. Under a power-sharing agreement, 149 ARS members, including Sharif Ahmed, Jan. 28 had been sworn in to an expanded parliament, which that day also voted to extend its mandate until 2011. In an interview published Feb. 1 in a Saudi newspaper, Ahmed declared, “We are a moderate party and we have nothing to do with the fundamentalists.” Al Shabab continued to indicate its refusal to cooperate with the government. In the ongoing violence in the country, a suicide car bomber apparently targeting African Union peacekeepers Jan. 24 killed at least 14 civilians and one policeman in Mogadishu; no peacekeepers were harmed. Also, Said Tahlil Ahmed, the director of HornAfrik, a leading independent radio station, was killed in an attack by three gunmen Feb. 4 in the city. Two other HornAfrik figures had been killed in August 2007. No group asserted responsibility for either attack. [See 2007, p. 635E3] n

Somalia

Pirates Receive Ransom, Release Ship.

Moderate Islamist Named President. Members of Somalia’s transitional parliament, meeting in the neighboring country of Djibouti, Jan. 31 elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist leader, as the government’s new interim president. Somalia’s United Nations–backed transitional government had control of only a small portion of the capital city, Mogadishu. The Al Shabab militant Islamic insurgent group, which controlled much of the rest of southern and central Somalia, Jan. 26 had taken over the city of Baidoa, which had been the base of the parliament, and imposed Islamic law there. [See p. 21E2] The previous interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, had resigned in December 2008, after opposing a peace agreement with moderate Islamists negotiated by interim Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein. Many Somalis expressed the hope that Sheikh Ahmed, because of his ties to the Islamist movement and other factions, stood a better chance of promoting national unity. He was a member of the Hawiye clan that was dominant in Mogadishu. Ahmed, 45, won election in the second round of voting, following the withdrawal of Hussein from the race. He defeated Maslah Mohamed Siad, the son of former President Mohamed Siad Barre, 293–126, and was sworn in later Jan. 31.

Somali pirates who in September 2008 had hijacked a Ukrainian ship carrying a cargo of weaponry released the vessel Feb. 5 after being paid a reported ransom of $3.2 million. After the pirates departed, the ship, the MV Faina, was put under the protection of the U.S. Navy. U.S. sailors inspected the pirates’ boats as they departed to ensure that they were not carrying off any of the arms, but they were allowed to escape with the ransom, so as not to endanger the nearly 150 members of other ship crews reportedly held hostage by pirates in the region. [See p. 21A2] The Faina was to be taken to the Kenyan port of Mombasa, where its crew would receive needed medical attention. The hijackers had originally demanded $20 million in ransom. In an interview with the New York Times published Feb. 6, one of the pirates, Isse Mohammed, said he and other leaders of the hijacking had gone to Harardhere, one of several Somali coastal towns known as a pirate base, to count the ransom money before authorizing the full release of the ship. In a related development, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, Jan. 26 had said any pirates captured by U.S. antipiracy patrols would be turned over to Kenyan authorities for trial. Britain had reportedly agreed to do the same. n FACTS ON FILE

Zimbabwe Opposition Agrees to Join Government. The

opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party Jan. 30 announced that it would join a unity government with the longtime ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party of President Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe’s parliament, which was controlled by the MDC, Feb. 5 unanimously adopted a constitutional amendment that created a prime minister’s post, which would be filled by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. [See 2008, p. 974A1] The MDC’s Jan. 30 announcement came after months of wrangling between the two parties over the composition of the unity government, which had been agreed to in principle in September 2008. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s economy had continued to deteriorate, with record-high inflation and unemployment reaching 94%, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Jan. 29. Also, a cholera epidemic continued to take its toll, with more than 3,300 people having died of the disease and a further 66,000 sickened as of Feb. 5, mainly due to lack of access to clean water and basic health care facilities. [See below] Regional Body Pushes Deal Through—

The worsening situation in Zimbabwe had prompted leaders of the 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), at a special summit Jan. 26–27 in Pretoria, South Africa, to increase pressure on the two parties to implement the powersharing deal. Specifically, the SADC pressured the MDC to accept an arrangement that gave it a less-than-equal share of power with the ZANU-PF. That pressure came despite the fact that the MDC had won parliamentary elections in March 2008, and Tsvangirai had won more votes than Mugabe in the first round of the presidential election, but not enough for the outright majority needed to gain the presidency. Tsvangirai had pulled out of a June 2008 runoff presidential vote against Mugabe due to widespread violence against his supporters, and Mugabe had won an election widely perceived as illegitimate. The SADC meeting came amid increasing pressure from leading political and civil-society leaders in southern Africa to find a resolution to the impasse. According to an SADC statement issued Jan. 27, Tsvangirai tentatively agreed to accept a deal in which the MDC and a splinter faction would control around half of the cabinet ministries, including finance, health and education. He also relented on what had been a key point of contention: control of the home ministry, which oversaw the police. The MDC had originally demanded control of that ministry, but Mugabe refused to give it up. The SADC had proposed sharing the ministry, which Mugabe had agreed to in a Jan. 19 meeting, mediated by South Africa, in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Tsvangirai had rejected the proposal at the time. February 5, 2009

The MDC demanded control of the ministry because the police had been responsible for much of the violence against its supporters prior to the 2008 runoff election. The ZANU-PF retained control of the military, and the MDC was reluctant to leave the entire security apparatus under the influence of the ZANU-PF. The MDC had also demanded the immediate release of dozens of opposition activists who had been held by Zimbabwe’s security forces since late 2008, but their release was not granted. Tsvangirai and the MDC, under pressure from southern African leaders, apparently came to the conclusion that if they did not accept the SADC deal, they risked being shut out of the government completely. Mugabe had repeatedly threatened to unilaterally form a government if the MDC did not accept the deal proposed by the SADC. After the SADC meeting in Pretoria, Tsvangirai presented the deal to the MDC’s top leaders at a Jan. 30 meeting in Harare, at which they agreed to accept it. Tsvangirai that day said he saw the new government as transitional, and that the MDC was entering it to “save this country from the precipice.” Tsvangirai announced the MDC’s approval of the power-sharing deal to hundreds of cheering supporters in Harare. The constitutional amendment passed Feb. 5 provided for Tsvangirai to be sworn in as prime minister Feb. 11, and Arthur Mutambara, leader of the MDC splinter faction, to become deputy prime minister.

trillion for Z$1. Gono also said the bank was lifting all restrictions on the withdrawal of money in foreign currencies. n

Botswanan President Voices Criticism—

ist guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Feb. 1– 5 unilaterally released six hostages. The unconditional hostage releases were viewed as another sign of the rebel group’s waning power and influence, following a successful military campaign against it in recent months overseen by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez and backed by the U.S. Several of the group’s leaders had been killed or captured in 2008, and the military in a daring July 2008 rescue had freed 15 hostages. In previous instances, FARC leaders had attempted to negotiate the release of comrades captured by the government in exchange for the return of hostages. [See 2008, pp. 819E1, 452A1] Rebels Feb. 1 released four hostages— three police officers and one soldier—who were taken from rebel captivity in a military helicopter operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The released captives had been captured in 2007. The rebel group Feb. 3 released Alan Jara, the former governor of the state of Meta, who had been held for more than seven years. Sigifredo Lopez, a former provincial legislator from the state of Valle de Cauca, was released Feb. 5. Lopez was one of a group of lawmakers who had been captured in 2002, of whom 11 had been killed in 2007 under unclear circumstances. FARC said the hostages had died during an assault by the Colombian military on the encampment in which they were held. The military denied participating in any such action, and said it was likely the captives had died in accidental cross-fire between two rebel groups. n

Botswanan President Seretse Khama Ian Khama Jan. 26, in what was described as a rare interview, criticized Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal, which was modeled in part on a deal implemented in Kenya in 2008, after a disputed election. Khama, whose government had consistently and vocally criticized Mugabe, said, “These powersharing agreements are not the way to go on the continent.” He added, “You can’t have a situation where a ruling party, when it senses it may lose an election, can then manipulate the outcome so they can stay on in power.” [See 2008, pp. 971C2, 221A1] Government Allows Foreign Currencies—

Zimbabwe’s government Jan. 29 announced that it would allow transactions in currencies other than the Zimbabwean dollar. With estimated inflation running in the billions of percent (the last official rate, released in July 2008, had been 231 million percent), Zimbabwe’s currency was practically worthless, and the majority of businesses had stopped accepting the Zimbabwean dollar several months earlier. The government said it would allow the use of U.S. dollars or currencies of neighboring countries. The government Jan. 12 had introduced a Z$50 billion note, and Jan. 16 came out with a Z$10 trillion note—which at the time equaled about US$8 on the black market. Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the central bank, Feb. 2 announced that the government would slash 12 zeroes from its currency, revaluing the Zimbabwean dollar at a rate of Z$1

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AMERICAS

Canada Nortel Networks Files for Bankruptcy. Telecommunications equipment–maker Nortel Networks Corp., at one time Canada’s largest company by market value, Jan. 14 filed for bankruptcy protection in Ontario Superior Court. Its U.S. subsidiary that day filed for Chapter 11 protection in a court in Wilmington, Del. [See 2006, p. 305F3] Nortel’s stock had hit a peak of C$124.50 per share in July 2000, but the company’s worth was sharply eroded by the collapse of technology stocks the following year. The company was subsequently involved in a US$3.2 billion (C$3.9 billion) accounting fraud. Nortel stock closed Jan. 14 at C$0.30 per share. The bankruptcy filing came a day before a US$107 million interest payment was due. Several analysts said it was likely that the company would not be able to restructure itself and emerge from bankruptcy, as the global credit crisis had made it difficult for bankrupt entities to secure new financing. n

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Rebels Release Six More Hostages. Marx-

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Kazakhstan

Austria

Government Takes Control of Two Banks.

Police Detain Seven Over Chechen’s Murder.

Kazakh officials Feb. 2 announced that the government would take controlling stakes in BTA Bank and Alliance Bank, the largest and fourth-largest banks in the country, respectively. The government bought a 78% stake in BTA for about $2.1 billion under recently passed legislation that allowed the government to take control of banks that did not meet liquidity or reserve requirements. Alliance Bank willingly sold the government a 76% stake for a token sum, on the condition that the state would also assume the bank’s liabilities. Kazakhstan, which had borrowed heavily from abroad in recent years, had been severely affected by the worldwide economic slowdown, and reportedly owed $11 billion in loan payments due by the end of 2009. [See 2008, p. 838F2] In a related development, the country’s central bank Feb. 4 devalued the tenge, Kazakhstan’s currency, by as much as 25%. The government had maintained the tenge’s value at 120–121 tenge per U.S. dollar, but by Feb. 4 it was valued as low as 149 tenge per dollar. The bank pledged not to let the currency fall below 150 tenge per dollar. Officials said the devaluation was necessary as a result of declining oil prices, and after Kazakhstan’s trading partners, especially Russia, had enacted similar currency devaluations. [See p. 69A2] n

Austrian police Jan. 28 detained seven Chechen men in connection with the murder of Chechen dissident Umar Israilov, 27, who had been slain earlier that month in Vienna, the capital. (Chechnya was a majority-Muslim republic in southern Russia.) The seven were reportedly being investigated for conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and being a member of a criminal group. Another suspect who had been detained the day of the murder remained in custody. [See p. 36G3] Officials maintained that they were unsure whether Israilov’s murder had been politically motivated, though many rights groups claimed that it was linked to his 2006 and 2007 complaints against Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, 32, in the European Court of Human Rights. Israilov had accused Kadyrov, an ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of employing abductions and torture from 2003 to 2005 against an ongoing, low-level Chechen insurgency. Kadyrov at that time headed the Chechen Presidential Security Service under the rule of his father, Akhmed Kadyrov, then Chechnya’s president. Israilov, a former insurgent, had been forced to serve in the Presidential Security Service in 2003, until he defected in 2004. n

France Unions Lead Strike, Protests on Economy.

Asia-Pacific News in Brief Cambodia: First Genocide Trial Scheduled.

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A United Nations–backed genocide tribunal Jan. 19 set a Feb. 17 opening date for the trial of Kang Kek Ieu, a member of Cambodia’s notorious Khmer Rouge who was also known as “Duch.” It was the first trial of a member of the Khmer Rouge. The regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people during its 1975–79 rule. Duch had been indicted in August 2008 by the joint U.N.–Cambodian tribunal, known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), on charges that he oversaw the deaths of about 14,000 people while head of Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. [See 2008, p. 573A2] n Fiji: Flooding Kills 11, Displaces Thousands.

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Severe flooding Jan. 8–15 on the Fijian island of Viti Leveu killed at least 11 people and displaced more than 6,000 others. The flooding, caused by heavy rains, reportedly triggered mud slides and caused major damage to infrastructure on the island. Fijian officials Jan. 12 said that interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama had declared a state of emergency in response to the flooding. New Zealand and Australia Jan. 14 promised Fiji flood aid totaling $150,000 and Jan. 16 added $2.3 million to support relief efforts and rebuilding. [See 2007, p. 739B3] n 68

More than a million workers across France Jan. 29 went on strike and joined demonstrations against the response to the ongoing economic crisis by the conservative government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. The protests were organized by the country’s eight largest labor unions and backed by the Socialist Party and other leftist political parties. [See p. 68A3; 2008, p. 910D2] The unions said at least 2.5 million people joined the protests, while the interior ministry put the total at one million. Most of the participants were public-sector workers. Transportation was disrupted in Paris and other major cities, and many teachers also joined the strike. Clashes between the police and about 100 to 200 protesters reportedly occurred in Paris. Sarkozy that day issued a statement recognizing the “legitimate worries” of workers. He pledged to hold talks in February with union representatives to discuss a “program of reforms.” In December 2008, Sarkozy had announced a 26 billion euro ($34.5 billion) economic stimulus package, mainly aimed at infrastructure projects such as new nuclear plants and high-speed rail. The unions had called for higher wages and pensions and more government hiring. Since taking office in 2007, Sarkozy had sought to break the traditional power of the unions to block economic reforms, and in July 2008 he had boasted that strikes now went unnoticed. n

Great Britain Strikes Break Out Against Foreign Labor.

About 2,000 British workers at power plants and refineries across the nation Jan. 30 went on strike to protest the use of foreign labor for skilled construction jobs. The wildcat strikes, organized by workers without the authorization of union leaders, continued until Feb. 5. They had spread after starting Jan. 28 in response to a move by French oil company Total SA to award a £200 million ($290 million) contract to Italian company Irem SpA for construction work at its Lindsey oil refinery in eastern England, 175 miles (280 km) north of London. [See p. 52B3] Irem had brought in about 200 Italian and Portuguese workers for the project. Labor unions accused Total of discriminating against British workers at a time when unemployment was rising sharply. Workers at two nuclear plants in northwest England Feb. 2 joined the strikes. Workers at the Lindsey refinery Feb. 5 voted to end the strikes and accept an agreement with Total that would set aside 100 jobs on the construction project for British laborers. The strikes had become an awkward political issue for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who gave a speech Jan. 30 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, warning against a turn toward protectionism in response to the global financial crisis. But the striking workers carried signs quoting a speech by Brown in 2007, when he had vowed to create “British jobs for British workers.” The strikes also drew threats of retaliation from the Italian government. Britain’s booming economy in recent years had attracted hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, mostly from Eastern Europe, but many of them had left as the economy entered a recession in 2008 and the value of the British pound fell against other currencies. Central Bank Cuts Interest Rate— The Bank of England, the British central bank, Feb. 5 cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point, to 1%, in its fifth consecutive monthly rate cut. The sharp cuts followed the example of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which had cut its key rate to near zero in December 2008. [See p. 23D1] The European Central Bank, which made monetary policy for the 16 countries that used the euro currency, that day left its rate unchanged at 2% but hinted a rate cut was likely at its next meeting in March. n

Iceland New Prime Minister Sworn In. Johanna Sigurdardottir Feb. 1 took the oath of office as Iceland’s prime minister, heading a temporary left-leaning coalition government that would remain in power until parliamentary elections scheduled for April 25. She replaced Geir Haarde, who had resigned the previous week after he and his conservative Independence Party faced mounting public protests in response to the collapse of the FACTS ON FILE

country’s economy in the global financial crisis. [See p. 52D3] In one of her first actions, Sigurdardottir, Feb. 2 said she had asked the three governors of the central bank to resign. However, the governors did not respond to her request by her deadline of Feb. 5. Sigurdardottir, 66, was a former flight attendant and labor union organizer who had served as social affairs minister in several governments. A divorced mother and grandmother, she was said to be the world’s first openly homosexual national leader, having formed a civil partnership with a woman in 2002. Sigurdardottir’s Social Democratic Alliance had formed its governing coalition with the anti-capitalist, environmentalist Left-Green Movement. The leader of the Social Democrats, Ingibjorg Gisladottir, had originally been asked to form the new government, but since she was recovering from brain surgery to remove a benign tumor she deferred to Sigurdardottir. n

Russia Sagging Economy Spurs Protests. Antigovernment protests Jan. 31–Feb. 1 took place across Russia, in a signal that unease among citizens was growing amid a global economic downturn that had drained Russia’s cash reserves and crippled the ruble, Russia’s currency. The country had previously enjoyed a decade of economic growth resulting largely from high oil prices, which had since fallen. Protesters at both approved and unapproved rallies called for a variety of actions, ranging from the resignations of President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to the rejection of Western-style free-market economics in favor of broad nationalizations. [See p. 37D1; 2008, p. 985B2] The Russian authorities took the unusual step of officially allowing several opposition protests in central Moscow, the capital, a move that observers saw as an apparent concession to increasing public discontent. Antigovernment protests, when approved, were often relegated to inconvenient or isolated locations. Among the approved demonstrations was a Jan. 31 Moscow rally organized by the Communist Party, which reportedly drew about 1,000 people. The same day, a pro-government rally in Moscow reportedly attracted as many as 8,000 people. A peaceful, antigovernment demonstration of about 2,500 also took place in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, where riot police had violently dispersed a similar protest in December 2008. A number of other protests took place in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. Unapproved protests also took place in Moscow. A police spokesman Jan. 31 said 41 protesters were detained that day. Reportedly among the detained were Eduard Limonov, leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party, and chess grandmaster and Other Russia party leader Garry Kasparov. Among protesters’ grievances were the declining ruble, rising unemployment and commodity prices, the recent murders of February 5, 2009

several rights activists and dissidents, and a new tax on foreign vehicles. [See below, pp. 68A2, 36D2] Ruble Hits 11-Year Low—The ruble Feb. 2 hit its lowest value in 11 years as it approached a benchmark Russian officials had said they would not let it fall below. The central bank Jan. 22 had said it would defend the ruble from falling below a value of 41 rubles to a basket composed of the U.S. dollar and the euro, the European Union’s common currency. The ruble Feb. 2 had hit 40.79 to the dollar-euro basket, before rising slightly in value. [See 2008, p. 929B1] Fitch Ratings, a credit-rating agency owned by France’s Fimilac SA, Feb. 4 downgraded Russia’s credit outlook to BBB, from BBB plus. A BBB rating was two grades above “junk” level. [See 2008, p. 929D1] n Kaliningrad Missile Delay Reported. A Jan. 28 report by Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified Russian defense official as saying plans, announced in November 2008, to station missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland, had been “suspended because the new U.S. administration is not pushing ahead with the plans to deploy the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.” (U.S. President Barack Obama had not yet defined his position on the missile shield, but was thought to view the project with some skepticism.) The report, which came two days after Obama had spoken with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on the telephone, cited an unidentified Russian official, and Russian officials asked about it declined to confirm it. [See 2008, p. 879E1] However, U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials greeted the report as a promising signal for relations with Russia. U.S.-Russian ties had soured in 2008 following Russia’s brief war with Western-leaning Georgia, and moves by the U.S. to install missile shield components in Poland and the Czech Republic. The administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush had claimed that the missile shield would protect against threats from rogue nuclear states like Iran, while Russia argued that a shield could undermine its defenses. n

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United Arab Emirates Nuclear Power Deal Signed With U.S. United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Min-

ister Sheikh Abdallah Bin Zayid al-Nahyan and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Jan. 15 signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal in Washington, D.C., paving the way for the UAE to develop a nuclearpower industry. Under the deal, the UAE could buy U.S. nuclear technology, equipment and fuel. In return, it would submit to extensive inspections by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). In addition, the UAE pledged to import its nuclear fuel, rather than developing the technology to enrich

uranium or reprocess spent fuel. The UAE said the deal would strengthen ties with the U.S., and supply its future energy needs as its oil and gas resources declined. [See 2008, p. 742E1] Signing the deal was one of the last foreign-policy actions of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. Obama had not indicated whether he supported the agreement. The deal had to be reviewed by the U.S. Congress. Several U.S. legislators expressed concern that the deal might allow Iran, a major UAE trading partner, easier access to nuclear technology. Iran was operating a nuclear program—which it claimed was for civilian power generation—that included enriching uranium. The U.S. and its allies said the real aim of Iran’s nuclear program was to produce nuclear weapons. [See 2008, p. 874C2] Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had introduced legislation to delay the deal until the UAE proved that it was helping to enforce sanctions against Iran. n

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Pakistan News in Brief. Islamic extremist militants in northwestern Pakistan Feb. 3 blew up a bridge used as a supply route by U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

troops fighting a Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, temporarily suspending deliveries. The bridge was located on the Khyber Pass near the Afghan border, about 15 miles (25 km) from Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. The route had come under frequent attack in recent months, prompting U.S. and NATO officials to seek supply routes through Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors to the north. U.S. and NATO shipped about 80% of their supplies to Afghanistan through Pakistan. [See pp. 58D3, 39C1] Gunmen Feb. 2 kidnapped John Solecki, a U.S. citizen who headed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan. Solecki’s driver was killed during the abduction. While attacks on foreign aid workers had grown more common in Peshawar and other areas in Pakistan’s northwest, they were rare in Baluchistan. Authorities increased security on roads leading to Afghanistan, in case the kidnappers were aligned with the Taliban and sought to take Solecki to Afghanistan. [See 2008, p. 843C3] Missile attacks by suspected U.S. Predator drone aircraft Jan. 23 killed as many as 20 people in the northwestern tribal areas of North Waziristan and South Waziristan. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was thought to have conducted 38 such attacks since August 2008, in a ramped-up effort to target terrorists operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The most re69

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cent attacks were the first conducted under the administration of President Barack Obama, who had been inaugurated three days earlier. The Obama administration did not comment on the attacks, and it remained unclear if Obama himself had approved them, or if he would allow the campaign to continue. [See p. 38A3] n

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SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Steelers Defeat Cardinals to Win Super Bowl

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Pittsburgh Prevails With Last-Minute Score.

The Pittsburgh Steelers Feb. 1 defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 27–23, in Tampa, Fla., to win Super Bowl XLIII. The Steelers captured the National Football League (NFL) title with a thrilling, last-minute drive, capped by an acrobatic six-yard touchdown reception by wide receiver Santonio Holmes. [See p. 39E2; 2008, p. 78F3] The Steelers, coached by Mike Tomlin, won the sixth Super Bowl in franchise history, an NFL record. Two other franchises—the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers—had each won five Super Bowls. The Steelers had last won the Super Bowl in 2006. Holmes, who had a total of nine catches for 131 yards and one touchdown in the game, was named the Super Bowl’s most valuable player (MVP). Other stars for the Steelers included quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who passed for 256 yards and one touchdown, and linebacker James Harrison, who returned an interception 100 yards for a touchdown—the longest play in Super Bowl history. The Cardinals, coached by Ken Whisenhunt (who had been the Steelers’ offensive coordinator for their 2006 Super Bowl victory), were appearing in the first Super Bowl in the team’s history. Despite being plagued by costly turnovers and penalties throughout the game, they were able to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter

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that nearly won them the title. Arizona was led by veteran quarterback Kurt Warner, who passed for 377 yards and three touchdowns, and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who had seven receptions for 127 yards and two touchdowns. Nielsen Media Research Feb. 3 said Super Bowl XLIII, which was aired on the NBC television network, had attracted the highest average viewership in Super Bowl history. The 98.7 million average viewers beat out the previous year’s matchup between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, which had attracted 97.5 million viewers on the Fox network. [See 2008, p. 79C2] Steelers Take Early Lead—The Steelers scored on the first possession of the Super Bowl Feb. 1. Roethlisberger led Pittsburgh on a 71-yard drive, but the Cardinals stopped the Steelers at the goal line, and they were forced to settle for an 18-yard field goal by kicker Jeff Reed. The Steelers scored a touchdown less than a minute into the second quarter, on a one-yard run by tailback Gary Russell. The Cardinals answered midway through the half, when Warner connected with tight end Ben Patrick on a one-yard pass to make the score 10–7. The Cardinals looked set to at least tie the game at the end of the second half, but Harrison intercepted Warner’s pass at the goal line and returned it the entire length of the field to give Pittsburgh a 17–7 lead at half time. Reed kicked a 21-yard field goal in the middle of the third quarter to give the Steelers a 13-point lead and set the stage for the game’s exciting finish. Warner led Arizona on an 87-yard touchdown drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter, capped by a one-yard scoring pass to Fitzgerald. After a punt pinned the Steelers near their own goal line, Pittsburgh was assessed a safety when Justin Hartwig was called for holding in his own end zone with two minutes and 28 seconds remaining. The Cardinals gained possession after the safety, and quickly took a

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23–20 lead when Warner again connected with Fitzgerald on a 64-yard touchdown pass with 2:37 left in the game. Roethlisberger then led the Steelers on a 78-yard drive that ended with a six-yard fingertip catch by Holmes in the back right corner of the end zone. The officials spent several minutes reviewing the play before determining that Holmes had managed to touch both feet down within the end zone after securing possession of the ball and before he fell out of the end zone. SCORING SUMMARY First Quarter 9:45 Steelers 3, Cardinals 0—18-yard field goal by Reed. Drive: nine plays, 71 yards, 5:15. Key plays: 38-yard pass to Hines Ward from Roethlisberger; 21-yard pass to Heath Miller from Roethlisberger.

Second Quarter 14:01 Steelers 10, Cardinals 0—One-yard TD run by Russell (extra point by Reed). Drive: 11 plays, 69 yards, 7:12. Key plays: 25-yard pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger; 11-yard pass to Miller from Roethlisberger on 3rd-and-10; 11-yard pass to Miller from Roethlisberger. 8:34 Steelers 10, Cardinals 7—One-yard TD pass to Patrick from Warner (extra point by Neil Rackers). Drive: nine plays, 83 yards, 5:27. Key plays: 10- and 11-yard passes to Edgerrin James from Warner; 13-yard pass to Steve Breaston from Warner; 45-yard pass to Anquan Boldin from Warner. 0:00 Steelers 17, Cardinals 7—100-yard interception return for TD by Harrison (extra point by Reed).

Third Quarter 9:45 Steelers 20, Cardinals 7—21-yard field goal by Reed. Drive: 16 plays, 79 yards, 8:39. Key plays: 15-yard face mask penalty on Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie; five-yard pass to Ward from Roethlisberger on 3rd-and-one; 15-yard roughing the passer penalty on Karlos Dansby; 15-yard pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger; 15-yard run by Willie Parker; five-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on Adrian Wilson on 4th-and-nine.

Fourth Quarter 7:33 Steelers 20, Cardinals 14—One-yard TD pass to Fitzgerald from Warner (extra point by Rackers). Drive: eight plays, 87 yards, 3:57. Key plays: 13-yard pass to Breaston from Warner; 18-yard pass to Jerheme Urban from Warner; 18-yard pass to Fitzgerald from Warner. 2:58 Steelers 20, Cardinals 16—Safety. Holding penalty on Hartwig in end zone. 2:37 Steelers 20, Cardinals 23—64-yard TD pass to Fitzgerald from Warner (extra point by Rackers). Drive: two plays, 64 yards, 0:21. 0:35 Steelers 27, Cardinals 23—Six-yard TD pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger (extra point by Reed). Drive: eight plays, 78 yards, 2:02. Key plays: 14-yard pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger; 13-yard pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger on 3rd-and-six; 11-yard pass to Nate Washington from Roethlisberger; 40-yard pass to Holmes from Roethlisberger. n

Tennis S. Williams, Nadal Win Australian Open.

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Santonio Holmes of the Pittsburgh Steelers (10) catches a six-yard touchdown pass with his toes inches inside the end zone, in the final minute of Super Bowl XLIII against the Arizona Cardinals, Feb. 1 in Tampa, Fla. The Steelers won the game, 27–23.

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Second-seeded Serena Williams of the U.S. Jan. 31 won the women’s title at the Australian Open, the first of four yearly Grand Slam tennis tournaments, easily vanquishing third-seeded Dinara Safina of Russia, 6–0, 6–3, in Melbourne. Top seed Rafael Nadal of Spain Feb. 1 beat secondFACTS ON FILE

seeded Roger Federer of Switzerland, 7–5, 3–6, 7–6, 3–6, 6–2, to win the men’s title, becoming the first Spanish player to win the event. [See 2008, p. 63E1] Williams’s victory was her 10th Grand Slam singles title and her fourth at the Australian Open. She had previously won the tournament in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Williams, 27, Feb. 2 became the world’s topranked player, replacing Jelena Jankovic of Serbia. In the semifinals Jan. 29, Williams had beaten fourth seed Elena Dementieva of Russia, 6–3, 6–4, while Safina had defeated fellow Russian Vera Zvonareva, 6–3, 7– 6. Top seed Jankovic had been defeated Jan. 25 in the fourth round of the tournament, 6–1, 6–4, by 16th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France. Nadal Defeats Federer in Five Sets—

The Australian Open victory was Nadal’s first and his sixth Grand Slam singles victory overall. He had previously beaten Federer in a memorable match in the 2008 Wimbledon final. Nadal, 22, had a 5–2 record in Grand Slam championship matches against Federer and a 13–6 record against him overall. Federer, 27, appeared distressed after his loss and began crying during the award ceremony that followed the match. He was comforted by Nadal, who told Federer, “Remember you are a great champion. You are the best in history.” If Federer had won the match, he would have tied the men’s tennis record of 14 Grand Slam singles titles that was currently held by Pete Sampras of the U.S. Federer Jan. 29 had beaten seventh seed Andy Roddick of the U.S., 6–2, 7–5, 7–5, in the semifinals. Nadal Jan. 29–30 defeated 14th-seeded Fernando Verdasco, also of Spain, 6–7, 6–4, 7–6, 6–7, 6–4, after an epic five hour and 14 minute semifinal match that lasted into the early hours of Jan. 30; the match was the longest in the history of the Australian Open. Balkan Fans Clash During Match—Bosnian and Serbian spectators Jan. 23 clashed during a match between unseeded Amer Delic of the U.S., who had been born in Bosnia, and third-seeded Novak Djokovic of Serbia. The fighting was reportedly triggered when a tennis ball was thrown at a fan in one group by a fan from the other. The match was won by Djokovic, 6–2, 4–6, 6–3, 7–6. During the unrest, which largely occurred outside the stadium where the match was held, a Bosnian onlooker was struck in the head with a chair thrown by a Serbian fan, and fans of both nationalities lobbed projectiles and shouted at each other. A total of 30 fans were ejected from the event and two were arrested and charged with riotous behavior. In 2007, fighting between Croatian and Serbian fans at the Australian Open had led to the ejection of about 150 spectators. Australia had large Balkan immigrant communities. Doubles Results—Serena Williams and her sister, Venus, Jan. 30 beat Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia and Japan’s Ai Sugiyama, 6–3, 6–3, to win the women’s double title, their eighth Grand Slam doubles title. February 5, 2009

In the men’s doubles final, twins Mike and Bob Bryan of the U.S. Jan. 31 defeated Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and Mahesh Bhupathi of India, 2–6, 7–5, 6–0, to win their seventh doubles Grand Slam title. Separately, Bhupati and Sania Mirza, also of India, Feb. 1 beat Israeli Andy Ram and Nathalie Dechy of France, 6–3, 6–1, to claim the mixed doubles title. n

Swimming Phelps Suspended Over Marijuana Photo. USA Swimming Feb. 5 suspended Olympic

champion Michael Phelps from competition for three months in response to a photograph in a British tabloid newspaper that showed him smoking marijuana. USA Swimming, the sport’s governing body in the U.S., also withheld Phelps’s monthly stipend of $1,750. Phelps, 23, had won a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. [See 2008, p. 578A2] The photo was first published Feb. 1 in Britain’s News of the World. Phelps that day issued a statement saying, “I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment.” He apologized and vowed that “it will not happen again.” In 2004, he had pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. Cereal company Kellogg Co. Feb. 5 said it would not renew its endorsement contract with Phelps, which was scheduled to expire at the end of the month. Phelps made about $5 million a year from endorsing a variety of products. No other companies had yet said they would drop him in response to the photo. Despite the three-month ban, Phelps would remain eligible for the July U.S. championships, the qualifying event for the August world championships in Rome. n

Baseball Henderson, Rice Elected to Hall of Fame. Former Major League Baseball (MLB) left

fielders Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice Jan. 12 were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in balloting by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Henderson was elected in his first year of eligibility, and received 511 of the 539 ballots cast, or 94.8%. Rice was elected in his 15th and final year of eligibility with 412 votes, or 76.4%. (A player needed to be named on at least 75% of the ballots cast in order to be elected.) They would be inducted in July. [See 2008, pp. 992F3, 154F2] Henderson played for the Oakland Athletics, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres, Anaheim Angels, New York Mets, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers in his 25-year career. A 10-time All-Star, he won the World Series with the A’s in 1989 and the Blue Jays in 1993, and was named the American League (A.L.) most valuable player (MVP) in 1990. He retired in 2003 at the age of 44 as MLB’s all-time leader in runs scored, with 2,295, and stolen bases,

with 1,406; he was second all-time to Barry Bonds in walks, with 2,190. [See 2004, p. 598F3; 2003, p. 567E1; 2001, p. 798F3; 1991, p. 330D3; 1990, p. 882F3] Rice, 55, played his entire 16-year career with the Red Sox, and retired in 1989. He was selected as an A.L. All-Star eight times, and was named the league’s MVP in 1978. He ended his career with a batting average of .298, 382 home runs and 1,451 runs batted in. [See 1988, p. 244B2; 1978, p. 928D1] Henderson and Rice were the first left fielders named to the Hall of Fame since Carl Yastrzemski in 1989. [See 1989, p. 24C1] Former star slugger Mark McGwire, whose reputation had been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use, was named on just 21.9% of the ballots in his third year of eligibility. [See 2007, p. 832G3; 2005, p. 199D1] n

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People A painting by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Jan. 17 fetched 37 million rubles (about $1.1 million) at a charity auction of works by Russian celebrities in Putin’s hometown, St. Petersburg. The painting, of a frost-covered window framed by curtains, was created by Putin in late December 2008 and then touched up by a professional artist. Signed by Putin, the painting was said to have been his first. The auction as a whole netted about $2.2 million; some of its proceeds would benefit children with cancer. [See 2008, p. 317B1] British singer Boy George, 47, Jan. 16 in London was sentenced to 15 months in prison for falsely imprisoning a Norwegian male escort, Audun Carlsen, 29, by handcuffing him to a wall in the singer’s London apartment in 2007. Boy George in 2006 had been sentenced to community service in New York City after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a burglary. [See 2006, p. 688B2] n

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74, jazz saxophonist who worked closely with rhythm and blues pioneer Ray Charles in the late 1950s and early 1960s before forging his own career as a leader of jazz and soul bands; born Dec. 21, 1934, in Memphis, Tenn.; died Jan. 29 at his Memphis home, from complications of a stroke suffered in 2000; he died nine days after the death of another well-known saxophonist who got an early start with Charles, David “Fathead” Newman; a third saxophonist who played with Charles early on, Leroy Cooper, had died Jan. 15, of heart failure, at age 80. [See p. 56D2] DIA, Mamadou Moustapha, 98, Senegal’s first prime minister when it gained independence from France in 1960; he was a close associate of poet and intellectual Leopold Senghor, who became Senegal’s first president at the same time; after a falling-out with Senghor, he mounted an unsuccessful coup against him in 1962, and was subsequently imprisoned until 1974, two years before being given a presidential pardon; Senghor remained in power until 1980, when he voluntarily left office; in his later years, Dia was an adviser to Senegalese opposition politicians and a media commentator on political matters; born July 18, 1910, in Khombole, Senegal; died Jan. 25 in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. [See 2001, p. 1084G2; 1976, p. 591D3; Indexes 1974, 1967, 1958–63]

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Publishers Weekly Feb. 2 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See 2008, p. 1000A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

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al television shows Jan. 1–Feb. 1 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See 2008, p. 1000A2]:

1. Plum Spooky, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s) 2. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) 3. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski (Ecco) 4. Black Ops, by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam) 5. Agincourt, by Bernard Cornwell (Harper)

1. “Super Bowl XLIII” (NBC), Feb. 1 (42.0) 2. “Super Bowl Post-Game” (NBC), Feb. 1 (25.7) 3. “American Football Conference (AFC) Championship” (CBS), Jan. 18 (22.0) 4. “American Idol” (Fox), Jan. 14 (16.4) 5. “AFC Wild Card Game: San Diego–Indianapolis” (NBC), Jan. 3 (16.1)

General Hardback 1. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 2. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion) 3. Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, by Ann Coulter (Crown Forum) 4. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter (Grand Central) 5. Flat Belly Diet, by Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass (Rodale Press) Mass Market Paperback 1. Kiss of a Demon King, by Kresley Cole (Pocket) 2. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (Vintage) 3. The Appeal, by John Grisham (Dell) 4. Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, by John Grogan (Harper) 5. Plum Lucky, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Jan. 31 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See 2008, p. 1000C1]:

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1. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga featuring Colby O’Donis (Streamline/KonLive/ Cherrytree/Interscope) 2. “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Beyonce (Music World/Columbia) 3. “Heartless,” Kanye West (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/IDJMG) 4. “Live Your Life,” T.I. featuring Rihanna (Def Jam /Grand Hustle/IDJMG/Atlantic) 5. “Love Story,” Taylor Swift (Big Machine/Universal Republic)

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1. Fearless, Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 2. I Am...Sasha Fierce, Beyonce (Music World/Columbia/Sony Music) 3. Dark Horse, Nickelback (Roadrunner) 4. Notorious, soundtrack (Fox/Bad Boy/AG) 5. 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye West (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/IDJMG) FOSS, Lukas (born Lukas Fuchs), 86, Germanborn composer, conductor and pianist; after the Nazis came to power in 1933, his family fled Germany, arriving in the U.S. in 1937; he became a U.S. citizen in 1942, two years before the premiere of his first major work, The Prairie, a neoclassical cantata based on a poem by Carl Sandburg; in the late 1950s, his music became more experimental, incorporating serialism, electronics, chance and improvisation; the change was reflected in one of his best-known works, Time Cycle (1959–60), an orchestral song cycle; later, his music veered back toward tonality while remaining quite complex; as a conductor, he led orchestras in Buffalo, N.Y. (1963–70), New York City’s Brooklyn borough (1971– 90), Milwaukee, Wis. (1980–86) and Jerusalem (1972– 76); he also guest-conducted, and appeared as a pianist with, other ensembles; born in 1922 in Berlin (his birthday was listed as Aug. 15, but he was not sure of the exact date); died Feb. 1 at his New York City home, of a heart attack after battling Parkinson’s disease. FULLER, Millard Dean, 74, founder, with his wife, Linda Fuller, of the Christian house-building group Habitat for Humanity; the couple founded the group in 1976 in Americus, Ga., after abandoning an affluent lifestyle made possible by his having amassed a milliondollar fortune as a businessman before the age of 30; over the years, the group built more than 300,000 homes worldwide, for poor people given interest-free mortgages; he was chief executive of the group until 2004 and served as its president until 2005, when both he and his wife were dismissed by Habitat’s board, after sexual harassment charges were lodged against him, charges that the group’s board said were never substantiated; soon afterward, the Fullers formed a charity with a similar

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Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Jan. 23–29 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See 2008, p. 1000B2]:

1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Sony ($69.4 million, 2) Directed by Steve Carr. With Kevin James, Keir O’Donnell, Raini Rodriguez, Adhir Kalyan and Jayma Mays. 2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Sony ($25.6 million, 1) Directed by Patrick Tatopoulos. With Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra, Shane Brolly and Kevin Grevioux. 3. Gran Torino, Warner Bros. ($101.9 million, 7) Directed by Clint Eastwood. With Eastwood, Cory Hardrict, Bee Vang, Ahney Her and Bryan Haley. 4. Hotel for Dogs, Paramount ($39.5 million, 2) Directed by Thor Freudenthal. With Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle, Johnny Simmons, Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon. 5. Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Searchlight ($59.6 million, 11) Directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan. With Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal and Freida Pinto. 6. My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Lionsgate ($40.3 million, 2) Directed by Patrick Lussier. With Betsy Rue, Megan Boone, Jaime King, Jensen Ackles and Tom Atkins. 7. Inkheart, Warner Bros. ($9.1 million, 1) Directed by Iain Softley. With Helen Mirren, Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent and Andy Serkis. 8. Bride Wars, 20th Century Fox ($50.4 million, 3) Directed by Gary Winick. With Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Candice Bergen, Kristen Johnston and Bryan Greenberg. 9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Paramount ($112.9 million, 5) [See 2008, p. 1000C2] 10. Defiance, Paramount Vantage ($20.3 million, 4) Directed by Edward Zwick. With Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos and Tomas Arana.

mission, the Fuller Center for Housing; born Jan. 3, 1935, in Lanett, Ala.; died early Feb. 3 in Albany, Ga., apparently of congestive heart failure. [See 2005, pp. 612G2, 108C1; 2001, p. 530D2; Index 1996] HUNT, (Harold) Guy, 75, Alabama Republican who in 1986 was elected governor of his state on his second try (the first came in 1978), becoming the first Republican to win the office since 1872; by the time he was reelected in 1990, he had already done much to help turn Alabama into a two-party state; he never concluded his second term, though, being removed from office in 1992 after a financial-misconduct felony conviction; a state parole board, however, later granted him a full pardon; born June 17, 1933, in Holly Pond, Ala.; died Jan. 30 at a hospital in Birmingham, Ala., after a long battle with lung cancer and a failure to bounce back from gall bladder surgery performed in late 2008. [See 1998, pp. 374C1, 269B1, 98E3; 1997, pp. 624A2, 430B3; Indexes 1988–94, 1986, 1978] PERLE, George, 93, composer and music theorist; he was the author of Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern (1962), a definitive work on the 12-tone compositional method pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg and advanced by Alban Berg and Anton Webern; he was particularly influenced by Berg in his own compositions, in which he demonstrated that 12-tone music did not have to be atonal; he wrote few works for full orchestra, favoring piano pieces and works for small ensembles; one of these, a wind quintet, netted him a Pulitzer Prize in 1986; born May 6, 1915, in Bayonne, N.J.; died Jan. 23 at his home in New York City, after a long illness. [See 1986, p. 459B2; 1978, p. 316E1]

SCHNEER, Charles Hirsh, 88, film producer known for his collaboration with special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen on a series of science-fiction and fantasy films, starting with It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), highlighted by Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and concluding with Clash of the Titans (1981); born May 5, 1920, in Norfolk, Va.; died Jan. 21 at a hospice in Boca Raton, Fla., after a long illness. [See 1992, p. 244F2; 1981, p. 483D2; Indexes 1968, 1960] VIERNY, Dina, 89, model for French sculptor Aristide Maillol during the last decade of his life, from the mid-1930s until 1944, when he died in a car accident at age 83; a number of his monumental bronzes depicting her were on permanent display at the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris; active in the French Resistance during World War II, she became an art dealer after the war; in the mid-1990s, she founded a Paris museum mainly devoted to his work; born Jan. 25, 1919, in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova (then part of czarist Russia); died Jan. 20 in Paris. [See 1960, p. 7A3] YOW, (Sandra) Kay, 66, coach of the U.S. women’s basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea; she won 737 games over a 38-year career, mostly at North Carolina State University, and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2002; born March 14, 1942, in Gibsonville, N.C.; died Jan. 24 at a hospital in Cary, N.C., of breast cancer, more than two decades after developing it; she had long been identified with efforts to combat the disease, and in 2007 had established a cancer-research fund in her name. [See 2002, p. 775F3; 1988, p. 742G1] n

February 5, 2009

U.S. Congress Agrees to $789.5 Billion Economic Recovery Plan Deal Follows Senate Passage of $838 Billion Plan

Facts On File

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Senate Bill Receives Three GOP ‘Yes’ Votes.

U.S. lawmakers from the House and Senate Feb. 11 agreed in principle to an economic recovery plan that would cost $789.5 billion over the next two years, in an attempt to stimulate growth amidst a deepening recession. The compromise bill came a day after the Senate voted, 61–37, to pass an $838 billion version of the plan. The Senate bill received support from only three Republicans, which was enough to cross the threshold of 60 votes required to end debate and bring the bill to a vote. The House in January had passed an $819 billion version of the bill, which had received no Republican support. [See p. 41A1] House and Senate leaders Feb. 11–12 continued to engage in last-minute negotiations to reconcile their competing bills. The two chambers were expected to hold a final vote Feb. 13, and U.S. President Barack Obama was expected to sign it the following week. Obama Feb. 11 said the bill was “a hardfought compromise that will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs and get our economy back on track.” He said it was an “endeavor of enormous scope and scale,” and that he was “grateful” to lawmakers “for moving it along with the urgency that this moment demands.” The economic recovery bill contained tax breaks for businesses and consumers, as well as large injections of federal spending in the areas of health care, education, energy, infrastructure and aid for lower-income workers. The plan as of Feb. 12 contained about $282 billion in tax cuts and $507 billion in new spending. It was thought to be one of the largest economic recovery packages to be proposed since the Great Depression. The overwhelming majority of Republicans remained staunchly opposed to the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) Feb. 10 said the Senate bill was “full of waste.” He added, “We have no assurance it can create jobs or revive the economy. The only thing we know for sure is that it increases our debt and locks in bigger and bigger interest payments every single year.” The Senate bill was passed the same day that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a $2 trillion plan to bolster the country’s weakened financial industry, an initiative that Obama had said was a vital component in his administration’s strategy to combat the recession. The financial industry rescue package would see the creation of a fund to buy distressed assets from financial institutions, and the introduction of lending programs to resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets. [See p. 76A3] Obama Pushes for Bill’s Passage—

Obama had initially said he wanted broad bipartisan support for the bill, and openly sought Republican votes during the House’s deliberations. However, his ef-

forts yielded no House Republican support, and stiff Republican resistance in the Senate led him to adopt a more forceful public tone towards the bill’s opponents. Additionally, Republicans were perceived to have gained traction in their depiction of the bill as full of wasteful spending. Obama penned an opinion piece that was published Feb. 5 by the Washington Post, in which he criticized the “narrow partisanship” and “bad habits” of lawmakers. He also took aim at “misguided criticisms” that he said “echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis,” in what was widely seen as a reference to Republican free-market ideology. Obama the next day said it was “inexcusable and irresponsible” that lawmakers were allowing political infighting to delay the bill, following the release of a Labor Department report showing that nearly 600,000 jobs had been shed in January. [See p. 79G2] Obama Feb. 9 had used his first press conference as president to push for passage of the legislation. He warned that a failure to act could “turn a crisis into a catastrophe.” He addressed Republican criticisms that the bill contained too much new federal spending, saying, “With the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.” He also dismissed Republican calls to place a greater emphasis on tax cuts, saying the economic policies of his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush, had shown that “tax cuts can’t solve all of our economic problems.” [See p. 77C3] Obama Feb. 9 also began touring economically distressed areas of the country to boost public support for the plan. Senate Procedural Hurdle Cleared—

The Senate Feb. 9 voted, 61–36, to invoke cloture, preempting a potential Republican filibuster and allowing the economic recovery plan to receive a floor vote. Three centrist Republicans—Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.)—joined the Senate’s 56 Democrats and two independents to support the bill. Two Republican senators did not vote: John Cornyn (Texas) and Judd Gregg (N.H.), who had been nominated the previous week to become commerce secretary in Obama’s administration. (Cornyn Feb. 10 voted against the bill’s passage.) One Senate seat remained open due to an ongoing dispute over an election in Minnesota. [See p. 60C1] Snowe, Collins and Specter late Feb. 6 had agreed to support a bill that cut about $110 billion from the plan, whose total cost had ballooned to about $920 billion in the preceding days as new tax breaks were added. The agreement followed two days of intense negotiations between a group of about 20 moderate senators from both parties, who aimed to strip the bill of provisions that would not immediately stimulate the economy. The negotiations were led by

World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3556* February 12, 2009

B Collins and Sen. Ben Nelson (D, Neb.), and occurred largely behind the scenes as debate continued on the Senate floor. During formal debate on the bill, which began Feb. 2, senators from both parties accused the other side of excessive partisanship. Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) Feb. 5 said, “It takes two to tango, and the Republicans aren’t dancing.” Democrats pointed out that they had helped approve two Republican-sponsored amendments to the bill that provided tax breaks for homeowners and greater protection against the alternative minimum tax (AMT). But Republicans claimed they had been shut out of the process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) Feb. 5 said, “There is no negotiation going on here. Nobody is negotiating.” Senators Cut Spending Measures—The Senate’s version of the bill contained a $39 billion fund designed to provide aid to states, a significant reduction from the $79 billion fund in the House version. Support-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. Congress agrees to $789.5 billion economic recovery plan; deal follows Senate passage of $838 billion plan. PAGE 73

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U.S. Treasury unveils $2 trillion financial industry rescue plan; stock markets fall on lack of details. PAGE 76

Obama holds first news conference as president. PAGE 77

Unemployment rate hits 17-year high in January. PAGE 79

Opposition leader Tsvangirai sworn in as Zimbabwean prime minister.

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Australian bushfires kill at least 181. PAGE 83

North Korea abandons pacts with South Korea. PAGE 84

France sets aid to carmakers. PAGE 84

Rival parties both claim victory in Israeli elections. PAGE 85

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MLB’s Alex Rodriguez admits to past steroid use. PAGE 87 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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ers of the House bill said more aid was necessary because declining tax revenues had forced states to cut back services and lay off workers. More than 40 states were currently experiencing budget shortfalls, and many were struggling with depleted unemployment insurance funds. Some of the state aid money was also slated for education programs that were strongly supported by Democrats. In other differences between the two bills, the Senate version set aside $70 billion to shield middle-income taxpayers from the AMT. The AMT had been designed to prevent high-income taxpayers from using deductions to reduce their taxable income to little or nothing. But because it was not adjusted for inflation, it increasingly applied to taxpayers who were currently in middle-income tax brackets. The Senate bill included $19 billion to fund a tax credit for new home buyers. Home buyers for one year would receive a credit equivalent to 10% of the house’s price, with a cap of $15,000. The provision was intended to spark home sales, which had slid steeply after a real estate bubble burst in 2006. The Senate bill also included an $11 billion measure to allow deductions on sales taxes and loan interest payments accrued from car purchases. The Senate bill limited the numbers of workers who would be eligible for a payroll tax cut. The House version promised a $500 cut for individuals who made less than $75,000 a year, and a $1,000 tax cut for married couples making less than $150,000. The Senate bill reduced the salary caps to $70,000 and $140,000, respectively. The Senate bill expanded the scope of the House’s so-called “Buy America” provisions, mandating that “all manufactured goods” purchased with the legislation’s funds come from U.S. producers. The House bill required only that steel and iron be bought from U.S. companies. The provisions led to an outcry from the U.S.’s trading partners. European Union officials Feb. 3 warned that if the provisions were enacted, they would consider taking legal action against the U.S. for violating trade agreements. The Senate bill eventually moderated the provisions, saying they had to be “applied in a manner” that deferred to the U.S.’s existing trade pacts. The Senate bill increased investments in infrastructure projects to $45 billion, up from the $30 billion marked in the House bill. The Senate bill also included a measure to limit the bonuses of the 25 highest-ranking executives at financial institutions that received aid from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a fund established to stabilize the financial industry. The provision would decrease tax revenue by an estimated $11 billion. n

International Relations Biden Outlines U.S. Foreign Policy Goals.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, speaking Feb. 7 at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in Germany, said the U.S. wanted to “press the reset button” on rela-

tions with Russia, and was “willing to talk to Iran,” a significant departure from the policy of former U.S. President George W. Bush. Biden also called for increased U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cooperation with Russia, especially in fighting the war in Afghanistan. Biden’s speech was considered to be the first substantial outline of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. [See pp. 86G1, 54C1, 42F1, 16C2; 2008, pp. 879E1, 114E2] Biden, in his address, said, “The last few years have seen a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and members of our alliance.” He asserted that “the U.S. and Russia can disagree but still work together where its interests coincide,” such as on dissuading North Korea and Iran from their nuclear weapons ambitions. Biden also mentioned that Russia had “long ago” warned of threats from the Taliban and AlQaeda in Afghanistan, and said, “NATO and Russia can and should cooperate to defeat this common enemy.” [See below, pp. 35C3, 16B1] Biden also said the Obama administration would “continue to develop” the Bush administration’s plan to build a missile shield to guard against nuclear threats from Iran, “provided the technology is proven to work and is cost-effective.” The Bush administration had pushed for components of the shield to be built in the Czech Republic and Poland, but Biden made no mention of the location of the proposed shield. In an interview the same day, Biden said the U.S. would “consult with our European allies as well as consult with the Russians” on the missile defense project. [See p. 69B2] Some analysts had expected Biden to announce that the U.S. would review the missile shield plan. Russia had vehemently opposed the shield when it was promoted by the Bush administration, saying it could be used to undermine the country’s defenses. Some observers suggested that Biden’s support of the initiative came in response to the announced closure of the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan, which the U.S. used to transport soldiers and supplies to Afghanistan. A number of Western analysts had suggested that the Kyrgyz government’s move not to renew the U.S.’s lease on Manas had come at Russia’s behest. However, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov Feb. 8 denied that Russia had been involved in Kyrgyzstan’s decision. The same day, Ivanov said, “It’s obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change, and we’re ready to cooperate with this administration on all levels.” [See p. 58D3] Biden Warns Russia— In addition to urging cooperation with Russia, Biden in his Feb. 7 speech said the U.S. would not permit Russia to impose a “sphere of influence” over neighboring countries. He asserted that “the United States will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.” The two regions were located within Georgia’s internationally recognized borders, but were both controlled by separate governments loyal to Moscow. Georgia and Russia in 2008 had

fought a brief war over control of South Ossetia, which had ultimately reinforced Russian influence in both splinter regions. Russia and Nicaragua were the only countries to recognize them as sovereign. [See p. 84D3] Biden Feb. 8 met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. When questioned after the meeting, Biden said he was “in favor of Georgia’s continued independence and autonomy,” but declined to endorse Georgian membership in NATO. He said it was Georgia’s decision alone whether it would join the alliance. The Bush administration had pushed for Georgian NATO membership, irking Russia, which viewed eastward expansion of NATO as hostile to its interests. Biden Says U.S. Open to Talks with Iran—

In his Feb. 7 speech, Biden indicated that the U.S. was open to talks with Iran, a strategy the Bush administration had opposed. However, in continuity with Bush’s foreign policy, Biden warned Iran to give up its nuclear program, or face “pressure and isolation.” Biden added that if Iran abandoned its “illicit nuclear program and support for terrorism,” the U.S. would respond with “meaningful incentives.” [See p. 79F1] Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, had left the room before Biden delivered his speech. The previous day, Larijani had addressed the conference, and said “in the past, the U.S. has burned many bridges, but a new White House can rebuild them.” Retired Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, was present for Larijani’s talk. In his speech, Larijani also said there could be “different perspectives on the Holocaust.” Pierre Lellouche, a French politician, pointed out that Holocaust denial was

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a crime in France. Larijani replied, “In Iran, we don’t have the same sensitivities.” [See p. 75D3] Gen. Petraeus Speaks On Afghanistan—

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, in an address to the Munich Security Conference Feb. 8 said the war in Afghanistan had “deteriorated markedly in the past two years.” Petraeus said he would “be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide.” The Obama administration was expected to send as many as 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, also addressed the conference that day, and warned that achieving objectives in Afghanistan would be “much tougher than Iraq.” Both Petraeus and Holbrooke, in their addresses, notably declined to mention Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whom the Obama administration reportedly regarded as an ineffective leader. Karzai also addressed the conference that day, and stated that Afghanistan was neither a “narco-state” nor a “failed state,” as some had alleged. Some U.S. officials suggested that Karzai’s assessment was incongruous with actual conditions in Afghanistan. His presidential term was set to expire in May, but presidential elections had been pushed back to Aug. 20. n U.S. Said to Reject Israeli Plan for Iran Raid.

The New York Times Jan. 10 reported on its Web site that the U.S. in September 2008 had rebuffed a secret request from the Israeli government for “bunker-busting” bombs to be used to attack Iran’s main nuclear complex in Natanz. Bunker-busting bombs could penetrate ground and concrete to attack underground structures. The U.S. alleged that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, while Iran claimed its program was focused on producing civilian nuclear power. [See 2008, pp. 874C3, C2] U.S. President George W. Bush had also rejected an Israeli request for permission to fly over U.S.-controlled airspace in Iraq to reach Natanz, site of the only publicly known uranium enrichment center in Iran, and for refueling equipment needed to launch the attack. The Times, citing unidentified U.S. and foreign officials, reported that Bush had informed Israel that he had authorized covert operations aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected efforts at developing nuclear weapons. According to the Times, Bush had been convinced by members of his administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, that a military attack against Iran’s nuclear program would only push Iran to shroud it in greater secrecy, and could draw U.S. troops into a wider war in the Middle East. Instead, Bush in early 2008 had embraced a covert operation aimed at disrupting Iran’s efforts to secure nuclear materials and supplies abroad, including computer and electrical systems. The Times said it had withheld information about the covert operation at the request of senior U.S. intelligence and Bush administration officials. February 12, 2009

Israel’s desire to launch the attack had reportedly stemmed from its lack of confidence in a late 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Iran had effectively halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Israel had criticized the report for relying on faulty intelligence, charges echoed by Gates in the Times report. However, it remained unclear if Israel had intended to go through with the attack against Iran if it were condoned by the U.S., or if threatening such an attack was part of Israel’s efforts to encourage the U.S. to take a tougher stance against Iran before Bush left office. [See 2007, p. 797A1] U.S. officials had reportedly been particularly disturbed by Israeli air and naval exercises conducted in the Mediterranean Sea during the summer of 2008, which analysts said appeared to simulate the distance between Israel and Iran. n

Nuclear Proliferation Rogue Pakistani Nuclear Scientist Released.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former leader of a now-defunct nuclear technology smuggling network, Feb. 6 was released from house arrest by a court in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. Khan’s lawyer, Ali Zafar, that day said the Islamabad High Court had ruled the detention illegal since “there is no case against” Khan, who had never been charged by Pakistan in connection with the network’s activities. [See 2008, p. 527A3] U.S. State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid that day said the court’s ruling was “extremely regrettable,” and that the U.S. still considered Khan, 72, a “serious proliferation risk.” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it would take “all necessary measures to promote the goals of nonproliferation,” but affirmed that the “so-called A.Q. Khan affair is a closed chapter.” International media outlets, citing unidentified Pakistani and U.S. officials, Feb. 9 reported that the Pakistani government would continue to impose some restraints on Khan, including not letting him leave Pakistan and monitoring his activities. However, U.S. officials reportedly remained dissatisfied with the arrangement. The smuggling network had been broken up in 2003, and Khan in 2004 publicly confessed to selling nuclear-weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. He was placed under house arrest that year. The U.S. and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pressed Pakistan to make Khan available for questioning related to the network’s operations, the details of which remained murky. Investigators had found blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers used by Khan’s network, and it remained unknown if they had been sold to a hostile country or terrorist group. But Khan was revered in Pakistan for his leading role in helping the country develop its nuclear-weapons arsenal, and the government resisted international efforts to investigate the case further. In recent years Khan had recanted his confession, claim-

ing that the government of then–Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had pressured him to make it. The current government of President Asif Ali Zardari had steadily eased the terms of his house arrest, and analysts said Khan’s release was part of a broader effort by the government to ingratiate itself with the Pakistani public, which had criticized Zardari as being too influenced by the U.S.

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Smuggling Suspect Released From Jail—

Marco Tinner, one of three members of a Swiss family suspected of belonging to Khan’s smuggling network, Jan. 23 was released on bail from a Swiss prison, following three years in investigative detention. His brother, Urs, had been released in December 2008, and their father, Friedrich, had been freed in 2006. Swiss prosecutors could still bring charges against the Tinners for their alleged involvement with Khan’s ring. The Swiss investigation had reportedly been hampered by a 2007 government decision to destroy computer files seized from the network, after they were deemed to contain information that threatened national security. [See 2008, p. 985D3] Urs Tinner had told Swiss television station SF1 in a documentary broadcast Jan. 22 that he had alerted the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to a shipment of centrifuge equipment bound for Libya in 2003 that led to the breakup of Khan’s network. The CIA did not publicly comment on Tinner’s claim. n

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D Religion Vatican Tells Holocaust Denier to Recant.

The Vatican’s Secretariat of State Feb. 4 released an unsigned statement that called on Bishop Richard Williamson, a dissident Roman Catholic bishop who had claimed that no Jews had died in Nazi gas chambers during World War II, to “absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions” on the Holocaust. Williamson Feb. 7 said he might “correct” himself after studying historical evidence, but warned that the effort “would take time.” [See p. 43A2] Williamson, a member of the Society of St. Pius X, a far-right sect considered to represent the only modern Roman Catholic schism, had been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 after he was consecrated a bishop without the Vatican’s consent. In January, he was rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI. Days before his rehabilitation, a Swedish television station had broadcast his remarks on the Holocaust, which sparked fierce criticism from around the world. In addition to calling on Williamson to recant his views on the Holocaust, the Vatican statement said the Society of St. Pius X, in order to be fully reintegrated into the Roman Catholic Church, would have to fully accept the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among the reforms the Society of St. Pius X reportedly opposed was the assertion that Jews were not collectively responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s liaison for Vatican-Jewish relations, Feb. 4 75

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said of the controversy that “there wasn’t enough talking with each other in the Vatican and there are no longer checks to see where problems could arise.” He added that the Vatican administration had made “mistakes.” The Vatican maintained that it had not known Williamson’s views on the Holocaust before he was rehabilitated. Some analysts said the ongoing controversy suggested internal conflict within the Vatican. Other observers criticized Benedict’s leadership skills. The Society of St. Pius X had dismissed Williamson from his position as director of the La Reja seminary in Argentina, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the capital, it was reported Feb. 9. Father Christian Bouchacourt, head of the Latin American chapter of the Society of St. Pius X, said Williamson’s “statements do not in any way reflect the position of our congregation.” Merkel Calls for Clarification—In an unusual move, German Chancellor Angela Merkel Feb. 3 had said the Vatican had given “the impression that Holocaust denial might be tolerated,” and added that “the pope and the Vatican should clarify unambiguously that there can be no denial and that there must be positive relations with the Jewish community overall.” Williamson’s rehabilitation had sparked sharp criticism in Germany, Benedict’s homeland. In Germany, Holocaust denial was a crime. [See p. 317E2] A Vatican spokesman that day said, “The condemnations of declarations which deny the Holocaust could not have been any clearer,” referring to Benedict’s remarks addressing the issue made the previous week. Spokesmen for both Merkel and Benedict Feb. 8 said the two had a “constructive” telephone conversation that day. The pope Feb. 12 reiterated that “any denial or minimization of this terrible crime is intolerable.” He confirmed that he would visit Israel, probably in May. In related news, the Vatican Jan. 31 announced that Rev. Gerhard Wagner would be promoted to auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria. Wagner had previously claimed that Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans, La., in 2005, was God’s punishment for sinful behavior there. [See 2008, p. 652C3] n

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Bird Flu Cases Reported in China, Vietnam.

Health officials in Beijing, China’s capital, Jan. 6 said a woman there had died of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza the previous day, the country’s first bird flu death since February 2008. The government Jan. 7 issued an alert, and intensified checks of poultry slaughterhouses and markets. As of Feb. 11, seven cases of the illness had been reported in China since the beginning of the year, with four resulting in death. Also, Vietnam Jan. 6 had recorded its first avian flu case since early 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) had recorded 44 cases of the disease worldwide in 2008, 33 of them fatal, down from the 2006 peak of 115 cases and 79 deaths. [See 2008, p. 444D2] 76

Also, as of Feb. 9, Egypt had reported four cases of avian flu in 2009. n Polio Eradication Effort Gets $635 Million.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International and the governments of Britain and Germany Jan. 21 announced that they would donate a combined $635 million in an effort to eradicate polio. Since 1988, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governments had overseen a campaign that had reduced worldwide cases of polio to about 1,600 in 2008, from 350,000 in 1988. The funds would be administered by the World Health Organization (WHO). [See 2008, p. 864F3] However, polio remained endemic in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, and the spread of the disease beyond those countries still presented a threat of its resurgence. Efforts to eradicate the disease had been complicated by the halt of polio vaccinations in northern Nigeria in 2003, after people there became suspicious of health care workers and refused the treatment. n

Other International News Japanese Navy to Fight Somali Pirates.

Japan’s government Jan. 28 said it would send naval forces to protect Japanese ships threatened by pirates off the coast of the African nation of Somalia. Japan would join some 20 other countries, including China, that had sent ships to the area to combat an epidemic of hijacking. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the Japanese deployment might take place by March. However, under Japan’s pacifist constitution, which permitted the military to act only in national self-defense, new legislation would be required to authorize the mission to go beyond actions in defense of Japanese vessels, citizens or cargo. [See p. 66E3; 2008, p. 22F3] However, the parliamentary opposition had resisted previous government attempts to expand the permitted activities of Japan’s military forces. Since taking control of parliament’s upper house in 2007, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan had determinedly used its power to delay government initiatives in an effort to force the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to call elections. n Russian Oligarch Buys British Tabloid.

Aleksandr Lebedev, who during the Soviet era had worked as a KGB agent at London’s Soviet embassy before becoming a rich investor, or oligarch, in post-Soviet Russia, Jan. 21 announced that he had acquired a majority ownership stake in the Evening Standard, a daily London tabloid with a circulation of about 280,000. Lebedev reportedly paid £1 ($1.40) for a 75.1% controlling stake in the paper, which was widely reported to have been operating at a loss of millions of pounds per year. Lebedev also owned, with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the last remaining news outlets in Russia that was critical of the government. He pledged to preserve the Standard’s editorial independence. [See p. 36D3] n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Treasury Unveils $2 Trillion Financial Industry Rescue Plan Stock Markets Fall on Lack of Details.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Feb. 10 unveiled a $2 trillion plan to stabilize the ailing financial industry, whose massive losses over the past year and a half had led to a freeze in credit markets that was exacerbating an ongoing recession. The highly anticipated plan was criticized for its lack of details, and markets that day slid steeply, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 381.99 points, or 4.6%, to end at 7,888.88. [See pp. 73A1, 61C2] Geithner that day said the plan was “comprehensive and forceful.” He acknowledged that efforts by the government thus far to bolster the financial system had been “inadequate.” The previous administration of President George W. Bush had been criticized for its handling of a $700 billion federal fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). More than half of the fund had already been spent or allocated, but banks had largely failed to resume lending to other banks, businesses and consumers, severely hampering economic growth. Geithner’s plan consisted of four elements designed to stabilize the financial industry and encourage lending: a $500 billion–$1 trillion fund to buy distressed assets from financial institutions; a $1 trillion financing program to bring down the costs of consumer loans; as much as $200 billion in capital injections into ailing banks; and a pledge of $50 billion in resources to stem a rising number of home foreclosures. [See below] But critics said Geithner had only provided the broad outlines of a plan, indicating that the administration of President Barack Obama had not finalized a strategy to fix the financial system. Geithner later that day testified before the Senate Banking Committee, where he was grilled by lawmakers seeking more details. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), the committee chairman, said the Treasury had to “reassure the American people that their money is in good hands.” Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, questioned whether the Treasury had a “concrete plan” that was “well thought out.” Geithner, testifying the following day before the Senate Budget Committee, said, “I understand the desire for details.” But he argued that it was better to be cautious before making public commitments, so as to avoid a situation in which the Treasury would have to make “quick departures and changes in strategy.” The Bush administration had been criticized for changing the focus of its rescue strategy, leading to confusion among investors and the general public. Geithner Feb. 10 had told the Banking Committee that the Obama administration was not asking Congress to authorize new aid for the financial industry, since the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, would be financing much of the program. HowFACTS ON FILE

ever, he warned that such a request was possible, saying, “This is going to be an expensive problem for the nation and it’s going to require substantial resources.” Funds for Distressed Assets—Under the Treasury plan, the government would join with the private sector to create one or more funds that would purchase distressed assets from financial institutions. Many of those assets were backed by home mortgages, and had steadily dropped in value after a real estate bubble burst in 2006. They were virtually unsalable on the market, weakening the balance sheets of financial institutions and eroding investor confidence in the industry. The funds would also buy distressed assets backed by other loans that had lost value, such as commercial real estate mortgages and corporate debt. The Treasury and private investors would contribute as much as $100 billion to the funds. With the aid of loans from the Fed, that amount could be leveraged to purchase between $500 billion and $1 trillion worth of distressed assets. Treasury officials said the joint private-public funds would allow private investors to determine the value of the assets. Valuing the assets was extremely difficult, and the government ran the risk of overpaying for them at the taxpayers’ expense. If assets were bought at overly depressed values, it could lead to write-downs and further losses at financial institutions. But prospective investors, such as hedge funds and private-equity firms, complained that the mechanisms of the funds remained unclear. Home prices continued to slide, complicating efforts to value the assets. In addition, the government was expected to introduce separate programs that would modify mortgage terms to prevent a rising number of foreclosures, further distorting their value. [See p. 45A3] Omitted from the funds plan was a previously reported element that would have seen the government insure such assets against default, which would reduce their perceived risk. It was still possible that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) or another government entity would be included in the plan to provide insurance. Expansion of Consumer Loan Program—

As the second main part of the plan, Geithner said the government would expand a lending program known as the Term AssetBacked Liquidity Facility (TALF). The program was intended to encourage investor purchases of assets backed by consumer loans—such as auto, student, credit-card and home loans—by providing financing with highly favorable terms. Increased purchases of such assets would lower interest rates on the underlying loans, making them more affordable. With the onset of the credit freeze, banks had drastically reduced the number of consumer loans they issued. Geithner Feb. 10 said the plan would allow the government to “go around the banking system directly to the markets that consumers and businesses depend on.” Economists said the move would allow the government to ensure that credit was flowing while it atFebruary 12, 2009

tempted to rid the crippled banking system of distressed assets. TALF had been scheduled to begin in February, with $20 billion in TARP money and $180 billion in financing from the Fed. Under the new plan, as much as $100 billion of TARP money would be used, which could be leveraged by the Fed to provide up to $1 trillion worth of financing. Banks to Undergo ‘Stress Tests’—Under the third part of the plan, banks holding more than $100 billion worth of assets would undergo a “stress test” to gauge their ability to weather the deepening recession. The test, which Geithner did not detail, would be designed to give the government more objective criteria to determine which banks needed an injection of private capital or, as a last resort, government aid. More than 350 U.S. banks had thus far received aid from TARP. Geithner did not specify how much capital the government intended to pump into banks, although the figure was expected to fall between $100 billion and $200 billion. Since the Treasury began using TARP money to invest in banks, it had largely purchased preferred shares. Under the new plan, it would be able to convert those shares to common stock, which would dilute the value of stock held by existing shareholders. While the government had resisted nationalizing banks outright, analysts said increased government holdings of common stock would result in de facto nationalization. Banks that received government capital injections would be subject to limits on dividends, stock repurchases, corporate acquisitions and executive pay. Geithner also laid out measures to increase transparency in the government’s dealings with banks. A Web site was established that would allow taxpayers to see how banks were using TARP aid. Banks would also have to issue monthly reports showing the number of loans they had made. However, Geithner did not go so far as to require that participating banks increase their lending to consumers and businesses, as many lawmakers had called for. In discussions within the Obama administration, Geithner had reportedly argued that the requirement would discourage banks from participating. $50 Billion for Housing Market—Geithner Feb. 10 said the administration would use $50 billion in TARP funds to help prevent a rising number of foreclosures. Geithner said a plan would be prepared in the coming weeks. Government officials had long wrestled with how to resolve the foreclosure crisis, which was complicated by the fact that mortgages in recent years had been bundled into complex financial products, and then cut up and sold to investors around the world. As as result, modifying the terms of a single mortgage required the consent of several parties. Banking Executives Testify—Eight chief executives of banks that had received a total of $165 billion in TARP aid Feb. 11 testified before the House Financial Services Committee, where they were harangued by lawmakers for the large role they were widely perceived to have played in pushing

the economy into a recession. There had also been a public outcry over the lavish bonuses and perks enjoyed by executives at banks that had received government aid. Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer (CEO) of Citigroup Inc., pledged that he would accept only $1 a year in salary until his bank became profitable again. The seven other banks represented at the hearing were Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Morgan Stanley and State Street Corp. The executives argued that they had used TARP aid to increase lending, and had also enacted programs to reduce monthly mortgage payments. The executives also acknowledged the role that banks had played in the financial crisis, by purchasing and spreading mortgage-backed assets throughout the financial system. [See 2008, p. 826D2] Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), the committee chairman, reminded the executives that the public felt a “great deal of anger” toward their banks. But he said, “We have no option if we are to get credit flowing in this country other than to work with the existing institutions.” n

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Obama Holds First News Conference Pushes Congress to Pass Stimulus Bill.

President Barack Obama Feb. 9 held his first White House news conference since taking office, calling on Congress to move quickly to pass an $800 billion economic stimulus bill that he argued was needed to pull the U.S. out of a recession. He had traveled to economically distressed Elkhart, Ind., earlier that day to promote the plan at a town-hall meeting reminiscent of his presidential campaign. [See p. 73A1; for excerpts from Obama’s news conference, see p. 78A1] Obama delivered an opening statement and then took 13 questions from preselected reporters during the hour-long session, on topics ranging from the economy to foreign policy to the admission of steroid use by Major League Baseball slugger Alex Rodriguez. Obama became the first president to call on a blogger at a news conference, taking a question from a reporter for the Huffington Post, a liberal Web site. In his eight-minute opening statement, Obama stressed the severity of the economic crisis, noting that 598,000 jobs had been lost in January. Referring to the stimulus package, he said, “I can’t tell you that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen the crisis.” The first question he faced was whether he risked damaging public confidence with his dire warnings that an economic “catastrophe” could ensue unless Congress rapidly passed the stimulus plan he wanted. He replied, “No, no, no, no. I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you poten(Continued on p. 79A1) 77

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EXCERPTS FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FIRST NEWS CONFERENCE

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Following are excerpts from President Barack Obama’s Feb. 9 news conference [See p. 77C3]: From the Opening Statement ...Before I take your questions tonight, I’d like to speak briefly about the state of our economy and why I believe we need to put this recovery plan in motion as soon as possible. I took a trip to Elkhart, Indiana, today. Elkhart is a place that has lost jobs faster than anywhere else in America. In one year, the unemployment rate went from 4.7 percent to 15.3 percent. Companies that have sustained this community for years are shedding jobs at an alarming speed, and the people who’ve lost them have no idea what to do or who to turn to. They can’t pay their bills and they’ve stopped spending money. And because they’ve stopped spending money, more businesses have been forced to lay off more workers. In fact, local TV stations have started running public service announcements that tell people where to find food banks, even as the food banks don’t have enough to meet the demand. As we speak, similar scenes are playing out in cities and towns across America. Last Monday, more than a thousand men and women stood in line for 35 firefighter jobs in Miami. Last month, our economy lost 598,000 jobs, which is nearly the equivalent of losing every single job in the state of Maine. And if there’s anyone out there who still doesn’t believe this constitutes a full-blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don’t know where their next paycheck is coming from. And that is why the single most important part of this economic recovery and reinvestment plan is the fact that it will save or create up to four million jobs, because that’s what America needs most right now. It is absolutely true that we can’t depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth. That is and must be the role of the private sector. But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money, which leads to even more layoffs. ...But as we’ve learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems—especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy, time and time again. And it’s only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now. And that’s why we have come together, around a plan that combines hundreds of billions in tax cuts for the middle class with direct investment in areas like health care, energy, education and infrastructure, investments that will save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses and help our economy grow again, now and in the future.... Now despite all of this, the plan’s not perfect. No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis, as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans. ...My administration inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion, but because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression, doing little or nothing at all will result in even greater deficits, even greater job loss, even greater loss of income, and even greater loss of confidence.... We find ourselves in a rare moment where the citizens of our country and all countries are watching and waiting for us to lead. It’s a responsibility that this generation did not ask for, but one that we must accept for the future of our children and our grandchildren.... Questions and Responses Q: Earlier today in Indiana you said something striking. You said that this nation could end up in a crisis, without action, that we would be unable to reverse. Can you talk about what you know or what you’re hearing that would lead you to say that our recession might be permanent when others in our history have not? And do you think that you risk losing some credibility or even talking down the economy by using dire language like that? No, no, no, no. I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative

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spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of. We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough, and as a consequence they suffered what was called the “lost decade,” where essentially for the entire ’90s, they did not see any significant economic growth. So what I’m trying to underscore is what the people in Elkhart already understand, that this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession. We are going through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve lost now 3.6 million jobs. But what’s perhaps even more disturbing is that almost half of that job loss has taken place over the last three months, which means that the problems are accelerating instead of getting better. Q: ...What is your strategy for engaging Iran, and when will you start to implement it? Will your time table be affected at all by the Iranian elections? And are you getting any indications that Iran is interested in a dialogue with the United States? I said during the campaign that Iran is a country that has extraordinary people, extraordinary history and traditions, but that its actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world; that their attacks or—or their—their financing of terrorist organizations like [Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia] Hezbollah and [Palestinian militant group] Hamas, the bellicose language that they’ve used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon—that all of those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace. What I’ve also said is that we should take an approach with Iran that employs all of the resources at the United States’ disposal, and that includes diplomacy. And so my national security team is currently reviewing our existing Iran policy, looking at areas where we can have constructive dialogue, where we can directly engage with them. And my expectation is, in the coming months, we will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face to face; of diplomatic overtures that will allow us to move our policy in a new direction.... Now it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently as well and recognize that even as it is has some rights as a member of the international community, with those rights come responsibilities. Q: ...You have often said that bipartisanship is extraordinarily important overall and in this stimulus package. But now when we ask your advisers about the lack of bipartisanship so far—zero votes in the House, three in the Senate—they say, well, it’s not the number of votes that matters; it’s the number of jobs that will be created. Is that a sign that you are moving away, your White House is moving away, from this emphasis on bipartisanship? And what went wrong? Did you underestimate how hard it would be to change the way Washington worked? I don’t think I underestimated it. I don’t think the American people underestimated it. They understand that there have been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington. And it’s going to take time to break down some of those bad habits. You know, when I made a series of overtures to the Republicans—going over to meet with both Republican caucuses, you know, putting three Republicans in my cabinet, something that is unprecedented, making sure that they were invited here to the White House, to talk about the economic recovery plan—all those were not designed simply to get some shortterm votes. They were designed to try to build up some trust over time. And I think that, as I continue to make these overtures, over time, hopefully that will be reciprocated.... As I said, the one concern I’ve got on the stimulus package, in terms of the debate and listening to some of what’s been said in Congress is that there seems to be a set of folks who—I don’t doubt their sincerity— who just believe that we should do nothing. Now, if that’s their opening position or their closing position in negotiations, then we’re probably not going to make much progress, because I don’t think that’s economically sound and I don’t think what—that’s what the American people expect, is for us to stand by and do nothing....

QUESTION: You’ve promised to send more troops to Afghanistan. And since you’ve been very clear about a time table to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, I wonder what’s your time table to withdraw troops eventually from Afghanistan?... ....With respect to Afghanistan, this is going to be a big challenge. I think, because of the extraordinary work done by our troops and some very good diplomatic work done by Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker in Iraq, we just saw an election in Iraq that went relatively peacefully, and you get a sense that the political system is now functioning in a meaningful way. You do not see that yet in Afghanistan. They’ve got elections coming up, but effectively the national government seems very detached from what’s going on in the surrounding community. In addition, you’ve got the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating in the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan] and these border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And what we haven’t seen is the kind of concerted effort to root out those safe havens that would ultimately make our mission successful. So we are undergoing a thorough-going review. Not only is General [David] Petraeus, now the head of CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command], conducting his own review, he’s now working in concert with the special envoy that I’ve sent over—Richard Holbrooke, one of our top diplomats—to evaluate a regional approach. We are going to need more effective coordination of our military efforts with diplomatic efforts with development efforts with more effective coordination with our allies in order for us to be successful. The bottom line, though…is, this is a situation in which a region served as the base to launch an attack that killed 3,000 Americans. And this past week I met with families of those who were lost in 9/11 [Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks], a reminder of the costs of allowing those safe havens to exist. My bottom line is that we cannot allow al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region. And we’re going to have to work both smartly and effectively, but with consistency, in order to make sure that those safe havens don’t exist. I do not have yet a timetable for how long that’s going to take. What I know is I’m not going to make, I’m not going to allow al Qaeda or bin Laden to operate with impunity planning attacks on the U.S. homeland.… Q: What’s you’re reaction to [baseball star] Alex Rodriguez’s admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers? Yeah, I think it’s depressing news on top of what’s been a flurry of depressing items, when it comes to Major League Baseball.…What I’m pleased about is, Major League Baseball seems to finally be taking this seriously, to recognize how big of a problem this is for the sport, and that our kids hopefully are watching and saying: You know what? There are no shortcuts; that when you try to take shortcuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career, and that your integrity’s not worth it.… Q: ...Today, Senator Patrick Leahy announced that he wants to set up a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate the misdeeds of the Bush administration.He said that before you turn the page, you have to read the page first. Do you agree with such a proposal? And are you willing to rule out right here and now any prosecution of Bush administration officials? I haven’t seen the proposal, so I don’t want to express an opinion on something that I haven’t seen. What I have said is that my administration is going to operate in a way that leaves no doubt that we do not torture, that we abide by the Geneva Conventions, and that we observe our traditions of rule of law and due process as we are vigorously going after terrorists that can do us harm. And I don’t think those are contradictory; I think they are potentially complementary. My view is also that nobody’s above the law, and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen. But that generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards. I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America, and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush, without adequate information.

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tially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.” Laments Lack of Republican Support—

Obama lamented that his bipartisan overtures had failed to win much Republican support for the stimulus package. The preliminary versions of the bill drew no Republican votes in the House and just three in the Senate. (After the Senate passed its version Feb. 10, a compromise on a $789.5 billion final bill was announced Feb. 11.) Republicans had argued that the bill contained excessive spending for favored Democratic social programs, and not enough tax cuts. Obama dismissed such criticism, claiming that his opponents clung to “failed theories” and believed that the government should “do nothing” in the current crisis. He also cast the Republicans as hypocritical, declaring that he did not need lessons from “the folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt” during the Bush administration, and pointing out that he had “inherited” a trillion-dollar deficit from his predecessor. However, he said he still hoped his overtures would lead to more bipartisan cooperation in the future. Defending the stimulus plan, Obama repeatedly asserted that it would meet his primary goal of creating or saving four million jobs, although he did not explain how he had arrived at that estimate. Obama was also asked about his administration’s plans to stabilize the financial system, but he declined to go into detail, saying that he did not want to preempt a speech the next day by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. [See p. 76A3] In Elkhart earlier that day, Obama had spoken to about 1,700 people. The town’s unemployment rate had risen to 15.3%. Obama Feb. 10 traveled to Fort Myers, Fla., for another town-hall meeting, hosted by Gov. Charlie Crist (R), who had called on fellow Republicans to join him in backing the stimulus plan. Obama Feb. 11 promoted the plan in Springfield, Va., and traveled the next day to Peoria, Ill., the home of heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc., which had announced more than 22,000 job cuts in January. Obama Feb. 11 said Caterpillar had said it would rehire some of those fired workers if the stimulus plan was approved. Vows Diplomatic Overture to Iran—Asked at the news conference about his campaign pledge to pursue diplomatic talks with Iran, Obama said his administration “will be looking for openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face-toface diplomatic overtures.” But he said he had “deep concerns” about Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. [See p. 74C3] Noting that his policy broke with the Bush administration’s refusal to engage in talks with Iran, Obama said, “Now it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently, as well.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Feb. 10 said Iran was “ready to hold talks based on mutual respect” if the U.S. was sincere about a change in relations. [See p. 86G1] February 12, 2009

Obama criticized the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which he said “seems very detached from what’s going on in the surrounding community” while U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces battled an insurgency led by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement. [See p. 75A1] Obama said he had “no timeline” for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan, stressing that he would not allow the international terrorist network Al Qaeda to enjoy “safe havens in that region” and “to operate with impunity, planning attacks on the U.S. homeland.” Al Qaeda leaders were believed to be based in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama was also asked if he supported a proposal by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to set up a commission to investigate whether Bush administration officials had violated domestic or international laws. Obama said any wrongdoing should be prosecuted, but added that he “generally” preferred “looking forward” to “looking backwards.” [See p. 80D1] Asked if he would end a ban on the media filming or photographing the flagdraped coffins of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama said he was reviewing the matter. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates Feb. 11 said he had ordered a review of the policy.) Questioned about his reaction to the admission of steroid use by the New York Yankees’ Rodriguez, Obama called it “depressing news.” He said he hoped young fans would learn the lesson that “there are no short cuts, that when you try to take short cuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career, and that your integrity’s not worth it.” [See p. 87C1] n

Sen. Gregg Withdraws as Commerce Pick GOP Nominee Cites Stimulus Bill Cost. Sen.

Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) Feb. 12 withdrew as President Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, saying he had “irresolvable conflicts” over policy issues and had “made a mistake” by agreeing to join a Democratic administration. The withdrawal was a new setback for Obama’s efforts to bring more bipartisanship to the capital. If confirmed by the Senate, Gregg would have been the third Republican in Obama’s cabinet, more than any previous Democratic president had included. [See p. 60D1] Gregg, calling himself a “fiscal conservative,” cited a $789.5 billion economic stimulus package, backed by Obama and congressional Democrats, as a major concern. The plan had attracted no Republican votes in the House and just three in the Senate. Gregg had not voted on a preliminary version of the bill earlier that week. [See p. 73A1] Gregg also cited differences over the 2010 census, although he played them down in a later statement the same day. The Census Bureau was part of the Commerce Department. Black and Hispanic lawmakers had raised concerns about Gregg overseeing

the census, since he had been involved in partisan disputes over previous censuses. In response, the White House reportedly had said it would take control of the census, drawing protests from congressional Republicans. The issue was politically charged because the census determined the redrawing of congressional districts and the distribution of certain federal funds. Gregg’s withdrawal, just nine days after his nomination was announced, was the latest in a series of problems with Obama’s cabinet nominations. Obama’s original nominee for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), had withdrawn in January due to a federal investigation into state contracts given to a campaign contributor. Obama’s pick for health and human services secretary, former Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle (S.D.), had withdrawn earlier in February after it was disclosed that he had failed to pay more than $128,000 in federal income taxes. Gregg said he would stay in the Senate to serve the last two years of his current term, his third, but would not run for reelection in 2010. n

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Other Obama Administration News Economic Advisory Board Unveiled. Presi-

dent Barack Obama Feb. 6 unveiled the White House Economic Advisory Board, a group of economic advisers with different areas of expertise and varying political bents. The group, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, included prominent members from the business world, academia and organized labor. Obama that day said, “I’m not interested in group think, which is why the board reflects a cross-section of experience and expertise and ideology.” The group would advise the Obama administration as it crafted ways to pull the U.S. out of a deepening recession. [See 2008, p. 867B1] n

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Economy Jan. Unemployment Rate Hits 17-Year High.

The unemployment rate in January rose to a 17-year high of 7.6% after seaUnemployment sonal adjustment, 2009 7.6% up from its De- January Previous Month 7.2% cember 2008 lev- Year Earlier 4.9% el of 7.2%, the Labor Department reported Feb. 6. An estimated 598,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in January, which meant that the economy had lost 3.6 million jobs since a recession began in December 2007. About half of those jobs had been cut since November 2008, indicating that the economy was caught in a worsening cycle in which plunging demand for goods and services forced struggling businesses to lay off workers, leading to a further reduction in demand. [See p. 14A2] Jobs were lost in almost all areas of the economy, with the exception of health care and education. President Barack Obama that day urged Congress to pass an economic recovery package intended to create jobs and stimulate growth, saying, “Now is the time 79

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for Congress to act.” Senate and House lawmakers Feb. 11 agreed in principle to a compromise between their competing versions of the package, and Obama was expected to sign it the following week. [See p. 73A1] Economists said the official unemployment rate belied the severity of problems in the labor market, because it did not include “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, or those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought fulltime work. Counting those people, the rate would be 13.9%. 153.7 Million Jobs Held in January—According to a household survey, 153.7 million people held jobs in January, the Labor Department reported Feb. 6. The department counted 11.6 million people as unemployed. The department counted 734,000 workers as discouraged in January. About 7.8 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.8 hours in January, down slightly from 39.9 in December. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.9 hours, down from 3.0 the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose five cents, to $18.46. The unemployment rate among whites in January was 6.9%, up from 6.6% in December. The jobless rate for blacks was 12.6%, up from 11.9% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 9.7%, up from 9.2% in December. For men age 20 and over, January unemployment was 7.6%, up from 7.2% in December. For adult women, it was 6.2%, up from 5.9% the previous month. The teenage rate was 20.8%, unchanged from December. For black teenagers it was 36.5%, up from 33.7% the previous month. n

Terrorism Panel to Probe Bush Policies Proposed.

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) Feb. 9 called for the creation of an independent commission to investigate controversial Bush administration policies, including its detention of terrorism suspects, firing of nine U.S. attorneys and warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens. Leahy made the comments during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and said he had broached the subject to see if the idea could attract public support. [See pp. 20D1, 16A3] Under Leahy’s proposal, the commission would be modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which had granted individuals immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for a full accounting of all crimes they had committed in connection with that country’s white-supremacist policy of apartheid. The proposed commission would report to Congress and the executive branch and would have the power to subpoena witnesses, but could grant immunity from prosecution in exchange for truthful testimony. Leahy said he had proposed the commission “not to humiliate people or punish 80

people but to get the truth out” about the Bush administration’s policies following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. He also suggested that the commission could serve as a compromise between those favoring criminal prosecutions of former Bush administration officials and those opposed to any further investigations. Rep. Lamar Smith (Texas), the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, criticized the proposal, saying that it was a partisan move by Leahy. President Barack Obama said during a Feb. 9 press conference that he would examine Leahy’s proposal, but suggested that he was unlikely to favor major investigations into the actions of the Bush administration. He said, “If there are clear instances of wrongdoing then people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen,” but added, “I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking back.” New Administration Claims State Secrets—

The Justice Department Feb. 9 informed a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., that it would continue to argue that turning over information about the alleged torture of a terrorism detainee would endanger national security by revealing state secrets. The so-called state secrets privilege had been used by the Bush administration to block inquiries into its antiterrorism and intelligence operations. The Obama administration’s decision to continue claiming the privilege in the case was criticized by civil liberties advocates. [See 2008, p. 769E1] In May 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had filed suit against Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., a subsidiary of The Boeing Co., on behalf of five foreign men who claimed that the company helped the U.S. government fly them to countries where they were subsequently tortured or abused. One of the men, Ethiopian native Binyam Ahmed Mohammed, remained in custody at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lower court had dismissed the case in February 2008 after the Justice Department used the state secrets privilege to argue that the case should be thrown out in order to protect U.S. national security. The ACLU appealed, arguing that the privilege was being used to keep torture victims from receiving their day in court. It said that the case should be allowed to proceed and that all confidential information in the case should be shown only to the presiding judge, who would rule on what information could be publicly discussed. Separately, two British High Court judges Feb. 4 ruled against the release of documents that lawyers for Mohammed said would prove he had been tortured. The judges, Justice John Thomas and Justice David Lloyd Jones, said the U.S. had threatened to withhold future intelligence information from Britain, a close ally, if the documents, which the U.S. had given to the British court, were released. The judges wrote, “We did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress” documents that were “relevant to

allegations of torture, and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.” Following the ruling, Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney for Mohammed, accused Britain of “capitulation to blackmail.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband Feb. 5 denied that the U.S. had threaten to break off intelligence cooperation if the documents were released. He told Parliament that the U.S. had argued that the release would harm U.S. national security and data-sharing between the countries, an assessment that Miliband called “a simple affirmation of the facts of intelligence cooperation.” Obama Meets With Families of Victims—

Obama Feb. 6 held an hour-long meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, with a group of 40 survivors and relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2000 attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen’s port of Aden. Some of the survivors and family members had previously criticized Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo. [See p. 28F1] The White House said Obama explained why he felt that closing Guantanamo would make the U.S. safer and “help ensure that those who are guilty receive swift and certain justice within a legal framework that is durable, and that helps America fight terrorism more effectively around the world.” Charges Against Saudi Withdrawn—The Defense Department Feb. 6 announced that Convening Authority Susan Crawford, who was the military commissions official in charge of the prosecution of terrorism detainees at Guantanamo, had dropped all charges against Saudi detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Crawford had ordered the charges dropped without prejudice, allowing for them to be brought again if the government saw fit. [See p. 46C3] In January, Obama had ordered military prosecutors at Guantanamo to request a 120-day delay in all pending cases against detainees in order to give his administration sufficient time to examine the evidence against them. However, a military judge had refused to grant the request in the case of Nashiri, who was facing capital charges linked to the USS Cole attack. Nashiri had been scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 9. n

Medicine and Health Total Spending Fell in 2007. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Jan.

5 reported that health care spending in 2007 grew 6.1%, to $2.2 trillion, the lowest growth rate since 1998. The figure equaled $7,421 per person. The growth rate in 2006 was 6.7%. The slower growth was attributed to a sharp decline in spending on prescription drugs, with spending growth in that category falling to 4.9%, from 8.6% the previous year. The study also said health care spending constituted 16.2% of the U.S.’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, up from 16% in 2006. The report was published in the January/February issue of the journal Health Affairs. [See 2008, p. 20B3] n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Opposition Leader Tsvangirai Sworn in as Zimbabwean PM Inauguration Comes After Unity Deal.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, Feb. 11 was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s new prime minister. Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, took up the post as part of a power-sharing deal with the longtime ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party of President Robert Mugabe. The oath of office was administered by Mugabe himself at a ceremony in Harare, the capital. [See p. 67A1; for facts on Tsvangirai, see p. 82A1] Two deputy prime ministers were also sworn in Feb. 11: Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a small breakaway MDC faction, and Thokozani Khupe, deputy leader of Tsvangirai’s MDC faction. The swearing in of Tsvangirai, 56, brought a tenuous resolution to a political crisis in Zimbabwe that had begun in March 2008, when he won more votes than Mugabe in the first round of a presidential election. (The MDC won a parliamentary majority in elections held the same day.) The country’s electoral commission, after delaying announcement of the results, said Tsvangirai won 48% to Mugabe’s 43%, failing to reach the 50% threshold needed to win the presidency and forcing a runoff. The government and its supporters then began a brutal campaign of violence against MDC supporters, prompting Tsvangirai to pull out of the runoff, held in June. Mugabe, who had ruled Zimbabwe since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980, won the election, but his victory was widely seen as illegitimate. The Feb. 11 swearing-in ceremony took place after Tsvangirai and the MDC in late January had agreed to the details of a unity government with the ZANU-PF. Under the deal, which was agreed to in principle in September 2008, the prime minister’s post was created for Tsvangirai, and the parties (including Mutambara’s MDC faction) would share cabinet posts. However, the implementation of the deal was delayed because the ZANU-PF had refused to relinquish control of key ministries, including the ministry of home affairs, which controlled the police. Under a compromise pushed through by the 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional grouping in January, Tsvangirai’s MDC faction and the ZANU-PF would share control of that ministry. The ZANU-PF retained control of other parts of the state security apparatus. As Zimbabwe’s political leaders haggled over the unity deal, the country’s troubled economy had continued to deteriorate, with citizens enduring hyperinflation and unemployment that reached 94%. Also, Zimbabwe had been hit by a cholera epidemic that started in August 2008, caused by a lack of access to clean water and health care facilities—a by-product of the February 12, 2009

economic crisis. As of Feb. 12, some 3,500 people had died of the disease. Tsvangirai Vows to Address Economy—

In a speech at a rally in Harare after his Feb. 11 inauguration, Tsvangirai said, “The first priority is to stabilize the economy. The economic collapse has forced millions of our most able to flee the country. This must end today.” The new prime minister pledged that all public sector workers would be paid in foreign currency, though he did not explain where that money would come from. He also called for unity among the political parties, saying, “The most important issue is that we are opening a new chapter for our country…there can be no turning back on the political agreement which each party has signed.” In a reference to a campaign of violence against opposition supporters that had been carried out or directed by the ZANU-PF, Tsvangirai said that “political violence must end today.” He added, “We can no longer afford brother against brother because one happened to have a different political opinion. I can assure that the culture of impunity and violation of human rights must end, and it must end today.” Referring to about 30 opposition activists who had been detained for months, he proclaimed, “I can assure you that they are not going to remain in those dungeons for any day or any week longer.” The New York Times Feb. 12 reported that the two parties had reached an understanding to release the activists, but they had yet to be freed. Tsvangirai had reportedly demanded their release as a condition of his participation in the inauguration ceremony; however, he apparently relented on that demand. Several of the activists had said through their lawyers that they were tortured while in custody, and their injuries had reportedly been documented by doctors. Mugabe, who would turn 85 Feb. 21, said at the inauguration ceremony, “I offer my hand of friendship and cooperation, warm cooperation and solidarity in the service of our great country Zimbabwe.” However, many observers continued to express skepticism about whether Mugabe would allow Tsvangirai to wield any real power. The inauguration of Tsvangirai prompted many analysts to recall a similar powersharing deal that Mugabe had entered into in the early 1980s with Joshua Nkomo, a rival independence leader. Nkomo was given various positions in the government, but Mugabe managed to sideline him by carrying out a violent campaign of repression against Nkomo’s supporters in the western Matabeleland area. Nkomo died in 1999 holding the ceremonial post of vice president. [See 1999, p. 540G2] MDC’s Biti Named Finance Minister—

Tsvangirai Feb. 10 named 17 cabinet ministers and deputy ministers. Tendai Biti, the MDC’s secretary general, was given the key finance ministry post. Biti, a human rights lawyer who had served as the MDC’s chief negotiator, Feb. 6 had been freed from prison after a judge dropped treason charges

against him that had been filed in 2008. [See 2008, p. 472F2] Although he was a seen as an ardent campaigner against Mugabe’s authoritarian rule, Biti, 44, had little economic experience. He would be tasked with stabilizing Zimbabwe’s economy and attracting much-needed foreign aid and investment. Among other cabinet appointments by Tsvangirai, Giles Mutsekwa, an MDC lawmaker who had a military background, was named the home affairs co-minister. (Mugabe had yet to name the other co-minister.) Henry Madzorera, a medical doctor, was named health minister, and lawyer Eric Matinenga was named constitutional and parliamentary affairs minister. Roy Bennett, a former member of parliament who had been imprisoned for eight months in 2004 for attacking the ZANU-PF justice minister, was named deputy agriculture minister. Bennett was one of thousands of white farmers who had their land seized by Mugabe’s government beginning in 2000, a policy that was seen as the root of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis. Bennett Feb. 12 told the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) that he had gone into hiding after the security services issued an arrest warrant for him. [See 2004, p. 1087C2] The ZANU-PF retained control of key ministries such as defense, justice, foreign affairs, information and local government. Mugabe late Feb. 12 named several cabinet members, but did not specify their posts. The ministers named by Mugabe included Emmerson Mnangagwa, who some viewed as a possible successor to Mugabe; Patrick Chinamasa, who had served as the ZANUPF’s chief negotiator on the power-sharing deal; former Defense Minister Sydney Sekeramayi; and Didymus Mutasa, who oversaw Zimbabwe’s disastrous land reform program. The new cabinet was scheduled to be sworn in Feb. 13. The posts of central bank governor and attorney general—which were currently held by Mugabe appointees—would reportedly be reviewed by the new government. Biti, in an interview with the BBC published online Feb. 12, said the MDC wanted to remove Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the central bank—a move that only Mugabe had the power to make. Biti said, “It’s not about Gono [per se], it’s about bringing sanity and normalcy to the Reserve Bank,” which had responded to the economic crisis and hyperinflation with measures, including slashing zeroes off the Zimbabwean dollar and introducing bank notes in higher denominations, that ultimately worsened the situation. [See p. 67F2] The power-sharing deal also provided for the MDC to choose five of the country’s 10 provincial governors. The MDC would select governors in the five provinces in which it had won a majority of the vote in the March 2008 elections. Among other provisions of the deal, parliament was reportedly considering the National Security Council Bill, under which a National Security Council would replace the Joint Operations Command as overseer 81

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Morgan Richard Tsvangirai was born March 10, 1952, in the Gutu area, south of Harare, capital of what was then the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He was one of nine children of a bricklayer. Tsvangirai left high school early to work to help support his family, and never returned to school. In 1974, Tsvangirai began working for the Trojan Nickel Mine in the country’s Mashonaland Central region. During his 10 years at the mine, he became active in the labor movement. In 1988, he was elected secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the country’s umbrella labor organization and a onetime ally of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. It was in that role that Tsvangirai first challenged Zimbabwean independence hero and President Robert Mugabe, the leader of the ZANU-PF. The ZCTU in 1997 organized a general strike that forced Mugabe to withdraw a plan to increase the nation’s income tax to pay the pensions of independence war veterans. In retaliation, men believed to be members of the secret police beat Tsvangirai with a metal bar and attempted to throw him out of a 10th-story window. [See 1997, p. 1010D3] Tsvangirai and other labor activists formed the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party in 1999. In 2000 elections, the MDC won 57 seats in parliamentary elections, the first significant challenge to the ZANU-PF since it took power after independence in 1980. [See 2000, p. 454F1] In February 2002, Tsvangirai was arrested and charged with treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe; he was acquitted in October 2004. In March 2002, as Zimbabwe’s economy deteriorated and political repression

of the nation’s security apparatus. The Joint Operations Command had been dominated by military leaders, and was seen as the architect of the crackdown on the MDC in 2008. Mugabe would head the National Security Council, and it would be comprised of Tsvangirai and the heads of the various arms of the military and security services. [See 2008, p. 772C1] n

Other African News African Union Summit Held in Ethiopia.

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The 53-member African Union (AU) Feb. 1–4 held its annual summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. The official theme of the summit was improving the continent’s infrastructure, but discussions became sidetracked by issues including the global economic crisis and Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi’s proposal for the creation of an African federal government. [See 2008, p. 441A1; 2007, p. 449A2] Qaddafi, who Feb. 2 was elected to the yearlong rotating chairmanship of the AU, during the conference focused on advancing his longtime plan to create a “United States of Africa.” However, the only concrete progress made on the plan was a Feb. 1 agreement to change the name of the AU Commission, the executive arm of the AU, to the AU Authority, and to give it expanded powers. Qaddafi Feb. 2 said he would bring to a vote at the next AU meeting in July the 82

increased, Tsvangirai lost to Mugabe in a presidential election that was widely seen as rigged. [See 2004, p. 828F1; 2002, p. 166D3] Tsvangirai was again charged with treason in 2003, after calling for mass protests against Mugabe; those charges were dropped in August 2005. In October of that year, a small group of MDC dissidents formed a splinter party, citing disagreement over policy decisions and Tsvangirai’s leadership style. [See 2005, pp. 861D3, 563C3] In March 2007, Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders were severely beaten and tortured by police after attempting to attend a prayer rally, bringing renewed international attention to the MDC’s cause. [See 2007, p. 162D2] In a March 2008 presidential election, Tsvangirai won 48% of the vote to Mugabe’s 43%, although the MDC claimed their candidate had won more than the 50% needed to win the presidency. Tsvangirai withdrew five days before the runoff election against Mugabe in June, after MDC supporters were subjected to a campaign of terror by the ZANU-PF. Mugabe and Tsvangirai in September 2008, after talks mediated by South African President Thabo Mbeki, agreed to a power-sharing deal under which Tsvangirai would become prime minister, and the two parties would share cabinet posts. However, wrangling over details of the deal delayed its implementation until January, when Tsvangarai and the MDC agreed to accept compromises under pressure from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). [See 2008, pp. 659A2, 425A1] Tsvangirai was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s prime minister Feb. 11, after parliament Feb. 5 passed a constitutional amendment creating the post. [See p. 81A1] Tsvangirai and his wife, Susan, were married in 1978, and they had six children.

implementation of measures such as a single African currency, army and passport. Qaddafi—who during the conference resided in a tent on the grounds of the luxury Sheraton Hotel—in a Feb. 4 news conference at the end of the summit said a continent-wide government fit better with traditional African social structures than the model of multiparty democracy, which he said had been imposed by outsiders. “Our parties are tribal parties—that is what has led to bloodshed,” he said, citing the ethnic violence that had erupted after disputed elections in Kenya in December 2007. [See 2008, p. 971C2] While Qaddafi strongly advocated the immediate implementation of the unity plan, other African leaders—including those of major continental powers South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia—reportedly either opposed the plan or favored a more gradual integration. In a speech closing the conference, Qaddafi showered praise on new U.S. President Barack Obama, the country’s first black president. “We hope he will be well protected and want him to be undaunted. America doesn’t belong to the whites alone. I hope he will be able to accomplish the change he carries in him,” the Libyan leader said. [See p. 25A1] Qaddafi’s election to the mostly symbolic post of AU chairman followed his efforts to repair ties with the West after years

as a pariah for his country’s support of terrorism and illicit weapons activities. However, his ascension was ill-received in some quarters of Africa, where Qaddafi’s government in recent decades had supported violent militant groups in bloody conflicts. [See 2008, p. 636A1] AU Bars Mauritania, Guinea—The AU’s Peace and Security Council at a post-summit meeting Feb. 5 imposed sanctions on the rulers of Mauritania, who had taken power in a military coup in August 2008. Council Chairman Manuel Domingos Augusto of Angola said the sanctions would be comprised of “a travel ban on civilian and military members of the junta, the systematic refusal of visas and checks on their bank accounts.” [See 2008, p. 972A1] Mauritania and Guinea, which had undergone a military coup in December 2008, had both been barred from the summit. The moves came despite the fact that Qaddafi and other African leaders had come to power through military coups or other undemocratic means. [See p. 34E3] The Mauritanian junta Jan. 23 had announced that it would hold a presidential election June 6. n

AMERICAS

Brazil First Trade Deficit in Eight Years Reported.

Brazil’s ministry of trade and industry Feb. 2 reported that the country in January had run its first trade deficit—$518 million (1.17 Brazilian reals)—since March 2001. Brazil had had a trade surplus of $922 million in January 2008, and a surplus of $2.3 billion in December 2008. [See 2008, p. 941E1] Brazil’s economy had grown significantly in recent years, fueled by the rising price of commodities, such as soybeans and wheat. However, analysts said the trade deficit reflected the global economic slowdown resulting from the credit crisis, which had reduced foreign demand for Brazilian products. Unemployment Dip Hides Jobs Loss—

Government statistics agency Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) Jan. 22 reported that the country’s unemployment rate had fallen to 6.8% in December 2008, its lowest figure since March 2002, when a new method of calculating the statistic had been instituted. However, the agency reported that the figure had been buoyed by the hiring of temporary holiday labor, and that the country had lost 654,000 full-time jobs in the month. The rate was expected to increase as the temporary positions expired and the economy worsened. The unemployment rate had been 7.6% in November 2008 and 7.4% in December 2007. Also, the central bank Jan. 21 had cut its benchmark overnight interest rate, the Selic rate, by one percentage point, to 12.75%. Brazil’s was among the highest interest rates in South America, as part of a policy designed to keep inflation low. n FACTS ON FILE

Canada Interest Rate Cut to Historic Low. The Bank

of Canada, the country’s central bank, Jan. 20 cut its benchmark interest rate—the target rate on overnight loans between commercial banks—by 0.5 percentage points, to 1%, its lowest figure since the bank was founded in 1934. The previous low of 1.12% had been set in 1958, when it was calculated using a formula based on treasury bill yields. [See p. 50B2] The Bank of Canada Jan. 22 predicted that the economy would contract 4.8% in the first quarter of 2009, a downward revision from an earlier estimate predicting no change. The central bank also suggested that the current recession would be shorter than either of those experienced in 1980– 81 or 1990–92, a projection that several analysts said was too optimistic. The bank said the country’s economy would contract by 1.2% in 2009, but grow by 3.8% in 2010. [See 2008, p. 909B2] n

Guatemala Dozens Killed in Landslide. A landslide

Jan. 4 buried nearly a mile of road in the sparsely populated Alta Verapaz district of Guatemala, some 125 miles (200 km) from Guatemala City, the capital. A rescue official Jan. 7 said search teams had halted their efforts because of unsafe conditions at the site, with at least 37 people confirmed dead and some 50 more missing. The road was a conduit for coffee from nearby plantations; most of those killed were thought to be coffee workers. [See 2007, p. 130A1] n

Mexico Stimulus Set to Fight Economic Slump.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa Jan. 7 announced a stimulus package that froze the price of government-produced gasoline, and reduced the price of fuel and electricity used by some industries and homes, to combat the global economic crisis and the decline of the U.S. economy, to which Mexico’s was closely linked. Calderon’s plan also expanded unemployment benefits, and encouraged more rapid government action on spending plans. [See 1995, p. 878F3] Finance Minister Agustin Carstens Jan. 8 said the country’s economy was not expected to grow at all in 2009, scaling back a previous growth estimate of 1.8%. Guillermo Ortiz, president of the country’s central bank, Jan. 27 estimated that economic growth in the country would contract between 0.8% and 1.8%. The central bank Jan. 16 lowered its benchmark lending rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 7.75%. It was the first time the bank had lowered the rate since 2006. The central bank Jan. 27 reported that remittances from Mexicans working in the U.S. had dropped 3.6% in 2008, the first time the figure had declined since recordkeeping began in 1996. The decline was attributed to higher unemployment rates February 12, 2009

in the U.S., which had also affected immigrants seeking work there. [See 2008, p. 729E2] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australian Fires Kill at Least 181 Police Suspect Arson. Widespread

bushfires Feb. 7–12 in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria killed at least 181 people, injured more than 80 others and destroyed at least 1,069 homes. The fires, which had devastated more than 400,000 hectares (988,500 acres) of land, were the deadliest in Australian history, surpassing the so-called Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, which killed 75 people in southern Australia. Police Feb. 9 blamed some of the fires on arson. [See 2006, p. 1020D2; 1983, p. 132B3] About 3,000 firefighters had been dispatched by the state and federal governments to combat the more than 400 fires across Victoria, on 12 separate fire fronts. More than 21 of the fires were still burning as of Feb. 12. The financial toll of the fires was expected to total more than A$500 million (US$325 million). Drought, Winds Fuel Fires— Temperatures in Victoria Feb. 7 had reached as high as 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius), a record for the region, and the heat, combined with a long running drought in the area, had created dry conditions that were conducive to wildfires. The fires were driven by strong, shifting winds that reached up to 62 miles per hour (100 km per hour) in some areas. Attempts to combat the fire Feb. 8 were aided by a decline in temperatures in the region as well rain and calmer winds in some afflicted areas. The unpredictable changes in the direction of the wind complicated attempts to isolate the fires and made it difficult for nearby residents to accurately determine if they

were in danger. Many of the dead had reportedly been surrounded by flames while trying to flee and had died in their cars. The largest of the fires was located about 60 miles north of Melbourne, Victoria’s capital, in and around the town of Kinglake. The fires there, which were large enough to be visible from space, had all but destroyed Kinglake, killing at least 24 people and destroying about 500 houses and buildings, as well as the nearby village of Marysville, among others. John Brumby, the premier of Victoria, Feb. 8 announced that he had accepted an offer by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to send military forces to the region in order to assist with firefighting and recovery efforts. The following day, the government began to search for additional bodies in the wreckage left behind by the fires.

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Rudd Blames Fires on Arsonists—

Rudd Feb. 9 accused arsonists, who were thought to have been responsible for some of the fires, of indirectly committing “mass murder” in connection with the rising number of deaths. Police in Victoria were reportedly investigating arson allegations linked to the fires and were treating some of the burnt areas as crime scenes. A total of about 60,000 wildfires broke out each year in Australia, and half of them were thought to be the result of arson or other unnatural origins. Investigation Announced—The government of Victoria Feb. 9 announced that it would establish a Royal Commission to investigate the fires and the government’s response to the disaster. The probe was expected to examine the government’s bushfire policies, which advised residents to either flee early or prepare to “stay and defend” their homes in order to minimize the risk of injury or death, a recommendation that came under criticism after the fires.

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Rudd Feb. 12 announced that a national day of mourning would be held to honor the victims of the fires. No date for the day of mourning was announced. n

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North Korea Jan. 30 announced that it would no longer observe its existing military, economic and other cooperation agreements with South Korea. The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the North Korean agency responsibly for policy toward South Korea, said bilateral relations had “worsened to the point where there is no way or hope of correcting them.” [See p. 51A3] North Korea also reiterated that it did not recognize a United Nations–imposed sea border between the two countries’ territorial waters to the west of the Korean Peninsula. That reportedly led South Korea to bolster its naval presence in the area, where occasional confrontations had erupted into serious sea clashes in 1999 and 2002. [See 2006, p. 494E1; 2002, p. 495A2] North Korea had recently escalated its hostile rhetoric toward South Korea in response to the policies of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who had taken a harder line against North Korea than his predecessors. North Korea had also recently claimed to have “weaponized” much of its plutonium, in a setback to international efforts to persuade it to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Some observers suggested that North Korea was increasing its belligerence in order to attract the attention of the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. [See p. 35C3] Lee Jan. 30 called on North Korea to return to dialogue with South Korea. A U.S. State Department spokesman that day said North Korea’s declaration would not “deter us” from pursuing “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” North Korea Feb. 1 issued a statement warning that South Korea’s “policy of confrontation” threatened to lead to war. Missile Test Preparations Seen—South Korean and Japanese news media Feb. 3 reported that, according to South Korean officials, North Korea was preparing for a test launch of its Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile within two months. Satellite images had reportedly shown an object believed to be a missile being transported by rail to Dongchangri, a new launch facility on North Korea’s western coast, near its border with China. A 2006 test of the Taepodong-2, believed to be designed to reach as far as the U.S. state of Alaska, had been a failure. [See 2008, p. 673F1] Kim Meets With Chinese Envoy—North Korean and Chinese state news media Jan. 23 both reported that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il had met that day with a Chinese official in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. It was Kim’s first publicized meeting with a foreign dignitary since rumors emerged in September 2008 that he had suffered a stroke the previous month. [See 2008, p. 981A1] 84

Observers said the meeting and the official accounts of it, including photographs, were likely intended to demonstrate that Kim was well and in control of the North Korean government. North Korea had dismissed the reports of Kim’s illness, and the reports of the meeting with the Chinese envoy—Communist Party International Department head Wang Jiarui—made no mention of his health. North Korea in recent months had issued frequent reports of Kim, 66, attending events, but usually refrained from specifying the dates or locales or releasing videos. n

Asia-Pacific News in Brief Indonesia: 300 Lost in Ferry Sinking. A ferry

Jan. 11 sank off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi during a storm, leaving almost 300 people dead or missing as of Jan. 20, when the search for survivors was called off. Officials said that in addition to the official manifest of 267 passengers and crew, more than 100 others might have been on the boat, the MV Teratai Prima, when it sank. Navy Col. Jaka Santosa, Jan. 20 said there were 35 known survivors, and nine bodies of victims had been recovered by that date, leading him to estimate that there were “around 262” people still missing. The captain of Teratai Prima, Sabir, Jan. 19 was detained under suspicion of possible criminal negligence for failing to take precautions after receiving a warning of the storm. [See 2007, p. 299E1] n Vietnam: Ferry Accident Kills 40. A ferry Jan. 25 sank in Vietnam’s Gianh river, killed at least 40 people. Media sources reported that about 80 people were onboard the ferry at the time of the accident, significantly more passengers than the boat was designed to hold. Many of the passengers were reportedly shopping for gifts prior to Vietnam’s Tet holiday, which began Jan. 26 and celebrated the New Year based on a lunar calendar. Local police confirmed that at least 36 people had survived the sinking and said they had held Nguyen Xuan Quy, the ferry’s captain and owner, for questioning. [See 2008, p. 982B2] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

France Sarkozy Sets Aid for Carmakers. French

President Nicolas Sarkozy Feb. 9 announced a plan to provide 6.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) in state aid to the national auto industry. The plan drew criticism from other European countries as a form of protectionism, and the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, requested further details from France. [See p. 52E2; 2008, p. 910D2] Under the plan, the largest French carmakers, Renault SA and PSA PeugotCitroen, would each receive three billion euros in low-interest five-year government loans, in exchange for pledging not to close factories in France for the duration of the loan and to try to avoid layoffs. Renault

Trucks, a French unit of Sweden’s Volvo, would receive 500 million euros in loans, and the government said other foreign carmakers with operations in France would be eligible for aid as well. Peugeot-Citroen Feb. 11 said it planned to cut its global work force by 12,000 jobs that year, with at least half of the cuts in France. However, it said that the layoffs would be voluntary and that it would offer buyouts to French workers, in order to comply with its commitments to the government. Government officials in Sweden, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which all had major auto industries, raised concerns that the French plan was protectionist, as did Germany’s BDI business federation. Sarkozy the previous week had called on French carmakers to stop relocating abroad. Peugeot-Citroen operated factories in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and Renault had operations in Romania. Labor costs and taxes were lower in Eastern Europe. Britain in late January had announced about $3 billion in aid for its domestic auto industry, most of which was foreignowned. The U.S. in December 2008 had set $17.4 billion in emergency aid for General n Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.

Georgia Prime Minister Resigns After Three Months.

Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili Jan. 30 resigned his position after just three months in office, citing “health problems.” Parliament Feb. 6 voted to confirm Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Nika Gilauri, 33, as his replacement. Gilauri that day said he would make fighting unemployment his top priority. He also said the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia would “be de-occupied by careful steps, which our government will take in the future with the help of our international partners.” Georgia in August 2008 had fought a five-day war with Russia over control of South Ossetia that ultimately served to reinforce Russia’s presence in the breakaway regions. [See p. 85D1; 2008, pp. 983E2, 827C3; for facts on Gilauri, see p. 85A1] Mgaloblishvili, who reportedly suffered from kidney problems, in a Jan. 31 address said Georgia could not “afford” to have a prime minister who became ill for long periods of time. Gilauri was President Mikheil Saakashvili’s fifth prime minister in as many years. Observers suggested that the frequent shake-ups in Georgia’s government were indicative of instability within Saakashvili’s administration. Opposition Calls for New Leadership—

Mgaloblishvili’s exit came just after Georgia’s fractured political opposition Jan. 29 gathered in Tbilisi, the capital, to sign a declaration calling for Saakashvili’s resignation. Leaders from a number of political parties, in the document, accused Saakashvili of leading Georgia to “catastrophe,” and called for fresh presidential and parliamentary elections, both of which were currently slated to take FACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON GILAURI

Nikoloz (Nika) Gilauri was born Feb. 14, 1975, in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, then a Soviet republic. He received a degree in international economic relations from Tbilisi State University, and went on to earn a master’s degree in international business management in 2000 from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., after studying also in Britain and in Ireland. From 2000 to 2004, he worked as a financial consultant in the U.S. and Georgia, mostly for energy-related projects. In 2004, he became Georgia’s energy minister, and served in that position until 2007, when he was appointed finance minister. In November 2008, he also became a deputy prime minister. He was confirmed Feb. 6 by the Georgian parliament as the country's new prime minister, replacing Grigol Mgaloblishvili, who had held the post for just three months. [See p. 84C3] Gilauri was among the longest-serving members of Georgia’s government, having worked in President Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration for five years.

place in 2013. Signatories included former parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze and Irakli Alasania, Georgia’s former ambassador to the United Nations. The leaders pledged to organize public demonstrations beginning in March. [See 2008, pp. 928A1, 826D3] While Saakashvili’s popularity had suffered in recent years, most observers agreed that the Georgian opposition remained too disorganized to pose a serious challenge to his government. n Minister Says Russia Sent Jets to Abkhazia.

Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze Feb. 6 claimed that Russia had sent 27 jets to the Soviet-era Gudauta air base in Abkhazia, a Russian-aligned splinter region that lay within Georgia’s internationally recognized borders. Abkhazian Deputy Defense Minister Garry Kupalba the same day denied the allegations, but added that “if a decision is made to establish an air base, we will announce it officially.” The Russian news agency Interfax Feb. 6 reported that Russian officials had denied that any Russian jets had been sent to Abkhazia. [See p. 84C3; 2008, p. 927F3] Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency Jan. 26 had reported that an unidentified Russian navy official said Russia planned to build a naval base for its Black Sea fleet at the Abkhazian port of Ochamchira. Work on the base would begin in 2009, according to the official. Russia’s Black Sea fleet was currently stationed at Sevastopol, Ukraine, but Russia’s lease on the base there expired in 2017. After Russia’s conflict with Georgia in August 2008, Ukraine had suggested it would not renew the lease. [See 2008, p. 797A1] In related news, Georgian officials Jan. 16 said a Georgian policeman had been shot and killed that day near the South Ossetian border. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed skepticism that the attack had happened, saying, “Many reports of this kind are not confirmed.” n February 12, 2009

Russia News in Brief. Gilani Shepiyev, 36, who

from 2004 to 2006 had served as deputy mayor of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a majority-Muslim republic in southern Russia, Feb. 5 was shot dead outside his home in Moscow, Russia’s capital. Shepiyev had overseen law enforcement agencies in Chechnya, which had experienced years of violent conflict between government forces and separatists. He had fled Chechnya in 2006 after he was wounded in an assassination attempt. Investigators said his murder was a contract killing. His death came after the January murders of Umar Israilov, a Chechen dissident who had accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of torture and abductions, and Stanislav Markelov, a prominent rights lawyer who had often represented Chechens. [See pp. 68A2, 36D2] Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz Jan. 30 in Moscow signed a cooperation agreement to expand partnerships in agriculture, manufacturing, science and tourism. Russia also pledged to loan Cuba $20 million. The leaders notably did not publicly mention the possibility of military collaboration. [See 2008, p. 899E1] Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Jan. 27 was elected the new patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was enthroned Feb. 1 at a Moscow ceremony attended by Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as well as representatives from the Roman Catholic Church. Kirill I, born Vladimir Gundyayev, succeeded Aleksii II, who had died in December 2008 after leading the church’s revival since the fall of the Soviet Union, which had banned religion. Kirill was known for his involvement in the Russian ecumenical movement, which encouraged dialogue among the various Christian denominations. [See 2008, p. 912C3] n

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Rival Parties Both Claim Victory In Israeli Elections Livni, Netanyahu Vie to Build Coalitions.

The centrist Kadima party, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and the conservative Likud party, led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both claimed victory in Feb. 10 parliamentary elections in Israel, but neither party won enough seats in the Knesset, or parliament, to govern alone. [See p. 42F1; 2008, p. 797A2] Final results released Feb. 12 gave Kadima a slight edge, with 28 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, compared with 27 for Likud. But a strong showing of 15 seats for a third party, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, gave Netanyahu a chance of forming a right-wing coalition government without Kadima. Along with smaller nationalist and religious parties, the right won a total of 65 seats, to 55 for Kadima and the left. Chief among the smaller parties on the right, with

11 seats, was the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which backed Netanyahu. Led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the center-left Labor Party, once dominant in Israeli politics, finished fourth, with 13 seats. Its leaders said they might rebuff invitations to join a coalition government, instead opting for a rebuilding period of principled opposition. Livni, 50, Feb. 10 declared victory at a rally in Tel Aviv, saying, “Today the nation chose Kadima.” She vowed to form a coalition government with parties from across the political spectrum. Livni sought to become the second female prime minister of Israel, following Golda Meir, who served from 1969 to 1974. Netanyahu, 59, also claimed victory that day before supporters in Tel Aviv, declaring, “The national camp headed by the Likud won a clear victory,” pointing to the success of the right. During the campaign, however, he had said he wanted to lead a broader coalition government including Kadima or Labor. Lieberman, 50, told his supporters that he would seek a “right-wing government” and use his party’s strength to “determine the next government’s agenda.” Livni and Netanyahu Feb. 11 each met separately with Lieberman, a former aide to Netanyahu, who had been prime minister from 1996 to 1999. President Shimon Peres, a member of Kadima, would decide which leader to ask first to try to form a government, based on the recommendations of all the parties in the Knesset. Peres was expected to make his decision within a week. If he did not choose Livni, it would be the first time in Israeli history that a president had not tapped the leader of the party that won the most seats to be prime minister. Turnout for the elections registered at about 65% of eligible voters, relatively low by historical standards. Observers said voters appeared to be tired of political instability that had led to a total of five elections in the past 10 years.

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Fate of Talks With Palestinians in Doubt—

Livni had been the only candidate of the top three parties to campaign on a pledge of seeking to continue peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA), leading toward the goal of creating a Palestinian state. She had led largely fruitless talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas over the past year. Netanyahu opposed the territorial concessions that Livni supported, and said he viewed the prospect of an independent Palestinian state as a threat to Israel’s security, although he had proposed an “economic peace plan” to help the Palestinians. However, new U.S. President Barack Obama had said he would push both Israel and the Palestinians to make concessions to advance the peace process. The U.S. was Israel’s closest ally. During his tenure as prime minister in the 1990s, Netanyahu had agreed, under U.S. pressure, to make some territorial concessions to the Palestinians. Incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Kadima, who headed a coalition government that included Labor as the junior part85

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ner, was leaving office after being weakened by corruption allegations. Netanyahu and Likud had led in public opinion polls in the weeks leading up to the election. But Kadima suddenly closed the gap in the final week, as Livni campaigned more energetically than her rivals and presented herself as a moderate who could both negotiate peace and safeguard the country, drawing support from voters on the left. Lieberman, meanwhile, had led his party to growing popularity by campaigning on the message that all citizens should be required to pledge their allegiance to Israel. That was seen as a loyalty test aimed at Israeli Arabs, who made up about 20% of the population. He had also called for territorial exchanges that would move most of Israel’s 1.2 million Arabs into a Palestinian state and bring West Bank Jewish settlements within Israel’s borders. The Israeli High Court of Justice Jan. 21 had overturned a Jan. 12 vote by the Central Elections Committee to ban two Israeli Arab parties from participating in the elections. The commission had imposed the ban during Israel’s 22-day invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israeli Arabs had protested the invasion, leading to accusations that the Arab parties did not recognize the Jewish state and supported its enemies. Lieberman and Netanyahu had both backed the ban. The government had ordered the Gaza invasion with the aim of damaging Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controlled the territory and had been firing rockets at nearby Israeli cities. Israeli forces had withdrawn from Gaza in January after the fighting caused the deaths of about 1,300 Palestinians, including many civilians, drawing international criticism. The Israeli public had strongly supported the invasion, but there was widespread disappointment with the result, since Hamas remained in power in Gaza and continued to fire rockets at Israel. U.N. Halts Gaza Aid—The United Nations Relief and Works Agency Feb. 6 said it had halted its aid shipments to Gaza because Hamas had seized 10 truckloads of flour and rice that day, after seizing blankets and food from a warehouse earlier in the week. The agency said it would not resume shipping aid until the stolen supplies were returned and Hamas pledged not to steal any more goods. Hamas called the incidents a misunderstanding. The U.N. Feb. 9 said it would resume the aid shipments since Hamas had returned the supplies. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Feb. 10 repeated his call for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. He demanded that Israel open more border crossings into Gaza, saying that only one crossing was currently open to U.N. trucks, which did not allow enough aid to pass through. n

Iran Ahmadinejad Signals Interest in U.S. Talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Feb. 10 said his country was open to a diplomatic dialogue with the U.S. on the condition that there was a “fundamental” change 86

in the U.S.’s policy toward Iran. Ahmadinejad made the remarks at a rally in Tehran, the capital, marking the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in which the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was deposed by hard-line Islamic students. The U.S. had severed diplomatic ties with the country in 1980, after 52 people at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were held hostage by the revolutionaries. [See p. 16A1; 2008, p. 499G1; 1980, p. 257A1] U.S. President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign had repeatedly stated that his administration would be open to direct talks with Iran, and after taking office in January had made several overtures in that regard. Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, had pushed to isolate Iran diplomatically and had taken a confrontational stance against Iran’s development of a nuclear program, charging that the country was attempting to create nuclear weapons. Iran rejected that claim, asserting that it sought to create a civilian nuclear power program. Bush in January 2002 had said Iran was one of three countries that formed an “axis of evil.” [See 2002, p. 41G2] Ahmadinejad in his remarks said, “The new U.S. government has announced that it wants to create change and follow the path of talks. It’s very clear that true change should be fundamental and not tactical.” He added, “These talks should be held in a fair atmosphere in which there is mutual respect.” It was unclear how much authority Ahmadinejad had to initiate discussions, as all final foreign policy decisionmaking power was thought to lie with Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It was also thought that his policy statements were first vetted by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a group that included influential religious and military leaders, among others. Obama during a Feb. 9 press conference, the first of his administration, had said he sought areas of “constructive dialogue” with Iran’s leaders in which the U.S. could “engage directly with them.” However, he added that he considered “the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable,” and that if Iran developed nuclear weapons it “could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing.” [See p. 79E1] Satellite Launched—Iran Feb. 3 announced that it had for the first time successfully launched a satellite into low orbit using a domestically produced missile, raising new concerns over its nuclear weapons ambitions. Although the satellite, named Omid, or Hope, was small in size and relatively lightweight compared to a nuclear warhead, experts said the event still demonstrated that Iran was capable of independently launching a multiple-stage rocket, which could be used for various military purposes. [See 2008, p. 857D1] Analysts said the move was likely intended as a signal to the U.S., and did not constitute a new and pressing threat to the U.S. or its allies. Iran joined a small group of nations—which included the U.S., Russia, China, France, Japan, Britain, India and Israel—that were capable of independently

launching satellites. Iran in 2005 had launched a satellite with Russian help, and in 2008 had launched another in a joint venture with China and Thailand, according to the Iranian state-run television channel Press TV. Iran in August 2008 had claimed to have launched a satellite on its own, but U.S. officials said it had failed to do so. U.S. Gestures Seen—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had also made several diplomatic overtures toward Iran. Clinton Jan. 27 said there was a “clear opportunity” for Iran “to demonstrate some willingness to engage meaningfully with the international community.” However, following Iran’s satellite launch, Clinton Feb. 3 said, “If Tehran does not comply with United Nations Security Council and [International Atomic Energy Agency] mandates, there must be consequences.” [See pp. 79F1, 74C3, 42F1] Addressing the incoming Obama administration, Ahmadinejad Jan. 15 had said Iran would “always welcome dialogue and relations.” n Khatami Sets Presidential Candidacy. Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Feb. 8 announced his candidacy in a presidential election scheduled for June 12. Khatami, who had served two terms as president, from 1997 to 2005, was a member of Iran’s reform movement and had helped ease relations with Western countries during his time in office. He had also attempted to foment greater political and social freedoms. Observers for months had speculated that he would enter the race. [See 2008, p. 776E2] Khatami, a 65-year-old cleric, had been succeeded by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative politician thought to have the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s de facto head of state. In recent months, criticism of Ahmadinejad’s handling of the economy had grown, but there had been no public signs that he had lost Khamenei’s support. However, several of his allies in parliament had lost their seats in March 2008 elections to a faction of hard-line conservatives opposed to him. [See 2008, p. 185G2] Under Ahmadinejad, Iran had taken a more combative stance in diplomatic relations with Western powers, and resumed its nuclear enrichment program, which had been suspended under Khatami. The U.S. alleged that the enrichment was intended to develop a nuclear weapons program, while Iran claimed its goal was to generate nuclear power. [See 2008, p. 874C2] Khatami had been drafted as a candidate by Iran’s reformist elements, but his chances for success were unclear. He had left office strongly criticized by reformers, who said he had failed to adequately advance their agenda amid stubborn opposition from the country’s conservative hard-liners. Khatami’s candidacy could also be disqualified by the Guardian Council, a body of conservative clerics with close ties to Khamenei. The council had disqualified some 1,700 reform candidates in the runup to the March 2008 elections. Analysts also said Khatami’s candidacy could lead conservatives who had previously criticized Ahmadinejad to throw FACTS ON FILE

their support fully behind him, in order to stave off a return to power by Khatami. Ahmadinejad had not yet officially declared himself a candidate for the presidency. However, his press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Jan. 28 had confirmed that he planned to run. Iranian newspapers Jan. 21 reported that Ahmadinejad had canceled his itinerary for the next four days because of a cold, renewing speculation that he suffered from a serious health problem. Ahmadinejad since April 2008 had reportedly changed his schedule five times because of health reasons. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

MLB’s Alex Rodriguez Admits to Past Steroid Use Confession Prompted by News Story.

Alex Rodriguez, a star third baseman for the New York Yankees and the highestpaid player in Major League Baseball (MLB), Feb. 9 admitted in an interview with sports network ESPN that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003, when he played for the Texas Rangers. The admission by Rodriguez, 33, came two days after Sports Illustrated had reported on its Web site that he was one of 104 MLB players to have tested positive for the drugs in 2003. [See below; 2008, p. 495B2; 2007, p. 899D2] In 2003, MLB had for the first time conducted anonymous tests on 1,198 players, as part of a labor agreement signed before the start of the season with the MLB Players Association (MLBPA), which had long resisted drug testing in the sport. Under that deal, if more than 5% of players tested positive, a more rigorous testing regimen that included public naming and punishment of those who failed tests would be put in place the next season. MLB announced in November 2003 that more than 5% had tested positive, and that the stricter rules, including random, unannounced testing, would be implemented in 2004. [See 2003, p. 947E3] Rodriguez, who had played for the Seattle Mariners, the Rangers and the Yankees in his 15-year career, had long been considered one of the best players in MLB. He had won the American League (A.L.) most valuable player (MVP) award three times. In 2007, he had become the youngest player in MLB history to hit 500 home runs. His admission came amid ongoing investigations into alleged performance-enhancing drug use by two of MLB’s other biggest stars—slugger Barry Bonds and pitcher Roger Clemens. Both denied accusations that they had used such drugs. [See below; 2007, p. 519A3; 2003, p. 947A1] In the Feb. 9 interview, conducted by longtime MLB reporter Peter Gammons, Rodriguez said he began taking the drugs after signing a record 10-year, $252 million contract with the Rangers prior to the 2001 season. “When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, felt all the weight of the world on top of me to perform, and perform at a high level every February 12, 2009

day,” he said. Rodriguez added, “Back then, [baseball] was a different culture.…It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naive. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.” He also said that performance-enhancing drug use was “prevalent” in MLB “culture” in the early 2000s. [See 2000, p. 1051A2] Rodriguez claimed that he did not know what specific drugs he took, saying only, “I did take a banned substance. For that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful.” He added, “I am sorry for my Texas years. I apologize to the fans of Texas.” Sports Illustrated in its Feb. 7 report had stated that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and the anabolic steroid Primobolan, both banned drugs. Rodriguez said he decided to stop taking the drugs after suffering a neck injury in spring training in 2003. Rodriguez also said Gene Orza, the MLBPA’s chief operating officer, had told him during the 2004 season that he might or might not have tested positive in 2003, and claimed that he did not know he had tested positive until Sports Illustrated contacted him about its story the previous week. However, ESPN reported that an unnamed source had told the sports news organization Feb. 7 that Rodriguez had indeed known about the failed test. Sports Illustrated also alleged that Orza had tipped off Rodriguez in September 2004 that he was scheduled to be tested in the coming weeks. Report Based on Unidentified Sources—

The fact that the 2003 tests were supposed to have been confidential and anonymous raised questions as to how Sports Illustrated obtained the information for its Feb. 7 report, written by Selena Roberts and David Epstein. According to Roberts in a Feb. 8 interview on the magazine’s Web site, she and Epstein had been working on a profile of Rodriguez when they came across rumors of his positive test, and then verified those rumors with four independent, unidentified sources. The report also sparked anger among players that the union did not destroy the 2003 results in a timely manner, as it had pledged to do. MLBPA Executive Director Donald Fehr Feb. 9 released a statement saying the union had been in the process of destroying the tests in November 2003, when they were subpoenaed by the federal government in connection with an investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), a California nutritional supplement company that had since been found to have provided top athletes from several sports with banned drugs. After receiving the subpoena, Fehr said, “We concluded, of course, that it would be improper to proceed with the destruction of the materials.” Federal agents seized the tests in April 2004. Fehr also rejected the allegation that Orza had warned Rodriguez about the 2004 test. Reaction—Yankees general manager Brian Cashman Feb. 10 said the team had no reason to suspect that Rodriguez had used performance-enhancing drugs when it negotiated a 10-year, $275 million contract after Rodriguez opted out of his previous deal

with the Yankees following the 2007 season. He also pointed out that the Yankees had weathered similar revelations before, with pitcher Andy Pettitte in 2008 and first baseman Jason Giambi in 2004. Yankees manager Joe Girardi that day said he had been shocked by Rodriguez’s revelation, and had telephoned him to offer support. [See 2008, p. 154D2; 2007, p. 899D2; 2004, p. 974A3] Rangers owner Tom Hicks, who had signed Rodriguez to the 2000 contract, said he felt “personally betrayed.” President Barack Obama, asked about Rodriguez’s admission during a nationally televised press conference Feb. 9, called it “depressing news.” He added that he hoped children “are watching and saying: You know what? There are no shortcuts; that when you try to take shortcuts, you end up tarnishing your entire career, and that your integrity’s not worth it.” [See p. 79D2]

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Documents Detail Bonds Drug Use—

Judge Susan Illston in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 4 unsealed documents that linked Bonds to four positive tests for steroids. Also included in the released documents was an alleged steroid treatment schedule for Bonds and a transcript of a recorded telephone conversation in which Bonds’s former trainer allegedly said he had injected Bonds with steroids. Bonds’s lawyers Jan. 15 had filed a motion seeking to block that evidence because it could not be definitively tied to Bonds. Illston Feb. 5 said her “preliminary thoughts” were to exclude three of the drug tests but to admit the recording transcript. [See 2008, p. 993B1] Bonds had been charged with 10 counts of perjury for telling a federal grand jury in 2003 that he had never used performanceenhancing drugs. He had pleaded not guilty; his trial would begin March 2. Tejada Submits Guilty Plea—Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada Feb. 10 was charged with one misdemeanor count of making false statements to federal investigators, and pleaded guilty to those charges the following day. Tejada, who had been the A.L. MVP in 2002, in August 2005 had told investigators that he had never spoken with his teammates about their use of performanceenhancing substances, and was unaware of any colleagues’ use of such substances. Prosecutors claimed Tejada had talked with a teammate about human growth hormone, and that he knew that person was using performance-enhancing substances. Tejada would be sentenced March 26; he faced up to a year in jail. [See 2008, p. 154C2] Clemens DNA Found on Syringe— The Washington Post Feb. 3 reported that DNA belonging to seven-time Cy Young awardwinner Clemens had been found in syringes Clemens’s trainer claimed to have used to inject him with performance-enhancing drugs. However, it had not yet been determined if traces of performance-enhancing drugs were also present in the syringe. ESPN Jan. 12 had reported that a federal grand jury was hearing evidence to determine whether Clemens had lied under oath in 2008 when he claimed at a congressional hearing that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids or human growth hormone. [See 2008, p. 992C3] 87

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His former trainer, Brian McNamee, at the same 2008 hearing had claimed that he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs as many as 38 times between 1998 and 2001. Steroid Dealer Releases Book—Kirk Radomski, a confessed steroids dealer who had supplied a number of MLB players with performance-enhancing drugs until his arrest in 2005, Jan. 27 released Bases Loaded, a book about his experiences cooperating with former Sen. George Mitchell (D, Maine). In 2007, Mitchell had released a report that described steroid use in baseball and named a number of alleged offenders. Mitchell had disputed a portion of Radomski’s book, in which he claimed that Mitchell had asked him about possible steroid use by a number of players whose names did not appear in the 2007 report, the New York Times reported Jan. 20. [See 2008, p. 495F1] MLB officials Jan. 21 disputed another portion of Radomski’s book, in which he claimed a player who bought steroids from him had said the commissioner’s office in 2004 had called players into MLB headquarters to inform them that they had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Analysts suggested that Radomski’s claim implied that MLB officials might have been trying to reduce the number of players who tested positive for steroids in 2004. Torre Releases Book on Yankees—Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre Feb. 3 released The Yankee Years, a book that recalled his 12 years as manager of the Yankees. In the book, which was co-authored by Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci, Torre harshly criticized Alex Rodriguez for craving attention. However, Torre also praised Rodriguez as a hard worker. [See 2007, p. 743A2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

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Awards Plant, Krauss Win Big at Grammys. The

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51st annual Grammy Awards were presented Feb. 8 by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in a ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. [See 2008, p. 115C3] The duo of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were the top winners at the Grammys, winning a total of five, all linked to their album Raising Sand, on which they performed a medley of blues and country songs. The five Grammys they won were for album of the year; best contemporary folk or Americana album; record of the year for “Please Read the Letter,” one of the songs on the album; best pop collaboration for another song on the album, “Rich Woman”; and best country collaboration with vocals for a third song on the album, “Killing the Blues.” Plant, 60, was the former lead singer of the seminal British rock band Led Zeppelin. For his work with Led Zeppelin, which disbanded in 1980, he had been presented with a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005, and he had shared a Grammy in the hard rock category with Led Zeppelin 88

bandmate Jimmy Page in 1999; the group, though, never won any Grammys during its heyday in the 1970s. [See 2007, p. 906G3; 1999, p. 140D2] Krauss, 37, was a leading bluegrass singer and fiddler. She had already won 21 Grammys, the most by a female artist, before winning five more for her collaboration with Plant. Her new total, 26, moved her into a third-place tie for career wins with classical composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. [See 2006, p. 120D1] The artist with the most Grammy nominations, eight, had been rapper Lil Wayne, who ended up winning four, including the award for rap album of the year, for Tha Carter III, the top-selling album of 2008. [See below; 2008, p. 548D1] In what proved to be another banner year for British talent—Britain’s Amy Winehouse had triumphed at the 2008 Grammys—the British rock group Coldplay won three Grammys: the coveted song-of-the year award and a performance award for “Viva la Vida,” and the best rock-album award for the album with that song, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. Also, British singer-songwriter Adele, 20, was named best new artist and won the award for best female pop vocal performance. [See 2008, p. 115C3–E3] One of the most conspicuous performers at the Grammys ceremony was Britishborn rapper M.I.A., 31, of Sri Lankan origin. She joined U.S. male rappers Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, T.I. and Kanye West in performing Lil Wayne’s song “Swagga Like Us,” at a time when she was nine months pregnant and on the evening of her baby’s due date. However, the performance proceeded without incident. The song won the Grammy for best rap performance by a duo or group. [See below] Two artists who were scheduled to perform but did not show up were rhythm and blues singer Chris Brown, 19, and pop singer Rihanna, 20. It was later reported that she had been hospitalized after a fight with Brown early Feb. 8 that led to his being arrested by Los Angeles police. He was reportedly freed on $50,000 bail Feb. 9. Country singer George Strait, 56, won the first Grammy of his decades-long career for his album Troubadour. The major winners were: Record of the Year: “Please Read the Letter,” Rob-

ert Plant and Alison Krauss Song of the Year: “Viva la Vida,” Coldplay Album of the Year: Raising Sand, Robert Plant and

Alison Krauss New Artist: Adele Female Pop Vocal: “Chasing Pavements,” Adele Male Pop Vocal: “Say,” John Mayer Pop Duo or Group Vocal: “Viva la Vida,” Coldplay Pop Vocal Album: Rockferry, Duffy Traditional Pop Vocal Album: Still Unforgettable,

Natalie Cole Contemporary Folk/Americana Album: Raising

Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Rock Album: Viva la Vida or Death and All His

Friends, Coldplay Rock Song: “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,”

Bruce Springsteen (songwriter and performer) Solo Rock Vocal: “Gravity,” John Mayer Rock Duo or Group Performance: “Sex on Fire,”

Kings of Leon Rhythm and Blues Song: “Miss Independent,”

Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen and Shaffer Smith, songwriters (sung by Ne-Yo) Female Rhythm and Blues Vocal: “Superwoman,” Alicia Keys Male Rhythm and Blues Vocal: “Miss Independent,” Ne-Yo Rhythm and Blues Duo or Group Performance:

“Stay With Me (by the Sea),” Al Green featuring John Legend Rap Solo Performance: “A Milli,” Lil Wayne Rap Duo or Group Performance: “Swagga Like Us,” Jay-Z and T.I., featuring Kanye West and Lil Wayne Rap Album: Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne Hard Rock Performance: “Wax Simulacra,” the Mars Volta Metal Performance: “My Apocalypse,” Metallica Female Country Vocal: “Last Name,” Carrie Underwood Male Country Vocal: “Letter to Me,” Brad Paisley Country Vocal Duo or Group Performance:

“Stay,” Sugarland (Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush) Country Song: “Stay,” Jennifer Nettles, songwriter (sung by Nettles and Bush) Country Album: Troubadour, George Strait n

People Rapper and actor DMX, 38, who had been held in a Phoenix, Ariz., jail since Dec. 9, 2008, Jan. 30 in Phoenix was sentenced to another 90 days in jail and at least 18 months of supervised probation. The rapper, whose real name was Earl Simmons, in late December had pleaded guilty to felony counts of theft, possession or use of marijuana, and possession or use of narcotic drugs, and to a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty. The charges stemmed from three separate cases, including an August 2007 raid on his Cave Creek, Ariz., home, in which sheriff’s deputies found malnourished and dead dogs, and various drugs and weapons. [See 2001, p. 260C2; 2000, pp. 240C2, 72D1] n

O B I T UA R I E S DEARIE, Blossom Margrete, 84, jazz and cabaret singer and pianist who became a cult figure in North America and Britain, and also performed in continental Europe and Australia; she was known for her delicate, high-pitched voice and subtly understated piano-playing; she was also a songwriter and television personality; in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she made half a dozen recordings for Verve Records that became legendary; born April 28, 1924, in East Durham, N.Y.; died in her sleep Feb. 7 at her home in New York City, of natural causes. JAMESON, Betty (Elizabeth May), 89, golfer who was one of 13 women who founded the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1950; the high point of her athletic career came in 1947, when she became the first woman to break 300 in a 72-hole tournament, by shooting a seven-over-par 295 at the U.S. Women’s Open in Greensboro, N.C.; born May 9, 1919, in Norman, Okla.; died Jan. 31 in Boynton Beach, Fla., after surgery for a tumor. [See 1958, p. 240D2; 1955, pp. 340F1, 136D1, 72C1; Indexes 1952–53, 1947] JOHANNSON, Ingemar, 76, Swedish boxer who held the world heavyweight title from June 1959 to June 1960; he won it by upsetting reigning champion Floyd Patterson, but lost to Patterson twice thereafter, in a 1960 bout in which Patterson regained his title and in a 1961 successful title defense; he retired in 1963 as European heavyweight champion with a record of 26–2, with his only two losses having come against Patterson; he then prospered in various business enterprises; born Sept. 22, 1932, in Goteborg; died Jan. 30 at a nursing home in Kunsbacka, Sweden, shortly after contracting pneumonia and some years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease; Patterson’s death, in 2006, had also been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. [See 2006, p. 400F3; 1983, p. 937F2; Indexes 1958–62] n

February 12, 2009

U.S. President Obama Signs $787 Billion Economic Recovery Package Into Law Follows Negotiations by House and Senate Mix of Tax Cuts, Spending to Boost Growth.

U.S. President Barack Obama Feb. 17 signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a $787 billion package designed to boost economic growth amidst a deepening recession. The signing followed votes by the U.S. House and Senate Feb. 13 to approve the package, which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), totaled $212 billion in tax cuts and $575 billion in new federal spending through fiscal 2019, although most of the bill’s cost would be incurred in the next two years. [See p. 73A1; for highlights of the bill’s provisions, see p. 90A1] At a signing ceremony in Denver, Colo., Obama said, “We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time.” He said the plan was “the most sweeping economic recovery package in our history,” and that it would “create or save three and a half million jobs.” He also said the package would “set our economy on a firmer foundation, paving the way to long-term growth and prosperity.” However, Obama warned, “I don’t want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems. Nor does it constitute all of what we’re going to have to do to turn our economy around.” The Obama administration the previous week had announced a $2 trillion plan to prop up the country’s ailing financial industry and resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets that had hobbled economic growth. Obama Feb. 18 also unveiled a $275 billion plan to stem a rising number of home foreclosures and halt a slide in home prices. [See pp. 92A1, 76A3] The economic recovery package contained tax cuts for businesses and individuals, as well as sizable federal investments in the areas of education, health care, energy, infrastructure and aid for lower-income workers. According to the bill’s supporters, many of the provisions in the plan were meant to simultaneously create jobs and serve as initial investments on Obama’s campaign pledges to expand health care coverage, increase the U.S.’s use of alternative energy sources and improve public education. It took the Democratic-controlled Congress about a month to pass the package, which observers said was a rapid pace considering the bill’s vast scope and potential impact. Obama’s before his Jan. 20 inauguration had called for quick passage of a stimulus bill. Additionally, a large majority of economists had said speedy enactment of the package was vital to reviving the economy, which had shed more than 3.6 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and was expected to lose more in the coming year. However, economists said the bill could prove insufficient to halt the economy’s slide. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Feb. 17 said, “The president is going

to do what’s necessary to grow this economy. But there are no particular plans at this point for a second stimulus package.” Bill Receives Scant Republican Support—

The economic recovery package was finalized Feb. 12 in a conference committee between the House and Senate after their leaders reached a tentative compromise between the two chambers’ competing versions of the measure. The House Feb. 13 voted, 246–183, to pass the bill, with no Republican support. Seven House Democrats joined 176 Republicans in voting against the bill. For procedural reasons, the Senate needed 60 votes to advance the conference bill to a vote. The Senate voted, 60–38, to advance the bill, and then voted by the same margin to pass it. It received support from 55 Democrats, two independents and three centrist Republicans: Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Arlen Specter (Pa.). Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) did not vote, as he was undergoing treatment in Florida that day for brain cancer. One Senate seat remained open due to an ongoing dispute over an election in Minnesota. Obama had initially wanted broad bipartisan support for the bill, but the vast majority of congressional Republicans remained adamantly opposed to it, claiming that it was full of wasteful spending that would not stimulate the economy. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) Feb. 13 said, “This bill is supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs, and it’s turned into nothing more than spend, spend, spend.” Republicans also expressed concern over the bill’s effect on the federal budget deficit, which was expected to balloon to about $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, and about $1.1 trillion the following year. Both parties signaled that the stimulus bill could be a major campaign issue in the 2010 congressional elections. However, some Republican governors struggling with budget shortfalls and increased unemployment were supportive of the bill, which would funnel billions of dollars in federal aid to their coffers. The final bill was significantly smaller than preliminary versions passed by the House ($819 billion) and Senate ($838 billion), but a greater percentage of it would be spent quickly. The CBO Feb. 13 projected that 74% of the bill would be spent by Sept. 30, 2010, the end of the 2010 fiscal year, up from the 64% it had projected for the House bill. The bill raised the ceiling on the national debt to $12.1 trillion, up from $11.3 trillion. [See 2008, p. 715C2] Tax Relief Measures—The economic recovery package signed into law Feb. 17 contained $212 billion worth of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. In both 2009 and 2010, individuals making less than $75,000 a year would receive a payroll tax cut of $400, while married couples making

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3557 February 19, 2009

B less than $150,000 a year would receive a cut of $800. The bill set aside $70 billion to shield middle-income taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT had been designed to prevent high-income taxpayers from using deductions to reduce their taxable income to little or nothing. But because it was not adjusted for inflation, it increasingly applied to taxpayers who were currently in middle-income tax brackets. The provision, introduced by Republicans, was criticized by Democrats, who said it would do little to stimulate the economy. They also said it would have inevitably been passed in separate legislation, since Congress in past years had consistently shielded middle-class taxpayers from the AMT. New home buyers who made less than $95,000 a year, or $170,000 for families,

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama signs $787 billion economic recovery package; follows negotiations by House and Senate. PAGE 89

Obama visits Canada in first foreign trip. PAGE 91

Obama unveils $275 billion housing market recovery plan.

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Chrysler, GM submit restructuring plans. PAGE 92

Zimbabwe’s arrest of MDC official threatens political agreement. PAGE 96

Venezuelan voters back end to presidential term limits. PAGE 97

Cambodia begins first Khmer Rouge genocide trial.

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PAGE 98

Japanese economy shrinks at dramatic pace. PAGE 98

Sharp eurozone contraction reported. PAGE 100

Obama orders deployment of 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. PAGE 102

Pakistan allows Islamic law in militant region. PAGE 102

Pakistan admits 2008 Mumbai attack partly planned on Pakistani soil. PAGE 103 REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ECONOMIC STIMULUS BILL

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Following are major provisions of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was cleared by Congress Feb. 13 and signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama Feb. 17 [See p. 89A1]: Tax Cuts

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In both 2009 and 2010, individual workers making less than $75,000 a year would receive a payroll tax cut of $400; married couples making less than $150,000 a year would receive an $800 cut. The tax credit would be phased out for workers making more than those amounts. Estimated total cost: $116 billion. o More than 26 million middle-income families would be shielded from the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in 2009. Estimated total cost: $70 billion. o First-time home buyers who purchased a house between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 would be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit that did not have to be repaid. Estimated total cost: $7 billion. o In both 2009 and 2010, a child tax credit of as much as $1,000 would be expanded to include workers who made at least $3,000 a year, down from 2008’s floor of $8,500. Estimated total cost: $14 billion. Education

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A stabilization fund for states would be established to prevent education-related layoffs and modernize schools. Estimated total cost: $54 billion. o The maximum federal Pell grant would be expanded by $500, to $5,350. Estimated total cost: $16 billion.

would receive a tax credit of up to $8,000 for homes purchased between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1. The provision was meant to spark demand and bolster the slumping housing market. A previous version in the Senate bill had called for a $15,000 tax credit. On a temporary basis, businesses would be able to retroactively apply losses from a current year to taxes paid up to five years previously, and immediately receive tax refunds, instead of waiting to file their current returns. The provision was included in the original House and Senate bills, but in the final bill it was limited to businesses with under $15 million in yearly gross receipts. Spending Measures—The bill’s $575 billion in new spending included about $100 billion to be devoted to education. More than half of that money was contained in a $54 billion stabilization fund for states, which was to help them prevent education-related layoffs and modernize school buildings. The bill also included $16 billion to expand federal Pell grants— which were reserved for the neediest university students—by $500, to $5,350, in 2009. States would receive about $87 billion in aid to ensure that Medicaid health services for the poor and disabled were not cut back during the recession. The bill would use $25 billion to subsidize, for up to nine months, 65% of premium payments under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), which allowed former employees to continue receiving company-sponsored health-care coverage.

o Local school funding for disadvantaged students. Estimated total cost: $13 billion. o Funding for special education programs. Estimated total cost: $12 billion. o In both 2009 and 2010, individuals making less than $80,000 a year, or married couples making less than $160,000, would be eligible for a $2,500 higher-education tuition tax credit. Estimated total cost: $14 billion. o In both 2009 and 2010, state and local governments would be able to issue new tax-exempt bonds to help finance school construction and maintenance. Estimated total cost: $10 billion. Health Care

o

Federal funding for Medicaid would be increased for the period between Oct. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2010. Estimated total cost: $87 billion. o Physicians and medical providers that made greater use of computerized health records would be eligible for incentive payments. Estimated total cost: $21 billion. o Former employees eligible for continued company-sponsored health-care coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), and who were laid off between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009, would receive government subsidies covering 65% of their premium payments. Estimated total cost: $25 billion. Energy

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Eligibility for tax credits earned by companies that developed alternative sources of energy would be extended by three years. Estimated total cost: $13 billion.

Workers who had lost their jobs between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009, would be eligible for the subsidies. An additional $19 billion would be devoted to computerizing medical records, an initiative that advocates said would reduce costs and inefficiencies in the system. The bill contained $45 billion in funding for alternative-energy and energy-conservation projects. About $13 billion would be spent on weatherizing homes and making low-income housing areas and federal buildings more energy-efficient; $11 billion would be invested in creating a more efficient electricity grid; and $13 billion worth of tax incentives would be available to companies that developed alternative sources of energy. The bill also expanded programs to help the needy and unemployed, which was expected to have a quick stimulative effect on the economy, since lower-income consumers were likely to spend the money on needed goods and services. About $20 billion would be used to subsidize food stamps. About $39 billion would be used to continue until Dec. 31 an extension of the period that workers could receive unemployment insurance benefits, to 33 weeks, from 26 weeks, and increase weekly unemployment checks by $25. About $14 billion was set aside to issue a $250 payment to those who received Social Security, veterans’ benefits and Supplemental Security Income. Transportation infrastructure projects would receive $61 billion in new funding, which was to go toward building and main-

o Efforts to make the U.S. electricity grid more efficient would receive additional funding. Estimated total cost: $11 billion. o Federal buildings would be refitted to be more energy efficient. Estimated total cost: $4.5 billion. o Funding for grants for energy-efficiency and energy-conservation projects would be increased. Estimated total cost: $6 billion. o Program to weatherize homes would receive additional funding. Estimated total cost: $5 billion. Lower-Income Aid

o

An extension of the period that workers could receive unemployment insurance benefits, to 33 weeks, from 26 weeks, would be continued until Dec. 31. Weekly unemployment checks would be increased by $25, and other unemployment-related aid would be dispersed to states. Estimated total cost: $39 billion. o One-time payments of $250 would be made to those receiving Social Security benefits, veterans’ benefits, Railroad Retirement benefits and Supplemental Security Income. Estimated total cost: $14 billion. o Food stamp subsidies would be increased. Estimated total cost: $20 billion. Transportation Infrastructure

o

Funding for highway construction maintenance projects would be increased. mated total cost: $27.5 billion. o Funding for mass transit. Estimated cost: $8 billion. o Funding for railroads. Estimated total $9 billion.

and Estitotal cost:

taining highways, bridges and railroads. The bill included so-called Buy America provisions, which required governmentfunded projects to buy iron, steel and other manufactured goods from domestic com-

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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FACTS ON FILE

panies. The bill said such purchases were to be conducted without violating the U.S.’s existing international trade pacts. The caveat was added after the U.S.’s trading partners objected to the provisions as being overly protectionist. Executive Bonuses Capped—The bill included a provision that would cap the bonuses of executives at banks that had received aid from a financial industry rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The provision, introduced by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), was thought to be stricter than new executive compensation guidelines unveiled by the Obama administration in early February. The administration reportedly objected to the provision, saying it would deter banks from participating in the program, which was designed to stabilize the financial industry. [See p. 61C2] Under the provision, the five highestranking executives at companies that had received more than $500 million in aid could receive bonuses worth no more than one-third of their total yearly salary. The provision would also apply to the next 20 highest earners at the company. Banks that had received less than $500 million would face looser restrictions. The caps applied to banks that had already received aid, while the Obama administration’s guidelines only affected recipients of fresh aid. Additionally, all bonuses were to be paid in long-term stock that could only be cashed in after the companies returned the aid money to the government. The administration was expected to provide further details on the provision in the coming weeks. Banks criticized the provision, which they said would limit their ability to recruit top talent. Executive bonuses were usually several times greater than yearly salary, and the cap could severely reduce executive income. The provision also said banks could return the aid money to the government without replacing it with private capital, which had been required under TARP. Administration officials said the measure could lead banks to return the money without adequate levels of capital in reserve, exacerbating the freeze in credit markets. n

U.S. President Obama Makes First Foreign Trip

unfettered. Harper Feb. 18 had warned that “protectionist” measures enacted by the U.S. could turn a global economic slowdown into a “depression.” His comments alluded to controversial “Buy American” provisions included in the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law by Obama the previous day. Harper had raised concerns that such provisions violated free trade agreements between the two countries. [See p. 89A1] Obama during his campaign had argued that the U.S. should consider withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), unless Canada and Mexico agreed to renegotiate certain labor and environmental provisions. Obama’s stance had raised concern among free-trade adherents in Canada, and he had backed away from those criticisms after taking office. [See 2008, p. 434B3] Obama at the Feb. 19 news conference also said he and Harper had begun talks on “clean energy” issues. Harper had sought to exempt Canadian oil produced from oil sands—a complicated procedure criticized by environmentalists for its high energy and resource requirements—from U.S. regulation. However, Obama had been lobbied strenuously by environmentalists not to accede to the request. The U.S. imported more oil from Canada than from any other country. Harper said he was concerned about bottlenecks at U.S.-Canada border crossings resulting from stricter security checks. Harper called for the two countries to “look at security in a way that does not inhibit commerce and social interaction.” Obama suggested that spending in the two countries’ stimulus packages could be directed toward alleviating border congestion. Obama also said he “did not press the prime minister on any additional commitment of troops” deployed to Afghanistan. Obama earlier in the week had ordered the deployment of an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to the country. Canada had about 2,500 troops based in Afghanistan who were scheduled to be withdrawn in 2011. [See p. 102C1] Obama that day also met briefly with Canadian opposition Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff. n

Visits Canada, Meets With PM Harper.

Space

U.S. President Barack Obama Feb. 19 visited Canada, in his first foreign trip since taking office in January, and met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss a number of issues. Obama arrived in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, in the morning, where he was greeted by Governor General Michaelle Jean, the country’s titular head of state. Harper and Obama reportedly discussed trade, energy, economic and security issues during their meetings. [See 2008, p. 280F3] At a joint news conference with Harper later in the day, Obama said he would work to ensure that bilateral trade between the U.S. and Canada would remain

Satellites Collide in Orbit. A U.S. communications satellite Feb. 10 collided with a defunct Russian military satellite in orbit about 500 miles (800 km) above the Russian region of Siberia, the first-ever such collision of satellites. The impact destroyed the satellites and sent hundreds of pieces of debris into orbit around Earth, raising concerns about the possible hazard they might pose to other satellites and orbiting spacecraft, including the International Space Station. Officials of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said the danger to the station was currently believed to be “very small” but “elevated.” [See 2008, p. 102B1]

February 19, 2009

The U.S. satellite, Iridium 33, was operated by Iridium Satellite LLC, which maintained a global satellite communications network for subscribers. It crashed into Cosmos 2251, a Russian military communications satellite that had been launched in 1993 and reportedly taken out of service in 1995. It was as yet unclear why the Iridium satellite was unable to avoid the collision. The U.S. military monitored the paths of satellites, among the the approximately 19,000 orbiting objects measuring four inches (10 cm) or more that it constantly tracked, and Iridium was equipped with an engine for maneuvering in space. The military Feb. 13 said it was tracking 699 pieces of debris identified so far as resulting from the accident. Some experts said the accident highlighted the rising danger posed by the uncontrolled accumulation of spacecraft and flotsam. The hazard created by the impact could persist and even increase as debris spread out over time, struck other objects, and slowly descended in altitude. Another large trail of debris, consisting of some 2,500 objects, according to NASA, had been created in 2007 when China conducted a test of an antisatellite missile. [See 2007, p. 45D2] n

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Other International News French, British Nuclear Submarines Collide.

Two submarines, one British and the other French, both armed with nuclear missiles, collided Feb. 3 while deep in the Atlantic Ocean during routine patrols, the defense ministries of both countries confirmed Feb. 16, after the British news media reported the accident. Officials said the crash occurred at low speed and did not damage either craft’s nuclear reactors or missiles, or cause any radiation leak. Both were able to return to their home ports with no injuries to any crew members. The submarines involved in the accident were Britain’s HMS Vanguard and France’s Le Triomphant. [See 1993, p. 243D2] The French navy had first reported the incident Feb. 6, saying that Le Triomphant had “collided with an immersed object,” but had not identified that object as another submarine. The ministry said the vessel’s sonar dome, located in its nose, had sustained severe damage. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Feb. 16 that the Vanguard had been towed back to its port in Scotland with visible dents and scrapes. Military experts said the U.S., Britain and France, the three members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that had nuclear-armed submarines, did not share information on their whereabouts at sea, although they did keep each other informed of the locations of other types of submarines. Nuclear-armed submarines were equipped with advanced technology that allowed them to evade detection by sonar. But since only a handful of such submarines were believed to be at sea at any given time, such a collision had been thought highly unlikely. n 91

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Mortgage & Credit Crisis $275 Billion Housing Market Plan Unveiled.

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President Barack Obama Feb. 18 unveiled a $275 billion program designed to stem a rising number of home foreclosures and halt a slide in housing prices. The plan was just one part of the Obama administration’s strategy to pull the economy out of a deepening recession. Obama the previous day had signed a $787 billion economic recovery plan that he claimed would create or save 3.5 million jobs, and his administration the previous week had outlined a $2 trillion plan to stabilize the weakened financial industry. [See pp. 89A1, 76A3] Obama, in a speech given Feb. 18 at a high school in Mesa, Ariz., said, “This plan will not save every home, but it will give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild.” He tied the housing market plan to the government’s initiatives in the financial industry and the broader economy, saying, “We cannot successfully address any one of them without addressing them all.” Problems in the housing market, which had seen prices fall steadily since a real estate bubble burst in 2006, directly affected consumer wealth, and had hit construction and manufacturing industries tied to homebuilding. Additionally, the financial industry had invested heavily in the mortgage market in recent years, and a continued slide in home prices threatened its viability and reduced its capacity to make loans. Economists said a solution to the housing crisis would help stabilize the financial industry, get credit flowing and bolster an important area of the broader economy. Housing and Urban Develoment (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan Feb. 18 said one in 10 homeowners was delinquent on a home loan in late 2008, and that six million homes could be subject to foreclosure over the next three years. Donovan said that beyond the nine million homeowners it would specifically aid, the plan would more broadly stem the fall in home prices by an average of about $6,000 per home. The plan was expected to be implemented March 4, and further details were to be released at that time. Under the government’s plan, $75 billion would be spent assisting homeowners who were on the verge of foreclosure. Lenders that agreed to reduce monthly mortgage payments to 38% of a homeowner’s monthly income, would then receive government funds that would allow the payments to be reduced further, to 31% of income. Lenders would also receive government incentives, such as $1,000 for every modified loan, and $1,000 payments for each year that the homeowner continued to make payments, for up to three years. The government estimated that the scheme could lead to modified loans for three million to four million homeowners. An additional four million to five million homeowners would be able to refinance mortgages that were owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, the government92

controlled mortgage-financing giants. Those homeowners were current on their payments, but were paying high interest rates and were unable to refinance their loans because their homes had lost value. Homeowners paying a loan worth between 80% and 105% of the home’s value would be eligible for the plan, which was limited to houses costing up to $417,000 in most of the country, or up to $729,000 in some high-priced regions. Obama said the government would provide Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with an additional $100 billion each in financing to support the plan. The government in September 2008 had said it would insure each lender against losses of up to $100 billion. [See 2008, p. 629D2] Obama also said he would urge Congress to pass legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of a loan and reduce its total cost. The move had been opposed by lenders, who said it violated contracts it had made with borrowers. While economists praised the plan as being the most aggressive that the government had yet presented, there remained doubts that it was enough to bring the housing market out of its slump. Home loans in recent years had been bundled into securities, and cut up and sold to investors around the world, making refinancing for many borrowers difficult. Additionally, economists noted that some homeowners who were severely “underwater,” but did not qualify for either aid plan, could choose to default, since they were paying much more than the house was worth. n

Automobiles Chrysler, GM Submit Restructuring Plans. Auburn Hills, Mich.–based Chrysler LLC

and Detroit, Mich.–based General Motors Corp. (GM) Feb. 17 submitted restructuring plans to the federal government, in which they requested an additional $21 billion in government loans, on top of $17.4 billion in loans that had been extended in December 2008. The $21 billion figure included $7.6 billion in funding requests previously made by the companies that the government had not provided. The restructuring plans were due as part of the terms of the December loan. A government task force would decide whether the automakers had proven themselves viable, and whether to extend more loans, by March 31. [See below, p. 62C2] In their restructuring plans, the embattled automakers announced broad job cuts and production slowdowns, but also warned that they could face bankruptcy if they did not receive the requested aid. Chrysler estimated that bankruptcy restructuring would require $25 billion in government debtor-in-possession financing, in which the company was provided with short-term loans through the bankruptcy process. GM claimed bankruptcy restructuring would require $100 billion in similar financing. However, some observers suggested that those numbers had been inflat-

ed in an attempt to prod the government into action. GM Feb. 17 received the final $4 billion installment from the December loan package. GM Requests $16 BIllion—GM, in its restructuring plan, said it needed a minimum of $9 billion in additional loans to avoid bankruptcy over the next few years, a figure that could rise to as much as $16 billion if economic conditions continued to deteriorate. It pledged to eliminate 47,000 jobs across the globe, including 10,000 white collar jobs. The cuts would leave GM with a workforce of about 200,000. GM also pledged to shutter 14 factories in North America by 2012, leaving a total of 33. It also said it would eliminate a number of brands in favor of focusing on its Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick brands. The company predicted that, with government loans, it could reach “sustainable profitability” by 2011. GM had not yet reached an agreement with its bondholders to reduce a $27 billion debt to $9 billion, as required by the terms of the government loan. Also, neither Chrysler nor GM had reached an agreement with the United Auto Workers (UAW) on how the automakers would fulfill retiree health-care obligations, which were estimated to be worth more than $20 million. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger Feb. 17 said the union had “reached tentative understandings” with Chrysler, GM and Dearborn, Mich–based Ford Motor Co. on altering union contracts that were ratified in 2007. (Ford had not requested any government aid, but reportedly did not want to become less competitive by not negotiating alongside Chrysler and GM.) [See 2007, p. 733E3] In related news, GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz Feb. 9 announced that he would retire at the end of 2009. Lutz had been involved with the auto industry for 46 years and was one of its most recognizable executives. He had often drawn the ire of environmentalists for his beliefs on global warming, having once said “cow flatulence” contributed more to the phenomenon than automobile emissions. Chrysler Requests $5 Billion—Chrysler, in its restructuring plan, said it needed an additional $5 billion in aid, on top of the $4 billion it had received under the December loan agreement. Chrysler pledged to cut its workforce to less than 51,000—a reduction of about 3,000 workers—and reduce its production output by 100,000 vehicles per year. Chrysler’s production capacity in North America was reportedly about 2.5 million vehicles per year, prompting some observers to suggest that the proposed output cuts were superficial. The company would also stop production of several models and introduce 24 new models in the next two years. However, the company was vague on what kind of vehicles it planned to unveil—some suggested that the new models would come from Italy’s Fiat SpA, which Chrysler in January had formed a tentative partnership with. Chrysler said the restructuring plan FACTS ON FILE

would allow it to start repaying government loans in 2012. [See p. 47G3] In addition to a restructuring plan, Chrysler submitted plans for an organized bankruptcy, though Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Nardelli said bankruptcy was “not a course of action that we’re recommending.” The partnership with Fiat was also contingent upon Chrysler receiving more aid. Reaction—White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Feb. 17 said, “More will be required from everyone involved—creditors, suppliers, dealers, labor and auto executives themselves—to ensure the viability of these companies.” Rep. Sander Levin (D, Mich.) urged the administration not to allow the automakers to go bankrupt. He warned that “a bankruptcy in this kind of a situation is very different from any other bankruptcy that has happened in this country in modern times…everybody would essentially lose everything,” the New York Times reported Feb. 19. Similarly, the auto parts industry, which had requested a $25 billion loan from the Treasury earlier in the month, had warned that it would collapse if the automakers went bankrupt. Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) suggested that Cerberus Capital Management LP, which owned 80.1% of Chrysler, put up more money if Chrysler was in need, as opposed to taxpayers. Sen. Bob Corker (R, Tenn.) the same day expressed concern that taxpayers were becoming increasingly concerned about “continual potential bailouts.” He added, “I think at some point we’re going to have to take some tough medicine.” Obama Creates Auto Task Force—President Barack Obama had created a presidential task force to oversee the restructuring process and make a decision on the additional loan requests by the March 31 deadline, it was reported Feb. 16 . The Presidential Task Force on Autos would be headed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Chair Lawrence Summers, according to the reports. Ron Bloom, a former investment banker who later became a top negotiator for the United Steelworkers union, would serve on the panel as a senior adviser to the Treasury. Many had expected Obama to appoint a “car czar” to oversee the restructuring and loan processes. n

Politics Burris Admits Blagojevich Fund-raising Bid.

Sen. Roland Burris (D, Ill.) Feb. 16 admitted that he had unsuccessfully tried to raise campaign funds in November 2008 for then–Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), while seeking the governor’s appointment to fill the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Burris had previously testified under oath that he had not done any such favors for Blagojevich, who faced federal corruption charges and had been impeached and removed from office by the state legislature in January. But in recent days, Burris had offered a series of differFebruary 19, 2009

ent accounts of his contacts with Blagojevich. [See p. 43A3] The Senate Ethics Committee Feb. 17 said it was opening an investigation into Burris, as did a local Illinois prosecutor, Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Schmidt (R). Burris, 71, had been seated as a senator in mid-January after overcoming initial resistance from Democratic leaders who had viewed his late December appointment as tainted because of the corruption charges against Blagojevich. Those charges, based on wiretapped telephone conversations, included allegations that the governor had attempted to sell Obama’s Senate seat to whomever offered him the highest price, in campaign contributions or other favors. In his latest revelations, in comments to reporters in Peoria, Ill., Burris said the governor’s brother, Rob Blagojevich, had asked him three times to raise money for the governor. Burris, a former state attorney general, said, “I’d talked to some people about trying to see if we could put a fund-raiser on,” but “they said, ‘We aren’t giving money to the governor.’” In his third conversation with Rob Blagojevich, Burris said, he had conveyed his decision not to raise any money for the governor because “I don’t want to have a conflict” with his pursuit of the Senate seat. Burris Feb. 18 spoke at the City Club of Chicago to plead for support from an audience of local political and business figures, saying, “I ask you today to stop the rush to judgment.” He declared, “I have a history with you, a record I have built over a lifetime—30 years in public life and never a hint of a scandal.” Sen. Richard Durbin (Ill.), the majority whip, or second-ranking Senate Democrat, that day said of Burris, “Every day there are more and more revelations about contacts with Blagojevich advisers,” adding, “This was not the full disclosure under oath that we asked for.” Previous Accounts Changed—In a sworn affidavit that he submitted Jan. 5 to the Illinois House impeachment committee, Burris had stated that “there was not any contact between myself or any of my representatives with Governor Blagojevich or any of his representatives” before his appointment. In sworn testimony before the committee Jan. 8, Burris was asked if he had discussed the Senate seat with anyone “closely related to the governor, including family members or lobbyists.” State Rep. Jim Durkin (R) posed the question with a list of names, including that of Rob Blagojevich. Burris, after conferring with his lawyer, replied, “I talked to some friends about my desire to be appointed,” but named only Lon Monk, Blagojevich’s former chief of staff. The Chicago Sun-Times Feb. 14 reported that Burris had submitted a second affidavit to the committee, dated Feb. 4, disclosing that he had in fact talked with five advisers to the governor, including three conversations with Rob Blagojevich. Burris at a Feb. 15 news conference said he had filed the second affidavit as a promised supplement to his testimony, not

as a revision. He said he had not cited the additional conversations in his testimony because lawmakers had moved on to other questions before he could provide a complete answer. Burris Feb. 15 said Rob Blagojevich had first called him in October 2008 to ask him to raise money for the governor. Burris said he replied that he could not do so at the time “because I was raising money for other candidates, and to call me back after the election.” Burris said that when Rob Blagojevich called him back twice after the Nov. 4 elections to repeat the request, he replied that he could not raise money for the governor because he was seeking the Senate seat. Burris acknowledged that federal investigators had “reached out” to his lawyers and “want to meet with me.” Gov. Pat Quinn (D) Feb. 15 said Burris “owes the people of Illinois a complete explanation.” Republican state lawmakers called on Burris to resign and said prosecutors should investigate whether he had committed perjury in his House testimony. The Chicago Tribune’s editorial page Feb. 18 also called for his resignation. n

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Obama Administration Panetta Confirmed as CIA Director. The Senate Feb. 12 approved by voice vote the nomination of Leon Panetta as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), replacing outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden. Panetta, who had been nominated for the position in January by President Barack Obama, had previously served as White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and as a Democratic House member from California. The Senate Intelligence Committee Feb. 11 had voted unanimously to advance Panetta’s nomination to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. [See p. 5C3] Panetta Feb. 5–6 testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of his confirmation hearings. Panetta criticized the Bush administration’s excessive secrecy and promised to brief the committee on all relevant intelligence matters, saying that doing so was “not optional. It is the law.” He also said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would be given access to all terrorism suspects captured by the CIA. In addition, Panetta said waterboarding—a controversial interrogation technique that had been used by the CIA against at least three detainees—constituted torture, but argued that CIA employees who had followed legal advice from Bush administration attorneys should not be prosecuted for their involvement in the interrogations. He also promised the committee that the agency would investigate Bush administration claims that the use of harsh interrogation techniques had helped to avert terrorist attacks. Experts argued that noncoercive techniques were more effective than torture and other harsh methods in extracting reliable information from suspects. 93

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Panetta earned more than $700,000 in consulting and speaking fees in 2008, according to financial disclosure forms released Feb. 4. He was paid $150,000 by California State University as well as another $170,000 by Zenith National Insurance Corp. In addition, Panetta received $56,000 from Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America Corp., for giving two speeches. n

Energy Salazar Cancels Oil and Gas Leases. In-

terior Secretary Ken Salazar Feb. 4 instructed the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to cancel 77 oil and gas leases on publicly owned land that had been purchased by energy companies in a December 2008 auction. The sale of the leases had been opposed by environmentalist groups because some of the land, which totaled about 130,000 acres (53,000 hectares), was located near protected sites such as the Dinosaur National Monument. [See 2008, p. 955F3] Salazar said he had ordered the leases canceled because of concerns that the department under former President George W. Bush had failed to fully consult with other federal agencies, including the National Park Service, before carrying out the auction. He said future sales of oil and gas exploration leases on some of the land was possible if legitimate environmental reviews found that they would not threaten nearby parks and other protected lands. Under Salazar’s order, companies that had purchased leases from the BLM in the sale would have their payments returned. The 77 leases to be canceled had garnered about $6 million from winning bidders, excluding royalties on actual oil or gas extraction. Judge Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Jan. 17 had issued a temporary order that blocked the implementation of the leases, in response to requests from environmental groups. Urbina said that “the threat of irreparable harm to public land if the leases are issued” had motivated his decision to delay the completion of the sales. Under the terms of the lease sale, payments from the winning bidders could otherwise have been deposited by the BLM Jan. 19, which would have finalized the transactions, making them difficult to reverse. n New Energy Efficiency Standards Ordered.

President Barack Obama Feb. 5 announced that he had ordered the Energy Department to complete the drafting of long-delayed energy efficiency standards for 30 categories of appliances and other electronic devices. The creation of new standards had been required as part of the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act but 22 had not been carried out by the mandated deadlines. The Bush administration had completed standards for seven of the remaining categories and had agreed to implement the standards for 15 more categories by June 2011. [See 2007, p. 843F3; 1975, p. 973C1] Obama said that the new standards would “save consumers money” and “spur 94

innovation” while also conserving “tremendous amounts of energy.” According to Obama, the implementation of new standards would save “over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a twoyear period by all the coal-fired plants in America.” Analysts questioned the verifiability of Obama’s prediction, noting previous difficulties in tracking energy and financial savings in the voluntary Energy Star program, which allowed appliance makers to certify the energy efficiency of their own products. The order set a June 30 deadline for completion of new standards for fluorescent and reflector lamps, and gave the department until August to complete new standards for eight other categories, including beverage vending machines, ovens and commercial boilers. Under the order, all remaining categories would have new efficiency standards established by the 2011 deadline. n

regulations of mercury emissions generated by coal plants. In 2008 an appeals court had struck down new emissions guidelines developed by the EPA, ruling that they violated the Clean Air Act. The guidelines allowed power plants to purchase pollution credits, instead of forcing them to reduce mercury emissions. [See 2008, p. 148E3] o The Justice Department Feb. 4 filed suit against Kansas utility Westar Energy, alleging that it had failed to follow a provision of the Clear Air Act requiring that it use the “best-available” emissions-reduction technology in retrofitting a coal-fired power plant. The lawsuit was filed on the behalf of the EPA. o The EPA, in a letter dated Jan. 22, withheld its approval of a coal-fired power plant in South Dakota that had received approval from state officials, citing pollution concerns. However, the EPA said once its concerns were addressed, construction of the plant could begin. n

Environment EPA Reconsiders Coal Pollution. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Commis-

sioner Lisa Jackson Feb. 17 said the agency would reconsider the position taken by her predecessor, Stephen Johnson, to not consider carbon dioxide a pollutant when issuing permits for coal-fired power plants. Johnson in December 2008 had spelled out the agency’s position on the issue in a memorandum. Jackson said she had granted a petition from the Sierra Club, an environmental group, asking the agency to reexamine the memorandum. [See 2008, p. 957C2] Johnson’s move was viewed by some as a move toward federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions generated by coal plants. However, her response did not include orders to suspend Johnson’s memorandum. Since the Supreme Court in April 2007 ruled that the EPA had the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, environmentalists had worked to block pollution permits for new coal plants. They had met with fierce opposition from the coal industry, which argued that such regulation was the responsibility of Congress. Other News—In other coal pollution and industry news: o The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., Feb. 13 overturned a 2007 decision requiring that the Army Corps of Engineers perform more in-depth reviews before granting permits for socalled mountaintop removal mining. That process destroyed mountain peaks in order to reveal coal seams, and was considered extremely damaging to the environment. Debris resulting from the mining was usually dumped into valleys containing streams or other waterways. The decision was lauded by coal mine operators and condemned by environmentalists. [See 2007, p. 668E3] o The Justice Department Feb. 6 withdrew a challenge to the Supreme Court of a lower-court ruling that enforced stricter

Terrorism Report Delayed by Mukasey and Deputy.

Newsweek magazine Feb. 14 reported on its Web site that an internal Justice Department report on the conduct of Bush administration attorneys who had signed off on the use of so-called harsh interrogation tactics in the questioning of terrorism suspects had been completed prior to the end of the Bush presidency, but had been delayed by then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey and one of his deputies. According to Newsweek, the report specifically criticized the legal opinions of former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee. [See p. 28D2; 2008, p. 146B2] Mukasey and then–Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip had reportedly objected to the report’s findings and had held up its release. Filip had reportedly asked the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which had carried out the investigation, to allow Yoo, Bybee and a third official, Steven Bradbury, the then–head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which had formulated the interrogation decisions, to respond to the depiction of their actions in the report. The New York Times Feb. 17 reported that all three men were currently in the process of responding. Upon taking office in January, President Barack Obama had issued an executive order invalidating all legal opinions on interrogation of terrorism suspects that had been formulated by the Bush administration following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Those opinions included an August 2002 memorandum written by Yoo and signed by Bybee that narrowed the definition of torture in order to permit the use of harsher interrogation methods. In a March 2003 memo, Yoo argued that neither international treaties nor U.S. law could bind actions, including harsh interrogations, ordered by a wartime president to protect national security. FACTS ON FILE

Investigation Found Paper Trail— The OPR report had been compiled after an in-

vestigation of all interrogation-related legal documents written during the Bush administration. The investigation examined whether lawyers employed by the OLC had intentionally shaped their legal opinions to fit the wishes of the Bush adminstration. Investigators had reportedly uncovered multiple drafts of the controversial memos as well as e-mails discussing the contents of the documents, allowing them to trace the evolution of the interrogation opinions. The OPR was to present the report to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. following its completion. Holder had the authority to pass on the report’s findings to state bar associations, which could conduct their own investigations into the actions of the Bush administration lawyers for possible violations of professional standards. In addition, the report was expected to be shown to relevant congressional committees, and H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of OPR, had previously raised the possibility that a summary of the report would be publicly released. Senators Request Update—In response to the Newsweek story, Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) Feb. 16 sent Jarrett a letter asking for an update on the status of the OPR’s report. In the letter, the senators asked Jarrett to tell them whether a draft of the report had previously been submitted, as well as whether Mukasey had objected to the report and whether Yoo and others were being interviewed. Whitehouse and Durbin also noted that Mukasey had testified in July 2008 that he would not block the release of the report, saying, “If OPR wants it released, it will be released.” The letter said Durbin’s staff had received an e-mail from a Justice Department official on Oct. 16, 2008, that projected that the report would be completed in “4–5 weeks.”n Ruling on Chinese Detainees Overturned.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Feb. 18 unanimously ruled that a lower court judge had exceeded his authority by ordering the U.S. government to release 17 Chinese Muslim detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to allow them to resettle in the U.S. The most recent decision was criticized by human rights advocacy groups, which argued that it violated the intent of a June 2008 Supreme Court ruling that granted habeas corpus rights to terrorism detainees. [See p. 63C3; 2008, p. 723C2] The earlier ruling had been made by Judge Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., who found that the U.S. government had no valid reason to continue holding the detainees, and noted that “the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause.” The ruling was the first to order the release of U.S. terrorism detainees and the first to require the U.S. to allow detainees to enter the U.S. The panel split on its reasoning for overturning Urbina’s ruling, with two of the panel’s judges finding that only the executive branch had the authority to decide if February 19, 2009

foreign nationals should be allowed into the country, while the third judge ruled that Urbina had erred by failing to consult with U.S. immigration officials before ordering the release of the detainees. Following the ruling, the case was returned to Urbina for additional consideration. The 17 detainees were members of the Uighur ethnic group, which lived primarily in China’s western Xinjiang region. The U.S. government had determined that the detainees were not enemy combatants, but they had not been released because the U.S. had been unable to find a country willing to accept them. U.S. officials had declined to return the men to China because of concerns that they would be tortured there; the Chinese government had previously accused the men of belonging to a violent separatist group. n

Accidents & Disasters 50 Dead in New York Plane Crash. Conti-

nental Connection Flight 3407, a 74-seat, twin-engine Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turbopropeller aircraft, Feb. 12 crashed into a house in Clarence Center, N.Y., outside Buffalo, killing all 49 people aboard the plane and one person in the house. The flight, operated by Manassas, Va.–based Colgan Air Inc. for Continental Airlines Inc., was en route to Buffalo from Newark, N.J. Colgan Air was owned by Memphis, Tenn.–based Pinnacle Airlines Corp. [See p. 33F1] While initial reports suggested that ice buildup on the plane likely contributed to the accident, later reports indicated that the crash might have been caused by pilot error. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was investigating the crash, but a final analysis was not expected for as long as a year. NTSB investigators Feb. 13 said the aircraft’s crew, shortly before the scheduled landing, had reported “significant ice buildup” on the plane’s wings and windshield. Ground control lost contact with the crew soon after. After the pilot deployed landing gear at about 1,600 feet (485 m), the aircraft began to “pitch and roll,” a situation where the plane’s nose lurched up and down while the wings wobbled back and forth. NTSB officials Feb. 15 confirmed that shortly before the crash, the aircraft had been on autopilot while flying in icy conditions, against recommendations in the aircraft’s flight manual. The Wall Street Journal Feb. 18 reported that investigators had said the aircraft had decelerated to dangerously slow speeds just before landing, which risked stalling the engines. The plane’s automatic safety system then engaged in an attempt to pull the nose down in order to gain speed. However, according to the report, Capt. Marvin Renslow, 47, apparently pulled back against the automatic system, pointing the plane’s nose up. The maneuver caused the plane to enter an abrupt descent. The crash took place about six miles (10 km) from Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Several notable passengers died in the crash, including Beverly Eckert, 57, whose

husband had died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Eckert, of Stamford, Conn., had served as co-chairwoman of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, which probed for government missteps that could have allowed the attacks to succeed. Also aboard the plane was Alison Des Forges, 66, of Buffalo, who had served as a senior adviser to the Africa division at U.S.–based advocacy group Human Rights Watch. [See p. 104C3; 1999, p. 483B3] n

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Consumer Affairs Hearing on Tainted Peanuts Held. The House

Commerce and Energy investigations subcommittee Feb. 11 held a hearing on the widespread presence of the salmonella bacterium in peanut butter and other products produced at a Blakely, Ga., plant operated by Peanut Corp. of America. As of Feb. 19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 654 people in 44 states had been made ill in the outbreak since September 2008, at least nine of whom had died. The discovery had sparked a wide-ranging recall of some 2,100 food products that contained materials made by Peanut Corp., growing into one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. [See p. 63E1] Peanut Corp. President Stewart Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the Blakely plant, were subpoenaed to appear before the subcommittee Feb. 11, but both exercised their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves in response to all questions. In one particularly dramatic moment, Rep. Greg Walden (R, Ore.) held up a plastic jar bound with yellow caution tape that held several recalled food products and invited Parnell and Lightsey to eat them. Their appearance had been preceded by testimony from several people affected by the salmonella outbreak. The subcommittee Feb. 11 also released e-mails and other records that showed Parnell had attempted to evade positive bacteria tests by sending peanut products to different laboratories until they returned a negative result. In one e-mail, Parnell wrote that delays related to the positive tests were “costing us huge $$$$$ and causing an obviously huge lapse in time from the time we pick up peanuts until the time we can invoice.” Peanut Corp. Feb. 13 filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal bankruptcy court in Lynchburg, Va. Texas state health officials Feb. 12 had closed the company’s Plainview, Texas, plant after finding dead rodents, rodent excrement and other impurities there. A recall was ordered that day for all products ever made at the Plainview plant. A lawyer for Peanut Corp. Feb. 13 said the company’s last remaining plant, in Suffolk, Va., had also been closed. n

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Medicare & Medicaid Rhode Island Medicaid Reform Takes Effect.

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its Medicaid program took effect Jan. 19. Medicaid was a joint state-federal program that paid for health care for the poor and disabled, and was largely administered by individual states. The CMS in December 2008 had approved the waiver, which capped federal and state spending on Medicaid in the state at $12.1 billion for the period between 2009 and 2013, a move that would save the federal government money. [See 2008, p. 967F1, B2; 2005, p. 737D2] The waiver granted Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) powers normally reserved by the federal government to change aspects of the Medicaid program, in order to close expected budget shortfalls. The spending cap was estimated by various groups to be $358 million–$842 million less than was needed to sustain Medicaid in Rhode Island in its current form through 2013. Rhode Island spent about $1.7 billion annually on Medicaid, a figure equal to about 25% of its budget. Carcieri had been vague about the changes he planned to make to Medicaid, but controversially said he would attempt to reduce expensive nursing home costs by increasing at-home care for elderly beneficiaries. Members of the state legislature said they would work to introduce legislation requiring lawmaker approval for any substantial changes to the Medicaid program. Opponents of the reform plan had argued that it could result in longer wait times for patients, or reduced services. Some said it was dangerous to limit Medicaid funding in light of a worsening economy that would likely result in rising numbers of people seeking health care through the program. The New York Times Jan. 22 reported that a poll of 40 state governments had found a substantial overall increase in the number of people signing up for Medicaid between 2007 and 2008. According to the Times, 16 of 40 states saw enrollment grow at least 5% in the time period. Most of the growth was among children in poor families. State governments’ ability to fund the program was complicated by shrinking revenues resulting from the wider economic decline. Most states had dealt with potential budget shortfalls by cutting payments to health care providers. n

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Teen Birth Rates Reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Jan.

7 reported that Mississippi had the highest teen birth rate in the U.S. in 2006, the latest year for which data were available. The state had 68 births to mothers aged 15 to 19 per 1,000 total births, followed by New Mexico (64) and Texas (63). New Hampshire had the lowest rate, with 19 per 1,000. Some experts said the increase in the birth rate could be due to a rise in abstinenceonly sex education that did not teach children how to use contraceptives. The CDC in 2007 had released a report showing the teen birth rate had risen in 2006 for the first time in 14 years; the recent report provided more details on the data. [See 2007, p. 874D3] n 96

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South Africa Elections Set for April 22. South African President Kgalema Motlanthe Feb. 10 said general elections would be held April 22. In the elections, voters would choose members of the national parliament, as well as provincial legislatures. The national parliament would then select South Africa’s next president. It was widely expected that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party would win the elections, and that its leader, Jacob Zuma, would become president. However, the ANC faced a strong challenge from a new party, Congress of the People (COPE), formed in late 2008 by ANC dissidents. [See p. 21F3] The ANC’s election campaign had been hampered by pending corruption charges against Zuma. A court in the city of Pietermaritzburg Feb. 4 set an Aug. 25 trial date for Zuma; however, his lawyers reportedly had petitioned the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, to get the charges dismissed. The ANC Feb. 13 was hit by another scandal when the Mail and Guardian newspaper published an admission by ANC spokesman Carl Niehaus that he had used government funds to support a luxurious lifestyle while working for the Gauteng provincial government. The ANC dismissed him as spokesman after the revelations. In what was seen as a boost for the ANC, highly respected former President Nelson Mandela, who at age 90 rarely made public appearances, Feb. 15 attended a rally for Zuma in Eastern Cape Province. [See 2008, p. 528B3] In a related development, the Pretoria High Court Feb. 9 had ruled that South Africans living abroad were eligible to vote in the elections. If the decision was confirmed by the Constitutional Court, it would mean that about two million expatriate South Africans—a large number of whom were whites who had left the country after the end of apartheid in 1994—would be eligible to vote. Analysts said confirmation of the decision could lead to a delay in the elections in order for new voting procedures to be implemented. n Government Moves to Ward Off Recession.

Tito Mboweni, governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the central bank, Feb. 5 announced an interest rate reduction of one percentage point, to 10.5%, the largest single reduction since September 2003. He said it was needed because South Africa’s economy—the largest in Africa— would endure “a rough patch for the next three to four years” due to the global economic crisis. [See pp. 100A3, 98C3, 89A1; 2003, p. 802E2] South Africa’s economy, after growing 5% per year between 2004 and 2007, was expected to grow by around 3% in 2008, the Economist reported Feb. 12. Because its economy was more advanced and open than those of other countries on the continent, South Africa was more exposed to the global downturn, and its manufacturing,

mining and retail trade sectors were already in recession, the Economist reported. The official unemployment rate was 23.2% in the third quarter of 2008, although unoffical estimates put it as high as 35%. However, December 2008 inflation had dropped to 9.5%, Statistics South Africa reported Jan. 28, down from 11.8% in November, and was expected to continue to fall. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, in announcing the government’s annual budget Feb. 11, presented a plan to spend 787 billion rand ($81 billion) on infrastructure projects that would create jobs. Many of those projects would be tied to preparations for hosting the 2010 soccer World Cup. As a result of the increased spending, Manuel forecast a budget deficit of equivalent to 3.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) for the current fiscal year; a surplus had been posted the previous year. [See 2008, p. 679F2; 2004, p. 376E2] n

Zimbabwe Arrest of MDC Official Threatens Stability.

The Zimbabwean government Feb. 13 arrested Roy Bennett, a top official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and the deputy agriculture minister– designate in a new unity government between the MDC and the longtime ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party, on charges of treason. His arrest came the same day that a new power-sharing cabinet was sworn in. [See p. 81A1] Bennett, 52, was one of thousands of white farmers in Zimbabwe whose land had been confiscated by the government of President Robert Mugabe in a violent and disastrous land reform program that began in 2000. Since then, he had become a vocal critic of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF, and the third highest-ranking member of the MDC. He had spent much of the past few years in South Africa, and returned only after the MDC and the ZANU-PF agreed to the powersharing deal. Mugabe and the ZANU-PF had ruled Zimbabwe since it gained independence from Britain in 1980. Bennett was arrested on immigration charges as he tried to board a plane at a small airport near Harare, the capital, to travel to neighboring South Africa, where his family lived. He was then taken to the eastern city of Mutare, some 130 miles (210 km) from Harare, and imprisoned on treason charges. The charges stemmed from an alleged 2006 plot to overthrow Mugabe. The MDC called the charges “scandalous” and “politically motivated.” The MDC claimed that the police fired live ammunition into the air in an effort to disperse protesters who had gathered outside the prison where Bennett was being held. Bennett’s arrest, as well as the ZANUPF’s failure to keep its promise to release more than 30 human rights activists who had been detained for months, was seen as an effort by hard-liners in the ZANU-PF to undermine the unity government, which they opposed. Britain’s Observer newspaFACTS ON FILE

per Feb. 15 reported that the five-member Joint Operations Command (JOC)—which was comprised of the heads of the army, air force, police, prisons and intelligence— had been working behind the scenes to sabotage the deal by terrorizing and intimidating MDC members and supporters. Some analysts suggested that they might be acting independently of Mugabe. The JOC members were notably absent from the Feb. 13 cabinet swearing-in ceremony. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, who had been sworn in Feb. 11, Feb. 14 said Bennett’s arrest “raises a lot of concerns. It undermines the spirit of our agreement.” However, he asserted that Mugabe was only “part of the problem” and was “not the obstacle we are now facing.” Tsvangirai added, “We have to budget for some residual resistance from those who see [the power-sharing] deal as a threat to their interest.” Tsvangirai’s failure to secure the release of Bennett or the imprisoned activists called into question just how much power he really wielded as prime minister in the government, especially over the security apparatus. Bennett’s lawyer, Trust Maanda, Feb. 16 said the treason charges had been dropped and that his client instead had been charged with planning to purchase weapons for an attack on a telecommunications station. The MDC in a statement called the charges, which were a violation of the Public Order and Security Act, a “fishing expedition.” Bennett Feb. 17 appeared in a court in Mutare to face charges of illegally possessing firearms with the intent to commit acts of insurgency, banditry and terrorism. He was also charged with violating immigration laws for allegedly trying to leave Zimbabwe illegally. Magistrate Livingstone Chipadza the next day upheld all but the immigration charge, and ordered Bennett to remain in custody until March 4. Bennett was to have been sworn in as deputy agriculture minister Feb. 18, but instead remained in prison. Cabinet Sworn In— Thirty-one cabinet ministers—15 from the ZANU-PF, 13 from the main faction of the MDC, led by Tsvangirai, and three from a splinter MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara—were sworn in Feb. 13 in Harare, before an audience of dignitaries that included South African President Kgalema Motlanthe. The ceremony was delayed by more than two hours, after at least six extra ZANU-PF officials arrived with the expectation of being sworn in. After negotiations between the parties, the ZANU-PF reportedly gained two extra ministers without portfolios, and the MDC gained one. The MDC-Tsvangirai ministers included Tendai Biti as finance minister, Giles Mutsekwa as home affairs co-minister (as part of the power-sharing deal, the home affairs ministry, which controlled the police, was shared by the MDC and the ZANU-PF), Eric Matinenga as constitutional affairs minister and Henry Madzorera as health minister. Madzorera would be tasked with addressing Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic, which the World Health Organization said February 19, 2009

had reached 3,712 fatalities and 78,882 recorded cases as of Feb. 17. The ZANU-PF ministers included Emmerson Mnangagwa as defense minister, Patrick Chinamasa as justice minister, Sydney Sekeramayi as state security minister, Joseph Made as agriculture minister and Kembo Mohadi as home affairs cominister. The first meeting of the new cabinet was held Feb. 17, chaired by Mugabe. After the meeting, Tsvangirai reportedly summoned Mnangagwe, Sekeramayi and Mohadi to demand a return to the rule of law to Zimbabwe, specifically with regard to the cases of Bennett and the imprisoned activists. Biti Feb. 18 announced that at least 130,000 soldiers, teachers and civil servants would be paid $100 a month in U.S. dollars, instead of Zimbabwean dollars, which had become virtually worthless due to record inflation that had reached an estimated 10 sextillion percent. He said the government had enough U.S. dollars to make the payments in February and March. Britain’s Financial Times Feb. 14 had reported that the Zimbabwean government would likely have to rely on foreign aid from other southern African nations and international institutions to make such payments in the future and to get the economy back on track. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said his government was open to lifting sanctions and offering aid if Zimbabwe showed “clear evidence…in respect of political prisoners, in respect of economic reform.” n

AMERICAS

Mexico Former General Killed in Cancun. Former Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones Feb. 2 was kidnapped, along with a bodyguard and driver, from downtown Cancun and later shot fatally in the head. The bodies of the three men, bearing signs of torture, were found Feb. 3 in the jungle near Cancun. Tello, one of the highest-ranking members of the military, had retired in January and begun serving as a security consultant in Cancun. Organized drug cartels were suspected of carrying out the murder; Cancun was a hub for drug trafficking. [See 2008, p. 977D2] The federal government Feb. 9 arrested Francisco Velasco Delgado, Cancun’s police chief, along with 35 other officers, in connection with the murders. The army also briefly took over the city’s police headquarters during the arrests. Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa had sent thousands of troops and federal police officers across the country to combat cartels after taking office in December 2006. Since Calderon had launched his crusade, violence in Mexico had become more frequent and gruesome, and had spread to regions previously unaffected by the drug trade. Calderon’s efforts had been complicated by endemic corruption within various local police forces, which often worked with cartels.

Other News—In other news related to the drug trade and violence: o The police commander of western Sinaloa state Feb. 6 was shot and killed, along with two other officers, while on his way to arrest a suspect. The men were killed in an ambush after arriving at the city of Palo Verde. o The military Jan. 23 said it had arrested a man who had confessed to dissolving the remains of at least 300 drug cartel murder victims in acid. The man, Santiago Meza Lopez, said he had destroyed the bodies while working for drug kingpin Teodoro Garcia Simental, who had broken with the Arellano Felix cartel. n

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Venezuela Presidential Term Limit Ended by Voters.

Voters in Venezuela Feb. 15 backed a proposal by President Hugo Chavez Frias to amend the country’s constitution to end the presidential term limit. According to preliminary results, about 54.4% of people voted in favor of the proposal, while 45.6% opposed it. The current constitution limited presidents to two six-year terms. Chavez’s term was set to expire in 2013; the abolition of the presidential term limit would allow him to run for reelection in 2012. [See 2008, p. 978A2] Chavez, 54, was first elected in 1998, then oversaw the drafting of a new constitution that was approved in December 1999. He was elected to his first six-year term under the new constitution in 2000, and then to a second term in 2006. The outcome of the referendum was a major political victory for Chavez, a populist leader who had nationalized many of the country’s foreign-owned businesses and emerged as a staunch critic of the U.S. Chavez had increased the government’s spending on social programs, reducing the poverty rate to 26% in 2008, from 54% in 2003, according to government statistics. However, he had relied largely on revenues generated by oil sales to fund government spending, and analysts cautioned that Venezuela would face economic difficulties as the demand for, and price of, oil dropped. In December 2007, voters had defeated a wide-ranging constitutional amendment backed by Chavez that would have eliminated term limits. Opposition party members had also made gains in midterm state elections held in November 2008. Analysts said the latest vote reflected a fractured but sizable opposition. [See 2008, p. 871E2] In the run-up to the election, Chavez had campaigned intensively in support of the amendment. An opposition coalition, largely consisting of university students and traditional elites, charged that Chavez had abused governmental powers by making use of state vehicles and other resources to campaign, and reportedly pressuring state workers to attend his rallies. Chavez Indicates Interest in U.S. Talks—

Chavez Feb. 14 signaled that he was open to direct talks with U.S. President Barack Obama. At a news conference attended by foreign journalists, Chavez said that “any 97

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day is propitious for talking.” He also indicated a willingness to meet with Obama in April, prior to a summit of Western Hemisphere nations. [See 2008, p. 661D2] Soon after Obama’s election, Chavez had expressed openness to establishing less combative diplomatic relations than he had held with Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. However, Chavez had reportedly taken umbrage at comments made in January by Obama in which he expressed concern over Venezuelan support of Colombian rebels. n

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Bushfire Deaths Reach 208. The Australian Red Cross Feb. 19 announced that 208 people had been confirmed dead as a result of widespread bushfires in the state of Victoria. More than 4,000 firefighters had been deployed to combat the blazes, which in less than two weeks had destroyed at least 1,834 homes across Victoria and had displaced about 7,000 residents. A total of five uncontrolled fires were still burning as of Feb. 19, including one that began that day. Police were investigating the possibility that it had resulted from arson. [See p. 83A2] Police Feb. 13 had announced that they had arrested a suspect in connection with the intentional setting of a bushfire that had killed at least 21 people in Victoria’s Gippsland region. The suspect, Brendan Sokaluk, was charged with arson causing death and intentionally or recklessly lighting a bushfire, as well as with possession of child pornography. Sokaluk’s name was made public Feb. 16 by Australian media sources. They were barred from publishing photos of Sokaluk, 39, or his home address out of concern for the safety of his family. n

E Cambodia First Khmer Rouge Genocide Trial Begins.

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A joint tribunal run by the United Nations and the government of Cambodia Feb. 17 opened the first genocide trial of a highranking member of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime in Phnom Penh, the capital. The Khmer Rouge had overseen the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, torture and other abuses during its 1975–79 rule. [See p. 68D1] The defendant, Kang Kek Ieu, also known as “Duch,” had run the Khmer Rouge’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison—also known as Security Prison 21 (S-21)— where more than 14,000 prisoners had been killed. Duch, 66, had confessed to his part in the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities in a 1999 interview, but had claimed that he would have been murdered by his superiors if he had failed to obey their orders. The tribunal, which was known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), had also arrested four other surviving members of the Khmer Rouge’s leadership, including former Khmer Rouge ideological head Nuon Chea. It was unclear 98

if other surviving members of the regime would be charged, and critics said the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen was limiting the scope of the trial to protect former Khmer Rouge members who had joined the government. Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot had died in 1998 without standing trial. [See 1998, p. 262C1] At the hearing, an attorney representing Duch objected to an attempt by prosecutors to add a former Tuol Sleng prisoner as a civil party to the case. The victim, Norng Chan Pal, who had been a child at the time of the Khmer Rouge’s rule, had missed the case’s filing deadline. Duch’s attorney, Francois Roux, argued that allowing the victim to join the case would violate Duch’s human rights. Only about 12 people were known to have survived incarceration at Tuol Sleng, and only four of those people, including the newly discovered victim, were still alive. n

China Wen Tours Europe. Chinese Prime Minis-

ter Wen Jiabao Jan. 27 arrived in Switzerland at the beginning of a four-nation European tour, during which he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Wen Jan. 30 visited Brussels, Belgium, the headquarters of the EU, and met with Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. They agreed to hold a summit meeting originally scheduled for December 2008 that China had canceled after President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which then held the rotating EU presidency, met with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom China considered a separatist. [See p. 58A2; 2008, p. 979C3] Wen and Barroso did not set a date for the summit, but said the two sides in April would hold trade talks within a framework established in 2008. The current global economic downturn was the dominating theme of Wen’s tour. In Germany, where he met Jan. 29 with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Wen said that China should not be blamed for “strong fluctuations” in currency markets, and throughout the trip said China was determined to maintain a “balanced” and “reasonable” exchange rate policy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during his recent confirmation process had said that China was “manipulating” its currency, the yuan, by holding it at an artificially low exchange value. [See p. 30C2] Wen Jan. 30 traveled to Spain, and on to Britain Feb. 1. He said in London Feb. 2 that the financial crisis “shows how dangerous a totally unregulated market can be.” Wen and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed agreement on the importance of resisting the rise of protectionist sentiment in response to the economic downturn, which they said would only make it worse. Chinese companies signed a number of business agreements with European counterparts during Wen’s tour, and he said in London that China would seek to make additional major purchases of European prod-

ucts and technology to combat protectionist feeling against Chinese exports. Also that day, a protester threw a shoe at Wen during a speech he was giving at Cambridge University in England, recalling a similar assault by an Iraqi journalist on then–U.S. President George W. Bush in December 2008. The shoe landed without hitting Wen. The thrower of the shoe was a Cambridge researcher, German citizen Martin Jahnke, 27, who was charged with an offense against public order. [See 2008, p. 913F2] Chinese state television Feb. 3 broadcast footage of the incident, in a departure from state media’s habit of avoiding coverage of potentially unflattering incidents. Wen left London for China Feb. 2. n

Japan Economy Shrinks at Dramatic Pace. The

Japanese government Feb. 16 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had shrunk in the fourth quarter of 2008 by 3.3% from the previous quarter, and at an annualized rate of 12.7%. That was the worst quarterly GDP decline since the first quarter of 1974, and a much steeper drop than suffered by other major economies so far in the current global downturn. The U.S. had registered a 3.8% annualized GDP decline for the quarter; the GDP of the eurozone, the 16 countries of the European Union that used the common euro currency, had contracted by 1.5% from the previous quarter. [See pp. 100A3, 50G3; 2008, p. 855B2] Japanese Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano Feb. 16 said the country’s economy, the second-largest in the world, was experiencing “the worst crisis since World War II.” Continuing declines in exports— at a 14% rate in the fourth quarter of 2008—and business investment helped drive the slowdown. It was the third consecutive quarter in which GDP had fallen. Finance Minister Resigns—Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa Feb. 17 resigned over his erratic behavior during a news conference at a meeting of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations in Rome Feb. 14. Nakagawa attributed his condition at the news conference, in which he appeared drowsy and mangled his answers, to the effects of a cold medicine combined with wine, but denied suggestions that he had been drinking heavily. Nakagawa initially said he would step down after the passage of currently pending budget legislation containing the government’s latest economic stimulus plans, but later Feb. 17 made his resignation effective immediately. Prime Minister Taro Aso said Yosano would assume the finance portfolio. The incident added to the political damage that Aso’s government was suffering from the poor state of the economy. Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a fellow member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Feb. 12 blasted Aso in an unusual case of public criticism by a predecessor, questioning his ability to lead the party into parliamentary elections due FACTS ON FILE

by September. Koizumi said he was “appalled” by remarks by Aso distancing himself from one of Koizumi’s main reform initiatives, the privatization of the Japanese postal savings system. [See 2005, p. 785A2] Koizumi also questioned the government’s inclusion of a cash handout in the stimulus bill, despite the fact that it was widely unpopular and opposition to the provision threatened to slow the passage of the bill. n

Other Asia-Pacific News More Adrift Rohingya Refugees Rescued.

A group of 198 seaborne refugees Feb. 2 were discovered off the coast of Indonesia’s Aceh territory. The refugees, who were members of Myanmar’s oppressed Muslim Rohingya minority group, said they had been captured at sea by the Thai military and then left without sufficient food or water to drift in a boat without engines or sails. The boat had reportedly drifted for 21 days before it was found, during which time 22 people on board had died. Survivors were being treated at a hospital in Aceh. [See p. 51F3] Survivors said that the Thai military had abandoned them as part of a group of 1,200 people on nine engineless vessels. Of those, about 850 Rohingya had so far been found, including those rescued in the most recent incident; another boat had been found off the coast of Aceh under similar circumstances in January, while three had been found near India and one in Thailand. Three boats remained missing. Indonesian media sources Feb. 8 reported that Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda had invited the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to examine the status of the Rohingya survivors and raised the possibility that the survivors could be allowed to apply for refugee status within Indonesia. Wirajuda also called for the refugees’s “countries of origin” to cease mistreatment of ethnic and racial minorities in conjunction with the human rights provisions of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) charter. Analysts suggested that the comment was likely directed at fellow ASEAN member Myanmar. [See 2008, p. 184E2] U.S. Decries Myanmar Abuses—Richard Boucher, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, Feb. 8 called for Myanmar’s military government to end its “persecution of Rohingyas” and said the U.S. considered the mistreatment of the group to be “a matter of concern.” Boucher’s comments were made during a two-day visit to Bangladesh, where about 230,000 Rohingya refugees had taken up residence after fleeing Myanmar. Myanmar’s state-run media Jan. 30 had rejected claims that the Rohingya refugees were from Myanmar, stating that the Rohingya ethnic group was “not included in over 100 national races of the Union of Myanmar.” However, about 723,000 Rohingya reportedly lived in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. February 19, 2009

Thai Prime Minister Admits Possibility—

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Feb. 12 said during an interview with the U.S.’s Cable News Network (CNN) that he had “reason to believe some instances” of Rohingya refugees being abandoned at sea had taken place, although he said that it was not government policy. However, he maintained that “when these practices do occur, it is done on the understanding that there is enough food and water supplied,” and expressed regret regarding “any losses” of life that had occurred. The following day, Abhisit said that accusations of abuse leveled against the Thai military had been concocted by people “trying to pressure the Thai government to change the status of the Rohingya people” and accept them as refugees. He argued that the Rohingya were not refugees because they had been traveling in search of work, and offered to assist any western nation interesting in accepting the Rohingya as refugees. About 20,000 Rohingya illegal immigrants were thought to live in Thailand, which shared a border with Myanmar. Abhisit Feb. 18 announced that a Thai government investigative department would begin examining allegations that Rohingya refugees had been abused and abandoned by the Thai military. The government had previously said it would carry out a special investigation of the claims only if an internal review by the military proved insufficient. n

Germany New Economy Minister Named. German

Chancellor Angela Merkel Feb. 9 named Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg as economy minister, replacing Michael Glos, who had resigned Feb. 8. Guttenberg, 37, was a top official of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) of the southern state of Bavaria, which Glos also belonged to. The CSU was the sister party of Merkel’s national Christian Democratic Union, the senior party in a so-called grand coalition government with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). [See p. 22F3; 2008, p. 707E2] Glos had failed to gain much influence over economic policy during the ongoing global financial crisis. His advocacy for large-scale tax cuts had not drawn support from Merkel, who instead had worked with Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck of the SPD to respond to the crisis. She had recently unveiled plans for a 50 billion euro ($67 billion) economic stimulus package based on infrastructure spending. The CSU had recently started voicing more criticism of Merkel and her coalition, after losing its longtime majority in the Bavarian state legislature in September 2008 elections. The party had threatened to block Merkel’s stimulus plan, forcing her to concede to its demands to include some tax cuts in the package. n

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France State Role in Holocaust Acknowledged.

France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, Feb. 16 ruled that the French government during World War II had been responsible for deporting 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps, where most of them were killed. The council said French officials had assisted in the deportations without being forced to do so by the Germans. The ruling was the clearest legal acknowledgment to date of the role played in the Holocaust by France’s collaborationist Vichy government during the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944. [See 2007, p. 249B1; 2001, p. 79E1] However, the council ruled that no further reparations should be paid to those who had been deported or their families. It said, “The various measures taken since the end of World War II, both in terms of compensation as well as symbolic reparation, have repaired, as much as was possible, all the losses suffered.” The ruling had been prompted by a case in a lower court in which the daughter of a Jewish man who was deported from France and died at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland, sought $250,000 in reparations. Several similar cases were pending in French courts. The council’s ruling was expected to lead to their dismissal. n

British Lawyer Convicted in Berlusconi Case.

A court in Milan, Italy, Feb. 17 convicted British lawyer David Mills of accepting a $600,000 bribe in exchange for giving false testimony in two 1990s corruption trials to protect Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Mills, who was not present in the Milan court for the verdict, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. However, it was considered doubtful that he would serve any prison time, pending ongoing appeals, before the statute of limitations for the case expired in February 2010. [See 2006, p. 963A3] Berlusconi, a billionaire media magnate, had faced repeated prosecutions for corruption related to his business activities. His several convictions had all been either overturned on appeal or nullified by the statute of limitations. He had been a codefendant in Mills’s case until the Italian parliament, at his behest, approved a law in July 2008 that granted him immunity from prosecution while in office. In 2004, Mills had told prosecutors that he had received the payment for his testimony from Berlusconi, but later retracted that claim. Berlusconi had denied making such a payment. Mills was the estranged husband of British member of Parliament Tessa Jowell, the minister responsible for planning the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. She issued a statement calling the verdict “a terrible blow” to Mills, adding that “although we are separated, I never doubted his innocence.” n 99

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Walter Veltroni, leader of Italy’s main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party, resigned Feb. 18 after the party lost a gubernatorial election in the island region of Sardinia. Veltroni, a former mayor of Rome, had overseen the creation of the Democratic Party in 2007, uniting former communists and centrist Christian Democrats in a bid to form a united front against the conservative coalition led by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But the party had been weakened by factional infighting, and Veltroni’s departure was seen as a sign of Berlusconi’s renewed dominance of Italian politics after returning to power in April 2008 parliamentary elections for a third stint as prime minister. [See p. 99D3; 2008, p. 265A1] Veltroni apologized at a Feb. 17 news conference in Rome for his failure to “create the party I wanted and the voters wanted.” But he warned that Italy’s “system of values has been twisted” by Berlusconi’s “hegemony.” Veltroni’s deputy, Dario Franceschini, took over as interim party leader, but no permanent successor had emerged yet. n

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Three Acquitted in Politkovskaya Trial. A Russian jury Feb. 19 unanimously acquitted three men—former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov and two Chechen brothers, Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov—of involvement in the 2006 murder of prominent journalist and rights activist Anna Politkovskaya. Politkovskaya had done much of her work in Chechnya, a majority-Muslim republic in southern Russia, where she had documented links between Russian authorities and severe human rights abuses. The Russian prosecutor general’s office said it would appeal the verdict. [See p. 36D2; 2008 p. 856F1] The defendants had been accused of being accomplices to her murder, and had faced life sentences if convicted. Also acquitted that day was former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Pavel Ryaguzov, who had been accused of abuse of office and extortion for his dealings with the Makhmudov brothers. A third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, was suspected of carrying out Politkovskaya’s murder. He was believed to be hiding somewhere in Western Europe. Karinna Moskalenko, a lawyer for Politkovskaya’s family, called on officials to “start a proper investigation,” and added, “we demand, we need the real killer,” echoing government critics’ assertion that authorities had not seriously sought to get to the bottom of the case. Politkovskaya’s son, Ilya, said he believed that “the people freed today were somehow involved in the killing of my mother,” but added that he had expected the defendants’ acquittals. Murad Musayev, a lawyer for Dzhabrail Makhmudov, said the verdict was a “victory” for justice, and added that “the only way to stop these crimes is to find the real criminals.” n 100

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Other European News

UBS to Name Clients in U.S. Tax Settlement. UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, Feb. 18

Sharp Eurozone Contraction Reported. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the

settled a criminal tax fraud case brought by the U.S. government, agreeing to pay $780 million in fines and other penalties and to reveal the names of some U.S. clients suspected of tax evasion. The agreement to disclose the names was seen as a break with the centuries-old tradition of secrecy in Swiss banking. [See 2008, p. 867F3] UBS admitted that some of its bankers had “participated in a scheme to defraud the United States” from 2000 through 2007, helping clients set up secret offshore accounts and falsifying or deliberately neglecting to file required tax forms. U.S. authorities alleged that UBS had helped thousands of wealthy U.S. clients illegally conceal $20 billion in assets and evade $300 million a year in taxes. UBS reportedly had agreed to immediately turn over the names of about 250 such clients. The settlement ended the criminal probe, but a civil case, in which the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had issued subpoenas to force UBS to reveal the identities of about 19,000 clients, remained open. U.S. authorities Feb. 19 filed a new lawsuit against UBS in U.S. District Court in Miami, Fla., seeking to compel the disclosure of the identities of as many as 52,000 clients. The settlement did not spare individual UBS executives from prosecution. U.S. prosecutors in 2008 had indicted former UBS executive Raoul Weil, who had been declared a fugitive and was believed to be at large in Switzerland. Another former executive, Bradley Birkenfeld, had pleaded guilty in 2008 and was cooperating with U.S. authorities. The settlement was the latest in a series of setbacks for UBS. The bank Feb. 10 had reported that it had lost a total of nearly 20 billion Swiss francs ($17 billion) in 2008, much of which was linked to investments in assets backed by U.S. mortgages. [See 2008, p. 373F2] n Swiss Re Gets Capital Boost From Buffett.

Zurich-based Swiss Reinsurance Co. (Swiss Re), the world’s second-largest reinsurer (provider of insurance to other insurance companies) in terms of premiums, Feb. 5 said Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the holding company of U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett, had agreed to invest three billion Swiss francs ($2.6 billion) in Swiss Re. Under the terms of the deal, Berkshire would receive a bond, with an annual 12% interest rate, that could be converted into stock in three years, increasing its stake in Swiss Re to 20%, from 3%. [See 2008, p. 696A2] Swiss Re had suffered heavy losses in the global financial crisis, mainly linked to credit-default swaps, a complex type of insurance instrument for high-risk assets. In 2008, Buffett had made similar deals to provide capital, in exchange for highly favorable terms, to two big U.S. companies also battered by losses, the bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the conglomerate General Electric Co. n

eurozone, comprised of the 16 European Union countries that used the euro currency, contracted sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to a Feb. 13 report by Eurostat, the statistics office of the EU. It was the worst quarter on record since the introduction of the euro in currency markets in 1999. [See pp. 61A1, 53C1] Eurozone GDP contracted by 1.5% in the fourth quarter, compared to the previous quarter, and 1.2% from the fourth quarter of 2007. That was worse than the U.S., which had reported a contraction of 1% compared with the previous quarter. Germany’s economy, the largest in the eurozone, shrank 2.1% in the fourth quarter, compared to the previous quarter. France reported a 1.2% contraction, on a quarterly basis; Italy, a 1.8% contraction; and Spain, a 1% contraction. Spain’s unemployment rate had risen to more than 13.9%, the worst in the eurozone, in December 2008. Spain Feb. 13 announced a four billion euro ($5.1 billion) aid package for its auto industry. Earlier that week, France had unveiled a 6.5 billion euro aid plan for its auto industry, drawing complaints from other EU members about protectionism. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had exchanged sharp words with leaders of the Czech Republic, which held the rotating EU presidency. [See p. 84F2] The EU Feb. 11 said it had scheduled two emergency summit meetings, one in March and the other in May, to discuss the global economic crisis and develop a more unified response to it. n

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Egypt Opposition Leader Freed After Three Years.

The Egyptian government Feb. 18 unexpectedly freed Ayman Nour, leader of the opposition political party Al Ghad (Tomorrow), after holding him in prison for more than three years. Nour, 44, in 2005 had run for president against Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt since 1981. After finishing second in elections that were widely regarded as flawed, he was convicted in December 2005 of forging signatures on his party’s petition for official status, and sentenced to five years in prison. The criminal case was widely seen as politically motivated. Nour was released before he would have become eligible for parole in July. [See 2008, p. 986A3; 2006, p. 397C2] Egyptian Attorney General AbdelMeguid Mahmoud said Nour had been released for “medical reasons.” Egyptian courts had previously denied appeals for Nour’s release on medical grounds. Nour’s release was seen as a reaction to increased criticism of the government over its crackdown on dissidents and handling of the war in the Gaza Strip the previous month between Israel and the Palestinian FACTS ON FILE

militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement). Analysts also said Mubarak had released Nour to improve relations with the U.S. The administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush had repeatedly pushed for Nour’s freedom, but Mubarak had resisted foreign interference, and the timing of Nour’s release—after U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration—was seen as a snub of Bush. n

Iran EU Removes Group from Terror List. The

European Union Jan. 26 removed an Iranian opposition group—the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)—from its list of banned terrorist organizations, despite strenuous opposition from Iran. The move followed a December 2008 ruling by the European Court of First Instance that the EU had improperly withheld new information in reviewing the MEK’s status. [See p. 38F2; 2008, p. 596D1] The MEK had been formed in 1965, and sought the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic regime. It had bases in Iraq. The EU in 2002 had designated the MEK as a terrorist group and had frozen its funds. Iran said the EU’s removal of the group was irresponsible and tantamount to promoting terrorism, but the EU claimed that it was just abiding by the court’s ruling. The U.S. State Department Jan. 7 had ruled that it would continue to list the MEK as a terrorist group. U.S. officials Jan. 26 said they did not expect its status to change under the new administration of President Barack Obama. n

Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills 35 Shiite Pilgrims. A female suicide bomber Feb. 13 killed at least 35 Shiite Muslim pilgrims participating in a procession to the holy city of Karbala in southern Iraq. The blast, the deadliest in a recent string of attacks throughout Iraq, occurred in the run-up to the Feb. 15 holiday of Arbaeen, when millions of Shiites traveled to Karbala to commemorate the end of the 40-day mourning period marking the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in the seventh century. Insurgents had intensified attacks on Shiite pilgrims during Arbaeen in recent years. [See pp. 57A1, 8D2; 2008, p. 119D3] The bomber detonated explosives hidden under her clothes at a checkpoint set up to search women and children in the village of Musayyib, south of Baghdad. Many of the dead were women and children. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it resembled those carried out by Sunni Muslim insurgent groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq. A roadside bomb Feb. 12 had killed at least five pilgrims in Karbala, and a gunman Feb. 13 killed two pilgrims outside of the city of Hilla. Two roadside bombs Feb. 16 each killed four pilgrims returning from Karbala, in the mostly Shiite neighborFebruary 19, 2009

hoods of Sadr City and Al Obeidi in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. A double car bombing Feb. 11 that killed at least 16 people in a market in the predominantly Shiite Bayaa neighborhood of Baghdad was also linked to the pilgrimage. A bus full of pilgrims late Feb. 17 crashed into a stationary British armored vehicle in the southern city of Basra, killing seven pilgrims. After the crash, the British soldiers reportedly thought they were being ambushed, and fired on other vehicles, injuring an unknown number of Iraqis. Other Violence—In other violence, assassins Feb. 11 killed Ahmed Fatthi alJaburi, a senior leader of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, as he was returning from prayers in in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. Gunmen the next day assassinated another Sunni politician as he was driving to work in Mosul. The politician, Abdul-Karim al-Sharabi, was a senior local official in the National Dialogue Front. Another Iraqi Islamic Party official, Samir Safwat, Feb. 18 was killed when gunmen broke into his home in the Zafaraniyah neighborhood of Baghdad. Both parties had run candidates in Jan. 31 provincial council elections. A suicide bomber driving a pickup truck full of explosives Feb. 9 attacked a U.S. military vehicle on patrol in Mosul. The blast killed four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter, making it the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Iraq since May 2008. In other attacks that day in the city, gunmen killed two off-duty police officers, a roadside bomb aimed at an Iraqi military convoy killed an Iraqi soldier and a bystander, and attackers shot to death a 17-year-old girl. The next day, separate attacks in Mosul killed at least five Iraqi police officers and a Christian woman. [See 2008, p. 305D2] U.S. soldiers Feb. 7 shot and killed a young Iraqi girl in Diwaniya, the capital of the central Qadisiya province. The U.S. military said one of its convoys was trying to move through a crowd of Shiite pilgrims when a weapon accidentally went off, striking the girl. Iraqi police and military officials in the northern province of Kirkuk charged the U.S. with twice violating a security cooperation agreement signed in December 2008, the New York Times reported Feb. 7. They said that U.S. forces had not coordinated with Iraqi troops as required in two incidents that resulted in Iraqi deaths: the Feb. 6 killing of an Iraqi man during a U.S. raid outside the city of Kirkuk, and a January raid that killed an Iraqi couple. [See p. 53D3] French

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Baghdad—

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Feb. 10 visited Baghdad and met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, in a move to bring the two countries closer together. Sarkozy said France wanted to “participate in the economic development of Iraq, the rehabilitation of its infrastructures,” and called on French businesses to invest in the country. Maliki used the visit to emphasize that Iraq had “many friends,” not just the U.S. It was

the first visit to Iraq by a French head of state, and the first by a leader of a country that had opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [See 2007, p. 729D3] France had had close business relationships with Iraq under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and had been a major weapons supplier of the regime. Maliki at a news conference with Sarkozy responded to comments made Feb. 6 by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden that the U.S. needed to be “more aggressive” in encouraging Iraqi political reconciliation. “The time for putting pressure on Iraq is over,” Maliki said. “The Iraqi government knows what its responsibilities are. We are carrying out reform, and we are in the last step of reconciliation.” In other visits by foreign dignitaries, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Feb. 11 arrived in Baghdad for a threeday visit. Mottaki said Iran would not hold new talks with the U.S. on Iraqi security because current security gains had made them unnecessary. He also said Iran would appoint consuls in the Iraqi cities of Sulaimaniya, Karbala and Irbil. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the previous day had called for “talks based on mutual respect” between the U.S. and Iran. [See p. 86G1] Also, German Foreign Minister FrankWalter Steinmeier Feb. 17 visited Baghdad and met with Maliki. It was the first visit to Iraq by a German foreign minister in 22 years. Germany had also opposed the 2003 invasion. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The Iraqi government Feb. 17 said it was holding four Iraqis who had been released from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It said they were being interrogated to determine whether it was safe to release them. The detainees reportedly had originally been captured in Afghanistan, and had been returned to Iraq from Guantanamo Bay more than a month earlier. At least one other Iraqi reportedly remained imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. [See p. 28F3] o The Times Feb. 15 reported that U.S. federal agencies were investigating two senior U.S. military contracting officers—retired Army Col. Anthony Bell and Air Force Lt. Col. Ronald Hirtle—for corruption related to the U.S. reconstruction program in Iraq that went into operation shortly after the March 2003 invasion. The reconstruction program during 2003 and 2004 was widely regarded as ineffective, and was reportedly characterized by a lack of oversight. Most of the previous 35 convictions won by U.S. prosecutors in Iraq corruption cases had involved mid-level military officials or private contractors. [See 2008, p. 449C3] o Iraqi election officials Feb. 15 said they had received reports of fraud from all 14 of the provinces where the provincial council elections had taken place, but that the violations had not been “critical.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Feb. 6 made an unannounced visit to Iraq and praised the largely peaceful elec101

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tions, although he said the country had more work to do to become secure. o The Washington Post Feb. 13 reported that the U.S. military had reversed an order banning Iraqi translators working with U.S. forces in Baghdad from using masks to hide their identity. The mask ban had been put in place in September 2008 over concerns that the masks impeded professionalism, but interpreters and some U.S. officers said it put interpreters in danger of reprisals for working with the U.S. and reflected an overly optimistic view of Iraq’s security situation. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a Jan. 7 letter to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D, Ore.), said U.S. commanders would be able to allow interpreters to wear masks during certain “high-risk” missions. [See 2008, p. 863F3] n

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Afghanistan Obama Orders Deployment of 17,000 Troops.

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U.S. President Barack Obama Feb. 17 announced that he had authorized the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, a move he said was “necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation” in the country. A U.S.-led force had invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban’s Islamic fundamentalist regime, but an ensuing Taliban insurgency had gained ground in recent years, leading to record levels of violence in 2008. [See pp. 75A1, 54C1] Along with 6,000 U.S. troops who had been deployed by former U.S. President George W. Bush, and had arrived in Afghanistan in January, the new deployment would bring the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 55,000. Under Obama’s plan, 8,000 marines would arrive in late spring, and 9,000 Army soldiers would arrive in summer. There were also some 32,000 non-U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soldiers currently operating in Afghanistan. The combat deployment was Obama’s first as president, and came as his administration was conducting a top-to-bottom review of the U.S.’s military strategy in Afghanistan. In what was seen as a criticism of Bush’s policies, Obama Feb. 17 said the conflict had “not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.” The review was expected to be completed by April 3, when Obama would attend a NATO summit in Germany. The Obama administration had reportedly been wary of authorizing additional troops before the review was complete. Additionally, further troop increases in Afghanistan would likely be contingent on U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, and Obama had yet to decide on a formal timeline for withdrawal. But military commanders warned that the additional troops were urgently required to address mounting violence in the country, and to provide security for national elections that were scheduled for Aug. 20. Before Obama’s 102

announcement, military commanders had called for a total increase of 30,000 additional troops. [See p. 101D1] Obama at the NATO summit was expected to call on European members to provide additional troops, and increase their commitment to civilian reconstruction projects, training the Afghan army and fighting the country’s thriving opium industry. The U.S. and many European countries had long disagreed over troop deployments to Afghanistan, largely because the war was politically unpopular in much of Europe. Obama’s overtures were expected to be resisted. Spain as recently as Feb. 10 had announced that it would not add to its 800strong force in Afghanistan. Other Developments—In other developments in Afghanistan: o The United Nations Feb. 17 reported that civilian deaths stemming from insurgency-related violence had risen 40% in 2008 from the previous year. Rising civilian casualties had sparked a public outcry against the government of President Hamid Karzai and its ties to the military coalition. The U.N. said 2,118 civilians had died in 2008, up from 1,523 in 2007. The Taliban was responsible for 55% of the 2008 deaths, while the coalition, which included the Afghan army, was responsible for 39% of the deaths, the report said. [See p. 54B3] o Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Feb. 12–15 visited Afghanistan as part of a fact-finding tour of the region. In an interview broadcast Feb. 15 on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV network, Holbrooke said, “It is absolutely clear that Iran plays an important role in Afghanistan,” calling that role “legitimate.” The statement was a shift in the U.S.’s stance toward Iran, which under Bush had been categorized as part of an “axis of evil.” The Obama administration had indicated that it would increase its diplomatic engagement with Iran, which was Afghanistan’s western neighbor. [See pp. 103B1, 86G1] o Eight insurgents armed with assault rifles and suicide-bomb vests Feb. 11 attacked three government locations in and around Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 20 people and wounding 57. The eight gunmen were killed in ensuing clashes with police, some of which took place at the Justice Ministry. Observers said the brazen attack showed that the Taliban was capable of infiltrating one of Afghanistan’s most heavily guarded cities. Afghan officials said there were indications that the gunmen could have connections to Islamic militants operating in the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan, but those suggestions were not confirmed. [See p. 102B3] o The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Feb. 12 reported that the U.S. military had not properly kept track of tens of thousands of weapons, leaving them open to theft or procurement by the Taliban. The GAO said the military kept incomplete records of about 87,000 U.S. weapons between 2004 and 2008, and that it had no dependable records for 135,000 weap-

ons donated by other countries. The GAO presented its report to the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform’s national security and foreign affairs subcommittee. o A suicide bomber Feb. 2 killed 21 people when he detonated his charge in a police station in Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern province of Uruzgan. n

Pakistan Islamic Law Allowed in Militant Region.

The Pakistani government Feb. 16 agreed to allow the establishment of sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in the district of Malakand in the country’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The district was home to the Swat Valley, which for the past year had been the site of heavy fighting between the Pakistani army and Islamic extremist militants, including members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and the Afghan fundamentalist group the Taliban. The agreement paved the way for a 10-day cease-fire, but critics said the government had essentially ceded control of the territory to the extremists. [See p. 69D3] Government officials argued that the agreement would diminish public support for extremists, since an ineffective legal system had compelled civilians to turn to religious groups for justice. Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the NWFP’s chief minister, said, “There was a vacuum...in the legal system. The people demanded this and they deserve it.” Government officials maintained that the Malakand system would differ greatly from the severe form of sharia imposed by the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, before its regime was toppled by a U.S.-led force in 2001. The Taliban had imposed severe restrictions on women and been known to stone adulterers to death and sever the hands of thieves. While the government had deployed about 12,000 troops to Swat, it had been unable to defeat the some 3,000 militants thought to operate there. Militants had taken to terrorizing government officials and civilians with suicide bombs and other violent tactics, leading to an exodus of thousands of people. Members of the Awami National Party (ANP), a secular group that had won the NWFP’s most recent elections in 2008, said the government could not defeat the extremists by force alone, and that a truce was necessary to divide moderate Islamists from hard-liners. But critics said the agreement was a significant concession that could bolster the extremist movement. Similar agreements in the country’s lawless tribal areas—located between the NWFP and Afghanistan—had allowed extremists to create strongholds from where they could plot terrorist attacks and operate training camps. Additionally, past truces had fallen apart after militants continued to attack government forces, including a truce reached in Swat in 2008. [See 2008, p. 367B3] The government agreement was made with Sufi Muhammad, a local leader who had once fought alongside the Taliban in FACTS ON FILE

its ongoing insurgency against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. Muhammad had been released from Pakistani custody in April 2008, and was thought to be more moderate than his son-in-law, the cleric Maulana Fazlullah, one of the region’s top extremist leaders. [See 2008, p. 283A3] Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Feb. 16 did not directly comment on the agreement. During a visit that day to New Delhi, India’s capital, Holbrooke said the U.S., Pakistan and India faced a common enemy in terrorism. [See below, p. 103C2] U.S. Envoy Receives Request for Aid—

Holbrooke Feb. 9–12 met with senior Pakistani officials in the first leg of his tour of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. After meeting with Holbrooke, President Asif Ali Zardari Feb. 10 released a statement saying he had asked the U.S. for more aid to counter Islamic militancy. [See p. 102D2] Holbrooke’s tour launched what was thought to be a broader regional approach to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which included reducing the influence of extremists who destabilized areas on both sides of the permeable Afghan-Pakistani border. U.S. President Barack Obama had stated that minimizing the threat of terrorism from Pakistan and Afghanistan would be one of his main foreign policy goals. During Holbrooke’s visit, Pakistani officials criticized a rising number of missile attacks against suspected terrorists in the country’s tribal areas that were thought to be conducted by U.S. Predator drone aircraft. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Feb. 10 said the attacks were “counterproductive,” since they had also killed and wounded civilians, leading to a large public backlash against the government’s alliance with the U.S. [See p. 69G3] Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o Missile attacks from a suspected U.S. Predator drone aircraft Feb. 16 killed more than 30 people in the tribal area of Kurram, including members of the Taliban. o A Predator attack Feb. 14 killed more than 30 people in the tribal area of South Waziristan, including Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The attack reportedly targeted a compound used by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban, an umbrella group for various extremist factions. Mehsud was reportedly not at the compound during the attack. [See 2008, p. 990E1] o The government Feb. 6 said it had repaired and reopened a bridge in the northwest Khyber region that had been blown up by militants earlier in the week. The bridge was used by the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to transport supplies to troops in Afghanistan. The government that day said 52 militants in the region had been killed during clashes with the army. o A previously unknown group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front Feb. 13 released a video purportedly showing a U.S. aid worker, John Solecki, in captivity. The group said Pakistan had 72 February 19, 2009

hours to release 141 female prisoners or Solecki would be killed. Solecki was the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Quetta, a city in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, and had been abducted in early February. His kidnappers were suspected of having ties to Baluchi separatists. [See p. 69F3] o Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski Feb. 9 confirmed the authenticity of a video released the previous day showing the beheading of a Polish hostage, Piotr Stanczak, by Taliban militants. The murder was thought to be the first of a Western hostage in Pakistan since U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl was killed in captivity in 2002. Stanczak, a geologist, was abducted Sept. 28, 2008, from the city of Attock, 70 miles (110 km) northeast of Islamabad, the capital. His death followed reported attempts by the Polish and Pakistani governments to negotiate his freedom, which the Taliban had predicated on the release of their comrades in prison. [See 2007, p. 793C3] o The Taliban Feb. 14 released a Chinese engineer, Long Xiaowei, who had been captured in August 2008. n

Other South Asia News Mumbai Attack Partly Planned in Pakistan.

Pakistan Feb. 12 for the first time acknowledged that a three-day terrorist attack in November 2008 that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, had been partly planned on Pakistani soil. India had long asserted that the Pakistani-based Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the attack, and while Pakistan had arrested some of the group’s members, it had resisted formally corroborating India’s claim that the attack had been hatched in Pakistan. India’s foreign ministry Feb. 12 said the acknowledgment was a “positive development.” [See p. 39D1] Rehman Malik, head of Pakistan’s interior ministry, that day said, “Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan.” However, he claimed that the suspected attackers—a group of 10 men who had been armed with assault rifles and other weapons—had planned parts of the attack in various other countries as well. He said memory cards for the attackers’ cellular phones had been purchased in Austria, and that one of their satellite phones had been bought in a Middle Eastern country. He said a conspirator in Spain had purchased Internet telephone accounts for the attackers using domain names registered in the U.S. and Russia. Malik said six suspects had been charged for their involvement in the attack, including its alleged mastermind, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba leader who had been arrested in December 2008. Malik said Pakistani authorities were also holding Hamad Amin Sadiq, whom he identified as “one of the main operators” in the attack. Malik said another principal suspect was Zarar Shah, a Lashkar-e-Taiba leader. Malik also said police had found three boats that

the attackers had used to travel from Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi to Mumbai, on India’s western coast. Malik maintained that “non-state actors” had been behind the attack, in what was seen as a rebuttal of Indian suggestions that Pakistan’s powerful military-led spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had been involved. ISI in the past had funded operations by Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Islamic militant groups to destabilize areas in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, site of a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries. Malik said he had sent India 30 questions to gather more information, including requests for “fingerprints and DNA samples of all the terrorists.” While India welcomed Pakistan’s acknowledgment, it continued to put public pressure on Pakistan to increase its counterterrorism efforts. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee Feb. 13 said, “The threat of terrorism from Pakistan has emerged as a global menace and cancer.” Pakistan’s acknowledgment came on the last day of a three-day visit by Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was thought to favor an improved diplomatic relationship between India and Pakistan, so that Pakistan could concentrate its efforts on Islamic militants who had created safe havens near the Afghan border in Pakistan’s northwest. But Pakistani officials denied that Holbrooke’s visit had played any role in their decision to make the announcement. [See p. 103B1] The Washington Post, citing unidentified U.S. and Pakistani officials, Feb. 16 reported that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had organized intelligencesharing between Pakistan and India directly after the Mumbai attack. The Post reported that the CIA’s role had reduced distrust between the two historical adversaries, helping lead to increased cooperation and Pakistan’s Feb. 12 announcement. n

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Auto Racing Kenseth Wins Daytona 500. Matt Kenseth

Feb. 15 won the 51st running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. The race was one of the premier events on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit, and the first one of the 2009 season. Kenseth had also won the race in 2003. [See 2008, pp. 911G3, 114B3] Kenseth, who drove a Ford for the Jack Roush team, was declared the winner 17 minutes after officials halted the race due to heavy rain on lap 152 (the race was scheduled to be 200 laps). He had taken the lead on lap 122. The time of the race was two hours, 51 minutes and 40 seconds, and Kenseth’s average speed was 132.816 miles per hour (213.747 kmph). Kevin Harvick finished second, and A.J. Allmendinger was third. 103

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. sparked a nine-car crash on the 124th lap that eliminated the race leader at the time, Kyle Busch, as well as three-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and another top driver, Carl Edwards. Due to the ongoing economic crisis, which had hit the auto industry especially hard, NASCAR had been forced to implement cost-cutting reforms in the offseason. (NASCAR relied on the auto industry for cars, parts and sponsorship revenue.) Several teams had merged, including Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Chip Ganassi Racing, which combined to become Earnhardt Ganassi Racing in November 2008; and Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises, which joined Jan. 8 to form Richard Petty Motorsports. Also, tracks had reduced ticket prices, and teams had been forced to lay off as many as 1,000 employees. [See p. 92E1; 2008, p. 912B1–D1] n De Villiers Wins Dakar Rally in South America.

Giniel de Villiers of South Africa Jan. 17 won the Dakar Rally off-road motor race, which was held in South America, instead of northwest Africa, for the first time in its 31-year history due to security concerns. Organizers had canceled the 2008 event due to threats by terrorists in Mauritania. [See 2008, p. 57F2] De Villiers completed the race, which began and ended in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, in 48 hours, 10 minutes and 57 seconds. The route took him across treacherous terrain in Argentina and Chile, including the Andes mountain range and the Atacama Desert. De Villiers drove a diesel-powered Volkswagen—the first time the race was won by a diesel-powered car. n

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Awards British Academy Awards Presented. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Feb. 8 presented its annual motion picture awards. The ceremony was held in London, at the Royal Opera House. [See 2008, p. 116F1] Named best picture of the Year was Slumdog Millionaire, principally directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle. The film, about an Indian game show contestant, won a total of seven awards, including a best-director award for Boyle. It had been nominated for 10 U.S. Academy Awards in January. [See p. 40E1] Actress Kate Winslet was named best actress for her role as a woman with a secret Nazi past in The Reader. She had also been nominated in that category for her role as a housewife in Revolutionary Road. Winslet had won two Golden Globes for her work in those films. [See p. 40F1] Two other Golden Globe winners, Mickey Rourke and Heath Ledger, also won BAFTAs. Rourke was named best actor for his comeback role as a washed-up professional wrestler in The Wrestler, while Ledger was posthumously honored as best supporting actor for his role as the Joker in 104

The Dark Knight. In the supporting actress category, Spain’s Penelope Cruz won for her role as a mentally unbalanced artist and ex-wife of another artist in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. [See p. 24E2, F2] n Sundance Film Festival Winners Named.

The annual Sundance Film Festival Jan. 24 presented its awards for the top films shown at the festival. Sundance, held Jan. 15–25 in Park City, Utah, showcased feature films and documentaries that were produced without backing from major movie studios. [See 2008, p. 96E2] The film Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, directed by Lee Daniels, won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize for best U.S. dramatic film. Adapted from a 1996 novel by Sapphire, a prominent black woman poet, it dealt with an obese, sexually abused 16-year-old girl growing up in the Harlem district of New York City. The film also captured the festival’s audience award for best dramatic film, voted on by viewers. The Grand Jury Prize for best U.S. documentary went to Ondi Timoner’s We Live in Public, about 10 years in the life of an Internet surveillance pioneer named Josh Harris. The corresponding audience award went to The Cove, about a town in Japan where dolphins were secretly captured and killed. It was made by Louie Psihoyos, formerly a photographer for National Geographic magazine. n

People Rapper M.I.A., 31, who performed at the Feb. 8 Grammy Awards ceremony on an evening when it was thought she might give birth, informed her fans, via a Feb. 14 (Valentine’s Day) posting on her Web site, that she had given birth to a baby boy on Feb. 11. She claimed that she started having contractions just hours after her performance. The baby’s father was Benjamin Brewer, a New York City–based musician and the son of Warner Music Group Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman Jr. [See p. 88D2; 2003, p. 981D2] Lari Lavi, 48, the U.S.-born founder of Toronto, Canada–based WIDEawake Entertainment Group, Jan. 15 was declared to have submitted the winning bid, US$18 million, for the assets of bankrupt U.S. rap label Death Row Records, originally owned by Marion (Suge) Knight. Death Row had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2006, after Knight in 2005 was ordered to pay $107 million to a former business associate, Lydia Harris, and could not come up with the money. In recent years, Knight had been arrested and jailed repeatedly. [See 2005, p. 272A3] n

O B I T UA R I E S ALEXANDER, Donald Crichton, 87, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner from 1973 to 1977, under U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, both Republicans, and during the first few weeks of the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter; he successfully resisted efforts by Nixon, then caught up in the Watergate scandal that would lead to his 1974 resignation, to have the IRS audit individuals perceived as Nixon’s political enemies; born May 22, 1921, in Pine Bluff, Ark.; died Feb. 2 at his home in Washington,

D.C., of cancer. [See 1998, p. 320B2; 1985, p. 103D3; Indexes 1973–77] BECK, Hans, 79, German toy designer who, as an employee of Zimdorf-based Geobra Brandstaetter GmbH & Co. KG, invented the Playmobil line of miniature toy figures, ranging from knights and castles to pirates and pirate ships to dinosaurs; more than two billion of those toys had been sold worldwide since their 1974 debut; born May 6, 1929, in Germany’s Thuringia region; died Jan. 30 at a hospital in Markdorf am Bodensee, Germany, after a long illness. CLOSE, William Taliaferro, 84, physician who in 1976 helped control Central Africa’s first epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus; he was at that time the personal physician of Mobute Sese Seko, the president of Zaire (the country now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as well as the Zairian army’s surgeon general; he left Zaire, where he had arrived in 1960, after the epidemic was contained, and set up a medical practice in rural Wyoming; he was the father of actress Glenn Close; born June 7, 1924, in Greenwich, Conn.; died Jan. 15 at his home in Big Piney, Wyo., of a heart attack. [See 2008, pp. 687A2, 28F1; 1976, p. 931B3] Des FORGES, Alison (born Alison B. Liebhafsky), 66, Africa scholar and human rights activist who

in 1994 tried to call the world’s attention to the looming genocide in Rwanda, in which Hutu militias ended up killing about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus; she later wrote a definitive account of that tragedy, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda; the book was published in 1999, the year she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant; in recent years, she had appeared as an expert witness in 11 trials of alleged genocide perpetrators; born Aug. 20, 1942, in Schenectady, N.Y.; died Feb. 12 in the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y. [See pp. 95C2, 34B1; 1999, p. 483B3] HINGLE, Pat (Martin Patterson Hingle), 84, burly character actor known for his many appearances on Broadway, in television shows and in Hollywood films, including four “Batman” movies released between 1989 and 1997, in which he portrayed Police Commissioner James Gordon; born July 19, 1924, in Miami, Fla.; died Jan. 3 at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C., of myelodysplasia, a blood disorder. [See 1997, p. 1015E2; 1988, p. 1007G3; Indexes 1986, 1972, 1970, 1968, 1963–65, 1960, 1956–58] KIMBRO, Warren Aloysious, 74, onetime member of the militant black nationalist group the Black Panthers who in 1970 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 1969 slaying of suspected police informer Alex Rackley in New Haven, Conn.; the case gave rise to several highly publicized trials, one of which ended in a hung jury and the dismissal of charges against Black Panther leader Bobby Seale in 1971; Kimbro was sentenced to life in prison but testified against Seale and was pardoned after serving four and a half years; he later became a New Haven community activist, helping former inmates become productive members of society; born April 29, 1934, in New Haven; died Feb. 3 at a hospital there, of a heart attack. [See 1971, p. 617A1; 1970, p. 39C3; Index 1969] LOPEZ, Orlando (Cachaito), 76, Cuban bassist who was one of a number of musicians who gained worldwide fame late in life as a member of the Buena Vista Social Club, a group brought out of retirement in the 1990s by U.S. guitarist Ry Cooder; born Feb. 2, 1933, in Havana; died Feb. 9 at a Havana hospital, of complications following cancer surgery. [See 2005, p. 548B3; 2003, p. 992D3] MARTYN, John (born Iain David McGeachy), 60, British singer, songwriter and guitarist who artfully blended folk music with jazz in more than 20 albums, notably Solid Air (1973); he influenced many artists who were much better-known than he was, among them Eric Clapton and Sade; his career was hampered by chronic substance abuse problems that took their toll on his health; born Sept. 11, 1948, in New Malden, England; died Jan. 29 in Kilkenny, Ireland, from pneumonia complications. WERBER, Bill (William Murray), 100, leadoff batter in the first Major League Baseball (MLB) game to be televised, in August 1939; he was then an infielder for the Cincinnati Reds, which would go on to win the National League pennant that year, and the World Series after the 1941 season; he retired in 1942 as a member of the New York Giants; he had begun his MLB career in 1930 with the New York Yankees, where one of his teammates was Babe Ruth; after retiring from baseball, he prospered in the insurance industry; born June 20, 1908, in Berwyn, Md.; died Jan. 22 in Charlotte, N.C.; he had been MLB’s oldest veteran at the time of his death. [See 1941, p. 464N] n

February 19, 2009

U.S. President Obama Delivers First Speech to Joint Session of Congress Pledges to ‘Rebuild,’ Reduce Deficit. U.S.

President Barack Obama Feb. 24 delivered his first speech before a joint session of Congress since taking office in January. Obama spoke on a broad range of issues, including the economy, energy, health care and education, while also pledging to reduce the government’s deficit by 50% by the end of his first term. He called on Congress to pass a bill that would cap the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions, and spelled out his rationale for a recently passed stimulus package and the funding of a financial stability program that provided aid to banks and other financial institutions. [See pp. 89A1, 77D3; for the full text of the speech, see p. 106A1] Obama’s speech, which was delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives and lasted 52 minutes, was his first nationally televised address since his inauguration. It served in place of the State of the Union message that presidents usually delivered to Congress in February. After weeks of attempting to get congressional Republicans to back his stimulus package by painting the economy in arguably pessimistic terms, Obama tried to restore some confidence and idealism to the public. “While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” Obama said. He added, “Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.” Obama pushed a broad domestic spending agenda by including major health care, energy and education reforms in his speech at a time when he benefited from relatively strong poll numbers. Obama planned to release a more detailed budget outline for the current fiscal year, in which he would spell out the elements of his plan. He also called on Vice President Joseph Biden to oversee spending related to the stimulus package to prevent instances of waste and abuse. On the Economy—In a veiled barb at his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, Obama said he had “inherited” a “trillion-dollar” deficit, as well as a “financial crisis and a costly recession.” He said previous policies had created an “era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity,” and argued that there would be no economic recovery unless “we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system.” He made a case for the continued investments of hundreds of billions of dollars of government funds in banks largely blamed for creating a financial crisis, arguing, “If we do not restart lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins.” He acknowledged the growing public backlash toward the bailout packages, but warned, “We cannot afford to govern out of anger.” [See p. 76A3] Obama pledged to impose strict oversight of companies receiving government

money, saying that the days of company executives using taxpayer funds to “pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet” were “over.” To trim the deficit, Obama said his administration would reexamine outdated military programs developed during the Cold War, end subsidies provided to large agricultural businesses and drop failing educational programs. However, he cautioned that his budget plan would “not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue.” Calls for Health Care Reform— Obama reiterated his pledge to provide health care to all in the U.S. “Let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year,” he said. He also encouraged all Americans to complete at least one year of vocational or college education after high school. [See p. 62C3] In his remarks, he said some $15 billion generated annually by his plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions could be used to fund renewable energy research. Speaks on Security, Foreign Issues—

Obama in his remarks also said he would soon announce “a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.” He said his administration would develop a strategy in tandem with the U.S.’s allies to defeat the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama also notably said, “I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.” His statement echoed a declaration made by Bush after it was revealed that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists that critics characterized as torture. [See 2006, p. 689A1] Polls Show Strong Public Support—

Two separate polls published Feb. 24 showed high levels of public support for Obama and his actions as president thus far. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted Feb. 18–22 found that 63% of respondents approved of the job he was doing as president. His job approval rating was about 10 percentage points higher than either Bill Clinton’s or Bush’s at similar times in their presidencies. [See p. 25C3] When asked what Obama’s priorities should be, 56% said he should adhere to the policies he campaigned on, while 39% felt he should compromise and work with Republicans. The poll found that 57% of respondents approved of Obama’s handling of the economy. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Feb. 19–22, Obama had a 68% job approval rating, and 60% of respondents approved of his handling of the economy. Obama also had the trust of 61% of respondents regarding economic matters, when compared with Republicans. n

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Volume 69, No. 3558 February 26, 2009

B joint session of Congress. In his speech, Jindal repeatedly invoked the ingenuity of ordinary Americans, and criticized Obama and the Democratic Party for enacting massive spending programs he said would “grow the government, increase our taxes down the line and saddle future generations with debt.” [See pp. 112A2, 105A1; 2007, p. 698E3] Jindal, 37, born to parents who had emigrated to the U.S. from India, was a popular figure in the Republican Party and was viewed as a possible presidential nominee in 2012. In his speech, Jindal emphasized that “the strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens.” He cited the disorganized federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New (Continued on p. 108F1)

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama delivers first speech to joint session of Congress; pledges to ‘rebuild,’ reduce deficit. PAGE 105

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton tours Asia in first official trip abroad. PAGE 108

Ex–Serbian President Milutinovic acquitted of war crimes.

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U.S. government launches bank ‘stress tests.’ PAGE 110

Guantanamo terrorism detainee sent to Britain, released. PAGE 112

Obama taps Locke as commerce secretary. PAGE 112

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Sudanese government, Darfur rebel group set talks. PAGE 115

Tensions rise in Tibet ahead of anniversary. PAGE 116

Israeli President Peres chooses Netanyahu to form government. PAGE 118

Sri Lankan government rejects rebel cease-fire offer. PAGE 119

‘Slumdog Millionaire’ dominates Oscars. PAGE 120

La. Gov. Jindal Delivers Republican Rebuttal.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Feb. 24 delivered the Republican response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s first address to a

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TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

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Follwing is a transcript of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Feb. 24 address to a joint session of Congress, outlining his plans to revive the U.S. economy and other policy priorities of his new administration [See p. 105A1]: Thank you very much. Madam Speaker [Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.)], Mr. Vice President [Joseph Biden], members of Congress, and the first lady of the United States [Michelle Obama], who’s around here somewhere. I have come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here. I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others, and rightly so. If you haven’t been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has: a friend, a neighbor, a member of your family. You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost, the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread, the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope. The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere. But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before. The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more. Now, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that for too long we have not always met these responsibilities, as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or to look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament. Roots of the Economic Downturn The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy, yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all of these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before. In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day. Economic Recovery Plan Well, that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here. Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jump-start job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as

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we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I’d like to talk to you about tonight. It’s an agenda that begins with jobs. As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets, not because I believe in bigger government—I don’t—not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited—I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. And that’s why I pushed for quick action. And tonight I am grateful that this Congress delivered and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law. Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit. Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make. Because of this plan, 95% of working households in America will receive a tax cut, a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1. Because of this plan, families who are struggling to pay tuition costs will receive a $2,500 tax credit for all four years of college. And Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to help them weather this storm. Now, I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work, and I understand that skepticism. Here in Washington, we’ve all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right. And that’s why I’ve asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort, because nobody messes with Joe. I have told each of my cabinet, as well as mayors and governors across the country, that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I’ve appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud. And we have created a new Web site called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent. Financial Stability Plan So the recovery plan we passed is the first step in getting our economy back on track, but it is just the first step, because even if we manage this plan flawlessly, there will be no real recovery unless we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system. I want to speak plainly and candidly about this issue tonight, because every American should know that it directly affects you and your family’s well-being. You should also know that the money you’ve deposited in banks across the country is safe, your insurance is secure. You can rely on the continued operation of our financial system; that’s not the source of concern. The concern is that, if we do not restart lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins. You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education, how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll. But credit has stopped flowing the way it should. Too many bad loans from the housing crisis have made their way onto the books of too many banks. And with so much debt and so little confidence, these banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or even to each other. When there’s no lending, families can’t afford to buy homes or cars, so businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and credit

dries up even further. That is why this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, to restore confidence, and restart lending. And we will do so in several ways. First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small-business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running. Second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values, Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped to bring about. In fact, the average family who refinances today can save nearly $2,000 per year on their mortgage. Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy. Now, I understand that, on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives bank bailouts with no strings attached and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions, but such an approach won’t solve the problem. And our goal is to quicken the day when we restart lending to the American people and American business, and end this crisis once and for all. And I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs [chief executive officers] won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over. Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government and, yes, probably more than we’ve already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade. That would be worse for our deficit, worse for business, worse for you, and worse for the next generation. And I refuse to let that happen. Now, I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and the results that followed. So were the American taxpayers; so was I. So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you: I get it. But I also know that, in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger or yield to the politics of the moment. My job—our job—is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility. I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage. That’s what this is about. It’s not about helping banks; it’s about helping people. Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend. And if they can get a loan, too, maybe they’ll finally buy that car or open their own business. Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more. Slowly, but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover. So I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary, because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession. And to en-

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sure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system. It is time. It is time. It is time to put in place tough, new commonsense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation and punishes shortcuts and abuse. The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short term, but the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility. Budget Outline In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we’ve come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or a laundry list of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America, as a blueprint for our future. My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited: a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession. Given these realities, everyone in this chamber— Democrats and Republicans—will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me. But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves, that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity, for history tells a different story. History reminds us that, at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the G.I. Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world. In each case, government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive. We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on programs we don’t need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education. Renewable Energy It begins with energy. We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea. Well, I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders, and I know you don’t, either. It is time for America to lead again. Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We’ve also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history, an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, in science and technology. We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our

February 26, 2009

energy bills. But to truly transform our economy, to protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. That’s what we need. And to support that innovation, we will invest $15 billion a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power, advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more efficient cars and trucks built right here in America. Speaking of our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not and will not protect them from their own bad practices. But we are committed to the goal of a retooled, reimagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it; scores of communities depend on it; and I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it. Health Care Reform Now, none of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what’s necessary to move this country forward. And for that same reason, we must also address the crushing cost of health care. This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, 1 million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget. Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold. We can’t afford to do it. It’s time. Already, we’ve done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last 30 days than we’ve done in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for 11 million American children whose parents work full-time. Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives. It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American, including me, by seeking a cure for cancer in our time. And it makes the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that’s one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control. This budget builds on these reforms. It includes a historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform, a down payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue, and it’s a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come. Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform. That’s why I’m bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week. I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. Once again, it will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after [former President] Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and our conscience long enough. So let there be no doubt: Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year. Education The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America. In a global economy, where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite. Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma, and yet just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of the students who begin college never finish.

This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education, from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. That is a promise we have to make to the children of America. Already, we’ve made a historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We’ve dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life. We’ve made college affordable for nearly seven million more students, seven million, and we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children’s progress. But we know that our schools don’t just need more resources; they need more reform. And that is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance, pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools. It is our responsibility as lawmakers and as educators to make this system work, but it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself; it’s quitting on your country. And this country needs and values the talents of every American. That’s why we will support—we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That is a goal we can meet. That’s a goal we can meet. Now, I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why, if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch [R, Utah], as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country, Senator Edward Kennedy [D, Mass.]. These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children, but it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent, for a mother or father who will attend those parentteacher conferences, or help with homework, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child. I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That’s an American issue. And there is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children, and that’s the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. That is critical. I agree, absolutely. See, I know we can get some consensus in here. With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that, as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down. That is critical. Now, I’m proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities. Deficit Reduction And yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs.

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As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time, but we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade. In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste and fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas. In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. Now, let me be clear. Let me be absolutely clear, because I know you’ll end up hearing some of the same claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people. If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, a quarter-million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, not a dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut— that’s right, a tax cut—for 95% of working families. And, by the way, these checks are on the way. Now, to preserve our long-term fiscal health, we must also address the growing cost in Medicare and Social Security. Comprehensive health care reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for years to come, and we must also begin a conversation on how to do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans. Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead 10 years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules and, for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Foreign Policy For seven years, we’ve been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price. Along with our outstanding national security team, I am now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war. And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat Al Qaeda and combat extremism, because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it. As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: We honor your service; we are inspired by your sacrifice; and you have our unyielding support. To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget in-

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Orleans, La., and much of the Gulf Coast in 2005, as an example of how large government bureaucracies were ineffective. Referring to Democrats, he added that “the way to lead is not to raise taxes and not to just put more money and power in the hands of Washington politicians.” [See pp. 18G3–19F1] However, Jindal also acknowledged that the Republican Party’s philosophy had become “less clear” in recent years. He said Republicans, by associating themselves with earmarks and big spending, had lost the public’s trust, “and rightly so.” He pledged that the party would recover that trust by defending conservative principles. Jindal Feb. 20 had announced that Louisiana would not accept funds 108

creases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned. To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend, because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. And that is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay [in Cuba] and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists, because living our values doesn’t make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture. We can make that commitment here tonight. In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun, for we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We cannot shun the negotiating table nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand. To seek progress towards a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century—from terrorism to nuclear proliferation, from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty—we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power. And to respond to an economic crisis that is global in scope, we are working with the nations of the G-20 [Group of 20 economies] to restore confidence in our financial system, avoid the possibility of escalating protectionism, and spur demand for American goods in markets across the globe, for the world depends on us having a strong economy, just as our economy depends on the strength of the world’s. Conclusion As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us, watching to see what we do with this moment, waiting for us to lead. Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege, one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans, for in our hands lies the ability to shape our world, for good or for ill. I know that it’s easy to lose sight of this truth, to become cynical and doubtful, consumed with the petty and the trivial. But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places, that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans who are anything but ordinary. I think of Leonard Abess, a bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399

people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, “I knew some of these people since I was seven years old. I didn’t feel right getting the money myself.” I think about Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. “The tragedy was terrible,” said one of the men who helped them rebuild. “But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity.” I think about Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina, a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom. She had been told that her school is hopeless. But the other day after class, she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this chamber. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp. The letter asks us for help and says, “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself, and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina, but also the world. We are not quitters.” That’s what she said: “We are not quitters.” These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that, even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres, a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity. Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us. I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far. There are surely times in the future where we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. I know that. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground. And if we do, if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, “something worthy to be remembered.” Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.

from the $787 billion stimulus package slated to extend unemployment benefits to more people. The governor Feb. 22 had appeared on NBC’s Sunday morning political news program “Meet the Press,” and claimed the $100 million program would require Louisiana to enact higher taxes on businesses. Jindal pledged that Republicans would work with Democrats in areas they agreed on, such as energy independence and fiscal responsibility. He also called on Obama’s administration to cut taxes and drill for more oil and natural gas in the U.S. Jindal’s speech was panned by a number of prominent conservative commentators, who said his slow, punctuated delivery was strange and his speech short on new ideas. Some observers said Jindal should not have mentioned the government’s clumsy re-

sponse to Hurricane Katrina, which was considered a blot on the presidency of George W. Bush, Obama’s Republican predecessor. n

Clinton Tours Asia in First Official Trip Abroad Discusses Economy, N. Korea. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Feb. 16–23 visited Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China, in her first trip abroad since becoming secretary of state under U.S. President Barack Obama. Clinton said she had chosen to travel to Asia first to emphasize the importance the U.S. placed on its ties in the region. Clinton’s talks focused on the global economic slowdown, reflecting the U.S.’s extensive economic FACTS ON FILE

ties with China and Japan; the ongoing international process pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program; as well as climate change. [See pp. 116B2, 35C3, 29F2; 2008, p. 541A3] Previous secretaries of state for decades had made their first forays abroad to Europe or the Middle East, and Clinton’s gesture to Asia was received warmly. She made waves with unusually forthright remarks on the issue of a successor to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the place of human rights in the U.S.’s relations with China. While some observers wondered whether those statements reflected inexperience as an official diplomat, Clinton Feb. 20 said in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, that to avoid saying “what’s obvious” was “an impediment to clear thinking.” En route from the U.S. to Japan, Clinton Feb. 16 said her goal, with respect to North Korea’s nuclear program, was “complete dismantling and denuclearization,” and suggested that the U.S. would have “a great openness to working with them” in return. While not a change in the essentials of U.S. policy, the remark offered a sunnier view of the prospects for dialogue with North Korea than had been typical of the administration of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Clinton also played down accusations, promoted by the Bush administration, that North Korea had pursued a secret uraniumenrichment project in addition to the plutonium-based weapons program it had admitted to. She emphasized that there was “debate within the intelligence community” over the extent of the uranium activities. She pointed instead to the fact that the Bush administration had abandoned a 1994 nuclear freeze agreement with North Korea, negotiated under then–President Bill Clinton, her husband, which she said had led North Korea to intensify its plutonium reprocessing and develop actual nuclear weapons. [See 1994, p. 794A1] Makes Japan First Stop—Clinton Feb. 16 arrived in Tokyo, where she hailed the U.S.’s relationship with Japan as “a cornerstone of our efforts around the world.” Clinton’s decision to visit Japan first was greeted with satisfaction in the country, where a perceived slight by Bill Clinton, who in 1998 had taken a trip to China without stopping in Japan, was still widely remembered, and had fed concern that the U.S. was turning away from Japan and toward China as the focus of its Asian relations. [See 1998, p. 479F3] Clinton met Feb. 16 with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, and conveyed an invitation for him to become the first foreign leader hosted by Obama at the White House Feb. 24. She and Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said the two countries were cooperating closely on the world economic crisis. [See below] She also met the following day with Ichiro Ozawa, leader of Japan’s opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which was currently benefiting from the abysmal poll ratings of Aso and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). U.S. officials said the meeting with Ozawa was merely part of an effort to widen the spectrum of contacts made on February 26, 2009

the visit, dismissing suggestions that the U.S. was preparing for the possibility that Ozawa would oust Aso in a general election due to be held by September. Ozawa said he had expressed to Clinton his belief that Japan played too subordinate a role in its current partnership with the U.S. [See p. 98E3] North Korea was prominent among the topics on Clinton’s agenda in Japan. She denounced Feb. 16 a suggestion by North Korea that it was preparing for a missile test launch. She met the following day with a group of relatives of Japanese civilians who had been abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s, and vowed to press North Korea to fully account for the abductees. However, the relatives expressed dissatisfaction that the U.S. had removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and that Clinton had suggested that the U.S. was willing to extend diplomatic recognition to North Korea in exchange for its abandoning its nuclear weapons program. [See 2008, p. 426G2] (North Korea Feb. 24 announced that it was preparing to launch a communications satellite into space, but foreign observers said such a launch would in reality be a test of a long-range missile. North Korea in 1998 had announced a satellite launch that was believed to have failed. [See 1998, p. 676E3]) Clinton also signed an agreement on shifting some 8,000 U.S. marines stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam, as part of a broader redeployment of U.S. forces in the Pacific. [See 2008, p. 151F3] Cites Indonesia as Muslim Model—

Clinton Feb. 18 traveled to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, a stop that appeared to represent the Obama administration’s stated plans to improve relations with the Muslim world, damaged by the U.S.’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Bush administration’s antiterrorism practices, among other issues. (Indonesia had the largest Muslim population of any country.) Clinton that day cited Indonesia as a a model of how “Islam, democracy, modernity and women’s rights can coexist.” [See p. 42F1] Clinton praised Indonesia’s achievements in combating terrorism and Islamic extremism. After meeting with her, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda said, “Indonesia can be a good partner for the U.S. to reach out to the Muslim world.” Clinton expressed a desire for broader cooperation with Indonesia on other issues, including climate change. She said the two countries would open talks on allowing the resumption of U.S. Peace Corps activities in the country, which had been halted amid political strife in 1965. [See 1965, p. 143A1] Clinton said the Obama administration wished to promote stronger ties with Southeast Asia in general than the Bush administration had, and said it would enter into talks on a treaty with the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Addressing one major regional issue, Clinton said the U.S. was reviewing its policy toward the military government of My-

anmar, noting that “imposing sanctions hasn’t influenced the junta” to ease its repression of pro-democracy dissidents, and that “reaching out and trying to engage them hasn’t worked either.” [See 2008, p. 925E2] Clinton also conveyed “greetings from President Obama,” who had lived in Indonesia for a time as a child. Broaches N. Korea Succession— Clinton, on a flight to Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Feb. 19 raised the possibility of a struggle over the succession to North Korean supreme leader Kim, and said that “even if it’s a peaceful succession,” the accompanying uncertainty could “encourage behaviors that are even more provocative, as a way to consolidate power within the society.” Kim was widely believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, and it was unclear to what extent he had recovered, with some experts suggesting that elements in the secretive country’s leadership, particularly the military, were wielding increased influence. [See p. 84G1] However, Clinton’s remarks drew notice because it was not common practice for diplomats to openly speculate on the succession question, and some observers suggested they would complicate efforts to engage with North Korea. However, Clinton later insisted, “We deal with the government in place right now.” She did not speculate on possible succession scenarios, but said she would discuss the issue with South Korean and Chinese officials. Clinton met Feb. 19 with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan in Seoul. Vows Engagement With China—Clinton Feb. 20 traveled to Beijing, China’s capital. En route from South Korea, she said “questions of Taiwan, Tibet, human rights” and other areas of frequent disagreement between the U.S. and China “can’t interfere with” the need to cooperate with China on economic, climate change and security matters such as North Korea, noting, “We pretty much know what they’re going to say” to U.S. pressure. That prompted immediate denunciation from human rights groups. The following day, she insisted, “The promotion of human rights is an essential aspect of U.S. global policy.” Clinton Feb. 21 met with President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. She also visited a water-efficient, low-emissions power plant, and called for cooperation on promoting economic growth in a way that did not imperil the environment, saying, “We hope you don’t make the same mistakes” made by the U.S. and Europe with untrammeled industrialization. China had recently surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clinton after her meeting with Yang thanked China for its “continuing confidence” in the U.S., as the world’s largest buyer of U.S. Treasury securities, a vital source of financing as the U.S. planned additional spending to combat a recession. [See p. 105A1] 109

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Clinton Feb. 23 attended a state-sanctioned Christian church and met with social, legal and health care activists, including Gao Yaojie, who described being subjected to harassment by the authorities. [See 2007, p. 195A3] Clinton later Feb. 23 departed Beijing for the U.S. Obama Hosts Japan’s Aso—Aso Feb. 24 met with Obama at the White House, where Obama called the U.S.’s ties to Japan “the cornerstone of security in East Asia.” The two men reportedly dicussed the economic crisis and the North Korea talks, as well as the struggle by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan against a strengthened insurgency by Taliban Islamic militants. Aso announced that Japan would provide new funding to help pay the salaries of Afghanistan’s police and to rebuild its schools and medical facilities. n

Other International News Ex–Serbian President Acquitted of War Crimes.

Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, 66, Feb. 26 was acquitted of five counts of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands . He, along with five other Serbian officials, had been accused of ordering the removal of some 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, and the murders of hundreds of civilians there in 1999. However, the court found that Milutinovic, who had served as president of Serbia from 1997 to 2002, could not be held responsible because he did not have effective control over the Serbian army. [See 2006, pp. 789D2, 181A1] Judge Iain Bonomy said, “In practice, it was [late Serbian President Slobodan] Milosevic…who exercised actual command authority” over the army. Milosevic had died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes at the ICTY. Kosovo, administered by the United Nations after the war, had since declared independence from Serbia, but Serbia considered Kosovo an integral part of the country and viewed its declaration of independence as illegitimate. [See 2008, p. 99F1] Five Others Convicted—While the court Feb. 26 ordered Milutinovic released immediately, the other five men on trial— former Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, former Yugoslav army Chief of Staff and Defense Minister Dragoljub Ojdanic, former generals Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic and former Serbian Public Security Service head Sreten Lukic—were convicted of some or all of the charges, and received sentences that ranged from 15 to 22 years in jail. They received credit for time already served in detention. Kosovar President Fatmir Sejdiu said he had “full trust” in the ICTY, while Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said the verdict served as evidence that the trial was “political.” The ruling was the ICTY’s first on crimes perpetrated by Serbs during the 1998–99 war between Kosovo and Serbia. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Economy Government Launches Bank ‘Stress Tests.’

The government Feb. 25 launched “stress tests” of the country’s 19 largest banks to gauge their ability to weather a deepening recession, which would help it determine whether they would need additional federal assistance. The tests began as two of the country’s largest financial institutions— banking company Citigroup Inc. and insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG)—were in ongoing discussions with the government for more aid. [See below, pp. 89A1, 77A2] President Barack Obama that day said the tests would restore confidence in the weakened financial industry and eventually spark lending, which had dropped off dramatically over the past year as banks sustained massive losses on investments in risky mortgages. Mounting job losses had caused a spike in defaults on other kinds of loans as well, placing increased pressure on the banks. After booking heavy losses from such loans, banks had further reined in their lending, hurting businesses and leading to more job losses. Economists said stabilizing the financial industry was imperative to pulling the economy out of that downward spiral. Banks had also been hit by falling share prices, which depleted their capital base and made them more reluctant to issue loans. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, led by a weeks-long slide in banking shares, Feb. 23 fell 250.89 points, or 3.7%, to end at 7,114.78, its lowest level since 1997. Investors were reportedly concerned that the government was considering nationalizing troubled banks, which could wipe out the value of existing shareholder stakes. But the Obama administration had emphasized that it preferred to see banks remain in private hands. Advocates of nationalization said it would facilitate government efforts to rid the financial system of toxic assets backed by mortgages and other loans that had lost value. Additionally, nationalization would allow the government to directly increase lending. Opponents of nationalization said it could lead to a crisis in confidence in healthy banks, and that the government would be unable to effectively manage the banks, the largest of which were sprawling companies with thousands of employees. However, under the administration’s stress test plan, it was possible that the government could take ownership of majority shareholder stakes in the banks, which would give it wide influence over bank policies. Obama said it was possible that he could ask Congress to authorize additional funds for a $700 billion financial industry rescue program, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). More than half those funds had already been spent or allocated. Details of Stress Test Plan— Under the stress test plan, the details of which were released for the first time Feb. 25, the 19 banks would have to assume as a worst-case sce-

nario that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) would contract at a 3.3% annual rate in 2009, and grow at a 0.5% rate in 2010; the unemployment rate would reach 8.9% in 2009, and 10.3% in 2010; and that average housing prices would fall 22% in 2009 from the previous year, and by 7% in 2010. The banks would have until the end of April to calculate how much capital would be lost under those conditions. If the government deemed that a bank would need more capital, the bank would have six months to raise money from private investors, or, as a last resort, accept a capital injection from the government. If federal aid was necessary, the government would buy preferred shares that could be converted into common stock. The government had thus far largely purchased nonconvertible preferred shareholder stakes in the roughly 400 banks that had received money through TARP. The switch to convertible shares was intended to buoy confidence in the banks, since investors, shaken by the uncertainty in the financial system, had started to view nonconvertible stakes as government loans rather than additions to a bank’s capital reserve. If a conversion to common stock was approved, the government could find itself with a significant ownership stake in a participating bank. The banks had up to seven years to return the government’s money, before the preferred shares automatically became common stock. The government would buy preferred shares based on a bank’s average closing price in the 20 days leading up to Feb. 9. The stress test scenarios were more dire than what government officials had projected, but market participants said it was possible that the economy could experi-

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ence an even graver deterioration. The Federal Reserve Feb. 18 projected that GDP could shrink by as much as 1.3% in 2009, and that the unemployment rate could reach 8.8%. The official unemployment rate in January was 7.6%. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke Feb. 24 testified to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that 2010 could be a “year of recovery,” if the government was successful in stabilizing the financial industry. He also said it was unnecessary to nationalize banks in order to fix the financial system. Markets rose on his remarks, with the Dow climbing 236.16 points, or 3.3%, to end at 7,350.94. Bernanke made similar remarks the following day in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. Citigroup, AIG Reportedly Seek Aid—It was widely reported Feb. 23 that Citigroup and the government were involved in negotiations that could see the government take as much as a 40% stake in the bank by converting its existing preferred shares into common stock. Citigroup shares had plummeted in value in recent weeks, ending at $2.14 a share Feb. 23, down 68% for the year. It was also reported Feb. 24 that AIG and the government were in discussions to save the company, which was expected to post a huge loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. News outlets estimated that losses could reach $60 billion, which would likely lead to a downgrade of the company’s credit rating, compelling it to procure extra cash to pay its creditors. The government had already arranged two bailouts for the company, and currently held a 79.9% shareholder stake. A deal could see the government exchange some of its loans and preferred shares for common stock, or a break-up of AIG into smaller companies partly controlled by the government. n Obama Hosts ‘Fiscal Responsibility’ Summit.

President Barack Obama Feb. 23 hosted a “fiscal responsibility” summit at the White House, where he urged attending Democratic and Republican lawmakers to focus on reducing the budget deficit, which was expected to increase following government efforts to revive the slumping economy. Obama the previous week had signed into law a $787 billion economic stimulus package, which economists had estimated would help push the deficit for fiscal year 2009 to $1.2 trillion. [See p. 89A1] Obama that day said, “We cannot, and will not, sustain deficits like these without end.” Administration officials had said they hoped to slash the deficit in half by the end of Obama’s term in 2013. Obama was expected to unveil an outline of his first budget Feb. 26, which would reportedly raise taxes on the wealthy and cut costs by reducing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. [See p. 117G2] During his weekly radio and Internet address Feb. 21, Obama said the budget would be “sober in its assessments” and “honest in its accounting.” Obama said he would include costs in his budget that the previous administration of President George W. Bush had omitted, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. February 26, 2009

Some Governors Object to Stimulus—

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) Feb. 20 announced that he would not accept $100 million in federal stimulus funds designed to continue an extension of the period in which laid-off workers could receive unemployment benefits. Jindal said the provision would eventually compel the Louisiana government to raise taxes on businesses once the federal subsidies ended. Jindal was joined the next day by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) in rejecting the funds. [See p. 105G2] Other Republican governors had threatened to reject portions of the aid, and had criticized the stimulus bill as wasteful, including South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Idaho Gov. C.L. Otter. Their criticisms came as governors convened Feb. 21–24 in Washington, D.C., for the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association. However, most of the country’s 22 Republican governors were supportive of the bill, and analysts noted that the rejected funds formed a tiny fraction of the overall amount of aid those states would receive. Obama Feb. 20 had hosted a gathering of 80 city mayors at the White House, and warned them not to waste stimulus money, saying he would “call them out on it and put a stop to it.” Obama’s comments came as concerns arose as to whether the government could prevent wasteful or corrupt use of the funds. Obama Feb. 23 announced that Earl Devaney, the inspector general at the Interior Department, would head the newly created Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board to monitor stimulus spending. Devaney would share some of that responsibility with Vice President Joseph Biden. [See 2008, p. 653E3] n Consumer Prices Rose 0.3% in January.

The Labor Department Feb. 20 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices Inflation (CPI) paid for consum2009 0.3% er goods by all ur- January Previous Month -0.8% ban consumers, 12-Month Increase 0.0% rose 0.3% in January with adjustment for seasonal variation, after falling 0.8% in December 2008. However, consumer prices remained unchanged from the previous year, the first time since 1955 that prices had not climbed over a oneyear period. The stagnation in prices came as a result of an ongoing recession, which had depressed demand. [See p. 46C1] The rise in overall CPI in January was led by a 1.7% increase in energy prices. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2% in January. n Producer Prices Rose 0.8% in January.

The Labor Department Feb. 19 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in January rose 0.8% after seasonal adjustment. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, rose 0.4% in January. Energy prices rose 3.7%. [See p. 46E1]

The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 170.3% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $170.30 in January. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods dropped 0.7% in January, and prices for crude goods fell 2.9%. n

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Business Inventories Down in Dec. 2008.

The Commerce Department Feb. 12 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of December 2008 was $1.5 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.3% from the revised value at the end of November. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.44. [See p. 46B2] n Retail Sales Rose 1% in January. The Commerce Department Feb. 12 reported that the value of retail sales in January was $344.6 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 1.0% above the revised figure for December 2008, but economists warned that the spike in consumer spending was mostly due to seasonal anomalies and not an indication that the sluggish economy was recovering. [See p. 15E3] n Housing Starts Fell 16.8% in January. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Feb. 18 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in January was 466,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was 16.8% below the revised rate for December 2008 of 560,000 units, and the survey’s lowest level since it began in 1959. The drop reflected the glut of existing homes that remained unsold on the market, as an ongoing recession depressed demand for housing. [See p. 45C3] Building permits were issued in January at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 521,000 units, 4.8% below December’s revised rate of 547,000. n Trade Deficit Fell to $39.9 Billion in Dec. 2008.

The Commerce Department Feb. 11 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in goods and servicTrade Deficit (in billions) es for December 2008 $39.93 2008 was $39.9 December Previous Month $41.58 billion, down Year Earlier $57.58 from a revised $41.6 billion in November, and a six-year low. The deficit drop came as a result of an ongoing recession, which suppressed U.S. demand for imports. Another central factor was the price of imported oil, which had slid steeply toward the end of 2008. [See p. 15B3] Imports decreased by $10.2 billion in December, to $173.7 billion. Besides oil, the change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. Exports in December fell to $133.8 billion, an $8.5 billion drop from the preceding month, as demand for U.S. goods fell as a result of a global economic downturn. The change was led by decreased exports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. n 111

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Leading Indicators Rose in January. The Conference Board business research organization Feb. 19 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.4% in January, to 99.5. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.2% in December 2008, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 46A2] Five of the 10 indicators in January were “positive” contributors, led by real money supply and interest rate spread. Five indicators—led by average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance and building permits—were “negative.” n Industrial Production Fell 1.8% in January.

The Federal Reserve Feb. 18 reported that its industrial production index decreased 1.8% in January. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 2.4% in December 2008. The overall index now stood at 101.3% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 103.2% for December. [See p. 46C2] Manufacturing production fell 2.5% in January. The output of utilities increased 2.7%, and mining output fell 1.3%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 72.0% of their total capacity in January. n

Terrorism Guantanamo Detainee Sent to Britain, Freed.

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Terrorism detainee Binyam Ahmed Mohammed Feb. 24 was flown by the U.S. government from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Britain, where the Ethiopian-born Mohammed had formerly been a legal resident. Mohammed was the first Guantanamo detainee released by the administration of President Barack Obama. [See pp. 80D2, 28E3, 20D1; 2008, pp. 958B3, 832D1] Mohammed, 30, had been arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and accused by the U.S. of plotting to detonate a so-called dirty bomb—in which radioactive material would be dispersed into the atmosphere using traditional explosives—inside the U.S. He was held secretly by the U.S. until 2004, when he was transferred to Guantanamo. He was charged with conspiracy, but the U.S. later dropped all charges against him after a federal judge asked to review the evidence against him in a habeas corpus lawsuit. The suit was brought 112

after the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo detainees had the right to challenge their detention in court. Mohammed had alleged that, prior to being sent to Guantanamo, the U.S. government had sent him to Morocco, where he was tortured. British and U.S. media organizations had sued the British government in an attempt to force the release of documents that Mohammed’s lawyers said would support his claims of torture. But that suit was dismissed in early February, following objections by the U.S. government that it would compromise national security. In addition, Mohammed was a participant in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against The Boeing Co.’s Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. unit, which the ACLU accused of facilitating Mohammed’s transfer to Morocco. Mohammed Questioned—Following his Feb. 24 arrival in Britain, Mohammed was detained under British antiterrorism laws and questioned for five hours by police before being released. The same day, Britain’s Home Office announced that Mohammed had been granted temporary admission into Britain but said that a final decision on his residential status had not been made. Mohammed’s release followed a Feb. 20 agreement between the U.S. and the British government, which had pressed for his return. The New York Times reported Feb. 23 that Britain had refused U.S. requests to subject Mohammed to electronic monitoring and other restrictions, saying the U.S. proposals would violate its human rights laws. Mohammed had reportedly agreed to several voluntary restrictions as part of his release, including a lifetime ban from entering the U.S. Mohammed Feb. 23 issued a public statement through his attorneys prior to his arrival in Britain. In the statement, he said, “Before this ordeal, ‘torture’ was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim.” He said the worst part of the experience had come when he “realized in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence,” which he said he “had hoped would come to my rescue.” British Attorney General Baroness Scotland was reportedly considering an investigation into the role of Britain’s government and intelligence services in Mohammed’s detention and alleged torture. Afghanistan Detainee Policy Continued—

The U.S. Justice Department Feb. 20 informed Judge John Bates of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that it would continue to argue that detainees held at the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan, did not have the right to legally challenge their detention in U.S. court. The decision was criticized by human rights advocacy groups. The Bush administration had previously made that argument in response to lawsuits brought by Bagram’s detainees, and Bates had given the Obama administration one month to decide if would continue to make

the claim. The Obama administration had announced earlier in February that it would continue the Bush administration’s controversial use of the so-called state secrets privilege in response to the Jeppesen DataPlan lawsuit. The Bagram lawsuits had been filed on behalf of four Afghan detainees who alleged that they had illegally been held at Bagram without charge and questioned by U.S. interrogators without being given access to legal representation. The Justice Department said all detainees at Bagram had been categorized as enemy combatants and suggested that opening their detention to challenge would compromise Afghanistan’s internal security. In addition, the department said that if the Bagram detainees were allowed to challenge their detention, anyone captured by the U.S. during wartime would have to be granted the same right. Guantanamo Called Humane—The Times reported Feb. 20 on its Web site that a review of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo conducted by Adm. Patrick Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, had found that detainees were being held in accordance with prisoner protections enshrined in the Geneva Conventions. The report had been ordered by Obama, and the Defense Department was required to turn it in by Feb. 21. According to the Times, the report examined issues such as the force-feeding of detainees who had gone on hunger strikes, and allegations that holding most detainees in solitary confinement had triggered psychological problems in some detainees. The report recommended that detainees be given more opportunities to interact. The ACLU Feb. 20 called the report a “whitewash.” Separately, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Feb. 20 appointed Matthew Olson, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department attorney, to lead a task force to determine the fate of more than 240 detainees held at Guantanamo after the prison’s planned 2010 closure. Obama had ordered the formation of the task force to examine the evidence against each detainee in order to decide whether individual detainees should be released, charged with crimes or held indefinitely. Holder Feb. 23 visited Guantanamo and toured the prison and its facilities. During his day-long visit, Holder reportedly met with officials involved with the military commission trials of terrorism detainees and discussed the charges that had been pending against detainees. Obama had suspended the military commissions trials after taking office. [See pp. 80C3, 28F1] n

Obama Administration Locke Tapped as Commerce Secretary.

President Barack Obama Feb. 25 announced the nomination of former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke (D) as commerce secretary. Locke, 59, was Obama’s third pick for the post. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) in January had withdrawn because of an ongoing investigation into the awarding of contracts in his state, and Republican Sen. FACTS ON FILE

Judd Gregg (N.H.) earlier in February had dropped out over conflicts with Obama’s policies. [See p. 79E2] Locke had served as Washington’s governor from 1997 to 2005, and during that time had gained a reputation as a pro-trade centrist. He had been the U.S.’s first Chinese-American governor, and if confirmed would be the third person of Asian descent on Obama’s cabinet. Locke currently worked at a Seattle, Wash., law firm, where he specialized in China, governmental relations and energy issues. Bronx Chief Named Urban Affairs Czar—

Obama Feb. 19 named Adolfo Carrion (D), borough president of the Bronx in New York City, as director of a new White House Office of Urban Affairs, which Obama said he expected to “focus on wise investments and developments in our urban areas that will create employment and housing opportunities.” Carrion, 47, was of Puerto Rican descent. He had first been elected as borough president in 2001, after serving for four years on the New York City Council. He had drawn some criticism for backing a deal in which Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) had agreed to provide city financing to help build a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, which would open in April for the 2009 Major League Baseball season. [See 2008, p. 709E3] n Solis Confirmed as Labor Secretary. The Senate Feb. 24 voted, 80–17, to confirm Hilda Solis, 51, as labor secretary. Her confirmation had been delayed due to approximately $6,400 in tax liens against her husband, Sam Sayyad, and Republican concerns about Solis’s previous work with a pro-labor group. [See p. 18F1] After postponing its vote due to the tax issue, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Feb. 11 had endorsed Solis’s nomination by voice vote. n

Business No Madoff Client Investments Found. Irving

Picard, a court-appointed trustee for brokerage firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, Feb. 20 said there was “no evidence” to suggest that the firm’s secretive investment-advisory unit had made any investments on behalf of its clients in at least 13 years. The firm’s head, Bernard Madoff, had been charged with securities fraud in December 2008, after he allegedly admitted that the investment-advisory unit was a Ponzi scheme responsible for up to $50 billion in losses for investors worldwide. [See 2008, p. 955F1] The disclosure suggested that the fraud was a pure Ponzi or “pyramid” scheme, in which investors’ supposed returns were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors. Ponzi schemes typically collapsed when demand for returns exceeded the inflow from new investors lured into the fraud. Previously, there was speculation that Madoff had invested at least some of his clients’ money in stocks and bonds. However, authorities investigating the case—the Securities and Exchange February 26, 2009

Commission (SEC) and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York—had yet to provide specific details on how the alleged fraud was carried out. Picard, who was responsible for liquidating the firm and recovering investor losses, made his announcement during a meeting for the firm’s former clients at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York City. Picard said that since it appeared the investment-advisory unit was a fraud, investors would each be eligible for a $500,000 payment from the Securities Investor Protection Corp., a group created by Congress and sponsored by the securities industry that was charged with protecting investor interests after securities company failures. Additional repayments would depend on how much investor money was recovered, and Picard said his team had thus far salvaged about $950 million. It was also possible that investors who had collected profits on their Madoff investments would be subject to “clawbacks,” in which the profits were split up between the fraud’s victims. Picard said about 2,350 Madoff investors had filed claims requests totaling “about $1 billion.” They included charities, hedge funds, pension funds and other large financial institutions, as well as individuals, some of whose life savings were thought to have been wiped out by the scheme. Indictment Deadline Postponed— The U.S. attorney’s office and Madoff’s lawyers Feb. 11 reached an agreement to postpone by 30 days a deadline for prosecutors to procure a formal grand jury indictment or present evidence to justify their December 2008 criminal complaint against Madoff. Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt said the postponement, to March 13, had been requested so that the two sides could “conduct additional discussions regarding a possible disposition of this case.” Observers said it was possible that Madoff could plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. A previous 30-day extension had been agreed to Jan. 9. The SEC Feb. 9 had reached a partial settlement with Madoff, in which he neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, but the agreement’s terms stipulated that the “facts” in the SEC’s civil complaint were “established and cannot be contested.” According to the civil complaint, also filed in December 2008, Madoff told two of the firm’s executives that the investment-advisory unit was “a giant Ponzi scheme” that could lead to $50 billion in losses. The two executives were later reported to be Madoff’s sons, Andrew and Mark Madoff. The terms of the partial settlement had to be approved by a judge. It did not specify how much Madoff would be fined, nor how much restitution he would have to make to his former clients. It continued a freeze on his personal assets that had been imposed in December, and barred him from working in the financial industry. Madoff was currently free on $10 million bail, but confined to his New York City apartment. The U.S. attorney’s office had attempted to revoke Madoff’s bail and remand him into custody. The office disclosed Jan. 5 that he had mailed more than $1 million

worth of jewelry to friends and family following his arrest, and revealed Jan. 8 that investigators on the day of his arrest had found $173 million in signed checks to friends and family in his desk. Prosecutors argued that Madoff was trying to hide some of his assets, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis Jan. 12 denied the request to revoke bail, instead ordering an inventory of all of Madoff’s assets. A U.S. District Court judge upheld Ellis’s ruling Jan. 14.

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Madoff’s Wife Withdrew $15.5 Million—

Massachusetts regulators Feb. 11 revealed that Madoff’s wife, Ruth Madoff, had withdrawn $10 million from a separate brokerage firm co-owned by Madoff on Dec. 10, 2008, the day before he was arrested. The disclosure came as part of a complaint filed in Boston, Mass., against the firm, Cohmad Securities, which was accused of withholding information from state regulators. The complaint said Ruth Madoff had also withdrawn $5.5 million from Cohmad on Nov. 25, 2008. The complaint raised questions as to whether Ruth Madoff or other associates of Bernard Madoff had been aware of, or involved in, the fraud, with some observers already expressing puzzlement about how he could have operated it by himself. He had allegedly indicated that he had acted alone, and to date none of his family members or colleagues had been charged in connection with the affair. Ruth Madoff in December had voluntarily accepted a freeze on her personal assets. The New York Times, citing unidentified sources, Jan. 10 reported that Bernard Madoff had confessed to running the Ponzi scheme to his brother, Peter Madoff, the firm’s chief compliance officer, on Dec. 9, 2008, a day before he reportedly confessed to his sons. His sons reportedly informed federal authorities shortly afterward, but Peter Madoff did not, raising the question of whether he had acted properly on the knowledge.

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Regulators Criticized by Lawmakers—

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Jan. 27 held a hearing on the Madoff scandal, where lawmakers heavily criticized top SEC officials for failing to uncover the fraud. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), the committee chairman, that day said the fraud was “a regulatory failure of historic proportions.” The SEC had opened investigations into Madoff’s firm several times, including as recently as 2006, but had never charged the firm with anything more serious than minor trading infractions. Linda Thomsen, the SEC’s director of enforcement, that day testified that the SEC did not have adequate funding to properly monitor the financial industry. Lori Richards, the SEC’s director of inspections, claimed that in recent years there had been a sudden rise in the number of investmentadvisory businesses, which were not as tightly regulated by the SEC as traditional brokerages. (Madoff’s unit had ostensibly acted as a money manager, controlling clients’ accounts.) But lawmakers were skeptical of those claims, with Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, claiming that the SEC had been 113

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“armed with credible information suggesting that something was wrong.” Harry Markopolos, a private fraud investigator who as early as 1999 had warned the SEC that Madoff’s investment-advisory unit was a sham, Feb. 4 testified to the House Financial Services’s subcommittee on capital markets, insurance and government sponsored enterprises. He said he had brought multiple “red flags” to the SEC’s attention, and accused the body of “investigative ineptitude and financial illiteracy.” He also claimed that he believed his life had been in danger. Lawmakers on the subcommittee railed against Thomsen and other SEC officials, with Rep. Gary Ackerman (D, N.Y.) saying, “We thought the enemy was Mr. Madoff—I think it’s you.” Panel members showed further irritation that Thomsen repeatedly declined to answer questions about the Madoff case, citing the fact that the SEC’s handling of it was under investigation by the agency’s inspector general. SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro, who in January had been confirmed as the agency’s head, Feb. 6 vowed to crack down on financial crime, and removed procedural hurdles that she said had slowed down the ability of SEC investigators to initiate probes and impose monetary fines. Thomsen Feb. 9 resigned from her position. The SEC Feb. 19 said she would be replaced by Robert Khuzami, a former prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. [See 2006, p. 926E2; 1995, p. 121C1] Spanish Bank Offers to Repay Clients—

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Spain’s Banco Santander SA Jan. 27 became the first bank to offer compensation to its private-banking clients for losses stemming from Madoff’s alleged scheme. Santander had revealed that it had lost more than 2.3 billion euros ($3.1 billion) by investing the capital of its clients, as well as its own capital, with Madoff’s investment-advisory unit. Santander offered to give noninstitutional clients their original investment back in the form of preferred stock, if they agreed not to take legal action against Santander and maintain their substantial business relations with it. However, some clients said the offer was not enough. Santandar Feb. 19 said 70% of the clients had accepted the compensation. The National Bank of Kuwait Jan. 29 said it had fully repaid its clients who had lost money with Madoff. About $50 million of its clients’ money was invested in Madoff’s firm. Other banks and funds also began paying back clients, including Swiss bank UBS AG and France’s Meeschaert Gestion Prive. The Austrian government Jan. 2 said it would take over the management of Bank Medici, which had funneled $3.6 billion of investor money to Madoff’s firm. Lawsuits around the world had already begun to crop up against financial institutions that had acted as “feeder funds” for Madoff’s investment-advisory unit, recruiting hundreds of investors to put their money under his management. Lawsuits had been filed against Bank Medici, UBS, Britain’s HSBC Holdings PLC, and the 114

U.S.’s J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Many investors alleged that they had not been informed that their money had been turned over to Madoff. n

downgrade its rating for California’s general obligation bonds to A from A plus. The new rating was the lowest of any state’s debt.

State & Local Politics

Schwarzenegger and the Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate backed the budget deal, while most Republicans opposed it. State law required a twothirds vote to pass the budget. State Sen. Abel Maldonado, a moderate Republican from the Central Coast region, emerged as the pivotal player in the final agreement. In exchange for his decisive vote, Maldonado won major concessions. A 12-centper gallon gasoline tax increase that he opposed was dropped from the budget. His proposal for a ban on pay increases for lawmakers at times when the state was running a budget deficit was incorporated in the agreement. Also at Maldonado’s insistence, the deal included authorization for a referendum to be held in June 2010 on whether to approve a constitutional amendment that would change the state’s electoral system. The amendment would replace party primary elections, in which only party members could vote, with a single nonpartisan primary for each contest. Members of any party would be able to run for office or vote, and the top two vote-getters would advance to a general election. Maldonado and other supporters of open primaries, including Schwarzenegger, argued that such a system would free primaries from the control of highly partisan voters and give more centrist, pragmatic politicians a better chance of winning. They pointed to the long budget stalemate as a prime example of partisan gridlock. n

Republican Emerges as Key Vote— Calif. Deal Closes $42 Billion Budget Gap.

The California state legislature Feb. 19 approved a $143 billion budget agreement that set an array of tax increases and spending cuts in order to close a $42 billion deficit, after 15 weeks of deadlock and 45 straight hours of negotiations. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Feb. 20 signed the budget into law. [See p. 105A1; 2004, p. 138E1] The budget covered both the remainder of the current fiscal year and the coming one, a total of 17 months. Parts of the agreement still required public approval in a referendum scheduled for May 19. Like most states, California’s constitution required a balanced budget. At least 46 other states faced budget shortfalls, as the ongoing U.S. economic recession led to lower than expected tax revenues. New York’s deficit was the biggest after California’s, at a projected $13 billion for the fiscal year that would begin April 1. The California deal included about $15 billion in spending cuts, with $8.6 billion coming from education funding. The budget would also impose about $13 billion in new taxes, including a one-percentagepoint increase in the sales tax and a 0.25% hike in the personal income tax. Another notable tax hike would raise the vehicle-license fee, the so-called car tax, to 1.15%, from 0.65%. Schwarzenegger had promised not to raise any taxes when he won a special election in 2003 prompted by the recall of Gov. Gray Davis (D), who lost public support in a similar budget crisis. Schwarzenegger had reduced the car tax upon taking office, in fulfillment of a campaign pledge. [See 2003, p. 786A1] To save on payroll costs, the budget called for furloughing state employees at least one day a month, altering overtime rules and eliminating two official holidays. (Schwarzenegger Jan. 29 had won a ruling in Sacramento County Superior Court upholding an executive order he had issued to require state workers to take off two days a month without pay, which had been challenged by labor unions. The furloughs began Feb. 6, with more than 200,000 employees, or about 90% of the state work force, ordered to take the day off.) Even with those measures, to cover the deficit the state would have to rely on $5.4 billion in new borrowing and its share of funds from the federal economic stimulus package enacted earlier that week. Economists said the combination of spending cuts and tax hikes could slow the state’s recovery from the nationwide economic slowdown and collapse of the housing market, which had hit California particularly hard. The state’s unemployment rate had risen to 9.3% in December 2008. The budget standoff Feb. 3 had led credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s to

Other U.S. News Woman Gives Birth to Octuplets. Nadya Suleman Jan. 26 gave birth prematurely to eight babies at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in Bellflower, Calif. Subsequent news reports detailing the births sparked controversy after it was revealed that Suleman already had six children, and had relied on in vitro fertilization to conceive them and the octuplets. Suleman, 33, was also an unemployed single mother, raising questions about how she would manage to care for her 14 children. [See 2008, p. 930D2; 1998, p. 974G3] In an interview with NBC broadcast Feb. 9, Suleman, 33, said she had received fertility treatments at the West Coast IVF Clinic in Beverly Hills, Calif., operated by Michael Kamrava. She said she had been implanted with six embryos, two of which had split to create the eight babies. The California Medical Board Feb. 6 said it was investigating the fertility doctor who had aided Suleman, although it did not identify him. Although there was no law dictating the number of embryos that could be implanted in a woman seeking to bear a child, medical guidelines called for no more than two to be implanted at one time because of health risks. n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Somalia New President Names Prime Minister. Somalia’s newly elected interim president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Feb. 13 nominated Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke as the new interim prime minister in the country’s transitional government. Sharmarke, 48, was the son of Somalia’s first civilian president, Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a widely popular leader who had been assassinated in 1969. [See p. 66E2; 1969, p. 691C3] Somalia’s government was locked in a battle with radical Islamists led by a group called Al Shabab, which had waged an insurgency for more than two years and currently controlled most of south and central Somalia, including almost all of Mogadishu, the capital. Ahmed, as leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, for six months in 2006 had ruled much of Somalia with the support of radicals who later formed Al Shabab. After the Union of Islamic Courts was ousted by forces of the transitional government and neighboring Ethiopia in December 2006, the Islamists broke into factions, with the radical Al Shabab group waging an insurgency against the Ethiopians and, later, an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force. [See below] Meanwhile, Ahmed and other moderate Islamists engaged in talks with the government, eventually reaching a deal in 2008 that included a provision that the Ethiopians leave the country (they reportedly had completed their withdrawal in January). Ahmed was elected in January by the transitional parliament, after the resignation of his predecessor in December 2008. Al Shabab, which wanted to impose Islamic law in the country, opposed Ahmed’s government. The selection of Sharmarke, a member of the powerful Darod clan, was seen as part of an effort by Ahmed, a member of the rival Hawiye clan, to build a government that included most of Somalia’s influential factions. The appointment reportedly drew widespread approval from Somalia’s numerous groups, but was condemned by radical Islamists. Parliament Feb. 14 voted, 414–9, to approve the U.S. and Canadianeducated Sharmarke, who held dual Somali and Canadian citizenship and had held several positions at the United Nations. Analysts also said that with the appointment of a member of the Somali diaspora—which was believed to number several million, many of whom lived in the U.S. and Europe—Ahmed was reaching out to that community for support. Sharmarke Feb. 20 appointed a cabinet that included a former deputy chairman of the Union of Islamic Courts, Abdulkadir Ali Omar, as interior minister, and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, a former parliament speaker and an ally of Ahmed, as deputy prime minister and finance minister. The 36-member cabinet was sworn in Feb. 21. Islamists Clash With AU Peacekeepers—

Al Shabab Feb. 22 attacked a Mogadishu compound housing Burundian troops from February 26, 2009

the AU peacekeeping force, killing 11 soldiers and injuring 15 others. The AU that day said its troops had been under attack from the insurgents since Feb. 17. Somali Internal Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden Feb. 22 said the transitional government wanted the AU force, which currently numbered about 3,500 Burundian and Ugandan troops, to remain in Somalia, and that it would “respond very quickly to this cruel attack.” Somalia’s new foreign minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Omaar, in a Feb. 24 interview said the government’s main priority was to stabilize the capital. He claimed that attacks on AU peacekeepers did not signal a general increase in violence. “The only remaining peg for the so-called militants to hang their hat on is the issue of AU forces. Those events were tragic, yet they are no longer the key determinants in Somalia,” he said. Omaar added that he expected the cabinet to relocate to Mogadishu, from Djibouti, “by the end of this month or early next month,” and that the parliament would follow soon after. (Due to the insecurity in Somalia, the transitional government had been meeting in Djibouti.) Ahmed and about 100 cabinet ministers and lawmakers Feb. 23– 25 reportedly arrived in Mogadishu in an effort to establish the government there. However, fighting between Al Shabab, AU troops and pro-government forces flared Feb. 24–25, resulting in at least 81 deaths, including nearly 50 civilians. The U.N. Security Council Feb. 25 issued a unanimous statement condemning “in the strongest terms the attacks on the African Union mission in Somalia.” It also called on Somalis “to reject violence and extremism.” Al Shabab Feb. 25 captured the town of Hudur, some 180 miles (300 km) northwest of Mogadishu near the Ethiopian border, from government forces. n

Sudan Government, Darfur Rebel Group Set Talks.

The Sudanese government and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)—believed to be the strongest and most active of the numerous rebel groups in Sudan’s war-torn western Darfur region—Feb. 17 signed an agreement in Doha, Qatar’s capital, to begin peace talks. The two sides also agreed to a prisoner exchange, to allow the safe passage of humanitarian aid and to halt attacks on civilians in Darfur. [See 2008, p. 973C2] An estimated 300,000 people had died and some 2.7 million others had been driven from their homes in the Darfur conflict since 2003, amid fighting between rebels and government forces allied with Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. Government troops and the Janjaweed had been accused of committing atrocities against Darfuri civilians. A 2006 peace deal between the government and one rebel faction had failed to stem the fighting. In late 2007, a joint United Nations–African Union (AU) peacekeeping force, known as the U.N.-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), had taken over for an ineffective AU force. However, less than half of the 26,000

peacekeepers mandated by the U.N. Security Council were currently on the ground in Darfur. Sudanese President Omar Hassan alBashir in November 2008 had declared a unilateral cease-fire in Darfur, but that was widely seen as one of several ploys by the government to try to ward off a pending war crimes indictment against Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands. [See below] The Feb. 17 deal came as a three-judge pretrial panel of the ICC was considering whether to issue an indictment and arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, had filed the charges in July 2008. The court Feb. 23 said the pretrial panel would announce its decision on Bashir’s case by March 4. However, news outlets Feb. 12 had reported that unidentified U.N. officials and diplomats said the judges had already decided to issue an arrest warrant. [See 2008, p. 973B3] The agreement with JEM was seen as an effort by Bashir to curry favor with the international community in advance of the expected indictment and arrest warrant. The U.N. Security Council, under Article 16 of the Rome Statute governing the court, had the power to defer for 12 months an ICC investigation or prosecution, and Sudan had been lobbying for such an action since Moreno-Ocampo announced the charges. Sudan’s efforts had been supported by many African and Arab nations, as well as China, a permanent Security Council member. They argued that an indictment would undermine chances for peace in Darfur. The Qatar talks, which had begun Feb. 10, were the first face-to-face talks between the government and JEM since 2007. JEM, which was said to have links to the government of neighboring Chad, in May 2008 had launched a failed attack on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. [See 2008, p. 330A3] The Feb. 17 agreement, called a “declaration of good intentions,” was billed as a confidence-building measure and a first step toward a peace deal. The government and JEM pledged “to remain engaged in the peace process and to maintain representatives in Doha to prepare a framework agreement for the final talks.” Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said the goal was to reach a peace deal “within three months.” However, other Darfur rebel groups, including the faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) led by Paris-based Abdel Wahed al-Nur, who had a strong following on the ground in Darfur, as well as the SLA faction that signed the 2006 peace deal, had argued that any agreement would be unworkable without the inclusion of all parties. Nur had refused to engage in talks with the government until it ended its military campaign in Darfur. The Feb. 17 agreement did not include a cease-fire. JEM and a faction of the SLA Feb. 18 alleged that the government earlier that day had attacked rebel positions in Darfur. 115

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Deal Comes After Army Offensive—The Feb. 17 agreement came after weeks of heavy fighting between the Sudanese army and JEM in and around the town of Muhajiriya in South Darfur state. The fighting broke out after the government launched an offensive against the rebel group to take control of the town, which JEM had captured earlier in January from another rebel group. The army’s campaign included aerial bombardments, which had been barred under the 2006 peace deal as well as by several Security Council resolutions. One such bombardment, on Jan. 24, hit civilian settlements in Muhajiriya, including a refugee camp, as well as a UNAMID base. The Sudanese government Feb. 1 warned UNAMID to withdraw its 190 peacekeepers from Muhajiriya ahead of an air raid the following day. However, the peacekeepers remained, and reportedly sheltered as many as 5,000 residents in their compound. Government forces Feb. 4 claimed to have captured Muhajiriya. About 30 people had been killed and some 30,000 others had been forced to flee their homes as a result of the weeks of fighting, the U.N. said Feb. 6. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay Feb. 3 had said she was “extremely concerned at the impact the fighting is having on the already dire humanitarian situation in Muhajiriya,” and added that relief organizations had been forced to evacuate their staff. She said, “The fighting is reported to have involved ground offensives and indiscriminate aerial bombardment by government forces that failed to distinguish between civilian communities and military targets.” Pillay also said, “JEM forces are also reported to have deliberately placed themselves in areas heavily populated by civilians.” Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Feb. 3 criticized Sudan for its apparent disregard for the welfare of civilians in its campaign against the rebels, saying, “The onus is on the government to halt all aerial bombardment.” Mohamad responded, “The U.S. should stop pouring crocodile tears on the issue of civilians,” in what was taken as a reference to the perception in the Arab world that the U.S. had failed to criticize Israel for the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties during its recent incursion into the Gaza Strip. [See p. 30D3] Other News—In other Sudan news: o An AU official Jan. 19 said UNAMID would expand to its full capacity of 26,000 troops by June. U.S. President George W. Bush, in the waning days of his presidency, Jan. 5 had said he ordered an airlift of badly needed vehicles and other equipment, some of which had been donated by Rwanda, to the U.N. force. Bush that day hosted Sudanese First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit, who was also the president of the semiautonomous region of South Sudan, at the White House. The Bush administration had helped broker a 2005 peace accord in a separate civil war between the government and rebels in southern Sudan. [See 2008, p. 362C2] 116

o Sudanese security services Jan. 14 arrested prominent opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi at his home in Khartoum, two days after he said Bashir should surrender to the ICC. Turabi, 76, was an Islamist former parliamentary speaker who had fallen out with former ally Bashir in 1999, and had reportedly helped found JEM. He had been arrested several times since 1999, including in May 2008, after JEM’s attempted assault on Khartoum. State media Jan. 19 reported that Turabi could be put on trial for giving financial and logistical support to JEM; however, Turabi denied any current link to the rebels. [See 2008, p. 331G1] n

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China Tibet Tensions Rise Ahead of Anniversary.

The Chinese government had deployed extra security forces in Tibet and other Tibetan-populated regions amid a movement by Tibetans to boycott festivities for Losar, the New Year holiday on the Tibetan calendar, the New York Times reported Feb. 19. The 15 days of Losar began Feb. 25 with numerous reports that Tibetans were observing the boycott. The boycotts were intended to commemorate those killed or detained in a March 2008 crackdown by Chinese authorities on unrest in Tibetan areas. The increase in tensions was also linked to the upcoming 50th anniversary of a 1959 Tibetan uprising. [See 2008, p. 979C3] An uprising against Chinese control of Tibet that began March 10, 1959, was crushed days later, forcing the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual and political leader, to flee to exile in India. On March 28, 1959, China proclaimed the dissolution of the Dalai Lama’s government and the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Tibetan region’s legislature Jan. 19 approved an official holiday marking that date, calling it Serf Emancipation Day, in keeping with the government’s portrayal of the Dalai Lama as a representative of an archaic feudal order. Among the places where police had reacted to the call to boycott Losar was Lithang county in a Tibetan area of Sichuan Province. A single Tibetan Buddhist monk, shouting in the street, Feb. 15 had urged the boycott and called for the return of the Dalai Lama, whom China branded a separatist. After the monk was detained, a larger protest emerged the following day to demand his release, and foreign Tibetanrights groups said some two dozen people were arrested. Police Feb. 17 reportedly ordered businesses to close for three days. A regional official of the ruling Communist Party Feb. 19 was quoted by state media as warning monks and nuns to avoid political activity. The arrest of monks protesting restrictions on religious practice had sparked the rioting in March 2008. Earlier, state media Jan. 25 had reported that authorities were carrying out a “strike hard” anticrime campaign in Tibet, arresting 81 people. Although so-called strike-hard operations were usually aimed at general criminal activity, Tibetan rights advocates

said the recent campaign was also intended to target suspected activists and intimidate Tibetans ahead of the anniversaries of the 1959 uprising and 2008 violence. The official news report said two of those arrested had possessed “reactionary music.” New Sentences for 2008 Violence—Chinese state media Feb. 11 reported that 21 more people had received prison sentences in connection with the 2008 Tibetan riots. An official of the ruling Communist Party in Tibet was quoted as saying authorities had shown restraint in determining the sentences. The lengths of the prison terms, and the crimes the defendants were convicted of, were not reported. [See 2008, p. 872B2] The Indian-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy Feb. 19 said four people who had participated in protests in Garze county in Sichuan Province in 2008 had been sentenced to prison. Two Buddhist nuns, out of a group of 55 arrested in May 2008, were sentenced to nine and 10 years in prison, the center reported. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

European Union Leaders Discuss Economic Crisis. Leaders

from eight of the European Union’s 27 member nations Feb. 22 met in Berlin, the German capital, to discuss plans for responding to the global economic crisis. The participants included the leaders and finance ministers of Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain. The aim of the meeting was to agree on a common European position for an April 2 summit in London of the Group of 20 nations with industrialized or emerging economies. [See pp. 100A3, 84F2] The EU leaders issued a statement calling for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to receive fresh funding in order to double its reserves, to $500 billion, for emergency bailouts of nations hard hit by the global crisis. The IMF had recently raised $100 billion from Japan and had asked other IMF member nations for $150 billion more. The IMF in recent months had extended more than $30 billion in rescue funds to several Eastern European countries, including Hungary and Latvia, which were both EU members, and Belarus, Serbia and Ukraine, which were not. The EU had also provided aid to Hungary and Latvia, but faced calls to do more for Eastern Europe. [See p. 117F1] The European leaders also called for a global system to regulate “all financial markets, products and participants—including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose a systemic risk.” They said they also backed a crackdown on havens for tax evasion. n

France Sarkozy Offers More Tax Cuts, Benefits.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy Feb. 18 announced 2.7 billion euros ($3.3 billion) worth of new measures to provide relief to FACTS ON FILE

lower-income people hit by the economic recession, including tax cuts and increased benefits for families and the unemployed. Sarkozy offered the new package after his initial 26 billion euro economic stimulus package, largely made up of infrastructure spending, drew criticism from labor unions, which led to nationwide protests and strikes in late January. [See pp. 84F2, 68D2] Sarkozy Feb. 19 offered a separate package of 580 million euros in economic aid for French overseas regions, after violent demonstrations on the Caribbean island territory of Guadeloupe left one protester dead Feb. 17. A general strike had shut down Guadeloupe for the past five weeks as protesters demanded relief from rates of poverty and unemployment much higher than in mainland France. n

Italy Woman Dies After Feeding Tube Removal.

Eluana Englaro, a 38-year-old woman who had been in a coma since a 1992 car crash, and was at the center of a right-to-die controversy in Italy, died Feb. 9 after doctors at a private clinic in the northeastern city of Udine removed her feeding tubes at the request of her father. Her death was announced as the Senate debated emergency legislation to force the clinic to resume feeding her. [See 2006, p. 1027D1; 2005, p. 205A3] Conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his cabinet Feb. 6 had issued a decree ordering that Englaro be fed, but President Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist, refused to sign the decree, deeming it unconstitutional. The Roman Catholic Church had strongly opposed the removal of the feeding tubes, calling it a form of euthanasia, which was illegal in Italy. Englaro’s father, Beppino Englaro, had won a series of court rulings over the past decade, including a decision in November 2008 by Italy’s highest court, allowing the removal of the tubes from his daughter, who had been in a persistent vegetative state. He said she had expressed a wish not to be kept alive by artificial means. A preliminary autopsy had found that she died of cardiac arrest due to dehydration, it was reported Feb. 11. n

Latvia Prime Minister, Cabinet Step Down. Prime

Minister Ivars Godmanis Feb. 20 resigned, along with his cabinet, after the two largest parties in his center-right coalition said they had no confidence in his leadership. Latvia, which had experienced rapid growth after it joined the European Union in 2004, had been hit hard by the current global economic slowdown, largely due to its substantial foreign debts. The finance ministry Feb. 18 had predicted that Latvia’s gross domestic product (GDP) would shrink by 12% in 2009. Godmanis’s resignation followed weeks of popular unrest due to high unemployment and decreased wages, and an antigovernment riot in January in February 26, 2009

which 40 were injured and more than 100 arrested. [See p. 37B3] President Valdis Zatlers Feb. 26 nominated former finance minister Valdis Dombrovskis, 37, to serve as Latvia’s new prime minister. Dombrovskis, a member of the center-right New Era Party who currently served in the European Parliament, said he expected to propose a new government within two weeks. He was expected to form a coalition government similar to the one Godmanis had headed. [See 2002, p. 876D1] The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2008 had extended a $9.6 billion loan to Latvia, on the condition that it cut spending so the budget deficit was less than 5% of the GDP. Dombrovskis, in order to meet that goal, needed to cut state spending by $1.3 billion, but reportedly planned to discuss those terms with the IMF. The loan was largely intended to support the lat, the country’s currency. Dombrovskis Feb. 26 said he opposed a devaluation of the lat. [See 2008, p. 984G2] Credit Outlook Downgraded—Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s Feb. 24 cut Latvia’s credit outlook to BB-plus with a negative outlook, placing it below investment grade. Neighboring countries Lithuania and Estonia were notified that they were being examined to determine whether their credit outlook would also be downgraded. n

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Egypt Cairo Bombing Kills French Tourist. A bomb

blast Feb. 22 killed a 17-year-old French tourist and wounded at least 20 others in the center of Cairo, Egypt’s capital. The attack took place in the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, which was popular with tourists. The wounded included 13 French nationals, three Saudis, one German and four Egyptians. It was the first fatal attack on foreigners in Cairo since an April 2005 suicide bombing in Khan el-Khalili killed three tourists. [See 2008, p. 732E2; 2005, p. 252B3] Witnesses said attackers had thrown two bombs, one of which had not gone off and was disposed of by police. However, the government released a statement saying that a homemade bomb had instead been planted under a bench. Security officials Feb. 23 said they had arrested three men and two women in connection with the bombing. No one took responsibility for the attack, although Islamists in the past had clashed with the government and attacked tourists in Egypt. Some analysts suggested that the attack might be related to popular discontent in Egypt over Israel’s January invasion of the Gaza Strip. n

Iraq Legislator Accused of Complicity in Attacks.

Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta Feb. 22 announced that the Iraqi government was charging a Sunni Muslim member of parliament, Mohammad al-

Daini, with involvement in several murders, bombings and kidnappings. Iraqi authorities Feb. 25 ordered a Jordan-bound airplane Daini was on to turn around and took him off the plane, but then released him. His current whereabouts were reportedly unknown. [See p. 101E1; 2008, pp. 949E1, 821C2] Atta showed video footage of two of Daini’s bodyguards, who accused him of ordering attacks during the period when sectarian violence reached its height in 2006 and 2007. They said he had ordered a 2007 suicide bombing on the parliament building that had killed eight people, including a legislator, and had ordered 110 Shiite Muslims buried alive in revenge for the killings of 11 guests who had been staying at his house. The guards also said he had told them to kill Christian gold merchants and steal their wares. [See 2007, p. 231E2] Daini Feb. 23 claimed that the bodyguards’ testimony had been obtained by torture, and that the charges against him were politically motivated. Daini was a frequent critic of the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The leader of a Sunni political party—Saleh alMutlaq of the National Dialogue Council— Feb. 24 defended Daini and called for an investigation of Maliki’s government for involvement in sectarian violence. Daini was granted immunity from arrest as a member of parliament, but an emergency session of parliament Feb. 25 was called to lift his protection. However, security officials said it was too late and that they had to release him. Atta said a warrant for Daini’s arrest could only be issued once the immunity was removed. No sitting member of the Iraqi parliament had ever been arrested.

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Men in Police Gear Fire on U.S. Troops—

Two men in Iraqi police uniforms Feb. 24 opened fire on U.S. troops at a police checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. One U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter were killed, and the attackers escaped. It was not clear whether the attackers were policemen or impostors. The infiltration of the Iraqi police by militants had been a constant problem, although it was mostly by Shiite Muslim militiamen, rather than the Sunni insurgents who remained active in Mosul. Iraqi interior ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf Feb. 23 said 12 policemen had been arrested in connection with a string of kidnappings and murders, and had admitted to the 2006 killing of Maysoon al-Hashemi, the sister of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. The policemen, who were reportedly arrested in the predominantly-Shiite Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, were said to be part of a Shiite “gang.” Also that day in Baghdad, gunmen fired on an Iraqi army checkpoint in the Ghazaliya neighborhood, killing two soldiers and a civilian, and a bomb aimed at a police convoy in central Baghdad killed two civilians. In Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed during combat operations. 117

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U.S. Maj. Gen. David Perkins Feb. 22 said violent attacks in Iraq on civilian and military targets had dropped to their lowest level since August 2003, although he did not provide specific figures. Iraqi Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed Abdullah the same day said U.S. and Iraqi forces Feb. 20 had began an operation against insurgents in Nineveh projected to last three months, and had arrested 84 people. Final Election Results Released— The Iraqi government Feb. 19 released final results from provincial council elections held Jan. 31 in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The results were mostly consistent with the preliminary results released earlier in February, showing strong gains for Maliki’s State of Law coalition, led by his Dawa Party, in Baghdad and the southern province of Basra. However, the rival Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) did better in the predominantly Shiite southern provinces than the preliminary results had indicated, garnering the same number of seats as Maliki’s allies in three provinces. [See p. 101G3] The final results showed a plurality in the western province of Anbar won by the Awakening Councils, which had started as U.S.-allied armed groups fighting against extremists but had developed into a political force. The Iraqi National Project, a candidate list led by Mutlaq, had originally been declared the winner in Anbar. [See 2008, p. 915D1] Trial of Bush Shoe-Thrower Postponed—

Iraq’s Central Criminal Court in Baghdad Feb. 19 began to hear the case of Muntader al-Zaidi, an Iraqi reporter who in December 2008 had thrown his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush in protest during a press conference. Zaidi claimed that he had not committed the crime of assaulting a foreign leader because he had thrown the shoes at Bush in Baghdad’s Green Zone, which at the time was controlled by U.S. troops, and because Bush had arrived in Iraq secretly. He argued that that meant Bush was not on an official visit to Iraq. Judge Abdul Amir al-Rubaie postponed the trial until March 12 in order to get the Iraqi government’s opinion on the matter. [See 2008, p. 949A1] Zaidi’s actions had been celebrated by critics of U.S. policy throughout the world, and he was applauded as he entered the courtroom. During his testimony, Zaidi argued that Bush’s smile had spontaneously provoked him to throw his shoes as a protest of “violations against human rights carried out by occupation forces.” He said an earlier statement given to investigators—that his actions were premeditated and that he had previously intended to throw something at Bush at a 2006 press conference in Jordan—was given under duress and was false. Maliki Reopens National Museum—Maliki Feb. 23 presided over the official reopening of the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad, in what he said was a sign of progress in the country’s reconstruction. Founded in 1923, the museum had held a renowned collection of artifacts from the region’s Stone Age, Sumerian, 118

Assyrian, Babylonian and Islamic periods. However, it had been looted of some 15,000 pieces in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and had been closed that year. The U.S. had been criticized for failing to safeguard the museum. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said as many as 7,000 artifacts had not yet been returned to Iraq. [See 2008, p. 391D2] Iraqi culture ministry officials had opposed Maliki’s plans to reopen the museum, saying that it needed more time to improve security and organize its holdings. Ordinary Iraqis were still barred from visiting it. Abu Ghraib Prison Reopened—The Iraqi justice ministry Feb. 21 allowed reporters access to the reopened and partially renovated prison at Abu Ghraib, located west of Baghdad. The prison, which had been renamed the Baghdad Central Prison, had become infamous after photographs of U.S. soldiers and interrogators abusing Iraqi detainees were made public in 2004. It also had been used as a center of torture and executions under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. [See 2008, p. 624B2] The prison had been closed in 2006, and was being used as a parking facility. However, Iraqi officials said they needed to use it to absorb the transfer of thousands of detainees to Iraqi custody from the U.S. military under the terms of a new security agreement, and emphasized various amenities that would be provided for prisoners. Many Iraqis, though, reportedly said that it should instead be turned into a museum documenting the past abuses, or be torn down. Some 120 prisoners Feb. 20 were transferred to the Baghdad Central Prison from Basra, bringing the total prisoner population to 400. Iraqi officials said an additional 3,000 prisoners would shortly be transferred to the newly renovated facility. U.S. Medic Convicted for Iraqi Murders—

A U.S. military court in Vilseck, Germany, Feb. 20 convicted a U.S. Army medic, Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder for the execution-style killings of four Iraqis in Baghdad in March or April 2007. Leahy, 28, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, and also had his rank reduced to private, was dishonorably discharged and forfeited his pay. [See 2008, p. 648C2] According to prosecutors, Leahy and two other U.S. soldiers—Master Sgt. John Hatley and Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo—had shot four Iraqi prisoners at point-blank range and pushed their bodies into a Baghdad canal, after their unit had let the Iraqis go for lack of evidence. Leahy had pleaded not guilty, saying he was dazed from a lack of sleep and the stress of months in a combat zone. The jury rejected that argument, but did acquit Leahy of murder and conspiracy charges related to the alleged killing of another Iraqi near Baghdad in January 2007 by Leahy and Hatley. [See p. 23D2] Hatley and Mayo faced later courts-martial for the March or April 2007 killings, and Sgt. Charles Quigley also faced a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in that case.

In an unrelated case, the New York Times Feb. 21 reported that a U.S. National Guard soldier acquitted of murdering two U.S. officers in Iraq in June 2005 had previously sought to plead guilty. A military jury at Fort Bragg, N.C., Dec. 4, 2008, had found Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez not guilty of detonating a Claymore antipersonnel mine at a U.S. base in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, killing Capt. Phillip Esposito and First Lt. Lou Allen. It was one of only two known killings in Iraq by enlisted soldiers of their superiors, which had been more frequent in the Vietnam War. [See 2006, p. 1031F2] According to the new report, Martinez in April 2006 had submitted a plea offer, approved by his lawyers, after a soldier admitted to giving him Claymore mines that her unit no longer needed. However, Lt. Gen. John Vines, then commander of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, based at Fort Bragg, rejected the offer for unknown reasons. n

Israel Netanyahu Chosen to Form Government.

Israeli President Shimon Peres Feb. 20 tapped former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the conservative Likud party, to form a new government. Likud had won 27 seats in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset in Feb. 10 parliamentary elections, one less than the centrist Kadima party, which was led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Both Netanyahu and Livni had claimed victory, but Netanyahu was reportedly considered more likely to be able to form a governing coalition. Netanyahu had six weeks to negotiate a coalition. [See p. 85E2] Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, Feb. 19 had endorsed Likud. A coalition with Yisrael Beitenu, which had posted a strong third-place showing of 15 seats, and several smaller right-wing parties could reportedly give Likud a 65-seat majority. However, Netanyahu professed a desire to form a centrist national unity coalition with Likud’s rivals to its left. Netanyahu Feb. 22 met with Livni, but they did not reach an agreement on a coalition. Livni said she had not been able to convince Netanyahu to agree to continue negotiations towards a two-state solution with the Palestinians, which Kadima supported. After Lieberman’s endorsement of Likud, Livni Feb. 19 had said Kadima would not serve as a “fig leaf” for “an extreme right-wing government,” and would probably go into opposition. Netanyahu Feb. 23 met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the leader of the center-left Labor Party, which had finished in fourth place with 13 seats. Barak also refused to join a coalition. However, both Barak and Livni said they were willing to meet again for further coalition talks with Netanyahu. n

Saudi Arabia Government Releases Terror Suspects List.

The Saudi government Feb. 3 issued a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects, including FACTS ON FILE

11 Saudis who had been released from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The suspects on the list included 83 Saudis and two Yemenis. The ex-Guantanamo detainees had reportedly gone through a Saudi program designed to rehabilitate extremists. [See pp. 112F1, 101D3, E3, 20D2; 2008, p. 797E2] Among the 85 suspects named were Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of the Yemeni branch of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, which had announced that it was merging with the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda. The Saudi government said another of the suspects, Abdullah al-Qarawi, was a Saudi who had been working from Iran for the past three years to carry out terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government Jan. 26 had announced that nine graduates of the rehabilitation program had been arrested after rejoining terrorist organizations. In late 2008, the government had said that no graduates of the program had returned to terrorism. The Yemeni Al Qaeda branch Jan. 23 released a video on the Internet allegedly showing that two Guantanamo detainees who had been released and had passed through the Saudi rehabilitation program had joined the terrorist group. The Al Qaeda members, who were identified in the video by name and Guantanamo detainee identification number, were Said Ali al-Shihri, who had become the deputy leader of the Yemeni Al Qaeda branch, and was suspected of responsibility for the September 2008 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Yemen; and Abu Hareth Muhammad alAwfi, who was identified in Guantanamo records as Mohamed Atiq Awayd al-Harbi. Both men had been released from Guantanamo and returned to Saudi Arabia in November 2007. [See 2008, p. 665E3] n

SOUTH ASIA

Sri Lanka Rebel Cease-Fire Offer Rejected. Sri Lankan rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Feb. 23 said it was willing to enter an internationally brokered cease-fire with the government, but the offer was quickly rejected by state officials who said that nothing less than the group’s total surrender and disarmament was acceptable. The cease-fire offer came as the rebels struggled against an army offensive that had cornered them in a small patch of land on Sri Lanka’s northeastern coast, near the Jaffna peninsula. The LTTE was fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s minority Tamil ethnic group, who it said had been discriminated against and marginalized by the country’s majority Sinhalese. [See p. 9B2] The government in early January had captured the LTTE’s de facto capital of Kilinochchi. The army then pressed further north into rebel-held territory, and Jan. 25 took Mullaittivu, the last major town controlled by the rebels. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had vowed to defeat the February 26, 2009

LTTE militarily, Feb. 4 predicted that the

rebels would be conquered “in a few days,” heralding the end of a conflict that had begun in 1983, in which some 70,000 people had died. But the government had thus far failed to vanquish the LTTE, which had once controlled about 5,800 square miles (15,000 square km) of territory in the north and east, but was now thought to occupy 34 square miles. The number of insurgents had also been reduced, to about 600, from as many as 12,000. Officials said the final push had been restrained because of concerns over civilian casualties, and that the rebels were using civilians as a shield against the military offensive, a claim backed by international observers. However, aid agencies and human rights groups had accused the government of shelling rebel-held territory indiscriminately, also contributing to civilian casualties. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations estimated that some 250,000 civilians were trapped in the war zone, although the government claimed that the number was closer to 65,000. News reporters were largely barred from the war zone, making it difficult to independently verify such claims. The U.S., Britain, the European Union, Japan and other members of the international community had urged a negotiated cease-fire. Both Sides Accused of Abuses— U.S.based advocacy group Human Rights Watch Feb. 20 said both the government and the LTTE had committed “numerous violations of international humanitarian law,” and that they appeared “to be engaged in a perverse competition to demonstrate the greatest disregard for the civilian population.” The group said 2,000 people had been killed over the last month of fighting, while 5,000 had been injured. “Safe zones” had been established to allow civilians to escape the fighting, but they were often the scenes of heavy violence between the two sides. Observers said the LTTE was preventing civilians from leaving not only to use them as a shield, but to force the government to negotiate a cease-fire. The government had rejected pleas to temporarily halt fighting to allow civilians to flee, saying it could enable rebels to escape as well. More than 37,000 civilians were estimated to have fled the war zone since the beginning of the year. Most were interned in heavily guarded government camps, which were criticized for limiting access to aid agencies and isolating Tamil refugees from the general population. The government was also criticized for a plan to create “welfare villages” for the refugees once the conflict was over, as aid agencies said the Tamil population would be further marginalized. ICRC officials said continuous shelling Feb. 1–4 of the war zone’s only hospital, in the area of Puthukkudiyiruppu, had killed at least 12 civilians and wounded 30, despite the fact that the hospital was in a safe zone that the government had promised not to shell. Patients and staff members were forced to flee. The government denied at-

tacking the hospital, and it remained unclear which side was responsible. Rebel Planes Attack Capital—Two LTTE airplanes Feb. 20 attacked Colombo, the government capital, killing two people and injuring 58. The planes were eventually downed by the military, with one crashing into the country’s central tax building. The attacks belied the government contention that it had neutralized the LTTE’s small air force by capturing the group’s air strips during its offensive. The government Feb. 3 said it had captured the last remaining LTTE air strip, and Feb. 5 said the last rebel naval base had been taken. Separately, a female LTTE suicide bomber Feb. 9 killed 20 soldiers and eight civilians when she detonated her explosives at a security checkpoint near Mullaittivu. Some 60 civilians were wounded. Analysts said the attack was an indication that the LTTE could continue mounting guerrilla-style attacks against government forces if it lost its last stronghold in the north. The LTTE was known for having pioneered the use of suicide bombing before it became a common terrorist tactic around the world. n

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SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Horse Racing Curlin Repeats as Horse of the Year. De-

fending champion Curlin Jan. 26 was named Horse of the Year for 2008 at the 38th annual Eclipse Awards ceremony in Miami Beach, Fla. Voting for the awards was conducted by representatives of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers Association. The last horse to win the award two years in a row had been Cigar, for 1995 and 1996. [See 2008, pp. 268F1, 171G1; 1997, p. 204G1] Of the three horses in the running for the top honor, Curlin, the winner of the Dubai World Cup in March 2008, garnered 153 votes; undefeated filly Zenyatta—winner of the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic—took 69; and Big Brown, winner of the 2008 Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, claimed 13. Curlin, who was retired in November 2008 at age four with career earnings of more than $10.5 million, was also voted top older male horse. [See 2008, p. 823C2, G2, B3] Other Awards—In other awards presented Jan. 26: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Top two-year-old male: Midshipman Top two-year-old female: Stardom Bound Top three-year-old male: Big Brown Top three-year-old female: Proud Spell Top older female: Zenyatta Top male sprinter: Benny the Bull Top female sprinter: Indian Blessing Top male turf horse: Conduit Top female turf horse: Forever Together Top steeplechase horse: Good Night Shirt Outstanding owner: Stronach Stables Outstanding breeder: Adena Springs Outstanding trainer: Steve Asmussen Outstanding jockey: Garrett Gomez Outstanding apprentice jockey: Pascacio Lopez n 119

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Awards ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ Dominates Oscars.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Feb. 22 presented its 81st annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. Australian actor Hugh Jackman hosted the ceremony for the first time. The ceremony was televised by the ABC network. [See p. 40C1; 2008, p. 135G3] The British film Slumdog Millionaire, a rags-to-riches tale shot mostly in Mumbai, India, and with much of its dialogue in Hindi, dominated the Oscars, winning eight, including top-picture honors; no other movie won more than three. The film’s director, Briton Danny Boyle, won the directing Oscar, and the author of its screenplay, Briton Simon Beaufoy, took the award for best adapted screenplay; his adaptation was based on a novel by Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup. The film’s cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, and editor, Chris Dickens, also won Oscars. Composer A.R. Rahman, long a major figure in India’s “Bollywood” film industry, won two Oscars for his work on Slumdog Millionaire: for best score and for best original song. In the latter category, he won for “Jai Ho,” a Hindi phrase meaning “Let there be victory”; it was one of two Slumdog Millionaire songs that had been nominated. The film’s eighth Oscar was for sound mixing; the only category in which it was nominated but did not win was for sound editing. In that category, Richard King was honored for his work on the Batman adventure tale The Dark Knight, 2008’s top-grossing film. [See p. 12F2] One of the stars of The Dark Knight, Australian-born actor Heath Ledger, posthumously won the Oscar for best supporting actor, for portraying the villainous Joker. Ledger, who died in January 2008 of an accidental drug overdose, became only the second winner of a posthumous Oscar in an acting category; the first had been Peter Finch, for Network (1976). (Finch died in January 1977, less than three months before the 1977 Oscar ceremony.) Ledger’s award was accepted by his mother, father and sister. [See 2008, pp. 79A3, 44D3; 1977, pp. 264B1, 84A3] The best-actor Oscar went to Sean Penn, for Milk, in which he portrayed assassinated gay activist and politician Harvey Milk. Penn, the only U.S-born figure among the new group of Oscar acting honorees, in 2004 had been named best actor for his work in Mystic River. [See 2004, p. 148F1] The other acting awards went to Britain’s Kate Winslet and Spain’s Penelope Cruz. Winslet, on her sixth Oscar nomination, won for the first time, being named best actress for her role as a German woman with a secret Nazi past in The Reader. Cruz was named best supporting actress for her role as a jealousy-crazed ex-wife in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Two weeks earlier, both had been honored for the same films in the same categories at the British Academy of Film 120

and Television Arts (BAFTA) ceremony in London. [See p. 104F1, A2] The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which had been nominated for 13 Oscars, more than any other film, won the nexthighest number of Oscars, three, all in technical categories. One of the five bestpicture nominees, Frost/Nixon, failed to win a single Oscar. [See p. 40D1, A2] Another film made in India, Smile Pinki, about a village girl with a cleft palate, won the Oscar for best documentary short. In the documentary feature category, the winner was Man On Wire, about French-born aerialist Philippe Petit, who in 1974 walked between the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, destroyed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. [See 2004, p. 24F1] The winners in the major awards categories were: Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark

Knight Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky

Cristina Barcelona Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black,

Milk Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slum-

dog Millionaire Best Foreign-Language Film: Departures (Japan) Best Animated Feature: WALL-E Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire Best Documentary Short Subject: Smile Pinki n

People A month after quitting as director of Los Angeles’s financially troubled Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Jeremy Strick Jan. 30 was named director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, effective March 2. The Dallas museum, which opened in 2003, housed a major sculpture collection assembled by real estate developer and philanthropist Raymond Nasher, who died in 2007. [See 2008, p. 996D3; 2007, p. 907F3] Mexican-born actress Salma Hayek, 42, Feb. 14 married French luxury-goods retailer Francois-Henri Pinault, 46, in a civil ceremony in Paris. The couple had a baby daughter, born in September 2007. The groom’s father was billionaire investor Francois Pinault, 72. [See 2003, pp. 1069B3–E3, 780C2, 92E1] n

O B I T UA R I E S ANDERSON, Robert Woodruff, 91, playwright and screenwriter; in the 1950s, his play Tea and Sympathy, about an affair between the wife of the headmaster at a New England prep school and a student wrongly thought to be homosexual, ran for nearly two years on Broadway and was made into a 1956 film for which he wrote the script; his other big Broadway hit was You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running, a quartet of one-act comedies mostly dealing with marital problems; it had more than 750 performances between 1967 and 1969; other films that he scripted included The Nun’s Story (1959), The Sand Pebbles (1966) and I Never Sang for My Father (1970), based on his play of the same name seen on Broadway in 1968; one of the play’s stars was actress Teresa Wright, his second wife, to whom he was married from 1959 until their 1978 divorce; they remained on good terms until her death in 2005; born April 28,

1917, in New York City; died Feb. 9 at his New York home, of pneumonia linked to Alzheimer’s disease. [See 2005, p. 176G3; 1971, p. 1033G3; Indexes 1970, 1966–68, 1959, 1956, 1953–54] BENNETT, Estelle, 67, one of three members of the singing group the Ronettes, the 1960s “girl group” inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007; the other members of the group, which broke up in 1966, were her younger sister, Ronnie Bennett, and their cousin Nedra Talley; the group was promoted by legendary record producer Phil Spector, whose marriage to Ronnie Bennett lasted from 1968 to 1974; the Ronettes sued Spector for back royalties in 1988, and years later recovered some money; after the Ronettes’ break-up, Estelle Bennett battled psychiatric problems for years; born July 22, 1941, in New York City; found dead Feb. 11 in her apartment in Englewood, N.J.; she had been suffering from colon cancer. [See 2007, pp. 634B2, 168D1; 1985, p. 292F2] COVER, Jack (John Hickson Cover Jr.), 88, physicist and aerospace scientist who in the late 1960s invented the Taser stun gun, used by law enforcement officials to subdue suspected criminals with electric shocks; the principal marketer of products based on his original invention was Scottsdale, Ariz.–based Taser International Inc., founded in 1993; born April 6, 1920, in New York City; died Feb. 7 at a retirement home in Mission Viejo, Calif., of pneumonia linked to Alzheimer’s disease. [See 2004, p. 988B2] INTERIOR, Lux (born Erick Lee Purkhiser), 62, lead singer of the cult rock group the Cramps; founded in the 1970s, its blend of surf music, punk rock and rockabilly came to be known as psychobilly; the group’s cofounder was his wife, guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach (born Kristy Wallace); born Oct. 21, 1946, in Stow, Ohio; died Feb. 4 at a hospital in Glendale, Calif., of a heart ailment. KOLFF, Willem Johan, 97, Dutch-born physician who invented the kidney dialysis machine in the Netherlands during World War II; after moving to the U.S. in 1950, he became a professor at the University of Utah, and a leader in the field of artificial-organ development; he was the chief designer of the first mechanical heart implanted in a human being, the Jarvik-7 model that kept retired dentist Barney Clark alive for 112 days in 1982–83; he retired from the University of Utah at age 75 but continued to do medical research for years thereafter; born Feb. 14, 1911, in Leiden; died Feb. 11 at his home in Newtown Square, Pa., of natural causes. [See 2003, p. 568D3; 2002, p. 759F2; 1983, p. 217E1; Index 1975] LEONARD, Hugh (born John Joseph Byrne),

82, Irish playwright whose autobiographical drama Da had a long run on Broadway and won four Tony Awards in 1978; a film version of it, for which he wrote the screenplay, was released in 1988; in addition to plays, he wrote children’s books, radio plays, novels, journalism and two memoirs; born Nov. 9, 1926, in Dublin, Ireland’s capital; died Feb. 12 in a Dublin hospital, of multiple illnesses. [See 1988, p. 747G2, A3; 1980, p. 892G2; Indexes 1978, 1973] MARTIN, Dewey (born Walter Milton Dewayne Midkiff), 68, Canadian-born drummer for the short-

lived but highly influential 1960s rock band Buffalo Springfield; several members of the group, notably Neil Young and Stephen Sills, had long-term success after Buffalo Springfield broke up in 1968; the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; born Sept. 30, 1940, in Chesterville, Ontario; found dead Feb. 1 in his apartment in Van Nuys, Calif.; he reportedly had been in poor health in recent years. [See 1997, pp. 684G3, 368E1] SHEPHERD Jr., Mark, 86, engineer who played a key role in transforming Dallas, Texas–based Texas Instruments Inc. into an electronics industry giant; he was successively the company’s chief engineer, chief operating officer and president before becoming its chief executive officer in 1969; he served as its chairman from 1976 until 1988, when he retired; born Jan. 18, 1923, in Dallas; died Feb. 4 at his ranch in Quitman, Texas, of pulmonary fibrosis complications. [See 1978, pp. 798B1, 797C3; 1966, p. 540F3] WHITMORE, James, 87, character actor with a long list of stage, film and television credits, dating back to the 1940s; he had major success in the 1970s with three one-man shows in which he successively impersonated humorist Will Rogers and two U.S. presidents, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt; he also had a long run (1982–2002) as the TV pitchman for Miracle-Gro plant food; born Oct. 1, 1921, in White Plains, N.Y.; died Feb. 6 at his home in Malibu, Calif., of lung cancer. [See 1997, p. 76D2; 1994, p. 824D1; Indexes 1986, 1982, 1976, 1973, 1970, 1968, 1960, 1955–58, 1950, 1947] n

February 26, 2009

U.S. President Obama Sets Withdrawal of U.S. Combat Troops From Iraq by August 2010 50,000 Soldiers Will Remain Until End of 2010.

U.S. President Barack Obama Feb. 27 announced that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraq by August 2010. Of the 140,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Iraq, 35,000 to 50,000 would remain in a support role until the end of 2010, when they were required to leave the country by a U.S.Iraqi security agreement. Obama made the announcement in a speech to a crowd of U.S. marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C. [See pp. 124G3, 121E2, 105C2, 64D1] “Let me say this as plainly as I can: By Aug. 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” Obama said. He said the U.S. had reached its “achievable goals,” but that “America can no longer afford to see Iraq in isolation from other priorities. We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military, and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars.” He cast the move as a “transition to Iraqi responsibility” rather than a retreat. (The Obama administration the previous day had released a budget plan that portrayed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as a major factor in its plans to reduce the U.S. national deficit. However, the administration also planned to increase troop levels in Afghanistan to battle an insurgency by the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group.) Obama in his speech also formally announced that Christopher Hill would be the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Hill’s selection had been reported earlier in February. [See p. 57C3] Obama Feb. 26 had reportedly briefed former President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on the withdrawal timeline. Obama Pledges Caution—Obama said he would “proceed cautiously” with the withdrawal and would heed the advice of U.S. military officials. His timeline was seen as a compromise between Democrats pressing for an earlier withdrawal and senior military officers—including Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq—who wanted to wait until after national elections scheduled for December to start pulling out troops. IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood March 5 [See pp. 121A1, 58A1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,255 31,102

Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 8,933 Iraqi civilian deaths: 90,902–99,257

(Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

During his campaign for president, Obama had promised to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, rather than the 19 months of his new timeline. Obama had also promised to withdraw U.S. forces at a rate of one combat brigade a month. Under the new plan, while some withdrawals would occur during 2009, the majority of troops would stay in Iraq to provide security for the December elections, and would start to pull out after that. The troops who remained in Iraq after August 2010 would provide training and support to Iraqi forces, as well as providing security for U.S. civilian officials and performing counterterrorism operations. Military officers noted that some of those support roles could involve combat. Reaction—Many senior Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), objected to Obama’s withdrawal timeline, protesting that it was too slow and left too many support troops in Iraq. Reid Feb. 26 after a briefing given by Obama to a group of Democratic and Republican legislators said the figure of 50,000 troops remaining was “a little higher number than I anticipated.” However, Obama received support for the timeline from his Republican opponent in the presidential race, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). McCain, who during the campaign had criticized Obama’s Iraq policy as naive and defeatist, Feb. 27 called the timeline “a reasonable plan” and said he was “cautiously optimistic” that it would succeed. Other Republicans also backed the plan, although they said more troops should be sent in if security conditions in Iraq worsened. n

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3559 March 5, 2009

B and would serve prison time for that concurrently with the conspiracy sentence. Hussein Official Acquitted— The Iraqi High Tribunal, a special criminal court in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, which tried members of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, March 2 acquitted former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, 72, of responsibility for the brutal suppression of an 1999 uprising of Shiite Muslims. It was the first prominent acquittal handed down by the Iraqi High Tribunal, and was seen as a sign of the court’s independence and impartiality. [See 2008, p. 948F3] Aziz, who had acted as the Hussein regime’s spokesman, also faced charges of involvement in a 1983 massacre of Kurds, and remained in custody. Two other Hussein aides, Saif al-Din alMashhadani and Uglah Abid Siqir alKubaysi, were also acquitted of involve-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama sets withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010; 50,000 soldiers will remain until end of 2010. PAGE 121

Other Iraq War News

ICC indicts Sudan’s Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity.

Insurgent Pleads Guilty in U.S. Court. An

Iraqi-born Dutch citizen accused of attempting to kill U.S. troops in Iraq with roadside bombs Feb. 26 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The charges facing Wasem Delaema, 36, included conspiracy to murder a U.S. citizen and possessing a destructive device during a violent crime. Delaema was the first alleged Iraqi insurgent to be tried in the U.S. [See pp. 121A1, 117G2; 2007, p. 264B1] Delaema had been arrested in May 2005 by Dutch police after the discovery of a videotape showing him planting explosives, and was extradited to the U.S. in January 2007. He admitted to traveling to Iraq in 2003 to join the insurgent group Mujaheddin From Fallujah. Delaema was scheduled to be sentenced April 15, and the plea deal carried a mandatory 25-year prison term. However, under the terms of the extradition deal that sent him to the U.S., Delaema would serve his sentence in the Netherlands, where his sentence could be changed under Dutch law. Delaema also pleaded guilty to assaulting a corrections officer while in custody,

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Clinton tours Middle East, signals engagement with Syria. PAGE 123

Obama unveils $3.6 trillion budget plan; sets tax hikes for wealthy, sees big deficits. PAGE 124

Government commits additional $30 billion to AIG. PAGE 126

Housing market rescue plan launched. PAGE 127

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GDP shrank at 6.2% rate in 4th quarter. PAGE 128

Guinea-Bissau president assassinated after murder of army chief. PAGE 133

Chinese migrant jobless put at 20 million. PAGE 134

EU rejects bailout for Eastern Europe. PAGE 136

Bangladeshi border leads to army clash.

guard

mutiny PAGE 137

Terrorists attack Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan. PAGE 137 REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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ment in the 1999 crackdown. However, the court found guilty former Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid—known as “Chemical Ali”—for his role in the 1999 crackdown. Majid received a death sentence; two previous death sentences against him had been held off by political maneuvering. Sect Members Sentenced to Death— A court in Dhi Qar province, in southern Iraq, Feb. 26 sentenced to death 28 members of a messianic Shiite sect for carrying out attacks on Shiite pilgrims, according to an unnamed Iraqi court official. The defendants belonged to the Followers of the Mahdi group, which was part of the Soldiers of Heaven, a group that had attacked U.S. and Iraqi security forces and civilians in an attempt to prepare the way for the coming of Shiite Islam’s 12th, or “hidden,” imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who lived during the 9th century. The group believed that he had disappeared but would someday return to redeem the world. [See 2008, p. 40E3] The court official said 19 other sect members had been sentenced to life in prison, and six had been acquitted. n

ICC Indicts Sudan’s Bashir for War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity

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No Indictment on Genocide Allegations. A three-judge panel of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, March 4 upheld a request made by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to charge Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Moreno-Ocampo had made the request in July 2008, and the panel had been considering the merits of the charges since that time. [See p. 115E2] Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC, which had been established in 2002. Two other sitting presidents—Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia—had been charged in the past by ad hoc war crimes tribunals and tried in The Hague. [See p. 134F1, B2; 2006, p. 181A1] Bashir, who had ruled Sudan since 1989, was charged in connection with government actions during the ongoing civil war in Sudan’s western Darfur region. In 2003, rebels had taken up arms to protest what they perceived as the neglect of Darfur—which was mainly populated by nonArab Muslims from the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit ethnic groups—by Bashir’s predominantly Arab, Islamist government. About 300,000 people had died and some 2.7 million others had been driven from their homes in the Darfur conflict, amid fighting between the rebel factions and government forces allied with Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. Government troops and the Janjaweed had been accused of committing atrocities against Darfuri civilians. Specifically, Moreno-Ocampo alleged that Bashir’s campaign in Darfur had caused the deaths of at least 35,000 civilians as part of a campaign to destroy the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit, who the government alleged had

supported the Darfur rebel groups. In the indictment, Bashir was accused of playing an “essential role” in crimes against civilians. In announcing the judges’ decision, ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said Bashir could not claim immunity from prosecution due to his position as Sudan’s head of state. “He is suspected of being criminally responsible…for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan—murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property,” she said. The judges, by a 2–1 vote, opted not to issue an indictment on the three counts of genocide that Moreno-Ocampo had also included in his 2008 request. The chief prosecutor had alleged that the actions of Bashir’s forces in Darfur represented a campaign to wipe out the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit. Asked why judges did not indict Bashir for genocide, Blairon said, “In this particular case, the pretrial chamber has not been able to find there were reasonable grounds to establish a genocidal intent.” However, she said the genocide charges could be brought at a later date if the prosecutor provided more evidence. In the wake of the indictment, Bashir faced the possibility of arrest if he left Sudan. Under the ICC charter, signatory nations were obligated to arrest Bashir if he entered their territory. Non-signatories, which included the U.S. and Sudan, could also arrest him. However, it was considered unlikely that an African or Arab nation—most of which had opposed the ICC indictment on the grounds that it undermined efforts to reach a peace deal in Darfur—would turn Bashir over to the court. United Nations peacekeepers in the country, who were stationed in both Darfur and the semiautonomous region of South Sudan, could not arrest Bashir because it was not part of their mandate. Sudan Expels Aid Agencies— Bashir’s government March 4 responded to the ICC indictment by ordering at least 10 Western humanitarian organizations that had been providing aid to Darfur’s refugees to leave the country or curtail their operations. Those agencies included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee. The Sudanese government had often alleged that the aid agencies were helping the ICC by giving it evidence to use against Bashir, a charge that the agencies strongly denied. The expulsion of the agencies would reportedly leave millions of refugees without access to basic necessities. Prior to the ICC’s decision, aid agencies and U.N. officials had expressed fears that an indictment against Bashir could result in revenge attacks on aid workers and peacekeepers. Currently, there were about 25,000 U.N. troops in Sudan, in both Darfur and South Sudan. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, in a March 4 statement, said the U.N. would “continue to conduct its vital peacekeeping, humanitarian, human rights and

development operations and activities in Sudan.” The statement added, “The Secretary General calls on the government of Sudan to continue to cooperate fully with all U.N. entities and their implementing partners, while fulfilling its obligation to ensure the safety and security of the civilian population, U.N. personnel and property, and that of its implementing partners,” which included other international organizations as well as nongovernmental organizations. Soon after the ICC judges’ decision was announced March 4, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to protest the ruling. In a March 5 speech to thousands of supporters in the capital, Bashir denounced the indictment, alleging that the ICC was a tool of Western powers intent on recolonizing Africa. “Here in Sudan, we are a liberation movement against this new colonization and we are ready for any battle,” he said, adding that “the real criminals are the leaders of the Western countries in the United States of America and Europe. They lie to their people and the world and now they think that we will kneel and beg.” Other government officials asserted that Sudan did not recognize the ICC, and that the court had no jurisdiction in the country. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a major Darfur rebel group that had reached a deal with the government in February to begin peace talks, March 4 said it was calling off the negotiations. Chief negotiator Ahmed Tugod Lissan said, “I don’t think that ethically it is possible to negotiate with someone who committed crimes in Darfur and has lost legitimacy.” International Reaction Mixed—The African Union (AU) March 5 said it would

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send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council to press that body to defer Bashir’s indictment. The Security Council had the power, under Article 16 of the Rome Statute governing the court, to suspend ICC prosecutions for 12 months. Also that day, the AU Peace and Security Council opened an emergency meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, to discuss the ICC’s decision. The AU and the Arab League in the past had lobbied the Security Council to suspend the ICC case against Bashir. China and Russia, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, strongly criticized the ICC’s decision. China, which had significant investments in Sudan’s oil industry, March 5 called on the Security Council to suspend the indictment. However, it was considered unlikely that the other three permanent members of the council—the U.S., Britain and France—would support such a move. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang March 5 said, “China opposes anything that could disrupt efforts to realize peace in Darfur and in Sudan.” Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade voiced concerns, previously expressed by other African leaders, that the ICC had thus far indicted only Africans. “Wherever in the world the people committing genocide are, we should judge them, but not only judge the Africans,” Wade said. [See p. 42D3] Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., in a March 4 statement said the U.S. “supports the ICC’s actions to hold accountable those responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur.” The ICC’s action was also praised by human rights groups and activists involved in campaigns to end the violence in Darfur. Niemat Ahmadi, a representative of the Save Darfur Coalition, said the decision would “change the mood of frustration and helplessness for our people.” Richard Dicker, a director of U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said the ICC’s move “means [Bashir] will be a fugitive, a man on a wanted poster.” n

Clinton Tours Middle East, Signals Engagement With Syria Pledges Israeli-Palestinian Peace Efforts.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton March 1–4 traveled to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank, in her first trip to the Middle East as the U.S.’s top diplomat. Clinton said two top U.S. State Department officials would be sent to Syria, indicating a new U.S. engagement with that country. She pledged continued involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, but expressed skepticism that Iran would respond to diplomatic overtures from the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Clinton March 4 traveled on to Brussels, Belgium, to meet with European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials. [See pp. 108F3, 16A1] March 5, 2009

Clinton March 1 traveled to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh., where she attended a conference of international aid donors for the Palestinian territories the next day. At the meeting, Clinton told European and Arab leaders that the U.S. was “committed to a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors and we will pursue it on many fronts.” Clinton also reportedly said she “was doubtful that Iran would respond” to the Obama administration’s offers of direct talks, according to an unidentified State Department official. She reportedly made that comment during a conversation with United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan. Clinton declined to discuss the conversation with reporters, but said she had told several Arab leaders that the administration would “consult constantly” with them on the U.S.’s Iran policy. Donors at the conference pledged $4.48 billion over the next two years to assist the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. At least $1.33 billion was expected to go toward rebuilding Gaza after a January Israeli invasion, but the donors stipulated that none of the money go to the militant Islamist group Hamas, which controlled the territory. It was not known how much of the $4.48 billion was made up of previous aid pledges. Also, Arab nations had historically failed to fulfill many of their aid pledges to the Palestinian territories. [See p. 30D3] Clinton pledged $900 million in U.S. aid, including $300 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza. The aid was contingent on U.S. congressional approval. Clinton said the U.S. aid would go only to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controlled the West Bank, and would include safeguards so it did not “end up in the wrong hands,” referring to Hamas. U.S. Officials Dispatched to Syria—

Clinton March 3 continued on to Israel, where she met with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem and pledged that the U.S. “will be vigorously engaged” in Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. Clinton said she believed in the “inevitability” of a two-state solution and said that it would be “in Israel’s best interests.” Clinton also met that day with Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Israeli right-wing Likud Party, who was attempting to form a governing coalition after recent elections. Netanyahu supported efforts to bolster economic development in the West Bank, but had opposed continuing the talks on creating a Palestinian state. (Netanyahu Feb. 26 had met with George Mitchell, Obama’s Mideast envoy.) [See p. 118C3] Clinton after her meeting with Livni announced that two senior State Department officials traveling with her would be sent to Syria that weekend to explore how to improve relations between the two countries. Syria had been considered an international pariah in recent years. However, in 2008 it had made moves toward ending its isolation, starting indirect peace talks with Isra-

el mediated by Turkey and hosting French President Nicolas Sarkozy on a visit. [See 2008, pp. 708G3, 640F1] The U.S. had withdrawn its ambassador from Syria in 2005, after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. (Syria was suspected of orchestrating the killing, but denied involvement.) However, analysts said engagement with Syria could be a key part of U.S. Middle Eastern policy, allowing the U.S. to isolate Iran, which had close ties with Syria. Clinton said, “There has to be some perceived benefit” from negotiating with Syria “for the U.S. and our allies and our shared values.” She warned that there was “no way to predict what the future of our relations with Syria might be.” Nonetheless, she said, “I think it is a worthwhile effort to go and begin these preliminary conversations.” The two U.S. envoys were: Jeffrey Feltman, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon; and Daniel Shapiro, the senior director for Middle East policy on the National Security Council (NSC). Feltman Feb. 26 had met with the Syrian ambassador to the U.S., Imad Moustapha, in Washington, D.C. The meeting had reportedly been requested by the Obama administration, and was the first high-level contact between the two countries since September 2008. The U.S. State Department before the meeting said Feltman and Moustapha would discuss Syria’s alleged support for terrorism, its alleged efforts to acquire nuclear and other unconventional weapons, its “interference” in Lebanon and a “worsening human rights situation” in Syria. Clinton March 4 traveled to Ramallah, in the West Bank, and met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. At a news conference afterwards, she said she had “expressed concern” about Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip border crossings, which humanitarian groups said had made it impossible for the territory to receive sufficient aid. She also said that the planned demolition by Israel of 143 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem was “unhelpful” to the peace process. Israeli officials said the homes had been built without permits, but their Palestinian residents said such permits were impossible to obtain and that many of the houses had been there since before the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Clinton at the news conference in Ramallah also criticized Iran for trying to undermine the PA by stirring up Muslim hostility to Israel, funding terrorism and otherwise interfering in countries’ internal affairs throughout the Middle East. n

Global Environment Countries Agree to Mercury Treaty Talks.

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Feb. 20 agreed to begin talks on drafting an international treaty that would reduce mercury emissions worldwide. The unanimous agreement was brokered during a United Nations–backed summit held Feb. 16–20 in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. [See 2008, p. 148E3] U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Sustainable Development Daniel Reifsnyder Feb. 16 had indicated that the U.S. would drop its opposition to such a treaty, reversing the policy of the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush. Reifsnyder said no country could adequately protect its citizens “without serious cooperation internationally to reduce global mercury emissions.” [See 2001, p. 188A3] After the U.S.’s announcement, other countries, including China and India, dropped their opposition to a treaty. Formal negotiations on the pact were expected to begin in late 2009 or early 2010, and be completed by 2013. n Climate Changes Reported Inevitable. A team of climate researchers from the U.S National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), France and Switzerland reported in the Jan. 27 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide expected by 2050 would inevitably lead to a sea-level rise and droughts that would last for 1,000 years, regardless of any near-term cuts to man-made carbon dioxide emissions. [See 2008, p. 615D3; 1995, p. 728G3] The research was based on a model that had atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rising from its current concentration of 385 parts per million (ppm) to 450–600 ppm. The researchers said the rise would result in “mega-drought” conditions in southwestern North America, southern Africa and the Mediterranean. It would also result in significantly reduced rainfall in southern Europe, northern Africa and western Australia. The research was led by Susan Soloman, a senior scientist at the NOAA. Climate Change Speedup Reported—

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Separately, Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institute’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, Feb. 14 reported that global climate change was likely to occur much more quickly than had been expected, as a result of greater emissions levels and ecological feedback loops set into motion by existing climate changes. “We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model situations,” Field said. Field had been a member of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which in 2007 had warned that an increase of 3.2°–9.7° Fahrenheit (1.8°–5.4° Celsius) in the average global temperature by the end of the century would result in massive changes to the environment. [See 2008, p. 898A1] n 124

Other International News British Prime Minister Brown Visits Obama.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown March 3 visited U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C., becoming the first European leader to meet with Obama since his January inauguration. The two men had met twice before, in 2008, when Obama was still a presidential candidate. [See p. 116D3; 2008, pp. 516D3, 275B2] In brief remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama declared his intention of preserving and strengthening the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain. He also voiced measured support for Brown’s call for a new international system of financial regulation. Their meeting was partly devoted to preparations for a summit meeting of the Group of 20 countries with the world’s largest economies, scheduled for April in London. Brown March 4 addressed a joint session of Congress, becoming the fifth British prime minister to receive that honor. He warned against resorting to protectionism in the current global economic crisis. Brown also announced that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), who had brain cancer, would receive an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. n Chinese Ship Sinks After Russia Fires On It.

A Chinese cargo ship Feb. 15 reportedly sank in waters near the Far Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, after a Russian warship fired on it. Of the 16 Chinese and Indonesian crew members, eight were rescued by the Russian border patrol, and the remaining eight died at sea. The cargo ship, which had been flying a Sierra Leonean flag, was owned by Hong Kong, China– based J-Rui Lucky Shipping Co. Ltd. [See 2008, p. 841E2; 2007, p. 811D3] Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko Feb. 19 expressed regret over the incident, but said blame fell entirely on the captain of the cargo ship, who had “behaved extremely irresponsibly.” The Russian foreign ministry Feb. 21 said the Chinese ship Feb. 12 had left the Russian port town of Nakhodka without receiving permission from customs and border agents. Russian authorities claimed that border agents opened fire on the ship after it did not respond to warning shots and other signals for 18 hours. China’s foreign ministry Feb. 20 filed an official protest with the Russian minister counselor to China over Russia’s actions. Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiyun that day said the Russian foreign ministry’s position was “hard to understand and unacceptable.” J-Rui Lucky Shipping, according to a Feb. 22 report by the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), claimed that the cargo ship was supposed to deliver a shipment of rice to Nakhodka at the end of January, but the buyer had refused the shipment because the rice was of low quality, and demanded to be compensated. The company claimed that Russian officials had then delayed clearing the ship for departure, prompting the captain to leave without clearance on Feb. 15. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Obama Unveils $3.6 Trillion Budget Plan Sets Tax Hikes for Wealthy, Sees Big Deficits.

President Barack Obama Feb. 26 unveiled a $3.6 trillion budget plan for fiscal year 2010, which would begin Oct. 1. The plan was viewed as an unusually bold and ambitious one. It called for sharply increasing taxes on the wealthy, by more than $650 billion over 10 years, while locking in tax cuts for middle- and lower-income people. Among its other highlights, the budget would set aside $634 billion over 10 years for a major expansion of government health insurance coverage; start a system under which businesses would be required to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases blamed for causing climate change; and expand the government’s role in student lending. [See below, pp. 111E1, 105A1; for a box of budget highlights, see p. 125A1] The budget forecast a $1.75 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year, which would be a record in dollar terms, eclipsing the mark of $455 billion set in fiscal 2008. At 12.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), it would be the biggest deficit as a share of the national economy since 1945, at the end of World War II. The massive deficit derived largely from the federal response to the current recession, including a $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted in February, as well as rescue measures for the financial sector, the auto industry and homeowners. [See pp. 127D3, 89A1, 76A3] The budget estimated that a further $750 billion might be necessary to stabilize the financial sector, and that the government would be likely to recoup only two-thirds of such an expenditure. As a result, the budget called for a reserve fund of $250 billion to cover potential losses. Congress had authorized $700 billion in financial rescue funds in 2008, more than half of which had already been spent or allocated. The 134-page budget plan was a preliminary outline that would be followed in April by the delivery of a more detailed, official budget proposal to Congress. Pledges to Cut Deficit in Half—The budget projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2010. Obama pledged to cut that deficit by more than half, to $533 billion, or about 3% of GDP, by the end of his first term in 2013. However, some independent analysts said the budget’s economic assumptions were too optimistic, since it predicted a faster return to GDP growth than most outside economic forecasts. A return to growth would lead to more tax revenue for the government. The budget forecast a 1.2% contraction in GDP for 2009 and a 3.2% growth rate in 2010, while the Blue Chip survey of professional economists projected a 1.9% contraction in 2009 and 2.1% growth in 2010. Obama said the deficit would also be reduced by his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq over the next two years. However, he planned to deploy more troops to FACTS ON FILE

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS

Following are highlights of President Barack Obama’s budget plan announced Feb. 26 [See p. 124A3]: Top income tax rates to rise to 36% and o 39.6%, from 33% and 35%, for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and married couples earning more than $250,000 a year. o Top rate on capital gains and dividends to rise to 20%, from 15%. o Payroll tax credit for low- and middle-income workers to be made permanent: $400 per year for individuals, $800 for married couples. o $634 billion reserve fund to be set aside for expansion of health insurance coverage. o Cap-and-trade system for auctioning permits for greenhouse gas emissions to raise an estimated $645 billion between 2012 and 2019. o Government to take over student loan program, eliminating role of private lenders; Pell Grants for college students to be indexed to inflation plus 1%; Pell Grants to be made an automatic entitlement program, no longer requiring annual approval by Congress. o $75.5 billion to be requested for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of fiscal year 2009; $130 billion requested for fiscal 2010.

Afghanistan. He said he would request $75.5 billion to fund operations in both countries over the rest of fiscal 2009, and $130 billion for fiscal 2010. He also proposed to eventually double overall foreign aid expenditures. [See p. 121A1] Obama’s request for war funds in the budget marked a change from his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who had sought funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars outside the regular budget, in emergency “supplemental spending” bills. Democratic lawmakers praised Obama for adopting what they called a more honest approach to the wars’ costs. The budget proposed an array of other spending cuts, with payments to health care providers and student lenders being targeted for sharp reductions or outright elimination. [See below] Obama also called for cutting about $5 billion in direct subsidies to farm operators with more than $250,000 in annual revenue. He proposed budgeting $273 billion over 10 years for natural disasters. Tax Hikes to Reverse Bush Cuts—

Obama called for raising the top personal income tax rates to 39.6%, from 35%, and to 36%, from 33%. The top rates applied to individuals who earned more than $200,000 a year and married couples who earned more than $250,000 a year. The increase, to take effect in 2011, would return the top rates to their level under President Bill Clinton, ending the tax cuts delivered to the top income bracket by Bush. The hike would raise $339 billion in revenue over 10 years. Obama planned to increase the tax rate for capital gains and dividends to 20%, from 15%, raising another $118 billion over 10 years. He would also tax hedgefund and private-equity managers’ earnings as income, rather than capital gains as they were currently treated. The budget March 5, 2009

said that change would raise $24 billion in revenue over 10 years. In another hike that would largely affect the wealthy, Obama would impose new limits on the value of itemized deductions for charitable gifts and other exemptions, such as mortgage interest, at the highest income brackets. He proposed that, starting in 2011, people currently paying the 33% or 35% income tax rates would be able to claim no more than a 28% deduction. That would raise $180 billion over 10 years, according to the budget. Some nonprofit groups criticized that proposal, warning that it would lead to less charitable giving at a time when economic woes had already caused a decrease in donations. Obama also called for extending the estate tax in its current form, with a 45% top rate and an exemption for the first $3.5 million, rather than allowing the tax to expire, as it was scheduled to do in 2010. The budget would eliminate a tax break that allowed corporations to defer taxes on overseas profits, raising an estimated $210 billion in revenues over 10 years. It would also impose new excise taxes and fees on oil and gas companies, raising another $31 billion in revenues. The budget would make permanent Obama’s payroll tax credit for low- and middle-income workers, of $400 per individual and $800 per married couple. The credit would phase out for income levels between $150,000 and $200,000 for couples, and between $75,000 and $100,000 for individuals. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit had been included in the recent economic stimulus package as a one-time break. Unlike previous budgets, Obama’s would not assume increased revenue from the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Congress had acted each year to prevent the tax, which was not indexed to inflation, from applying to millions more people in the middle class. [See p. 89B3] Health Care Fund— The budget proposed a $634 billion “reserve fund for health care reform” intended to be used to expand government coverage for the millions of people in the U.S. who lacked health insurance. It did not outline Obama’s specific plans for that initiative, which it said Obama would develop later in the year in negotiations with Congress. [See p. 129C1] The budget said Obama planned to pay for the insurance expansion partly by reducing other federal health care spending. It called for savings of $176 billion over 10 years by cutting payments to health insurers from Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled. The budget projected more than $60 billion in additional savings from cutting Medicare payments to hospitals and home health agencies. It also proposed requiring higher-income seniors to pay more for the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Emissions Trading Plan—The budget envisioned a cap-and-trade system taking effect in 2012. Factories, power plants and other businesses would be required to buy

permits for the greenhouse gas emissions that they generated, and they would be able to trade the permits. The plan aimed to reduce U.S. emissions to 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, and to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. However, Obama left the details of the system to be decided by Congress. [See 2008, pp. 725A1, 395C1] According to the budget, the permit system would raise at least $645 billion in revenue between 2012 and 2019. Of that revenue, $15 billion a year would be used to fund the development of cleaner energy technologies. The rest, about $525 billion, would be used to finance Obama’s payroll tax credit and help “families, communities and businesses” offset higher energy prices resulting from the permit system.

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Government to Take Over Student Loans—

The budget called for the federal government to eliminate its subsidies to banks and other private lenders for providing federally guaranteed student loans. Ending that system, known as the Federal Family Education Loan Program, would leave the government as the sole direct provider of such loans. [See p. 90A1; 2008, pp. 556E2, 343D3] The budget called for using the savings from the eliminated subsidies, estimated at $47.5 billion over the next 10 years, to expand the Pell Grant program for low-income students. It would index Pell Grants to inflation for the first time, and make the grants automatic entitlements, similar to Social Security and Medicare, which did not require annual approval by Congress. Private lenders had provided nearly $60 billion in federal student loans for the current school year, while the government had made about $20 billion in direct loans to students. Private student lenders warned that the government would be less efficient at administering the loans. Student lenders had already been hit by the ongoing crisis in credit markets, prompting many to drop out of the federal program. Shares of the biggest student lender, SLM Corp. (Sallie Mae), Feb. 26 plunged by more than 30%, to $5.80, on the news of the budget plan. Reaction— Republican congressional leaders immediately criticized Obama’s budget, warning that its combination of big tax hikes and heavy spending initiatives would further damage the ailing economy. “The era of big government is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said Feb. 26, calling the budget “a job killer.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) expressed “serious concerns” with the budget and what he called its “unprecedented spending increases.” Republicans also asserted that Obama’s plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions amounted to a major new tax, which would lead to higher costs being passed on to consumers for oil, electricity and manufactured goods. Democrats, who held majorities in both houses of Congress, gave the budget a warmer welcome, but some objected to certain proposals. Senate Budget Committee 125

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Chairman Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) expressed doubts about Obama’s plan to reduce the value of tax deductions for higher earners, as well as his call for cuts in farm subsidies. Conrad also said he was “very uncomfortable with the build-up of debt.” He urged “more discipline on the spending side.” Some commentators said the sheer scale of Obama’s agenda as laid out in the budget plan ranked with two landmark domestic policy programs of the 20th century: the 1930s New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1960s Great Society of President Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats. Obama’s budget was also seen by some observers as an attempt to reverse a dominant political trend of the past three decades, toward a smaller federal government, which Republican President Ronald Reagan had set in motion upon taking office in 1981. In a weekly radio and Internet address, Obama Feb. 28 said his budget was part of “the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November” 2008 and elected him president. He said the budget also “reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited: a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis and a costly recession.” Administration Officials Defend Plan—

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner March 3 defended Obama’s budget plan in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag that day made similar defenses in testimony to the House Budget Committee. Geithner said the proposed tax increases met a “deep moral imperative to make our society more just.” He added, “But it’s very good economic policy, too,” calling higher taxes essential to reducing the deficit. Geithner and Orszag both stressed that none of the tax increases would take effect until 2011, when they expected the economy to have recovered. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee that day gave his implicit endorsement to Obama’s plan for heavy deficit spending in the short term, calling it a necessary response to the economic crisis. But he warned that unless the deficit was reduced fairly soon, international financial markets might “begin to balk” at the U.S.’s increasing debt load. n

Other Budget News Obama Sets Federal Contracting Review.

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President Barack Obama March 4 announced that he had ordered a review of federal contracting practices, with the aim of saving $40 billion a year. Obama said he wanted to reduce the government’s use of outside contractors, which had doubled over the past eight years to a total of $518 billion in 2008, and increase competitive bidding for contracts. “We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the federal government,” he said. [See p. 124A3; 2008, pp. 914C3, 658A1] 126

He said he had directed White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag to draw up new rules for contracting by Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Obama had pledged to cut waste from the federal budget in order to partly offset big new spending initiatives and a record deficit in his $3.6 trillion budget plan for fiscal year 2010, announced the previous week. Obama said the review would cover all federal agencies, but he focused on defense contracts as a chronic source of waste. “The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over,” he said, citing frequent cost overruns and delays on weapons development contracts, as well as fraud and waste by contractors in Iraq. Obama’s defeated Republican opponent in the November 2008 presidential election, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), joined him at the White House for the announcement, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. McCain had long crusaded against wasteful government spending and had led congressional investigations of fraud in defense contracts. n

Government Commits Additional $30 Billion to AIG Insurance Giant Posts Record Loss.

The government March 2 unveiled a revised plan to shore up struggling insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG), which could see the company receive an additional $30 billion in federal aid. AIG that day posted a $61.7 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, by far the largest quarterly loss in U.S. corporate history. Markets worldwide slid steeply on the news, as well as other indications that a weakened financial industry was far from recovery. [See pp. 111C1, 110A2; 2008, p. 825G2] The revised plan brought the total amount of aid that the government had allocated to AIG to more than $180 billion since September 2008, when AIG received an $85 billion credit line from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, to stay afloat. In exchange for the credit line, the government had taken a 79.9% stake in the company. AIG’s problems initially stemmed from heavy investments made in the credit-default-swaps (CDS) market, where it underwrote insurance on assets backed by risky mortgages. Following the collapse of a housing market bubble in 2006, mortgages started to default at a higher rate, leaving AIG on the hook for billions of dollars of insurance payments. AIG also held its own portfolio of mortgage-backed assets, which had lost value. The government in October had expanded the credit line to $123 billion, and in November unveiled a revised $150 billion package in which the Treasury Department bought $40 billion worth of preferred shares of the company, using a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). But AIG’s financial standing continued to deteriorate as the slump in the housing market intensified and an ongoing reces-

sion deepened. A concurrent freeze in credit markets made it difficult for AIG to borrow money, and a crisis of confidence in financial institutions led to a precipitous fall in AIG’s stock price. AIG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Edward Liddy March 2 said most of the government’s money had been spent fulfilling the company’s obligations to its CDS trading partners. In the weeks running up to the release of AIG’s fourth quarter report, it became clear to government officials and industry observers that AIG was set to record a massive loss. Without government backing, the loss would likely have resulted in a downgrade in AIG’s credit rating, which would automatically compel it to post as much as $11 billion in additional collateral to its trading partners. A sudden spike in the amount of money it owed could have pushed AIG into bankruptcy, and led to a default on its obligations, resulting in large losses for the thousands of companies it traded with around the world. Since an AIG collapse posed a systemic risk to the financial system, the company was thought to be “too big to fail” in government parlance. The government, reportedly working with credit-rating agencies, devised a plan to prevent a downgrade, and AIG’s credit rating remained unchanged March 2 despite the report of the record fourth-quarter loss. In a statement released that day, AIG said it could need additional government support in the future if the value of its assets continued to decline, it failed to attract new customers, or its credit rating was downgraded. AIG’s quarterly report showed that it was also losing money on its traditional insurance businesses, as well as its investments in commercial real estate mortgages. In all, AIG had lost $99.3 billion in 2008. The deal further intertwined AIG and the government, exposing taxpayers to large potential losses. The AIG intervention came just three days after the government agreed to take as much as a 36% stake in banking giant Citigroup Inc. [See below] Details of AIG Rescue Plan—Under the revised plan unveiled by the government March 2, the Treasury would commit an additional $30 billion in TARP funds to buying preferred shares in AIG, on top of the $40 billion in shares purchased in November 2008. AIG said it did not need the government to buy the shares immediately. The revised plan eased the terms of the government’s investment in the insurer, allowing it to determine the dividend it paid on the government’s shares. Previously, AIG had paid the government a 10% dividend, but the costs had weighed heavily on the company’s balance sheet. AIG had already drawn down $38 billion from a $60 billion credit line established by the Fed in November. AIG had planned to sell some of its businesses to pay back the loan, but had reportedly received no offers that matched the face value of the businesses. Under the new plan, two of AIG’s profitable insurance businesses—American International Assurance Co., which mainly operated in Asia, and American Life Insurance Co.—would be placed into trusts. The FACTS ON FILE

government would own unspecified preferred shareholder stakes in the businesses, whose 5% dividend payments, as well as their potential sale in the future, would serve as a repayment on the loan. AIG’s new credit line would be set at $25 billion. The Fed would also purchase $8.5 billion worth of AIG’s life-insurance assets that were converted into bonds. The bonds would also help the company pay off its debt to the government. The Fed would continue running a $53 billion program, also unveiled in November, that had created investment vehicles to purchase AIG’s toxic assets and separate them from the company’s core insurance businesses. About $43 billion of that money had been spent. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke March 3 testified before the Senate Budget Committee, where he harshly criticized AIG for making “irresponsible bets,” and said AIG’s fall had made him “more angry” than any other episode since the financial crisis started. He said AIG had acted as a hedge fund that had been hidden from regulators by a “large and stable insurance company.” The statement was considered uncharacteristically sharp for the normally low-key chairman. Stock Markets Fall on AIG Bailout—The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued a weeks-long slide March 2, falling 299.64 points, or 4.24%, to end at 6,763.29, the first time it had dipped below 7,000 since 1997. The fall was attributed to concerns about the ailing financial industry, following the government’s bailouts of AIG and Citigroup, and negative reports from other large financial institutions and companies. AIG’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closed that day at 42 cents. British bank HSBC Holdings PLC that day said that it would close down HSBC Finance—a U.S.-based unit that had specialized in mortgage lending—and that it would need to raise $18 billion in capital by selling new shares. HSBC Finance, formerly known as Household International Inc., had been acquired by HSBC for $14 billion in 2003. [See 2002, p. 890F3] Multinational conglomerate General Electric Co. (GE) Feb. 27 had said it would cut its dividend payments by 68%, to 10 cents a share. It was the company’s first dividend cut since 1938. GE said the move would save $9 billion a year. [See 2008, p. 954B1] The Dow continued its slide March 3, ending at 6,726.02 after falling 37.27 points. President Barack Obama that day had addressed concerns that his administration’s policies were failing to halt the decline in stock markets. He said he did not focus on the “day-to-day gyrations of the stock market” because that could distract him from finding the correct “long-term strategy” for fixing the financial system. He even encouraged investors to buy into the market, saying current low prices represented “a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective.” Citigroup Gets Third Government Bailout—

Citigroup, which in 2008 had received two TARP capital injections totaling $45 billion, March 5, 2009

Feb. 27 agreed to a revised bailout that could see the government increase its stake in the banking giant to 36%, up from 7.8%. Citigroup had suffered heavy losses on investments in mortgage-backed assets, and its share price had plummeted as investors expected it to continue sustaining losses during the recession. The government in December 2008 had also entered into an agreement that would guarantee about $301 billion of Citigroup’s assets against losses. [See p. 111B1; 2008, p. 865E2] Under the revised deal, the government would not provide additional capital to Citigroup. Instead, up to $25 billion worth of its preferred shares would be converted to common stock. The government would only convert its shares if it was matched by private investors, at roughly a dollar-todollar ratio. Citigroup said private investors with large preferred shareholder stakes—such as the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., a sovereign wealth fund, and Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal—had agreed to the plan. The plan could increase the value of Citigroup’s common stock to $81.1 billion, up from the $29.7 billion it had recorded at the end of December 2008. The plan was designed to reassure investors that Citigroup had adequate levels of capital to weather the recession, since common shares were viewed as a stronger bulwark against losses than preferred shares. Citigroup’s current shareholders could see their stake of common stock reduced to 26%. Analysts said the plan was essentially a partial nationalization of Citigroup, since the government would be its largest single shareholder and have significant sway over the company’s policies. Under the revised deal, Citigroup was required to replace at least six of the 15 members on its board of directors with new, independent members. The government gave up the dividend it had earned from its preferred shares, and exposed itself to greater losses if Citigroup’s share price continued to decline. Citigroup shares that day fell 96 cents, or 39%, to end at $1.50 on the NYSE. Fed, Treasury Launch Loan Program—

The Fed and the Treasury March 3 announced the launch of a program that would see the government finance as much as $1 trillion in consumer and business loans, in a bid to unlock frozen credit markets. The plan, known as the Term AssetBacked Securities Loan Facility (TALF), had first been announced in November 2008, and was expanded earlier in February. [See p. 76A3] For every allotment of $20 billion in TARP money, the Fed could leverage it to provide $200 billion in loans to investors willing to buy assets backed by consumer loans, such as auto, credit-card and student loans. The plan was intended to encourage purchases of those assets, which would bring down the interest rates on the underlying loans. The Fed and the Treasury March 3 announced that they were expanding the program to include loans for industrial and agricultural equipment and auto leases.

Fannie Mae Posts Large Loss— Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgagefinancing company, Feb. 26 said it would record a $25.2 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, its sixth consecutive quarterly loss. The company said it had lost $59 billion over the year, largely due to problems stemming from the slumping housing market, and that it would need to tap $15 billion from the Treasury, the first time it had done so. The Treasury earlier in February had doubled an insurance program for Fannie, allowing it to protect the lender against as much as $200 billion in losses. [See p. 92B2] Freddie Mac, Fannie’s sister company, March 2 announced that CEO David Moffett was stepping down from his position, six months after being installed by federal regulators. He reportedly had chafed at a lack of independence from federal control. Regulator Raises Bank Fees—The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC)— which insured consumer bank deposits of up to $250,000 following bank failures— Feb. 27 announced that banks would be charged an emergency fee to ensure that the FDIC had adequate levels of capital. The FDIC said the plan—in which banks would pay the FDIC 20 cents for every $100 in consumer deposits—would raise $27 billion in 2009. Following a series of bank failures over the past year, the FDIC had estimated that it would spend $65 billion by 2013, which would severely deplete its insurance resources. n

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Mortgage & Credit Crisis Housing Market Rescue Plan Launched.

The Treasury Department March 4 launched a $75 billion program designed to stem a rising number of home foreclosures, and stabilize a slumping housing market that had helped push the economy into a recession. The Treasury said the plan, the outline of which had been unveiled in February, could help as many as nine million homeowners. [See p. 92A1] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in a written statement released March 4, said the government’s efforts to assist the housing market were “imperative” to sparking growth in the broader economy and bolstering an ailing financial system. Following the collapse of a housing market bubble in 2006, homeowners had seen the value of their homes decline, and manufacturing and construction industries tied to the housing market were hit by decreased demand. Additionally, financial institutions had invested heavily in the mortgage market in recent years, and were incurring massive losses on rising foreclosures and mortgage defaults. About 2.2 million homes had been foreclosed on in 2008, a record. [See p. 126C2] Many large mortgage lenders welcomed the plan and said they would work with the administration to implement it. They included J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. (The government had taken large stakes in all three banks in recent months.) The three banks Feb. 13 had pledged to halt all fore127

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March Financial Update

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(Close of trading March 2 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

6,763.29

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

700.82 1,322.85 3,625.83

Tokyo Stock Exchange

7,280.15

Toronto Stock Exchange

7,687.51

(see box, p. 128A3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index)

(TSE Composite Index)

B

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

C

$926.10

Silver (per troy oz.)

$13.1400

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price) (Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Feb. 22)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through January; see p. 111E2)

Unemployment rate

(January; see p. 79E3)

F

G

$40.15 $1.94 $5.7175

0.0% 7.6%

Gross domestic product growth

-6.2%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized fourth-quarter 2008 rate, preliminary report; see p. 128F2)

E

$0.6294 $1.4053 $0.7745 $1.2576 97.43 15.4392 $0.8499

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

Oil (per barrel)

D

2.91% 0.44%

closures for a limited period, to give the administration time to flesh out the plan. While the plan was thought to be the most aggressive that the government had yet presented, there remained concerns that it was not enough to bring the housing market out of its slump. The plan focused on reducing monthly payments on loans, but did not include provisions that would reduce the overall cost of loans, known as the principal. Housing experts said reducing the principal could help many homeowners whose mortgages were far more expensive than the current value of their homes. Additionally, home loans in recent years had been bundled into securities, and cut up and sold to investors around the world, making refinancing for borrowers difficult. The House was currently considering controversial legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of a loan and reduce its cost. The move had been opposed by some lenders who said it would violate contracts they had made with borrowers. Details of the Plan—The housing market rescue plan released March 4 had two central elements. Under the first element, the government would provide $75 billion worth of financial incentives and subsidies to lenders that were willing to reduce monthly payments for homeowners on the verge of foreclosure. The administration 128

said the first part of the plan could prevent as many as four million foreclosures. Homeowners with mortgages equaling $729,750 or less, and who had purchased their home before Jan. 1, would be eligible for the plan. If lenders agreed to reduce monthly payments to 38% of a homeowner’s monthly income, the government would provide subsidies—matched dollar for dollar with the lender’s money—to further reduce payments to as low as 31% of monthly income. Payments would be reduced by temporarily cutting monthly interest rates to as low as 2%, or extending the maturity date of a loan. The government expected that lenders would be enticed by the plan in situations where foreclosure would cost more than a loan modification. Additionally, the government would provide lenders with $1,000 for every loan they modified, and $1,000 for each year that the homeowner continued to make payments on time, for up to three years. Homeowners who kept up with their payments after receiving a modification would also receive $1,000 a year, for up to five years. Protections were established to ensure that real-estate speculators were not bailed out by the government. To qualify, homeowners had to sign an affidavit detailing their financial situations, and had to currently live in the home. Under the second element of the government’s plan, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae—the two government-controlled mortgage-financing giants—would begin modifying loans for homeowners who were up to date on their monthly payments, but were struggling with high interest rates. Those borrowers were unable to refinance their loans because their homes had lost value. To be eligible for the plan, the loans had to be financed or owned by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, and could not exceed 105% of the home’s value. The government said as many as five million homeowners would be helped by the plan. [See p. 127A3] The Treasury in February had announced that it would make $200 billion in financing available to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in order to accommodate the program. n

Economy GDP Shrank at 6.2% Rate in Fourth Quarter.

The Commerce Department Feb. 27 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.2% in the fourth quarter of 2008. That was a much sharper contraction rate than the department’s “advance” estimate of 3.8% reported in January, and the fastest contraction rate since 1982. The new figure, which was “preliminary” and would be revised once more, indicated that an ongoing recession could be deeper and more protracted than previously expected. [See p. 61A1] The severity of the contraction cast into doubt whether a $787 billion stimulus package—signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier in February—could help the economy return to growth by 2010. Obama

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

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7,936.83 8,078.36 7,956.66 8,063.07 8,280.59 8,270.87 7,888.88 7,939.53 7,932.76 7,850.41 7,552.60 7,555.63 7,465.95 7,365.67 7,114.78 7,350.94 7,270.89 7,182.08 7,062.93

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,319.7 1,346.5 1,389.2 1,619.2 1,609.4 1,255.6 1,753.7 1,356.8 1,479.1 1,239.1 1,597.0 1,433.9 1,482.3 2,112.8 1,610.4 1,834.8 1,724.0 1,484.8 2,238.4

the previous day had released an outline for his first budget proposal, which forecast that the stimulus package would limit 2009’s GDP contraction to 1.2%, and lead to 3.2% growth in 2010, estimates that were considered overly optimistic by many economists. [See pp. 124A3, 89A1] The rate of contraction increased from its advance estimate largely due to revised data that showed a decline in business inventories. The January report said business inventories had increased by $6.2 billion, which added to total GDP, while the February report said inventories had decreased by $19.9 billion. Analysts said the revision was a potential bright spot in the report, as it meant businesses were not overstocked, and could begin making investments in the first quarter of 2009. Consumer spending—which accounted for two-thirds of GDP—contracted at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the fourth quarter, compared with 3.8% in the third quarter. n Durable Goods Orders Down in January.

The Commerce Department Feb. 26 reported that the value of durable goods orders in January was $163.8 billion, down 5.2% from the previous month, as an ongoing recession compelled businesses to reduce their purchases of so-called big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 46B1] n New Home Sales Fell 10.2% in January.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Feb. 26 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes fell 10.2% in January from the previous month, as the housing market continued to slump amidst an ongoing recession. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 309,000 units, down from the revised December 2008 rate of 344,000, and the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1963. The median price of a new single-family home sold in January was reported to be $201,100. [See p. 45G3] n FACTS ON FILE

Existing Home Sales Fell 5.3% in January.

The National Association of Realtors Feb. 25 reported that sales of existing homes fell by 5.3% in January, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.49 million units. That was down from the revised December 2008 rate of 4.74 million units, and the lowest rate in 12 years. The median sale price for existing homes in January was $170,300, down 14.8% from the $199,800 reported a year earlier. [See p. 45E3] n Consumer Confidence Fell in February.

The Conference Board business research group Feb. 24 reported that its index of consumer confidence fell to 25.0 in February, down from a revised 37.4 in January. The index was at an all-time low since its 1967 inception, as consumers anticipated an ongoing recession would lead to further deterioration of business conditions and more job losses. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 46G1] n

Obama Administration Gov. Sebelius Nominated to Lead HHS.

President Barack Obama March 2 officially nominated Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Obama Feb. 28 had reportedly offered the job to Sebelius, who accepted. Obama March 2 also named Nancy Ann DeParle, a health official in the administration of former President Bill Clinton, as the director of the White House Office for Health Reform. The pair were expected to have significant roles in Obama’s efforts to overhaul the country’s health care system. [See p. 59A2] Obama in December 2008 had named former Sen. Tom Daschle (D, S.D.) as his choice for HHS secretary, and to head the newly created health reform office. However, Daschle in early February had withdrawn from the nomination process after being scrutinized for failing to pay $128,000 in back taxes, and for his lucrative ties to the health care industry. Daschle’s withdrawal was widely viewed as a blow to Obama’s reform efforts. Sebelius, 60, had been an early supporter of Obama during the presidential nomination processs, and had served two terms as Kansas’s state insurance commissioner, a job that observers said gave her great insight into health care policy. She also had a reputation for bipartisanship, and had managed to get elected in a heavily Republican state, where both houses of the state legislature were controlled by Republicans. As HHS secretary, Sebelius would oversee a department with a $700 billion annual budget and some 65,000 employees. It was thought that Sebelius would play a significant role in Obama’s reform plan, should she be confirmed by the Senate. (Obama Feb. 26 had released an outline for his budget plan that called for a 10-year, $634 billion fund dedicated to health care reform, with the money derived from a tax hike on high-income earners and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.) She had twice attempted to institute significant expansions of Kansas’s March 5, 2009

health care plans, but had been stymied by the Republican legislature both times. Observers noted that her support of abortion rights would draw the ire of anti-abortion activists, and could complicate her Senate confirmation process. [See p. 124A3] In her role as health reform office director, DeParle, 52, was expected to play a significant role in Obama’s reform efforts. However, it was unclear how implementation of the health care reform plan would be split between the HHS secretary and the reform office. DeParle had served as the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, now called the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), from 1997 to 2000, and had also worked as a senior executive in several large health care companies. DeParle’s position did not require confirmation by the Senate. n

Terrorism CIA Destroyed 92 Detainee Tapes in 2005. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in

2005 had destroyed a total of 92 videotapes containing footage taken of terrorism suspects in detention, according to a March 2 letter sent by the Justice Department to Judge Alvin Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in New York City. In 2007, the CIA had admitted to destroying two tapes that showed the interrogations, which reportedly involved controversial harsh techniques, of terrorism suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. [See p. 129F3; 2008, p. 72E1] The letter to Hellerstein was sent by Lev Dassin, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The suit sought information about the agency’s interrogation and detention of terrorism detainees. Dassin said in the letter that the CIA was currently working to gather additional information for release, including documents describing what had been recorded on the tapes and a list of those who had seen or handled the tapes. The ACLU had previously argued that the destruction of any tapes violated a September 2004 court order it had obtained that required the government to preserve all materials related to the treatment of terrorism detainees. Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer, March 2 said the CIA should be “held accountable for its flagrant violation of the law.” A criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes had begun in January 2008 and was being overseen by John Durham, a federal prosecutor from Connecticut. The investigation was reportedly almost complete and no criminal charges were expected to be filed. Former CIA official Jose Rodriguez Jr., who had ordered the destruction of the tapes, had not yet been interviewed by investigators. Durham reportedly was focusing on the conduct of CIA attorneys who failed to advise Rodriguez that destroying the tapes could violate standing court orders. n

Al Qaeda Suspect Charged in U.S. Court.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an alleged agent of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, Feb. 26 was charged in U.S. District Court in Peoria, Ill., with two counts of providing material assistance to terrorist groups, according to an indictment unsealed on Feb. 27. Marri, 43, faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted on both charges. He had been held as an enemy combatant in a Charleston, S.C., Navy brig for more than five years by the Bush administration. He was the last U.S. legal resident held as an enemy combatant, and the final remaining enemy combatant held inside the U.S. [See p. 28F1; 2008, p. 903E1] Marri, who was from Qatar, had been arrested in Peoria as a material witness following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., and was later charged in Illinois with credit card fraud and making false statements. Prior to his trial, Marri was designated an enemy combatant by the Bush administration and detained without charge at the Charleston brig. In December 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by Marri’s attorneys that challenged the government’s right to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens and legal residents as part of its antiterrorism operations. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., had ruled in July 2008 that the president had such authority, but also ruled that Marri had the right to challenge his detention in federal court. A similar lawsuit challenging the detention of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant within the U.S., had been dropped from consideration by the Supreme Court in 2006 after Padilla was charged with terrorism offenses in federal court in Florida. [See 2008, p. 36F2] Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler Feb. 27 asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the Marri case in light of the decision to charge him in civilian court. Attorneys representing Marri had praised the decision to try him in a U.S. court but called on the Supreme Court to hear the case, which had been scheduled to begin April 27. If the Supreme Court did not consider the case, the 4th Circuit’s ruling upholding the government’s ability to indefinitely detain enemy combatants, even if they were U.S. citizens or legal residents, would stand. [See 2008, p. 487D1] n Bush-Era Antiterrorism Memos Released.

The Justice Department March 2 released nine formerly classified legal opinions that were written by Bush administration lawyers following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. The opinions claimed broad executive powers for responding to terrorist threats. [See p. 129C2; 2008, p. 214D3] Other legal opinions relating to antiterrorist efforts, including a 2003 memorandum that authorized the Defense Department to use so-called harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism detainees, had previously been released by the Bush administration. Three of the memos released March 2 had been blocked from release in November 2008. 129

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In the newly released legal opinions, Bush administration attorneys argued that traditional checks on the power of the executive branch, including constitutional protections and other federal laws, did not apply during times of armed conflict. A Jan. 15 memo written by Steven Bradbury, then the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), formally revoked the opinions in the earlier memos, which he said had not been applied since 2003. However, Bradbury wrote that the lawyers who wrote the memos had dealt with “novel and complex questions in a time of great danger and under extraordinary time pressure.” In an Oct. 23, 2001, memo, then–Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, then–special counsel for OLC, wrote that the president’s powers during war included the ability to order the military to operate within the U.S. to combat terrorism. Yoo and Delahunty argued that terrorist agents within the U.S. could be treated as equivalent to an invading military force. They found that the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which banned the military from carrying out most law enforcement activities within the U.S., did not apply because the military would be carrying out national security actions, not law enforcement actions. The memo had been written in response to a request from then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales for information about the limits of the president’s ability to use the military to fight terrorism within the U.S. According to the memo, the army would be allowed to destroy a hijacked airplane or attack “civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, offices or ships where suspected terrorists were thought to be.” The memo said the military was not subject to the Fourth Amendment’s restriction on unlawful searches and seizures. It found that the military was not barred from “making arrests, seizing documents or other property, searching persons or places or keeping them under surveillance, intercepting electronic or wireless communications, setting up roadblocks, interviewing witnesses or searching for suspects.” The memo also claimed that the president had the ability to suspend constitutional guarantees protecting free speech. Yoo and Delahunty wrote, “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” Other legal opinions released March 2 argued that Congress lacked the authority to block the president from transferring detainees to foreign countries, even if the countries were known to torture prisoners. The memos said Congress could not pass any laws on the treatment of detainees, an opinion struck down by the Supreme Court in 2006. [See 2006, p. 501A1] 130

Leahy Continues Push for Commission—

The Senate Judiciary Committee March 4 held hearings on a proposal by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) to form a “truth commission” that would examine the national security, antiterrorism and legal activities carried out by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The proposal was intended as a compromise between those seeking prosecutions of Bush administration officials and those opposed to any further investigations. Leahy said the commission would have subpoena power but would grant witnesses immunity from prosecution. [See p. 80E1] The committee heard testimony from four supporters of the proposal, including former members of the Church Commission, which investigated intelligence abuses in the 1970s, and the Sept. 11 Commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks. Two people opposed to Leahy’s proposal testified; one of them, Republican attorney David Rivkin, who had served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, called the commission “a profoundly bad idea, a dangerous idea.” He said it was “naive to expect a mere commission to settle an ongoing and embittered controversy about past government policy.” Separately, it was reported Feb. 27 that the Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing to begin an inquiry into the secret detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Bush administration. The inquiry was expected to last about six months and to examine whether the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques against terrorism detainees had been effective in preventing terrorist attacks. It would also probe whether the actions taken by the CIA had been correctly approved. n

Supreme Court Drug Approval Does Not Preempt Lawsuits.

The Supreme Court March 4 ruled, 6–3, that pharmaceutical companies could be held liable by state courts for harm done to individuals who took drugs that carried federally approved warnings. Observers suggested that the case, Wyeth v. Levine, would have lasting repercussions for drugmakers and other industries that relied on federal regulations to shield them from litigation in state courts. [See p. 49B1; 2008, p. 721E1] Vermont resident and musician Diana Levine had sued Madison, N.J.–based drugmaker Wyeth after her arm was amputated due to gangrene following a treatment with Phenergan, an anti-nausea drug. The drug, manufactured by Wyeth, had been erroneously injected into Levine’s arm, leading to the onset of gangrene. Levine had argued that the warning against injecting the drug should have been more prominent. A Vermont jury had ruled in her favor and awarded her $6.7 million, and the Vermont Supreme Court had upheld the ruling in 2006.

Wyeth had argued that it could not be sued in state courts because the drug’s label had received approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said it was not impossible for Wyeth to comply with both state laws and federal regulations. He was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Clarence Thomas also ruled in Levine’s favor, but issued a separate opinion in which he rejected “far reaching implied pre-emption doctrines.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the dissent, and was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia. Alito wrote that neither federal law nor FDA rules “suggest that juries may second guess the FDA’s labeling decisions.”n Park Not Obligated to Display Monument.

The Supreme Court Feb. 25 unanimously ruled that the city government of Pleasant Grove, Utah, was not obligated to display a monument donated by a small religious group to a local public park, even if the park already contained several monuments, including one that featured the Ten Commandments. The case was Pleasant Grove City v. Summum. [See 2008, p. 720E3] The Summum church in 2003 had offered to donate a monument to the city that listed the church’s Seven Aphorisms, or guiding beliefs. The city had rejected the donation even though the park contained a number of other donated monuments, and the church in turn had sued the city. A federal appeals court in Denver, Colo., had ruled that the city was required to display the monument because the city park was a public forum. However, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing the court’s majority opinion, concluded that “although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies.” He added that “a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause.” He was joined in that opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice David H. Souter, in a concurring opinion, wrote that if a government accepted a monument of “religious character, the specter of violating the Establishment Clause will behoove it to take care to avoid the appearance of a flat-out establishment of religion.” (The Establishment Clause of the Constitution required the separation of church and state.) His opinion indicated that the Summum church might be able to sue the city for displaying the Ten Commandments in the park. However, Scalia, joined by Thomas, also submitted a concurring opinion, in which Scalia wrote that Summum would probably not be successful in arguing a new case against the city based on the EsFACTS ON FILE

tablishment Clause, and referred to a similar case concerning a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol. [See 2005, p. 432F3] Breyer also submitted a concurring opinion, in which he said, “The ‘government speech’ doctrine is a rule of thumb, not a rigid category.” Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, submitted a concurring opinion as well, in which Stevens said Alito’s opinion should not be cited to expand “the recently minted government speech doctrine to uphold government action.” n

became the 10th-largest black-owned industrial company in the U.S. He had also acquired metal-stamping and construction businesses, creating the Bing Group. n Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa Reelected.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 76, Feb. 23 returned to the Supreme Court bench after undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer weeks earlier. Doctors said the cancer had not spread to other parts of her body. Media reports said Ginsburg was in high spirits and had asked vigorous questions upon her return. [See p. 65D1] n

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) March 3 won reelection to a second four-year term, taking 56% of the vote. He defeated nine little-known rivals he had heavily outspent, clearing the threshold of 50% of the vote required to avoid a runoff in May. [See 2005, p. 340F3] Villaraigosa, 56, was the city’s first Hispanic mayor. His first term had been tarnished two years earlier by the failure of his bid for control of the city schools and the disclosure of his extramarital affair with a television reporter, which led his wife to file for divorce. But his reelection, despite low voter turnout, added to his stature as a potential contender for the California governorship in 2010. n

2009 Elections

Environment

Quigley Wins Chicago House Primary.

Obama Restores Endangered Species Rule.

Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley March 3 won a special Democratic primary for the Chicago House seat that Rahm Emanuel (D) had vacated in December 2008 to become White House chief of staff for President Barack Obama. Quigley won about 22% of the vote to finish ahead of 11 rivals in Illinois’s 5th Congressional District, making him the front-runner in the April 7 general election in the heavily Democratic district. He would face anti–illegal immigration activist Rosanna Pulido, the winner of the Republican primary, in the general election. [See 2008, p. 803F2] Emanuel had held the House seat since 2003. His predecessor, Rod Blagojevich (D), had vacated the seat after winning the 2002 Illinois gubernatorial election. Blagojevich, having won a second term in 2006, had been impeached and removed from office in January after being arrested on federal corruption charges in December 2008. [See p. 43A3] n

President Barack Obama March 2 issued a memorandum requiring federal agencies to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) before taking actions that might harm endangered species. The move blocked a policy instituted by former President George W. Bush, whose administration in December had issued a regulation allowing federal agencies to waive such reviews if they deemed them unnecessary. [See 2008, p. 938A2] In an announcement made at a commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the Interior Department’s creation, Obama said he had instructed both the Interior Department and the Commerce Department to review the Bush administration policy. His memo said that until the review was completed, federal officials should “follow the prior longstanding consultation and concurrence practices” that required the reviews. Obama’s announcement was heralded by environmentalists, who said it would restore protections established under the Endangered Species Act. But several business and industry groups, as well as Republican lawmakers, said the review requirement would slow down urgent government projects, including those authorized by Obama’s recently enacted economic stimulus package. The move was the latest in a string of reversals of Bush administration environmental policies since Obama’s January inauguration.

Justice Ginsburg Returns to the Bench.

Bing-Cockrel Detroit Mayoral Matchup Set.

Former Detroit Pistons basketball star Dave Bing (D) and interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. (D) Feb. 25 finished first and second, respectively, in a special nonpartisan primary election for the Detroit, Mich., mayoralty. The pair would compete in a May 5 general election to decide who would serve the eight months remaining in the term of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D). Kilpatrick had resigned in September 2008 and served 99 days in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in a cover-up of an affair with his chief of staff. He had also pleaded no contest to a charge of assaulting a police officer. [See 2008, p. 788G3] Bing, 65, won 29% of the vote in the primary. Cockrel, 43, who had previously been city council president, took 27%. Bing had been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990. After retiring from the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1978, he had gone into business, starting a steel company, Bing Steel, that March 5, 2009

general well-being of the public, a finding that would require the emissions to be regulated. [See p. 47G1] House Ends Carbon Neutral Plan—Separately, the House had ended a plan to become “carbon-neutral,” a phrase denoting an attempt to offset carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing so-called carbon offsets from groups claiming to have absorbed or eliminated carbon emissions, a spokesman for the House’s chief administrative officer said Feb. 27. The spokesman, Jeff Ventura, said his office would no longer purchase carbon offsets. Providers of such offsets had been criticized for failing to prove that carbon emissions were actually reduced by the promised amount. The Democratic leadership in the House had made going carbon neutral an integral part of its “Green the Capitol” program announced in June 2007. [See 2007, p. 29A2] n

Space

Carbon Dioxide Regulations Considered—

Carol Browner, the special adviser to the president on climate change and energy, Feb. 22 said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was examining a 2007 Supreme Court decision that found that the agency had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as a form of pollution. The ruling required the EPA to determine whether the emissions posed a threat to the public. Browner said the agency was close to categorizing carbon dioxide emissions as pollution that presented a danger to the

Environmental Satellite Launch Fails. A rocket carrying a climate-monitoring satellite launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) early Feb. 24 failed to reach orbit and crashed into the Indian Ocean near Antarctica. The rocket, a four-stage Taurus XL bearing the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite, was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1:55 a.m. local time. However, three minutes into the flight, a protective nose cone failed to separate, causing the rocket and satellite to crash and dooming the $278 million mission. [See 2008, p. 102B1; 2007, p. 630G1] The OCO had been designed to monitor global emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas widely thought to contribute to climate change. The satellite would have also identified so-called carbon sinks, areas of the Earth that absorbed excess carbon naturally. NASA officials said they would thoroughly investigate the launch failure to determine its cause. n

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Energy Drilling Comment Period Expanded. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Feb. 10 announced that the Interior Department would extend by 180 days the public comment period on its proposed five-year plan for oil and gas exploration off the U.S. coasts. The period had been scheduled to end March 23. The five-year plan would set guidelines for future use of the ocean for the purposes of energy production. [See p. 94B1; 2008, pp. 673D2, 504F2] Congress and former President George W. Bush had ended moratoriums against new offshore oil and gas exploration in 2008 following increases in the price of gasoline. Salazar suggested that the Bush administration had attempted to rush consideration of the new five-year plan, which was required to be completed by 2012, as part of “a process tilted toward the usual energy players.” He also said that, in addition to oil and gas drilling, the new five-year plan would 131

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examine renewable methods of generating energy from the oceans, including tide and wind–based power sources. Salazar said that the extended comment period and the other changes would help to “restore order to a broken process.” n

Armed Forces Military Allows Photographs of Coffins.

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates Feb. 26 announced that the military would lift a blanket ban on media coverage of the arrival at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, of the flag-covered coffins of U.S. service members killed overseas. However, military family members would have the right to decide on an individual basis whether to allow photographs of the coffins. The ban had been in place since February 1991, when the administration of President George H.W. Bush refused to allow photographs of coffins of service members killed in the Persian Gulf war. [See 2008, p. 571E3; 2004, p. 486B2; 1991, p. 169C1] Gates said he “was never comfortable with” the press ban, and wanted to give service members’ families the final decision. He had previously sought to change the policy, but said he had encountered resistance from the military. However, he said, the Army had come out in favor of the most recent change. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also in favor of the policy shift. President Barack Obama Feb. 9 had announced that his administration was examining the policy. A Cable News Network (CNN)/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Feb. 26 showed 67% of respondents in favor of lifting the blanket ban, with 31% opposed. Antiwar groups and news organizations praised the policy change, saying it would allow the public to see the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, some military families opposed it as an intrusion into what they said should be a private moment. n

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Imprisoned Spy and Son Charged. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official Harold Nicholson, who was serving a prison sentence for spying for Russia, and Nathaniel Nicholson, his 24-year-old son, Jan. 29 were charged in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., in connection with payments made to Nathaniel Nicholson by the Russian government. The payments, which were allegedly made between 2006 and 2008, were reportedly linked to Harold Nicholson’s earlier spying, and totaled about $35,000. Both men Jan. 29 pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. [See 1997, p. 412F2] Harold Nicholson had served as deputy CIA station chief in Malaysia and as an instructor at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He pleaded guilty in 1997 to charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and attempted espionage, and had been sentenced to 23 132

years in prison. He had admitted to passing the identities of the CIA’s Moscow station chief as well as some of his former trainees to the Russian government in exchange for payments totaling $300,000. After his imprisonment on espionage charges, Harold Nicholson had allegedly reportedly attempted to convince cell mates and their families to contact Russian agents on his behalf, and had asked his son to do so after those attempts failed. Nathaniel Nicholson allegedly met with Russian agents in Peru, Mexico and San Francisco, Calif., and used the money collected at the meetings to cover family expenses and debts. Harold Nicholson reportedly hoped to move to Russia following his release from prison and expected additional payment from the Russian government for his previous spying. The funds given to Nathaniel Nicholson were thought to have been part of that payment. Prosecutors suggested that Harold Nicholson was a potentially valuable resource to the Russian government because he had insight into U.S. knowledge about Russian spying within the U.S., as well as information about how he had been caught. n

Religion Dolan Named New York City Archbishop.

Pope Benedict XVI Feb. 23 named Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, 59, to serve as the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, which encompassed about 2.5 million Catholics. Dolan would officially succeed Cardinal Edward Egan, 76, on April 15. Dolan was known for his gregarious manner, in contrast to Egan, who was known as a cool but effective administrator. [See 2002, p. 751F1; 2000, p. 357C2] Dolan, a conservative who espoused the Vatican’s views against abortion, birth control, divorce and gay marriage, was originally from St. Louis, Mo., and held a doctorate in American church history from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He had been named archbishop of Milwaukee in 2002. During his tenure in Milwaukee, he had notably released the names of priests within the diocese who faced credible accusations of sexual abuse. However, Chicago, Ill.–based advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), in a May 22, 2008, press release, had claimed that Dolan’s lawyers had “vigorously fought proposed reforms of child sex abuse laws” in Minnesota. Egan, during his tenure in New York, had angered some Catholics by selling church property and closing a number of parishes and schools. However, he was also praised as a shrewd businessman and fundraiser, and claimed to have eliminated a $48 million debt he inherited when he became New York’s archbishop in 2000. He was also known for his strained relationship with the media. Egan had submitted his resignation in 2007 after his 75th birthday, as all Catholic bishops were required to do. (Almost all cardinals, including Egan, were ordained bishops, and subject to the mandatory resignation age.) He

would become the first leader of the archdiocese in its history to actually step down, rather than die in office. n News in Brief. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.), a practicing Roman Catholic who supported abortion rights, Feb. 18 briefly met with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, Italy. Benedict, according to a Vatican statement, “took the opportunity to speak of…the church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.” The Vatican was reportedly distressed over President Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights, a departure from the views of Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. [See 2008, p. 916A3] Former Roman Catholic priest George Miller, 70, Jan. 30 was sentenced to three years in prison for sexually abusing a young boy in 1988 and 1989. Miller, who had served in the Los Angeles diocese, had pleaded guilty in December 2008 to molesting at least four boys since 1977. [See below; 2008, p. 726G2] Federal authorities had initiated grand jury proceedings against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles to determine

whether church officials had committed a crime by failing to properly supervise priests who were accused of child molestation, it was reported Jan. 29. Cardinal Roger Mahony, 72, was reportedly at the center of the inquiry. Mahony had previously admitted that he allowed priests who had confessed to, or been accused of, sexually abusing minors to continue serving. He had also fought against turning church personnel records over to authorities in previous investigations. The archdiocese in a Feb. 1 statement said it was cooperating with the probe, which reportedly began in late 2008. [See 2007, p. 872E3 ] The California Supreme Court Jan. 5 unanimously ruled that three parishes that had broken with the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican communion, could not retain ownership of parish property and facilities. The court said the splinter churches had previously agreed to abide by the Episcopal Church’s rules, which stated that church properties belonged to parishes only if they remained part of the greater church. About 100 parishes and four dioceses had recently split with the Episcopal Church over its more liberal views on issues such as the inclusion of gays and lesbians. [See 2008, p. 916A2] n

Medicine & Health Court Rejects Vaccine, Autism Link.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., Feb. 12 ruled that three families seeking damages from the federal government had failed to prove that substances in vaccines had caused their children’s autism. An estimated 5,000 families with autistic children were seeking compensation from a federal fund established in 1988 for the purpose of paying damages in cases of children harmed by vaccines. The fund was designed to limit the liability of vaccine FACTS ON FILE

companies so that they would continue to manufacture products without fear of litigation. The three claims heard by the court were considered test cases for all the claims. [See 2008, p. 635E2; 2001, p. 332B2] The families seeking damages argued that a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal—included in a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine made by Merck & Co.—had caused autism in the children. In 1999, federal health officials had recommended the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, and by 2001 the additive was no longer commonly used. Several government studies had shown that there was no link between thimerosal and autism, but a sizable group of parents had disregarded the conclusions, with some accusing the government of a cover-up. In one of the cases, Special Master George Hastings, the judge, ruled that lawyers for Michelle Cedillo, who had autism and gastrointestinal disorders, had failed to show that “thimerosal-containing vaccines can contribute to causing immune dysfunction,” or that such vaccines “can contribute to causing autism or gastrointestinal dysfunction.” Hastings added, “Unfortunately, the Cedillos have been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment.” Similar decisions were reached by two other judges in claims brought on behalf of two other autistic people. The judgments were lauded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which was the defendant in all three cases. Because the families needed to show only a preponderance of evidence linking the vaccines to autism, the decisions were thought to significantly decrease the chance that other families seeking damages would win their cases. n

Medicare & Medicaid Medicare Accepts Unapproved Cancer Drugs.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in June 2008 had announced that the Medicare program would expand its coverage to include several cancer drug therapies that had not yet received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it was reported Jan. 27. The CMS had reportedly made the policy change announcement in a lowkey press statement released on June 5, 2008, and the change had taken effect in November. [See 2008, p. 19A1; 2007, p. 806E3] The move generated controversy among doctors, insurance companies and patients rights’ advocates. Many doctors who treated cancer had lobbied for the policy change, arguing that patients were entitled to the most advanced care. However, many of the drugs were prohibitively expensive, costing as much as $10,000 per month, and had generated little clinical evidence that they were effective. Opponents of the policy also said the treatments could expose patients to uncomfortable side effects, leading to a decline in quality of life, while doing little to improve their cancer. March 5, 2009

Under the new rule, the number of reference guides, or compendiums, used by Medicare to determine whether to cover an off-label use of a cancer drug was expanded to four, from one. The new rule required Medicare to pay for an off-label drug use if one of the guides recommended it as a treatment. However, an October 2008 draft report by Medicare had warned that several of the compendiums’ publishers had close ties to the drug industry, eliciting concerns that recommendations included in the guides were being influenced by drugmakers. It was unclear how much the new policy would cost the Medicare program, or if private insurers, which generally followed the government program’s lead on coverage matters, would agree to pay for such off-label treatments. n

Consumer Affairs Massive Credit Card Data Breach Reported.

Officials at Heartland Payment Systems Inc., a Princeton, N.J.–based payment processor, Jan. 20 said it had discovered malicious software in its system that could copy a credit card’s account number, expiration date and bank codes. That information could be used to make fraudulent charges or duplicate cards. The company processed about 100 million card transactions each month for some 250,000 businesses, making the data breach perhaps one of the largest ever. [See 2007, p. 875B2] The company said it did not know how many customer records had been accessed by the malicious software. Robert Baldwin, the company’s president and chief financial officer, said Heartland had first been alerted to fraudulent transactions by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. in October 2008. The company had then notified the Secret Service and hired its own private investigators. The software was thought to have been installed as early as May 2008. n

Accidents & Disasters Ice Storm Leaves 700,000 Without Power.

A Jan. 27–28 ice storm was blamed for more than 40 deaths, and knocked out power in more than 700,000 homes and businesses in Kentucky and northern Arkansas. President Barack Obama designated Kentucky and 23 counties in Arkansas major federal disaster areas Feb. 5 and 6, respectively. The designation allowed the federal government to reimburse state and local governments for 75% of recovery-related costs. [See 2002, p. 990F1] Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D) Feb. 3 said the storm had caused about $77 million in damages to infrastructure in the state. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) in a Feb. 5 press release said damages in the state had “exceeded an estimated $61 million.” Winds as high as 58 miles per hour (93 kmph) in another storm Feb. 11 caused 120,000 power outages in Kentucky. n

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Guinea-Bissau President Killed After Murder of Army Chief.

A group of soldiers early March 2 killed Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira in his home in Bissau, the capital city. The assassination came hours after the murder of the country’s army chief, Gen. Batista Tagme Na Waie, who had died in a bombing at the army’s headquarters late March 1. Vieira, 69, and Tagme reportedly had been feuding for several years. [See p. 140G3; 2008, p. 940A3] Guinea-Bissau had been plagued by poverty and political instability since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974. Vieira, a leader in the guerrilla movement that fought the colonizers, had first taken power in a military coup in 1980 that toppled the country’s first post-independence president, Luis de Almeida Cabral. Vieira won a presidential election in 1994, but himself was ousted in a 1999 coup, after which he fled into exile in Portugal. He regained power in 2005 by winning a presidential election. One of the poorest nations in the world, Guinea-Bissau—which controlled numerous tiny uninhabited islands off its coast— had gained notoriety as a transit point for the shipment of illegal drugs from South America to Europe by Colombian cartels. The drug trade had proven lucrative for corrupt political and military officials in the country, and the United Nations and other experts had described it as on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.” Some reports indicated that Vieira had planned to implement reforms of the military that could have cut top officers out of the drug trade. The rivalry between Vieira and Tagme also had an ethnic dimension; Vieira was a member of the minority Papel group, while Tagme was an ethnic Balanta, which comprised about 30% of the population but reportedly dominated the military. After a coup attempt in the 1985, Vieira responded by executing and purging Balanta officers whom he held responsible, including Tagme, who was exiled to one of the country’s small islands for years. Tensions between the two men had flared in November 2008, when Vieira survived an assassination attempt reportedly carried out by rogue elements of the military. Then, on Jan. 5, Vieira’s 400-member personal guard was accused of opening fire on Tagme’s convoy, an attack that the army commander survived. Details of the Assassination—News reports and eyewitnesses offered varied accounts of the details of the events of late March 1 and early March 2. Tagme was reportedly killed when a bomb exploded underneath a staircase leading to his office. A few hours later, in the early morning hours of March 2, a group of soldiers loyal to Tagme apparently stormed Vieira’s house. Some reports said he was shot and killed after the soldiers extracted a confession that he had ordered the murder of Tagme, while others said he was injured when sol133

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diers bombed and shot at his house, and then was killed in a machete attack. Initially, Jose Zamora Induta, the country’s navy commander, March 2 said Vieira had been shot and killed after admitting to ordering Tagme’s killing. However, later that day, after the African Union (AU) condemned Vieira’s killing as a “criminal act,” Induta said the death of Tagme had “no connection” with Vieira’s murder, which he said had been carried out by “a group of people whom we do not know.” The military in a March 2 statement on state radio said it was not seeking power and that it would respect the “constitutional order,” which called for the head of parliament to succeed the president and for a presidential election to be held within 60 days. Accordingly, parliamentary speaker Raimundo Pereira March 3 was sworn in as the country’s interim president. Pereira March 4 urged the international community to assist in stabilizing the country and in organizing elections. Vieira’s killers reportedly remained at large as of March 5. International Reaction—The AU March 2 condemned the killings, describing them as “cowardly and heinous attacks.” However, in a March 3 meeting, the AU’s Peace and Security Council decided against suspending Guinea-Bissau from AU membership, due to the assurances from the military that it was not undertaking a coup. The killings were also denounced by the U.N. Security Council, the European Union and former colonial power Portugal. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional group of which Guinea-Bissau was a member, March 3 sent a delegation of foreign ministers to Guinea-Bissau. Its executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, that day said he “welcomed” the military’s statement that it was not involved in a coup, and called on it to “continue to maintain this democratic, republican posture and accept civilian control.” At the meeting, Guinea-Bissau Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior reportedly asked for financial aid from ECOWAS in order to deal with the crisis. n

Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal Convicts Rebel Leaders.

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The Special Court for Sierra Leone, a joint national and United Nations tribunal, Feb. 25 in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, found three former leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group guilty of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for acts committed during the country’s 1991–2002 civil war. The RUF was notorious for mutilating civilians and kidnapping young boys and girls to serve as fighters or sex slaves. [See 2008, p. 907E1; 2007, p. 613B3] The three RUF leaders who were convicted—Issa Hassan Sesay, Augustine Gbao and Morris Kallon—were described as the highest-ranking living members of the rebel group. RUF founder and leader Foday Sankoh had died in 2003. 134

Sesay and Kallon were convicted of 16 of the 18 charges against them, while Gbao was found guilty on 14 of 18 counts. The crimes they were convicted of included murder, amputation, attacks on peacekeepers, recruiting child soldiers, sexual slavery and forced marriage. The ruling marked the first time that an international court had delivered a guilty verdict for the crimes of forced marriage and attacks on peacekeepers. The three RUF commanders were the last defendants before the Freetown branch of the Special Court. It was also conducting a trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, an ally of Sankoh who had allegedly traded diamonds illegally mined by the RUF for weapons. Taylor had been indicted on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His trial had been moved to The Hague, the Netherlands, due to concerns that his continued presence in West Africa could cause regional instability. The prosecution in Taylor’s trial Jan. 30 called its final witness, and rested its case Feb. 27. Chief prosecutor Stephen Rapp Feb. 23 warned that Taylor could be set free due to a funding shortfall at the Special Court. The court was funded on a voluntary basis by donor countries, but Rapp said donations had been cut in the wake of the global economic downturn. n

AMERICAS

Cuba Raul Castro Overhauls Cabinet. Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz March 2 shuffled his cabinet, ousting several younger members staunchly loyal to his older brother, Fidel Castro Ruz, who had resigned as president in February 2008 after ruling the country for 49 years. In all, more than 10 ministers were replaced, and four ministries were combined into two. Analysts said the moves were among the most substantial governmental reorganizations in several decades, and could be an attempt by Raul Castro to cement a power base free of politicians close to his older brother. [See 2008, p. 117B3] Felipe Perez Roque, 43, a former personal secretary to Fidel Castro who was widely considered a strong candidate to succeed Raul Castro, was dismissed as foreign minister. Perez Roque had worked to strengthen Cuba’s ties with other Latin American countries, and was involved in establishing relationships with European Union members. He was replaced by his deputy, Bruno Rodriguez Aprilla, who had previously served as Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations. However, Perez Roque retained his post on the powerful Council of State, whose members ranked above cabinet members. Carlos Lage Davila, 57, was stripped of his role as cabinet secretary, but was thought to retain his position as vice president of the Council of State. Lage was an economist widely credited with guiding Cuba through a tough economic period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had provided substantial aid to the

country. Lage was replaced by Gen. Jose Amado Ricardo Guerra, a military official who had worked closely with Raul Castro when he headed the country’s armed forces. Cabinet Vice President Otto Rivera Torres, a former youth leader, was replaced by Ramiro Valdez Menendez, a hard-liner who had fought in the 1959 Cuban revolution alongside the Castro brothers. Raul Castro said the cabinet moves would lead to a “more compact and functional structure,” alluding to his stated desire to reduce governmental bureaucracy. Fidel Castro, in a March 3 blog post on the government-run Web site CubaDebate, denied that the moves were designed to allow Raul Castro to solidify control of the government. Fidel Castro said Lage and Perez Roque had been removed because the “honey of power” had “awoke in them ambitions that led to an undignified role.” Fidel Castro Sightings Reported— The New York Times March 3 reported that several people claimed to have seen Fidel Castro going for walks outside the Center for Medical and Surgical Research in Havana, Cuba’s capital. Fidel Castro in July 2006 had handed over day-to-day governing powers to Raul Castro, citing an unspecified gastrointestinal ailment that required surgery, and had not been seen in public since. He was thought to be receiving treatment at the center. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, a close friend and ally of Fidel Castro, Feb. 27 had said the former leader had gone for walks in Havana, and that his health was the best it had been since July 2006. [See 2007, p. 498E2] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

China Migrant Jobless Put at 20 Million. A rural

policy official of China’s ruling Communist Party Feb. 2 said the current economic slowdown had forced 20 million migrant workers who could not find jobs in cities to return to their rural homes. That estimate, which did not include unemployed migrant workers still seeking jobs in urban areas, was as much as twice previous estimates. The official, Chen Xiwen of the Office of Central Rural Work Leading Group, suggested that the large number of unemployed threatened to increase social unrest. Rural areas were experiencing less prosperity than China’s cities. Deprived of the income sent back by migrant workers, they were expected to face difficulty absorbing an influx of the returning unemployed. [See p. 35E1] The government had not released specific recent figures for incidents of social unrest, but some official news media alluded to evidence that labor-related conflicts were on the rise. Chen also urged local authorities to show restraint in deploying police to confront protests and conflicts, and to do more to directly address the root causes of protests and conflicts, such as land seizures and disputes, environmental degradation, and corruption. The Communist Party and China’s State Council (cabinet) Feb. 1 had issued a joint FACTS ON FILE

report calling 2009 “possibly the toughest year” economically since the late 1990s, particularly with respect to promoting rural development. n

Taiwan Ex-President’s Relatives Plead Guilty. Wu Shu-chen, the wife of former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, Feb. 10 pleaded guilty to money laundering and forgery, but not to more serious embezzlement and bribery charges. Chen Jan. 19 had pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzlement, bribetaking, money laundering and the forgery of documents at the opening of his own trial. He insisted that the case was being pressed by the government at the behest of his successor, Ma Ying-jeou, for political reasons. Wu’s admission, and guilty pleas by other relatives of Chen’s, were seen as a setback to his case. [See 2008, p. 942B3] Wu, in her first court appearance since she fainted at the opening of her trial in late 2006, pleaded not guilty to embezzlement from a special presidential fund, and accepting bribes in connection with a government real estate deal. She also rejected a money-laundering charge related to the presidential fund. She acknowledged falsifying documents in connection with the presidential fund, but said money from it had not been misused. She said money she had sent overseas had been the family’s, and that she had wired it without Chen’s knowledge. Wu pleaded guilty to two counts of money laundering related to more than $2.2 million that she had received from businessmen and had previously described as political donations, rather than bribes. The couple’s son, Chen Chih-chun, his wife, Huang Jui-ching, and Wu’s brother, Wu Ching-mao, Jan. 21 all pleaded guilty to money laundering. Chen Feb. 20 reportedly began his second hunger strike since he was first detained, to protest what he called prosecutorial misconduct. In an interview with the Financial Times published Feb. 23, his first since December 2008, Chen reiterated his claim that the case was “100% political,” and suggested that China’s enmity lay behind it. As president, Chen had promoted the goal of Taiwanese independence from China, which regarded it as a breakaway province; his successor, Ma, had shifted to a more conciliatory approach toward China. Chen’s case had raised concerns about the treatment of defendants in Taiwan’s judicial system, which largely dated from a decades-long period of martial law. A January incident at a justice ministry function had also appeared to validate concerns about potential bias in the proceedings. At the ministry, a comic skit was performed in which one of the prosecutors in the case derisively mimicked Chen’s proclamations of innocence. n GDP Shrinks More Than 8%. Taiwan’s government Feb. 18 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) had fallen by 8.4% in the fourth quarter of 2008 from the year-earlier period. The dramatic decline prompted the central bank to cut its benchmark interest March 5, 2009

rate by a quarter percentage point, to 1.25%, a record low. It was the second quarter of GDP contraction in a row, meeting a common definition of an economic recession. [See 2008, p. 840G1] Taiwan’s economy had been hit particularly hard by a drop in exports. The government Jan. 7 had reported a 42% plunge in exports for December 2008 from December 2007. n

Turkmenistan Hundreds Pardoned in Mass Amnesty. Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov Feb. 16 signed a decree pardoning 990 prisoners in a mass amnesty meant to mark the country’s National Flag Day, which fell on Feb. 19. Mass amnesties had been made popular by Berdymukhammedov’s late, eccentric predecessor, Saparmurad Niyazov, whose Feb. 19 birthday until 2008 had been opulently celebrated in conjunction with Flag Day. Berdymukhammedov had since rescinded some of Niyazov’s more idiosyncratic laws, such as a ban on circuses and operas. [See 2008, p. 982A1] In related news, London-based rights group Amnesty International Feb. 12 released a report on Turkmenistan that marked the second anniversary of Berdymukhammdov’s government, which had taken office Feb. 14, 2007. Amnesty charged that while Berdymukhammedov had risen to power “amid hopes that he would improve the country’s abysmal human rights record marked by repression of any form of peaceful dissent,” he had not implemented many meaningful reforms. n

Other Asia-Pacific News ASEAN

Discusses

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Refugees.

Thailand Feb. 27–March 1 hosted the 14th annual summit meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). During the meeting, which was held in the Thai town of Cha-am Hua Hin, leaders discussed the region’s Rohingya refugee problem and signed new trade deals. The meeting had been scheduled to take place in December 2008, but had been delayed after protesters occupied two airports near Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. [See below; 2008, p. 886D2; 2007, p. 790G3] Economic Grouping Scheduled for 2015—

The leaders of ASEAN’s member nations March 1 signed a document committing to the 2015 creation of an economic regional collective modeled on the European Union. The same day, ASEAN issued a joint statement urging the rest of the world to carry out “bold and urgent reform of the international finance system,” and to “stand firm against protectionism.” Analysts said increased protectionism could have a significantly negative effect on the economies of Thailand and other ASEAN members that relied heavily on exports for revenue. ASEAN members Feb. 27 signed a new free trade deal with the governments of New Zealand and Australia that was intended to increase the combined gross do-

mestic product (GDP) of the 12 participating countries by about $48 billion by 2020. In addition, ASEAN members March 1 agreed to sell oil to fellow members at discounted prices at times of economic crisis. No Resolution on Rohingya Issue— It was reported March 2 that ASEAN members had agreed to delay consideration of the problems surrounding the status of Rohingya refugees native to Myanmar until April, when a multinational conference on human trafficking that was scheduled to take place on Indonesia’s island of Bali. However, Myanmar’s government reportedly had agreed to accept any of the refugees who could be shown to be its citizens. Myanmar had previously denied any connection to the Rohingya, a largely Islamic ethnic group native to Myanmar’s Rakhine state. [See p. 99B1] The treatment of the refugees had attracted international attention in January, when Thailand’s military had been accused of abandoning more than 1,000 Rohingya migrants at sea without sufficient food or water. Hundreds of Rohingya refugees were still missing or presumed dead.

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Cambodia, Myanmar Protest Activists—

The governments of Cambodia and Myanmar Feb. 28 threatened to boycott the summit’s human rights meeting after activists from both countries were given permission to attend. Following the boycott threat, the activists reportedly agreed to withdraw, allowing the meeting to go forward. ASEAN had previously been criticized for failing to condemn human rights abuses carried out by its members. However, the group was scheduled to implement a portion of its charter intended to create an independent human rights investigative body before the end of 2009. During the human rights meeting, Myanmar’s government was reportedly encouraged to release its political prisoners in order to bring about reconciliation with its political opposition. However, Malaysian President Abdullah Ahmad Badawi afterward said, “Nobody mentioned the name of Aung San Suu Kyi,” Myanmar’s opposition leader, who was under house arrest, during the discussion. Currency Pool Expanded—ASEAN and the governments of Japan, China and South Korea Feb. 22 agreed to expand a regional currency pool by $40 billion, to a total of $120 billion, in order to safeguard the values of national currencies in the region. The currency pool, known as the Chiang Mai Initiative, had been created following a 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. As part of the agreement, ASEAN members agreed to provide $8 billion of the $40 billion, with the rest of the money provided by South Korea, China and Japan. The majority of the funds could only be accessed by countries willing to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had become unpopular in Southeast Asia as a result of its stewardship of the 1997–98 crisis. However, the Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 23 that alterations were planned that would make it possible for countries to access more of the funds without having to n involve the IMF. 135

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Estonia Former Defense Official Convicted of Spying.

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Herman Simm, 61, in an Estonian court Feb. 25 pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, state treason for supplying outside agents with classified information about Estonia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which it had joined in 2004. He was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison, and ordered to pay the Estonian defense ministry about $1.6 million to cover damages to security systems that he had compromised. Simm, who from 1995 to 2008 had held high-ranking defense ministry posts in Estonia, had reportedly handed over as many as 3,000 documents to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR.) He was reportedly paid at least $100,000 for his services. [See 2007, p. 284F1; 2004, p. 408C1] Prosecutors alleged that Simm had periodically met with two SVR agents, Valery Zentsov and Sergei Yakovlev, in various countries to deliver classified material. It was reported Feb. 25 that an international arrest warrant had been issued for Yakovlev, who also reportedly possessed a fraudulent Portuguese passport under the name Antonio de Jesus Amurett Graf. Russian authorities had denied working with Simm. It was unclear what kind of materials Simm had passed on to the SVR. Raivo Aeg, director of the Estonian security police, Feb. 26 claimed that “no irreversible catastrophe” had taken place, but added that Simm had “partially compromised and caused damage to various data systems, communication systems, and the like.” Some observers suggested that Simm, an alumnus of the Soviet police academy in Moscow, the capital, was resentful that he had been stripped of his rank of colonel after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Jaanus Rahumagi, head of the Estonian parliament’s security affairs committee, Feb. 25 said, “I believe Simm was happy to be involved with such a big game. He liked to be undercover and secretive.” The incident raised questions about the overall security of NATO amid the current drive to induct former Soviet republics. The organization was currently debating whether to extend membership action plans (MAPs) to Ukraine and Georgia. Russia vehemently opposed the eastward expansion of NATO, which it viewed as an encroachment on territory that traditionally lay within its sphere of influence. [See 2008, p. 879D1] n

European Union Bailout for Eastern Europe Rejected.

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European Union leaders March 1 gathered for an unofficial meeting in Brussels, Belgium, to discuss concerns about protectionism in various countries’ stimulus plans and Eastern European member states’ sagging economies. Western European members led by Germany rejected the idea of a region-wide bailout for the East136

ern European members. Observers suggested that a divide was opening between struggling Eastern European members and more stable Western European members over how to insulate the European economy amid the worst financial crisis since World War II. An official EU summit was slated to take place March 19–20. [See below, pp. 74D1, 68C3; 2008, p. 927D1] The meeting had been called Feb. 11 by the Czech Republic, the current holder of the rotating 6-month EU presidency, as it became clear that economic conditions in countries including Latvia, Hungary and Romania were deteriorating rapidly. The economies of Ireland and Greece had also deteriorated significantly in recent weeks. However, Ireland and Greece, unlike most Eastern European members, were partially shielded because they used the euro, the EU’s common currency. [See pp. 53B1, 37B3] Currencies in Eastern Europe had declined significantly against the euro, which made it increasingly difficult for the affected countries to pay back foreign loans and combat inflation. The EU had strict rules on when a member state could adopt the euro, including mandates that countries keep deficits, debt and inflation below certain levels. Those regulations had become much more difficult to fulfill for newer EU members whose economies had sharply declined in recent months. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the meeting, said a Hungarian request to ease some of those benchmarks should be taken into consideration. However, the European Central Bank opposed relaxing standards for euro adoption. In response to concerns that larger EU economies such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy were engaging in protectionism, Poland earlier March 1 had hosted a separate meeting of nine central and eastern EU states to prepare for the meeting of the full EU. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, at a press conference after the March 1 meeting, recognized those concerns and said member states had agreed to “keep our rules and principles regarding internal market, regarding financial stability, regarding a common approach to global supervision regulation and also regarding open economies, namely the need to fight protectionism.” Hungary Proposes $240 Billion Rescue—

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, at the March 1 meeting, proposed a 190 billion euro ($240 billion) economic rescue plan designed to support financial institutions in Eastern Europe. Gyurcsany warned of the growing division between Eastern and Western Europe, and said EU countries “should not allow a new Iron Curtain to be set up and divide Europe into two parts.” The plan was soundly rejected by EU leaders, led by Merkel, who said countries should receive assistance on a case-by-case basis. Poland and the Czech Republic also objected to the plan, saying they were relatively stable and did not need a rescue. Merkel also affirmed that “we help countries in need,” but through international organizations like the International

Monetary Fund rather than the EU. In related news, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank Feb. 27 had announced that they would extend a 24.4 billion euro loan to recapitalize banks in Eastern Europe. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, however, had reportedly claimed that banks in Eastern Europe would need an infusion of 95.5 billion euros to weather the crisis, according to a Feb. 27 report in the Wall Street Journal. French Auto Rescue Revised—France’s controversial plan to extend a 6.5-billioneuro rescue loan to its auto industry was also discussed at the March 1 meeting. The program had drawn criticism for having a protectionist slant, but was revised, according to a Feb. 28 EU press release, so it “would not contain any condition regarding either the location of [auto manufacturers’] activities or a preference for France-based suppliers.” EU leaders March 1 approved the plan, which was the meeting’s only concrete acheivement. [See p. 84F2] n

Great Britain Anti-Islamic Dutch Lawmaker Refused Entry.

British immigration officials at London’s Heathrow Airport Feb. 12 barred Geert Wilders, a controversial member of the Dutch parliament, from entering Britain and forced him to board the next return flight to the Netherlands. Wilders had traveled to Britain at the invitation of a member of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British Parliament, to screen his 15-minute film Fitna, which meant “civil strife” in Arabic. The film, which Wilders had posted on the Internet in 2008, blamed the Koran, Islam’s holy book, for inciting violence by Muslim extremists. [See 2008, p. 244D1] The British Home Office, which oversaw domestic security, had issued an order for Wilders to be deported upon his arrival, describing him as a “genuine, present and sufficient threat to the fundamental interests of society.” Wilders called British Prime Minister Gordon Brown “the biggest coward in Europe.” Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen telephoned his British counterpart, David Miliband, to protest Wilders’s deportation. n

Poland 1,800 Bodies Found in Mass Grave. At least 1,800 bodies had been discovered in what investigators believed was a World War II– era mass grave in the Polish town of Malbork, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Jan. 7. Investigators suspected that the bodies were those of Malbork’s civilian German residents, who had vanished in 1945, after the Soviet Red Army captured the town during its advance to Berlin, Germany’s capital, in the final months of the war. (Malbork had been known as Marienburg before the end of World War II, when it had been under German administration as part of the region of East Prussia. East Prussia became part of FACTS ON FILE

Poland after the war.) According to Piotr Szwedowski, a municipal official in Malbork, “All of the people were buried naked, without any shoes or personal effects.” He also said a number of the bodies, which included men, woman and children, appeared to have bullet wounds. [See 2007, p. 396D3; 1945, p. 26A] Bodies had first been discovered at the site on Oct. 28, 2008, by construction workers who were building a hotel near the base of a 13th-century Teutonic Knights fortress, a popular tourist attraction. The bodies had reportedly been buried in a bomb crater. Among the causes of death investigators were considering were hypothermia, starvation, artillery fire and execution. n

Ukraine Credit Rating Downgraded Further. Credit

rating agency Standard & Poor’s Feb. 25 downgraded Ukraine’s long term foreign currency rating to CCC-plus, seven levels below investment-grade and the lowest in Europe. The agency left the outlook negative. Standard & Poor’s cited political instability and doubts that the government could balance the budget for its decision. A balanced budget was a requirement for Ukraine to receive the second installment of a $16.4 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, the first part of which had been extended in November 2008. [See p. 37C1; 2008, p. 783E2] n

Other European News New Ukraine-Romania Sea Border Drawn.

The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, Feb. 3 drew a new maritime border in the northwestern Black Sea between Ukraine and Romania, settling a 40-year dispute between the countries. The controversy had attracted attention in the 1990s, when major deposits of oil and natural gas were discovered in the disputed area, which encompassed about 12,000 square kilometers (4,630 square miles). The court ruled that Romania would control just under 80% of the area, and the rest would belong to Ukraine. [See 1997, p. 441E1] Included in the Ukrainian-designated area was a rocky outcrop called Serpent Island, which was home to about 100 people, including scientists and Ukrainian military personnel. The court also decided in its ruling that Serpent Island was in fact an island—Romania had claimed that it was too small. However, the court did not grant Ukraine extensive rights to the coastal shelf surrounding the island, which contained the oil and natural gas deposits. (According to legend, Serpent Island was the resting place of the mythical Greek warrior Achilles, and it was the site of ancient ruins of what was believed to have been a temple built in his honor.) Both countries praised the court’s unanimous decision, which made no mention of how the area’s natural resources would be allocated. The Romanian media outlet NewsIn claimed that under the ruling, the country had received access to 70 billion cubic meters (2.47 trillion cubic ft.) of natMarch 5, 2009

ural gas and 12 million metric tons (13.2 million tons) of crude oil. The countries had agreed in advance that the court’s ruling was final and could not be appealed. n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan President Calls for Early National Elections.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Feb. 28 issued a decree calling for national elections to be held by April or May, overriding a January decision by the country’s election commission to delay the elections until Aug. 20. But the commission, which nominally held the power to issue a final decision on the election date, March 4 reaffirmed its plan to postpone the date, a move welcomed by the United Nations and the U.S. [See p. 102C1] U.S. President Barack Obama earlier in February had announced that the U.S. would deploy an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to quell a resurgent insurgency by the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban. U.S. officials had said an August election would give those troops more time to improve the security situation before the elections. Under the Afghan constitution, national elections had to be held 30–60 days before the end of a president’s term, and Karzai’s five-year term was due to end May 21. The election commission had postponed the date, citing the deteriorating security situation and poor winter weather, which would prevent the government from registering voters. Opposition parties argued that Karzai would be violating the constitution if he remained in power after May 21, and called for a caretaker government to take his place in the interim. But Karzai appeared to be resisting calls for him to relinquish power. Critics claimed that Karzai’s decree had been an attempt to stifle his political opposition, as it was unlikely that rival candidates would be able to mount a full-fledged presidential campaign in only a few months. The U.S. State Department March 4 urged the Afghan government to formulate a way to “ensure the continuity, legitimacy and stability of the government” between the end of Karzai’s term and August. n

Bangladesh Border Guard Mutiny Leads to Army Clash.

Border guards with the Bangladeshi paramilitary group the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Feb. 25–26 mutinied against their senior officers, killing at least 77 people in Dhaka, the capital, before the rebellion was quelled by army forces. Hundreds of members of the 42,000-strong BDR Feb. 25 had arrived at the group’s headquarters for an annual meeting with officers, reportedly to lodge protests against their pay and living quarters. [See p. 9B1; 2008, p. 421B1] Mutineers instead clashed with the officers. It was unclear if the officers were held hostage for a period of time, or were killed outright. Several smaller rebellions

were also reported in 12 other towns and cities across the country. BDR forces Feb. 25 engaged in fierce firefights with army forces on the streets of Dhaka, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed Feb. 26 deployed tanks to surround the BDR’s compound. Hasina Feb. 25 brokered a peace agreement with 15 leaders of the rebel group. Under the agreement, the mutinous guards agreed to surrender in exchange for amnesty, and Feb. 26 began turning themselves over to army forces. The remains of some 77 officers and their friends and family members Feb. 27– 28 were discovered by government forces inside or near the BDR compound, many in shallow mass graves, nearby ponds and sewers. Among them was Shakil Ahmed, the army officer who commanded the BDR. Another 71 people were missing and presumed dead. After the discovery of the corpses, Hasina Feb. 27 said those responsible for the deaths would be tried by special tribunal, modifying her earlier pledge of amnesty. More than 1,000 BDR members March 1 were charged with murder and arson. Security forces March 3 arrested Touhidal Alam, a deputy assistant director of the BDR, on suspicion of leading the mutiny. The event was considered a serious test of Hasina’s rule, and of general political stablility in Bangladesh. Since achieving independence from Pakistan in 1971, there had been more than 22 coup d’etats and countercoups there. Hasina had taken office in January, restoring democracy to the country and ending two years of rule by a military caretaker government. n

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Pakistan Sri Lankan Cricket Team Attacked in Lahore.

As many as 14 terrorists armed with assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers March 3 attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team in the city of Lahore, in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab. The attack left as many as eight people dead, including six police officers, and injured at least nine people, including seven Sri Lankan players. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. [See pp. 103C2, 102B3; 2008, p. 685B3] The attack began as the bus approached the Qadaffi cricket stadium, where a match with the Pakistani national team was to be held that day. None of the gunmen were killed or captured during a firefight with policemen escorting the bus. Pakistani security officials March 4 offered conflicting progress reports on an ensuing investigation, with some claiming that 20 people had been arrested, and others claiming that no arrests were made. Rehman Malik, chief of Pakistan’s interior ministry, March 3 had claimed that a “foreign hand” was behind the attack, in what he said was an attempt to “harm the country’s image.” Other officials explicitly blamed India, Pakistan’s historical rival. There was also some speculation that the attackers had connections with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Sri Lankan 137

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rebel group that was currently fighting the Sri Lankan army. [See p. 119E1] However, observers said video images of the attack and evidence gathered afterward suggested that a Pakistani-based group was responsible. They said the attack bore clear resemblances to a November 2008 attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, which officials from India and other countries had blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic extremist group based near Lahore. Pakistani police also said they suspected that domestic militants were involved in the attack. Pakistan was currently struggling against Islamic extremist militants operating in its lawless northwest tribal areas, who in recent months had also staged major attacks on large cosmopolitan centers like Lahore. The latest attack was perceived as being particularly damaging to Pakistan’s international reputation, since cricket was hugely popular in South Asia, and had served as a cultural bridge between Pakistan and its neighbors. The national cricket teams from Australia, England and South Africa had declined to play in Pakistan due to the unstable security situation. New Zealand’s team March 3 canceled a scheduled tour. The Sri Lankan team was the first team to play in Pakistan in 14 months, and had replaced an Indian team that had backed out of a scheduled tournament after the Mumbai attack. Part of the 2011 cricket World Cup was supposed to be hosted by Pakistan, but cricketing officials said that would have to be reconsidered. [See 2008, p. 408B1] Some Pakistani officials said recent political infighting between the country’s two largest parties—the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)—had left security forces focused on safeguarding political rallies rather than the Sri Lankan team. Chris Broad, a British umpire traveling with the team, March 4 said the Pakistani government had reneged on its promise to provide the team with “presidential-style security.” [See below] Both India and Sri Lanka condemned the attack, with India’s foreign ministry saying that Pakistan’s militants presented “a grave threat to the entire world.” Ex-PM Sharif Barred From Office—Pakistan’s Supreme Court Feb. 25 barred former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding elected office due to a criminal conviction on his record, leading to large protests by his supporters Feb. 25–27 in various parts of the country. Sharif, head of the PML-N, accused President Asif Ali Zardari, head of the PPP, of influencing the court’s decision, fueling concern that a political fight could further destabilize the country. [See 2008, p. 596G1] The court Feb. 25 also barred Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, from holding office due to alleged irregularities stemming from his election as the chief minister of Punjab, where the PML-N enjoyed strong public support. The federal government imposed executive rule over the province, and Salman Taseer, a member of the PPP, was named interim chief minister. 138

Nawaz Sharif that day said, “The nation should rise against this unconstitutional decision and this nefarious act by Zardari.” He urged PML-N supporters to attend a March 12 rally that had been organized to call for the reinstatement of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Former President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 had ousted Chaudhry, leading to a popular backlash that eventually culminated in Musharraf’s resignation in 2008. [See 2008, pp. 641D3, 565A1] Since being elected president in September 2008, Zardari had not reinstated Chaudhry. Critics said Zardari was concerned that Chaudhry could revive corruption charges against him that had been dropped under an amnesty agreement with Musharraf. Zardari had denied that claim, and the government Feb. 25 rejected allegations that it was conspiring to prevent Sharif from returning to power. The PPP said the ruling was “a court decision that has nothing to do with the government.” Sharif maintained that the current Supreme Court was illegitimate. Sharif’s criminal conviction stemmed from a 1999 incident when he was prime minister, in which he attempted to prevent the landing of a plane carrying Musharraf, then the chief of the army, who was seeking to oust Sharif in a coup. Musharraf succeeded in taking over the country, and Sharif was convicted on several charges, including hijacking. [See 1999, p. 845B1] Observers said heightened tensions between the PPP and the PML-N could hamper U.S. interests in the region. The U.S. had pressed Zardari to focus on combating Islamic extremist militants in the tribal areas. Cease-Fire With Militants Extended— A spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah, a militant leader in the Swat Valley region of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Feb. 24 said Fazlullah had agreed to a cease-fire with government forces that would last for an “indefinite period.” The announcement extended a 10-day ceasefire that had been agreed to earlier in the month, in which the government said it would allow the establishment of sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Swat. The provincial government of the NWFP and the militants March 4 agreed to 17 new rules for Swat. They included the closing of shops during prayer times, a ban on music and the adoption of a new inheritance law, in which women were entitled to receive about half of what a man would receive. Militants were banned from brandishing their weapons in public, but it remained unclear whether they were required to disarm. Also unresolved was the status of the region’s schools for girls, which the militants wanted to close. Swat, located about 100 miles (160km) from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, had been the scene of heavy fighting between the two sides for over a year. Militants now controlled about 70% of Swat, and had terrorized its civilian population and local leadership, leading to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people. The ceasefire agreement came under criticism from international observers, who said it would

allow militants to regroup and recruit new fighters. Separately, militants in Bajaur, a tribal area in Pakistan’s lawless northwest, Feb. 23 declared a cease-fire with government forces, ostensibly halting a battle that had lasted eight months. However, Pakistani military officials Feb. 28 claimed that the army had defeated the militants in the area. CIA to Continue Al Qaeda Efforts—U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta Feb. 25 told reporters at his first news briefing that the CIA’s “operational efforts” against terrorist targets in Pakistan had been “successful” and would continue. The comment was widely interpreted as a reference to a suspected CIA campaign to use Predator drone aircraft to launch rocket attacks against members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and other militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Panetta did not go so far as to publicly acknowledge that the CIA was behind the attacks. [See p. 103E1] The CIA was thought to have conducted more than 30 such attacks since 2008—including two since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January—leading to the deaths of an estimated 80 Al Qaeda fighters. The U.S. viewed the militant strongholds as threats to its own troops, who were operating across the border in neighboring Afghanistan. [See p. 137A2] However, the strikes had provoked protests from the Pakistani public, following the reported deaths of civilians. Panetta’s comments came as high-level Pakistani and Afghan officials Feb. 24–26 met in Washington, D.C., to discuss security issues in the region. At the meeting, Pakistani officials reportedly expressed concern about the strikes, which they said were further destabilizing the country. Following the meetings, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Feb. 26 announced that the three countries would conduct regular trilateral meetings to reduce the threat of terrorism in the region. Suicide Bomber Targets Shiites—A suicide bomber Feb. 20 killed at least 28 people and injured 65 more in an attack on a funeral procession for a slain Shiite Muslim leader in the NWFP town of Dera Ismail Khan. Violence against Pakistani Shiites had increased in recent months, in what some analysts said could be a trend of increased sectarianism on the part of Pakistani extremist groups, which were predominantly Sunni. [See p. 39B1] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Tennis Israeli Player Barred From Dubai Event.

Larry Scott, chairman and chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour, Feb. 15 announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had refused to grant an entry visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer, who had been scheduled to compete in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships in the country, which began that day. Tournament organizers had reportedly cited secuFACTS ON FILE

rity concerns for not allowing Peer, ranked 48th in the world, to enter the UAE, as well as local opposition to Israel’s recent incursion into the Gaza Strip. [See p. 30D3] In response, U.S.-based cable network the Tennis Channel Feb. 16 refused to televise the event. Scott Feb. 19 said the WTA Tour would require a guarantee in writing that Peer would be allowed to compete before the tour would put the event on its calendar for 2010. The WTA Feb. 20 fined the Dubai event $300,000 for the visa refusal. Venus Williams of the U.S. Feb. 22 won the event, defeating Virginie Razzano of France, 6–4, 6–2. The UAE Feb. 19 said it had issued an entry visa to Israeli Andy Ram to compete in the men’s portion of the Dubai event, which began Feb. 23. Top U.S. player Andy Roddick Feb. 21 had said he would not defend his title at the men’s Dubai event due to the controversy over Peer. Novak Djokovic of Serbia Feb. 28 beat David Ferrer of Spain, 7–5, 6–3, to claim the men’s title. [See 2007, p. 391C1] n

regulation play tied with Charley Hoffman of the U.S. at 270, 14 under par. Perry claimed $1.08 million for the victory. [See 2008, p. 267G2] o Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie Jan. 28 was named captain of the European Ryder Cup team for the 2010 event, which would be played in Wales. [See 2008, p. 686E2] o Pat Perez of the U.S. Jan. 25 won the Bob Hope Classic in La Quinta, Calif. Perez finished with a 33-under-par 327 in the five-round tournament, which included a record 20-under 124 over the first two days of the tournament Jan. 21 and 22. He earned $918,000 for the win, his first on the PGA Tour. [See 2008, p. 267B3] o The U.S.’s Zach Johnson Jan. 18 won the Sony Open in Honolulu, Hawaii. He shot a 15-under-par 265, and collected a $972,000 winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 267B3] o Ogilvy Jan. 11 won the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Kapalua, Hawaii, the first event of the PGA Tour season. He shot a 24under-par 268, and collected $1.12 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 267C3] n

Golf Ogilvy Wins Match Play; Woods Returns.

Figure Skating

Geoff Ogilvy of Australia March 1 won the World Golf Championships–Accenture Match Play Championship in Marana, Ariz. Ogilvy, who had also won the event in 2006, defeated England’s Paul Casey, four and three, in the championship match. Ogilvy earned $1.4 million for the victory, which moved him up to fourth place in the world rankings. [See 2008, p. 267E2] At the tournament, Tiger Woods of the U.S.—the world’s top-ranked player and the event’s defending champion—Feb. 25 made his return from an eight-month absence from the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour due to a knee injury. Woods, 33, defeated his opponent that day, Brendan Jones of Australia, three and two. However, Woods in the second round Feb. 26 was eliminated by South Africa’s Tim Clark, losing, four and two. [See 2008, p. 421C3] Other News—In other golf news: o Defending champion Phil Mickelson of the U.S. Feb. 22 won the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles. He shot a 15-underpar 269, and claimed $1.134 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 267F2] o Dustin Johnson of the U.S. Feb. 16 was declared the winner of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, Calif., two days after play was postponed due to rain after the third round. With continued rain in the forecast, Johnson, who led after the third round with a 54-hole total of 201, 15 under par, was named the winner. He earned $1.098 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 267F2] o The U.S.’s Nick Watney Feb. 8 won the Buick Invitational in San Diego, Calif. He shot an 11-under-par 277, and earned $954,000 in prize money. [See 2008, p. 267A3] o Kenny Perry of the U.S. Feb. 1 won the FBR Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. He won on the third playoff hole, after finishing

U.S. Championships Held. Alissa Czisny,

March 5, 2009

21, Jan. 25 won the women’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Cleveland, Ohio. Rachael Flatt was the runner-up for the second year in a row, and Caroline Zhang placed third. Top skaters Kimmie Meissner and Emily Hughes missed the competition due to injury. [See 2008, p. 135E2] The men’s competition Jan. 25 was won by 23-year-old Jeremy Abbott. Brandon Mroz, 18, claimed second place, and twotime defending champion Evan Lysacek was third. It was the first time in six years that a skater other than Lysacek or Jonny Weir— who ended up fifth—won the title. Keauna McLaughlin and Rockne Brubaker Jan. 24 won the pairs title for the second year in a row. Caydee Denney and Jeremy Barrett placed second, and Rena Inoue and John Baldwin took third. Meryl Davis and Charlie White Jan. 24 won the ice dancing title. Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates placed second, and Kimberly Navarro and Brent Bommentre were third. Five-time defending champions Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto missed the competition due to a back injury suffered by Agosto. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Awards Polk Awards Honor Journalists. Long Island (N.Y.) University Feb. 16 announced the 2008 winners of the annual George Polk Awards for excellence in journalism. [See 2008, p. 136A2] Three Polk Award winners worked for the New York Times. They were investigative reporter David Barstow, and the husband-and-wife-team of Barry Bearak and Celia W. Dugger, who co-directed the paper’s Johannesburg, South Africa, bureau.

Barstow won the national reporting award for a two-part series on former military officers who were presented as independent analysts on news broadcasts but who were actually placed by the Defense Department to generate favorable publicity for the war on terror and other policies associated with the administration of President George W. Bush. [See 2008, p. 312F1] Bearak and Dugger won the foreign reporting award for their coverage of electionrelated violence in Zimbabwe. Bearak had been jailed for five days after being accused of covering the elections without government permission. [See 2008, p. 261A3] Another Polk Award winner, in the international reporting category, was Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune. Salopek was honored for a series of articles on U.S. antiterrorism efforts in the region known as the Horn of Africa. In 2006, Salopek had been jailed in Sudan on espionage charges for slightly over a month before being freed. [See 2006, p. 785F2] The local reporting award went to Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick of the Detroit Free Press for detailing corruption within the administration of Detroit, Mich., Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D). Kilpatrick eventually resigned and was briefly jailed. [See 2008, p. 788G3] A career award went to journalist and author Gay Talese, 77, a onetime reporter for the New York Times who became the best-selling author of such nonfiction books as Honor Thy Father (1971) and Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1981). [See 2008, p. 28A3; 1981, p. 484A1] n Barry Wins Costa Book Prize. Irish writer Sebastian Barry Jan. 27 won one of Britain’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Costa Book of the Year Award, worth £25,000 (US$35,000), for his novel The Secret Scripture. The book’s narrator was an aged woman wrongly confined to an Irish mental hospital for most of her life. It was a book for which Sebastian, 53, had nearly won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. [See 2008, pp. 779F3, 96A3] Barry Jan. 5 had been shortlisted for the Costa prize in the novel category. The other shortlisted authors were children’s writer Michelle Magorian, for Just Henry, a 700-page novel set in coastal England several years after the end of World War II; debut novelist Sadie Jones for The Outcast, about a child growing up in a repressive atmosphere in 1950s Britain; poet Adam Foulds for The Broken Word, a narrative poem dealing with the 1950s Mau Mau uprising in Kenya; and longtime book editor Diana Athill’s memoir of growing old, Somewhere Towards the End. Athill, 91, was the oldest person ever to have been shortlisted for the Costa prize, or its predecessor, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. [See 2007, p. 88F1] n

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People British reality television star Jade Goody, 27, Feb. 22 in Hatfield Heath, England, married her boyfriend, ex-convict Jack Tweed, 21, in a ceremony for whose print and television rights she had been paid about £1 mil139

BEST SELLER LISTS

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Publishers Weekly March 2 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 72A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. The Associate, by John Grisham (Doubleday) 2. Run for Your Life, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown) 3. Heart and Soul, by Maeve Binchy (Knopf) 4. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) 5. Fool, by Christopher Moore (Morrow)

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General Hardback 1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2. The Yankee Years, by Joe Torre with Tom Verducci (Doubleday) 3. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 4. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion)

5. Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance, by Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker (Tyndale House)

Mass Market Paperback

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1. Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella (Dell) 2. The Appeal, by John Grisham (Dell) 3. Secrets, by Jude Deveraux (Pocket) 4. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates (Vintage) 5. Honor Thyself, by Danielle Steel (Delacorte)

Music

al television shows Feb. 2–March 1 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 72A2]:

1. “Academy Awards” (ABC), Feb. 22 (20.6) 2. “American Idol” (Fox), Feb. 4 (14.8)* 3. “Oscar’s Red Carpet 2009” (ABC), Feb. 22 (14.5) 4. “The Mentalist” (CBS), Feb. 10 (12.0) 5. “NCIS” (CBS), Feb. 10 (11.3)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Feb. 20–26 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 72B2]:

1. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, Lionsgate ($48.3 million, 1)

Directed by Tyler Perry. With Perry, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Derek Luke, Tamela J. Mann and Vanessa Ferlito. 2. Taken, 20th Century Fox ($97.9 million, 4)

Directed by Pierre Morel. With Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Leland Orser, Anjul Nigam and Jon Gries. 3. Coraline, Focus Features ($55.9 million, 3)

Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Feb. 28 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 72C1]:

Singles

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1. “Right Round,” Flo Rida featuring Kesha (Poe Boy/Atlantic) 2. “Dead and Gone,” T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake (Grand Hustle/Atlantic) 3. “Crack A Bottle,” Eminem, Dr. Dre & 50 Cent (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope) 4. “Heartless,” Kanye West (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam/IDJMG)

5. “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga featuring Colby O’Donis (Streamline/Konlive/ Cherrytree/Interscope) Albums 1. Fearless, Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 2. Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (Rounder)

3. Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics, India.Arie (Soulbird/Universal Republic/UMRG) 4. The Fray, The Fray (Epic/Sony Music) 5. It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily Allen (Capitol)

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lion (US$1.5 million). Goody, who had first gained attention for appearing on the TV show “Big Brother” in 2002, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008, and her illness was considered terminal. She was allowing her battle with cancer to be aired on a TV show called “Jade’s Progress.” She wanted to make as much money as possible in the apparently short period of time left to her to maximize the trust fund she had set up for her two sons, now aged five and four. [See 2005, p. 92E2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BELLSON, Louie (born Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni), 84, jazz drummer,

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bandleader, composer and arranger; as a teenager, he pioneered the use of twin bass drums; in 1951, he became the Duke Ellington Orchestra’s only white member; he left Ellington’s ensemble in 1953 to become musical director for singer Pearl Bailey, whom he had wed a year before; they stayed married until her death in 1990; over the years, he made many recordings, as both a leader and a sideman; his compositions included sacred music, ballet music, and the music for Portofino, a musical that bombed on Broadway in 1958; born July 6, 1924, in Rock Falls, Ill.; died Feb. 14 at a hospital in Los Angeles, several months after breaking a hip; he had also been battling Parkinson’s disease. [See 1990, p. 632D3; 1958, p. 84E3; Index 1952]

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Directed by Henry Selig. With the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Dawn French and Keith David. 4. Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Searchlight ($103.0 million, 15) [See p. 72C2] 5. He’s Just Not That Into You, Warner Bros. ($72.6 million, 3)

Directed by Ken Kwapis. With Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long. 6. Friday the 13th, Warner Bros. ($57.0 million, 2)

Directed by Marcus Nispel. With Julianna Guill, America Olivo, Jared Padalecki, Amanda Righetti and Danielle Panabaker. 7. Confessions of a Shopaholic, Disney ($29.2 million, 2)

Directed by P.J. Hogan. With Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman and John Lithgow. 8. Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Sony ($122.5 million, 6) [See p. 72B2] 9. Fired Up!, Sony ($6.3 million, 1)

Directed by Will Gluck. With Nicholas D’Agosto, Eric Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer, Danneel Harris and David Walton. 10. The International, Sony ($18.5 million, 2)

Directed by Tom Tykwer. With Clive Owen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ulrich Thomsen and Brian O’Byrne.

CINTRON, Conchita (born Concepcion Cintron Verrill), 86, arguably the greatest female bullfighter

ever; during her career in the ring, which lasted from 1936 to 1950 and was pursued in South America, Mexico and Europe, she reportedly killed more than 750 bulls, fighting them both on foot (Spanish style) and on horseback (Portuguese style); soon after retiring from the ring, she married a Portuguese aristocrat and settled in Portugal; born Aug. 9, 1922, in Antofagasta, Chile; died Feb. 17 in Lisbon, Portugal, of a heart attack. FOOTE, Horton (Albert Horton Foote Jr.), 92, playwright, screenwriter and television dramatist; during U.S. television’s “golden age” of the 1950s, he wrote a number of noteworthy teleplays, several of them based on short stories by William Faulkner; writing for the movies, he won two Academy Awards, in 1963 for his adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, and in 1984 for his original screenplay for Tender Mercies (1983); his many plays were widely produced, both on and off Broadway and on regional stages; quite a few of his plays were set in the fictional town of Harrison, Texas, based largely on the small Texas town in which he grew up; late in his career, in 1995, he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for The Young Man From Atlanta, about a Texas couple having to cope with their son’s suicide; among his four children were actress Hallie Foote, a key interpreter of his work, and playwright Daisy Foote; born March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas; died March 4 in an apartment in Hartford, Conn., after a brief illness; he had been working on a forthcoming production of a cycle of his plays by the Hartford Stage Co. [See 2008, p. 997E3; 2006, p. 1041F3; Indexes 2004, 2000, 1997, 1994–95, 1983–86, 1965–67, 1963, 1952–54]

HARVEY, Paul (born Paul Harvey Aurandt), 90, Chicago-based radio commentator who for decades reached millions of people in the U.S. and around the world via the ABC Radio Networks and many Armed Forces Radio stations; in his 15-minute monologues, delivered in a distinctive, staccato manner, he presented an essentially conservative worldview, but with a libertarian streak, as shown by his support for women’s and abortion rights and his opposition to certain elements of the Christian right; ABC gave him a 10year, $100 million contract in 2000, when he was already 82, five years before he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; born Sept. 4, 1918, in Tulsa, Okla.; died Feb. 28 at a hospital in Phoenix, Ariz.; the cause of his death was not revealed. [See 2005, p. 812G1; 1984, p. 136A2; Index 1970] KIM Sou-hwan, Cardinal Stephen, 86, Roman Catholic prelate who in 1969 was named South Korea’s first cardinal, a year after being appointed archbishop of Seoul, the South Korean capital; during his tenure as archbishop, which ended in 1998 and largely overlapped a period of military rule, he often spoke out against authoritarian actions taken by the government; born May 8, 1922, in Daegu; died Feb. 16 at a hospital in Seoul, of pneumonia. [See 1990, p. 786D1; 1987, pp. 441F2, 277G1, 111F1; Indexes 1986, 1982, 1969] VIEIRA, Joao Bernardo (Nino), 69, president, for most of the period since 1980, of the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony; he had been one of the leaders of the guerrilla movement that led to his country’s attainment of independence in 1974; born April 27, 1939, in Bissau, then the capital of Portuguese Guinea; killed by government soldiers March 2 at his home in Bissau. [See p. 133A3; 2008, p. 940A3, D3–E3; Indexes 2005, 1998–2000, 1992, 1986, 1984, 1980] n

March 5, 2009

U.S. Financier Madoff Pleads Guilty to $65 Billion Fraud Bail Revoked, Ordered to Jail. Disgraced fin-

Mario Tama/Getty Images

ancier Bernard Madoff, head of brokerage Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, March 12 pleaded guilty to a massive fraud that might have led to $65 billion in losses for investors. Following his plea in U.S. District Court in New York City, Judge Denny Chin revoked Madoff’s bail and ordered that he be jailed until sentencing, which was scheduled for June 16. [See p. 113E1] Madoff in December 2008 had been arrested on a charge of securities fraud, after he allegedly admitted to two fellow executives that the firm’s secretive investmentadvisory unit was a Ponzi scheme, in which investors’ supposed returns were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors. Madoff was granted a $10 million bail, but had been confined to his New York City apartment. Madoff in February had reached a partial settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which he neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. Madoff March 12 told the court that he had never invested any of the unit’s money in stocks and bonds, as he had told his clients. He said, “I cannot adequately express how sorry I am for my crimes.” He added, “When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and clients from the scheme. This proved to be difficult and ultimately impossible.” The scheme had affected charities, banks, hedge funds and pension funds around the world, as well as individual investors, many of whom were thought to have lost their life savings. Individual investors included members of Madoff’s family and his friends. Many of the fraud’s victims attended the March 12 hearing, and a few were given the opportunity to speak. Madoff pleaded guilty to all 11 charges brought against him by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. The charges were securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, mail fraud, wire

Bernard Madoff leaving U.S. District Court in New York City after a hearing March 10. Madoff pleaded guilty two days later to a massive financial fraud.

fraud, three counts of money laundering, making false statements, perjury, submitting a false filing to the SEC and stealing from an employee benefit plan. Madoff, 70, faced a maximum of 150 years in prison. Prosecutors did not enter an agreement with Madoff to reduce his sentence in exchange for the guilty plea. The guilty plea had been expected since March 6, when Madoff waived his right to have a grand jury assess the prosecution’s case against him. Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin, during a hearing March 10 told Chin that it was a “fair expectation” that Madoff would plead guilty March 12. The March 10 hearing was held to determine whether Sorkin could continue serving as Madoff’s lawyer, following revelations that Sorkin’s family had invested with Madoff and was likely one of the fraud’s many victims. Chin waived the potential conflict of interest after Madoff asserted that he wanted Sorkin to continue as his lawyer. Details of Ponzi Scheme Revealed—

The U.S. attorney’s office March 10 filed “criminal information” documents with the court, providing some of the first concrete details of how Madoff ran the scheme. Prosecutors said Madoff in early December 2008 had told his clients that the investment-advisory unit, which ostensibly acted as a money manager, held a total of $64.8 billion from 4,800 clients. That was significantly higher than the $50 billion Madoff had allegedly admitted to losing in December 2008. Prosecutors said only a “small fraction” of the $65 billion remained in the unit’s account. A court-appointed trustee for the firm had salvaged about $1 billion worth of assets thus far. Prosecutors revealed that the scheme had started in the early 1980s. Madoff lured clients by promising them steady, modest returns on their investments, but he also offered some clients as much as a 46% yearly return. Madoff told clients that he used a “split-strike” conversion strategy, in which he purchased a basket of shares in the S&P 100 stock average, the risks of which were offset by purchases of options on those shares. (Options allowed traders to buy or sell shares at a later date at a fixed price.) Prosecutors said Madoff hired employees with little knowledge of the securities industry, and had them create fraudulent documents, such as accounting statements and trading records, to create the appearance that the unit was trading in stocks and bonds. It remained unclear whether the employees knew that they were abetting a fraud. Prosecutors also said Madoff “repeatedly lied to the SEC.” Prosecutors said Madoff transferred money between the firm’s New York City headquarters and its London branch, Madoff Securities International Ltd., in order to create the impression that the unit was trading European stocks. Madoff took money from the unit’s investor pool for personal use, and between 2002 and 2008, diverted $250 million worth of investor money to finance the firm’s supposedly legitimate stock-trading businesses. Prosecutors said

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3560* March 12, 2009

B that money was laundered through the London branch, and resulted in millions of dollars in “benefits” for Madoff and unidentified “others.” The connection between the investment-advisory unit and the firm’s other enterprises raised questions as to whether other executives at the firm were aware of the fraud. They included Madoff’s sons, Andrew Madoff and Mark Madoff, reportedly the two executives to whom Madoff initially confessed in December 2008. Madoff’s brother, Peter Madoff, was also an executive at the firm, and all four were on the board of directors of the London branch. Bernard Madoff had maintained that he had acted alone in organizing the fraud, and March 12 told the court that the firm’s other businesses were “legitimate, profitable and successful in all respects.” Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin March 10 had said the government was still in the midst of its investigation. Many aspects of the case remained unclear, in-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. financier Madoff pleads guilty to $65 billion fraud; bail revoked, ordered to jail. PAGE 141

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U.S. Secretary of State Clinton visits Europe. PAGE 142

North Korea issues threat against South Korean flights. PAGE 143

Obama lifts stem cell research funding ban. PAGE 143

Omnibus spending bill enacted despite earmarks. PAGE 143

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U.S. unemployment rate hits 26-year high. PAGE 147

SEC accuses financier Stanford of fraud. PAGE 147

Zimbabwean prime minister hurt, wife killed in car crash. PAGE 152

Three killed in dissident IRA attacks in Northern Ireland. PAGE 154

Palestinian Authority prime minister resigns. PAGE 157 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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cluding the total amount investors had lost; how much of the funds Madoff had taken for himself; where Madoff had stashed the remaining funds, if there were any; and whether Madoff had received help from co-conspirators. Prosecutors said they were seeking $170 billion in restitution from Madoff, which was the amount of money that had passed through the investment-advisory unit since its inception. Madoff’s lawyers called the amount “grossly overstated.” Observers said unwitting investors who had profited from the scheme could be subject to “clawbacks,” in which profits were divided up among the fraud’s victims. n

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton Visits Europe Suggests Iran Attend Afghanistan Meeting.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton March 5–7 continued her second trip abroad as the nation’s top diplomat, making stops in Belgium, Switzerland and Turkey. Clinton frequently discussed Iran during her trip, notably suggesting that it attend a United Nations–hosted meeting on Afghanistan, where violence from a militant Islamic insurgency was increasing. If Iran attended the summit, scheduled to be held in the Netherlands March 31, it would represent the country’s first official contact with U.S. diplomats since 2007. Despite that overture, Clinton also insisted that the U.S and its allies would not tolerate an Iranian nuclear weapons program. [See below, pp. 123F1, 86G1] Clinton’s visit to Europe followed a tour of the Middle East. Her trip preceded a planned trip to Europe by U.S. President Barack Obama in April, where he would attend a summit of the Group of 20 nations with industrialized or emerging economies in London, and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Germany. NATO-Russia Council Revived—Clinton March 5, in Brussels, Belgium, attended a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, where the leaders agreed to revive the NATO-Russia Council. The council, which served as the official diplomatic channel between the two bodies, had been suspended following a brief war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, after NATO had objected to the Russian military’s occupation of parts of undisputed Georgian territory. Russian troops had withdrawn from those areas in October 2008. [See 2008, pp. 879E1, 717F1] Lithuania had strongly objected to reviving the council, but relented under pressure from other members. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance continued to oppose Russian plans to establish military bases in the Russianaligned Georgian splinter regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. [See p. 85F1] Proposes Afghanistan Summit—Clinton March 5 at the NATO meeting proposed the U.N. summit of countries with an interest in Afghanistan. Clinton suggested that Iran attend the meeting, and pointed out that after the U.S. military had entered Afghani-

stan following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “Iran was consulting with our ambassador on a daily basis.” Mostly Shiite Muslim Iran, which shared its eastern border with Afghanistan, had historically rocky relations with the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group leading Afghanistan’s growing insurgency. [See pp. 105C2, 102C1] Observers suggested that the Obama administration viewed cooperation with Iran on the war in Afghanistan as a promising means of reopening official communications with Iran. The U.S. had cut off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980, and limited contacts between them had largely ceased after then–President George W. Bush in 2002 called it part of an “axis of evil.” Iran had reportedly expressed interest in attending the meeting. However, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, March 4 had said Obama’s foreign policy “amounts to the same crooked ways of the Bush administration and nothing else.” Clinton did not relent on the U.S.’s hard line against Iran’s nuclear program. She said while there was “an ongoing debate about what the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity is…I don’t think there is a credible debate about their intentions.” Clinton also pressured Iran to release Roxana Saberi, 31, an American-born journalist who had been detained in Iran in January for reporting without press credentials. Meets With Russia’s Lavrov— Clinton March 6 met with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva, Switzerland, in what both sides billed as a constructive discussion between the two countries, whose relations had soured markedly in recent months. The leaders reportedly discussed areas where the U.S. and Russia could collaborate, including on addressing nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and on the war in Afghanistan. [See 2008, p. 206B3] They also agreed to work closely on developing by the end of the year a new version of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a pact struck in 1991 that limited the size of both countries’ nuclear arsenals. The treaty would expire in December. Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev were expected to outline a new version of START at their first planned meeting, in London April 2. [See 2008, p. 985A2] Lavrov and Clinton also discussed a U.S. plan, opposed by Russia, to build components of a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland, but did not reach any agreements. Bush had vigorously pursued the plan, angering Russia, which had rejected his assertion that the shield was necessary to protect against nuclear threats from Iran and claimed that it would compromise its defenses. The Obama administration had indicated that it was willing to negotiate with Russia on the matter. Lavrov said talks on the shield were ongoing, and indicated that Russia might be open to a compromise. [See p. 74C2] U.S. officials also said Clinton had pressured Lavrov to cancel Russia’s planned

sale of long range S-300 missile systems to Iran. However, Lavrov, at a press conference after the meeting, said the transaction was legal and made no indication that it would be canceled. Clinton also said the U.S. was “very troubled by using energy as a tool of intimidation,” a reference to a January dispute between Russia and Ukraine over payment for Russian shipments of natural gas. Russia had shut off the gas supply to Ukraine, and as a result, supplies to European countries that received gas via Ukraine were also cut. [See p. 37C1] Clinton presented Lavrov with a symbolic gift intended to represent a fresh start in bilateral relations—a red button that was labeled “reset” in English but with an erroneous Russian translation: peregruzka, which meant “overcharge.” In Turkey, Clinton Says Obama to Visit—

Clinton March 7 visited Ankara, the capital of Turkey, where she met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top officials. She announced that Obama planned to visit Turkey during his European trip in April. Obama’s visit to Turkey was expected to be his first to a predominantly Muslim country since his inauguration in January. He had pledged to devote special attention to improving the U.S.’s relations with the Muslim world. [See p. 42F1] During her visit, Clinton appeared on a popular television talk show, as she had done on her recent visit to Indonesia, another relatively moderate Muslim nation. The appearance was seen as a bid to appeal to ordinary Turks and improve the image of the U.S., which had suffered a sharp decline in popularity in Turkish public opinion polls in the past few years. [See p. 109D2]

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Turkey, a member of NATO, had brokered peace talks between Israel and Syria in 2008. Those talks had been suspended as a result of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip in January, which had drawn heated criticism from Erdogan. Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan at a news conference with Clinton said Turkey would renew its role as mediator if asked to do so by both Israel and Syria. [See p. 58B3] The Obama administration the previous week had dispatched two high-level U.S. envoys to Syria in a move to explore reestablishing bilateral ties, which had been broken off under President George W. Bush. The U.S. envoys—Jeffrey Feltman, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and Daniel Shapiro, senior director for Middle East policy on the National Security Council—March 7 met in Damascus, the Syrian capital, with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem. Feltman told reporters after the meeting, “We found a lot of common ground.” n

Korean Peninsula Threat Issued Against South’s Flights.

North Korea March 5 said it could not guarantee the safety of South Korean passenger flights in the vicinity of its airspace, if the U.S. and South Korea proceeded with annual joint military exercises scheduled to begin the following week. The warning prompted South Korea’s major carriers, and some foreign airlines, to alter their flight plans, and drew sharp condemnation from South Korea. North Korea denounced the military exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion. North Korea had intensified belligerent rhetoric and gestures toward South Korea since South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2008 and established a less accommodating policy toward North Korea. [See pp. 109B2, 84A1] The 12-day military exercises began as planned March 9. North Korea that day announced that its armed forces were placed on high combat alert. It also announced the shutdown during the U.S.–South Korean maneuvers of a military hotline with South Korea. That halted the movement of personnel and supplies between South Korea and an industrial zone in North Korea where South Korean companies had operations, which required approval via the hotline. However, North Korea March 10 allowed crossings to resume despite the continued suspension of the hotline. A U.S. State Department spokesman March 9 said the military exercises were “not a threat” to North Korea, but that the country’s “bellicose rhetoric” was “a threat to the region.” North Korea March 9 also warned that any attempt to interfere with a satellite launch it was planning would be considered an act of war. North Korea claimed the satellite was part of a benign space program. The real intent of the launch was widely seen to be a test of North Korea’s Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korea March 11 reportedly advised international agencies that it planned to conduct the launch between April 4 and 8. n March 12, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Medical Research Obama Lifts Stem Cell Funding Ban. Pres-

ident Barack Obama March 9 signed an executive order lifting restrictions on federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research, reversing a policy that had been instituted in August 2001 by then–President George W. Bush. Under Bush’s order, federal funds for such research had been limited to the 21 cell lines in existence at the time. Obama during the presidential campaign had often spoken in support of embryonic stem cell research, and had promised to end the funding ban. [See p. 49B2, 26C1; 2001, p. 617A1] Embryonic stem cell creation relied on the destruction of a human embryo in order to harvest the cells, which could be coaxed in laboratories to grow into any type of cell found in the body. It was thought that embryonic stem cells had the potential for a great number of medical applications, including the development of laboratory-created organs for donation, and treatments for ailments including heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, among many others. Antiabortion and other socially conservative activists maintained that the process of destroying a human embryo in order to harvest stem cells was tantamount to murder. Democrats had largely backed embryonic stem cell research, while the issue had divided Republicans. During a signing ceremony held in the White House, Obama said, “These tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand, and possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases.” Obama criticized the Bush administration for creating a “false choice between sound science and moral values.” He also pledged that federally funded stem cell research would not contribute to human cloning, a controversial practice that Obama described as “dangerous, profoundly wrong” and without a place “in our society or any society.” [See 2007, p. 397G2] Since Bush’s 2001 funding ban, hundreds of stem cell lines had been created using private funds. Several states had also allotted money for stem cell research, with California providing tens of millions of dollars for such work at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Critics of Bush’s move had argued that it would limit medical advances and encourage top scientists in the field to leave for other countries where research was supported by the government. Scientists also said the 21 lines that continued to receive government funding might contain defects that would make them dangerous for use in medical treatments. [See 2006, p. 596A1] In an unforeseen move, Obama’s executive order left open where the embryos for research could be obtained from. In the past, federal money for stem cell creation had been limited to human embryos donated by couples who had undergone fertility treatments, and which would otherwise be destroyed. However, embryos could also be created for the explicit purpose of re-

search by methods including cloning. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) was tasked with determining guidelines for the types of research that would receive funding. However, federal law still prohibited the use of federal funding for the creation of embryos for use in research in which they would be harmed. It would take an act of Congress to allow federal money to fund the creation of new human embryonic stem cell lines. The federal funding would therefore for the moment be applied to hundreds of newer stem cell lines that had been created by private businesses or with state government funds. White House officials March 6 had announced Obama’s intention to reverse the Bush administration policy.

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‘Scientific Integrity’ Memo Issued—

Obama March 9 signed a presidential memorandum that sought to “guarantee scientific integrity” in federal policy-making. The memo established guidelines for the use of scientific data and expert advice in the crafting of policy on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, endangered species and sex education. The memo instructed the Office of Science and Technology Policy to create a draft of the guidelines. [See 2008, p. 466G2, 378G2] The memo was viewed as an attempt by Obama to divorce scientific policy from political ideology. It was also seen as a thinly veiled criticism of Bush, whose administration had often been accused of placing politics before sound scientific conclusions. During the Bush administration, congressional Democrats had issued a number of reports alleging political interference, or the ignoring of scientific data, in a number of science-related policy areas. n

Fiscal 2009 Spending Bills Omnibus Bill Enacted Despite Earmarks.

The Senate March 10 cleared, by voice vote, a $410 billion omnibus spending bill to fund much of the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2009, which would end Sept. 30. The vote for final approval followed a week of sharp debate over the thousands of earmarks, or spending items, which had been included in the bill by lawmakers for pet projects in their states or districts. President Barack Obama signed the bill March 11, after vowing earlier that day to crack down on earmarks in the future. [See below, p. 124A3; 2008, p. 702E1; 2007, p. 494A3] Obama said he had decided to sign the “imperfect” bill because “we can’t have Congress bogged down at this critical juncture in our economic recovery.” But he said the bill “must mark an end to the old way of business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability.” He said, “On occasion, earmarks have been used as a vehicle for waste, fraud and abuse.” But Obama, a former senator, also echoed lawmakers’ justifications of earmarks, saying, “Individual members of Congress understand their districts best, 143

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and they should have the ability to respond to the needs of their communities.” Obama called for new rules, including requirements for lawmakers to disclose all of their earmark requests on their official Web sites and at committee hearings, and for federal agencies to hold competitive bidding on contracts earmarked for certain companies. Obama also issued a so-called signing statement, advising federal agencies not to enforce certain provisions of the omnibus bill that he viewed as infringing on his constitutional prerogatives. One of the provisions would protect federal employees who acted as whistle-blowers by leaking information to Congress. Obama earlier in the week had issued a memorandum ordering a review of signing statements issued by his predecessor, President George W. Bush. [See p. 145D1] House Democratic leaders that day said they would adopt Obama’s earmark reform proposals, and also said earmarks should be subject to a 20-day review by the relevant federal agencies. Obama had criticized earmarks during the presidential campaign the previous year. His defeated Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), led opposition to the omnibus bill in the Senate and criticized Obama for declining to veto it. McCain was a longtime foe of earmarks, which he derided as wasteful spending that encouraged corruption. The Senate March 3 had defeated, by a vote of 63–32, an amendment offered by McCain to strip all earmarks from the omnibus bill. Republicans Allege Reckless Spending—

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Republicans seized on the earmark issue in a bid to blame Obama for reckless spending after the release of his $3.6 trillion budget plan for fiscal year 2010 the previous week, with its projection of a record $1.75 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year. However, Republicans had requested $3.1 billion of the earmarks in the omnibus bill, and Republicans had approved record numbers of earmarks when they controlled Congress and the White House in recent years. The watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense estimated the total cost of the omnibus bill’s earmarks at $7.7 billion. More than $100 million of that total had been requested by members of Obama’s cabinet before they left Congress to join his administration. Vice President Joseph Biden, a former Democratic senator from Delaware, had secured the largest amount, more than $52 million. The final approval in the Senate came after the Senate voted, 62–35, to end the long debate on the bill. Eight Republicans joining the Democratic majority to vote in favor of the motion and three Democrats broke ranks to vote against it. The House Feb. 25 had voted, 245–178, to pass the omnibus bill. The omnibus bill was required because Congress had not passed the 12 annual appropriations bills the previous year, due to a dispute over spending levels between then-President Bush and Democratic leaders. At the end of September, Congress had passed, and Bush had signed, a stopgap bill 144

to fund most government agencies at fiscal 2008 levels through March 8, providing full-year funding for only the Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments. The omnibus bill provided an 8% overall increase over fiscal 2008 funding levels, with particular increases for health care, education, transportation and alternativeenergy programs. One provision would end funding for the Washington, D.C., school voucher program after the 2009–10 school year unless Congress and the city council reauthorized it. The program allowed about 1,700 students to attend private schools. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs March 11 said Obama would “ensure that a disruption like that doesn’t take place.” But he also said Obama “doesn’t believe that vouchers are a long-term answer to our educational problems.” [See p. 149A2; 2006, p. 577E2] Congressional Salaries Frozen— In a symbolic belt-tightening gesture, the omnibus bill included a provision that would block the automatic annual cost-of-living raise for members of Congress in 2010. However, a $4,700 raise for the current year had taken effect Jan. 1, bringing the salary for rank-and-file members to $174,000. Sen. David Vitter (R, La.) offered an amendment to permanently eliminate the automatic cost-of-living raise, requiring Congress to hold annual votes to give itself a raise. The Senate voted, 53–45, to reject the amendment, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) warned that it could derail the omnibus bill, but pledged to bring it to a vote as separate legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) had vowed to scrap the omnibus bill and leave the government operating at fiscal 2008 funding levels if the Senate approved any amendments to the House version. The omnibus bill had also faced resistance over a provision that would ease restrictions on travel and trade links with Cuba, which had been imposed by Bush, by defunding enforcement of them. Sen. Robert Menendez (D, N.J.) March 5 had withdrawn his support for the bill over that provision, helping Republicans force Reid to postpone the final vote on the bill. Menendez and Bill Nelson (D, Fla.) agreed to vote for the bill after receiving assurances from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the provision would not cause a major change to the Cuban embargo. n

Intelligence Council Chairman Pick Withdraws. Former

U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman Jr. March 10 withdrew as National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair’s choice to head the National Intelligence Council (NIC), after his selection triggered criticism from members of Congress, among others, over statements he had made about China and Israel, and his ties to Saudi Arabia. Appointments to the position, which oversaw the writing of regular national intelligence estimates for use by the president as well as other, more specific in-

telligence assessments, did not require congressional approval. [See p. 45D1; 2008, p. 370G2] Freeman said in a statement posted March 10 on the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine that he had decided to turn down the position because he thought that it was impossible for the NIC to “function effectively while its chair was under constant attack.” He also argued that he had been targeted because of his views on Israel, and said that “the tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.” Freeman had worked as the head of the Middle East Policy Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2009. During his tenure, he had become increasingly critical of Israel and its policies in the Palestinian territories and toward Arab countries in the region. Critics noted that the organization received some of its funding from the government of Saudi Arabia—which, like many Arab and predominantly Muslim countries, did not officially recognize Israel—and suggested that Freeman was too biased against Israel, a longtime U.S. ally, to effectively carry out the responsibilities of his position. Critics widely cited a 2006 address in which Freeman described Israel as seeking to “bomb Lebanon into peaceful coexistence” and “smother Palestinian democracy in its cradle.” In addition, Freeman was criticized for his ties to the Chinese government. Freeman had served on the advisory board for the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp. (NOOC) from 2004 to 2009, and had reportedly been paid $10,000 a year by the company for his participation. Critics had also discovered a 2006 Internet posting in which Freeman wrote, in reference to the Chinese government’s violent 1989 crackdown against pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China’s capital, that it was not “acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be.” Freeman March 11 claimed that the quote had been taken out of context, and that he had been expressing his view of public opinion in China regarding the government crackdown. Blog Post Triggers Opposition—Media sources reported March 12 that the first criticism of Freeman’s selection was posted Feb. 19 on the blog of Steve Rosen, a former employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who was scheduled to stand trial in May on charges of receiving classified information and passing it on to Israeli officials and journalists. Rosen wrote that Freeman was a “strident critic of Israel” who had views in line with “the Saudi foreign ministry.” AIPAC did not officially oppose Freeman’s FACTS ON FILE

selection; however, the Washington Post reported March 12 that AIPAC spokesman Josh Block had confidentially supplied negative information about Freeman to at least three reporters. Critics of Freeman’s appointment, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) and the Zionist Organization of America, reportedly contacted the White House in order to raise concerns about the choice. In addition, all seven Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee March 9 sent a letter to Blair that raised concerns about “Freeman’s lack of experience” as well as about his objectivity. The letter threatened constant reviews of all NIC assessments as long as the council was headed by Freeman. Prior to Freeman’s announcement of his withdrawal, Blair March 10 testified before the Senate Armed Forces Committee in defense of his selection. Committee member Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.) referred to Freeman’s controversial statements and questioned whether Freeman was “inclined to lean against Israel or too much in favor of China.” Blair argued that Freeman had an “inventive mind” that would help make sure that the work of the NIC was done correctly and effectively. n

Obama Administration Obama Sets Policy on Signing Statements.

President Barack Obama March 9 issued a memorandum ordering executive-branch officials to consult with Attorney General Eric Holder before complying with any socalled signing statements issued by his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Presidents used signing statements to guide federal agencies on the enforcement of legislation they signed into law. [See 2006, p. 511D3] Bush had issued signing statements affecting an unprecedented number of provisions of bills, frequently asserting that his administration was not constitutionally bound by certain provisions. Experts said his claims in the statements were more expansive than had been customary with his predecessors. The practice had stirred controversy after Bush asserted in a 2005 signing statement that his administration was not obliged to obey a prohibition on torture. Obama said he would continue to make use of signing statements, but would issue fewer of them. “I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded,” he said. Obama issued his first signing statement March 11, taking exception to several provisions in an omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2009 that he signed that day. [See p. 143E3] Critics maintained that signing statements themselves were unconstitutional. and that presidents should simply veto bills that contained provisions they disagreed with, rather than ordering their administrations to ignore the intent of Congress. n March 12, 2009

Genachowski Nominated as FCC Chief.

President Barack Obama March 3 nominated venture capitalist Julius Genachowski, 46, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The previous chairman, Kevin Martin, had resigned in January. Genachowski, a close friend and Harvard Law School classmate of Obama’s, had spearheaded the Obama campaign’s innovative online efforts to reach out to volunteers and voters. If confirmed, Genachowski would take control of the FCC as it was overseeing the nation’s faltering transition to digital television broadcasts from analog, which was mandated to be completed by June. [See pp. 62G3, 49F2] The FCC under Genachowski was expected to concentrate increasingly on Internet issues, including increasing broadband Internet coverage and so-called net neutrality, which would bar telecommunications companies or Internet service providers from favoring certain content distributed over their networks. Chief

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Obama March 5 named Vivek Kundra to the newly created position of federal chief information officer. Kundra, 34, had been the chief technology officer of the District of Columbia, where he was known for using technology to reduce government costs and give citizens increased access to government information. Kundra would be charged with achieving the same goals nationally in his new post. He would also oversee all federal technology spending, and could initiate or terminate information technology projects within government agencies. Obama had also announced the creation of a chief technology officer post, although he did not appoint anyone to the position. The chief technology officer would reportedly work closely with Kundra, but the post’s job description had not yet been published. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) March 12 raided Kundra’s former office, and arrested one official involved in contracting and an executive of a contractor. The FBI March 12 said Kundra was not the target of the investigation, but the White House that day announced that he had gone on leave from his new position until more was known about the nature of the probe. n Fla. Emergency Chief Named FEMA Head.

The administration of President Barack Obama March 4 said Obama would nominate Florida Division of Emergency Management director W. Craig Fugate, 49, as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Fugate had been appointed to the Florida position in 2001 by then–Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), and was reappointed in 2006 by Gov. Charlie Crist (R). His nomination required confirmation by the Senate. [See 2008, p. 940B2] Fugate’s nomination was praised by both Republicans and Democrats. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Fugate was “one of the most respected emergency managers in the nation, and the

work he’s accomplished in Florida serves as a model for other states to follow.” FEMA, a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), had been under close scrutiny since its response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was widely criticized as inadequate. Some lawmakers and administration officials had raised the idea of removing FEMA from DHS administration, possibly in favor of Cabinet-level status for the agency. n Gupta Ends Surgeon General Bid. Sanjay Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon and the chief medical correspondent for Cable News Network (CNN), had withdrawn from consideration for the post of surgeon general in the Obama administration, it was reported March 5. Reports said he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family, and to continue working for CNN. Gupta had been reported to be the leading contender for the post in January, but was never officially nominated. The surgeon general was chief of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and mostly served as a spokesperson for presidential administrations on various health issues. [See p. 6C2] n

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Medicine and Health Obama Hosts Health Care Summit. President Barack Obama March 5 presided over a health care forum at the White House attended by legislators, doctors, union leaders and representatives from business groups, hospitals, lobbyists and insurance companies, among others. The forum was intended to foster dialogue about Obama’s plan, presented during the presidential campaign, to overhaul the health care system to ensure that everyone in the U.S. had access to coverage. An estimated 46 million people in the U.S. lacked health insurance. [See p. 129C1; 2007, p. 346D3] Under Obama’s plan, the federal government would require employers to either pay a tax to fund government insurance plans, or provide health insurance to their employees. Obama in late February had unveiled a budget plan for fiscal year 2010 which would allocate $634 billion over 10 years for health care reform. [See p. 124A3] Obama at the forum said he would consider compromising on his plan, but warned “special interests” and lobbyists to refrain from impeding progress on significant reform. The forum was viewed as an attempt by Obama to avoid the obstacles that had doomed an ambitious attempt to reform health care in 1993–94 by thenPresident Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (now Obama’s secretary of state). [See 1994, p. 701B1] Several of the people and institutions that had been instrumental in blocking the Clintons’ reform effort attended the forum, and pledged to support Obama’s endeavors. Among them were Chip Kahn, the current president of the Federation of American Hospital Systems. During the Clintons’ reform efforts, Kahn had worked for an insurance lobbying group that had created ads us145

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ing a fictional husband and wife, “Harry and Louise,” to express its dissatisfaction with the plan. The ads were credited as one of the main factors that had led to the defeat of the Clintons’ plan. [See 1994, p. 125E3] The quick advance of Obama’s reform plan had been hampered by the withdrawal in early February of former Sen. Tom Daschle (D, S.D.) as nominee for health and human services secretary. Obama in early March had announced that he was nominating Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) to that role, and appointed Nancy Ann DeParle as director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform. Other News—In other health care news: o Researchers with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Feb. 24 reported on the website of the journal Health Affairs that government spending on health care would climb 7.4% in 2009, to $1.191 trillion. Total health care expenditures were expected to reach $2.510 trillion, a 5.5% jump from the previous year. The researchers said the worsening economy would deprive more people of private coverage, leading them to seek health care through federal programs. [See p. 80F3] o Two labor unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), March 6 withdrew from a coalition attempting to reach agreement on the shape of health care reform. The coalition, called the Health Reform Dialogue, included representatives of employers, patients, insurers, drug manufacturers and health care providers, among others. Members of the coalition had reportedly failed to reach agreement on a number of reform issues. o The Washington Post March 8 reported that health insurers and their employees had contributed $2.2 million since 2005 to the top 10 congressional recipients of campaign contributions, while drug companies had contributed $3.3 million. The Post cited an analysis performed by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. Those receiving the most money from insurers and drug companies were Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), with a combined $546,000; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.), with $425,000; and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D, Mont.), with $413,000. n HHS Moves to Rescind ‘Conscience’ Rule.

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) March 6 formally moved to rescind the so-called right of conscience rule, which gave wide-ranging protections to health care workers who refused to provide treatment on the basis of their moral or religious beliefs. The rule had been instituted in December 2008 under then-President George W. Bush, and was intended to protect health care workers opposed to abortions. [See p. 64G1] Under the rule, the federal government could cut off funding for state and local health care providers that did not adequate146

ly provide for employees opposed to a certain type of care because of their religious, moral or ethical beliefs. In its filing, the HHS said it would move to “rescind in its entirety” the rule, because it was possible that “the rule would limit access to patient care,” especially among women and rural residents. Opponents of the rule had argued that it was so vaguely worded that it could empower health care workers to deny a range of treatments that could include contraceptives, infertility treatments, transfusions, vaccines and family planning services. The rule change was subject to a 30-day comment period. The HHS had first announced its plan to reexamine the rule in a notice posted on its Web site Feb. 27. n

elected in late January as the RNC’s first black chairman. Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, Feb. 8 had defended a payment of more than $37,000 to his sister’s company for catering and Internet-related work on his unsuccessful 2006 Senate campaign. It had been reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was probing that payment and other transactions by the campaign. Steele faced more criticism from conservatives after GQ magazine March 12 published an interview in which he called abortion “an individual choice,” before adding, “The states should make that choice.” He also deviated from the conservative view on homosexuality by saying that sexual orientation was involuntary. n

Politics

Rep. Dingell Sets Record for House Tenure.

White House, Radio Host Limbaugh Clash.

The administration of President Barack Obama engaged in a war of words with leading radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh after Limbaugh Feb. 28 delivered a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., in which he said he hoped Obama would fail. Obama aides responded by asserting that Limbaugh, a conservative firebrand, was the de facto leader of the Republican Party. [See p. 62E1; 2008, p. 480C2] White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in a television interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” March 1 said of Limbaugh, “He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party, and has been up-front about what he views, and hasn’t stepped back from that, which is he hopes for failure.” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs March 2 suggested that “Republicans agree with what Rush Limbaugh said…in wishing and hoping for economic failure in this country.” Limbaugh that day accused the Obama administration of trying to “malign me, take me out of context” in a “game of manipulation emanating from the Oval Office.” He clarified that he wanted Obama’s policies, which he viewed as “socialist,” to fail, but did not hope that the slumping economy would fail. Republican congressional leaders also criticized the White House’s comments about Limbaugh, calling them a cynical political ploy of the very sort that Obama had denounced during his 2008 presidential campaign. Republican Chairman Apologizes—Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele March 2 apologized to Limbaugh for comments on the Cable News Network (CNN) in which he had called Limbaugh an “entertainer” rather than a party leader and described his show as “incendiary” and “ugly.” Limbaugh on his show earlier March 2 had rebuked Steele, saying that he was “not head of the Republican Party,” as Steele had claimed to CNN, and was “off to a shaky start” as chairman of the RNC, the party’s executive body. Steele had been

Rep. John Dingell (D, Mich.) Feb. 11 became the longest-serving member of the House in history, 19,420 days after he first took office in December 1955. He broke a record set by former Rep. Jamie Whitten (D, Miss.), who served from 1941 to 1995. Dingell, 82, had won a special election to represent his Detroit-area district upon the death of his father, who had held the seat since 1933. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) and former President Bill Clinton Feb. 10 paid tribute to Dingell at a reception in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. [See 2008, p. 852E3; 1995, p. 684E3; 1955, p. 410D3] Dingell had played a key role in the passage of major legislation including the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 law that created the Medicare health care program for the elderly and disabled, and the 1973 Endangered Species Act. In November 2008, Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.), with Pelosi’s tacit support, had ousted Dingell from his longtime post as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, winning a vote by the Democratic caucus. Waxman and Pelosi both supported legislation to impose stricter auto emissions and fuel efficiency standards that Dingell, defending the interests of the Detroit-area auto industry, had resisted. n

Legislation D.C. Vote Bill Held Up By Gun Amendment.

The Senate Feb. 26 voted, 61–37, to pass a bill that would grant the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House for the first time. But the bill subsequently stalled in the House over a Republicanbacked Senate amendment that would repeal most of D.C.’s gun control laws. [See 2007, p. 609C1] In a compromise, the bill would give heavily Republican Utah an additional House member to balance the voting member from mostly Democratic D.C. The new members would be seated at the start of the next Congress in January 2011, expanding the House to 437 seats, from 435. That would be the first enlargement of the House since 1913. FACTS ON FILE

Utah would have the other new seat through 2012, when House seats were secheduled to be reapportioned based on population changes shown in the 2010 Census. The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2008 that D.C.’s handgun ban was unconstitutional. The District had then enacted a revised law that banned semiautomatic weapons and imposed strict limits on handgun possession. The House voted in September to weaken the D.C. law. [See 2008, p. 747A3] n House Passes Mortgage Modification Bill.

The House March 5 voted, 234–191, to pass a bill that would allow bankruptcy court judges to modify mortgage terms on primary residences, in an attempt to stem a rising number of home foreclosures. Under the legislation, bankruptcy judges could reduce monthly interest rates, extend the maturity date of the loan or reduce the loan’s principal, the original amount loaned. The bill awaited consideration in the Senate. [See p. 127D3] The bill included measures designed to encourage struggling homeowners to modify their mortgages with lenders before entering bankruptcy. Additionally, homeowners who received a principal reduction were required to split with the lender any profits they made from selling the home. Those provisions were intended to ease concerns expressed by the mortgage industry, which said the bill would set off a wave of bankruptcy filings and compel it to charge higher interest rates on new mortgages. The bill would apply only to existing homeowners, not future ones. Supporters said the legislation was necessary, given the dire condition of the housing market. The Mortgage Bankers Association March 5 reported that more than 11% of U.S. mortgages were either delinquent or in the process of foreclosure. Supporters said the bill would reduce foreclosures by 20%, and give lenders an incentive to modify mortgages instead of having modifications forced on them in a bankruptcy proceeding. They said the plan would work in tandem with a housing market rescue plan announced by President Barack Obama earlier in March. Many lenders remained opposed to the bill, but some had expressed support, including banking giant Citigroup Inc. n

Economy Feb. Unemployment Rate Hits 26-Year High.

The unemployment rate in February rose to a 26-year high of 8.1% after seasonal adjustment, up from Unemployment its January level 8.1% of 7.6%, the La- February 2009 Month 7.6% bor Department Previous Year Earlier 4.8% reported March 6. An estimated 651,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in February, and job losses from previous months were revised upward, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 4.4 million since a recession began in December 2007. About 2.4 million jobs had been lost in the last four months alone. [See p. 79E3] March 12, 2009

The government and the health-care industry were the only major economic sectors to add jobs in February. The report fueled concern that recent efforts by the government to spark growth would not be enough to pull the economy out of the recession. President Barack Obama in February had signed a $787 billion economic recovery package into law, but the plan was designed to create or save only 3.5 million jobs, well below the number that had already been lost. [See p. 89A1] Additionally, the labor market was considered a belated indicator of developments in the economy, which had undergone a sharp contraction in late 2008, indicating that unemployment figures could rise by the end of the year. The Obama administration in February had unveiled the outlines of a budget plan, in which it projected that unemployment would reach 8.1% by the end of the year, a figure already reached in the current Labor Department report. [See pp. 128F2, 124A3] Obama, at a police-recruit graduation ceremony March 6 in Columbus, Ohio, called the number of jobs lost “astounding.” He said, “We have a responsibility to act, and that’s what I intend to do,” saying the stimulus bill had allowed the Columbus police to preserve job positions for the cadets. Economists said the official unemployment rate belied the severity of problems in the labor market, because it did not include “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, or those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought fulltime work. Counting those people, the rate would be 14.8%. 141.7 Million Jobs Held in February—

According to a household survey, 141.7 million people held jobs in February, the Labor Department reported March 6. The department counted 12.5 million people as unemployed. The department counted 731,000 workers as discouraged in February. About 8.6 million people who sought full-time employment were working parttime instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.6 hours in February, down slightly from 39.8 in January. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.6 hours, down from 2.8 the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose three cents, to $18.47. The unemployment rate among whites in February was 7.3%, up from 6.9% in January. The jobless rate for blacks was 13.4%, up from 12.6% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 10.9%, up from 9.7% in January. For men age 20 and over, February unemployment was 8.1%, up from 7.6% in January. For adult women, it was 6.7%, up from 6.2% the previous month. The teenage rate was 21.6%, up from 20.8% in January. For black teenagers it was 38.8%, up from 36.5% the previous month. n

Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Reserve March 4 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the previous six weeks, finding that businesses did not expect a “significant pickup” in economic growth before late 2009 or early 2010 due to an ongoing recession. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 15F3] The Fed said economic conditions had deteriorated since its last survey in January, with the exceptions of the areas around Philadelphia, Pa., and Chicago, where conditions merely “remained weak.” The Fed said consumer spending—which accounted for the bulk of U.S. economic growth— remained “very weak.” Consumer demand for household items was “quite depressed,” and auto sales were “exceptionally sluggish.” The Fed said unemployment had “risen in all areas,” and that housing prices “continued to decline, reportedly at double-digit paces in some areas, with little or no signs of a deceleration evident.” In a bright spot for consumers, the Fed said energy prices continued to decline. n

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Business SEC Accuses Financier of Fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Feb. 17 filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas, charging billionaire financier R. Allen Stanford and three of his companies with a “massive, ongoing fraud.” The complaint alleged that an offshore affiliate of Stanford’s Houston, Texas–based Stanford Financial Group (SFG) had tricked clients into investing about $8 billion with the company by promising rates of return that were deceptively high. [See p. 141A1; 1999, p. 316B2] The affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd. (SIB), was based in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda. The SEC said SIB had lured in clients by selling certificates of deposit with “improbable, if not impossible” rates of return. Certificates of deposit (CDs) were considered to be safe investment vehicles, in which investors received a relatively low, fixed rate of return for a determined period of time. The SEC said SIB had advertised yearly return rates of between 11.5% and 16.5%, more than double the rate of a typical CD. According to the complaint, SIB had told clients that their money would be invested in easily salable assets, such as stocks and bonds. However, the money was allegedly invested in hard-to-sell assets, such as real estate or private equity (stakes in companies not traded on the stock market). The SEC Feb. 27 revised its complaint, charging that Stanford and a fellow executive, James Davis, had used SIB investor deposits to create $1.6 billion worth of “bogus personal loans” to Stanford. Additionally, an unspecified amount of SIB money was invested in “speculative, unprofitable private businesses” controlled by Stanford. The SEC claimed that Stanford and Davis manipulated SIB’s accounting to hide the fraud. 147

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Davis, chief financial officer of SFG and SIB, and Laura Prendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of SFG and SIB, Feb. 17

were also charged with playing a role in the fraud. The SEC said two of the SFG’s Houston-based affiliates—Stanford Group Co. and Stanford Capital Management LLP— had helped funnel U.S. investments into SIB. However, about 75% of the CDs had been sold to investors in Central and South America, where SFG had numerous affiliates. SIB was reported to have 30,000 clients from 131 countries. [See below] The SEC accused SIB of other irregularities, including falsely claiming that it was audited yearly by Antiguan regulators, and failing to reveal to the SEC that it had invested in a fund run by Bernard Madoff, who had been accused in December 2008 of a $50 billion securities fraud. SIB had allegedly lost $400,000 due to the Madoff fraud. Stanford Group Co. was also accused of using misleading information to attract investors to a mutual fund, which eventually received $1.2 billion in investments. Feds Raid Headquarters, Assets Frozen—

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Federal authorities Feb. 17 raided SFG’s headquarters in Houston. A Dallas federal judge that day froze the assets of Stanford and his companies, and approved the appointment of a receiver for SFG, who was charged with recovering investor money. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Feb. 19 located Stanford in Fredericksburg, Va., and served him his papers. Criminal charges were not brought against Stanford or Davis. Investigations by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Texas were reportedly ongoing. The FBI Feb. 26 arrested PendergestHolt in Houston on criminal charges of obstruction for misleading SEC investigators during a Feb. 10 deposition in Forth Worth, Texas. Among other infractions, Pendergest-Holt allegedly failed to disclose the extent of her knowledge about the status of some $5 billion worth of SIB funds. Warning Signals Led to Charges— According to the SEC complaint, SIB on Dec. 15, 2008, liquidated about $250 million worth of its assets, leading the SEC to believe that the bank was attempting a “dissipation” of investor money. Three days previously, clearing house Pershing LLC stopped processing U.S. wire-transfer purchases of SIB’s CDs, saying SIB had had failed to provide long-awaited answers to questions regarding its financial condition. SEC investigators began interviewing Stanford’s employees in January. The SEC had opened a probe into SIB in October 2006, but Stephen Korotash, an SEC official at its Fort Worth, Texas, office, Feb. 17 said the SEC had “stood down” to allow an unidentified federal agency to pursue the investigation. The SEC resumed its investigation in December 2008, he said. However, it was also reported that the Madoff scandal had led the SEC to pursue Stanford with renewed vigor. The SEC had come under heavy criticism for failing to detect Madoff’s alleged scheme, and Stanford in recent years had been the subject of 148

numerous probes that had failed to result in serious civil or criminal charges. An early investigation of Stanford in 1997 had been conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which suspected that Mexican drug dealers were laundering money through SIB. SIB cooperated with investigators, turned over $3.1 million in illicit deposits and was not charged. But U.S. suspicion continued, largely because Antigua and other Caribbean islands did not impose strict regulations on their financial institutions. The Antiguan government formed an oversight board to regulate SIB and other banks, but Stanford, who had formed close ties with the Antiguan authorities, was included on the board and helped pay for it. In 2005, two Venezuelan investors filed a lawsuit in the U.S. charging that SIB was a Ponzi scheme, in which investors’ supposed returns were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors. In 2006, a former employee also charged that SIB was a Ponzi scheme in a U.S. court. Both cases were settled out of court. The Financial Times Feb. 27 reported that a former employee at Stanford Group Co. in 2003 had informed the SEC and the National Association of Securities Dealers—a regulatory body sponsored by the financial industry that was now known as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra—that the company was “engaged in a Ponzi scheme to defraud its clients.” The employee’s case was eventually dismissed. In 2008, two former SFG executives, Mark Tidwell and Charles Rawl, filed a suit claiming that the company had engaged in “various unethical and illegal business practices.” The SEC subpoenaed Tidwell and Rawl in 2008, requiring them to produce information in their possession that concerned SIB. Since April 2007, SFG had paid Finra a total of $70,000 in fines, including for providing “misleading, unfair and unbalanced information” to clients. SFG had paid the SEC $20,000 in fines in 2007. Since 2000, Stanford and SFG—through its employees and a political action committee—had also made $2.4 million worth of campaign contributions to several U.S. lawmakers, and had spent $5 million on lobbying, although nothing had yet been revealed to show that their efforts had led to legislation in Stanford’s favor. Those lawmakers included then-Sen. Barack Obama (D, Ill.); Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), Obama’s rival in the 2008 presidential election; Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.); Sen. Bill Nelson (D, Fla.); Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas); Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.); and several more. Many lawmakers pledged to donate those contributions to charity. [See 2008, p. 675D1] Bank Runs, Seizures in South America—

Venezuelan authorities Feb. 19 seized control of an SIB branch, following a bank run by depositors. Mexico that day said it was investigating an SFG bank for improprieties, and Peru began taking control of SFG businesses. Panama Feb. 18 had seized an SFG bank following a bank run, and Colombia

and Ecuador that day suspended SFG-affiliated brokerages in their countries. Venezuela was reported to be particularly hard hit by the SIB scandal, with as much as $3 billion worth of SIB investments coming from Venezuelan depositors. The economic policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, which had led to state intervention in private enterprise, as well as high inflation rates that devalued consumer savings, had led many wealthy Venezuelans to deposit their assets overseas. [See p. 22G2; 2008, p. 837E1] Antigua’s government Feb. 25 said it planned to seize land and property belonging to Stanford. Antiguan Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer Feb. 18 had warned that the SIB scandal could have “catastrophic” consequences for Antigua, where Stanford was the largest single employer. Stanford’s holdings included real-estate development companies and a newspaper, as well as Antigua’s main cricket stadium. (Stanford had invested heavily in the sport, agreeing to provide $20 million in 2008 to finance a match between England and the West Indies. The England and Wales Cricket Board had signed a deal with Stanford to finance future matches, but Feb. 17 said it was halting further negotiations with Stanford.) n

Supreme Court Court Declines U.S. Enemy Combatant Case.

The Supreme Court March 6 declined to hear an appeal by Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who had been held without charge by the military as a socalled enemy combatant at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., for more than five years. The court had agreed to hear the case, al-Marri v. Spagone, in December 2008, but reversed itself after the U.S. government announced in February that it would file criminal charges against Marri in U.S. District Court in Peoria, Ill. Marri had been the final enemy combatant held indefinitely without charge within the U.S. [See p. 129A3; 2006, p. 257G2] The Supreme Court also vacated a 2008 ruling by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., which had found that the president had the authority to indefinitely detain any person designated as an enemy combatant, including U.S. citizens and legal residents, in connection with the government’s antiterrorism efforts. The Justice Department March 4 had filed a brief saying it would not object if the Supreme Court vacated the lower court ruling. The brief also argued that, by adopting its position, the Justice Department had “conclusively demonstrated that the government is not attempting to preserve its victory while evading review.” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Jonathan Hafetz, who was representing Marri, said he had hoped that the Supreme Court would rule on the case, but that the court had “nonetheless taken an important step” by vacating the previous decision, which had upheld the Bush administration’s broad claims of executive authority regarding the detention of enemy combatants. He also said, “We FACTS ON FILE

trust the Obama administration will not repeat the abuses of the Bush administration.” n

Crime Alabama Gunman Kills 10, Himself. A gunman March 10 killed 10 people, including his mother, and injured six more during a nearly hour-long rampage in southern Alabama. The shooter, identified as Michael McLendon, 28, subsequently shot himself. He had no criminal record and no clear motive for the shooting. He had reportedly used four guns, including two assault weapons, and fired more than 200 shots in what was thought to be the worst mass shooting in the history of Alabama. [See 2008, p. 519B1; 1999, p. 576G1] Police said McLendon had begun his rampage in Kinston, Ala., his hometown, where he killed his mother and her dogs, and then burned down her house. He then drove to his uncle’s home in Samson, Ala., where he killed six people, including his uncle, his 74-year-old great aunt, his cousin and an 18-month-old girl. McLendon then killed three other people, seemingly at random, while traveling from Samson to Geneva, Ala. Attempts by the police to stop him by ramming his car and erecting a roadblock were unsuccessful. McLendon then entered a Geneva metals plant where he had once worked and fatally shot himself. McLendon had reportedly attempted to join the Samson Police Department in 2003 but had left the state’s police academy in Montgomery, Ala., without completing his training. In addition, police discovered in McLendon’s home two lists of grievances against former coworkers. However, the lists were thought to be unrelated to the shootings. n Warrant Issued in Chandra Levy Killing. A warrant for the arrest of a former day laborer was issued March 3 in connection with the murder of federal intern Chandra Levy, whose 2001 disappearance had attracted widespread media attention. The suspect, Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was currently serving a 10-year sentence for attacking two women in 2001 in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., where Levy’s body was found in May 2002. Guandique faced at least 30 additional years in prison if convicted of firstdegree murder in the Levy case. [See 2002, p. 419F2] Levy, 24, had been working as an intern with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time of her death and had been romantically involved with married Rep. Gary Condit (D, Calif.), who lost a 2002 reelection bid after months of negative media coverage. Condit had always denied any involvement in Levy’s disappearance or death. Condit Feb. 21 said that he was happy that Levy’s family was “finally getting the answers they deserve” and said that “it is unfortunate than an insatiable appetite for sensationalism blocked so many from searching for the real answers for so long.” Washington police renewed their probe into Levy’s death after a 13-part series was published in the Washington Post in 2008 March 12, 2009

reexamining the case and criticizing the initial investigation. The warrant against Guandique was reportedly based in part on the testimony of multiple people, including at least two fellow inmates, who said that Guandique had confessed in detail to killing Levy. n

Education Obama Outlines Reform Proposals. President Barack Obama March 10 in Washington, D.C., outlined his proposals to reform the nation’s education system, which he said was in a state of “relative decline” that was “untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children.” Obama criticized both parties for hindering progress—Democrats for opposing merit pay, a system by which teachers’ pay was partly determined by student performance, and Republicans for “opposing new investments in early education.” While Obama was not planning to advance a major education bill, he said he would provide support for effective programs in his budget and encourage states to independently develop initiatives to improve education. [See p. 107F2] Obama strongly advocated both merit pay and penalties for underperforming teachers, as well as for lifting states’ caps on the number of charter schools allowed. (Administrators at charter schools were allowed to experiment with curricula without having to forgo public funding. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter schools, about 365,000 students were on waiting lists to enter such schools.) However, those initiatives were generally opposed by teachers unions. Some observers suggested that because the teachers’ union had significant influence with the Democratic Party, Obama might have trouble winning congressional support for some reforms. [See 2006, p. 732F3] Obama said expanding early childhood education could lead to better performance in classrooms, as well as reduced crime and lower welfare and health care costs. Obama said he would ask Congress to fund an initiative by which states that improved early childhood education programs would be eligible for federal grants. Obama also urged the adoption of nationwide standards for academic achievement, and pointed out that “today’s system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming, and getting the same grade.” For higher education, Obama said he planned to increase the amount of money available through federal Pell Grants, which were awarded to the neediest students. He also pledged to end “wasteful student loan subsidies” to lenders through the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, which had been criticized as inefficient and too connected to the stock market. He repeated his goal of making college more affordable for “seven million more students.” [See p. 125B3]

Obama delivered the address from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, in what officials said was meant to highlight the increasing number of Hispanics entering public schools. Obama noted that Hispanic children were “less likely to be enrolled in early education programs than anyone else,” and pointed out that Hispanic students were “dropping out faster than just about anyone else.”

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Stimulus Funds Released to Schools—

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a March 6 e-mail sent to government and school officials, said $44 billion in federal stimulus aid earmarked for education would be released within the next 45 days. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had set aside about $100 billion for education, about $5 billion of which was for early childhood education programs. Duncan cautioned schools to keep records of how the money was spent, and urged educators to “spend funds quickly to save and create jobs.” The remaining education stimulus money was expected to be released within six months. [See p. 89A1] n

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Civil Rights Hearing Held on Calif. Gay Marriage Ban.

The California Supreme Court March 5 began hearing arguments in a case deciding the legality of a ballot initiative approved by voters in November 2008 that nullified an earlier court ruling guaranteeing samesex couples the right to wed in the state. The court in May 2008 had ruled, 4–3, that denying same-sex couples the right to wed was a violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. [See 2008, p. 853A2] However, in the November election, 52% of voters had backed Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that changed the state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Gay rights advocates had challenged Proposition 8 in court on a technical issue, arguing that it was a more substantial revision to the constitution, rather than an amendment. Under state law a revision to the constitution required approval from the state legislature. Those challenging Proposition 8 were represented in court by Shannon Minter, a lawyer for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Supporters of the ballot initiative were represented by Kenneth Starr, a former U.S. solicitor general and independent counsel whose investigation of President Bill Clinton had led to his impeachment. Analysts said that, based on questions and comments made by justices during the hearing, the court seemed to be leaning toward upholding Proposition 8. However, court members showed skepticism toward Starr’s suggestion that the ballot initiative invalidated the roughly 18,000 same-sex marriages that had taken place in California between May and November. Crowds of pro– and anti–Proposition 8 demonstrators rallied outside the courthouse the day of the hearing. The court had 90 days to issue a decision in the case. 149

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Donor List Released—The office of the California secretary of state Feb. 2 released a campaign finance report detailing donations made in support of and opposition to Proposition 8. Supporters of the initiative had sought an injunction blocking the release of the list, arguing that people and businesses that had been identified as contributors supporting Proposition 8 had been subject to harassment and death threats. The report found that both sides had spent a combined $83 million on their campaigns. Judge Morrison England of U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 29 had ruled that the reports must be released in accordance with campaign finance disclosure laws. Same-Sex Benefits Suit Filed—The gay rights advocacy group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) March 3 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by seeking federal benefits for 15 people who had had samesex weddings after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in May 2004. [See 2005, p. 51C1; 2004, p. 818E3; 1996, p. 703A1] DOMA had been signed into law in 1996 by then-President Bill Clinton. It defined marriage as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” and defined a spouse as “a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Those definitions required the federal government to deny same-sex couples benefits and other protections guaranteed to heterosexual married couples, including health benefits, Social Security payments for widowed spouses and tax advantages. The plaintiffs in the case included eight same-sex couples and three men whose husbands had died, all of whom had been married in Massachusetts. Among the plaintiffs was Dean Hara, the widower of Rep. Gerry Studds (D, Mass.), the first openly gay House member, who had died in 2006. Hara had been denied Studds’s federal pension and other benefits normally granted to the surviving member of a heterosexual married couple. [See 2006, p. 808F3] Massachusetts and Connecticut were the only two states that currently recognized gay marriages. n

Terrorism Detainees

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Countries Called Complicit in U.S. Abuses.

Foreign governments that took part in the interrogations of their citizens at the U.S. prison for terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at secret prisons run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were complicit in detainee mistreatment that violated international human rights laws, according to a report issued Feb. 27 by Martin Scheinin, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism. The release of the report followed Scheinin’s December 2007 visit to Guantanamo. [See p. 129C2] At least 18 countries were thought to have sent representatives to aid the U.S.– led interrogations of terrorism suspects, including Germany and Morocco, according to the New York City–based Center for 150

Constitutional Rights, a civil liberties group that had provided lawyers for Guantanamo detainees. In addition, representatives of countries including Uzbekistan and China had reportedly made threats against detainees in U.S. custody while participating in their interrogations. [See p. 112E1] According to Scheinin’s report, “the active participation by a state through the sending of interrogators or questions, or even the mere presence of intelligence personnel at an interview with a person who is being held in places where he is tortured or subject to other inhuman treatment, can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning torture.” Scheinin found that countries that had assisted in the questioning of U.S. terrorism detainees in locations other than Guantanamo—such as Pakistan, where representatives of Australia and Britain had reportedly questioned detainees—were equally culpable. The report concluded that the involvement of multiple nations in the U.S. interrogation process demonstrated the need for countries to “introduce safeguards preventing intelligence agencies from making use of such intelligence.” It also criticized the U.S., among other countries, for using claims of government secrecy to stymie attempts by former detainees to prove that they had been abused or tortured. French Convictions Overturned—A French appeals court in Paris Feb. 24 struck down terrorism convictions against five former Guantanamo detainees, ruling that the case against the men had been based entirely on inadmissible evidence gathered by members of France’s DST intelligence service. Analysts suggested that the ruling might make the U.S., which was scheduled to close Guantanamo in 2010, less willing to release current Guantanamo detainees to the custody of other countries. [See 2005, p. 168C3; 2004, p. 640C2] The five former detainees—Nizar Sassi, 27, Brahim Yadel, 37, Redouane Khalid, 39, Mourad Benchellali, 26, and Khaled Ben Mustapha, 35—had been captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and had been held by the U.S. at Guantanamo prior to their release in 2004 and 2005. All five men had admitted to attending training camps run by the Al Qaeda international terrorist network but said that they had never been involved with any terrorist actions. They were each convicted in 2007 of associating with terrorists and were sentenced to one year of time already served and then released. The appeals court ruled that, under French law, the DST could not carry out intelligence-gathering operations while also operating as a law enforcement organization. It also found that the evidence against the five men, which had been gathered by the DST during interrogations at Guantanamo had violated a French law that required a magistrate to supervise all police interrogations. Britain Admits Role in Rendition— British Defense Secretary John Hutton Feb. 26 informed Britain’s Parliament that two detainees captured by British soldiers in Iraq

had been moved by the U.S. in 2004 to a detention center in Afghanistan. The British government had previously denied that it had had any involvement in the U.S.’s socalled extraordinary rendition program, in which suspected terrorists were transferred to other countries for detention and interrogation. [See 2008, p. 147G1] The two detainees were Pakistani nationals who had been accused of belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan. Their names had not been released. The U.S. had reportedly said it had moved the men to Afghanistan because it lacked the translators needed to question the men in Iraq. Hutton said that the British government had been told by the U.S. “that the detainees are held in a humane, safe and secure environment meeting international standards.” In addition, the U.S. said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had reportedly been granted access to both detainees. A total of about 650 prisoners were being held by the U.S. at a detention facility located within the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan, including at least twenty detainees who had been captured outside Afghanistan. In his statement to Parliament, Hutton gave an “unreserved apology” on behalf of his department for its previous denials. The transfer of the detainees was thought to have violated both British law and an agreement between the U.S. and Britain that banned the rendition of any prisoners captured with British assistance. The rendition of the two detainees was initially revealed to Hutton in December 2008 during an internal inquiry by the British government into detentions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had been triggered by earlier questions from members of Parliament. According to Hutton, some British officials had been informed of the rendition in 2004. In 2006, then–Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and then–Home Secretary Charles Clarke were given documents that mentioned the renditions. However, both Clarke and Straw had reportedly failed to realize the significance of the information, something Hutton blamed on the fact that the documents contained only “brief references” to the renditions. U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said, “There was a level of formal coordination [between the U.S. and Britain] that should have taken place with respect to a transfer of this nature” and called the lack of such coordination “an error.” However, the U.S. had reportedly refused to return the two Pakistani detainees to Iraq. n

Mergers & Acquisitions Merck Makes $41 Billion Bid for Schering.

Whitehouse Station, N.J.–based drugmaker Merck & Co. March 9 announced that it would acquire rival drug manufacturer Schering-Plough Corp. in a deal worth $41.1 billion. The merger was the latest among large pharmaceutical companies traditionally focused on drug research. In January, Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest FACTS ON FILE

drug company by sales volume, had agreed to acquire rival Wyeth in a $68 billion deal. Swiss firm Roche Holding AG March 12 finalized a deal to purchase the 44% stake in U.S. biotechnology company Genentech Inc. that it did not already own for about $46.8 billion. [See below, p. 49B1; 1993, p. 574C3] The mergers represented an effort by drug companies to diversify their businesses beyond prescription drugs, which had served as a lucrative source of income over several decades. However, revenues for many so-called blockbuster drugs, so named because of their high sales volumes, were expected to dwindle as patents for them expired. The approval of prescription drugs was also expected to face greater regulatory scrutiny after several high-profile drugs were removed from the market in recent years due to safety concerns. Analysts said the acquisition of ScheringPlough—based in Kenilworth, N.J.— would give Merck greater access to broader consumer health businesses, as well as markets in China, Brazil and other developing countries where Schering-Plough had already established itself. Under the terms of the deal, ScheringPlough shareholders would receive 0.5767 of a Merck share and $10.50 for each share of Schering-Plough that they held. The agreement put the value of a ScheringPlough share at $23.61, a 34% premium over the March 6 closing price. Merck would take on $8.5 billion in short-term debt in order to purchase Schering-Plough. The two companies’ 2008 sales together totaled $46.9 billion, and the new company would have operations in 140 countries. The deal was expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of 2009. It still required clearance from the Federal Trade Commission, and the approval of shareholders from both companies. Roche Seals Genentech Acquisition—

Roche March 12 announced that it had finalized a friendly deal to acquire the 44% stake in Genentech that it did not already own for about $46.8 billion. Roche Jan. 30 had taken its bid to acquire Genentech hostile after being unable to reach an agreement with Genentech’s board of directors. Roche in July 2008 had made a $43.7 billion bid for the Genentech stake, offering $89 per Genentech share. However, Genentech had repeatedly rejected Roche’s bids as too low. [See 2008, p. 955D3] In the latest bid, accepted by Genentech’s board, Roche offered $95 per Genentech share, an increase from the $86.50 per share offered in the hostile bid in January. At that time, Roche Chairman Franz Humer said the higher July 2008 bid had reflected a premium his company had been willing to pay to secure a friendly takeover. He added that the value of the hostile bid also considered the ramifications of a global economic crisis that had taken hold in the latter half of 2008. n

released a report that said a federal program by which police officers were deputized as federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had allowed the officers to deport undocumented immigrants for minor crimes. The report also criticized the initiative for lacking basic guidelines and recordkeeping practices. The program was known as 287(g), a reference to a section in the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that authorized it. [See 2006, p. 508D2] The program was intended to deter violent crime, human trafficking, gang activity and drug smuggling. However, the GAO found that some police officers had used the program to attempt to deport undocumented immigrants who had been caught for relatively minor infractions, such as speeding or carrying an open container of alcohol. The GAO also said some citizens had expressed concern that officers participating in the program had engaged in racial profiling. About 34,000 people were taken into ICE custody under the program in 2008. However, the GAO, citing inadequate recordkeeping, said it had been unable to determine how many of those were detained for minor crimes. According to the report, 44% of those taken into custody waived their right to a hearing and opted to be immediately deported; 41% had deportation proceedings initiated against them; and the remaining 15% were either freed for humanitarian reasons, sentenced to federal prison or were released “given the minor nature of the underlying offense and limited availability of the federal government’s detention space.” The Department of Homeland Security, which oversaw ICE, supported several GAO recommendations, which included establishing an official objective for the program, clarifying when to use 287(g) authority and improving recordkeeping practices. n Meat Factory Manager Sentenced. Martin De La Rosa-Loera March 3, in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was sentenced to 23 months in prison for harboring undocumented immigrants. De La RosaLoera, a former supervisor at Postville, Iowa–based Agriprocessors Inc., had pleaded guilty to the charges in 2008 after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials had raided his plant and arrested more than 380 undocumented workers there. Agriprocessors, which had once been the country’s largest kosher meat factory, had since declared bankruptcy amid numerous legal problems that had resulted from the raid. [See 2008, pp. 964B3, 656E3] n

Aviation Southwest to Pay $7.5 Million in Fines.

Immigration GAO Criticizes Immigration Program. The Government Accountability Office (GAO),

the investigative arm of Congress, March 4 March 12, 2009

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) March 2 announced that Dallas, Texas–based Southwest Airlines Co. would pay $7.5 million in fines stemming from a 2008 discovery that Southwest had operat-

ed more than 59,000 flights on 46 airplanes without completing mandatory inspections of the planes’ fuselages. It was the secondlargest fine ever levied against an airline. [See 2008, p. 535B3] In addition to paying the fine, Southwest was required to implement a number of safety regulations, which included making maintenance tracking information more easily available to the FAA, and revising manuals and inspection procedures. The fine would double if the required safety measures were not implemented by FAAmandated deadlines, which ranged from 30 days to one year. n

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Media Lobbyist Settles ‘N.Y. Times’ Lawsuit. A Washington, D.C., lobbyist Feb. 19 settled a $27 million lawsuit she had filed against the New York Times over an article it had published about her relationship with former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). The Times said it had not paid any money to the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, or retracted its story. However, it published a statement on the lawsuit from Iseman’s lawyers in the newspaper’s print edition and on its Web site claiming that Iseman was not a “public figure” and was thus not subject to the higher standard required to prove defamation. The Times also carried a rebuttal by Times Executive Editor Bill Keller. [See 2008, p. 968A3] The Times in February 2008 had published a story saying that several unidentified McCain aides in 1999 had been “convinced” that Iseman and McCain were having an affair, when Iseman was representing clients before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which McCain then headed. Iseman in December 2008 had sued the Times, Keller and several reporters for what she said were false implications of a romantic relationship. The Times Feb. 19 published a “note to readers” in which it stated that the article had not stated or intended to suggest any improprieties by Iseman “in breach of the public trust.” Iseman’s lawyers called the note a “retraction,” but the Times said it stood by the article fully. n

Religion Disgraced Pastor’s Church Reveals Payments.

Brady Boyd, pastor of the 10,500-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., where former pastor Ted Haggard had stepped down in 2006 after he was accused of having sex with a male prostitute, Jan. 25 told parishioners that the church beginning in 2007 had made payments to a male church member who had a relationship with Haggard prior to his dismissal. The payments, which had been ordered in a confidential legal settlement, included funds for the man’s counseling and college. Boyd said he had chosen to reveal the payments to the congregation because the man had signaled his intention to make them public. [See 2006, p. 864F2] n 151

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ical party formed in late 2008 by dissident members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Feb. 20 announced that Bishop Mvume Dandala would be its presidential candidate in general elections scheduled for April. Under South Africa’s constitution, the party that won the most seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, earned the right to select the nation’s next president. [See p. 96A2] The choice of Dandala, a relatively unknown figure in South African politics, was considered surprising. Many had expected either party leader Mosiuoa Lekota, a former national chairman of the ANC who had stepped down as defense minister in September 2008, or another prominent member, former Guateng state Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, to be COPE’s candidate. Some observers suggested the selection of Dandala was intended to prevent friction between Lekota and Shilowa from damaging party unity. Dandala, 57, was the general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches and a former head of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. It was considered unlikely that COPE would be able to defeat the ANC, which had governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, in the April elections. However, the ANC had recently been weakened by several scandals, including a corruption case against its leader and presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma. COPE sought to portray Dandala as a contrast to Zuma. The party said in a statement that “South Africa needs an honest, trustworthy and highly skilled leader, someone who can restore to our people hope and belief in our country.” In a related development, the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s highest court, March 12 upheld a lower court’s decision to allow South Africans living abroad who were registered voters to cast ballots in the April elections. n

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Hurt, Wife Killed in Car Crash.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai March 6 suffered minor injuries in a car crash on a highway about 45 miles (70 km) south of Harare, the capital. His wife of more than 30 years, Susan Tsvangirai, was killed in the crash, which occurred when a truck driving in the other direction lost control, veered into oncoming traffic and struck the Tsvangirais’ vehicle. [See below, p. 96C3] The crash immediately sparked rumors that Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Tsvangirai, a longtime opposition figure who in February had been sworn in as prime minister in a power-sharing government with the Zimbabwe 152

African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party of President Robert Mugabe, had been the target of an assassination attempt. During Mugabe’s 29-year rule, several high-profile political figures had died under mysterious circumstances, including car crashes. Tsvangirai himself had reportedly survived several assassination attempts, and had been subjected to beatings and other forms of harassment during his years as an opposition leader. [See p. 82A1; 2001, p. 465B1–D1; 1979, p. 977A1] Details of the Crash— The Tsvangirais March 6 were traveling in a Toyota Land Cruiser, the middle vehicle in a three-car convoy headed to Buhera, their hometown, for a rally scheduled for the next day when the crash occurred. The truck, which belonged to a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was transporting HIV/AIDS medicine, reportedly veered into oncoming traffic and slammed into the Tsvangirais’ car, causing it to roll over at least three times. (Reports conflicted as to whether the driver swerved to avoid a large pothole, or crossed into oncoming traffic after falling asleep.) Susan Tsvangirai was thrown from the car, and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Avenues Clinic, a private medical center near Harare. Also injured in the crash was Tsvangirai’s driver and bodyguard. The road on which they were traveling was said to be one of the country’s most dangerous. It, like much of Zimbabwe’s infrastructure, had fallen into disrepair due to the collapse of the country’s economy over the past 10 years. [See below] Mugabe and his wife, Grace Mugabe, visited the prime minister at the Avenues Clinic the night of the crash, in what was seen as a sign of reconciliation between the longtime rivals. Tsvangirai, who suffered head and chest injuries in the crash, March 7–9 traveled to neighboring Botswana for medical tests and treatment. The MDC March 7 said it would conduct its own investigation of the crash. Some party leaders reportedly alleged that security for the prime minister’s convoy had been inadequate, noting that Mugabe traveled in much larger motorcades. Upon his return from Botswana, Tsvangirai March 9 sought to calm the rumors of foul play, proclaiming that the crash was accidental. He told supporters in Harare, “In this case I want to say there is no foul play. It was an accident that unfortunately took away [Susan Tsvangirai’s] life.” Nevertheless, conspiracy theories reportedly continued to circulate. Tsvangirai, MDC officials, Mugabe and senior members of the ZANU-PF gathered March 10—Tsvangirai’s 57th birthday— for a service for Susan Tsvangirai in Harare. At the service, Tsvangirai told mourners, “Let’s celebrate her existence as God’s gift to me and you.” Mugabe also spoke, saying the “hand of God” was behind the crash and calling for an end to political violence in Zimbabwe. The Tsvangirais’ 29-year-old son, Edwin Tsvangirai, said at the service that Mugabe’s remarks had “changed my understanding of him.”

Later that day, some 20,000 people attended a memorial service at a Harare stadium. Susan Tsvangirai’s March 11 burial in Buhera was attended by thousands of mourners. Mrs. Tsvangirai, 50, who had six children with her husband and had largely shied away from the spotlight—except to advocate for charitable causes— was a popular figure in Zimbabwe, and her death elicited an outpouring of grief and sympathy. Her image contrasted sharply with that of Grace Mugabe, who had become unpopular for her lavish spending sprees and ostentatious lifestyle. Tsvangirai and his wife were described as very close. MDC official Eddie Cross March 6 had called her a “pillar of support” for her husband, adding, “Morgan will feel her loss enormously.” The truck’s Zimbabwean driver, Chinoona Mwanda, March 9 appeared in court in Chivhu, 90 miles south of Harare. He was charged with culpable homicide, and released on bail. Top Opposition Supporters Freed—

High-profile MDC official Roy Bennett, the nominee for deputy agriculture minister in the unity government, March 12 was freed on bail after nearly a month in jail, one day after Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ordered his release. Bennett, a white farmer whose land had been taken as part of Mugabe’s disastrous land-reform program that began in 2000, had been arrested in February for allegedly possessing weapons and planning acts of sabotage against the state, charges he denied. In a related development, prominent human rights activist Jestina Mukoko and four other campaigners March 2 had been freed on bail after Mugabe approved their release. They had been detained since late 2008 on charges of plotting to overthrow Mugabe’s government, and the MDC had repeatedly pressed for their release. The New York Times March 3 reported that Mukoko had been in a medical clinic in Harare when her release was announced; she was reportedly being treated for injuries consistent with torture, as well as for high blood pressure. Six other activists, who had been granted bail Feb. 27, remained in jail because they could not post the required bond of $20,000 in property deeds. The ZANU-PF and the MDC had clashed on several other issues since the powersharing government was sworn in. Those included Mugabe’s rejection—in an interview published Feb. 26 in the state-run Herald newspaper—of an MDC request to dismiss Gideon Gono, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the central bank, and Attorney General Johannes Tomana. Gono had been widely held responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic collapse, especially its record inflation rate of an estimated 10 sextillion percent. The MDC held Tomana responsible for what it said was the unlawful detention of its supporters and human rights activists. Also, the ZANU-PF had reportedly stepped up a campaign to appropriate the remaining white-owned farms, despite a November 2008 ruling by a Southern African Development Community (SADC) tribunal FACTS ON FILE

that said Mugabe’s government had violated the organization’s treaty by seizing white farmers’ land. [See 2008, p. 974E3] Mugabe Feb. 28 held one of several lavish parties in celebration of his 85th birthday. (His birthday was Feb. 21.) The festivities, held in Chinhoyi, 60 miles northwest of Harare, reportedly cost about $250,000. At the gala, Mugabe said, “Land distribution will continue.…The few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms as they have no place there.” Finance Minister Appeals for Aid—

Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti, an MDC member, Feb. 26–27 attended a meeting of SADC finance ministers in Cape Town, South Africa, at which he requested a $2 billion economic rescue package for Zimbabwe. In addition to hyperinflation, Zimbabwe was currently suffering from an unemployment rate of more than 90% and severe shortages of basic necessities and services. South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel Feb. 26 said he supported Biti’s plan, but warned that it was unlikely that SADC member nations would be able to come up with the money to finance Zimbabwe’s rescue on their own. Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, Feb. 26 met with Biti on the sidelines of the SADC meeting and praised his economic recovery plan. However, he said Zimbabwe had to clear its $5 billion in foreign debt before it could receive aid from the bank. Analysts said Zimbabwe would not be able to generate the revenue to repay the debt without foreign aid to restart its economy. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith March 11 said in a statement that his country would provide A$10 million (US$6.4 million) “to help Prime Minister Tsvangirai and the so-called inclusive Government of Zimbabwe to restore basic water, sanitation and health services and relieve the suffering of the Zimbabwean people.” Australia became the first Western nation to announce direct aid to Zimbabwe’s new government. Previously, it had funneled humanitarian assistance through aid organizations. U.S. President Barack Obama March 4 had announced that the U.S. had extended sanctions on Zimbabwe, which included a travel ban on top ZANU-PF officials and a ban on certain Zimbabwean companies doing business in the U.S. n

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China U.S. Protests ‘Harassment’ of Naval Ships.

The U.S. government March 9 said it had lodged formal protests with China over recent incidents of harassment of U.S. maritime surveillance ships operating in international waters near China. A U.S. Defense Department spokesman said Chinese ships had “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to U.S. vessels, posing a “risk of collision or miscalculation.” [See 2008, p. 979A3] March 12, 2009

U.S. officials said five Chinese naval and other official boats the previous day had surrounded a U.S. surveillance ship, the USNS Impeccable, about 75 miles (120 km) north of the Chinese island of Hainan in the South China Sea. Some of the Chinese vessels came as close as 25 feet (eight meters), they said, with crew members waving Chinese flags and demanding that the U.S. ship leave the area. The crew of the Impeccable, which did not carry heavy weaponry, reportedly opened fire hoses on the Chinese boats. In a radio communication, it requested safe passage, but was blocked by two of the Chinese ships, requiring it to make an emergency stop. U.S. officials cited four other incidents of harassment of the Impeccable and the USNS Victorious by Chinese ships or aircraft since March 4. The U.S. ships were reportedly monitoring China’s growing submarine warfare capacities. [See 2007, p. 384E3] The U.S. embassy in Beijing, China’s capital, protested to the Chinese foreign ministry, and the U.S. Defense Department summoned a Chinese defense attache in Washington, D.C. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs March 9 said, “We’re going to continue to operate in those international waters and we expect the Chinese to observe international law.” A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman March 10 claimed that the Impeccable had been operating illegally inside China’s “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ), which extended beyond its territorial waters to 200 nautical miles from its coasts. The U.S. countered that it had the right to conduct “military activities” in such zones. The U.S. March 12 said it had sent a Navy destroyer to protect the Impeccable. Observers noted that U.S.-Chinese military relations had in general improved in recent years, after a dispute over a 2001 collision between a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter over Hainan, and the subsequent 11-day detention of the U.S. plane’s crew. However, China in October 2008 had suspended military contacts with the U.S. over a decision by the administration of then–U.S. President George W. Bush to authorize a large arms sale to Taiwan. [See 2001, p. 631B2] U.S. Calls Annual Military Talks Positive—

The maritime incidents came days after U.S. and Chinese military officials Feb. 27–28 in Beijing had held their annual Defense Policy Coordination Talks, the first to be held since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January. The chief of the U.S. delegation, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia David Sedney, said the talks were the “best” in his 18 years of involvement in military dealings with China. n

ruptured in the earthquake, and about 3.5 miles (5.5 km) from the epicenter. The scientists, writing in the December 2008 issue of the Chinese journal Seismology and Geology, called for further research into whether the reservoir had caused seismic activity that might have contributed to the quake, which killed some 80,000 people. [See 2008, p. 978G2] It was widely acknowledged that the weight of reservoirs behind dams could intensify seismic stresses. It was thought that such added strain could not cause an earthquake outright, but might hasten one that would have occurred eventually anyway. In another study presented in December 2008, Christian Klose of Columbia University in New York City had also concluded that the reservoir water’s weight had had a substantial impact on the nearby fault. Chinese authorities had dismissed the suggestion that the Zipingpu reservoir played any role in the earthquake, a conclusion reached by another pair of scientists in a Chinese science news publication, Science Times, also in December. Chinese authorities had been criticized over the poor construction quality of schools that collapsed in the quake, and the suggestion that a project like the Zipingpu Dam could have played a role in the disaster carried potentially great political risks for the government. n

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7.6 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion and a series of aftershocks Jan. 4 struck the Indonesian province of Papua, killing four people and injuring at least 250 others. One of the aftershocks was measured at 7.4 on the Richter scale by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), but most of the other associated tremors were significantly weaker. The quakes damaged or destroyed about 840 buildings in Indonesia and triggered small tsunamis near Japan’s southern coast. A tsunami alert issued by the Indonesian government after the earthquake was subsequently canceled. [See 2008, p. 942C2] Unknown attackers Jan. 20 threw three

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in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. According to the police, two of the three explosives went off, setting fire to part of the embassy’s wall. No injuries were reported in connection with the incident. A spokesman for the Indonesian government Jan. 21 said that the government would bolster security measures at the embassy. [See 2008, p. 573G2] n

Dam Linked to Seismic Strain in Quake Zone.

North Korea

A group of Chinese scientists had published research that they said suggested that a man-made reservoir in Sichuan Province had significantly affected seismic activity in the area prior to a devastating earthquake in May 2008, the New York Times reported Feb. 6. The reservoir, created by the Zipingpu Dam, was located about 1,600 feet (500 meters) from the fault that

Parliamentary Elections Held. North Korea March 7 held elections for the 687 seats in the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s unicameral parliament. Only a single candidate, approved by the ruling Workers’ Party, was on the ballot in each district, and state media March 9 reported a 99.98% turnout for the compulsory voting. North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il, 67, 153

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was again elected to a seat in the parliament, representing a military constituency; the Supreme People’s Assembly was expected to soon reappoint Kim as chairman of the National Defense Commission, defined as the highest state post. [See p. 51C2] The elections to the parliament had been due to be held in 2008, but had been delayed amid widespread foreign reports, denied by North Korea, that Kim had suffered a stroke. Because many senior officials were drawn from among the members of the assembly, foreign observers had looked to the election for signs pointing toward a possible successor to Kim, or other indications about power shifts within the secretive regime. Initial news reports of the voting had suggested that the youngest of Kim’s three sons—Kim Jong Un, 26—was among the candidates, but none of the sons was among the list of elected candidates released March 9. n

Thailand Writer Guilty of Insulting Royals, Pardoned.

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Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer, Jan. 19 pleaded guilty in a court in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to charges of insulting the Thai royal family in a selfpublished 2005 novel and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was pardoned Feb. 19 by Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and returned to Australia Feb. 22. [See 2007, pp. 580E2, 248D2] Nicolaides had printed only 50 copies of the novel, Verisimilitude, and had reportedly sold fewer than 12. The charges reportedly stemmed from a paragraph of the novel that cited gossip about the romantic activities of an unidentified Thai crown prince. He had been arrested Aug. 31, 2008, in a Bangkok airport and was charged Nov. 21, 2008, under the country’s lese-majeste law, which barred anyone from threatening, insulting or defaming the country’s king, queen, regent or heir apparent. The charge carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Professor Flees Thailand—Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a leftist professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University Jan. 20 was charged with lese-majeste in connection with his 2007 book A Coup for the Rich, which analyzed the 2006 bloodless military coup that ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power. Thailand’s government was currently led by the Democrat Party, which had ties to the Thai military. At least 17 lese-majeste investigations were ongoing as of March 6. Ungpakorn, who was a dual British and Thai citizen, Feb. 6 fled to Britain along with his wife in order to avoid facing the charges. Following his arrival in Britain, Ungpakorn said that he had fled because he “did not believe that I would receive a fair trial,” and argued that the Thai government was using the law in order to prevent “any discussion about the relationship between the military junta and the monarchy.” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva March 6 said that he would examine the 154

country’s use of the lese-majeste law and “try to clarify the way this law is enforced, and I hope this will ease concerns over freedom of expression.” But he said all persons charged under the current law would continue to face possible prison terms. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported March 5 that more than 4,800 Web sites judged to be insulting to the royal family had been blocked by the Thai government since March 2008. n

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France Two Convicted in Tunisia Synagogue Attack.

A court in Paris Feb. 5 convicted two men of involvement in a 2002 synagogue bombing in Tunisia that killed 21 people, including two French citizens. The men, Christian Ganczarski of Germany and Walid Nouar of Tunisia, were tried in France under a law that allowed for French prosecution of foreign nationals in connection with the murder of French citizens. Nouar was the brother of Nizar Nouar, who had carried out the suicide bombing. [See 2002, p. 305C1] Ganczarski, 42, had admitted to being a member of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda but denied any involvement in the attack. However, during the trial, prosecutors had played a taped phone call between him and Nizar Nouar recorded just prior to the attack. Widal Nouar, 28, had been accused of providing a satellite phone and false documents used to carry out the attack. Ganczarski was sentenced to 18 years in prison while Nouar received a sentence of 12 years. Both men had faced possible life sentences following their convictions on charges of complicity in murder and complicity in attempted murder stemming from a terrorist attack. Prosecutors had asked for 30-year and 15-year sentences for Ganczarski and Nouar, respectively. Prosecutors said the attack against the historic Ghriba synagogue, on Tunisia’s Djerba Island, had been planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an Al Qaeda member who had allegedly orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Mohammed was captured in 2003 and had been detained at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. He had initially been charged along with Nouar and Ganczarski in connection with the bombing, but his prosecution had been delayed by the court until he could appear in person. n

Germany Ex-Student Kills 15 in School Rampage. A teenage boy March 11 went on a shooting rampage at his former secondary school in Winnenden, a suburb of the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany. He killed nine students, all but one of whom were girls, and three female teachers. The killer, Tim Kretschmer, 17, fled when police arrived minutes after he began shooting. He shot

dead a man on the school grounds and hijacked a car. Then he killed a salesman and a customer at a car dealership in the nearby town of Wendligen, where he exchanged fire with police before killing himself. Two police officers were seriously wounded in the shootout but were expected to survive. [See p. 149A1; 2002, p. 320F2] German Chancellor Angela Merkel March 11 called the massacre “an appalling crime.” Officials March 12 said Kretschmer had given a warning of his plans in an Internet chat with another teenager six hours before he began the rampage. (Police later that day said they were probing the authenticity of the posting.) He declared that he was “sick of this life” and threatened to attack the school in Winnenden, whose students’ ages ranged from 10 to 16. He had graduated from the school in 2008, and had since been studying at a vocational school. Germany had tightened its gun control laws in 2003, after a 19-year-old student killed 16 people and himself at a high school in the eastern town of Erfurt in 2002. Police said Kretschmer’s father legally owned 15 guns, including the 9-mm Beretta handgun used in the rampage, and belonged to a shooting club where the youth had often taken target practice. n

Great Britain 3 Killed in Dissident IRA Attacks in N. Ireland.

Two British soldiers March 7 were killed after two men armed with automatic rifles opened fire on them at a military barracks in Antrim, a town just northwest of Belfast, the capital of the British province of Northern Ireland. Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery men were also seriously wounded in the attack. The dissident Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) faction the Real IRA March 8 assumed responsibility for the shooting. It was the first time British soldiers had been killed by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in more than a decade. In a separate incident, a police officer March 9 was shot dead in the town of Craigavon; another dissident IRA faction, the Continuity IRA, the following day took responsibility for the murder. [See below; 2008, p. 185G1] The Real IRA March 8 said its attack had served as retaliation for British soldiers’ occupation of Northern Ireland. The shooting was condemned by leaders from all sides of the political spectrum as an attempt to derail the peace process in Northern Ireland, under which Roman Catholic Irish nationalists and Protestant supporters of British rule had formed a power-sharing provincial government in 2007. [See 2007, p. 196E2] The Real IRA had also claimed responsibility for a 1998 bombing in the eastern town of Omagh, which had killed 29 people. That attack was the deadliest to have occurred in Northern Ireland during the three decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, which had ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Since then, sectarian violence in FACTS ON FILE

Northern Ireland had decreased dramatically. [See 2007, p. 889A3] Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), March 6 had said six British intelligence officers had arrived in Northern Ireland earlier that week to investigate Irish republican paramilitary groups’ activities. Orde had claimed that such groups posed a bigger threat than at any other time since he had become constable in 2002, and said “lunatics” were planning to carry out an attack before St. Patrick’s Day. His announcement had angered the province’s Catholic minority, which accused him of betraying a 2005 agreement to refrain from employing British security agents in Northern Ireland. [See 2005, p. 524C3] Police Officer Shot Dead—An on-duty PSNI officer March 9 was shot dead in Craigavon, a town southwest of Belfast. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant politicians denounced the shooting, and Orde said the recent attacks were carried out by “murderers who are trying to distort, disrupt and destroy a political process that is working for the people of Northern Ireland.” Police in Craigavon March 10 said they had detained two men in connection with the shooting. Orde urged anyone with information on the whereabouts of violent IRA dissidents to contact the police. Some observers viewed the call as a challenge to Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the largest Irish nationalist party, who had reportedly been criticized by some Protestant leaders for his refusal to call the attacks “murders” when questioned by reporters. Sinn Fein was often referred to as the political wing of the IRA, and until 2007 had refused to cooperate in any way with the PSNI, which many Roman Catholics remained wary of. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown March 9 visited Antrim to commemorate the slain soldiers. Upon hearing of the second attack, he appealed for calm, and said the people of Northern Ireland “want the political process to move forward…they do not want a return to guns in the streets.” Media outlets reported a tense atmosphere in the British province, as well as fears of retaliatory attacks. More than 2,000 Roman Catholics and Protestants March 11 gathered at Belfast’s city hall, where they held a vigil for the slain soldiers and policeman. Vigils also took place in the towns of Londonderry and Newry. n State Takes Majority Stake in Lloyds Bank.

The British government March 6 agreed to take a majority stake in Lloyds Banking Group PLC, Britain’s third-largest bank, in exchange for the government insuring more than £250 billion ($350 billion) in distressed assets on the bank’s books. The deal would increase the government’s stake in Lloyds to at least 65%, from the 43% shareholding set in an October 2008 bailout. [See pp. 155F2, 36E1] Lloyds would pay a fee of £15.6 billion over seven years for the asset insurance. Lloyds also pledged to increase lending by £14 billion in each of the next two years, a priority for the government as it sought to March 12, 2009

fix credit markets that had effectively frozen in the global financial crisis. In January, the government had announced a banking-sector rescue plan that included insuring risky assets. Lloyds became the second major British bank to be effectively nationalized, joining Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS). Lloyds’ bad assets were mostly related to its acquisition of rival bank HBOS PLC in a deal brokered by the government in September 2008. Lloyds Feb. 13 reported that it expected to post a £10 billion loss for 2008 related to the acquisition. Former HBOS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sir James Crosby Feb. 11 resigned as deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority, Britain’s bank regulator, after facing allegations that he had fired an HBOS subordinate in 2005 for warning that the bank was taking on excessive risk. Royal Bank of Scotland Gets New Bailout—

The government Feb. 26 agreed to provide RBS with up to £25 billion in emergency capital and insure £300 billion in toxic RBS assets. In exchange, the government would increase its stake in RBS to as much as 95%, from 70%. RBS that day reported a £24 billion net loss for 2008, the biggest yearly loss in British corporate history. Its losses largely stemmed from its participation in a consortium that acquired Dutch bank ABN Amro NV in 2007. Under pressure from the government to rein in compensation, RBS Feb. 17 said it would cut cash bonuses to its staff by 90% and freeze pay for executives and board members. Former RBS CEO Sir Fred Goodwin, 50, who had been ousted in October, Feb. 26 rejected a suggestion by the government that he should forfeit part of his £693,000 annual pension in light of the bank’s record loss. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Feb. 27 said he might pursue “legal action” against Goodwin, citing public anger over the matter. n

Other European News Central Banks Cut Rates to Record Lows. The European Central Bank (ECB) and the

Bank of England, the British central bank, March 5 both cut their key interest rates by half a percentage point, to new record-low levels. [See pp. 68E3, 23E1] The ECB, which controlled monetary policy for the 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency (known collectively as the eurozone), cut its key rate to 1.5%, from 2%. The Bank of England cut its key rate to 0.5%, from 1%. Bank of England Sets Big Bond Buy—

The Bank of England March 5 also announced that it would buy up to £75 billion ($105 billion) in British government and corporate bonds over the next three months. The bank said it might later expand the asset purchases to £150 billion. The unconventional move effectively amounted to printing more money, but was known technically as quantitative easing. It was designed to be an indirect means of

driving down interest rates and unfreezing credit markets for business and consumer loans. The move would expand Britain’s “monetary base”—total cash in circulation plus commercial banks’ reserves deposited with the Bank of England—by 80%. By cutting its own benchmark rate to near zero, the bank had nearly exhausted its conventional tool for influencing private lending rates. In turning to printing money, it followed the lead of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, which had started buying up corporate and consumer debt after cutting its own key rate to near zero in December 2008. However, the Fed had not yet moved to buy U.S. Treasury securities. [See p. 45B2] The ECB had yet to resort to quantitative easing, but its chairman, Jean-Claude Trichet, March 5 said it would extend an offer of unlimited loans to eurozone banks at least through the end of the year. The program had started in October, and so far had made some 600 billion euros ($765 billion) in loans. n

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Egypt Nazi Fugitive Allegedly Died in Egypt in 1992.

The New York Times and the German television station ZDF Feb. 4 reported that a Nazi fugitive, concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim, had died in Egypt in 1992 after living there for years under an assumed name. The Times and ZDF had reportedly obtained a briefcase in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, containing documents related to his life in hiding. [See 2008, p. 547E3; 2000, p. 175E2; 1979, p. 490B1] Heim had been a member of the Waffen SS and a doctor at the Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps. At Mauthausen, in Austria, he had allegedly committed atrocities—including performing operations without anesthesia and removing organs from healthy prisoners—that had killed hundreds of Jews, and was known as Dr. Death. Heim had become the most-wanted Nazi fugitive as others were found or died, according to the Israeli-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. Heim had fled Germany in 1962 as Austrian prosecutors were building a case against him. According to the new reports, he had traveled to Egypt, where he converted to Islam and went by the name Tarek Hussein Farid. In an interview in Baden-Baden, Germany, Heim’s son, Ruediger Heim, had admitted that he had been with his father when he died of rectal cancer in Egypt in 1992. Rudiger Heim said his father had been buried anonymously in a common grave by Egyptian authorities. Egyptian officials had issued a death certificate at that time for a man named Tarek Hussein Farid. German officials Feb. 5 said they had confirmed Heim’s death using additional information from people in Heim’s “personal circle.” They said they would work with Egyptian officials to locate his body. However, Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi in155

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vestigator of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said there was not enough evidence to prove that Heim had died in Egypt. n

Iraq Three Bombings Kill 73 in Baghdad, South.

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Three devastating suicide and car bombings March 5–10 killed at least 73 people in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad. The bombings came as the U.S. was preparing to withdraw forces from the country amidst apparent security gains. They were seen as a return to the spectacular mass-casualty attacks from earlier in the Iraqi insurgency, as opposed to the smaller-scale attacks that had become common more recently. [See p. 117G2] A car bomb March 5 went off in a crowded livestock market in a predominantly Shiite Muslim area of Hilla, the capital of Babil province. At least 12 people were killed, mostly civilians. A suicide bomber on a motorcycle March 8 blew himself up in a crowd outside the police academy in eastern Baghdad, killing 28 people. Many of the dead were part of a crowd of young men who had gathered in hopes of becoming police recruits. Iraqi police said a would-be second bomber did not set off his explosives, but managed to escape the scene. A suicide bomber had previously attacked the police academy in December 2008, killing 15 people. [See 2008, p. 888C3] Another suicide bomber March 10 attacked a marketplace in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood of western Baghdad, killing 33 people. The bomber struck as senior Iraqi police and military officials were touring the market, ahead of a high-profile reconciliation meeting with Sunni Muslim tribal leaders. Among the dead were seven Iraqi army officers and two journalists from the Al Baghdadia television station. In the aftermath, there was frantic shooting in the market that wounded many bystanders. Police said the gunfire was from insurgents who had ambushed them. However, many bystanders instead said the Iraqi police forces had been firing in an undisciplined manner and accidentally hit civilians. U.S. to Withdraw 12,000 Troops by Sept.—

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Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, March 8 said the U.S. would withdraw 12,000 troops from the country by September. The announcement was seen as the first step of U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan—announced in late February—to pull all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by August 2010. A U.S.Iraqi security agreement required all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. [See p. 121A1] “Two brigade combat teams who were scheduled to redeploy in the next six months, along with enabling forces such as logistics, engineers and intelligence, will not be replaced,” the U.S. military said in a statement. There were currently some 140,000 U.S. troops—14 U.S. combat brigade teams and their support troops—in Iraq. Perkins also said 4,000 British troops would withdraw from Iraq in the coming months. 156

Perkins said attacks in Iraq were at their lowest level since the summer of 2003, However, he denied that the U.S. was being “complacent,” and warned that the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq was still “desperate to maintain relevance here” despite defeats, and might ramp up violence. Hussein Officials Jailed for ’92 Killings—

The Iraqi High Tribunal, a special criminal court in Baghdad that tried members of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, March 11 convicted former regime spokesman and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and former Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid of crimes against humanity for the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants in 1992. They were each sentenced to 15 years in prison. It was Aziz’s first conviction in the court, but Majid— who was known as “Chemical Ali” for having ordered chemical weapons attacks against ethnic Kurds in the 1980s—had already been sentenced to death three times for different crimes. [See p. 121B3] The merchants had faced a summary trial for speculating on the price of food in the midst of shortages caused by international sanctions in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, and were executed without a chance to appeal. Aziz’s lawyers said the conviction was politically motivated and expressed surprise, saying that their client had only had a diplomatic function in the Hussein regime and had been in Europe at the time of the executions. Two of Hussein’s half-brothers, Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim alHassan, were convicted of playing a role in the executions and were sentenced to death. Three other Hussein officials were also convicted and sentenced to prison terms, while another was acquitted. Iraqi Budget Cut Amid Low Oil Prices—

The Iraqi parliament March 5 passed a $58.6 billion budget for fiscal 2009 after weeks of wrangling. Legislators agreed to cuts of about $4.2 billion, or 7%, due to low oil prices; oil exports accounted for the majority of Iraq’s revenues. The budget assumed a $50 per barrel oil price, but oil had hovered in the $40-per-barrel range for the last several months, and March 5 closed at $43.61 on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex). That led some legislators to say that the country might have to run a large deficit, although it held reserves of $35 billion in unspent oil revenue. [See p. 54A1] War’s Toll on Mental Health Reported—

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi government March 7 published a survey of 4,332 Iraqis in the journal World Psychiatry finding that 17% of the respondents had mental health problems. Psychiatrists and psychologists performing the study said they were surprised that the percentage was not higher, and theorized that long years of dictatorial rule and war had led Iraqis to develop mental defenses. Women were found to be more susceptible, with 19% suffering from mental health problems, as opposed to 14% of men. Only 2% of Iraqis suffering from mental health problems were found to have sought professional help, a reflection of societal stig-

ma against mental health treatment and a lack of facilities. [See 2006, p. 113F2] Another study, released March 8 by the British charity Oxfam and the Iraqi women’s issues nonprofit group Amal, found that the past three decades of war in Iraq had widowed an estimated 740,000 women and had left many others without fathers and brothers, depriving them of resources to take care of their families. It said 75% of Iraqi widows were not receiving pensions, and that many were deprived of electricity and health care. The study was based on a survey of 1,700 Iraqi women in five provinces carried out in May 2008. U.S. Soldier Convicted in Detainee Death—

A military jury in Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, Feb. 27 convicted U.S. First Lt. Michael Behenna of assault and murder for fatally shooting an Iraqi detainee in May 2008 in Baiji, north of Baghdad. Behenna was acquitted of the more serious charge of premeditated murder, as well as of making a false statement. Behenna Feb. 28 was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Behenna’s lawyers claimed prosecutors had not shared all their evidence with them, and said they planned to seek a mistrial. [See 2008, p. 685A1] Behenna had claimed that the detainee, Ali Mansour Mohammed, had pulled a gun and that he had shot him in self-defense. A defense lawyer had said Behenna was suffering from acute stress disorder at the time of the killing. However, prosecutors said he had not been under threat from Mohammed and had clearly intended to kill him when he took him aside for interrogation. n

Lebanon Britain to Resume Contacts With Hezbollah.

The British government March 5 announced that it would reestablish diplomatic contacts with the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah for the first time since 2005. Britain in 2008 had listed Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist group. The British government said it would talk only with “carefully selected” contacts in the group’s political wing, which it said was distinct from the military wing. [See p. 123F1; 2008, pp. 493A3] Analysts said the gesture was prompted by diplomatic overtures towards Syria and Iran by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, and was part of a general move on the part of Western nations to engage with adversaries. However, British officials said Britain would not open talks with the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the Gaza Strip and which Britain considered a terrorist group. The British Foreign Office said its “objective with Hezbollah remains to encourage them to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role in Lebanese politics.” It said Britain had decided to initiate contact with Hezbollah “in light of more positive recent political developments in Lebanon.” Hezbollah had fought a war with Israel in 2006, but had stayed out of a January battle FACTS ON FILE

between Israel and Hamas. It had joined a Lebanese unity government in 2008, and had also done much of the reconstruction work in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war. [See p. 13B2; 2008, p. 493E3] Hezbollah officials March 6 praised the British announcement. Hezbollah’s deputy political leader, Mahmoud Komati, said the group had rejected British efforts over the past year to hold a secret meeting. However, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said that was false, and added that a meeting earlier in the year between British and Lebanese members of parliament—including one who belonged to Hezbollah—had been held publicly. An unnamed senior Obama official March 12 said to reporters that Britain had told the “previous administration” of U.S. President George W. Bush about its decision, but he indicated that the Obama administration had been taken by surprise. He also asked Britain to explain “the difference between the political, social and military wings of Hezbollah because we don’t see the difference between the integrated leadership that they see.” n

Other Middle East News Palestinian Authority PM Resigns. Pales-

tinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad March 7 announced that he and his cabinet would resign by the end of March. He said his move was meant to clear the way for talks beginning March 10 in Egypt between the militant Islamist group Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip, and the rival nationalist movement Fatah to form a “national consensus government. (PA President Mahmoud Abbas was a member of Fatah.) Hamas in July 2007 had driven Fatah out of Gaza after a brief civil war between the two factions, leaving the PA to effectively govern only the West Bank. [See pp. 123F1, 30D3] Fayyad said his resignation would take effect “immediately upon formation” of a unity government, but not later than the end of March, the deadline for the talks. However, Palestinian legislators said it was unclear whether Abbas would accept Fayyad’s retirement, and suggested that it might be a maneuver by Fayyad to gain more political leverage. Fayyad was an independent politician with a reputation as a technocrat and backing from Western nations. He supported talks with Israel toward creating a Palestinian state. However, Hamas did not consider him a legitimate prime minister, since he had been appointed by Abbas in 2007 rather than elected. He had also angered some Fatah legislators who said their party should have gotten more senior positions in the government. A Hamas spokesman March 7 said Fayyad’s resignation had been “expected” because his government was “illegal and unconstitutional.” Gaza Cease-fire Linked to Israeli Soldier—

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Feb. 15 said Israel would not sign a formal ceasefire with Hamas unless the group freed an Israeli soldier it had been holding since 2006. The Israeli security cabinet Feb. 18 March 12, 2009

voted to make the opening of Gaza’s border crossings—a key demand of Hamas’s for any cease-fire—contingent on the release of the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit. Israel and Hamas had separately ceased hostilities after a January Israeli invasion of Gaza, but they had not concluded a formal peace deal. Since then, there had been sporadic mortar and rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian militants, and Israeli air strikes on militants carrying out the attacks and on smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas officials Feb. 13 had said they were close to concluding an Egyptianbrokered 18-month truce with Israel, but the new Shalit condition seemingly scuttled that. [See p. 31B3] The Israeli government after the security cabinet meeting released a statement saying the release of Shalit was a “top priority” and would “entail the release of Palestinian prisoners.” That reportedly could include prisoners who had been involved in attacks that had killed Israelis, and whom Israel had previously refused to consider releasing. However, a Hamas spokesman said the Shalit condition was “blackmail,” and rejected it as part of a cease-fire. Hamas previously had demanded the release of up to 1,400 Palestinian prisoners in return for Shalit. Israeli officials Feb. 23 said Olmert had dismissed Israel’s top envoy in the Gaza cease-fire talks. The firing came after the Israeli newspaper Maariv Feb. 18 reported comments from the envoy, Amos Gilad, that Olmert’s decision to link the cease-fire to Shalit’s release risked damaging Israel’s relationship with Egypt, which was mediating the talks. Olmert Feb. 25 reinstated Gilad after Gilad apologized. U.S. Envoy Visits Israel, West Bank—

George Mitchell, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Jan. 29–30 visited Israel and the West Bank for the first time in his new role in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. He expressed Obama’s concern over humanitarian suffering in Gaza and said opening the territory’s border crossings would help to stop the smuggling that Israel said Hamas used to rearm, but also called on the PA to assist in monitoring the crossings. U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D, Mass.) Feb. 19 traveled to Gaza, in the first visit to the territory by a U.S. official since Hamas took over. Kerry did not meet with Hamas officials and said his visit was not an indication of a change in the U.S.’s policy of not negotiating with the group, which it considered a terrorist organization. He toured neighborhoods that had been devastated in the January invasion, and spoke with residents about what aid was needed. The same day, U.S. Reps. Brian Baird (D, Wash.) and Keith Ellison (D, Minn.) also visited Gaza on an unrelated but similar trip. Other News—In other Israeli-Palestinian news: o London-based advocacy group Amnesty International Feb. 23 released a report calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Palestinian militant groups. It said arms exporters “will have been well aware

of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties” and should take responsibility for war crimes committed during the January invasion. It said the U.S. had a “particular obligation” to halt military aid to Israel because it was the country’s largest arms supplier. [See p. 13B2] o The Israeli navy Feb. 5 intercepted a ship full of European activists and humanitarian aid bound for Gaza. Israel deported the activists, but said the aid had been sent on to Gaza. Several ships had run the Israeli blockade of the territory in 2008, but it was the first time one had attempted to do so since the January invasion ended. [See 2008, p. 821F3] o The Israeli military Feb. 4 after an investigation acknowledged that one of its tanks had killed the three daughters of a prominent Palestinian doctor and peace activist, Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, during the January Gaza invasion. Aish had been interviewed on Israeli television moments after their death, and his display of grief had reportedly been one of the most powerful displays of the suffering in Gaza to the Israeli public. The Israeli military apologized for the incident but said it had been “reasonable,” since the tank was firing at what it thought were Hamas fighters when it hit Aish’s home. Aish denied there had been militants present, but thanked Israel for conducting the investigation. o The British newspaper the Guardian Jan. 30 reported that Hamas in the wake of the January invasion had carried out reprisal attacks in Gaza, killing and wounding dozens. The victims reportedly included Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel, and prisoners who had escaped from Gaza City’s main jail after it was bombed. Hamas denied the allegations, but said it had arrested suspected collaborators. [See 2008, p. 946D2] n

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India Dates Set for National Elections. India’s

election commission March 2 announced that national parliamentary elections would be held in five phases between April 16 and May 13, and that the votes would be tallied May 16. An estimated 714 million people would be eligible to vote in the country, the largest democracy in the world. [See p. 103C2; 2008, pp. 911C3, 895G3] India’s slowing economy was expected to be a dominant issue in the elections. The government Feb. 27 had reported that India’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at an annual rate of 5.3% in the last three months of 2008, down from an 8.9% rate during the same period in 2007, and the slowest rate since 2003. The slowdown was largely attributed to a global economic crisis, which had dampened demand for Indian exports and reduced foreign investment in the country. The Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, March 4 lowered its benchmark repurchase rate—the interest rate on 157

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loans from the central bank to other banks— to 5%, from 5.5%, in a bid to inject liquidity into India’s banking system, which had seen lending decrease as a result of the economic slowdown. The central bank Jan. 2 had lowered the rate to 5.5%, from 6.5%. The government Jan. 2 also introduced other measures to spark growth, including lowering the amount of money banks were required to set aside as part of their cash reserves, and allowing increased foreign purchases of Indian corporate bonds. India’s economy was still growing at a time when major economies around the world—including those of the U.S., Japan and Britain—were shrinking. Additionally, the Indian economy was less reliant on exports than some of its Asian competitors, such as China and Japan, and was thus somewhat insulated from decreased global demand. However, with about 75% of its population living on less than $2 a day, and a large percentage of younger people looking for work, even a slight slowdown in growth could have a large impact on the population. [See pp. 128F2, 98B3, 52B3, 35E1] National security was also expected to be an important issue in the elections, following a November 2008 terrorist attack by 10 gunmen on Mumbai, India’s commercial center, that had left more than 170 people dead. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the largest opposition party, had accused the ruling United Progressive Alliance, a coalition led by the Congress party, of being “soft on terror.” The government Feb. 25 filed formal charges against the lone surviving gunman, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistani in Indian custody. He was charged with murder, “waging war against India” and other offenses. The charges alleged that Kasab was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based Islamic extremist group. The filing also included charges against two Muslim Indians who were accused of aiding the planning of the attacks, Faheem Ahmed Ansar and Sabauddin Ahmen. They had already been in custody when the attacks took place. n News in Brief. Some personal belongings of Indian independence leader Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi March 5 were sold for $1.8 million in an auction at Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York City. The auction had prompted criticism from the Indian government, which said the items— metal-rimmed eyeglasses, a pair of leather sandals, a brass bowl and a watch—were cultural artifacts that belonged in India. Additionally, many Indians said the auction violated the legacy of Gandhi, who had urged his supporters to shun striving for material gain. A high court in New Delhi, the Indian capital, March 3 ordered a halt to the auction, arguing that the possessions, being sold by U.S. filmmaker and peace activist James Otis, had been illegally taken from India. However, the government was placated when it was revealed that the winning bidder was Vijay Mallya, chairman of Indian conglomerate UB Group, who promised to donate the items to India. [See 1997, p. 466B3] 158

France’s state-controlled nuclear company Areva SA Feb. 4 signed a preliminary deal with India’s state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd. to cooperate in building as many as six nuclear reactors in India. Areva would provide at least two reactors, as well as the nuclear fuel to run them, for an estimated $10 billion. The deal was India’s first following the signing of a civilian nuclear trade pact with the U.S. in October 2008. The pact had been signed after the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, at the U.S.’s urging, lifted a ban on nuclear trade with India, opening the door for other countries to sell India nuclear technology and fuel. Observers said French nuclear-power companies had fewer domestic restrictions than U.S. companies, allowing Areva to sign a deal more quickly than its U.S. competitors. [See 2008, p. 742E1; 2007, p. 884D2] Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was also the country’s finance minister, Jan. 24 underwent a successful quintuple heart bypass operation, and was discharged from the hospital Feb. 1. In the interim, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee had assumed some of Singh’s duties. The operation raised questions as to whether the 76-year-old Singh would continue on as prime minister if his Congress party retained power following national elections that were to be held by May. [See p. 157E3; 2008, p. 878A3] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Drugs in Sports Start of MLB Star Bonds’s Trial Delayed.

The opening of the trial of former Major League Baseball (MLB) star slugger Barry Bonds on perjury charges, which had been scheduled for March 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 27 was delayed until at least July. The 10 counts of perjury faced by Bonds stemmed from his 2003 testimony before a federal grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), which had provided performance-enhancing drugs to several top athletes, that he had never used such drugs. Bonds had pleaded not guilty to the charges. [See p. 87C3] The delay came after prosecutors decided to appeal a Feb. 19 decision by the judge overseeing the case, Susan Illston, to throw out several important pieces of prosecution evidence because they could not be authenticated without the testimony of Bonds’s former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, and therefore could not be definitively linked to Bonds. Anderson—who prosecutors alleged had administered performance-enhancing drugs to Bonds and who previously had spent a year in jail for refusing to testify against Bonds—Feb. 27 told Illston that he would not testify at the perjury trial. The barred evidence included an apparent steroid treatment schedule and reports of laboratory testing of urine samples purportedly taken from Bonds from 2000 and 2001 that found them positive for drugs.

(The reports had been seized in a raid of BALCO’s headquarters.) Illston ruled that the prosecution could play in court a large portion of a recorded telephone conversation between Anderson and Bonds’s former business manager, Steve Hoskins, in which Anderson reportedly said he had injected Bonds with steroids. Defense lawyers and Illston Feb. 27 criticized the prosecution’s decision to lodge the appeal, which would be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, just three days before jury selection in the trial was due to begin. Some reports said the delay could be used to give prosecutors time to pressure Anderson to testify; the New York Times Feb. 28 reported that prosecutors had threatened to bring charges against his wife and mother-inlaw. The 44-year-old Bonds, MLB’s all-time home run leader, had not played since 2007, but never officially retired. Embattled Rodriguez Has Surgery—

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who had admitted in February to performance-enhancing drug use from 2001 to 2003, March 9 underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage in his right hip. The surgeon, Marc Philippon, said he encountered “no surprises” during the 80-minute procedure. Rodriguez began rehabbing the injured hip immediately, but was expected to miss at least the first six weeks of the regular season. [See p. 87B1] While Rodriguez was practicing with the Dominican Republic team for the World Baseball Classic, a cyst had been discovered on his right hip. On March 4, he left the team to see Philippon, who suggested surgery for a torn labrum in the same hip. After mulling over his options with Yankees officials, Rodriguez decided to undergo a less intensive procedure immediately, with follow-up surgery scheduled for November, after the season finished. Rodriguez had spent much of spring training with the Yankees under scrutiny following his admission to using performance-enhancing drugs. MLB officials March 1 interviewed Rodriguez for two hours in Tampa, Fla., the site of the Yankees’ training camp, about his drug use. The office of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig released no details from the meeting other than noting Rodriguez’s cooperation. Selig Feb. 12 had publicly chastised Rodriguez and other drug users as having “shamed the game.” At a Feb. 17 news conference in Tampa, Rodriguez had offered several revelations to reporters concerning his use of steroids. Flanked by several Yankee officials and teammates, Rodriguez said he and his cousin—whom he did not identify by name—had obtained a drug known as “boli” in the Dominican Republic and had injected it regularly from 2001 to 2003, when he played for the Texas Rangers. He repeatedly cited his youth for errors made earlier in his career, saying, “My mistake was because I was immature and stupid.” Evidence Against Clemens Bolstered—

The New York Times March 10 reported that banned substances had been found in FACTS ON FILE

syringes presented as evidence against seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens by his former trainer, Brian McNamee. The latest revelation came from federal authorities who were investigating possible perjury charges against Clemens, who had denied in 2008 congressional testimony that he ever used performance-enhancing drugs. In February, reports had linked the syringes to DNA belonging to Clemens. McNamee had claimed to have used the syringes to inject Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs. [See p. 87F3] n

Basketball West Wins NBA All-Star Game. The Western Conference Feb. 15 defeated the Eastern Conference, 146–119, to win the National Basketball Association (NBA) AllStar Game in Phoenix, Ariz. Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Phoenix Suns center Shaquille O’Neal—former teammates on the Lakers—were named co–most valuable players (MVPs) of the game. The two combined for 44 points, as well as several crowd-pleasing plays. [See 2008, p. 135A1] Other News—In other NBA news: o The New York Knicks Feb. 24 released guard Stephon Marbury. Marbury, who had joined the Knicks in 2004, had not played a regular-season game for the team since suffering an injury in January 2008; he was suspended in November of that year for allegedly refusing a request by coach Mike D’Antoni to play in a game against the Detroit Pistons. The former All-Star denied that he refused to play, claiming instead that he had only told D’Antoni that he did not want to play. Marbury, who lost some $400,000 in salary due to the suspension, had filed a grievance against the Knicks. The New York Times Feb. 25 reported that Marbury agreed to drop the grievance and forfeit some $2 million in salary in order to obtain the release. Marbury, 32, Feb. 27 signed with the Boston Celtics, and played his first game for them that night. [See 2007, p. 552E1; 2001, p. 523C2] o The Suns Feb. 16 fired coach Terry Porter, and named assistant Alvin Gentry interim coach. [See 2008, p. 439B3] o Seven-time All-Star center Alonzo Mourning Jan. 22 announced that he would retire rather than attempt a comeback. Mourning, 38, had not played since suffering a serious leg injury in December 2007. [See 2005, p. 175G1] o The Memphis Grizzlies Jan. 22 fired coach Marc Iavaroni, and Jan. 25 hired Lionel Hollins, an assistant for the Milwaukee Bucks, as his replacement. [See 2007, p. 439D3] n

Hockey East Wins NHL All-Star Game. The Eastern

Conference Jan. 25 defeated the Western Conference, 12–11, in an overtime shootout to win the National Hockey League March 12, 2009

(NHL) All-Star Game in Montreal, Quebec. Forward Alexei Kovalev, who played for the hometown Montreal Canadiens, scored two goals in regulation as well as the winning goal in the shootout, and was named the game’s most valuable player (MVP). The game—the second-highest-scoring All-Star Game ever—also served as a celebration of the Canadiens’ 100th anniversary. [See 2008, p. 186E2] The NHL for the 2009 All-Star Game implemented a policy under which players who missed the game but had played in their teams’ games just prior to the All-Star break were suspended for one game. However, players who failed to play in the AllStar Game but fulfilled their obligation to attend other All-Star festivities in Montreal were not punished. The NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) and the Detroit Red Wings—which had two All-Stars, Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk, who did not travel to Montreal in order to nurse nagging injuries and therefore were suspended—Feb. 25 protested the policy. Other News—In other NHL news: o The Canadiens March 9 fired coach Guy Carbonneau. Bob Gainey, the team’s executive vice president and general manager, would coach the team for the remainder of the season.

The New York Rangers Feb. 23 fired coach Tom Renney and assistant coach Perry Pearn, after the team lost 10 of its last 12 games. Later that day, Rangers said Renney would be replaced by John Tortorella, who had led the Tampa Bay Lightning to a Stanley Cup title in 2004. [See 2008, p. 760D1; 2004, p. 703D1] o

o The Pittsburgh Penguins Feb. 15 fired coach Michel Therrien, after the team started the season with a record of 27 wins, 25 losses and five ties. He was replaced on an interim basis by Dan Blysma, the coach of the team’s minor-league affiliate. Therrien was fired less than a year after leading the team to the Stanley Cup finals. [See 2008, p. 403A2] o The Ottawa Senators Feb. 2 fired coach Craig Hartsburg, after leading the team to the third-worst record in the league (17–24–7) at that point in the season. He was replaced by Cory Clouston, coach of the team’s minor-league affiliate. [See 2008, p. 760C1]

Jeff Shumway, the chairman and chief executive of the Phoenix Coyotes, Jan. 23 resigned. Team owner Jerry Moyes was said to be seeking to sell the financially troubled team, which reportedly anticipated a loss of at least $30 million for the 2008–09 season. Coach Wayne Gretzky Jan. 15 had confirmed to the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper that Moyes was looking for an investor who could keep the team in the Phoenix, Ariz., area. o

o The Red Wings Jan. 1 defeated the Chicago Blackhawks, 6–4, in an outdoor game played before 40,818 fans at Wrigley Field in Chicago, home of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. n

News in Brief Basketball: Summitt Gets 1,000th Win. Pat Summitt, coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers, Feb. 5 earned her 1,000th victory, with a 73–43 victory over Georgia in Knoxville, Tenn. She became the first coach in women’s or men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I basketball to reach that milestone. Summitt, 56, as of Feb. 5 had posted a record of 1,000 wins and 187 losses in 35 seasons as coach of the Lady Vols, and led the team to eight NCAA titles. Tennessee Feb. 5 announced that Summitt had signed a contract extension through 2014, under which she would earn $1.4 million per year. [See 2008, p. 245A3; 2005, p. 237C3] n

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Dog Shows: Spaniel, 10, Wins Westminster.

Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee, a Sussex spaniel, Feb. 10 was named best-inshow at the 133rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City. The 10-yearold spaniel, nicknamed Stump and handled by Scott Sommer, became the oldest dog to win the top prize at Westminster, and was also the first of his breed to claim the honor. The victory was a comeback of sorts for Stump, who had technically retired in 2005 and had suffered a serious illness soon afterward. [See 2008, p. 171E2] n

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Soccer: C. Ronaldo, Marta Top Players.

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), world soccer’s governing body, Jan. 12 named Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for English club Manchester United, the men’s world player of the year for 2008. Brazilian midfielder Marta was named the women’s world player of the year for the third time in a row. It had been announced Jan. 8 that Marta, 22, would play for the Los Angeles Sol of the new U.S.-based Women’s Professional Soccer league, which had seven teams and was scheduled to begin play March 29. [See 2007, p. 900G2] n

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Swimming: No Charge for Phelps Over Photo.

Richland County, S.C., Sheriff Leon Lott Feb. 16 announced that he did not have enough physical evidence to charge 14-time Olympic gold-medal-winning swimming champion Michael Phelps in connection with a photograph that had been published earlier in the month that showed him smoking marijuana. The photograph had been taken at a November 2008 party at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. USA Swimming, the governing body of the sport in the U.S., had suspended Phelps, 23, for three months due to the photo. Lott’s office said seven people had been charged with marijuana possession as a result of an investigation of the incident. [See p. 71B2] n

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Arts Saint Laurent Auction Shatters Records.

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tioned Feb. 23–25 at the Grand Palais in Paris. Auction house Christie’s International PLC had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent and refurbish much of the sprawling venue for the three-night, sixpart event. Despite the current global economic crisis, the entire event fetched about 375 million euros (US$480 million), by far the most money ever raised at auction for a private collection. Berge, 78, had decided to sell the art after Saint Laurent died in 2008 at age 71. Auction proceeds were to go to cultural projects and AIDS research and other charities. The auction drew special attention for its controversial inclusion of two Chinese artworks. [See below; 2008, p. 388F3] On the opening night of the auction, Feb. 23, approximately 206 million euros ($264 million) worth of art was sold. Auction records were broken for seven major artists: Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp of France, Piet Mondrian of the Netherlands, James Ensor of Belgium, Romanian-born Constantin Brancusi, Italy’s Giorgio de Chirico, and Paul Klee of Switzerland. The record-breaking works, and the prices they fetched, were: Matisse’s painting The Cuckoos, a Blue and Pink Rug (1911), 36 million euros ($46 million); Brancusi’s wooden statue Madame L.R. (c. 1914–17), 29.2 million euros; Mondrian’s painting Composition With Blue, Red, Yellow and Black (1922), 21.6 million euros; de Chirico’s painting The Ghost (c. 1918), 11 million euros; Duchamp’s mock perfume bottle Beautiful Breath, Eau de Violets (1921), 8.9 million euros; Ensor’s painting The Jealousy of Pierrot (1892), 5 million euros; and Klee’s painting Figure in a Garden (1932), four million euros. [See 2006, p. 1039E3; 2005, p. 995E2; 2004, pp. 1095C3, E3; 1999, p. 907E2] The second night of the auction, Feb. 24, saw record prices paid for works by French painter Theodore Gericault (1791– 1824) and Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray (1878–1976), among others. Gericault’s Portrait of Alfred and Elisabeth Dedreu (c. 1818), a painting of a young brother and sister, fetched nine million euros, three million euros more than Christie’s high estimate for the work. Also, a “dragon chair” created by Gray sometime before 1920 shattered the record for a piece of 20th-century furniture, fetching 21.9 million euros, more than seven times the high estimate for the piece. Chinese ‘Heads’ Sold, Buyer Reneges—

The final night of the auction, Feb. 25, saw the sale of two bronze sculptures dating back to China’s 18th-century Qing Dynasty and based on designs by an Italian Jesuit priest. One was a rabbit’s head; the other, the head of a rat. The Chinese government had tried unsuccessfully to block the sale, on the grounds that the pieces had been looted from the imperial summer palace in Beijing by French and British forces at the end of the second Opium War in 1860. Berge Feb. 20 had said he would withdraw the heads from the auction and return them to China if the Chinese government agreed to “observe human rights and give liberty to the Tibetan people and welcome the Dalai Lama.” The sale proceeded as 160

scheduled, after a French court Feb. 23 dismissed a lawsuit by Chinese lawyers. An anonymous telephone bidder paid 31 million euros for both heads. [See p. 116B2] On March 2, Chinese art dealer Cai Mingchao at a press conference in Beijing revealed that he had submitted the winning bid for the two heads but had no intention of paying for them, because he had considered it his patriotic duty, as a Chinese citizen, to sabotage the auction process. Berge March 3 indicated that he would most likely prefer to hold on to the two bronze heads, rather than sell them to the next-highest bidder. n

Awards PEN/Faulkner Award Winner Named. New York City–based author Joseph O’Neill Feb. 25 was named the winner of the 2009 PEN/ Faulkner Award for Netherland, his third novel. The book dealt with a Dutch expatriate’s involvement with a cricket-playing group of New York immigrants in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that felled the twin towers of the city’s World Trade Center. O’Neill, 45, was an Irish-born, British-trained lawyer who had lived in New York since 1998. [See 2008, p. 227E2] The $15,000 prize would be presented to O’Neill May 9 at Washington, D.C.’s Folger Shakespeare Library. n

People Levi Johnston, 19, who had been engaged to Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in the 2008 election, March 11 told the Associated Press that he and Bristol Palin had mutually agreed to end their relationship “a while ago.” The couple, who had a baby son, born in December 2008, had previously said they were planning to get married in the summer of 2009. [See 2008, p. 998C2] Tom Brady, the quarterback of the National Football League’s New England Patriots team, Feb. 26 in Santa Monica, Calif., wed Brazilian-born supermodel Gisele Buendchen. Neither Brady, 31, nor Buendchen, 28, had previously been married. Brady had an 18-month-old son from a previous relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan, 37. The child, John Edward Thomas Moynahan, was one of a small number of guests at the wedding. [See 2008, p. 667E2; 2005, p. 695D2] Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution Feb. 26 named Richard Koshalek to head its Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, effective April 13. Koshalek, 67, was best known in the art world for having directed Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) from 1980 to 1999. The Hirshhorn Museum’s previous director, Olga Viso, had left the post at the end of 2007 to become director of Minneapolis, Minn.’s Walker Art Center. Since Viso’s departure, the Hirshhorn’s acting director had been Kerry Brougher, the museum’s chief curator. Koshalek and Brougher, 56, had previously worked together at MOCA. [See p. 120D2; 2007, p. 619E2] n

O B I T UA R I E S ASHLEY, Sir Bernard (Albert), 82, British entrepreneur who with his wife, Laura Ashley, founded the international textiles, clothing and home furnishings empire that bore her name; he ran its business operations, while his wife, who died in 1985, was its main creative force; the company went public soon after her death, and Ashley, who was knighted at the end of 1986, eventually severed all ties with it; born Aug. 11, 1926, in London; died Feb. 14 at his home in the Elan Valley in Wales, reportedly after an 18-month battle with cancer. [See 1986, p. 1008E1; 1985, p. 704A3] CUBA, Joe (born Gilberto Miguel Calderon), 77, bandleader, conga player and songwriter who pioneered the “Latin boogaloo” style, a fusion of Latin music with rhythm and blues, in the 1960s; his songs, which included such hits as “El Pito” (“The Whistle”) (1965) and “Bang Bang” (1966), were among the first to mix Spanish with English lyrics; born April 22, 1931, in New York City; died at a New York hospital Feb. 15, of a widespread bacterial infection; he had never recovered from hip replacement surgery performed in 2008. DANNENBERG, Konrad, 96, German-born rocket scientist who followed his mentor, Wernher von Braun, to the U.S. after World War II and played a key role in the development of the Saturn V rockets that propelled U.S. astronauts to the moon in 1969; born Aug. 5, 1912, in Weissenfels; died Feb. 16 at a rehabilitation center in Huntsville, Ala. [See 2008, p. 440F3; 1977, p. 532G3] GODBER, Sir George (Edward), 100, physician who had been the last surviving member of the planning group that gave rise to Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), launched in 1948; he was Britain’s chief medical officer from 1960 to 1973; born Aug. 4, 1908, in Willington, England; died Feb. 7. [See 1971, p. 899A2, C2; 1948, p. 146H] KNOPF Jr., Alfred A., 90, only child of publishing legends Alfred A. Knopf and Blanche Wolf Knopf and a publisher in his own right; after serving in the military during World War II, he worked for his parents’ company, Alfred A. Knopf Inc., until 1959, when he struck out on his own, founding Atheneum Publishers with Simon Bessie, who died in 2008, and Hiram Haydn, who died in 1973; he retired from publishing in 1988, as a senior vice president at Macmillan Inc.; born June 17, 1918, in White Plains, N.Y.; died Feb. 14 in New York City, of complications following a fall. [See 2008, p. 248C3; 1984, p. 668C2; 1973, p. 1108C3; 1966, p. 336A1] McDONALD, Wesley Lee, 84, admiral who commanded the October 1983 invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, ordered by then–U.S. President Ronald Reagan; McDonald at the time was commander in chief of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in the Atlantic; he retired from the Navy in 1985; as a naval aviator in 1964, during the Vietnam War, he had led the first air strike against North Vietnam in connection with what came to be known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident; born July 26, 1924, in Arlington, Va.; died Feb. 8 in Arlington; he had been battling normal pressure hydrocephalus, a neurological condition. [See 2001, p. 955C3; 1983, pp. 827F3, 825F2] NOLAN, Christopher John, 43, Irish author, mute, spastic and brain-damaged since birth, who in 1988 won Britain’s prestigious Whitbread Book of the Year Award for Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan, an autobiography written in the third person; his other works included poetry, short stories and a novel, The Banyan Tree, published in 1999; he did all his writing by tapping the keys of a typewriter with a stick attached to his forehead; born Sept. 6, 1965, in Mullingar, Ireland; died Feb. 20 at a hospital in Dublin, Ireland, after a piece of food became lodged in his windpipe. [See 1988, p. 432F1] UPWARD, Edward Falaise, 105, author who belonged to a generation of left-wing British writers, including W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood, who became prominent in the 1930s; the latter three all became better-known than he was, but continued to turn to him for advice as their careers progressed; despite being the oldest of the lot, he outlived them all, and saw much of his work, including short stories and novels, reissued, or published for the first time, late in life; born Sept. 9, 1903, in Romford, England; died Feb. 13 in Pontefract, England. [See 1995, p. 528D3; 1986, p. 8C2; 1973, p. 959B3] YANG, Xiangzhong (Jerry), 49, Chinese-born reproductive biologist who led a team that cloned the first farm animal born in the U.S., a calf named Amy, born in 1999 at the University of Connecticut; he began teaching there in 1996, and did so for most of the rest of his life; born July 31, 1959, in Weixian, a farming collective south of Beijing; died Feb. 5 at a hospital in Boston, Mass., of salivary gland cancer. n

March 12, 2009

Lawmakers, Obama Express Outrage Over Bonus Payments at Bailed-Out Insurer AIG House Votes for 90% Tax on Bonuses.

President Barack Obama March 16 said it was an “outrage” that American International Group Inc. (AIG) had paid a total of $165 million in bonuses to employees, after the insurance giant received more than $170 billion in government aid. He said his administration would “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses.” The bonuses had sparked a vociferous outcry from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, prompting AIG Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Edward Liddy March 18 to say he was asking the employees to give “at least half” of the bonuses back. [See p. 126C2] The House March 19 voted to impose a 90% income tax on bonuses paid by companies that had received federal rescue funds. [See below] While AIG had not attempted to hide the bonuses, administration officials said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had only become aware of them March 10. The $165 million was part of a $450 million personnel retention package that had been negotiated in early 2008, before the U.S. government took a 79.9% stake in the company in September 2008. Another $55 million in bonuses had previously been paid, while an additional $230 million was slated to be distributed later in 2009. In recent months, a strong public backlash had emerged against financial institutions that continued to grant lavish bonuses and other perks to their executives, after turning to the government for help. Obama and Congress had introduced a series of measures to cap bonuses at such companies. [See pp. 91A1, 61C2] But the latest bonuses were considered particularly egregious, since AIG was by far the largest recipient of government aid, with $70 billion of its $170 billion rescue package being financed directly by taxpayers, with the rest coming in the form of loans from the Federal Reserve. Additionally, the bonuses in question were being distributed to employees at AIG Financial Products Corp., a unit that had specialized in exotic financial products that nearly brought down the company and, according to government officials, the global financial system. The unit was separate from AIG’s traditional insurance businesses, and had invested heavily in the credit-default-swaps (CDS) market, where it underwrote insurance on assets backed by risky loans, including home mortgages. When a housing market bubble burst in 2006, AIG was on the hook for billions of dollars in insurance payments, and found itself struggling to pay its trading partners. The government intervened in September 2008 to shore up the company, fearing that an AIG collapse would have a domino effect on financial institutions around the globe, since the company’s trading partners would have to post huge losses on their AIG deals. By September, the face value of the unit’s CDS contracts was $2.7 trillion. [See below]

The public outcry against the bonuses threatened to complicate Obama’s plans to fix the ailing financial system, since he was widely expected to request that Congress authorize more taxpayer money for that purpose. Congress in November 2008 had authorized $700 billion in funds, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), more than half of which had already been spent or allocated. Additionally, observers said banks and other financial institutions could grow reluctant to cooperate with the government if their activities continued to be harshly scrutinized by the public. AIG Defends Bonuses—In a letter to Geithner March 14, Liddy wrote that he found it “distasteful” to disburse the bonuses, which began going out March 13. But he maintained that AIG was contractually obligated to pay them, and said the company needed to provide incentives to help retain employees whose expertise in complex financial products would help the company unwind its insurance contracts. The government had asked Liddy to take the helm of AIG in September 2008, and he was currently receiving a salary of $1 a year, with no bonus payments. [See 2008, p. 934F2] Geithner March 11 had reportedly spoken to Liddy and demanded that the bonuses be rescinded. But Obama administration officials by March 15 appeared to accept that the contracts could not be broken. Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, March 15 acknowledged that there was “a lot of anger” about AIG’s “irresponsibility,” in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” But he added, “We are a country of laws. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate the contracts.” Officials with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury had also reportedly concluded that breaking the contracts could result in lawsuits more costly than the bonuses themselves. However, mounting public dissatisfaction with the bonuses led Obama—who according to White House officials learned about the bonuses March 12—to accuse AIG March 16 of “recklessness and greed,” and call for a halt to the bonuses. In a letter to Congress March 17, Geithner said $165 million would be deducted from a $30 billion capital infusion that the Treasury had agreed to provide to AIG in early March. Obama March 18 asked Congress to provide the administration with “resolution authority,” similar to that held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which would allow the executive branch to legally cancel contracts. Lawmakers across the political spectrum sharply criticized AIG over the bonuses. Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, March 17 said the government, as the company’s single largest shareholder, should “exercise its ownership rights” over AIG and take back the bonuses. Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, March 16 had said, alluding to

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3561 March 19, 2009

B Japanese customs, that AIG employees should “resign or commit suicide,” a statement he later tempered by saying he had meant to urge AIG to show more remorse. Liddy March 18 testified before the House Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets, insurance and government sponsored enterprises, where he said he would ask employees who had received $100,000 or more in bonuses to return at least half of the money. He said some had already volunteered to return all the bonus money they had received. Lawmakers were not placated by the compromise, and continued to vent their outrage. Liddy resisted calls by Frank to publicize the names of the bonus recipients, claiming that AIG employees had received death threats in recent days. Liddy told the subcommittee that AIG Financial Products since September 2008 had unwound CDS contracts totaling $1.1

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Lawmakers, Obama express outrage over bonus payments at bailed-out insurer AIG; House votes for 90% tax on bonuses. PAGE 161

G-20 finance leaders pledge ‘action’ to restore global growth. PAGE 163

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Fed to purchase $1.2 trillion in Treasuries, mortgages; leaves interest rate at near zero. PAGE 163

U.S. auto parts makers get federal aid. PAGE 164

Obama administration drops ‘enemy combatant’ classification. PAGE 165

Madagascar’s president resigns amid opposition, military pressure; military names former mayor of capital president.

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Funes, of leftist FMLN party, elected president of El Salvador. PAGE 170

France sets return to NATO command. PAGE 172

IAEA says Iran has sufficient material for atomic bomb. PAGE 173

Pakistani Supreme Court chief justice reinstated. PAGE 175

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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trillion in face value, but that the remaining $1.6 trillion in outstanding contracts still posed a “substantial risk” to the global financial system. Details of Bonuses Provided by Cuomo—

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New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in a March 17 letter to Frank said the bonus money was split between 418 employees, with 73 of them receiving more than $1 million. Cuomo said 52 people, accounting for $33.6 million in bonus money, no longer worked at AIG, contradicting claims by AIG that the purpose of the bonuses was to retain employees who might otherwise leave the company. One employee, Douglas Poling, an executive vice president, received a bonus of $6.4 million. Cuomo March 16 had subpoenaed AIG to provide the information. Banks Get $120 Billion From AIG— Under pressure from lawmakers, AIG March 15 had released details on how it had spent a total of about $120 billion in government aid between September 16, 2008 and December 31, 2008. About $52 billion was used to finance operations at AIG Financial Products, including $22.4 billion to post collateral to its CDS trading partners, and $27.1 billion to buy CDS contracts so that AIG could cancel them. AIG had spent an additional $43.7 billion to pay debts from its securities-lending business, which had exchanged securities for cash, and used the cash to purchase assets backed by mortgages, which subsequently dropped in value. AIG also released a list of its main trading partners and the amount of government money each had received. U.S. bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. topped the list, receiving $12.9 billion. Other U.S. banks included Merrill Lynch & Co. ($6.8 billion), Bank of America Corp. ($5.2 billion), Citigroup Inc. ($2.3 billion) and Wachovia Corp. ($1.5 billion). All of those banks had separately received direct aid from the U.S. government. (Wachovia and Merrill Lynch were later acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America, respectively.) AIG also made payments to foreign banks, including France’s Societe Generale SA ($12 billion), Germany’s Deutsche Bank ($12 billion), Britain’s Barclays PLC ($8.5 billion) and Switzerland’s UBS AG ($5 billion). AIG said it had made a total of $12 billion in payments to U.S. states and municipalities, and released a list of the top 20 such recipients by state, which was headed by California. House Passes Tax on Bonuses— The House March 19 voted, 328–93, to pass a bill that would impose a 90% income tax on bonuses paid to employees at financial institutions that had received more than $5 billion in TARP money. The tax would apply to individuals with household incomes of more than $250,000. The bill, proposed by Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), received support from 243 Democrats and 85 Republicans. Six Democrats and 87 Republicans voted against it. The bill was touted as a means for the government to get the bonus money back from AIG. The Senate was considering a similar measure. The House bill had been placed on a fast-track process that required a two-

thirds vote to pass, a hurdle easily cleared. Republican leaders opposed a fast-track bill in the Senate, saying they wanted to hold hearings to further investigate who had watered down a provision in recent legislation that would have placed strict limits on bonuses at companies that had received government aid. The provision in question was part of a $787 billion economic recovery package signed into law by Obama in February. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) had introduced the provision, which in its original form would have applied to companies that had already received aid. However, the final version said bonus contracts written before Feb. 11 were exempt from the provision. Dodd March 18 had said, “I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment, but I did so at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG.” He did not identify the officials. Geithner March 19 in an interview with the Cable News Network (CNN) said Treasury officials had pressed Dodd to alter the provision, because it “was vulnerable to legal challenge.” Obama Defends Geithner—Obama March 18 defended Geithner against accusations that he should have been aware of the bonuses before March 10. Geithner had also come under fire from lawmakers for failing to produce a detailed plan to rid the financial system of mortgage-backed and other risky assets that had led to massive profit losses and caused a crisis of confidence on Wall Street. [See p. 76A3] Obama said no Treasury secretary, “except maybe Alexander Hamilton,” had faced the “multiplicity of issues that Secretary Geithner is having to deal with.” He said he had “complete confidence” in Geithner, who was “making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand,” referring to the fact that the Obama administration had inherited the financial crisis upon taking office. Obama also sought to quell some of the heated rhetoric that had emerged in recent days, saying he wanted to “channel our anger in a constructive way.” The AIG bonus controversy had flared up as the Treasury struggled to fill senior positions that required confirmation by the Senate, leaving the department understaffed as it attempted to address the financial crisis. Several Treasury nominees had withdrawn from consideration, and thus far none, besides Geithner, had been confirmed. Analysts said the withdrawals were a result of the Obama administration’s stringent vetting process, which reportedly required months of questioning and background checks. The process had been intensified after it was revealed that prominent administration nominees had failed to pay some of the taxes they owed, including Geithner and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (S.D.). Geithner survived his confirmation process, but Daschle, who had been named to head the Department of Health and Human Services, withdrew over the controversy. [See pp. 59A2, 44D1] n

Global Economy G-20 Finance Leaders Pledge ‘Action.’ Fi-

nance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies March 13–14 met in Horsham, England, where they pledged to “take whatever action is necessary” to restore growth to the global economy. In a communique released March 14, the G-20 emphasized that its members had taken “coordinated” steps to resolve the global economic crisis, but in the days running up to the meeting disagreements had emerged over the best method for doing so. The meeting preceded a summit that was to be attended by G-20 heads of state on April 2 in London. [See pp. 116C3, 58D1; 2008, p. 846D2] In addition to promising to boost growth, the G-20 said it was committed to reforming the global financial system, including requiring the registration of hedge funds, which were lightly regulated. The G-20 also pledged a very substantial but unspecified increase of contributions to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and said emerging economies “should have a greater voice” at the IMF. The G-20 did not offer many specific details on its pledges. [See below] Finance ministers strove to present a united front, with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling March 14 saying there was a “great deal of consensus” among the countries, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying there was a “broad consensus globally on the need to act aggressively.” However, rifts were apparent, particularly over the issue of fiscal stimulus. The U.S. was widely thought to have urged Eu-

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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ropean countries to enact new stimulus packages—which included government spending and tax breaks—but some had resisted, most notably Germany and France, arguing that fixing financial markets was a more important priority. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck March 14 said, “We are convinced it makes no sense to pump more and more money in our economy when we haven’t restored the confidence on the financial markets.” France, Germany Reject New Stimulus—

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference in Berlin, Germany, March 12 said they were opposed to introducing new stimulus packages. Both had unveiled stimulus packages in recent months, but neither equaled 2% of yearly gross domestic product (GDP), a threshold that U.S. President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials had urged other countries to meet. [See pp. 116G3, 89A1, 22F3] German and French officials were reportedly concerned about the effect additional stimulus packages would have on their national debts. Additionally, observers said the 2% threshold, adopted from an IMF estimate, failed to take into account the increased welfare support in France and Germany that automatically took effect in times of economic crisis. European finance ministers of the eurozone—the 16 countries that shared the euro currency—March 9 said they would wait to see what effect previously enacted stimulus packages had before committing to new ones. The announcement followed a meeting in Brussels, Belgium. U.S. Proposes Big Boost for IMF—Geithner March 11 proposed that the world’s leading economies commit an additional $500 billion worth of funding to the IMF, so that the organization had adequate resources to prop up developing economies hard hit by the global crisis. Under the proposal, the U.S. would increase its contribution to the IMF’s emergency lending unit to $100 billion, from $10 billion. The proposed increase was greater than what the IMF or the European Union had called for, with both pushing for an increase of about $250 billion. The IMF currently had $250 billion in funds. The U.S. and other countries were reportedly encouraging China and other countries with large foreign currency reserves to increase their IMF funding. Japan had already committed an additional $100 billion to the IMF. [See 2008, p. 847F1] Since the financial crisis began in 2008, the IMF had issued nearly $50 billion in loans to Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Iceland and Pakistan. Analysts said the IMF could take the lead in assisting economies in Eastern Europe, since the European Union earlier in March had rejected pleas for an economic bailout of the region. [See p. 136G1] n Switzerland, Other Tax Havens to Lift Secrecy.

Switzerland March 13 joined several other European countries known as tax havens in March 19, 2009

pledging to ease bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on sharing tax information, in response to growing pressure to crack down on tax evasion. [See p. 100A2] Austria and Luxembourg made similar pledges that day, following statements by the small principalities of Andorra and Liechtenstein March 12. Monaco followed suit March 16. Belgium March 12 said it would negotiate a system for sharing tax information with fellow European Union members. Among leading tax havens outside Europe, Singapore March 6 had pledged to ease its bank secrecy laws, and China’s autonomous Hong Kong region had made such a pledge the previous week. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) March 5 had reportedly updated its blacklist of uncooperative tax havens to include Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong. The list expanded on a previous one that had comprised only Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco. Switzerland, the world’s largest tax haven, March 13 pledged to adopt the legal standards of the OECD, which defined tax evasion as a crime and required members to cooperate with international tax investigations. Switzerland had previously maintained that it was not obliged to cooperate with foreign tax probes because its laws treated tax evasion as a civil offense, rather than a criminal offense on the level of tax fraud. Swiss President and Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz March 13 said Switzerland would limit its cooperation to “individual cases” in which foreign tax investigators provided specific evidence of wrongdoing. He said there would be “no automatic exchange of information,” and warned against “fishing expeditions” seeking to trawl through the files of large numbers of banking clients. Merz also said Switzerland might seek an amnesty for tax evasion committed before the signing of treaties formalizing the new standards. Germany, France to Keep Up Pressure—

Germany and France March 16 said they would continue to campaign for support for international sanctions against tax havens that refused to cooperate with tax evasion probes. German officials expressed skepticism about the pledges by Switzerland and other countries, and said they planned to raise the issue of sanctions at an April 2 summit in London of the leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) nations with advanced or emerging economies. Britain said it would also continue to press for action against banking secrecy. [See p. 162A3] A bill pending in the U.S. Congress, backed by President Barack Obama, would also impose sanctions on offshore tax havens. U.S authorities in February had reached a settlement in a tax evasion case with UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, in which UBS agreed to pay $780 million in fines and other penalties and disclose the names of U.S. clients. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Fed to Purchase $1.2 Trillion in Treasuries, Mortgages Interest Rate Left at Near Zero. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policymaking body of the Federal Reserve, March 18 voted unanimously to purchase as much as $300 billion worth of long-term Treasury securities and increase its purchases of assets backed by mortgages by up to $750 billion, in a bid to resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets. The FOMC also voted to leave its benchmark federal-funds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. [See p. 45B2; 2008, p. 865G1] Under the plan, the Fed would purchase up to $1.25 trillion worth of mortgagebacked assets issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-controlled mortgage-financing giants. The Fed had previously said it would buy $500 billion worth of such assets. Additionally, the Fed would double its maximum for purchases of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt, to $200 billion. The move was intended to lower interest rates on the underlying mortgages, and prop up the slumping housing market. The Fed also said it would buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months, a departure from its ordinary purchases of shorter-term instruments. Treasury yields were widely used as a gauge for setting interest rates on a variety of different loans, and increased purchases of Treasuries resulted in lower yields. The Fed said the move would “help improve conditions in private credit markets,” which some analysts interpreted as an affirmation that the Fed was not attempting to reduce the government’s deficit by lowering the interest rates it had to pay on its loans. Investors reacted positively to the announcement, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 90.88 points, or 1.23%, to end at 7,486.58. Investors said the Fed’s plan showed that it would continue to take aggressive action to combat the credit crunch, even though it had already exhausted its traditional monetary policy tool—adjusting the benchmark interest rate—by lowering the rate to near zero. The impact on Treasury yields was immediate, with the 10-year Treasury note March 18 falling to 2.53%, from 3.00% the previous day, the largest single-day percentage drop since 1987. While the Fed had openly considered purchasing Treasury securities, the central bank had not given any indication that it was ready to do so, surprising investors. Analysts said the Bank of England’s plan to buy up to £150 billion ($210 billion) worth of British government bonds, announced the previous week, had convinced the Fed that the plan could ease interest rates in the near term. The Bank of Japan March 18 said it would buy 1.8 trillion yen ($15 billion–$18 billion) worth of Japanese government bonds a month, up from its current rate of 1.4 trillion, set in January. [See p. 155G2] The exchange value of the U.S. dollar, however, fell steeply against the euro, the 163

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European Union’s common currency. At the close of trading March 18, one euro was worth $1.34, up from $1.30 the previous day, the euro’s largest one-day gain since its introduction in 1999. Investors fled from the dollar because the Fed’s plan would effectively increase the money supply, devaluing the dollar’s worth. Increasing the money supply had the potential to increase inflation. But prices were currently depressed due to an ongoing recession, reportedly easing the Fed’s concerns about inflation. n

Other Economy News Treasury Sets Small Business Lending Aid.

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President Barack Obama March 16 announced that the Treasury would attempt to help small businesses receive credit by purchasing up to $15 billion in securities linked to small business loans. Obama made the announcement at a meeting in the White House with small business owners and representatives of small community banks. Obama said the wider credit crisis, attributed to the plummeting value of complex mortgage-backed securities and other dubious financial instruments, had frozen credit markets for small businesses, closing their access to financing necessary to continue routine operations. [See p. 76A3] “Today, too many entrepreneurs can’t access the capital to start, operate or grow their businesses,” Obama said. The White House in a statement released that day said that “economic recovery will be driven in large part by America’s small businesses.” Obama said small businesses had been responsible for creating an estimated 70% of jobs over the past 10 years. The purchase of the securities would be financed by a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and was set to begin in late March. Also, the Small Business Administration (SBA) would guarantee up to 90% of the loan value on credit extended to small businesses. Under the previous policy, the SBA would guarantee up to 85% of loans below $150,000 and 75% of loans exceeding that figure. The SBA would also suspend assessing fees associated with the loans. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that day said his department would require the 21 largest banks receiving federal rescue package funds to report the percentage of their lending that was provided to small businesses. The plan was criticized for potentially wasting assistance on businesses that were unsound. Others said the purchases of the securities could end up providing greater help to large businesses and lenders, as opposed to small businesses. n Trade Deficit Fell to $36 Billion in January.

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The Commerce Department March 13 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in Trade Deficit goods and servicbillions) es for January was January(in 2009 $36.03 $36.0 billion, Previous Month $39.93 down from a re- Year Earlier $59.16 vised $39.9 billion in December 2008, and the sixth straight 164

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* January December 2009 2008 -20.57 -4.30 -2.49 -3.48 -2.68 -1.62

-19.88 -5.27 -2.79 -6.97 -4.08 -0.92

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

month the deficit had dropped. The drop came as a result of an ongoing recession, which suppressed U.S. demand for imports. Another central factor was the falling price of imported oil. [See p. 111E3] Imports decreased by $11.5 billion in January, to $160.9 billion. Besides oil, the change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. Exports in January fell to $124.9 billion, a $7.6 billion drop from the preceding month, as demand for U.S. goods fell as a result of a global economic downturn. The change was led by decreased exports of capital goods and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. n

Automobiles Parts Makers Receive Federal Backing. The Treasury Department March 19 announced that it would create a $5 billion fund to aid U.S. auto parts suppliers, which for months had warned that they were in danger of going bankrupt as a result of turmoil within the auto industry. Auto parts suppliers generally received payment for parts after they were delivered to automakers. Under the plan, the Treasury guaranteed parts suppliers payment for parts shipped to automakers, “no matter what happens to the recipient car company.” Michigan-based automakers Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. (GM) had recently received billions of dollars in government aid and were undergoing drastic, government-mandated restructuring amid fears that they would abruptly run out of cash. [See below, p. 92D2] The program set aside much less than the $25.5 billion in aid that parts makers had requested in February. According to a report published March 19 in the Washington Post, an unnamed member of President Barack Obama’s auto task force had said that while the government wanted to support the parts industry, “We have to allocate capital in a prudent manner…we can’t help every company in every industry.” Generally, automakers paid parts suppliers within 60 days of a parts order shipping date. Parts makers were able to sell or borrow money against the automakers’ debts, called receivables, in order to fund their daily operations. However, since the drastic decline of the U.S. auto industry became apparent, banks had become reluc-

tant to honor automaker debt, leaving some parts makers underfunded. The federal initiative, however, would also allow parts suppliers to sell receivables to the government for cash as opposed to trying to unload them on banks. The plan was funded through the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) financial rescue initiative, which had been authorized in November 2008. It would be administered through U.S. auto companies that agreed to participate in it. All U.S.-based auto parts suppliers that shipped to participating automakers were eligible for the federal guarantee. GM and Chrysler had already signed up, but Ford Motor Co., which had not received federal rescue loans, said it would not participate, and added that “we remain viable and expect no issue with continued payment to our suppliers.” [See 2008, p. 825A1] Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the program would “provide supply companies with much-needed access to liquidity…while giving the domestic auto companies reliable access to the parts they need.” The supplier payment guarantee was the first major action taken by President Barack Obama’s auto task force. The task force would also review Chrysler and GM’s restructuring plans, which were due March 31, and make recommendations on whether the companies should receive additional loans. [See p. 93D1] U.S. Auto Sales Continue to Plummet—

Autodata Corp., a research and statistics firm, March 3 released figures that showed that sales of new automobiles in February had reached their lowest level since December 1981. Compared with February 2008, GM’s sales declined by 53.1%, Chrysler’s, by 44%, and Ford’s, by 48.5%. The three automakers sold a total of 309,270 new vehicles in February, compared with 611,008 in February 2008. [See p. 62A3] n

Legislation Bill on Unionizing Introduced. Rep. George Miller (D, Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin, (D, Iowa) March 10 introduced the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in the House and Senate, respectively. The legislation, first introduced in 2003, would allow a company’s workers to decide on how to vote to unionize: either by reaching a majority who had signed union cards, known as “card check,” or by holding a secret ballot. Under the current system, employers could force a secret ballot. [See pp. 63D2, 60C1] Organized-labor advocates favored the card-check system because it made it easier for workers to unionize. Business advocates preferred the secret ballot requirement, which they argued ensured a democratic vote. However, labor leaders claimed that the secret ballot system allowed employers to intimidate workers prior to unionization votes. Business leaders in turn claimed that the card-check system allowed unions to intimidate workers. The bill would also require that a government arbitrator be brought in to settle contract disputes that could not be resolved FACTS ON FILE

within 120 days of a union’s formation.While President Barack Obama supported the bill, it was opposed by business groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and nearly every congressional Republican. Supporters of EFCA said the legislation was necessary to counteract the decline of the labor movement over the past few decades, and that the revitalization of labor unions could help close the widening gap between rich and poor. The bill’s opponents said the EFCA would discourage companies from creating jobs in the U.S. and exacerbate the current recession. They also opposed the mandatory arbitration provision. The legislation was expected to pass easily in the House, but Democrats, who currently held 56 seats in the Senate, needed 60 votes to overcome an expected Republican filibuster. Sen. Arlen Specter (R, Pa.), was considered to hold a key vote on the issue. He had voted in favor of advancing EFCA in 2007, but the Wall Street Journal March 10 reported that Specter was undecided on the bill. Also, a few Democrats had expressed concern about the effects of passing the bill amid the economy’s current weakness. n

Obama Administration Seattle Police Chief Named Drug Czar.

President Barack Obama March 11 nominated Seattle, Wash., Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Known informally as the “drug czar,” the director oversaw the creation and oversight of the U.S. government’s antidrug policies. Under the Bush administration, the drug czar had been part of the cabinet, but the position had been downgraded under Obama. [See 2007, p. 477F2] Vice President Joseph Biden said at the ceremony to announce Kerlikowske’s nomination that the administration would put a new emphasis on treating drug abusers who committed crimes, rather than simply imprisoning them. However, he also promised that the government would not neglect efforts to police the U.S. border with Mexico, a major point of entry for illegal drugs. Biden had helped to create the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the 1980s during his time in the Senate, and was expected to play a major role in setting the Obama administration’s antidrug policy. Kerlikowske said at the ceremony that “the success of our efforts to reduce the flow of drugs is largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them.” Prior to becoming Seattle’s police chief, Kerlikowske had served as a Justice Department official under President Bill Clinton and as police commissioner of Buffalo, N.Y. He noted in his speech that “as a police officer but also in my own family, I have experienced the effects that drugs can have,” apparently referring to his adult stepson, who had previously been arrested on drugrelated charges. The post of drug czar was subject to Senate confirmation and some analysts suggested that his stepson’s drug use could complicate his nomination. March 19, 2009

Medical Marijuana Raids to End—Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. March 18 said the Obama administration would not make it a priority to conduct federal raids against medical marijuana facilities that were operating in accordance with state law, citing the need to judiciously allocate law enforcement resources. However, Holder also said people who violated state medical marijuana laws or attempted to use such laws as “a shield for activity” that was not medical in nature would be targeted. Prosecutions were expected to focus on dispensaries that sold medical marijuana to minors, and on people with fake marijuana prescriptions. Holder Feb. 25 had said, in response to a reporter’s question, that Obama’s campaign statements opposing raids carried out under the Bush administration on medical marijuana facilities that abided by state laws were consistent with the Justice Department’s planned policy. However, Holder’s comments had been widely interpreted as suggesting that the federal government would carry out no further raids against any medical marijuana facilities, which reportedly led Holder on March 18 to clarify his previous statements. California had legalized medical marijuana in 1996, and 12 other states, including Oregon and Michigan, had subsequently passed similar laws. Under the Bush administration, federal raids of medical marijuana dispensaries and farms in California, among other states, had triggered criticism from state officials. However, the Supreme Court had ruled in 2001 that federal laws banning marijuana superseded state medical marijuana laws, allowing federal raids of medical marijuana facilities to continue. [See 2001, p. 370A2] Separately, state legislators in both California and Oregon had recently introduced bills related to the regulation of marijuana within their states. Neither bill was expected to be enacted. Under the Oregon bill, introduced March 11 by Republican legislator Ron Maurer, the state government would control and oversee all medical marijuana farming and distribution in the state. The bill was reportedly intended to ensure that the drug was being used for medical purposes only. California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat, Feb. 23 introduced a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana use for persons who were 21 years old or older. The bill also allowed for the additional regulation and taxation of the state’s market for marijuana. Ammiano estimated that legalizing and taxing marijuana would net the state more than $1 billion per year in additional revenue. n

Terrorism Detainees ‘Enemy Combatant’ Term Dropped. The Jus-

tice Department March 13 announced in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that it would no longer classify terrorism detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as “enemy combatants” and had limited the terms under which such suspects could be held indefinitely. President Barack Obama had

ordered the closure of Guantanamo by January 2010 as part of his administration’s efforts to revise U.S. antiterrorism policies put in place under President George W. Bush. [See pp. 129A3, 112F2] The Justice Department argued in the filing that the president had the authority to order the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects who had “substantially supported Taliban or Al Qaeda forces or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” The statement said that Obama’s authority stemmed from an authorization of use of force passed by Congress following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., and was consistent with international laws of war. The changes applied to all of the more than 240 detainees currently held at Guantanamo. Under the Bush administration, the Justice Department had argued that the president had inherent constitutional authority to detain terrorism suspects, including U.S. citizens. Bush had authorized the detention of any suspects who had “directly supported” the international terrorist network Al Qaeda or Afghanistan’s Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group, a standard that analysts said was broader than that put forward by the Obama administration. However, many legal experts said the new policy would represent little change in practice from the Bush administration’s. In its filing, the Justice Department said that while the standard applied to detainees would be the same in all cases, “the particular facts and circumstances justifying detention will vary from case to case.” The Washington Post reported March 14 that judges in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., had previously rejected that approach, finding that doing so was unfair to the detainees and their attorneys.

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U.S., E.U. Discuss Detainee Transfers—

Representatives of the European Union March 16 met with Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and other Obama administration officials in Washington, D.C., to discuss the possibility of EU countries accepting detainees from Guantanamo as part of Obama’s plan to close the prison. Guantanamo had about 60 detainees who had been found not to pose a threat to society but whose release had been delayed because the U.S. government refused to return them to their home countries due to concerns that they would be tortured there. [See 2008, p. 958D3] Under the Bush administration, the U.S. had asked individual EU member nations to accept Guantanamo detainees, but had been unable to place many. Analysts suggested that the Bush administration’s tendency to justify its indefinite detention of the suspects by highlighting allegations of dangerous terrorist activities had made other countries reluctant to accept them; the Obama administration was reportedly less concerned with arguing that all detainees had been correctly detained. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos Feb. 24 had announced that Spain would consider accepting detainees from Guantanamo. The EU reportedly wanted the U.S. government to accept some of the detainees 165

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cleared for release into the U.S., and to hand over all information concerning detainees that EU countries were considering accepting. In addition, EU representatives had asked for guarantees that the U.S. would not follow its closure of Guantanamo by creating a similar prison system at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, or elsewhere. Separately, it was reported March 13 that the U.S. government had begun negotiations with the government of Saudi Arabia on a plan that would send a group of Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. reportedly planned to file charges against 15 of the group of about 100 Yemeni detainees and to send another 15 back to Yemen; the proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia was expected to involve some of the remaining 70 detainees. [See pp. 119A1, 20D2] Yemen was widely viewed as a haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and the U.S. government had previously been hesitant to release detainees to the custody of the Yemeni government. However, Saudi Arabia had developed a rehabilitation program for former detainees that experts said had been largely successful at keeping detainees from becoming involved or re-involved with terrorist organizations. A spokesman for the government of Yemen March 13 said it would oppose efforts to send Yemeni detainees to any other country. Yemen was reportedly designing its own detainee rehabilitation program based on the Saudi model. Pentagon Claims Rising Recidivism Rate—

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Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell Jan. 13 said that 61 of about 520 former detainees had become involved in terrorist activities after their release from Guantanamo as of Dec. 24, 2008, a recidivism rate of about 11%. That rate was an increase from a rate of 7% reported by the Defense Department in March 2008. [See 2008, p. 305F1] Morrell said that the total of 61 included 18 former detainees whose new involvement in terrorism had been confirmed, as well as another 43 detainees who were suspected of having returned to terrorism. According to Morrell, the Defense Department had connected the former detainees to terrorist activities through the use of photographs, fingerprints and other evidence. The Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research, which had issued a 2007 report disputing previous detainee recidivism claims made by the Defense Department, Jan. 15 issued a statement criticizing the Defense Department’s new claims. It said the department had offered scant support for its claims, had branded former detainees as recidivists merely for criticizing the U.S., and in some cases had cited individuals who had never been detained at Guantanamo. Guantanamo Closure Official Chosen—

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton March 12 appointed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried as a special envoy in charge of expediting the closure of Guantanamo. Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, was expected to conduct negotiations with 166

other countries on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees. [See p. 112D3] Holder March 11 appointed two other officials to lead task forces created to rework the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies. Holder named California federal prosecutor J. Douglas Wilson as the head of a task force overseeing an examination of U.S. guidelines for the interrogation and transfer of terrorism detainees. Holder selected Justice Department attorney Brad Wiegmann to lead a task force that would revise the government’s legal arguments for the detention of future terrorism suspects.n

Politics Cheney Says Obama Moves Raise Risk.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney in a television interview March 15 asserted that President Barack Obama’s moves to reverse some of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies “raise the risk to the American people of another attack.” Cheney used the interview, on the Cable News Network (CNN) talk show “State of the Union,” to defend President George W. Bush’s record of preventing further attacks on the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Cheney also criticized Obama’s economic policies. It was his first television interview since leaving office in January. [See pp. 165G2, 28G1] Among his biggest reversals of Bush’s policies, Obama had pledged to close the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bar the use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects. Cheney defended those programs, calling them “absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.” Asked to specify which attacks had been foiled, he replied, “I can’t give you the details of it without violating classification, but I can say there were a great many of them.” Cheney insisted, contrary to critics of those programs, that they were “done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles.” Cheney said those policies had been put in place because the Bush administration viewed the threat of terrorism as a “wartime situation.” He said Obama appeared to be reverting to “law-enforcement mode” and “giving up that center of attention and focus that’s required, and that concept of military threat that is essential if you’re going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks.” Cheney portrayed the Iraq war as a triumph, saying, “We have succeeded in creating in the heart of the Middle East a democratically governed Iraq, and that is a big deal,” adding, “And that is, in fact, what we set out to do.” Cheney also asserted that Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget plan, together with heavy spending to stimulate the economy and rescue the financial industry, “constitute the biggest or one of the biggest expansions of federal authority over the private economy in the history of the republic.” [See p. 124A3]

White House Fires Back—White House press secretary Robert Gibbs March 16 fired back at Cheney, saying, “I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal.” Gibbs and other top Obama officials had recently engaged in a war of words with Limbaugh, a leading conservative radio talk show host, seeking to depict him as the de facto head of the Republican Party. [See p. 146C2] Gibbs questioned the effectiveness of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies, saying that “the very perpetrators that the vice president says he’s concerned about weren’t brought to justice.” Gibbs seemed to allude to Osama bin Laden, the leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, who had claimed responsibility for the attacks and had since evaded capture. Cheney Says Bush Left Aide ‘Hanging’—

Cheney in his interview March 15 also touched on a disagreement between himself and Bush over Bush’s decision not to grant a pardon to I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff. Libby had been convicted of perjury, lying to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and obstruction of justice in connection with a probe into the leaking of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative. Bush had commuted Libby’s prison sentence but did not pardon him before leaving office. [See p. 33D3; 2007, p. 429A3] Cheney said of Libby, “I think he’s an innocent man who deserves a pardon.” He added, “I was clearly not happy that we, in effect, left Scooter sort of hanging in the wind, which I didn’t think was appropriate.” Bush Gives Speech, Starts Book—Bush in Canada March 17 gave his first speech since leaving office, in a paid appearance in Calgary, Alberta. The event was closed to reporters, but attendees said Bush had refrained from criticizing Obama and said he hoped for his successor to succeed, declaring, “He deserves my silence, and if he wants my help he is welcome to call me.” Bush also reportedly said that he was at work on a book, which was expected to be published in 2010 by Crown Publishing Group, a unit of Random House Inc. The New York Times March 19 quoted Robert Barnett, the lawyer who negotiated Bush’s book deal, as saying that the book would deal with 12 key personal and political decisions made by Bush. They ranged from his resolution to stop drinking and his embrace of religion to his response to the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Bush confirmed that he was working on the book in a March 18 Associated Press (AP) interview. Terms of the book deal were not disclosed. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, also represented by Barnett, had received a $15 million advance for his memoir My Life, published in 2004. [See 2004, p. 462F3] n

Supreme Court Scope of Voting Rights Act Curbed. The

Supreme Court March 9 ruled, 5–4, that protections designed to preserve a minority FACTS ON FILE

population’s voting power were only applicable in areas where the minority-group voter population exceeded 50% of the total voter population. At issue in the case, Bartlett v. Strickland, was whether the North Carolina government could redraw the boundaries of a voting district to ensure that black voters formed 39% of the voting population. [See p. 33A1] In 2003, the North Carolina legislature redrew District 18 in the southeastern part of the state, saying it was required under Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Supporters said that with 39% of the voting population, the district’s blacks could form coalitions with “crossover” voters of other races to elect their desired representatives. However, in redrawing District 18, North Carolina divided Pender County into two voting districts, in violation of the state’s constitution. The county sued, and the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that Section 2 applied only when the minority group accounted for “a numerical majority of citizens of voting age.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia voted to uphold the lower court’s decision. Kennedy, joined by Roberts and Alito, wrote the plurality opinion, saying the inclusion of crossover voters in determining a district’s boundaries would place courts “in the untenable position of predicting many political variables and tying them to race-based assumptions.” Kennedy said the 50% rule was an “objective, numerical test” that “draws clean lines for courts and legislatures alike.” But Kennedy affirmed that the Voting Rights Act protected minority populations from a dilution of their voting power, saying, “Racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history.” He added, “Much remains to be done to ensure that citizens of all races have equal opportunity to share and participate in our democratic processes and traditions.” While Thomas and Scalia concurred with the ruling, they disagreed with Kennedy’s reasoning. Thomas, joined by Scalia, wrote in a separate opinion that Section 2 “does not authorize any vote dilution claim, regardless of the size of the minority population in a given district.” Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and John Paul Stevens were the dissenters. Souter in the dissenting opinion said the ruling would lead to increased racial division, by forcing “the states to perpetuate racially concentrated districts, the quintessential manifestations of race consciousness in American politics.” Ginsburg and Breyer also penned separate opinions. n

Capital Punishment New Mexico Ends Death Penalty. A bill

signed into law March 18 by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) repealed the death penalty in the state for all prisoners convicted after July 2009. The bill had been passed Feb. 11 by the New Mexico House of Representatives, 40–28, and March 19, 2009

March 13 by the state Senate, 24–18. The state House had previously passed bills to repeal the state’s death penalty in both 2005 and 2007, but both had failed to pass the state Senate. [See 2007, p. 841B2] Richardson had previously supported the death penalty and said that signing the bill had marked “the end of a long personal journey for me.” He said that while he felt that the punishment was appropriate for some crimes, “the reality is the system is not perfect—far from it. The system is inherently defective. DNA testing has proven that. Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country.” New Mexico was the second state to legislatively repeal the death penalty, rather than having its law invalidated by a court ruling, since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a national ban on executions in 1976. The first, New Jersey, had abolished capital punishment in December 2007. A total of 15 states, including New Mexico, did not allow capital punishment. The 2001 execution of convicted child murderer Terry Clark in 2001 had been the only time since 1960 that New Mexico had put a prisoner to death. Two condemned prisoners remained on New Mexico’s death row; the new law did not affect their cases. n

of a unified agency, separate from the FDA and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) that would be charged with handling the oversight of food. At a March 11 hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on health, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers had expressed support for a legislative overhaul of the U.S.’s food regulatory system, although they remained divided over the creation of a new food agency. Members of the subcommittee largely agreed on efforts to grant the FDA the power to recall unsafe foods, and to improve the ability of the government to trace foods in order to deal with contaminations quickly and efficiently. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack March 14 also announced that “downer cattle,” those that could not stand under their own power, would be banned from slaughter and entering the food system. Under previous rules, downer cattle that had been certified as safe to eat were allowed into the food system. The practice had raised concerns that possibly dangerous meat was being sold to consumers. [See 2008, p. 964A2] n

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Media Seattle, Denver Newspapers Shut Down.

Consumer Affairs Obama Promises Food Safety Overhaul.

President Barack Obama March 14 announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group as part of a pledge to overhaul the country’s federal food regulation system. He said the government’s failure in recent years to ensure a safe food supply was “a hazard to the public health.” Obama said the group would include the secretaries of the Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Commerce Departments. Obama made the remarks during his weekly address to the U.S., which was broadcast on the radio and posted on the Internet. [See p. 95B3; 2008, pp. 619F1, 536A2] Obama said the working group would be asked to advise on the modernization of food safety laws, adding that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that “the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and do not cause us harm.” He noted that many of the country’s food safety laws dated to the early 20th century and had never been updated, and said only 5% of the country’s 150,000 food processing plants were inspected annually. He said he would ask Congress to authorize $1 billion in funding to modernize testing laboratories and hire new food inspectors. [See 2007, p. 806E2] Obama also said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had suffered from a lack of funding and personnel under his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. In recent years a number of high profile drug and food safety regulation failures had brought the country’s consumer protection system under harsh scrutiny. At least 12 federal agencies shared responsibility for regulating the U.S.’s food supply. The diffuse approach had recently led to a debate among legislators over the creation

Hearst Corp. March 16 announced that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I), which it owned, would print its last issue the next day, and would thereafter shift to an Internet-only format. The company Jan. 9 had announced that it would close the newspaper, which had lost money every year since 2000, if it could not find a buyer. Also, the Rocky Mountain News Feb. 27 had printed its last issue, after owner E.W. Scripps Co. said it would close the 150-year-old Denver, Colo., newspaper because it could not find a buyer. [See 2003, p. 873D3; 1987, p. 712C1] The 146-year-old P-I was the largest newspaper to abandon a print edition in favor of its Web site, and was seen as a test of a new business model for newspapers as the industry faced declining circulations and advertising revenue. The revamped Web site featured blogs, commentary, some local reporting and links to other news Web sites. It employed 20 journalists, down from the 165 of the print newsroom. The developments left Seattle, Wash., and Denver with one city newspaper each: the Seattle Times and the Denver Post. However, both surviving newspapers had had joint operating agreements with their rivals, and it was thought that the closings would further harm their already shaky finances. Separately, Hearst Feb. 24 threatened to sell or close the San Francisco Chronicle unless its unions made significant concessions. If the Chronicle shut down, San Francisco would become the largest U.S. city to lose its major newspaper. Private equity firm Platinum Equities Inc. had purchased Copley Press Inc., the owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the two sides said March 18. Platinum said the Union-Tribune, San Diego’s only daily newspaper, was still making a profit, but it 167

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune Jan. 15 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The newspaper had taken on a heavy debt load when it was bought by private equity group Avista Capital Partners in 2007, and had stopped making payments of its major debts in September 2008. Avista in December 2008 had threatened to file for bankruptcy protection if it did not win concessions from its employees. The newspaper would continue to publish during bankruptcy. [See 2006, p. 213E3] Philadelphia Newspapers, a subsidiary of Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC that owned the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, Feb. 22 also filed for bankruptcy protection. It said it would seek concessions from its creditor banks, rather than from its labor unions. [See 2006, p. 491D1] Times Publishing Co., the owner of the St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 28 said it would attempt to sell Congressional Quarterly (CQ), a collection of publications and Web sites covering legislative affairs. Times Publishing said that although CQ was profitable, the company did not have enough funding to support its expansion, and the money from the sale would help to bolster the Times. Times Publishing was owned by the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism foundation. [See 1978, p. 540F3] Other newspapers across the country were cutting costs by laying off or furloughing employees, or by combining or dropping sections such as book reviews, business and local news. ‘N.Y. Times’ Takes $250 Million Loan—

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The New York Times Co. Jan. 19 said it had agreed to accept a $250 million loan from Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, in order to help service its $1.1 billion debt load. The loan carried a 14% interest rate, and would give Slim, who already owned 6.9% of the company, warrants that could be converted into a 17% stake in it. That would make him the second-largest shareholder, after Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the chairman and New York Times publisher. Slim, however, would not receive voting rights or representation on the company board. [See 2008, p. 903C3] The Times Co. March 9 announced a leaseback deal with investment firm W.P. Carey & Co., in which it would lease part of its headquarters building in New York City to W.P. Carey for as long as 15 years in exchange for $225 million. It was expected that the Times Co. would exercise an option allowing it to buy back the building after 10 years for $250 million, making the deal akin to a loan secured by the building. The Times Co. had also suspended its quarterly dividend Feb. 19, and was attempting to sell its 18% stake in Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox. The company had seen a 48% decline in net income for the fourth quarter of 2008. n 168

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was reported that the company had paid a low price for the newspaper. The deal marked the end of the Copley family’s 81year involvement in the news industry. [See 2004, p. 720B3]

AFRICA

Madagascar’s President Resigns Amid Opposition, Military Pressure Military Names Former Mayor President.

Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana March 17 said he was ceding power to the country’s armed forces, after months of increasing political unrest instigated by Andry Rajoelina, the former mayor of Antananarivo, the capital. Ravalomanana had become increasingly isolated in recent days as the military came out in support of the 34-year-old Rajoelina, who had called for Ravalomanana’s resignation for months. [See p. 66B1] Ravalomanana, 59, said he was turning power over to Hyppolite Ramaroson, a navy vice admiral who was Madagascar’s highest-ranking military officer. “After deep reflection, I have decided to dissolve the government and give up power so that a military directorate can be established,” he said, adding, “This decision was very difficult and very hard, but it had to be made. We need calm and peace to develop our country.” Later March 17, Ramaroson said the military would hand power to Rajoelina. “We have categorically rejected the authority that Ravalomanana asked us to set up after his resignation,” he said. Under Madagascar’s constitution, the president had to be at least 40 years old, and the head of the upper house of parliament was supposed to take power upon the president’s resignation. However, the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, March 18 endorsed Rajoelina as president. Rajoelina March 18 said he would hold presidential elections within 24 months, and would change the constitution. He also began naming cabinet ministers. The next day, he dissolved the country’s parliament, which was controlled by Ravalomanana’s I Love Madagascar (TIM) party. Rajoelina reportedly was scheduled to be sworn in March 21. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member regional group to which Madagascar belonged, March 19 condemned the ouster of Ravalomanana and called for him to be returned to power. It threatened to impose sanctions if there was not a return to “democratic and constitutional rule in the shortest time possible.” Former colonial power France that day said 24 months was “too long” a delay in holding elections. The African Union (AU) was scheduled to meet March 20 to determine whether the events in Madagascar constituted a military coup. The AU had recently sanctioned Mauritania and Guinea after the military took power from democratically elected leaders. [See p. 82B3] Norway March 19 said it would freeze $14 million in annual aid to Madagascar. Ravalomanana, a self-made millionaire businessman and himself a former mayor of Antananarivo, had come to power in 2002. Riding a wave of popular support, he had challenged longtime President Didier

Andry Rajoelina March 17 parading through the streets of Antanarivo, Madagascar’s capital. Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana that day resigned and turned power over to the military, which named Rajoelina president.

Ratsiraka in a December 2001 election. Both men claimed victory, and the country had dual governments until April 2002, when the Constitutional Court declared Ravalomanana the winner. Ratsiraka fled the country in July of that year. Ravalomanana was reelected in 2006, and TIM won parliamentary elections in September 2007. His whereabouts were unknown as of March 19. [See 2007, p. 670A2; 2002, p. 567C2] Rajoelina, a charismatic former disc jockey and self-made advertising mogul, led the Tanora malaGasy Vonona (Young Malagasies Determined) movement. He had been elected in December 2007, easily defeating the candidate backed by Ravalomanana. Rajoelina, who spread his populist message through his radio and television station, Viva, was especially popular among Madagascar’s large population of young people. He criticized Ravalomanana for enriching himself through foreign investment deals while failing to lift the majority of Malagasies out of poverty (an estimated 70% of the population lived on less than $1 per day), and alleged that the president ran the country in an authoritarian manner. Some analysts said Ratsiraka and his supporters were backing Rajoelina. Resignation

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Ravalomanana’s March 17 resignation had been preceded by months of political unrest on the Indian Ocean island of about 20 million people that had resulted in at least 135 deaths. The standoff between Ravalomanana and Rajoelina had begun in December 2008, when the president shut down the Viva television station after it broadcast an interview with Ratsiraka. In response, Rajoelina’s supporters began antigovernment demonstrations in Antananarivo. Clashes in late January between protesters and police left as many as 100 people dead. That led Rajoelina to declare himself FACTS ON FILE

Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images

Former Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana in April 2008. Ravalomanana March 17 resigned and turned power over to the military, which named Andry Rajoelina president.

the nation’s leader, and call for the president’s impeachment. In response, Ravalomanana fired Rajoelina as mayor in early February. Nevertheless, Rajoelina continued to declare that he was in charge of the country, and began to set up a parallel government. Rajoelina’s supporters continued to hold demonstrations against the government in Antananarivo. During one such demonstration Feb. 7, the presidential guard opened fire on protesters marching on the presidential palace, killing 28 people. That incident reportedly undermined support for the president among the military, although officially it continued to maintain its neutrality. Defense Minister Cecile Manorohanta Feb. 9 resigned in protest of the killings, and was replaced by Mamy Ranaivoniarivo, the chief of military staff. More than 30,000 people gathered at a sports stadium in Antananarivo Feb. 11 in a display of support for Ravalomanana. Clashes between opposition supporters and security forces continued throughout February, including attempts by Rajoelina’s supporters to take control of government ministries. Throughout the crisis, Eritrean diplomat Haile Menkerios, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s special envoy for the crisis, along with local church leaders attempted to facilitate negotiations between the two sides. Rajoelina, however, pulled out of the negotiations Feb. 25 after the president failed to show up at a scheduled meeting. A group of military officers March 8 reportedly launched a mutiny, saying they would no longer take orders from Ravalomanana’s government to suppress street demonstrations and proclaiming their loyalty to Rajoelina. The next day, the U.N.’s envoy to Madagascar, Tiebile Drame, said the U.N. was giving Rajoelina “protection” at an undisclosed location after an attempt by police to arrest him. The army chief of staff, Edmond Rasolomahandry, March 10 said the military would intervene if the feuding leaders did March 19, 2009

not resolve the political crisis within 72 hours. Also that day, Ranaivoniarivo quit as defense minister, apparently under pressure from the military. However, Rasolomahandry March 11 was ousted by junior officers in an apparent mutiny. Ravalomanana, in a March 12 radio address, called on the military to remain neutral in the dispute. A meeting planned for that day to attempt to negotiate an end to the crisis was canceled when Rajoelina refused to come out of hiding to attend. Also that day, the head of the military police declared his support for the mutineers. Dissident soldiers March 13 deployed tanks on the streets of Antananarivo, while Ravalomanana called on his supporters to gather in front of the Iavoloha palace—a presidential palace some nine miles (15 km) from the center of the city to which he had retreated—to help defend it. Rajoelina March 14 emerged from hiding and led a rally in Antananarivo, declaring again that he had taken power in the country and ordering Ravalomanana’s arrest for allegedly hiring foreign mercenaries to back his government. Ravalomanana, in an attempt to defuse the crisis, March 15 offered to hold a referendum on whether he should remain in power. That was rejected by Rajoelina. Army troops backing Rajoelina March 16 stormed the mainly ceremonial presidential palace in Antananarivo, as well as the central bank. The next day, Rajoelina entered the palace and proclaimed that he was in control. Analysts said the military’s decision to back Rajoelina was the key factor in Ravalomanana’s March 17 decision to resign. However, it was unclear whether Rajoelina had widespread support among Madagascar’s population, beyond the military and his vocal backers in the capital. The months of unrest had seriously damaged the nation’s lucrative tourism sector, and also reportedly worried foreign investors. Rajoelina Nixes Daewoo Land Deal—

Rajoelina, in one of his first actions as Madagascar’s leader, March 18 said he would cancel a controversial deal, signed in 2008 by Ravalomanana’s government with South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics, to lease, for 99 years, 1.3 million hectares (3.2 million acres) of land in Madagascar. Daewoo planned to use Malagasy labor to produce palm oil and corn on the land for South Korean consumption. The deal, which involved about half of Madagascar’s arable land, was intended by South Korea to secure access to food supplies at a time when food prices had been rising rapidly. According to some reports, Daewoo initially expected to lease the land for free; however, it reportedly later offered to invest between $2 million and $6 million in infrastructure projects in Madagascar. The deal had sparked considerable anger in Madagascar, where land was seen as a sacred ancestral legacy. Opponents, including Rajoelina, claimed that Malagasy farmers would be forced from their land due to the deal. They also noted that many

in Madagascar depended on U.N. food aid, and questioned why food grown in their country would be exported to South Korea. Rajoelina March 18 said the constitution “stipulated that Madagascar’s land is neither for sale nor for rent.” He added, “We are not against the idea of working with investors, but if we want to sell or rent our land, we have to change the constitution, you have to consult the people.” n

Other Africa News Tanzania Hosts Meeting on Economic Crisis.

African leaders and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials March 10–11 attended a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s capital, to discuss the impact of the global economic crisis on Africa. Although the continent—the world’s poorest—had minimal direct exposure to the toxic assets at the heart of the worldwide credit crunch, it had been hit by a resulting lower demand for commodities such as precious metals, tea and cotton, as well as by decreases in foreign direct investment, foreign aid, remittances from citizens living abroad and tourism. [See pp. 162F2, 96F2] The meeting came in advance of a much-anticipated summit of the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies on April 2 in London. Only one African nation—South Africa—would attend that summit. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who attended the meeting, March 10 said, “Even though the crisis has been slow in reaching Africa’s shores, we all know it is coming and its impact will be severe.” He added, “We must ensure that the voice of the poor are heard. We must ensure that Africa is not left out.” StraussKahn also said the IMF’s current prediction of 3.3% growth for sub-Saharan Africa in 2009—down from a previous prediction of 6.7%—could be “too optimistic.” (Sub-Saharan Africa had experienced 5% growth in 2008.) Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete March 11 called on leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations to make good on a pledge made at a 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double their aid to Africa to $50 billion per year by 2010. South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel Jan. 16 had said the G-8 had missed its pledged target by $240 billion thus far. [See 2005, p. 468D3] The World Bank March 10 had urged wealthy nations to put 0.7% of the economic stimulus packages that they had enacted to address the crisis into a fund to assist poor nations during the downturn. In a joint statement at the conclusion of the meeting, the IMF and African finance ministers March 11 said they had agreed to boost lending to the continent and ease loan requirements under the IMF’s Exogenous Shocks Facility, an emergency program that allowed poor countries to increase their foreign currency reserves. The statement also reiterated a call for richer nations to keep their promises of aid to the developing world. Strauss-Kahn that day said, “It is certainly time for advanced economies to be less arrogant. The way the 169

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leaders of advanced economies address leaders of the rest of the world has to change and it is in the process of changing.” African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka March 11 in an interview with Reuters news service said the bank had enough capital to continue lending to its members for the next five years. He also said the bank planned to double annual lending to $11 billion. He said Africa was just beginning to feel the impact of the downturn and that “frankly, we don’t know how deep and prolonged this crisis will be.” United Nations Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania, who also attended the Dar es Salaam meeting, said in a March 12 Reuters interview that it was important to continue to strive toward meeting the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) despite the economic downturn. The MDGs—set in 2000—envisioned reducing global poverty by half by 2015. “The MDGs were supposed to be a focused road map towards achieving sustainable development and they shouldn’t be reset,” Migiro said. [See 2008, p. 697F3] African Leaders Visit London— British Prime Minister Gordon Brown March 16 hosted a meeting in London of several African leaders, as well as Kaberuka, to further discuss the state of Africa’s economy. Leaders in attendance included Kikwete, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Meles called for Western nations to invest in Africa, arguing that “the global stimulus impact of every dollar spent in Africa is higher than if it is spent in the U.S. or the U.K.” Meles and Johnson-Sirleaf also warned that economic instability could cause a return to conflict in countries that had recently emerged from war. China’s Hu Tours Africa—Chinese President Hu Jintao Feb. 12–17 visited the African nations of Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius. Hu had last visited the continent—which was the recipient of billions of dollars in Chinese investment—in early 2007. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu Feb. 12 described the trip as a “turning point for China and Africa” that would “promote practical cooperation in extensive areas.” Another Chinese official, senior diplomat Zhai Jun, pointed out that none of the nations on Hu’s tour were resource-rich, and that the goal of the trip was to promote friendship with those nations. China had previously been criticized for exploiting Africa’s natural resources, through extensive investments in sectors such as Zambian copper and Sudanese oil, with little regard for the well-being of Africans. [See 2007, p. 92A3] Hu Feb. 13 in Bamako, Mali’s capital, laid the symbolic first brick of a $75 million “friendship bridge” in a ceremony with President Amadou Toumani Toure. He also pledged to continue to support investment and debt relief in Africa, despite 170

the global economic crisis, which had caused China’s economic growth to slow dramatically in recent months. [See p. 134E3] The Chinese president later Feb. 13 arrived in Senegal, where he met with President Abdoulaye Wade. The next day he traveled to Tanzania, and was greeted by Kikwete at the airport in Dar es Salaam. Hu and Kikwete Feb. 15 held talks on the effects of the global financial crisis on their economies, as well as cultural exchanges between the two countries. Hu pledged that “China will keep its promise, not reduce aid to Africa and urge the international community to honor their aid commitment to the continent.” Hu Feb. 16 left Tanzania for his final stop, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. In Mauritius, Hu Feb. 17 met with President Sir Anerood Jugnauth, Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam and former Prime Minister Paul Berenger, leader of the opposition Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) party. Hu departed for China later that day. n

AMERICAS

El Salvador Funes of Leftist FMLN Elected President.

Voters in El Salvador March 15 elected former television journalist Mauricio Funes Cartagena of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of former Marxist rebels, the first leftist president of the country since 1989. Funes, 49, defeated Rodrigo Avila, the former head of the country’s police force and the leader of the conservative National Republican Alliance (Arena), 51.3%–48.7%, according to results released March 16. Funes was scheduled to take office June 1, and would succeed President Elias Antonio (Tony) Saca of Arena. [See p. 50C3; 2006, p. 244B3] Members of the FMLN had fought a 1980–92 civil war against a series of rightwing governments backed by the U.S., before the United Nations brokered a peace treaty in 1992. An estimated 75,000 people

were killed during the war, with another 8,000 thought to have been “disappeared” by the government and right-wing paramilitary death squads. After the war, FMLN members had turned to mainstream politics. Funes, who hosted a popular television talk show and had no political experience, had been recruited to run under the party’s banner. Funes’s victory came in his first run for political office. He had presented himself as a moderate, campaigning under the slogan, “A Safe Change,” and comparing himself to recently elected U.S. President Barack Obama. In a March 16 speech, Funes said, “The time has come for the excluded, the opportunity has arrived for genuine democrats, for men and women who believe in social justice and solidarity.” Funes also reaffirmed El Salvador’s strong ties to the U.S. by meeting with Robert Blau, the U.S.’s charge d’affaires at its embassy, shortly after his victory. He also pledged to keep the U.S. dollar as the official currency and remain in the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). [See 2006, p. 194E2] Funes faced the immediate challenge of developing an economic recovery package for El Salvador, in the face of dwindling remittances from Salvadorans working abroad and a decline in foreign investment. During the campaign, Arena operatives had attempted to tie Funes to far-left leaders in Latin America, especially Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias and former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz. Funes had said he would model himself after the more moderate leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil. n

Mexico Obama to Review Border Troop Request.

U.S. President Barack Obama March 11 in a meeting with reporters from 14 regional newspapers said he was considering sending National Guard troops to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, amid growing concerns that violence related to Mexico’s drug trade had begun spilling over into the U.S.’s southwest. “We’re going to examine

FACTS ON FUNES

Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena was born in San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital, on Oct. 18, 1959. His father was an accountant and his mother a secretary. Funes studied communications at the Universidad Centroamericana “Jose Simeon Canas,” a private, Jesuitrun school in San Salvador. There he was active in student politics, but did not belong to any particular party. After graduating, he worked as a teacher in Roman Catholic schools in San Salvador. In February 1986 he joined Canal 10 de Television as a reporter, before moving to Canal 12 the following year to work as the channel’s news director. After the 1992 United Nations– brokered peace deal that ended El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, Funes rose to public prominence as the host of the program “Uncensored,” in which he exposed several scandals. Funes also served as a correspondent for the Spanish-language edition of the U.S.-based

Cable News Network (CNN) from 1991 to 2007, and won several journalism awards. In February 2005, Funes left Canal 12, after increasing political pressure was brought to bear on the network because of Funes’ exposes. He joined another channel, Megavision, in May of that year. In September 2007, Funes announced his candidacy for the presidency as a member of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a party founded by former leftist guerrillas who had fought the U.S.-backed right-wing government in the civil war. Funes March 15 won the election, defeating conservative Rodrigo Avila of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) party, 51.3%–48.7%. He was scheduled to take office June 1. [See p. 170C2] Funes was married to Vanda Pignato, a founding member of Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT), and had three sons. FACTS ON FILE

whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense,” he said. However, Obama said that he was generally opposed to “militarizing the border,” and had no “particular tipping point in mind” in terms of when he would consider sending troops there. [See p. 97D2; 2008, p. 490C1] Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa had sent some 40,000–45,000 troops and federal police officers across the country to combat cartels after taking office in December 2006. Since the launch of that campaign, violence in Mexico had become more frequent and gruesome, and had spread to regions previously unaffected by the drug trade. More than 6,000 people had died from drug-related violence in Mexico in 2008, nearly double the figure reported in 2007. About another 1,000 people had already been reported killed thus far in 2009. At a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Feb. 25 announced a series of steps intended to stem the activities of drug cartel–associated criminals in the U.S. She said she had contacted Attorney General Eric Holder, national security adviser James Jones and various state and local police agencies to formulate a plan to halt the flow of guns and money from the U.S. to Mexican drug gangs, and assist Mexico’s beleaguered law enforcement officials. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) in a Feb. 25 news conference had called on the federal government to provide 1,000 troops to help patrol the border. However, some local officials had opposed the request, arguing that it was unwarranted and that it might increase tensions and fear in the area. State and federal officials at a Feb. 23 hearing of the Arizona State Senate reported that Mexican drug cartel–related violence had been increasingly reported in Arizona in 2008. Phoenix police said they regularly received calls about border-related hostage situations or kidnappings, and the district attorney’s office of Maricopa County said reports of similar crimes had increased to 241 in 2008, from 48 in 2004. Hundreds Arrested in U.S. Crackdown—

Holder Feb. 25 announced that U.S. authorities had arrested 755 people, seized more than 20 tons of illegal drugs and confiscated dozens of guns and vehicles as part of a 21-month crackdown on the operations of the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel in the U.S. The effort, called Operation Xcellerator, had targeted the cartel’s distribution network in the U.S., and had yielded the seizure of $59.1 million in cash, 13 tons of cocaine and eight tons of marijuana, plus smaller seizures of other drugs. Holder the previous day had met with his Mexican counterpart, Eduardo MedinaMora, who had criticized the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico as a major impediment to stopping the drug cartels. Officials of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) estimated that about 90% of weapons used by gangs were bought in the U.S. March 19, 2009

Members of drug gangs were known to seek weaponry in the U.S. because regulations on gun sales and on the types of weapons available there were much less strict there than in Mexico. There was a particularly large concentration of licensed gun dealers near the Mexican border, around 6,600. The trial of George Iknadosian, the owner of a Phoenix gun store, X-Caliber Guns, March 9 began in Maricopa County Superior Court. Iknadosian had been arrested in May 2008 and charged with fraud, conspiracy and assisting a crime syndicate for allegedly knowingly selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Investigators alleged that Iknadosian had sold some 700 weapons of the sort commonly sought by drug gangs, at least 600 of which had been smuggled to Mexico. He had also allegedly sold weapons to an undercover officer who had informed him that he intended to resell the weapons in Mexico. Additional Troops Sent to Chihuahua—

Calderon over the past few weeks had sent 5,000 soldiers and 1,800 federal police officers to Chihuahua state, to supplement a force of 2,000 soldiers and at least 500 policemen already there, British newspaper the Financial Times reported March 14. Violence in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, had continued unabated, after 1,640 people were killed there in 2008. Despite the dramatic increase in violence, Calderon several times in recent weeks had reiterated his commitment to capturing or otherwise eliminating the drug cartels. “It’s either the narcos or the state,” he said in an interview published Feb. 27 by Mexican newspaper El Universal. Calderon Feb. 19 had said military forces would remain deployed within Mexico until the army had “completed its mission.” He also suggested that drug barons had paid protesters who had taken to the streets in several northern cities in recent days to protest the presence of the military. Other news—In other news related to drugs and drug violence: o Forbes magazine in its list of the richest people in the world, published March 11, included Joaquin Guzman Loera, the fugitive head of the Sinaloa cartel. Mexican officials March 12 harshly criticized Forbes for including Guzman in its list. o Gunmen Feb. 22 opened fire on a vehicle convoy bearing Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, killing a bodyguard and wounding two others. Reyes Baeza was not injured in the attack. n Retaliatory Tariffs Imposed on U.S. Goods.

Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos March 16 said his government would impose tariffs of 10%–45% on at least 90 U.S. products, in response to the U.S.’s termination of a pilot program that had allowed Mexican trucks to operate in the U.S. The tariffs were imposed on trade worth $2.4 billion annually in goods produced in some 40 U.S. states in an effort to broaden their economic impact. They took effect March 17. [See 2008, pp. 978A1, 280F3]

The dispute began in 1995, after the U.S. refused to develop a trucking program as required by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), arguing that it would allow potentially unsafe Mexican truckers on U.S. roads. U.S. labor unions, particularly the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, had also protested the plan. However, the U.S. in September 2007 had begun allowing 25–30 Mexican trucking companies to haul cargo in the U.S., provided that they met certain safety criteria. The pilot program was extended for two years in August 2008, but an element of the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill signed into law March 11 by U.S. President Barack Obama had eliminated it, sparking Mexico’s protest. [See p. 143E3; 2002, p. 943G3] Efforts by the U.S. to begin talks to resolve the dispute were hindered by Obama’s lack of a commerce secretary. After two previous nominees withdrew, Obama in late February had nominated former Washington Gov. Gary Locke (D) to the post, but he had yet to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. [See p. 112F3] n

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China Dalai Lama Calls Tibet Rule ‘Hell on Earth.’

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in a fiercely worded March 10 speech in Dharmsala, India, denounced Chinese government policies as having created a “hell on Earth” for Tibetans and brought their cultural identity near “extinction.” The speech marked the 50th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that was crushed by Chinese forces, leading the Dalai Lama and members of the Tibetan government he had headed to flee into exile. [See p. 116B2; 1959, p. 101G3] The speech also came nearly a year after March 2008 Tibetan unrest. It followed weeks of a reported security lockdown by Chinese authorities across the Tibet region and other Tibetan-populated areas of China, in anticipation of the politically sensitive anniversaries, as well as the Tibetan New Year holiday, Losar. Activists had urged a boycott of official Losar celebrations as a gesture of mourning for those killed or arrested in the March 2008 disturbances. The strong tone of the Dalai Lama’s speech appeared to reflect anger at China’s recent clampdown, and the fact that talks held in 2008 with the Chinese government had failed to make any progress. The Dalai Lama, 73, said Tibetan “religion, culture, language, identity are near extinction. The Tibetan people are regarded like criminals, deserving to be put to death.” He contended that “hundreds of thousands of Tibetans” had died as a result of Chinese policies. However, the Dalai Lama also continued to insist that he did not favor independence for Tibet, unlike some younger, more radical Tibetan activists. He said he sought greater autonomy and respect for 171

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Tibetan rights within China, something he said had been promised before his exile by early Chinese Communist leaders, including Mao Zedong. China branded the Dalai Lama an advocate of violent separatism, and officials March 10 dismissed his remarks as false and defamatory. A day earlier, Chinese President Hu Jintao had met with Tibetan government officials in Beijing, China’s capital, and called for a “Great Wall” against separatism, “so that Tibet, now basically stable, will enjoy lasting peace and stability.” There were no reports of major disturbances in Tibet around the anniversary, although foreigners had been barred from the region, and cellular telephone and Internet connections there had reportedly been curtailed by authorities. A monk in Aba County in Sichuan Province Feb. 28 had set himself on fire in protest of official moves to restrict religious rituals around the Tibetan New Year. Tibetan-rights groups said that, according to eyewitnesses, after the monk set himself ablaze, police shot him, extinguished the flames, and carried him away, and his whereabouts and condition were unknown. The monk was one of hundreds reportedly prevented from entering a prayer hall at the Kirti Monastery for rites of Monlam, a prayer festival that fell early in the Tibetan calendar. U.S. House Denounces ‘Repression’—

The U.S. House of Representatives March 11 approved, 422–1, a resolution marking the anniversary of the 1959 uprising and calling on China to “to respond to the Dalai Lama’s initiatives to find a lasting solution to the Tibetan issue, cease its repression of the Tibetan people, and to lift immediately the harsh policies imposed on Tibetans.” A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman denounced the resolution as “groundless” and interference in China’s domestic affairs. Rep. Ron Paul (R, Texas) cast the lone dissenting vote. His spokeswoman said the U.S. would not like it “if China postured in a similar way on our affairs,” adding that there was “no benefit” for the U.S. from such actions. In the run-up to the anniversary, China’s government March 2 issued a document outlining the official understanding of Tibetan history. It said that in driving out the Dalai Lama, China had liberated the region from “serfdom,” comparing the event to the abolition of slavery in the U.S. It said “Western anti-China forces” used a spurious “Tibet issue” in an “attempt to restrain, split and demonize China.” n

which had been traveling from neighboring Kazakhstan to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, collided with another car and burst into flames, charring its passengers—believed to be Sadyrkulov and two guards—beyond recognition. The driver of the other vehicle survived. [See p. 58D3] Sadyrkulov, during his tenure as Bakiyev’s chief of staff, had helped create Bakiyev’s political party, Ak Zhol, and had overseen its sweeping victory in Kyrgyzstan’s 2007 parliamentary elections. Western monitors had said that election had failed to meet democratic standards. Sadyrkulov Jan. 8 had stepped down as Bakiyev’s chief of staff, weeks before Bakiyev had announced that Kyrgyzstan was evicting U.S. military forces from its Manas air base. Sadyrkulov claimed to have left voluntarily but some observers suggested that he had been forced out. He Jan. 19 said he had turned down an offer to serve as the country’s foreign minister, but offered little explanation. [See p. 58D3; 2007, p. 885G2] The Wall Street Journal March 14 reported that Sadyrkulov had said that he quit the government because he was wary of Bakiyev’s shift toward establishing closer ties with Russia, which in January had extended the country a $2.3 billion aid package. Kyrgyzstan’s political opposition claimed that Sadyrkulov had been preparing to join them, and broadly concurred that he had been assassinated. The New York Times March 14 reported that an unnamed opposition figure had claimed that Sadyrkulov had recently been raising money in Kazakhstan to fund an attempt to overthrow Bakiyev’s government. Elmira Ibrahimova, a former deputy prime minister who had resigned to join the opposition in January, had claimed that Sadyrkulov and his guards were murdered and later moved to the scene of the car accident, according to a March 16 report in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). She also claimed that Sadyrkulov had recently told her that he had noticed strangers lingering near his home, and had claimed that they wanted to kill him. The Kyrgyz government denied any involvement with Sadyrkulov’s death, and Bakiyev said he would personally lead an investigation. Bakiyev March 16 released a statement saying, “You cannot play on people’s feelings and grief, and play politics in a tragedy,” seemingly warning opposition parties against using the incident for political gain. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Kyrgyzstan

Austria

Prominent Politician Killed in Car Wreck.

Man Pleads Guilty in Incest, Captivity Case.

Medet Sadyrkulov, who had been President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s chief of staff before stepping down from that post in January, March 13 was reportedly killed in a car crash, which the Kyrgyz opposition claimed was an assassination. According to reports, Sadyrkulov’s sports utility vehicle,

Josef Fritzl March 18 pleaded guilty to all charges against him for imprisoning his daughter in his basement for 24 years, raping her repeatedly, holding captive four of the seven children she had by him and allowing an ailing infant son to die rather than seek medical treatment for him. The

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judge March 19 sentenced Fritzl, 73, to be held for life in a prison psychiatric ward, with no possibility of parole for at least 15 years. The trial was closed to the public and took place in the town of St. Pölten, west of the capital, Vienna. [See 2008, p. 295E3] Fritzl’s daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, in April 2008 had escaped from captivity in his house in Amstetten, a town 80 miles (130 km) west of Vienna. She and her six surviving children, who had witnessed her being raped, had since been recovering under psychiatric care. Fritzl on the opening day of the trial March 16 had pleaded guilty to charges of rape, incest, false imprisonment and coercion, but not guilty to charges of negligent homicide and enslavement. He changed his plea to guilty to all charges after the court March 16–17 viewed 11 hours of videotaped testimony by his daughter, who reportedly appeared in court both days. She was now 42, having been 18 when he first imprisoned her. Fritzl March 18 said of the death of their infant son in 1996, “I should have recognized that the baby wasn’t doing well. I don’t know why I didn’t help. I hoped that he would pull through.” Fritzl and his wife had raised three of the children he fathered with their daughter. He had persuaded his wife that Elisabeth had run away to join a cult and abandoned the children. n

France Sarkozy Sets Return to NATO Command.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy March 11 formally announced that France would rejoin the military command structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the first time since President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from the command in 1966. [See 2008, p. 474F3] De Gaulle had pulled France out of NATO’s command, and ordered U.S. forces out of France, in protest of what he viewed as the U.S.’s excessive influence in NATO and in European affairs. However, France had remained a member of the alliance, and was one of its leading European contributors of troops and funds. More than 3,000 French troops were currently serving with NATO forces in Afghanistan. Sarkozy said, “Our strategy cannot remain stuck in the past when the conditions of our security have changed radically.” He insisted that France would retain its military independence, while gaining more influence in NATO. Sarkozy’s government March 17 opened the plan to debate in parliament and put itself to a vote of confidence. The National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, March 17 voted, 329– 238, to defeat a motion of no confidence in the government. The plan had drawn opposition both from the center-left opposition Socialist Party, and from some members of Sarkozy’s center-right Union for a Popular FACTS ON FILE

Movement (UMP), the modern descendant of the Gaullist political tradition. NATO was expected to give its formal approval to France’s return to a command role at the alliance’s 60th anniversary summit in April, to be cohosted by France and Germany in Strasbourg, France. n

Great Britain Rioters Protest Arrests in N. Ireland Killings.

Riots broke out March 14 in mostly Roman Catholic areas of the British province of Northern Ireland in response to the arrest of several suspects in the killings of two British soldiers and a policeman the previous week. Two splinter factions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Real IRA said it had killed the soldiers and the Continuity IRA claimed to have killed the police officer. [See p. 154D3] Both splinter groups opposed the power-sharing provincial government in which Sinn Fein, the nationalist political party formerly linked to the IRA, had joined the mostly Protestant Democratic Unionist Party, which wanted the province to remain part of Britain. The power-sharing arrangement was based on the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which had been hailed as the end of three decades of sectarian violence. The IRA had announced in 2005 that it was disarming. Martin McGuinness, a former IRA leader who now served as deputy first minister of the government, March 10 had denounced the killers of the policeman, Constable Stephen Carroll, a Catholic, as “traitors to the island of Ireland.” He called for anyone with information about the killings to contact the police. That was viewed as an unprecedented condemnation by a republican leader for such a crime. Sinn Fein reportedly increased security for McGuinness after his remarks, in case of reprisals. In a display of unity and rejection of violence, both Catholic and Protestant leaders March 13 attended Carroll’s funeral in the town of Banbridge. Thousands of people, Catholics and Protestants, lined the route of the funeral procession. A total of nine suspects had been arrested through March 15 in connection with the two attacks. Four people were being held for the March 7 shooting of the two soldiers at a base in Antrim, northwest of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, and five others for the killing of Carroll two days later in the town of Craigavon, southwest of Belfast. One of the suspects reportedly was Colin Duffy, 41, who was known as a longtime IRA commander. Riots erupted March 14 in the town of Lurgan after Duffy’s arrest that day. Gangs threw gasoline bombs at police and blocked a railroad line. In 1993, Duffy had been convicted of killing a British soldier, but the verdict was reversed on appeal. In 1997, he was accused of killing two police officers, but the charges were dropped after a witness recanted her testimony. n March 19, 2009

Latvia New Coalition Government Approved. The Latvian parliament March 12 voted, 67– 21, to approve a five-party center-right coalition government headed by former finance minister Valdis Dombrovskis. Dombrovskis, 37, was a member of the centerright New Era party (JL), and had been nominated as prime minister in February by Latvian President Valdis Zatlers. The previous government, headed by former Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, had collapsed in February amid a global economic downturn that had crippled the exportbased Latvian economy and driven the country’s unemployment rate to 9.5% in February. Latvia’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at an average of 9% per year from 2000 to 2007, and contracted by 4.6% in 2008. It was expected to contract by as much as 12% in 2009. [See p. 117F1; 2002, p. 876D1] Dombrovskis’s coalition government— composed of JL, the People’s Party (TP), the Union of Latvian Greens and Farmers (ZZS), the Civic Union and For the Fatherland and Freedom/Latvian National Independence Movement (TB/LNNK)—was similar to the one Godmanis had headed, although JL had not been a coalition partner in that government. The new coalition, in a March 11 declaration, warned citizens that “our country is experiencing a systematic crisis” and that “in the near future, the state’s financial possibilities will be limitFACTS ON DOMBROVSKIS

Valdis Dombrovskis was born on Aug. 5, 1971, in Riga, the capital of Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. In 1993 he received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Latvia, and in 1995 he received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Riga Technical University. In 1996 he received a master’s degree in physics from the University of Latvia, and in 2007 he received a master’s degree in customs and tax administration from Riga Technical University. Dombrovskis had also studied in Germany and the U.S. In 1998, Dombrovskis accepted a position as a macroeconomic specialist for the Bank of Latvia’s monetary policy board. In 2001 he became the board’s chief economist. In 2002, Dombrovskis was elected to the Latvian parliament as a member of the center-right New Era (JL) party, and the same year became the country’s finance minister. He held that position until 2004, when he was elected to the European Parliament. Also in 2004, Dombrovskis became an adviser to Latvia’s minister of economics, and worked in that capacity until 2006. [See 2002, p. 876D1] Dombrovskis represented Latvia in the European Parliament until Ferbruary, when Latvian President Valdis Zatlers nominated him to become prime minister. The previous government, headed by Ivars Godmanis, had collapsed amid a global economic downturn that had crippled Latvia’s economy. Dombrovskis and the center-right coalition government he assembled March 12 were officially approved by the Latvian parliament. [See p. 173D2] Dombrovskis was married.

ed, and we must achieve a decrease in the state’s future expenditure.” Dombrovskis was expected to slash government spending and attempt to renegotiate the terms of a 7.5 billion euro ($9.5 billion) loan extended to Latvia in December 2008 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other donors. Only a small portion of those funds had been released. Under the current terms of the loan, Latvia was required to keep its budget deficit under 4.7% of its GDP. However, since the GDP was expected to decline sharply in 2009, Dombrovskis was expected to ask donors to revise the deficit ceiling to 7% of Latvia’s GDP. [See 2008, p. 984G2] n

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Netherlands Turkish Airlines Jet Crashes, Nine Killed.

A Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 jet Feb. 25 crashed on its approach to Schiphol international airport outside Amsterdam, the Netherlands, killing nine of its 135 passengers and crew, including all three pilots. More than half of the survivors were injured. The airplane, Flight 1951, was bound for Amsterdam from Istanbul, Turkey. Most of the passengers were Turkish; more than 30 were Dutch. Of the dead, five were Turkish and four from the U.S. It was Turkish Airlines’ first fatal accident since 2003, and the first for any airline at Schiphol since 1994. [See 2003, p. 36E2] Dutch investigators March 4 released their preliminary findings, blaming the crash on a faulty radio altimeter, or altitude indicator. According to the report, the altimeter malfunctioned when the plane was at an altitude of about 2,000 feet (600 m) during its approach to Schiphol, incorrectly indicating that the plane was about to touch down. That caused the automatic pilot and throttle system to sharply slow both engines. The report said the altimeter had malfunctioned twice during the plane’s previous seven flights. According to the recovered cockpit recording, the crew received an automated warning of its apparent malfunction, but did not react to the stalling of the engines for more than a minute and a half. By then, it was too late to regain altitude and speed. The jet crashed in a field less than a mile (1.6 km) from the runway. n

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United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Feb. 19 reported that Iran had accumulated more low-enriched uranium than had previously been thought, and theoretically had enough to build an atomic bomb. However, the agency stressed that doing so would require further enrichment, a process that would require several highly public and lengthy steps. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, March 1 indi173

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cated that the U.S. agreed with the IAEA’s assessment. [See p. 86G1; 2008, p. 986D3] The IAEA reported that Iran had produced a total of 1,010 kilograms (2,227 lbs.) of low-enriched uranium, which Iran claimed would be used as fuel for civilian nuclear power generation. U.N. officials said that with further enrichment, Iran’s uranium stockpile could be processed into over 20 kilograms of fissile material, enough to build a single atomic bomb. However, they said that in order to do that, Iran would have to overhaul its enrichment facility at Natanz, a process that would take months, and would also have to expel international inspectors and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They added that countries generally waited until they had enough low-enriched uranium for several weapons before attempting to enrich it further. The IAEA said Iran had 839 kilograms of low-enriched uranium when the agency performed its annual inspection in November 2008, and between then and the end of January had enriched a further 171 kilograms. It had previously reported that Iran had 630 kilograms in November 2008. U.N. officials attributed the discrepancy to initial Iranian estimates being lower than the observed amount. They dismissed suggestions that Iran might have moved some uranium into a secret location for enrichment into fissile material. The report also said the Natanz plant had a total of 4,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, up from 3,800 in November 2008, and that it had 1,600 more centrifuges in reserve. IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei Feb. 17 had said that Iran could have added more centrifuges, but had made “a political decision” not to. However, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, Feb. 25 said Iran had 6,000 centrifuges installed at Natanz. Mullen, in response to a question March 1 on the Cable News Network (CNN) show “State of the Union” on whether Iran had enough low-enriched uranium to make a bomb with further processing, said, “We think they do, quite frankly.” The U.S. and the IAEA had previously disagreed over the extent of the Iranian nuclear program’s progress. However, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates the same day said Iran was “not close to a stockpile” of nuclear weapons. He also called for diplomatic efforts to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program, and said the low price of oil and worldwide economic turmoil could enhance the effects of sanctions against Iran. U.S. President Barack Obama had offered to hold direct talks with Iran. The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, March 8 warned that Iran had “crossed the threshold” and was capable of producing a nuclear weapon. However, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair March 10 told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that “Iran has not decided to press forward…to have a nuclear weapon on top of a ballistic missile,” and said Iran would 174

need at a minimum until 2010–15 to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single weapon. He said Israel was taking “more of a worst-case approach to these things from their point of view.” Nuclear Reactor Tested—Iran Feb. 25 started a long-delayed test of a nuclear power plant being built at the southwestern port of Bushehr. Aghazadeh said the process, which would use lead instead of uranium in a “virtual fuel-injection test,” would take four to seven months. Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the plant’s construction, by Russian state-owned contractor Atomstroiexport, was almost complete. Russia would supply the nuclear fuel for the plant, and would dispose of the spent fuel so it could not be used to produce nuclear weapons. [See 2008, p. 93E3] n Khatami Drops out of Presidential Race.

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami March 17 said he would drop out of the country’s presidential race and support another opposition candidate, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi. Moussavi March 10 had announced his candidacy for the June election, in which he would presumably face President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had indicated that he would seek re-election. [See p. 86C3; 1989, p. 615C3] Moussavi had been prime minister from 1981 to 1989, but had since avoided political activity. He was well-regarded for his leadership during the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War, and was a critic of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies. However, he supported the clerical domination of Iran’s government and the country’s nuclear program, and was considered the only prominent opposition candidate capable of attracting conservatives dissatisfied with Ahmadinejad’s administration. Analysts had said that Iran’s reform movement was employing a “three-general” strategy, in which Khatami, Moussavi, and a third reformist candidate—cleric Mehdi Karroubi—would run separate campaigns until May. At that point, the two trailing candidates would drop out and back the candidate with the most support. However, at a meeting March 16 between Khatami and Moussavi, Moussavi said he would not quit the race. Khatami, a reformist cleric who had served two terms as president from 1997 to 2005, said he would instead drop out so as not to split the opposition vote. He said that despite their policy differences, Moussavi “will defend the fundamental rights and freedoms of people and the country’s international reputation.” n

Iraq U.S. Downs Iranian Drone in Iraqi Airspace.

U.S. military officials March 16 said that U.S. warplanes Feb. 25 had shot down an “Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle” in Iraqi airspace. It was the first time the U.S. had acknowledged downing an Iranian drone. The incident was seen as a potentially complicating factor in relations between the

U.S. and Iran. U.S. President Barack Obama had indicated a willingness to hold direct talks with Iran. [See pp. 156A1, 101B3] U.S military spokesman Col. James Hutton said the drone had been shot down about 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, relatively near the Iran-Iraq border. However, he said the drone had not crossed the border by accident, and that the U.S. had observed it for one hour and 10 minutes before taking action. The drone was reportedly an Ababil 3 aircraft equipped with video cameras and transmission equipment and controlled by a pilot on the ground. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Muhammad al-Askari said Iraq’s airspace security remained the U.S.’s responsibility under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, and that the presence of the drone 80 miles into Iraqi territory was “illegal.” An unidentified Iraqi defense ministry official said the U.S. had informed the Iraqi government of the incident on March 15. U.S. military officials reportedly told Iraq that the drone might have been scouting routes for Iran to smuggle weapons into Iraq. The U.S. had accused Iran of supplying weapons to Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq that attacked U.S. and Iraqi forces, but recently was thought to have halted that support. However, media reports suggested that it might also have been spying on an Iranian opposition group—the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)—which had taken refuge in Iraq near where the drone was shot down. The Iraqi government, which had taken over security responsibility for the MEK’s Camp Ashraf from the U.S. at the beginning of 2009, had vowed to expel the group from the country. MEK spokespeople said Iraqi troops March 13 had surrounded the camp, and were preventing food and supplies from being brought in. [See p.101B1] Bush Shoe-Thrower Jailed for Three Years—

A Baghdad court March 12 convicted Muntader al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist who in December 2008 had thrown his shoes at then–U.S. President George W. Bush in protest during a press conference in Baghdad, and sentenced him to three years in prison. Zaidi proclaimed his innocence, and added, “It was a natural reaction to the crimes of the occupation.” [See p. 118D1] Zaidi had originally faced a charge of assault of a foreign head of state, which carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. However, the prosecutor asked that the charge be reduced to assault of an official during the execution of his duties, which had a maximum penalty of three years. Zaidi’s actions had made him a folk hero throughout the Arab world, and his family members and supporters condemned the court’s decision as unnecessarily harsh. Some observers expected that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would pardon Zaidi after he had served part of his sentence. Lawyers for Zaidi said they would appeal the verdict. FACTS ON FILE

Other News—In other Iraqi news:

Stuart Bowen Jr., the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR), March 16 reported that the U.S. had returned to the Iraqi government more than $13 million in reconstruction funds that had been “improperly held” by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. According to the SIGIR investigation, the Army Corps in 2006 had not returned unused funds from a $1.5 billion electrical infrastructure project as required, but had directed contractors to submit unjustified claims so it could retain control of the money. Bowen said that according to the U.S. Justice Department, no crimes had been committed. [See p. 23D2] o Iraqi President Jalal Talabani March 13 said that he was not planning to seek reelection. Talabani made the announcement during an interview with the Iranian staterun Press TV television network, while on a visit to Tehran, Iran’s capital. However, aides cautioned that his decision hadn’t been formalized. Talabani’s term would last until the Iraqi parliament chose a new president, a move expected in spring 2010. Talabani, a Kurd, had worked to resolve sectarian disputes since he became president in 2005, and strong competition was expected between Kurds and Sunni Muslims to replace him. (Prime Minister Maliki was a Shiite.) o Gunmen in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, March 13 killed six men who had recently been released from the U.S.-run Camp Bucca detention facility in the southwestern Basra province. According to the victims’ relatives, they had fled their homes in Baiji, north of Baghdad, but had been abducted and killed by local police in revenge for crimes they had allegedly committed when they were insurgents. n o

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistani Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudhry Reinstated Follows Protests by Government Opposition.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani March 16 in a televised address to the nation announced that ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry would be restored to his position March 21. The announcement was a capitulation to protesters who for nearly a week had staged demonstrations across the country calling for Chaudhry’s reinstatement. Prior to the announcement, the government of President Asif Ali Zardari since March 11 had arrested hundreds of protesters and imposed a ban on political rallies. [See p. 138F1] The protests were sparked by a February Supreme Court ruling that had barred former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding political office. The court had also barred Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, from holding office, leading the government to dismiss him as chief minister of Punjab, and place the region under executive control. Punjab, located in eastern Pakistan, was the most populous of the country’s four provinces, and Nawaz Sharif’s March 19, 2009

opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), enjoyed strong support there. The court ruling was seen as a power grab by Zardari, and Sharif immediately joined forces with a lawyers’ movement that had demanded an independent judiciary and the reinstatement of Chaudhry, who had been ousted from his position in March 2007 (and again in November 2007 after a brief reinstatement) by then-President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf—who had originally taken power in a 1999 coup, when he was chief of the army—had reportedly been concerned that Chaudhry would raise legal challenges to his rule. Chaudhry’s ouster led to a wide public backlash against Musharraf, eventually culminating in his resignation in 2008. [See 2008, p. 565A1] Since being elected president in September 2008, Zardari, head of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), had not reinstated Chaudhry, as he had pledged to do. Critics said Zardari was concerned that Chaudhry could revive corruption charges against him that had been dropped under a 2007 amnesty agreement with Musharraf. Rifts over Chaudhry’s status had led to a break between the PPP and the PML-N in August 2008, leading to the collapse of their parliamentary coalition. [See 2008, p. 596G1] Gillani’s March 16 announcement came as thousands of protesters from different cities were converging on Islamabad, the capital, to agitate for the reinstatement of Chaudhry and dozens of other judges ousted by Musharraf. Observers said the protests also reflected broad dissatisfaction with Zardari’s government, which had failed to stem a rise in terrorist attacks and rehabilitate Pakistan’s slumping economy. [See p. 137E3; 2008, p. 890F3] Gillani March 16 said all the judges would be restored to their former positions. He said the Supreme Court would review its rulings against the Sharif brothers. He also said opposition supporters arrested in recent days would be released, and that the ban on rallies would be lifted. Gillani the following day said he supported ending executive control of Punjab. The March 16 announcement was followed by jubilant celebrations across the country, in what was seen as a rare victory for the judiciary in Pakistan, where leaders had long stacked the Supreme Court with cronies. Nawaz Sharif that day said, “From here, God willing, the fate of this nation will change. From here, a journey of development will start. From here, a revolution will come.” Protesters Arrested, Rallies Banned—

The government March 11 began cracking down on PML-N supporters and members of the lawyers’ movement, arresting as many as 400 people and imposing a ban on rallies in Punjab and Sindh province, a PPP stronghold. The crackdown was a bid to head off a planned “long march” by protesters to Islamabad, which was to start the following day in various cities, including Lahore in Punjab, Karachi in Sindh and Quetta in Baluchistan province. Clashes between protesters and police March 11 were reported in various cities.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman March 11 said the measures were “unfortunate,” but necessary to prevent “open rebellion.” The PML-N had staged several rallies in the preceding days at which Sharif had called for a “revolution.” Arrests and clashes between police and protesters continued March 11–15 in Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. Security was bolstered on highways leading to Islamabad, and the army was put on high alert. The government March 13 halted the transmission of Geo, one of several independent television channels that had broadcast the events. Observers said the government crackdown was reminiscent of authoritarian steps taken by Musharraf in 2007 to solidify his control of the country. [See 2007, p. 725A1] Senior members of the PPP also grew critical of the crackdown, particularly those loyal to slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto, a revered leader in PPP circles, had been assassinated in December 2007, and Zardari, her husband, then took charge of the PPP. Zardari was reported not to have made any public appearances during the protests, and observers said he had ensconced himself in the presidential residence due to fears for his personal security. Rehman March 13 abruptly resigned from her position in an apparent protest of the government’s attempts to block Geo’s transmission. [See 2007, p. 857A1] The government March 14 tried to compromise with the PML-N, saying it would ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its rulings against the Sharif brothers. But they reportedly rejected the offer because the government did not commit to reinstating Chaudhry and the other judges. Police March 15 placed Nawaz Sharif under house arrest in Lahore, but he and a convoy of vehicles later that day tore through the barricades and began the 185mile (300-km) journey to Islamabad along with thousands of chanting protesters. In an indication that Zardari’s control was eroding, police officers began to withdraw from demonstration sites when Sharif broke his house arrest, after clashing with PML-N supporters earlier in the day.

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Pakistani Army, U.S., Britain Involved—

Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, head of the Pakistani army, was in frequent contact with Zardari and Gillani, as were U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Kiyani and the Western diplomats all reportedly pushed for a peaceful resolution to the standoff. The diplomats also maintained frequent contact with Sharif. Kiyani was reportedly unwilling to order army forces to clamp down on the protesters, and had urged the government to concede to the opposition’s demands. The army was a powerful arbiter in Pakistani affairs, although Kiyani was thought to prefer keeping the army and government separate, following nine years of military control under Musharraf. The U.S. was reportedly concerned that increased political instability in Pakistan 175

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would prevent the government from confronting Islamic extremist militants who operated in the country’s northwest tribal areas, and were considered a threat to U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops stationed in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. reportedly informed Pakistan that it could not justify sending a planned $1.5 billion in aid to the country if the country was caught in political turmoil. [See p. 103B1] Holbrooke March 16 said Zardari’s compromise was a “statesmanlike act” that was a “substantial step toward national reconciliation.” However, Zardari’s clout was thought to have been badly damaged by the episode. n

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NFC Wins NFL Pro Bowl. The National Football Conference (NFC) Feb. 8 defeated the American Football Conference (AFC), 30–

21, to win the Pro Bowl, the annual all-star game of the National Football League (NFL), in Honolulu, Hawaii. The NFC had also won in 2008. [See 2008, p. 114E3] Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald—a standout in his team’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl one week earlier—caught five passes for 81 yards and two touchdowns in the Pro Bowl, and was named the game’s most valuable player (MVP). [See p. 70B1] Other News—In other NFL news: o The NFL Players Association (NFLPA), the players’ union, March 15 selected DeMaurice Smith, a Washington, D.C., criminal defense lawyer, as its new executive director. He succeeded Gene Upshaw, who had died in August 2008. (Richard Berthelsen had been running the union on an interim basis.) Smith, 45, who had no prior experience in labor law or sports, beat former NFL players Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong and lawyer David Cornwell in a vote by player representatives. Smith would be in charge of negotiating a new contract for the 2011 season, after NFL owners in May 2008 had opted out of the current deal. [See 2008, p. 668D1] o The Dallas Cowboys March 5 announced that they had released star wide receiver Terrell Owens. Owens March 7 signed a one-year contract with the Buffalo Bills that was worth a guaranteed $6.5 million. Although Owens, 35, had reportedly clashed with teammates and coaches during the 2008 season, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones March 11 said the team had released him in order to give the Cowboys’ other receivers more opportunities to play. [See 2006, p. 1035D3] o The New England Patriots Feb. 28 announced that they had traded quarterback Matt Cassel and linebacker Mike Vrabel to the Kansas City Chiefs for a second-round (34th overall) pick in the 2009 draft. Cassel had led the Patriots to a record of 11 wins and five losses in 2008, after taking over as the team’s starter when Tom Brady suffered a serious knee injury in the first game 176

of the season. Analysts said the deal indicated that the Patriots were confident that Brady would fully recover from the injury in time for the 2009 season. [See p. 160E2; 2008, p. 667E2] o The Washington Redskins Feb. 27 signed Pro Bowl defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth to a seven-year contract that could be worth as much as $115 million. The deal included an NFL-record $41 million in guaranteed money. [See 2006, p 1035D3] o New York Jets quarterback Brett Favre Feb. 11 announced his retirement for the second time in less than a year. Favre, 39, in August 2008 had emerged from retirement to join the Jets, after retiring from the Green Bay Packers in March. [See 2008, p. 667G2] o The Chiefs Feb. 6 hired Cardinals offensive coordinator Todd Haley as their new head coach. He replaced Herman Edwards, who was fired in January. [See p. 55F2] o The Oakland Raiders Feb. 3 officially made Tom Cable the team’s head coach. Cable had taken the job on an interim basis after the Raiders fired Lane Kiffin in September 2008. [See 2008, p. 992F2] o Six people Jan. 31 were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio: late wide receiver Bob Hayes; guard Randall McDaniel; defensive end Bruce Smith, late linebacker Derrick Thomas; cornerback and safety Rod Woodson; and Bills owner Ralph Wilson Jr. [See 2008, p. 668A1] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Former U.S. first lady Barbara Bush, 83, March 13 was discharged from Houston, Texas’s Methodist Hospital, nine days after open-heart surgery to repair her aortic valve. In November 2008, a small tear in her bowel had been surgically repaired at the same hospital. [See 2008, p. 891D2] Fans of the Vermont-based rock-androll jam band Phish March 6 got to hear the four-member group live for the first time since August 2004 when the group performed at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Va. It was the first of three sold-out weekend shows at that 13,800-seat venue, to be followed by a large-scale tour, also already sold out. The group, which in 2004 had said it was breaking up for good, had decided to reunite in September 2008. Hampton-area police March 9 claimed to have confiscated about $1.2 million worth of illegal drugs from Phish music fans over the weekend. [See 2004, p. 415F1] Jack Valenti, who had been Hollywood’s chief lobbyist for nearly four decades (1966–2004) after serving as a special assistant to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson (D), had been the target of a secret Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into his sexuality, the Washington Post reported Feb. 19. The Post said that in 1964, while Valenti was still at the White House, the FBI had investigated whether he had been sexually involved with a male

commercial photographer, one of numerous investigations of the personal lives of prominent personalities by the agency under then-Director J. Edgar Hoover. The probe, which began two years after Valenti married Johnson’s personal secretary, was reportedly quickly dropped after the photographer told the FBI that he and Valenti had never had sex. Valenti died in 2007 at the age of 85. [See 2007, p. 288B3] n

O B I T UA R I E S FEHN, Sverre, 84, Norwegian architect who won the most prestigious award in his field, the Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1997, becoming the first Scandinavian architect to do so; most of his completed designs were in Norway, whose northern landscapes helped inspire his work; born Aug. 14, 1924, in Kongsberg, Norway; died Feb. 23 at a retirement home in Oslo, Norway. [See 1997, p. 895C2] PURDY, James Otis, 94, reclusive author of novels, short stories and plays whose hallucinatory quality militated against their becoming commercially successful; his work, which included the novels Malcolm (1959) and Eustace Chisholm and the Works (1967), often frustrated mainstream book reviewers but was lavished with praise by such literary lights as Dame Edith Sitwell, Susan Sontag, Edward Albee (who adapted Malcolm for the stage) and Gore Vidal; openly gay for most of his life, he dealt with homosexuality, either implicitly or explicitly, to a significant degree; born July 17, 1914, near Hicksville, Ohio; died March 13 at a hospital in Englewood, N.J., after years of declining health. [See 1966, p. 176E2] RICHARDSON, Natasha Jane, 45, British-born actress, resident in New York City since the 1990s, who was a member of Britain’s illustrious Redgrave acting family, which included, among others, Sir Michael Redgrave (her maternal grandfather), Vanessa Redgrave (her mother) Lynn Redgrave (her aunt) and Joely Richardson (her sister); she began acting at the age of four, being cast as an extra by her father, director Tony Richardson, in his film The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968); her first prominent role was in a 1985 London production of Anton Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull; later, she starred on Broadway in a revival of the musical Cabaret, winning a 1998 Tony Award for her portrayal of the show’s female lead, Sally Bowles; she was also known for her work in films, including the title role in Patty Hearst (1988), and roles in The Comfort of Strangers (1990) and The Parent Trap (1998); since 1994, she had been married to actor Liam Neeson, her co-star in a 1993 Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s play Anna Christie, and the father of her two sons; born May 11, 1963, in London; died March 18 at a New York hospital, after being taken off life support; she died two days after falling and hitting her head on a ski trail at the Mont Tremblant resort near Montreal, Canada; she initially seemed to be in good shape, but her condition soon deteriorated, and she was treated at a Montreal hospital before being flown to New York for further treatment March 17. New York’s chief medical examiner March 19 said an autopsy revealed a brain hemorrhage as the cause of death. [See 2005, p. 379D2; 2003, p. 416D3; Indexes 1998–99, 193, 1990, 1987–88] SALIH, Tayeb, 80, Sudanese-born novelist resident in Britain for most of his life; his novel The Season of Migration to the North (1966), dealing to a large extent with the clash between Eastern and Western values, was proclaimed in 2001, by the Damascus, Syria–based Arab Literary Academy, to be the most important 20th-century novel in Arabic; born July 12, 1928, in Karmakol, Sudan (then a British colony); died Feb. 18 in London. SILVER, Ron(ald Arthur), 62, actor and political activist; his many film roles included his portrayal of attorney Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune (1990), based on Dershowitz’s book of the same name, about a high-profile attempted-murder case; on Broadway, he turned in a Tony Award–winning performance as a repulsive Hollywood film producer in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plough (1988); he also often appeared on television; in the political realm, he was a firm believer in liberal and Democratic causes until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which turned him into a Republican, and a strong supporter of the presidency of George W. Bush; born July 2, 1946, in New York City; died March 15 at his New York home, of esophageal cancer, diagnosed in 2007. [See 2008, p. 912F3; 1994, p. 743G3; Indexes 1986–90, 1983–84] n

March 19, 2009

U.S. Treasury Outlines Plan for Purchase of Up To $1 Trillion in Banks’ Troubled Assets Public Financing to Reduce Private Investors’ Risk Markets Jump in Response. The U.S. Trea-

sury Department March 23 released details of its plan to shore up the financial system by helping banks sell mortgage-related assets that had collapsed in value after the bursting of a housing market bubble beginning in 2006. The so-called toxic assets were weighing down banks’ balance sheets and making them reluctant to issue new loans, freezing credit markets and hindering a recovery from the nation’s current economic recession. The plan was intended to encourage private investors to purchase the so-called toxic assets by creating public-private partnerships in which they would receive extensive government financing and share eventual profits on the investments with the government, but face very limited losses in the case of investments that turned out to be bad. [See pp. 161A1, 76A3] The plan represented the U.S. government’s latest proposal for disposing of the troubled assets. Under then-President George W. Bush, the Treasury in 2008 had proposed a $700 billion plan to do so, but most of the funds were used instead to shore up banks by taking capital stakes in them. After President Barack Obama took office in January, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in February had announced an outline of the Obama administration’s proposal for disposing of toxic assets that was seen as vague and inspiring little confidence that the administration had a well-thought-out plan. Reaction to the fleshed-out program was much more positive, and U.S. stock indexes shot up on news of the plan. Although major banks were initially noncommittal about their plans to participate in the scheme, some major investment companies indicated that they intended to make asset purchases. However, some critics said that the plan offered excessively favorable terms to investors, at taxpayers’ likely expense, and others warned that it was too limited in its scope. [See below] Nonetheless, the positive response in financial markets was something of a reprieve for Geithner and the Obama administration. The previous week, they had borne some of the brunt of an outburst of political rage over the government’s previous actions to rescue financial institutions. The furor centered on millions of dollars in bonuses paid out by bailed-out insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) to top employees after it had been rescued by the government in 2008. Geithner in testimony to Congress March 24 and 26 outlined proposals to give the government greater regulatory power over nonbank financial institutions. The administration said such powers would have given it the ability to determine AIG’s use of the money it had been given, and would have helped prevent AIG and other institutions from reaching the point where the government had to step in to save them or risk a broader collapse in the financial system. [See p. 178A2]

Details of the Plan—The Treasury plan,

called the Public-Private Investment Program, would allow for the purchase of between $500 billion and $1 trillion in toxic assets, which the Treasury dubbed “legacy assets,” through partnerships known as Public-Private Investment Funds. One part of the plan would address securities that were backed by real-estate loans, and another part concerned banks’ books of actual loans. In the “legacy loans program,” the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) would hold auctions in which private investors would bid for pools of loans that banks offered for sale. The bank would take a loss on the difference between the loans’ face value and the winning bid. The Treasury and the FDIC would finance up to 85% of the price for the winning bidder; the purchaser would put up half the remainder, and the Treasury the other half. In a hypothetical example furnished by the Treasury, a loan pool with a face value of $100 might fetch $84 in an auction. Of that, an investor would have to put up $6, and the Treasury would provide an equal amount, and the FDIC would lend $72. The FDIC financing would be in the form of “nonrecourse” loans, meaning they were secured only by the purchased assets as the collateral. The private investors would manage the loans under FDIC oversight. But in cases where the loans went bad, the FDIC would take ownership of them, and the private investors would face the loss of no more than their own initial $6. In the “legacy securities program,” the Treasury would approve five private assetmanagement companies to raise private capital for investment in troubled securities. The government would match private investment dollar-for-dollar, and the Treasury would provide a loan equal to between 50% and 100% of that total equity investment. The private investors and the government would share the returns on the securities. In the Treasury’s example, $100 from private investors would go toward the purchase of $300–$400 in securities, with the matching government investment and the Treasury lending. The Treasury and the Federal Reserve would offer as much as another $1 trillion in financing for purchases of troubled securities through their joint Term AssetBacked Securities Loan Facility (TALF). That would be a use of TALF different from what was envisioned when it was created in 2008, which was to encourage new lending by financing newly issued loan-backed securities. The Treasury would use $75 billion to $100 billion out of the funds still remaining from the $700 billion appropriated for the initial financial rescue package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Using $100 billion would leave only $12 billion in the TARP fund for future emergencies.

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Volume 69, No. 3562 March 26, 2009

B The plan’s heavy reliance on the Federal Reserve and the FDIC was widely seen as due in part to the fact that those institutions could act without congressional approval, allowing the administration to avoid seeking new appropriations from Congress at a time of heightened skepticism about assistance to the financial sector. The Obama administration had leaked aspects of the plan in the days preceding its official unveiling. The terms of the final plan reportedly offered private investors a greater potential share of the returns on the troubled assets than earlier versions had, raising the maximum to 50%, from 20%. The administration reportedly denied suggestions that the change had been made in an effort to build support for the plan among investors, and asserted that it would reduce the risk borne by taxpayers.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. Treasury outlines plan for purchase of up to $1 trillion in banks’ troubled assets; public financing to reduce private investors’ risk. PAGE 177

U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner proposes regulatory overhaul. PAGE 178

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U.S. President Obama sends video message to Iran. PAGE 179

Obama defends budget at news conference. PAGE 181

Madagascar’s military-appointed president sworn in. PAGE 184

U.S. increases Mexico border security. PAGE 185

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Chinese parliament session focuses on economy. PAGE 186

Czech prime minister resigns after noconfidence vote. PAGE 188

Hungarian prime minister resigns amid financial crisis. PAGE 188

Israel’s Netanyahu assembles governing coalition. PAGE 189

Japan wins second straight World Baseball Classic. PAGE 190

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Reaction—Stock markets posted their biggest gains in months following the release of the plan, led by shares in major banks, whose stockholders potentially stood to benefit. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 497.48 points for the day, or 6.84%, to 7,775.86. The Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 index rose 54.38 points, or 7.1%, to 822.92, and the Nasdaq was up 98.50, or 6.8%, to 1,555.77. The gains were aided also by data released that day showing a slight gain in existing-home sales for January, which some took as a harbinger of a reversal in the housing market’s decline. [See p. 183C1] However, in contrast to the stock market, credit markets showed little immediate indication of loosening. A number of major asset-management companies indicated their satisfaction with the program and their willingness to participate, among them BlackRock Inc., Legg Mason Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co. (Pimco), a major buyer of bonds. Pimco Co–Chief Investment Officer Bill Gross called it a “win-win-win policy,” good for his firm, its clients and taxpayers in general. However, some investors reportedly expressed wariness about potential political entanglements that might come with joining the program, suggesting that if they realized substantial profits, they might become the targets of anger similar to that directed at beneficiaries of government aid such as AIG. Also, the prospects for banks’ participation in the program were not immediately clear. Although the program was intended to aid the country’s major banks by raising the prices of the toxic assets, the sales would still require banks to mark down the value of the assets and record resulting losses. That could threaten their capital levels, which were subject to special monitoring under a program of “stress tests” to determine whether they would be forced to either raise private investment or accept additional public stakes. Although the Treasury suggested that the program’s structure was designed to arrive at a proper price for the troubled assets, some critics of the plan said it would work only by encouraging investors to pay artificially inflated prices for them, at taxpayer expense. Some suggested that direct government capital injections in banks did a better job of guaranteeing that taxpayers would benefit from the banks’ renewed prosperity. Others said the proposal, limited by the political infeasibility of obtaining more congressional funding, avoided facing the full extent of banks’ losses, and was too small relative to the actual magnitude of the toxic assets on banks’ books. Some suggested that banks’ problems were so great that it would inevitably be necessary to take more drastic measures such as temporary nationalizations, in which the government would seize and restructure banks and then sell them off to private investors. Some of those critics pointed to Sweden’s handling of a banking crisis in the 1990s as a model for such a process. [See 1992, p. 717E1] n

Power to Seize Nonbanks Sought—

Other U.S. Economic News Geithner Proposes Regulatory Overhaul.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner March 26 outlined a proposal for “comprehensive reform” of the nation’s financial regulatory framework, calling for a new entity to oversee “systemic” risks to the financial system, and new government powers to regulate a wider range of financial institutions. In an ongoing financial crisis, a housing market collapse had threatened to cause a global meltdown due to the proliferation through a wide range of financial institutions of intricate, often risky transactions based on mortgage loans. Advocates of increasing regulation said the crisis had revealed tremendous shortcomings in regulators’ current ability to assess the risks being taken by major financial institutions and to prevent problems from endangering the entire financial system. [See p. 177A1] Geithner described the proposals in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee; the regulatory overhaul he suggested would require federal legislation. Geithner said a single new independent agency should be established “with responsibility for systemic stability over the major institutions and critical payment and settlement systems.” It would have regulatory authority over nonbank institutions that currently faced little or no federal regulation, such as insurers, hedge funds and private-equity firms, if they were deemed to be “systemically important.” The agency would have the power to impose stricter capital requirements and rein in the risks they took. The 2008 near-collapse and government rescue of insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) had highlighted the increasing role played by such institutions in the financial system. AIG had faced colossal losses on investments made in the credit default swap (CDS) market, where it underwrote insurance on assets backed by mortgages. The government had stepped in out of fear that AIG’s inability to cover its CDS obligations would have put many other large institutions in equal danger of collapse. Geithner also proposed expanding federal regulation over large hedge funds and private-equity firms, and financial instruments such as CDSs that were also often lightly regulated. He said, “Financial products and institutions should be regulated for the economic function they provide and the risks they present, not the legal form they take.” He said hedge funds and private-equity firms would have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also suggested that regulatory reform should take place in the context of “a global framework” of oversight. Geithner did not offer extensive details on the administration’s proposal. In response to lawmakers’ queries about how the power would be wielded, he cited the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), which had the power to take over failed banks, as a “model.”

Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony before the same committee March 24 had said that a new regulatory body should have the power to seize financial institutions besides banks. Geithner suggested that the Treasury be given such new authority, but Bernanke aid he thought the FDIC “or some other body” should have it. They both cited the AIG case, noting that even though the government had acquired a nearly 80% stake in AIG, it did not have the power to renegotiate contracts, including employees’, or determine how to best address the claims of AIG’s creditors and transaction counterparties, as the FDIC did when it seized a failed bank. They said that such powers would have allowed the government to prevent AIG from handing out $165 million in bonuses that had caused a political furor in recent days. [See p. 161A1] The government also might have been able to negotiate lower payments to some of AIG’s CDS counterparties. Bernanke was questioned about AIG’s use of money from the government to make payouts to other banks, many of them in Europe. He said that defaulting on the obligations would have caused “chaos in financial markets,” and pointed out that European institutions had used aid from their governments to satisfy U.S. creditors. Lawmakers pressed Bernanke and Geithner about how they let the bonuses be paid, although their remarks were generally less heated than in the previous week. Bernanke said he had considered filing a lawsuit to force AIG not to pay them, but had received legal advice about the risks of losing the case and owing additional damages to the AIG employees.

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Reaction—House Democrats were generally receptive to the reform proposals, but many Republicans warned against hasty action that might have unforeseen consequences. Some hedge fund managers questioned the need for greater regulation of their industry, saying it had not been a major factor in the recent financial crisis, and that many funds in practice were already subject to various forms of regulation, depending on the kinds of trading they conducted. Insurance industry groups also downplayed the extent to which AIG’s activities were representative of the industry as a whole, although some large insurers had long sought a federal regulatory framework. n

U.S. President Obama Sends Video Message to Iran Calls for Talks on ‘Full Range of Issues.’

U.S. President Barack Obama March 20 in a three-minute video address to the government and people of Iran called for a “new beginning” of diplomatic engagement “that addresses the full range of issues” between the two countries. The three-minute address, which had Farsi subtitles, was posted online and released to international broadcasters to coincide with the Persian New Year holiday of Nowruz. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, March 21 dismissed the message and called for U.S. policy changes rather than just rhetoric. [See pp. 173F3, 86G1] “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community,” Obama

said in the message. “This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.” Obama said, “The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations,” but added, “You have that right— but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.” Obama twice referred to Iran by its official name, the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted in the 1979 revolution that precipitated a rupture in bilateral relations. Together with Obama’s disavowal of “threats,” it was seen as a sign that he would negotiate with Iran’s cleric-dominated government, rather than seek its overthrow. Former U.S. President George W. Bush in a 2008 Nowruz message had told the Iranian people that their country’s “regime” had caused their isolation from the rest of the world by continuing work on a nuclear program. Israeli President Shimon Peres March 20 also delivered a Nowruz message over Israel Radio’s Farsi-language channel, although it was aimed at the Iranian people and not the government. Peres called the Iranian government “a handful of religious fanatics [who] take the worst possible path” and said, “I think that the Iranian people will topple these leaders.” Some analysts said that the release of the message from Israel would reduce the potential positive impact of Obama’s address on U.S.Iranian relations. Khamenei in a speech in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad March 21 said of Obama’s overture, “They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in prac-

TRANSCRIPT OF OBAMA’S ADDRESS TO IRAN

Following is the transcript of U.S. President Barack Obama’s March 20 video address to the government and people of Iran [See p. 179C1]: Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world. This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family. In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place. Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans. We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world. For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays—by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope. Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations. Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams. So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders. We have serious

March 26, 2009

differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect. You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right—but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create. So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It’s a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It’s a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace. I know that this won’t be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.” With the coming of a new season, we’re reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning. Thank you, and Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak [Happy New Year].

tice.” He called on the U.S. to discontinue sanctions on Iran and stop its “unconditional support” for Israel. However, he said to the U.S., “should you change, our behavior will change, too.” Iranian parliament Speaker Ali Larijani March 25 issued more pointed criticism of Obama’s statement, saying that Iran’s “problem with America is not an emotional problem that could be solved by sending congratulations.” He noted that problems between the two countries went back 30 years, and specifically cited the U.S.’s support of Iraq during the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War. Larijani made his comments at a news conference in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, after meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric. n

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Religion Pope Admits Rehabilitation Mistake. Pope

Benedict XVI, in a March 12 letter to Roman Catholic bishops, said his rehabilitation of dissident Bishop Richard Williamson, a Holocaust denier, had been an “unforeseen mishap.” Williamson had been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 after he was ordained a bishop by Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X, without the Vatican’s consent. (The Society of St. Pius X rejected the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.) His rehabilitation had caused an international outcry, and had reportedly led many Catholics to question both the astuteness of the Vatican’s bureaucracy and the Pope’s moral authority. [See p. 75D3] Benedict said he recognized that “the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation.” Williamson, in an interview broadcast on Swedish television in January, had said he believed that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers. In the days prior to his rehabilitation, the interview had been widely viewed on the Internet. In his letter, Benedict repeated his claim that he had not known of Williamson’s views on the Holocaust when he rehabilitated him, and said he had “been told that consulting the information available on the Internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on…I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news.” However, Benedict also expressed dismay that “even Catholics, who should have been better able to understand” his purpose, had reacted with “open hostility.” Williamson had several times expressed regret for the fallout caused by his comments, but had not explicitly recanted his assertion that no Jews were killed in Nazi gas chambers, as the Vatican had ordered him to. Williamson’s current status within the Roman Catholic Church was unclear. WIlliamson Expelled From Argentina—

Williamson March 24 left Argentina for 179

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Britain, after Argentine officials Feb. 19 had ordered him to leave the country. Williamson had served as the director of an Argentine seminary until his dismissal from that post in February. The Argentine interior ministry cited a visa violation for its decision, and said Williamson’s views “profoundly insult Argentine society, the Jewish community and all of humanity by denying a historic truth.” At the airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, Williamson reportedly raised his fist at a journalist and shoved him. n

sales and its 2003 invasion of Iraq. [See 2008, p. 980B1] Among positive developments cited in the report, the State Department found that Colombia had notably curbed the number of its human rights abuses in 2008. The report praised the implementation of judicial reforms, as well as increased investigations into ties between Colombian political figures and criminal and paramilitary organizations. It noted that the country’s kidnapping and murder rates had declined. [See 2008, p. 753C2] n

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OPEC

U.S. State Department Issues Annual Report.

Output Level Remains Steady. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) March 15 at a meeting in Vienna, Austria, left its oil production level unchanged, at 24.845 million barrels a day. However, it urged members to abide by their output quotas, in an attempt to stabilize prices. Crude oil prices March 16 closed at $47.35 on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), up $1.10 from the previous week, but still far below the July 3, 2008, high of $145.29. The next OPEC meeting was scheduled for May 28. [See 2008, p. 915G2] OPEC had pledged to cut production by 4.2 million barrels a day since September 2008. However, many countries had not abided by their quotas, and actual production remained about 800,000 barrels a day over the quota. The call for better compliance had been led by Saudi Arabia, which was responsible for half of the total production cuts even though it produced a third of the cartel’s oil output. OPEC President Chakib Khelil, also Algeria’s oil minister, said the cartel had refrained from further cutting production in order to not “make life more difficult for the G-20,” referring to the Group of 20 countries with the world’s largest economies, whose leaders were scheduled to meet in April to coordinate a response to the global economic crisis. U.S. President Barack Obama March 13 had called Saudi King Abdullah to discuss “the need to coordinate international efforts to restore economic growth,” according to U.S. officials. The U.S. had consistently opposed OPEC efforts to lower production and raise prices. However, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin addressed the OPEC meeting and warned that without higher prices, countries would not be able to make the investments in production that would ensure adequate oil supplies in the future. Russia was not a member of OPEC, but had developed close ties to the cartel. The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) March 13 released a report saying that oil production from nonmembers of OPEC would remain flat in 2009. It projected that those countries would produce 50.6 million barrels a day, eliminating a previously forecast 380,000-barrel rise. The IEA said the adjustment was due to operational problems in Azerbaijan, as well as expected future problems caused by tight credit and falling demand for oil. n

The U.S. State Department Feb. 25 issued its yearly report tracking human rights abuses in countries around the world, highlighting deteriorating conditions in countries such as China, Russia, Zimbabwe and others, and improvements in Colombia. The report was intended to probe violations of civil, religious, political and other rights in foreign nations and had been compiled annually by the State Department since 1977. [See 2008, p. 176G3] According to the report, human rights abuses had escalated in the previous year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it estimated 45,000 people were killed each month in 2008 in fighting between the government and other armed groups. The report found that rape was endemic and that looting, extrajudicial detentions and torture were on the rise. [See 2008, p. 970E2] The report found increases in “unlawful” killings and abductions carried out by Russian government security forces in the republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In addition, the report pointed out the government’s failure to solve several recent murders of Russian journalists. [See 2008, p. 664C3] According to the report, the number of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe had grown “dramatically” during 2008, an increase that the report attributed to “systematic” abuses and corruption by the “illegitimate government.” The report criticized widespread violence against the country’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and its supporters during the run-up to a presidential runoff election in June 2008. [See 2008, pp. 974E1, 425A1] The report found that human rights abuses in China, including mistreatment of human rights advocates and other activists, had risen significantly during protests in Tibet as well as the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China’s capital. China was also criticized for carrying out extrajudicial executions, imposing heavy restrictions on freedom of speech and cracking down on international nonprofit groups operating in the country, among other acts. China’s state-run news agency Feb. 26 issued a response to the report arguing that its authors had “willfully ignored and distorted basic facts” about China, and criticizing the U.S. for its international arms 180

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Federal Budget Deficit Forecast Grows for Obama Plan.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) March 20 released an analysis of President Barack Obama’s budget plan, projecting deeper long-term deficits than the White House had estimated in February. The CBO projections exceeded Obama’s by a total of $2.3 trillion over the next decade. [See p. 124A3] Obama had issued his plan in late February, pledging to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office, in 2013. The CBO projected that his budget proposals would come close to achieving that goal, but then would contribute to a steadily increasing deficit after 2013. The CBO estimated that Obama’s budget plan would lead to deficits averaging about $1 trillion a year over the next decade, or more than 4% of gross domestic product (GDP). White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag March 20 acknowledged that a deficit of that size would “not be sustainable.” The CBO projected a record deficit of $1.85 trillion, or about 13% of GDP, for the current fiscal year, which would end Sept. 30. That was $100 billion more than the White House forecast of a $1.75 trillion deficit. The CBO projected a $1.4 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2010, compared with the White House estimate of $1.2 trillion. The differences arose mainly because the CBO relied on economic assumptions that were less optimistic than those used by the White House. The CBO projected an average annual GDP growth rate of 2.5% over the next decade, compared to the White House estimate of 2.8%. The Blue Chip consensus estimate of private economists was 2.3%. The CBO found that Obama’s plan would increase federal spending to record levels, even after winding down measures to stabilize the financial system and revive economic growth. Republicans Seize on Figures—Republicans seized on the report to bolster their opposition to Obama’s budget plan. Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, March 20 said Obama’s plan would cause an “avalanche of debt that is poised to crush our economy.” Gregg had briefly been Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary in February, but withdrew due to what he said were differences over policy. [See p. 79E2] House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) March 24 said Obama’s budget “may be the most irresponsible piece of legislation I’ve seen in my legislative career,” and “only makes the crisis we’re in worse.” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) also said the CBO report raised concerns, adding that Congress would “have to make adjustments to the president’s budget if we want to keep the deficit on a downward trajectory.” FACTS ON FILE

Obama in a speech to state legislators at the White House March 20 said his aides were going “through the books line by line” to find unnecessary spending to cut. But he added, “What we will not cut are investments that will lead to real growth and real prosperity over the long term.” He referred specifically to his plans for health care, energy and education. Obama defended his budget again at a March 24 news conference. [See p. 181D2] The White House and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the executive body of the Democratic Party, had called on an e-mail network of Obama volunteers from the 2008 presidential campaign to rally support for his budget plan. In a video message to those supporters, released March 21, Obama urged them to work “block by block and door by door.” Volunteers spent that day gathering signatures for a pledge backing his budget. The initiative was seen as an unusual attempt to reactivate a campaign machine for a legislative goal. Senate, House Unveil Draft Plans—The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees March 24–25 unveiled their own nonbinding blueprints, known as budget resolutions. They were largely based on Obama’s plan, but called for trimming his spending proposals. Both congressional plans would meet Obama’s goal of cutting the current fiscal year’s deficit in half by 2013. Both congressional plans excluded Obama’s proposal to reserve $250 billion for further aid for the financial sector, and dropped Obama’s touted middle-class tax cut. They would allow spending for Obama’s top priorities of health care, energy and education reforms only if they did not increase the deficit. Conrad March 24 presented his draft, saying that it trimmed $608 billion from Obama’s blueprint over the next five years. Conrad dropped Obama’s plan for making permanent his payroll tax cut of $400 a year for individuals earning up to $75,000, or $800 a year for couples earning up to $150,000. Instead, Conrad would let the tax cut expire at the end of 2010, unless Obama could find other revenue to make up its cost. Conrad left out Obama’s proposal for a reserve fund of $634 billion to finance his plan to expand health insurance coverage. He also cut $160 billion from Obama’s proposal for overall nondefense spending over the next five years. Conrad assumed that the alternative minimum tax (AMT) would apply to millions more taxpayers in 2013 and 2014, bringing in much more revenue. Republicans called that a gimmick, pointing out that Congress had consistently acted in recent years to shield middle-class taxpayers from the spread of the AMT. Obama, unlike his predecessor, President George W. Bush, had not assumed substantial revenue growth from the AMT. The tax had originally been intended to apply to wealthy taxpayers, but had not been indexed for inflation. March 26, 2009

The committee March 26 voted, 13–10, on party lines, to approve the plan and send it to the full Senate. The House Budget Committee March 25 voted, 24–15, along party lines, to approve the version of the budget plan introduced by its chairman, Rep. John Spratt (D, S.C.), and send it to the full House. The plan was similar to Conrad’s, dropping Obama’s payroll tax cut and $250 billion bank bailout fund. The House version would reduce Obama’s proposed levels of nondefense spending by $7 billion in fiscal year 2010, compared with a $15 billion cut in the Senate version. Most of the House cut would affect international programs. The House plan would allow Democrats to use a procedural maneuver, known as “budget reconciliation,” to push through Obama’s health care and education initiatives in the Senate with 51 votes, instead of 60. That would allow the Democrats to overcome Republican filibusters. But it did not include another major initiative, Obama’s plan for capping emissions of greenhouse gases, in that strategy. Obama March 25 visited the Capitol to discuss the budget with the Senate Democratic caucus. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said the administration was “very pleased” with the House and Senate budget plans, which he called “fully in line with the president’s key priorities.” However, a newly formed group of 16 moderate Democratic senators was expected to press for further spending cuts when the full Senate debated the budget the following week. n

Obama Administration Obama Defends Budget at News Conference.

President Barack Obama March 24 held a White House news conference, defending his $3.6 trillion budget plan against criticism that it would increase the deficit to dangerous levels. Obama argued that his budget was a key part of his strategy to help the U.S. economy recover from the current recession. He said, “It’s a strategy to create jobs, to help responsible homeowners, to restart lending and to grow our economy over the long term. And we are beginning to see signs of progress.” [See pp. 180A3, 77D3] The prime-time news conference was Obama’s second since taking office in January. It lasted for nearly an hour. Obama struck back at Republican critics of his budget, saying they had “a short memory” because “as I recall, I’m inheriting a $1.3 trillion annual deficit from them.” But he also acknowledged that fellow Democrats in the House and Senate were moving to pare down the size of his spending plans and tax cuts. “We never expected when we printed out our budget that they would simply Xerox it and vote on it,” he said. He added that he would be able to pursue his priorities in separate legislation if any were left out of the congressional budget resolution. Obama said other countries should also increase their economic stimulus measures,

warning, “We don’t want a situation in which some countries are making extraordinary efforts and other countries aren’t, with the hope that somehow the countries that are making those important steps lift everybody up.” Leaders of the 27 member countries of the European Union had signaled that they opposed the U.S.’s calls for more stimulus spending. [See p. 188F2] Obama also faced questions about his administration’s response to a controversy over some $165 million in bonus payments to employees of insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG), which had received more than $170 billion in federal aid. The House had voted the previous week to impose a 90% income tax on the bonuses. [See p. 161A1] Asked why he had not immediately condemned the bonuses, Obama said, “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak.” In his opening remarks before taking reporters’ questions, he reiterated that he shared the outrage over the bonuses, but cautioned against excessive anger, saying, “The rest of us can’t afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit.” Obama, noting that he had only been in office for “a little over 60 days,” said it would take time and sustained effort to achieve his goals on initiatives including the pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. “That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I’m going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come, as long as I am in this office,” he said, adding, “I’m a big believer in persistence.” Asked about the role of race in his presidency, Obama downplayed it. He said the U.S. had experienced “justifiable pride” over his becoming the first black president, “but that lasted about a day.” He added, “Right now, the American people are judging me the way I should be judged,” based on his progress in fixing the economy and keeping the nation safe. n

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Locke Confirmed as Commerce Secretary.

The Senate March 24, by voice vote, confirmed former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke (D), 59, to serve as commerce secretary. His confirmation came after President Barack Obama’s two previous choices for the post—New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.)— had withdrawn their nominations. The commerce secretary’s wide-ranging responsibilities included managing the census, oceans and fisheries and some international trade policies. [See pp. 182A1, 112G3] Locke March 19 was unanimously endorsed for the post by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. At his confirmation hearing, held the previous day, Locke, who in 1997 had become the first Chinese-American governor in the U.S., pledged to ensure that the 2010 census was free from partisan meddling. (Statistics from the census were used to redraw congressional districts.) Locke also pledged to reduce the trade deficit, and asserted that while he supported free trade 181

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and would seek to open new markets, “we must enforce our trade agreements and place a high value on environmental, labor and safety standards.” n Kirk Confirmed as U.S. Trade Representative.

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The Senate March 18 voted, 92–5, to confirm former Dallas, Texas, Mayor Ronald Kirk (D), 54, as President Barack Obama’s nominee for U.S. trade representative. The Senate Finance Committee March 12 had approved Kirk’s nomination by voice vote. Kirk, who was black, was known for his pro-business stance and support for free trade. At his March 9 confirmation hearing, Kirk pledged to focus his attention on enforcing existing trade regulations on issues like environmental protection and labor rights. Trade policy under the previous administration of President George W. Bush had focused more on forging new free trade agreements. [See 2008, p. 936G1] In an apparent rebuke of the Bush administration, Kirk at his confirmation hearing asserted that he did not have “deal fever,” and added that he would not “do deals just for doing so.” He pledged to review pending bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, which Bush had approved but Congress had not passed due to opposition from Democrats. He also indicated that he would have to balance free trade policies with growing calls for protectionist measures amid a recession. [See 2008, p. 952D2] The Senate Finance Committee March 2 had released a report that said Kirk had failed to pay $9,975 in taxes related to speaking fees from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Kirk had for years requested that those fees be donated to a scholarship fund there in his name. According to the report, both Kirk and his tax preparer had erroneously believed that since the fees were donated, he did not have to pay taxes on them. The report also said Kirk had improperly deducted the cost of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks National Basketball Association (NBA) team as a business expense. However, Kirk agreed to pay the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) what he owed, and subsequently sailed through confirmation votes by both the Senate Finance Committee and the full Senate. n Hamburg Tapped as FDA Commissioner.

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President Barack Obama March 14 named former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, 53, as his nominee for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Obama also named Joshua Sharfstein, 39, the health commissioner for Baltimore, Md., as Hamburg’s top deputy. [See 2008, p. 966B2] The FDA in recent years had been roundly criticized for failing to ensure the safety of the country’s medicine supply, after several high-profile recalls of prescription drugs that were approved by the agency, and its inability to adequately regulate the medical device market. Scandals over imported Chinese-produced food products that had contained potentially toxic impurities, and a series of widespread food-borne illnesses, several of which were traced to 182

domestic sources, had also raised questions about its regulation of food safety. [See 95B3; 2007, pp. 753D1, 752D2] Both Hamburg and Sharfstein had reputations as health and safety advocates, and would be tasked with the oversight of an agency with an annual budget of more than $2 billion and about 11,000 employees. The FDA was responsible for regulating about $1 trillion worth of goods each year, including medicine, food, cosmetics and vitamins. Hamburg had served as New York City’s health commissioner from 1991 to 1997, when she left to become the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the administration of President Bill Clinton. She would succeed Andrew von Eschenbach, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, who had been criticized for allowing political considerations to influence the actions of the FDA. Hamburg’s appointment required confirmation by the Senate. [See 2006, p. 952D3] Sharfstein had gained prominence after lobbying the FDA in 2007 to limit the use of over-the-counter cough and cold medications by children. He had also overseen Obama’s FDA transition team. [See 2007, p. 716C3] n Rooney Named Ambassador to Ireland.

President Barack Obama March 17 named Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL), as U.S. ambassador to Ireland. Rooney, 76, was a lifelong Republican but had endorsed Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He had long been an active supporter of the peace process in the British province of Northern Ireland. He was cofounder of the American Ireland Fund, which had raised more than $300 million for peace and education programs. His son, Art Rooney 2nd, had taken over the daily operation of the Steelers in 2002. The team had won Super Bowl XLIII in February for its sixth championship, an NFL record. [See p. 70B1] Obama March 17 also hosted Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen. The two leaders held a meeting and attended the annual St. Patrick’s Day reception at the White House. Obama praised the people of Northern Ireland for rejecting a return to sectarian violence after the killings of two soldiers and a policeman the previous week. “This peace will prevail, because the response of the people of Northern Ireland and their leaders to these cowardly attacks has been nothing short of heroic,” he said. [See p. 173B1] n Obama Regrets Disabled Joke on ‘Tonight.’

President Barack Obama March 19 traveled to Los Angeles to promote his budget plan at a town hall meeting and make a videotaped appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on NBC television. He became the first sitting president to appear on a late-night talk show. After the show, Obama hastily apologized to disabled people for a joke he had made comparing his own bowling skills to those of athletes in the Special Olympics. [See p. 181D2]

Obama told Leno that he had tried out the bowling alley in the White House and was disappointed with his performance. “It was like the Special Olympics or something,” he quipped, drawing laughter from the audience. After taping the show, and before it was broadcast, Obama telephoned Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs March 20 said, “I know that the president believes that the Special Olympics are a triumph of the human spirit, and I think he understands that they deserve a lot better than the thoughtless joke that he made last night.” n

Economy Final 4th Quarter GDP Fall Put at 6.3%.

The Commerce Department March 26 reported that, according to its third and final estimate, gross domestic product (GDP) for the fourth quarter of 2008 had contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.3% from the previous quarter. That was a revision from the department’s second, “preliminary” estimate, released in February, that the GDP had contracted by 6.2%. However, the final figure had fallen short of analysts’ expectations of a 6.5% decline. [See p. 128F2] The figure was the largest GDP contraction since 1982. The rate of contraction increased from its preliminary estimate largely due to a larger reduction of inventories by businesses than had been previously estimated. A larger cutback on commercial construction than was previously estimated also contributed to the greater decline. Corporate profits fell a record $120.1 billion, or 16.5%, in the fourth quarter of 2008, when compared with the previous quarter. Analysts said the U.S. economy was caught in a vicious cycle in which a climbing unemployment rate, the decline in the stock market and a fall in house values had led to a reduction in consumer spending, and forced companies to cut back on production and lay off staff. n Consumer Prices Rose 0.4% in February.

The Labor Department March 18 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices Inflation (CPI) paid for conFebruary 2009 0.4% sumer goods by Previous Month 0.3% all urban con12-Month Increase 0.2% sumers, rose 0.4% in February with adjustment for seasonal variation, after climbing 0.3% in January. The two consecutive months of increases reduced concern that the U.S. was headed for a period of deflation, a sustained decline in prices that further depressed economic activity by leading consumers to delay spending in anticipation of lower prices. For the 12-month period through February, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was 0.2%. [See p. 111E2] The rise in overall CPI in February was led by a 3.3% increase in energy prices. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2% in February. n FACTS ON FILE

Durable Goods Orders Up 3.4% in February.

The Commerce Department March 25 reported that the value of durable goods orders in February was $165.6 billion, an increase of 3.4%, or $5.5 billion, from the previous month. That reversed a six-month trend of decreases. Durable goods were socalled big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 128E3] n New Home Sales Climbed 4.7% in February.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) March 25 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes rose 4.7% in February from the previous month in an unexpected reversal of the recent downward trend. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 337,000 units, up from the revised January rate of 322,000 units. The median price of a new single-family home sold in February was reported to be $200,900. [See p. 128F3] n Existing Home Sales Rose in February.

The National Association of Realtors March 23 reported that sales of existing homes rose by 5.1% in February, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million units, a surprise reversal of the recent downward trend. That was up from the revised 4.49 million units rate in January. Analysts said a sharp decline in housing prices had enticed many first-time buyers to purchase a home. The median sale price for existing homes in February was $165,400, down 15.5% from the $195,800 reported a year earlier. [See p. 129A1] n Housing Starts Up 22.2% in February. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) March 17 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in February was 583,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 22.2% from the January revised rate of 477,000. Analysts said much of the increase resulted from construction growth in the multifamily market, consisting largely of apartments and condos, and that the overall housing market remained weak. [See p. 111C3] n Leading Indicators Rose 0.4% in February.

The Conference Board business research organization March 19 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, declined 0.4% in February, to 98.5. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.1%, in January, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 112B1] Six of the 10 indicators in February were “positive” contributors, led by the interest rate spread, and the index of supplier deliveries. Four indicators—led by average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance and the stock market—were “negative.” n Business Inventories Down in January.

The Commerce Department March 12 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of January was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.1% from the revised value at the end of December 2008. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take busiMarch 26, 2009

nesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.43. [See p. 111A3] n Industrial Production Fell 1.4% in February.

The Federal Reserve March 16 reported that its industrial production index decreased 1.4% in February. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 1.9% in January. The overall index now stood at 99.7% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 101.2% for January. [See p. 112D1] Manufacturing production fell 0.7% in February. The output of utilities fell 7.7%, and mining output fell 0.4%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 70.9% of their total capacity in February. n

Armed Forces Army to Phase Out Stop-Loss Policy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates March 18 announced that the Army would phase out its “stop-loss” policy over the next two years. Stop-loss allowed the Army to require soldiers whose service obligations were expiring to remain in the military if their units were deploying within 60 days. The Army said service members affected by stop-loss would receive a $500 monthly bonus, retroactive to October 2008. [See 2005, p. 95G2] The military said the policy allowed units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan to retain cohesion, and prevented shortages of service members with special skills. However, it was seen as a burden on military families. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.) during his 2004 presidential campaign had denounced the policy as a “backdoor draft.” [See pp. 156F1, 102C1] Gates said he felt that the stop-loss policy, which had been created by a 1990 executive order and was reactivated after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., was “breaking faith” with soldiers. About 13,000 soldiers were currently being kept in the Army involuntarily by stop-loss, and some 120,000 soldiers had been affected by the policy since 2001. Under the new plan, Army Reserve units would begin mobilizing without stoploss soldiers in August, followed by the National Guard in September and the active-duty Army in January 2010. Gates said “scores, not thousands” of troops with special skills might be held under stop-loss after January 2010. Gates said the discontinuation of stoploss was made possible by a recent expansion of the Army, and the fact that more troops were being withdrawn from Iraq than were being deployed to Afghanistan. The Army also said it would offer bonus payments to soldiers who volunteered to extend their service obligations until 60 days after the end of overseas deployments. n

Terrorism Detainees CIA Treatment of Detainees Called ‘Torture.’ A

confidential 2007 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

found that the treatment of terrorism suspects held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had “constituted torture” as well as “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” according to excerpts from the report published in the April 9 issue of the New York Review of Books, made public March 15. The report followed an investigation by the ICRC that included interviews at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with 14 detainees who had previously been held in the secret prisons. [See 2008, p. 724C2] The ICRC was responsible for monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions, which banned torture and other degrading treatment. Analysts said the ICRC report’s specific use of the word “torture” had legal weight. The 2007 report had reportedly been shared with CIA and Bush administration officials but had not been previously made public, in accordance with ICRC rules that mandated the confidentiality of its reports on prisoner conditions. The article’s author, Mark Danner, did not say how he had obtained the report. According to the report, prisoners were regularly beaten, sprayed with cold water, chained in physically stressful positions for long periods of time and had their heads slammed into walls by interrogators, among other alleged abuses. One prisoner, Zain al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein— known as Abu Zubaydah—was shackled to a chair for up to three weeks and was sprayed with water as part of an attempt to keep him awake at all times. He was also subjected to waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, along with at least two other detainees. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) March 17 asked Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to name an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations raised in the ICRC report, as well as in previous reports. The ACLU warned that, due to statutes of limitation, the Justice Department would no longer be able to file charges in connection with some instances of alleged abuse after the spring of 2010. Separately, Newsweek magazine reported March 23 that the Obama administration was considering releasing additional Justice Department memoranda written during the Bush administration that had set down guidelines for the use of so-called harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism detainees. The Obama administration had released nine other antiterrorism memos earlier in March. [See p. 129F3]

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Ex-Enemy Combatant Ordered Held—

Magistrate Judge Robert Carr of U.S. District Court in Charleston, S.C., March 18 ordered terrorism detainee Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to be held without bail pending his arraignment in federal court in Peoria, Ill., on charges that he provided material assistance to terrorists. Marri had been held without charge as an enemy combatant since 2003 at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston before being indicted in Illinois Feb. 27. He had been the last U.S. legal resident held as an enemy combatant and the last enemy 183

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combatant held within the U.S. [See p. 148C3] Carr found that Marri posed a potential flight risk and rejected an offer by Marri’s attorneys that would have allowed him to be released into the custody of a guarded safe house in exchange for more than $1 million bail. Marri had been imprisoned since 2001 on federal charges and then as an enemy combatant. Following the ruling, Marri March 20 was transported to Illinois by federal marshals. Marri March 23 pleaded not guilty to two charges of providing material assistance to terrorists. At the arraignment, the prosecution alleged that Marri had undergone training at camps in Afghanistan run by the Al Qaeda international terrorist network and had entered the U.S. with the intention of operating as an Al Qaeda agent. His trial was tentatively scheduled to begin May 26. n

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Auto Union Approves Concessions to Ford. The United Auto Workers (UAW) March 9

said workers at Ford Motor Co. had voted to approve contract modifications with the Dearborn, Mich.–based automaker, under which workers would give up some perks. Also, Ford would be permitted to use company stock, rather than cash, for up to half of a $13.2 billion payment it owed to its retired workers’ health care trust fund. The current Ford-UAW contract expired in 2011. The changes came amid turmoil within the U.S. auto industry that threatened automakers with bankruptcy. [See p. 92D2; 2007, p. 733E3] Ford said the contract changes would allow it to remain competitive with foreign “transplant” automakers operating in the U.S., which employed less expensive, nonunion workers, as well as with Michiganbased automakers General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC. GM and Chrysler were currently undergoing dramatic, government-mandated restructuring after receiving billions of dollars in federal rescue loans following a steep decline in auto sales. Ford said the modifications would allow it to reduce its hourly labor costs so that they would match transplant automakers’ costs by 2011. GM and Chrysler were expected to do the same as part of their restructuring plans, which were due March 31. Under the changes, which would affect about 42,000 employees and 187,000 retirees and their spouses, some scheduled bonuses would be canceled; overtime would no longer be available to employees who worked fewer than 40 hours in a week; and break times would be shorter. The changes ended the controversial “jobs banks” program under which furloughed UAW workers were able to collect almost their full wages for extended periods of time. It also outlined employee buyouts under which workers could accept as much as $70,000 in cash to leave the company, in order to make room for newer, lower-paid employees. Those buyouts would reportedly be made available April 1–May 22. [See p. 48G1] 184

Some observers expressed concern that Ford’s retiree health fund would become too tied to the stock market as a result of the modifications. About 58% of skilled workers and 59% of production workers approved the change, compared with 71% of skilled workers and 81% of production workers a who had approved the original contract in 2007. Chrysler and GM had reportedly negotiated similar wage concessions with the UAW, but had been unable to compromise with the union on how to fund their health care obligations. Ford Announces Debt Reduction Plan—

Ford March 4 announced that it planned to eliminate up to $10.4 billion of its approximately $25.8 billion in non–health care related debt by exchanging bonds for cash and stock. Ford Motor Credit, the company’s financing arm, March 23 said one debt buyback program under which the company had set aside $500 million to buy back senior secured loan debt, or debt that would be paid back first if a company defaulted, was oversubscribed, meaning that there were more creditors who wanted to participate in the program than there was cash set aside to buy back their debt. Ford said it would expand that program to $1 billion, so it could buy back about $2.2 billion in senior secured debt at 47 cents to the dollar. Ford had initially planned to buy back $1.3 billion of that debt. n

Medicine and Health News in Brief. Judge Edward Korman of

U.S. District Court in New York City March 23 ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reconsider its 2006 decision to limit access by girls under 18 to the “morning after” contraceptive to those with a prescription. Korman ordered the agency to allow the drug, sold under the name Plan B, to be made available to 17year-olds without a prescription within 30 days. In his ruling, Korman wrote that the FDA’s rationale for instituting the restrictions was “arbitrary and capricious,” and motivated by “political and ideological” concerns, instead of public health considerations. Plan B was a high dose of hormones given to a woman up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. Critics of the medication said it was a form of abortion. [See 2006, p. 664D1] An assisted suicide law March 5 took effect in Washington state, after voters approved the law as a ballot initiative during the November 2008 elections. Washington became the second state, after Oregon, to allow physicians to assist those with terminal illnesses to end their lives by self-administering lethal prescription drugs. The law limited the physician’s aid to those over 18 who were considered mentally competent. Several hospitals and health care networks had invoked an opt-out provision in the law. [See 2008, p. 817D2; 2006, p. 28A2] n

AFRICA

Madagascar Military-Appointed President Sworn In. An-

dry Rajoelina March 21 was sworn in as president at a ceremony in Antananarivo, the capital, following a week of political upheaval in Madagascar. Four days earlier, in the face of growing opposition and fading support from the military, President Marc Ravalomanana had resigned and handed power over to the country’s highest-ranking military officer, who appointed Rajoelina, a former mayor of Antananarivo. The transfer of power drew international condemnation as unconstitutional. [See p. 168A2] According to the country’s constitution, the head of the upper house of parliament was supposed to succeed the president following his resignation. Also, at age 34, Rajoelina did not meet the presidential age requirement of 40 years or older. In his inaugural speech, Rajoelina announced the creation of a national commission to oversee changes to the constitution and the formation of a new electoral system. Thousands of his backers turned out for the swearing-in at a sports stadium in the capital. Rajoelina, a charismatic former disc jockey and self-made advertising mogul, enjoyed strong support among Malagasy youth, especially in the capital. However, some analysts said that his movement, the Tanora malaGasy Vonona (Young Malagasies Determined), had few followers in the island’s rural provinces, where impoverished citizens depended on humanitarian aid for sustenance. The recent political crisis had caused a rift with many foreign donors. International funding accounted for the majority of the country’s budget. International Condemnation Continues—

At a March 20 meeting, the African Union (AU) voted to suspend Madagascar and demanded the return of a constitutional government within six months. France, Madagascar’s former colonial power, that day also spoke out against the new regime. President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the recent presidential ouster a “coup d’etat.” In an interview with Britain’s Financial Times published March 23, Rajoelina said, “The international community must…respect the popular will” of “the Malagasy people.” He reiterated his previous promise to hold elections within two years. Ravalomanana, who had been in hiding since his resignation, March 24 had reportedly arrived in Swaziland ahead of a scheduled meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The 15member SADC, of which Madagascar was a member, was expected to address the political situation there at the Swazi meeting. Meanwhile, Ravalomanana’s supporters March 23 held a protest in Antananarivo, with the crowd estimated at around 3,000; protests continued in subsequent days, with declining numbers. n FACTS ON FILE

Sudan Foreign Aid Groups Expelled. Sudanese

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who earlier in March had been indicted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, March 16 ordered all foreign aid workers to exit the country within a year. Several major organizations assisting refugees in the western Darfur region had already been ejected in the immediate aftermath of the ICC charges. Bashir had accused those groups of spying to gain evidence against him in the war crimes case. [See p. 122C1] The United Nations Security Council March 6 had expressed concern over expulsion of the humanitarian organizations, but failed to reach an agreement on sanctions against the Sudanese government. Libya’s ambassador to the U.N., Ibrahim Dabbashi, sought to have the ICC charges deferred, in order to “calm the situation.” Security Council members China, Vietnam and Uganda all backed Dabbashi’s suggestion, while Western countries had urged a strong condemnation of Sudan. With diplomatic efforts to reverse the exit order faltering, some of the foreign aid workers March 8 began leaving the country. Reports emerged March 18–20 that refugees faced a worsening humanitarian crisis with concerns over fresh disease outbreaks. Many of the camps depended entirely on aid groups for essential supplies such as clean water, medicine and food. About 300,000 people had died and some 2.7 million others had been driven from their homes in the Darfur conflict, amid fighting between rebel factions and government forces allied with Arab militaias known as the Janjaweed. Bashir claimed that the void of exiting foreign workers would be filled by local aid groups, although three of those had also been shut in the recent crackdown. As the Darfur situation worsened, neighboring Chad feared a massive influx of refugees from the area. Camps in eastern Chad already sheltered some 260,000 Sudanese refugees, along with 180,000 homeless Chadians. The European Union March 15 transferred command over a protection force for the area to the U.N. The EU’s mandate had expired at midnight that day, after it had commanded the force in eastern Chad and in neighboring Central African Republic since February 2008. Emboldened Leader Travels Abroad—

Despite an international arrest warrant against him, Bashir March 23 made a oneday visit to Eritrea, followed by a one-day visit to Egypt two days later. Neither country was a signatory to the ICC charter, which required the arrest of any indicted suspect in the country’s territory. In Egypt, he met with President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the conflict in Darfur. In another display of defiance, Bashir vowed to attend an Arab League summit in Qatar set for March 29– 30. A panel of Sudanese Muslim scholars, fearing he would face arrest, March 22 had urged Bashir to skip the summit. March 26, 2009

Bashir March 18 had addressed a rally of Arab tribesmen on his second visit to Darfur since the ICC indictment. In his speech, he urged rebels to disarm and vowed to confront the Western “colonizers.” His increasingly defiant rhetoric had strained Sudan’s already tenuous relations with the West. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton March 17 had vowed to hold Bashir responsible for every death caused by lack of humanitarian aid. U.S. President Barack Obama March 18 named retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration as his special envoy to Sudan. Rebels Suspend Peace Talks—The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), believed to be the strongest and most active of the numerous rebel groups in Darfur, March 20 officially suspended peace talks with the government over Bashir’s decision to expel the aid organizations. The two parties had agreed to start the peace process in mid-February. An increasing amount of the violence in Darfur had been directed at foreigners since the ICC indictment of Bashir. Eight unidentified gunmen March 17 had attacked a patrol of peacekeepers from the U.N.–African Union (AU) Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), killing one of them. [See p. 115E2] Three workers for the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and a Sudanese guard March 11 were kidnapped at gunpoint in Darfur. The foreign hostages were identified as a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French coordinator. Three days later, they were released unharmed by their captors, a group protesting the war crimes charges. No ransom was paid, according to a representative from Medecins Sans Frontieres. The government March 9 released prominent opposition leader Hassan alTurabi. Turabi, an Islamist and former ally of Bashir, who had connections with JEM, had been arrested in January by security services at his home in Khartoum, the capital. Some observers suggested the release was intended to promote domestic unity in the face of the international pressire, although Turabi had voiced his support for war crimes charges against the president. [See p. 116A2] Violence Erupts in South—Fighting between local government troops and militias in the semiautonomous region of south Sudan had escalated in February and early March, according to numerous reports. The clashes began Feb. 24 in the town of Malakal over authorities’ demands that a militia leader be handed over for interrogation. Fighting continued for two days and left at least 14 civilians dead. Elsewhere, feuding tribesmen in Pibor County March 5–13 raided villages in retaliation for alleged cattle thefts in January. Local officials claimed that more than 200 people were killed in the raids. [See 2008, p. 362C2] The region had been relatively peaceful since a 2005 peace deal that ended 20 years of civil war between the predominantly Muslim, Arab-dominated central government, based in the north, and mainly black, Christian and animist forces in the south. Bashir had marked the four-year anniversary of the U.S.-brokered deal on Jan. 9.

The disarmament of fighters from the civil war officially began on Feb. 10 in Blue Nile State. n

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U.S. Increases Mexico Border Security Clinton Visits Mexico. Janet Napolitano, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, March 24 said 460 federal agents would be sent to the U.S.’s border with Mexico, to bolster security forces already there and address a growing spillover of Mexican drug-related violence into the U.S. [See p. 170E3] Napolitano said 360 of the agents would be sent to support the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) units that operated along the 2,000-mile (3,200km) border. Another 100 agents would be sent to buttress the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) units working in the area. Border forces would also be given mobile X-ray units, new license-plate reading equipment and drug-searching dogs. Amid escalating fighting between drug cartels and Mexican federal troops and police, U.S. border states in recent months had reported that violent incidents related to Mexican cartels had also increased. An estimated 90% of the weapons used by drug cartels seized in Mexico originated in the U.S., while some 90% of illegal drugs sold in the U.S. were trafficked through Mexico. Under the plan announced by Napolitano, $30 million from the recently passed U.S. stimulus package would be provided to local and state law enforcement agencies that worked near the border. The U.S. would also provide training and high-tech equipment, including helicopters and other surveillance aircraft, to Mexican forces through the $700 million Merida Initiative, a U.S. aid package to Mexico and several Central American countries intended to help fight drug trafficking. [See p. 143E3] Napolitano said requests from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to deploy National Guard troops to their borders were still being considered. (Napolitano was a former Arizona governor, and had supported such a move while in that role.) Napolitano said the relocation of the federal agents was “really the first wave of things that will be happening.” At a March 24 news conference, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that Mexican drug organizations “have gotten completely out of hand,” and said fighting them was a “shared responsibility” between Mexico and the U.S. [See p. 181D2]

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Clinton Discusses Violence, Trade—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton March 25–26 visited Mexico, where she met with President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa and other Mexican officials, to discuss the drug trade and related violence, as well as a recent trade dispute over Mexican truckers in the U.S. that had led Mexico to impose tariffs totaling $2.4 185

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billion annually on U.S. goods. Clinton was the first U.S. cabinet member to visit Mexico since Obama took office in January, and would be followed by Napolitano, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama himself, who was scheduled to visit in mid-April. [See p. 171F2] Clinton, speaking to reporters March 25 on the flight to Mexico, acknowledged that the U.S.’s approach to combating the narcotics trade had largely failed. “Clearly what we have been doing has not worked,” she said, adding, “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.” She also said the U.S.’s failure to prevent the flow of domestically sold guns into Mexico “causes the deaths of police, soldiers and civilians.” Her remarks were an unusually blunt appraisal of the U.S.’s antinarcotics efforts by a government official. Clinton later March 25 met with Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa in Mexico City, Mexico’s capital. She said she would work to obtain $80 million from the U.S. Congress in order to provide Mexico with three Black Hawk helicopters to be used to track drug smugglers. Clinton later that day met with Calderon, and reportedly discussed the countries’ joint efforts to combat the drug trade, as well as trade and the global economic downturn, among other issues. In an interview with Britain’s Financial Times published March 27, Calderon said he had requested that the U.S. dedicate an additional $10 billion–$35 billion to combating Mexico’s drug trade. He said U.S. aid should equal “the flow of money that American consumers give to the criminals,” referring to the fact that most of the drugs trafficked through Mexico were used in the U.S. Clinton March 26 said the two countries had agreed to develop a “checklist” of tasks to fight the drug war. She also said she was “confident” the trade dispute would be settled. Talks on Trucking Dispute Held—U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood March 20 met with officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. State Department as part of efforts to hammer out an agreement allowing Mexican truckers access to U.S. roads. Under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexican truckers were supposed to have been allowed to cross the U.S.-Mexico border to deliver goods in the U.S. However, that plan had been met with staunch opposition from lawmakers and unions, who argued that the Mexican drivers would constitute a safety threat on U.S. roads. Obama in March had signed an omnibus spending bill that had eliminated a pilot program that had given Mexican truckers greater access to the U.S. In retaliation, Mexico had announced tariffs on around 90 U.S. exports. LaHood March 24 met with several lawmakers to seek an agreement on the issue, but it was unclear if such a plan could gain the endorsement of key Democrats. Bounties for Drug Suspects Offered—

Mexican authorities March 23 released a list of the top 24 most-wanted Mexican 186

drug lords, and offered rewards of up to $2 million each for information leading to the capture of the suspects. Officials also offered up to $1 million for information leading to the capture of 13 suspected drug cartel lieutenants. Law enforcement officials March 25 said they had captured Hector “La Burra” Huerta Rios, one of the drug lords included on the list, the previous day. Mexican soldiers and federal police officers March 19 had captured Vicente Zambada Niebla, 34, the alleged security and operations head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. Vicente Zambada was also the son of alleged cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. n

Brazil Da Silva Visits U.S., Meets with Obama.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during a visit to the U.S. March 14 met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., where the pair discussed trade, energy and the economy, among other issues. Da Silva became the first leader from Latin America to visit Obama at the White House since he took office in January. [See 2007, p. 156A2] In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published March 11, da Silva had said he would make ending protectionist trade policies the top priority of his discussions with Obama, saying that was the best means of stimulating economic growth in the face of a global slowdown. He also criticized the “Buy America” provisions in the U.S. stimulus package signed in February. [See p. 89A1] Da Silva also reportedly lobbied Obama to reduce the U.S.’s 53-cent-per-gallon tariff imposed on ethanol imported from Brazil. The tariff was designed to make the price of Brazilian ethanol, created from sugar cane, less competitive with corn-derived ethanol produced in the U.S. The tariffs were scheduled to expire in 2010, but could be renewed by the U.S. Congress. Da Silva March 16 also met with U.S. businessmen to make his case for ending the tariff. Da Silva also pressed Obama to support the reopening of the so-called Doha round of talks intended to establish a global trade pact. The talks had most recently ended in a stalemate in July 2008, after participating countries failed to reach agreement on agricultural tariffs. [See 2008, p. 513A1] Prior to his visit, da Silva had stated an intent to help improve U.S. relations with several left-leaning Latin American countries. He had offered to serve as a go-between for the U.S. and the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, who had been an ardent critic of U.S. policy under Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. Da Silva also said he would request that the U.S. end its trade embargo against Cuba. [See p. 144E2; 2008, p. 661D2] At their meeting, the leaders also discussed the case of David Goldman, a New Jersey man whose son was taken without his consent to Brazil by his mother in 2004. The boy’s mother, Bruna Bianchi, had died

in Brazil in August 2008, leaving the child in the care of her second husband. Brazilian GDP Decline Reported— The government statistics agency Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) March 10 reported that Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) had fallen 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with the previous quarter. It was the country’s largest GDP decline since 1996, and had exceeded analysts’ estimates of a fall of around 2.3%. Overall, Brazil’s GDP had grown 5.1% in 2008, to 2.9 trillion reals ($1.25 trillion). [See 2008, p. 941E1] Brazil’s central bank March 11 cut its benchmark Selic overnight interest rate by 1.5 percentage points, to 11.25%. That followed a one-percentage-point cut in the rate implemented in January. [See p. 82D3] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

China Parliament Session Focuses on Economy.

The National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, March 5–13 held its annual session, in Beijing, the capital. The meeting, at which the legislature gave formal approval to proposals decided by the ruling Communist Party, focused largely on the world economic slowdown and the government’s plans to combat its effects on China. [See p. 134D3; 2008, p. 183E2] Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, in his speech on the session’s opening day, March 5 said that China would be able to maintain a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 8% for the year. That was the target the government had set out in several previous years, and had consistently exceeded, according to government statistics. However, some economists said they thought the current slump was severe enough to possibly push China’s growth rate well below the 8% target in 2009. (China had recorded 9% GDP growth for 2008.) [See p. 35E1] Contrary to rumors circulating in preceding days, Wen did not announce a new package of economic stimulus measures to supplement a plan unveiled in late 2008. Wen outlined areas in which the government planned to increase spending, including education, health care and social assistance payments, and plans for boosting consumer demand with tax breaks and subsidies. However, observers said the government’s exact plans for its stimulus package, which it had said totaled four trillion yuan ($585 billion), remained unclear. A group of more than a dozen party elders in January had sent a letter to President Hu Jintao calling for greater disclosure of the stimulus programs, it was reported March 4. They warned of the danger of “corrupt officials seeking opportunities for their own benefit.” A prominent lawyer based in Shanghai, Yan Yiming, had drawn widespread attention by vowing to sue the finance ministry and the National Development and Reform Commission, the economic planning agency, unless it disclosed detailed lists of the recipients of stimulus funds. FACTS ON FILE

Talks With Taiwan Offered—Wen in his March 5 speech also welcomed recent improvements in relations with Taiwan, and said China was “ready to hold talks on cross-Straits political and military issues and create conditions for ending the state of hostility and concluding a peace agreement.” He also suggested that China could be more flexible on Taiwanese participation in international organizations, which it ordinarily objected to as a sign of recognition of Taiwan as an independent country. China regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province, and Wen said political talks would be contingent on Taiwan affirming the “one China” policy stating that Taiwan and mainland China were parts of a single country. [See 2008, p. 981G2] Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jeou had put Taiwanese policy toward China on a more conciliatory course since taking office in 2008. However, Taiwanese officials March 5 said they were at the moment willing to discuss only economic and trade issues with China, until greater “mutual trust” was established. Food-Safety Law—The parliament also enacted a new food-safety law, following a series of scandals over contaminated food and other unsafe Chinese-made products over the past two years. The new law had reportedly taken five years to draft, and would take effect June 1. It specified stronger penalties against makers of tainted food products, and created a new national foodsafety commission intended to better coordinate regulation. It also added new requirements that food additives be shown to be necessary and safe before they could be used. [See p. 35C2] Wen Voices Doubts About U.S. Bonds—

At the customary prime minister’s news conference at the close of the parliamentary session, Wen March 13 said China had “worries” about its extensive investments in U.S. Treasury securities. Wen urged the U.S. “to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.” China was the world’s largest holder of U.S. government or government-backed debt, with up to an estimated two-thirds of its nearly $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves invested in such bonds. Chinese officials in recent months had taken to placing the bulk of the blame for the current financial crisis on poor U.S. financial regulation. Analysts said China’s investment in U.S. debt had for years helped keep U.S. interest rates low, thereby financing debt-driven consumption in the U.S. That, in turn had expanded U.S. demand for Chinese exports, deepening the two countries’ mutual economic dependence. Wen did not elaborate on his concerns about the U.S., but his remarks came as the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was planning an increase in spending that would increase the U.S.’s borrowing. Obama administration officials said in response that U.S. government debt was considered the safest investment in the world, and that government spending was needed to revive the economy and prevent worse financial problems in the future. Obama March 14 said the fact that “even in March 26, 2009

the midst of this economic crisis, you’ve seen actual increases in investment flows here into the U.S.” showed that “the stability not only of our economic system but our political system is extraordinary.” Wen at the news conference also addressed the previous reports of a second stimulus package, calling them the result of “rumors and misunderstandings,” but vowing that “new stimulus policies” could be enacted if and when they were considered necessary. Military Spending Hike Announced—A spokesman for the National People’s Congress March 4 on the eve of the session announced that the country’s military spending in 2009 would be 480.7 billion yuan, 14.9% higher than the year before. That was a smaller rise than 2008’s 17.6% increase. (Many foreign experts believed that China’s actual military spending was higher than revealed in the official total.) n

Kyrgyzstan Opposition Leader Charged With Murder.

Kyrgyz authorities March 9 arrested Alikbek Dzhekshenkulov, a former foreign minister who currently headed the For Justice Movement, an opposition party, and two days later charged him with involvement in the 2007 murder of Servet Cetin, a Turkish businessman, and illegal possession of a weapon. Kyrgyz opposition leaders called the charges politically motivated. [See pp. 187G2, 172G1; 2005, p. 692B2] The Kyrgyz internal affairs ministry March 9 said a bullet found at the Cetin crime scene was traced back to a gun registered in Dzhekshenkulov’s name. While he was not implicated in the actual shooting, a court in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, March 11 ordered that Dzhekshenkulov remain in detention while an investigation took place. Dzhekshenkulov March 5 was also charged with abuse of power for actions he allegedly took while serving as Kyrgyzstan’s foreign minister. His lawyer March 11 said Dzhekshenkulov denied all the charges against him. Kyrgyz authorities were reportedly investigating Dzhekshenkulov’s son and brother for separate crimes. His son, Bekkul, in 2008 had reportedly been questioned by police in connection with the 2007 murder of Uzbek journalist Alisher Saipov, who had been shot dead in the Kyrgyz city of Osh. His brother, Taalaybek Mederkulov, was a local official accused of abuse of power. Dzhekshenkulov said the investigations into his family were an attempt by the government to tarnish his reputation. [See 2007, p. 790G2] n Dissident Reporter Survives Stabbing.

Syrgak Abdyldayev, a prominent journalist for the independent weekly newspaper Reporter-Bishkek and a critic of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, March 3 was beaten and stabbed more than 30 times by four assailants in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, but survived the attack. In addition to the stab wounds, Abdyldayev reportedly sustained broken arms and a concussion. In

an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) made public March 5, Abdyldayev claimed that he had noticed strangers following him in recent months, and said the attack was connected to his work as a reporter. [See pp. 187C2, 172G1] Bakiyev’s office March 4 released a statement saying it was “concerned and saddened” by the attack, and called for an investigation. n

Myanmar U.N. Refugee Official Visits Myanmar.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres March 7–12 traveled to Myanmar to examine ongoing U.N. services for refugees and displaced persons within the country and to meet with representatives of Myanmar’s government. Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya ethnic minority had attracted widespread attention after more than 1,000 Rohingya refugees were set adrift without adequate provisions by the Thai military. [See p. 135A3] Guterres March 9 visited Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, and held meetings with the country’s ministers for border areas and immigration, among others. The following day, Guterres toured the Rakhine region, which had about 723,000 Rohingya residents, and visited Myanmar’s nearby border with Bangladesh. He also visited the southern port town of Myeik, from which some of the seaborne Rohingya refugees had reportedly set sail. The Rohingya, a largely Muslim group, were not considered citizens of Myanmar by the country’s ruling military junta and were reportedly subject to widespread mistreatment within Myanmar. About 230,000 Rohingya refugees who had fled lived in Bangladesh; the Rohingya populations in both countries reportedly suffered from widespread poverty and hunger. In addition, thousands of Rohingya had reportedly paid human traffickers to take them to Malaysia and Indonesia, which were both predominantly Muslim countries where the Rohingya saw better prospects for finding work. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) March 12 issued a statement following Guterres’s departure announcing that its humanitarian operations in Rakhine would be immediately expanded, but the statement did not state what change or improvements had been put into effect. U.N. Envoy Meets With Suu Kyi— Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations envoy to Myanmar, Jan. 31–Feb. 3 visited Myanmar as part of ongoing U.N. efforts to bring about political reconciliation between the ruling junta and the country’s pro-democracy political opposition. Gambari had last visited Myanmar in August 2008. [See 2008, p. 706G1] Gambari Feb. 2 met with detained prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was currently being held under house arrest, in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital. Suu Kyi had refused to meet with Gam187

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bari during his previous visit, reportedly because she was unsatisfied with the progress made by the U.N. Suu Kyi told Gambari that she was willing to hold discussions with members of the military government but said that she would participate in negotiations only if doing so would lead to concrete results. She also opposed any visit to Myanmar by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon until the government had agreed to free all of its political prisoners, who rights groups said numbered more than 2,000. Gambari Feb. 3 met with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein in Naypyidaw but was unable to arrange a meeting with Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the military junta. Thein Sein reportedly told Gambari that the government of Myanmar would not consider political reforms until sanctions against the country put in place by the U.S. and the European Union were ended. Government Releases Prisoners—Staterun media Feb. 20 announced that 6,313 prisoners would be released early from prison in recognition of their good behavior while incarcerated. The reports also indicated that the prisoners had been released in part because it would allow them to vote in elections scheduled for 2010. A 2008 referendum affirming the country’s new constitution had been marked by reports of widespread fraud on the part of the government, and the elections were not expected to significantly affect the balance of power within the country. [See 2008, p. 705F3] The government released at least 19 political prisoners, many of them members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Those released included five Buddhist monks who had been jailed in 2003 after their monastery had refused a donation from then–Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, as well as Zaw Myint Maung, who had been elected to Myanmar’s parliament as a member of the NLD in 1991 legislative elections that were won by the NLD but were not recognized by the military. The junta Jan. 14 had released six prisoners who had been detained in December 2008 for calling for the release of Suu Kyi. Separately, Myanmar’s government Jan. 3 had sentenced Bo Min Yu Ko to 104 years in prison on charges including causing disrespect to the nation and association with illegal organizations. Bo Min Yu Ko, 21, had been a member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, and had not been allowed legal representation at his trial, according to pro-democracy activists. Hundreds of opposition group members had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms by the government in 2008; however, Bo Min Yu Ko’s term was thought to be the longest sentence issued against a political prisoner. Bombs Explode in Yangon—Two small bombs went off March 3 in Yangon, resulting in small-scale property damage but no injuries or deaths. The bombs reportedly went off near two parks in Yangon, damaging a bus shelter and a nearby fence. [See 2008, p. 706C3] n 188

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Czech Republic PM Resigns After No-Confidence Vote.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek March 26 officially resigned, two days after the lower house of parliament had voted, 101–96, to pass a no-confidence motion on his leadership. The vote came while the Czech Republic held the six-month rotating European Union presidency, and less than two weeks before a scheduled visit by President Barack Obama to Prague, the capital. [See pp. 188D3, F3; 2008, p. 796B3] President Vaclav Klaus asked Topolanek and his cabinet to continue to govern until he could appoint a new prime minister or early elections were held. Klaus, in contrast with Topolanek, was critical of the EU, but nonetheless indicated his desire to replace Topolanek quickly so the country could fulfill its obligations there. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, March 24 said in a statement that it “has full trust that the national constitutional law allows for the Czech Republic to continue conducting the Council Presidency as effectively as it has done now.” Analysts pointed out that Topolanek’s weak center-right coalition government had collapsed more because of domestic political clashes than as a direct result of the global economic downturn, which had helped topple governments in Iceland, Latvia and Hungary. The Czech Republic had less debt than many of its neighbors, whose economies in recent years had been largely fueled by foreign investment and borrowing. German bank Deutsche Bank AG estimated that Czech gross domestic product (GDP) would contract by as much as 3.4% in 2009, a relatively mild drop compared with many Central and Eastern European economies. The no-confidence vote had been initiated by Jiri Paroubek, leader of the leftist Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), which had criticized Topolanek for his reluctance to expand federal spending. CSSD maintained that Topolanek had mishandled the economy amid the current global economic downturn and credit crisis. n

European Union Leaders Urge More Financial Regulation.

Leaders of the European Union’s 27 member nations at a summit at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, March 19–20 agreed to call for increased global regulations for “all major cross-border financial institutions,” including hedge funds and creditrating agencies. They also joined in rejecting U.S. calls for more spending by European governments to stimulate their economies and help counter a worldwide economic crisis. The EU leaders agreed on their positions in advance of an April 2 summit in London of the Group of 20 (G20) nations with the world’s leading economies. [See p. 162A3] The EU leaders insisted that the stimulus measures they had already approved would

be sufficient, although the U.S. and some independent economists had deemed the packages inadequate to the crisis. The EU leaders said their measures totaled 400 billion euros ($525 billion) through 2010, or 3.3% of their countries’ combined gross domestic product (GDP). But so-called automatic stabilizers—unemployment benefits, social security payments and other safety net programs that automatically increased in worsened economic conditions—accounted for about half of that total. Germany, which had the largest EU economy, had strongly opposed additional stimulus spending, arguing that it was more important to uphold EU rules restricting budget deficits. However, the leaders offered to lend 75 billion euros to help double the reserves of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had been depleted by rescue loans for several countries. Japan had offered $100 billion to the IMF already. EU leaders said the U.S. and China should also contribute to help the IMF meet its goal of $500 billion. The EU leaders also said they would double, to 50 billion euros, a rescue fund for EU member nations that were not part of the eurozone, which comprised the 16 countries that used the euro currency. That move addressed concerns about economic weaknesses in Eastern European member nations. More than 10 billion euros in the fund had been used to assist Hungary and Latvia. Czech Calls U.S. Spending ‘Road to Hell’—

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently held the EU presidency (which rotated every six months), March 25 warned that the U.S.’s heavy spending on its stimulus package and financial sector rescue measures was a “road to hell.” Speaking in Brussels before the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body, Topolanek said the U.S. would “undermine the liquidity of the global financial market” by issuing a flood of bonds to finance its spending. Topolanek drew rebukes for his sharp language from other senior figures during a debate in the parliament. Topolanek’s government had been voted out of office by the Czech parliament the previous day, but he would stay in his post, and lead the EU, until a new government was formed. [See p. 188A2] n

Hungary Prime Minister Resigns Amid Fiscal Crisis.

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany March 23 resigned to pave the way for a new government to attempt to right the troubled Hungarian economy. Gyurcsany’s Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP), which led a minority government, was expected to meet April 5 to select a candidate to replace him. Under Hungarian law, that nominee would become prime minister if a formal motion of no confidence in Gyurcsany, scheduled for April 14, passed in parliament. However, Gyurcsany had no clear successor, and the center-right opposition FACTS ON FILE

Hungarian Civic Alliance party, or Fidesz, March 22 said it would attempt to force the dissolution of parliament and early elections. Parliamentary elections were currently scheduled for 2010. [See p. 136G1] Amid rising discontent over the government’s handling of the economy, Gyurcsany March 21 had unexpectedly told MSzP members of his intention to step down, saying, “I hear that I am the obstacle” to the formation of a “stable government majority” that could address the economy. Some analysts suggested that Gyurcsany, by threatening to resign, might have been attempting to improve his standing within the MSzP by demonstrating that there were few alternatives to his leadership. Despite his announcement, Gyurcsany March 21 was reelected chairman of MSzP by a vote of more than 80%. Hungary, along with Latvia and Iceland, was considered to be among the European countries most heavily affected by the current global economic crisis and credit crunch. Its economy, in recent years, had been largely fueled by foreign investment and borrowing. Foreign investment had dropped off sharply, making it difficult for Hungary to sell bonds to fund its large deficit. Many ordinary Hungarians were also struggling to pay back loans taken out in other, stronger currencies. Hungary’s currency, the forint, March 6 hit a record low of 317 to one euro, the common currency of 16 EU members. The Hungarian economy had entered a recession in the third quarter of 2008, and gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to shrink by as much as 5% in 2009. n

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Iran U.S.-Iranian Reporter Detained. Iranian au-

thorities Jan. 31 arrested Roxana Saberi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen who had worked in Iran as a freelance journalist for foreign news outlets including the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR). Her detention was first reported by her father, Reza Saberi, who March 1 said on NPR that Saberi had called him Feb. 10 and told him that she was in custody. He said that the authorities had detained her after she bought a bottle of wine, which was illegal in Iran, but that that was just a pretext for her arrest. [See p. 142C2; 2008, p. 875A1] The Iranian foreign ministry March 1 said Saberi had been arrested because she had been working as a reporter in Iran illegally since her credentials were revoked in 2007. A judiciary spokesman the next day said she was being held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. The Iranian ISNA news agency March 6 reported that according to an official in the Iranian prosecutor’s office, the investigation of Saberi’s case had been completed and she would be released “in the next few days.” However, her father March 24 said a prosecutor had told her that she would be kept in jail for months or years. March 26, 2009

Other News—In other Iraqi news:

Students Arrested in Burial Protest—

Iranian authorities Feb. 23 arrested 70 students after hundreds protested a government ceremony to rebury “unknown martyrs” from the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq War on the campus of the Amirkabir University of Technology, in Tehran, the capital. The government reportedly sent at least 20 protesters to Evin prison, but released the others. The semiofficial news agency Fars reported that the protest leaders were connected to a student group that had organized previous demonstrations for democracy and better student living conditions. Protesters said they thought the government would use the presence of the graves on campus to stifle dissent. The remains of war dead had recently been reburied at two other Iranian universities. n

Iraq Attacks Kill 32 as Turkish President Visits.

Bombings and shootings across Iraq March 23 killed at least 32 people, including a suicide bombing that hit a funeral in the eastern province of Diyala, killing 19. The attacks came as Turkish President Abdullah Gul March 23 arrived in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, for the first visit to Iraq by a Turkish head of state in 30 years. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had visited Iraq in July 2008. [See p. 174G2; 2008, p. 485G2] The Diyala bombing struck a wake for a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party official in the town of Jalawla. The suicide bomber killed at least 19 people and wounded at least 39, including mourners. The same day, a blast killed at least eight people in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Abu Ghraib. Iraqi security officials at the scene said the bombing had killed a leader of a local Awakening Council—an armed Sunni Muslim group that had turned against insurgents—as well as his son, three members of the council and five others. However, a U.S. military spokesman said the attack had instead killed eight Iraqi soldiers, while Iraqi interior ministry officials said there had actually been two bombings, one in Abu Ghraib that killed nine and another in nearby Fallujah, in Anbar province, that killed eight. Also that day, bombings and shootings in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, killed at least four people, while a police officer was killed by a suicide bomber in Tal Afar, also in Nineveh. A roadside bomb apparently aimed at a U.S. patrol March 25 killed three children in the town of Rashdiya, near Mosul. Gul during his visit was scheduled to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, as well as Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani of the regional government of Kurdistan. At a March 23 press conference with Talabani, he called for cooperation to stop cross-border attacks on Turkey by Kurdish fighters based in northern Iraq. Talabani said the fighters, who belonged to the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), had to “lay down arms, or they will leave our territory.” [See 2008, p. 525G1]

Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, March 25 at a news conference in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone said that nearly all measures of violence in the country, including overall attacks on U.S. troops, U.S. fatalities and “ethno-sectarian attacks,” were down from a year earlier. He said that was the case despite U.S. troops increasingly handing over responsibility to Iraqi forces. [See p. 156A2] o The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) March 24 reported that the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, which was mandated by a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, would raise, rather than lower, U.S. expenditures related to the Iraq war during the withdrawal and for several years afterwards. The report said savings from deploying fewer troops overseas would be outweighed by the cost of replacing and repairing equipment and closing military bases or turning them over to Iraqi control. [See p. 121A1] o Brig. Gen. David Quantock, commander of U.S. detention operations in Iraq, March 22 said that thousands of Iraqis who were being held without charge by the U.S. would be prosecuted or released in the next few months. The U.S. was currently holding more than 13,000 Iraqis. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials and police said that the release of thousands of detainees from the U.S.’s Camp Bucca detention facility in the southern province of Basra had led to a resurgence of Shiite Muslim militia and Sunni insurgent activity in the south and in Baghdad, the Washington Post reported March 22. [See p. 175D1] o British media outlets March 21 reported that the British embassy in Baghdad had received a videotape—reportedly shot eight days earlier—showing one of five Britons who had been kidnapped in Iraq in May 2007. The hostage—who was identified by the media as Peter Moore, a computer consultant—said all five Britons were being treated well. The British government said it was working to free them. [See 2008, p. 500C3] n o

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Israel Netanyahu Assembles Governing Coalition.

The center-left Labor Party March 24 voted to join a government led by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, giving the leader of the right-wing Likud party the support necessary to form a governing coalition. With backing from the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party already secured, a coalition led by Netanyahu could control 66 seats in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset, or parliament. Labor had previously indicated that it would join the opposition, and it had appeared that Likud would lead a narrow right-wing coalition with several small religious and ultranationalist parties. However, Labor’s support gave the coalition a broader base. [See p. 118C3] Likud in February elections had won 27 seats, one fewer than the centrist Kadima 189

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party, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. However, President Shimon Peres had tapped Netanyahu to form a government because he was seen as more likely to be able to assemble a coalition. Livni Feb. 27 had turned down an offer to join a coalition, over disagreement on issues including Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Netanyahu had until April 3 to form a government. He opened talks March 25 with the far-right National Union Party, which held three seats, in an attempt to boost his majority. Labor Members Vote in Close Ballot—

Labor March 24 voted, 680–507, in a contentious ballot to join Likud, which had traditionally been its political opponent. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor leader, told party delegates that Labor would be more effective as a counterweight to Likud inside the government, rather than in the opposition. He vowed, “We will not serve as anyone’s fig leaf. We will ensure there will not be a narrow right-wing government, but a real government that looks after Israel.” However, at least six of Labor’s 13 Knesset members said they would not support a coalition led by Netanyahu. There was speculation that the close vote would lead to a leadership struggle within Labor. Under the coalition agreement, Barak would keep his post as defense minister, and Labor would also receive the industry, agriculture and welfare portfolios. The agreement pledged the government to work toward peace deals with Israel’s neighbors while ensuring the country’s security and interests, and to honor all previous diplomatic agreements. However, it did not specifically mention negotiations toward a Palestinian state, or other IsraeliPalestinian issues. Labor supported a twostate solution, but Netanyahu preferred a strategy of improving the Palestinian economy while avoiding the issue of statehood. Netanyahu March 25 said he would hold peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), in his most significant comments on Israeli-Palestinian relations since the February elections. He did not mention the creation of a Palestinian state. U.S. President Barack Obama at a March 24 news conference had said that the new right-leaning government would make the Israeli-Palestinian peace process “not easier than it was,” but that continuing was “just as necessary.” He reiterated that the U.S. backed the creation of a Palestinian state. Lieberman Receives Top Diplomat Post—

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Netanyahu late March 15 had formally reached a coalition agreement with Yisrael Beitenu, which previously endorsed him for prime minister. Yisrael Beitenu, which held 15 seats, was led by Avigdor Lieberman, who had aroused controversy over his support for making Israeli citizens sign a loyalty pledge, a policy seen as being aimed at Israeli Arabs. Under the deal, Lieberman would become foreign minister, and Yisrael Beitenu would also receive the tourism, national infrastructure, immigrant absorption and national security ministries. (In a sign of tensions between Israeli Arabs and Jews, about 100 far-rightist Jews March 24 demonstrated under heavy police 190

protection in the northern Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. The march provoked counterprotests by Arab youths, who clashed with police, injuring 15 police officers and about the same number of youths.) Shas March 23 also formally agreed to join the coalition, giving the coalition its 11 seats. Shas received the interior, construction and housing, and religious services ministries. n

SPORTS

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Japan Wins Second Straight World Baseball Classic Defeats Rival South Korea in Final. Japan March 23 defeated South Korea, 5–3, in the 10th inning to win its second straight World Baseball Classic (WBC) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. In 2006, Japan had won the inaugural WBC, a World Cup– style tournament featuring 16 nations held every three years. The tournament was played March 5–23 in North America and Japan. [See 2006, p. 226A3] The tournament consisted of two rounds of pool play, with each pool containing four teams. The top two teams in the firstround pools advanced to the second round, reducing the field to eight teams. The top two teams from the second-round pools advanced to sudden-death semifinal games. The semifinal winners met in the final. Seeding matches were held at the end of each pool to determine rankings for the following round. In recent years, the balance of power in international baseball competition had shifted away from the U.S. and Latin America toward the two Asian finalists. For decades, the Cuban national team had dominated the less-publicized Baseball World Cup, which did not feature any players from North America’s Major League Baseball (MLB). However, Japan’s win in the inaugural WBC and South Korea’s victory at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, had established both countries as strong contenders in the tournament. [See 2008, p. 599B3] WBC teams from the U.S., Venezuela and Dominican Republic all had numerous MLB stars, putting them among the favorites to win the tournament. However, because it took place in early March—traditionally the opening of MLB’s spring training—some stars avoided the WBC completely, in favor of preparations for the upcoming MLB season. Several players suffered injuries in the early rounds of the WBC, forcing them to withdraw from the competition. The 2008 American League most valuable player (MVP) Dustin Pedroia, who started at second base for the U.S., March 15 returned to the Boston Red Sox training camp after straining his abdominal muscle in batting practice. The Dominican Republic’s star third baseman, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, withdrew before the tournament opened to have surgery on an injured hip. [See p. 158C3] The eventual winning team, Japan, did include several MLB players, but much of

the team’s success was credited to its consitency and cohesion as a team, rather than star power. The squad, managed by Tatsunori Hara, had begun practicing as a full team in mid-February, two weeks earlier than the U.S. Final Is Rivals’ Fifth Match-Up— The meeting of Japan and South Korea in the March 23 final marked their fifth match-up throughout the tournament, with the rivals splitting the previous four games. In the final, Japan easily outhit South Korea, with 15 hits to South Korea’s five, but struggled to bring home runners in scoring position, stranding 14 throughout the contest. Japan nevertheless managed to take a 3–2 lead into the ninth inning, with pitcher Yu Darvish looking to close out the game. Darvish, who typically started games, walked two South Korean batters, before Bum Ho Lee knocked in the tying run on a a two-out single. In extra innings, Japanese right-fielder Ichiro Suzuki, an eight-time MLB All-Star with the Seattle Mariners, was at bat with two outs and two runners in scoring position. After falling behind in the count with two strikes, Suzuki lined a single to center field, knocking in both runners. Darvish returned in the bottom of the 10th inning to preserve the 5–3 lead for the win. Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, who played for the Red Sox, was named the MVP of the tournament for the second straight time. Matsuzaka continued his perfect performance in the WBC, posting a 3– 0 record with a 2.45 earned run average (ERA) in 2009. In the semifinals, also played in Los Angeles, South Korea March 21 had defeated Venezuela in a 10–2 rout. Japan March 22 ousted the U.S. with a 9–4 victory. Despite the disappointing finish, the U.S. team improved upon its 2006 performance, when it was embarrassed by a second-round exit. First-Round Highlights—Japan and South Korea dominated the first round of play to emerge from Pool A, which also featured China and Taiwan. The teams handed each other defeats during their two match-ups in Tokyo, Japan. In Pool B, played in Mexico City, Mexico, Cuba went undefeated to advance, while Mexico was the other team to emerge, with a 2–1 record. Australia and South Africa both failed to make it out of the first round for the second straight time. Pool C featured Venezuela, the U.S., Italy and Canada, with games held in Toronto, Canada. The U.S. and Venezuela each lost a game to the other, but advanced to the second round. The biggest surprises of the first round came out of Pool D, played in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The injury-plagued Dominican Republic shockingly lost twice against the Netherlands, leading to an early exit. The upsets allowed the Netherlands to advance along with Puerto Rico. Panama had lost its first two games in the pool. Second-Round Highlights—Pool One of the second round, held in San Diego, Calif., once again featured two rematches between Japan and South Korea with similar split results. Japan March 18 also defeated Cuba, FACTS ON FILE

5–0, to eliminate the former powerhouse, ending Cuba’s streak of 50 straight final appearances in major international tournaments. Mexico, the fourth team in the pool, failed to win a game in the second round. In Pool Two, played in Miami, Fla., Venezuela went undefeated to easily qualify for the semifinals. In a March 17 elimination game, Puerto Rico led the U.S., 5–3, going into the bottom of the ninth. U.S. third baseman David Wright capped off a three-run rally with a single that knocked in two runs for a 6–5 dramatic come-frombehind win. The Netherlands lost the momentum of their first round upsets with two quick losses in Pool Two. Other News—In other WBC news: o A WBC all-tournament team was named March 23. It comprised catcher Ivan Rodriguez (Puerto Rico); first baseman Tae Kyun Kim (South Korea); second baseman Jose Lopez (Venezuela); shortstop Jimmy Rollins (U.S.); South Korean third baseman Bum; outfielders Yoennis Cespedes (Cuba), Frederich Cepeda (Cuba) and Norichika Aoki (Japan); designated hitter Hyun Soo Kim (South Korea); and pitchers Jung Keun Bong (South Korea), and Japan’s Matsuzaka and Hisashi Iwakum. o The New York Times March 4 reported that the International Baseball Federation, which oversaw drug testing for the WBC, would not use blood testing on players during the tournament. Instead, players would be required to provide the more common urine samples for testing. The use of human growth hormone (HGH) could not be detected through urine samples. n

Skiing Svindal, Vonn Win Alpine World Cup Titles.

Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal March 14 won the men’s overall World Cup Alpine skiing title for the second time in three years. In the women’s competition, defending champion Lindsey Vonn of the U.S. March 11 had clinched the title. [See 2008, p. 208G1] Svindal, 26, won the title over Austria’s Benjamin Raich, 1,009 points to 1,007 points, the slimmest margin in World Cup history and the lowest-ever winning point total. In the last race of the season, a slalom in Are, Sweden, Raich straddled a gate in the first run and was disqualified, missing his final chance to overtake Svindal, who also missed a gate. Svindal also won the season title in the super giant slalom, or super-G. Defending champion Bode Miller of the U.S. March 3 in a statement released by the U.S. team had said he would not compete in the rest of the World Cup season. Miller, 31, said he needed a “break” and that he currently found “more happiness doing other things than being on tour.” Vonn Sets U.S. Women’s Record—

Vonn, 24, March 11 became the first American woman to win the overall title twice. She clinched the title by winning the final downhill event of the season in Are. She finished the season March 15 with 1,788 points. Maria Riesch of Germany was second, with 1,424 points. Vonn also won the March 26, 2009

season’s downhill and super-G titles. Vonn became the first U.S. woman to win the super-G title, and the second U.S. woman, after Picabo Street in 1995 and 1996, to claim two straight downhill titles. [See 1995, p. 260D1] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Medical Research Prostate Test’s Benefit Questioned. Two

teams of researchers working independently March 18 both reported that large studies of prostate cancer screening tests called into question their effectiveness in reducing death rates from the disease, based on the studies’ interim results. The studies were released by the New England Journal of Medicine on its Web site, and concurrently presented at a conference held in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. [See 2008, p. 793C1] Doctors had used a blood test for a chemical called prostate-specific antigen (PSA) to detect prostate cancer in men since the test’s introduction in 1987. However, it had long been unclear how effective the test was in preventing deaths. Prostate cancer was the second-leading cause of cancer deaths of men in the U.S., killing some 28,000 annually. However, the disease grew slowly and in many cases patients died of another other causes in the meantime. Several treatments for prostate cancer were invasive, and had significant side effects, including incontinence and impotence. Because the PSA test could return a false positive, many experts had criticized its use for needlessly exposing men to potentially harmful treatments. The U.S. study, run by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), had followed 76,693 men aged 55–74 for seven to 10 years. One group of men was encouraged to obtain regular PSA screening and a rectal examination; about 85% actually received such screening. Another group of men was given regular medical care under prevailing practices; about 50% of that group received PSA screening. Although the cancer detection rate in the first group was about 22% higher, men in both groups had a statistically equal rate of death from prostate cancer. The study was led by Gerald Andriole of Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. The European study consisted of 162,243 men aged 55–69 in seven countries assigned either to undergo PSA screening once every four years or to get no screening at all. After nine years, the researchers found that the group that had undergone screenings had about 20% fewer prostate cancer deaths than the other group. However, they also determined that, for every prevented death, 47 men needlessly underwent cancer treatment. The research was led by Fritz Schroeder of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. n

Awards French Physicist Wins Templeton Prize.

French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard d’Espagnat, 87, March 16

was named the winner of the 2009 Templeton Prize. The monetary value of the prize, which from 2002 through 2008 had been known as the Templeton Prize for Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, was £1 million (US$1.42 million). [See 2008, p. 227A2] D’Espagnat, a professor emeritus of physics at Paris-Sud University, was honored for quantum theoretical research that pointed to the existence of a “veiled reality” beyond the reach of science but perhaps a bit more approachable through religion or the arts. Ultimately, though, he believed, humanity had no choice but to live with “mystery,” which he called “one of the constitutive elements of being.” D’Espagnat would receive the Templeton Prize May 5 in a private ceremony at London’s Buckingham Palace. n

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Chilean Author Posthumously Honored.

Chilean novelist, short story writer and poet Roberto Bolano March 12 was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for his epic novel 2666, which combined the life story of an enigmatic German novelist with a series of gruesome crimes committed against women in a Mexican border town. Since his death in 2003 at the age of 50, Bolano’s reputation had soared in the Spanishspeaking world, and then internationally as well, as more and more of his writing was translated into English and other languages. The manuscript for 2666 was salvaged after his death, and was published in Spanish in 2004. An English translation, by Natasha Wimmer, came out in 2008. Wimmer, who had previously translated another acclaimed novel by Bolano, The Savage Detectives (published in 2007), March 12 accepted the award for 2666 on Bolano’s behalf. [See 2008, p. 172E1] National Book Critics Circle awards, which did not include a cash prize, March 12 were presented in a number of other categories as well, including biography. The winner in that category was Patrick French for The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul. Naipaul, 76, was a writer of fiction and nonfiction born and raised in Trinidad but long resident in Britain. French’s biography had drawn considerable attention for its unsparing portrait of its subject, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001, as a tormented individual, particularly in his relations with women. [See 2001, p. 822E2] Other award winners were: New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins in the nonfiction category, for The Forever War, about the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Ariel Sabar in the autobiography category, for My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq; and Seth Lerer in the criticism category, for Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History From Aesop to Harry Potter. Finally, in the poetry category, a dual prize was given for the first time. The poets honored were August Kleinzahler, for Sleeping It Off in Rapid City, and Juan Felipe Herrera, for Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. n 191

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People Television talk-show host David Letterman, 61, March 19 married his longtime girlfriend Regina Lasko, 48, at the Teton County courthouse in Choteau, Mont. Letterman had been married once before, from 1969 to 1978. Attending the no-frills wedding was the couple’s five-year-old son, Harry Letterman, the target of a foiled 2005 kidnapping plot. [See 2005, p. 724E2] Nicholas Hughes, the 47-year-old son of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, March 16 hanged himself at his home in Fairbanks, Alaska. A fisheries biologist who had taught at the University of Alaska’s Fairbanks campus, Nicholas Hughes had long suffered from depression. His mother, whose reputation as a poet had grown substantially since her death, had killed herself in her London apartment in February 1963 by sticking her head in a gas oven. Her suicide came months after she and Ted Hughes separated, over his affair with Assia Wevill, also a poet. Wevill and Hughes later had a daughter, but Wevill killed both herself and the child in March 1969, also by means of a gas oven. Ted Hughes served as Britain’s poet laureate from 1984 to 1998, when he died of cancer at the age of 68. Nicholas Hughes was survived by a sister, Frieda Hughes, 48. [See 1999, p. 72B1; 1998, p. 804G2] n

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91, arts patron and philanthropist who was married to billionaire publisher Walter Annenberg from 1951 until he died in 2002; after his death, she took control of the Annenberg Foundation, which the couple established in 1989 as a conduit for much of their charitable activity; also after his death, she donated their legendary collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, fulfilling a pledge made by the couple in 1991; she briefly served as U.S. chief of protocol, with the rank of ambassador, under President Ronald Reagan; born Feb. 20, 1918, in New York City; died March 12 at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif., of natural causes. [See 2002, p. 760E2; 1993, p. 839G1; 1951, p. 336L] BELLOWS, James G., 86, newspaper editor credited with invigorating three U.S. metropolitan dailies that all eventually folded anyway: the New York Herald Tribune in the early 1960s, the Washington Star in the 1970s, and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner from 1978 until 1981; he later worked in U.S. television; born Nov. 12, 1922, in Detroit, Mich.; died March 6 at a nursing home in Santa Monica, Calif., of Alzheimer’s disease–related causes. [See 1981, p. 944A1; 1966, pp. 322F2, 166B1; Index 1962] BLAIR, Betsy (born Elizabeth Winifred Boger),

85, actress who appeared in a number of Hollywood movies in the 1940s and 1950s, notably Marty (1955), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award; her career was cut short because of her leftist politics, which led to her being blacklisted; she moved to Europe in the late 1950s and subsequently had a modest film career there; as a teenager, in 1941, she married future legendary entertainer Gene Kelly; they were divorced in 1957; her second marriage, to Czech-born British film director Karel Reisz, lasted from 1963 until his death in 2002; the following year, she published a memoir, The Memory of All That: Love and Politics in New York, Hollywood, and Paris, which ended with her marriage to Reisz, and the start of her decades of life in London; born Dec. 11, 1923, in Cliffside Park, N.J.; died March 13 in London, of cancer. [See 2002, p. 932G3; 1996, p. 76C3; Indexes 1960, 1957–58] BOND Jr., J(ames) Max, 73, architect who became a role model for the relatively few African Americans in his profession; his New York City– based firm, which he cofounded in 1970, was responsible for such projects as New York’s Schomberg Cen-

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ter for Research in Black Culture, the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Ga., the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, and the museum planned for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the site of the felled twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center; born July 17, 1935, in Louisville, Ky.; died Feb. 18 in New York, of cancer. [See 2008, pp. 958B1, 633G3] BRINEGAR, Claude Stout (born Claude Rawles Stout), 82, U.S. transportation secretary, 1973–75,

under two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; he helped enact the nationwide 55-mileper-hour (88-kmph) speed limit for vehicles, which Nixon signed into law in early 1974, and which remained in effect until 1995; he also played a key role in the creation of the Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) freight-train system; born Dec. 16, 1926, in Rockport, Calif.; died March 13 at a retirement community in Palo Alto, Calif., of natural causes. [See 1995, p. 885A1; 1975, pp. 58E2, 25F2; Indexes 1972–74] BROWN, Anne Wiggins, 96, soprano best known for creating the role of Bess in the original 1935 production of George Gershwin’s folk opera Porgy and Bess; she auditioned for, and won, the role—which Gershwin expanded while working with her before the opera’s premiere—while in her second year of graduate studies at New York City’s Juilliard School (then known as the New Institute of Musical Art), which she was reportedly the first black singer to attend; finding her career opportunities as a classical singer in the U.S. limited by racism, she moved to Norway in the late 1940s, and taught voice for many years at a drama school in Oslo, the Norwegian capital; the third of her three husbands was Thorleif Schjelderup, a Norwegian philosopher, journalist and Olympic skier; born Aug. 9, 1912, in Baltimore, Md.; died March 13 in Oslo. [See 1998, pp. 259G3, 212C3] CHAPIN, Schuyler Garrison, 86, New York City arts administrator; he was, among other things, acting general manager and then general manager of the Metropolitan Opera (1972–75), dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts (1976-87) and the city’s cultural affairs commissioner during the mayoralty of Rudoph Giuliani (1994–2001); born Feb. 13, 1923, in New York; died March 7 at his home there; he had been in poor health since suffering a heart attack in 2005. [See 1973, p. 756B2; 1972, p. 1076B2] CHAPLIN, Sydney Earle, 82, actor son of legendary British comedian and film director Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977); one of two sons from his father’s brief marriage (1924–27) to actress Lita Grey, he acted in a number of films but was best known for his work on Broadway, notably in two musicals, Bells Are Ringing (1956) and Funny Girl (1964); his starring role in the former, opposite Judy Holliday, netted him a Tony Award in 1957; born March 30, 1926, in Los Angeles; died March 3 at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after a stroke. [See 1977, p. 1024B1; 1970, p. 436D3; Indexes 1967, 1964, 1962, 1959–60, 1956–57] FARMER, Philip Jose, 91, science fiction writer known for his bold mixing of genres in his many, widely translated novels and short stories; an early story of his, “The Lovers” (1952), about a sexual relationship between a male earthling and a female alien, broke what was then a taboo against erotic content in science fiction and was originally published in a pulp magazine after the two leading sci-fi editors of that era rejected it; born Jan. 26, 1918, in North Terre Haute, Ind.; died in his sleep Feb. 25 at his home in Peoria, Ill. FRANKLIN, John Hope, 94, historian and civil rights activist who wrote From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (1947), and other landmark studies of the role of blacks in American history; he was an emeritus professor of history at Duke University, and had taught at other leading universities, including the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Cambridge University in England; he served as the first black president of the American Historical Association from 1978 to 1979, and in 1997–98 was chairman of then–President Bill Clinton’s advisory board on race relations; among his many honors were the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) and the Library of Congress’s lucrative Kluge Prize (2006); born Jan. 2, 1915, in Rentiesville, Okla.; died March 25 at a hospital in Durham, N.C., of congestive heart failure. [See 2006, p. 943B1–C1; 1998, p. 309G2; Indexes 1997, 1995, 1993, 1962] GOODY, Jade Cerisa Lorraine, 27, onetime dental assistant who became a star of British reality television; since being diagnosed with cervical cancer in August 2008, she had made her battle with the disease a public affair; knowing that she was near death and wanting to leave her two sons as much money as possible, she got married in February after selling the rights to the wedding ceremony for about £1 million ($1.5 million); born June 5, 1981, in London; died March 22 at her home in Upshire, England. [See p. 139G3]

HENDERSON, Sir (John) Nicholas, 89, British diplomat who, as ambassador to the U.S. from 1979 to 1982, helped secure U.S. support for Britain in its 1982 war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands; he had come out of retirement in 1979 to assume the post, at the behest of then–Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; earlier, he had served as Britain’s ambassador to Poland (1969–72), West Germany (1972–75) and France (1975–79); born in London April 1, 1919; died March 16 at his home in London; the cause of his death was not reported. [See 1982, p. 429A1] KAUFMAN, Millard, 92, screenwriter who wrote Academy Award–nominated scripts for two films, Take the High Ground! (1953) and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), and not only scripted but directed Convicts 4 (1962); he also helped create the cartoon character Mr. Magoo in the late 1940s, and published his first novel, Bowl of Cherries, in 2007, at age 90; his second novel, Misadventure, was set to be published in the fall; born March 12, 1917, in Baltimore, Md.; died March 14 at a hospital in Los Angeles, of open-heartsurgery complications. [See 1965, p. 487E2; 1962, p. 504E2; Indexes 1960, 1957, 1953] LAWRENCE, Jack (born Jack Lawrence Schwartz), 96, songwriter whose songs—for some of

which he wrote the lyrics and for others of which he wrote words and music—were recorded by, and helped launch or advance the careers of, such artists as the Ink Spots (“If I Didn’t Care,” 1939), Dinah Shore (“Yes, My Darling Daughter,” 1940), Frank Sinatra (“All or Nothing at All,” 1943), Rosemary Clooney (“Tenderly,” 1952) and Bobby Darin (“Beyond the Sea,” 1959); in later years, he was a theater owner and Broadway producer; born April 7, 1912, in New York City; died March 15 at a hospital in Danbury, Conn., of renal failure and complications from a pelvic fracture. [See 1984, pp. 364F1, G1; 1958, p. 42D3; Indexes 1957, 1951] LIVINGSTON, Alan Wendell, 91, music executive who was president of Capitol Records when that company introduced the British rock group the Beatles to the U.S. market in 1964; earlier, he had created the children’s character Bozo the Clown and had help revive the career of singer Frank Sinatra; in the late 1950s, he helped launch the long-running television series “Bonanza,” which featured theme music by his brother, Academy Award–winning songwriter Jay Livingston, who died in 2001; from 1955 to 1960, he was married to actress Betty Hutton, who died in 2007; born Oct. 15, 1917, in McDonald, Pa.; died March 13 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., after a series of ministrokes. [See 2008, p. 512B3; 2007, p. 168D3; 2001, p. 872G1] McAFEE, George Anderson, 90, star halfback with the National Football League’s Chicago Bears in the 1940s, when the team won three NFL championships (in 1940, 1941 and 1946); he acquired the nicknamed “One-Play McAfee” for his ability to score in a wide variety of ways; he retired after the 1950 season and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1966; born March 13, 1918, in Corbin, Ky.; died March 4 at a hospital in Snellville, Ga.; the cause of his death was not disclosed. [See 1941, pp. 490L, 360M] MERCADO Jr., Ralph, 67, promoter of various genres of Latin music who was also a record and video producer, music publisher and nightclub owner; among his clients were salsa superstars Celia Cruz and Tito Puente; born Sept. 29, 1941, in New York City; died March 10 in Hackensack, N.J., of cancer. [See 2003, p. 568F1; 2000, p. 380E3] PINELLI, Tullio, 100, Italian screenwriter; he coauthored the first nine, and last two, of Federico Fellini’s films, included such classics as La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963); he also worked with such other renowned Italian filmmakers as Pietro Germi and Roberto Rossellini; born June 24, 1908, in Turin, Italy; died March 7 in Rome. [See 2005, p. 379E2; 1993, p. 840C3; Indexes 1986, 1965–67, 1962, 1956–57, 1952, 1950] RICHARD, Wendy (born Wendy Emerton), 65, British actress best known for her role as workingclass matriarch Pauline Fowler in the British Broadcasting Corp.’s long-running television soap opera “EastEnders”; she appeared in the show from 1985 to 2006; born July 20, 1943, in Middlesbrough, England; died Feb. 26 at a clinic in London, after a long battle with breast cancer. [See 2005, p. 512E2] ZIEFF, Howard, 81, onetime director of television commercials who became a Hollywood filmmaker in the 1970s, specializing in comedies; he directed nine of them before Parkinson’s disease forced him to retire in the mid-1990s; the first of his films was Slither (1973); others included Private Benjamin (1980) and The Dream Team (1989); born Oct. 21, 1927, in Chicago; died Feb. 22 at a hospital in Los Angeles, of Parkinson’s complications. [See 1994, p. 148B2; 1991, p. 1016E1; Indexes 1989, 1979, 1973] n

March 26, 2009

G-20 Summit Held in London; IMF Funding Boosted To $1 Trillion to Fight Economic Crisis Obama Makes Debut on World Stage. The Group of 20 (G-20), comprised of the world’s leading advanced and developing economic powers, April 1–2 held a summit meeting in London in an effort to develop a coordinated response to the global economic crisis. U.S. President Barack Obama took a central role at the summit, making his highest-profile international appearance since taking office in January. At the end of the summit, the leaders agreed to increase funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to $1.1 trillion, so the IMF could increase lending and boost global trade. [See pp. 188F2, 177A1, 169B3, 162A3] On the sidelines of the summit, Obama April 1 held his first meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao. Obama and Medvedev pledged to finalize a new nuclear arms reduction treaty by the end of 2009. Obama and Hu agreed to expand ongoing bilateral economic talks to include security issues as well. Obama accepted invitations to visit both Russia and China later in the year. [See below] In the run-up to the summit, differences had emerged between the U.S. and European nations, led by France and Germany, over how to respond to the economic crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning against recklessly adding to budget deficits and debt, had led opposition to Obama’s calls for more countries to follow the U.S.’s lead in enacting large spending increases and tax cuts to stimulate their economies. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had also sought to rally support for new global financial regulations, blaming unfettered markets, especially in the U.S., for sparking the crisis. Sarkozy April 1 threatened to walk out of the summit unless the G-20 reached an agreement on implementing such regulations. He toned down his threat later that day at a news conference with Merkel, but still called such measures “nonnegotiable,” declaring, “France and Germany will speak with one and the same voice.” Meanwhile, Britain and Japan joined the U.S. in backing aggressive stimulus measures and regulation that would be implemented on a national rather than global scale. Obama after meeting with the summit’s host, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, April 1 warned that the world could no longer expect the U.S. to drive global economic growth with its “voracious consumer market,” because “in the wake of this crisis, even as we’re doing stimulus, we have to take into account our own deficits.” He added, “If there is going to be renewed growth, it can’t just be the United States as the engine, everybody is going to have to pick up the pace.” Obama also accepted some of the European criticism, saying, “If you look at the sources of the crisis, the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that had taken place in the global financial system.”

Funding Boost Set for IMF—Brown April 2 announced that the G-20 leaders had agreed to make $1.1 trillion in funding available to the IMF, in order to boost the IMF’s power to make emergency loans to help countries through the crisis, and to facilitate world trade. The leaders said they had agreed on several measures to tighten financial regulations, particularly for hedge funds and credit-rating agencies, as well as a crackdown on tax havens. Instead of agreeing to commit to specific amounts of stimulus spending, the leaders made a general pledge to “deliver the scale of sustained fiscal effort necessary to restore growth.” They pledged to meet again later in the year. Brown declared, “This is the day the world came together to fight back against the global recession.” Obama at his own post-summit news conference said, “Today, we’ve learned the lessons of history,” by not delaying action to fight a major economic crisis. Brown said the leaders had also agreed on a plan to deal with so-called toxic assets, largely mortgage-based securities, that had caused heavy losses for banks around the world and remained on many of their balance sheets. Few details of that plan were provided. The new IMF funding was to include $750 billion in loans from its member nations, a tripling of the IMF’s resources for aiding nations that were struggling in the crisis. The other $250 billion would come from an extraordinary issuance of Special Drawing Rights, which were IMF financial instruments based on a basket of international currencies, and could be traded for currencies such as the U.S. dollar, the euro or the Japanese yen. They were mostly used to balance the IMF’s accounts with its member nations. The expanded issuance would be used to increase member nations’ foreign currency reserves in an effort to finance international trade. The G-20 leaders also agreed to raise more funds for assistance to poor nations by selling off some of the IMF’s gold reserves. In their communique, the leaders vowed to “name and shame” countries that interfered with free trade by resorting to protectionist measures. The World Trade Organization (WTO) March 26 had warned that there had been “significant slippage” in commitment to free trade in recent months, with some countries adopting new import tariffs and other protectionist measures. The WTO March 23 had forecast that global trade would shrink by at least 9% in 2009, the biggest drop in the group’s 62-year history. The IMF March 25 had announced plans to ease its lending terms in order to overcome reluctance among some countries to accept assistance. The IMF said it would offer a new “flexible credit line” that countries would be encouraged to use to prevent an economic emergency, rather than waiting for one to occur before seeking aid. The

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3563 April 2, 2009

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countries that met certain criteria for sound economic policies. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon March 25 had called on the G-20 leaders to commit to providing a $1 trillion stimulus package for the world’s poorest nations. Obama, Medvedev Talk Arms Control—

Obama and Medvedev at their meeting in London April 1 pledged to conclude a binding nuclear-arms reduction treaty by the end of the year. Obama accepted Medvedev’s invitation to visit Moscow, the Russian capital, for a summit meeting in July. [See p. 208A1] They issued a joint statement that said they were committed to “achieving a nuclear-free world” and were “ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations.” They vowed to co-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE G-20 summit held in London; leaders agree to $1 trillion package to fight economic crisis; Obama makes debut on world stage. PAGE 193

Obama unveils new Afghanistan strategy; more troops, narrower goals. PAGE 194

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Benedict makes first trip to Africa as pope. PAGE 195

Obama administration rejects automakers’ reform plans; bankruptcy threat for GM, Chrysler. PAGE 197

Case against former Alaska Stevens dropped.

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Detainees at U.S. Afghan base given habeas rights.

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African regional body suspends Madagascar over ouster of president. PAGE 203

Thai protesters surround prime minister’s office. PAGE 205

Netanyahu confirmed as Israeli prime minister. PAGE 209

Israeli abuses in Gaza invasion reported. PAGE 209

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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operate on a range of issues, including the economic crisis, the war in Afghanistan and Iran’s nuclear program. However, they noted that “differences remain” between them. One key difference was a U.S. plan, begun by Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which Russia viewed as an affront to its traditional sphere of influence. Also, during the meeting, Obama reportedly refused to recognize the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Russia supported. (The Russia-Georgia dispute had led to a brief Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008.) [See pp. 142B1, 85D1] Medvedev said that “relations between our countries have been adrift over the past years,” but added that he saw more points for potential agreement than differences. Obama said, “What we’re seeing today is the beginning of new progress in U.S.Russian relations. And I think that President Medvedev’s leadership is, and has been, critical in allowing that progress to take place.” The revival of nuclear arms talks was seen as a major development, since the Bush administration had considered such treaties outdated and unnecessary, for the most part. Obama and Medvedev said they would negotiate a new treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Obama also said he would press the U.S. Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which it had rejected in 1999. [See 2002, p. 454E2] China Proposes New Reserve Currency—

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China in the run-up to the G-20 summit March 23 proposed the creation of a new international reserve currency, managed by the IMF, to replace the dominant role of the U.S. dollar. China held the world’s largest currency reserves (valued at about $2 trillion), more than half of which was in U.S. Treasury bonds and other dollar-denominated securities. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao earlier in March had expressed concerns about the safety of those investments, given Obama’s plans to run massive deficits over the next several years, which could cause a decline in the value of the dollar, and therefore of the bonds held by China. China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, unveiled the new currency idea in a paper released March 23. Zhou called for a “super-sovereign” currency, or one that would not be issued by any individual nation. Instead, it would be created by expanding the use of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner March 25 appeared to give a tentative endorsement of the idea, saying, “We’re actually quite open to that suggestion.” After his remarks caused the dollar to drop suddenly against other currencies in exchange markets, Geithner delivered a new message later in the day, saying, “The dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency,” adding, “I think that’s likely to continue for a long period of time.” That

appeared to reassure investors, as the dollar recovered most of its losses that day. Hu reportedly did not raise the idea of creating a new currency in his April 1 meeting with Obama. Hu April 1 also met with Sarkozy in a bid to ease tensions between China and France over Sarkozy’s previous criticism of China’s treatment of its Tibet region and his meeting in December 2008 with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. The Chinese and French foreign ministries issued a joint statement affirming that “Tibet is an integral part of Chinese territory.” [See p. 98C2] Obamas Meet Queen, Prime Minister—

Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, April 1 visited Brown and his wife, Sarah Brown, at the prime minister’s official residence at 10 Downing Street in London. Then the Obamas visited Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, at Buckingham Palace in London. They gave the queen an Apple iPod loaded with music and video from her 2007 trip to the U.S. They also gave her a rare songbook by U.S. composer Richard Rodgers. When Brown visited the U.S. in March, Obama had given him a selection of DVDs of classic Hollywood movies, a gift criticized as inadequate by the British press. [See p. 124A2] Michelle Obama drew notice by putting an arm around the queen while talking to her. Traditional protocol discouraged nonroyal visitors from touching the queen. London Protest Turns Violent— About 4,000 people April 1 demonstrated against the G-20 summit in London’s financial district, known as the City. The protest turned violent when some participants smashed windows at a branch of Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, which had been taken over by the government after racking up record losses in 2008. Rioters also attacked the Bank of England, the British central bank, and clashed with police, who arrested more than 30 people. About 5,000 police officers had been deployed throughout London to contain the protests and guard the summit. [See p. 207B2] Global Output Decline Forecast—The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank March 31 both forecast that global economic output would shrink in 2009 for the first time since World War II. The World Bank projected a 1.7% drop in output, while the OECD projected that the global economy would contract by 2.75%. [See p. 182C3] n

U.S. President Obama Unveils New Afghanistan Strategy More Troops, Narrower Goals. U.S. President Barack Obama March 27 unveiled his strategy for fighting the war in Afghanistan. He described the U.S.’s main goal as defeating the Taliban militia and eliminating the safe havens of the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Obama called for 4,000 more U.S. troops to be sent to Afghanistan to help train the country’s own military, and for an increased focus on pressuring Pakistan to combat Taliban and Al Qaeda elements op-

erating on its soil, while aiding the country in those efforts. [See p. 137A2] Obama’s approach, unveiled after a two-month review of Afghanistan policy, was seen as more narrowly focused than that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who had made much of the broader goal of nurturing democracy in Afghanistan. Obama said that the reason for the U.S.’s continued involvement in Afghanistan was the fact that “the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks” were operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, referring to Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., which had spurred a U.S.-led military assault in 2001 to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. He said the U.S.’s “clear and focused goal” was to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He said terrorists allied with the group could use their haven there to plan attacks elsewhere as well, meaning that “the safety of people around the world is at stake.” Obama said his administration would establish benchmarks to determine whether the U.S. was meeting its goals in the region. The 4,000 new troops were intended to help Afghanistan reach a goal of doubling the size of its military, to 134,000. The additional U.S. troops, when added to a 17,000 deployment Obama had ordered in February, would bring the U.S.’s total number of forces there to more than 60,000. That would be about twice as many as the total number of other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops, in a shift from the Bush administration’s efforts to get non-U.S. NATO nations to shoulder more of the burden in Afghanistan. U.S. military commanders had reportedly pressed for a greater increase in troops,

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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foreseeing a Taliban offensive as Afghan elections, scheduled for August, drew near. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, April 1 said the military had proposed that another 10,000 troops be sent in 2010, and that Obama was to decide on the request in the fall. [See below] The U.S. would also send hundreds more civilians to the country to “promote a more capable and accountable government” and help it “develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs,” Obama said, referring to the country’s opium trade. Pakistan’s Cooperation Called Crucial—

Obama said that progress in Afghanistan was inseparable from Pakistan’s success in “going after Al Qaeda” in its safe havens along the border with Afghanistan, and that the Pakistani government’s own stability depended on it as well. He called on Congress to approve a five-year, $7.5 billion package of aid for Pakistan to improve its infrastructure and “strengthen [its] democracy.” However, he said, “After years of mixed results, we will not provide a blank check,” demanding as a condition of the aid that Pakistan “demonstrate its commitment” to eliminating terrorists on its soil and “that action be taken—one way or the other—when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets.” (The U.S. regularly carried out air strikes on suspected terrorists within Pakistan using unmanned drones, and under the Bush administration had mounted some ground operations inside Pakistan.) Obama also said the U.S. would solicit the cooperation of all countries “who should have a stake in the security of the region,” among them Russia, China and India, as well as Afghanistan’s western neighbor, Iran, which the Bush administration had shunned any contact with. [See below] Afghan President Hamid Karzai March 28 praised the Obama plan as “exactly what the Afghan people were hoping for.” Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari also said it was “a positive change,” and vowed to act “firmly” against those who threatened the Pakistani government. Both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress generally welcomed the strategy, although some expressed skepticism about the prospects for halting the free movement of militants back and forth across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and securing full cooperation from the Pakistani government. Obama, in an interview with the New York Times published March 8, had suggested that he would consider seeking cooperation with moderate elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan who could be enlisted in struggling against Al Qaeda. He said a similar tactic had shown results in Iraq. The Times March 11 reported that the Afghan government was proceeding with its own efforts to open talks with the Taliban. However, the Times March 27 reported that the Afghan and Pakistani branches of the Taliban had agreed to cooperate more closely against the new U.S. deployment. U.S., Iranian Officials Meet—Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.’s special envoy to AfghanApril 2, 2009

istan and Pakistan, March 31 met briefly with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Medhi Akhundzadeh, at a United Nations conference on Afghanistan held in The Hague, the Netherlands. The conference was attended by some 80 countries and organizations, including Iran, Pakistan, the World Bank, the European Union and NATO. The meeting between Holbrooke and Akhundzadeh was the first direct contact between the U.S. and Iran since Obama took office, and the latest move to open a direct dialogue; he had recently sent a video greeting to the Iranian people. [See p. 179C1] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also attended the forum, said the meeting was unplanned, and that Holbrooke and Akhundzadeh had discussed border security between Afghanistan and Iran, and the problem of drug traffic across it. She described the issue as a concern the U.S. shared with Iran, and said, “We will look for ways to cooperate with them.” Clinton also said a U.S. official had given a letter to the Iranian delegation asking for assistance in locating Robert Levinson, a U.S. citizen who had gone missing in Iran, and for the release of two IranianAmericans who had been detained there, journalist Roxana Saberi and student Esha Momeni. The direct delivery of the letter was a departure from the U.S.’s normal practice of directing any communications with Iran, with which it did not have diplomatic relations, through Switzerland. [See p. 189E1; 2008, p. 875A1; 2007, p. 892E2] En route to the conference, Clinton March 30 said the U.S. would give $40 million toward the $100 million the U.N. said still had to be raised to cover the cost of holding the Afghan elections. August Election Date Upheld— Karzai March 7 said he accepted the national election commission’s decision to schedule Afghanistan’s presidential election on Aug. 20. Karzai, whose term would end May 21, in late February had issued a decree that the election be held by late April, in accordance with the constitution, but the commission had rejected the decree. The commission said there was not time to make security preparations by then, and that weather conditions in much of the country would prevent many people from voting. Karzai March 7 said he intended to remain in office until the election despite the expiration of his term, defying opposition demands that he make way for an interim leader. Karzai said there was no constitutional provision for such a caretaker. He declined to say whether he planned to run in the election. Afghanistan’s Supreme Court March 29 issued a nonbinding opinion backing Karzai’s position. Other News—In other Afghan news: o A group of at least four suicide bombers April 1 attacked the office of the provincial council of the southern province of Kandahar, killing 13 people and wounding at least 14 more. The Taliban asserted that it had carried out the attack. A suicide bomber March 30 had killed at least eight people, including both police officers and civilians, in an attack on a government building just south of Kandahar city.

NATO March 23 said its troops had killed a senior Taliban commander for southern Afghanistan, Maulawi Hassan, in an attack on his compound in the southern province of Helmand. o The U.S. March 22 said five militants had been killed in a raid led by a Special Forces unit on a compound in Imam Sahib, near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan. However, the town’s mayor and other officials said the compound was his house, and that those killed were civilian members of his staff. o A suicide bomber March 16 killed nine police officers and two other people in an attack on a police antinarcotics operation in Lashkar Gal, capital of Helmand. o A roadside bombing March 15 killed four U.S. soldiers in the eastern province of Kunar, the site of a sharp increase in Taliban attacks since a new deployment of U.S. troops there at the beginning of the year. Three British troops were killed in Helmand province that day, and a French soldier had been killed the day before in the eastern province of Kapisa. n

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Religion Benedict Makes First Visit to Africa as Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI March 17–23 made his first papal visit to Africa, visiting Cameroon and Angola, where he drew enormous crowds and urged Africans to adhere to Roman Catholic teachings. However, his visit was overshadowed by comments he made en route to Cameroon, his first stop, in which he said condom use increased the risk of contracting HIV. The assertion drew sharp criticism from several European governments and health advocates worldwide. Approximately 22 million people in subSaharan Africa had contracted HIV, a number that represented about 67% of the total HIV cases in the world. [See p. 179B3; 2008, p. 274B1; 1998, p. 225E1] Africa was the fastest-growing region for Roman Catholicism. However, Islam and evangelical Christian faiths were spreading there as well, and many people also practiced animism, a broad term for religious rituals that ranged from ancestor worship to voodoo. Claims Condoms Spread HIV—Benedict March 17, en route to Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital, stated that HIV and AIDS “cannot be overcome with the distribution of condoms, which, on the contrary, increase the problem.” The Roman Catholic Church traditionally opposed contraception and maintained that abstaining from premarital sex and being faithful to one’s spouse were critical ways to fight the spread of the disease. [See 2006, p. 339E2] A torrent of criticism was unleashed after Benedict’s comments became public. Belgium’s health minister, Laurette Onkelinx, March 18 said Benedict’s statements were a “dangerous doctrinaire vision” that “could demolish years of prevention and education and endanger many human lives.” Eric Chevallier, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry, said France con195

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sidered Benedict’s comments to be “a threat to public health policies and the duty to protect human life.” Germany’s health and development ministers, in a joint statement said, “Condoms save lives, in Europe as well as on other continents…assistance to the developing world today must make access to family planning available to the poorest of the poor.” The United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) March 19 released a statement that said condoms were “the single most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.” Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, March 18 said Benedict’s comments were meant to reinforce the Vatican’s stance that advocating condom use diverted attention from efforts to educate people on the church’s teachings about sex. Britain’s Guardian newspaper the same day reported that the Vatican had modified the text of Benedict’s statements on its Web site, seemingly making the claim about condoms less stark: “the scourge cannot be resolved with the distribution of prophylactics; on the contrary, the risk is of increasing the problem.” A March 27 editorial in the British medical journal Lancet called Benedict’s statements “outrageous and wildly inaccurate,” and went on to say “the pope has publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine.” Benedict, an academic who spent most of his career within the Vatican, had recently caused another uproar by rehabilitating Robert Williamson, an excommunicated bishop who said in a January television broadcast that he believed no Jews had died in Nazi gas chambers. Some critics suggested that Benedict, who reportedly had few close advisers, was too isolated to realize how his pronouncements might be received, or unwilling to consider it. Makes First Stop in Cameroon—Benedict March 17 arrived in Cameroon, and the following day met with African bishops, whom he urged to promote Catholic teachings on marriage and the family. He also met separately with Cameroonian President Paul Biya. Benedict March 19 met with 22 representatives from Cameroon’s Muslim community. (Cameroonian Christians and Muslims coexisted more peacefully than in sone neighboring countries, notably Nigeria.) The same day he celebrated an outdoor mass for as many as 60,000 people, in which he lamented the kidnapping of African children forced to fight in wars. [See pp. 134F1, 42D3; 2008, p. 884A3] Marks 500 Years of Christianity in Angola—

G

Benedict March 20 arrived in Luanda, the capital of Angola, which had celebrated the pope’s arrival by declaring a national holiday. The visit marked the 500th anniversary of the introduction of Christianity to the country. In an address March 20, Benedict recognized “the multitude of Angolans who live below the threshold of absolute poverty.” He also condemned sexual violence against women, and scolded the 45 African countries that had adopted the 196

Maputo Protocol, which, among other things, allowed women access to abortions in cases of rape or incest, or if the mother’s life was endangered by her pregnancy. Benedict said the accord represented “an irony of those who promote abortion as a form of ‘maternal’ health care.” In a second address that day, at the home of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Benedict urged African countries to liberate people “from the scourges of greed, violence and unrest,” and encouraged “modern civic democracy.” Dos Santos agreed that “there is a necessity to help those in need.” Dos Santos had ruled Angola for 29 years, during much of which time the country had been consumed by civil war that ended in 2002. A presidential election due in 1997 had been repeatedly postponed, most recently until later in 2009. [See 2008, p. 636A3] Benedict March 21, at a mass attended by local clergy and other church leaders in Luanda, asked his audience to urge Africans to reject belief in witchcraft. (Those accused of being witches in Africa, often homeless children and the elderly, were sometimes killed.) Benedict later that day said another mass before tens of thousands of people, in which he comforted young people who had lost family members to war. Two young women were killed that day, and 40 were injured, in a stampede to enter the arena where Benedict was speaking. Benedict March 22 outside Luanda said his last public mass before departing for Rome, in which he again advocated for the destitute and railed against war. The Vatican estimated that the mass drew a crowd of as many as a million people. n

Other International News Arab League Backs Sudan’s Bashir Against ICC.

The Arab League March 30 held its annual summit in Doha, Qatar’s capital. The summit was attended by 17 of the 22 heads of state of the league members. They included Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier in March had issued an international arrest warrant for war crimes charges in connection with atrocities committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region. Arab leaders greeted him warmly and issued a resolution supporting him and calling for the charges to be dropped. [See p. 185A1; 2008, p. 225D3] Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an opening speech March 30 denounced the indictment as “yet another chapter in the process of intimidating the Arabs and not respecting the sovereignty of their states.” He called for the West to prosecute alleged crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories before pursuing Bashir. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa before the meeting said members would “continue our efforts to halt the implementation of the warrant.” Arab League foreign ministers drafted a resolution rejecting “attempts to politicize the principles of international justice and using them

to undermine the sovereignty, unity and stability of Sudan.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon attended the summit, and in a speech criticized Bashir for having “politicized” relief efforts in Darfur. Bashir had responded to the warrant by expelling many foreign aid groups from Darfur or curtailing their operations. Bashir, in his speech, called the U.N. Security Council an “undemocratic institution that…applies double standards, targeted the weak and gave a blind eye to the criminals.” (U.S. President Barack Obama March 30 repeated a request for Sudan to allow humanitarian groups that had been expelled to return to Darfur in order to provide desperately needed aid. If it refused, Obama said he would “find some mechanism” to deliver humanitarian supplies, which aides later said would mean helping aid groups that remained in Sudan.) Divisions Remain on Palestinians, Iran—

Despite the unity shown on Bashir’s behalf, deep divisions remained on other issues among Arab League members. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to attend the summit. Egypt had accused Qatar of giving critics of Egypt’s inaction during Israel’s January invasion of the Gaza Strip opportunities to denounce the Mubarak regime at an emergency Arab summit and on satellite television channel Al Jazeera. Hopes that the summit could showcase a reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah, which controlled the West Bank, and the Islamist militant group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which ruled the Gaza Strip, fell flat as negotiations faltered. Arab countries also disagreed on how to handle Iran’s nuclear program and influence throughout the Middle East, and the issue was skirted at the summit. Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi March 30 also caused a stir when he interrupted proceedings to criticize Saudi King Abdullah as a “British product and American ally.” When he was shouted down by Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa alThani, he stormed out of the room. However, Qaddafi later adressed Abdullah in a warmer manner, proposing that they exchange visits. Qaddafi and Abdullah reportedly had been quarreling since Qaddafi launched a similar verbal sally in 2003. [See 2003, p. 134G1] n Alleged Arms Smugglers Bombed in Sudan.

News reports March 26 said that Israeli or U.S. warplanes had bombed a convoy of vehicles traveling in an isolated area of eastern Sudan, near Port Sudan and close to the border with Egypt. The vehicles had reportedly been carrying arms to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip, in defiance of the Israeli blockade of the territory. The attack had reportedly taken place in January, while Israel was fighting a war with the Palestinian militant Islamist group Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip. Some reports also said a second convoy had been bombed in Sudan in early February, after the Gaza fighting had ceased. [See pp. 185A1, 157G2; 2008, p. 988C1] The strikes were first reported by the independent Egyptian newspaper Al-ShoFACTS ON FILE

rouk, which said U.S. jets had killed 39 people and destroyed 17 trucks in the first convoy. CBS News later that day said Israeli planes had carried out the attack, and described that account as the “semi-official American version.” Israeli officials March 26 refused to confirm or deny Israel’s involvement in the air strikes. However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a speech to an academic conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, said, “We operate everywhere where we can hit terror infrastructure.” He added, “There is no point in going into detail…Those who need to know, know. And those who need to know, know that there is no place where Israel cannot operate.” Israel had a history of launching strikes outside its borders when it felt its security was threatened, including a 2007 bombing raid on what it claimed was a Syrian nuclear reactor. The U.S. military March 26 denied that it had taken part in any attack on Sudan. Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor said he had no knowledge of the attacks, but they were confirmed by Highways Minister Mabrouk Mubarak Saleem. An unnamed Sudanese official said the second convoy had been carrying only African migrants, not weapons. A Sudanese government spokesman said that more than 100 people had been killed in the first attack, and called it a U.S. act of “genocide”; he added, “We don’t differentiate between the U.S. and Israel. They are all one.” The spokesman said the Sudanese government had waited to publicize the attacks because it had been investigating them, and that it was still carrying out the inquiry. The International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier in March had issued a warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and media reports suggested that the genocide comment was part of a Sudanese backlash against those charges. [See p. 122C1] n China and Brazil Reach Oil Agreement.

Brazilian state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) Feb. 19 said it had signed an agreement to sell state-owned China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) 60,000–100,000 barrels of oil per day. Petrobras also signed a memorandum of understanding to sell an additional 60,000 barrels of oil per day to the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). The agreements were announced in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, during a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that day. [See 2008, p. 416B1] Petrobras that day also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Development Bank to receive up to $10 billion in financing for the exploration and extraction of massive oil reserves thought to lie off Brazil’s southern coast. Analysts said the so-called Santos Basin could hold up to 80 billion barrels of high-grade oil— as well as natural gas reserves—under layers of water, rock and salt. Petrobras said it hoped to receive the funds by May, during a scheduled visit by da Silva to China. n April 2, 2009

UNITED STATES U N I T E D S TAT E S

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Obama Administration Rejects Automakers’ Reform Plans Bankruptcy Threat for GM, Chrysler. President Barack Obama’s automobile industry task force, in a report released March 30, said government-mandated restructuring plans submitted in February by Michiganbased automakers General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC were unacceptable because the companies, which were currently dependent on government aid to fund daily operations, had presented unsustainable business models. The task force outlined new restructuring plans that the embattled companies were required to adopt in order to receive a requested $21.6 billion in federal loans, on top of $17.4 billion in loans they had already received. Government officials repeatedly stated that they would let the companies enter bankruptcy if they failed to implement meaningful changes. [See pp. 184C1, 92E2] As a requirement of the administration’s plan, GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rick Wagoner March 29 was forced to resign, in one of the sharpest government interventions in a private company since the Great Depression. The task force March 30 said the auto companies’ “best chance at success may well require utilizing the bankruptcy code in a quick and surgical way.” Obama affirmed that the companies would likely be forced to enter bankruptcy restructuring if they failed to reach satisfactory agreements with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and bondholders, or if restructuring plans were otherwise inadequate. However, he said it would not be “a process where a company is simply broken up, sold off and no longer exists,” or is “stuck in court for years.” Under the government’s plans, GM would have 60 days to settle with its creditors, negotiate a modified contract with the UAW and consolidate its sprawling operations by eliminating jobs and closing factories. The government concluded that Chrysler was too weak to go forward as an independent company, and gave it 30 days to merge with Italy’s Fiat SpA, with which it had already formed a tentative alliance in January. The government would continue to fund operations for both companies until their respective deadlines passed, at which point it would either deem the revised business models acceptable and disburse more loans, or reject them, at which point the companies would be forced into bankruptcy restructuring. [See p. 47G3] The government was requiring both companies to renegotiate their labor contracts, under which burgeoning retiree benefit costs had become harder for the companies to bear amid an accelerating decline in U.S. auto sales over the past year. The companies were also required to negotiate debt-for-equity swaps with their bondholders, who owned billions of dollars in automaker debt. The automakers were supposed to have negotiated those agreements by March 31, the deadline set by the administration of Obama’s predecessor, President George W.

Bush, when he had approved the initial $17.4 billion rescue loan for the companies in December 2008. However, neither bondholders nor the UAW had been willing to accept the deep concessions that the Obama administration was now forcing alongside threats of bankruptcy. In order for the automakers to become profitable, bondholders would have to agree to take some losses, and the UAW would have to make concessions on workers’ compensation and allow the companies to fund half of their massive health care obligations with company stock rather than cash. Such concessions had already been approved by UAW workers at Dearborn, Mich.–based Ford Motor Co., which had not received government assistance. [See 2008, p. 933A1] In order to boost consumer confidence in the companies, the government March 30 also said it would temporarily back warranties on new GM and Chrysler vehicles. The federal guarantee would end if and when the government deemed the companies healthy again. Funding for that program would come from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed in February. The government also planned to offer a tax incentive for people to purchase new vehicles from the two companies. [See p. 89A1] Observers suggested the strategy the administration rolled out March 30 represented a major political risk for Obama, who faced questions about why he appeared to be tougher on failing automakers than on failing financial institutions that had received extensive government assistance. He also risked losing the support of unions, a major Democratic voting bloc, if he attempted to exact too many concessions from UAW members. Prior to the auto task force’s verdict, Obama March 26 had warned the UAW and the automakers’ bondholders that “if they’re not willing to make the changes and restructurings that are necessary, then I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.” He went on to caution that the U.S. auto industry would probably not see the large market share it “had back in the 1950s.” However, Obama also maintained that the auto industry was a vital part of the U.S. economy, and March 30 said “we cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish.” GM and Chrysler together employed about 132,000 people in the U.S., and an enormous network of suppliers and auto dealers depended on a healthy U.S. auto industry for their livelihoods. [See p. 164B2]

B

C

D

E

F

GM Must Settle With Creditors in 60 Days—

Obama’s task force concluded that the plan GM had submitted in February was inadequate because health care and pension obligations would reach “unsustainable levels reaching approximately $6 billion per year in 2013 and 2014,” and because GM had assumed too rosy an outlook for its sales. It gave GM 60 days to reach agreements with its bondholders and the UAW. GM was seeking $16.6 billion in federal 197

G

April Financial Update

A

(Close of trading April 2 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

7,761.60

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

811.08 1,551.60 3,955.61

Tokyo Stock Exchange

8,351.91

Toronto Stock Exchange

8,941.82

(see box, p. 198A3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index)

(TSE Composite Index)

B

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

C

$927.40

Silver (per troy oz.)

$12.9800

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price) (Nymex crude future)

$1.9523

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel)

$5.9100

(Kansas City market)

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through February; see p. 182E3)

Unemployment rate

(February; see p. 147F1)

G

0.2% 8.1%

Gross domestic product growth

-6.3%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized fourth-quarter 2008 rate, final report; see p. 182B3)

F

$48.39

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released March 22)

E

$0.6992 $1.4438 $0.7929 $1.3232 98.67 13.8985 $0.8726

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

Oil (per barrel)

D

2.65% 0.39%

loans, on top of the $13.4 billion it had already received. Thousands of GM bondholders owned about $27 billion in unsecured debt, or debt that was not protected by underlying collateral. In order to make GM sustainable, the government required that two-thirds of that debt be swapped for equity. Bondholders had reportedly been unhappy with GM’s most recent offer, which, according to cable news network CNBC March 27, consisted of bondholders receiving eight cents to the dollar in cash for every dollar in bonds, 16 cents to the dollar in new unsecured debt and a 90% equity stake in GM. GM also owed an additional $20 billion to the UAW to fund a union-administered health care trust called a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association or VEBA, which had been implemented under a 2007 UAW contract. (UAW workers at all three of the Michigan-based automakers had made deep concessions under the 2007 contracts, which were ratified after contentious negotiations and brief strikes at GM and Chrysler.) Under the government’s plan, the UAW would have to allow GM to finance as much as half of that obligation with GM stock. GM would also have to negotiate wage concessions from the UAW. [See 2007, p. 733E3] The government also required that GM eliminate significantly more jobs than the 198

47,000 it had proposed in its February restructuring plan, and that it close a number of factories and eliminate unprofitable models. About 7,500 GM workers had accepted the company’s most recent buyout package, which expired April 1. Workers who took the buyout received as much as $45,000. However, the New York Times March 27 reported that only a third of workers eligible for the buyout had accepted it. In order to cut costs, GM sought to replace older workers with newer employees who were paid less. If GM went into bankruptcy restructuring, a judge could reduce or eliminate UAW members’ pensions and health care benefits, and bondholders would risk losing part of their investment. The March 29 task force report also notably said the company’s Chevy Volt, a fuelefficient electric hybrid car that the company had touted as a symbol of its future prosperity, was “too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term.” GM Could Be Split Into Two Parts—According to media reports, the government favored a plan by which GM would declare bankruptcy and then split into two parts: a “good” GM that would hold the profitable parts of the company, like Cadillac and Chevrolet, and a “bad” GM whose unprofitable components could be disassembled and sold off. The sustainable parts of GM would then emerge from bankruptcy as a new company financed by the government, with stakes in it distributed to GM’s creditors. The “good” GM would also assume the burden of paying back the recent federal loans. The “bad” components of GM would likely languish in bankruptcy court until they could be sold or wound down. The assets from liquidation would go toward paying back creditors. The “bad” GM would hold on to the company’s billions of dollars in retiree health care obligations. GM CEO Wagoner Forced Out—The administration March 29 announced that as part of the auto industry overhaul, Wagoner, who had headed GM since 2000, had been asked to step down. Wagoner reportedly learned of his ouster in a March 27 meeting with Steven Rattner, the head of Obama’s auto task force. GM Chief Operating Officer Frederick (Fritz) Henderson would take his place as the new, permanent CEO of GM. Much of GM’s board of directors was also expected to be replaced. Kent Kresa, who had previously served as a director, would head the board on an interim basis. GM’s U.S. market share had shrunk by about 10% since Wagoner became chairman in 2000, and its stock was currently worth about $4 per share, down from $70 in 2000. Wagoner’s critics said he had focused too heavily on both promoting large gas-guzzling vehicles and improving GM’s market share overseas, while the company’s finances had deteriorated. He was considered likely to receive his full pension and other benefits, thought to be worth about $23 million. He was to stay with the

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

March 2 3

4

5 6 9 10 11 12 13 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25 26 27 30 31

6,763.29 6,726.02 6,875.84 6,594.44 6,626.94 6,547.05 6,926.49 6,930.40 7,170.06 7,223.98 7,216.97 7,395.70 7,486.58 7,400.80 7,278.38 7,775.86 7,659.97 7,749.81 7,924.56 7,776.18 7,522.02 7,608.92

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,971.2 1,885.6 1,794.0 1,852.0 1,768.5 1,555.0 2,172.9 1,741.6 1,797.9 1,608.9 1,894.5 1,488.8 2,071.5 1,950.8 2,428.3 1,900.5 1,634.5 1,767.9 1,795.3 1,439.1 1,503.1 1,625.4

company in an unspecified position, with a salary of $1 a year. [See p. 161A1] Chrysler Must Ally With Fiat—The auto task force March 30 said Chrysler was not viable as a stand-alone company, and the Treasury gave it 30 days’ funding to buy time for it to negotiate a partnership with Fiat, under which the Italian company would purchase the “good” parts of Chrysler. The government was expected to take a strong hand in negotiating that deal. Chrysler was also required to “extinguish” most of its $9 billion in secured debt, and exact wage and health care–related concessions from the UAW, to which it owed $10 billion to fund its VEBA. If Chrysler met the government’s requirements, it would be eligible for a $6 billion government loan, on top of $4 billion in federal loans it had already received. Chrysler in January had said it and Fiat had negotiated a deal by which Fiat would take a 35% stake in Chrysler, and would use its factories to build some of its models for sale in the U.S. Chrysler in return would receive access to Fiat technologies for building more fuel-efficient cars. However, under the government-mandated plan, Fiat would take only a 20% stake in Chrysler, and would not be allowed to increase its ownership stake above 49% until Chrysler paid back government loans. Administration officials reportedly said Cerberus Capital Management LP would see its 80% stake in Chrysler mostly wiped out under the plan. Chrysler’s negotiations on secured debt holders were expected to be difficult. Many bondholders reportedly felt they were being asked to approve more painful concessions than the UAW was being asked to make. Similarly, some observers suggested that the bondholders would get more money on their investment from bankruptcy negotiations than in talks with Chrysler and the government. FACTS ON FILE

If Chrysler went bankrupt, as the government had threatened to allow it to do if it did not satisfy the provisions outlined in the restructuring plan, its assets would be sold in order to pay its debt. Reaction—Reaction to the Obama administration’s March 29 move was mixed. Some observers applauded Obama for taking decisive action. However, many conservatives, including Sen. Bob Corker (R, Tenn.), decried the move as an unacceptable government intrusion into the private sector. Corker March 30 said, “This administration has decided that they know better than our courts and our free-market process how to deal with these companies.” He also claimed that “firing Rick Wagoner is a sideshow to distract us from the fact that the administration had no progress to announce today.” Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) similarly claimed that Wagoner had been the administration’s “sacrificial lamb,” and said the Obama administration had created a double standard “with respect to the way manufacturing companies are treated and the way Wall Street is treated.” Sen. Carl Levin (D, Mich.) said the automakers “will hopefully see that they have a pretty stark choice in terms of working something out.” Rep. John Dingell (D, Mich.) cautioned Obama that bankruptcy was “like a war or marriage; it’s easy to get into, hard to get out of.” n

Politics Case Against Former Sen. Stevens Dropped.

The Justice Department April 1 dropped all its corruption charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R, Alaska), after Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said a review of the case had confirmed errors by federal prosecutors that denied Stevens a fair trial. Holder said he would not pursue a new trial. A jury had convicted Stevens in October 2008 on seven felony counts in connection with making false statements to conceal free home renovations and other gifts he received. He narrowly lost his bid for reelection eight days later. Stevens, 85, had been the longest-serving Republican senator in history, having held his seat since 1968. [See 2008, pp. 852G1, 788A1] Holder said prosecutors had failed to turn over notes from an interview with a key witness to Stevens’s lawyers. In the interview, on April 15, 2008, the witness, Bill Allen, had made statements that contradicted parts of his subsequent testimony at the trial. In a motion submitted to Judge Emmet Sullivan of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asking him to dismiss the case, the Justice Department said those notes “could have been used by the defendant to cross-examine Bill Allen and in arguments to the jury.” Sullivan had chastised prosecutors for their conduct on several occasions during the trial, and said he came close to declaring a mistrial. Sullivan Feb. 13 ruled three of the prosecutors in contempt of court after they failed to comply with his order to April 2, 2009

turn over documents. Sullivan had requested the documents in order to verify allegations made by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, Chad Joy, that evidence had been improperly withheld from Stevens’s lawyers and the judge. Allen, as chief executive of VECO Corp., a now-defunct Alaskan oil services company, had provided the renovations to Stevens’s house in Girdwood, Alaska. In the April interview, Allen had estimated the value of the work at $80,000, well below the estimate he gave in his trial testimony. The notes also showed that Allen had said he did not recall a conversation with another friend of Stevens about sending the senator a bill for the renovations. At the trial, Allen testified that the mutual friend had told him not to send Stevens a bill in response to a message from Stevens asking for one. Stevens had maintained at the trial that he had paid all the bills that he received for the renovations and had not knowingly concealed any gifts. Stevens April 1 issued a statement saying, “I am grateful that the new team of responsible prosecutors at the Department of Justice has acknowledged that I did not receive a fair trial and has dismissed all the charges against me.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) that day said there was “no question” that Stevens would have won reelection “if this decision had been made last year.” The Alaskan Republican Party April 2 called for a special election to allow Stevens to try to win his seat back from Sen. Mark Begich (D). n

Terrorism Bagram Detainees Given Habeas Rights.

Judge John Bates in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., April 2 ruled that three terrorism detainees being held at a military prison at the U.S. Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan, had the right to challenge their indefinite detentions in U.S. courts. The ruling came in the case of four detainees at Bagram who had been held without charge by the U.S. for six years or more as enemy combatants. [See pp. 150C3, 112F2; 2008, p. 389A1] Bates ruled that three of the four detainees—two Yemenis and a Tunisian—challenging their detentions had the right to be heard in U.S. courts on the grounds that they had been held for an unreasonable length of time, were not from Afghanistan and had not been captured in Afghanistan. Bates cited a June 2008 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that had granted habeas corpus rights to terrorism detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found that the circumstances at Bagram were sufficiently similar to those at Guantanamo that the Supreme Court’s ruling also applied there. The fourth detainee was an Afghan who had been captured in another country and brought by the U.S. to Bagram. Bates did not rule on whether the Afghan detainee had the right to challenge his detention, due to concerns that allowing him to do so might complicate U.S. relations with the

government of Afghanistan. He ordered attorneys for the detainee and the U.S. government to file briefs outlining their arguments on that question. Both the Bush and Obama administrations had argued that U.S. courts lacked the jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus lawsuits filed by detainees at Bagram, using legal arguments similar to those used by the Bush administration in relation to Guantanamo. About 650 prisoners were thought to be held by the U.S. at Bagram, including at least 20 terrorism detainees who had been sent there after being captured outside Afghanistan. Analysts said that the ruling would make it more difficult for the Obama administration to use Bagram to detain terrorism suspects if the suspects were not Afghans and had been captured in other countries. President Barack Obama had ordered the 2010 closure of Guantanamo, but had not announced any plans to close Bagram. n Waterboarding of Detainee Called Fruitless.

The use of harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, against terrorism detainee Abu Zubaydah resulted in little useful information and did not contribute to the quashing of any planned terrorist attacks, the Washington Post reported March 29. The report, which was based in part on interviews with unidentified U.S. counterterrorism officials, found that the U.S. had misidentified Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian, as a high-ranking official of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and had wasted resources attempting to stop fictitious terrorist attacks that Zubaydah had talked about while subjected to harsh interrogation. [See p. 183C3; 2008, p. 71F2] Zubaydah, 38, also known as Zain alAbidin Muhammed Hussein, had been captured in March 2002 and was described by then-–President George W. Bush as Al Qaeda’s “chief of operations.” According to the Post, Zubaydah was never an actual member of Al Qaeda and had been mistaken for a high-ranking official due to his informal role organizing travel to training camps in Afghanistan for would-be Islamist militants. He reportedly had begun working in conjunction with Al Qaeda only after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks against the U.S., when the U.S. was on the verge of invading Afghanistan, where he lived. Zubaydah knew alleged Sept. 11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and had been approached by Mohammed in the 1990s when Mohammed was seeking help finding people willing to fund a planned suicide attack on New York City’s World Trade Center. Zubaydah reportedly declined to help Mohammed, but recommended that he discuss his plans, which were a forerunner to the plot carried out in 2001, with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. However, other sources cited by the Post contended that Zubaydah had played a key logistical role for Al Qaeda and had revealed important information about the organization. Most Useful Information Uncoerced—

The Post reported that most of the useful information given to the U.S. by Zubaydah 199

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

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came in the form of the names of people connected to Al Qaeda. Nearly all such information was obtained before the government began its use of harsh interrogation tactics against Zubaydah, it said. The Bush administration had reportedly authorized the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques against Zubaydah and increased its pressure on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to intensify interrogations in the belief that Zubaydah was holding back vital information that could protect the U.S. against imminent Al Qaeda attacks. According to the Post, no significant terrorist attacks were prevented by Zubaydah’s interrogation, which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had deemed “torture” in a secret 2007 report. Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks earlier, continued to maintain that detainees subjected to the approved harsh interrogation techniques had revealed unspecified information leading to the disruption of terrorist plots. n Detainee Cleared For Release. The Justice Department March 30 announced that it planned to release Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a Yemeni detainee at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, once a country was found to accept him. It was unclear when Batarfi would be released or where he would be sent; U.S. officials had previously been reluctant to return detainees to Yemen, which was seen as a hub of terrorist activity. [See pp. 166B2, 112E1] Batarfi had been captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and accused of trying to make anthrax for Al Qaeda, a charge that was later dropped. Batarfi had later been accused of working for a group linked to terrorist activities; however, he claimed that he had left the group after it had been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Under an agreement with the Justice Department, Batarfi’s lawyers agreed to suspend a lawsuit challenging Batarfi’s detention, in order to speed up his release; a hearing in the case had been scheduled for April 6. However, Batarfi retained the right to resume his habeas corpus lawsuit if he was not satisfied with the conditions or location of his eventual release. n ‘War on Terror’ Term Dropped. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton March 30 told reporters that the Obama administration had ceased to use the term “global war on terror” to describe the U.S. government’s ongoing antiterrorism operations against the Al Qaeda international terrorist network and other groups. Clinton said that “the administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself.” [See 2001, p. 700B2] However, Clinton said that she had not “gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It’s just not being used.” The term had been coined by the Bush administration in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., and had been widely criticized as inflammatory. n 200

Obama Administration Federal Housing Administration Chief Picked.

President Barack Obama March 23 nominated real estate executive David Stevens as assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he would oversee the government’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The position required Senate confirmation. [See 2008, p. 955B1] Stevens was currently the president and chief operating officer (COO) of Long & Foster Cos., the country’s largest privately held real estate company. He had previously worked as a senior vice president at Freddie Mac, then a privately held, government-sponsored mortgage lender, now in federal conservatorship, and also as an executive vice president at the home mortgage division of California-based bank Wells Fargo & Co. The FHA had been created in 1934 to insure mortgages granted to borrowers with poor credit ratings or low incomes. The agency guaranteed mortgage loans made by lenders and charged participating borrowers a premium to cover defaults. However, the share of the mortgage market insured by the FHA had grown from 2% in 2005 to 30% by the end of 2008, following the collapse of the market for subprime mortgages, raising concerns that the program could become a financial liability for the government. Treasury Officials Nominated—Obama March 23 nominated two Treasury Department officials and announced that another official would continue in his current position. The Obama administration had struggled to fill appointed positions within the department, which was widely seen as understaffed, due to concerns about ties between potential appointees and financial companies, and the strictness of the administration’s vetting process. Both newly announced nominees required confirmation by the Senate. [See p. 44D1] Obama nominated former Treasury Department General Counsel Neal Wolin as deputy Treasury secretary, the department’s second-in-command. Prior to his nomination, Wolin had been working as the deputy counsel to the president for economic policy and as a deputy assistant to Obama. Obama also nominated Lael Brainard, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, as undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. Brainard had served as deputy national economic adviser and deputy assistant to the president for international economics under President Bill Clinton and had assisted in the U.S. response to the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. In addition, Obama announced that Stuart Levey would stay on as undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. Levey, a former Justice Department official, had been confirmed for the position in 2004, when it was created. The Obama administration had not announced a nominee for undersecretary of

the Treasury for domestic finance, the final vacant senior-level Treasury post, after Lee Sachs, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who had been widely viewed as the leading candidate for the position, had reportedly declined to accept the nomination. Separately, two candidates to fill the position of deputy Treasury secretary had dropped out of contention for the spot before Wolin was nominated. n Federal Tech Chief Kundra Reinstated.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro March 17 confirmed that Vivek Kundra had been reinstated as the nation’s first chief information officer (CIO). He had gone on leave from his position the previous week after a former employee of his was implicated in a bribery investigation, but Shapiro said Kundra was “neither a subject nor a target of the investigation.” [See p. 145C2] Shapiro also addressed reports circulating on the Internet that Kundra had stolen an item worth $300 or less in 1996, when he was 21. Shapiro characterized the crime as a “youthful indiscretion,” and said Kundra had performed community service and that the White House considered the matter “fully resolved.” The New York Times March 18 reported that Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, also the Democratic National Committee chairman, had asked the White House to reinstate Kundra, who had previously worked for him. Kundra’s former employee, Yusuf Acar, worked in the District of Columbia technology office, which Kundra had directed. Acar March 12 was arrested and charged with bribery, bid-rigging, money laundering and wire fraud. Sushil Bansal— president and chief executive of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp., which had won information technology contracts with several city governments—was also arrested that day and charged with bribery and money laundering. The two men were accused of defrauding public agencies of tens of thousands of dollars by overcharging for products and claiming to have hired nonexistent employees. n Obama Holds Public Forum on Internet.

President Barack Obama March 26 held a public forum at the White House, with participation by an Internet audience that selected questions for him and watched him respond via live video on the White House Web site, whitehouse.gov. It was the first such interactive event to be staged by a president. Obama had been noted for his extensive use of the Internet to mobilize supporters and set fund-raising records during his 2008 presidential campaign. Since taking office in January, he had updated the traditional presidential radio address—videos of him giving each of the speeches had been posted on the White House Web site. [See p. 181D2] Some 3.5 million people had voted on which of the more than 100,000 questions submitted by the public should be posed to Obama at the March 26 event. The selected questions covered a range of issues, including the economy, health care and educaFACTS ON FILE

tion. Obama also took questions from an invited audience at the White House during the event, which lasted more than an hour. The question that drew the most votes was whether Obama agreed that legalizing marijuana would stimulate the economy and provide a large new source of tax revenue. [See p. 165A2] Obama joked, “I don’t know what this says about the online audience.” He then replied, “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy for growing the economy.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs later that day asserted that the popularity of that question in the online vote was due to a campaign by advocacy groups that favored legalizing marijuana, such as the National Organization for the Reform n of Marijuana Laws (NORML). Obama Discloses New Book Deal. Obama March 19 disclosed that he had signed a new book contract on Jan. 15, five days before his inauguration. The deal was a licensing arrangement that would allow his publisher, Crown Publishing Group, a unit of Random House Inc., to produce an abridged version of his autobiography, Dreams From My Father (first published in 1995), that would be “suitable for middle grade or young adult readers.” Obama would receive an advance of $250,000 for the abridgment. [See p. 166F3] Obama March 19 disclosed that he had received nearly $2.5 million in royalties in 2008, both from Dreams From My Father and his second best-selling book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006. Under a 2004 contract with Crown, Obama was obliged to write one more nonfiction book and a children’s book. According to his disclosure, he had amended the contract Jan. 9 to stipulate that those books would not be completed until he left office. n

Elections New York House Race Too Close to Call.

A special election for a vacant House seat representing a district in upstate New York March 31 appeared too close to call until about 6,000 absentee ballots could be counted. Democrat Scott Murphy, a venture capitalist and political newcomer, led state Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R) by 65 votes, of more than 150,000 cast, according to initial results, a margin that election officials April 1 revised to only 25 votes. The election was in New York’s 20th Congressional District, which stretched along the Hudson River into the far north of the state, and extended west around Albany, the state capital. [See p. 46E2] The seat had been vacated by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) in January, when Gov. David Paterson (D) appointed her to fill the former Senate seat of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The district had long been a Republican stronghold, until Gillibrand won the 2006 election. In the monthlong campaign before the special election, the candidates had deApril 2, 2009

bated the merits of the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February. Murphy, 39, supported the stimulus, while Tedisco, 58, opposed it, following the lead of all but three Republicans in Congress. [See p. 89A1] Tedisco also tried to capitalize on widespread anger over the financial crisis, and especially on a controversy over bonuses paid to employees of insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG). He made Murphy’s financial career an issue, saying that the Democrat was too close to Wall Street. [See p. 161A1] n Franken Wins Ruling in Minn. Senate Count.

Democrat Al Franken March 31 won a court ruling in his extended legal battle against former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) over a recount of the results from the November 2008 election in Minnesota for the Senate seat Coleman had held. Franken, a former comedian, had a lead of 225 votes, out of 2.9 million cast. The seat had been vacant since the opening of the 111th Congress in January, pending the outcome of the dispute. [See p. 5F1] A special panel of three state judges March 31 ruled that only 400 absentee ballots should be reviewed for possible inclusion in the final count, making it unlikely that Coleman would gain enough votes to erase Franken’s lead. The ballots would be counted in the court by the next week. Coleman had argued that several thousand “wrongly rejected” ballots should be reviewed. Coleman’s lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, said Coleman would appeal the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court. n

Legislation Democrats Introduce Emissions Cap Bill.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward Markey (D, Mass.) March 31 introduced a bill that would establish a cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while shifting the country’s dependence away from fossil fuel energy sources. The bill was considered unlikely to become law, as it had no support from congressional Republicans, and imposed more stringent reductions on emissions than had been proposed by President Barack Obama. [See p. 125G2] The measure, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would reduce the U.S.’s greenhouse gas output to 80% of 2005 levels by 2020, while Obama had called for emissions to be reduced to about 86% of 2005 levels by that year. The bill also required the U.S. to produce at least 25% of its energy from a renewable resource, such as solar, wind or geothermal energy, by 2025. (Obama’s scheme was included in his budget plan for fiscal 2010, which was still being considered by Congress.) The bill would establish a “cap-andtrade” program through which pollution credits would be issued or sold by the government, and could then be sold on an open

market. However, the measure did not contain details on how the credits would be distributed, or where any revenue generated by their sale would be directed. Republicans argued that the pollution credits would function as a de facto tax on carbon creation resulting from energy use, raising the prices of a number of goods and services. The measure would also establish a $10 billion fund for carbon sequestration, a process by which pollutants would be captured and stored, instead of released into the atmosphere. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) characterized the bill as “a strong starting point,” reinforcing the notion that it represented the beginning of negotiations among lawmakers over the issue. Separately, the Senate April 1 voted, 67–31, against providing the cap-and-trade proposal put forward by Obama in the budget plan with any special procedural protections. Some senators had sought to bypass normal procedures to ensure that the plan could not be filibustered. The Senate’s vote effectively required that the cap-andtrade plan receive at least 60 votes in order to defeat a possible filibuster. n

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Medicine and Health News in Brief. The National Center for Health Statistics March 18 reported that, according to preliminary data, 4.3 million people had been born in the U.S. in 2007, more than in any other year in the country’s history. The figure was slightly higher than the previous record for births in the U.S., set in 1957, during the height of the post– World War II baby boom. The data also indicated that the birth rate among girls aged 15–19 had risen 1.4% between 2006 and 2007, the second consecutive year the figure had increased. That statistic raised concerns that the trend of decline in teen births seen from 1991 to 2005 was reversing. [See p. 96F1] The Justice Department Feb. 25 charged drug manufacturer Forest Laboratories Inc. with fraud for illegally marketing its antidepressant drugs Celexa and Lexapro to children. In a complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, Mass., investigators alleged that Forest executives had suppressed data gathered in 2001 showing that the two drugs were ineffective for children, and might harm them. The investigators said the company had promoted the drugs improperly from 1988 until at least 2005. The complaint also alleged that Forest gave valuable gifts to doctors who prescribed its drugs. Lexapro garnered sales of $2.29 billion in 2008, while Celexa competed with generic versions and was no longer highly profitable. [See 2004, p. 756C3] The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Feb. 12 released a study which found that a small proportion of nonprofit hospitals provided the bulk of free health care given to the poor. Nonprofit hospitals were granted tax-exempt status by the federal government in exchange for providing free care to the communities that they served, among other benefits. However, there were no 201

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firm rules requiring hospitals to provide a certain amount of community benefit in order to retain their tax status. Nonprofit hospitals had received an estimated $12.6 billion in annual tax exemptions in 2002, according to a 2006 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The FDA Feb. 6 approved for the first time a drug derived from a genetically modified animal. The drug, an anticlotting protein called antithrombin that was sold under the brand name ATryn, was produced in the milk of a herd of about 200 goats that had been given a human gene. Both the drug and the goats were developed by GTC Biotherapeutics Inc., based in Framingham, Mass. Companies saw the potential to save money by using genetically modified animals to produce drugs, instead of synthesizing them. [See 2008, p. 792A3] n

Transportation Public Transportation Use Hits 52-Year High.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), a nonprofit industry group, March 9 released a report that said use of public transit in the U.S. had been higher in 2008 than in any year since 1956. The report said Americans took public transportation about 10.7 billion times in 2008, a 4% increase from 2007 and a 38% increase since 1995. The group attributed the rise to difficult economic conditions that drew people to public transportation in order to save money. [See 2008, p. 904G1] Use of public transit sharply increased in the middle of 2008, when gasoline prices topped $4 per gallon. However, the group found that Americans continued to take public transportation even after gas prices dropped toward the end of that year. The Transportation Department Feb. 19 reported that total U.S. road travel had declined in 2008 by 3.6%, or by 108 billion miles (174 billion km). The $787 billion economic recovery bill signed by President Barack Obama in February set aside $8.4 billion to fund construction and repairs to public transportation networks. The APTA said the usage statistics showed the need for such investments. [See p. 89A1] n

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News in Brief. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano Feb. 25 ordered a review of a workplace immigration raid that had taken place the previous day without her knowledge. More than 70 immigration officials and one federal helicopter Feb. 24 had raided Bellingham, Wash.–based Yamato Engine Specialists and arrested 28 suspected undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico. Three women were released for humanitarian reasons, and the rest awaited deportation proceedings at a detention center in Tacoma, Wash. Napolitano Feb. 25 said immigration enforcement efforts at 202

workplaces should focus on the employers of illegal workers. [See below, p. 151G1] A report released Feb. 4 by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said “the federal fugitive operations program established in 2003 to locate, apprehend and remove fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community has instead focused chiefly on arresting unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions.” According to the report, which was researched in conjunction with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City, arrests of fugitive aliens with previous criminal convictions represented 9% of arrests in 2007, down from 32% in 2003. The National Fugitive Operations Program’s funding had increased to $218 million in 2008, from $9 million in 2003. [See 2008, p. 790D1] Francesco Insolia, who in 2008 had pleaded guilty to 18 counts of harboring and concealing illegal immigrants, Jan. 27 was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $1 million. Insolia was the former owner of New Bedford, Mass.–based Michael Bianco Inc., a leather goods company that had been raided by immigration officials in 2007. More than 360 suspected undocumented workers, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, had been arrested in the raid. [See 2008, p. 965B1] n

Law Enforcement DNA Sampling Expanded. The Los Angeles Times Jan. 9 reported that beginning that day, the Justice Department would take DNA samples from people who were arrested on suspicion of immigration violations. The department would also collect DNA samples from people who were arrested on suspicion of committing a federal offense. Previously, DNA had been collected only from people who were found guilty of specific crimes. The data would be added to a national database used to match suspects to DNA found at crime scenes. [See 2008, p. 939B3] n

Crime 1970s Radical Olson Released. A onetime member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a 1970s radical organization best known for its 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst, March 17 was released on parole in California. Sara Jane Olson, the former SLA member, had been convicted in 2001 of second-degree murder in connection with a 1975 bank robbery, as well as involvement in two attempted bombings the same year, and had served seven years in prison. [See 2008, p. 238E3] Olson, 62, who was originally known as Kathleen Soliah, had been arrested in 1999 after living in Minnesota under an assumed name for more than 20 years. She had initially been paroled in March 2008, but was rearrested five days later after authorities determined that she had been accidentally released a year ahead of schedule. n

AFRICA

Kenya Annan Criticizes Political Reform Delays.

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan March 30 called on Kenya’s coalition government to implement political reforms agreed to by the ruling party and the opposition in early 2008. His remarks came at the start of a two-day conference in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the progress made in the year since a unity government between the political factions had been formed in Kenya after ethnic violence killed some 1,300 people following a December 2007 presidential election. [See 2008, p. 971C2] The violence had broken out after incumbent President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) was declared the winner over Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Allegations by the opposition of widespread vote-rigging led to months of ethnic bloodletting, mainly between Kibaki’s Kikuyu group and the Luo and Kalenjin groups, who supported Odinga, a Luo. Annan had led a mediation team that negotiated an agreement on the formation of the unity government in February 2008, and Odinga was sworn in as prime minister in April. However, many of the reforms agreed to in the 2008 accord had yet to be implemented, including the creation of a tribunal to probe the election-related violence. Kibaki and Odinga in December 2008 had agreed to set up the special tribunal to investigate and prosecute crimes related to the violence. However, Kenya’s parliament Feb. 12 had failed to approve the constitutional amendment necessary to establish the tribunal. Some members of parliament reportedly did not have confidence that the Kenyan judiciary was capable of handling the cases. Upon releasing his report on the violence in October 2008, Kenyan judge Philip Waki had given Annan a sealed envelope containing a list of high-profile Kenyans allegedly responsible for inciting and organizing the ethnic unrest. Annan had threatened to turn over the list to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, if Kenya did not create its own tribunal by March 1. Odinga Feb. 17 said, “Annan has expressed willingness to delay the handing over of the names in the envelope to The Hague until Kenya has completely failed to handle the matter locally,” adding that he hoped to convince parliament to change its vote. However, Annan Feb. 24 warned the Kenyan government that he would give the list to the ICC if the tribunal was delayed much longer. Annan March 30 said at the Geneva conference, “Ordinary Kenyans interpret the slow pace of reform as lack of political will on the part of their leaders. They see it, rightly or wrongly, as proof that the political elite are putting their own partisan interests above the interest of the nation as a whole.” Along with the failure to bring FACTS ON FILE

those responsible for the violence to justice, Annan stated that Kenyans were “equally angry at widespread corruption and the lack of action to root it out.” Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka March 16 had accused members of the country’s 41-member cabinet of using government funds to finance their campaigns for the next presidential and parliamentary elections in 2012. [See p. 65G3] Annan March 31 emphasized that there could be a repeat of the violence during the 2012 elections if the reforms were not implemented. Kenyan Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Justice Minister Martha Karua were among the other conference attendees; however, Kibaki and Odinga did not attend. Human Rights Activists Targeted— Annan’s comments came after a period of heightened violence and unrest sparked by the March 5 murder in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, of Oscar Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulu, leaders of the Oscar Foundation human rights group. The two men were shot dead in central Nairobi as their car was stuck in traffic. Leading Kenyan human rights groups March 6 alleged that the assassinations were part of a broader campaign of violence by Kibaki supporters against activists who had been investigating the actions of alleged police death squads. Many rights activists accused the death squads of targeting young Kikuyus suspected of opposing Kibaki under the pretense that they were supporters of the outlawed Mungiki criminal gang. The Oscar Foundation provided legal representation to people who had been accused of membership in or connections to the Mungiki. Human rights lawyer Ann Njogu, of the Centre for Rights, Education and Awareness, March 28 told Reuters news service that more than 30 activists had gone into hiding, and Reuters also reported that many others had fled the country. Njogu said several activists had received death threats after the Feb. 25 release of a scathing U.N. report on extrajudicial police violence in Kenya. Many of the activists—including Kingara and Oulu—had given information to the author of the report, special U.N. investigator Philip Alston. The report stated that police death squads had been responsible for “systematic, widespread and carefully planned extrajudicial executions” since the disputed 2007 election. It concluded that the death squads had killed 500 suspected Mungiki members, along with 400 political protesters during the postelection violence and 200 alleged rebels based in the western Mount Elgon region. The report urged that the country’s attorney general, Amos Wako, and the police chief, Hussein Ali, be fired. Alston March 6 called for an independent probe of the murders of Kingara and Oulu, as did Michael Ranneberger, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya. Students and rights activists March 5, prior to the murders, had protested on the streets of Nairobi against the wave of extrajudicial murders. The Oscar Foundation had been involved in organizing the protests, April 2, 2009

which had been mainly peaceful. Alfred Mutua, a government spokesman and member of the PNU, about five hours before the murders had alleged that the Oscar Foundation was a “front” for the Mungiki sect. In response to the brazen assassinations, protesters March 6 again took to the streets, clashing with police. Riots also broke out March 10 as demonstrators called for the police chief’s resignation. Odinga March 6 said Kenya was “hurtling towards failure as a state” due to the increasing tension between police and the general public and the apparent weakening in law and order. He added that Kenyan society was “at risk again of degenerating into ethnic violence.” Government Criticized Over Deadly Fires—

At least 130 people were killed Jan. 31 when a gasoline tanker overturned on a road near the town of Molo, and exploded as people gathered to collect the spilled fuel. It was the second fatal fire in three days, after a Jan. 28 blaze at a Nairobi supermarket killed 28 people. The incidents sparked an angry response from the Kenyan public, who alleged that lax safety oversight, slow emergency response and poor emergency medical facilities had contributed to the infernos and high death tolls. n

Other African News Regional Body Suspends Madagascar.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a 15-member regional grouping, March 30 voted to suspend Madagascar from the body at a special oneday summit in Ezulwini, Swaziland. The suspension came after the military pressured Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana to resign earlier in March, and then handed power to Andry Rajoelina, the former mayor of Antananarivo, the capital. [See p. 184A3] Ravalomanana attended the summit and, in a speech, made a plea for SADC to intervene “to remove the insurgents and restore democracy in my country.” He also emphasized that the political turmoil had severely dampened foreign investment in Madagascar. The summit, in its final communique, said it “condemned in the strongest terms, the unconstitutional actions that have led to the illegal ousting of the democratically elected Government of Madagascar.” It called for Rajoelina to “vacate the office of the President as a matter of urgency paving the way for unconditional reinstatement of President Ravalomanana.” The communique also stated that SADC had “suspended Madagascar” until “constitutional normalcy” was restored. However, it said the body would continue to “engage with all concerned parties” in an effort to resolve the political crisis. The African Union (AU) had also suspended Madagascar after Ravalomanana’s ouster, and most foreign governments had refused to recognize Rajoelina. The 34-year-old Rajoelina had come to power after months of high-profile protests by his supporters and defections by the mil-

itary. However, after being sworn in as president of a transitional administration (under Madagascar’s constitution, the country’s president had to be at least 40 years old), supporters of Ravalomanana had taken to the streets of Antananarivo, demanding the ousted president’s return. Police March 28—the sixth straight day of protests—used live rounds and tear gas to disperse thousands of pro-Ravalomanana demonstrators, injuring at least 30 people. Rajoelina March 31 responded to SADC’s criticism by saying, “The international community must not condemn or interfere with the decision taken by the constitutional high court of Madagascar.” (The Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, had previously issued a ruling endorsing Rajoelina as president.) Also that day, Rajoelina named cabinet members to his transitional government, which he said would govern until elections were held sometime within the next two years. Zimbabwe Financial Support Pledged—

Also at the March 30 summit, SADC leaders pledged to support Zimbabwe in its efforts to raise $8.5 billion over the next two to three years to help jump-start its collapsed economy. Zimbabwe in February, after years of political tension and violence, had begun implementing a power-sharing deal between the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and the long-ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party of President Robert Mugabe. [See pp. 152F1, 153B1] Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti, a member of the MDC, March 30 said at the summit that he recognized that “SADC does not have the economies that can sustain” large amounts of aid to Zimbabwe, “but it is the quality of the giving vis-a-vis the size of their economies” that was important. He called on “bigger economies” to lift economic sanctions and contribute to Zimbabwe’s recovery. SADC in its communique “noted with satisfaction” Zimbabwe’s “progress” in implementing its political reconciliation accord. It urged member nations to help implement Zimbabwe’s economic recovery plan, “in the form of budget support, lines of credit, joint ventures and toll manufacturing.” It also called on “developed countries to lift all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe.” n

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AMERICAS

Argentina Farmers Strike in Protest of Soybean Tax.

Farmers in Argentina March 21–27 held a strike and blockaded roads in protest of a 35% export tax on soybeans. During the strike, farmers suspended the sale of grains, cattle and oilseeds. In the weeks preceding the strike, farmers had failed to negotiate a reduction in the tax with the government of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in talks that had begun Feb. 24. The strikes ended without leading to a change in the tax policy. [See 2008, p. 489A3] 203

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Farmers had been hurt by the declining price of soybeans on the world market, as well as the worst drought in Argentina in 50 years, which was expected to significantly curtail harvests. Fernandez de Kirchner had argued that the tariffs were a needed source of government revenue in the face of slowing economic growth that had caused a decline in tax receipts. Farmers had announced the strike March 20, a day after Fernandez de Kirchner proposed a new revenue-sharing plan for the soybean tax proceeds. Under that plan, provinces would receive 30% of revenues. The federal government, which currently received all of the tax revenue, would keep the rest. However, provinces would be limited to using the funds for “social infrastructure” purposes, such as hospital and school construction. Fernandez de Kirchner’s plan was viewed as an attempt to gain support from provincial politicians. Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo March 3, after holding talks with farmers’ unions, said the government was considering establishing a national board that would regulate grains trading. Grains exchanges and farmers had condemned the move, arguing that grains production and trade had increased substantially since the government-run National Grains Board was dismantled in 1991. Farmers also argued that the government was threatening to regulate grains trading in order to force them to sell large amounts of stored grain, which they had held back in the hopes that prices would recover or that the tax would be reduced. By keeping the grains off the market, the farmers had reduced tax revenues. Elections Moved Up—Argentina’s Congress March 26 gave final approval to a bill that would move the date for legislative elections to June 28, from October 25. Fernandez de Kirchner had backed the change, arguing that it would eliminate a long campaign period during the global economic crisis. However, her opponents said the move was intended to improve the chances that Fernandez de Kirchner’s allies would win seats before the economy worsened further in the latter half of 2009. Fernandez de Kirchner’s popularity had eroded after strikes by farmers’ unions in 2008, and had continued to decline since then as the country’s economy worsened. About 12 legislators had dissociated themselves from Fernandez de Kirchner’s Peronist party thus far in 2009, due to her sliding popularity. n

Bolivia

for state-run oil firm Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YFPB). The U.S. State Department denied the charges, calling them “unwarranted and unjustified.” Martinez March 12 left Bolivia. [See 2008, pp. 855B1, 661D2] Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Bolivia had deteriorated in the preceding months. In September 2008, the government had ousted U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, also accusing him of meeting with Morales’s political opponents and spies. The U.S. later that month revoked preferential trade terms previously extended to Bolivia, citing shortcomings in its antidrug enforcement. Morales in November 2008 had also ordered the U.S. to withdraw its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, accusing the agency of working to undermine his government. The last of some 38 DEA agents Jan. 29 departed Bolivia, ending the agency’s 30-year presence in the country.n

Salas in Carabobo and Pablo Perez in Zulia—not to defy a recently passed law that gave control of the country’s transportation hubs to the federal government. He also claimed that the ports were being used as transit points for cocaine smugglers, and suffered from lax security. [See p. 97B3] Members of the opposition said the law was intended to allow Chavez to further cement his power. It prohibited local and state governments from collecting taxes and other fees at highways and transportation hubs, which opponents said was intended to reduce revenues for their governments. In November elections, Chavez’s political opponents had won five governorships out of 22 races, and control of the mayoralty of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. However, Chavez in February had won a public referendum eliminating presidential term limits and announced a new phase of his 10-year “Bolivarian Revolution,” intended to further his goal of implementing reforms as part of what he called “21st century socialism.”

Canada

Chavez Feb. 28 ordered federal troops to temporarily assume control of all rice processing plants in the country, accusing them of exceeding government-mandated price controls. “If they stop production I will expropriate them,” Chavez said. [See 2008, p. 837E1] Chavez March 4 ordered the expropriation of rice processing facilities owned by U.S. company Cargill Inc., accusing the company of “flagrantly violating” price regulation laws. He also threatened to take over the operations of Polar, Venezuela’s largest private company, which produced a variety of food products and beer. n

Suncor Sets Petro-Canada Bid. Oil compa-

ny Suncor Energy Inc. March 23 announced that it would buy rival Petro-Canada for C$19.6 billion (US$15.9 billion) in an allshare deal. If the deal was approved by regulators, the new company would have a market capitalization of about C$43 billion, and become the largest oil company in Canada and the fifth-largest in North America. [See 2004, p. 531E2; 1992, p. 103B1] Under the terms of the deal, Petro-Canada shareholders would exchange each of their shares for 1.28 common shares of the new company. Suncor shareholders would receive the new shares in an even exchange. The bid valued Petro-Canada at a 30% premium over its most recent stock price. Suncor and Petro-Canada were two of the largest producers of petroleum derived from oil sands, which were areas in which oil was trapped in tar-like bitumen, sand and clay. Extracting oil from the sands was an expensive, complicated process that was also criticized for being environmentally damaging. Suncor had been a leader in oil-sand extraction technology, and had focused most of its efforts in that area. Petro-Canada had been founded by the Canadian government in 1975 and remained state-controlled until 1995. It had large oil sand stakes, but was regarded as more diversified than Suncor. Some analysts viewed the merger as a defensive move by the companies, whose low stock values, due to low oil prices, made them more vulnerable to hostile takeovers. n

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Evo Morales Aima March 9 announced the expulsion of Francisco Martinez, the second secretary of the U.S. embassy, accusing him of “coordinating contacts” with spies and the political opposition. The Bolivian government said Martinez had met with Ernesto Suarez, a Morales opponent and governor of Beni department (state). Morales had also accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of giving espionage training to a police officer working 204

Venezuela Chavez Orders Seaport Takeover by Navy.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias March 15 ordered the country’s navy to seize control of two seaports in states that were headed by opposition governors. Chavez ordered the vessels to Port Cabello in Carabobo state and Maracaibo Port in Zulia state. Chavez said the deployment was a warning to the governors—Henrique

Chavez Makes Nationalization Moves—

Other Americas News U.S.’s Biden Visits Chile, Costa Rica. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden March 27–30 visited Chile and Costa Rica, where he met with several leaders of Central and South American countries. The visit reflected efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to strengthen ties in Latin America, after several leaders hostile to the U.S. had been elected in the region in recent years. Biden’s trip was made in advance of the Summit of the Americas conference, scheduled to take place in mid-April in Trinidad and Tobago. [See p. 185G3; 2008, p. 942D1] Biden March 27 arrived in the Chilean resort city of Vina del Mar to attend the March 28 Summit of Progressive Leaders, an annual meeting of center-left world leaders founded in 2000. Also in attendance were Latin American leaders including Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, as well as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Talks at the conference reportedly centered on economic issues related to the Group of 20 (G-20) summit of leading and emerging economic powers, which took place April 2 in London. [See p. 193A1] After the summit, Biden March 28 said the U.S. had no plans to end its trade emFACTS ON FILE

bargo on Cuba, despite lobbying by several left-leaning Latin American governments for the U.S. to do so. Biden later that day traveled to Santiago, Chile’s capital, where he met with Bachelet. Biden March 29 departed Chile for Costa Rica, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country since then–U.S. President Bill Clinton traveled there in 1997. The following day he met with the leaders of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize El Salvador and Panama, as well as representatives from Nicaragua and Honduras. [See 1997, p. 334G2] Biden at the talks, held in San Jose, the capital, responded to pleas to reduce the number of Central American nationals deported from the U.S. by arguing that deportations would decline with comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. However, he provided no details on a reform plan. Biden also brushed aside entreaties for greater economic aid from the U.S. for Central American countries. “Economic growth in the United States is central to us being able to do anything,” he said. n Man Sentenced in Cash-Smuggling Scandal.

Judge Joan Lenard of U.S. District Court in Miami, Fla., March 16 sentenced Venezuelan national Franklin Duran to a four-year prison sentence for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country in the U.S. Duran, 41, in November 2008 had been convicted of failure to register with the U.S. as a government agent and conspiracy. Duran was also fined $175,000. [See 2008, p. 941F3] Prosecutors had alleged that Duran had led a group of men sent to the U.S. in late 2007 by the Venezuelan government. The men had allegedly sought to silence dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen and businessman Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, who had been caught arriving in Argentina from Venezuela in August 2007 with a suitcase filled with almost $800,000. Prosecutors said the money was intended for the Argentinian presidential campaign of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. (Fernandez de Kirchner was elected president in October 2007.) The Venezuelan government had denied allegations that the cash was part of about $5 million in funding sent to Fernandez de Kirchner by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. The case had worsened already strained ties between the U.S. and Venezuela. n

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Philippines U.S. Marine Rape Accuser Revises Account.

A Philippine woman who had accused a U.S. marine of raping her in 2005 near the now-closed Subic Bay U.S. Navy base March 12 signed a sworn affidavit casting doubt on her previous testimony regarding the attack. Daniel Smith, the marine, had been convicted of rape by a Philippine court in 2006 and sentenced to 40 years in prison; he was currently being held at the U.S. embassy in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, while he appealed his sentence. [See 2006, p. 936F2] April 2, 2009

The accuser, who had been identified during Smith’s trial only as “Nicole,” had previously said that she had been treated “like a pig” by Smith and three other marines who had been acquitted of aiding and abetting the rape. In the new affidavit, which was filed with the Court of Appeals in Manila March 16, Nicole wrote, “My conscience continues to bother me” about her previous testimony. She said that “with the amount of alcoholic drinks I took…it dawned on me that I may have possibly lost my inhibitions” and “became so intimate with Daniel Smith and did more than just dancing and talking with him.” She also questioned elements of the case against Smith, including her own recollection of having lost consciousness after leaving a club with Smith. Evalyn Ursua, a former attorney for Nicole, March 24 asked the Philippine Supreme Court to order an inquiry into the events leading up to the signing of the new affidavit. Following the signing of the affidavit, Nicole had reportedly moved permanently to the U.S. Ursua, who had been dismissed as Nicole’s lawyer March 16, said that she should have been present at the time the affidavit was signed because she was still Nicole’s attorney at the time. She noted that Nicole’s new affidavit had been executed by a Philippine law firm that was representing Smith during his appeal, something that she said could constitute a violation of the legal system’s ethical standards. Analysts said that Nicole’s decision to raise questions about her previous statements in the case might reduce political pressure on the Philippine government to end its military relationship with the U.S., a former colonial ruler of the Philippines. The rape investigation and trial had triggered protests by Philippine nationalists who opposed the U.S. military presence in the Philippines. [See 2007, p. 20C1] The government of the Philippines had ordered all U.S. forces out of the country in 1992. However, following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., the Philippine government had allowed a renewed U.S. military presence as part of its efforts to combat Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terrorist organization based in the southern Philippines. n Abu Sayyaf Abducts Aid Workers. Members of the Abu Sayyaf Islamic terrorist group Jan. 15 abducted three employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Philippine island of Jolo, long considered a militant stronghold. The employees—a Filipino woman, a Swiss man and an Italian man—had reportedly been captured while examining conditions at a prison in the region. [See 2008, p. 561C1] The Philippine military March 16–17 clashed with Abu Sayyaf militants on Jolo. The fighting left three soldiers and as many as seven militants dead. The three hostages March 19 were allowed to make a phone call to the Philippine Red Cross. They said during the call that the military offensive had put their lives in greater danger. An agreement reached March 19 by the military and Abu Sayyaf, calling for the re-

lease of one hostage in exchange for a partial pullback of government troops, was not implemented. The military and Abu Sayyaf each blamed the other for failing to carry out their side of the agreement. The Philippine military March 24 announced that it had surrounded the area where the Abu Sayyaf members were thought to be holding the aid workers and had cut off all supplies, including food and water, to the militants. The family of the Swiss hostage that day released a statement criticizing the Philippine government’s handling of the kidnappings and calling on the government to end military operations near the hostages. Jolo Governor Abdusakur Tan March 25 announced that the militants had threatened to behead one of the hostages if the military failed to pull back by March 31. Tan said that the government would not accede to the demand. The militants April 2 unexpectedly released the Philippine hostage into the custody of Jolo’s provincial government. She reportedly told the government that the other hostages were alive at the time of her release. n

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Thailand Protesters Surround Prime Minister’s Office.

Thousands of protesters March 26–April 2 surrounded the Government House, the office of Thailand’s prime minister, in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, as part of ongoing demonstrations in opposition to the country’s current government. The protests were led by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), a populist organization supported by backers of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. [See 2008, p. 981A3] The protests were similar to 2008 demonstrations held by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), an anti-Thaksin group that had occupied the Government House compound and both of Bangkok’s airports in an attempt to oust the then-ruling proThaksin People Power Party (PPP) from power. Analysts suggested that Thaksin and his supporters were attempting to capitalize on discontent over the weakening Thai economy in order to build additional political support for Thaksin’s allies, who had been forced from power in December 2008. [See 2008, pp. 926F2, 886F1] Thaksin had been ousted in 2006 in a bloodless military coup but had returned to Thailand in 2008 after the PPP won December 2007 legislative elections. However, he and his then-wife Pojamarn had fled Thailand in August 2008 after Pojamarn was convicted of tax evasion; Thaksin was subsequently convicted on corruption charges in absentia. Thaksin, who was thought to be living in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), was still popular among many poor and rural voters due to populist programs enacted during his term in office. However, he had long been opposed by most of Thailand’s political elite, who saw him as a corrupt and authoritarian politician. 205

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Thaksin Urges Crowd to ‘Rise Up’—

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During the protests, Thaksin had broadcast speeches over video link to the crowds of protesters surrounding the Government House. According to Thai police, as many as 30,000 people had assembled there to watch Thaksin’s addresses. Thaksin March 27 used his speech to accuse two advisers of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was very popular within Thailand, of helping to orchestrate the 2006 military coup and March 28 called on his supporters in Thailand to “rise up” against the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s conservative Democrat Party. Thai Interior Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul March 30 ordered the country’s provincial governors not to use force in dispersing demonstrators. Smaller pro-Thaksin protests had reportedly spread beyond Bangkok as part of a campaign by supporters of Thaksin to show solidarity with demonstrators outside the Government House. About 3,000 pro-Thaksin protesters March 30 protested outside the Government House, forcing Abhisit to cancel a planned trip to the building. In addition, hundreds of protesters held demonstrations outside a nearby United Nations regional office in Bangkok while Abhisit was inside attending a meeting. The same day, 21 members of PAD were charged with creating public disorder in connection with the party’s 2008 protests against the PPP. The members denied that they had broken any laws. PAD called on Abhisit’s government to stop Thaksin from addressing the UDD-backed protesters from abroad. Abhisit said that the government would do what it could to stop the speeches but noted that “everything is under laws” and that the government was obliged to respect the law. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban March 30 accused Thaksin of trying to goad the government into responding violently to the protests as part of an effort to gain support for his movement. Suthep said that the government would “try not to fall into his trap.” Suthep also said that the Democrat Party–led coalition government had enough votes to block a proposed bill that would grant Thaksin legal amnesty. Abhisit and his cabinet had been unable to enter the Government House after protesters began blocking all entrances to the building on March 27. A court in Bangkok March 31 had ruled that protesters could not legally block the entrances; however, protesters had continued to so after the ruling and police had not stopped them. Abhisit’s cabinet March 31 had canceled a planned weekly meeting scheduled for that day due to the protests. Government

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Abhisit’s government April 1 said that it would be willing to hold negotiations with Thaksin in order to end the ongoing protests. Suthep told reporters that the government was concerned with avoiding possible violence and said, “If talks can bring peace to the country, I am ready to meet him anywhere, because Thaksin is the only person that can end the siege.” However, 206

Suthep said the government would not consider holding immediate new elections, as Thaksin had called for. Jatuporn Prompan, a UDD leader, rejected the possibility of any talks with the government, saying, “Our objective is to remove them. Why would we want to talk to them?” Thaksin had not officially responded to the offer of talks as of April 2. The UDD had scheduled a large rally at the Government House for April 8. Pro-Thaksin protesters April 2 demonstrated outside the Finance Ministry in Bangkok against the government’s decision to accept large international loans in order to prop up the Thai economy during the ongoing global financial crisis. Protesters reportedly raised questions about the ability of the Thai government to keep up with interest payments on the new loans. Analysts suggested that the continued protests could worsen the effects of the financial crisis on Thailand by handicapping the ability of Abhisit’s government to respond to economic issues. Separately, Abhisit March 31 had left Bangkok to attend a conference of the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies in London. n

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Armenia IMF Extends $540 Million Loan. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) March 6 ap-

proved a $540 million loan to Armenia, whose economy was expected to contract by 1.5% in 2009 after more than a decade of strong growth. The IMF loan came after the Armenian central bank March 3 had announced that it would float the dram, Armenia’s currency, against the dollar. As a result, the dram lost about 20% of its value. Worried citizens reportedly cleared store shelves of everyday commodities in reaction to the bank’s move, but the atmosphere appeared to calm by March 5. [See p. 193A1; 2008, p. 638F3] The IMF said the previously overvalued dram had exacerbated unemployment and hindered Armenia’s economic growth. About $237 million of the loan was immediately released, and the rest would be disbursed in nine smaller pieces that were subject to review by the IMF. In addition to funds meant to boost the country’s financial sector, the loan included funds meant to “protect the poor through well-targeted social safety nets.” The Armenian economy had been especially damaged by a sharp decrease in remittances. The country was also affected by a fall in international commodity prices, which had slowed its vital mining industry. The World Bank Feb. 26 announced that it had extended a $35 million long-term, low-interest loan to Armenia in order to fund infrastructure improvements in rural areas. It was also considering a larger loan to the country. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Feb. 27 said Russia was planning to loan Armenia $500 million, but that loan had not been finalized. n

Azerbaijan News in Brief. Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev, head of Azerbaijan’s air force, Feb. 11 was shot and killed outside his home in Baku, the

capital. President Ilham Aliyev said the murder resembled past attempts “to create a strained political situation in Azerbaijan,” which some interpreted as a reference to a series of high-profile assassinations in the 1990s that had included a deputy parliament speaker among the victims. Investigators had not yet commented on a motive for the murder. An official said Rzayev’s car had been “under surveillance for several days,” but did not elaborate. [See 2008, p. 775F2; 2005, p. 215D3] Authorities Jan. 1 began enforcing a 2002 law barring foreign companies from broadcasting on national radio frequencies. The

law effectively banned the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), the U.S. government– sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America from broadcasting on FM radio, and was seen as a blow to independent media in Azerbaijan. Foreign companies were still allowed to broadcast via short-wave radio, satellite, cable and the Internet. However, RFE/RL said that because of the restriction, 90% of its listeners in Azerbaijan had lost access to the station. [See 2006, p. 937C2] n

France Workers Strike Against Economic Policy.

More than one million workers March 19 went on strike and marched in demonstrations to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s response to the global economic crisis. Police estimated that a total of 1.2 million people joined the protests; labor union officials said up to three million took part. The numbers reportedly exceeded those at similar mass protests Jan. 29. Transportation services were disrupted across the country, and about a third of France’s teachers joined the strike. [See p. 116G3] Union leaders demanded that Sarkozy take action to boost unemployment benefits and wages for low-income workers. They also called for stronger job protections to counter growing numbers of layoffs. Sarkozy in February had proposed 2.7 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in tax breaks for low-income workers and an extension of jobless benefits. Unions had criticized his original 26 billion euro economic stimulus plan, announced in December 2008, for focusing on assisting banks and other businesses, and not doing enough to help ordinary workers. Prime Minister Francois Fillon March 19 said the government could not seek a second stimulus package, asserting that the first one had already doubled the budget deficit. Sarkozy Voices Outrage at Executive Pay—

Sarkozy in a speech March 24 voiced outrage at a 3.2 million euro severance payment awarded by French auto parts maker Valeo SA to its departing chief executive, Thierry Morin. The payment, first reported that day, had stoked controversy because Valeo had lost more than 300 million euros FACTS ON FILE

in the fourth quarter of 2008 and had received government aid. Sarkozy said, “There shouldn’t be any more bonuses, distribution of free shares or stock options in companies that get state aid” or that had cut large numbers of jobs. French bank Societe Generale SA March 22 had dropped a plan to award bonuses to four board members in the form of discounted stock options. Sarkozy had denounced the bonuses as a “scandal.” The bank had received 1.7 billion euros in government aid. Workers at a factory in Pithiviers, south of Paris, owned by U.S.-based industrial conglomerate 3M Co. held their manager, Luc Rousselet, hostage for two days before releasing him March 26. They had demanded better working conditions and more severance pay for workers who were laid off. Two top executives at French energy company GdF Suez SA March 26 agreed to give up their 2008 bonuses after port workers went on strike to protest the award of stock options, disrupting two liquefied natural gas terminals. The government March 30 issued a decree banning companies that received state aid from awarding stock options to top executives. The decree would remain in effect at least through 2010. Workers at a factory in southeast France run by U.S. company Caterpillar Inc. March 31 held five managers hostage for 24 hours until the company agreed to discuss compensation for laid-off workers. n

Germany BMW Heiress’s Blackmailer Jailed for 6 Years.

A Swiss man March 9 pleaded guilty in a court in Munich, Germany, to the attempted blackmail of an heiress to the Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) auto fortune, Germany’s richest woman. Helg Sgarbi, 44, dubbed the “Swiss gigolo” by the media, confessed that he had seduced billionaire Susanne Klatten, defrauded her of seven million euros ($9 million) and then threatened to publicize evidence of their affair unless she paid him hundreds of millions of euros more. The court also convicted him of fraud and attempted blackmail in connection with three other women, and sentenced him to six years in prison. [See 2000, p. 233B2] Sgarbi, a former investment banker, said he had first approached Klatten, who was married with three children, at a spa near Innsbruck, Austria, in 2007, and soon lured her into an affair. He persuaded her to give him seven million euros in cash, claiming that he had caused a car accident that left a girl paralyzed, and that he needed to pay for her medical treatment. After Sgarbi subjected her to several blackmail attempts, Klatten reported him to the police in January 2008. Sgarbi was arrested that month in Austria with his alleged accomplice, Italian Ernano Barretta, who had since been extradited to Italy, where he was under house arrest pending trial. Klatten, 46, was the daughter of Herbert Quandt, who took control of BMW in the 1950s. She owned a 46% stake in BMW and April 2, 2009

an 88% stake in German chemicals company Altana AG. Forbes magazine had estimated her net worth at $13.2 billion, ranking her as the world’s 55th richest person in 2008. Sgarbi’s confession spared her and his other victims from having to testify in court. The judge cited that fact in giving him a more lenient sentence than the 10year maximum he faced. n

Great Britain Ex–Bank Executive’s Home Vandalized.

Vandals March 25 attacked the home and car of Sir Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS), in a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland. The incident was seen as part of a growing backlash against executive pay in Europe and the U.S. [See pp. 206G1, 161A1, 155D2] Goodwin had been ousted from RBS in October 2008 after the government stepped in to take control of the bank, which lost £24 billion ($35 billion) in 2008, the biggest corporate loss in British history. The government had since increased its stake in RBS stock to 70%, and said it might raise it still further, to 95%. In late February, Goodwin, 50, had returned to the center of controversy when he refused the government’s call for him to give up part of his £700,000 annual pension in light of the bank’s performance on his watch. In a March 25 e-mail message to the Edinburgh Evening News, an anonymous group claimed responsibility for the attack on Goodwin’s property, in which windows were smashed in his house and MercedesBenz S600 car. He was not home at the time of the attack. The message said, “We are angry that rich people like him are paying themselves a huge amount of money and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.” n

Latvia Nazi Supporters March Despite Ban. In de-

fiance of a government ban, about 300 people March 16 marched through Riga, Latvia’s capital, to commemorate a Latvian Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel) unit that fought against the Soviet army in World War II. The Waffen SS had been the military wing of the German Nazi Party. The Soviet Union had occupied Latvia in 1940, after Latvia had been incorporated into it under the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. [See p. 37F3; 2005, p. 317E1] City authorities had banned the march, reportedly out of concern that the demonstration could spark violence in Latvia, where 106 people had been arrested in January after an antigovernment protest had turned into a riot. However, SS veterans and their supporters marched anyway, and police reportedly allowed them to lay flowers at a monument in central Riga. A dozen people were reportedly detained in connection with the demonstration.

The march, which had been held every year since 1991, when Latvia declared independence from the Soviet Union, angered some Russian-speaking Latvians, who considered the Soviet army liberators from Nazi rule. Others viewed the Latvian SS unit as heros who had fought for Latvian independence against Soviet occupiers. [See 1944, p. 326D] The post–World War II Nuremberg war crimes tribunals did not charge the Latvian SS with crimes related to the Holocaust, and Latvia maintained that the unit had never engaged in SS atrocities. n

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Romania Donors Extend 20 Billion Euro Rescue Loan.

A group of donors, headed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), March 25 said they would extend a 20 billion euro ($27 billion) low-interest rescue loan to Romania, whose economy was suffering amid a sharp decline in foreign investment triggered by the current global economic downturn. Other donors included the European Union, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Most of the funds would be used to bolster the Romanian central bank’s reserves, but the loan also included provisions to aid the most vulnerable of the country’s approximately 22 million citizens. The loan was subject to approval by the IMF’s executive board. [See pp. 206D2, 193A1, 136B2] Under the terms of the loan, which would be disbursed over two years, Romania was required to reduce government spending so the country’s budget deficit was not greater than 5.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 and 3% in 2011. In order to meet those terms, the government was expected to raise taxes. It was also expected to curtail payments to some pensioners and freeze civil servants’ wages, despite promises made during a parliamentary election campaign in late 2008 that those people would receive more money. [See 2008, p. 984E3] Romania’s GDP had increased by 7.1% ion 2008, one of the highest growth rates in Europe. GDP was expected to contract by as much as 6% in 2009. Despite the years of recent growth, Romania still had one of the lowest per capita incomes in Europe. n

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Russia News in Brief. The second trial of jailed former OAO Yukos oil company founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky began March 31 in

Moscow, Russia’s capital. Khodorkovsky and his former business partner, Platon Lebedev, were accused of embezzling more than $24 billion from Yukos. Both had already been convicted of tax evasion and fraud in a 2005 trial that many Western observers had called politically motivated. Khodorkovsky, who was currently serving an eight-year sentence, could receive as many as 22½ additional years in jail if convicted of the new charges. The new trial was widely viewed in the West as a test of how committed President Dmitri Medvedev was 207

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to his stated goal of strengthening the standards of Russia’s judiciary. [See 2008, pp. 640B1, 316D2] Russian media outlet Kommersant, citing sources within the U.S. government, March 2 reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had sent a letter to Medvedev, in which he reportedly suggest-

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held March 1, according to preliminary results released March 2 by the central election commission. United Russia also won most municipal elections, also held March 1, in which mayors and other regional authorities were chosen. Opposition politicians, including Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov and Liberal Democratic Party chief Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said there had been widespread election day violations, the Moscow Times reported March 3. [See 2008, p. 138A3] n

Spain Government Sets First Bank Bailout in Crisis.

The Spanish government March 29 said it had agreed to rescue a regional savings and loan institution, Caja de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha (CCM), in the first such bank bailout in Spain since the start of the global financial crisis the previous year. Finance Minister Pedro Solbes said the Bank of Spain, the central bank, would take control of CCM and provide it with a loan backed by guarantees of up to nine billion euros ($12 billion) from the government. [See p. 155F1; 2008, p. 737A1] Solbes called the rescue an “isolated incident,” insisting that no other Spanish banks were in similar straits. He noted that CCM was relatively small, accounting for only about 1% of the nation’s banking assets. CCM had about 25 billion euros in assets under management, and was the country’s 12th-largest savings bank. CCM, based in the southeastern region of Cuenca, had been hit hard by bad loans linked to the collapse of Spain’s housing construction boom over the past year, along with many other of Spain’s 45 cajas, or savings banks. Cajas, which were typically controlled by regional governments, generally invested only domestically, and were thus particularly heavily exposed to the Spanish real estate market. Spain had not yet followed the lead of the U.S. or other European nations by injecting government capital into banks and nationalizing them by taking controlling stakes of their stock. Spanish banks were subject to strict regulations, including unusually large reserve capital requirements and restrictions on risky assets, which had so far helped them to weather the global crisis. n 208

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Iraq Awakening Leader Arrest Sparks Clashes.

Iraqi and U.S. troops March 28 arrested the leader of the Awakening Council of the Fadhil neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, sparking fighting between Awakening Council members and Iraqi and U.S. government forces through the next day. Awakening Councils were armed groups of mostly Sunni Muslims—many of them former insurgents—who beginning in 2007 had allied themselves with the U.S. against insurgents. The rise of the Awakening Council movement was credited as one of the main causes of a general decline in violence in Iraq. [See pp. 189C2, 118C1; 2008, p. 708C2] Control of the councils had largely been turned over to the Shiite Muslim–dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki, which had promised to integrate some members into the Iraqi security forces and give the others government jobs. However, Awakening Council members complained that the government had been late paying their salaries; that only a small fraction of council members were receiving jobs; and that government forces were targeting their leaders for arrests. It was feared that if friction between the Iraqi government and the Awakening Councils continued, some council members might rejoin insurgent groups. The council leader, Adil Mashhadani, was arrested at a checkpoint in Fadhil, a former hotbed of the Sunni insurgency. Mashhadani had been outspoken against the government’s failure to hire council members. However, U.S. and Iraqi officials said he was accused of extorting bribes from Fadhil residents, leading cells that carried out terrorist attacks and collaborating with the Sunni insurgent groups Al Qaeda in Iraq and Jaish al-Islami. U.S. and Iraqi forces also insisted that they were not targeting Fadhil’s entire Awakening Council. Shortly after the arrest, Awakening Council members in Fadhil began firing on government forces. Fighting continued into March 29, with Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops and helicopters surrounding the neighborhood. At least 15 people were injured in the fighting, and some reports said at least one police officer was killed. Iraqi officials said the Awakening Council fighters March 28 kidnapped five Iraqi soldiers, but freed them the next day. However, according to several Iraqi soldiers and Awakening Council members, the five soldiers had voluntarily laid down their weapons. Iraqi and U.S. officials March 30 said the Fadhil Awakening Council had been permanently disbanded, and that all of the council members would be offered jobs in the Iraqi security forces. It was the first time an Awakening Council had been dissolved in Baghdad. A U.S. military spokesman said the Iraqi government had arrested 24 Fadhil council members, while a deputy to Mashhadani said the number was 80. The neighborhood remained under curfew and blockaded from the rest of Baghdad.

IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood April 2 [See pp. 208A2, 121F1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,264 31,153

Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 8,970 Iraqi civilian deaths: 91,364–99,751 (Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

Britain Turns Over Basra Base to U.S.—

British forces March 31 transferred control of their base in the southern province of Basra to the U.S. They would be replaced by 7,000 U.S. troops by the end of the summer, and the base would become the headquarters for U.S.-led troops in Iraq’s nine southern provinces. Basra had been relatively quiet since Iraqi troops launched an assault against Shiite militias in Basra city in 2008. [See pp. 156G1, 8F3] Under a security agreement with Iraq, Britain’s forces would cease combat missions in Iraq by May 31, and leave the country by July 31, except for several hundred who would remain to train Iraqi security forces. At the height of Britain’s involvement in Iraq, its forces had numbered more than 40,000 in the country. U.S. Soldier Convicted for Iraqi Murders—

U.S. Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo March 30 pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder for the execution-style killings of four Iraqis in Baghdad in March or April 2007. Mayo was sentenced to 35 years in prison in a U.S. military courthouse in Vilseck, Germany. A medic in his unit, Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., had been convicted of murder in connection with the case in February, while two other soldiers—Spec. Steven Ribordy and Spec. Belmor Ramos—had pleaded guilty to being accessories in 2008. [See p. 118E2] Mayo testified that after their unit had freed four Iraqi prisoners for lack of evidence, another soldier—Master Sgt. John Hatley, who was also facing a court-martial—had suggested that they kill the Iraqis themselves, and Mayo agreed. They then shot the Iraqis at point-blank range and pushed them into a Baghdad canal. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The U.S. State Department April 1 said Herndon, Va.–based Triple Canopy Inc. would take over the job of providing security to U.S. diplomats in Iraq from the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, whose contract was not renewed. Moyock, N.C.–based Blackwater—which Feb. 13 announced that it had changed its name to Xe—had caused controversy over the role of private security contractors in Iraq after its guards killed 17 FACTS ON FILE

Iraqi civilians in a September 2007 incident. [See p. 53B2] o A suicide truck bomber March 31 attacked a local police headquarters in Mahata, south of Mosul, the capital of northern Nineveh province, killing at least seven people. Violence remained common in Mosul, which was a center of the Sunni insurgency. o Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie March 27 said the Iraqi government would soon move members of an Iranian opposition group living in a camp in Iraq on the Iranian border to a location in southern or western Iraq, and that shortly after that they would be forced to leave the country. The group—the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)—was considered a terrorist organization by Iraq and the U.S. State Department. However, it had given the U.S. information on Iran’s nuclear program, and U.S. troops had protected its Camp Ashraf before turning it over to Iraqi forces at the beginning of 2009. Rubaie said it would press charges against MEK leaders, but that “brainwashed cult members” would be “detoxified.” [See p. 174D3] o A car bomb March 26 exploded in a market in the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least 16 people. o U.S. Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Iraq, March 26 said the level of attacks in Iraq was at its lowest since August 2003. He said there had been about 100 attacks per week recently, as opposed to 1,250 attacks per week when violence was at its height, in 2007. [See p. 118A1] o The Iraqi election commission March 26 ratified the results of January provincial council elections. A commission member said several candidates on winning lists had been disqualified because of “inaccuracy in their certifications,” but did not provide details. [See p. 118B1] n

Israel Netanyahu Confirmed as Prime Minister.

The Israeli Knesset, or parliament, March 31 voted, 69–45, to confirm Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, as prime minister, and he was sworn in that day. Likud in February elections had won 27 parliamentary seats, one fewer than the centrist Kadima party, but Netanyahu had assembled a coalition with the centerleft Labor Party, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. Netanyahu, 59, had previously been prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and later served as foreign minister and finance minister under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. [See p. 189F3; for facts on Netanyahu, see p. 209A2] Netanyahu in a speech to the Knesset before being sworn in said he would continue negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) along “economic, security and political” tracks. “We do not want to govern another people,” said, adding “I am telling the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, if you really want peace, it is possiApril 2, 2009

FACTS ON NETANYAHU

Benjamin Netanyahu was born Oct. 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He moved to the U.S. in 1963 when his father, a right-wing Zionist scholar, took a teaching job in Pennsylvania. He served in Israel’s armed forces from 1967 to 1972, rising to officer’s rank in an elite commando unit. He returned to the U.S. and earned a master’s degree in business administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Netanyahu’s elder brother, Yonatan, was killed in 1976 while leading a renowned raid that freed Israeli hostages held by terrorists at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. After the raid, Benjamin Netanyahu organized a series of memorial seminars in Israel that focused on combating terrorism. His work brought him to the attention of Moshe Arens, then Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., who appointed Netanyahu as his deputy in 1982. [See 1976, p. 485A1] In 1984, Netanyahu was named Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. He enhanced his clout with Israel’s political right wing in 1988 when he resigned from his U.N. post after protesting against U.S. diplomatic overtures to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). [See 1988, p. 233C2] Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset (parliament) later in 1988 as a member of the Likud party and became deputy foreign minister. During the Persian Gulf war (1990–91), he served as Israel’s main international media spokesman, further building his political reputation. He became a deputy to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1991; after Likud lost to Yitzhak Rabin and the Labor Party in Israel’s 1992 elections, Netanyahu won the race to succeed Shamir as Likud’s chief. As an opposition leader, Netanyahu was a forceful critic of the Arab-Israeli peace process, rejecting any peace settlement that could end Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. [See 1993, p. 256C2; 1991, p. 850C3]

ble to reach peace.” However, Netanyahu did not endorse a two-state solution, which the U.S. and international bodies supported. Netanyahu in the past had opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, preferring to emphasize economic development. Netanyahu also warned of the “possibility of a radical regime armed with nuclear weapons,” referring to Iran. Five Labor Knesset members who opposed the coalition abstained from the confirmation vote. The Labor Party supported the creation of a Palestinian state, among other areas in which it traditionally differed sharply with Likud and other coalition members. Netanyahu had subdivided ministries and created new ones in order to hand out ministerial portfolios to his coalition partners. His cabinet was the largest in Israeli history, with 30 ministers and at least seven deputy ministers, and prompted criticisms that it was bloated and wasteful. Under coalition deals, Labor leader Ehud Barak would remain as defense minister, while Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who was controversial because of his support for policies that were seen as aimed against Israeli Arabs, would become foreign minister. Lieberman April 1 said Israel was not bound by commitments to negotiate to-

Netanyahu was elected prime minister in 1996, defeating Labor’s Shimon Peres. Netanyahu and PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1997 signed an accord on an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank city of Hebron, softening Netanyahu’s previous hard-line stance. Netanyahu and Arafat in 1998 signed an interim agreement calling for a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, but opposition from Israeli rightwing legislators led to the dissolution of Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu lost a 1999 election to a Labor-led coalition headed by Ehud Barak, and temporarily withdrew from politics. [See 1999, p. 357A1; 1998, p. 761A1; 1997, p. 17A1; 1996, p. 365A1] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Likud, who had defeated Barak in 2001 elections, tapped Netanyahu, who was considered his main rival for the Likud leadership, as foreign minister in 2002 ahead of early elections. After besting Netanyahu in a party leadership struggle and winning the 2003 elections, Sharon removed Netanyahu from his post, but then offered him the finance ministry. Netanyahu served there until 2005, when he resigned to protest Sharon’s decision to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. [See 2005, p. 534E1; 2003, p. 151B3; 2002, p. 863C1] Netanyahu in 2005 was elected Likud’s leader. He led his party in a poor showing in 2006 elections against the centrist Kadima party, but was reelected to the party leadership in 2007. [See 2007, p. 893E1; 2006, p. 229C3; 2005, p. 909B3] Netanyahu was asked to form a governing coalition after Likud won one fewer Knesset seat than Kadima in Feb. 10 elections. He was confirmed March 31 as prime minister. [See p. 209E1] Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, a psychologist, had two sons, and lived in Jerusalem. Netanyahu had been married twice before, and had a daughter from his first marriage.

ward Palestinian statehood that it had made at a summit in Annapolis, Md., in 2007, but rather would follow the 2003 U.S.-backed “road map,” which required the PA to dismantle militant networks before talks could begin. He said the Annapolis agreement, which had called for the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, had not been ratified by the Knesset and “has no validity.” Lieberman also warned that granting further concessions to the Palestinians “will lead to more wars.” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Lieberman had “closed the door on peace.” Lieberman April 2 was questioned by police in connection with a 13-year-old investigation of allegations of bribery and money laundering. n

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Israeli Abuses in Gaza Invasion Reported.

The Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Maariv March 19–20 published allegations that Israeli soldiers had committed abuses against Palestinian civilians during Israel’s January invasion of the Gaza Strip, including killing several noncombatants without provocation. The Israeli military denied that such abuses were widespread but said it would investigate; however, the investigation was called off March 30 after the military’s advocate general said the charges reported in the newspapers were unsubstantiated. [See pp. 157G1, 31B1] 209

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Israel had invaded the Gaza Strip, which was controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance), in an attempt to stop militants from launching rockets into Israel. The Israeli military March 26 said 1,166 Palestinians had been killed during the 22-day operation, including 295 civilians, 709 “Hamas terror operatives” and 162 men of unknown affiliation. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza counted 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians and 236 combatants, although its list of civilians included about 250 policemen cited by Israel as Hamas operatives. Haaretz and Maariv March 19 ran excerpts of statements from two unnamed Israeli squad commanders who had served in the Gaza invasion, dubbed Operation Cast Lead. One said an officer had ordered Israeli snipers to kill an elderly Palestinian woman who was walking near a house occupied by Israeli forces, and also spoke of large-scale destruction of property and anti-Arab graffiti left in commandeered Palestinian residences. The other told of a sharpshooter who shot and killed a mother and her two children after they accidentally came too close to an Israeli position. The soldiers spoke of relaxed rules of engagement in Gaza, under which they were told that any Palestinians they encountered should be assumed to be terrorists and shot, even if the Palestinians were unarmed. The newspapers March 20 published further accounts from Israeli soldiers of abuses in Gaza. An Israeli squad commander also claimed that military rabbis had distributed pamphlets characterizing the invasion as a religious venture to “expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land.” The soldiers’ testimonies had first appeared in a journal published by a military preparatory course at the Oranim Academic College, in the northern Israeli town of Tivon. The academy’s director, Dany Zamir, had reportedly leaked the accounts because he felt that Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the military chief of staff, had not taken the testimonies seriously. The military advocate general, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, March 19 said he would open an investigation of the alleged abuses. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio, “The Israeli Army is the most moral in the world,” and that any abuses were exceptions to the rule. Mendelblit March 30 closed his inquiry, after finding that the most serious accusations were “based on hearsay” and that there was no evidence to support them. He said he had found that in the case of the mother and children supposedly killed, the soldier who had given the account had not actually been present at the incident. In reality, Mendelblit said, Israeli snipers had opened fire in a different direction on “two suspicious men” as the civilians were walking away, and none of the three were harmed. Israeli human rights groups criticized the decision to close the inquiry, and called for an independent investigation. Haaretz Jan. 26 had published excerpts from materials handed out by rabbis during the Gaza invasion urging soldiers to con210

quer Gaza and “show no mercy on the cruel.” The newspaper Jan. 28 reported that the military had “severely reprimanded” an unnamed officer for handing out the pamphlets. Several reports published March 23 accused Israel of further abuses in Gaza. Human rights advocates presented a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) claiming that Israeli soldiers had shelled a building they had ordered noncombatants to enter the previous day, shot Palestinian children and bulldozed a home with a woman and child inside. Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, presented another report to the HRC concluding that the Israeli invasion of Gaza was “potentially a crime against peace” because there had been diplomatic options to avoid conflict. Physicians for Human Rights–Israel March 23 reported that the Israeli military had violated its own code of ethics, and possibly international law, by putting medical personnel in danger and blocking medical evacuations during the Gaza war. The Israeli military responded that it had tried to safeguard medical teams, and blamed Hamas for using ambulances, medical buildings and uniforms to conceal “terrorist activity.” Also, the New York City–based advocacy group Human Rights Watch March 25 reported that Israel had used white phosphorus artillery shells “unlawfully” during the Gaza invasion. White phosphorus was used to create smokescreens, but could also cause severe burns. Human Rights Watch said Israel had violated international law by using the substance repeatedly in heavily populated areas. An Israeli military spokesman said an internal investigation was close to completion, but that preliminary findings showed that Israel had used white phosphorus “in accordance with international law.” [See p. 13B2] Negotiations for Soldier’s Release Fail—

Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert March 17 announced that Egyptian-brokered negotiations with Hamas to free a captured Israeli soldier had collapsed. The soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, had been kidnapped by militants in a 2006 raid across the Gaza border. Olmert said Hamas was not budging from its demand for Israel to free 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit’s release. Olmert said that while he was willing to release many of the Palestinians demanded by Hamas, he would not free some who were considered too dangerous. “We have red lines,” Olmert said, adding, “We don’t cross them.” Olmert took the unusual step of naming some of the Palestinians he refused to release, including Abdullah Barghouti and Hassan Salameh, who were each serving dozens of life sentences for their roles in bombings that had killed Israelis. Media reports said Israel had agreed to release about 320 of the 450 prisoners sought by Hamas. Hamas officials said they had opposed Israel’s demand that many of the prisoners be deported or confined to the Gaza Strip, rather than be allowed in the West Bank, due to security concerns.

Israel March 18–19 arrested 10 Hamas leaders, including four legislators, in the West Bank. Hamas decried the arrests as “an attempt to blackmail the resistance and achieve gains in the prisoner case,” referring to Shalit. Other News—In related developments: o A Palestinian youth orchestra March 25 performed for elderly Holocaust survivors in Holon, Israel. The orchestra was from the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, which in the past had been known as a center of militancy. The visit was organized by the orchestra’s Israeli Arab director, Wafaa Younis, as part of Israel’s annual Good Deeds Day. Jenin officials March 29 condemned the performance and barred Younis from the camp. They said Younis had exploited the children in the orchestra for the purpose of “normalizing” ties with Israel. o Israeli police March 21 found a car packed with 200 pounds (90 kg) of explosives that had malfunctioned and failed to go off in the parking lot of a crowded shopping mall in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa. If the car had exploded, it would have been one of the largest bombings within Israel in several years. An obscure group, Liberators of the Galilee, claimed responsibility for the failed attack, but security officials reportedly doubted its claim. [See 2008, p. 76A3] o Gunmen late March 15 killed two Israeli police officers on patrol in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, near the Israeli settlement of Massua and close to the Jordanian border. No group took responsibility for the shooting, but the Israeli police said they were treating it as a Palestinian “nationalistic” attack. The police officers were the first Israelis killed in the West Bank since two security guards were shot to death in April 2008. [See 2008, p. 385F3] o A U.S. citizen, Tristan Anderson, March 13 was severely injured when a teargas canister fired by Israeli troops hit him in the head, during a protest near Ramallah, in the West Bank. Anderson was participating in a protest that had been held weekly for several months in the village of Naalin against the construction of an Israeli security barrier. He reportedly remained in critical condition at a hospital in Tel Aviv as of April 2. The Israeli military said it would investigate the incident. [See 2008, p. 625F2; 2005, p. 997C2] o The Israeli Supreme Court March 10 blocked a Palestinian activist—Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq—from leaving the West Bank to accept a major human rights prize, the Geuzen Medal, in the Netherlands. The Supreme Court said he had been involved with terrorist groups, a charge he denied. Jabarin March 13 accepted the prize by videoconference. n

Lebanon Court Opens in 2005 Hariri Assassination.

A court set up to prosecute the assassins of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik FACTS ON FILE

Hariri March 1 formally opened in The Hague, the Netherlands. A bomb in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, had killed Hariri and 22 other people in 2005. Investigators had implicated the Syrian government in the killing, but Syria denied involvement. [See 2008, p. 224C2] The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by the United Nations and the Lebanese government in 2006, and was endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in 2007. Eleven judges, four of them Lebanese, sat on the court. Trials would be under Lebanese law, except that imposition of the death penalty would not be permitted. The Canadian prosecutor of the court, Daniel Bellemare, said that within 60 days, he would ask the Lebanese government to hand over four Lebanese generals with close ties to Syria who had been detained in Beirut since 2005 in connection with the case. The generals were Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, former chief of general security; Maj. Gen. Ali Hajj, former head of internal security forces; Brig. Gen. Raymond Azar, former chief of military intelligence; and Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, former commander of the presidential Republican Guard Brigade. Lebanon Feb. 25 had released two Lebanese and one Syrian civilian who were being held on suspicion of misleading the Hariri investigation and making false statements. The tribunal’s opening took place as relations between Syria and Lebanon were improving. Lebanon March 16 opened an embassy in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in a move towards establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. Syria had opened an embassy in Beirut in December 2008, and Lebanon March 24 approved the appointment of Ali Abdul Karim Ali as Syria’s ambassador. Syria Jan. 27 had approved the appointment of Lebanon’s current ambassador to Cyprus, Michel el-Khoury, to become its ambassador to Syria. [See 2008, p. 776D3] n Bomb Kills PLO Official. A roadside bomb in southern Lebanon March 23 killed a senior Palestinian official and three of his companions. The official, Kamal Medhat, was the deputy chief of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon. The bomb hit his two-car convoy at a security checkpoint as it was leaving the Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp, near the city of Sidon. No one took responsibility for the blast. [See p. 13B2; 2008, p. 224G2] Palestinians speculated that the attack might have been aimed at Medhat’s superior, Abbas Zaki, who had visited Mieh Mieh earlier the same day. Other observers said it might have been carried out by enemies Medhat had made while carrying out his role as a mediator between various Palestinian factions in the refugee camps, or that it could have been meant to disrupt reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah—the largest party in the PLO—and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement). Both Fatah and Hamas condemned the bombing. n April 2, 2009

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

A

Iditarod

Theater Openings

Mackey Wins Third Straight Race. Lance Mackey March 18 won the 37th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, for the third consecutive year. Mackey, a 38-year-old Alaska native, finished the 1,100-mile (1,770-km) course in nine days, 21 hours, 38 minutes and 46 seconds. He became the third musher, after Susan Butcher and Doug Swingley, to win the race three times in a row. Mackey earned $69,000 and a new pick-up truck for the victory. [See 2008, p. 171F2; 2006, p. 640B3; 2001, p. 339C2] The race, which began March 8 with 67 mushers, resulted in the death of five dogs on the trail. (One or two dogs commonly died during the race each year.) The high number of deaths drew criticism from animal rights activists, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) March 24 called for a criminal inquiry. However, the Alaskan state police said it did not intend to investigate the deaths unless the race’s organizer, the Iditarod Trail Committee, requested a probe. n

The American Plan. Revival of a 1990 play by Richard Greenberg. Directed by David Grindley. With Lily Rabe, Kieran Campion and Mercedes Ruehl. In New York City, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. Jan. 22. [See 1990, p. 1002A3] Becky Shaw. Romantic comedy by Gina Gionfriddo. Directed by Peter DuBois. With Annie Parisse, David Wilson Barnes, Emily Bergl, Kelly Bishop and Thomas Sadoski. In New York City, at the Second Stage Theater. Jan. 8. Burnt by the Sun. Historical drama by Peter Flannery, based on Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibrahimbekov’s screenplay for Mikhalkov’s Russian film of the same name that won an Academy Award in 1995. Directed by Howard Davies. With Ciaran Hinds, Rory Kinnear and Michelle Dockery. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre. March 3. [See 1995, p. 243F2; 1994, p. 403B3] Coming Home. South African drama by Athol Fugard. Directed by Gordon Edelstein. With Roslyn Ruff (as Veronica Jonkers, a character introduced in Fugard’s 1995 play Valley Song) and Colman Domingo. In New Haven, Conn., at the Long Wharf Theater. Jan. 21. [See 1995, p. 1013B3] England People Very Nice. Satirical work by Richard Bean. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Olivia Colman, Sacha Dhawan, Michelle Terry and Sophie Stanton. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre. Feb. 11. (This play dealt with the touchy subject of British immigration in a manner that some critics, particularly Muslims, found offensive and even racist.) [See 2004, p. 196C2] Guys and Dolls. First Broadway revival since 1992 of Frank Loesser’s classic 1950 musical. Directed by Des McAnuff; choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. With Oliver Platt, Lauren Graham, Craig Bierko and Kate Jennings Grant. In New York City, at the Nederlander Theater. March 1. [See 1992, p. 435G3] The Heavens Are Hung in Black. Historical play by James Still. Directed by Stephen Rayne. With David Selby and Robin Moseley. In Washington, D.C., at Ford’s Theatre. Feb. 8. (This Ford’s-commissioned play about Abraham Lincoln marked the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and received its world premiere in the newly renovated theater in which Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.) [See 2008, p. 876F1] Hedda Gabler. Revival of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 tragedy, as newly adapted by Christopher Shinn from a literal translation by Anne-Charlotte Harvey. Directed by Ian Rickson. With Mary-Louise Parker, Michael Cerveris, Paul Sparks and Peter Stormare. In New York City, at the American Airlines Theater. Jan. 25. [See 1999, p. 411A2] Rod Blagojevich Superstar!. Musical comedy about the recently ousted governor of Illinois. Book by Ed Furman; music and lyrics by T.J. Shanoff. Directed by Matt Hovde. With Joey Bland, Lori McClain and Sam Richardson. In Chicago, at Second City e.t.c. Feb. 10. [See p. 43A3] Telephone. Absurdist play by poet Arianna Reines, inspired by The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech, a 1989 book by Avital Ronell. Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. With Gibson Frazier, Matthew Dellapina and Birgit Huppuch. In New York City, at the Cherry Lane Theater. Feb. 9. The Third Story. Comedy by Charles Busch satirizing 1940s Hollywood films. Directed by Carl Andress. With Busch, Kathleen Turner and Jennifer Van Dyck. In New York City, at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Feb. 2. [See 2008, p. 248D1; 2007, p. 795E3; 2005, p. 364B3] 33 Variations. Broadway production of Moises Kaufman’s 2007 drama about classical music. Directed by Kaufman. With Jane Fonda, Samantha Mathis, Colin Hanks and Zach Grenier. In New York City, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater. March 9. [See 2007, p. 796B1] Time Stands Still. Iraq war–related drama by Donald Margulies. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. With Anna Gunn, David Barbour, Alicia Silverstone and Robin Thomas. In Los Angeles, at the Geffen Playhouse. Feb. 11. [See 2005, p. 272F1; 2000, p. 256E1] You, Nero. Comedy by Amy Freed set in ancient Rome. Directed by Sharon Ott. With Danny Scheie and John Vickery. In Costa Mesa, Calif., at South Coast Repertory. Jan. 9. [See 2003, p. 1103E2]

Figure Skating World Championships Held in Los Angeles.

Kim Yu Na of South Korea March 28 won the women’s competition at the World Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles. Joannie Rochette of Canada took the silver medal, and 2007 champion Miki Ando of Japan claimed the bronze. [See 2008, p. 227E1] The poor showing of the two U.S. competitors—Rachael Flatt, who placed fifth, and Alissa Czisny, who placed 11th, for a combined 16th—meant that the U.S. would have only two slots in the women’s competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. They would have had to finish with a combined placing of 13th or better to earn three slots. [See p. 139C2] Evan Lysacek of the U.S. March 26 won the men’s competition. Patrick Chan of Canada placed second, and 2007 champion Brian Joubert of France took third. The other American skater, Brandon Mroz, placed ninth, meaning the U.S. would have three representatives in the men’s competition at the Vancouver Olympics. In the pairs competition March 25, Germany’s Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy won the gold medal for the second year in a row. China’s Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao were runners-up for the second straight year, while Russia’s Yuko Kawaguchi and Alexander Smirnov took the bronze. The Russian team of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin March 27 won gold in the ice dancing competition. Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto of the U.S. took the silver medal, and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada won the bronze. n

You’re Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush. One-act show in which comedian Will Fer-

rell impersonates the U.S.’s 43rd president. Directed by Adam McKay. In New York City, at the Cort Theater. Feb. 5. [See p. 26F2; 2008, p. 548C2] n

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BEST SELLER LISTS

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Books

Television

Publishers Weekly March 30 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 140A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. Handle with Care, by Jodi Picoult (Atria) 2. Corsair, by Clive Cussler with Jack Du Brul (Putnam) 3. The Associate, by John Grisham (Doubleday) 4. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown) 5. Run for Your Life, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown)

B

General Hardback 1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 3. A Lion Called Christian: The True Story of the Remarkable Bond Between Two Friends and a Lion, by Anthony Bourke and John Rendall (Broadway) 4. The Yankee Years, by Joe Torre with Tom Verducci (Doubleday) 5. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion)

Mass Market Paperback

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1. The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci (Vision) 2. Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben (Dutton) 3. Bones, by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine) 4. Danger in a Red Dress, by Christina Dodd (Signet) 5. The Appeal, by John Grisham (Dell)

1. “Right Round,” Flo Rida featuring Kesha (Poe Boy/Atlantic) 2. “Dead and Gone,” T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake (Grand Hustle/Atlantic) 3. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope) 4. “Kiss Me Thru the Phone,” Soulja Boy Tell ’em featuring Sammie (ColliPark/Interscope) 5. “My Life Would Suck Without You,” Kelly Clarkson (19/RCA/RMG)

1. All I Ever Wanted, Kelly Clarkson (S/19/RCA/Sony Music) 2. Love VS Money, The-Dream (Radio Killa/Def Jam/IDJMG) 3. No Line on the Horizon, U2 (Island/Interscope/IGA) 4. Round 2, J. Holiday (Music Line/Capitol) 5. Fearless, Taylor Swift (Big Machine)

People Grammy Award–winning rapper T.I., 28, March 27 in Atlanta, Ga., was sentenced to a year and a day in prison on federal weapons charges. The sentence was the minimum allowed under the guilty plea he entered in March 2008, when he also agreed to perform at least 1,000 hours of community service before going to prison. At his sentencing hearing, he was found to have fully complied with the community-service conditions of his plea agreement. [See 2008, p. 268F2] n

O B I T UA R I E S ALFONSIN Foulkes, Raul Ricardo, 82, Argentine human rights lawyer and politician who was his country’s president from 1983 to 1989; his election to the presidency, as the candidate of the Radical Civic Union, ended nearly eight years of military rule, marked by a “dirty war” rife with human rights abuses and “disappearances” of leftists; during the dirty war, Alfonsin cofounded the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights and defended many political prisoners; during his presidency, a number of military junta leaders were sentenced to prison, but amnesty laws, passed in 1986 and 1987, kept many lower-ranking officers from being brought to trial; in mid-1989, amid ongoing economic turmoil, including hyperinflation, he was defeated in his bid for reelection by Peronist Party candidate Carlos Menem; Alfonsin, whose six-year term was to end in December 1989, allowed Menem to succeed him in July of that year, marking the first peaceful turnover of power in more than 60

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Directed by John Hamburg. With Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones, Sarah Burns and Jaime Pressly. 3. Duplicity, Universal ($18.1 million, 1)

Directed by Tony Gilroy. With Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti and Rick Worthy. 4. Race to Witch Mountain, Disney ($47.7 million, 2)

Directed by Andy Fickman. With Dwayne Johnson, Ciaran Hinds, Anna-Sophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig and Carla Gugino. 5. Watchmen, Warner Bros. ($100.5 million, 3)

Directed by Zack Snyder. With Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Patrick Wilson. 6. The Last House on the Left, Universal ($25.8 million, 2)

Albums

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Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of March 20–26 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 140B2]:

2. I Love You, Man, Paramount ($24.4 million, 1)

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Directed by Alex Proyas. With Lara Robinson, Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury and Ben Mendelsohn.

Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its March 28 issue listed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 140C1]:

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1. “American Idol” (Fox), March 25 (14.7)* 2. “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), March 9 (14.1)* 3. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS), March 5 (12.7) 4. “The Bachelor: After the Final Rose” (ABC), March 2 (11.4) 5. “The Mentalist” (CBS), March 24 (11.2) (tie) “NCIS” (CBS), March 24 (11.2)

1. Knowing, Summit Entertainment ($31.5 million, 1)

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al television shows March 2–29 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 72A2]:

Directed by Dennis Iliadis. With Garret Dillahunt, Martha MacIsaac, Riki Lindhome, Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Taken, 20th Century Fox ($134.4 million, 8) [See p. 140C2] Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Searchlight ($138.2 million, 19) [See p. 140C2] Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, Lionsgate ($87.9 million, 5) [See p. 140B2] Coraline, Focus Features ($73.6 million, 7) [See p. 140C2]

years by an elected Argentine president to a successor from another party; Menem in 1990 pardoned various junta members who had been jailed; in 2005, however, the Argentine Supreme Court struck down the 1986 and 1987 amnesty laws, paving the way for the resumption of prosecutions of “dirty war” perpetrators; born March 12, 1927, in Chascomus, Argentina; died March 31 at his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of lung cancer. [See 2005, p. 443A2; 2001, pp. 868D1, 214G2; Indexes 1998, 1993, 1982–91, 1977, 1975, 1972–73] JAGAN, Janet (born Janet Rosalie Rosenberg),

88, U.S.-born president of Guyana, 1997–99, and the first democratically elected female president of any South American country; she and her husband, Cheddi Jagan, whom she married in 1943, helped found Guyana’s socialist People’s Progressive Party in 1950, when Guyana was still a British colony, known as British Guiana; at the time, he was practicing dentistry, while she was his nurse; both of them played key roles in Guyanese politics in the years leading up to its achievement of independence in 1966; from 1964, when a rival party, the People’s National Congress took power, until 1992, the Jagans were at the helm of Guyana’s political opposition; in 1992, Cheddi Jagan was elected president of Guyana, a post he held until his death in March 1997; his widow was elected president in December of that year, at the age of 77, and remained in power until August 1999, when she resigned after suffering a mild heart attack; her successor, Bharrat Jagdeo, was still in power; born Oct. 20, 1920, in Chicago; died March 28 at a hospital in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital, of an abdominal aneurysm. [See 2001, p. 256C2; 1999, pp. 584D2, G2; Indexes 1997–98, 1970, 1962–64, 1957, 1953–55] JARRE, Maurice Alexis, 84, French composer, long resident in the U.S., where he became one of the most sought-after creators of Hollywood film scores; a nine-time Academy Award nominee, he ended up winning three Oscars, for Lawrence of Arabia in 1963, Doc-

tor Zhivago in 1966 and A Passage to India in 1985; all were sumptuous films made by Briton David Lean, who died in 1991; the only Lean film scored by him for which he did not win an Oscar was Ryan’s Daughter (1970); he also worked with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz, 1969), Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, 1987) and Jerry Zucker (Ghost, 1990), and on four films with Peter Weir, including Dead Poets Society (1989); his most recognizable tune was probably “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago, which became an easy-listening standard in various versions; born Sept. 13, 1924, in Lyon, France; died overnight March 28 in Malibu, Calif., of cancer. [See 1991, p. 292D3; 1966, p. 168A2; Index 1963] KELL, George Clyde, 86, third baseman for a number of Major League Baseball (MLB) teams in the 1940s and 1950s who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983; a standout both offensively and defensively, he was a 10-time All Star, had a career batting average of .306 with 2,054 hits and led all American League (A.L.) third basemen in fielding percentage seven times (his 15-year playing career was spent entirely in the A.L.); he never struck out more than 37 times in a season, and only 13 times in 1949, when he won the A.L. batting title as a Detroit Tiger with a batting average of .343; after his playing days ended, he was a longtime broadcaster for the Tigers; born Aug. 23, 1922, in Swifton, Ark.; died in his sleep March 24 at his Swifton home; he had been seriously injured in a 2004 car crash. [See 1958, p. 8C2; 1955, p. 323C2; Indexes 1954, 1949–52, 1945–46] LEVITT, Helen, 95, photographer celebrated for her images of New York City streets, notably of children congregating or playing on them; in the 1940s and 1950s, she was also involved in documentary filmmaking; in 1991, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art organized a retrospective of her work that traveled to major museums and gave her national exposure for the first time; born Aug. 31, 1913, in New York; died in her sleep March 29 in her New York home. [See 1949, p. 79E]n

April 2, 2009

Europeans Pledge Few New Troops for Afghanistan At 60th Anniversary NATO Summit Obama Tours Europe, Calls for Disarmament. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

members April 3–4 met for a summit marking the alliance’s 60th anniversary. The meeting was held in Strasbourg, France, and was co-hosted by France and Germany. European nations indicated support for U.S. President Barack Obama’s new strategy for the NATO campaign in Afghanistan, but pledged to send only up to 5,000 new troops, 3,000 of whom would be on temporary deployments. Members also agreed to choose Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the next NATO secretary general, after the term of Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, of the Netherlands, ended in July. Protesters outside the summit clashed with police and burned several buildings. [See pp. 194G2, 193A1, 142E1, G1; 2008, p. 232C3] Obama April 3 before the summit and April 5–7 traveled to several European countries, and also made a surprise visit to Iraq. He had attended the Group of 20 (G20) economic summit in London April 2. [See below] Nine European NATO members promised to send 1,400–2,000 troops to train the Afghan army and police. In addition, 3,000 soldiers would be deployed temporarily to provide security for Afghan elections scheduled for August. European nations also promised $100 million in aid for training Afghan security forces and $500 million in humanitarian aid, as well as additional civilian personnel to bolster Afghan institutions. Obama in 2008 had announced that he would raise U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan to 68,000, from 38,000. Media reports said the relatively small European increases meant that NATO operations in Afghanistan would become even more the responsibility of the U.S. An Afghan law that human rights groups said legalized marital rape caused controversy at the summit. The law, which had been passed by the Afghan parliament in February and which Afghan President Hamid Karzai reportedly signed March 31, required married women of Afghanistan’s Shiite Muslim minority to “give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.” The law also allowed Shiite women to leave the home without their husbands “only for legitimate purposes,” and included provisions on marriage, child custody and divorce that critics said discriminated against women. Analysts said Karzai had approved the bill to boost his standing with conservative Shiites ahead of the August elections. NATO leaders at the summit decried the legislation and said it might endanger Western support for a continued presence in Afghanistan. Obama April 4 called the law “abhorrent.” However, he added that “the first reason we are there is to root out [the international terrorist network] Al Qaeda, so that they cannot attack members of the alliance,” and that that was a priority over promoting democracy and human rights. Karzai April 4, before the troop commitments were announced, told reporters in

Kabul, the Afghan capital, that the law would be reviewed, and would be amended if found to be in violation of human rights provisions of the Afghan constitution. Secretary General Choice Disputed—

Rasmussen’s candidacy for secretary general was supported by the U.S. and European Union members. However, Turkey, the only largely Muslim member of NATO, had objected, claiming Rasmussen had been insensitive during a 2005–06 controversy over the publication in Danish newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. (NATO’s rules required its members to reach a consensus on decisions.) Turkey also said choosing Rasmussen would be unwise given that NATO was currently operating in Afghanistan, a majority Muslim country. [See 2007, p. 758D2; 2006, p. 85A1] After private negotiations that included meetings between Obama, Rasmussen and Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Turkey April 4 agreed to allow Rasmussen’s selection. Turkey reportedly received at least two NATO posts in return, including a deputy to the deputy secretary general. The NATO summit saw the formal return of France to the alliance’s military command structure, which then–French President Charles de Gaulle had withdrawn it from in 1966. Also, Croatia and Albania April 1 had formally joined NATO as its 27th and 28th member nations. They had been invited to join at the 2008 summit. [See p. 172D3; 2008, p. 232G3]

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3564* April 9, 2009

B 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches by the U.S. and other Allied forces in World War II. Earlier that day, Obama met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Strasbourg. Sarkozy announced that France would accept one detainee from the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for resettlement. Obama had said he planned to shut down the prison within a year and asked allies to help by resettling some former detainees. [See p. 165E3] Sarkozy said France backed Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan but would not contribute any more troops beyond the 3,000 it had already deployed with the NATO force. Obama also met that day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Baden-Baden, Germany, and she did not offer to increase Germany’s contingent of about 3,800 troops in Afghanistan. (However, Germany at the NATO summit agreed to deploy 600 additional troops.)

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Demonstrators Clash With Police— NATO leaders April 4 before the summit

walked across a bridge over the Rhine River between Germany and France, in a gesture of European unity. However, thousands of protesters from both sides of the river clashed with police on a nearby bridge later that day, throwing stones and setting at least three structures on fire on the French side of the river. French police said about 1,000 violent agitators had attacked police, resulting in 12 injuries among the protesters and many arrests. Police said there were 10,000 protesters on the French side and 7,000 in Germany, while protest organizers claimed 30,000 participants.

Obama Meets Students in Strasbourg—

Obama April 3 held a town-hall-style meeting in Strasbourg where he spoke to about 3,500 French and German students and answered five questions from the audience. He warned that terrorism remained a threat to Europe as well as the U.S., saying, “I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I’m now president and George Bush is no longer president, Al Qaeda is still a threat.” Addressing U.S.-European relations, he acknowledged that there had been “times when America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.” But he added that often in Europe, “There is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious.” Obama that day announced that he would return to France in June to mark the

MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Europeans pledge few new troops for Afghanistan at 60th anniversary NATO summit; Obama tours Europe, calls for disarmament. PAGE 213

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North Korea launches rocket, claims satellite success; U.S. sees failed missile test. PAGE 215

Iowa court, Vermont legislature legalize gay marriage. PAGE 216

Charges dropped against South African ruling party leader Zuma. PAGE 222

Peruvian ex-President Fujimori convicted in killings.

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PAGE 222

Earthquake hits central Italy. PAGE 224

North Carolina wins men’s NCAA basketball tournament; Connecticut wins women’s championship. PAGE 229

SPECIAL FEATURE World heads of state and government leaders listed. PAGES 232–236

*First of two sections Section Two is a first quarter index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Obama April 5 in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, told a crowd of as many as 20,000 people, “Today I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Referring to the Cold War, when fears of worldwide nuclear war were more prevalent, he observed that “in a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.” Obama presented a three-pronged plan toward reaching his goal of a world free of nuclear weapons: reducing nuclear stockpiles across the globe, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and keeping nuclear materials away from those who would use them to make weapons. His proposal came just after North Korea launched a long-range rocket that could theoretically be used to carry a ballistic missile, in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Referring to North Korea, Obama said, “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” He went on to call for a “strong international response” to the missile test. [See p. 215E1] In his speech, Obama said the U.S. planned to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons testing, in the hopes that other countries would follow suit. He proposed a new international treaty that would ban the production of nuclear weapons–grade material, and also suggested that a nuclear energy “bank” be constructed. Countries that rejected nuclear weapons would in turn receive access to the bank, which would fuel civilian reactors used to produce power. Some countries hostile to the U.S., such as Iran and North Korea, had argued that they needed certain nuclear facilities to produce energy; access to the nuclear power bank would theoretically render those arguments ineffective. The Wall Street Journal April 6 reported that the U.S. had been involved in talks to place the bank in Kazakhstan. Obama also called for a summit to be held within a year on nuclear security, urged countries to secure unguarded nuclear material and expressed support for thorough nuclear inspections in Iran, which the U.S. suspected of seeking to develop a bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program. Obama was noncommittal on his predecessor President George W. Bush’s plan to install components of a missile defense shield in the Czech Republic. Russia had objected to the shield on the grounds that it could be used to undermine its defenses. [See p. 142F2] While in Prague, Obama also met with Czech President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who had recently lost a no-confidence vote but had remained prime minister in a caretaker capacity. Obama also met with Vaclav Havel, a former Czech president and renowned anticommunist dissident. [See p. 224G3; 2007, p. 580F3]

Obama’s first presidential appearance in a Muslim-majority nation, continued his efforts to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world, which he had previously made in televised messages, including an overture to Iran. However, he also recognized and praised the secular character of Turkey’s democracy. Turkey was a key U.S. ally in the region, but Turkish public opinion of the U.S. had turned sharply unfavorable during Bush’s presidency. [See pp. 179C1, 142C3, 42F1] Obama said, “I know that the trust that binds the United States and Turkey has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced,” adding, “So let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.” He was introduced to the parliament by his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, and alluded to his personal connections with the Muslim world in his speech. (His Kenyan father had been a Muslim, and he had spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population.) He drew applause when he said, “The United States has been enriched by Muslim-Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them.” His allusions to his own life contrasted with the 2008 presidential campaign. Then, Obama had played down such aspects of his background, while false rumors spread over the Internet that he was secretly a Muslim. Obama also paid tribute to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the modern Turkish state in 1923. “His greatest legacy is Turkey’s strong, vibrant secular democracy, and that is the work that this assembly carries on today,” Obama said. He had visited Ataturk’s tomb in Ankara earlier that day. During the Bush administration, Turkey had been viewed by U.S. officials as a moderate Muslim nation, and therefore of strategic importance in countering international terrorism. But Turkish politics in recent years had seen growing tensions between the ruling Islamic-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the secular opposition. The opposition had accused the government of seeking to undermine the secular constitution and impose Islamic law, but lost its bid to have the AKP shut down in a 2008 court case. [See p. 226E3; 2008, p. 524G3] Referring to such differences, Obama said Turkey could bridge them, declaring, “This is not where East and West divide— it is where they come together.” Obama said he supported Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. At an April 5 U.S.-EU summit in Prague, he had called on leaders of EU member nations to accept Turkey, but some, including Sarkozy and Merkel, said they remained opposed to full membership for Turkey. [See 2008, p. 333E3]

Obama Visits Turkey, Woos Muslims—

Avoids Armenian Genocide Issue—

Obama April 6 addressed the Turkish parliament in Ankara, the capital. The speech,

Obama dealt cautiously in his Ankara speech with another Turkish sore point—a

Calls for an End to Nuclear Weapons—

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pending U.S. congressional resolution that declared World War I–era mass killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire to have been a genocide. Turkey denied that the killings amounted to a genocide. [See 2008, p. 638F3] Obama, who had supported such a resolution when he was a senator, said he had not changed his views, but avoided using the word “genocide” in his speech. He said he supported current diplomatic efforts by Turkey and Armenia to reopen their border and reestablish normal relations. Armenian-American groups expressed disappointment that he had not pressed Turkey to acknowledge that it had committed genocide. Obama also reiterated that he intended to push for the creation of an independent Palestinian nation, despite a new conservative government in Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that was resistant to that plan. Obama praised Turkey for mediating peace talks between Israel and Syria in 2008. [See p. 209E1] Obama April 7 visited Istanbul, where, escorted by Erdogan, he toured historic religious sites, including the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. He also held a public forum, answering questions from university students and defending the U.S. from what he called a stereotype that it was “selfish and crass.” Obama Makes Unannounced Iraq Visit—

Obama April 7 travelled to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, making a brief surprise visit for several hours before returning to the U.S. He addressed U.S. troops at Camp Victory, near Baghdad International Airport, and met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It was Obama’s first visit to Iraq since July 2008, when he was a

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presidential candidate. Bush’s last visit to Iraq, in December 2008, had been marred when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at Bush in protest of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. [See p. 227E3; 2008, pp. 913F2, 498D2] Speaking in a palace that had belonged to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Obama thanked the troops for their service in the war in Iraq, which he had opposed. He told the troops they had “given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country,” and declared that it was now time for Iraqis “to take responsibility for their own country and for their sovereignty.” Obama reiterated a pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, but warned that national elections scheduled for late 2009 would bring unresolved Iraqi political issues “to a head.” He said Iraqi legislators were “going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means.” Obama met with Maliki and several other Iraqi officials near the airport. He reportedly told the Iraqi leader that he had to do more to encourage political reconciliation, and improve security and basic services. Maliki afterwards said that “dialogue should be the only way to resolve any issue, whether it was between the Iraqi security components, or in the region.” Obama added that while the U.S. had transferred much of its attention to the war in Afghanistan, “there’s still a lot of work to be done here.” n

North Korea Launches Rocket, Claims Satellite Success U.S. Sees Failed Missile Test. North Korea

April 5 launched a rocket that it said carried a communications satellite to space, but the U.S. and its allies condemned the launch, which North Korea had announced in advance, as an illicit test of a long-range ballistic missile. North Korea claimed that a satellite had been successfully put into orbit, but the U.S. Defense Department said the launch had been a failure, with the rocket and its payload falling into the Pacific Ocean. [See p. 143C1; 2006, p. 525A1; 1998, p. 619B1] The rocket lifted off at about 11:30 a.m. local time from the Musudan-ri coastal launch site in northeastern North Korea. It appeared to be a three-stage Taepodong-2, a long-range ballistic missile that was believed to have an intended range of 3,700 miles (6,000 km), far enough to reach the U.S. state of Alaska. U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials said it flew for about 13 minutes over the Sea of Japan, crossing Japanese airspace, before plunging into the Pacific as its second stage was firing. North Korea, in contrast, said it had successfully lofted a communications satellite named Kwangmyongsong-2, after an epithet for North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il—“lodestar.” It said the satellite was broadcasting “revolutionary songs” from orbit. North Korea in 1998 had claimed to have put a satellite into space with a Taepodong-1 rocket, which the U.S. had also April 9, 2009

said was actually a failure. A 2006 test launch of a Taepodong-2 had also been assessed abroad as a failure. The Taepodong-2 launched April 5 flew about 2,000 miles, twice as far as the 1998 rocket, and much farther than the 2006 rocket, fueling concern that NorthKorea was improving its launch capabilities. Analysts suggested that the launch was intended as a display of confidence by North Korea amid questions about the health of its supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, who days later made a major public appearance for the first time since August 2008, and was thought to have suffered a stroke. It was also seen as a bid for the attention of the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, and intended to strengthen North Korea’s hand in talks with the U.S. and other nations on abandoning its nuclear program. [See below] The launch came during Obama’s first major foreign tour, and hours before he gave an April 5 speech in Prague, the Czech Republic, calling on the world to strive for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Obama that day called the launch a “provocative act” and urged a “strong international response.” He said it illustrated the need to “prevent the spread” of nuclear weapons, saying, “Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something.” [See p. 214A1] Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso April 5 also called the launch “provocative,” and South Korea called it “reckless.” North Korea had conducted a test of a nuclear device in 2006, but was considered far from being able to produce a nuclear warhead small enough to be put atop a missile. However, the prospect of North Korea successfully developing a long-range missile raised concerns that it would illicitly supply it to other countries. [See 2006, p. 777A1] Security Council Meets—The United Nations Security Council April 5 convened for an emergency session to address the launch. After three hours, the council adjourned without having taken any action, but agreed to meet again to continue discussions. A North Korean missile test was prohibited under Security Council resolutions passed in 2006. [See 2006, pp. 793A1, 567C2] Of the five permanent council members with veto power, the U.S., Britain and France proposed a new resolution condemning North Korea for violating the 2006 resolutions, and strengthening certain existing sanctions against it. However, Russia favored greater consideration of North Korea’s claim that it was a satellite launch and therefore a legitimate exercise of its right to the peaceful use of space. China, the closest ally of highly isolated North Korea, urged a cautious response that would not unduly raise tensions further. Japan, currently a nonpermanent council member, advocated imposing new sanctions against North Korea. North Korea March 24 had issued a statement warning that if the Security Council took action against it over the launch, it would spell the end of the six-nation nuclear talks. It had also warned that it would con-

sider interference with the rocket launch an act of war and respond accordingly, and April 1 threatened to shoot down U.S. surveillance aircraft observing the launch site. Japan March 27 had ordered its military to prepare to shoot down the missile or any of its debris if it appeared to threaten Japanese territory. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates March 29 said the U.S. did not plan to try to prevent the launch from taking place with military action, and would take action only if the missile’s flight indicated a danger to the U.S. South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung Soo April 6 said his government would consider developing its own long-range missiles. A defense treaty between South Korea and the U.S. currently prohibited it from doing so. Kim Appears for Reappointment—North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il April 9 was formally reappointed to a third term as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the highest state post, by the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s nominal parliament. State news media broadcast footage of Kim presiding at the session in the capital, Pyongyang. Kim, seen joining in the applause that greeted his appearance, looked noticeably gaunt in comparison to before his absence from public view, walking with a limp and seemingly using his left hand with some difficulty. [See p. 153G3] The parliament also elected Kim’s brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, 63, to the National Defense Commission. Many foreign observers considered Jang to be the most powerful figure in the government after Kim, and said the appointment suggested that he would play a decisive role in any transition of power. [See 2004, p. 1082B2]

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U.S. Journalists Detained at Border—

The North Korean military had detained two U.S. journalists near the China–North Korea border, it was reported March 19. North Korean state news media March 21 confirmed the reporters’ detention, saying that they were accused of “illegally intruding” on North Korean territory, and announced March 31 that they would be put on trial. The two reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, had been reporting a story about North Korean refugees in China for Current TV, a U.S.based television news production company cofounded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. [See p. 143C1; 2005, p. 548B2] The pair appeared to have been detained March 17. A South Korean Christian missionary leader who worked to aid North Korean refugees, and who had helped arrange the reporters’ travels, said he had last heard from them earlier that day. News reports suggested they had been arrested somewhere on the frozen-over Tumen River, which constituted part of the border, while shooting footage of the North Korean side. Their cameraman, also a U.S. citizen, and a Chinese guide had reportedly been detained by Chinese border police and later released. The U.S. State Department March 19 contacted the North Korean government, with which the U.S. did not have diplomatic relations, about the matter, and was also cooperating with China. n 215

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Iowa Court, Vermont Legislature Legalize Gay Marriage Become Third and Fourth States to Do So.

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The Iowa Supreme Court April 3 unanimously ruled that a 1998 state law, the Iowa Defense of Marriage Act, violated the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, effectively legalizing same-sex marriages in the state. Separately, the state legislature of Vermont April 7 overrode a veto the previous day by Gov. Jim Douglas (R) of a bill that would allow gay couples to marry in the state. Iowa and Vermont became the third and fourth states, respectively, to allow same-sex couples to marry, joining Connecticut and Massachusetts. [See 2008, p. 939C3; 2007, p. 576A2; for details of states’ laws on same-sex marriage, see p. 216A2] The law struck down by the Iowa court had defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Justice Mark Cady, writing for all seven of the court’s justices, said, “We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective.” He added, “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.” Gay couples and civil rights activists reacted to the court’s decision with elation. A court spokesman April 7 said gay couples could begin applying for marriage licenses in the state on April 27. The case, Varnum v. Brien, originated in 2005, when six same-sex couples challenged the constitutionality of the 1998 law. In August 2007, Judge Robert Hanson of a district court in Polk County had found the law unconstitutional. However, the day after his decision, Hanson had ordered a delay on the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but not before at least one gay couple was thought to have been legally married. Gay marriage opponents said they would attempt to amend the state constitution to explicitly forbid same-sex nuptials in Iowa, but that process was a lengthy one that could be completed by 2012 at the earliest. Constitutional amendments required approval by two consecutive legislative sessions, and then had to be endorsed by voters in a public referendum. However, Democrats controlled both houses of the legislature, and said they opposed any effort to amend the constitution. Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal and House Leader Pat Murphy April 3 issued a joint statement endorsing the court’s decision. “We’re going to say no to amending our constitution and putting discrimination into our constitution,” Gronstal said. Analysts and gay rights activists said they thought the ruling could have the effect of advancing acceptance of gay marriage in other Midwestern states, as Iowa was a largely rural and more socially conservative state than the others that had previously legalized it. Gay marriages remained unrecognized by the federal 216

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*California’s Supreme Court was currently considering a challenge to a ballot proposition passed in November 2008 that had amended the state constitution to bar gay marriage. [See p. 149C3] **Hawaii voters in 1998 had approved a constitutional amendment stipulating that only the legislature, and not the courts, had the power to legalize gay marriage. The state legislature subsequently passed a law banning gay marriage there. [See 1999, p. 934A2] †Iowa’s Supreme Court April 3 ruled that a law barring gay marriage violated the state’s constitution, effectively legalizing the practice there. [See p. 216A1] ‡New York recognized same-sex marriages performed in other states. [See 2008, p. 376A1] ºNo new civil unions would be performed in Vermont after a law permitting gay marriage there took effect on Sept. 1. [See p. 216F2]

government. However, President Barack Obama had stated that he wished to overturn the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Vermont Legislature Overrides Veto—

The Vermont House of Representatives April 7 voted, 100–49, to override Douglas’s April 6 veto of a bill legalizing samesex marriage in the state, narrowly garnering the two-thirds majority needed to do so. Vermont became the only state to recognize gay marriage through legislative means. The law was set to take effect Sept. 1. [See 2000, p. 280A3]

The outcome of the vote remained uncertain until the final tally was announced in the House chambers. Supporters of gay marriage who had gathered outside the building reacted to the news with elated cheers. The state Senate earlier that day had overwhelmingly voted to override the veto, 23–5. The state House April 2 had originally passed the measure, 95–52, falling short of the supermajority needed to override Douglas’s promised veto. However, several lawmakers switched their stance for the override vote. The state Senate March 23 had first passed the bill, 26–4. FACTS ON FILE

Vermont in 2000 had become the first state to grant same-sex couples civil unions with benefits equivalent to those of marriage. Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said no new civil unions would be performed after the new law took effect. New Hampshire House Approves Bill—

The New Hampshire House of Representatives March 26 passed a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state by a narrow margin, 186–179. The bill faced an uncertain future in the state Senate, and New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) had previously stated that he preferred the state’s civil union law to one allowing gay marriage. [See 2007, p. 295G1] Also, the Washington, D.C., city council April 7 unanimously voted to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. However, the vote was preliminary, and subject to review by Congress. [See 2008, p. 376A1] n

Defense Gates Cuts Weapons Systems in Budget.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 6 unveiled a fiscal 2010 budget proposal for the U.S. Defense Department that contained major cuts in numerous major weapons programs, while boosting other programs that he said were more useful against current threats to the U.S. and its military. The overall cost of the proposed budget was $534 billion, $20 billion more than the fiscal 2009 budget, and did not include the cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would be addressed in a supplemental spending bill. [See p. 124A3; 2008, p. 952E3] Gates said he wanted to change the “priorities of America’s defense establishment.” He said cuts had been made in hightech and expensive weapons whose utility was debatable, while spending on lowertech programs that had proved useful in irregular warfare and counterinsurgency operations was boosted. “I’m just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize some of the needs they have,” Gates said. Gates called on members of Congress whose districts included defense contractors that would be hurt by the cuts to “rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole.” He also said budget increases for some programs would create jobs, even as others would be lost due to the cuts. The proposal was a rare instance of a defense secretary announcing cuts in the budget before sending it to the White House. Gates reportedly had closely guarded the confidentiality of the budget recommendations, and had received permission from President Barack Obama to withhold them from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) until after the announcement, to ensure that details were not leaked. Several legislators and unions for weapons-manufacturing workers April 6–7 criticized the budget proposal, which they said would cost thousands of jobs and degrade April 9, 2009

the U.S.’s military readiness. However, defense contracting companies said they had to review the proposals further. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D, Mo.) called the budget a “a good-faith effort,” but added, “the buck stops with Congress.” A bipartisan group of six legislators also warned that planned cuts to missile defense would endanger the country’s security. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) March 30 had reported that nearly 70% of the Defense Department’s 96 largest weapons programs had accumulated “staggering” cost overruns of nearly $300 billion in 2008, although overruns had decreased slightly from the previous year. The GAO said research and development costs were 42% higher than initial estimates, up from 27% higher in 2000. It also said the average program delay had risen to 22 months, from 21 months in 2007 and 18 months in 2003. The GAO said that although the Defense Department had made some improvements in contract management, the overruns meant that it often had to reduce the number of weapons it ordered. F-22, Future Combat Systems Slashed—

Among the most prominent programs cut in Gates’s budget proposal was the F-22A Raptor fighter jet. Gates said the military would order only four more of the jets— which cost $150 million each—from Lockheed Martin Corp., bringing the total number to 187. However, he said testing of the less-expensive F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also built by Lockheed, would be accelerated, and that the F-35 fleet would expand to 513 over the next five years and eventually reach 2,443 aircraft. [See 2008, p. 702F3; 2007, p. 526A3] Gates also proposed shrinking the $159 billion Future Combat Systems (FCS)—a program featuring an array of high-technology innovations designed to modernize the Army—by dropping $87 billion in funds to develop vehicles to replace Bradley Fighting Vehicles and 72-ton tanks. The replacement vehicles would have had lighter armor, but would have relied on advanced surveillance technology to compensate for that. However, Gates indicated that the high toll of roadside bombs on U.S. vehicles in Iraq had made him lean towards spending the money on more Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles. Gates said the development of some FCS weapons and sensors would be accelerated, but that the entire system would be reviewed. [See 2007, p. 628B3] The budget proposal included a $2 billion increase for intelligence and surveillance equipment that had proved effective in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including new Predator and Reaper aerial drones. However, it would halt the development of a new fleet of VH-71 helicopters to transport the president, which had been criticized as unnecessary. The budget also proposed stopping production of C-17 Globemaster transport planes, and cutting programs to develop a new defense communications satellite system and the Air Force’s CSAR-X search-and-rescue helicopter. [See 2008, p. 395A3; 2005, p. 133E1]

Under the budget proposal, the Navy would purchase only three of the newly developed DDG-1000 Zumwalt stealth destroyers, and then revert to producing lessexpensive DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers, which were currently in service. However, the budget increased the number of littoral (coast-hugging) combat ships to be bought in 2010 to three, from two, and would see the Navy eventually buy 55. [See 2008, p. 658A2; 2004, p. 1044C3] Gates’s proposal shifted the military’s priorities on missile defense, cutting its overall funds by $1.4 billion. Funding for land- and ship-based defenses against short-range missiles launched by smaller powers was increased, while Gates proposed cutting more elaborate programs that were designed to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). [See 2008, p. 962E1] The budget proposal included $11 billion to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 troops and the Marines by 27,000. In addition, it called for adding 2,800 special forces troops. Gates also said he would attempt to bring down the percentage of private contractors working for the Defense Department to its pre-2001 level of 26%, from its current 39%. He said that would involve hiring up to 13,000 civil servants to replace contractors in 2010, and up to 30,000 over the next five years. Critics said the military’s increased reliance on private contractors had led to wasteful spending. [See p. 126F1] In a separate development, the Obama administration April 7 said it would replace the government’s aging spy satellite system, although it said the cost of such a program was classified. n

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Federal Budget House, Senate Approve Draft Blueprints.

The House and Senate April 2 each voted to approve their own versions of a budget blueprint for fiscal year 2010, which would begin Oct. 1. The blueprints, known as budget resolutions, had been shaped by the Democratic majorities in each chamber, and were largely based on President Barack Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget plan issued in February. The two chambers next would have to settle on a common version of the blueprint before voting for final approval. Budget resolutions were nonbinding, but set guidelines for tax and spending legislation to come later in the year. [See p. 180A3] The House voted, 233–196, with no Republicans voting for the resolution and 20 Democrats breaking ranks to vote against it. The Senate voted, 55–43, to approve its version, also with no Republican support. Both versions would reduce Obama’s spending proposals by about $100 billion. Obama had proposed an overall 10% increase in funding for domestic programs. The House called for a 9.5% increase, while the Senate proposed a 7% increase. Both plans would facilitate Obama’s major initiatives of expanding the federal role in health insurance coverage and student loans, and creating a cap-and-trade system 217

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in which businesses would have to buy permits for their greenhouse gas emissions. [See p. 201D2] Both congressional blueprints forecast a record deficit of $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2010, mainly due to measures already taken to counter the economic crisis, but projected that the deficit would be cut at least in half in five years. The House projected a $598 billion deficit in 2014, while the Senate forecast a $508 billion deficit for that year. Both the House and Senate dropped Obama’s plan to reserve an extra $250 billion for additional rescue aid for the financial sector. Congress in September 2008 had approved $700 billion in such aid, much of which had already been spent. Backing for further bank bailouts had dwindled as public opinion soured over reports of excesses in executive pay. [See p. 219F3] Both chambers also dropped Obama’s proposal to extend his payroll tax cut of $400 a year for low- and middle-income individuals, and $800 for couples, beyond 2010, when it was scheduled to expire. Nor did either blueprint include Obama’s proposal to restrict farm subsidies. The Senate voted, 51–48, to approve an amendment to its blueprint that would increase the exemption from the estate tax to $10 million for couples, from $7 million, and reduce the maximum rate for the estate tax to 35%, from 45%. A group of 10 Democrats broke ranks to vote for the amendment, joining Republicans despite the strong disapproval of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.), who said it would benefit only the richest families. Republican Alternative Rejected— The House April 2 voted, 293–137, to reject an alternative budget plan proposed by the Republican leadership; 38 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the plan. House Republican leaders March 26 had initially offered an 18-page outline of their plan, but released a more detailed version April 1 after Democrats ridiculed the lack of specifics in the first offering. The Republican plan called for freezing most domestic spending for five years, extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for higher-income people and businesses, and borrowing $3.3 trillion less over the next 10 years than Obama proposed. In the Senate, Democrats handily defeated an alternative plan, offered by Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), that called for a freeze on most spending, except for the defense budget. Senate Republican leaders declined to offer a plan of their own. n

National Politics Judge Orders Probe of Stevens Prosecutors.

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Judge Emmet Sullivan of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., April 7 overturned the October 2008 conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R, Alaska) on corruption charges, dismissed the case against him and ordered a criminal investigation into alleged misconduct by the federal prosecutors who tried the case. Sullivan named 218

attorney Henry Schuelke 3rd, a former federal prosecutor, to lead the probe as a special independent prosecutor. [See p. 199D1] The Justice Department the previous week had filed a motion asking Sullivan to dismiss the case against Stevens, after an internal review found that prosecutors had concealed key evidence from the court and from Stevens’s lawyers before the trial. Sullivan, addressing the court, said, “In 25 years on the bench I have never seen anything approach the mishandling and misconduct I have seen in this case.” He said the prosecutors’ behavior in the case fit a “troubling tendency” he had observed in recent cases in which prosecutors had bent the rules to obtain convictions. Sullivan ordered that six prosecutors be investigated for possible criminal contempt of court. They included William Welch, head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which handled political corruption cases, and his deputy, Brenda Morris, the lead prosecutor in the Stevens case. Sullivan also called on Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to require basic training in trial procedure for prosecutors. Stevens, 85, briefly addressed the court, as family and friends looked on. He said he had always believed in the justice system, “But what some members of the prosecution team did nearly destroyed my faith.” He added, “Their conduct had consequences for me that they will never realize and can never be reversed.” Stevens had narrowly lost the Senate seat he had held since 1968 in an election eight days after his conviction for failing to report some $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts on Senate financial disclosure forms. The Justice Department review had found that prosecutors failed to turn over notes from an April 2008 interview with their key witness, Bill Allen, a Stevens friend who was head of VECO Corp., a now-defunct Alaska oil-services company. In the interview, Allen had contradicted the testimony he later gave at trial. Holder April 8 replaced the chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which probed allegations of ethics violations by department lawyers and was conducting the internal review of the Stevens case. Sullivan had criticized the office’s handling of the probe. Holder named Mary Patrice Brown to head the office, replacing Marshall Jarrett, who was reassigned to head the executive office for U.S. attorneys. The dismissal of the Stevens case also raised questions about the evidence against other Alaska politicians caught up in the same federal corruption investigation, including the state’s lone member of the House, Rep. Don Young (R), and Stevens’s son, Ben Stevens, former president of the state Senate. Neither had yet been charged, but 10 others, including Allen, had been convicted on corruption charges. Siegelman Seeks Review—Lawyers for former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D) April 3 sent Holder a letter asking for a similar review of his 2006 bribery conviction, alleging prosecutorial misconduct by a par-

tisan Justice Department under the Republican administration of Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga., March 6 had upheld most of the charges against him, but dismissed two lesser ones, and ordered a new sentence. He had served nine months in prison until his release was ordered in March 2008 pending an appeal. [See 2008, p. 217D1] n

State & Local Politics Former Illinois Gov. Blagojevich Indicted.

A federal grand jury April 2 indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on 16 felony counts related to corruption in office, including racketeering, extortion and fraud. The grand jury also indicted his brother, Robert Blagojevich, two former chiefs of staff and two business associates. If convicted on all counts, Blagojevich, 53, would face a maximum sentence of more than 200 years in prison. He also faced fines of up to $250,000, including the forfeiture of his family home. [See p. 43A3] The state legislature had impeached Blagojevich and removed him from office in January after he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) the previous month and accused of corrupt scheming. The most sensational of his alleged schemes was an attempt by the governor to sell President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat in exchange for campaign contributions, a cabinet post or ambassadorship, or other lucrative jobs for himself or his wife. [See p. 93F1] Describing Blagojevich’s activities as a racketeering enterprise, the indictment alleged that the “primary purpose of the Blagojevich Enterprise was to exercise and preserve power over the government of the State of Illinois for the financial and political benefit of Rod Blagojevich” and “for the financial benefit of his family members and associates.” The indictment restated allegations previously made by prosecutors in December, but also included some new ones. It alleged that Blagojevich and his associates agreed, even before he was first elected governor in 2002, to use his powers for personal gain and divide their spoils after he left office. The other accused co-conspirators were: Blagojevich’s former campaign manager and chief of staff Alonzo (Lon) Monk; Monk’s successor as chief of staff, John Harris; Blagojevich friend and fund-raiser Christopher Kelly; and local Republican power broker William Cellini. [See p. 28F3] Prosecutors said Harris had agreed to cooperate with them. Monk reportedly had also negotiated a deal with prosecutors. Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a former fundraiser and adviser to Blagojevich, was also believed to be cooperating. Rezko had directed commissions requiring little or no work to the real estate firm of the governor’s wife, Patricia Blagojevich, and then hired her to work for his own firm at a salary of $12,000 a month. Rezko also allegedly made as much as $90,000 in payments to Monk. [See 2008, p. 375A2] FACTS ON FILE

Blagojevich, on vacation in Florida with his family, April 2 issued a statement saying, “I’m saddened and hurt, but I am not surprised by the indictment.” He declared, “I am innocent. I now will fight in the courts to clear my name.” New Allegations—According to the indictment, Blagojevich in 2006 had pressured a U.S. House member from Illinois, identified only as “Congressman A,” to arrange a fund-raising event for him, delaying a $2 million grant sought by the congressman for two Chicago schools. The fund-raiser did not take place. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic House member representing a Chicago district until his resignation in December 2008, was reportedly “Congressman A.” Another new allegation made in the indictment was that Blagojevich and his coconspirators had schemed to steer work on a deal to refinance state pension bonds to a company whose lobbyist had agreed to pay kickbacks to Rezko. The company reportedly was investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., which was bought by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in 2008. [See 2008, p. 376E3] Blagojevich also allegedly had lied to FBI agents in a 2005 interview in which he claimed that he had erected a “firewall” between politics and his official duties, and said he did not keep track of who his campaign contributors were or how much they gave. His telephone conversations secretly recorded by the FBI appeared to contradict those claims. Ethics Office Probes Rep. Jackson—

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D, Ill.) April 8 confirmed that the Office of Congressional Ethics had opened an investigation into his efforts to win an appointment by Blagojevich to Obama’s former Senate seat in late 2008. The Blagojevich indictment alleged that the governor had been caught on wiretaps saying that supporters of “Senate Candidate A,” identified as Jackson, had offered to raise $1.5 million in campaign contributions for him in exchange for the appointment. Jackson denied wrongdoing. The ethics office, a panel of private citizens equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, had been created in 2008 to monitor House members. It could refer cases to the House Ethics Committee for further investigation. Illinois Pension Reforms Enacted—Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D), Blagojevich’s successor, April 3 signed legislation to reform the state’s investment and pension boards and agencies, which controlled retirement funds for teachers and other public employees. The new law would allow the governor to oust board members who had been appointed by Blagojevich. It also required that the boards publicly disclose more of their activities, set new rules for their hiring of outside advisers and made ethics training compulsory for board members. Quinn was pressing state legislators to pass further ethics reforms, including limits on campaign contributions and gubernatorial patronage powers. n April 9, 2009

2009 Elections Democrat Quigley Wins Chicago House Seat.

Democrat Mike Quigley, a Cook County commissioner, April 7 won a special election for a House seat representing Illinois’s 5th Congressional District. Quigley, 50, won 69% of the vote, beating Republican Rosanna Pulido, who took 24%, and Matt Reichel of the Green Party, who drew 7%. The seat had been vacated by the December 2008 resignation of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D) after he was named White House chief of staff by President-elect Barack Obama. [See p. 131C1] n

Economy Unemployment Rate Rises to 8.5% in March.

The unemployment rate in March rose to 8.5% after seasonal adjustment, up from its February level of Unemployment 8.1%, the Labor 2009 8.5% Department re- March Previous Month 8.1% ported April 3. It Year Earlier 5.1% was the U.S.’s highest unemployment rate since 1983, and economists expected an ongoing recession to lead to more job losses in the coming months. [See p. 147F1] An estimated 663,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in March, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 5.1 million since the recession began in December 2007. About two million jobs had been lost in 2009 alone. All major sectors of the economy slashed jobs, with the exception of the health care industry. The report fueled concerns that a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February was not enough to stem further job losses. However, administration officials said there were no plans to enact a second stimulus package, with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis saying any consideration of additional stimulus would be considered only after the first package was given time to take full effect. The unemployment report came on the heels of some encouraging developments in the economy in recent weeks, including reports showing monthly increases in home sales and retail sales. Lawrence Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, April 3 said those reports were “sprouts of green” in the economic landscape. However, he warned that the economy would lose jobs “at a substantial rate for some months to come.” [See pp. 219E3, 183A1–D1] The unemployment rate was 15.6% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 140.9 Million Jobs Held in March—According to a household survey, 140.9 million people held jobs in March, the Labor Department reported April 3. The department counted 13.2 million people as unemployed. The department counted 685,000

workers as discouraged in March. About 9.0 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.3 hours in March, down slightly from 39.5 in February. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.7 hours, remaining unchanged from the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose three cents, to $18.50. The unemployment rate among whites in March was 7.9%, up from 7.3% in February. The jobless rate for blacks was 13.3%, down from 13.4% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 11.4%, up from 10.9% in February. For men age 20 and over, March unemployment was 8.8%, up from 8.1% in February. For adult women, it was 7.0%, up from 6.7% the previous month. The teenage rate was 21.7%, up from 21.6% in February. For black teenagers it was 32.5%, down from 38.8% the previous month. n

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Producer Prices Rose 0.1% in February.

The Labor Department March 17 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in February rose 0.1% after seasonal adjustment. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, rose 0.2% in February. Energy prices rose 1.3%. [See p. 111G2] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 170.1% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $170.10 in February. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods dropped 0.9% in February, and prices for crude goods fell 4.5%. n Consumer Confidence Rose in March. The Conference Board business research group March 31 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 26.0 in March, up slightly from a revised 25.3 in February. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 129B1] n Retail Sales Fell 0.1% in February. The Commerce Department March 12 reported that the value of retail sales in February was $346.8 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 0.1% below the revised figure for January. [See p. 15E3] n

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F Mortgage & Credit Crisis $50 Million in AIG Bonuses to be Repaid.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo March 23 announced that employees at a unit of insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) had pledged to return $50 million worth of bonus money, following a public furor over the payments. President Barack Obama and lawmakers had blasted AIG for disbursing $165 million in bonus payments earlier in March, after the faltering company received more than $170 billion in government assistance to stay afloat. [See p. 161A1] Cuomo said 15 of the top 20 executives at the unit, AIG Financial Products Corp., 219

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had agreed to return their bonus money. Cuomo in recent weeks had threatened to reveal the names of bonus recipients who did not return the money. Cuomo said more than half of the $165 million went to employees based outside the U.S., and it was unlikely that his office had jurisdiction to seek repayment of those bonuses. Companies that had received government money during the financial crisis had come under criticism for paying executives lavish bonuses. However, the AIG bonus payments were considered particularly egregious, since AIG had received far more federal assistance than any other company. Additionally, it was widely thought that the unit in question—which was separate from AIG’s core insurance businesses—had caused AIG’s collapse by investing heavily in the unregulated credit-defaults-swap (CDS) market, where it underwrote insurance on assets backed by risky mortgages. AIG March 23 said some executives from the unit has resigned in recent days, but that “this situation is manageable.” AIG had previously warned that the bonuses were necessary to keep experienced employees capable of resolving its remaining CDS contracts, which had an estimated face value of $1.6 trillion. Bonus Tax Bill Slowed—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) March 23 said the Senate would not immediately vote on legislation that would levy a 90% tax on bonuses received by employees making more than $250,000 a year at companies that received more than $5 billion in government aid. The House had passed the bill the previous week with strong support from both Republicans and Democrats. Reid was supported by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.), who said, “We ought to think about the ramifications of what we’re doing.” Observers said Reid’s decision was largely swayed by comments made by Obama March 22 on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that suggested he was reluctant to sign the bill. Obama said AIG employees should not be rewarded for their bad business decisions, but added, “As a general proposition, you don’t want to be passing laws that are just targeting a handful of individuals.” He also said it was inappropriate to use the tax code “to punish people,” and that the bill could be unconstitutional. Obama also said the bill could “hamper us from getting the banking system back on track.” It was widely reported that the legislation, and the public scrutiny engendered by the bonus brouhaha, was creating reluctance among banks to participate in government programs designed to stabilize the financial industry and resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets. The House April 1 voted, 247–171, to pass a bill that would repeal a provision in recent legislation that said bonus contracts signed before Feb. 11 were exempt from new government limits on executive salary, which included AIG’s bonus contracts. The provision was part of a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law by Obama in February. The new bill would ban the payment of “unreasonable or excessive” 220

bonuses at companies that received government aid, and required that bonuses be “directly based on performance-based measures.” The Treasury Department would be charged with determining whether bonuses were in line with those criteria. Reid said the Senate would decide whether to vote on the bill “over the next few weeks.” Only 10 Republicans joined 237 Democrats in voting to pass the bill. Merrill Bonus Recipients Disclosed—

New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried March 18 ordered Bank of America Corp. to disclose the identities of 200 employees at Merrill Lynch & Co. who had received some $3.6 billion in bonuses in December 2008. Bank of America had purchased Merrill Lynch in January. Cuomo had subpoenaed Bank of America for that information, but the company had resisted, seeking a confidentiality agreement that would prevent Cuomo from releasing the employees’ names to the public. The request was denied by Fried. [See p. 32A1, F1] Cuomo was currently conducting an investigation into possible improper conduct during the merger of the two banks. Merrill Lynch had attracted suspicion when it paid its year-end bonuses a month earlier than it traditionally did, and just before it posted a $15 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. The massive loss compelled Bank of America to turn to the government for $20 billion in aid to complete the merger, bringing the total amount of federal aid it had received to $45 billion. Cuomo was also investigating when Bank of America became aware of Merrill Lynch’s financial woes, and if it had hidden that information from its shareholders. Cuomo March 4 had subpoenaed seven Merrill Lynch executives who had each received more than $10 million in bonuses in 2008. Cuomo Feb. 11 had disclosed that nearly 700 Merrill Lynch executives had received at least $1 million each in bonus money. Cuomo had also taken depositions from Bank of America Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain. Cuomo in his investigation was cooperating with Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion fund designed to aid the financial industry. Congress had also launched investigations into the merger. Fannie, Freddie Bonuses Criticized—

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)—the regulator for the governmentcontrolled mortgage-financing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae—April 3 disclosed that the two companies were slated to pay $210 million in bonuses to about 7,600 employees, drawing criticism from lawmakers. The government had placed the two companies into a conservatorship in 2008, after they suffered huge losses in the slumping housing market. [See pp. 163A3, 127A3, D3] Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, that day said, “It’s hard to see

any common sense in management decisions that award hundreds of millions in bonuses when their organizations lost more than $100 billion in a year.” FHFA Director James Lockhart defended the bonuses, saying they would help retain experienced employees who were urgently needed now that the government was relying extensively on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to revive the housing market. The two companies owned or guaranteed more than half of the outstanding mortgages in the U.S., and were involved in programs to modify loan terms and bring down interest rates. The government had pledged $400 billion to protect the two companies against future losses. Freddie Mac March 11 had announced that it would record a $23.9 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, and that it would seek a $30.8 billion capital infusion from the Treasury. In all, Freddie Mac had lost $50.1 billion in 2008. Obama Meets With Bank Executives—

Obama March 27 met with executives from 13 of the country’s largest banks at the White House, where he reportedly warned them that excessive perks and bonuses could increase public disapproval of the government’s plans to bolster the weakened financial industry. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that day said the meeting’s participants understood that “everybody needs to pitch in” to pull the U.S. economy out of its deep recession. n

Banking Accounting Rules for Toxic Assets Eased.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the body that set U.S. accounting rules, April 2 voted, 3–2, to ease so-called mark-to-market requirements, in order to give banks and other financial institutions greater discretion in determining the value of their troubled assets. The revised requirements were praised by Wall Street companies, but were criticized by investor groups that said they would enable financial institutions to mask losses. [See p. 177A1; 2008, p. 954A1] Mark-to-market accounting requirements forced financial institutions to mark the value of their assets according to current market prices. The requirements had recently become controversial, after a collapse in the housing market led to a severe drop in the market value of assets backed by mortgages, compelling financial institutions to record heavy losses on their balance sheets. Financial institutions argued that those assets were more valuable than what was reflected in the market. Under mark-to-market rules, assets designated as “other than temporarily impaired” led to an automatic write-down on the banks’ books. To escape that designation under the old requirements, banks had to prove they had the intent and ability to retain the asset until its market value rose. Under the new, looser requirements, banks only had to show they had the intent to retain the asset and would more likely do so than not. Additionally, losses from a drop in FACTS ON FILE

an asset’s market value would not need to be recorded on income statements, although they would have to be disclosed elsewhere. Thomas Linsmeier, one of the dissenters in the FASB vote, said the revised rules would make banks seem “better capitalized” than they were. The FASB, technically an independent body, was also criticized for succumbing to pressure from business interests and members of Congress. However, some major banks, like Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., said the new rules would not significantly affect their quarterly statements. The new rules could be applied to earnings reports for the first quarter of 2008 and beyond. n

Obama Administration HHS Nominee Admits Tax Mistakes.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D), President Barack Obama’s second nominee as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, March 31 sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee informing its members that she had corrected three years of tax returns after discovering “unintended errors” in the documents. Sebelius said she and her husband had paid $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after finding the mistakes. The errors had occurred on her 2005–07 tax returns, and Sebelius said they were related to business expenses, the sale of a home and charitable contributions. [See p. 129C1] Sebelius became Obama’s fifth cabinet nominee to face tax troubles; his first pick for the HHS post, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D, S.D.) in early February had withdrawn from the nomination process after it was discovered that he had failed to pay $128,000 in federal income tax. Daschle had also faced criticism over ties to the health care industry that he had developed after leaving the Senate in 2005. Earlier March 31, Sebelius had testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Sebelius at the hearing affirmed her support for Obama’s plan to establish a government-managed health insurance program that would compete with private insurers. Sebelius April 2 appeared before the Senate Finance Committee for her second and final hearing before her confirmation was sent to the full Senate for a vote. She was considered likely to be confirmed, despite the tax errors and criticism from social conservatives of her support for abortion rights. However, Republicans asked that the committee defer advancing the confirmation to a full Senate vote so that they would have time to review Sebelius’s written answers to a lengthy questionnaire. That request pushed the earliest date for a confirmation vote back to late April, as Congress April 3 adjourned for a two-week recess. n

Legislation House Passes FDA Tobacco Regulation Bill.

The House April 2 voted, 298–112, to pass a measure that would give the Food and April 9, 2009

Drug Administration (FDA) wide-ranging new power to regulate tobacco products, which were thought to contribute to an estimated 400,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. [See 2008, p. 535A2] Under the legislation, the FDA would establish a new office to regulate tobacco that would be funded by fees assessed on tobacco companies. The agency would be able to limit the amount of harmful chemicals, such as nicotine, in tobacco products, and would be granted greater regulatory power over tobacco advertising and marketing practices. It would also require tobacco companies to place more prominent warnings on their products, and to include a list of ingredients on packaging. The bill was known as The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) April 1 had released a statement indicating that President Barack Obama strongly endorsed the House bill. The bill had also received the support of some 1,000 advocacy groups who said it would result in enormous health benefits. However, the measure was expected to face greater resistance in the Senate. Opponents of the measure questioned the ability of the FDA to adequately regulate tobacco products in the face of several recent highprofile medicine and food regulatory failures. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr (R), who represented the U.S.’s leading tobacco-producing state, had threatened to filibuster the legislation. The FDA in 1996 had attempted to regulate tobacco, but the Supreme Court in 2000 had ruled that the agency required congressional authorization to do so. The House in July 2008 had passed a similar bill that was never taken up in the Senate. [See 2000, p. 188A2; 1996, p. 625F3] n

Medicine and Health News in Brief. Medtronic Inc., the world’s

largest medical device maker, March 13 said 13 people might have died from a faulty heart device that it manufactured. Medtronic in October 2007 had recalled its Sprint Fidelis internal defibrillator, after admitting that the device was prone to cracking in its wires that could cause death. Such internal devices were designed to deliver a life-saving shock to hearts that were beating irregularly. [See 2007, p. 768B2] The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Feb. 25 said a laboratory owned by Indian generic drug company Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. had falsified test results for drugs sold in the U.S. An FDA official said most of the falsified tests related to the stability of drugs over an extended period of time. The agency said it had halted consideration of all pending applications from the company. Investigators said that the problems concerned a Ranbaxy plant in Paonta Sahib, India. The FDA in September 2008 had banned imports of some 30 Ranbaxy-made generic drugs because of manufacturing problems. [See 2008, p. 831A3] n

AFRICA

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Kenya Justice Minister Resigns. Justice and Con-

stitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua, a former ally of President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU), April 6 resigned from Kenya’s coalition government. The government had been formed after a disputed December 2007 presidential election in which Kibaki defeated Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga; allegations of vote-rigging by the PMU led to months of ethnic violence. Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in February 2008 brokered an agreement that led to the formation of a PNU/ODM coalition government, with Odinga as prime minister. [See p. 202A3] Karua had been Kibaki’s chief negotiator in the talks mediated by Annan. However, in recent months she had been increasingly critical of Kibaki’s lack of progress on political reform, and quit after his appointment of judges without her knowledge, saying, “My position as a minister is untenable following recent events.” Karua, the chairwoman of the National Rainbow Coalition–Kenya (NARC-Kenya) party, a junior partner to the PNU, had previously stated that she planned to run for president in the next election, in 2012, and analysts saw that as another source of tension with Kibaki. Karua after her resignation said she would “continue to participate in nationbuilding as a member of parliament and a leader. I will now be able to totally disagree with anything that is anti-reform.” NARC-Kenya’s secretary general, Danson Mungatana, April 7 resigned from his junior cabinet post of assistant minister of medical services in solidarity with Karua. The resignations came just a week after Annan had voiced criticism about Kenya’s lack of progress in implementing key elements of the deal ending the violence, such as setting up a special tribunal to investigate the postelection clashes and taking steps to combat corruption. Other key issues that had yet to be addressed included land and judicial reform, and the resettlement of the thousands of Kenyans who had been displaced by the violence. Talks Collapse—The PNU and ODM April 4–5 scheduled a retreat at a safari park to try to iron out their differences. However, both Kibaki and Odinga walked out of the meeting April 4, after the two sides reportedly failed to agree on an agenda. The Financial Times April 5 reported that Odinga’s side wanted to discuss a list of specific issues, including a recent spate of extrajudicial killings by the police, while Kibaki and his allies had a more general list. Odinga said after returning to Nairobi, the capital, “We want to be honest with Kenyans and report to them that unfortunately we were unable to agree on anything during this retreat…and therefore the meeting collapsed.” [See p. 203B1] Observers said the Kenyan population was becoming increasingly frustrated by the government’s inability to act and by 221

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allegations that officials were prioritizing their own interests over those of the people. n

South Africa Charges Dropped Against ANC Leader Zuma.

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Mokotedi Mpshe, the acting director of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), April 6 said at a news conference that corruption charges against Jacob Zuma, president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, had been dropped due to misconduct by the prosecution and the lead investigator. The action ended years of wrangling and political infighting over the charges, and cleared the way for Zuma, a former deputy president of South Africa, to likely become the country’s next president, after general elections scheduled for April 22, without the prospect of a trial hanging over his head. However, the case had caused deep rifts within the ANC, the movement that fought to end apartheid in 1994 and became South Africa’s dominant party, and within the nation as a whole. [See pp. 152A1, 21F3] Zuma, 66, had faced 16 charges: 12 of fraud, two of corruption, and one each of money-laundering and racketeering. The charges, which were related to a multibillion-dollar 1999 arms deal between the South African government and a French weapons company, dated back to 2005. In early June of that year, Schabir Shaik, the former financial adviser of then–South African Deputy President Zuma, was convicted of soliciting and accepting bribes on Zuma’s behalf. (Shaik March 3 was released from prison on medical grounds, after serving just 28 months of a 15-year sentence.) About two weeks after Shaik’s conviction, then-President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma, and the NPA six days later filed corruption charges against him. Those charges were thrown out on a technicality in September 2006, but the NPA refiled them in December 2007, days after Zuma defeated Mbeki in an election for the ANC presidency at a party conference in the city of Polokwane. In September 2008, High Court Judge Chris Nicholson again dismissed the charges against Zuma on a technicality, and alleged that Mbeki and his allies had been behind the NPA’s decision to pursue the case. Later in September, Mbeki stepped down as South Africa’s president after he was “recalled” by the ANC leadership, which was controlled by Zuma’s supporters. ANC veteran Kgalema Motlanthe took over as caretaker president until the April 22 elections. (The ouster of Mbeki had led to the formation of a new political party, Congress of the People [COPE], by disaffected ANC members.) Then, in January, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeals overturned Nicholson’s decision on procedural grounds, and the charges were reinstated. Zuma had remained the ANC’s presidential candidate, and had been widely expected to become president even before the charges were dropped. Under South Africa’s constitution, the party that won the 222

most seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, selected the nation’s next president. The ANC was still considered the dominant party, despite the recent split. ‘Abuse’ by Investigator, Prosecution Cited—

Mpshe April 6 said the charges were being dropped due to evidence of inappropriate communication about the timing of refiling the charges between former NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy, the former head of the Directorate of Special Operations (an elite unit of the NPA also known as the Scorpions that had been disbanded in 2008). The Scorpions had led the investigation of Zuma’s case. Mpshe said, “An intolerable abuse has occurred which impels a discontinuation of the prosecution.” He played for the news media excerpts of audio recordings—turned over to the NPA by Zuma’s lawyers—from November and December 2007 on which Ngcuka and McCarthy were heard discussing when to refile the charges against Zuma. The conversations took place before the ANC conference in Polokwane at which Zuma defeated Mbeki for the ANC presidency. The NPA refiled the charges 10 days after Zuma won that election. [See 2008, pp. 973G1, 879D2] Mpshe asserted that McCarthy, who was “in charge of the matter at all times and managed it almost on a daily basis, manipulated the legal process for purposes outside and extraneous to the prosecution itself. It’s not so much the prosecution itself but the legal process that is tainted.” He added, “Any timing of the charging of an accused person, which is not aimed at serving a legitimate purpose, is improper, irregular and an abuse of process.” The decision “does not amount to an acquittal,” Mpshe noted. However, he said the NPA would make no further attempt to prosecute Zuma on the charges. Zuma and his supporters portrayed the decision as a vindication of their longstanding argument that the charges were politically motivated and that they had been orchestrated by Zuma’s opponents— led by Mbeki—to keep him from becoming South Africa’s next president. However, Mpshe April 6 said, “We could not find any trace that the [former] president was involved.” Mbeki April 9 denied interfering in the case. Zuma’s opponents and some political and legal analysts argued that the NPA’s decision had been made under pressure from the ANC, and noted that the actual criminal charges against Zuma had never been examined in a court of law. Reaction—Zuma’s supporters April 6 celebrated the decision to drop the charges. ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said, “This decision is a victory for the rule of law, decency and common sense.” Mantashe added, “Comrade President has endured many years of relentless persecution from individuals with ulterior motives.” Zuma April 7 said the NPA’s action and Mpshe’s statements validated claims that the case against him was politically motivated. “There never was a case against

me...I have been vindicated,” he said, adding, “My conscience is clear.” However, opposition parties were highly critical of the decision. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party April 7 said in a statement that it had filed an application for a judicial review of the NPA’s decision. “Two weeks before the election, [the NPA] has caved in to political pressure from the Jacob Zuma faction of the ANC, and discontinued a prosecution selectively,” the party said. COPE presidential candidate Mvume Dandala April 6 proclaimed that “confidence in the justice system has been eroded.” Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) veteran leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said Zuma should have been given the chance to clear his name in court. “I feel the charges will now be a shadow over him as our [next] head of state,” he said. South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu April 2 had compared Zuma unfavorably to new U.S. President Barack Obama, that country’s first black president. “In the year of Obama, can you imagine what it is like when you are walking in New York and they ask you who will be the next president [of South Africa]?” Tutu said. His statements drew a ren buke from the ANC. [See p. 25A1]

AMERICAS

Peru Ex-President Fujimori Convicted in Killings.

A three-judge panel of Peru’s Supreme Court, the nation’s highest court, April 7 convicted former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori of “crimes against humanity,” murder, aggravated kidnapping and battery, and sentenced him to a 25-year prison term. Fujimori, 70, was accused by prosecutors of backing two massacres, carried out by military death squads, in which 25 people were killed. The ruling, which followed a 15-month trial, was thought to be the first time that a former head of state had been extradited to his home country and convicted of human rights violations. [See 2007, p. 828A2] During Fujimori’s 1990–2000 tenure as president, the country had been embroiled in a conflict with two guerrilla movements, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) group, and the smaller Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. An estimated 70,000 people had been killed during the conflict. Fujimori had backed aggressive military action against the rebel groups, and had been accused by prosecutors of supporting the operations of a secretive paramilitary death squad known as the Colina Group. In 2000, Fujimori had resigned as president and fled to Japan, amid growing allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. He secretly traveled to Chile in 2005, but was discovered there and arrested. He was extradited to Peru in September 2007 in order to face trial on various charges. One of the massacres Fujimori was found resposible for had occurred in 1991 at a barbecue in the Barrios Altos area of FACTS ON FILE

Lima, Peru’s capital. An eight-year-old boy was among the victims. In the second massacre, a university professor and nine students had been kidnapped in 1992. Their charred bodies were discovered one year later outside Lima. The Supreme Court also found Fujimori guilty of authorizing the 1992 kidnappings of businessman Samuel Dyer and prominent journalist Gustavo Gorriti; both men were later released unharmed. Fujimori after the ruling continued to reject the allegations against him, and pledged to appeal the court’s decision. Peruvian legal experts said the Supreme Court could take up to six months to rule on the appeal. In a separate 2007 trial, Fujimori had been convicted of ordering an illegal search, and was sentenced to six years in prison. He also faced separate corruption charges for which he had yet to face trial. Fujimori remained a polarizing figure in Peru, with some people continuing to support him because of his success against the guerrilla movements and in instituting free-market reforms. However, his critics said he had created an intelligence apparatus that he lost control of, resulting in widespread corruption and human rights abuses. His daughter, Keiko Fujimori, was a federal legislator and presidential candidate in the election scheduled for 2011. She had pledged to pardon her father if elected president. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Malaysia New Prime Minister Sworn In. Malaysian

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Najib Razak April 3 was sworn in as Malaysia’s sixth prime minister at the royal palace in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, by Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia’s king. Najib replaced Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had held the position since October 2003. Abdullah had announced in October 2008 that he would step down and had named Najib as his chosen successor after leading the ruling National Front coalition to a weak showing in March 2008 legislative elections. [See 2008, pp. 754F1, 169A1] Malaysia had been beset by political tensions following the 2008 elections and had recently suffered from a weakening economy amid the global financial crisis. Malaysia’s Department of Statistics Feb. 27 had reported that the country’s year-onyear gross domestic product (GDP) growth had been only 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008, a drop from 4.7% in the third quarter. Malaysia’s government March 10 had announced a 60 billion Malaysian ringgit ($16.3 billion) economic stimulus plan intended to bolster the economy. Detainee Release Announced— Najib April 3 announced in his first address as prime minister that the government would release 13 people who had been detained under the country’s Internal Security Act, which allowed for indefinite detention of suspects alleged to be a threat to national security. He also promised a full review of April 9, 2009

the government’s use of the act, which critics said had been used to silence dissent. [See 2008, p. 980D3] The detainees were released April 5. They included seven members of an Islamic religious group, three foreigners, one alleged member of the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group and two Malaysian Indian activists who had been jailed in December 2007 after organizing a demonstration protesting the government’s treatment of ethnic minorities. At least 30 other people were thought to be held by the government under the Internal Security Act. [See 2007, p. 828G3] In his speech, Najib also announced the end of a press ban that had been imposed March 23 against the opposition Suara Keadilan and Harakah newspapers. No reason was given for the ban, which had been scheduled to last for three months. Najib April 9 announced his new cabinet, which was trimmed to 28 members, from 32 under Abdullah. Najib said he would stay on as finance minister while serving as prime minister. Mahathir Rejoins Ruling Party— Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad April 4 rejoined the United Malays National Organization (UNMO) party, part of the National Front, after his application to do so was approved by Najib. Mahathir had left the party in 2008 after clashing repeatedly with Abdullah, his chosen successor, and had vowed not to rejoin the party until Abdullah resigned. Analysts suggested that his return to the party was intended to bolster the National Front in preparation for upcoming by-elections. [See 2008, p. 417A1] Opposition Wins Two of Three Races—

Malaysia’s opposition coalition April 7 won a parliamentary by-election in Perak State and a state-level by-election in Kedah State, while, the same day, the National Front won a state-level by-election in Sarawak State. The results were seen by analysts as a rebuke to Najib and the National Front, but did not significantly affect the political composition of the national parliament or either of the state legislatures. [See 2008, p. 595B1] The Perak seat was won by Mohammed Nizar Jamaluddin. Nizar had been ousted as the head of the Perak legislature in February after UNMO convinced members of the opposition to defect, forcing the ouster of the opposition-led government there. The opposition did not recognize the new government, which it argued had been illegally installed, and had called for new elections to be held. Perak opposition member Karpal Singh March 17 was charged with sedition by Malaysia’s government for threatening to sue Perak State Sultan Azlan Shah over his decision to back the National Front–led state government. Karpal’s son, Gobind Singh Deo, March 16 had been suspended from his seat in Malaysia’s parliament for one year after calling Najib a murderer. The insult referred to a long-running Malaysian murder case in which two Malaysian police officers with links to Najib

FACTS ON NAJIB

Najib Razak was born on July 23, 1953, in Kuala Lipis in Malaysia’s Pahang State. His father, Abdul Razak bin Hussein, was the second prime minister of Malaysia. Najib attended Britain’s Nottingham University and graduated in 1974 with a degree in industrial economics. He was elected to fill his father’s seat in Malaysia’s parliament in 1976, following Abdul’s death. [See p. 223D1; 2008, p. 416E3] In 1982, Najib was elected as chief minister of Pahang State after being asked by then–Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to run for the post. He improved relations with Pahang’s reigning sultan, averting a potential political crisis. Najib in 1987 was named head of the ruling National Front coalition’s United Malays National Organization (UNMO) party’s youth division, a position he held until 1993. Najib was named minister of defense by Mahathir in 1991 and then minister of education in 1995. He was named deputy prime minister in 2004 by then–Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Abdullah in October 2008 said he would not seek another term as leader of the UNMO, effectively handing the prime ministership to Najib, who was sworn in as prime minister on April 3. [See p. 223G3; 2008, pp. 754A2, 510D1] Najib was married to Rosmah Mansor and had three children.

were accused of killing a Mongolian woman who had been romantically involved with one of Najib’s aides. [See below] Verdict in Murder Linked to Najib Aide—

Malaysian High Court Judge Mohamad Zaki Yasin April 9 convicted two police officers of murder in connection with the 2006 killing of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a Mongolian woman who had had an affair with Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib’s former aides. The two police officers, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar, were former members of an elite police squad assigned to protect the prime minister and deputy prime minister. Zaki sentenced both men to execution by hanging. [See 2008, pp. 909E3, 510D1] Baginda had been acquitted in October 2008 of ordering Shaariibuu’s murder and had subsequently moved to Britain. He had previously admitted having an affair with Shaariibuu. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and others had attempted to tie Najib to the scandal; however, Najib had denied ever meeting Shaariibuu and said that he was not involved in her death. [See 2008, p. 925A2] During the trial, Azilah had said while he had been involved in detaining Shaariibuu, he had left her in Sirul’s custody and had not seen her again before she died. Sirul had maintained that he was innocent of the charges and claimed that he was being used as a scapegoat. France’s Liberation newspaper reported March 5 that Shaariibuu’s murder was related to a dispute over a payment made to Malaysian government officials by a French defense contractor, and cited an unidentified source claiming that Najib had had an intermittent sexual relationship with Shaariibuu. According to Liberation, Shaariibuu accompanied Baginda in March 2005 on a 223

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trip to Europe to negotiate details of the purchase of three submarines from Armaris, the French company. She had reportedly pressed him to give her a substantial share of a payment made by Armaris to a Malaysian corporation controlled by Baginda. The Malaysian government called the payment a “commission,” but the opposition said it amounted to a bribe. When Baginda refused to give Shaariibuu the cut she demanded, Shaariibuu began confronting him in public, including outside his family’s house, the report said. n

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Earthquake Hits Central Italy At Least 281 Killed in Abruzzo Region. A

major earthquake early April 6 struck the Abruzzo region in central Italy, devastating its capital, L’Aquila, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Rome, and a surrounding area of about 230 square miles. The death toll had risen to 281 as of April 9, and another 100 were seriously injured. About 28,000 people were left homeless, and 18,000 of them were sheltered in about 20 tent encampments that had been set up as temperatures dropped in the mountainous region. The other 10,000 refugees had been sent to hotels out of the quake zone. The Italian government April 9 increased its planned emergency aid for the quake zone to 100 million euros ($130 million). [See 2002, p. 991C3; 1997, p. 712B3] The quake had a magnitude of 6.3 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion, and was felt as far away as Rome. More than 400 aftershocks subsequently struck the Abruzzo region, slowing rescue workers and causing further damage to buildings. It was Italy’s worst earthquake since 1980, when a 6.9-magnitude quake struck south of Naples, killing more than 2,700 people. Rescuers pulled about 100 survivors from the rubble in the days after the Abruz-

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zo quake. Among them was Maria D’Antuono, 98, of the village of Tempera, who had been trapped in her bed for 30 hours and said she had kept occupied by knitting until her rescue April 7. The search for 15 people who were still missing continued through April 9. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the search would go on until April 12, when workers would shift their focus to securing and reconstructing buildings. According to official estimates, between 10,000 and 15,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed in L’Aquila and 26 surrounding towns. The small village of Onna was one of the hardest hit, with 40 of its 300 inhabitants reportedly killed by the quake. Many of the buildings damaged in L’Aquila were historic monuments, including a 13th-century basilica and most of the city’s other old churches. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi April 7 said the government would provide 30 million euros in aid to restore historic buildings and artworks damaged in the quake, but experts said that would not be adequate for the task. Berlusconi also accepted an offer of assistance from U.S. President Barack Obama. Italy was generally more vulnerable to earthquakes than other advanced countries such as the U.S. or Japan because a much larger proportion of Italian buildings were hundreds of years old. Many of them had not been retrofitted with modern technology such as reinforced concrete to help them withstand quakes. However, some modern buildings also collapsed in the Abruzzo earthquake, in-

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cluding a hospital and a university dormitory. Some experts suggested that there had been a failure to enforce building codes, which had been tightened with new seismic standards in the 1980s. A new law had been approved in 2008, but it would not take effect until 2010 and would only apply to new buildings. Berlusconi Flies to Quake Zone— Berlusconi April 6 canceled a trip to Russia and flew to L’Aquila hours after the quake, declaring a state of emergency. At a news conference that day, he rejected assertions that there should have been advance warning of the quake, although a series of smaller tremors had been felt in the region in recent weeks. Giampaolo Giuliani, a physicist at a national nuclear research center, that day said he had warned officials that a quake would strike Abruzzo, citing levels of radon gas emissions from the earth. He said he had been put under investigation for causing undue alarm. But other scientists dismissed his radon-gas theory and agreed that there was no way to forecast quakes. Berlusconi April 8 said looting was an increasing problem in the earthquake zone and warned that the government would take stronger measures to deter theft of victims’ property. The Vatican April 8 granted a special dispensation to allow a funeral mass in L’Aquila two days later, on Good Friday, which normally was the only day on which the Roman Catholic Church did not celebrate mass. Pope Benedict XVI said he would visit the earthquake zone after Easter. n

Czech Republic President Taps Interim Prime Minister. A street of collapsed buildings in Onna, Italy, a village devastated by a strong earthquake that April 6 struck the Abruzzo region near its capital, L’Aquila.

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Czech President Vaclav Klaus April 9 appointed Jan Fischer, the nonpartisan head of the country’s national statistics office, to FACTS ON FILE

serve as the country’s new prime minister following a March no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s leadership. Fischer would take office May 9; until then Topolanek would continue to serve as prime minister in a caretaker capacity. The vote against Topolanek had come while the Czech Republic held the six-month rotating European Union presidency. [See pp. 214F1, 188A2] Klaus instructed Fischer to form a nonpartisan cabinet, which would serve until parliamentary elections were held in October. Both Topolanek’s Civil Democratic Party and opposition leader Jiri Paroubek’s Czech Social Democratic Party had reportedly agreed to support Fischer and his government. Fischer said he had no political ambitions and would return to his previous job after new elections were held. The Czech Republic would hold the EU presidency until June 30. n

Denmark New Prime Minister Takes Office. Danish

Finance Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen April 5 took office as prime minister, replacing Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who resigned that day to become secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). (The men were not related.) Fogh Rasmussen had been prime minister for the past seven and a half years, and had led his center-right Liberal Party and its coalition partners to a third term in office in 2007 elections. Lokke Rasmussen, 44, had been deputy leader of the party. [See p. 213A1; 2007, p. 758D2; for facts on Lokke Rasmussen, see p. 225D1] FACTS ON LOKKE RASMUSSEN

Lars Lokke Rasmussen was born May 15, 1964, in Vejle, Denmark, son of an accountant and a housewife. He earned a law degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1992. He became a member of the Folketing, or parliament, in 1994, and deputy chairman of the center-right Liberal Party in 1998. He was mayor of Frederiksborg County from 1998 to 2001. He served as minister of the interior and health from 2001 to 2007, and had been finance minister since 2007. He took office as prime minister April 5, upon the resignation of Anders Fogh Rasmussen (they were not related), who had been named secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). [See p. 225C1]

Lokke Rasmussen April 7 named Employment Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen, 61, to succeed him as finance minister. He also named Karen Ellemann, 38, as home and social affairs minister, and Inger Stojberg, 36, as employment minister, bring the number of women in the 19member cabinet to eight. n

Macedonia Conservative Ivanov Wins Presidency.

Georgi Ivanov, 49, the candidate for the governing conservative Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–DemApril 9, 2009

ocratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), April 5 won a presidential runoff election with about 63% of the vote, according to unofficial results released the following day. Ivanov defeated former Interior and Foreign Minister Ljubomir Frckovski of the Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia (SDSM), who April 5 conceded defeat with about 35% of the vote, according to unofficial results. [See 2008, p. 492D2] Officials estimated that voter turnout was about 43%, just exceeding the 40% turnout needed for the vote to be valid. The first round of elections had been conducted March 22. Both rounds passed without incident, in contrast to 2008 parliamentary elections, when one person had been killed and nine injured in election-related violence. Ivanov would be inaugurated May 12, succeeding President Branko Crvenkovski of the SDSM. Macedonia’s government was led by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski of the VMRO-DPMNE. The position of president in Macedonia was largely ceremonial, though the president could steer some aspects of foreign policy and was formally the commander of the country’s army. Ivanov April 5 pledged to work toward three goals: membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and resolving a naming dispute with neighboring Greece. Greece in 2008 had blocked Macedonia from being inducted into NATO because Macedonia had refused to change its constitutional name, “the Republic of Macedonia.” Greece maintained that that name implied a territorial claim on its northernmost province, also called Macedonia. Ivanov, during his campaign, had opposed changing the country’s name, but April 5 said resolving the dispute with Greece was his highest priority. Election monitors said there had been some irregularities in the poll, but NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer April 5 said the election demonstrated that Macedonia had “made real progress in meeting the high democratic standards of the alliance.” n

Moldova Riot Follows Communist Victory in Polls.

More than 270 people were injured and as many as 200 others were arrested April 7 after an election-related protest of as many as 15,000 people in Chisinau, the capital, turned violent. The protesters were demonstrating against unofficial results of April 5 parliamentary elections, which showed a decisive Communist victory over the three main Western-leaning opposition parties. The protesters claimed the results had been rigged by the Communist party, which had governed Moldova since 2001. Chisinau was mostly calm by April 8. [See 2005, p. 233F3] The Communists, according to the unofficial results, had won enough seats in the parliament to reach a governing mandate, which would allow them to alter the constitution and select a president to succeed President Vladimir Voronin, a Communist,

who was stepping down later in 2009 due to term limits. However, final results showed that the Communists had fallen one seat short of a governing mandate, it was reported April 9. The central election commission April 9 agreed to allow opposition parties to check voter lists against the number of votes that had been cast. The opposition had accused the government of counting votes under names of Moldovans who lived abroad. However, the commission only allotted the opposition four days to count the votes, which opposition members said was not enough time. Protests Begin— The protests began April 6, when several hundred mostly young Moldovans gathered peacefully in central Chisinau to protest the unofficial election results. The following day, the protest swelled to as many as 15,000 people, reportedly assisted by the dissidents’ use of social networking Web sites, which remained accessible on mobile phones even after Internet connections in the city were severed after the protest turned violent. Angry dissidents overcame riot police and entered the parliament building, where they set fires, hurled computers from the windows and threw rocks at police. Many waved Romanian flags. Several opposition leaders that day disavowed any connection with the violence. (Most of Moldova had been united with Romania from the mid-19th century until 1940. Relations between the two countries had become more strained after Romania had joined the European Union in 2007. About 78% of Moldovans were ethnic Romanians. The rest were mostly ethnic Ukrainians and Russians.) Many young people in Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, were reportedly disillusioned with Communist rule, which they claimed stifled opportunities for them to succeed in Moldova. According to media reports, many young people had recently returned home after losing jobs abroad as a result of the current global economic downturn. Leaders Assign Blame—Moldova April 8 was rife with accusations of who was responsible for the riot. Some Moldovan opposition figures accused the government of orchestrating the previous day’s violence in order to distract from the Communists’ alleged election fraud, or to portray the opposition as violent. Voronin April 8 accused Romania of organizing the riot in conjunction with the opposition. The same day, he recalled the Moldovan ambassador to Romania, expelled the Romanian ambassador from Moldova and implemented new rules under which Romanians would require a visa to enter Moldova. Romania rejected the accusation as a “provocation,” and EU foreign ministers in an April 9 statement called on Moldova to scrap the changes and return to normal relations with Romania. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a demonstration of support for the Communists, April 8 pointed out that many protesters had carried Romanian flags, and said he hoped “that the European Union 225

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will draw the most serious conclusions about what happened.” Russia had about 1,000 troops stationed in Trans-Dniester, a tiny, Russian-aligned splinter region of Moldova. [See 2008, p. 524A2] Other observers suggested that the riot had not been organized at all, but had erupted out of a polarized and increasingly chaotic political demonstration. n

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Pro-EU Party Wins Elections. The Coalition for a European Montenegro bloc (DPSSDP), headed by Prime Minister Milo Dju-

kanovic, had won March 29 parliamentary elections with about 51% of the vote, according to results released March 30 by the Center for Monitoring (CEMI), an independent vote monitor. As a result, DPS-SDP would receive as many as 49 seats in the 81-seat parliament, enough for a governing mandate. The party had run on a pledge to steer Montenegro toward membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Two Serbianaligned opposition parties finished second and third. (Montenegro had split peacefully from Serbia in a 2006 referendum.) [See 2008, pp. 756E1, 244A1] (Djukanovic, who had previously served four terms as prime minister and had led Montenegro to independence from Serbia in 2006, on Feb. 29, 2008, had taken over for former Prime Minister Zeljko Sturanovic, also a member of DPS-SDP. Sturanovic, who had taken office in 2006, had resigned due to lung cancer on Jan. 31, 2008.) President Filip Vujanovic, another DPSSDP member, Jan. 27 had announced that parliamentary elections would be held a year and a half early. Djukanovic had reportedly requested early elections in order to seek a popular mandate for EU accession talks. The opposition claimed that Djukanovic had asked for the snap election in order to cement the DPS-SDP’s political power before the current global economic slowdown hit the Montenegrin economy. The country’s economy had improved following the split with Serbia, but was expected to contract in 2009. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security organization and election monitor, March 30 said the poll “met almost all international commitments and standards, but the process again underscored the need for further democratic development.” n

Slovakia Gasparovic Reelected President. Slovakian

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President Ivan Gasparovic, 67, was reelected in an April 4 runoff with 55.5% of the vote, according to official results released the following day by the country’s national election committee. Gasparovic was an ally of the leftist Direction–Social Democracy party (Smer) headed by Prime Minister Robert Fico. The ultranationalist Slovak National Party also supported Gasparovic. Iveta Radicova, of the center-right Slovak Democratic and Christian Union–Demo226

cratic Party (SDKU-DS), finished second with 44.5% of the vote. In the first round of the election, held March 21, Gasparovic had won 47% of the vote. [See 2004, p. 294C2] Gasparovic was the first Slovakian president to win a second five-year term since the country declared independence in 1993. The position was largely ceremonial. However, the president could choose the prime minister, appoint judges to the constitutional court and veto legislation. Observers suggested that Gasparovic’s victory was a triumph for Smer prior to parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2010. However, Radicova’s strong secondplace finish was also noted. She had overcome five other candidates in the first round of voting, to garner 38% of the vote, more than expected. n

Spain Nationalists Lose Power in Basque Region. The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) March

30 fell from power in Spain’s northern Basque region for the first time in three decades, when the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the Basque Socialist Party agreed to form a coalition government. The coalition deal emerged from weeks of negotiations that followed March 1 regional elections, in which no party won enough seats in the 75-seat Basque legislature to govern the semiautonomous region alone. [See 2007, p. 689F3; 2005, p. 269C3] The PNV, which had long pursued full independence from Spain for the Basque region, won 30 seats in the elections. The Socialists won 24 seats, and the PP won 14 seats. Under the March 30 deal, Basque Socialist leader Patxi Lopez would lead the coalition government. Spain’s Supreme Court in February had barred two parties from participating in the elections, finding that they were linked to Batasuna, a Basque separatist party that had been banned since 2003. Batasuna was viewed as the political wing of the militant group Euzkadi ta Askatasuna (ETA), which had killed more than 800 people in 40 years of violence. The Socialist Party held power in Spain’s central government, while the PP was the main opposition party in the national parliament. Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero of the Socialist Party had opened peace talks with ETA in 2006, drawing harsh criticism from the PP. But the talks broke off after ETA detonated a bomb at Barajas international airport near Madrid, the capital, in December 2006, killing two workers. ETA had been blamed for a car bomb that exploded Feb. 9 in Madrid outside the offices of Grupo Ferrovial SA, an infrastructure company involved in the construction of a high-speed rail link connecting the Basque cities of Bilbao, Vitoria and San Sebastian with each other and with Madrid. ETA opposed the project and had threatened the personnel of companies participating in it, claiming responsibility for the killing of one such businessman in De-

cember 2008. The Madrid bombing caused no injuries, but destroyed several cars. Elections March 1 were also held for the Galician regional parliament, where the PP ousted from power a coalition of the Socialists and the Galician Nationalist Bloc, a party that advocated greater regional autonomy. n Zapatero Replaces Finance Minister. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero April 7 shuffled his cabinet just a year into his second term in office. He replaced Finance Minister Pedro Solbes and five other ministers, in what he called a push to respond to the global economic crisis. Zapatero named Minister for Public Administration Elena Salgado, 59, to replace Solbes as finance minister. [See p. 208D1; 2008, p. 170G1] Zapatero and Solbes had openly disagreed over economic policy in recent weeks. Zapatero had called for more government spending to stimulate the economy, while Solbes had warned that such spending would increase the budget deficit to a dangerous level. Solbes, 66, had also expressed a desire to retire. Justice Minister Resigns in Scandal—

Spanish Justice Minister Mariano Fernandez Bermejo Feb. 23 resigned after a political scandal erupted over a hunting trip he had taken with judge Baltasar Garzon, who had brought corruption charges against dozens of officials of the opposition Popular Party (PP). Bermejo insisted that it was a coincidence that he and Garzon had been at the same hunt. He denied the PP’s claims that he had secretly plotted with the judge against the opposition party in the run-up to the regional elections. Garzon was widely known for investigating international human rights cases. [See 2008, pp. 856B3, 558E1] n

Turkey Ruling Party Slips in Local Elections. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) March 29 won local elections across the nation, but its percentage of the overall vote slipped from its landslide victory in the 2007 general election. The result was viewed as a setback for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the AKP, who had portrayed the elections for mayors and provincial assemblies as a referendum on his performance. Erdogan March 30 said the impact of the global economic crisis on Turkey, where the unemployment rate was nearing 15%, had hurt his party. [See p. 23A1; 2007, p. 473A1] The Islamic-based AKP won 39% of the overall vote, down from the record 47% it won in 2007. The main secular opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), won 23% of the vote, followed by the nationalist People’s Action Party, with about 16%. In Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, the CHP trailed the AKP by just a few percentage points. The AKP lost several other major cities, including Diyarbakir, in the largely Kurdish southeast, where it lost to the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society FACTS ON FILE

Party (DTP) despite personal campaigning in the region by Erdogan. A prominent member of the DTP, Ahmet Turk, Feb. 24 had broken a taboo by delivering a speech in Kurdish in the national parliament to protest what he called “oppression and prohibitions on Kurdish.” The public use of the Kurdish language for political purposes was still banned in Turkey, although Erdogan had sought to improve relations with the Kurdish minority, which made up about 20% of Turkey’s population. Several people were reportedly killed in violence linked to the elections, mainly in remote parts of eastern Turkey. Also, opponents had accused the AKP of attempting to bribe voters by handing out free household appliances and other goods. 56 Indicted in Alleged Coup Plot—A court in Istanbul March 25 approved an indictment of 56 suspects accused of taking part in a plot by an ultranationalist group to overthrow the government. Among those who would stand trial were two retired high-ranking generals. Another 86 defendants were already on trial in the same case. The AKP’s secular opponents had dismissed the plot as a fabrication intended to discredit them. The military was one of the few national institutions still dominated by secularists. n

Ukraine Presidential Election to Be Held in October.

In a rare show of unity, 401 of the 450 members of the Ukrainian parliament April 1 voted to move presidential elections originally scheduled for early 2010 to Oct. 25. The vote was a blow to President Viktor Yushchenko, whose approval ratings had slumped to the low single digits amid a sinking Ukrainian economy. Yushchenko that day claimed that the parliament’s move was illegal, but April 3 said he would agree to early presidential elections if early parliamentary elections took place at the same time. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko’s former ally turned bitter rival, April 4 said she opposed holding a simultaneous parliamentary election. [See p. 137B1] Yushchenko and Tymoshenko’s coalition government had ground to a near halt due to frequent infighting between the leaders. Because of the discord, Ukraine had not approved some legislation that was necessary for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to release a second, much-needed installment of a $16.4 billion rescue loan. Amid the current global economic slowdown, Ukraine’s vital steel industry had dropped off sharply and its currency, the hrivna, had lost almost half its value against the U.S. dollar since the full impact of the worldwide crisis became apparent toward the end of 2008. [See 2008, p. 783E2] Members of the opposition, Russialeaning Party of Regions, which held a plurality of seats in the parliament, April 2 had physically blocked the chamber’s doors to prevent a crucial vote on IMF-mandated legislation. Party members said they reApril 9, 2009

fused to support the legislation because Yushchenko and Tymoshenko’s coalition had no concrete plan to combat the country’s growing economic problems. Viktor Yanukovich, head of the Party of Regions, was expected to run against Yushchenko and Tymoshenko in the presidential election. Opposition Party Leads Protests— As many as 20,000 people April 3 gathered in central Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, where Yanukovich addressed the crowd. He said, “I think everyone in this square has one wish—change life for the better. And there is only one way to do this, when we are rid of those now in power.” The Party of Regions had also led antigovernment protests in both Kiev and the eastern city of Donetsk March 27. Yanukovich April 3 said he would call off protests until April 14 in order to give the government time to come up with a plan to combat the economic crisis. n

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Iran U.S. Says It Will Participate in Nuclear Talks.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 8 announced that the U.S. would participate in talks held by five other nations with Iran on that country’s nuclear program “from now on.” Clinton made the announcement after U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns told European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who was involved in the talks, to “extend an invitation” to Iran to meet with the U.S. and the other participating countries—Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. [See p. 179C1] “There’s nothing more important than trying to convince Iran to cease its efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Clinton said. The move was seen as another step by U.S. President Barack Obama toward direct engagement with Iran. Former U.S. President George W. Bush had supported the talks but had not participated in them. Bush had sent a U.S. diplomat to attend talks in July 2008, but later said Iran was not serious and ruled out further direct contact. [See 2008, p. 510C3] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad April 8 before the U.S. announcement had said, “The Iranian people would welcome a hand extended to it if the hand is truly based on honesty,” the Iranian semiofficial news agency Fars reported. U.S.-Iranian Reporter Charged as Spy—

An Iranian Revolutionary Court judge April 8 said on state television that a freelance journalist with dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship would be charged with spying. The journalist, Roxana Saberi, 31, had been arrested in January, and at first was accused of buying a bottle of wine, which was illegal in Iran. However, the judge said that Saberi had collected government documents and interviewed officials while masquerading as a reporter—and sometimes without press credentials—and had passed the information to U.S. intelligence agencies. He said Saberi had admitted to

the charges, but her lawyer said she was innocent. [See p. 189E1] The judge said Saberi’s trial would begin the next week. An Iranian prosecutor said she could face three to 10 years in prison if convicted of spying, or execution if convicted of spying with the intent of overthrowing the government. Clinton April 8 expressed “deep concern” over Saberi’s case and demanded her release. The case had received international attention, and it was thought that it might hurt chances to improve relations between Iran and the U.S.

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Chinese Co. Charged With Aiding Iran—

Robert Morgenthau, the district attorney of the New York City borough of Manhattan, April 7 announced that a grand jury had indicted a Chinese defense company and its chief executive for illegally selling restricted materials to Iran. Limmt Economic & Trade Co. and Li Fangwei were charged with 118 criminal counts, including conspiracy and forging business records. Analysts said some of the materials sold to Iran could be used to build missiles. The U.S. Treasury Department in June 2006 had sanctioned Limmt for selling restricted weapons. However, Morgenthau said that between November 2006 and September 2008, Limmt had made fraudulent transactions through U.S. banks to conceal sales to Iranian front companies. The Treasury froze Limmt and Li’s U.S. assets, and Morgenthau said he would ask the Chinese government to extradite Li, who was based in the Chinese city of Dalian. Li April 8 told the Wall Street Journal that the charges were based on a “misunderstanding” and that he was innocent. n

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Iraq Car Bombs Kill 32 in Shiite Areas of Baghdad.

A wave of six car bombings April 6 killed at least 32 people and injured more than 100 in Shiite Muslim neighborhoods of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. The attacks were the worst to hit Baghdad in months, and raised doubts over the Iraqi government’s claims that security was improving and that insurgents were finding it harder to conduct operations in the capital. [See pp. 214D3, 208A2, 156A1] The first bombing, early in the morning April 6, hit a cinema near where day laborers had gathered in the Alawi neighborhood, killing at least four people. That was followed by a bombing near a market in Sadr City that killed at least 10 people; a blast in New Baghdad that hit the convoy of an interior ministry official, killing a guard and a civilian; and one in a market in the northeastern suburb of Husseiniya that killed four. At noon, two more bombs went off near a market and a clinic in the southwestern neighborhood of Um al-Maalif, killing at least 12 people. After the Sadr City bombing, Iraqi civilians reportedly threw stones at Iraqi security forces, whom they blamed for not preventing the attack. No group took responsibility for the attacks, which appeared to be coordinated, 227

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and it was unclear who carried them out. The U.S. military and some Iraqi officials blamed the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq for the blasts, and said they were aimed at stirring up sectarian tensions. However, none of the attacks were suicide bombings, a trademark of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office April 7 released a statement blaming the attacks on members of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath Party, acting in conjunction with Al Qaeda in Iraq. He said the attacks were timed to coincide with the April 6 anniversary of the mostly Sunni Baath Party’s founding. Also, the anniversary of Baghdad’s fall to U.S.led forces in 2003—considered by Baathists to be the beginning of the struggle against foreign occupation—was on April 9. Maliki’s statement was seen as lowering the chance of reconciliation between Baathists and the Iraqi government. Qatari satellite television channel Al Jazeera April 7 broadcast an audiotape made by Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, the most senior Hussein government official to remain a fugitive, and the de facto Baath Party leader. Douri called on “jihadis” in Iraq to continue to fight the Iraqi government until the government allowed armed Baathists to take over the government. [See 2007, p. 22B2] Another car bomb April 7 exploded in Baghdad’s Kadhimiya neighborhood near an important Shiite mosque, killing at least eight people. The U.S. military April 3 said a U.S. helicopter the previous night had fired on four members of an Awakening Council—an armed Sunni group that had turned against extremists and allied itself with U.S. forces—after they had been seen planting a roadside bomb in Taji, north of Baghdad. The military said one of the fighters had been killed and two had been injured. An Awakening leader said the men had been manning a checkpoint, and claimed that the U.S. had said the incident was an accident. The U.S. military April 5 announced that a U.S. soldier, Pfc. Carl Stovall 3rd, had been charged with the murder of a Hungarian private contractor. Stovall had allegedly shot the contractor March 26 at Taji Air Base, north of Baghdad. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A Baghdad appeals court April 7 reduced the sentence of a reporter, Muntader al-Zaidi, who in December 2008 had thrown his shoes at then–U.S. President George W. Bush in protest of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Zaidi’s sentence was reduced to one year in prison, from three years, after he had appealed the sentence. [See p. 174E3] o Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas April 5 visited Iraq for the first time since the 2003 U.S.led invasion of the country. Abbas met with Maliki and President Jalal Talabani in Baghdad, where they reportedly discussed financial assistance, oil discounts and political support for the PA, as well as the fate of 2,300 Palestinians living in refugee camps on the Iraqi border. Abbas thanked the Iraqi government for aiding Iraq’s Palestinian population. Former Iraqi President 228

Saddam Hussein had given favorable treatment to Iraq’s Palestinians, and they had numbered 60,000 in 2003. But they had been heavily targeted for attacks by Shiite Muslim militias in the years after the invasion, and the current population was about 11,000. [See 2008, p. 631G1] n

Kuwait Elections Called After Cabinet Resigns.

Kuwaiti Prime Minister Nasir Muhammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah and his cabinet March 16 resigned, after legislators asked to question Sabah over allegations of mismanagement. It was the fifth government to fall in the past three years; the previous cabinet had resigned under similar circumstances in November 2008. Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, March 18 dissolved parliament and called for new elections within two months. A protracted political deadlock had held up a $5 billion economic rescue package considered necessary to shore up Kuwait’s financial industry. [See 2008, p. 987B3] n

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Pakistan Chief Justice Returns to Supreme Court.

Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry March 22 officially returned to his position as chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, two years after he was ousted by then-President Pervez Musharraf. Chaudhry’s return to the court followed nationwide protests the previous week against the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who since coming to power in 2008 had failed to fulfill his campaign promise to reinstate Chaudhry. Zardari’s ensuing capitulation to protesters was seen in the country as a major victory for civil society and for the independence of the judicial branch, which had long been used as a political tool by Pakistan’s leaders. [See p. 175E1] Zardari March 28 told a joint session of parliament that he would suspend executive rule over the eastern province of Punjab, a concession to the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), the country’s largest opposition party. The federal government had seized control of the province in February, after the Supreme Court ruled that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif—a PML-N leader and brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif—was ineligible to hold office. Critics accused Zardari of using the high court to consolidate his own power, and the ruling led the Sharif brothers to join forces with a two-year-old lawyers’ movement that had agitated for an independent judiciary and the reinstatement of Chaudhry. Analysts said PML-N support had given the lawyers’ movement the clout it needed to finally win Chaudhry’s reinstatement. A five-member panel of the Supreme Court, appointed by Chaudhry, March 31 overturned the ruling against Shahbaz Sharif, allowing him to return to his post. The court was also expected to reconsider

its February ruling against Nawaz Sharif, which had also banned him from holding elected office. Observers said a reconciliation between the PML-N and Zardari’s ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) could help the government focus on Pakistan’s myriad problems, which included the growing threat of terrorism and a crumbling economy. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani of the PPP, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published March 19, said he was open to resurrecting a coalition with the PML-N, which had fallen apart in 2008 after disagreements emerged over Chaudhry’s status. [See p. 228C3; 2008, p. 596G1] n Gunmen Attack Police Academy. A group of seven heavily armed gunmen March 30 attacked a police academy in the town of Manawan, in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab, killing eight cadets and wounding more than 100. The gunmen held control of the academy for nearly eight hours before succumbing to Pakistani paramilitary forces. Four gunmen were killed in the attack, and three were arrested. [See p. 137D3] After infiltrating the police academy compound, the gunmen began firing on hundreds of cadets who had gathered on a parade ground for drills. Eyewitnesses reportedly said the gunmen were disguised in police uniforms. The gunmen took hostages, but made no demands, leading observers to believe that their only motive was to wreak havoc. At least two gunmen detonated suicide bombs strapped to their chests before paramilitary forces were able to capture them. The episode was the latest in a spate of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including one in early March on the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, that killed seven people. The police academy attack was seen as further evidence that Islamic extremist militants—who were largely based in Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal areas—were gaining strength and spreading their violent campaign to areas throughout the country. [See below] Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Islamic militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban, March 31 said his followers were responsible for the attack. Mehsud had ties to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group currently fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. government had offered a $5 million bounty for the capture of Mehsud, who was thought to have been responsible for several high-profile terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late 2007. [See p. 194G2; 2007, p. 857A1] Mehsud said the attack had been carried out in retaliation for a series of missile strikes by U.S. Predator drone aircraft on the tribal areas, and claimed he was planning an attack on the U.S. homeland. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was suspected of carrying out more than 30 Predator attacks since 2008, killing more than 300 people, and as many as nine seFACTS ON FILE

nior Al Qaeda figures. The drone attacks had led to some civilian deaths, sparking a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, and public criticisms from the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. Petraeus Seeks Military Funding— U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, April 2 proposed the establishment of a $3 billion fund to train and equip the Pakistani military over the next five years, during testimony to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. The fund would come on top of a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid package to the country, which was currently being considered in the U.S. Congress. Pakistan had received $12 billion in U.S. aid since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. The military fund proposal followed the unveiling of a new U.S. strategy for the war in Afghanistan in late March, in which U.S. President Barack Obama stressed that Pakistan’s success in defeating militants in its tribal areas was crucial to bringing security to the region. In addition to providing safe havens for terrorists, Pakistan’s tribal areas were used as a launching ground for crossborder attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Petraeus said the military fund would help develop the Pakistani army’s “counterinsurgency capabilities.” House lawmakers raised concerns that the fund would diminish the U.S. State Department’s traditional role of disbursing security aid to countries. Petraeus April 3 also testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he was pressed to release details of the Obama administration’s benchmarks for determining progress in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Senators also expressed concern over reports that Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was supplying the Taliban and other militant groups with funding and military aid. ISI since the 1980s had funded numerous militant groups in order to use them as proxies in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir to further Pakistan’s geopolitical interests. [See below] Despite U.S. pressure on Zardari’s government to sever those ties, media outlets reported that elements of ISI continued to support the Taliban and its leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, as well as Afghan warlords Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. Zardari’s civilian government was thought to have little meaningful control over ISI. Afghan intelligence officials March 19 claimed that ISI helped train the terrorists who had staged a February attack on government buildings in Kabul, the Afghan capital. [See p. 102E2] The New York Times March 18 reported that the Obama administration was considering expanding Predator attacks to the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, where Omar was thought to be based. Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, April 7 held private talks with ISI chief Lt. April 9, 2009

Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha in Islamabad, in the latest of a series of meetings between high-level representatives from the two countries. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, that day met with Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, head of the Pakistani army. Holbrooke and Mullen April 8 held talks with Indian officials in New Delhi, the Indian capital, where Holbrooke said Pakistan, India and the U.S. faced a “common threat” in the form of terrorism. Holbrooke and Mullen April 5 had also met with officials in Kabul. [See p. 175F3] o Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry April 6 ordered the government to produce a report explaining the public whipping of a 17-year-old girl by Islamic militants in the northwestern region of Swat Valley. A video of the whipping, which reportedly took place March 7, had been broadcast on Pakistani television April 2, sparking public outrage. The government in February had entered a ceasefire with militants in Swat, allowing them to implement sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in the region. The girl, identified as Chand, reportedly was whipped for appearing in public with a man who was not her husband. [See pp. 228D2, 138D2] o A suicide bombing April 5 at a Shiite mosque in the Punjabi town of Chakwal, located 50 miles (80 km) south of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, killed at least 22 people. The attack came a day after a suicide bombing killed eight paramilitary troops in a wealthy Islamabad neighborhood populated by foreign diplomats. Hakimullah Mehsud, a senior leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying they were in retaliation for an April 1 Predator strike in the tribal area of Orakzai that killed at least 10 people. Mehsud April 5 said militants would begin conducting two attacks a week in Pakistan. o John Solecki, a U.S. aid worker who in early February had been kidnapped in Baluchistan, April 4 was found alive near Quetta, the Baluchi capital. A group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation United Front had threatened to behead Solecki if the government failed to release more than 1,000 jailed Baluchi separatists, a demand that was never met. [See p. 103G1] o A suicide bomber March 27 detonated his explosives in a crowded mosque near Jamrud, in the northwestern tribal agency of Khyber, killing at least 50 people and wounding more than 150, in what was thought to be the most devastating single attack in Pakistan so far in 2009. Included among the dead were 10 police officers and four paramilitary troops. o Indian army officials March 25 said eight of its soldiers and 17 Pakistani militants had been killed since March 20 in fighting in Kashmir, site of a long-running territorial dispute between Pakistan and India. Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based militant group, claimed responsibility for the fighting. India had accused Lashkar-eTaiba of orchestrating a November 2008

terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed more than 170 people. [See pp. 158D1, 103C2] o Leon Panetta, in his first trip overseas as director of the CIA, March 21 met with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in Islamabad. Gillani’s office that day released a statement saying that the two had discussed resolving the Kashmir territorial dispute with India, so that Pakistan could concentrate its efforts on combating terrorism. [See p. 138A3] o A suicide bomber March 23 killed two people, including himself, when he tried to blow up a police station in Islamabad. n

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Tar Heels Dominate Spartans in NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Connecticut Women Go Undefeated. The

University of North Carolina Tar Heels April 6 defeated the Michigan State University Spartans, 89–72, to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s basketball tournament in Detroit, Mich. The University of Connecticut Huskies April 7 routed the University of Louisville Cardinals, 76–54, in St. Louis, Mo., to capture the women’s title. [See 2008, p. 245A2; for the final 16 men’s and women’s brackets, see pp. 230A1, 231A1 ] Both champions had topped their respective polls at the onset of the season, and both teams managed to defeat opponents by at least 10 points throughout tournament play. The Tar Heels, coached by Roy Williams, won the school’s fifth national championship. The title win was Williams’s second at North Carolina; he had won his first at the school in 2005. [See 2008, pp. 859A1, 858E3; 2005, p. 237A1] North Carolina guard Wayne Ellington, who hit all three of his three-point shots and finished with 19 points in the final, was named the most outstanding player of the men’s tournament. Ellington, a junior, was part of the team’s core of elite upperclassmen that also included junior point guard Ty Lawson and senior forward Tyler Hansbrough. The three stars had opted to return for another year at North Carolina following a semifinal loss in 2008. In the women’s tournament, the Huskies achieved their third overall undefeated season and the program’s sixth title. Connecticut’s perfect record marked the fifth time in the history of women’s college basketball that a team had accomplished such a feat. Coach Geno Auriemma had led the team to all six of its titles, with the most recent coming in 2004. [See 2004, p. 249A1] Connecticut center Tina Charles, who scored 25 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in the title game, was named the most outstanding player of the women’s tournament. Charles, a junior, would return for her senior year, along with most of her teammates. All-American guard Renee Montgomery was the only senior on the squad. 229

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Michigan State had toppled two top seeds en route to the April 6 men’s title game. The team’s Cinderella run seemed perfectly suited for the dramatic flair typical of the March Madness tournament. The Spartans played for the title in Detroit, Mich., only about 40 miles (65 km) from their home field in East Lansing, Mich., on the 30th anniversary of the school’s first national championship. However, heavily favored North Carolina quickly crushed any hope for a storybook ending by hitting five of its first six shots. An early 16–3 lead for the Tar Heels completely silenced the mostly pro-Spartan crowd of 72,922 at Ford Field. Lawson led all scorers with 21 points, while Hansbrough added 18 to go along with Ellington’s 19-point performance. The strong, balanced attack from the core of North Carolina’s lineup proved too much for the Spartans, leading to the largest margin of victory in a men’s title game since 1992. The semifinals saw the last remaining teams from the Big East eliminated. The conference had dominated regular season competition, and featured three of the four topseeded teams in the tournament. On April 4, Michigan State had defeated Connecticut, 82–73, while North Carolina easily beat the Villanova University Wildcats, 83–69. Huskies Stay Perfect—In the April 7 women’s title matchup, Connecticut squared off against an opponent it had defeated twice already in Big East competition by a combined margin of 67 points. Louisville managed to stay close during the first half of the final, mostly due to a slow start from the Huskies. After missing their first seven threepointers, Connecticut turned to an inside game, where Charles flourished. Montgomery and forward Maya Moore each contributed 18 points for the Huskies, leading to the blowout victory over the Cardinals. 230

In the semifinals, Louisville April 5 had come from behind to beat the Oklahoma University Sooners, 61–59. Connecticut defeated the Stanford University Cardinal, 83–64, later that night. Men’s, Women’s NIT Results—The Penn State University Nittany Lions April 2 beat the Baylor University Bears, 69–63, in New York City to win the men’s National Invitation Tournament (NIT). Penn State senior forward Jamelle Cornley, who scored 18 points in the final game, was named the most outstanding player of the men’s tournament. The University of South Florida Bulls April 4 defeated the Kansas University Jayhawks, 75–71, in Lawrence, Kan., to win the women’s NIT title. South Florida guard Shantia Grace, who had 16 points and five assists in the final game, was named the most outstanding player of the women’s tournament. Neither Penn State nor South Florida had won an NIT title before. Top Players, Coaches Named—The Associated Press (AP) April 3 named Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin the men’s player of the year. He averaged 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds per game during his sophomore season. Bill Self, who guided Kansas to a 27–7 record in the 2008–09 season, was named the AP men’s coach of the year. The undefeated Huskies dominated the women’s awards. Auriemma April 4 was named the AP women’s coach of the year. Moore, who averaged 19.1 points and 9.1 rebounds per game for Connecticut, was named the AP women’s player of the year. The Atlanta Tipoff Club April 5–7 announced the Naismith Awards to honor the top players and coaches in college basketball. Griffin, Moore and Auriemma were all named winners again, while Jamie Dixon, coach of the University of Pittsburgh

Panthers, took home the honors in the men’s coaching category. Final Regular-Season Polls Released—

Louisville March 16 topped both the AP NCAA Division I final regular-season men’s poll of media members, and the USA Today/ESPN poll of college basketball coaches. In the AP poll, North Carolina was ranked second, followed by Memphis, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Duke, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Missouri and Gonzaga. Memphis was second in the coaches’ poll, followed by North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Duke, Connecticut, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Missouri and Gonzaga. Connecticut was ranked number one in both the final regular-season women’s AP poll and the coaches’ poll, released on March 17 and March 9, respectively. In the AP poll, Stanford was ranked second, followed by Maryland, Oklahoma, Baylor, Duke, Louisville, Auburn, Texas A&M and Ohio State. Stanford was also ranked number two in the coaches’ poll, followed by Maryland, Oklahoma, Baylor, Auburn, Louisville, Duke, Texas A&M and Ohio State. Other News—In other college basketball news: o Former Memphis men’s basketball coach John Calipari had agreed to lead the University of Kentucky Wildcats for an eight-year, $35 million deal, it was reported March 31. Kentucky March 27 had fired Billy Gillispie after just two years on the job, after the team missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1991. [See 2000, p. 347E2] o Yahoo Sports March 25 reported that the Connecticut men’s basketball program had allegedly violated NCAA recruitment rules. According to the report, former Huskies guard Nate Miles had received lodging, transportation and meals from sports FACTS ON FILE

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Awards London Theater Awards Presented. The

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Society of London Theatre’s 33rd annual Laurence Olivier Awards for outstanding achievements in the London theater were presented March 8 at London’s Grosvenor House hotel. [See 2008, p. 187D1] Black Watch, a drama by Gregory Burke based on interviews with soldiers from a Scottish regiment who had served in the Iraq war, won four awards, the most of any individual production. It was named best new play, while its director, John Tiffany, was named best director; its other honors were for sound design and choreography. The show, which originated at the National Theatre of Scotland in 2006, had been mounted in a number of cities, including in New York in 2007, before arriving in London in 2008. [See 2007, p. 836B1] The best new musical was U.S. import Jersey Boys. The show, about the rise of the 1960s pop group the Four Seasons, had opened on Broadway in November 2005 and was still running there. Best new comedy was Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, about an escalating quarrel between two sets of parents. (The show opened on Broadway March 22.) [See 2008, p. 320B2; 2005, p. 997A2] Top acting honors for performances in a play went to Margaret Tyzack, for her performance in a revival of Enid Bagnold’s 1956 drama The Chalk Garden, and to Derek Jacobi, for his role as Malvolio in a produc231

tion of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Top acting honors for musical performances went to Elena Roger, for her portrayal of French singer Edith Piaf in Piaf, and to Douglas Hodge, for his portrayal of the drag queen Albin in a revival of La Cage aux Folles. [See 2008, pp. 780B1, 136D1, 116A2; 2007, p. 536F3; 2003, p. 116B1] n

People Pop singer Madonna’s attempt to adopt a second child from the African nation of Malawi was derailed April 3 by a Malawian judge, on the grounds that she did not meet the nation’s residency requirement of 18 to 24 months for prospective adoptive parents. That requirement had been waived by another judge in 2006, who allowed Madonna to adopt David Banda, now three years old, while she was still married to British film director Guy Ritchie. Madonna had lately been trying to adopt Chifundo “Mercy” James, a four-year-old girl living in an orphanage. In denying Madonna’s adoption application for the girl, the judge in the case noted that the child was receiving “suitable” care, whereas David Banda, who had also been an orphanage resident, had been about to be returned to his father, who might have had trouble caring for him. Madonna, who was not in Malawi when the ruling was issued, reportedly had immediately set an appeal in motion. [See 2008, pp. 876A3, 387G3] At an immigration hearing in Boston, Mass., one of U.S. President Barack Obama’s Kenyan relatives, Zeituni Onyango, the half-sister of Obama’s late father, April 1 was given an additional 10 months to prepare her application for political asylum. Onyango, 56, had been ordered to leave the U.S. in 2004, but had ignored the order and had continued to live in public

housing in Boston. Her illegal immigrant status had received wide attention on the eve of the 2008 U.S. presidential election. [See 2008, p. 804E3–G3] n

O B I T UA R I E S DREYFUS Jr., Jack Jonas, 95, creator, in the early 1950s, of the Dreyfus Fund, which became one of the U.S.’s most successful mutual investment funds; its success was at least partly due to its aggressive advertising, which featured a lion emerging from a New York City subway station and striding down Wall Street; he stopped managing the fund in 1965, and sold it in 1970; he devoted much of the rest of his life to promoting the anti-epilepsy drug Dilantin as a cure for depression (he claimed it had quickly cured him of depression in the late 1950s) and a host of other ills; despite his crusade, on which he spent millions of dollars, Dilantin never won U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval as a treatment for depression; he was also a top-notch amateur golfer, expert bridge player and breeder of champion racehorses; born Aug. 28, 1913, in Montgomery, Ala.; died March 27 at a New York hospital. [See 1976, p. 688C1; 1967, p. 511D1; Indexes 1962–63] GREEN, Archie (born Aaron Green), 91, Canadian-born folklorist with an abiding interest in the lives and creative activities of working-class people; he was the prime mover behind the creation, in early 1976, of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; he was also the author of such books as Wobblies, Pile Butts and Other Heroes (1993) and Torching the Fink Books and Other Essays on Vernacular Culture (2001); born June 29, 1917, in Winnipeg, Manitoba; died March 22 at his home in San Francisco, Calif., of kidney and heart failure. MACIAS, Raul, 74, Mexican boxer who was his country’s most popular athlete in the 1950s; he won the world bantamweight title in 1955 and successfully defended it twice before losing it to France’s Alphonse Halimi on a split decision in 1957; born July 28, 1934, in Mexico City; died March 23 at a Mexico City hospital, of cancer. [See 1957, pp. 367F3, 200D1; 1956, p. 104F1; Index 1955] RUBY, (Richard) Lloyd, 81, race car driver who competed in the Indianapolis 500 for 18 straight years (1960–77) without winning, despite finishing in the top 10 seven times; he was the subject of a 1998 biography by Ted Buss called Lloyd Ruby: The Greatest Driver Never to Win the Indy 500; born Jan. 1, 1928, in Wichita Falls, Texas; died there March 23, of cancer. [See 1968, p. 294B3; 1967, p. 246E3; Indexes 1966, 1964] n

April 9, 2009

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World Heads of State and Government Leaders The following were the heads of state, government leaders and selected cabinet members for the countries listed, as of March 3, unless otherwise noted. For changes after April 9, consult the Index. Spellings are based on various schemes of transliteration and may occasionally vary from earlier or subsequent versions contained in news accounts. Adapted from information provided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. [See 2008, p. 688A1] Afghanistan—President: Karzai, Hamid; Vice Presidents: Masood, Ahmad Zia; Khalili, Abdul Karim; Min. of Defense: Wardak, Abdul Rahim; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Spanta, Rangeen Dadfar; Min. of Interior: Atmar, Muhammad Hanif Albania, Republic of—President: Topi, Bamir; Prime Minister: Berisha, Sali; Min. of Defense: Oketa, Gazmend; Min. of Finance: Bode, Ridvan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Basha, Lulzim Algeria, Democratic and Popular Republic of— President, Min. of National Defense: Bouteflika, Abdelaziz; Prime Minister: Ouyahia, Ahmed; Min. of Finance: Djoudi, Karim; Min. of Industry: Temmar, Abdelhamid; Min. of State for Foreign Affairs: Medelci, Mourad; Min. of State for Interior & Local Governments: Ould Kablia, Daho; Min. of State for Justice: Belaiz, Tayeb Andorra, Principality of*—Prime Minister: Pintat, Albert; Min. of Finance: Mirapeix, Ferran; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mateu, Meritxell *Andorra was under the formal sovereignty of the president of France and the Roman Catholic bishop of Seo de Urgel, Spain. Angola, Republic of—President: dos Santos, Jose Eduardo; Prime Minister: Kassoma, Antonio Paulo; Min. of Defense: Paihama, Kundi; Min. of External Relations: dos Anjos, Assuncao Afonso Sousa; Min. of Finance: de Morais, Jose Pedro; Min. of Petroleum: de Vasconselhos, Jose Maria Antigua and Barbuda—Governor General: Carlisle, James B.; Prime Minister, Min. of Barbuda Affairs, Min. of Defense, Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Min. of Information & Broadcasting, Min. of National Security: Spencer, Baldwin; Min. of Finance & the Economy: Cort, Eroll; Min. of Tourism, Culture & Civil Aviation: Lovell, Harold Argentina (Argentine Republic)—President: Fernandez de Kirchner, Cristina; Min. of Defense: Garre, Nilda; Min. of Economy & Production: Fernandez, Carlos; Min. of Foreign Relations, International Trade & Worship: Taiana, Jorge; Min. of Interior: Randazzo, Florencio; Min. of Justice, Security & Human Rights: Fernandez, Anibal; Min. of Labor, Employment & Social Security: Tomada, Carlos; President, Central Bank: Redrado, Martin Armenia, Republic of—President: Sargsyan, Serge; Prime Minister: Sargsyan, Tigran; Min. of Defense: Ohanian, Seyran; Min. of Finance: Davtian, Tigran; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nalbandian, Eduard Australia, Commonwealth of—Governor General: Bryce, Quentin; Prime Minister: Rudd, Kevin; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Education, Employment & Workplace Relations, Min. for Social Inclusion: Gillard, Julia; Treasurer: Swan, Wayne; Attorney General: McClelland, Robert; Min. for Defense: Fitzgibbon, Joel; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Smith, Stephen; Min. for Immigration & Citizenship: Evans, Chris; Min. for Trade: Crean, Simon Austria, Republic of—President: Fischer, Heinz; Chancellor: Faymann, Werner; Vice Chancellor, Min. of Finance: Proell, Josef; Min. of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment & Water Management: Berlakovich, Nikolaus; Min. of Defense: Darabos, Norbert; Min. of European and International Affairs: Spindelegger, Michael; Min. of Justice (acting): Hahn, Johanne; Governor, Austrian National Bank: Nowotny, Ewald Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani Republic)—President: Aliyev, Ilham; Prime Minister: Rasizade, Artur; Min. of Defense: Abiyev, Col. Gen. Safar; Min. of Finance: Sharifov, Samir; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mammadyarov, Elmar; Min. of Internal Affairs: Usubov, Ramil Bahamas, Commonwealth of the—Governor General: Hanna, Arthur Dion; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Ingraham, Hubert; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Immigration: Symonette, Theodore (Brent); Min. of

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Health: Minnis, Hubert; Min. of Tourism & Aviation: Vanderpool-Wallace, Vincent Bahrain, Kingdom of—King: Khalifa, Hamad bin Isa al-; Prime Minister: Khalifa, Khalifa bin Salman al-; Min. of State for Defense: Khalifa, Muhammad bin Abdallah al-; Min. of Finance & Economy: Khalifa, Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hamad bin Abdallah al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Khalifa, Khalid bin Ahmad alBangladesh, People’s Republic of—President: Rahman, Zillur; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Hasina Wazed, Sheik; Min. of Finance: Muhith, Abu Maal Abdul; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Moni, Dipu Barbados—Governor General: Husbands, Sir Clifford; Prime Minister, Min. of the Civil Service, Min. of Finance, Min. of Labor & Civil Service: Thompson, David; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade & International Business: McClean, Maxine; Min. of Home Affairs, Attorney General: Stuart, Freundel; Min. of Tourism: Sealy, Richard; Min. of Economic Affairs: David Eastwick Belarus, Republic of—President: Lukashenko, Aleksandr; Prime Minister: Sidorsky, Sergei; Min. of Defense: Maltsev, Leonid; Min. of Finance: Korbut, Nikolay; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Martynov, Sergei Belgium, Kingdom of—King: Albert II; Prime Minister: Van Rompuy, Herman; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: de Gucht, Karel; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Reynders, Didier; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of the Interior: de Padt, Guido; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Social Affairs & Public Health: Onkelinx, Laurette; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Employment: Milquet, Joelle; Min. of Defense: De Crem, Pieter; Min. of Justice: de Clerck, Stefaan Belize—Governor General: Young, Sir Colville; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Barrow, Dean; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Natural Resources & the Environment: Vega, Gaspar; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. Foreign Trade: Elrington, Wilfred Benin, Republic of—President: Yayi Boni, Thomas; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Ehouzou, Jean-Marie; Min. of State in Charge of National Defense: N’Douro, Issifou Kgui; Min. of State in Charge of the Economy, Economic Forecasting, Development & Evaluations of Public Action: Koupaki, Pascal Irene Bhutan, Kingdom of—King: Wangchuck, Jigme Khesar Namgyel; Prime Minister: Thinley, Jigme; Min. of Education: Powdyel, Thakyr Singh; Min. of Information & Communication: Rai, Nandalal Bolivia, Republic of—President: Morales Aima, Juan Evo; Vice President: Garcia Linera, Alvaro; Min. of Defense: San Miguel Rodriguez, Walker; Min. of Economy & Public Finance: Arce Catacora, Luis Alberto; Min. of Foreign Relations: Choquehuanca Cespedes, David; Min. of Government: Rada Velez, Alfredo; Min. of Hydrocarbons: Coca Antezana, Oscar; Min. of the Presidency: Quintana Taborga, Juan Ramon; Min. of Environment and Water: Orellana, Rene Gonzalo Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of—Chairman, Collective Presidency: Radmanovic, Nebojsa (Serb); Members, Collective Presidency: Komsic, Zeljko (Croat), Silajdzic, Haris (Bosniak); Chairman, Council of Ministers: Spiric, Nikola; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Alkalaj, Sven; President, Muslim–Croat federation: Krsto, Borjana; President, Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska): Kusmanovic, Rajko Botswana, Republic of—President: Khama, Seretse Khama Ian; Min. of Finance & Development Planning: Gaolathe, Jacob; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Skelemani, Phandu Tombola Chaka; Min. of Health: Motsumi, Lesego; Min. of Trade & Industry: Moroka, Daniel Neo Brazil, Federative Republic of—President: Da Silva, Luiz Inacio Lula; Vice President: Alencar, Jose; Min. of Defense: Jobim, Nelson Azevedo; Min. of Development, Industry & Trade: Jorge, Miguel; Min. of Finance: Mantega, Guido; Min. of Foreign Relations: Amorim, Celso; Min. of Justice: Genro, Tarso; Min. of Sports: Silva, Orlando; President, Central Bank: Meirelles, Henrique de Campos Brunei (Negara Brunei Darussalam)—Sultan, Prime Minister, Min. of Defense, Min. of Finance: Hassanal Bolkiah, Sir; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. of Trade: Mohamed Bolkiah, Prince Bulgaria, Republic of—President: Parvanov, Georgi; Prime Minister: Stanishev, Sergei; Min. of Defense: Tsonev, Nikolay; Min. of Finance: Oresharski, Plamen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kalfin, Ivaylo; Min. of Interior:

Mikov, Mihail; Min. of Labor & Social Policy: Maslarova, Emilia Burkina Faso—President: Compaore, Blaise; Prime Minister: Zongo, Tertius; Min. of Defense: Boly, Yero; Min. of Economy & Finance: Bembamba, Lucien Marie Noel Burma, Union of—See Myanmar, Union of Burundi, Republic of—President: Nkurunziza, Pierre; First Vice President: Sahinguvu, Dr. Yves; Min. of External Relations & Cooperation: Nsanze, Augustin; Min. of Finance, Economy, Cooperation & Development: Nizigama, Clotilde; Min. of National Defense & War Veterans: Niyoyankana, Lt. Gen. Germain Cambodia, Kingdom of—King: Norodom Sihamoni; Prime Minister: Hun Sen; President of the National Assembly: Heng Samrin; Min. of Economy & Finance: Keat Chhon; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Hor Namhong; Min. of Justice: Ang Vong Vattana; Min. of National Defense: Gen. Tea Banh Cameroon, Republic of—President: Biya, Paul; Prime Minister: Inoni, Ephraim; Min. of Economy, Planning & Regional Development: Motaze, Louis Paul; Min. of External Relations: Ayissi, Henry Eyebe; Min. of Finance: Menye, Lazare Essimi Canada—Governor General: Jean, Michaelle; Prime Minister: Harper, Stephen; Min. of Agriculture & Agri-Food, Min. of the Canadian Wheat Board: Ritz, Gerry; Min. of Citizenship & Immigration: Kenney, Jason; Min. for Democratic Reform, House Leader: Aill, Jay; Min. of the Environment: Prentice, Jim; Min. of Finance: Flaherty, Jim; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Cannon, Lawrence; Min. of Health: Aglukkaq, Leona; Min. of Indian Affairs & Northern Development: Strahl, Chuck; Min. of Industry: Clement, Tony; Min. of Intergovernmental Affairs & La Francophonie: Verner, Josee; Min. of Western Economic Diversification, Min. of Labor: Ambrose, Rona; Min. of International Cooperation: Oda, Bev; Min. of International Trade: Day, Stockwell; Min. of Justice, Attorney General: Nicholson, Rob; Min. of National Defense: Mackay, Peter; Min. of National Revenue: Blackburn, Jean-Pierre; Min. of Natural Resources: Raitt, Lisa; Min. of Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness: van Loan, Peter; Min. of Public Works & Government Services: Paradis, Christian; Min. of Transport, Infrastructure & Communities: Baird, John; President of the Treasury Board: Toews, Vic; Governor, Bank of Canada: Carney, Mark Cape Verde, Republic of—President: Pires, Pedro; Prime Minister: Neves, Jose Maria Pereira; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation & Communities: Brito, Jose; Min. of Justice & Local Administration: Morias, Marisa Helena Central African Republic—President, Min of Defense: Bozize, Francois; Prime Minister: Touadera, Faustin Archange; Min. of Finance & Budget: Besse, Albert; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration & Francophonie Affairs: Gambi, Gen. Antoine Chad, Republic of—President: Deby, Idriss; Prime Minister: Abbas, Youssouf Saleh; Min. of Economy & Urban Planning: Breme, Ousman Matar; Min. of Finance and Budget: Mourcha, Abakar Mallah; Min. of Foreign Relations: Faki, Moussa Mahamat Chile, Republic of—President: Bachelet Jeria, Michelle; Min. of Defense: Goni, Jose; Min. of Economy, Development & Reconstruction: Lavados Montes, Hugo; Min. of Finance: Velasco Branes, Andres; Min. of Foreign Relations: Foxley Rioseco, Alejandro; Min. of Interior: Perez Yoma, Edmundo; Min. of Justice: Maldonado, Carlos; Min. of Mining: Gonzales Larrain, Santiago; President, Central Bank: De Gregorio, Jose China, People’s Republic of—President, Chairman, Central Military Commission: Hu Jintao; Vice President: Xi Jinping; Prime Minister: Wen Jiabao; Executive Vice Prime Minister: Li Keqiang; Vice Prime Ministers: Hui Liangyu, Zhang Dejiang, Wang Qishan; Min. of Commerce: Chen Deming; Min. of Finance: Xie Xuren; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Yang Jiechi; Min. of National Defense: Liang Guanglie; Governor, People’s Bank of China: Zhou Xiaochuan Hong Kong Special Administrative Region—Chief Executive: Donald Tsang; Chief Secretary for Administration: Tang, Henry; Secy. for Finance: Tsang, John Macao Special Administrative Region—Chief Executive: Edmund Ho China, Republic of (Taiwan)—President: Ma Yingjeou; Vice President: Siew, Vincent; Prime Minister: Liu Chao-shiuan; Min. of Economic Affairs: Yiin Chiiming; Min. of Finance: Li Sush-der; Min. of Foreign Af-

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fairs: Ou, Francisco; Min. of National Defense: Chen Chao-min; Governor, Central Bank of China: Perng Fai-nan Colombia, Republic of—President: Uribe Velez, Alvaro; Vice President: Santos Calderon, Francisco; Min. of Commerce, Industry & Tourism: Plata, Luis Guillermo; Min. of Defense: Santos Calderon, Juan Manuel; Min. of Finance & Public Credit: Zuluaga Escobar, Oscar Ivan; Min. of Foreign Relations: Bermudez Merizalde, Jaime; Min. of Interior & Justice: Valencia Cossio, Fabio; President, Central Bank: Uribe Escobar, Jose Dario; Prosecutor General: Iguaran Arana, Mario German Comoros, Union of the—President of the Union: Sambi, Ahmed Abdallah; Vice Presidents: Dhoinine, Ikililou; Nadhoim, Idi; President of Anjouan: Toybou, Moussa; President of Grand Comore: Abdoulwahabi, Mohamed; President of Moheli: Said, Mohamed Ali; Min. of Foreign Relations: Jaffar, Ahmed Ben Sa’id Congo, Democratic Republic of the—President: Kabila, Joseph; Prime Minister: Muzito, Adolphe; Min. of National Defense & War Veterans: Mwanda Nsimba, Charles; Min. of Finance: Matenda Kyelu, Athanase; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Thambwe Mwamba, Alexis; Min. of Interior: Kalume Numbi, Denis; Min. of Mines: Kabwelulu Labilo, Martin; Min. of State for Agriculture: Basengezi Katitima, Norbert Congo, Republic of the—President: Sassou-Nguesso, Denis; Prime Minister: Mvouba, Isidore; Min. of Economy, Finance & Budget: Issoikbeka, Pacifique; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Intl. Cooperation, & Relations with Francophone Countries: Ikouebe, Basile; Min. of Security & Public Order: Mbot, Gen. Paul Costa Rica, Republic of—President: Arias Sanchez, Oscar; First Vice President, Min. of Justice: Chinchilla, Laura; Min. of Finance: Zuniga, Guillermo; Min. of Foreign Relations: Stagno Ugarte, Bruno; Min. of Foreign Trade: Ruiz, Marco Vinicio; Min. of Labor & Social Security: Morales, Francisco Cote d’Ivoire, Republic of—President: Gbagbo, Laurent; Prime Minister: Soro, Guillaume; Min. of Economy & Finance: Diby, Charles Koffi; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bakayoko, Youssouf; Min. of Justice & Human Rights & Keeper of the Seal: Kone, Mamadou; Min. of Mines & Energy: Monnet, Emmanuel Leon Croatia, Republic of—President: Mesic, Stjepan; Prime Minister: Sanader, Ivo; Min. of Defense: Vukelic, Branko; Min. of Finance: Suker, Ivan; Min. of Foreign Affairs & European Integration: Jandrokovic, Gordan; Min. of the Interior: Karamarko, Tomislav Cuba, Republic of—President of the Council of State and of the Council of Ministers: Castro Ruz, Gen. Raul; First Vice President of the Council of State and of the Council of Ministers: Machado Ventura, Jose Ramon; Vice Presidents of the Council of State: Almeida Bosque, Juan; Casas Reguiero, Gen. Julio (also Min. of the Revolutionary Armed Forces); Colome Ibarra, Gen. Abelardo (also Min. of Interior); Murillo Jorge, Marino; Lazo Hernandez, Esteban; Min. of Economy & Planning: Rodriguez Garcia, Jose Luis; Min. of Foreign Relations: Rodruguez Parilla, Bruno Cyprus, Republic of*—President: Christofias, Demetris; Min. of Defense: Papacostas, Costas; Min. of Finance: Stavrakis, Charilaos; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kyprianou, Markos; Governor, Central Bank: Orphanides, Athanasios *A separate entity known since 1983 as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus came into existence after Turkey invaded the island in 1974. Turkey was the only foreign country that formally recognized the enclave. Mehmet Ali Talat had been president since 2005. Czech Republic*—President: Klaus, Vaclav; Prime Minister: Topolanek, Mirek; Min. of Defense: Parkanova, Vlasta; Min. of Finance: Kalousek, Miroslav; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Schwarzenberg, Karel; Min. of Interior: Langer, Ivan; Min. of Justice: Pospisil, Jiri *Topolanek resigned March 26, but remained in office as caretaker. [See p. 224G3] Denmark, Kingdom of*—Queen: Margrethe II; Prime Minister: Rasmussen, Lars Lokke; Min. of Defense: Gade, Soren; Min. of Economic & Business Trade: Espersen, Lene; Min. of Environment: Poulsen, Troels Lund; Min. of Finance: Frederiksen, Claus Hjort; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Moller, Per Stig *Lokke Rasmussen took office April 5, after Anders Fogh Rasmussen resigned as prime minister. [See p. 225C1] Djibouti, Republic of—President: Guelleh, Ismail Omar; Prime Minister: Dileita, Mohamed Dileita; Min. of Defense: Ahmed, Ougoureh Kifleh; Min. of Econo-

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my, Finance & Privatization: Bouh, Yacin Elmi; Min. of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation & Parliamentary Relations: Youssouf, Mahamoud Ali Dominica, Commonwealth of—President: Liverpool, Nicholas J.O.; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Social Security & National Security: Skerrit, Roosevelt; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Immigration & Labor: Henderson, Vince; Min. of Tourism, Legal Affairs & Civil Aviation: Douglas, Ian Dominican Republic—President: Fernandez Reyna, Leonel; Vice President: Alburquerque de Castro, Rafael; Secy. of State for Finance: Bengoa Albizu, Vicente; Secy. of State for Foreign Relations: Morales Troncoso, Carlos; Secy. of State for Interior & Police: Almeida Rancier, Francisco; Secy. of State for Tourism: Garcia Fernandez, Francisco Javier East Timor—See Timor Leste Ecuador, Republic of—President: Correa Delgado, Rafael; Min. of Finance: Viteri Acaitumi, Maria Elsa; Min. of Foreign Relations, Foreign Trade & Integration: Falconi, Benitez, Fander; Min. of Mines & Petroleum: Palacios Guerrero, Derlis; Min. of Industry & Competitiveness: Abad Vicuna, Xavier Egypt, Arab Republic of—President: Mubarak, Mohammed Hosni; Prime Minister: Nazif, Ahmed Mohamed; Min. of Agriculture & Land Reclamation: Abaza, Amin; Min. of Defense: Tantawi, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein; Min. of Finance: Boutros-Ghali, Yousef; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Aboul Gheit, Ahmed Ali; Min. of Interior: El-Adly, Habib El Salvador, Republic of*—President: Saca Gonzalez, Elias Antonio; Vice President: De Escobar, Ana Vilma Albanez; Min. of Defense: Molina Contreras, Jorge Alberto; Min. of Economy: Esmahan D’Aubuisson, Ricardo; Min. of Finance: Handal, William; Min. of Foreign Relations: Argueta de Barillas, Marisol; Min. of Government: Bolanos, Juan Miguel *Mauricio Funes Cartagena was elected president March 15, and was scheduled to take office June 1. [See p. 170D2] Equatorial Guinea, Republic of—President: Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Brig. Gen. Teodoro (ret.); Prime Minister: Tang, Ignacio Milam; Min. of Economy, Commerce & Promotion: Ndong, Jaime Ela; Min. of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation & Francophone Affairs: Ondo Bile, Pastor Micha; Min. of Mines, Industry & Energy: Elantugu Nsa, Anastasio; Min. of National Defense: Mba Nguema, Gen. Antonio Eritrea, State of—President: Issaias Afwerki; Min. of Defense: Sebhat Ephrem; Min. of Finance: Berhane Abrehe; Min. of National Development: Woldai Futur Estonia, Republic of—President: Ilves, Toomas; Prime Minister: Ansip, Andrus; Min. of Defense: Aaviksoo, Jaak; Min. of Finance: Padar, Ivari; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Paet, Urmas Ethiopia, Federal Democratic Republic of—President: Girma Woldegiorgis; Prime Minister: Meles Zenawi; Min. of Defense: Siraj Fegisa; Min. of Finance & Economic Development: Sufian Ahmed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Seyoum Mesfin; Min. of Trade & Industry: Girma Birru Fiji, Republic of*—President: Iloilo, Josefa; Prime Minister, Min. for Finance & National Planning Min. for Home Affairs & Immigration, Min. for Information: Bainimarama, Cmdre. Josaia Voreqe (Frank); Chaudhry, Mahendra Pal; Min. for Foreign Affairs & External Trade: Nailatikau, Epeli *A military coup led by Bainimarama in December 2006 had overthrown the democratically elected civilian government. Bainimarama in January 2007 had restored Iloilo to the presidency and had himself sworn in as interim prime minister; the other cabinet positions were also held on an interim basis. [See 2007, p. 739B3] Finland, Republic of—President: Halonen, Tarja; Prime Minister: Vanhanen, Matti Taneli; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Katainen, Jyrki; Min. of Defense: Hakamies, Jyri; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Nordic Cooperation: Stubb, Cai-Goran Alexander; Min. of Justice: Brax, Tuija; Min. of Economic Affairs: Pekkarinen, Mauri; Governor, Bank of Finland: Liikanen, Erkki France (French Republic)—President: Sarkozy, Nicolas; Prime Minister: Fillon, Francois; Min. of State, Min. of Environment, Sustainable Development & Regional Development: Borloo, Jean-Louis; Min. of Agriculture & Fisheries: Barnier, Michel; Min. of Budget, Public Accounts & the Civil Service: Woerth, Eric; Min. of Culture & Communication: Albanel, Christine; Min. of Defense: Morin, Herve; Min. of Economy, Industry & Employment: Lagarde, Christine; Min. of Labor, Labor Relations, Urban Affairs & Solidarity: Bertrand, Xavi-

er; Min. of Foreign & European Affairs: Kouchner, Bernard; Min. for Health, Youth, Sports & Associations: Bachelot-Narquin, Roselyne; Min. of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, & Co-Development: Besson, Eric; Min. of the Interior, Overseas France & Local Authorities: Alliot-Marie, Michele; Min. of Justice & Keeper of the Seals: Dati, Rachida; Min. of National Education: Darcos, Xavier; Governor, Bank of France: Noyer, Christian Gabon (Gabonese Republic)—President: Bongo Odimba, El Hadj Omar; Prime Minister: Ndong, Jean Eyeghe; Min. of Defense: Bongo Ondimba, Ali; Min. of State for Economy, Finance, Budget & Privatization: Louembre, Blaise; Min. of State for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation & Francophonie & Regional Integration: Toungui, Paul Gambia, Republic of the—Head of State: Jammeh, Yahya; Vice President: Njie-Saidy, Isatou; Secy. of State for Finance & Economic Affairs: Bala-Gaye, Mousa; Secy. of State for Foreign Affairs: Touray, Omar Georgia, Republic of—President: Saakashvili, Mikheil; Prime Minister: Gilauri, Nikoloz; Min. of Defense: Sikharulidze, Vasil (David); Min. of Foreign Affairs: Vashadze, Grigol; Min. of Internal Affairs: Merabishvili, Vano; Min. of Justice: Adeishvili, Zurab Germany (Federal Republic of Germany)—President: Koehler, Horst; Chancellor: Merkel, Angela; Vice Chancellor, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Steinmeier, FrankWalter; Min. of Defense: Jung, Franz Josef; Min. for Environment & Nuclear Safety: Gabriel, Sigmar; Min. of Finance: Steinbrueck, Peer; Min. of the Interior: Schaeuble, Wolfgang; Min. of Justice: Zypries, Brigitte; Min. for Labor & Social Security: Scholz, Olaf; Min. for Transportation, Construction & Housing: Tiefensee, Wolfgang; President, Bundesbank: Weber, Axel A. Ghana, Republic of—President: Atta Mills, John Evans; Min. of Defense: Kan-Dapaah, Albert; Min. of Finance & Economic Planning: Duffuor, Kwabera; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration, & the New Partnership for Africa’s Development: Osei-Adjei, Akwasi Great Britain—See United Kingdom Greece (Hellenic Republic)—President: Papoulias, Karolos; Prime Minister: Karamanlis, Konstandinos (Costas); Min. of National Defense: Meimarakis, Evangelos-Vassilios; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bakoyianni, Theodora; Min. of Justice: Dendias, Giorgios-Nikolas; Min. of National Economy & Finance: Papathanasiou, Ioannis; Governor, Bank of Greece: Garganas, Nikos Grenada—Governor General: Glean, Carlyle Arnold; Prime Minister, Min. of Information, Min. of Legal Affairs, Min. of National Security: Thomas, Tillmann; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Tourism: David, Peter; Min. of Health: Hood, Karl Guatemala, Republic of—President: Colom Caballeros, Alvaro; Vice President: Espada, Rafael; Min. of Defense: Valenzuela Gonzalez, Maj. Gen. Abraham; Min. of Economy: Caballeros, Romulo; Min. of External Relations: Rodas Melgar, Haroldo Guinea, Republic of*—President of the National Council for Democracy and Development: Camara, Capt. Moussa Dadis; Prime Minister: Komara, Kabine; Min. of Defense: Konate, Gen. Sekouba; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Loua, Alexandre Cece; Min. of Security: Camara, Gen. Mamadouba Toto * A group of mid-level army officers, led by Capt. Camara, seized power one day after the Dec. 22, 2008, death of President Lansana Conte. A presidential election was scheduled for December. [See p. 34E3] Guinea-Bissau, Republic of*—Interim President: Pereira, Raimundo; Prime Minister: Gomes Junior, Carlos; Min. of Finance: Vaz, Mario; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nandigna, Adiato Djalo; Min. of National Defense: Silva, Artur * President Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira was assassinated March 2; Pereira, the speaker of parliament, was sworn in as interim president the next day. A presidential election was scheduled for June. [See p. 133A3] Guyana, Cooperative Republic of—President: Jagdeo, Bharrat; Prime Minister, Min. of Public Works: Hinds, Samuel; Min. of Finance: Singh, Ashni; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Rodrigues, Carolyn; Min. of Health: Ramsammy, Leslie Haiti—President: Preval, Rene Garcia; Prime Minister, Min. of Justice & Public Security: Exume, Jean Joseph; Min. of the Economy & Finance: Dorsainvil, Daniel; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Worship: Nicolas, Alrich; Min. of Interior & Territorial Collectivities: BienAime, Paul Antoine

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Honduras, Republic of—President: Zelaya Rosales, Jose Manuel; Min. of Defense: Orellana Mercado, Angel Edmundo; Min. of Finance: Santos Rivera, Rebeca Patricia; Min. of Foreign Relations: Rodas Baca, Patricia Isabel; Min. of Industry & Commerce: Cerrato Valladares, Fredis Alonso; Min. of Government & Justice: Meza Lopez, Victor Orlando Hungary, Republic of*—President: Solyom, Laszlo; Prime Minister: Gyurcsany, Ferenc; Min. of Defense: Szekeres, Imre; Min. of Finance: Veres, Janos; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Goncz, Kinga; Governor, National Bank of Hungary: Simor, Andras *Gyurcsany resigned March 23. [See p. 188F3] Iceland, Republic of—President: Grimsson, Olafur; Prime Minister: Sigurdardottir, Johanna; Min. of Fisheries & Agriculture: Sigfusson, Steingrimur; Min. of Environment: Sveinbjarnadottir, Thorunn; Min. of Finance: Mathiesen, Arni; Min. of Foreign Affairs & External Trade: Skarphedinsson, Ossur; Dir., Central Bank of Iceland: Oygard, Svein Harald India, Republic of—President: Patil, Pratibha; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Singh, Manmohan; Min. of Commerce & Industry: Nath, Kamal; Min. of Defense: Antony, A.K.; Min. of External Affairs: Mukherjee, Pranab; Min. of Health & Family Welfare: Ramadoss, Anbumani; Min. of Home Affairs: Chidambaram, Palaniappan; Governor, Reserve Bank of India: Subbarao, Duvvuri Indonesia, Republic of—President: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; Vice President: Kalla, Muhammad Yusuf; Coordinating Min. for Political, Legal & Security Affairs: Widodo, Adi Sujipto; Coordinating Min. for Economic Affairs, Min. for Finance: Sri Mulyani, Indrawati; Min. of Defense: Juwono Sudarsono; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Noer Hassan Wirajuda; Attorney General: Supandji, Hendarman Iran, Islamic Republic of—Supreme Leader: Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini; President: Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud; Min. of Defense & Armed Forces Logistics: Najjar, Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mottaki, Manouchehr; Min. of Interior: Mahsuli, Sadeq; Min. of Petroleum: Nozari, Gholam Hossein Iraq—President: Talabani, Jalal; Prime Minister: Maliki, Nouri Kamel al-; Vice Presidents: Abdul Mahdi, Adel; Hashimi, Tariq al-; Deputy Prime Ministers: Salih, Barham; Issawi, Rafi al-; Min. of Defense: Obaidi, Abdul Qadir al-; Min. of Finance: Jabr, Bayan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zebari, Hoshyar Mahmud; Min. of Interior: Bolani, Jawad al-; Min. of Oil: Shahristani, Hussain alIreland, Republic of (Eire)—President: McAleese, Mary; Prime Minister: Cowen, Brian; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Enterprise, Trade & Employment: Coughlan, Mary; Min. for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food: Smith, Brendan; Min. for Defense: O’Dea, Willie: Min. for Foreign Affairs: Martin, Micheal; Min. for Health & Children: Harney, Mary; Min. for Justice, Equality & Law Reform: Ahern, Dermot; Governor, Central Bank of Ireland: Hurley, John Israel, State of*—President: Peres, Shimon; Prime Minister: Netanyahu, Benjamin; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lieberman, Avigdor; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Barak, Ehud; Min. of Finance: Steinitz, Yuval; Min. of Industry, Trade & Labor: Ben-Eliezer, Binyamin; Min. of Interior: Yishai, Eli; Min. of Justice: Neeman, Yaakov *Netanyahu took office March 31. [See p. 209E1] Italy (Italian Republic)—President: Napolitano, Giorgio; Prime Minister: Berlusconi, Silvio; Under Sec. for the Prime Min.: Letta, Gianni; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Frattini, Franco; Min. of Defense: La Russa, Ignazio; Min. of Environment: Prestigiacomo, Stefania; Min. for Economic Development: Scajola, Claudio; Min. of Economy & Finance: Tremonti, Giulio; Min. of Interior: Maroni, Roberto; Min. of Justice: Alfano, Angelino; Governor, Bank of Italy: Draghi, Mario Ivory Coast—See Cote d’Ivoire, Republic of Jamaica—Governor General: Allen, Patrick; Prime Minister, Min. of Planning & Development: Golding, Bruce; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs & Trade: Baugh, Kenneth; Min. of Agriculture: Tufton, Christopher; Min. of Finance & Public Service: Shaw, Audley; Min. of Health & Environment: Spencer, Rudyard; Min of National Security: MacMillan, Trevor Japan—Emperor: Akihito; Prime Minister: Aso, Taro; Chief Cabinet Secretary: Kawamura, Takeo; Min. of Economy, Trade & Industry: Nikai Toshihiro; Min. of Defense: Hamada, Yasukazu; Min. of Finance; State Min., Financial Services, Economic & Fiscal Policy: Yosano, Kaoru; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nakasone,

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Hirofumi; Min. of Internal Affairs & Communications: Hatoyama, Kunio; Min. of Justice: Mori, Eisuke; Min. of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism: Kaneko, Kazuyoshi; State Min., Regulatory Reform, Administrative Reform & Civil Service Reform: Amari, Akira; Governor, Bank of Japan: Shirakawa, Masaaki Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of—King: Abdullah II; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Dahabi, Nader al-; Min. of Finance: Salem, Bassem al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Judeh, Nasser; Min. of Interior: Qadi, Nayef alKazakhstan, Republic of—President: Nazarbayev, Nursultan; Prime Minister: Masimov, Karim; Min. of Defense: Akhmetov, Daniyal; Min. of Finance: Zhamishev, Bolat; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tazhin, Marat Kenya, Republic of—President: Kibaki, Mwai; Vice President, Min. for Home Affairs: Musyoka, Stephene Kalonzo; Prime Minister: Odinga, Raila Amolo; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Finance: Kenyatta, Uhuru; Deputy Prime Minister: Mudavadi, Wycliffe Musalia; Attorney General: Wako, Amos; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Wetangula, Moses; Min. of State for Defense: Haji, Yussuf Mohamed Kiribati, Republic of—President, Min. for Foreign Affairs: Tong, Anote; Min. for Environment, Lands & Agricultural Development: Tofinga, Martin; Min. for Finance & Economic Development: Mwemwenikarawa, Nabuti Korea, North (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)—General Secretary, Korean Workers’ Party; Chairman, National Defense Commission; Supreme Cdr., Korean People’s Army: Kim Jong Il; President, Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium: Kim Yong Nam; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pak Ui Chun Korea, South (Republic of Korea)—President: Lee Myung Bak; Prime Minister: Han Seung Soo; Min. of National Defense: Lee Sang Hee; Min. of Strategy & Finance: Yoon Jeung Hyun; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Trade: Yu Myung Hwan; Min. of Unification: Hyun In Tae; Governor, Bank of Korea: Lee Seong Tae Kosovo, Republic of*—President: Sejdiu, Fatmir; Prime Minister: Thaci, Hashim *Kosovo had declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. Fifty-seven countries, including the U.S., recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty, which Serbia rejected. [See 2008, p. 456E1] Kuwait, State of*—Emir: Sabah, Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jabir al-; Prime Minister: Sabah, Nasir Muhammad al-Ahmad al-; First Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Sabah, Jabir Mubarak al-; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sabah, Muhammad al-Sabah al-Salim al-; Deputy Prime Minister: Hajji, Faysal al-; Min. of Finance: Shimmali, Mustafa al-Jassim al-; Min. of Oil: Sabah, Ahmad al-Abdallah al-Jabir al*Prime Minister Sabah and his cabinet March 16 resigned. [See p. 228B2] Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Republic)—President: Bakiyev, Kurmanbek; Prime Minister: Chudinov, Igor; Min. of Defense: Kalyev, Bakytbek; Min. of Finance: Sultanov, Marat; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sarbaev, Kadyrbek Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic)—President: Choummali Saignason, Lt. Gen.; Vice President: Boungnang Volachit; Prime Minister: Bouasone Bouphavanh; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Thongloun Sisoulit; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of National Defense: Douangchai Phichit, Maj. Gen.; Deputy Prime Ministers: Asang Laoli, Maj. Gen.; Somsavat Lengsavat; Thongloun Sisoulit Latvia, Republic of*—President: Zatlers, Valdis; Prime Minister: Dombrovskis, Valdis; Min. of Defense: Liegis, Imants; Min. of Economics: Kampars, Artis; Min. of Finance: Repse, Einars; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Riekstins, Maris *Dombrovskis’s government was confirmed March 12. [See p. 173A2] Lebanon, Republic of—President: Suleiman, Michel; Prime Minister: Siniora, Fouad; Deputy Prime Minister: Abu Jamra, Issam; Min. of Defense: Murr, Elias; Min. of Economy & Trade: Safadi, Muhammad; Min. of Finance: Chattah, Mohammed; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Emigrants: Salloukh, Fawzi; Min. of Interior: Baroud, Ziad Lesotho, Kingdom of—King: Letsie III; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense & National Security: Mosisili, Pakalitha Bethuel; Min. of Finance & Development Planning: Thahane, Timothy; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tsekoa, Mohlabi Kenneth Liberia, Republic of—President: Johnson-Sirleaf, Ellen; Min. of Finance: Ngafuan, Augustine; Min. of Foreign Affairs: King-Akerele, Olubanke; Min. of Na-

tional Defense: Samukai, Brownie Libya (Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya)—Leader: Qaddafi, Col. Muammer Abu Minyar el; Secy., General People’s Congress: Kuayba, Miftah Muhammad; Secy., General People’s Committee (Prime Minister): Mahmudi, al-Baghdadi Ali al-; Secy. of the General People’s Committee for Foreign Liaison & International Cooperation: Shalgam, Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Liechtenstein, Principality of—Head of State: Prince Hans Adam II; Prime Minister: Hasler, Otmar; Chairman, Liechtenstein State Bank: Fehr, Josef Lithuania, Republic of—President: Adamkus, Valdas; Prime Minister: Kubilius, Andrius; Min. of National Defense: Jukneviciene, Rasa; Min. of Finance: Semeta, Algirdas Gediminas; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Usackas, Vygaudas Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of—Grand Duke: Henri; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Min. of State: Juncker, Jean-Claude; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs & Immigration: Asselborn, Jean; Min. of Economy & Foreign Trade: Krecke, Jeannot; Chairman, Luxembourg Central Bank: Mersch, Yves Macedonia, Republic of*—President: Crvenkovski, Branko; Prime Minister: Gruevski, Nikola; Min. of Defense: Konjanovski, Zoran; Min. of Finance: Slaveski, Trajko; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Milososki, Antonio; Min of the Interior: Jankulovska, Gordana *The country was known internationally as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but the U.S. in 2004 had recognized its constitutional name, the Republic of Macedonia. Greece, which had a region called Macedonia, objected to that name. Georgi Ivanov won an April 5 presidential election, and was scheduled to take office May 12. [See p. 225G1] Madagascar, Republic of*—President of the High Transitional Authority: Rajoelina, Andry; Transitional Prime Minister: Roindefo, Monja *President Marc Ravalomanana March 17 resigned after being ousted in a military coup. The military installed Andry Rajoelina as president of a transitional government. [See p. 203D2] Malawi, Republic of—President, Min. of Agriculture & Food Security, Min. of Education & Human Resources: Mutharika, Bingu wa; Vice President: Chilumpha, Cassim; Min. of Finance: Gondwe, Goodall; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Banda, Joyce Malaysia*—Paramount Ruler (King): Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Mahmud AlMuktafi Billah Shah; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak; Min. of Defense: Zahid Hamidi; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Anifah Aman; Governor, Central Bank: Zeti Akhtar Aziz *Najib was sworn in April 3 and announced his cabinet April 9. [See p. 223D1] Maldives, Republic of—President: Nasheed, Mohamed; Min. of Defense & National Security: Faisal, Ameen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Shaheed, Ahmed Mali, Republic of—President: Toure, Amadou Toumani; Prime Minister: Sidibe, Modibo; Min. of Defense & Veterans: Plea, Natie; Min. of Economy & Finance: Diallo, Diarra Mariam Flantie; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Ouane, Moctar; Min. of Internal Security & Civil Protection: Gassama, Col. Sadio Malta, Republic of—President: Fenech Adami, Edward; Prime Minister: Gonzi, Lawrence; Minister of Finance: Fenech, Tonio; Deputy Prime Minister: Borg, Tonio Marshall Islands, Republic of the—President: Tomeing, Litokwa; Min. of Finance: Ading, Jack; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Debrum, Anton (Tony) Mauritania, Islamic Republic of*—President: Abdel Aziz, Gen. Mohamed Ould; Prime Minister: Laghdaf, Moulaye Ould Mohamed *Abdel Aziz in August 2008 led a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government, installing himself as president and Laghdaf as prime minister. [See 2008, p. 972A1] Mauritius, Republic of—President: Jugnauth, Sir Anerood; Prime Minister, Min. of Civil Service & Administrative Reforms, Min. of Defense & Home Affairs, Min. of Foreign Affairs, Int. Trade, & Cooperation, Min. of Rodrigues & Outer Islands: Ramgoolam, Dr. Navinchandra; Min. of Finance & Economic Development: Sithanen, Ramakirshna Mexico (United Mexican States)—President: Calderon Hinojosa, Felipe de Jesus; Attorney General: Medina Mora Icaza, Eduardo; Secy. of Economy: Ruiz Mateos, Gerardo; Secy. of Energy: Kessel Martinez,

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Georgina; Secy. of Finance & Public Credit: Carstens Carstens, Agustin; Secy. of Foreign Relations: Espinosa Cantellano, Patricia; Secy. of Government: Gomez Mont Urueta, Francisco Fernando; Secy. of Labor & Social Welfare: Lozano Alarcon, Javier; Secy. of National Defense: Galvan Galvan, Guillermo; Secy. of Public Education: Vazquez Mota, Josefina; Secy. of Tourism: Elizondo Torres, Rodolfo; Governor, Bank of Mexico: Ortiz Martinez, Guillermo Micronesia, Federated States of—President: Mori, Emanuel; Vice President: Alik, Alik; Secy. of Foreign Affairs: Robert, Lorin Moldova, Republic of—President: Voronin, Vladimir; Prime Minister: Greceanii, Zinaida; Min. of Defense: Vrabie, Vitale; Min. of Finance: Durlesteanu, Mariana; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Stratan, Andrei; Min. of Internal Affairs: Mejinschi, Gen. Valentin Monaco, Principality of—Chief of State: Prince Albert II; Min. of State: Proust, Jean-Paul Mongolia—President: Enkhbayar, Nambariin; Prime Minister: Bajar, Sanjaagiin Montenegro, Republic of—President: Vujanovic, Filip; Prime Minister: Djukanovic, Milo; Min. of Defense: Vucinic, Boro; Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Policy: Lazovic, Vujica; Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration: Djurovic, Gordana; Min. of Finance: Luksic, Igor; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Rocen, Milan Morocco, Kingdom of—King: Mohammed VI; Prime Minister: Fassi, Abbas el; Min. of Economy & Finance: Mezouar, Salaheddine; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Fassi-Fihri, Taieb; Min. of Interior: Benmoussa, Chakib; Min. of Justice: Radi, Abdelwahed Mozambique, Republic of—President: Guebuza, Armando; Prime Minister: Diogo, Luisa Dias; Min. of Finance: Gaolathe, Baledzi; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Baloi, Oldemiro; Min. of National Defense: Nhussi, Fillipe Myanmar, Union of—Prime Minister: Thein Sein Lt. Gen.; Chairman, State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), Min. of Defense: Than Shwe, Sr. Gen.; Vice Chairman, SPDC: Maung Aye, Vice Sr. Gen.; First Secy., SPDC: Tin Aung Myint Oo, Lt. Gen.; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nyan Win, Maj. Gen. Namibia, Republic of—President: Pohamba, Hifikepunye; Prime Minister: Angula, Nahas; Min. of Defense: Namoloh, Maj. Gen. Charles; Min. of Finance: Kuugongel Wa-amadhila, Saara; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Hausiku, Marco Nauru, Republic of—President, Min. for Public Service, Min. for Home Affairs, Min. for Nauru Phosphate Trust, Min. for Police, Prisons & Emergency Services: Stephen, Marcus; Min. for Foreign Affairs & Trade, Min. for Finance & Sustainable Development: Keke, Dr. Kieren; Min for Transport, Min. for Telecommunications: Dabwido, Spernt Nepal, Federal Democratic Republic of—Prime Minister: Dahal, Pushpa Kamal; Min. of Defense: Thapa, Ram Bahadur; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Yadav, Upendra; Min. of Finance: Bhattarai, Baburam; Min. of Home: Gautam, Bamder; Min. of Law, Justice & Constituent Assembly: Gurung, Dev; Min. of Local Development: Jha, Ram Chandra Netherlands, Kingdom of the—Queen: Beatrix; Prime Minister: Balkenende, Jan Peter; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Bos, Wouter; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Youth & Family Affairs: Rouvoet, Andre; Min. of Defense: van Middelkoop, Eimert; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Verhagen, Maxime; Min. of Housing, Communities & Integration: Van Der Laan, Eberhard; Min. of Justice: Hirsch Ballin, Ernst; Min. of Social Affairs & Employment: Donner, Piet Hein; President, Central Bank: Wellink, Nout New Zealand, Dominion of—Governor General: Satyanand, Anand; Prime Minister: Key, John Phillip; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Mapp, Wayne Daniel; Min. of Finance, Min. for Infrastructure: English, Bill; Attorney General, Minister of Arts, Culture & Heritage: Finlayson, Christopher; Min of Education: Tolley, Anne; Min. of State Services: Ryall, Tony; Min. of Justice: Power, Simon; Min. of Maori Affairs: Sharples, Pita Nicaragua, Republic of—President: Ortega Saavedra, Daniel; Vice President: Morales Carazo, Jaime; Min. of Environment & Natural Resources: Argenal, Juana; Min. of Finance & Public Credit: Guevara Obregon, Alberto Jose; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Santos Lopez, Samuel; Min. of Labor: Chavez Gomez, Jeannette Niger, Republic of the—President: Tandja, Mamadou; Prime Minister: Oumarou, Seine; Min. of Defense:

April 9, 2009

Hamadou, Djida; Min. of Economy & Finance: Lamine, Ali Zeine; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mindaoudou, Aichatou Nigeria, Federal Republic of—President: Yar’Adua, Umaru; Vice President: Jonathan, Goodluck; Min. of Defense: Mustapha, Shettima; Min. of Finance: Muhtar, Mansur; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Maduekwe, Ojo; Min. of Interior: Abbe, Godwin; Min. of Justice: Aondokaa, Michael Kaase; Min. of Petroleum, Lukman, Rilwanu Norway, Kingdom of—King: Harald V; Prime Minister: Stoltenberg, Jens; Min. of Defense: Strom-Erichsen, Anne-Grete; Min. of Environment & Development Cooperation: Solheim, Erik; Min. of Finance: Halvorsen, Kristin; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Store, Jonas Gahr; Min. of Petroleum & Energy: Riis-Johansen, Terje; Min. of Justice & Police: Storberget, Knut; Min. of Trade & Industry: Brustad, Sylvia; Governor, Bank of Norway: Gjedrem, Svein Oman, Sultanate of—Sultan, Prime Minister, Min. of Defense, Min. of Finance: Said, Qaboos bin Said al-; Min. of Oil & Gas: Rumhi, Muhammad bin Hamad bin Sayf alPakistan, Islamic Republic of*—President: Zardari, Asif Ali; Prime Minister: Gillani, Yousaf Raza; Min. of Defense: Mukhtar, Chaudhry Ahmed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Qureshi, Shah Mahmood; Min. of Information & Broadcasting: Rehman, Sherry; Min. of Law, Justice & Human Rights: Naik, Farooq; Min. for Kashmir Affairs & Northern Areas: Kaira, Qamar Zaman; Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior & Narcotics Control: Malik, Rehman; Army Chief of Staff: Kiyani, Gen. Ashfaq Pevez *Rehman resigned March 13, and was succeeded by Kaira. Abbas Sarfaraz Khan replaced Kaira as Kashmir minister. [See p. 175C3] Palau, Republic of—President: Toribiong, Johnson.; Vice President, Min. for Administration: Mariur, Kerai Panama, Republic of—President: Torrijos Espino, Martin; First Vice President, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lewis Navarro, Samuel; Min. of Commerce & Industries: Poppas, Gisela Alvarez de; Min. of Economy & Finances: Alexander Hansell, Hector Ernesto; Min. of Government & Justice: Arcia Torres, Dilio; Min. of Presidency: Mezquita, Rafael; Min. of Public Works: Colamarco, Benjamin Papua New Guinea, Independent State of—Governor General: Matane, Sir Paulius; Prime Minister: Somare, Sir Michael; Min. for Defense: Dadae, Bob; Min. for Treasury & Finance: Pruaitch, Patrick; Min. for Foreign Affairs, Trade & Immigration: Abal, Sam Paraguay, Republic of—President: Lugo Mendez, Fernando; Min. of Finance: Borda, Dionisio; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Hamed Franco, Alejandro; Min. of Interior: Filizzola, Rafael; Min. of Justice & Labor: Llano, Blas; Min. of National Defense: Bareiro Spaini, Luis Peru—President: Garcia Perez, Alan; Prime Minister: Simon Munaro, Yehude; Min. of Defense: FloresAraoz Esparza, Antero; Min. of Economy & Finance: Carranza Ugarte, Luis; Min. of Energy & Mines: Sanchez Gamarra, Pedro; Min. of Foreign Relations: Garcia Belaunde, Jose Antonio; Min. of Interior: Cabanillas Bustamente, Mercedes Philippines, Republic of the—President: Macapagal-Arroyo, Gloria; Vice President: De Castro, Noli; Executive Secretary: Ermita, Eduardo; Secy. of Finance: Teves, Margarito Gary; Secy. of Foreign Affairs: Romulo, Alberto; Secy. of Interior & Local Government: Puno, Ronaldo; Secy. of National Defense: Teodoro, Gilberto Jr.; Secy. of Trade & Industry: Favila, Peter Poland, Republic of—President: Kaczynski, Lech; Prime Minister: Tusk, Donald; Min. of Finance: Rostowski, Jacek; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sikorski, Radoslaw; Min. of Interior & Administration: Schetyna, Grzegorz; Min. of Justice: Czuma, Andrzej; Min. of National Defense: Klich, Bogdan; President, Polish National Bank: Skrzypek, Slawomir Portugal (Portuguese Republic)—President: Cavaco Silva, Anibal Antonio; Prime Minister: Socrates Carvalho Sousa de Pinto, Jose; Min. of Agriculture, Rural Development & Fisheries: Silva, Jaime; Min. for the Economy & Innovation: Pinho, Manuel; Min. of Finance: Teixeira dos Santos, Fernando; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Amado, Luis; Min. for Internal Administration: Pereira, Rui; Min. of Justice: Costa, Alberto; Min. for National Defense: Severiano Teixeira, Nuno; Governor, Bank of Portugal: Constancio, Victor Qatar, State of—Emir, Min. of Defense: Thani, Hamad bin Khalifa al-; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Af-

fairs: Thani, Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-; Min. of Energy & Industry: Atiyah, Abdallah bin Hamad al-; Min. of Finance & Economy: Kamal, Yusuf Husayn alRomania—President: Basescu, Traian; Prime Minister: Boc, Emil; Min. of Defense: Stanisoara, Mihai; Min. of Economy: Videanu, Adriean; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Diaconescu, Cristian Russia (Russian Federation)—President: Medvedev, Dmitri A.; Prime Minister: Putin, Vladimir V.; First Deputy Prime Minister: Shuvalov, Igor I., Zubkov, Viktor A.; Min. of Defense: Serdyukov, Anatoly E.; Min. of Agriculture: Gordeyev, Aleksei V.; Min. of Finance: Kudrin, Aleksei L.; Min. of Industry & Trade: Khristenko, Viktor B.; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lavrov, Sergei V.; Min. of Justice: Konovalov, Aleksandr V.; Min. of Natural Resources & Ecology: Trutnev, Yuri P. Rwanda (Rwandese Republic)—President: Kagame, Paul; Prime Minister: Makuza, Bernard; Min. of Defense & National Security: Gatsinzi, Maj. Gen. Marcel; Min. of Finance & Economic Planning: Musoni, James; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Museminari, Rosemary Kobusingye; Min. of Justice: Karugarama, Tharcisse St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis, Federation of—Governor General: Sebastian, Cuthbert Montraville; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. of Immigration, Min. of National Security, Min. of Sustainable Development, Min. of Tourism & Culture: Douglas, Dr. Denzil; Min. of Finance & International Trade: Harris, Timothy St. Lucia—Governor General: Louisy, Dame Pearlette; Prime Minister, Min for Finance, Econmic Affairs, Economic Planning, National Development, & External Affairs: King, Stephenson; Min. for Tourism & Civil Aviation: Chastanet, Allen St. Vincent and the Grenadines—Governor General: Ballantyne, Sir Frederick Nathaniel; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Min. of Planning & Economic Development, Min. of National Security, Min. of Energy: Gonsalves, Ralph; Dep. Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs, Commerce & Trade: Straker, Louis; Min. of Tourism, Youth & Sports: Beache, Glen Samoa, Independent State of—Head of State: Tui Atua Tupua Tupuola Efi Tamasese; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tuila’epa Sailele Malielegaoi; Deputy Prime Minister: Misa Telefoni Retzlaff San Marino, Republic of—Secy. of State for Foreign & Political Affairs & Economic Planning: Stolfi, Fiorenzo; Secy. of Budget & Finance: Macina, Stefano; Secy. of Interior & Civil Protection: Ciavatta, Valeria Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of— President: de Menezes, Fradique; Prime Minister: Branco, Joachim Rafael; Min. of Planning & Finance: Santiago, Angela Viegas; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Tiny, Carlos Alberto Pires Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of—King, Prime Minister: Saud, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-; Crown Prince, First Deputy Prime Minister: Saud, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-; Min. of Finance: Asaf, Ibrahim Abdul Aziz al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Saud, Saud al-Faisal al-; Min. of Interior: Saud, Nayif bin Abdul Aziz al-; Min. of Justice: Issa, Muhammad bin Abd al-Karim bin Abd al-Aiziz al-; Min. of Petroleum & Mineral Resources: Naimi, Ali Ibrahim al-; Min. of Pilgrimage Affairs & Religious Trusts: Farsi, Abd al-Salam Muhammad alSenegal, Republic of—President: Wade, Abdoulaye; Prime Minister: Soumare, Cheikh Hadjibou; Min. of Armed Forces: Diop, Becaye; Min. of Economy & Finance: Diop, Abdoulaye; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Gadio, Cheikh Tidiane Serbia, Republic of—President: Tadic, Boris; Prime Minister: Cvetkovic, Mirko; Min. of Defense: Sutanovac, Dragan; Min. of Finance: Dragutinovic, Diana; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Jeremic, Vuk; Min. of Internal Affairs: Dacic, Ivica Seychelles, Republic of—President, Min. of Defense: Michel, James Alix; Vice President: Belmont, Joseph; Min. of Finance & Designated Min.: Faure, Danny; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pillay, Patrick Georges Sierra Leone, Republic of—President: Koroma, Ernest Bai; Vice President: Sam-Sumana, Samuel; Min. of Defense & National Security: Conteh, Paulo; Min. of Finance & Development: Carew, David Omashola; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Bangura, Zainab Hawa Singapore, Republic of—President: Nathan, S. R.; Prime Minister: Lee Hsien Loong; Min. of Finance: Shanmugarathnam, Tharman; Senior Minister; Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore: Goh Chok Tong; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Yeo, George; Minister Mentor: Lee Kuan Yew

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Slovakia (Slovak Republic)—President: Gasparovic, Ivan; Prime Minister: Fico, Robert; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Interior: Kalinak, Robert; Min. of Defense: Baska, Jaroslav; Min. of Finance: Pociatek, Jan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lajcak, Miroslav Slovenia, Republic of—President: Turk, Danilo; Prime Minister: Paitor, Borut; Min. of Defense: Erjavec, Karl; Min. of Finance: Krizanic, Franc; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zbogar, Samuel Solomon Islands—Governor General: Waena, Sir Nathaniel; Prime Minister: Sikua, Dr. Derek; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Rural Development: Fono, Fred; Min. of Finance & Treasury: Rini, Snyder; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Haomae, William; Min. of Justice & Legal Affairs: Kaua, Towsel Somalia, Republic of*—Interim President: Ahmed, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh; Interim Prime Minister: Sharmarke, Umar Abdirashid Ali *Somalia had been without a permanent functioning central government since 1991. [See p. 115A1] South Africa, Republic of—Interim President: Motlanthe, Kgalema; Deputy President: Mbete, Baleka; Min. of Agriculture & Land Affairs: Xingwana, Lulama; Min. of Defense: Nqakula, Charles; Min. of Finance: Manuel, Trevor; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Dlamini-Zuma, Nkosazana; Min. of Health: Hogan, Barbara; Min. of Intelligence: Cwele, Siyabonga; Min. of Justice & Constitutional Affairs: Surty, Enver; Min. of Safety & Security: Mthethwa, Nathi Spain, Kingdom of*—King: Juan Carlos I; Prime Minister: Rodriguez Zapatero, Jose Luis; Min. of Defense: Chacon, Carme; Min. of Economy & Finance: Salgado, Elena; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Moratinos, Miguel Angel; Min. of Interior: Rubalcaba, Alfredo Perez; Min. of Justice: Caamano Dominguez, Francisco; Governor, Bank of Spain: Fernandez Ordonez, Miguel Angel *Zapatero April 7 reshuffled his cabinet, naming Salgado to replace Pedro Solbes. [See p. 226C3] Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of—President, Min. of Defense, Min. of Finance & Planning: Rajapaksa, Mahinda; Prime Minister: Wickremanayake, Ratnasiri; Secy. of Defense: Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bogollagama, Rohitha; Governor, Central Bank: Cabraal, Ajith Nivard Sudan, Republic of the—President: Bashir, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al-; First Vice President, President of Southern Sudan: Kiir Mayardit, Salva; Vice President: Taha, Ali Osman; Senior Assistant to the President: Minnawi, Minni; Min. of Defense: Hussein, Abdel Rahim Mohammed; Min. of Energy & Mining: Hasan, Al Zubayr Ahmad al-; Min. of Finance & Planning: Hassan, Zubeir Mohammed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Deng Alor Kuol Suriname, Republic of—President: Venetiaan, Ronald; Vice President: Sardjoe, Ramdien; Min. of Defense: Fernald, Ivan; Min. of Finance: Hildenberg, Humphrey; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kraag-Keteldijk, Lygia; Min. of Justice & Police: Santhoki, Chandrikapersad; Min. of Natural Resources: Rusland, Gregory Swaziland, Kingdom of—King: Mswati III; Prime Minister: Dlamini, Absalom Themba; Min. for Agriculture: Fakudze, Mtiti; Min. for Finance: Sithole, Majozi; Min. for Foreign Affairs & Trade: Dlamini, Moses Mathedele Sweden, Kingdom of—King: Carl XVI Gustaf; Prime Minister: Reinfeldt, Fredrik; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Enterprise & Energy: Olofsson, Maud; Min. of Agriculture, Food & Fisheries: Erlandsson, Eskil; Min. of Defense: Tolgfors, Sten; Min. of Environment: Carlgren, Andreas; Min. of Finance: Borg, Anders; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bildt, Carl; Governor, Swedish Central Bank: Ingves, Stefan Switzerland (Swiss Confederation)—President, Chief, Dept. of Finance: Merz, Hans-Rudolf; Vice President: Leuthard, Doris; Chief, Dept. of Home Affairs: Couchepin, Pascal; Chief, Dept. of Transportation, Communications & Energy: Leuenberger, Moritz; Chief, Dept. of Justice & Police: Widmer-Schlumpf, Eveline; Chief, Dept. of Foreign Affairs: Calmy-Rey, Micheline; Chief, Dept. of Defense, Civil Protection & Sports: Maurer, Veli; Chief, Dept. of Economic Affairs: Leuthard, Doris; Chairman, Swiss National Bank: Roth, Jean-Pierre Syria (Syrian Arab Republic)—President: Assad, Bashar al-; Prime Minister: Utri, Muhammad Naji al-; Min. of Defense: Turkmani, Lt. Gen. Hassan; Min. of Finance: Husayn, Muhammad al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mouallem, Walid; Min. of Interior: Majid, Gen. Bassam Abdel

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Taiwan—See China, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of—President:

Rakhman, Emomali; Prime Minister: Oqilov, Oqil; Min. of Defense: Khayrulloyev, Col. Gen. Sherali; Min. of Finance: Najmuddinov, Safarali; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zarifi, Hamrohon Tanzania, United Republic of—President: Kikwete, Jakaya Mrisho; Prime Minister: Pinda, Peter Mizengo; President of Zanzibar: Karume, Amani Abeid; Min. of Defense & National Service: Mwinyi, Hussein; Min. of Finance, Planning, Economy & Empowerment: Mkulo, Mustapha; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Membe, Bernard Kamillius Thailand, Kingdom of—King: Bhumibol Adulyadej; Prime Minister: Abhisit Vejjajiva; Min. of Defense: Prawit Wongsuwan; Dep. Prime Ministers: Suthep Thueaksuban, Kopsak Saphawasu, Sanan Kachornprasat; Justice Minister: Phraphan Saliratwiphak; Min. of Finance: Kon Chatikawanit Timor Leste, Democratic Republic of—President: Ramos-Horta, Jose; Prime Minister: Gusmao, Jose Alexandre (Xanana); First Deputy Prime Minister: Guterres, Jose; Min. for Justice: Lobato, Lucia; Min. for Planning & Finance: Pires, Emilia; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Da Costa, Zacarias Togo, Republic of—President: Gnassingbe, Faure; Prime Minister: Houngbo, Gilbert; Min. of Economic Affairs & Privatization: Ayassor, Adji Otheth; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Regional Integration: Esaw, Kofi; Min. of Security: Titikpina, Col. Atcha Tonga, Kingdom of—King: Tupou V, Siaosi; Prime Minister: Sevele, Feleti (Fred); Deputy Prime Minister: Tangi, Viliami; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tupou, Sonatane Tua Taumoepeau Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of—President: Richards, George Maxwell; Prime Minister: Manning, Patrick; Min. of Finance: Tesheira-Nunez, Karen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Gopee-Scoon, Paula Tunisia, Republic of—President: Ben Ali, Zine elAbidine; Prime Minister: Ghannouchi, Mohamed; Min. of Finance: Kechiche, Mohamed Rachid; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Abdallah, Abdelwaheb; Min. of Justice & Human Rights: Tekkari, Bechir; Min. of National Defense: Morjane, Kamel Turkey, Republic of—President: Gul, Abdullah; Prime Minister: Erdogan, Recep Tayyip; Deputy Prime Ministers: Cicek, Cemil; Ekren, Nazim; Yazici, Hayati; Min. of Finance: Unakitan, Kemal; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Babacan, Ali; Min. of Interior: Atalay, Besir; Min. of Justice: Sahin, Mehmet Ali; Min. of National Defense: Gonul, Mehmet Vecdi; Governor, Central Bank: Yilmaz, Durmus Turkmenistan, Republic of—President: Berdymukhammedov, Gurbanguly; Deputy Chairman for Intl. Relations, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Meredov, Rashit; Min. of Defense: Berdiyew, Yaylym; Min. of Internal Affairs: Amanmyradow, Orazgeldi; Min. of National Security: Amanow, Carymyrat Tuvalu—Governor General: Telito, Filiomea; Prime Minister: Ielemia, Apisai; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Communications & Transport, Min. for Works & Energy: Sopoanga, Saufatu; Min. of Finance, Economic Planning & Industries: Metia, Lotoala Uganda, Republic of—President: Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta; Prime Minister: Nsibambi, Apollo; Min. of Defense: Kiyonga, Crispus; Min. of Finance, Planning & Economic Development: Suruma, Ezra; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kutesa, Sam; Min. of Justice & Constitutional Affairs: Makubuya, Kiddu Ukraine, Republic of—President: Yushchenko, Viktor; Prime Minister: Tymoshenko, Yulia; Min. of Defense: Yekhanurov, Yuriy; Min. of Finance: Umansky, Ihor; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Ohryzko, Volodymyr; Min. of Internal Affairs: Lutsenko, Yuriy United Arab Emirates—President: Nuhayyan, Khalifa bin Zayed al-; Vice President, Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Maktoum, Mohammed bin Rashid alUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—Queen: Elizabeth II; Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, & Minister for the Civil Service: Brown, Gordon; Chancellor of the Exchequer: Darling, Alistair; Secy. of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform: Mandelson, Peter; Secy. of State for Children, Schools & Families: Balls, Ed; Secy. of State for Communities & Local Government: Blears, Hazel; Secy. of State for Defense: Hutton, John; Secy. of State for Scotland: Murphy, James; Secy. of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs: Benn, Hilary; Secy. of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs: Miliband, David; Secy. of State for Health: Johnson, Alan; Secy. of State for the Home Dept.: Smith, Jacqui; Secy. of

State for International Development: Alexander, Douglas; Secy. of State for Justice & Lord Chancellor: Straw, Jack; Secy. of State for Northern Ireland; Woodward, Shaun; Secy. of State for Transport: Hoon, Geoffrey; Secy. of State for Work & Pensions: Purnell, James; Secy. of State for Wales: Murphy, Paul; Leader of the House of Commons, President of the Council & Labour Party Chairman: Harman, Harriet; Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Ashton; Governor, Bank of England: King, Mervyn United States of America—President: Obama, Barack Hussein; Vice President: Biden, Joseph Robinette Jr. Cabinet—Secy. of Agriculture: Vilsack, Tom; Attorney General: Holder Jr., Eric; Secy. of Commerce: Locke, Gary; Secy. of Defense: Gates, Robert; Secy. of Education: Duncan, Arne; Secy. of Energy: Chu, Steven; Secy. of Health & Human Services-designate: Sebelius, Kathleen; Secy. of Homeland Security: Napolitano, Janet; Secy. of Housing & Urban Development: Donovan, Shaun; Secy. of the Interior: Salazar, Ken; Secy. of Labor: Solis, Hilda; Secy. of State: Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Secy. of Transportation: LaHood, Ray; Secy. of the Treasury: Geithner, Timothy; Secy. of Veterans’ Affairs: Shinseki, Eric Congress—President pro Tempore, Senate: Byrd, Robert; Majority Leader, Senate: Reid, Harry; Minority Leader, Senate: McConnell, Mitch; Speaker, House of Representatives: Pelosi, Nancy; Majority Leader, House: Hoyer, Steny; Minority Leader, House: Boehner, John Supreme Court—Chief Justice of the U.S.: Roberts Jr., John. G.; Associate Justices, Supreme Court: Stevens, John Paul; Scalia, Antonin; Kennedy, Anthony M.; Souter, David H.; Thomas, Clarence; Ginsburg, Ruth Bader; Breyer, Stephen G.; Alito Jr., Samuel A. Uruguay, Oriental Republic of—President: Vazquez, Tabare; Vice President: Nin Novoa, Rodolfo; Min. of Agriculture, Livestock & Fishing: Agazzi, Ernesto; Min. of Economy & Finance: Garcia, Alvaro; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Fernandez, Gonzalo; Min. of Industry, Energy & Mines: Martinez, Daniel; Min. of Labor & Social Welfare: Bonomi, Eduardo; Min. of National Defense: Bayardi, Jose Uzbekistan, Republic of—President: Karimov, Islam; Prime Minister: Mirziyayev, Shavkat; Min. of Defense: Berdiyev, Qobul; Min. of Finance: Azimov, Rustam; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Norov, Vladimir; Min. of Internal Affairs: Matlyubov, Bakhodir Vanuatu, Republic of—President: Kelekele, Kalkot Matas; Prime Minister: Natapai, Edward; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kaltonga, Pakoa; Min. of Finance: Molisa, Sela Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of—President: Chavez Frias, Hugo; Executive Vice President: Carrizalez Rengifo, Ramon Alonzo; Min. of Defense: Rangel Briceno, Gen. Gustavo Reyes; Min. of Energy & Petroleum: Ramirez Carreno, Rafael Dario; Min. of Finance: Rodriguez Araque, Ali; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Maduro Moros, Nicolas; Min. of Interior & Justice: El Aissami, Tarik Vietnam, Socialist Republic of—President: Nguyen Minh Triet, Gen.; Prime Minister: Nguyen Tan Dung; Min. of Finance: Vu Van Ninh; Deputy Prime Minister & Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pham Gia Khiem; Min. of National Defense: Phung Quang Thanh; Min. of Industry & Trade: Vu Huy Hoang Yemen, Republic of—President: Saleh, Ali Abdullah; Prime Minister: Mujawar, Ali Muhammad; Min. of Defense: Ali, Brig. Gen. Muhammad Nasir Ahmad; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Qirbi, Abu Bakr al-; Min. of Interior: Masri, Mutahir Rashid al-; Min. of Oil & Minerals: Aydarus, Amir Salim alZambia, Republic of—President: Banda, Rupiah; Vice President: Kunda, George; Min. of Defense: Mpombo, George; Min. of Finance & National Planning: Musokotwane, Situmbeko; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pande, Kabinga; Min. of Mines & Mineral Resources: Mwale, Maxwell Zimbabwe, Republic of—President: Mugabe, Robert; Prime Minister: Tsvangirai, Morgan; Vice Presidents: Msika, Joseph; Mujuru, Joyce; Deputy Prime Ministers: Mutambara, Arthur; Khuoe, Thokozani; Min. of Agriculture, Mechanization & Irrigation Development: Made, Joseph; Min. of Defense: Mnangagwa, Emmerson; Min. of Finance: Biti, Tendai; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mumbengegwi, Simbarashe; Min. of Home Affairs (shared): Mohadi, Kembo; Mutsekwa, Giles; Min. of Justice & Legal Affairs: Chinamasa, Patrick; Min. of Local Government: Chombo, Ignatius; Governor, Reserve Bank: Gono, Gideon

April 9, 2009

U.S. Navy Frees Hostage Captain After Standoff With Somali Pirates in Indian Ocean First Attack on U.S.-Flagged Merchant Ship.

A band of Somali pirates April 8 attempted to hijack the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama, a container ship bound for the Kenyan port of Mombasa carrying emergency food aid, in the Indian Ocean about 200 miles (320 km) southeast of the northern Somali town of Eyl. However, its 20-member U.S. crew managed to regain control of the ship from the pirates, who then took the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, hostage and held him captive on a lifeboat. After a four-day standoff between the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge and the pirates, U.S. Navy SEALs aboard the Bainbridge April 12 shot and killed the pirates and rescued Phillips. [See below, p. 66E3] The attack on the Maersk Alabama—the first by Somali pirates on a U.S.-flagged merchant ship—and the violent end to the standoff increased tensions in the waters near Somalia. In most previous hostage situations involving Somali pirates, negotiations had been carried out between the pirates and the owners of the ships, with minimal government involvement and little violence. However, French commandos April 10 had stormed a yacht hijacked by pirates off Somalia. [See below] Piracy had been on the rise off the Somali coast, in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, over the past year, primarily as a result of the lack of an effective Somali central government, an ongoing civil war between Somalia’s weak transitional government and Islamists, and extreme poverty that forced many former fishermen to turn to piracy. In 2009 alone, there had been more than 70 attacks to date. Private shipping companies had paid millions of dollars in ransom to the pirates, allowing them to purchase more sophisticated weapons, vessels and communications equipment. [See p. 115A1] The situation began to draw international attention after the capture of an arms-laden Ukrainian ship and a Saudi supertanker in late 2008 (both were later released after a ransom was paid). As of April 16, Somali pirates were holding at least 15 ships and some 300 crew members hostage, mainly near the coastal havens of Eyl and Harardhere, in Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland region. Navies from the U.S., European nations, China, Japan and India had sent warships and other vessels to the area—one of the world’s busiest shipping routes—in an effort to curb the growing pirate threat. Stepped-up patrols in the narrow Gulf of Aden had resulted in the pirates shifting tactics and preying on ships in the Indian Ocean, off Somalia’s southeast coast. However, analysts said the area of the Indian Ocean in which the pirates operated was too large for international warships to monitor effectively. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which tracked incidents of piracy around the world, had called on shipping companies to implement measures to prevent or repel pirate attacks, although it discouraged arming the crews,

which were mainly comprised of merchant seamen not trained to use firearms. Crew Repels Pirates; Captain Held—

According to reports released soon after the April 8 incident, as well as accounts given April 14–15 by freed crew members of the Maersk Alabama, four armed pirates had boarded their ship from a small skiff and seized the bridge. (The Maersk Alabama was owned by Maersk Line Ltd., the U.S. subsidiary of Denmark’s A.P. MollerMaersk AS.) A crew member reportedly was able to sound an alarm before being apprehended by the pirates. Most of the crew sought shelter in designated safe rooms on the ship. Those included the engine room, where the ship’s engineer was able to transfer control of its propulsion and steering from the bridge. At one point later that day, the crew managed to overpower, injure and capture the apparent leader of the pirates. Phillips then offered to surrender to the pirates in exchange for the crew’s safety. The three other pirates took Phillips aboard a lifeboat. The two sides then reportedly agreed to exchange hostages; however, according to the U.S. Defense Department and crew members—who were in contact with the press and family members via cell phone— somehow the captured pirate was handed over but the captain was not. Meanwhile, the Bainbridge, part of the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, which was on patrol about 300 miles away, set off for the site of the hijacking as soon as the alarm was sounded, and arrived on the scene early April 9. Sailors from the Bainbridge boarded the Maersk Alabama, and guided it, with the 19 remaining crew members, to Mombasa, where it reached port April 11. The Bainbridge stayed near the lifeboat, and made contact with the pirates the morning of April 9. Phillips sometime during the night of April 9–10 attempted to escape by jumping overboard and swimming away, but the pirates managed to pull him back into the lifeboat. As of April 10, the pirates reportedly had tied up Phillips and refused to allow the U.S. negotiators to speak to him. Later that day, the frigate USS Halyburton delivered special-operations forces, including Navy SEALs, to the Bainbridge, and remained in the area to help monitor the lifeboat. It was later joined by the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship equipped with missile launchers and attack planes. Trained hostage negotiators from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), working from their headquarters in Quantico, Va., April 9 joined the talks to free Phillips. They reportedly negotiated with both the pirates in the lifeboat and with clan elders on the ground in Puntland. A ransom of between $2 million and $6 million reportedly was demanded. However, the talks broke down April 11, after the U.S. demanded the surrender of the pirates. The pirates April 11 were able to restart the lifeboat’s motor, which had been

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3565 April 16, 2009

B stalled, and began heading toward the Somali coast. The next day, though, they apparently ran out of fuel, and asked to be towed. They also allowed the Bainbridge to deliver fresh food, water and clothing. The pirates’ apparent leader, who had been injured by the crew of the Maersk Alabama, went aboard the Bainbridge for treatment and to hold talks on the hostage situation. The Navy SEALs aboard the Bainbridge had been authorized by U.S. President Barack Obama to use deadly force against the pirates if they believed Phillips’s life to be in imminent danger. The pirates became more threatening April 12, firing a tracer round at one of the Bainbridge’s small boats. At about 7:00 p.m. local time, one was observed pointing his gun at Phillips’s back. SEAL snipers then were ordered to shoot the pirates, and killed all three with

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. Navy frees hostage captain after standoff with Somali pirates in Indian Ocean; first attack on U.S.-flagged merchant ship. PAGE 237

North Korea pulls out of nuclear talks over United Nations action; Security Council condemns missile launch.

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Obama sees ‘glimmer of hope’ in economy. PAGE 240

Goldman Sachs, other U.S. banks report profits. PAGE 241

Obama requests funds for Iraq and Afghanistan wars. PAGE 242

NSA violated law in data collection. PAGE 243

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U.S. lifts limits on family visits and remittances to Cuba. PAGE 248

Thai protesters clash with army. PAGE 249

Iran opens nuclear fuel plant. PAGE 254

Iraq truck bombing kills five U.S. troops. PAGE 254

Cabrera beats Perry in playoff to win golf’s Masters tournament. PAGE 255

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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just three shots from a distance of between 75 and 100 feet (25–30 m). Phillips was not harmed. The four pirates were described as being in their late teens. U.S. authorities were still trying to determine how to handle the legal case of the one pirate who was aboard the Bainbridge at the time of Phillips’s rescue. The decision was reportedly complicated by an inability to determine the age of the captured pirate, who was believed to be between 16 and 20 years old. There was also the question of whether he should be tried in a U.S. court (which was permitted under U.S. law). The U.S. could also send him to Kenya for trial; it had negotiated an agreement with the Kenyan government to try other captured pirates there. Phillips, 53, arrived in Mombasa aboard the Bainbridge April 16. He was hailed as a hero by his crew for offering himself as a hostage in exchange for their freedom. The crew had been flown to Andrews Air Force Base in the U.S. earlier that day. French Commandos Storm Yacht— As the hostage drama involving the U.S. ship was unfolding, French naval commandos April 10 stormed a private yacht, the Tanit, that had been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden April 4. The pirates had been holding five hostages, including a three238

year-old boy and his parents. The boy’s father, Florent Lemacon, was killed in the rescue operation, along with two pirates. Three pirates were captured. French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly had ordered the attack on the yacht after the pirates threatened to kill the hostages. The French government April 11 said there would be a judicial investigation of the rescue operation. U.S. Sets Piracy Plan; Attacks Continue—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 15 announced new nonmilitary efforts to thwart the pirates, including freezing their assets and working with shipping companies to improve their abilities to evade and defend against pirate attacks. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 13 had said there was “no purely military solution” to the piracy problem, and that it would be stopped only if a strong, stable central government was established in Somalia. Obama April 13 said, “I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of piracy” off Somalia. In an indication of the insecurity within Somalia, Islamist insurgents April 13 fired mortar rounds at a privately chartered plane carrying U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D, N.J.), the chairman of the U.S. House For-

eign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, as he was departing from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. The plane was not hit in the attack, but at least five civilians on the ground were killed. Payne earlier that day had toured part of the decimated city and met with Somali Interim President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. He was the first U.S. official to visit Mogadishu in years. Somali Interim Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke April 16 said in an interview with the Associated Press (AP) that his government had “information on who is behind [the pirate attacks], who is involved,” adding, “we are following very closely how money is distributed here.” He appealed for international help in stopping the pirate attacks. However, Sharmarke’s weak transitional government controlled only a small portion of Somalia. The rest of the country, which had a 1,900-mile-long coastline, was under the control of extremist Islamists led by the Al Shabab group, and, in the northern regions, clans based in Puntland and another semiautonomous region, Somaliland. The pirates appeared to be undeterred by the violent end to the hostage standoff. They captured at least four more ships April 14–15, and April 15 vowed to target U.S. ships and kill any U.S. seamen they captured. On April 14, they had targeted another U.S. cargo ship carrying food aid, the Liberty Sun, but it managed to evade the attack. The ship, which sustained some damage in the attempted hijacking, arrived in Mombasa April 16. The French frigate Nivose April 15 in the Indian Ocean seized a pirate “mother ship,” from which the pirates launched the smaller boats used in the hijackings, and captured 11 pirates. Somalia Declares Sharia Law— Ahmed, considered a moderate Islamist, Feb. 28 agreed to introduce Islamic, or sharia, law in Somalia as part of a deal with clan elders. The agreement March 10 was approved by the cabinet. The move was seen as an effort to undermine the influence of the more radical Islamist elements in Al Shabab. Osama bin Laden, leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, in a March 19 audio recording posted on the Internet called for Ahmed to be overthrown. However, Ahmed March 28 rejected bin Laden’s statements, saying, “Al Qaeda has not taught us religion and they have nothing for us. Now, we have all-inclusive government and hope for lasting peace.” n

North Korea Pulls Out of Nuclear Talks Over U.N. Action Security Council Condemns Missile Launch.

North Korea’s foreign ministry April 14 said in a statement that the country was ending its participation in six-nation talks on the disFACTS ON FILE

mantling of its nuclear program, and vowed to restart the program, under which it was believed to have produced enough fuel for six nuclear bombs. The announcement came hours after the United Nations Security Council April 13 adopted a statement condemning North Korea for a recent rocket launch and calling for the imposition of sanctions. North Korea called the council’s action an “unbearable insult.” [See p. 215D1] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear monitor, April 14 confirmed that North Korea had ordered its inspectors to unseal its Yongbyon plutonium-processing facility and leave the country. North Korea in 2002 had expelled IAEA inspectors and subsequently withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, eventually leading to the six-way talks. The discussions in 2007 had yielded an agreement under which North Korea would abandon its nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy aid and diplomatic incentives. However, implementation of the agreement had been stalled by a dispute with the U.S. on verifying North Korea’s compliance. Also, North Korea’s relations with another participant, South Korea, had worsened over the past year. The recent launch, which North Korea claimed had put a satellite into space but the U.S. and allies called an illicit missile test, had been seen as a characteristic bid to strengthen its diplomatic negotiating position with belligerent moves. In its announcement, North Korea said the nuclear talks had “lost the meaning of their existence” and that it would “never again take part in such talks and will not be bound by any agreement reached at the talks.” North Korea’s counterparts urged it to return to the discussions. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called North Korea’s declaration a “serious step in the wrong direction.” China in a statement called for “calmness and restraint.” Council Compromises on Rebuke—The Security Council’s unanimous April 13 condemnation of North Korea’s launch reflected a compromise reached April 12 after the U.S.’s call for stronger action was resisted by China and Russia. The council called the launch a violation of resolutions prohibiting the country from conducting missile tests, passed in 2006 after a set of missile launches and a nuclear test by North Korea. However, the condemnation took the form of a statement, a less forceful measure than a resolution. It called for the imposition of sanctions that had been approved in 2006 but not yet enforced, in order to avoid further jeopardizing the six-way process. A committee of the Security Council’s members was given until April 24 to draw up a list of North Korean companies and individuals to be subjected to the sanctions. South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan April 13 said South Korea was considering joining the U.S.-sponsored Proliferation Security Initiative, a multinational program to interdict shipments of banned weapons that was seen as aimed principally at North Korea. Participation by South Korea was thought likely to make the April 16, 2009

program more effective than it had been since it was started in 2003. North Korea had said it would consider a South Korean decision to join to be effectively a declaration of war. [See 2006, p. 874A3] n

Space Shuttle Completes Delivery of Solar Arrays.

The U.S. space shuttle Discovery March 15–28 carried out a mission to the International Space Station, completing the delivery and installation of solar panel arrays that would fully power the station, ahead of the planned expansion of the station’s crew to six astronauts, from three, in May. The shuttle also delivered a replacement centrifuge for a malfunctioning water-recycling system that was designed to convert the station’s waste water, including astronauts’ urine, into drinking water. [See 2008, pp. 879D3, 429B1] Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 7:43 p.m. Eastern standard time March 15, after the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Feb. 3–March 11 had delayed three previously scheduled launches to make necessary shuttle repairs. The crew’s commander was Air Force Col. Lee Archambault, 48, and the pilot was Navy Cmdr. Dominic (Tony) Antonelli, 41. The mission specialists were Joseph Acaba, 41; John Phillips, 57; Richard Arnold 2nd, 45; Steven Swanson, 48; and Koichi Wakata, 45, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Wakata stayed on board the station, replacing outgoing crew member Sandra Magnus, 44, who returned to Earth with the shuttle after a four-month sojourn in space. [See below] Discovery docked with the station March 17. On the mission’s first space walk, Swanson and Arnold March 19 installed the final solar arrays with the aid of the station’s robotic arm. The next day, the wings were successfully unfurled. On a March 21 space walk, Swanson and Acaba began removing the batteries in the truss for replacement. Acaba and Arnold, both selected in 2004 through educator-astronaut program, March 23 conducted the mission’s final space walk, the first time that both astronauts on a space walk were former teachers. While docked with the station, the pilots of the Discovery March 23 fired the shuttle’s thrusters to avoid a possible collision with an old Chinese rocket body. In recent weeks, space debris had become an increasing threat to the safety of the astronauts aboard the station. The crew station March 12 had taken refuge in an attached Russian spacecraft in response to another old rocket part passing close by the station. [See p. 91F2] Discovery departed the station March 25. The orbiter March 28 touched down in Cape Canaveral at 3:13 p.m. Eastern standard time. It was the 125th U.S. space shuttle mission, and the 36th flight of Discovery. Station Crew Exchanged—Wakata joined current international crew members Michael Finke of the U.S. and Yury Lonchakov of Russia at the end of their six-month space stay. On March 28, a Russian Soyuz

spacecraft docked with the station, having been launched on March 26 from Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan with the rest of the incoming crew. They were Gennady Padalka of Russia and Michael Barratt of the U.S., accompanied by U.S. space “tourist” Charles Simonyi, to the station. The Hungarian-born Simonyi, a billionaire software developer, had visited the station once before in April 2007, becoming the first paying tourist to make a second voyage. Finke, Lonchakov and Simonyi April 8 returned to Earth, landing in a Soyuz vessel in Kazakhstan. [See 2007, p. 291D2] n

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Other International News Alleged Nazi Guard Demjanjuk Charged.

Prosecutors in Munich, Germany, March 11 said they had issued an arrest warrant for U.S. resident John Demjanjuk on charges of acting as an accessory to the murder of more than 29,000 Jews while working as a guard at Sobibor, a Nazi death camp in Poland, in 1943, during World War II. [See 2008, p. 345E1; 1993, p. 764E1] Demjanjuk, 88, denied the charges. He was now a retired autoworker living in Ohio, having immigrated to the U.S. from his native Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, in 1952. He had been involved in legal battles over similar allegations for much of the past three decades, since the U.S. Justice Department first accused him in 1977 of having been a Nazi camp guard. In 1986, the U.S. had extradited him to Israel, where he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1988 on charges of having been a Nazi guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. But the Israeli Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1993, finding that new evidence showed that he was not “Ivan.” Israel subsequently returned him to the U.S., which said it lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him for war crimes. In 2002, a U.S. federal judge determined that Demjanjuk had in fact been a Nazi camp guard, and stripped him of his citizenship for a second time; it had been reinstated in 1998. A U.S. immigration judge in 2005 ordered his deportation to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in May 2008 declined to hear the case. U.S. Court Grants Last-Minute Stay—A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 14 granted Demjanjuk a stay of his deportation. Federal immigration agents earlier that day had removed him in a wheelchair from his home in a Cleveland suburb. He was released and returned home hours later, after the appeals court issued the stay. The court said it would consider a motion he had filed asserting that he suffered from a variety of ailments that would make deportation to Germany tantamount to torture. The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals in Falls Church, Va., April 10 had denied Demjanjuk’s appeal for an emergency stay of deportation, and April 16 rejected a request that it reopen the case against him.n 239

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Barack Obama April 14 said there were “glimmers of hope” that the economy was beginning to pull out of a deep recession, even as he warned that there would be “more job losses, more foreclosures and more pain before it ends.” Obama’s remarks came during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he characterized his administration’s policy proposals on health care, energy and education as parts of an overarching plan to establish a foundation for long-term economic stability. [See pp. 219B2, 217D3, 181D2] Obama said five “pillars” were necessary for sustainable economic growth: tighter regulations on the financial industry, which had played a major role in pushing the economy into recession; investments in education to improve the competitiveness of U.S. workers; support for alternative sources of energy, which would reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil; reductions in the cost of health care; and slowing the growth of spending on Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs, with the aim of closing the long-term budget deficit. [See pp. 201E2, 180A3, 178A2, 149B2, 145C3] Obama addressed critics who said he was tackling too many problems at once— some of which were controversial and had proved intractable to presidents before him—and should focus on stabilizing the weakened financial system and stemming a rising number of job losses. Obama countered that wide-ranging reform was necessary for a strong economy. Referring to a biblical parable in Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, Obama said, “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.” He said, “If we don’t lay this foundation now, it won’t be long before we’re right back where we are today.” He said his initiatives would not likely provide the “instant gratification” that politicians had grown accustomed to, adding, “There’s been a tendency to spend a lot of time scoring political points instead of rolling up sleeves to solve real problems.” Obama addressed criticism that his administration had not been aggressive enough in resolving problems in the banking industry. He dismissed proposals to nationalize some of the country’s largest struggling banks, arguing that such moves would likely “end up costing taxpayers even more in the end,” and undermine confidence in the financial system. Obama also dismissed claims that he was, as he put it, “spending with reckless abandon, pushing a liberal social agenda while mortgaging our children’s future.” After Obama’s speech, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) reiterated the Republican charge that Obama was spending too much and bloating the budget. Boehner said Obama had chosen to “ignore entitlement reform” in his budget proposal for fiscal year 2010. n

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* February January 2009 2009 -14.20 -2.21 -1.82 -3.34 -3.10 0.03

-20.57 -4.30 -2.55 -3.48 -2.68 -1.62

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Trade Deficit Fell to $26 Billion in February.

The Commerce Department April 9 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in Trade Deficit goods and servicbillions) es for February February(in2009 $25.97 was $26.0 billion, Previous Month $36.20 down from a re- Year Earlier $61.88 vised $36.2 billion in January, and the smallest deficit since November 1999. The drop came as a result of an ongoing recession, which suppressed U.S. demand for imports. But exports rose for the first time since July 2008, which could have a beneficial impact on the U.S. economy. [See p. 164F1] Economists warned that the spike in exports could be an anomaly, and that international demand for U.S. goods would likely remain depressed for some months. But they said February’s export numbers could limit the rate at which U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) contracted in the first quarter of 2008. Adding to a growing sense of optimism among economists, Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, that day predicted that the “sense of a free fall” the economy had recently experienced would likely “end within the next few months.” Exports in February rose to $126.8 billion, a $2.0 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was led by increased exports of consumer goods and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. Imports decreased by $8.2 billion in February, to $152.7 billion, the seventh straight month of declines. The change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and capital goods. Separately, the U.S. current account, the broadest measure of the nation’s international trade, recorded a deficit of $132.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from a revised $181.3 billion in the third quarter, and the smallest deficit since the fourth quarter of 2003, the Commerce Department reported March 18. The current account included investment income and foreign aid as well as trade in goods and services. [See 2008, p. 937D3] n Consumer Prices Fell 0.1% in March. The Labor Department April 15 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices paid for consumer goods by all urban consumers, fell 0.1% in March, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after

climbing 0.4% in February. For the 12month period through March, the overall unadjusted inInflation (CPI) flation rate was 2009 -0.1% -0.4%, the first March Previous Month 0.4% time prices had 12-Month Increase -0.4% fallen over a one-year period since August 1955. The yearly decline was attributed to a 23% fall in the price of energy, as an ongoing recession led to depressed demand for gasoline and other petroleum products. [See p. 182E3] Energy prices fell 3.0% in March. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2% in March, although 60% of that gain was due to a tax increase on tobacco products. For the 12-month period through March, core consumer prices climbed 1.8%. n Retail Sales Fell 1.1% in March. The Commerce Department April 14 reported that the value of retail sales in March was $344.4 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 1.1% below the revised figure for February, and ended two straight months of gains in retail sales, an important economic indicator since consumer spending accounted for more than two-thirds of the economy’s gross domestic product (GDP). The report dimmed hopes that the economy was beginning to pull out of a deep recession, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average that day fell 137.63 points, or 1.7%, to end at 7,920.18. [See p. 219E3] Contributing to the Dow’s slide was a report released that day by the Labor Department showing that, according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in March fell 1.2% after seasonal adjustment. Falling prices indicated

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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that demand remained depressed as a result of the economic slowdown. [See p. 219C3] The Labor Department said “core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, remained flat in March, while energy prices fell 5.5%. The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 168.9% of its 1982 base average, meaning that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $168.90 in March. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods dropped 1.5% in March, and prices for crude goods fell 0.3%. n Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Reserve April 15 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the previous six weeks, finding that “overall economic activity contracted further or remained weak” during that time, but that areas of the country showed a “moderation in the pace of decline.” The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 147A3] The Fed said manufacturing activity “weakened across a broad range of industries,” and that residential real estate markets “continued to be weak,” with falling home prices and construction work. The Fed said, “Downward pressure on prices was reported” across the country, and that “employment continued to decline across a range of industries.” [See pp. 240G2, 219B2] The Fed April 15 also reported that its industrial production index decreased 1.5% in March. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 1.5% in February. The overall index now stood at 97.4% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 98.8% for February. Manufacturing production fell 1.7% in March. The output of utilities rose 1.8%, and mining output fell 3.2%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 69.3% of their total capacity in March. [See p. 183A2] n

a result of its conversion to a bank holding company in September 2008. While a handful of small banks had repaid the government, Goldman was poised to become the first major bank to do so. Goldman had navigated the financial crisis relatively well, since it had chosen not to invest as heavily as its competitors in the housing market, which entered a deep slump in 2006. It still needed approval from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to return the TARP money, pending results from “stress tests” that they were currently conducting to gauge the health of the country’s major banks. [See below] Goldman executives for some months had suggested that they were eager to repay the TARP money. There were concerns that the government could impose new compensation limits at financial institutions that had received TARP aid, which companies said would hurt their ability to retain top talent and remain competitive, particularly with foreign banks that were not subject to such limits. Banks that had received TARP aid had come under intense public scrutiny, following revelations that some had continued to grant bonuses and other perks to executives. But there were growing concerns that Goldman’s move could put pressure on other banks to return their TARP money, since investors could come to see government assistance as a sign of weakness. A rush by banks to purge themselves of government money could hamper the Obama administration’s efforts to resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets, since returning the funds would deplete the capital reserves the banks needed to make loans. And weakened banks that had no choice but to keep the TARP money could see their share prices slide. That scenario was a principal reason Treasury officials in the fall of 2008 had pressured all the country’s major banks to accept an infusion of government money, even the healthier ones. [See 2008, p. 738A1]

Mortgage & Credit Crisis

New York City–based J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. April 16 reported a first quarter profit of $2.1 billion, down 10% from the same period a year earlier, but better than analysts’ expectations. Profits from the banking giant’s investment-banking division outweighed losses on loan defaults. J.P. Morgan Chase said it would set aside $4.2 billion to offset potential losses in the future. [See p. 127G3] J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Executive Officer (CEO) James Dimon that day said his bank wanted to return its $25 billion TARP allotment, saying it had become a “scarlet letter” that imposed too many requirements and invited too much public attention. Dimon maintained that the bank had adequate reserves to pay the money back “tomorrow,” and that he was waiting for the government to approve such a move. Dimon also said J.P. Morgan Chase would not participate in a $1 trillion government plan to team up with the private sector to purchase toxic assets backed by risky mortgages. [See p. 177A1]

J.P. Morgan Profit Beats Expectations— Goldman Sachs Reports First-Quarter Profit.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. April 13 reported first quarter net income of $1.81 billion, a larger profit than market observers had expected, and a reversal from the $2.3 billion loss it had posted in the fourth quarter of 2008. The New York City–based bank also said it would sell $5 billion in new shares in an effort to repay the $10 billion it had received from the government’s $700 billion financial industry rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Goldman April 14 conducted its stock sale, selling $5 billion worth of shares at $123 apiece. [See pp. 219F3, 110A2; 2008, p. 934C2] The profits largely stemmed from Goldman’s fixed-income, currencies and commodities division. Goldman also reported a $780 million loss for December 2008, which was recorded separately while Goldman adjusted to a new fiscal calendar that used January as the year’s starting point, as April 16, 2009

Wells Fargo Reports Record Profit—San Francisco, Calif.–based Wells Fargo & Co. April 9 announced that it would show a record $3 billion profit for the first quarter of 2008 when it filed its official quarterly report April 22. The company said the better-than-expected performance was due to “exceptionally strong” results from its mortgage businesses, which analysts attributed to recent government efforts to lower mortgage interest rates. Wells Fargo also said its 2008 acquisition of rival Wachovia Corp. had contributed to its profits. [See p. 163A3; 2008, p. 953E3] The news pushed stock markets higher, sustaining a weeks-long climb, particularly for shares of banks that were perceived to be recovering from the financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average April 9 rose 246 points, or 3.14%, to end at 8,083. Wells Fargo’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rose by 31.7% to end at $19.61. But analysts warned that the profit reports could be masking deeper problems in the banking industry. They said many banks were still weighed down by toxic mortgage-backed assets, and that rates of defaults on loans continued to be high. First Banks Repay Aid Funds—Four regional banks March 31 became the first to return their allotment of TARP aid. The government had assisted more than 500 banks through TARP. Previously, banks had been required to raise private capital before returning the money, but a $787 billion economic recovery plan passed in February eased those requirements. Executives said they had returned the money partly to avoid potential new caps on executive compensation. The banks were New York-based Signature Bank, Indiana-based Old National Bancorp, Louisiana-based IberiaBank and California-based Bank of Marin Bancorp. [See pp. 220C1, 91D1] $134.5 Billion Left in TARP— Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said about $134.5 billion of TARP money remained at the government’s disposal, in a television interview on ABC’s “This Week” that was broadcast March 29. Geithner said the estimate was based on “a very conservative judgment” that the Treasury would receive at least $25 billion back from financial institutions that had benefited from TARP aid. Geithner said the Obama administration had “substantial resources” to carry out its initiatives to revive the economy and fix the financial system, but that it was possible the administration would turn back to Congress for additional funds. [See p. 177A1] n News in Brief. Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service April 8 downgraded Omaha, Neb.–based holding company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s credit rating to AA2, from the top rating of AAA, saying “a severe decline in equity markets” and a “protracted economic recession” had taken a toll on the company, headed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings March 12 had downgraded Berkshire Hathaway to AA-plus, from AAA. Berkshire Hathaway Feb. 28 241

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had reported a $4.99 billion profit for 2008, down from $13.21 billion the previous year. [See p. 100E2] Maurice (Hank) Greenberg, former chief executive officer (CEO) of insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG), April 2 testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he bore no responsibility for the near-collapse of AIG in 2008, which led to a $170 billion government rescue. Greenberg, who was ousted from AIG in 2005, blamed the company’s woes on the management team that succeeded him. AIG released a statement that day saying Greenberg during his tenure had overseen AIG’s investments in the credit-default-swap market, where it underwrote insurance on risky mortgages. Those investments had resulted in massive losses for AIG. The company said Greenberg’s claims were “implausible” and “not grounded in reality.” [See p. 219F3; 2005, p. 189B2] Moody’s March 23 downgraded the credit rating of multinational conglomerate General Electric Co. (GE), to AA2, from AAA, a rating GE had held since 1967. The agency cited strains on GE’s viability stemming from its finance unit, GE Capital Corp., which specialized in credit cards, home mortgages and commercial real estate. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s March 12 had downgraded GE’s rating to AA-plus, from AAA, a rating GE had held since 1956. [See p. 127E1] n

Defense Obama Requests Funds for Iraq, Afghanistan.

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President Barack Obama April 9 sent a supplemental spending bill to Congress asking for $83.4 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama had decried the practice of his predecessor, George W. Bush, of funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with emergency supplemental spending bills, and in February had pledged to include their costs in the regular Defense Department budget. However, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said one last supplemental spending bill was needed because the Bush administration had funded the wars only through the first half of fiscal year 2009. Gibbs said that starting in fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1, the wars’ costs would be included in the Defense Department budget. White House officials said Congress had been asked to pass the bill by May 25. [See pp. 194G2, 125C1, 121A1; 2008, p. 490D1] U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a news conference said the bill was necessary, adding, “The alternative to the supplemental is a sudden and precipitous withdrawal of the United States from” Iraq and Afghanistan, “and I don’t know anybody who thinks that’s a good idea.” The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said that nearly $76 billion of the funds would go to the Defense Department, while the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would receive some $7 billion. In addition to funding military operations and equipment, the bill in242

cluded $1.6 billion for economic aid and an increase in U.S. diplomatic and civilian personnel in Afghanistan, and $1.4 billion for those purposes in Pakistan. It also would include aid for the Palestinian territories and money for nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Obama urged legislators not to add “unnecessary spending” to the bill. It was expected that the legislation would be passed with bipartisan support, although some antiwar Democrats opposed it, saying it would extend the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. n No Wrongdoing Found in Media Program.

The Defense Department inspector general’s office Jan. 16 reported that a public relations program that had recruited retired officers to appear on television and radio news programs as independent “military analysts” had not broken any regulations. The program was first reported in April 2008 by the New York Times, and at least 45 members of Congress had called for an investigation. [See 2008, pp. 962A2, 312F1] The inspector general’s office said there was an “insufficient basis” for concluding that the program violated internal policies or laws prohibiting propaganda, which it said was not clearly defined. It reported that there was not enough evidence to show that the department “undertook a disciplined effort” to build a corps of analysts “who could be depended on to comment favorably on DoD [Department of Defense] programs,” despite several references to the analysts as “surrogates” in official documents. In addition, it said it had not found any instances in which analysts had used their military connections to benefit companies with which they had ties. Some Democratic legislators said the investigation was seriously flawed, and added that investigators had not been able to interview several of the analyst program’s creators. The Times Jan. 17 reported that the investigation had overlooked obvious relationships between some analysts and companies. Two other investigations of the program were ongoing, one by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the other by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). n

2008 Elections Minn. Court Rules for Franken in Recount.

A special panel of three Minnesota state judges April 13 ruled that Democrat Al Franken had won more votes than the oneterm incumbent Republican, Norm Coleman, in the state’s November 2008 Senate election. The ruling followed a statewide recount and a seven-week trial. However, Coleman vowed to continue his legal challenge to the official results by appealing to the state Supreme Court, a step that could add weeks to the delay in seating Minnesota’s second senator. Either candidate could subsequently appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. [See p. 201B2] Franken’s lead April 7 had grown to 312 votes, from 225, out of 2.9 million ballots cast, after the court reviewed more than

300 absentee ballots that had been excluded from the earlier counts. Coleman argued that about 4,700 ballots had been wrongly rejected. Franken, a former comedian, would provide the 59th vote for the Democratic majority in the Senate (including two independents who usually voted with the Democrats). That would leave the Democrats just one vote short of the 60 needed to prevent filibusters by the Republican minority. Senate Republicans had urged Coleman not to give up his challenge. Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), first elected in 2006, had been Minnesota’s sole senator since the opening of the 111th Congress in January. She was handling a double workload of constituent services and other home state responsibilities. n

Politics Antitax ‘Tea Parties’ Held Across U.S.

Antitax protesters April 15 held hundreds of “tea parties” in cities across the U.S. to mark the annual tax filing deadline and criticize President Barack Obama’s policies and proposals, which they said entailed excessive federal spending that would inevitably lead to higher taxes. They drew inspiration from the Boston Tea Party, the 1773 protest against British colonial taxation that was a key event leading to the American Revolution. [See p. 240A1] The April 15 tea parties took place in more than 800 cities and towns. The total number of participants was estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Organizers of the tea parties said their plans had sprung up on the Internet as a nonpartisan, grass-roots phenomenon, partly in response to a February rant against Obama’s economic policies by Rick Santelli, a business commentator for cable news channel CNBC. But Democrats and liberal groups dismissed the protests as a pseudo-populist spectacle staged by organizations linked to the Republican Party and conservative media outlets such as the Fox News cable channel, which devoted day-long coverage to the tea parties. FreedomWorks, a conservative group led by lobbyist and former House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R, Texas), had promoted the tea parties. Armey appeared at a tea party in Atlanta, Ga., while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) spoke at one in New York City. Gingrich had signaled that he was considering a candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Protesters also held a tea party in Lafayette Park, across from the White House in Washington, D.C. It was dispersed after a protester threw a box of tea bags over the White House perimeter fence. The Secret Service used a robot to check the contents of the box. Obama April 15 gave a speech at the Old Executive Office Building in Washington to defend his tax policies, which he asserted had already provided relief for 95% of taxpayers. Among other measures, he cited a payroll tax cut of up to $800 for FACTS ON FILE

lower- and middle-income couples, which had been included in a $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted in February. [See p. 218C1] Obama also pledged to pursue reforms to simplify what he called the “monstrous tax code.” He said he had asked his independent economic advisory board, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, to provide him with proposals for such reforms by the end of the year. Obamas Report $2.6 Million in Income—

Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, had reported $2,656,902 in adjusted gross income and paid $855,323 in federal income taxes for 2008, according to copies of their tax return released April 15 by the White House. More than $2.4 million of their income came in royalties from sales of his two books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope, which had shot up during his presidential campaign, earning him $4.2 million in 2007. [See p. 201C1] The rest of the couple’s income came from Obama’s salary as a U.S. senator and his wife’s job as an executive at the University of Chicago Hospitals. They had resigned from both of those jobs after he won the election in November 2008. The Obamas reported giving a total of $172,050, or nearly 6.5% of their income, to 37 charities in 2008. The White House also released the 2008 joint tax return filed by Vice President Joseph Biden and his wife, Jill Biden. They reported income of $269,256, and paid $46,952 in federal income tax. The Bidens reported $1,885 in charitable donations, or less than 1% of their income, but the White House said that they had not reported all of their donations on their tax return, and that they had also donated their time to favorite causes. n Rep. Waters’s Bank Ties Questioned. The Wall Street Journal March 12 reported that Rep. Maxine Waters (D, Calif.) in the fall of 2008 had helped arrange a meeting between struggling Boston, Mass.–based bank OneUnited Bank and Treasury officials. Waters and her husband, Sidney Williams, had once owned stock in the bank, and OneUnited in December 2008 received $12 million in government aid, suggesting a possible conflict of interest. Williams had also sat on the bank’s board. [See p. 241C1; 1997, p. 785G2] The New York Times, citing unidentified officials, March 13 reported that OneUnited representatives had asked for $50 million in aid at a September 2008 meeting with federal officials that Waters had requested. Waters, who was black, March 13 denied any wrongdoing, claiming that she had merely tried to ensure that minorityowned banks like OneUnited had access to the government’s aid programs. Waters that day said her husband still owned OneUnited stock. She had disclosed in 2008 that he had two investments in the bank of up to $500,000 each. She had also acquired shares worth up to $500,000 in 2004, but sold them later that year. n April 16, 2009

State & Local Politics Ex–Illinois Gov. Blagojevich Pleads Not Guilty.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), appearing for his arraignment at U.S. District Court in Chicago, April 14 pleaded not guilty to 16 felony counts related to corruption in office, including racketeering conspiracy and wire fraud. A federal grand jury had indicted him the previous week, after he was impeached and removed from office by the state legislature in January. [See p. 218B3] His brother, Robert Blagojevich, also pleaded not guilty April 14. They were charged, along with four others, of conspiring to abuse the powers of the governor’s office for personal gain and divide the spoils after he left office. One of the other defendants, Rod Blagojevich’s former chief of staff John Harris, was cooperating with prosecutors. Harris, fund-raiser Christopher Kelley and power broker William Cellini April 16 pleaded not guilty. Asked by reporters how he planned to defend himself in court, Blagojevich said, “I believe in the truth, and I believe the truth is what matters ultimately.” The NBC television network later that day issued a statement confirming that it had reached a preliminary agreement with Blagojevich for him to appear on a reality show, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” The series was to be set in Costa Rica in June. NBC said Blagojevich’s participation would depend on his receiving court approval. n

Intelligence NSA Violated Law in Data Collection. The Justice Department April 15 acknowledged that the National Security Agency (NSA) had violated U.S. intelligence laws by using surveillance to capture information it was not authorized to collect without a warrant. The admission came in response to inquiries by the New York Times, which broke the story on its Web site on April 15. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair April 16 acknowledged that the NSA had, in a “small” number of instances, “intercepted the wrong communications.” [See 2008, pp. 921E3, 884C1] The NSA had begun to conduct wiretapping and other electronic surveillance without warrants within the U.S. under the Bush administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. The existence of the program was revealed in 2005. According to the statement, the violations had been uncovered in a routine investigation of NSA surveillance programs by the Justice Department and the NSA that was connected to the twice-annual certification of the NSA’s wiretapping procedures by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a special court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The statement did not say how long the violations had gone on or how many people had been unlawfully surveilled. An

internal investigation into the issue was reportedly ongoing. The Justice Department said that the court and all relevant congressional committees—including the Judiciary and Intelligence committees in both the House and Senate—had been briefed on the violations. In addition, the Justice Department said that new safeguards intended to protect the civil liberties of U.S. residents had been put in place before Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. requested that the court reauthorize the program. The Times reported that the violations had stemmed from technical difficulties that made it hard for the NSA to separate electronic communications that were between people inside the U.S. from those that merely passed through U.S. routers and servers. The NSA was barred from intercepting data passed between persons inside the U.S. without a warrant, but was allowed to capture such data if it originated or ended outside the U.S. It was unclear if anyone within the NSA had actually examined any of the illegally gathered data prior to the discovery of the violations. Feinstein to Hold Hearing— Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) April 16 said her committee would investigate the “serious allegations” and hold a special hearing on the matter. The hearing was expected to be closed to the public and to focus on aspects of the violations that had not been disclosed at the Justice Department briefing. Surveillance of Lawmaker Mulled— The Times report said also that an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the program had found that the NSA had attempted to wiretap a member of Congress after that person had met with a suspected Muslim extremist during a congressional trip to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006. Between 2005 and 2006, the NSA reportedly monitored anyone observed communicating with someone who was already under surveillance, creating a continuously growing surveillance network. The attempt to wiretap the member of Congress was reportedly shelved. n Wiretapping Lawsuit Allowed. Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., Jan. 5 ruled that a charity suing the government over a warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA) had shown through nonclassified means that it had the legal standing to sue, allowing the case to go forward. In addition, he ruled that attorneys representing the charity could be given private access to a classified document central to the case. Walker also ruled that he himself should be able to examine the document. Walker had ruled in July 2008 that the NSA’s wiretapping program had been illegal. [See p. 80C2; 2008, p. 466B1] The charity, the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, was the now-defunct U.S. branch of a Saudi charitable organization that had been closed after the Treasury Department listed it as a terrorist organization in 2004. Al Haramain had been accused of serving as a financial conduit for violent Is243

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lamist terrorist groups operating in Russia’s Chechnya republic and elsewhere. Al Haramain said it had accidentally been given a document by the U.S. government that showed that the foundation and two of its lawyers had been subject to illegal wiretaps by the Bush administration. The government had subsequently seized the documents, making it difficult for the lawsuit filed by Al Haramain to proceed. However, Walker had ruled in July that the foundation could refile its lawsuit if it could show, without using classified sources, that the group had been targeted for warrantless wiretapping. The Justice Department under the Bush administration had argued that allowing the case to go forward could jeopardize state secrets needed to ensure national security. The Obama administration’s Justice Department Feb. 11 requested that Walker suspend the foundation’s lawsuit, citing the same state secrets privilege previously used by the Bush administration, and appealed Walker’s January ruling after he refused to do so. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco Feb. 27 declined to hear the Justice Department’s appeal, ruling that it did not have the authority to challenge Walker’s decision to allow himself and attorneys for the foundation to examine the classified document. The Justice Department had argued in its appeal that allowing anyone outside the government to read the document would endanger national security. It was also argued that the foundation could not sue the government unless the government admitted that it had wiretapped members of the organization without a warrant. Following the ruling, the Justice Department Feb. 27 filed a brief demanding that Walker give it advance notice of any plans to allow the foundation’s lawyers to look at the classified document, a copy of which was held secretly by the court, or to examine the document himself, so that the government could “withdraw that information from submission to the Court.” An attorney for Al Haramain Feb. 28 wrote in an e-mail to reporters that the government was threatening to forcibly seize the document from the court, which he said would be “an unprecedented violation of the constitutional separation of powers.” State Secrets Claimed in Separate Case—

The Justice Department April 3 filed a motion in U.S. District Court in San Francisco arguing that allowing the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil liberties advocacy group, to pursue a lawsuit related to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program would endanger national security by revealing state secrets. The EFF’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of customers of AT&T Inc., which had allegedly allowed the NSA to examine calls and e-mails made by its customers without warrants. The case, Jewel v. Bush, was also being overseen by Walker. [See 2007, p. 665G1] n News in Brief. A spokesman for the secret intelligence court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) 244

April 6 announced that Judge John Bates of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., had been named as the next chief judge of the court in March by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Bates had been appointed to the court, which was known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, by Roberts in 2006; his term as chief judge was scheduled to begin in May and would last until February 2013. [See p. 20A3] Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair April 7 announced that the government would develop new surveillance satellites to replace some of its current fleet, and would increase its use of data gathered by private satellite operators to fill intelligence gaps in the interim. The details of the program, which had been approved April 6 by President Barack Obama, were classified, but it was expected to cost about $10 billion and to use satellites built by Lockheed Martin Corp. The plan replaced a Bush administration program that had been scaled back after repeated delays and cost overruns. [See 2008, p. 449D2] n

Terrorism Detainees Medical Workers Called Complicit in Torture.

The actions of medical personnel who were employed by the U.S. government to assist in the interrogation of terrorism detainees constituted a “gross breach of medical ethics,” according to a confidential 2007 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report that was posted in its entirety April 6 on the Web site of the New York Review of Books. Excerpts and summaries of the report, which examined the treatment of terrorism detainees held in a number of secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had previously been published, but the contents relating to medical personnel had not been disclosed. [See p. 183G2] According to the report, medical professionals were used by the government to monitor the pulse and oxygen levels of detainees who were being subjected to waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, and in some cases stopped the procedure if the detainee’s vital signs suggested a problem. Medical personnel also watched over the use of other so-called harsh interrogation techniques, including the use of extreme temperatures and stress positions, that the report said constituted torture. The report found that the medical personnel were being kept on hand “to serve the interrogation process and not the patient,” but argued that the involvement of the personnel would have violated medical ethics even if the primary intention of the medical workers had been to safeguard the health of the detainees. It said the medical workers had “condoned, and participated in ill-treatment,” and suggested that they were complicit in the torture of detainees. It was unclear if the medical professionals had been physicians or other members of the medical profession. n Detainees Claim Responsibility for 9/11. A military judge at the U.S. military prison

for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, March 10 released a statement written by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a detainee and the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., as well as four other detainees who had been charged with helping to plan and execute the attacks. [See p. 28B3] In the statement, the detainees took responsibility for the planning of the attack, described themselves as “terrorists to the bone” and said that the charges against them “were badges of honor, which we wear with pride.” The five defendants mocked the failure of the U.S. government to prevent the attacks, writing, “Your intelligence apparatus, with all its abilities, human and logistical, had failed to discover our military attack plans.” Critics argued that by ordering the release of the statement, Judge Stephen Henley had violated an executive order issued by President Barack Obama that halted all military commission trials at Guantanamo. The Defense Department maintained that the release did not constitute a “proceeding” under Obama’s order. n

Armed Forces Unified Medical Records System Planned.

President Barack Obama April 9 announced that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs (VA) would jointly create a unified system to electronically track veterans’ health care records. Obama said the new system would reduce waiting time for veterans to receive medical attention and insure continuity of care. Currently, veterans had to carry their records to VA facilities themselves, and care was often hampered by incomplete files. The VA also had a backlog of 800,000 disability claims, resulting in waits of six months or more. [See pp. 245B3, 107D2, 29G3] Obama had promoted electronic medical records as a way to cut costs and improve care in the civilian health care system. Obama also announced his support for a budget proposal that would allow Congress to approve funding for the VA a year in advance, ensuring that care was not impaired by the late passage of funding bills. Billing for Combat Injuries Nixed—

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs March 18 announced that Obama had reversed a budget proposal for the VA to bill veterans’ private insurers to pay for the treatment of combat-related injuries. Veterans groups had lobbied against the proposal after veterans and Obama March 16 met at the White House and failed to resolve the issue. Veterans said the proposal was “a total abrogation” of the government’s duty to care for veterans injured in combat, and could prevent some veterans from acquiring health insurance coverage. The proposal would have saved the VA an estimated $530 million a year, out of the $113 billion reportedly requested for the department. n News in Brief. The Army Jan. 29 reported that at least 128 soldiers had committed suicide in 2008, up from 115 in 2007 and FACTS ON FILE

106 in 2006. There were 15 deaths still being investigated, most of which were expected to be ruled as suicides. The number of Army suicides was the highest it had been in three decades. The suicide rate, 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers, was higher than the civilian rate in 2006 (the most recent year for which data were available), 19.2 per 100,000 when adjusted for demographics. It was the first time the military rate had exceeded the civilian rate since the Vietnam War. Army officials said long deployments had contributed to mental problems when service members returned to the U.S. They said the Army had increased its mental health staff and was encouraging soldiers to get help. [See 2008, p. 963C1] The Defense Department Jan. 6 said it would not award Purple Hearts to soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving in combat. Gates

in May 2008 had said he would look into granting the medal—which was for those injured or killed by enemy action—to PTSD sufferers, a move advocates said would recognize their sacrifices and reduce the disorder’s stigma. However, a department panel recommended against it, saying that the disorder was difficult to diagnose and was not purposely caused by enemy action. About 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans—at least 300,000 service members— suffered from PTSD, according to a 2008 study. [See 2008, p. 571C3] n

Business Madoff Associate Charged With Fraud.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo April 6 filed civil fraud charges against financier J. Ezra Merkin, accusing him of deceiving clients who had invested in three of his funds, Ascot Partners LP, Gabriel Capital Corp. and Ariel Fund Ltd. Cuomo said Merkin had falsely claimed to clients that he would personally manage their money, when in fact he had funneled most of it—about $2.4 billion—into a fund run by Bernard Madoff, the money manager who had pleaded guilty in March to a $65 billion fraud. [See p. 141A1] Cuomo did not accuse Merkin of being aware at the time that Madoff was orchestrating a fraud, but said Merkin had concealed from clients the full extent of his relationship with Madoff, and had failed to thoroughly investigate whether investing with Madoff was safe. Cuomo said Merkin had made a total of $470 million from client fees and bonuses. A lawyer for Merkin said the charges were “without merit.” Separately, Massachusetts securities regulators April 1 filed civil fraud charges against hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group, claiming that the fund had failed to perform due diligence on behalf of its clients when it invested $6.9 billion of its $14 billion in assets with Madoff. The filing also claimed that Madoff had instructed the hedge fund’s executives on how to parry questions from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigators. Madoff’s Accountant Charged—The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District April 16, 2009

of New York March 18 brought fraud charges against David Friehling, the accountant for Madoff’s firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, after Friehling surrendered to authorities earlier that day. Friehling was charged with one count of securities fraud, one count of aiding and abetting an investment-adviser fraud and four counts of submitting false SEC filings. He was released on bail later that day. Prosecutors said Friehling had not been charged with knowledge of the Madoff fraud, but alleged that from 1991 to 2008 he had falsely certified that Madoff’s accounting statements had been audited, deceiving investors. The SEC that day also brought civil charges against Friehling. Friehling was the sole auditor at his accounting firm, Friehling & Horowitz CPAs PC, which was based in New City, N.Y. After Madoff’s fraud came to light in December 2008, analysts raised doubts that one auditor could have handled all the accounting responsibilities for a company as large as Madoff’s. n

Medicine & Health Insurance Reform Coalition Issues Report.

The Health Reform Dialogue, a coalition comprised of 18 groups representing physicians, drugmakers, hospitals, consumers, employers and insurers, March 27 released a report that outlined a series of policies intended to reduce by 50% the number of people in the U.S. lacking health insurance. [See p. 145C3] The report recommended that the joint state-federal Medicaid program, which provided health care to poor individuals and families, be expanded to cover anyone below the federal poverty level. (Individuals earning less than $10,380 per year and families of four earning less than $22,050 per year were considered to be below that level.) The coalition also recommended an expansion of tax credits and subsidies to help the middle class offset the costs of insurance. However, the coalition did not make any recommendations on a host of controversial issues. The report took no stance on a plan proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama to establish a government-sponsored insurance program that would compete with private insurers. Insurance companies had strenuously objected to such a program, arguing that it might drive them out of business. The report also did not say whether employers had a responsibility to pay for their employees’ health care. The report grew out of a series of professionally mediated private discussions held over six months among coalition group members, and was notable for its inclusion of a wide range of interest groups. Among the coalition members were the elderly advocacy group AARP, the American Medical Association (AMA) physicians group, the consumer advocacy group Families USA, the National Federation of Independent Business and the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

However, two major labor unions that had been part of the Health Reform Dialogue—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—did not endorse the report, citing their support of Obama’s plan for a government-sponsored healthcare system. Democrats Work on Plan— The coalition’s report was issued amid ongoing negotiations among federal lawmakers on a health-care reform plan. The New York Times April 1 reported that the chairmen of five congressional committees that would play key roles in shaping the reform effort had agreed to central elements that would be included in any reform legislation package. The chairmen agreed that carrying health insurance should be required, and that the government should establish a public insurance system to compete with the private one. They also agreed that employers should help pay for insurance. The group, made up entirely of Democrats, included Rep. George Miller (Calif.) of the Committee on Education and Labor; Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.) of the Ways and Means Committee; Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (Mass.) of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; and Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.) of the Finance Committee. The House in its budget blueprint for fiscal year 2010 had included a provision intended to speed passage of a number of Obama’s policy initiatives, including health care reform, by subjecting them to special “budget reconciliation” procedures. Reconciliation rules allowed the Senate to pass a measure with 51 votes, instead of the 60 normally needed to stave off a filibuster attempt. Since the Democrats controlled 58 seats in the Senate, they would be able to easily pass measures to which the provision was attached. [See p. 217E3]

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Insurers Agree to End Illness Pricing—

The two main trade groups representing the health insurance industry—America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association—March 24 said its members had agreed to end the practice of setting higher premiums for those with preexisting illnesses or health conditions. However, the trade groups said the change would take place only if the federal government made insurance mandatory. The offer was made in a letter sent to Senate leaders, and was thought likely to aid efforts by legislators to reaching consensus over reform. n

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Legislation Obama Signs Public Land Measure. Pres-

ident Barack Obama March 30 signed into law the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, a bill that would give two million acres (810,000 hectares) of land in nine states “wilderness” status. The designation provided the areas with the highest degree of government protection from commercial 245

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activities such as logging and mining, as well as from development and vehicular traffic. The states with land receiving wilderness status were California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia. [See 2003, p. 374F3; 1991, p. 937C2] The measure also created 10 new National Heritage Areas, spaces considered to have natural, cultural, historic or recreational significance, and administered by the National Park Service. The legislation also spelled out water conservation measures for various parts of the U.S. The bill was considered the largest conservation effort by the federal government in the last 15 years and included some 160 federal, state and local proposals. The House March 25 had passed the measure, 285–140. The Senate March 19 had passed it, 77–20. n

Supreme Court Indigenous Hawaiian Land Claim Rejected.

The Supreme Court March 31 ruled unanimously that a 1993 congressional apology to indigenous Hawaiians did not prevent the state government from selling or transferring public land. The apology acknowledged the U.S.’s role in helping overthrow Hawaii’s independent monarchy in 1893, and said that “indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims” to the land. The case was Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs. [See 2000, p. 130B1; 1993, p. 896G3] The Hawaii Supreme Court in 2008, using the apology as the basis for its decision, ruled that the state government could not transfer land on the island of Maui until a property dispute with indigenous Hawaiians was resolved. The case before the Supreme Court applied to all 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares) of state-controlled land, a figure equal to 29% of the state’s total area. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing the court’s opinion, said the Hawaiian court had misinterpreted the apology, which he said was merely “conciliatory,” and did not grant indigenous Hawaiians any legal claim to the land. The case was returned to the Hawaii court for reconsideration. n Tobacco Punitive-Damages Case Declined.

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The Supreme Court March 31 said it should not have agreed to hear the case Philip Morris USA v. Williams, and would not issue a ruling, letting stand an Oregon Supreme Court decision that allowed $79.5 million worth of punitive damages against cigarette maker Philip Morris. The Supreme Court in 2008 had accepted the case for a third time, and its dismissal was made without comment. [See 2008, p. 433A1] The Supreme Court in 2007 had ordered the Oregon court to reconsider the damages, to ensure that the original jury had not considered the possible harm Philip Morris’s tobacco products had done to others besides Jesse Williams. (Williams’s widow, Mayola Williams, was the original plaintiff in the case.) However, the Oregon court upheld the damages, saying Philip Morris could not appeal the verdict on 246

jury-instruction grounds because the company had violated state procedural rules in submitting its proposed jury instructions. Observers had expected the court to deliver a ruling that either addressed the question of high punitive damages, or determined whether the Oregon court had improperly ignored the Supreme Court’s order. By dismissing the case without comment, the court did not set any precedent on either of those issues. n First Female Solicitor General Confirmed.

The Senate March 19 voted, 61–31, to confirm Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan as solicitor general. Kagan became the first woman to serve as the U.S. government’s representative in the Supreme Court. While Kagan had never argued a case before the court, she had been a clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and an associate counsel in the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Kagan and current President Barack Obama had both worked at the University of Chicago Law School in the 1990s. [See p. 6D2; 2003, p. 528F2] n

Crime Shooter Kills 13, Self in New York State. A

gunman in Binghamton, N.Y., April 3 fatally shot 13 people and wounded another four at Binghamton’s American Civic Association, a community center that aided immigrants, before committing suicide. The gunman, Jiverly Wong, was a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Vietnam who had recently taken English classes at the center. The victims of the attack included citizens of China, the Philippines, Brazil, Vietnam, Haiti, Pakistan and Iraq, as well as the U.S. [See p. 149A1] Wong, 41, had blocked off the center’s rear exit with his car and then entered the building from the front and shot two receptionists; one was killed, while the other, who was wounded, feigned death and then contacted the police. Wong then entered a citizenship class and opened fire on the students and instructor, killing another 12 people and wounding three others. Wong reportedly shot himself after hearing approaching police sirens. Local police arrived at the center about two minutes after receiving the distress call from the wounded receptionist but did not enter the building until 43 minutes after the attack occurred. A total of 37 people were rescued by police from the building, some of whom had hidden for more than three hours before being told it was safe to leave. Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski April 6 said that the police had not been sure that Wong was dead until hours after the attack. Gerald Mollen, the district attorney for New York’s Broome County, April 5 said medical examiners believed that the injuries suffered by those who died in the attack were so extreme that it was unlikely that any of them would have survived if the police had entered the center earlier. Police April 3 found a note at Wong’s house stating that other messages from the attacker might be found, but that gave little

insight into the motives behind his attack. A Syracuse, N.Y., cable news channel April 6 received a letter from Wong that was dated March 18 and postmarked April 3. The note, which was packaged with Wong’s driver’s license and pictures that showed him brandishing guns, was written in fragmented English and contained claims that he had been harassed by undercover police officers in both New York State and California, where he had once lived. n Pa. Gunman Kills Three Police Officers. A 22-year-old gunman in Pittsburgh, Pa., April 4 shot and killed three police officers and wounded a fourth after they responded to a domestic disturbance call made by his mother. The killings marked the first time that a Pittsburgh police officer had been shot in 14 years and the first time an officer had died while on duty in 18 years. [See p. 246F3; 2007, p. 576B3] The shooter, Richard Poplawski, who was wearing a bulletproof vest and was armed with two rifles and a handgun, held off the police for about four hours before being arrested. He was charged the same day with aggravated assault and murder, among other charges. Two officers responding to the call from Poplawski’s mother were killed by Poplawski when they approached his house. A third officer was shot after exiting his car but was able to radio for backup before he died. Poplawski, who was wounded in the legs during the subsequent shootout with police, had reportedly called a friend prior to his arrest in order to say goodbye, seemingly expecting to be killed. His mother took refuge in the basement during the shooting and was not injured. The police had previously been called to the house on multiple occasions to settle domestic disputes between Poplawski and his mother. The New York Times reported April 7 that Poplawski had made racist and antiSemitic postings on Stormfront, a white supremacist Internet forum, and a Web site linked to a radio talk show host. Poplawski’s postings also expressed concerns about the election of President Barack Obama and the possibility that the government would attempt to restrict his access to guns. n Four Police Officers Killed in California. A gunman in Oakland, Calif., March 21 shot and killed four police officers and wounded a fifth after being pulled over. The gunman, Lovelle Mixon, was subsequently killed by police during a shootout. Mixon, 26, had previously been imprisoned on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and had an outstanding warrant against him for parole violations at the time of the shootings. The shootings were thought to be the highest number of police deaths in a single day in the history of Oakland. [See p. 246B3; 2007, p. 530E1] Mixon, using a handgun, shot the two police officers who had pulled him over, killing Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and leaving Officer John Hege, 41, brain dead. Hege was kept alive by his family on life support until March 24. FACTS ON FILE

Mixon fled the scene of the first shootings, triggering a manhunt joined by county and state law enforcement. Mixon was discovered in an apartment building, where he killed two more police officers—Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35—with an assault rifle, before being killed himself. It was unclear why Hege and Dunakin had stopped Mixon or why Mixon had shot the officers. The Oakland Police Department March 23 announced that preliminary testing had linked Mixon to an unsolved sexual assault that had occurred in February. However, additional testing was needed before other possible perpetrators could be eliminated. Officer Charged in Passenger Shooting—

Prosecutors in Oakland Jan. 14 charged a transit police officer in California’s Alameda County Superior Court with murder in connection with the Jan. 1 shooting death of an unarmed man in an Oakland subway station. The officer, Johannes Mehserle, had been captured on video shooting Oscar Grant; the footage had been shown on television and had been widely circulated on the Internet. The incident was followed by widespread protests within Oakland. Grant, 22, and several other Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) passengers Jan. 1 had been removed from a subway train after transit police received reports of an altercation on board. In footage recorded during the encounter, Mehserle, 27, and another officer were shown holding down Grant, who was reportedly unarmed, before Mehserle shot Grant once in the back and subsequently handcuffed him. Police arrested about 120 people Jan. 7 after demonstrations in Oakland turned violent, with some protesters vandalizing businesses and setting cars on fire. There were additional demonstrations Jan. 8 and Jan. 14. Mehserle, who had resigned Jan. 7 and had refused to cooperate with the investigation into the shooting, was arrested Jan. 13 near Lake Tahoe, Nev. He pleaded not guilty to the murder charge Jan. 15. California Attorney General Edmund (Jerry) Brown Jan. 10 announced that his office had assigned a state prosecutor to monitor the investigation into the shooting. n Judges Plead Guilty in Kickback Case.

Two judges in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County Feb. 12 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pa., to charges of wire fraud and income tax fraud connected to allegations that they had accepted illegal payments from private detention centers in exchange for sentencing a large number of juveniles to their facilities. The two— Judge Mark Ciavarella, 58, and Judge Michael Conahan, 56—had been suspended from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Jan. 26. [See 2008, p. 750F2] Ciavarella and Conahan pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors that included sentences totaling seven years and three months in prison apiece. The judges also agreed to resign from the bench and to surrender their licenses to practice law. Both April 16, 2009

were expected to lose their pensions under a Pennsylvania law that stripped the pension of any judge convicted of a felony while in office. Prosecutors said that the illegal payments to the two judges had totaled more than $2.6 million. According to prosecutors, Conahan, who had been in charge of the Luzerne County District’s budget, had arranged the deals with PA Child Care LLC and Western PA Child Care LLC, related companies that owned the two private juvenile detentions centers used by the county. In 2002, the judges had ordered the closure of the county’s juvenile detention center after arguing that it was in unsatisfactory condition, and required that the two private centers be used instead. Judge Criticized for Harsh Sentences—

Ciavarella, who had served as the head judge overseeing the county’s juvenile courts, had handled all sentencing of juvenile defendants as part of the scheme. He had previously been criticized for giving harsh sentences to first-time juvenile offenders and had sentenced as many as 5,000 juveniles to terms at the two private centers since the arrangement with the two companies began in December 2002. Between 2002 and 2006, Ciavarella had sentenced 25% of juvenile defendants who appeared before his court to serve time at detention centers, compared to a statewide average of 10% of juvenile defendants sentenced to serve time during the same period. Hearings overseen by Ciavarella reportedly lasted an average of two minutes and the detention centers were reportedly commonly told how many new inmates to expect from a case before a hearing was conducted. Hundreds of Convictions Wiped Out—

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Feb. 11 appointed Judge Arthur Grim as a special master in charge of reviewing juvenile cases overseen by Ciavarella after December 2002. Grim was asked to examine cases in which juveniles had been sentenced to terms at either of the two private detention facilities and cases in which Ciavarella had blocked attempts by juvenile defendants and their families to hire lawyers for their hearings. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court March 26 expunged hundreds of juvenile convictions handed down by Ciavarella after a report by Grim recommended purging all cases in which juveniles had not had a lawyer, had not waived their right to have a lawyer and had been convicted of minor offenses. The precise number of sentences expunged was not publicly released. Separately, lawyers representing the families of hundreds of juveniles convicted by Ciavarella Feb. 13 filed a class-action lawsuit against the two judges. n News in Brief. Eiken Elam Saimon March 20 pleaded guilty in Missouri’s Newton County Circuit Court to three counts of first degree murder and four counts of first degree assault in connection with an Aug.

12, 2007, shooting at a church in Neosho, Mo., that left three dead. Saimon and his

victims were originally from Micronesia

and Saimon was related to two of the three people he killed; the incident was reportedly triggered by teasing that Saimon, 54, received after failing to bring food to a community barbecue. Saimon also pleaded guilty to statutory rape and statutory sodomy in connection with his sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl two days before the shooting. Saimon received three life sentences without parole, four 30-year sentences and two seven-year sentences. [See 2008, p. 519B1] Judge Dale Fischer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles March 3 sentenced

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three men convicted of involvement with disgraced private investigator Anthony Pellicano to prison terms. Both Mark Arne-

son, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, and Rayford Earl Turner, a former telecommunications technician, had been convicted on racketeering charges in the case, and each received sentences of 12 years and one month in prison. Abner Nicherie, who had paid Pellicano to illegally wiretap a business rival, received a sentence of one year and nine months. Fischer March 9 sentenced Kevin Kachikian, who had developed wiretapping software used by Pellicano, to two years and three months in prison. [See 2008, pp. 959B3, 346D3] An unemployed truck driver Feb. 9 pleaded guilty in Tennessee’s Knox County Criminal Court to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder and six counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection with a shooting at a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tenn. The defendant, Jim Adkisson, had reportedly told police that all political liberals deserved to be killed and that he had chosen the church as a target because its members held liberal beliefs. Following his plea, Adkisson, 58, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [See 2008, p. 519B1] A gunman March 8 opened fire in a Baptist church in Maryville, Ill., killing the minister, and then injured two members of the congregation with a knife. The shooter, Terry Sedlacek, was hospitalized after the attack, along with one of his stabbing victims. Sedlacek, 27, March 9 was charged in Illinois’s Madison County Circuit Court with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery. He reportedly suffered from Lyme disease, which had left him with brain lesions and escalating physical problems. The motive behind the attack was unclear. [See 2008, p. 519B1] The coroner’s office in Los Angeles County Jan. 13 announced that it had deter-

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mined the identities of two people whose bodies were found in a burned house in

Covina, Calif., after an attack at a Christmas Party by a man dressed as Santa Claus, Bruce Pardo. The coroner’s office said it had used dental and medical records to identify the bodies of Sylvia Pardo, Bruce Pardo’s ex-wife, and Michael Ortiz, her nephew. The bodies of Sylvia Pardo’s parents, sister, brother and two of her sistersin-law had previously been identified. [See 2008, p. 960B1] n 247

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Algeria President Bouteflika Easily Wins 3rd Term.

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Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni April 10 said President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had won a third straight five-year term in office in an election held the previous day. Zerhouni said Bouteflika, 72, who ran as an independent but was supported by Algeria’s three main political parties, had garnered 90.2% of the vote in a field of six candidates. The second-place candidate, Louisa Hanoune of the far-left Trotskyite Workers’ Party—the only female candidate—won 4.2% of the vote. [See 2008, p. 869A2] Algeria’s parliament in November 2008 had approved changes to the constitution that abolished the two-term limit for presidents. After his victory was announced, Bouteflika proclaimed the election a “truly eloquent lesson in democracy.” The African Union (AU) election observer mission praised the “freedom and transparency” of the vote. French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered Bouteflika “warm and friendly” congratulations on the victory. However, opposition parties alleged fraud and voter intimidation. They also disputed the high voter turnout figure, reported by Zerhouni at 74.5%, since many voters prior to the election had expressed apathy in light of the near-certain victory by Bouteflika, who had dominated media coverage and campaign advertising. (Turnout for Bouteflika’s last landslide election victory, in 2004, had been around 58%.) The two main leftist opposition parties, the Rally for Culture and Democracy and the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), had boycotted the vote in protest. FFS leader Karim Tabbou called the election “a new step in closing the political field and a return to single party rule.” U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Aker April 10 said the U.S. was “concerned” about the fraud allegations and called on Algeria to investigate them. However, he also said the U.S. was “looking forward to working with President Bouteflika as he begins his third term.” Bouteflika, who was strongly backed by Algeria’s military, had been credited with guiding the country to peace and reconstruction after a bloody civil war between Islamist rebels and government-backed security forces in the 1990s. However, in recent years he had faced a rise in violence by the Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, which had been formed by remnants of the Islamist rebels and had killed hundreds of people in attacks in recent years. The group April 6 on its Web site had called for a boycott of the election, and it carried out at least two attacks on election day. [See 2008, p. 572A2] Bouteflika during the campaign had called on Algerians to give him a solid mandate in order for him to continue rebuilding the country. He promised to launch a five-year, $150 billion investment program and to create three million jobs. 248

Unemployment in Algeria was estimated by some observers at 30%, and was believed to be higher among the 70% of the population that was under the age of 30. Some unemployed youths reportedly had joined the ranks of the Al Qaeda group. Bouteflika had also pledged to hold a referendum on whether to pardon Islamist fighters who turned themselves in—including those who had committed rape and murder—as part of his continuing effort at national reconciliation in the aftermath of the civil war. Voters had approved a similar reconciliation charter in 2005, although some argued that it amounted to an amnesty for crimes committed by the security forces. [See 2005, p. 718A2] n

Rwanda Nation Marks 15th Anniversary of Genocide.

Rwandans April 7 marked the 15th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu extremists. President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who had led a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), that put a stop to the 100-day genocide in July 1994, attended memorial events in Kigali, the capital, and in the town of Nyanza—where 5,000 people were slaughtered in a single day just after the Belgian United Nations peacekeeping troops who were protecting them pulled out of Rwanda. [See p. 34G3; 1994, p. 505A1] In a speech before some 20,000 people in Kigali, Kagame lambasted the international community for its failure to take action to halt the genocide. In reference to U.N. officials who decided to withdraw the U.N. peacekeeping force from Rwanda soon after 10 of its Belgian troops were murdered by Hutu extremists, Kagame said, “We are not like those who abandoned people they had come to protect. They left them to be murdered. Aren’t they guilty?” The president added, “I think it is also cowardice. They left even before any shot was fired. We are not cowards.” Kagame also praised Rwanda’s progress in the years since the genocide. He said, “As we remember, life must go on. We must continue to build a better future.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said in a special message that “preventing genocide is a collective responsibility.” Susan Rice, the U.S.’s ambassador to the U.N., acknowledged that Rwanda had “suffered from an international community, international institutions, and individual governments—including my own—that failed to act in the face of a vast, unfolding evil.” Tribunal Convicts Priest—The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, Feb. 27 convicted Emmanuel Rukundo, a Roman Catholic priest and former military chaplain, of “genocide, murder as a crime against humanity and extermination as a crime.” Rukundo, 50, was found guilty of using his position to “influence and promote” the killings of Tutsis who had sought refuge in a seminary. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. [See 2001, p. 1070F1] n

AMERICAS

U.S. Lifts Limits on Family Visits and Remittances to Cuba Obama Eases Hard Line on Castros.

U.S. President Barack Obama April 13 ended long-standing restrictions on the ability of U.S. nationals to visit and send money to relatives in Cuba, and also ended a prohibition on telecommunications companies seeking licenses in the country. The moves were considered by analysts as the biggest shift in U.S. policy on Cuba in decades. However, the wider trade embargo instituted by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, following the 1959 communist revolution that had brought former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz to power, remained in place. [See p. 8E1] Under the new rules, restrictions on the amount of money or gifts that Cuban Americans could send to their relatives in Cuba were ended, as long as the recipients were not high-ranking government officials. The change also ended rules that had limited Cuban Americans to visiting the island only once every three years. Telecom companies would also be allowed to directly beam satellite television and radio programs to Cuba, although they would first need the permission of the Cuban government to do so, which was not considered likely to be granted. Companies would also be able to enter partnerships with local providers to offer communications services such as cellular phone service for U.S. visitors. The policy change fulfilled a campaign promise made by Obama to attempt to improve relations with Cuba, and was a reversal from a hard-line stance taken by Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. However, the announcement of the shift was made by White House senior aides rather than the president himself, a move seen as an attempt by Obama to distance himself somewhat from controversy over the U.S.’s Cuba policies. Dan Restrepo, an official of the National Security Council, said the change in policy would “extend a hand to the Cuban people” and “open up space” for Cubans to develop “grass-roots democracy.” Cuba remained a polarizing issue in the U.S., with some arguing that the U.S. sanctions had not yielded any progress in bringing democracy to Cuba, and had only hurt Cuban residents. Several advocates of liberalizing U.S.-Cuban relations criticized the policy change for failing to completely end the trade embargo. (The embargo, as outlined in the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, was administered by the Treasury Department. Its abolition would require congressional action.) Cuban American conservatives argued that Obama’s moves would only bolster the Cuban government, which took 30% of any remittances sent to the island nation. However, younger Cuban Americans, born after the Castro revolution, generally seemed to support greater dialogue between the two countries, and the general sentiment among Cuban Americans reportFACTS ON FILE

edly increasingly favored pursuing talks with the Castro regime. The Cuban American National Foundation, a major Cuban exile group, April 8 had released a statement calling on Obama to ease the flow of public and private money to Cuba, and engage in more dialogue with Cuban leaders. The statement was a sharp reversal of the group’s previous stances, effectively rejecting many of the hard-line policy positions it had helped develop following Castro’s rise to power. However, the statement stopped short of calling for an end to the trade embargo. Several Republican and Democratic federal legislators criticized the policy shift. Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, brothers who represented heavily Cuban American districts in Florida, released a joint statement that said, “Unilateral concessions to the dictatorship embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalize prodemocracy activists.” However, White House officials indicated that the moves were only a first step in planned diplomatic overtures toward Cuba. In a column published online April 14 by Granma, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, former President Castro called the easing of U.S. restrictions “positive although minimal,” but lamented that “of the blockade, which is the cruelest of the measures, not a word was said.” Senate Travel Bill Introduced—A bipartisan coalition of senators March 31 introduced a bill that would remove all travel restrictions on U.S. citizens wishing to visit Cuba. Sen. Richard Lugar (R, Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee and one of the cosponsors of the bill, had sent a letter dated March 30 to Obama, urging him to end the trade embargo. He said the sanctions undermined the U.S.’s “broader security and political interests in the Western Hemisphere,” and noted that the policy put the U.S. at odds with the United Nations, the European Union and much of Latin America. Lugar Feb. 23 had also released a report concluding that the U.S. embargo had largely “failed to achieve its stated purpose of ‘bringing democracy to the Cuban people,’ while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba’s impoverished population.” U.S. Lawmakers Meet With Castros—

A seven-member delegation of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus April 3–7 visited Cuba, where they met with Castro and his younger brother, current President Raul Castro Ruz, as well as several other highranking Cuban officials. The group, which included caucus leader Rep. Barbara Lee (D, Calif.), April 6 met with Raul Castro for several hours, in what was the first known face-to-face meeting of U.S. lawmakers with the Cuban president since he succeeded his brother in February 2008. Lee said the delegation had talked with Castro about trade policy and the issues of human and drug trafficking, but added, “We did not talk about specifics.” She said she was convinced that Castro “wants a normal relationship” with the U.S. April 16, 2009

Lee and Reps. Laura Richardson (D, Calif.) and Bobby Rush (D, Ill.) April 7 met with Fidel Castro, becoming the first U.S. officials to meet with him since he ceded day-to-day governing responsibilities to his brother in July 2006, citing a gastrointestinal ailment that required surgery. Since that time Castro had not appeared in public, and rumors of his ill health and impending death had abounded. n Officials Resign Posts, Pledge Loyalty.

The Cuban government March 5 released letters from former Vice President Carlos Lage Davila and former Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque in which the pair resigned from their remaining government positions and roles in the country’s Communist Party. Cuban President Raul Castro several days earlier had dismissed Perez Roque as foreign minister and stripped Lage of his role as cabinet secretary. [See p. 134D2] In his letter to Castro, Perez Roque resigned from his positions as a deputy in Cuba’s National Assembly, member of the Council of State and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He also affirmed his loyalty to Castro. Lage resigned from his posts as a National Assembly deputy and as a member of the party Central Committee, and also withdrew as a vice minister of the Council of State. Both men had been considered among the top prospects to eventually replace Castro, 77. Unidentified Cuban officials had said the two had gained too much prominence, and that Castro wished to consolidate his power in order to pursue economic reforms, the New York Times reported April 6. n

Mexico Holder, Napolitano Visit, Discuss Violence.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano April 2– 3 met with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora and other high-ranking Mexican officials in Cuernavaca, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Mexico City, Mexico’s capital. Napolitano and Holder April 3 also met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa before returning to the U.S. [See p. 185A3] The meetings were part of efforts between the two countries to stem the rise of drug-related violence, which had spiraled out of control since Calderon began cracking down on drug smuggling cartels after taking office in December 2006. Since that time, an estimated 10,100 people had died in drug-related violence. The Mexican government planned to spend $9.3 billion on national security in 2009, a 99% increase from the figure when Calderon took office. Holder and Napolitano at an April 2 news conference acknowledged that the U.S. played a significant role in driving the violence currently roiling Mexico. Drugs smuggled from South America through Mexico were usually bound for users in the U.S. Also, most of the guns used by Mexi-

can drug cartels were thought to have been bought in the U.S. Medina April 2 said his country’s customs agency would spend $1.4 billion to upgrade equipment and infrastructure at U.S. border crossings. The U.S. and Mexican officials reportedly discussed increasing coordination between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican navy in order to stop cartels that smuggled drugs into the U.S. by boat, and for the U.S. to provide training to Mexican canine units. Holder April 3 said he would send an additional 100 agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to border areas to help halt the flow of guns from the U.S. to Mexico. U.S. Aid Delay Examined— The Washington Post April 5 reported that the disbursement of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to help Mexico fight drug smugglers had been delayed. Then–U.S. President George W. Bush in June 2008 had signed a bill authorizing the U.S. to provide $400 million in aid as part of a plan known as the Merida Initiative. Much of the funds would go to providing Mexican antinarcotics forces with training and equipment, such as surveillance aircraft, and scanning and X-ray devices for the U.S.-Mexico border. The Post reported that the U.S. State Department in December 2008 had “released” $197 million of the funds, but that only $7 million had been disbursed since that time. Calderon had repeatedly called on the U.S. to provide more financial aid, and to distribute the funds quickly. U.S. officials said the delay was caused by government contracting requirements and the need to establish proper protocols and oversight.

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Cartel Leader’s Capture Announced—

Mexican officials April 2 announced that they had arrested Vicente Carrillo Leyva, 32, an alleged leader of the Juarez drug cartel. Carrillo Leyva was the son of the cartel’s alleged founder, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who had been known as the “Lord of the Skies” for his use of airplanes to smuggle narcotics. (Carillo Fuentes had died in 1997.) Carrillo Leyva was suspected of being one of the managers of the cartel’s money-laundering operations. [See 1997, p. 518B2] n

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Thai Protesters Clash With Army Two People Killed, At Least 135 Injured.

Clashes between supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the Thai military April 12–14 in Bangkok, the capital, left two people dead and injured at least 135 others. The clashes followed the decision by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, a political opponent of Thaksin’s, to impose a state of emergency in Bangkok and the surrounding areas. Hundreds of protesters since late March had surrounded the prime minister’s office, and April 11 had forced the cancellation of a planned panAsian summit in the Thai coastal town of Pattaya. [See p. 205C3; 2008, p. 561E1] 249

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The violence was the latest manifestation of political instability in the country, which had seen a split between Thaksin’s supporters, many of whom were known as the “red shirts,” and his royalist opponents, known as the “yellow shirts.” The red shirts were poorer and from Thailand’s rural areas, and saw Thaksin’s 2006 ouster by the military as a flouting of democratic rule. Since then, two pro-Thaksin prime ministers had been forced to step down after controversial trials, and Thaksin had been convicted on corruption charges. Thaksin faced two years in prison if he returned to Thailand, and was currently in self-imposed exile. In contrast, the yellow shirts drew support from the country’s middle class and ruling elites, and viewed Thaksin as corrupt and authoritarian. Widespread protests by the yellow shirts in the fall of 2008 had paralyzed the country. Abhisit had been elected as prime minister in December 2008 after defectors from the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) joined his conservative Democrat Party to form a coalition government. Thaksin Refuses Negotiations—Thaksin April 3 announced that he would not take part in talks with Abhisit’s government, saying they were “out of the question.” The government had offered to negotiate with Thaksin in the hopes of ending the ongoing protests. Thaksin instead called for Thai citizens to join protesters in massive demonstrations scheduled for April 8. Abhisit April 5 said he would not give in to demands by protesters that he hold new elections, arguing that the country was currently too unstable for elections to take place. [See 2008, p. 926F2] Pro-Thaksin protesters in Pattaya April 7 attacked Abhisit’s car as he was leaving a cabinet meeting. During the incident, protesters smashed a window of the vehicle, but Abhisit was not injured. Abhisit April 8 said a planned pan-Asian summit in Pattaya April 10–12 would not be disturbed, and promised that protests there would not “be anything like what happened with my motorcade.” He blamed the incident on his preference for traveling without a large security force. The Thai government had reportedly chosen to host the summit in Pattaya, which was about 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Bangkok, in the hopes of minimizing disruptions from protests. The summit had originally been scheduled for late 2008, but yellow-shirt protests in Bangkok had made hosting it in Thailand untenable. High-ranking officials from member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were expected to attend the meeting, along with the leaders of China, Japan, India, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, as well as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The global financial crisis was expected to be the central topic of discussion at the summit. [See 2008, p. 886D2] 100,000 Protesters Assemble—An estimated 100,000 antigovernment protesters 250

April 8 gathered in Bangkok. Groups of protesters that day held demonstrations outside the residence of former Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda, who currently served as an adviser to Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thaksin had accused Prem of assisting in the plotting of his 2006 coup, and protesters called on Prem to resign from his current post. The royal family was widely revered in Thailand, even by many supporters of Thaksin, and analysts said Thaksin’s criticism of a royal adviser was unusual. The following day, protesters occupied the traffic intersection surrounding the Victory Monument in central Bangkok, disrupting travel in the city. Jatuporn Phromphan, one of the protest organizers, said that if the demands of the protesters were “not met, we may have to go to Pattaya” to disrupt the planned summit there. Abhisit said he would call on the Thai army to provide security at the summit, and reaffirmed that he would not resign or hold new elections, saying that doing so would only “satisfy one group of people.” Summit Canceled Due to Protests—Abhisit April 11 canceled the planned summit in Pattaya after about 600 pro-Thaksin protesters broke through security and entered the conference center where the summit was scheduled to take place. Some protesters had reportedly reached a section of the complex occupied by some leaders of other Asian countries but had subsequently been subdued at gunpoint by security. Protesters April 10 had carried out demonstrations outside the complex but had dispersed after presenting a letter denouncing Abhisit’s government to a representative of ASEAN. Protesters April 11 also surrounded a hotel occupied by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, keeping them from reaching the summit location. The three leaders and their entourages were later allowed to travel to a nearby airport after Abhisit canceled the summit meeting. Abhisit April 11 announced a state of emergency for Pattaya, giving the Thai army increased authority to operate within the region. The state of emergency was lifted after the Thai government successfully evacuated all the visiting officials and dignitaries by helicopter or boat. Pro-Thaksin red shirt protest leaders April 11 said they had been provoked by Abhisit’s yellow shirt supporters, whom they had clashed with earlier in the day, and claimed that the yellow shirt group had shot two red shirt protesters, killing one. A spokesman for the Thai government denied that anyone had been killed in the clash but said 13 Abhisit supporters had been injured. State of Emergency Declared in Bangkok—

Abhisit April 12 declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and its surrounding regions in response to continued protests around the prime minister’s office, known as the Government House, and the Victory Monument, among other locations. Under the decree, military powers were expanded

and protests by more than five people were banned. Thaksin supporters defied the ban and a group of about 300 protesters at the Victory Monument reportedly fought back against the army with rocks and homemade gasoline bombs. Separately, several thousand pro-Thaksin demonstrators surrounding the Government House broke through army lines, foiling attempts by the military to contain them. Following Abhisit’s announcement, a group of protesters attacked his motorcade as it left the Ministry of Information in Bangkok. Many government employees were injured and one of Abhisit’s aides was reportedly dragged from a car and beaten by protesters. Abhisit fled out the rear of the building and injured his arm during his escape. After the attack, Abhisit said the Thai people had seen “that the protesters were trying to hurt me and smash the car.” Clashes between protesters and soldiers April 13 continued in Bangkok. In addition, pro-Thaksin protesters had reportedly begun demonstrations in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin’s hometown, as well as other locations. Protest organizers in Bangkok played for protesters a recording of Thaksin in which he argued that it was “time for the people to come out in revolution.” Soldiers April 14 had reportedly driven out all the protesters from the Victory Monument, and had surrounded about 4,000 Government House protesters, who were then allowed to leave. The army regained control of most of Bangkok by mid-afternoon. The clashes had left 135 people injured, including at least 23 soldiers and 70 protesters, and two people dead. The Thai government said one of the dead had been fatally shot by protesters. Thaksin April 13 said in an interview with the U.S.’s Cable News Network (CNN) that he favored peaceful protests, arguing that “war never ended with war.” However, he also maintained that the army had killed a greater number of protesters than had been reported and claimed that it had hushed up the deaths by secretly removing bodies in military vehicles, a claim that was denied by the Thai government. Abhisit April 13 had suspended Bangkok’s traditional New Year’s water festival, citing security concerns. However, the celebration was resumed the following day. The festival usually brought in about 30,000 foreign tourists but significantly fewer attended due to the protests. Analysts said the antigovernment demonstrations could cost the country’s tourist industry as much as $600 million in lost income. Protest Leaders Arrested—Three protest leaders April 14 turned themselves in to Bangkok police to face charges of illegal assembly and creating a public disturbance related to the demonstrations. The three leaders—Weng Tojirakarn, Nattawut Siakur and Veera Musikapong—faced sentences of seven years and six months in prison if convicted. The government had also issued warrants against 37 others involved in the protests, including Thaksin. FACTS ON FILE

Separately, the government April 14 closed down a satellite television station that had broadcast footage from the demonstration as well as multiple Web sites connected with the protests. The government April 12 had revoked Thaksin’s passport, apparently in order to make it more difficult for him to continue to evade extradition. However, Nicaragua April 15 announced that Thaksin had been appointed as a “Nicaraguan ambassador” in charge of attracting investors to the country, and had been given a Nicaraguan passport. Abhisit April 16 announced that he would hold new legislative elections once the situation in Thailand became less volatile. He said the government needed to “make sure there are no further disruptions and rioting of any kind” before it set an elections date. He also said that the government “would like to make sure there is agreement on how we should proceed.” Thaksin that day said in an interview with the Associated Press (AP) that he would be willing to back talks between the current government and his supporters “if the government wants to reconcile.” The comments appeared to represent a retreat from his earlier statements in favor of revolution, reflecting the weakening of the protests after military intervention. n

China U.S. Assesses Military Expansion. The U.S.

Defense Department March 25 issued its annual report on China’s military. As in previous years, the report said China was building up its military power and sophistication without being sufficiently forthcoming about its “strategic intentions.” It specifically cited the development and deployment of missiles near the Taiwan Strait and recent advancements in China’s naval forces. With China far outpacing its Asian neighbors in military spending, the report warned that ambiguity about its purposes could lead to dangerous misunderstandings with the U.S. [See p. 187B2; 2008, p. 184C1] China’s official military budget in 2008 had been announced as 417.8 billion yuan ($58.8 billion), but the Pentagon estimated that year’s spending at between $105 billion and $150 billion. Most of the investment was thought to be in the development of new weaponry, as well as technology for cyber- and space warfare. The report said China still had scant capability to deploy military forces far outside its borders. However, in December 2008, China’s defense ministry had expressed interest in building its first aircraft carrier. [See 2008, p. 979F2] The expansion of China’s naval force was seen as the most direct threat to the U.S. military, whose Japan-based Seventh Fleet had dominated the region’s waters for decades. Earlier in March, tensions between the two countries had arisen over a confrontation between several Chinese ships and a U.S. surveillance ship. [See p. 153F1] The Pentagon report called for increased contacts between the two militaries April 16, 2009

to avoid similar incidents or unnecessary escalations. Military relations between the two countries had generally improved in recent years, but soured when the administration of then–U.S. President George W. Bush had authorized a large sale of arms to Taiwan in October 2008. China reportedly continued to build up its arsenal of short-range missiles across from Taiwan, seen as a deterrent against its declaring independence. The report suggested the buildup was also intended to “deter, delay or deny any possible U.S. support for the island in case of conflict.” [See p. 187A1; 2008, p. 981G2] China’s cabinet, the State Council, Jan. 20 had issued an assessment of the country’s security situation, naming specific threats from what it described as separatist movements in Taiwan, Tibet and the western Xinjiang region. The cabinet laid out a goal of counterbalancing the U.S. military’s influence in the region, citing in particular the arms sales to Taiwan. However, it also noted that relations with Taiwan had “taken a significant positive turn recently.” n News in Brief. Chinese antitrust regulators March 18 rejected a $2.4 billion bid to buy Huiyuan Juice Group by the U.S.’s CocaCola Co., the world’s largest soft-drink maker. The buyout offer, announced in September 2008, had incited opposition from nationalists looking to block the foreign takeover of a local brand. China’s commerce ministry March 25 denied that protectionism had played any role in the decision, instead citing concerns that it would dampen competition in the beverage market. At least 74 miners died early Feb. 22 in an explosion at the Tunlan coal mine in the northern province of Shanxi. Rescue workers the next day saved the last remaining survivors trapped beneath the rubble. At the time of the blast, 436 people were working in the mine. A day later, 114 remained hospitalized under treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning, according to state news media. [See 2007, p. 883E3] President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Feb. 5 ordered emergency measures to combat the effects of a worsening winter drought in northern China. Much of the region had not received any rainfall since October 2008, threatening the wheat harvest. The government had set aside $44 million to subsidize irrigation projects and provide aid to struggling farmers. Later in February, light rain and some snowfall eased some of the concerns, but adequate supplies of drinking water were still lacking. A fire Feb. 9–10 engulfed an unoccupied hotel in Beijing, China’s capital, killing one firefighter before it was extinguished. An unauthorized fireworks display celebrating the Lunar New Year Feb. 9 had ignited the fire. The hotel was located inside the headquarters of state-controlled television broadcaster, CCTV. The building, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was one of a number of high-profile construction projects begun in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in

Beijing. The broadcaster took responsibility for the blaze and apologized for the fireworks show, reportedly mounted by a CCTV construction official. Police Feb. 12 detained the official and 11 other people in connection with the fire. [See 2008, p. 562D1; 2002, p. 586C3] The State Council, China’s cabinet, Jan. 21 announced a $123 billion plan to overhaul the country’s health care system. The three-year program would have the goal of providing “basic medical security” to 90% of the population, many of whom lacked insurance coverage. The lack of coverage and fear of rising costs had been seen as contributing to the high savings rate among the Chinese. By expanding insurance coverage and improving access to medical care, the government intended to spur domestic spending to reverse the recent economic downturn. The cabinet April 7 offered new details on the plan, including a massive construction undertaking to ensure every county had at least one hospital. China and the U.S. Jan. 12 held a ceremony in Beijing marking 30 years of diplomatic relations. Former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were among the representatives for the U.S., while several past foreign ministers and former Vice Prime Minister Qian Qichen attended for the Chinese. In his speech, Carter categorized the relationship as the most important “in the world.” [See p. 153E2; 1979, p. 2B1] n

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Fiji President Dissolves Constitution. Fijian President Josefa Iloilo April 10 announced that he had repealed Fiji’s constitution and voided the appointments of all of the country’s judges in response to a court ruling that had found Fiji’s current government to be illegal. Iloilo said the move was necessary to carry out electoral reforms, and promised that democratic elections would take place no later than 2014. [See 2007, p. 19G3] Iloilo also said he had instituted a 30day state of emergency in Fiji that allowed the police to “control the movement of people” and gave the government the authority to appoint censors and media controls to block all news reports that “could cause disorder, promote disaffection or public alarm or undermine the government or the state of Fiji.” Fiji’s Court of Appeal April 9 had ruled that the current government, which had been put into place by Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama after a 2006 military coup ousted the democratically elected government headed by then–Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, was not legal, overturning an earlier ruling by the Fijian High Court. The Court of Appeal ordered Iloilo to appoint a caretaker prime minister to replace Bainimarama and to schedule elections to form a legitimate democratic government. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Qarase. After the ruling, Bainimarama April 9 announced that he would step down, but was reappointed to another five-year 251

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term as prime minister by Iloilo April 10. Analysts suggested that Iloilo’s decision to dissolve the constitution, which was put in place in 1997, and to reinstate Bainimarama was likely the result of Bainimarama’s undue influence, a claim that Bainimarama denied. Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean April 11 said that Iloilo’s decision to repeal the constitution and to reappoint Bainimarama was itself illegal. In addition, he suggested that Fiji could face sanctions or removal from the Pacific Islands Forum, a multinational organization comprised of Australia, New Zealand and Pacific island nations, if it did not return to a democratic form of government. Separately, Randall Powell, one of three Fijian Court of Appeal judges who had ruled on the legality of the current government, April 11 said that he felt that Bainimarama would only allow elections to go forward in 2014 “if he could be sure of winning them, because he needs to be sure that the new parliament is going to exonerate him.” The government April 14 shut down relay stations run by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) and expelled one of its correspondents from the country. In addition, Dorsami Naidu, the president of the Fiji Law Society, was detained after his criticism of the decision to dismiss the judiciary and to control local media was broadcast by ABC; he was subsequently released April 15, after reportedly being threatened with sedition charges. Fiji Dollar Devalued—Sada Reddy, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, April 15 announced that the Reserve Bank had devalued the Fijian dollar by 20% as part of an attempt to give “a much-needed boost to tourism” and exports, the two pillars of Fiji’s economy. Reddy conceded that the change could trigger massive inflation within Fiji but said that it was necessary to make sure that “our economy can recover quickly.” Reddy had been appointed to the position earlier April 15 by Bainimarama’s government. He replaced Savenaca Narube, who had been removed April 14 by the government on the grounds that he had been appointed under the invalid constitution. The Reserve Bank April 14 had instituted new currency exchange controls after Narube’s dismissal that were intended to bolster the country’s reserves of foreign money. n

Japan Largest-Ever Stimulus Plan Unveiled. The

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Japanese government April 10 formally unveiled a 15.4 trillion yen ($155 billion) package of spending and tax measures intended to stimulate the country’s contracting economy. It was the largest such stimulus proposal in Japan’s history, and followed two others enacted since late 2008. Including other provisions that did not constitute direct government spending, such as loan guarantees for small businesses, the total value of the measures was estimated at 56.8 trillion yen. [See p. 98B3] 252

Prime Minister Taro Aso said the plan was needed “to stop the economy falling through the floor,” noting that Japan’s “exports and production” were “tumbling.” Japan’s gross domestic product had shrunk at an annualized rate of 12.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to revised figures released March 11. The government March 25 reported that exports in February had fallen 49% from February 2008. Many details of the stimulus package, which required legislative approval of a supplementary budget to finance it, had been made public April 9. They included 1.9 trillion yen intended to help preserve jobs or help the unemployed find work. It also contained 1.6 trillion yen to fund programs promoting solar power and energy efficiency, including subsidies for consumers who bought efficient appliances or traded in an old vehicle for a new fuel-efficient model. The package also allowed more money to be given as a gift free of tax, intended to encourage older Japanese holding onto large savings to transfer some to their children, who would be more likely to use it for a major purchase such as a home. The package would add to Japan’s already large public debt, which as a percentage of GDP was one of the highest in the world, 170%, due in part to extensive stimulus spending during a period of economic stagnation in the 1990s. Aso acknowledged the need to “rebuild our finances,” but only “in the mid- to long-term,” once the immediate economic crisis passed. Naoto Kan, a senior official of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), April 9 criticized the proposal as “nothing more than a campaign maneuver” ahead of parliamentary elections due to be held by September. Because it controlled the upper house of the Diet (parliament), the DPJ was able to delay government-sponsored legislation. [See p. 252E2] n Aide to Opposition Leader Indicted. Prosecutors in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, March 24 indicted an aide to Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), on charges of concealing donations from a construction company to Ozawa’s political fund. The aide, Takanori Okubo, had been arrested March 3. Ozawa, who had not been accused in the case, in an emotional news conference held March 24, denied any wrongdoing, and vowed to remain DPJ president in order to pursue his “lifetime dream” of ousting the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from power in parliamentary elections due to be held by September. [See 2007, p. 739F3] The DPJ had been seen as having an unprecedented opportunity to beat the LDP, because Prime Minister Taro Aso’s popularity had plummeted with the country’s current economic downturn. But the charge against Okubo jeopardized the opposition’s ability to present itself as a clear reformist alternative to the LDP. [See p. 252F1] Okubo was charged with accepting and falsifying about 35 million yen ($355,000) in donations that a construction company had allegedly made in an effort to obtain

public-works contracts in Ozawa’s base of power, Iwate prefecture (province). Such dealings between construction companies and politicians had long been typical of Japanese influence-peddling scandals. Ozawa, 66, had left the LDP in 1993, after rising in its ranks as the protege of party elders themselves brought down in corruption scandals. He had become the DPJ’s leader in 2006. n

Kyrgyzstan Early Elections Called. Kyrgyzstan’s central election commission March 20 announced that a presidential election originally scheduled for October 2010 would be moved up to July 23. The move came a day after the Constitutional Court ruled that the election had to be held no later than October 2009. Opponents of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had been in office since 2005, said Bakiyev was forcing an early election so he could take advantage of a disorganized opposition movement to easily win a second term. [See p. 226E1; 2007, p. 885G2] As many as 1,500 antigovernment protesters March 27 gathered at a park in Bishkek, the capital, to demand a number of concessions they said were necessary in order for the snap election to be fair. Among them were calls for the government to open the central election commission, law enforcement bodies and state television to members of the opposition. Demonstrators also called for Bakiyev to allow international monitors into the country to observe the election. That demand reportedly came in response to current draft legislation that would bar nongovernmental organizations from participating in Kyrgyzstan’s electoral process. In related news, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) April 2 reported that Deputy Finance Minister Said Zulpuev had said the first installment of a $2.1 billion package of loans and aid from Russia had arrived March 31. The package had been agreed to in February. Some opposition figures were reportedly concerned that Bakiyev might use the money to fund his reelection campaign. Zulpuev said about $150 million had been disbursed so far. [See p. 59A1] n

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Azerbaijan Court Annuls Journalists’ Sentences. An

Azerbaijani appeals court April 9 annulled the sentences of two journalists—Asif Marzili and Zumrud Mammedova—who April 7 had been found guilty of libel and defamation. The annulment followed an April 8 statement by Ali Hasanov, a spokesman for President Ilham Aliyev, in which he said Aliyev did not approve of the sentences and wanted to see courts resolve such disputes in ways other than sending journalists to jail. [See below, p. 206B3] Marzili, editor-in-chief of the weekly independent newspaper Tazadlar, April 7 FACTS ON FILE

was detained and sentenced to one year in jail for libel. The sentence had come in connection with an article alleging corruption at Azerbaijan International University in Baku, the capital. Mammedova, a freelance journalist who had written the article, the same day was sentenced to six months’ corrective labor. However, both were released April 9 after the appeals court said the sentencing judge had rendered unfair decisions. Sakit Zakhidov, another independent journalist, was also released from jail April 9. Zakhidov, who had worked for the independent newspaper Azadlyg, had been jailed in 2006 on drug charges, which U.S.based advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed were “fabricated.” Zakhidov had already served about two-and-a-half years of his three-year sentence. CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova April 9 claimed there were at least four other journalists unfairly imprisoned in Azerbaijan, and called for their release. n Presidential Term Limit Abolished. Azerbaijan’s central election commission March 19 announced that voters the previous day had approved a constitutional amendment abolishing the limit on presidential terms, paving the way for President Ilham Aliyev to serve for life. Aliyev’s current term, his second, expired in 2013. Aliyev April 2 signed a decree under which the changes were formally incorporated into the constitution. [See p. 252F3; 2008, p. 775F2] The election commission said about 92% of voters had approved the measure, with voter turnout estimated at 71%. Azerbaijan’s relatively weak political opposition had boycotted the referendum, and later accused officials of ballot-stuffing and intimidating voters. Opposition leaders also said voter turnout had been lower than 25%, and some pointed out that the referendum had fallen on the eve of Novruz, an important holiday in Azerbaijan. Opposition parties had also urged a boycott of 2008 presidential elections, which Aliyev had won handily. That poll had been criticized by election monitors. Azerbaijan’s economy had expanded rapidly under Aliyev’s administration, largely due to profitable energy deals with Russia and Western countries. Aliyev was the son of former President Heydar Aliyev, who had governed Azerbaijan for a decade, until his death in 2003. n

Georgia Thousands Call for President’s Resignation.

Tens of thousands of Georgians April 9 gathered peacefully in Tbilisi, the capital, to call for President Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation. The protesters, who said they would continue to demonstrate until Saakashvili resigned, accused the president of consolidating power into his own hands, suppressing independent media and leading the country into a brief 2008 war against Russia that eventually bolstered Russia’s presence in the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions of Abkhazia and South OsApril 16, 2009

setia. Saakashvili maintained that he would finish his second term, which was due to end in 2013. [See p. 84D3] The Caucasus Research Resource Center, an independent research institute, estimated the April 9 crowd at about 53,000. Smaller protests April 10–16 took place in front of the parliament, outside Saakashvili’s office and near television stations. Protesters also blocked main roads in Tbilisi. Saakashvili’s government, which had violently suppressed a similar antigovernment protest in 2007, allowed the crowds to demonstrate. Media outlets reported a sparse police presence. [See 2007, p. 740C3] The protests were organized by a number of opposition parties that had united against Saakashvili. The Christian Democrats, the largest opposition party in the parliament, declined to participate in the demonstrations. Among the opposition leaders who spoke at the protests were former parliament speaker Nino Burdzhanadze; Irakli Alasania, Georgia’s former ambassador to the United Nations; and Levan Gachechiladze, a former presidential candidate. n

Great Britain Antiterrorism Official Resigns Over Photo.

The top antiterrorism official of the London Metropolitan Police Service, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, resigned April 9, a day after he was photographed by news agencies while holding a plainly visible document, marked “secret,” which detailed an imminent operation. The accidental disclosure forced the operation to be carried out earlier than planned. Police April 8 arrested 12 terrorism suspects in raids across northwest England, in the cities of Manchester and Liverpool and nearby areas. [See 2008, p. 928B2] The British Ministry of Defence April 8 issued an “advisory notice” requesting that the media exercise voluntary censorship of the photo for reasons of national security. However, the photo had already appeared on the Internet by then. London Mayor Boris Johnson April 9 said Quick’s mistake had been “extremely unfortunate.” He named Assistant Commissioner John Yates to replace Quick. The 12 suspects arrested April 8 allegedly had ties to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. They reportedly included 10 Pakistani citizens. Prime Minister Gordon Brown April 9 said the raids had disrupted “a very big terrorist plot” that authorities had been “following for some time.” However, police in Manchester said there was “no particular threat against any particular location.” Police April 11 said one of the 12 suspects, an unidentified 18-year-old, had been released without charge into the custody of immigration authorities. n Death at G-20 Protest Blamed on Police.

An amateur video showed that newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson had been struck from behind with a baton and shoved to the ground by a police officer minutes before he collapsed and died at an April 1 protest in London against the Group of 20 (G-20) glo-

bal economic summit, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported April 7. [See p. 194D2] Tomlinson, 47, reportedly had been on his way home at the time of the incident, and was not a participant in the demonstration, which turned violent when some protesters attacked bank offices and clashed with police. The video was shot by an unidentified investment manager from New York City. Other witnesses said they had seen the police assault Tomlinson without provocation, and had taken photographs of the attack. The Independent Police Complaints Commission April 8 said it was investigating “the alleged assault by police” and whether it caused Tomlinson’s death. The panel said it would seek a second autopsy. A first autopsy had found that Tomlinson had died of a heart attack. The London Metropolitan Police Service April 9 said the officer involved in the incident had been suspended. The service April 15 said it had suspended another officer for striking a woman at the G-20 protest. A video posted on the Internet showed the officer slapping the woman in the face and hitting her in the leg with his baton. n

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Italy Funeral Mass Held for Earthquake Victims.

Thousands of mourners April 10 attended a funeral mass in the city of L’Aquila in central Italy for 205 victims of an earthquake that had struck L’Aquila and the surrounding area in the Abruzzo region earlier that week. The quake had killed more than 290 people and displaced about 55,000, of whom more than 30,000 had taken shelter in large tent encampments. [See p. 224B1] Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took part in the mass. His government had declared a national day of mourning. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, presided at the mass. Pope Benedict XVI, who had promised to visit the earthquake zone after Easter, sent a message of solidarity to the mourners. The Vatican had granted a special dispensation to allow the mass to be held on Good Friday, which was the only day of the year on which the Roman Catholic Church normally did not celebrate mass. The culture ministry April 13 said the quake had damaged or destroyed at least 500 historic churches. Modern buildings, including a student dormitory, had also collapsed in the quake. L’Aquila prosecutors April 11 announced an investigation into substandard building practices, and warned that they would monitor reconstruction projects for compliance with building codes. Prosecutors also said they would scrutinize rebuilding contracts in order to detect and prevent the involvement of companies linked to organized crime, which had been linked to shoddy building practices. The Naples-based Camorra crime group had allegedly made large profits from governmentfunded reconstruction projects after Italy’s worst earthquake in recent decades, which 253

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hit the Naples area in 1980 and killed more than 2,700 people. [See 1980, p. 893A1] Interior Minister Roberto Maroni April 14 said the Abruzzo region would require at least 12 billion euros ($16 billion) for reconstruction. The government had already approved subsidies for families and businesses affected by the quake. n

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European Central Bank Cuts Rate to 1.25%. The European Central Bank (ECB) April 2

cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 1.25%, from 1.5%. The cut was smaller than expected, but ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet signaled that at least one more cut of the same size was likely. He also said the bank might soon unveil more unconventional measures to revive the economy in the eurozone, comprised of the 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency. [See pp. 193A1, 155E2, 100A3] The rate cut was the sixth by the ECB since October 2008, and brought the rate to a record low. However, the ECB had drawn criticism for cutting rates more slowly than other central banks, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, which had cut its benchmark rate to near zero in December 2008. The ECB also had yet to follow the lead of the Fed, the Bank of England and other central banks in starting programs to buy assets such as government and corporate bonds, in order to encourage a renewal of normal lending by private-sector banks. But the ECB since October had offered unlimited loans to banks at fixed interest rates for up to six months. Trichet said the ECB would announce its decision on whether to pursue more “nonstandard” steps in May. He expressed pessimism about the state of the eurozone economy, saying that it had “weakened markedly,” and that he expected only a gradual recovery in 2010. Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, April 1 reported that the unemployment rate in the eurozone had risen to 8.5% in February, up from 7.2% a year earlier. n

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Iran Nuclear Fuel Plant Opened. Iranian Presi-

dent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad April 9 announced the formal opening of a nuclear fuel plant in the central city of Isfahan. Ahmadinejad also indicated that Iran would be open to further international talks on its nuclear program if they were conducted with “justice, equality and mutual respect.” Iran claimed that its program was for civilian nuclear generation, but the U.S and its allies viewed the program as aimed at developing nuclear weapons. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama the previous day had said it was willing to negotiate directly with Iran, in a break from the policy of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. [See p. 227C2] 254

The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in February had reported that the Isfahan plant was already producing nuclear fuel. The fuel could reportedly be further processed into plutonium for use in weapons. [See p. 173F3] Ahmadinejad announced the testing of two new types of high-capacity uranium centrifuges, which he said would speed up enrichment, a key step in creating nuclear material used both as fuel and in weapons. Also that day, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said Iran had increased the number of centrifuges it possessed to 7,000. The IAEA in February had reported that Iran had a total of 5,600 centrifuges. Ahmadinejad April 6 while visiting Kazakhstan had said he approved of a U.S. proposal to set up an international nuclear fuel bank in that country. If Iran used such a bank, it would theoretically mean that it would no longer have to enrich uranium to produce nuclear power plant fuel. Ahmadinejad April 15 in a speech in the southeastern city of Kerman said he was preparing a proposal to resolve international controversy over Iran’s nuclear program. He warned the U.S. against negotiating “from a position of arrogance.” n Journalist Tried in Secret for Espionage.

An Iranian judiciary spokesman April 14 said a journalist charged with spying for the U.S. had been tried in a closed hearing the previous day, and that the verdict would be handed down “within a couple of weeks.” The journalist, Roxana Saberi, 31, was a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, although Iran did not recognize her U.S. citizenship, and had been living in Iran for six years; she had reported for several international news outlets before her press credentials were revoked without explanation in 2006. [See p. 227F2] Saberi had been arrested in January on initial charges of purchasing a bottle of wine, which was illegal in Iran. A judge in early April had announced the spying charge, which analysts said could carry a sentence of two to 10 years in prison, but could result in the death penalty in the most serious cases. The U.S. government denied that Saberi was a spy, and was pressing Iran for her release. n

Iraq Mosul Truck Bombing Kills Five U.S. Troops.

A suicide bomber April 10 blew up a dump truck full of explosives outside the headquarters of the Iraqi national police in Mosul, the capital of northern Nineveh province, killing five U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi police officers. It was the deadliest attack against U.S. soldiers in Iraq since March 2008, and continued a recent upswing in violence throughout Iraq, after a period of relative calm in early 2009. An attack on U.S. forces in Mosul in February had killed four U.S. soldiers and their translator. [See pp. 227E3, 101D2; 2008, p. 159C2] The U.S. soldiers were part of a convoy that was passing the police headquarters

when the truck exploded. It was unclear whether the U.S. unit or the police building was the target of the attack. The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq, April 13 claimed responsibility for the Mosul attack, as well as another attack April 11 in Iskandariyah, a town in Babil province south of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. In the Iskandariyah attack, a suicide bomber killed at least eight members of an Awakening Council. Awakening Councils were mostly Sunni Muslim armed groups that had turned against extremists and had allied themselves with U.S. forces. The U.S. military April 15 said it was closely monitoring the arrests of 15 Awakening Council leaders by the Iraqi government over recent weeks, as well as arrest warrants issued for five more. Awakening Council members complained that the Shiite Muslim–dominated government had targeted them for persecution and had been slow to pay them and fulfill promises of incorporating them into Iraq’s security forces. The National Media Center of the Iraqi Council of Ministers April 13 had criticized local and international media outlets for provoking “hateful sectarian strife” by portraying arrested Awakening Council members “as heroes targeted by security forces.” Also, Iraq’s top military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, April 13 said he was suing the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al Hayat and the Iraqi television station Al Sharqiya in order to close down their Iraqi operations. Atta said Al Hayat had misquoted him as saying that the government would rearrest detainees released by the U.S., and Al Sharqiya had run Al Hayat’s report. Al Hayat said it had its sources confused. In other violence, a car bombing April 15 killed at least 11 security guards at an oil facility in the northern city of Kirkuk. U.S. Soldier Convicted of Iraqi Murders—

A U.S. military jury in Vilseck, Germany, April 15 convicted U.S. Army Master Sgt. John Hatley of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder for his role in killing four captured Iraqis in Baghdad in March or April 2007. Hatley April 16 was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole and a dishonorable discharge. Hatley was the highestranking U.S. soldier to be convicted of murder in the Iraq war. [See p. 208D3] After their unit concluded that it lacked evidence to hold the four Iraqi detainees and was going to release them, Hatley and two other soldiers—Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo, who pleaded guilty to murder charges in March, and Sgt. Michael Leahy Jr., who was convicted in February—shot the bound and blindfolded men at pointblank range and pushed them into a Baghdad canal. Two other soldiers had pleaded guilty to being accessories in 2008. Hatley, 40, was found not guilty of the January 2007 murder of another suspected Iraqi insurgent. In a separate case, a military jury at Camp Pendleton, Calif., April 9 acquitted Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer of premeditated FACTS ON FILE

murder and dereliction of duty for allegedly killing an unarmed Iraqi detainee in Fallujah, in the western Iraqi province of Anbar in November 2004. While taking a polygraph test in order to join the U.S. Secret Service in 2006, after he left the Marines, Weemer had reportedly said he had killed the Iraqi; he was recalled to duty in order to be tried by the military. His lawyers said the Iraqi had been trying to take Weemer’s pistol when he was shot, and also that there was no forensic evidence of the killing. Weemer had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison and a dishonorable discharge. [See 2008, p. 624E1] Weemer’s squad leader, former Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario Jr., had been acquitted of charges related to the incident by a civilian jury in August 2008. A third marine, Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, also faced a courtmartial in the case. U.S. Contractor Found Liable for Fraud—

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., April 10 ruled that a U.S. contractor, Custer Battles LLC, could be found legally liable for fraud committed while doing reconstruction work during the early days of the Iraqi occupation. Custer Battles was accused of inflating invoices for work distributing Iraq’s new currency, and overcharging the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)—which the U.S.-led coalition had installed to govern Iraq after its invasion in March 2003—by tens of millions of dollars for securing Baghdad International Airport. [See 2006, p. 185G1] Two whistleblowers in 2003 had sued Custer Battles and its founders under the False Claims Act, which allowed private citizens to file suit on behalf of the government against companies that made false claims for payment on federal contracts. A jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., in March 2006 had found the defendants liable for $3 million in fraud. The judge in the case, T.S. Ellis 3rd, had initially limited the charges to those related to Custer Battles’s currency work, which was paid for by the U.S. Treasury, rather than other work paid for by the Iraqi government or other foreign entities. After the jury reached its verdict, Ellis ruled that the False Claims Act did not apply because U.S. contracting officials working for the CPA could not be considered agents of the U.S. government under the False Claims Act. The appeals court reversed both of Ellis’s rulings. n

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Cabrera Beats Perry in Playoff To Win Golf’s Masters Final Surges by Woods, Mickelson Fall Short.

Argentina’s Angel Cabrera April 12 won the Masters golf tournament—the first men’s major of the year—at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. Cabrera defeated Kenny Perry of the U.S. on the second hole of a dramatic sudden-death playoff. [See 2008, p. 267D1] April 16, 2009

Cabrera, 39, won his second major tournament, after claiming the U.S. Open in 2007. He became the first Argentine to win the Masters. Perry, 48, was trying to win the first major of his career. If he had succeeded, he would have become the oldest major winner in history. [See 2007, p. 407E1] Perry and Cabrera had been tied for the lead at 11 under par going into the final round April 12, and Chad Campbell of the U.S. was in second place, two shots back. The world’s top two players—Americans Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson—were paired together at four under, several groups in front of the leaders. Woods and Mickelson, who were followed by a huge gallery, became the center of attention as both made several birdies on the front nine—Mickelson shot a recordtying 30—to pull closer to the leaders. (Woods, a 14-time major champion, had never won a major coming from behind on the final day.) The two players managed to reach 10 under by the 16th hole, but Woods bogeyed the 17th and 18th, and Mickelson dropped a shot on the 18th. Mickelson finished at nine under (fifth place), and Woods at eight under (tied for sixth). Meanwhile, Perry, Cabrera and Campbell played a largely steady front nine, interspersed with a few bogeys and birdies. On the back nine, Perry and Cabrera birdied the 15th and 16th, and Campbell birdied the 15th, to give Perry a two-shot lead, at 14 under, with two holes remaining. However, he bogeyed the 17th and 18th, while both Cabrera and Campbell made par. All three finished with scores of 276, 12 under par, and headed to a sudden-death playoff. On the first playoff hole, the 18th, both Cabrera and Perry made par; Campbell bogeyed the hole and was eliminated. On the second playoff hole, the 10th, Perry hooked his second shot and missed the green, ultimately leading to a bogey. Cabrera two-putted from 22 feet for par to seal the victory. He earned $1.35 million in prize money. Other News—In other golf news: o England’s Paul Casey April 5 won the Houston Open in Humble, Texas. He shot an 11-under-par 277 in regulation, tied with J.B. Holmes of the U.S. Casey claimed victory after Holmes hooked his tee shot into the water on the first playoff hole. Casey earned $1.026 million for the win, his first on the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour, after nine victories internationally. [See 2008, p. 267B2] o Woods March 29 won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla. He shot a five-under-par 275, and sealed the victory—his first since returning from an eight-month injury layoff—by sinking a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole. Woods earned $1.08 million for the victory. [See p. 139D1; 2008, p. 267D2] o Retief Goosen of South Africa March 22 won the Transitions Championship (formerly the PODS Championship) in Palm Harbor, Fla. He shot a 276, eight under par, and collected a $972,000 winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 267D2]

o Mickelson March 15 won the World Golf Championships (WGC)–CA Championship in Doral, Fla. He finished with a 19under-par 269, and earned $1.4 million for the victory. [See 2008, p. 267C2] o Yong-Eun Yang of South Korea March 8 won the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., his first victory on the PGA Tour. Yang shot a nine-under-par 271, and picked up $1.008 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 267E2] n

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Awards 3rd NYU Mathematician Wins Abel Prize.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters March 26 named Soviet-born mathematician Mikhail L. Gromov as the recipient of the 2009 Abel Prize for Mathematical Research, worth six million Norwegian kroner ($950,000). Gromov, 65, was a naturalized French citizen who taught at both the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette, France, and New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York City. He was the third Courant Institute–affiliated mathematician in the six-year history of the Abel Prize to win it. [See 2008, p. 248A1; 2007, p. 236E1] Gromov was honored for his work in geometry, including the fields of Riemannian geometry, which evolved from the study of curved surfaces and their higher-dimensional spaces, and symplectic geometry, an outgrowth of a branch of classical physics describing the motion of particles. He had also made key contributions to geometric group theory. n

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Palestinian Group Wins Literature Prize.

The Tamer Institute, a Palestinian organization that had promoted reading on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip for two decades, March 24 was named the winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature, a children’s literature award administered by the Swedish Arts Council. It was worth five million Swedish kronor ($620,000). [See 2008, p. 227C2] Based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Tamer Institute provided books to children in the West Bank and Gaza and encouraged nontraditional teaching methods. In honoring the Tamer Institute, the Swedish Council noted that “[u]nder difficult circumstances, the institute carries out reading promotion of an unusual breadth and versatility.” n

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Theater Openings Blithe Spirit. Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s 1941 comedy. Directed by Michael Blakemore. With Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole, Angela Lansbury and Jayne Atkinson. In New York City, at the Shubert Theater. March 15. [See 2004, p. 1097D1] Death and the King’s Horseman. Revival of a 1975 drama about Yoruba culture by Nigerian author and 1985 Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka. Directed by Rufus Norris. With Nonso Anozie, Lucian Msamati, Jenny Jules, Claire Benedict and Giles Terera. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre. April 8. [See 1995, p. 1013F1; 1986, p. 799E2] Exit the King. Revival of an absurdist 1962 tragicomedy by Eugene Ionesco, as adapted by Neil Armfield

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and Geoffrey Rush. Directed by Armfield. With Rush, Susan Sarandon, Andrea Martin and Lauren Ambrose. In New York City, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. March 26. [See 1968, p. 271D3] God of Carnage. Broadway premiere of Yasmina Reza’s most recent comedy, translated from the French by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Matthew Warchus. With Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden. In New York City, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater. March 22. [See 2008, p. 320B2] The Good Negro. Historical drama about the 1960s civil rights movement. By Tracey Scott Wilson. Directed by Liesl Tommy. With Curtis McLarin, J. Bernard Calloway, LeRoy McClain, Joniece Abbott-Pratt and Francois Battiste. In New York City, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s LuEsther Theater. March 16. [See 2003, p. 1104C2] Hair. Broadway revival of Galt MacDermot’s 1967 rock musical, first presented on Broadway in 1968. Directed by Diane Paulus; choreographed by Karole Armitage. With Gavin Creel, Will Swenson, Caissie Levy, Darius Nichols, Bryce Ryness, Allison Case and Kacie Sheik. In New York City, at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. March 31. (New York’s Public Theater originally mounted this production in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater in the summer of 2008.) [See 1979, pp. 528D2, 239G2; 1968, p. 271E2] Happiness. Musical set in a stalled New York City subway car. Music by Scott Frankel; lyrics by Michael Korie; book by John Weidman. Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman. With Hunter Foster, Jenny Powers, Joanna Gleason, Phyllis Somerville and Fred Applegate. In New York, at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. March 30. [See 2006, p. 359C1; 1999, p. 998D2] Impressionism. Romantic drama using projections of famous paintings. By Michael Jacobs. Directed by Jack O’Brien. With Jeremy Irons, Joan Allen, Marsha Mason and Andre De Shields. In New York City, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. March 24. Irena’s Vow. Broadway premiere of a drama about a Holocaust heroine, first seen off-Broadway in the fall of 2008. By Dan Gordon. Directed by Michael Parva. With Tovah Feldshuh. In New York City, at the Walter Kerr Theater. March 29. [See 2003, p. 1103E3] Madame de Sade. French historical drama by Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, who committed ritual suicide in 1970; translated by Donald Keene. Directed by Michael Grandage. With Dame Judi Dench, Rosamund Pike, Frances Barber, Deborah Findley, Fiona Button and Jenny Galloway. In London, at Wyndham’s Theatre. March 18. [See 1995, p. 1013D2; 1970, p. 874E3] The Old Man and the Sea. Adaptation, by Eric Ting and Craig Siebels, of Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 novella of the same name. Directed by Ting. With Mateo Gomez, Rey Lucas and Leajato Amara Robinson. In New Haven, Conn., at the Long Wharf Theater. April 8. [See 1961, p. 244D3] Reasons to Be Pretty. Broadway debut of playwright Neil LaBute, in a revised version of a work seen offBroadway in 2008. Directed by Terry Kinney. With Thomas Sadoski, Marin Ireland, Steven Pasquale and Piper Perabo. In New York City, at the Lyceum Theater. April 2. [See 2008, p. 780E1] Rock of Ages. Broadway musical evoking Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip in the 1980s. Book by Chris D’Arienzo. Directed by Kristin Hanggi; choreographed by Kelly Devine. With Constantine Maroulis, Amy Spanger, James Carpinello and Mitchell Jarvis. In New York City, at the Brooks Atkinson Theater. April 7. West Side Story. First Broadway revival since 1980 of Leonard Bernstein’s classic 1957 musical, with many lines and lyrics translated into Spanish. Book by Arthur Laurents; lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Directed by Laurents; original choreography by Jerome Robbins reproduced by Joey McKneely. With Matt Cavenaugh, Josefina Scaglione, Karen Olivo, Cody Green and George Akram. In New York City, at the Palace Theater. March 19. [See 1980, p. 136G3]

O B I T UA R I E S ARNESON, Dave (David Lance), 61, creator, with Gary Gygax, of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, introduced in 1974; two years later, he left the company that he and Gygax had founded to market the game, and filed a number of lawsuits against Gygax that were not resolved until 1981; Gygax died in 2008; born Oct. 1, 1947, in Hennepin County, Minn.; died April 7 at a hospice in St. Paul, Minn., after a two-year battle with cancer. [See 2008, p. 187C3] BACH, Steven, 70, onetime producer at Hollywood film studio United Artists Corp. (UA) who was associated with one of the biggest financial disasters in motion picture history, Heaven’s Gate, an epic Western directed by Michael Cimino and released in 1980; its failure at the box office led to his being fired, and was instrumental in UA’s 1981 sale to Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Film Co. (MGM); in 1985, he published a memoir, Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, regarded as the last word on the subject; born April 29, 1938, in Pocatello, Idaho; died March 25 at his home in Arlington, Vt., of cancer. [See 1981, pp. 558B2, 523E3; 1979, p. 819F3] BRADEN, Tom (Thomas Wardell Braden 2nd),

People

92, onetime Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative turned syndicated newspaper columnist whose liberal views landed him on President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” in the early 1970s; in 1975, he published Eight Is Enough, a memoir of his life as a father of eight that became the basis for a television comedydrama series that ran from 1977 to 1981; all eight of his children were from his marriage to Joan Braden, who worked for the U.S. State Department in the 1970s; their Washington, D.C., home became an informal salon for prominent politicians and journalists in the 1970s and 1980s; he and conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan were the original sparring partners on the Cable News Network (CNN) public affairs show “Crossfire,” which debuted in 1982; born Feb. 22, 1917, in Greene, Iowa; died April 3 at his home in Denver, Colo., of natural causes. [See 1975, p. 1031A1; 1973, p. 535C3]

The Washington Post April 12 reported that U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) had given the family of U.S. President Barack

56, actress best known for her work in hard-core pornographic films, notably Behind the Green Door (1972), which shattered taboos on interracial and

Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them.

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Obama a six-month-old Portuguese water dog, ending the search for a puppy for the president’s two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. The newspaper reported that the girls had named the puppy Bo because they had cousins with a cat named Bo and because first lady Michelle Obama’s father was nicknamed Diddley, after singer Bo Diddley. The dog, with its lustrous black coat and patches of white fur, was formally introduced to the White House press corps April 14. [See 2008, pp. 828C3, 388F1] A highly anticipated four-day auction of some 2,000 items from singer Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in California was called off April 14, eight days before it was to begin and hours after the items went on public display in Beverly Hills, Calif. Jackson, 50, reportedly reached an agreement with Los Angeles–based Julien Auctions whereby the auction house would return the items to the singer after they remained on display until April 25. [See 2008, p. 998D3] The British Office of Communications, an independent media watchdog group, April 3 fined the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) £150,000 (US$220,000) for having aired lewd phone messages left by comedians Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on actor Andrew Sachs’s answering machine in October 2008. Brand had later left the BBC, while Ross was suspended without pay from his BBC shows for three months. [See 2008, p. 824E1] n

Black comedy by Christopher Durang. Directed by Nicholas Martin. With Laura Benanti, Amir Arison, Kristine Nielsen, Richard Poe and David Aaron Baker. In New York City, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Newman Theater. April 6. [See 2008, p. 780E1; 2006, pp. 564D3, 315F2] n

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CHAMBERS, Marilyn (born Marilyn Ann Briggs),

group sex; the film came out the same year as another iconic porn film of that era, Deep Throat; after Behind the Green Door was released, Chambers was identified, and quickly dropped, as the model on boxes of Procter & Gamble Co.’s Ivory Snow detergent, a product bearing the slogan “99 and 44/100% pure”; she appeared in more movies in later years, and exploited her notoriety in various other ways, including by performing in live sex shows, for which she was sometimes arrested; born April 22, 1952, in Providence, R.I.; found dead April 12 in her mobile home in Santa Clarita, Calif.; the cause of her death was being probed, although foul play had been ruled out. [See 2008, p. 800F2; 1985, p. 192B2] FIDRYCH, Mark Steven, 54, pitcher for Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers who in 1976, his rookie year, led the major leagues in earned run average—2.34—was the American League’s starting pitcher in the All-Star Game, compiled a 19–9 record and was named A.L. rookie of the year; nicknamed “The Bird” for his resemblance to the gangly “Sesame Street” character Big Bird, he became a fan favorite, not only for his pitching prowess but also for his various eccentricities, which included talking to the baseball and shaping the pitcher’s mound dirt with his hands; after his rookie season, though, injuries limited him to only 10 additional wins, and his major league career ended with his release by the Tigers in 1981; born Aug. 15, 1954, in Worcester, Mass.; found dead April 13 beneath a dump truck on his farm in Northborough, Mass.; authorities April 16 ruled his death an accident, having concluded that he suffocated after his clothes got caught in a part of the truck that was spinning while he was working on it. [See 1989, p. 646G3; 1976, pp. 952E1, 796D1, 544G1–A2] JAKI, Stanley Ladislas, 84, Benedictine priest, physicist and philosopher who won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1987; he had been a physics professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., for many years, and was the author of such books as The Relevance of Physics (1966) and Science and Creation (1974); born Aug. 17, 1924, in Gyor, Hungary; died April 7 in Madrid, Spain, after suffering a heart attack. [See 1987, p. 196E1] KRUG, Judith (born Judith Rose Fingeret), 69, librarian who had directed the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom since 1967, making her one of the U.S.’s most prominent foes of literary censorship; in 1982, she was instrumental in the creation of Banned Books Week, an annual ALA event calling attention to books targeted by censors; born March 15, 1940, in Pittsburgh, Pa.; died April 11 at a hospital in Evanston, Ill., of stomach cancer. [See 1982, p. 194B3] LAWRENCE, Andrea Mead (born Andrea Bario Mead), 76, only U.S. skier ever to win two Olympic

gold medals in Alpine skiing, a feat she accomplished in 1952 in Oslo, Norway; after retiring from competitive skiing, she became an environmental activist in Northern California; born April 19, 1932, in Rutland, Vt.; died late March 30 at her home in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., of cancer. [See 1955, pp. 96G1–A2, 88E1; 1953, pp. 104K, 80M; Indexes 1949–52; indexed as Mead before 1951] SEALS, Dan(ny Wayland), 61, singer-songwriter who performed as England Dan in the 1970s folk-pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley and later had major success as a solo country singer; born Feb. 8, 1948, in McCarney, Texas; died March 25 at his daughter’s home in Nashville, Tenn., of complications from the treatment he was receiving for mantle cell lymphoma, a rare blood cancer. [See 1986, p. 968C1] SHANK, Bud (Clifford Everett Shank Jr.), 82, alto saxophonist and flutist who helped create the “cool” sound of West Coast jazz in the 1950s; he was also an early exponent of Brazilian music in the U.S., playing it years before the emergence of the bossa nova craze in the 1960s; he had a famous flute solo in the Mamas and the Papas’ 1965 hit song “California Dreamin”; born May 27, 1926, in Dayton, Ohio; died April 2 at his home in Tucson, Ariz., of a pulmonary embolism. [See 2001, p. 220D3] WALDIE, Jerome Russell, 84, liberal Democrat from California who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1966 to 1975; he was one of the first members of the House Judiciary Committee to call for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974; Waldie decided not to run for reelection to Congress that year, but to seek the California governorship; however, he lost the Democratic primary to Jerry Brown, the eventual winner of the post; born Feb. 15, 1925, in Antioch, Calif.; died April 3 at his home in Placerville, Calif., after a short illness. [See 1976, p. 900F1; Indexes 1970–74] n

April 16, 2009

Memos Authorizing U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Interrogations During Bush Era Released New Details on Harsh Techniques Disclosed.

The U.S. Justice Department April 16 released four memoranda outlining interrogation techniques that had been found acceptable for use by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against terrorism detainees under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush. The memos, which were written by members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), dated from 2002 and 2005 and were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in U.S. District Court in New York City. [See pp. 183G2, 129F3; 2008, pp. 214D3, 146B2; 2007, p. 664A1; for excepts from the memos, see pp. 259A1– 260G3] The memos approved a group of 14 harsh interrogation techniques for use on detainees. Critics considered many of those techniques to be torture. One of the techniques was waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that had been prosecuted as a war crime by the U.S. after World War II. The government had previously released similar memos that had authorized the use of harsh tactics against detainees by the CIA and the Defense Department following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. [See below] Release of Memos Debated—The decision to release the memos was reportedly preceded by months of debate within the administration of U.S President Barack Obama. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and White House counsel Gregory Craig reportedly backed releasing the memos in a largely unedited form, while CIA Director Leon Panetta and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan (formerly a top CIA official) pushed for releasing only heavily censored versions of the memos. The memos were eventually released with few omissions for privacy or security reasons. The Justice Department had originally been required to inform Judge Alvin Hellerstein by April 2 whether it would release three memos from 2005. However, Hellerstein April 2 granted an administration request for a two-week delay, a move backed by the ACLU after the government said it would consider releasing a 2002 memo as well as the other three if it was given the additional time. Obama’s decision to release the memos largely uncensored was reportedly influenced by the fact that a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the treatment of detainees in the CIA’s secret prison system, with similar information about the specifics of the U.S. interrogation program, had been published the previous week by the New York Review of Books. Obama had also reportedly been swayed by administration legal experts who found that the government had little legal standing to block the release of the memos.

After taking office in January, Obama had barred government employees from relying on interrogation memos written during the Bush administration, and had ordered the creation of a task force to examine whether CIA employees had committed crimes by exceeding the legal limits set down in those memos. The task force was also required to issue recommendations on what interrogation techniques the CIA would be allowed to use against terrorism detainees in the future. CIA Employee Prosecutions Opposed—

Holder April 16 said the Justice Department would not prosecute CIA employees who had been involved in the harsh interrogations of terrorism detainees if the employees had abided by the guidelines set down in the memos. Holder said employees who had taken part in such interrogations would have any legal expenses related to their work covered by the government, along with any civil penalties that might later be levied against them. However, Holder did not rule out the prosecution of CIA employees who had violated the guidelines, or who had made use of harsh interrogation tactics prior to authorization of the tactics, or after the memos authorizing the tactics were withdrawn. Memos Outlined Detailed Guidelines—

The four memos issued by the OLC in 2002 and 2005 included detailed guidelines that were intended to allow CIA interrogators to make use of harsh interrogation tactics without violating U.S. laws and international treaties banning torture. Critics argued that the memos had been written to provide legal cover to interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that constituted torture. The earliest memo, written in August 2002, was signed by the head of the OLC, then–Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, and set down a list of techniques that could be used against detainee Zain al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, also known as Abu Zubaydah. The other three memos were written in May 2005 by Steven Bradbury, who was then the acting head of the OLC. They addressed what techniques could be used on detainees, when techniques could be used in combination and whether the techniques used by the CIA violated U.S. law. In 2004, then–OLC head Jack Goldsmith had withdrawn memos written by Bybee and by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo that had formed the legal basis for the CIA’s use of harsh interrogations. Bradbury’s memos, written in response to requests from acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, provided the CIA with renewed authorization to continue using harsh techniques during interrogations. [See 2008, pp. 215G2, 36E3] 14 Techniques Approved—In the 2002 memo, Bybee authorized 10 harsh interrogation techniques for use in Zubaydah’s questioning, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, slapping or gripping his face and slamming him into walls, among

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3566 April 23, 2009

B others. The memo also gave specific guidelines for the use of the techniques and barred their use in some circumstances. A footnote in one of the 2005 memos cited a secret 2004 report by the office of the CIA inspector general, which said interrogators had regularly exceeded waterboarding guidelines in earlier memos, along with other violations of interrogation guidelines. Under the guidelines in the 2002 memo, waterboarding could continue for no longer than 40 seconds at a time. Interrogators could put Zubaydah in “stress positions,” in which a detainee was chained in place in an uncomfortable pose for long periods of time, as long as the discomfort it induced was due only to muscle fatigue, rather than “pain associated with contortions or twisting of the body.” Interrogators who slammed detainees against walls were required to brace the detainees’ necks with

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Memos authorizing U.S. Central Intelligence Agency interrogations during Bush era released; new details on harsh techniques disclosed. PAGE 257

Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s antiIsrael speech spurs walkout at United Nations racism conference.

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CIA to close secret prisons for terrorism detainees. PAGE 262

Obama asks cabinet for $100 million in budget cuts. PAGE 263

Fannie Mae chief tapped to be TARP overseer. PAGE 264

Captured Somali pirate charged in U.S. court.

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Obama visits Mexico, attends Summit of the Americas. PAGE 270

Iran sentences U.S.-Iranian reporter to eight years for spying for U.S. PAGE 274

Islamic law formalized in Pakistani militant region. PAGE 275

Sri Lankan civilians trapped as army squeezes Tamil Tiger rebels. PAGE 276

‘N.Y. Times’ wins five Pulitzers. PAGE 279

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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towels beforehand to minimize the risk of whiplash. Bybee’s memo also approved a specialized technique that was intended to take advantage of Zubaydah’s apparent fear of insects, which had been discovered in an analysis by psychologists working on contract for the CIA. Interrogators were allowed to tell Zubaydah that they had put an insect into a box he was confined in, as long as the insect was actually harmless and they told him ahead of time that being bitten or stung by the insect would not be fatal or cause severe pain. The 2005 memos authorized nine of the techniques allowed in the 2002 memo, but did not allow the use of the insect technique or any other similar tactic against detainees. The 2005 memos also allowed the use of four new techniques: forced nudity; dietary manipulation with “liquid meal replacements”; stomach slaps; and dousing with cold water.

Security Agency (NSA) after the Sept. 11 attacks. [See p. 243D2] White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, in an appearance on ABC television’s “This Week,” April 19 said the Obama administration was not in favor of prosecuting Bush administration officials who “devised policy” for interrogations. He said, “It’s not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back,” but also said the decision to use the controversial tactics had damaged the image of the U.S. around the world. Emanuel’s comments were widely interpreted as meaning that the Obama administration did not favor prosecuting Bybee, Yoo or Bradbury for authorizing the CIA interrogation program. However, the Times April 21 reported that, according to unidentified White House officials, Emanuel had been referring to the officials who had ordered the harsh interrogations, not the OLC attorneys. [See p. 94C3]

CIA Split Over Zubaydah Interrogation—

Bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the Web site firedoglake.com, had noticed footnotes in the memos that revealed the number of times Zubaydah and alleged Sept. 11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded in U.S. custody, the Times reported April 20. According to the memos, Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, while Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times in August 2002. [See 2008, p. 71F2] The footnotes cited as its source for the information a still-secret 2004 report by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson. The uncensored numbers contradicted claims made by a former CIA interrogator in 2007 that Zubaydah had been waterboarded only once before agreeing to talk. [See 2007, p. 818D1]

The New York Times April 18 reported that a footnote in one of the 2005 memos had revealed divisions between the CIA interrogators questioning Zubaydah at a CIA-run secret prison in Thailand and their superiors. The interrogators had reportedly opposed using harsh methods against Zubaydah, arguing that he was being cooperative and had revealed everything he knew. However, they were overruled by higherranking CIA officials, who believed that Zubaydah was a high-ranking member of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The CIA reportedly had since lowered its estimate of Zubaydah’s importance and concluded that he had only limited links to Al Qaeda. [See p. 199C3] Hayden, Mukasey Criticize Release—

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The Wall Street Journal April 17 published an op-ed article written by former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey that criticized the Obama administration’s decision to release the four interrogation memos. They argued that the release was likely to “invite the kind of institutional timidity and fear of recrimination that weakened intelligence gathering” prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The same day, U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D, Mich.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement on the memos, “If our leaders are found to have violated the strict laws against torture, either by ordering these techniques without proper legal authority or by knowingly crafting legal fictions to justify torture, they should be criminally prosecuted.” The committee April 2 had released a report on the Bush administration’s antiterrorism activities, recommending that Holder appoint a special prosecutor to investigate possible lawbreaking in the CIA’s interrogation and extraordinary rendition programs. (In extraordinary rendition, terrorism suspects were forcibly abducted in foreign countries, transferred to secret CIA prisons abroad or to the custody of third countries, and subjected to harsh interrogation tactics.) The committee also called for a probe of a warrantless wiretapping program set up by the U.S. National

9/11 Plotter Waterboarded 183 Times—

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harsh techniques used against detainees had been effective and necessary to safeguard national security. He said the Obama administration’s decision to release the four interrogation memos, but not the other memos, was “a little bit disturbing.” He had asserted in a March interview that the harsh interrogations yielded intelligence that foiled many terrorist plots. [See p. 166B2] Blair in a memo dated April 16 said, “High-value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the Al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” However, he issued a statement April 21 saying, “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.” Obama April 21 told reporters that he still felt that he had made the right decision in opposing prosecutions for CIA employees who had followed the guidelines set down in the OLC memos. However, he added, “With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, that is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.” He warned that investigations of Bush officials might get “so politicized that we cannot function effectively and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations.” He added that if Congress did pursue a “further accounting,” it should be done “in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process” and led by “independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility.” [See p. 80E1] (Continued on p. 261A1)

Headquarters—

Obama April 20 visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., for the first time since becoming president. He addressed a group of about 1,000 CIA employees, saying, “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.” He argued that the willingness of the U.S. to “uphold our values,” even when doing so was difficult, was what made it “special.” U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was investigating the Bush administration’s interrogation practices, April 20 sent a letter to Obama that asked him to withhold any final decision on who would be prosecuted for involvement in the program until after the committee’s report was completed in six to eight months. She said the committee had reviewed the circumstances surrounding the interrogation of the first two detainees questioned by the CIA. The investigation focused on classified information, and hearings were expected to take place behind closed doors. Cheney Defends Interrogations—Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney April 20 said during an appearance on Fox News that he had asked the CIA to declassify additional memos that, he said, would show that the

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EXCERPTS FROM THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INTERROGATION MEMOS

Following are excerpts from memoranda issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) on the legality of certain techniques for interrogating terrorism suspects, made public April 16 [See p. 257A1]: Aug. 1, 2002, Memo by Jay Bybee on the Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah

Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply. Zubaydah is currently being held by the United States. The interrogation team is certain that he has additional information that he refuses to divulge. Specifically, he is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United States or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas. Zubaydah has become accustomed to a certain level of treatment and displays no signs of willingness to disclose further information. Moreover, your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of “chatter” equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks. In1ight of the information you believe Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an “increased pressure phase.”… In this phase, you would like to employ ten techniques that you believe will dislocate his expectations regarding the treatment he believes he will receive and encourage him to disclose the crucial information mentioned above. These ten techniques are: (1) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box, and (l0) the waterboard. You have informed us that the use of these techniques would be on an as-needed basis and that not an of these techniques will necessarily be used. The interrogation team would use these techniques in some combination to convince Zubaydah that the only way he can influence his surrounding environment is through cooperation. You have, however; informed us that you expect these techniques to be used in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique. Moreover, you have also orally informed us that although some of these techniques may be used with [sic] more than once, that repetition will not be substantial because the techniques generally lose their effectiveness after several repetitions…. Based on the facts you have given us, we understand each of these techniques to be as follows. The attention grasp consists of grasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator. For walling, a flexible false wall will be constructed. The individual is placed with his heels touching the wall. The interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall. It is the individual’s shoulder blades that hit the wall. During this motion, the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a c-collar effect to help prevent whiplash. To further reduce the probability of injury, the individual is allowed to rebound from the flexible wall. You have orally informed us that the false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the

April 23, 2009

individual hits it, which will further shock or surprise in the individual. In part, the idea is to create a sound that will make the impact seem far worse than it is and that will be far worse than any injury that might result from the action. The facial hold is used to hold the head immobile. One open palm is placed on either side of the individual’s face. The fingertips are kept well away from the individual’s eyes. With the facial slap or insult slap, the interrogator slaps the individual’s face with fingers slightly spread. The band makes contact with the area directly between the tip of the individual’s chin and the bottom of the corresponding earlobe. The interrogator invades the individual’s personal space. The goal of the facial slap is not to inflict physical pain that is severe or lasting. Instead, the purpose of the facial slap is to induce shock, surprise, and/or humiliation. Cramped confinement involves the placement of the individual in a confined space, the dimensions of which restrict the individual’s movement. The confined space is usually dark. The duration of confinement varies based upon the size of the container. For the large confined space, the individual can stand up or sit down; the smaller space is large enough for the subject to sit down. Confinement in the larger space can last up to eighteen hours; for the smaller space, confinement lasts for no more than two hours. Wall standing is used to induce muscle fatigue. The individual stands about four to five feet from a wall, with his feet spread approximately to shoulder width. His arms are stretched out in front of him, with his fingers resting on the wall. His fingers support all of his body weight. The individual is not permitted to move or reposition his hands or feet. A variety of stress positions may be used. You have informed us that these positions are not designed to produce the pain associated with contortions or twisting of the body. Rather, somewhat like walling, they are designed to produce the physical discomfort associated with muscle fatigue. Two particular stress positions are likely to be used on Zubaydah: (1) sitting on the floor with legs extended straight out in front of him with his arms raised above his head; and (2) kneeling on the floor while leaning back at a 45 degree angle. You have also orally informed us that through observing Zubaydah in captivity, you have noted that he appears to be quite flexible despite his wound. Sleep deprivation may be used. You have indicated that your purpose in using this technique is to reduce the individual’s ability to think on his feet and, through the discomfort associated with lack of sleep, to motivate him to cooperate: The effect of such sleep deprivation will generally remit after one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep. You have informed us that your research has revealed that, in rare instances, some individuals who are already predisposed to psychological problems may experience abnormal reactions to sleep deprivation. Even in those cases, however, reactions abate after the individual is permitted to sleep. Moreover, personnel with medical training are available to and will intervene in the unlikely event of an abnormal reaction. You have orally informed us that you would not deprive Zubaydah of sleep for more than eleven days at a time and that you have previously kept him awake for 72 hours, from which no mental or physical harm resulted. You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. In particular, you would like to tell Zubaydah that you intend to place a stinging insect into the box with him. You would, how-

ever, place a harmless insect in the box. You have orally informed us that you would in fact place a harmless insect such as a caterpillar in the box with him…. Finally, you would like to use a technique called the “waterboard.” In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual’s feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in carbon dioxide level in the individual’s blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effect plus the cloth produces the perception of “suffocation and incipient panic,” i.e., the perception of drowning. The individual does not breathe any water into his lungs. During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied from a height of twelve to twenty-four inches. After this period, the cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths. The sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. The procedure may then be repeated. The water is usually applied from a canteen cup or small watering can with a spout…. Even those techniques that involve physical contact between the interrogator and the individual do not result in severe pain. The facial slap and walling contain precautions to ensure that no pain even approaching this level results. The slap is delivered with fingers slightly spread, which you have explained to us is designed to be less painful than a closed-hand slap. The slap is also delivered to the fleshy part of the face, further reducing any risk of physical damage or serious pain. The facial slap does not produce pain that is difficult to endure. Likewise, walling involves quickly pulling the person forward and then thrusting him against a flexible false wall. You have informed us that the sound of hitting the wall will actually be far worse than any possible injury to the individual. The use of the rolled towel around the neck also reduces any risk of injury.… As we understand it, when the waterboard is used, the subject’s body responds as if the subject were drowning—even though the subject may be well aware that he is in fact not drowning. You have informed us that this procedure does not inflict actual physical harm. Thus, although the subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the waterboard does not inflict physical pain. As we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, “pain and suffering” as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of “pain” as distinguished from “suffering.”…The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view inflict “severe pain or suffering.” Even if one were to parse the statute more finely to attempt to treat “suffering” as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe suffering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering…. Although the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result to violate the statutory prohibition on infliction of severe mental pain or suffering….We have previously concluded that prolonged mental harm is mental harm of some 259

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EXCERPTS FROM THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INTERROGATION MEMOS—continued

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1. Dietary manipulation. This technique involves the substitution of commercial liquid meal replacements for normal food, presenting detainees with a bland, unappetizing, but nutritionally complete diet. You have informed us that the CIA believes dietary manipulation makes other techniques, such as sleep deprivation, more effective....Detainees on dietary manipulation are permitted as much water as they want.... 2. Nudity. This technique is used to cause. psychological discomfort, particularly if a detainee, for cultural or other reasons, is especially modest. When the technique is employed, clothing can be provided as an instant reward for cooperation. During and between interrogation sessions, a detainee may be kept nude, provided that ambient temperatures and the health of the detainee permit. For this technique to be employed, ambient temperature must be at least 68°F. No sexual abuse or threats of sexual abuse are permitted. Although each detention cell has full-time closed-circuit video monitoring, the detainee is not intentionally exposed to other detainees or unduly exposed to the detention facility staff. We understand that interrogators “are trained to avoid sexual innuendo or any acts of implicit or explicit sexual degradation.”… Nevertheless, interrogators can exploit the detainee’s fear of being seen naked. In addition, female officers involved in the interrogation process may see the detainees naked…. 7. Abdominal slap. In this technique, the interrogator strikes the abdomen of the detainee with the back of his open hand. The interrogator must have no rings or other jewelry on his hand. The interrogator is positioned directly in front of the detainee; generally no more than 18 inches from the detainee. With his fingers held tightly together and fully extended, and with his palm toward the interrogator’s own body, using his elbow as a fixed pivot point, the interrogator slaps the detainee in the detainee’s abdomen. The interrogator may not use a fist, and the slap must be delivered above the navel and below the sternum. This technique is used to condition a detainee to pay attention to the interrogator’s questions and to dislodge expectations that the detainee will not be touched. It is not intended to—and based on experience you have informed us that it does not—inflict any injury or cause any significant pain…. 11. Water dousing. Cold water is poured on the detainee either from a container or from a hose without a nozzle: This technique is intended to weaken the detainee’s resistance and persuade him to cooperate with interrogators, The water poured on the detainee must be potable and the interrogators must ensure that water does not enter the detainee’s nose, mouth, or eyes…Ambient temperatures must remain above 64°F. If the detainee is lying on the floor, his head is to remain vertical, and a poncho, mat, or other material must be placed between him and the floor to minimize the loss of body heat. At the conclusion of the water dousing session, the detainee must be moved to a heated room if necessary to permit his body temperature to return to normal in a safe man260

ner. To ensure an adequate margin of safety, the maximum period of time that a detainee may be permitted to remain wet has been set at twothirds he time at which, based on extensive medical literature and experience, hypothermia could be expected to develop in healthy individuals who are submerged in water of the same temperature.... 12. Sleep deprivation (more than 48 hours). This technique subjects a detainee to an extended period without sleep. You have informed us that the primary purpose of this technique is to weaken the subject and wear down his resistance. The primary method of sleep deprivation involves the use of shackling to keep the detainee awake. In this method, the detainee is standing and is handcuffed, and the handcuffs are attached by a length of chain to the ceiling. The detainee’s hands are shackled in front of his body, so that the detainee has approximately a two- to three-foot diameter of movement. The detainee’s feet are shackled to a bolt in the floor. Due care is taken to ensure that the shackles are neither too loose nor too tight for physical safety. We understand from discussions with OMS [the CIA’s Office of Medical Services] that the shackling does not result in any significant physical pain for the subject. The detainee’s hands are generally between the level of his heart and his chin. In some cases, the detainee’s hands may be raised above the level of his head, but only for a period of up to two hours. All of the detainee’s weight is borne by his legs and feet during standing sleep deprivation…. We understand that standing sleep deprivation may cause edema, or swelling, in the lower extremities because it forces detainees to stand for an extended period of time.… In lieu of standing sleep deprivation, a detainee may instead be seated on and shackled to a small stool. The stool supports the detainee’s weight but is too small to permit the subject to balance himself sufficiently to be able to go to sleep.... Footnote 51: The IG [inspector general’s] Report noted that in some cases the waterboard was used with far greater frequency than initially indicated…and also that it was used in a different manner…. (“[T]he waterboard technique…was different from the technique described in the DOJ opinion and used in the SERE training, The difference was in the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school and in the DOJ opinion, the subject’s airflow is interrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; the interrogator applies a small amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency interrogator...applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose. One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the Agency’s use of the technique is different from that used in SERE because it is ‘for real’ and is more poignant and convincing.”)… May 10, 2005, Memo by Bradbury on Combinations of Interrogation Techniques

The insult slap “can be used in combination with water dousing or kneeling stress positions”—techniques that are not characterized as “corrective.”...Another corrective technique, the abdominal slap, “is similar to the insult slap in. application and desired result” and “provides the variation necessary to keep a high level of unpredictability in the interrogation process”…The abdominal slap may be simultaneously combined with water dousing, stress positions, and wall standing. A third corrective technique, the facial hold, “is used sparingly throughout interrogation.”…It is not

painful; but “demonstrates the interrogator’s control over the [detainee].” …It too may be simultaneously combined with water dousing, stress positions, and wall standing….Finally, the attention grasp “may be used several times in the same interrogation” and may be simultaneously combined with water dousing or kneeling stress positions…. Cramped confinement cannot be used in simultaneous combination with corrective or other coercive techniques…. The water board may be used simultaneously with two other techniques: it maybe used during a course of sleep deprivation, and as explained above, a detainee subjected to the waterboard must be under dietary manipulation, because a fluid diet reduces the risks of the technique. Furthermore, although the insult slap, abdominal slap, attention grasp, facial hold, walling, water dousing, stress positions and cramped confinement cannot be employed during the actual session when the waterboard is being employed, they may be used at a point in time close to the waterboard, including on the same day. May 30, 2005, Memo by Bradbury on U.S. Obligations Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture

We conclude that use of these techniques, subject to the CIA’s careful screening criteria and limitations and its medical safeguards, is consistent with United States obligations under Article 16 [of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment]. By its terms, Article 16 is limited to conduct within “territory under [United States] jurisdiction.” We conclude that territory under United States jurisdiction includes, at most, areas over which the United States exercises at least de facto authority as the government. Based on CIA assurances, we understand that the interrogations do not take place in any such areas. We therefore conclude that Article 16 is inapplicable to the CIA’s interrogation practices and that those practices thus cannot violate Article 16…. Notwithstanding these conclusions, you have also asked whether the interrogation techniques at issue would violate the substantive standards applicable to the United States under Article 16 if, contrary to our conclusion in Part II, those standards did extend to the CIA interrogation program….the relevant constraint here, assuming Article 16 did apply, would be the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition of executive conduct that “shocks the conscience.”… As an initial matter, the [Supreme] Court has made clear that whether conduct can be considered to be constitutionally arbitrary depends vitally on whether it furthers a government interest, and, if it does, the nature and importance of that interest.… Al Qaeda’s demonstrated ability to launch sophisticated attacks causing mass casualties within the United against United States interests worldwide, as well as its continuing efforts to plan and to execute such attacks…indisputably pose a grave and continuing threat…. The CIA goes to great lengths to ensure that the techniques are applied only as reasonably necessary to this paramount interest in “the security of the Nation.” Various aspects of the program ensure enhanced techniques will be used only in the interrogations of the detainees who are most likely to have critical, actionable intelligence… [W]e conclude that the CIA interrogation techniques, with their careful screening procedures and medical monitoring do not “shock the conscience.” FACTS ON FILE

(Continued from p. 258D3)

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) April 22 said she supported the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the Bush administration’s antiterrorism activities. However, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) April 23 said no commission should be created until after the conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation. Reid said he was not opposed to the idea of a commission, but added, “We have to get the facts before we decide on which direction to go.” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 23 said he had backed the release of the memos because he felt that it was “unrealistic” to expect that they would stay secret permanently. However, he said administration officials had weighed concerns that the release could be “used by Al Qaeda” to recruit new supporters, and potentially put U.S. military personnel at risk. Report Links Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo—

The Senate Armed Forces Committee April 21 released a report asserting that the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military against terrorism detainees had spread from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and later Iraq. It said that resulted from then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s 2002 decision to authorize 15 such tactics for use at Guantanamo. Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D, Mich.) April 21 said, “The paper trail on abuse leads to top civilian leaders, and our report connects the dots.” [See 2008, p. 920C3] The report, which examined only the interrogations carried out by the Defense Department, had been issued following an 18month inquiry into the issue by the committee; a summary of the report’s major findings had been made public in December 2008. The report found that abusive treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was a consequence of Rumsfeld’s authorization and not simply due to the misbehavior of individual military personnel. The report also found that Bush administration officials had “solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques” and then subsequently “redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality.” According to the report, the use of harsh interrogation tactics by the military was first proposed at Guantanamo in October 2002. Rumsfeld Dec. 2, 2002, had approved the use of harsh methods there, including stress positions, forced nudity and the use of dogs. He revoked the authorization on Jan. 15, 2003, and then instituted new guidelines on April 16, 2003, that allowed 24 techniques, including sleep deprivation and interrogators pretending to be from countries that allowed torture. The report found that the harsh interrogation tactics used by the military were derived from the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program. SERE, based on techniques used by Chinese interrogators on U.S. prisoners during the Korean War, was April 23, 2009

used to train military personnel to resist torture methods used by nations that did not abide by prisoner protections in the Geneva Conventions. [See 2008, pp. 657C1, 411G2] After Rumsfeld approved the techniques for use at Guantanamo, the report found that U.S. military interrogators in Afghanistan used that authorization to justify their own use of some of the techniques. The use of the techniques spread to Iraq in 2003 after one military unit adopted the policy being used in Afghanistan. Later in 2003, the head interrogation official at Abu Ghraib submitted a document based heavily on the Afghanistan interrogation standards to justify the use of stress positions, sleep deprivation and threatening dogs. [See 2004, p. 317A1] Separately, the report said that, in June 2002, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent had told superiors that the CIA was using techniques against Zubaydah that constituted “borderline torture.” That was weeks before harsh interrogation methods were authorized. Methods Proposed by Psychologists—

According to the Senate committee report, Bruce Jessen, a psychologist associated with the SERE program, and former Air Force psychologist James Mitchell had written a paper for the Defense Department in January 2002 that argued in favor of an interrogation and detention program that was similar to the program eventually put in place. The paper called for the government to build an “exploitation facility” where detainees could be isolated and kept away from ICRC inspectors, journalists and other outside monitors. It recommended subjecting detainees to sleep deprivation, waterboarding and other techniques intended to break their resistance. [See p. 244C2] The Times reported April 22 that Mitchell believed that Al Qaeda detainees were fundamentally psychologically different from other prisoners captured by the U.S., and argued that the prisoners would give up information only if they were too terrorstricken to resist. (Mitchell reportedly observed the interrogation of Zubaydah in August 2002.) According to the Times, none of the highranking Bush officials who were responsible for approving the CIA’s harsh interrogation program—a group that included then– CIA Director George Tenet, then–Attorney General John Ashcroft and then–national security adviser Condoleezza Rice—were aware of the origins of the SERE program or that waterboarding had previously been prosecuted as torture by the U.S. government. Many of the officials reportedly believed that since the SERE program was legal, any interrogation techniques that were used in it could legally be used against detainees. [See 2008, p. 257D1] The Times reported that the four highest-ranking Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been briefed on the interrogation program. Pelosi, who had been the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002, had claimed that while she was informed that

the CIA believed the program to be legal, she was not told that the techniques would actually be used. However, then–House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss (R, Fla.), who later became CIA director, said that the lawmakers had been told that the techniques would be used. Iraq–Al Qaeda Link Pressed—According to the Senate report, interrogators were under pressure from Rumsfeld and Cheney after the Sept. 11 attacks to confirm reports from prominent Iraqi exiles of a link between Al Qaeda, which had carried out the attacks, and the regime of then–Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Although no evidence of such a link was ever found, Bush administration officials had claimed a connection between the two in order to help justify the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. [See 2002, p. 761G1] McClatchy Newspapers April 21 reported that the report’s findings about pressure to confirm the existence of that link had been corroborated by a former U.S. Army psychiatrist and an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official. According to McClatchy, the psychiatrist, Maj. Charles Burney, had suggested that the increasing severity of the techniques used against detainees could have been triggered by the demands for evidence of an Iraq–Al Qaeda link. Approval Timeline Released—The Senate Intelligence Committee April 22 released a declassified timeline for the approval of harsh interrogation tactics by the Bush administration in 2002. The timeline, declassified by Holder, was based on reports and documents turned over to the committee by the CIA. According to the timeline, Rice approved the CIA’s proposed interrogation plan for Zubaydah, which included waterboarding and other harsh techniques, on July 17, 2002, after meetings with Tenet, Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials. Her approval was conditional on a judgment from the Justice Department that the program was legal. The OLC reportedly told the CIA on July 24, 2002, that Ashcroft had concluded that use of the techniques was legal. The OLC issued three memos on the subject, including one of the newly released memos, on Aug. 1, 2002. The timeline also showed that Rumsfeld and then–Secretary of State Colin Powell were not briefed on the CIA’s authorization to use harsh interrogation tactics until September 2003. n

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United Nations Walkout Over Speech at Racism Conference.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad April 20 said Israel was run by a “totally racist government” during a speech at a United Nations international conference on racism, prompting the representatives of 23 European nations to stage a walkout. Ahmadinejad made his comments on the same day that Israel commemorated those killed during the Holocaust. The conference, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, had begun April 20 and was scheduled to 261

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conclude on April 24. [See 2008, p. 196B1; 2001, p. 708E3] The U.S. had boycotted the conference, along with Israel, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Czech Republic, due in part to concerns that it would be used as a platform to criticize Israel. Other countries, including France and Britain, had instructed their delegates to leave the conference if criticisms against Israel were levied. The U.S. had also boycotted the previous U.N. racism conference, which had taken place in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. The Durban conference had been criticized for issuing a group statement that equated Zionism with racism, among other controversial elements. In his speech, Ahmadinejad accused the U.S. and European countries of supporting the creation of Israel after World War II “on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question” of the Holocaust, and said the countries had put into place the world’s “most cruel and repressive racist regime.” He also said “Zionist domination” of many of the world’s countries meant that many people would “never be able to enjoy freedom, independence and security” until “the ideal of Zionism, which is the paragon of racism,” was ended. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon April 20 criticized Ahmadinejad’s speech, saying he opposed “the use of this platform by the Iranian president to accuse, divide and even incite.” However, Ban also criticized the countries that had walked out during the speech and those that had chosen to boycott the conference. Anti-Racism Document Passed— U.N. member nations attending the conference April 21 unanimously approved a group document that called on all countries to take steps to combat all forms of racism and xenophobia. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay April 21 said the document called attention to instances of increased racism suffered by many groups in the years following the Durban conference, and prodded member nations to set down concrete plans to address racism within their borders. Pillay, who served as the secretary general of the conference, April 23 announced that she had expelled three nonprofit groups attending the conference for violating “the rules laid down regarding the conduct” of such organizations, by attempting to disrupt the meeting or passing out controversial materials. Those organizations included the Union des Etudiants Juifs de France (UEJF), a Jewish group, and the Neda Institute for Political and Scientific Research, an Iranian group. n

Other International News Italy Accepts African Migrants After Dispute.

The Italian government April 19 agreed to accept about 140 African migrants who had been rescued by a Turkish cargo ship in the Mediterranean Sea four days earlier. Italy and Malta had argued over which 262

country should take responsibility for the migrants, whose sinking boats had been found in international waters, 40 miles (65 km) from the Italian island of Lampedusa and 65 miles from Malta. Malta had received a distress signal from the migrants’ boats April 16 and asked the Turkish freighter to pick them up and take them to Italy. [See 2007, p. 881E1] The migrants, whose boat had set off from Libya, spent the four days in poor conditions on the open deck of the freighter, and one pregnant woman died. Nineteen ill migrants were taken to Lampedusa, and the rest were sent to Sicily. President Jose Manuel Barroso of the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, had pressed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to resolve the dispute. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) April 19 called on the EU to set binding rules on member nations’ responsibilities for rescued migrants. According to the U.N., 67,000 migrants reached EU nations by sea in 2008, and 38,000 of them landed in Italy or Malta. Illegal migration from Africa to Europe had become a major problem in recent years, and an unknown number of migrants, who hailed from North and sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, had died attempting the journey in overcrowded and poorly constructed vessels. A favored route for traffickers—who reportedly charged up to 1,000 euros ($1,300) per person—was from the Libyan coast to Malta or Lampedusa. (Routes from the West African coast to Spain’s Canary Islands were also widely used.) Libya and Italy in December 2007 had agreed to set up joint patrols to curb migrant trafficking; those patrols were set to begin in May. The UNHCR April 20 said the migrants rescued by the Turkish freighter included 129 from Nigeria, five from Ghana, four from Somalia, three from Niger, one from Liberia and one of undetermined nationality. More Than 230 Drown off Libya— More than 230 people attempting to migrate to Europe were missing and presumed dead after the overcrowded boat they were traveling in capsized March 30 in the Mediterranean about 30 miles off the Libyan coast. An official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) April 2 said the search for survivors had been called off. The IOM April 1 reported on its Web site that according to the around 20 migrants who survived the ordeal, the smugglers’ boat, carrying 257 people, had departed from Janzour, 10 miles west of Tripoli, Libya’s capital, early March 30. The vessel capsized about three hours later, amid bad weather and leaks in the boat that caused panic among some passengers. They said the smuggler, who was an Egyptian national, was among those who drowned. Another boat that departed around the same time, carrying more than 350 migrants, was towed back to shore by the Libyan coast guard. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Terrorism CIA to Close Secret Prisons. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panet-

ta April 9 announced in a statement to agency employees that the CIA would close its system of secret prisons for terrorism detainees. The closure of the prisons, which had been established by the administration of then-President George W. Bush following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., had been mandated by a January executive order signed by President Barack Obama. [See pp. 257A1, 93D3, 28F2] Panetta said the closure of the prisons, sometimes referred to as “black sites,” would be overseen by CIA personnel, and that canceling security and other contracts related to the prisons that had been awarded to outside firms would save the government about $4 million per year. The U.S. government had never officially confirmed how many secret prisons were run by the CIA or their locations. However, experts said that the countries hosting CIA prisons had probably included Thailand, Romania, Poland, Afghanistan, Morocco and Jordan. According to Panetta, the CIA still retained the right to transport terrorism suspects captured abroad to other countries, a process known as extraordinary rendition, but Panetta said the agency expected to “quickly turn over any person in our custody to U.S. military authority or to their country of jurisdiction, depending on the situation.” Panetta also said the CIA would no longer allow outside contractors to conduct interrogations of terrorism detainees. However, translators and other specialized contractors were still expected to play a role in some detainee interrogations. In the statement, Panetta said the CIA would fully cooperate with reviews of its interrogation and detention policies under the Bush administration. However, he argued that agency employees who had been involved with the controversial program “should not be investigated, let alone punished” for actions that Justice Department lawyers had declared to be legal. n DHS Warns of Right-Wing Extremism. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), April 7 had distributed a memorandum to state and local law enforcement agencies saying that a prolonged economic slump combined with the election of Barack Obama as the country’s first black president “could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists,” news outlets reported April 14. The DHS report warned that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who had trouble readjusting to civilian life were attractive recruits for such groups because of their combat expertise, and might be recruited to carry out attacks. A number of conservatives and veterans’ groups harshly criticized the report for grouping military veterans with violent extremists. [See p. 185A3; 2008, p. 787D3] FACTS ON FILE

The report said right-wing extremists were exploiting fears that Obama might enact strict gun control measures, increase the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. and expand federal assistance programs for minorities. However, it added that any attack threats so far had been “largely rhetorical.” Conservatives Say Veterans ‘Profiled’—

Several conservative legislators April 15 said they found the DHS report offensive because it unfairly profiled veterans. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said, “To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable,” and called on the DHS to apologize to veterans. Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R, Fla.) accused the DHS of “engaging in political and ideological profiling of people who fought to keep our country safe from terrorism, uphold our nation’s immigration laws and protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” David Rehbein, head of the American Legion, a veterans’ group, the previous day had criticized the DHS report because it mentioned Timothy McVeigh as an example of a homegrown terrorist with military training. (McVeigh was responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.) Rehbein said using McVeigh “as an example of the stereotypical ‘disgruntled military veteran’ is as unfair as using [international terrorist network Al Qaeda leader] Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.” [See 2001, p. 446A1] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano April 15 defended the report as a necessary counterterrorism effort, but emphasized that the DHS respected veterans, and noted that “thousands” of veterans were employed by the department. She also said she had accepted an invitation to meet with Rehbein to discuss the report. Napolitano the next day apologized for any offense the report had caused during an appearance on the Cable News Network (CNN), and added that “it was certainly not intended.” In related news, the Wall Street Journal April 17 reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009 had launched an investigation into white supremacist groups and “militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups,” which included a section that focused on returning veterans. n

Intelligence Rep. Harman Implicated in Espionage Case.

Congressional Quarterly (CQ) April 19 reported on its Web site that Rep. Jane Harman (D, Calif.) had been caught making potentially incriminating statements on a National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap prior to the 2006 elections, when she was the highest ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. The phone call reportedly concerned two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby who had been arrestApril 23, 2009

ed in 2005 on espionage charges. [See p. 243D3] According to CQ, Harman was not the subject of the wiretap, but had been recorded while speaking to an unidentified suspected Israeli agent who was being surveilled by the government. In the call, Harman reportedly agreed to contact an unnamed Justice Department official in the hopes of reducing the charges against Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC lobbyists. However, she said it was unlikely that she could sway then– Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, because he “just follows White House orders.” She reportedly ended the call by saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.” The precise date of the call remained unclear, though it was thought to have occurred in either 2005 or 2006. In exchange, the suspected Israeli agent promised that pressure would be placed on then–House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) to name Harman as the chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee if Democrats gained a majority in the House after the 2006 congressional elections. The New York Times April 21 reported that the suspected agent told Harman that Democratic donor Haim Saban, a wealthy pro-Israel businessman, would threaten to withhold contributions to Pelosi’s campaign if she did not name Harman as head of the committee. Harman, however, was not named the committee chairwoman after Democrats took control of the House in the 2006 elections. CQ reported that, according to two unidentified officials, a subsequent criminal investigation of Harman was dropped by Gonzales, because he needed her to publicly defend the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was first revealed by the Times in December 2005. Media outlets in 2006 had reported that the investigation was dropped because investigators lacked evidence of wrongdoing. Gonzales also reportedly said Harman had been instrumental in keeping the Times from publishing the story before the 2004 presidential election. However, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller April 20 said that while Harman had urged the paper’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief to hold the story in 2004, she had never approached Keller. He added, “I don’t remember her being a significant factor in my decision” to delay the story. [See 2005, p. 905A1] Harman Denies Wrongdoing—Harman’s office April 20 issued a statement saying, “Congresswoman Harman has never contacted the Justice Department about its prosecution of present or former AIPAC employees.” The following day, Harman said she had also not contacted the White House or any other government agency in connection with the case, and asked Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to “release all transcripts and other investigative material involving me in an unredacted form.” However, Harman did not address whether she had taken part in the alleged conversation with the suspected Israeli agent.

Pelosi April 22 said she had been briefed about the NSA recordings of Harman “maybe three years ago,” but had been instructed not to tell Harman that she had been taped. Pelosi said it was customary for the highest-ranking Democrat and Republican in the House and Senate to be informed when a member of Congress was wiretapped, and that her subsequent decision to deny Harman the committee chairmanship had not been influenced by her knowledge of the recordings. [See 2006, p. 925C1] Court Rules for Ex-Lobbyists—A threejudge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., Feb. 24 ruled that Weissman and Rosen could make use of two classified documents in their legal defense. The two classified documents reportedly included a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file on the 1996 bombing of the U.S. military’s Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, as well as an Israeli government briefing. [See 2006, p. 838E1] Weissman had been charged with two counts of conspiracy to communicate unauthorized information, and one count of communicating national defense information to a person not authorized to view it. Rosen had been charged for having allegedly passed classified information from a U.S. official to journalists and members of the Israeli government. Experts said the charges against the two men were usually only brought against government employees. The court also upheld an earlier ruling that required the government to prove that the two men had known that passing the information would hurt the U.S., and had carried out the action in “bad faith.” Analysts said the ruling complicated the government’s case against Rosen and Weissman because of the added difficulties of proving that they had carried out their actions with criminal intent. The Washington Post April 22 reported that the Justice Department was considering dropping the charges against the two men in light of the ruling. n

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Federal Budget Obama Asks Cabinet for $100 Million in Cuts.

President Barack Obama April 20 held the first official meeting of his cabinet, and asked its members to cut spending at their departments and agencies by a combined $100 million. He ordered them to report back to him within 90 days with their proposals for cutting administrative costs. [See pp. 242C3, 217E3] Responding to questions from reporters at the meeting, Obama acknowledged that the reduction he asked for was relatively insignificant, compared with the $3.6 trillion budget he had proposed for the 2010 fiscal year, which would start in October. He said, “None of these things alone are going to make a difference,” adding, “But cumulatively they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone. And so what we are going to do is, line by line, page by page, $100 million there, 263

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$100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money.” Republican congressional leaders dismissed Obama’s order as empty posturing that would do nothing to control what they called his out-of-control spending, including a $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted in February. The budget deficit was expected to rise to a record $1.8 trillion in the current fiscal year. Antitax “tea party” rallies the previous week had drawn hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. to protest Obama’s budget, which they said would lead to higher taxes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said, “Let’s not forget that at the same time they’re looking for millions of dollars in savings, the president’s budget calls for adding trillions to the debt.” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said that $100 million in budget cuts would equal just 0.0025% of the current fiscal year’s total spending, estimated at $4 trillion. Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2010 would increase overall spending, but did include some spending cuts and tax increases aimed at cutting the deficit in half in five years. However, some of those proposals faced opposition from Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress, who had already rejected his plans to cut farm subsidies and limit tax deductions for charitable gifts by upper-income taxpayers. In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama April 18 announced that he would soon order “the elimination of dozens of government programs shown to be wasteful or ineffective.” He also announced the appointments of two White House aides who would take part in those cost-cutting efforts in newly created positions. He named management consultant Jeffrey Zients as chief performance officer and Virginia Technology Secretary Aneesh Chopra as chief technology officer. They would work with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra to improve the efficiency of federal agencies. [See p. 200B3] Obama’s original choice for chief performance officer, Nancy Killefer, had withdrawn in February after it was reported that she had failed to pay taxes for a household worker. [See p. 59D2] n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Fannie Chief Tapped to be TARP Overseer.

President Barack Obama April 17 nominated Herbert Allison to oversee the Treasury’s $700 billion financial-industry rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Allison was currently the chief executive officer (CEO) of mortgage-financing giant Fannie Mae, a position the Treasury had asked him to fill in September 2008, when the struggling company was placed into a government conservatorship and its top executives were ousted. [See p. 220F2; 2008, p. 629G2] If confirmed by the Senate, Allison would become the new Treasury assistant secretary for financial stability, taking over from Neel Kashkari. Allison was expected 264

to play a central role in how the administration used TARP money to stabilize the struggling banking industry, resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets and cleanse the financial system of toxic assets backed by home mortgages. [See p. 177A1; 2008, p. 901D2] Fannie Mae April 20 announced that Chief Operating Officer (COO) Michael Williams would replace Allison as the company’s CEO. Williams had worked at Fannie Mae for 18 years. Freddie Mac Executive Found Dead—

An executive at Fannie Mae’s sister company, Freddie Mac, April 22 was found dead at his home in Vienna, Va. Media outlets reported that David Kellerman, Freddie Mac’s acting chief financial officer (CFO), had apparently committed suicide, though police did not confirm that. Kellerman, 41, had worked at Freddie Mac for 16 years, and was named acting CFO in September 2008, when Freddie Mac was also placed into a conservatorship. [See p. 127B3] Freddie Mac March 11 had disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department were both conducting investigations into possible improper accounting practices by the company. Kellerman, as CFO, had been in charge of financial reporting and the company’s compliance with federal guidelines. But a spokesman for Freddie Mac April 22 said, “We know of no connection between this terrible personal tragedy and the ongoing regulatory inquiries.” Kellerman’s death further undermined Freddie Mac’s leadership, after CEO David Moffett’s resignation in March. John Koskinen, who had been Freddie Mac’s nonexecutive chairman since September 2008, March 11 was named as Moffett’s interim replacement. n Bank of America Reports Profit; Stocks Fall.

Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. April 20 reported a $4.2 billion profit for the first quarter of 2009, a strong reversal from the $1.8 billion loss it had recorded for the fourth quarter of 2008. However, the banking giant that day saw its share price fall along with a broader slide in the stock market, as renewed concerns over the health of the financial industry led investors to rein in a recent surge of optimism that had lifted markets for more than a month. [See pp. 241E1, 32A1] Bank of America said its investmentbanking business had performed well during the quarter, joining other banks that had made a healthy profit from trading in corporate debt and securities, and other financial products. Bank of America also became the latest bank to report that its mortgage-refinancing unit had contributed to profits, a trend that was attributed to recent government efforts to bring down interest rates on home mortgages. Bank of America said its recent acquisitions of brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. and mortgage company Countrywide Financial Corp. had bolstered its presence in the areas of investment banking and mortgage refinancing. [See pp. 220B2, 163A3; 2008, p. 646G2]

However, industry observers cast doubt on Bank of America’s robust results, noting that the company had recorded $2.2 billion in profit by using an accounting technique, known as a credit value adjustment, to translate company debt that had lost market value into earnings. (According to accounting rules, a bank could record its outstanding debt as if the bank had repurchased the debt at market value. If the market value had fallen—normally a sign of deteriorating creditworthiness—it would appear as if the bank’s outstanding debt was less than it actually owed.) Bank of America during the quarter also sold $1.9 billion worth of shares in China Construction Bank Corp., a one-time gain. Contributing to investor concerns, Bank of America said it would increase the amount of cash it set aside to offset future losses by $6.4 billion, to $13.4 billion. The company said it had lost money in its commercial and residential real estate divisions, as well as its credit-card business, and that the rate of defaults on consumer loans could increase due to the ongoing recession. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis April 20 said, “We continue to face extremely difficult challenges primarily from deteriorating credit quality driven by weakness in the economy and growing unemployment.” Bank of America’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that day fell $2.58, or 24%, to end at $8.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 289.60 points, or 3.6%, to end at 7,841.73. The market also fell on a report released that day by the Conference Board business research organization showing that its composite index of leading indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, had fallen 0.3% in March, following a revised 0.2% decline in February. [See p. 183E1] Bank of America’s recent struggles had drawn criticisms from large shareholders, some of whom were pushing to strip Lewis of his chairmanship. Bank of America had received $45 billion in aid from the government, which was also partly guaranteeing a $118 billion portfolio of the bank’s assets against losses. Citigroup Posts First Profit in 18 Months—

New York City–based banking giant Citigroup Inc. April 17 reported a $1.2 billion profit for the first quarter, its first quarterly profit in 18 months. Citigroup, like other banks, had made money through its investment-banking business. But analysts said Citigroup had utilized a raft of accounting techniques to gloss over the extent of its losses on increasing loan defaults. Citigroup’s NYSE share price that day fell 36 cents, or 9%, to end at $3.65. [See p. 127G1] Citigroup gained $2.7 billion by making a credit value adjustment. It also made $413 million by taking advantage of a recent easing in “mark-to-market” accounting rules. (Banks were previously required to automatically record losses for assets on their books that had lost market value. Banks could now report those losses at a later date, or when the assets were eventuFACTS ON FILE

ally sold.) Citigroup also set aside an additional $2.4 billion to offset future losses, a figure that some observers speculated was too little. [See p. 220D3] Citigroup Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Edward Kelly dismissed claims that Citigroup was short on cash to cover potential losses, saying the bank was “well positioned” to weather the recession, with a total of $24 billion in capital reserves. However, Kelly also warned that losses on consumer loans would continue to rise in the coming quarters. There were concerns that Citigroup, which had already received $45 billion in federal aid, would need another government capital injection. Citigroup also said it would delay a plan to convert some of its preferred shares into common stock, which could let the government take as much as a 36% stake in the company. Citigroup said it would wait until the government had completed “stress tests” that were designed to gauge the health of the country’s major banks. [See p. 110A2] (Kelly had taken over as Citigroup’s CFO March 20, replacing Gary Crittenden, who took a part-time position as the chairman of Citigroup’s Citi Holdings division. Crittenden had reportedly requested a less demanding position, due to an illness in his family. Kelly had previously run Citigroup’s investment-banking business, and was the company’s chief negotiator with the government.) Morgan Stanley Reports Loss—New York City–based bank Morgan Stanley April 22 reported a $177 million loss for the first quarter of 2009, and announced that it would cut its quarterly dividend to five cents a share, from 27 cents, a move the company said would save $1 billion a year. The quarterly result was attributed to losses on real-estate investments and an improvement in its creditworthiness, which resulted in a credit value adjustment loss. CEO John Mack said the credit value adjustment was “a significant positive development, but had a near-term negative impact on our revenues.” [See p. 15E2] Morgan Stanley also reported a $1.3 billion loss for December 2008, which was recorded separately while the company adjusted to a new fiscal calendar that used January as the year’s starting point, a result of its conversion to a bank-holding company in September 2008. [See 2008, p. 672B1] Morgan Stanley said it was eager to return its $10 billion allotment of government aid, pending results from the stress tests. Morgan Stanley was the latest recipient to push for quick repayment of the aid, as banks chafed at the public scrutiny and additional requirements that accompanied government assistance. Separately, San Francisco, Calif.–based Wells Fargo & Co. that day officially reported a $3.1 billion profit for the first quarter. The bank had first disclosed the profit earlier in April. Wells Fargo also made use of the change in mark-to-market accounting rules to bolster its results. [See p. 241A3] n April 23, 2009

Politics Obama Aide Linked to Pension Fund Probe.

The former private equity firm of Steven Rattner, the head of the Obama administration’s task force for restructuring the auto industry, had made allegedly improper payments to an intermediary who arranged investments by New York State’s pension fund, it was reported April 17. It was subsequently reported that Rattner’s former firm, Quadrangle Group LLC, had paid the same agent, Henry (Hank) Morris, to obtain investments from New York City, Los Angeles and New Mexico public funds. [See p. 197A2] The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) March 19 filed civil and criminal charges against Morris, 55, and David Loglisci, 38, the former chief investment officer of the pension fund, alleging that they had run a kickback scheme. They each faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Rattner was not named in the indictment, but he was reportedly the unidentified Quadrangle “senior executive” cited in the SEC’s court filing. Morris had been a nationally prominent political consultant, and a top adviser to Alan Hevesi (D), who was New York State comptroller from 2003 to 2006. Morris had allegedly used his influence with Hevesi to put Loglisci in the pension fund post. Loglisci then told firms that applied to manage pension fund assets that they should hire Morris to broker the deals, the SEC alleged. Hevesi resigned in 2006 after pleading guilty to a felony for improperly using state workers as drivers for his wife. He was not charged in the March 19 indictment, but Cuomo said the probe would continue. As comptroller, Hevesi had sole authority over the $122 billion pension fund for state employees, the New York State Common Retirement Fund. Morris allegedly made more than $15 million between 2003 and 2007 in fees paid by investment firms for deals to manage the pension fund’s assets. Along with the Quadrangle Group, the firms included the Carlyle Group, a major private-equity firm based in Washington, D.C. Firm Got $100 Million in Investments—

Quadrangle obtained about $100 million in investments from the state pension fund in 2005, after agreeing to pay Greenwich, Conn.–based Searle & Co., Morris’s brokerage firm, a 1.1% fee for any amount invested by the fund. Payment of so-called placement fees by investment firms was a common practice that was not illegal as long as it did not amount to bribery of public officials. The SEC alleged that the “sham ‘finder’ or ‘placement agent fees’” received by “Morris and others were, in fact, little more than kickbacks that were made pursuant to undisclosed quid pro quo arrangements.” Quadrangle and Carlyle both also used Searle to obtain $20 million investments

from the New Mexico State Investment Council, state officials disclosed April 20. The Wall Street Journal April 21 reported that in 2005, Quadrangle had paid fees to Searle for an $85 million investment from the New York City Employee Retirement System and a $10 million investment from the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System. Others Charged, Reforms Set—Cuomo April 15 announced criminal charges against Raymond Harding, former leader of the now-defunct Liberal Party in New York, for allegedly taking $800,000 in illegal fees for access to the state pension fund. Cuomo also said Barrett Wissman, a managing director at Dallas, Texas, hedge fund HFV Asset Management, which handled investments for the billionaire Hunt family, had pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection with his role as a middleman between the New York State pension fund and investment firms. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli (D) April 22 announced a ban on the use of placement agents, registered lobbyists or other paid intermediaries by firms bidding for pension fund investments. Similar schemes had previously been exposed in connection with public pension funds, which were generally controlled by elected officials or political appointees, and therefore seen as vulnerable to influence peddling. In 1999, former Connecticut state Treasurer Paul Silvester (R) pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks for steering pension fund investments to private equity firms. [See 1999, p. 794G3] Earlier in April, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) had been indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with a variety of corrupt schemes, including a deal to award pension fund business in exchange for kickbacks. [See p. 219C1]

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Obama Retains Confidence in Rattner—

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs April 17 said President Barack Obama still had confidence in Rattner despite the disclosures of the payments by Quadrangle. Gibbs said Rattner was “not accused of doing any wrongdoing and is not likely to face any criminal or civil charges as it relates to this.” Gibbs added that Rattner had previously notified the administration about the pension fund probe. Rattner, who cofounded Quadrangle in 2000, left the firm in February to join the Obama administration as special counselor in the Treasury Department and head of the auto industry task force, which was overseeing a federal bailout for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. Rattner was also a leading fund-raiser for the Democratic Party. n

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from hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. L.P. and $2.7 million for speeches he gave to large financial institutions and other companies and groups. Obama had pledged to implement new, stricter regulations for the financial industry, but White House officials said Summers’s ties to Wall Street companies did not pose a conflict of interest. They also said it was natural that Summers would be invited to speak to those companies, since he was a former Treasury secretary and a widely respected economist. [See pp. 219E2, 178A2] n

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Warrantless Car Searches Curbed. The Supreme Court April 21 ruled, 5–4, to limit the ability of police officers without a warrant to search cars of suspects they had arrested. The court said the practice, which was routine throughout the country and taught at police academies, often violated the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The case was Arizona v. Gant. [See p. 20E3; 2003, p. 372B1; 1981, p. 495F2] Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the court’s opinion, said law enforcement officials had misinterpreted the court’s 1981 decision New York v. Belton in granting police officers the broad authority to search cars after making an arrest. Stevens wrote that police without a warrant could search cars in only two circumstances. One was if the suspect was close enough to the car to reach for a weapon or tamper with evidence. The other was if it was “reasonable to believe” that the car contained evidence relevant to the suspect’s arrest. Stevens was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The court upheld a 2007 Arizona Supreme Court decision that had favored Rodney Gant, who was arrested in 1999 for driving with a suspended license. Gant was then handcuffed and placed in an officer’s car, while officers searched Gant’s car and found a gun and cocaine. Gant was later sentenced on drug charges. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that police had violated Gant’s Fourth Amendment rights, and that the evidence found in the car should be suppressed. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing the Supreme Court’s minority opinion, said the prevailing interpretation of Belton offered a “bright line” rule for police officers, and that the majority decision was “virtually certain to confuse law enforcement officers and judges for some time to come.” Alito wrote that the decision would “cause suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law.” Alito was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer. n Animal Abuse Video Case Accepted. The Supreme Court April 20 accepted the case United States v. Stevens, in which it would decide whether videos depicting cruelty to animals were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech. A 266

1999 federal law had made the creation or sale of videos showing animal cruelty illegal. The federal government in a brief filed with the court said videos of animal abuse “play no essential role in the expression of ideas,” and like child pornography were not protected by the First Amendment. Lawyers for the original plaintiff, Robert Stevens, who had been convicted of selling dog-fighting videos, argued, “While the government may well have a significant interest in combating acts of animal cruelty, it has not established a compelling interest in prohibiting speech—visual or aural depictions—about such conduct.” [See 2008, p. 344C3] n

Civil Rights New York State Gay Marriage Bill Introduced.

New York State Gov. David Paterson (D) April 16 introduced a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Paterson, on introducing the bill, compared gay marriage legalization efforts to the civil rights struggles of African Americans in the U.S. in the 1960s. “This is a civil rights issue. Civil rights don’t wait for the right time,” Paterson said. [See p. 216A1] In 2007, the Democratic-controlled lower house of the state legislature, the Assembly, had easily passed a bill legalizing gay marriage. However, the legislation was never brought to a vote in the state Senate. It was widely assumed that Paterson’s measure would easily pass in the House, but would face greater opposition in the Senate, where Democrats held only a narrow 32–30 seat advantage over Republicans. At least one Democrat in the state Senate, Ruben Diaz Jr., had publicly stated that he would not vote for the bill. However, Paterson, a long-time proponent of gay rights, pledged to strongly lobby legislators for the bill’s passage. Paterson April 17 said in an interview with the New York Times that he believed the bill’s chances had improved in recent weeks. During the previous week, gay marriage had been legalized in both Vermont and Iowa, which gay rights advocates said represented a shift in public sentiment toward supporting same-sex marriage. Other News—In other gay rights news: o Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist who had headed the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), April 17 said the party should alter its position on same-sex marriage. Schmidt, in a speech before the homosexual group the Log Cabin Republicans, said the party risked alienating voters who were younger than 35 or lived outside the South by continuing to oppose same-sex marriage. (The Republican party platform had opposed gay marriage.) o The Washington state House April 15 voted, 62–35, to approve an expansion of the rights and benefits afforded same-sex couples in domestic partnerships. The law would grant such couples benefits equal to those of married couples. The Senate March 10 had passed the measure, 30–18.

Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) had said she would sign the bill into law. [See 2007, p. 365G1] n

Defense News in Brief. An F-22A Raptor fighter jet crashed March 25 in the Mojave Desert in

Southern California, northeast of Edwards Air Force Base, killing the test pilot. It was the second time one of the newly developed jets had crashed, after a December 2004 incident in which the pilot was able to eject safely. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April said that the Defense Department would buy fewer F-22As than had originally been planned because of concerns over their cost and utility. [See p. 217C2; 2008, p. 572G1; 2004, p. 1044G3] Two U.S. Navy vessels—the nuclearpowered submarine USS Hartford and the amphibious transport USS New Orleans— early March 20 collided in the Strait of Hormuz. The Navy said the crash ruptured the New Orleans’s fuel tank, spilling 25,000 gallons (90,000 liters) of diesel fuel, and also damaged the Hartford and lightly injured 15 sailors aboard the submarine. However, it said the Hartford’s nuclear propulsion system was not damaged. The Strait of Hormuz was a major oil-shipping route, and there was a spike in oil prices in the aftermath of the crash, but the Navy said shipping was not affected. [See p. 91D3; 2008, p. 572E1] The Army Feb. 9 said it Feb. 3 had suspended most research at its biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., after it dis-

covered that some of its dangerous germs and toxins were not listed in the laboratory’s database. The commander of the laboratory, the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, said searching all of the facility’s refrigerators and freezers for undocumented materials might take three months, although some critical experiments would continue. The suspension was first reported Feb. 6 by the ScienceInsider blog of the journal Science. Scrutiny of the laboratory had been heightened after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in August 2008 revealed that it had suspected one of the laboratory’s scientists, Bruce Ivins, of being behind 2001 anthrax mailings that had killed five people; Ivins had committed suicide in July 2008 after being informed of the charges. [See 2008, p. 959B1] A Defense Department panel Jan. 8 called for the U.S. to maintain tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and modernize warheads that were slated to be scrapped in order to maintain U.S. nuclear deterrence. It said that if the U.S. allowed its nuclear deterrence capability to deteriorate, proliferation would increase since the more than 30 countries that were currently protected by the U.S. nuclear arsenal would have incentive to develop their own weapons. The panel, known as the Secretary of Defense Task Force on Defense Department Nuclear Weapons Management and headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, had been established by Gates after a series of blunders involving the U.S. nuclear arsenal came to light in 2008. [See p. 214A1; 2008, p. 962D2] n FACTS ON FILE

Armed Forces News in Brief. The

Defense Department March 17 said the number of sexual assaults reported in the military had risen to 2,923 in fiscal 2008, a 9% increase over fiscal 2007. However, it said only a small number of those cases had gone to trial because many victims would not give vital information to investigators. Officials estimated that only 10%–20% of sexual assaults in the military were reported, similar to the civilian percentage. [See 2008, p. 312E2] A North Carolina woman, Lisa Pagan, March 2 reported for duty with her two young children at Fort Benning, Ga., after being reactivated by the Army. Pagan in 2007 had been recalled to duty four years after being released from the military, under the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) program. Pagan had filed several appeals opposing her reactivation, arguing that because her husband traveled for business, there would be no one to take care of their children. Pagan’s lawyer later March 2 said the military would release her from service, and the New York Times March 8 reported that she had received an honorable discharge. [See p. 183C2; 2006, p. 31A2] The Army Jan. 7 said that it had accidentally sent 7,000 letters addressed “Dear John Doe” to families of service members who had been killed in Iraq and Afghani-

stan. The letters, dated Dec. 20, 2008, had contained information on private groups that could provide assistance to the families; however, the Army said, a mistake by a contractor had resulted in the omission of personalized salutations and addresses. The Army said it accepted responsibility for any pain the letters may have caused, and that the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey Jr., would send personalized letters of apology to the families. [See 2008, p. 571E3] n

Environment EPA Rules Greenhouse Gases Pollutants.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) April 17 formally ruled that manmade emissions of six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, were a danger to the welfare and health of the public, and should therefore be regulated as pollutants. The agency had indicated that it would make such a ruling after President Barack Obama had taken office in January. It represented a sharp shift in policy from Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush had strongly opposed the regulation of greenhouse gases, widely considered to be the cause of worldwide climate change, because he said imposing limits on emissions would harm U.S. businesses and the economy. [See p. 94C2; 2008, p. 488E2] The EPA found that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride should be considered pollutants. “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem,” the agency’s decision read. “The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it enApril 23, 2009

danger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.” The Supreme Court in April 2007 had ruled that the EPA held the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, and was obligated to provide a sound scientific rationale for opting not to do so. However, the EPA had avoided making any decision on the issue during the remainder of Bush’s presidency. [See 2007, p. 206A1] It was not immediately clear what steps the EPA would take to regulate greenhouse gases. The agency had not issued any targets for emissions reductions, or any new standards for greenhouse gases generated by motor vehicles, power plants or industrial activity. The rule was subject to a 60day comment period before it took effect. In the absence of congressional action on the issue, the EPA might be compelled to issue a broad set of new regulations to regulate emissions that would have a significant impact in the U.S. The EPA March 20 had submitted the decision to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It was signed by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on April 17. House Democrats in late March had introduced legislation that would establish a cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while shifting the country’s dependence away from fossil fuel energy sources. The bill would establish a “cap-and-trade” program through which pollution credits would be issued or sold by the government, and could then be resold on an open market. The House Energy and Commerce Committee April 22 began to hold hearings on the bill. However, the measure had received little support from Republicans and was considered unlikely to become law. Obama had also proposed a more stringent cap-and-trade system. It was thought that the EPA decision would spur greater action by Congress to devise a system to regulate greenhouse gases. [See p. 201E2] Opponents of emissions regulations criticized the EPA decision, arguing that it would further weaken the U.S. economy, and put U.S.-based businesses and industry at a competitive disadvantage to their international rivals. n News in Brief. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson March 24 said her agency would thoroughly review all permit requests for so-called mountaintop removal coal mining projects. The mining process consisted of the removal of the tops of mountains to expose coal seams; the resulting debris was usually dumped into valley streams. Jackson the previous day had sent letters to the Army Corps of Engineers recommending that a pending mining permit in West Virginia be denied, and that another permit in Kentucky be amended to minimize damage to streams. The announcement reversed a Bush administration policy, and countered a February ruling by a federal appeals court easing permit review requirements. [See p. 94F2] The Senate March 19 confirmed Jane Lubchenco as the undersecretary of com-

merce for oceans and atmosphere, a post that also made her the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Lubchenco, 61, had worked as a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University in Corvallis, and had previously served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [See 2008, p. 936C2] The Interior Department, along with several ornithological experts, March 19 released the “State of the Birds” report, an assessment of the U.S.’s bird populations over the last 40 years. The report found that climate change, the destruction of habitat, invasive species and disease, among other factors, had contributed to population declines in almost one-third of the U.S.’s 800 native bird species. The study found that between 1968 and 2007, the populations of coastal water species had declined by 39%, arid land birds by 30% and grassland birds by 40%. However, the data indicated a recovery among several species of birds that relied on wetlands. Ornithologists said bird populations were significant as they often served as a bellwether for the health of an ecosystem. [See 2007, p. 447F3] The EPA March 10 proposed a rule that would require a wide range of businesses and industries to track their output of greenhouse gas emissions. If adopted, the rule would require about 13,000 power plants, factories, oil refineries, cement manufacturers and other emissions generators to report the amount of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and other gases they emitted. The rule would account for an estimated 85%–90% of the total U.S. greenhouse gas output. The rule was subject to a 60-day comment period and two public meetings. The reporting could begin as early as 2011 if the rule were adopted. [See pp. 267D1, 94C2, 47G1] Interior Secretary Ken Salazar March 6 said he would uphold a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove gray wolves in the western Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountain regions from the endangered species list. The removal had been announced in January by the Bush administration, but had been delayed for a review after President Barack Obama took office. Under the decision, management of the wolf populations would fall to state agencies in affected areas. Environmental groups said they would file a lawsuit challenging the application of the decision in the northern Rocky Mountains, home to an estimated 1,500 wolves. [See p. 65C2] A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Feb. 24 ordered the EPA to reconsider its rules regarding fine particulate air pollutants, which were generated by power plants and diesel engines, among other sources. In 2006, EPA scientists and members of an advisory panel composed of outside experts had recommended that the standard for long-term exposure to such pollutants be reduced to 12–14 micrograms per cubic liter of air, from 15 micrograms per cubic liter. However, the agency had decided to maintain the current standard. Fine particulate pollution, or soot, had been 267

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linked to numerous health problems that could lead to early death, including lung cancer. [See 2006, p. 800B3] The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, a NOAA panel, Feb. 5 voted unanimously to bar all commercial fishing in a 150,000-square-nautical-mile (514,500-sqkm) area of the Arctic Ocean. The panel said it had made its decision because global climate change had resulted in greater access to the area, which consisted of U.S waters north of the Bering Strait and west of the Canadian border. It was the first time a fishing area had been closed due to climate change and not because of overfishing. The ban would last until a comprehensive study on the effects of fishing in the area could be completed. [See 2008, p. 379D2] n

Medicine & Health Embryonic Stem Cell Research Rules Issued. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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April 17 released proposed guidelines for the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. Under the proposed rules, research involving stem cells created from embryos donated by fertility clinics would receive federal financing. However, the NIH also proposed that research on stem cell lines created explicitly for that purpose, or on those created by a technique known as therapeutic cloning, be prohibited from receiving federal funds. [See p. 143A2] President Barack Obama in March had reversed a prohibition on the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. His predecessor, George W. Bush, in August 2001 had authorized the federal government to only fund research involving stem cell lines already in existence. [See 2001, p. 617A1] Embryonic stem cell creation required the destruction of a human embryo in order to harvest the cells, which could be coaxed in laboratories to grow into any type of cell found in the body. It was thought that embryonic stem cells had the potential for a great number of medical applications, including the development of laboratory-created organs for donation, and treatments for ailments including heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, among many others. Antiabortion and other socially conservative activists maintained that the process of destroying a human embryo in order to harvest stem cells was tantamount to murder. Democrats had largely backed embryonic stem cell research, while the issue had divided Republicans. Several supporters of embryonic stem cell research criticized the proposed rules as too limiting, and some scientists and activists complained that the process of creating the rules had been dominated by political considerations, and not by science. However, others said the rules represented a practical compromise between supporters and opponents of embryonic stem cell research. Before the funding rules could take effect, they first needed to be published in the Federal Register and subjected to a 30-day comment period. The rules were expected to be finalized by July 7. n 268

Consumer Affairs Salmonella Found in Pistachios. Officials

with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) March 30 said Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., the country’s second-largest pistachio processor, had recalled about one million pounds (452,000 kg) of pistachios out of concerns that they could be contaminated with the salmonella bacterium. The FDA said one of Setton’s customers, Kraft Foods Inc., on March 24 had alerted the agency that it had discovered salmonella in pistachio products during routine testing. [See p. 167D2] Health officials said no illnesses had been linked to the contamination, in contrast to a 2008 salmonella outbreak linked to peanuts. Setton processed a huge volume of nuts, then sold them to wholesalers who repackaged and resold them to others. It was expected that the list of recalled items would expand, and the FDA recommended that consumers avoid all pistachios and products containing them. The FDA April 6 said it had asked Setton to recall its entire 2008 crop of pistachios. (The FDA did not have the power to order the recall, and had asked Setton to do so voluntarily.) [See below] David Acheson, the FDA’s assistant commissioner for food protection, March 31 said the contamination had occurred after Setton ran nuts that had been roasted, a process that killed pathogens, through machinery that had been used to process raw nuts. Production standards typically called for raw and roasted products to remain separate. The New York Times April 7 reported that Setton had found salmonella in its products at least 18 times since September 2008. The company was not compelled to alert federal health officials to the contamination, and had reroasted the products in question and then shipped them for consumption. The FDA was also investigating Setton’s sister plant at Setton International Foods Inc. in Comack, N.Y. That plant March 9 had failed an inspection by New York State health officials, who had discovered cockroaches and other contaminants. The announcement was the latest in a string of food contamination issues that had brought food industry practices and the FDA’s regulatory regime under scrutiny by legislators and consumer advocates. Peanut Company Fined—Texas health officials April 9 fined Lynchburg, Va.– based Peanut Corp. of America $14.6 million for violating food safety standards. Peanuts processed by the company had been linked to a salmonella outbreak that had sickened roughly 700 people since September 2008, and was linked to at least nine deaths as of early April. State officials in early February had shut down a plant operated by Peanut Corp. in Plainview, Texas, after signs of contamination were found there. The company had filed for bankruptcy soon after. The outbreak had led to one of the largest series of recalls in U.S. history. [See p. 95B3] Health officials Feb. 24 said peanut products originating in the Plainview plant

had tested positive for the strain of salmonella found in the outbreak. Salmonella had earlier been found in products processed in a Peanut Corp. plant in Blakely, Ga. Halt in Food Safety Progress Seen—

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) April 9 released a report which found that the rate of food-borne illnesses in the U.S. had plateaued between 2004 and 2008, after a long period of decline. The report was based on preliminary data gathered for 2008 as part of a program that had monitored illnesses in 10 states since 1996. Analysts said the data were likely to increase tensions between the FDA and the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which shared responsibility for the regulation of food in the U.S. The CDC reported that bacteria illnesses resulting from poultry and meat, which were regulated by the USDA, had declined, while new health risks and incidents of illnesses had grown from contaminated fresh produce and other foods regulated by the FDA. According to CDC estimates, about 76 million people in the U.S. suffered from food poisoning annually, with 300,000 requiring hospitalization and some 5,000 dying. Separately, Daniel Levinson, the inspector general of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department March 26 released a report which found that the federal system for tracing food was routinely ignored by the majority of food manufacturers and distributors. According to the report, the failure of the government’s tracing system would hinder the response to an outbreak of disease or a bioterrorism attack. The inspector general’s office bought 40 food items, but was able to trace only five of them through the supply chain to their source due to incomplete records. Out of 118 businesses questioned, only 48 were able to provide inspectors with requested information. The inspectors also found that about 25% of food facilities they contacted were unaware of federal regulations requiring them to keep records on suppliers and recipients. n

Immigration News in Brief. A

former supervisor at Postville, Iowa–based Agriprocessors Inc., a meat processing plant where hundreds of illegal immigrants were deported following a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in 2008, March 19 was sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role in hiring the illegal workers. The defendant, Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, had pleaded guilty to immigration-related crimes in August 2008. Elizabeth Billmeyer, a former personnel manager at Agriprocessors, April 13 pleaded guilty to similar charges, and faced as many as 20 years in prison. [See p. 151E2] Advocacy groups Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center March 17 released separate reports in which they criticized immigration officials for providing inadequate medical FACTS ON FILE

care to people detained by the ICE. The

groups argued that detention facilities had inadequate health care programs, and that many medical problems could be avoided if the ICE stopped detaining illegal immigrants who were sick, elderly or had no criminal record. HRW claimed that women’s reproductive care was particularly lacking. [See p. 151G1] n

Crime Spector Convicted of Murder. Famed pop music producer Phil Spector April 13 was convicted in California’s Los Angeles Superior Court of second-degree murder and illegal use of a firearm in connection with the February 2003 death of an actress at his home in Alhambra, Calif., near Los Angeles. Spector, 68, had previously been tried in connection with the death in 2007; however, that trial had ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to agree on a verdict. [See 2007, p. 634C1] The actress, Lana Clarkson, had been fatally shot in Spector’s mansion just hours after the two met in a Los Angeles nightclub where Clarkson, 40, was working. Prosecutors alleged that Spector, who had a history of threatening people with guns, had shot Clarkson, while attorneys for Spector had argued that she had committed suicide. Clarkson’s family had also filed a civil lawsuit against Spector alleging that his actions had resulted in Clarkson’s wrongful death. Spector had been free on bail during both trials but was jailed following the verdict. He was scheduled to be sentenced May 29 and faced a sentence of up to 18 years in prison. n News in Brief. A military judge March 24 sentenced former Army paratrooper William Kreutzer to life in prison in connection

with a 1995 shooting at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg that killed one soldier and injured 18 others. Kreutzer had been convicted and given the death penalty in the case in 1996, but his conviction was overturned in 2004 on the grounds that he had not received effective legal representation. Kreutzer March 11 had pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and aggravated assault as well as 18 counts of attempted premeditated murder. The judge also demoted Kreutzer to the rank of private, ordered him to forfeit all future military pay and gave him a dishonorable discharge. [See 1996, p. 416B3] The federal government March 18 sued Union Pacific Railroad Co. for $37.7 million in courts in Houston, Texas and San Diego, Calif., claiming that the railroad had failed to prevent the transfer of drugs, mostly marijuana, from Mexico into the U.S. 58 times since 2001. (The amount the government was suing for was the sum of a series of fines levied for importing controlled substances.) Omaha, Neb.–based Union Pacific claimed that it could not be held responsible for its leased trains while they were in Mexico, because at that point they were operated by a Mexican shipping partner, Ferrocarril Mexicano (Feromex). Union Pacific owned 26% of Ferrocarril Mexicano. [See 2008, p. 771D2] n April 23, 2009

AFRICA

Captured Somali Pirate Charged In U.S. Court Attacks Continue Off Somali Coast. The lone survivor of a band of Somali pirates who had held the captain of a U.S.-flagged merchant ship hostage for four days in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast April 21 appeared in U.S. District Court in New York City. U.S. prosecutors charged the Somali, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, with piracy—reportedly the first time in more than 100 years that such a charge had been brought in a U.S. court. Muse was also charged with conspiracy to seize a ship by force, conspiracy to commit hostage taking and firearms offenses. He faced life in prison if convicted. [See p. 237A1] Prosecutors alleged that Muse had been the ringleader of the band of four pirates who attempted to hijack the Maersk Alabama earlier in April—one of many such incidents off the Somali coast in recent years, but the first on a U.S.-flagged ship. The attempted attack was unsuccessful, and the pirates ended up holding the Maersk Alabama’s captain, Richard Phillips, hostage for four days on a lifeboat, surrounded by U.S. Navy warships. After Muse went aboard one of the ships, the USS Bainbridge, for medical treatment, U.S. Navy SEALs shot and killed the other three pirates and rescued Phillips. Muse April 20 was flown to the U.S. to face trial. One of Muse’s lawyers, Philip Weinstein, said the alleged pirate’s father, who was in Somalia, claimed that Muse was just 15 years old. If that were true, he would be too young to be tried as an adult in a U.S. court. However, prosecutors argued that the father had given conflicting statements about Muse’s age. They also said Muse had given Navy personnel widely varying accounts of his age, ranging from 16 to 26, and that Muse had told U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators that he was 18. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck ultimately ruled that he could be tried as an adult, after concluding that he was 18 years old. Muse reportedly did not speak English, and appeared distraught during the hearing. Weinstein said his client “comes from a place with no electricity, no water” and had a “very limited education.” Weinstein added, “He is obviously scared, confused and is obviously troubled by what’s going on.” Another of Muse’s lawyers, Deirdre von Dornum, told reporters outside the New York courthouse that his legal team was looking into whether he had been “kidnapped and taken hostage,” and forced to take part in the pirate mission. At his court appearance, Muse’s left hand was heavily bandaged due to a stab wound that he had sustained during the attempted hijacking. The next hearing in the case was set for May 21. The London-based International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which tracked incidents of piracy around the world, April 21 reported that there had been 102 pirate at-

tacks worldwide in the first quarter of 2009, up from 53 in the same period in 2008. That was mainly attributed to the rise in incidents off Somalia, where there were 61 attacks in the first quarter, compared with six in the 2008 period. Pirates Release Chemical Tanker— Another band of Somali pirates holding a chemical tanker, the Stolt Strength, and its 23 Filipino crew members April 21 released the vessel, after seizing it Nov. 10, 2008, in the Gulf of Aden. The tanker was owned by Sagana Shipping of the Philippines. A spokesman for the company refused to comment on whether a ransom had been paid to free the ship, but family members of the crew reportedly said the pirates had demanded a ransom of about $2.2 million. The government of the Philippines April 20 said it was banning its sailors from ships that passed through the Gulf of Aden. Filipinos accounted for about 10% of the world’s seafarers, the most of any country. Among other recent piracy incidents off the Somali coast, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces patrolling the waters April 19 halted an attempted hijacking of a Norwegian-flagged oil tanker. However, after disarming and interrogating the pirates, they were forced to release them because they apparently did not have the authority to arrest them. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton April 20 said the release of the pirates “sends the wrong signal.” Clinton and Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, after a meeting that day, said they would work with NATO to devise a legal framework so its forces could arrest the pirates. The U.S., Britain and the European Union had reached deals with Kenya, Somalia’s southern neighbor, to bring pirates caught by their forces to that country for trial. Eighteen alleged Somali pirates— who had been seized in separate incidents by French and German forces—April 23 appeared in court in Mombasa, Kenya, to face piracy charges. However, the Kenyan government had said its courts could not handle a large influx of pirate cases. [See 2006, p. 933C2] The United Nations April 20 announced that pirates had released a Lebanese-owned ship, the MV Sea Horse, that had been hijacked April 14. The pirates reportedly released the vessel, which had been on its way to India to collect U.N. World Food Program aid destined for Somalia, after a $100,000 ransom was paid by Somali businessmen. The U.N. denied knowledge of a ransom. Donor Conference Held in Belgium—A conference of international donors in Brussels, Belgium’s capital, April 23 pledged more than $250 million to aid Somalia’s weak transitional government in its fight against Islamic extremists and pirates. At the conference, Somali Interim President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon issued an appeal for the international community to assist Somalia in its efforts to emerge from 18 years of lawlessness. The insecurity and 269

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poverty caused by the ongoing civil war between the government and a radical Islamist group known as Al Shabab was widely seen as the root cause of the piracy problem. EU officials at the meeting said the aid would go toward strengthening the Somali security forces and supporting the 4,300member African Union (AU) force in the country, which had often been targeted by Al Shabab. The EU April 22 had pledged 60 million euros ($77.5 million) to help bolster security in Somalia. Somalia Adopts Islamic Law— The Somali transitional parliament April 18 unanimously voted in favor of legislation that would implement Islamic law, or sharia, in the country. The legislation had been proposed by Ahmed in February, and was seen as a way to undermine the influence of radical Islamists in the country. Al Shabab reportedly had already decreed sharia in the areas of Somalia that it controlled. [See p. 238E3] n

AMERICAS

Haiti Long-Delayed Senate Elections Held. Hai-

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tians April 19 voted in elections for 12 vacant seats in the country’s 30-seat Senate. The vote had originally been scheduled to take place in late 2007, but had repeatedly been delayed by political infighting, violence, and damaging storms and other natural disasters. International observers reported that turnout for the elections appeared to be very low, with some estimating the figure at around 10%. JeanMarc Baudot, a Canadian consultant working as an election official for the Haitian government, April 20 said the election results would likely not be tabulated for eight days, as ballots were transported from rural areas to Port-au-Prince, the capital. [See 2008, pp. 650B1, 539E1] Violence was reported at several polling stations across the country, resulting in numerous injuries. Supporters of President Rene Preval reportedly clashed with backers of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose Fanmi Lavalas party was banned from fielding candidates in any of the races. Aristide supporters had called on Haitians to boycott the elections. Also, the country’s provisional electoral council halted voting in the rural Central Department, after demonstrators in the town of Mirebalais ransacked polling stations there. Officials said the voting would be rescheduled. Clinton Visits, Aid Pledged— U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 16 stopped in Haiti on her way to the Summit of the Americas, being held in Trinidad and Tobago. Clinton said the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was considering granting undocumented Haitian immigrants temporary legal status that would allow them to work in the U.S. and send remittances to Haiti. Clinton said the policy shift was being con270

sidered due to the extreme poverty most Haitians lived in. Haiti was among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, and most residents lived on an average of $2 per day. However, Clinton said the suspension of deportation proceedings would apply only to those Haitians who had received deportation orders before Obama took office. [See p. 271A2] Haiti had been hammered in 2008 by four hurricanes that had caused an estimated $1 billion in damages and killed about 800 people. A sharp climb in global food prices in the first half of 2008 had also put many food staples out of reach for Haitians, leading to rioting. [See 2008, p. 241F3] At an international donors conference held April 14 in Washington, D.C., a group of 20 donors pledged a total of $324 million in aid to Haiti. Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis had asked for $900 million over two years. n

Venezuela Chavez Announces Spending Cuts. Vene-

zuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias March 21 presented a new budget for 2009 that reduced government spending to $72 billion, a 6.7% cut. Chavez March 22 said he would cut “unnecessary spending” and review top officials’ salaries in the face of declining government revenue resulting from the fall in the price of oil. [See p. 22G2] Oil sales also constituted more than 90% of the country’s export income, and in recent years Chavez’s government had relied on high oil prices to fund more than half of the government’s budget, including popular social programs and foreign aid to its allies. However, high government spending had also contributed to Venezuela’s 31% inflation rate in 2008. [See 2008, p. 915G2] Chavez in his March 21 announcement said the new budget was based on an oil price of $40 per barrel. The previous budget had been based on the assumption that oil would sell for $60 per barrel. He also said the government would raise the sales tax rate to 12%, from 9%, and issue $10.2 billion worth of bonds, moves that some analysts said would further fuel inflation. Chavez also said that he would raise the country’s minimum wage by 20%. Chavez stopped short of devaluing the country’s currency, the bolivar, a move that would help bolster the government’s spending power because most of its oil income came in U.S. dollars. He also did not reduce the government’s generous gasoline subsidies, which kept the price of gasoline at about 17 U.S. cents per gallon. In another sign of Venezuela’s looming budget problems, Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, who was also the president of state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), March 3 said oil service contracts would be reduced by 40% as part of efforts to save money. Calls Obama ‘Ignorant’— Chavez during his March 22 weekly television and radio program called U.S. President Barack Obama a “poor ignorant person,” after

Obama alleged that Chavez was “exporting terrorism” by supporting Colombian Marxist rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Chavez had had an antagonistic relationship with Obama’s predecessor as U.S. president, George W. Bush. [See p. 271B3; 2008, p. 661D2] n Officers Accused in Synagogue Attack.

Venezuelan prosecutors March 26 charged eight police officers and three others in connection with the Jan. 31 ransacking and defacement of the Tiferet Israel synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. Vandals had broken into the synagogue, one of the country’s oldest, and destroyed religious artifacts and spray-painted the walls with threatening messages. [See p. 154B2] Investigators said they thought the attackers, who included security guards working for the synagogue, had orchestrated the break-in to steal a large sum of money that they believed was held there. The attack also raised concerns among Jewish leaders that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias was encouraging antiSemitic sentiments. Chavez Jan. 6 had ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in reaction to an Israeli military offense in the Gaza Strip. Chavez Jan. 14 had broken off Venezuela’s diplomatic ties with Israel as a further protest of the offensive. Venezuelan government officials rejected allegations that its moves were anti-Jewish, and Chavez had repeatedly asserted that his criticisms were aimed at Israeli policies toward Palestinians, and not Jews themselves. [See p. 30D3] In a separate incident, attackers Feb. 26 threw explosives at a Jewish center in Caracas, but no one was hurt. n

Other Americas News Obama Visits Mexico, Attends Summit.

U.S. President Barack Obama April 16–17 visited Mexico, where he met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa to discuss the flow of drugs and guns across the U.S.-Mexico border, and the growth in drug-related violence in Mexico and U.S. border states. Obama April 17–19 traveled on to Trinidad and Tobago, where he attended the fifth Summit of the Americas, a meeting of leaders from Latin America and Caribbean nations. [See p. 204D3; 2007, p. 156C1; 2005, p. 792G3] Violence Dominates Mexican Agenda—

Obama April 16 arrived in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, becoming the first U.S. president to visit the city since Bill Clinton in 1997. After meeting with Calderon, the pair held a news conference in which Obama continued a policy shift acknowledging the U.S.’s role in contributing to drug-related violence in Mexico. “I will not pretend that this is Mexico’s responsibility alone,” he said. “The demand for these drugs inside the United States is keeping these cartels in business.” [See p. 185A3; 1997, p. 334B1] After taking office in December 2006, Calderon had dispatched federal troops and police officers throughout Mexico in an effort to combat drug trafficking cartels. The FACTS ON FILE

effort had resulted in a significant increase in violence, with an estimated 10,000 people killed in drug-related incidents since that time. Calderon had repeatedly criticized the U.S.’s relatively lax gun control laws for contributing to the violence, since an estimated 90% of weapons recovered from Mexican crime syndicates had been purchased in the U.S. The flow of U.S. guns sent into Mexico was so great that it had become known informally as the “iron river.” More than 100,000 guns were estimated to be smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico annually, according to officials from both countries. Obama said he would press the U.S. Senate to ratify an international treaty regulating the firearms trade and increasing law enforcement cooperation among countries investigating weapons smuggling. The treaty was the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA), also commonly known as the inter-American arms treaty. The pact had been signed by Clinton in 1997, but had never been ratified by the Senate. It had taken effect in 1998 following its ratification by more than 20 other countries. However, Obama noted that ratification of the treaty was likely to face opposition in the Senate, as would attempts to renew a U.S. ban on assault weapons that had expired in 2004. Obama during his presidential campaign had pledged to work to reinstitute the assault weapons ban. Calderon had also cited the expiration of that law as a contributing factor to the increased violence. Obama April 15 had added three Mexican drug cartels—La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and Sinaloa—to a U.S. list of foreign “drug kingpins,” a move that allowed the government to seize the U.S.held assets of those organizations, estimated in the billions of dollars. The listing, under the 1999 Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, also allowed the U.S. to file criminal charges against businesses or individuals in the U.S. who smuggled cash or drugs, laundered money or gave weapons to the three cartels. Although drug violence dominated the agenda, the two leaders also discussed a potential resolution to a trade dispute that had erupted in March. The U.S. Senate had voted to eliminate a pilot program that would allow Mexican truckers limited access to U.S. roads, a condition stipulated by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In response, Mexico instituted a number of tariffs on U.S. goods. Calderon and Obama also announced a plan to share academic research performed in the two countries in order to promote alternative energy sources that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [See p. 171F2] Calderon at the news conference April 16 also suggested that the U.S. end its 47year-old trade embargo against Cuba. “I think it’s time to ask if maybe the strategy hasn’t worked too well. I don’t believe that it has,” he said. April 23, 2009

Improved U.S.-Cuban Relations Sought—

Obama April 17 arrived in Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, for the Summit of the Americas, which was attended by democratically elected leaders from 34 countries that were members of the Organization of American States (OAS). The stated focus of the meeting was on sustainable energy, protecting the environment and “human prosperity,” although those topics were largely overshadowed by the global economic crisis and the U.S.’s policy on Cuba. [See p. 248A3] In opening remarks at the conference, Obama said, “The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” and that he was ready to “have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues—from human rights, free speech and democratic reform, to drugs migration and economic issues.” He added, “I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled in overcoming decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day.” Earlier in the week, Obama had relaxed the U.S.’s restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba by Cuban Americans, and had allowed U.S. telecommunications companies to seek operations licenses from the Cuban government. Cuba was not a member of the OAS and sent no representative to the summit. Several of the summit’s attendees in their remarks criticized the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as a relic of a failed foreign policy approach. Despite those lobbying efforts, Obama did not say he would end the embargo, or support Cuba’s accession to the OAS. (Cuba had been barred from the group in 1962 at the behest of the U.S.) However, Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the OAS, April 17 called for Cuba to be readmitted to the group. Obama during his remarks departed from a prepared speech in order to acknowledge the U.S’s past role of political interference in Latin American countries, but called on leaders to refrain from blaming all problems on the U.S. “That’s the old way, and we need a new way,” he said. Public sentiment in the U.S. among Cuban exiles appeared to be shifting away from traditional support for a hard-line stance toward Cuba. Polling firm Bendixen & Associates April 20 released a poll, conducted April 14–16, which found that 67% of Cuban Americans supported an end to all limits on travel to Cuba. Of those polled, 64% supported Obama’s shift on travel and remittance restrictions. Opinion was almost evenly split on whether the U.S. should continue its embargo of Cuba, with 42% backing its continuation, and 43% saying it should end.

However, it remained unclear if Castro’s comments reflected a change in Cuba’s policy on the U.S., as they were delivered in a speech harshly critical of the U.S. Some analysts said the U.S. had misinterpreted Castro’s remarks. Fidel Castro, in an essay published April 22 in the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, said the U.S. had misunderstood his brother’s comments, and that Cuba would not consider releasing its political prisoners or reducing its taxes on remittances sent there. “When the president of Cuba said he was ready to discuss any topic with the U.S. president, he meant he was not afraid of addressing any issue,” Fidel Castro wrote. Obama Greets Chavez— Obama April 17 met and clasped hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, a strident critic of the U.S. According to a press release from the Venezuelan government, Chavez told Obama, “I greeted [former U.S. President George W.] Bush with this hand eight years ago. I want to be your friend.” U.S.-Venezuelan ties had deteriorated badly during Bush’s tenure in office, with Chavez expelling the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, in September 2008. The U.S. had responded by expelling the Venezuelan ambassador. [See p. 270G2; 2008, p. 661D2] Chavez April 18 named Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s representative to the OAS, as his country’s ambassador to the U.S. The U.S. State Department said Chavez’s decision followed a meeting with Clinton on the sidelines of summit meetings. However, Obama’s diplomatic overtures toward Venezuela were criticized by several U.S. Republican legislators. Sen. John Ensign (R, Nev.) April 19 said it was inappropriate for Obama to be seen as friendly with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world.” Obama that day dismissed such criticism, saying, “It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States.” Final Summit Declaration Issued— The summit April 19 yielded a 22-page declaration that was signed by Patrick Manning, the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, but not by the leaders of any other nations in attendance. Manning said the document was not an accurate representation of the global economic crisis, as it had been drafted more than 18 months earlier. Attendees also agreed to bolster the work of the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) in providing economic assistance to countries without access to credit. n

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Confusion Seen in Cuba’s U.S. Policy—

Raul Castro, while attending a meeting of leftist leaders intended as a counter to the Summit of the Americas, April 16 said that Cuba had informed the U.S. that his government was “willing to discuss everything—human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 17, in response, said, “We welcome this overture.”

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Indonesia Dam Collapse Kills At Least 100 People.

At least 100 people were killed March 27 in a suburb of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, after a nearby dam burst, flooding the area with water. Analysts suggested that the 271

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death toll was especially high because the collapse had taken place at about 2:00 a.m. local time, when most residents of the suburb, Tangerang, were asleep. About 100 people were still missing as of April 1. [See 2007, p. 884G3] According to witnesses, a giant wave more than 30 feet (nine meters) high struck Tangerang after the dam broke and rolled across the town. About 320 homes in the area were damaged by the flooding and almost 400 residents had to be relocated. The collapse of the dam, which was built in 1933 by Indonesia’s Dutch colonial government, had been preceded by unusually heavy rains on March 26, increasing the amount of water behind the dam. At least one surviving resident of Tangerang alleged that poor maintenance of the dam by the government had played a role in the disaster, Agence France-Presse reported March 28. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other government officials March 27 visited the site of the flooding. Yudhoyono said, “The dam will be rebuilt, and we will reconsider how it is constructed.” Indonesia’s Jakarta Post newspaper reported March 29 that each household affected by the flood would receive compensation of at least five million Indonesian rupiah ($430) from the government. n News in Brief. The World Bank March 3 announced that it had authorized a $2 billion loan to Indonesia from a $5.5 billion contingency fund that was also backed by

Australia, Japan and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The loan was the largest ever granted by the World Bank to a country it did not consider in crisis. The $5.5 billion fund was intended to give Indonesia’s government financial flexibility if ongoing credit constrictions worsened due to the global financial crisis. The fund was scheduled to expire in December 2010. [See 2002, p. 1055E1] Nicolas Jouwe, the only surviving cofounder of Indonesia’s Free Papua Movement (OPM), a separatist group, March 18

arrived in Indonesia after more than 40 years in exile in the Netherlands. Jouwe, 84, had been approached by the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to cooperate in efforts to end the conflict with separatists in Indonesia’s Papua province. Jouwe March 20 met with Indonesia’s coordinating minister for people’s welfare in Jakarta, the capital, and March 22 traveled to Papua. More than 1,000 Papuan protesters March 24 held demonstrations in Jayapura, the provincial capital, calling for a referendum on Papuan independence. [See 2002, p. 698D1; 1969, p. 292G1] n

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News in Brief. Kyrgyz officials April 15

said Sanjar Kadyraliev, 32, a member of parliament belonging to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s governing Ak Zhol party, had been shot dead outside his home in Bishkek, the capital, the previous day. Officials said they were investigating the murder, but declined to comment on possible 272

motives for the shooting. Some observers said Kadyraliev’s death appeared to have been a contract killing. His murder followed the March death of former presidential Chief of Staff Medet Sadyrkulov, in a car accident under suspicious circumstances. [See p. 172G1] Two journalists March 25 were attacked by unknown assailants after leaving their office in Bishkek. Ulugbek Babakulov, editor of the weekly newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets-Kyrgyzstan, was hospitalized with a concussion. Yelena Ageeva, a reporter for the paper, was also beaten but did not require hospitalization. The attacks followed a March assault on Syrgak Abdyldayev, another journalist, who was stabbed more than 30 times but survived. [See p. 187G2] n

Tajikistan Audit Reveals Scandal at Central Bank.

An audit of the Tajik National Bank released April 13 by U.S.-based accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP revealed that about $856 million had been diverted from the bank to a private investment company owned by Tajikistan’s former national bank chief, Murodali Alimardon, and members of his family. Alimardon, who had headed the central bank from 1996 to 2008, currently served as Tajikistan’s deputy prime minister in charge of agriculture. The audit also revealed that an additional $221 million intended to bolster the country’s cotton industry could not be accounted for. [See 2008, p. 417E2] The audit came about a year after it was discovered that officials at the bank had lied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about the size of the country’s reserves. The IMF in turn had demanded that Tajikistan pay back a $47.4 million loan. n

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UNITED STATES

Great Britain Budget Calls for Tax Hike, Heavy Borrowing.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling April 22 presented a budget that would increase the national debt to record levels and increase the top income-tax rate to 50%. Darling proposed those measures to finance spending meant to help Britain’s economy through a severe recession. [See p. 155F1; 2008, p. 873EF2] The 50% income-tax rate would apply to people who earned more than £150,000 ($220,000) a year. In November 2008, Darling had proposed raising the top rate to 45%, from 40%. The 50% rate, the highest since 1988, would take effect in 2010. Darling also announced 2% tax increases on alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline. Darling said the government would borrow £175 billion in 2010, the equivalent of 12.4% of gross domestic product (GDP). He projected that the national debt would increase to 79% of GDP by 2013, which would be the highest level since World War II.

Darling forecast that the economy would contract by 3.5% in 2009, which would be the worst decline since 1945. But he projected that the recession would be over by the end of the year, leading to growth of 1.25% in 2010 and 3.5% in 2011. Many independent economists forecast a much slower return to growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) April 22 projected that the British economy would contract 4.1% in 2009 and 0.4% in 2010. The extra income-tax hike for high earners was widely seen as a populist move aimed at shoring up support for the ruling center-left Labour Party before the next parliamentary elections, due to be held by May 2010 at the latest. The opposition Conservative (Tory) Party led Labour in public opinion polls. Tory leader David Cameron accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of breaking a pledge not to raise taxes, and said he had condemned Britain to “a decade of debt.” Nick Clegg, leader of the third-largest party, the centrist Liberal Democrats, also criticized the budget, saying, “They have condemned us to years of unemployment and decades of debt.” Brown April 23 defended the tax hike as a matter of fairness, saying, “If we are going to give people opportunities they need for the future, then there has got to be a contribution by those who have the most and who have gained the most over the past few years.” Official data released April 22 showed that the unemployment rate had risen to 6.7% in February, the highest since Labour came to power in 1997. n Terrorism Suspects Freed Without Charge.

British police April 22 released without charge the last of 12 men arrested earlier in April in raids in northwest England said to have broken up a major terrorist plot. The other detainees had been released without charge into the custody of immigration officials for deportation to Pakistan, their home country, on grounds of national security. One of the two men released April 22 was a British citizen. [See p. 253C2] Officials suggested that the men were released because of a lack of evidence. Police had carried out the raids earlier than scheduled after the senior antiterrorism official of the London Metropolitan Police was photographed by the press carrying a secret report on the plan in full view. The official, Bob Quick, resigned. n

Hungary Parliament Confirms New Prime Minister.

Gordon Bajnai, a businessman with no official political party affiliation, April 14 was confirmed by parliament as Hungary’s new prime minister. Bajnai had been nominated March 30 by the governing Hungarian Socialist Party (MSzP) and a small allied party, the Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDSz), to succeed Ferenc Gyurcsany of MSzP, who had resigned in March amid a deteriorating Hungarian economy. [See p. 188F3; for facts on Bajnai, see p. 273A1] FACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON BAJNAI

Gordon Bajnai was born March 5, 1968, in Szeged, a town in southern Hungary. Prior to the fall of communism in that country in 1989, Bajnai had participated in Hungary’s Communist Party youth organization. In 1991, he graduated from the University of Economics in Budapest, now known as Corvinus University, with a degree in international relations. Bajnai began his career in 1991 at Creditum, a small financial consulting business in Budapest, the capital. From 1993 to 1994, he worked as a consultant at Eurocorp International Finance PLC. At both companies, he worked alongside Ferenc Gyurcsany, who later became Hungarian prime minister. From 1995 to 2000, he held senior positions at CA IB Securities PLC. From 2000 to 2005, Bajnai served as the chief executive officer of investment firm Wallis PLC. Bajnai was criticized for his management of 2003 insolvency procedures for Hajdu Bet, a poultry company that Wallis had invested in. From 2006 to 2007, Bajnai worked as head of Hungary’s National Development Agency. In 2007, he became the minister of economy and national development. On April 14, Bajnai was confirmed to serve as prime minister, following Gyurcsany’s resignation. [See p. 272F3] Bajnai was married with two children. He had no official political affiliation, but was viewed as close to the Socialist party.

Gyurcsany as prime minister had slashed Hungary’s budget deficit to 3%, from 9%, over three years by enacting unpopular tax hikes and spending cuts. Bajnai likewise pledged to enact “immediate and painful” spending cuts in order to right the faltering economy and steer Hungary toward adopting the euro, the European Union’s common currency, which was currently used by 16 of the bloc’s 27 member states. Bajnai was expected to reduce pensions, salaries for civil servants, public transportation services and subsidies for domestic energy use. The main opposition party, the centerright Hungarian Civic Alliance party, or Fidesz, boycotted the vote to confirm Bajnai, and instead called for early parliamentary elections to be held in the spring of 2010. The conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) also boycotted the vote. Bajnai April 14 said, “As long as the majority of [members of parliament] support a government’s austerity program, a crisis-management government is a better solution for Hungary than early elections.” Thousands Call for Early Elections—As many as 8,000 people April 14 gathered in Budapest, the capital, to protest Bajnai’s confirmation and demand early parliamentary elections. Several hundred protesters reportedly broke through barriers blocking off the parliament building, and police intervened with tear gas. According to police, 25 people were injured in the melee, including 15 policemen, and 12 people were detained. Some protesters burned EU flags. n April 23, 2009

Moldova Recount Confirms Communist Victory.

Moldova’s Constitutional Court April 22 said the results of a vote recount of parliamentary elections held earlier that month confirmed that the governing Communist Party had won 49.5% of the vote, giving it 60 seats in the country’s parliament. The results left the party one seat short of a governing majority, which would have allowed it to pick the country’s new president. President Vladimir Voronin was set to step down in May due to term limits. [See p. 225E2] Voronin April 10 had called for the recount, days after violent protests were held by anticommunists who rejected initial election results showing that the Communist party had defeated pro-Western parties by a much larger margin than expected. The recount confirmed those results. Voronin had claimed that the recount could restore order to Moldova, but the opposition April 14 rejected the recount and called for fresh elections. Opposition leaders claimed that the Communist Party had falsified votes in order to win by such a decisive margin. About 5,000 protesters April 12 again gathered in central Chisinau, the capital, to demonstrate against the Communist government. It also emerged April 12 that one protester had died in police custody soon after the riot. Opposition members claimed that the man had been beaten to death. However, the government said he had died after inhaling smoke from fires, or gas that police had used to control the rioting crowd. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/ RL) April 23 reported that the government had said 20 people had been charged with crimes connected to the election riot; 12 of them remained in custody. Among those facing charges was Natalia Morar, 25, a journalist who April 6 had called for antigovernment protests on social networking Web sites. She was currently under house arrest. Morar’s lawyer April 16 told RFE/RL that Morar could be charged with “inciting mass disorder,” which carried a jail sentence of up to 15 years. n

Russia Prominent Chechen Fighter Killed in Dubai.

Officials in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), March 30 said Sulim Yamadayev, an ethnic Chechen rebel who later defected to the Russian government, had apparently been assassinated two days earlier. Yamadayev, who had lived in Dubai since December 2008, had been one of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s most prominent opponents, and was characterized in media reports as a powerful independent leader. Sulim Yamadayev’s brother, Ruslan Yamadayev, a former member of the Russian parliament, had been shot dead in Moscow in September 2008. [See p. 180D1; 2008, 731G3] A spokesman for Kadyrov that day said the Chechen president had no information

on Sulim Yamadayev’s death. However, Kadyrov April 6 claimed that he had “70% proof that [Yamadayev] was involved in the killing of my father.” Kadyrov’s father, former Chechen President Akhmed Kadyrov, had been killed in a 2004 bombing. Kadyrov also accused Yamadayev of having attempted to kill him. Yamadayev until 2008 had commanded an elite armed unit in Chechnya. However, his increasing influence had put him at odds with Kadyrov, and that year he was dismissed from the Russian military and accused by Russian police of kidnapping a Chechen businessman in 1998. Violence perpetrated by Islamic militants and Chechen separatists had decreased since Kadyrov became president of Chechnya in 2006. However, some analysts suggested that once Kadyrov was allowed to assume near-total power over Chechnya, he would become harder for authorities in Moscow, Russia’s capital, to control. Russian

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Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, Dubai’s police chief, April 5 said Adam Delimkhanov, a member of the Russian parliament and close adviser to Kadyrov, was suspected of ordering Yamadayev’s assassination. He also chided Russia for allowing “dirty” Chechen feuds to spill across its borders. Delimkhanov rejected the charges as did Kadyrov, who April 6 said Dubai’s investigation was “not based on any objective facts.”As a member of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, Delimkhanov had legal immunity and could not be extradited from Russia. Tamim April 7 said if Kadyrov “is not convinced by the results of Dubai police’s investigation and considers the accusations against Adam Delimkhanov not objective, we suggest involving an international team of investigators to examine our findings.” Two additional suspects had reportedly been detained in Dubai in connection with the murder, and another four were thought to be at large in Russia, according to Tamim. n News in Brief. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in an April 6 speech to the country’s parliament, outlined a $90 billion economic recovery plan that largely focused on stimulating consumer spending and safeguarding young families and the elderly. In his speech, Putin said the economic problems plaguing the country “didn’t arise with us and were not our fault.” [See p. 58B2] Lev Ponomaryov, 67, a former member of parliament and director of For Human Rights, a group based in Moscow, the capital, March 31 was attacked by as many as three men near his home. He escaped but was briefly hospitalized for head and chest injuries. Ponomaryov claimed that the attack was related to his human rights activities. Ponomaryov had reportedly worked closely with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was shot to death in January. Ponomaryov was also involved with the new political opposition group “Solidarity.” The day before, the tires on his car 273

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had been slashed, and youths March 11 had thrown eggs at him while he held a news conference on prison abuses. [See p. 36D2; 2008, p. 928C3] Five Interior Ministry soldiers and as many as 16 rebel fighters March 19–22 died when police raided a forested area where anti-government fighters were thought to be hiding in Dagestan, a republic in southern Russia. In addition to ground forces, Russian troops employed military helicopters to combat the rebels. [See below, p. 180D1; 2008, p. 683B2] About 1,000 protesters March 15 gathered in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok, where they called for Putin to step down over his alleged mishandling of the economy. Many in Vladivostok were already opposed to Putin’s government in general, but their anger had grown over new tariffs the government had enacted on the import of foreign vehicles. Many in Vladivostok made a living by importing cars from Japan and South Korea, and the tariffs had resulted in a sharp increase in unemployment. [See p. 69F1] Viktor Ivanov, head of Russia’s federal drug control service, March 6 said Russia “has not just become massively hooked on Afghan opiates, it has also become the world’s absolute leader in the opiate trade and the number one heroin consumer.” He

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said seizures of heroin imported from Afghanistan in the first two months of 2009 were up 70% compared to the same period in 2008. He did not say which country Russia had displaced as the top heroin consumer. [See 2008, p. 822E3] At least five policemen March 5 were killed and two were injured when a bomb they were trying to defuse exploded near Nazran, the main city in Ingushetia, a republic in southern Russia. Among those killed was Alexander Gorelkin, Nazran’s deputy police chief. [See 2008, p. 840C3] Four police officers and at least two suspected rebels were killed Feb. 12 in Nazran when a residential building that police were raiding exploded. The police had reportedly forced their way into the building to detain suspected rebels inside when the explosion occurred. Interior Ministry troops Feb. 11 killed seven suspected rebels in the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria. A firefight had reportedly broken out as the troops staged a raid on a suspected rebel safe house in the mountains. [See 2008, p. 665B1] n

Ukraine IMF Endorses Second Loan Installment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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April 17 said it would endorse the release of the second, $2.8 billion installment of a loan totaling $16.4 billion to Ukraine, whose economy continued to slump amid the current global economic crisis. The IMF’s move came after the Ukrainian government April 14 implemented public spending cuts and tax reforms. The second installment had been delayed for several months because Ukraine’s parliament had been unable to pass the IMF-required legislation amid bitter 274

infighting. In lieu of parliamentary approval, the changes had finally been implemented by decree. The IMF had released the first loan installment of $4.5 billion in November 2008. [See p. 227D1] The IMF had previously insisted that the second loan installment would not be disbursed unless Ukraine cut government spending. However, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had refused to enact cuts, citing the need for social spending to support the poor and elderly. The IMF in turn had approved the loan even though it claimed that Ukraine’s budget deficit was equal to 4% of the GDP, up from the 3% limit it and Ukraine had previously agreed on. The Ukrainian government claimed its budget deficit was closer to 3%. The IMF’s overture was viewed as a victory for Tymoshenko, who had reportedly appealed to Russia and other countries for loans before the IMF capitulated. Tymoshenko was considered a frontrunner in Ukraine’s presidential election, which was scheduled for October. She was expected to face the deeply unpopular President Viktor Yushchenko, as well as Viktor Yanukovich, head of the Russian-leaning Party of Regions. The IMF’s board was expected to make a formal decision on the installment in May. n

Other European News Hague Tribunal Rejects Karadzic’s Appeal.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the Netherlands (ICTY), April 7 denied an appeal for immunity by Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president accused of orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war. Karadzic had repeatedly claimed that Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who had helped negotiate an end to the Bosnian war and currently served as the U.S.’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, had pledged in 1996 that Karadzic would not be prosecuted by the ICTY if he quit politics. Holbrooke maintained that Karadzic’s claims were false. [See 2008, p. 623G2] A study on the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s released Feb. 15 by Purdue University in the U.S. claimed that three unidentified senior U.S. State Department officials had provided information that apparently confirmed Karadzic’s claims. The New York Times, in a March 22 article, reported that it had interviewed two of those officials. One official, a high-ranking member of the U.S. State Department, told the Times that he had been told about the immunity offer by people who worked closely with Holbrooke. The second official, who had been involved with Balkan peacekeeping operations in the 1990s, said Holbrooke had personally informed him of an immunity deal with Karadzic. Holbrooke, according to the same article, had said, “No one in the U.S. government ever promised anything, nor made a deal of any sort with Karadzic.” In a March

26 Times article, Holbrooke said the unidentified officials “should have the courage to identify themselves.” He added, “All of this is fabricated and untrue.” Separately, Karadzic April 2 accused U.N. prosecutors of harassing his family and friends in Bosnia in their search for evidence to be used in his trial. However, presiding Judge Iain Bonomy said Karadzic’s claims did not “contain any specific complaint of misconduct we can take action on.” Also, media outlet BalkanInsight April 10 reported that the editor of a Slovakian literary magazine supported by that country’s culture ministry had been disciplined after publishing several of Karadzic’s poems. Karadzic had also published a book of poems in 2005, while he was in hiding. n

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Iran U.S.-Iranian Reporter Gets 8 Years for Spying.

Iranian authorities had sentenced Roxana Saberi, a journalist who was accused of spying for the U.S., to eight years in prison, her lawyer and Iranian authorities said April 18. Saberi was being held in the Evin prison in Tehran, the Iranian capital. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad April 19 called on the prosecutor to reexamine Saberi’s case. [See p. 254C2] Saberi, 31, was a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, although Iran did not recognize her U.S. citizenship. She had lived in Iran for the past six years, and had reported for several international news outlets before her press credentials were revoked without explanation in 2006. Saberi had been arrested in January on initial charges of purchasing a bottle of wine, which was illegal in Iran. However, a judge in early April announced that she had been accused of spying for U.S. intelligence agencies. Iranian authorities said she had been convicted in a closed trial. Saberi’s father, Reza Saberi, April 18 told the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR) that his daughter had been tricked into making incriminating statements. U.S. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said U.S. President Barack Obama was “deeply disappointed” by Saberi’s sentence and that she was not a U.S. spy. The U.S. had pressed Iran to release Saberi. Ahmadinejad in a letter April 19 told Tehran’s prosecutor general, Saeed Mortazavi, to review the cases of Saberi and Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who had been arrested in November 2008 on accusations of espionage but had not been charged. Ahmadinejad urged Mortazavi, who was known as a hard-line conservative, to “do what is needed to secure justice and fairness in examining these charges.” He added, “Take care that the defendants have all the legal freedoms and rights to defend themselves against the charges and none of their rights are violated.” [See 2008, p. 874F3] Iran’s president had no formal power over the judiciary. Analysts said AhFACTS ON FILE

madinejad might be involving himself in the case in order to keep conservatives from sabotaging efforts to improve relations between the U.S. and Iran. He was also running for reelection in June, and his intervention was seen as an attempt to ward off criticism of his human rights record from reformists. Iran’s judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, April 20 said he had ordered the head of Tehran’s courts to consider Saberi’s appeal “in a careful, quick and fair way.” Also that day, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman denied any connection between Saberi’s imprisonment and the case of three Iranians who had been detained in Iraq by U.S. forces in 2007 and were being held without trial, but called for their release. Iran said the men were diplomats, but the U.S. claimed that they were spies and had links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which had allegedly funded and armed Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. [See 2007, p. 748E1] Defenders of Human Rights Center, a legal organization run by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, April 20 said Ebadi had agreed to head Saberi’s legal team. A judiciary spokesman April 21 said Saberi had appealed her sentence, and that he hoped “the verdict will be reconsidered by the appeals court.” n

Iraq Maliki Critic Elected Parliamentary Speaker.

The Iraqi parliament April 19 elected Ayad al-Sammaraie as its speaker. His predecessor, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, had resigned in December 2008, and several pieces of important legislation had been stalled in the intervening months of political deadlock. Sammaraie, who had previously headed parliament’s finance committee, was the head of the Sunni Muslim Iraqi Islamic Party. (The position of speaker was reserved for a Sunni.) [See pp. 254F2, 23F1] Sammaraie was a frequent critic of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and his election was seen as a sign of the growing power of Maliki’s rivals. Sammaraie won 153 votes, easily besting Maliki’s favored candidate, Mustafa al-Hiti, who won 36. Eighty-six legislators abstained or cast blank ballots, including some from Maliki’s Islamic Dawa party. Disguised Bomber Infiltrates Iraqi Base—

A suicide bomber dressed in an Iraqi army uniform April 16 detonated his explosives inside the crowded dining room of a major Iraqi military base in the city of Habbaniyah in the western province of Anbar. Witnesses said the blast killed at least 15 people and wounded at least 40. However, the Iraqi defense ministry said that 17 people had been injured and only the bomber had been killed. The bomber’s infiltration of the base was considered a serious breach of security. Another suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi police uniform April 20 attacked a city administrative office in Baqubah, the capital of the northeastern province of Diyala, April 23, 2009

while U.S. troops were meeting with city officials there. The blast killed at least three Iraqis, including two Iraqi employees of the U.S. embassy. The attack also wounded 19 people, including eight U.S. soldiers, two U.S. embassy employees and three Iraqi policemen. Later April 20, a Web site associated with the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the Habbaniyah and Baqubah bombings, as well as for an attack on oil facility guards in the northern city of Kirkuk the previous week. [See p. 254E3] In other violence, a suicide bomber April 22 attacked worshipers exiting a mosque in the town of Duluiyah, in the central province of Salahuddin, killing five. Gunmen using silenced weapons April 19 killed seven people in the course of robbing several jewelry stores in the mostly Shiite Muslim Tobchi neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Iraqi authorities said the gunmen were members of a “criminal gang.” Attacks on jewelry stores, pawn shops and currency exchanges had gone up as responsibility for Iraq’s security was transferred to Iraqi forces from the U.S., even as overall violence generally declined. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The United Nations April 22 presented a report detailing a number of options for the governance of the oil-rich northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk, whose control was disputed by its Kurdish, Turkmen and Sunni and Shiite Arab populations. The document was not publicly released, but reportedly presented four options, all of which would keep Kirkuk as a single entity and would have to be affirmed by a provincial referendum. They reportedly included making Kirkuk into an autonomous region jointly run by its ethnic groups, or a special region jointly governed by the regional and Iraqi central governments. [See p. 57B1] o The U.S. Senate April 21 confirmed, 73–23, Christopher Hill as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. [See p. 121D1] o Judge Paul Friedman in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., April 16 sentenced an Iraqi-born Dutch citizen who in February had pleaded guilty of attempting to kill U.S. troops in Iraq with roadside bombs to 25 years in prison. However, under an extradition deal, the defendant, Wasem Delaema, would serve his sentence in the Netherlands, and it was reportedly likely that a judge there would reduce his sentence. Delaema was the first Iraqi insurgent to have been convicted in a U.S. court. [See p. 121E2] n

SOUTH ASIA

India Cricket Tournament Moved Due to Security.

Indian cricket officials March 22 announced that the India Premier League (IPL) tournament could not be held in India due to security concerns. The tournament was scheduled to take place between April

10 and May 24, overlapping with national parliamentary elections that were to be held between April 16 and May 13, and government officials had said the military could not provide adequate security for both events. The IPL March 24 said the tournament would be held in South Africa, beginning April 18. [See p. 157E3] Discussions to change the tournament’s venue began after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team in neighboring Pakistan earlier in March. Security tensions had also increased in India, following a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. [See p. 137D3; 2008, p. 877A1] The decision was bemoaned in India, where, as in other countries in the subcontinent, cricket was highly popular. Furthermore, the IPL specialized in “Twenty20” cricket, a faster and more dynamic version of the game, whose traditional rules sometimes required five days of play. Twenty20 had acquired international attention, and was sponsored by Indian movie stars and industrial magnates, leading many observers to proclaim it as a symbol of India’s ascendancy in the global economy. The tournament had been expected to bring in $1 billion over the next five to 10 years. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the country’s largest opposition party, criticized the government for not providing security for the tournament. But Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram March 22 countered that the elections were “unquestionably” more important than cricket. Attacks Mar First Day of Voting—Several attacks in three states in central and eastern India April 16 killed at least 17 people, marring the first day of voting for parliamentary elections. Responsibility for the attacks in Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh was placed on Maoist rebels, who said they were struggling for greater rights for minorities and the lower classes. Voters that day went to the polls in 15 states and two union territories. n

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Pakistan Islamic Law in Militant Region Formalized.

President Asif Ali Zardari April 13 signed a law allowing Islamic fundamentalist militants to establish sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Malakand division in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The law was passed in parliament earlier that day with broad political support. It was criticized by Pakistan’s Western allies and secular Pakistanis, who said lawmakers had capitulated to the demands of militant groups that would now use Malakand as a safe haven to plan terrorist operations, recruit members and expand their influence. [See p. 229B2] The establishment of sharia was the central element of a cease-fire reached between the Pakistani army and militants in February, ending 18 months of fighting in Malakand’s Swat Valley region that had led to 1,500 deaths and the exodus of more than 100,000 civilians. Swat’s militants were members of the umbrella fundamen275

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talist group Tehreek-e-Taliban, which was thought to have carried out dozens of terrorist attacks on Pakistani targets in the past couple of years, and viewed the central government as being too closely tied to the U.S. and its antiterrorism policies. The cease-fire’s supporters argued that the military had proved unable to defeat the militants, and that the truce was necessary to prevent further bloodshed. They also said the establishment of sharia would split moderate Islamists from those who were intent on conducting terrorist attacks. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani April 13 claimed that the cease-fire had “the support of the nation.” But critics said the deal weakened the authority of the central government and emboldened Tehreek-e-Taliban. They also said it would lead to human rights abuses, pointing to a video that had recently surfaced from Swat showing the public flogging of a 17-year-old girl by militants, reportedly for appearing outside her home without a male guardian. Since February, militants had reportedly increased the number of executions and whippings in Swat, and seized control of the local government and police forces. Men were discouraged from shaving their beards, and women were banned from leaving their homes without their husbands or male relatives. Girls’ schools reportedly remained open, but were subject to harsh restrictions. The Wall Street Journal April 14 reported that militants from other areas of Pakistan were streaming into Swat, increasing their numbers to between 6,000 and 8,000, about twice the number in the region since late 2008. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was reportedly concerned that the cease-fire, and the apparent inability of the Pakistani government to combat militant activity, would give members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and other terrorists a stronghold from which to operate with impunity. Additionally, U.S. officials had expressed concerns that increased militancy in Pakistan could complicate the U.S.’s efforts to quell an insurgency by the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. Tehreek-e-Taliban and the Afghan Taliban both sought to implement sharia in their respective countries, and Afghan Taliban fighters used Tehreek-e-Taliban strongholds as safe havens. U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.) April 14 during a trip to Islamabad said Pakistan had to “ratchet up” its commitment to defeating militants. Kerry was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was considering a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid package for Pakistan. Militants Seize Neighboring District—

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Hundreds of heavily armed militants from Swat April 21 began streaming into the neighboring district of Buner, and by April 22 had effectively seized control of the district, which lay 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The development fueled concerns that the militants were gaining strength, and that the government was unwilling or incapable 276

of halting their ascendancy. It was reported April 23 that militant gangs were seen on the outskirts of the neighboring districts of Shangla, Swabi, Mardan and Mansehra. Militants April 22–23 reportedly seized control of Buner’s government buildings, looted local aid agencies, set up road blocks and began patrolling villages. Local law enforcement officials reportedly did not pose much resistance, and judges and officials stepped down from their posts. The militants April 23 reportedly signed a truce with local authorities similar to the cease-fire agreement in Swat that allowed the establishment of sharia. The invasion of Buner appeared to be a violation of the government’s cease-fire agreement with the militants, which required an end to violent activity. The army April 23 dispatched several hundred members of a constabulary force to Buner, but they were easily repelled by the militants, leading to the death of one soldier. Analysts said the army’s weak response showed that it was reluctant to unleash a heavy military operation against Pakistani citizens. The army’s commitment to defeating the country’s militants had long been questioned, since the army had played a central role in nurturing Pakistani-based militant groups that had fought insurgencies in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir. Additionally, the army continued to train its troops in conventional warfare—with an eye toward future conflicts with Pakistan’s traditional rival India—and was unprepared to conduct a counterinsurgency-like operations. The fall of Buner drew strong criticisms from U.S. officials. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 22 said Zardari was “basically abdicating” to the militants, who posed “a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 22–23 met with Pakistani Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, the army chief, to discuss the situation. Fundamentalist Cleric Granted Bail—

The Pakistani Supreme Court April 15 granted bail to fundamentalist cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who in July 2007 was arrested during an eight-day army siege of the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, in Islamabad. The siege ended when the army stormed the mosque, killing more than 100 people, many of whom were students calling for sharia in Pakistan. The incident sparked an Islamist backlash against the government, and many extremists still considered it a point of grievance against the government. Aziz since July 2008 had largely been under house arrest, and currently faced 26 charges, including involvement in terrorist acts. [See 2007, p. 442F2] Aziz April 17 addressed thousands of his followers at the Red Mosque, saying, “Islam has been successfully brought to Swat because of the sacrifices of the students at the Red Mosque.” He added, “The day will come, not long from now, when Islam will spread to the entire country.” Aziz’s followers at times reportedly chanted, “The blood of martyrs will lead to Islamic revolution.”

Critics said Aziz’s release showed that the government did not have the political strength to prosecute extremist leaders with a large popular following. Pakistan’s authorities had a long history of arresting extremist leaders charged with terrorism, only to subsequently release them. Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o A suicide bomber April 18 killed at least 20 people, many of them members of Pakistan’s security forces, at a checkpoint in the Hangu district of NWFP. The army was conducting operations in a nearby tribal area of Orakzai, which was largely outside government control and thought to be a base of operations for Hakimullah Mehsude, a senior leader in Tehreek-e-Taliban. [See p. 229D2] o The Pakistan Donors’ Conference, comprised of more than 20 countries, April 17 pledged $5.3 billion in aid to Pakistan, in order to bolster a deteriorating economy that analysts said could further undermine security and stoke militant fervor. The aid came on top of a $7.6 billion loan Pakistan had arranged with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2008 and $15 billion in previously committed aid. In the latest aid package, the U.S. and Japan each pledged $1 billion, while Saudi Arabia committed $700 million. The conference was held in Tokyo, Japan, and was cohosted by the IMF. [See 2008, p. 890F3] o Rehman Malik, head of Pakistan’s interior ministry, April 13 announced that police had arrested a suspect in the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed more than 170 people. Malik said Shahid Jamil Riaz was the fifth suspect arrested, and that four more remained at large. Indian officials had blamed the attack on Lashkar-eTaiba, a Pakistani-based Islamic militant group. [See p. 103C2] o One policeman was killed and three others were wounded April 9, during riots in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. The riots began after the discovery of the mutilated remains of three Baluchi separatist politicans who were believed to have been abducted April 2 or 3. The U.S. embassy confirmed that one of the politicans, Ghulan Mohammad Baloch, had helped facilitate the release of U.S. aid worker John Solecki, who had been kidnapped from the province in February and freed in early April. [See p. 229E2] n

Sri Lanka Civilians Trapped as Army Squeezes Rebels.

The Sri Lankan army April 20 broke through an earthen barrier surrounding the last redoubt of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group, which was cornered into a thin slice of land in the country’s northwest that was thought to be no larger than five square miles (13 square km). As of April 23, as many as 100,000 civilians had fled the rebel stronghold, but between 20,000 and 60,000 were thought to be trapped there and caught in the fighting. The FACTS ON FILE

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) April 21 described the deteriorating humanitarian situation as “nothing short of catastrophic.” [See p. 119E1] The army’s latest offensive appeared to presage the end of a civil war that had been fought on and off since 1983, and had claimed more than 70,000 lives. The LTTE was fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil ethnic group, which it said had been discriminated against and marginalized by the country’s majority Sinhalese. But the Sri Lankan government and other countries, including the U.S., considered the LTTE to be a terrorist organization. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had vowed to defeat the rebels militarily, and the army over the past year had made steady gains against the rebels, who as recently as 2005 had controlled nearly a third of Sri Lanka’s territory. Since April 12, when fighting was halted for two days to allow civilians to flee, the Sri Lankan government had consistently ignored international calls to enter a negotiated cease-fire with the rebels to allow civilians to leave the war zone, saying that would allow the rebels to regroup. Meanwhile, the rebels were accused of preventing civilians from leaving and using them as human shields. The LTTE accused the army of killing 1,000 civilians through indiscriminate bombardment of its stronghold, but the government said civilian casualties were much lower than that. The government said rebels were shooting at civilians trying to escape and detonating suicide bombs in their midst. Casualty numbers were difficult to independently verify, since reporters and aid agencies were barred from the war zone, but the ICRC estimated that hundreds of civilians had been killed since April 20. The United Nations estimated that 4,500 civilians had been killed since the beginning of 2009. The U.N. said no aid had been delivered to the war zone since April 1. Government Demands Rebel Surrender—

After breaking through the barrier surrounding the stronghold, which the army had once designated a “safe zone” free from fighting, the Sri Lankan government April 20 gave the LTTE 24 hours to surrender. In response, the LTTE reiterated its call for a cease-fire without preconditions, “as urged by the U.S. and other members of the international community,” a request that the government rejected. Rajapaksa that day said, “The process of the complete defeat of the LTTE has just begun,” adding, “It is now all over for the Tigers.” But as of April 23, the rebels were still resisting the army’s onslaught. State television April 20 showed civilians fleeing the war zone, and Rajapaksa described the military operation as the “largest-ever hostage rescue mission in history.” Fugitives from the war zone were placed in government camps in the nearby town of Vavuniya. Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama April 23 appealed for international aid, saying the camps were short of clean water, medical supplies and shelter. Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said about 400 fugitives had been wounded in the fighting. April 23, 2009

The government April 22 announced that two top LTTE officials had surrendered. The officials were Velayutham Dayanithi, known as Daya Master, and Kumar Pancharathnam, known as George. Master was an LTTE spokesman and George had worked as a translator in the group’s political wing. The surrenders were considered a rare occurrence, since LTTE fighters in the past had often resorted to drinking vials of cyanide that many of them carried on their person, in order to kill themselves and avoid capture. Rajapaksa had said he would not pardon LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, whose whereabouts were unknown, though some believed he was also in the war zone. International Reaction—Mexican ambassador to the U.N. Claude Heller, who currently held the Security Council’s rotating presidency, April 22 said, “We demand that the LTTE immediately lay down arms,” and added, “We urge all parties, including the government of Sri Lanka, to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and to allow international and humanitarian agencies access to those affected by the fighting.” The Sri Lankan conflict was not on the council’s agenda, since Russia and China, both of which held veto power, considered the conflict an internal affair that did not pose a threat to international stability. The U.S., France and Britain—the remaining council members with veto power—had reportedly called for a stronger reaction from the Security Council. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 22 said, “I think that the Sri Lankan government knows that the entire world is very disappointed that in its efforts to end what it sees as 25 years of conflict, it is causing such untold suffering.” India, home to a sizable Tamil population, called for an end to civilian casualties. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee April 22 said, “These killings must stop. The Sri Lankan government has a responsibility to protect its own citizens. And the LTTE must stop its barbaric attempt to hold civilians hostage.” n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Baseball Major League Baseball Season Opens. The Major League Baseball (MLB) season

opened April 5 with a 4–1 victory by the visiting Atlanta Braves over the defending World Series–champion Philadelphia Phillies. The rest of the league’s teams opened their seasons April 6–7. The season started later than usual due to the World Baseball Classic, which had been played in March and won by Japan. [See p. 190B2; 2008, p. 799D2] MLB’s off-season had been dominated by more revelations about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. Most prominent was the admission in February by New York Yankees star third baseman Alex Rodriguez that he had taken the drugs from 2001 to 2003, when he

played for the Texas Rangers. Also, the start of former star slugger Barry Bonds’s trial on perjury charges, which had been scheduled for early March, was delayed until at least July. [See p. 158D2, C3] The new season marked the opening of two new stadiums in New York City, for the Yankees and the New York Mets. [See 2008, p. 710G2]

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Nationals’ GM Quits in Prospect Scandal—

Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden March 1 resigned after four years at the job. His resignation came in the wake of a Feb. 18 revelation by team President Stan Kasten that a Dominican prospect Bowden had signed in 2006, 16-year-old Esmailyn Gonzalez, had falsified both his name and his age (his real name was Carlos Daniel Alvarez Lugo, and he was four years older than he claimed) by giving false documents to the Nationals, who then gave those documents to MLB. [See 2006, p. 587C1] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since 2008 had reportedly been investigating MLB teams’ largely unregulated scouting operations in the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries. The FBI was said to be investigating Bowden and Jose Rijo, a special assistant to the Nationals who was involved in operating its player development facility in the Dominican Republic, for allegedly taking kickbacks from Dominican players’ signing bonuses. (The Nationals had given Lugo a $1.4 million signing bonus.) The Nationals Feb. 26 fired Rijo and Jose Baez, the team’s director of operations in the Dominican Republic. Kasten March 4 said Mike Rizzo, the club’s assistant general manager and vice president of baseball operations, would take over Bowden’s duties on an interim basis. Other News—In other MLB news: o New York Mets outfielder Gary Sheffield April 17 hit the 500th home run of his career, becoming the 25th MLB player to reach that milestone. Sheffield, 40, April 3 had agreed to a one-year, $400,000 contract with the Mets. Sheffield three days earlier had been released by the Detroit Tigers, who would pay $13.6 million of his $14 million contract with him for the year. [See 2006, p. 986F1] o Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart, 22, early April 9 was killed in a car crash in Fullerton, Calif., about five miles from Angel Stadium. Two other people who were riding with Adenhart were also killed, after their vehicle was struck by a drunk driver who had run a red light. A few hours earlier, Adenhart had had one of the most promising outings of his young career, pitching six scoreless innings against the Oakland Athletics. In light of Adenhart’s death, the Angels postponed their game scheduled for later April 9. The driver of the other car, Andrew Thomas Gallo, April 10 was charged with three counts of murder, and drunken driving. o Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada March 26 was sentenced to one year of probation in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., for lying to Congress about his knowledge of performance-enhancing drug 277

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use among MLB players. He had pleaded guilty in February. Tejada, 34, was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service. [See p. 87E3] o Pitcher Curt Schilling, 42, March 23 announced his retirement. Schilling had pitched for five teams in his 23 seasons in MLB, and was an All-Star six times. The highlights of his career included the 2001 World Series, when he shared most valuable player (MVP) honors with Arizona Diamondbacks teammate Randy Johnson after defeating the Yankees. Schilling was also a key member of the Boston Red Sox’s 2004 and 2007 World Series–winning teams. He had missed all of the 2008 season due to injury. [See 2007, p. 723E2; 2004, pp. 849C3–850D1; 2001, p. 893B2] o The Los Angeles Dodgers and outfielder Manny Ramirez March 4 agreed to a two-year, $45 million contract, after months of often contentious negotiations. [See 2008, p. 710G3] o Former Chicago White Sox left fielder Ken Griffey Jr., a free agent, Feb. 18 agreed to a one-year, $2 million contract, plus incentives, with the Seattle Mariners, the team with which he had started his career. [See 2008, p. 711B1] o Former Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe, a free agent, Jan. 13 agreed to a four-year, $60 million deal with the Braves. [See 2005, p. 39F2] o Pitcher John Smoltz, a free agent who had spent his entire 20-year career with the Braves, Jan. 8 agreed to a one-year, $5.5 million contract with the Red Sox. [See 2003, p. 778E2] o Former Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi, a free agent, Jan. 7 finalized a oneyear, $5.25 million contract with the A’s. [See 2007, p. 832G3] o Phillies reliever J.C. Romero—who appeared eight times in the 2008 postseason and earned two wins in the World Series—Jan. 6 was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The positive test had occurred in August 2008, but Romero appealed his suspension, allowing him to participate in the postseason. [See 2008, p. 799G3] n

Basketball NBA Season Ends. The National Basketball Association (NBA) season ended April 15, with 16 of the league’s 30 teams advancing to the playoffs. The top eight teams each in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference would compete in the postseason. [See 2008, p. 858C2] The Eastern Conference’s Cleveland Cavaliers posted the best record (66 wins and 16 losses) in the NBA. The Cavaliers entered the final game of the season with only one loss at home, looking to tie the alltime home record of 40–1, set by the Boston Celtics in the 1985–86 season. However, with many of the squad’s regular starters resting for the playoffs, the visiting Philadelphia 76ers April 15 defeated the 278

2008–09 NBA Statistical Leaders*

NBA 2008–09 Final Standings EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division W L Pct.

*Boston *Philadelphia New Jersey Toronto New York

62 41 34 33 32

*Cleveland *Chicago *Detroit Indiana Milwaukee *Orlando *Atlanta *Miami Charlotte Washington

GB

.756 .500 .415 .402 .390

— 21 28 29 30

Central Division W L Pct.

GB

66 41 39 36 34

20 41 48 49 50

SCORING

.805 .500 .476 .439 .415

— 25 27 30 32

Southeast Division W L Pct.

GB

59 47 43 35 19

16 41 43 46 48 23 35 39 47 63

.720 .573 .524 .427 .232

— 12 16 24 40

WESTERN CONFERENCE Southwest Division W L Pct.

*San Antonio *Houston *Dallas *New Orleans Memphis *Denver *Portland *Utah Minnesota Oklahoma City *L.A. Lakers Phoenix Golden State L.A. Clippers Sacramento

54 53 50 49 24

GB

.659 .646 .610 .598 .293

— 1 4 5 30

Northwest Division W L Pct.

GB

54 54 48 24 23

28 29 32 33 58

.659 .659 .585 .293 .280

— — 6 30 31

Pacific Division W L Pct.

GB

65 46 29 19 17

28 28 34 58 59 17 36 53 63 65

.793 .561 .354 .232 .207

— 19 36 46 48

*In playoffs

Cavaliers, 111–110, in overtime. Cavaliers coach Mike Brown April 20 was named NBA coach of the year. The Los Angeles Lakers had the best record (65–17) in the Western Conference for the second straight season. The Lakers won the Pacific Division by a decisive 19 games, separating themselves from the rest of the contenders in the typically competitive West. The other seven Western playoff teams were in tighter competition, with many of the postseason rankings determined on the final day of the regular season. Resurgent Wade Tops All Scorers—Miami Heat guard Dwayne Wade, 27, had struggled with injuries and poor team performances since winning the NBA title with the Heat in 2006. Wade returned to form in the 2008–09 season, winning the NBA scoring title with an average of 30.2 points per game. New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul, 23, led the league in assists for the second straight year, averaging 11 per game. Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, 23, defended his rebounding title by grabbing 13.8 rebounds per game. Howard also led the league in blocked shots, with an average of 2.9 per game, becoming just the

Wade, Miami James, Cleveland Bryant, L.A. Lakers Nowitzki, Dallas Granger, Indiana Durant, Oklahoma City Paul, New Orleans Anthony, Denver Bosh, Toronto Roy, Portland

G

MPG FG% FT%

Avg.

79 81 82 81 67 74 78 66 77 78

38.6 37.7 36.1 37.7 36.2 39.0 38.5 34.5 38.0 37.2

.491 .489 .467 .479 .447 .476 .503 .443 .487 .480

.765 .780 .856 .890 .878 .863 .868 .793 .817 .824

30.2 28.4 26.8 25.9 25.8 25.3 22.8 22.8 22.7 22.6

Tot.

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REBOUNDING

Howard, Orlando Murphy, Indiana Lee, New York Duncan, San Antonio Okafor, Charlotte

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Off.

Def.

79 73 81 75 82

336 146 256 201 275

757 1093 13.8 715 861 11.8 695 951 11.7 599 800 10.7 552 827 10.1

ASSISTS

Paul, New Orleans Williams, Utah Nash, Phoenix Calderon, Toronto Kidd, Dallas

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78 68 74 68 81

861 725 717 607 702

11.0 10.7 9.7 8.9 8.7

BLOCKED SHOTS G

No.

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Howard, Orlando 79 231 2.92 Anderson, Denver 71 175 2.46 Camby, L.A. Clippers 62 132 2.13 Turiaf, Golden State 79 168 2.13 O’Neal, Miami/Toronto 68 136 2.00 *The complete names of the players are found in the index.

fifth player to lead both categories since the block became an official statistic in 1973. The other NBA players to do so were Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ben Wallace. Howard April 21 won the defensive player of the year award. Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose April 22 was honored as the rookie of the year. After topping the NBA draft in June 2008, Rose averaged 16.8 points per game, and led all rookies with 6.3 assists per game. With the addition of Rose, the Bulls improved to a .500 record, enough to earn a playoff berth in the East. Injuries Plague Playoff Teams—Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers April 16 said star forward Kevin Garnett might miss the team’s entire playoff run because of a nagging knee injury that sidelined him for much of the previous two months. Also that day, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was hospitalized after suffering a minor heart attack. He left the hospital on April 19. In an early round playoff game the following day, backup forward Leon Powe tore a ligament in his left knee, forcing him to sit out the remainder of the postseason. Other stars of playoff teams had been sidelined earlier in the season with major injuries, including San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, Houston Rockets guard Tracy McGrady, Magic guard Jameer Nelson, Detroit Pistons guard Allen Iverson and 76ers center Elton Brand. The top-seeded Cavaliers and Lakers, however, had relatively healthy rosters. Five Elected to Hall of Fame—Five people April 6 were elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in FACTS ON FILE

Springfield, Mass. Topping the 2009 class was five-time most valuable player (MVP) of the NBA, Michael Jordan. As a guard for the Bulls, Jordan led the team to six league championships. Other honorees included former Utah Jazz guard John Stockton, who retired as the all-time NBA leader in both assists and steals; center David Robinson, who helped the Spurs to two titles during his career; Rutgers University women’s coach C. Vivian Stringer; and Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. They were scheduled to be inducted Sept. 10–12. [See 2008, p. 859C2] Other News—In other basketball news: o Former Pistons coach Flip Saunders April 21 signed a four-year deal to coach the Washington Wizards. He succeeded interim coach Ed Tapscott, who had replaced Eddie Jordan mid-season. Tapscott was expected to remain in the team’s front office. [See 2008, pp. 994F3, 439C3] o Florida International University April 15 introduced Isiah Thomas as the school’s new men’s basketball coach. Thomas had been fired as the head coach and team president of the New York Knicks in 2008, following several consecutive losing seasons and a sexual harassment lawsuit. He would forgo salary in the first year of his $1.1 million, five-year deal and donate that money to the school’s athletic program. [See 2008, p. 298F3] n

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Awards ‘N.Y. Times’ Wins Five Pulitzers. Colum-

bia University, acting on the recommendation of its Pulitzer Prize advisory panel, April 20 in New York City announced the winners of its 93rd annual Pulitzer Prizes. Each winner received a $10,000 award except in the category of public service, where the winning newspaper received a gold medal. [See 2008, p. 247C1] The New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes, in the categories of breaking news reporting, investigative reporting, international reporting, criticism and feature photography. The Times had exceeded that total only once, in 2002, when it won seven, the most Pulitzers ever won by a single news organization in one year. The nexthighest total was the six won by the Washington Post in 2008. [See box, p. 279A2; 2008, p. 247E1; 2002, p. 266F3] Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, which won two Pulitzers, for national reporting and feature writing, was the only other newspaper to win more than one Pulitzer in 2009. Its national reporting award was for its PolitiFact project, which had factchecked competing claims made during the 2008 presidential campaign. Most of the data gathered by the project had not appeared in print but had instead been posted on a Web site created for that purpose, PolitiFact.com. For the first time, onlineonly news outlets were allowed to compete for Pulitzer Prizes along with newspapers; however, none won any. [See 2007, p. 252G1] April 23, 2009

2009 PULITZER PRIZES ARTS AND LETTERS Fiction: Elizabeth Strout for Olive Kitteridge. History: Annette Gordon-Reed for The Hem-

mingses of Monticello: An American Family. [See 2008, p. 875F3] Biography: Jon Meacham for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Poetry: W.S. Merwin for The Shadow of Sirius. General Nonfiction: Douglas A. Blackmon for Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Music: Steve Reich for Double Sextet. Drama: Lynn Nottage for Ruined. [See 2008, p. 998E1] JOURNALISM Public Service: The

Las Vegas Sun for articles exposing lax safety standards at Las Vegas, Nev., construction sites that endangered the lives of workers at those sites. Breaking News Reporting: The staff of the New York Times for its coverage of the prostitution scandal that led to the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D, N.Y.) in March 2008. [See 2008, p. 161A3] Investigative Reporting: David Barstow of the New York Times for exposing links between the Pentagon and retired military officers presenting themselves as independent media analysts. [See p. 139G2–A3] Explanatory Journalism: Reporters Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times for exploring the growing problem of wildfires in the Western U.S. Local Reporting: Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of Mesa, Ariz.’s East Valley Tribune for

The current economic troubles of the U.S. newspaper industry had affected some of the winners. For instance, the Detroit Free Press, which shared the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting with two reporters from Mesa, Ariz.’s East Valley Tribune, had recently cut home delivery to three days a week, and had switched to an abbreviated print format on the other four days; furthermore, the Tribune had recently laid off one of its prize-winning reporters, Paul Giblin, 45. [See box, p. 279D2] The Pulitzer Prize for music went to leading minimalist composer Steve Reich, who had been a finalist for the prize at least a dozen times. Reich, 72, won the award for his 22-minute Double Sextet, which could be played either by 12 live instrumentalists or by six musicians playing against a tape recording. Reich became the second composer with roots in minimalism to win the prize, after John Adams in 2003. [See 2003, p. 280E2] Other Pulitzer winners in arts categories included poet W.S. Merwin, 81, and Newsweek magazine editor Jon Meacham, 39. Merwin won his second poetry Pulitzer for his 21st volume of poems, The Shadow of Sirius; he had previously won the award in 1971. Meacham won in the biography category for his best-selling book about 19thcentury U.S. President Andrew Jackson, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. [See 2008, p. 1000B1; 2006, p. 756B2; 1971, p. 703B2] n

demonstrating the pitfalls of law enforcement efforts concentrating too heavily on illegal immigrants, and the staff of the Detroit Free Press for baring the misconduct that led to the resignation of Detroit, Mich., Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his subsequent brief jailing. [See p. 139C3] National Reporting: The staff of the St. Petersburg Times for the Florida newspaper’s factchecking of competing political claims made during the 2008 presidential campaign. Feature Writing: Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times for her in-depth look at the life of a grossly neglected child. International Reporting: The New York Times for its coverage of the war in Afghanistan and the attendant major unrest in neighboring Pakistan. [See p. 275E3] Commentary: Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson for his commentary, from a black journalist’s perspective, on the political campaign that led to the election of Barack Obama as the U.S.’s first black president. Criticism: Holland Cotter of the New York Times for his art criticism. Editorial Cartooning: Steve Breen of the San Diego Union-Tribune; Breen had previously won a Pulitzer in 1998 while working for another newspaper. [See 1998, p. 260C2] Breaking News Photography: Patrick Farrell of the Miami Herald for photos of the destruction wrought by storms in Haiti in 2008. [See 2008, pp. 650B1–C1, 616A2] Feature Photography: Damon Winter of the New York Times for photos taken during Obama’s presidential campaign. [See above] Editorial Writing: Mark Mahoney of the Glen Falls, N.Y., Post-Star for editorials calling for greater transparency in local government.

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Rock Hall of Fame Inducts New Members.

The 24th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held April 4 at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland, home since 1995 of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, had hosted the induction ceremony only once before, in 1997. All the other ceremonies had taken place in New York City. [See 2008, p. 172A1; 1997, p. 368E1] For the first time ever, the ceremony was open to the public. One of the inductees, rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer and songwriter Bobby Womack, 65, was a Cleveland native, and his induction particularly gratified the sellout audience. Also inducted as a solo artist was guitarist Jeff Beck, 64, who had previously been inducted in 1992 as a member of the Yardbirds. Rockabilly and country singer Wanda Jackson, 71, who once dated singer Elvis Presley, was inducted as an early influence. Two instrumentalists who had played with Presley, drummer D.J. Fontana, 78, and bassist Bill Black, who died of a brain tumor in 1965 at the age of 39, were both inducted in the sidemen category. Also inducted as a sideman was keyboardist Spooner Oldham, 65, who had worked with such artists as Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan. [See 2002, p. 267C3; 2001, p. 259F2; 1992, p. 48D2] Three groups were also inducted: the heavy metal group Metallica; the R&B and doo-wop group Little Anthony & the Impe279

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rials, whose first single, “Tears on My Pillow” (1958), catapulted them to fame; and the pioneering hip-hop group Run-DMC, only the second rap group to be inducted, after Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in 2007. One member of Run-DMC, disc jockey Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell), was honored posthumously; he had been shot dead in a New York City recording studio in 2002. [See 2007, p. 168D1; 2002, p. 924E3] n WWI Film Tops Canadian Awards. The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television April 4 presented its 29th annual Genie awards during a ceremony at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian capital. Ottawa hosted the Genies for the first time: they had previously been held either in Toronto, Ontario, or Montreal, Quebec. [See 2008, p. 187B2] The Genie for best picture was won by Passchendaele, whose title referred to a town in Belgium where World War I Canadian forces engaged in a memorable battle, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The film was directed and written by Paul Gross, who also starred in it, portraying a soldier loosely modeled after his grandfather, a Canadian survivor of the battle. The film April 4 also won Genies in four technical categories; it had previously been announced as the winner of the 2008 Golden Reel Award, in recognition of its having been the top-grossing Canadian film of the year. Gross had been nominated for best actor but lost out to Natar Ungalaaq, who was honored for his portrayal of an Inuit hunter in Ce qu’il faut pour vivre (The Necessities of Life), a film with dialogue in both French and Inuktitut. That film won a total of four Genies, including those for best director—Benoit Pilon—and for best original screenplay—by Bernard Emond. The best actress Genie went to Ellen Burstyn, for her role in The Stone Angel, an adaptation of a novel by Canadian author Margaret Laurence. [See 1987, p. 8D3] n

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team of geneticists Feb. 12 announced that they had sequenced a rough draft of the genome of the Neanderthal, a hominid species that lived in Europe between 30,000 and 300,000 years ago. The team’s leader, Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, announced the team’s findings over a video link to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. [See 2008, p. 996D1; 2006, p. 943E1] The team isolated 3.7 billion base pairs of usable DNA from fossils from six Neanderthals, allowing them to reconstruct 63% of the total Neanderthal genome. Most of the DNA came from a fossilized thighbone of a female uncovered in a cave in Vindija, in Croatia, with additional fossils coming from four other European archaeological sites. Paabo said the genome was less than 3% contaminated with modern human DNA from scientists and museum curators who 280

had handled the fossils; a previous genome analysis by Paabo had been 10% contaminated. According to the draft genome, there was practically no trace of Neanderthal genes in the modern human genome. That contradicted claims that there had been interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans of their era. Also, Paabo’s analysis of the gene FOXP2, which was considered essential for language, showed that the Neanderthal’s version of the gene had similarities to the one in modern humans, indicating that Neanderthals might have been able to communicate by speech. n

Paleontology Paleontologist Pleads Guilty to Fossil Theft.

Nathan Murphy, a prominent paleontologist, April 14 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Mont., to stealing fossils from public land. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for July 9, but prosecutors were not seeking jail time under the plea agreement. Murphy, who was self-taught and did not possess any advanced degrees, in 2000 had led a team that discovered the world’s best-preserved dinosaur, a mummified duckbilled hadrosaur known as Leonardo. [See 1997, p. 739D1; 1996, p. 849G3] Prosecutors said Murphy had stolen fossilized dinosaur bones from public land near Malta, Mont. They said the fossils were valued at about $3,000, and that he had done more than $17,000 worth of damage in committing the theft. Another case in which Murphy was accused of stealing fossils from private land was still under investigation. Murphy in an interview published by the New York Times Jan. 22 had admitted to finding the fossils on privately owned property in 2002, but said he believed he had an agreement to excavate there. President Barack Obama in March had signed a public land management bill that contained for the first time specific penalties for the theft of fossils from public lands. [See p. 245G3] n

People The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., April 13 announced the appointment of poet laureate Kay Ryan to a second oneyear term. Ryan, 63, was originally appointed to the post in July 2008. She would officially conclude her first term in May by giving a reading at the Library of Congress, and would reassume the post in the fall. [See 2008, p. 512D2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BALLARD, J(ames) G(raham), 78, British novelist and short story writer whose wide-ranging, provocative work included apocalyptic science fiction, as well as dystopian tales about the baneful effects of technology on modern civilization and fictionalized autobiography; two of his best-known novels, Crash (1973), about people erotically obsessed with car accidents, and Empire of the Sun (1984), based on his boyhood experiences in Shanghai, China, during the Japanese occupation of that city during World War II, were

made into major films, the latter by Steven Spielberg (1987) and the former by David Cronenberg (1996); born Nov. 15, 1930, in Shanghai; died April 19 in London, of prostate cancer, with which he had been diagnosed in 2006. [See 1987, p. 944F1] BEER, Samuel Hutchison, 97, political scientist who wrote several notable books on British governments, including British Politics in the Collectivist Age (1965); he taught at Harvard University from 1946 to 1982 and was national chairman of the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action from 1959 to 1962; born July 28, 1911, in Bucyrus, Ohio; died April 7 at his home in Washington, D.C. [See 1998, p. 886D1; 1969, p. 100E3; Indexes 1961, 1959] BLANCHARD, Doc (Felix Anthony Blanchard Jr.), 84, powerful fullback who teamed with halfback Glenn Davis on the unbeaten Army football teams of the mid-1940s to form perhaps the greatest backfield in college football history; he rushed for 38 touchdowns and gained 1,908 yards in his three seasons (1944–46) at West Point, and was the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy (in 1945) and the first football player to win the Sullivan Award as the U.S.’s top amateur athlete (in early 1946); he never turned pro but had a long career as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot; born Dec. 11, 1924, in Bishopville, S.C.; died April 19 at his home in Bulverde, Texas, of pneumonia. [See 2005, p. 176G1; 1946, pp. 394K, 24G; Index 1945] DRUON, Maurice, 90, French author who, as an exile in London during World War II, collaborated with his writer-uncle, Joseph Kessel, on the French lyrics to “The Song of the Partisans,” which became the unofficial anthem of the French Resistance; the song’s original, Russian-language lyrics—and melody—were by Russian-born cabaret artist Anna Marly, who died in 2006; after the war, Druon wrote a series of novels, one of which—Les Grandes Familles—won the prestigious Goncourt Prize in 1948; a member of the French Academy since 1966, he was France’s minister of culture from 1973 to 1974; born April 23, 1918, in Paris; died there April 14, of various cardiovascular problems. [See 2006, p. 199G2; 1974, p. 180G3; Indexes 1973, 1948] FREUD, Sir Clement (Raphael), 84, German-born British journalist, radio personality, restaurateur, bon vivant, and Liberal member of Parliament from 1973 to 1987, the year he was knighted; he was a grandson of psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud and a brother of painter Lucian Freud; born April 24, 1924, in Berlin; died April 15 at his home in London. [See 2008, pp. 996G2, 459F1] GEORGE, Lord (Edward Alan John George), 70, governor of the Bank of England, 1993–2003; during his tenure, after Tony Blair became Britain’s prime minister in 1997, the bank for the first time in its history obtained the power to control interest rates; generally known as Eddie George, he was knighted in 2000 and made a life peer in 2004; born Sept. 11, 1938, in Carshalton, England; died April 18, after a long battle with cancer. [See 2003, pp. 560A3, 161F1; 2002, p. 971D3; Indexes 1993–99] KALAS, Harry (Harold Norbert), 73, longtime radio and television broadcaster for Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies; hired by the Phillies in 1971, he shared broadcasting duties with Richie Ashburn, a former center fielder for the team, until Ashburn’s death in 1997; he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame’s broadcasters’ wing in 2002; besides working for the Phillies, he did commercial voice-overs and narrated for NFL [National Football League] Films; born March 26, 1936, in Chicago; died April 13 after collapsing in the press box at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., before the start of a game that day between the Phillies and the Washington Nationals; his death was later found to have been caused by a preexisting heart condition. [See 1997, p. 700D2] MADDOX, Sir John (Royden), 83, British physicist turned science journalist who, as a longtime editor of the British science magazine Nature (1966–73 and 1980–95), helped bolster its reputation as a journal of record in reporting scientific breakthroughs; he was knighted in 1995; born Nov. 27, 1925, in Penllergaer, Wales; died April 12 in Abergavenny, Wales, of a chest infection and pneumonia contracted after breaking a hip. [See 1988, p. 798G3] SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky, 58, literary scholar who pioneered “queer studies,” which unearthed and analyzed homosexual content in books by authors ranging from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens to Henry James; her best-known work was Epistemology of the Closet (1990), published while she was teaching at Duke University; born May 2, 1950, in Dayton, Ohio; died April 12 in New York City, after battling breast cancer for years. n

April 23, 2009

World Health Organization Warns of Worldwide Swine Influenza Pandemic Threat At Least 257 Sickened in 11 Countries. The World Health Organization (WHO)

April 29 raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, the second-highest designation, after it was confirmed that dozens of people in several countries had contracted the A (H1N1) swine influenza virus. The WHO in its warning said a global swine flu pandemic was imminent. It was the first time the alert had been raised to Phase 5 since the system was created in 2005. The highest designation, Phase 6, meant that a global pandemic had begun. [See 2004, p. 29G3; 2003, p. 211F3; 1976, p. 224D2] WHO Director General Margaret Chan that day said, “All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans.” Health officials said they were especially concerned because they had never before encountered this strain of swine influenza, which could be passed from human to human. Chan said the decision to raise the alert level was made after it was determined that ongoing human-tohuman transmission of the flu was occurring in both the U.S. and Mexico. As of April 30, the WHO reported that 257 people in 11 countries had been confirmed to have the swine flu. However, hundreds more suspected cases of the disease had been reported, but had not yet been confirmed by laboratory tests. Mexico’s government reported 97 confirmed cases, with seven deaths resulting from the flu, although estimates numbered the suspected illnesses at around 1,500 and the deaths at roughly 170. The U.S. said it had confirmed 109 cases of the disease. The other countries that had confirmed cases of the virus were Austria (one), Canada (19), Germany (three), Israel (two), the Netherlands (one), New Zealand (three), Spain (13), Switzerland (one) and Britain (eight). The WHO did not recommend any travel restrictions or border closings to contain the outbreak. Experts said such closings would do little to minimize the transmission of the virus, and could in fact impede efforts to combat the disease by preventing the shipment of needed drugs and other medical equipment. However, the WHO did recommend that people exhibiting signs of illness refrain from traveling internationally, and seek medical attention. The WHO April 27 had raised the alert level from Phase 3 to Phase 4, a designation meaning that there was evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission of a new virus, and that it was spreading to new areas. There were also growing concerns that a possible pandemic could interfere with efforts to revive the slowing global economy. Virus First Detected in California— The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) April 21 reported that it had discovered a previously unknown strain of swine flu in two children living near San Diego, Calif., in areas that bordered Mexico. The CDC said one child had fallen ill on March 28 and the other on March 30, but that neither became seriously sick. CDC of-

ficials also said the virus seemed to have been created under rare circumstances in which two strains of the flu virus had infected the same cell, resulting in a new, hybrid strain in a process known as “gene reassortment.” The CDC April 23 reported that five new cases of infection had been discovered— three in the San Diego area, and two in San Antonio, Texas. Officials also said the virus contained elements of North American swine, bird and human flus, as well as a Eurasian swine flu, a combination never seen before. Also, none of those who had fallen ill had had any contact with pigs, leading health officials to believe that the virus had been transmitted from human to human. Much of Mexico Shut Down— Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa April 30 ordered the shuttering of nonessential businesses from May 1–5, over fears that hundreds of people in the country had been infected by the virus. However, it remained unclear how the government intended to enforce the order, and several businesses said they intended to defy it. Mexico’s government April 24 closed down schools and museums around Mexico City, the capital, and encouraged anyone exhibiting flu symptoms to stay at home. The government had first noticed a large number of flu illnesses in late March, after the flu season normally concluded. It sent samples to the U.S. and Canada for testing after learning of the new swine flu strain discovered in California. The WHO April 24 reported that there had been some 800 cases of flu in Mexico in recent weeks, with about 60 of them resulting in death. However, it was not clear if all of those deaths were caused by swine flu, or another type of flu virus. The WHO had confirmed only a small number of the cases to be swine flu, although the Mexican government had reported much larger illness and mortality figures that it said were “probably linked to the virus.” Many of the illnesses had progressed beyond the usual symptoms of the flu to serious pneumonia requiring hospitalization. Calderon April 25 issued an order granting the government emergency powers to deal with the outbreak. The government had instructed people to refrain from shaking hands or greeting one another with a kiss on the cheek. Government officials also began the process of closing restaurants and bars, and barred people from attending several public events, including concerts and sporting matches. Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova April 27 extended mandatory school and university closings across the country. The closings began April 28 and were scheduled to last until May 6. The drop-off in business and tourism that ensued from the swine-flu scare had resulted in losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars in Mexico City. The World Bank April 26 said it had authorized

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Volume 69, No. 3567* April 30, 2009

B $25 million in financial aid to Mexico to pay for medical equipment and medicine. It remained unclear why the vast majority of fatalities tied to the flu outbreak had occurred in Mexico, or why most of the victims had been relatively young, between ages 20 and 50. Some health experts theorized that the immune systems of people who had not been exposed to a great number of flu viruses were overreacting, contributing to the deaths. U.S. Declares Emergency—U.S. officials April 26 declared a “public health emergency,” a move that allowed the government to free up funds for antiflu medications and release 25% of the nation’s stockpile of antiviral medications, which held a total of 50 million treatments. The government made the declaration after 20 cases of swine flu were detected in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE WHO warns of worldwide swine influenza pandemic threat; at least 257 sickened in 11 countries. PAGE 281

U.S. automaker Chrysler files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. PAGE 282

Sen. Specter switches parties, boosting Democratic majority.

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Obama holds 100th-day news conference. PAGE 285

House, Senate approve $3.56 trillion budget plan. PAGE 285

Supreme Court upholds fines for ‘fleeting expletives.’ PAGE 289

African National Congress dominates South African vote; Zuma set to become next president.

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Ecuadorean President Correa seen winning reelection. PAGE 294

Indonesia holds legislative elections. PAGE 295

Left-wing coalition wins Iceland’s elections. PAGE 295

Series of bombings kill over 180 in Iraq. PAGE 296

*First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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The CDC the same day said eight of the confirmed swine-flu cases had been detected in students who attended St. Francis Preparatory School, a private Roman Catholic school in Fresh Meadows, in the New York City borough of Queens. It was believed that students who had recently traveled to Mexico had brought the virus back to the U.S. City officials April 28 said hundreds of other New York City residents might have also contracted swine flu. U.S. President Barack Obama April 28 requested that Congress authorize $1.5 billion in supplemental funding to help combat a flu outbreak. Obama at a press conference later that day said the swine flu outbreak was “a cause for deep concern, but not panic.” However, Richard Besser, the acting director of the CDC, earlier that day said, “As this moves forward, I fully expect that we will see deaths from this infection.” Federal health officials said it would likely take until early November, or possible January 2010, to create a vaccine that could prevent the new strain of swine flu, the New York Times reported April 29. Officials said it would take additional years to manufacture enough vaccine to immunize people in other countries. A 23-month-old Mexican boy April 27 died in Houston, Texas, becoming the first person to die from swine flu in the U.S. The boy two weeks earlier had been visiting relatives in nearby Brownsville, Texas, on the Mexican border, when he fell ill. He was then airlifted to a Houston hospital, where he remained before dying. The CDC April 29 confirmed that he had contracted swine flu. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden during a television interview April 30 said he had advised family members to avoid subways and airplanes for fear they would contract swine flu, eliciting criticism from the travel industry. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs later that day said Biden had misspoken, and had intended only to suggest that those exhibiting symptoms of the illness refrain from air travel or using public transportation. The White House April 30 also said a member of the Obama administration who had traveled to Mexico in mid-April as part of a presidential visit had contracted swine flu. The man had reportedly returned to his home in Severna Park, Md., and spread the flu to his wife and son, but all three had recovered from the illness. White House officials said the man had never presented a health threat to Obama. Also, the U.S. Department of Education April 30 estimated that 300 schools in 11 states had closed in response to the flu outbreak. Most of the closed schools were in Texas. Other Countries—Canada April 26 confirmed its first cases of swine flu. Health officials in Spain and Scotland April 27 said they had detected their first cases of the virus, the first time swine flu had been detected outside North America. Cases of the disease April 29 were confirmed in Austria, Germany, Britain, New Zealand and Israel. The virus April 30 was also 282

confirmed in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Pork Trade Hit—Several countries, including Russia, China and the Philippines, April 27 said they would suspend the import of pork products from Mexico and some parts of the U.S., despite the fact that the virus was not believed to be transmitted through cooked meat products. The bans resulted in a drop in U.S. pork, corn and soybean prices. U.S. trade and agriculture officials April 28 warned countries not to ban its pork products. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk that day said such bans, “may result in serious trade disruptions without cause.” Egypt’s government April 29 said it had begun culling pig herds, despite WHO officials’ statements that such killings would not prevent the spread of the disease. The decision reportedly strained ties between the country’s Muslims, who did not eat pork, and its Coptic Christian minority. n

U.S. Automaker Chrysler Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Some Bondholders Reject Swap. U.S. Pres-

ident Barack Obama April 30 announced that Auburn Hills, Mich.–based automaker Chrysler LLC, which since December 2008 had been dependent on billions of dollars in federal government loans to continue its operations, would file for bankruptcy that day after the government was unable to agree on a debt-for-cash swap with all of the company’s bondholders, who owned about $6.9 billion in secured company debt. While Chrysler’s four biggest creditors—banks Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, which together owned about 70% of Chrysler’s secured debt—had accepted a government offer of $2 billion in cash for their share, a group of smaller investors rejected the swap, apparently believing they could get more back on their investments in bankruptcy court. [See below, p. 197A2] Chrysler filed its restructuring plan in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York City April 30. In a fact sheet distributed by the White House, the administration said daily operations at Chrysler would “continue operating in the ordinary course…the day after the filing will not be materially different than the day before the filing.” The administration ruled out the possibility that Chrysler would be liquidated, and Obama said he expected Chrysler to “emerge from this process stronger and more competitive.” Obama said Chrysler, while in bankruptcy restructuring, would also go through with a previously planned merger with Italian automaker Fiat SpA. Under the deal, Fiat would provide fuel-efficiency technologies to Chrysler in exchange for a stake in the company and use of Chrysler’s factories to produce Fiat vehicles for sale in the U.S. The alliance between the two automakers would result in the creation of

the sixth-largest automaker in the world. [See p. 198C3] A day earlier, the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union had approved contract modifications that the government had mandated in order for Chrysler to receive additional loans. The union agreed to a reduction in Chrysler’s retiree health care obligations; in exchange, the retiree health care trust would receive a 55% stake in the restructured company. [See below] Chrysler Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Nardelli April 30 said he would leave the company, with no severance package, and take a position at Cerberus Capital Management LP, Chrysler’s parent company, whose stake would be wiped out in the restructuring. Chrysler’s board of directors would be replaced, and the new board was expected to replace Nardelli. The U.S. Treasury would select four of the new directors, Fiat would select three directors, and the UAW and the Canadian government would each name one director. The bankruptcy filing was expected to lead to a protracted court battle between Chrysler’s creditors, dealers and parts suppliers. Chrysler’s bankruptcy restructuring would be the first by a U.S. automobile manufacturer since Studebaker Corp. in 1933. Chrysler, founded in 1925 as Chrysler Corp., had been rescued from the threat of bankruptcy by a federal package of loan guarantees in 1979. [See 1983, p. 543G3] Among the other of the U.S.’s “Big Three” Michigan-based car makers, General Motors Corp. (GM) had until May 31 to broker a deal with its bondholders and union workers, in order to present a sustainable restructuring plan to the government. The government April 24 had disbursed another $2 billion in loans to GM, bringing the total loaned to $15.4 billion. Ford Motor Co. had not accepted government loans, and despite posting a $1.4 billion loss April 24, said it did not expect that it would need government aid in 2009. Obama Pledges Swift Restructuring—

Obama April 30 pledged that Chrysler’s restructuring would be “quick, official and controlled,” and would lead to a new Chrysler that had “a balance sheet and a set of liabilities that are sustainable.” Officials estimated that the restructuring would last 30 to 60 days, though some analysts suggested that it could take much longer. Once restructuring was complete, Chrysler would receive approximately $4.7 billion in new government financing. Additional loans would come from the government of Canada, where Chrysler had substantial operations. The U.S. government would also provide up to $3.3 billion in “debtor-in-possession” funding for Chrysler to continue operating while it underwent bankruptcy restructuring. When Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, the UAW would own 55% of Chrysler, Fiat would own 20% with options to increase its stake to 35%, the U.S. government would hold 8%, and Canada 2%. Fiat FACTS ON FILE

would be able to increase its ownership stake after reaching certain milestones, such as manufacturing a vehicle for sale in the U.S. that performed at 40 miles per gallon of gasoline. Obama Blasts Holdout Creditors—Obama, in his April 30 address, sharply criticized the Chrysler bondholders who had refused the debt-for-cash swap. He said, “A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out…they were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none.” He said some had “demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting,” and added, “I do not stand with them.” The majority of Chrysler’s creditors would go ahead with the $2 billion cash-fordebt swap, and, accoring to the government fact sheet, “the Bankruptcy Court process will be used to confirm this treatment on those lenders that failed to accept the offer that was accepted by the majority.” The swap holdouts, in a collective statement released the same day, argued that their major investors were organizations like pension funds, teachers’ unions and school endowments, and they were legally required to protect their clients’ investments. They noted that none of the approximately 20 objecting companies had received aid from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), under which $700 billion had been disbursed to help ailing financial institutions. (The four banks that held the majority of Chrysler’s debt had all accepted TARP funds.) The holdout creditors also complained that GM’s secured debtholders were “being left unimpaired with 100% recoveries,” while Chrysler’s creditors were asked to take significant losses. [See 2008, p. 693A1] Parent Company To Give Up Stake—

Under the April 30 plan, Cerberus Capital Management LP, Chrysler’s parent company, would forfeit its entire 80.1% stake in Chrysler; Germany’s Daimler AG, which owned the remaining 19.1%, would see its stake wiped out as well. Both would waive their claims on Chrysler’s less-senior debt, and Daimler would forgive loans made to Chrysler in 2007, when Cerberus bought its stake from Daimler. Daimler would also pay $600 million into Chrysler workers’ pension fund. [See 2007, p. 309E1] Chrysler Financial, Chrysler’s financing company, which had accepted a $1.5 billion federal loan in January, would merge with GMAC LLC, the financing arm of GM and a major source of auto loans in the U.S. GMAC had accepted a $6 billion federal loan in December 2008. [See p. 47D3] UAW Approves Contract Modifications—

The UAW April 29 ratified contract modifications with Chrysler, under which Chrysler would pay $4.6 billion into a UAW retiree health care fund, and the health care trust would receive a 55% stake in Chrysler. Prior to the new contract, Chrysler had owed about $10 billion in retiree health care obligations. Workers also April 30, 2009

approved some wage cuts. Chrysler’s Canadian Auto Workers union April 26 had also approved concessionary contract modifications. [See p. 184C1] n

Global Economy World Bank, IMF Hold Spring Meetings.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) April 25–26 held their annual spring meetings in Washington, D.C., where IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the fund would soon issue bonds for the first time, in an effort to boost the IMF’s capacity to make loans to countries hard hit by the global economic crisis. The new plan was part of a drive by the Group of 20 (G-20) advanced and emerging economies to increase the amount of funds available to the IMF to $1 trillion, a goal they had set at a London summit in early April. [See p. 193A1] The G-20 had committed to increasing IMF funding to $750 billion, from its current $250 billion. (The G-20 also said the IMF would facilitate international trade by issuing $250 billion worth of Special Drawing Rights—financial instruments that acted like currency—to pad individual countries’ foreign currency reserves.) The U.S., Japan and the European Union had each pledged an additional $100 billion to the IMF, but India, China, Russia, Brazil and other emerging economies were reluctant to commit additional money until the IMF changed its voting structure to give them greater representation. Critics said small, European countries retained a disproportionate amount of influence at the IMF, which was created after World War II. By issuing bonds, the IMF could raise much-needed funds before addressing changes to its voting structure, which it was scheduled to do in 2011. Only central banks would be allowed to buy the bonds, which would be denominated in Special Drawing Rights, and have a maturity date of one to two years. Bond sales would finance an emergency credit line, known as the New Arrangement to Borrow, which had been established for countries that were considered economically sound but were struggling to obtain credit because of the global downturn. The credit line was free of the requirements that the IMF traditionally imposed on borrowers, such as spending cuts and tax increases. Mexico April 17 gained IMF approval for a $47 billion loan through the credit line. Colombia April 21 had requested a $10.4 billion loan from the credit line, and Poland April 14 had requested a $20.5 billion loan. G-7 Sees ‘Signs of Stabilization’— Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) advanced economies—the U.S., Britain, France, Japan, Canada, Germany and Italy—April 24 held a meeting in Washington, and later issued a communique saying that “the pace of decline in our economies has slowed and some signs of stabilization are emerging.”

However, G-7 officials warned that countries had to act quickly to resolve problems in the financial system if the global economy was to recover. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said, “If we do not fix the banks, we will not fix the economy.” [See p. 177A1] The G-7 also encouraged China to continue “its commitment to move to a more flexible exchange rate.” The U.S. and other countries had long pressed China, which controlled the value of the yuan against the U.S. dollar, to allow it to rise from what critics called an artificially low level that made China’s exports cheaper and increased its trade surplus. [See p. 30C2] (The U.S. Treasury, in an April 15 semiannual report to the U.S. Congress, declined to formally label China, or any other country, a currency manipulator. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a January statement before his confirmation had suggested that China was “manipulating” its currency, a finding that could prompt retaliatory measures.) Economic officials from the G-20— which included the G-7 and emerging economies like China, India and Brazil— also held a meeting later that day in Washington, which U.S. Treasury officials said was intended to “build on” the progress made at the London meeting in early April. IMF Releases Economic Forecast—The IMF April 22 released its World Economic Outlook report, finding that the current global downturn “was by far the deepest global recession since the Great Depression.” The IMF said the global economy in 2009 would contract at a rate of 1.3%, and grow at an anemic 1.9% rate in 2010. Those were downward revisions from the IMF’s January forecast, which had said the global economy would grow at a rate of 0.5% in 2009, and at a 3.0% rate in 2010. [See p. 58E1] The IMF said countries in 2010 could need to enact additional fiscal stimulus measures—such as tax breaks and increased government spending—to bolster their economies. The IMF said the U.S. remained the “epicenter” of the downturn, and that its economy would contract at a 2.8% rate in 2009. The IMF said U.S. hopes for an economic turnaround depended on the success of a recently unveiled program to cleanse the banking system of toxic mortgage-backed assets and other unsalable credit derivatives. [See p. 291C3] The IMF April 21 reported that problems in financial markets between 2007 and 2010 could lead to a total of $4.1 trillion in losses for companies in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The IMF said U.S. companies had written down the value of their assets by $510 billion in 2008, and would make additional write-downs of $550 billion in 2009 and 2010. The IMF said the eurozone—comprised of the sixteen EU countries that used the euro currency—had only made $154 billion in write-downs in 2008, and would have to report an additional $750 billion in write-downs over the next two years, sug283

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court in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital, April 17 found four men connected with the file-sharing Web site Pirate Bay guilty of aiding copyright infringement. The defendants—the site’s founders, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde; and Carl Lundstrom, who had provided funding—were each sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.6 million) in damages. [See 2008, p. 854E2; 2007, p. 97A2, B3; 2006, p. 627D3] Pirate Bay was one of the world’s most prominent sites for sharing music, video and other files—many of them in violation of copyrights—with an estimated 22 million users reported in February. Pirate Bay did not actually host shared files, but provided links to files hosted elsewhere on the Internet. The charges had been supported by a consortium of international media and entertainment companies, led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The music industry had been particularly hard hit by illegal file-sharing. Early in the trial, which began Feb. 16, prosecutors had dropped a more serious charge of “assisting copyright infringement” after they could not convince the jury that Pirate Bay was illegally distributing files itself. The defendants were instead convicted of “assisting making available copyrighted content” relating to 33 specific files, and were ordered to pay damages to 17 different companies. The defendants said they would appeal the verdict, a process that could take several years, and that they would continue to operate Pirate Bay in the meantime. Sunde in an online press conference said the verdict was “bizarre” and added, “We can’t pay and we wouldn’t pay” the damages. A Swedish law banning illegal file-sharing and forcing Internet service providers to turn over information on file-sharers to copyright holders had taken effect April 1, reportedly triggering a sharp drop in Internet traffic in the country. Sweden had been known as a center of illegal file-sharing, and analysts said the drop was a sign that the law had deterred some people. Legislators were seeking to pass similar anti–filesharing laws in France and Britain. n

former Rep. Pat Toomey (R, Pa.), who had lost to him by less than two percentage points in the 2004 primary, despite Republican President George W. Bush’s support for Specter. [See 2004, p. 305E1] Toomey, 47, had announced April 15 that he would challenge Specter again. In order to do so, he resigned as president of the Club for Growth, an antitax group that had financed conservative primary challenges against a number of moderate Republican incumbents in Congress. Specter said that since he was first elected in 1980, “The Republican Party has moved far to the right.” He added, “Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.” He said his decision to cast the pivotal vote for Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package in February, along with just two other Republican senators and the Democratic majority, had angered Pennsylvania Republicans so much that it “caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable.” [See p. 89A1] However, he said, “My change in party affiliation does not mean I will be a partyline voter any more for Democrats than I have been for Republicans,” and that he would “not be an automatic 60th vote.” He said he would not yield in his opposition to a bill backed by Democrats, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier to organize unions by removing a requirement for secret ballots. He had first announced his opposition to the bill March 24, citing concerns that it would hurt businesses during the current recession. Supporters of the bill had counted on

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Sen. Specter Switches Parties, Boosting Democratic Majority Faced Difficult Republican Primary Fight.

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) April 28 announced that he had switched parties after 28 years in the Senate, leaving the Republican party to join the Democratic majority. Specter’s move tightened Democratic control of Congress, bringing the Senate Democrats within reach of the 60 votes they needed to prevent Republican filibusters. But Specter, 79, who was known as a moderate with an independent streak, warned that he would not be a “party-line voter” for Democratic President Barack Obama’s agenda. [See p. 242F2; 2004, p. 927F2] Specter was the first senator to defect from a party since 2001, when Sen. James Jeffords (Vt.) left the Republicans to become an independent caucusing with the Democrats. Jeffords’s switch shifted control of the Senate to the Democrats until the Republicans won it back in the 2002 elections. [See 2001, p. 385A1] Specter’s switch left the Democrats in their most dominant position since 1977– 78, during the administration of President Jimmy Carter, when they had 61 senators as well as a House majority. Neither party had boasted at least 60 senators since then. With Specter, the Democrats now had 59 members in their caucus, including two independents. They were also in a position to pick up one more seat, pending a legal battle over the November 2008 election in Minnesota, where Democrat Al Franken held a narrow lead over Republican Norm Coleman after a recount. Cites ‘Bleak’ Polls—In a statement to the media at the Capitol, Specter acknowledged that he had decided to switch parties after concluding, based on his own “bleak” polling, that he could not win a Republican primary for reelection to a sixth term in April 2010. He faced a challenge from

Facts On File World News Digest With Index Ron Sachs–Pool/Getty Images

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gesting that European financial institutions had not moved as quickly as their U.S. counterparts to address systemic instabilities. The IMF April 22 reported in its World Economic Outlook that the economy of the EU as a whole would contract at a 4% rate in 2009, further dimming the continent’s near-term economic prospects. The World Bank April 23 announced that it would lend developing countries $45 billion over the next three years for infrastructure development. The bank April 21 had said it would funnel $12 billion in loans to developing countries to bolster food, health and education programs. n

(ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

Sen. Arlen Specter (D, Pa.) at an April 29 news conference discussing his switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.

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him to provide the 60th vote to cut off debate on the bill and bring it to a vote, since he had been the lone Republican to do so in 2007, when the bill fell well short of that threshold. [See p. 165B1] Specter said Democratic leaders had promised him that he would retain his seniority on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees, as though he had been a Democrat since he was first elected to the Senate. Republican Reaction—Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, the executive body of the Republican Party, April 28 had harsh parting words for Specter, saying, “Let’s be honest—Senator Specter didn’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.” According to an April 28 Congressional Quarterly report, Specter voted against the Republican party line 38% of the time in 2008 and 51% of the time in 2007. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R, Maine), whose voting record was even more independent than Specter’s, said his defection showed that “the party is truly on its way to becoming a regional party.” Republicans had lost congressional seats, and voters, in the Northeast and the West in recent years, leaving the party with fewer moderates and an increasingly conservative base that had its stronghold in the South. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said Specter’s defection could leave the Republicans unable to “restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule.” Obama Welcomes Specter at Meeting—

Obama April 29 welcomed Specter to the Democratic Party at a White House meeting also attended by Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime Senate colleague of Specter’s from the neighboring state of Delaware. Biden had often pressed Specter over the past several months to switch parties. Specter said, “I think that I can be of assistance to you, Mr. President,” adding, “There are a lot of big issues we’re tackling now that I’ve been deeply involved in.” One of the issues he mentioned was funding for health research—he had survived recent bouts with cancer. Obama said, “I don’t expect Arlen to be a rubber stamp.” He added, “In fact, I’d like to think that Arlen’s decision reflects recognition that this administration is open to many different ideas and many different points of view.” Obama and Biden pledged to support Specter’s 2010 reelection bid as a Democrat, and Obama reportedly committed to campaign and raise money for Specter if necessary. n

Obama Administration Obama Holds 100th Day News Conference.

President Barack Obama April 29 held an hour-long, prime-time news conference at the White House to mark his 100th day in office. In an opening statement, Obama said his economic policies were designed April 30, 2009

not only to end the current recession but to build a “new foundation for growth.” He said, “I think we’re off to a good start, but it’s just a start,” adding, “We have a lot of work to do.” [See pp. 291C3, 285D1] Obama’s efforts to counter the most severe recession since the Great Depression had drawn comparisons to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s blitz of legislative activity in his first 100 days in office in 1933. [See 1945, p. 121K] The first question from reporters was about the spread of a new strain of swine influenza virus from Mexico and whether the U.S. was doing enough to contain it. Obama said his health advisers had not yet recommended closing the border, but “we have ramped up screening efforts” there. He noted that he had asked Congress for $1.5 billion in funding for vaccine research and stockpiling. [See p. 281A1] He urged people to take basic hygiene precautions, saying, “Wash your hands when you shake hands; cover your mouth when you cough. I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference.” Asked about the federal government’s recent moves to take ownership stakes in U.S. automakers General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, as well as in banks and other financial institutions, Obama said it was necessary to keep the companies afloat and prevent systemic risk to the economy. [See pp. 291G1, 282C2] But he denied that it reflected an ideological preference for government intervention in the private sector. He said, “I don’t want to run auto companies. I don’t want to run banks. I’ve got two wars I’ve got to run already. I’ve got more than enough to do. So the sooner we can get out of that business, the better.” Obama defended his decision to bar the use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects. The techniques were authorized by the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush, in legal documents recently declassified by Obama. Obama called one such method, waterboarding—which simulated drowning—a form of “torture.” He said the use of such techniques “corrodes the character of a country.” [See p. 289A2] Obama rejected recent claims by former Vice President Dick Cheney that the harsh interrogations were justified because they had extracted vital intelligence that thwarted terrorist plots. Obama said he had read the still-classified reports that Cheney referred to in his comments, but insisted, “We could have gotten this information in other ways.” In response to a question about the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalist Taliban fighters to the stability of Pakistan, Obama said the Pakistani government was “very fragile,” but he was “confident” that the country’s military could safeguard its nuclear weapons. [See p. 298B1] Asked about immigration reform, Obama said he backed legislation that would provide illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship, but indicated that he did not expect immediate action by Congress. He also said that an abortion rights bill was “not my highest legislative priority.”

Polls Show High Public Approval—

Most polls continued to show that public approval ratings for Obama’s performance remained high at the 100-day mark. The Web site RealClearPolitics.com’s average of 10 national polls taken April 21–28 showed Obama’s approval rating at 61.6% and disapproval at 30.9%. n

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Sebelius Confirmed as HHS Secretary.

The Senate April 28 voted, 65–31, to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Sebelius hours later was sworn in at a ceremony in her new office attended by President Barack Obama, thus completing Obama’s cabinet. Kansas Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson (D) the same evening was sworn in as governor. [See p. 221B1] Republicans had sought to delay Sebelius’s confirmation, citing her support of abortion rights. However, opposition to her had waned as fears of a possible swine flu pandemic grew. Democrats had intensified their calls for Sebelius’s confirmation, arguing that the post needed to be filled in order to effectively address the flu outbreak. Obama also sought Sebelius’s nomination in order to have her oversee his ambitious plans to overhaul the U.S.’s health care system. [See p. 245C2] The Senate Finance Committee April 21 had approved her nomination, 15–8. n

Federal Budget House, Senate Approve $3.56 Trillion Plan.

The House and Senate April 29 both voted to give final approval to a $3.56 trillion budget blueprint for fiscal year 2010, which would begin Oct. 1. No members of the Republican minorities in either chamber voted for the plan, which was known as a budget resolution. It was nonbinding, but set guidelines for tax and spending legislation to come later in the year. [See p. 217E3] The House voted, 233–193, to approve the resolution, with 17 Democrats voting against it alongside the Republicans. The Senate approved the plan by a vote of 53– 43; four Democrats (including Sen. Arlen Specter, who had announced his switch from the Republican Party the previous day) voted against it with the Republicans. [See p. 284A2] The plan largely followed President Barack Obama’s budget proposal issued in February, and its approval gave him a victory on his 100th day in office. But the congressional blueprint trimmed his overall spending request for domestic programs by about $10 billion and excluded some of his main tax proposals. The blueprint also omitted Obama’s proposal to set aside $250 billion in case the government needed more funds to stabilize the weakened financial system. The blueprint included controversial provisions that would prevent Republicans from using Senate filibusters to block Obama’s plans for health-care and studentlending reforms, which would expand the federal role in both of those markets. The so-called budget reconciliation instructions (continued on p. 289A1) 285

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THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: THE CABINET AND OTHER TOP OFFICIALS

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Following are biographies of cabinet members and top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration [See p. 285G1; 2005, p. 99A1]:

tary in November 2008. [See p. 44D1; 2008, pp. 738C1, 177D2] Geithner was married, with two children.

THE CABINET

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Robert Gates was born Sept. 25, 1943, in Wichita, Kan. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from the College of William and Mary in 1965, and a master’s in history from Indiana University in 1966. He received a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University in 1974. Gates joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1976, and eventually became one of the agency’s top Soviet analysts. He was assigned to the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) in 1974. Gates returned to the CIA in 1979, and in 1982 he became deputy director for intelligence. He was named deputy director of central intelligence in March 1986, and became acting director when William Casey became ill later that year. Casey resigned for health reasons in 1987, and President Ronald Reagan nominated Gates to succeed him. However, when the Senate began probing Gates’s role in the Iran-contra scandal, Gates withdrew from consideration. [See 1987, p. 140C2; 1986, p. 190G3] President George H. W. Bush named Gates deputy national security adviser in 1988. Gates held that position until 1991, when Bush nominated him to replace William Webster, who had succeeded Casey as director of central intelligence. In his confirmation hearing, the Senate again focused on his knowledge of the Iran-contra affair. Nevertheless, Gates was confirmed as the 15th director of the CIA, and headed the agency until 1993, when President Bill Clinton took office. In 2002, Gates became the 22nd president of Texas A&M University. [See 1991, p. 840F3; 1988, p. 973D1] President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the resigning Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, while Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission studying the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. Gates was confirmed the following month. As defense secretary, Gates oversaw the so-called surge that deployed 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, and also began reforms of Army medical facilities and the U.S. nuclear arsenal. President Barack Obama in December 2008 said he would retain Gates as defense secretary. [See 2008, p. 880B3; 2006, p. 924A2] Gates and his wife had two children.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was born Oct. 26, 1947, in Park Ridge, Ill. She received a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1969, and received a law degree from Yale Law School in 1973. At Yale, she met Bill Clinton, whom she married in 1975. They had a daughter, Chelsea, in 1980. Clinton pursued a career as a lawyer in Arkansas, where her husband won election as state attorney general and then governor. She became first lady of the U.S. upon his election as president in 1992. [See 1992, p. 8259A1] She became a controversial national figure during his presidency. Her leadership of a health-care reform task force drew criticism, and Congress abandoned her plan for universal health insurance in 1994. Her and her husband’s real-estate dealings came under scrutiny in the lengthy Whitewater investigation, and political opponents criticized her ethics in various other matters. The scandals culminated in Bill Clinton’s impeachment for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and his 1999 acquittal by the Senate. [See 2002, p. 209B2; 1994, p. 701B1] Making her first foray as a political candidate in her own right, Hillary Clinton won a New York Senate election in 2000. She won reelection in 2006, then launched a campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. She conceded defeat in June to then-Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) after a long primary battle. Obama, as president-elect, named her as his nominee for secretary of state in December 2008, and she was confirmed by the Senate in January. [See p. 29F2; 2008, p. 392A3; 2000, p. 855E1] Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner

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Timothy Geithner was born Aug. 18, 1961, in New York City. He spent his childhood in various countries—including India, China and Japan—and attended high school at the International School of Bangkok in Thailand. Geithner attended Dartmouth College, where he studied Chinese and Japanese, and graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in government and Asian studies. He graduated from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1985 with a master’s degree in international economics and East Asian studies. Geithner joined the Treasury Department in 1988, where he subsequently served in various positions under three administrations. From 1999 to 2001, he was the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, working for Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, both of whom were considered his mentors. (Summers was currently the director of the White House National Economic Council.) From 2001 to 2003, Geithner was the director of the policy development and review department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2003, Geithner was named president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a position he held until he was confirmed as Treasury secretary in January. As president of the New York Fed, Geithner played a central role in shaping the Bush administration’s response to the financial crisis that struck in 2008. President-elect Barack Obama nominated Geithner as Treasury secre-

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Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

Eric Holder Jr. was born Jan. 21, 1951, in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in American History and received his law degree in 1976 from Columbia Law School. He worked for the Justice Department from 1976 to 1988, was appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia as an associate judge in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan. He served as the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., from 1993 to 1997 following his appointment by President Bill Clinton. [See pp. 30F2, 16E2; 2008, p. 880C3] Holder was named deputy attorney general by Clinton in 1997, becoming the first black person to hold that position. During his tenure, he attracted controversy for approving the commutation of prison sentences for 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican nationalist group that had carried out terrorist acts, and for failing to block the pardoning of fugitive business-

man Marc Rich. In 2001, Holder temporarily held the position of Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush prior to the confirmation of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Holder joined the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP in 2001 as a partner. He also served as a senior legal adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Holder was married and had three children. Obama picked him as his nominee for attorney general in December 2008; he was confirmed by the Senate in February. [See p. 60E3] Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

Kenneth Salazar was born in Alamosa, Colo., on March 2, 1955, to a family that had settled in Colorado several generations ago, and was raised on a remote ranch without a telephone or electricity. He graduated from Colorado College in Colorado Springs in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, and then received a law degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1981. Salazar practiced private water and environmental law for several years before joining the administration of Colorado Gov. Roy Romer (D) in 1986 as chief legal counsel. In 1990, Salazar became the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, a post he held for four years. In 1994, he returned to the practice of private law, but won election as Colorado state attorney general in 1998. Salazar won reelection to the attorney general post in 2002, and then waged a successful candidacy for a U.S. Senate seat in Colorado in 2004, becoming the second Hispanic since 1977 to be elected to the chamber. Presidentelect Barack Obama in December 2008 announced his intent to nominate Salazar as secretary of the Interior Department. Salazar was confirmed by the Senate in January. [See p. 26C3; 2008, p. 918E1; 2004, p. 870B3] Salazar and his wife had two children. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack

Thomas Vilsack was born Dec. 13, 1950, in Pittsburgh, Pa., and was raised at an orphanage before he was adopted in 1951 by Bud and Dolly Vilsack. In 1972, Vilsack received a bachelor’s degree in history from Hamilton College in New York. He went on to earn a degree from Albany Law School, also in New York, in 1975. After receiving his law degree, Vilsack moved to Iowa, his wife Ann Bell’s home state. There Vilsack joined Bell’s father’s law practice. He began his political career in 1987 when he became mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. In 1992, Vilsack was elected an Iowa state senator, and in 1998 he was elected the first Democratic governor of Iowa in more than 30 years. He served as governor for two four-year terms. In 2006, Vilsack announced that he would run for president, but withdrew in 2007, citing inadequate funding. President-elect Barack Obama in December 2008 nominated Vilsack to serve as agriculture secretary, and he was confirmed by the Senate to the position in January. Vilsack was known as an advocate for agribusiness, and was also expected to significantly expand nutrition programs for children. [See pp. 26C3, 18A1] Vilsack and Bell had two adult children. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke

Gary Locke was born Jan. 21, 1950, in Seattle, Wash., to Chinese immigrants. He

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spent the first few years of his life in a public housing project for World War II veterans and their families. In 1972, Locke received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale University, and in 1975, received a law degree from Boston University. After receiving his law degree, Locke worked as a deputy prosecutor in King County, Wash., and in 1982 was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives. In 1993, Locke worked as King County’s chief executive, and in 1996, was elected Washington’s governor. He was the first and thus far the only Chinese American to serve as a state governor in the U.S. Locke was reelected to a second term in 2000. He declined to run for a third term, and stepped down in 2005 to work at an international law firm, where he cochaired its China practice. Locke was nominated as commerce secretary in February and confirmed by the Senate the following month. His confirmation came after two previous nominees for the post— New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.)—withdrew their candidacies. [See p. 181E3] Locke was married, with three children. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis

Hilda Solis was born Oct. 20, 1957, in Los Angeles. Solis, the daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Nicaragua, in 1979 graduated from California Polytechnic University with a degree in political science, and in 1981 received a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California. After college, she held several positions in the White House, working as an analyst for the civil rights division of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and in the Office of Hispanic Affairs. In 1985, Solis was elected a member of the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees. In 1992, Solis was elected a member of the California State Assembly, and in 1994, became the first Hispanic woman to be elected to the California State Senate. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000. Solis, who was married, was nominated to become labor secretary in December 2008, and was confirmed by the Senate in February. [See p. 113D1] Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen Sebelius was born May 15, 1948, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father, John Gilligan (D), served as the governor of Ohio from 1971 to 1975. Sebelius attended Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. From 1975 to 1978 she worked as a special assistant to the Kansas secretary of corrections. In 1978 she received her masters degree in public administration from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Sebelius from 1978 to 1986 served as the executive director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. In 1986 she made a successful bid for a seat in the Kansas House of Representatives, which she held until 1994. In that year she became the insurance commissioner for Kansas, serving two terms in the post. In 2002 she defeated Tim Shallenburger in the race for Kansas’s governorship, and was reelected in 2006. Sebelius’s victory made her and Gilligan the first father-daughter team to serve as governors in U.S. history. [See 2002, p. 855G1] Sebelius was an early supporter of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama nominated her as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services April 30, 2009

(HHS) in March, about a month after Obama’s first pick, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D, S.D.) withdrew his nomination due to tax problems. [See p. 129C1] Sebelius, who was confirmed as HHS secretary in April, was a Roman Catholic who supported abortion rights. She was married to federal Magistrate Judge Gary Sebelius and had two sons. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan

California at Berkeley in 1976; he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in physics at Berkeley from 1976 to 1978. [See pp. 26C3, 17A3; 1997, p. 778D3] Chu was hired by AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1978 and worked at the facility until 1987. During his time there, Chu carried out experiments involving the use of lasers and extreme cold to isolate and control atoms. He was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with William Phillips and France’s Claude Cohen-Tannoudji) for his work in that area. He was a professor of physics and applied physics at Stanford University from 1987 until 2004, when he became the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. President-elect Barack Obama nominated Chu as energy secretary in December 2008, and he was confirmed by the Senate in January. [See p. 26C3] Chu was married with two children from a previous marriage.

Shaun Donovan was born Jan. 24, 1966, in New York City. He received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Harvard University in 1987, and master’s degrees in architecture and public administration from Harvard in 1995. Donovan served as a special assistant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 1998 to 2000, during the administration of President Bill Clinton. In 2000, became the department’s deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing, where he was responsible for overseeing privatelyowned multifamily housing. After President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, Donovan served from 2001 to 2002 as a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission, which he advised on strategies to increase multifamily house production. During that time, he also was a visiting scholar at New York University, researching and writing on the preservation of public housing assistance. From 2002 to 2004, Donovan worked as Prudential Mortgage Capital Co.’s director of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and affordable housing initiatives. In 2004, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) tapped him as the commissioner of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where he was tasked with building 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2013. Donovan took a leave of absence in 2008 to work on the presidential campaign of thenSen. Barack Obama (D, Ill.). Obama, as president-elect, in December 2008 announced that he would appoint Donovan as HUD secretary, and he was confirmed in January. [See p. 30B1; 2008, p. 918F3] Donovan was married, with two sons.

Arne Duncan was born Nov. 6, 1964, in Chicago. Duncan, the son of two educators, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, with a degree in sociology. He also played on Harvard’s basketball team, and from 1987 to 1991, played professional basketball in Australia. From 1991 to 1998, Duncan served as director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a non-profit organization that advocated for better schools for poor children living in Chicago’s South Side. In 1992, he helped found Ariel Community Academy, a charter school, which he ran until 1998. From 1998 to 2001, he served as the director of Chicago’s magnet schools and as deputy chief of staff to Paul Vallas, who was then chief executive officer (CEO) of the city’s public school system. In 2001, Duncan was appointed by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) to serve as CEO of Chicago public schools, and held that position until he was confirmed by the Senate as education secretary in January. He had been nominated to the post in December 2008. [See pp. 26C3, 18C1] Duncan was married with two children.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki

Raymond LaHood was born Dec. 6, 1945, in Peoria, Ill. In 1971, he received bachelor’s degrees in education and sociology from Bradley University, in Peoria. From 1972 to 1974, LaHood worked as the director of Rock Island County Youth Services Bureau in Illinois. From 1974 to 1977, he was chief planner for the Bi-States Metropolitan Planning Commission in Illinois. He also worked briefly as a junior high school teacher. From 1977 to 1982, LaHood worked as an aide to Rep. Thomas Railsback (R, Ill.). From 1982 to 1983, he served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. From 1983 to 1994, he served as chief of staff to Rep. Robert Michel (R, Ill.), and in 1994 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 2009. Obama announced LaHood as his pick for transportation secretary in December 2008, and he was confirmed in January. [See p. 29C3] Lahood was married with four children. Energy Secretary Steven Chu

Steven Chu was born Feb. 28, 1948, in St. Louis, Mo., and was raised in Garden City, N.Y. He received his bachelor of arts degree in math and his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Rochester in 1970 and his doctorate in physics from the University of

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Eric Shinseki was born Nov. 28, 1942, in Lihue, on the island of Kauai in the then-territory of Hawaii. He received a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1965, and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the Army. He also earned a master’s in English literature from Duke University in Durham, N.C., in 1976, and attended the Armor Officer Advanced Course, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the National War College. Shinseki, after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, served two combat tours in the Vietnam War, acting as a forward artillery observer and a base commander. He was injured three times during the war, including losing the front of one of his feet in a mine blast. He subsequently moved up the ranks while serving in posts in the U.S. and Europe. Shinseki was promoted to the rank of four-star general in 1997, and assumed command of the 7th U.S. Army, Allied Land Forces Central Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzogovina. Shinseki became the Army vice chief of staff in 1998. Shinseki was named the Army’s chief of staff in 1999. In February 2003, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. would need several hundred thou287

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sand troops to stabilize Iraq after an invasion, which took place the next month. His views were rejected by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and the U.S. deployed a much smaller force. However, Shinseki was widely seen to have been vindicated by the subsequent course of the war and by President George W. Bush’s January 2007 decision to send some 30,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq after four years of a violent insurgency and civil strife. [See 2006, p. 875A3; 2003, pp. 451B3, 134D3; 1999, p. 493F2] Shinseki retired in June 2003 at the end of his four-year term, and served as a director for several companies, including defense contractors Honeywell International Inc. and Ducommun Inc. President Barack Obama in December 2008 announced his nomination as secretary of veterans affairs (VA), and he was confirmed in January. Shinseki, a JapaneseAmerican, was the first Asian-American to head the VA. [See p. 29G3; 2008, p. 901C3] Shinseki and his wife had two children.

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

Janet Napolitano was born Nov. 29, 1957, in New York City. She received a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University, where she was a recipient of a Truman Scholarship, in 1979 and received her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1983. She clerked for Judge Mary Schroeder of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1983 and subsequently joined the law firm of Lewis and Roca in Phoenix, Ariz.; she became a partner in 1989. She represented Anita Hill in her 1991 sexual harrassment lawsuit against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Napolitano was appointed U.S. attorney for Arizona by President Bill Clinton in 1993. She oversaw the Arizona portion of the investigation into the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla. She was elected as Arizona’s attorney general in 1998, becoming the first woman to hold the position. Napolitano was elected governor in 2002 and was reelected in 2006. During her tenure as governor, Napolitano was known for her moderate position on illegal immigration. President-elect Barack Obama named her as his nominee for homeland security secretary in December 2008. She was confirmed by the Senate in January. [See pp. 26C3, 17A1] Napolitano had never been married. She was a breast cancer survivor and had undergone a mastectomy in 2000. OTHER CABINET-RANK OFFICIALS

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Chair, Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer

Christina Romer was born Dec. 25, 1958, in Alton, Ill. She graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1981, and received a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985. From 1988 to 2008 she was an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where she specialized in the causes of the Great Depression and the government’s policy responses to it. Since 2003, she also served as co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), widely regarded as the preeminent arbiter of when U.S. recessions began and ended. President-elect Barack Obama nominated Romer to chair the council in November 2008, and she was confirmed by the Senate Jan. 28 [See 2008, p. 866A2] 288

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson

Lisa Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on Feb. 8, 1962, but was adopted and grew up in New Orleans, La. She graduated from New Orleans’s Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1983, and received her master’s degree in the same subject from Princeton University in New Jersey in 1986. Jackson served as a staff member of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 16 years. She joined the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in 2002, becoming commissioner in 2006. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) in October 2008 named Jackson as his chief of staff, and she assumed the post in December, only weeks before then–President-elect Barack Obama announced her nomination to head the EPA. The Senate unanimously confirmed her in January. [See p. 30D1; 2008, p. 902A1] Director, Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag

Peter Orszag was born Dec. 16, 1968, in Boston, Mass. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a doctorate in economics from the London School of Economics. He was an economics adviser to President Bill Clinton, then held positions at the Brookings Institution think tank, and served as director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office from 2007 to 2008. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk

Ronald Kirk was born June 27, 1954, in Austin, Texas. In 1976, he received degrees in political science and sociology from Austin College, and went on to earn a law degree from the University of Texas in 1979. Kirk, a Democrat, was elected the first black mayor of Dallas, Texas, in 1995, and served until 2001. Before his tenure as mayor, he had worked as Texas’s secretary of state and in the Dallas attorney general’s office. Kirk was nominated as U.S. trade representative in December 2008, and was confirmed by the Senate in March. [See p. 182A1] Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice

Susan Rice was born Nov. 17, 1964, in Washington, D.C. She received a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and received both a master’s and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University in England. She joined President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council (NSC) in 1993 as director for international organizations and peacekeeping. She became a special assistant to Clinton and the NSC’s senior director for African affairs in 1995. Rice served as assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1997–2001 and, following the end of the Clinton administration in 2001, she joined the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow in foreign policy in 2002. She worked as a senior foreign policy adviser for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Obama named her as his nominee for U.N. ambassador in December 2008, and she was confirmed by the Senate in January. [See p. 16A2; 2008, p. 880C3] White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel was born Nov. 29, 1959, in Chicago, Ill. He received a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1981 and a master’s degree in speech and communication from Northwestern University in 1985. He

served as a senior White House adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998. After a stint in investment banking, he was elected to Congress in 2002, representing a Chicago House district. He was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, when the Democrats won back control of the House and Senate. He won election as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in 2007. Obama tapped him as chief of staff in November 2008. [See 2008, p. 803F2] WHITE HOUSE STAFF National Security Adviser: James L. Jones Jr., 65. A retired four-star general, Jones had served as the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps from 1999 to 2003, and as commander of the U.S. European Command and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme allied commander Europe (SACEUR) from 2003 to 2006. In 2007 he served on an independent commission investigating Iraqi security forces. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later that year appointed him as a special envoy for Middle East security, working on Israeli-Palestinian issues. [See 2008, p. 880B3] White House Counsel: Gregory Craig, 64, partner at Williams & Connolly law firm in Washington, D.C., State Department director of policy planning in Clinton administration, represented President Bill Clinton at his Senate impeachment trial. White House Senior Advisers: David Axelrod, 54, campaign strategist, political consultant, Chicago Tribune reporter; Valerie Jarrett, 52, lawyer, businesswoman, Chicago city government official; Pete Rouse, 63, longtime congressional aide, chief of staff to former Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle (D, S.D.). Chairman, National Economic Council:

Lawrence Summers, 54, Treasury Secretary from 1999 to 2001, president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, appointed to the National Economic Council by President-elect Barack Obama in November 2008. [See 2008, p. 866G1] Press Secretary: Robert Gibbs, 38, spokesman for Barack Obama both in Senate and presidential campaign. OTHER Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair

Dennis Blair was born Feb. 4, 1947, in Kittery, Maine. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 and, as a Rhodes scholar, received a master’s degree from Oxford University. He served in the U.S. Navy for 34 years and retired in 2002; at the time of his retirement, he was a four-star admiral and served as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, a position he had held since 1999. During his time in the Navy, Blair had served as the commander of a destroyer, directed an aircraft carrier strike group and ran the Defense Department’s Joint Staff. [See pp. 257D1, 6A1; 2001, p. 636F3] Blair served as the president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit funded in large part by the Defense Department, from 2003 to 2006. During his time at the institute, he was accused of conflicts of interest due to his seat on the board of directors of a military contractor involved in a jet construction program that the institute was examining. A report by the Defense Department inspector general later found that Blair’s ties violated conflict-ofinterest rules but that he had not interfered in the institute’s examination.

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would allow those measures to pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes to cut off debate, rather than the usual 60. Republicans, and some Democrats, had sharply objected to the possible use of the reconciliation maneuver as an abuse of the majority’s power. Democratic leaders said they would use it only if Republicans did not cooperate on a bipartisan deal. The budget blueprint called for setting aside reserve funds both for Obama’s health-care reform plan and for his proposal to address climate change by creating a cap-and-trade system, which would require businesses to buy permits for the greenhouse gas emissions they generated. However, the blueprint also stipulated that the health care, energy and education initiatives could not add to the deficit, though it did not say how they should be paid for. The blueprint did not include Obama’s plan to raise more than $300 billion in revenue by limiting the tax deductions available to higher-income taxpayers. The blueprint also dropped Obama’s proposal to extend his payroll tax cut for low- and middle-income taxpayers beyond 2010, unless a way was found to make up for the lost tax revenue it entailed. Deficit Forecast—The blueprint projected that the fiscal 2010 deficit would be $1.2 trillion, but would be cut by more than half, to $523 billion, or 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), by 2014. Much of the estimated 2010 deficit would be due to the large costs of the various federal responses to the current economic recession. The blueprint forecast that the national debt would increase to $11.5 trillion in fiscal 2014, or 66.7% of GDP, from $7.7 trillion in fiscal 2009, or 55% of GDP. Republicans said the budget plan underestimated future deficits. They warned that the Democrats’ budget cleared the way for a vast expansion of government and reckless spending that would saddle future generations with heavy debt. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) called the budget “nothing short of the most audacious move to a big socialist government in Washington, D.C.” Obama Backs Pay-As-You-Go Rules—

Obama in his weekly radio and Internet address April 25 said he supported a bill that would subject Congress to so-called pay-as-you-go budget rules. The rules would require any new spending increases or tax cuts to be offset by equal spending cuts or tax hikes. He said the use of such rules “helped transform large deficits into surpluses in the 1990s,” adding, “Now, we must restore that sense of fiscal discipline.” House Democratic leaders April 28 pledged to follow pay-as-you-go rules for four tax and spending bills later in the year. Obama the previous week had tried to emphasize such discipline by asking his cabinet to find a combined total of $100 million in budget cuts. Republicans and some independent analysts ridiculed that sum as minuscule compared with Obama’s total budget proposal. [See p. 263E3] n April 30, 2009

Terrorism Detainees Torture of Detainees Called Unreliable.

The Washington Post reported April 25 that a U.S. military agency that subjected U.S. personnel to harsh interrogation techniques as part of a training program had warned then–Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes 2nd in July 2002 that the use of such techniques against terrorism detainees was torture and that any information obtained by such methods was likely to be unreliable. The document, an attachment to a memo sent by the military’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) to Haynes, had been cited by a Senate Armed Forces Committee report on detainee interrogation released in April and was obtained in full by the Post. [See p. 261E3; 2008, p. 411E3] The Post reported that the memo and its attachment were received by Haynes and then later forwarded to John Rizzo, acting Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) general counsel, and the Justice Department. However, most high-level Bush administration officials who approved the use of harsh tactics against detainees, including then–national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, were not informed that JPRA considered the techniques torture or that they had been copied from Chinese torture methods, according to an unidentified Bush administration official interviewed by the Post. [See below] Agency Oversaw Training Program— The JPRA oversaw the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) pro-

gram, which subjected pilots and other U.S. military personnel to harsh interrogation techniques in order to train them to resist interrogation methods used by countries that did not recognize prisoner protections contained in the Geneva Conventions. The program had been devised to counter interrogation techniques used by Chinese interrogators to coerce false confessions from U.S. prisoners during the Korean War. As part of the SERE program, military personnel were reportedly subjected to techniques including waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that had been prosecuted as a war crime by the U.S. after World War II. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had first authorized the use of techniques based on the SERE program against terrorism detainees in August 2002. Use of Harsh Methods Called ‘Torture’—

In the memo attachment, the JPRA asserted, “The requirement to obtain information from an uncooperative source as quickly as possible—in time to prevent, for example, an impending terrorist attack that could result in loss of life—has been forwarded as a compelling argument for the use of torture” by the government. However, the document stated, “The error inherent in this line of thinking is the assumption that, through torture, the interrogator can extract reliable and accurate information. History and a consideration of human behavior would appear to refute this assumption.”

According to the document, “A subject in pain may provide an answer, any answer, or many answers in order to get the pain to stop.” The JPRA argued that torture “has some serious operational deficits, most notably the potential to result in unreliable information.” The use of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees was described as torture multiple times in the document, which was titled “Operational Issues Pertaining to the Use of Physical/ Psychological Coercion in Interrogation.” FBI Agent Criticizes CIA Methods—

Newsweek magazine reported April 27 on its Web site that a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who led the initial interrogation of terrorism detainee Zain alAbidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaydah, had said that Zubaydah gave up most of the significant information in his possession within “a couple of days” of his capture in response to the noncoercive, rapport-building tactics traditionally used by the FBI. The agent’s assertions were consistent with a March article in the Post which reported that the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation tactics against Zubaydah had been largely unnecessary and fruitless. [See pp. 261B2, 199C3] The FBI agent, Ali Soufan, had been part of the investigation of the 2000 attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen's port of Aden. He told Newsweek that he and a second FBI agent, Steve Gaudin, had led the initial questioning of Zubaydah and successfully convinced him to reveal what he knew by caring for his wounds and drawing him into conversation. (Newsweek reported that the interrogations took place at a CIA “safe house” in Thailand.) Zubaydah reportedly told the two FBI agents that U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was plotting a terrorist attack in the U.S. and that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been the mastermind behind Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. carried out by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See 2008, p. 36F2] Soufan said that all significant information from Zubaydah was gathered prior to the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation methods against him. However, CIA officials claimed that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was accused of helping to organize the Sept. 11 attacks, had been captured using information that Zubaydah had given up in response to the use of harsh tactics. Tactics Used Before OLC Authorization—

According to Soufan, CIA interrogators had subjected Zubaydah to cold temperatures, loud music and forced nudity in spring 2002, months before harsh interrogation techniques were approved by the OLC. He said that use of harsh tactics began after a CIA contractor (identified by Newsweek as former U.S. Air Force psychologist James Mitchell, who had worked on the SERE program) arrived at the location where Zubaydah was held. Soufan said that when he confronted an unidentified CIA official at the prison about the legality of the interrogation methods used on Zubaydah, the official reportedly told him that the tactics had been approved by then–White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. 289

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Soufan said he had called his superiors and threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators if they did not cease their mistreatment of Zubaydah, which Soufan considered “borderline torture.” Soufan said he decided to make the call after discovering a coffin-like box intended for use in Zubaydah’s interrogation. Newsweek reported that unidentified sources said that the box had been intended for use in a “mock burial,” something that the CIA denied had ever been used against detainees. Following Soufan’s call, FBI Director Robert Mueller 3rd ordered Soufan and Gaudin to leave Thailand and barred all FBI employees from taking part in CIA interrogations of terrorism detainees. Effectiveness of Harsh Tactics Unclear—

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The Post reported April 26 that CIA interrogators had made little or no use of traditional, noncoercive interrogation methods in their questioning of Mohammed, making it difficult to determine whether the agency’s use of harsh methods against Mohammed had been necessary in order to get him to reveal information. According to the Post, Mohammed was stripped naked, chained with his hands above his head and given a forced enema soon after his detention by the U.S. in March 2003. According to the Post, some members of the Bush administration had argued that the harsh interrogation of Mohammed had been necessary and had allowed the U.S. to foil a plot to attack a Los Angeles skyscraper. However, the Post noted that President George W. Bush had said in 2007 that the Los Angeles plot was broken up in 2002, whereas Mohammed was not captured until 2003. Case Against Boeing Division Allowed—

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., April 28 reinstated a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of five former terrorism detainees. One of them was the recently released Binyam Mohamed, who accused a division of The Boeing Co. of assisting the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program, in which terrorism suspects were abducted and flown to secret prisons abroad or third countries and then allegedly abused. The lawsuit, filed against Boeing’s Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., had been thrown out by a trial judge after the Bush administration argued that allowing the case to continue would endanger national security. [See p. 80C2] In February, the Obama administration had supported the earlier Bush administration argument in a filing with the appeals court. The case was one of several in which the Obama administration had continued the Bush administration’s attempts to use the so-called state secrets privilege to limit the release of information about Bush-era antiterrorism policies. (Obama April 29 said at a news conference that his administration intended to curtail the use of the state secrets doctrine from its usage under Bush, but said that so far there had been too little time to do so before responding to court deadlines.) The panel ruled that the trial judge in the case had been wrong to dismiss the lawsuit, 290

and said, “According to the government’s theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.” The panel ruled that while the government did not have the right to block such lawsuits by invoking the secrets privilege, it could ask the trial judge to review on a case-by-case basis whether the release of certain pieces of classified evidence would endanger national security. Separately, the British High Court March 23 had released a document containing information on unsuccessful plea bargain negotiations that were carried out between Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers and the U.S. government in 2008. Mohamed alleged that he had been sent to Morocco by the CIA to be tortured by the government there. He was sent to Britain in February and had since been released. All charges pending against him had been dropped by the U.S. government prior to his release. [See p. 112E1] According to the High Court document, Mohamed had offered to plead “no defense” to charges that he had provided material support for terrorism, in exchange for a sentence of only three years in prison, provided that the sentence would be served in Britain, where he had been a legal resident. That offer had been rejected by the Bush administration, which had unsuccessfully sought to require him to serve three years in prison, agree never to sue the U.S. government or its officials, agree not to discuss the case against him or his imprisonment, and cease his attempts to force the release of documents that his lawyers had said would show that he had been tortured. British Attorney General Baroness Scotland March 26 had requested that British police investigate whether British intelligence officers had assisted the U.S. in planning or carrying out the alleged torture of Mohamed while he was detained by the U.S. government. Mohamed claimed that a British intelligence agent had supplied information and questions to Pakistani intelligence agents who interrogated and abused him in 2002. More Abuse Photos to Be Released—

The Defense Department April 24 announced that it would release at least 44 photos depicting the alleged abuse of terrorism detainees, in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that had been filed in 2004. In a letter filed in U.S. District Court in New York City, the Justice Department said the Defense Department was considering releasing “a substantial number of other images” related to alleged detainee abuse, in addition to the 44 photos scheduled to be released due to the lawsuit. [See 2008, p. 790C3] Some of the photos reportedly showed detainees having weapons pointed at them by guards and wearing shackles and hoods. They had initially been gathered by the military for investigations into allegations of detainee abuse by military personnel. The Defense Department said it would release the 44 photos by May 28.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the Defense Department had decided to release the photos after concluding that their disclosure was inevitable. The Bush administration had argued that releasing the photos would endanger the lives of U.S. troops serving abroad and violate the privacy rights of the abused detainees. However, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City had ruled against the Defense Department in September 2008 and the full appeals court had declined to rehear the case on March 11. Separately, the National Archives and Records Administration April 24 released documents that showed that former Vice President Dick Cheney March 31 had requested the release of two CIA reports related to the use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism detainees. Cheney had said that classified documents showed that the use of harsh interrogation tactics like waterboarding had been effective and that he had asked for them to be released. According to the National Archives, the two documents were CIA reports issued on July 13, 2004, and June 1, 2005, and filed in the vice president’s office. The National Archives said it would review Cheney’s requests before deciding whether to release the documents. [See p. 258G2] Bybee Defends Interrogation Memos—

Former OLC head Jay Bybee, who currently served as a judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, April 28 sent a statement to the New York Times defending his conduct in signing two August 2002 memos that authorized the use of harsh interrogation tactics against Zubaydah. Bybee said that while he wished that he had been clearer in explaining why the use of the techniques was legal, he still felt that the memos contained “a good-faith analysis of the law.” [See p. 257E2] Bybee said that he had sent the statement to the Times in order to counter media reports that he had told friends and associates that he regretted his actions at the OLC. Bybee’s conduct in approving the memos was being investigated by the Justice Department, along with the issuance of similar memos by former OLC head Steven Bradbury and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) April 29 sent Bybee a letter that invited him to testify before the committee about his role in the 2002 interrogation memos. Leahy wrote to Bybee, “There is significant concern about the legal advice provided by the OLC while you were in charge, how that advice came to be generated…the role played by the White House.” Leahy had previously said that he thought Bybee should resign his judgeship over his authorship of the memos, and other critics had called for his impeachment. n

Supreme Court Fines for ‘Fleeting Expletives’ Upheld. The

Supreme Court April 28 ruled, 5–4, that the Federal Communications Commission FACTS ON FILE

(FCC) could fine broadcasting companies for airing unscripted profanities, sometimes known as “fleeting expletives.” The court did not set any precedent regarding the First Amendment’s protections of free speech, since the case at hand, FCC v. Fox Television Stations Inc., focused on whether the FCC had adequately explained why it had changed its policy in 2004 to allow fines of up to $325,000 in such cases. [See 2008, p. 199B1] The case before the court concerned incidents in 2002 and 2003 at the Billboard Music Awards, aired live by Fox, in which celebrities used vulgar swear words. The incidents were among several that led the FCC to change its policies on indecent language, which was defined as references to sexual or excretory functions that were “patently offensive” to “contemporary community standards.” The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City in 2007 ruled that the FCC had not provided an adequate explanation for the change. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the Supreme Court’s opinion, said the rationale behind the change was reasonable and therefore adequate. He wrote, “The commission could reasonably conclude that the pervasiveness of foul language, and the coarsening of public entertainment in other media such as cable, justify more stringent regulation of broadcast programs so as to give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy agreed with the overall decision, but only in part with Scalia’s opinion. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing the minority opinion, said the FCC did not have “the freedom to change major policies on the basis of nothing more than political considerations or even personal whim.” Breyer was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. Four justices wrote individual concurring or dissenting opinions. Thomas and Ginsburg both addressed the constitutional implications of the case, with Ginsburg saying there was “no way to hide the long shadow the First Amendment casts over what the commission has done.” Stevens wrote, “It is ironic, to say the least, that while the FCC patrols the airwaves for words that have a tenuous relationship with sex or excrement, commercials broadcast during prime-time hours frequently ask viewers whether they too are battling erectile dysfunction or having trouble going to the bathroom.” He added, “As any golfer who has watched his partner shank a short approach knows, it would be absurd to accept the suggestion that the resultant four-letter word uttered on the golf course describes sex or excrement and is therefore indecent.” n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Officials’ Role in Bank Merger Questioned.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo April 23 released documents showing April 30, 2009

that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then–Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. in December 2008 had threatened to oust Bank of America Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis, as well as the bank’s board, if the bank did not complete a merger with brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. The documents said that according to Lewis, the two federal officials had urged Lewis to withhold from Bank of America’s shareholders that Merrill Lynch was set to record a massive loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. Details of the documents were first reported earlier on April 23 by the Wall Street Journal. [See p. 220B2] In a letter to regulators April 23, Cuomo said there should be more “transparency” in the government’s efforts to stabilize the financial system, and that shareholder interests should be “protected and respected.” Cuomo’s investigation was focusing on whether Bank of America had failed to disclose relevant information about Merrill Lynch to its shareholders, which could be a violation of securities laws. He was also investigating whether Merrill Lynch had improperly distributed bonuses to its employees before the merger was completed in January. Merrill Lynch’s $15.3 billion quarterly loss compelled Bank of America to seek $20 billion in aid from the government, on top of a previous $25 billion capital injection. The documents largely consisted of sworn testimony given by Lewis to Cuomo’s office in February. Cuomo also revealed details of an interview with Paulson that took place in March. Cuomo sent the documents to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion fund designed to stabilize the financial industry. Lewis said he had told Paulson on Dec. 17, 2008, that he wanted to back out of the merger, after he became aware of the extent of Merrill Lynch’s losses. Lewis said Paulson then told him on Dec. 21, 2008, that the government would seek to remove him and the board if he did not follow through with the deal. Cuomo said Paulson had “largely corroborated” those claims. Paulson also said Bernanke had instructed him to issue the threat. Lewis said Paulson and Bernanke were concerned that a dissolution of the merger could destabilize the financial system, which at the time was still recovering from a string of bank failures. Bernanke had declined to testify in Cuomo’s investigation, and the Fed had invoked a “bank examination privilege” that allowed it to keep its documents confidential. Lewis also said Paulson and Bernanke had told him, “We do not want a public disclosure” to shareholders about Merrill Lynch’s financial problems. Spokesmen for the Fed and Paulson April 23 denied that claim. Bank of America that day released a statement, saying, “We believe we

acted legally and appropriately with regard to the Merrill Lynch transaction.” Lewis Stripped of Chairmanship—Bank of America shareholders at their annual meeting April 29 voted to separate the offices of chairman and CEO, stripping Lewis of his chairmanship. The board of directors unanimously requested that Lewis remain as CEO. Many of the bank’s shareholders were unhappy with Lewis’s performance, particularly his acquisition of Merrill Lynch. However, some shareholders came out in support of Lewis, saying he had managed the company well during an unprecedented financial crisis. The resolution to separate the offices passed by a narrow majority of 50.3%. The board named Walter Massey, who had been a board member since 1998 and was a president emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., to replace Lewis as chairman. n

Economy GDP Shrank at 6.1% Rate in First Quarter.

The Commerce Department April 29 reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009, after decreasing at a 6.3% rate in the fourth quarter of 2008, making it the U.S.’s worst six-month contraction since 1958. The latest report showed that an ongoing recession was still having a heavy impact on GDP, which was a measure of the output of goods and services produced within a nation’s borders, and the country’s broadest gauge of economic health. The department’s first-quarter estimate would be revised twice. [See p. 182B3] The first-quarter contraction was largely attributed to businesses culling their inventories, as they anticipated that the recession would depress consumer demand. Business investment fell 38%, and investment in the real estate market also fell 38%. GDP was also hit by a decrease in spending by state and local governments, which were struggling with budget shortfalls. However, analysts said a $787 billion stimulus package enacted by the federal government in February should help alleviate those strains in the second quarter. [See p. 89A1] In what was viewed as the first quarter’s most positive development, consumer spending rose 2.2%, a possible indication that the economy was in the process of recovering, since consumer spending accounted for more than two-thirds of GDP. Exports fell 30% as a global downturn reduced demand for U.S. products, but imports fell even further, by 34%, resulting in a net gain for GDP. [See p. 240B2] The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Federal Reserve, April 29 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federalfunds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed that day said the “economic outlook had improved modestly since” its last interest-rate meeting in March, and that the “pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slow291

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Business Inventories Down in February.

Consumer Confidence Rose in April—

Democrat Scott Murphy April 24 claimed victory in a March 31 special election for a House seat representing a district in upstate New York, after a four-week dispute over absentee ballots. His Republican opponent, James Tedisco, a former minority leader in the state Assembly, conceded defeat. Murphy, a former venture capitalist and first-time candidate, held a lead of about 400 votes, of a total of some 160,000 cast, with several hundred absentee ballots still disputed. Murphy, 39, April 29 was sworn in to office by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.). [See p. 201E1] The seat had become vacant in January when Gov. David Paterson (D) named Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) to fill the Senate seat that had been held by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The election was in New York’s 20th Congressional District, which stretched along the Hudson River into the far north of the state, and extended west around Albany, the state capital. The GOP held a two-to-one advantage in voter registration in the district, its biggest edge in New York, and had held the seat for decades until 2006. The defeat was another setback for the Republicans after being routed by the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 congressional elections. It also added to a trend of dwindling Republican numbers in the Northeast. [See p. 284A2] With Murphy in office, the current division of the House was 256 Democrats and 178 Republicans. One seat was vacant, representing California’s Los Angeles–area 32nd District, left open by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’s move to President Barack Obama’s cabinet. Primary elections would be held in that district on May 19. n

The Conference Board business research group April 28 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 39.2 in April, up from a revised 26.9 in March. The group said the jump showed that “consumers believe the economy is nearing a bottom,” but that the index’s current level “still remains well below levels associated with strong economic growth.” The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 219D3] n Housing Starts Fell 10.8% in March. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) April 16 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in March was 510,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was down 10.8% from the February revised rate of 572,000, and a 48.4% decrease from the March 2008 rate, indicating that the housing market remained in a deep slump. [See p. 183D1] Building permits were issued in March at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 513,000 units, 9.0% below February’s revised rate of 564,000. n Existing Home Sales Fell 3.0% in March. The National Association of Realtors April 23 reported that sales of existing homes fell by 3.0% in March, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.57 million units. That was down from the revised 4.71 million units rate in February. The median sale price for existing homes in March was $175,200, down 12.4% from a year earlier. [See p. 183C1]n Durable Goods Orders Down 0.8% in March.

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The Commerce Department April 24 reported that the value of durable goods orders in March was $161.2 billion, a decrease of 0.8%, or $1.3 billion, from the previous month. It was the seventh time in eight months that orders for durable goods had fallen, due to an ongoing recession, but analysts had expected an even larger drop for March. Durable goods were so-called big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 183A1] n New Home Sales Fell 0.6% in March. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) April 24 reported jointly that sales of new single-family homes fell 0.6% in March from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 356,000 units, down from the revised February rate of 358,000 units, but better than what most market observers had expected. The median price of a new single-family home sold in March was reported to be $201,400. [See p. 183B1] n 292

The Commerce Department April 14 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of February was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.3% from the revised value at the end of January. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.43. [See p. 183G1] n

2009 Elections Democrat Wins N.Y. Special House Election.

AFRICA

African National Congress Dominates South African Vote Zuma Set to Become Next President.

South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) April 25 announced that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party had won 65.9% of the vote in general elections held April 22. The victory meant that controversial ANC President Jacob Zuma, 67, was almost certain to become the country’s next president when the 400-member National Assembly convened in early May. [See p. 222A1; 2004, p. 297D1; for facts on Zuma, see p. 293A1] Under South Africa’s constitution, the nation’s president was elected by a simple majority in the National Assembly. The presidential election was scheduled for May 6. According to the IEC, the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), a party of mainly liberal white and mixed-race, or colored, South Africans, placed second, with 16.7% of the national vote. (Blacks comprised about 80% of the population; whites and colored, 9% each; and 2% were of Indian origin.) Although it was far behind the ANC, the DA improved from its 12.3% showing in the 2004 elections. Also, the DA won 51% of the vote in southern Western Cape province—where the city of Cape Town was located—meaning it would take control of the provincial legislature. The DA’s leader, Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille, was set to become Western Cape’s premier. [See 2007, p. 365F2] The Congress of the People (COPE), which had been formed in late 2008 by ANC dissidents who opposed Zuma, placed third in the elections, with 7.4%—below the estimated 10% that some observers had predicted it would receive. [See below] The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a mainly Zulu party led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and based in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal, garnered 4.6%, down from 7% in 2004. Its poor showing was attributed in part to the fact that many AP Photo/Themba Hadebe

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er.” However, the Fed warned that “economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time.” [See p. 163A3] The Fed also said it would continue its previously announced programs to buy $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, which, along with keeping the federal-funds rate low, was intended to lower interest rates and resolve an ongoing freeze in credit markets. As of April 28, the Fed had purchased $74 billion in Treasury securities and $381 billion in mortgagebacked securities.

Accidents & Disasters Bridge Collapse Victims Take Settlements.

All 179 victims of the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minn. who had filed lawsuits against the state April 16 accepted settlement payments from a $36.6 million state compensation fund. The payments ranged from $4,500 to $2.2 million. A smaller group of victims was expected to file suit against contractors who had worked on the bridge. They claimed that it had collapsed due to poor maintenance, as opposed to structural problems, which the National Transportation Safety Board had identified as the cause. [See 2008, p. 771C2] n

African National Congress (ANC) party President Jacob Zuma April 25, after the ANC was declared the winner of April 22 elections.

FACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON ZUMA

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma was born April 12, 1942, in Inkandla, in what was then Natal province (after 1994, KwaZulu-Natal), the heartland of the Zulu tribe. His father, a policeman, died when he was a young boy, and his mother moved to the province’s largest city, Durban, to work as a domestic servant. Zuma spent much of his childhood shuttling between Durban and the rural Zululand. Zuma had no formal schooling, and began working at the age of 15. In 1959, Zuma joined the African National Congress (ANC), which at the time was fighting against apartheid, the system of racial separation imposed by South Africa’s ruling white minority. After the ANC was banned in 1960, Zuma two years later joined Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC. Zuma was arrested in 1963 while attempting to leave South Africa to train with MK. He was convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on the notorious Robben Island (where anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was also imprisoned). After his release in 1973, Zuma continued to work for the ANC in Natal. He left South Africa in 1975, and spent 12 years in exile in Swaziland and Mozambique. In 1987, the Mozambican government forced him to leave the country for Zambia, under pressure from South Africa. Zuma was also a member of an arm of the ANC, Mbokodo, that disciplined the group’s members, sometimes brutally, in camps in Angola, Tanzania and Zambia. [See 1993, p. 662A1, C1] Zuma returned to South Africa after the February 1990 lifting of the ban on the ANC. In the early 1990s, he helped make peace between the

ANC and the Natal-based Inkatha Freedom Party, a Zulu group that had feuded with the ANC. [See 1990, p. 98A1] In 1991, Zuma was elected deputy secretary general of the ANC. In 1994, he became its national chairman, and became active in KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial government. In 1997, Zuma became the ANC’s deputy president. [See 1997, p. 962B1; 1994, p. 1007A3; 1991, p. 546B3] In 1999, Zuma became the nation’s deputy president under President Thabo Mbeki. He also led the National AIDS Council, and was involved in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to broker a peace deal in Burundi. Mbeki and Zuma reportedly had a falling out in the early 2000s, after feuding over many issues, including allegations of corruption against Zuma related to an arms deal in the late 1990s. [See 2003, p. 802E1; 2002, p. 1049E3; 1999, p. 443F1] In June 2005, Schabir Shaik, Zuma’s former financial adviser, was convicted of soliciting and accepting bribes on Zuma’s behalf in connection with the arms deal. Mbeki then fired Zuma, and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) filed corruption charges against him. The charges were thrown out on a technicality in September 2006, but the NPA refiled them in December 2007, soon after Zuma beat Mbeki in an election for the ANC presidency. [See 2007, p. 279D2; 2006, p. 768F1; 2005, p. 462E3] Also, in May 2006, Zuma was acquitted of rape charges. However, his reputation was damaged by the publication of controversial statements he made during the trial about women and HIV/AIDS. [See 2006, p. 378A1] In September 2008, a High Court judge again dismissed the corruption charges against

Zuma on a technicality, and alleged that Mbeki and his allies had been behind the NPA’s decision to pursue the case. Later that month, Mbeki resigned as South Africa’s president under pressure from the ANC leadership, which was controlled by Zuma’s supporters. That led several Mbeki supporters to split from the ANC and form a new party, the Congress of the People (COPE). [See 2008, pp. 973C1, 679A1, 660D2] In January, the Supreme Court of Appeals reinstated the charges. The NPA in early April announced that it was dropping the charges due to misconduct by the prosecution and the lead investigator. [See p. 222A1] The ANC April 25 was declared the winner of general elections held April 22, garnering 65.9% of the vote and 264 seats in the 400-member National Assembly, which elected the nation’s president. Zuma was ensured of winning that vote when it was held May 6. [See p. 293A1] Zuma, described as a charismatic populist who often sang and danced at his rallies, would become South Africa’s first Zulu president (both Mandela and Mbeki were Xhosa). In keeping with Zulu custom, Zuma had had several wives. He married his first wife, Sizakele Khumalo, in the early 1970s. He later married Kate Mantsho Zuma, who committed suicide in 2000, and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, from whom he was divorced in 1998. (Dlamini-Zuma was South Africa’s foreign minister, and was expected to hold a cabinet post in a Zuma government.) In January 2008, Zuma married 33-year-old Nompumelelo Ntuli. In January 2009, it was reported that he was engaged to a third woman. It was unclear which wife would serve as South Africa’s official first lady. Zuma had more than 10 children, and maybe as many as 20.

Zulus chose to support Zuma, who had emphasized his Zulu identity during the campaign. The ANC would control 264 seats in the National Assembly, compared with 67 for the DA, 30 for COPE and 18 for the IFP. Turnout was 77.3% of South Africa’s 23.2 million registered voters, according to the IEC. ANC Fends Off Challengers— The ANC for much of the 20th century had led the fight against South Africa’s apartheid system of racial separation and white minority rule, and had dominated South Africa’s political landscape since the end of apartheid in 1994. However, the party had been beset by scandals in recent years, primarily related to Zuma, a charismatic populist who had received little formal schooling. South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) earlier in April had dropped fraud, corruption, money-laundering and racketeering charges against Zuma, citing political interference in the case by Zuma’s political rivals. The charges were related to a multibillion-dollar 1999 arms deal between the South African government and a French weapons company. The charges had first been filed in 2005, just after Zuma was fired as the nation’s deputy president by then-President Thabo Mbeki. Allegations of political interference in the case had led to the ouster of Mbeki, Zuma’s political rival, in September 2008, by the ANC leadership, which was controlled by Zuma’s supporters. (ANC veteran Kgalema Motlanthe took over as caretaker president.) The removal

of Mbeki led to the formation of COPE. Opposition parties alleged that the NPA’s April decision to drop the charges had been made under pressure from Zuma and his allies in the ANC. Separately, Zuma had been acquitted of rape charges in May 2006. However, his reputation had been damaged by the publication of controversial testimony regarding women and HIV/AIDS. In one statement, he claimed that he had showered after having sexual intercourse with the accuser, who was HIV-positive, in order to avoid catching the virus. [See 2006, p. 378A1] The DA during the election campaign had emphasized the goal of preventing the ANC from retaining its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly—the margin that was needed to change the constitution. It stressed that South Africa was in danger of becoming a one-party state, as was the case in many other African nations. The DA and COPE were especially critical of the events that led to Mbeki’s resignation, the ANC’s split, and the dropping of the corruption charges against Zuma, alleging that Zuma and his allies had abused their power. Some observers had expected the ANC to lose support—although still retain a large majority—as a result of the recent scandals. In the first post-apartheid elections, in 1994, the ANC had won 63% and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela became president. In 1999, it won 66%, and Mbeki succeeded Mandela as president. Mbeki was reelected in 2004 with about 70%.

Ultimately, however, analysts said most black voters were reluctant to turn away from the ANC. Support for the ANC was reinforced by the surprise appearance of Mandela, a national icon, at Zuma’s final campaign rally April 19 in Johannesburg, which was attended by about 100,000 people. Mandela, 90, was extremely frail and rarely made public appearances, making his presence at the rally even more influential. [See 2008, p. 528C3] Zuma Calls for Unity—After the ANC’s victory was announced April 25, Zuma in a speech said, “This is a time to bury uncertainty, pain and tension. We cannot afford to dwell on the negative, we have work to do.” Addressing the global economic crisis, he said, “We will work with all stakeholders, especially business and labor, to find ways to prevent and cushion our people against job losses and other difficulties that may arise.” [See p. 96F2] Zuma scolded members of the media for focusing on his party’s failure to gain a two-thirds majority, saying they were “shifting the goalposts when they should be congratulating the ANC on its decisive victory.” Zuma’s administration would be confronted with several challenges. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) April 22 reported that the economy was expected to contract at a 0.3% rate in 2009. The country also faced high unemployment and violent crime rates, as well as chronic power shortages—issues that were coming under greater scrutiny as the country prepared to host soccer’s World Cup in 2010. n

April 30, 2009

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Bolivia Police Say Morales Assassination Plot Foiled.

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Bolivian police April 16 said an elite police force earlier that day had stormed a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the capital of eastern Santa Cruz department (state), following a 30-minute gun battle with a group of foreigners allegedly plotting to assassinate Bolivian President Evo Morales Aima. Three men were killed in the shootout—Irishman Michael Martin Dwyer; Romanian-Hungarian dual national Magyarosi Arpad; and Bolivian-Hungarian dual national Jorge Eduardo Rozsa Flores. Two other men, Hungarian Elod Toaso and Bolivian Mario Tadik, alleged by police to be participants in the plot, were arrested. [See 2008, p. 436F3] Police the same day said they had uncovered a cache of weapons and explosives, as well as documents outlining assassination plots against Morales, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and Morales’s chief of staff. However, conflicting reports later surfaced that contradicted the police account. Those reports cited evidence that the men had been killed in their hotel room in their underwear, and that there had been no signs of a firefight. Morales’s opponents also voiced doubt that the men had been part of a plot to assassinate the president or overthrow the government. Morales had several times earlier alleged that assassination plots against him had been thwarted. Garcia Linera April 16 said a special congressional committee would be created to investigate the activities of the “international terrorist group.” He also said the backers of the plot had hired mercenaries, and were related to “business groups,” an allusion to members of an autonomy movement in Santa Cruz department. Voters in Santa Cruz department in May 2008 had backed an autonomy proposal that had not been recognized by the federal government. [See 2008, p. 313G2] The Bolivian government notably refrained from accusing the U.S. of involvement in the plot, despite the fact that it frequently accused the U.S. of interference in its affairs. However, Morales April 18 said he had asked U.S. President Barack Obama to publicly repudiate any U.S. involvement. Obama April 19 disclaimed any U.S. role in the plot, saying, “I just want to make absolutely clear that I am absolutely opposed and condemn any efforts at violent overthrows of democratically elected governments.” Hungarian television station MTV1 April 21 aired an interview with Rozsa, who was accused by the Bolivian government of being the group’s ringleader, that had been taped in September 2008. In it, Rozsa said he was returning to Santa Cruz department, his birthplace, from Hungary in order to defend its autonomy from Morales’s central government. “I am not going there to organize the attack of La Paz [Bolivia’s capital] and chase away the 294

president, that doesn’t even cross the easterners’ minds,” he said. Rozsa had reportedly given the station instructions to release the interview if anything should happen to him. Rozsa, 49, had left Bolivia as a teenager when his family moved to Chile. He later lived in Hungary, before fighting with Croatians against Serbs in the early 1990s in Yugoslavia’s civil war. The Irish government April 20 said Dwyer, 24, had no criminal history or military experience, and questioned the allegations against him. Ireland called on Bolivia to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of Dwyer’s death. n

Ecuador Correa Seen Winning Reelection. Voters in

Ecuador April 26 reelected President Rafael Correa, 46, of the leftist Allianza Pais party to a four-year term as president, according to preliminary results. Ecuador’s National Electoral Council April 28 reported that, with 77.8% of the votes counted, Correa had received almost 52% support. He ran against seven other candidates, and his closest competitor, former President Lucio Gutierrez Borbua of the Sociedad Patriotica 21 de Enero party, secured 28%, according to the preliminary tally. [See 2006, p. 935G2] In order to prevent a runoff election, a candidate needed to either win at least 40% of the vote with a minimum of a 10percentage-point victory margin over the closest competitor, or win more than 50% of the vote. Correa appeared to have done both. After official election results were released, he was likely to become the first president to secure a second consecutive term in Ecuador in 30 years. Correa April 27 said he would continue in his efforts to “eradicate misery and create a more just and dignified country.” He added, “The outlook is very good for the country, the worst is over. But, of course, there is still great uncertainty and anything could happen.” Correa had begun a four-year term in January 2007, but a new constitution approved in September 2008 called for new elections. Also contested in the voting were the 124 seats in the National Assembly, as well as a number of state and local positions. An exit poll conducted by Santiago Perez Investigacion y Estudios estimated that Alliance Pais candidates had captured some 61 seats in the assembly, while candidates allied with Gutierrez had won about 23. [See 2008, p. 705B1] Ecuador had a long history of political volatility, and had had 10 presidents since 1997, several of whom had been ousted by the federal legislature or in coups d’etat. However, Correa had proved popular with poorer voters due to spending on public programs such as education, health care and infrastructure, much of which was funded through oil revenues. He had also ordered the end of interest payments on foreign debt he considered to be illegitimate. Analysts said he would face an increasingly tough economic climate as oil

prices dropped and remittances sent by Ecuadorans working in other countries dwindled. [See 2008, p. 924D3] n

Paraguay President Admits Fathering Child. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez, a former Roman Catholic missionary and priest, during an April 13 televised news conference in Asuncion, the capital, admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock. Lugo, 57, said he was the father of a twoyear-old boy that he had conceived with Viviana Carrillo, 26, while he was still considered a bishop by the Vatican. Lugo said he would “assume all responsibilities for the boy.” [See 2008, p. 573B1] Lugo in December 2006 had submitted his resignation to the Vatican in order to seek the presidency, because Paraguay’s constitution forbade clergy of any denomination from running for public office. The Vatican had initially suspended Lugo, but had not accepted his resignation, arguing that he would remain a bishop under church rules. However, the Vatican in July 2008 said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his request for lay status, months after Lugo won the April 2008 presidential election. Carrillo April 8 filed a paternity suit against Lugo, alleging that she had given birth to his child five months after he submitted his resignation to the Vatican. She said she was 16 when their relationship began. A second woman, Benigna Leguizamon, 27, April 20 also alleged that Lugo had fathered her child, a six-year-old boy. Leguizamon said she had decided to go public with her claim and file a suit after seeing Carrillo do so. Leguizamon said she had first met Lugo in 2000 as a 17-yearold, while he was working as a bishop in San Pedro department (state), and gave birth to their son in September 2002. She said Lugo had initially sent her money intended for the child’s care, but that he had stopped doing so after the boy turned two, and broke off contact with her. Yet another woman, Damiana Moran, 39, April 22 said she had met Lugo in 2006, after he had attempted to leave the church, and had had a son with him, now 16 months old. Moran said she did not intend to file a paternity suit against Lugo. Lugo April 24 said he had committed “personal errors,” but did not admit to fathering either of the children born to Moran or Leguizamon. Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of the Ciudad del Este diocese April 21 had said that at least two women had written letters to the Vatican in 2004 alleging that Lugo had conducted relationships with them. Livieres said that when confronted on the issue, Lugo had admitted that it was possible that he had fathered children with the women. The Paraguayan bishops’ conference that day said it had never received “formal written complaints” about alleged misconduct by Lugo, and denied that it was trying to cover up any of his actions. n FACTS ON FILE

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Indonesia Legislative Elections Held. Indonesia Pres-

ident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party April 9 came in first according to preliminary results in the country’s third set of national legislative elections since longtime ruler Suharto stepped down in 1998. The Democrat Party beat out the Golongan Karya Party (Golkar), which had been allied with Suharto, and former President Megawati Sukarnoputri’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Indonesia’s Electoral Commission was not expected to release its final election results until May 9. About 123 million of Indonesia’s 171 million registered voters participated in the elections. [See 2004, p. 296D1] Yudhoyono was expected to win the country’s next presidential election, which was scheduled to be held in July. Under Indonesian law, political parties or coalitions that wished to field a candidate for the presidential election were required to receive at least 25% of the parliamentary popular vote or 20% of the seats in parliament. According to the Electoral Commission’s partial tally of the vote, the Democrat Party received 20.5% of the vote, up from less than 7.5% in the 2004 legislative elections, it was reported April 16. Golkar received 14.5%, a decline from its 2004 showing of 21.6%, and PDI-P also received 14.5%, down from 18.3%. Early polling had suggested that the Democrat Party would win a larger victory. Experts said Yudhoyono would likely be forced to form a coalition government, most likely with Golkar, which had been a member of Yudhoyono’s previous ruling coalition. Indonesia’s openly Islamic parties had suffered significant declines in the April 9 election, with their estimated share of the vote dropping to 29.5% from about 39% in 2004. However, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the country’s most prominent Islamic party, increased its percentage of the vote to 8.4%, from about 7.1% in 2004. About 90% of Indonesia’s population was Muslim. The Electoral Commission official in charge of counting votes, Wahidah Suaib, April 11 said that the body had “received 378 election violation reports from officials in 28 provinces,” adding that the problems appeared especially pronounced in the provinces of West Kalimantan, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Java. The irregularities reportedly included voters listed multiple times under different names and registered voters whose names did not appear on ballot rolls. Suaib said that, depending on how serious the irregularities proved to be, “there might have to be a repeat of the vote in some polling stations.” Britain’s Economist magazine reported April 16 that more than 1,000 irregularities had been cited. n April 30, 2009

Thailand State of Emergency Ended in Bangkok.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva April 24 lifted a state of emergency for Bangkok, the capital, and its surrounding areas. The state of emergency had been imposed April 12 in response to large-scale demonstrations in and around the city by opposition protesters allied with former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Clashes between pro-Thaksin protesters, known as “red shirts,” and Thailand’s military had left two people dead and at least 135 injured in early April. [See p. 249F3] Abhisit announced the lifting of the state of emergency after a two-day session of parliament intended to examine the country’s recent political instability. He had said April 23 in an interview with the Washington Post that “protest demonstrations can resume. The only thing we will not allow is inciting violence and rioting.” Abhisit also said that he would not schedule new elections, as demanded by the opposition, until Thailand’s constitution was amended. Abhisit supported constitutional amendments that would make Thailand’s Senate a fully elected body (currently, about half of the country’s senators were appointed) and alter laws allowing courts to disband political parties if high-ranking members were convicted of vote-buying and other election fraud charges. Abhisit had been elected prime minister in a December 2008 parliamentary vote after the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP), which had won 2007 legislative elections, was dissolved by the country’s Constitutional Court in connection with voter fraud charges. ‘Red Shirts’ Hold Demonstration— A group of at least 3,000 red shirt protesters April 25 held their first demonstration since the end of Bangkok’s state of emergency. The protest was held in a public square in Bangkok near the royal palace and had been publicly announced April 24 after Abhisit’s announcement. Somyos Prueksakasemsuk, a leader of the proThaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), addressed the crowd, saying that Abhisit’s gestures toward compromise were intended to create a political “reconciliation that will make people surrender to be their slaves.” He also that the protesters wanted “the rule of democracy back, which means the government should come from an election without any interference from outside powers.” Anti-Thaksin Leader Shot—Sondhi Limthongkul, who was one of the leaders of the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), April 17 was shot and wounded in the head in an apparent assassination attempt in Bangkok. His driver and one of his aides were also injured in the attack. Sondhi, a wealthy businessman, was the most prominent leader of the PAD, which had led so-called yellow shirt protests against the PPP in 2008. Gen. Anupong Paojinda, the head of the Thai military, April 23 said that investiga-

tors had found three empty shells near the site of the shooting of a kind that was used exclusively by the Thai military. Police had also found 81 other bullet cartridges and an unexploded grenade. He said that he had initiated an investigation into the shooting and would punish any soldiers shown to be involved. However, a Thai army weapons expert April 24 said that the cartridges lacked the serial numbers that had been engraved on army bullets for the past five years, suggesting that the bullets were not necessarily military in origin. Sondhi April 25 was released from the Bangkok hospital where he had undergone surgery to repair damage to his skull caused by the shooting and to remove a blood clot. n

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Iceland Left-wing Coalition Wins Elections. Prime

Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir April 25 led her leftist coalition to victory in Iceland’s parliamentary elections, and signaled that her top priority was to apply for membership in the European Union for Iceland. She had taken office in February as head of a caretaker government after street protests the previous month, sparked by the country’s economic collapse, forced the resignation of her predecessor, Geir Haarde of the conservative Independence Party. [See p. 68F3; for facts on Sigurdardottir, see box p. 296A1] Sigurdardottir’s Social Democratic Alliance won 20 seats in the 63-seat Althingi, or parliament. Her coalition partner, the Left-Green Movement, won 14 seats. The Independence Party won 16 seats, its worst election result ever. About 85% of eligible voters cast ballots. The Independence Party had held power for most of the past two decades, pursuing free-market policies that were blamed for encouraging heavy risk-taking by Iceland’s banks. The major banks were all taken over by the government in October 2008 to save them from collapsing in the global financial crisis, and Iceland had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $10 billion rescue package. Iceland’s gross domestic product (GDP) was projected to contract 10% in 2009, and the unemployment rate had risen sharply, to 8.9% in March. Sigurdardottir April 26 said she would press for an EU membership agreement, and a referendum on it, within 12 to 18 months, despite opposition from the LeftGreens and divided public opinion. She also said she expected that Iceland would be able to adopt the euro currency within four years. The opportunity of adopting the stable euro, used by 16 of the EU’s 27 member nations, was an incentive for pursuing EU membership. The value of Iceland’s currency, the krona, had plunged during the economic crisis, and the inflation rate was now hovering at about 15%. 295

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Johanna Sigurdardottir was born Oct. 4, 1942, in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. She graduated from the Commercial College of Iceland in 1960. She worked as a flight attendant for Loftleidir Icelandic Airlines from 1962 to 1971, then as an office worker for a packaging company from 1971 to 1978. She became a labor organizer during her airline career, and later became a top union official. She was first elected to the Althingi, or parliament, in 1978. She joined the cabinet for the first time in 1987, as minister of social affairs. In 1994, she resigned from the government and made an unsuccessful bid for the leadership of the Social Democratic Party, which later merged with two other center-left parties to form the Social Democratic Alliance. She formed her own party, the National Movement, in 1995, but rejoined the Social Democrats in 2000, and became social affairs minister again in 2007. She became prime minister Feb. 1 after street protests over Iceland’s economic crisis drove Prime Minister Geir Haarde of the conservative Independence Party from office. Her Social Democrat–led coalition won parliamentary elections April 25. [See pp. 295C3, 68F3] Sigurdardottir was Iceland’s first female prime minister and the first openly gay leader of any modern nation. In 2002, she married author and playwright Jonina Leosdottir in a civil ceremony. (Iceland legalized gay marriage in 1996.) Sigurdardottir had two adult sons from a previous marriage to a man, banker Torvaldur Johannesson. [See 1996, p. 504E3]

The Independence Party had rejected the idea of joining the EU, warning that it would lead to a loss of national sovereignty in matters such as the regulation of Iceland’s fishing industry. Sigurdardottir vowed not to give up control over natural resources in exchange for EU membership. Sigurdardottir, 66, was Iceland’s first female prime minister, and the first openly homosexual person to lead any modern nation. n

Other European News Turkey, Armenia Reach Pact to Improve Ties.

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The foreign ministries of Turkey and Armenia April 22 announced that they had reached an agreement on a “road map” for normalizing relations between the two nations. The deal called for their border to be opened for the first time since 1993. Turkey had closed the border in a dispute over Armenia’s backing for separatist rebels in the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, an ally of Turkey. [See 2008, p. 638F3] Turkish-Armenian ties had also been overshadowed by the World War I–era mass killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey’s refusal to recognize those deaths as a deliberate act of genocide, as Armenia demanded. The April 22 statement did not provide further details of the agreement or a time frame for implementing it. The agreement would require final approval by both countries’ leaders and parliaments. 296

Armenia and Turkey both credited Switzerland with acting as a mediator in their negotiations. U.S. officials reportedly were also deeply involved in the talks. During his visit to Istanbul, Turkey, earlier in April, U.S. President Barack Obama had reportedly discussed the matter with Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. Adding to the pressure on Turkey, the European Union had made reopening the Armenian border one of its conditions for Turkey’s bid for EU membership. Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry April 23 expressed opposition to the pact, with a spokesman warning that “opening the border could lead to tensions in the region.” Azerbaijan called on Turkey to insist on a withdrawal of Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh as a condition for normalized relations. Azerbaijan had warned that it might withdraw Turkey’s favored status for access to its oil and gas supplies if the matter remained unsettled. In response, Turkish officials said they still intended to link the normalization of relations with Armenia to a resolution of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Obama Marks Killings as ‘Atrocities’—

Obama April 24 avoided using the word “genocide” in a statement issued on Armenians’ annual commemoration of the start of the mass killings in 1915. When he was still a senator and presidential candidate, Obama had described the massacres as a genocide. But earlier in April, during his visit to Turkey, he had avoided using the term. [See p. 214G2] In his April 24 statement, Obama called the massacres of Armenians “one of the great atrocities of the 20th century.” He added, “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. My interest remains the frank and just acknowledgment of the facts. The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of their past as part of their efforts to move forward.” Turkish President Abdullah Gul April 25 criticized Obama’s statement, saying that Obama should have recognized that “hundreds of thousands of Turks and Muslims” had been killed in fighting with Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. n

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Iraq Series of Deadly Bombings Kills Over 180.

A wave of bombings April 23–24 hit Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 140 people. Six additional bombings in Baghdad April 29 killed at least 48 people. The bombings were the latest in a string of recent high-profile attacks in Iraq, which had come as the U.S. military was turning over security responsibilities to Iraqi forces. [See p. 275F1]

The bombings largely hit Shiite Muslim targets, and Iraqis reportedly feared that they were aimed at reigniting sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunni Muslims. The attacks were believed to be the work of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, though government officials suggested that elements of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baath party were also involved. [See below] A suicide bomber April 23 attacked a crowd of women and children at a food distribution center in the predominantly Shiite Karrada neighborhood in central Baghdad. Iraqi officials said 28 people had died in the explosion, including at least six police officers. Witnesses said the bomber was a woman who was walking with a young child. The same day, another suicide bomber in Muqdadiyah, in Diyala, detonated his explosives outside a restaurant at which Iranian pilgrims traveling to Iraqi Shiite holy sites had stopped. The blast killed at least at least 47 people, almost all of them Iranians, according to Iraqi police. Also April 23, a suicide bomber in Diyala attacked a car carrying a leader of a local Awakening Council—an armed, predominantly Sunni group that had turned against extremists—killing the Awakening leader and four bystanders. Two suicide bombers April 24 blew themselves up in Baghdad’s mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiya near the revered Shiite shrine of Imam Musa al Kadhim and his grandson. The bombers, at least one of whom was reportedly female, killed at least 60 people, mostly Iranian pilgrims. In response to a public outcry over the attack, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki called for an investigation into the attack and possible security failures. He also ordered the arrest of two national police commanders responsible for security in the area. The 2008 bombing of another important Shiite mosque, the Askariya shrine in Samarra, had touched off intense sectarian violence. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, April 25 indicated that U.S. troops were responsible for the bombings that had killed Iranians. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was visiting Iraq that day, dismissed IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood April 30 [See pp. 296F2, 208A3]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

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Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,022 Iraqi civilian deaths: 91,586–99,991 (Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org.

FACTS ON FILE

the accusation and said the bombing was “clearly traced to the Al Qaeda remnants and other violent groups.” [See p. 297A3] All six of the April 29 bombings hit predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad. In the deadliest, two car bombs exploded at a market in the neighborhood of Sadr City, killing at least 41 people and wounding more than 60, according to Iraqi security officials. A roadside bomb in the southern neighborhood of Dora shortly afterwards exploded near a minibus, killing five of the bus’s occupants. Also that day, two car bombs exploded in front of a Sunni mosque in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Huriya, killing at least two people, and another car bombing in the southwestern neighborhood of Shurta Rabia wounded five. Iraqi police said they had defused at least three additional car bombs. After the Sadr City attacks, Iraqis threw stones and bottles at Iraqi troops and berated them for not stopping the bombers. Insurgent Leader Reported Caught—

The Iraqi military April 23 announced that it had captured Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who it said was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. However, extremist Web sites denied that he had been captured, and the U.S. military could not confirm it. Baghdadi’s death or capture had been erroneously reported several times in the past, and the U.S. military had said he did not exist, but was a fiction meant to give the foreign-led Al Qaeda in Iraq an Iraqi face. [See 2008, p. 842C3] Iraqi officials April 28 released for the first time a photograph of a man it said was Baghdadi. Maliki that day said Baghdadi had “deep ties” with Hussein’s regime. Maliki had claimed that members of the Baath party had cooperated with insurgents to orchestrate some of the recent bombings, and his government had started taking a harder line against reconciliation efforts with former Baathists. The New York Times April 26 reported that one of Hussein’s former top generals, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani, who was living in Jordan, had decided to stop participating in secret U.S.-brokered reconciliation talks because he thought Maliki’s government was not willing to accept former Baathists. Analysts said the antipathy was due in part to Maliki’s desire not to offend Shiite voters—who had been oppressed by Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government— ahead of an election scheduled for later in the year. U.S. Raid in Kut Protested—U.S. troops early April 26 raided a house in the city of Kut, in Wasit province southeast of Baghdad, detaining six men who they said were suspected of involvement in Shiite militias. Two Iraqis were killed in the raid: a policemen who the U.S. military said was armed and a threat, and a woman who was caught in the cross fire. The military later released all six detainees, saying they had been mistakenly targeted, and apologized for the raid. Hundreds of Iraqis April 26 protested against the raid in Kut. Maliki said it was a April 30, 2009

violation of a 2008 bilateral security agreement, and called on the U.S. military to “hand over those responsible for this crime to the courts.” However, the agreement only gave Iraqi courts jurisdiction over U.S. soldiers if they were not “on duty.” U.S. military officials said they had received permission for the raid from Iraqi officials, as required by the agreement. U.S. Seeks to Keep Troops in Mosul—

The Times April 27 reported that the U.S. military would begin to negotiate exceptions for a provision of the security agreement that required U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30. The U.S. would reportedly seek to keep troops in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, which was one of the last strongholds of the Sunni insurgency. [See p. 156E1] U.S. combat troops would also reportedly stay in several bases in Baghdad that Iraq had classified as technically outside the city limits, and one contingent near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad would remain to protect the facility. Also, Britain April 30 formally ended its combat mission in Iraq. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meeting with Maliki in London, said the remaining 3,700 British troops in Iraq would withdraw from their base in the southern province of Basra in the coming weeks. A small contingent would remain behind to train Iraqi forces. The war in Iraq had been deeply unpopular in Britain, and 179 British soldiers had been killed. Britain had 46,000 troops in Iraq at the peak of its involvement in 2003. [See p. 208B3] Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The office of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) April 26 reported that the Iraqi military had been negligent in improving its ability to maintain equipment and supply troops ahead of the U.S. withdrawal. The report said delays in creating a maintenance system and training troops had led to the ballooning of U.S. costs from about $208 million to more than $628 million. [See p. 175A1] o A federal grand jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., April 24 indicted U.S. citizen Robert John Jeffrey for conspiracy and theft of government property for involvement in a scheme in which prosecutors said at least $40 million worth of diesel and jet fuel was stolen from the U.S. military in Iraq in 2007–08. According to prosecutors, the participants in the plot, using fraudulent papers to pose as contractors, had filled tanker trucks with at least 10 million gallons of fuel from a large U.S. Army depot in Baghdad and sold it on the Iraqi black market, which was controlled in large part by Iraqi insurgents. The U.S. Justice Department said the charges carried a penalty of up to 15 years in prison and fines of $250,000 or more. The participants allegedly included Jeffrey; Lee William Dubois, who had pleaded guilty in late 2008; several other U.S. nationals and Iraqis; and about 10 Nepalese drivers. [See p. 255C1] n

Other Middle East News Clinton Visits Iraq, Lebanon. U.S. Secretary

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of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 24– 26 traveled to the Middle East, visiting Kuwait, Iraq and Lebanon. It was her second trip to the region as the U.S.’s top diplomat, after a March visit that included stops in Syria, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. [See 2009, p. 123F1] After meeting with Kuwaiti officials April 24, Clinton April 25 flew to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. The unannounced visit was her first to Iraq as secretary of state, after three trips to the country as a senator. Clinton met with Iraqi officials and Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. She was accompanied by the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill. [See p. 296E3] In a news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Clinton pledged that the U.S. would continue to “stand with the people of Iraq,” while U.S. forces withdrew over the next year. She said that despite a series of major suicide bombings over the past week that had killed at least 140 people, overall security was improving. She said the attacks were, “in an unfortunately tragic way, a signal that the rejectionists fear that Iraq is going in the right direction.” Clinton also held a town hall–style meeting with over 100 Iraqis picked by the U.S. embassy. Many of the Iraqis asked her for help for various groups such as aid organizations and former prisoners, and also questioned whether the U.S. was still committed to Iraq. Clinton asserted that U.S. aid for civilian projects would increase and the troop withdrawal would be carried out in a “responsible and careful way,” but added, “We need to be sure that all of you are supporting a strong, nonsectarian security force.”

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Clinton April 26 traveled on to Lebanon and met with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7. At a news conference in Beirut, the capital, Clinton said, “The Lebanese people have a lot at stake in this election,” and expressed “hope that the election will be free of intimidation and outside interference and that the results…will continue a moderate, positive direction that will benefit all the people of Lebanon.” [See p. 156D3] In the election, the Western-backed March 14 Movement led by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora would face the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. Clinton did not state support for either side, and did not meet with Siniora or other legislators who would participate in the election. However, she laid a wreath on the grave of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who had been assassinated in 2005 and had been Siniora’s patron. The U.S. considered Hezbollah a terrorist group and did not have contacts with the organization. [See p. 210G3] Clinton in the press conference also said the U.S. “will never make any deal with 297

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Syria that sells out Lebanon and the Lebanese people.” Syria had occupied Lebanon for almost three decades before withdrawing in 2005, and it backed Hezbollah. The Obama administration had taken steps to improve relations with Syria. [See p. 143B1] n

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Army Retakes Town From Militants. The

Pakistani army April 29 announced that it had seized control of Daggar, the main town in the northwestern district of Buner, a week after hundreds of Taliban Islamic fundamentalist militants overran the area, which lay 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The Pakistani government had come under intense domestic and international pressure to combat the militants, who observers said were using a February peace deal to expand their control of the northwest. [See p. 275E3] President Asif Ali Zardari earlier in April had signed a law allowing Islamic fundamentalists to establish sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Malakand division in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The establishment of sharia was part of a February peace deal reached between the Pakistani army and Taliban militants in Malakand’s Swat valley, the site of an 18-month-long battle between the two sides. However, the Taliban in April invaded Buner, which was also part of Malakand, in an apparent violation of the peace deal. Critics said the government’s reaction to the developments in Buner was tepid, and that Zardari was effectively ceding territory to the Taliban, which was calling for the implementation of sharia across Pakistan and seeking to overthrow the government. The government appeared to be swayed by the criticism, particularly from domestic media outlets and prominent politicians, as well as the U.S., Pakistan’s strongest ally. The Taliban was thought to have ties to international terrorist network Al Qaeda, and was also fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Zardari was scheduled to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai May 6 in Washington, D.C., where they were expected the discuss the growing militant threat. Army Begins Ground and Air Offensive—

G

The army April 28 began a ground and air offensive against the Taliban in Buner, following what it described as a successful April 26–27 operation to root out militants in the district of Lower Dir, located between Swat district and Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, April 29 said one soldier and more than 50 militants were killed in the Buner operation. He said militants were currently holding Buner’s civilian population “hostage,” and that the army was “try298

ing to ensure there is minimum collateral damage and minimum displacement of local people.” Abbas said the army had freed 18 of 70 police and paramilitary troops who had been captured April 28. He said a reported withdrawal from the area by militants April 24 had been faked, and that their commander, Maulana Fazlullah, had actually ordered them to remain in Buner. Abbas said he expected the operation to last for at least a week. Heavy fighting between the two sides continued through April 30. Abbas April 28 had said the Lower Dir operation had resulted in the deaths of 75 militants and 10 troops. An estimated 30,000 civilians fled the area due to the fighting. Pakistani officials said control of Lower Dir could allow the Taliban to travel freely from Afghanistan and the tribal areas to Buner and other regions in the NWFP. U.S. officials praised the Pakistani army’s efforts. Geoff Morrell, a Defense Department spokesman, April 29 said the offensive was “exactly the appropriate response,” adding, “We hope they can sustain these operations.” The New York Times April 29 reported that Pakistan was considering deploying an additional 6,000 troops to the NWFP from Pakistan’s eastern border with India. It remained unclear whether the army’s peace deal in Swat still held following the fighting in Buner and Lower Dir. Some Taliban leaders accused the government of violating the deal, but government officials said they hoped it would remain intact. While there were about 500 militants in

Buner, there were some 8,000 militants in Swat, and the army had been unable to defeat them militarily. Separately, 12 children in Lower Dir April 25 died when they mistook a bomb for a toy. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Football QB Stafford Picked First in NFL Draft. The

Detroit Lions April 25 selected University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford with the first pick in the National Football League (NFL) draft. The seven-round draft, in which 256 players were selected, was held April 25–26 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. [See 2008, p. 319A1; for a complete list of the first-round picks, see p. 298D2] The selection of Stafford had been expected, after he agreed April 24 to a sixyear contract with the Lions that included a guaranteed $41.7 million and could be worth as much as $78 million with incentives. The Lions in the 2008 season had been the first team in NFL history to post a record of zero wins and 16 losses. [See 2008, p. 991C1] With the second overall pick, the St. Louis Rams chose Baylor University offensive tackle Jason Smith. The Kansas City Chiefs took Louisiana State University defensive end Tyson Jackson with the third pick, and the Seattle Seahawks used the fourth selection to draft Wake Forest University linebacker Aaron Curry.

2009 NFL DRAFT: FIRST ROUND

The teams selecting in the first round of the April 25–26 National Football League (NFL) collegiate draft, the projected professional positions of the players, and the players’ colleges were [See p. 298B3]: 1. Detroit:

17. Tampa Bay (from N.Y. Jets via Cleveland):

Josh Freeman, quarterback, Kansas State 18. Denver (from Chicago): Robert Ayers, de-

fensive end, Tennessee 19. Philadelphia (from Tampa Bay via Cleve-

Matthew Stafford, quarterback,

Georgia 2. St. Louis: Jason Smith, offensive tackle, Bay-

lor 3. Kansas City: Tyson Jackson, defensive end,

LSU 4. Seattle: Aaron Curry, linebacker, Wake Forest 5. N.Y. Jets (from Cleveland): Mark Sanchez, 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

quarterback, Southern California Cincinnati: Andre Smith, offensive tackle, Alabama Oakland: Darrius Heyward-Bey, wide receiver, Maryland Jacksonville: Eugene Monroe, offensive tackle, Virginia Green Bay: B.J. Raji, defensive tackle, Boston College San Francisco: Michael Crabtree, wide receiver, Texas Tech Buffalo: Aaron Maybin, defensive end, Penn State Denver: Knowshon Moreno, running back, Georgia Washington: Brian Orakpo, defensive end, Texas New Orleans: Malcolm Jenkins, defensive back, Ohio State Houston: Brian Cushing, linebacker, Southern California San Diego: Larry English, linebacker, Northern Illinois

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

land): Jeremy Maclin, wide receiver, Missouri Detroit (from Dallas): Brandon Pettigrew, tight end, Oklahoma State Cleveland (from Philadelphia): Alex Mack, center, California Minnesota: Percy Harvin, wide receiver, Florida Baltimore (from New England): Michael Oher, offensive tackle, Mississippi Atlanta: Peria Jerry, defensive tackle, Mississippi Miami: Vontae Davis, defensive back, Illinois Green Bay (from Baltimore via New England): Clay Matthews, linebacker, Southern California Indianapolis: Donald Brown, running back, Connecticut Buffalo (from Carolina via Philadelphia): Eric Wood, center, Louisville N.Y. Giants: Hakeem Nicks, wide receiver, North Carolina Tennessee: Kenny Britt, wide receiver, Rutgers Arizona: Chris Wells, running back, Ohio State Pittsburgh: Evander Hood, defensive tackle, Missouri

FACTS ON FILE

In one of the most significant trades of the first round, the New York Jets acquired the fifth pick from the Cleveland Browns and drafted University of Southern California (USC) quarterback Mark Sanchez. In exchange, the Browns received the Jets’ first- and second-round picks in the draft, as well as three players: quarterback Brett Ratliff, defensive end Kenyon Coleman and defensive back Abran Elam. The Jets were in need of a new quarterback after their previous starter, Brett Favre, had retired in February. [See p. 176B2] Other News—In other NFL news: o The Chiefs April 23 traded tight end Tony Gonzalez to the Atlanta Falcons for a second-round pick in the 2010 draft. Gonzalez, 33, was one of the most prolific tight ends in NFL history. [See 2001, p. 111B1] o Longtime television analyst and former NFL coach John Madden April 16 announced that he was retiring from calling games. Madden, 73, had coached the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, and began his broadcasting career in 1979. Since then, he had worked for the CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC networks; his last game had been Super Bowl XLIII in February. Also, he had lent his name to the video game “Madden NFL Football” by Electronic Arts Inc. (EA)—the best-selling sports video game of all time. In 2006, Madden had been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Madden said he was retiring to spend more time with his family. [See 2006, p. 739D3; 2002, p. 198D2] o The New York Giants April 3 released troubled star wide receiver Plaxico Burress. Burress in early December 2008 had been charged with two counts of seconddegree criminal possession of a weapon, after accidentally shooting himself in the thigh with a handgun he was carrying illegally in a New York City nightclub. The Giants had suspended him without pay for the rest of the season after the incident. However, an arbitrator April 6 ruled that the Giants were obligated to pay Burress a $1 million installment of his $4.25 million signing bonus. The team had refused to pay the installment, which had been due Dec. 10, 2008. [See 2008, p. 991E1] o The Denver Broncos April 2 traded disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler, along with a fifth-round draft pick, to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, the Bears’ first- and third-round picks in the 2009 draft, and their first-round pick in 2010. Cutler reportedly had been unhappy with the firing of longtime Broncos coach Mike Shanahan in December 2008. [See 2008, p. 992F1] n

Hockey NHL Season Ends. The National Hockey League (NHL) season ended April 12, with

16 of the league’s 30 teams—eight each from the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference—advancing to the playoffs. [See p. 159G1] The Western Conference’s San Jose Sharks claimed the Presidents’ Trophy as April 30, 2009

2008–09 NHL Statistical Leaders*

NHL 2008–09 Final Standings EASTERN CONFERENCE Atlantic Division W L OT** Pts

*New Jersey *Pittsburgh *Philadelphia *N.Y. Rangers N.Y. Islanders *Boston *Montreal Buffalo Ottawa Toronto

GF

GA

106 99 99 95 61

244 264 264 210 201

209 239 238 218 279

Northeast Division W L OT** Pts

GF

GA

274 249 250 217 250

196 247 234 237 293

51 45 44 43 26 53 41 41 36 34

27 4 28 9 27 11 30 9 47 9 19 30 32 35 35

10 11 9 11 13

116 93 91 83 81

Southeast Division W L OT** Pts

*Washington *Carolina Florida Atlanta Tampa Bay

SCORING

50 45 41 35 24

24 30 30 41 40

8 7 11 6 18

108 97 93 76 66

GF

GA

272 239 234 257 210

245 226 231 280 279

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Central Division *Detroit *Chicago *St. Louis *Columbus Nashville *Vancouver *Calgary Minnesota Edmonton Colorado *San Jose *Anaheim Dallas Phoenix Los Angeles

W

L OT** Pts

GF

GA

51 46 41 41 40

21 24 31 31 34

112 104 92 92 88

295 264 233 226 213

244 216 233 230 233

Northwest Division W L OT** Pts

GF

GA

100 98 89 85 69

246 254 219 234 199

220 248 200 248 257

Pacific Division W L OT** Pts

GF

GA

257 245 230 208 207

204 238 257 252 234

45 46 40 38 32 53 42 36 36 34

27 30 33 35 45 18 33 35 39 37

10 12 10 10 8 10 6 9 9 5 11 7 11 7 11

117 91 83 79 79

*In playoffs **Overtime loss. Teams get one point for a loss in overtime or a shootout.

the team with the most points in the regular season. The Sharks posted a record of 53 wins, 18 losses and 11 overtime or shootout losses (worth one point), for a total of 117 points. The Boston Bruins (53–19–10; 116 points) had the best record in the Eastern Conference. Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top points scorer, notching 35 goals and 78 assists for 113 points. For the second straight season, Washington Capitals center Alex Ovechkin claimed the Maurice Richard Trophy as the league leader in goals, with 56. [See 2008, p. 760F1] Other News—In other NHL news: o The Penguins April 27 removed the “interim” tag from coach Dan Blysma’s title, and awarded him a multiyear contract, the terms of which were not disclosed. Blysma had taken over as interim coach in February, after the team fired Michel Therrien. Blysma led the Penguins from a mediocre record to gaining the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Penguins April 25 won their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia Flyers, four games to two. [See p. 159D2]

Malkin, Pittsburgh Ovechkin, Washington Crosby, Pittsburgh Datsyuk, Detroit Parise, New Jersey

A

GP

G

A

Pts

+/-

82 79 77 81 82

35 56 33 32 45

78 54 70 65 49

113 110 103 97 94

17 8 3 34 30

GOALS—Ovechkin, 56; Carter, Philadelphia, 46; Parise, 45; Kovalchuk, Atlanta, 43; Nash, Columbus, 40; Staal, Carolina, 40; Hossa, Detroit, 40; Vanek, Buffalo, 40. ASSISTS—Malkin, 78; Crosby, 70; Getzlaf, Anaheim, 66; Backstrom, Washington, 66; Datsyuk, 65. POWER-PLAY GOALS—Vanek, 20; Ovechkin, 19; Cammalleri, Calgary, 19; Green, Washington, 18; Selanne, Anaheim, 16; Boyes, St. Louis, 16. SHORT-HANDED GOALS—Richards, Philadelphia, 7; Marleau, San Jose, 5; Nash, 5; seven tied with 4. GAME-WINNING GOALS—Carter, 12; Boyes, 11; Marleau, 10; Ovechkin, 10; Sykora, Pittsburgh, 10. PLUS/MINUS—Krejci, Boston, 37; Wheeler, Boston, 36; Datsyuk, 34; Zajac, New Jersey, 33; Keith, Chicago, 33. PENALTY MINUTES—Carcillo, Philadelphia, 254; O’Brien, Vancouver, 196; Orr, N.Y. Rangers, 193; Stortini, Edmonton, 181; Boll, Columbus, 180.

GOALTENDING WINS—Kiprusoff, Calgary, 45; Nabokov, San Jose, 41; Ward, Carolina, 39; Lundqvist, N.Y. Rangers, 38; Backstrom, Minnesota, 37. SHUTOUTS—Mason, Columbus, 10; Luongo, Vancouver, 9; Backstrom, 8; Nabokov, 7; Rinne, Nashville, 7. †GOALS-AGAINST AVERAGE—Thomas, Boston, 2.10; Mason, 2.29; Backstrom, 2.33; Khabibulin, Chicago, 2.33; Luongo, 2.34. †SAVE PERCENTAGE—Thomas, .933; Vokoun, Florida, .926; Anderson, Florida, .924; Backstrom, .923; Luongo, .920.

B

C

D

*The players’complete names are found in the index. †Minimum 27 games played.

o The Colorado Avalanche, who finished last in the Western Conference with a 32–45–5 record, April 13 fired general manager Francois Giguere. o Minnesota Wild coach Jacques Lemaire April 12 announced that he was retiring, after eight seasons with the team. The Wild April 16 fired general manager Doug Risebrough. [See 2003, p. 683A3] o New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur March 17 won the 552nd game of his career, surpassing Hall of Famer Patrick Roy as the NHL’s all-time goalie win leader. The Devils that night defeated the Chicago Blackhawks, 3–2, in Newark, N.J. Brodeur, 36, was a four-time winner of the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalie, and had backstopped the Devils in three Stanley Cup championships. As of the end of the 2008–09 season, he had compiled 557 wins. [See 2008, p. 760A2; 2006, p. 774F2] n Boston University Wins NCAA Title. The Boston University Terriers April 11 defeated the Miami University (Ohio) RedHawks, 4–3, in overtime in Washington, D.C., to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s hockey championship. The Terriers, coached by Jack Parker, claimed the fifth championship in the program’s history. 299

E

F

G

A

B

C

D

E

Underdog Miami had been attempting to win the first NCAA title in any sport in the school’s history. [See 2008, p. 336B1] The championship game featured a thrilling finish. The teams were tied, 1–1, at the beginning of the third period. Continuous pressure applied by Miami’s offense eventually led to goals by Tommy Wingles and Trent Vogelhuber to give the RedHawks a 3–1 lead. Parker pulled goaltender Kieran Millan for an extra attacker with three minutes and 23 seconds remaining in the game. That move paid off, as Zach Cohen scored to pull the Terriers to within one goal, and Nick Bonino stunned the RedHawks by tying the score with just 17 seconds remaining. That sent the game into overtime, and Colby Cohen scored the game-winner for Boston University 11:47 into the overtime period. Boston University had reached the final April 9 by defeating the University of Vermont, 5–4, in a game that also featured a twogoal comeback in the third period by the Terriers. Miami that day beat Bemidji State University, 4–1, to advance to the championship game. Bemidji State, a tiny school based in Minnesota, had been the first 16th (lowest) seed to reach the Frozen Four, after an improbable playoff run in which it defeated several higher-ranked teams. Gilroy Wins Hobey Baker Award— Boston University senior defenseman Matt Gilroy, the team’s co-captain, April 10 won the Hobey Baker Memorial Award as the top player in U.S. college hockey. Gilroy had been an unrecruited freshman walk-on for the school, and turned down offers from several National Hockey League (NHL) teams in order to return for his senior year. In the 2008–09 season, he played a key role in leading the Terriers to their first Frozen Four appearance since 1997. Wisconsin Claims Women’s Title— The University of Wisconsin Badgers March 22 won the NCAA Division I women’s hockey championship, defeating the Mercyhurst College Lakers, 5–0, in Boston, Mass. Wisconsin was led by goaltender Jessie Vetter, who collected her record 14th shutout of the season and was named the most outstanding player of the women’s Frozen Four. Wisconsin won its third title in four years. [See 2008, p. 268G1] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

F

Awards Swiss Architect Wins Pritzker Prize. Swiss

G

architect Peter Zumthor April 13 was named the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize, deemed the most prestigious prize in the field of architecture and worth $100,000. Zumthor was the first solo Swiss architect to win the prize; the Basel-based team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron had shared it in 2001. [See 2008, p. 247F2; 2001, p. 259G1] While little known to the general public, Zumthor, 65, was esteemed by his colleagues for having succeeded “in paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials,” according to the ci300

tation from the nine-member Pritzker jury accompanying the announcement of the prize. Since 1979, he had lived and worked in the remote Swiss Alpine village of Haldenstein, running a small practice of only about 20 employees. Perhaps his best-known completed project was a bath house he designed for the Hotel Therme, in Vals, Switzerland. The facility, which opened in 1996, was built on the site of a hot spring embedded in a mountainside, and its thick walls were lined with stone from local quarries. Its pools were illuminated by flickering, indirect sunlight, enhancing its aura of tranquility. Since the facility’s opening, tourism to the Vals area had reportedly climbed nearly 50%. One of his most highly regarded projects outside Switzerland was the Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, Germany, finished in 2007. Rising from the ruins of a Gothic church destroyed during World War II, the museum was hailed by the Pritzker jury as “a startling contemporary work but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history.” It, too, was gently illuminated, by light penetrating through random gaps in the stonework of the structure’s upper walls. In 1993, Zumthor had submitted the winning design for a memorial to the horrors of Nazism that was to have been built in Berlin, Germany. Cost overruns reportedly led to the cancellation of that project in 2004, whereupon German officials demolished what had already been built. n

People A statue of abolitionist Sojourner Truth was unveiled April 28 in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., making her the first black woman to be so honored. Presiding over the unveiling were First Lady Michelle Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.). Born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree at the turn of the 19th century, Truth escaped to freedom in 1826 and later became not only a prominent antislavery crusader but also a women’s rights activist. She died in 1883 in Battle Creek, Mich. The statue was located in the main hall of the Capitol’s new Visitor Center, which was called Emancipation Hall. [See 2008, p. 906D2; 1979, p. 712E1] Seeking to confirm a long-standing rumor that a gold pocket-watch that had once belonged to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln contained a secret message, Washington, D.C.’s American Museum of National History, part of the Smithsonian Institution, March 10 opened the watch, which had been part of its collection since 1958. The watch, when opened, was found to contain an inscription by Irish immigrant and watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, who, while working at a Washington jewelry shop, had been tasked with repairing Lincoln’s timepiece in 1861, soon after Lincoln became president. The inscription read: “Jonathan Dillon April 13-1861 Fort Sumpter [Sumter] was attacked by the rebels on the above date...thank God we

have a government.” (Dillon was off by a day; Fort Sumter, S.C., was attacked on April 12, 1861, precipitating the Civil War.) The New York Times in April 1906 had run an article about the alleged inscription after interviewing Dillon, then 84 years old. [See 2008, p. 997C1] n

O B I T UA R I E S ANNAKIN, Ken(neth Cooper), 94, film director whose first feature film was Holiday Camp, released in 1947; he went on to direct dozens of films in both his native Britain and Hollywood, including Across the Bridge (1957), Swiss Family Robinson (1960)—one of several family-oriented movies he made for Walt Disney Co.—and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), a comedy about a 1910 London-toParis airplane race; the last film he directed was The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking (1988); born Aug. 10, 1914, in Beverley, England; died April 22 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., weeks after suffering a heart attack and a stroke within a day of each other. [See 1982, p. 884G2; 1979, p. 820B1; Indexes 1968, 1965, 1962, 1959–60, 1957, 1953, 1949–50] ARTHUR, Bea(trice) (born Bernice Frankel), 86, actress who starred in two long-running television situation comedies, “Maude” (1972–78) and “The Golden Girls” (1985–92); both were produced by Norman Lear, who created the title character of the former show, outspoken feminist Maude Findlay, just for her; before becoming a TV star, she made her mark on Broadway, originating the role of Yente the Matchmaker in the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1964) and winning a 1966 Tony Award for her performance in the musical Mame, directed by Gene Saks, her husband from 1950 to 1978; born May 13, 1922, in New York City; died April 25 at her home in Los Angeles, of cancer. [See 2008, p. 512A3; 2002, p. 351D3; Indexes 1988, 1981, 1966, 1957–58, 1955] CARDIFF, Jack, 94, British cinematographer and film director; he was the camera operator on the first Technicolor film made in Britain, Wings of the Morning (1937), and in the 1940s collaborated on three of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s best-known films—A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948); his work on Black Narcissus won him an Academy Award, and in 2001 he was given an honorary lifetime Oscar; he himself directed about 15 films, including a 1960 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers; born Sept. 18, 1914, in Great Yarmouth, England; died April 22 at his home in Ely, England. [See 1990, p. 132D3; 1988, p. 96G3; Indexes 1968, 1964–65, 1960] JONES, Jack (James Larkin Jones), 96, general secretary of Britain’s Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), 1969–78; during that period, he was perhaps Britain’s most influential nongovernmental political figure; under his leadership, the TGWU became the first British labor union to exceed two million members; born March 29, 1913, in Liverpool, England; died April 21 in London. [See 1977, pp. 392F1, 44C3, 29B2; 1976, pp. 1003E3, 889A3, 853F2, 439G3; Indexes 1975, 1971–72, 1969] MANNING, Frankie (Frank Benjamin), 94, leading exponent of the form of swing dancing known as the Lindy Hop, which began in New York City in the late 1920s and became an international craze in the 1930s; after U.S. Army service during World War II, he returned to dance, but by the early 1950s the significantly altered music scene no longer allowed him to make a living as a dancer; for the next three decades he worked as a postal clerk, until a revival of swing dancing enabled him to return to the dance world full-time, as both teacher and performer; in 1989, he shared a Tony Award for choreography with three others— Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang and Fayard Nicholas— for their work on the Broadway revue Black and Blue; since LeTang’s death in 2007, he had been the last survivor of that foursome; born May 26, 1914, in Jacksonville, Fla.; died April 27 at a hospital in New York City, of pneumonia complications. [See 2006, p. 60C3; 2003, p. 360G2; Index 1989] MAXIMOVA, Ekaterina Sergeyevna, 71, Russian ballerina; she was a principal dancer with Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet from the late 1950s until the late 1980s, hailed not only as a soloist but as the partner of Vladimir Vasiliev, the Bolshoi’s leading male dancer of their era and her husband since 1961; she was widely reported to have been born in Moscow on Feb. 1, 1939, but, in announcing her sudden death, which occurred April 28 at her Moscow home, the Bolshoi gave her age as 71. n

April 30, 2009

Justice Souter Announces Retirement From U.S. Supreme Court Obama to Nominate His First Court Justice.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice David H. Souter May 1 tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama, who was tasked with nominating his first justice to the court less than four months after taking office. Souter, 69, had been nominated in 1990 by Republican President George H.W. Bush, becoming the court’s 105th member. However, Souter largely disappointed Republicans by consistently siding with the more liberal side of the bench, particularly in recent years. [See p. 167E1; 1990, p. 757B1; for facts on Souter, see p. 302F1; for key decisions in Souter’s tenure, see p. 302A1] In his resignation letter to Obama, Souter said he would step down in the summer, after the court finished its 2008–09 term. Souter was the fourth-youngest member of the nine-justice court, and was considered to be in good health. He did not publicly explain the reasons for his departure, but was known to have a distaste for life in Washington, D.C., and had once described the position of Supreme Court justice as “the world’s best job in the world’s worst city.” Friends also reportedly said he was eager to return to his hometown of Weare, N.H., where he could indulge in his passions for hiking and reading about law, history, literature and philosophy. Souter in his resignation letter wrote that he planned to “continue to render substantial judicial service as an Associate Justice,” an apparent reference to the ability of a retired justice to serve on a temporary basis in a federal district or appeals court. Bush Pick Disappointed Conservatives—

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Bush in July 1990 nominated the littleknown Souter to replace retiring Justice William J. Brennan Jr.—one of the staunchest liberals on the court—at the urging of White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, a former governor of New Hampshire. Sununu at the time told fellow Republicans that Souter was a “home run” for their cause. Souter was subsequently con-

firmed by the Senate in a 90–9 vote, and was sworn in in October 1990. At the time of his nomination to the Supreme Court, he had been a judge on the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Mass., for a mere two months. Before that, he had served as an associate justice on the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1983 to 1990. Souter was not long at the Supreme Court before he disappointed conservatives by coauthoring a 5–4 majority opinion in 1992 that upheld a woman’s right to an abortion, first established in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade. Souter joined Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor—both of whom had been appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan—in saying that the right to an abortion was “a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce,” in the case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. [See 1992, p. 479F1] Besides his support for abortion rights, Souter displeased conservatives by voting to strengthen the separation between church and state; to limit the use of capital punishment; to defend affirmative action policies; and to grant rights to suspected terrorism detainees held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Souter in recent years had often joined Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and John Paul Stevens to form what was considered the liberal wing of the current Supreme Court. Scholars said that during Souter’s tenure, his own legal philosophy had shifted in a liberal direction, while the ideological tenor of the court as a whole moved to the right. During much of Souter’s tenure, the court was presided over by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was credited with guiding it in a conservative direction. The last two justices to join the court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., were nominated in 2005 by Bush’s son, Republican President George W. Bush, and had thus far taken generally conservative positions. As a jurist, Souter was thought to adhere to the pragmatist position, believing that judges should consider the country’s historical progress when making a decision, as well as a case’s political and social context. Pragmatists were also defined as having a more flexible interpretation of the Constitution. Souter was often opposed by the court’s declared formalists—such as Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia— who voiced distrust of the court’s ability to interpret such progress (which, they asserted, came under the purview of Congress), and said that the court should limit itself to interpreting the letter of the law. Obama Praises Souter for Independence—

Associate Justice David Souter, who May 1 announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, in 2006.

Obama May 1 praised Souter as being a “fair-minded and independent judge.” Obama said, “He came to the bench with no particular ideology. He never sought to promote a political agenda. And he consistently defied labels and rejected absolutes, focusing instead on just one task—reach-

Facts On File

TM

World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3568 May 7, 2009

B ing a just result in the case that was before him.” Obama that day said he would seek a justice who would rule with “empathy” from the bench. He said, “I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives.” He added, “I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role.” Obama would be the first Democratic president to nominate a justice since Bill Clinton nominated Breyer in 1994. His choice was expected to leave the court’s current balance—with four liberals, four conservatives and Kennedy, who was considered a swing vote—unchanged. It was

C

D

MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Justice Souter announces his retirement from U.S. Supreme Court; Obama to nominate his first justice. PAGE 301

Swine flu virus continues spread to 23 countries. PAGE 303

Maine legalizes gay marriage.

E

PAGE 304

Obama targets overseas corporate profits for tax reform PAGE 304

Former ‘enemy combatant’ pleads guilty in U.S. court.

Marri

PAGE 305

Case dropped against former Israel lobbyists. PAGE 306

Conservative businessman Martinelli elected Panamanian president.

F

PAGE 308

Israeli probe clears military of Gaza war crimes. PAGE 312

Nepal’s prime minister resigns over army dispute. PAGE 314

Thousands flee fighting in Pakistan’s northwest. PAGE 314

50-1 shot Mine That Bird wins Kentucky Derby. PAGE 315

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

301

G

SOUTER’S OPINIONS AND VOTES ON KEY ISSUES BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT

A

Following are highlights of Justice David H. Souter’s opinions and votes on major issues addressed in Supreme Court cases [See p. 301A1]: Abortion

B

Souter coauthored the Supreme Court’s 5–4 majority decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, a 1992 case that upheld a woman’s right to an abortion, established in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade. While the court approved many of Pennsylvania’s limits on abortion rights, it held that the “essential” right to an abortion was “a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.” [See 1992, p. 479F1] In 2000 and 2007, Souter voted to repeal bans on an abortion procedure sometimes used late in a pregnancy’s term that opponents referred to as “partial-birth” abortion. [See 2007, p. 242A1; 2000, p. 461A1]

D

E

Capital Punishment

In 2006, Souter wrote the dissenting opinion in Kansas v. Marsh, in which the court ruled, 5–4, to uphold a Kansas statute that required the death penalty if a jury found equal reasons for and against sentencing a convict to death. Souter wrote, “Maintaining a sentencing system mandating death when the sentencer finds the evidence pro and con to be in equipoise is obtuse by any moral or social measure.” [See 2006, p. 507G1] Souter voted with the majority in the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana, in which the court ruled, 5–4, that the execution of child rapists was barred by the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment. [See 2008, p. 430G2]

Terrorism

Souter wrote the Supreme Court’s 5–4 majority decision in the 2005 case McCreary County v. ACLU Kentucky, finding that two Kentucky courthouses had violated the First Amendment by publicly displaying copies of the Bible’s Ten Commandments. Souter wrote that the Constitution requires “the government to stay neutral on religious belief, which is reserved for the conscience of the individual.” [See 2005, p. 432F3] In 1992, Souter joined a 5–4 majority that ruled that a public high school graduation could not hold a prayer as part of the ceremony. [See 1992, p. 466F1]

From 2004 to 2008, Souter was in the majority in a series of decisions that curbed the claims for presidential powers made by President George W. Bush to fight what Bush called the war on terror. [See 2008, p. 389A1; 2006, p. 501A1; 2004, p. 471D2] In 2008, the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush ruled, 5–4, that suspected terrorism detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had a constitutional right to habeas corpus, allowing them to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. In an opinion concurring with the majority, Souter wrote, “Today’s decision is no judicial victory, but an act of perseverance in trying to make habeas review, and the obligation of the courts to provide it, mean something of value both to prisoners and to the nation.”

widely reported that Obama was considering replacing Souter with a woman, since Ginsburg was the sole woman on the current court. It was also reported that Obama was considering nominating the court’s first Hispanic. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 3 joined others in calling on Obama to nominate someone outside the federal appellate court circuit, since every member of the current Supreme Court had been recruited from there. Leahy said Obama should nominate someone with more “real-life experience,” such as an elected official. Reported contenders for the position included Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York

City; Elena Kagan, the Obama administration’s solicitor general; Judge Diane Wood of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago; Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif.; Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears of the Georgia Supreme Court; Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D); Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D); Kathleen Sullivan, a professor at Stanford Law School; and Harold Koh, the dean of Yale Law School, who had been nominated by Obama to become legal adviser to the State Department. Obama said he wanted the Senate to confirm his nominee before the Supreme Court started its 2009–10 term in October. Obama’s nominee was expected to be con-

Church and State

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Civil Rights/Affirmative Action

Souter joined the 5–4 majority in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 case that upheld racebased preferences in the affirmative action programs used in admissions at the University of Michigan Law School. [See 2003, p. 490A1] In 2007, Souter joined the court’s minority in a 5–4 decision to bar public school systems from using race as a factor in determining where students would be placed. The school systems had argued that the policy was meant to encourage racial diversity. [See 2007, p. 409A1]

FACTS ON SOUTER

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David Hackett Souter was born in Melrose, Mass., on Sept. 17, 1939. When he was 11, his family moved to Weare, N.H., where he resided when the Supreme Court was not in session. He graduated from Harvard College in 1961 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rhodes Scholar and attended Magdalen College at Oxford University, in Britain, from 1961 to 1963, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in jurisprudence. Souter graduated from Harvard Law School in 1966. Souter was an associate of the law firm Orr and Reno in Concord, N.H., from 1966 to 1968. He became New Hampshire assistant attorney general in 1968, deputy attorney general in 1971, attorney general in 1976, associate justice of New Hampshire’s Superior Court in 1978 and associate justice of the state Supreme Court in 1983. He served in that

capacity until May 1990, when he became a judge for the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Mass. In July of that year, President George H.W. Bush nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate in October 1990 confirmed him to the bench in a 90–9 vote. [See 1990, p. 757B1] Souter was nominated on his credentials as a conservative judge, but more often than not found himself aligning with the liberal justices on the bench. He took a pragmatic, case-by-case approach, eschewing the formalist strictures of many conservative legal thinkers, who maintained that judges should adhere to the original intent and wording of the Constitution. In recent years, Souter had become a steadfast member of the court’s liberal wing. Souter May 1 announced his retirement from the court after serving for nearly 19 terms. He was a bachelor. [See p. 301A1]

Elections

Souter was in the 5–4 minority in the 2000 case Bush v. Gore, in which the court blocked recounts of ballots in Florida, leading to a presidential victory for then–Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) over then–Vice President Al Gore (D). In a dissenting opinion, Souter said the court should have never accepted the case. “If this Court had allowed the State [of Florida] to follow the course indicated by the opinions of its own Supreme Court, it is entirely possible that there would ultimately have been no issue requiring our review, and political tension could have worked itself out in the Congress.” But now that it had, he said, “There is no justification for denying the State the opportunity to try to count all the disputed ballots now.” [See 2000, p. 949A1]

firmed with relative ease. With the recent defection of formerly Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), there were 59 senators in the Democratic caucus, and possibly a 60th pending the outcome of an election dispute in Minnesota, where Democrat Al Franken held a narrow lead. However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R,

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Ingrid Jungermann, Ernesto Malinis Jr. FACTS ON FILE World News Digest is published weekly by Facts On File News Services, an imprint of Infobase Publishing, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001 (212-290-8090). Subscription $900 a year. Yearbooks (bound volumes) available from 1941. Cumulative Index published twice a month. Vice President & Publisher: Louise Bloomfield. Associate Publisher: Marjorie B. Bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Facts On File World News Digest, Facts On File News Services, 132 West 31st Street, 17th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001

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FACTS ON FILE

Ky.) signaled that Republicans would resist confirming a nominee with “partisan leanings.” Analysts said a protracted confirmation battle could undermine Democratic plans to pass major legislation in 2009 on health care and energy. [See p. 284A2] Sen. Sessions to Lead GOP Challenge—

Senate Republicans May 5 named Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, where he would lead the Republican effort to challenge Obama’s nomination. The position became vacant after Specter, the previous ranking member, switched to the Democratic party the previous week. Sessions opposed abortion rights, and professed adherence to constitutional formalism. Sessions, a former U.S. attorney, in 1986 had seen the committee reject his nomination to become a federal judge, over controversial remarks he had made that critics said were racist, allegations that Sessions rejected. Sessions May 4 said the experience gave him a unique perspective on the confirmation process, and that he would have “a little more sympathy than normal for the nominee.” However, he added, “I don’t mind tough questioning of a nominee, I support that.” [See 1986, p. 411F2] n

Swine Flu Virus Continues Spread to 23 Countries. The A (H1N1) swine influenza May 1–7

continued its spread to a total of 23 countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) May 7 reported that 2,009 cases of the virus had been confirmed by laboratory tests worldwide, and that 44 people were known to have died from the disease. Mexico continued to lead countries with 1,112 laboratory-confirmed cases and 42 deaths. The U.S. had reported 642 confirmed cases and two deaths. [See below, p. 281A1] Cases of the virus had also been confirmed in Austria (1), Britain (28), Canada (201), China’s autonomous Hong Kong region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (5), Germany (9), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (5), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (5), Portugal (1), South Korea (2), Spain (73), Sweden (1) and Switzerland (1). The previous week, the rapid discovery of the new strain of swine flu virus had alarmed international health officials, who feared the disease’s spread might result in a global pandemic. As of May 7, the WHO’s alert level remained at Phase 5, one level below Phase 6, the category assigned to a pandemic. However, WHO Director Margaret Chan May 3 said there had been “a lot of misunderstanding” regarding the pandemic designation, noting that it did not mean “death in big numbers is going to happen.” A pandemic was a category describing the way a disease spread, and not its lethality. It was defined as a continuing outbreak in at least two countries in one part of the world, with a simultaneous conMay 7, 2009

tinuing outbreak in at least one country in another part of the world. Richard Besser, acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), May 3 said genetic analysis of the new virus showed that it did not appear to contain any of the “virulence factors” found in the deadly Spanish flu of 1918 or the H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu) discovered earlier in the decade. He also said there appeared to be a much higher rate of infection in Mexico than had previously been thought, a finding that, if confirmed, would effectively lower the mortality rate of the disease. However, health officials also warned that the virus could quickly mutate into one that was more easily passed between people, or one that was deadlier. Severity of Mexican Outbreak Reviewed—

The vast majority of confirmed cases of swine flu—and all but two of deaths attributed to the disease—had been found in Mexico, but health experts were unclear as to why. Health experts said the country’s high infection and mortality rate, when compared to other countries, might result from a number of factors—a variation in the viral strain, poor education on the part of residents, and failure to seek medical care in a timely fashion among them. Experts also said it was possible that the virus had been widespread in Mexico for months, resulting mostly in mild cases of infection, before being detected. Mexican health officials May 1 said the swine flu appeared to be no more contagious than any other type of seasonal flu. Officials also said laboratory tests showed that only a fraction of people suspected of suffering from swine flu had actually contracted the virus. Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova May 3 said the country’s flu outbreak appeared to be in its “declining phase.” Businesses and government offices May 5 began to reopen after Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa the previous week had ordered a shutdown of all nonessential work for May 1–5. Schools May 6 also began reopening after a governmentmandated shutdown. Restaurants that day also resumed sit-down service, which had been halted with the intent of preventing the spread of swine flu. U.S. Reports Second Death—Texas health officials May 5 reported that a 33-year-old woman who lived in Harlingen, near the Mexican border, had become the second person to die from swine flu in the U.S. (The first had been a young Mexican boy visiting Texas.) Officials said the woman, who was not identified, had a preexisting medical condition that had been exacerbated by the flu. Besser May 6 said the median age of those hospitalized with confirmed cases of the flu in the U.S. was 15, a discovery that he said was “raising concern.” However, he noted that many early cases of swine flu had been detected in students who had recently traveled to Mexico on their spring break vacations. Experts also theorized that severe cases of the flu had been more

common in young people lacking immunity to the new strain. The CDC May 5 had ended its recommendation that schools in the U.S. close for up to 14 days if an attending student was found to carry the swine flu virus. The change reflected an easing of concerns that the flu presented a significant health danger. The recommendation had been made in order to slow the spread of the flu, since schools could serve as a transmission hub for the virus. At least 726 schools nationwide had closed as a result of the agency’s recommendation. U.S. President Barack Obama May 1 convened his cabinet in order to coordinate the federal government’s response to the outbreak. Hong Kong Sets Quarantine—Officials in Hong Kong May 1 quarantined some 300 guests and employees at the Metropark Hotel, after confirming that a 25-year-old Mexican who had arrived there the previous day had tested positive for swine flu. Others aboard the AeroMexico flight that had brought the man to Shanghai from Mexico were also quarantined. Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa May 2 criticized the Chinese government for rounding up and quarantining other Mexican nationals in China who had not exhibited any outward signs of infection. The Mexican government said at least 70 Mexicans had been held by the Chinese government with little or no explanation. The Chinese government May 4 said it had reached an agreement with Mexico to return affected Mexicans home on special chartered flights. Vaccine Expansion Considered— The Washington Post May 6 reported that the U.S. government was considering expanding its recommended vaccine regimen for the fall of 2009 to include three vaccines: one that targeted the regular seasonal flu, and two designed to combat the swine flu. Production of the seasonal flu vaccine started five to six months before the doses were administered, and changing the vaccine to target a different type of virus was a difficult process. Health officials were reportedly in the process of considering the difficulties and feasibility of producing a new vaccine. The Post May 7 also reported that several wealthier nations had preexisting contracts with vaccine makers that would allow them first purchasing rights on a new swine flu vaccine. The worldwide production capacity for a new vaccine was estimated to be between one billion and two billion doses; the U.S. had contracts guaranteeing that it could purchase 600 million doses.

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Virus Discovered in Canadian Swine—

Canadian health officials May 2 reported that pigs in the province of Alberta had tested positive for the new strain of swine flu, the first instance in which the disease had been detected in the animals. (The new strain of flu had widely been called swine flu because that was the species in which it had most likely originated.) Officials said the pigs had likely contracted the virus from an infected farm worker. n 303

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U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Civil Rights Maine Legalizes Gay Marriage. Maine Gov.

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John Baldacci (D) May 6 signed into law a measure that legalized same-sex marriage in the state, making Maine the fifth state to legalize gay nuptials. Lynch signed the bill minutes after the state Senate had cleared it, 21–13, with one senator absent. The state’s House of Representatives May 5 had approved the measure, 89–58. The bill changed the law to allow marriage to take place between two people, instead of specifying that it occur between a man and a woman. [See pp. 266B2, 216A1] Prior to the votes, it had been unclear if Baldacci would sign such a bill into law. He had previously expressed opposition to a gay marriage law, citing the teachings of his Roman Catholic faith, but in January had said he would keep an open mind on the issue. After signing the bill, Baldacci said, “It’s not the way I was raised and it’s not the way that I am.” He added, “But at the same time I have a responsibility to uphold the [state] constitution. That’s my job, and you can’t allow discrimination to stand when it’s raised to your level.” Maine joined Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Iowa in legalizing the practice. Analysts credited the success of gay marriage movements in the New England area to a strong libertarian streak among residents there. Bills signed into law in Maine normally took effect 90 days after the legislative session ended, which usually took place in June. However, opponents of the law said they planned to collect the approximately 55,000 signatures needed to have the law considered by voters in a ballot proposition. If they were able to collect the signatures before the law took effect, its implementation would be delayed pending the vote. New Hampshire Clears Bill—The New Hampshire House May 6 cleared, 178– 167, a bill to legalize gay marriage in the state, sending it to Gov. John Lynch (D). The state Senate April 29 had also voted, 13–11, to approve the measure. The New Hampshire House in March had approved a similar measure. Lynch had previously stated that he preferred keeping the state’s civil union law to legalizing of gay marriage. However, he had not stated outright that he would veto the bill. It appeared unlikely that there were enough votes in the state legislature to override a veto. Lynch had five days to either sign or veto the legislation. If he did neither after that period, the bill would become law. Iowa Law Takes Effect—A ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court legalizing same sex marriage April 27 took effect in the state. The court in early April had issued a ruling finding a state law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples in violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Iowa became the third state to legalize gay marriage, after Con304

necticut and Massachusetts, and was followed shortly after by Vermont. (The Vermont law was set to take effect in September.) Several Iowa county officials April 27 said they had received numerous marriage applications from same-sex couples. Several gay couples were reportedly wed that day, after receiving waivers from judges nullifying the normal three-day waiting period. Despite polls showing that a majority of Iowans opposed gay marriage, there were no protesters outside the marriage license office in Des Moines, the state’s capital and most populous city. However, small groups of protesters were reported in some rural areas. D.C. Approves Marriage Recognition—

The Washington, D.C., City Council May 5 gave final approval, 12–1, to a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages performed in states where the practice was legal. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) had said that he would sign the bill. However, under the Home Rule Charter, the U.S. Congress had the ability to overturn the bill. At least one congressman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R, Utah), said he would attempt to block the law from taking effect. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) in a statement said, “I have long believed that Congress should not interfere with internal decisions made by the District of Columbia’s elected representatives.” The lone city council vote in opposition was cast by former Mayor Marion Barry (D). n

May Financial Update (Close of trading May 1 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

8,212.41

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

877.52 1,719.20 4,243.20

Tokyo Stock Exchange

8,977.37

Toronto Stock Exchange

9,500.78

(see box, p. 305A1)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei 225 index)

(TSE Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

3.17% 0.28%

Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

$0.7303 $1.4912 $0.8433 $1.3264 99.28 13.8122 $0.8801

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$886.55

Silver (per troy oz.)

$12.5000

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

$53.20

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released April 26)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel)

$2.05 $6.1755

(Kansas City market)

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through March 2009; see p. 240G2)

Unemployment rate

-0.4% 8.5%

(March 2009; see p. 219B2)

Gross domestic product growth

-6.1%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized first-quarter 2009 rate, preliminary report; see p. 291C3)

Taxes Obama Targets Overseas Corporate Profits.

President Barack Obama May 4 called for new measures to restrict tax breaks for the overseas profits of U.S. corporations. Obama said his proposals would raise $210 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years. [See pp. 285D3, 163G1] Obama said, “I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens.” Obama proposed changing rules that currently allowed companies to claim deductions and defer paying taxes on overseas profits as long as they kept that money outside the U.S. Obama called for barring companies from taking deductions on overseas investments until they paid U.S. taxes on their profits. The Treasury Department estimated that such a change would raise $60.1 billion in tax revenue from 2011 through 2019. Obama proposed restricting a tax credit for taxes U.S. companies paid to other countries. He would limit the credit to overseas income that was also subject to U.S. tax. Companies currently could claim the credit for foreign taxes on income that was not subject to U.S. tax. The Treasury estimated that curbing the use of that credit would raise $43 billion in revenue through 2019.

Obama also called for closing a loophole that allowed U.S. companies to transfer profits between overseas subsidiaries in order to avoid U.S. taxes. The Treasury estimated that in 2004, the most recent year for which statistics were available, U.S.-based corporations with multinational operations paid an effective U.S. tax rate of just 2.3% on a combined $700 billion in overseas profits, well below the official top corporate tax rate of 35%. To balance the measures to tighten the rules, Obama proposed making permanent an existing corporate tax credit for research and development spending. That would cost about $75 billion through 2019. He also called for cracking down on banks in foreign tax havens that facilitated tax evasion by wealthy U.S. citizens. U.S. business groups criticized the plan to tighten the rules for overseas taxes, arguing that it would put U.S. companies at a disadvantage against foreign rivals that would still benefit from similar loopholes. Most European countries did not tax the overseas profits of companies based within their borders. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D, Mont.), whose panel handled tax legislation, responded to Obama’s proposal by saying, “Further study is needed to assess the impact of this plan on U.S. businesses.” n FACTS ON FILE

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

April 1 2

3 6 7 8 9 Holiday 13 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 27 28 29 30

7,761.60 7,978.08 8,017.59 7,975.85 7,789.56 7,837.11 8,083.38 ---8,057.81 7,920.18 8,029.62 8,125.43 8,131.33 7,841.73 7,969.56 7,886.57 7,957.06 8,076.29 8,025.00 8,016.95 8,185.73 8,168.12

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,497.5 1,866.3 1,475.3 1,292.6 1,256.6 1,312.6 1,824.0 ---1,458.5 1,740.9 1,474.5 1,597.0 1,942.7 1,751.1 1,658.3 1,764.3 1,562.9 1,725.8 1,398.1 1,250.0 1,472.4 1,717.4

Banking Obama Calls for Credit-Card Reforms.

President Barack Obama April 23 met with executives from 14 of the country’s largest credit-card companies at the White House, and reportedly urged them to reform what critics described as their predatory lending practices. Obama said he supported legislation currently being considered in Congress that would limit the ability of creditcard companies to impose fees and raise interest rates. The House April 30 passed its version of the legislation. [See below; 2008, p. 954F2] Obama told reporters after the April 23 meeting, “The days of ‘any time, any reason’ rate hikes and late-fee traps have to end.” He also urged the companies to simplify credit-card statements, saying, “No more fine print, no more confusing terms and conditions. We want clarity and transparency from here on out.” However, Obama also acknowledged that credit-card companies were struggling to finance their operations due to an ongoing recession and credit crunch, and that the companies fulfilled a unique role in the economy by providing individual consumers with credit. He said, “We need to create a new equilibrium where credit is flowing, those who are issuing credit are able to make a reasonable profit—but they’re doing so in a way that is responsible.” The House April 30 voted, 357–70, to pass a bill that would make into law new credit-card regulations approved by the Federal Reserve in December 2008. The Fed’s regulations would not take effect until July 1, 2010, and the bill’s supporters said credit-card reform had to come before then. The House bill would also add several new regulations. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee March 31 had voted, 12–11, to adopt a bill that would place even tougher restrictions on the industry. n May 7, 2009

Terrorism Detainees Former ‘Enemy Combatant’ Pleads Guilty.

Terrorism suspect Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri April 30 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Peoria, Ill., to one count of providing material assistance to terrorists as part of an agreement with prosecutors. Marri, a citizen of Qatar, had been held without charge as an enemy combatant by the Bush administration at a U.S. Navy brig near Charleston, S.C., for six years before being charged in federal court in February. He had been the last enemy combatant held within the U.S. and the final U.S. resident held as an enemy combatant. [See p. 183F3] Marri admitted to involvement with the international terrorist network Al Qaeda before and after its Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. In exchange for the guilty plea to the material assistance charge, which carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, prosecutors agreed to drop a conspiracy charge that could have imprisoned him for an additional 15 years. Marri admitted that he had attended training camps run by Al Qaeda between 1998 and 2001 and had entered the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001, at the behest of Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He also admitted that he had kept in contact with Al Qaeda using coded e-mails, and that he had researched the use of cyanide gases and marked pages in an almanac that listed U.S. waterways, dams and tunnels. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. had reportedly blocked proposed plea agreements that did not give Marri a sentence of at least 15 years in prison. It was unclear if Marri would have years removed from his sentence for time served as an enemy combatant, a step reportedly opposed by Holder. Marri was scheduled to be sentenced July 30. n New Detainee Prison Considered. Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 30 testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee that the Obama administration had not determined how to deal with terrorism detainees held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who it believed could not be tried in U.S. courts or safely released. He also said that the Defense Department would ask for $50 million in additional funds in case it was forced to build a new holding facility for detainees on short notice. In January, President Barack Obama had ordered Guantanamo to be closed by 2010 and had established a task force to examine whether individual detainees should be tried or released. [See pp. 262A3, 199D2] Gates told the committee that “the question is, what do we do with the 50 to 100 [detainees]—probably in that ballpark— who we cannot release and cannot try?” He said that those detainees could be held within the U.S., but did not explain what legal reasoning would be used to justify their continued detention or say how long such prisoners might be held. He said that bringing detainees to the U.S. would likely be controversial and that he expected “to

have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over, saying, ‘not in my district, not in my state.’” Republican Reps. Peter King (N.Y.) and Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) May 7 introduced a bill that would bar the government from releasing any person “whom the Department of Defense has ever determined to be, or treated as, enemy combatants” into the U.S. without the permission of the governor and legislature of the state where a given detainee was to be sent. The bill was known as the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act.

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Holder Discusses Detainees in Europe—

During a speech in Berlin, Germany, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. April 29 called on European countries to assist the Obama administration’s plans to close Guantanamo by accepting detainees from the prison. He said that “to close Guantanamo, we must all make sacrifices, and we must all be willing to make unpopular choices,” but noted that “Europe did not open Guantanamo and that, in fact, a great many on this continent opposed it.” According to Holder, about 30 of Guantanamo’s 241 remaining detainees had been cleared for release by the U.S. and would be transferred from the prison once countries willing to accept them had been found. Prior to his speech, Holder had met with representatives of the governments of Britain, the Czech Republic and Germany about possibly accepting Guantanamo detainees. European countries including Portugal, Spain and Lithuania had previously suggested that they were willing to consider accepting detainees. Separately, French President Nicolas Sarkozy April 3 had agreed to admit one detainee into France after a meeting with Obama. France May 6 confirmed that the detainee in question was Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian captured in Bosnia along with five others in 2001. [See 2008, p. 920B3] n

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CIA Report Triggered End of Harsh Tactics.

The New York Times reported May 4 that a 2004 report by the office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) inspector general on the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects had hastened the end of the use of such tactics by the U.S. government and had led to confrontations between then–national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and then–Vice President Dick Cheney over the CIA interrogation program. The Times report was based on interviews with more than 12 unidentified former Bush administration officials. [See 2008, p. 746G3] The Times reported that a statement issued in June 2003 by then-President George W. Bush in recognition of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture had led to complaints from CIA officials concerned that Bush’s vocal support for prosecuting torture would make it easier for CIA interrogators to be punished for using harsh interrogation methods against terrorism detainees. According to the Times, the CIA began de305

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creasing its use of harsh methods such as waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, the same year. The office of CIA Inspector General John Helgerson May 7, 2004, completed a report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention program that reportedly questioned the legality and the effectiveness of the program as a means of gathering intelligence from captured terrorism suspects and found that CIA employees and contractors had been regularly violating guidelines put in place by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for the use of harsh interrogation methods. The report was released in heavily censored form in May 2008. After the report was finalized, then–CIA director George Tenet suspended the use of some harsh interrogation methods against detainees. Rice, prompted by National Security Council legal adviser John Bellinger 3rd, had begun to alter her position on the issue in 2003, and opposed a push by Cheney to renew the interrogation program. Separately, the November 2005 passage of a bill that outlawed cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of terrorism detainees by the military reportedly led then–CIA Director Porter Goss to inform the White House that the CIA would cease all uses of harsh interrogation tactics against detainees unless it received new documents explicitly authorizing the use of the methods and confirming their legality. [See 2005, pp. 865A1, 818A3] The methods reportedly were not employed again, although Bush in 2007 issued an executive order that reapproved the CIA interrogation program. The order blocked the CIA from using forced nudity and limited its use of sleep deprivation against detainees, but allowed most harsh methods previously used by the agency. Rice Defends Role—Rice April 29 was confronted by a college student about the interrogation policies during a visit to Stanford University. Rice told the student that Bush “instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture,” and that, “by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.” Critics compared Rice’s remark to a famous statement by former President Richard Nixon, who had claimed, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” [See 1977, p. 405C3] n

Intelligence Case Dropped Against Former Lobbyists.

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The Justice Department May 1 asked a judge in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to drop espionage-related charges against Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen, two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), citing recent legal rulings that had complicated the government’s case against the two men. Weissman and Rosen had been charged in 2005, and were thought to be the first nongovernment employees ever 306

charged with a crime under the 1917 Espionage Act. [See p. 263F1] Prosecutors had reportedly decided to drop the case after pre-trial courts ruled that lawyers for Weissman and Rosen were authorized to make use of classified material in their defense, and that the government was required to prove that the defendants had intended to harm the U.S. when they conspired to pass sensitive information to Israeli officials and journalists. The decision, which was approved by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., was reportedly opposed by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who had investigated the case. Harman Wiretap Not NSA’s—National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair April 27 said that, contrary to recent media reports, a 2005 wiretap that reportedly recorded Rep. Jane Harman (D, Calif.) agreeing to intervene on behalf of Weissman and Rosen had not been operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). Harman in 2005 was the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Blair did not identify which government agency or department had carried out the wiretap, but under U.S. law, the Justice Department was the only other government body authorized to tap phones within the U.S. Harman had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and had called on the Justice Department to publicly release all documents related to the wiretapping. Harman reportedly had not been the target of the wiretap, but had been taped while conversing with an unidentified suspected Israeli agent who was under surveillance. She had not been charged with a crime in the case. The New York Times April 24 reported that then–Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was aware of the Harman wiretap recording, delayed briefing then– House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) and other congressional leaders about it until 2006. Gonzales had reportedly done so despite government policies that called for congressional officials to be promptly briefed when members of Congress were under surveillance. According to the Times, Gonzales had told unidentified sources that, contrary to media reports, he had only delayed an investigation into Harman’s actions, not blocked it. He reportedly said he had done so because he hoped Harman would speak out in support of the NSA’s then-secret warrantless wiretapping program. He reportedly said he also wanted FBI agents to be able to interview Harman about her connection to the alleged Israeli agent before she was tipped off about the wiretap. A spokesman for Harman had denied that the FBI had ever interviewed Harman about the investigation. In 2004, prior to that year’s presidential election, Harman had asked the Times’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief to hold its story on the NSA surveillance program. The Times reported that Harman had been given a list of so-called talking points for that meeting by then–NSA Director Michael Hayden, a claim that Harman denied. n

2009 Elections Bing Wins Brief Detroit Mayoral Term.

Former Detroit Pistons basketball star Dave Bing (D) May 5 won a mayoral election in Detroit, Mich., for the eight months remaining in the term of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D). Bing won 52% of the vote in the nonpartisan election, defeating interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel (D), who took 48% after leading in preelection polls. Just 14% of registered voters turned out to participate in the election. Kilpatrick had resigned in September 2008 and served 99 days in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in a cover-up of an affair with his chief of staff. [See p. 131E1] A primary election for the next fouryear mayoral term would be held in August, followed by the general election in November. Cockrel, who returned to his previous post as city council president, did not say whether he would seek a rematch with Bing. Bing, 65, was a political newcomer. Since retiring from pro basketball in 1978 (he was inducted into the National Basketball Association [NBA] Hall of Fame in 1990), he had operated an auto parts company, Bing Steel Co., and other businesses. He had cited his business success as a qualification for the task of reviving Detroit’s moribund economy, which had one of the highest unemployment rates among U.S. cities, due in part to layoffs by struggling automakers. [See p. 282C2; 1996, p. 854B2] Bing had pledged not to accept the mayoral salary. In a victory speech May 5, he said, “I will bring efficiency, transparency, honesty and integrity back to the mayor’s office.” n Jackson Mayor Dies After Losing Primary.

Jackson, Miss., Mayor Frank Melton (D) died May 7 after losing his reelection bid in a primary election two days earlier. Melton, 60, had a history of heart problems. He had been scheduled to stand trial in federal court, starting May 11, on civil rights charges related to a 2006 incident in which he had ordered a group of sledge-hammer– wielding young men to demolish a residence that he believed was being used as a crack house. [See 2006, p. 895A2] Melton had faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted. He had been acquitted on similar charges by a state jury in 2007. His first federal trial, in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Feb. 24 ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. Melton finished third of nine candidates in the May 5 Democratic primary. The top two finishers, former Mayor Harvey Johnson and city Councilman Marshand Crisler, advanced to a May 19 runoff; the general election was set for June 2. n

Supreme Court Juvenile Life Sentences to Be Debated.

The Supreme Court May 4 said it would consider whether a 2005 ruling that had banned the death penalty for juveniles also applied to cases where juveniles received sentences of life without parole. In the FACTS ON FILE

death penalty case, Roper v. Simmons, the court in 2005 had ruled, 5–4, that executing people under the age of 18 was prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which banned cruel and unusual punishment. Another case, Kennedy v. Louisiana, was also expected to come into play in the court’s decision; in that case, the court in 2008 had ruled, 5–4, that the death penalty could not be applied in cases where the victim was not killed by the perpetrator of the crime, in that instance, a child rapist. [See 2008, p. 721C2; 2005, p. 128A3] The court would separately hear two cases on the issue: Graham v. Florida, in which a 17-year-old had been sentenced to life in prison for repeated home invasions; and Sullivan v. Florida, in which a 13year-old had been given a life sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman in her home. Only a few U.S. counties allowed juveniles to be sentenced to life imprisonment. n Court Orders FCC Fine Reconsidered. The Supreme Court May 4, in a one-sentence order, said the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Pa., must consider reinstating a $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had levied against television network CBS after singer Janet Jackson’s breast had been exposed for nine-sixteenths of a second during the National Football League’s 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The appeals court in July 2008 had overturned the fine. [See p. 290G3] The Supreme Court had delayed hearing the government’s appeal of the lower court’s ruling until it had a chance to rule on a related case, FCC v. Fox Television Stations Inc. In that 5–4 decision, the court in late April had ruled that the FCC could fine broadcasting companies for airing unscripted profanities. n EPA Can Use Cost-Benefit Analysis. The Supreme Court April 1 ruled, 6–3, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could use cost-benefit calculations to determine the kinds of technologies used to protect the environment. At issue was whether about 500 older power plants should be required to install expensive new equipment designed to prevent billions of aquatic organisms from dying each year when water from nearby sources was used to cool equipment at the plants. The Clean Water Act said facilities that employed such cooling systems must have “the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact.” [See 2008, p. 721A2] The EPA had compared the cost of updating the facilities so they were on a par with newer plants—about $3.5 billion each year—versus the dollar value of the marine organisms at issue, which it estimated at $83 million. The agency then mandated much less expensive changes that saved significantly fewer organisms. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City had ruled that the EPA’s cost-benefit method was illegal under the Clean Water Act. In addition to highlighting environmental damage caused by the antiquated power plants, environmentalists argued that Congress had recognized the May 7, 2009

difficulty of assigning a dollar value to the loss of wildlife. Justice Antonin Scalia, in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the EPA’s actions were “certainly a plausible interpretation of the statute.” Scalia added that the “best technology” could mean one that “most efficiently produces some good.” He added that the phrase “minimizing adverse environmental impact” was “not necessarily used to refer exclusively to ‘the greatest possible reduction.’” In a separate opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer agreed with the court, but noted that the drafting history of the Clean Water Act showed that it was meant to restrict, but not ban, costbenefit analysis. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the dissent, argued, “A regulation’s financial costs are often more obvious and easier to quantify than its environmental benefits.” He added, “Cost-benefit analysis often, if not always, yields a result that does not maximize environmental protection.” He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. The case was Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc. n

Law Enforcement Shorter Crack Cocaine Sentences Backed.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer April 29 testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime and drugs that the Justice Department favored eliminating disparities between sentencing for crimes involving powdered and crack cocaine. The testimony, which was in line with promises made by President Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, marked a reversal from Justice Department policy under the Bush administration and was thought to be the first time the department had endorsed ending the sentencing disparity. [See 2008, p. 165A3] Under current federal law, the five-year prison sentence faced by defendants charged with possession of five grams of crack cocaine was the same as that faced by a defendant charged with possession of 500 grams of powdered cocaine. According to Breuer, 82% of people convicted of crack cocaine possession were black, versus 27% of people convicted of powdered cocaine possession. Critics had long argued that the separate sentencing standard, originally introduced in 1986 in response to escalating use of crack cocaine, disproportionately targeted black drug users, resulting in a disproportionate number of black inmates in U.S. prisons. Breuer testified that “most in the law enforcement community now recognize the need to re-evaluate current federal cocaine sentencing policy and the disparities the policy creates,” and said that the Obama administration believed that “Congress’s goal should be to completely eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine by lowering penalties against crack cocaine users.” He also said that a planned Justice Department panel would issue recommendations on the topic,

as well as other issues related to sentencing and imprisonment, within six months. n Crime Lab Methods Called Unreliable. The National Academy of Sciences Feb. 18 released a report that questioned the accuracy and scientific basis of forensic methods that were widely used by U.S. crime laboratories, and called for the establishment of a government regulatory body to oversee the activities and accreditation of such labs. The report was based on a two-year study by the academy funded by Congress in 2005. Analysts suggested that the report was likely to lead to attempts by defense attorneys to challenge forensic evidence presented by prosecutors in criminal trials. [See 2007, p. 807F3] According to the report, many forensic methods used by crime labs—including fingerprinting and bite mark, hair and handwriting analysis—had never had their accuracy verified by rigorous scientific testing and were often carried out without independent oversight. It also found that crime labs were widely understaffed, often employed inexperienced or poorly trained technicians and had few protections against police interference with their findings. The report recommended that the government create a regulatory body, the National Institute of Forensic Science, that would set standards for U.S. crime labs, grant certifications to expert witnesses and crime lab technicians, institute accreditation of crime labs and fund research into the accuracy of common forensic techniques. It also suggested that the organization should be kept independent of the Justice Department in order to guarantee that crime-lab oversight was carried out by scientists rather than law enforcement personnel. n

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Denver, Colo., jury April 3 found that University of Colorado at Boulder professor Ward Churchill had been improperly fired over an essay in which he had likened the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. to notorious Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann. Churchill had been fired in 2007, two years after the essay, which was written immediately after the attacks, came to light. The jury, which said Churchill’s unorthodox political views had been a “substantial or motivating” factor in his firing, awarded him $1 in damages. Churchill and his supporters hailed the jury’s decision as a victory for First Amendment rights and academic freedom. [See 2005, p. 117G1] In an essay, titled “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” Churchill had referred to World Trade Center workers as “the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers.” The university had fired Churchill in 2007, citing research misconduct, after three faculty committees said he had plagiarized work on American Indian history. However, the jury found that Churchill had been targeted because of his controversial essay. The verdict opened the door for 307

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Churchill to be reinstated to his former position as the chairman of the university’s ethnic studies department. Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the university, April 3 affirmed that Churchill’s essay was indeed “what started this ball rolling” toward his dismissal. He said the university had not yet decided whether it would appeal the decision. Judge Larry Naves was expected to rule in coming months on whether Churchill would be reinstated. Churchill the same day said he would seek reinstatement to his job, and added, “I didn’t ask for money. I asked for justice.” He said April 6 that would sue the University of Colorado for more than $1 million if he was not reinstated to his old position. McConnellogue April 9 said the university “strongly opposed” reinstating Churchill, and added that “the things he was found to have engaged in by his faculty peers is behavior that we can’t have from our faculty or our students.” n

Other U.S. News Presidential Jet Flyover Triggers NYC Panic.

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Thousands of workers in New York City’s downtown financial district April 27 fled their workplaces after a Boeing 747 jet, one of two planes used to transport the U.S. president, and a military fighter jet flew unusually close to the area and circled the Statue of Liberty as part of an unannounced photography shoot. Many of the workers said the incident had triggered memories of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., in which hijacked airplanes had been used to destroy downtown New York’s World Trade Center. [See 2001, p. 697A1] The flight, scheduled by the White House Military Office, was intended to produce an image to replace previous stock images of Air Force One—which the plane was called when the president was on board—that were used on promotional items and sold as keepsakes. The office reportedly informed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a staffer in the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), but requested that the information about the photo shoot not be publicly released. White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera April 27 apologized for the incident, saying, “While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption.” Caldera also said he took “responsibility for any distress that the flight caused.” The decision to carry out the flight without informing the public that day was criticized by Bloomberg, who said he had not been told about it, as well as by Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.). President Barack Obama April 28 ordered an internal White House investigation into the incident and told reporters that “it will not happen again.” The investigation was expected to focus on Caldera and would reportedly determine if he would be allowed to keep his job. n 308

AFRICA

Madagascar Ousted President’s Backers Stage Protests.

Protests by supporters of former Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana April 20– 27 in Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, turned violent, leading to at least five deaths. Ravalomanana’s backers had been holding protests nearly every day since he was ousted in mid-March by the military. That had led to the installation of Andry Rajoelina, the former mayor of Antananarivo, as president. [See p. 203D2] Rajoelina, 34, had seized power after months of protests against Ravalomanana in Antananarivo. Because he was too young to serve as president under Madagascar’s current constitution (which stipulated that the president be at least 40 years of age), Rajoelina had assumed the title of president of the High Transitional Authority. He had named a prime minister, Monja Roindefo, as well as the equivalent of a cabinet. Rajoelina’s actions had drawn international condemnation, and the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) suspended Madagascar in March. SADC at a late March summit called for Ravalomanana, who had fled Madagascar, to be restored to power. The unrest had damaged the country’s lucrative tourism industry and also scared away much-needed foreign investment. [See below] Ravalomanana’s supporters had held numerous protests and strikes to voice their opposition to Rajoelina. At least two people were killed and 20 others injured April 20 when security forces opened fire on demonstrators protesting the closure of two proRavalomanana radio stations. Rajoelina April 21 banned public protests, but demonstrations nevertheless continued. Rajoelina’s forces April 27 stormed the Constitutional Court building and arrested four people, including the court’s head of security. Ravalomanana, who maintained that he was the country’s rightful president, April 28 named a parallel government, with Manadafy Rakotonirina as prime minister. Rakotonirina proceeded to name several cabinet minsters. A spokesman for Rakotonirina said the move was intended to maintain “a level of pressure” on the High Transitional Authority. However, it also increased already heightened tensions on the Indian Ocean island nation, and created confusion about who was running the country. A group of about 20 heavily armed members of Rajoelina’s security forces April 29 arrested Rakotonirina, 70, at a hotel in Antananarivo. Other opposition leaders reportedly were also arrested that day. South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper May 6 reported on its Web site that relative calm had returned to Antananarivo. AU Says Elections by December— The AU April 30 convened a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, of a special “contact group” assembled to address the situation in Madagascar. After the meeting, the group said in a statement that Rajoeli-

na’s government had told it that elections would be held by the end of December. Previously, Rajoelina had said elections would not be held until October 2010. Jean Ping, the chairman of the AU commission, said, “The current situation in Madagascar is dangerous. We need to work for the return of social order and lasting stability.” However, Rajoelina’s government May 1 refused to guarantee that elections would be held by the end of 2009. Roindefo said the government would “have to wait and see if conditions are favorable.” Ravalomanana April 20 had called for an election to resolve the political impasse. At a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, he said, “The only way to get out of this crisis is to have an election—a referendum—to ask people if they want me to stay in power or not.” He said he planned to return to Madagascar “in a few weeks,” despite the fact that Rajoelina’s government had issued a warrant for his arrest. Charities Warn of ‘Catastrophe’—A coalition of humanitarian aid groups April 23 warned that Madagascar was on the brink of “catastrophe,” saying the political unrest had worsened existing food shortages and hampered recovery from recent powerful cyclones. The groups, which included Care International, said some 150,000 people had been “severely affected and that an alarming malnutrition rate of about 14 per cent is being reached in some areas.” Separately, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) April 25 said as many as 250,000 children in southern Madagascar were at risk of malnutrition and disease. Rajoelina’s government May 3 said a group of Saudi investors had pledged $2 billion for tourism, communications and energy projects in Madagascar. n

AMERICAS

Ecuador Official Election Results Released. Ecuador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal May 5 released official, final results confirming that President Rafael Correa had won a second term in elections held the previous week. With all votes tallied, Correa had earned 51.9%, while his closest opponent, Lucio Gutierrez Borbua, finished with 28.2%. Preliminary results had indicated that Correa would easily win, and his victory already had been widely recognized. [See p. 294B2] n

Panama Businessman Martinelli Elected President.

Voters in Panama May 3 elected supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal of the right-wing Democratic Change party president. The country’s Electoral Tribunal said that, with 44% of the vote counted, Martinelli was the “indisputable winner.” According to nearly complete results released May 6, Martinelli, 57, garnered about 60% of the vote, easily surpassing the 37.5% won by former Housing Minister Balbina Herrera of the populist DemoFACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON MARTINELLI

Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal was born in Panama City, Panama’s capital, on March 11, 1952. However, he grew up in the village of Sona, in Veraguas province, in western Panama. He received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Arkansas in the U.S. He then received a master’s degree in business administration from the Instituto Centroamericano de Administracion de Empresas (INCAE) in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Martinelli founded Super 99, a company that would grow to become Panama’s largest supermarket chain. From 1994 to 1996, he served as the head of Panama’s social security program. In 1999, he became the minister for canal affairs and the chairman of the Panama Canal Authority Board, serving in those posts until 2003. In 2004, Martinelli made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency, finishing last in a field of four candidates. [See 2004, p. 332D2] Martinelli May 3 was elected president of Panama, defeating Balbina Herrera. He was married and had three children. [See p. 308F3]

cratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), which led the country’s governing coalition. [See 2004, p. 332D2; for facts on Martinelli, see p. 309A1] Martinelli was set to take office for a five-year term on July 1, succeeding President Martin Torrijos Espino of the PRD. Martinelli, who had made an unsuccessful bid for president in 2004, had campaigned on promises of tackling political corruption and increasing efforts to combat violent crime. He was the billionaire owner of Super 99, Panama’s largest chain of supermarkets, and had greatly outspent Herrera during the campaign. Martinelli would oversee the completion of a $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal intended to allow larger tankers and container ships to pass through. Panama relied on the canal to provide nearly a third of its tax revenues. Those revenues were expected to fall while international trade declined as a result of the global economic crisis. [See 2007, p. 769F2] Martinelli May 4 said he would make finalizing the U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement a top priority of his administration. The free-trade agreement had been negotiated by the administrations of former U.S. President George W. Bush and Torrijos, and signed by Panamanian and U.S. trade representatives in June 2007. However, it had stalled in the U.S. Congress, after concerns were raised that Panama was functioning as a tax haven. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk April 23 had said, “We believe there is strong bipartisan support for the pending free-trade agreement with Panama.” n

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China Government Sets Human Rights ‘Action Plan.’

China’s State Council (cabinet) April 13 issued a two-year National Human Rights Action Plan, in which it set goals for May 7, 2009

making progress in the protection of civil rights. The document, reportedly the first of its kind in China, called for the elimination of the use of torture and other mistreatment of suspects, the upholding of the right to a fair trial, and the judicious application of the death penalty. [See p. 180B1] Human rights groups welcomed the report as an acknowledgment by the government of the importance of the issue. But they expressed doubts about how readily the recommendations would be implemented, and said the report did not address the full range of human rights abuses prevalent in China. The report said China had “a long road ahead” in improving its human rights practices. It called for the stricter observation of rights that were already enumerated in China’s laws and constitution, but which rights advocates said were frequently ignored. Although it called for greater citizen participation in government decision-making, it did not propose political changes to the system of one-party Communist rule or giving the judiciary more independence, which critics said would be necessary to give citizens recourse against rights violations. Human rights advocates said the report did not address some of China’s grossest rights abuses, including restrictions on freedom of expression and religion and illegal detentions. They noted that it did not raise the issue of “reeducation” labor camps that authorities used to imprison people without trial. The report reaffirmed the government’s long-standing position that the Chinese populace’s economic and social needs dictated that “rights to subsistence and development” should take higher priority than political rights. Clinton Reaffirms U.S. Rights Stance—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after a meeting in Washington, D.C., with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, March 11 emphasized the importance to the U.S. of “a robust, comprehensive human rights agenda” in its foreign relations. Clinton had drawn criticism in February for suggesting that human rights concerns should not “interfere” with cooperation with China on other matters, as well as for statements on a Middle East tour that critics said downplayed rights abuses in Egypt and Turkey. [See pp. 123E1, 109D3] Yang March 12 met with U.S. President Barack Obama and other top officials. n

Philippines U.S. Marine’s Rape Conviction Overturned.

The Philippine Court of Appeals April 23 announced that it had overturned the conviction of a U.S. marine accused of raping a woman in 2005 near the now-closed U.S. Navy base in the Philippines’ Subic Bay and ordered his immediate release from custody. The court found that prosecutors had failed to show evidence that the marine, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, had used “force, threat and intimidation” in order to

have sex with the alleged victim. [See p. 205F1] Smith had been sentenced to 40 years in prison by a Manila court in 2006 after being convicted of rape. The case had triggered demonstrations by nationalists against the U.S. military’s presence in the country. The Philippine government had allowed a limited U.S. military presence in the country after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., in order to crack down on Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terrorist organization based in the southern Philippines. The U.S. embassy in Manila April 24 announced that Smith had left the Philippines “under the authority of United States military officials” after his release. He had been held at the embassy since December 2006, when he was transferred from a Philippine jail pending his appeal. n

Taiwan China Consents to WHO Observer Status.

Taiwan April 29 announced that China had dropped its objection to allowing Taiwan to participate as an observer at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in May. It was the first time that China had consented to Taiwan’s participation as an observer in a U.N. body since mainland China joined the United Nations, unseating Taiwan, in 1971. Taiwanese officials said they had received an invitation from the WHO to attend its annual World Health Assembly in May as an observer. [See p. 187A1; 2003, p. 339C3; 1972, p. 404A1] China’s move was the latest demonstration of an improvement in its relations with Taiwan since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008. Ma praised the WHO’s invitation, calling Taiwan’s involvement in the group’s activities “a human rights issue” affecting the Taiwanese “people’s right to medical care and health.” A Chinese health ministry spokesman called the invitation a reflection of China’s “goodwill” and desire to “promote peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.” [See below] The WHO was currently dealing with a worldwide outbreak of a new swine influenza virus in humans, lending additional urgency to the May assembly. Taiwanese had been angered that objections by China had hindered the WHO’s ability to send help to Taiwan during a 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which killed 37 people in Taiwan. [See p. 303D1] Taiwan’s observer status at the World Health Assembly would have to be renewed in future years. It agreed to attend under the name Chinese Taipei, rather than Taiwan or its official name, the Republic of China. As an observer, it would not have a vote in the proceedings. New Cooperation Agreements—Chinese and Taiwanese officials April 25–26 met in Nanjing, China, for talks on expanding bilateral financial and transportation links. The talks yielded agreements on permitting each side’s financial institutions to offer services in the other, further expanding air 309

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links and increasing cooperation on criminal justice matters. China and Taiwan also issued a statement on allowing greater Chinese investment in Taiwan, which was currently restricted by Taiwan’s government. In what would be the first Chinese investment in a publicly traded Taiwanese company, Chinese government-owned company China Mobile Ltd. April 29 said it would acquire a 12% stake in FarEasTone Telecommunications Co. of Taiwan for 17.8 billion Taiwanese dollars (US$530 million). Approval of the deal by authorities in China and Taiwan was widely expected in light of the Nanjing agreement. Beijing Museum to Loan Imperial Art—

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The Palace Museum in Beijing, China’s capital, Feb. 16 said it would lend a number of objects from its holdings of imperial Chinese art for an exhibition at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. The Taipei museum also contained portions of the imperial art collection, which was divided during China’s civil war, when the Nationalists fled to Taiwan, carrying numerous choice objects. The exhibition would begin in October, and focus on the 1723–35 reign of Emperor Yongzheng. The loan agreement did not touch on China’s claim that it was the rightful owner of the imperial objects possessed by Taiwan. n

by media sources on the number of deaths and injuries on both sides had varied widely. About 100 Thai troops had entered a disputed area near the border in March. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen March 31 had threatened violence against the soldiers if they made attempts to cross into Cambodia. Cambodia had been awarded ownership of the temple in 1962 by the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court. However, a section of land near the temple had not been definitively assigned to either country, leading to continuing tensions. There were conflicting reports about the direct cause of the fighting. Cambodia claimed it had started when Thai troops had crossed the border. Thai troops said Cambodian troops had opened fire on them after discussions. Hun Sen April 4 said that he regarded “the fighting yesterday as an incident, not a war,” and said that the fighting would not become a continuing armed conflict with Thailand. Separately, a committee made up of representatives from both countries April 5–7 met to discuss the conflict. The committee had been set up following 2008 clashes over the disputed territory in order to minimize future violence. n

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GDP Declined in Fourth Quarter. Thailand’s

National Economic and Social Development Board Feb. 23 announced that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had declined by 4.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from the corresponding period of 2007. The decline dropped the country’s total GDP growth in 2008 to 2.6%. [See p. 206B2] The board predicted that Thailand’s economy would go into recession in 2009, with a decline of GDP of as much as 1% for the year. That estimate was lowered on April 22 to a decline of as much as 3.5%. Separately, the Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee April 8 lowered Thailand’s benchmark interest rate, to 1.25%, from 1.5%, its lowest level since July 2004. The bank had cut the interest rate multiple times from a rate of 3.75% in December 2008. n

Other Asia-Pacific News Thai-Cambodia Border Clash Kills Three.

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Cambodian and Thai troops April 3 fought at the two countries’ shared border, resulting in the deaths of three Thai soldiers, and the wounding of eight others. The Cambodian Army was not thought to have suffered any casualties. The clashes, which included exchanges of rockets and machine gun fire, took place near Preah Vihear, an 11th-century Hindu temple once claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia. The two countries had engaged in similar fighting in December 2008. [See 2008, p. 774B3] Two of the soldiers were killed April 3; a third Thai soldier April 5 died of injuries suffered during the fighting. Early reports 310

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Great Britain 16 Foreigners Banned for Extremist Views.

The British government May 5 released a list of 16 foreigners whom it had banned from entering the country because they had been identified as “fostering extremism or hatred.” The list cited eight Muslim clerics, activists and writers for “seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence.” [See p. 272D3] The list also named several non-Muslim U.S. citizens, including Michael Savage, a prominent conservative radio talk-show host known for making derogatory comments about Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals; Rev. Fred Phelps, a Baptist pastor known for mounting peripatetic antigay demonstrations, and his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roser; and Stephen Donald Black, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader and creator of a white supremacist Web site. [See 2008, p. 580C2; 2007, p. 872C1] British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith issued a statement saying, “I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know that they are not welcome here.” The Home Office, which oversaw domestic security, said it had denied entry to 101 such foreigners, said to have “engaged in unacceptable behavior,” since July 2005 suicide attacks by British-born Muslim extremists killed 52 people in London on buses and a subway train. It had not previously made public the names of any of those excluded foreigners. A conservative Web site, WorldNetDaily.com, May 5 quoted Savage as saying, “I want to sue the British home secretary for defamation, for linking me up with

murderers because of my opinions, my writings, my speaking—none of which have advocated any violence, ever.” British Muslim groups also criticized the list, saying that no one should be barred from entering the country because of their views. Three Acquitted in 2005 Attacks—A jury in Kingston Crown Court, west of London, April 28 acquitted three British Muslims on charges of assisting the July 2005 suicide bombers by scouting locations for the attacks. The three were Mohammed Shakil, 32; Sadeer Saleem, 28; and Waheed Ali, 25. They were the only suspects to have been charged in connection with the attacks, the deadliest in Britain since World War II. [See 2008, p. 265B3] The jury convicted Shakil and Ali on lesser charges of attending terrorist training camps in Pakistan in 2001 and 2003 along with one of the suicide bombers. They were both sentenced the next day to seven years in prison, with the possibility of release after 18 months. n

Russia Medvedev Lifts Chechnya Restrictions.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev April 16 ordered an end to strict counterterrorism measures in Chechnya, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, that had been implemented following the Second Chechen War in 1999. As a result of Medvedev’s order, curfews, roadblocks and travel restrictions, including those on foreign journalists, would end, and some analysts suggested that Russia would soon begin withdrawing the approximately 20,000 troops stationed in Chechnya. Despite the move, media outlets in the following days reported a number of clashes between security forces and Chechen rebels. [See p. 273F2] Russia had sent troops to Chechnya in 1999 in order to regain control of the region, which had won de facto independence in a 1994–96 war. Under the leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov, who became the Chechen president in 2007 following the death of his father, Akhmed Kadyrov, violence in Chechnya had decreased. Kadyrov, a former rebel fighter himself, was known to offer Chechen rebels amnesty in exchange for loyalty to his government. However, some rights groups maintained that Kadyrov and his government employed arbitrary abductions and torture. Kadyrov said of the changes, “The leadership of Russia has officially confirmed that the nest of terrorism has been crushed.” He added, “I have lost more than 400 of my colleagues, friends and family. Today we have confirmed that our republic is the most peaceful and safest region of Russia.” While violence had decreased in Chechnya over recent years, it was increasing in neighboring Russian republics, such as Dagestan. Some Security Measures Reinstated—

Russian authorities by April 24 had reinstated the counterterrorism restrictions in the mountainous Chechen districts of Shali, FACTS ON FILE

Shatoy and Vedeno, after officials said they had received reports claiming that rebels in those areas were planning “terrorist attacks” against “executive authorities and law enforcement officials.” The move to reinstate the security rules also followed April 22 reports that three Russian soldiers had been shot and killed by gunmen hiding in an abandoned building near Chechnya’s western border with the republic of Ingushetia. A spokesman for Russian security forces in Chechnya said the soldiers’ weapons were stolen following the attack. n

Other European News NATO, Russia Expel Each Other’s Envoys.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) April 30 expelled two Russian diplomats from its Brussels, Belgium, headquarters after accusing Russia of spying on the organization. Russia May 6 responded by announcing the expulsion of two Canadian NATO diplomats from Moscow, its capital. NATO’s move to expel the Russian ambassadors followed the April 29 reopening of the NATO-Russia Council, the official diplomatic channel between the two sides, after an eight-month hiatus. NATO had suspended meetings of the council amid Russia’s war with neighboring Georgia in 2008. In that war, the Georgian army had been routed, and Russia had increased its presence in the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. [See below, p. 142E1] Also April 29, Russia finalized agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia under which Russian troops received authority to guard the splinter regions’ borders. Georgia and NATO said the arrangement violated cease-fire agreements that had ended the previous year’s military conflict. Russia had stationed troops near the breakaway regions’ borders with Georgia during the 2008 war, but the new agreements formalized their presence. NATO Begins Exercises in Georgia— NATO May 6 began long-scheduled mili-

tary exercises in Georgia, which Russia opposed. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev April 17 had said NATO was holding “exercises close to areas that had only recently been the scene of extreme tension, and where even today the situation is far from simple.” He added that NATO had made an “incorrect and dangerous decision.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov May 5 said Russia would withdraw from a May 19 meeting of the Russia-NATO Council over the decision to hold the exercises, which included about 1,000 soldiers and were expected to last through June. Also, the Georgian government May 5 had announced that government forces had contained a mutiny of about 500 soldiers at a tank battalion headquarters near Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili blamed Russia for the mutiny and characterized it as an attempted coup d’etat, but Russian officials denied involvement, and Georgian officials later that day backed off from Saakashvili’s accusation. [See p. 253F1] May 7, 2009

Russia’s Lavrov Meets Obama, Clinton—

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov May 7 met separately in Washington, D.C., with U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Obama and Lavrov, following their meeting, affirmed their intention to work together toward common goals such as curbing nuclear proliferation and recovering from the global economic downturn. The meeting preceded a May 18 summit in which the U.S. and Russia were expected to begin renegotiating the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which limited the size of both countries’ nuclear arsenals and would expire in December. Clinton and Lavrov also affirmed that differences between the countries over Georgia would not stand in the way of productive START negotiations. [See p. 193C3] n Central Bank Cuts Rate, Sets Bond Buys. The European Central Bank (ECB) May 7

cut its key interest rate to 1%, from 1.25%, and announced a new program to buy 60 billion euros ($80 billion) of low-risk corporate bonds in a bid to loosen credit markets. The ECB also extended the term of short-term loans it was offering to banks to 12 months, from six months. [See p. 254B1] ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said the eurozone, comprised of the 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency, was still in a “severe downturn,” but cited “tentative signs of a stabilization at very low levels” of economic activity. The ECB had been slow to embrace the policy of direct asset purchases, which had already been adopted by other central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England to help restart credit markets frozen by the global financial crisis. The Bank of England, the British central bank, May 7 held its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5%, but increased the size of its asset buying program, including both corporate and government bonds, to £125 billion ($190 billion), from £75 billion. 4% Contraction Forecast for 2009—The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, May 4 forecast that the eurozone’s combined gross domestic product (GDP) would contract by 4% in 2009, more than double the 1.9% contraction that it had forecast in January. The commission also forecast a 4% contraction for the economy of the EU’s 27 member nations as a whole, including those that did not use the euro. The commission said it expected growth to return gradually in the second half of 2010. Germany April 29 had projected that its economy, the largest in the eurozone, would contract by 6% in 2009, in its worst recession since World War II. The European Commission May 4 also projected that the unemployment rate in the eurozone would increase to 9.9% by the end of 2009, and 11.5% in 2010. Spain’s jobless rate, the highest in the eurozone, had risen to 17.4% at the end of the first quarter of the year, from 13.9% in the fourth quarter of 2008, the Spanish National Statistics Institute reported April 24.

Four million Spaniards were unemployed, a new record, with more than 800,000 added to their ranks in the first quarter. n

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Iraq Firefight Erupts in Ministry Corruption Raid.

Iraqi troops April 29 raided the Iraqi trade ministry headquarters in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, in order to arrest several officials on corruption charges. However, ministry security guards fired on the troops, and after a brief gun battle they withdrew with only one official in custody. The trade ministry controlled Iraq’s $5.3 billion monthly rationing program, as well as the importation of goods like cars, grain and construction equipment. [See pp. 296F2; 2008, p. 684D3] An investigation had reportedly discovered some $8 million worth of expired goods from the rations program in a warehouse, prompting the raid. Arrest warrants were issued for nine people: two current ministry directors, four previous directors, the trade minister’s two brothers—who worked as his bodyguards—and the ministry spokesman. Only the spokesman, Muhammad Hannoun, was arrested. Trade Minister Falah al-Sudani was not accused of crimes, but the Iraqi parliament May 2 called on him to explain the charges against his associates. An unnamed adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose Dawa Party Sudani belonged to, said Sudani had been asked to resign, the New York Times reported May 3. Iraq’s main anticorruption group, the Commission on Public Integrity, reported that 99 corruption cases had been initiated against trade ministry employees in 2008, the Times reported May 6. That placed the trade ministry 10th-highest among government ministries and bodies; the interior ministry had the most cases, 736. The report said there had been a total of 5,031 corruption complaints in 2008, of which 3,027 were referred to courts, resulting in 97 convictions. The report said corruption was one of the main barriers to stabilizing Iraq, and that generous amnesty laws and interference in prosecutions made it difficult to reduce. Also, the Times May 5 reported that three South Korean military officers had been convicted in an extortion and bribery scheme in the northern city of Erbil, in the autonomous Kurdistan region. One officer, identified as Capt. Park, was convicted by a South Korean military court of demanding bribes from contractors and receiving over $25,000 worth of cash and gifts, and was sentenced to three years in military prison. Two co-conspirators, Sgt. Maj. Kim and Maj. Lee, received lesser sentences, while a colonel in charge of the Korean army’s reconstruction program in Iraq received a military reprimand for failing to carry out his duties. [See 2008, p. 708E2] Iraqi Soldier Kills Two U.S. Troops—An Iraqi soldier May 2 fired on U.S. troops in a combat outpost in Hamam al-Alil, south 311

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of the northern city of Mosul. Two of the U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded before their attacker was slain. Another gunman simultaneously attacked another group of U.S. soldiers at the outpost, but then fled; it was unclear if any casualties resulted from that attack. It was at least the fourth time U.S. forces had been attacked by Iraqi soldiers, or people dressed in army or police uniforms, since November 2008. [See p. 117D3] Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, was the last urban stronghold of the Sunni Muslim insurgency in Iraq. A suicide bomber there the previous day had killed five people. Iraqi government spokesman Ali alDabbagh May 4 said Iraq would hold to a June 30 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq’s cities. The deadline was mandated by a bilateral security agreement signed in 2008, and a U.S. military spokesman said that the U.S. would abide by the deadline. Previously, U.S. officials had said they were lobbying to be allowed to stay in Mosul to combat insurgents there. [See p. 297B2] Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A bomb hidden in a produce truck May 6 exploded in a crowded market in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood, killing at least 10 people. It was the latest in a series of recent high-profile bombings, mostly hitting Shiite Muslim targets; Dora was predominantly Sunni, but the market vendors were mostly Shiite. Another car bomb later that day exploded at a gas station in the Karrada neighborhood, killing at least one person. o Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces May 2 arrested Nadhim al-Jubouri—a local leader of an Awakening Council, a mostly Sunni armed group that had turned against extremists—and his two brothers on terrorism charges, in the town of Duluiyah, north of Baghdad. Awakening Council members had protested that Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government had targeted them for persecution and arrests, and had been slow to incorporate them into Iraq’s security forces. The Duluiyah council’s acting leader May 4 said the group had suspended plans to disband after learning that Jubouri would be freed. [See p. 254B3] o The U.S. military May 1 said two U.S. marines and a sailor had been killed the previous day in the western province of Anbar. That brought April’s U.S. death toll to 18, double March’s total and the highest since September 2008’s toll of 25. o The U.S. military May 1 said the Iraqi government was not allowing it to interrogate Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the alleged leader of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, who had reportedly been captured April 23. U.S. officials in the past had claimed that Baghdadi was a fictional figure created to put an Iraqi face on the foreign-led Al Qaeda in Iraq, and said they were not able to verify the identity of the current detainee. [See p. 297C1] o U.S. troops May 1 raided a house in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, killing two people. 312

The U.S. military said it had been trying to arrest the men for involvement in roadside bombings, but had killed them after they aimed weapons at U.S. troops. Iraqis afterwards protested the raid, the latest in a series of controversial U.S. operations that had resulted in Iraqi deaths. [See p. 297F1] n

Lebanon Generals Suspected in Hariri Killing Released.

Lebanese authorities April 29 released four generals who were being held in a prison in Beirut, the capital, in connection with the investigation of a 2005 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others. They were released after the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a court set up in The Hague, the Netherlands, to try Hariri’s assassins, concluded that it did not have enough evidence to justify their continued imprisonment without charge. [See pp. 297G3, 210G3] The generals were Major General Jamil Sayyed, former chief of general security; Major General Ali Hajj, former head of internal security forces; Brigadier General Raymond Azar, former chief of military intelligence; and Brigadier General Mustafa Hamdan, former commander of the presidential Republican Guard Brigade. They had close ties to Syria, which had occupied Lebanon for almost three decades before withdrawing in 2005, and had been accused of ordering Hariri’s assassination. The generals’ release caused celebration among supporters of the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which was supported by Syria and saw the tribunal as being directed against that country. Their release evidently left the tribunal without any suspects in custody. However, media outlets April 20 reported that according to an unnamed Arab diplomat, police in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had arrested a Syrian intelligence officer in connection with the case. The Syrian, Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq, had previously been arrested in 2005 in France on suspicion of involvement in the bombing, but had escaped from house arrest there in March 2008. n Alleged Israeli Spies Arrested. The Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar April 14 reported that Lebanese security forces had arrested a former senior Lebanese military officer on suspicion of being an Israeli spy since the 1990s. The arrest of retired Brig. Gen. Adib al-Alam was reportedly carried out with the cooperation of the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. Lebanese authorities April 23 charged Alam—along with his wife and nephew, who were also arrested, and a fourth person who remained at large—with giving sensitive information about Lebanese and Syrian military and civilian targets to Israel with the “aim of facilitating Israeli attacks”; they faced the death sentence if convicted. Lebanon considered Israel, which had fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006, an enemy nation. [See 2008, pp. 874C3, 456C3] Lebanese authorities April 25 arrested two Lebanese men and one Palestinian on

charges of spying for Israel. The arrests reportedly stemmed from information gained from Alam. Four more suspected Israeli spies were arrested May 3–4, including a Lebanese internal security forces officer. Altogether, Lebanon had arrested at least 13 suspected Israeli spies over the past year. They included Marwan Faqih, a businessman from the Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh who Lebanese media sources Feb. 16 reported had been detained. According to media reports, Faqih, who owned several mechanic’s shops and car dealerships and had possibly been a high-ranking member of Hezbollah, had been secretly installing satellite tracking and eavesdropping devices into many of the organization’s cars. The devices had reportedly allowed the Israeli military to conduct targeted air strikes on important Hezbollah figures during the 2006 war. Also, Hezbollah in July 2008 had seized Ali al-Jarrah, a school administrator in the village of Maraj, in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, on suspicion of espionage. Investigators said Jarrah had been spying for Israel on Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups in southern Lebanon and Syria since 1983. Hezbollah had turned him over to the Lebanese government, and he faced charges in a military court. n

Other Middle East News Israeli Probe Clears Military of Gaza War Crimes.

The Israeli military April 22 released the results of several probes of its actions during Israel’s war with the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the Gaza Strip, which took place from December 2008 to January. The investigations found that the Israeli military had followed international law and had “maintained a high professional and moral level” in the face of Hamas fighters who “aimed to terrorize Israeli citizens” by launching rockets at them, and used Palestinian noncombatants as “human shields.” Human rights groups, which had accused Israel of violating international law by targeting civilians and improperly using weapons in populated areas, denounced the investigations’ findings and called for an independent probe. [See p. 209F3] The Israeli military deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, said the investigations had “discovered a small number of mistakes, not many, among the dozens of incidents we investigated.” He added, “We have already examined them and learned lessons from them.” Harel also said such errors were due to “intelligence or operational errors” and “were unavoidable,” but that no Israeli soldier had deliberately harmed “innocent Palestinian civilians.” Three of the investigations were of specific incidents in which Israeli forces were accused of killing Palestinian civilians. They included the Jan. 6 bombardment of a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City in which 21 members of the Daia family were killed. The investigation found that the Zeitoun house had been hit by accident as Israeli forces were trying to deFACTS ON FILE

stroy the house next door, a site it claimed was a weapons depot. Another investigation focused on the Jan. 6 shelling of a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp that killed up to 40 refugees. That investigation concluded that Israeli forces had been firing on Hamas militants near the Jabaliya school. [See p. 13G1] There were also two general investigations—one of the destruction of buildings and infrastructure by ground troops and the other of the military’s use of white phosphorus. White phosphorus was a chemical compound used to create smokescreens, but could also cause severe burns; the Israeli military said it had only used it in open areas to create smokescreens and to mark targets, in accordance with international law. [See p. 210C2] The Israeli military said a separate operational investigation of the entire war would be completed by June. Separately, U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch April 20 released a report saying that Hamas had killed at least 32 political opponents and suspected Israeli collaborators during and after the Gaza war, and had wounded dozens of others. [See p. 157D3] The U.N. Human Rights Council April 3 appointed Richard Goldstone—a former South African Constitutional Court judge who had been the U.N.’s chief prosecutor for war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia—to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes during the Gaza war. [See 1996, p. 782D3] Also, the U.N. May 5 released the results of another investigation which found that Israeli weapons were “the undisputed cause” of the destruction or damaging of several U.N. facilities in Gaza during the war, including its Gaza headquarters and several schools. It called for Israel to compensate the U.N. for the damage. Israel called the report “biased” and said it had been attacking militants using the buildings as cover. U.S. Envoy Meets With Netanyahu, Abbas—

U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George Mitchell (D, Maine), April 16 met with newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The next day, he traveled to Ramallah, in the West Bank, to meet with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials. [See p. 157D2] Mitchell in his meeting with Netanyahu emphasized the Obama administration’s support for the creation of “a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel.” However, Netanyahu said the Palestinians first had to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas April 27 said he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinian negotiators had said such a recognition would undermine their demands for the right for Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, as well as being against the interests of Israel’s Arab population. Mitchell April 17 said the U.S. would seek “a comprehensive peace” between IsMay 7, 2009

rael and the Arab world, building upon a 2002 Arab League proposal. Also, two Hamas leaders—Ismail Haniya, the group’s leader in Gaza, and another top official, Mahmoud Zahar—April 17 made their first public appearances since the Gaza war, preaching at separate mosques in the territory. Zahar in his sermon said Hamas would never recognize Israel. Obama April 21 said he would invite Netanyahu, Abbas, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—a key player in IsraeliPalestinian negotiations—to meet with him separately at the White House. U.S. officials said the meetings would probably take place between mid-May and early June. Netanyahu, addressing via satellite a conference of the U.S. pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), May 4 promised to pursue peace with the Palestinians by combining negotiations with the development of the Palestinian territories and bolstering PA security forces. He also said the common threat of Iran’s nuclear program could unite Israel, the U.S. and Arab nations. Israeli officials had suggested that Netanyahu’s foreign policy agenda would prioritize containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions over Israeli-Palestinian issues. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton April 23 had said progress on Iran could only occur if Israel was seen as working towards a Palestinian state. In an interview with the New York Times published May 5, Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, pledged that the organization would be “part of the solution” in resolving Israeli-Palestinian issues. He said Hamas was seeking a Palestinian state “on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” However, he refused to recognize Israel. Meshal also said Hamas fighters for the time being had stopped firing rockets into Israel from Gaza. Six rockets and mortar shells had been fired into Israel in April, a sharp decline from the previous months. Meshal was living in exile in Damascus, Syria. Hamas and its rival Fatah, which controlled the West Bank, April 28 ended a fourth round of Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, without coming to a resolution. Egypt set May 15 as the deadline for a fifth round of talks. Hamas reportedly rejected Fatah’s demands that any unity government adhere to international conditions including recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing violence. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs May 1 released a report warning that up to 60,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem faced eviction. It estimated that as many as a quarter of Palestinian homes in the neighborhood were built illegally, because Israel had not provided enough building permits to keep up with the growing Palestinian population there. The U.N. called on Israel to halt demolitions, which in past years had averaged about 75 annually. East Jerusalem had been annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, but

many Palestinians saw it as a potential capital for a future Palestinian state. Boy Killed in Attack on Settlement— A man with an ax April 2 attacked two boys in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin, killing one and wounding the other before fleeing. The Israeli government called the incident a terrorist attack, and several Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility, including Islamic Jihad and another calling itself Martyrs of Imad Mughniyah, referring to a leader of the Shiite Muslim Lebanese miltant group Hezbollah who had been killed in a 2008 bombing in Syria. The wounded boy’s father was serving a prison sentence for involvement in a 2002 plot to blow up an Arab girls’ school in Jerusalem, although it was not known if the attack on the boys had any connection to that incident. Bat Ayin settlers April 8 fired on residents from the nearby Palestinian village of Safa, wounding six. Also, a Palestinian April 17 infiltrated the Israeli West Bank settlement of Beit Haggai but was shot dead when he attacked a settler. In other violence, Israeli policemen April 7 shot to death a Palestinian man who they said had tried to run them over with his car in East Jerusalem. The police had been guarding the demolition site of the house of the family of another Palestinian who had killed three Israelis with a construction vehicle in July 2008. (Another Palestinian driver March 5 had rammed a construction vehicle into a police car and an empty bus in Jerusalem, wounding two police officers before police and a bystander shot him to death.) [See 2008, p. 525G3] A Palestinian man April 17 was killed during a demonstration against the Israeli security barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin when a tear gas canister fired by Israeli forces struck him in the chest. A U.S. citizen had been severely injured by a tear gas canister in March, and Israeli forces had been criticized for firing them directly at protesters. [See p. 210E3] Palestinian militants May 2 fired several mortar shells into Israel from Gaza. The attack prompted an Israeli air strike on smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border, killing two Palestinians. Israel May 6 again bombed the tunnels after another mortar attack. n

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Afghanistan Karzai Taps Ex-Warlord as Running Mate.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai May 4 formally registered as a candidate for the country’s Aug. 20 presidential election, and said he had chosen Muhammad Qassim Fahim, a controversial ex-warlord, as one of his vice-presidential running mates. The move prompted criticism from human rights groups and aid agencies, which said Fahim had committed numerous human rights violations during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, and that he still had ties to criminal groups and drug traffickers. Karzai’s other running mate 313

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was current Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili. [See p. 195D2; 2004, p. 1070A3] Fahim had been a vice president in a transitional government that took power after a 2001 U.S.-led invasion deposed the Taliban’s Islamic fundamentalist regime. However, during the 2004 presidential election, Karzai replaced him with current Vice President Ahmed Zia Massoud. Observers said Karzai had gone back to Fahim to draw much-needed support for his reelection campaign from ex-warlords who still wielded great influence in areas of Afghanistan. Karzai saw his chances at reelection increase May 2 when one of his strongest rivals dropped out of the race. Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar, was thought to be one of the few politicians in the country with enough name recognition to defeat Karzai. Karzai had seen his support erode in recent years—due to rampant corruption in the government and increased violence stemming from a resurgent Taliban insurgency—but he was one of Afghanistan’s few nationally known politicians. He also belonged to the Pashtun ethnic group, which comprised 40% of the population. Shirzai was also Pashtun, posing a threat to Karzai’s base. Shirzai did not explain his decision, but he had reportedly met with Karzai May 1. The country’s largest opposition party, the United Front, had chosen former Foreign Minister Abdullah (who went by only one name) to be its candidate. The United Front was largely comprised of non-Pashtun groups from Afghanistan’s north.

Separately, local officials said NATO air strikes April 13 in the eastern province of Kunar had killed six civilians. NATO officials denied the charge, saying four to eight Taliban militants had been killed. Britain Pledges More Troops— British Prime Minister Gordon Brown April 29 announced that Britain would send an additional 700 troops to Afghanistan, but that they would eventually be drawn down after providing security for the Aug. 20 presidential election. Britain currently had 8,300 troops stationed in the country. Addressing Britain’s Parliament, Brown said the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan was the “crucible of global terrorism.” Brown April 27 visited Kabul, the Afghan capital, where he said Britain would provide an additional £15 million ($23 million) in aid to the country. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd April 29 pledged an additional 450 soldiers to Afghanistan, which would bring Australia’s total troop count to 1,550. Hundreds Protest Marriage Law—About 300 women in Kabul April 15 protested a recently passed law that human rights groups said legalized marital rape. The law, which applied only to Shiite Muslims, required wives to respond to their husbands’ sexual advances, and placed other restrictions on women. The demonstrators were met by hundreds of counterdemonstrators who favored the law. Karzai’s government had come under international criticism for passing the law, and Karzai said it would be reviewed before it was implemented. [See p. 213E1] n

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Pakistan Thousands Flee Fighting in Northwest.

Civilians Allegedly Killed in Air Strikes—

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) May 6 said dozens of civilians had been killed by U.S. air strikes that struck a village May 4 in the Bala Baluk district, in the western province of Farah. Afghan officials put the death toll at more than 100, which would make the incident one of the worst of its kind since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. U.S. military officials May 5 said they would conduct an investigation into the strikes. [See p. 54B3] Karzai’s office said the alleged casualties were “unjustifiable and unacceptable.” Karzai had long criticized the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for what he described as their reckless use of air strikes, which he said would turn the civilian population against his government and the Western forces. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 6 expressed deep regret over the possible loss of civilian life, after a meeting with Karzai in Washington, D.C. [See p. 315F1] Farah’s provincial governor, Rohul Amin, said the Taliban had attacked police checkpoints in Bala Baluk May 4. The insurgents then engaged with the Afghan national army, and U.S. soldiers embedded with the Afghan troops called in the air strikes. There were conflicting reports of what happened at the time of the strikes. Some officials claimed that the Taliban had used the civilians as human shields, while villagers said the strikes had hit houses that were removed from the fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan army.

coalition with Prachanda’s Maoists in protest of Katawal’s sacking. The Maoists held a plurality of seats in the assembly. Prachanda in a televised address to the nation May 4 said Yadav’s move was “unconstitutional and undemocratic,” claiming that “the president has no power to act alone without prior approval of the cabinet on such matters.” Nepal’s interim constitution did not clarify who had the power to dismiss the army chief. The president was nominally in charge of the country’s security forces, but was required to act with the legislature’s consultation. Maoist supporters May 4–7 staged protests in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, and there were reports of minor clashes between protesters and security forces. Following Prachanda’s resignation, the country’s political parties began jockeying to form a new ruling coalition. The Maoists said they would not ally with any party that did not support firing Katawal. Several politicians said it would be difficult to form a ruling coalition without the Maoists, who controlled 40% of the seats in the legislature. They also said the Maoists would have to be involved in writing the country’s constitution, which was the interim legislature’s main task. While the Maoists enjoyed strong political support, they had also come under criticism for their management of the country, which was beset by chronic power outages, fuel shortages and high rates of inflation. n

Nepal Prime Minister Resigns Over Army Dispute.

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, May 4 resigned from his position, a day after his attempt to sack the country’s army chief was thwarted. The move threatened to destabilize the young democracy, which in 2008 had switched from an absolute monarchy to a democratic republic. It also raised concerns that a 2006 peace deal between the army and Prachanda’s Maoist rebel group—which later entered the political process as the Communist Party (Maoist)—could fall apart. [See 2008, p. 577B3] Prachanda May 3 had attempted to fire the army chief, Rookmangud Katawal, after he refused to begin absorbing into the army some 19,000 former Maoist rebels who were currently interned in United Nations–run camps. The integration of the army with the rebels was a central element of the 2006 peace agreement. But Katawal refused, claiming that the former rebels were too ideologically indoctrinated to blend with the army ranks. President Ram Baran Yadav later May 3 overturned Prachanda’s order. Yadav was a member of the opposition Nepali Congress Party, which held the second-highest number of seats in Nepal’s interim legislature, the Constituent Assembly. The Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), which held the third-highest number of seats, that day pulled out of its

Thousands of civilian residents in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) May 5–7 fled the Swat district, over fears that the military was preparing to launch a major military operation against Taliban Islamic fundamentalist militants there. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in a televised address to the nation May 7 formally announced the beginning of a Swat offensive, saying, “To restore the honor and dignity of our homeland and to protect our people, the armed forces have been called in to eliminate the militants and terrorists.” [See p. 298B1] The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) May 7 said that some 500,000 civilians had been displaced by recent fighting in Swat, as well as in Swat’s neighboring districts of Buner and Lower Dir, and that the humanitarian crisis in the region was “intensifying.” The numbers could not be independently confirmed because the news media had been banned from the conflict zones. The Pakistani government and the Taliban in Swat had reached a peace deal in February, ending 18 months of heavy fighting between the two sides. The government agreed to allow the establishment of sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Malakand division—which included Swat, Buner and Lower Dir—if the Taliban disarmed. President Asif Ali Zardari in April signed a law approving the change, but Taliban militants in Swat did not lay down their arms. Instead, they invaded and FACTS ON FILE

seized control of Buner, which lay a mere 60 miles (100 km) from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The Swat peace deal was harshly criticized by moderate Pakistani groups and Pakistan’s Western allies, including the U.S., which said the government was abdicating authority and territory to the Taliban. The Taliban had vowed to overthrow the government and establish sharia across the country, and since the peace deal was reached had conducted public floggings and executions, occupied homes and burned farm land, in what was seen as an attempt to cow the local population. The Taliban had ties to international terrorist network Al Qaeda, and Taliban factions were fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in neighboring Afghanistan. In response to the criticism, the Pakistani army in late April began operations to root out militants in Buner and nearby Lower Dir. Army and government officials expressed a desire to maintain the peace deal in Swat, but it appeared to break down the weekend of May 2–3. The government May 2 established a sharia appellate court in Swat, which officials said fulfilled their end of the bargain. But Maulana Sufi Muhammad, the Taliban’s principal negotiator with the government, May 3 said the group would not recognize the court. Each side accused the other of violating the peace deal. Militants May 3 seized control of Mingora, Swat’s capital. They reportedly took over local government buildings, looted banks, laid land mines and began patrolling the streets. There were reports that the Taliban also blew up schools, attacked the region’s electrical power grid and beheaded two captured soldiers. Army officials May 5 lifted a recently imposed curfew and ordered civilians in Swat to flee. The army May 6 said it had killed 35 militants in Swat in sporadic fighting earlier that day. Helicopter gunships that day reportedly attacked militant positions, and militants attacked army bases near Mingora. The military said it was also on the offensive in Buner and Lower Dir. The army had retaken the Buneri capital of Daggar in late April, and officials said the operation was progressing as planned. But there were reports that the troops had encountered stiff resistance from the Taliban. The government May 5 announced that it would open six refugee camps in the NWFP districts of Swabi and Mardan. There were reports that the camps were lacking in basic facilities. Zardari Meets With Obama, Karzai—

Zardari May 6 held meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Washington, D.C., where the three leaders sought to find ways in which they could cooperate in defeating the Taliban. Obama afterward said, “The security of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States are linked,” adding, “We must work together with a renewed sense of partnership to share intelligence, and to coordinate our efforts to isolate, target and take out our common enemy.” [See p. 313F3] While Obama had recently announced a U.S. troop increase to fight the Taliban in May 7, 2009

Afghanistan, the U.S.’s ability to target Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan was limited. The Taliban largely operated with impunity in Pakistan’s lawless northwestern tribal areas, which lay between the NWFP and the porous Afghan border. The Taliban could move freely between the two countries, allowing militants to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and then retreat to their safe havens in Pakistan. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had used Predator and Reaper drone aircraft to launch missile attacks against militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, but the number of such attacks had been scaled back in recent weeks, reportedly due to Pakistani objections to a rising number of civilian casualties. Analysts said the U.S.’s main strategy was to convince Pakistan that the Taliban posed a grave threat to the country’s stability, and that the militants had to be defeated with military force. However, the army had appeared reluctant to wage war against Pakistani citizens, especially if it was perceived as being at the behest of the U.S., since anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan was high. Additionally, the army had historical ties with the Taliban, which it had used as a proxy force in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 6 praised the Pakistani army’s recent operations in the NWFP, and said, “I think that action was called for.” Before meeting with Obama, Zardari and Karzai May 6 held talks with Clinton, national security adviser James Jones and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Top military and intelligence officials from all three countries also met that day, including CIA Director Leon Panetta and Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. Zardari Makes Case for More Aid— Zardari May 5 held a meeting with members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, in which he requested that they support Obama’s proposed five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid package for Pakistan, as well as additional military aid. However, Rep. Howard Berman (D, Calif.), the committee chairman, came away unimpressed with Zardari, telling reporters, “He did not present a coherent strategy for the defeat of the insurgency.” Lawmakers were concerned that Zardari’s government was too fragile to be trusted with the money, and wanted to attach conditions that would ensure that Pakistan was working to meet U.S. goals in the region. Obama said the civilian aid was important, since education and economic programs could build support for the government among the tribal areas’ poor populations, and help them resist overtures from the Taliban. U.S. officials had publicly supported Zardari, with Holbrooke May 5 telling the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “He should be treated as the leader of a country who vitally needs our support and whose success is vitally related to U.S. interests.” However, there were reports that the Obama administration was concerned that Zardari did not have the will or enough po-

litical support to defeat the Taliban. Those doubts grew after he signed off on the Swat peace deal. Several media outlets reported that the administration was pushing for Zardari to develop stronger ties with the more popular Nawaz Sharif, the former Pakistani prime minister. Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates April 30 urged lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee to approve $400 million in emergency military aid for the Pakistani army. The $400 million was part of a proposed five-year, $3 billion fund, which would also be used by the U.S. military to train Pakistani forces in counterinsurgency techniques. The Pakistani army was thought to be ill-equipped to fight a counterinsurgency, since it had long trained its soldiers in conventional warfare, planning for a war with its traditional rival, India. Dozens Killed in Ethnic Violence— At least 34 people were killed and 42 wounded in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi after gang violence broke out April 29– 30 between ethnic Pashtuns and Mohajirs. The Muttahida Quami Movement, a secular political party dominated by Mohajirs, had recently denounced the Taliban’s encroachments in the northwest. The Taliban was largely made up of Pashtuns. n

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Horse Racing 50–1 Shot Mine That Bird Wins Kentucky Derby.

Mine That Bird, a 50–1 long shot ridden by Calvin Borel, May 2 won the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Ky. The Kentucky Derby was the first of the three annual U.S. Triple Crown races for thoroughbred horses. [See 2008, p. 318F2] The morning-line favorite, I Want Revenge, had been scratched earlier in the day due to an ankle injury. Observers suggested that the horse’s handlers were being especially cautious in light of the death of filly Eight Belles in the 2008 Kentucky Derby. (Eight Belles had collapsed after breaking her two front ankles about a quarter mile past the finish line, and was euthanized on the track.) Another favorite, Quality Road, had been pulled from the race April 27. The victory by Mine That Bird was the second-biggest upset in Derby history. (The biggest had come in 1913, when 91–1 shot Donerail won.) It capped a successful two days of racing at Churchill Downs for Borel, who had also ridden Street Sense to victory in the 2007 Kentucky Derby. Borel May 1 had guided Rachel Alexandra to an emphatic 20¼-length win in the Kentucky Oaks, a prestigious race for fillies. In the 1¼-mile Kentucky Derby, Mine That Bird began last in a field of 19 horses on a sloppy track. Borel deftly maneuvered the horse past 17 competitors, mainly staying close to the rail, as was his trademark. Mine That Bird then passed the final two horses through a narrow opening on the inside, proceeded to open up a wide lead and win by 6¾ lengths. Pioneerof the Nile, with Garrett Gomez aboard, placed second in a 315

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BEST SELLER LISTS

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Publishers Weekly May 4 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 212A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

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1. First Family, by David Baldacci (Grand Central) 2. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon) 3. Loitering with Intent, by Stuart Woods (Putnam) 4. Just Take My Heart, by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster) 5. The Perfect Poison, by Amanda Quick (Putnam) General Hardback 1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions) 3. Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist, by Michael J. Fox (Hyperion) 4. The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship, by Jeffrey Zaslow (Gotham) 5. Columbine, by Dave Cullen (Twelve) Mass Market Paperback 1. Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown (Pocket) 2. Where Are You Now?, by Mary Higgins Clark (Pocket) 3. Dark Summer, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s) 4. No Choice but Seduction, by Johanna Lindsey (Pocket) 5. Tribute, by Nora Roberts (Jove)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its May 2 issue listed

the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 212C1]:

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Singles 1. “Boom Boom Pow,” The Black Eyed Peas (will.i.am/Interscope) 2. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope) 3. “Right Round,” Flo Rida featuring Kesha (Poe Boy/Atlantic) 4. “The Climb,” Miley Cyrus (Walt Disney/Hollywood) 5. “Kiss Me Thru the Phone,” Soulja Boy Tell ’em featuring Sammie (ColliPark/Interscope)

Albums 1. Hannah Montana: The Movie, soundtrack (Walt Disney)

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2. Forever in a Day, DAY26 (Bad Boy/AG)

3. Unstoppable, Rascal Flatts (Lyric Street) 4. Twilight, soundtrack (Summit/Chop Shop/Atlantic/AG) 5. Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 30, Various Artists (Universal/EMI/ Sony/Zomba/UMe)

photo finish with Musket Man, ridden by Eibar Coa. Mine That Bird was trained by Bennie (Chip) Woolley Jr. and owned by Mark Allen and Leonard Blach. The gelding finished the Derby in two minutes, 2.66 seconds. Mine That Bird paid $103.20 on a $2 bet, and earned his owners more than $1.4 million in prize money. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

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People

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Scottish-born poet Carol Ann Duffy, 53, May 1 was named Britain’s new poet laureate, succeeding Andrew Motion, who had held the post since 1999. Duffy, whose work was known for its accessibility and humor, became the first woman ever to occupy the post, which had been granted official status in 1668. Motion, 56, had been the first poet laureate to have accepted the 316

al television shows March 30–May 3 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 212A2]:

1. “American Idol” (Fox), April 1 (14.2)* 2. “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), April 20 (13.0)* 3. “NCIS” (CBS), April 7 (10.9) 4. “NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship” (CBS), April 6 (10.8) 5. “The Mentalist” (CBS), April 28 (10.6)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of April 24–30 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 212B2]:

1. Obsessed, Sony ($34.8 million, 1) Directed by Steve Shill. With Beyonce Knowles, Idris Elba, Ali Larter, Jerry O’Connell and Christine Lahti. 2. 17 Again, Warner Bros. ($42.1 million, 2) Directed by Burr Steers. With Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Matthew Perry, Michelle Trachtenberg and Melora Hardin. 3. Fighting, Universal ($13.3 million, 1) Directed by Dito Montiel. With Channing Tatum, Terrence Howard, Zulay Henao, Michael Rivera and Flaco Navaja. 4. The Soloist, Paramount ($12.5 million, 1) Directed by Joe Wright. With Jamie Foxx, Nelsan Ellis, Michael Bunin, Robert Downey Jr. and Rachael Harris. 5. Earth, Disney ($17.7 million, 1) Directed by Alastair Fothergill. Narrated by James Earl Jones. 6. Monsters vs. Aliens, Paramount ($176.6 million, 5) Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. With the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Paul Rudd and Stephen Colbert. 7. State of Play, Universal ($27.2 million, 2) Directed by Kevin MacDonald. With Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn. 8. Fast & Furious, Universal ($147.0 million, 4) Directed by Justin Lin. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster. 9. Hannah Montana; The Movie, Disney ($66.8 million, 3) Directed by Peter Chelsom. With Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles and Mitchel Tate Musso. 10. Crank: High Voltage, Lionsgate ($12.8 million, 2) Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. With Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Efren Ramirez and Bai Ling.

post as a non-lifetime appointment, stipulating that he would resign after 10 years. All previous laureates had died in office, with the exception of the first official laureate, John Dryden, who was ousted in 1688, 12 years before his death. Duffy had been widely regarded as a leading contender for the post in 1999, but it was reported that she might have been passed over at the time, in favor of Motion, because she was a single mother in a lesbian relationship. Her 2009 appointment reportedly made her Britain’s first openly gay poet laureate as well. [See 1999, p. 392G2] n

O B I T UA R I E S FANTHORPE, U(rsula) A(skham), 79, British poet; her earliest work was inspired by her on-the-job experiences as a receptionist in the neuropsychiatric unit of an English hospital in the 1970s; her first poetry collection, Side Effects, appeared in 1978, when she was nearly 50; she went on to publish nine other volumes of verse, and in 1999 made a serious bid to become

Britain’s first female poet laureate; her longtime partner was poet Rosemarie Bailey, with whom she often gave joint readings; born July 22, 1929, in London; died April 28 at a hospice near her home in Wotton-under-Edge, England; she died days before one of her protegees, Carol Ann Duffy, was named Britain’s first female poet laureate. [See p. 316G1] KEMP, Jack French, 73, Republican politician who, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981–89), was instrumental in getting the GOP to embrace tax cuts as the primary means of stimulating the economy; unlike many conservative Republicans, he combined fiscal conservatism with support for affirmative action and other policies benefiting the socially disadvantaged; he was elected to Congress from the Buffalo, N.Y., area in 1970, after having been a star quarterback for the American Football League’s Buffalo Bills in the 1960s (the AFL was absorbed into the National Football League after the 1969 season); he served in Congress through 1988, when he ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination, secured by then–Vice President George H.W. Bush, who ended up being elected president; during Bush’s one-term presidency, he served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development; in 1996, he was the running mate of losing GOP presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole (Kan.); born July 13, 1935, in Los Angeles; died May 2 at his home in Bethesda, Md., of cancer. [See 2006, p. 175A3; 2005, p. 834C2; 2003, p. 1008F3; Indexes 2002, 2000, 1976–98, 1974, 1972, 1970, 1966]n

May 7, 2009

Top U.S. and NATO Commander in Afghanistan Gen. McKiernan Ousted McChrystal Chosen for ‘Fresh Approach.’

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates May 11 announced that he had asked for the resignation of Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ) forces in Afghanistan. Citing the need for a “fresh approach,” Gates said he would recommend to U.S. President Barack Obama that McKiernan be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who since August 2008 had been the director of the U.S. Joint Staff. Gates also announced the creation of a new deputy post under the top commander, and nominated his top military aide, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, to fill the post. [See p. 194F2; 2008, p. 392B2] McKiernan had become the top commander in Afghanistan in June 2008, and had been expected to stay on for a total of two years. The ouster of a commanding U.S. general in the middle of a wartime tour was considered a rare event. Gates said it was in the military’s “best interest” to have “a fresh approach and a fresh look in the context of a new strategy” for the Afghan war, which had been unveiled by Obama in March. Gates said Obama had approved the decision, which Gates had made in consultation with Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Petraeus, who as head of the U.S. Central Command oversaw the U.S.’s wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama administration’s Afghan strategy called for an increase of 21,000 U.S. troops—which would lead to a total deployment of more than 60,000—and a renewed emphasis on civilian aid and economic development. Obama had said he was open to cooperating with more moderate elements of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group whose insurgent campaign had gained strength in recent years. He had also emphasized the strategic importance of stabilizing neighboring Pakistan, which Taliban militants used as a safe haven. [See p. 314D3] While McKiernan had pressed for a U.S. troop buildup, it was widely reported that Gates and senior army officials believed his expertise in conventional warfare was ill-suited to tackle a complicated insurgency. Petraeus, in particular, in recent years had pressed the U.S. military to use innovative techniques to combat guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan. His counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq saw the U.S. military shed blunter, more aggressive tactics in exchange for alliances with former insurgents and an emphasis on protecting the civilian population. The strategy, accompanied by a so-called surge in U.S. forces, helped dramatically reduce violence in the country, and U.S. officials hoped to duplicate some of that success in Afghanistan. [See p. 229C1] McChrystal was considered a top expert in counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare. From 2003 to 2008, he had

headed the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which conducted covert counterterrorism operations and other unconventional missions for the military. Under McChrystal’s leadership, Special Operations forces in Iraq in 2003 captured former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and in 2006 killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. [See 2006, p. 441A1; 2003, p. 993A1] Rodriguez was also considered a counterinsurgency expert. In 2008, he had led the military’s 82nd Airborne Division in eastern Afghanistan, where insurgent violence was heavy. As a deputy to the top commander in Afghanistan, Rodriguez would oversee the day-to-day operations of U.S. troops. Both McChrystal and Rodriguez would have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and McKiernan would remain in his post until then. Observers expected senators to question McChrystal about a 2007 Defense Department investigation that found McChrystal had improperly recommended a Silver Star for Cpl. Pat Tillman, who was slain in Afghanistan in 2004. The awarding of a Silver Star implied that Tillman had been killed by enemy troops, when he was found to have been killed by friendly fire. [See 2007, p. 510F1] McChrystal had also faced scrutiny for his oversight of special operations units accused of mistreating detainees in Iraq. In particular, the task force charged with killing or capturing Zarqawi had allegedly abused potential informants detained at the now-closed prison at Camp Nama military base in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. [See 2006, p. 207E2] When asked by reporters whether his decision would end McKiernan’s 37-year career in the army, Gates May 11 said, “Probably.” Gates praised his decades of “distinguished service,” and the White House that day released a similar statement. McKiernan had overseen combat operations in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. Protests

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Demonstrators in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah May 7 protested as many as 130 civilian deaths that they said had been caused by U.S. air strikes earlier in the week. Gates, visiting Kabul, the Afghan capital, that day said, “We regret any—even one—Afghan civilian casualty and will make whatever amends are necessary.” However, he declined to state whether he believed U.S. air strikes had led to the deaths, saying he would wait for the results of a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation. [See p. 314D1] Gates also argued that “exploiting civilian casualties and often causing civilian casualties are a fundamental part” of the Taliban’s strategy against the U.S. Rising incidents of civilian casualties threatened to undermine popular support for the U.S. war effort and the U.S.backed government of President Hamid

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3569 May 14, 2009

B Karzai. Karzai during a trip to Washington, D.C., May 10 said, “How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?” Militants Attack Government Buildings—

Eleven Taliban militants May 12 conducted simultaneous attacks on three government buildings in the eastern province of Khost, leading to the deaths of 20 people, including all of the militants. The militants were reportedly disguised as Afghan army officers or clad in burqas (a traditional garment for women that cloaked the entire body), and used a combination of suicide bombers and heavily armed fighters to attack the Khost governor’s compound, a municipal building and a police station. Militants held 20 civilians hostage in the municipal building; the civilians were freed later that day by U.S. and Afghan forces. n

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. McKiernan ousted; McChrystal chosen for ‘fresh approach.’ PAGE 317

Government regulators tell U.S. banks to raise $75 billion in capital. PAGE 318

Senate passes mortgage aid bill.

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Obama administration releases final budget proposal. PAGE 320

Interrogator, former Bush official testify on terrorism detainee interrogation tactics. PAGE 322

Unemployment rate rose to 8.9% in April. PAGE 323

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Zuma elected South African president, inaugurated. PAGE 325

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi arrested. PAGE 327

Spanish judge investigates U.S. detainee treatment. PAGE 329

Iranian court frees U.S.-Iranian reporter. PAGE 330

U.S. soldier in Iraq kills five fellow troops in clinic. PAGE 330

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Other International News Obama to Address World’s Muslims. U.S.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs May 8 announced that U.S. President Barack Obama would make a major address to the Muslim world June 4 in Egypt. The speech would continue Obama’s efforts to improve relations between the U.S. and Muslims throughout the world, which had deteriorated under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Obama in April had made a well-received speech in Muslim-majority Turkey to the parliament there, in which he said that the U.S. “is not and never will be at war with Islam.” [See p. 214G1] Obama during his presidential campaign had promised to make a speech in a capital of a Muslim-majority nation during the first 100 days of his administration; the announced speech would fall outside that period, which ended April 29, and it was not announced whether it would take place in Cairo, the Egyptian capital. [See p. 285G1] Gibbs said Obama in his Egypt speech would “extend a hand to those that, in many ways, are like us but just simply have a different religion.” Obama had spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and his father was a Muslim, although Obama was a Christian. The speech would be the first stop in a trip that would take Obama to Germany and then to France, where he would commemorate the 65th anniversary of the DDay invasion during World War II. Media reports said Obama would face criticism over the choice because of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s record of suppressing dissent and imprisoning opposition activists. However, Gibbs said Egypt had not been chosen as a show of support for Mubarak, but because the country “in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world.” He added that Obama would address human rights issues during the trip, and that the speech would be addressed not to “leaders” but to “many, many people” throughout the Muslim world. n IMF Approves Kosovo Membership. International Monetary Fund (IMF) member countries May 5 voted to invite Kosovo to join the organization. The vote was a victory for Kosovo, which in 2008 had declared independence from Serbia, and was currently recognized as an independent state by 58 of the 192 members of the United Nations. In order to join the IMF, Kosovo had to be approved by a majority of the body’s 185 members. Kosovo’s proposed quota, was about $88 million. (A quota was the amount of money a country had to provide to the IMF to join. It also determined the country’s voting power in the body, and the amount it was allowed to borrow.) [See p. 274F1; 2008, p. 910G3] Serbia and Russia, which rejected Kosovo’s independence, had actively campaigned against its membership in the IMF. However, it had the active support of the U.S., Britain, France and Germany. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Banks Told to Raise $75 Billion in Capital.

Government regulators May 7 announced that 10 of the country’s 19 largest financial institutions needed to raise a total of $74.6 billion in fresh capital, in order to ensure that they could weather an ongoing recession. The announcement came in the government’s release of the results of so-called stress tests for the 19 companies, which were designed to gauge the ability of financial institutions to sustain losses if economic conditions deteriorated further. [See pp. 264D2, 110A2] The highly anticipated stress-test results were welcomed by investors, who largely viewed them as an indication that the health of the financial industry had improved in recent months. While regulators projected that the 19 companies could lose $600 billion over the next two years in a worst-case scenario, the amount of fresh capital that they would have to raise was far less than what analysts had expected in February, when the stress tests were first unveiled. The Dow Jones Industrial Average May 8 rose 164.80 points to end at 8,574.65, a 4.4% weekly gain that was fueled by a steady stream of leaked reports about the test results. Nearly all of the institutions had accepted government aid from a $700 billion financial rescue package known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which had about $110 billion in remaining funds. The purpose of TARP was to stabilize the industry following a market collapse in late 2008, and resolve a severe freeze in credit markets. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner May 7 said, “With the clarity that today’s announcement will bring, we hope banks are going to get back to the business of banking.” Companies that did not have to raise additional capital said they were eager to return the TARP aid, which came with government restrictions and was viewed by some investors as a sign of weakness. The Treasury did not say when healthier companies could return their TARP aid, but Geithner had previously suggested that he would not accept repayments until the financial system as a whole was functioning normally. The government also reportedly wanted to see evidence that financial institutions were successfully selling corporate bonds without a guarantee against default from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). The guarantee had been implemented in 2008 to ensure that banks remained afloat during the crisis. [See 2008, p. 737C2] The government said most companies in need of capital would be able to raise it without federal assistance, either by issuing new stock to private investors, selling assets or converting preferred shareholder stakes into common stock. Common stock was perceived as being a more dependable form of capital than preferred stock, since preferred stock imposed loan-like obligations on companies. The government had

mandated that the companies maintain a capital reserve of common stock and cash that was equal to 4% of its outstanding loans and other “risk-weighted assets.” Despite a generally positive reaction from the market, analysts warned that the financial industry could still face problems down the road, particularly if the recession worsened beyond the metrics used by the government to conduct the tests. The government had assumed that in 2009 the unemployment rate would rise to 10.3%; that gross domestic product would contract at a 3.3% rate; and that housing prices would fall 22% from the previous year. Additionally, analysts said there was no guarantee that credit markets would revive even if banks raised the required amount of capital. [See pp. 323C2, 291C3] The government April 23 had released preliminary test results to the 19 companies. That was followed by weeks of debate between the two sides over the accuracy of the results. Observers said some companies had been able to negotiate for more positive results, while some companies May 7 complained that their results remained overly pessimistic. The companies that needed additional capital had until June 8 to submit a fund-raising plan. Individual Stress Test Results—Government regulators May 7 released stress test results for the following 19 companies: o Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. would have to raise $33.9 billion in fresh capital, by far the largest amount of any of the companies. Bank of America that day said it would raise $17 billion through new stock offerings and common stock conversions, and that it was considering selling some of the companies that it controlled. Bank of America also said it no

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longer needed a federal guarantee for a $118 billion portfolio of its assets. Bank of America had received $45 billion in TARP aid. o New York City–based bank Citigroup Inc. would have to raise $5.5 billion. However, Citigroup had reportedly convinced the government not to include in that total a $52 billion common stock conversion that had been previously announced. Under that plan, the government would convert about $25 billion of its $45 billion preferred shareholder stake into common stock, leaving it with a 36% ownership stake in the company; Citigroup planned to expand the program to include $5.5 billion in nongovernment preferred shares, which would reduce the federal stake to 34%. Citigroup May 1 had sold its Japanese brokerage and parts of its Japanese investment banking business to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group for $5.6 billion. o San Francisco, Calif.–based bank Wells Fargo & Co. would have to raise $13.7 billion. Wells Fargo May 8 said it had sold $7.5 billion in new stock. The company also planned to raise money by lowering expenses and reducing dividend payments. Wells Fargo had received $25 billion in TARP aid. o New York City–based bank Morgan Stanley would have to raise $1.8 billion. The company May 8 said it had sold $4 billion in common stock, and $4 billion in corporate bonds that were not backed by the FDIC. Morgan Stanley had received $10 billion in TARP money. o GMAC LLC, the financing unit of Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Corp., would have to raise $11.5 billion. The government owned a $5 billion preferred shareholder stake in the company, which could be converted into common stock, but analysts said it was likely that GMAC would need an additional TARP injection. [See p. 283F1] o Cincinnati, Ohio–based Fifth Third Bancorp (which had received $3.4 billion in TARP aid) would have to raise $1.1 billion; Cleveland, Ohio–based KeyCorp ($2.5 billion) would have to raise $1.8 billion; Pittsburgh, Pa.–based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. ($7.6 billion) would have to raise $600 million; Birmingham, Ala.–based Regions Financial Corp. ($3.5 billion) would have to raise $2.5 billion; and Atlanta, Ga.–based SunTrust Banks Inc. ($4.9 billion) would have to raise $2.2 billion. Analysts said Regions Financial, SunTrust and KeyCorp could have difficulty raising the money through new stock sales, but that a conversion of preferred stock to common stock could result in the government owning significant stakes in the companies. o The following companies would not have to raise additional capital: New York City–based bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (which had received $25 billion in TARP aid); New York City–based bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ($10 billion); New York City–based Bank of New York Mellon Corp. ($3 billion); New York City–based May 14, 2009

credit card company American Express Co. ($3.4 billion); Winston-Salem, N.C.– based bank BB&T Corp. ($3.1 billion); McLean, Va.–based bank Capital One Financial Corp. ($3.6 billion); Boston, Mass.–based bank State Street Corp. ($2 billion); Minneapolis, Minn.–based bank U.S. Bancorp ($6.6 billion) and New York City–based insurer MetLife Inc., which had received no TARP aid. Bernanke Sees ‘Slowing’ Contraction—

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke May 5 testified to Congress’s Joint Economic Committee that the pace of economic contraction was “slowing.” He also said banks would likely be able to raise capital without government assistance. However, he warned that “recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly.” He said, “The rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while.” AIG Posts First-Quarter Loss—Insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) May 7 reported a $4.4 billion loss for the first quarter of 2009, a vast improvement from the record-setting $62 billion loss it had posted for the fourth quarter of 2008. AIG, which had received more than $180 billion in government aid, said most of its first-quarter loss was tied to the winding down of its credit-defaultswaps business, which had underwritten insurance contracts on securities backed by home mortgages. Those contracts soured after the U.S. housing market entered a deep slump. [See pp. 320C1, 126C2] AIG had sold $3.5 billion worth of its assets during the quarter, as part of its arrangement to pay back the government. However, AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy May 13 testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it would take AIG three to five years to complete its restructuring plan and repay the government. Lawmakers pressed Liddy for more details on the plan, which he did not divulge, and accused AIG of shrouding the plan in secrecy. Fannie Posts Loss, Requests Aid—

Mortgage-financing giant Fannie Mae May 9 reported a $23 billion loss for the first quarter of 2009, and said it would need an additional $19 billion in emergency aid from the government, on top of the $15 billion it had received in March. Fannie Mae’s sister company, Freddie Mac, May 12 reported a $10 billion first-quarter loss, and said it would need $6 billion in additional funds, which would bring its total aid amount to $51 billion since 2008. [See pp. 220B3, 127A3] The two companies had been placed into a government conservatorship in September 2008, and the government had pledged $200 billion to each of them to offset any of their losses. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were integral components of the government’s programs to lower mortgage interest rates, but they continued to report losses due to ongoing problems in the housing market. n

Senate Passes Mortgage Aid Bill. The Senate May 6 voted, 91–5, to pass a bill that would expand the federal government’s efforts to prevent foreclosures and buoy the slumping housing market. However, the Senate April 30 had voted, 51–45, to reject a controversial amendment that would have given bankruptcy judges the power to modify mortgage terms, falling well short of the 60 “yes” votes required to add the amendment to the bill under procedural guidelines adopted for it. The amendment’s supporters said it would have prevented 1.7 million foreclosures. [See p. 147B1; 2008, p. 517C2] The House had passed its version of a mortgage aid bill in March, which included a provision allowing bankruptcy judges to modify the interest rate, principal or maturity date of a mortgage, a practice known as a “cramdown.” The provision had been strongly opposed by the financial industry, which said it would raise costs on all mortgages. The industry reportedly had more clout in the Senate than in the House, and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D, Ill.), the sponsor of the cramdown amendment, in a radio interview April 27 had expressed frustration at the industry’s level of influence in the Senate, saying banks “frankly own the place.” Twelve Democrats joined 39 Senate Republicans to vote against the amendment. The Senate’s version of the mortgage bill would now have to be reconciled with the House’s version. The Senate bill eased requirements for a $300 billion foreclosure prevention program that was enacted in 2008, known as Hope for Homeowners. Supporters had originally claimed that the program would help some 400,000 homeowners switch from mortgages with high interest rates to those with low, fixed rates, but since 2008 only one mortgage had been modified under the program. The latest bill would expand homeowner eligibility for the program, and reduce fees banks had to pay the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure the mortgages against default. The insurance was a central element of the program designed to entice mortgage lenders to voluntarily agree to modifications. The Senate bill increased the borrowing authority of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to $100 billion, from $30 billion. The FDIC had said the increase was necessary because its resources had dwindled in the past year due a series of bank failures. The bill also extended through the end of 2013 the FDIC’s authority to insure individual customer bank deposits of up to $250,000 in the case of a bank failure. In 2008, Congress had approved the increase to $250,000, from $100,000, through 2009. [See 2008, p. 694B1] About $2.3 billion of additional spending in the Senate bill would be taken from a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). [See p. 318D2] Obama Foreclosure Plan Revised—The Obama administration April 28 announced that its $75 billion foreclosure-prevention plan would be revised to include second 319

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mortgages. The original plan, unveiled in February, consisted of the government providing incentives and subsidies to both lenders and homeowners in an effort to bring down interest rates on primary mortgages. However, about half of the estimated four million people in danger of foreclosure in 2009 had taken out second mortgages on their homes. Critics of the original plan had said it would not be effective if second mortgages were not also included. [See p. 92A1] Under the revised plan, lenders who agreed to modify the terms of a homeowner’s primary mortgage would automatically modify the terms of a second one. The government and the lender would split the cost of bringing down the interest rate on the second mortgage. Lenders would also receive a one-time $500 cash payment from the government, and $250 annually for three years if the homeowner kept up with loan payments. The homeowner would receive $250 annually for five years if payments were kept current. n

Financial Markets Regulation of Credit Derivatives Proposed.

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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner May 13 laid out proposals to increase government regulation of complex financial contracts known as credit derivatives, which formed a vast, highly unregulated market that had been a leading cause of the financial crisis that struck the global economy in 2008. The proposals were the first specific guidelines put forth by the Obama administration for overhauling the financial system’s regulatory framework. [See p. 178A2] Credit derivatives were contracts that were devised to allow financial institutions to minimize their exposure to risk, but their proliferation in recent years had also spread exposure to risk throughout the financial system. The most commonly known and widely traded credit derivative was a credit default swap, in which one party essentially underwrote insurance on a second party’s security. Under a credit-default-swap contract, the insurer received regular payments from the security-holder. In exchange, the insurer would have to cover the security-holder’s losses if the asset underlying the security defaulted. The market for such contracts had grown rapidly in recent years, with their outstanding face value totaling in the hundreds of trillions of dollars by the end of 2008. Heavy investments in credit defaults swaps by insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) had led to its near collapse in 2008, when it was unable to make insurance payments to its counterparties. [See p. 319C2] Geithner said the new rules would provide greater transparency to the shadowy market, and give the government greater powers to regulate it. Under the new rules, most credit derivatives would be traded on exchanges or through clearinghouses, rather than in private as was currently typical. (Some customized credit derivatives could continue to be traded privately between two 320

parties.) Companies that traded credit derivatives would be required to hold a certain amount of capital to absorb any losses. They would also have to provide much more information about the trades to regulators. Geithner urged Congress to repeal provisions of the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, a law that had limited regulation of credit derivatives. At the time of the law’s enactment, the credit-derivatives market had been much smaller. It remained unclear which regulatory body would be charged with overseeing the credit-derivatives market. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission pledged to work together to arrive at a solution. Geithner in the following weeks was expected to unveil more reform proposals, including a plan to streamline the regulatory system, which was comprised of various overlapping federal agencies. Critics said the system caused confusion, and made it possible for abuses to go unnoticed. Separately that day, Geithner announced that the Treasury would funnel more of a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund—known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program—toward small community banks. Some small banks had complained that their problems were being ignored as the government focused on propping up the country’s largest banks. n

Federal Budget Administration Releases Final Proposal.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) May 7 released President Barack Obama’s detailed final budget proposal for fiscal 2010, which would begin Oct. 1. Obama had released an outline version of the $3.6 trillion budget in February, and the House and Senate April 29 approved a budget resolution largely along the lines of the president’s proposal. The final budget included a separate section of proposed spending cuts in 121 areas that the administration said would total $17 billion. [See p. 289A1; for a summary of budget receipts and outlays, see p. 320E3; for a breakdown of the budget proposal by federal agency, see p. 321A1] The actual levels of federal spending would be set in the dozen annual appropriations bills to be passed by Congress and signed by Obama. Republican lawmakers—none of whom had voted in favor of the budget resolution—reiterated their criticisms of Obama’s budget proposal as bloated with unnecessary spending, and dismissed the proposed spending cuts as inconsequential by comparison. Afghan War Spending to Exceed Iraq—

The budget proposed for the Department of Defense included $130 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In a shift from recent years, spending in Afghanistan, with $65 billion requested, would exceed that in Iraq, for which $61 billion was requested. That compared with President George W. Bush’s fiscal 2009 request of $47 billion

for Afghanistan and $87 billion for Iraq. [See p. 317A1] The budget requested $533.8 billion in other, ordinary defense spending. The Defense Department’s comptroller, Robert Hale, said the final budget request reflected “no significant adjustments” from the initial budget outline. It included cuts, unveiled by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in April, to a number of costly weapons programs that had been deemed not worth their expense. [See below, p. 217C1] Obama did not propose any funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, initiated by the Bush administration to develop new nuclear weapons that would not require testing. (The U.S. in 1992 had joined a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear tests.) In the last two years, the Democratic-controlled Congress had rejected Bush’s requests for continued funding of the program, which critics said was a hindrance to nuclear nonproliferation. Observers suggested the administration’s decision not to request the funds reflected Obama’s stated ideal of a nuclear weapons–free world. [See p. 214A1; 2007, p. 750F1] The budget proposed an overall increase of 2% in defense spending over the previous fiscal year, adjusted for inflation, a smaller rate of growth than the 4% average over Bush’s presidency. Increases for Administration Priorities—

Among the significant spending increases in the budget plan was a 54% hike for the State Department, to $23.7 billion, reflecting plans to expand the diplomatic corps, send more civilians to aid Afghanistan and Pakistan, and increase foreign aid. Obama requested a 37% increase in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to $10.5 billion, and the largest-ever increase in the budget of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), some $300 million. The FDA increase was part of a broader trend in the budget of boosting funding for regulatory agencies, FISCAL 2010 BUDGET RECEIPTS AND OUTLAYS (Proposed by President Obama; in billions of dollars)

Receipts Individual income taxes Social Security and other payroll taxes Corporate income taxes Excise taxes Other

$1,051 $940

Total

$2,333

$179 $75 $88

Outlays Social Security Medicare Medicaid Nondefense discretionary spending National defense Net interest Disaster costs Other mandatory spending Total

$696 $452 $290 $687 $707 $136 $11 $612 $3,591

FACTS ON FILE

BUDGET AUTHORITY AND OUTLAYS BY MAJOR AGENCY, 2008–2010 President Obama’s proposed budget authority and outlays by agency for fiscal 2010, which would begin Oct. 1, compared with fiscal 2008 and 2009. Dollar figures are in billions. Figures may not add up due to rounding. 2008 (Actual) Agriculture Commerce Defense Education Energy Health and Human Services Homeland Security Housing and Urban Development Interior Justice Labor State Transportation Treasury Veterans’ Affairs Army Corps of Engineers Civil defense programs Environmental Protection Agency Legislative branch Judiciary Executive Office of the President General Services Administration International assistance National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Science Foundation Office of Personnel Management Small Business Administration Social Security Administration (off-budget) Social Security Administration (on-budget) Other independent agencies (on- and off-budget) Allowances Undistributed offsetting receipts (on- and off-budget)

Total spending

—Authority— 2009 (Estimate)

2010 (Proposed)

2008 (Actual)

—Outlays— 2009 (Estimate)

A

2010 (Proposed)

$93.0 $9.6 $674.7 $65.4 $22.7 $721.7 $50.6 $50.9 $10.6 $26.4 $58.0 $23.1 $68.0 $751.2 $88.4 $9.1 $45.4 $7.4 $4.5 $6.5 $0.3 $0.3 $25.1 $17.2 $6.3 $66.0 $1.3 $601.8 $58.5 $41.4 — -$277.8

$124.4 $17.4 $663.8 $134.8 $70.1 $840.8 $45.3 $62.0 $14.4 $31.8 $126.3 $26.6 $109.4 $1,174.1 $97.2 $15.8 $48.6 $14.8 $5.0 $6.7 $0.4 $6.6 $16.9 $18.8 $9.6 $70.1 $2.6 $651.2 $78.6 $125.6 $14.3 -$277.5

$134.1 $14.0 $667.7 $58.8 $24.0 $872.6 $41.4 $47.8 $12.0 $28.8 $104.5 $28.4 $73.3 $451.6 $109.9 $5.1 $48.7 $10.4 $5.5 $7.3 $0.6 $0.6 $20.9 $18.7 $7.2 $73.1 $0.8 $679.4 $71.4 $67.4 $20.7 -$281.9

$90.8 $7.7 $594.7 $66.0 $21.4 $700.5 $40.7 $49.1 $9.9 $26.5 $58.8 $17.5 $64.9 $548.8 $84.8 $5.1 $45.8 $7.9 $4.4 $6.3 $1.2 $0.3 $11.4 $17.8 $5.8 $64.4 $0.5 $599.2 $58.6 $49.6 — -$277.8

$116.2 $11.8 $665.0 $49.7 $29.3 $817.8 $49.2 $65.1 $11.5 $29.0 $121.9 $22.4 $79.7 $1,032.4 $96.5 $12.6 $48.5 $8.4 $4.9 $6.8 $0.8 $1.4 $13.6 $19.6 $6.7 $68.5 $2.3 $646.4 $78.6 $155.1 $3.6 -$277.5

$132.9 $15.8 $685.1 $100.5 $46.3 $880.8 $49.3 $54.8 $13.0 $30.3 $106.1 $28.6 $90.5 $498.4 $108.8 $9.5 $48.6 $10.8 $5.8 $7.2 $0.7 $2.3 $22.0 $18.4 $8.1 $71.5 $1.3 $677.1 $72.0 $65.9 $10.9 -$281.9

$3,326.6

$4,346.2

$3,424.8

$2,982.9

$3,977.8

$3,591.1

B

C

D

Source: Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Quarterly

such as the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other labor-law enforcement activities, and the Agriculture Department’s ranks of meat and poultry inspectors. The Transportation Department budget included $1 billion in spending on highspeed rail projects, part of a plan to spend $5 billion over the next five years, in addition to $8 billion from the recent economic stimulus package already directed to such programs. Among other transportation projects, the president sought new funds to overhaul the air-traffic control system and hire more controllers and other aviation safety officials. [See p. 324A3] Among other notable requests and increases: o An 11% increase in discretionary spending for the Veterans Affairs Department, to $55.9 billion, including money to expand education benefits and improve health care. o A request for $250 billion to be set aside in case more funding was needed for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion program initiated in 2008 to stabilize financial institutions. [See p. 318A2] o A $7.8 billion, or 8%, increase in funding for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and $298 million toward the hiring of 50,000 new police officers. May 14, 2009

o A 47% increase for the Commerce Department, to $13.8 billion, including $6.9 billion for the conducting of the 2010 Census. o A $60 million request for the Justice Department toward the development of a new policy on terrorism detainees in preparation for the closure of the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [See p. 305E2] $17 Billion in Cuts Identified—The budget proposal included a document laying out 121 “terminations, reductions and savings,” as well as proposals to redirect funds from programs deemed ineffective to more useful ones. About half of the $17 billion in total savings consisted of the previously announced defense program cuts, and about $3.6 billion would be reaped in Obama’s plan to eliminate subsidies for private lenders offering federally guaranteed student loans. However, members of Congress, including many of Obama’s fellow Democrats, immediately signaled their opposition to many of the cuts to programs they said were important. Among them, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) decried a plan to eliminate the Justice Department’s $400 million State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which compensated states for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. The administration said the money was often diverted for other purposes, and would be made less necessary by other border-en-

forcement initiatives. But Feinstein called the funding a “federal responsibility,” and the proposal to cut it was considered unlikely to be approved by Congress. Opposition was expected to some of the defense program cuts, including proposals to halt production of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and to scrap a replacement for the presidential helicopter fleet. The budget would cut spending for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, except for expenditures necessary to comply with a mandated Nuclear Regulatory Commission review, in a move toward ending the project. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R, Nev.) favored scrapping the project. [See 2008, p. 770D3] Among other programs defunded were two Bush administration abstinence-only sex-education programs, with the money to be redirected to pregnancy-prevention programs that the administration considered more effective or promising. [See p. 96F1] Deficit Estimates Increased— The OMB May 11 released new estimates of the federal budget deficits for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, predicting that economic conditions would raise the deficit about $90 billion in each year. It projected a deficit of $1.84 trillion for fiscal 2009, and $1.26 trillion for the following year. [See p. 180A3] 321

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Also May 11, the Treasury released a downwardly revised estimate of the new revenue that would be generated by a proposed cap on deductions claimed by highincome taxpayers. The administration had previously said the measure would raise $318 billion, covering half of a proposed 10-year, $635 billion reserve fund for national health care reform. The new estimate put the projected revenue at $267 million. n

Terrorism Detainees Interrogator, Former Bush Official Testify.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts May 13 held a hearing to examine the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation tactics against terrorism detainees after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S.. The hearing included testimony from a former Bush administration official who had written a memorandum criticizing the legal reasoning behind the use of the tactics, as well as from a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who had interrogated a terrorism detainee in 2002. [See pp. 305E3, 289B3] Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D, R.I.) said significant facts about the nature and creation of the interrogation program had been obscured by a “near avalanche of falsehood” on the part of Bush administration officials and called for a full-scale investigation into the program. However, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) called the hearing a “political stunt” and said that while people involved in designing and carrying out the program had possibly “made mistakes out of fear” in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, they should not be investigated or punished for their actions. FBI Agent Criticizes Harsh Methods—

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who had initially overseen the 2002 interrogation of detainee Zain al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaydah, testified from behind a screen in order to safeguard his identity. Soufan called the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) techniques “amateurish, Hollywood-style interrogation methods.” He said the FBI’s use of traditional, noncoercive methods against Zubaydah had been faster and more effective than the harsh methods, which he said had caused Zubaydah to stop cooperating. Soufan told the subcommittee that the controversial techniques, which included forced nudity and waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, had been used against Zubaydah by independent contractors employed by the CIA, not CIA employees. He suggested that Bush administration officials had made misleading public statements intended to make the techniques seem more effective than they were. Whitehouse said that he intended to investigate the role played by CIA contractors in the interrogation program and its alleged abuses. He said, “We were told we couldn’t second-guess the brave CIA officers who did this, and now we hear that the 322

program was led by private contractors with a profit motive and no real interrogation experience.” Bush Official Says Opposition Squelched—

Philip Zelikow, a Bush administration State Department official who had also served as the executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (popularly known as the 9/11 Commission), testified that the use of harsh interrogations had been part of “an unprecedented program of coolly calculated dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information” and said that its authorization was “a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one.” Zelikow said that he had written a classified memo in 2005 that argued against Justice Department memos authorizing the use of harsh interrogation methods against detainees. He said that the memo had not been discussed within the administration and that copies were rounded up and destroyed in 2006. (Zelikow had previously mentioned his memo in an April 21 article on the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine.) A spokesman for the State Department May 13 said that a copy of Zelikow’s memo had recently been found, but said that it could not be released until after it was reviewed and declassified. Separately, Georgetown University law professor David Luban testified before the subcommittee that the Justice Department memos authorizing the use of harsh tactics “read as if they were reverse engineered to reach a predetermined outcome.” He also noted that the memos did not mention a 1983 case in which a law enforcement officer was convicted of crimes related to the waterboarding of prisoners, which Luban called a major omission. Whitehouse said at the hearing that “nothing I have seen as a member of the intelligence committee convinces me” that harsh interrogation methods were more effective than the traditional methods used by the FBI and other law enforcement bodies. However, Graham argued that “one reason these techniques have been used for about 500 years is that they work.” (Waterboarding had been used since at least the 14th century. The U.S. after World War II had prosecuted Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded prisoners as war criminals.) Cheney Document Request Denied—

The CIA May 14 announced that it had rejected a request from former Vice President Dick Cheney to make public two documents that Cheney claimed would demonstrate the effectiveness of the harsh tactics in extracting essential information from terrorism detainees. A spokesman for the CIA said that the two documents could not be released because they were currently the subject of two upcoming lawsuits and were subject to an executive order that barred them from being made public until both cases were settled. Report on Lawyers Set for Release—

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich May 4 wrote a letter to Whitehouse and Sen. Dick Durbin (D, Ill.) that said the Justice Department’s Office of Professional

Responsibility (OPR) report had been sent to the CIA for a review of its contents and selected declassifications. In a joint statement, Durbin and Whitehouse May 5 said the letter from Weich had contained a “strong implication” that the report would be publicly released. [See p. 94C3; 2008, p. 146B2] U.S. news sources reported May 6 that the OPR had nearly completed the report. The report was said to have concluded that at least two former Justice Department lawyers who had signed off on the tactics, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had shown poor judgment and faulty legal reasoning, but it reportedly did not recommend criminally prosecuting them. The OPR’s investigation into the authorization of the tactics had begun in 2005 but its existence had not been publicly revealed until March 2008. The report, which was reportedly drawn heavily from classified documents and email messages between Justice Department and CIA lawyers, had examined the legitimacy of legal opinions signed between 2002 and 2007 by three members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC): former OLC heads Bybee and Steven Bradbury, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Yoo. [See pp. 257D2, 129F3] A draft of the report had been submitted to then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey before the end of the Bush administration. However, Mukasey and then–Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip had reportedly objected to its findings. Filip had also reportedly instructed the OPR to allow Bradbury, Yoo and Bybee to respond to the allegations contained in the report. Bradbury, Bybee and Yoo had been given until May 4 to respond and Bybee and Yoo had reportedly done so. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. was required to approve the OPR report before it could be publicly released and no date for its release had been given. While the report was still subject to change, it was not expected to have its central conclusions altered. Durbin and Whitehouse March 31 had written the Justice Department to raise concerns about Filip’s decision to allow Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury to review the draft report. n Pelosi Said Briefed on Harsh Tactics. The office of Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair May 7 released documents indicating that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, about the use of harsh interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, against at least one terrorism suspect. Pelosi, who, at the time of the briefing was the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, had previously claimed that she had been told that such tactics were considered legal by the Bush administration but not that they had been used; at least two other detainees were later subjected to waterboarding. [See pp. 305E3, 261G2] However, Pelosi at a news conference May 14 maintained that she had been specifically told, falsely, at the 2002 briefing FACTS ON FILE

that waterboarding had not been employed on the detainee, Zain al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, better known as Abu Zubaydah. Pelosi said, “The CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] was misleading the Congress.” Pelosi and her office May 7–8 had reiterated her earlier claims that she had not been informed of the actual use of the techniques against detainees. However, then–House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss (R, Fla.) disputed Pelosi’s account of the meeting, saying it had been clear at the briefing that the techniques would be used. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said, “It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence area would ever mislead a member of Congress.” Pelosi May 14 acknowledged that she had learned of the information from that briefing, but had been constrained from registering any protest by strict secrecy guidelines governing such briefings. According to one of the documents, a memo that outlined when various members of Congress and public officials were informed about the interrogation program and the government’s use of harsh tactics, Pelosi and Goss—who later became CIA director—were briefed, along with their chief counsels, on the “use of EITs,” or enhanced interrogation techniques, on Zubaydah. Zubaydah, who had been captured in March 2002, was the first terrorism detainee interrogated using the approved harsh tactics and the first to undergo waterboarding. He was waterboarded only during August 2002, before the briefing took place. The memo also said Sen. Bob Graham (D, Fla.) had been briefed on the program in 2002 and that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, W. Va.) and Rep. Jane Harman (D, Calif.) had been informed about the program in 2003, along with Republican leaders. The remaining members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were not briefed until September 2006, well after details of the program had been published by news sources. However, Graham May 14 said he had not attended any briefings on the two dates in 2002 that the CIA had said he had, and that at a briefing on detainees he had attended in the fall of 2002, he had not been told anything about interrogation techniques. The Washington Post reported May 9 that Michael Sheehy, an aide to Pelosi, had attended a Feb. 5, 2003, briefing on the program that was also attended by Harman. During the briefing, Harman and Sheehy, among others, were told in detail about the use of waterboarding against Zubaydah by the CIA. Panetta Qualifies Briefing Document— CIA Director Leon Panetta May 5 wrote in

a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D, Texas) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the committee’s highest-ranking Republican, that the reliability of the information regarding the briefings was questionable. Panetta cautioned that “this information…is drawn from the past files of the CIA” and repreMay 14, 2009

sented “the best recollections” of the agents present at those meetings. He also wrote that “in the end, you and the committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.” Hoekstra had previously asked the CIA to release the briefing timelines, along with other relevant documents. n

panics, who could be of any race, the rate was 11.3%, down from 11.4% in March. For men age 20 and over, April unemployment was 9.4%, up from 8.8% in March. For adult women, it was 7.1%, up from 7.0% the previous month. The teenage rate was 21.5%, down from 21.7% in March. For black teenagers it was 34.7%, up from 32.5% the previous month. n

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Trade Deficit Rose to $27.6 Billion in March.

Economy Unemployment Rate Rose to 8.9% in April.

The unemployment rate in April rose to 8.9% after seasonal adjustment, up from its March level of Unemployment 8.5%, the Labor 8.9% Department re- April 2009 Month 8.5% ported May 8. It Previous Year Earlier 4.8% was the U.S.’s highest unemployment rate since 1983, but analysts noted that the pace of job losses had declined from recent months, and there was cautious optimism that the economy could be recovering from a deep, ongoing recession. [See p. 219B2; 1983, p. 776F2] In response to the report, President Barack Obama said, “The gears of our economic engine are slowly beginning to turn.” But he warned, “We’re still in the midst of a recession that was years in the making and will be months or even years in the unmaking.” He added, “We should expect further job losses in the months to come.” An estimated 539,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in April, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 5.7 million since the recession began in December 2007. The April job loss figure was the smallest since October 2008, and significantly less than the revised 699,000 figure for March. However, analysts said much of the hiring in April was done by the government, in preparation for the 2010 Census. Besides the government and the health care industry, all major sectors of the economy slashed jobs. The unemployment rate was 15.8% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 141 Million Jobs Held in April—According to a household survey, 141.0 million people held jobs in April, the Labor Department reported May 8. The department counted 13.7 million people as unemployed. The department counted 740,000 workers as discouraged in April. About 8.9 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.6 hours in April, up slightly from 39.4 in March. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.7 hours, up from 2.6 the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose one cent, to $18.51. The unemployment rate among whites in April was 8.0%, up from 7.9% in March. The jobless rate for blacks was 15.0%, up from 13.3% the previous month. For His-

The Commerce Department May 12 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in Trade Deficit goods and servic(in billions) es for March was March 2009 $27.56 $27.6 billion, up Previous Month $26.13 $57.40 from a revised Year Earlier $26.1 billion in February. It was the first time the deficit had risen since July 2008, when consumer demand for imported goods began to fall precipitously due to an ongoing recession. Both imports and exports fell in March, but analysts said the pace of decline in trade was slowing, suggesting that a trade recovery could be on the horizon. [See p. 240B2] Exports in March fell to $123.6 billion, a $3.0 billion decrease from the preceding month. The change was led by decreased exports of capital goods and consumer goods. Imports decreased by $1.6 billion in March, to $151.2 billion. The change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and capital goods. n

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MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* March February 2009 2009 -15.62 -2.61 -0.83 -4.42 -3.91 -0.15

-14.20 -2.21 -1.92 -3.34 -3.10 0.03

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*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Retail Sales Fell 0.4% in April. The Com-

merce Department May 13 reported that the value of retail sales in April was $337.7 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 0.4% below the revised figure for March. Retail sales were an important economic indicator since consumer spending accounted for more than two-thirds of the economy’s gross domestic product (GDP). The report dimmed hopes that the economy was beginning to pull out of a deep recession, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average that day fell 184.22 points, or 2.2%, to end at 8,284.89. [See p. 240B3] n

Medicare & Social Security Funds’ Insolvency Dates Moved Up.

The trustees of the Medicare and Social Security systems May 12 forecasted that 323

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both funds would run out of money earlier than previously predicted, and blamed the deteriorating outlook on the current recession. According to the forecast, the Medicare fund would run out of money in 2017, two years earlier than predicted in 2008, and Social Security’s fund would run out in 2037, four years earlier than the 2008 prediction. The report also said Social Security payments would begin to exceed tax receipts in 2016, a year earlier than the 2008 projection. The part of the Social Security trust that offered subsidies to disabled people would run out of surplus funds in 2020. [See p. 245C2; 2008, p. 217D3] Medicare’s trustees said, “Actual payroll tax income in 2008 and projected future amounts are significantly lower than previously projected, due to lower levels of average wages and fewer covered workers.” Payroll tax revenue, which had decreased as unemployment increased, was the main source of funding for both Medicare and Social Security. The trustees said they expected the number of people eligible for Medicare in 2018 to total 58.8 million, up from 45.2 million in 2008. The increase was attributed to the post–World War II baby boom. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said President Barack Obama “explicitly rejects the notion” that it was politically impossible to broach the issue of Social Security reform. However, the administration was expected to address the problems with Medicare first because it was in worse condition. Other News—In other Medicare and Social Security news: o The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) April 22 reported on its Web site that Social Security beneficiaries would probably not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in their benefit payments in 2010 or 2011. Social Security beneficiaries every year since 1975 had received a COLA increase in their payments. Social Security COLAs were determined by a formula similar to the one used to determine the consumer price index, which tracked prices paid for consumer goods by all urban consumers. The COLA for 2008 was 5.8% o Sens. Max Baucus (D, Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R, Iowa), respectively the chairman and senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, April 29 proposed broad changes in Medicare under which doctors who exceeded national benchmarks would receive increased payments, along with surgeons who practiced in rural areas and hospitals that provided exceptional care to patients suffering heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia. The costs would be offset by eliminating Medicare payments to other hospitals and doctors, including underperforming doctors. The proposal also included provisions that would scrutinize links between doctors and companies that manufactured drugs and medical equipment, and make nursing home ownership more transparent. o The New England Journal of Medicine April 1 published a report that said the U.S. 324

spent about $17 billion per year on Medicare patients’ return visits to hospitals, and said many of those visits could have been prevented with improved follow-up care. The study said as many as one-fifth of Medicare patients who went to the hospital were readmitted less than a month after being discharged. n

Defense Report on Media Analyst Program Revoked.

The Defense Department’s inspector general’s office May 5 withdrew a report it had previously issued that cleared a Pentagon public relations program of breaking laws or internal policies prohibiting propaganda. The program, which had first been reported in April 2008 by the New York Times, had recruited retired military officers to appear on television and radio news programs as independent “military analysts.” The inspector general’s office in January had said the program did not break any regulations and that there was no evidence that analysts had benefited financially from their appearances. Several legislators had denounced the January report as a whitewash. [See pp. 279C2, 242B2] Donald Horstman, the deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, in a memorandum dated May 5 said an “independent internal review” had found that the report “did not meet accepted quality standards” because it used faulty methodologies to examine potential financial advantages gained by military analysts working with defense contractors. Horstman also said the report relied on “insufficient or inconclusive” evidence because former senior Defense Department officials who had designed the program had refused to be interviewed. Horstman said the inspector general’s office would not investigate the media analyst program further because the program had been shut down and the officials in charge of it were no longer working at the Defense Department. n

Transportation News in Brief. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) April 21 unanimously

voted to cite the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for failing to implement 1999 board recommendations on the installation of safety equipment, like seat belts, on buses. The citation was part of a ruling the NTSB made concerning a 2008 Utah bus crash that had killed nine people and injured 43, and meant that the board held the NHTSA partially responsible for the crash’s severity. (The board said the main cause of the crash was probably driver fatigue.) The NTSB had been urging the NHTSA to adopt the 1999 recommendations since they were released. According to the most recent government data, in 2007, 51 people died in commercial motor coach crashes, up from 39 in 2006. [See p. 202C1; 2008, p. 678B2; 2007, p. 144D1]

President Barack Obama April 16

called for a high-speed rail system along

10 major travel corridors in the U.S., saying the country needed “a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century.” In addition to $8 billion set aside for high-speed rail in the $787 billion economic stimulus plan enacted in February, Obama said he would seek an additional $5 billion to be released over the next five years, and said the amount was enough to “jump start” the project. Obama said creating a high-speed rail system, in addition to providing speedy transportation, would create jobs, ease congestion and reduce toxic emissions. Under the plan, new high-speed trains would travel at top speeds of more than 150 miles per hour (240 kmph), about twice the speed of most passenger trains currently operating, although much slower than high-speed rail lines in such countries as France and Japan. [See p. 321E1; 2008, p. 770D2] The Obama administration March 27 announced an increase in mileage standards for cars and light trucks, which would take effect beginning with 2011 model vehicles. Under the new regulations, passenger cars would have to average at least 30.2 miles (48.6 km) to a gallon of gasoline, up from the current 27.5. Light trucks, which included pickups and sport utility vehicles, would have to average at least 24.1 miles per gallon, up from the current 22.2. [See p. 47G1] n

Postal Service Rate Increase Takes Effect. The U.S. Postal Service May 11 increased the rates for most of its services. The price of a firstclass stamp went up two cents, to $0.44, as did the price of the so-called forever stamp. It was the third straight year that the Postal Service had raised its rates in May. [See 2008, p. 149F1] The Postal Service, a quasi-independent government agency that was funded by revenues from postage and other services, had lost $2.8 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008, and said May 6 that it had lost $2.3 billion in the first half of fiscal 2009. The losses were attributed to reduced mail volume due to factors including the economic downturn and an increase in sending material via the Internet. Analysts said the rate increases were unlikely to cover the budget shortfall, and that the service could run out of money before the end of the current fiscal year. Postmaster General John Potter March 25 at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s post office subcommittee had asked for permission to reduce mail delivery to five days a week, from six. Such a move would have to be approved by Congress and the Postal Service’s board of governors. The Postal Service had already implemented other cost-cutting measures, such as offering workers early retirement, freezing salaries and halting the construction of new facilities. n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Sierra Leone Former Rebels Sentenced for War Crimes.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone, a joint national and United Nations tribunal, April 8 in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, sentenced three former top leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group to prison sentences ranging from 25 to 52 years. The three men—Issa Hassan Sesay, Augustine Gbao and Morris Kallon—had been convicted in February of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for acts committed during Sierra Leone’s 1991–2002 civil war. [See p. 134F1] The court sentenced Sesay to 52 years in prison for 16 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Kallon received 40 years for the same charges, and Gbao received 25 years for 14 counts of the same charges. Taylor Case to Proceed—The three-judge panel overseeing the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor before the Special Court May 4 rejected Taylor’s bid for acquittal. Taylor, 61, had been indicted on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for allegedly providing financial and logistical backing to the RUF. He had pleaded not guilty. His trial was being held in The Hague, the Netherlands, due to concerns that his presence in West Africa could have caused regional instability. The prosecution had rested its case in February, and Taylor’s lawyers April 6 lodged a request for his acquittal, arguing that the prosecution had not proven that Taylor was linked to the atrocities committed by the RUF. The judges’ decision meant that Taylor would have to put on a defense; that portion of the trial was expected to begin in late June. Taylor’s case was the last scheduled to be heard by the Special Court. n

South Africa Zuma Elected President, Inaugurated. Jacob Zuma May 6 was elected South Africa’s fourth president since the end of apartheid in 1994, in a ballot in the National Assembly. Zuma’s party, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), in late April had garnered 65.9% of the vote in nationwide general elections. That translated into 264 votes in the 400-member National Assembly, which elected the president. [See p. 292A3] In the presidential voting, Zuma, 67, received the support of 277 representatives in the National Assembly. Mvume Dandala, the leader of the Congress of the People (COPE), a newly formed ANC splinter party that won 30 seats in the April elections, received 47 votes. The main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party, which had claimed 16.7% of the national vote and 67 seats, abstained from the presidential balloting. [See below] Zuma May 9 was inaugurated in a ceremony in Pretoria, the administrative capital. In attendance were former Presidents May 14, 2009

Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki— Zuma’s political rival—as well as outgoing President Kgalema Motlanthe. Zuma’s inauguration was the culmination of a remarkable political comeback, after he had been fired by Mbeki as the nation’s deputy president in 2005 and charged in separate cases with corruption and rape. He was acquitted of rape in 2006, and the corruption charges were dropped in early April. Throughout his legal troubles, however, he had remained popular with the ANC rank and file, and he defeated Mbeki in an election for party president in late 2007. Motlanthe had taken over from Mbeki in September 2008, after Zuma’s allies in the ANC leadership had pressured Mbeki to resign as the nation’s president before the end of his term due to allegations that he had interfered in the corruption case against Zuma. Zuma, who was polygamous in keeping with Zulu tribal custom, was accompanied on stage at the inauguration by his first wife, Sizakele Khumalo, whom he had married in the early 1970s. There had been much speculation about which of his three wives would serve as South Africa’s official first lady. His other two wives reportedly attended the ceremony as well. In his inaugural speech, Zuma addressed some of the most pressing issues that his administration would face, including rising unemployment, the effects of the global economic crisis, and the country’s high crime and HIV/AIDS rates. “We must acknowledge that we find ourselves in difficult economic times. Jobs are being lost in every economy across the world,” he said. Nevertheless, he added, “the dreams and hopes of all the people of our country must be fulfilled. There is no place for complacency, no place for cynicism, no place for excuses.” [See p. 96F2] Zuma also made a point of praising Mbeki, in what was seen as a move toward reconciliation. Zuma Names Cabinet—Zuma May 10 named his 34-member cabinet, which included 14 women. (The previous cabinet had 28 ministers.) The most notable change was the transfer of longtime Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who was widely respected in the international business and finance community, to head a new National Planning Commission. Manuel had been the world’s longestserving finance minister, having taken up the position in 1996. Pravin Gordhan, the former head of South Africa’s tax collection service, was named the new finance minister. Completing Zuma’s economic team was Ebrahim Patel, a veteran union leader, who was named head of the new economic development ministry. The National Planning Commission would coordinate the government’s economic policies and was expected to wield substantial power over the direction of South Africa’s economy. World markets reacted favorably to Zuma’s economic team, apparently interpreting it as a signal that there would not be a radical shift in policy. Mbeki’s economic policies, which had focused on reducing

the nation’s deficit and cutting public spending, had been criticized by the ANC’s allies on the left, including labor unions and the South African Communist Party, as being pro-business and neglecting the plight of the poor. Some analysts had feared that South Africa’s fiscal policies would shift sharply to the left when Zuma took office. Patel May 13 said one of the new administration’s main goals would be to create jobs. South Africa’s official unemployment rate had been 23.5% for the first quarter of 2009. In another major change, Aaron Motsoaledi, a medical doctor, was named minister of health, replacing Barbara Hogan, who had taken over for the controversial Manto Tshabalala-Msimang when Motlanthe took office. Hogan, who was given the less-influential public enterprises portfolio, had been credited with reforming South Africa’s HIV/AIDS policies, but March 24 had criticized the government for refusing to allow the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama to enter the country. [See p. 327F1; 2008, p. 679G2] Among other appointments, Motlanthe was named deputy president; Tokyo Sexwale, a wealthy businessman and veteran of the antiapartheid struggle, was named minister of human settlements; Communist party leader Blade Nzimande was named minister for higher education and training; and Zuma’s former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, moved to the home affairs ministry, from foreign affairs. The Department of Foreign Affairs was renamed the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane was selected as its head. DA leader Helen Zille criticized Zuma for naming several “serial under-performers” to the cabinet. She also faulted the expansion of the cabinet to 34 ministers and 28 deputy ministers, saying, “A host of sinecure deputy ministries have been created, more to solve the ANC’s internal political problems at taxpayers’ expense, than to add value to service delivery.”

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The ANC and its allies May 12 harshly criticized Zille for statements made in a letter published that day in the Sowetan newspaper about Zuma’s personal life. Zille was quoted as saying, “Zuma is a self-confessed womanizer with deeply sexist views, who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIVpositive woman.” Zille, who was white, was referring to Zuma’s admission during his 2006 trial for raping an HIV-positive woman—a charge for which he was acquitted—that he had unprotected sex with the woman and that he had showered afterward to reduce the risk of infection. The DA had won control of the Western Cape provincial legislature in the April elections, and Zille, the former mayor of Cape Town, May 6 had been sworn in as the province’s premier. The DA’s representatives to the provincial legislature were mainly white men, as were Zille’s choices for the Western Cape cabinet, named May 325

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8. She reportedly made the remarks to the Sowetan in response to criticism that her cabinet was comprised entirely of men. The ANC said it was “astounded by the extraordinary attack.” Zille’s remarks were also criticized by the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) labor federation, both staunch Zuma allies. The ANC Youth League, the militant youth wing of the party, directed even more virulent criticism at Zille, saying it was “disgusted by remarks attributed to the racist girl Helen Zille, who when failing to defend her stupid and sexist decision to appoint predominantly white males into her Cabinet, attacks the President of the Republic of South Africa.” It went on to threaten “militant action” against Zille. Zille’s spokesman, Fritz de Klerk, May 12 said the DA would “not dignify [the Youth League’s comments] with a response.” ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe May 13 said the party “distances itself from comments” made by the Youth League. Nevertheless, he said that Zille’s statements were “reprehensible and, quite correctly, were roundly condemned,” and that she “justly deserves criticism for the unrepresentative composition of her Cabinet.” n

Africa News in Brief

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Burundi: Civil War Officially Ends. The National Liberation Forces (FNL), a mainly ethnic Hutu group that was the last rebel holdout from Burundi’s civil war, April 22 became a political party, marking the war’s official end. Most of the fighting in Burundi’s conflict, between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis, had occurred between 1993 and 2006, when a cease-fire was signed. Some 300,000 people had been killed in the war. It was reported March 17 that the remaining members of the FNL had begun to disarm and integrate into the Burundian army and national police. Presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled for 2010. [See 2008, p. 969A3] n Mali: Diplomats, Tourists Freed. The Malian government April 22 said Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, the United Nations’ envoy to Niger, his Canadian assistant, Louis Guay, and two European tourists—Marianne Petzold of Germany and Gabriella Greitner of Switzerland—had been released from captivity. Fowler and Guay had been abducted in December 2008 outside Niamey, capital of neighboring Niger, while the two Europeans had been among a group of four tourists taken hostage in northern Mali on Jan. 22. The North Africa–based radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb Feb. 18 had claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. The two other European tourists remained in captivity. [See 2008, p. 975G2] n Senegal: New Prime Minister Named.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade April 30 named Soulayemane Ndene Ndiaye as the nation’s new prime minister, replacing Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare, who 326

earlier that day had resigned for personal reasons. The change came after Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) suffered losses in March 22 local elections, including in the city council of Dakar, the capital. [See 2007, p. 365E2] n

AMERICAS

Venezuela Opposition Leader Flees to Peru. Manuel Rosales, a staunch critic of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias and one of the leaders of the country’s political opposition, April 19 fled the country for Peru amid charges of corruption. A federal prosecutor March 19 had charged that Rosales had engaged in “illicit enrichment” while governor of oil-rich Zulia state earlier in the decade, and had called for his arrest. Rosales, currently the mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city, rejected the claims, and argued that they were politically motivated. [See p. 204F2] Rosales, a former presidential candidate who had lost the election to Chavez in 2006, had been due to appear in court on April 20 for a pretrial hearing, but instead held a press conference that day in Peru in which he accused Chavez of “violating civil rights and trampling on the constitution.” The National Assembly, the country’s legislature, had opened an inquiry into $60,000 Rosales had received while governor of Zulia. (The assembly was overwhelmingly comprised of Chavez allies.) Rosales maintained that the money had been earned legally through his agricultural holdings. [See 2006, p. 935F1] A legal adviser to Rosales, Asdrubal Quintero, said Rosales had decided to leave Venezuela after another Chavez political foe, Ismael Garcia, said he had uncovered a sentencing document showing that Rosales would receive a 30-year prison term, the Washington Post reported April 22. A Venezuelan court April 22 issued an arrest warrant for Rosales, and international police agency Interpol April 23 said it had also issued a warrant for his arrest. Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonia Garcia Belaunde April 27 said Rosales had been granted political asylum. The Venezuelan government the same day recalled its ambassador to Peru in protest of the decision. Former Minister Baduel Arrested—Venezuelan prosecutors April 2 said they had arrested a former defense minister, Gen. Raul Baduel, to stop him from leaving the country before he could be tried on corruption charges. Baduel had been a close ally of Chavez’s, but had broken with him in 2007 after Chavez attempted to institute broad constitutional reforms that would have significantly expanded the powers of the presidency, among them ending term limits. Baduel had since become an outspoken critic of Chavez. (Venezuelan voters in February approved the abolishment of presidential term limits.) [See p. 97B3; 2007, p. 810F1]

The attempted prosecutions of both Rosales and Baduel were viewed as an attempt by Chavez to further consolidate his power in Venezuela. In addition to controlling the legislature, Chavez had also appointed allies to the country’s Supreme Court, and closely controlled the armed forces, the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) and most of the government’s oversight and investigative agencies. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

China Earthquake School Death Toll Released.

Chinese authorities May 7 released the first official tally of schoolchildren who died in a May 2008 major earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan, saying that 5,335 pupils had been killed or were still missing. The death toll among children had become a contentious issue as parents and others accused local authorities of complicity in the construction of shoddy school buildings that collapsed easily in the earthquake. [See p. 153G2] The newly released total was lower than previous estimates of about 10,000 student deaths, and suggested that children had not died in disproportionate numbers. The official total earthquake death toll currently stood at 68,712 people killed, with 17,921 more missing and presumed dead. Many of those critics dismissed the new figure, announced by Tu Wentao, the chief of the Sichuan Province education department, who said the number was “reached through legal methods.” The critics said the number was not backed up with a list of specific children in specific places. One prominent government critic, Ai Weiwei, said he was independently compiling a list of earthquake victims, and said the total number of children killed would likely exceed 6,000. Foreign news outlets reported harassment of journalists seeking to interview aggrieved parents in Sichuan in the run-up to the anniversary of the earthquake May 12. Activist parents reportedly said they had been told they would be under close surveillance until the anniversary. [See below] Parents from the Sichuan town of Mianzhu, the site of a school where 126 children had reportedly died in the earthquake, May 4 arrived in Beijing, China’s capital, on their third attempt to present a petition for a fuller investigation of school construction practices. In each instance, the parents were detained and forcibly returned to Mianzhu. Anniversary Marked—President Hu Jintao May 12 presided at a commemoration of the first anniversary of the earthquake, held in Beichuan, a town that had been devastated by it. Hu thanked foreign representatives present for their countries’ contributions of relief assistance. Meanwhile, extensive reconstruction projects were under way in Sichuan, funded by the economic stimulus plan approved FACTS ON FILE

by the government in late 2008. The Financial Times May 11 reported that the government said it had built one million homes in rural areas and had begun another 240,000. The government had set a goal of rehousing everyone displaced by the earthquake by September 2010. n Tibetan

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Nearly 100 people in an ethnic Tibetan area of Qinghai Province were detained March 22, a day after a riot in which hundreds of people reportedly attacked a police station in the town of Ragya. The crowd was reportedly angered over the disappearance of a Tibetan Buddhist monk who had recently escaped from police custody, and was rumored to have died after jumping in a river. The monk had reportedly been detained on suspicion of illegally advocating Tibetan independence by displaying a Tibetan flag. Of those held in connection with the rioting, Chinese state news media reported, six had been arrested and another 89 had voluntarily turned themselves in; nearly all were monks. [See p. 171C3] Tensions had been high in the Tibet region and other Tibetan-populated parts of China over the March anniversaries of a 1959 failed uprising against Chinese rule and of 2008 unrest. In another recent incident, a bomb March 17 had exploded at a newly built and unoccupied police station in the predominantly Tibetan Ganzi Prefecture of Sichuan Province. Separately, official media April 8 reported that a court in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, had sentenced five people in connection with the 2008 riots. Two were sentenced to death, the severest sentence yet handed down in relation to those events, for starting fires that had reportedly been linked to seven deaths. In Ganzi, a trial began April 21 of a high-ranking Tibetan Buddhist abbot, Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche, who oversaw two convents whose nuns had mounted protests in 2008. He was charged with weapons possession and embezzlement, charges his lawyer said were unfounded. The lawyer April 27 said that, following foreign reporting of the case, the court had postponed its verdict. South Africa Bars Dalai Lama—South Africa March 23 said it would not admit the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, into the country to attend a peace conference being organized by South Africa’s 2010 World Cup organizing committee. The decision prompted widespread accusations that the government was bending to the wishes of China, an increasingly important trading partner, which viewed the Dalai Lama as a separatist and pressured other countries not to hold contacts with him. The conference was postponed indefinitely March 24 after South Africa’s three Nobel Peace Prize laureates—retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Presidents F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela—withdrew their involvement in conference, as did the Norwegian Nobel Committee. May 14, 2009

Government spokesman Thabo Masebe said China had not influenced the decision, asserting that it had been made because the Dalai Lama’s presence would have caused China-Tibet issues to distract from the agenda of the conference. China expressed satisfaction at South Africa’s move. Other News—In other news about Tibetan affairs: o State media March 30 reported that Tibet would be reopened to foreign tourists, who had been barred from the region since late February. The first subsequent tour groups reportedly arrived in Tibet April 5. o China March 24 said a video posted to the YouTube Web site, purporting to show Chinese police severely beating Tibetan protesters after the 2008 riots, had been fabricated by supporters of the Dalai Lama. Also that day, Google Inc. of the U.S., which owned YouTube, said the site had been blocked in China for unspecified reasons, which many observers suggested was due to the presence of the video. YouTube was reportedly again accessible March 27. Tibetan advocates said the video was authentic, but there was no independent verification of that. [See 2008, p. 174E1] n

that she was “deeply troubled” by the junta’s actions. Clinton called for Suu Kyi’s immediate release from custody and said that she would discuss Suu Kyi’s arrest and treatment with China, which had relatively close ties with Myanmar. U.S. Citizen Charged—John Yettaw, a U.S. citizen, May 6 was arrested by Myanmar security forces after being seen swimming away from Suu Kyi’s lakeside home. He was charged May 14 with illegally entering a restricted zone and violating Myanmar’s immigration laws, and faced up to six years in prison. He reportedly did not have legal representation, but had been allowed to meet with U.S. diplomats. Yettaw had allegedly met with Myanmar dissidents in Thailand before entering Myanmar on May 2, and had said that he was researching a book on faith-linked heroism. He had reportedly used homemade flippers to swim across the lake to Suu Kyi’s house. Suu Kyi’s lawyer May 14 said that Yettaw had refused to leave Suu Kyi’s house after arriving, citing his exhaustion from swimming, and had slept inside for one night before attempting to leave. n

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Myanmar Pro-Democracy Leader Arrested. Aung San

Suu Kyi, who had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to establish democracy in military-controlled Myanmar, May 14 was arrested along with two of her maids, after a U.S. citizen was captured leaving her house earlier in the week. Suu Kyi, who led the country’s National League for Democracy (NLD) political party, had been imprisoned for 13 of the past 19 years and had been under house arrest in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, since 2003. [See below, p. 187F3; 2008, p. 353B3] Suu Kyi was taken to Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison outside of Yangon, where she was held in a special house on the grounds prior to her trial, scheduled to begin on May 18. Her physician and her maids were also expected to be charged. Suu Kyi was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest and faced up to five years in prison. Her current term of house arrest had been scheduled to expire on May 27 and analysts suggested that the arrest was part of an attempt by the ruling junta to extend her imprisonment past planned 2010 national elections. Suu Kyi’s primary physician May 7 had been held for questioning and had not been allowed to see Suu Kyi, who had reportedly been suffering from a variety of ailments, including low blood pressure and dehydration. Myanmar’s government allowed another doctor to visit Suu Kyi on May 8 and May 11, and her condition had reportedly improved after she was put on an intravenous drip. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 14 said that the charges against Suu Kyi were “baseless” and said

Georgia Protesters Storm Police Station in Capital.

Opponents of President Mikheil Saakashvili, who had been calling for his ouster in daily protests that began in early April, May 6 clashed with police when demonstrators unsuccessfully attempted to break into police headquarters in Tbilisi, the capital, where three opposition members were being held. Shota Utiashvili, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, said 22 protesters, six policemen and one journalist were treated for injuries, and there were no arrests. Opposition members alleged that police shot at the demonstrators with rubber bullets, but Utiashvili denied that claim and said police had used only truncheons. The incident occurred a day after the government had put down a mutiny at a tank battalion outside Tbilisi. [See p. 311G1] The three jailed opposition members had been detained for allegedly attacking a television news anchor. They were released May 7 after Ilia II, patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, earlier that day issued a statement in which he called for the government to free the three in the interest of maintaining public order. Saakashvili’s popularity had waned since he led the Georgian army into an unsuccessful war meant to regain control over a Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, South Ossetia, in August 2008. The Russian military easily overcame the Georgian army, and as a result of the conflict, Russia increased its presence in South Ossetia and another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, Abkhazia. Protesters also claimed that Saakashvili, since he took power in 2003, had mishandled the economy, consolidated power into his own 327

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hands, undermined the Georgian judiciary and suppressed free media. Meeting With Opposition Unproductive—

Saakashvili May 11 met with opposition leaders, four days after they had threatened to start blocking highways unless the president agreed to face-to-face discussions on holding early elections. However, both sides said the meeting was unproductive. Saakashvili said the two sides had “agreed on the fact that it is a step forward, that the dialogue should be continued.” Levan Gachechiladze, an opposition leader, said Saakashvili “thinks that everything is very good, and we think that everything is very bad. There is no other result from this meeting.” Former President Eduard Shevardnadze May 12, in an interview with the Associated Press (AP), called on Saakashvili to resign to avoid a violent confrontation with the opposition. Shevardnadze had stepped down in 2003 amid antigovernment protests led by Saakashvili and others. Saakashvili had maintained that he would serve his full presidential term, which ended in 2013. [See 2003, p. 931G3] n

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Berlusconi’s Wife Seeks Divorce. Veronica Lario, the wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said in newspaper interviews published May 3 that she planned to file for a divorce after a public dispute in which she had rebuked him for consorting with much younger women. [See p. 99D3] Berlusconi, 72, said in an interview published May 4 that he was not sure whether he would agree to a reconciliation with Lario, 52, whom he accused of lying. “Veronica will have to publicly apologize to me. And I don’t know if that will be enough,” he said. The couple had been married for 19 years and had three children. They had previously clashed in public. In 2007, Lario had published an open letter demanding an apology after he reportedly told a former showgirl, Mara Carfagna, that he would marry her if he were not already married. He named Carfagna to his cabinet as equal opportunities minister after he returned to power in April 2008 elections. Lario April 28 issued a new public letter through the ANSA news agency, citing newspaper reports that Berlusconi was recruiting a number of models and actresses to run as candidates in the June elections for the European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union. She also remarked that he had recently attended the 18th birthday party of a woman in Naples, Noemi Letizia, even though he “never attended the 18th birthday parties of his own children.” Berlusconi denied the accusations, saying that Lario had been manipulated by left-wing newspapers and that he was a friend of Letizia’s family. He unveiled his list of European Parliament candidates April 29. They included television personality Barbara Matera, a former Miss Italy contestant. n 328

Top Spy Dismissed in Military Shake-up.

Netherlands 6 Bystanders Killed in Car Attack on Queen.

A Dutch motorist April 30 plowed through a crowd of people and tried to ram his car into an open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and other members of the royal family of the Netherlands at a parade for Queen’s Day, a national holiday, in the town of Apeldoorn. Six bystanders were killed and 12 others were injured, but the attacker narrowly missed the queen’s bus and crashed into a stone monument. [See 2004, p. 901C1; 2002, p. 344A1] Police said the driver, who died of his injuries the next day, admitted that he had deliberately targeted the royal family, but no motive was revealed. According to the police, he was a 38-year-old Dutchman, with no criminal record or history of mental illness. He had recently lost his job, according to his neighbors near Apeldoorn. n

Russia Pro-Putin Candidate Wins Sochi Election.

Anatoly Pakhomov, a member of the governing United Russia party, April 26 won a mayoral election in the southern city of Sochi with 76.8% of the vote, Sochi election officials reported the following day. He would serve a five-year term. The Sochi election had been closely watched because the city was scheduled to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, which had a federal budget of as much as $12.5 billion. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who headed United Russia, had campaigned rigorously for the 2014 Olympics to be held in Sochi. [See p. 208B1; 2008, p. 456C1] A number of Pakhomov’s opponents, including Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and native of Sochi, said the election had been rigged in Pakhomov’s favor. Nemtsov had finished second in the poll with 13.6%, followed by Yury Dzaganiya, the Communist candidate, who won 6.7%. Nemtsov April 27 claimed that an exit poll run by his campaign found that he had won 35% of the vote, to Pakhomov’s 46%. Those results, if official, would have triggered a runoff election. Nemtsov and others also complained of government intimidation and oppressive media restrictions on Pakhomov’s opponents. [See 2008, p. 928C3] Six people were on the final ballot to become mayor of Sochi, down from 26 who had initially run. Among the contenders not on the ballot was Aleksandr Lebedev, a former agent for Russia’s Soviet-era KGB security service who later became a wealthy investor following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A judge April 13 had ruled that Lebedev could not participate in the election because he had failed to complete necessary paperwork. Numerous candidates had been disqualified over similar technical glitches, heightening suspicion of foul play. Other contenders not appearing on the final ballot reportedly included a prominent ballerina, a pornographic actor and a homeless man. [See p. 76F2] n

General Valentin Korabelnikov, 63, head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence division, April 24 was dismissed by order of President Dmitri Medvedev. Korabelnikov had been head of the GRU since 1997, and reportedly opposed reforms aimed at making the dated Russian military a more effective mobile fighting force. Lt. Gen. Alexander Shlyakturov replaced Korabelnikov. [See 2008, p. 985A2] Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov April 28 said 50 of the military’s 249 generals had failed an unannounced proficiency test, and would be dismissed. He also said he expected the military to dismiss about 36,000 officers by December. Pankov said the tests were part of ongoing military reforms. n OAO Yukos Lawyer Released on Parole. A court in Moscow, the Russian capital, April 21 ordered Svetlana Bakhmina, a former lawyer for oil company OAO Yukos, released on parole. The company in 2004 had been seized by the government and had its assets auctioned off. Bakhmina, 39, who had been imprisoned in December 2004 on embezzlement charges that her lawyers and supporters claimed were politically motivated, served about half of a six-and-a-halfyear sentence. A number of prominent politicians, writers and artists had publicly opposed Bakhmina’s imprisonment, including former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. [See p. 207F3; 2006, p. 310G3] Bakhmina’s supporters claimed that her imprisonment had resulted from a feud between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who had served as Russia’s president from 1999 to 2008, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos’s founder, who had financed political parties that opposed Putin. Khodorkovsky, who had once been considered Russia’s richest citizen, was currently serving an eight-year prison sentence for tax evasion and fraud, and faced additional charges of embezzlement. [See below] Judge Irina Vyrysheva said, “The court took into consideration the fact that Bakhmina admitted her guilt, committed no rule violations during her time in prison and also that she has young children.” Calls to release Bakhmina had intensified after she became pregnant following a furlough for good behavior. She gave birth in a prison hospital in November 2008. Bakhmina had two other children. President Dmitri Medvedev, upon his inauguration in 2008, had pledged to combat corruption in Russia’s legal system. Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights ombudsman, praised the decision to release Bakhmina as an indication that Russia’s courts were “starting to work like courts, and not rubber stamps.” However, Semyon Aria, Bakhmina’s lawyer, said she had probably been released more as a result of significant public pressure, which he likened to “a boil that burst.” Former Yukos Heads Pleads Not Guilty—

Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, his former business partner, April 21 in a Moscow court both pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzling about $25 billion from FACTS ON FILE

Yukos subsidiary companies. Both could face sentences of as many as 22 years in prison if convicted. Lebedev called the charges “schizophrenic fraud.” n News in Brief. International police agency Interpol April 27 issued a warrant for Adam Delimkhanov, a member of parliament

(MP) for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Delimkhanov was accused of orchestrating the March murder of Sulim Yamadayev, a former Chechen military commander who had been killed in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Russian officials the same day said that since Delimkhanov was an MP, under Russian law he could not be extradited. Delimkhanov maintained that he was not involved in Yamadayev’s murder. [See p. 273F2] Russian President Dmitiri Medvedev April 13 hosted the editor of Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper often critical of the government, at his home outside Moscow, the capital, for an interview. It was Medvedev’s first interview with a Russian newspaper since he had taken office in 2008. While Medvedev did not say anything new in the interview, some observers praised him for engaging with an opposition publication. Others suggested that the move was a meaningless gesture meant to placate the opposition. Medvedev had reportedly promised to meet with Novaya Gazeta following the January murder of one of its reporters. [See below, p. 36E2] Russian prosecutors April 9 said they would close an investigation into journalist Yuri Shchekochikin’s 2003 death because they had not found any evidence that he was poisoned, as some of his supporters had claimed. His official cause of death had been ruled an allergic reaction. Shchekochikin had worked for Novaya Gazeta, the same newspaper slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya had worked for, and like her, had written about the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, said the party would fight to have the case reopened. [See p. 100C1] n

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Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon April 29 opened a wide-ranging investigation into the alleged use of torture against terrorism detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The investigation, which targeted the “possible material authors” of the alleged torture, rather than those who physically carried out the abuse, was opposed by the Spanish government, which had suggested that the U.S. government should conduct its own investigation into the matter. Analysts suggested that Garzon was likely to drop the complaint if the U.S. agreed to launch such an investigation. [See pp. 305E3, 289F2, 257A1; 2000, p. 134A1] Garzon was known for his unsuccessful 1998 attempt to extradite former Chilean military ruler Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to stand trial in Spain in connection May 14, 2009

with Chilean human rights abuses. He had also overseen a separate torture complaint against six former Bush administration officials that had been assigned to another judge earlier in April. [See below] In his April 29 filing, Garzon wrote that the investigation would target any U.S. official who “executed and/or designed a systematic plan of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of the prisoners” at Guantanamo. He wrote that widely reported abuses against detainees at Guantanamo and other U.S. detention centers suggested “the existence of a concerted plan to carry out a multiplicity of crimes of torture.” He said the alleged plan had “almost an official nature and therefore entails criminal liability” for those who authorized, designed and carried out the plan. The investigation—which Garzon was conducting on his own initiative—was based on Spanish laws allowing the prosecution of crimes against humanity and human rights abuses that had taken place elsewhere, a legal concept known as universal jurisdiction. The U.S. government was not expected to extradite any U.S. citizens or residents in connection with the case. However, persons subpoenaed or charged by Garzon’s court could be arrested if they traveled to countries that had extradition treaties with Spain. Six Bush Officials’ Case Reassigned—

Judge Eloy Velasco April 23 was assigned to oversee a criminal complaint against six former Bush administration officials, replacing Garzon. Velasco was to determine whether a criminal investigation into the matter should be launched. The U.S. officials—former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, former Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes 2nd and David Addington, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney—had been accused of approving the use of torture against Guantanamo detainees, including three Spanish citizens and two Spanish legal residents who had once been held there. The court’s consideration of the matter came in response to a criminal complaint against the six officials filed by the Association for the Rights of Prisoners, a Spanish advocacy group, in March 2008. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido April 16 had criticized the investigation, saying that any inquiry should take place in the U.S. He also argued that it could lead foreign citizens to pursue their personal political agendas in Spanish courts. Spanish prosecutors April 17 recommended against any investigation into the actions of the six U.S. officials. Velasco May 5 announced that he would formally ask the U.S. government if it was currently investigating the six officials and, if not, whether it intended to do so. Experts said that Velasco had to determine whether the U.S. was investigating the matter before any case could proceed in Spanish courts. n

Turkey 45 Killed at Wedding Party in Southeast.

Masked gunmen May 4 killed 45 people at an engagement ceremony in the village of Bilge, near the city of Mardin in southeast Turkey, close to the Syrian border. The victims included the engaged couple. Turkish media reported that the attack might have been linked to a feud between two local families. Police May 5 arrested eight suspects in the attack. [See 2008, p. 525G1] Members of both families belonged to a government-backed militia that fought Kurdish separatist militants in the mostly Kurdish southeast region. Interior Minister Besir Atalay said none of the evidence so far suggested that the separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was involved in the massacre. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan May 5 said the killings were “the result of a feud between two families,” adding, “No tradition, no custom can ever justify this massacre.” In the 1980s, the government had set up the militias, which now had about 60,000 members, to help fight the PKK. About 40,000 people had died in the conflict. Militiamen had been accused of lawless behavior, including drug smuggling, land seizures and deadly clan-based feuding. There had been relatively few PKK attacks in recent months, but a roadside bomb blast April 29 killed nine Turkish troops in an armored personnel carrier in the southeastern town of Lice. Later that day, another soldier was killed in an ambush near the Iraqi border, 300 miles (480 km) to the southeast of Lice. Starting April 14, Turkish police had detained about 200 members of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), a Kurdish nationalist political party that had won local elections in the southeast at the end of March. [See p. 226E3] Separately, three people were killed April 27 in a shoot-out in Istanbul during a series of police raids on suspected members of leftist militant groups. One of the suspects, who allegedly had links to the PKK, refused to surrender and opened fire on police. He was killed, along with a policeman and a civilian. n

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Other European News May Day Rallies Draw Crowds, Violence.

May Day rallies in cities across Europe May 1 drew hundreds of thousands of protesters who used the annual labor holiday as an occasion to vent anger over the global economic crisis. Although the rallies were generally peaceful, violence broke out at rallies in Germany, Austria, Greece and Turkey. [See pp. 253G2, 206D3] Leftist rioters clashed with police in Berlin, the capital of Germany, leaving 48 officers injured. Police said they arrested 49 protesters. Police were also injured in clashes in the northern city of Hamburg. In the western German city of Dortmund, police arrested 200 people at a rally of farright demonstrators. 329

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Police also clashed with May Day protesters in Linz, Austria; Athens, the Greek capital; and Istanbul, Turkey. In France, labor unions claimed that 1.2 million people participated in rallies across the country. Police estimated the total at 465,000, including 65,000 in Paris, and reported no serious violence. n

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Iran Court Frees U.S.-Iranian Reporter. An Ira-

nian appeals court in Tehran, the capital, May 11 freed Roxana Saberi, a reporter who had received an eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of spying for the U.S. in April. The appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended prison sentence, allowing her to leave Iran. Saberi was also banned from reporting in Iran for five years. [See p. 274C3] Saberi, 32, was a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, although Iran did not recognize her U.S. citizenship. She had lived in Iran since 2003, and had reported for international news outlets including the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR). Saberi was arrested in January on charges of buying a bottle of wine, which was illegal in Iran. However, the charges were elevated to reporting in Iran without press credentials, and then to espionage, and she was convicted after a one-day trial. The date for the appeals court’s review of Saberi’s conviction was announced May 5, after her parents earlier that day said they would not use a team of lawyers headed by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, because “judicial authorities have advised us that it is better to use other lawyers.” Analysts said the charges could have been a political ploy by Iranian hard-liners to gain leverage over the U.S. It was also thought that her imprisonment might harm recent efforts to improve relations between the two countries. The decision to release Saberi was seen as a victory for Iranian officials who wanted to engage with the U.S. over those who were taking a more confrontational stance. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials after Saberi’s conviction had called on the appeals court to review her case and ensure that she got a fair trial. When asked whether her release was a goodwill gesture towards the U.S., Ahmadinejad’s press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, May 11 said, “Let people draw their own conclusions.” He added, “Maybe we want people to read into this.” U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had both pressed Iran to release Saberi. Clinton May 11 said, “We continue to take issue with the charges against her and the verdicts rendered, but we are very heartened that she has been released.” Saberi May 11 left Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which was known for holding political prisoners. Her father, Reza Saberi, said she was in good physical condition; 330

Saberi had reportedly been hospitalized May 4 after a 15-day hunger strike. Espionage Charge Detailed— Saberi’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, May 12 told reporters that the espionage charge against Saberi had been based in part on her possession of a confidential Iranian document on the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Saberi had reportedly copied the report “out of curiosity” in 2007 while doing freelance translation work for the Web site of Iran’s Expediency Council, which mediated between elected legislators, the president and the hard-line appointed Guardian Council. Nikbakht said she had not given the document to the U.S. n

Iraq U.S. Soldier Kills Five Fellow Troops in Clinic.

A U.S. soldier May 11 opened fire on fellow U.S. troops in a counseling center on a U.S. military base in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killing five U.S. service members and wounding three. The attacker, Sgt. John Russell, was subsequently taken into military custody, and May 12 was charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. [See p. 311A3; 2008, p. 648B2] Russell, 44, was a communications specialist in an engineering unit. He had joined the Army National Guard in 1988, and the active duty Army in 1994. According to Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Russell’s commanders earlier in May had ordered that his weapon be confiscated and that he attend counseling because of concerns over his mental health. According to reports, Russell had been involved in a confrontation at a combat stress clinic in Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad International Airport, and was escorted out. However, he reportedly grabbed the weapon of an escort, returned to the clinic and opened fire. Soldiers on major U.S. bases typically had their weapons and ammunition with them, but in many cases were required to keep weapons unloaded. Russell’s father, Wilburn Russell, May 12 told media outlets that Russell had felt his commanders had “threatened” him and were “setting him” up to be discharged with the counseling order. Two of the slain victims were a Navy and an Army officer who worked at the clinic, while the other three were enlisted Army soldiers. U.S. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates May 11 pledged to investigate the incident and the wider availability of mental health services for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As many as one in six soldiers returning from combat reportedly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide rates had skyrocketed, reportedly due in part to the stress of multiple combat deployments. [See pp. 245B1, 244G3] The attack was the deadliest of its kind since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and was the most lethal attack on U.S. troops in Iraq since an April suicide bomb-

ing that killed five soldiers. In an incident similar to the clinic shooting, Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich in September 2008 had allegedly shot and killed two officers who were attempting to counsel him; he was currently facing military charges. Also, Sgt. Asan Akbar in April 2005 was sentenced to death for a March 2003 attack that killed two officers in Kuwait at the beginning of the Iraq invasion. Altogether, fewer than 12 U.S. soldiers reportedly had been killed on purpose by other U.S. troops during the Iraq war. Soldier-on-soldier attacks had been more common in the Vietnam War. [See p. 254F2; 2005, p. 344G1] U.S. House Speaker Pelosi Visits—U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) May 10 made an unannounced one-day visit to Baghdad, meeting with Iraqi officials including Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki and newly-elected parliament speaker Ayad al-Samarraie. She promised that the U.S. would maintain “intense political involvement” in Iraq and “help economically and culturally,” even as the U.S. military presence in the country was drawing down. Pelosi, who had opposed the 2003 invasion, and criticized President George W. Bush’s subsequent handling of the war, had last visited Iraq in May 2008. [See 2008, p. 340C1] Pelosi said the U.S. would work to share intelligence with Iraqi forces in order to fight extremist groups. She also warned that the two countries would need to cooperate to stem rampant corruption within the Iraqi government, which Maliki the previous day had said was as dangerous as ethnic strife. (Iraqi authorities May 10 arrested Sabah al-Sudani—a brother and bodyguard of Trade Minister Falah alSudani—who was being sought on corruption charges.) Odierno Says Troops to Stay in Cities—

Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. general in Iraq, May 8 told reporters in Washington, D.C., that one-fifth of U.S. combat troops would remain in Iraqi cities after June 30, the deadline for their withdrawal from cities according to a bilateral security agreement signed in 2008. There were 134,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including 50,000–70,000 combat troops serving in combat brigades. [See p. 312B1] U.S. military officials had previously said they were pressing Iraq to allow U.S. forces to stay in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province and a stronghold of Sunni Muslim extremists, past the June deadline. Odierno’s statement provided the most specific details yet on how many troops the U.S. wanted to keep in cities, although he declined to provide exact numbers. Troops were also slated to stay in several Baghdad bases that Iraq had declared as technically outside city limits. However, Iraqi politicians so far had rejected U.S. military requests to remain in Mosul. Obama Opposes Releasing Abuse Pictures—

Obama May 13 said that his administration would oppose the release of photographs showing U.S. military personnel abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, after sayFACTS ON FILE

ing in April that he would publish them. The U.S. Defense Department had previously said it would release at least 44 photographs by May 28, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that had been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2003. [See p. 290F2] “The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals,” Obama said. “In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.” He added that he had told military commanders that detainee abuse would not be tolerated, and said releasing the photographs “may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.” Gates said he had been persuaded by Odierno and Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, that releasing the photographs would provoke more attacks on U.S. troops. Some of the photographs were reportedly personal snapshots taken by soldiers, while others had been taken by military criminal investigators probing abuses both before and after infamous pictures of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison had become public in 2004. Obama, who had reportedly seen a sampling of the pictures, said they were “not particularly sensational” compared to the Abu Ghraib photographs, but some unnamed U.S. officials said they were worse than those photographs. Human rights and civil liberties activists decried Obama’s decision, saying that he was perpetuating the Bush administration’s lack of transparency. Ex–U.S. Soldier Guilty of Rape, Killings—

A jury in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky., May 7 convicted former U.S. Army soldier Steven Green of raping a 14-yearold Iraqi girl, and killing her and three of her family members. Green, who was being tried in a civilian court because he had left the Army before being charged, was found guilty on all 17 charges facing him, including four counts of premeditated murder. Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. [See 2008, p. 591B3] According to prosecutors, Green had been the ringleader of a group of U.S. soldiers that broke into a house in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006. While two soldiers raped the girl, Green moved her parents and sister to a back room and shot them to death. He then raped the girl, shot her several times and tried to set fire to her body. Three other soldiers had received long prison sentences for participating in or being present during the attack. In addition, one soldier was sentenced to 27 months in prison in connection with the attack, and another had charges against him dropped.

erative, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had been captured fleeing Afghanistan in 2001 and was detained in the CIA’s secret prisons system. He was turned over to Egyptian custody. Under reportedly brutal interrogation there, he provided information—later shown to be false—that was used by the Bush administration in 2002–03 to bolster support for the invasion of Iraq, including claims that Iraq had trained members of Al Qaeda in the use of biological and chemical weapons. Once back in CIA custody, Libi recanted his statements, and said he had given them in order to avoid further torture at the hands of the Egyptian interrogators. [See 2005, p. 800E3] Bush in 2006 had transferred several high-value detainees who had been in CIA custody to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, Libi was not among them, and his whereabouts had been unknown until researchers monitoring Libyan prison conditions for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch met with him April 27. Libi’s death was being considered an apparent suicide, but his friends reportedly questioned that assertion. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A suicide bomber May 12 rammed his car into a police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing seven people. Another car bomb in Kirkuk the previous day had killed three people outside a mosque. Control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk had been disputed by its various ethnic groups, including Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. o The Iraqi oil ministry and the government of the autonomous Kurdistan region May 10 reached an agreement to allow Kurdistan to export oil. Under the deal, the Kurds could begin exporting 60,000 barrels a day from the Tawke oil field starting June 1, and an additional 40,000 barrels a day from the Taq-Taq field later in the month, with all proceeds going to the Iraqi federal government. The federal government had long opposed Kurdish efforts to sign separate oil deals with foreign governments and had asserted sole control over Iraq’s oil resources. [See p. 156E2; 2008, pp. 948G3, 708E2] o A gunman May 9 killed Gen. Hakeem Jassim, a top Iraqi police commander, in the southern city of Basra. o The U.S. military May 8 said U.S. troops the previous day had shot and killed a 12-year-old boy and a man in Mosul, after the boy threw a hand grenade at U.S. and Iraqi forces. The U.S. said it was part of a new trend of Iraqi extremists using children to carry out attacks. However, Iraqi witnesses said the man who had been killed, not the boy, had actually thrown the grenade. n

45-minute video, made in 2004, showed Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan—assisted by men including at least one uniformed police officer—holding a bound man down in the sand and torturing him with cattle prods, whips and a nail-studded board; setting his testicles afire with lighter fluid; pouring salt in his wounds; and finally running him over repeatedly with a sport utility vehicle (SUV), audibly breaking bones. Sheikh Issa was a brother of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s emir and the UAE’s president, although he had no official position in the government. [See 2007, p. 894C1] The victim was identified as Mohammed Shah Poor, an Afghan grain merchant who Sheikh Issa claimed had cheated him. Poor survived the attack, although he was hospitalized for months. The video was provided to ABC by U.S. businessman Bassam Nabulsi, a former business associate of Sheikh Issa. Nabulsi was suing Sheikh Issa in U.S. court, claiming that he had been tortured by UAE police officers after refusing to surrender the tape. Nabulsi said his brother had shot the video on the orders of Sheikh Issa, who allegedly recorded such torture sessions for later viewing. His lawyer said he possessed other tapes showing Sheikh Issa and police officers torturing at least 25 more people, including Sudanese immigrants. The Abu Dhabi government initially told ABC that while it acknowledged Sheikh Issa’s involvement, a review had found that “all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the police department,” and added that the incident was “not part of a pattern of behavior.” It also said Poor had not brought charges against Sheikh Issa. Abu Dhabi’s government April 29 released a statement condemning the incident, and promised a more comprehensive review. Before the statement was released, local news media had not reported on the incident, and Web sites publicizing the video had been blocked. It was illegal in the UAE to criticize its royalty. The UAE judicial department May 11 said Abu Dhabi authorities had detained Issa. The U.S. and the UAE in January had signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal. The agreement still had to be recertified by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama and reviewed by the U.S. Congress, and some legislators had raised concerns over whether it might allow Iran, a major UAE trading partner, easier access to nuclear technology. Media reports said the torture revelations might further endanger the agreement’s chances. Nabulsi said the U.S. embassy in the UAE was aware of the torture videos, but the U.S. government would not comment on them. [See p. 69F2] n

Source for Iraq Invasion Data Dies in Libya—

The Libyan newspaper Oed May 10 reported that an operative of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda who had once been held by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had died in a prison in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, after being transferred to Libyan custody in 2006. The opMay 14, 2009

United Arab Emirates Video Shows Torture by Abu Dhabi Sheikh. The U.S.’s ABC News April 22 broadcast

excerpts from a video of a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), torturing a man. The

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the National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season. James, 24, was the first Cavalier to claim the award, as well as the youngest player to win since Moses Malone in 1979. [See 2008, p. 335C3; 1979, p. 526F1] James, the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, averaged 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game in the 2008–09 season, and led Cleveland to the best record in the NBA. In the MVP voting, he garnered 109 of the 121 first-place votes, and 1,172 total points. The 2008 winner, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, placed a distant second, with two firstplace votes and 698 points. Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade was third, with seven first-place votes and 680 points. [See p. 278G1, A3; 2003, p. 527A3] In other NBA awards, Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger, who averaged 25.8 points per game, May 12 was voted the most improved player in the 2008–09 season. Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Terry, who averaged 14.3 points per game off the bench, April 24 had won the sixth man award, which went to the top reserve player. [See 2008, p. 298E3] n

rage, Calif. It was the first victory in a major for Lincicome, 23. [See 2008, p. 267D3] Lincicome had begun the final round two strokes behind leader Kristy McPherson of the U.S., who was at eight under par, and one stroke behind American Cristie Kerr. Lincicome trailed her playing partners for the entire round. On the par-five 18th, behind by one, Lincicome hit a perfect drive and landed her approach shot six feet from the hole. She then sank the putt for eagle, finishing with a nine-under-par 279 and earning a one-stroke victory over McPherson and Kerr, who tied for second. Lincicome earned $300,000 in prize money for the win. Ochoa Wins Corona Championship—

Hometown favorite Lorena Ochoa of Mexico April 26 won the Corona Championship in Morelia, Mexico, for the second year in a row. Ochoa shot a 25-under-par 267 to beat Suzann Pettersen of Norway by one stroke. Ochoa collected $195,000 for the win. [See 2008, p. 267F3] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

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People Marathons

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Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya April 26 won the men’s race in the 29th London Marathon. Wanjiru, who had won the marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics, finished in 2:05:10, besting the course record of 2:05:15 set by countryman Martin Lel in the 2008 race. Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia was second, with a time of 2:05:20, and Jaouad Gharib of Morocco finished third in 2:05:27. [See 2008, pp. 599C2, 387B2] Irina Mikitenko of Germany won the women’s race for the second straight year, finishing in 2:22:11. Britain’s Mara Yamauchi placed second, in 2:23:12, and Liliya Shobukova of Russia was third, with a time of 2:24:24. n

Golf Lincicome Wins Kraft Nabisco Title. Britt-

any Lincicome of the U.S. April 5 won the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major tournament of the year in women’s golf, at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mi332

The White House May 13 said it would nominate New York City–based theatrical producer Rocco Landesman to chair the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The post, which required Senate confirmation, had previously been occupied by poet Dana Gioia, who resigned in January. Landesman, 61, was the president and owner of Jujamcyn Theaters, which ran five theaters on Broadway. [See 2008, p. 668E2; 2002, p. 816F1] Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic, the hospital where the U.S.’s first partial face transplant had been performed in December 2008, May 6 held a news conference at which a 46-year-old Ohio woman, Connie Culp, identified herself as the recipient of the procedure. Although she did not discuss the circumstances that ultimately necessitated the surgery, it emerged that she had been the victim of a 2004 shotgun blast by her husband, Thomas Culp, who then turned the gun on himself. He too had survived his wounds, and was currently serving a sevenyear prison term. [See 2008, p. 922E2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BOAL, Augusto, 78, Brazilian theater director who pioneered the international movement known as the Theater of the Oppressed, which sought to break down barriers between actors and spectators as a political consciousness-raising tool; exiled from Brazil in 1971 by the military government then in power, he did not return to his homeland until after the restoration of democracy in 1985; in the 1990s, he served as a city councillor in his native Rio de Janeiro; his experiences in that capacity gave rise to his book Legislative Theater: Using Performance to Make Politics (1998), one of his many works of drama theory; born March 16, 1931, in Rio; died May 2 at a Rio hospital, of respiratory failure after battling leukemia. COHN, Sam(uel Charles), 79, longtime talent agent at New York City–based International Creative Management (ICM) who represented a host of actors, directors, playwrights and composers, and was adept at engineering stage and film projects that used several of his clients at a time; born May 11, 1929, in Altoona, Pa.; died May 6 at a New York hospital, after a short illness. [See 2007, p. 907D2]

DALY, Chuck (Charles Jerome), 78, basketball coach who guided the National Basketball Association’s Detroit Pistons into the NBA playoffs during all nine seasons (1983–92) that he coached the team and won consecutive NBA championships with the Pistons in 1989 and 1990; he also coached the “Dream Team” of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and other NBA stars to the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain; he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994; born July 20, 1930, in St. Marys, Pa.; died May 9 at his home in Jupiter, Fla., of pancreatic cancer. [See 1999, p. 483E2; 1997, pp. 821E3, 503F1; Indexes 1994, 1988–92] DeLUISE, Dom(inick), 75, zany comedian who appeared in half a dozen films directed by Mel Brooks—including The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974) and Silent Movie (1976)—and in several films starring Burt Reynolds—including Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and The Cannonball Run (1981); he was also known for his television work (particularly in the 1960s), was in several Broadway shows, and wrote cookbooks and children’s books; born Aug. 1, 1933, in New York City; died May 4 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif.; he had been obese for most of his life and had battled high blood pressure and diabetes. [See 1990, p. 232G2; 1989, p. 1001A1; Indexes 1988, 1986, 1984, 1980, 1978, 1970, 1963] DiMAGGIO, Dom(inic Paul), 92, center fielder for Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox team for most of the 1940s and into the 1950s; although he was a seven-time All Star, his career was overshadowed by that of his older brother Joe DiMaggio, who, as a center fielder for the New York Yankees, Boston’s perennial American League rival, played on nine World Series–winning teams and had a 56-game hitting streak in 1941, one of the most amazing feats in the history of baseball; Dom DiMaggio’s 34-game hitting streak in 1949, while far short of his brother’s, remained the longest in Red Sox history; it ended on Aug. 9, 1949, when, in a game between the Red Sox and the Yankees, he hit a sinking line drive in the eighth inning that Joe DiMaggio caught; a third baseball-playing DiMaggio brother, Vince, had a 10-year career as a center fielder on several National League teams; born Feb. 12, 1917, in San Francisco, Calif.; died May 8 at his home in Marion, Mass., of pneumonia. [See 1999, p. 180G2; 1986, p. 760A3; Indexes 1953, 1950] FRENCH, Marilyn (born Marilyn Edwards), 79, feminist author; her semi-autobiographical first novel, The Women’s Room (1977), which focused on men’s mistreatment of women, became an international bestseller; she also wrote such other novels as The Bleeding Heart (1980) and such works of nonfiction as The War Against Women (1992) and the four-volume From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women (2002); born Nov. 21, 1929, in New York City; died May 2 at a New York hospital, of a heart ailment; she died 17 years after having been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and told that she had only months to live. [See 1981, p. 264E3; 1979, p. 356E2; Index 1978] HOLZER, Hans, 89, Austrian-born parapsychologist whose dozens of books on ghosts and other supernatural phenomena included such titles as Ghosts I’ve Met (1965), Inside Witchcraft (1980), Love Beyond the Grave (1992) and Hans Holzer’s Travel Guide to Haunted Houses (1998); he frequently appeared on television talk shows; born Jan. 26, 1920, in Vienna; died April 26 at his home in New York City. PHAIR, Venetia (born Venetia Katherine Burney), 90, granddaughter of a retired Oxford Universi-

ty librarian who in 1930, at the age of 11, came up with the name Pluto, drawn from classical mythology, for the then–newly discovered heavenly body that until the 21st century continued to be regarded as the solar system’s ninth planet; the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a “dwarf planet” in 2006, and as a “plutoid” in 2008; born July 11, 1918, in Oxford, England; died April 30 at her home in Banstead, England. [See 2008, p. 995C3; 2006, p. 660F2] VARENNIKOV, Valentin Ivanovich, 85, hard-line Soviet general who was the chief Soviet military representative in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1989, when the Soviets competed their withdrawal from that country; in August 1991, in the waning days of the Soviet Union, he backed a failed coup aimed at toppling then– Soviet President President Mikhail S. Gorbachev; he was the only one of the 12 defendants linked to the failed coup to go to trial, and ended up being acquitted, on the grounds that he had considered it his patriotic duty to try to save the Soviet Union from collapse; after his acquittal, he served as a member of the Russian parliament; born Dec. 15, 1923, in Krasnodar, in what was then the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic; died May 6 in Moscow, several months after undergoing neurosurgery. [See 2003, p. 1004F2; 1994, pp. 587C3, 588A1, D1, G1; Indexes 1990–92, 1982] n

May 14, 2009

Sri Lanka Declares Victory Over Tamil Tiger Rebels Rebel Leader Prabhakaran Reported Dead.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in an address to parliament May 19 formally declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group, ending a civil war that had been fought on and off since 1983. Rajapaksa’s announcement came a day after the army reported that LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran had been killed during the army’s final offensive against the rebels, which had taken place on a thin strip of land in Sri Lanka’s northeast. [See p. 276F3; for key events in Sri Lanka’s civil war, see p. 334A1] The conflict was thought to be the longest-running insurgency in modern Asian history, and had claimed between 70,000 and 80,000 lives. It stemmed from tensions between Sri Lanka’s ethnic Sinhalese majority, most of whom were Buddhist, and the ethnic Tamil minority, who were predominantly Hindu. Tamils claimed that since Sri Lanka’s independence from the British in 1948, Sinhalese-dominated governments had enacted discriminatory policies, including making Sinhalese the country’s national language, and denying Tamils equal access to university spots and government jobs. Tamils made up about 15% of Sri Lanka’s population. The LTTE had been formed in the 1970s to agitate for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern parts of the country, an area it called Eelam. At the height of its power, the LTTE held a fourth of the country’s territory, and ran a shadow government with a separate police force, court system and political structure. It had been

one of the only rebel groups in the world to boast a small air force and navy. But the government deemed the LTTE a terrorist organization, a designation also officially imposed by many other countries, including the U.S. The LTTE was thought to have pioneered the use of suicide bombers as an insurgent tactic, and had allegedly assassinated Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. The group was also thought responsible for the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, who as India’s prime minister in the 1980s had sent Indian troops to Sri Lanka to intervene in the conflict. [See 1993, p. 340F3; 1991, p. 373A1] A 2002 cease-fire between the Sri Lankan government and the rebels was officially annulled in early 2008, and Rajapaksa vowed to defeat the LTTE militarily. The army seized control of rebel-held territories in the east and north, and overran the LTTE’s de facto capital, Kilinochchi, in January. By April, the rebels were trapped in a thin, peninsular strip of land on the Bay of Bengal that was separated from the mainland by a bog. The area had previously been designated a “safe zone” for civilians that was to be free from fighting. In the last few weeks of fighting, as many as 50,000 civilians were trapped in a conflict zone no larger than two-and-a-half square miles (6.5 square km). (Population and casualty numbers for civilians were difficult to verify independently, since aid agencies and media outlets were barred from the conflict zone.) The United Nations called the violence being done to civilians by both sides a “bloodbath.” But with an outright victory in sight, Rajapaksa repeatedly rejected international calls for a cease-fire. [See below] Rajapaksa May 19 declared that his government had “liberated” the country from terrorism, and called for unity between the country’s Sinhalese and Tamils. He said, “The war against the LTTE is not a war against Tamil people. Our aim was to liberate our Tamil people from the clutches of the LTTE. We must now live as equals in this free country.” Analysts said chances for a sustained peace would depend on the Rajapaksa government’s success in reaching out to disaffected Tamils and including them in the N country’s development. The government May 18 had announced the rebels’ defeat on state television, and sent cellular telephone text messages trumpet-

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3570 May 21, 2009

B ing Prabhakaran’s death to people across the country. Spontaneous celebrations erupted in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, and other Sinhalese-majority areas of the country. Prabhakaran’s Death Challenged— Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE’s chief diplomat, May 19 rebutted the army’s claims that Prabhakaran was dead, in a posting on TamilNet.com, a pro-LTTE Web site that was often used by the group to issue statements. He said Prabhakaran was “alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people.” However, the Sri Lankan army that day said it had identified Prabhakaran’s body, and released video footage of his purported corpse, lying on a stretcher and surrounded by army troops. Government officials said Prabhakaran had been killed May 18, as he and other top

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Sri Lanka declares victory over Tamil Tiger rebels; rebel leader Prabhakaran reported dead. PAGE 333

Pope Benedict XVI tours Holy Land. PAGE 335

U.S. to reinstitute military commissions trials for terrorism detainees.

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Obama addresses abortion issue in Notre Dame speech. PAGE 338

GM, Chrysler eliminate 1,900 dealerships. PAGE 338

Federal auto fuel mileage standards announced. PAGE 339

Clashes flare between Somali government, Islamists.

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North Korea claims restart of nuclear site. PAGE 342

British expenses scandal tarnishes Parliament. PAGE 343

India’s Congress party coalition wins national elections. PAGE 345

U.N. says 1.5 million displaced by Pakistani fighting. PAGE 346

Filly Rachel Alexandra wins Preakness. PAGE 347 REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Following are key events in Sri Lanka’s civil war [See p. 333A1]: Feb. 4, 1948—Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, gains independence from the British. [See 1948, p. 41K] April 5, 7 and 10, 1956—The Ceylon Freedom Party wins national elections, driven by support from the country’s ethnic Sinhalese majority. The government eventually enacts policies that ethnic minority Tamils view as discriminatory, such as making Sinhalese the national language and denying Tamils equal access to education spots and government jobs. [See 1956, p. 121A2] May 5, 1976—Vellupillai Prabhakaran founds the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group, with the aim of creating a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka. The LTTE grew out of Prabhakaran’s former rebel group, the Tamil New Tigers. July 24, 1983—A wave of violence against Tamils erupts after 13 Sinhalese soldiers are killed by the LTTE, an episode that is thought of as the formal beginning of the civil war. [See 1983, p. 576B2]

July 29, 1987—Sri Lanka and India, under

March 2004—Col. Vinayagamoorthy Mura-

officials tried to escape the conflict zone in an armored van. In one account, the army had fired a rocket at the van, killing Prabhakaran and others. In all, the army said 18 top LTTE officials by May 19 had been found dead, including Balasingham Nadesan, a leader of the LTTE’s political wing; intelligence chief Pottu Amman; Soosai, who went by one name and headed the LTTE’s navy; and Charles Anthony, Prabhakaran’s eldest son and the suspected leader of the group’s air force. The LTTE May 17 had appeared to concede defeat when Pathmanathan wrote on TamilNet, “This battle has reached its bitter end. It is our people now who are dying from bombs, shells, illness and hunger. We cannot permit any more harm to befall them...We have decided to silence our guns.” The government at that point was already declaring victory. Rajapaksa May 14 had declared that the conflict would end in 48 hours, and the military two days later said it had seized full control of the coast of the rebels’ tiny haven, completely surrounding them. Rajapaksa during a trip to Jordan May 16 said, “I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE.” While many Tamils viewed Prabhakaran, 54, as their defender against alleged discrimination and human rights abuses by the Sinhalese majority, he was also widely seen as a ruthless leader who had amassed power by killing and torturing potential challengers within the LTTE. He rose to prominence in 1975, when he personally assassinated the governor of Sri Lanka’s Jaffna province. He was rarely seen in public, although he did reportedly emerge once a year to honor LTTE fighters who had participated in suicide missions or died fighting. He required that fighters carry vials of cyanide on their person, so that they could kill themselves when they were captured. Some observers said Prabhakaran’s unwillingness to cooperate with the government undermined various peace talks that

had come and gone since 1983. Additionally, some said Prabhakaran was reluctant to join the political process over fears that he would be prosecuted for past crimes, including the assassination of Gandhi and others.

British Foreign Minister David Miliband May 12 said the conflict zone was “as close to hell as you can get.” U.S. President Barack Obama May 13 condemned the attacks on civilians as “deplorable.” The U.N. Security Council May 13 released a statement objecting to the civilian casualties. As many as 100 civilians were reported killed when the conflict zone’s only hospital was shelled May 12–13. Doctors were reportedly forced to abandon the hospital May 14. Officials from other countries and the U.N. made attempts to broker a cease-fire, but Rajapaksa deflected those entreaties.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, sign an accord allowing Indian peacekeeping forces to enter the country. While India signs the agreement to shield the Tamil population from a humanitarian crisis, Indian troops end up clashing with LTTE fighters over the next two years, before withdrawing in early 1990. [See 1990, p. 22G3; 1987, p. 545A1] May 21, 1991—Gandhi is assassinated by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber at a campaign rally in India. [See 1991, p. 373A1] May 1, 1993—Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa is assassinated by a suspected LTTE suicide bomber in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. [See 1993, p. 340F3] Dec. 18, 1999—President Chandrika Kumaratunga is injured after a suicide attack that is blamed on the LTTE. Kumaratunga loses an eye in the attack. [See 1999, p. 949A1] Feb. 22, 2002—Norway brokers a cease-fire agreement between the government and the LTTE. [See 2002, p. 134C2]

U.N. Says 265,000 Civilians Displaced—

The United Nations May 18 said 65,000 Tamil civilians had fled the conflict zone in the preceding days, bringing the total number of those displaced by the fighting in the northeast to 265,000. The Associated Press May 16 had reported that 7,000 civilians had died between Jan. 20 and May 7 in conflict-related violence, citing an internal U.N. document. Casualty numbers were expected to increase once authorities were able to determine the number killed in more recent fighting. Most of the refugees were held in 42 government camps near the conflict zone that aid officials said were overcrowded and lacking in basic necessities. Many refugees were injured and badly malnourished. The army was reportedly frisking refugees on suspicions that some were escaped Tamil fighters, and refugees were not allowed to leave the camps, which were enclosed with barbed wire. Officials said refugees could not return to their homes until the area was cleared of land mines, but critics said the squalid conditions at the camps could further alienate Tamils from the government. Both the LTTE and the government had been criticized internationally for their apparent disregard for civilian life, with the U.N. May 11 proclaiming that the situation in the conflict zone was a “bloodbath.” The LTTE was accused of using civilians as human shields against the army’s offensive, and shooting at civilians who attempted to flee. Meanwhile, the government was accused of indiscriminately shelling the conflict zone. The government April 27 had pledged to stop using heavy artillery and air strikes, but that promise was reportedly never fulfilled.

leetharan, the LTTE’s head commander in the east, splits from the rebel group and takes 6,000 fighters with him. Muraleetharan, also known as Karuna, later allies with the government. [See 2004, p. 248F3] Nov. 17, 2005—Mahinda Rajapaksa is elected Sri Lanka’s president. [See 2005, p. 842C2] July 2007—The army pushes the LTTE out of the eastern parts of the country, leaving the rebels with a stronghold in the north. Jan. 2, 2008—The government officially annuls the Norwegian-brokered cease-fire, and Rajapaksa vows to defeat the LTTE militarily. [See 2008, p. 9B2] Jan. 2, 2009—Government forces capture the northern town of Kilinochchi, the LTTE’s de facto capital. [See p. 9D2] Jan. 25, 2009—Government forces capture Mullaitivu, the last major town controlled by the rebels. [See p. 119E1] May 18, 2009—Prabhakaran is reportedly killed in battle. [See p. 333A1] May 19, 2009—Rajapaksa formally declares victory over the rebels. [See p. 333A1]

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John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, April 26–27 attempted to convince the government to allow a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, to no avail. Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner April 29 also visited the country. In a sign of Rajapaksa’s increasing frustration with what he saw as international interference, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt April 28 was barred from joining Miliband and Kouchner. n

Pope Benedict XVI Tours Holy Land Calls For an Independent Palestinian State.

Pope Benedict XVI May 8–15 visited Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, where some of the holiest sites in Christianity, Islam and Judaism were located. The Vatican had emphasized that the visit was a religious pilgrimage, and not an intrusion into the sensitive politics of the region. However, Benedict called for an independent Palestinian state several times during his visit, an established Vatican position but a proposition that had not been endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [See pp. 336E1, 195C3] It was only the third papal visit to the Holy Land in modern times. Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had toured the region in 2000. [See 2000, p. 206E1] Arrives in Jordan—Benedict May 8 arrived in Amman, the capital of Jordan, an Arab country where about 90% of the population was Sunni Muslim, and was greeted at the airport by King Abdullah II. The following day, Benedict spoke outside AlHussein bin-Talal mosque, the largest in the country, where he urged both Christians and Muslims to “strive to be seen” as faithful to God. He also criticized the “ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends,” which he said was often “the real catalyst for tension and division and at times even violence in society.” Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, King Abdullah’s main religious adviser, May 9 thanked Benedict for expressing “regret” over a 2006 speech in Germany in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said Islam brought “evil and inhumane” things to the world. Benedict had apologized for the speech after protests and violence erupted across the Muslim world. However, some Islamist groups in Jordan had protested Benedict’s visit because they said his apology had not been sufficient. [See 2006, p. 726D2] Benedict May 10 celebrated a mass in Amman before a crowd of as many as 30,000. He urged Jordan’s shrinking Christian population to “persevere in faith, hope and love” and to “build new bridges with different religions and cultures.” He also offered a greeting to the 40,000 Iraqi Christians who the Vatican estimated had taken refuge in Jordan from the war in their country. [See p. 344E2] In Israel, Speaks at Holocaust Memorial—

Benedict May 11 arrived in Israel, marking the third time a pope had visited the country since it was established in 1948. After a May 21, 2009

meeting with President Shimon Peres at the presidential residence, Benedict arrived at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, where he laid a wreath on the site where ashes of Holocaust victims were buried. He delivered remarks in which he paid tribute to “the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah,” the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, and denounced Holocaust denial. He declared that the names of the victims were “indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again…most of all their names are forever fixed in the memory of almighty God.” He also met with six Holocaust survivors. Benedict did not enter the museum at Yad Vashem, which featured a picture of World War II–era Pope Pius XII above a plaque that accused him of remaining silent while Rome’s Jews were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Vatican denied that claim. Benedict in 2008 had called for Pius to be beatified, a step toward being made a saint. Benedict had served in the Nazi German Hitler Youth organization as a young seminarian. He maintained that he had been unwillingly conscripted to the organization, and that he quit the group as soon as he was able to. Benedict had also recently angered many Jews when he rehabilitated an excommunicated bishop who had openly denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers. Benedict later called the rehabilitation an “unforeseen mishap.” [See p. 179B3] Benedict’s May 11 remarks at Yad Vashem drew criticism from Jewish leaders through the week as being overly vague and impersonal. Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem’s director, May 11 said Benedict’s words at the memorial were “serious and important,” but he expressed disappointment that Benedict had not mentioned antiSemitism, Germany or the Nazis in his remarks. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a Holocaust survivor and chairman of Yad Vashem’s board of directors, said “the identity of the murderers went completely unmentioned.” Parliament Speaker Reuven Rivlin May 12 invoked Benedict’s past in the Hitler Youth, saying the pope “speaks to us like a historian, as an observer, as a man who expresses his opinion about things that should never happen, and he was—what can you do?—a part of them.” Benedict’s remarks were contrasted with the more personal words of John Paul II, who in 2000 at Yad Vashem had invoked his own memories of the Nazi occupation of Poland, his home country. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi May 12 said Benedict should not be expected to repeat a list of well-known facts about the Holocaust “every time he speaks.” Lombardi said Benedict had addressed the Holocaust in depth before, such as on a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp site early in his papacy. [See 2006, p. 426B1] Also May 11, at an interfaith meeting where Benedict had been the only planned speaker, Sheik Taysir Tamimi, chief jus-

tice of the Palestinian Islamic courts, reportedly seized the microphone and voiced a sharp condemnation of Israel, and asked Benedict to endorse it. Benedict left the meeting after Tamimi’s remarks without addressing them, and Vatican officials later criticized the outburst as unproductive. Visits Holy Sites in Jerusalem— Benedict May 12 visited holy sites in Jerusalem. He began at the Muslim Dome of the Rock shrine, located on a site also revered by Christians and Jews. Benedict also visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall, an important sacred site in Judaism, where he placed a prayer on a slip of paper between the wall’s stones as was traditional, and recited Psalm 122, which was a prayer for peace in Jerusalem. He said a mass that day before several thousand Christians outside Jerusalem’s Old City. The Christian population of Jerusalem had dwindled since Israel’s establishment; in 1948, about a fifth of the city’s population had been Christian, but currently that figure was about 2%.

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In West Bank, Calls for Palestinian State—

Benedict May 13 traveled to Bethlehem in the West Bank, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at his headquarters in Ramallah. He told Abbas, “The Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your forefathers.” Benedict earlier had visited a Palestinian refugee camp, where he told residents it was “understandable that you feel frustrated. Your legitimate aspirations for permanent homes, for an independent Palestinian state remain unfulfilled.” He also urged young Palestinians to reject “acts of violence and terrorism.” [See p. 336E1] Bethlehem was bordered on three sides by a 25-foot- (7.6-m-) tall Israeli-built concrete security barrier that divided the West Bank from Israel. Israel had begun constructing the barrier in 2002, saying it was necessary to protect the country from Palestinian suicide bombers. Most of the rest of the barrier, which stretched about 500 miles (800 km), was made of chain-link fence or barbed wire. Benedict notably called the structure a “wall,” as opposed to a “fence,” as Israel preferred to call it. At Manger Square, a site revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus, Benedict also said a mass before thousands of Palestinian Christians. Israel had allowed about 70 Christians who lived in the Gaza Strip to attend the mass. The Gaza Strip was currently blockaded by both Israel and Egypt, on the strip’s southern border. Yigal Palmor, a spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry, said Benedict’s remarks “seemed to cater to Palestinian political claims more than any evenhandedness we’d expect from such a high-ranking leader.” Travels to Nazareth—Benedict May 14 traveled to Nazareth in northern Israel, a largely Muslim town where Jesus was believed to have spent his childhood. There he said a mass for a crowd of as many as 50,000. Later that day, Benedict addressed Hebrew-speaking Christians, saying they were “a reminder to us of the Jewish roots 335

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of our faith.” He also attended a meeting with Jewish and Muslim leaders. Benedict met privately in Nazareth with Netanyahu, who afterward said he had urged Benedict “as a moral figure to make his voice heard loud and continuously against the declarations coming from Iran about their intentions to destroy the state of Israel.” The Vatican, which had full diplomatic relations with Iran, had not directly addressed past Iranian statements of that nature. Lombardi said Benedict and Netanyahu had talked about “how to advance the terms of the peace process.” Netanyahu said they had discussed “the historic process of reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism.” [See p. 261F3] The following day, Benedict visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, located on the reputed site of Jesus’s crucifixion, where he met with clergy from the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Ethiopian and Coptic Christian churches. Benedict May 15, before departing for the Vatican, made final remarks at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. He recalled his visit to Auschwitz, and said, “that appalling chapter of history must never be forgotten or denied.” He again called for a Palestinian state, saying he hoped “the two-state solution will become a reality, not a dream,” and called the barrier between Israel and the West Bank “one of the saddest sights for me during my visit to these lands.” Peres and Netanyahu accompanied Benedict to the airport, and Peres praised Benedict’s previous statements at Yad Vashem. n

Middle East Netanyahu Meets With Obama at White House.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu May 18 met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C., for the first time since the two leaders took office. Netanyahu and Obama discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and containing Iran’s ambitions to expand its influence in the Middle East and develop its nuclear program. The meeting was described as successful, although significant differences reportedly remained between Netanyahu’s hawkish views and Obama’s generally more diplomatic approach. [See pp. 345F1, 313E1] The meeting between Netanyahu and Obama went on for almost two hours, double the time allotted, which U.S. and Israeli officials said was a sign that it had gone well. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Obama for the first time indicated a time frame for negotiations to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program, which Netanyahu had pressed him for. Iran said its nuclear program was for civilian power generation, but the U.S. and its allies insisted Iran was working towards building a nuclear weapon. Obama said international talks with Iran would begin after Iranian elections scheduled for June, and the U.S. might engage in “direct talks” with Iran after that. 336

However, Obama said, “We’re not going to have talks forever,” and that he would consider “a range of steps” if Iran was uncooperative. He added that he would “gauge and do a reassessment by the end of the year” on whether the talks were working, so they did not “become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds” with its nuclear program. Netanyahu thanked Obama for keeping “all options on the table” regarding Iran. He also said the “common threat” of Iran provided an opportunity for Israel to unite with Arab states. Obama reportedly supported a Middle East regional peace plan similar to one first proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002, in which Israel would gain diplomatic ties with Arab nations if it recognized pre-1967 borders and resolved the plight of Palestinian refugees. Divisions Remain on Palestinians—

Netanyahu said Israel would start peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) immediately, on parallel tracks dealing with political, security and economic issues. However, he said such talks would be predicated on Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, which Palestinian negotiators had resisted. In addition, although he said Israel did “not want to govern the Palestinians,” he added that he wanted them to “govern themselves absent a handful of powers,” including an independent army that could be used against Israel. Obama supported a two-state solution to resolve Israeli-Palestinian strife. He called on Netanyahu to stop the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it was an impediment to progress in talks, and to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, which was under Israeli blockade. Senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat after the meeting praised “the active re-engagement of the United States” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. However, he said Netanyahu had “missed another opportunity to show himself to be a genuine partner for peace” by not supporting the creation of an independent Palestinian state. n

United Nations U.S. Elected to Human Rights Council.

The U.S. May 12 was elected to a seat on the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council, after 167 of the U.N. General Assembly’s member nations voted in favor of its candidacy. A total of 97 votes were needed to win a seat on the council, which was responsible for examining human rights practices in countries around the world. The U.N. General Assembly also voted to elect countries including Bangladesh, Senegal and Djibouti, and to re-elect Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia, among others. [See pp. 313C1, 262A1] The U.N. Human Rights Council was created in 2006 to replace the U.N. Human Rights Commission, established in 1946, which had come under widespread criticism for focusing disproportionately on alleged human rights abuses by Israel and blocking investigations into abuses carried

out by the council’s member nations or their allies. Critics argued that the council was no more functional than the commission it had replaced, and the former administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had opposed joining the council on the grounds that doing so would lend legitimacy to its actions. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice March 31 had announced that the U.S. would seek one of the three seats allotted to the world’s Western bloc. Clinton said, “With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system” from within. Norway, Belgium and New Zealand had previously announced their candidacy for the seats. However, New Zealand dropped out of the race after the U.S. announced its candidacy. The decision to seek a seat on the council was criticized by Bush administration officials, including former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, who had opposed the creation of the council. The Obama administration’s decision was praised by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, and by Human Rights Watch and other human rights advocacy groups. n

Other International News European Bank Invests in Eight Countries.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) May 7 said it would invest 432.4 million euros ($575 million) in small banks in eight countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The funds were intended to help local banks in those countries extend loans to small and midsize companies amid a global economic downturn that had limited their access to credit. [See below; 2008, p. 983E2] The money would be distributed to subsidiaries of Italy’s UniCredit SpA, the biggest banking group in Eastern Europe. Much of the money would go toward supporting UniCredit’s subsidiaries in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The rest would go to banks in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan and Serbia. In a separate statement, the ERBD said the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states would probably not begin to recover from the downturn until the end of 2010. EU Forms ‘Eastern Partnership’— The European Union May 7 formally sealed an economic partnership agreement with six former Soviet satellites—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The EU the same day announced that it would offer those countries $820 million in incentives meant to support democratic reforms and encourage them to form strong economic ties with the EU. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov April 28 said, “Some of the comments we have heard about this initiative from the European Union do worry us.” Russia was generally wary of eastward EU expansion into former Soviet states. n FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Terrorism Detainees Military Commissions Trials to Be Used.

President Barack Obama May 15 announced that he would reinstitute the use of military commissions trials set up under the 2006 Military Commissions Act to prosecute some of the about 240 terrorism detainees currently being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama in January had ordered the closure of Guantanamo by 2010, and had requested a 120-day suspension of the commissions to allow his administration to review the evidence against the detainees. [See pp. 257A1, 28B3] Obama said the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush had “failed to establish a legitimate legal framework” for the commissions, and had “undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice” against detainees. He said he would work with Congress to reform the commissions by banning the introduction of information gathered through the use of coercion or cruel treatment; making it more difficult for the government to introduce hearsay evidence; and allowing detainees more latitude in choosing their legal representatives. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Executive Director Anthony Romero criticized Obama’s decision, saying, “These military commissions are inherently illegitimate, unconstitutional and incapable of delivering outcomes we can trust.” However, the announcement was praised by others, including Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), who had been a leading sponsor of the Military Commissions Act and had run against Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Obama Defends Detention Policies—

Obama May 21 defended his antiterrorism and detainee detention policies, and insisted that Guantanamo would be closed by 2010 despite Republican opposition, in a speech at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The speech followed votes by the House and Senate to reject a funding request by the Obama administration that was intended to pay for the closure of Guantanamo and the transfer of detainees to other detention facilities. [See p. 338F1] Obama said the creation of Guantanamo by the Bush administration and the prison’s continued existence was “a mess, a misguided experiment” that had made the U.S. less safe by rallying terrorists and other extremists, and had damaged the U.S.’s moral authority around the world. He argued that national security measures had to be combined with respect for the ideals and civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, “not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe.” Obama said his administration would transfer some Guantanamo detainees to maximum security prisons in the U.S., and dismissed criticisms that doing so would endanger national security. He said, “NoMay 21, 2009

body has ever escaped from one of our federal ‘supermax’ prisons,” which were high security facilities where prisoners were kept in near constant isolation. He noted that those prisons already held “hundreds of convicted terrorists.” Obama said his administration intended to try detainees who were charged with breaking U.S. laws in U.S. courts, and would use the revamped military commissions to prosecute detainees accused of violating international laws governing wartime behavior. He also said 50 detainees had been cleared for release from Guantanamo, and would be transferred once countries were found that were willing to accept them. [See p. 305B3] However, Obama said he believed that some detainees at Guantanamo could not be tried by U.S. courts or military commissions, many because the evidence against them would be inadmissible, but were too dangerous to be released from custody. He said such detainees posed “the toughest issue we face.” He promised that he would work with Congress to address the issue, and said, “Our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for Guantanamo detainees, not to avoid one. In our constitutional system, prolonged detention should not be the decision of any one man.” Cheney Criticizes Terrorism Policies—

Former Vice President Dick Cheney May 21 gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., that criticized Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo, as well as other aspects of Obama’s antiterrorism policies. It was the latest in a series of talks and media appearances by Cheney since leaving office in January in which he had defended the antiterrorism and national security record of the Bush administration. In his speech, which was delivered just after Obama spoke at the National Archives, Cheney praised his colleagues in the Bush administration for keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. He said, “After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized,” referring to critics of the Bush administration who had called for criminal investigations into its antiterrorism wiretapping, interrogation and detention programs. Cheney also argued that “few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.” Cheney praised Obama for his stewardship of the war in Afghanistan and for his decision earlier in May to oppose the release of photographs documenting detainee abuses. But he criticized Obama’s decision to ban the use of harsh interrogation methods, saying that doing so was “recklessness cloaked in righteousness” and “unwise in the extreme.” He also attacked Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo, saying, “The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantana-

mo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security.” [See pp. 331A1, 289A2] n

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Supreme Court Ex-Detainee Suit Barred From Proceeding.

The Supreme Court May 18 ruled, 5–4, that Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim, could not sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller 3rd for allegedly discriminatory policies that resulted in his physical abuse by law enforcement officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the suit did not provide a plausible link connecting Iqbal’s alleged mistreatment and the policies that were devised by Ashcroft, and carried out by Mueller. The case was Ashcroft v. Iqbal. [See 2008, p. 411D2] Iqbal had been arrested in November 2001 on document fraud charges. He was one of many resident aliens from predominantly Muslim countries arrested in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on suspicion of being terrorists. He was held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in New York City for six months. Iqbal claimed that during that time he was beaten on numerous occasions and subjected to daily body-cavity searches. He eventually pleaded guilty to document fraud, and was deported to Pakistan. Iqbal then filed suit against Ashcroft and Mueller, claiming that his abuse came as a direct result of law-enforcement policy, which he said allowed discriminatory treatment of terrorist suspects solely on the basis of their religion, race or national origin. Kennedy wrote that Iqbal had not made a plausible claim that Ashcroft or Mueller had purposefully enacted a discriminatory policy. He wrote, “The Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by 19 Arab Muslim hijackers. It should come as no surprise that a legitimate policy directing law enforcement to arrest and detain individuals because of their suspected link to the attacks would produce a disparate, incidental impact on Arab Muslims, even though the purpose of the policy was to target neither Arabs nor Muslims.” (Iqbal was not Arab.) However, Kennedy allowed that if the plausibility of Iqbal’s claim was strengthened, the suit could move forward. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice David H. Souter, writing the minority opinion, argued that Iqbal’s claim was plausible enough to justify bringing a lawsuit. He wrote that questions of plausibility applied only when the allegations were “sufficiently fantastic to defy reality as we know it: claims about little green men, or the plaintiff’s recent trip to Pluto, or experiences in time travel. That is not what we have here.” He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. n 337

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Pregnancy Leave Suit Rejected. The Supreme Court May 18 ruled, 7–2, that women who went on pregnancy leave before 1978 could not sue their companies to compensate them for that leave in the form of pension payments. Employers had not been required to treat pregnancy leaves like other disability leaves, but Congress in 1978 passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which equated pregnancy-based discrimination with sexual discrimination. In the current case, AT&T v. Hulteen, four female employees argued that the 1978 act should be applied retroactively against telecommunications company AT&T Inc. [See p. 48B2] Justice David H. Souter, writing for the majority, said 1978 provided a reasonable cut-off point for pregnancy-leave claims. He wrote that it provided “predictable financial consequences, both for the employer who pays the bill and for the employee who gets the benefit.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the dissent, said that the women would receive “for the rest of their lives, lower pension benefits than colleagues who worked for AT&T for no longer than they did.” She was joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer. n

Fiscal 2009 Spending Bills House Passes Supplemental War Funds.

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The House May 14 passed, 368–60, a supplemental spending bill that would provide $96.7 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other international programs for the remainder of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30. The bill was opposed by a bloc of 51 Democrats, who said President Barack Obama was continuing in the footsteps of his predecessor, President George W. Bush, by escalating the war in Afghanistan without articulating a clear exit strategy. Nine Republicans also voted against the bill. [See p. 320G2] The bill included $84.5 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, it would allocate $10 billion for the State Department and foreign affairs—about $3 billion more than had been requested by the Obama administration—and $2 billion for preparing for influenza pandemics, $500 million more than Obama’s request. Guantanamo Funds Stripped By Senate—

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Earlier May 14, the Senate Appropriations Committee had approved, 30–0, a version of the spending bill that allocated $91.3 billion, less than the House draft but still $1.3 billion more than the Obama administration’s request. The Senate bill initially included $80 million to carry out the Obama administration’s plans to close the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer the detainees elsewhere. It would have required the Obama administration to release a detailed plan for the transfer of each detainee before bringing him to the U.S. for detention or prosecu338

tion, and also would not allow the release of detainees in the U.S. using the funds. [See p. 337E1] However, the Senate May 20 voted, 90– 6, to cut the funds for closing Guantanamo from the bill. Democratic leaders said they supported closing the prison. However, Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) said, “Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president. We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” Obama outlined his approach to handling the Guantanamo detainees in a May 21 speech. The House bill did not contain any funds for Guantanamo, although it required that the federal government affirm to the states that detainees did not pose a security risk before they were transferred to the U.S. The Senate bill allocated $5 billion to account for the International Monetary Fund’s “default risk” on a $108 billion U.S. contribution requested by the Obama administration, which the House draft did not have. The Senate bill contained funding not included in the House bill for the purchase of four F-22A Raptor fighter jets requested by Obama, but not the money to shut down the production lines after they were built, as he had proposed doing. It omitted $3.1 billion that the House bill allocated for the construction of C-17 and C-130 transport aircraft. [See p. 217C2] The Senate draft contained $6.9 billion for foreign affairs funding, and $1.5 billion for anti-influenza efforts, matching the Obama administration’s requests in both areas. n

Politics Obama Addresses Abortion at Notre Dame.

President Barack Obama May 17 delivered a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. Faced with protests at the Roman Catholic school over his support for abortion rights, Obama confronted the issue in his speech, urging those on both sides of the debate to strive for civility and compromise and “be wary of too much self-righteousness.” It was his most direct engagement with the issue since becoming president. [See pp. 268B1, 47B1] Obama said, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can agree that this heartwrenching decision for any woman is not made casually. It has both a moral and spiritual dimension.” He added, “So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. Let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.” He also said, “Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause.” That would allow doctors to refuse to provide abortions or other procedures due to their religious objections. The administration of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2008 had instituted a version of such a rule that Obama’s administration had rescinded. [See p. 146F1]

Catholic bishops and antiabortion activists had criticized Notre Dame for inviting Obama to speak at the graduation ceremony and awarding him an honorary degree, saying that it flouted the Catholic Church’s doctrinal opposition to abortion. Several hundred antiabortion protesters demonstrated outside the university’s front gate during Obama’s visit. Police arrested nearly 40 for trespassing on the campus. Among them was Norma McCorvey, the woman who, under the pseudonym Jane Roe, had been the plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade, but had since changed sides. [See 2004, p. 732F1] Since taking office, Obama’s main actions related to abortion had been to issue executive orders that removed restrictions on federal funding for international family planning programs and for embryonic stem cell research, which abortion opponents said similarly took human life by the destruction of embryos. Both moves reversed policies put in place by Bush. However, at a news conference in late April, Obama had said that an abortion rights bill, the Freedom of Choice Act, was not his “highest legislative priority,” backing away from a 2007 campaign pledge to seek immediate enactment of the measure. [See p. 285G2] n

Automobiles GM, Chrysler Eliminate 1,900 Dealerships.

Michigan-based automakers General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC May 14– 15 informed about 1,900 of their auto dealerships that their franchises would be revoked. GM and Chrysler since December 2008 together had accepted $19.4 billion in federal loans, and the dealership closures were part of government-mandated restructuring plans meant to make the companies sustainable. About one-fifth of GM’s dealers would lose their contracts with the automaker in October 2010, when they expired. Chrysler, which was currently undergoing bankruptcy restructuring, would drop about a quarter of its dealers by June 9. [See p. 282C2] The Treasury Department May 14 and 15 released statements affirming that the government had no say in how many dealerships were eliminated, or how they were selected. Analysts said the massive decline in U.S. auto sales over 2008 and 2009 had left too few customers to support the current number of U.S. auto dealers, many of whom competed against each other in the same localities. Media reports noted that some of the dealerships slated for closure had been in operation for nearly a century. The National Auto Dealers Association said that the combined cuts could result in the elimination of as many as 100,000 jobs. Between the two companies, the eliminated dealers had about 109,000 unsold vehicles on their lots. GM To Drop 1,100 Dealerships—GM May 15 notified about 1,100 of its 5,969 dealers that their contracts with the company would FACTS ON FILE

not be renewed. GM also said it expected to eliminate about 10% of its remaining dealers in 2010. In addition to those, GM was expected to close another 500 dealerships that sold unprofitable models that the company planned to phase out or spin off, including Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn. Also, GM’s Canadian unit May 20 notified about 300 dealers that their contracts would terminate in 2010. Some of GM’s dealers said they would challenge GM’s decision under state franchise laws. However, many analysts expected the company to enter bankruptcy restructuring June 1, the Obama administration’s deadline for GM to approve major cost-cutting agreements with both its creditors and its unionized labor force, which would reduce the dealers’ legal leverage. [See below] Chrysler to Cull 789 Dealerships—

Chrysler May 14 notified 789 of its 3,181 U.S. dealers that their dealerships would be dropped by June 9 as part of the company’s restructuring. Because Chrysler had made the request to close them in bankruptcy court, the shuttered dealers were not entitled to any compensation for unsold vehicles or for the termination of the contracts with Chrysler. The National Auto Dealers Association criticized the move, saying that the affected dealers “and their more than 40,000 employees have done nothing but proudly represent the Chrysler brand through good times and bad, and today they find themselves left behind.” Currently, each Chrysler dealer sold an average of 303 vehicles a year. In comparison, Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which had fewer dealers, both averaged more than 1,000 vehicle sales per year at their U.S. dealerships. James Press, a Chrysler vice chairman, said, “If the heart doesn’t pump enough blood, the capillaries in the fingers run out first, and those are the small stores.” Separately, the so-called Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders, a group of private secured debt holders who opposed Chrysler’s bankruptcy restructuring, May 8 disbanded after two of its largest members, New York City–based asset-management company OppenheimerFunds Inc. and Roslyn, N.Y.–based Stairway Capital Management LP, withdrew from the consortium. (TARP was the Troubled Asset Relief Program, under which the government had made available $700 billion in order to help ailing financial institutions. None of the companies in the corsortium had accepted TARP funds.) Following those two funds’ departures, the committee held less than 5% of Chrysler’s secured debt, which would make it harder for the committee to press its case in bankruptcy court. [See p. 283A1] UAW Opposes Auto Import Proposal—

The United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union May 15 sent letters to members of Congress criticizing a GM proposal under which the company, in order to cut costs, would increase vehicle imports from Mexico and South Korea, and introduce imports to the U.S. of Chinese-made GM cars, beginning in 2011. The plan, which was first reported May 11 by Automotive News, was May 21, 2009

dated May 5 and had been circulated among members of Congress. UAW members, in the letters, said GM should have to “maintain the maximum number of jobs in the United States.” GM in February had said it planned to close 14 North American plants by 2012. [See p. 92A3] n

Environment Federal Auto Mileage Standards Announced.

President Barack Obama May 19 announced new federal standards for automobiles, under which the average fuel economy standard in all 50 states would be set at 35.5 miles per gallon of gasoline by 2016. The announcement brought to an end years of wrangling between auto companies, federal and state governments, and environmental advocates over how such standards should be set. The wide-ranging deal had been hammered out in secret talks over recent weeks. [See pp. 338D3, 324C3, 47G1] By 2016, most cars would be required to average 39 miles to a gallon of gasoline, and light trucks would have to average 30 miles per gallon. The program to increase fuel economy, which would begin with 2012 auto models, was expected to result in a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles. The Obama administration said the result of the program “is a projected reduction in oil consumption of approximately 1.8 billion barrels over the life of the program and a projected total reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 900 million metric tons [992 million tons].” The price of a new vehicle was expected to increase by an average of about $600 as a result of the mandate, but the administration said the increase would be offset by savings on gasoline. Obama announced the new rules at the White House, flanked by executives from 10 automakers plus other representatives, including United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union President Ron Gettelfinger and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson. The new rules were based on auto standards that California and other states had sought to implement, but were blocked by the EPA under the administration of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. [See 2008, p. 557F3] Analysts suggested that a federal government dominated by Democrats, combined with ongoing difficulties in the U.S. auto industry and consumer aversion to gas-guzzling vehicles, had made it easier for Obama to implement the changes. Michigan-based automakers General Motors (GM) and Chrysler LLC were both dependent on government financing for daily operations. [See p. 338D3] n

Medicine & Health Health Care Groups Pledge Cost-Cutting.

Six groups representing a broad range of health care interests May 11 sent a letter to President Barack Obama pledging to reduce growth in spending on health care. “We will do our part to achieve your ad-

ministration’s goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points the annual health care spending growth rate, saving $2 trillion or more,” the groups wrote in their letter. They added, “This represents more than a 20% reduction in the projected rate of growth.” The pledge was formally announced at a meeting at the White House with Obama and leaders of the groups. [See pp. 324B1, 245C2] Congressional Democrats were in the midst of negotiations over legislation for a significant reform of the U.S.’s health care system that would rein in health care spending while making insurance available to everyone. The trade groups’ announcement was viewed as an attempt to stop the government from imposing regulations to limit their profits. The gesture was also thought to be a bid by the groups for greater political goodwill with Obama and congressional Democrats, since the projected billions of dollars in savings would make it easier for them to enact a law making health insurance mandatory. The White House estimated that the savings pledged by the groups would save the average family $2,500 per year after five years. Currently, health care made up 17% of overall U.S. economic output, and was projected by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to account for 21% in 2019. If the pledged savings took effect, health care would comprise 18% of the economy in 2019, representing a savings of some $700 billion in that year alone. The groups signing the letter were the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represented many health care workers; the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a drug trade group; the American Medical Association; America’s Health Insurance Plans; the American Hospital Association; and the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a lobbying group for medical device manufacturers. The groups said the savings would result from reducing administrative and bureaucratic costs, helping patients manage chronic ailments better and improving health care information technology, among other things. However, the letter did not spell out the savings in detail, and represented only a broad pledge, not a firm guarantee. Many of the cost-cutting measures proposed in the letter had already been outlined in Obama’s budget plan. Several health care experts said the proposals were too vague to result in significant savings. However, several representatives of the health care industry May 14 said Obama had overstated their pledge to reduce costs. They said their organizations had pledged to reduce health care spending growth by 1.5 percentage points over several years, and that Obama had implied incorrectly that they would reduce growth by 1.5 percentage points on an annual basis. Separately, members of the Senate Finance Committee May 20 said they would consider proposing spending cuts and new taxes in order to pay for health insurance for those currently without it. Among the more controversial considerations was a proposal to treat employer-provided health care benefits as taxable income. 339

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Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, May 6 had said he did not support funding a universal health care plan by taxing employee health benefits. Under current tax law, health benefits provided by employers were not taxable income, and employees’ own share of the pensions was paid with pre-tax income. Some Democrats had expressed support for taxing the most expensive health benefits, a move that could yield $100 billion in revenue over five years, according to a government estimate. However, the idea was criticized by some lawmakers and analysts, who said such a tax could end up endangering the employer-based insurance system, which provided insurance to about two-thirds of workers under 65. Conservative

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Protest—

Eight members of the fiscally conservative group of Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition May 11 delivered a letter to the Democratic chairmen of three House committees overseeing the development of the health care reform legislation, protesting the lack of openness surrounding the discussions. In the letter, the lawmakers said they backed Obama’s plan for universal health insurance, but were concerned over the potential cost of such a program. The letter lamented, “Our contributions, to date, have been limited.” The letter was addressed to Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), George Miller (Calif.) and Rangel. Other News—In related news: o Former health care executive Richard Scott Feb. 25 announced the formation of Conservatives for Patient Rights to mount a campaign opposing Obama’s plan for health care reform. The Washington Post May 11 reported that the group had spent about $600,000 in both March and April on ads, and planned to spend another $1 million in May. Scott said Obama’s plans would lead to a British-style national health care system, and argued that the free market would provide solutions for health care problems. The ads drew comparison to ads attacking a Democratic-led effort to reform health care in the 1990s featuring a couple, “Harry and Louise,” shown expressing concern about a national health care system. Scott had been chief executive of hospital chain Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. until he was ousted in a major fraud investigation in 1997. [See 1997, p. 544A2] o Karen Ignagni, the president of health insurance trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, May 5 said members of the organization would end the practice of charging higher insurance premiums for women than they did for men. Women paid between 25% and 50% more for insurance than men. Insurers said the discrepancy was due to the fact that women’s health care was more expensive, since they went to doctors more often and required greater care for reproductive-health issues. n

2009 Elections California Voters Reject Budget Measures.

California voters May 20 rejected five ballot measures backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as reforms needed to 340

deal with the state’s bulging budget deficit. The only initiative that voters approved was one that would set limits on pay for elected officials. [See p. 114A2] In response to the defeat of the ballot measures, Schwarzenegger May 20 proposed wide-ranging budget cuts, including $5 billion from education spending, and layoffs of 5,000 of the state’s 235,000 employees. He also planned to borrow $2 billion from local governments in the state. The Citizens Compensation Committee, a state panel, May 20 voted to cut the salaries of the governor, lawmakers and other state elected officials by 18%, starting in the next year. The state faced a projected deficit of $21.3 billion for the next fiscal year, which would begin July 1. The rejected measures would have authorized increased taxes and borrowing, as well as other means, to raise about $6 billion. They also would have limited spending in the future and added to a rainy day reserve fund. The state treasurer’s office said California would have to borrow a total of about $20 billion in the next fiscal year. The state’s credit rating, currently the worst of any state, would make such borrowing difficult and expensive. Schwarzenegger was seeking a loan guarantee of up to $6 billion from the federal government. The referendum defeat came just three months after Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders in the state legislature had reached a budget agreement following months of stalemated negotiations. Special House Primary Election Held—

Democrat Judy Chu, a former state assembly member, May 20 finished first in a special primary election for a vacant U.S. House seat representing California’s Los Angeles–area 32nd Congressional District. The seat had been vacated by Hilda Solis (D) after her confirmation as U.S. labor secretary. [See p. 292B2] Chu, who was Asian-American, won 31.9% of the vote in a 12-candidate field in the heavily Hispanic district. Her top rival, state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D), finished second, with 23.4%. Chu advanced to a July run-off against the top finishers from other parties. She was favored to win, since Democrats held an advantage of more than two to one among registered voters in the district. n

Obama Administration Educator Named Top Consumer Advocate.

President Barack Obama May 5 nominated Inez Moore Tenenbaum as chairwoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Tenenbaum, 58, had served two terms as the South Carolina superintendent of schools, from 1999 to 2007, and had made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 2004. Obama also nominated University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law professor Robert Adler to fill a new seat on the CPSC commission, which was expanding to five members, from three. Adler had previously worked as a lawyer at the CPSC. Both nominations required confirmation by the Senate. [See 2008, p. 103B2]

The CPSC had been harshly criticized in recent years for failing to adequately respond to large recalls involving lead-contaminated toys, tainted infant formula and contaminated pet food, all of which had been produced overseas. If confirmed, Tenenbaum would replace current CPSC acting Chairwoman Nancy Nord, a former lobbyist for Eastman Kodak Co. Nord had been widely criticized by congressional Democrats for failing to implement elements of a 2008 law intended to strengthen the CPSC. She had also come under fire for allowing businesses that the CPSC regulated to pay for her travel expenses in several instances. [See 2008, p. 635B2] The White House also said Obama would request that the CPSC receive an annual budget of $107 million, up from its fiscal 2007 level of $62 million. Obama during the presidential campaign had pledged to double the CPSC’s budget. n

Labor News in Brief. The Office of the Inspector

General for the Labor Department March 31 released an audit that said Randy Kimlin, a former consultant for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), had been paid $681,379 over a 27-month period ending in 2008 even though OSHA could not

“justify procuring Mr. Kimlin’s consulting services.” The report recommended that the

government pursue the return of the money. According to OSHA officials, Kimlin had worked in the office of former OSHA Director Edwin Foulke, who had been appointed by former President George W. Bush. The report said Kimlin had been hired illegally, without receiving clearance from proper authorities, and that there was “potential criminal activity related to the audit findings.” [See below; 2007, p. 192D3] The Labor Department inspector general’s office in a March 31 report claimed that a Bush administration initiative meant to improve worker safety in dangerous industries failed to follow correct procedures in 97% of its cases. The initiative, called the Enhanced Enforcement Program (EEP), had been unveiled in 2003 and was billed as a means to scrutinize employers who had a history of workplace safety violations, injuries or fatalities. The inspector general’s office found that under the program, “employers with reported fatalities were not always properly identified or inspected.” It added that if full EEP procedures had been applied, they “may have deterred and abated workplace hazards at the worksites of 45 employers where 58 subsequent fatalities occurred.” [See 2003, p. 377B1] The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative wing of Congress, March 25 released a report that said the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), which oversaw compliance with federal employment laws, had improperly handled nine of 10 complaints filed by undercover agents posing as ordinary work-

ers. In one instance, an agent complained of underage workers operating dangerous machinery at a meatpacking plant during school hours, but the office never investiFACTS ON FILE

gated the complaint. In two cases, the WHD falsely recorded that the undercover agents had received back pay after they filed complaints. The report found that the division botched 19% of major cases. [See 2008, p. 536E2] n

Immigration News in Brief. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) April 30 released new

rules for immigration raids, under which Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, two weeks before a raid, were required to present a strategy meant to lead to the prosecution of employers suspected of hiring illegal immigrants. The new rules also mandated that in raids of businesses employing at least 25 people, ICE agents take “humanitarian considerations” into account. That stipulation would allow the release of illegal immigrants who were sick or had child care responsibilities. The new rules represented a departure from the immigration strategies of the previous administration of President George W. Bush. In 2008, of the approximately 6,000 people arrested in workplace raids, only 135 were managers or employers. [See p. 202F1] The Government Accountability Office (GAO) April 20 released a report criticizing the ICE and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a division of the Justice Department, for not coordinating their efforts effectively. The report said a 1994 arrangement under which the DEA oversaw ICE drug investigations was “inefficient and problematic,” and risked “duplicative investigative efforts and concern that officer safety could be compromised.” The report recommended that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. improve collaboration between the ICE and the DEA. Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa), who had requested the GAO investigation, criticized the agencies, saying, “Eight years after 9/11 [2001 terrorist attacks], law enforcement turf battles should be over.” [See below, p. 249E2] The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration April 16 released a report criticizing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for allowing illegal immigrants and

others to submit tax documents with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) instead of a Social Security Number (SSN), which it said was illegal. According to the report, by using an ITIN, those individuals could improperly claim certain tax credits that would cost the U.S. $8.9 billion over the next five years. The IRS, in a response to the report, said it had already taken steps to comply with laws concerning ITINs, and that the Social Security Administration was responsible for ensuring that the numbers were used correctly. [See 2001, p. 314E2] Napolitano April 15 named Alan Bersin, a former U.S. attorney who had spearheaded a crackdown in the 1990s on illegal border crossings, the country’s “border czar.” Bersin would direct efforts to curb illegal immigration and drug smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border. n May 21, 2009

AFRICA

Eritrea Rights Group Alleges Abuses. U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) April 16 released a report detailing widespread human rights abuses in Eritrea. The report said Eritrea’s “extensive detention and torture of its citizens and its policy of prolonged military conscription” had turned the country into a “giant prison.” HRW criticized the European Union for a recent $160 million aid package to Eritrea, claiming that the development projects it would fund would be built by prisoners or conscripts. Eritrea had gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but the two nations were still locked in a stalemate over border demarcation. Analysts said the government used the ongoing tension with Ethiopia to continue its conscription policy. Eritrea reportedly was one of the world’s largest sources of refugees, as its citizens attempted to escape repression. [See p. 341E3; 2008, p. 975C3; 2004, p. 1088E2] n

Somalia Clashes Flare Between Government, Islamists.

An ongoing war between Somalia’s transitional government and Islamist insurgents intensified May 8, killing at least 175 civilians and injuring some 500 others before the battles reportedly subsided May 20. Much of the fighting took place in and around Mogadishu, the capital. The United Nations May 20 said at least 45,000 people had fled Mogadishu since the latest round of fighting began, further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in the area. [See p. 269A2, G3] The escalation of the violence—and territorial gains made by the Islamists— sparked fears that the transitional government could collapse. Somalia had not had an effective central government since 1991. The government, backed by the U.N. and supported by about 4,350 African Union (AU) troops, had been battling the Islamists, led by the radical group Al Shabab, for more than two years. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former leader of a more moderate Islamist group, in January had been elected Somalia’s interim president. Ethiopian troops that had been supporting the transitional government were pulled from the country in January, amid widespread resentment among Somalis about the presence of soldiers from a country that was their traditional enemy. Diplomats and officials had reportedly hoped that the departure of the Ethiopians and the installation of a moderate Islamist as president would ease tensions with the radical Islamists and bring a measure of peace and stability to the country. However, Ahmed’s efforts to bridge the gap with hard-line Islamists had thus far been unsuccessful, as Al Shabab had refused to recognize his administration. Analysts said Al Shabab had a stronger fighting force than the transitional government, but that it could eventually alienate the popula-

tion by seeking to impose a strict version of Islamic law, or sharia. Ahmed’s government had implemented sharia throughout the country in April in an effort to undermine the Islamists. Analysts also said deepseated clan rivalries could ultimately prove the deciding factor in the power struggle. Somali radical Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys April 23 returned to Somalia after about two years in Eritrea. Aweys, a rival of Ahmed, headed Hizbul Islam, a group of militias that was allied with Al Shabab. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) April 28 quoted Aweys as saying that Ahmed’s government was “not representing the interests of the Somali people.” He also described the AU troops as “bacteria” that the Islamists would force from Somalia if they did not leave voluntarily. [See below] The U.N.’s special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, May 15 said as many as 300 foreign fighters were battling alongside Somali Islamists. Those fighters reportedly included Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, as well as Americans, Britons and Italians of Somali descent. Al Shabab and Hizbul Islam May 17 took control of Jowhar, a strategic town about 55 miles (90 km) northeast of Mogadishu, and the next day captured another key town, Mahaday. The Islamists reportedly controlled much of southern Somalia, including most of Mogadishu. Ahmed’s government was said to control the capital city’s seaport and airport, and a small, heavily fortified area around the presidential palace. Several media outlets May 19 reported that witnesses said they had seen Ethiopian troops re-enter Somalia close to the town of Beledweyne, near the border between the two countries, after Islamists took control of the town. The Ethiopian government denied that its troops had returned to Somalia. Regional Group Condemns Eritrea—

The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a grouping of East African nations, May 20 at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, called on the U.N. to impose sanctions on Eritrea for its alleged support of the hard-line Somali Islamists. Eritrea was accused of supplying the Islamists with weapons including AK47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. IGAD also requested an air and sea blockade of areas in southern Somalia controlled by the Islamists to prevent them from importing more weapons. Somalia was already subject to a U.N. arms embargo. [See p. 341A2] Some analysts had described recent events in the Somali conflict as a proxy war between enemies Eritrea and Ethiopia, with mainly Muslim Eritrea giving support to the Islamists and Ethiopia—whose government was solidly Christian—backing the transitional government. Eritrea, which had gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, and Ethiopia had fought a bloody border war from 1998 to 2000, and disputes over boundary demarcation had yet to be resolved. [See 2008, p. 975C3] Eritrean President Issaias Afwerki, in an interview published May 21 by Reuters 341

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news service, denied that his government was supporting the Islamist insurgents in Somalia. He alleged that U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives in the region were behind those allegations, but did not give evidence to support his statements. The U.S. had long alleged that the Somali Islamists had links with the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. n

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Researchers affiliated with the University of Toronto in Canada March 29 released a report on what they said was a systematic infiltration of government and other computer systems in at least 103 countries, describing it as the largest such cyber-espionage operation yet uncovered. The report said the operation, which the researchers called GhostNet, was controlled from computers in China, but that it was not known who was directing it or whether the Chinese government was involved. [See p. 251F1; 2007, p. 589C1] The researchers published the findings in the online Information Warfare Monitor. They said the spy operation focused particularly on South and Southeast Asia, with a large number of the more than 1,295 compromised computers located in Vietnam, Taiwan and India. It had also stolen material from computers of the government in exile of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom China labeled a dangerous separatist, and whose headquarters was in Dharamsala, India. [See p. 327A1] The report called nearly a third of the targets “high-value,” including government ministries, embassies, international organizations and news media. The New York Times March 29 reported that China’s consulate in New York City had dismissed suggestions that the Chinese government had a role in the operation as “nonsense” and “old stories.” The U.S.China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government advisory panel, in 2008 had warned that China was intensifying attacks on U.S computers. Russia, the U.S. and other countries were also thought to be developing cyber-espionage capabilities. Also March 29, researchers at Cambridge University in England who had collaborated in investigating the infiltration of the Tibetan groups’ computers released their own report in which they did attribute the cyber attacks to agents of the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama March 30 said that confidential information in his organizations’ computers was known to have made its way into the hands of Chinese authorities. n

G Indonesia Anti-Corruption Head Detained in Murder.

Indonesian police May 4 detained Antasari Azhar, the head of the independent Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), in con342

nection with a March 14 drive-by shooting that had killed a prominent businessman. Antasari had not been officially charged with any crime and it was unclear what role he had allegedly played in connection with the murder. Under Indonesian law, suspects could be detained without charge for up to 60 days. [See 2008, p. 382E1] Nasrudin Zulkarnaen, the murdered businessman, had been a director at a government-owned pharmaceutical company. He had reportedly been a witness in a pending KPK corruption prosecution at the time of his death. The KPK had been established in 2003 as part of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s efforts to fight graft in Indonesia, which was widely considered one of the world’s most corrupt countries. However, analysts argued that the KPK had not made a significant impact on corruption until Antasari was appointed chairman in 2007 and began a crackdown. n

Japan Opposition Party Leader Resigns. Ichiro Ozawa May 11 announced his resignation as leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), saying that corruption charges against a former top aide threatened the party’s chances of taking power in forthcoming parliamentary elections if he did not step down. After the arrest and indictment of the aide, Takanori Okubo, in March, Ozawa had initially vowed to remain DPJ president. He continued to maintain that he had had no knowledge of the illegal campaign donations Okubo had allegedly accepted from a construction company. [See p. 251E2] The DPJ May 16 elected its secretary general, Yukio Hatoyama, to succeed Ozawa as party president. He had held the post from 1999 to 2002; his opponent in the leadership contest, Katsuya Okada, had headed the party in 2004–05. Like Ozawa, Hatoyama had roots in the political establishment the DPJ vowed to reform, and was the grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama, the first prime minister belonging to the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Hatoyama named Ozawa the party’s main campaign strategist for the election due to be held by September for the lower house of the Diet (parliament). [See 2005, p. 654E1; 2002, p. 953C3; 1959, p. 80E2] Despite criticism from party members who said Hatoyama was too closely associated with Ozawa, initial opinion polls suggested his selection as DPJ leader might revive the party’s chances for ousting the LDP. The DPJ had been seen as having an unprecedented opportunity of taking power until the scandal over Ozawa’s aide and a recent recovery in Prime Minister Taro Aso’s long-languishing public-opinion ratings. Aso’s gains were believed to have been aided by optimism that the government’s economic stimulus measures would have a positive effect, and by Aso’s hard-line stance over a recent North Korean rocket launch. [See p. 342A3] Under Ozawa, the DPJ in 2007 had won control of the upper house of the Diet,

which was less powerful, but that still allowed it to delay government legislative initiatives. n

North Korea Restart of Nuclear Site Claimed. North Ko-

rea’s foreign ministry April 25 said the country had restarted the reprocessing of plutonium for nuclear weapons fuel, after announcing earlier in the month that it was abandoning a six-nation agreement on the dismantling of its nuclear program. North Korea had withdrawn in anger over a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning a North Korean rocket launch. North Korea claimed that the launch was a peaceful space venture, while it was widely viewed abroad as a long-range ballistic missile test. [See p. 238G3] Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear monitor, who had been stationed to ensure North Korea’s compliance with its commitments under the nuclear agreement, April 16 had left the country. North Korea April 24 confirmed its withdrawal from the nuclear talks during a visit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia, one of the six nations. South Korean news media in May said intelligence agencies had detected signs of activity at North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium facility, but May 13 reported that border sensors had not detected emissions of krypton gas, a by-product of plutonium reprocessing. Security Council Imposes Sanctions—

The announcement of the resumed plutonium reprocessing came a day after the Security Council April 24 approved financial sanctions on three North Korean companies deemed to be linked to the country’s nuclear and missile programs. The council also agreed to bar the sale to North Korea of certain items related to weapons technology. Although such U.N. sanctions had been threatened in 2006, after North Korean missile launches and a nuclear test, none had been implemented until the April 24 council action. North Korea April 29 declared that it would carry out another nuclear test and more missile tests if the U.N. did not withdraw the sanctions and resolutions condemning it, and deliver an apology. n Joint Ventures With South Threatened.

North Korea May 15 said it was canceling its existing contracts with South Korea on the operation of joint ventures at the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea, and would institute new terms. North Korea had previously demanded that the North Korean workers employed by South Korean companies at Kaesong receive a wage increase. The two sides April 21 had held talks on the matter at Kaesong, which ended after less than half an hour with no resolution. Also remaining unresolved was the case of a South Korean executive who worked at Kaesong and had been detained since March 30, reportedly for criticizing North Korea’s government. [See p. 143C1] About 39,000 North Koreans were employed at Kaesong by about 100 South KoFACTS ON FILE

rean companies that paid lower wages, an average of some $75 per month, than they would to South Koreans. The complex, a landmark in trade cooperation between the two rival countries, had opened in 2005. However, relations had deteriorated with current South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s policy of placing more stringent conditions on economic aid to North Korea. Also, after the failed talks April 22, North Korea accused South Korea of moving a border marker, a charge dismissed by South Korean officials. n

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UNITED STATES

Bosnia & Herzegovina IMF Extends $1.6 Billion Loan. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) May 5

agreed to extend a $1.6 billion loan to Bosnia, after the country’s two ethnically divided autonomous regions agreed to implement significant budget cuts that would see major decreases in pensions for veterans and their families and in public servants’ salaries. The loan, which came amid a global economic turndown that was expected to cripple the already struggling Bosnian economy, would be disbursed in three parts over three years. The Muslim-Croat Federation would receive two-thirds of the funds, and the remaining money would go to the Republika Srpska. [See p. 336D3; 2007, p. 813A3] Some analysts were skeptical that Bosnia’s leaders possessed the political will to implement difficult budget cuts, which were expected to cause social unrest. However, others suggested that the IMF loan could give leaders a convenient excuse to implement needed reforms before presidential and parliamentary elections were held in October 2010. In 2008, government expenditures accounted for about 44% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to estimates from the country’s central bank. Unemployment in Bosnia was estimated at about 40%. Many analysts blamed the country’s economic woes on years of inefficient government administration. Bosnia’s two autonomous regions were united under a weak central government. n

European Union Intel Fined $1.5 Billion for Antitrust Violations.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, May 13 imposed a record 1.06 billion euro ($1.45 billion) fine for antitrust violations on U.S.based Intel Corp., the world’s largest computer-chip maker. The commission’s previous record for such a fine was a 497 million euro penalty against U.S. software maker Microsoft Corp in 2004. [See 2007, p. 721B3; 2005, p. 962C3] Intel said it would appeal the fine at the EU’s Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. The appeals process could take several years. In its ruling, the commission said that Intel had secured its dominant position, May 21, 2009

controlling up to 80% of the global microprocessor market, by offering rebates to large computer makers for buying its chips and not the ones made by its leading rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) of the U.S. It also allegedly offered rebates to computer manufacturers that agreed to delay the introduction of new products that incorporated AMD chips. Neelie Kroes, the commission’s antitrust regulator, said, “Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years.” The commission acted after an investigation that lasted several years. AMD had filed its complaint against Intel in 2000. It had filed similar complaints in the U.S. and Asian countries, leading to a $25 million fine against Intel by South Korean regulators in 2008 and a settlement in Japan. Intel faced ongoing investigations in the U.S. by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York State attorney general’s office, as well as a pending civil lawsuit filed by AMD in Delaware. Meanwhile, the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine Varney, in a speech May 11 said the Obama administration planned to increase its scrutiny of antitrust cases. That would reverse the policy of light regulation favored by the department under President George W. Bush, and bring U.S. antitrust enforcement closer to the EU’s aggressive actions. n

Great Britain Expenses Scandal Tarnishes Parliament.

Michael Martin May 19 resigned as speaker of the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the British Parliament, in a scandal over revelations that many members of Parliament (MPs) had claimed reimbursement for questionable personal expenses. The scandal had weakened Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with a general election due to be called within the next year. Martin said his resignation would take effect June 21. He became the first Commons speaker since 1695 to be ousted from the post by a formal challenge by MPs. He would also give up his seat in Parliament. [See 2008, p. 731D2; 2007, p. 68F2] Martin, a former metal worker from Glasgow, Scotland, had been speaker since 2000. He came from the traditional working-class wing of the ruling Labour Party. He had fought a losing battle to prevent the disclosure of MPs’ expenses reports, dating from 2005, in a series of ongoing exposes by the Daily Telegraph newspaper. He requested a police investigation of the source of the leaks, but was rebuffed. MPs from all parties were caught up in the scandal. They were widely viewed as using improper claims to pad their salaries. The timing of the scandal, in the middle of a severe recession, added to the public outrage over the apparent misuse of taxpayer money. Housing, Other Expenses Disclosed—

The reports showed that a number of MPs had claimed second-home expenses for costs related to mortgage payments, home

renovations, gardening and other items such as furniture, dog food and pornographic movies. Some MPs had claimed such expenses for refurbishing homes that they subsequently “flipped,” or sold at a profit. The rules allowed up to £24,000 ($38,000) a year in reimbursements for second homes to enable MPs to shuttle between their districts and London. But some MPs had claimed second-home expenses for homes that appeared in fact to be their main residences. One prominent Tory MP, former cabinet minister Douglas Hogg, May 19 said he would not seek reelection, after it was reported that he had claimed reimbursement of £2,000 for the cleaning of a moat at his country house. Justice Minister Shahid Malik May 15 became the first cabinet member to resign in the scandal, after the Telegraph reported that day that he paid below-market rent of less than £100 a week for his home in his constituency in West Yorkshire, England, thanks to a preferential deal with his landlord. He claimed the maximum of more than £66,000 in expenses over the past three years for another house in London. Labour May 14 suspended MP Elliot Morley from the party for claiming expenses of more than £16,000 for interest on a mortgage he had paid off 18 months earlier. Tory MP Andrew MacKay that day resigned as senior political adviser to Tory leader David Cameron after it was reported that MacKay had claimed a full second-house allowance for a London residence while his wife, Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed the full allowance for another home. Brown himself had claimed £6,577 for payments to his brother for a home cleaning service they shared, the Telegraph reported May 8. Brown May 11 apologized on behalf of Parliament, but insisted that “people who enter our profession are there to serve the public interest, not themselves.” The disclosures had started more than a month earlier. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith April 7 had apologized for claiming expenses for adult movies rented by her husband. Brown Calls for Reforms—Brown at a news conference May 19 said he would press for reforms including a new independent monitor for MPs’ expenses. He said Parliament “cannot operate like some gentlemen’s club where the members make up the rules and operate them themselves.” The changes would be a radical departure for Parliament, which had insisted for centuries on its constitutional prerogatives. Brown said any Labour MP who had broken the rules on expenses would be barred from running for reelection in the next election as a candidate of the party. Martin later that day announced that leaders of the different parties in Parliament had agreed to a set of temporary reform measures, pending permanent changes. They included a limit of £1,250 a month in reimbursement for mortgage and rent payments, and a ban on expenses claims for furniture and other household goods. 343

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Cameron, at the prime minister’s weekly Question Time in the Commons, May 20 demanded that Brown call an election immediately, saying that was the only way to break the political “paralysis” caused by the scandal. When Brown replied that an election would only bring “chaos,” Cameron said, “The prime minister calls elections chaos. I call them change. Why can’t we have one?” Labour Peers Caught in Bribery Sting—

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In a separate scandal, a committee in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, May 14 recommended that two Labour peers be suspended from the chamber for up to six months due to bribery allegations. The Sunday Times newspaper had reported that the two peers, Lord Peter Truscott and Lord Thomas Taylor, agreed to alter legislation in exchange for payoffs from reporters posing as corporate lobbyists. The Lords May 20 voted to approve the suspension, making the pair the first peers to be punished in that manner since 1642. n

Lithuania Former Finance Minister Wins Presidency.

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European Union Budget Director and former Lithuanian Finance Minister Dalia Grybauskaite, 53, won a May 17 presidential election with 69% of the vote, according to preliminary results released May 21 by the country’s election commission. She handily defeated six rivals, including Algirdas Butkevicius of the Social Democratic Party (LDSP), who finished second, with about 12% of the vote. Grybauskaite had run as an independent candidate, but was supported by the governing Homeland Union-Conservatives (TS) party. She was the first woman to be elected president of Lithuania. [See p. 37B3; 2004, p. 506B1] Grybauskaite was to take office in July, succeeding outgoing President Valdas Adamkus, 82, another non-partisan figure, who had served two five-year terms and was stepping down due to term limits. Upon the election of a new president, the government was required to resign. Grybauskaite was expected to replace some ministers, including the finance minister, but retain Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. The Lithuanian president’s main duty was to guide foreign policy. The country was currently trying to reduce its budget deficit so it would not have to resort to a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as some neighboring countries had. Grybauskaite had sharply criticized the budget policies of the Social Democrat government that had preceded Kubilius’s. Lithuania’s gross domestic product had contracted by a 12.6% annual rate in the first quarter of 2009. [See 2008, p. 984G2] n

Macedonia Ivanov Sworn In as President. Georgi Ivan-

ov May 12 was sworn in as Macedonia’s new president in Skopje, the capital. Ivanov, who had been the candidate for the governing conservative Internal Mace344

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Georgi Ivanov was born May 2, 1960, in Valandovo, a town in southeastern Macedonia, which was then part of Yugoslavia. In 1982, he received a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, the capital. In 1988 he began working for a Macedonian television station, and was eventually promoted to editor. In 1995, he received a master’s degree in political science from the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, and went on to earn a Ph.D. in political science from there in 1998. He then taught political science at several universities, including at his alma mater, as well as at Athens University in Greece from 1999 to 2000. He also worked as a consultant for think tanks and other academic organizations. Ivanov co-founded Political Opinion, the first modern Macedonian political science journal, and the Institute for Democracy, a prominent Macedonian think tank. He also founded the Macedonian Political Science Foundation, and served as its honorary president. Ivanov in 2009 was nominated to run for president by the conservative Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), though he was not a member of the party. He won a presidential runoff poll in April, and was inaugurated May 12. He would succeed outgoing President Branko Crvenkovski. [See p. 344G1] Ivanov was married and had one child.

donian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), pledged to lead Macedonia toward membership in both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He also pledged to improve relations with Greece “in the spirit of good neighborly relations and mutual trust.” Greece in 2008 had blocked Macedonia’s entrance to NATO because Macedonia had refused to change its name. Greece claimed that the name, which was also the name of its northernmost province, implied a territorial claim on Greek land. [See p. 225G1; for facts on Ivanov, see p. 344A2] n

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Iraq Baghdad, Kirkuk Bombings Kill 46 After Lull.

Bombings in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and in the northern city of Kirkuk May 20– 21 killed at least 46 people. The attacks shattered a recent period of relative calm in Iraq, after a series of high-profile attacks in late April killed over 180 people. [See pp. 330B2, 312C1] A minibus packed with explosives May 20 exploded near a crowded restaurant in the largely Shiite Muslim Shula neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least 34 people, according to the Iraqi interior ministry. The U.S. military said 29 people had died— including three Iraqi soldiers—70 were wounded and another Iraqi soldier was missing. Many of the April attacks had hit Shiite targets, and it was feared that they were carried out by Sunni Muslim insurgent groups like Al Qaeda in Iraq looking

to spark sectarian fighting. Shula, which bordered a Sunni-dominated area, in past years was a stronghold of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia and had seen heavy sectarian fighting. A roadside bomb May 21 went off in a market in Baghdad’s southern Dora neighborhood as a U.S. patrol was passing, killing three U.S. soldiers. The U.S. military said four Iraqi civilians were killed, while Iraqi officials put the toll at 12. That day in the western neighborhood of Mansour, a bomb hidden in a garbage bin inside a police station exploded, killing three police officers. Also May 21, a suicide bomber in Kirkuk killed at least seven members of an Awakening Council, part of a mostly-Sunni armed movement that had turned against extremists. The bomber was reportedly dressed in the group’s uniform, and detonated his explosives as the members were lining up to receive their pay. Foreign Fighters Arrive Through Syria—

The Washington Post May 11 reported that, according to unnamed senior U.S. officials, Al Qaeda in Iraq was again smuggling foreign fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq, where many became suicide bombers. Some 80–100 foreigners a month had reportedly crossed into Iraq using the Syrian route at its peak in mid-2007, but recent gains in Iraqi security had reduced their numbers to the single digits in late 2008 and early 2009. However, the officials said, the flow of fighters had recently increased to about 20 a month due to deteriorating border security since January Iraqi provincial council elections. General Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, May 8 called on Syria to stop the flow of fighters into Iraq. [See p. 143B1; 2008, p. 784C2] The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had been working to improve relations with the Syrian government. However, Obama May 8 said he had renewed sanctions against Syria because it had not stopped supporting terrorists, pursuing a nuclear arms program and undermining the rebuilding of Iraq. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o Judge Santiago Pedraz in Madrid, Spain, May 21 reinstated homicide charges against three U.S. soldiers for the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq in 2003. In April 2003, during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the crew of a U.S. tank—Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp—had fired on a Baghdad hotel, killing two journalists, including Spanish cameraman Jose Couso. U.S. officials said the soldiers’ actions had been justified and that they had come under fire from the hotel. Pedraz had filed charges against the soldiers in 2007, but they were dropped for lack of evidence. However, Pedraz said he had new testimony from three other Spanish journalists who had been in the hotel with Couso, and who reportedly said there had been no fighting in the vicinity. [See 2005, p. 762D1] o An Iraqi federal court May 18 scheduled national parliamentary elections for Jan. 30, 2010. It would be Iraq’s second FACTS ON FILE

general election since the 2003 invasion; the first one, in 2005, had been boycotted by many Sunni Arabs, and as a result had been dominated by Shiite Arab and Kurdish parties. [See p. 57A1; 2005, p. 885A1] o Iraqi security forces May 18 arrested two high-profile Sunni leaders in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, for “committing crimes against civilians,” according to an unnamed security official. One of the men, Sheik Riyadh al-Mujami, was a local Awakening Council leader, while the other, Abdul Jabbar al-Khazraji, headed the Sunni bloc of legislators in the Diyala provincial council. Awakening Council members portrayed the arrests as part of a campaign against their movement by the Shiite-led federal government. [See p. 312D1] n

Kuwait PM Reappointed After Elections. Kuwaitis

May 16 went to the polls for the emirate’s third parliamentary election in three years. Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad alSabah, May 20 reappointed Sheikh Nasir Muhammad al-Sabah as prime minister. Sheikh Nasir had resigned in March, causing the emir to dissolve parliament and call elections. Four women were among those elected to the 50-seat parliament, including Massouma al-Mubarak, who had been appointed the country’s first female minister in 2005, and U.S.-educated university instructor Aseel al-Awadhi, who had become a well-known liberal political figure. Women had gained the right to vote and run for office in 2005, but none had won races before. [See p. 228A2] There had been 280 candidates running in the elections, including 19 women. Islamists reportedly lost some seats, while liberal and independent candidates made gains. (Kuwait did not have political parties.) Voter turnout was reportedly low. The elections came in the midst of ongoing political deadlock. Media reports said that unless Sheikh Nasir chose reformminded officials for his cabinet, the deadlock would continue. Kuwait was one of the most democratic Arab nations in the Middle East, but it was seen as economically falling behind neighboring autocracies such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and economic stimulus legislation had been held up by the political turmoil. Kuwaiti authorities during the campaign had arrested two parliamentary candidates for publicly criticizing the ruling Sabah family, which was illegal. n

West Bank & Gaza Strip Palestinian Prime Minister Reappointed.

Salam Fayyad May 19 was sworn in as Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, as was a new cabinet. Fayyad in March had resigned from the post, after serving as prime minister since being appointed in 2007. The new 20-member government included eight members of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, after Fatah had complained that it had been excluded from Fayyad’s previous cabinet. Fayyad was a May 21, 2009

political independent with a reputation as a technocrat. [See pp. 336D1, 157C1] A fifth round of Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between Fatah, which controlled the West Bank, and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the Gaza Strip, had ended May 18 without resolution. Hamas said Fayyad’s government was illegitimate, and its influence would be confined to the West Bank. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Congress Party Coalition Wins Elections. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the

ruling coalition led by the Congress party, May 16 declared victory in national elections for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament, after preliminary results showed the UPA with a commanding lead over its rivals. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had conceded defeat earlier in the day. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the betterthan-expected results were a “massive mandate” for his left-of-center Congress party. [See p. 275G2, D3; for detailed election results, see p. 345E2] The Election Commission of India May 17 released official results from the elections, which were held in five stages between April 16 and May 13. The UPA won 261 seats in the 543-member assembly, just shy of the 272 needed for a majority, with Congress winning 205 seats. The NDA won 159 seats, with the BJP garnering 116 seats. The Third Front, a coalition largely comprised of communist parties, won 80 seats. The Fourth Front, led by the socialist Samajwadi party, won 26 seats, and the remaining seats were split between smaller, regional parties. About 60% of India’s 714 million eligible voters participated in the elections, a slight increase from the 58% who voted in the 2004 elections. UPA’s The strong showing meant that it would only need to find a handful of allies to form a ruling coalition, which had to be finalized by June 2. Prior to the release of the results, analysts widely expected a tighter margin of victory for the UPA, which would likely have resulted in a weak ruling coalition composed of parties with competing interests.

Singh said the country would have a “strong, stable government,” and investors welcomed the promise of continuity, with India’s main stock exchange, the Bombay Sensex index, May 18 soaring by 17.3%. Singh, 77, would be the first prime minister to return for a second consecutive term since Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, who served from 1947 to 1964. Under the UPA, gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at an average rate of nearly 9% a year from 2004 to 2008. Analysts said a renewed mandate could enable the coalition to further liberalize the economy, attempts at which had often been stymied by communist parties within the UPA. The communist wing had separated from the UPA in 2008, over objections to a civilian nuclear deal with the U.S., which it argued would increase U.S. influence in India. The election results were viewed as a vindication of the deal and the UPA’s economic policies, with the UPA making inroads into communist strongholds in the state of Kerala and other areas. [See 2008, p. 511G1] But the UPA faced daunting economic challenges, including lifting a significant portion of India’s 1.1 billion population out of poverty. Despite its booming economy, about 40% of the country made less than $1.25 a day, below the World Bank poverty line. Additionally, the Indian economy’s rapid rate of growth had slowed in 2009, as a result of the global economic crisis. The UPA during the campaign had placed a heavy emphasis on its past support for rural, poorer parts of the population, including recent programs to create governmentfunded jobs and to waive farmers’ outstanding loans. [See 2008, p. 911C3] BJP Chief Resigns—Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP’s leader and candidate for prime minister, May 16 stepped down as head of the party. The BJP during the campaign had presented itself as a businessfriendly alternative to the Congress party, and had also argued that it was stronger on issues of national security, attacking Con-

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gress for security lapses that led to the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed 170 people. The depth of the BJP’s loss surprised observers and BJP members, and analysts said its Hindu-nationalist base had alienated other segments of the Indian population. In contrast, Congress’s secularist themes appeared to attract a wider swath of voters. [See 2008, p. 877A1] Another candidate who did not live up to expectations was Kumari Mayawati, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, part of the Third Front, won only 21 seats, down from its current 40, and lost seats in Uttar Pradesh to Congress. Mayawati was part of the dalit caste—also known as “untouchables”—and had entered unlikely alliances with upper-caste Hindus to solidify her power base in Uttar Pradesh. Analysts had speculated that Mayawati was positioning herself to become a decisive figure, and possibly prime minister, if neither the UPA nor the NDA could muster enough seats to form a ruling majority. [See 2007, p. 339D1] Congress supporters attributed much of the party’s success to the energetic campaign efforts of Rahul Gandhi, son of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and slain Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi, 38, was the newest member of a Congress political dynasty that included Nehru, his great-grandfather, and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, his grandmother. He reportedly appeared at more than 120 campaign rallies throughout the country, far outstripping the number of appearances by his mother or Singh. He had also led the party’s efforts to recruit younger candidates and supporters. Many in Congress, particularly its younger members, had urged him to become prime minister, but both he and his mother maintained that Singh was to remain at the post. Singh said he would urge Gandhi to join his cabinet. There were sporadic episodes of violence during the elections, leading to more than 40 deaths. Much of the violence was blamed on Maoist insurgents, also known as Naxalites. n

Pakistan U.N. Says 1.5 Million Displaced by Fighting.

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The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) May 18 reported that 1.45 million people had been displaced by fighting in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) since May 2. The Pakistani army in the first week of May had begun a large-scale operation against the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group, which had seized territory in the NWFP’s Swat, Buner and Lower Dir districts. [See p. 314D3] The army May 15 had lifted a curfew in Swat, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the district. While news outlets were barred from the conflict zone—making it difficult to independently confirm the number of displaced people or reported casualties—it was reported that roads leading out of Swat were jammed with trucks and 346

civilians on foot. Observers said the exodus was one of the largest of its kind since 1947, when British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, leading to mass migrations. A large proportion of the displaced were taking refuge in government-run camps in the neighboring districts of Swabi and Mardan. Aid workers said the camps were short on basic necessities, and that their conditions were made worse by the grueling summer heat. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 19 pledged $110 million in emergency aid for the refugees. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in a speech to parliament May 14 had said it was vital that refugees be provided for. “Militarily, we will win the war, but it will be unfortunate if we lose it politically, so we will also have to win the hearts and the minds of the people,” he said. Public support for the government of President Asif Ali Zardari was weak, and analysts said a humanitarian crisis or reports of civilian casualties could quickly turn public opinion against the military operation. There were some reports that the army had indiscriminately shelled areas where civilians were residing. It was widely reported that support for a military operation grew only after the Taliban invaded Buner in April, giving it a stronghold a mere 60 miles (100 km) from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The government had previously been reluctant to fight the Taliban because of public opposition, going so far as to allow the group to establish sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Swat and other NWFP districts in exchange for peace. The U.S. had pressed the Pakistani government to take military action, over concerns that the Taliban and its allies in the international terrorist network Al Qaeda were gaining strength in the region. Clinton May 19 praised the army’s efforts, and said, “There is a real national mood change on the part of the Pakistani people that, you know, we are watching and obviously encouraged by.” As of May 21, 1,000 militants and 50 soldiers had been killed since the operation began, according to army officials. The army was currently surrounding Mingora, the capital of Swat, where Taliban fighters had reportedly dug trenches, laid mines and positioned themselves on the rooftops. The army May 12 had also begun a searchand-destroy mission in the Swat region of Piochar, where militant leader Maulana Fazlullah was thought to be located. Poll Shows Public Dissatisfaction—The International Republican Institute—a U.S.based nonprofit group that was associated with the U.S. Republican Party—May 11 released a poll showing that 81% of Pakistanis believed that the country was going in the wrong direction, and that just 19% approved of Zardari’s performance. Only 10% of the poll’s 3,500 respondents said terrorism was the most important issue facing Pakistan, compared with 46% for inflation, and 22% for unemployment. The poll

was conducted from March 7 to March 30, before the Taliban entered Buner. About 80% of respondents said they supported the government’s now-defunct peace agreement with the Taliban. However, 69% said the presence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan was a serious problem, and 74% said religious extremism was a serious problem. Only 37% supported Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in its fight against terrorism, but that was up from 8% in January 2008. Just 24% supported the U.S. making military incursions into the country. U.S. troops were currently operating in neighboring Afghanistan, and U.S. Predator and Reaper drone aircraft regularly conducted missile strikes against militants in Pakistan’s lawless northwestern tribal areas. Report: U.S., Pakistan in Joint Strikes—

The Los Angeles Times, citing unidentified U.S. officials, May 12 reported that the U.S. and Pakistani militaries for the first time were conducting joint drone missions, with Pakistani officers exerting some degree of control over the selection of targets. The Times said those attacks concentrated on Pakistani militant networks, and were separate from those conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which largely targeted Al Qaeda operatives, many of whom were foreign. The U.S. was thought to have conducted 36 drone attacks in 2008, and about 20 so far in 2009. However, the New York Times May 14 reported that the U.S. military drones were merely providing the Pakistani army with video footage and communications intercepts. The paper said unidentified U.S. officials had rebutted the Los Angeles Times’s assertion that the Pakistani military had joint control over drone missions. The drone attacks had caused some civilian casualties, leading to a public uproar in Pakistan. While it was widely reported that Pakistan had given the U.S. permission to conduct the strikes, Pakistani officials regularly denounced them in public. Zardari had pushed the U.S. to furnish his government with its own Predators and Reapers, but the request had been denied. Nuclear Program Expansion Reported—

The Institute for Science and International Security—a U.S.-based nonprofit group that focused on limiting the spread of nuclear weapons—May 19 reported that Pakistan was expanding its nuclear weapons program, which was currently estimated to have an arsenal of between 60 and 100 nuclear weapons. The group based its findings on satellite photographs taken of a nuclear complex in Dera Ghazi Khan, which between 2004 and 2008 had significantly increased in size. The facility was less than 100 miles from where the military was battling the Taliban. [See 2008, p. 407A1] Pakistani Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira May 20 denied that the complex was being expanded. But the foreign ministry May 19 had said the country’s nuclear weapons program was not “static,” and added, “Our nuclear deterrence is an indispensable factor of stability in the region.” FACTS ON FILE

Concerns that Pakistan was expanding its nuclear program had also been heightened by U.S. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen May 14 confirmed to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that Pakistan was adding warheads and weapons systems to its existing arsenal. The admission stoked concern that some of a proposed five-year, $3 billion military aid package could be funneled into the nuclear program, when it was intended to improve the Pakistani military’s counterinsurgency capabilities. The possibility that the Taliban or Al Qaeda could gain access to a nuclear weapon was an abiding concern for the U.S. government. The U.S. reportedly currently funded a $100 million program to help Pakistan secure its arsenal. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Horse Racing Filly Rachel Alexandra Wins Preakness.

Filly Rachel Alexandra, ridden by Calvin Borel, May 16 won the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of U.S. thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md. The threeyear-old became the first filly to win the Preakness since Nellie Morse in 1924, and the first horse to win from the outside post position. [See p. 315D3; 2008, p. 351F2] Rachel Alexandra, the favorite at 9–5 odds, beat a field of 12 male horses in the Preakness, including Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, who finished second with Mike Smith aboard. Rachel Alexandra had not competed in the Derby, held two weeks earlier. Her previous owners, Dolphus Morrison and Mike Lauffer, had instead opted to enter her in the Kentucky Oaks, a race for fillies, which she won by 20¼ lengths with Borel aboard. Despite her resounding victory in the Kentucky Oaks, her fifth straight win, Rachel Alexandra’s owners said they would continue to race her only against fillies. That prompted Jess Jackson, a wealthy winery owner and racing enthusiast who owned Stonestreet Stables, and Harold McCormick May 6 to purchase Rachel Alexandra for between $3 million and $4 million. (Jackson had also owned Curlin, the 2007 and 2008 Horse of the Year.) The filly’s new owners then paid a $100,000 fee to enter Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness, and switched her to award-winning trainer Steve Asmussen, from Hal Wiggins. Borel, who rode 50–1 long shot Mine That Bird to victory in the Kentucky Derby, declared that he would ride Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. [See 2008, p. 823B2] Rachel Alexandra was immediately installed as the Preakness favorite. However, some owners of horses already entered in the Preakness attempted to prevent Rachel Alexandra from entering the race. The Preakness was limited to 14 horses, and priority was given to horses that had already been nominated for the Triple Crown. Mine That Bird’s co-owner, Mark May 21, 2009

Allen, May 10 said he might enter another of his horses, Indy Express, in the Preakness, forcing Rachel Alexandra out. Allen said he was motivated by the desire to have Borel ride Mine That Bird. But later that day, Marylou Whitney, owner of another Preakness entry, Luv Gov, said she would pull her horse from the Preakness if it appeared that Rachel Alexandra would be shut out. That prompted Allen and other owners to back down from their efforts to prevent the filly from running. The one-and-three-sixteenths-mile Preakness was run on a fast track, and Borel after the race said his mount had been “struggling” on a surface she did not like. A fast pace was set from the beginning, and Borel brought Rachel Alexandra to the front of the pack early. Meanwhile, Smith and Mine That Bird remained toward the back until the far turn. Then, similar to Mine That Bird’s remarkable come-from-behind Derby victory, Smith maneuvered the gelding past the field and challenged Rachel Alexandra from the outside. The filly held off Mine That Bird’s late charge to win the Preakness by one length. Musket Man, ridden by Eibar Coa, was third, half a length behind Mine That Bird. Rachel Alexandra finished the race in one minute, 55.08 seconds. She paid $5.60 on a $2 bet and earned her owners $660,000 in prize money. Jackson May 17 said he was not sure whether he would run Rachel Alexandra in the 1½-mile Belmont Stakes—the third leg of the Triple Crown—on June 6. No filly had ever won two legs of the Triple Crown. The crowd for the May 16 race was just 77,850, down from 112,222 in 2008, in part due to a new ban on fans in the infield bringing their own alcoholic beverages. Pimlico Owner Declares Bankruptcy—

Canada’s Magna Entertainment Corp., which owned Pimlico and six other racetracks in the U.S., March 5 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The company, which was based in Aurora, Ontario, reportedly had about $200 million in debt due in the coming weeks that it could not pay. Magna said it would sell some wagering companies and tracks, including Florida’s Gulfstream Park, to its controlling shareholder and largest creditor, real estate company M.I. Developments Inc., and it was also expected to sell off other assets. Magna had reportedly lost $500 million over the past five years. Its chairman and chief executive officer, Frank Stronach— who was the chairman of Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc.— also owned thoroughbreds through his Stronach Stables, and bred them through his Adena Springs operation. [See p. 119G3; 2007, p. 265E3] The Maryland state General Assembly, amid fears that a sale of Pimlico would result in the Preakness being moved out of the state, April 13 approved legislation authorizing the government to exercise its powers of eminent domain if necessary to buy or seize the track and other properties associated with the prestigious race. The

first Preakness had been run at Pimlico in 1873. Other News—In other horse racing news: o Ghanaati, with Richard Hills aboard, May 3 won the one-mile 1,000 Guineas for three-year-old fillies in Newmarket, England. [See 2008, p. 318G3] o Sea the Stars, ridden by Mick Kinane, May 2 won the one-mile 2,000 Guineas for three-year-old colts in Newmarket. o Well Armed, with Aaron Gryder aboard, March 28 won the Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest horse race, with a $6 million purse, in the United Arab Emirates. Well Armed, a six-year-old gelding, won by a race-record 14 lengths over Gloria de Campeao, and Paris Perfect was third. [See 2008, p. 268F1] o Alysheba, the 1988 Horse of the Year, March 27 was euthanized at the age of 25, after falling in his stall at the Kentucky Horse Park’s Hall of Champions in Lexington. [See 1989, p. 75D3] n

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Baseball Dodgers’ Ramirez Suspended for Drug Use.

Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star left fielder Manny Ramirez May 7 was suspended by Major League Baseball (MLB) for 50 games for violating the league’s drug policy. The suspension was the latest development in an ongoing performance-enhancing drugs scandal within the sport; another of its biggest stars, Alex Rodriguez, in February had admitted to using steroids between 2001 and 2003. [See pp. 277G2, 278B1] MLB, under its drug policy, did not reveal what substance a player was suspended for using. The MLB Players’ Association (MLBPA) May 7 released a statement saying Ramirez, 36, had been suspended under the “just cause” provision of the league’s drug policy in light of documentary evidence that he had used the banned substance human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a female fertility drug. HCG was also prescribed to males who had fertility problems or low testosterone levels, to stimulate the production of testosterone in their bodies. A side effect of steroids was reduced testosterone production, and HCG had been banned by MLB in 2008 because it could be used to mask steroid use. The case reportedly had been triggered by a urine test that Ramirez took in March, before the start of the season. Sports Illustrated in its May 18 edition reported that MLB, the MLBPA and Ramirez—but not the Dodgers—had been informed in mid-April that the test results showed elevated levels of testosterone in the player’s system. MLB opened an investigation of Ramirez, leading it to discover that a doctor had prescribed HCG. Sports Illustrated reported that Ramirez, his agent, Scott Boras, and the MLBPA had been considering an appeal of the league’s plan to suspend Ramirez, but May 6 decided to accept the suspension due to solid evidence, in the form of the HCG prescription, that he had taken a banned substance. (Players had the option to apply for a therapeutic use exemption if they needed to take a 347

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banned substance for a legitimate medical condition; Ramirez did not submit such an application.) In a statement released May 7 through the MLBPA, Ramirez admitted that a doctor had prescribed HCG for him, but claimed that it was for a “personal health issue” and that he had not believed that it would violate the league’s drug policy. “Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy.…Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility.” Ramirez also pointed out that he had passed 15 other drug tests over the past five seasons. Ramirez was considered one of the best hitters in the game, but was also known for his laid-back, often careless or absentminded demeanor—colloquially known as “Manny being Manny.” He had previously played for the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox before being traded to the Dodgers in 2008, and the positive test sparked speculation as to whether he had used steroids while playing on Boston’s World Series–winning teams in 2004 and 2007. [See 2007, p. 723E1] Dodgers manager Joe Torre, at a press conference also attended by the team’s general manager, Ned Coletti, May 7 expressed his “disappointment” about the suspension, although he also said Ramirez had his support. Ramirez met May 9 with Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to apologize, and May 15 issued an apology in a meeting with his teammates. His suspension had come in the midst of the Dodgers’ MLB-record home winning streak to open the season; that streak May 7—the first day of Ramirez’s suspension—was ended at 13 games by the Washington Nationals. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Theater Openings

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Accent on Youth. Broadway revival of a 1934 roman-

tic comedy by Samson Raphaelson. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. With David Hyde Pierce, Mary Catherine Garrison, Rosie Benton and Charles Kimbrough. In New York City, at the Manhattan Theater Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater. April 29. [See 1983, p. 596A3] Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Iraq war–themed play by Rajiv Joseph. Directed by Moises Kaufman. With Arian Moayed, Kevin Tighe, Glenn Davis, Brad Fleischer, Hrach Titizian and Sheila Vand. In Culver City, Calif., at the Kirk Douglas Theater. May 17. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson: The Concert Version. Rock musical about the U.S’s seventh president

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and his era. Book by Alex Timbers; music and lyrics by Michael Friedman. Directed by Timbers. With Benjamin Walker and Colleen Werthmann. In New York City, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Shiva Theater. May 17. Desire Under The Elms. Broadway revival of a 1924 play by Eugene O’Neill; this production was first mounted at Chicago’s Goodman Theater, as the centerpiece of a recent O’Neill festival. Directed by Robert Falls. With Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino and Pablo Schreiber. In New York City, at the St. James Theater. April 27. [See 1952, p. 19C] Everyday Rapture. Play with music by, about and starring Sherie Rene Scott, an actress from Topeka, Kan., who makes it to Broadway. Coauthored by Dick Scanlan. Directed by Michael Mayer; choreographed by Michele Lynch. With Eamon Foley. In New York City, at the Second Stage Theater. May 2. [See 2008, p. 116C2; 2005, p. 272A2; 2002, p. 1074C2; 2000, p. 347B3] Giant. Musical based on Edna Ferber’s 1952 novel about Texas’s 20th-century oil boom. Music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa; book by Sybille Pearson. Directed by Jonathan Butterell; choreographed by Ernesto Alonso Palma. With Lewis Cleale, Betsy Mor-

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gan, Ashley Robinson, John Dossett and Katie Thompson. In Arlington, Va., at the Signature Theater. May 10. [See 1968, p. 183C3; 1956, p. 370D3] Groundswell. Three-character drama by Ian Bruce set in post-apartheid South Africa. Directed by Scott Elliott. With David Lansbury, Larry Bryggman and Souleymane Sy Savane. In New York City, at the Acorn Theater. May 18. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Broadway revival of August Wilson’s 1986 drama, first seen on Broadway in 1988. Directed by Bartlett Sher. With Chad L. Coleman, Roger Robinson, Amari Rose Leigh, Ernie Hudson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson. In New York City, at the Belasco Theater. April 16. [See 2005, pp. 787G3, 695F3; 1988, p. 824F1; 1986, p. 444B1] Legacy of Light. Comedy by Karen Zacarias about women in science in two different eras. Directed by Molly Smith. With Lisa Bruneau, Carla Harting, Stephen Schnetzer, David Covington, Lindsey Kyler and Michael Russotto. In Arlington, Va., at Arena Stage in Crystal City. May 14. Mary Stuart. Broadway transfer of a revival of a classic German play first presented at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2005. By Friedrich Schiller. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. With Janet McTeer, Harriet Walter, Maria Tucci, Nicholas Woodeson, Chandler Williams and John Benjamin Hickey. In New York City, at the Broadhurst Theater. April 19. [See 2005, p. 595E3] Next to Normal. Broadway production of a musical about mental illness significantly revised by composer Tom Kitt and writer-lyricist Brian Yorkey since first being presented off Broadway in 2008. Still directed by Michael Greif, and once again featuring Alice Ripley, Aaron Tveit and Jennifer Damiano, but with J. Robert Spencer replacing Brian d’Arcy James as Ripley’s character’s husband. In New York City, at the Booth Theater. April 15. [See 2008, p. 248E1] 9 to 5: The Musical. Broadway show based on a 1983 film comedy. Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton; book by Patricia Resnick. Directed by Joe Mantello; choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler. With Allison Janney, Megan Hilty, Stephanie J. Block and Marc Kudisch. In New York City, at the Marquis Theater. April 30. [See 1980, p. 1003C2] The Norman Conquests. Broadway transfer, with the same director and same six-member cast, of a 2008 revival, at London’s Old Vic, of a trilogy by Alan Ayckbourn first mounted in London in 1974 and first seen on Broadway in 1975. In New York City, at Circle in the Square. April 23. [See 2008, p. 998B1] The Philanthropist. Broadway revival of a satirical comedy by Britain’s Christopher Hampton first seen on Broadway in 1971. Directed by David Grindley. With Matthew Broderick, Anna Madeley and Jennifer Mudge. In New York City, at the American Airlines Theater. April 26. [See 1971, p. 359C1] Waiting for Godot. First Broadway production since 1956 of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece, first staged in Paris in 1953. Directed by Anthony Page. With Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman and John Glover. In New York City, at Studio 54. April 30. [See 1989, p. 1003E1; 1956, p. 139B2] n

People Film director and actor Woody Allen, 73, May 18 agreed to a $5 million settlement in the $10 million lawsuit he had filed against clothing manufacturer American Apparel. The settlement came the day a jury trial in the case was to begin in federal court in New York City. Allen had sued American Apparel for using an image of him without permission on billboards that had been briefly displayed in New York and Los Angeles in 2007. Drawn from Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, the image was of Allen’s character in that film, Alvy Singer, in the guise of a Hasidic Jew, with a long beard and side curls and wearing a black hat. [See 1986, p. 712C1; 1978, p. 315B3] Pornographic film star Marilyn Chambers, who had been found dead in April at her home in Santa Clarita, Calif., had died of a cerebral hemorrhage, a ruptured aneurysm in her brain, and underlying heart disease, according to an autopsy report released May 18 by the Los Angeles County

coroner’s office. Chambers had been 56 when she died. [See p. 256G2] British singer Boy George May 11 was released from Edmunds Hill prison in Suffolk, England, after serving four months of a 15-month sentence for falsely imprisoning a male escort at his London home. The singer would have to wear an electronic tag for the next 11 months. [See p. 71D3] Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, 31, May 2 married actor Peter Sarsgaard, 38, at a hotel in Brindisi, Italy. The couple lived in New York City with their two-year-old daughter. [See 2006, p. 792G2] n

O B I T UA R I E S PRABHAKARAN, Velupillai, 54, longtime leader of Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group; born Nov. 26, 1954, in Valvettiturai, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon); slain May 18 in a battle with the Sri Lankan military in northeastern Sri Lanka; his death effectively ended the LTTE ’s rebellion. [See pp. 333A1, 277B2; 2007, p. 743B1–C1; Indexes 2005–06, 1999–2002, 1993–95, 1987] SAULNIER, Raymond Joseph, 100, conservative economist, known for his opposition to tax cuts, who was chairman of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers from late 1956 until Eisenhower left office in early 1961; during Richard Nixon’s presidency, he chaired a panel on low-income housing that, in a report released in 1970, urged that such housing be built in the suburbs; born Sept. 20, 1908, in Hamilton, Mass.; died April 30 at a retirement community in Chestertown, Md., of kidney failure. [See 1970, pp. 709C3, 520A2, 482B1; 1967, pp. 495F3, 437D2; Indexes 1964, 1955–59] SEIDMAN, L(ewis) William, 88, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., 1985–91; in that capacity, he led the federal response to the U.S. savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s; he concomitantly (1989–91) served as the first head of the Resolution and Trust Corp., the entity created by Congress in 1989 to sell off the assets of failed financial institutions; earlier, from 1974 to 1977, he had been a key economic adviser to President Gerald R. Ford; born April 29, 1921, in East Grand Rapids, Mich.; died May 13 at a hospital in Albuquerque, N.M., of pneumonia complications. [See Indexes 1985–91, 1974– 76] SHARRER, Honore Desmond, 88, realist painter whose best-known work was Tribute to the American Working People (1951), a five-part painting in which the central figure, a factory worker, was surrounded by scenes of ordinary Americans at a picnic, in a parlor, on a farm and in a classroom; the work was in the permanent collection of Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution, which in 2007 mounted an exhibition devoted entirely to it; born July 12, 1920, in West Point, N.Y.; died April 17 in Washington, D.C., of dementia complications. TISDALE, Wayman Lawrence, 44, college basketball star at the University of Oklahoma who played on the gold medal–winning U.S. men’s basketball team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and then played 12 seasons with three National Basketball Association (NBA) teams: the Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns; after retiring from the NBA in 1997, he became a prominent jazz musician, playing the bass guitar, an instrument on which he was entirely self-taught; born June 9, 1964, in Fort Worth, Texas; died May 15 at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla., of bone cancer; his right leg had been amputated below the knee in August 2008. [See 1994, p. 848A2; 1989, pp. 250B1, 151C3; Index 1985] Van ES, Hubert, 67, Dutch photojournalist who, while working for United Press International during the Vietnam War, shot one of the most iconic images of the U.S. evacuation of Saigon in 1975: a long line of would-be evacuees scaling a ladder to the top of a building on which a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helicopter was perched; the building, an apartment house, was later perennially mislabeled as the U.S. embassy in references to the picture; after the war, he became a Hong Kong–based freelancer; born July 6, 1941, in Hilversum, the Netherlands; died May 15 in Hong Kong, of a brain hemorrhage. [See 1975, p. 290G2] n

May 21, 2009

U.S. President Obama Nominates New York Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor to Fill Supreme Court Opening Nominee Would be First Hispanic Justice.

dent Bill Clinton nominated her to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and she was confirmed in 1998. [See 1998, p. 750B3] Sotomayor was thought to be a moderately liberal judge, and court observers said her nomination would not significantly change the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court, since Souter had consistently voted with the court’s liberal bloc, despite having been a Bush appointee. However, Sotomayor had not issued major rulings that directly addressed hot-button judicial topics such as abortion, the death penalty or national security, leaving it an open question how she would rule on those issues on the Supreme Court. [See below] (There was a question raised as to whether Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who served on the Supreme Court from 1932 to 1938, had been its first Hispanic justice. Cardozo’s ancestors had been Sephardic Jews in Portugal, which shared the Iberian Peninsula with Spain. However, the ethnic designation “Hispanic” was not widely used during Cardozo’s lifetime, and it was unclear whether he would have identified himself as Hispanic. The U.S. Census Bureau defined a Hispanic as one who selfidentified as such, and said most Hispanics were of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or Central or South American origin.) Reaction—Senate Democrats May 26 largely praised Obama’s historic choice, which they said fulfilled his expressed desire for a justice who understood how the court’s decisions affected average citizens. But many Republicans said the justice’s role should be limited to interpreting the letter of the law, as opposed to weighing the wider impact of a given decision or different cultural perspectives. They cited statements Sotomayor had made to question whether she relied too heavily on her personal background when reaching decisions, and whether she saw her judicial position as a means to shape policy. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, that day said, “We must determine if Ms. Sotomayor understands that the proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one’s own personal preferences or political views.” Conservative critics pointed to a 2001 comment Sotomayor had made that they said showed her decisions were overly influenced by considerations of race and gender. In a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, she was quoted as saying, “Our experiences as women and people U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor at the announcement of her nomination May 26 by President Barack Obama (right) to the Su- of color affect our decisions.” Discussing the preme Court, at the White House.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

U.S. President Barack Obama May 26 nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by outgoing Associate Justice David H. Souter, who had submitted his resignation in early May. Sotomayor, a member of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, would be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court if confirmed by the Senate, as well as the third female justice in the court’s history. [See p. 301A1; for facts on Sotomayor, see p. 350A1] Obama, appearing with Sotomayor and Vice President Joseph Biden at a White House press conference, May 26 praised Sotomayor for her “rigorous intellect” and “mastery of the law,” while also drawing attention to her life story, which he described as “inspiring.” He highlighted the “extraordinary journey” she had made, from a humble upbringing in the New York City borough of the Bronx to an Ivy League education, and eventually a judgeship on a federal court. Obama said Sotomayor’s experience had granted her “an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.” He added that Sotomayor had shown “that it doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like or what challenges life throws your way—no dream is beyond reach in the United States of America.” Sotomayor, 54, who was of Puerto Rican descent, that day echoed some of Obama’s comments, saying, “I strive never to forget the real-world consequences of my decision on individuals, businesses and government.” If confirmed, she would be the Supreme Court’s 111th justice. Obama had said he wanted to see his nominee confirmed before the court began its 2009–10 term in October. Sotomayor had worked as a private attorney and a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office in New York City’s Manhattan borough. In 1991, Republican President George H.W. Bush nominated her to be a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1992. In 1997, Democratic Presi-

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3571 May 28, 2009

B court’s record in addressing race and sex discrimination, she added, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” At a 2005 conference at Duke University in North Carolina, she had been quoted as saying the appellate court circuit was “where policy is made,” while quickly acknowledging that that might be a controversial sentiment. Critics said the statement was an admission that Sotomayor would use her position on the Supreme Court to push a political agenda. White House officials dismissed the charge, saying Sotomayor was merely stating that appellate courts had greater influence in interpreting laws than district courts. However, observers said initial opposition from Republican senators was relative-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama nominates New York Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor to fill Supreme Court opening; nominee would be first Hispanic justice. PAGE 349

North Korea conducts second nuclear test, fires missiles. PAGE 350

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Swine flu virus confirmed in 48 countries. PAGE 351

California court upholds gay marriage ban. PAGE 352

Credit-card reform bill signed. PAGE 354

Nigerian rebels declare ‘war’ in oil region. PAGE 358

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Mexican government officials arrested in drug crackdown. PAGE 359

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi testifies in trial. PAGE 359

Former South Korean President Roh commits suicide. PAGE 360

Iran tests missile capable of reaching Israel, Europe. PAGE 361

Sri Lanka rebels confirm leader’s death. PAGE 363

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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FACTS ON SOTOMAYOR

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Sonia Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in New York City, after her parents emigrated from Puerto Rico. She was raised in a public housing project in the city’s Bronx borough. At age eight, she was diagnosed with diabetes. At age nine, her father, a factory worker, died. Sotomayor was largely raised by her mother, Celina Sotomayor, a nurse. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976. In 1979, she graduated from Yale Law School, where she was the editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1979 to 1984, Sotomayor was a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office in the New York City borough of Manhattan. In 1984, she joined the private law firm Pavia & Harcourt LLP.

ly muted, in what was seen as an effort not to alienate Hispanic voters. Hispanics comprised the largest minority in the country, and were its fastest-growing demographic group. Republicans had steadily lost Hispanic support in recent years—largely due to the tough anti–illegal immigration stance of many of the party’s members—and it was widely acknowledged that Republicans would have to attract Hispanic voters to compete successfully in national elections. Observers said that even a spirited opposition from Republicans would have difficulty derailing Sotomayor’s confirmation. There were currently 59 senators in the Democratic caucus, and possibly a 60th pending the outcome of an election dispute in Minnesota, where Democrat Al Franken had a slim lead over Republican Norm Coleman. With 60 votes, the Democrats could overcome a potential Republican filibuster. Sessions May 27 said, “I don’t sense a filibuster in the works.” In Sotmayor’s 1998 confirmation vote for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 29 Republicans had voted against her, while 25 had voted in her favor. Of those who were members of the current Senate, 11 had voted against her, and nine for her, including Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who had since become a Democrat. [See p. 284A2] Sotomayor an Early Front-runner—

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Sotomayor had been high on the list of reported contenders from the day Souter retired. She met Obama for the first time May 21 at the White House, where she reportedly spoke with the president for about one hour, and was interviewed by other officials for several more hours. White House officials said Obama informed Sotomayor of his decision May 25. The Obama administration reportedly investigated suggestions that Sotomayor’s demeanor on the bench could be overly aggressive and temperamental. Her supporters said she was a vigorous questioner and possessed a powerful presence, but that those qualities showed her dedication and intelligence, and were admired by colleagues and lawyers. The Obama administration reportedly concluded that her personal approach to jurisprudence would not be a problem on the court. According to the White House, Sotomayor had been part of a group of four fi-

In 1991, Republican President George H.W. Bush nominated her to be a federal judge for the Southern District of New York, and she was confirmed by the Senate in 1992. Among her highest-profile rulings was one, in favor of the Major League Baseball players’ union, that helped end a 1994–95 strike. [See 1995, p. 259C2] In 1997, Democratic President Bill Clinton nominated her to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, and she was confirmed in 1998. President Barack Obama May 26 nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court, making Sotomayor the first Hispanic nominee in the court’s history. If confirmed, she would be the third woman to serve on the court. [See p. 349A1] Sotomayor had married once, but was divorced and had no children.

nalists, all of whom were women. That was in keeping with reports that Obama was intent on addressing the gender imbalance on the current court, which had only one woman, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Besides Sotomayor, the finalists were Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Judge Diane Wood of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Past Cases Examined—In an abortionrelated case, Sotomayor in 2002 wrote a majority opinion for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the U.S.’s policy of barring foreign family-planning organizations from using U.S. funds to carry out or support abortions. Sotomayor wrote that the administration of then-President George W. Bush was “free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice decision” when it came to allocating public funds. Sotomayor in 2008 was part of a threejudge panel of the appellate court that ruled that the city of New Haven, Conn., had been within its rights to nullify the results of a firefighter promotion test, after no blacks did well enough to qualify for a promotion. The panel’s unsigned opinion cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which held that tests that led to such markedly different results between races were unlawful. An appeal of the decision had been accepted by the Supreme Court, and its ruling was due to be released by the end of the court’s term in June. [See p. 48C2] Sotomayor had briefly risen to national prominence in 1995, when as a U.S. District Court judge she ruled that Major League Baseball (MLB) team owners could not unilaterally change the profession’s salary and free agency rules without consulting the players’ union. The decision led to the end of a nationwide baseball players’ strike that had lasted nearly a year. [See 1995, p. 259C2] Observers said her record on business issues was mixed, and that she could not be broadly labeled as business-friendly or antibusiness, since she appeared to take a case-by-case approach to business questions. In 2006, she allowed class-action lawsuits filed against investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. But later that year, she helped reject a securities-fraud class action against the same company. n

North Korea Conducts Second Nuclear Test, Fires Missiles U.N. Security Council Issues Condemnation.

North Korea May 25 announced that it had “successfully conducted” its second nuclear test, saying the test exceeded the first one, conducted in October 2006, in terms of “explosive power and technology.” Foreign monitoring stations confirmed a seismic event in northeastern North Korea consistent with a nuclear explosion, resulting in varying estimates of the size of the tested weapon. The United Nations Security Council later May 25 issued a statement condemning the test. [See below, p. 238G3; 2006, p. 777A1] South Korean news media May 25 reported that North Korea had also test-fired as many as three short-range missiles shortly after the test, and up to three more missiles were reportedly fired the following day. The nuclear test culminated the disintegration of long-running talks on the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program, conducted between it and the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. After the 2006 test, the talks had been revived, leading to a February 2007 agreement. However, in late 2008, a dispute between North Korea and the U.S. over verifying North Korea’s compliance with the agreement had stalled its implementation. Also, North Korea’s relations with South Korea had soured since South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2008. North Korea in April had test-fired a rocket, which the Security Council condemned as an illicit missile test. North Korea in response declared its withdrawal from the six-nation talks and the resumption of its nuclear program, and issued further threats.

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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The latest round of belligerent North Korean rhetoric and gestures was seen in part as a bid for the attention of the new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama. North Korea was currently planning to try two U.S. journalists arrested on its border with China. [See p. 360E2] The events also took place against a backdrop of uncertainty about North Korea’s own leadership. Supreme leader Kim Jong Il was reported to have suffered a stroke in 2008, leading to speculation about the degree of his control over the country and the question of a successor. (South Korean news media April 27 had reported that Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un, had taken a job in the National Defense Commission, a powerful body that Kim chaired. The move was reported as evidence that the Kim Jong Un was being prepared to succeed his father.) Assessment of Blast—The U.S. Geological Survey May 25 reported that the tremor apparently caused by the test measured 4.7 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion, while the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, based in Vienna, Austria, put it at 4.5. It was centered on Kilju, North Korea, near the site of the 2006 test. North Korea had reportedly communicated its plan to carry out the test to the U.S. hours before it took place. It would reportedly take time to conclusively confirm that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test, by detecting radiation carried from the test site in air and water samples, and to arrive at an estimate of its magnitude. Russian officials May 25 suggested that the explosion had had a force of 10 to 20 kilotons. That would be comparable to the weapons the U.S. had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II, and a great advance over the 2006 test, which was estimated at one kiloton and not deemed an unqualified success. However, U.S. officials suggested that the Russian assessment overstated the power of the May 25 blast. South Korean news media May 27 reported that U.S. intelligence satellites had observed steam emissions from North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium-processing complex, suggesting that North Korea had restarted the facility as it had claimed. North Korea was believed to have somewhere between six and 12 nuclear devices, but was thought to still lack the ability to fashion them into warheads that could be carried by its missiles. International Condemnation—The test was roundly denounced by North Korea’s five counterparts in the nuclear talks, as well as other countries. The Security Council May 25 unanimously approved a statement condemning the nuclear test as a violation of a council resolution passed in 2006, after the previous test, forbidding North Korea from conducting another one. Members said they would soon formulate a resolution—a stronger grade of council action—and consider new sanctions against the country. The two council members who frequently opposed calls by the U.S. and its May 28, 2009

allies for firm action against North Korea—Russia and, particularly, China— both immediately joined the unequivocal denunciation of the test, suggesting that a resolution would be adopted more quickly than had been the case after the April rocket launch. China May 25 issued a statement declaring that it was “resolutely opposed” to North Korea’s nuclear test, and Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, also voiced strong disapproval. U.S. President Barack Obama called the test “a great threat to the peace and security of the world,” denouncing it for “directly and recklessly challenging the international community” and calling for a united international response. He reportedly reiterated the U.S.’s commitment to defend its allies Japan and South Korea, in telephone conversations with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee. U.S. officials said they did not consider the test to have spelled the definitive failure of the six-way talks, and urged North Korea to return to the process. War With South Threatened—South Korea May 26 announced that it was joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, an multinational program to interdict shipments of banned weapons that was seen as aimed principally at North Korea. In keeping with its previous warnings that it would consider such a move an “act of war,” North Korea May 27 said it would attack South Korea if Proliferation Security Initiative forces attempted to halt or search its ships. North Korea also declared that it would no longer be bound by the 1953 armistice that had halted the Korean War, which had never been formally ended with a peace treaty. It warned that it could “not guarantee the safe navigation” of U.S. or South Korean ships along its disputed western sea border with South Korea. The South Korean military and the U.S. forces stationed in South Korea May 28 raised their Watch Condition alert to level two, the second-highest, from level 3. The alert had last been raised to level 2 after the 2006 test. In Japan, which was within range of North Korea’s mid-range missile arsenal, the test prompted new discussion of developing the capability to preemptively strike at its missile installations. n

Swine Flu Virus Confirmed in 48 Countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) May 27 said laboratory tests had confirmed the A (H1N1) swine flu virus in 13,398 people in 48 countries, and reported 95 deaths linked to the disease. The U.S. had reported 6,764 cases of the disease, the highest of any country, and had linked 10 deaths to the virus. Mexico had the highest number of fatalities linked to the swine flu, with 83, and had reported 4,541 confirmed cases. Canada had reported 921 cases and one death, while Japan had detected 360 cases, none of which were linked to any deaths. [See p. 303C1] Over the past several weeks, the virus had continued to spread among countries in

the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific area, after having first been detected in U.S. cities near the Mexico border. Since that time, health officials said, the outbreak in Mexico, once considered the epicenter of the disease, had appeared to taper off, while continuing in other parts of the world. The Mexican federal health ministry May 22 said the country could resume normal activity, weeks after Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa had ordered a five-day shutdown of nonessential business and other activity in the country as part of efforts to stem the disease’s spread. However, the ministry encouraged residents to continue washing their hands and taking other actions to prevent the spread of the virus. Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebard the same day lowered its public health alert system from “yellow” to “green,” the system’s lowest level. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova May 13 said it appeared that fewer people in Mexico were contracting the virus, and that fatalities linked to it were unlikely to exceed 100. Despite initial fears that the virus had a high mortality rate, health officials were reporting that most confirmed cases of the disease were relatively mild. WHO Director General Margaret Chan in a speech May 18 referred to the apparent low lethality of the new virus strain as a “grace period.” She warned that there remained significant concern that the swine flu virus could become more deadly after mixing with older strains of flu virus circulating in humans during the flu season that was about to begin in the Southern Hemisphere. WHO to Alter Pandemic Categories—Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s deputy director general, May 22 said the organization would rewrite the rules governing its global health alert system to account for the potential risk to humans posed by a disease outbreak. The move increased the likelihood that the swine flu outbreak would never be declared a pandemic. Under the current system, designed in 2005 during the initial stages of the H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu) virus—which had a mortality rate of about 60%—there were six “phases” or categories. Those levels reflected the extent of transmission in an outbreak, and did not account for a disease’s lethality. The WHO in a relatively short period of several days in April had raised the alert level to four, and then again to five. However, despite the fact that the outbreak appeared to meet the criteria for a phase six designation, which reflected ongoing infection in two geographically distinct areas of the world, the WHO had not raised the alert level. Several WHO officials disputed that the swine flu outbreak met the level six criteria. Fukuda said the details of the new alert system had not been worked out, but that its highest level would reflect “substantial risk of harm to people.” The WHO had made the announcement after coming under pressure from several countries to clarify the criteria for a phase six declaration, a move that would require wealthier countries to provide 351

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drugs, vaccines, detection equipment and other aid to poorer countries. Japan Ratchets Up Flu Response— Japan’s education ministry May 20 said it had ordered about 4,500 schools to shut after the tally of confirmed swine flu infections jumped by more than 200 in less than two weeks. Japanese health officials May 10 had reported four cases of the disease, the country’s first. However, that tally increased to 234 by May 20. Japanese Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe May 20 said the country would shift its response to focus on containing the outbreak, from efforts geared toward preventing the virus from entering the country. Japan May 26 said it had eased its response after finding most of the flu cases to be mild, and linking no deaths to the outbreak. Among the measures ended were tighter visa restrictions on Mexicans seeking entry to Japan, and quarantine checks on airplane flights originating in North America. U.S. Allocates $1 Billion for Vaccine—

U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius May 22 said the U.S. government would provide $1 billion to fund the development and production of a swine flu vaccine. U.S. health officials said three companies—Sanofi-Aventis SA, Novartis AG and GlaxoSmithKline PLC— were being asked to produce enough swine flu vaccine to treat 20 million health care workers, emergency responders and members of the armed forces, among others. Anne Schuchat, the interim director for science and public health for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), May 26 said the swine flu outbreak in the U.S. might have peaked, except in New York, New Jersey and the New England region. Daniel Jernigan, the CDC’s head of flu epidemiology, May 15 said the number of people in the U.S. infected with swine flu might be “upwards of 100,000.” Jernigan said the number of laboratoryconfirmed cases of the disease did not fully account for the large estimate of people who had suffered a mild case of the swine flu and therefore had not been tested for it. Other News—In other swine flu news: o Jernigan May 20 said people born before 1957 appeared to have greater immunity to the swine flu than those born after it. Jernigan said a study of blood tests revealed that those born before 1957, when a new dominant strain of seasonal flu had emerged, were more likely to contain antibodies that attacked the swine flu virus. Officials said the tests implied that older people had been exposed to an earlier strain of virus that resembled the new virus. Less than 1% of swine flu cases had been found in people older than 65, while nearly twothirds of cases were detected in those aged between five and 24. o Fukuda May 14 rejected a claim made by retired Australian virologist Adrian Gibbs that the swine flu virus had resulted from a laboratory accident. Gibbs in an interview said genetic sequences from the swine flu posted on public databases bore signs of being grown in eggs, a method used 352

in laboratories. Fukuda said a group of experts from WHO had examined Gibbs’s claims and found no basis for them. n

AIDS News in Brief. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer Inc. of the U.S. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC of Britain April 16 announced that they would merge the HIV drug units of their companies to form a new business to develop treatments for the virus. The new company would own 11 HIV drugs and control about 19% of the HIV drug market. Under the agreement, Glaxo would control 85% of the new entity and Pfizer the remaining 15%. Analysts said the merger would save costs, and was the first instance of two companies forming a joint venture on a broad class of drugs, rather than a single medicine. The deal was expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009. [See p. 150G3] The World Health Organization (WHO) March 24 reported that 1.4 million of the 9.3 million people diagnosed worldwide with tuberculosis (TB) in 2007 also had HIV. The HIV infection figure was twice as high as had previously been estimated. The new data did not represent an increase in the number of people with TB and HIV, but reflected improved TB detection methods. HIV sped up the progress of TB, which was the number-one cause of death in AIDS patients. [See 2008, p. 161C2] n

Other International News U.S. Deports Alleged Nazi Guard to Germany.

The U.S. May 11 deported Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, 89, who had allegedly served as a Nazi concentration camp guard during World War II, to Germany. Upon arrival in Munich May 12, he was formally charged with being an accessory to the murder of some 29,000 Jews and other prisoners in 1943 at the Sobibor death camp in eastern Poland. His lawyers challenged Germany’s jurisdiction over the case. [See p. 239B3] Demjanjuk would undergo medical tests to determine whether he was fit to stand trial. Prison doctors May 13 said he was healthy enough to remain in custody. His family claimed that he suffered from an array of ailments that made his deportation inhumane. The U.S. Supreme Court May 7 had rejected without comment his final appeal to block his deportation. Demjanjuk had lived near Cleveland, Ohio, since immigrating to the U.S. in 1952. He had been extradited to Israel for trial in 1986, and convicted and sentenced to death in 1988. But he was acquitted on appeal in 1993 and returned to the U.S. U.S. authorities said they lacked jurisdiction to prosecute Demjanjuk, but his citizenship was stripped because he had allegedly made false statements on immigration forms to conceal his war record. If his case went to trial, it could be the last major prosecution for World War II– era Nazi crimes. Although Nazi hunters continued to pursue other suspected war criminals, their advancing age made capture and trial increasingly unlikely. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Civil Rights California Court Upholds Gay Marriage Ban.

The California Supreme Court May 26 ruled, 6–1, to uphold a ballot initiative passed in November 2008 that amended the state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The initiative, Proposition 8, had nullified a May 2008 ruling by the California Supreme Court which found that denying same-sex couples the right to wed was a violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. Opponents of Proposition 8 had challenged it, arguing that it was a substantial “revision” to the state constitution, and therefore required the approval of at least two-thirds of the legislature. [See pp. 304A1, 149C3] Chief Justice Ronald George, writing the 136-page majority opinion, found that the initiative was a limited amendment to the constitution, and not a revision, and did not “entirely repeal or abrogate” all protections available to same-sex couples. George wrote that Proposition 8 “carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term ‘marriage’ for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law.” George noted in his opinion that same-sex couples were still able to enter into domestic partnerships in California that carried all the legal benefits and protections of marriage. The court also ruled that the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that had taken place between its May 2008 ruling allowing gay marriage and the November 2008 vote could stand, as Proposition 8 had not included language making its provisions retroactive. In his opinion, George wrote that the nullification of those marriages would be like “throwing property rights into disarray, destroying the legal interests and expectations of thousands of couples and their families and potentially undermining the ability of citizens to plan their lives according to the law.” Justice Carlos Moreno, in the dissenting opinion, wrote that the court’s ruling was a defeat for “any minority group that seeks the protection of the equal protection clause of the California constitution.” He added, “It places at risk the state constitutional rights of all disfavored minorities.” Protests Held—Soon after the court issued its ruling, protests against Proposition 8 were held in cities across California. An estimated 1,500–2,000 protesters gathered in West Hollywood in Los Angeles County. In San Francisco, around 175 people were arrested after blocking an intersection near City Hall. Protests were reported in cities around the U.S., including New York, Chicago and Boston, Mass. New Ballot Initiative Planned—Marc Soloman, the marriage director of gay rights group Equality California, May 26 said his organization planned to wage a campaign to overturn Proposition 8 by means of another voter initiative in November 2010. FACTS ON FILE

Kenneth Starr, the Pepperdine University Law School dean and former independent counsel who defended Proposition 8 before the state Supreme Court, May 26 called the ruling “a ringing judicial affirmation” of California’s constitutional system and its allowance for voters to amend the constitution through the ballot box. Separately, two prominent lawyers May 27 announced that they had filed a lawsuit May 22 on behalf of two California gay couples in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming that Proposition 8 violated their rights to equal treatment and due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The lawyers were David Boies and Theodore Olson, who had argued on opposite sides of Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court case that had decided the 2000 presidential election. [See 2000, p. 949A1] A coalition of gay rights groups May 27 criticized the lawsuit, arguing that it had the potential to significantly set back the gay marriage movement should the case reach the U.S. Supreme Court and result in a ruling against the couples there. The coalition said the establishment of gay marriage was better won through state legislatures. N.H. Governor Requests Bill Revisions—

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) May 14 said he would sign a recently cleared bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state if it were revised to exempt religious groups and their employees from having to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies. Lynch had previously stated a personal belief that marriage was an institution between a man and a woman, but had remained silent on whether he would sign the bill. The passed version of the bill had included a provision exempting clergy from having to perform gay marriages, a move intended to protect religious institutions against lawsuits. [See p. 304E1] The approved bill had been withheld from presentation to Lynch by the Senate leadership. If delivered, Lynch would have five days to either sign or veto the bill. If he did neither after five days, the bill would become law. The withholding of the bill prevented the triggering of the five-day consideration period. However, the New Hampshire House of Representatives May 20 voted, 188–186, against amending the bill to incorporate Lynch’s requests. The House then voted to return the bill to committee for additional consideration. Members of the state Senate May 27 agreed to create a negotiating team to develop a compromise on the bill’s language with the House. New York Assembly Passes Bill— The New York State Assembly May 12 approved, 89–52, a bill to legalize gay marriage in the state. In a sign of changing sentiment on the issue within the Assembly, several members who had voted against a similar measure in 2007 changed their votes. New York Gov. David Paterson (D) May 17 called on the state Senate to bring the bill to a floor vote. Paterson, a strong advocate of gay rights, had submitted the May 28, 2009

bill. The state Senate’s 2009 legislative session was scheduled to end on June 22. [See p. 266B2] n

Politics Powell Takes On Cheney Over GOP Aims.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell May 24 responded to recent criticism from former Vice President Dick Cheney and others by reaffirming that he was still a Republican and arguing that the party could not reject moderates like himself if it hoped to have success in the future. In a television interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Powell warned, “If we don’t reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base.” [See pp. 284A2, 166B2] An internal debate over the GOP’s direction had intensified after the party’s losses in the November 2008 elections left Democrats in control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Some Republican leaders argued that staunchly standing for conservative principles was the best way to regroup, while others warned that voters would continue to leave the party unless it became more welcoming to moderates. Republicans faced a related dilemma after President Barack Obama May 26 named as his first Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York City. Conservative groups opposed her, but Republican senators risked damaging the party’s ties with Hispanics if they voted against the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee. [See p. 349A1] In late April, one prominent Republican moderate, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), had defected to the Democrats. He declared that the GOP had moved too far to the right, leaving him without hope of winning a primary election in his bid for reelection in 2010. Powell urged Republicans to have a “candid” debate over the party’s direction, in order to “define who we are, and not just listen to the diktats that have come down from the right wing of the party.” Cheney in a May 10 interview on “Face the Nation” had been asked whether he preferred Powell’s brand of moderate Republicanism or the hard-line conservative views espoused by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. He replied, “Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think,” adding, “I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.” [See p. 146C2] Referring to Powell’s endorsement of Obama, the Democratic nominee, in the 2008 presidential election, Cheney said he had “assumed” that was “an indication of his loyalty and his interest.” [See 2008, p. 767C2] Limbaugh May 6 had said on his show, “What Colin Powell needs to do is close the loop and become a Democrat, instead of claiming to be a Republican interested in reforming the Republican Party.” Powell replied, “Rush will not get his wish,” adding, “Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican.” He had been a longtime registered independent,

but became a Republican in 1995, after retiring from military service, although he turned down appeals to run for the party’s 1996 presidential nomination. [See 1995, p. 836E2]

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Powell in his May 24 interview also said he supported Obama’s decision to close the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Cheney had repeatedly criticized that decision, most recently in a speech the previous week, as a reckless move. [See p. 337D2; 2007, p. 379G1] Powell said he had advised Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, to close Guantanamo, and that Bush wanted to do so. Powell said, “Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama’s policy. He’s disagreeing with President Bush’s policy. President Bush stated repeatedly to international audiences and to the country that he wanted to close Guantanamo. The problem he had was he couldn’t get all the pieces together.” However, Powell criticized Obama for announcing his intent to close Guantanamo before developing a detailed plan for dealing with the 240 remaining detainees at the prison. Another top Bush administration official, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, in an interview on CNN May 24 said he also supported Obama’s plan to close Guantanamo, and disagreed with Cheney’s assertions that Obama’s policies would put national security at risk. n

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Obama Administration Utah Gov. Huntsman Named China Envoy.

President Barack Obama May 16 announced his nomination of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) as ambassador to China. Huntsman, 49, had won a second term in 2008 with 78% of the vote, and had emerged as a leader of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. He had begun preparations to seek the party’s 2012 presidential nomination, and political commentators viewed the ambassadorial appointment as a move by Obama to sideline a potential rival. [See p. 309E2; 2008, p. 817D1] Huntsman had diplomatic experience in Republican administrations, having served as ambassador to Singapore under President George H.W. Bush and as deputy U.S. trade representative under President George W. Bush. Huntsman had learned to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan. One of his seven children was an adopted daughter from China. Huntsman was the son of billionaire philanthropist Jon Huntsman Sr., founder and chairman of one of the world’s largest chemicals companies, Huntsman Corp., based in Salt Lake City, Utah. [See 2008, p. 955G2] If Huntsman was confirmed as ambassador by the Senate, Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert (R) would take over as governor. Herbert was viewed as more of a conservative than Huntsman, who supported civil 353

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unions for gay couples, immigration reform and action to counter climate change. Huntsman had been national cochairman of the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election. In a White House appearance with Obama, Huntsman May 16 said he had not expected to be “called into action by the person who beat us,” adding, “But I grew up understanding that the most basic responsibility one has is service to country.” He said China was the U.S.’s “most important strategic bilateral relationship.” Obama had pledged a bipartisan approach to governing, and had two Republicans in his cabinet, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. But Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) had withdrawn his nomination as commerce secretary in February, citing irreconcilable policy differences with Obama. [See p. 79E2] Roemer Tapped as India Ambassador—

Obama May 27 nominated former Rep. Timothy Roemer (D, Ind.) as ambassador to India. Roemer had served on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known informally as the 9/11 Commission), which investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He had given an early endorsement to Obama’s presidential bid, during the Democratic primaries. Obama May 27 also announced nominations for a number of other top ambassadorial postings, including Japan, Britain and France; all three of those prestigious jobs went to top campaign contributors. [See 2004, p. 258E1] n Hamburg Confirmed as FDA Commissioner.

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The Senate May 18 confirmed Dr. Margaret Hamburg as the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by voice vote. She would take over an agency whose reputation had been damaged in recent years by a slew of regulatory failures in prescription drugs and food products. Hamburg, 53, said at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee May 13 that she wished to restore the FDA’s reputation and increase the transparency of its operations. She had served as an assistant Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary under President Bill Clinton, and as New York City’s health commissioner. Joshua Sharfstein, the former health commissioner of Baltimore, Md., became the FDA’s deputy commissioner. He was not subject to Senate confirmation. [See p. 182F1] n Obama Names Frieden to Head CDC. President Barack Obama May 15 appointed Thomas Frieden, New York City’s health commissioner since 2002 and a specialist in infectious diseases, as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Frieden, 48, would take over the CDC in the midst of a global scare over an outbreak of the H1N1 swine influenza virus. During his tenure in New York, the city had banned trans fats, which were linked to heart disease, from food that was served in restaurants. He was set to replace acting CDC Director Richard Besser in June. [See pp. 351F2, 65C1] n 354

Legislation Credit-Card Reform Bill Signed Into Law.

President Barack Obama May 22 signed into law a bill that curbed the ability of credit-card companies to raise interest rates and impose fees on customers. Despite opposition from the financial industry, the bill had received broad bipartisan support, with the Senate May 19 voting, 90–5, to pass it, and the House May 20 passing it by a vote of 361–64. The law was one of the Obama administration’s first attempts to reform the financial industry, which critics said had engaged in predatory lending practices in recent years. [See p. 305C1] Under the new rules, credit-card companies could not raise interest rates on existing balances unless a borrower was 60 days behind on a payment. If a borrower was 60 days late, but afterward kept up with payments for six straight months, the company would have to reduce the interest rate to its original level. Companies would have to notify borrowers 45 days in advance before raising interest rates. If a borrower with multiple balances paid above the minimum monthly requirement, the company would have to divert the excess amount to the balance with the highest interest rate. (Previously, companies could divert the excess to the lower-rate balance, allowing them to continue receiving larger payments at the higher rate.) The law limited the ability of companies to impose certain fees and fines. Companies had to make information they provided to consumers much clearer, a provision that came in reaction to public complaints that companies often buried important details in fine print, making them more difficult to find. The law also curbed the ability of companies to sell credit cards to consumers under the age of 21. Some of the rules in the credit-card bill had been introduced by the Federal Reserve in 2008. However, the Fed’s rules would not take effect until July 2010, while the legislation would take effect in February 2010. The financial industry remained opposed to the bill, saying interest-rate hikes were necessary to offset the risk of borrowers in danger of default. Industry representatives said the bill would lead companies to charge higher interest rates to new customers, restore annual fees and restrict reward programs, and lead to a general tightening of credit for consumers. Gun Amendment Included—The bill included an amendment allowing individuals to carry loaded, concealed weapons in national parks and wildlife refuges, as long as it was allowed by state law. The amendment had been introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.), who said May 19, “Visitors to national parks should have the right to defend themselves in accordance with the laws of their states.” The Senate May 12 had voted, 67–29, to adopt the provision in its version of the credit-card bill. The amendment came in reaction to a March 19 decision by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of U.S. District Court in Wash-

ington, D.C., to issue an injunction blocking the government from implementing a similar Bush administration rule that took effect Jan. 9. House members were allowed to vote on the provision separately from the creditcard bill. It was approved May 20 in a 279– 147 vote. Gun-control advocates in the House voiced dismay that the provision was included in an unrelated bill that enjoyed broad political support. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D, N.Y.) that day said, “I am incredibly disappointed that this wellmeaning bill has been hijacked and used as a political tool ramming a provision down the throats of Americans.” Obama

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Obama May 20 signed into law a bill that would expand the federal government’s efforts to prevent foreclosures and buoy the slumping housing market. The law eased requirements for a $300 billion program known as Hope for Homeowners, which was designed to help homeowners with high mortgage interest rate payments switch to 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration. The Senate had passed the bill in early May, and the House May 19 voted, 367–54, to pass it with minimal changes. The Senate cleared the final version by voice vote that day. [See p. 319A3] The law also increased the borrowing authority of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to $100 billion, from $30 billion, and would allow a temporary increase to $500 billion through 2010 if necessary. The FDIC had said the increase was necessary because its resources had dwindled in the past year due to a series of bank failures. The law also extended through the end of 2013 the FDIC’s authority to insure individual customer bank deposits of up to $250,000 in the case of a bank failure. In 2008, the deposit insurance limit had been temporarily increased to $250,000, from $100,000, through 2009. n Defense Procurement Overhaul Enacted.

The Senate May 20 and the House May 21 passed a revised version of a bill that would reform the Defense Department’s system for procuring weapons and equipment. The Senate vote was 95–0, while the House vote was 411–0. President Barack Obama May 22 signed the bill; he had originally set a May 25 deadline for its passage. The bill was meant to cut down on massive cost overruns and delays that plagued the development of major weapons systems. [See p. 320A3] The Senate May 7 had approved, 93–0, an initial draft of the bill, while the House May 13 had passed its version, 428–0. A deal to reconcile the two had been reached May 19. The revised bill adopted a measure from the Senate version that would create a new independent post of director of cost assessment and program evaluation, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, who would report to the secretary of defense. The new official would take over the responsibilities and staff of existing auditors. The bill also required reFACTS ON FILE

views if the cost of programs increased by more than 25% prior to certain milestones, and called for measures to reduce conflicts of interest and increase competition. Obama in signing the bill cited a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report saying that overruns among the 96 largest projects had cost taxpayers $295 billion in 2008, and said, “At a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, this is inexcusable and unconscionable.” n AmeriCorps Expansion Bill Signed. President Barack Obama April 21 signed a bill that would triple the size of the AmeriCorps volunteer community service program to 250,000 positions, from 75,000, over the next eight years, authorizing $5.7 billion in funding. It would increase the education stipend for volunteers to $5,350, the same as the federal Pell Grants awarded to needy college students. [See 2002, p. 90F3; 1993, p. 725G1] The legislation was named the Senator Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in honor of the Massachusetts Democrat, its chief sponsor. Kennedy, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008, was on hand for the signing ceremony at the SEED School for troubled youths in Washington, D.C., as was former President Bill Clinton, who created AmeriCorps in 1993. The Senate March 26 had passed the bill by a vote of 78 to 20. The House March 31 cleared it by a vote of 275 to 149. n

Fiscal 2009 Spending Bills Senate Passes Supplemental War Funds.

The Senate May 21 voted, 83–3, to pass a supplemental spending bill that would provide $91.3 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other international programs for the remainder of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30. The House the previous week had approved a $96.7 billion version of the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) said the bills would be reconciled shortly after Congress returned from its May 23–31 recess. [See p. 338D1] In addition to funding military operations, the bill included $6.9 billion for foreign aid and $1.5 billion for preparations for influenza pandemics. The Senate the previous day had voted to strip the bill of $80 million in funds to close the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Senate legislation did not include $3.1 billion that the House had allocated for purchasing military aircraft. The Senate bill included $5 billion not in the House legislation for boosting the lending capacity of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Senate May 21 had rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R, S.C.) to strip those funds, after Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D, Mass.) and Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) argued that they were vital to stabilizing the world financial system and protecting the U.S. economy. May 28, 2009

The Senate did approve an amendment exempting pictures showing alleged prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits demanding their release. Another amendment called for the Obama administration to clearly state its objectives for operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan and benchmarks for achieving them. The bill provided Pakistan with $400 million in emergency military aid. [See pp. 330G3, 315A3] An amendment put forward by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Texas) that would have blocked government bailout funding for bankrupt automaker Chrysler LLC if it did not give its dealerships at least 60 days to close down—rather than the current deadline of June 9—was ruled not germane. [See p. 282C2] n

Defense Obama Gives Memorial Day Speech. President Barack Obama May 25 observed Memorial Day, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., and laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. In his speech, he honored soldiers who “felt some tug; they answered a call; they said, ‘I’ll go.’” Obama added that although he had not served in the military or lost a child in battle, “I do know this: I am humbled to be the commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world.” [See 2008, p. 358A1] For the first time, Obama sent a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C., which commemorated the more than 200,000 blacks who had fought for the Union during the Civil War. However, he also continued a tradition of sending a wreath to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. A group of college professors had petitioned Obama to cease the latter practice, which they said gave “encouragement to the modern neo-Confederate movement.” n

Economy Consumer Prices Flat in April. The

Labor Department May 15 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices paid for Inflation (CPI) consumer goods 2009 0.0% by all urban April Previous Month -0.1% consumers, re- 12-Month Increase -0.7% mained unchanged in April, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after falling 0.1% in March. For the 12-month period through April, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was -0.7%, the fastest annual rate that prices had dropped since June 1955. The yearly decline was attributed to a 25% fall in the price of energy, as an ongoing recession led to depressed demand for gasoline and other petroleum products. [See p. 240G2] Energy prices fell 2.4% in April. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.3% in April, although 40% of that rise was due to a tax increase on tobacco products. For the 12-

month period through April, core consumer prices climbed 1.9%. [See p. 357B1] n Industrial Production Fell 0.5% in April.

The Federal Reserve May 15 reported that its industrial production index decreased 0.5% in April, the fifteenth time the index had dropped in 16 months. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 1.7% in March. The overall index now stood at 97.1% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 97.6% for March. Manufacturing production fell 0.3% in April. The output of utilities rose 0.4%, and mining output fell 3.2%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 69.1% of their total capacity in April. [See p. 241D1] n Producer Prices Rose 0.3% in April. The Labor Department May 14 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in April rose 0.3% after seasonal adjustment. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, rose 0.1% in April. Energy prices fell 0.1%. [See p. 240D3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 169.9% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $169.90 in April. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods dropped 0.5% in April, and prices for crude goods climbed 3.0%. n Consumer Confidence Rose in May. The Conference Board business research group May 26 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 54.9 in May, up dramatically from a revised 40.8 in April, and reaching its highest level since September 2008. However, while the report indicated that confidence in the slumping economy was increasing, analysts warned that the index remained at a relatively low level. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 292B1] n Housing Starts Fell 12.8% in April. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) May 19 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in April was 458,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was down 12.8% from the March revised rate of 525,000, indicating that the housing market remained in a deep slump. However, analysts noted that the decline came as a result of a drop in multifamily housing starts, such as apartment buildings, while singlefamily housing starts increased 2.8% in April, suggesting some improvement in the market. [See p. 292C1] Building permits were issued in April at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 494,000 units, 3.3% below March’s revised rate of 511,000. n Retail Sales Fell 0.4% in April. The Commerce Department May 13 reported that the value of retail sales in April was $337.7 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 0.4% below the revised figure for March, and indicated that an ongoing recession was still taking a toll on consumer spending, which accounted for more than two355

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thirds of gross domestic product (GDP). [See p. 240B3] n Business Inventories Down 1.0% in March.

The Commerce Department May 13 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of March was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.0% from the revised value at the end of February. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.28. [See p. 292A2] n

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Leading Indicators Rose 1.0% in April.

The Conference Board business research organization May 21 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 1.0% in April, to 99.0. Based on revised data, the index had decreased 0.2%, in March, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 264D3] Seven of the 10 indicators in April were “positive” contributors, led by stock prices and interest rate spread. Three indicators— led by real money supply and building permits—were “negative.” n

Prisons California Prison Population Capped. A spe-

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cial three-judge federal panel in San Francisco, Calif., March 2 tentatively ruled that California’s failure to provide adequate health care and psychiatric resources to state prisoners constituted a violation of the prisoners’ constitutional rights, and found that the failure had been caused by overcrowding within the state’s prison system. The panel also tentatively ordered the state to reduce its prison population by up to 55,000 people over the next three years, after finding such reductions were necessary to elevate prison health care standards to levels that would not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. [See 2008, p. 961G2] The panel said it would set down a final ruling in the future, but had “decided to make this tentative ruling in order to give the parties notice of the likely nature of that opinion, and to allow them to plan accordingly.” The judges said they expected to order California’s government to cap the number of prisoners in the state at 120%–145% of the intended capacity of the state’s prisons. California currently imprisoned more than 159,000 people in facilities designed to hold fewer than 100,000. The panel recommended that the state shorten sentences, transfer nonviolent inmates to non-prison facilities and reward prisoners with time off their sentences for demonstrated good behavior. The panel estimated that decreasing the number of prisoners would save the state more than $800 million per year. It cited previously announced plans by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to reduce the number of inmates in the state prison system by 40,000 as evidence that the proposed prisoner cap would not endanger public safety. 356

Prison Receiver Retained— California Attorney General Edmund (Jerry) Brown Jan. 28 filed a motion in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that called for the removal of a court-appointed officer tasked with improving health care in California’s prisons. Brown’s filing argued that the official, J. Clark Kelso, had overstepped his authority by attempting to force the state to pay $8 billion to construct new health care facilities for its prisoners and that the position was no longer necessary. The state’s prison health care system had been put into receivership in 2005 by Judge Thelton Henderson, one of the members of the three-judge panel, after he found that inadequacies in the system were resulting in the deaths of at least 50 prisoners per year. Critics argued that his plans would worsen the state’s budget deficit. [See p. 340G1] Henderson March 24 rejected Brown’s request and wrote in his ruling that “the court is far from confident” that the state government had “the will, capacity, or leadership to provide constitutionally adequate medical care in the absence of receivership.” n

Environment W.R. Grace Acquitted in Asbestos Trial. A

jury in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., May 8 acquitted chemical company W.R. Grace & Co. and three of its executives on charges of hiding the threat of asbestos contamination from the residents of Libby, Mont., the site of a company-owned mine. Prosecutors had alleged that Grace executives knew as early as the 1970s the mining of the mineral vermiculite had created dust contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos, but had conspired to hide that information. The company closed the mine in 1990. Thousands of illnesses and some 200 deaths in Libby were attributed to asbestos exposure, which was known to cause lung cancer and other diseases, including asbestosis. [See 2008, p. 239C3] The trial had begun Feb. 19. Former executives Henry Eschenbach, Jack Wolter, William McCaig, Robert Bettachi and Robert Walsh had originally faced charges of wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Clean Air Act. (However, Molly dismissed all charges against Walsh April 27 and McCaig April 30.) Grace in 2008 had agreed to pay a $250 million settlement to clean up the town. The company in 2001 had filed for bankruptcy due to hundreds of millions of dollars made in asbestos claims, most unrelated to the Libby case, filed against it. Defense lawyers April 23 filed a request for Judge Donald Molloy to dismiss the charges, arguing that prosecutors had engaged in “repeated and intentional” misconduct. They argued that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that would aid the defense’s case. Molloy April 23 had thrown out several of the prosecutor’s evidence exhibits, saying he suspected they would “argue misleading inferences.”

Molloy during the trial had also questioned the testimony of former Grace executive Robert Locke, a main prosecution witness, describing him as a “liar” April 17. Defense lawyers argued that Locke had received an implicit promise that he would not face criminal trial, and that the jury was not informed of that. However, Molloy April 28 said he would not exclude Locke’s testimony. n News in Brief. The U.S. Forest Service May 1 said it had issued an order the previous week to close caves in 20 northern states in order to control the spread of a fungus thought to have killed 500,000 bats. The agency May 21 issued a second order closing caves in 13 other states in the Southeast. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service March 26 had asked people to voluntarily stay out of caves in 17 states in order to control the fungus. It was unknown how the fungus was contributing to the bats’ deaths. The outbreak was also known as “white nose syndrome.” [See 2007, p. 652G2] Interior Secretary Ken Salazar April 27 said his department would seek a court order overturning a last-minute rule from the administration of former President George W. Bush that allowed mining waste to be dumped in valley streams and rivers. Salazar said the rule was “legally defective.” If the regulation was nullified by a court, it would allow the Interior Department to put a new rule in place more quickly than if it set out to rewrite the existing rule on its own. In December 2008, the Bush administration had issued a rule allowing mining companies to dump waste within 100 feet (30 m) of waterways in some circumstances, in conflict with a 1983 law prohibiting the practice. [See p. 267F2] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) April 15 said it would order the manufacturers of 67 chemicals used in pesticides to see if they disrupted the endocrine systems of humans or animals. The tests were scheduled to begin in the summer of 2009, and were due by the end of 2010. An EPA spokesman said 1,000 chemicals would eventually undergo such tests. [See 2008, p. 620D2] Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) April 1 said his state was being forced to dramatically cut back a plan to purchase 180,000 acres (72,900 hectares) of land from U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.34 billion in order to restore Florida’s Everglades region. Instead, Crist said the state government would pay $533 million for 72,500 acres of land, with a 10-year option to purchase the remaining land. Crist said the scaleback was necessary due to budget constraints caused by the economic downturn. [See 2008, p. 956D3] The fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill signed March 11 by President Barack Obama included a provision strengthening requirements for the reporting of toxic chemicals released into the environment by chemical manufacturers and other industries. The provision reversed a December 2006 rule easing reporting requirements of about 600 chemicals under the Toxics Release Inventory program. Under FACTS ON FILE

the new rule, which took effect immediately, about 3,500 entities would have to report their toxic emissions in much greater detail. [See p. 143F3; 2007, p. 825F3] The U.S. Bureau of Land Management March 2 said an offer from Madeleine Pickens, the wife of hedge fund billionaire T. Boone Pickens, to create a wild horse sanctuary in the Western U.S. was unfeasible. Pickens in November 2008 had offered to purchase about one million acres (405,000 hectares) of land, and relocate some 33,000 wild horses and burros spread across 10 states to the reserve. [See 2008, p. 939B1] n

Tobacco News in Brief. A federal tax increase on tobacco products took effect April 1. Federal

taxes on a pack of cigarettes rose to $1.01 per pack, from 39 cents, while the rate on loose tobacco climbed to $24.78 per pound, from $1.09. Taxes on cigars and smokeless tobacco were also raised. The new tax revenue was dedicated to funding the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP or CHIP), which provided health care to the children of poor families. The New York Times March 21 reported that at least 20 states were also considering raising tobacco taxes in order to deal with state budget shortfalls resulting from the economic crisis. [See p. 62C3] Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) March 9 signed into law a bill banning most smoking in bars and restaurants in Virginia. Under the law, patrons of such establishments were only allowed to smoke in rooms with a separate ventilating system. Outdoor areas and private clubs were exempted from the smoking ban. The Virginia House of Delegates Feb. 19 had voted, 60–39, to pass the bill. The state senate earlier that day also passed the measure, 27–13. The ban was considered notable because Virginia had been an important tobacco grower for 400 years, and the industry had long opposed such a move. [See 2006, p. 304B2] A jury in Broward Co. (Fla.) Circuit Court Feb. 18 awarded Elaine Hess, the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer, $8 million in damages from tobacco company Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group

Inc. The award consisted of $3 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Hess’s husband, Stuart Hess, had died in 1997 at the age of 55. It was the first time a plaintiff had won a tobacco lawsuit in the state since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion award in a class-action suit filed by smokers and their family members. Some 8,000 similar lawsuits were pending in Florida. [See 2006, p. 530C1] n

Accidents & Disasters NTSB Holds Hearing on Buffalo Plane Crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) May 12–14 conducted a public hearing on the crash of Colgan Air Inc. Flight 3407, which in February had crash landed on top of a house near Buffalo, N.Y., killing all 49 people aboard and one May 28, 2009

person on the ground. The NTSB criticized Manassas, Va.–based Colgan for paying employees low wages while expecting them to commute across the country to their base airports, and heard testimony affirming that tired pilots were likely to have difficulty concentrating. [See p. 95B2] Both the pilot and copilot of the downed plane had worked out of Newark, N.J., but lived elsewhere. The NTSB May 13 said copilot Rebecca Shaw, 24, who Colgan paid about $16,200 per year, had commuted the day of the flight from her home in Seattle, Wash., to Newark on a “red-eye,” or latenight flight, and had caught a connecting flight at dawn in Memphis, Tenn. The pilot, Marvin Renslow, 47, had arrived in Newark days before the flight, but was seen sleeping in Colgan’s Newark crew lounge prior to its departure, in violation of the company’s rules. Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the NTSB, May 13 said Colgan, by allowing those practices, was effectively “winking and nodding” at safety standards. Kathryn Higgins, another NTSB board member, said commuting practices by Colgan employees “are a recipe for an accident and that’s what we have here.” The board said it was still investigating how fatigue might have affected the pilots. Pilots Violated Federal Rules—The board May 12 released transcripts of the pilots’ conversation prior to the crash, which indicated that they had been chatting as the plane was preparing to land, a violation of federal rules that banned unnecessary conversation below 10,000 feet (3,048 m). Shaw had been discussing her lack of experience with ice buildup on airplanes, which was occurring as the pilots talked. Renslow had responded by describing his experiences flying with ice buildup. Safety experts May 14 told the board that the pilots appeared not to understand the severity of their situation. The pilots had apparently failed to notice a dangerous deceleration as they prepared to land at the Buffalo airport. The plane’s automatic emergency system then attempted to point the plane’s nose down in order to help it gain speed. However, Renslow manually fought the emergency system by pulling the control stick up, which caused the plane to roll and enter a sudden descent. Also, the Wall Street Journal May 11 reported that Renslow had failed a number of flight tests, and had never been taught how to respond to the airplane’s so-called stick-pusher warning system. (Colgan said it had not known about all the test failures because some had occurred before he was employed there, and he had lied about them on his application.) Colgan, which had maintained that it was in compliance with all safety regulations, said it was currently negotiating with its pilots’ union about working hours and commuting rules. A final NTSB report on the crash was expected in 2010. n News in Brief. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley March 26 announced two settlements connected to a 2006 tunnel ceiling collapse in Boston’s so-called Big

Dig underground highway project. Camp

Hill, Pa.–based Gannett Fleming, which had designed the tunnel’s ceiling, would pay $1.5 million to maintain the tunnels, pay $50,000 to the city of Boston and gave up its claim to a $150,000 payment owed by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. In the second settlement, Lyndhurst, N.J.–based Sika Corp., which made the epoxy glue used in the tunnel’s ceiling, would pay $200,000 for the tunnel’s upkeep. The settlements concluded the state’s legal proceedings related to the Big Dig ceiling collapse. [See 2008, p. 794F1] The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), at a March 3 hearing, said Robert Sanchez, the engineer of a California

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passenger train that had collided head-on with a freight train in 2008, killing 25 peo-

ple, had previously allowed at least one unauthorized person to sit “at the controls while the train was operating.” It also said a text message Sanchez sent from his mobile phone “indicated an offer for another unauthorized person to ride in the cab and operate the train the day of the accident.” The board concluded that “a significant issue in this accident is cellphone usage by train crews.” Investigators also said the train’s conductor had tested positive for marijuana use the day of the accident. The NTSB had previously found that Sanchez, who died in the crash, sent a text message 22 seconds before the collision. [See 2008, p. 794D1] n

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Other U.S. News Official Resigns Over NYC Flight Panic.

White House Military Office Director Louis Caldera May 8 resigned in connection with an unannounced midair photo shoot near New York City’s downtown financial district that led to the evacuations of thousands of workers in late April due to fears that it might be a terrorist attack. He had previously taken responsibility for the flight, which was approved by his office, and for the government’s failure to inform the public about it. [See p. 308C1] Also May 8, the White House released one of the photos taken during the incident—which featured the Statue of Liberty and one of the planes used to carry the president, which were known as Air Force One when the president was on board—as well as the results of an internal investigation into the incident. According to the White House report, planning for the flight had begun in March, and the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) April 3 agreed that the public would be informed about the planned flight on April 25, two days before the flight. However, after receiving the text of the FAA’s advisory, labeled “not intended for release,” the Air Force official who had informed local officials in New York about the flight had told them not to publicly discuss the flight unless specifically asked. Caldera had not been informed of the plan until April 20 and had not read a detailed description of the planned flight until April 27, after the flight had taken place, because the description had been sent to an e-mail account that he did not check regularly. n 357

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Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) May 22 was declared the winner of the country’s May 19 presidential election. According to the Malawi Electoral Commission, the incumbent garnered 2.7 million votes, compared with 1.3 million for his closest challenger, John Tembo of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Mutharika, who was first elected in 2004, later May 22 was sworn in to a second five-year term. Joyce Banda, his running mate, was also sworn in that day, becoming Malawi’s first female vice president. [See 2004, p. 390D1] In voting for the 193-seat parliament, also held May 19, the DPP won 59 seats; the MCP garnered 17; former President Bakili Muluzi’s United Democratic Front (UDF), which was allied with the MCP, took 10; and the Malawi Forum for Unity and Development claimed one. Independents took 11 seats. Malawi’s constitutional court May 16 had ruled that Muluzi was ineligible to run in the presidential election because he had already served the maximum two consecutive five-year terms in office. The UDF then threw its support behind Tembo in the presidential contest. Muluzi and Mutharika were former allies who had become rivals after Mutharika launched an anticorruption campaign upon taking office. Muluzi was charged in 2006 with embezzling millions of dollars while in office, but those charges were later dropped. The government Feb. 26 announced that he had been rearrested on similar charges. [See 2006, p. 649A2] Muluzi May 21 reportedly congratulated Mutharika on his victory. However, Tembo that day said he rejected the results, alleging that the election had been rigged. Election observers from the European Union and the Commonwealth May 21–22 expressed concern that reporting in the state media during the campaign had been biased toward Mutharika, but said the election was generally free and fair. Analysts said Mutharika, a 75-year-old former World Bank official, won reelection based on his record of strengthening Malawi’s economy, agriculture sector and food security during his first term. However, two-thirds of the population still lived on less than $1 per day. [See 2005, p. 926E2] n

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Rebels Declare ‘War’ in Oil Region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) rebel group, based in Nigeria’s restive, oil-rich southern Niger Delta, in a May 15 statement declared an “allout war” in the region. The declaration came in response to a major offensive against MEND launched by the Nigerian army earlier that day. More than three years of attacks by MEND in the region had re358

duced Nigeria’s oil production by about 25%. [See 2008, p. 972B2] MEND claimed to be fighting for a greater share of the region’s oil wealth for its impoverished citizens, who were mainly ethnic Ijaws. On Jan. 30, the group had ended a cease-fire that it declared in September 2008, and resumed attacking foreign oil installations and kidnapping foreign workers. The army’s latest offensive was called its most forceful since MEND took up arms in early 2006, and reportedly was prompted by MEND’s May 13 capture of a tanker belonging to the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., and the kidnapping of at least 15 Filipino crew members. MEND was also said to be holding several Nigerian soldiers hostage, as well as British oil worker Matthew Maguire, who had been kidnapped in September 2008. The military sent helicopter gunships and boats to clear out MEND camps in remote swamps in southern Delta state, in the area around the massive Escravos oil terminal, run by the U.S.’s Chevron Corp. MEND, in its May 15 statement, said it was declaring war in the region after the army earlier that day “launched indiscriminate aerial bombardment on the defenceless civilians in the Gbaramatu region of Delta State.” It also warned foreign oil companies to pull their staff from the region by midnight that night, the third such warning it had issued in as many days. Foreign oil companies operating in the Niger Delta reportedly did not heed MEND’s warning. Col. Rabe Abubakar, a spokesman for the Joint Task Force, the Nigerian military’s special unit in the Niger Delta, May 15 said, “The military task force cannot just fold its hands and allow these sorts of barbaric attacks to continue.” According to analysts, the offensive— which the Joint Task Force was believed to have been planning for some time—could last for several weeks. It was widely reported that the military was targeting a man named Government Tompolo, a member of a prominent Ijaw family who according to some reports was MEND’s leader. Civilian Deaths Alleged—A spokesman for international human rights group Amnesty International May 21 alleged that many civilians had been killed in the military’s offensive, saying, “We fear that hundreds of bystanders, including women and children, have been killed and injured, and thousands of people remain trapped in the area—unable to return to their homes having fled the fighting.” The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), citing accounts from eyewitnesses who had made their way to Warri, the region’s main city, that day reported that thousands of people had been forced to flee their homes in remote villages in Delta state due to attacks by the military, with many sleeping in the bush or in swamps. Those reports were backed up by local organizations, including the Ijaw National Congress. However, they could not be independently verified, as the military had denied journalists access to the area.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper May 21 reported that Abubakar had denied that there had been civilian deaths, quoting him as saying, “There are no casualties on the civilian side. Whoever is injured must have taken part in the fighting.” U.S. government-supported broadcaster Voice of America May 27 reported that local leaders in the Niger Delta had called for talks with the government of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua to end the military offensive, citing the worsening humanitarian situation. MEND Attacks Pipelines—MEND May 25 said it had attacked five major pipelines in the region belonging to Chevron. The U.S. company confirmed the attacks, and said it had been forced to halt operations, cutting output by 100,000 barrels of oil per day. (Nigeria’s average production was about 1.6 million barrels per day.) Militant Leader Killed—Police in Yenagoa, capital of neighboring Bayelsa state, May 27 killed militant leader Ken Niweigha, reportedly in a shootout between police and his supporters, although MEND contended that he had been “summarily executed.” Niweigha had been arrested one day earlier in the nearby town of Odi. Reports varied as to whether Niweigha had been a leader of MEND or had been a head of one of the many criminal gangs that also operated in the region. (Analysts said several criminal gangs, often with connections to local politicians, operated in the Niger Delta region, siphoning oil from pipelines and selling it on the world market. MEND had also reportedly become involved in such activities, blurring the line between the rebel group and gangs.) [See 2008, p. 520F3] Odi in 1999 had been burned to the ground by security forces in reprisal for the killing of policemen by fighters allegedly led by Niweigha, and local residents reportedly turned him in to police in order to avoid a similar incident. [See 1999, p. 902G3] n

Africa News in Brief Kenya: Two Dozen Killed in Gang Violence.

At least 24 people were killed April 20–21 in clashes between residents of the town of Karatina, in central Kenya, and members of the outlawed Mungiki gang. The Mungiki—a mafia-like, mainly ethnic Kikuyu organization—was notorious for extorting and terrorizing civilians in many Kenyan cities and towns. The people of Karatina reportedly attacked suspected members of the Mungiki with clubs, machetes and spears, and the Mungiki fought back. Britain’s Guardian newspaper April 21 reported that the clashes followed more than a week of vigilante attacks on Mungiki members, including lynchings. [See p. 203D1] n Libya: Democracy Activist Dies. Prominent Libyan democracy activist Fathi al-Jahmi May 21 died in a hospital in Amman, Jordan’s capital. Jahmi, 68, had been imprisoned in Libya since 2002, after calling for greater political freedom in the country. He was released in 2004 after the intervention FACTS ON FILE

of then–U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, now the U.S. vice president, but was rearrested weeks later after criticizing Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi. Then–U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in September 2008 had raised Jahmi’s case in a meeting with Qaddafi. Jahmi, who suffered from diabetes and heart disease, in 2007 or early 2008 had been transferred to a hospital in Tripoli, from a psychiatric hospital that he had been sent to in 2006. He was taken to the Arab Medical Center in Amman May 5, after falling into a coma. The official cause of death was not released. Jahmi’s family and human rights groups alleged that he had died because he was denied proper medical care. [See 2008, p. 636F1] n South Africa: Economy Enters Recession.

Statistics South Africa May 26 reported that the country’s economy had contracted at an annualized rate of 6.4% in the first quarter of 2009—the largest decline since 1984 and larger than analysts had predicted—after shrinking an annualized 1.8% the previous quarter. The two straight quarters of negative growth meant that South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, had entered its first recession since 1992. Tito Mboweni, governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the central bank, May 28 announced a one-percentage-point cut in benchmark interest rates, to 7.5%, but also said “any further significant reductions” were unlikely. The rate reduction was the fourth of 2009. South Africa’s key mining and manufacturing sectors had been hit hard by the global economic crisis. [See pp. 325E2, 96F2] n

AMERICAS

Mexico Officials Arrested in Drug Crackdown.

Mexican antidrug police and army forces May 26 arrested 10 mayors and at least 17 other government officials in the state of Michoacan in raids targeting suspected drug cartel collaborators. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said those detained were suspected of providing protection and information to the La Familia de Michoacan drug cartel. The officials were detained in the early morning, with many taken from their homes and offices. [See p. 249E2] Michoacan was Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa’s home state, and was home to large marijuana-growing operations. Soon after taking office in December 2006, Calderon had dispatched tens of thousands of federal police and troops across the country to clamp down on the activities of drug cartels, first sending troops to Michoacan. The resulting violence had killed at least 11,000 people. Officials from municipalities in Michoacan state were widely thought to work with drug trafficking groups. Michoacan Governor Leonel Godoy held a press conference confirming the arrests, but disavowed any prior knowledge of the operation. Among those arrested in the operation was the mayor of Uruapan, a city that had May 28, 2009

gained notoriety in September 2006 after men armed with assault weapons dumped five human heads onto the dance floor of a bar there as a warning. Also arrested were a judge, and several officials from Godoy’s administration. [See 2006, p. 913C1] The arrested officials had come from all three major national political parties—Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN), the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the populist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)—which some observers said suggested an effort to stave off claims that the arrests were politically motivated. (Midterm congressional elections were scheduled to take place in July.) Michoacan state’s head prosecutor, Miguel Garcia Hurtado, May 27 resigned and turned himself in to police for questioning. Other News—In other news related to drug violence: o A group of suspected drug smugglers May 16 freed 53 inmates, many of whom had worked as gunmen for the Gulf cartel, from a prison in Zacatecas state. A group of 30 men in a convoy of vehicles, backed by a helicopter, had entered the prison, loaded up the escaped prisoners and then driven away. Zacatecas Governor Amalia Garcia May 17 said the raid could not have occurred without the help of prison employees, and announced that the prison warden and two other high-ranking guards had been arrested. o The Washington Post May 1 reported that the Mexican government had arrested more than 60,000 people suspected of having ties to drug smuggling cartels over the past two years. However, the Mexican attorney general’s office would not say how many of those arrested remained in custody, or how many had been charged with a drug trafficking–related crime. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission said complaints about army conduct had also risen 576% since December 2006. Advocacy group Human Rights Watch April 29 released a report alleging that the military had committed “serious human rights violations” during its prosecution of drug cartels. o The Post April 25 reported that the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were formulating a contingency plan to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border should drug-related violence escalate in the U.S. The plan called for the military to receive up to $350 million for “counternarcotics and other activities” on the border, but did not spell out the circumstances in which National Guard troops might be deployed. The funding request for the plan was included in a supplemental budget request made earlier in the month. [See p. 355D1, 341C1] o Police in western Nayarit state April 21 said a prisoner convoy had been ambushed by a group of armed men who killed eight policemen in a failed attempt to free a highranking drug cartel member. Jeronimo Gamez, the cousin of Arturo Beltran Leyva,

an alleged leader of one of Mexico’s largest cartels, was in the convoy, which was traveling from an airport to a prison. n

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Myanmar Suu Kyi Testifies in Trial. Myanmar pro-

democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi May 26 testified that she had not violated her house arrest during an incident earlier in May when a U.S. citizen carried out a twoday unauthorized visit to her residence in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. Suu Kyi, who had been detained by Myanmar’s ruling military government for 13 of the past 19 years, was the leader of the pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) party and the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. [See pp. 327C2, 187F3; 2008, p. 925E2] Suu Kyi, 63, May 22 had pleaded not guilty to charges that she had violated the terms of her house arrest by failing to report the presence of the U.S. citizen, John Yettaw. She faced up to five years in prison if convicted on the charges. Myanmar’s judicial system was controlled by the junta and analysts said a guilty verdict was likely in the case. In her testimony, Suu Kyi said that while Yettaw had entered her house on May 3 after swimming across an adjoining lake, she had not been aware he was inside until the morning of May 4, when she was informed of his presence by one of her two housekeepers. (Yettaw and both housekeepers had also been charged in the case.) Suu Kyi said Yettaw had refused to leave the house until May 5 because he said he was suffering from cramps related to his swim. She said she had not turned him in because she did not want him or the security forces guarding her house to be punished. However, she suggested that the guards bore responsibility for the incident because they had failed to stop Yettaw from entering the house. The court, which operated out of Myanmar’s Insein prison, near Yangon, May 27 rejected three of four defense witnesses. In contrast, only nine of the 23 witnesses called by the prosecution had been blocked from testifying. An attorney for Suu Kyi said the decision would undermine her legal defense. U.S. Visitor Motivated by ‘Dream’—

Yettaw May 22 pleaded not guilty to charges that he had violated Myanmar’s immigration laws and illegally entered a restricted zone. Yettaw May 27 testified that he had dreamed that Suu Kyi would be assassinated by terrorists, and that he traveled to her residence from the U.S. on a mission from God to warn her. He testified that four or five of the guards had seen him swimming toward Suu Kyi’s house. He said they had thrown rocks at him, but did not shoot at him or otherwise attempt to stop him. He also said that he had tried to enter Suu Kyi’s house in November 2008 but had been captured and interrogated by Myanmar security forces before being released. 359

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Myanmar’s state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper May 22 reported that Myanmar Foreign Minister Nyan Win had told Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone on May 18 that Yettaw’s visit had been organized by antigovernment groups as part of a conspiracy against the ruling junta. According to Nyan Win, the groups had plotted to intensify “international pressure on Myanmar” by baiting the government into cracking down on Suu Kyi, who was widely respected for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar. Myanmar’s government May 26 canceled the detention order that it had used to hold Suu Kyi under house arrest, reportedly because Myanmar law required extrajudicial detentions to be canceled if the subject of the detention was charged with a crime. However, the government said she would remain in detention during the trial. Critics argued that the government’s legal authority to hold Suu Kyi without trial had expired in 2008, and that a subsequent illegal extension of her detention had been due to expire May 27. The government May 26 had argued that it could have legally held Suu Kyi under house arrest until November 2009. Gen. Myint Thein, a high-ranking police official, May 26 claimed that the government had been considering releasing Suu Kyi “on humanitarian grounds” due to her reportedly fragile health, but had decided against doing so as a result of the Yettaw incident. Sanctions Against Myanmar Extended—

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Following Suu Kyi’s arrest, U.S. President Barack Obama May 15 informed the U.S. Congress that he had extended the U.S. government’s sanctions against Myanmar for another year. Obama justified the extension of the sanctions, which had been scheduled to expire later in May, by arguing that Myanmar’s government was engaging in a “large-scale repression of the democratic opposition” within the country. The European Union April 27 had approved a one-year extension of its sanctions against Myanmar at a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The EU said in a statement that it was willing to hold discussions with Myanmar’s government, and called for planned 2010 legislative elections promoted by the military government to be a “credible, transparent and inclusive process, based on international standards.” Obama May 26 issued a statement condemning Suu Kyi’s “continued detention, isolation and show trial, based on spurious charges,” and said the actions of Myanmar’s government had “cast serious doubt” on its “willingness to be a responsible member of the international community.” He called for Suu Kyi to be released and for Myanmar to respect “its own laws and its own people.” U.N. Security Council Denounces Arrests—

The United Nations Security Council May 22 voted unanimously to issue a declaration calling on Myanmar’s government to release Suu Kyi and the rest of the country’s more than 2,000 political prisoners. 360

The declaration expressed concern about the “political impact” of the government’s prosecution of Suu Kyi, and encouraged renewed dialogue between the junta and representatives of Myanmar’s pro-democracy parties, as well as groups representing oppressed ethnic minorities. Experts noted that both Russia and China, which had previously avoided criticizing Myanmar, backed the declaration. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon May 20 had announced during an interview with the U.S.’s Cable News Network (CNN) that, due to concerns about the Suu Kyi prosecution, he intended to visit Myanmar as soon as possible. He said he was currently negotiating such a trip with Myanmar’s government. Ban said Suu Kyi’s continued detention constituted “an unacceptable situation” in light of her status as “a Nobel peace laureate.” Thailand Issues Warning—The government of Thailand, which currently held the rotating presidency of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to which Myanmar also belonged, May 19 issued a statement on behalf of ASEAN warning Myanmar that “the honor and credibility” of its government were “at stake” if it failed to treat Suu Kyi humanely and to provide her with “timely and adequate medical care.” Thailand and other members of ASEAN had generally avoided criticizing Myanmar for its crackdown on democracy activists and ethnic minorities. Separately, a group of Myanmar pro-democracy activists living in exile in Thailand May 24 held demonstrations in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, and near Thailand’s border with Myanmar. The protesters called for Suu Kyi’s release and for increased international pressure on Myanmar’s government. n

North Korea Trial Date Set for U.S. Journalists. North Korea’s state news media April 24 said that authorities had decided to indict two U.S. journalists arrested in March at the North Korea–China border on criminal charges. The charges were not detailed, but the government had previously accused the two reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of illegally entering the country with the intention of committing unspecified “hostile acts.” North Korea May 14 announced that they would go on trial June 4 in the Central Court, the country’s highest court. [See p. 215D3] North Korea said it was allowing consular contact with the pair; the U.S., because it had no diplomatic relations with North Korea, had communicated with the country on the matter through a Swedish diplomat. The diplomat, Mats Foyer, reportedly visited Lee and Ling March 30 and May 15. Numerous foreign observers suggested the reporters’ detention and planned trial were intended to place pressure on the U.S. with respect to an ongoing impasse in longrunning six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. The case drew comparison with the prosecution and subsequent release, earlier in May, of a U.S.-Iranian

reporter by Iran, also amid tensions with the U.S. over nuclear activities. [See pp. 350A3, 330B1] n

South Korea Former President Roh Commits Suicide.

Former South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, 62, May 23 committed suicide by leaping off a mountain cliff near his home village of Bongha in the country’s south. Roh in April had become implicated in a corruption investigation in which prosecutors suspected that he had solicited payments, totaling some $6 million, made by a South Korean businessman to Roh’s wife and other relatives. Roh April 30 had been questioned at length in the case, and had issued an apology to the country expressing shame over it, although he had not admitted to wrongdoing. [See 2002, p. 994D3] Roh reportedly jumped from an outcropping called Owl Rock while on a hike near his home. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in the nearby city of Pusan. He left a short note lamenting “the suffering caused by me” and also referring to unspecified health problems. Roh, a former human rights lawyer, had been elected president in 2002, and had served from 2003 to 2008. Until the recent investigation he had maintained a reputation as a clean-handed politician, after a series of previous South Korean presidents were tainted by corruption allegations or convictions after leaving office. In an April 22 Web site posting, he declared, “You should now discard me,” adding that he could no longer be regarded as an upholder of “democracy, progressiveness and justice.” Roh’s supporters, now in the political opposition, had contended that the investigation was politically motivated and that the country’s news media was abetting prosecutors in the dissemination of damaging information. Roh’s predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, said, “He was probably unable to bear the pressure” of the stream of leaked allegations, and hailed him as a “lifelong companion” in the pro-democracy movement they had participated in under the country’s former military regime. Roh’s suicide threatened to heighten his supporters’ anger and raise political tensions with the government of President Lee Myung Bak. In the town of Kimhae, near Bongha, supporters reportedly prevented some political figures, including Prime Minister Han Seung Soo and Lee Hoi Chang, whom Roh had defeated in the 2002 election, from joining those gathered to pay their respects. President Lee May 23 called Roh’s suicide “sad” and “hard to believe,” and ordered a state funeral. Payments to Wife Investigated— Roh April 7 said for the first time that his wife, Kwon Yang Sook, had received money from the businessman at the center of the scandal, Park Yeon Cha, who headed shoe-making company Taekwang Industrial Co. Park had been arrested in December 2008, on taxevasion and bribery charges. A former aide FACTS ON FILE

to Roh, Chung Sang Moon, earlier April 7 had been arrested on charges of accepting the alleged payments, and the former president said he wanted to make clear that it was his wife who had actually sought and received the money. However, Roh asserted that the $1 million his wife had received from Park had been a loan, not a bribe, and that another $5 million given to his brother’s son-in-law had been an investment in the recipient’s business. Roh said had not known of the payments at the time. After his suicide, prosecutors announced that they were closing the case against him, but it remained unclear how they would proceed against the other targets of the probe. Rights Lawyer Pursued N. Korea Ties—

Roh had been a self-trained lawyer who defended dissident students prosecuted in the 1980s by the military government, launching a career as a labor and human rights lawyer and a member of the pro-democracy movement that led to the institution of direct elections. He succeeded Kim Dae Jung, a former dissident and fellow member of the Millennium Democratic Party, as president. Roh was impeached and suspended from office in 2004 over an election law infraction, but restored to office by a court ruling two months later. [For facts on Roh, see 2002, p. 995A1] Roh had continued the “sunshine policy” of rapprochement with North Korea pioneered by Kim, which Lee had shifted away from. North Korea May 25 announced that its supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, had sent a message of condolence to Roh’s family. [See p. 350G2] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Germany President Koehler Reelected by Assembly.

German President Horst Koehler May 23 won reelection to a second five-year term in his mostly ceremonial post, in a vote by the Federal Assembly, comprised of the parliament and state representatives. Koehler, 66, was the candidate of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He also had the support of the smaller, promarket Free Democratic Party. He won 613 votes, the minimum he needed to avoid a second round, from the 1,224 assembly members. [See 2004, p. 406G1] Gesine Schwan, the candidate of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), finished in second place, with 503 votes. Schwan, a former university president and political scientist, had also lost to Koehler in the 2004 presidential election. The more radical Left Party, which included former East German communists and SDP renegades, fielded its own candidate, television actor Peter Sodann, rather than backing Schwan. Sodann won 91 votes. The presidential election was viewed as a test for the major parties in advance of parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 27. The CDU and the SDP shared power in May 28, 2009

Merkel’s government as a so-called grand coalition, but tensions between them were rising with the approach of the elections. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier April 19 had opened his campaign as the SPD’s candidate for chancellor, unveiling a party manifesto that called for higher taxes on the wealthy and more state intervention in the economy. CDU leaders, who did not plan to start campaigning until June, criticized Steinmeier’s early launch, saying that it could undermine the unity of the coalition government as it contended with a severe economic recession. Gross domestic product had contracted by 3.8% in the first three months of the year, compared with the fourth quarter of 2008, it was reported May 14. n

Ireland Report Cites Abuses in Catholic Schools.

An official commission May 20 issued a report on its findings that thousands of children had suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the hand of priests and nuns in government funded, Roman Catholic–run reform schools and children’s group homes in Ireland during the period from 1930 to 1990. [See 2006, p. 1027C1; 2002, p. 157A1] The Irish government created the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in 2000, in response to sexual abuse scandals involving Catholic clergy. In 1999, then– Prime Minister Bertie Ahern had apologized to the victims. The panel based its 2,600-page report on the testimony of more than 1,000 witnesses who, as children, had been students or residents at the Catholic-run institutions. More than 30,000 children had been sent to those institutions. They included orphans, children of unwed mothers or of parents otherwise deemed unfit by local clergy, and children with criminal records. The report said sexual abuse, including rape and molestation, was “endemic” in the schools and homes for boys, where severe beatings were also common, and abuses included scaldings, being doused with frigid water, and “being set upon by dogs.” Sexual abuse was generally less severe in the girls’ institutions, according to the report, but girls suffered “ritualized beating” in some schools and were frequently subjected to emotional abuse. The report said government officials in the Education Department had legal responsibility for the children but had failed to properly inspect the institutions, despite the fact that officials had been aware of allegations of abuse. Victims’ groups criticized the commission for not naming the perpetrators of the abuse in its report, shielding those who were still alive from prosecution. The Christian Brothers, which was cited for abuses more than any other religious order in the report, had won a 2004 lawsuit against the commission to prevent its members from being named. Prime Minister Responds—Prime Minister Brian Cowen May 26 held an emer-

gency cabinet meeting on the report. In a statement that day, he said, “These children were placed in institutions by the state and the state had a duty of care to them. The victims were betrayed by the state and we must ensure that this can never, ever happen again.” Cowen called on the 18 Catholic orders implicated in the abuse to pay more compensation to victims. He said, “Those orders whose members committed the abuse must too face their moral responsibilities,” and should “articulate their willingness to make a further substantial voluntary contribution.” He said they should help fund counseling and educational programs for victims and their families. The Christian Brothers and seven other orders May 27 said they would meet with Cowen to discuss how much new compensation they could offer to victims. Under a 2002 agreement, about 14,000 abuse cases had been settled at a cost of 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion), most of which was borne by taxpayers. The government had agreed to limit payments by the 18 implicated orders to 128 million euros. The Christian Brothers issued a statement declaring that they “accept, with shame, the findings” of the commission. It said, “The congregation is deeply sorry for the hurt we have caused—not just for the mistakes of the past, but for the inadequacy of our responses over the years.” n

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Iran Missile Able to Reach Israel, Europe Tested.

Iranian state media May 20 reported that Iran had successfully test-launched a surface-to-surface missile that had a range of 1,200 miles (2,000 km), far enough to hit Israel and parts of Eastern Europe. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was at the launch site near the city of Semnan, in the northern province of Semnan, said the rocket “landed exactly on target.” Some analysts said the rocket’s launch was a step towards Iran being able to build missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads; the U.S. and its allies said Iran’s nuclear program was dedicated to building nuclear weapons, but Iran said it was only for civilian power generation. [See p. 254F1; 2008, p. 857D1] The Sejil-2 rocket used solid fuel in two stages, which experts said gave it more accuracy and longer range than the majority of Iran’s arsenal of one-stage, liquid-fuel rockets. In addition, solid-fuel rockets could more easily be moved into and out of hiding and fired quickly, making attacks on the launchers more difficult. A similar solid-fuel rocket had been tested in November 2008. However, the Sejil-2 had “a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors,” according to Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar. Ahmadinejad at a campaign rally in Semnan said the test demonstrated to the 361

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West that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is running the show,” and claimed that “in the near future we will launch bigger rockets with bigger reach.” He was running for reelection in June, and analysts said the test might be intended in part to boost his popularity. [See p. 362E1] U.S. President Barack Obama’s top arms control officer, Gary Samore, described the new missile as “a significant step forward in terms of Iran’s capability to deliver weapons.” He expressed hope that the U.S. “will be able to capitalize on this launch to strengthen our case” for imposing strong international sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. However, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said the test was not strategically important for Israel, because Iran had already tested missiles with a range of 1,500 km that could reach Israel, “but it should worry the Europeans.” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini May 20 canceled a planned visit to Iran, after the Iranian government reportedly wanted to change the meeting location from Tehran, Iran’s capital, to the rocket launch site. Western diplomats had reacted with dismay after the planned trip was first reported earlier that day; European Union nations had avoided high-level contacts with Iran because of Iran’s refusal to stop enriching uranium for its nuclear program. A secret Israeli report claimed that Bolivia and Venezuela were providing uranium for Iran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press (AP) reported May 25. The two South American nations had close ties to Iran, but it had not previously been alleged that they were involved in its nuclear program. The Bolivian and Venezuelan governments May 26 denied the allegations. n Presidential Candidates Announced. The Iranian interior ministry May 20 announced that four candidates had been cleared to run in a presidential election scheduled for June 12. They were President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi; Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric and former parliament speaker; and Mohsen Rezai, who had headed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Moussavi, Karroubi and Rezai all criticized Ahmadinejad for mismanaging the Iranian economy and relations with the international community, although they supported continuing the country’s nuclear program. [See p. 362A1, 174C2] Rezai April 22 had unexpectedly declared his candidacy. He was not expected to win, but analysts said he could attract conservative voters who might otherwise have voted for Ahmadinejad. Moussavi and Karroubi were both considered reformists. Moussavi April 6 had denounced Ahmadinejad’s policies as “extremist,” and said he was open to improving relations with the West and expanding personal freedoms in Iran. Iran May 23 blocked access to the social networking Web site Facebook, which had been used by all three opposition candidates to mobilize supporters and had hosted discussions by Iranians on the 362

election. Access to Facebook was restored May 26. Supreme Leader Rebukes Ahmadinejad—

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, May 4 issued a rare public rebuke of Ahmadinejad over the president’s dismissal of the official who organized the hajj—the Muslim annual pilgrimage to Mecca—according to Iranian news media. A government spokesman later that day said the official, Mostafa Khaksar Qahroudi, would be reinstated. The rebuke raised questions over whether Khamenei would support Ahmadinejad in the election. n

Iraq Minister Resigns Amid Corruption Probe.

The Iraqi government May 25 said it had accepted the resignation of Iraqi Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudani, amid corruption charges leveled against officials in his ministry. Sudani had reportedly submitted his resignation May 14, but Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had held off on accepting it to allow parliament to question Sudani May 16. Maliki’s office May 27 said it would take over administering the trade ministry until a new minister was selected. [See pp. 344E2, 330D3] Sudani was not facing charges himself, and had denied allegations that he had allowed massive corruption and mismanagement to flourish. However, at least nine trade ministry officials, including two of his brothers, had been charged. The trade ministry controlled Iraq’s $5.3 billion monthly rationing program, as well as the importation of goods like cars, grain and construction equipment. The head of Iraq’s commission of integrity, Rahim al-Ugaili, May 27 said the government had issued 997 arrest warrants for officials on corruption charges that it had not yet acted on, but said Maliki had ordered security forces to arrest those officials. He said the warrants included 51 for departmental heads issued in April. Ugaili also said only 34 members of Iraq’s 275member parliament—including Maliki— had submitted their required financial disclosure forms. Ex-U.S. Soldier Gets Life Sentence— A jury in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky., May 21 sentenced former U.S. Army soldier Steven Green to life in prison without parole for raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and killing her and three of her family members. Green in early May had been convicted on 17 counts, including four counts of premeditated murder. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, but the jury deadlocked. [See p. 331E1] Many Iraqis strongly criticized the sentence, reportedly saying that Green should have been tried in Iraq, and deserved to be executed. According to prosecutors, Green had been the ringleader of a group of U.S. soldiers that broke into a house in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, in March 2006. While two soldiers raped the girl, Green moved her parents

and sister to a back room and shot them to death. He then raped the girl, shot her several times and tried to set fire to her body. During the sentencing phase of the trial, defense lawyers argued that Green had been traumatized by the deaths of several soldiers in his unit, and that the U.S. military should have provided better mental health services. However, prosecutors said he had faced the same pressures as many other soldiers, the vast majority of whom did not commit attrocities. Three other soldiers had received long prison sentences for participating in or being present during the attack. In addition, one soldier was sentenced to 27 months in prison in connection with the attack, and another had charges against him dropped. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A spokesman for the Iraqi oil ministry May 27 announced that the autonomous Kurdistan region had begun exporting oil for the first time, ahead of the previously announced start date of June 1. He said 10,000 barrels had been pumped from Kurdistan’s Tawke oil field through an Iraqi government-owned pipeline to Turkey, where it would be sold. The federal government earlier in May had agreed to allow the Kurdish government to begin exporting oil. [See p. 331D2] o A roadside bomb aimed at a U.S. patrol in the western Abu Ghraib neighborhood of Baghdad May 27 killed a U.S. soldier and four Iraqi civilians. o A roadside bomb May 25 killed three U.S. nationals in Fallujah, in the western province of Anbar, as they were returning from inspecting a U.S.-funded wastewater treatment plant under construction. The victims were Terrence Barnich, the deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Iraq Transition Assistance Office in Baghdad; U.S. Navy Cmdr. Duane Wolfe, who was in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in Anbar; and a civilian contractor for the U.S. Defense Department. o A suicide bomber in a van May 24 attacked a U.S. patrol, killing eight civilians, in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh and one of the last urban strongholds of the Sunni Muslim insurgency. In other episodes of violence in Mosul that day, a roadside bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers; the bodies of two men and two women were discovered; two policemen and a mother and daughter were killed by gunmen; and insurgents ambushed and killed a university teacher. The same day in Fallujah, a grenade killed a two-month-old child in his home, and gunmen ambushed and killed a husband and wife. o U.S. officials May 22 said the president of a small U.S. construction company had been found stabbed to death in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, after reportedly being kidnapped the previous night. Also May 22 in the Green Zone, a rocket killed another U.S. contractor. n FACTS ON FILE

SOUTH ASIA

Nepal Marxist-Leninist Leader Elected Prime Minister.

The Constituent Assembly, Nepal’s interim legislature, May 23 elected Madhav Kumar Nepal to be the country’s prime minister. Nepal succeeded Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, who had resigned as prime minister in early May after his attempt to fire the country’s army chief was thwarted. Nepal, 56, was a veteran leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) (UML). He was sworn in May 25. [See p. 314D2] Prachanda’s Communist Party (Maoist) had not fielded a candidate and boycotted the vote, calling it a “farce.” The Maoists had won a plurality of seats in legislative elections held in 2008, but their governing coalition collapsed shortly after Prachanda attempted to fire Gen. Rookmangud Katawal in early May. Katawal was reinstated by President Ram Baran Yadav, of the opposition Nepali Congress Party, a move that Prachanda described as illegal. He resigned in protest. The UML and Congress May 17 formed a coalition comprised of 22 parties, which commanded 350 seats in the 601-member interim legislature. The coalition then nominated Nepal as its candidate for prime minister. The legislature was responsible for writing a constitution for the country, which had switched from an absolute monarchy to a democratic republic in 2008. Analysts said it could be difficult to pass a constitution without the support of the Maoists, who held nearly 40% of the legislature’s seats. Separately, two people were killed and 12 injured May 23 in a bombing attack on a Roman Catholic church in Kathmandu, the capital. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but a group calling itself the Nepal Defense Army distributed pamphlets around the church calling for Nepal to become a Hindu state. n

Sri Lanka Rebel Spokesman Confirms Leader’s Death.

Selvarasa Pathmanathan, chief diplomat for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group, May 24 confirmed the death of LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran, who the government said had been killed the previous week during an army offensive that vanquished the rebels and ended 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. Pathmanathan said Prabhakaran had “attained martyrdom fighting the military oppression of the Sri Lankan state” on May 17, according to a posting on TamilNet.com, a pro-LTTE Web site that was often used by the group to issue statements. [See p. 333A1] However, according to TamilNet, the LTTE’s intelligence wing maintained that Prabhakaran was alive. Pathmanathan said the LTTE had “given up violence,” and was prepared to “enter a May 28, 2009

democratic process” to fight for equal rights for Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority Tamils, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) that was published online May 24. The LTTE since 1983 had fought for a separate Tamil homeland, claiming that Tamils had been marginalized and discriminated against by Sri Lanka’s ethnic majority Sinhalese. Rajapaksa Rejects Greater Aid Access—

President Mahinda Rajapaksa May 24 rejected a request from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to give international aid agencies greater access to Tamil refugees currently held in government-run camps. As many as 300,000 Tamil civilians were thought to have been displaced by the fighting in recent months, which had taken place in Sri Lanka’s northeast. The camps were reportedly highly overcrowded and lacking in basic necessities, and ringed with barbed wire to prevent Tamils from leaving. Rajapaksa said the army first had to screen the camps for possible LTTE members disguised as civilians. The army claimed that 9,000 rebels had been detained through the screening process, and would be sent to rehabilitation camps for six months. Ban the previous day had visited the main refugee camp in the Vavuniya district. “It was a very sobering visit, very sad, very moving,” he said. In an interview with Cable News Network (CNN) that was published online that day, Ban said, “I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but this is by far the most appalling scenes I have seen.” The Sri Lankan military May 22 said more than 6,200 soldiers had been killed and nearly 30,000 wounded in the last three years of the war, and that 22,000 LTTE fighters had been killed in that time. The U.N estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 people had been killed in conflict-related violence since 1983. As many as 7,000 civilians had been reported killed since January, and both the LTTE and the government were accused of being responsible for civilian deaths in the final months of battle. The LTTE had reportedly held civilians hostage in its last redoubt, using them as shields, while the army was accused of indiscriminately shelling areas populated by civilians. Rajapaksa May 21 rejected international calls for an investigation into alleged war crimes. n

SPORTS

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150.318 miles per hour (241.913 kmph). Castroneves, who drove for Penske, led for 66 of the 200 laps, including the final 59 laps. Dan Wheldon of England was second, and U.S. driver Danica Patrick placed third. Castroneves April 17 had been acquitted by a Miami, Fla., federal jury of six counts of tax evasion. The jury was hung on the one remaining charge, of conspiracy. Castroneves in October 2008 had been charged with attempting to evade some $2.3 million in income taxes between 1999 and 2004, and had faced a six-year prison term if convicted. His sister and business manager, Katiucla Castroneves, and his lawyer, Alan Miller, were also acquitted of tax evasion. Prosecutors May 22 dropped the remaining conspiracy charge. [See 2008, p. 930C2] Reutimann Wins NASCAR Race—David Reutimann May 25 won the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. The race had been scheduled for the previous day but was postponed due to rain, and on race day it was shortened to 227 laps due to continued bad weather. The 39-year-old Reutimann, driving a Toyota, averaged a speed of 120.899 mph. It was his first victory in NASCAR’s top-tier Sprint Cup, after spending several years on lower-level NASCAR circuits. [See 2008, p. 368B2] Driver Suspended for Drug Test— NASCAR May 9 suspended driver and own-

er Jeremy Mayfield indefinitely for failing a random drug test. Mayfield was the first driver to be suspended under NASCAR’s new drug policy, which had been implemented at the start of the 2009 season. The policy did not list which substances were banned, and NASCAR refused to reveal what Mayfield had tested positive for. [See 2008, p. 912C1] Mayfield May 9 in a statement said he believed the positive test had been triggered by the combination of a prescription medication and an over-the-counter allergy medicine, a claim that was later denied by Dr. David Black, who ran NASCAR’s drug testing program. Mayfield and other drivers reportedly called for NASCAR to reveal what drug the driver tested positive for, although Black May 18 claimed Mayfield had been given that information. It was reported May 21 that Mayfield had hired a lawyer and might file a lawsuit against NASCAR to get his suspension lifted. n

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Auto Racing

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Austrian Film Wins Cannes Top Prize. The 62nd Cannes Film Festival in France May 24 awarded the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm), its top prize, to Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon), directed by Austria’s Michael Haneke. It was Haneke’s third triumph at Cannes. His film The Piano Teacher had won the festival’s runner-up prize, the Grand Prix, in 2001, and he had claimed its best-director award in 2005 for

Castroneves of Brazil May 24 won the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. Castroneves, 34, won the Indy 500 for the third time in his career; he had also won in 2001 and 2002. [See 2008, p. 368F1] Castroneves, who started in the pole position, finished the race in three hours, 19 minutes and 34.6427 seconds, averaging

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Cache (Hidden). [See 2008, p. 387D2; 2005, p. 364A2; 2001, p. 468E1] Shot in black and white, Haneke’s latest film dealt with baffling acts of violence committed in a rural German community on the eve of World War I. The film was seen as an exploration of social and psychological factors behind the rise of Nazism in post–World War I Germany. The Grand Prix went to French director Jacques Audiard’s Un Prophete (A Prophet), about a young French Arab turned into a hardened criminal while in prison. The best-director award was bestowed on Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines for Kinatay, a police melodrama containing graphic violence. The festival’s best-actor award went to Austria’s Christoph Waltz for his role as a Nazi officer in U.S. filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, about a band of Jewish commandos during World War II. Best-actress honors went to Charlotte Gainsbourg for her role as a ferociously grieving mother in Danish director Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. n Canadian Author Wins International Prize.

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Canadian short story writer Alice Munro May 27 was named the third winner of the Man Booker International Prize for fiction. The biennial award, a lifetime achievement prize worth £60,000 (about US$95,000), had first been presented in 2005. [See 2007, p. 424G2] Munro, 77, published the first of her 11 short-story collections, Dance of the Happy Shades, in 1968. Many of her stories were set in rural Ontario, where she was born and grew up. Her work was known for its understated tone and psychological subtlety. In 1999, she became the first Canadian author to win the U.S.’s National Book Critics Circle award for fiction. One of her stories, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” was the basis for the film Away From Her, which dominated Canada’s Genie Awards in 2008. [See 2008, p. 187C2; 1999, p. 179C3] Munro was one of 14 authors who had been shortlisted for the latest Man Booker International Prize. Others included Joyce Carol Oates and E.L. Doctorow of the U.S., Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa and 2001 Nobel literature laureate V.S. Naipaul, a native of Trinidad. [See p. 191E3] n Howe Wins Lilly Poetry Prize. Fanny Howe April 14 was named winner of the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. The $100,000 award, for lifetime achievement by a U.S. poet, was administered by the Chicagobased Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. [See 2008, p. 299C3] Howe, 68, had written not only poetry but also fiction, essays and children’s books. A Massachusetts native, she had lived in California for years before returning east and settling on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. A professor emeritus of literature and writing at the University of California at San Diego, she had an abiding interest in religion and had spent time at a monastery in Limerick, Ireland. In announcing Howe’s selection as the Lilly Prize winner, Poetry editor Christian Wiman described her as “a religious writer whose work 364

makes you more alert and alive to the earth.” He also called her “an experimental writer who can break your heart.” n

Arts New Oxford Poetry Professor Resigns.

British poet Ruth Padel, 63, May 25 quit as professor of poetry at Oxford University, just nine days after becoming the first woman elected to the five-year post in its 301-year history. Padel had originally been one of three contenders for the post, along with St. Lucia–born poet Derek Walcott— the 1992 Nobel laureate in literature—and Indian poet and critic Arvind Mehrotra. However, Walcott, 79, had bowed out of the contest May 12, after sexual harassment charges against him dating back to the 1980s resurfaced in an anonymous letter-writing campaign to the poetry chair’s Oxford electors. With only two candidates left, Padel, a great-great-granddaughter of naturalist Charles Darwin, May 16 had won easily, drawing 297 votes to Mehrotra’s 129. However, she chose to withdraw after it emerged that, despite her insistence that she had played no part in the anti-Walcott campaign, she had sent emails to two reporters raising questions about Walcott’s age and health, and referring them to a book detailing the charges against him. [See 1992, p. 805D2] Padel would have succeeded literary scholar Christopher Ricks in the post in October. She had been elected just over two weeks after Carol Ann Duffy was named Britain’s first female poet laureate. The Oxford post paid just under £7,000 a year (US$10,500), but was comparable in prestige to the laureateship. The university was expected to hold a new election for the chair. [See p. 316G1] n

People Atlanta, Ga.–based rapper T.I. May 26 arrived at a low-security federal prison in Forrest City, Ark., to begin serving his 366day sentence for attempting to buy unregistered weapons from federal agents. He had performed before 16,000 fans in Atlanta’s Philips Arena two days before reporting to prison. [See p. 212E1]

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AGNELLI, Susanna, 87, only woman to date to have served as Italy’s foreign minister, between 1995 and 1996; she was also a memoirist, a newspaper advice columnist and, by virtue of being a member of the family that founded Italy’s Fiat SpA automobile company, a major philanthropist; one of her brothers, Giovanni Agnelli, was chairman of Fiat from 1966 to 1996; born April 24, 1922, in Turin, Italy; died May 15 at a hospital in Rome, from complications of a broken hip. [See 2003, p. 56D3; 1996, p. 227B2; Index 1995] AROUCH, Salamo(n), 86, Greek-born Jewish boxer who survived nearly two years of imprisonment at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland during World War II by beating other prisoners in matches arranged by, and serving to entertain, their Nazi captors; he claimed to have fought 208 such bouts, with 206 wins and two draws; actor Willem Dafoe portrayed a character based on him in the 1989 feature film Triumph of the Spirit; born in 1923 in Salonika; died April 26 at a geriatric hospital near Tel Aviv, Israel, 15 years after suffering a debilitating stroke. [See 1989, p. 1002C1]

BENEDETTI, Mario (Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno Benedetti Farugia), 88, Uruguayan poet, nov-

elist, short story writer, playwright and essayist; his relatively accessible verse, with its left-wing political sentiments, was perhaps more widely read than the work of any other Latin American poet of his generation; beginning in 1973, at a time when Uruguay was under military rule, he spent a number of years in exile in Argentina, Peru, Cuba and Spain; some of his poems were set to music, by such songwriters as his countryman Daniel Viglietti and Spain’s Joan Manuel Serrat; one of his best-known novels, La Tregua (The Truce, 1960), was the basis for an Argentine film nominated for an Academy Award in 1974; it, like some of his other work, drew on his experiences as an office worker before he became established as an author; born Sept. 14, 1920, in Paso de los Toros, Uruguay; died May 17 at his home in Montevideo, Uruguay, of complications from a chronic infection. [See 1977, p. 905A2; 1975, p. 303A3] CARASSO, Daniel, 103, businessman who expanded a small yogurt-making operation started by his father in Barcelona, Spain, just after World War I into a yogurt empire, whose product was marketed under the Danone label in Europe and as Dannon in the U.S.; Danone eventually became part of Groupe Danone, one of France’s largest food conglomerates; born Dec. 16, 1905, in Thessalonika, Greece; died May 17 at his home in Paris. [See 2002, p. 368F3] COMPAGNONI, Achille, 94, mountaineer who was part of an Italian expedition, led by geologist Ardito Desio, that conquered K2, the world’s secondhighest peak, in July 1954; Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli were the two members of that expedition to reach the summit; Desio died in 2001 at age 104, while Lacedelli was still alive; born Sept. 26, 1914, in Santa Caterina Valfurva, Italy; died May 13 in Aosta, Italy. [See 2001, p. 1083F3; 1954, p. 344C3] DONALD, David Herbert, 88, Civil War historian whose book Lincoln (1995) was widely thought of as the definitive one-volume biography of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; he twice won the Pulitzer Prize for biography, the first time in 1961 for a book about abolitionist Charles Sumner and the second time in 1988 for one about novelist Thomas Wolfe; born Oct. 1, 1920, in Goodman, Miss.; died May 17 at a hospital in Boston, Mass., while awaiting heart surgery. [See 1988, p. 271E3; 1961, p. 160A1] ESCALONA Martinez, Rafael Calixto, 81, composer of many well-known songs in the tradition of vallenato, the accordion-driven folk music of the Caribbean region of Colombia; he was a longtime friend of, and an inspiration for, Colombia’s most renowned author, Nobel Prize–winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez; born May 27, 1927, in Patillal, Colombia; died May 13 at a hospital in Bogota, Colombia, of respiratory failure after several days of hospitalization; he had been suffering from cancer, as well as heart and kidney problems. [See 2002, p. 976B2] KIRKUP, James Falconer, 91, British poet, translator, travel writer and memoirist; openly homosexual for most of his life, he was the author of a poem whose publication, in 1976 in the London magazine Gay News, led to Britain’s last successful prosecution for blasphemy a year later; the poem, “The Love that Dares to Speak Its Name,” contained a description of a Roman centurion’s fantasy of having sex with the crucified body of Jesus Christ; the blasphemy trial, in which Gay News was defended by John Mortimer, creator of the fictional barrister Horace Rumpole, resulted in a nine-month suspended sentence for Gay News editor Denis Lemon; after the trial, Kirkup, who had spent years teaching and writing in Japan, moved to Andorra; born April 23, 1918, in South Shields, England; died May 10 at his Andorran home. [See p. 56C2; 1971, p. 744G2; Index 1964] MAW, (John) Nicholas, 73, British composer, long resident in the U.S., who wrote melodic works in a neo-Romantic style that readily shifted between tonality and atonality; his output included a violin concerto, commissioned by Joshua Bell and premiered in 1993, as well as an opera, Sophie’s Choice, based on William Styron’s 1979 novel of the same name and introduced in 2002; another of his works, Odyssey, was a one-movement orchestral piece 96 minutes long, believed to be the longest continuous symphonic work ever written; it received its first complete performance in 1989; born Nov. 5, 1935, in Grantham, England; died May 19 at his home in Takoma Park, Md., of heart failure, after battling diabetes and dementia. [See 2006, p. 872F3] ROH Moo Hyun, 62, president of South Korea from 2003 to 2008; before entering South Korean politics, he had been a human rights and labor lawyer; born Aug. 6, 1946, in Gimhae, in what was then southern Korea; committed suicide May 23 by jumping off a cliff in Bongha, South Korea; he had recently been enmeshed in a corruption scandal. [See p. 360A3; Indexes 2002–08] n

May 28, 2009

U.S. Automaker General Motors Declares Chapter 11 Bankruptcy U.S. Government to Take 60% Stake. After decades of declining sales and market share, Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Corp. (GM) June 1 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a planned restructuring guided by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. In the restructuring, the company would be drastically pared down, and the U.S. government would take a 60% market share in the “new GM.” The rest of the shares in the new company would be held by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union, the Canadian government and GM’s existing bondholders. [See below, pp. 339A2, 338D3, 197A2; for a timeline of key events in GM’s history, see p. 366A1] GM, founded in 1908, was the U.S.’s largest automaker, and had been the world’s largest for decades, until being unseated by Toyota Motor Corp. of Japan in 2008. It had last recorded an annual profit in 2004. The bankruptcy filing came days after GM’s unionized work force ratified major contract concessions, and a majority of GM’s bondholders agreed to swap their GM debt for an equity stake in the new company. [See below] GM the same day announced that it would shut 11 factories, idle an additional three, and slash 21,000 jobs by 2011, down from its previously stated plan to shut 16 factories and cut 23,000 jobs. The new GM was expected to employ fewer than 40,000 U.S. unionized workers, down from about 395,000 in 1970, and 74,000 in June 2008. The government predicted that the new GM would break even when it sold 10 million new cars per year, a decrease from the previous model, under which GM needed to sell 16 million new cars per year to match its operating costs. The administration, in a fact sheet released June 1, said it “has no desire to own equity stakes in companies any longer than necessary and will seek to dispose of its ownership interests as soon as practicable.” It added, “The government will not interfere with or exert control over day-today company operations,” and that it would “only vote on core governance issues,” like selecting the board of directors. It further asserted that “the government intends to be extremely disciplined as to how it intends to use even these limited rights.” GM’s government-mandated bankruptcy filing and the federal government’s subsequent majority ownership of the company was considered a major political risk for Obama, who had been carried to victory in the 2008 presidential elections partly by winning industrial states in the Midwest, where economic fallout from the bankruptcy filing was expected to reverberate painfully. Some Republicans criticized the forced bankruptcy as an excessive and harmful intrusion into the private sector. [See p. 164D2; 2008, p. 802E1] GM’s filing, which followed that of Auburn Hills, Mich.–based automaker Chrysler LLC in April, was the fourth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. According

to its filing, GM had $82 billion in assets and $172 billion in debt. By June 8, GM would be delisted from the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index. [See p. 372C2] GM had once been the world’s dominant automaker, and had played a leading role in 20th-century U.S. industrial history, notably during World War II, when it had retooled assembly lines to manufacture tanks, ships and bombers. In the postwar period, however, its reputation as a symbol of American ingenuity was hit by a series of quality problems with numerous car models. GM’s U.S. market share fell from 54% in 1954 to 46% in 1980, and to about 19% in April. Its stock price had fallen from $70 a share when former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Richard Wagoner had taken the helm of the company in 2000, to $0.75 per share May 29. (The Obama administration had forced Wagoner to resign in March.) Observers attributed GM’s decline into bankruptcy in part to the excessive development of overlapping models in its later years, and a failure to modify its strategy when U.S. consumers began flocking to foreign cars that were more fuel-efficient and eventually came to be considered by many as more reliable than domestically manufactured vehicles. Critics of its laborrelations strategy also said it had adopted overly generous compensation plans that had financially crippled it. Government to Supply $30.1 Billion—

The government, in addition to the $19.4 billion in aid it had already provided to GM, June 1 said it would provide another $30.1 billion to support the automaker through its bankruptcy restructuring. In exchange for the overall $49.4 billion investment, the government would receive a 60% stake in the new GM, which would contain the profitable parts of the company—its Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC divisions—while shedding brands including Pontiac and Saturn. The government would also receive $8.8 billion in the new GM’s debt and preferred stock, and would name a majority of the new company’s directors. The “bad” parts of GM would be liquidated in bankruptcy court, a process expected to take years. When the new GM emerged from bankruptcy, a 17.5% equity stake would go to a new UAW retiree health care trust called a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association (VEBA), replacing the current one. The VEBA would also receive $6.5 billion in preferred stock and a $2.5 billion note that would be paid in three installments by the end of 2017. The UAW would name one director to the board of the new GM, and had the option to increase its stake in the company by an additional 2.5%. [See below] The governments of Canada and the Canadian province of Ontario, which the Obama administration said would provide a $9.5 billion loan to GM, would receive a 12% equity share in the restructured company, as well as $1.7 billion in preferred stock. They would also name one director

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3572* June 4, 2009

B to the board of the new company. Bondholders from the old GM would own 10% of the new company. [See below] UAW Ratifies Concessions— The UAW May 29 announced that 74% of its GM workers had voted to approve contract modifications that would save GM as much as $2 billion per year. The contract allowed GM to fund most of its VEBA obligations with stock instead of cash, curtailed employees’ medical coverage, bonuses and vacation pay, and allowed GM to make a new buyout offer to its hourly workers. The new contract also barred the union from going on strike until September 2015; in the meantime, disputes would be arbitrated by a mediator. The modified contract also included a provision under which GM would modify at least one idled auto plant to produce the first subcompact cars to be built in the U.S. The union had previously expressed strong opposition to a previous plan under

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. automaker General Motors declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy; U.S. government to take 60% stake. PAGE 365

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U.S. President Obama urges ‘new beginning’ with Muslim world; presses Israel, Palestinians in Cairo speech. PAGE 367

Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashes in Atlantic Ocean. PAGE 369

Gunman kills Kansas abortion doctor. PAGE 370

New Hampshire legalizes gay marriage. PAGE 371

Fed chief Bernanke urges deficit reduction.

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International Criminal Court charges Sudanese rebels. PAGE 375

Guatemalan president accused of murder in video. PAGE 376

U.S. general says Afghanistan casualties to increase. PAGE 381

Pakistani army regains control of main city in Swat Valley. PAGE 382 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Following are key events in the history of General Motors (GM) [See p. 365A1]: Sept. 16, 1908—William Durant founds General Motors in Flint, Mich. 1909—About 25,000 GM vehicles are sold. The company acquires Cadillac and GMC. 1937—GM recognizes the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union following a 44-day strike. 1948—GM introduces V8 engines on Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs. 1954—Market share hits 54% as the company manufactures its 50 millionth car. 1979—GM is the largest private employer in the U.S., with 618,000 workers. The UAW ratifies a new contract that raises wages, pensions and other bonuses. [See 1979, p. 698A1] 1980—GM posts a loss of more than $750 million; vehicle sales decline 16% from the previous year. Oct. 8, 1987—GM and the UAW agree on a contract under which factories cannot be closed unless their product sales decline. [See 1987, p. 785D3] 1991—GM posts an industry-record loss of $4.45 billion. The company announces that

21 plants will be closed and 26,000 positions cut over the next few years, on top of the eliminated positions at the closed plants. 1998—Workers in Flint, Mich., strike for 54 days, bringing production at almost all North American GM factories to a halt. [See 1998, p. 522B1] 1999—GM buys rights to the Hummer brand from Indiana-based vehicle manufacturer AM General LLC. 2006—About 47,600 employees at GM and its bankrupt former subsidiary Delphi Corp. accept buyout packages. Investor Kirk Kerkorian sells off a large chunk of his shares in GM. GM sells 51% of GMAC to Cerberus Capital Management LP. [See 2006, pp. 1006D1, 547A3, 276B1] April 24, 2007—Japan’s Toyota Motor Co. sells 2.35 million cars in the first quarter, surpassing GM’s quarterly sales for the first time. [See 2007, p. 299D3] Oct. 10, 2007—GM’s unionized workers ratify a contract that creates a health care trust. GM owes $50 billion in health care obligations. [See 2007, p. 666B1]

2007—GM posts a loss of $39 billion, the larg-

which those vehicles would be built for sale in the U.S. at factories in Mexico and China. [See p. 339G1] UAW President Ron Gettelfinger that day said, “We are satisfied we’ve done the right thing here to give us a lifeline at General Motors to move forward until this company rebounds.” He added, “People have enjoyed beating [the UAW] up so much…maybe they can look somewhere else now, like management.”

presence, making parts and assembling vehicles at a plant in Graz, Austria. Under the terms of the deal, Germany agreed to provide 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in emergency loans to Opel while Magna finalized its agreement with GM. In the interim, Opel would be placed into a trusteeship to keep it separated from GM’s bankruptcy filing. Germany also pledged to guarantee about three billion euros in loans, while Magna agreed to immediately inject 300 million euros in cash into Opel. Magna June 3 said it planned to complete the acquisition by September. However, the German government that day said the deal was only provisional, and “the process is still open to other bidders.” Chinese carmaker Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co. reportedly met with German officials June 2. The deal called for Magna to acquire a 20% stake in Opel, including its British Vauxhall brand, while Sberbank took a 35% stake. GM would retain a 35% stake, and Opel workers would own the remaining 10%. Magna said GAZ, which had previously acquired a Chrysler assembly plant, would be its industrial partner. Sberbank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) German Gref said the Opel deal “will make it possible to restructure the auto industry in Russia.” Germany was Russia’s largest trading partner, and the deal was viewed as deepening their commercial ties. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had encouraged Russian companies to make foreign acquisitions.

run-up to German parliamentary elections scheduled for September. German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg sounded a note of dissent, warning that the government’s agreement to commit financing to Opel was too risky. He had suggested that Opel should instead declare bankruptcy and undergo restructuring without government aid. He offered to resign, but Chancellor Angela Merkel convinced him to remain in his position. Meanwhile, labor unions in Britain criticized the British government for not taking a more active role in the negotiations in order to safeguard jobs at Vauxhall factories.

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Following the UAW deal, 54% of GM’s bondholders May 31 said they had reached an agreement with the U.S. Treasury Department under which they would exchange their unsecured debt for a 10% stake in the new company, with the option to increase that stake by another 15%. GM’s bondholders together held about $27 billion in debt. As part of the deal, the bondholders who agreed to the swap said they would not oppose the company’s bankruptcy restructuring. Observers suggested that because a majority of bondholders had agreed to the swap, GM was more likely to be able to convince a bankruptcy judge to impose that same standard on bondholders who had rejected the government’s deal. Germany Brokers Sale of Opel Unit—

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck early May 30 announced that the German government had brokered a deal for a group led by Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc. to buy Adam Opel, GM’s largest European unit. The deal, reached in talks in Berlin, the German capital, came just before GM declared bankruptcy June 1. [See 2004, p. 1063A3] Magna’s bid was backed by stateowned Russian bank OAO Sberbank and Russian automaker OAO GAZ, controlled by prominent investor Oleg Deripaska. Magna had previously made a failed attempt to acquire a major automaker, losing a 2007 bidding contest for Chrysler LLC of the U.S. Magna already had a European

Germany Seeks to Preserve Jobs—

Steinbrueck May 30 said the deal would keep Opel’s German factories open and “preserve the highest possible number of jobs” in Germany. Opel had 25,000 German workers, out of a total of 55,000 GM workers in Europe. Magna said it planned to cut about 2,500 Opel jobs in Germany but promised to keep all of Opel’s German factories running. Preserving Opel jobs had become a sensitive political issue in the

est annual loss in auto manufacturer history. [See 2007, p. 734E1] June 3, 2008—Wagoner announces that GM plans to close four factories that make large, inefficient vehicles, and steer GM toward making smaller cars. [See 2008, p. 396B2] Nov. 18–19, 2008—CEOs of GM, Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. ask Congress for $25 billion in aid. Their request is rejected. [See 2008, p. 850A3] Dec. 11, 2008—Senate Republicans block a $14 billion auto industry rescue package. [See 2008, p. 899A3] Dec. 19, 2008—President George W. Bush announces that the government will loan GM and Chrysler $17.4 billion. [See 2008, p. 933A1] Dec. 29, 2008—GMAC receives $6 billion federal rescue loan. [See 2008, p. 953E1] March 30, 2009—Administration of President Barack Obama rejects GM’s restructuring plan. [See p. 197A2] June 1, 2009—GM declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [See p. 365A1]

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Italian carmaker Fiat SpA, Magna’s top rival in the bidding contest for Opel, dropped out May 29. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne complained that Fiat was not given full access to Opel’s financial records. He also said GM’s demand for a buyer to provide 300 million euros in emergency funding for Opel posed “unnecessary and unwarranted risks.” Fiat had offered a noncash deal that would have combined some of its own operations with Opel’s, while cutting 10,000 jobs. The Italian government drew some domestic criticism for not supporting Fiat’s bid more actively. Marchionne said Fiat instead would focus on completing its deal to acquire a stake in Chrysler, which was emerging from bankruptcy. He said Fiat also remained interested in acquiring GM’s Latin American units. [See below] GM had bought an 80% stake in Opel in 1929, and acquired the rest of the company two years later, making GM the largest automaker in Europe during the 1930s. The Opel deal did not include GM’s Swedish unit, Saab Automobile, which GM had put up for sale separately. Saab had filed for bankruptcy protection Feb. 20, after the Swedish government refused GM’s request for assistance to the company. Saab June 2 said it had two serious bidders and planned to begin final negotiations with one of them soon. Chinese Company Buys Hummer—GM June 2 said it had agreed to sell its Hummer sport utility vehicle (SUV) division to Chengdu, China–based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., a privately owned company, for an undisclosed price that was reported to be less than $500 million. The Hummer, a civilian version of the Humvee military vehicle made by the U.S.’s AM General LLC, had been seen as a symbol of GM’s problems, being oversized and inefficient. As part of the deal, Sichuan Tengzhong pledged that Hummers would be manufactured in the U.S. through the end of 2011. Bill Burton, a U.S. government spokesman, said the Obama administration had no part in arranging the sale, and lauded it as “good news for the 3,000 Americans who will be able to keep their jobs, the two American plants that will remain open and the more than 100 Hummer dealers that should be able to stay in business.” Sichuan Tengzhong manufactured dump trucks, concrete mixers, and parts for bridges and oil rigs. It did not manufacture consumer vehicles, but had indicated that it planned to move in that direction with the acquisition of Hummer. The sale was subject to approval by the Chinese government. Chrysler-Fiat Deal Approved—U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez May 31 in New York City approved a reorganization plan under which Chrysler would merge with Italy’s Fiat SpA. The Obama administration had forced the ailing Chrysler into bankruptcy in April and instructed it to form a partnership with Fiat, which it had already been planning to do. Gonzalez said a merger with Fiat was the only workable June 4, 2009

alternative to liquidating the company entirely. [See p. 282C2] However, a group of Indiana pension funds that were Chrysler creditors and a number of dealerships slated for closure had argued against the merger with Fiat. They appealed the deal June 4 on the grounds that the sale was unconstitutional because some unsecured debtowners would be paid off before more senior creditors, which they said was a violation of bankruptcy law. They also argued that the Treasury did not have the legal authority to provide the debtor-in-possession financing that was intended to keep Chrysler operating during the restructuring proceedings.n

U.S. President Obama Urges ‘New Beginning’ With Muslim World Presses Israel, Palestinians in Cairo Speech.

U.S. President Barack Obama June 4 called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,” in a speech given at Cairo University in Cairo, the Egyptian capital. Obama said Israel and the Palestinians had to work towards a peaceful two-state solution, and challenged Muslims to embrace human rights and democracy. [See p. 318A1; for excerpts from Obama’s speech, see p. 368A1] Obama during his presidential campaign had pledged to give a major speech in the capital of a Muslim-majority nation during the first 100 days of his presidency; that period had ended April 29. He had taken several steps to improve relations with Muslims since taking office in January, including giving his first formal televised interview as president to Arabic-language satellite television network Al Arabiya, which was based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE); sending a videotaped message to the Iranian government and people on the Persian New Year in March; and addressing the Turkish parliament in April. [See pp. 214G1, 179C1, 42G1] In his speech, Obama called for new alliances between the U.S. and Muslims “based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” He added, “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” Obama highlighted the Muslim world’s achievements throughout history and its traditions of tolerance. He said Muslims had been present throughout the history of the U.S., which had protected their rights. He drew attention to his personal links to Islam, including his childhood in Muslim-majority Indonesia and the fact that his father was Muslim. He also brought greetings from Muslim communities in the U.S., which he gave in Arabic, and quoted from the Koran. “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” Obama said. “But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”

Backs Founding of Palestinian State—

Obama reiterated his strong support for a Palestinian state, even as he affirmed that the U.S.’s bonds with Israel were “unbreakable.” He said, “Threatening Israel’s destruction, or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews, is deeply wrong.” He said Palestinians needed to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and urged them to “abandon violence” and embrace nonviolent means of struggle, citing the success of the U.S. civil rights movement. However, he said, “It is also undeniable that the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered in pursuit of a homeland…They endure the daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.” Obama twice referred to “Palestine,” which was seen as bestowing on the Palestinians recognition as a nation. He added, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” in the West Bank, the construction of which “violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.” [See p. 380E2]

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Warns Against Nuclear Arms Race—

Obama addressed tensions between the U.S. and Iran, which he said had been stoked by both the U.S. role in the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953, and Iranian “acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians” since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “Any nation—including Iran—should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty,” Obama said. However, he said it was in the U.S. and the world’s interest to prevent “a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.” [See p. 361D3] Iran maintained that its nuclear program was only for civilian power generation, but the U.S. and its allies had accused it of attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

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Afghanistan War Seen As Necessary—

Obama said he recognized that “no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust” between the U.S. and Muslims. He said the “enormous trauma” of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. had led the country “to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals” in some cases, referring specifically to examples of detainee abuse at the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. “We are taking concrete action to change course,” Obama said. He described the war in Iraq as a “war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world.” He said that although he believed that deposing former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime had been for the best, the war also reinforced the need “to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve (Continued on p. 369A1) 367

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EXCERPTS FROM U.S. PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SPEECH IN CAIRO

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Following are excerpts from U.S. President Barack Obama’s June 4 address to Muslims of the world in Cairo, Egypt [See p. 367B2]: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo…I’m grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I’m also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world—tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate.… Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights.… I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. I know there's been a lot of publicity about this speech, but no single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have this afternoon all the complex questions that brought us to this point.… I’m a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam—at places like AlAzhar—that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.…And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.…So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known.… Freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it. So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations—to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.… Afghanistan and Iraq The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. In Ankara, I made clear that America is not—and never will be—at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security—because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

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The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America’s goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued Al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice; we went because of necessity. I'm aware that there’s still some who would question or even justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day.… Now, make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.…It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.… Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.… And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.… Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world. America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.…Threatening Israel with destruction—or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews—is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.…They endure the daily humiliations—large and small—that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.… The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.… Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.… Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist. At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.… And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Is-

raeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Iran’s Nuclear Program The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons. This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.… It is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It’s about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path. I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that’s why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation—including Iran—should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.… Democracy and Human RIghts The fourth issue that I will address is democracy. I know—I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.… That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere.… The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom. Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.…This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it's being challenged in many different ways. Among some Muslims, there’s a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of somebody else’s faith. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld—whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims, as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.… The sixth issue—the sixth issue that I want to address is women’s rights.…I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well educated are far more likely to be prosperous.… Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity. I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory.…But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition.… We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written. The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.” The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.” The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

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(Continued from p. 367G3)

our problems whenever possible.” [See p. 379D3] However, Obama said continued military operations in Afghanistan were necessary. “We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, determined to kill as many Americans as possible,” he said. “But that is not yet the case.” [See p. 381A1] International Response—A spokesman for Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas June 4 called the speech “a good start and an important step towards a new American policy.” However, some observers complained that it did not set out any new proposals or establish a timeline for Israeli-Palestinian talks. Ahmed Youssef, the deputy foreign minister in the Gaza Strip government of the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), said Obama was wrong to demand Palestinian recognition of Israel without accepting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their former land in Israel. The Israeli government issued a statement saying, “We share President Obama’s hope that the American effort heralds the beginning of a new era that will bring about an end to the conflict and lead to Arab recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.” But it added that Israel would keep “protecting its interests, especially its national security.” Israeli commentators on the political left praised the speech, while conservatives there and in the U.S. criticized Obama for making what they viewed as a false comparison between the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust and that of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, June 4 said Muslims would continue to “hate America from the bottom of their heart” because of the country’s “aggressive actions,” despite Obama’s “beautiful speeches.” He also said Iran only wanted to use nuclear technology for civilian power generation, because he had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 2005 prohibiting in the name of Islam the production, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons. Obama’s speech was broadcast live by many television networks around the world. In an effort described by U.S. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as “far broader” than previous ones, the U.S. government was broadcasting the speech live on the White House Web site, sponsoring links to its text on social networking Web sites and providing real-time excerpts via text messages in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. Obama Meets With Saudi King Abdullah—

Obama June 3 had arrived in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on the first leg of his trip to the Middle East and Europe. On arriving, he said, “I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began.” Obama met with Saudi King Abdullah on issues that the two leaders afterwards said included Israeli-Palestinian reJune 4, 2009

lations, the Iranian nuclear program, the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Obama’s upcoming speech in Egypt. Obama June 4 traveled to Cairo, where he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Obama after the speech flew on to Germany. He was also due to visit France to commemorate the 1944 D-Day landings during World War II. Bin Laden Tapes Released—Qatari satellite television channel Al Jazeera June 3 broadcast an audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden, leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, in which bin Laden said Obama had “planted new seeds to increase hatred and revenge.” He accused Obama of instigating Pakistan’s recent military campaign against militants in that country’s Swat Valley, which he said had displaced “one million Muslims.” Bin Laden warned, “The American people should get ready to reap the fruits of what the leaders of the White House have planted throughout the coming years and decades.” [See pp. 382B2, 13G2] Al Jazeera June 4 played new excerpts of the tape, in which bin Laden told Muslims to “brace yourselves for a long war against the world’s infidels and their agents.” A tape released June 2 had featured Ayman al-Zawahiri—bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy—calling on Egyptians to boycott Obama’s speech. (Al Jazeera March 14 had broadcast a previous tape attributed to bin Laden. In it, the Al Qaeda leader argued that moderate Arab leaders were complicit in the deaths of Palestinians during Israel’s January invasion of the Gaza Strip, and said he would dispatch supporters to the region in order to “liberate Palestine.”) [See p. 209F3] n

Aviation Air France Flight Crashes in Atlantic Ocean.

Air France flight AF 447, traveling May 31– June 1 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean after sending out several automated signals indicating a loss of pressure in the cabin and an electrical failure. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim June 2 said a military plane participating in the subsequent searchand-rescue operation had spotted several clusters of wreckage about 800 miles (1,300 km) off Brazil’s coast that were thought to be from the Air France jet. He said all 216 passengers and 12 crew members aboard the flight were presumed dead, which would make it the world’s deadliest aviation disaster since 2003. [See 2008, p. 575E2; 2007, p. 466G3] The flight had departed from Galeao Airport in Rio around 7:00 p.m. local time May 31. The last verbal communication from pilots was received around 10:30 p.m. An Air France spokeswoman June 1 said the plane had flown into a severe electrical storm with heavy turbulence about 30 minutes later. The automated signals were sent about 14 minutes after the storm was encountered. The plane had been scheduled to land at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle International Airport around 11:10 a.m. local time June 1.

Air France officials said it was possible that the plane, an Airbus A330-200, had been hit by lightning, but that the cause of the crash remained unknown. All jets were built to standards allowing them to continue flying in extreme turbulence and to withstand a lightning strike. The Brazilian air force said the plane was traveling at 521 miles per hour (840 kmph) at 35,000 feet (10,700 m) before contact was lost. Investigators remained puzzled over the failure of the crew to send out any emergency signals before contact with the plane was lost. Much of the information surrounding the plane’s crash would remain uncertain unless its digital flight-data and cockpit recorders, or “black boxes,” were recovered. However, investigators said the likelihood of recovering the black boxes from the ocean remained slim, as the waters in the area the wreckage was found in were deep, and the sea floor was mountainous. Brazilian military officials June 3 said they had discovered new clusters of wreckage about 55 miles south of the first site. Jobim June 4 said a 12-mile-long oil slick found at one of the wreckage sites indicated that the plane had not exploded in the air. However, aviation experts said using wreckage to determine when a plane had broken up was a difficult task. Jobim June 4 said there were “no signs” that terrorism had been involved in the crash. The Brazilian air force June 4 said it had recovered a piece of floating debris from one of the wreckage sites which it believed to be a support piece that might have made up part of the structure of the plane’s cargo hold. However, air force officials later that evening said an analysis of the recovered debris indicated that it had not come from the plane, but might have originated from a ship. The revelation threw into doubt whether the spotted debris fields were in fact wreckage from the plane. French Transportation Minister Dominique Bussereau cautioned against jumping to conclusions regarding debris recovered from the sea. “Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing,” he said. A memorial for the people aboard the flight was held June 3 at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Air France said the passengers included 61 French nationals, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans and people from 29 other countries. n

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AIDS News in Brief. U.S. President Barack Obama April 27 said he planned to nominate Eric Goosby to head the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Goosby, 56,

was a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco who had also worked on AIDS policy during the presidency of Bill Clinton. PEPFAR had been criticized for stressing methods of halting the spread of HIV promoted by social conservatives, such as abstinence, over family planning programs and condom distribution. [See 2008, p. 535E1] Researchers April 6 reported on the Web site of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine that PEPFAR had reduced the death toll 369

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from AIDS in several African countries by 10% between its inception in 2003 and 2007, but had not substantially prevented new HIV infections. The study tracked the effectiveness of PEPFAR in 12 countries over four years. The study was led by Eran Bendavid of the U.S.’s Stanford University School of Medicine. The U.S. Congress in 2008 had authorized $48 billion for the program over the next five years. n

Other International News Al Qaeda Affiliate Kills British Hostage.

The North Africa–based radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) June 3 said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site that it had killed Edwin Dyer, a British tourist who had been abducted in January in a remote region near the border between Niger and Mali. AQIM was loosely affiliated with the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See p. 326E1] Dyer had been abducted along with three other European tourists while attending a cultural festival in the region. They were reportedly held in northeastern Mali. Two of the tourists, a Swiss woman and a German woman, were released in April, along with two Canadian diplomats who had been held since December 2008. AQIM continued to hold the fourth tourist, who was a Swiss man. AQIM had demanded the release from British custody of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born Palestinian Muslim cleric linked to Al Qaeda. The British government was seeking to deport Qatada, who was also known as Omar Uthman Abu Omar, to Jordan, where he had been convicted in absentia of terrorism. Qatada had challenged the deportation order in British courts, alleging that he would be tortured if he was returned to Jordan. [See 2007, p. 371E1] AQIM had set a deadline of May 30 for Britain to release Qatada. When Britain failed to comply, it killed Dyer May 31, according to the Internet statement. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the killing “a barbaric act of terrorism,” adding that it “strengthens our determination never to concede to the demands of terrorists.” n Iran Hosts Afghanistan, Pakistan at Summit.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari May 24 met in Tehran, Iran’s capital, for a summit on regional issues, including combating the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group and the flourishing illegal drug trade across their countries’ borders. It was the first trilateral meeting held between the three heads of state. [See pp. 382A2, 381A1] The leaders signed an agreement pledging to cooperate in battling Islamic extremists and drug smugglers. Ahmadinejad said problems in the region had largely been caused by “others who are alien to the nations and culture of our nations.” That was thought to refer to the U.S., which was combating the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was allied with those countries. n 370

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Crime Gunman Kills Kansas Abortion Doctor.

George Tiller, a physician who performed late-term abortions, May 31 was shot and killed while serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan., the church that he and his wife attended. Tiller, who had been subject to antiabortion protests and harassment for more than 20 years, was the first abortion provider killed since Barnett Slepian of Buffalo, N.Y., was fatally shot in his home in 1998. A suspect in the killing, Scott Roeder, was arrested in Kansas later May 31. [See 2006, p. 1008D1; 1998, p. 774F3; 1994, p. 329D3] Four abortion doctors and four others had been killed in antiabortion violence since abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1973. According to the National Abortion Federation, an abortion rights advocacy group, antiabortion activists had carried out more than 6,100 acts of violence against abortion clinics, doctors and staffers since 1977, including bombings, arson, vandalism, death threats and the mailing of fake anthrax letters. Tiller’s clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, specialized in terminating pregnancies in which the fetus suffered from catastrophic or fatal birth defects. It was one of a handful of U.S. facilities that performed abortions on women who were more than 21 weeks pregnant, leading it to become one of the main targets of antiabortion protests. The clinic had been bombed in 1986 and Tiller had been shot and wounded in both arms by an antiabortion protester in 1993. Tiller had often worn a bulletproof vest and was driven to and from his clinic in an armored car. Tiller and his clinic had been subject to multiple investigations, including two grand-jury probes authorized under a Kansas law that allow citizens to petition the government to investigate alleged wrongdoing. Kansas law barred abortions of fetuses viable outside the womb without certification by two doctors that bringing the pregnancy to term would cause “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” in the mother. Tiller had been acquitted in March on charges that he had had an improper financial relationship with a doctor who had approved medical certifications for requested abortions at Tiller’s clinic. Suspect Charged With Murder—The prime suspect in the case, Roeder, June 2 was charged at a court in Wichita with premeditated murder and two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting. If convicted on all charges, Roeder faced a sentence of life in prison, but prosecutors said the circumstances of the crime would render him ineligible for the death penalty under Kansas law. Roeder May 31 had been arrested by Kansas police after being pulled over in a car matching descriptions of the one seen fleeing the scene of the shooting. Roeder

had reportedly attended at least part of Tiller’s trial earlier in the year and had been upset by Tiller’s acquittal. Roeder reportedly suffered from untreated schizophrenia and had links to several right-wing organizations, including the Freemen, an antitax organization that denied U.S. sovereignty. He had been convicted on explosives charges in 1996 after being arrested with bomb components in the trunk of his car; his conviction was later overturned on appeal. The office manager at Tiller’s clinic, June 2 said that a man resembling Roeder and driving the car that Roeder had been apprehended in had vandalized the clinic on May 23 and May 30. The manager said that the license number of the car and photos of the man had been given to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but that no agents had followed up on the information prior to Tiller’s death. At the time of Roeder’s arrest, a slip of paper was found in his car with the phone number of an official at Operation Rescue, a prominent antiabortion group that had carried out six weeks of mass protests against Tiller’s clinic in 1991. The official, Cheryl Sullenger, who had been convicted of plotting to bomb an abortion clinic in 1988, said that she had not spoken to Roeder recently and that he had initiated all their conversations. Roeder had posted a number of messages on a Web site operated by Operation Rescue, in one instance reportedly calling for other protesters to join him in confronting Tiller at church. However, Kansas police said they believed that Roeder had carried out the murder on his own. [See 1991, p. 676D1] Obama Condemns Shooting—President Barack Obama May 31 said in a statement that he was “shocked and outraged” by the attack. He also said that “however profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.” In May, Obama, who favored abortion rights, had given a high-profile speech dealing with abortion at the University of Notre Dame, a Roman Catholic university in South Bend, Ind. [See p. 338D2] Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. May 31 described Tiller’s murder as “an abhorrent act of violence” and announced that he was dispatching the U.S. Marshals Service to provide additional protection to abortion providers. Operation Rescue head Troy Newman May 31 called the shooting a “cowardly act” and said that while the group had strongly opposed Tiller, it had used legal methods, rather than violence, in its efforts to see Tiller “brought to justice.” Randall Terry, the founder and former leader of Operation Rescue, in statements May 31 and June 1 called Tiller a “mass murderer” who “reaped what he sowed,” and expressed concern that “the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.” It was not immediately clear if Tiller’s clinic would reopen. n FACTS ON FILE

Civil Rights

Federal Budget

New Hampshire Legalizes Gay Marriage.

Fed Chief Bernanke Urges Deficit Reduction.

New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) June 3 signed into law a bill legalizing gay marriage in the state, making it the sixth to do so. The state Senate earlier in the day had approved the measure, 14–10, along party lines, with all 14 Democrats endorsing it. Hours later, the state House passed the legislation, 198–176. The law was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2010. Those couples in civil unions would automatically become married on Jan. 1, 2011. [See p. 353C1] A similar bill had been passed by the state legislature May 6, but was never formally submitted to Lynch, who had said he would veto it unless it was revised. Lynch had raised concerns that the law would force religious groups opposed to same-sex marriage to participate in gay marriage ceremonies. A second version of the bill was rejected by the state House on May 20, but House and Senate members afterwards agreed to create a committee to reach a consensus on the bill’s language. The committee reached a compromise May 29. The law granted religious organizations and groups “exclusive control” over their “doctrines, teachings and beliefs.” It also allowed charity and education groups affiliated with religious institutions to abstain from providing same-sex marriage services. Lynch had previously expressed support for same-sex civil unions, but said he believed that marriage was defined as being between a man and a woman. However, Lynch in a statement June 3 said his mind had been changed by “compelling arguments that a separate system is not an equal system.” He added, “Today we are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they will receive the same rights, responsibilities and respect under New Hampshire law.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in testimony before the House Budget Committee June 3 warned that the government would put financial stability at risk unless it showed that it was serious about reducing the budget deficit over the long term. His comments came after a sharp increase in long-term interest rates, despite the Fed’s efforts to keep rates low. Bernanke said bond investors’ “concerns about large federal deficits” appeared to be a factor driving the rates higher. “Maintaining the confidence of the financial markets requires that we, as a nation, begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance,” he said. [See pp. 372F1, 321G3] Bernanke said that recent legislation authorizing heavy economic stimulus spending had been a justified response to the current recession and a global financial crisis. He said, “Congress and the administration face formidable near-term challenges that must be addressed.” However, he added, “Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.” The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in May had estimated that the deficit would rise to $1.84 trillion, a record in dollar terms, in fiscal year 2009, which had begun Oct. 1, 2008. The OMB projected that the deficit would drop to about $900 billion by 2011, but independent analysts viewed the OMB’s economic assumptions as overly optimistic and forecast higher long-term deficits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the deficit would still exceed $1 trillion in 2019. Bernanke said the increased government borrowing required by the surging deficit would push the national debt to 70% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2011, from 41% at the end of fiscal 2008. That would take the debt to its highest level since World War II. Bernanke said, “We cannot allow ourselves to be in a situation where the debt continues to rise. That means more and more interest payments, which swell the deficit, which leads to an unsustainable situation.” The national debt May 16 had surpassed $11 trillion for the first time. It had risen by nearly $4.9 trillion under President George W. Bush, and by more than $400 billion in Obama’s first two months in office. The CBO estimated that the debt would rise to 65% of GDP by the end of fiscal 2010, and to more than $17 trillion, or 82% of GDP, by 2019. Bernanke noted that over the next decade, the retirement of the post–World War II baby-boom generation was expected to put a heavy strain on federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare. “We will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely to meet those demands,” he warned. Raising the possibility that tax increases might be necessary, he said, “Tax rates must ultimately be set at a level sufficient

Nevada Domestic Partnership Approved—

The Nevada state Assembly May 31 voted, 28–14, to override a May 25 veto by Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) of a bill that would allow domestic partnerships for same-sex and straight couples in the state. The Assembly barely garnered the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The state Senate May 30 had also voted to override the veto, 14–7. [See 2002, p. 856B2] The law, scheduled to take effect Oct. 1, gave couples in domestic partnerships many of the same benefits, rights and protections afforded married couples. Couples in domestic partnerships would have the same community property and debt rights as those who were married, and would be protected from discrimination. However, the law specified that domestic partnerships did not qualify as marriages, in accordance with a 2002 state constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Gibbons, after vetoing the bill, had said it conflicted with the amendment. n June 4, 2009

to achieve an appropriate balance of spending and revenues in the long run.” 10-Year Treasury Rates Rise Sharply—

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes had risen to its highest level in five months, 3.55% as of June 3, after peaking at 3.76% the previous week, up from a record low of 2.09% in December 2008. That was the sharpest rise in 15 years. Analysts said that along with concern over federal borrowing, another factor in the increase was lower demand, as more investors regained confidence in the economy and left the safe haven of government bonds to buy higheryielding corporate debt and stocks. The rising bond yields increased borrowing costs both for the government and for private-sector borrowers, including corporations and consumers, since yields served as a benchmark for other key interest rates, such as mortgage rates. The Fed had kept its own benchmark rate at near zero since December 2008. The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had risen to 5.25% the previous week, from 4.81% the week before, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported June 3. The MBA said the rate increase had led to a 16.2% drop in mortgage applications. Bernanke said the Fed would not increase its purchases of Treasury bonds in an attempt to drive yields lower. The Fed was already purchasing large amounts of

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June Financial Update (Close of trading June 1 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

8,721.44

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

942.87 1,828.68 4,506.19

Tokyo Stock Exchange

9,677.75

(see box, p. 372A1)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index)

Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

10,604.06 3.71% 0.25%

Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

$0.8109 $1.6443 $0.9165 $1.4158 96.62 13.2240 $0.9341

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$975.27

Silver (per troy oz.)

$15.8600

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released May 31)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

$2.49 $7.2900

-0.7%

Unemployment rate

8.9%

(April 2009; see p. 323C2)

Gross domestic product growth

-5.7%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized first-quarter 2009 rate, preliminary report; see p. 372E1)

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$68.58

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through April 2009; see p. 355E2)

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Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange

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Closing

May 1 4

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8,212.41 8,426.74 8,410.65 8,512.28 8,409.85 8,574.65 8,418.77 8,469.11 8,284.89 8,331.32 8,268.64 8,504.08 8,474.85 8,422.04 8,292.13 8,277.32 Holiday 8,473.49 8,300.02 8,403.80 8,500.33

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,284.7 1,699.6 1,526.9 1,867.3 1,960.0 1,873.4 1,481.1 1,605.6 1,756.0 1,517.7 1,475.4 1,415.7 1,342.0 1,559.3 1,393.6 1,054.4 Holiday 1,369.3 1,330.3 1,363.4 1,774.1

housing market remained in a deep slump. The median price of a new single-family home sold in April was reported to be $209,700. [See p. 292F1] n Existing Home Sales Rose 2.9% in April.

The National Association of Realtors May 27 reported that sales of existing homes rose by 2.9% in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.68 million units. That was down from the revised 4.55 million units rate in March. The median sale price for existing homes in April was $170,200, down 15.4% from a year earlier. [See p. 292D1] n Durable Goods Orders Rose 1.9% in April.

The Commerce Department May 28 reported that the value of durable goods orders in April was $161.5 billion, an increase of 1.9%, or $3.0 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were socalled big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 292E1] n

Financial Markets GM, Citigroup Removed From Dow Index.

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both government and corporate bonds in a program designed to encourage a return to normal lending in credit markets that had frozen in the financial crisis. Critics warned that Fed bond purchases, of up to $300 billion by September, could cause inflation. [See p. 163A3] Bernanke said there were signs of a recovery from the recession, but cautioned, “We expect that the recovery will only gradually gain momentum.” He added, “Businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, and the unemployment rate is likely to rise for a time, even after economic growth resumes,” which he predicted would happen by the end of the year. The unemployment rate stood at 8.9% in April. [See p. 323B2] n

Economy GDP Shrank at 5.7% Rate in First Quarter.

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The Commerce Department May 29 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.7% in the first quarter of 2009. That was a slower contraction rate than the department’s “advance” estimate of 6.l%, reported in April. The new figure was based on revised data showing that businesses had not depleted inventory as rapidly as originally reported. The department also said exports had not fallen as much as previously thought. The latest data was “preliminary” and would be revised once more. [See p. 291C3] n New Home Sales Rose 0.3% in April. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) May 28 reported jointly that sales of new single-family homes rose 0.3% in April from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 352,000 units, up from the revised March rate of 351,000 units. However, the April figure was 34% below the figure for April 2008, indicating that the 372

Dow Jones & Co., a unit of media conglomerate News Corp., June 1 said it would remove auto maker General Motors Corp. (GM) and banking giant Citigroup Inc. as components of the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average, the country’s oldest indicator of general stock performance. Dow Jones said the two companies would be replaced by computer-network company Cisco Systems Inc. and insurer Travelers Cos., effective June 8. [See pp. 365A1, 319A1; 2008, p. 955D1] Dow Jones’s announcement came on the day that GM—which had been a component of the Dow for 83 years—filed for bankruptcy. Citigroup, which had sustained massive losses in the past year due to the financial crisis, could see the government take a 34% stake in the company as part of a bailout package. The government’s ongoing involvement with the company was the reason it had been dropped from the index after 12 years, according to a statement by Robert Thomson, who as managing editor of the Wall Street Journal—a Dow Jones division—was the ultimate arbiter of the index’s composition. Thomson said the addition of Travelers, which Citigroup had once owned, was intended to round out the financial sector’s representation on the index, after the removal in 2008 of insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG), another victim of the financial crisis. n

Space Shuttle in Final Hubble Maintenance Flight.

The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis May 11–24 carried out a mission to repair the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. It was the fifth and final Hubble mission for the shuttle fleet, which was scheduled to be retired in 2010, and the mission’s five space walks were the last opportunity to carry out maintenance of the telescope. The Hubble, which had been put into orbit by the shuttle Discovery in 1990, had sent back to Earth dra-

matically detailed images of never-beforeobserved depths of space, advancing the study of the origins of the universe. It was originally intended to have a working life of 15 years, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said that with the work carried out by the shuttle crew, it was expected to operate for another five to 10 years. [See p. 239A2; 2008, p. 121D1] Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 2:01 p.m. Eastern daylight time May 11. It was the 126th space shuttle flight, and the 30th for Atlantis. The mission commander was retired U.S. Navy Capt. Scott Altman, 49, and the pilot was retired U.S. Navy Capt. Gregory C. Johnson, 54. The mission specialists were John Grunsfeld, 50, who was on his third Hubble repair flight; Michael Massimino, 46; Michael Good, 46; Andrew Feustel, 43; and Megan McArthur, 37. Atlantis May 13 reached the Hubble, which had last been serviced in 2002, and McArthur used the shuttle’s robot arm to maneuver the telescope into a berth in its open cargo bay. On the first space walk, the following day, Feustel and Grunsfeld installed a new camera on the telescope, called the Wide-Field Camera 3. The new camera would capture ultraviolet and nearinfrared light as well as visible light, allowing it to take images that would reveal more about the universe’s deeper past. (In the expanding universe, the wavelength of light traveling greater distances stretched into the redder range of the spectrum.) Feustel and Grunsfeld also replaced a data router and instrument command box on the Hubble in the May 14 space walk. (The failure of the router in 2008 had delayed the repair mission while a replacement was readied.) The following day, Massimino and Good replaced the six gyroscopes that kept the Hubble properly oriented, three of which were currently not functioning, and replaced three telescope batteries. The astronauts had difficulty installing two of the new replacement gyroscopes, leading them to use instead two backups that had been in use from 1990 to 1999 and had since been refurbished. On the third space walk, May 16, Feustel and Grunsfeld carried out delicate repairs to the Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The instrument had not been designed to undergo the kind of in-orbit disassembly required, but the operation was declared a success. Massimino and Good May 17 repaired another instrument, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. In the final space walk, May 18, Grunsfeld and Feustel installed more replacement batteries and orientation equipment, as well as insulating sheets to protect the Hubble from radiation and extreme temperatures. Reentering the shuttle after the last space walk, Grunsfeld suggested that the Hubble was “the most important scientific instrument ever created.” NASA May 21 said it had cleared Atlantis for landing. Hubble’s orbit was higher than that of the International Space Station, FACTS ON FILE

which shuttles routinely visited. Space debris was more common at the Hubble’s altitude, raising the risk that a collision with an object might damage the shuttle. That had led NASA to keep a backup orbiter, Endeavour, at the ready during the mission, in case it was needed to rescue the crew from a damaged Atlantis. Atlantis landed May 24 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, at 8:39 a.m. Pacific daylight time (11:39 a.m. Eastern). The landing had been delayed and then diverted from Cape Canaveral due to weather conditions.

considered by the administration. Nelson was also a former astronaut and had flown on a 1986 shuttle mission under Bolden’s command. Bolden, 62, was currently chief executive officer of JackandPanther LLC, a military and aerospace consultancy in Houston, Texas. His lobbying and other connections to the aerospace industry would reportedly require the Obama administration to grant him a waiver of its conflict-of-interest rules. [See p. 29B1] If confirmed, Bolden would become NASA’s first black administrator. n

Dispute Aired Over Space Servicing—

The Hubble’s senior project scientist, David Leckrone, at a news conference May 19 and in an interview published May 23 by the Washington Post, suggested that NASA was abandoning the maintenance of orbiting scientific equipment with the end of the shuttle program. NASA officials countered that astronaut servicing was costly, but that in any case, they had not ruled out designing future spacecraft to be serviced. Plans adopted under former President George W. Bush called for the shuttles to be replaced by a craft, called Constellation, more oriented to human space exploration and the goals of sending manned missions to the International Space Station, the moon and Mars. However, President Barack Obama had ordered a review of that plan, and NASA had been without a permanent administrator since January, amid a reported sense of uncertainty within the agency over its future priorities. [See p. 373F1] Launching a shuttle mission to service the Hubble had long been a subject of debate at NASA. Plans to do so were canceled in 2004 as too risky, drawing an outcry from scientists touting the telescope’s unique value. The plan was restored in 2006. [See 2006, p. 879C3] NASA planned to launch a successor orbiting telescope, called the James Webb Space Telescope, in 2014. The European Space Agency May 14 launched an orbiting telescope, the Far Infrared and Submillimeter Telescope (FIRST), from Kouru in French Guiana. Known also as Herschel, it was the largest telescope ever put into space. n Shuttle Veteran Nominated to Lead NASA.

President Barack Obama May 23 nominated retired Marine Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden Jr., a four-time space shuttle astronaut, to become administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Administrator Michael Griffin had stepped down upon Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20, and the agency was currently overseen by an acting administrator, Chris Scolese. [See 2005, p. 281B1; 1994, p. 100A2] Bolden, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, had served as a Marine aviator in the Vietnam War and the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and retired from the corps in 2004. He became an astronaut in 1981 and commanded two shuttle missions. His nomination was reportedly promoted by Sen. Bill Nelson (D, Fla.), chairman of the Senate Commerce space subcommittee, over other candidates June 4, 2009

Obama Administration N.Y. Congressman Picked for Army Secretary.

President Barack Obama June 2 announced that he was nominating Rep. John McHugh (R, N.Y.) for the post of Army secretary. It was the latest of several nominations of moderate Republicans to positions in the Obama administration. Obama continued the trend the next day, naming former Rep. James Leach (R, Iowa) as his nominee for chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Two weeks earlier, Obama had nominated Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) as ambassador to China. [See p. 353E3] Obama had pledged to include Republicans in his administration as proof that he took a bipartisan approach to governing. But the string of nominations was also viewed as part of a political strategy to reduce the numbers of remaining Republican moderates in office and confine the GOP mainly to its Southern conservative base, making the Democrats the party with broader appeal. McHugh, 60, was the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. He had served in the House since 1993, representing the 23rd Congressional District in northern New York State. The district’s biggest employer was Fort Drum, home of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. McHugh had worked to secure federal funding for the base and protect it from closure. If McHugh was confirmed as Army secretary and resigned his House seat, that would trigger a special election, giving the Democrats a chance to win the seat. Obama had won 52% of the district’s vote in the 2008 presidential election. [See p. 292B2] Losing the seat would further reduce the dwindling number of Republicans in New York’s 29-member congressional delegation to just two. It would also continue the steady decline of the Republicans in the northeastern U.S., a trend exemplified by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party in March. Leach, 66, had crossed party lines to endorse Obama in the 2008 presidential election, and spoke in a prime-time slot at the Democratic National Convention. He had served in the House for 30 years, but lost his 2006 reelection bid. He had been chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee, as well as founder of the Congressional Humanities Caucus.

Since leaving Congress, he had taught at Princeton University and headed the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. [See 2008, p. 587E1; 2006, p. 859A1] n

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2009 Elections GOP’s Christie to Face N.J. Gov. Corzine.

Former federal prosecutor Christopher Christie June 2 won the New Jersey Republican primary for the party’s nomination to challenge Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in the November general election. New Jersey and Virginia, where Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) was barred by law from running for a second term, were the only two states holding gubernatorial elections in 2009. [See 2005, p. 797D2] Christie won 55% of the vote in the primary, staving off a more conservative rival, Steven Lonegan, former mayor of the town of Bogota, who took 42%. Corzine faced no serious challengers in the Democratic primary and won 77% of the vote. (Results were based on 99% of precincts reporting.) Christie, 46, had served as U.S. attorney in New Jersey from 2001 to 2008. President George W. Bush had named Christie to the post after he emerged as a leading New Jersey supporter and fund-raiser for Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney, Christie crusaded against political corruption in the state, winning 130 convictions and guilty pleas. Vice President Joseph Biden June 2 joined Corzine at a rally in West Orange, declaring that he and President Barack Obama were “committed to Jon Corzine’s reelection.” In his speech at the rally, Corzine repeatedly linked Christie to Bush. Christie led Corzine in public opinion polls and sought to become the first Republican to win the New Jersey governorship since Christine Todd Whitman won reelection in 1997. Corzine, 62, had lost popularity after pushing for tax increases and budget cuts to fix the state’s financial problems. In a victory speech in Whippany, Christie said Corzine was “well-intentioned” but “simply wrong for this job.” [See 2006, p. 547C1] Despite his unpopularity, Corzine retained a major financial advantage. He had made a fortune as a cochairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and spent more than $40 million of his own money on his 2005 campaign. Christie, by accepting public campaign financing, was limited to $10.9 million in spending, while Corzine could spend an unlimited amount of his own money. n

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Supreme Court Suspect Questioning Rules Eased. The Su-

preme Court May 26 ruled, 5–4, that police officers could initiate an interrogation of a suspect even if the suspect’s lawyer was not present. The ruling overturned Michigan v. Jackson, a 1986 decision that had forbidden the practice with suspects who had invoked their right to counsel or had obtained the services of a lawyer. The cur-

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rent case before the court was Montejo v. Louisiana. [See p. 48G2; 1986, p. 229C3] The plaintiff in the case, Jesse Montejo, had been found guilty in 2005 of a 2002 murder. After Montejo’s arrest, the judge at his hearing had assigned him a lawyer. Afterward, police took Montejo to locate the murder weapon, and during that time he was questioned. He also wrote a letter to the victim’s wife incriminating himself. Montejo’s court-appointed lawyer took issue with the fact that Montejo had been questioned without a lawyer present, and argued that detectives had pressured him into writing the letter, which was later used as evidence against him at the trial. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the Supreme Court’s opinion, said Michigan had had a “considerable adverse effect” on “society’s ability to solve crimes and bring criminals to justice,” and that its benefits were “marginal.” He wrote that the court’s decision to overturn Michigan would have a “minimal” impact on suspects’ rights. The court’s decision in Montejo would not remove a suspect’s right to remain silent or have a lawyer present during questioning. Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy. The Obama administration had urged the court to overturn Michigan. In a brief filed with the court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan said the decision “serves no real purpose,” and provided “meager benefits.” Justice John Paul Stevens, who had authored the Michigan decision, read the minority opinion from the bench, which was traditionally done to express a justice’s strong objection to a ruling. Stevens wrote that the court had undermined Montejo’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel, and his Fifth Amendment protections against selfincrimination. Stevens wrote, “Such a decision can only diminish the public’s confidence in the reliability and fairness of our system of justice.” He was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. n News in Brief. The Supreme Court June 1 accepted Bilski v. Doll, in which it was expected to determine what kind of business methods were eligible for patent protection. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which resolved patent disputes, in October 2008 had ruled that only those business methods “tied to a particular machine or apparatus” or those that transformed “a particular article into a different state or thing” qualified for patent protection. The original plaintiffs in the case had argued that their method of hedging investments in the commodities market was patentable. [See 2008, p. 411B2] The Supreme Court June 1 ruled unanimously that the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, had been too hasty in throwing out the death sentence of a convicted murderer who could be mentally retarded. Ohio state courts had deter-

mined that the convict, Michael Bies, was retarded, leading the appellate court to 374

throw out his death sentence, in light of the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling Atkins v. Virginia, which barred executions of the retarded. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the Supreme Court, said that the state courts had not adequately investigated the retardation claim, and that state prosecutors should have another chance to prove that Bies was not retarded. The current case was Bobby v. Bies. [See 2002, p. 473A1] n

Terrorism Detainees Guantanamo Prisoner Commits Suicide.

The U.S. military June 2 announced in a statement that a terrorism detainee held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had died on June 1 in an apparent suicide. The detainee, Muhammed Ahmad Abdallah Salih, also known as Al Hanashi, had been one of about 240 detainees still held at the prison, which President Barack Obama had ordered closed by January 2010. The military did not release details on how Salih died, but said that personnel at Guantanamo had attempted to revive him after he was discovered. [See 2008, p. 657A2] Salih, 31, had been held at Guantanamo without charge since 2002. He was one of 96 Yemeni detainees still at the prison, the most of any nationality. The U.S. was reportedly reluctant to return detainees to Yemen, which was seen as a center of terrorist activity. The U.S. reportedly was negotiating an agreement with the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia intended to send some of the remaining Yemeni detainees to a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia. Salih was the fifth detainee to commit suicide at Guantanamo and the sixth to die there. One detainee had died of cancer in 2007. Salih reportedly had been held with six other detainees in the prison’s psychiatric ward and had been force-fed in a restraint chair while on a hunger strike that ended in mid-May. He had reportedly dropped to a weight of 87 pounds (39 kg) during his hunger strike. Salih was one of only eight current detainees who had never met with an attorney about their detention. The Miami Herald reported June 4 that, prior to his death, the U.S. government had not determined whether he would have been freed, tried on terrorism charges or detained indefinitely. The military said Salih had admitted to fighting for the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 and to staying at guest houses linked to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. He was captured during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in response to Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, D.C., June 3 said that the government of Yemen had requested a full inquiry into Salih’s death. Military pathologists June 3 conducted an autopsy. Yemen reportedly sent a representative to the prison to make sure that Salih’s remains were treated according to Islamic law. n

Terrorism Convictions, Acquittal in Sears Tower Case.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Miami, Fla., May 12 convicted five men and acquitted one of attempting to conspire with the Al Qaeda international terrorist network to carry out terrorist attacks inside the U.S., including a proposed attack on the Sears Tower, in Chicago, among others. The verdict followed two previous mistrials in the case, in 2007 and 2008. Prosecutors had said that they would not retry the case a fourth time if it ended in another mistrial. [See 2008, p. 519C2] The six defendants were involved with the Moorish Science Temple, an obscure religious group that combined aspects of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They were arrested after an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant posing as a member of Al Qaeda led the defendants in the recitation of a loyalty oath. However, no explosives or other physical evidence of terrorist plotting were found by the police during their searches of the religious group’s headquarters and the defendants’ residences. Defense attorneys had argued that the defendants had been entrapped by the informant and had simply been attempting to cheat him out of $50,000 by pretending to support terrorism aims. Prosecutors argued that the men posed a threat to national security, noting that one of the defendants, Narseal Batiste, who ran the Moorish Science Temple, had proposed destroying the Sears Tower and other targets during his conversations with the informant. The defendants had been charged with waging war against the U.S. government through a seditious act, conspiracy to destroy buildings with explosives, conspiracy to provide materials support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Batiste was convicted on all four charges and faced up to 70 years in prison. The other four convicted defendants—Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Rotschild Augustine and Burson Augustin—were convicted on some of the charges and acquitted of others, and each faced 30 years of imprisonment or more. All five men were scheduled to be sentenced July 27. The sixth, acquitted defendant was Naudemar Herrera. (Another member of the group, Haitianborn Lyglenson Lemorin, who had been acquitted during the initial 2007 trial, was currently being held on immigration charges related to the accusations against the group.) During jury deliberations, which had initially appeared deadlocked, Judge Joan Lenard had rejected a defense request for a mistrial, and ousted a juror who had been accused by others on the jury of refusing to deliberate. However, the Miami Herald reported May 16 that the dismissed juror had denied refusing to participate and accused other jurors of attempting to control or oust her because she differed with them about the correct verdict in the case. n FACTS ON FILE

News in Brief. Police in New York City

May 20 arrested four men on charges that that they had plotted to shoot down military planes and bomb two synagogues in New York’s Bronx borough. The men, who were Muslim converts, had been targeted by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation, and were arrested after planting deactivated bombs they had received from an informant outside the synagogues. The men were charged with one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and one count of conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles, and faced life in prison if convicted. Critics argued that the men would not have had the will or the ability to plot an effective attack without FBI assistance, and suggested that the sting could have constituted entrapment. [See 374A3; 2008, p. 937E3] Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Luis Posada Carriles April 8 was charged in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, with 11 criminal counts, including perjury and obstructing a terrorism investigation, in connection with his alleged role in 1997 terrorist bombings in Cuba. Posada, 81, had been charged in 2007 with immigration fraud, among other charges, and was wanted on terrorism charges in Cuba. The new charges accused him of lying to an immigration judge and other immigration officials in connection with his role in the 1997 bombings. His trial was scheduled to start in August. [See 2007, p. 331C2] n

Consumer Affairs News in Brief. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) April 14 named David Vladeck

as director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Vladeck was a law professor at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. The post had oversight on a range of consumer issues, including identity theft and marketing practices. Judge Paul Gardephe of U.S. District Court in New York City Feb. 5 ruled that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) could not allow toys containing toxic chemicals to be sold after stricter regulations took effect Feb. 10. The CPSC, under pressure from manufacturers, had argued that toys produced before the Feb. 10 deadline containing high levels of lead or phthalates—which were hormone-disrupting chemicals banned by a 2008 law—could still be sold. Toy manufacturers and retailers were reportedly left with millions of dollars worth of merchandise that they would not be able to sell in the U.S. [See 2008, p. 635A1] The CPSC Jan. 30 voted to delay by one year more rigorous testing requirements

for toys and other children’s products, until February 2010. While the commission’s decision did not affect the implementation of new phthalate and lead standards in products, companies would not have to test their products to ensure compliance with the rules. Consumer advocates criticized the move, arguing that the new standards were useless without enforcement. [See 2008, p. 635B1] n June 4, 2009

AFRICA

Kenya White Landowner Convicted of Manslaughter.

Kenyan High Court judge Muga Apondi May 7 found Thomas Cholmondeley, a descendant of one of the first white settlers in Kenya, guilty of manslaughter for the May 2006 shooting death of a black man, Robert Njoya, on his family’s vast ranch in the central Rift Valley. Cholmondeley alleged that Njoya had been poaching on the ranch. Apondi May 14 sentenced him to eight months in prison, saying he was factoring in the nearly three years that Cholmondeley, 40, had been jailed before and during the trial. [See 2006, p. 1012F2] Cholmondeley was the great-grandson of the third Baron Delamere, who in 1903 had been one of the first Britons to settle in Kenya. (Kenya obtained independence from Britain in 1963.) His trial, which had begun in September 2006, heightened long-standing tensions over the issues of race and land distribution in Kenya, where a small minority of descendants of white settlers—as well as black elites—owned much of the farmland. In 2005, Cholmondeley had shot and killed a black, plainclothes wildlife ranger on his farm. However, he claimed that he thought the man was a thief, and charges against him for that shooting were dropped for lack of evidence. The incident had angered Kenya’s black majority, especially members of the Masai tribe, to which the ranger had belonged. Cholmondeley was originally charged with murder for the 2006 killing. In his initial interviews with police, he had claimed that he fired at Njoya’s dogs in self-defense and accidentally hit Njoya. However, in testimony before the court in 2008, he insinuated that a friend who was with him at the time, Carl Tundo, had fired the shot that killed Njoya. Apondi rejected that testimony as an “afterthought,” but ultimately found Cholmondeley guilty of manslaughter, rather than the more serious charge of murder, saying he had not shown “malice aforethought to kill the deceased.” Cholmondeley could have been sentenced to life in prison. His eight-month sentence sparked protests from members of the Masai, who held long-standing grievances over the appropriation of their land by white settlers in the colonial period. Apondi, in announcing the sentence, said, “This court understands the undercurrents, but I believe the executive is dealing with the issues of land and other inequalities.” The judge added that he had taken into account efforts made by Cholmondeley to give first aid to Njoya after the shooting, calling them the actions of a “compassionate and concerned soul.” n

Sudan International Criminal Court Charges Rebels. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in

The Hague, the Netherlands, May 7 issued a sealed ruling—made public May 17—

that charged three rebel leaders based in Sudan’s western Darfur region with war crimes. The charges came in connection with a September 2007 attack by rebels on a base housing African Union (AU) peacekeepers in Haskanita, in South Darfur state, that killed 12 and seriously injured eight. [See p. 196E2; 2008, p. 531E3] They were the first rebels to be charged by the court in connection with the Darfur conflict. The ICC in March had issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes charges in connection with atrocities committed during the six-year-old conflict in Darfur; warrants were also currently outstanding against two others connected to the government. The Sudanese government, however, had refused to cooperate with the court, denying the charges and refusing to recognize its authority. About 300,000 people had died and some 2.7 million others had been driven from their homes since the Darfur conflict began in 2003, amid fighting between rebel factions and government forces allied with Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. In late 2007, a joint United Nations–AU peacekeeping force, known as the U.N.AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), had taken over for the AU force. However, only about half of the 26,000 peacekeepers mandated by the U.N. Security Council had been deployed in Darfur. One of the three rebels charged, Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, May 18 appeared in court in The Hague, becoming the first person connected with the Darfur conflict to face the ICC. The names of the other two rebel leaders were not made public, although they reportedly had also agreed to appear before the court. Garda, 46, led the United Resistance Front, a splinter faction of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of Darfur’s main rebel groups. Garda earlier that day had turned himself in to the court, in response to a summons to appear. (The ICC did not issue a warrant for his arrest.) At the hearing, which lasted just 35 minutes, he was read the charges against him: murder, pillaging and attacking peacekeepers during the raid on the Haskanita camp. Garda had reportedly denied the charges. According to analysts, it was the first time that charges had been brought in an international court for attacks on peacekeepers. One of Garda’s representatives, Tadjadine Niam, May 17 had contrasted Garda’s voluntary appearance at the ICC with the actions of Bashir’s government, saying, “We want to set an example to the Sudanese leadership and others accused in Sudan,” adding, “We believe the court is independent and impartial. Let the others also come to the court.”

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Talks Held in Qatar; Clashes Continue—

The Sudanese government and JEM May 6 resumed peace talks, hosted by Qatar, that had originally been agreed to in February. In March, JEM had suspended its participation in the talks after Bashir’s government—in response to the ICC indictment—expelled most foreign aid agencies from Darfur. The talks were mediated by Qatari officials as 375

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well as envoys from the U.N. Security Council and the European Union. JEM had agreed to release 60 Sudanese army troops that it was holding hostage, it was reported May 29. Meanwhile, fighting between government forces and the rebels continued in Darfur. The Sudanese army had recaptured the towns of Kornoi and Umm Baru, in North Darfur near the border with Chad, after JEM had taken control of them in recent weeks, it was reported May 29. Both towns were the site of Sudanese military bases. JEM claimed that it had withdrawn voluntarily in order prevent further aerial bombardments by government forces, which had already killed scores of civilians. However, JEM June 2 said Sudanese military aircraft the previous day had bombed another town in the region, Furawiya, killing two people and deliberately destroying water wells. Bashir, in a May 12 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), had denied that the Sudanese military had attacked civilians in the Darfur conflict. Instead, he claimed that “what happened in Darfur was an insurgency. The state has the responsibility to fight the rebels.” He also asserted that the actual number of deaths in the conflict was “less than one tenth of what has been reported.” Chad Alleges Attack by Sudan—Chad’s government May 5 alleged that rebels backed by Sudan had launched an attack in the east of the country, just two days after the two countries had signed the latest of numerous peace agreements in Doha, Qatar. Chadian Communications Minister Mahamat Hissene said, “While the ink has yet to dry on the Doha accord, the [Sudanese] regime has just launched several armored columns against our country.” Sudan denied the allegation. Chad and Sudan had long traded accusations that each was supporting rebels in the other’s territory. According to the BBC May 7, Chad’s government had claimed to have defeated the rebel assault, which the rebels denied. Chad’s interim defense minister, Adoum Younousmu, May 17 said Chad over the previous two days had conducted air and ground raids against Chadian rebels just over the border in Darfur, and that “seven pockets of groupings of mercenaries” had been destroyed. Report: Rape Prevalent Among Refugees—

U.S.-based human rights group Physicians for Human Rights May 30 issued a report that found that many of the Darfuri women living in a refugee camp in eastern Chad had been victims of rape and sexual violence. Researchers conducted a survey of 88 women at the Farchana camp, about 35 miles (55 km) from the Sudanese border, and found that 29 of them had made “confirmed or highly probable” rape allegations. The group said more than half of the rapes had occurred while the women were still in Darfur, and the rest had taken place in Chad, often when they left the camp to search for firewood. The Farchana camp was being guarded by Chadian soldiers. n 376

AMERICAS

Cuba U.S. Immigration Talks to Resume. U.S. State Department officials May 31 said the Cuban government the previous day had agreed to resume negotiations with the U.S. on the legal immigration of Cubans to the U.S. Former U.S. President George W. Bush in January 2004 had suspended twiceyearly immigration discussions that had served as the highest-level talks between the two countries. In a note sent to the U.S. on May 30, Jorge Bolanos, the head of the Cuban Interests section in Washington, D.C., also agreed to open talks on reestablishing direct mail service between the two countries, and expressed an interest in coordinating with the U.S. on antiterrorism efforts, drug trafficking prevention and hurricane preparedness. [See p. 248A3] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 31 said the talks were “part of our effort to forge a new way forward on Cuba, that advances the interests of the United States, the Cuban people and the entire hemisphere.” She also said the resumption of direct mail would strengthen ties between Cubans living in the U.S. and cititzens of Cuba. However, she added that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama would “continue to press the Cuban government to protect basic rights, release political prisoners and move toward democratic reform.” The U.S. State Department May 22 had proposed resuming the immigration talks. In April, Obama had ended long-standing restrictions on the ability of Cubans living in the U.S. to visit Cuba and send money to relatives there. However, the overtures had been criticized by some members of Congress. Three Cuban-American Republican House members from Florida—Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen—May 22 issued a statement that said the offer was “another unilateral concession by the Obama administration to the dictatorship.” The immigration discussions grew out of accords struck in 1994 and 1995 intended to facilitate orderly migration between Cuba and the U.S., and were initiated after thousands of Cubans had attempted to leave Cuba in the summer of 1994, often in unsound vessels. The 1995 agreement allowed at least 20,000 Cubans to receive U.S. visas annually. The Bush administration had withdrawn from participation in it after claiming that the Cuban government had withheld exit permits from Cubans holding the U.S. visas, in addition to refusing to engage in discussions. Human trafficking from Cuba to the U.S. had reportedly grown dramatically since Bush’s 2004 decision. OAS Votes to Readmit Cuba—In an unforeseen move, the Organization of American States (OAS) June 4 unanimously voted to end the 1962 suspension of Cuba’s membership, ending a U.S. effort, dating to the onset of the Cold War, to keep the country diplomatically ostracized in Latin

America. (The U.S. was the only country in the region that had not restored full diplomatic ties with Cuba.) The vote was made during a June 3–4 OAS annual general assembly meeting in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, attended by the foreign ministers or secretaries of state of 34 countries in the region, among them Clinton. Honduras President Manuel Zelaya June 4 said, “The Cold War has ended today here in San Pedro Sula.” [See p. 271A2; 2008, p. 942D1; 2007, p. 384C2; 1962, p. 58B2] The OAS’s reversal was considered a largely symbolic move, since former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz had several times denounced the group as a tool of the U.S. government, and pledged that Cuba would never join it. The U.S. delegation had debated extensively with fellow members over a resolution that would allow Cuba to rejoin the OAS. Clinton June 3 had pressed the group to admit Cuba only if it agreed to abide by several elements of the OAS charter that required member nations to embrace democratic principles, including a free press and open elections. Clinton late that day left Honduras for Cairo, Egypt, where Obama was scheduled to deliver a speech to the Muslim world the following day. Before leaving, she said, “There is no consensus, there is no agreement to take any action.” [See p. 367A2] Despite the apparent impasse, OAS members June 4 were able to reach a consensus after the delegations from Venezuela and Nicaragua retreated from their insistence that Cuba be admitted to the group without any preconditions. Under the readmittance procedure, Cuba would have to formally request that it be allowed to rejoin the OAS, and would have to participate in talks focused on its human rights. The vote was viewed by some as a diplomatic defeat for Clinton. But Dan Restrepo, Obama’s top adviser for Latin American issues, said, “For Cuba to return, the OAS has to agree that Cuba is abiding by the same rules as everyone else.” An unidentified diplomat said several pro-Cuba hard-liners had backed away from their stance after considering threats by U.S. lawmakers to suspend contributions to the OAS, which accounted for about 60% of the group’s budget. Still, the move was criticized by several anti-Castro U.S. lawmakers as an appeasement of Cuba. n

Guatemala President Accused of Murder in Video. A

videotape of murdered lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, in which Rosenberg accused Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom Caballeros of orchestrating his death, May 11 was distributed at Rosenberg’s funeral. Rosenberg had been gunned down May 10 while riding a bicycle in Guatemala City, the country’s capital. [See 2008, p. 38G3] In the videotape, Rosenberg said, “If you are hearing or seeing this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom.” Rosenberg alleged that FACTS ON FILE

Colom’s private secretary, Gustavo Alejos; Colom’s wife, Sandra Torres de Colom; and Gregorio Valdez, a businessman with ties to the government, had also played roles in planning his murder. Rosenberg also said that he believed his life was at risk because of work he had done on behalf of Khalil Musa, a wealthy coffee and textile exporter, and his adult daughter, Marjorie Musa. The Musas April 14 had been shot and killed by assailants on motorcycles while driving in Guatemala City. Rosenberg in the tape alleged that the Musas’ deaths had also been planned by Colom and the others because Khalil Musa had refused to engage in corruption after being offered a place on the board of the Banco de Desarrollo Rural (Banural), a quasi-state-run bank that was one of the country’s largest. Rosenberg said the bank was run by “a den of robbers, drug traffickers and murderers.” He also said bank officials had engaged in illegal activities “ranging from money laundering to the embezzlement of public funds and nonexistent programs operated by first lady Sandra de Colom, as well as the financing of front companies used by drug traffickers.” He claimed that he had confronted Colom and the others with evidence of their involvement in the Musas’ deaths. Colom Denies Charges—Colom in a televised address May 11 denied that he had any link to any of the killings, and asserted that the claims were part of a plan to “create a political crisis” aimed at destabilizing his government. Colom said he had asked the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, Stephen McFarland, to enlist the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate Rosenberg’s murder in order to clear his name. Colom also said he had asked a United Nations body established in 2008 to address organized crime in the country, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), to also investigate Rosenberg’s death. Otto Perez Molina, a former army general who headed the opposition right-wing Patriotic Party, May 11 called on Colom to step down while he was being investigated. About 150 copies of the 18-minute video were distributed at Rosenberg’s funeral. It had reportedly been recorded May 6 in the offices of right-wing journalist Mario David Garcia. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Mongolia Former PM Elected President. Mongolian election officials May 25 announced that former Prime Minister Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj had won a presidential election held the previous day, narrowly defeating incumbent President Nambariin Enkhbayar. Elbegdorj won about 51% of the vote, to Enkhbayar’s 47%, according to preliminary results. Enkhbayar May 25 conceded defeat even before the results were announced, reportedly to help forestall any outburst of election-related violence. Elbegdorj was scheduled to take office in June. [See 2008, p. 454E3; for facts on Elbegdorj, see p. 377A2] June 4, 2009

FACTS ON ELBEGDORJ

Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj was born March 30, 1963, in the village of Zereg in western Mongolia. After graduating from secondary school in Erdenet in 1981, he went to work for a copper mining company before joining the military. He won a scholarship to study Marxism and journalism at a military college in Lvov in the Soviet Union, and graduated in 1988. Elbegdorj then worked for the Mongolian army newspaper, but in 1989 left to found an independent paper, Democracy, becoming a leader in the movement to oust the country’s long-ruling communist regime. He was elected a member of parliament in the country’s first multiparty elections in 1990, and in 1992–94 served in the restructured unicameral Great Hural (parliament). In 1996 elections, his opposition Democratic Union Coalition unseated the former-communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP), and he was elected to the Great Hural again. Elbegdorj became prime minister in 1998, but resigned later that year amid controversy over a bank merger. In 2002, he recieved a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in the U.S. [See 1998, pp. 723D1, 313D2] Elbegdorj from 2004 to 2006 was prime minister in a coalition government with the MPRP. [See 2006, p. 117D3; 2004, p. 1089B1] Elbegdorj, the Democratic Party’s candidate in Mongolia’s May 24 presidential election, defeated incumbent President Nambariin Enkhbayar of the MPRP. [See p. 377F1]

In 2008, after Enkhbayar’s Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) was declared the winner of June parliamentary elections, supporters of Elbegdorj’s Democratic Party had rioted, claiming electoral fraud. Authorities had banned alcohol sales on the day of the presidential election in a move to curb new disorder. International observers praised the presidential election as free and fair, and people who gathered May 25 in the capital, Ulan Bator, to celebrate Elbegdorj’s victory said it was a vindication of the country’s young democratic system after the events of 2008. (Mongolia had been a one-party Communist state until 1990.) Both candidates had pledged to obtain favorable terms for the country in negotiations with foreign companies seeking to exploit Mongolia’s mineral resources. A proposed contract with Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. of Canada and Rio Tinto PLC of Australia had been tied up in contentious debate in Mongolia’s parliament. Mongolia’s economy had suffered from a fall in the prices commanded for its copper and other minerals, due to the economic slowdown worldwide, and particularly in neighboring China. Elbegdorj had also campaigned on an anticorruption platform. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Azerbaijan Gunman Kills 12, Self, at University. A gun-

man April 30 killed 12 people and injured 13 others at the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy in Baku, the capital, before killing

himself. Farda Gadirov, 29, a Georgian citizen of Azerbaijani origin, used a semiautomatic pistol during the rampage, and turned the gun on himself after police surrounded the building. Media reports described the mass shooting as the first such attack in Azerbaijan’s history. Police did not release any information about the killer’s suspected motive. [See p. 206A3] Police the following day detained Nadir Aliyev on suspicion of being an accessory to the attack. The interior ministry May 4 said, “Armed, Aliyev went to the crime scene together with Gadirov and participated in committing the crime,” but did not elaborate on whether Aliyev was responsible for any killings. Officials said Aliyev and Gadirov were from the same region of Georgia. Two more people May 4 were arrested in connection with the shooting. Gafur Kazymov, an Azerbaijani citizen, was arrested in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, where he worked in construction, and was transported to Baku. Gadirov’s mobile phone had reportedly been registered in Kazymov’s name. Dzhavidan Amirov, another ethnic Azerbaijani from Georgia, was also arrested in connection with the shooting. The interior ministry said Amirov had regularly spoken with Gadirov on the telephone prior to the attack. Police had reportedly found ammunition in Amirov’s house. n

Croatia War Criminal’s Sentence Increased. An ap-

peals panel of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, May 5 increased former Serb army officer Veselin Sljivancanin’s five-year sentence to 17 years, after it found that he had aided and abetted the execution of 194 prisoners during the Yugoslav civil war. The fiveyear sentence had been handed down in September 2007. The new sentence came in response to appeals by both the prosecution, which said the initial sentence was too lenient, and the defense, which argued for Sljivancanin’s acquittal. He had been provisionally released in December 2007 after serving four years in detention. [See 2008, p. 366A2; 2007, p. 673C1] Sljivancanin’s sentence was linked with one of the most notorious events of the Yugoslav civil war. In 1991, hundreds of prisoners being housed in a hospital in the Croatian town of Vukovar, along the Serbian border, were rounded up by the Serb army and transported to a farm where they were killed and buried in a mass grave. The appellate judges found that since Sljivancanin’s superior, Mile Mrksic, had ordered him to evacuate the Vukovar hospital, Sljivancanin had been legally responsible for the prisoners’ protection. The court said his “failure to act pursuant to his duty under the laws and customs of war substantially contributed to the murder of the prisoners of war.” Judge Theodor Meron said, “A five years’ imprisonment sentence does not adequately reflect the level of gravity of the crimes committed by Mr. Sljivancanin.” 377

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The appellate panel’s verdict was viewed as significant because the ICTY, for the first time, had focused exclusively on victims who were considered prisoners of war and thus granted protections under the Geneva Conventions. The appeals panel the same day upheld Mrksic’s 20-year prison sentence. Mrksic had been tried alongside Sljivancanin in 2007, and was found guilty of torture and aiding and abetting 194 murders. n

Czech Republic Ex-KKK Leader Ordered to Leave. Former

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Louisiana state Rep. David Duke (R), a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader who once ran for U.S. president, April 25 left the Czech Republic on orders from Czech police, a day after he had been detained on suspicion of denying the Holocaust. Holocaust denial carried a penalty of three years in prison in the Czech Republic, but police said Duke would not be charged. [See 2008, p. 910G1; 2006, p. 964F1] Duke had traveled to the Czech Republic to give three speeches promoting the Czech translation of his 1998 book, “My Awakening,” which contained sections denying the Holocaust. He was invited to the country by the far right group Narodni Odpor (National Resistance). n

Georgia Thousands Call for President’s Ouster. As many as 60,000 people attended an antigovernment rally at the national football stadium in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, on Georgia’s independence day May 26. The government was forced to call off a military parade planned for that day because protesters for weeks had blocked Tbilisi’s main avenue, which the parade was supposed to travel along. Protesters had set up hundreds of mock prison cells there, some of which were occupied by homeless people. Supporters of Georgia’s political opposition had been holding regular protests against President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi since April, accusing him of poor leadership, curtailing rights and power grabs, and calling for his resignation. Saakashvili maintained that he would serve out the remainder of his term, which ended in 2013. [See pp. 336F3, 327D3] Patriarch Ilia II, head of Georgia’s influential Orthodox Church, May 28 called for “early elections or the immediate start of negotiations” between the government and the opposition, calling the political stalemate “explosive.” The U.S. and the European Union, in a May 25 joint statement, had also called on Georgians to “end the current stalemate on the streets and begin negotiations immediately.” Protesters and police May 28 clashed at a rally outside Georgia’s parliament building. The interior ministry said as many as five police officers had been injured by protesters armed with knives and sharpened sticks. The opposition said about 20 men attacked protesters with batons in a separate incident. Opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze claimed that the attackers 378

were plainclothes police officers. Also, about 300 protesters June 1 blocked Tbilisi’s city hall, reportedly because they believed lawmakers were meeting there instead of at the parliament building. Other News—In other Georgia news: o An explosive device June 2 detonated on a section of railroad near the de facto border with the Russian-aligned Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia. No injuries were reported, and the railway was repaired without major transit delays. Local officials said the explosion was a terrorist attack, but did not accuse any group of planning it. Officials also said the targeted route was not one of the country’s oiltransporting rail lines. o One suspect was killed and two were injured in a May 21 firefight between Georgian police and three men they were attempting to detain, who were suspected of participating in a mutiny at a tank battalion outside Tbilisi in May. Police claimed that the three men, all current or former members of the Georgian military, were planning to flee to the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of South Ossetia. Officials May 23 said Georgian police had arrested 33 people in connection with the mutiny. [See pp. 378D2, 311F1] n South Ossetia Holds Elections. South Ossetia, a Russian-aligned splinter region within Georgia’s internationally recognized borders, May 31 held parliamentary elections. Officials the following day said the ruling Unity Party won with about 44.6% of the vote. Three of the four parties competing for places in the 34-seat parliament supported South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity, 44, a former wrestler. The opposition Fatherland Socialist Party, which finished last, had accused Kokoity of silencing dissent and stealing Russian funds meant to rebuild South Ossetian infrastructure, which had been heavily damaged in a 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over the region. [See pp. 378D1, 327D3] Kokoity June 1 said the elections were a test of the region’s independence, and added, “We have proved it. We deserve to live as an independent state.” The U.S. and the European Union June 1 said they rejected the election as illegitimate, as did the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) June 2. South Ossetia’s independence was recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua. n

Russia Amnesty for Rebels Nixed After Bombing.

Ramzan Kadyrov, president of the southern republic of Chechnya, May 16 said he would end arrangements under which rebel fighters could receive amnesty if they declared loyalty to his government. He made the announcement one day after a suicide bomber had blown himself up near the republic’s interior ministry, killing four people, including himself. Kadyrov said, “There is only one way for [rebels]: either turn themselves in to law enforcement agencies and sit out a sentence and live, or

find themselves three meters under the ground.” [See p. 310C3] Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov May 15 said two men earlier that day had tried to enter the interior ministry building in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, but were stopped by police. One of the men then blew himself up, killing himself, two policemen and another man who was reportedly his taxi driver. Several other people were wounded. The Chechen interior ministry May 16 said police had killed four militants in Grozny. They allegedly belonged to the same rebel faction as the suicide bomber, and had been planning attacks. The bombing came about a month after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had declared an official end to strict counterterrorism rules in Chechnya, which was located amid several other southern Russian republics that experienced sporadic violence stemming from local feuds, rampant corruption and an ongoing Islamic insurgency. [See below] Other News—In other southern Russia news: o The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, May 28 ordered Russia to pay settlements to three Chechen families who said their relatives had disappeared after being illegally held by Russian troops in 2002. The families received payments of as much as $74,000 each. [See 2006, p. 917B1] o Akhmed Tagayev, deputy mufti, or Muslim religious leader, in the republic of Dagestan, May 25 was shot dead by an unknown assailant in Makhachkala, the capital. Tagayev was known as an opponent of Islamic extremism. [See p. 274A1] o Four Chechen police officers were killed May 25 by a land mine explosion in the republic of Ingushetia’s Sunzha region. [See p. 274D1] o Seyfudin Kaziakhmedov, deputy chief of the prosecutor’s office in Dagestan, May 21 was shot dead in Makhachkala by an unknown assailant. Kaziakhmedov prosecuted violent crimes and had reportedly received death threats over his investigations of local militants. o Two police officers and one civilian were killed May 13 in Chechnya by an explosive device that officials believed might have been attached to the victims’ car. The attack occurred in the southern Chechen region of Vedeno, where Russian officials in April had reinstated counterterrorism measures eight days after Medvedev announced the end of those operations across Chechnya. n News in Brief. Russian prosecutors June 2 confirmed that Mikhail Stavsky, the 19year-old son of Russian state oil company OAO Rosneft’s vice president of the same name, had been kidnapped April 13 in Moscow and was being held for a 50 million euro ($71 million) ransom. The kidnapping had been reported the previous day by newspaper Novaya Gazeta. [See p. 329B1] FACTS ON FILE

Mikhail Fridman, 45, chairman of the board of directors at TNK-BP, a Russianbased energy company owned jointly by BP PLC of Britain and several Russian billionaires, May 27 was appointed by BP to serve as TNK-BP’s interim chief executive officer

(CEO). The previous CEO, Robert Dudley, had stepped down in December 2008, several months after Russian authorities refused to renew his visa, and Tim Summers, chief operating officer of TNK-BP, had served as interim CEO since. Summers’s contract expired June 1. Observers said the move to appoint a Russian interim CEO was a blow to BP, which owned 50% of the company. [See 2008, pp. 740E2, 639B3] Riot police May 16 forcibly broke up an unsanctioned gay rights demonstration in Moscow, Russia’s capital, and arrested as many as 40 people. The demonstration, which coincided with the Eurovision music competition final, which was being held in Moscow that day, had been banned by authorities on the grounds that it was morally unacceptable. Authorities reportedly manhandled demonstrators into police vehicles, and one woman’s shirt and bra were reportedly torn off by police as they detained her. [See 2007, p. 367G1] Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov May 14 filed a lawsuit in the southern city of Sochi’s municipal court in an attempt to annul the results of April’s mayoral election there. Nemtsov claimed that numerous election violations had skewed the poll’s results in favor of Anatoly Pakhomov, the candidate of the pro-government party United Russia. [See p. 328C2] n

Ukraine News in Brief. Viktor Baloha, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s chief of staff, resigned May 19, and said Yushchen-

ko had “no moral right to stand in the presidential elections…I will not be your associate in this.” He added that Yushchenko had not implemented promised reforms and was “irretrievably wasting” voters’ time. Yushchenko’s approval rating was currently measured in single digits. Baloha, during his tenure, had spearheaded criticism of Yushchenko’s ally-turned-rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was expected to challenge Yushchenko for the presidency in 2010. Baloha also called on Tymoshenko to quit politics. [See p. 274F1] Yushchenko May 13 won an appeal to have Ukraine’s presidential election moved to late January 2010. The Ukrainian parliament in April had voted to move the election up to Oct. 25, but the country’s Constitutional Court agreed with Yushchenko’s argument that the Ukrainian constitution said presidential elections should be held the last month of the last year of the president’s five-year term, which in Yushchenko’s case was January 2010. [See p. 227D1] n

Other European News U.S.’s Biden Visits Balkans. U.S. Vice Presi-

dent Joseph Biden May 19–21 visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo, where he voiced encouragement for the June 4, 2009

countries’ common goal of joining the European Union. Biden also emphasized that nationalist extremism in the region, where bloody ethnic wars had followed the fall of communism and breakup of Yugoslavia, would deter the countries’ path to the EU and modernization. [See pp. 343B1, 318E1, 110C1] Biden was welcomed by many citizens and regional politicians, but his visit also drew protests from hard-liners who opposed increased U.S. involvement in the Balkan region. Prominent among the protesters were Serb nationalists who recalled the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign to drive Serbian forces from Kosovo, a majority ethnic-Albanian region that eventually declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia was currently disputing Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which the U.S. had accepted, in the United Nations International Court of Justice. [See 1999, p. 679A3] Biden had supported both Kosovo’s independence and the NATO bombing campaign. He also had supported arming Muslim Bosniaks against ethnic Serbs during the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war. [See 1995, p. 757A1] Begins Visit in Bosnia—Biden May 19 began his trip in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the poorest countries in Europe, where he warned leaders of the ethnically fractured country that ultranationalism “must stop…let me be clear: Your only real path to a secure and prosperous future is to join Europe. Right now, you’re off that path.” Following the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war, the country had been divided into two republics as a result of the U.S.-negotiated Dayton accords—the Muslim-Croat Federation, populated mostly by Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, and the mainly Eastern Orthodox Christian Serb Republic, or Republika Srpska. The republics were united under a weak central government. Bosnia’s economic progress had been stalled for years due to disagreements between the country’s ethnic groups. Bosniak and Croat groups had pushed for greater centralization, but ethnic Serbs argued for more local powers under the federal government. Parliament Speaker Beriz Belkic said Biden’s visit highlighted “the importance U.S. foreign policy-makers place on Bosnian and Herzegovina’s stability, security and ultimately its integration into NATO and the European Union.” Meets With Serbian President— Biden May 20 arrived in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, where he appeared at a joint conference with Serbian President Boris Tadic. At the conference, Biden said that the U.S. did not “expect Serbia to recognize the independence of Kosovo,” and added that recognition of Kosovo was “not a precondition for our relationship or our support for Serbia becoming part of the European Union.” Tadic said, “It is Serbia’s legitimate right to defend its territorial integrity through the use of peaceful, diplomatic and legal means.” He added, “Serbia does not and will never recognize Kosovo.”

Hard-liners in Serbia’s parliament acknowledged Biden’s visit with banners in the parliament that read, “Biden, you Nazi scum, go home.” Affirms Kosovo’s Independence—Biden May 21 arrived in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, where he affirmed that Kosovo’s independence was “irreversible.” He added, “the success of an independent Kosovo is a priority for our administration.” Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians, who composed about 90% of its population, welcomed Biden, but several hundred of Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs protested his visit in the divided northern Kosovar town of Mitrovica. Biden said the current challenge in the Balkans was “real integration, not just the elimination of carnage and brutality, but there is where it gets really hard and it’s going to take time.” He said the situation there was “drastically” better than in 1993, when he last visited as a senator, but added that the region had “a long way to go.” Biden that day also told reporters that the Dayton Accords, which had ended Bosnia’s civil war, did not need to be revised to address that country’s problems, warning that revising the pact might play into the hands of nationalists. “Dayton,” Biden said, “imperfect, was necessary, and at least in the forseeable future is the only sort of guarantor for the continuation of nonviolence.” n

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Iraq Ex–Trade Minister Arrested for Corruption.

Iraqi security forces May 30 detained former Iraqi Trade Minister Abdul Falah alSudani on corruption charges, after Sudani had resigned earlier in the month. The arrest warrant charged Sudani with mismanaging the trade ministry and stealing public funds by employing relatives—including one brother who was arrested on corruption charges in early May and another who was wanted but was still at large—and importing expired food for the rations program run by the ministry. [See p. 362B2] Iraq was considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and the trade ministry was thought to be particularly graft-ridden. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki had highlighted corruption-fighting efforts ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2010. However, probes by both Maliki’s government and opposition legislators in parliament were accused of being aimed at political rivals. Sudani was a member of Maliki’s Dawa Party. Sudani had been on a United Arab Emirates (UAE)–bound airliner when Iraqi authorities ordered the jet to turn around, and arrested him once it landed in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. A Dawa legislator said Sudani had obtained permission from Maliki to leave the country with his wife, whom he said was seeking medical care in the UAE. However, other officials claimed Maliki had said Sudani could not leave Iraq, and that the prime minister’s office had ordered his arrest. 379

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Legislators allied with Sudani also said the judge who had issued the arrest warrant did not have the jurisdiction to arrest a minister. May Had Fewest Deaths on Record—

Iraqi officials June 1 said May had been the least violent month since they started keeping records, with at least 134 Iraqi civilians and 31 Iraqi security forces members killed. April had been the bloodiest month of 2009, with 290 civilians and 65 security forces members killed. However, there were at least 24 U.S. military deaths in May, up from April’s 19 and the highest number since September 2008. There were still several attacks across the country. A bombing in a market in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood June 1 killed four people, according to Iraqi police. Another bomb June 3 exploded in an outdoor cafe in a Shiite Muslim area of southwestern Baghdad, killing nine people, according to the Iraqi interior ministry. In the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province and one of the few remaining urban centers of the Sunni Muslim insurgency, a grenade attack on a U.S. patrol May 29 killed one U.S. soldier, and two Iraqi soldiers were killed in a separate attack. The same day in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, a bomb in a minibus exploded at a bus depot in the city of Khalis, killing at least three people, and another car bomb on the outskirts of Khanaqin killed two people. Man Convicted in Aid Worker’s Killing—

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A Baghdad court June 2 convicted a Sunni Iraqi man, Ali Lutfi al-Rawi, of involvement in the 2004 kidnapping and killing of British aid worker Margaret Hassan. Rawi was convicted of kidnapping, murder and extortion after a one-day trial, and was sentenced to life in prison. He had been arrested in 2008 after demanding $1 million from the British embassy in exchange for information on the location of Hassan’s remains. [See 2006, p. 442D3] n

Lebanon Biden Visits Ahead of Election. U.S. Vice

President Joseph Biden Jr. May 22 visited Beirut, the Lebanese capital, ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7. 380

Biden in a speech implied that U.S. military aid to Lebanon would be contingent on the outcome of the election; an alliance led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which the U.S. considered a terrorist organization, was considered likely to win by some analysts. [See p. 297A3] “The election of leaders committed to the rule of law and economic reform opens the door to lasting growth and prosperity, as it will here in Lebanon,” Biden said. He added that U.S. policy would be reviewed “based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates.” Biden said the U.S. would not interfere with the elections, although he said he would “urge those who think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers.” He reportedly signaled his support for the March 14 Movement coalition of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in a private meeting. During his visit, he met with Siniora; Michel Suleman, the nonpartisan president of Lebanon; and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who was allied with Hezbollah. Hezbollah officials May 27 said they had talked to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union about continuing aid to Lebanon if the Hezbollah-led coalition won the elections. The IMF provided $114 million a year in aid to Lebanon, while the EU gave $84 million. [See p. 156D3] Hezbollah May 24 denied a report published May 23 in the German magazine Der Spiegel that a Hezbollah special operations group had been responsible for the 2005 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others. The article alleged that Hezbollah’s involvement had been discovered by investigators of the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon, but was not being publicized by the court. Hezbollah said the allegation was a ploy to harm its chances in the election. [See p. 312B2] n

Other Middle East News U.S., Israel in Dispute Over Settlements.

U.S. President Barack Obama May 28 reiterated his administration’s calls for Israel to suspend construction of its settlements in the West Bank, after meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House in Washington, D.C. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who had taken office in March and met with Obama earlier in May—had opposed stopping settlement growth completely. Obama backed the creation of a Palestinian state as an eventual resolution to Israeli-Palestinian issues, but Netanyahu had not stated support for a two-state solution. [See pp. 367A3, 345F1, 336D1] Obama after the meeting with Abbas called for fast progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, saying, “We can’t continue with the drift and the increased fear on both sides, the sense of hopelessness that we’ve seen for too many years now.” He added, “In my conversations

with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was very clear on the need to stop settlements.” Obama June 1 in an interview with the U.S.’s National Public Radio (NPR) restated his support for a “freeze on settlements” as a prerequisite for successful peace talks, and also said he would be “honest” with Israel about policies he considered counterproductive. However, he did not clarify how the U.S. would respond if Israel continued construction of settlements. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton May 27 had bluntly expressed the Obama administration’s opposition to settlements, in comments to reporters after meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Washington. Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Clinton said. “That is our position. That is what we have communicated clearly.” (Outposts were small unauthorized settlements, while “natural growth” exceptions referred to the Israeli government’s policy of allowing existing settlements to expand in response to population growth from births and adoptions.) Netanyahu June 1 said Israel could not “freeze life” in settlements, indicating that it would continue to allow construction to accommodate natural growth. He added, “There are reasonable requests and unreasonable requests.” In what was seen as a gesture to the U.S., Israel in past weeks had demolished buildings in several small settlement outposts. However, settlers had begun rebuilding immediately afterwards, and critics said the demolitions were not significant. Additionally, settlers June 1 attacked Palestinians and their farms in the West Bank after one such demolition. PA Security Forces Clash With Hamas—

PA security forces May 31 clashed with militants affiliated with the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the West Bank town of Qalqilyah. According to a PA spokesman, the PA forces had surrounded a house occupied by the Hamas militants after taking fire from the position. After the militants killed three PA security officers with gunfire and a grenade during negotiations, PA forces stormed the house, killing both militants and the owner of the house. It was the deadliest battle in two years between members of Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip, and the PA, which controlled the West Bank and was dominated by Hamas’s rival Fatah movement. Thousands of Hamas supporters protested after the clash in Gaza, and Hamas reportedly arrested Fatah supporters in its territory. In other violence, Israeli forces May 28 killed Abed al-Majid Dudin in the south Hebron hills in the West Bank. Dudin was a Hamas leader who had allegedly planned fatal suicide bombings against Israelis in the 1990s. n FACTS ON FILE

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Afghanistan U.S. General Says Casualties to Increase.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal June 2 said conflict-related casualties in Afghanistan were likely to increase in the coming year, as the U.S. sent an additional 21,000 troops to the country to combat a growing insurgency by the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group. McChrystal in May had been nominated to be the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, and made his remarks at a confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. [See p. 317A1] McChrystal said, “Success will not be quick or easy,” but added that he believed it was possible. He warned that failure could plunge Afghanistan into civil war, and turn the country into a safe haven for the Taliban and the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. McChrystal said his definition of “success” in the region included the “complete elimination of Al Qaeda” from Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, and a reduction of the Taliban’s influence. Pakistani branches of the Taliban were currently fighting against the Pakistani army, and Al Qaeda members took sanctuary in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border. [See p. 382B2] McChrystal, an expert in counterinsurgency strategy, had been selected to lead the war effort in Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who had said a fresh approach was needed to reverse the deteriorating security situation there. McChrystal told the committee that part of his new, “holistic” strategy would be an emphasis on protecting the civilian population. He said a central criterion for success “will not be the number of enemy killed, it will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence.” He said that would reduce the influence of the Taliban and eventually make the group “irrelevant.” Civilian casualties had become a major point of controversy between allied forces and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had accused the U.S. of conducting air strikes and ground raids with little regard for the damage done to the civilian population. Gates and other U.S. officials had acknowledged that civilian casualties alienated the local population from both the coalition forces and Karzai’s government, and had pledged to take greater care in their use of such tactics. [See below] McChrystal also said the size of the Afghan national army would have to expand beyond the 134,000-troop goal that had been announced previously. [See 2008, p. 735B1] McChrystal Questioned on Tillman—

Senators on the Armed Services Committee June 2 questioned McChrystal about the circumstances surrounding the 2004 death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, who had been killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire. McChrystal at the time was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, overJune 4, 2009

seeing Tillman’s Ranger unit, and he had recommended that Tillman receive a Silver Star, which inaccurately implied that Tillman had been killed by enemy troops. An ensuing Pentagon investigation had led to disciplinary action for seven officers— but not McChrystal—for publicizing false information about Tillman’s death in what critics had described as a cover-up. Tillman was a former National Football League (NFL) player. [See 2007, p. 510F1] The investigation had found that McChrystal at the time did not have direct knowledge of the actual cause of Tillman’s death, and had no reason to question the recommendations of lower officers. The Pentagon also said McChrystal quickly notified his superiors once he learned that Tillman could have been killed by friendly fire. McChrystal told senators that his recommendation of the Silver Star “produced confusion at a tragic time, and I’m very sorry for that.” Sen. Carl Levin (D, Mich.), the committee chairman, also asked McChrystal about harsh interrogation techniques used on suspected terrorism detainees by U.S. Special Operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal said troops under his command had employed some of the techniques that had been approved in 2002 by then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, including the use of stress positions, forced nudity and intimidation by attack dogs. But McChrystal said the use of such techniques was reduced in 2003, when he took over the Special Operations. He also claimed that all allegations of abuse were investigated, and that all proven cases of abuse led to disciplinary reprimands. Civilian Death Toll Disputed—The U.S. military May 20 claimed that 20 to 30 civilians had been killed in a battle in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah in early May, far less than the death toll of 140 civilians claimed by Afghan officials. According to “interim findings” of an investigation into the battle, the U.S. military said 60 to 65 Taliban insurgents had been killed, more than Afghanistan’s claim of 25. [See p. 317E2] The U.S. military said Afghan army and police forces had been ambushed by 200 to 300 insurgents in the Bala Baluk district of Farah. The Afghan forces reportedly called in U.S. reinforcements, which were provided in the form of ground troops and F18 fighter jets. The jets then bombed insurgent targets to “suppress the enemy fire.” The U.S. did not specify at what point the civilian casualties occurred, but powerful air strikes had been the cause of a large majority of civilian deaths in the war. Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission May 26 released the findings of its investigation into the incident, claiming that 97 civilians had been killed in the attack, including 65 children and 21 women. The New York Times June 3 reported that, according to an unidentified U.S. military official, U.S. army forces had made errors during the battle that could have led to unnecessary civilian deaths. Retired Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, May 19 had met with survivors of the Farah battle. Appearing with Karzai, he expressed

his condolences for any loss of civilian life, and pledged that coalition forces would cut down on the number of civilian casualties. (U.S. President Barack Obama had nominated Eikenberry to the post March 11, and he was confirmed by the Senate in an April 3 voice vote. Eikenberry had twice served as an army commander in Afghanistan.) [See 2007, p. 38A1] Karzai that day said, “All those people who wear a turban and have local clothes are not Taliban,” a criticism suggesting that U.S. forces could not tell civilians apart from insurgents, who wore no uniforms and blended in easily with village populations. NATO officials May 20 said an air strike the previous day in the southern province of Helmand had killed eight civilians. NATO said the Taliban had used the civilians as human shields, an accusation that coalition forces had long leveled against the group. Other Developments—In other developments in Afghanistan: o The Associated Press June 3 reported that 65 U.S. soldiers had died so far in 2009, up from the 36 reported from the same period in 2008. Analysts expected levels of violence to spike as Afghanistan’s winter season came to a close. The winter season, with its heavy snowfall, made transportation difficult in the underdeveloped country, traditionally leading to a lull in military activity. [See 2008, p. 989C1] o British military officials June 2 claimed that a helicopter strike in Helmand had killed Mullah Mansur, whom they described as “one of the most dangerous Taliban leaders” in southern Afghanistan. Mansur was thought to have orchestrated numerous Taliban attacks, including a suicide bombing in March that killed nine Afghan policemen in Helmand. However, Afghan officials claimed that the strike had killed a lower-level Taliban official who also went by the name Mullah Mansur. [See p. 195B3] o U.S. and Afghan army officials May 28 released a joint statement saying coalition forces earlier that day had engaged in a “fierce firefight” with the Taliban in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan, on the Pakistani border, that killed 29 insurgents. The officials reported no coalition or civilian deaths. They said the purpose of the operation had been to capture Mullah Sangeen, a deputy to warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani. Sangeen had reportedly used the remote region as a staging ground for attacks on Afghanistan’s Paktika province. [See 2008, p. 798G2] o Afghan army troops May 28 killed 35 insurgents in the southern province of Zabul, according to U.S. military officials. o A suicide bomber May 26 killed three U.S. soldiers and three Afghan civilians in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul, the Afghan capital. o The U.S. military May 23 said U.S. and Afghan army forces had seized 101 tons (92 metric tons) of narcotics from the Taliban, following a four-day battle in Helmand that began May 19. Officials described the load 381

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of heroin, poppy seeds, opium and hashish as a record seizure that would likely disrupt the Taliban’s ability to depend on drug smuggling as a main source of revenue. The operation in the town of Marja reportedly led to the deaths of some 60 insurgents, and the seizure of 30 tons of bomb-making equipment. [See 2008, p. 777E2] n

India PM Singh Sworn in for Second Term.

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh May 22 was sworn in for a second term, following his Congress party’s strong performance in national elections that had been held in April and May. Singh took the oath of office that day along with 19 cabinet members, and an additional 59 cabinet members were sworn in May 28. According to election results announced in mid-May, Congress had won 206 out of the 543 seats in Parliament’s lower house. Soon after, the party formed a ruling coalition comprised of 322 lawmakers. [See p. 345B2] Among the major shifts in the cabinet, Pranab Mukherjee, the former foreign minister, became the new finance minister, assuming a post that had been held by Singh since November 2008, and that Mukherjee himself had held in the early 1980s. S.M. Krishna, a former chief minister of Karnataka state, replaced Mukherjee as foreign minister. [See p. 158C2] Kamal Nath—the former commerce and industry minister, who in that role was also India’s international trade representative— was named the head of the transportation and highways ministry, in what was considered a demotion. Nath had reportedly displeased Congress leaders by taking a tough stance against the so-called Doha round of trade talks, which sought to reduce international trade barriers. Anand Sharma, a former official in the foreign ministry, replaced Nath at the commerce and industry post. [See 2008, p. 513D2] Rahul Gandhi—the son of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and slain former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi—reportedly declined a cabinet post to continue working with the party’s youth wing. Rahul Gandhi’s energetic campaigning was thought to have been a driving force in the party’s electoral success. [See p. 346C1] n Economy Grows at 5.8% Rate. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at a 5.8% annual rate in the first three months of 2009, according to government data released May 29. That was slower than the 8.6% annual rate recorded during the same time period in 2008, but stronger than what analysts had expected. The result was attributed to increased government spending, and strong growth in the construction, financial-services and agricultural sectors. While the economy’s growth had slowed markedly due to an ongoing global downturn, India had fared better than many other leading economies, some of which were in recession. [See p. 157E3] In addition to government spending programs, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, had also steadily 382

cut its benchmark repurchase rate—the interest rate on loans it made to other banks—to stimulate lending. The Reserve Bank April 21 lowered the rate to 4.75%, from 5%. Since October 2008, the rate had been cut by 4.25 percentage points. [See p. 157G3] n

Pakistan Army Regains Control of Main City in Swat.

Pakistani military officials May 30 said the army had regained control of Mingora, the main city in the Swat Valley region in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Swat and other areas of the NWFP had been overrun by the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group, whose territorial reach by late April extended to within 60 miles (100 km) of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The army in early May began a major offensive to expel the insurgents. [See p. 346F1] Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, May 30 told reporters that Taliban fighters remained on the outskirts of Mingora. He said the militants at first had heavily resisted the army offensive, but that they backed off soon afterward. He claimed that “when they realized that they were encircled and the noose was tightening, they decided not to give a pitched battle.” Abbas said regaining control of Mingora was a “great accomplishment,” but that the army would have to engage in “much more” fighting to secure all of Swat. Abbas said more than 1,200 Taliban fighters and 81 soldiers had been killed in the army’s offensive so far, but did not release details on whether any civilians had died. Reporters were barred from the conflict zone, making casualty numbers difficult to independently verify. Civilian casualties were a major concern for Pakistan’s civilian government, since public support for the NWFP operation could erode if it was perceived that civilians were bearing the brunt of the fighting. The government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who was widely unpopular, was currently relying on a growing public backlash against the Taliban to continue the NWFP offensive. According to Pakistani and United Nations officials, as many as three million civilians had been displaced by the fighting in the NWFP, with up to 250,000 of them forced to take shelter in government-run camps. Clashes between army forces and the Taliban May 30 left at least 25 militants and two soldiers dead in the northwest tribal area of South Waziristan. Pakistan’s tribal belt—a lawless region wedged between the NWFP and Afghanistan—was a stronghold for the Taliban and members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. It was widely reported that the government was considering expanding its offensive to South Waziristan and the tribal area of North Waziristan after Swat was secured. Abducted Students Rescued by Army—

Abbas June 2 said 71 students and nine staff members from a military college had been rescued by the army, after they were abducted by the Taliban the previous day. The hostages had been part of a 30-vehicle

convoy that was traveling from Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan to the NWFP’s Bannu district. Taliban fighters intercepted the convoy and seized some of the vehicles. Initial reports said as many as 500 people had been abducted, a number that military officials said was exaggerated. Abbas said army troops later stopped the seized vehicles at a checkpoint, and rescued the hostages after a brief firefight with the Taliban kidnappers. Analysts said the kidnapping could be part of a Taliban strategy to distract the army from the NWFP military operation. Powerful Blast Kills 24 in Lahore— A group of gunmen May 27 detonated a van filled with 220 pounds (100 kg) of explosives in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, killing at least 24 people and injuring 200 more. Their intended target was thought to have been the local headquarters of Pakistan’s military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). However, after the gunmen clashed with guards outside the headquarters, the van exploded near an emergency-response unit run by the police. At least 12 policemen and one ISI officer were among the dead. The Taliban the following day claimed responsibility for the attack. Hakimullah Mehsud, deputy to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, May 28 said the attack was in retaliation for the army’s offensive in the NWFP. He said, “If the government continues to carry out activities at the behest of America, we will continue to hit government installations.” The U.S. had urged the Pakistani government to confront the Taliban militarily, and many within Pakistan viewed the government as a U.S. puppet. The attack coincided with an official visit to Islamabad by Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. However, Mehsud did not specify whether the Taliban had intended to attack the ISI building. ISI had a complex historical relationship with militant groups in Pakistan, having supported and funded many of them to fight in proxy battles in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir. Mehsud denied that a group calling itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab was behind the attack, as it had claimed the previous day. Pakistani officials said three suspects in the attack had been arrested. It was the third attack in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, since March. Analysts said it was possible that the Taliban was teaming up with other Islamic extremist groups based in Punjab, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was thought responsible for a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed 170 people. [See below, pp. 228B3, 137D3] Shortly after Mehsud’s threat to carry out more attacks, suspected Taliban militants carried out three bombings in the NWFP capital of Peshawar, and one bombing in the NWFP town of Dera Ismail Khan, killing a total of at least 11 people. In one attack, militants on rooftops opened fire on a Peshawar bazaar after a suicide bombing. Two militants were reportedly killed, and two arrested. FACTS ON FILE

Suspected Militant Leader Released—

The Lahore High Court June 2 ordered the release of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, a founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba who had been under house arrest since December 2008 for his alleged connection to the Mumbai attack. Saeed’s lawyer said the court had ruled that his detention was unconstitutional, and that there was not enough evidence to keep him under house arrest. [See pp. 275E3, 103C2] The Indian government quickly condemned his release, saying it showed that the Pakistani government did not have the political will to prosecute extremist leaders, many of whom had a large public following. Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said, “Pakistan has not shown the degree of seriousness and commitment it should have to bring justice to the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.” India’s foreign ministry that day released a statement saying that Saeed’s “professed ideology and public statements leave no doubt as to his terrorist inclinations.” Pakistani officials said the court had made its decision independently, and that they had no control over its decisions. However, Pakistan had a long history of detaining militant leaders accused of orchestrating terrorist attacks, only to release them a short time later. Saeed was the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity that was accused of being a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had been founded in the 1980s to carry out insurgent attacks in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. The U.N. in December 2008 had added Jamaat-ud-Dawa to a list of organizations that had links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Since then, the group was thought to have adopted a new name, Falah-i-Insaniat, and had reportedly offered assistance to the three million displaced civilians from the NWFP. Like other Islamist organizations in Pakistan, Jamaat-ud-Dawa had built its following by providing aid and social services to the poor and marginalized, many of whom reportedly felt ignored by the civilian government, which was widely viewed as weak and corrupt. Analysts said Saeed’s release could complicate U.S. efforts to develop a rapprochement between India and Pakistan. The U.S. reportedly desired a normalization of relations so that Pakistan could focus on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, rather than on India, its historical rival. Sharif Election Ban Lifted—A five-member panel of Pakistan’s Supreme Court May 26 overturned a February ruling by the court that had banned former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, from running for elected office. The February ruling had been perceived as the work of Sharif’s rival Zardari, and led to widespread protests for an independent judiciary. The episode drastically diminished Zardari’s public support, while boosting Sharif’s popularity. [See p. 228C2] The latest ruling paved the way for Sharif, head of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) party, to reJune 4, 2009

turn to government. National elections would not be held until 2013, but analysts said Sharif could run in a Lahore by-election for which a date had not yet been set. n

Other South Asia News Cyclone Kills 300, Leaves 500,000 Displaced.

Cyclone Aila May 25 made landfall near the Bangladeshi-Indian border, triggering landslides and flooding that killed as many as 300 people and left about 500,000 homeless. Aila reached speeds of 60 mph (97 kmph) before losing strength May 26. Military and civilian relief operations were launched in Bangladesh and the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, but officials said they were struggling to provide displaced civilians with safe drinking water and shelter. Bangladesh May 31 said it would need emergency foreign assistance to help rebuild homes and roads. [See 2007, p. 773E2] The brunt of the cyclone was borne by the Sundarbans delta, an area of mangrove forests that encompassed southwestern Bangladesh and southeastern West Bengal. The region was home to one of the world’s few populations of Royal Bengal tigers, and experts feared that the cyclone could substantially reduce their small numbers. About 250 tigers were believed to live on both sides of the border. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Boxing Pacquiao Dismantles Hatton. Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines May 2 easily defeated Britain’s Ricky Hatton to capture the International Boxing Organization (IBO) light-welterweight title in Las Vegas, Nev. Referee Kenny Bayless stopped the match in the second round following a left hook from Pacquiao that laid out Hatton in the middle of the ring. Pacquiao, 30, had also knocked Hatton down twice in the first round. [See 2008, p. 993F3] With the victory, Pacquiao had earned world titles in six different weight divisions, while improving his record to 49 wins, three losses and two draws. After successive wins against Oscar De La Hoya of the U.S. and Hatton, many boxing analysts called Pacquiao the best pound-forpound fighter in the world. Hatton, 30, lost just his second bout out of 47 professional fights, but the decisive nature of the defeat had many speculating that his 12-year career might be over. Other News—In other boxing news: o Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the U.S., who had retired with an undefeated record in June 2008, May 2 announced his return to boxing. He was scheduled to face the lightweight world champion, Juan Manuel Marquez, on July 18. Mayweather, 32, had not fought since his December 2007 victory over Hatton. [See 2008, p. 994F1; 2007, p. 903A1] o De La Hoya, 36, April 14 confirmed the speculation following his loss to Pac-

quiao by officially announcing his retirement from the ring. He finished his career with a record of 39 wins and six losses, having earned 10 world titles in six different divisions. His company, Golden Boy Promotions, had teamed up to present some of the highest-grossing fights in recent years, including his own bouts against Pacquiao and Mayweather. n

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Polo Overdose Seen in Deaths of 21 Horses.

Florida state investigators April 28 linked the deaths of 21 polo horses scheduled to compete in the U.S. Open Polo Championship to an overdose of selenium from an incorrectly mixed vitamin supplement. The horses, all part of the Lechuza Caracas team from Venezuela, had fallen ill April 19, shortly before a match scheduled for that day in Willington, Fla. By the next day, 21 of the horses had died, sparking the statewide probe. Following an internal investigation, Franck’s Pharmacy, based in Ocala, Fla., April 23 admitted to an incorrect dosage in the mixing of the vitamin supplement that was later administered to the horses. Veterinarian James Belden had ordered the compounding of an equivalent of a Frenchmanufactured supplement, Biodyl, which was widely used in international equestrian competitions but not approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Compounding pharmacies, such as Franck’s Pharmacy, were commonplace in veterinary medicine, due to the lack of manufactured drugs approved for animals. [See 2008, p. 404F1] The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services April 28 concluded that the improperly mixed supplement had likely caused the deaths, citing the high levels of selenium found in the toxicology tests. Selenium, a mineral needed in minuted quantities for life in animals as well as humans, was toxic in large doses. The Lechuza Caracas team officials had confirmed that only the horses treated with the supplement had died. n

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People U.S. television personality Jay Leno, 59, May 29 bowed out as host of the NBC network’s “Tonight Show,” a job he had held since 1993. Among the guests on his 3,775th and final show was his designated successor, Conan O’Brien, 46. O’Brien began hosting the show June 1, with actor and comedian Will Ferrell, 41, as his openingnight guest. [See p. 211G3; 2008, p. 912G2] Scottish amateur singer and church volunteer Susan Boyle, who May 30 had been favored to win the final round of the “Britain’s Got Talent” television contest, instead finished second that night, losing out in an audience poll to an 11-member group of street dancers called Diversity. Boyle, 48, had become an international sensation after her April 11 performance, in a preliminary round of the show, of the song “I 383

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Publishers Weekly June 1 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 316A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. Gone Tomorrow, by Lee Child (Delacorte) 2. Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris (Ace) 3. Wicked Prey, by John Sandford (Putnam) 4. Cemetery Dance, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Grand Central) 5. The 8th Confession, by James Patterson (Little, Brown)

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General Hardback 1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions) 3. Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body!, by Jillian Michaels and Mariska van Aalst (Crown) 4. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 5. Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities, by Elizabeth Edwards (Broadway) Mass Market Paperback 1. Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown (Pocket) 2. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult (Pocket) 3. Sail, by James Patterson (Vision) 4. Phantom Prey, by John Sandford (Berkley) 5. Say Goodbye, by Lisa Gardner (Bantam)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its May 30 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 316C1]:

Singles

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1. “Boom Boom Pow,” The Black Eyed Peas (will.i.am/Interscope) 2. “Poker Face,” Lady Gaga (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope) 3. “Blame It,” Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain (J/RMG) 4. “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho),” Pitbull (Ultra) 5. “Day ’N’ Nite,” Kid Cudi (Dream On/G.O.O.D./Universal Motown)

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1. 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day (Reprise/Warner Bros.) 2. Hannah Montana: The Movie, soundtrack (Walt Disney) 3. Crime Pays, Cam’Ron (Diplomatic Man/Asylum) 4. The Fame, Lady Gaga (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope/IGA) 5. Unstoppable, Rascal Flatts (Lyric Street)

Dreamed a Dream” from the musical Les Miserables. That performance, which stunned viewers because of the sharp contrast between her homely appearance and the purity of her voice, got as many as 90 million hits after being posted on the YouTube video Web site. After being beaten by Diversity, Boyle May 31 was reportedly taken by ambulance to a London clinic. Producers of the talent show described her as “exhausted and emotionally drained.” n

O B I T UA R I E S

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DEAN, Millvina (Elisabeth Gladys), 97, British national who, at roughly nine weeks of age, was the youngest passenger on the ill-fated luxury liner the Titanic, which sank off Newfoundland in April 1912; the disaster claimed more than 1,500 lives, including that of her father, Bertram Dean; she, her mother and her twoyear-old brother were among the 705 survivors of the disaster, whose wreckage was found in 1985; since October 2007, she had been the last of the Titanic survivors; born Feb. 2, 1912, in London; died May 31 at a nursing home in Southampton, England. [See 2004, p. 955B3; 1985, p. 694B3] ELON, Amos Dan, 82, Austrian-born Israeli journalist, author, historian and public intellectual; fluent in Hebrew, English and German, he wrote for period-

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al television shows May 4–31 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 316A2]:

1. “American Idol” (Fox), May 20 (16.1)* 2. “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), May 4, 19 (12.6)* 3. “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC), May 14 (11.0) 4. “NCIS” (CBS), May 5 (10.4) (tie) “The Mentalist” (CBS), May 5, 19 (10.4)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of May 22–28 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 316B2]:

1. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 20th Century Fox ($80.0 million, 1) Directed by Shawn Levy. With Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria and Robin Williams. 2. Terminator Salvation, Warner Bros. ($74.5 million, 1) Directed by McG. With Christian Bale, Helena Bonham Carter, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin and Moon Bloodgood. 3. Star Trek, Paramount ($196.7 million, 3) Directed by J.J. Abrams. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Ben Cross and Bruce Greenwood. 4. Angels & Demons, Sony ($93.6 million, 2) Directed by Ron Howard. With Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor and Ayelet Zurer. 5. Dance Flick, Paramount ($14.3 million, 1) Directed by Damien Dante Wayans. With Damon Wayans Jr., Craig Wayans, Shoshana Bush, Essence Atkins and Affion Crockett. 6. X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 20th Century Fox ($167.0 million, 4) Directed by Gavin Hood. With Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Tim Pocock, Troye Sivan and Tahyna Tozzi. 7. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Warner Bros. ($48.1 million, 4) Directed by Mark Waters. With Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert and Robert Forster. 8. Obsessed, Sony ($66.8 million, 5) [See p. 312B2] 9. Monsters vs. Aliens, Paramount ($194.1 million, 9) [See p. 312D2] 10. 17 Again, Warner Bros. ($60.9 million, 6) [See p. 312C2]

icals in all three languages and was a longtime correspondent for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper; in one of his best-known books, The Israelis: Founders and Sons (1971), he explored the development of the Zionist movement and its failure to adequately address the plight of the Palestinian Arabs; in the 1970s and 1980s, he grew increasingly critical of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; having long owned a vacation home in Italy, he sold his Jerusalem apartment in 2004 and moved to Italy for good; born July 4, 1926, in Vienna; died May 25 in Italy’s Tuscan region, of leukemia. [See 1974, p. 906A2; 1971, p. 644E2] ERICKSON, Arthur Charles, 84, Canadian architect who in the 1960s acquired an international reputation for his strikingly integrated design for the campus of Simon Fraser University in the Vancouver, British Columbia, suburb of Burnaby; he designed other notable structures in and around Vancouver, his hometown, including the Museum of Anthropology on the campus of the University of British Columbia; among his wellknown buildings outside the Vancouver area were Toronto, Ontario’s Roy Thomson Hall, a circular concert hall; San Diego, Calif.’s convention center; and the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C., completed in 1989; born June 14, 1924, in Vancouver; died May 20 in a nursing home there; he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. [See 1989, p. 316D1] FURCHGOTT, Robert Francis, 92, one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1998 for discovering that the gas nitric oxide played an important role in various biological processes; their work helped lead to the development of the impotence drug Viagra; born June 4, 1916, in Charleston, S.C.; died

May 19 in Seattle, Wash.; no cause of death was reported. [See 1998, p. 760B2–D2; 1997, p. 739E2] GANS, Danny (Daniel Davies Gans), 52, impressionist who had been a mainstay of the Las Vegas, Nev., entertainment scene since 1996, despite having only a minor background in film and television; born in October 1956 in Torrance, Calif.; died in his sleep May 1 at his home in Henderson, Nev. GRANGER, Clive W(illiam) J(ohn), 74, Nobel Prize–winning economist; he and Robert Engle were awarded the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for developing pioneering statistical techniques for measuring investment risk and tracking economic trends; the two were honored for research done independently at the University of California at San Diego, where Granger, a native of Wales, taught from 1974 until his retirement in 2003; born Sept. 4, 1934, in Swansea; died May 27 in San Diego, reportedly of a brain tumor. [See 2003, p. 820D2–F2] KATZIR, Ephraim (born Ephraim Katchalski),

93, president of Israel, 1973–78; before being elected to the largely ceremonial post, he had achieved an international reputation as a biophysicist; his research included work on proteins that contributed to the human genome project; he was the younger brother of another leading Israeli scientist, Aharon Katzir-Katchalski, a chemist slain in a terrorist attack at Israel’s Lod International Airport in 1972; both men were founders of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot; born May 16, 1916, in Kiev, in what was then the Ukrainian region of czarist Russia (now Ukraine); died May 30 at his home on the Weizmann Institute campus. [See 1978, p. 418C2; 1977, pp. 889B1, D2, 850G2–C3, 474G1, 450C2, 8C2; Indexes 1972–75] n

June 4, 2009

Bankrupt U.S. Automaker Chrysler Completes Partnership Deal With Italy’s Fiat Smaller Chrysler Emerges From Bankruptcy.

Auburn Hills, Mich.–based automaker Chrysler LLC June 10 completed a partnership deal with Italy’s Fiat SpA, and emerged from bankruptcy restructuring as a new, leaner company called Chrysler Group LLC. Chrysler since 2008 had received $9 billion in U.S. government financing, and in April was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. The government June 10 loaned the new company $6.6 billion in exit financing. [See pp. 367G1, 365A1] Chrysler Group was headed by Fiat Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sergio Marchionne, who was known for reviving an ailing Fiat after he took over the company in 2004. Marchionne, in a June 10 note to Chrysler Group employees, lauded the new company’s “healthy balance sheet, a competitive cost structure, a leaner and more efficient dealer network, sound supplier agreements and significantly improved product quality and operational efficiency.” Under the terms of the cashless deal, Fiat received a 20% stake in Chrysler Group, with the option to increase it to 35% after the government loans were repaid. In return, Fiat, known for its small, efficient vehicles, would share billions of dollars worth of technology with Chrysler Group, which would also gain access to Fiat’s global distribution network. Ownership of the rest of Chrysler Group was divided between a health trust administered by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union, which owned a 55% stake, and the U.S. and Canadian governments, which owned 8% and 2%, respectively. Chrysler Group’s board would be composed of four directors appointed by the U.S. Treasury, three appointed by Fiat, one by the Canadian government and one by the UAW. The new company’s headquarters would remain in Auburn Hills. Most factories that were idled during Chrysler’s bankruptcy proceedings were expected to quickly resume production. Chrysler Group would produce three car brands—Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge—and operate spare-parts maker Mopar, with each slated to have its own CEO. Fiat models were expected to become available in the U.S. by early 2011. The unprofitable parts of Chrysler would remain in bankruptcy court, where they would be liquidated. Among Chrysler’s financial liabilities were eight major factories that would be shuttered. Hundreds of dealerships would also be closed. [See below, p. 338D3] Chrysler’s trip through bankruptcy court took 42 days. Many observers said its rapid restructuring was a political victory for Obama, who had pledged swift, orderly bankruptcy proceedings. Dissident Bondholders Lose Appeals—

The Chrysler-Fiat deal came one day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 9 that a small group of dissident Chrysler bondholders had not “carried the burden” of

proving that the court should examine its appeal of a debt-for-cash swap that had been brokered by the government in April. The group, which was mainly composed of three Indiana pension funds for policemen and teachers, owned $42.5 million of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt. The Indiana bondholders had purchased their holdings for 43 cents to the dollar in July 2008, but under the government’s swap, in which Chrysler bondholders split a total cash return of $2 billion, they would collect a payout of just 29 cents to the dollar. The bondholders argued that the government was violating long-established bankruptcy laws by giving the UAW, a more junior debtholder, a better return on its debt than senior debtholders. They also claimed that the government had illegally used funds from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which were earmarked to support financial institutions, not the U.S. auto industry. The bondholders June 4 had appealed the approval of the Chrysler-Fiat deal by a U.S. bankruptcy judge in May, but the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld the deal June 5. However, the appellate court also put a hold on the deal that would expire at 4:00 p.m. June 8. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who oversaw the 2nd Circuit, minutes before that deadline issued a one-sentence order staying the Chrysler-Fiat deal “pending further order.” The court the following day dismissed the bondholders’ appeal, saying the group had not effectively carried the burden of “showing that circumstances justify an exercise of [judicial] discretion.” It noted that its verdict was “not a decision on the merits of the underlying legal issues.” The group’s lawyer, Thomas Lauria, was also reportedly in discussions with dissident bondholders of Detroit, Mich.– based General Motors Corp. (GM), which had also received billions of dollars in government loans before it was forced into bankruptcy June 1. A number of analysts pointed out that Chrysler’s bankruptcy proceedings could be used as a model for those of the much larger GM. Judge Approves Dealership Closures—

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez June 9 approved Chrysler’s plan to drop about 25% of its sponsored dealerships. Dealerships that lost Chrysler sponsorship were required to get rid of promotional materials bearing the Chrysler logo, such as billboards, and would no longer be able to offer repair services as authorized Chrysler dealers. [See below] The dealerships received some congressional support. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by John (Jay) Rockefeller 4th (D, W.Va.), the same day sent letters to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and Chrysler President Jim Press (who June 10 was named Chrysler Group’s deputy CEO), asking them to explain the dealers’ “unwarranted” treatment. Legislation seeking to protect

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3573 June 11, 2009

B shuttered dealerships June 10 was introduced in the House. Senators Probe U.S. Ownership Plans—

Ron Bloom, a senior adviser to the government’s auto task force, June 10 appeared before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee to answer questions about government ownership of parts of Chrysler and GM. He told senators, “Amid the worst economic crisis in threequarters of a century, the administration’s decisions avoided a devastating liquidation and put a stop to the long practice in the auto industry of kicking hard problems down the road.” Bloom also said there was a “reasonable probability that we can get most if not all of our money back,” and asserted that the government was not “going to get into micromanaging [the automakers’] decisions.”

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Bankrupt U.S. automaker Chrysler completes partnership deal with Italy’s Fiat; smaller Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy. PAGE 385

U.S. President Obama marks Holocaust in Germany, D-Day in France. PAGE 386

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World Health Organization declares swine flu pandemic, first since 1968. PAGE 386

10 U.S. banks to repay government rescue funds. PAGE 387

Unemployment rate rose to 9.4% in May. PAGE 388

Gabonese President Bongo dies after 42-year rule. PAGE 393

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20th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen crackdown marked. PAGE 395

North Korea sentences U.S. reporters to 12 years’ labor. PAGE 395

Center-right parties win European Parliament elections. PAGE 396

Lebanon’s pro-West coalition bests Hezbollah at polls. PAGE 397

Federer, Kuznetsova French Open.

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REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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However, when asked, Bloom declined to offer a deadline for the government to sell its stakes in Chrysler and GM. (The government held a 60% stake in GM.) Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) said, “My hope is whatever we like or dislike about the present configuration, I want to see us get out of this business as quickly as we can.” Sen. John Thune (R, S.D.) the following day called on Congress to set a July 2010 deadline for the government to sell its shares in the automakers. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Texas) at the hearing said, “There are profitable dealers that are being closed…when the dealer buys the car, the dealer provides the real estate, the dealer provides the showroom and the repairs, and rents the signs. How is it a drag on the company?” Sen. Jim Bunning (R, Ky.) asserted, “It seems pretty clear to me that taxpayers will never get back their money.” n

Obama Marks Holocaust in Germany, D-Day in France Visits WWII Sites in Buchenwald, Normandy.

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U.S. President Barack Obama June 5 visited the site of the Nazi death camp in Buchenwald, Germany, where he rebuked those who still denied the historical fact of the Holocaust. Obama the next day spoke at a ceremony in Normandy, France, marking the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the World War II amphibious offensive in which Allied troops crossed the English Channel and fought their way ashore to liberate France from Nazi Germany. [See pp. 367B2, 213A1; 2004, p. 420C1] Obama was joined at Buchenwald by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and author Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was a survivor of the camp and whose father had died there, one of some 56,000 Jews and other prisoners who were killed at Buchenwald. Noting that U.S. troops had thoroughly documented the Nazi death camps they liberated, Obama said, “We are here today because this work is never finished,” adding, “To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened—a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the most prominent such Holocaust denier, and had repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction. [See pp. 261F3, 179C1; 2006, p. 964E1] Obama’s visit to Buchenwald was viewed partly as a reaffirmation of the U.S.’s commitment to Israel, balancing a speech he had given the previous day in Cairo, the Egyptian capital. In Cairo, Obama had appealed to Muslims around the world to view the U.S. in a better light, and called on Israel to stop building settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. He also criticized Holocaust denial in that speech. Obama and Merkel earlier June 5 had met in the city of Dresden in eastern Germany. Merkel expressed support for Obama’s push to renew the Arab-Israeli

peace process. But she reportedly told Obama of her concerns that the U.S.’s large budget deficit could endanger the international financial system. Obama reportedly told her he planned to reduce the deficit once the U.S. economy recovered from the current recession. [See p. 371A2] Obama and Merkel visited the restored Frauenkirche cathedral in Dresden, which, like much of the city, had been destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945. [See 2005, p. 964B1] Obama June 6 commemorated the DDay anniversary at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Collevillesur-Mer, where 9,387 soldiers were buried on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, one of the key landing sites of the invasion. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took part in the ceremony. Obama said, “D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century.” He said his late maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, “arrived on this beach six weeks after D-Day and marched across Europe” with Gen. George Patton’s army. On behalf of France, Sarkozy thanked D-Day veterans on hand for the ceremony. “We owe you our freedom,” he said. Britain’s Charles, Prince of Wales, also attended, after his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, expressed displeasure that she had not been invited. She had served as an auxiliary driver in the British army during World War II. Obama was joined by his family for some sightseeing in Paris June 6, before they returned to the U.S. the next day. n

funds for use by developing countries fighting to combat the virus. WHO officials warned against widespread panic, noting that the pandemic designation only referred to changes in the way the disease was being spread, and not to an increase in its lethality. The WHO said the virus was only “moderate in severity.” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said, “We are seeing a moderate pandemic.” She added, “We are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and is not stoppable.” Virus Found in All 50 States— Officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) June 1 reported that the swine flu virus had been confirmed in all 50 U.S. states. It also said the number of confirmed cases likely only represented 5% of the country’s total number of cases. As of June 11, there were 13,217 cases of confirmed swine flu in the U.S., with 27 deaths from the disease. Also, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, a bipartisan panel of U.S. federal legislators, June 7 said a plan by U.S. President Barack Obama to use funds assigned to protect the U.S. from biological attack to instead combat the swine flu outbreak would weaken the country’s defenses against a terrorist attack. Obama the previous week had requested the U.S. Congress to spend up to $9 billion for swine flu vaccine and other preparations, $3 billion of which might come from the Project BioShield Special Reserve Fund. The fund had been established in 2004 to pay for responses to chemical, nuclear and biological attacks. [See 2006, p. 1008G1] n

Swine Flu WHO Declares Pandemic, First Since 1968. The World Health Organization (WHO) June 11 declared an A(H1N1) swine influ-

enza virus pandemic, raising its alert system to phase six, the highest, for the first time since 1968. The designation meant that a global epidemic of swine flu was under way. The WHO reported 28,774 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in 74 countries, 144 of which had resulted in death. [See p. 351F2] The WHO raised the alert level at an emergency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Under the organization’s guidelines, a pandemic consisted of widespread person-to-person transmission of an infectious disease in two distinct geographical regions of the world. The last time a pandemic had been declared was during an outbreak of the so-called Hong Kong flu that killed an estimated one million people. The WHO’s declaration was unlikely to have a substantial effect in industrialized countries, many of which had already been behaving as if a pandemic had been declared. However, the phase six designation would activate contracts that called for a flu vaccine to go into production in the event of a pandemic.The raising of the alert level also freed medicine supplies and

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Accidents and Disasters Air France Flight Bodies Recovered. Bra-

zilian Air Force Col. Jorge Amaral June 6 said search teams had discovered bodies and other wreckage from Air France Flight 447, an Airbus 330 jet that had crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during an overnight flight from Brazil to France the previous week. The objects were confirmed to be from the flight. (The Brazilian military the previous week had reported that it had discovered wreckage from the flight that turned out to be from other sources.) It remained unknown exactly why the flight, which might have encountered strong turbulence from storms, had crashed. [See p. 369D2] The wreckage and bodies had been spotted about 680 miles (1,100 km) off Brazil’s northeastern coast. However, it was thought that ocean currents had dispersed corpses and wreckage over a wide area of ocean. Brazilian officials June 11 said a total of 41 corpses had been recovered, and that French search teams had spotted several more bodies floating in the water. All 228 people aboard the flight were presumed dead. France’s Accident Investigation Board (BEA) June 6 said Air France had failed to replace air sensors that the downed jet’s manufacturer had recommended replacing in that particular model. The investigators said the plane had registered inconsistent air speeds and sent out a series of 24 error messages before crashing. Air France pilots’ union representatives June 9 said the company had decided to replace all of the questionable sensors, called Pitot tubes, on its Airbus 330 and 340 model jets. Brazilian divers June 8 recovered the tail section of the aircraft, a finding that might aid in the discovery of the digital flight-data and cockpit recorders, also known as “black boxes,” that were stored in that area of the plane. A French nuclear submarine June 10 arrived at the site of the wreckage to join in the search for the black boxes. n

AIDS World Bank Programs’ Failure Reported.

The World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, the organization’s internal watchdog, April 30 reported that the majority of the bank’s programs to combat HIV and AIDS had failed. According to the report, eight of 10 AIDS projects in Africa funded by the World Bank did not have satisfactory results, as did seven of 10 projects in other parts of the world. The report said the failures were caused by ineffective bureaucracies that failed to deliver aid where it was needed most, and the complexities of working with governments and nongovernmental organizations. The watchdog group had investigated programs on health, nutrition and population that were funded with $17 billion between 1997 and 2007. [See 2004, p. 256A2] n June 11, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Mortgage & Credit Crisis 10 Banks to Repay Government. The Trea-

sury Department June 9 said 10 of the country’s largest financial institutions would be allowed to repay a total of $68 billion in aid that they had received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund. The development was the latest indication of increased stability in the financial sector, which had undergone a severe crisis in the fall of 2008 stemming from bad investments in the U.S. housing market. [See p. 318A2] However, government officials warned that the financial system remained fragile. President Barack Obama said, “This is not a sign that our troubles are over.” Banks continued to utilize lending programs that had been established by the Federal Reserve, and also relied on guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to sell corporate bonds. Financial institutions were still saddled with mortgage-backed assets that had turned toxic after the housing market entered a deep slump in 2006. The 10 companies were J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, BB&T Corp., American Express Co., Capital One Financial Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Northern Trust Corp. and State Street Corp. With the exception of Morgan Stanley and Northern Trust, the companies possessed adequate levels of capital to weather an ongoing recession without federal aid, according to results of government “stress tests” that had been published in May. Morgan Stanley was allowed to return its TARP aid with the condition that it raise more money. Northern Trust had not been required to undergo a stress test. The companies had clamored to return the money, since participants in the TARP program were subject to government restrictions, such as caps on executive pay. Additionally, recipients of TARP aid were perceived as being unstable, and analysts said allowing some institutions to return the money, while denying that option to others, divided the financial industry into weak and strong companies, which could further undermine those that continued to struggle. Some of the country’s largest banks—including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc.— were not yet eligible to repay the TARP aid. With the $68 billion in repayments, the government would get back about one third of the $199 billion it had spent buying preferred shares in 600 of the country’s financial institutions. The $68 billion would be at the Obama administration’s disposal to prop up smaller companies or other sectors of the economy. The government would continue to hold warrants from the 10 companies, which could be converted into common stock. Analysts said it could cost the companies some $4.5 billion to buy the warrants back. Executive Pay Czar Appointed—The Treasury Department June 10 announced that Washington, D.C.–based lawyer Kenneth Feinberg would be the “special master” in

charge of determining compensation for top executives and the 100 highest earners at seven companies that had received “exceptional assistance” from the government. The companies were Bank of America and Citigroup; insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG); automakers General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC; and autoloan-financing companies GMAC LLC and Chrysler Financial. [See pp. 365A1, 91A1] The announcement was the latest attempt by the government to regulate compensation at companies that had received TARP aid, following a public outcry earlier in the year over TARP participants that continued to dole out lavish compensation to executives. The Obama administration in February had capped executive salaries at $500,000 for companies that had received exceptional assistance. Obama later that month, under pressure from Congress, signed legislation that limited yearly bonuses at those companies to one-third of an executive’s salary. Analysts said the Obama administration was concerned that the two plans in combination placed excessive restrictions on executive pay, and could compel companies to leave the TARP program at a time of financial instability. The installation of a compensation master replaced the original $500,000 cap. Feinberg had previously overseen a government program to compensate families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. He would also be responsible for creating a compensation structure for other companies that had received less government aid. [See 2004, p. 1041D2] In addition to the creation of Feinberg’s post, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner June 10 said the Obama administration would push Congress to pass so-called “say on pay” legislation that would allow shareholders to vote on the compensation packages of executives. While the votes would be nonbinding, administration officials said the purpose of the legislation was to encourage executives to work in the long-term interests of shareholders, as opposed to narrowly focusing on risky bets that could result in personal bonuses. Geithner also said the administration would ask Congress to strengthen the independence of corporate compensation committees. Geithner said, “This financial crisis had many significant causes, but executive compensation practices were a contributing factor. Incentives for short-term gains overwhelmed the checks and balances meant to mitigate against the risk of excess leverage.” Toxic Loan Plan Postponed—FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair June 3 announced that a pilot program designed to help banks sell toxic loans—known as the Legacy Loans Program (LLP)—would be postponed. Bair claimed that the newfound stability in the financial sector had led to the postponement, saying, “Banks have been able to raise capital without having to sell bad assets through the LLP, which reflects renewed investor confidence in our banking system.” [See p. 177A1] 387

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However, it was also reported that investors were reluctant to participate in the program, over fears that they would be subject to greater government oversight. The LLP was part of the government’s $1 trillion Public-Private Investment Program, which had been unveiled in March, and would allow the government to finance private investor purchases of toxic loans and securities. The second part of the plan, the Legacy Securities Program, was still in development. Citigroup Launches Stock Conversion—

Citigroup June 10 launched an initiative to convert $58 billion worth of preferred shares into common stock, a move intended to bolster the company’s capital reserves. The bank said the conversion would be completed around July 30. The conversion had been announced in February, when the government agreed to convert $25 billion of its $45 billion in preferred shares into common stock, which would see it take a 34% stake in Citigroup. [See p. 319A1] The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times June 5 reported that Bair was pushing behind the scenes to replace Citigroup Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Vikram Pandit and other executives. The newspapers also reported that Bair wanted to put Citigroup on a confidential government “problem list” of banks that were at risk of failure. Bair was reportedly concerned that Citigroup had not sold its toxic assets fast enough, and was vulnerable to losses from defaults on consumer loans. Bair reportedly thought that the company’s senior management did not have adequate experience in commercial banking to turn the bank around. Pandit—who had taken the reins of Citigroup in December 2007, when it had already suffered massive losses on the mortgage market—had a background in investment banking. [See 2007, p. 825B2] Bank of America–Merrill Hearings Held—

Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis June 11 testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he would have “strongly considered” pulling his company out of a proposed merger with struggling investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co., were it not for the government’s involvement. However, he maintained that no government official had behaved improperly during the merger, saying, “They strongly advised and they spoke in strong terms, but I think it was with the best intentions.” [See p. 291G1] The hearing was part of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the January merger, which had raised questions of whether Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and then–Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. had unduly pressured Bank of America to acquire Merrill Lynch in December 2008, while knowing that Merrill Lynch was in bad financial shape. At the time, the financial system was in disarray, and officials reportedly feared that a dissolution of the deal could exacerbate panic in the markets. Once the merger was completed, Merrill Lynch reported a massive $15 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008, leading the government to provide the combined com388

pany with an additional $20 billion in TARP money. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was also conducting an investigation into the case, and shareholders of Bank of America had brought lawsuits against the company. The House committee June 9 had subpoenaed the Fed to release internal e-mails and memos related to the merger. Some of the e-mails, presented at the hearing, appeared to show that Fed officials had been aware in December 2008 that Merrill Lynch was poised to post large losses, but pushed Bank of America to complete the merger anyway. When asked whether Bernanke had advised him to withhold Merrill Lynch’s problems from shareholders, Lewis said Bernanke had “never said we should not disclose something that should be disclosed.” Lawmakers appeared skeptical of Lewis’s claim that Bernanke and Paulson had not behaved improperly, even after they threatened to oust Lewis and Bank of America’s board if the deal fell through. They suggested he was protecting the two so as not to anger government regulators. Bernanke and Paulson were expected to testify before the committee in the coming weeks. n Mortgage Lender CEO Charged With Fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) June 4 charged Angelo Mozilo, former chief executive officer (CEO) of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., with securities fraud and insider trading. The civil complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, and included fraud charges against former Chief Operating Officer and President David Sambol and former Chief Financial Officer Eric Sieracki. Mozilo and his deputies were the highest-ranking executives to be charged for abuses in the mortgage market that played a major role in the current global financial crisis. [See p. 264G2; 2008, pp. 412A2, 158A3] Countrywide had once been the largest mortgage lender in the U.S. Along with other mortgage lenders during the housing boom, Countrywide increased the number of mortgages it issued to borrowers with poor credit, known as subprime borrowers, and engaged in other risky lending practices, such as approving loans without a down payment or proof of income. To mitigate its risk exposure, Countrywide sold the mortgages on its books to investors on Wall Street and around the world. Despite those measures, Countrywide’s profits were hit by a fall in housing prices from 2006 to 2008, and an accompanying spike in loan defaults. (It was eventually acquired by Bank of America Corp. in 2008.) Defaults in the U.S. housing market led to massive losses for banks and other financial institutions that had invested in mortgages underwritten by Countrywide and others, leading to a freeze in credit markets and a severe slowdown in global economic growth. The SEC charged that between 2005 and 2007, Mozilo, Sambol and Sieracki had been aware that Countrywide was increasing the number of risky loans it approved, but hid that fact from investors by claiming

that Countrywide’s lending practices remained of the highest standard. The SEC cited as evidence internal e-mails that Mozilo had written to Sambol and Sieracki, one of which described a particular kind of subprime Countrywide loan as “the most dangerous product in existence and there can be nothing more toxic.” Another read, “We have no way, with any reasonable certainty, to assess the real risk of holding these loans on our balance sheet.” The SEC also accused Mozilo of selling $139 million worth of Countrywide stock between 2006 and 2007 based on nonpublic knowledge that the company was exposed to a high level of risk in the mortgage market. The SEC was seeking financial penalties against the executives, and a restitution of the $139 million. Lawyers for all three executives claimed that their clients were innocent of wrongdoing, arguing that Countrywide had been up front with investors about its lending practices. A lawyer for Mozilo said the stock sales had been part of a legitimate plan that allowed Countrywide executives to sell their stock holdings at predetermined times. n

Economy Unemployment Rate Rose to 9.4% in May.

The unemployment rate in May rose to 9.4% after seaUnemployment sonal adjustment, 2009 9.4% up from its April May Previous Month 8.9% level of 8.9%, the Year Earlier 5.5% Labor Department reported June 5. It was the U.S.’s highest unemployment rate since February 1983, but analysts noted that the pace of job losses had declined dramatically from recent months, and there was optimism that the economy could be recovering from a deep, ongoing recession. [See p. 323A2] However, with job losses continuing to mount, Republicans said the report was evidence that a $787 billion stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February was failing to revive the economy. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said, “Washington is hanging middle-class Americans out to dry.” Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, countered that the report was a “sign that we are making progress,” even if the overall rate of unemployment was “incredibly distressing.” Vice President Joseph Biden said that despite showing a slower rate of job losses, the report was “tough.” He said, “Less bad is not how we’re going to measure success.” In reaction to the report, investors June 5 sold U.S. government bonds on projections that a recovering economy could lead to a rise in inflation. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes—which went upward as prices fell—climbed to 3.83%, from 3.71% the previous day. An estimated 345,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in May, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 6 million since the recession began in December 2007. The May job loss figure was the smallest since September FACTS ON FILE

2008, and significantly less than the revised 504,000 figure for April. While the pace of losses abated in many major sectors, manufacturing continued to shed jobs at a fast clip, losing another 156,000 jobs. Manufacturing stood to lose even more jobs as automakers Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. went through the bankruptcy process and shut down dealerships. [See pp. 385A1, 365A1] The unemployment rate was 16.4% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 141 Million Jobs Held in May—According to a household survey, 140.6 million people held jobs in May, the Labor Department reported June 5. The department counted 14.5 million people as unemployed. The department counted 792,000 workers as discouraged in May. About 9.1 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.3 hours in May, down slightly from 39.5 in April. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.7 hours, remaining unchanged from the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose two cents, to $18.54. The unemployment rate among whites in May was 8.6%, up from 8.0% in April. The jobless rate for blacks was 14.9%, down from 15.0% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 12.7%, up from 11.3% in April. For men age 20 and over, May unemployment was 9.8%, up from 9.4% in April. For adult women, it was 7.5%, up from 7.1% the previous month. The teenage rate was 22.7%, up from 21.5% in April. For black teenagers it was 39.4%, up from 34.7% the previous month. n Trade Deficit Rose to $29.2 Billion in April.

The Commerce Department June 10 reported that the Trade Deficit seasonally adjust(in billions) ed U.S. trade def- April 2009 $29.16 icit in goods and Previous Month $28.53 Year Earlier $62.14 services for April was $29.2 billion, up from a revised $28.5 billion in March. Both imports and exports fell in April, suggesting that trade continued to be hampered by an ongoing global economic slowdown. [See p. 323A3] Exports in April fell to $121.2 billion, a $2.8 billion decrease from the preceding month. The change was led by decreased exports of industrial supplies and materials, and capital goods. Imports decreased by $2.2 billion in April, to $150.3 billion. The change was led by decreased imports of capital goods and industrial supplies and materials. Imports of crude oil increased by $1 billion in April. Oil prices had made strong gains in recent months, following a decline in prices in 2008 that had come as a result of the global financial crisis. The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange June 11, 2009

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA Deficit/Surplus* April March 2009 2009

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

-16.75 -3.22 -1.22 -5.34 -4.12 -0.25

-15.62 -2.61 -0.77 -4.42 -3.91 -0.15

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

(Nymex) June 10 reached $71.33 a barrel, its highest price since October 2008. n Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Reserve June 10 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the previous six weeks, finding that economic conditions had “remained weak or deteriorated further” during that time. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 241B1] However, there were some bright spots in the economic landscape, with eight of the 12 districts reporting “an uptick in home sales.” Additionally, some districts reported that economic projections were growing more optimistic. Manufacturing remained weak, while lending activity was described as “stable or weak.” The survey found that “prices at all stages of production were generally flat or falling,” and that retail prices were “very soft,” indicating that inflationary pressures remained subdued. n

Supreme Court Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings Set.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, June 9 said confirmation hearings for the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court would begin July 13. President Barack Obama in May had nominated Sotomayor, a judge on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, to replace retiring Associate Justice David H. Souter. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic and the third woman in the court’s history. [See p. 349A1] Republican senators criticized the schedule, saying it did not give them enough time to comb through all the decisions Sotomayor had written in her 17 years as a federal judge. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said, “I don’t think it’s a good way to begin the proceedings.” Sotomayor’s decisions, along with a filled-out Senate questionnaire and a collection of her speeches, had been submitted to the committee June 4. But Leahy noted that the Senate took only 72 days to confirm Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in 2005 after he was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, and argued that Sotomayor should

undergo an equally expedient confirmation process. Leahy said he aimed to have the full Senate vote on her confirmation before a monthlong congressional recess began Aug. 6. He also said, “Indeed, given the attacks on her character, there are compelling reasons to proceed even ahead of this schedule. She deserves the earliest opportunity to respond to those attacks.” Leahy was referring to criticisms of Sotomayor that had been made by prominent conservatives on the Internet, radio and television. Much of the criticism centered around a comment from a speech delivered at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, in which Sotomayor addressed the role that a judge’s personal background played in reaching decisions. She had said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.) had said the comments showed that Sotomayor was a racist, but June 3 retracted his accusation, saying his word choice had been inappropriate. Conservative radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh had compared her to David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) white supremacist group. Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R, Colo.) said the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group that Sotomayor had supported, was “a Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses.” [See p. 378B1] Senate Republicans had attempted to tamp down such rhetoric. Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said such remarks were “terrible” in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast May 29. “This is not the kind of tone any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advise and consent,” he said. Analysts said Republican lawmakers were concerned that accusations of racism and other harsh criticisms could alienate Hispanics, an important voting bloc. Obama in an interview broadcast by NBC News May 29 said Sotomayor regretted the remark, in what was seen as an attempt to defuse the controversy surrounding it, which she had repeated with similar wording in at least two subseqent speeches. He said, “I’m sure she would have restated it,” but added, “If you look in the entire sweep of the essay that she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through—that will make her a good judge.” He said her comment was “the exact opposite” of racist. Sotomayor June 2 began a series of meetings with senators on Capitol Hill. In a day of meetings June 8, she was compelled to use crutches after breaking her ankle earlier that day at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport. Obama administration officials said the break was a small fracture. n Election Contributions Can Require Recusal.

The Supreme Court June 8 ruled, 5–4, that judges must recuse themselves from cases involving individuals who had made unusually large contributions to their election 389

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campaigns. The court ruled that in “extreme” cases, contributions to a judge’s campaign could lead to a “serious risk of actual bias” that undermined the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. The case was Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. [See 2008, pp. 432D1, 19C3] While federal judges were appointed, 39 states allowed some judgeships to be determined by election. In recent years, judicial elections had become increasingly expensive, and a spike in campaign contributions had stoked concerns that state judges could use their position to rule in favor of donors, whether they were lawyers or parties in a case. But defenders of the practice argued that campaign contributors were simply exercising their free speech rights. The judge in the current case before the Supreme Court, West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Justice Brent Benjamin, in 2007 and 2008 had voted with the majority in two 3–2 decisions that overturned a $50 million 2002 verdict against Massey, which had been convicted of pushing smaller coal companies out of business through fraud. Massey Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship spent $3 million in 2004 to support Benjamin, a Republican, in his bid to unseat incumbent Justice Warren McGraw, a Democrat. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the Supreme Court’s opinion, said, “Not every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias that requires a judge’s recusal, but this is an exceptional case.” Kennedy noted that Blankenship’s $3 million contribution was “more than the total amount spent by all other Benjamin supporters and three times the amount spent by Benjamin’s own committee.” Kennedy wrote that state ethics rules would suffice for most questions of judicial bias, but that the current case ran afoul of the Constitution. He said the court was not determining whether Benjamin had shown bias. Rather, Kennedy emphasized that “objective standards” of probable bias were at issue. He was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing the minority opinion, said the court’s decision would engender an overwhelming number of recusal motions that would inevitably hamper the judicial process. Roberts also said the ruling was vague, and posed 40 questions that lower courts were likely to ask, such as “How much money is too much money,” and “What if the case involves a social or ideological issue rather than a financial one?” Roberts was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. n ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Case Declined. The Supreme Court June 8 declined to hear Pietrangelo v. Gates, a case challenging the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that banned gays from serving openly in the military. The administration of President Barack Obama had asked the court to decline the case, arguing that the policy was “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.” Obama during 390

his presidential campaign had suggested that he would repeal the policy, but since his January inauguration had made no moves to do so, angering those who viewed the policy as unconstitutional discrimination. [See p. 392D2; 2007, p. 362G1] n

Legislation Senate Passes FDA Regulation of Tobacco.

The U.S. Senate June 11 approved, 79–17, a bill that gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) widely expanded powers to regulate tobacco products. The House in April had passed a similar measure; President Barack Obama had previously pledged to sign a tobacco regulation bill into law. The bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, differed in minor way from its House counterpart, and required approval by the House before it could be sent to Obama. [See p. 221G1] The bill would require cigarette manufacturers to reveal the ingredients of their products. It also granted the FDA the power to ban some ingredients, as well as to regulate the amount of nicotine, a highly addictive compound, in tobacco products. New restrictions on tobacco companies’ marketing practices would also be instituted, prohibiting the use of words such as “light,” “low,” or “mild” to describe products, unless they were shown to be less harmful. Health warnings included on packaging would also be enlarged, and several types of flavored cigarettes would be banned. The measure would also establish an office within the FDA devoted to tobacco regulation, to be funded by fees imposed on tobacco companies. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the fee revenue would reach $500 million annually by 2013. n

Medicine & Health Democrats Unveil Insurance Reform Bills.

Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.) June 9 publicly released a health care reform bill drafted by Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Kennedy chaired. The measure would overhaul the U.S. health care system by mandating that everyone obtain health insurance, while establishing subsidies and a new government-run health care plan in order to provide coverage to those who could not afford it. The legislation, titled the Affordable Health Choices Act, would also prohibit insurers from charging higher rates to those with preexisting medical conditions, or refusing to provide insurance for health reasons. [See p. 339G2] A draft of the measure had first been circulated among lawmakers June 5. Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Kennedy, said the draft did not represent “final policy,” and that Democrats involved in writing the bill were still discussing it with each other and Republicans. The most contentious element of Kennedy’s plan was the government-run health care option, which Republicans argued would unfairly compete with privately run insurance plans. (Although

the bill was most closely associated with Kennedy, he had largely been absent from the Senate while undergoing treatment for brain cancer. Sen. Christopher Dodd [D, Conn.] had been leading much of the committee’s work.) Kennedy’s bill was one of at least three health care reform plans being formulated by Democratic legislators. Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, was leading an effort by that committee to formulate legislation that was intended to be combined with Kennedy’s bill before going to the Senate floor for a vote. Baucus was working closely with Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the Finance Committee’s ranking Republican, and their plan was thus seen as more likely to reflect Republican preferences than Kennedy’s. Also, a draft version of a reform bill being written by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (Calif.) and House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (Calif.) June 9 was presented to House Democrats at a party meeting. So far none of those drafting the various reform plans had spelled out how they would be paid for. Rangel June 9 backed away from an earlier stance in which he had said that he would not support a tax on employer-provided health benefits in order to pay for coverage for the uninsured. Obama Expands Reform Campaigning—

President Barack Obama at a June 2 meeting with Democratic senators from the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the Finance Committee reaffirmed his support for a government-run health insurance plan. Baucus said Obama expressed willingness to consider a tax on employer-sponsored health benefits, a reversal from the stance he had taken during the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama at that time had argued that such a tax would place an unfair burden on the middle class. However, White House officials said Obama still preferred raising revenues through other means, such as reducing some tax deductions. The White House Council of Economic Advisers June 2 released a report which found that reducing health care spending growth to 4.5% per year, from 6% per year, would yield savings of $2,600 per year over 10 years for the average family of four. Obama June 3 sent a letter to Baucus and Kennedy which said that he would consider proposals that mandated health insurance and required that employers contribute to the cost of paying for it. “If we do end up with a system where people are responsible for their own insurance, we need to provide a hardship waiver to exempt Americans who cannot afford it,” he said, adding that small employers “should be exempted” from paying for health benefits. Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign had opposed a universal coverage mandate. Obama in the letter also urged lawmakers to reduce Medicare and Medicaid payments by $200 billion–$300 billion over FACTS ON FILE

the next 10 years to help pay for a public health insurance program. Those cuts would be in addition to a $309 billion reduction in Medicare funding that Obama had included in his budget proposal. Obama June 11 held a “town hall” meeting in Green Bay, Wis., to promote Democratic health care reform efforts. Obama rejected Republican claims that he solely wished to expand the government’s role in health care. “I think it’d be great if the health care system was working perfectly and we didn’t have to be involved at all,” Obama said. Opponents Warn on Public Plan—A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats known as the Blue Dog Coalition June 3 said a public insurance plan should exist only as a fallback to private insurance. “We cannot create a public option that stacks the deck against a system that currently provides coverage to more than 160 million Americans,” said Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a Blue Dog leader. The American Medical Association (AMA), a group representing doctors, stated its opposition to a government-run insurance plan in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the Times reported June 11. n

2009 Elections Matchup for Virginia Governor’s Race Set.

State Sen. Creigh Deeds June 9 won a threeway Virginia Democratic primary election for governor, and would face former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell in the November general election. McDonnell, a social conservative and former protege of the evangelical leader Rev. Pat Robertson, faced no opposition in the Republican primary. In 2005, McDonnell had beaten Deeds in the election for attorney general by just 323 votes out of some two million cast. [See p. 373A3; 2005, p. 797E1] Incumbent Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) was barred by state law from seeking reelection. Virginia and New Jersey were the only two states holding gubernatorial elections in 2009. Democrats had won the last two governor’s races in Virginia, and the state had voted Democratic in the 2008 presidential election, despite its former status as a reliably Republican state. In the Democratic primary, the centrist Deeds won 50% of the vote. He beat two more liberal and better financed opponents: former National Democratic Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who took 27%, and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates Brian Moran, the brother of U.S. Rep. James Moran (D, Va.), who took 24%. Turnout was low, with just 6% of registered voters casting ballots. McAuliffe, a New York native, was known as a top fund-raiser for former President Bill Clinton and chairman of the 2008 presidential campaign of his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He raised $7.5 million for his own first campaign for elected office, but drew criticism over the fact that much of the money came from outside Virginia. June 11, 2009

McDonnell, who had raised about $9 million, started the general election campaign with a sizable financial advantage over Deeds, who raised about $3.7 million. n

Terrorism Detainees Bermuda Accepts Four Detainees. The Justice Department June 11 announced on its Web site that four terrorism detainees previously held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had been transferred to Bermuda, a British overseas territory, earlier the same day. The four detainees sent to Bermuda were part of a group of 17 Muslim detainees who belonged to the Uighur ethnic group native to China’s Xinjiang region. The announcement came after the Pacific island nation of Palau June 10 had announced it was willing to temporarily accept the 17 Uighur detainees. [See below, p. 305B3] The U.S. government had previously found that the men were not enemy combatants, and in 2008 had been ordered by a federal judge to release them into the U.S., a ruling later reversed on appeal. The U.S. refused to return the Uighur detainees to China because of concerns that the Chinese government, which said that the men were part of an antigovernment extremist group, would torture or kill them. Five other Uighur Guantanamo detainees had been resettled in Albania in 2006, and the Justice Department said none of them had since shown themselves to represent a criminal or terrorist threat. President Barack Obama had ordered the closure of Guantanamo by January 2010, and had established task forces responsible for determining which detainees could be safely released from the prison, which had been set up under the administrationof President George W. Bush. The U.S. government had cleared 50 prisoners at Guantanamo for release; at least 230 prisoners remained at Guantanamo following the transfer. A total of about 100 countries had reportedly been contacted by the U.S. government regarding their willingness to accept detainees. The U.S. government June 11 also transferred two other detainees out of Guantanamo. One, Mohammed el Gharani, had been ordered released by a federal judge in January and had been sent to Chad, where he was a citizen. The other, Iraqi Jawad Jabber Sadkhan, was returned to Iraq. [See p. 20G2] U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. June 11 said in a statement that the U.S. government was “extremely grateful to the government of Bermuda for its assistance” in the matter and argued that “by helping accomplish the president’s objective of closing Guantanamo, the transfer of these detainees will make America safer.” Sir Richard Gozney, the British governor of Bermuda, June 11 said he had been informed only that day that Bermuda would accept the four Uighur detainees, and that the territory’s agreement with the U.S. had been “done without permission” from the British government. He asserted that “the government of Bermuda should

have consulted with us” because the decision to accept the detainees carried “with it foreign policy ground areas and security issues.” Bermuda Premier Ewart Brown June 11 said he had decided to accept the detainees because he thought the men had been the victim of “tragic events” and felt moved to help them.

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Palau Agrees to Accept Uighurs—

Johnson Toribiong, the president of Palau, June 10 announced that his government had agreed to temporarily accept the 17 Uighur detainees. He said that Palau had made the offer as a “humanitarian gesture” and described his government as “honored and proud” to be of assistance. It was unclear how many of the 17 detainees would be sent to Palau or how long they would be allowed to remain there. The U.S. government June 4 had reportedly asked the government of Palau to accept the Uighurs. Palau, a former U.S. territory that had gained its independence in 1994, was an archipelago about 4,600 miles (7,400 km) west of Hawaii and about 500 miles east of the Philippines. The country was still heavily dependent on U.S. aid. Analysts noted that Palau did not have diplomatic relations with China, and suggested that its resulting ability to resist political pressure from China had likely played a role in its decision. The U.S. government was reportedly considering $200 million in new aid to Palau, which had received nearly $900 million in U.S. aid since becoming independent. However, U.S. officials denied that the aid payments were linked to the country’s acceptance of detainees. First Detainee Arrives in U.S.— Former Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani June 9 pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to charges that he had assisted terrorists connected with the Al Qaeda international terrorist network in preparations for 1998 attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Ghailani, who arrived in the U.S. from Guantanamo earlier the same day, faced the death penalty if convicted on all charges. [See p. 337E1; 2008, p. 291G1] Prosecutors in New York had previously charged Ghailani in 1998, along with four other men who were later convicted and given life sentences. Ghailani, who had been at large at the time of the original indictment, had been captured in 2004 and held in a system of secret prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until he was transferred to Guantanamo by the Bush administration in 2006. He was charged in 2008 in connection with the 1998 attacks under Guantanamo’s military commissions system; the military charges against Ghailani were dropped May 29. n

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Crime One Killed in Holocaust Museum Attack.

An 88-year-old gunman known for his white supremacist and anti-Semitic views June 10 opened fire inside the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., fatally 391

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wounding a security guard. The shooter, James von Brunn, was wounded by security guards during the shooting and was listed in critical condition at the city’s George Washington University Hospital. Officials reportedly believed that von Brunn had planned and carried out the attack by himself. [See pp. 375A1, 370A2, 262F3] According to witnesses, von Brunn began firing immediately after entering the museum, triggering a response by the museum’s security guards as well as from an off-duty police officer who had responded to the attack. The slain guard, Stephen Johns, 39, and von Brunn were the only people shot during the attack. A bystander was reportedly injured by broken glass during the incident. Following von Brunn’s arrest, local police searched his car and found a list of locations in the city and a list of politicians. It was unclear what the purpose of the lists was, but bomb squads were sent to at least 10 of the locations. Von Brunn June 11 was charged in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with first degree murder and carrying a firearm at a federal facility. He faced the death penalty if convicted of murder. The Holocaust Museum, which received an average of about 1.7 million visitors a year, required all visitors to pass through metal detectors and to allow their bags to be searched as part of its security measures. Officials said that there had been no advance warning of von Brunn’s attack; however, the museum security guards had reportedly been trained to respond to such attacks. The museum was closed June 11 in tribute to Johns, who had worked as a guard there for six years. President Barack Obama June 10 said in a statement that he was “shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.” He added, “This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms.” Von Brunn had been arrested in 1981 after attempting to take then–Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and other members of the Federal Reserve board hostage in order to protest their stewardship of the U.S. economy. He was convicted of assault and attempted kidnapping, among other charges, in 1983 and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Von Brunn had written on a Web site that he operated that he had been unfairly convicted by a legal system that he saw as dominated by blacks and Jews. He was released from prison in 1989. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, June 10 said that von Brunn had “a long history of associations with prominent neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers” and described him as racist and anti-Semitic in his views. Von Brunn’s attack followed two other recent incidents related to anti-Semitism, including the May 6 killing of a Wesleyan University student in Middletown, Conn., allegedly by a man who had written in his journals that it was “okay to kill Jews,” and and an alleged plot to bomb two synagogues in New York City. [See p. 375A1] 392

It also followed another killing linked to right-wing extremism, the May killing of abortion provider George Tiller in Wichita, Kan. [See p. 370A2] n

Armed Forces Soldier Killed at Recruiting Station. A Muslim convert June 1 shot two soldiers standing outside an Army recruiting booth in Little Rock, Ark., killing one and wounding the other. The shooter, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, was arrested immediately after the incident, and June 2 pleaded guilty in state court to one count of capital murder and 15 counts of terroristic acts. Muhammad said he had converted to Islam in his teens and was previously known as Carlos Bledsoe. The arrest report said Muhammad had admitted that he shot the soldiers because “he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,” and that “he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot.” [See 2008, p. 238D1] Law enforcement agents June 2 said Muhammad had been imprisoned in Yemen in 2008 for possessing forged Somali documents. They added that a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into whether he still had contacts with extremist groups had been inconclusive. Muhammad’s lawyer June 4 said the defendant had had taught English in Yemen and and was imprisoned there for overstaying his visa. The lawyer said Muhammad claimed he had been tortured while in jail. n ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Ruling Accepted.

The Obama administration May 3 let pass without action a deadline to appeal to the Supreme Court a court ruling blocking the dismissal of a lesbian Air Force officer under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military. The government had previously asked for two extensions to file an appeal of the 2008 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif. That ruling said the government had to specifically prove why the presence in the military of former Maj. Margaret Witt was disruptive, rather than use a blanket application of the policy. [See p. 390G1] Witt had been decorated many times. Her relationship with a woman had been uncovered in 2004 by an Air Force investigation. She was discharged less than a year before she would have become entitled to a full pension after 20 years of service. Obama administration officials said they would continue to defend “don’t ask, don’t tell” in district court, and that the decision not to appeal was “a procedural decision made because the case is still working its way through the regular judicial process.” President Barack Obama during his campaign had pledged to repeal the policy, but had taken a more cautious approach since assuming office. Separately, Army National Guard Lt. Dan Choi wrote an open letter dated May 11 to Obama asking not be dismissed after

he announced March 19 that he was gay on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs May 12 indicated that Obama would not keep Choi from being dismissed, and added that new legislation was the best way to change the policy. Choi was the latest of several service members dismissed under the policy who were fluent in Arabic, a rare and in-demand skill in the military. n

Intelligence Two Charged With Spying For Cuba. The

Justice Department June 4 arrested former State Department analyst Walter Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, 71, on charges that the couple had worked as spies for Cuba since 1978. An indictment released June 5 charged them with working as illegal agents of a foreign power, as well as with wire fraud and conspiracy. They faced more than 35 years in prison if convicted on all charges. [See pp. 271A2, 132E1] Walter and Gwendolyn Myers were reportedly recruited as spies by Cuban intelligence following a 1978 trip to Cuba. Walter Myers subsequently attempted to join the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the behest of the Cuban government but was rejected. He was later hired as an analyst by the U.S. State Department and was first given a security clearance allowing him to see “top secret” government materials in 1985. The couple was reportedly not compensated by the Cuban government, except for the reimbursement of travel expenses and other costs related to their spying. Prosecutors suggested that Walter and Gwendolyn Myers had been motivated to become spies by their support for the Cuban government and frustration with U.S. policies that they viewed as perpetuating oppression in the U.S. and around the world. The couple was arrested following a three-year investigation into Walter Myers’s activities at the State Department. The investigation was reportedly triggered when State Department investigators discovered that Myers, who had served as the State Department’s senior analyst on Europe from 2001 until his 2007 retirement, had accessed more than 200 secret reports on Cuba during his final year of employment. In April, Walter and Gwendolyn Myers were approached by an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who was posing as a Cuban operative. The couple reportedly told the agent that they had used a shortwave radio and encrypted emails, among other methods, to pass secret information to the Cuban government and had met Cuban operatives in countries including Brazil, Jamaica and Ecuador. The couple also reportedly told the undercover agent that they had met then–Cuban President Fidel Castro during a secret 1995 trip to Cuba. Castro June 6 said that he was unsure if the charges against Walter and Gwendolyn Myers were accurate, but said that if they were, he admired “their disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba.” n FACTS ON FILE

Media ‘Boston Globe’ Closing Averted, Pay Cut.

The New York Times Co. May 4 said it would not shut down the Boston Globe as it had previously threatened, because it had reached agreements on concessions with six out of the seven unions representing newspaper employees. However, members of the seventh union, the Boston Newspaper Guild—which represented 670 Globe newsroom staffers and other employees, and was the largest union at the newspaper—June 8 voted, 277–265, to reject a package that included pay and benefits cuts, as well as an end to lifetime employment guarantees for many employees. [See p. 168E1; 2006, p. 931E3] The Globe April 3 had reported on its Web site that the Times Co. had threatened to close the newspaper unless it could achieve $20 million in savings, $10 million of which would come from Newspaper Guild members. The Times Co. June 8 said it would unilaterally impose a 23% salary cut, because negotiations between it and the guild were at an impasse. The Newspaper Guild June 9 filed a complaint with federal regulators challenging the cut, and called on the Times Co. and the Globe to return to negotiations. The Times Co. had purchased the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion, the most money ever paid for a single U.S. newspaper. The Globe was highly profitable through the 1990s, but circulation and advertising revenue then steeply declined, as it did in the rest of the newspaper industry. The Globe, which was the leading newspaper in Boston, Mass., and throughout New England, had lost $50 million in 2008, and was projected to lose $85 million in 2009. The Times Co. had recorded a net loss of $57.8 million in 2008, and $74.5 million in the first quarter of 2009. Members of the Newspaper Guild at the company’s flagship newspaper, the New York Times, May 4 had voted to accept a 5% temporary pay cut for the rest of the year, which management said was the alternative to about 80 layoffs. Other News—In other news: o The 138-year-old Tucson Citizen, Arizona’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper, May 16 printed its final issue, after its owner, Gannett Co., could not find a buyer. The Citizen would continue to publish opinion and analysis pieces on its Web site, but would not provide news coverage. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard May 15 filed a complaint charging that the closure violated federal and state antitrust laws. The Citizen had a joint operating agreement with its competitor in Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star, owned by Lee Enterprises Inc. [See p. 167C3] o Newspaper holding company SunTimes Media Group Inc., which owned the Chicago Sun-Times and a chain of smaller Chicago-area newspapers, March 31 filed for bankruptcy protection. Unlike many other newspaper companies that had filed for bankruptcy, Sun-Times did not have a crushing debt load, but it had run a $344 million June 11, 2009

operating loss in 2008, on revenue of $324 million. It owed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) at least $510 million in unpaid taxes from 1996–2006. During that period, the company—then known as Hollinger International Inc.—was run by Conrad Black, who was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice in 2007. [See p. 168A1; 2008, p. 260A2; 2004, p. 1050F3] n

Business Time Warner, AOL to Split by End of 2009.

Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. May 28 announced that it would spin off its American Online Inc. (AOL) Internet-services subsidiary by the end of the year. The announcement heralded the end of what had once been the most expensive merger of all time. [See 2000, p. 18A1] Analysts said the $100 billion merger had been doomed shortly after it was announced in 2000, when the so-called dotcom bubble burst. AOL was one of many Internet companies that had seen its stock price soar on unrealistic expectations in the 1990s, only to crash in the early 2000s, which led it to weigh down on the combined company’s market value. Additionally, AOL had largely stuck to its roots as a provider of dial-up Internet services, failing to claim a stake in the profitable realm of online advertising, which was now dominated by Google Inc. and others. [See 2008, p. 309F1] n

Anthrax Investigation Science Behind FBI Case to be Reviewed.

The National Academy of Sciences May 8 announced that it had agreed to carry out a 15-month review of the science used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its investigation into 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and infected an additional 17. The investigation had been requested by the FBI as part of its efforts to bolster its conclusion that late U.S. Army scientist Bruce Ivins had been responsible for the mailings. [See 2008, pp. 959B1, 592F3] The academy was expected to examine the reliability of the FBI’s use of microbial forensics to genetically and chemically match the strain of anthrax found in the mailings to that found in Ivins’s laboratory. However, the review would not touch on the FBI’s detective work in the case, or its claim that Ivins alone was responsible for the mailings. The FBI had agreed to fund the review. n

Accidents & Disasters Wildfire Hits Southern California. A wildfire near Santa Barbara, Calif., May 5–9 consumed some 80 homes and forced the evacuation of at least 30,000 people. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) May 6 declared a state of emergency, which would qualify California for federal disaster aid. It was the first major fire of the year in California, which frequently experienced wildfires and was in its third year of drought. [See 2008, p. 853B3] n

AFRICA

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Gabon President Bongo Dies After 42-Year Rule.

Gabonese Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong June 8 confirmed reports that President Omar Bongo Ondimba had died earlier that day of a heart attack at the Quiron clinic in Barcelona, Spain. Bongo, 73, had been the world’s longest-serving head of government and Africa’s longest-serving ruler, having led Gabon, an oil-rich nation in West Africa, since 1967. [See p. 400E2; 2008, p. 441G1; 2005, p. 879B1] Bongo May 6 had temporarily given up the day-to-day running of the country, and was hospitalized in Spain May 21. Mystery had surrounded his medical condition, with official sources saying he was taking time off to mourn his wife, Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba, who had died March 14. (Edith Bongo was the daughter of Denis SassouNguesso, the president of neighboring Congo Republic.) However, it was widely reported that he was being treated for cancer. Ndong earlier June 8 had denied reports that Bongo was dead. After the president’s death was confirmed, Gabonese authorities declared 30 days of mourning, closed the country’s borders and cut off Internet access for most of its 1.4 million citizens. Also, in Libreville, the capital, security forces patrolled the streets, large gatherings were banned, and bars and nightclubs were ordered closed. Bongo’s son, Defense Minister Ali Ben Bongo, June 9 appealed for calm on national television. Gabon’s borders reportedly were reopened June 10, as fears of instability in the wake of Bongo’s death eased. The president of the Senate, Rose Francine Rogombe, June 10 was sworn in as Gabon’s interim head of state, as mandated by the constitution. Her appointment had been confirmed by Gabon’s constitutional court the previous day. Under the constitution, Rogombe—an ally of Bongo from the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG)—was required to organize presidential elections within 45 days. Among the main contenders to succeed Bongo were his 50-year-old son, Defense Minister Bongo; Vice President Didjob Divungi Di Ndinge; and Foreign Minister Paul Toungui, who was married to the late president’s daughter and chief of staff, Pascaline Bongo Ondimba. Bongo’s body June 11 was returned to Gabon, from Spain.

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Bongo came to power in 1967 after the death of President Leon Mba, who had helped lead Gabon to independence from France in 1960. (Bongo had been vice president at the time of Mba’s death.) He converted to Islam in 1973, changing his name from Albert Bernard Bongo to El Hadj Omar Bongo. He oversaw a one-party state for more than two decades, using the wealth from Gabon’s oil resources to coopt many of his opponents. [See 1967, p. 581E3] 393

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In the early 1990s, Bongo implemented some democratic reforms, and the country’s first multiparty elections were held in 1993. Bongo won that vote, and subsequent elections in 1998 and 2005, although opposition parties alleged that the elections were unfair due to vote rigging as well as Bongo’s dominance of the media and his extensive patronage system. Despite the lack of political freedoms, Gabon under Bongo’s rule had been relatively free of the violence and instability that wracked many other resource-rich African nations. Known as a skilled political operator both domestically and internationally, he was considered the last of Africa’s so-called “Big Men” of the 1960s era: autocratic leaders who styled themselves as traditional chiefs, placating their citizens and cultivating a power base with handouts, while enriching themselves. He was also known for his charismatic personality and diminutive stature; he stood only about five feet tall, and often wore platform shoes to enhance his height. Gabon had a relatively small population, and it had a per capita income of $14,900 in 2008, which was high for West Africa. However, the wealth was not distributed equally, with an estimated onethird of the population living in poverty. Bongo himself reportedly amassed a vast fortune, including extensive properties and several bank accounts in France, and was said to have been among the world’s richest leaders. However, there were no accurate accounts of the extent of his fortune. [See below] Bongo cultivated a strong relationship with Gabon’s former colonial ruler, France, maintaining close economic and military ties with the country as well as personal relationships with successive French leaders starting with President Charles de Gaulle in the late 1960s. (France had also established a similar relationship, often referred to as Francafrique, with its other former colonies in Africa.) France currently had about 1,000 troops in Gabon. The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy June 8 issued a statement paying tribute to Bongo, saying, “We have lost a great and faithful friend of France, a great figure of Africa and a head of state who won the esteem and respect of all his peers, notably through his numerous initiatives in favor of peace on the African continent.” Other world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and South African President Jacob Zuma, also paid tribute to Bongo. French Corruption Case to Proceed—A French magistrate May 5 ruled that an embezzlement lawsuit filed by anticorruption watchdog Transparency International’s French office and French jurist association Sherpa against Bongo, Sassou-Nguesso and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo could proceed. Britain’s Financial Times June 8 reported that the case against Bongo included allegations that he had acquired 39 luxury properties in France, nine vehicles worth some $2 million, and 70 French bank ac394

counts, in his name and under family members’ names. It was alleged that Bongo and his family could not have accumulated those assets based on their official salaries. [See 2003, p. 1070A1] All three leaders had denied any wrongdoing. In a related development, a French court Feb. 26 had frozen nine of Bongo’s French bank accounts that held more than four million euros ($5.1 million). The move came in connection with a case involving a French plaintiff who alleged that he had paid Bongo more than $500,000 in 1996 to obtain the release of his father from prison in Gabon. n

AMERICAS

Canada GDP Falls 5.4% in First Quarter. Federal

agency Statistics Canada June 1 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted in the first quarter of 2009 at an annualized rate of 5.4%. It was Canada’s fastest GDP contraction rate since 1991. [See p. 83A1] The announcement meant that Canada had experienced two successive quarters of declining real GDP, the accepted definition of a recession. (Statistics Canada the same day said the country’s GDP had shrunk by a revised annualized rate of 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2008.) Statistics Canada May 8 had reported that unemployment in April stood at 8%, unchanged from the previous month. The unemployment level was the highest in seven years. The Bank of Canada, the country’s central bank, April 21 cut its benchmark interest rate—the target rate on overnight loans between commercial banks—by 25 basis points, to 0.25%, a historic low. In an unprecedented move, the bank announced that it would maintain the rate for 14 months. n

El Salvador Funes Sworn In as President. Former tele-

vision journalist Mauricio Funes Cartagena of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition founded by former Marxist rebels, June 1 was sworn in as president of El Salvador in San Salvador, the capital. The inauguration of Funes, 49, ended two decades of rule by the conservative National Republican Alliance (Arena) party, which had been a staunch ally of the U.S. Funes succeeded President Elias Antonio (Tony) Saca of Arena. [See p. 170C2] The FMLN had fought a 1980–92 civil war against a series of right-wing governments backed by the U.S., before the United Nations brokered a peace treaty in 1992. Funes in his inauguration speech said, “I take over the presidency extending the call for national unity that I made during and before the campaign.” He added, “El Salvador’s people have walked a long road to

get to this day. It’s time to take a new road together in democracy.” Funes also said that “diplomatic, cultural and trade relations” with Cuba would resume immediately. El Salvador had cut off ties with Cuba when Fidel Castro Ruz came to power in a 1959 revolution. With Funes’s order, El Salvador became the last Latin American country to normalize relations with communist Cuba. The ceremony was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who heralded Funes’s election as a sign of the country’s strong democracy. Analysts said Clinton’s presence was a sign of U.S. President Barack Obama’s desire to maintain strong ties with El Salvador amid the “pink tide” of elected leftist leaders, some of whom were openly hostile to the U.S., in Latin America. El Salvador relied heavily on remittances from its citizens living in the U.S., and sold about half of its exports in the U.S. n

Peru At Least 31 Dead in Indigenous Clashes.

At least 22 members of indigenous Amazonian groups and nine policemen June 5 were killed during clashes in Peru’s Bagua province, about 600 miles (1,000 km) north of Lima, the capital. Another 50 people were reported injured, and ransacking and burning of buildings in the area was reported. [See 2008, pp. 978F1, 539C2] Indigenous groups over the past two months had blockaded roads, ports, and oil and gas pipelines in the region in protest of oil, mining and hydroelectric programs in the Amazon. Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez May 9 had declared a state of emergency in areas where the blockades had led to trade and supply disruptions. Police said the violence had been triggered when they attempted to remove protesters blockading the Fernando Belaunde Highway, a main road in the country’s northern Amazon region. Protesters disputed that account, and said policemen in helicopters had fired on them with live ammunition and tear gas. Alberto Pizango, a leader of the umbrella indigenous group Asociacion Interetnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), June 5 blamed police for inciting the violence, saying the protest had been peaceful. A military force June 6 attempted to rescue a group of 38 policemen who had been captured during the previous day’s fighting and held at a pumping station owned by state-run oil company Petroperu that had been occupied by protesters. Police said nine captured policemen were killed in the operation, 22 were freed, and the whereabouts of seven others remained unknown. Police said those killed had been shot by the protesters. Government officials June 6 said they were seeking Pizango’s arrest on charges of sedition, conspiracy and rebellion. Peruvian Prime Minister Yehude Simon June 8 said Pizango had sought political asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy in Lima. Pizango FACTS ON FILE

the following day was granted asylum by the Nicaraguan government. Champion Nonimgo took over as AIDESEP’s leader. Protesters June 7 said several dozen of their comrades had disappeared since the violence, putting the number of dead or missing protesters at 100. Indigenous groups accused police of covering up the mass killing of protesters, allegations that the government rejected. Garcia June 7 suggested that the leftist governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, where similar uprisings had occurred previously, had influenced the unrest in Peru. n

Venezuela Chavez Seizes Oil Assets. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias May 7 said his government would seize the assets of several foreign- and domestic-owned oil contractors. The announcement followed the National Assembly’s approval earlier in the day of a bill that “reserves for the state, the goods and services connected to primary hydrocarbon activities.” Several companies reported that armed soldiers late May 7 had begun assuming control of oil installations in the Lake Maracaibo region of western Venezuela. The government said at least 39 oil terminals, 13 drilling rigs and some 300 boats would be seized. [See pp. 270C2, 204G2] Several foreign companies that held minority stakes in joint operations with the state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), said they were owed millions of dollars by PDVSA. Some said they had stopped operations earlier in the year out of concerns that they would never be paid. PDVSA had accrued an estimated $14 billion in debt to oil service companies, much of it resulting from a decline in oil prices stemming from the global economic crisis. In recent years Chavez had expanded state control of Venezuela’s oil sector, which accounted for about 93% of its export earnings, by seizing foreign operations and instituting higher taxes. [See 2008, p. 263D3] Other Takeovers Ordered—Chavez May 21 announced the nationalization of several steel and iron companies. Among those affected were subsidiaries of Venezuelan company International Briquettes Holding SA (IBH), which made iron briquettes used in steel production. Also targeted in the nationalizations was a local unit of steelmaker Tenaris SA. [See 2008, p. 263E2] The Venezuelan government May 22 signed an agreement to pay Spain’s Grupo Santander $1.05 billion for Banco de Venezuela BVL, the country’s fourth-largest bank by assets. Under the agreement, Venezuela would make an initial payment of $630 million for the bank July 3, with the balance to be paid in two installments scheduled for October and December. The bank’s acquisition would give the government 20% of the country’s banking market share. n June 11, 2009

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China Tiananmen 20th Anniversary Marked. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Hong Kong June 4 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of China’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy student demonstrators in Beijing, China’s capital, in 1989. After years of declining attendance of the annual Tiananmen vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, the gathering was the largest since the one held in 1990, on the first anniversary of the crackdown. Organizers estimated the crowd at 150,000 people, while police put it at fewer than 63,000. [See p. 144E3; 2007, p. 403G3; 1999, p. 424B3] The autonomous Chinese territory of Hong Kong, with a separate political system extending greater protections of free expression, was the only part of China where open discussion of the Tiananmen events was possible. In Beijing, the square June 4 was the site of a heavy police presence, culminating measures taken in recent weeks to forestall any public marking of the anniversary. Some small demonstrations were reportedly broken up elsewhere in the capital. Chinese authorities, who regularly restricted access to Internet sites deemed politically subversive, reportedly blocked several foreign news media sites, as well as communications and social-networking sites such as Twitter and the photo-sharing site Flickr, in the days before the June 4 anniversary. Numerous veterans of the 1989 protest movement, as well as activist relatives of those who died or disappeared, and other dissidents, were reportedly taken into custody or put under house arrest or intensive surveillance. One of the most prominent former student leaders, Wu’er Kaixi, June 3 was detained upon arrival at the airport in the Chinese territory of Macao from Taiwan, where he lived. Wu’er, 41, said in a statement that he wanted to return to China and face a trial as a form of “dialogue” with the government, as well as to try to see his parents, from whom he had been separated since 1989 because they were not permitted to travel abroad. Wu’er was deported to Taiwan June 4. Two other former protest leaders, Xiong Yan (now a U.S. Army chaplain) and Tong Yi, were permitted to enter Hong Kong for a conference on the 1989 events, while others were turned away. Foreign reporters and analysts noted a decline in awareness of the Tiananmen events among younger Chinese, as well as less interest in political reform among college students in comparison with the student-centered 1989 movement. Observers suggested that China’s continued rapid economic development had helped contain dissatisfaction with the country’s political system. A different brand of political protest had emerged in recent years, focused more on specific complaints over wrongdoing by authorities than on broad demands for democracy.

U.S. Calls for ‘Public Accounting’—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton June 3 issued a statement urging China to “examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing.” She also called on China to release those still imprisoned in connection with the 1989 demonstrations. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman June 4 expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with Clinton’s statement, calling it groundless “interference” in China’s internal affairs. Ousted Official’s Memoir Released—A memoir by the late Zhao Zhiyang, who was forced out as secretary general of China’s ruling Communist Party over his opposition to the violent crackdown on the students in 1989, was published May 19 in the U.S. and May 29 in Hong Kong. The book, Prisoner of the State, contained reminiscences that Zhao, while held under house arrest, had secretly dictated on audiocassettes and entrusted to friends and associates who smuggled them out of the country. The book was banned in mainland China. [See 2006, p. 682F3; 2005, p. 88D3] Among its revelations was Zhao’s contention that the decision to declare martial law had been made at a gathering of the Politburo Standing Committee, the top party body, at the house of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on May 17, 1989, but without a formal vote, which he said made it illegal. Other accounts had indicated that a vote was taken. [See 1989, p. 369A1] Zhao also portrayed himself as having had greater responsibility for devising the liberalization of China’s economy associated with Deng than was acknowledged by China. Bao Tong, Zhao’s onetime aide, who had been the most senior party official imprisoned in the crackdown, was reportedly forced to leave Beijing ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary. Last ‘Hooliganism’ Prisoner Freed—Liu Zhihua, the last person known to be imprisoned by China on charges of “hooliganism” in connection with the protests, had been released in January, the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation human rights group said May 18. Liu had originally been given a life sentence for allegedly delivering subversive speeches as an organizer of a strike in solidarity with the protests at an electrical-machinery factory in Xiangtan, in Hunan province. (The ill-defined crime of hooliganism had been removed from Chinese law in 1997.) Dui Hua May 12 had reduced its estimate of the total number of people incarcerated on charges stemming from the protests to 30, from a previous estimate of 50–60. n

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North Korea U.S. Reporters Sentenced to 12 Years’ Labor.

North Korean state news media June 8 announced that two U.S. reporters arrested in March along North Korea’s border with China had been convicted of illegally entering the country and other, unspecified “grave” offenses, and sentenced to 12 years 395

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of “reform through labor.” The U.S. State Department that day said it was working “through all possible channels” to secure the release of the reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. However, North Korea was expected to use the journalists as bargaining chips in trying to force concessions from the U.S. in ongoing disputes over North Korea’s nuclear and other weapons programs. [See p. 350A3] Lee, 36, and Ling, 32, worked for Current TV LLC, a media company cofounded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. They had been reporting a story about North Korean refugees in China when they were arrested, although the exact circumstances of the arrest were not clear. The U.S did not have diplomatic relations with North Korea, and had made contacts on the issue through Sweden’s embassy in North Korea and the North Korean mission to the United Nations. North Korea June 5 announced the opening of the trial of Lee and Ling in the country’s highest court, the Central Court in Pyongyang, the capital. The trial was held in secret, and no details of it were released. Ling and Lee had reportedly been permitted to meet three times with Swedish diplomats, and both had spoken by telephone with their families in the U.S. (Ling’s sister, U.S. television journalist Lisa Ling, in 2007 had reported from North Korea in the guise of a medical worker for the National Geographic Channel.) North Korea had a system of labor reeducation camps that were notorious for brutal conditions, including inadequate food and systematic mistreatment. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had previously called the charges against the reporters “baseless,” June 8 called for their release “on humanitarian grounds.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Their detainment is not something we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either.” The Obama administration was reportedly considering sending a special envoy to North Korea to discuss the matter. Possible envoys included Gore and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who in 1996 had secured the release of a U.S. citizen detained after illegally entering North Korea. However, any talks were thought to be potentially complicated by uncertainty about North Korea’s leadership, amid reports that supreme leader Kim Jong Il had suffered a stroke in 2008 and was in the process of establishing his youngest son as his designated successor. [See 1996, p. 925B3] n

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Center-right Parties Win Parliament Elections.

Center-right parties won elections for the European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union, held June 4–7 in the EU’s 27 member nations. A record low of 43% of eligible voters turned out to vote in the elections for the parliament’s 736 396

seats, as turnout dropped for the seventh formed well in the European elections, takstraight time. (The number of seats was ing 12% of the vote. [See p. 361E1] In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reduced from 785 in the outgoing parliament.) Voters elected representatives from Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) won their own countries, who would serve five- 28.5% of the vote, while the Socialist Party year terms. Most of the seats were allocat- took just 17%, just ahead of the Greens, ed by proportional representation, based on who surged to 16%. In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon the percentage of the vote that parties got in each country. [See 2004, p. 444A2; for Brown’s Labour Party won just 15.3% of election results by parliamentary groups, the vote, its worst result in a nationwide election since 1910. The opposition Consee table p. 396F2] According to nearly final results, the Eu- servative (Tory) Party won 28.6% of the ropean People’s Party (EPP) and European vote. Labour finished third, behind the Democrats (ED), an umbrella grouping of U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), which center-right parties, won 264 seats, and opposed British membership in the EU, would remain the biggest group in the Euro- and took 17.4% of the vote. Brown had pean Parliament. Center-left Socialist parties been damaged by a scandal over expenses won 161 seats. Centrist parties in the pro- claims in the British Parliament, and was market Liberal grouping won 80 seats. The fighting off calls for his resignation, with a environmentalist Greens won 53 seats. Far- general election due to be held in Britain right and nationalist parties also made gains. within a year. [See p. 397D1] The EPP was expected to try to form a The Tories, who won 25 seats in the parliamentary majority with the Liberals European Parliament, planned to withdraw and other conservative parties. Such a from the EPP and create a new group with majority would allow the center-right to Polish and Czech center-right parties, control the chamber without having to reg- aimed at reducing the powers of the EU ularly resort to consensus and compromise over the governments of member nations. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berluscowith the Socialists, which had previously ni’s center-right People of Liberty party been the norm. The results were seen in part as a re- won 35% of the vote, short of his goal of sponse to the global economic crisis, which 40%, while the center-left opposition Demhad hit Europe hard. The unemployment ocratic Party took 26%. The campaign had rate in the EU had risen to 9.2% in April, been overshadowed by a scandal over Berthe highest since 1999, it was reported June lusconi’s personal life, including his rela2. Observers said center-right leaders in tions with an 18-year-old woman, and his Germany, France and other countries had wife’s filing for a divorce. [See p. 328C1] In Spain, the conservative opposition managed to avoid political fallout from the crisis by adopting rhetoric and policies tra- Popular Party won 42% of the vote, beating ditionally associated with the left, favoring Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zagovernment intervention to preserve jobs patero’s Socialist Party, which took 38.5%. and restraints on capitalism. [See pp. The result was seen as a reflection of the country’s economic straits: Spain had en366F1, 206D3] tered a deep recession and had the highest Notable Results— Center-right parties that held power in national governments in unemployment rate in Europe, 17.4% at the Germany, France, Italy and Poland defeat- end of the first quarter of 2009. In Poland, the ruling center-right Civic ed their center-left rivals in the European elections. In Britain, Spain, Portugal and Platform party won handily with about Hungary, the conservative opposition par- 45% of the vote, trailed by the conservative, anti-EU Law and Justice Party ties beat the ruling center-left parties. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Mer- (PiS)—the British Tories’ partner in the kel’s center-right Christian Democratic planned new bloc—with 30%, and the leftUnion won 38% of the vote, down 6.5 per- ist Social Democratic Alliance, with 12%. Far Right Gains—The success enjoyed centage points from 2004, while the centerleft Social Democratic Party (SPD) took by far-right parties in a number of countries 21%, its worst result in any nationwide in the European Parliament elections was election since World War II. attributed in large part to increasing antiThe results were viewed as a test run for immigration sentiment, linked both to the national parliamentary elections EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION RESULTS scheduled for September. The two Party Groupings Seats in Parliament OutWon in parties shared powgoing 2009 er in Germany in a so-called grand co- European People’s Party and European Democrats 288 264 alition govern- (EPP-ED) 217 161 ment, but a strong European Socialist Party (PES) of Liberals and Democrats for Europe 100 80 showing by the Alliance (ALDE) CDU in the national Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) 43 53 elections could al- Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) 44 35 22 18 low it to jettison the Independence/Democracy Group (IND/DEM) 41 32 SPD and form a new European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) coalition with the Non-Attached/Others 30 93 pro-business Free Democratic Party Total 785 736 (FDP). The FDP perFACTS ON FILE

economic crisis and to fears of Islamic extremism. In Italy, the anti-immigration Northern League, which was allied with Berlusconi, more than doubled its share of the vote, to 10%, winning eight seats. In the Netherlands, the Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, won four seats. Wilders had emerged as a leading voice for anti-Islamic views. [See p. 136C3] In Britain, the British National Party (BNP) won two seats, capitalizing on the ethics scandal that had tarnished the mainstream British parties. It was the first time the BNP, which opposed Britain’s membership in the EU, had won seats in the European Parliament. The BNP had never won a seat in the British Parliament. It campaigned on an anti-immigration and antiIslamic message, in a shift from the openly racist and anti-Semitic platform it had been known for in the past (although it still had a whites-only membership rule). [See 1993, p. 712E3] In Hungary, the anti-Roma (or Gypsy) Jobbik party won three seats, compared with 14 for the center-right opposition party Fidesz and just four for the ruling Socialist Party. Jobbik and the BNP said they had agreed to form a new parliamentary group, and were asking other far-right parties to join them. However, the extreme nationalist views of such parties had impeded cooperation among them in the past, causing the collapse of a far-right bloc in the European Parliament in 2007. n

Great Britain Brown Reshuffles Cabinet After Resignations.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown June 5 announced a reshuffle of his cabinet, insisting that he would stay in office despite a string of resignations by cabinet ministers that week and a crushing defeat for his Labour Party in June 4 local elections. Labour’s worst-ever result in European Parliament elections, whose results were reported June 7, added to the pressure on Brown to show that he could revive the party before the next general election in Britain, due to be held within a year. The Conservative (Tory) Party easily beat Labour in both the local and European elections, and was widely seen as likely to win the coming general election. Eleven ministers, including six cabinet members, left their posts in the reshuffle and the preceding resignations. [See pp. 396G1, 343D2] Health Secretary Alan Johnson, seen as Brown’s most formidable potential rival for the Labour leadership, accepted a promotion to home secretary, in charge of law and order issues. Johnson said he backed Brown “to the hilt.” He replaced Jacqui Smith, who had resigned June 2 after being caught up in a parliamentary expenses scandal. The scandal had tarnished members of all parties, but was seen as most damaging to Labour, since it had been the party in power for 12 years. Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson, a close ally of former Prime Minister June 11, 2009

Tony Blair who had previously been seen as a sharp critic of Brown, received expanded powers in the reshuffle. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling and Foreign Secretary David Miliband both kept their posts after reportedly resisting requests from Brown to step aside. Environment Minister Jane Kennedy and Europe Minister Caroline Flint both announced their resignations June 5. In an open letter, Flint accused Brown of using her and other women in the cabinet as mere “female window dressing,” while Kennedy accused Brown of “bullying” rival Labour members. Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell had resigned June 4, calling on Brown to “stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning” the general election. Purnell was seen as a rising star in the party. Defense Minister John Hutton and Transportation Secretary Geoff Hoon also resigned that day. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears resigned June 3. Brown at a closed-door meeting June 8 reportedly won the support of Labour members of Parliament (MPs), avoiding the possibility of being immediately overthrown. He was said to have pledged to pursue a more collegial style of governing. Brown June 10 announced a broad slate of proposals for political reforms, including a legally binding code of conduct for MPs and a debate on possible changes to the electoral system. Tory leader David Cameron dismissed the proposals as a “distraction strategy,” reiterating his demand that Brown call an election at once. n

Moldova Parliament Fails to Elect President. Outgoing President Vladimir Voronin’s preferred presidential candidate, Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii of the Communist Party, June 3 was unable to win the required 61 votes in Moldova’s 101-seat parliament in the second and final round of presidential elections. (The first round had been held May 20.) While all 60 Communist members of parliament (MPs) voted for Greceanii, 41 liberal, pro-European MPs of various parties boycotted both polls, twice leaving Greceanii just one vote short of winning the presidency. Moldova had been governed by the Communist Party since 2001. [See p. 273A2] Under Moldovan law, if a president could not be elected after two rounds of parliamentary voting, the entire parliament must be dissolved and snap parliamentary elections held. A general election was mandated to be held within 45 days of the dissolution of parliament. The political deadlock followed April riots in Chisinau, the capital. Violence had broken out after the Communist Party won a majority of parliamentary seats in general elections. The opposition had accused the government of rigging the elections. Voronin, a Communist who had served two terms and was set to step down due to term limits, would remain president until new parliamentary elections were held.

Greceanii June 10 won a parliamentary confidence vote that allowed her to continue to serve as prime minister in the interim. Despite another boycott by the opposition, she and her new cabinet, which was nearly identical to the previous one, were approved with 59 votes, seven more than were necessary. That step completed, Voronin was expected to dissolve the parliament and schedule early elections. Also, former parliament Speaker Marian Lupu June 10 announced that he was leaving the Communist Party. Lupu, according to a June 4 report in Britain’s Financial Times, had said the party needed to change its “behavior and values. It needs to become more democratic.” n

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Lebanon’s Pro-West Coalition Bests Hezbollah at Polls Turnout High, Christian Vote Seen as Key.

The pro-Western March 14 Movement June 7 slightly widened its majority in Lebanese parliamentary elections, holding off an opposition coalition led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. According to official results released June 8 by Lebanon’s interior ministry, the March 14 Movement won 71 seats in the 128-seat parliament, raising its total by one seat, while Hezbollah and its allies won 57 seats. Turnout was higher than expected, at 54.8%, and far exceeded the 28% turnout in 2005 elections. [See p. 380G1] Prior to the elections, many analysts had predicted that Hezbollah’s coalition would make gains in areas that had been redistricted after the 2005 elections, and possibly pick up a majority. However, it was thought that Christian voters, who made up some 40% of Lebanon’s population, were driven to vote for the March 14 Movement by Hezbollah’s ties to Iran and Syria; the specter of another war like that between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006; and Hezbollah fighters’ armed takeover of neighborhoods of Beirut, the capital, in 2008, which recalled Lebanon’s 1975–90 civil war. Among those of Hezbollah’s allies that failed to make expected gains was the Free Patriotic Movement, a secular Maronite Christian party led by retired Gen. Michel Aoun. Other Lebanese Christian parties were members of the March 14 Movement, which was also composed of Sunni Muslim and Druze parties. The elections were free of serious violence. However, there were allegations that political parties had bought votes and paid to fly thousands of Lebanese expatriates back to their hometowns to vote. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah June 8 conceded defeat in a televised message. March 14 Movement leader Saad Hariri—the son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005— said he would invite Hezbollah to join a governing coalition, but would seek to remove the veto power over most govern397

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ment decisions that the opposition currently wielded. [See p. 312B2] U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the election’s outcome, and said, “The high turnout and the candidates—too many of whom know personally the violence that has marred Lebanon—are the strongest indications yet of the Lebanese desire for security and prosperity.” Some analysts said Obama’s recent speech to the Muslims of the world, and his efforts to engage Syria and Iran with diplomacy, had helped the March 14 Movement. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden in May had visited Lebanon, and had implied that U.S. military aid might be cut off if Hezbollah won the elections. [See p. 367B2] n

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bomb May 28 exploded in a mosque in southeastern Iran, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100. The blast hit the second-largest Shiite Muslim mosque in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, on Iran’s border with Pakistan. (Although Iran was mainly Shiite, the southeast had a large population of Sunni Muslims.) The attack was one of several that took place in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled for June 12. [See p. 362E1; 2008, p. 987G1] The Sunni militant group Jundullah claimed responsibility for the blast, and said it had been a suicide bombing aimed at members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps who it said had been secretly meeting in the mosque. Jundullah, whose name meant God’s Brigade and which Iran said had links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, had often attacked Iranian targets, claiming that it was fighting against official discrimination against Sunnis by the Shiite government. However, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli insinuated that the U.S. and Israel were behind the attack. Iranian authorities May 30 hanged three men who they said had procured explosives used in the attack, as well as participated in past attacks. Jundullah that day said the three men had not been involved in the attack. Other Attacks—Gunmen May 29 attacked a campaign office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Zahedan, injuring three people. Supporters of Ahmadinejad and opposition candidates had also reported other incidents of violence against them throughout the country. A bomb May 30 was found aboard a jetliner shortly after it had taken off from the southern city of Ahwaz; the plane was forced to turn around, and the bomb was defused. Former President Mohammad Khatami—who had dropped out of the current presidential race but was assisting in the campaign of another opposition candidate, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi—had flown out of Ahwaz hours before. The Iranian newspaper Sarmayeh June 1 reported that Khatami had originally been scheduled to take the flight on which 398

the bomb was found. A judiciary spokesman June 2 said two people had been arrested in connection with the attempted bombing. A bank in Zahedan June 1 was set ablaze, killing five people. The bank was reportedly linked to Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, which often carried out crackdowns against dissidents. Rebels June 2 fired on a bus west of Zahedan, killing one passenger. Also that day, a judiciary spokesman said that unrest over the past days in Zahedan had killed six people, and that dozens had been arrested. n

Iraq Rare Car Bomb in South Kills 28. A car bomb June 10 exploded in a crowded market in the southern Iraqi town of Al Batha, killing at least 28 people, according to Iraqi officials. Al Batha was 20 miles (32 km) west of the largely Shiite Muslim city of Nasiriyah, the capital of southern Dhi Qar province. The bombing was the first aimed at civilians in the area in two years, although there had been fighting between Shiite militias. [See p. 380C1] Iraqis after the blast threw stones at the police, claiming that they had failed to provide adequate protection. Police fired their guns to disperse the crowd, injuring at least one person by some accounts. The provincial governor afterward fired Al Batha’s police chief for negligence. In other violence, a minibus June 8 exploded in the mostly Shiite Abu Dshir neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killing at least nine people, according to Iraqi authorities. The U.S. military June 6 released a statement saying insurgents were increasingly using children to carry out attacks, citing three cases in recent weeks in which young teenagers had attacked U.S. troops with grenades. It said children were used because they attracted less attention than adults, and because U.S. troops were less likely to fire on them. [See p. 331F2] Insurgent Freed in Cease-fire Deal—

The New York Times June 9 reported that, according to senior Iraqi and U.S. officials, the U.S. military had freed a senior member of the Shiite militant group Asa’ib alHaq in exchange for the group’s declaring a cease-fire. The deal was seen as a move to promote political reconciliation between the Iraqi government and extremists. However, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the government had not been aware of it. The freed militant, Laith al-Khazali, and his brother, Qais al-Khazali—the group’s leader—had been captured in March 2007; Qais al-Khazali remained in U.S. custody. Laith al-Khazali was accused of masterminding the January 2007 killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala. [See 2007, p. 57G1] Two unnamed Shiite leaders reportedly said Khazali’s release was the first step in an agreement that could lead to the freeing of five British hostages who had been kidnapped in May 2007. [See p. 189D3]

Contractors Arrested in Murder— Iraqi officials June 7 said Iraqi security forces had arrested five U.S. contractors in connection with the death of another U.S. contractor. Jim Kitterman in May had been found bound and stabbed to death in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone. If prosecuted, the contractors would be the first U.S. nationals to face Iraqi courts since a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement had made them eligible for prosecution, starting Jan. 1. [See p. 362G3] U.S. officials said the arrests were made with the help of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. They said the contractors had not actually been arrested for the murder, but as a result of “possible evidence on an unrelated matter” found during the search. Iraqi government spokesman Ali alDabbagh June 10 said all five men had been freed due to a lack of evidence. However, other reports said that all or most of the contractors remained in custody. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Federer, Kuznetsova Win Tennis’s French Open Federer Ties Sampras’s Grand Slam Record.

Second-seeded Roger Federer of Switzerland June 7 defeated 23rd-seeded Robin Soderling of Sweden, 6–1, 7–6, 6–4, to win the men’s title at the French Open in Paris. Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, the seventh seed, June 6 had defeated countrywoman Dinara Safina, the top seed, 6–4, 6–2, to claim the women’s title. [See 2008, p. 422D1] It was the first French Open victory for Federer, after losing the previous three finals to Rafael Nadal of Spain, who in 2008 had taken over Federer’s top spot in the world rankings. Nadal, the four-time defending French Open champion, May 31 had been upset by Soderling, 6–2, 6–7, 6– 4, 7–6, in the fourth round, ending his record 31-match winning streak at the tournament. Federer’s win at the French Open gave him 14 career titles in Grand Slam tournaments, tying the all-time record set by the legendary Pete Sampras of the U.S. (Sampras, who had retired in 2002, had never won the French Open, the only Grand Slam played on a clay surface.) In addition to his French Open victory, Federer, 27, had won the Australian Open three times, Wimbledon five times and the U.S. Open five times. He became the sixth man in tennis history to win all four tournaments—a socalled career Grand Slam. [See 2002, p. 699A3] Federer dominated Soderling in the final, taking the first set in just 23 minutes. Soderling, playing in his first Grand Slam final, rallied in the second set, forcing a tiebreak. However, Federer won that 7–1, serving four aces. In the third set, Federer broke Soderling’s serve in the first game, and then held serve at 5–4 to claim the championship. FACTS ON FILE

In the semifinals, Federer June 5 had defeated Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro, the fifth seed, 3–6, 7–6, 2–6, 6–1, 6–4. Soderling that day beat 12th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, 6–3, 7–5, 5– 7, 4–6, 6–4. Kuznetsova Defeats Safina— With her victory in the women’s final June 6, Kuznetsova, 23, won her second career Grand Slam, after claiming the U.S. Open title in 2004. With Safina apparently suffering from nerves, Kuznetsova won the final handily in just 73 minutes. Safina, the younger sister of former top men’s player Marat Safin, had also lost in the 2008 French Open final, as well as the Australian Open final in January. [See p. 70G3; 2004, p. 719A3] In the semifinals, Kuznetsova June 4 had defeated Samantha Stosur of Australia, the 30th seed, 6–4, 6–7, 6–3. Safina that day beat the 20th seed, Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, 6–3, 6–3, to advance to the final. Doubles Results—In the men’s doubles final, Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes of India June 6 defeated Dick Norman of Belgium and Wesley Moodie of South Africa, 3–6, 6–3, 6– 2, to take the title. The Spanish team of Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual June 5 had won the women’s title, beating Victoria Azarenka of Belarus and Elena Vesnina of Russia, 6–1, 6–1. The mixed doubles title went to the U.S. team of Bob Bryan and Liezel Huber, who June 4 beat Marcelo Melo of Brazil and Vania King of the U.S., 5–7, 7–6, 10– 7 (tiebreak). Other News—In other tennis news: o Federer May 17 beat Nadal, 6–4, 6–4, to win the men’s title at the Madrid Open in Spain and snap Nadal’s 33-match winning streak on clay. Earlier that day, Safina had defeated Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, 6–2, 6–4, to claim the women’s title. o Safina May 9 won the Italian Open in Rome, beating Kuznetsova, 6–3, 6–2. [See 2008, p. 422A3] o Nadal May 3 beat Novak Djokovic of Serbia, 7–6, 6–2, to win the Rome Masters for the fourth time in his career. [See 2008, p. 422B3] o Kuznetsova May 3 defeated Safina, 6– 4, 6–3, to win the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany. o Nadal April 26 won the Barcelona Open for the fifth consecutive year, beating Spain’s David Ferrer, 6–2, 7–5. [See 2008, p. 422C3] o Nadal April 19 defeated Djokovic, 6– 3, 2–6, 6–1, to win the Monte Carlo Masters in Monaco. [See 2008, p. 422C3] o Andy Murray of Britain April 5 beat Djokovic, 6–2, 7–5, to win the men’s title at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Fla. The previous day, Azarenka had defeated Serena Williams of the U.S., 6–3, 6–1, to claim the women’s title. [See 2008, p. 422D3] o Nadal March 22 beat Murray, 6–1, 6– 2, to win the men’s title at the BNP Paribas June 11, 2009

Open in Indian Wells, Calif. In the women’s final, Vera Zvonareva of Russia that day defeated Ana Ivanovic of Serbia, 7–6, 6–2. [See 2008, p. 422D3] n

Horse Racing Summer Bird Wins Belmont Stakes. Summer

Bird, an 11–1 shot ridden by Kent Desormeaux, June 6 won the 141st running of the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of U.S. thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. [See p. 347C1; 2008, p. 403F3] The race did not include the Preakness winner, Rachel Alexandra, after owner Jess Jackson May 29 had announced that the filly would forgo the Belmont. Jockey Calvin Borel was seeking a personal Triple Crown, having ridden Mine That Bird to a Kentucky Derby win, before switching to Rachel Alexandra for the Preakness. Borel returned to Mine That Bird for the Belmont, attempting to become the first jockey in history to win all three races on two different horses. However, Mine That Bird, the favorite, placed third in the Belmont, just behind second-place finisher Dunkirk, ridden by John Velazquez. The victory for Desormeaux aboard Summer Bird helped to erase the jockey’s previous bad memories at the Belmont. Just one year earlier, he had eased up the prerace favorite, Big Brown, who was seeking the Triple Crown after already having won the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and finished in last place. Desormeaux had also been aboard Real Quiet in 1998, when that horse lost its Triple Crown bid by a nose at the Belmont. [See 1998, p. 399C3] Dunkirk set the pace from the beginning stages of the race, emerging as the early leader. Dunkirk remained in the lead until the homestretch, when Mine That Bird made a push from the outside and appeared to briefly take the lead. At that point, Summer Bird made an even stronger surge, rushing ahead of the leaders in the final 300 yards to win the Belmont by two and threequarter lengths. (Summer Bird and Mine That Bird were both offspring of Birdstone, winner of the Belmont in 2004.) [See 2004, p. 432F1] Summer Bird, a winner in just one race out of four career starts, ran the one-anda-half mile race in two minutes, 27.54 seconds. Summer Bird paid $25.80 on a $2 bet and earned owners K.K. and Devi Jayaraman $600,000 in prize money. The colt’s trainer, Tim Ice, had been in the position for just about a year, having spent most of his career thus far in an apprenticeship. Sea the Stars Wins English Derby—Sea the Stars, ridden by Mick Kinane, June 6 won the one-mile English Derby at Epsom Downs racetrack in England. Sea the Stars, winner of the 2,000 Guineas in May, finished one-and-three-quarter lengths ahead of his nearest competitor, Fame and Glory. Masterofthehorse placed third. [See p. 347A3; 2007, p. 408A1] n

Lacrosse Syracuse Repeats as NCAA Champions.

The Syracuse University Orange May 25 defeated the Cornell University Big Red, 10–9, to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s lacrosse championship, in Foxborough, Mass., for the second straight year. Syracuse added another title to its record tally of 11, which also included the vacated 1990 title. [See 2008, p. 439E3] Syracuse senior attackman Kenny Nims, who was named the most outstanding player of the tournament, scored a game-tying goal with just 4.5 seconds remaining in regulation in the final. Junior attackman Cody Jamieson scored the game-winning goal in overtime for the Orange.

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Lady Wildcats Win Fifth Straight Title—

The Northwestern University Wildcats May 24 won the NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse title for the fifth straight year, beating the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, 21–7, in Towson, Md. n

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UNITED STATES

Theater ‘Billy Elliot’ Wins 10 Tonys. The Broadway League and the American Theater Wing June 7 presented their 63rd annual Antoinette Perry (Tony) Awards in a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The ceremony was hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris. [See 2008, p. 440A1] The awards were dominated by the musical Billy Elliot, which premiered in London in 2005 and had been on Broadway since November 2008. The show, which was based on a film about a British coal miner’s son hoping to become a ballet dancer, captured 10 Tonys, including the award for best musical. It was the most Tonys won by a single show since 2001, when the Mel Brooks musical The Producers set an all-time record by winning 12. [See 2008, p. 997B3; 2001, p. 443E1] The Tony for best actor in a musical was shared by the three teenage boys who took turns playing Billy Elliot’s title character: David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish. They had been the only performers ever to have been jointly nominated for a Tony for playing the same role. The show also won Tonys in such key categories as best director of a musical—Stephen Daldry—best featured actor in a musical— Gregory Jbara—best book of a musical— Lee Hall—and best choreography—Peter Darling. However, in the category of best original score, lyricist Hall and composer Sir Elton John were beaten by the creative team behind the musical Next To Normal, composer Tom Kitt and lyricist Brian Yorkey. Next to Normal, about a housewife with bipolar disorder, won two other Tonys. Its lead actress, Alice Ripley, was named best actress in a musical, while its orchestrators, Kitt and Michael Starobin, 399

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shared the Tony for orchestration with Billy Elliot’s Martin Koch. [See p. 348C2] Another show that won three Tonys was French dramatist Yasmina Reza’s comedy God of Carnage, adapted into English by Christopher Hampton. Like Billy Elliot, it had triumphed in London before reaching Broadway. Besides being named best new play, God of Carnage netted Tonys for director Matthew Warchus and lead actress Marcia Gay Harden. An earlier Reza comedy, Art, had won the Tony for best play in 1998. [See p. 256A1; 1998, p. 400E1] Warchus had also been nominated in the play-directing category for The Norman Conquests, a revival of an Alan Ayckbourn trilogy that had reached Broadway in April, after a 2008 London run. Warchus had been the first dual nominee in the same directorial category since A.J. Antoon in 1973. The Norman Conquests ended up winning the Tony for best play revival. [See p. 348D2; 1973, p. 322A1] Actress Angela Lansbury, 83, won the Tony for best featured actress in a play for her role as the medium Madame Arcati in a revival of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. It was her fifth Tony, but only her first for a nonmusical role. She had won her first Tony in 1966, for the musical Mame, and her fourth in 1979, for the musical Sweeney Todd. Her Blithe Spirit win made her only the second performer to win five acting Tonys, joining actress Julie Harris, who, however, had also received an honorary award in 2002. [See p. 255F3; 2002, p. 452F1; 1979, p. 292C3; 1966, p. 360C3] The major winners were: Best Play: God of Carnage Best Musical: Billy Elliot Best Play Revival: The Norman Conquests Best Musical Revival: Hair Best Actress, Play: Marcia Gay Harden, God of Car-

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Elliot

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Broadway Revenue Tops $940 Million.

Broadway box-office revenue for the 2008–09 season, which ended May 24 and saw 43 shows open, including 10 musicals, was estimated to have hit a record $943.3 million, according to data reported May 26 by the Broadway League. The previous record had been the $938.5 million tallied for the 2006–07 season; the 2007–08 figure had been $937.5 million. The 43 openings were the most since the 1982–83 season, when 50 shows opened. Paid attendance in 2008–09 compared to 2007–08 was reported to have dropped slightly, from 12.27 million to 12.15 million. The slight decline was viewed as evidence that Broadway had weathered the current economic recession. [See 2008, p. 440B2] n 400

People New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts June 8 named real estate executive Katherine G. Farley, 59, to succeed Frank A. Bennack Jr. as its chairman, as of June 2010. Bennack, 76, had held the post since 2005, but had resumed his former position as chief executive officer of the Hearst Corp. in 2008. He would help ease Farley into the post over the coming year. Lincoln Center, which was currently in the midst of a $1.2 billion redevelopment project, had been chaired by only one other woman, soprano Beverly Sills, who died in 2007. [See 2007, p. 440F3; 2005, p. 998A3] n

O B I T UA R I E S ALBURY, Charles Donald, 88, World War II aviator who copiloted the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945, six days before Japan’s surrender; the Nagasaki mission’s other pilot, Charles Sweeney, died in 2004; born Oct. 12, 1920, in Miami, Fla.; died May 23 at a hospital in Orlando, Fla., of congestive heart failure. [See 2005, p. 999D1; 2004, p. 576G3] BARKER, Bernard Leon, 92, one of five men arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex in June 1972; their arrest triggered a chain of events that culminated in the 1974 resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon; it later emerged that Barker had also been involved in a 1971 break-in at the Los Angeles office of the psychiatrist then treating Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the “Pentagon papers,” a secret U.S. government history of the Vietnam War; both break-ins were masterminded by longtime Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative E. Howard Hunt Jr., who died in 2007; all five Watergate burglars served brief prison sentences; one of them, Frank Sturgis, died in 1993; four of the five Watergate burglars, including Barker and Sturgis, were Cuban-Americans who had been involved in the CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs operation, an ill-fated attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1961; born March 17, 1917, in Havana, Cuba; died June 5 at a Miami, Fla., hospital, of lung cancer. [See 2007, p. 56E3; 1993, p. 944D3; Indexes 1972–77] BONGO Ondimba, El Hadj Omar (born Albert Bernard Bongo), 73, authoritarian ruler of the African

nation of Gabon since 1967, and the world’s longestserving nonmonarchical ruler since Fidel Castro Ruz stepped down as Cuba’s president in 2008; born Dec. 30, 1935, in Lewai, Gabon, at a time when Gabon was part of French Equatorial Africa; died June 8 at a clinic in Barcelona, Spain, after a heart attack; it had recently been reported that he had cancer. [See p. 393A3; 2008, pp. 969F3, 441G1–A2; Indexes 2005–06, 2003, 1996– 98, 1993, 1989–90, 1987, 1967–78] CABRAL, Luis de Almeida, 78, first post-independence president of the African nation of GuineaBissau, which won its freedom from Portugal in 1974, after years of guerrilla warfare; he had been a key figure in that armed struggle, which had been led by his half-brother Amilcar Cabral until 1973, when the latter was assassinated; Luis Cabral’s presidency ended in 1980, when he was overthrown in a coup by his then– prime minister, Joao Bernardo Vieira; Vieira would remain in power for most of the time since 1980, before being assassinated in March; born April 11, 1931, in Bissau, then the capital of Portuguese Guinea and now Guinea-Bissau’s capital; died overnight May 30 in Lisbon, Portugal, of a heart attack. [See p. 133C3; 2005, p. 691D2; Indexes 1980, 1976, 1974]

CARRADINE, David (born John Arthur Carradine), 72, actor who attracted a cult following as the

star of the television series “Kung Fu” (1972–75); in it, he played a Shaolin monk roaming through the 19thcentury American West; he also appeared in many films, notably as Bill, the villainous title character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004); he came from a prominent acting family, whose patriarch was character actor John Carradine, who died in 1988; born Dec. 8, 1936, in Los Angeles; found dead June 4 in a hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was staying while making a French action film; his death was being probed, but it was reported June 5 that he had been found with

a rope tied around his genitals and another tied around his neck, and that Thai police were leaning toward the theory that he had accidentally suffocated. [See 2004, p. 336C2; 2003, p. 884D2; Indexes 1990, 1988, 1986, 1982–83, 1978, 1974, 1965] HANEY, Paul Prichard, 80, director of public affairs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s control center in Houston, Texas, whose voice could be heard on broadcast coverage of NASA’s Gemini and Apollo space flights of the 1960s; however, clashes with other NASA officials, including astronaut Deke Slayton, over public accountability issues led to his resignation in 1969, months before Apollo 11’s historic moon landing in July of that year; born July 20, 1928, in Akron, Ohio; died May 28 at a nursing home in Alamagordo, N.M., of melanoma that had spread to his brain. [See 1993, p. 456D3; 1969, p. 465A1] La RUE, Danny (born Daniel Patrick Carroll), 81, female impersonator who in his heyday, in the 1960s and 1970s, was one of Britain’s highest-paid entertainers; he set new standards for glamor as a drag performer, wearing lavish, sequined dresses; his London nightclub, Danny La Rue’s, which opened in 1964, attracted many celebrities before it folded nearly a decade later; he was well known to British television audiences and often appeared on the London stage, including in a 1984 production of the musical Hello, Dolly, in which his performance as the title character, Dolly Levi, made him reportedly the first male in recent times to play the female lead in a high-end theatrical production; born July 26, 1927, in Cork, Ireland; died May 31 at his home in Tunbridge Wells, England; he had been battling cancer. [See 2002, p. 464F3] MALOOF, Sam(uel Solomon), 93, maker of wooden furniture who was a key figure in the crafts movement that emerged in the U.S. after World War II; in 1985, he became the first craftsman to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, or “genius grant”; born Jan. 24, 1916, in Chino, Calif.; died May 21 at his home in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. [See 2008, p. 711G1] NIMEIRY, Gaafar Mohammed el-, 79, president of Sudan, 1969–85; he seized power in a military coup, and ruled the country in an authoritarian manner until being ousted in a military coup led by his defense minister, Gen. Abdel Rahman Siwar el-Dahab, two years after his imposition of Islamic law, or sharia, refueled tensions between the country’s mainly Muslim north and largely Christian and animist south; those tensions had led to a civil war that raged from 1955 to 1972; after his 1985 ouster, Sudan was under civilian rule for a few years, before its current president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, seized power in 1989; Nimeiry returned to Sudan in 1999, after 14 years of exile in Egypt, and ran unsuccessfully against Bashir in Sudan’s 2000 presidential election; born Jan. 1, 1930, in Omdurman, Sudan; died May 20, after a long illness. [See 2000, p. 1049G2; 1999, p. 925E3; Indexes 1981–89, 1969–79] O’BRIEN, (Michael) Vincent, 92, Irish racehorse trainer; he first made his mark as hurdles trainer, winning Britain’s Grand National three years in a row (1953–55), before turning his attention to flat racing; in that domain, his many successes included six wins in the Epsom Derby and three in France’s most prestigious thoroughbred race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe; born April 9, 1917, in Churchtown, Ireland; died June 1 at his home in Straffan, Ireland. PLANCHON, Roger, 77, French director who for many years was based in the Lyon suburb of Villeurbanne, where he established a reputation as one of the most innovative figures in European left-wing theater; in 1972, the French government moved the Theatre National Populaire from Paris to Lyon for him to co-direct, after he refused to relocate to Paris; he was also an actor, a film director and an author of semidocumentary plays; born Sept. 12, 1931, in Saint-Chamond, France; died May 12 in Paris, of a heart attack. [See 1978, p. 1030F2] TAYLOR, Koko (born Cora Walton), 80, Chicago-based singer known as the “queen of the blues”; her biggest hit was “Wang Dang Doodle,” released as a single in 1966; it became her signature song; born Sept. 28, 1928, in Bartlett, Tenn.; died June 3 at a Chicago hospital, of complications following surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding. YORK, Herbert Frank, 87, physicist who served as the first director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at the University of California before heading the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1950s; from 1961 to 1964, he was the founding chancellor of the University of California at San Diego, and was also acting head of that campus from 1970 to 1972; in his later years, he vigorously campaigned for arms control; born Nov. 24, 1921, in Rochester, N.Y.; died May 19 at a San Diego hospital, from complications of radiation treatments for prostate cancer. [See 1976, p. 115D3; 1972, p. 763E3; Indexes 1970–71, 1959, 1957] n

June 11, 2009

Ahmadinejad Declared Winner of Disputed Iranian Election Opposition Protesters Defy Bans With Large Rallies for Moussavi Supreme Leader Agrees to Fraud Probe.

Iranians June 12 went to the polls in record numbers to vote in a presidential election. Both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main adversary, reformist former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi, said they had won the election, but the interior ministry later declared that Ahmadinejad had won an overwhelming victory. Hundreds of thousands of Moussavi supporters protested what they said was Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent victory in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and throughout the country, and clashed with Iranian security forces. After first endorsing Ahmadinejad’s victory, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, June 15 said he would review fraud allegations, and an influential clerical council June 16 agreed to recount some votes. [See p. 362E1; for facts on Iran’s government, see p. 403A1] The dispute over the election results appeared to inflame existing tensions within the clerical-dominated Iranian regime that had come to power in the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, in which a number of representative institutions overlapped with powerful clerical bodies. Khamenei, rather than the president, wielded ultimate authority in the country, and he had been seen as generally backing the policies of the Ahmadinejad government against the range of more moderate currents represented by Moussavi and former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful figure who headed the Assembly of Experts, which appointed the supreme leader. In the 1980s, Khamenei had been Iran’s president at the time that Moussavi was prime minister. The run-up to the election had been unexpectedly hard-fought, with huge rallies numbering in the tens of thousands snarling Tehran June 10. Ahmadinejad and Moussavi June 3 clashed sharply in a televised debate. In a rare criticism of Iran’s supreme leader, Rafsanjani—who supported Moussavi—

June 9 wrote an open letter faulting Khamenei for not correcting Ahmadinejad’s “insults, lies and false allegations.” Many analysts had expected Moussavi to win the election, which was seen as a referendum on Ahmadinejad’s economic and foreign policies and restrictions of civil liberties. Moussavi and the other two opposition candidates—Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist cleric and former parliament speaker; and conservative Mohsen Rezai, who had headed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps—had promised to relax strictures on public behavior and give women increased freedom, and to decrease Iran’s international isolation, which had increased in recent years as it was accused of pursuing a nuclear weapon. Election Sees High Turnout—The election June 12 saw a huge turnout, and the government repeatedly extended voting hours. Moussavi late that night said he had won “by a very large margin” and alleged that there had been balloting “irregularities.” However, Iranian state media early June 13 said Ahmadinejad had won, with 69% of the vote to Moussavi’s 28%. The interior ministry later June 13 released the official results. It said Ahmadinejad had taken 62.6% of the vote, while Moussavi had won 33.8%. Rezai reportedly won 1.7%, and Karroubi won 0.9%. Turnout was placed at a record 86% of Iran’s 46.2 million eligible voters. Opposition critics questioned the speed with which the results were tallied, and pointed to local results that appeared politically improbable. Moussavi in a statement posted on his Web site said he would not “surrender to this manipulation,” and called on Khamenei to intervene. However, Khamenei in a televised statement declared that Ahmadinejad had won the election. Ahmadinejad said his victory represented a “divine assessment” and a “new beginning” for the country, and dismissed the fraud complaints, saying, “They spent a lot

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Volume 69, No. 3574 June 18, 2009

B of money on propaganda, so it is natural they are disappointed.” Huge Crowds Protest Alleged Fraud—

The announcement of the election results June 13 triggered protests among Moussavi’s supporters in Tehran and several other cities throughout Iran. Demonstrators clashed with police, who used batons and tear gas against them and reportedly shot to death at least one person. Violence continued June 14, with protesters being attacked by police and by the Basij, a paramilitary group that enforced adherence to religious rules and had been used in the past to crack down violently on student demonstrations. Moussavi called on his followers to keep demonstrating, and said the government should grant permits for “massive” protests in order to stop people from rioting. The same day, Ahmadinejad held a victory rally in Tehran at-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Ahmadinejad declared winner of disputed Iranian election; opposition protesters defy bans with large rallies for Moussavi. PAGE 401

Netanyahu supports Palestinian state in foreign policy address. PAGE 403

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G-8 finance leaders call for ‘exit strategy’ for crisis policies.

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Global climate treaty talks held. PAGE 405

Obama proposes financial regulatory reforms. PAGE 407

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Gay federal workers’ benefits expanded. PAGE 708

Kennedy health care plan estimated to cost $1 trillion. PAGE 408

Pakistani military prepares operation in tribal areas. PAGE 418

Lakers beat Magic for NBA title. PAGE 419

Penguins defeat Red Wings to win Stanley Cup. PAGE 419 Protesters in Tehran, Iran’s capital, June 18 demonstrate against alleged manipulation of the results of Iran’s June 12 presidential election, in which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the victor over reformist challenger Mir Hussein Moussavi. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi at a rally June 15 Tehran, Iran’s capital, protesting results he claimed were rigged in favor of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

tended by tens of thousands of people, at which he scorned opposition protesters as “dirt and dust.” Moussavi called on the Guardian Council—the clerical group that certified election results—to nullify the election results and hold a new vote. That call was echoed by Karroubi and by the Association of Combatant Clergy, a moderate group of clerics that issued a statement warning that election fraud could damage “the republican aspect of the regime.” Hundreds of thousands of Moussavi supporters June 15 demonstrated in Tehran in defiance of an official ban, in the largest unofficial protest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Moussavi spoke briefly at the protest, making his first public appearance since the election. Many of the protesters wore green, the color used in Moussavi’s campaign, and shouted Revolutionary-era slogans denouncing Ahmadinejad and the alleged voter fraud. The demonstration proceeded in a largely peaceful fashion, but later in the day shots were fired from a Basij compound, apparently killing a protester and wound several others. State radio June 16 reported that seven people had been killed the previous day by security forces after protesters “tried to attack a military location” in western Tehran.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a June 14 victory rally in Tehran, after he was declared the winner of the June 12 election.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani and more than 50 members of parliament June 16 called for an inquiry into an unverified incident June 14 in which Basij members had forced their way into the dormitory of Tehran University and attacked students, reportedly killing five people. The interior ministry June 17 ordered an investigation.

Guardian Council Orders Recount—

Khamenei June 15 ordered the Guardian Council to investigate the alleged voter fraud, in what was seen as a reversal from his earlier support of Ahmadinejad’s victory. The council June 16 said it would recount the votes in areas disputed by opposition candidates, although it did not give details on the recount. However, the Guardian Council was closely aligned with the government, and opposition activists dismissed the proposed recount as inadequate. The Guardian Council June 18 invited all four presidential candidates to an “emergency meeting” June 20 to discuss allegations of election fraud. Protests continued June 16–18, although Moussavi June 16 warned his supporters to stay at home in order to protect themselves. Protesters numbered in the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. Police and Basij attacks on protesters in Tehran and in other cities continued, often intensifying at night while protesters fought back and burned security force vehicles. Moussavi June 17 urged his followers to commemorate those who were “wounded or martyred” in protests by gathering in mosques or participating in peaceful protests the following day. Although increasing restrictions on foreign journalists made it difficult to report fully on those demonstrations and their size, it appeared that hundreds of thousands of people again gathered in Tehran, and Moussavi again addressed them. The government June 14 had reportedly arrested more than 100 opposition politicians and activists, and by June 17, some 500 people had reportedly been arrested throughout Iran, although some of those were subsequently released. Authorities had suppressed many information sources within the country, censoring opposition newspapers and blocking foreign media such as the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and Voice of America, Internet service, and social-networking Web sites and text-messaging services that demonstrators were using to organize themselves. There were reports of journalists being beaten by security forces, and the government June 16 banned them from reporting from the streets. The Web site Twitter, which allowed users to send out short messages, emerged as a major way for opposition sup-

porters to disseminate information about protests and government crackdowns. Ahmadinejad June 16 traveled to Russia to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). [See p. 406C3] International Response—U.S. President Barack Obama in his first public comments on the Iranian election June 15 said he was “deeply troubled by the violence” and that the protesters had inspired the world with their actions, and called for Iran’s government to respect “the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent.” However, he did not denounce the election results, and repeated his offer to hold direct talks with Ahmadinejad. Senior U.S. officials had previously expressed worries about election irregularities, although they also took a cautious tone. Obama June 16 said on CNBC, “Although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, the difference between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi may not be as great as has been advertised.” He added that the U.S. would still have an interest in stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, no matter who won the election. Obama was criticized by U.S. Republicans and other observers for not showing enough support for the Iranian opposition. However, he June 17 said it was important for the U.S. not “to be seen as meddling,” and choosing a president “is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide.” The Iranian government June 17 charged that the protests had been orchestrated by foreign media outlets. The same day, the Iranian foreign ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represented U.S. interests in Iran, and the Canadian charge d’affaires to complain of Western “meddling.” Several European

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FACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON IRAN’S GOVERNMENT

The supreme leader was Iran’s political and military leader and the commander-inchief of its armed forces. He had control over defense and major foreign policy decisions. The president was the head of the executive branch and Iran’s second-highest ranking official, and was elected by popular vote. His authority mainly encompassed domestic policy, and was circumscribed by the supreme leader and Iran’s clerical bodies. He could serve a maximum of two consecutive fouryear terms. The president chose the members of his cabinet, and could draft legislation without approval from the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council was a group of 12 theologians, clerics and jurists, six of whom were appointed by the supreme leader and the others nominated by the judiciary and approved by parliament. The Guardian Council vetted candidates for the presidency, the parliament and the Assembly of Experts, and could veto legislation passed by parliament. The Assembly of Experts was an 86member body of clerics that appointed the Supreme Leader, and also monitored his performance and could remove him if he could not fulfill his duties. The Expediency Council was a body of prominent political, religious and social figures that advised the supreme leader and adjudicated disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council. Its members were appointed by the supreme leader. The 290 members of the parliament were elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The parliament could introduce and pass laws, summon and impeach ministers and the president, approve cabinet appointments and budgets and ratify treaties, but its actions had to be approved by the Guardian Council.

ambassadors had been summoned June 16 over similar allegations. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the SCO summit congratulated Ahmadinejad on his reelection. Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed president of neighboring Afghanistan, June 14 congratulated Ahmadinejad, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias June 17 issued a statement of solidarity with the Iranian government against what he called a foreign campaign to “destabilize” it. n

Netanyahu Supports Palestinian State in Foreign Policy Address Palestinians Criticize Stringent Conditions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu June 14 for the first time backed the creation of an independent Palestinian state, as the U.S. and the international community had called upon him to do. However, he said a two-state solution would depend on Palestinians accepting several stringent conditions, among them the Palestinian state’s demilitarization, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and relinquishment of control of its airspace. The speech, which Netanyahu gave at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, Israel, had been billed as a major foreign policy address, and was seen in part as responding to U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslims of the world earlier in June. [See pp. 380E2, 367C2] June 18, 2009

“A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.” said Netanyahu. “If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.” Netanyahu said Israel would not build any new settlements in the West Bank or expropriate more Palestinian land for their expansion, but stipulated that “normal life” in the settlements would continue. That referred to existing settlements’ expansion to accommodate “natural growth” due to births and adoptions. The Obama administration in recent weeks had pressed Netanyahu to totally freeze settlement construction. Additionally, Netanyahu said Israel would not give up sole control of Jerusalem, the eastern part of which Palestinians wanted as the capital of a future state, and rejected a so-called right of return for Palestinian refugees. Netanyahu said he was willing to meet with leaders of Arab countries for peace talks. Additionally, he called on the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controlled the West Bank, to reestablish its authority in the Gaza Strip and overcome the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) there. Netanyahu in his speech also warned against Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel and the U.S. said was aimed at building nuclear weapons. He called it “the greatest threat facing Israel, the Middle East, the entire world and the human race.” International Response— U.S. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama considered Netanyahu’s speech an “important step forward.” Obama in a statement expressed his support for a Palestinian state and affirmed the importance of U.S. ties with Israel. PA President Mahmoud Abbas said the conditions Netanyahu had placed on the creation of a Palestinian state had “sabotaged” talks, and other Arab leaders had similar comments. Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian negotiator, said Netanyahu “spoke about negotiations, but left us with nothing to negotiate as he systematically took nearly every permanent status issue off the table,” referring to central issues such as the status of Jerusalem and refugees. European Union foreign ministers said Netanyahu’s support for a Palestinian state was a positive development, but added that they would delay an upgrade in trade ties between Israel and the EU until he took more concrete steps, such as freezing settlement growth and easing a blockade of the Gaza Strip. U.S. Envoy Visits Israel, West Bank—

Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George Mitchell (D, Maine), June 9 traveled to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where he met with Israeli officials including Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. He

said afterwards that it was “beyond any doubt that the United States’ commitment to the security of Israel remains unshakable,” but added that Israel and the Palestinians were both obligated to expedite peace talks. Mitchell also attempted to minimize the appearance of an Israeli-U.S. rift over Israel’s settlement policy, saying, “These are not disagreements among adversaries.” Mitchell June 10 met with Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Erekat afterwards said the U.S. had “made clear its intention to reinvigorate Middle East peace talks.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton June 5 rejected arguments made by Israeli officials in the previous days that the administration of former President George W. Bush had secretly agreed that Israel could expand settlements in the West Bank under certain conditions. “We have the negotiating record, that is the official record, that was turned over to the Obama administration by the outgoing Bush administration,” Clinton said. “There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreement.” Violence—Israeli forces June 8 killed four Palestinian gunmen who had attacked an army patrol near the Nahal Oz fuel terminal on the Gaza Strip border. The gunmen were part of a group that had approached the border fence with explosives, according to the Israeli military. It was one of the biggest Palestinian raids against Israeli forces since a war between Israel and Hamas ended in January. Israeli security forces June 5 killed a Palestinian demonstrator during a protest against the construction of a security barrier that divided the West Bank from Israel, in the West Bank village of Bilin, near Ramallah. An Israeli spokesman said security forces had opened fire with nonlethal weapons after Palestinians began throwing rocks, but Palestinian witnesses said the victim had been hit while helping another wounded protester. [See p. 313D3] A gunfight in the West Bank city of Qalqilyah June 4 killed one PA policeman and two Hamas militants. A similar fight between Hamas and PA forces had occurred the previous week in Qalqilyah. [See p. 380E3] n

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North Korean Nuclear Dispute Security Council Adds New Sanctions.

The United Nations Security Council June 12 unanimously approved a resolution condemning, “in the strongest terms,” a nuclear test carried out by North Korea in May, and instituting new sanctions against North Korea. The measure, Resolution 1874, banned the sale of most arms to or from North Korea, cutting off one of the country’s few major sources of export revenue. It called on U.N. member nations to request permission to inspect any ships they had “reasonable grounds” to suspect were carrying banned arms to or from North Korea. However, it did not require states to do so, and it specifically did not authorize the use of force to carry out such inspections. [See p. 350A3] North Korea in April had conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test, followed by the nuclear test, after proclaiming 403

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its withdrawal from six-nation negotiations in which it had previously agreed to abandon its nuclear programs. The agreement by the council on imposing new sanctions was seen as reflecting increasing impatience with North Korea on the part of China and Russia, the two permanent Security Council members that frequently opposed calls by the U.S., South Korea and Japan for stronger measures against North Korea. However, China and Russia insisted that the ship inspections not be mandatory, and that the resolution clearly refrain from authorizing the use of force. Due to those stipulations, it was unclear how effective the resolution would prove in interdicting banned weapons shipments. Under the measure, if the nation under whose flag a suspect ship was sailing did not permit an inspection by an intercepting ship, it was instructed to divert the ship to a nearby port for inspection. If that was not done, the incident would be reported to a special Security Council committee. The ban on weapons sales to or by North Korea excepted small arms sold to North Korea, an exception that benefited China, North Korea’s principal supplier of such weapons. North Lashes Out—North Korea’s foreign ministry in a statement June 13 vowed “retaliation” for the new sanctions, saying it regarded “an attempted blockade of any kind by the United States and its followers” as an “act of war.” North Korea said it would resume the processing of plutonium into fuel for nuclear weapons at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. North Korea had recently reopened Yongbyon, after sealing and beginning to dismantle it under the sixnation agreement. The statement said North Korea would also start to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Prior to the passage of the U.N. resolution, it had been reported May 30 that intelligence satellites had detected signs of possible North Korean preparations for a new long-range missile launch, possibly within weeks. A commentary published in North Korean state news media June 9 declared that the country’s “nuclear deterrent” was “a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country’s dignity and sovereignty even a bit.” The threat of an “offensive” nuclear attack was a departure from North Korea’s customary description of it as a necessary deterrent against U.S. and South Korean aggression. Obama Meets South’s Lee—U.S. President Barack Obama June 16 hosted South Korean President Lee Myung Bak at the White House in Washington, D.C. In a joint news conference after their meeting, the two leaders stated their agreement that a nucleararmed North Korea was not acceptable and that Resolution 1874 should be vigorously enforced. Obama also affirmed the U.S.’s standing promise that its nuclear deterrent “umbrella” would be extended to South Korea in case of a North Korean attack. Obama said there was “another path available to North Korea…through peaceful negotiations” leading to “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The U.S.’s 404

special envoy on the issue, Stephen Bosworth, June 11 had expressed the U.S.’s desire for North Korea to return to negotiations. However, the Obama administration, which had conducted a review of policy toward North Korea after taking office in January, had reportedly shifted against a resumption of the strategy of offering incentives for the incremental dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear facilities. Obama June 6 had said, “We are going to take a very hard look at how we move forward on these issues” rather than “simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” Lee, in an interview June 12 with the Wall Street Journal, suggested the need for a departure from the six-party framework, saying North Korea had “bought a lot of time” with it. He said North Korea should be excluded from the talks. North Korea was also currently holding two U.S. reporters arrested on its border with China and sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor, whom it was expected to use as bargaining chips with the U.S. [See p. 395G3] May Nuclear Test Analyzed—The office of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair June 15 issued a brief statement assessing North Korea’s nuclear test, saying, “North Korea probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion” with a yield of “approximately a few kilotons.” That would represent an advance over North Korea’s first nuclear test, in 2006, which had not been seen as an unqualified success, with an estimated yield of less than a kiloton. But the U.S. estimate was smaller than one issued by Russia soon after the test, which put it at 10–20 kilotons. Link to North’s Succession Seen—

South Korea June 10 released a statement made by Defense Minister Lee Sang Hee to the country’s armed forces, saying that North Korea’s nuclear test, missile launches and other recent bellicose actions were aimed at “creating tension in order to build the basis for hereditary power transfer to his successor.” Kim Jong Il, 67, was widely reported to have suffered a stroke in 2008, and there were reports that he was preparing his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to become his officially designated successor. (Kim Jong Il had succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder, in 1994.) Unidentified U.S. officials cited in news reports had also suggested recently that the nuclear test was intended to establish North Korea’s status as an acknowledged nuclear power before the end of Kim’s reign. South Korea’s intelligence agency June 2 had reportedly told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing of signs that Kim Jong Un was being designated the heir to North Korea’s leadership. Intelligence reports said that messages sent to North Korean diplomats abroad had instructed them to pay allegiance to Kim Jong Un, and that patriotic songs had been revised to include lyrics in praise of him. Little was known about Kim Jong Un, variously reported to be 26 or an uncertain age in his 20s. Some accounts claimed that

he had attended boarding school in Switzerland under an assumed name. The North Korean leader was known to have two other sons. The next-older brother, Kim Jong Chul, was 28. While the two younger brothers were reportedly born to the same mother, the eldest, 38-year-old Kim Jong Nam, had a different mother. He had been detained in Japan for traveling on a false passport in 2001, and was variously reported to reside in or frequently visit China’s Macao territory. Interviewed there by a Japanese broadcaster June 6, he said he had learned of the possible elevation of Kim Jong Un from foreign news reports, adding that he thought it was likely “true.” [See 2001, p. 362F1] Even if Kim Jong Un was designated Kim’s heir, foreign analysts suggested that there were other centers of political power within the government and military that might compete for control of the country upon Kim Jong Il’s death or incapacitation. n

Global Economy G-8 Finance Leaders Call for ‘Exit Strategy.’

Finance ministers from the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations June 13 asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prepare an “exit strategy” that would allow governments to wind down emergency policies that had been implemented to address the global economic crisis. Since the crisis began in 2008, G-8 countries had introduced spending programs and other stimulative measures to boost economic growth, and in the process had run up sizable deficits that could lead to inflation and strain their ability to borrow money. The request followed two days of meetings in Lecce, Italy. [See pp. 407A1, 283A2] In a joint communique released June 13, the G-8 said, “There are signs of stabilization in our economies, including a recovery of stock markets, a decline in interest rate spreads [and] improved business and consumer confidence.” Those improved conditions would allow the G-8 to consider an exit strategy, but only “once the recovery is assured.” The G-8 warned that “significant risks remain to economic and financial stability,” and several individual finance leaders, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said it was too early to roll back spending programs. Of the G-8 countries—which included the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan—Germany and France were the most concerned about rising inflation. The two countries and the U.S. had sparred over the issue in previous international economic forums, with U.S. officials charging that Germany and France had not done enough to stimulate their economies. German and French officials countered that the U.S. was not taking the threat of inflation seriously enough. It was widely viewed that France and Germany had not been as aggressive as the U.S. in stabilizing their banking systems, and that they were in the midst of recessions that were more severe than the one in the U.S. FACTS ON FILE

G-8 Agrees to Regulatory Reform—In its June 13 communique, the G-8 pledged to cooperate in reforming financial regulations, in order to prevent a similar global financial crisis from occurring in the future. The G-8 said it would work through a process it called the Lecce Framework, which would see the countries abide by “a set of common principles and standards regarding the conduct of international business and finance.” However, it was widely reported that there remained substantial disagreements between G-8 members on what form the reforms should take. The European Union in recent months had moved aggressively to reform financial regulations, making several proposals that were seen as being more radical than what had been envisioned by officials in the U.S. and Britain. The EU had proposed strict limits on credit-rating agencies, hedge funds and companies that sold securitized assets. U.S. President Barack Obama June 17 unveiled his administration’s plan to overhaul the U.S. regulatory system, which in some aspects was seen as being a more moderate approach to regulatory reform. n Emerging Economies Meet at Summit.

Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China—the so-called BRIC countries, which represented the world’s largest emerging economies—June 16 met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for their first summit. The BRIC countries accounted for 40% of the world’s population and about 15% of its economy. In a statement released after the summit, the countries said, “The emerging and developing economies must have greater voice and representation in international financial institutions.…We also believe there is a strong need for a stable, predictable and more diversified international monetary system.” They also called for “comprehensive reform” of the United Nations. [See pp. 406E2, 283A2, 193A1] Russia expressed concern over the U.S. dollar’s dominance in world currency reserves, saying it could potentially destabilize global currency markets. However, China, which held $767.9 billion in U.S. Treasuries, did not directly criticize the dollar. In the weeks prior to the meeting, China, Brazil and Russia had indicated that they would buy tens of billions of dollars worth of bonds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was preparing to issue them for the first time. Observers suggested the countries were seeking to diversify their reserves. Some analysts suggested that the BRIC partnership would face difficulties acting as a cohesive unit because its members’ economies were vastly different. Brazil’s economy was supported mainly by agriculture, Russia’s by energy exports, India’s by services and China’s by manufacturing. n Former Soviet States Set Joint WTO Bid.

The prime ministers of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, in a joint statement released June 9, said they would seek to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a single customs union. The countries’ partnership was expected to be formalized at the start of 2010, when a common customs tarJune 18, 2009

iff would take effect. At that point, according to Russian officials, the union would begin official accession talks with the WTO. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Russia, which had been in WTO accession negotiations since 1993, was not shunning the organization, “even though the [accession] process dragged out and in recent years was more like a feast of promises.” [See p. 193F2; 2008, p. 590F1] Russia was the world’s largest economy without WTO membership. Analysts suggested that the new strategy of joining as part of a three-country customs union could delay Russia’s membership by several years. Some observers had previously expected Russia to join the WTO by the end of 2009. n

cluded without the two countries reaching an agreement. Japan Sets Emissions Targets— Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso June 10 announced that the country planned to reduce its greenhouse emissions to 85% of their 2005 levels by 2020. Environmentalists criticized the target for being too conservative, saying it equaled an 8% reduction from 1990 emissions levels and therefore did not constitute a significant change from the country’s Kyoto Protocol target. Japan had the world’s second-largest economy, but was only the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter. n

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Other International News Shell Settles Nigerian Human Rights Suit.

Global Environment Global Climate Treaty Talks Held. Represen-

tatives from 183 countries June 1–12 attended a session of continuing United Nations–backed talks in Bonn, Germany, aimed at creating a draft of an international treaty to address global climate change. Attendees formulated a 200-page draft of an agreement intended to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrialized countries to reduce their total emissions to 95% of 1990 levels by 2012. The Kyoto Protocol’s main provisions were set to expire in 2012. A final treaty was hoped to be agreed upon at a December meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. [See 2008, p. 915E3] Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said he believed that a treaty could be reached by December. However, environmental activists and some politicians criticized the discussions as too slow. “We see no political breakthrough. Instead, delegates are just preparing themselves for battles to be fought at later meetings,” said Kim Carstensen of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) environmental group. Also, developing countries, such China and India, had criticized industrialized nations for setting inadequate emissions reduction goals at the meeting. A Chinese policy-making body May 20 had called on developed countries to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020, and set aside 1% of their gross domestic product to aid poorer countries in reducing emissions. The U.S. had offered to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, while the European Union had said its members would cut emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by the same deadline, or by 70% if other industrialized countries joined them. China, U.S. Meet on Emissions—Senior U.S. and Chinese officials June 8–10 met in Beijing, China’s capital, in an attempt to broker an agreement over emissions reductions. The two countries were responsible for generating about 40% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Each had called on the other to reduce emissions in ways that were “measurable, verifiable and reportable.” But neither government wished to institute emissions regulations that might make its economy less competitive. The talks con-

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC June 8 agreed to a $15.5 million settlement of a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York City by relatives of nine Nigerian ethnic Ogoni human rights activists and government critics from the oilrich southern Niger Delta region who had been hanged in 1995 by the government of former Nigerian military leader Gen. Sani Abacha. The plaintiffs had alleged that Shell actively supported the Abacha regime’s persecution of the Ogoni people and the execution of the nine activists, after mass protests in Ogoniland had forced Shell to shut down its operations there in 1993. [See 2000, p. 1045E3] All nine of the executed activists belonged to the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples (MOSOP), a group that was fighting for political and environmental rights for the more than 500,000 Ogonis who lived in the Niger Delta. The most prominent among those executed was Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ogoni activist and writer. The executions, which came after the activists were convicted on spurious charges of the murder of four Ogoni leaders in 1994, had sparked international condemnation of Abacha’s regime. They had also highlighted the role of multinational oil companies such as Shell in environmental and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta. Unrest had continued in the region, and, since 2006, a separate, armed group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), had been attacking oil installations and kidnapping foreign workers in an effort to win a greater share of the region’s oil wealth for its people, which, along with the Ogoni, included the ethnic Ijaw. [See p. 358G1] Suit Based on 1789 Law—The families of the activists had filed the U.S. suit under the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which allowed non-U.S. citizens to pursue civil suits against individuals or entities that had allegedly violated international law, even if the violation had occurred outside the U.S. [See 2008, p. 972E2] The settlement of the suit ended a 13year campaign by the families to hold Shell responsible for its role in the activists’ deaths, and avoided a trial. Shell, which had unsuccessfully sought to have the charges dismissed, did not admit wrongdo405

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ing or accept liability in the settlement, instead calling it a “humanitarian gesture” in “recognition of the tragic turn of events in Ogoni land, even though Shell had no part in the violence that took place.” Of the $15.5 million, $5 million would be placed in a trust to fund education and other programs for the Ogoni people, with the rest going to the families of the plaintiffs (including toward their legal fees). Representatives of the plaintiffs June 8–9 praised the agreement. Judith Chomsky Brown, an attorney for the U.S.-based nonprofit Center for Constitutional Rights, which helped file the case for the families, said, “One of the reasons defendants settle is so there won’t be a finding that they did what they’re accused of. I take their payment of a significant settlement as a recognition that they could well be found liable of these abuses by a jury.” Saro-Wiwa’s son, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., said, “From a legal perspective, this historic case means that corporations will have to be much more careful.” However, some said Shell was still responsible for continuing environmental damage in the Niger Delta, including pollution caused by the practice of gas flaring. Also, many rivers and farms in Ogoniland reportedly remained polluted by oil spills that Shell had yet to clean up. n Russia Vetoes U.N. Abkhazia Mission.

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Russia, at a June 15 meeting of the United Nations Security Council, vetoed a U.S. and European-supported draft resolution that would have extended for 15 days the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), a security force of 131 military observers and 20 police that monitored the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of Abkhazia. UNOMIG’s mandate expired that day. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ordered the mission to shut down by June 16. UNOMIG began in 1993 to monitor a tenuous cease-fire that ended a bloody separatist war between ethnic Abkhazis and ethnic Georgians. [See pp. 378D1–F2, 311B1] Russia objected to the Western-supported mission because of its title, which affirmed that Abkhazia was a part of Georgia. Russia said it would not approve the mission unless its name reflected Abkhazia’s independence from Georgia. Russia proposed an alternative extension of the observer mission that omitted any references to Georgian sovereignty over Abkhazia, but the Security Council did not consider it. Only Russia and Nicaragua recognized Abkhazia as independent. Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, said the observer mission was “based on old realities,” and that the Georgian government had lost its moral authority to govern Abkhazia and another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, South Ossetia, as a result of its 2008 invasion of the latter. The Russian military had crushed the invading Georgian forces, and the brief war ultimately served to solidify Russia’s presence in the breakaway regions. [See p. 378D2] Of the 15 nations on the U.N. Security Council, Russia cast the only dissenting vote on the motion to extend UNOMIG. Chi406

na, Libya, Vietnam and Uganda abstained, saying they would not vote because the main council members were in disagreement. A 225-member European Union–sponsored observer mission would remain in Georgia, but, unlike UNOMIG, it was not allowed to enter Georgia’s separatist regions. As many as 60,000 ethnic Georgians lived in Abkhazia. Reaction—Georgia and its Western allies expressed concern that the expiration of UNOMIG’s mandate would leave Abkhazia’s ethnic Georgian population vulnerable. Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.S.’s thirdranking ambassador to the U.N., June 15 said the U.S. “deeply regrets” Russia’s veto, and added that “it is the civilian population that suffers by facing a tenuous security environment without an international presence in Abkhazia, Georgia.” The Georgian foreign ministry, in a June 16 statement, said, “By ending UNOMIG, Russia removed the international community’s final instrument designed for maintaining peace and stability in Abkhazia.” Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze blasted Russia for its veto, saying, “Russia does not need witnesses to register the results of ethnic cleansing. Russia does not need monitors and observers to register their daily crimes and Russia does not need any international presence because Russia is in principle against international law.” The Russian foreign ministry, in a June 16 statement, said the proposal to extend UNOMIG was “burdened with unacceptable references and terminology which, as our partners well know, we cannot accept since Abkhazia as an independent state does not figure in it.” It added that the “responsibility for the withdrawal [of the mission]…lies with western states which have been demonstrating over-ideologized stubbornness for months now.” Sergei Shamba, Abkhazia’s separatist president, June 15 said, “Abkhazia and Russia wanted the U.N. mission to continue working in Abkhazia on condition that it was issued a new mandate and got a new name and new wordings, which would not tie Abkhazia to Georgia.” n Russia Hosts Regional Summit. Leaders from China, Russia and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan June 15–16 met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg for the ninth summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional body that promoted economic and cultural partnerships between its member countries, and served as a forum to discuss regional issues. The group was also seen as a counterweight to U.S. interests in the region. [See pp. 405C1, G1, 404C3; 2008, p. 591B1] Leaders from India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan, which had observer status to the SCO, also attended the summit, as did Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who attended as a guest. Chinese President Hu Jintao June 16 said China would offer a $10 billion loan to the four Central Asian SCO members to help bolster their economies amid the cur-

rent global economic slowdown. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which had few natural resources, had been hit especially hard by the downturn. The group jointly condemned recent threats made by North Korea concerning its nuclear program, and expressed strong support for current arms control negotiations between Russia and the U.S. Also, Karzai heard SCO members’ concerns about drug smuggling from Afghanistan, as well as the terrorism threat posed by Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. He attributed Afghanistan’s problems to decades of war and instability. [See below, pp. 403E3, 381A1] Russian President Dmitri Medvedev proposed “the idea, which is supported by our colleagues, of using a kind of unit of account within the SCO. In the future such a unit could also perform more serious functions.” He compared the proposed unit to the European currency unit (ECU), the precursor to the euro. He added, “The current set of reserve currencies and the main reserve currency—the U.S. dollar—have failed to function as they should.” Medvedev again criticized the dollar later that day at a meeting of the so-called BRIC nations—Brazil, Russia, India and China. Ahmadinejad Attends Summit—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad June 16 attended the SCO meeting despite massive antigovernment rallies that had broken out across Iran in the preceding days. The protesters were disputing the initial results of Iran’s June 12 presidential election, which indicated that Ahmadinejad had won reelection handily over his more moderate rivals. Ahmadinejad at the summit made no mention of the Iranian protests. A spokesperson for Medvedev said the “SCO member states congratulated Ahmadinejad on his reelection.” [See p. 401A1] At the summit, Ahmadinejad said the U.S. was “enveloped in an economic and political crisis, and there is no hope that they will be resolved.” He added that “the age of empires has ended,” and pointed to unresolved conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as ongoing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, as proof that a unipolar world headed by the U.S. was not feasible. Medvedev, Putin Meet With Hu—Hu June 17–18 remained in Russia following the conclusion of the SCO summit, and met with Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In a joint statement released June 17, the three leaders called on North Korea, which had conducted its second nuclear test in May, to return to U.N.sponsored talks on its nuclear program. They said, “Russia and China are ready to foster the lowering of tension in Northeast Asia and call for the continuation of efforts by all sides to resolve disagreements through peaceful means, through dialogue and consultations.” Both countries June 12, along with the other members of the U.N. Security Council, had approved new sanctions against North Korea. n FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Obama Proposes Financial Regulatory Reforms Prompted by 2008 Financial Crisis. President Barack Obama June 17 proposed far-reaching reforms to the financial regulatory system, which he described as “a transformation on a scale not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression.” The reforms were designed to prevent a reoccurrence of the severe financial crisis that struck in 2008, which helped push the U.S. economy into a deep recession. [See pp. 387A2, 354A2, 320C1] In making the case for reform, Obama said, “Millions of Americans who have worked hard and behaved responsibly have seen their life dreams eroded by the irresponsibility of others and the failure of their government to provide adequate oversight.” He added, “Our entire economy has been undermined by that failure.” The central reforms included empowering the Federal Reserve to regulate any financial institution that could pose a risk to the financial system as a whole; creating a new oversight council to monitor regulatory bodies and identify systemic risks; establishing a financial consumer protection agency; increasing the government’s authority to take over and liquidate financial institutions that posed a risk to the economy; and strengthening oversight of markets and financial institutions that had been only lightly regulated in the past. [See below] The Obama administration’s proposal was the result of months of behind-thescenes debate between administration officials, consumer protection groups, banking industry representatives and members of Congress. Many of the recommendations would need congressional approval, and Democratic lawmakers pledged to pass legislation reforming financial regulations by the end of the year. The proposal was criticized by business groups for expanding the government’s influence in the private sector. Proponents of greater government oversight complained that the reforms were too timid, and did not address fundamental instabilities in the system. They argued that the government should prevent financial institutions from becoming so large that they posed a risk to the broader economy, and that the government should ban certain complex financial instruments that could spread risk throughout the system. Obama said the proposal was a balance between free-market principles, which he described as a “source of prosperity that’s unrivaled in history,” and reforms that were necessary to change a “culture of irresponsibility.” He said his administration had ruled out overhauling the regulatory system in a wholesale fashion, preferring to “pinpoint the structural weaknesses that allowed for this crisis.” The financial industry for the most part appeared to accept the reform proposals, which were not as strict as some had June 18, 2009

feared. However, industry groups were expected to vigorously lobby members of Congress to limit increased regulation. Fed Powers to Increase—Under the Obama administration’s plan, the Fed would become the most powerful regulatory body in the financial system, with the ability to monitor any financial company that could pose a threat to the system as a whole, including banks, insurers and large companies with significant financial operations. The Fed could require those institutions to possess a certain level of capital to offset potential losses. Companies could also be required to limit their levels of debt, to prevent the emergence of the type of asset bubble that led to the financial crisis. The plan was immediately controversial, with critics arguing that such a high degree of authority should not be centralized with the Fed, which they said had been a poor watchdog of the industry in the past. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, June 17 said lawmakers did not have “a lot of confidence in the Fed at this point.” Critics accused the Fed of failing to detect problems in the mortgage market during the housing boom, which saw mortgage lenders underwrite increasingly risky loans to consumers. Those loans were converted into securities that were purchased by financial institutions on Wall Street. After the housing market entered a deep slump in late 2006, those securities plummeted in value, leading to huge losses at financial institutions and a severe contraction in credit markets. The Fed had also been accused of feeding the housing bubble during the early 2000s by steeply lowering its benchmark interest rate. The effect was to make loans cheaper, and to flood the market with easy credit, leading to an asset bubble. Furthermore, critics said entrusting the Fed with two broad missions—setting monetary policy through interest rate adjustments, and ensuring that an asset bubble did not emerge—posed complications, since a particular monetary policy designed for the broader economy could have the unintended effect of encouraging an asset bubble. The Fed also had been accused of failing to detect problems at large bank-holding companies that it currently regulated, including Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., which had received tens of billions of dollars in federal aid. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner June 17 responded to those criticisms, arguing that the lack of a centralized oversight authority was one of the leading causes of the financial crisis. He said, “The president believes there is not a better way to prevent and manage a future crisis without putting the authority in one place,” adding, “I do not believe there is a plausible alternative that provides accountability, credibility and gets to the core of the problem.” It was reported that the financial industry largely approved of the proposal, since it saw the Fed as better versed in financial matters than other government agencies.

New Oversight Council Called For—

The Obama administration’s plan would see the creation of what it called the Financial Services Oversight Council, which would be tasked with coordinating the efforts of various regulatory bodies in the financial system. Obama said the council would ensure that systemic risks did not accumulate unnoticed, and “tackle issues that don’t fit neatly in an organizational chart.” The Obama administration had rejected a proposal pushed by some economists to consolidate the competing regulatory bodies into a single agency. Advocates of that approach said the current system was confusing, since different bodies had overlapping duties. Additionally, they said, each financial institution had a primary overseer, and each overseer had weaknesses that an institution would exploit. Under Obama’s plan, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) would be merged to form a new regulatory agency, the National Bank Supervisor, which would oversee national banks. The OTS had been accused of overlooking major problems at companies it oversaw, such as IndyMac Bancorp, Washington Mutual Inc. and American International Group Inc. (AIG). [See pp. 319C2, 32D2; 2008, p. 671C3]

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Greater Authority to Seize Companies—

Under the Obama administration’s plan, the government would have the authority to seize and dismantle any financial institution whose potential collapse posed a broad risk to the economy. The Treasury would be given the authority to decide whether such a move was necessary, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) would carry out the company’s orderly liquidation, with the exceptions of brokerages or securities firms, which would be handled by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The government was currently limited in its ability to exert such authority, which had complicated its efforts to handle a wave of near failures in the financial industry in the fall of 2008. The government was forced to inject massive amounts of money into companies to prop them up, or pressure them into merging with healthier companies. [See p. 388E1]

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Consumer Protection Agency Proposed—

The Obama administration’s plan would see the establishment of what it called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would be tasked with protecting consumers from predatory financial practices. The agency would have the power to write rules determining how financial institutions issued consumer loans, such as mortgages and credit cards, and would be able to fine institutions that broke those rules. Analysts said the agency could require companies to make the details of financial transactions clearer, so that a consumer fully understood the implications of a given contract. The agency could also ban penalties and fees that were deemed exploitative. Additionally, the agency would likely push mortgage lenders to offer loans that were more straightforward, as opposed to the exotic loans that flourished during the housing boom. Those loans featured vary407

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ing interest rate levels and repayment schedules that eventually increased the cost to the borrower substantially, and often required no proof of income or employment from the borrower, leading to a spike in loan defaults. The financial industry was expected to push aggressively to limit the agency’s powers. Industry representatives claimed that restrictive rules could push up costs for all consumers, leading to a dearth of credit. As detailed in a separate part of the proposal, mortgage lenders would be required to hold at least 5% of the loans they sold as securities, to ensure that they had an incentive to sell loans that performed well. Greater Oversight of Derivatives— Under the Obama administration’s plan, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would have the authority to regulate the trade of credit derivatives. Credit derivatives were contracts that were devised to allow financial institutions to minimize their exposure to risk, but their proliferation in recent years had worked to spread risk throughout the financial system. The market for credit derivatives was currently unregulated. Credit derivatives would have to be traded in clearinghouses or other public venues. Parties that traded credit derivatives would also be subject to capital-level and disclosure requirements. Privately owned financial companies that had only been lightly regulated in the past—such as hedge funds, private-equity firms and venture capital funds—would have to register with the SEC. The SEC would also bolster its regulation of credit-rating agencies. Critics of Obama’s plan said credit-rating agencies should have been placed under greater scrutiny, since they had played an integral role in the financial crisis by rating highly risky mortgage-backed assets as safe investments. Critics said the credit-ratings system—in which agencies were paid to rate assets by financial institutions that bought and sold those assets—presented a clear conflict of interest. [See 2008, p. 954F3] Senators Urged to Pass Reforms—

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Geithner June 18 testified before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where he urged senators to pass Obama’s financial regulations reform plan. He said, “Our economy has been brought too close to the brink for us to let this moment to pass.” However, senators appeared skeptical of some aspects of the plan, especially the proposal to increase the oversight powers of the Fed. Dodd said it was like “a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon.” Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, said, “I personally believe this represents a grossly inflated view of the Fed’s expertise.” Geithner defended the proposal, saying the Fed has “a greater knowledge and feel for broader market developments” than other agencies, and claiming that the new powers it would receive were “actually quite modest.” 408

Senators were more supportive of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and Dodd defended it against industry representatives that had criticized it, saying, “The very people who created this damn mess are the ones now arguing that consumers ought not to be protected.” n

Civil Rights Gay Federal Workers’ Benefits Expanded.

President Barack Obama June 17 signed a presidential memorandum that extended some health care benefits to domestic partners of civil service employees, a move that would for the first time allow partners of gay and lesbian federal employees access to such benefits. The memo granted both same-sex and opposite-sex partners of civil service employees access to a long-termcare insurance plan, and would allow employees to take sick time to care for ill partners or children whom they were not related to or had not adopted. [See pp. 371A1, 150B1] Partners of civil service employees would also gain access to medical facilities at overseas government posts and would be included in calculations used to determine housing allocations. However, the memo did not fully extend health insurance to same-sex partners of civil service employees. Obama claimed that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) banned the extension of those benefits to gay couples, an assertion that some gay rights activists disputed. DOMA also precluded gay couples from receiving the same immigration status as spouses, filing a joint tax return or receiving Social Security survivor’s benefits. Leaders of gay and lesbian rights groups quickly assailed the Obama administration’s move as inadequate, and renewed calls for the federal government to extend full health care benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Obama defended the memorandum, arguing that he was limited by existing law from providing “same-sex couples with the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.” He also said the memo was the first step in further extending rights to gay couples. Justice Dept. Supports Marriage Act—

Obama had also come under fire from gay rights groups after the Justice Department June 12 filed a legal brief supporting the constitutionality of DOMA, which Obama had promised to attempt to overturn during the 2008 presidential campaign. The brief was filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., in the case Smelt v. United States. The plaintiffs in the case, Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, were a gay couple who had been married in California in 2008 before the adoption of a ballot initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman. They argued that DOMA violated the U.S. Constitution by denying them benefits granted to heterosexual married couples, including access to federal benefits and out-of-state recognition of their marriage. [See p. 352A3] In its brief, the Justice Department argued that Hammer and Smelt needed to first

attempt to gain out-of-state recognition or file for federal benefits before seeking redress through the courts. The department, in a statement, said, “Until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system.” Gay rights advocates quickly criticized Obama for failing to adhere to his campaign promise to reverse DOMA. Joe Solmonese, the president of advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, in a June 15 letter to Obama said, “This brief would not have seen the light of day if someone in your administration who truly recognized our humanity and equality had weighed in with you.” Gay rights activists also criticized Obama for moving slowly on other issues, such as the right of gays and lesbians to openly serve in the armed forces. (Obama had previously stated his opposition to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibited openly gay people from serving in the military.) [See 2007, p. 362F2] n

Medicine & Health Kennedy Plan Cost Estimated at $1 Trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

June 15 released a preliminary analysis of a health care overhaul plan proposed by Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), which concluded that the measure would cost $1 trillion over 10 years. The report said the plan would provide coverage to 39 million uninsured people through “insurance exchanges,” through which insurers with a variety of plans would compete for enrollees. However, an estimated 23 million people would also lose their insurance during the same period, resulting in a net decrease of 16 million uninsured people. [See p. 390E2] The CBO’s analysis threw into chaos Democratic-led efforts to reform health care by lowering costs and extending coverage to the uninsured. President Barack Obama had expressed a desire to have a health care reform bill approved by October; the cost revelations were thought to make achieving that deadline extremely difficult. The CBO report also exposed fissures within the Democratic Party over how to pay for health care reform. The analysis was quickly cited by Republicans opposed to Democrats’ reform attempts. “The health care proposal being put together is not only extremely defective, it will cost a fortune,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said June 16. White House officials reacted to the report by stressing that the Kennedy plan was only one of several proposals. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), who was leading discussions on Kennedy’s reform plan while Kennedy received treatment for brain cancer, June 16 said the CBO had based its analysis on an incomplete version of the plan that did not include several costsaving measures. Obama had proposed establishing a government-run health insurance program funded in part by cutting the cost of the Medicare program and by eliminating some itemized tax deductions. However, such FACTS ON FILE

eliminations had little hope of securing Republican support, leading some Democrats to call for a tax that would receive greater bipartisan backing. Republicans also opposed Obama’s plan for the creation of a government-run insurance plan, arguing that the government plan would likely drive private insurers out of business. Cost Estimate on Baucus Plan Detailed—

Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, June 16 said a CBO assessment of his separate, but related, health care reform plan estimated that it would cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Baucus said he would delay the release of details of his plan, scheduled for that week, in order to work on lowering its cost. He said the final version of his legislation would cost less than $1 trillion over a decade. Baucus supported funding a reform bill by taxing some employer-provided health care benefits, a move that some Democrats strongly opposed. Dodd June 17 opened debate on the Kennedy bill in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Kennedy chaired. The measure was immediately met with criticism from Republicans, who chastised Democrats for failing to work with them on a reform bill. Several Republican senators questioned Democrats’ plan to pass the reform bill in a short period of time and with incomplete information. (Dodd had said he hoped to have the committee approve a bill by June 26.) Obama Addresses Physicians’ Group—

Obama June 15 delivered a speech at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) physicians’ organization, which the previous week had stated its opposition to his plan for a government-run insurance provider. Obama implored the organization’s members to support a public insurance program, and described health care costs as “a ticking time-bomb for the federal budget.” He said reducing malpractice lawsuits would help bring health care costs down, but that he did not support caps on malpractice damage awards, earning boos from some audience members. n

Medicare Panel Suggests Cost-Cutting Measures.

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent panel that advised Congress on Medicare, June 15 released a report containing nonbinding suggestions for reining in the program’s growing costs. Medicare expenses totaled $468 billion in 2008, and a fiscal forecast released in May estimated that the program would become insolvent by 2017. “Part of the problem is that Medicare’s fee-for-service payment systems rewards more care— and more complex care—without regard to the quality or value of that care,” the report concluded. [See p. 323G3] MedPAC suggested that the government keep track of both Medicare payments and the quality of care provided by groups of health care providers, and reward those that provided high-quality care at a low June 18, 2009

cost. It also said Medicare should discourage doctors from ordering unnecessary diagnostic and imaging tests that were often expensive. The commission also criticized socalled Medicare Advantage plans, which were privately run plans paid for by the government, as being more expensive than traditional Medicare. The report estimated that the cost of Medicare Advantage plans in 2009 would be $12 billion more than equivalent care provided through traditional Medicare. President Barack Obama had made reducing Medicare costs an integral part of his plans to reform health care in the U.S. [See pp. 408C1, 391A1] n

Environment Report Details U.S. Climate Change Effects.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, which coordinated federal research on climate change from various agencies, June 16 released a report which concluded that the U.S. was already suffering ill effects resulting from global climate change. (The program had formerly been known as the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.) [See 2008, p. 620C3; 2007, p. 629G3] The report said the U.S. was currently experiencing higher sea levels, more severe droughts, heavier rainfall, decreased agricultural production and hotter temperatures in various regions as a result of climate change. “The projected rapid rate and large amount of climate change over this century will challenge the ability of society and natural systems to adapt,” the report stated. The 196-page document was the first climate report produced by the Obama administration, and satisfied the requirements of a 1990 law that mandated regular updates on climate change–related issues in the U.S. It based its conclusions on published research on climate change, including 21 reports published by government agencies under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said time still remained to offset climate change resulting from man-made emissions, but that action must be taken soon. “The report demonstrates that climate change is happening now, in our own backyards, and it affects the things that people care about,” she said. Climate Bill Advances in House—The report was issued as Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D, Mass.) led House efforts to draft a climate bill mandating emissions reductions in the U.S. Markey and Waxman in March had introduced the bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee May 21 voted, 33– 25, to advance the measure, which still required the approval of several other committees before it could be brought before the full House. [See p. 201E2] As approved by the committee, the bill was modified somewhat from the original

proposal. A target to reduce the U.S.’s greenhouse gas output by 20% from 2005 levels by 2020 was changed to 17%. In another compromise, under the bill’s “cap and trade” emissions permit system, utilities would initially be given 35% of the total permits for free, rather than having to purchase them. Democratic leaders June 3 said they had established strict deadlines for the House’s various committees to consider the legislation, in the hopes that it could be passed more quickly. n

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Energy Bush-Era Oil Leases Struck Down. A three-

judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit April 17 ruled that the Interior Department under the administration of former President George W. Bush had failed to conduct legitimate environmental reviews before deciding to open up land in and around Alaska for oil and gas lease sales. The court ordered the department to review the effects of oil and gas exploration and drilling on the environment in the region. The ruling came in response to lawsuits filed by three environmental advocacy groups. [See 2008, p. 108F1] According to the court, Interior Department environmental assessments carried out in 2005 on the impact that new leases would have on the region, which included the Chukchi, Beaufort and Bering seas off Alaska’s coast, were “irrational” and failed to address major potential problems, including the effect of underwater noise on nearby wildlife, such as polar bears, whales and seals. The assessments were precursors to a five-year plan intended to allow renewed oil exploration in the region between 2007 and 2012. The Interior Department in 2008 had held a sale for oil and gas leases in parts of the Chukchi Sea, and had accepted bids totaling $2.6 billion. However, the court’s ruling was expected to complicate any future lease sales in the area and to make it more difficult for oil companies to carry out planned exploration and drilling. The Interior Department under the Obama administration had previously announced that it would institute a five-year delay in the sale of leases in the region to allow more inquiries into the environmental effects of oil and gas exploration.

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Shell Suspends Beaufort Sea Plan— Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC,

one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, May 6 told the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) that it had shelved until 2010 its plans to carry out oil exploration on leases it had purchased in the Beaufort Sea. The company said it would also scale down its exploration in the region, lowering the number of oil wells and drilling rigs, as well as the length of the planned drilling program. [See 2008, p. 956E2] The decision followed a November 2008 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., that had invalidated the 409

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company’s 2008 lease purchases in the region. That ruling also struck down its 2007–09 drilling plan on the grounds that Shell had failed to consider how its activities would affect nearby native communities and the area’s bowhead whale population. However, the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals March 6 had vacated the ruling, creating ambiguity about whether Shell would be allowed to drill in the area. n

Politics Nevada GOP Sen. Ensign Admits Affair.

Sen. John Ensign (R, Nev.) June 16 held a news conference in Las Vegas, Nev., to admit that he had conducted an extramarital affair with a woman who had worked on his campaign staff and was married to one of his Senate aides. Ensign, who had recently signaled that he might run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, read a prepared statement and did not take questions from reporters. He said, “Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage. It is the worst thing I have ever done.” [See 2008, p. 554A1; 2006, p. 853E3] A statement issued by Ensign’s office said the affair took place between December 2007 and August 2008. He did not name the woman or her husband, but said they were close friends and neither one had worked for him since May 2008. The senator’s wife, Darlene Ensign, did not join him at the news conference, but she issued a statement saying that they had “come to a reconciliation.” Cynthia Hampton, the former treasurer of Ensign’s political committees, in a statement issued by her lawyer June 17 said she was the woman Ensign had the affair with. The lawyer, Daniel Albregts, said, “It is unfortunate the Senator chose to air this very personal matter, especially after the Hamptons did everything possible to keep this matter private.” Albregts also represented Hampton’s husband, former senior Ensign aide Douglas Hampton. Ensign June 17 resigned as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking position in the Republican Senate leadership team. He was serving his second term in the Senate, and would come up for reelection in 2012. Ensign had chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the caucus fund-raising wing, during the 2008 election cycle. The Hamptons’ son, Brandon Hampton, reportedly had worked for the committee in 2008, during the period of the affair. Ensign, 51, was a former veterinarian and the son of a casino magnate. He had three children and was known as a social conservative. In 1998, while a member of the House, he had called on President Bill Clinton to resign over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. n

Intelligence Warrantless Wiretapping Lawsuits Dismissed.

Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., June 3 ruled 410

that a July 2008 law granting immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that had assisted the Bush administration with its warrantless wiretapping program had not violated the constitution. Walker ordered the dismissal of more than 30 lawsuits filed by civil liberties and privacy advocates. The law had also expanded the government’s ability to use wiretaps and other surveillance without court authorization. The Bush administration had backed the law, and President Barack Obama had voted in favor of it while a member of the Senate. [See p. 243E3] Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the law violated the Constitution by allowing Congress and the Bush administration to determine the constitutionality of actions of the telecommunications companies, a role usually reserved for the courts. They also suggested that upholding the law’s immunity provisions would make it difficult for the public to learn more about the origins and nature of the wiretapping program. Walker noted that Congress had broken new ground by granting “retroactive immunity for past, completed acts committed by private parties acting in concert with government entities that allegedly violated constitutional rights.” But he wrote that since Congress had clearly decided “to create an immunity that will shield the telecommunications company defendants from liability in these actions,” he saw no grounds under which the lawsuits could continue. The plaintiffs in the lawsuits were led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) privacy advocacy group. The first suits had targeted AT&T Inc., but most of the U.S.’s major telecommunications companies had been added as defendants. Tussle Over Secret Document Continues—

In a separate case related to the warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), Walker June 3 declined to sanction the government for refusing to follow his January order to craft a protocol that would allow him and plaintiffs’ lawyers to examine a classified document central to a civil lawsuit. Walker May 22 had demanded that the government respond within a week justifying its refusal, saying he was considering a summary judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor. The plaintiffs in the case, the defunct U.S. division of the Saudi Arabian Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, an Islamic charity, and its former attorneys, said that they had accidentally received a document from the government in 2004 that proved that they had been under surveillance that violated their rights. The government had later seized the document, complicating the plaintiffs’ case. Walker had ruled in January that he and plaintiffs’ attorneys should be allowed to privately review the document, and ordered the government to turn it over to the court, which it had done. However, the government had refused to formulate a plan to allow the attorneys to view the document under necessary security clearances, and had suggested that it might seize the document

from the court if it appeared the document was about to be examined. The Justice Department May 29 argued in a brief that lawyers for the plaintiffs did not have a legitimate need to see the document, and suggested that allowing anyone to view it would threaten national security. Walker June 3 rejected a Justice Department request that the case be suspended. He scheduled a hearing for Sept. 1, and ordered attorneys for the plaintiffs to submit a motion for summary judgment that would lay out their evidence, without the use of the classified document, that the plaintiffs had been illegally wiretapped. n

Homeland Security Cybersecurity Recommendations Released.

The Obama administration May 29 released a report that called for the creation of a “cybersecurity czar” to help guide new security policies for government and private computer networks within the U.S., among other recommendations. The report, which was overseen by acting White House cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway, followed a 60-day policy review. Its public release had reportedly been delayed by disagreements within the Obama administration over how much authority the cybersecurity czar should hold, as well as over the role to be played by the National Security Agency (NSA), a military body, in guarding government computers as a whole. [See p. 342B1; 2007, p. 589C1] The proposed czar would help develop legislative proposals and coordinate the White House response to cyberattacks. However, the report argued that the position should not be given unilateral authority to determine U.S. cybersecurity policies. The report called on the federal government to establish guidelines regarding what role it would play in protecting highvalue, privately held national infrastructure, such as dams and power plants, from infiltration by hackers, as well as other cyberattacks. It also suggested examining the use of tax incentives and regulations to encourage improved security practices among private companies and organizations, and whether to require such groups to report all cybersecurity breaches to law enforcement agencies. President Barack Obama May 29 said he would create a White House cybersecurity office overseen by such a czar, which would report to both the White House’s National Economic Council and National Security Council (NSC). Obama stressed that “our pursuit of cybersecurity will not include—I repeat, will not include—monitoring private sector networks or internet traffic.” Military Cybersecurity Branch Planned—

The Wall Street Journal reported April 22 that the Defense Department was planning to create a special “cyber command” tasked with centralizing responsibility for responding to cyberattacks against U.S. military networks, and for developing the military’s ability to use computer and electronic means to attack enemy systems. The FACTS ON FILE

command reportedly would begin as a subdivision of the military’s Strategic Command before potentially being spun off as an independent unit. National Security Agency (NSA) Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who was reportedly likely to head the new command, May 5 said in testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities that additional training and resources were needed to prepare for future military conflicts involving the use of hacking and other cyberattacks. Alexander April 21 had called for a coordinated approach to government cybersecurity in an appearance in San Francisco, Calif. He said that he favored a system in which the NSA was responsible for military security and the Homeland Security Department protected civilian government networks and computer systems, and stressed that the NSA did “not want to run cybersecurity for the U.S. government.” The NSA had been widely criticized by privacy and civil liberties advocates in 2005 after then–President George W. Bush admitted that he had authorized the agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps and surveillance of terrorism suspects within the U.S. [See 2008, p. 237E3; 2005, p. 905A1] Under the Bush administration, plans were reportedly drawn up to entrust the NSA with the protection of computer systems maintained by the nonmilitary branches of the U.S. government, prompting concern from lawmakers and civil liberties advocates that the NSA’s role in cybersecurity could lead to civil liberties abuses. NSA experts had also been dispatched to assist the Homeland Security Department with its cybersecurity activities. Separately, the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, April 29 issued a report on U.S. policy concerning cyberwarfare that found that the U.S. military lacked clear policies on the subject and warned that its unpreparedness could lead to poor decision-making during a crisis. Fighter Jet Information Stolen—The Journal April 21 reported that hackers based in China had infiltrated computer systems holding information about the Defense Department’s classified Joint Strike Fighter attack jet program. The hackers were thought to have stolen information related to maintenance of the program’s planes, but it was unclear exactly what data had been compromised. The most sensitive information related to the project was reportedly kept on computers with no connection to the Internet, preventing their infiltration. The project had been developed by Lockheed Martin Corp. with the assistance of other defense contractors and foreign governments. Some of the data had reportedly been stolen from computers located in Turkey, a U.S. ally, as well as another unidentified foreign country. Bruce Tanner, the chief financial officer of Lockheed Martin, April 21 confirmed that the project had been under regular assault by hackers but said there had never been a successful June 18, 2009

theft of classified information related to the project. U.S. Power Grid Infiltrated— The Journal reported April 8 that a number of hackers based in China and Russia had infiltrated parts of the U.S. electrical grid and had activated software within the system that could potentially be used to create blackouts or other disruptions in service. Most of the infiltrations were reportedly discovered by U.S. intelligence agencies, rather than by the power companies and regulatory organizations that oversaw the U.S. electrical system. Both China and Russia denied any involvement in the cyberattacks. Separately, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., an independent nongovernmental organization charged with overseeing the U.S. electrical grid, April 7 said that U.S. utility companies had failed to put into place sufficient security measures to counter potential cyberattacks. n

Republic. Kassir, who was scheduled to be sentenced in the case Sept. 2, had been extradited to the U.S. in 2007. Another defendant in the case, British militant Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, was currently in British custody awaiting extradition to the U.S. [See 2007, p. 716B2] The U.S. government Feb. 26 deported convicted terrorist Khalid Danham AlJawari, also known as Khaled Mohammed el-Jassem, to Sudan following his Feb. 19 release from prison. Jawari, who arrived in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, March 3, had been a member of the Palestinian Black September terrorist group and had been convicted in 1993 of plotting a failed 1973 bombing attack in New York City. The U.S. had sent Jawari, who was in his 60s, to Sudan after Jordan and Algeria refused to accept him; Jawari reportedly had family in Jordan. [See 1993, p. 311A1; 1973, p. 267A2] n

Terrorism

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Watch List Problems Widespread. The office

Bible Quotes Found on Iraq Invasion Reports.

of Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine May 6 reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had erroneously kept almost 24,000 people on the U.S. terrorist watch list maintained by its Terrorist Screening Center, and had failed to add some terrorism suspects to the list in an effective and timely manner. According to the report, the FBI’s lapses had endangered U.S. national security and had led to needless delays for thousands of U.S. citizens and residents. [See 2008, pp. 958E1, 503C3; 2007, p. 610E1] The watch list, which was compiled from separate lists overseen by various government agencies, included about 400,000 people as of September 2008. The list consisted of a total of about 1.1 million names, including aliases. The FBI had submitted about 68,000 names for inclusion on the list since 2004. The report found that nearly 24,000 people added to the list by the FBI had been kept on the list even though they were no longer the subject of terrorism investigations or had been investigated in cases unrelated to terrorism. The report reviewed 216 terrorism investigations carried out by the FBI in Minneapolis, Minn., Miami, Fla., and Los Angeles, and found that the bureau failed to promptly place at least 35 suspects linked to those cases on the watch list. FBI Assistant Director John Miller May 6 said the bureau had already implemented 16 recommendations included in the report. He said the FBI remained “committed to improving our watch list policy and practices to ensure the proper balance between national security protection” and effective watch list policies. n News in Brief. A jury in U.S. District Court in New York City May 12 convicted Oussama Abdullah Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swedish citizen, of founding a short-lived terrorist training camp in Oregon in 1999 and operating Web sites instructing others on how to build explosives and create poisons prior to his 2005 arrest in the Czech

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GQ magazine May 17 reported on its Web site that, during the opening days of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the cover sheets of intelligence reports prepared for then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Defense Department officials contained biblical quotations linked to pictures of U.S. troops and military equipment. Media reports warned that the quotations could stoke fears among some Muslims that the U.S. was waging a Christian crusade against Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan. [See p. 367C2; 2006, p. 815C3] The reports were daily briefings known as the “Worldwide Intelligence Update” and were prepared by Maj. Gen. Glen Schaffer, a top-level intelligence officer under Rumsfeld. GQ published several cover sheets, including one showing U.S. troops praying in Iraq, in conjunction with a Biblical quotation from the Book of Isaiah: “Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.” Schaffer had reportedly overruled a Muslim staffer who was offended by the quotations, and others who warned that if the reports were leaked, the resulting bad publicity could harm military operations. GQ suggested that Rumsfeld, who was not known as religiously motivated, used the quotations on the report to gain favor with then-President George W. Bush, who frequently quoted from the Bible. However, former Bush officials cast doubt on that interpretation in a May 18 New York Times article, saying that Bush most likely would not have seen the reports. n News in Brief. Ashton Carter, the undersecretary of defense for acquisitions, May 15 signed a memorandum formally ending a contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to produce a new line of presidential helicopters. The projected cost of the 28 helicopters had risen to almost $13 billion. The Obama administration had cut the program from its budget proposal as part of an effort 411

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to trim unnecessary defense expenditures, but some lawmakers had criticized the decision, saying it would cost jobs and waste the $3.2 billion already spent on the project. [See p. 321E3] The Defense Department inspector general’s office May 4 reported that the department had frequently failed to seek reimbursement for medical care provided by military clinics to private contractors in

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Iraq and Afghanistan. The report said the Defense Department often had not sought compensation for all medical costs from private insurers, as it was required to do by law, in part because there was no unified reimbursement system. A survey of nine military clinics had found a total monthly average of $1.2 million in care provided to contractors. More than 31,000 contractors had reported injuries and 1,400 had been killed since the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003; the report said caring for them had put a strain on facilities meant to treat military personnel. [See p. 126F1] n

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military veterans’ group, the Colorado Veterans Alliance, May 14 announced that it was disbanding after it had discovered that its founder was a fraud. The founder, who had been known as Rick Duncan, had said he was a former Marine captain who had been wounded in Iraq. He had been involved in efforts since 2007 to help veterans receive benefits and to gain better treatment for homeless veterans. In the guise of an openly gay veteran who opposed the Iraq war, he had campaigned for Colorado Democratic political candidates. However, he was discovered to actually be Richard Strandlof, a drifter with no record of military service and a history of mental illness and petty crime. [See p. 244C3] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) May 12 had detained Strandlof after being alerted by the Colorado Veterans Alliance, which had grown suspicious about discrepancies in his story. He was turned over to the Denver, Colo., police and arrested on an outstanding warrant for driving without a license. The FBI was reportedly investigating whether Strandlof had stolen money from organizations with which he had worked, or had otherwise violated federal law. n

Telecommunications Digital TV Transition Goes Smoothly.

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Television stations across the U.S. June 12 switched to digital-only broadcasts and stopped broadcasting analog signals, ahead of a midnight deadline. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials said the transition went relatively smoothly, with about 970 stations making the switch June 12. Some 800 stations, mostly in smaller markets, had already switched in February; the deadline had previously been Feb. 17, but Congress had 412

delayed it in order to give the government and viewers more time to prepare. [See p. 62G3] Television viewers who relied on free over-the-air broadcasts had to buy a digital television or a converter box in order to continue watching, and in some cases also needed to upgrade their antenna. The government had handed out millions of coupons to offset the cost of a conversion box. (Satellite and cable television subscribers were not affected by the switch.) However, the Nielsen Co. estimated that 2.8 million households—out of some 20 million in the U.S. that relied on free over-the-air broadcasts—were unprepared for the switch as of June 10; it was unclear how many lost service when their broadcasters turned off analog broadcasts. Digital broadcasts delivered clearer pictures than analog. Some of the old analog airwaves would be used for a nationwide public-safety communications system, while others had been auctioned off by the government to telecommunications companies to be used for new wireless services. However, critics said the transition hit minorities, the poor and other marginalized communities the hardest, and that interruptions in service deprived viewers of a primary way to receive vital information in emergencies. Also, digital broadcasts were more susceptible to being blocked by tall obstacles than analog, resulting in some viewers having access to fewer channels than before. n

Consumer Affairs Weight-Loss Supplement Warning Set. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

May 1 advised consumers to stop using dietary weight-loss supplements sold under the brand name Hydroxycut after the products were linked to at least one death from liver damage and other serious health problems. Iovate Health Sciences USA Inc. the same day recalled 14 Hydroxycut product lines. The FDA said it had received 23 reports of liver damage, heart problems and a type of muscle damage that could lead to kidney failure from people who had used the products. An estimated nine million packages of Hydroxycut had been sold in 2008. [See 2007, p. 419D3; 2004, p. 327C1] n

Agriculture Annual Corn Planting Decreases. The Department of Agriculture (USDA), in a Pro-

spective Plantings report released March 31, said farmers planned to sow 85 million acres (34.4 million hectares) of corn in 2009, a 1% decrease from 2008. The department attributed the slight decrease in part to lower corn prices. However, the 2009 figure would still be the third-largest corn acreage since 1949, after 2007 and 2008. [See 2008, p. 238C2] The USDA said farmers would plant a record 76 million acres of soybeans, up from 75 million acres in 2008. Farmers were expected to plant 58.6 million acres of wheat, a 7% decrease from 2008, when

63.8 million acres were planted. About 8.8 million acres were expected to be planted with cotton, a 7% decrease from the previous year and the lowest cotton acreage since 1983. The largest declines in cotton production were in Arkansas, California, Louisiana and Mississippi. Farmers were expected to plant 1.1 million acres of peanuts, down 27% from 2008. The USDA attributed the decline to “concerns about future demand” following a recent salmonella outbreak at a major peanut plant. Farmers were also expected to plant 375,000 acres of lentils, a 38% increase from 2008. [See p. 63E1] n

Accidents & Disasters News in Brief. Three workers died and more than 40 people were injured June 9 when a powerful explosion ripped through a Garner, N.C., factory owned by ConAgra Foods

Inc. The federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board June 18 said the explosion was probably caused by a cloud of natural gas that had been released while a contractor cleaned a gas line, but said it was unclear how the gas had ignited. Investigators were also trying to determine why ammonia, a flammable gas, was also released at the time of the explosion. [See 2008, p. 128D2] The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) May 26 cited Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for failing to implement effective crowd control measures.

The citation carried a fine of $7,000, and came in response to the 2008 trampling death of a New York Wal-Mart employee, who was killed when a crowd of thousands knocked him to the ground while pushing through the store’s entrance to get to discounted items. The accident happened on Nov. 28, 2008, or “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving when retailers traditionally held major sales. [See 2008, p. 470E2] The federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board April 23 released a report that said an Aug. 28, 2008, explosion at a chemical plant that killed two employees was an avoidable accident that came as a result of poor management decisions and human error. It concluded that an explosion at Bayer CropScience, an Institute, W.Va., chemical plant owned by German-based Bayer AG, could have been avoided if managers and employees had not deviated from a number of proper procedures. Separately, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations April 21 had said managers at Bayer Cropscience had improperly used U.S. antiterrorism laws to withhold information about the accident from federal agents. [See 2007, p. 192G2] The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) April 2 said accidents on charter flights, which included medical helicopters, tour flights and air taxis, killed 66 people in 2008, the most since 2000. Of those deaths, 15 had been the result of medical-evacuation helicopter accidents. [See 2007, p. 465C2] n FACTS ON FILE

AMERICAS

Canada Soldiers Cleared of Afghan Prisoner Abuse.

Canada’s Defense Department June 9 reported that a three-member board of inquiry had found that Canadian troops had not abused three Afghan detainees captured in 2006. The investigation had been initiated in 2007 after allegations surfaced that Canadian soldiers had abused three men captured in separate incidences near Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Some 2,700 Canadian soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] force fighting the Taliban Islamist fundamentalist group.) [See 2007, p. 83B2] The inquiry board found that one of the detainees had suffered visible injuries while being subdued during his capture, but that the man had received medical care afterwards. n News in Brief. A 21-year-old Canadian man convicted in 2008 of participating in an Islamist plot to attack Parliament and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper

May 22 was freed after a sentencing hearing. The man, who could not be identified under Canadian law since he was a juvenile at the time of his 2006 arrest, was sentenced to a prison term of two and a half years, and was released on time served. Ontario Superior Court Judge John Sproat had concluded during the trial that the 18 defendants accused of planning the attack did not seem competent enough to succeed. [See 2008, p. 728A1] Canadian company AbitibiBowater Inc., the world’s largest newsprint manufacturer, April 16 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, and the following day in Montreal. A series of mergers and acquisitions in recent years had left the company with $8.78 billion in debt. That, coupled with a falling demand for newsprint, was blamed for the company’s financial troubles. AbitibiBowater controlled about 45% of the North American newsprint market, and owned or operated 30 wood-products facilities and 24 pulp and paper facilities worldwide. The company had been formed in October 2007 through the merger of the U.S.’s Bowater Inc. and Canada’s AbitibiConsolidated. [See 1998, p. 360F2] Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney March 20 said British member of Parliament (MP) George Galloway would be denied entry to Canada because he presented a national security threat. Kenney said Galloway had “bragged about providing financial support” for the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which was considered a terrorist group by Canada. Galloway, a staunch critic of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, had donated money and vehicles to the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip. Galloway had been scheduled to give a speech on March 30 in Toronto. [See 2005, p. 774A3; 2003, p. 378C3] A helicopter carrying two crew members and 16 oil worker passengers March June 18, 2009

12 crashed off the coast of the province of Newfoundland en route to offshore oil rigs. Officials March 13 said 17 people had died in the accident, and one person had been rescued. Investigators March 23 said they had discovered damaged equipment in the wreckage of the helicopter that might have led to a sudden loss of oil. [See 1998, p. 722C2] n

and flooding and ordered about 5,000 residents of the town of Lismore and another 9,000 people in nearby Grafton to evacuate to higher ground. Both towns were reportedly hit by floodwaters at least 8 meters (26 ft) deep as a result of the storms. The same day, a man was found dead in the New South Wales town of Raleigh, after his car was submerged in flood waters. n

Venezuela

Cambodia

Chavez Talk Show Special Halted Early. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias May 28–29 hosted two days of his talk show “Alo Presidente,” which was originally scheduled to be broadcast for four consecutive days to mark its 10th anniversary. However, the show May 30 did not air at its scheduled time, with no official explanation given. The government May 31 said the fourth scheduled day of the show had been canceled for “technical reasons.” [See p. 326A2] Chavez was known for hosting marathon sessions of the show, some of which had lasted as long as eight hours. On the show, he had previously taken phone calls from former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz, announced new state programs, fired government officials and even ordered troop movements. Critics of the government said the program was a tool for propaganda and an abuse of state media. During the first two days of the four-day special, Chavez discussed corruption, the global economic crisis and energy conservation, among other topics. Chavez May 29 had traded insults with Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who had traveled to Venezuela to attend a conference of critics of Chavez’s government. During that day’s broadcast, Chavez challenged Vargas Llosa to debate a group of Latin American academics supportive of Chavez. Vargas Llosa said he would agree to a debate only if it were between him and Chavez only. n

Ex-Prison Chief’s Detention Ruled Illegal.

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Australia Storms, Flooding Kill Two, Strand Thousands.

Major storms in Australia’s Queensland and New South Wales states May 19–24 caused heavy flooding that stranded more than 20,000 people and resulted in at least two deaths. The flooding was thought to be the heaviest in the region since 1974. [See 1999, p. 119F1] Queensland Premier Anna Bligh May 20 declared a state of emergency in the southeast section of the state in response to the storms and flooding. At the time of the announcement, more than 28,000 residences and businesses in the state had lost power due to the storm and at least 240 schools had been temporarily closed. The same day, a man in Queensland’s Surfers Paradise was killed when storm winds blew a piece of sheet metal through his window. The government of New South Wales May 22 declared a state of emergency in six afflicted areas in response to the storms

A joint tribunal run by the United Nations and the Cambodian government June 15 ruled that the Cambodian military had illegally detained a Khmer Rouge prison chief for more than eight years following his 1999 arrest, and ordered that any sentence handed down by the tribunal compensate him for time served. The tribunal had been established to prosecute crimes against humanity carried out during the 1975–79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was thought responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million people. [See p. 98E1] The defendant, Kang Kek Ieu, also known as “Duch,” had overseen the regime’s infamous Tuol Sleng prison—also known as Security Prison 21 (S-21)— where more than 14,000 prisoners were thought to have been executed without trial. A spokesman for the tribunal said Duch’s sentence would be reduced by at least 10 years. According to the tribunal, which was known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), Duch’s imprisonment had violated a Cambodian law that allowed for only three years of provisional detention. The ruling made it impossible for Duch, 66, to be sentenced to life in prison. However, the tribunal rejected a request from Duch’s attorneys to free him on bail for the duration of his trial. Tribunal Expected to Try Others—The tribunal was also expected to charge former Khmer Rouge ideological head Nuon Chea and three other surviving Khmer Rouge leaders with war crimes and other crimes against humanity. Other high-ranking leaders, including Khmer Rouge head Pol Pot, had died before they could be prosecuted. The tribunal was only authorized to investigate and prosecute atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975, when the regime took power, and 1979, when it was ousted by a Vietnamese invasion. However, the group was thought to be involved in numerous other killings before and after that period. The tribunal was expected to cost $143 million through 2010, up from an initial budget of $60 million; about $100 million had been raised from donors. However, corruption allegations against the ECCC’s Cambodian staff had complicated further fund-raising efforts. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former mid-level member of the Khmer Rouge who later abandoned the group, March 31 announced that he would oppose any additional indictments of other members of the group, suggesting that added 413

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prosecutions might cause civil unrest. He said, “If as many as 20 Khmer Rouge are indicted to stand trial and war returns to Cambodia, who will be responsible for that?” Analysts said his comments were an attempt to control the purview of the trials to minimize the possibility of a wide-ranging investigation into the actions of former Khmer Rouge members, some of whom were prominent members of the Cambodian government. Testimony in Duch’s Trial Begins—

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Prosecutors March 30 read out their indictment against Duch, which included details from confessions he had made, as well as other evidence against him. According to prosecutors, inmates at Tuol Sleng had been presumed guilty, and prisoners who were known to have been accidentally sent there had been executed to keep the activities at the prison secret. Prisoners were regularly subjected to torture, which included the removal of fingernails and toenails, the use of electric shocks, bag-induced suffocation and beatings. Separately, prosecutors March 31 alleged that Duch had personally overseen “the torture and execution” of Chay Kim Huor, his former mentor. Duch March 31 told the tribunal, “I am responsible for the crimes committed at S21, especially the torture and execution,” but asked the court to “leave an open window for me to seek forgiveness.” He also claimed that he had been ordered to carry out the atrocities by higher-ranking members of the Khmer Rouge, and said he had not dared to disobey their orders because he feared retribution against him and his family. Lawyers for Duch noted that Tuol Sleng was only one of the Khmer Rouge’s 196 prisons and suggested that it was unfair of the tribunal to prosecute him while failing to pursue overseers of the other prisons. Duch Testifies to Executions—Duch June 17 testified that he had personally witnessed only one of the thousands of executions that took place in and around the prison, and that he had visited a notorious so-called “killing field” near Tuol Sleng only once, when directly ordered to do so by his superiors. He said, “I tried to avoid seeing such killing and I turned my back to executions.” He denied claims that he had taught the executioners how to kill, saying, “I did not have to teach the crocodiles how to swim, because crocodiles already know how to swim.” Despite claiming that he had seen only one execution, Duch was able to describe various execution methods, testifying that prisoners were clubbed to death, stabbed in the neck, had their necks stepped on and had been subjected to fatal medical experiments. Duch said Nuon Chea and Khmer Rouge Defense Minister Son Sen, who had died in 1997, had ordered the arrest and execution of more than 100 prison employees—as well as their wives and families— during his time overseeing the prison. He said most of the arrests were in response to small infractions by the prison workers. Duch also testified that Pol Pot had person414

ally ordered the execution of four Western nationals who had been held at the prison. The Associated Press June 17 reported that as many as 11 Westerners could have been killed there, including citizens of the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand. n

China U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner Visits.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner May 31–June 2 made his first visit to China since assuming his post in January. In meetings with Chinese leaders and in public appearances, Geithner focused on areas of bilateral cooperation in addressing the current world financial crisis and economic slowdown, rather than on the confrontation over trade-related disputes that had often characterized talks under the previous administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. [See p. 283B3; 2008, p. 897F1] Chinese officials had recently expressed concern that the U.S.’s soaring federal deficit might lead to inflation and a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, eroding the value of China’s vast holdings of U.S. government securities. In a speech at Beijing University in Beijing, the capital, June 1, Geithner pledged that the U.S. would vigorously tackle its deficits once the current need for stimulative government spending had passed. In response to an audience questioner about China’s investments in the U.S., he called them “very safe.” Geithner also repeated U.S. calls for a more “balanced” economic relationship between the two countries. He said China would have to rely more on domestic consumption, rather than exports, to grow its economy, as U.S. consumers reduced their indebtedness by increasing their saving. He said “exchange-rate flexibility” would aid this shift to domestic demand, touching on a topic of regular discord between the two countries: the U.S.’s contention that China kept its currency, the yuan or renminbi, at an artificially low level to boost its exports. However, he did not dwell on the subject, in contrast to the stir created before he was confirmed as Treasury secretary, when he suggested China was guilty of “manipulating” its currency. The following day, after meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Geithner, speaking to reporters, said the Chinese government had taken initiatives to increase domestic consumer spending, and also that it had exhibited “confidence” in the U.S.’s longrange fiscal stability. n Censoring Software Required for PCs.

The Chinese government June 8 made public an order issued in May requiring makers of personal computers sold in China to be shipped with an Internet-filtering software for blocking material deemed inappropriate by authorities, beginning July 1. The company that developed the software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, said its purpose was limited to blocking pornography. But the order raised concerns among human rights advocates that it could be used by the government, which regularly

censored Internet content, to restrict a wider range of news and information, or to monitor computer users’ activities. [See p. 327B2] The Wall Street Journal June 8 had first reported the order, which had been issued to computer makers May 19. Representatives of several U.S. computer makers June 8 met with U.S. officials to discuss the implications of the order, whose requirements had not been spelled out in detail. A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Beijing, China’s capital, that day expressed concern over “any attempt to restrict the free flow of information.” Compliance by some U.S. Internet companies, including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., with Chinese restrictions on online material had previously raised controversy in the U.S. [See 2006, p. 331C3] Following initial uncertainty over whether computer makers would be required to preinstall the software, or simply include a disk containing it in a computer’s packaging, an official newspaper June 16 quoted an official saying that preinstallation was not compulsory. Human rights activists and technology experts who had studied the Green Dam software code said they found that it included politically related terms on its blacklist, including references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and to Tibet. That was denied by Bryan Zhang, founder of Green Dam’s main developer, Junhui Computer System Engineering Co. An analysis carried out in the U.S. reportedly found that the software could compromise a computer’s defense against malicious external attacks. A U.S. company, Solid Oak Software Inc., June 12 said Green Dam consisted partly of stolen portions of its own CyberSitter filtering software, and that it would seek to legally prevent U.S. companies from including the software on computers they made. Zhang denied Solid Oak’s allegations. n

Japan First-Quarter GDP in Record Fall. Japan’s fi-

nance ministry June 11 said the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had declined at a rate of 3.8% in the first quarter of the year from the previous quarter, or at an annualized 14.2% rate. That was a revision of the initial first-quarter GDP report released May 20, indicating a 15.2% annualized decline. However, even the marginally improved figure was the worst quarterly GDP showing on record. [See p. 252F1] The revision was mainly accounted for by a reduction in the estimated decline in capital expenditures. A 26% plunge in Japanese exports recorded in the original GDP report was unchanged in the new one. More recent economic indicators gave hints of a slightly improving picture. The ministry May 27 reported that exports had risen by 1.9% in April over March, and the economy ministry May 29 reported that industrial production had risen by 5.2% in April over March, the highest rate since 1953. FACTS ON FILE

However, also May 29, the government reported that unemployment in April had reached 5%, its highest level since November 2003. [See 2008, p. 573E3] Extra Budget Passed for Stimulus— Japan’s Diet (parliament) May 30 enacted a 13.93 trillion yen ($144 billion) supplementary budget for the current fiscal year, which had begun April 1, to fund the government’s latest stimulus package, unveiled in April. It was the largest such stimulus plan ever in Japan, and followed two packages enacted in the previous fiscal year. n

Malaysia Perak State Political Dispute Triggers Protest.

Malaysian police May 7 forcibly removed Perak state’s speaker of the assembly, V. Sivakumar, from the assembly building in a dispute over political control of the Perak government. Lawmakers and others inside the legislature building used computers and cell phones to photograph and post blog entries about the expulsion of Sivakumar—a member of the People’s Alliance Coalition—as it occurred. Police that day arrested about 60 protesters, as well as eight People’s Alliance members of the Malaysia’s national parliament, who had gathered outside the Perak legislature. [See p. 223E2] The dispute had been triggered by the February defections of state legislators in Perak from the ruling People’s Alliance to the opposition National Front Coalition, which gave the National Front a majority. The National Front was led by Prime Miniser Najib Razak’s United Malays National Organization (UNMO), and controlled Malaysia’s national parliament. Planning of the defection was attributed to Najib, who was then deputy prime minister. Following the defections, Azlan Shah, the sultan of Perak, dissolved Perak’s government and allowed the National Front to form a new state government. People’s Alliance leaders argued that the sultan had overstepped his constitutional role and said new elections should be held in the state. Sivakumar and other members of the People’s Alliance subsequently refused to give up control of the Perak assembly, triggering Sivakumar’s forcible removal. Courts Weigh In On Dispute—Judge Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim of the Malaysian High Court May 11 ruled that the sultan’s Feb. 5 decision to oust Perak’s chief minister, Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, was illegal, and ordered his immediate reinstatement. Abdul Aziz said that installation of the National Front government in the state had been illegitimate and found that the People’s Alliance should have been allowed to hold a vote of no confidence following the defections. A three-judge panel of the Malaysian Court of Appeal May 22 found that Aziz Abdul had failed to consider all appropriate evidence in the case and overturned his ruling, ordering that Nizar be stripped of his title as chief minister and replaced by Zambry Abdul Kadir, who was affiliated with the National Front. The panel ruled that the June 18, 2009

sultan had acted correctly by appointing Zambry after discovering that the balance of power in the state legislature had changed. n

Myanmar 4,000 Refugees Flee to Thailand. More than 4,000 ethnic Karen June 5–10 fled Myanmar for Thailand, reportedly to escape fighting between the Karen National Union (KNU) rebel group and Myanmar’s military. About 100,000 Karen refugees lived in Thailand, mostly in government camps set near the Myanmar border. The influx of Karen refugees was thought to be the largest since 1997. [See 2008, p. 151E2] The KNU had been at war with Myanmar (then known as Burma) since it gained independence from Britain in 1948. The KNU, which was made up predominantly of Christian Karens, had been weakened in the 1990s by the loss of a group of Buddhist Karens, who had left the KNU and formed the Democratic Buddhist Karen Army (DBKA). The DBKA later allied itself with Myanmar’s military, and was assisting it in its current offensive against the KNU. Analysts suggested that the military’s offensive, which began June 3, was part of a government attempt to quash rebellions and pro-democracy movements in the runup to planned 2010 legislative elections. Myanmar’s government June 18 said it had overrun three KNU positions in eastern Myanmar, and was preparing to attack two nearby KNU bases. It also suggested that the Karen refugees arriving in Thailand were fleeing members of the KNU, and not civilians. KNU military commander Kyaw Ny June 18 announced that the group planned to pull back from one of its bases near the border area in order to minimize losses and put troops to more effective use. The KNU had previously maintained that it had suffered only minimal losses during the fighting. n

Philippines Hostage Rescue Attempt Ambushed. Philippine police officers attempting to rescue a hostage held by the Abu Sayyaf Islamic terrorist group on the island of Jolo May 7 were ambushed by gunmen, resulting in the deaths of four people, including a Philippine police chief, and the wounding of at least three others. The police were reportedly given a false tip about the location of the hostage and then attacked unexpectedly while en route to that location. The gunmen were thought to be linked to Abu Sayyaf; however, media reports differed on whether the ambush was led by members of the group. [See p. 205F2] In January, Abu Sayyaf militants had kidnapped three employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during a visit to Jolo, which was part of the Philippine province of Sulu. The militants had released one hostage on April 2 and a second hostage on April 18. The remaining hostage, Eugenio Vagni of Italy, was reportedly suffering from hypertension and needed surgery to correct a hernia.

Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan April 22 announced that he had ordered troops in the area to carry out an armed rescue of Vagni “at the first opportunity,” after judging that the risks to Vagni of such a rescue were less than those posed by Vagni’s untreated health problems. A group of about 1,000 soldiers were thought to have encircled the group of militants holding Vagni; however, the military had been unable to confirm his exact location or to force the militants to surrender. Local police May 11 said more than 20 alleged Abu Sayyaf militants had been killed in clashes with government forces following the May 7 ambush. n

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Taiwan Ruling Party Leader Visits China. Wu Pohhsiung, the leader of Taiwan’s ruling Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), May 25– June 1 visited China, in the latest manifestation of the two sides’ improved relations under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. Wu met May 26 with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and two days later signed a series of business agreements with the Chinese city of Chongqing valued at 38.3 billion Chinese yuan (US$5.6 billion). Also that day, a delegation to Taiwan from the southern Chinese province of Guangxi signed contracts for purchases in Taiwan valued at US$281 million. [See p. 309C3] Taiwan in April had agreed to allow a wider range of investments from China, and it was reported May 28 that Taiwan planned to begin considering applications for permission to invest from Chinese companies in July, in sectors including manufacturing, travel services and telecommunications companies that did not own infrastructure in Taiwan. The bar on Chinese investment in infrastructure-owning companies was based on national security concerns, and officials said it would preclude the approval of a proposal by China Mobile Ltd., a mainland company, to take a stake in Taiwan’s Far EasTone Telecommunications Co. Leaders Mark Year in Power—Ma May 20 held a news conference marking the first anniversary of his taking office, and highlighting the improvement in cross-strait ties since he succeeded Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The DPP advocated steps toward Taiwanese independence, which infuriated China, which regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province. Ma had emphasized pursuing areas of cooperation with China, particularly on economic matters, leaving more sensitive questions about Taiwan’s political status to the side for the time being. Ma May 20 said his administration had “transformed the strait from a dangerous flashpoint to a conduit of peace and prosperity,” and praised China’s “sophistication and flexibility in policy.” However, he also called on China to remove the numerous missiles it currently deployed targeting Taiwan. Taiwanese Prime Minister Liu Chaoshiuan, in an anniversary interview published May 20 by the Financial Times, said 415

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the government intended to proceed cautiously in accepting new investment from China, noting that it was a politically sensitive issue. Critics of opening up to mainland investment said it would create excessive economic dependence on China and undermine Taiwan’s autonomy. Thousands of DPP supporters May 17 had marched in Taipei, the capital, and the southern city of Kaohsiung, demonstrating against Ma’s policies toward China. n GDP in First-Quarter Record Decline. Taiwan’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 10.24% in the first quarter of 2009 from the year-earlier period, the government reported May 21, the third consecutive quarterly GDP contraction. The decline was the biggest since 1961, when the government began keeping records, and was due largely to a 36.6% fall in exports from the first quarter of 2008. [See p. 135G1] Government officials said the slowdown was worse than they had forecast, but said they believed the economy had reached its bottom, and would soon show some improvement. n

Thailand Gunmen Kill 11 in Mosque Attack. A group

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of masked gunmen June 8 shot and killed 11 people and wounded another 19 in an attack in a mosque in Thailand’s southern Narathiwat province. The shootings, which took place while about 50 people were inside the mosque for evening prayers, were thought to be part of an ongoing Islamist insurgency in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. More than 3,500 people had been killed in the region by Muslim militants or the Thai military since the renewed insurgency began in 1994. [See p. 52A1; 2008, p. 981G3] Thai officials June 8 gave conflicting reports about whether two or as many as five gunmen had been involved in the shooting. There were reportedly few witnesses to the attack, as the gunmen had opened fire while standing behind the people praying in the mosque. Gen. Anupong Paoginda, the head of Thailand’s military, June 9 visited the region in response to the attack and denied rumors that the killings had been carried out by members of the military. The attackers were thought to have targeted the mosque so as to suggest that the military was behind it. Officials said that no group had taken responsibility for the attack, as was common in such incidents. Separately, suspected insurgents June 6 had gunned down a teacher in nearby Pattani province, and two men June 7 in Narathiwat. Insurgents were also suspected in connection with a June 7 car bombing that killed one and injured 19 as well as a roadside bomb attack June 8 that injured nine Thai soldiers. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported June 8 that a total of 27 people had been killed in insurgent attacks in the area since the beginning of June. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva June 8 traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, to discuss the state of Thai416

land’s three southern provinces with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. The three provinces had been incorporated into Thailand in 1902 but maintained strong cultural links to nearby Malaysia. Najib and Abhisit reportedly discussed measures to improve the economic condition of the region and its residents, including a plan in which Malaysia would fund scholarships for Thai Muslim students in the three provinces. Separately, Abhisit’s cabinet June 9 approved a bill that would provide 1.5 billion Thai baht ($42 million) for funds to compensate victims of the insurgency and to increase the compensation of government officials in the area. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Italy Libyan Leader Qaddafi Visits Rome. Libyan

leader Muammer el-Qaddafi June 10–12 visited Rome, the capital of Italy. It was Qaddafi’s first visit to Italy. He had made a handful of visits to Western Europe since international sanctions on Libya were lifted in 2003. In that year, Libya had agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program, renounce terrorism and pay $1.5 billion in compensation to families of victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. [See p. 262G1; 2008, p. 976E1; 2007, p. 821B1] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi greeted Qaddafi at Rome’s Ciampino airport. Qaddafi made a statement about Italy’s colonial rule of Libya from 1911 to 1943. He wore, pinned to the chest of his military uniform, a photograph of Libyan nationalist leader Omar al-Mukhtar, who was executed by the Italians in 1931. Berlusconi and Qaddafi in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, in August 2008 had signed an agreement under which Italy would pay Libya $5 billion in reparations over 20 years for the colonial occupation, for which Berlusconi made an apology. In return for the reparations, Libya had agreed to give Italian companies priority in contracts for Libyan infrastructure projects. Libya also agreed to accept the return of African migrants caught in the Mediterranean Sea by Italian naval patrols. Human rights groups had criticized the agreement, saying Italy was using it to avoid its humanitarian obligations. Italian and Libyan officials during Qaddafi’s visit discussed possible investments in Italian companies by Libya’s $70 billion sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority. Italy was Libya’s largest trading partner. Qaddafi June 12 addressed members of Italy’s main business association, Cofindustria. He said, “Italian companies will have priority in Libya and we will not favor the supply of oil and gas to other countries at the expense of Italy.” Qaddafi’s visit drew protests over his human rights record from some Italian opposition politicians, and from the Jewish community. Libya in the 1960s and 1970s had expelled its Jewish citizens and seized

their property. Many Libyan Jews had resettled in Italy. Left-wing senators June 11 blocked Qaddafi from speaking in the Senate chamber. Students at Rome University jeered him at an event that day. At Qaddafi’s request, the Italian government organized a meeting between him and several hundred Italian professional women, hosted by Italian Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna. Qaddafi’s rambling remarks on the subject of gender equality and differences drew both applause and boos. As was his custom while traveling abroad, during his visit to Rome Qaddafi stayed in his own large Bedouin tent, pitched in a public park. As usual, his entourage included dozens of female bodyguards. n Berlusconi Visits Obama, Accepts Detainees.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi June 15 visited U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C. Berlusconi agreed to accept three detainees from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for transfer to Italy. It was not disclosed whether they would be released for resettlement in Italy or kept in prison there. Italian newspapers reported that the three detainees were Tunisians. [See pp. 416C2, 391B2] The European Union that day had announced an agreement with the U.S., under which the EU’s 27 member nations, including Italy, would be free to decide for themselves whether to accept Guantanamo detainees. Obama had pledged to close Guantanamo, but had found it difficult to persuade European allies to accept some of the 230 remaining detainees for resettlement. Obama and Berlusconi also discussed preparations for a Group of Eight (G-8) summit of leading economic powers to be held in July in L’Aquila, a city in the central Abruzzo region of Italy, which had been hit by a severe earthquake in April. [See p. 253C3] n

Moldova Parliament Dissolved, Elections Scheduled.

Outgoing Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin of the Communist Party June 15 dissolved the country’s 101-seat parliament and scheduled fresh parliamentary elections for July 29. The move came after Communist members of parliament had twice fallen a single vote short of electing Voronin’s preferred successor, Zinaida Greceanii, to the presidency. (Under Moldovan law, the president was elected by the parliament.) Voronin had served two presidential terms, the maximum allowed under Moldovan law. [See p. 397D2] Opposition lawmakers had boycotted both rounds of the presidential election because they claimed parliamentary elections conducted in April had been rigged to favor the Communist Party. Riots had followed those elections, in which government buildings were set on fire and at least one protester was killed. FACTS ON FILE

Voronin said, “The atmosphere for this election is much worse than it was before the April election. The opposition wants destabilization, chaos and the defeat of Moldova.” Moldova had been governed by the Communist Party since 2001. n

o Isa Tochiev, head of the internal affairs department of Ingushetia’s antinarcotics office, June 3 died after his car exploded in Nazran. n

Russia

Koenigsegg to Acquire Saab from GM.

Three Caucusus Officials Killed. Three senior officials June 5–13 were assassinated in separate incidents in southern Russia’s restive Caucasus region. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, at a June 9 meeting of the Russian Security Council in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a republic in the Russian Caucasus, blamed the violence on “freaks” who had traveled to Russia from other countries, and added that the Caucasian region’s instability was exacerbated by endemic corruption, unemployment and poverty. Medvedev said that since the beginning of 2009, 308 terrorist acts had occurred in the Russian Caucasus, and 75 police officers and 48 civilians had been killed. Police in turn had killed 112 alleged “bandits.” Violence in the Russian Caucasus was mainly perpetrated both by militant Islamists and feuding locals. [See p. 378F2] The Security Council meeting followed the June 5 assassination of Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgirey Magomedtagirov, who was known for his hardline tactics against Islamist militants. He was shot dead by a sniper while attending a wedding at a Makhachkala restaurant. Abdurazak Abakarov, administrative head of Dagestan’s interior ministry, was also killed in the attack, and eight police officers were wounded. Medvedev, at the Security Council meeting, said the assassination was a “gauntlet thrown down to authority,” and urged police to “find the criminals and bring them to justice.” In Ingushetia, another republic in the Russian Caucasus, Aza Gazgireyeva, deputy chief justice of the Ingush Supreme Court, June 10 was shot dead as she dropped off her children at school in Nazran, the region’s main city. At least five other people were wounded in the attack, including a one-year-old girl. Also in Nazran, former Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev June 13 was shot dead outside his home. Other News—In other southern Russia news: o Dagestani officials June 12 said the police chief of the Sovetsky district in Makhachkala had been shot dead that morning as he drove to work. Separately, officials the same day said one police officer and two militants were killed in a shootout in Makhachkala. o The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, June 11 ordered Russia to pay $224,000 to relatives of five Chechen men who had disappeared in 2001 after being detained by members of the Russian military. Chechnya was a republic in the Russian Caucasus. [See p. 378C3] o Timur Ugurchiev, a court bailiff, June 5 was shot dead in Nazran while driving to work. June 18, 2009

Sweden Bankrupt U.S. automaker General Motors Corp. (GM) June 16 said it had agreed to sell its Swedish unit, Saab Automobile AB, to small Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg Group AB. Saab had been unprofitable for several years, and had declared bankruptcy in Sweden in February. [See p. 365A1] GM earlier in June had agreed to sell its largest European unit, Germany-based Adam Opel, to a group that was led by Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc. and included major Russian companies. The completion of the Saab deal would depend on a $600 million loan from the European Union’s European Investment Bank, to be guaranteed by the Swedish government. GM pledged additional financing and technological assistance. Some analysts questioned whether the planned merger was a good fit. Koenigsegg employed just 45 people and made fewer than 20 high-performance cars a year, selling them for at least $1 million each. Saab had sold nearly 94,000 cars in 2008 and employed about 3,400 people, most of them at a factory in Sweden. n

European Business News More Bank Losses Forecast. The European Central Bank (ECB) June 15 said it expect-

ed that banks operating in the 17 countries that used the euro currency, known collectively as the eurozone, would have to write down another $283 billion in losses by the end of 2010. The ECB, in its Financial Stability Review, estimated that eurozone banks would lose a total of $649 billion due to the global financial crisis, noting that $365 billion in losses had already been reported. [See pp. 404C3, 311B2] The report said, “Hard-to-value assets have remained on bank balance sheets and the marked deterioration in the economic outlook has created concerns about the potential for sizeable loan losses.” The ECB forecast was less pessimistic than a report in April by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which had estimated that eurozone banks would lose another $750 billion by the end of 2010. The IMF projected that total bank losses in the U.S., Europe and Japan could reach $4.1 trillion. [See p. 283A2] The ECB encouraged banks to accept emergency funds from their national governments in order to build up capital reserves that would allow them to withstand further write-downs and resume normal lending. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, meeting June 13 in Lecce, Italy, with counterparts from other member nations of the Group of Eight (G-8) economic powers, urged European officials to require

banks to undergo “stress tests” to determine whether they had sufficient capital to absorb heavier losses. The U.S. Treasury had conducted such tests for U.S. banks and publicly announced how much more capital each bank should raise. But European officials, including German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, opposed stress tests, saying that it would be wrong to impose one set of standards on banks from different countries, and that disclosure of adverse results could worsen the crisis. The ECB projected that the eurozone’s combined gross domestic product (GDP) would contract by about 4.6% in 2009, and by 0.3% in 2010, with growth starting to resume only in mid-2010. n

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India News in Brief. The Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, June 3 elected its first female speaker. Meia Kumar, 64, had

been nominated by the ruling Congress party, and received support from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She had been elected to Parliament five times and had also served as a minister of social justice. She was a dalit, a member of a lower Hindu caste whose members were also known as untouchables. Analysts said Kumar’s election as speaker would strengthen Congress’s image as a supporter of gender and caste equality. [See p. 382A1; 2007, p. 487D1] Indian paramilitary troops May 25 were deployed to the northern state of Punjab to quell riots sparked by the killing of a Sikh religious leader the previous day in Vienna, Austria. At least one person was killed in the riots, and a curfew was imposed in several towns in Punjab. The Sikh leader, Sant Rama Nand, died after gun- and knifewielding assailants stormed a Sikh temple, clashing with worshippers and leaving at least 15 injured, including another leader, Sant Niranjan Dass. The assailants were thought to belong to a rival Sikh sect, and Viennese officials said six suspects had been arrested. Nand was a member of the Ravidass sect of Sikhism, which had historical connections to Hinduism’s dalit caste. [See 2008, p. 667C2] Muhammad Ajmal Kasab May 6 pleaded not guilty to 86 terrorism-related charges stemming from a November 2008 attack that killed 170 people in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. Kasab was the sole surviving member of a group of 10 men accused of carrying out the attack. The trial had begun April 17, when prosecutors charged that Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, and his partners were members of Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and had received support from Pakistani military and intelligence agencies. Pakistan had acknowledged that the attack had been partly hatched on its soil, but denied that military or intelligence officials had aided the attackers. Kasab faced the death penalty if convicted of the charges, which included 417

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murder and waging war against India. [See pp. 383A1, 158D1] Automaker Tata Motors Ltd. March 23 launched the sale of the Tata Nano, which had been billed as the cheapest mass-produced car in the world when it was first unveiled in 2008. The company said a Nano without amenities would sell for the equivalent of about $2,000, and that a lottery system would be used to determine which customers received the first 100,000 cars produced. The Nano sale launch had been eagerly anticipated in India, where an expanding middle class had created a great demand for affordable vehicles. Tata also said it was considering launching a version of the Nano in the U.S. and Europe as early as 2011. [See 2008, p. 778D2] n

Pakistan Military Prepares Operation in Tribal Areas.

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Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani military, June 16 said the army had been given orders to prepare an operation against Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban in the northwestern tribal area of South Waziristan. The military since April had deployed 22,000 troops to battle Taliban militants in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and since then had been expected to expand the operation to the Taliban’s stronghold in the tribal areas, a lawless region wedged between the NWFP and Afghanistan. [See p. 382A2] One of the military’s central targets was Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Tehreek-eTaliban, an umbrella organization for various Islamic militant groups in Pakistan. Mehsud was thought to be the mastermind behind dozens of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. [See pp. 382C3, 228E3; 2007, p. 857A1] Mehsud also had ties to international terrorist network Al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s Taliban, which was currently battling U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in that country. The U.S. had long pressured Pakistan to go after Mehsud, since his fighters conducted cross-border raids against U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and he allowed the Afghan Taliban and other extremists to use the tribal areas as a safe haven. The Pakistani government had resisted U.S. pressure, but changed course following the Taliban’s incursions into the NWFP, which led to a strong public backlash against the group. The Taliban in recent weeks had also intensified a violent campaign that it described as a retaliation for the NWFP operation, further angering the public. The Taliban June 13 claimed responsibility for a June 9 truck bombing in the NWFP capital of Peshawar, and the June 12 killing of a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric in the eastern province of Punjab. [See below] Prior to Abbas’s announcement, areas in South Waziristan had been shelled by the military, in what were described as isolated retaliations for the recent terrorist attacks. A suspected U.S. Predator drone aircraft 418

June 14 killed as many as five militants in South Waziristan. Analysts said the military would face challenges conducting a full-scale operation in the tribal areas, a mountainous terrain that was not conducive to traditional means of warfare. The government said it would set up refugee camps near South Waziristan to house as many as 200,000 civilians who could be displaced by the fighting there. Military Sees Success in Swat— Abbas June 16 said a military operation in the Swat Valley region of the NWFP had largely succeeded in expelling Taliban insurgents from populated areas. Many militants had fled the NWFP, and there were reports that they were streaming into South Waziristan and other tribal areas. President Asif Ali Zardari June 12 had said the army would establish a permanent garrison in Swat to ensure the region’s long-term security. As many as 2.5 million civilians had been displaced by the fighting in the NWFP. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in an interview published June 15 by Britain’s Financial Times, said Pakistan would need $2.5 billion in foreign aid to provide emergency relief to civilians, and rebuild Swat and other NWFP areas. The military June 10 said it had killed 70 militants in fighting the previous day in the NWFP district of Bannu, which bordered South Waziristan. Anti-Taliban Cleric Killed in Punjab— A suicide bomber June 12 detonated his charge at a mosque in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, killing Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric who had been an outspoken opponent of the Taliban. Six others were also killed in the blast. A separate suicide bomber that day killed at least three people and injured dozens more at a mosque in the NWFP town of Nowshera. Naeemi had condemned the use of suicide bombers and other violent tactics of the Taliban. He had described the Taliban as a “stigma on Islam,” and had been a supporter of the military operation in the NWFP. Following his death, hundreds of Naeemi’s supporters protested at his mosque and chanted, “Death to the Taliban.” There were protests the next day in Lahore and the southern city of Karachi. Zardari June 13 in a televised address denounced Naeemi’s killing and pledged to defeat the Taliban. Bombing at Luxury Hotel Kills 18— A powerful truck bomb June 9 exploded outside the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, killing as many as 18 people and wounding more than 50. The truck was preceded by a gang of armed Taliban militants, who had opened fire on hotel security guards to clear a path for the truck, which was carrying an estimated 1,000 pounds (540 kg) of explosives. [See p. 382B3; 2008, p. 685B3] The Pearl Continental was one of Peshawar’s few five-star hotels, catering to foreigners and affluent Pakistanis. At the time of the bombing, as many as 30 United Nations aid workers were residing in the hotel, part of a delegation sent to the NWFP to assist civilians displaced by the military

operation in Swat. The U.N. said two foreign employees had been killed, a Serbian and a Filipino. The method of attack recalled a May truck bombing at the Lahore headquarters of Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, in which a group of Taliban gunmen were followed by a truck packed with explosives. The attack was also similar to a 2008 bombing at the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. Villagers Take up Arms Against Taliban—

As many as 3,000 villagers in the Upper Dir district of the NWFP June 5 formed a tribal militia, known in Pakistan as a lashkar, to combat Taliban militants in the area. As of June 17, at least 25 militants had been killed, and 20 militant hideouts eliminated, news agency Agence-France Presse reported that day. The lashkar was formed following a suspected Taliban suicide bombing June 5 at a mosque in Upper Dir that killed at least 30 people. [See 2008, p. 798F1] Tribes in the past had formed lashkars to fight Taliban militants, who were known to force villagers to provide them with shelter and food. But local efforts to combat the Taliban rarely received military support, and the lashkars were often crushed or intimidated into backing down. Additionally, the Taliban had taken to bombing large assemblies of villagers, known as jirgas, that were called to debate the establishment of a lashkar. The military reportedly provided the Upper Dir villagers with air support. It was reported that villagers were debating whether to invite more military involvement, which could help them banish the Taliban, but could also exact a higher civilian death toll due to the army’s use of blunter tactics, such as shelling and bombing. Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o Zardari June 16 met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia. It was the first time they had met since a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed 170 people. India had blamed Pakistani groups for the attack, which had stalled a peace process between the two historical rivals. Singh reportedly told Zardari, “I am happy to meet you, but my mandate is to tell you that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism.” However, that the meeting was held at all was seen a step toward reconciliation. [See p. 406E2] o The U.S. House June 11 voted, 234– 185, to pass legislation that would see the U.S. provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year in nonmilitary aid over the next five years. The bill also included $300 million in counterinsurgency aid for 2010, which came on top of the $400 million included in a different war-funding bill moving through the U.S. Congress. The House bill put some restrictions on the aid, including a requirement that U.S. President Barack Obama annually certify that Pakistan was cooperating to prevent nuclear proliferaFACTS ON FILE

tion, and that it was making gains against terrorist groups. The Obama administration reportedly opposed those restrictions. [See p. 355A2] o Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, June 5 ended a three-day visit to Pakistan, during which he toured refugee camps in the NWFP. At a press conference June 5, he emphasized the importance of allowing refugees to return home quickly and safely, in order to “consolidate the gains” of the military operation. Holbrooke had argued that keeping the refugees at the camps for an indefinite period of time could breed resentment against the government. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Lakers Beat Magic for NBA Title Bryant Named MVP; Jackson Wins 10th.

The Los Angeles Lakers June 14 defeated the Orlando Magic, 99–86, in Orlando, Fla., to capture the National Basketball Association (NBA) title. The Lakers, coached by Phil Jackson, won the best-of-seven Finals series, four games to one. [See p. 331G3; 2008, p. 439A1] Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the NBA Finals. Bryant averaged 32.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game during the series. Bryant’s latest award capped a year of accolades for the 30-year-old superstar that also included the 2007–08 league MVP, a 2008 Olympic gold medal and the 2009 All-Star Game co-MVP. [See p. 159B1] The victory brought the Lakers franchise its 15th NBA championship, second only to the Boston Celtics’ 17 titles. Both Bryant and Jackson had been part of the Lakers’ championship run earlier in the decade that saw the team capture three straight titles from 2000 to 2002. The duo of Bryant and Jackson had also returned twice to the NBA Finals in the Lakers’ unsuccessful bids of 2004 and 2008. [See 2002, p. 467A2] Jackson, having led the Chicago Bulls to six titles, won his 10th career championship, surpassing legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach to become the most decorated NBA coach of all time. Todd Musburger, Jackson’s agent, shot down speculation that the 63-year-old Hall of Fame coach was planning to retire by announcing that Jackson planned to return to the Lakers for the final season in his contract. [See 2007, p. 815D3] The Magic, coached by Stan Van Gundy, were still seeking the franchise’s first NBA title. The team was part of the league’s expansion in 1989, and had appeared in the Finals once before, in 1995, when they were swept by the Houston Rockets. [See 1995, p. 436A3] Lakers Take Two Overtime Contests—

Behind a 40-point performance from Bryant, the Lakers June 4 easily defeated the Magic, 100–75, in game one of the Finals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. The Lakers dominated in nearly every facet June 18, 2009

of the game, including a 55–41 advantage in rebounding, typically a category of strength for Orlando, who had the defensive player of the year, Dwight Howard, starting at center. Orlando’s performance improved on June 7 in Los Angeles, but the Magic still lost, 101–96, in overtime. With the game tied at 88 and 0.6 seconds remaining in regulation, the Magic had a chance to win, but rookie guard Courtney Lee missed a difficult layup off an inbounds pass from forward Hedo Turkoglu. The Lakers’ big men took control in overtime, with forward Pau Gasol scoring five straight points and center Lamar Odom sealing the win with two free throws. The Magic June 9 earned the franchise’s first win in the NBA Finals, with a 108–104 victory over Los Angeles at Amway Arena in Orlando, Fla. The Magic set a Finals record by shooting 63% from the field during game three. Howard and forward Rashard Lewis led the team with 21 points each. Los Angeles June 11 won again in overtime, 99–91, in game four at Amway Arena. Lakers veteran point guard Derek Fisher hit a three-pointer to tie the game at the end of regulation, as well as a key three-point shot in overtime to take the lead. Fisher, who had been a teammate of Bryant on the Lakers during the 2000–02 title run, had earned a reputation for making clutch shots in the playoffs throughout his career. The Lakers took a 10-point lead over the Magic into the locker room at halftime of game five June 14 in Orlando. Lakers forward Trevor Ariza sank two three-pointers during a 16–0 run that closed out the first half. The Magic could only briefly cut into the double-digit deficit during the third quarter. Bryant contributed 30 points in the game. The Lakers won, 99–86, to clinch their Finals victory. Victory celebrations in Los Angeles that night turned violent, as revelers threw debris at police officers, injuring five. Several small fires were lit and vehicles were vandalized outside the Staples Center. Police said they made about 25 arrests for various infractions, including arson and disturbing the peace. Western Conference Playoffs—The Lakers May 29 beat the Denver Nuggets, 119– 92, in Denver, Colo., to capture the Western Conference title, four games to two. The physical play of the Nuggets tested Los Angeles for much of the series, but in the end Bryant delivered a 35-point, 10assist performance in the clinching game to lead the Lakers to the Finals for the second straight season. The Lakers had struggled with the injury-ridden Houston Rockets in the secondround of the playoffs, before finally finishing them off, 89–70, in game seven May 17. The Lakers April 27 had defeated the Utah Jazz, 107–96, to easily win their firstround series, four games to one. Eastern Conference Playoffs—The Magic May 30 beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 103–90, in Orlando to win the Eastern

Conference title, four games to two. Howard’s 40 points in the deciding game, along with the three-point shooting accuracy of his teammates, proved too much for the top-seeded Cavaliers. League MVP LeBron James June 4 was fined $25,000 for skipping a post-game press conference following the loss in game six. Orlando May 17 had defeated the Celtics, 101–82, in Boston, Mass., in the deciding game seven of the second-round series to eliminate the defending champions. The visiting Magic April 30 had defeated the Philadelphia 76ers, 114–89, to win the first-round series, four games to two. Howard was forced to sit out the clinching game, because he was serving a suspension for an elbow thrown during game five. Other News—In other NBA news: o Former Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan June 1 was named head coach of the 76ers. Interim coach Tony DiLeo May 11 had stepped down and returned to his front office responsibilities. [See 2008, p. 994D3] o The Cavaliers May 24 agreed to sell a minority ownership stake in the franchise and its arena to a Chinese investment group, led by JianHua Huang, who had brokered sponsorship deals with several other U.S. sports franchises, including the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). The agreement was subject to approval from the NBA board of governors. o Bulls director of player personnel Gar Forman May 20 was promoted to general manager, taking over the job from John Paxson, who kept his position as executive vice president for basketball operations. [See 2003, p. 336E1] n

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Penguins Defeat Red Wings to Win Stanley Cup Pittsburgh Triumphs in Seven Games. The Pittsburgh Penguins June 12 won the Stanley Cup, the championship of the National Hockey League (NHL), defeating the Detroit Red Wings, 2–1, in Detroit, Mich. Pittsburgh won the best-of-seven series, four games to three, avenging its loss to Detroit in the 2008 Stanley Cup finals. [See 2008, p. 403A2] The young Penguins team, captained by 21-year-old Sidney Crosby and coached by Dan Bylsma, claimed the franchise’s third Stanley Cup, after victories in 1991 and 1992. (Those teams had been led by the legendary Mario Lemieux, who was currently a co-owner of the team; he became the first person to win the Stanley Cup as both a player and owner.) Penguins center Evgeni Malkin, who led all scorers with 14 goals and 22 assists in 24 playoff games, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player (MVP) of the postseason. Malkin, 22, had led the NHL in scoring in the regular season. [See p. 299E2] Bylsma had taken over as Penguins coach in February, when the team was in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. In his first NHL head-coaching stint, he turned the team around and led them to the fourth 419

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seed in the conference playoffs. He became just the second rookie coach to win a Stanley Cup after taking over in the middle of the season; Al MacNeil of the Montreal Canadiens had done so in 1971. [See p. 299F2] Detroit, coached by Mike Babcock, had been vying for the team’s 12th Stanley Cup, and its fifth in 11 seasons. Red Wings Take First Two Games—The Red Wings May 30 won the first game of the series, 3–1, in front of a hometown crowd. Detroit defenseman Brad Stuart opened the scoring with six minutes and 22 seconds left in the first period, with a shot the deflected into the net off the skate of Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Pittsburgh tied the score when forward Ruslan Fedotenko beat Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood with a backhand shot. However, Red Wings forward Johan Franzen restored his team’s lead with a goal late in the second period, and rookie forward Justin Abdelkader beat Fleury early in the third period to give Detroit a 3–1 lead. The Red Wings May 31 took a twogames-to-none series lead with a 3–1 victory in Detroit. Malkin gave the Penguins an early lead with a power-play goal late in the first period, but Detroit took the lead in the second period with goals by rookie defenseman Jonathan Ericsson and center Valtteri Filppula. Abdelkader sealed the victory with an early third-period goal. As the series moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., for games three and four, the Penguins rallied. The Penguins June 2 defeated the Red Wings, 4–2, to win the third game. Unheralded Penguins center Maxime Talbot opened the scoring 4:48 into the game, but then the Red Wings gained a 2–1 advantage with goals from center Henrik Zetterberg and Franzen. Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang evened the score at 2–2 at 15:57 of the first period. After a scoreless second period, veteran Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar scored the go-ahead goal 10:29 into the third period. Talbot added an empty-net goal at 19:03 after Osgood was pulled for an extra attacker. The Penguins June 4 claimed game four, winning 4–2. The score was tied, 1–1, after the first period. Stuart scored for Detroit in the first minute of the second period, but Pittsburgh then broke out with three goals in just under six minutes, by center Jordan Staal, Crosby and center Tyler Kennedy. The series returned to Detroit for the fifth game June 6, with the Red Wings welcoming the return of their top scorer, Pavel Datsyuk, who had missed seven games after bruising a foot in the conference finals. Detroit trounced the Penguins, 5–0. After a goal by forward Daniel Cleary in the first period, Filppula, defensemen Niklas Kronwall and Brian Rafalski, and center Henrik Zetterberg scored for Detroit in the second. Bylsma then removed Fleury and replaced him with little-used backup Mathieu Garon. The Penguins June 9 staved off elimination with a 2–1 victory on home ice. Staal gave Pittsburgh a 1–0 lead 51 seconds into the second period. Kennedy increased the lead to 2–0 5:35 into the second period, but 420

Detroit forward Kris Draper cut the deficit in half at 8:01. The Penguins then fended off a furious onslaught by the Red Wings for the remainder of the game, which included several remarkable saves by Fleury and a goal-line stop by Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi. The Penguins’ win in game seven June 12 was the first road victory for either team in the series. After a scoreless first period, Talbot beat Osgood to put his team ahead 1:13 into the second. Crosby suffered a leg injury about five minutes later, and was unable to play for all but 32 seconds of the rest of the game. Talbot beat Osgood again at 10:07 of the second period, after a twoon-one break. The Red Wings cut their deficit in half with a goal by Ericsson with 6:07 remaining in the third period. But Detroit could not get the tying goal past Fleury, who made 23 saves, including several in the waning minutes of the game to preserve the Penguins’ lead. Earlier Eastern Conference Results—

The Penguins May 26 defeated the Carolina Hurricanes, 4–1, in Raleigh, N.C., to sweep the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals. Pittsburgh May 13 had easily defeated the hometown Washington Capitals, 6–2, to win the Eastern Conference semifinals, four games to three. The series featured a marquee matchup between Crosby and Malkin for the Penguins, and 2008 NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin for the Capitals. In the first round of the playoffs, the visiting Penguins April 25 beat the rival Philadelphia Flyers, 5–3, to win the series, four games to two. Earlier Western Conference Results—

The Red Wings May 27 beat the visiting Chicago Blackhawks, 2–1, in overtime to win the best-of-seven Western Conference finals, four games to one. In the Western Conference semifinals, Detroit May 14 had defeated the Anaheim Ducks, 4–3, at home to win the series, four games to three. In the first round, the Red Wings April 23 beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 6–5, in Columbus, Ohio, to sweep the series. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Malawi’s highest court June 12 overturned an April ruling by a lower court judge denying pop singer Madonna’s application to adopt a second Malawian child, three-yearold Chifundo “Mercy” James. The high court ruled that Madonna’s charitable aid to Malawian orphans qualified her as a resident of the country, enabling her to meet the residency requirement for adoption. [See p. 231D2] Choreographer Merce Cunningham, 90, whose New York City–based Merce Cunningham Dance Company continued to introduce new work by him decades after its founding, June 9, through his Cunningham Dance Foundation, announced plans to set up a trust to protect his legacy. Those plans, however, called for the dissolution

of his company after his death, or if he became permanently incapacitated. His dances would thereafter be licensed to, and performed by, other troupes. [See 2000, p. 880F2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BERNSTEIN, Peter L(ewyn), 90, investment adviser and economic historian; his books included Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street (1991) and Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (1996); born Jan. 22, 1919, in New York City; died June 5 at a New York hospital, of pneumonia contracted after he broke a hip. BOGLE, Bob (born Robert Lenard), 75, original lead guitarist of the Ventures, the influential 1960s instrumental rock band whose hits included “Walk— Don’t Run” (1960) and a 1969 version of the “Hawaii Five-O” television show theme; the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008; born Jan. 16, 1934, in Wagoner, Okla.; died June 14 at a hospital in Vancouver, Wash., of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. [See 2008, p. 172C1] BRINKER, Norman Eugene, 78, Dallas, Texas– based restaurateur; after he bought Chili’s, a mediumsized Texas restaurant chain, in 1983, he transformed it into Brinker International Inc., one of the world’s largest restaurant companies, with well over a thousand eateries in the U.S. and abroad; in the 1960s, as the owner of the Steak and Ale chain, he was credited with the introduction of the salad bar as a casual-dining option; in the 1970s, he developed the Bennigan’s Grill and Tavern chain, known for its “fern bars”; born June 3, 1931, in Denver, Colo.; died June 9 at a hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., of a form of pneumonia linked to his having aspirated food days earlier while dining out with his wife. [See 1995, p. 125C2] COLESCOTT, Robert Hutton, 83, figurative painter who represented the U.S. in a solo exhibition at the prestigious Venice Biennale art fair in 1997, becoming the first African American artist to do so; he was known for reworking famous paintings by substituting black figures for white ones; perhaps his most famous such work was George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From an American History Textbook (1975), his remake of an 1851 painting by Emmanuel Leutze in which he replaced Revolutionary War hero George Washington with pioneering black scientist George Washington Carver; born Aug. 26, 1925, in Oakland, Calif.; died June 4 at his home in Tucson, Ariz., after battling a Parkinsonian syndrome. COWLES, Fleur (born Florence Freidman), 101, journalist, author and socialite who numbered celebrities from all walks of life among her friends and acquaintances; while married to publishing magnate Gardner Cowles Jr., the third of her four husbands, she created and edited Flair magazine, a short-lived publication (1950–51) that incorporated such lavish and innovative features as fold-outs, pop-ups and removable reproductions of artworks; a limited edition of an anthology of work from the magazine, The Best of Flair, appeared in 1996; she herself wrote a number of books, including two memoirs, Friends and Memories (1975) and She Made Friends and Kept Them (1996); she was also an accomplished painter; born Jan. 20, 1908, in New York City; died June 5 at a nursing home in Sussex, England. [See 1985, p. 520B3; 1955, pp. 388G3, 356B3, 236F3; Indexes 1952–53, 1950] JOIS, Krishna Pattabhi, 93, founder and popularizer of the school of yoga known as Ashtanga, or “eight limbs”; introduced to the West in the 1960s, it was known for its increasingly difficult physical demands, with its sixth and highest level reportedly having been mastered by only a handful of people at most; he ran a yoga school in Mysore, India, for decades, and continued to teach there until 2008; born July 26, 1915, in Kowshika, India; died May 18 at his home in Mysore; he had been having trouble swallowing food because of a throat ulcer, and shortly before his death had contracted a urinary infection and pneumonia. MAY, Ernest Richard, 80, longtime Harvard University historian whose work focused on international relations; he served as a senior adviser to the independent, bipartisan panel created to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S, and helped prepare the panel’s lengthy final report, which was released in 2004; born Nov. 19, 1928, in Fort Worth, Texas; died June 1 at a hospital in Boston, Mass., of cancer-surgery complications. [See 2004, p. 553A1; 1970, p. 324C3] n

June 18, 2009

Iran Suppresses Mass Rallies Against Election Results Supreme Leader, Top Council Reject Fraud Allegations Moussavi Vows to Persevere. Iranian secu-

AP Photo/Hayat News Agency, Meisam Hossieni

rity forces June 20–25 were heavily deployed across Tehran, the capital of Iran, clamping down on massive demonstrations that had begun the previous week to protest alleged fraud in the country’s June 12 presidential election. Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been declared the winner in a landslide showing that his main opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi, said had been flagrantly rigged. The crackdown, in which the police and the Basij paramilitary force engaged in violent clashes with protesters, followed a strongly worded sermon June 19 by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unequivocally backing the election results and warning that opposition leaders would be held responsible for any violence resulting from continued unrest. [See p. 401A1] The Guardian Council, a senior 12-member clerical body, June 23 rejected the demands of Moussavi and another reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, that the election be nullified and a new vote held. Iran had placed restrictions on foreign journalists’ movements that prevented them from observing firsthand the violence unfolding. (The British Broadcasting Corp.’s correspondent was expelled from the country June 21, and the detentions of reporters for Newsweek and the Washington Times were confirmed June 21 and 23, respectively.) However, eyewitness accounts, video footage and photographs, the authenticity of which were often unverified, continued to be disseminated by Internet and cellular telephone, even as the government restricted telecommunications networks and police reportedly targeted citizens attempting to record clashes with mobile phones. The messages and images indicated that smaller groups of protesters continued to gather before being scattered by security forces wielding clubs, tear gas, water can-

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivering a sermon June 19 in Tehran, Iran’s capital, in which he defended the results of a June 12 presidential election and warned against continued protests. Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been declared the election winner.

nons and guns. The demonstrators were often clad in green, the adopted color of the movement and a symbol of Islam. They chanted, “Death to the dictator” and, reviving a practice from Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”). Some confrontations appeared to result in running battles between demonstrators and police or the Basij. With reporting restricted, it was uncertain to what degree protests and clashes were occurring outside the capital. As of June 25, the government put the number killed since the election at 17, many of whom had reportedly been killed June 20. State media June 24 said 627 people had been arrested in connection with the violence. Opposition supporters and human rights groups said many other figures who had not necessarily participated in demonstrations but were linked to the reformist trend in Iranian politics—including journalists, politicians and former government officials—had also been detained. Moussavi had not made a confirmed public appearance since June 18, but issued a series of statements through affiliated Web sites vowing to press his campaign for the annulment of the election. In a June 25 statement, he said he had been subjected to “pressures” aimed at forcing him to withdraw his challenge to the election. He said, “My access to people is completely restricted.” It was unclear how durable the protest movement would prove under the pressure of the government crackdown, as Moussavi did not command an organized political structure to compare with Ahmadinejad’s deep base of support in the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard, the country’s elite military force. The government in the days after Khamenei’s June 19 address intensified its effort to paint the protest movement as fomented by foreign countries, particularly Britain and the U.S., invoking those countries’ earlier history of intervention in Iranian affairs. Khamenei Warns on Protests— Khamenei, who appeared infrequently in public, June 19 led the Friday prayer service at Tehran University, where senior clerics frequently preached. Khamenei declared that “the Islamic republic does not betray people’s votes” and that its “legal structure does not allow for fraud to take place.” He said the scale of Ahmadinejad’s majority, put officially at 63% to Moussavi’s 34%, was too great to have been the result of tampering. Khamenei said “riots” would put Iran’s “democracy at risk,” and warned, “If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held responsible.” The address was attended by Ahmadinejad, defeated conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, and Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was generally seen as a hard-line ally of Khamenei. Moussavi and Karroubi— who in a letter to the Guardian Council that day called for a nullification of the election

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3575 June 25, 2009

B results—did not attend. Also absent was Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and a powerful figure as the head of two important bodies: the Assembly of Experts, which appointed and nominally oversaw the supreme leader, and the Expediency Council. Rafsanjani was believed to have been instrumental in the elevation of Khamenei to the post of supreme leader in 1989, but their relations were thought to have devolved into a rivalry during Rafsanjani’s two terms as president from 1989 to 1997. Rafsanjani, a vocal supporter of Moussavi, was considered likely to be playing an important behind-the-scenes role in the regime’s internal conflict over the election. Rafsanjani was extremely wealthy, and he and his family had often been accused of corruption, including by the reformists he was now aligned with. But Khamenei in his

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Iran suppresses mass rallies against election results; supreme leader, top council rejects fraud allegations; Moussavi vows to persevere. PAGE 421

South Carolina Gov. Sanford admits affair with Argentine woman. PAGE 424

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Obama signs bill funding Iraq, Afghanistan wars. PAGE 424

Supreme Court upholds Section 5 of Voting Rights Act. PAGE 425

Democrats issue health care reform plan. PAGE 426

Obama signs tobacco regulation bill. PAGE 428

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Somali president declares emergency. PAGE 430

Peru repeals development laws after indigenous protests. PAGE 431

U.S. Gen. McChrystal takes reins as top commander in Afghanistan. PAGE 434

Golfer Glover claims rain-delayed U.S. Open. PAGE 435

Singer Michael Jackson dies at age 50. PAGE 436

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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address emphasized Rafsanjani’s role as a veteran of the country’s 1979 revolution, and chastised Ahmadinejad for the extremity of his attacks on Rafsanjani during the election campaign. Khamenei said foreign forces were behind the disturbances, contending that they had sought to promote a Western-oriented “velvet revolution” of the kind seen in numerous former Soviet states. He singled out Britain as “most evil.” Police Crack Down on Protesters— The day after Khamenei’s address, thousands of demonstrators June 20 converged in Tehran—smaller in number than the hundreds of thousands who had rallied in the week after the election—amid conflicting reports about whether a rally set for that day had been called off by Moussavi. Security forces clashed with demonstrators around the city, particularly in the vicinity of Enghelab (Revolution) Square. State media initially reported that 10 people had died, a toll later raised to 13, and news reports said hospitals had reported receiving some 60 patients with injuries from the clashes. Authorities said 457 people were arrested. Footage was posted that day to the videosharing Web site YouTube showing the death of a woman, bleeding profusely in the moments after she was apparently shot near Enghelab Square. The woman was identified as Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, and her image was quickly adopted as an icon for denunciations of the government’s violent crackdown. Witnesses said the shot had been fired by a person in plain clothes whom they suspected of being a Basiji or other security agent. The government in official news media suggested that a “terrorist” member of the exiled opposition group Mujahedin e-Khalq was responsible, or, alternately, that the video footage was a hoax. Also June 20, official news media said a suicide bomber had struck at a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 revolution, in southern Tehran. The Guardian Council had invited the losing presidential candidates to a meeting June 20 to discuss their complaints, but only Rezai attended. State television said he claimed to have received at least 3.5 million votes, compared with the 680,000 the official results showed. (However, Rezai withdrew his objection June 24, saying in a letter to the council that the unfolding security situation in the country was “more important than the election.”) The council reiterated an offer to recount 10% of the ballot boxes, picked at random, as a test of the results. Moussavi, who had rejected the partial recount, that day issued a letter to the body reiterating his demand for a complete annulment, and further spelling out his suspicions about the vote tally. He cited in particular the widespread use of truck-mounted mobile polling stations, which he said had been employed to evade oversight. Rafsanjani Kin Held—Following the June 20 crackdown, Tehran was reportedly mostly quiet June 21. State media reported the arrests that day of five relatives of Rafsanjani, all women, including his daughter

Faezeh Hashemi, who had been seen addressing crowds of protesters the previous week. She and the other relatives were released several hours later. Moussavi June 21 issued another statement proclaiming Iranians’ “right” to protest, and speaking of a “turning point” in Iranian history. Former President Mohammad Khatami, also a reformist, called the official accusations that the protests were foreign-instigated an “insulting portrayal of our people.” Guardian Council Sees Vote Errors—

The Guardian Council, which had said it was examining 646 complaints of vote irregularities, June 22 said it had found that in 50 cities, the total votes cast had exceeded the number of registered voters, by a total of some three million votes. It was the first acknowledgment by the council of possible significant problems with the vote tally. However, the council noted that the total was not enough to change the outcome of the election, which it said had seen a total of at least 34 million votes cast. It also claimed that such excess votes could have occurred legitimately, since voters were not required to cast their ballot in the district where they were registered. The Guardian Council June 23 said it had concluded that there had not been a “major breach” and that therefore “there is no possibility of an annulment.” However, Khamenei that day extended the Guardian Council’s deadline for certifying the election by five days, to June 29. Larijani, although seen as allied with Khamenei, June 21 had criticized “certain members” of the Guardian Council for siding with Ahmadinejad, and asserted that a majority of Iranians believed the election results did not reflect the actual votes cast. A British-based research group, Chatham House, June 21 had released a detailed analysis of the official results, carried out in conjunction with St. Andrews University in Scotland, that the researchers said cast doubt on claims that the results were not tampered with. Among other things, the study pointed to several regions in which Ahmadinejad, to achieve the reported result, would have had to have captured an improbably large share of voters who had supported his opponents in the 2005 election and its runoff, as well as all voters newly registered since then. The Revolutionary Guards June 22 issued a statement warning of a “revolutionary confrontation” in the event of continued protests. That day, some 1,000 protesters reportedly gathered at Tehran’s Haft-e-tir Square but were quickly dispersed by police, who also that day reportedly broke up gatherings intended to memorialize Agha-Soltan. (Her family had reportedly been ordered not to hold any kind of memorial service.) The chief of the Iranian parliament’s judiciary committee, Ali Shahrokhi, June 22 described Moussavi’s calls to protest as “criminal acts,” the first suggestion from the government that Moussavi could be liable for criminal prosecution in the dispute. Little protest activity was reported June 23. State television broadcast footage of

what it said were confessions by arrested protesters that their actions had been inspired by foreign broadcasters. Reports emerged of continuing arrests of reformistaligned figures, including former senior government officials. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran June 24 said about 240 people had been detained, including a number of politicians who had served in government under Khatami. Protesters June 24 gathered in the area around Iran’s parliament and clashed with police, with reports of beatings of demonstrators. His wife, Zahra Rahnavard, who had played a prominent role in his campaign, issued a statement likening the government’s response to the demonstrations to “martial law.” A victory celebration for Ahmadinejad June 24 was attended by only 105 of the 290 members of Iran’s parliament. Some observers suggested that was a deliberate display of opposition to the president that extended beyond the approximately 50 reformist lawmakers who would not have been expected to attend. Among those absent was Larijani. Defiant

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Moussavi June 25 posted on his Web site a message of defiance, stating, “I am not ready to stop demanding the rights of the Iranian people,” and vowing not to “back down even for a second because of personal threats and interests.” Karroubi, in contrast, that day moderated his stance on the election, pledging to pursue his claim against the election’s legitimacy through normal legal channels. Moussavi’s Web site said 70 academics who had recently met with him had been arrested, an allegation denied by official media.

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the country’s most prominent dissident cleric, June 25 issued a statement warning that a failure to respect Iranians’ “legitimate rights” threatened to “uproot the foundations of the government.” Obama Denounces ‘Unjust Actions’—

U.S. President Barack Obama at a June 23 news conference at the White House said, “The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the past few days” in Iran, adding, “I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.” He referred to the “heartbreaking” images of Agha-Soltan’s death. Obama’s remarks were widely perceived as more forceful than his previous statements on the subject, although he said at the news conference that his approach had been consistent in declaring that the Iranian government’s use of “violence was unacceptable.” While some U.S. Republican lawmakers had said Obama should express more overt support for the demonstrators’ cause, the president and other administration officials had said that to do so would do little but appear to vindicate the Iranian government’s contention that the protests were the result of foreign plotting. They said the regime could use that appearance to justify a more violent crackdown on protesters. Following the first wave of the crackdown on the protests June 20, Obama had issued a statement saying, “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.” He also quoted slain U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Obama had previously stated his willingness to open a direct dialogue with Iran, with which the U.S. had not had diplomatic relations since 1980. At the June 23 news conference, he did not entirely rule out talking with Iran over its disputed nuclear activities, saying the U.S. had “core national security interests” in addressing the issue. U.S. officials, however, suggested that the turmoil over the election made such engagement unlikely in the near future. The Washington Times June 24 reported that Obama had sent a letter to Khamenei in early May, before the election, seeking “cooperation in regional and bilateral relations.” The U.S. State Department June 24 ordered its embassies to withdraw invitations it had extended May 29 to Iranian diplomats to attend U.S. July 4 Independence Day celebrations. Ahmadinejad June 25 at the ceremonial opening of a petrochemical plant said Obama had “made a mistake” in his remarks at the news conference, and fallen “into the same trap” as his predecessor, George W. Bush, who had branded Iran part of an “axis of evil.” He urged Obama to “avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs” and to “express your regret in a way that the Iranian people find out about it.” June 25, 2009

Britain, Iran Expel Diplomats—Iran June 22 ordered two British diplomats out of the country, accusing them of activity “incompatible with their status,” terms ordinarily employed to refer to espionage. The following day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Iran’s action had been unjustified, and ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats in retaliation. In other international reaction, the Czech government, acting as the current holder of the European Union presidency, June 23 summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Prague to object to the Iranian government’s claims that the EU was interfering. German Chancellor Angela Merkel June 21 had suggested that Iran stage a transparent recount, while French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner condemned Iran’s “brutal repression.” Also June 23, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon called on Iran to “respect fundamental civil and political rights” and for the election dispute to be resolved peacefully. Soccer Players Banned—A pro-government Iranian newspaper June 23 reported that four of six Iranian national soccer team players who had worn green wristbands in apparent solidarity with the protests, during a June 17 World Cup qualifying match against South Korea, had been “retired” from the sport. The game, played in Seoul, South Korea, had been widely watched in Iran. (Iran’s 1–1 draw with South Korea meant that it would not qualify for the World Cup.) n

Other International News Russia Hosts Regional Security Summit.

Russia June 14 hosted a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a seven-member security alliance between Russia and six other former Soviet states, in Moscow, the capital. Five of the seven CSTO members—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan— signed an agreement that established a rapid-reaction force that could be deployed to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and domestic conflicts. The remaining two members, Belarus and Uzbekistan, refused to join the accord. [See below, p. 336F3; 2008, p. 786C1; 2002, p. 1058D1] The summit was marked by the absence of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who boycotted it over Russia’s June 9 ban on almost all Belarusian dairy products. Belarus had been slated to take on the CSTO’s rotating presidency. Instead, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in Lukashenko’s absence, temporarily assumed the presidency of the group, which was intended as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). [See below] Belarusian officials said any decisions made at the CSTO meeting would be invalid because in the absence of a Belarusian delegation, new mandates would not be approved by consensus. The Russian foreign ministry June 15 asserted that the rapid-reaction force agreement was valid, and said Belarus had misinterpreted the CSTO charter. Medvedev June 14 had said, “I hope

that these milk hysterics do not in the end spoil work on the collective rapid reaction force,” and indicated that both Belarus and Uzbekistan could sign the accord later. Belarus’s economy was closely linked with Russia’s. Despite the recent tension between the two countries, Belarus was currently seeking to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) as part of a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan. [See p. 405G1] Lukashenko had also made recent overtures toward the West. In 2008, he released opposition figures that the U.S. and the European Union had deemed political prisoners. In May, Lukashenko led Belarus into membership in the Eastern Partnership, a new economic partnership agreement between the EU and six former Soviet republics. [See 2008, p. 755B3] Russia-Belarus Loan Talks Falter—Russia’s ban on Belarusian dairy imports followed a May 28 breakdown in loan negotiations between the countries. (Belarus’s dairy industry was heavily dependent on exports to Russia, which consumed about 95% of its output.) Lukashenko that day had met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, to discuss the terms of a $500 million loan installment, but the two sides were unable to reach an accord. The following day, Lukashenko, in an address to his cabinet, said, “If things go wrong with Russia, do not bow down, do not whine and weep, seek fortune in a different part of the globe.” The $500 million in dispute was the final disbursement of a $2 billion loan from Russia to Belarus, which the countries had agreed on in 2008. [See 2008, p. 783B3] Lukashenko June 5 claimed that Russian officials had stipulated that as a condition of the loan, Belarus would have to recognize the independence of two Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Lukashenko said Belarus did not “sell issues and positions.” Russia denied the claim. [See p. 406B1] Russia June 17 lifted the dairy ban, although the loan dispute remained unresolved. n NATO Cuts Kosovo Mission by 4,000. Defense ministers from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states June 11 agreed to reduce NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, called Kosovo Force or KFOR, to 10,000 troops, from 14,000. The 4,000 departing troops were expected to leave by January 2010. Analysts expected the ministers to further reduce KFOR to a force of about 2,500 by 2011. Observers suggested that the drawdown of forces in Kosovo was linked to a need for more NATO troops in Afghanistan. KFOR was initially deployed as a force of 50,000 in 1999. [See pp. 434A1, 379A3] Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Its independence, which Serbia vehemently rejected, was recognized by 60 United Nations member states and all of the NATO states except Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. n 423

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South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) June 24 held a news conference at the statehouse in Columbia, S.C., to admit that he had been conducting an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina. His whereabouts over the previous week had been unknown, causing controversy. He had disappeared after telling his staff that he planned to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail, leaving state officials complaining that they were unable to contact him. [See pp. 410B1, 111B2; 2002, p. 854D3] Questioned earlier June 24 at the international airport in Atlanta, Ga., by a reporter from a South Carolina newspaper, the State, Sanford acknowledged that he was in fact returning from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. But he did not then disclose the purpose of his trip, saying only that he had “wanted to do something exotic.” Sanford’s spokesman June 22 had told reporters that the governor was hiking somewhere on the 2,100-mile (3,350-km) Appalachian Trail. His wife, Jenny Sanford, that day told the Associated Press that she did not know where he had been over the Father’s Day weekend. At his June 24 news conference, several minutes into a rambling, emotional confession, Sanford said, “The bottom line is this, I’ve been unfaithful to my wife.” He apologized to her and their four sons, none of whom joined him at the news conference. Sanford, 49, said he had met the woman eight years earlier, but their friendship had not become romantic until about one year earlier. They had met three times since then, he said. He did not directly answer a question about whether he had ended the affair. He also apologized to his staff for misleading them about his journey, saying, “At no time did anyone on my staff intentionally relay false information to other state officials or the public at large.” Sanford said he had no plans to resign. He had 18 months remaining in his term. He said he had told his wife about the affair five months earlier, and that she and their sons were living apart from him. Jenny Sanford later June 24 issued a statement saying that she had asked him to move out two weeks earlier. “This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage,” she said. Newspaper Obtained E-Mails—The State June 25 reported that it had obtained e-mail messages between Sanford and the woman in Argentina, from an anonymous source in December 2008, but was unable to verify their authenticity. The paper said it received another anonymous tip that Sanford would be on a flight from Argentina June 24. After its reporter interviewed Sanford at the Atlanta airport, the newspaper contacted his office and said it possessed the emails. Sanford then scheduled his news conference for later that day. 424

The State June 24 posted on its Web site several e-mails between Sanford and the Argentine woman, identified as “Maria.” In an e-mail dated July 10, 2008, Sanford praised her “gentle kisses” and “erotic beauty.” Sanford June 25 admitted that he had met his mistress during a June 2008 official trade mission to South America. Sanford said the stopover in Argentina was “very legitimate,” but that he would repay the South Carolina government for that leg of the trip. Sanford said he paid for his latest visit with his own money. Was Seen as Presidential Contender—

Sanford had been seen as a potential candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Another Republican presidential prospect, Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), had admitted to an affair with a staff member the previous week. The sex scandals were widely seen as fatal to such ambitions, and a setback to the Republican Party at a time when it was looking for new leadership in a period of Democratic control of both the White House and Congress. Sanford June 24 said he would resign as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who had recently sent signals of his own interest in a 2012 presidential bid, took over the post. Sanford’s second term in office would end in January 2011. He was barred by law from seeking a third term. Previously, he had served three terms in the U.S. House, from 1995 to 2001. His wife, who inherited a family fortune from the Skil Power Tools company, had been a key campaign adviser. Known as a social conservative who often alluded to his Christian faith, Sanford had called on President Bill Clinton to resign and voted for his impeachment over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Sanford was also known for his frugality as a congressman, sleeping on a futon in his office and returning his housing allowance. Fought White House on Stimulus Funds—

Sanford had drawn national attention in recent months by engaging in a dispute with the Obama administration over $700 million that South Carolina had received as part of a $787 billion federal economic stimulus package enacted in February. Sanford resisted spending funds mostly designated by Congress for education and public safety programs, which he said would be fiscally irresponsible. Instead, he said he wanted to use the money to pay off part of the state’s debt. Opponents in South Carolina, including fellow Republicans who controlled the state legislature, said the stimulus funds were needed to prevent further job losses, and accused Sanford of political posturing to boost his national profile at the expense of the state’s interests. South Carolina had the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 11%; only Michigan’s was higher. Although several other Republican governors expressed reluctance about taking the stimulus funds, Sanford held out the longest. In March, White House Office of

Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag twice rejected Sanford’s requests for permission to use the funds to pay down debt. Sanford refused to file a request for the stimulus funds with the U.S. Education Department, saying he would not do so unless the state legislature agreed to spend an equal amount on debt payments. But he gave in after the South Carolina Supreme Court June 4 ordered him to request the funds, ruling in response to lawsuits filed by students and school administrators. n

Fiscal 2009 Spending Bills Obama Signs War Funding Bill. President Barack Obama June 24 signed into law a $106 billion supplemental appropriations bill, $80 billion of which would be used to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, the end of the 2009 fiscal year. The Senate June 18 had voted, 91–5, to pass it. The House June 17 had also voted, 226–202, to pass the measure, which was a compromise between competing versions passed separately by the two chambers in May. [See p. 355D1] Obama had said it would be the last time that war funding was authorized in a supplemental bill, and that from now on it would be included in the regular budget. Since 2001, Congress had approved $882 billion worth of war funding in what were described as “emergency” funding bills. House Democrats included a provision requiring the Obama administration to provide lawmakers with formal policy goals for the war in Afghanistan, as well as benchmarks that could be used to measure the U.S.’s success in stabilizing the country and its neighbor, Pakistan. The administration would submit a progress report to Congress twice a year, starting in 2010. The bill included $10 billion in development aid for the two countries and Iraq. [See pp. 434A1, 418C1] Only five House Republicans voted for the bill, over objections to the inclusion of $5 billion to finance $100 billion in loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). (The Congressional Budget Office had projected that most of the $100 billion would be paid back, resulting in an overall cost of $5 billion.) The provision’s supporters said it was necessary to help stabilize the global economy, but House Republicans said it was a “global bailout.” [See p. 193A1] The bill also included $7.7 billion to prepare for a possible swine flu pandemic, and $1 billion to fund a so-called “cash for clunkers” program, in which consumers would be given vouchers worth up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for ones that were more fuel-efficient. [See pp. 386E2, 365A1] The bill did not include $80 million the Obama administration had sought to close down the U.S. military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The funding had been stripped after Republicans complained that the closing of Guantanamo could lead to the release of suspected terrorists in the U.S., or their incarceration in FACTS ON FILE

U.S. prisons. The final bill forbade the administration from transporting detainees to the U.S., except to stand trial. The bill also omitted a provision that would have banned the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees at U.S. prison camps. Senate Republicans threatened to pull their support for the bill over the provision’s exclusion, but were placated after the Senate June 17 passed by voice vote a separate bill preventing the publication of such photos. The Obama administration had also assured senators that it would work to prevent their release. [See p. 330G3] n

Supreme Court Section 5 of Voting Rights Act Upheld.

The Supreme Court June 22 ruled, 8–1, to uphold Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required nine states, and parts of seven others, to gain federal approval before changing voting procedures. However, the court said the original plaintiff in the case—a utility district in Austin, Texas, that had challenged Section 5’s constitutionality—was eligible to apply for an exemption from Section 5 oversight. The case was Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. [See pp. 166G3, 33A1] The decision was widely seen as a narrow one designed to avoid addressing the constitutionality of Section 5, the purpose of which was to prevent states from imposing measures that could limit the voting rights of minorities. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing the court’s opinion, said Section 5 raised “serious constitutional questions,” but “the importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it.” Instead, the court struck down a lower court ruling that said the Austin utility district was not eligible to seek an exemption—known as a “bailout”—from Section 5, since it was not a county or agency that conducted voter registration. The district had been conducting elections for its utility board, and had objected to Section 5’s requirement that it receive federal approval before moving its polling place. In its appeal to the Supreme Court, it had asked the court to consider whether it was eligible for the bailout, and if not, to strike down Section 5 as unconstitutional. Roberts said the current case required “a broader reading of the bailout provision,” and ruled that any political subdivision could seek a bailout. The nine states where Section 5 was in effect statewide were Alaska, Arizona and seven southern states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas. Critics said the federal government—which in 2006 had reauthorized the provision for another 25 years— was using evidence gathered from elections in the 1960s and 1970s to determine which states should be subject to Section 5 oversight. They said the provision was no longer necessary to guarantee the voting rights enshrined in the Fifteenth Amendment, and hence was a violation of state sovereignty. June 25, 2009

Observers had expected the Supreme Court to strike down the provision, given the skepticism regarding its constitutionality voiced by the more conservative members of the bench—including Roberts— during oral arguments April 29. Roberts addressed those concerns in his opinion, saying the court had “serious misgivings about the constitutionality of Section 5.” Roberts wrote, “The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable,” but that “things have changed in the South” since 1965. “Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels,” he wrote. He added, “The statute’s coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions.” Roberts’s opinion was seen as a challenge to Congress to update the law. The lone dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas, who deemed the provision unnecessary and unconstitutional, writing, “The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains.” n Strip Search of Girl Ruled Unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court June 25 ruled, 8–1, that the 2003 strip search of a 13-year-old girl by school employees had violated her Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The decision allowed Savana Redding, now 19, to proceed with her suit against the school district in Safford, Ariz., but struck down the suit’s claims against Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal who facilitated the search. The case was Safford Unified School District v. Redding. [See p. 48F3; 2007, p. 415F2] Wilson had brought Redding to his office after another student said Redding had given her prescription-strength ibuprofen drugs, which would have been a violation of school policies. Wilson conducted a search of Redding’s bag, and when he did not find any drugs, called in two female employees to conduct a strip search of Redding. Justice David H. Souter, writing the court’s opinion, said that once Redding had taken off her clothes, she “was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic of her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found.” Souter said the search violated Redding’s constitutional rights, because ibuprofen, which was commonly used to treat pain and inflammation, would not have presented a “danger to the students.” He added that there was no “reason to suppose Savana was carrying pills in her underwear.” Souter suggested that the court’s decision might have been different if the drugs in question had been narcotics, or if the search had been limited to her outer garments. However, Souter said Wilson could not be sued, since the law at that time had not

“clearly established” that such a search was unconstitutional. He wrote, “Parents are known to overreact to protect their children from danger, and a school official with responsibility for safety may tend to do the same.” Souter was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Souter was joined only in part by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who agreed that the search was unconstitutional, but argued that Wilson should be held liable as well. Ginsburg in a separate opinion noted that, after the strip search, Wilson kept Redding outside his office for two hours, and “at no point did he attempt to call her parent.” She added, “Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.” Stevens in his opinion wrote, “This is, in essence, a case in which clearly established law meets clearly outrageous conduct.” The lone dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas. He wrote, “Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment.” Thomas added that the decision would encourage students to hide drugs in their undergarments, since it had deemed them “the safest places to secrete contraband in school.” n

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Inmate Right to DNA Testing Rejected.

The Supreme Court June 18 ruled, 5–4, that convicts did not have a constitutional right to DNA testing, in the case District Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing the court’s opinion, said it was up to Congress and individual states to determine which convicts were eligible for DNA testing. [See p. 389G3; 2006, p. 471A3] The original plaintiff, William Osborne, had argued that Alaska’s decision to deny him DNA testing violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. Osborne in 1994 had been convicted of kidnapping, raping, beating and shooting a prostitute in 1993. The victim, left to die on a snowbank near Anchorage International Airport, survived the ordeal, and Osborne was eventually sentenced to 26 years in prison. Osborne requested that Alaskan prosecutors test the DNA of semen found in a condom near the crime scene, but his request was denied. Prosecutors said the evidence against Osborne—which included his confession—was overwhelming, and that DNA testing was unwarranted. Alaska was one of three states—along with Massachusetts and Oklahoma—that did not have a law addressing convict rights to DNA testing. (Alabama had recently enacted a DNA testing law that had yet to take effect.) Since the 1980s, DNA testing had led to the exoneration of some 240 convicts, according to the Innocence Project, an advocacy group that represented Osborne. The group said a significant number of exonerated convicts had confessed to their crimes for tactical reasons. Osborne claimed that he had confessed to win eligibility for parole. 425

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idence unlike anything known before.” But he noted that the technology was a relatively new one, and that nearly all the states now had a law addressing the issue. He said, “To suddenly constitutionalize the issue would short-circuit what looks to be a prompt and considered legislative response.” He added, “Federal courts should not presume that state criminal procedures will be inadequate to deal with technological change.” Roberts also addressed other constitutional aspects of the case, saying, “A criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man.” He said the advent of DNA testing did not mean that “every criminal conviction involving biological evidence is suddenly in doubt.” He added, “The dilemma is how to harness DNA’s power to prove innocence without unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice.” Concurring,

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Roberts was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. Alito wrote a concurring opinion, signed by Thomas and Kennedy, saying convicts who had waived the opportunity to conduct DNA testing at trial should be deprived of the right to request DNA testing after their conviction. Osborne’s attorney had declined such an opportunity during trial, reportedly fearing that the results would lead to a guilty verdict. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the minority opinion, said, “On the record before us, there is no reason to deny access to the evidence and there are so many reasons to provide it, not least of which is a fundamental concern in ensuring that justice has been done.” Stevens noted that Osborne had been willing to pay the costs of the DNA testing, but was still “rebuffed at every turn” by Alaskan authorities, behavior that he described as “arbitrary” and “wholly unjustified.” Stevens also questioned why Alaska would not agree to a request that would “ascertain the truth once and for all.” Stevens was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, and in part by Justice David H. Souter. Souter wrote a separate dissenting opinion, in which he said Alaska’s handling of the request for DNA testing had been unfair and a violation of due process, but that DNA testing was not a convict’s constitutional right. n Special Education Reimbursements Upheld.

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The Supreme Court June 22 ruled, 6–3, that special-education students were entitled to seek reimbursement for privateschool tuition from public school districts, even if the students had never utilized special-education services offered by the districts. The case was Forest Grove School District v. T.A. [See 2007, p. 332E1] At issue in the case was a 1997 amendment to the 1975 Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The law man426

dated that public school districts provide a “free and appropriate” education to disabled students. Students who required services beyond the capabilities of the public school system could seek reimbursement from the system for private-school tuition. However, the 1997 amendment said only those students who had “previously received special-education” services from public schools would be eligible for reimbursement. The student in the case, identified in court papers as “T.A.,” had attended a public school in Oregon’s Forest Grove school district until the eighth grade. Forest Grove had determined that he was not eligible for special-education services, but T.A. was later privately diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other learning disabilities. His parents then enrolled him in a private school, and requested that Forest Grove reimburse them for the tuition. Forest Grove argued that the 1997 amendment prevented T.A. from applying for reimbursement, since T.A. had never utilized Forest Grove’s special-education services. Forest Grove was supported by other public school districts, which argued that a ruling in favor of T.A. would strain their resources. An estimated 90,000 of the country’s six million special-education students were enrolled at private institutions at public school districts’ expense. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the court’s opinion, said a verdict in favor of Forest Grove would protect a school district “in the more egregious situation in which the school district unreasonably denies a child access to such services altogether.” Stevens said such a ruling would border on the “irrational.” Stevens was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy. Justice David H. Souter, writing for the minority, noted the high cost of funding special education, saying it amounted “to tens of billions of dollars annually and as much as 20% of public schools’ general operating budgets.” He argued that IDEA was meant to encourage cooperation between parents and school districts to devise an appropriate education for a special-education student, saying, “Given the burden of private school placement, it makes good sense to require parents to try to devise a satisfactory alternative within the public schools.” He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. n Dumping Waste in Alaska Lake Allowed.

The Supreme Court June 22 ruled, 6–3, that Coeur Alaska Inc., a gold-mining company, could dump slurry waste in Lower Slate Lake near Juneau, Alaska. Environmentalists said the waste would kill all the life in the lake. The case was Coeur Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. [See p. 307E1] Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the Army Corps of Engineers had been correct in determining that the waste was fill material, and issuing a waste permit to the company. Fill materi-

al was not subject to the stricter regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on substances defined as pollutants under the Clean Water Act. Kennedy wrote, “We conclude that the corps was the appropriate agency to issue the permit and that the permit is lawful.” The definition of fill material had been expanded in 2005, under the administration of then-President George W. Bush. The waste produced by Coeur Alaska at the Kensington gold mine was comprised of metals that were left after gold ore was extracted. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the dissent, said it was “neither necessary or proper” to allow mines “to bypass EPA’s zero-discharge standard by classifying slurry as fill material.” Ginsburg was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter. n

Medicine & Health Democrats Issue Health Care Reform Plan.

Three House Democratic leaders June 19 released a proposal for health care reform that called for the establishment of a government-run insurance program and mandated that all Americans obtain coverage. The draft bill was written by Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. George Miller (Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee; and Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. [See p. 408C3] The proposal was the third being considered by Democrats; Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (Mass.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, were each working on separate reform proposals. President Barack Obama had made an overhaul of the U.S. health care system a high priority of his administration, and had called for the creation of a government-run insurance program. Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats had opposed a public option, arguing that such a system might put private insurers out of business and would have too high a cost, at an estimated $1.5 trillion–$1.6 trillion over 10 years. The House plan called for the creation of a new federal agency to oversee health care, headed by a health choices commissioner to be appointed by the president. The bill called for people without health insurance to be taxed as an incentive to obtain coverage. However, an exception from the requirement would be provided for those who could show financial hardship. The plan also called for the expansion of Medicaid benefits, which were given to those with low incomes, and an increase in Medicare payments to health care providers. Employers would be required to provide health care coverage to employees, or else FACTS ON FILE

pay a tax that would be used to fund coverage for workers. Individuals and small businesses seeking coverage plans would be able to do so through “health insurance exchanges,” in which insurers would compete with each other for enrollees. The draft bill did not include a cost estimate, or specifics on how the plan would be paid for. However, House Democrats said the new programs could be paid for with new taxes, and by curbing Medicare’s growth. Baucus Draft Circulated—Baucus June 18 circulated a draft version of his plan among members of the Senate Finance Committee. Baucus earlier in the week had delayed releasing his proposal after a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimated its cost to be around $1.5 trillion over 10 years, saying that he would work to bring the plan’s cost down. The plan also called for employers who did not provide insurance coverage to pay 50% of Medicaid costs incurred by their workers, or 100% of the cost if workers used federal subsidies to obtain coverage on an insurance exchange. The draft differed notably from the others being offered by Democrats in its lack of a government-run health care plan. Instead, it proposed the establishment of a series of nonprofit health care cooperatives, owned and run by coalitions of small businesses and residents, and established with federal money. Sen. Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) June 10 had initially offered the idea of cooperatives, based on similarly structured utility co-ops, as a compromise between Democrats who supported a public health care option and Republicans. The co-ops were viewed as an attempt to address Republican concerns that a government-managed plan would have an unfair advantage over private insurers. Baucus June 18 also met with several Democratic and Republican colleagues, including Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the Finance Committee’s ranking Republican, in an effort to reach a bipartisan consensus on health care reform. Baucus June 25 said the Finance Committee had reached an agreement to cut the costs of a reform measure to $1 trillion, and said that it could be paid for without increasing the federal budget deficit. Committee aides said the plan would provide insurance to 97% of Americans, excluding undocumented immigrants.

Medicare and eliminating some tax deductions. Obama June 24 hosted a “town-hall” meeting at the White House as part of his continued efforts to garner support for health care reform. He also met with a bipartisan group of state governors, who expressed support for the reform effort, but asked that any changes not impose new costs on states, or eliminate new health care programs they had put in place.

Obama Continues Reform Lobbying—

Fed Keeps Interest Rate Target Near Zero.

Obama during a June 23 press conference continued to support a public health insurance option, a major element of his health care reform proposal. He said a public option would serve to “discipline insurance companies,” and argued that it was “not logical” to conclude that it would drive private insurers out of business. However, he did not say that he would refuse to sign a reform bill that did not contain a government-run plan. “It’s too early to say that. Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.” Obama had proposed funding new health care provisions by cutting the cost of

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Federal Reserve, June 24 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federalfunds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed that day said the “pace of economic contraction is slowing,” and that government policies enacted to combat an ongoing recession would lead to a “gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth.” However, the Fed warned that “economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time.” [See p. 291F3]

June 25, 2009

Drug Companies Agree to Price Cuts—

Obama June 22 announced that he had reached an agreement with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) drug trade group to provide up to $80 billion worth of discounts on drugs bought under government programs, including Medicare. The tentative agreement was expected to have an especially beneficial impact on Medicare enrollees who used the program’s prescription drug program, also known as Part D. [See 2006, p. 3D2] The reduced drug costs would help offset the so-called doughnut hole coverage gap. Part D paid drug costs when the bill totaled no more than $2,700 in a year. But the next $3,400 of incurred costs were paid by enrollees out of their own pockets (the doughnut hole). When the total bill reached $6,100, Medicare again assumed the costs. PhRMA agreed to give most Medicare enrollees their drugs at half price when they were in the doughnut hole. Polls Show Support for Reform—A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted June 18–21 and reported June 24 found that 62% of respondents supported the general idea of a government-run health plan. However, when those polled were told such a plan would put some private insurers out of business, support fell to 37%. According to the poll, 58% of respondents thought government reform was needed to stop the rising cost of health care, and provide insurance to all. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted June 12–16 and reported June 21 found that 85% of respondents thought that wide-ranging reform of the health care system was warranted. The poll found that 72% of respondents supported a public health plan. n

Economy

The Fed noted that while “conditions in financial markets have generally improved in recent months,” consumer spending remained “constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth and tight credit.” The Fed acknowledged that energy prices had risen in recent months, but said it expected inflationary pressures to remain “subdued for some time.” [See pp. 428A1, 427D3, 388C3] The Fed said it would continue its previously announced programs to buy $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and $300 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, which, along with keeping the federalfunds rate low, was intended to lower interest rates and resolve ongoing problems in credit markets. The Fed so far had purchased $178.5 billion worth of Treasuries, and $456 billion worth of mortgagebacked securities. The Fed had also purchased $100 billion worth of bonds issued by government-controlled mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Some investors had expected the Fed to increase its purchases of government bonds, since Treasury prices had fallen in recent months, sending yields up. Analysts said investors were selling Treasuries over fears that the Fed’s policies would lead to an inflationary spike, while others said increased stability in financial markets had led investors to transfer their money to stock holdings. The Fed said it would “continue to evaluate the timing and overall amounts” of its purchases. n Consumer Prices Rose 0.1% in May. The Labor Department June 17 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices paid for Inflation (CPI) consumer goods May 2009 0.1% by all urban conPrevious Month 0.0% sumers, rose 12-Month Increase -1.3% 0.1% in May, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after neither rising nor falling in April. For the 12-month period through May, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was -1.3%, the fastest annual rate that prices had dropped since April 1950. The yearly decline was attributed to a 27% fall in the price of energy, as an ongoing recession led to depressed demand for gasoline and other petroleum products. [See p. 355E2] Energy prices rose 0.2% in May. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.1% in May. For the 12-month period through May, core consumer prices climbed 1.8%. n Producer Prices Rose 0.2% in May. The Labor Department June 16 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in May rose 0.2% after seasonal adjustment. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, fell 0.1% in May. Energy prices rose 2.9%. [See p. 355B3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 170.8% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $170.80 in May. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods 427

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rose 0.3% in May, and prices for crude goods climbed 3.6%. n New Home Sales Fell 0.6% in May. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) June 24 reported jointly that sales of new single-family homes fell 0.6% in May from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 342,000 units, down from the revised April rate of 344,000 units. The median price of a new single-family home sold in May was reported to be $221,600. [See p. 372F1] n Durable Goods Orders Rose 1.8% in May.

The Commerce Department June 24 reported that the value of durable goods orders in May was $163.9 billion, an increase of 1.8%, or $2.8 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were so-called bigticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 372B2] n Housing Starts Rose 17.2% in May. The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) June 16 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in May was 532,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 17.2% from the April revised rate of 454,000. However, the report noted that the May rate was 45.2% below the May 2008 rate of 971,000, indicating that the housing market remained weak in historical terms. [See p. 355E3] n Business Inventories Down 1.1% in April.

The Commerce Department June 11 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of April was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.1% from the revised value at the end of March. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace—was 1.43. [See p. 356A1] n Retail Sales Rose 0.5% in May. The Commerce Department June 11 reported that the value of retail sales in May was $340.0 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 0.5% above the revised figure for April. [See p. 323F3] n

Terrorism Detainees Padilla Suit Against Yoo Moves Forward.

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Judge Jeffrey White of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., June 12 ruled that a civil lawsuit filed by convicted terrorist conspirator Jose Padilla against former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo could proceed, rejecting the majority of Yoo’s claims to immunity in the case. Analysts said the case could lead to a ruling on the legality of specific elements of the antiterrorism detention and interrogation programs carried out under the administration of President George W. Bush following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. [See p. 129F3; 2008, pp. 214D3, 36C3] Padilla, a U.S. citizen, had been held as an enemy combatant in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., for more than three years before being charged in 2006 in federal court with terrorism offenses. He was con428

victed in 2007 and was currently serving a 17-year prison sentence. Yoo, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, had written memoranda that authorized policies for the detention of terrorism suspects, including Padilla, and the use of harsh interrogation tactics against detainees. Padilla had sued Yoo in January 2008, seeking damages of one dollar as well as a ruling affirming that his detention as an enemy combatant and his alleged mistreatment, which Padilla said was authorized by Yoo’s memos, violated the Constitution. The abuse Padilla claimed to have suffered included exposure to extreme temperatures, stress positions and death threats during interrogation. White said Padilla had “no alternative remedy” to his alleged mistreatment, other than the lawsuit, because President Barack Obama had opposed any broad investigation of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies. Most Immunity Claims Dismissed—Justice Department attorneys representing Yoo had argued in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit that Yoo was immune to suits related to his actions as a government official. White rejected that position, saying, “Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the forseeable consequences of their conduct.” The Justice Department also asserted that the legality of Yoo’s memos should not be examined by the court, saying that such oversight was the responsibility of Congress and the executive branch. However, White ruled that the court had a legitimate interest in determining whether the treatment of detainees authorized by the memos was constitutional. The Justice Department argued that the government’s conduct toward Padilla was justified by the expanded powers granted to the government in a time of war. White also dismissed that argument and quoted the 2004 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Hamdi v. Ashcroft, which said that a “state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.” (The Supreme Court in Hamdi had ruled that U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants had the right to challenge their detention in court.) [See 2004, p. 471D2] Yoo’s government lawyers argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because there were no legal precedents upholding the rights of U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants. White ruled that Padilla was not required to demonstrate legal precedents in a case alleging violations of his constitutional rights. “There has never been a case accusing welfare officials of selling foster children into slavery,” White wrote, but “it does not follow that if such a case arose, the official would be immune.” n

Legislation Tobacco Regulation Bill Signed. President Barack Obama June 22 signed into law a bill that gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wide-ranging powers to regu-

late tobacco and tobacco products for the first time. The House June 12 had cleared the bill in a 307–97 vote; it had been passed by the Senate the previous day. [See p. 390A2] At a signing ceremony held in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said, “Today, despite decades of lobbying and advertising by the tobacco industry, we passed a law to help protect the next generation of Americans from growing up with a deadly habit that so many of our generation have lived with.” Obama said the bill would help prevent teenagers from taking up smoking, as he had done. “I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time,” he said. An estimated 20% of people in the U.S. smoked, and about 440,000 died annually from smoking-related illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Despite this, tobacco had been more lightly regulated by the government than either pet food or cosmetics. The measure mandated the creation of a new Center for Tobacco Products under the FDA to oversee the marketing, sale and production of tobacco. It would be funded with fees assessed on tobacco companies and importers. For the first time, tobacco companies would be required to disclose a list of ingredients of their products, and the FDA was given the power to regulate the amount of nicotine, a highly addictive component of tobacco, present in products. However, the FDA could not ban nicotine outright from tobacco products. The bill created strict new advertising rules, banning tobacco ads within 1,000 feet (300 m) of schools and requiring that most ads be in black and white, intended to minimize their effect on young people. Companies were also required to stop selling flavored cigarettes thought to appeal to youth. The New York Times June 16 reported that critics of the legislation planned to challenge it on the grounds that some of its provisions violated free-speech guarantees. Some legal analysts said that the ban on advertising within 1,000 feet of a school could effectively ban tobacco advertising in some cities. However, supporters of the law said it had been carefully crafted to adhere to existing laws. Obama at a June 23 press conference admitted that he occasionally smoked cigarettes. “Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” he said. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.” For weeks, Obama’s advisers had evaded questions about Obama’s smoking habits. n

Accidents & Disasters Nine Killed in D.C. Metro Train Crash.

Nine people were killed and 80 others were injured when a train on the Washington, D.C., area’s Metro system June 22 slammed into the back of a stationary train near Takoma Park, Md., around 5:00 p.m. local time. The accident occurred on an above-ground section of track that ran from downtown Washington, D.C., to suburbs north of the city, in Maryland. The colliFACTS ON FILE

sion’s impact left the first car of the moving train on top of the last car of the stationary train it had rear-ended. Jeanice McMillan, 42, the striking train’s operator, was among those who died in the accident, the deadliest in the Metro’s 33-year history. [See p. 357B3] Investigators were examining why computerized systems designed to prevent trains from colliding appeared to have failed. Investigators June 24 said they discovered “anomalies” in a circuit near the crash site that was part of a computerized safety system. Debbie Hersman, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), June 23 had said investigators found evidence indicating that, although the moving train had been controlled by an automated system at the time of the crash, McMillan had applied an emergency brake in an apparent attempt to avoid the collision. Also, the Washington Post June 24 reported that the two front cars on the moving train had been two months overdue for scheduled brake maintenance. The cars of the moving train had belonged to a family of cars purchased by the Metro system between 1974 and 1978, and unlike the cars in the stationary train, did not have data recorder boxes, which would have aided the NTSB’s investigation. Hersman said the NTSB in 2006, following a 2004 Metro accident, had recommended that the 1970s cars, which comprised more than a quarter of the total number of cars in the Metro system, be upgraded or taken out of service because they had a tendency to crumple in collisions. “Those concerns were not addressed,” Hersman said. Metro Board Chairman Jim Graham said replacing the cars would have cost $1 billion, which the system did not have. The Metro system was slated to receive $202 million in federal stimulus funds, and an additional $34 million federal grant to purchase new train cars. The grant was finalized June 24. Chris Zimmerman, another Metro board member, June 24 said the system needed “$11 billion over the next decade, and perhaps half of that is unaccounted for.” The first lawsuit related to the crash was filed June 24, and more were expected. n

Crime Student Arrested in ‘Craigslist’ Killing.

A Boston University medical student April 20 was arrested in connection with the April 10 armed robbery of a woman in a hotel in Boston, Mass., and the April 14 robbery and murder of another woman at a different Boston hotel. The student, Philip Markoff, had allegedly met both women after answering ads they had placed in the “erotic services” section of the popular Craigslist Web site, which hosted free classified ads. Markoff, 23, had been dubbed the Craigslist Killer, and was also being investigated in connection with an April 16 armed robbery at a Warwick, R.I., hotel. The victim was a stripper who had also June 25, 2009

been contacted through a Craigslist erotic services ad. Markoff Charged With Murder— Prosecutors April 21 charged Markoff in Boston Municipal Court with murder, kidnapping and armed robbery. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was held without bail. A grand jury in Massachusetts’s Suffolk Superior Court June 18 indicted him on charges of first-degree murder, armed robbery, armed kidnapping, armed assault with the intent to commit robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm. He was arraigned June 22 and pleaded not guilty. Police had begun investigating Markoff after discovering that cell phone records linked him to both Boston hotels. Police also discovered that the computer used to answer the Craigslist ad posted by the murder victim, Julissa Brisman, 26, was located in an apartment in Quincy, Mass., that Markoff shared with his fiancee. Markoff also matched images taken of the suspect by security cameras at both Boston hotels. Markoff was arrested while en route with his fiancee to the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. He was reportedly a regular gambler, and police suggested that his gambling and other expenses could have driven him to robbery. Separately, media outlets April 23 reported that Markoff had been placed on suicide watch after his jailers found marks believed to be from his shoelaces on his neck. Evidence Links Markoff to Crimes—

During an April 20 search of Markoff’s apartment, police discovered a semiautomatic pistol, plastic ties and a collection of women’s underwear in a hollowed-out medical textbook beneath Markoff’s bed. The plastic ties were reportedly the same kind used to restrain Markoff’s alleged victims. One of Markoff’s fingerprints was reportedly found on the plastic ties used on Brisman. Police April 22 said items belonging to Brisman and the surviving Boston robbery victim had been found in the apartment. An unidentified police official involved in the case April 24 had said a preliminary ballistics test had identified the gun found in Markoff’s apartment as the one used to kill Brisman, the New York Times reported April 25. Markoff’s fingerprints were also reportedly found on registration forms for the gun, which had been bought using another man’s driver’s license, as well as at the Rhode Island hotel. Police Seek Other Victims—Boston police April 23 posted an ad in the Craigslist erotic services section in an attempt to identify other possible victims in the case. Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley April 22 had encouraged other people who thought they had been robbed by Markoff to come forward, and said those who did would not be prosecuted for advertising sexual services online. Conley June 20 said no other alleged victims had come forward. Crimes Trigger Craigslist Criticism—

Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive officer (CEO) of San Francisco, Calif.–based Craigslist Inc., April 21 said the company

was doing “everything in our power to make use of the site as safe as possible, and to keep inappropriate activity of all sorts— especially criminal—from the site.” However, critics said the Web site’s erotic services section was monitored only by the site’s users, creating the possibility of abuse and illegal activity. Buckmaster May 5 attended a meeting with the attorneys general of Illinois, Connecticut and Missouri to discuss their concerns regarding illegal sexual activity solicited on Craigslist. In 2008, Craigslist had begun working with law enforcement to rein in abuses of its erotic services sections as part of an agreement with the attorneys general from 43 states. Buckmaster May 5 said in a posting on his blog that the partnership had decreased “misuse” of the site by about 90%. However, Craigslist, amid continued public pressure and the prospect of legal action, May 13 announced that it would shutter its erotic services section on May 20. It would be replaced with an “adult services” section that would be monitored by Craigslist employees. The company, which currently employed 30 people, said it would hire enough new employees to carry out effective oversight of the new section. Craigslist maintained that its decision was voluntary, and that Craigslist had not violated any laws under its previous policies. [See 2008, p. 451F2] n

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Capital Punishment News in Brief. The Colorado State Senate May 6 voted, 18–17, to reject a bill that would have repealed the state’s death penalty law and used the resulting savings to

fund new investigations into the state’s unsolved murders. The Colorado State House April 22 had voted, 33–32, in favor of repealing the death penalty; a similar bill had failed to pass the House in 2007. Colorado currently had two people on death row, and had executed only one prisoner since 1976. Supporters of the bill had argued that ending the death penalty in Colorado would save almost $4 million that could be used to investigate unsolved murders; critics argued that the potential savings were closer to $1.3 million. [See p. 167G1] The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct Feb. 19 initiated proceedings against Judge Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in connection with the 2007 execution of Michael Richard. Keller had gone home early on the day of Richard’s scheduled execution and had refused to keep the court offices open late after a computer problem made it impossible for Richard’s lawyers to meet its 5:00 p.m. appeal deadline; Richard was executed later the same day. The commission alleged that Keller had violated court procedures by leaving early and rejecting the defense’s request. The commission’s action was expected to lead to a trial before a special master, who had the power to censure Keller or oust her from her seat. Keller’s lawyers March 24 filed a brief arguing that Keller’s actions had not broken any court rules. [See 2007, p. 715A2] n 429

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terim President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed June 22 declared a state of emergency in the country, as pro-government forces battled an increasingly aggressive Islamist insurgency that had assassinated three officials of the transitional government in recent days. A rise in the already intense fighting in Mogadishu, the capital, and surrounding areas in recent weeks had killed an estimated 200 civilians, and prompted fears that the government would collapse and that the already dire humanitarian situation would worsen. [See p. 341C2] The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had found that some 159,000 people had been forced to flee their homes in and around Mogadishu since May 7, when the latest upsurge in violence began, it was reported June 25. The U.N. also reportedly said some 3.2 million Somalis, nearly half the country’s population, were in need of humanitarian assistance, including food aid. The fighting pitted the transitional government, which was backed by the U.N. and supported by about 4,300 African Union (AU) troops, against radical Islamists led by the Al Shabab group and its ally, Hizbul Islam. (The U.N. Security Council May 26 had unanimously extended the AU mission’s mandate to Dec. 31.) Ahmed, a former leader of a more moderate Islamist group, had been elected Somalia’s interim president in January; however, Al Shabab refused to recognize his government. Ethiopian troops who had been aiding the transitional government had withdrawn in January. Intense opposition to the Ethiopian presence among Somalis had been seen as aiding the Islamists’ cause. There had been widespread reports in recent weeks that Ethiopian troops had reentered the country, which Ethiopia denied. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi June 24 said his country did not plan to conduct another full-scale, unilateral intervention. Al Shabab’s reported goal in the recent fighting was to push the government and the AU troops out of Mogadishu. Currently, the government controlled only a heavily fortified area around the presidential palace, and the airport. Al Shabab and its allies controlled much of the rest of the capital and southern Somalia. It was widely believed that hundreds of foreigners were fighting alongside Somali members of the Islamist insurgency. Somalia, the U.S. and other nations had accused Eritrea—a bitter enemy of Ethiopia—of aiding the Islamists. Security Minister, Other Officials Killed—

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Somali National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden June 18 was killed along with at least 35 others, including many government officials, in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Beledweyne, a town some 250 miles (400 km) northwest of the capital, near the Ethiopian border. Al Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing, 430

which was roundly condemned by the international community. The previous day, Mogadishu’s police chief, Col. Ali Said, had died in an early morning attack on an Islamist stronghold in a residential area of the capital. At least 17 others were killed in the fighting. Also, lawmaker Muhammad Hussein Addow June 19 was shot dead in Mogadishu. Reuters news agency June 24 reported that 288 members of Somalia’s 550-seat parliament had left the country, fearing for their safety. Many had fled to Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya, since the upsurge in fighting in May. That left the body, which had not met since April 25, unable to meet a quorum. Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur, Somalia’s parliament speaker, June 20 appealed for immediate foreign military assistance. “We are under attack by foreign terrorists,” he said, adding, “They are planning to destabilize the security of the whole region. We ask our neighbors, like Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen, to militarily intervene in Somalia.” Other Somali officials had also called for foreign military aid. However, the government’s pleas largely went unheeded. Jean Ping, chairman of the AU Commission, the executive arm of the AU, June 22 said Somalia’s government “has the right to seek support from AU member states and the larger international community.” However, he did not say the AU would be sending any more troops. The mandate of the AU force in Somalia was limited to protecting government officials and buildings. Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua June 22 said his country would not send troops to Somalia, its northern neighbor, but would assist the transitional government in unspecified “other ways.” Hizbul Islam leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys June 24 said the Islamists would fight any foreign troops that entered the country in support of the government. The Washington Post June 25 quoted an unidentified U.S. official as having said that the U.S. had sent a shipment of weapons and ammunition to the Somali government earlier that month. “A decision was made at the highest level to ensure the government does not fall and that everything is done to strengthen government security forces to counter the rebels,” the official said. The New York Times that day quoted an unnamed source who said the U.N. Security Council had agreed to a waiver for the U.S. arms shipment. (There was currently a U.N. arms embargo on Somalia.) Under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, the U.S. had lent covert support to the transitional government and secular warlords, and launched targeted air strikes against suspected members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda inside Somalia, as part of its worldwide effort to counter radical Islamic terrorism. The policy of current U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly was focused more on working with Somalia’s neighbors to stabilize the country, and strengthening the transitional government’s security forces. [See 2008, p. 313A2]

The Post also reported that the U.S. had recently given the Somali government $10 million toward resurrecting its police force and military, and that it had also shared intelligence with the government. Additionally, regional leaders May 20 had asked the U.N. Security Council to allow foreign navies, which were currently patrolling near Somali waters to combat an ongoing piracy problem, to impose a blockade of the southern port of Kismayo. That port was where the Islamists were believed to receive their supplies and weapons. Islamists Carry Out Public Amputations—

An Islamic court backed by Al Shabab June 25 cut off a hand and a foot of each of four young men, some reportedly teenagers, who had been found guilty of theft. They had been convicted June 21 of stealing mobile phones and guns from residents of Mogadishu. Al Shabab said it was implementing sharia, or Islamic law, in carrying out the amputations, which occurred in front of a crowd of several hundred people in Mogadishu. Al Shabab had imposed a strict version of sharia in the areas of Somalia under its control. Most Somalis practiced a more moderate form of Islam, and past attempts by Islamist groups to implement strict sharia reportedly had met with resistance from the population. n

Sudan Southern Peace Pushed as Clashes Erupt.

The United Nations June 1 declared that casualties from tribal clashes in the semiautonomous region of south Sudan had surpassed those from the conflict in the country’s western Darfur region in recent months. The latest string of ethnic violence in the war-ravaged country erupted ahead of national elections scheduled for February 2010, and a referendum set for 2011 on independence for the south. In response to the recent flare-up, the U.S. June 23 convened talks with representatives from 32 countries and international organizations in Washington, D.C., to salvage a fragile peace deal signed in 2005. [See pp. 375G2, 185E2] The 2005 accord had ended a two-decade civil war between the predominantly Muslim, Arab-dominated central government, based in the north, and the mainly black, Christian and animist forces in the south. The deal, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), provided south Sudan with semiautonomous status, and gave southern officials representation in a unity government led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. With international and domestic attention mainly turned to the conflict in Darfur, the country had struggled to implement some aspects of the peace accord. Among the many issues of contention were the disputed results from a national census released May 21, as well as control over the oil-rich area of Abyei at the border between the northern and southern regions. The June 23 conference produced a communique vowing to “urgently address FACTS ON FILE

outstanding implementation issues.” Officials from both the north and south also agreed they would accept an expected ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the status of Abyei. Allegations Fly Over Convoy Attack—

Gunmen from the Jikany Nuer tribe June 12 attacked boats carrying aid from the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) on a tributary of the While Nile river. The convoy was guarded by soldiers from south Sudan’s army. Local reports said about 40 people were killed in the attack. The incident led to a series of allegations between officials from the north and south, increasing tensions in the already hostile relationship. Pagan Amum, secretary general of the south’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), in a June 15 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) accused the government, based in the capital, Khartoum, of distributing the arms used by the tribesmen in the convoy attack. Amum alleged that the government was attempting to destabilize the south ahead of the referendum in 2011. Tajussir Mahjoub, the strategic planning minister for the national government, the next day denied that the government had provided the weapons. The attack on the convoy came at the height of increased tribal violence that had left hundreds dead and more than 135,000 displaced thus far in 2009. The fighting between tribes revolved around long-running disputes over cattle and land. The U.N. Security Council May 1 had unanimously voted to extend by one year the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), which consisted of some 10,000 peacekeepers. Following an 11-day visit to Sudan, Sima Samar, the U.N. special representative on human rights in the country, June 4 urged the government to increase efforts to stem the ethnic clashes. Sudanese First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit, who was also the president of south Sudan, May 27 had announced a civilian disarmament campaign in the region. Such campaigns in the past had led to fighting between soldiers and tribesmen unwilling to surrender their weapons. Political Shake-ups Hit Ruling Party—

In a reshuffle of his southern cabinet, Kiir May 30 fired Finance Minister Kuol Athian for mismanaging public funds, after he was unable to account for several million pounds of grain purchased by the government. Kiir announced several other cabinet changes, including the appointment of the army chief of staff, Oyai Deng Ajak, as regional cooperation minister. Lam Akol, who was fired in 2007 as Sudan’s foreign minister, June 8 announced that he was leaving the SPLM to create his own splinter party, SPLM–Democratic Change. He accused his former party of mismanaging the south. Members of the SPLM called the move an attempt by Bashir to divide the region ahead of the 2010 national elections, in which Kiir was expected to challenge Bashir for the nation’s presidency. [See 2007, p. 880F1] June 25, 2009

The SPLM also accused Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) of manipulating the results of the national census released on May 21. The poll, conducted in 2008, recorded just 21% of the overall Sudanese population of 39 million as residing in the south. The SPLM asserted that the southern population was undercounted and northern groups loyal to Bashir were overcounted. The census results would be used to organize the national elections. The SPLM demanded a review of the census findings, but the request was denied by the government. n

AMERICAS

Mexico 18 Killed in Acapulco Gunfight. Mexican

soldiers and suspected drug traffickers June 6 engaged in a fierce two-hour gunbattle in the resort city of Acapulco, in an area known as Peninsula de las Playas. Sixteen suspected traffickers and two soldiers were killed in the violence, and at least nine people were wounded, including three bystanders. [See p. 359D1] Mexican Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan Galvan in a June 7 statement said the military had received a tip alerting it to a group of armed men, believed to be members of the Beltran Leyva cartel, in a house in Peninsula de las Playas, the old hotel zone of the city. A force of about 200 soldiers attempted to storm the house, and were met with grenade and rocket fire, as well as automatic gunfire. Soldiers found 49 guns, two rocket launchers, 13 grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the house. Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa in December 2006 had deployed some 40,000 troops across the country to combat the drug cartels. The resulting violence had left some 11,000 people dead. Government officials had attempted to woo tourists to vacation areas by arguing that drug violence had been localized in other areas of the country. 29 Local Police Officers Detained—

Federal agents and soldiers June 1 detained 29 local police officers in several cities in Nuevo Leon state, after finding evidence tying them to drug cartels. Corruption and drug cartel ties were considered endemic to much of Mexico’s local police forces and governments, and were thought to stymie Calderon’s efforts to battle the cartels. In many cities, federal forces had assumed local police duties. n 47 Killed in Day-care Fire in Old Warehouse.

A fire June 5 erupted in a day-care facility in a converted warehouse in Hermosillo, in northern Mexico’s Sonora state, killing at least 47 children. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora June 10 said a damaged air conditioner in an adjoining warehouse had started the fire, which then spread to the day-care center. [See 2000, p. 863G1] The facility, which was privately operated but run under the auspices of the country’s social security administration, only

had two doors, one of which was padlocked shut. Parents and rescue officials arriving at the conflagration had reportedly attempted to free trapped children by knocking holes in the building’s walls, some using vehicles to ram them. Eduardo Bours, the governor of Sonora, June 7 said most of the fire’s victims had died of smoke inhalation. Sonora state Attorney General Abel Murrieta June 22 said seven state finance ministry officials had been arrested on charges of negligent homicide. Murrieta said those arrested were directly responsible for overseeing the day-care center. Two low-level federal officials were also arrested. Amid finger-pointing between state and federal officials, Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont June 24 announced that the federal government was taking over the investigation of the fire, “to avoid any political disputes.” n

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Peru Development Laws Repealed After Protests.

Peru’s Congress June 18 voted, 82–14, to revoke two controversial decrees that had opened the country’s Amazon rainforest region to oil, mining and timber development. The laws had sparked widespread protests among indigenous groups, who since April had blockaded trade routes and taken over two airports during demonstrations. In early June some 2,000 protesters blocking a highway had clashed with a police force of 600 people. At least 34 people were killed during the fighting, but some indigenous leaders said dozens more had been kidnapped or killed by government forces. [See p. 394C3] Widespread protests by native groups had continued following the early June incident. An estimated 10,000 people June 12 marched in Lima, Peru’s capital, in an effort to reach Congress. They were met by police who tear-gassed them, leading to violent confrontations between the two sides. As part of a general strike called for that day, thousands of protesters also took to the streets in Iquitos, the country’s largest city in the Amazon. Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez in a June 17 televised speech said he had erred by backing the Amazon policies without seeking greater input from indigenous groups. The two abrogated measures had been part of a package of 90 laws that had gone into effect in 2008 in order to meet preconditions for a Peru-U.S. free trade agreement, which went into effect in 2009. Indian groups had argued that the laws would infringe on their land access rights, and open the door to widespread illegal logging and oil development in the Amazon. Prime Minister Yehude Simon, who was also Garcia’s cabinet chief, June 16 said he would resign within weeks, after being criticized for his handling of the violent protests. Under Peruvian law, the entire cabinet would have to resign if the prime minister did so. Simon, after meeting with indigenous protesters, June 15 had 431

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said he would request that Congress repeal the controversial laws. Daysi Zapata, a leader of the umbrella indigenous group Asociacion Interetnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP), June 18 hailed the repeal of the laws as “a historic day for all indigenous people and for the nation of Peru.” Some indigenous leaders had pledged to call off protests if the laws were revoked. Peru June 16 had recalled its ambassador to Bolivia, Fernando Rojas, after Bolivian President Evo Morales Aima called the deaths of native people resulting from clashes with police a “genocide.” Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonia Garcia Belaunde the same day called Morales an enemy of Peru for having made the remark. Alan Garcia had intimated several times that the governments of Venezuela and Bolivia had encouraged the uprising of Peruvian indigenous groups. Pollster Ipsos Apoyo June 21 reported that the president’s approval rating had fallen to 21%, from 30% in May, largely as a result of the fallout from the protests. Analysts said Garcia was likely to serve out the remaining two years of his five-year term, but that his political power had been significantly diminished. Also, James Anaya, the United Nations special rapporteur for indigenous people, June 19 called on Peru’s government to launch an investigation into allegations of abuse by security forces. Anaya said several people remained unaccounted for following the protests. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

European Union Summit Grants Treaty Concessions to Ireland.

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Leaders of the European Union’s 27 member nations June 18–19 held a summit meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The leaders approved a set of assurances to Ireland that it would not be legally bound by the EU’s pending Lisbon Treaty on issues including abortion rights, taxation and military neutrality. The concessions were meant to help build support in Ireland to pass the treaty in a second referendum, after Irish voters rejected the treaty in a June 2008 referendum. The treaty, which would reorganize EU institutions, required ratification by all member nations before it could take effect. [See p. 188F2; 2008, p. 927D1] Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he expected that the referendum would be held in October. Public opinion polls in Ireland showed that support for the treaty had increased. Observers said Ireland’s economic recession had reduced resistance to closer EU integration. However, Czech President Vaclav Klaus June 18 said he would not sign the Lisbon Treaty unless the Czech parliament approved the guarantees granted to Ireland. He argued that the guarantees, to be set out in a separate formal protocol, altered the terms of the treaty. 432

Financial Regulations Set—The EU national leaders June 19 approved a plan to set up new financial regulatory bodies in response to the global financial crisis. The plan called for the creation of a European Systemic Risk Council. A second body would set EU-wide standards for the supervision of banks, insurers and other financial institutions by the EU’s national governments. [See pp. 417E2, 407A1] The risk council would have only an advisory role. National governments would retain final authority over whether to provide funds for rescuing banks. Britain, which had the largest financial industry in the EU, had opposed any stronger powers for the council, which had been supported by France. Barroso Backed for Second Term—The EU leaders June 18 unanimously agreed to back a second five-year term for Jose Manuel Barroso as president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. Barroso would have to win approval from the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative arm, for a second term. Earlier in June, center-right parties had increased their majority in the latest elections for the parliament, making the reappointment of Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, more likely despite opposition by center-left parties. [See p. 396G1; 2004, p. 487A3] Britain’s Conservative (Tory) Party June 22 announced that it had formed a new group in the European Parliament, breaking away from the main center-right bloc, the European People’s Party, to form the European Conservatives and Reformists Group. The group said it aimed to oppose the growth of EU federalism. It would be the fourth-largest group in the 736-seat parliament, with 55 members from eight countries. The Tories would have 26 members in the group; Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, 15; and the Czech Republic’s Civic Democracy Party (ODS), nine. There would be one member each from parties from Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Latvia and the Netherlands. The Tories denied that the new anti-federalist grouping signaled that they would pursue an isolationist foreign policy if they won the next British parliamentary elections. Britain’s ruling center-left Labour Party said the Tories had aligned themselves with extremist parties, noting the PiS’s opposition to gay rights. n

France Sarkozy Says Burqa ‘Will Not Be Welcome.’

French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a speech to the French parliament June 22 condemned the burqa—a full-length, facehiding Islamic garment—as demeaning to the women who wore it. Throwing his support behind a drive to ban the burqa in France, he declared, “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.” [See 2008, p. 983C1] Sarkozy said, “In the republic, the Muslim religion must be respected like other religions.” However, he argued, “The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue; it is a question of freedom and of women’s dig-

nity.” He insisted, “We cannot accept in our country women imprisoned behind bars, cut off from social life, deprived of identity.” He called the burqa a symbol of “enslavement.” The National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, June 23 set up a commission to investigate the issue of burqas and deliver a report in six months. A group of nearly 60 lawmakers from various parties had pressed for such a probe before Sarkozy endorsed it. Leaders of mainstream French Muslim groups said they also discouraged women from wearing the burqa, but warned that setting up the commission could stigmatize Muslims. In 2004, the French government had banned the wearing of religious garments or symbols in public schools. That ban was widely viewed as being aimed in particular at Muslim head scarves. France had the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, at about five million. In 2008, the Council of State, the highest administrative court, had denied French citizenship to a Moroccan woman living in France, finding that she wore a burqa and lived in “total submission” to her husband. Makes Historic Speech at Versailles—

Sarkozy’s June 22 speech was the first address to parliament by a French head of state in more than 130 years. He addressed a joint meeting of the Senate and the National Assembly at the palace of Versailles, outside Paris. Until a constitutional revision pushed through by Sarkozy in July 2008, a strict separation of powers had prevented the president from addressing parliament since the 1870s. The new reform called for the president to give an annual speech similar to the U.S. president’s State of the Union address. Sarkozy’s speech also focused on the current economic recession. He ruled out both tax increases and spending cuts to control the growing budget deficit, instead proposing new government borrowing to fund education and public services. Sarkozy, leader of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), June 23 announced a reshuffle of his cabinet, two years into his five-year term in office. In the most notable appointment, he named author, filmmaker and television personality Frederic Mitterrand, nephew of former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, as culture minister. It was the latest in a string of appointments by Sarkozy of figures from outside his own party. Justice Minister Rachida Dati left the cabinet after winning a seat in the European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union, earlier in June. Dati, whose parents were immigrants from the former French colonies Algeria and Morocco, had become the first French cabinet member with North African origins. Most of France’s Muslim population had North African roots. Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie took over as justice minister, while Labor Minister Brice Hortefeux became interior minister. n FACTS ON FILE

European Business News Central Bank Lends Record One-Year Funds. The European Central Bank (ECB) June 23

loaned a record amount of 442 billion euros ($662 billion) in one-year funds to private-sector banks in the 16 countries that used the euro currency, known collectively as the eurozone. The offering, at the ECB’s benchmark rate of 1%, was its first of an unlimited amount of one-year funds. The ECB had scheduled more one-year fund auctions for September and December, but said it might increase its interest rate for those offerings. [See p. 417E2] The operation was part of the ECB’s efforts to counteract a eurozone recession and encourage banks to resume normal lending, after credit markets froze in the global financial crisis over the past year. The offer of unlimited short-term funds was aimed at driving down interest rates on loans between banks, which remained higher than the ECB’s official rate. The ECB had indicated that it was unlikely to lower its key rate below 1%, after cutting it repeatedly from 4.25% since 2008. In another move to respond to the financial crisis, the ECB had announced that it would buy 60 billion euros in low-risk corporate bonds. However, the ECB had drawn some criticism for taking less aggressive measures than the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, the British central bank, which had both cut their key rates to near zero and bought up larger amounts of both corporate and government debt. n

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Iraq Truck Detonates Near Kirkuk, Killing 82.

As many as 82 people died and more than 250 were wounded when a truck filled with explosives June 20 detonated near a Shiite Muslim mosque in Taza, a town in northern Iraq near Kirkuk. All of the victims were thought to be civilians. The bombing occurred in an oil-rich area where unresolved disputes simmered between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. [See below, pp. 398B2, 344E2] Hours before the attack, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had met in Baghdad, the capital, with Turkmen leaders to discuss instability in the areas around Kirkuk. He urged ethnic groups to work toward unity, and cautioned that there could be an uptick in violence following the scheduled June 30 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities and towns. That move was part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, and was mandated by a U.S-Iraqi security agreement signed in 2008. Scores Killed in Marketplace Bombing—

At least 76 people were killed and more than 160 were injured when a bomb attached to a motorcycle and hidden under a load of vegetables June 24 detonated at a market in Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite June 25, 2009

neighborhood in Baghdad. Iraqi security forces reportedly did not arrive on the scene until about 20 minutes after the blast, angering some who lived in the area. [See p. 297A1] The bombing came four days after U.S. commanders had turned over to Iraqi forces an important base on the edge of Sadr City, as part of their withdrawal plans. Brig. Gen. Stephen Lanza, the senior U.S. military spokesperson in Iraq, hours before the blast had said violence in Iraq was less frequent than it had been in previous years. “There will be some challenges as we move out of the cities,” he added. He also said some U.S. combat forces would remain in certain urban areas after the deadline, but emphasized that they would be there to promote “stability” rather than to engage in combat operations. [See below, p. 330E3] Some observers suggested the recent violence was aimed at damaging Maliki’s reputation. Maliki had taken credit for reducing violence in Iraq in the prelude to parliamentary elections, which were scheduled for January 2010. Leading Sunni Politician Killed— Harith al-Obaidi, the moderate head of the Iraqi Accordance Front (known in Arabic as Tawafiq), the largest Sunni Muslim bloc in the Iraqi parliament, June 12 was shot dead just after he had finished giving a sermon at a mosque in Baghdad’s western Yarmouk neighborhood. The gunman also killed three of Obaidi’s bodyguards and an aide before reportedly throwing himself on top of an exploding grenade as security guards pursued him. Obaidi, who had served as deputy chairman of the Iraqi parliament’s human rights committee and was known as a campaigner against prison abuses, the following day was buried in a state funeral. His funeral was attended by lawmakers from all of Iraq’s major political parties. The attack came a day after Obaidi, 45, had announced his intention to summon the Iraqi ministers of defense, interior and justice to discuss extensive allegations of abuse and torture in Iraq’s prisons. Both U.S. and Iraqi officials had expressed concern that sectarian violence might spike near the June 30 deadline for the departure of combat troops. Iraqi forces June 17 arrested at least one man, Ahmed Abid Uwaid al-Luhaibi, in connection with the murders. Officials said Luhaibi was a member of the Awakening, a Sunni paramilitary force, as well as the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for several terrorist elements. In a related development, a special committee June 18 began investigating complaints of systematic prisoner abuse, and was expected to submit a report on their findings to Maliki in two weeks. Iraq’s interior minister two days before had said more than 40 police officers would be charged with crimes after investigators found that prisoners had been abused or detained without warrants. Other News—In other Iraq news: o At least seven people were killed and 31 injured when an explosion June 25

ripped through a bus station in a Shiite neighborhood in southwest Baghdad. Two other people were killed in Baghdad that day by roadside bombs. Also, nine U.S. soldiers were wounded when two roadside bombs hit their convoy as it traveled through eastern Baghdad. o Dozens of people June 22 were killed in several attacks in and around Baghdad. As many as seven people were killed and 16 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car near municipal offices in Abu Ghraib, just west of the capital. Three U.S. soldiers were among the wounded. Three others were killed and 30 were wounded the same day when a bomb exploded near a market and a police patrol station in Shaab, in northeastern Baghdad. Also that day, five people were killed and 20 were injured when a car bomb exploded in Karrada, in central Baghdad. A roadside bomb in Sadr City detonated near a minibus carrying students to school, killing three students and wounding as many as 13 people. o British Foreign Secretary David Miliband June 20 announced that the “remains” of two men had been turned over to British officials in Baghdad. The British government the following day said the dead men had been tentatively identified as security guards Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst. They had been kidnapped along with three other Britons by Shiite insurgents in May 2007. [See p. 189D3] o Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations, Hamid al-Bayati, June 18 asked the U.N. Security Council to reduce the $25.5 billion Iraq owed in war reparations meant to rectify damages from the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Of that amount, $24 billion was owed to Kuwait. [See 2003, p. 240D2]

An audit released June 15 by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the U.S. State Department’s inspector general said the U.S. between 2004 and 2008 had overpaid the security contracting firm then called Blackwater Worldwide, and now known as Xe, by $55 million. The audit said the teams hired to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq “did not maintain the required number” of several types of security specialists, leaving officials vulnerable to attacks. A spokesperson for Xe said the company had complied with all of the terms of its contract for the period examined in the audit. [See p. 208G3]

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o Two U.S. contractors who had been arrested by Iraqi security forces in connection with the death of another U.S. contractor in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone were released June 11. Another contractor detained on similar suspicions had been released the previous day. Two others who had been detained by Iraqi forces on those charges had been transferred to U.S. custody, U.S. officials said June 14. [See p. 398A3] n 433

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Afghanistan McChrystal Takes Reins as Top Commander.

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U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal June 15 formally took over as the top commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, replacing U.S. Gen. David McKiernan in a ceremony in Kabul, the capital. In his remarks at the ceremony, McChrystal emphasized that protecting Afghanistan’s civilian population was crucial to defeating an insurgency by the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban. The U.S. Senate June 10 had unanimously confirmed McChrystal to the position. [See p. 381A1] U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had tapped McChrystal to lead the coalition in May, saying a fresh approach was needed to reverse the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. McChrystal was expected to tour the country over the next 10 days, meeting with military leaders and Afghan officials, and to submit a report to Gates in 60 days on how he was going to meet U.S. President Barack Obama’s goal of stabilizing the region. [See p. 194F2] During his Senate confirmation hearing in June, and in subsequent interviews with media outlets, McChrystal had stressed that protecting civilian populations would be the most effective method of reducing the Taliban’s influence. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published June 12, he said he wanted to conduct a “classic counterinsurgency campaign” of using an influx of troops to boost security for local populations. Obama had authorized the deployment of an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the number of U.S. troops there to about 68,000, and the total number of coalition troops to about 100,000. In an interview with the Washington Post published June 16, McChrystal suggested that he was considering withdrawing troops from remote, sparsely populated regions that served as safe havens for hardcore Taliban fighters. Some of those areas had seen intense fighting in recent years, but had not resulted in significant territorial gains for coalition forces. McChrystal said those troops could be put to better use in regions more heavily populated by civilians, since increased security in those areas had a greater chance of leading to economic development and political integration. The U.S. was also expected to offer Afghan farmers economic incentives to cultivate crops other than poppy, which was used to make heroin, and was a major source of revenue for the Taliban. Prior to arriving in Afghanistan, McChrystal attended a June 11–12 meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium. The defense ministers agreed to change the command structure for coalition forces in Afghanistan, creating a new deputy post under the top commander that would oversee day-to-day military operations. That post would be filled by U.S. Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, a counterinsurgen434

cy expert who had led troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer June 12 said European countries would send an additional 8,000 to 10,000 troops to provide security for the Afghan presidential election in August, but that they would be withdrawn soon after. The U.S. had long pushed its European allies in NATO to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, but had been unable to secure significant troop increases. Petraeus Sees Spike in Violence—U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, June 11 said insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan had spiked to its highest levels since 2001, when the coalition invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime. Petraeus, speaking at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, D.C., said coalition forces would need a “phenomenal understanding” of Afghan culture to win the allegiance of the civilian population. Petraeus said violence was likely to increase as more U.S. troops entered the country and engaged with the Taliban. Lt. Col. Erik Gunhus, a spokesman for Petraeus, later that day said there had been 400 militant attacks the previous week in Afghanistan, up from the average of 250 a week in June 2008. NATO that day reported that coalition deaths in the first three months of 2009 had increased by 78% compared with same period the previous year, and that the number of militant attacks had increased by 70%. U.S. Reports Errors Made in Air Strike—

The U.S. Defense Department June 19 said U.S. forces had made errors during a battle in early May in Afghanistan’s western province of Farah, which were the “likely” cause of at least 26 civilian deaths. That assessment of the civilian death toll was much lower than what had been reported by Afghan officials, who claimed that 140 civilians had been killed. The incident had stoked a popular outcry in Afghanistan against coalition forces and the U.S.backed government of President Hamid Karzai. [See p. 381D2] The Defense Department provided new details of the battle, reporting that U.S. fighter jets and bombers had been called in after an Afghan army operation against 300 heavily armed Taliban fighters went sour. The report said the bombing crews failed to follow guidelines for avoiding civilian casualties. One crew reportedly neglected to confirm that there were no civilians present in two buildings before dropping bombs on them, as it was required to do. The report also said 78 militants had been killed in the attack, and that militants from Pakistan and Chechnya were fighting alongside the Taliban. It was reported that McChrystal would soon release stricter engagement guidelines to reduce civilian casualties. The guidelines would reportedly limit the use of air strikes, and under certain circumstances would require soldiers to withdraw from firefights in which civilian lives were in danger.

Poll Shows Karzai’s Support Dropping—

The International Republican Institute—a U.S.-based nonprofit group with ties to the U.S. Republican Party—June 15 released a poll projecting that Karzai would receive 31% of the vote in the Aug. 20 presidential election, falling short of the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff. Karzai had received 54% of the vote in the 2004 election. However, the poll’s 3,200 respondents were queried between May 3 and May 16, before many candidates had a chance to register for the election. Karzai’s leading competitors placed far behind him, with former Foreign Minister Abdullah (who went by only one name) projected to receive 7% of the vote, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani 3% of the vote. Karzai’s popularity had declined due to the increasingly perilous security situation, as well as rampant corruption in his government, but analysts said he was likely to prevail in the election. Karzai was one of Afghanistan’s few nationally recognized political figures, and had secured the support of powerful tribal leaders who were expected to push their followers to vote for him. [See p. 313F3] According to the poll, 30% of respondents said Afghanistan was heading in the right direction, compared with the 79% of respondents who believed it was on the right course in 2004. When asked if Afghanistan was more stable than a year earlier, 52% said it was less stable. The poll showed that 55% thought corruption was a “very serious” problem, and 26% thought it was “somewhat serious.” Reporters Escape From Taliban—A U.S. reporter with the New York Times and an Afghan colleague June 20 escaped from their Taliban abductors after seven months in captivity. The Times reporter, David Rohde, and the Afghan reporter, Tahir Ludin, as well as their driver, Asadullah Mangal, had been kidnapped on Nov. 10, 2008, in Afghanistan’s Logar province, southeast of Kabul. They were then reportedly held in several locations in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, and eventually escaped from a compound in North Waziristan, a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan. [See 2008, p. 989A3; 1995, p. 882C2] The Times and other media outlets had agreed not to report the kidnapping over fears that the publicity would put the reporters’ lives in danger. The Times did not disclose any details of how it attempted to free the reporters, other than to say that no ransom money had been paid, and that no Taliban prisoners had been released in exchange for the reporters’ freedom. Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said the release of such details would offer “guidance for future kidnappers.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been the “lead agency” involved in efforts to free the reporters. Rohde in November 2008 had reportedly been researching a book on the U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan. Ludin, who had worked with various Western media organizations, organized an interview with a FACTS ON FILE

Taliban leader who went by the name Abu Tayeb. The two reporters and Mangal were kidnapped soon after leaving Kabul en route to the interview. In an interview with the Times published June 22, Ludin said he and Rohde had sneaked out of the compound early June 20 while their guards were asleep, and used a rope to rappel down a 20-foot (6-m) wall encircling the compound. The two reporters then found a post run by Pakistani security forces, and later that day were transported to the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base, near Kabul. The Times wrote that Mangal “appeared to be overwhelmed by fear of his captors and had not participated in the planning of the escape.” Rohde was the latest foreigner to be kidnapped in Afghanistan, which had seen an increase in foreign abductions in recent years as the security situation deteriorated. The Taliban was thought to use hostages to raise ransom money, and as leverage over the coalition. Melissa Fung, a reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., had been kidnapped in 2008, and was freed a month later. That kidnapping also went unreported until her release. Rohde, 41, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes (one in April as part of the Times’s team covering Afghanistan and Pakistan), had also been briefly held captive by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 while reporting for the Christian Science Monitor in the former Yugoslavia. [See p. 279B3; 1996, p. 255F3] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Golfer Glover Claims RainDelayed U.S. Open

the U.S. and Hunter Mahan of the U.S. were at two under. Top-ranked Tiger Woods of the U.S., despite finishing the round at one over par, was closely watched for a potential rally in the final round, which began late June 21. The leaderboard shifted soon after the final round resumed June 22. Barnes made five bogeys on the front nine, and Glover made three bogeys. At one point on the back nine, Glover, Duval and Mickelson were tied for the lead at three under par. But Mickelson bogeyed the 15th and 17th, and Duval’s par putt on the 17th lipped out, dropping both players from contention. After Mickelson and Duval posted scores of two under, Glover, at four under, took a two-stroke lead over playing partner Barnes into the 18th. Glover parred the hole, as did Barnes, giving Glover the victory. Glover shot a final-round 73 to finish the tournament with a 276, four under par. Mickelson, Duval and Barnes tied for second, at two under par. Woods finished tied for sixth, at even. Glover earned $1.35 million for the victory. Mickelson was a favorite of the rowdy crowd, many of whom voiced support for his wife, Amy Mickelson. The Mickelsons May 20 had announced that Amy had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and Mickelson suspended his season until June 10 as a result. Mickelson, a three-time major winner, had never won the U.S. Open, but had placed second five times. The second-place finish was seen as a comeback for Duval. In 1999, he had been ranked number one in the world, and he won the 2001 British Open. However, he had since lost form, and was ranked 882nd at the start of the 2009 U.S. Open. [See 2001, p. 584A1] n

Wins on Waterlogged Bethpage Black Course.

Lucas Glover of the U.S. June 22 won the U.S. Open, the second men’s major tournament of the year, at the Bethpage Black golf course in Farmingdale, N.Y. It was the first victory in a major for Glover, 29, who claimed the title on a Monday afternoon after outlasting his competitors in a tournament plagued by rain delays and difficult course conditions. [See 2008, p. 421C3] The U.S. Open had first been held at the Bethpage Black course—the most difficult course at Bethpage State Park—in 2002; that had been the first time that the tournament was played at a publicly owned golf course. [See 2002, p. 468C2] After most of the scheduled play June 18, the first day of the tournament, was washed out due to rain, players did not complete their first rounds until June 19. Canada’s Mike Weir, who was at six under par, led after the first round ended that day. The second round, which finished June 20, featured a 65 by little-known player Ricky Barnes, who ended the round in the lead at eight under. Glover completed the round in second place, one shot back. The third round ended the afternoon of June 21, with Barnes still in the lead at eight under, and Glover in second at seven under. David Duval of the U.S. and Ross Fisher of England were tied for third, at three under; and Weir, Phil Mickelson of June 25, 2009

Hockey Capitals’ Ovechkin Repeats as NHL MVP.

Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin June 18 was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as the most valuable player (MVP) of the 2008–09 National Hockey League (NHL) season. Voting for the award was conducted by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. It was one of several handed out at a ceremony that night in Las Vegas, Nev. [See 2008, p. 760F1] Ovechkin, 23, won the award for the second straight year, making him the first player to repeat since goaltender Dominik Hasek had done so in 1997 and 1998. In the 2008– 09 season, Ovechkin had led the league with 56 goals, and came in second with 110 points. He also took home the Lester B. Pearson Award, as the MVP voted by the players. [See p. 299F2; 1998, p. 739C3] In other awards presented that night: o Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Steve Mason won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. o Members of the Boston Bruins, who had the best record in the Eastern Conference, claimed three awards. Tim Thomas took the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender. Zdeno Chara won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the top defen-

seman. Claude Julien was awarded the Jack Adams Trophy as the top coach. o Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings won his second straight Frank J. Selke Trophy as the top defensive forward. Also, for the fourth consecutive year, he took home the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for gentlemanly conduct. o Edmonton Oilers forward Ethan Moreau won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy for his humanitarian contributions. o Nashville Predators forward Steve Sullivan was awarded the Bill Masterson Memorial Trophy for perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Future of Bankrupt Coyotes Mulled—Coyotes Holdings LLC, the parent company of the Phoenix Coyotes, May 5 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Phoenix, Ariz., after operating at losses of around $30 million for the previous three years. Two days later, the league challenged the filing, claiming that the team’s primary owner, Jerry Moyes, had signed over control of the Coyotes to the NHL in November 2008. The NHL sought to keep the Coyotes in Arizona, while a $212.5 million buyout offer from Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie would see the team move to Hamilton, Ontario. [See 2006, p. 1037E1] U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Redfield Baum June 15 rejected the proposed sale of the Coyotes to Balsillie to allow the league time to find a buyer who would keep the team in its current location. Balsillie had imposed a June 29 deadline for the completion of the sale, but the NHL board of governors had yet to vote on the team’s relocation, as required by league rules. Attorneys for the NHL argued that the bankruptcy filing was an attempt to circumvent both the league rules and the team’s current lease with the Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Ariz. Four Elected to Hall of Fame—The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada, June 23 elected four new members. The electees were center Steve Yzerman, defenseman Brian Leetch, and forwards Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. All four retired players were elected in their first year of eligibility. They would be inducted in November. [See 2008, p. 994B3] Other News—In other NHL news: o The Minnesota Wild June 16 named former San Jose Sharks assistant coach Todd Richards the team’s head coach. He replaced the retiring Jacques Lemaire. [See p. 299E3] o New Jersey Devils coach Brent Sutter June 9 announced his resignation after just two seasons with the franchise. He cited family reasons for his early departure, but later accepted the head coaching position for the Calgary Flames on June 23. He replaced Mike Keenan, who had been fired on May 22 by Flames general manager Darryl Sutter, brother of Brent Sutter. [See 2007, p. 503G2] o Florida Panthers general manager Jacques Martin June 1 was named the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. He took over the position from general manager Bob Gainey, who had finished the season as the interim coach for the team. [See p. 159C2] o The Dallas Stars June 1 named former Toronto Maple Leafs assistant to the general 435

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er and songwriter Michael Jackson, one of the world’s most famous entertainers, June 25 was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after apparently going into cardiac arrest at a house he had been renting in the city’s affluent Holmby Hills area. Paramedics responding to a 911 call reportedly found the 50-year-old Jackson not breathing when they reached the house in the early afternoon, and tried to revive him before rushing him to the hospital. Resuscitation efforts continued there for a little more than an hour before he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was to be performed to try to establish the cause of his death. [See p. 256B2] Born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary, Ind., Michael Joseph Jackson had been in the limelight since the late 1960s, as the lead singer of the boy group the Jackson 5, whose other original members were his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon. (Their youngest brother, Randy, replaced Jermaine in 1976.) The group had been organized in Gary by the boys’ father, Joe Jackson, a onetime steelworker. It was signed by Berry Gordy’s Detroit, Mich.– based Motown Records, a major showcase for black artists, in 1969, and made a memorable appearance that year on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” the leading television variety show of its day. [See 1974, p. 884E3] Also in 1969, the group released the first of its albums for Motown, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5. As popular among whites as among blacks, the group even had its own Saturday morning TV cartoon show. And Michael Jackson, the group’s youngest member, drew the most attention, not only for his lead vocals but for his precocity as a dancer. Solo Career Follows Jackson 5—In 1971, Jackson began recording under his own name, while still performing with the Jackson 5. (The group left Motown in 1975 and subsequently performed and recorded as the Jacksons.) His first two solo albums, Got to Be There and Ben, were both released on Motown in 1972. His first major solo album, Off the Wall, came out in 1979 and eventually sold 20 million copies worldwide. The album had been produced jointly with Quincy Jones, whom he had met after being cast as the Scarecrow in the 1978 film musical The Wiz, and had four No. 1 singles, then an unprecedented feat. [See 1979, p. 800E3; 1978, p. 970F3] In 1982, Jackson released his album Thriller, his second Jones collaboration. It became the best-selling album in history, with over 100 million copies sold worldwide. Seven of its songs became Top 10 hits, including “Billie Jean,” “Beat It” and the title track. Its success was largely due 436

to the state-of-the-art videos used to promote its music. In 1983, while performing “Billie Jean” on a TV special viewed by 50 million people, he introduced what became his trademark “moonwalk” dance move, in which he seemed to be gliding forward while actually moving backward. In this phase of his career, he also came to be known for wearing a sequined white glove and other flashy articles of clothing. [See 1984, pp. 460E1–A2, 36E1] His later albums included Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991) and Invincible (2001); Bad was his last collaboration with Jones. All those albums sold millions of copies, but none came close to duplicating the success of Thriller. [See 2001, p. 968D1; 1991, p. 1016A1; 1987, p. 684F2] Convoluted Personal Life—As he grew older, his reputation for eccentricity also grew. In 1988, paid $17 million for his Neverland Ranch north of Los Angeles. He spent another $35 million to outfit the property with a menagerie, carnival-style rides and other attractions seemingly designed to appeal to children. He later was twice accused of having molested young boys—he himself claimed to have been beaten and otherwise badly mistreated by his father as a child—with the second set of allegations resulting in a 2005 trial that ended in his acquittal on all 10 counts. After the trial, he lived abroad for several years, including in Bahrain. In 2008, he narrowly avoided foreclosure on Neverland. [See p. 256B2; 2008, p. 998D3; 2005, p. 400A1; 1994, p. 720C2; 1991, p. 904B2–C2] He was also known for having undergone a number of plastic surgeries that led to his appearance changing dramatically over the years. His skin also became lighter and lighter, which some attributed to skinbleaching treatments, but which he claimed was due to vitiligo, a skin disorder. [See 1993, p. 108E2] He had a high-pitched, whispery voice and an androgenous look that led many to assume that he was gay or even asexual. Nevertheless, he was married twice. His first wife was Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley. That marriage lasted from 1994 to 1996. His second marriage, to onetime nurse Debbie Rowe, lasted from 1996 to 1999. It produced a son and a daughter, of whom Jackson was granted custody after his divorce from Rowe. He also had a second son, born in 2002 to a surrogate mother whose identity was never revealed. [See 1999, p. 788G2; 1997, p. 116B2; 1996, pp. 856C1, 44B2; 1994, p. 560B2; 1984, p. 997C3] Over the years, he made tens of millions of dollars—he at one time owned the company that controlled the copyrights to 251 songs by the British rock group the Beatles—and made major contributions to charity. However, his lifestyle was so lavish that he ended up being burdened with significant financial problems, some of which led to lawsuits. A number of these were pending, and it was thought that it might take years to settle his estate. (The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reported that he was hundreds of millions

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manager, Joe Nieuwendyk, to replace co– general managers Hull and Les Jackson. o The Edmonton Oilers May 26 hired former Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn as the team’s new coach. [See 2006, p. 335D1] n

Michael Jackson after winning eight Grammy Awards in 1984.

of dollars in debt at the time of his death.) [See 2006, p. 316G1; 1985, p. 656G1] To help bolster his finances, he had agreed to return to the stage, after last staging a world tour in 1996–97, by giving a series of 50 concerts at London’s O2 arena. Tickets for these shows, which had been set to begin in July, had quickly sold out, and he had reportedly passed a medical exam to determine if he was well enough to meet the grueling demands of such a performance schedule. Jackson was survived by his three children, his five brothers, as well as by three sisters, Janet, La Toya and Rebbie Jackson, all of them singers themselves. [See p. 307C1; 1996, p. 364F2] n FAWCETT, Farrah, 62, actress whose appearance on a swimsuit poster showing her with flowing blonde hair, followed by a role as one of three seductive female detectives in the television series “Charlie’s Angels,” made her a 1970s sex symbol; in those days, she was married to actor Lee Majors and was billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors; although she left “Charlie’s Angels” in 1977, after only one season, and appeared on the show only a few times thereafter, she remained identified with it for the rest of her career, which included a number of more serious roles, both on TV and in Hollywood movies; after six years of marriage, she and Majors separated in 1979 and were divorced in 1982; during the last three years of her marriage, and for much of the rest of her life, she was romantically involved with actor Ryan O’Neal, with whom she had a son, Redmond O’Neal, born in 1985; she broke up with O’Neal in 1997, but was reunited with, and aided him after he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001; he in turn aided her after she was diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006; the cancer eventually spread to her liver, and she sought experimental treatment for it in Germany; her cancer battle was recounted in a TV documentary, “Farrah’s Story,” that aired in May; born Feb. 2, 1947, in Corpus Christi, Texas; died June 25 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., of cancer complications. [See 2000, p. 835E2; 1998, p. 143D2; Indexes 1997, 1995, 1989, 1985–86, 1982–83, 1980, 1978] McMAHON, Ed (Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr.),

86, entertainer best known for his role as the announcer and sidekick on the NBC television network’s “Tonight Show” during the three decades (1962–92) that Johnny Carson hosted it; his trademark phrase in introducing Carson was “Heeeere’s Johnny!”; he and Carson had previously been paired on an ABC quiz show, “Who Do You Trust?” starting in 1958; over the years, he also made many TV commercials; after leaving the “Tonight Show,” he hosted the TV talent show “Star Search” for a dozen years; in 2008, his multimilliondollar Beverly Hills, Calif., home was nearly foreclosed on, an episode that was widely publicized; born March 6, 1923, in Detroit, Mich.; died June 23 at a hospital in Los Angeles; he reportedly had been battling bone cancer and had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia. [See 2005, p. 56C3; 1991, p. 412A2] n

June 25, 2009

U.S. Troops Withdraw From Iraqi Cities Bombings Underscore Fragile Security.

Iraq June 30 marked the official deadline under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who had characterized the withdrawal as a “great victory” against foreign occupiers, declared a national holiday. The Iraqi government and media over the previous days had promoted festivals and parades, and disseminated patriotic messages and programming. However, while some Iraqis celebrated, many stayed home amid fears that insurgent attacks and sectarian violence would increase as presumably less-able Iraqi troops took over security tasks from the departing U.S. forces. [See p. 433E1] The U.S. had shut down more than 150 bases and outposts in Iraq since Jan. 1. About 130,000 U.S. troops were scheduled to remain stationed in Iraq until September, mainly in bases outside urban areas. U.S. President Barack Obama planned to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by August 2010, and the 2008 security agreement required that all U.S. troops leave the country by the end of 2011. Some U.S. personnel would remain in cities after the June 30 deadline to train Iraqi troops and to perform tasks that they were not yet able to do, such as bomb disposal and emergency medical evacuation. In addition, U.S. forces would still go on joint patrols with Iraqi troops in some cities where violence remained high, such as Baghdad, the capital, and Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh. However, the Iraqi government had reportedly asked the U.S. military to curtail its activities over the first few days in July, in order to reinforce the appearance of an end to the U.S. occupation. Maliki in a nationally televised speech said the U.S. pullback was “an achievement made by all Iraqis.” He said, “The national united government succeeded in putting down the sectarian war that was threatening the unity and the sovereignty of Iraq,” but made no note of the role of the U.S. Obama said the withdrawal from cities was “an important milestone” and that “the Iraqi people are rightly treating this day as a IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood July 2 [See pp. 437A1, 380A1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,321 31,408

Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,113 Iraqi civilian deaths: 92,485–100,964

(Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

cause for celebration.” However, he warned that violence might increase in the near future. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, June 28 had said he believed that Iraqi security forces were ready to take over security responsibilities from the U.S. military. Izzat Ibrahim al Douri—a senior member of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s government and the de facto leader of Hussein’s banned Baath Party—and the Association of Muslim Scholars—a Sunni Muslim clerical group that had called for attacks on U.S. troops—July 1 released separate statements calling for insurgents to continue fighting the U.S. until it withdrew from Iraq completely, but warned against attacking Iraqis. Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada alSadr, whose Mahdi Army militia had been one of the primary factors in sectarian violence until a 2007 truce, July 1 also released a statement hailing the U.S. pullback but calling for a complete withdrawal, and warning that it might just be a “media announcement.” [See pp. 228C1, 57F1] Bombing in Kirkuk Kills 33—A suicide bomber June 30 attacked a market in a Kurdish neighborhood of the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 33 people. A bomb hidden in a motorcycle June 26 had killed at least 10 people at a market in Baghdad, while another motorcycle bomb in Baghdad the same day killed at least one person. The attacks underscored the fragility of Iraq’s security during the turnover. The U.S. military June 30 reported that four U.S. troops had been killed, and another U.S. soldier had been reported killed on June 28. Oil Companies Reject Auction Terms—

The Iraqi government June 29 attempted to auction off development rights for six oil and two natural gas fields to international companies. However, most of the companies that submitted bids were not willing to agree to the government’s terms, and only a single deal went through. Iraq had an estimated 9% of the world’s crude oil, second only to Saudi Arabia, but its fields had been underdeveloped due to decades of war and neglect. [See p. 362C3] The Iraqi government, which relied on oil revenue for over 90% of its budget, was seeking to increase Iraq’s total oil production to 4 million barrels a day, from the current 2.4 million. It had offered companies 20-year technical services contracts in which they would be paid a per-barrel bonus for boosting production, but would not receive an ownership stake as was typical elsewhere. Most of the bids submitted had stipulated bonuses several times higher than what Iraq said it was willing to pay. In the sole winning bid, a consortium of Britain’s BP PLC and the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) agreed to accept a payment of $2 per barrel to increase the output of the giant Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq to 2.85 million barrels a day, from 1 million. It had originally submitted a bid of $3.99 per barrel. The Iraqi cabinet July 1 officially accepted the bid. n

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3576 July 2, 2009

B Honduran President Zelaya Ousted by Military Disputed Referendum Preempted. The Honduran military early June 28 stormed the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and deposed President Manuel Zelaya Rosales. Zelaya said soldiers overcame the presidential guard, awakened him and placed him on an airplane to Costa Rica. In an interview in San Juan, Costa Rica’s capital, later that day, Zelaya, 56, rejected his ouster as illegal. “I am the president of Honduras,” he said, still dressed in his pajamas. The overthrow of Zelaya occurred hours before voting was to have been held on a national referendum that was the subject of a dispute between Zelaya and Honduras’s National Congress and Supreme Court. [See 2006, p. 150E1] The Congress later June 28 voted to accept what lawmakers claimed was a letter of

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. troops withdraw from Iraqi cities; bombings underscore fragile security. PAGE 437

Honduran President Zelaya ousted by military. PAGE 437

Iran’s Guardian Council certifies disputed presidential election results.

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Republican Coleman concedes Minnesota Senate election to Democrat Franken. PAGE 441

Disgraced financier Madoff sentenced to 150 years in prison. PAGE 441

Supreme Court ends term; continues rightward shift. PAGE 442

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House passes climate change bill. PAGE 445

Argentine president’s allies defeated in congressional elections. PAGE 446

China delays Internet filter requirement. PAGE 448

Britain sets Iraq war investigation. PAGE 449

Hariri named Lebanese prime minister. PAGE 450

Oklahoma’s Griffin tops NBA draft. PAGE 450

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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resignation from Zelaya, who rejected the document as a forgery. The Congress named Roberto Micheletti, 63—the body’s president and, like Zelaya, a Liberal Party member—to serve out the remainder of Zelaya’s term, set to expire in January 2010. Micheletti was sworn in as president that afternoon. The Supreme Court, Honduras’s highest court, later said it had approved Zelaya’s dismissal because his attempt to hold the referendum was illegal, and asserted that the military had acted to uphold democracy. According to news reports, much of Tegucigalpa was left without power after Zelaya’s ouster, and the military patrolled the city’s streets and skies while guarding government buildings. Television and radio stations were taken off the air, and the government set a 9:00 p.m. curfew. Thousands of protesters supporting Zelaya clashed with the military outside the presidential palace, erecting a barricade with burning tires. Protesters supporting Zelaya June 29 again fought with troops in Tegucigalpa’s streets amid growing crowds, estimated in the thousands. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that at least 30 people were injured after fighting with troops. Demonstrators armed with sticks and stones gathered around the presidential offices, and a domestic media blackout continued, leaving residents without access to the Internet or cable television largely uninformed of international condemnation of the coup d’etat. Thousands of others also gathered in the capital to denounce Zelaya, accusing him of attempting to subvert the country’s constitution. Constitutional Reform Sparks Conflict—

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Political tensions had arisen over an attempt by Zelaya to hold a public referendum June 28 on the creation of a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. Under the current constitution the president was limited to one, four-year term in office; Zelaya’s term was to end in November. Zelaya’s critics said the proposed constitutional reform was an attempt to abolish the term limit, and questioned his ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. Zelaya had been elected in 2005 with the support of the country’s poor and labor unions, and had taken office in 2006. The country’s middleclass and business interests reportedly feared that Zelaya sought to institute Chavez-style socialist reforms. The Congress June 23 had passed a law prohibiting public referenda from being held 180 days before or after a general election, in an attempt to halt Zelaya’s efforts. Zelaya June 24 said he had fired Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, the head of the country’s armed forces, after Vasquez said that he would not provide military support for the public referendum effort, in accordance with a Supreme Court order forbidding the military from doing so. The military traditionally distributed ballots for voting in Honduras. Zelaya June 24 also said he had accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana. The heads of the air force, navy and army had also resigned in a show

of support for Vasquez. The Supreme Court June 25 ordered Vasquez’s reinstatement, but Zelaya in a speech before his supporters said he refused to comply with the dictate. Unidentified senior U.S. officials said that U.S. diplomats in the days leading up to the coup had been working to negotiate a solution between Zelaya, federal legislators and the military, to no avail. International Response—U.S. officials initially referred to Zelaya’s deposition as a coup. But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton June 29 said the U.S. would not formally declare the events a coup, as that would make Honduras ineligible for millions of dollars in aid from the U.S. Nevertheless, U.S. President Barack Obama later that day condemned Zelaya’s ouster as an illegal act. The U.S. had a long history of supporting the Honduran military, and aided in its training. Vasquez was among the Honduran officers who had received training from the U.S. at some point. The U.S.’s position was also complicated by its history of supporting coups and dictatorships in Latin America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, a staunch ally of Zelaya, June 28 said Zelaya’s ouster was orchestrated by “the bourgeoisie and the extreme right,” and pledged to help return him to power. Chavez that day also said he had put his troops on high alert, and that any act of aggression toward Venezuelan officials in Honduras would be considered an act of war. The Honduran military’s actions were also roundly condemned internationally, with most Latin American countries showing an unusual amount of unity in calling for Zelaya’s return to power. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said the events reminded her of “the worst years in Latin America’s history,” when violent transfers of power were more common, and often led to years of bloodshed. Zelaya June 29 met with several Latin American leftist leaders, including Chavez, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra. Zelaya at the meeting vowed to return to power in Honduras on July 2, and said he had accepted an offer from Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza to accompany him. He later said he would also be joined by Fernandez de Kirchner and Correa. Zelaya June 30 addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in an effort to bolster international support for his attempt to regain power in Honduras. The General Assembly unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution condemning the coup, and calling for Zelaya’s return to power. However, Micheletti that day said Zelaya would be arrested upon his return, tried on various charges and imprisoned. In a interview with the Wall Street Journal published June 30, Micheletti defended Zelaya’s overthrow as “within the law.” He added that Zelaya “is now suffering the consequences of having broken the law.” The OAS early July 1 passed a resolution calling for the interim Honduran govern-

ment to reinstate Zelaya within three days, or else face expulsion from the group. Zelaya that day delayed his planned return to Honduras to July 4, to coincide with the OAS’s deadline for the interim government to return him to power. However, leaders of the government headed by Micheletti remained adamant that they would not bow to diplomatic or economic pressure to return Zelaya to power. Micheletti July 2 told the Washington Post that he would consider moving up presidential elections scheduled to take place in November, in order to pacify his critics. n

Iranian Presidential Election Council Certifies Disputed Results. Iran’s Guardian Council, a senior 12-member body of Shiite Muslim clerics and jurists, June 29 dismissed complaints that the results of a presidential election held earlier in June were skewed by fraud, and certified that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won reelection. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians had taken to the streets after the election in Tehran, the capital, claiming that Ahmadinejad had rigged the results in order to beat his main opponent, reformist former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi. The Basij militia and other government security forces had attacked protesters, and the Iranian government said at least 17 protesters and eight Basijis had been killed. [See p. 421A1] The Guardian Council June 26 said it had created a special committee that would review the fraud allegations and recount a random selection of 10% of the votes. It said the committee would include representatives of Moussavi and Mehdi Karrou-

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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bi, another reformist candidate who had protested the alleged fraud. However, Moussavi and Karroubi June 27 said they would not participate, claiming that the review would not be broad enough and the committee would not be independent. The Expediency Council—a body that advised Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—June 27 declared that Khamenei’s endorsement of Ahmadinejad’s victory was final, although it added that the government should “properly and thoroughly” investigate fraud allegations. The Expediency Council was headed by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had been a vocal supporter of Moussavi but since the election had not made any public statements in his favor. The Guardian Council June 29 announced that after recounting 10% of the votes, it had determined that the election results—which gave Ahmadinejad 62.6% of the vote, and Moussavi 33.8%—were valid, and that there had not been any significant fraud. It found that in several areas, Ahmadinejad had received more votes than had originally been counted. A massive security presence in Tehran stemmed protests that day, but many people chanted, “Allahu akbar” (“God is Great”) from their rooftops, continuing a protest tactic that had been revived from the 1979 Islamic Revolution. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, when asked whether the U.S. would recognize Ahmadinejad as president, June 29 said, “We’re going to take this a day at a time.” She added, “Obviously, they have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process, and I don’t think that’s going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively small number of ballots.” Karroubi June 30 issued a statement calling Ahmadinejad’s government “illegitimate.” Authorities the next day shut down a newspaper linked to him. Moussavi July 1 released a statement renewing his objections to the election results. “It’s not yet too late,” he said. “It’s our historic responsibility to continue our complaint and make efforts not to give up the rights of the people.” Former President Mohammad Khatami, a Moussavi ally, that day issued a statement rejecting the results and criticizing the crackdown on protesters, demanding the release of those arrested. He accused the government of carrying out a “coup against the people and democracy.” Protests Revive After Lull—Several thousand protesters June 28 gathered in Tehran after several days of relative calm, but were attacked by the police. Moussavi June 26 had pledged to seek permits for his followers’ protests. The government had customarily denied requests for permits, but had granted Moussavi one for the June 28 gathering because he said it was to commemorate a founder of the Islamic Revolution. An influential cleric, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, June 26 had called for Iran’s judiciary to severely punish the protest leaders, possibly with execution, for waging war July 2, 2009

against God and the Iranian people. Ahmadinejad and senior clerics June 30 warned that further protests would not be tolerated. Police June 28 arrested nine Iranian employees of the British embassy who they said had organized demonstrations. (The Iranian government had claimed that the protests were primarily directed by foreign agitators, and especially the British government.) The European Union that day warned that Iranian “harassment or intimidation” of embassy staff of EU member nations, such as Britain, would “be met with a strong and collective EU response.” Eight of the embassy employees were released over the following days, but one was still being held for questioning as of July 2. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights June 28 reported that Iran had arrested more than 2,000 people since the election, with hundreds missing; Iran’s official media had said that the total arrested was more than 650. Several rights groups also warned that some detainees were at risk of being tortured. Ahmadinejad June 29 called for the justice ministry to investigate the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, a woman who was shot during the protests and had become an icon of the opposition. He claimed that “opponents of the Iranian nation” were behind her killing. Protesters and a doctor who had gone to Soltan’s aid had said she had been shot by a Basiji. The commander of the Basij, Hossein Taeb, June 30 said Iran had arrested several impostors who had beaten protesters while wearing Basij uniforms. He also said one of the impostors was responsible for Soltan’s death. The Basij July 1 called on the judiciary to investigate Moussavi for offenses related to organizing the protests, including “disturbing the nation’s security,” which carried a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Obama Intensifies Criticism—U.S. President Barack Obama June 26 in a news conference at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected demands from Ahmadinejad issued the previous day that he apologize for criticizing the regime’s crackdown on protesters. Obama suggested that the Iranian government instead should apologize to the families of slain and beaten protesters. He said Moussavi had “captured the imagination or the spirit” of Iranians hoping for reform. Obama since the election had been criticized for what some viewed as hesitation to offer support to Moussavi and the protesters. Obama also said Iran’s reaction to the protests would affect “any direct dialogue or diplomacy” with the U.S. Obama had previously pledged to engage Iran in direct talks on issues including Iran’s nuclear program. A meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of 8 (G-8) industrialized nations in Trieste, Italy, June 26 also condemned Iran’s violent response to the protests, although it did not mention allegations of election fraud. Ahmadinejad June 27 dismissed Obama’s comments as “insulting,” and said Iran would deal with the West in a “harsh and more decisive” manner to punish it for its “meddlesome stance.” n

Accidents & Disasters Plane Crashes Near Comoros, Killing 152.

Yemenia Airways Flight IY626, an Airbus A310 with 142 passengers and 11 crew members on board, early June 30 crashed into the Indian Ocean as it approached its destination, Moroni, the capital of the Comoros. (Comoros was a three-island archipelago off Africa’s southeast coast, and Moroni was located on its largest island, Grand Comore.) The only survivor as of July 2 was a French-Comoran girl in her early teens. [See p. 387A1] The crash came about a month after 228 people were killed when an Air France Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The Yemenia flight had originated in Paris June 29 on a different aircraft, an Airbus A330-200, and stopped in the southern French city of Marseille before continuing to Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. In Sanaa, many passengers and crew from the original flight transferred to another aircraft, the Airbus A310, for the final leg of the journey to Moroni. Contact with the flight was lost about four hours after it left Sanaa. Reports that the plane had crashed began to emerge early June 30. The cause of the crash, which occurred about 10 miles (15 km) north of Grand Comore, had yet to be determined, although officials said it had been flying though strong winds. The plane reportedly made two aborted landing attempts at Moroni’s airport prior to the crash. Most of the victims were said to be Comoran; 66 French nationals were also on board, as well as citizens of Canada, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, the Philippines and Yemen. France was Comoros’s former colonial ruler, and strong ties continued to exist between the two nations. Many of the passengers held dual French and Comoran citizenship. The French and U.S. militaries reportedly took the lead in the search and rescue operation. (France had a military presence on the nearby islands of Mayotte and Reunion, which remained French possessions.) France’s transport minister, Dominique Bussereau, June 30 said the 19-year-old Airbus A310 that passengers and crew had boarded in Sanaa had been barred from French airspace after “numerous faults had been noted” during an inspection in 2007. Also, it was reported July 1 that residents of Comoros and Comorans living in France had long complained about safety problems on Yemenia flights on the leg from Sanaa to Moroni, including overcrowding and a lack of seat belts. In response, Yemenia, which was jointly owned by the Yemeni and Saudi Arabian governments, criticized what it called “false information and speculation about technical problems.” Yemen’s transport minister, Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer, said the aircraft had received a complete inspection in May. Yemenia’s chairman, AbdulKhaleq al-Qadi, said the airline had made a 439

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“preliminary decision” to pay families 20,000 euros ($28,300) per victim. Comoran Vice President Idi Nadhoim July 1 criticized France for not relaying its concerns about the safety of the plane to his government. After the crash, the French government and Airbus Industrie, the French-German company that manufactured the aircraft, dispatched teams to Comoros to aid the investigation. A French official July 1 said the flight’s “black box,” or flight data recorder, had been located during an aerial search, and that a team had been dispatched to retrieve it. However, the French government later retracted that statement, saying the signal they had believed was coming from the black box was actually a distress beacon from the submerged plane. The lone survivor July 1 was identified as Bahia Bakari, who lived in Paris. She reportedly survived by clinging to the wreckage of the plane for about 13 hours, despite having suffered a fractured collarbone. Bakari had been traveling with her mother, who was believed to be among the dead. n

International Trade U.S., EU Lodge Complaint Against China.

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The U.S. and the European Union June 23 lodged a joint complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over duties that China applied to exports of nine raw materials used in the manufacturing of steel, aluminum and other products. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the export duties amounted to a “conscious policy” to favor domestic industry “by making raw materials cheaper for Chinese companies to get” and make “goods more economical for them to produce.” [See p. 414A2] China contended that the duties were permitted under WTO rules for the purpose of protecting its exhaustible natural resources as well as the environment. In response to the complaint, China asked the WTO to investigate the legality of the U.S.’s existing ban on Chinese poultry imports, imposed in 2004 amid an avian influenza outbreak, pressing ahead with a previous complaint on that matter. The export-duties complaint was filed after more than two years of unsuccessful discussions on the dispute. It was the first WTO case filed against China by the U.S. since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January. A 60-day “consultation period” would follow the filing, in which the two countries would seek a resolution through dialogue. If they failed, it could head to a hearing before a WTO panel. International tensions over allegedly protectionist trade policies had been on the rise during the current global economic downturn. China in June had made public a May 26 directive ordering that public spending under a recent economic stimulus program should favor domestic producers wherever possible. China, along with other countries, had criticized the U.S. for including an analogous “Buy American” clause in its recent stimulus package. China had also increased tax credits for ex440

ports of manufactured goods, and state lending to exporters had been increased. [See p. 91A2] A WTO panel Jan. 26 had issued a ruling in another U.S. filing against China, over China’s regime for protecting intellectualproperty rights. The panel said the U.S. had not shown sufficient evidence to support its contention that China’s laws made it too hard to make a case against counterfeiters. However, it endorsed the U.S.’s contention that China’s denial of copyright protection to media materials not approved by state censors was a violation of WTO rules, and that China should not permit the auction of seized counterfeit goods even if forged trademarks were removed. [See 2007, p. 220G3] Call Repeated for New Reserve Currency—

The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, June 26 in its annual report on international financial stability called for countries’ foreign currency reserves to be denominated in a new international currency, replacing the current arrangement in which the U.S. dollar functioned as the world’s main reserve currency. The bank suggested that Special Drawing Rights, a financial instrument used for International Monetary Fund transactions and based on a basket of currencies, be adopted as the reserve currency. The paper formalized the bank’s endorsement of the idea, proposed by its governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, in March. [See p. 194D1] Chinese officials in recent months had expressed concern about the long-term value of the country’s extensive investments in U.S. government securities and other dollar-denominated investments. The bank’s report did not explicitly criticize the use of the dollar as a reserve currency, but commented on potential conflicts between a country’s domestic economic policy and its currency’s suitability as a holding for the rest of the world. n

World Poverty One Billion Worldwide Said to Go Hungry.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) June 19 published new world hunger estimates projecting that a total of 1.02 billion people worldwide suffered daily from lack of sufficient food in 2009, up from 915 million in 2008. The FAO defined someone as suffering from hunger if they were unable to consume an average of 1,800 calories per day; however, the exact number of calories used to calculate hunger differed between countries and age groups. (The world’s total population was currently estimated at more than 6.7 billion.) [See 2008, pp. 926D1, 371F3] FAO head Jacques Diouf June 19 said it would be “the biggest ever year-on-year increase” in hunger in world history, which the agency attributed in part to the worldwide financial crisis. The estimates were based in part on data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). According to the FAO’s estimates, about 642 million people in the world’s Asia-Pacific region would suffer from hunger in 2009, an increase of 10.5% since 2008. The FAO also projected that the hunger rate in

Sub-Saharan Africa would rise 11.8%, to 265 million. The estimates suggested that the developed world would see the largest percentage increase—15.4%—but would continue to have the lowest total number of people suffering from hunger, 15 million. Diouf said, regarding the increases, that “no part of the world is immune,” adding that poor countries “must be given the development, economic and policy tools required to boost their agricultural production and productivity.” World Food Program Faces Shortfall—

U.N. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran June 12 announced that the WFP would require $6.4 billion to fund its international food aid programs in 2009, but warned that decreases in the amount of money contributed by donors had already forced the program to halt some programs in North Korea and parts of eastern Africa. The WFP reportedly had funds totaling $1.5 billion as of June 5. n

Other International News U.S. Can Continue Using Kyrgyzstan Base.

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament June 24 unanimously voted to ratify an agreement that allowed the U.S. to continue to use an air base at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, as a supply and transit hub for its operations in Afghanistan. The move was a reversal of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s February announcement that Kyrgyzstan would close the base. U.S. and Kyrgyz officials June 22 had agreed to the deal, saying the volatile situation in Afghanistan risked destabilizing Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries. [See pp. 434A1, 423D2, 58D3] Under the renewable one-year agreement, the U.S. would pay $60 million annually to lease the base, up from the previous $17.4 million. The U.S. would also spend $37 million to build more aircraft parking spaces and storage at the base, and another $30 million to upgrade the airport’s air traffic control systems. An additional $51.5 million would go toward anti–drug trafficking and counterterrorism programs in Kyrgyzstan, as well as infrastructure projects. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly had recently sent a letter to Bakiyev, in which he had urged cooperation between the U.S. and Kyrgyzstan in fighting terrorism. Bakiyev in February had announced the planned closure of the U.S. base the same day Russia had announced a $2 billion loan to Kyrgyzstan, and analysts had suggested that Russia influenced Kyrgyzstan’s move. Kyrgyzstan denied those claims. Some analysts suggested that Kyrgyz officials never intended to evict U.S. forces, but instead wanted to raise the rent for the base. Unidentified Russian foreign ministry officials said Kyrgyzstan had betrayed Russia by reversing its decision on the base, Russian media outlet Kommersant reported June 24. However, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev June 25 said Russia and Central Asian states wanted to see the U.S. succeed in Afghanistan. n FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Republican Coleman Concedes Minnesota Senate Election State Supreme Court Rules for Franken.

The Minnesota state Supreme Court June 30 ruled unanimously that Democrat Al Franken, a former comedian, should be certified as the winner of the state’s November 2008 U.S. Senate election, rejecting an appeal by the former Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman. Coleman conceded defeat two hours later, ending an eight-month legal battle over the election and giving Democrats their 60th Senate vote, reaching a threshold that could allow them to prevent Republican filibusters. [See p. 242F2] Franken’s final margin of victory stood at just 312 votes, out of a total of 2.9 million cast. Coleman had won the initial Election Day vote count by 206 votes. But Franken refused his calls to concede, and a statewide recount, automatically triggered by the narrow margin, in January put Franken ahead by 225 votes after including absentee ballots that had not been counted. Coleman had challenged the recount result, arguing that some absentee ballots had been unfairly rejected under inconsistent standards set by local officials. In April, after a seven-week trial, a special panel of three state judges rejected Coleman’s claim that several thousand ballots had been wrongly excluded. The panel ruled that about 300 additional absentee ballots should be counted, increasing Franken’s lead to 312 votes. The state Supreme Court ruled, 5–0, that Coleman had failed to prove that the threejudge panel’s “findings of fact are clearly erroneous or that the court committed an error of law or abused its discretion” in its April ruling in favor of Franken. At a news conference outside his home in St. Paul after the court ruled, Coleman said, “The Supreme Court of Minnesota has spoken, and I respect its decision and will abide by the result.” He added, “We have reached a point where further litigation would damage the state.” He could have chosen to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or file a new challenge in federal court. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) signed Franken’s election certificate later that day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) said Franken would be sworn in as soon as possible once the Senate returned from its July 4th recess the next week. Franken to Boost Democratic Majority—

Franken would give the Democratic majority extra strength by providing its 60th vote in the Senate. That number, which included two independents who caucused with the Democrats, was the minimum of votes required to prevent the Republican minority from using filibusters to block legislation. Neither party had boasted such a large Senate majority since the Democrats in the 1977–79 95th Congress. After gaining several seats in the November elections, the Democrats had addJuly 2, 2009

ed their 59th seat when Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) joined them in May, switching from the Republican Party after 28 years in the Senate. [See p. 284A2] However, Democratic leaders could not be sure that they would be able to marshal 60 votes whenever they needed them. Two long-serving Democrats, Sens. Robert Byrd (W.Va.) and Edward Kennedy (Mass.), had missed most of the current session due to illness. Kennedy, 75, was undergoing treatment for brain cancer and Byrd, 91, had been hospitalized for a staph infection for several weeks until his release June 30. Also, the diversity of views in the Democratic caucus would make it difficult to maintain a united front on every issue. A group of centrist Democratic senators, whose numbers were bolstered in the November elections, had displayed a readiness to break party ranks on certain pieces of legislation. Franken held a news conference at his house in Minneapolis after Coleman’s concession, saying, “I won by 312 votes, so I really have to earn the trust of people who didn’t vote for me and all the people of Minnesota.” He played down the importance of his role in fortifying the Democratic majority, saying, “The way I see it, I’m not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator, I’m going to Washington to be the second senator from Minnesota.” He would join Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D), who had carried a double load of constituent service responsibilities as the state’s sole senator since January. While waiting for a resolution of the court case, Franken had begun hiring Senate staffers, who had been working without pay. Democrats had reserved seats for Franken on a pair of key Senate committees. One of them, the Judiciary Committee, was to hold confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, starting in midJuly. The other, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was in the process of writing a major health-care reform bill. [See pp. 426C3, 389E2] Franken, 58, was a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member. Since leaving the NBC television show in 1995, he had become a combative liberal political commentator. He wrote best-selling books such as Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, which mocked the conservative talk show host, and hosted his own talk show on a liberal radio network, Air America. [See 2004, p. 969F3] Coleman, 59, had held the Senate seat for one term. He was viewed as a potential candidate for governor in 2010, but declined to answer questions about his political future at his June 30 news conference. Pawlenty June 2 had announced that he would not run for a third term as governor in 2010. He did not address any future political plans, but he was widely considered a possible candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. n

Disgraced Financier Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years in Prison

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Judge Hands Down Maximum Punishment.

Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York City June 29 sentenced financier Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison for his orchestration of a massive multibillion dollar fraud. Chin said the sentence, the maximum allowed under federal guidelines and one of the most severe given for a white-collar offense, was intended to match the “extraordinarily evil” nature of Madoff’s crimes. Madoff in March had pleaded guilty to 11 charges stemming from the fraud, which had resulted in losses for thousands of victims worldwide, including charities, banks, pension funds and individual investors, many of whom lost their life savings. [See p. 245D1] While the sentencing marked the end of the case against Madoff, much remained unknown about the fraud. Madoff had admitted to running a Ponzi scheme through the investment-advisory unit of his brokerage, Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC. In the scheme, investors’ profits were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors, not by investments in stocks and bonds. Madoff had claimed that the unit had lost some $65 billion in investor money, but it was reported that the amount could be much less than that. So far, investigators had identified $13.2 billion in lost money going back to 1995, in a fraud that they said had started in the 1980s. Prior to the sentencing, nine of Madoff’s victims gave testimony to the court, in which they detailed the hardships they had suffered since the fraud came to light in December 2008, and urged Chin to mete out a tough sentence. Victims described working as many as three jobs to survive, being unable to provide for disabled relatives and rummaging through the trash to find food. They used terms such as “mon-

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Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

June 1 2

3 4 5 8 9 10 11 12 15 16 17 18 19 22 23 24 25 26 29 30

8,721.44 8,740.87 8,675.28 8,750.24 8,763.13 8,764.49 8,763.06 8,739.02 8,770.92 8,799.26 8,612.13 8,504.67 8,497.18 8,555.60 8,539.73 8,339.01 8,322.91 8,299.86 8,472.40 8,438.39 8,529.38 8,447.00

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,493.2 1,396.5 1,312.1 1,337.4 1,258.5 1,075.5 1,056.6 1,218.5 1,220.8 857.4 1,148.6 1,174.3 1,313.4 1,084.9 2,068.0 1,396.5 1,207.1 1,099.1 1,174.9 2,039.3 1,063.7 1,292.1

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ster” and “low life” to describe Madoff, and compared him to the damned souls depicted in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, asked Chin for a 12-year sentence. He said Madoff was a “deeply flawed individual,” but said “vengeance is not the goal of punishment.” Madoff himself made a statement to the court in which he acknowledged the impact of his crimes. “I am responsible for a great deal of suffering and pain. I understand that.” He added, “I live in a tormented state now, knowing of all the pain and suffering that I have created.” He then turned to face his victims and said, “I am sorry,” before adding, “I know that doesn’t help you.” In explaining his sentence, Chin noted the “staggering toll” the fraud had taken on its victims. He said not a single friend or family member had submitted a letter testifying to any redeeming qualities Madoff might possess. He also said, “I simply do not get the sense that Mr. Madoff has done all that he could or told all that he knows” about the fraud. Chin acknowledged that a lesser sentence would have likely resulted in Madoff, 71, spending the rest of his life in prison, but said the “symbolism” of the maximum sentence was important. Madoff’s wife, Ruth Madoff, that day for the first time released a public statement about the fraud, in which she said, “Like everyone else, I feel betrayed and confused. The man who committed this

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July Financial Update (Close of trading July 1 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

8,504.06

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

923.33 1,845.72 4,340.71

(see box, p. 441E3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100)

Tokyo Stock Exchange (Nikkei index)

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Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

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3.54% 0.31%

$0.8072 $1.6469 $0.8701 $1.4142 96.64 13.1148 $0.9303

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$940.80

Silver (per troy oz.)

$13.6500

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released June 28)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

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9,339.93 10,374.91

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month increase through May 2009; see p. 427D3)

Unemployment rate

(May 2009; see p. 388C3)

$69.31 $2.66 $5.4575

-1.3% 9.4%

Gross domestic product growth

-5.7%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized first-quarter 2009 rate, preliminary report; see p. 372E1)

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horrible fraud is not the man whom I have known all these years.” SEC Charges ‘Feeder’ Fund With Fraud—

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) June 22 filed civil fraud charges against New York City–based brokerage Cohmad Securities Corp. and three of its executives, accusing them of funneling investor money to Madoff’s firm while “knowingly or recklessly disregarding” indications that his operation was a fraud. The Cohmad executives were Chairman Maurice (Sonny) Cohn, Chief Operating Officer Marcia Cohn and Vice President Robert Jaffe. Madoff held an ownership stake in Cohmad. [See p. 113B3] The SEC’s move was part of a broadening investigation targeting so-called “feeder” funds that had invested a significant portion of their clients’ money with Madoff, helping to supply new sources of cash that were necessary to continue the Ponzi scheme. The SEC said Cohmad had received $100 million in fees from Madoff, and had misrepresented itself to the SEC as a brokerage, when in fact almost all of its revenues came from directing client money to Madoff’s investment-advisory unit. The SEC that day also charged Stanley Chais, a Los Angeles–based investment adviser, with fraud. The SEC said Chais had told clients of three of his funds that he was a money manager, when in truth he was merely a conduit that channeled their money to Madoff, and made $250 million in fees by doing so. The SEC also said that between 1995 and 2008, Chais and members of his family had withdrawn $500 million more from Madoff’s firm than what they had originally invested. Lawyers for the Cohmad executives and Chais denied wrongdoing, and noted that they, too, had lost money in Madoff’s scheme. No criminal charges were filed against the money managers, and so far no one had been charged with direct complicity in the fraud itself. Madoff had consistently maintained that he acted alone, and without the knowledge of his family members, some of whom, including his brother and two sons, worked at his brokerage. The only Madoff associate who had been charged in a criminal complaint was his accountant, David Friehling. Scrutiny had also been placed on Ruth Madoff, who had claimed that she had no knowledge of the fraud. Ruth Madoff June 26 agreed to forfeit her possible claim to more than $80 million in assets in an agreement with prosecutors, which left her with more than $2.5 million in assets. Chin that day also said prosecutors could seize as much as $175 billion in assets from Bernard Madoff, the total amount of money that prosecutors said had been invested with him over the years. Spanish Bank to Pay Settlement—

Spain’s Banco Santander SA May 26 agreed to pay $235 million to avoid possible legal claims by Irving Picard, the courtappointed trustee of Madoff’s brokerage, who was responsible for liquidating the company and recovering investor losses. Picard was in the process of suing funds

that had withdrawn money from Madoff’s firm, in what were known as “clawback” suits. They were designed to compel those who had profited from the scheme to share the money with the fraud’s victims. Picard had also brought clawback lawsuits against Cohmad, Chais, hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group, and funds managed by financiers J. Ezra Merkin and Jeffrey Picower. So far, Picard had identified 1,341 accounts that had lost a total of $13.2 billion in assets, $1.2 billion of which had been recovered. Those who had invested with Madoff directly were eligible to receive as much as $500,000 in compensation payments from the Securities Investor Protection Corp., a group funded by the industry to protect investors against losses stemming from fraud. However, it was unclear how much money could be recovered by those who had invested with Madoff indirectly, through feeder funds and others. n

Supreme Court Ends Term Court Continues Rightward Shift. The Su-

preme Court June 29 formally ended its 2008–09 term, ruling that the city of New Haven, Conn., had discriminated against a group of white and Hispanic firefighters by throwing out the results of a promotion test after no blacks performed well on it. The ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano was the latest in a series of decisions in recent years to roll back civil rights protections that the more conservative side of the bench saw as examples of overreaching by the federal government. It was part of a broader rightward shift that began after Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. replaced Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. [See p. 443D2; 2008, p. 720C3; for a review of the major cases of the court’s 2008–09 term, see p. 443A1] The court decided 79 cases in the term, 74 of which carried signed opinions. The Ricci case was one of 23 to be decided on a 5–4 vote, affirming that the court remained deeply divided ideologically. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy continued to serve as the court’s swing vote, voting with the majority 92% of the time, and in 18 of the 5– 4 decisions. However, unlike the previous term, in which he sided with the liberal members of the bench in several significant rulings, Kennedy joined the conservatives on nearly all of the court’s ideologically controversial decisions, including those addressing racial discrimination, the treatment of suspected terrorists and prisoners’ rights. [See pp. 425C3, 337A3] Analysts said the court’s rightward shift had also been propelled by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who they said was making incremental steps to push the court in a conservative direction, and laying the groundwork for striking down laws championed by liberals. The most striking example of that approach was on display in a case involving a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required designated states to obtain clearance from the Justice Department for changes to voting procedures. Most observFACTS ON FILE

KEY RULINGS AND EVENTS IN THE SUPREME COURT’S 2008–09 TERM

Following are some of the major cases from the Supreme Court’s 2008–09 term, which ended June 29 [See p. 442C3]: Civil Rights

The Supreme Court June 29 ruled, 5–4, that the city of New Haven, Conn., had discriminated against a group of white and Hispanic firefighters by throwing out the results of a promotion test after no blacks performed well on it. The case was Ricci v. DeStefano. [See p. 443D2] The court June 22 ruled, 8–1, to uphold Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required nine states, and parts of seven others, to gain federal approval before changing voting procedures. The case was Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder. [See p. 425B1] The court March 9 ruled, 5–4, that protections designed to preserve a minority population’s voting power were only applicable in areas where the minority-group voter population exceeded 50% of the total voter population. The case was Bartlett v. Strickland. [See p. 166G3]

The court June 18 ruled, 5–4, that convicts did not have a constitutional right to DNA testing. The case was District Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne. [See p. 425D3] Campaign Finance

The court June 8 ruled, 5–4, that judges must recuse themselves from cases involving individuals who had made unusually large contributions to their election campaigns. The case was Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. [See p. 389G3] Criminal Law

Defendants’ Rights

The court May 26 ruled, 5–4, that police officers could initiate an interrogation of a suspect even if the suspect’s lawyer was not present. The case was Montejo v. Louisiana. [See p. 373G3] The court Jan. 14 ruled, 5–4, that evidence collected after an illegal arrest was sometimes admissible in court, as long as the arrest resulted from “isolated negligence,” and was not part of a wider disregard for the law by police. The case was Herring v. United States. [See p. 20E3]

The court June 25 ruled, 5–4, that defendants had the constitutional right at trial to crossexamine lab analysts who had submitted forensic reports as evidence. The case was MelendezDiaz v. Massachusetts. [See p. 444E1]

The court March 4 ruled, 6–3, that pharmaceutical companies could be held liable by state courts for harm done to individuals who took drugs that carried federally approved

ers had expected Kennedy and the more conservative justices—Roberts, Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas—to strike down the provision as unconstitutional. However, in an 8–1 opinion penned by Roberts, the court issued a very narrow ruling that skirted the constitutional question, but also made it clear that the court would strongly consider repealing the provision if Congress did not revise it. [See p. 425B1] The term’s end marked the departure of Justice David H. Souter, who along with Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg formed the liberal side of the bench. Souter had announced his retirement in May, and President Barack Obama later that month nominated federal appellate court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace him. Sotomayor was expected to be a reliable liberal vote on the court. Roberts June 29 paid tribute to Souter, reading aloud a statement that referred to his widely reported desire to return to his home state of New Hampshire, and which quoted the poet Robert Frost: “We understand your desire to trade white marble for White Mountains, and return to your land of ‘easy wind and downy flake.’” He added, “We are grateful that the privilege of your sturdy friendship will endure long beyond your departure from the bench and tables we have shared.” Souter responded, also quoting Frost, “I will only try to leave you with some sense of what our common service has meant to me. You quoted the Poet, and I will, too, in words that set out the ideal of the life engaged, ‘where love and need are one.’” He added, “I will not sit with you at our bench after the court rises for the summer this time, but neither will I retire from our friendship, which has held us together despite the pull of the most passionate dissent.” n July 2, 2009

Federal Regulation

Other Supreme Court News Discrimination Found in Firefighter Case.

The Supreme Court June 29 ruled, 5–4, that the city of New Haven, Conn., had discriminated against a group of white and Hispanic firefighters by throwing out the results of a promotion test after no blacks performed well on it. The decision in the case, Ricci v. DeStefano, had been highly anticipated, since Judge Sonia Sotomayor—President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter— had been on a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City that sided with New Haven authorities in 2008. [See pp. 389E2, 33D1] The plaintiffs in the case were 17 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who had qualified for a promotion in 2003, but then saw the results of the test nullified by the city. The group, which included one dyslexic firefighter who claimed to have spent considerable time and energy studying for the test, argued that New Haven’s actions were discriminatory. New Haven argued that it was protecting itself from potential legal challenges from black candidates who could claim that the disparate results showed that the test was discriminatory. The case centered around two provisions in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. One provision banned discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, which was referred to as “disparate treatment.” The other banned ostensibly neutral practices that had an unintended “disparate impact” on racial groups. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing the court’s opinion, said employers could not throw out test results based solely on a disparate impact, but needed a “strong basis in evidence” showing that the test itself was

warnings. The case was Wyeth v. Levine. [See p. 130E2] The court Dec. 15, 2008, ruled, 5–4, that a federal law regulating cigarette marketing did not preempt challenges brought in state courts. The case was Altria Group Inc. v. Good. [See 2008, p. 921B2]

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Environment

The court June 22 ruled, 6–3, that Coeur Alaska Inc., a gold-mining company, could dump slurry waste in Lower Slate Lake near Juneau, Alaska. Environmentalists said the waste would kill all the life in the lake. The case was Coeur Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council. [See p. 426F2] The court April 1 ruled, 6–3, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could use cost-benefit calculations to determine the kinds of technologies used to protect the environment. The case was Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc. [See p. 307E1]

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Souter Retires

Justice David H. Souter May 1 tendered his resignation to President Barack Obama. Obama May 26 nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy. Sotomayor, a member of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, if confirmed by the Senate would be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, as well as the third female justice in the court’s history. [See p. 349A1]

discriminatory. He said the New Haven test was “open and fair,” adding, “The problem, of course, is that after the tests were completed, the raw racial results became the predominant rationale of the city’s refusal to certify the results.” He said that in attempting to avoid violating Title VII’s disparateimpact provision, the city had only succeeded in discriminating against the firefighters who had performed well on the test. Kennedy also addressed the city’s concerns about possible lawsuits, writing, “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The ruling was most likely to effect government employers, even though it applied to private employers as well. Some analysts said the ruling would lead to more lawsuits, arguing that Kennedy’s guideline of a “strong basis in evidence” was vague, and could confuse employers caught between violating Title VII or the Supreme Court’s ruling. Concurring, Dissenting Opinions— Alito wrote an opinion concurring with the majority, in which he was joined by Scalia and Thomas. Alito wrote that the court should also have recognized that the city had political motivations to throw out the results. He suggested that “a desire to please a politically important racial constituency” served as a greater motivation for the city than protecting itself from Title VII lawsuits. Scalia, also writing a concurring opinion, highlighted the potential conflicts between Title VII’s disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions. “The war between disparate impact and equal protection will 443

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be waged sooner or later, and it behooves us to begin thinking about how—and on what terms—to make peace between them.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the minority, argued that the two provisions were “complementary.” She said, “Standing on equal footing, both provisions aim to end workplace discrimination and promote genuinely equal opportunity.” She said the firefighting profession in particular had a long history of discrimination, and that rigorous protections against such discrimination were still necessary. She said, “Congress endeavored to promote equal opportunity in fact, and not simply in form. The damage today’s decision does to that objective is untold.” Ginsburg read part of her dissent from the bench, a practice intended to convey a justice’s strong disagreement with the majority. She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer and Souter. Little Impact Seen on Sotomayor—Analysts largely agreed that the ruling was not likely to derail Sotomayor’s confirmation. Conservative groups attempted to paint the decision as a rebuke of Sotomayor’s judgment, while liberal groups pointed out that Souter, the justice she was to replace, voted in favor of New Haven. None of the justices who wrote opinions directly criticized the three-judge panel’s decision. However, Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision showed that “all nine justices were critical of the trial court opinion that Judge Sotomayor endorsed.” The White House rebutted that claim, arguing that the Supreme Court had clarified the status of the disparate-impact provision, and that Sotomayor had merely followed statutory precedent in siding with New Haven. The panel’s unsigned decision was a paragraph long, and mainly affirmed a lower court’s ruling. n Lab Analysts Can be Required to Testify.

The Supreme Court June 25 ruled, 5–4, that defendants had the constitutional right at trial to cross-examine lab analysts who had submitted forensic reports as evidence. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the court’s opinion, said the Sixth Amendment, which gave defendants the right to confront witnesses, was applicable to lab analysts since their reports were a kind of testimony. The case was Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. [See p. 307A3; 2008, pp. 721B2, 432C2] The original plaintiff in the case was Luis Melendez-Diaz, who had been charged with drug trafficking in 2001. The evidence against him included a lab report that identified a white powder allegedly in his possession as cocaine. The report was presented at trial accompanied only by a certificate from the analyst who prepared the report. The case came amidst a recent series of scandals involving faulty lab reports. Scalia said having the analyst testify at trial would “weed out not only the fraudulent analyst, but the incompetent one as well.” However, the central emphasis of his argument was that the Sixth Amendment gave a defendant the right to confront a witness, even if “all analysts always possessed the 444

scientific acumen of Mme. Curie and the veracity of Mother Teresa.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the minority, said the decision would place a “crushing burden” on the justice system. Kennedy noted that states were not equipped to make an analyst available for every trial, given that the number of analysts was usually much smaller than the number of lab reports submitted. He predicted, “Guilty defendants will go free, on the most technical grounds.” He also said the majority had disregarded a “century of jurisprudence.” Scalia in his argument acknowledged that the ruling would “make the prosecution of criminals more burdensome, but that is equally true of the right to trial by jury and the privilege against self-incrimination.” He added, “The sky will not fall after today’s decision.” However, prosecutors said the ruling would hamper their ability to get convictions. It was reported that defense lawyers began demanding a cross-examination of lab analysts the day that the court made its decision. Scalia was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Stephen G. Breyer joined Kennedy in the minority. n States Can Sue Nationally Chartered Banks.

The Supreme Court June 29 ruled, 5–4, that state prosecutors under certain circumstances could sue nationally chartered banks that had allegedly violated state law. The court’s decision overturned provisions of the 1864 National Bank Act that said federal regulators were responsible for ensuring that national banks followed state laws. The case was Cuomo v. Clearing House Association. [See p. 49A1] Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the court’s opinion, said state prosecutors could bring cases against banks suspected of violating state fair-lending laws. Those included laws that prevented banks from discriminating against minorities seeking loans, or refusing to grant loans to residents of particular neighborhoods. Scalia was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer. The case was based on inquiries sent to national banks in 2005 by then–New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer about their fair-lending practices. The banks and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal regulator for national banks, sued to stop Spitzer’s investigation. Banking groups had argued that multiple regulators would place an undue burden on business, and limit the flow of credit to consumers. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the minority, sided with banks and the OCC, saying it was reasonable for the OCC to conclude that the federal government alone had the right to “enforce state fairlending laws against national banks.” Thomas was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy.

After the decision was announced, current New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said, “The court has recognized that fair lending and consumer protection—the cornerstones of a sound economy—require the cooperative efforts of both the states and the federal government.” n Campaign Finance Case to be Reheard.

The Supreme Court June 29 said it would delay issuing a ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, ordering a new hearing in a special session scheduled for Sept. 9. The court had been expected to decide whether the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—which limited campaign spending by interest groups, with a focus on television advertising—applied to the medium of video-on-demand services. In ordering a new hearing, the court said the two sides in the case should argue the broader question of whether limiting corporate spending in elections was a violation of free speech rights. [See 2008, p. 432D1; 1990, p. 221F3] The case centered on a documentary critical of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that had aired in 2008, when she was a U.S. senator representing New York and campaigning in the Democratic presidential primary. The 90-minute documentary, Hillary: The Movie, had been funded by the conservative group Citizens United. The court was expected to address the constitutionality of the 2002 law, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act, and reexamine Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 Supreme Court decision that prohibited corporations from using funds from their own treasuries to pay for campaign efforts. n Scope of Identity Theft Law Curbed. The Supreme Court May 4 ruled unanimously that the crime of “aggravated identity theft” applied only to those who had knowingly stolen another person’s identity. Immigration officials reportedly often used the threat of an aggravated identity theft charge—which could add two years to a sentence—to pressure illegal immigrants holding false Social Security cards to plead guilty to lesser document-fraud charges and agree to deportation. The case was Flores-Figueroa v. United States. [See 2006, p. 953G1] The plaintiff in the case, Ignacio FloresFigueroa, had been charged with aggravated identity theft when he was found with a Social Security card that contained another person’s number. Advocates for FloresFigueroa and other illegal immigrants said the cards were only bought or forged to secure work, and that it was pure chance if the fake cards contained numbers that matched real cards. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the court had reached its decision by focusing on the language of the law governing aggravated identify theft, which said it could only be applied to a suspect who “knowingly transfers, possesses or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person.” n FACTS ON FILE

Legislation House Passes Climate Change Bill. The

House June 26 passed, 219–212, a measure that for the first time would regulate the emissions of man-made greenhouse gases in the U.S. thought to contribute to global climate change. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, which was supported by the Democratic leadership and President Barack Obama, while eight Republicans voted for it. The measure called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a “cap-and-trade” system by 2012 through which the government would issue pollution permits that could be traded on the open market. The legislation was formally titled the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The Senate had yet to take up a version of such legislation. [See p. 409F2] The bill called for emissions to be reduced to 97% of 2005 figures by 2012, then to 83% by 2020, 58% by 2030 and 17% by 2050. It also required that 6% of the U.S.’s electricity be generated by renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power, by 2012, and that 20% of energy come from such sources by 2020. The measure called for new residential and commercial buildings to be designed to use less power, and for an annual increase of 2.5% in overall energy efficiency in the U.S. from 2012 to 2030. Republicans criticized the bill for imposing new costs on U.S. companies that might hinder their competitiveness with foreign rivals. In seeking to build enough support for the bill to pass, the Democratic leadership added an amendment to address that concern, providing for tariffs on imports from companies that did not have comparable emissions restrictions, starting in 2020. Obama June 28 suggested that he did not favor the tariff measure. Opponents also warned that the bill would raise energy costs for consumers. The bill had split environmental groups as well as business interests. The National Association of Manufacturers had been joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in opposing the measure, while some utilities and companies with investments in alternative energy sources backed it. Obama had reportedly personally lobbied several members of Congress, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) June 26 had attempted to delay a vote on the bill by reading parts of a 300page amendment for about an hour. n

Crime

D.C., of the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers, a multiagency federal body. [See p. 370A2] The Justice Department said the probe would be carried out by the department’s Civil Rights Division and the Kansas U.S. attorney’s office and would be coordinated with the Sedgwick County district attorney’s office. It said that it would investigate “any potential violations” of federal laws, including the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. (The FACE Act, which was enacted after the 1993 murder of abortion doctor David Gunn in Florida, had established federal penalties against people convicted of obstructing or attacking abortion clinics or their staffers.) [See 1994, p. 394A2; 1993, p. 186B2] Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King June 5 said the department would “work tirelessly to determine the full involvement of any and all actors in this horrible crime, and to ensure that anyone who played a role in the offense is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Police officials had previously said that they believed that Roeder planned and carried out the murder without outside assistance. Tiller’s Clinic Closes Permanently—

Tiller’s family June 9 announced that his Wichita clinic would not reopen. The clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, had specialized in terminating pregnancies in which the fetus suffered from severe or fatal birth defects, and had been one of the country’s only clinics to provide abortions to women who were more than 21 weeks pregnant. The family said it would not be involved in running any other abortion clinics. The family promised to safeguard the privacy of all medical records associated with the shuttered clinic. A Nebraska doctor who had performed third-trimester abortions at Tiller’s clinic June 10 said that he intended to continue to perform such abortions in Kansas. The doctor, LeRoy Carhart, ran an abortion clinic in Nebraska, where state law prohibited the abortion of a fetus considered viable outside the womb. It was unclear if he would start his own clinic in Kansas or work out of an existing clinic. Troy Newman, the president of antiabortion group Operation Rescue, June 10 announced that the organization was considering attempting to purchase Tiller’s former clinic. Newman suggested that, if successful, the group might turn the building into a memorial for the fetuses aborted there. A representative of the Tiller family, which owned the building, dismissed Newman’s announcement as a publicity stunt. n

Federal Probe Set in Abortion Doctor Killing.

The Justice Department June 5 announced that it had launched a federal investigation into the May 31 murder of George Tiller, a Wichita, Kan., abortion doctor. The alleged killer, Scott Roeder, had been charged in Kansas’s Sedgwick County District Court with first-degree murder and aggravated assault. The department’s statement followed a meeting in Washington, July 2, 2009

Intelligence NSA Collection of U.S. E-Mails Widespread.

The New York Times reported June 17 that the National Security Agency (NSA) during the administration of President George W. Bush had set up a secret database, codenamed Pinwale, which contained a massive searchable collection of U.S. and foreign e-

mails. According to the Times, the database was still currently in use by the NSA and had captured the personal e-mails of former President Bill Clinton, among others. [See p. 243D2] The report followed an April story by the Times which said the NSA had violated U.S. intelligence laws in its data collection in 2008 and 2009. Under a 2008 update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the NSA was allowed to collect foreign e-mails without court approval, and to inadvertently capture U.S. e-mails if they were gathered while investigating people who were reasonably thought to be outside the U.S. However, the NSA reportedly had difficulty distinguishing between foreign e-mails and those sent from within the U.S., leading to the overcollection of domestic e-mails. The Times reported that the number of domestic e-mails captured by NSA data collectors had triggered privacy concerns among members of Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret court tasked with overseeing the NSA’s surveillance of U.S. residents and citizens. According to the Times, the NSA was thought to have violated legal guidelines by capturing data on U.S. citizens or residents who were not linked to international terrorism. The NSA reportedly used between eight and 10 surveillance requests that had been approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The total number of people targeted by the orders was unclear. The Times report was based in part on multiple interviews with an unidentified former NSA analyst who said that he had been trained in the use of Pinwale in 2005 and claimed that analysts were allowed to examine e-mails from U.S. residents and citizens during their database searches as long as the U.S. e-mails did not constitute more than 30% of the total reviewed. According to the former analyst, he had been told that another analyst had been subjected to an internal investigation after using the database to access former President Bill Clinton’s e-mails. According to the Times, a notorious 2004 confrontation between Deputy Attorney General James Comey, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card over the NSA’s surveillance program had been caused largely by Justice Department concerns that the NSA was breaking the law by collecting U.S. e-mail and using it to trace patterns in e-mail traffic as part of its efforts to counter terrorism. [See 2008, p. 922C1] n

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Energy Clean Coal Project Tentatively Revived. Energy Secretary Steven Chu June 12 announced that the Energy Department had reached a “provisional agreement” with a consortium of private groups and utilities to restart the FutureGen Industrial Alliance Inc., an initiative to implement technology designed to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions produced by burning coal. Chu said in a statement that the agreement 445

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“reflects this Administration’s commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution.” [See 2008, p. 258A3] The FutureGen project, which would be the first major attempt to deploy socalled clean coal technology, had been developed under the administration of President George W. Bush, but was canceled in 2008 due to concerns that it had grown too expensive. However, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department May 15 had announced that the department had set aside $1 billion of the $2.3 billion it had received from a $787 billion stimulus package enacted by the federal government in February to pay for part of the FutureGen project if it was restarted. [See below] The FutureGen project was intended to fund the creation of a specialized coal power plant in Mattoon, Ill., where coal would be transformed into hydrogen-rich gas that would subsequently be used to produce electricity. All carbon dioxide produced by the transformation would be permanently stored underground as part of a process known as carbon sequestration. Experts suggested that, if successful, the technology could reduce carbon emissions linked to climate change. As part of the new agreement, the Energy Department agreed to begin in July the process that would lead to a definitive decision in 2010 about whether the project would go forward. The agreement called for the formulation of a new cost estimate for the project and a reworking of the project’s design, as well as an increase in the number of members of the FutureGen Industrial Alliance and the creation of a comprehensive plan to fund the project before a final decision was made. Members of Illinois’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Richard Durbin (D), praised the decision. They had reportedly lobbied for the project to be revived. The agreement was criticized by environmentalists, who questioned the environmental benefits of the project. Under the new plan, the FutureGen plant would initially capture only 60% of the carbon released by the process, rather than the 90% goal included in the project’s original plan. However, the agreement called for the capture rate to reach 90% over time. Math Error Led to Cancellation— The House Science and Technology Committee March 11 released two reports finding that the Energy Department had made mathematical errors that resulted in FutureGen’s 2008 cancellation. According to the reports, the Energy Department had erroneously concluded that the projected cost of the program had grown from $950 million in 2004 to approximately $1.8 billion in 2008, by failing to account for inflation; the correct projected total was put at $1.3 billion. A total of $174 million had been spent on the FutureGen project before it was canceled. n 446

AFRICA

Sudan Darfur Aid Groups Return Allowed. John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, June 11 told the U.N. Security Council that the Sudanese government had agreed to allow the return of four expelled aid groups. Thirteen foreign aid organizations working in the war-torn western Darfur region of Sudan in March had been ordered to leave the country, after war crimes charges were filed against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands. [See p. 185A1] The Sudanese government officially denied lifting the ban on any of the ousted groups. However, the government was viewed as creating a loophole for returning agencies, which were only required to slightly change their names and logos to gain reentry. Four groups had already completed the initial registration process: CARE International, Save the Children, Mercy Corps and PADCO (Planning and Development Collaborative International). Bashir had originally claimed that government services would fill the void created by the ejection of the foreign workers, but the quick reversal in policy led many to speculate that that had not happened. U.S. Stance Shift Mulled— U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, June 17 held a Washington, D.C., press conference, in which he characterized the violence in Darfur as “primarily between rebel groups, and the Sudanese government.” The comments appeared to be a shift from the U.S.’s official stance on the Darfur conflict, that the government was coordinating an “ongoing genocide.” Gration said he still saw “the remnants of genocide,” but stopped short of categorizing it as “ongoing.” An official from the Sudanese foreign ministry hailed Gration’s remarks, interpreting them as a complete reversal of position by the Obama administration. The U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, P.J. Crowley, issued a statement the following day to clarify that the administration still believed genocide had occurred since the beginning of the conflict in 2003. An estimated 300,000 people had died and some 2.7 million others had been driven from their homes, amid fighting between rebel factions and government forces allied with Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. Sima Samar, the U.N. special representative on human rights in Sudan, June 16 offered the U.N. Human Rights Council reports about ongoing violence against civilians in Darfur. In testimony, Samar said that “land and air attacks by government forces on civilians” had continued through the past year. The council June 18 voted to extend its monitoring of abuses taking place in Sudan. Peace Talks End, Little Progress Seen—

Qatari-brokered peace talks between the Sudanese government and one of Darfur’s

main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), ended June 19 without an agreement. The discussions fell apart over such issues as prisoner exchanges, as well as the inclusion of other rebel factions in the peace process, which had begun in mid-February. The two sides agreed to resume talks in two months. n

AMERICAS

Argentina President’s Congressional Allies Defeated.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Front for Victory–Justicialist (PJ) wing of the Peronist party lost control of both houses of congress—the lower Chamber of Deputies and the Senate—in midterm elections June 28. A slate of candidates headed by Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez de Kirchner’s husband and predecessor as president, failed to garner a first-place finish in contested lower-house seats in Buenos Aires province. The elections had been seen as a referendum on the Kirchners, and the results indicated a staggering setback in their political standing. [See p. 204D1] Contested in the elections were 127 seats in the 257-seat Chamber, and 24 seats in the 72-seat Senate. The PJ and its allies finished with 112 seats in the Chamber and 36 in the Senate, a loss of 25 seats and four seats, respectively. Nestor Kirchner’s slate was outperformed by one headed by Francisco de Narvaez, the leader of a rival faction within the Peronist party, the Union PRO. De Narvaez’s candidates had garnered 34.6% of votes, compared with 32.1% for Kirchner’s. In Argentina, the number of candidates from a slate that were seated was proportional to the votes they won, meaning that Kirchner and some of his allies would receive seats in the Chamber. Nestor Kirchner had been elected in 2003, and in the 2007 presidential election had thrown his weight behind his wife, then a senator. Under Argentina’s constitution, a president was limited to two consecutive four-year terms, but could serve an unlimited number of nonconsecutive terms. Some analysts guessed that the couple planned to trade the presidency between them for as long as their political popularity held. The results were thought to effectively end the chances for such a scenario. [See 2003, p. 396A3] Fernandez de Kirchner’s popularity had plummeted in 2008 after she unsuccessfully attempted to impose an increase on grain import taxes paid by farmers, and again after she nationalized the country’s private pension funds. Both the Kirchners had been criticized for failing to pursue for a consensus on policy issues, instead trying to force their legislative goals through coercion. [See p. 203F3; 2008, p. 870D2] Kirchner June 29 resigned his post as leader of the PJ, and was replaced by Daniel Scoli, the governor of Buenos Aires. In addition to losing in Buenos Aires province, allies of the Kirchners were deFACTS ON FILE

feated in the provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe, Mendoza and Santa Cruz, Kirchner’s home province. Emerging strengthened by the Kirchners’ setback were several figures considered possible candidates for the presidency in 2011: Senator Carlos Reutemann, who was reelected to his seat in Santa Fe; Vice President Julio Cobos of the opposition Radical Party; and Mauricio Macri, the conservative mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital. n

Bermuda PM Brown Survives No-Confidence Vote.

Bermudan Prime Minister Ewart Brown June 20 survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament, after coming under strong criticism for accepting from the U.S. four suspected terrorists previously held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Parliament voted, 22–11, to reject the noconfidence resolution, after 14 hours of debate that had begun the previous day. [See p. 391A2] The U.S. Justice Department June 11 had transferred the detainees, all members of China’s Muslim Uighur minority, to Bermuda. The U.S. said it had determined that the men were not terrorists, but was unable to return them to China, out of concern that they would face persecution as part of the government’s suppression of Uighur separatism. Brown quickly came under criticism from opposition members for failing to discuss the acceptance of the prisoners with other political leaders. The British government also expressed concern that it had not been consulted, and said Brown might lack the authority to accept the Uighurs. (Bermuda was a British territory.) Brown, leader of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), during the debate said he had accepted the men on humanitarian grounds, and to improve relations with the U.S. Kim Swan, leader of the opposition United Bermuda Party (UBP), said the noconfidence resolution had been put forward because Brown had created an “international debacle.” Hundreds of protesters gathered in Hamilton, Bermuda’s capital, June 16 and June 18, calling on Brown to resign. n

Brazil News in Brief. The Brazilian government

statistics agency Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) June 9 reported that Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted by 0.8% in the first quarter of 2009, when compared with the previous quarter. The country’s GDP had shrunk 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2008, when compared with the previous quarter, meaning that it met the traditional definition of a recession—two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. However, the first-quarter GDP contraction was smaller than expected by analysts, who saw it as a potential sign of an impending recovery. [See p. 186A3] July 2, 2009

Brazilian officials May 26 said flooding caused by heavy rains over the past several

weeks in the northern part of the country had caused 49 deaths and left about 408,000 people homeless. The government said it had authorized $435 million in aid to those affected by the flooding, considered the worst in at least 20 years. [See 1985, p. 176B1] A three-judge panel in a court in Brazil’s northern Para state April 7 ordered new trials for two men accused of involvement in the 2005 murder of an environmental activist U.S. nun in the Amazon rain forest. The judges ordered a new trial for Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, who in 2008 had been acquitted on charges of orchestrating the death of the nun, Dorothy Strang. They also voted to hold a new trial for Rayfran das Neves Sales, who had admitted to killing Strang and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2007. The judges cited what they called errors by the juries in both cases. Another man accused of participating in the murder, Regivaldo Galvao, had been arrested and charged in the case in December 2008. No trial dates had been set for any of the men. [See 2008, p. 416D1] Brazil’s Supreme Court March 19 voted, 10–1, to approve the creation of the Raposa Serra do Sol nature reserve in the country’s Amazon rainforest region. The reserve was planned to be 4.2 million acres (1.7 million hectares) in area, and home to about 19,000 native Indians. The court’s approval of the reserve, which had been endorsed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2005, meant that police could evict rice farmers from the area. [See 2008, p. 941D2] n

Mexico News in Brief. Mexico’s

National Cargo Transportation Association (Canacar), a trade group representing about 4,500 trucking businesses, June 1 said it had filed

a $6 million claim against the U.S. government for failing to adhere to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The claim was filed with the U.S. State Department. The terms of the 1994 trade agreement allowed Mexican truckers access to U.S. highways. The Mexican government in March had imposed retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. after Congress ended a 2007 pilot program allowing Mexican truckers to cross the U.S. border. [See p. 171F2] The New York Times May 15 reported that the immigration of Mexicans to other countries had fallen about 25% during the 12-month period lasting September 2007 to August 2008, when compared with the previous year, according to Mexican census data. The figure represented about 226,000 fewer immigrants. The overwhelming majority of emigrating Mexicans went to the U.S. Analysts said Mexicans who sought to settle in the U.S. had postponed their plans due to the decline in employment opportunities resulting from the U.S. recession. [See 2008, p. 677D1] n

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Australia Controversial E-Mail Found to Be Fake.

The Australian Federal Police June 22 announced that a controversial e-mail cited by the country’s political opposition as part of its attempt to force the resignation of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan was likely fake. Police said that a “preliminary” investigation of the email indicated that it had been “created by a person or persons other than the purported author of the e-mail.” With the finding, opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull’s aggressive use of the e-mail to damage the ruling Labor Party backfired dramatically. [See 2007, p. 811A3] Treasury official Godwin Grech June 19 had testified before the Australian Senate about an e-mail he said he had received from Andrew Charlton, one of Rudd’s advisers, requesting special treatment for John Grant, a car dealer in Australia’s Queensland state who was a longtime supporter of Rudd. In December 2008, Swan had announced the formation of a A$2 billion ($1.6 billion) Treasury fund, dubbed “OzCar,” that was intended to provide ready credit to car dealerships during the credit freeze triggered by the global financial crisis. In the e-mail, Charlton had allegedly written that Rudd had inquired about the possibility of directing money from the fund to Grant. The car dealer had previously lent Rudd a two-seat pickup truck, known as a “Ute,” for use during campaigning, leading the Australian media to nickname the scandal “Utegate.” Both Swan and Rudd had denied in Parliament that they had attempted to misuse OzCar to benefit Grant, leading opposition officials, including Turnbull, to call for their resignations for lying to Parliament. Rudd Denounces Use of Forgery—

Rudd June 22 criticized the opposition Liberal Party–National Party coalition for attempting to exploit the fake e-mail for political gain, saying, “There can be no graver offense in public political life than to be in the business of communicating a document that is false... through the media, in order to bring your political opponent down.” Rudd had maintained that the e-mail was fake prior to the police announcement. Turnbull June 23 said the opposition coalition had not had a hand in the creation of the apparently forged e-mail. Following the police announcement, members of the opposition June 22 aimed the bulk of their criticism at Swan, who had reportedly received updates about Grant on his home fax machine despite testifying June 4 before Parliament that he had not sought special treatment for Grant. Swan June 23 testified before Parliament that he had not requested the documents and that Grech had chosen to send them to him, among other recipients, without prompting. Separately, the opposition June 26 blocked an attempt by members of the Labor Party to open an investigation into 447

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whether Liberal Party Senator Eric Abetz had violated his parliamentary privilege by making knowingly false statements in testimony before the body. Abetz June 19 had testified that he had first heard about the email from a journalist. However, the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper June 25 reported that Abetz and Turnbull had both previously seen a copy of the e-mail. n

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Internet Filter Requirement Delayed. Chi-

na’s industry and information technology ministry June 30 announced that it was delaying a requirement that all new personal computers in the country be sold with software to block Internet material deemed inappropriate. Authorities had said the software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was designed to block only pornography and other material harmful to children, but critics, including rights activists and foreign computer makers, said it would enable political censorship and threaten computers’ security. The requirement had been due to take effect July 1; the government did not specify the envisioned length of the postponement. [See p. 414F2] U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke June 24 had lodged formal complaints with China about the policy. Locke said Green Dam “appears to have broad-based censorship and network security issues,” while Kirk suggested that it might violate World Trade Organization free-trade rules. [See p. 440C1] Google Scolded, Blocked—Chinese officials June 18 met with executives of the Chinese subsidiary of U.S. Internet search company Google Inc., admonishing them over the fact that Google’s Chinese search engine site yielded links to pornographic Web sites. (Google in 2005 had established a Chinese site, Google.cn, that operated in compliance with the country’s restrictions on Internet content.) Authorities the following day appeared to have disabled a feature on Google.cn that suggested alternate search terms based on a user’s input. The government had criticized that feature for offering inappropriate suggestions. State media June 19 said that Google had also been ordered to prevent the site from searching for any foreign Web sites. However, the search engine continued to include foreign sites in its results, prompting continued criticism in official media. Access to Google was widely disrupted June 24–25. Also, China’s health ministry June 24 announced new restrictions on access to sites concerning sexual health, as part of the announced campaign against online pornography. A ministry spokesman said the new rules, which had reportedly been approved in March, were intended to “guarantee scientific and accurate information and prevent lewd content in disguise.” n News in Brief. Prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who had been in government detention since December 2008, June 23 was placed under formal arrest on 448

charges of “agitation activities aimed at subversion of the government and overthrowing of the socialist system,” according to state news media. Liu’s detention was believed to be connected to his endorsement of Charter ’08, a manifesto calling for major democratic reforms in China. International human rights organizations denounced the charges, as well as China’s frequent use of state-subversion charges against dissidents and human rights activists. [See 2008, p. 979F3] China and the European Union May 20 held a summit meeting in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. The China-EU summit had originally been scheduled for December 2008, but was postponed by China in response to a meeting between President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which then held the EU presidency, and exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. (The Czech Republic had succeeded France in the rotating presidency.) Chinese President Wen Jibao and Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, reportedly discussed trade issues and climate change. [See p. 98C2] Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva May 19 visited Beijing, China’s cap-

ital, and met with Chinese President Hu Jintao. The two countries sealed an agreement in which China’s state-controlled China Development Bank would lend $10 billion to Brazil’s state oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), to help it develop offshore oil fields. China in return would receive a guaranteed option to buy up to 200,000 barrels of oil a day from Brazil for 10 years. China also agreed to expand imports of Brazilian chicken and beef. The two countries’ trade relationship was thriving at a time when their exports to other countries were flagging. [See p. 197E1] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Bosnia and Herzegovina High Representative Nullifies Serb Law.

Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, the High Representative (HR) for Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 19 annulled legislation passed by the Bosnian Serb National Assembly, which he said undermined the Dayton accords. The Dayton accords, which ended Bosnia’s 1992–95 civil war, had divided the country into two states: the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, and the MuslimCroat Federation, comprised mainly of Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks. The two states had separate parliaments and were united by a weak central government. Under the Dayton accords, the HR was the highest authority on interpreting the country’s constitution. [See pp. 448C3, 379C2; 2007, p. 791F1] The annulled legislation had suggested that the Bosnian central government had taken over certain local powers from the Republika Srpska, such as control over the judiciary, police and customs collections, and that those powers should be returned. (Bosnian Serbs had long advocated for

greater autonomy for the Republika Srpska, but Croats and Bosniaks generally supported increased centralization.) Frane Maroevic, a spokesperson for Inzko, June 19 said the Republika Srpska was “trying to renegotiate Dayton through political means, and this is extremely dangerous for the country because it was the Dayton agreement that ended the war.” The government of the Republika Srpska, which had long argued that the HR should give up the so-called Bonn powers that allowed the holder of the office to override parliamentary decisions and sack officials, said Inzko’s move was “undemocratic and aimed at suppressing basic human and democratic freedoms.” European Union foreign policy head Javier Solana June 22 expressed support for Inzko’s decision to annul the legislation. n IMF Postpones $1.6 Billion Loan. Bosnian officials June 23 said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had not approved the country’s 2009 budget, and as a result a planned IMF loan of $1.66 billion was postponed. The IMF’s decision followed the MuslimCroat Federation’s June 18 move to cancel a planned 10% cut in welfare payments to veterans and other survivors of Bosnia’s 1992– 95 civil war. The IMF had required Bosnia to make deep budget cuts in order to qualify for the loan. Bosnia’s other state, the Serbdominated Republika Srpska, had met the IMF budget requirements, but nevertheless would not receive the expected IMF aid. [See pp. 448E2, 343B1] The Muslim-Croat Federation had canceled planned cuts to veterans’ payments after thousands of veterans and widows June 18 protested outside a government building in Sarajevo, the capital. Veterans comprised a significant part of Bosnia’s electorate. Britain’s Guardian newspaper June 23 reported that an unnamed Bosnian finance official had said, “The IMF made clear that the loan is possible only under the [previously] agreed terms…the government will have to re-address this issue or face bankruptcy.” European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer June 22 warned Bosnia that its bid to join both organizations was faltering. n

Bulgaria Thousands Protest Socialist Government.

Several thousand people June 16 gathered in central Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, to voice their dissatisfaction with the country’s Socialist-led government, which the protesters accused of inaction amid a global economic crisis that had battered the country. They also protested a planned salary freeze for state employees, which was expected to affect as many as 400,000 people, as well government corruption and rising unemployment. The protest, which was organized by the country’s largest labor union, FACTS ON FILE

blocked busy intersections in Sofia, causing major traffic jams. [See p. 52B2] The protests preceded parliamentary elections planned for July. Opinion polls suggested that many citizens were deeply dissatisfied with Socialist leadership. Bulgaria was one of the poorest countries in Europe, with an average personal income of $420 per month.

weapons programs that was used to justify the invasion, June 18 told the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, “I reluctantly conclude that the form of the inquiry proposed by the government has been dictated more by the government’s political interest than the national interest and it cannot achieve the purpose of purging mistrust.” n

European Commission Releases Aid—

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, June 18 said it was releasing $1.7 billion in aid to Bulgaria. The Commission in 2008 had frozen part of that aid package, which was meant to fund improvements to Bulgaria’s crumbling roads, due to concerns over corruption. Ivan Atanassov, head of Bulgaria’s National Road Infrastructure Agency, June 18 said the commission had released the money after the road agency had taken steps to fight corruption. The agency had reportedly removed allegedly corrupt officials and instituted protections against fraud. n

Great Britain Iraq War Investigation Set. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown June 15 said a government-appointed panel would begin an investigation into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. Brown’s insistence that the inquiry should not be held in public due to national security concerns drew sharp criticism. Brown backtracked in a June 18 letter to Sir John Chilcot, the chairman of the panel, saying that Chilcot would be able to decide whether to hold some hearings in public and require witnesses to take a legal oath. [See p. 437A1; 2004, p. 518G3] A motion by the opposition Conservative (Tory) Party to alter the rules for the inquiry June 24 was defeated by a vote of 299 to 260 in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of Parliament. The motion called for Parliament to set the rules for the inquiry. The Tories, joined by a smaller opposition party, the centrist Liberal Democrats, also called for changes to the composition of the panel, arguing that its members should have more military or political experience. The members named by Brown were civil servants and academics. Chilcot, 70, was a retired diplomat and civil servant. Brown also drew criticism for directing that the inquiry take at least a year to complete its work, which meant that it would not present its findings until after the next parliamentary elections, due to be held by June 2010. Tory leader David Cameron said both Brown and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, both members of the Labour Party, should be required to testify in public before the panel. The inquiry was expected to focus on Blair’s decision to have 40,000 British troops take part in the 2003 U.S.led invasion of Iraq. Only about 500 British troops currently remained in Iraq; 179 had been killed during the war. Lord Butler, who led an inquiry in 2004 into the faulty intelligence about Iraqi July 2, 2009

Greece Acropolis Museum Opens. The new Acro-

polis Museum June 20 opened in Athens, the Greek capital. The museum housed some 4,000 classical artifacts. It sat at the foot of the Acropolis, the hilltop center of ancient Athens crowned by the Parthenon temple. At the opening ceremony, Greek President Karolos Papoulias took the occasion to renew Greece’s long-standing demand for Britain to return the Elgin Marbles. Those were sculptural panels, dating from the 5th century B.C., which had been removed from the frieze of the Parthenon by an English aristocrat, Lord Elgin. In 1816, Elgin sold them to the British government, which placed them in the British Museum in London. [See 2002, p. 991C2] Papoulias said, “Today the whole world can see the most important sculptures of the Parthenon assembled, but some are missing; it’s time to heal the wounds of the monument with the return of the marbles which belong to it.” Earlier in June, the Greek government had refused an offer from the British Museum for a three-month loan of the Elgin Marbles, because the loan was conditioned on formal acceptance of Britain’s claim to legitimate ownership of the marbles. Elgin had been ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Greece at the time. Britain claimed that Elgin’s removal of the marbles was legal because he had permission from the Ottoman rulers to take them, but Greek scholars disputed that. The British Museum had long dismissed calls for the return of the Elgin Marbles by claiming that Greece had no proper museum to house them. The new Acropolis Museum had been built to disprove that claim. It replaced a smaller museum that was built in 1874. Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi designed the museum, which was completed five years late and reportedly cost 130 million euros ($180 million). It was originally supposed to have opened during the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. The museum’s display of the Parthenon frieze included only 36 of the original 115 panels. The panels held by Britain were represented by plaster casts, whose white color stood out clearly against the darker original marbles. n

Italy Freight Train Accident Kills 16. A freight

train carrying tanks of liquefied natural gas June 29 derailed and exploded while passing through the small coastal town of Viareggio in the region of Tuscany in northern

Italy. The accident caused fires and building collapses that killed 16 people and left several others in critical condition. Most of the dead had been in their homes when the accident occurred just before midnight. The train’s two engineers escaped with minor injuries. It was Italy’s worst rail accident since 2005, when 17 people died in the collision of a passenger train and a freight train near the northern city of Bologna. [See p. 253C3] Authorities said it was unclear what had caused the derailment, but reportedly were investigating such possibilities as a broken axle, a brake problem or damage to the tracks. The train was owned by GATX Rail Europe, a unit of U.S.-based GATX Corp. n

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Russia Ingush President Badly Injured in Bombing.

Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of Russia’s restive southern republic of Ingushetia, June 22 was seriously injured when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle full of explosives near his armored car on the outskirts of Nazran, the republic’s main city. He was airlifted to a hospital in Moscow, Russia’s capital. Officials June 23 said Yevkurov remained in critical condition, with damage to his skull and internal organs. He had been appointed the impoverished Ingushetian republic’s president in October 2008. [See p. 417B1; 2008, p. 840C3] Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called the bombing a “terrorist act,” and said Yevkurov had been attacked because he had “done a lot to bring order and also to bring a civil peace to the region. The bandits actively dislike this, of course.” Ingushetia was located in the Russian Caucasus, where violence against officials was becoming increasingly common. Observers attributed the violence both to feuding local clans and radical Islamic militants. Ramzan Kadyrov, president of Chechnya, a neighboring republic long ravaged by separatist conflict, the same day said Medvedev had asked him to intensify antiinsurgent operations in Ingushetia. He said, “I will personally control the operations,” vowing “revenge” that would be “ruthless.” Violence in Chechnya had decreased since Kadyrov had taken power in 2007. However, rights activists accused him of violent repression. n

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Other European News Russia Begins War Games Near Georgia.

Russia June 29 began conducting largescale military exercises near its border with Georgia. Russia’s war games, the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Union, included about 8,500 troops, 200 tanks, and hundreds of armored vehicles and artillery units. The operation would end July 6, the day U.S. President Barack Obama was scheduled to arrive in Moscow, Russia’s capital, for a summit with President Dmitri Medvedev. Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), said Russia was running 449

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the exercises “to ensure the defensive capabilities of Russia in those areas where we see threats.” [See p. 406D1] The exercises came nearly a year after the Russian army had crushed a Georgian invasion of the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of South Ossetia. Following the brief war, Russia recognized South Ossetia, and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia, as independent, stationed troops in both regions, and was in the process of building military bases in each. Georgia, backed by the U.S. and EU, vehemently disputed the Russian presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Nalbandov June 29 said the exercises were a “military provocation,” and that Georgia did “not rule out any threat of resumption of the [2008] war with Russia.” NATO had held military exercises in Georgia in May. OSCE Monitors Withdraw From Georgia—

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Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) June 30 withdrew from Georgia. Despite months of negotiations, Russia, an OSCE member, had refused to agree to an extension of their mission, and Greece, which currently chaired the OSCE, had declined to circulate an alternative Russian proposal. The monitors had arrived in Georgia following the separatist wars of the 1990s, in which South Ossetia and Abkhazia had established de facto autonomy from Georgia. Russia had objected to extending the OSCE observer mission because other OSCE member states did not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent. Russia earlier in June had vetoed an extension of a U.N.-sponsored monitoring mission that operated along the border between Abkhazia and Georgian-controlled territory, also because of the dispute over the regions’ independence. The U.N. monitors June 30 began their withdrawal, which was to be completed by July 15. The only remaining international presence in Georgia would be a European Union– sponsored monitoring mission that was not allowed to enter the breakaway regions. OSCE officials expressed serious concerns about Georgian stability following the monitors’ departure. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigori Karasin, according to a June 17 article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant, had said, “What happened with the OSCE mission to [Georgia]…is a supreme act of diplomatic cynicism.” NATO and Russia Resume Military Links—

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Representatives from NATO and Russia June 27 met on the Greek island of Corfu, where they formally resumed military links that had been severed following the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. The two sides agreed to cooperate on issues including Afghanistan, counterterrorism and nuclear proliferation. [See p. 311B1] Georgia Leaves CIS—Georgia June 12 formally left the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose international confederation whose remaining members 450

were Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Ukraine was an unofficial member, and Turkmenistan held associate status. [See 2008, p. 786C1] n

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Lebanon Hariri Named Prime Minister. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman June 27 named Saad Hariri as the country’s prime minister, after 86 legislators of the 128-member parliament voted to nominate him. Hariri, 39, was the son of former President Rafik Hariri, who had been assassinated in 2005. He led the March 14 Movement, a pro-Western coalition that had bested the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and its allies in parliamentary elections earlier in June. Hariri would succeed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who was also a member of the March 14 Movement. [See p. 397B3; for facts on Hariri, see p. 450E2] Hariri said he would assemble a unity government including members of opposition parties, and he had met June 25 with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. However, it was not clear whether Hezbollah’s coalition would retain enough strength to keep the veto power over government decisions that it had held in the previous government. March 14 Movement candidates during the runup to the election had pledged to disarm Hezbollah’s militia, which was reportedly more powerful than the Lebanese army. However, Hariri seemed to back off that promise after the elections. It was also uncertain how an ongoing tribunal investigating the death of Rafik Hariri would proceed. Syria had been implicated in the assassination, and Hezbollah—which was supported by Syria—opposed the investigation. FACTS ON HARIRI

Saad Hariri was born April 18, 1970, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His father, Rafik Hariri, was a Lebanese tycoon and politician who was Lebanon’s prime minister from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2000 until 2004. His mother, Nidal al-Bustani, was an Iraqi. Saad Hariri graduated from Georgetown University in the U.S. in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in international business. Hariri ran his father’s businesses in Saudi Arabia, including construction company Saudi Oger Ltd. and Omnia Holdings Ltd. After Rafik Hariri was assassinated in February 2005, Saad Hariri entered Lebanese politics. He took over control of his father’s Sunni Muslim party, the Movement of the Future, and the coalition of which it was the largest member, the March 14 Movement, and served as parliamentary majority leader. Hariri also inherited a large fortune from his father. [See 2005, p. 93A1] The March 14 Movement maintained its majority in June 7 parliamentary elections, besting an opposition coalition led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. President Michel Suleiman June 27 named Hariri prime minister. [See pp. 450A2, 397B3] Hariri and his wife, Lara Bashir alAdem, had three children.

The parliament June 25 had reelected Nabih Berri as its speaker, with the support of Hariri. Berri, the leader of the Shiite Amal movement, had been the parliament speaker since 1992. Amal was part of the Hezbollah-led opposition coalition. Supporters of the March 14 Movement and Amal, both armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, June 28 clashed in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. The fighting killed a bystander and wounded two other people. The Lebanese army reportedly deployed troops in the capital and warned that any armed men on the streets would be shot. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Technology Company Satyam Sold. Indian technology company Tech Mahindra Ltd. April 13 emerged as the winning bidder for a majority stake in competitor Satyam Computer Services Ltd., whose chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, had confessed in January to artificially inflating Satyam’s profits and falsely claiming that Satyam had some $1 billion in assets. Tech Mahindra, a division of conglomerate Mahindra Group, bought a 31% stake in Satyam, and later would be entitled to buy an additional 20% stake. The deal, at 58 rupees ($1.16) a share, valued Satyam at $1.1 billion. [See p. 54F3] Following Raju’s admission of guilt and arrest, the government dismissed Satyam’s board and appointed a new board to organize a sale. The government’s intervention was seen as an attempt to prevent instability in India’s outsourcing industry, a booming sector that provided technology work and customer services to Western companies. The circumstances surrounding the deal were considered unique, since potential buyers could not rely on Satyam’s doctored accounting books to gauge the company’s health. Additionally, buyers would be responsible for paying legal costs associated with several pending lawsuits against Satyam. Government authorities April 7 had charged Raju and eight others with multiple counts of fraud. The accused included Raju’s brother, Rama Raju, who had been one of Satyam’s founders; former Chief Financial Officer Srinivas Vadlamani; and two employees of U.S. accounting company PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP, whose Indian unit had approved Satyam’s accounting records. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Basketball Oklahoma’s Griffin Tops NBA Draft. The

Los Angeles Clippers June 25 selected University of Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin with the first overall pick in the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. Griffin, who had just completed his sophomore year, was the consensus top pick in the 2009 class. The Clippers had announced their intention to draft Griffin FACTS ON FILE

2009 NBA DRAFT: FIRST ROUND

The teams that selected in the first round of the June 25 National Basketball Association draft, their selections, the projected professional positions of the players, and the players’ colleges, high schools or pre-NBA teams were as follows (players marked by an asterisk were traded; see story for details) [See p. 450G3]: 1.

L.A. Clippers: Blake Griffin, forward, Okla-

homa 2.

Memphis: Hasheem Thabeet, center, Con-

necticut 3.

Oklahoma City: James Harden, guard, Arizo-

na State 4. Sacramento: Tyreke Evans, guard, Memphis 5. Minnesota (from Washington): Ricky Rubio, guard, DKV Joventut (Spain) 6. Minnesota: Jonny Flynn, guard, Syracuse 7. Golden State: Stephen Curry, guard, David-

son 8. New York: Jordan Hill, forward, Arizona 9. Toronto: DeMar DeRozan, guard, USC 10. Milwaukee: Brandon Jennings, guard, Lot-

tomatica Roma (Italy) 11. New Jersey: Terrence Williams, guard, Louisville 12. Charlotte: Gerald Henderson, guard, Duke 13. Indiana: Tyler Hansbrough, forward, North Carolina

shortly after winning the lottery. [See 2008, p. 478A2; for a complete list of the firstround picks, see p. 451A1] University of Connecticut center Hasheem Thabeet was taken second by the Memphis Grizzlies. Following the first two selections, guards accounted for seven of the rest of the top 10. The Oklahoma City Thunder, with the third pick, took Arizona State University guard James Harden. University of Memphis guard Tyreke Evans was picked fourth by the Sacramento Kings. The Minnesota Timberwolves June 23 had traded guards Mike Miller and Randy Foye to the Washington Wizards for forwards Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, Oleksiy Pecherov and the fifth pick in the draft. With back-to-back selections at fifth and sixth, the Timberwolves took a pair of guards in Ricky Rubio of Spain and Jonny Flynn of Syracuse University. The Timberwolves also dealt the rights to the 18th pick overall, University of North Carolina guard Ty Lawson, to the Denver Nuggets for a future first-round draft pick. The moves by the Timberwolves followed the June 17 firing of coach Kevin McHale, who had been with the organization for 15 years. In other trades involving picks on draft day, the Dallas Mavericks and the Thunder swapped the rights to the 24th and 25th picks overall, with center B.J. Mullens of Ohio State University going to the Thunder and the Mavericks securing guard Rodrigue Beaubois of France. The New York Knicks bought the rights to the Los Angeles Lakers’ first-round pick (29th overall), Florida State University guard Toney Douglas. O’Neal Dealt to Cleveland— The Phoenix Suns June 25 traded 15-time All-Star Shaquille O’Neal to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for center Ben Wallace, July 2, 2009

14. Phoenix: Earl Clark, forward, Louisville 15. Detroit: Austin Daye, forward, Gonzaga 16. Chicago: James Johnson, forward, Wake For-

est 17. Philadelphia: Jrue Holiday, guard, UCLA 18. Minnesota (from Miami): Ty Lawson, guard,

North Carolina* 19. Atlanta: Jeff Teague, guard, Wake Forest 20. Utah: Eric Maynor, guard, Virginia Com-

monwealth 21. New Orleans: Darren Collison, guard, UCLA 22. Portland (from Dallas): Victor Claver, for-

ward, Pamesa Valencia (Spain) 23. Sacramento (from Houston): Omri Casspi,

forward, Maccabi Electra (Israel) 24. Dallas (from Portland): B.J. Mullens, center,

Ohio State* 25. Oklahoma City (from San Antonio): Rod-

rigue Beaubois, guard, Cholet (France)* 26. Chicago (from Denver through Oklahoma City): Taj Gibson, forward, USC 27. Memphis (from Orlando): DeMarre Carroll,

forward, Missouri 28. Minnesota (from Boston): Wayne Ellington,

guard, North Carolina 29. L.A. Lakers: Toney Douglas, guard, Florida

State* 30. Cleveland: Christian Eyenga, guard, DKV Jo-

ventut (Spain)

guard Sasha Pavlovic, cash and a secondround draft pick in 2010. The deal secured another superstar for the Cavaliers, with O’Neal complementing the league’s reigning most valuable player (MVP), LeBron James. The team had finished the regular season with the NBA’s best record (66 wins and 16 losses), but was defeated in the Eastern Conference championship by the Orlando Magic. [See p. 419G2] The Magic quickly responded with a blockbuster trade of their own, dealing center Tony Battie and guards Rafer Alston and Courtney Lee to the New Jersey Nets for guard Vince Carter and forward Ryan Anderson. Another perennial playoff team, the San Antonio Spurs, added a top scorer to their roster with a June 23 trade. In the deal, the Spurs sent centers Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto and guard Bruce Bowen to the Milwaukee Bucks in return for forward Richard Jefferson. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

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Theater Openings Coraline. Musical based on a 2002 children’s novel by Neil Gaiman that was also the basis for a recently released animated film. Music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt; book by David Greenspan. Directed by Leigh Silverman. With Greenspan, Jayne Houdyshell and Julian Fleisher. In New York City, at the Lucille Lortel Theater. June 1. [See pp. 140C2, 56A1] Fever/Dream. Absurdist comedy adapted from a 17thcentury drama from Spain, Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s Life Is a Dream. By Sheila Callaghan. Directed by Howard Shalwitz. With Daniel Eichner, Drew Eshelman, Kate Eastwood Norris, KenYatta Rogers and Michael Willis. In Washington, D.C., at Woolly Mammoth Theater Co. June 7. Grasses of a Thousand Colors. Futuristic play inspired by a 17th-century French fairy tale. By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Andre Gregory. With Shawn, Miranda Richardson, Jennifer Tilly and Emily McDonnell. In London, at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. May 18. [See 1996, pp. 1015B3, 439E3] The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures. World pre-

miere of a sprawling family drama by Tony Kushner

serving as the centerpiece of a major festival devoted to his work. Directed by Michael Greif. With Michael Cristofer, Kathleen Chalfant, Linda Emond, Stephen Spinella and Ron Menzel. In Minneapolis, Minn., at the Guthrie Theater’s McGuire Proscenium Stage. May 22. [See 2008, p. 736D2] Kursk. Drama set on a fictional British submarine supposedly tracking the Kursk, a Russian submarine that sank in 2000, killing its entire crew. By Bryony Lavery. Directed by Mark Espiner and Dan Jones. With Ian Ashpitel, Bryan Dick, Tom Espiner, Gareth Farr and Laurence Mitchell. In London, at the Young Vic’s Maria Studio. June 8. [See 2002, p. 734D1] Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet. Third part of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Brother/Sister Plays trilogy, paired in this production with the trilogy’s second part, The Brothers Size. Directed by Robert O’Hara. With Alano Miller. In Princeton, N.J., at the McCarter Theater Center’s Berlind Theater. May 22. [See 2008, pp. 248E1, 116B2] Phedre. Modern-dress version of a tragedy by 17thcentury French dramatist Jean Racine, as translated by poet Ted Hughes. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Helen Mirren, Margaret Tyzack, Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga and Stanley Townsend. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre. June 9. (This production’s June 25 evening performance was beamed by satellite to cinemas in Britain, continental Europe and the U.S., reportedly drawing a record number of people for a single live performance of a play.) [See 1998, p. 804G2] Sister Act. Musical adapted from a 1992 film comedy about a singer disguised as a nun. Music by Alan Menken; book by Cheri and Bill Steinkeller, based on Joseph Howard’s script for the film. Directed by Peter Schneider; choreographed by Anthony Van Laast. With Patina Miller, Sheila Hancock, Ako Mitchell, Nicolas Colicos and Julia Sutton. In London, at the London Palladium. June 2. [See 1992, p. 516G1] When the Rain Stops Falling. Family saga set in both England and Australia. By Andrew Bovell, in collaboration with visual artist Hossein Valamanesh. Directed by Chris Drummond. With Neil Pigot, Michaela Cantwell, Yalin Ozucelik and Carmel Johnson. In Sydney, Australia, at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theater. May 11. (A separate production of this play, directed by Michael Attenborough, opened May 21 at London’s Almeida Theatre.) n

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People Rhythm and blues singer Chris Brown, 20, June 22 in Los Angeles pleaded guilty to one count of felonious assault on pop singer Rihanna. The assault occurred hours before the Feb. 8 Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, at which both artists, who were dating each other at the time, had been scheduled to perform. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Brown, 20, would receive five years of supervised probation and six months of community service. Brown, who was to be formally sentenced in August, was also ordered to stay away from Rihanna. [See p. 88E2] n

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BUSSI, Hortensia (Mercedes Hortensia Bussi Soto de Allende), 94, widow of Salvador Allende,

Chile’s socialist president from 1970 until 1973, when he apparently committed suicide at the presidential palace in Santiago, the capital, during a coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet; the ensuing military regime, headed by Pinochet, lasted until 1990; for most of the Pinochet era, she lived in exile in Mexico, campaigning for democracy and human rights in Chile and throughout Latin America; born July 22, 1914, in Valparaiso, Chile; died June 18 in Santiago. [See 1990, p. 664C2; 1988, pp. 726B3, 337A3; Indexes 1987, 1983, 1973–76; indexed under Allende before 1990] DAHRENDORF, Lord (Ralf Gustav), 80, German-born sociologist and political philosopher; during his youth in Nazi Germany, he was briefly imprisoned in a labor camp for campaigning against the regime; after become a leading liberal academic, he entered West German politics and served for four years (1970–74) as one of two West German members of the European Commission (the executive

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Publishers Weekly June 29 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 384A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

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1. KnockOut, by Catherine Coulter (Putnam) 2. Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception, by Eric Van Lustbader (Grand Central) 3. Relentless, by Dean Koontz (Bantam) 4. The Angel’s Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Doubleday) 5. Medusa, by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (Putnam) General Hardback 1. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions) 2. Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, by Doug Stanton (Scribner) 3. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 4. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion) 5. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) Mass Market Paperback 1. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult (Pocket) 2. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris (Ace) 3. Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown (Pocket) 4. Rogue, by Danielle Steel (Dell) 5. Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris (Ace)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its June 27 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 384C1]:

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Singles 1. “Boom Boom Pow,” The Black Eyed Peas (will.i.am/Interscope) 2. “I Gotta Feeling,” The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 3. “Knock You Down,” Keri Hilson featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo (Mosley/Zone 4/Interscope) 4. “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho),” Pitbull (Ultra) 5. “LoveGame,” Lady Gaga (Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope)

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1. The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope/IGA) 2. Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, Dave Matthews Band (Bama Rags/ RCA/RMG) 3. Relapse, Eminem (Web/Shady/Aftermath/Interscope/IGA) 4. Chickenfoot, Chickenfoot (Redline) 5. The Last, Aventura (Premium Latin/Sony Music Latin) body of what became the European Union); in 1974, he was appointed the first foreign-born director of the London School of Economics (LSE), from which he had received a doctorate in sociology in 1956; he headed the LSE until 1986, before moving to Oxford University, where he served as warden of St. Antony’s College from 1987 to 1997; he became a British citizen in 1988, and was made a life peer in 1993; born May 1, 1929, in Hamburg; died June 17 in Cologne, Germany, of cancer. [See 1993, p. 547E1; 1978, p. 592D3; Indexes 1974, 1970–72] DAS, Kamala, 75, Indian poet, novelist, short-story writer, essayist, journalist and memoirist; she was the first major Indian woman writer in modern times to explore female sexuality in her work; she wrote most of her verse in English, but most of her fiction (under the pen name Madhavikutty) in Malayalam, a nonIndo-European language of southwest India; born into a Hindu family of note, she attracted much attention when she converted to Islam in 1999, at age 67; since then, she had been known as Kamala Suraiyya; born March 31, 1934, in Punnayurkulam, India; died May 31 in Pune, India, of pneumonia. DAUSSET, Jean Baptiste Gabriel Joachim, 92, French hematologist and immunologist; his discovery, in the late 1950s, of molecules on the surface of cells (which became known as HLA antigens) crucial to immune system functioning helped pave the way for “tissue typing,” to determine compatibility between potential donors and recipients of organ transplants; he shared the 1980 Nobel Prize for medicine with two other researchers in this field; born Oct. 19, 1916, in

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al television shows June 1–28 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 384A2]:

1. “National Basketball Association [NBA] Finals Game 4” (ABC), June 11 (9.4) 2. “NBA Finals Game 3” (ABC), June 9 (8.6) 3. “NBA Finals Game 2” (ABC), June 7 (8.2) 4. “NBA Finals Game 5” (ABC), June 14 (8.0) 5. “NBA Finals Game 1” (ABC), June 4 (7.8)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of June 26–July 2 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 384B2]:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Paramount ($214.9 million, 1) Directed by Michael Bay. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro. 2. The Proposal, Disney ($71.9 million, 2) Directed by Anne Fletcher. With Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Denis O’Hare, Malin Akerman and Mary Steenburgen. 3. The Hangover, Warner Bros. ($185.6 million, 4) Directed by Todd Phillips. With Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham and Justin Bartha. 4. Up, Disney ($252.4 million, 5) Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. With the voices of Peterson, Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Nagai. 5. My Sister’s Keeper, Warner Bros. ($14.5 million, 1) Directed by Nick Cassavetes. With Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Jason Patric and Joan Cusack. 6. Year One, Sony ($33.6 million, 2) Directed by Harold Ramis. With Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross and Hank Azaria. 7. The Taking of Pelham 123, Sony ($54.1 million, 3) Directed by Tony Scott. With Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, John Turturro and Frank Wood. 8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 20th Century Fox ($164.0 million, 6) [See p. 384B2] 9. Star Trek, Paramount ($246.8 million, 8) [See p. 384C2] 10. Away We Go, Focus Features ($4.3 million, 4) Directed by Sam Mendes. With John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Carmen Ejogo, Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels.

Toulouse, France; died June 6 in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of Spain’s Balearic Islands; he had been living there for two years. [See 1996, p. 440E3; 1980, p. 889F3] ISHAM, Heyward, 82, career U.S. Foreign Service officer who was deputy chief and later acting chief of the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks that led to a January 1973 accord that ended direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War, two years before the war itself ended; from 1974 to 1977, he was U.S. ambassador to Haiti; born Nov. 4, 1926, in New York City; died June 18 in Southampton, N.Y.; he had suffered from pulmonary fibrosis and had been battling an infection. [See 1977, p. 626E2; 1973, pp. 1053D3, 9D1; Index 1972] KHAN, Ali Akbar, 87, virtuoso of the sarod, a 25string, lutelike instrument used in Indian classical music; like sitarist Ravi Shankar, his brother-in-law for a number of years, he was trained by his father, master musician Allaudin Khan, who died in 1972 at the age of 101; he and Shankar often performed together, including at two 1971 benefit concerts to aid victims of war and famine in newly created Bangladesh; those concerts gave rise to both a Grammy Award–winning album and a film; in later years, he was based in Northern California, where he taught Indian classical music to several generations of students; he also scored a number of films, including Bernard Bertolucci’s Little Buddha (1993), and was a a 1991 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, or “genius grant”; born April 14, 1922, in Shibpur, in what was then the East Bengal region of British India (now

Bangladesh); died June 18 at his home in San Anselmo, Calif., of kidney disease. [See 1991, p. 472B2; 1973, p. 1000B1] KING, Allan Winton (born Allan Winton), 79, Canadian filmmaker best known for his feature-length documentaries, some of them filmed at Toronto, Ontario, institutions of various kinds; these included Warrendale (1967), set at a school for emotionally disturbed children, Dying at Grace (2003), filmed at a Salvation Army hospice, and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005), shot at a geriatric care facility with many residents coping with dementia; born Feb. 6, 1930, in Vancouver, British Columbia; died June 15 at his Toronto home, two months after being diagnosed with brain cancer. [See 1969, p. 232A3] LOW, Frank James, 75, astronomer who, beginning in the early 1960s, helped expand the horizons of cosmology by developing a variety of devices for detecting infrared, or “heat,” radiation from stars; he was a longtime faculty member at the University of Arizona; born Nov. 23, 1933, in Mobile, Ala.; died June 11 in Tucson, Ariz., after a long illness. MOTWANI, Rajeev, 47, Stanford University computer scientist who did pioneering data-mining research; among his students were Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of the Google Internet search engine; born March 26, 1962, in Jammu, India; found dead June 5 at the bottom of the swimming pool at his Atherton, Calif., home, in an apparent drowning. [See 2004, pp. 641B3, 167A2] n

July 2, 2009

Group of Eight Meets in Italy, Agrees to Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cuts No Short-Term Pledges Agreed. The Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialized nations July 8 pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, on the first day of a three-day summit of the G-8 heads of state in L’Aquila, Italy. The G-8—comprised of the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada—addressed a wide range of issues at the summit, including an ongoing global economic slowdown and post-election violence in Iran. [See below, p. 404C3; 2008, p. 462C1] The G-8 for the first time July 8 announced that it would strive to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Global temperatures since the 19th century had risen about 0.7° Celsius. However, the G-8 was criticized for failing to secure broader commitments to slow down the pace of global warming. For example, the G-8’s emissions target did not include a mandatory baseline year from which percentage reductions of emissions would be calculated. The G-8 was also unable to agree on short-term emissions targets. That prompted nine other countries— which along with the G-8 were known as the Major Economies Forum (MEF)—to back out of committing to a global emissions cut of 50% by 2050. India and China were reported to have led the charge to scuttle an emissions target from the MEF, which held a meeting on the sidelines of the G-8 summit July 9 that was chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. India and China reportedly wanted to see more financial incentives from the G-8 countries, since the economic progress the two countries had made in recent decades could be blunted if they imposed environmental limits on growth. Additionally, it was widely reported that Chinese President Hu Jintao’s sudden decision July 8 to return to China precluded any chances for negotiation. Hu returned to China to address ethnic strife between Uighurs and Han Chinese that had left a reported 156 dead in the western province of Xinjiang. [See p. 460C3] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs July 9 said Obama believed that an agreement on short-term targets could be reached before the United Nations hosted a climate change summit in December in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was intended to produce a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. [See p. 405B2] G-8 to Unwind Emergency Policies—

The G-8 July 9 announced that its members would begin preparing strategies to unwind the emergency fiscal and monetary policies they had enacted to address the global economic crisis, such as spending packages and other stimulative measures. However, the G-8 said that “exit strategies will vary from country to country,” reflecting differences between G-8 members on when those policies should be rolled back. U.S. and British officials had said it was prema-

ture to end the policies, while Germany had argued that they could lead to a debilitating spike in inflation. The G-8 said there were “signs of stabilization” in the global economy, but that “risks remain.” The International Monetary Fund (IMF) that day had said the global economy would contract at a 1.4% annual rate in 2009, slightly faster than its April projection of 1.3%. However, the IMF said the economy would grow at a 2.5% rate in 2010, up from its April projection of 1.9%. [See p. 283D3] The G-8 that day was joined by what was known as the Group of Five, which comprised emerging economic powers Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. The two groups pledged not to devalue individual currencies in order to gain an advantage in international trade. The G-8 that day also pledged to have a global trade deal in place by 2010, in what was seen as an attempt to revive the socalled Doha round of trade talks. The purpose of the talks had been to reduce international trade barriers. Analysts noted that a pledge to restart the talks had become a fixture at international summits, but had yielded little substantive process. G-8 Expresses ‘Concern’ Over Iran—

The G-8 July 8 released a statement expressing its “serious concern” over the Iranian government’s recent crackdown on demonstrators protesting the results of a June presidential election. Thousands of Iranian demonstrators took to the streets July 9, and were met by a heavy contingent of security forces. [See p. 463E3] The G-8 also said it would use a U.N. General Assembly meeting in September “to take stock of the situation” involving Iran’s controversial nuclear program. The G-8 did not go so far as to impose a deadline on Iran to halt the program, which many countries said was a covert operation to create nuclear weapons, a charge that Iran denied. The G-8 on July 10, the last day of the summit, was expected to announced a $15 billion program to aid poor farmers in developing countries. Summit Held in Quake-Stricken City—

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hosted the three-day summit in L’Aquila, a city in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, which had suffered a severe earthquake in April that killed nearly 300 people and left more than 50,000 homeless. [See p. 253C3] Berlusconi had insisted on holding the summit in L’Aquila in order to showcase his government’s rebuilding efforts and encourage other countries to help finance reconstruction of historic buildings. He had visited the region 15 times since the quake, but tens of thousands of victims were still housed in tent encampments outside the city. Berlusconi had promised that permanent housing would be built for all of them before winter.

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3577* July 9, 2009

B The decision to hold a summit in such a an earthquake-prone region drew questions about safety, especially after L’Aquila July 3 experienced a quake with a magnitude of 4.1 on the Richter scale of ground motion. The epicenter was less than a mile from the police barracks where the summit meetings were to be held. Offering reassurances, Italian officials said they had emergency plans to evacuate the G-8 leaders from L’Aquila by airplane in case of an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 4.0 or higher during the summit. n

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Obama Meets With Russian President Medvedev in Moscow Leaders Seal Several Military Accords. U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Russia for a July 6 summit with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The leaders agreed to reduce their countries’ nuclear stockpiles

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Group of Eight meets in Italy, agrees to long-term greenhouse gas cuts; shortterm-pledges avoided. PAGE 453

Obama meets with Russian President Medvedev in Moscow.

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Alaska Gov. Palin, former GOP vicepresidential candidate, to resign. PAGE 455

U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.5% in June. PAGE 456

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya denied landing in return attempt. PAGE 459

Violence erupts in China’s Xinjiang region.

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Indonesian President Yudhoyono reelected. PAGE 461

North Korea fires banned missiles on U.S. holiday. PAGE 462

Iranian police disperse renewed election protests. PAGE 463

Federer, S. Williams win at Wimbledon. PAGE 467 *First of two sections Section Two is the Semiannual Index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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by as much as a third, and Obama won permission to use Russian airspace to transport troops and weapons to Afghanistan. The two countries also agreed to resume military cooperation, which had ground to a halt following Russia’s 2008 war with neighboring Georgia. [See pp. 406C1, 193C3] Despite the accords, sharp divides remained between the U.S. and Russia. No consensus was forged on topics of dispute such as Georgia and Ukraine, which the U.S. was ushering toward North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership despite strong Russian objections. Obama and Medvedev also made little progress toward settling differences over a planned U.S. missile defense system to be constructed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia was vehemently opposed to the system, which it said could undermine its defenses. Leaders Agree to Cut Nuclear Stockpiles—

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The July 6 agreement to slash nuclear stockpiles was widely described as the framework for an extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was set to expire Dec. 5. The treaty, which had been struck in 1991 between then–U.S. President George H. W. Bush and then–Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, limited each country to 1,600 nuclear weapon delivery vehicles and 6,000 nuclear warheads. Under the new accord, the ceiling on nuclear delivery vehicles would fall within seven years to a number between 500 and 1,100, and the maximum number of nuclear warheads allowed would drop to somewhere between 1,500 and 1,675. Obama was expected to push for more cuts once the new START accord took effect. Obama said the fight against nuclear proliferation was “one in which the United States and Russia have to take leadership.” He added, “It is very difficult for us to exert that leadership unless we are showing ourselves willing to deal with our own nuclear stockpiles in a more rational way.” Medvedev asserted that reducing the number of nuclear weapons globally was “our common, joint responsibility, and we should do our utmost to prevent any negative trends there.” Also, Obama agreed to “talk not only about offensive weapons systems, but also defensive weapons systems.” The statement was a departure from the policy of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who had championed the proposed U.S. missile defense system and had declined to link it to wider arms control discussions. The U.S. was currently conducting a review of the proposed missile defense system, with a final report due later in the year. [See p. 208A1] While Medvedev did not mention Iran’s nuclear program specifically, he expressed concern over “negative trends in the world” that had come as a result of “new nuclear players.” The U.S. had said its system would defend against Iranian missiles. Obama that day also visited the tomb of Russia’s unknown soldier, and gave an in-

terview to opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Obama Meets Prime Minister Putin—

Obama July 7 met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was widely considered to hold the most political power in Russia, over a traditional Russian breakfast. The meeting, which lasted longer than scheduled, was described as sober and businesslike. Obama praised the “extraordinary work that you’ve done on behalf of the Russian people.” Putin said, “With you, we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries.” Putin reportedly dominated the first half of the meeting with a nearly uninterrupted monologue on Russia’s worldview. Obama, in an interview later that day with the U.S.’s Fox News, said, “Some of [Putin’s] continued grievances with respect to the West are still dated in some of the suspicions that came out of that period,” referring to the Cold War. He continued, “On areas where we disagree, like Georgia, I don’t anticipate a meeting of the minds anytime soon.” Obama described Putin as “tough, shrewd, very unsentimental, very pragmatic.” He also said that he thought Putin “genuinely” wanted to repair frayed relations with the U.S. In the days before his visit, Obama had praised Medvedev as a progressive leader, but criticized Putin as being mired in Cold War politics. In a July 2 interview with the Associated Press, Obama said Putin “has one foot in the old ways of doing things and one foot in the new.” Putin the following day rejected Obama’s criticism, saying Russians “stand solidly on their own two feet and always look into the future.” Also, Putin July 6, the day Obama arrived in Russia, sent George W. Bush a letter congratulating him on his 63rd birthday. He wrote that he valued Bush’s “openness and sincerity.” Most analysts concurred that U.S. relations with Russia had worsened during Bush’s presidency, despite a friendly personal relationship between Putin and Bush. Obama that day also met with Gorbachev, as well as with Russian business and opposition figures. Obama Gives Foreign Policy Speech—

Obama July 7, at Moscow’s New Economic School, delivered a speech that his administration billed as a continuation of major foreign policy speeches he had given earlier in the year in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, and Cairo, Egypt’s capital. Obama began by praising Russia’s contributions to science and the arts, and recalled the sacrifices it had made in World War II. He affirmed that “America wants a strong, peaceful and prosperous Russia.” [See p. 367B2] Obama then recalled views of global strategy in 19th and 20th centuries that had pitted the U.S. and Russia against each other. He rejected those traditions, and asserted that “in 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over.” He added, “Any world order that tries to elevate one nation

or group of people over another will inevitably fail. The pursuit of power is no longer a zero-sum game—progress must be shared. That is why I have called for a ‘reset’ in relations between the United States and Russia.” Obama then outlined four areas where the U.S. and Russia had common interests: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, defeating extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, recovering from the global economic downturn and supporting “democratic governments that protect the rights of their people.” Obama said, “By no means is America perfect. But it is our commitment to certain universal values which allows us to correct our imperfections.” He lauded democracy as a system that had “allowed women, minorities and workers to protest for full and equal rights…busted monopolies, shut down political machines and ended abuses of power.” Obama did not explicitly criticize Russia’s government, which under Putin had clamped down on independent media and marginalized the opposition. But he praised the free press for exposing official corruption in the U.S., and added that “competitive elections allow us to change course and hold our leaders accountable. If our democracy did not advance those rights, I—as a person of African ancestry—wouldn’t be able to address you as an American citizen, much less a president.” Obama closed by declaring support for democratic systems and state sovereignty. He said, “States must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies…any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy. That is why this principle must apply to all nations—including Georgia and Ukraine.” Obama

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added, “NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation.” While Obama’s speeches in Prague and Cairo had been enthusiastically received, his Russian audience was more reserved, which analysts said reflected a widespread perception of the U.S. as a rival of Russia. The speech was not broadcast on any of Russia’s four major television stations, which were state-controlled. n

Other International News Russia’s Medvedev Visits Egypt, Africa.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev June 23–26 visited Egypt, Nigeria, Namibia and Angola. It was his first trip to Africa since assuming the presidency in 2008. [See 2006, p. 784A3] Medvedev led a trade delegation that included Russia’s ministers of natural resources, justice and energy; the chief of Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear regulatory agency; and business leaders such as the heads of energy giants OAO Rosneft and OAO Lukoil. Analysts said the trip to subSaharan African nations that were rich in natural resources represented an effort by Russia to strengthen its presence on the continent and counterbalance China and the West, both of which wielded greater economic and political influence in Africa. [See pp. 406F3, 170E1] In Cairo, Egypt’s capital, Medvedev June 23 met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and signed a 10-year strategic partnership between the two countries on energy, infrastructure and military cooperation. Later that day, he met with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, and addressed a meeting of the Arab League. In his speech, Medvedev called for a summit to be held in Moscow, Russia’s capital, on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He also praised the speech delivered by U.S. President Barack Obama in Cairo some three weeks earlier. [See pp. 453C3, 403F1, 367C2] Deals

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Medvedev June 24 arrived in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, where he met with President Umaru Yar’Adua. Also that day, representatives of OAO Gazprom, Russia’s stateowned energy company, and state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. signed a deal creating a joint venture, which would see the Russian company invest at least $2.5 billion in exploration and development of Nigeria’s oil reserves. [See p. 358G1] In Namibia June 25, Medvedev met with President Hifikepunye Pohamba in Windhoek, the capital, marking the first visit to the country by a Russian leader. Russian companies already had deals with Namibia to explore for uranium. Medvedev June 26 ended his trip in neighboring Angola. In a meeting with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda, the capital, the two leaders discussed bilateral cooperation on developing Angola’s energy and mineral resources. n July 9, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Alaska Gov. Palin to Resign Departs With 18 Months Left in First Term.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, July 3 announced that she planned to resign as governor on July 26, some 18 months before the end of her first term. She said she would transfer power to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R). [See p. 160D2; 2008, p. 801A1] Palin, 45, was viewed as a potential candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Her unexpected resignation announcement left it unclear whether she intended to pursue a future in politics, although she hinted that she intended to remain a voice for conservative causes. Some commentators said her decision could prove to be a shrewd calculation that would leave her free to prepare for a presidential run. Others called it an abdication of responsibility that would make it hard for her to realize any higher ambitions. Palin’s resignation gave a new jolt to her party, following two weeks of scandals that had embarrassed a pair of other Republican presidential prospects, Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who had both admitted to extramarital affairs. Another potential candidate for the GOP nomination, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, had recently announced that he would not seek reelection to a third term in 2010. [See pp. 455D3, 424A1, 410B1] Palin made her televised announcement while standing on her family’s lakeside property in Wasilla, Alaska, flanked by her husband and children. She said she had first decided not to seek reelection, and then concluded that finishing her first term as a lame duck governor would be a waste of the state’s time and money. She said, “I thought about how much fun other governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions.” She added, “I’m not going to put Alaska through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.” Palin also cited the cost of numerous state ethics investigations she had faced, most of them in response to complaints filed by Alaska residents under a reform law that Palin herself had signed. She said that she and her husband, Todd Palin, owed $500,000 in legal bills related to the probes, which had cost the state about $300,000. Most of them had been closed without finding any wrongdoing on her part. A Wasilla resident July 6 filed a new complaint accusing Palin of claiming $60 per day in travel expenses for days she spent at her home rather than in her office in Anchorage. Palin said that her five children backed her decision to resign, and claimed that her 14-month-old son, who had Down syndrome, had been “mocked and ridiculed by some pretty mean-spirited adults.”

Thrust Into Spotlight by McCain— Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, had thrust Palin into the national spotlight when he unexpectedly chose her as his running mate in August 2008. She became the first woman to join a Republican presidential ticket. Her selection was cheered by the social conservative wing of the Republican Party, which had been cool toward McCain, but admired her antiabortion stance. [See 2008, p. 605A1] However, Palin’s performance during the campaign was uneven and McCain’s staff tried to shield her from the media, raising questions about whether she was prepared for the national stage. The Republican ticket’s defeat in the November election led to recriminations among McCain advisers over Palin’s share of the blame. Since the campaign, Palin had continued to fuel controversy, clashing with the Republican-controlled Alaska state legislature. Her public approval ratings in the state, once as high as 90%, had fallen steadily. In June, she had accused David Letterman, host of CBS television’s “Late Show,” of making an offensive sexual joke about her 14-year old daughter, Willow. Letterman apologized June 15. Palin May 12 had revealed that she had signed a book contract with HarperCollins Publishers. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed, but the book was due to be published in 2010. n

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Other Politics News State GOP Censures S.C. Gov. Sanford.

The executive committee of the South Carolina Republican Party July 6 voted to censure Gov. Mark Sanford (R) over his recent confession that he had secretly traveled to Argentina in June to visit a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. The state party’s move to formally rebuke Sanford, rather than demand his resignation, was viewed as helping his chances of surviving the scandal and remaining in office. [See p. 424A1] The censure said Sanford had violated “the public’s trust and confidence in his ability to effectively perform the duties of his office.” A number of Republican members of the state legislature had called on Sanford to resign, particularly after he made new revelations in a June 30 interview with the Associated Press (AP). Sanford told the AP that he had “let my guard down” and “crossed lines” with a handful of other women during his 20-year marriage, but had “never had sex with another woman,” apart from his Argentine lover, who had been identified as Maria Belen Chapur. Sanford, 49, said he had seen Chapur five times over the past year. He called her his “soul mate,” but said he was determined to reconcile with his wife, with whom he had four sons. His wife, Jenny Sanford, July 2 issued a statement calling his actions “inexcusable,” but said she was willing to forgive him. Reginald Lloyd, the chief of the State Law Enforcement Division, July 2 said a review of Sanford’s travel and financial 455

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records showed that he had not improperly spent public funds on any of his rendezvous with Chapur, including three trips to New York City. Sanford had repaid $3,300 of the $8,000 cost of an official visit to Argentina in June 2008, when he said his affair with Chapur first became romantic after several years of friendship. Sanford June 26 had apologized to his cabinet at a televised meeting in the state capital of Columbia, in his first public appearance since admitting to his affair at a news conference two days earlier. He also apologized to Lloyd, who was responsible for his security, for concealing his whereabouts during his trip to Argentina. Sanford’s aides had said he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. n

Economy Unemployment Rate Rose to 9.5% in June.

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The unemployment rate in June rose to 9.5% after seasonal adjustment, up from its May level of Unemployment 9.4%, the Labor June 2009 9.5% Department rePrevious Month 9.4% ported July 2. It Year Earlier 5.6% was the U.S.’s highest unemployment rate in 26 years. In addition, the pace of job losses picked up in June, after slackening somewhat in May, dampening hopes that the economy could soon recover from a deep, ongoing recession. [See p. 388C3] An estimated 467,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in June, up from the May figure of 322,000, bringing the total number of jobs lost to 6.5 million since the recession began in December 2007. All major sectors of the economy shed jobs, with the exception of health care and education. In reaction to the report, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index that day fell 223.32 points, or 2.6%, to close at 8,280.74. Republicans claimed that the job report was evidence that a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama in February was not working. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis acknowledged that the package had been slow to make an impact on the economy, saying, “Not all the recovery money has been put to work yet.” But she added, “We would have done much worse had we not put a recovery plan in place.” While there had been some encouraging economic news in recent months—including indications that the housing market was emerging from a slump—the unemployment report suggested that an economic recovery could be hindered for some time, since increasing job losses could lead consumers to rein in spending. There were other troubling signs, including a drop in the average workweek, to 33 hours, from 33.6 hours in May. It was the shortest workweek since the Labor Department began recording such data in 1964, and indicated that employed workers’ spending power was also being diminished. The unemployment rate was 16.5% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of 456

the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 140 Million Jobs Held in June—According to a household survey, 140.2 million people held jobs in June, the Labor Department reported July 2. The department counted 14.7 million people as unemployed. The department counted 793,000 workers as discouraged in June. About 9.0 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. Factory workers’ average overtime in June was 2.8 hours, remaining unchanged from the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers was $18.53, also unchanged. The unemployment rate among whites in June was 8.7%, up from 8.6% in May. The jobless rate for blacks was 14.7%, down from 14.9% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 12.2%, down from 12.7% in May. For men age 20 and over, June unemployment was 10.0%, up from 9.8% in May. For adult women, it was 7.6%, up from 7.5% the previous month. The teenage rate was 24.0%, up from 22.7% in May. For black teenagers it was 37.9%, down from 39.4% the previous month. n Final First-Quarter GDP Fall Set at 5.5%.

The Commerce Department June 25 reported that, according to its third and final estimate, gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of 2009 had contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.5% from the previous quarter. That was a revision from the department’s second, “preliminary” estimate, in May, that the GDP had contracted by 5.7%. [See p. 372E1] n Existing Home Sales Rose 2.4% in May.

The National Association of Realtors June 23 reported that sales of existing homes rose by 2.4% in May, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million units. That was up from the revised 4.66 million units rate in April. The median sale price for existing homes in May was $173,000, down 16.8% from a year earlier. [See p. 372A2] n Leading Indicators Rose 1.2% in May. The Conference Board business research organization June 18 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 1.2% in May, to 100.2. Based on revised data, the index had increased 1.1% in April, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 356B1] Seven of the 10 indicators in April were “positive” contributors, led by index of supplier deliveries and interest rate spread. Three indicators—led by average weekly manufacturing hours and average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance —were “negative.” n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Bernanke Denies Threatening Bank Chief.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke June 25 denied that he had ever threatened to oust top executives at Bank of America Corp. if the company did not complete a

merger with brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. Bernanke’s testimony, which came at a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was at odds with statements to the committee made earlier in June by Bank of America Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis. [See p. 388E1] The hearing was part of an investigation into whether government regulators had behaved improperly during the merger. Bank of America had agreed to purchase Merrill Lynch in September 2008, in the midst of a crisis that saw the near collapse of several financial institutions. However, Lewis in December 2008 told government regulators that he wanted to abandon the deal, after it became clear that Merrill Lynch was poised to post a massive loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. In his testimony to the committee, Lewis said officials from the Fed and the Treasury had threatened to oust him and other executives, as well as the bank’s board, if the deal fell through. The deal was completed in January, and Bank of America revealed later that month that Merrill Lynch had lost $15 billion in the fourth quarter. The government injected $20 billion into the combined company to offset those losses. When asked by committee members whether he had threatened Lewis, or ordered a subordinate to do so, Bernanke said, “I did not.” Bernanke also denied that the Fed had been involved in withholding Merrill Lynch’s woes from the public, or had kept the $20 billion injection secret from other government regulators. Bernanke said the Fed had “acted with the highest integrity throughout” the merger discussions. He emphasized that the Fed’s decisions in the fall of 2008 were made “in the face of grave threats to our financial system,” and that a failed merger would have posed “significant risks” to the economy. Lawmakers were openly skeptical of Bernanke’s assertions, saying they were contradicted by internal Fed e-mails obtained by the committee. One e-mail from Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., said Bernanke had conveyed to him that “management is gone” if Bank of America walked away from the deal. Bernanke said he did not recall saying those words to Lacker. Lawmakers were also critical of the Fed’s broader efforts to stabilize the financial system. Republicans said the Fed had unduly extended the government’s reach into the private sector, while Democrats said the Fed was not transparent enough and too close to big business. Analysts said such criticisms could hurt the Obama administration’s plan to enhance the Fed’s regulatory powers, which was part of proposed regulatory reform legislation that had been unveiled earlier in June. [See p. 407A1] However, Bernanke had drawn strong praise from prominent businessmen and financiers who said he had moved quickly and aggressively to combat a severe crisis. n Fed Reins in Emergency Lending Programs.

The Federal Reserve June 25 said it would scale back two emergency lending proFACTS ON FILE

grams that had been enacted in 2007 and 2008 to stabilize financial institutions embroiled in a severe credit crisis, and allow a third to expire. The announcement was the Fed’s first step to extract itself from the financial marketplace, which had been flooded with trillions of dollars in loans from the central bank. The Fed said the move came after markets “improved in recent months,” but warned that “market functioning in many areas remains impaired.” [See p. 427F2] The Fed said its Term Auction Facility— a program created in December 2007 to provide one-month loans to financial institutions—would reduce its maximum outstanding loan amount to $500 billion, from $600 billion. The current outstanding loans under the facility totaled $336.6 billion, down from a high of $493.1 billion in March. [See 2008, p. 715A1; 2007, p. 818B2] The Fed said its Term Securities Lending Facility would reduce its maximum outstanding loan amount to $75 billion, from $200 billion. The program had been implemented in March 2008 to allow financial institutions to borrow Treasury securities, while using risky corporate bonds and securities backed by mortgages as collateral. Current lending through that facility totaled $15.8 billion, down from $233.6 billion in October 2008. [See 2008, p. 158A1] The Fed said its Money Market Investor Funding Facility would be allowed to expire Oct. 3. The facility had been created in September 2008 to prevent mass investor withdrawals from money-market funds, but had never been used. [See 2008, p. 672B2] The Fed extended to Feb. 1, 2010, the life of five programs that had been due to expire Oct. 31. They included currencyswap lines with 14 central banks around the world, the first of which had been established in December 2007 to provide U.S. dollar liquidity to foreign banks. [See 2008, p. 781A1] n

Business Financier Pleads Not Guilty to $7 Billion Fraud.

Billionaire financier R. Allen Stanford June 25 pleaded not guilty to 21 charges stemming from a fraud that had allegedly robbed 30,000 clients worldwide of $7 billion. Three former executives at Stanford’s Houston, Texas–based Stanford Financial Group (SFG) joined Stanford that day in entering not-guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in Houston. [See p. 147C3] The charges against Stanford and the three executives included multiple counts of mail fraud and wire fraud, among others. The charges were part of a grand jury indictment that had been unsealed June 19, and accused the executives of using SFG’s affiliate in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda to lure clients with promises of extremely generous returns on certificates of deposit (CDs). CDs were considered to be safe investment vehicles, in which investors customarily received a relatively low, fixed interest rate for a determined period of time. July 9, 2009

However, prosecutors said the funds were “misused and misappropriated,” with as much as $1.6 billion diverted to Stanford in the form of personal loans. Prosecutors also said the Antigua affiliate—Stanford International Bank Ltd. (SIB)—had artificially inflated the value of its assets to $8.5 billion in December 2008, from $1.2 billion in 2001, partly by purchasing overvalued real estate owned by Stanford. Steven Tyrell, an attorney with the Justice Department, June 19 said $1.1 billion of SIB’s assets were “completely unaccounted for,” and that another $5 billion had been “lost,” although he did not specify what had happened to the money. The criminal charges against Stanford had been expected since February, when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint accusing him of orchestrating the fraud. Stanford June 18 surrendered to authorities in Fredericksburg, Va. Judge David Hittner June 30 revoked the $500,000 bail set for Stanford June 25, saying he was a flight risk. Stanford faced up to 250 years in prison. His trial was expected to start Aug. 25. The three executives who also pleaded not guilty were Laura Pendergest-Holt, who had been SFG’s chief investment officer; Gilberto Lopez, the chief accounting officer; and Mark Kuhrt, the global controller. Pendergest-Holt May 12 had also been indicted on criminal charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Another SFG executive, Chief Financial Officer James Davis, was named as a coconspirator in the June 19 indictment, but was not charged. He faced charges in a separate complaint, and was reportedly cooperating with investigators. Antigua Regulator Charged—The Justice Department’s June 19 indictment also included charges against Leroy King, the top regulator at Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission. The indictment said King had accepted $100,000 in bribes from Stanford to issue fake audits of SIB and file misleading reports to the SEC. King had also allegedly showed Stanford the SEC’s inquiries into SIB, allowing Stanford to “dictate the substance, and even the content” of King’s responses. The Antiguan government June 23 fired King from his position, and he was arrested June 25. U.S. prosecutors were seeking the extradition of King, a dual U.S.-Antiguan citizen. n

Medicine & Health Hospital Groups Agree to Cost Savings.

Vice President Joseph Biden July 8 said three hospital associations—the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the American Hospital Association and the Hospital Corporation of America—had agreed to institute changes that would save $155 billion over 10 years. The announcement was made amidst efforts by Democratic lawmakers to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system. President Barack Obama had also proposed a plan to extend health cover-

age to all Americans and offer a government-run health insurance program that would compete with private insurance. Three groups of Democratic legislators had also released drafts of separate versions of reform legislation. [See p. 426C3] Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee and architect of one of the reform bills, had brokered the cost savings agreement with the White House and the hospital groups. The savings would reportedly be accrued through reduced payments to hospitals from the Medicare program, as well as cuts in federal payments made to hospitals for treating those without insurance. However, sharp divisions remained among varied interest groups and within the Democratic Party itself over how to pay for the cost of a reform plan, and some lawmakers said they were not necessarily bound by the informal agreements reached by the White House and industry and interest groups. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) July 8 said he opposed the element of Baucus’s plan that called for health benefits to be taxed. Reid called on Baucus to find an alternative means of funding his overhaul plan, and that day met with a group of Republicans in an effort to seek a bipartisan compromise. White

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White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel July 6 said the administration was not wedded to the public insurance plan, as long as some other mechanism could be put into place that would “keep the private insurers honest.” However, Obama, traveling in Russia, July 7 corrected Emanuel in a press statement. “One of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest,” he said. White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod June 28 said the administration would not rule out taxing health care benefits in order to pay for its reform plan. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign had pledged that families making less than $250,000 would not see any type of tax increase. Obama July 1 held a “town-hall” style meeting in Annandale, Va., to continue to promote his health care reform efforts. Revised Senate Plan Released—Democratic members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee July 2 released a revised version of their reform plan that they said reduced its estimated cost to $611 billion over 10 years. An earlier version of the bill in June was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to cost around $1.1 trillion dollars, while extending coverage to only 16 million people, out of the U.S.’s estimated 46 million uninsured. The revised plan required any business with more than 25 employees to offer insurance, or else pay a $750 fee per employee. The plan also reduced proposed subsidies to help poorer people purchase coverage. However, the CBO that day released an estimate showing that the revised 457

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plan would provide insurance to only about 21 million of the 54 million people expected to be uninsured in 2019. Efforts to formulate the plan were being led by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), who had taken a leadership position on the issue while Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), the committee chairman, received treatment for brain cancer. Wal-Mart Inc., the U.S.’s largest private employer, and the labor union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) June 30 issued a joint statement in support of requiring large businesses to provide health insurance to their employees. The announcement was thought to aid Obama’s efforts to push through a reform, as several other lobbying groups for large businesses had opposed the idea. However, the company added the caveat that the costs to businesses resulting from such a mandate must be contained. n

academy, face criminal charges. Johnson, a former All-Star player in the National Basketball Association (NBA), had been elected in November 2008, and was a supporter of Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Johnson, St. Hope and the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento had settled the case in April, agreeing to a repayment of nearly $424,000. It was reported June 17 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was probing allegations of possible obstruction of justice related to the case. The Obama administration denied that Walpin’s firing was in retaliation for his AmeriCorps investigations. Instead, it cited complaints by staff at the community service corporation that Walpin had a history of inappropriate behavior, including a “confused, disoriented” appearance at a May 20 meeting. Walpin disputed those claims and said they did not, in any case, justify his dismissal. n

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Genachowski Confirmed as FCC Chairman.

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The Senate June 25 unanimously confirmed venture capitalist Julius Genachowski, 46, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate that day also unanimously confirmed Robert McDowell to serve a second term on the FCC. The White House had additionally nominated Meredith Baker, a former telecommunications official, and Mignon Clyburn, a South Carolina regulator, as commissioners. Genachowski and Clyburn were Democrats, and McDowell and Baker were Republicans. [See p. 145A2] If Baker and Clyburn were confirmed, it would be the first time the FCC had a full five members since President Barack Obama took office. Michael Copps, a Democratic commissioner, had been serving as acting chairman. n Firing of Inspector General Criticized.

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President Barack Obama June 11 dismissed Gerald Walpin, inspector general of the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, citing a lack of confidence in him. The firing drew criticism from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress who said Obama had failed to provide sufficient justification for the move. A 2008 law intended to protect the independence of inspectors general required that presidents inform Congress of their reasons for such removals. [See p. 355B1] Walpin, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, asserted that he had been fired because he had issued reports that criticized grants made by the AmeriCorps volunteer community service program. In April, Obama had signed a bill to triple the size of AmeriCorps. Walpin in May 2008 had reported to Congress on the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by the St. Hope Academy, a nonprofit group in Sacramento, Calif. Walpin recommended that Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson (D), the founder of the 458

Obama Backs Pay-As-You-Go Rules. President Barack Obama June 9 urged Congress to pass legislation that would codify so-called pay-as-you-go budget rules, which would require new federal spending or tax cuts to be offset by equal amounts of spending cuts or tax increases. Republicans had criticized Obama and the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress for heavy spending that was expected to produce a budget deficit of $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2009, a record in dollar terms. [See p. 371A2] Obama said, “The pay-as-you-go rule is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.” He added, “It is no coincidence that this rule was in place when we moved from record deficits to record surpluses in the 1990s— and that when this rule was abandoned, we returned to record deficits that doubled the national debt.” Congressional pay-as-you-go rules, in effect from 1990 to 2002, had been credited with a role in the gradual elimination of the deficit during the administration of President Bill Clinton, who left the budget with a rare surplus when his second term ended in 2001. But Republicans, after taking control of Congress, allowed the law to expire in 2002, and large deficits returned during the administration of President George W. Bush. Under Obama’s proposal, the pay-asyou-go rules would apply to increases in mandatory spending on so-called entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, but not to the discretionary spending in the annual appropriations bills passed by Congress. Some independent budget analysts criticized Obama’s proposal for including some other large exemptions from the rules that would allow for an estimated increase of $3.5 trillion in the deficit over the next 10 years. One such loophole would apply to an extension of an array of tax cuts enacted under Bush that were scheduled to expire in 2010. n

AFRICA

Guinea-Bissau Presidential Election Goes to Runoff.

Guinea-Bissau June 28 voted in a presidential election to select a successor to President Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira, who had been assassinated in March. The election commission July 2 announced that the top two vote-getters among the 11 candidates were former interim President Malam Bacai Sanha of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who received 39.6% of the vote, and former President Kumba Yala of the Social Renewal Party (PRS), who took 29.4%. Because neither received more than 50% of the vote, they would take part in a runoff election scheduled for late July. [See p. 133A3] Vieira was killed by troops just hours after the murder of his rival, army chief General Batista Tagme Na Waie. Parliamentary speaker Raimundo Pereira had been serving as Guinea-Bissau’s interim president since Vieira’s death. No arrests had been made in either murder. Guinea-Bissau was one of the poorest nations in the world, with a history of military coups and other meddling by the military in the country’s political affairs since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974. In recent years, it had become a popular transit point for the shipment of illegal drugs from South America to Europe by Colombian cartels, further destabilizing the country. Both Sanha and Yala in their campaigns had pledged to combat drug trafficking and provide peace and stability to the nation. The June 28 election was described as peaceful and well organized by a European Union observer mission. Turnout was estimated at 60%—low for Guinea-Bissau— which the EU mission said could have been caused by an atmosphere of “fear and intimidation.” The election campaign had been marred by violence. State security forces June 5 had shot and killed Baciro Dabo, an independent presidential candidate and former interior minister under Vieira. The security forces alleged that he was involved in a coup plot and was shot while resisting arrest; however, his family claimed that he was killed while sleeping in his home. The security forces that day also killed former Defense Minister Helder Proenca, and detained former Prime Minister Faustino Embali, also allegedly for involvement in the coup plot. Sanha, 62, had served as Guinea-Bissau’s interim president from 1999 to 2000, after the end of a two-year civil war. His PAIGC controlled 67 of the 100 seats in Guinea-Bissau’s legislature. Yala, 56, had defeated Sanha in a 2000 presidential election, but was ousted in a coup in 2003. Analysts predicted that in the runoff, Yala was unlikely to garner much more than the 30% of the vote that represented members of his Balanta ethnic group. Also, the third-place finisher, independent candidate and former FACTS ON FILE

interim President Henrique Rosa, was expected to endorse Sanha, who had also lost to Vieira in the 2005 presidential election. [See 2005, p. 545G1; 2003, p. 1094D2; 2000, p. 90D2] n

Other African News African Union Rejects ICC’s Bashir Warrant.

The African Union (AU) July 1–3 held its semiannual summit in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. The meeting was hosted by Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi, who currently held the rotating chairmanship of the AU. The summit was attended by about half of the continent’s leaders, with the rest of the members sending lower-level representatives. [See p. 82E1] While the official theme of the meeting was “investment in agriculture for economic growth,” the most significant development at the summit was a July 3 resolution that the AU would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, regarding the court’s outstanding arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The ICC in March had issued a warrant for Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to atrocities committed in the ongoing conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. States that were party to the ICC were expected to execute its arrest warrants; analysts said the AU resolution meant Bashir would be able to travel freely throughout much of the continent. (Thirty African nations had signed the 2002 treaty establishing the ICC.) [See p. 446A2] Both the AU and the Arab League had called for the United Nations Security Council to postpone the case against Bashir, arguing that it hindered peace efforts in Darfur. Some African leaders had also alleged that the ICC was an attempt by a Western institution to meddle in the continent’s affairs, and criticized the court for thus far indicting only Africans. [See pp. 196D2, 42D3] However, it later emerged that not all African nations favored the AU resolution. Botswana’s vice president, Mompati Merafhe, in a July 7 statement on a government Web site criticized the resolution, saying, “The chair did not permit much debate on this matter and therefore we did not get an opportunity to put our opinion across.” He added, “It is our view that Africa should not try to undermine the work of the ICC simply because one head of state called Bashir has been indicted by the Court.” Merafhe also criticized the summit for spending too much time on the issue of creating an African federal government and failing to adequately address more pressing issues, such as the many conflicts and political instability across the continent. Botswanan Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani July 5 indicated that his country would still carry out its ICC treaty obligations. [See below] The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) July 3 reported that Chad and Benin were also dissatisfied with the ICC resolution. July 9, 2009

The ICC’s lead prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, July 5 told the BBC that the AU resolution would not affect the ICC’s work. Deal Reached on Continental Authority—

The summit attendees July 3, after a meeting that lasted into the early morning hours, reached a compromise on a plan, strongly advocated by Qaddafi, to take steps toward establishing an African federal government. Discussion of Qaddafi’s vision for a “United States of Africa” had dominated the AU’s previous summit in February. Under the compromise, the current executive arm of the AU, called the AU Commission, would be transformed into the African Authority, a stronger entity that would have the power to coordinate certain aspects of the continent’s defense, security and international relations. However, in order for the changes to be implemented, the AU constitution would have to be amended and ratified by all 53 members. The creation of an African federal government reportedly had been resisted by continental powers such as South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania and Angola. Analysts suggested that the compromise represented an effort to appease Qaddafi without significantly changing the AU’s structure. Other Developments—In other major developments at the AU summit: o AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping July 1 opened the summit with a plea for the body to pay “special attention” to the worsening violence and humanitarian crisis in Somalia, where the internationally backed transitional government was battling Islamist insurgents. The AU currently had more than 4,000 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeeping troops in Somalia, with a limited mandate to protect the president and guard the airport and seaport in Mogadishu, the capital. Ping called for the size of the force to be doubled; however, analysts said the force’s limited resources and mandate made it unlikely that such an increase would have an impact on the situation in Somalia. Somalia’s main insurgent group, Al Shabab, July 3 said it would violently resist an increase in the AU force. [See p. 430A1] o The AU Peace and Security Council announced in a July 1 statement that it was lifting sanctions on Mauritania and ending its suspension from the body. The punishments had been imposed after an August 2008 military coup that overthrew Mauritania’s democratically elected president. The AU cited recent steps that had been taken by Mauritania to restore democracy, including scheduling elections for July 18. [See 2008, p. 972A1] o Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe July 2 met on the sidelines of the summit with Johnnie Carson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Zimbabwe’s state-run Herald newspaper July 5 reported that Mugabe had described Carson as an “idiot” who “thinks he can dictate to us what to do.” Mugabe had also sharply criticized Carson’s predecessor, Jendayi Frazer. The country was currently governed by a shaky alliance between Mugabe’s longtime

ruling Zimbabwe African National Union– Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). [See p. 203C3] o Ramtane Lamamra, the AU’s peace and security commissioner, July 1 said international mediation would resume later in July in an effort to resolve the political crisis in Madagascar. The AU had suspended Madagascar after opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, with strong backing from the army, had ousted democratically elected President Marc Ravalomanana in March. A previous round of talks sponsored by the U.N. and the AU, which lasted from April 8–June 16, had failed to resolve the crisis. Ravalomanana attended the AU summit in an effort to drum up support for his return to power. [See p. 308A2] o Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad July 1 canceled his planned visit to the Libya to attend the AU summit. Ahmadinejad the previous day had confirmed that he would attend the meeting, after receiving an invitation from Qaddafi. The potential visit by the Iranian leader, who had recently been declared the winner of a disputed presidential election, had sparked protests from other African heads of state, and had threatened to overshadow the summit. [See p. 463E3] n

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Honduras Zelaya Denied Landing in Return Attempt.

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales July 5 attempted to return to the country by airplane, but was prevented from landing in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, after the airport’s runways were blocked by military vehicles. Zelaya had been forced at gunpoint to leave the country the previous week by the military, which had been backed by the country’s Supreme Court and its National Congress. [See p. 437B3] Those groups had opposed an attempt by Zelaya to hold a national referendum on constitutional reforms. Zelaya’s opponents had charged that he sought changes that would grant him too much power and abolish presidential term limits. Zelaya, a former timber tycoon, had been elected president as a member of the centrist Liberal Party in 2005, but had shifted sharply to the left after taking office. Zelaya, in a live interview from his plane with Venezuelan state-run television broadcaster Telesur, said that it was too dangerous to land, and called on U.S. President Barack Obama to take a stronger stance against the interim government. He also criticized the interim leaders over reports of violence against his supporters in Honduras. [See below] Zelaya, who was accompanied by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, then diverted the plane and landed in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, before flying to 459

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San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital. Another plane that had accompanied Zelaya’s—bearing Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez and Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza—also landed in San Salvador. Zelaya had initially boarded his plane, provided by the Venezuelan government, in Washington, D.C., earlier that day. Shortly before Zelaya’s aborted landing attempt, thousands of his supporters had clashed with troops stationed at the airport. Military forces had responded to the demonstration by firing tear gas and live ammunition into the crowd. There were conflicting reports about casualties, but at least one person was killed and several dozen others injured. Interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti earlier July 5 had restated a pledge to arrest Zelaya on charges of treason and abuse of authority, among others, should he land. He also said he would order the military to block his plane’s arrival. Micheletti at a news conference held that day also said Nicaraguan troops had begun to amass at the Honduran border. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra dismissed the claim as “totally false.” U.S. officials also said they were unaware of any troop movement on the border. OAS Suspends Honduras Membership—

The OAS’s 33 member nations July 4 had voted unanimously to suspend Honduras’s membership in the group in a resolution that stated “deep concern about the worsening of the current political crisis.” However, the group stopped short of calling on members to impose economic sanctions on Honduras, instead recommending that they “review their relations” with the country. The move underscored the diplomatic isolation coup leaders had faced after deposing Zelaya. Insulza June 3 had visited Honduras and met with leaders from the de facto government, including members of the Supreme Court, but did not meet with Micheletti. Insulza said he was unable to convince the government to allow Zelaya’s return, and described it as having an “inflexible attitude.” The de facto government late that evening said it would withdraw from the OAS. U.S. Agrees to Zelaya Meeting—The U.S. government July 6 said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would meet with Zelaya, in the highest-level diplomatic contact by the U.S. government since Zelaya was ousted. Clinton had reportedly been working with diplomatic officials behind the scenes in an attempt to secure Zelaya’s peaceful return to power. The approach was reportedly part of efforts by the Obama administration to allow the OAS to take the lead in diplomatic negotiations, and to signal a less heavy-handed approach by the U.S. in Latin America. (The U.S. government had a long history of supporting coups d’etat and undemocratic governments in the region.) An unofficial Honduran delegation composed of lawmakers and former gov460

ernment officials who supported the de facto government July 6 arrived in Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. officials and journalists. The U.S. government reportedly had no official contact with the group. Clinton July 7 met with Zelaya in Washington, D.C., and announced that the two sides in the dispute had agreed to talks brokered by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. Arias had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his work achieving peace agreements in civil wars in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. Micheletti that day said he approved of Arias as a negotiator. “We are ready for dialogue,” he said. The U.S. July 8 said it had halted $16.8 million in military aid provided to the Honduran government, and that another $180 million in aid was at risk of being suspended. Talks Begin—Zelaya and Micheletti July 9 attended separate meetings with Arias in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, but did not meet face-to-face. Zelaya before the talks said he had traveled to the meeting to discuss the specifics of his return to power, and not to negotiate. Micheletti had said Zelaya would not be allowed to reassume the presidency under any circumstances. Despite the apparent stalemate, a spokeswoman for Arias said members of both men’s delegations had participated in discussions, in a sign of progress. n

Mexico Opposition PRI Gains in Midterm Elections.

Voters in Mexico July 5 returned the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, and elected PRI party members to five of six governorships contested in the elections. Hundreds of mayorships were also decided in the balloting. The results were a political comeback for the PRI, which had controlled most aspects of Mexico’s government for 71 consecutive years, before losing the presidency in 2000 to Vicente Fox Quesada of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). The current president, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, was also a PAN member. [See 2006, pp. 934E3, 534A1] The PRI won an estimated 237 seats in the 500-seat Chamber and took 37% of the popular vote, according to preliminary results. Its ally, the Green Party, finished with 7% of votes and an expected 21 seats, giving the PRI effective control of the Chamber. PAN finished with 28%, and an estimated 143 seats, down from the 206 it held before the election. The leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) garnered 12% and 65 seats. The PRD’s showing underscored the reversal in its political fortunes since 2006, when PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador finished very close behind Calderon, and then led weeks of street demonstrations in protest of the results. The PRD had been damaged by infighting following Lopez Obrador’s defeat. The PAN had campaigned largely on the strength of Calderon’s attempt to eradicate entrenched drug trafficking cartels from Mexico, a fight that was popular despite

ensuing violence that had claimed some 12,000 lives. However, Calderon’s economic policies were largely unpopular, and Mexico’s economy had been hit particularly hard by the global economic slowdown, coupled with recent fears of a swine flu outbreak that had halted business and kept tourists away from the country. PAN President German Martinez July 7 resigned from his post, accepting blame for the party’s defeat. [See pp. 413B2, 351A3, 83E1] The PRI reportedly benefited from low voter turnout, estimated at 43% according to initial returns, and the work of its largely intact party machine at the local level. Though widely viewed as corrupt, the party had campaigned on a pledge of increased security in the wake of drug-related violence, and used the slogan, “Today’s PRI: Proven Experience. New Attitude.” As many as 7% of ballots were intentionally left blank as part of an organized movement protesting all political parties as corrupt and ineffective. n

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China Ethnic Violence Erupts in Xinjiang Capital.

A protest march by thousands of ethnic Uighurs in Urumqi, the capital of the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, July 5 erupted into large-scale rioting and clashes between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese. Government news media that day initially reported three people killed in the violence, but the next day put the death toll at 156. Although security forces locked down central Urumqi late July 5, groups of Uighurs July 7 gathered again, to protest the mass arrests that followed the riots, while groups of Han Chinese took to the streets with makeshift weapons, carrying out revenge attacks on Uighurs and their property. [See 2008, p. 979C2] The clashes were thought to be among China’s worst domestic unrest since the civil disturbances of the 1960s Cultural Revolution. Chinese President Hu Jintao July 8 returned to China from Italy, where he was to have attended a Group of Eight (G-8) economic summit that day, because of the unrest. The Politburo Standing Committee, the top-ranking body of the ruling Communist Party, July 10 issued a statement calling on law-enforcement to “isolate and deal a blow” to the perpetrators of the violence. [See p. 453A1] The Turkic language–speaking, predominantly Muslim Uighurs were the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, where many complained of ethnic discrimination and accused the central government of repressing their religion, culture and political rights. Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China as a whole, made up the majority in Urumqi, due in part to government policies encouraging Han migration to the region amid the development of the oil-rich province. Tensions over similar issues had erupted into violence in the neighboring region of Tibet in 2008. [See p. 327A1] China had long contended that Uighur unrest in Xinjiang was stoked by separatist FACTS ON FILE

terrorists, particularly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, whose name referred to the independent state it sought to establish there, as well as to two short-lived republics that had existed there in the 1930s and then in the 1940s. The government had contended that the latest violence was premeditated and had been directed by separatist Uighur groups from outside China. They singled out exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer, who lived in the U.S. and denied the accusation. The initially peaceful Uighur demonstrators had been demanding a full investigation of the killing of two Uighur migrant workers at a factory dormitory in the southern Chinese coastal city of Guangdong in violence with Han workers June 25–26. That clash had reportedly been sparked by a false rumor that two Han women had been raped by a group of Uighurs there. As many as 3,000 protesters had gathered in the central market area of the Uighur quarter of Urumqi. Some protesters clashed with police when they arrived, and rioters smashed and burned businesses and buses and other vehicles. Authorities by the following day had locked down much of the city, set an evening curfew and curtailed Internet and mobile telephone services. Official news media July 6 put the death toll at 156, with 828 additional injuries; some foreignbased Uighur activists said the number killed was much higher. Some 1,400 people had reportedly been arrested. Hundreds of protesters reportedly gathered July 6 at China’s largest mosque in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, near China’s western border, before being dispersed by police. Han Chinese Carry Out Reprisals—

Gangs of Han Chinese July 7 roamed the streets of Urumqi, attacking Uighur businesses and individuals with clubs, pipes, axes and shovels in revenge for the Uighur rioting. It was not immediately clear how many people were injured or killed in that violence. About 200 Uighurs, many of them women, that day confronted police in Urumqi, protesting the arrests of their male relatives. Those protests interrupted an organized tour for foreign journalists of the damage caused by the riots. Meanwhile, many Uighurs were reportedly fleeing Urumqi to elsewhere in Xinjiang. Officials Proclaim Order Restored— Li Zhi, the Xinjiang chief of China’s ruling Communist Party, and Urumqi Mayor Jerla Isamudin July 8 declared that authorities had reestablished control of the city. Some 20,000 members of China’s domestic security force had reportedly been deployed in the city that day. Li said those found responsible for the violence would be subject to the death penalty. Foreign Activists Blamed—State news media July 6 said that Kadeer, leader of the German-based World Uighur Congress, had masterminded the rioting, contending that she had been heard in recently intercepted phone conversations referring to an impending incident in Urumqi. Kadeer disJuly 9, 2009

missed the allegations, saying July 6 that China should “acknowledge that their failure to take any meaningful action” over the Guangdong killings “is the real cause of this protest.” Kadeer denied inciting the violence, and lamented what she called a “heavy-handed, brutal crackdown.” Kadeer, 62, had once been a prominent businesswoman in Xinjiang and enjoyed official favor. After her husband sought political asylum in the U.S. in 1996, she began speaking out about problems facing ethnic Uighurs and calling for greater self-determination, particularly after a 1997 crackdown on unrest in the Xinjiang city of Yining. In 2000, she was convicted of revealing state secrets and sentenced to eight years in prison, but was released and allowed to leave the country in 2005. [See 2005, p. 196C3] Before the announcement of Hu’s return to China, Kadeer urged the leaders gathered at the G-8 summit to press him to “resolve the East Turkestan issue in a peaceful manner.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon July 6 called on China to “exercise extreme care and take necessary measures to protect the lives and safety of the civilian population.” Robert Gibbs, press secretary to U.S. President Barack Obama, that day said, “We are deeply concerned” about the violence, urging “all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint.” Antiseparatist Campaign Intensifies—

The outbreak of violence followed a period in which authorities had tightened controls on the region, after declaring that Xinjiang separatists posed a terrorist threat to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and an August 2008 attack in Kashgar that killed 17 border troops. State news media Jan. 5 reported that 1,295 people had been arrested in Xinjiang in 2008 on charges of threatening state security, a dramatic increase from the previous year. The chairman of Xinjiang’s regional parliament, Nur Bekri, March 6 had warned of a possible increase in unrest in the region, and of the need for a “fiercer” struggle against “hostile forces from home and abroad.” Separately, U.S. government–sponsored Radio Free Asia April 2 reported that the government in February had launched a plan to redevelop an old quarter of Kashgar, once an important stop on the Silk Road trading route. The plan would entail the destruction of centuries-old traditional mud-brick Uighur homes built along narrow alleys. Preservationists called the area a unique example of a traditional Islamic Central Asian city. [See 2008, p. 454B1] Authorities said the program, which would force as many as 50,000 people to move, was necessary to rectify dangerous and antiquated living conditions in the old houses, and would feature reproductions of traditional architecture. n

Indonesia Yudhoyono Reelected President. Indone-

sian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono July 8 was reelected to a second five-year term, according to preliminary figures re-

leased July 9 by the country’s election commission. The commission reported that Yudhoyono had received 61.7% of the vote, while his opponents, former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and current Vice President Jusuf Kalla, received 28.7% and 9.8% of the vote, respectively. The commission was expected to release its final tally by early August. Yudhoyono was required to receive more than 50% of the national vote as well as at least 20% of the vote in all 33 of Indonesia’s provinces to avoid a run-off. [See p. 295A1; 2004, p. 739E1] Yudhoyono, a former general who had defeated Megawati in the 2004 presidential election, was popular because of his work fighting graft in Indonesia, which was seen as widely corrupt, and his effective stewardship of the economy. He had been heavily favored to win the election. Yudhoyono July 8 said that his administration would focus on addressing poverty and advancing the economy during his second term, and would continue to prioritize efforts to fight corruption. He said that he was “optimistic that in the next five years we will be doing many things for a better future.” Yudhoyono July 5 had announced that he intended to expand the country’s stock exchange by selling off state-owned corporations such as PT Garuda Indonesia, the national airline. His previous attempts to privatize state-owned businesses had been blocked by political opponents. The government had deployed about 25,000 soldiers and 250,000 police officers to protect polling places and to provide security during the election. A police outpost in Indonesia’s Papua region was reportedly attacked July 8 by an unidentified group during the voting. (Papua had had an active separatist movement for decades.) A reporter for Indonesia’s Sinar Harapan daily newspaper June 26 was left unconscious and later hospitalized after allegedly being attacked by a member of Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party while covering the campaigning of his running mate, central bank governor Boediono, in Papua. Journalists June 28 and July 1 marched in Jakarta, the capital, to protest the attack against the reporter, Odeadata Julia. The Jakarta Post newspaper reported June 30 that the Democratic Party had apologized to Odeadata and her family and had fired the man accused of attacking her. Expanded Voter Registration Allowed—

Indonesia’s Constitutional Court July 6 ruled that unregistered voters could use their national identity cards as proof of their eligibility to vote in the presidential election, potentially allowing millions of additional voters to participate in the election. A total of 176 million people in Indonesia were registered to vote; the nation’s population totaled about 235 million. The ruling followed complaints by Megawati and Kalla, who alleged that millions of Indonesian voters had been erroneously kept off the official voter registration rolls by the government. Megawati had reportedly made similar complaints about voter registration practices in Indonesia’s April legislative elections. 461

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Aulia Pohan, a former deputy governor of Indonesia’s central bank, June 17 was convicted in connection with illegal payments to lawmakers that totaled about 100 billion Indonesian rupiah ($10 million). He was sentenced to four years and six months in prison and ordered to pay fines totaling 200 million Indonesian rupiah. [See p. 342G1; 2008, p. 382E1] Pohan, whose daughter was married to Yudhoyono’s son, was found guilty of assisting the transfer of central bank funds to politicians in an attempt to exert influence over pending banking legislation. Three other former central bank officials were also convicted on the same charges and received sentences of between four and four and a half years in prison; they were also fined 200 million rupiah apiece. Former central bank Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah had been convicted Oct. 29, 2008, on corruption charges connected to the same payments, as well as additional charges linked to his use of central bank funds to hire lawyers to defend other former officials. He was sentenced to five years in prison in the case and fined 250 million rupiah. The Jakarta High Court Feb. 9 rejected Abdullah’s appeal of his sentence and added six months to it. n

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U.N. Secretary General Visits. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon July 3–4 visited Myanmar as part of a continued international effort to convince the country’s ruling junta to release detained prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest. The trip was Ban’s first visit to Myanmar since May 2008, when he had played a major role in convincing Than Shwe, the head of the junta, to allow international aid into the country following Cyclone Nargis, which had killed at least 77,000 people. [See p. 359A3; 2008, p. 338A2] Ban June 29 had said he would focus his efforts on securing the release of the country’s political prisoners, resumption of talks between the government and its critics, and the creation of an atmosphere allowing elections to occur. Officials said Ban had weighed concerns, reportedly voiced by the U.S. and France, that his visit would be used by the junta as a validation of its rule and treatment of Suu Kyi. Ban July 3 met with Than Shwe and four of the junta’s other highest-ranking generals in Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital. He reportedly pressed Than Shwe to take concrete steps to ensure that the country’s planned 2010 legislative elections were fair and free of corruption. He urged the government to establish an impartial election commission and to allow opposition parties to campaign freely. Ban July 4 met Than Shwe for a second time and was told that he would not be allowed to meet with Suu Kyi, reportedly on the grounds that it would interfere with her trial. Ban told reporters he was “deeply dis462

appointed,” and said he had urged Than Shwe to “stop the persecution of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political leaders.” Ban July 4 met with representatives of the country’s ethnic minorities, as well as pro-democracy organizations including Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). He also delivered a speech in Yangon to a group of diplomats and members of humanitarian organizations, arguing that the junta’s failure to engage with the political opposition as well as the rest of the world had had negative consequences for Myanmar’s economy by cutting it off from sources of foreign aid and investment. Ban described human rights abuses in Myanmar as “a matter of grave concern.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown July 4 said he was disappointed by the junta’s lack of cooperation with Ban, and suggested that if Myanmar did not change how it treated its citizens and political opposition, “further sanctions” were a possibility. U.N. Envoy Visits— Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. envoy to Myanmar, June 26–27 visited Myanmar for the eighth time, to prepare for Ban’s upcoming visit. Gambari had been criticized for the lack of progress on the treatment of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners despite his multiple meetings with high-ranking military officials. Gambari reportedly met with Nyan Win, Myanmar’s foreign minister, but not with Suu Kyi or other opposition figures. Continuation of Suu Kyi’s Trial Delayed—

A court controlled by Myanmar’s military government July 3 delayed the resumption of Suu Kyi’s trial, which had begun in May, until July 10, after documents related to the case were said to have been mislaid by government employees. Suu Kyi’s trial had repeatedly been delayed by the government with little or no explanation. Analysts suggested that the unusual length of the trial could be part of an attempt to forestall international criticism of the fairness of an eventual guilty verdict against Suu Kyi. Lawyers for Suu Kyi June 11 had filed an appeal requesting that two witnesses who had been barred by the court from testifying on Suu Kyi’s behalf be allowed to do so. The court had allowed only one of Suu Kyi’s four proposed witnesses to testify; an appeals court had later authorized the testimony of an additional witness. Myanmar’s Supreme Court June 29 ruled that the two barred witnesses had been correctly blocked from testifying on the grounds that both were critics of the military government and one was currently under house arrest. Suu Kyi’s Birthday Marked—Demonstrators June 19 convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Geneva, Switzerland, as well as least 18 other cities around the world, in gatherings celebrating Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday that day and calling for her release. Suu Kyi was incarcerated in Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison, turned 64. She had been detained by the military government for 13 of the previous 19 years and was the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate. n

North Korea Banned Missiles Fired on U.S. Holiday.

North Korea July 4 launched seven shortrange missiles that landed in the Sea of Japan. The launches, which followed the firing of four short-range missiles July 2, flouted United Nations Security Council resolutions that had barred ballistic missile launches by North Korea and imposed new sanctions that North Korea had angrily condemned. The July 4 firings were also seen as an act of defiance toward the U.S. on that country’s Independence Day holiday. [See p. 403E3] Missile launches had been anticipated as a likely response to a June U.N. resolution condemning North Korea’s second nuclear test and a previous series of missile firings. North Korea June 22 sent a warning to Japan’s coast guard that it would be conducting military exercises off its east coast June 25–July 10 and had banned shipping from the area. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates June 18 had said the U.S. had made preparations to intercept any long-range missile that North Korea might fire toward the U.S. The U.S., South Korea and Japan immediately condemned the launches. South Korea said cruise missiles appeared to have been used in the July 2 launches, which would not be a violation of the U.N. resolution’s terms. However, it said the July 4 launches appeared to involve five of a short-range type of Scud ballistic missile and two medium-range Rodong missiles, which were prohibited. The Security Council July 6 convened and condemned the launches. The U.S. State Department and Treasury June 30 announced that they had identified two more companies, one based in Iran and one in North Korea, as linked to North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, and thus subject to U.S. sanctions. Suspect Ship Turns Back— South Korea July 6 said a North Korean ship being shadowed by the U.S. Navy on suspicion of carrying a cargo of illicit weapons had turned back to North Korea. A June U.N. resolution had banned most arms sales to or by North Korea, and called on nations to intercept North Korean vessels suspected of carrying banned weapons. Since leaving North Korea June 17, the ship, the Kang Nam 1, had been followed as it appeared to head toward Myanmar, which was thought to have been acquiring arms from North Korea. However, Myanmar June 25 said it was not the Kang Nam 1’s destination. South Korea Sees Uranium Activity—

South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang Hee said at a June 30 parliamentary hearing that North Korea was proceeding with the enrichment of uranium, which could provide it with fuel for a nuclear weapon. North Korea had recently vowed to take steps toward reviving the plutonium-based nuclear program it had previously agreed to halt. n FACTS ON FILE

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Croatia PM Sanader Unexpectedly Resigns. Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, 56, July 1 unexpectedly announced his resignation. Sanader said, “My political life ends now.” He added, “I have decided to withdraw from active politics and not to run for the presidency.” He cited unspecified “personal reasons.” Sanader was credited with transforming his conservative Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ) into a conservative party along mainstream European lines after taking over the party leadership in 2000, after the death of hard-line nationalist Franjo Tudjman in late 1999. [See p. 336D3] His resignation came amid a border dispute with neighboring Slovenia that had delayed Croatia’s accession to the European Union. In a July 4 speech to HDZ members, Sanader urged the EU to end “this insane theatre that Slovenia is trying to create,” and, addressing Slovenia, said, “You won’t get a centimeter of Croatian territory.” Slovenia was the only former Yugoslav country with EU membership. Also that day, the HDZ elected Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, Sanader’s preferred successor, as its new leader. [See below; 2005, p. 37E3] Sanader had served as prime minister since 2003. He won reelection in 2007, and resigned with about two years left in his second term. Under his leadership, Croatia had joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and obtained a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council. Kosor Elected New Prime Minister—

The Croatian parliament early July 7 voted, 83–45, to approve Kosor as the new Croatian prime minister. She and her cabinet, which retained most of the members of Sanader’s, were sworn in that day. Kosor, 56, was the first female prime minister of Croatia. [For facts on Kosor, see p. 463F1] FACTS ON KOSOR

Jadranka Kosor was born July 1, 1953, in Pakrac, in eastern Croatia. She earned a law degree from the University of Zagreb, and began working as a journalist for Radio Zagreb in 1972. In 1995, Kosor was elected to the Croatian parliament, and also became vice president of the Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ), a position she held until 2002. She served in the parliament until 2000. In 2002, she was elected deputy president of HDZ, and in 2003 was appointed Croatia’s deputy prime minister, as well as minister of veterans’ affairs. She ran unsuccessfully for president in 2005. [See 2005, p. 37E3] Following the unexpected July 1 resignation of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Kosor, Sanader’s preferred successor, was tapped by President Stjepan Mesic to serve as the new prime minister. She received parliamentary approval July 7 and was sworn in alongside her cabinet later that day. [See p. 463A1, D1] Kosor had one son.

July 9, 2009

Kosor pledged to lead Croatia to economic recovery amid a global economic downturn, and to work toward EU membership. n

In his Chi interview, Berlusconi said he had no recollection of D’Addario, but alleged that she had been “very well paid” to make false claims about him.

Italy

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano June 29 called for “a truce in the controversies” during the run-up to the Group of Eight summit of world economic powers, which began July 8. Berlusconi hosted the threeday summit in L’Aquila, a city in the central Italian region of Abruzzo, which had suffered a severe earthquake in April that killed nearly 300 people and left more than 50,000 homeless. [See pp. 453A1, 253C3] Berlusconi June 29 welcomed Napolitano’s proposal for a truce, but he denied that the sex scandal threatened to topple his government or cause serious embarrassment to the nation. He boasted that polls showed him to be the “most popular head of government in all the West.” A Corriere della Sera poll in late June had found his public approval rating at 49%. n

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President Calls ‘Truce’ for G-8 Summit— Berlusconi Denies Hiring Escorts. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in an interview published June 24 denied claims that he had paid women to attend parties at his villas. He also denied a claim by one such escort that she had spent a night with him. The claims added to an ongoing controversy over Berlusconi’s personal life that had begun in May, when his wife announced that she was seeking a divorce, accusing him of unacceptable behavior with young women. His relations with one 18-year-old woman had since come under particular scrutiny. [See p. 328C1] Then, Spanish newspaper El Pais June 5 had published photographs of parties at Berlusconi’s Villa Certosa on the island of Sardinia in 2008, showing a number of topless women, as well as a nude man standing next to a pool, who was identified as then-Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek. Italian police had seized the files of the photographer, Antonello Zappadu, after Berlusconi’s lawyers brought a criminal complaint against him for invasion of privacy and blackmail. Topolanek June 5 claimed that the photo had been manipulated. Berlusconi’s interview appeared June 24 in Chi magazine, part of his media empire. In it, he declared, “I have never paid a woman,” adding, “I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.” Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera June 17 had published an interview with Patrizia D’Addario, a former actress and alleged escort, who claimed that she had been paid more than 1,000 euros ($1,400) to attend a dinner party hosted by Berlusconi at Palazzo Grazioli, his residence in Rome, in October 2008. D’Addario, 42, said soon after, in November 2008, she was paid to attend another dinner at the residence and had spent the night with Berlusconi, 72, at his request, because she wanted his help with obtaining a building permit. She claimed that she had secretly made recordings and taken photos during her stay at the palazzo. Another woman, Barbara Montereale, 23, said that she and a number of other women had been paid to attend both parties, and that D’Addario had told her that she had sex with Berlusconi after the second one. D’Addario was subsequently picked as a local candidate for Berlusconi’s centerright People of Freedom party. Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica Lario, had criticized him for choosing a number of models and actresses to be candidates for his party. Prosecutors in the southern city of Bari, where D’Addario lived, reportedly were investigating claims that a local businessman, Giampolo Tarantini, had procured prostitutes to attend Berlusconi’s parties.

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Montenegro Parliament Approves New Government.

The Montenegrin parliament June 10 voted, 48–22 with three abstentions, to approve a new government assembled by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic. Djukanovic’s political bloc, the Coalition for a European Montenegro, had won snap parliamentary elections held in March after pledging to lead the country toward membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Djukanovic’s government was composed of 20 cabinet members from four parties. [See p. 226B1; 2006, p. 460A3] Djukanovic, 47, had led Montenegro to independence from Serbia in 2006. The parliamentary vote of approval represented the beginning of Djukanovic’s sixth term as prime minister. He had also served as Montenegro’s president from 1998 to 2002. n

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Iran Police Disperse Renewed Election Protests.

Thousands of protesters July 9 gathered in front of Tehran University and other locations throughout Tehran, the Iranian capital, but were violently dispersed by riot police. Iran had been roiled by demonstrations after a June election in which protesters said incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had rigged the results in order to beat his main opponent, reformist former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi. Government security forces had repeatedly attacked the protesters, killing at least 20 people. The university demonstration was the first protest since the Guardian Council—a senior body of clerics and jurists—had certified Ahmadinejad’s victory in late June. [See p. 438B3] The protest at Tehran University occurred on the tenth anniversary of a violent confrontation between police and students there. The occasion served to renew Mous463

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savi supporters’ presence in the streets. Moussavi himself had not called for a demonstration that day, although he had said July 6 that protests would continue and questioned the government’s legitimacy. [See 1999, p. 501A1] Police belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps and members of the Basij militia, who had been instrumental in attacks on earlier protests, reportedly beat demonstrators severely and made arrests, although the number injured or arrested was unclear. Demonstrators burned dumpsters and shouted, “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) and “Death to the dictator,” slogans that had been adopted by Moussavi’s supporters and echoed a protest tactic used during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Morteza Tamaddon, governor-general of Tehran, said the protesters had not obtained a permit, and claimed that foreign broadcasters had organized the protest. Persianlanguage services of the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and U.S. government-sponsored broadcaster Voice of America had been covering plans for the protest. Opponents of the government in previous days had resorted to more subtle forms of protest, in one case attempting to bring down Tehran’s electrical grid by calling on the city’s residents to all plug in their appliances at the same time. Tehran residents also continued to chant “Allahu akbar” and “Death to the dictator” from their rooftops at night. Cellular phone text message service July 6 had been blocked again by the government, after resuming July 1 for the first time since the election. The government had also ordered universities, businesses and government offices in Tehran closed July 7–8. The closure was ostensibly because of safety concerns due to a heavy dust storm and pollution; however, protesters said it was actually meant to disguise the impact of a strike scheduled for July 7– 9 by Moussavi supporters. Moussavi Documents Election Fraud—

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Moussavi July 4 released on his Web site documents which he said demonstrated fraud in the election. He claimed that Ahmadinejad’s supporters had printed millions of extra ballots and had handed out cash and food to voters. Moussavi; Mehdi Karroubi, another reformist candidate; and former President Mohammad Khatami, a supporter of Moussavi’s, July 6 released a joint statement calling for an end to the crackdown and arrests, which they said would “radicalize political activities.” They repeated their rejection of the election results. The same day, a reformist group, Servants of Reconstruction, also released a statement rejecting the election outcome. The group had close ties to former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had supported Moussavi during the election but had not spoken out since. The Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom—a respected group of Shiite Muslim clerics in the holy city of Qom—July 4 had called the election and Ahmadinejad’s presidency illegitimate. It criticized the government and Guardian Council for failing to adequately investigate 464

voter fraud and for the violent crackdown on protesters. It was the first statement from clerics in Qom since the Guardian Council had certified the elections; however, their lack of vocal support for Ahmadinejad after the election had encouraged protesters. Ahmadinejad Criticizes Interference—

Ahmadinejad in his first televised speech since the election July 7 blamed the West for instigating the protests, saying, “Our arrogant enemies tried to interfere in our domestic affairs in order to undermine these great elections.…What they did was very wrong, and some of our people were, unfortunately, hurt.” He said the elections were “the freest” and “healthiest” in the world, and warned politicians against questioning the results. However, in language seen as an attempt to mollify protesters, he said his government would respect Iran’s young people and focus on battling unemployment and improving the economy. He indicated that he might rein in the activities of the morality police, who were resented for arresting people deemed to be violating social mores. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, July 6 had also spoken out against foreign interference, saying, in a speech broadcast on state radio, that Iranians would be “unanimous in standing against the enemy and maintaining the independence of the country.” However, Khamenei warned against denouncing Moussavi, saying, “Friends should not be treated like enemies for the sake of a mistake.” Some Ahmadinejad allies had called for Moussavi to be arrested and tried for treason. The same day, Gen. Yadollah Javani, the political director of the Revolutionary Guards, said Iranians who did not support the government would be treated as enemies of the state. The Guards’ commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, also defended the Guards’ role in putting down the protests, saying it had been assigned to do so by the government and was not “meddling in politics.” Jailed Protesters to Face Trial—Iranian officials July 8 said that 2,500 people had been arrested after the elections. They said 2,000 had been released, but the remaining 500 would stand trial. Human rights groups said the government was still arresting people. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists July 7 reported that the arrest of two journalists the previous week had brought the number held by the Iranian government to 30, 24 of whom had been imprisoned since the election. That put Iran ahead of China as the country with the most journalists in jail. Iran July 5 said it had released Iason Athanasiadis, a freelance BritishGreek journalist working for the Washington Times who was believed to be the only non-Iranian reporter being held by Iran. The head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, July 3 said a British embassy employee being held by Iran for fomenting unrest would be put on trial. Eight other embassy employees who had been arrested had been released.

U.S. Maintains Focus on Engagement—

The New York Times July 6 reported that, in separate interviews, U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden had confirmed that U.S. policy would still emphasize increasing diplomatic engagement with Iran, although they criticized the government’s crackdown on protesters. However, Biden, in an interview broadcast July 5 on ABC News’s “This Week,” said, “Israel can determine for itself” whether it was “existentially threatened” and should attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Obama later said that the U.S. remained opposed to an Israeli military strike on Iran. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 7 said Iran was probably one to three years away from developing nuclear weapons. However, he added that while the U.S. would consider all options, including military action, a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran would destabilize the region. The U.S. military July 9 released five Iranians it had been holding in Iraq since January 2007, when U.S. forces captured them in a raid in the Iraqi city of Erbil. The U.S. military said they were released at the request of the Iraqi government under a provision of a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement requiring the turnover of detainees to Iraqi custody, but did not give further details. Iran had repeatedly called for their release, saying they were diplomats. However, the U.S. had claimed that they were senior members of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, and had been aiding Iraqi Shiite militias fighting against Iraqi and U.S. forces. [See 2007, p. 748F1] n

Iraq Biden Warns Against Sectarian Feuds in Visit.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden July 2–4 made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, meeting with senior Iraqi and U.S. officials, including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. The visit came after U.S. troops had withdrawn from Iraq’s cities at the end of June. U.S. President Barack Obama had appointed Biden as his unofficial envoy to Iraq, amid concerns that his administration was paying less attention to Iraq than to other global hot spots like Afghanistan and Iran. Biden had last visited Iraq in January, before he took office. [See pp. 437A1, 214D3, 16C2] Biden July 3 after meeting with Maliki called on Iraqis to “use the political process to resolve their remaining differences and advance their national interest,” and said the U.S. would remain engaged in Iraq and would help if asked. However, unnamed U.S. officials said that in the meeting, he had warned Maliki that if Iraq fell back into sectarian violence, the U.S. would likely disengage from the country. Biden July 4 led a ceremony naturalizing 237 U.S. service members as U.S. citizens. He also visited a military unit that included his son, Capt. Beau Biden. FACTS ON FILE

Heavy sandstorms forced Biden to cancel a trip planned for July 4 to the city of Erbil, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, where he was to meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani. The previous day, the storms grounded Biden’s helicopter, forcing him to drive in a convoy through Baghdad’s Red Zone—which was secured by Iraqi troops—to the fortified Green Zone. The Iraqi government July 2 said it had reached a preliminary agreement to purchase weapons and military equipment from the French government. France had been a major military supplier of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. Iraq also said it would sign contracts with French companies for various infrastructure projects. [See p. 101G2] Nineveh Attacks Kill 46—A twin suicide bombing in Tal Afar, in the northern province of Nineveh, July 9 killed at least 34 people. The first bomber attacked the house of a counterterrorism officer in a Shiite Muslim neighborhood, killing the officer and his family. When a crowd gathered, the second bomber set off his explosives, causing the majority of the casualties. At least one of the bombers was reportedly wearing a police uniform. The previous day, two car bombs had gone off on the outskirts of Mosul, Nineveh’s capital, killing at least 12 people. Nineveh was one of the remaining areas where the Sunni insurgency was still strong. The U.S. military had originally planned to keep troops in Mosul to bolster security, but had pulled them out days before the June 30 withdrawal deadline. In other violence, two roadside bombs July 9 exploded in a market in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, killing seven people. The same day, two more roadside bombs exploded near a police patrol in a market in northern Baghdad, killing nine. Two people July 8 were killed in northern Iraq when their car exploded, and a suicide bomber attacked a wedding party in Baghdad, killing at least one person. Gunmen July 6 attacked a security checkpoint in Baghdad, killing two police officers and three soldiers. Officials in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, July 3 said police there had killed four people after coming under fire as they tried to arrest some men at a wedding. A police spokesman, however, said the shooting had killed two people and was under investigation. Alleged Insurgent Calls for Attacks—

An audio recording attributed to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, July 8 was released on an Islamist Web site, calling for the U.S. withdrawal from cities to continue and for Sunnis to attack U.S. forces and Iraqi Shiite Muslims. The Islamic State of Iraq was an umbrella group for several Sunni Muslim terrorist elements, including Al Qaeda in Iraq. [See p. 312F1] The Iraqi government in April had announced that it had captured Baghdadi, but insurgents had denied it. Additionally, the U.S. military had not confirmed the capJuly 9, 2009

ture; in the past, U.S. officials had claimed that Baghdadi was a fictional figure created to put an Iraqi face on the foreign-led Al Qaeda in Iraq. Hussein Interrogation Reports Released—

The National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., June 29 published on its Web site summaries of interrogations of Hussein conducted between February and June 2004 by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. The summaries of 20 formal interrogations and five “casual conversations” were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). [See p. 261A3] According to the summaries, Hussein told interrogators that he had not complied with United Nations demands to demonstrate that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion because he was afraid that doing so would demonstrate Iraq’s weakness and increase the danger of an Iranian invasion. He also said Iraq did not have ties to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The U.S. had used claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda as justification for the invasion, but U.S. intelligence agencies had later said no evidence had been found for either claim.n

tained via torture. Human Rights Watch researched the report from outside of Syria, because it was not allowed into the country. It said that of 237 cases it examined—which were tried from January 2007 to June 2008, when the court reportedly suspended operations—many involved people involved to varying degrees in radical Islamism, but that 153 activists, bloggers and other Syrians had been prosecuted on political charges. Syrian human rights activists praised the report, while the Syrian government dismissed it. [See 2008, p. 988F1] o The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Feb. 19 reported that it was unlikely that uranium traces found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel in 2007 came from Israeli bombs, as Syria had claimed. The U.S. had charged that Syria had been building a clandestine nuclear reactor on the site for making fuel for nuclear weapons, a charge Syria denied. Ibrahim Othman, the head of Syria’s nuclear energy program, Feb. 24 reportedly told a closed IAEA meeting that Syria had built a missile facility on the bombed site. He claimed that that meant the site should not be open to full inspection, but the IAEA disagreed. [See 2008, p. 988C1] n

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SOUTH ASIA

Syria

Afghanistan

U.S. Set to Restore Ambassador. Unnamed

U.S. Marines Launch Major Operation.

senior U.S. officials June 23 said that U.S. President Barack Obama would send an ambassador to Syria for the first time in more than four years, Cable News Network (CNN) reported on its Web site. It was seen as a move to increase U.S. engagement in the Middle East; Syria was a major player in the peace process with Israel, and the U.S. had also sought its cooperation in order to increase security in Iraq. Analysts also suggested that the Obama administration sought to counterbalance Iran’s influence over Syria. [See pp. 344E3, 143B1] The U.S. State Department June 23 had reportedly notified the Syrian ambassador to the U.S., Imad Mustafa, of the decision. The officials said no one had yet been chosen for the post. The U.S. had withdrawn its ambassador to Syria in February 2005 to protest the assassination of former Lebanese President Rafik Hariri. Syria was suspected of involvement in the assassination, but denied the connection. The Obama administration’s envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George Mitchell (D, Maine), June 13 had visited Syria and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Other News—In other Syrian news: o The U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Feb. 24 issued a report charging that Syria’s Supreme State Security Court did not observe due process and was used by the government to suppress dissidents, and called for it to be shut down. The report said the court did not adequately examine evidence or allow defendants sufficient access to lawyers, and failed to investigate confessions that were reportedly ob-

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About 4,000 U.S. Marines July 2 launched a major operation in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, in what was seen as the first test of a new U.S. strategy to combat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. One Marine was killed that day in the fighting, but U.S. commanders said they had met relatively little resistance, indicating that Taliban insurgents had likely fled the province to regroup in more remote locations and plan a counteroffensive. [See p. 434A1] Operation Khanjar, which was Pashtun for “Strike of the Sword,” was designed to drive out Taliban militants and provide security to civilian populations. U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in the past had cleared Helmand’s districts of militants, but they had lacked a sufficient number of troops to remain in the districts and provide lasting security. In Operation Khanjar, the Marines would establish new bases near Helmand villages, intended to ensure that the Taliban did not return. Increased security in the region was also meant to allow Helmand’s residents to safely participate in Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential election. The 4,000 Marines were part of an additional 21,000 troops that U.S. President Barack Obama had authorized for deployment to Afghanistan by the end of 2009. A surge in troop levels, combined with an emphasis on protecting the civilian population, was the basis of a largely successful strategy employed by U.S. forces in 2006 to combat insurgents in Iraq. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the newly appointed top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Af465

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ghanistan, had said he would use a similar strategy in Afghanistan. Operation Khanjar was being supported by 650 troops from the Afghan army. The U.S. and Afghan troops were working to secure the Helmand River valley in the districts of Nawa and Garmser, just south of Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s capital. The Pakistani army July 2 deployed troops to the Afghan-Pakistani border to prevent the Taliban from entering Pakistan through its Baluchistan province, which abutted Helmand. The Pakistani military was currently fighting separate Taliban groups in areas close to Afghanistan’s eastern border. [See p. 466E2] As part of its bid to build better relationships with civilians, U.S. commanders said they would limit their use of air strikes and long-range artillery fire, both of which had led to civilian casualties, a major grievance for Afghans. Afghan villagers in Helmand were reportedly highly suspicious of the U.S.’s intentions, and some had sided with the Taliban. U.S. officials maintained that increased security, economic development and integration with the government of President Hamid Karzai would win the villagers over. Operation Khanjar also aimed to deprive the Taliban of access to Helmand’s poppy fields, which accounted for half of Afghanistan’s opium production, and was a significant source of revenue for the militants. Afghanistan produced about 90% of the world’s opium. British Troops Begin Helmand Offensive—

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More than 350 British troops in Helmand June 19 began Operation Panchai Palang (Panther’s Claw) to secure areas north of Lashkar Gah. About 750 British troops July 3 began moving northward to Helmand’s main industrial city of Gereshk. The British troops had been the primary NATO force in Helmand since 2006, but had too few troops there to make any significant territorial gains against the Taliban. The British defense ministry July 2 said a roadside bomb in Helmand the previous day had killed Lt. Col. Rupert Thorneloe, one of the highest-ranking British officers in Afghanistan. Another British soldier was also killed by the bomb. Two British soldiers July 4 died in fighting near Gereshk. Seven U.S. Soldiers Killed—Seven U.S. soldiers July 6 were killed in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for U.S. troops in a year. Four troops were killed by a roadside bomb in the northern province of Kunduz; two were killed by a bomb in the southern province of Zabul; and one was killed in fighting in eastern Afghanistan. Three NATO soldiers—one from Britain, and two from Canada—died that day when a helicopter crashed in Zabul. Taliban Claims Capture of U.S. Soldier—

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The Taliban July 6 said in a Web site posting that it was holding a U.S. soldier captive, but did not offer evidence to back its claim. U.S. military officials July 2 had said they believed the unidentified soldier had been abducted by the Taliban after he left his base in a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan on June 30. It was unclear 466

why the soldier left the outpost, which was reported to be in Paktika province. A U.S. military spokesman July 2 said, “We are exhausting all available resources to ascertain his whereabouts and provide for his safe return.” [See p. 434D3] U.S.-Linked Security Forces Detained—

Afghan Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar June 30 said 41 private security guards had been detained for allegedly killing the police chief of the southern province of Kandahar and five others in a gun battle the previous day. The guards reportedly formed one of many armed groups in Afghanistan that were enlisted by the U.S. and others to carry out security work. A spokesman for the U.S. military said the guards “frequently worked with the U.S. military operations,” but that the Kandahar battle did not happen “with the knowledge or support of U.S. forces.” The guards reportedly stormed a prosecutor’s office in Kandahar June 29, demanding the release of a prisoner. The police chief, Matiullah Qati, was called in, and was killed in the subsequent battle. Karzai that day said he “seriously condemns this action,” calling it a “blow to governance-building.” U.S. to Change Antidrug Policy—Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, June 27 said the U.S. would no longer pursue a policy of eradicating poppy fields in Afghanistan. Holbrooke said the U.S. would shift its focus to intercepting smuggled drugs, and creating incentives for Afghan farmers to switch to other crops. His comments came on the sidelines of a meeting between the foreign ministers of the Group of 8 (G8) industrialized nations in Trieste, Italy. The previous U.S. administration of President George W. Bush had vigorously pursued a poppy-eradication policy, which critics said alienated poor Afghan farmers. Holbrooke said, “The hundreds of millions of dollars we spend on crop eradication has not had any damage on the Taliban. On the contrary, it has helped them recruit. This is the least effective program ever.” n

Pakistan Suspected Drone Attacks Pound Tribal Area.

Two air strikes believed to be carried out by U.S. Predator drone aircraft July 8 hit Pakistan’s northwest tribal area of South Waziristan, killing as many as 50 members of Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. The attacks came a day after a presumed drone attack killed 16 Taliban militants in South Waziristan, and were thought to be part of a campaign targeting the stronghold of Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud. [See p. 418B1] The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was thought to have conducted at least six Predator attacks on South Waziristan since June 18, killing dozens of militants. More than 60 militants were killed June 23, in what was believed to be one of the deadliest drone attacks ever. Analysts said the strikes were meant to disrupt Mehsud’s militant network, and

could also be part of a broader strategy in which the U.S. was setting the stage for the Pakistani military to conduct a major ground offensive against the Taliban. Analysts said the precision of the latest strikes, one of which reportedly nearly hit Mehsud himself, suggested that the two countries were cooperating on drone operations. However, it was U.S. policy not to discuss the alleged strikes. Pakistani officials publicly denounced them, even as the army also bombed areas in South Waziristan and openly acknowledged that it was preparing for a large operation against Mehsud’s network. It was reported that Pakistan had privately encouraged the U.S. to continue its drone attacks. Mehsud was thought to be the mastermind behind dozens of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He also had ties to international terrorist network Al Qaeda, as well as Afghanistan’s Taliban, which was currently battling U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in that country. Militant Leader Reported Wounded—

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani military, July 8 said he had “credible information” that an attack earlier that day in the Swat Valley region of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) had injured Maulana Fazlullah, a Taliban leader. Fazlullah was the head of a Taliban faction in the Swat Valley, where Pakistani forces had been conducting a counterinsurgency operation since April. Abbas’s claim was not independently confirmed. Fazlullah—also known as Radio Mullah for his fiery radio broadcasts—had led his forces into the Swat Valley in 2007, and pushed for the establishment of sharia, or traditional Islamic law. It was the first time that Taliban fighters had extended their reach beyond the tribal areas, which lay between the NWFP and Afghanistan. Fazlullah cemented his grip on the region through violent tactics, including beheading civilians and torching girls’ schools. Abbas that day told reporters that 1,500 militants had been killed since the Swat operation began, and that the operation was almost complete. Discussing Fazlullah and other Taliban leaders, he said, “I want to assure you all and the people of Swat that there is absolute zero possibility of this leadership returning to the valley.” However, observers said the military had not met much resistance in the Swat operation, suggesting that the militants had fled the region for safe havens elsewhere. It was also reported that the army controlled Swat’s major urban areas, but that swaths of the valley were still held by militants. Some two million civilians had been displaced by the fighting, and it was suspected that some Taliban fighters had left Swat disguised as refugees. Taliban Leader Abandons Truce—Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban leader whose base of operations was in the tribal area of North Waziristan, June 30 ended a 2008 truce with the government, and said he would join forces with Mehsud. Bahadur said his FACTS ON FILE

followers would carry out attacks on Pakistani forces until the U.S. stopped its drone attacks, which he said had killed scores of innocent civilians in the past year. The previous day, militants in North Waziristan attacked a military convoy, killing some 30 soldiers. Analysts said the dissolution of the truce could hamper the military’s planned operation in neighboring South Waziristan. In another setback for the military, an assassin June 23 shot dead Qari Zainuddin, a South Waziristan tribal leader who had sided with the government. Zainuddin, a former ally of Mehsud’s, had been a vocal opponent of the Taliban in recent weeks, denouncing the group as a terrorist organization that killed innocent civilians. Zainuddin was reportedly killed in his house in Dera Ismail Khan, in an attack that was thought to have been orchestrated by Mehsud. The gunman, who escaped, was reportedly one of Zainuddin’s guards. Suicide Bomber Wounds 30—A suicide bomber July 2 rammed his motorcycle into a bus carrying workers from a nearby nuclear lab, killing himself and injuring 30 others in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but analysts said it could have been conducted by militants in retaliation for the military’s anti-Taliban campaign. Some said the attack could carry symbolic significance, since the Taliban had expressed a desire to seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal. The bus was reportedly carrying workers from Kahuta Research Laboratories, which produced weapons-grade uranium. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Federer, S. Williams Win Wimbledon Titles Federer Tops Career Grand Slam List.

Roger Federer of Switzerland, the top seed, July 5 beat Andy Roddick of the U.S., the sixth seed, 5–7, 7–6, 7–6, 3–6, 16–14, to win the men’s singles title at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club at Wimbledon, England. In the women’s final July 4, Serena Williams of the U.S., the second seed, had defeated her older sister and the two-time defending champion, third-seeded Venus Williams of the U.S., 7–6, 6–2. [See 2008, p. 477D3] With the victory, Federer, 27, claimed his 15th title in a Grand Slam tournament, surpassing the all-time record set by Pete Sampras of the U.S. (Sampras, who had retired in 2002, watched the Federer-Roddick match from the royal box at Wimbledon’s Centre Court.) Federer had won three Australian Opens, one French Open, six Wimbledons and five U.S. Opens. He attained his 15 titles in just six years, winning his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 2003. In contrast, it took Sampras 12 years to win his 14 titles, beginning in 1990 with a U.S. Open victory and ending with a win in the same tournament in 2002. [See p. 398C3] In the marathon men’s final, the 26year-old Roddick—who had won only two July 9, 2009

of his 20 career meetings with Federer— claimed an early lead, breaking his opponent’s serve in the final game to win the first set, 7–5. The second set went to a tiebreak, in which Federer fended off four set points before winning, 8–6. Federer also won the third set in a tiebreak, 7–5, but Roddick rallied to claim the fourth set, 6–3. The 30-game fifth set (under Wimbledon rules, the fifth set was not decided by a tiebreak) was the longest fifth set ever in a Grand Slam final. Federer broke Roddick’s serve for the first time in the match in the deciding 30th game. Federer served a career-best 50 aces in the final match, which lasted four hours and 18 minutes. In the semifinals, Federer July 3 had defeated Tommy Haas of Germany, the 24th seed, 7–6, 7–5, 6–3. Roddick that day advanced to the final by beating hometown favorite Andy Murray of Scotland, the third seed, 6–4, 4–6, 7–6, 7–6. The defending champion and the thentop-ranked men’s player, Rafael Nadal of Spain, who would have been the top seed at Wimbledon, June 19 withdrew just prior to the start of the tournament due to tendinitis in his knees. Federer July 6 regained the world’s top ranking from Nadal. S. Williams Avenges 2008 Loss—Serena Williams, 27, July 4 claimed her third Wimbledon title, in a rematch of the 2008 final, in which Venus Williams, 29, had won Wimbledon for the fifth time. Venus Williams entered the final as the favorite, after having not lost a set in the tournament. However, Serena Williams’s serve was dominant throughout the match, allowing her to take the first set in a tiebreak, which she won, 6–3. In the second set, Serena Williams broke Venus Williams’s serve twice on her way to claiming her 11th overall title in a Grand Slam. After the Wimbledon victory, Serena Williams held an 11-match-to-10 career advantage over Venus Williams, and had defeated her sister in six of eight Grand Slam finals. Serena Williams July 2 had advanced to the final by defeating fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia, 6–7, 7–5, 8–6. Venus Williams had an easier time in her semifinal that day, beating Russia’s Dinara Safina, the top seed, 6–1, 6–0. A June 29 match between Safina and France’s Amelie Mauresmo marked the first time in the history of Wimbledon— which had long been plagued by rain delays—that a match was played under a closed roof. The All England Club had installed a retractable roof in Centre Court prior to the 2009 tournament. It was closed when it began to rain in the middle of the second set of the Safina-Mauresmo match. Doubles Results—Venus Williams and Serena Williams, after competing in the women’s singles final, later July 4 teamed up to win the women’s doubles championship, defeating the Australian team of Samantha Stosur and Rennae Stubbs, 7–6, 6– 4. In the men’s doubles final that day, Daniel Nestor of Canada and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia beat the U.S. twin-brother team of

Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan, 7–6, 6–7, 7–6, 6–3. In mixed doubles, Mark Knowles of the Bahamas and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany July 5 beat Leander Paes of India and Cara Black of Zimbabwe, 7–5, 6–3. n

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Football Former NFL MVP McNair Found Dead. Former National Football League (NFL) star

quarterback Steve McNair, who had been the league’s co–most valuable player (MVP) for the 2003 season as a member of the Tennessee Titans, July 4 was found shot dead in an apartment in Nashville, Tenn. McNair, 36, had retired after the 2008 season. [See p. 468B3; 2008, p. 319C3; 2004, p. 40B2] Also found dead in the apartment was 20year-old Sahel Kazemi, who reportedly was McNair’s girlfriend. According to Nashville police, McNair had been shot twice in the head and twice in the chest. Kazemi had a single gunshot to the head; it was later revealed that the gun that killed both victims was found under her body. Nashville police July 5 ruled McNair’s death a homicide, but did not classify the death of Kazemi at that time. Police revealed July 6 that Kazemi had purchased the gun used in the killings on July 2. Nashville police July 8 said they had concluded that Kazemi killed McNair, and then committed suicide. McNair was married to Mechelle McNair, the mother of two of his four sons. He had played 11 seasons with the Titans, leading the team to the Super Bowl in January 2000. He played for the Baltimore Ravens in 2006 and 2007, before retiring. The Titans July 8–9 opened LP Field, their stadium in Nashville, for fans to pay tribute to McNair, who had been highly popular with the public and fellow players, and had been also known for his charity work. n

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Arts Michael Jackson Memorialized in L.A. Pop

singer Michael Jackson, who died suddenly in Los Angeles on June 25 at the age of 50, July 7 was memorialized in a two-anda-half-hour public service at the city’s Staples Center, where Jackson had been rehearsing for a planned series of sold-out concerts in London. A gold-plated casket containing the singer’s body had been driven to the center from Los Angeles’s Forest Lawn cemetery for the occasion. More than 17,000 people attended the memorial, including nearly 9,000 members of the public, who had won free tickets to it in a lottery that about 1.7 million people had entered. The other attendees were described as “family friends.” About one billion people worldwide watched the service live on television, while millions more saw it on the Internet. Among the hundreds of journalists covering the event were the anchors for all the major U.S. TV networks. The event was covered in a manner reminiscent of the 1997 coverage of the funeral of Britain’s Princess Diana, who died in a car crash. [See p. 436A1; 1997, p. 637A1] 467

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dren to the singer’s mother, Katherine Jackson, 79. She was also named temporary executor of Jackson’s estate, believed to be saddled with extensive debt but nevertheless estimated to be worth some $500 million. At the time, it was thought that the singer had not left a will. However, on July 1, lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain filed a will, dating back to July 2002, and naming them as co-executors of Jackson’s estate, while designating Katherine Jackson as the primary guardian of the three children, as well as the beneficiary of the trust set up by the will. (Singer Diana Ross was named successor guardian, in case Katherine Jackson was unable to care for the children.) A Los Angeles judge July 6 appointed Branca and McClain as temporary co-executors of the estate, pending an August hearing on the matter, and denied a petition by Katherine Jackson to continue to serve in that capacity. Michael Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, about whom child abuse allegations had repeatedly been raised, was not mentioned in the will at all. [See p. 436C2] n

O B I T UA R I E S ARGUELLO, Alexis, 57, Nicaraguan boxer turned politician; as a professional boxer, he at one time or another held world titles in three weight classes: featherweight, junior lightweight (or super featherweight) and lightweight; at his peak, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was widely regarded as the top boxer in the world pound for pound; during the 1980s, he was affiliated with the contra movement that sought to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista regime; he later reconciled with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra and in 2008 was elected mayor of Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, as the candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), although amid allegations that the vote had been rigged; born April 19, 1952, in Managua; found dead July 1 in his Managua home, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest; as mayor, he had been accused of misusing public funds. [See 2008, p. 871B2; 1986, pp. 303E2, 103F2; Indexes 1982–83, 1978–80, 1974] BAUSCH, Pina (Philippine), 68, German choreographer whose work was known to dance audiences around the world; it was rooted in the German Expressionist movement exemplified by choreographer Kurt Jooss, with whom she studied as a teenager, and was marked by emotional intensity, strong theatricality and imaginative sets; she had been based in Wuppertal, a German industrial city, since the early 1970s; her dance troupe, the Tanztheater Wuppertal (Wuppertal Dance Theater), introduced such well-known pieces as Come Dance With Me (1977), set in a playground with a large slide, and Nelken (Carnations) (1982), in which the stage was strewn with pink carnations through which a scantily dressed woman roamed, playing an accordion; born July 27, 1940, in Solingen, Germany; died June 30 in Wuppertal, days after having been diagnosed with cancer. [See 1979, p. 432A3] KLEIN, Herbert George, 91, White House director of communications, 1969–73, under President Richard M. Nixon; he left the Nixon administration amid the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974; as a fledgling journalist, he had covered Nixon’s first run for Congress, in 1946, and he either covered or worked on all of Nixon’s subsequent political campaigns; after returning to private life, he was a vice president of the Metromedia Inc. broadcasting group from 1973 to 1980, and vice president and editor in chief of San Diego, Calif.–based Copley Newspapers from 1980 to 2003; born April 1, 1918, in Los Angeles; died July 2 at a San Diego hospital, after suffering a heart attack at his San Diego home. [See 1974, pp. 341E3, 176D1; Indexes 1968–74]

shy suitor of a Southern belle, catapulted its lead actor, Marlon Brando, to fame; he was reunited with Brando and Kazan in the 1951 film version of the Williams play, and won his only Academy Award, for best supporting actor, for his work in that film; Kazan also directed him and Brando in On the Waterfront (1954), in which Malden memorably portrayed a militant priest; two years later, in another Kazan-Williams film project, he starred as the dull-witted husband of a child bride in Baby Doll; after his film career subsided in the early 1970s, he portrayed a veteran police officer in the hit TV series “The Streets of San Francisco” (1972– 77); he also enjoyed a 21-year run as the pitchman for American Express traveler’s checks, with his signature line being “Don’t leave home without them”; from 1989 to 1992, he was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; born March 22, 1912, in Chicago; died July 1 at his home in Los Angeles, of natural causes. [See 1992, p. 579G3; 1987, p. 944F2; Indexes 1983–84, 1979, 1970–71, 1967–68, 1962–64, 1959–60, 1951–57, 1946–47] McNAIR, Steve LaTreal, 36, quarterback who led the National Football League’s Tennessee Titans to their only Super Bowl appearance, in January 2000; born Feb. 14, 1973, in Mount Olive, Miss.; found shot to death July 4 at a condominium in Nashville, Tenn.; the body of a woman, later identified as Sahel Kazemi, was also found at the site; Nashville police July 8 said they had determined that Kazemi killed McNair before fatally shooting herself. [See pp. 467B3, 55B2; 2008, p. 319C3; Indexes 2006, 2000–04, 1994–95] McNAMARA, Robert Strange, 93, U.S. secretary of defense, 1961–68, who came to be vilified, rightly or wrongly, as the chief architect of the Vietnam War, in which U.S. forces continued to fight until 1973; the second-longest-serving defense secretary in U.S. history (only Donald Rumsfeld served longer), he served without a break during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (Rumsfeld served discontinuously under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush) and was widely viewed as a technocrat who did more to reshape the U.S. military than any other 20th-century defense secretary; before becoming defense secretary, he had risen through the ranks at Ford Motor Co., and had been named the company’s first president from outside the Ford family weeks before being chosen to head the Pentagon; before he left the Pentagon to become president of the World Bank in 1968, he had concluded that the Vietnam War was a lost cause, but failed to change President Johnson’s mind as well; during his 13-year tenure at the World Bank, the bank’s lending to developing nations burgeoned, from about $1 billion a year to $12 billion a year; after retiring from the bank, he became an outspoken foe of the nuclear arms race; he published a self-critical memoir, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam in 1995, and was the subject of a feature-length documentary, Errol Morris’s The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, that won an Academy Award in 2004; born June 9, 1916, in San Francisco, Calif.; died in his sleep July 6 at his home in Washington, D.C., after a period of declining health. [See 2004, pp. 788F1, 148E2; 2000, p. 13E3; Indexes 1999, 1997, 1995, 1992-93, 1960–89] n AP Photo

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Among the speakers and performers at the event were luminaries from the world of popular music, including singers Smokey Robinson, Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder and Jennifer Hudson, and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. Gordy, 79, had released Jackson’s earliest recordings decades earlier, when Jackson was the lead singer of the boy group the Jackson 5. Gordy told the crowd that he considered Jackson “simply the greatest entertainer that ever lived.” [See p. 436D1–E1] Two of Jackson’s brothers, Jermaine and Marlon Jackson, also spoke at the memorial, near its end. Earlier in the service, Jermaine Jackson had performed the song “Smile,” originally an instrumental theme composed by British comedian Charlie Chaplin for his 1936 film Modern Times. He came on to sing it after actress Brooke Shields, who had dated Michael Jackson when both were child stars, told the audience that it had been Michael Jackson’s favorite song. [See 1977, p. 1024B1] Two National Basketball Association (NBA) superstars, Kobe Bryant and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, also spoke at the memorial. Bryant had recently led the Los Angeles Lakers to their 15th NBA championship, while Johnson, who retired in 1991 after revealing that he was HIV-positive, had led the Lakers to five championships in the 1980s. [See p. 419C1; 1991, p. 870D1, F2] Another speaker was New York City– based civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, who, addressing Jackson’s children, said “there wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy,” whose reputation for eccentricity had grown over the years and who had been tried and acquitted on child-molestation charges. Sharpton had come out in support of Michael Jackson in 2002, when the singer charged that the music industry was rife with racism. [See 2002, p. 548G2] In the final minutes of the service, one of Jackson’s three children, his daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11, broke into sobs as she told the audience, “I just wanted to say, ever since I was born Daddy has been the best father you can ever imagine.” During Jackson’s lifetime, she, like her two brothers—Michael Joseph (Prince Michael) Jackson Jr., 12, and Prince Michael Jackson II, 7—had rarely been seen in public not wearing a mask. The cause of Jackson’s death had not yet been determined, and it was not yet disclosed where he would be buried. Use of Taxpayer Money Faulted—A spokeswoman for the city of Los Angeles July 8 said that the final cost to the city of the Jackson memorial service was $1.4 million; much of the money went for police protection. The money was spent at a time when both Los Angeles and the state of California as a whole were financially ailing. Consequently, many Los Angeles residents voiced the opinion that the bill for the Jackson memorial should have been partially or completely footed by the Jackson family itself. [See p. 340G1] Kids’ Temporary Guardian Named— A Los Angeles judge June 29 granted temporary guardianship of Jackson’s three chil-

MALDEN, Karl (born Mladen George Sekulovich), 97, character actor who brought a down-to-

earth quality to many stage, screen and television roles; his first major roles were in two 1947 Broadway plays directed by Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire; the latter production, in which he played the

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in 1967.

July 9, 2009

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearings on Sotomayor’s Nomination to Supreme Court Faces Tough Questions on Impartiality.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee July 13–16 held confirmation hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, a member of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City, had been nominated to the position in May by U.S. President Barack Obama. If confirmed, Sotomayor, 55, would become the first Hispanic and the third woman to sit on the bench. [See p. 389E2; for excerpts from Sotomayor’s testimony, see p. 470A1] The committee, chaired by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), was composed of 12 Democrats and seven Republicans. Sotomayor was expected to win confirmation relatively easily, since there were 60 members in the Democratic Senate caucus, the number required to prevent a filibuster. Additionally, she was to replace retiring Justice David H. Souter, a reliable liberal vote, so her ascension to the bench was unlikely to change the court’s ideological balance. Republican committee members focused heavily on a remark from a speech Sotomayor had delivered at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, in which she addressed the role that a judge’s personal background played in reaching decisions. She had said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Republicans said the remark suggested that Sotomayor was a biased judge who was unduly influenced by her gender and ethnicity. The hearings were also seen as a forum for Republicans and Democrats alike to present to voters their respective visions of the Supreme Court’s role in government. Republicans argued that justices should limit themselves to interpreting the letter of the law, behaving like baseball umpires who merely called “balls and strikes,” a trope made famous by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. during his confirmation hearings in 2005. [See 2005, p. 623E1] Democrats said the court should weigh the impact that decisions had on society at large, and Obama had described his ideal justice as one who had “empathy” for those who would be affected by court rulings. Liberal groups had said Sotomayor’s experiences as a woman and a Hispanic would bring a different and valuable perspective to the court, where seven of the nine justices in the 2008–09 term were white males. [See p. 301B3] Throughout the four days of hearings, Sotomayor largely avoided voicing direct opinions on controversial issues that could imperil her confirmation. Republican committee members were seen as being cautious in their questioning, which was attributed to fears that overly aggressive treatment of Sotomayor could alienate Hispanic voters, the country’s largest minority group. Sotomayor Pledges ‘Fidelity to the Law’—

Sotomayor July 13 delivered an opening statement to the committee that was seen as

an attempt to address suggestions by Republicans that she was not impartial and would use her position on the Supreme Court to further a liberal agenda. She told senators that her judicial philosophy was “simple: fidelity to the law.” She said, “The task of a judge is not to make law. It is to apply the law.” She elaborated, “My personal and professional experiences help me to listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case.” Sotomayor described her humble upbringing in a housing project in the New York City borough of the Bronx, where her parents had moved after leaving Puerto Rico during World War II. She paid tribute to her mother, Celina Sotomayor, who raised her as a single parent after her father died. “The progression of my life has been uniquely American,” she said. Leahy that day touted Sotomayor’s 17 years of experience as a judge, saying, “She is the first nominee in well over a century to be nominated to three different federal judgeships by three different presidents.” Besides Obama, Sotomayor had been nominated as a U.S. District Court judge by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991, and as a U.S. appellate court judge by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1997. Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) said Sotomayor’s record was characterized by “judicial modesty,” and claimed that she “puts rule of law above everything else.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, said, “I will not vote for, and no senator should vote for, anyone who will not render justice impartially.” He added, “Call it empathy, call it prejudice or call it sympathy, but whatever it is, it’s not law. In truth it’s more akin to politics, and politics has no place in the courtroom.” Sen. John Kyl (R, Ariz.) said, “She appears to believe that her role is not constrained to objectively decide who wins based on the weight of the law; but rather, who in her personal opinion should win.” He added, “The factors that will influence her decisions apparently include her gender and Latina heritage.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) acknowledged that Sotomayor would likely be confirmed despite Republican objections. “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed,” he said. The hearings were interrupted several times by antiabortion protesters who were swiftly removed by security guards. They included Norma McCorvey, who was the litigant “Jane Roe” in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, which upheld a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion. She had since joined the antiabortion movement. [See p. 338A3; 1973, p. 58C3] Defends ‘Wise Latina’ Remark— In her first day of questioning, Sotomayor July 14 defended her “wise Latina” remark, after Republican committee members brought it up multiple times. Sotomayor said the

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B speech—variations of which she had delivered on several occasions—was meant to “inspire” female lawyers and “young Latino lawyers” to “believe that their life experiences would enrich the legal system.” She said the remark was “a rhetorical flourish that fell flat,” and maintained that she strived for impartiality in all her judgments. “I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging,” she said. Republican senators questioned her about several similar public statements, saying they showed that Sotomayor viewed a judge’s particular life experience as inseparable from the decision-making process. They included one from the same 2001 speech at Berkeley, in which she said, “I willingly accept that we who judge must

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Sotomayor testifies at Senate hearings. PAGE 469

U.S. President Obama visits Ghana. PAGE 471

CIA halts secret program to kill Al Qaeda members.

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General Motors emerges from bankruptcy as smaller company. PAGE 475

U.S. House Democrats release health care reform legislation. PAGE 476

Former Liberian President opens war crimes defense.

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Peruvian President Garcia names new prime minister, cabinet.

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Japanese Prime Minister Aso calls for legislative elections. PAGE 482

Socialists ousted in Bulgarian parliamentary elections. PAGE 482

Passenger plane crashes in Iran, killing 168. PAGE 482

American League wins baseball AllStar Game. PAGE 483

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Following are excerpts from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s July 13–16 hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as associate justice of the Supreme Court [See p. 469A1]: Sotomayor’s Opening Statement (July 13) In the past month, many senators have asked me about my judicial philosophy. Simple: fidelity to the law. The task of a judge is not to make law. It is to apply the law. And it is clear, I believe, that my record in two courts reflects my rigorous commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its terms, interpreting statutes according to their terms and Congress’s intent, and hewing faithfully to precedents established by the Supreme Court and by my circuit court. In each case I have heard, I have applied the law to the facts at hand. The process of judging is enhanced when the arguments and concerns of the parties to the litigation are understood and acknowledged. That is why I generally structure my opinions by setting out what the law requires and then explaining why a contrary position, sympathetic or not, is accepted or rejected. That is how I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our judicial system. My personal and professional experiences helped me to listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case. Past Speeches (July 14) Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.): Your critics have taken a line out of your speeches and twisted it, in my view, to mean something you never intended... You said that, quote, you “would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions.” Sotomayor: ...No words I have ever spoken or written have received so much attention. I gave a variant of my speech to a variety of different groups, most often to groups of women lawyers or to groups, most particularly, of young Latino lawyers and students. As my speech made clear in one of the quotes that you reference, I was trying to inspire them to believe that their life experiences would enrich the legal system, because different life experiences and backgrounds always do. I don’t think that there is a quarrel with that in our society. ...I want to state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, Ala.): The task of a judge is not to make law; it’s to apply law....However, you previously have said the court of appeals is where policy is made. Sotomayor: ...With respect to judges making policy, I assume, senator, that you were referring to a remark that I made in a Duke Law student dialogue. That remark, in context, made very clear that I wasn’t talking about the policy reflected in the law that Congress makes. That’s the job of Congress to decide what the policy should be for society. ...Appellate judges...establish precedent. They decide what the law says in a particular situation. That precedent has policy ramifications because it binds not just the litigants in that case, it binds all litigants in similar cases, in cases that may be influenced by that precedent.

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Sessions: ...You have previously said this: “I am willing to accept that we who judge must not deny differences resulting from experiences and heritage, but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.” So first, I’d like to know, do you think there’s any circumstance in which a judge should allow their prejudices to impact their decision-making? Sotomayor: Never their prejudices. I was talking about the very important goal of the justice system is to ensure that the personal biases and prejudices of a judge do not influence the outcome of a case. What I was talking about was the obligation of judges to examine what they’re feeling as they’re adjudicating a case and to ensure that that’s not influencing the outcome. Life experiences have to influence you. We’re not robots to listen to evidence and don’t have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings and put them aside. Judicial Philosophy (July 14) Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.): Do you believe the Constitution is a living, breathing, evolving document? Sotomayor: The Constitution is a document that is immutable to the sense that it’s lasted 200 years. The Constitution has not changed except by amendment. It is a process—an amendment process that is set forth in the document. It doesn’t live other than to be timeless by the expression of what it says. What changes is society. What changes is what facts a judge may get presented. Abortion (July 14) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.): The Supreme Court has decided on more than seven occasions that the law cannot put a woman’s health at risk... With both Justices [John G.] Roberts and [Samuel A.] Alito on the court, however, this rule seems to have changed, because, in 2007, in Carhart II [Gonzales v. Carhart], the court essentially removed this basic constitutional right from women. Now, here’s my question: When there are multiple precedents and a question arises, are all the previous decisions discarded, or should the court re-examine all the cases on point? Sotomayor: ...That was, I don’t believe, a rejection of its prior precedents. Its prior precedents are still the precedents of the court. The health and welfare of a woman must be—must be compelling consideration. Executive Authority (July 14) Feinstein: Now, the president in literally hundreds of signing statements affixed to a signature on a bill indicated part of a bill that he would, in essence, disregard. He didn’t veto the bill. He signed the bill and said, “But there are sections that I,” in so many words, “will disregard.” ...Does the Constitution authorize the president not to follow parts of laws duly passed by the Congress that he is willing to sign that he believes are an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority? Sotomayor: ...The president can’t act in violation of the Constitution. No one’s above the law. But what that is in a particular situation has to be looked at in the factual scenario before the court. Gun Control (July 14) Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, Utah): ...You identified the premise that a right to possess a gun is

not fundamental and the conclusion that New York’s ban on gun possession was permissible under the Second Amendment, but there’s not a word actually connecting the premise to the conclusion. Without any analysis at all, that footnote that you wrote leaves the impression that unless the right to bear arms is considered fundamental, any gun restriction is necessarily permissible under the Second Amendment. Is that what you believe? Sotomayor: ...The Supreme Court, in the opinion [District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008] authored by Justice [Antonin] Scalia, suggested that it was a question that the courts should consider. ...The question would be would the states have a rational basis for the regulation it has in place...even Justice Scalia, in the majority opinion in Heller, recognized that that was a rational basis regulation for a state under all circumstances, whether or not there was a Second Amendment right. Civil Rights (July 14) Sessions: ...Let’s look at the New Haven [Conn.] firefighters case, the Ricci [Ricci v. DeStefano, 2009] case. In that case, the city of New Haven told firefighters that they would take an exam, set forth the process for it, that would determine who would be eligible for promotion. ...But after the city saw the results of the exam, it threw out those results, because, quote, “not enough of one group did will enough on the test.” The Supreme Court then found that the city, and I quote, “rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.” ...So you stated that your background effects the facts that you choose to see. Was the fact that the New Haven firefighters had been subject to discrimination one of the facts you chose not to see in this case? Sotomayor: ...A variety of different judges on the appellate court were looking at the case in light of established Supreme Court and 2nd Circuit [Court of Appeals in New York City] precedent and determined that the city facing potential liability under Title VII [of the 1965 Civil Rights Act] could choose not to certify the test if it believed an equally good test could be made with a different impact on affected groups. The Supreme Court, as it is its prerogative in looking at a challenge, established a new consideration or a different standard for the city to apply. And that is: was there substantial evidence that they would be held liable under the law? That was a new consideration. Our [three-judge] panel [in 2008] didn’t look at the issue that way because it wasn’t argued to us in the case before us and because the case before us was based on existing precedent. So it’s a different test. Judicial Temperament (July 14) Graham: One thing that stood out about your record is that when you look at the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, lawyers anonymously rate judges in terms of temperament...here’s what they said about you: “She’s a terror on the bench”; “She’s temperamental, excitable, she seems angry”; “She abuses lawyers”; “She really lacks judicial temperament;”... “She behaves in an out-of-control manner”; “She makes inappropriate outbursts”; “She’s nasty to lawyers.” Sotomayor: I do ask tough questions at oral arguments.

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(Continued from p. 469D3

not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.” Sotomayor told the committee that the point of the comment was that judges should accept the presence of personal prejudices in order not to be swayed by them. “We’re not robots who listen to evidence and don’t have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings, and put them aside,” she said. Republicans noted that in the same speech, she had said, “I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.” She had also said, “In judging, I further accept that our experiences as women will in some way affect our decisions.” Sotomayor told the committee that those remarks were merely part of an “academic discussion,” and did not reflect her judicial philosophy. When asked by Republicans about the emphasis Obama had placed on a judge’s capacity for “empathy,” Sotomayor claimed that she disagreed with that view, saying, “We don’t apply feelings to facts.” Sotomayor was also asked about a comment Obama had made in 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearings. Obama, then a senator, had argued that “what is in the judge’s heart” was an important part of deciding the hardest cases. Sotomayor said, “Judges can’t rely on what’s in their heart,” adding, “The job of a judge is to apply the law.” The apparent contradiction between Sotomayor’s past statements and her testimony prompted Graham to remark, “Who are we getting here?” He added, “I listen to you today; I think I’m listening to Judge Roberts,” in reference to the conservative chief justice. Some liberals complained that by distancing herself from the notion that gender and ethnicity had a role in the decisionmaking process, and by consistently hewing to the assertion that the law must be applied as written, Sotomayor had only strengthened the legitimacy of the conservative approach to judging. Evades

Controversial

Questions—

Sotomayor July 14–16 faced tough questions on a variety of controversial issues, including gun control, racial discrimination and abortion. Like other recent nominees to the court, including Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sotomayor avoided voicing a direct opinion on those issues. She often said she simply respected Supreme Court precedent on a given issue, or that she could not answer abstract or hypothetical questions because she might have to make a ruling on the issue in the near future. Sotomayor July 15 said Obama had not asked her about her position on abortion before nominating her. The previous day, she had testified that she considered Roe v. Wade to be “settled law.” When asked about a 2007 Supreme Court decision that upheld a federal ban on a late-term abortion proceJuly 16, 2009

dure—Gonzales v. Carhart—she said she also considered that to be settled law, even though the federal ban did not make an exception for cases in which the mother’s health was in danger. Sotomayor said the 2007 decision was not “a rejection of prior precedents.” She said, “The health and welfare of a woman must be...a compelling consideration.” [See 2007, p. 242A1] Sotomayor July 14 also said she believed that the Constitution implied a right to privacy, an interpretation that lay at the heart of the pro-choice argument. Sotomayor’s views on abortion were not well known, since as an appellate court judge she had not ruled on whether the Constitution guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion. Sotomayor July 15 defended a January decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a New York law banning the possession of nunchaku, a martial-arts weapon. She said the ruling did not run afoul of the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision District of Columbia v. Heller, which struck down a gun-control law as unconstitutional and affirmed that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms. Sotomayor, citing the majority opinion written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, said the ruling did not apply to state and city laws governing weapons controls. [See 2008, p. 429A2] Sotomayor July 15 also defended a 2008 decision by herself and two other judges on a panel of the appellate court that upheld a decision by the city of New Haven, Conn., to throw out the results of a firefighter promotion test after no blacks performed well on it. White and Hispanic fighters appealed the decision, and the Supreme Court in June ruled, 5–4, in their favor, saying that the city had discriminated against them. The case was Ricci v. DeStefano. [See p. 443D2] Sotomayor said she had merely been following past precedent by siding with New Haven. The appellate panel’s unsigned ruling was only a paragraph long, but she explained that the trial judge in the case had written a “78-page thorough decision” that did not need elaboration. Judicial

Temperament

Questioned—

Graham July 14 questioned Sotomayor’s temperament on the bench, citing anonymous reviews of her performance by trial lawyers in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which rated judges. The reviews included such descriptions of Sotomayor as being “a terror on the bench,” acting “in an out-of-control manner,” and being “a bit of a bully.” Sotomayor did not directly address those criticisms, but conceded that she asked lawyers “tough questions” at oral arguments. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) that day told Sotomayor, “If there’s a test of judicial temperament, you pass it here with an A plus-plus.” No Republican Filibuster—On the last day of testimony, Sessions July 16 said Republicans would not attempt to filibuster Sotomayor’s nomination, meaning that she would only need a simple majority in the Senate for confirmation. Several Republicans on the committee said they had been

impressed by Sotomayor’s testimony, with Graham saying her “record as a judge has not been radical by any means.” Leahy said the committee would begin discussing her nomination July 21, and a vote was expected by July 28. A vote by the full Senate was expected in early August. The hearing ended with testimony from more than 30 witnesses, including Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff in Ricci v. DeStefano. Ricci criticized the decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel, but refrained from criticizing Sotomayor directly. Ricci was joined by fellow firefighter Ben Vargas, a Hispanic who had also protested New Haven’s decision. Other witnesses included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Louis Freeh and former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher David Cone, all of whom spoke in her favor. Cone said Sotomayor had been instrumental in ending a 1995 baseball strike, by ruling that MLB team owners could not unilaterally change the profession’s salary and free agency rules without consulting the players’ union. [See 2005, p. 259F2] The National Rifle Association (NRA) that day said it opposed Sotomayor’s confirmation because she did “not respect our God-given right of self-defense.” Analysts said the NRA’s opposition could compel Republicans dependent on the organization’s support to vote against her confirmation. n

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U.S. President Obama Visits Ghana First Official Trip to Sub-Saharan Africa.

U.S. President Barack Obama July 10–11 visited the West African nation of Ghana, on the final leg of a foreign tour that had also taken him to Russia, the Group of Eight summit in Italy and the Vatican. It was the first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as U.S. president for Obama, whose father had been born in Kenya, and his visit was greeted with much excitement and fanfare in Ghana and across the continent. [See below, pp. 473A1, 453A1; 2006, p. 785B1; for excerpts from Obama’s speech, see p. 472A1] Some observers questioned why Obama decided to visit Ghana on his first trip as president to sub-Saharan Africa, and not his ancestral home of Kenya. (Obama had visited Kenya in 2006, when he was a U.S. senator.) The U.S. president July 10 said at a news conference before leaving Italy that he had decided to visit Ghana partly because it had a “functioning democracy,” and its president, John Atta Mills, was “serious about reducing corruption.” Mills had been inaugurated in January, after defeating the ruling party’s candidate in what was seen as a crucial test for democracy in Ghana and Africa as a whole. Meanwhile, Kenya’s government continued to be crippled by infighting more than a year after a power-sharing deal was reached following a disputed presidential election. [See pp. 221A1, F1, 7E2] Prior to his arrival in Ghana, Obama had asked Africans to send him questions, criti471

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EXCERPTS FROM U.S. PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SPEECH TO GHANA’S PARLIAMENT

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Following are excerpts from U.S. President Barack Obama’s July 11 speech to the Ghanaian parliament [See p. 471D3]: Africa’s Role in the World

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I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world—as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children.… It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. Corruption & Good Governance

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In my father’s life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many.… Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.…

cisms or comments via text message or other electronic means of communication, as part of an effort by the White House to reach out to the people of Africa and stimulate a “continental conversation,” the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported July 9. Obama,

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Obama, his wife Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha late July 10 arrived in Accra, Ghana’s capital, where they were greeted at the airport by Mills. President Obama met with Mills and former Ghanaian Presidents Jerry Rawlings and John Kufuor the next day, and also visited a hospital in Accra. In the high point of his visit, Obama later July 11 addressed Ghana’s parliament, a speech that was seen as a message to all Africans. In his address, Obama sought to strike a balance between U.S. support for African democracy and economic development, and the theme that it was up to the citizens of Africa to shape their future. “Development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans,” he said. The U.S. president spoke bluntly about the persistent problems of corruption and conflict across the continent. On corruption, he said, “No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers.” On conflict, Obama stated, “Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war. But if we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fight-

This is about more than holding elections—it’s also about what happens between them. Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers.…No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.…Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.

not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed.… Yet because of incentives—often provided by donor nations—many African doctors and nurses understandably go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease. This creates gaps in primary care and basic prevention. Meanwhile, individual Africans also have to make responsible choices that prevent the spread of disease, while promoting public health in their communities and countries.

Economic Aid & Health Care

Now let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war. But for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes. These conflicts are a millstone around Africa’s neck. We all have many identities—of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the twenty-first century. Africa’s diversity should be a source of strength, not a cause for division.

From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and infrastructure; when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled workforce, and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs. As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we will put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves. That is why our $3.5 billion food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers—not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is

ing among faiths and tribes.” He specifically mentioned the ongoing conflicts in Sudan’s western Darfur region and in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some observers said such admonitions from Obama, given his heritage, would likely be better received by Africans than similar messages delivered by former U.S. presidents and other Western leaders. “After all, I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family’s own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story,” Obama said. Obama in his address linked Ghana’s history as Africa’s first colony to gain independence (from Britain, in 1957) to the then-nascent U.S. civil rights movement. Obama described how “a young preacher named Martin Luther King traveled here, to Accra, to watch the Union Jack come down and the Ghanaian flag go up. This was before the march on Washington or the success of the civil rights movement in my country. Dr. King was asked how he felt while watching the birth of a nation. And he said: ‘It renews my conviction in the ultimate triumph of justice.’” [See 2007, p. 146B1] Obama and his family later July 11 visited Cape Coast Castle, the point from which African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas for nearly 300 years. Michelle Obama was the descendant of African slaves. The Obamas arrived back in the U.S. early July 12. G-8 Pledges Africa Aid—The Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialized nations July 10 pledged $20 billion in aid over the next three years to develop Africa’s agricultural sector, on the last day of a three-day summit in L’Aquila, Italy. The aid amount was $5 billion more than what Obama had originally sought. The aid was intended to help African farmers develop sustainable

Africa’s Conflicts

agricultural methods that would ensure long-term food security, as opposed to simply providing the rural poor with produce and other staples. [See p. 453A1] However, aid agencies noted that previous pledges by G-8 members accounted for about half of the announced total. Critics said the G-8 had made substantial promises of aid to developing countries in the past— including a 2005 pledge at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to increase aid to $50 billion a year by 2010—but had often

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failed to keep those commitments. The G8 was currently well behind fulfilling its Gleneagles goal. [See 2005, p. 468D3] n

Religion Obama Meets With Pope Benedict XVI.

U.S. President Barack Obama July 10 met privately at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI, after attending a Group of Eight (G8) economic summit in Italy. They reportedly discussed stem cell research, abortion rights and unrest in the Middle East during the 30-minute meeting. The Vatican said Obama had “reiterated his commitment to reducing the incidence of abortion.” (Obama supported both abortion rights and stem cell research, which the Roman Catholic Church opposed.) White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said even if Obama and Benedict “did not see eye to eye on everything, there are steps that can be taken on a number of issues that will show progress, whether it’s on something like unintended pregnancy or adoption.” [See pp. 471D3, 472G2, 335B1] Benedict gave Obama a copy of Dignitas Personae, a document that detailed the Vatican’s positions on contemporary bioethical issues, as well as a mosaic depicting St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. Obama presented Benedict with a stole that had at one point rested on the remains of St. John Neumann, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been bishop of Philadelphia in the 19th century and was made a saint in 1977. [See 2008, p. 916A3] Obama also delivered to the Pope a letter from U.S. Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), a Catholic. Obama asked Benedict to pray for Kennedy, who had been diagnosed with brain cancer. n

Accidents & Disasters Crashed French Jet Intact on Sea Impact.

Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in early June, killing all 228 people aboard, was intact when it hit the water, investigators from France’s Office of Investigations and Analyses reported July 2. Alain Bouillard, who was leading the French investigation, said the plane had slammed into the water belly-first and largely intact at a high speed, according to analysis of recovered wreckage. However, Bouillard said investigators still did not know what caused the crash. [See p. 387A1] The Airbus A330 model jet, which had taken off in Brazil and was bound for France, had sent several automated signals indicating problems after flying into a heavy electrical storm; it had crashed about 600 miles (965 km) off Brazil’s coast. Airbus had also said that faulty air sensors might not have provided pilots with the plane’s correct air speed, contributing to the crash. However, investigators said that was unlikely to have been the main cause of the accident. The plane’s wreckage was scattered at a part of the Atlantic where the sea floor was 9,000–15,000 feet (2,750–4,500 m) deep, making attempts to recover the plane’s July 16, 2009

“black box” data recorders difficult. As of July 2, searchers had recovered 51 corpses and several hundred items from the crash area. Bouillard said searchers would continue to hunt for a signal from the recorders, which had batteries that were expected to last at least until July 10. After that date, an unmanned submarine would be used to search for the recorders until mid-August. French, U.S. and Spanish ships continued to search for the recorders. A spokesman for the Brazilian air force June 26 said it was halting its search for any more bodies from the crash site. n

Other International News China, Turkmenistan Set Gas Accord.

Turkmenistan and China June 24 agreed on a 30-year contract for Turkmenistan to supply China with 40 billion cubic meters (1.4 trillion cubic feet) of gas per year, at a meeting in Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital. Under a 2006 pact, Turkmenistan had agreed to provide up to 30 billion cubic meters per year. Neither side announced the value of the deal. It was also reported that China had extended a $4 billion loan to Turkmenistan’s state-run gas company, Turkmengaz, on favorable terms. A pipeline running from Turkmenistan to China was expected to be completed by the end of 2009. [See p. 197E1; 2008, p. 796D1] Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov that day said, “The project is a strategic one for both countries—it meets the long-term interests of both Turkmenistan and China and also corresponds to the logic of global economic development in which energy supplies have been playing an ever increasing role.” Li Keqiang, a Chinese deputy prime minister who signed off on the deal, said the “agreement is very important for ensuring a stable, long-term and adequate supply of gas.” Turkmenistan had huge gas fields, which Russia, Europe and some Asian countries were all vying to develop. Some analysts suggested that the deal between Turkmenistan and China had come at Russia’s detriment. Russia had signed a 25year gas supply contract with Turkmenistan in 2003, but relations between the countries had soured after an April 9 gas pipeline explosion in Turkmenistan near the Uzbekistan border halted nearly all gas shipments from Turkmenistan to Russia. The disruption reportedly cost Turkmenistan as much as $1 billion per month in export revenue. The Turkmen foreign ministry April 10 said Russia had caused the explosion by shutting off gas flow with little warning. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s statecontrolled gas company, denied the claim. The two sides were currently haggling over gas prices. A Russian delegation left Turkmenistan without reaching an agreement, it was reported June 26. Most of the gas Russia bought from Turkmenistan was resold to European countries at higher prices. Gas prices had plummeted in 2008 before rebounding somewhat in 2009, and analysts suggested that Gazprom’s 2003 contract with Turkmenistan had become less profitable. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

CIA Shuts Down Secret Program To Kill Al Qaeda Leaders

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Assassin Program Withheld From Congress. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director

Leon Panetta June 23 had shut down a classified program that was intended to create paramilitary teams to assassinate highranking members of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network, according to unidentified officials cited in news reports beginning with the Wall Street Journal July 12. Panetta, who had become CIA director in February, had reportedly been briefed on its existence for the first time earlier the same day. The program, which had been created following Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., was reportedly never fully operational. [See 2008, pp. 903F3, 831F3] The CIA did not publicly comment on the canceled program. Its existence, but not its nature, had been disclosed in a June 26 letter, made public July 8, from members of Congress complaining to Panetta that the CIA had misled them by failing to inform them of it. The New York Times reported July 12 that then–Vice President Dick Cheney in 2001 had told the CIA not to inform Congress about the program. [See below] The CIA had reportedly planned to train and equip small groups of paramilitary operatives who could be sent to assassinate Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the group in countries around the world, including U.S. allies. The program had been authorized by a secret order signed by President George W. Bush, after the Sept. 11 attacks that approved the killing and capture of Al Qaeda members. The implementation of the program was reportedly complicated by logistical concerns about how to carry out the assassinations; whether to inform foreign governments of planned assassinations that would take place within their borders; whether the program violated international law; and how to react if U.S. operatives were captured as part of the secret missions. Officials involved in formulating the program reportedly had also debated whether the operatives should be associated with the military or with the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which oversaw the agency’s paramilitary actions. A 1976 executive order banned government agencies from carrying out assassinations, but the CIA program was based on the premise that Al Qaeda leaders were wartime enemies to whom the order did not apply. On that basis, the U.S. operated an ongoing program using unmanned Predator drone aircraft to target Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. [See p. 466F2] The New York Times July 14 noted that one of its reporters, James Risen, had written in his 2006 book State of War that the CIA had created paramilitary units after the Sept. 11 attacks to target high-ranking members of Al Qaeda. Risen said in his book that the units had been disbanded. 473

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The Associated Press July 15 reported that then–CIA Director George Tenet in 2004 had halted the program, but that it had been revived by his successor, Porter Goss. The Washington Post July 16 reported that, after another period in which the program languished, the CIA had been planning to put it closer to implementation when it was brought to Panetta’s attention. Congress Briefed on Program—Panetta June 24 briefed the House and Senate Intelligence Committees for the first time on the details of the canceled program in closed-door sessions. He also reportedly requested an internal CIA review intended to identify ways for the agency to improve its briefing of Congress on intelligence issues. The Times July 14 reported that Panetta was open to reviving the program in consultation with Congress. Following the briefings, a group of House Democrats June 26 sent Panetta a letter arguing that the CIA had “misled members” of Congress since 2001, and comparing the CIA’s failure to fully brief Congress to “other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods.” Rep. Rush Holt (D, N.J.) July 8 released the letter to the public. The 1947 National Security Act required the CIA to keep the House and Senate Intelligence committees “fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States,” but allowed for exceptions “consistent with due regard for the protection of unauthorized disclosure of classified information” involving intelligence activities. [See 1947, p. 232E1] Separately, Congressional Quarterly (CQ) July 8 reported that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D, Texas) had sent Panetta a letter saying that his committee “had been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications,” as required under federal law, “and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to” about the program. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D, Ill.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, July 10 wrote a letter to Reyes that called for an investigation by the committee into the details of the program, as well as an examination of why Congress was not briefed in connection with it. The senior Republican on the House committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), July 9 said of the still-unidentified program that Congress would not have approved of its implementation except perhaps “on Sept. 12,” in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. However, some Republicans accused Democrats of overplaying the issue in order to bolster House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) in her accusations that the CIA had misled lawmakers about the nature of its interrogation programs. [See p. 322F3] Cheney Ordered Program Concealment—

The Times July 12 reported that Cheney had ordered the CIA in 2001 not to disclose information related to the program to Congress, according to unidentified sources with information regarding the program. Cheney’s role in concealing the program from Congress was reportedly part of 474

Panetta’s June 24 testimony to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) July 12 said that the decision to keep the program from Congress was “something that should never, ever happen again.” She also suggested that Cheney and other members of the Bush administration might have broken the law by ordering that the CIA conceal the program. Some Republicans suggested that because the program had never gotten beyond its planning stages, its disclosure to the lawmakers had not necessarily been legally required. Intelligence Briefing Changes Opposed—

The White House July 8 announced in a statement that President Barack Obama would veto an intelligence authorization bill if it contained a House provision expanding the number of members of Congress required to be briefed by the executive branch on secret intelligence activities. The statement said the proposed changes would damage “a long tradition of comity between the [legislative and executive] branches regarding intelligence matters.” Congressional Democrats had previously argued that the limited number of lawmakers who were briefed on intelligence issues had allowed the Bush administration to keep some of its controversial antiterrorism and intelligence policies from receiving required congressional oversight. Under the provision, the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees could allow all members of the committee to have access to classified intelligence briefings. Currently, the executive branch was required to brief only the speaker of the House, the House minority leader, the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the top-ranking Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, known collectively as the “Gang of Eight.” n

Intelligence Surveillance Program Effectiveness Doubted.

The antiterrorism surveillance and warrantless wiretapping programs put in place by the administration of former President George W. Bush did not play a significant role in averting terrorist attacks against the U.S. and could potentially have damaged prosecutions against terrorism suspects, according to a report released by the U.S. government July 10. The report summarized a classified review carried out by the inspectors general of the Defense Department, Justice Department, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had been required by the 2008 update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). [See pp. 410G1, 337E2; 2008, p. 465D2] The report was based in part on interviews with about 200 intelligence officials, independent intelligence contractors and other persons with direct knowledge of the secret surveillance programs. However,

major figures in the creation and execution of the programs, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, had declined to be interviewed. The report found that the programs “may have” contributed to counterterrorism successes, but that most of those interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” where they had played a substantial role. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had found that “most leads” supplied by the surveillance were “determined not to have any connection to terrorism.” Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials had argued that the surveillance was an essential part of U.S. antiterrorism activities, and claimed that it had helped avert terrorist attacks. The report suggested that the secret nature of the programs might have damaged their usefulness by keeping government agencies and operatives who were not briefed on the programs from making full use of them in seeking out and responding to terrorist threats. ‘Scary Memos’ Aided Authorization—

The review found that the authorization of the government’s antiterrorism surveillance programs had been based on a terrorism threat report prepared by a CIA analyst. The review said that the threat assessment had been altered to include phrasing about possible future terrorist attacks against the U.S., and that the changes had been suggested by an unidentified White House official. The programs, known collectively within the government as the “President’s Surveillance Program,” included the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping—first disclosed by the New York Times in December 2005—and data-mining programs, among others. [See p. 445G2] The initial terrorism threat report was followed by a series of similar reports, which were nicknamed “scary memos” within the government, that were used to justify the reauthorization of the program by the attorney general every 45 days. The review found that CIA analysts came to realize that inserting language into the report about possible future terrorist attacks against the U.S. would ensure that the authorizations continued. According to the review, the legal justification for the program had first been set down in a secret November 2001 memorandum written by Yoo. A proponent of nearly limitless presidential powers during wartime, Yoo argued in the memo that FISA could not be interpreted as placing any limits on such powers. For a number of years, Yoo was reportedly one of only three people in the Justice Department informed about the President’s Surveillance Program. [See p. 257F2] The report found that the Justice Department’s initial approval of the program had been based on an incomplete and incorrect understanding of the surveillance activities that were actually being carried out by the NSA, suggesting that some of the intelligence-gathering done in the first two and a half years of the program’s existence had FACTS ON FILE

been done without any legal authorization or justifications. Justice Department officials who learned of Yoo’s analysis beginning in 2003 were troubled by its flaws, leading to a notorious 2004 confrontation between Deputy Attorney General James Comey, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card relating to the NSA’s data-mining program. The report said Gonzales temporarily authorized the President’s Surveillance Program after Comey, who was then acting attorney general while Ashcroft underwent medical treatment, refused to do so. When the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret intelligence court set up by FISA, was allowed to review the President’s Surveillance Program, it ruled that parts of it were illegal, requiring the Bush administration to lobby Congress to pass a controversial 2008 update to FISA. Legality of Program Unsettled—The report criticized the Bush administration for failing to conduct a full legal review of the President’s Surveillance Program before putting it into effect, but did not issue any conclusions regarding whether the program had broken U.S. laws. Critics had long argued that the Bush administration’s failure to inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping, among other aspects of the program, had violated FISA, which required that the court approve all wiretapping and electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens or residents within the U.S. The review also recommended that the Justice Department investigate whether the government’s secret antiterrorism surveillance programs had sabotaged criminal cases against terrorism defendants. Federal law required that defendants be given access to all potentially exculpatory information held by prosecutors. Sen. Russell Feingold (D, Wis.) July 10 said, “The report leaves no doubt that the warrantless wiretapping program was blatantly illegal and an unconstitutional assertion of executive power.” He called on “the Obama administration and its Justice Department to withdraw the flawed legal memoranda that justified the program.” n

General Motors Emerges From Bankruptcy as Smaller Company Government Takes 61% Stake in ‘New’ GM.

Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Corp. (GM), which since December 2008 had received billions of dollars in federal loans before it was forced into bankruptcy by President Barack Obama in June, July 10 announced that its profitable components had been sold to a new, smaller company called General Motors Co. The new company was 60.8% owned by the U.S. government. The Canadian government took a 11.7% share, the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union took a 17.5% stake, and bondholders in the “old” GM received a 10% stake. GM’s trip through bankruptcy court lasted 40 days—many July 16, 2009

analysts had expected it to last more than twice that long. Edward Whitacre, the former chairman of AT&T Corp., would be chairman of the new GM; he had been tapped June 9 by Obama’s auto task force. [See pp. 475E3, 385A1, 365A1] The unprofitable parts of GM became a company called Motors Liquidation Co. Analysts expected it would take two to three years before all of its components were sold off under court supervision. The Obama administration would provide $1.18 billion to facilitate the liquidation. GM had entered bankruptcy with a debt of $176 billion. The new GM took on $48.4 billion of the old company’s debt. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber estimated that the new GM was worth as much as $73.1 billion. Gerber July 5 had authorized the sale, which was finalized after a fourday stay on the deal expired. Gerber had approved the deal despite objections by more than 850 parties to the fast-track restructuring under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, including bondholders, car dealers and parties with liability claims against the old GM. (Under a Chapter 11 restructuring, bondholders would have been able to vote on the sale.) Gerber sided with the U.S. Treasury and GM, which had argued that anything other than the government-guided restructuring would have resulted in a total liquidation of GM, which would have reverberated painfully throughout the U.S. economy. “In the event of a liquidation,” Gerber wrote, “creditors now trying to increase their incremental recoveries would get nothing.” [See p. 366D1] GM officials said it planned to repay $6.7 billion in government loans before a 2015 deadline. The Treasury was expected to recover more of the $50 billion in aid it had given GM with the eventual sale of its equity stake in the automaker. GM Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Fritz Henderson said, “Our performance over time will determine if the taxpayers are made whole.” A number of analysts expressed skepticism that the government would ever be paid back in full. GM shares were not expected to become publicly available until the second quarter of 2010. GM’s rapid restructuring was considered a political victory for Obama, who had faced criticism over the government’s unprecedented intervention in the auto industry and other sectors. GM To Shake Up Management Structure—

Following the July 10 sale, the new GM was expected to eliminate thousands of jobs and change its corporate strategy, which had been criticized as insular, bloated and out of touch with consumers. Henderson said, “From this point on, our efforts are dedicated to customers, cars, culture and repaying the taxpayer.” He added, “It is a new era, and everyone associated with the company must realize this and be prepared to change, fast.” GM planned to drop 35% of its U.S. executives, in addition to other job cuts. By the end of 2009, GM was expected to have 68,500 employees, down from 91,000 at the end of 2008. It would operate 37 plants

in the U.S. by 2010, down from 47 in 2008. The number of GM dealerships countrywide would fall to 3,600 by the end of 2010, from about 6,000 earlier in 2009. [See p. 338D3]

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Smaller GM Retains Profitable Brands—

The new GM that emerged July 10 would be composed of four of the old GM’s most profitable brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. GM June 5 had announced that its Saturn brand and dealer network, along with leftover Saturn parts, would be sold to Bloomfield Hills, Mich.–based Penske Automotive Group Inc., a dealership chain. GM would manufacture Saturn models under contract for two years, after which it expected to find another manufacturer to make Saturns. GM’s Pontiac brand would be wound down by the end of 2009. GM’s Hummer brand was slated to be sold to a Chinese engineering firm, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, but the sale was subject to approval by the Chinese government. GM’s Swedish unit, Saab, was sold to Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg Group AB. GM’s largest European unit, Germanybased Adam Opel, had been slated for sale to a group headed by Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc. However, GM July 8 confirmed that it had received a competing offer for Opel from China-based Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC). Belgian investment firm RHJ International SA was also reportedly in the bidding for Opel. [See pp. 367C1, 366F1] n

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Obama Administration Rattner Resigns as Auto Task Force Chief.

Steven Rattner July 13 resigned as head of President Barack Obama’s auto industry restructuring task force, six months after joining the administration. Rattner had led the rapid government-directed bankruptcy restructuring of General Motors Co. (GM) and Chrysler LLC. But his previous career as a financier had come under scrutiny in April when it was reported that the investment firm he had founded, Quadrangle Group LLC, was being investigated by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) for allegedly making improper payments to win business from state pension funds. [See pp. 475G1, 265A2] Former labor negotiator Ron Bloom, another top member of the auto task force, would replace Rattner as its chief. Carlyle Agrees to Settlement—Another company implicated in the pension fund probe, private-equity firm Carlyle Group, May 14 agreed to a settlement with Cuomo. Carlyle agreed to pay a $20 million fine and stop hiring politically connected middlemen, known as placement agents, to help it bid for pension fund business. Carlyle also pledged to reduce its campaign contributions to elected officials who controlled pension funds, and to disclose any related conflicts of interest. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, placement agent 475

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Henry (Hank) Morris, a former political strategist, had helped Carlyle obtain $730 million in business from the New York pension fund for state workers after Carlyle hired him in 2003. The pension fund was run at the time by then-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi (D), a longtime client and friend of Morris. Carlyle paid $13 million to Searle & Co., Morris’s firm. Morris was arrested in March and charged with running a kickback scheme. n Benjamin Nominated as Surgeon General.

President Barack Obama July 13 nominated Regina Benjamin, 52, as surgeon general. Benjamin had worked as a family doctor in rural Alabama for almost 20 years. In September 2008, she won a MacArthur Fellowship, or “genius grant,” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in part for her work founding a health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., where more than 40% of residents lacked health insurance. Benjamin had famously rebuilt the clinic three times after it was destroyed by fire and hurricanes. [See p. 145B3; 2008, p. 711A2] Benjamin said that, if confirmed by the Senate, she would “be a voice in the movement to improve our nation’s health care.” Benjamin would become the first black woman to serve as surgeon general, who led the uniformed Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. In 2002, she had become the first black woman to lead a state medical society when she was named the president of the Alabama Medical Association. n

Medicine & Health Democrats Release Insurance Reform Plan.

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House Democrats July 14 released a bill intended to extend health insurance to 37 million people over 10 years, partly by establishing a government-run health insurance plan beginning in 2013. The reform plan would be partially paid for by a new progressive tax scheme imposed on families earning more than $350,000 per year, and individuals earning more than $280,000 annually. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made a preliminary estimate that the plan would cost $1 trillion over the next 10 years, while Democratic aides pegged the cost at more than $1.2 trillion. [See p. 457F2] Democratic lawmakers and President Barack Obama had made a priority of significantly expanding health care in the U.S. in order to provide coverage to the uninsured, while also lowering overall health care costs. Obama that day lauded the legislation, saying it would “lower costs, provide better care for patients and ensure fair treatment of consumers by the health care industry.” Under the proposed plan, the taxes would start in 2011 at 1% on incomes over $350,000, then rise to 1.5% for those making over $500,000 and top out at 5.4% on incomes exceeding $1 million. However, the two lower tax rates might rise to 2% and 3%, respectively, depending on the ac476

tual cost of the health care expansion. The new tax was expected to generate $544 billion over a decade. The plan also called for changes to the corporate tax code that would yield an estimated $37 billion. Additional savings were expected from cuts to Medicare, which served the elderly and disabled, and other federal health programs. The Democrats’ bill also called for an expansion of eligibility rules for Medicaid, which provided health care to the poor, and for the establishment of tax credits toward obtaining insurance coverage for those making up to 400% of the federal poverty level. Companies would be required to offer insurance to employees, or else be fined up to 8% of their payroll, with exceptions made for companies with annual payrolls of less than $250,000. Individuals would also be required to obtain insurance by 2013, or else face a fine of 2.5% of their income. Individuals and small businesses would also be able to obtain insurance through “exchanges” in which insurers would compete with one another. The plan elicited sharp criticism from Republicans, who decried the new tax, and business trade groups, who said it would make hiring new employees more expensive. A group of moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats had also refrained from supporting the bill, citing its potential negative impact on small business owners and high costs. House leaders had expressed a desire to have three key committees clear the bill so that it could be brought to the House for a full vote and reconciled with a companion Senate bill before Congress’s August recess. However, the House bill was not expected to garner much support among Republicans. Some Democrats facing reelection in 2010 might also balk at voting for the measure’s tax increase, which was also expected to face significant opposition among Senate Democrats. Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, July 10 had proposed using the new income tax to pay for the reform plan. Senate Committee Passes Companion—

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee July 15 passed, 13– 10, its own version of a bill to overhaul the U.S. health care system. The bill passed along party lines, underscoring the divide between Democrats and Republicans in shaping a reform measure. That version of a reform plan, which also included a public insurance plan option, had been crafted by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), who had assumed the task while Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), the committee’s chairman, was absent while being treated for brain cancer. [See p. 457F3] The committee’s bill would have to be combined with a measure to be produced by the Senate Finance Committee, whose members were reportedly considering imposing new fees on health insurers to help pay for health care reform.

CBO Warns of High Cost of Plans—

Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf July 16 warned that the reform bills proposed by Democratic members of the House and Senate were likely to increase the cost of health care to the federal government. “We do no see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount,” he said, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee. He added, “On the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.” Fiscal conservatives from both parties quickly seized on the testimony as further evidence that the plans were too expensive. Also, the American Medical Association (AMA) July 16 said it supported the House bill, in a key endorsement. n Final Stem Cell Funding Rules Set. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) July 6 released final rules on the funding of embryonic stem cell research, allowing researchers working with many older stem cell lines access to federal money. President Barack Obama in March had reversed a prohibition on the federal funding of new embryonic stem cell research. The NIH in April had released proposed rules for governing the use of federal funds for such research, but advocates of stem cell research had criticized the proposal for being too restrictive. [See p. 268B1] Scientists had criticized the proposed rules for requiring donors of embryos to sign “informed consent” forms that were so strict that they might force some researchers to abandon already existing stem cell lines in order to ensure compliance. The final rules, which took effect July 7, required that all stem cell lines receiving federal funds be created ethically. That meant that an embryo used to create a stem cell line must have been slated for destruction after an in vitro fertilization attempt, that the embryo donors be fully aware of its intended use to create stem cells and that no donor was paid for the embryo. Researchers said the revised rules would allow funding for work on 21 stem cell lines created with government funds, as well as some 700 other lines that had been created with private money. n

Economy Obama Defends Policies, Boosts Education.

President Barack Obama July 14 defended his administration’s policies to pull the economy out of an ongoing recession, arguing that a $787 billion stimulus package signed in February had prevented a significant number of job losses. Obama’s remarks, made to reporters at the White House, were followed by a campaign-style rally in Warren, Mich., where he unveiled a 10-year, $12 billion program to boost the number of graduates from community colleges. [See pp. 475G1, 456B1, 371A2] At the rally, held at Macomb Community College, Obama struck back at Republican critics who had said the national unemployment rate—now at 9.5%—showed FACTS ON FILE

that the stimulus package was not working, and had only served to bloat the budget deficit. Obama, who had succeeded Republican President George W. Bush in February, said, “I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy.’” He added, “That’s fine. Give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe.” Obama told the crowd in Warren, a town hard hit by the recession and a yearslong decline in the automobile industry, that “the hard truth is that some of the jobs that have been lost in the auto industry and elsewhere won’t be coming back.” Michigan had voted for Obama in the November 2008 presidential election, but currently had the highest unemployment rate in the U.S., at about 14%. Editorials from leading Michigan newspapers earlier that day had criticized the stimulus package as ineffective and urged Obama to do more to turn around the economy. Obama said the community-college program would provide adults with new job opportunities. The program would provide aid to community colleges to modernize their facilities and offer more online courses, and bestow grants to schools implementing innovative programs that boosted graduation rates. The program was designed to increase the number of community college graduates by five million by 2020. It was to be paid for with money saved by a legislative proposal to overhaul the federal student loan system, which would end subsidies to private lenders. [See p. 149F2] At the White House earlier that day, Obama warned, “My expectation is, is that we will probably continue to see unemployment tick up for several months.” The economy’s continued slide had prompted calls for a second stimulus package, but the Obama administration had largely resisted such pressure, arguing that the first package should be given time to take full effect. Obama, discussing the package in an op-ed for the Washington Post published July 12, wrote, “We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.” Obama in his Post piece also addressed criticism that he was tackling too many thorny problems at once, saying reform in health care, energy and education were all necessary to “build a firmer, stronger foundation for growth that not only will withstand future economic storms but that helps us thrive and compete in a global economy.” [See pp. 476E1, 445A1] n Trade Deficit Fell to $26 Billion in May.

The Commerce Department July 10 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in goods Trade Deficit and services for (in billions) May was $26.0 May 2009 $25.96 billion, down Previous Month $28.79 from a revised Year Earlier $60.53 $28.8 billion in April. U.S. exports increased in May, which led analysts to conclude that trade July 16, 2009

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* May April 2009 2009 -17.48 -1.91 -0.63 -2.77 -3.94 0.26

-16.75 -3.22 -1.20 -5.34 -4.12 -0.25

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

could have a positive impact on the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2009. However, imports fell to their lowest level in five years, suggesting that U.S. consumer spending—the largest engine of U.S. economic growth— remained restrained by a deep, ongoing recession. [See p. 389E1] Exports in May rose to $123.3 billion, a $1.9 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was led by increased exports of industrial supplies and materials, and foods, feeds and beverages. Imports decreased by $0.9 billion in May, to $149.3 billion, despite a recent uptick in the price of oil. The change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. [See p. 477D2] n Consumer Prices Rose 0.7% in June. The Labor Department July 15 reported that its consumer price Inflation (CPI) index (CPI), June 2009 0.7% which tracked Previous Month 0.1% prices paid for 12-Month Increase -1.4% consumer goods by all urban consumers, rose 0.7% in June, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after rising 0.1% in May. The bump was attributed to a recent spike in energy prices, which had fallen dramatically in the past year due to an ongoing recession, before rebounding in recent months. [See p. 427D3] For the 12-month period through June, the overall unadjusted inflation rate dipped to -1.4%, the fastest annual rate that prices had dropped since January 1950. The yearly decline was fueled by a 25.5% fall in the price of energy. Energy prices rose 7.4% in June. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2% in June. For the 12-month period through June, core consumer prices climbed 1.7%, dampening fears that the recession could lead to a lasting trend of falling prices, or deflation. n Industrial Production Fell 0.4% in June.

The Federal Reserve July 15 reported that its industrial production index decreased 0.4% in June, the 17th time the index had dropped in 18 months, as an ongoing recession continued to take a toll on the automotive and housing sectors. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 1.2% in May. [See p. 355A3]

The overall index now stood at 95.4% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 95.8% for May. Manufacturing production fell 0.6% in June. The output of utilities rose 0.8%, and mining output fell 0.5%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 68.0% of their total capacity in June. Initial May Data Reported—The Fed June 16 reported that its industrial production index decreased 1.1% in May. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 0.7% in April. The overall index stood at 95.8% of its 2002 base average, down from its revised level of 96.9% for April. Manufacturing production fell 1.0% in May. The output of utilities fell 1.4%, and mining output fell 2.1%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 68.3% of their total capacity in May. n Retail Sales Rose 0.6% in June. The Commerce Department July 14 reported that the value of retail sales in June was $342.1 billion, after seasonal adjustment. That was 0.6% above the revised figure for May. The uptick was attributed to the rising cost of gasoline. [See p. 428D1] n

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Business Inventories Down 1% in May.

The Commerce Department July 14 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of May was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.0% from the revised value at the end of April. Economists said dwindling inventories were a sign that businesses were still hesitant to bulk up on stock, fearing that an ongoing recession had depressed consumer demand. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace— was 1.42. [See p. 428D1] n Producer Prices Rose 1.8% in June. The Labor Department July 14 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in June rose 1.8% after seasonal adjustment, which was largely attributed to rising energy prices. “Core” producer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food prices, rose 0.5% in June, while energy prices rose 6.6%. [See p. 427F3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 174.1% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $174.10 in June. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods rose 1.9% in June, and prices for crude goods climbed 4.6%. n

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Politics Sen. Burris Forgoes Election Bid. Sen. Roland Burris (D, Ill.) July 10 announced that he would not run for election to a full term in 2010. Burris had been in office for only six months since his controversial appointment by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to fill the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. [See pp. 218B3, 93F1] Blagojevich had been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 477

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December 2008 in connection with corrupt schemes including an attempt to sell Obama’s seat for personal gain. Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office in January and indicted on sixteen felony corruption counts in April. In January, Burris had testified under oath before the Illinois state legislature that he had not discussed doing any favors for Blagojevich, such as raising campaign funds, in exchange for the Senate appointment. However, in February, Burris revealed that he had unsuccessfully tried to raise funds for Blagojevich in November 2008, when the governor was seeking lucrative offers for the Senate seat. That admission prompted the Senate Ethics Committee to open an investigation into whether Burris had made an improper quid-pro-quo agreement with Blagojevich. Then, Judge James Holderman of U.S. District Court in Chicago May 26 ruled that an FBI wiretap recording of a telephone conversation between Burris and the governor’s brother, Robert Blagojevich, could be unsealed. In the Nov. 13 conversation, Burris promised to personally contribute money to the governor’s campaign fund, and asked for “consideration to get that appointment.” However, Burris in a radio interview May 27 said he had never made good on the offer of a campaign contribution, “because I came to the conclusion that it would not be ethical or right for me to do that.” He declared, “Please understand that there was no pay-to-play in this or any intention of pay-to-play.” State prosecutor John Schmidt June 19 said Burris would not be charged with perjury for his January testimony before a special impeachment committee of the Illinois state House. Schmidt said a four-month investigation had found that Burris’s testimony was “incomplete,” but added that there was “insufficient evidence to prove Senator Burris made a statement he knew to be false.” Schmidt had questioned Burris June 15. In his July 10 announcement, Burris said he had decided not to run for election in 2010 because raising enough money for a campaign would take up too much of his time. Shunned by the Illinois Democratic establishment, he had not been viewed as a viable candidate. Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D) had both called on him to resign in February. Burris, 71, was currently the only black member of the Senate. n Sen. Ensign’s Parents Paid Mistress $96,000.

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The parents of Sen. John Ensign (R, Nev.) had paid $96,000 to his former mistress and her family, his lawyer said July 9. Ensign in June had admitted to an extramarital affair. His ex-mistress, Cynthia Hampton, had worked for Ensign as the treasurer of his political action committee and reelection campaign, and her husband, Douglas Hampton, had been Ensign’s chief of staff. [See p. 410B1] According to Ensign’s lawyer, Paul Coggins, the payments were made in April 2008, in eight $12,000 installments (the 478

maximum tax-free gift at the time). The Hamptons and their two children each received two $12,000 checks. The Hamptons both resigned from their staff positions soon after the payments. Coggins said the payments were made with personal funds. Ensign’s father was a wealthy former casino executive. Coggins insisted that the payments were legal, and did not violate campaign finance or ethics rules. However, a political corruption watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), July 9 asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the payments. CREW June 24 had requested that the Senate Ethics Committee and the Federal Election Commission probe the matter. Douglas Hampton in a television interview July 8 had accused Ensign of sexual harassment of his wife, and claimed that Ensign had asked him to resign in order to help cover up the affair. He also alleged that Ensign had paid his wife $25,000 in severance money. CREW said such a payment could be a felony crime if it had not been publicly disclosed as an in-kind contribution to his campaign. Hampton also claimed that Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.) had counseled Ensign to end the affair and offer financial compensation to the Hamptons. Coburn and Ensign lived in the same Christian fellowship home when in Washington, D.C. Coburn July 9 told the political newspaper Roll Call that he would refuse any summons to testify about his role in the matter, before a court or the Senate Ethics Committee, claiming a right to confidentiality as a medical and religious adviser. Coburn, an obstetrician, said, “I was counseling him as a physician and as an ordained deacon,” adding, “That is privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody.” Ensign July 13 told the Las Vegas Sun that he planned to remain in office and run for reelection in 2012. n

2009 Elections Democrat Chu Wins California House Seat.

Former State Assembly member Judy Chu July 14 won a special election for a vacant U.S. House seat representing California’s 32nd Congressional District, covering East Los Angeles and adjacent suburbs in the San Gabriel Valley, including Covina and El Monte. Hilda Solis had resigned from the House seat upon her confirmation as U.S. labor secretary in February. [See p. 340D2] Chu, 56, became the first ChineseAmerican woman elected to Congress. She had won a primary in May, defeating several Hispanic rivals. More than 60% of the district’s residents were Hispanic, while about 20% were of Asian background. Chu, a former psychology professor, had been elected in 2006 to the California Board of Equalization, which oversaw the state taxation system. Chu won 62% of the vote in the July 14 general election. Republican Betty Tom

Chu, who was a cousin by marriage of the victor, took 33%; Libertarian Christopher Agrella won 5%. Special Election Set for Bay Area Seat—

The Senate June 25 confirmed President Barack Obama’s nomination of Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D, Calif.) as undersecretary of state for arms control. Tauscher formally vacated her House seat the next day, prompting a special election in the 10th Congressional District in the suburbs east of San Francisco, which she had represented since 1997. The primary election was scheduled for Sept. 1, and the general election, Nov. 3. Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) was viewed as the front-runner in a field of at least 12 candidates. n

Environment EPA Grants California Emissions Waiver.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) June 30 said it had approved a request from the California government for a permit that would allow the state to establish standards for automobile greenhouse gas emissions that were more stringent than federal rules. The EPA’s granting of the waiver was a reversal from the agency’s stance during the administration of former President George W. Bush. [See p. 47G1; 2008, p. 557F3] The EPA in 2007, under then-Administrator Stephen Johnson, had denied California’s request, despite previously approving dozens of similar waivers. The agency had argued that California’s air pollution conditions were not unique, despite special dispensation given the state by the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions. [See 2007, p. 845B3] EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the reversal was based on the presumption that California’s history of air pollution problems granted it the authority to establish strict new rules. “This decision was based on law, and not at all on politics,” she said. The reversal had been widely anticipated, as President Barack Obama in January had instructed the EPA to reconsider its refusal to grant the waiver. Under California’s rules, manufacturers would have to reduce the average emissions of their fleets by 14% below 2008 levels by 2011. The California standards, which took effect immediately, had also been adopted by 13 other states and Washington, D.C. Obama in May had announced new federal fuel economy standards that were expected to reduce vehiclegenerated emissions by 30% by 2016, the same as California’s target. n

Media ‘Washington Post’ Drops Sponsored Salons.

The Washington Post July 2 announced that it would cancel a planned series of dinner parties in which companies and lobbyists could pay to sponsor private, off-the-record policy discussions with Post journalists and Obama administration officials at Post Publisher Katherine Weymouth’s home. FACTS ON FILE

The parties had been reported earlier that day by the Web site Politico, and was criticized by many as a breach of journalistic ethics. [See p. 324B2; 2008, p. 470F3] A promotional flier offered companies the opportunity to sponsor a so-called salon for $25,000, or a series of 11 salons for $250,000. The first such event was a health-care discussion scheduled for June 21; the flier said it was “underwritten by Kaiser Permanente” health maintenance organization (HMO), but that company said it had not finalized the deal. The flier asserted that “an evening with the right people can alter the debate,” and said of the promised conversations, “Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No.” Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said they had not seen the flier, which had reportedly been released by Charles Pelton, a marketing executive who had recently been hired to organize the salons. They apologized for the flier’s wording, which they said was misleading. However, Weymouth said she would consider holding conferences in the future to secure new revenue streams for the Post. The Washington Post Co. had lost $19.5 million in the first quarter of 2009. Pelton said Rep. Jim Cooper (D, Tenn.) had agreed to attend the salon as a guest, and that Obama administration health adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle had also been invited. A White House spokeswoman said no senior officials had accepted invitations to the salon. Post newsroom employees reacted with outrage when the program was publicized, and Brauchli said in a memorandum that “the language in the flier and the description of the event preclude” the participation of journalists and editors. The Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, in a report July 12 called the plan “an ethical lapse of monumental proportions,” and said, “The Post’s reputation now carries a lasting stain.” Analysts said they were troubled by the perception that the program allowed companies to pay for private access to compliant journalists and politicians, and said it went against newspapers’ role as an advocate for the general public rather than special interests. The Post July 6 initiated internal reviews in order to better align future business decisions with journalistic ethics. ‘Atlantic’ Defends Similar Forums—

Many other news organizations regularly held conferences with journalists, policymakers and business leaders. Most of those conferences were on the record, and members of the public could buy tickets to attend. However, Atlantic Media Co., which published the Atlantic, National Journal and Government Executive magazines, since 2003 had been holding sponsored, off-the-record and closed policy discussions similar to those planned by the Post. Atlantic Media Chairman David Bradley July 6 posted a note on the company’s Web site explaining its program. He said it facilitated “dialogue and debate, without the advance of a particular interest.” HowJuly 16, 2009

ever, he added that some of Atlantic Media’s advertising materials did not reflect that, and pledged to make sure that they were more accurate in the future. n

Welfare Climb in Recipients Seen. The Wall Street

Journal June 22 reported that, according to a survey it had conducted with the National Conference of State Legislatures, welfare rolls across the country were rising for the first time since a 1996 welfare reform law went into effect. The survey found an increased number of people on welfare in 23 of the U.S.’s largest 30 states. More than 88% of the U.S.’s population lived in those 30 states. [See 2006, p. 549D1; 1996, p. 622C2] According to the Journal, the states recording the largest increases of those on welfare were also the states suffering from the highest levels of unemployment. In Oregon, the number of people on welfare had increased 27% between May 2008 and May 2009, while the figure jumped 23% in South Carolina during the same time period. In California, the number climbed 10% between March 2008 and March 2009. Analysts said the figures reflected that the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, created under the 1996 law to replace earlier welfare and jobtraining programs, was working as designed. The program, which placed time limits on receiving benefits and was oriented to moving recipients into employment, was largely used by women with children and either no employment or a low-paying job. n

Crime Judge Pleads Guilty to Obstruction. Feder-

al Judge Samuel Kent Feb. 23 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas, to one count of obstruction of justice and agreed to step down as a judge as part of an agreement with prosecutors to avoid a trial on sex-crime charges. Under the deal, prosecutors agreed to drop other charges pending against Kent, including aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact, among other charges; in exchange, Kent agreed to step down and to admit that his advances toward two subordinates had not been invited. [See 2008, p. 750F2] Kent had been accused of groping and otherwise sexually harassing two subordinates while serving as a judge in U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas; he had been transferred to U.S. District Court in Houston after being reprimanded in 2007 by the Judicial Council of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, La., and receiving a four-month suspension. Kent May 11 was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison and three years of post-release probation. He was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and to pay $6,550 to his two accusers. Prosecutors had agreed not to seek a prison term of more

than three years in connection with the obstruction charge. He was ordered to report to prison June 15. Dick DeGuerin, Kent’s lawyer, May 11 said that Kent suffered from alcoholism and bipolar disorder, and would retire from the federal bench on medical grounds, effective June 2010. Federal judges who retired due to disabilities were allowed to continue drawing their full salaries and benefits until death. Judges who simply resigned their seats received no additional payments. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D, Mich.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R, Texas), the committee’s highest-ranking Republican, May 11 issued a joint statement calling for Kent’s immediate resignation and threatening to launch “an inquiry into whether grounds exist to impeach him and remove him from office” if he failed to do so. The committee June 10 voted, 29–0, to approve four articles of impeachment against Kent. Kent June 24 submitted his resignation after being served with a summons from the House Judiciary Committee. Kent’s resignation took effect on June 30. Impeachment proceedings were not expected to continue, since Kent’s resignation meant he would no longer receive a salary or benefits from the federal government. n

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Energy News in Brief. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Feb. 17 voted, 4–0,

to approve regulations that required all future nuclear power plants to implement safeguards that would allow their reactors

to survive a direct impact from a commercial passenger jet. The regulation, which

did not apply to the U.S.’s 104 alreadyoperational nuclear reactors, had resulted from more than two years of discussion by the commission, initiated in light of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. carried out using hijacked passenger jets. Under the regulation, the plants’ reactors, coolant systems and spent fuel stores were required to be designed to remain intact following a collision. [See 2003, p. 184A2; 2002, p. 41E2] Energy Secretary Steven Chu March 20 announced that the Energy Department had offered $535 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra Inc. to help fund the construction of a solar panel manufacturing plant, marking the first time it had extended loan guarantees to support the development and production of alternative sources of energy. Solyndra was allowed to use the guarantees to fund 73% of the cost of the plant, which was expected to employ more than 500 people and produce 15 gigawatts of electricity with minimal carbon emissions. The Energy Department had been authorized by Congress in 2005 to guarantee up to $38.5 billion in loans to support alternative energy. However, a complicated approval process, among other issues, had delayed the program. Solyndra had reportedly first applied for the loan guarantees in 2006. [See 2008, p. 446G3] n 479

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AFRICA

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Sierra Leone Taylor Opens Defense at Special Court.

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Lawyers for former Liberian President Charles Taylor July 13 opened the defense’s case before the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a joint national and United Nations tribunal set up to try those who held the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s 1991–2002 civil war. (However, the Special Court’s mandate allowed it to only prosecute crimes committed between 1996 and 2002.) Taylor’s trial, on 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law, had been moved to The Hague, the Netherlands, from Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, due to concerns that Taylor’s presence in West Africa could cause instability. [See p. 325A1, C1] The trial of Taylor, who had served as Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003 and was the first former African head of state to face an international criminal court, had opened in 2007. He had pleaded not guilty to accusations of providing financial and logistical backing to Sierra Leone’s vicious Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group—including trading weapons for illegally mined diamonds—and of directing the RUF’s activities. The prosecution in February had rested its case after calling 91 witnesses. The court in May had rejected a request by Taylor, 61, to have the case dismissed. Taylor’s lead attorney, Briton Courtenay Griffiths, July 13 gave the defense’s opening statement. He asserted that Taylor could not be held responsible for the RUF’s atrocities, which included murder, mass rape, the mutilation of civilians and the kidnapping of children to use as fighters or sex slaves. He argued that prosecution witnesses who testified that Taylor had supported the RUF and had been involved in atrocities were “lying,” and that Taylor had in fact attempted to serve as a peacemaker in the region, at the request of other West African leaders. The defense reportedly had said it planned to call some 250 witnesses, although that was considered unlikely. Taylor Takes the Witness Stand— Taylor took the witness stand July 14–16, in the first stage of testimony that was expected to last several weeks. Taylor July 14 said the allegations made by the prosecution were based on “disinformation, misinformation, lies, rumors.” Regarding the charges that he had traded arms to the RUF for diamonds, Taylor said, “Never, ever did I receive…any diamonds from the RUF. It is a lie, a diabolical lie.” He also denied encouraging or ordering the RUF to carry out the amputations—including chopping off the limbs of civilians— for which it became notorious. “I would never ever have accepted that in Liberia and we would never have encouraged that in Sierra Leone,” he said. 480

Taylor July 15 testified about events dating back nearly 30 years, claiming that, in 1980, he had joined the government of then–Liberian President Samuel Doe in an effort to fight corruption. He said he had been forced to flee to the U.S. in the mid1980s due to his anti-corruption activities. Rebels led by Taylor had helped to oust Doe in 1990. In the July 16 court session, Griffiths continued to question Taylor about his background as a rebel leader in Liberia. Griffiths said he was trying to dispel the image, painted by the prosecution, that “Taylor was from the outset a bloodthirsty warlord with no belief in the rule of law or human rights.” In testimony that day, Taylor, while denying such allegations as using child soldiers or disemboweling enemy soldiers, admitted that he had allowed his fighters to display the skulls of enemy soldiers at roadblocks. “Skulls were used as symbols of death,” he said, but added, “These were only skulls that I saw and I would not have tolerated anyone killing and putting a human head up.” David Crane, the former chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone who had drawn up the charges against Taylor in 2003, July 14 called Taylor’s denial of the charges a “risky strategy.” Crane said the prosecution, currently led by Stephen Rapp, had “several smoking guns” that proved Taylor’s direct involvement in n the RUF’s activities.

AMERICAS

Honduras Zelaya Return Negotiations Falter. Dele-

gates representing ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and de facto Honduran government leader Roberto Micheletti July 10 continued negotiations begun the previous day in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital. Zelaya in late June had been awoken in the middle of the night at gunpoint and immediately flown out of the country by the military, which had the backing of the country’s National Congress and the Supreme Court. Those entities and other opponents had criticized efforts by Zelaya to reform the constitution, arguing that his true intent was to consolidate power in the presidency. [See p. 459D3] Micheletti’s regime had been roundly condemned by other countries for deposing Zelaya. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, serving as mediator, had attempted to reconcile the two sides. But neither Zelaya nor Micheletti would agree to faceto-face meetings, leaving the negotiations to lower-level representatives. The talks July 10 concluded with no substantive progress reported. Nevertheless, Arias July 16 said both sides had agreed to form a government comprised of all political parties that would check presidential power. Protests both for and against Zelaya’s return to power continued July 10–16 in Honduras. The demonstrations underscored the divide within Honduran society over the bloodless coup d’etat. A CID-Gallup poll published July 9 showed that Hon-

durans were almost evenly split on the issue, with 46% disagreeing with the military’s decision to depose Zelaya, and 41% approving of the action. Zelaya, speaking at a news conference in Guatemala, July 14 called on his supporters to consider a violent overthrow of the de facto government in order to secure his return to power. “Nobody owes allegiance to a usurper government that took power by arms, and the people have the right to insurrection and to oppose those measures,” he said. Micheletti July 15 said he was willing to relinquish power, as long as it was guaranteed that Zelaya would not be reinstated as president. Under Honduran law, in the event of Micheletti’s resignation, the presidency would be passed to the president of the Supreme Court, Jorge Rivera. n

Mexico Drug Cartel Sets Series of Police Attacks.

Gunmen from the Mexican drug trafficking cartel La Familia July 11 launched a series of coordinated attacks on federal troops and police stationed in eight cities throughout the western state of Michoacan, killing five police officers and wounding at least 12 others. The assaults began in Morelia, the state capital of Michoacan, early in the morning, hours after Arnold Rueda Medina, an alleged lieutenant to reputed La Familia founder Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, was arrested by police. [See p. 431B2] Groups of gunmen staged a failed attempt to free Rueda, then began surprise attacks on several federal police barracks, a police convoy and a hotel where police were housed. Three of the killed police officers were returning from the scene of an accident near Zitacuror when they were attacked. Two off-duty officers returning to their housing in Zamora were also shot and killed that day. Federal officials said the attacks had been waged with military-grade guns and grenades. Officials July 12 said they had detained two suspects in the attacks. Federal authorities July 14 said 12 corpses bearing signs of torture found the previous day were off-duty federal police officers. The officers had reportedly been investigating organized crime in Michoacan, and were found with a sign threatening police. The discovery of the bodies, all of which had been shot in the head at close range, made the incident the highest oneday death toll for police since President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa had dispatched some 45,000 troops across the country to combat the drug trade soon after taking office in December 2006. The resulting violence had left more than 11,000 people dead. La Familia, one of a newer breed of smaller and more violent cartels, was believed to be fighting for lucrative cocaine trafficking routes from the port of Lazaro Cardenas to the U.S. Other News—In other drug trafficking– and violence-related news: o Police July 14 issued a warrant for Cesar Godoy Toscano, the half-brother of Leonel Godoy, the governor of Michoacan FACTS ON FILE

state. Police accused Godoy Toscano, a newly elected member of Mexico’s Congress, of providing protection for La Familia members. [See p. 460D2] o Federal troops had captured 25 men who had disguised themselves as soldiers, Defense Department officials said June 14. The fake soldiers had been captured during a June 11 raid in Nicolas Bravo, in Chihuahua state, which also yielded 29 automatic rifles. o The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) June 18 reported that the U.S. did not have a comprehensive strategy to stop guns bought in the country from being smuggled to Mexico for use by drug cartels and other criminals. The GAO report found that the majority of weapons smuggled from the U.S. were being used by organized crime outfits to kill Mexican police, soldiers and politicians. The report criticized the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for failing to coordinate efforts to staunch the flow of weapons. [See p. 270E3] n

Peru President Garcia Names New Prime Minister.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez July 11 named the head of the country’s legislature, Javier Velasquez Quesquen, as the country’s new prime minister, making him the third person to hold the post since October 2008. Velasquez, 49, replaced Yehude Simon, who had announced his resignation in June following widespread demonstrations by indigenous groups in the country’s Amazon region over laws that would allow logging, mining and other development. At least 33 people were killed in clashes with police during the protest over the laws, which had since been repealed. [See p. 431C3] Velasquez was a member of Garcia’s center-left American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party, and had spent 14 years in the country’s legislature. Garcia that day also replaced seven of the other 16 members of the cabinet. (Under Peru’s constitution, the prime minister was also the cabinet chief.) Kept on were Finance Minister Luis Carranza and Energy Minister Pedro Sanchez. Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas, who had been criticized for her handling of the clashes by opposition lawmakers, was replaced by former national police chief Octavio Salazar. Dozens Arrested in Protests— Several thousand people belonging to the country’s major workers’, teachers’ and transportation unions July 7–8 called for a general strike across Peru in protest of Garcia’s pro-business policies. The demonstrators demanded that the government increase spending on education and social programs for the poor, and ease tough new fines imposed for traffic violations. The demonstrations reportedly slowed traffic in Lima, Peru’s capital, and other large cities. Government officials said some 32,000 police and 6,000 soldiers were dispatched to control the crowds. There were no reJuly 16, 2009

ports of violence resulting from the protests; however, police July 8 said they had arrested 156 people. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australia Rio Tinto Cancels Planned Chinalco Deal.

British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto PLC June 5 announced that it would cancel a planned agreement under which China’s state-owned Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. (Chinalco) would have invested about US$19.5 billion in Rio Tinto, increasing its stake in the company to about 18%, from 9%. The deal would have been the largest Chinese investment to date in a foreign company, and had drawn opposition in Australia. [See 2007, p. 577D2] Rio Tinto June 5 said it would instead issue new shares and enter a joint venture with Australia’s BHP Billiton PLC, a chief competitor. Rio Tinto was required to pay Chinalco a total of $195 million as a fee for canceling the agreement. [See below] Rio Tinto Chairman Jan de Plessis June 5 said that in recent months the Chinalco deal had become less necessary to Rio Tinto, which had debts totaling US$38 billion, as the price of commodities rose and banks and other financial institutions had become more willing to issue corporate loans after a global credit crisis. The agreement between Chinalco and Rio Tinto had been opposed by members of Australia’s parliamentary opposition, who argued that it would give China too much power over Australian commodities and other resources. China was Australia’s largest trading partner and was a major purchaser of Australian raw materials for use in manufacturing. The Australian Foreign Investment Review Board, which had the power to block foreign companies from investing in Australian corporations, had been expected to rule on the deal later in June. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd June 5 said that the scrapping of the Chinalco–Rio Tinto deal was “entirely a commercial matter between Rio on the one hand and Chinalco on the other.” He said Australia’s government had not been involved in the cancellation of the deal. Rio Tinto June 5 announced that it would sell new shares worth $15.2 billion to raise capital and would combine its western Australian iron ore mining operations with those of BHP Billiton. Under the deal, which required approval from regulators, BHP Billiton would also pay Rio Tinto $5.8 billion, providing Rio Tinto with much needed funds. Xiong Weiping, the president of Chinalco, June 5 said that his company was “very disappointed” with the collapse of its deal with Rio Tinto. He said that as a major Rio Tinto shareholder, Chinalco would scrutinize the stock sale and “the plans for the joint venture.” China Charges Rio Tinto Employees—

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith July 8 said the general manager of

Rio Tinto’s Chinese iron ore division, Australian citizen Stern Hu, and three other company employees had been detained since July 5 on charges of espionage and “stealing state secrets.” Chinese state media July 10 said the four were accused of bribing Chinese steel company officials to obtain confidential information concerning negotiations over the price of iron ore. Hu had been representing foreign iron ore producers in the price-setting talks with China’s steelmakers. One Chinese steel mill executive had reportedly been detained July 9, and others were said to be under investigation for passing secret information on to Rio Tinto, which denied knowing about any wrongdoing and said it did not practice bribery. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd July 15 warned that the affair might damage China’s “significant economic interests” in Australia and its dealings with other countries and companies. Some observers said China’s decision to treat the case as a national security matter under its expansive state-secrets laws, rather than under ordinary commercial law, would give pause to foreign companies doing business in China. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman dismissed Rudd’s threats, saying, “It cannot change the facts and the investigation.” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, in China on a previously scheduled visit, July 16 urged “greater transparency” and the observance of “due process” in the case. China had unsuccessfully sought to obtain lower iron ore prices by maintaining unity in the negotiations among its buyers. n

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China News in Brief. China and the U.S. June 23– 24 held a round of their U.S.-China Defense Consultative Talks, the first such meeting

since China in December 2008 suspended the high-level military talks over a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan. The two sides reportedly discussed North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, as well as cooperation to head off confrontations between their naval forces, after a series of incidents stemming from disagreements over the U.S.’s right to conduct maritime surveillance off China’s coast. [See p. 153F1] China’s first gay pride festival was held June 7–14 in Shanghai, highlighting the progress in official acceptance of homosexuality in the country. (Homosexuality had been criminalized until 1997, and officially classified as a mental disorder until 2001.) However, organizers had declined to attempt to hold a march or promote the festival heavily in Chinese, out of concern of running afoul of authorities, and a number of the festival’s events were ordered canceled. The official English-language newspaper, China Daily, praised the festival as a manifestation of social progress, but Chinese-language media reportedly ignored it. About 4,000 people reportedly attended festival events. [See 2005, p. 720G1] 481

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A student who in April had thrown a shoe at Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in Cambridge, England, June 2 was cleared by a Cambridge court of charges of inciting harassment, alarm or distress. The 27-yearold student, German citizen Martin Jahnke, had contended that he had been engaged in legitimate protest not intended to cause actual harm. [See p. 98A3] n

Japan

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Aso Calls August Election. Japan’s govern-

ment July 13 announced that Prime Minster Taro Aso had decided to dissolve the lower house of the Diet (parliament) the following week and call a general election, to be held Aug. 30. Aso made the move a day after the ruling coalition led by his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a historic defeat in municipal elections in Tokyo, the capital, that were seen as a bellwether for the general election, which was due to be held by September. [See p. 342C2] Aso, 68, had taken office in September 2008, and was the third prime minister since 2006, all of whom had served about one year. He had suffered chronically low poll ratings, attributed to the troubled Japanese economy as well as a series of perceived gaffes. He had faced calls from within the LDP to resign so that a new leader might boost the party’s fading chances of staving off an unprecedented defeat at the hands of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). The LDP had controlled Japan’s government since 1955, with only one interruption in 1993–94. In the outgoing lower house, the LDP held 303 of the 480 seats, and its partner New Komeito held 31, while the DPJ had 112. The DPJ in 2007 had won control of the less-powerful upper house, giving it the ability to delay government-backed legislation. The upper house July 14 approved a DPJ-sponsored motion censuring Aso for poor leadership, but the LDP-controlled lower house rebuffed a motion of no confidence in him. LDP Loses Tokyo Council Election—

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The LDP and New Komeito in the July 12 Tokyo elections won a total of 61 seats on the city council, down from the 70 they had held previously, and shy of the 64 needed to control the 127-member body. The DPJ won 54 seats, a gain of 20 from before the election. [See 2001, p. 598D2] Also, DPJ-backed candidate Toshihito Kumagai June 14 had defeated the LDP candidate in a mayoral election in the city of Chiba. (At 31, Kumagai became the youngest mayor in Japan.) Earlier in the year, Aso’s fortunes appeared to brighten when an aide to DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama was implicated in a corruption scandal, potentially tarnishing the opposition’s credentials as a force for political reform. However, similar allegations of illegal political fund-raising had also been raised in connection with two members of Aso’s cabinet, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano and Economy Minister Toshihiro Nikai, in June. 482

In another setback to the prime minister and the LDP’s unity, Interior Minister Kunio Hatoyama (younger brother to the DPJ leader) June 12 resigned in a dispute with Aso over the reappointment of the president of Japan Post, one of the companies belonging to the postal system, which was in the process of being privatized. Hatoyama had sought Aso’s support for blocking the reappointment over disputed asset sales. Hatoyama was criticized by reformist LDP members for whom pressing ahead with the privatization was a central policy priority. [See p. 99A1] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Bulgaria Socialists Ousted in Parliamentary Elections.

The governing Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was defeated by Boyko Borissov’s center-right Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) in July 5 parliamentary elections, according to official results released July 7. Borissov, the mayor of Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, had campaigned on a pledge to battle endemic corruption and bring Bulgaria closer to the European Union, which it had joined in 2007. Despite its member status, the EU had recently denied millions of dollars in aid to Bulgaria over corruption concerns. [See p. 448F3] GERB won 116 seats in the 240-seat parliament, five short of an outright majority, to 40 for the socialists, led by Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov July 16 asked Borissov to form a government. Borissov was expected to form his government with the small Blue Coalition, a group of conservative, marketoriented parties that won 15 parliamentary seats in the elections. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a Western election monitor, in a July 6 statement said the elections were “generally in accordance with international standards, but further efforts are necessary to ensure the integrity of the election process and increase public confidence.” Media outlets reported numerous allegations of vote-buying. Also, several individuals facing serious criminal charges ran unsuccessfully in the elections, enabled by a law that gave immunity to individuals running for office. Those charges included human trafficking, embezzlement and narcotics distribution. n

Sherbini’s killer was identified as Axel W., 28, a Russian immigrant. She had brought a criminal complaint him for calling her a “terrorist” because she wore a Muslim head scarf. She won his conviction and a judgment of 750 euros ($1,050) in November 2008. They were in court July 1 for his appeal of the verdict. He stabbed her while she was giving testimony. Before Axel W. was subdued, police mistakenly shot and wounded Sherbini’s husband, Elvi Ali Okaz, as he tried to save her from the knife attack. Their three-yearold son was also present and saw her killed. Both in Egypt and in the German Muslim community, the German government’s response to the killing was criticized as inadequate, and the case was called a sign of growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe. In late June, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had called for a ban on the burqa, a full-length, face-hiding Muslim women’s garment. In recent years, France and a number of German states had passed laws banning the wearing of head scarves in schools. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office July 8 said she had scheduled a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the case on the sidelines of a Group of Eight (G-8) economic summit meeting that week in L’Aquila, Italy. n

Serbia IMF Increases Lending Amid Slump. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) May 15 said it would increase an existing “standby” credit line to Serbia to about $4 billion, about 10% of Serbia’s gross domestic product. Of that $4 billion, about $1.1 billion was immediately made available, and the rest would be released by mid-April 2011. The IMF in late 2008 had agreed to establish a $518 million credit line. [See p. 379F2; 2008, p. 985D2] Murilo Portugal, deputy managing director and acting chair of the IMF, said the increase was necessary because “Serbia’s exports and imports have plunged, and capital flows have largely dried up.” He added that the country’s situation had “deteriorated markedly” in recent months, and that Serbia would likely see “limited prospects of recovery in 2010.” n

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Germany

Iran

Egyptian Woman Killed in Courtroom. A

Passenger Plane Crash Kills 168. An Irani-

pregnant Egyptian woman July 1 was stabbed to death in a courtroom in the city of Dresden in eastern Germany by a man she had pressed charges against for insulting her Muslim faith and head scarf. The killing aroused outrage in Egypt and other Muslim countries, where she was called the “head scarf martyr.” Thousands of people attended the funeral of the woman, Marwa el-Sherbini, 32, after her body was returned to Alexandria, Egypt. [See p. 432F2]

an airliner July 15 crashed 16 minutes after taking off from Tehran, the capital, killing 153 passengers and 15 crew members on board, Iranian officials said. The plane was flying to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. The cause of the crash was not known, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered a full investigation. [See p. 439A3] The plane, Caspian Airlines Flight 7908, crashed near the village of Jannat FACTS ON FILE

Abad outside the city of Qazvin, 75 miles (120 km) northwest of Tehran. Iranian officials said the plane might have attempted to turn back or make an emergency landing, and some witnesses said it had caught fire in the air and exploded when it crashed. An Iranian aviation official said the pilots had not communicated about any malfunctions before the crash. The aircraft’s “black box” flight data recorders were found July 15 in damaged condition. Iranian officials said most of the passengers were Iranian, with some Armenians also on board. Among the passengers were eight members of Iran’s national youth judo team, along with two coaches and a delegation head, who were traveling to train with the Armenian national team. The plane was a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154M jet that was built in 1987 and reportedly leased in 1998 from Russian aircraft maintenance and overhaul company VARZ-400. Caspian Airlines had been founded in 1993. Caspian had passed an International Air Transport Association safety audit in 2007, and the crash was the airline’s first fatal accident. Tu-154s had suffered eight fatal accidents in the last 10 years, and 54 crashes in total since entering service in 1971. Iran had a mixed air-safety record. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. had made it hard for Iran to obtain spare parts for its U.S.- and European-made aircraft, and much of its Soviet-built fleet was also old. The crash was Iran’s worst since a February 2003 crash of a Russian-made Ilyushin Il-76 carrying members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps killed 302 people. Other recent air disasters included the November 2007 crash of a military plane that killed 36 Revolutionary Guards; the February 2006 crash of a Tu154 operated by Iran Air Tours that killed 29 of 148 crew and passengers; the December 2005 crash of a U.S.-made C-130 military transport dating from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that killed 115 people; and the February 2002 crash of another Air Tours Tu-154 that killed 199 people. [See 2006, p. 701E1; 2005, p. 880B1; 2003, p. 131F2; 2002, p. 160G2] n

Iraq Blasts Hit Christian Churches. A series of

bombings July 12 hit Christian churches in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killing at least four people. Iraq’s Christian population had been consistently targeted by Islamic militants since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and about half of the country’s Christians had fled abroad. The attacks came after U.S. troops had pulled out of Iraq’s cities and handed over security responsibility for urban areas to Iraq at the end of June, and furthered concerns that Iraqi forces would not be able to ensure security. [See p. 464E3; 2008, p. 766E1] In the most serious attack, a car bomb exploded outside a Chaldean Catholic church in eastern Baghdad as Mass celebrants were leaving it, killing three Christians and a Muslim. Four other churches in July 16, 2009

eastern Baghdad were also bombed that day, but no one was killed in those attacks. Also that day, gunmen killed a senior Christian government official in the northern city of Kirkuk, although it was not clear if he was targeted because of his religion. Another bomb July 13 exploded near a church in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh. That day, Iraqi forces increased the security presence in Christian neighborhoods of Baghdad and two mainly-Christian towns in Nineveh, Tilkaif and Hamdaniyah. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A Spanish court July 14 dismissed homicide charges against three U.S. soldiers for the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq in 2003. The soldiers had manned a tank that fired a shell at a Baghdad hotel, killing two journalists, including Spanish cameraman Jose Couso. U.S. officials said the soldiers’ actions had been justified and that they had come under fire from the hotel. Spanish Judge Santiago Pedraz in May had reinstated the charges, which had first been brought in 2007. [See p. 344E3] o Iraq’s national soccer team July 13 played its first match in Baghdad’s Shaab Stadium since 2002, beating a Palestinian team, 4–0. The team was seen as a symbol of national unity, but had been forced to play home games in other countries because of security concerns in Iraq. [See 2008, p. 356F1] o A bomb July 12 went off near the convoy of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, as he was traveling through the southern province of Dhi Qar. No one was injured. The bombing was reportedly the first direct attack on a U.S. ambassador in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, although other foreign diplomats had been attacked and killed. o A car bomb July 11 exploded in Mosul, killing at least four people. The bomb went off in a neighborhood largely populated by Shabak, a Kurdish-speaking, mostly–Shiite Muslim ethnic minority group. o A U.S. soldier July 10 fired on a truck when it did not respond to signals to stop, killing its Iraqi driver. The shooting took place between Balad and Tikrit in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad. Such shootings had once been common in Iraq, but had become rarer. The U.S. military said it was investigating the shooting with the Iraqi military. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Baseball A.L. Wins MLB All-Star Game. The American League (A.L.) July 14 defeated the National League (N.L.), 4–3, to win the annual Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo. The win gave the A.L. home-field advantage in the World Series. The N.L. had not won an All-Star Game since 1996. [See 2008, p. 494B3; for MLB’s standings at the All-Star break, see p. 484A1]

President Barack Obama threw out the game’s ceremonial first pitch. Tampa Bay Rays left fielder Carl Crawford, who made a spectacular catch in the seventh inning to prevent a likely home run, was named the game’s most valuable player (MVP). Detroit Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson tripled in the eighth, and scored the goahead run on a sacrifice fly by Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones. New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth to earn his record fourth save in an All-Star Game. The A.L. team was managed by Joe Maddon of Tampa Bay. Seattle Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki led off for the A.L., followed by Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira, Boston Red Sox left fielder Jason Bay, Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton, Rangers third baseman Michael Young and Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Aaron Hill. Blue Jays right-handed pitcher Roy Halladay started for the A.L. and batted ninth. The N.L. team, managed by Charlie Manuel of the Philadelphia Phillies, led off with Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez. Batting second was Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, followed by St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, Milwaukee Brewers right fielder Ryan Braun, Phillies left fielder Raul Ibanez, New York Mets third baseman David Wright, Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina and right-handed pitcher Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants. Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder July 13 had won the annual Home Run Derby. He beat Rangers right fielder Nelson Cruz, 6–5, in the final. Line Score of the All-Star Game— July 14 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo. (attendance 46,760):

A

B

C

D

E

R H E American.............................200 010 010 4

8

1

National...............................030 000 000 3

5

1

Winning Pitcher—Jonathan Papelbon (Red Sox) Losing Pitcher—Heath Bell (Padres) Save—Mariano Rivera (Yankees)

Union Executive Director Resigns— MLB Players Association (MLBPA) Execu-

tive Director Donald Fehr June 22 announced his intention to resign by March 2010. Fehr had held the position since 1983; in his 26 years at the helm, the union had seen a substantial rise in player salaries, but faced increasing criticism for its handling of the sport’s involvement with performance-enhancing drugs. [See p. 87B1, E2; 1983, p. 968G2] Fehr said he was stepping down now to allow time for a leadership transfer ahead of collective bargaining negotiations set for 2011. He recommended the union’s general counsel, Michael Weiner, as his successor. The union would vote later in the season to confirm Fehr’s replacement. 483

F

G

Major League Baseball First-Half Standings

A

Major League Baseball’s divisional standings at the All-Star break July 14 were: AMERICAN LEAGUE Eastern Division W L Pct.

Boston New York Tampa Bay Toronto Baltimore

B

54 51 48 44 40

34 37 41 46 48

GB

.614 .580 .539 .489 .455

— 3 6½ 11 14

.552 .511 .506 .420 .393

— 3½ 4 11½ 14

.570 .552 .523 .430

— 1½ 4 12

Central Division

Detroit Chicago Minnesota Kansas City Cleveland

48 45 45 37 35

39 43 44 51 54

Western Division

Los Angeles Texas Seattle Oakland

49 48 46 37

37 39 42 49

NATIONAL LEAGUE Eastern Division W L Pct.

C Philadelphia Florida Atlanta New York Washington

48 46 43 42 26

38 44 45 45 61

GB

.558 .511 .489 .483 .299

— 4 6 6½ 22½

.538 .511 .500 .500 .483 .432

— 2½ 3½ 3½ 5 9½

.636 .557 .534 .427 .409

— 7 9 18½ 20

Central Division

D

E

F

G

St. Louis Milwaukee Houston Chicago Cincinnati Pittsburgh

49 45 44 43 42 38

42 43 44 43 45 50

Western Division

Los Angeles San Francisco Colorado Arizona San Diego

56 49 47 38 36

32 39 41 51 52

Fehr had led the MLBPA through the 1994–95 strike, which led to the cancellation of the World Series in 1994. Analysts viewed the move as a success for the players, when a federal court ruling in favor of the union struck down the salary-cap structure. Also during Fehr’s tenure, the union had resisted drug testing until the 2003 labor agreement that allowed anonymous testing. In February, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had been implicated as one of the players on the list of positive tests from 2003; Rodriguez later admitted to performance-enhancing drug use from 2001 to 2003. [See p. 158C3] The New York Times June 16 reported that former MLB slugger Sammy Sosa had also tested positive for a banned substance as part of the anonymous testing in 2003. Sosa, who ranked sixth all-time in home runs, had testified to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2005 that he had never taken performanceenhancing drugs. Investigators for the committee June 17 announced they were looking into his statements during the hearing. [See 2005, p. 199D1] Other News—In other MLB news: o The Washington Nationals July 12 fired manager Manny Acta, after the team finished the first half of the season with the worst record in MLB (26 wins and 61 losses). Bench coach Jim Riggleman was 484

named his interim replacement the next day. [See 2006, p. 986F1] o Giants left-handed pitcher Jonathan Sanchez July 10 pitched the first no-hitter of the season. Sanchez, 26, struck out 11 batters in the Giants’ 8–0 win over the San Diego Padres in San Francisco, Calif. If not for an error committed by Giants third baseman Juan Uribe in the eighth inning, Sanchez would have had a perfect game. o Yankees closer Rivera June 28 pitched the final four outs to close out a 4–2 Yankees win over the Mets at Citi Field, earning his 500th career save. Rivera had played his entire career with the Yankees, filling the closer role since 1997. He still ranked second in career saves, trailing the all-time leader, Trevor Hoffman of the Brewers. [See 2006, p. 773C3] o The Atlanta Braves June 3 released veteran left-handed pitcher Tom Glavine, a 300-game winner, who was attempting a comeback from shoulder and elbow surgery. Glavine, 43, had re-signed in the offseason with the Braves, a team where he spent most of his career after they drafted him in 1984. [See 2007, p. 899A2] o Giants left-handed pitcher Randy Johnson June 4 pitched six innings in a 5– 1 Giants win over the Nationals, earning his 300th victory. Johnson, 45, became the 24th pitcher to reach that career milestone. [See 2008, p. 992C3] o The Pittsburgh Pirates June 3 traded center fielder Nate McLouth to the Braves for pitchers Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke and outfielder Gorkeys Hernandez. o The Colorado Rockies May 29 fired manager Clint Hurdle, after slipping to 10 games under .500 and a double-digit deficit in the division standings. Bench coach Jim Tracy was named his replacement. [See 2002, p. 548C2] o The Arizona Diamondbacks May 7 fired manager Bob Melvin, after losing 17 of their first 29 games. A.J. Hinch, the team’s director of player development, was named his replacement the next day. [See 2004, p. 1091F1] n

College Sports LSU Wins NCAA Baseball Championship. The Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers

June 25 defeated the University of Texas Longhorns, 11–4, in Omaha, Neb., to win the College World Series, the championship of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I baseball. LSU won the best-of-three series, two games to one. LSU June 22 had won the first game of the series, 7–6, in 11 innings. Texas June 23 rallied to take the second game, 5–1. LSU right fielder Jared Mitchell was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. LSU had won six championships, all of them since 1991. [See 2008, p. 563D3] n Washington Claims NCAA Softball Title.

The University of Washington Huskies June 2 won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Women’s College World Series of fast-pitch softball in

Oklahoma City, Okla., defeating the University of Florida Gators, 3–2. It was the first NCAA softball title for Washington, which swept the best-of-three final series. The Huskies June 1 had claimed the first game, 8–0. Washington pitcher Danielle Lawrie, the national player of the year, threw complete games in all six of her team’s games in the tournament, and was named its most outstanding player. [See 2008, p. 563F3] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Reclusive author J.D. Salinger, 90, July 1 won his legal battle against Swedish author Fredrik Colting, 33, when a federal judge in New York City indefinitely banned publication in the U.S. of Colting’s novel 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Colting had written the work, inspired by Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, under the name John David California, and it had been published in Britain. In the book under dispute, Holden Caulfield, the 16-year-old protagonist of Salinger’s novel, was transformed into a 76-year-old man named Mr. C; Salinger, however, appeared as a character in it under his own name. The judge in the case agreed with Salinger’s argument that Colting’s book was not a critical parody, which would have exempted it from copyright protection, but an “unauthorized sequel.” [See 2000, p. 659F2; 1987, p. 740C1] n

O B I T UA R I E S NIELSEN FitzGerald, Jerri (born Jerri Lin Cahill),

57, physician who was dramatically rescued from an Antarctic research station in 1999 after about five months of self-administered breast-cancer treatment; she wrote about her ordeal in the best-selling book Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole (2001); born March 1, 1952, in Salem, Ohio; died June 23 at her home in Southwick, Mass., of cancer, which had recurred in 2005 after having been in remission for several years. [See 2001, pp. 339A3, 152B1; 1999, p. 807C2] NORSE, Harold (born Harold Rosen), 92, poet and memoirist who openly addressed gay themes in his work as far back as the 1940s; after spending 15 years in Europe and North Africa, he moved to San Francisco, Calif., in the early 1970s, and became a leading light of that city’s literary community; his autobiography, Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty-Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey, came out in 1989; born July 6, 1916, in New York City; died June 8 in San Francisco; the cause of his death was not reported. STORM, Gale (born Josephine Owaissa Cottle),

87, actress best known for her work in U.S. television in the 1950s; she starred in two popular situation comedies of that era, “My Little Margie” (1952–55), in which she portrayed Margie Albright, the protective daughter of a rich widower, and “The Gale Storm Show” (1956–60), in which she played a social director on a luxury cruise ship; born April 5, 1922, in Bloomington, Texas; died June 27 at a convalescent hospital in Danville, Calif., of natural causes. [See 1990, p. 376B3; 1954, p. 131F3] SUGDEN, Mollie (Mary Isobel), 86, British actress best known for her role as Betty Slocombe, an overbearing department-store supervisor, in the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) television series “Are You Being Served?”; the BBC carried the show from 1972 to 1985, and it was subsequently seen on many U.S. public TV stations; born July 21, 1922, in Keighley, England; died July 1 in Guildford, England. [See 2007, p. 168F3] n

July 16, 2009

Iran’s Ex-President Rafsanjani Warns on Election-Related Crackdown Tens of Thousands Protest. Former Iranian

President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani July 17 warned that allegations of voter fraud in a June presidential election and a brutal government crackdown afterwards had made many Iranians doubt the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. Rafsanjani spoke to huge crowds at Friday prayers at Tehran University, in Tehran, the Iranian capital, while tens of thousands of opposition supporters protested outside. Rafsanjani— who led two senior government bodies, the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council—had supported Ahmadinejad’s main opponent, reformist former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi, but had stayed largely silent since the election. [See p. 438B3] Rafsanjani did not accuse Ahmadinejad of rigging the election, but warned that “a large group” of Iranians had doubts about its veracity, and called on the government to “address these doubts.” He said the government should free jailed protesters and opposition figures, and drop restrictions on free speech and the press imposed in the wake of the election. He also criticized the Guardian Council, a senior government body that had certified the election results, saying it “did not use wisely the time the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] gave it to investigate” fraud allegations. Rafsanjani said he had discussed a proposal to end what he termed the “crisis” surrounding the disputed election with the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. He did not give details of the proposal, but said it would be guided by the principles of rule of law and freedom of expression. Rafsanjani’s sermon was attended by Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, another former reformist candidate. Karroubi reported on his Web site that he had been assaulted by plainclothes police as he entered the hall. The protests in the streets were largely peaceful, and many protesters were wearing green, the color adopted by Moussavi’s movement. Witnesses said members of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia broke them up using tear gas and truncheons after protesters began to shout antigovernment slogans. Khatami Demands Election Referendum—

Former President Mohammad Khatami, a Moussavi supporter, July 19 called for a referendum on the Ahmadinejad government’s legitimacy, and added, “If the majority of people accept the situation, we also will accept it.” It was seen as a challenge to Khamenei, who had dismissed concerns that the election had been rigged. Also that day, several hundred people attended protests in the southern city of Shiraz. Khamenei July 20 delivered a warning to critics of the government. According to the state-run Press TV, he warned against “a hand that wishes to strike at the system,” and added, “The political elite should

maintain great vigilance because they currently face a significant challenge; their failure to rise to this challenge will lead to their collapse.” The same day, a spokesman for the Guardian Council said it had fully investigated election fraud allegations, and accused Rafsanjani of not cooperating. Protesters July 21 again gathered in Tehran and other Iranian cities, but were quickly dispersed by police and the Basij. The Iranian government July 18 released on bail an Iranian employee of the British embassy who had been arrested on charges of inciting protests. Eight other embassy employees who had been arrested had previously been released. Ahmadinejad Deputy Choice Criticized—

Conservative figures in the Iranian government and clergy July 18 criticized Ahmadinejad’s choice the previous day of Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as his first deputy. Mashai was one of several close Ahmadinejad allies who had been elevated as part of a cabinet shuffle, and Ahmadinejad’s choices were seen as an indication that he would not make conciliatory gestures towards reformists. Mashai’s daughter was married to Ahmadinejad’s son. [See 2008, p. 732D3] Conservatives opposed Mashai for his statement in 2008 that Iran was “a friend of all people in the world—even Israelis and Americans,” and for his attendance in 2007 of a ceremony in Turkey at which women performed a traditional dance. The semiofficial Iranian Student’s News Agency (ISNA) July 21 reported that Khamenei had demanded that Ahmadinejad drop Mashai as his choice, but Ahmadinejad July 22 refused to comply. The argument was seen as a sign of a rift between the two allies. [See p. 362A2] Clinton Calls for ‘Defense Umbrella’—

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton July 22 warned Iran that if it developed nuclear weapons, the U.S. might extend a “defense umbrella” over the Middle East and “significantly upgrade the defenses” of Iran’s neighbors, so that Iran’s power in the region would not increase. Iran claimed that its nuclear program was only for civilian power generation. Clinton made the comments while in Phuket, Thailand, ahead of a meeting with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). [See pp. 495D2, 361D3] Many analysts compared the term “defense umbrella” to the nuclear umbrella that the U.S. had extended over some allies to deter nuclear attacks against them, but an unnamed U.S. State Department official said Clinton was not referring to that. Dan Meridor, the Israeli intelligence and atomic energy minister, criticized Clinton’s remarks, saying they implied that the U.S. had given up on stopping Iran’s nuclear program and was basing its strategy on the inevitability of a nuclear Iran. The ISNA July 16 reported that the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization,

Facts On File

TM

World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3579 July 23, 2009

B Gholamreza Aghazadeh, had said he had resigned three weeks earlier. Aghazadeh had also reportedly resigned his role as vice president. Aghazadeh, who was known as a Moussavi associate, did not give a reason, and there was speculation that he had resigned in protest of the election crackdown, or had been forced out. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki July 11 said Iran was preparing a package covering “a range of political, security and international issues” to present to the West as the basis for renewed talks. Sunni Rebels Executed—Iran July 14 hanged 13 members of the Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundullah in a prison in the southeastern city of Zahedan for involvement in bombings and other attacks, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. Jundullah, whose name meant God’s Brigade and which Iran said

C

D

MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Iran’s ex-President Rafsanjani warns on election-related crackdown; tens of thousands protest. PAGE 485

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton visits India. PAGE 486

Obama pushes health care reform in news conference.

E

PAGE 487

Bernanke defends Fed policies to Congress. PAGE 487

Goldman Sachs reports record profit. PAGE 490

Mauritania coup leader wins disputed election. PAGE 492

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya rejects reinstatement plan.

F

PAGE 493

Coordinated hotel bombings hit Indonesian capital. PAGE 494

Iraqi President Maliki visits U.S. PAGE 497

Suspect confesses to 2008 Mumbai, India, terrorist attack. PAGE 499

Cink beats Watson in playoff to win golf’s British Open. PAGE 500

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

485

G

A

had links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for a May mosque bombing in Zahedan that had killed 25 people; Iran had executed three people accused in the attack two days later. [See p. 398B1] n

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton Visits India Establishes ‘Strategic Dialogue.’ India and

B

C

D

E

F

G

the U.S. July 20 announced that they would begin a high-level “strategic dialogue” to strengthen their relationship, on the last day of a three-day tour of the country by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The strategic dialogue would see Clinton, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and other top officials from both countries meet once a year to discuss a broad array of issues, from global trade to climate change. [See p. 158A2] The U.S. had established similar highlevel relationships with only a few other countries, and analysts said it was an indication that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was intent on deepening its ties with India, the world’s largest democracy and a rising economic power. Clinton July 20 said, “We respect the vibrancy of each other’s democracy. That is a much stronger base for a relationship than any other in the world.” The announcement, made in the Indian capital of New Delhi, was accompanied by agreements that would allow U.S. companies to sell military equipment to India, and build civilian nuclear power plants there. India agreed to an “end-use monitoring” military agreement, which allowed U.S. authorities to ensure that equipment sold to India was not refashioned for different purposes or sold to other countries. The agreement paved the way for U.S. companies to bid on an Indian contract, valued at $10 billion, for 126 fighter jets. India announced that it had reserved two sites—in the western state of Gujarat and the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh— where U.S. companies had the exclusive right to build civilian nuclear power plants. The announcement was the first fruit to emerge from a civilian nuclear trade pact signed between the two countries in 2008, which allowed U.S. companies to sell India nuclear technology, equipment and fuel. Russian and French companies had also secured sites in India to build nuclear power plants. Disagreements between the two countries surfaced during Clinton’s trip, most notably on the issue of climate change. Clinton, meeting with Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, July 19 had pushed for India to develop a model of economic growth that would reduce its rate of greenhouse gas emissions. She said the U.S. supported economic growth that would help the millions of Indians currently living in poverty, but argued that there was a way to do so without increasing India’s environmental “footprint.” [See p. 453D1] Ramesh, making an argument often used by emerging economies, said it was

unfair to request that India limit its output of pollutants, when the U.S. and other Western countries had faced no such limits during their economic ascents. Ramesh also noted that India’s emissions levels were extremely low on a per capita basis. Ramesh said, “We are simply not in a position to take over legally binding emission reduction targets.” Clinton had arrived in India July 17, beginning her trip in Mumbai, the country’s commercial capital, and the site of a terrorist attack in November 2008 that left more than 170 people dead. Clinton stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, where more than 30 people had been killed during the attack, in order to send what she described as a symbolic “rebuke to the terrorists.” She met with survivors of the attack July 18. [See p. 499A3] In a column published July 17 in Indian newspaper The Times of India, Clinton addressed India’s often fraught relationship with Pakistan, where the Mumbai attack was thought to have been hatched. She wrote, “We should encourage Pakistan as that nation confronts the challenge of violent extremism.” The Pakistani army was currently battling Islamic extremist militants in Pakistan’s northwest. [See p. 466E2] n

OPEC Output Level Remains Unchanged. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) May 28 at a meeting in Vienna, Austria, left its oil production level unchanged, at 24.845 million barrels a day. The cartel said that despite reduced demand and low prices, it would not lower production for fear of harming the world economy’s recovery. Crude oil prices May 28 closed at $65.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), up from $63.45 the previous day; OPEC members had called for a return to prices in the $70$80 a barrel range. The next OPEC meeting was scheduled for Sept. 9. [See p. 180B2] OPEC in 2008 had lowered production quotas, but only Saudi Arabia had decreased its output below them. OPEC March 13 reported that actual output averaged 25.715 million barrels a day. The Wall Street Journal July 9 reported that OPEC had cut its forecast for oil-field investment over the next five years to $110 million–$120 billion, from $165 billion. The cut was due to projected decreased demand. The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said such cuts in investment could lead to supply shortages by 2013. n

Other International News S. Korean, U.S. Web Sites Attacked. Web sites of government agencies and private companies in the U.S. and South Korea July 4 had come under an intense cyberattack that continued into the following days, it was reported July 8. Officials in both countries said the attacks appeared to be linked, and South Korean newspapers reported that intelligence officials suspected

North Korea of having launched them. The ongoing dispute over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs had escalated recently, with North Korea launching a prohibited barrage of missiles on July 4, the U.S.’s Independence Day holiday. [See pp. 495F1, 410B3] Among the Web sites targeted were those of the South Korean president’s office, defense ministry and parliament, and the U.S. White House, State Department, Treasury and National Security Agency (NSA), as well as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Washington Post newspaper. The cyberattacks were a form of “denial of service” assault, in which a virus was used to infect a number of computers and direct them to simultaneously make connection requests to targeted Web sites, overwhelming and disabling them. Although the effects of the attacks were limited to interrupting public access to the sites, rather than compromising sensitive data, they intensified concerns about governments’ and companies’ cybersecurity defenses. The virus was reportedly a version of the MyDoom virus that had emerged in Russia in 2004. North Korea was not known for its advanced technological capabilities, but experts said it might be capable of carrying out the attacks, which were relatively simple, or commissioning sympathizers or professional hackers abroad to execute them. Experts said it was difficult to conclusively determine the location of the computers used to direct the attacks. [See 2004, p. 109D3] According to South Korean news media, the country’s National Intelligence Service July 10 had informed members of parliament that it had obtained evidence of a North Korean government order to a military unit to conduct the cyberattack. n

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Obama Pushes Health Care Reform in News Conference August Passage Deadline Discarded. President Barack Obama July 22 held a primetime news conference at the White House as part of his continuing efforts to pass legislation that would significantly overhaul the U.S. health care system. For the first time, Obama endorsed a plan to impose an income surtax on families earning more than $1 million a year in order to pay for an overhaul package. He also said he would consider a tax on health-care benefits, as long as such a tax did not affect the middle class. “This is not just about 47 million Americans who have no health insurance,” Obama said. “Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage.” [See p. 476D1; for excerpts from the news conference, see p. 487E1] The House and Senate were working on two separate reform bills, opposed by Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats, who said they were concerned about their potential high cost. (Several estimates, some by the Congressional Budget Office [CBO], had pegged the cost of various plans at more than $1 trillion dollars over 10 years.) Obama’s news conference was viewed as an attempt to shore up public support for health care reform, which had reportedly waned in recent weeks, while convincing wavering members of Congress to eventually vote for some version of one of the plans. “If somebody told you that there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your health care costs over the next 10 years, that’s guaranteed to result in more Americans losing their health care, and that is by far the biggest contributor to our federal deficit, I think most people would be opposed to that,” Obama said. He added, “That’s what we have right now.” Obama acknowledged that people had “entirely legitimate” doubts about the re-

form efforts, and said there could be changes in the way health care was delivered. But he emphasized that the plans would eventually reduce health care costs. He criticized health insurance companies for “making record profits” and raising premiums, while “everybody’s getting hammered.” Obama also appeared to back away from a previously stated deadline for Congress to pass reform legislation by early August. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) July 23 said his chamber would be unable to pass a bill by the August deadline. Obama at the news conference also reiterated his support for giving outside experts greater power to cut Medicare spending, a key element of his plan to fund the overhaul effort. The move was seen as be an attempt to mollify some fiscal conservatives, but had also reportedly angered some senior Democratic lawmakers, who opposed it on the grounds that it would remove some congressional budgetary oversight from the Medicare program. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) July 22 said she was confident that there were enough votes in the House to get a reform bill passed. However, Rep. Michael Ross (D, Ark.), leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats, that day issued a statement saying there remained a “long way to go” before a deal could be struck, underscoring growing divisions within the Democratic Party. Ross and six other members of the coalition July 21 had met with Obama and said they could not support the House bill in its current form, over concerns about its cost and potential impact on small businesses. House Bill Clears Committees— The House Ways and Means Committee early July 17 voted, 23–18, to pass health care reform legislation that would establish a government-run insurance program, and require most employers to provide insurance to employees. Three Democrats had voted against the bill. The committee was

EXCERPTS FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA’S NEWS CONFERENCE

Following are excerpts from President Barack Obama’s July 22 news conference on health care reform [See p. 487A1]: On the Need for Health Care Reform

This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance at all. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job. It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage because it became too expensive. And it’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.... So let me be clear: If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we don’t act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. July 23, 2009

On the Costs of the Plan

In addition to making sure that this plan doesn’t add to the deficit in the short term, the bill I sign must also slow the growth of healthcare costs in the long run. Our proposals would change incentives so that doctors and nurses are free to give patients the best care, just not the most expensive care.... We also want to create an independent group of doctors and medical experts who are empowered to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Medicare on an annual basis, a proposal that could save even more money and ensure long-term financial health for Medicare. On Setting a Deadline

[I]f you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don't happen. The default position is inertia, because doing something always creates some people who are unhappy. There’s always going to be some interest out there that decides, “You know what? The status quo is working for me a little bit better.”

one of three in the House that needed to approve the legislation before it could be brought to a floor vote. The House Education and Labor Committee several hours later voted, 26–22, to approve the bill, with three Democrats also voting against it. Bill’s Deficit Increase Reported— The CBO July 17 reported that an analysis of the House measure concluded that the bill would increase the federal deficit by about $240 billion by 2019. Obama in his weekly address to the nation July 18 said he would not sign any legislation that would increase the deficit. Republicans July 20 argued that Obama was mishandling health care reform in a way that would add to the federal deficit. Among those criticizing Obama were Sen. Jim DeMint (R, S.C.) and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) July 21 called on Obama to abandon the current reform bills. n

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Economy Bernanke Defends Fed Policies to Congress.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke July 21–22 delivered his semiannual testimony on monetary policy to Congress, where he defended emergency policies that the Fed had enacted in 2008 to counteract a severe crisis in financial markets. Bernanke July 21 told the House Financial Services Committee that the Fed’s policies—which had included flooding financial markets with hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity—had helped avert “the collapse of the global financial system.” He said current stability in financial markets “can be traced, in part, to policy actions taken by the Federal Reserve to encourage the flow of credit.” [See p. 456G2] Lawmakers had been critical of the Fed’s attempts to stabilize the financial system, with Democrats claiming that the Fed was too supportive of Wall Street banks, and Republicans arguing that the Fed had unduly extended its reach into the private sector. Lawmakers remained skeptical about a legislative proposal put forth by the Obama administration that would increase the Fed’s oversight powers of financial markets, with many noting that the Fed had failed to detect problems that had led to the 2008 crisis. [See p. 407A1] Bernanke July 21 said he was opposed to a proposal that would see the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative branch of Congress, run audits of the Fed’s policies. He said the audits would reduce the Fed’s independence, and could inject political considerations into monetary-policy decisions regarding inflation and economic growth. Bernanke addressed concerns that the Fed’s emergency policies could stoke inflation. Bernanke said inflation was not a concern, since the unemployment rate— currently at 9.5%—would remain high for some time, diminishing consumer spending. His statement indicated that the Fed would likely keep its benchmark interest 487

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rate target at near zero. Bernanke also said the Fed was prepared to unwind the emergency policies once economic growth began to pick up in 2010. [See p. 456B1] Bernanke voiced concern about the ballooning budget deficit. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in May had estimated that the deficit would rise to $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2009, which had begun Oct. 1, 2008. He said that without a plan to reduce the deficit, “we risk having neither financial stability nor durable economic growth.” Bernanke July 22 told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that he was opposed to an Obama administration proposal to create a separate consumer financial protection agency, which was designed to safeguard consumers against predatory financial practices. Bernanke said the Fed should be given the primary responsibility of protecting consumers. [See p. 407E3] n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills House Passes Interior Appropriations Bill.

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The House June 26 voted, 254–173, to pass a fiscal 2010 appropriations bill funding the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies. The bill contained $32.3 billion in discretionary funds for the department and other agencies, and was a 17% increase from fiscal 2009 levels, excluding any funds received from a $787 billion economic recovery package. [See p. 143E3; 2007, p. 480D2] The Interior Department would receive $11 billion in funding, an increase of $897 million from the previous year. The EPA would receive $10.5 billion, a bump of $2.8 billion from fiscal 2009. The House Appropriations Committee June 18 had approved, 31–27, an amendment that would prevent the EPA from requiring that livestock feedlots report their methane emissions under a proposed program to tally greenhouse gases. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee June 25 adopted, 18–12, an amendment in its version of the legislation that would subject the largest feedlots to emissions reporting requirements. n House, Senate Pass Homeland Security Bill.

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The House June 24 voted, 389–37, to pass an appropriations bill for fiscal 2010 that provided $44 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including $42.6 billion in discretionary funds. The Senate July 9 passed, 84–6, its version of the measure with $44.3 billion in total funds, including $42.9 billion in discretionary spending. [See 2008, p. 702E1; 2007, p. 509G1] The House version of the appropriations bill included $462 million more than had been budgeted for fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, but $205 million less than had been requested by the Obama administration. The House bill would require the DHS to perform threat assessments on all of the terrorism detainees currently held in the 488

U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of efforts to close it. The bill also required the DHS to bar the detainees from ever entering the U.S., and to add them to the government’s so-called no-fly list, which would keep them from being able to board airplanes inside of or bound for the U.S. The bill included $10 billion in funding for the Coast Guard, and set aside $1.1 billion for the implementation of bomb detection systems at airports around the country. Another $50 million was set for the U.S. Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which monitored illegal attempts to use or gain access to nuclear materials within the U.S. Senate Bill Amended—Senate Republicans had successfully proposed multiple amendments to their version of the bill. Among them was a provision that would require the Obama administration to permanently reauthorize the “E-Verify” system, which allowed employers to check on the immigration status of their workers, and require all federal contractors to check their employees through the system. n House Passes Commerce-Justice Bill. The House June 18 voted, 259–157, to pass a fiscal 2010 appropriations bill for the Commerce and Justice Departments, as well as various scientific agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The vote authorized a total of $64.3 billion in discretionary spending, less than had been requested by the Obama administration but an increase of 12% over fiscal 2009. [See p. 143E3; 2007, p. 765C1] The bill included $13.8 billion in funding for the Commerce Department, an increase of 49% over fiscal 2009. That included $7.4 billion for the Census Bureau, which was scheduled to carry out a census in 2010. The Justice Department would receive $27.7 billion under the bill, which was 2% more than requested by the Obama administration and 6% more than fiscal 2009. In addition, the bill contained $18.2 billion in funding for NASA, which was 3% less than requested by the Obama administration; however, analysts said that the budget for the agency could rise pending the results of an independent study examining manned space flight that was expected to be finished by August. The bill did not include $60 million requested by the Obama administration to fund the closure of the U.S. military prison for terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. However, the House voted, 213– 212, against an amendment proposed by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R, Calif.) that would have blocked the Obama administration from using any of the bill’s funds for that purpose. The House June 18 held a record 53 roll call votes in a single day, leading Democrats to complain that Republicans were using the votes as a delaying tactic. n House Passes State–Foreign Aid Bill. The House July 9 voted, 318–106, to pass an appropriations bill for fiscal 2010 funding the State Department and the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) as

well as other programs providing aid to foreign nations. The bill contained $48.8 billion in total funding, about $1.8 billion less than in fiscal 2009 and $3.2 billion less than requested by the Obama administration. However, critics, including some House Republicans, argued that figures were misleading because some fiscal 2010 foreign aid had been included in a supplemental spending bill. [See pp. 424B3, 143E3; 2008, p. 668A2] The bill included $7.8 billion in funding for global health programs, including $648 million for family planning and $4.7 billion for programs related to HIV and AIDS. The bill also included $13.4 billion for counterterrorism, anti-drug and national security initiatives. Under the bill, the State Department would receive $11 billion, including $541.5 million intended to hire 1,030 more employees. The appropriations bill would provide $2.8 billion in funds for Israel, which was guaranteed an average of $3 billion per year in aid from the U.S. Additional funds for Israel had been included in the supplemental spending bill. The Palestinian territories were budgeted to receive about $500 million, while Jordan and Egypt would receive $663 million and $1.55 billion, respectively, in military and economic aid. Provisions Would Control Use of Funds—

The bill contained provisions barring foreign aid to nations that agreed to accept terrorism detainees currently held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unless the House and Senate appropriations committees were briefed on the agreement. It also blocked the U.S. ImportExport Bank from guaranteeing credit or loaning money to companies that refined significant amounts of oil for Iran. That provision reportedly targeted India’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which had previously refined oil for Iran while receiving $900 million in loan guarantees from the ImportExport Bank. The House July 9 voted, 429–2, to include an amendment proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R, Texas) that would require the Obama administration to oppose any attempt to extend World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans to nations known to provide assistance to terrorism. President Barack Obama June 26 had issued a signing statement for the supplemental funding bill which said he would not follow a similar requirement in that bill on the grounds that it interfered with the president’s authority to conduct negotiations with foreign powers. Senate Bill Includes Abortion Provision—

Separately, the Senate Appropriations Committee July 6 voted, 17–11, to include a provision in the Senate’s State Department and foreign aid appropriations bill that would permanently allow U.S. foreign aid funds to be given to international family planning organizations that performed or discussed abortions. Obama had issued an executive order in January that overturned a ban on such funding. [See p. 47B1] FACTS ON FILE

The ban, which was known as the “global gag rule” and as the “Mexico City policy,” had been put in place in 1984 by then-President Ronald Reagan, and had been reversed by President Bill Clinton and reinstated by President George W. Bush. The provision in the Senate bill would make it more difficult to reinstate the ban, by requiring a law to be passed to do so, rather than allowing a president to simply issue an executive order authorizing the ban. Senate Republicans criticized the provisions, arguing that it would subsidize foreign abortions with U.S. tax dollars, and threatened to consider blocking the bill if the amendment were not removed. n House Passes Financial Services Bill. The House July 16 voted, 219–208, to pass the Financial Services and General Government spending bill for fiscal year 2010. The $46.2 billion bill covered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the rest of the Treasury Department, as well as the White House and related operations, the federal judiciary and the annual federal funding for the District of Columbia. [See p. 320D2] Under the bill, the IRS would receive $12.1 billion; the White House would receive $754 million; the Securities and Exchange Commission would receive $1 billion; and the judiciary would receive $6.9 billion. The bill included a controversial provision that would prevent automakers Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. from closing down struggling car dealerships. The companies—which were both partly owned by the government, and had both recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings—said the closures were necessary to reduce costs. The Obama administration said it opposed the provision, while its supporters said the closed dealerships would result in job losses. [See pp. 475F1, 385A1] n House Passes Agriculture Funding Bill.

The House July 9 voted, 266–160, to pass a $123.8 billion bill to fund the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and related offices for fiscal year 2010. The bill appropriated $22.9 billion in discretionary spending, an 11% increase from fiscal 2009, but slightly less than what President Barack Obama had requested. [See p. 218C1; 2008, p. 436F2] About $61 billion was set aside for food stamp programs. The USDA July 8 had reported that a record 33.8 million Americans—about one in nine people— were enrolled in food stamp programs as of April. Also, the USDA’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program received $7.5 billion, a 10% increase from 2009. The increase in domestic food aid was prompted by rising unemployment and other effects of the ongoing recession. Additionally, the main U.S. fund for global food aid received $1.7 billion, a 38% increase from the previous year. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also saw its funding increase to $3.2 July 23, 2009

billion, about $608 million more than in 2009. Similarly, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) saw its funding increase to $1 billion, about $47 million more than in 2009. Obama had requested that the bill for fiscal year 2010 rein in agricultural subsidies, but his request was ignored by the House. The bill also included a provision that extended for two years a ban on poultry imports from China. That provision was expected to come in conflict with the Senate version of the bill. [See p. 440E1] The National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which had been started in 2004 to track diseased animals, saw all of its funding slashed. The USDA was reviewing the $142 million program, which the House bill called ineffective. The USDA was expected to report on it in several months. n Legislative Branch Funds Advance. The House June 19 voted, 232–178, to pass a $3.7 billion fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill for its own operations and those of related congressional agencies, such as the office of the Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police. The House bill would increase spending by $237 million, or 7%, over fiscal 2009 levels. The Senate July 6 voted, 67–25, to pass a $3.1 billion measure for itself and for joint congressional operations, a 3.3% increase from fiscal 2009. [See 2007, p. 481A1] By tradition, neither bill included funding for the other chamber. The measures would go to a House-Senate conference committee to be reconciled. The combined bill was expected to provide total funding of $4.7 billion. n House Passes Veterans Affairs Funds.

The House June 23 passed by voice vote a bill that would appropriate $133.7 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and military construction by the Defense Department for fiscal year 2010. The same day, the House passed, 409–1, a bill that would authorize the House to appropriate a year in advance funds for VA medical programs. [See p. 321F1; 2008, p. 702F1] The appropriations bill included $48.2 billion for fiscal 2011 for VA accounts related to medical services, medical and prosthetic research and information technology, as well as funding them for fiscal 2010. Legislators said putting the VA medical system on a two-year funding system would prevent vital programs from running out of money because of delays in passing spending bills. Of the $133.7 billion provided by the appropriations bill, $77.9 billion would be discretionary spending for fiscal 2010. That was 7% over the fiscal 2009 level, and $239 million more than President Barack Obama had requested. The bill would appropriate $108.9 billion for the VA for fiscal 2010, a 15% boost from the previous year. The Defense Department would receive $24.6 billion for expenses including military construction and base realignments and closings— 1.7% less than in fiscal 2009. n

Legislation Defense Authorization Bills Passed. The

House June 25 voted, 389–22, to pass a bill that would authorize $681 billion in spending for fiscal year 2010 for Defense Department and other national security programs and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate July 23 voted, 87–7, to pass its own $679.8 billion version of the bill. President Barack Obama threatened to veto the House bill over the authorization of funds for more F-22A Raptor fighter jets than Obama had requested. [See below, pp. 424B3, 217C1] Both bills would authorize $130 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They would also provide military personnel with a 3.4% pay raise, 0.5 percentage points more than Obama had requested. The House bill included provisions that would require the videotaping of almost all military interrogations; deploy U.S. military personnel on U.S.-flagged ships that were carrying government cargo and traveling through pirate-plagued areas; and establish a board to review the Defense Department’s program helping U.S. citizens living overseas to vote. House Democrats defeated Republican amendments to restore authorization to missile defense funds cut by Obama, and to use funds slated for Energy Department environmental cleanup programs to finance purchases of transport and drone aircraft. The Senate bill included an amendment that would expand federal hate-crimes laws to encompass attacks based on sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The House April 29 had voted, 249–175, to pass a separate bill similarly expanding hate-crimes laws, and Obama had indicated his support for the expansion. The Senate bill also called for the budget to maintain and modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal and said Congress would block funds for any treaty that limited U.S. missile defense. Bills Differ on F-22 Funds—The House bill contained authorization for $369 million to procure parts for 12 more F-22s, prompting Obama to threaten to veto the bill. Obama had called for production of the highly advanced stealth fighter to be capped at 187, ordering only four more of the aircraft. [See below] The version of the Senate bill approved, 26–0, by the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 25 had included an amendment that would have authorized $1.75 billion for the purchase of seven additional F22s. However, the Senate July 21 voted, 58–40, to cut the amendment. Obama after the July 21 vote said buying more F-22s would have been “an inexcusable waste of money.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joseph Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had personally urged senators to oppose the funds. Gates over the past several months had campaigned hard against the F-22, which he said was an expensive weapons system developed during the Cold War for use 489

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against advanced Soviet fighters, and was not useful in modern counterinsurgency operations and low-intensity warfare. He said buying more F-22s would take away money that could otherwise be used to buy more urgently needed equipment, such as body armor. He said increased production of another fighter jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, would ensure the U.S.’s aerial superiority in the near future. The F-22 had never flown a mission in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The F-22 was produced by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. Lockheed Martin said that producing the jet provided 25,000 jobs and indirectly supported 70,000 others in 44 states. Fourteen Democrats—mainly those representing states with many of the jobs supported by the program, such as Georgia, California and Washington—voted against cutting the funding. Gates said jobs lost from the cut would be offset by those that would be created to build more F-35s. Fourteen Republicans voted to cut the funds, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the Armed Services Committee’s ranking Republican and Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race. The Washington Post July 10 had reported that according to confidential Defense Department test results, the F-22 was far costlier to fly than the jet it was replacing—the F-15 Eagle—and required large amounts of maintenance. The Post reported that the F-22 cost an average of more than $44,000 per flying hour in 2008, while the F-15 cost $30,818. Additionally, the F22’s required maintenance time increased to 34 hours per hour of flight in 2008, up from 20 in 2004. Much of the maintenance was for the stealth coating on the jet’s skin, which could be damaged by rain and other abrasion. The Senate July 23 also voted by voice vote to cut $603 million in authorized funding to continue development of an alternate engine for the F-35. Gates had said development of the alternate engine was unnecessary and would impede progress on the F-35 program. The House bill contained $439 million in authorized funding for the alternate engine. n

Banking Goldman Sachs Reports Record Profit.

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New York City–based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. July 16 reported that it had made a $3.44 billion profit in the second quarter of 2009, a record for the 140-yearold company. While the announcement was viewed as a sign that financial markets were recovering from a severe crisis, it also raised concerns that companies were returning to risk-taking practices that had fueled the crisis and pushed the economy into a recession. [See pp. 387A2, 241E1] Goldman appeared to benefit from reduced competition, after the financial crisis in 2008 led to the dissolution of rival Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the acquisition of rival Bear Stearns Cos. by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The crisis had also weakened Goldman’s surviving rivals, 490

such as Morgan Stanley. Goldman had a down year in 2008, but had avoided its competitors’ mistake of investing heavily in the mortgage market, which was currently in a deep slump. Goldman said it had made strong profits in its fixed-income, currency and commodities divisions. The bank had also made profits in stock transactions and trading credit products, such as corporate bonds. Goldman’s share price on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) July 16 closed at $149.66, up 77% for the year. Goldman said it had set aside $11.4 billion in compensation and bonuses for the first half of the year. If Goldman performed as well in the second half of 2009, it could surpass the record levels of compensation it had given employees in 2007, before the crisis struck. Critics said lavish bonuses at Wall Street banks had encouraged them to take ever-greater risks, leading to irresponsible bets that eventually nearly brought down the financial system. However, Goldman Chief Financial Officer (CFO) David Viniar defended the bank’s compensation practices, saying, “We pay for performance.” Observers said Goldman’s record profit could spark a backlash from voters who perceived the government as being overly supportive of the financial industry, even as the unemployment rate rose and the housing market remained weak. Goldman had received $10 billion in aid from the Treasury to weather the crisis (Goldman returned the money in June), and the Treasury had ensured that Goldman was fully protected against potential losses caused by the near collapse of insurance giant American International Group (AIG) Inc. [See p. 162D1] J.P. Morgan Chase Reports Profit—

New York City–based J.P. Morgan Chase July 16 reported that it had made a $2.7 billion profit in the second quarter, a 36% increase from the $2.0 billion it had made in the second quarter of 2008. The banking giant was boosted by profit growth in its investment banking division, even as it saw losses mount in its consumer lending businesses as a result of the recession. [See p. 241E2] J.P. Morgan Chase, which had returned $25 billion in government aid in June, said it had set aside a total of $30 billion to offset potential losses on defaulted loans. The bank said defaults on credit-card and home loans continued to rise. Bank of America, Citigroup Post Profits—

Struggling banking giants Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. July 17 reported profits for the second quarter of 2009, but analysts noted that the profits came largely as a result of one-time asset sales. Without those sales, the two banks would have posted deep losses as they struggled with rising defaults on consumer and business loans. [See pp. 388B1, 264E2] Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., that day said it would record a $3.2 billion profit for the quarter. The profit was largely fueled by the $5.3 billion sale of its

stake in China Construction Bank Corp. Bank of America had also made $3.8 billion by selling its merchant payments business to an undisclosed joint venture. The bank reported $8.7 billion in losses from its lending businesses. Citigroup, based in New York City, said it would record a $4.3 billion profit, part of which stemmed from the $6.7 billion sale of a majority stake in its Smith Barney brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley, which turned Smith Barney into a joint venture run by the two companies. Citigroup reported $8.4 billion in losses from its lending businesses. Bank of America and Citigroup had each received $45 billion in aid from the Treasury, and both had been considered too weak to repay the government. Citigroup was currently in the process of converting some of its preferred shares into common stock, which would give the government a 34% stake in the company. Citigroup’s share price on the NYSE that day fell one cent, or 0.3%, to close at $3.02, while Bank of America’s share price fell 28 cents, or 2.1%, to close at $12.89. The Wall Street Journal July 16 reported that Bank of America had agreed to a secret “memorandum of understanding” with government regulators, which required the bank to shake up its board of directors and improve its business practices. The memorandum of understanding had been agreed to in May, but reportedly was not made public to avoid causing panic in financial markets. The Journal said regulators had demanded that the company replace the majority of its board members; the bank since then had replaced four members out of 16. The agreement also allowed the government to hand down strict penalties to Bank of America if it did not improve its risk management or boost its capital reserves. Britain’s Financial Times newspaper July 15 reported that Citigroup was on the verge of agreeing to a similar memorandum of understanding with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). The Journal July 16 said Citigroup had been working under a similar arrangement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency since 2008. Morgan Stanley Reports Loss—Morgan Stanley, based in New York City, July 22 announced that it would record a $1.26 billion loss for the second quarter of 2009. However, that number included an $850 million one-time fee that the company had accrued when it repaid the government $10 billion in aid. Morgan Stanley reported that, based on its ongoing operations, it had lost $159 million in the quarter. [See p. 265D1] Also that day, San Francisco, Calif.– based bank Wells Fargo & Co. reported a $3.17 billion profit for the quarter. The bank, which had acquired troubled mortgage lender Wachovia Corp. in 2008, said initial problems stemming from Wachovia’s portfolio of bad loans were “moderating.” Wells Fargo had received $25 billion in aid from the Treasury, and had yet to repay it. [See p. 265G1] FACTS ON FILE

Business Lender Receives Lifeline—

New York City–based CIT Group Inc., one of the U.S.’s largest lenders to small- and medium-sized businesses, July 20 confirmed that it had secured $3 billion in financing from a consortium of bondholders, allowing CIT Group to avert bankruptcy. The last-minute rescue came after CIT Group announced July 15 that the government would not provide it with additional financing. The Treasury had injected $2.3 billion into the company in December 2008, money which had not been repaid. CIT Group, like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, had relied heavily on shortterm loans to finance its operations, unlike traditional banks that utilized customer deposits and other liquid sources of cash to make loans. When credit markets froze during the financial crisis in 2008, CIT Group found itself without financing, and saddled with billions of dollars of debt. CIT Group had asked the government to help it stay afloat, proposing that the FDIC guarantee its corporate debt and that the Federal Reserve give the company access to a loan program. But those proposals were rejected, reportedly because the government did not consider CIT Group’s business model to be viable in the long term, and because a bankruptcy was unlikely to cause damage to the financial system as a whole. CIT Group July 21 said it was considering selling some of its assets to help pay its debts, and was planning to launch a debtfor-equity exchange program with some of its bondholders. CIT Group said it was still possible it could file for bankruptcy if its debt load was not relieved in the near future. n

Obama Administration Jarvis Nominated to Head Park Service.

President Barack Obama July 10 nominated Jon Jarvis as director of the National Park Service (NPS). Jarvis was a 30-year veteran of the agency, and currently director of the NPS’s Pacific West Region, in the U.S.’s Western states. Jarvis’s nomination was supported by several environmental groups, among them the National Parks Conservation Association. [See 2006, p. 819G1] Jarvis had angered Sen. Diane Feinstein (D, Calif.) after the park service in 2007 issued a report claiming that a family-operated oyster farm, the Drakes Bay Oyster Co., was causing environmental damage in a body of water north of San Francisco, Calif. The NPS had recommended that the land used to operate the farm, which was leased from the agency, be allowed to revert to wilderness when the current lease expired in 2012. n Collins

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President Barack Obama July 8 nominated geneticist Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collins, 59, was a former head of the NIH’s Human Genome Project, which had sequenced the human genome in the hopes that new medical advances would be July 23, 2009

gained through the exercise. [See 2008, p. 831C3] However, some critics expressed concern that Collins’s fervent Christian faith, which he frequently spoke publicly about, might improperly influence his views on scientific research. Collins in 2007 had published the best-selling book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. If confirmed by the Senate, Collins would replace Raynard Kington, who had been NIH’s acting director since 2008. n

Armed Forces Army to Temporarily Add 22,000 Troops.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates July 20 announced that the Army would temporarily expand by 22,000 soldiers over the next three years, in order to meet the demands of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other missions. That would raise the size of the Army to 569,000 active-duty troops. The Army in May had completed an expansion to 547,000 troops that Gates had ordered after he became defense secretary in 2007. [See pp. 498D2, 497E3; 2007, p. 650A3] Gates said that the cost of the expansion for fiscal 2009—which ended Sept. 30— and 2010 would be “less than a hundred million dollars” and $1 billion, respectively. He said he would request money for the expansion for fiscal 2011 and 2012 from Congress, but did not say how much it would cost in total. Gates said the expansion was necessary because troop reductions in Iraq would be offset by increases in troop deployments in Afghanistan to fight the growing insurgency there. He said that the military operations had steadily rendered more troops unfit to deploy due to injuries or stress. Another factor that he said endangered the Army’s ability to keep deployed units at an adequate size was the phasing-out of the Army’s unpopular “stop-loss” policy, which forced some soldiers to serve beyond their enlistment dates. [See p. 183C2] n

Terrorism Saudi Royals Linked to Al Qaeda Funding.

The New York Times June 24 described documents suggesting that charities linked to the government of Saudi Arabia, as well as members of the Saudi royal family, had provided funding to the Al Qaeda terrorist network and other terrorist groups before and after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. carried out by Al Qaeda. The Times article was based largely on documents provided by attorneys representing victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, among others, in a lawsuit against the Saudi government as well as related charities and organizations. [See 2008, p. 618A3; 2002, p. 1006B2] The lawsuit against the Saudi government had been dismissed in 2005 by Judge Richard Casey of U.S. District Court in New York City, who had found that the Saudi government and royal family could

not be sued in connection with the attacks due to the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which had granted foreign governments immunity from lawsuits in most cases. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City had upheld Casey’s ruling in August 2008, and the U.S. Supreme Court June 29 declined to consider an appeal of that ruling. The plaintiffs’ action against other defendants, including charitable groups and other nongovernmental bodies, were not affected. Charities Allegedly Financed Militants—

According to the Times, lawyers for the plaintiffs had obtained U.S. Treasury documents that alleged that the International Islamic Relief Organization, a Saudi charitable group with ties to members of the Saudi royal family, had provided “support for terrorist organizations” through 2006 at least. One of the documents reviewed by the Times was a German intelligence report that documented the transfer of millions of dollars from Saudi royals, including Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, to a charity that had been accused of providing financing for terrorists and Islamic militants in both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Pakistan. Plaintiffs’ lawyers also said they had been told by an Al Qaeda member about aid received from the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia. That charity hadbeen founded in 1993 to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees and others affected by the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s. Other documents viewed by the Times included a 1998 sworn statement made by an Afghan witness who said that he had seen a representative of Turki al-Faisal, a Saudi prince, deliver a check for one billion Saudi riyals ($267 million) to an official of the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group. However, the Times reported that none of the documents provided by the lawyers showed conclusive links between the Sept. 11 attacks and the Saudi government, royal family or associated charities.

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Funding of Somali Militants Alleged—

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported June 27 that it had received a Defense Department memorandum from attorneys for the plaintiffs that linked the Saudi High Commission to weapons given to followers of the late Somali warlord General Mohammed Farah Aidid. Militants linked to Aidid had killed 18 U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 70 others during fighting in Somalia in 1993. [See 1993, p. 743B2] The memo reportedly concluded that the Saudi High Commission had used the transportation of humanitarian supplies to Somalia to hide its secret delivery of weapons and ammunition to militants linked to Aidid. However, the memo also specified that its conclusions were “not finally evaluated intelligence” and could be changed. n

Civil Rights Obama Addresses NAACP. President Barack Obama July 16 addressed the civil rights group the National Association for the Ad491

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vancement of Colored People (NAACP) in New York City for the first time since taking office, at an event commemorating the organization’s 100th anniversary. Obama in his speech paid homage to the organization and its past leaders, and expressed his belief that its work was still needed. [See 2008, p. 360A1; 2006, p. 574B1] “Make no mistake, the pain of discrimination is still felt in America,” Obama said. “By African American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color or gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.” Obama also reinforced a theme of personal responsibility among blacks, calling on parents to take an active role in teaching their children. He also expressed a desire for black children in the U.S. to transcend limitations on their achievement goals. “I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be the president of the United States.” Many considered Obama’s election as the first black president of the U.S. to be the culmination of the black civil rights movement, leaving some commentators wondering if the organization’s work was still necessary. Others said the NAACP, the country’s oldest and largest civil rights group, still played a necessary role in ensuring racial equality in the U.S. n News in Brief. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission July 9 said it was opening an investigation into claims that a suburban swim club outside Philadelphia had banned a group of minority children from visiting because of their race. Mostly black and Hispanic children from the Creative Steps daycamp in Philadelphia had first visited The Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., a majority white community, on June 29 under a contract. The camp director, Althea Wright, said several campers reported hearing comments made about their race. The swim club days later refunded the fees it had charged the camp, and asked it not to return. The U.S. Department of Justice July 17 said it was reviewing the case in order to decide whether to open an investigation. [See 1969, p. 807B3] Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley July 8 filed a suit against the federal government in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., arguing that a federal law defining marriage as between a man and woman was unconstitutional. Coakley said

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the law, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), infringed on a state’s right to define marriage. The suit said benefits under MassHealth, a Massachusetts health insurance program for the poor, could not be extended to the spouses of same-sex couples because the program received federal funds. (Same-sex marriage was legal in Massachusetts.) [See p. 150B1] A law recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere July 7 went into effect in Washington, D.C. The city council 492

had approved the statute in May, but the U.S. Congress had 30 days to review it. Because neither the House nor the Senate took any action during that period, the bill became law automatically. [See p. 304B2] The Senate June 18 unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery in the U.S. The Senate resolution differed from a similar resolution passed by the House in 2008 in that it specifically said the resolution could not be used to argue in favor of monetary reparations for the descendants of slaves in the U.S. [See 2008, p. 535F3] The feminist organization National Organization for Women (NOW) June 20 elected lawyer Terry O’Neill, 56, as its next president. O’Neill, the chief of staff to Montgomery County (Md.) Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg, defeated 33-year-old Latifa Lyles by a margin of eight votes. O’Neill said she would focus on reaching out to younger women. [See 2001, p. 533C2] n

Environment EPA Declares Asbestos Emergency in Mont.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) June 17 declared a public health emergency for the first time ever, and said the federal government would pay some $6 million for health care costs incurred by residents of two Montana towns who had been exposed to asbestos. The two towns, Libby and Troy, were home to hundreds of people who were made ill by exposure to asbestos generated by a Libby vermiculite mine. Workers at the mine had been exposed to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite, and then carried it home on their clothing. [See p. 356C2] An EPA spokeswoman said the emergency declaration also allowed the federal government to begin removing vermiculite, a mineral formerly used to create insulation, from buildings in the two towns. The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) estimated that some 500 people from the two cities, which had a combined population of 3,900, had been diagnosed with diseases linked to asbestos exposure, including lung cancer and asbestosis. The federal funds would be given to the health authority of Lincoln County, Mont., in order to pay for any health care for the uninsured, or for costs not covered by insurance. The EPA had been granted the power to declare a public health emergency by the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly known as the Superfund law. The Libby mine had been designated a Superfund site in 2002. Superfund designation gave the federal government the authority to pursue liable parties for cleanup expenses, or, where responsible parties were not identified, to cover the costs from a special trust fund. The mine had originally been operated by the Zonolite Co., which had sold it to W.R. Grace & Co. in 1963. Grace had operated the mine until 1983. The company and three of its executives in May had been acquitted of charges that they had conspired to cover up the health dangers of the Libby mine. n

AFRICA

Mauritania Coup Leader Wins Disputed Election. The former head of the Mauritanian military, retired Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, July 18 was elected president in a landslide victory, according to final election results released the following day by the interior ministry. Abdel Aziz, along with 10 other military leaders, had seized power in an August 2008 coup that ousted the country’s elected leaders. In a bid to legitimize his power grab, Abdel Aziz June 27 signed a power-sharing deal with the ousted president, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi, that led to the July 18 presidential election. [See below; 2008, p. 972A1; for facts on Abdel Aziz, see p. 492E3] According to the final results, Abdel Aziz, 52, garnered more than 52% of the vote, surpassing the 50% threshold necessary to avoid runoff. His opponents, parliamentary speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir and opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah, received about 16% and 13% of the vote, respectively. Voter turnout was set at 61%. Both losing candidates July 22 filed appeals with the constitutional council, which had to validate the final count. Members of the opposition had immediately dismissed the election as fraudulent, citing numerous irregularities, including pre-marked ballots. While observers from the African Union (AU) and the Arab League characterized the vote as fair, analysts noted that Abdel Aziz had launched his campaign months earlier than his opponents. On April 15, he agreed to step down as head of the military junta to run for president as a civilian (the military junta continued to run the day-to-day affairs of the country). A recent constitutional amendment had allowed retired military officials to run for public office. FACTS ON ABDEL AZIZ

Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz was born Dec. 20, 1956, in Akjoujt, in what was then part of the French West Africa colony. (Mauritania gained independence in 1960.) He joined the army in 1977, and attended military school in Morocco. A 1984 military coup led to 21 years of dictatorial rule by President Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, under which Abdel Aziz served as the head of an elite presidential guard. He was instrumental in thwarting two coup attempts, in 2003 and 2004, before aiding in a successful military overthrow of Taya’s government in 2005. The military junta led by Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall followed through with its pledge to restore democracy by holding a presidential election in 2007, which Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi won. In August 2008, Abdel Aziz led a bloodless military coup, ousting Abdellahi. After resigning as head of the government and retiring from the military in April in order to run for office as a civilian, Abdel Aziz July 18 was elected president in an vote organized by a power-sharing government. [See p. 492A3; 2008, p. 559A2] FACTS ON FILE

Observers from the European Union July 23 called for the opposition’s claims of fraud to be investigated. Also that day, Sid’Ahmed Ould Deye, the head of the electoral commission, resigned, saying the “complaints” that he had received “have sown doubts in my mind about the reliability of the election.” Deal Paved Way for Election—The election had originally been scheduled for June 6, but, in a deal brokered June 2 by Senegal, was delayed when opposition parties agreed to drop a planned boycott and field candidates. By organizing a fair and contested election, Abdel Aziz hoped to restore the confidence of the international community, including donors, that had largely abandoned the country after the 2008 coup. The AU’s Peace and Security Council had levied sanctions against members of the junta in February, but lifted the penalties earlier in July in light of the planned elections. [See p. 459E2] The 2008 coup, the second government overthrow in three years for the northwest African nation, had also deposed Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, who had been imprisoned since his ouster. The Senegalese-brokered talks led to Waghf’s June 4 release. He was greeted by a rally of family members and supporters, to which he denounced his detention. After several delays, both sides June 27 signed a power-sharing deal, in which Abdellahi formally renounced any claim to the presidency. In exchange, a unity government presided over the country’s transition to the election. Much of the presidential campaign had centered on two problems that had recently plagued the Muslim nation, poverty and terrorism. [See below] Qaeda Group Claims American’s Murder—

Chris Legget, a U.S. aid worker, June 23 was shot and killed in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital. Two days later, a North African affiliate of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, known as Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the slaying in a recording sent to the Qatar-based satellite television network Al Jazeera. The murder of five French tourists in Mauritania in 2007 had also been attributed to the group; it had additionally been responsible for murders and killings of Westerners, and attacks on government installations and officials, across North Africa in recent years. [See p. 370B1; 2008, p. 347A3] On the eve of the Mauritanian election, police detained two suspects in the case, following a shootout in Nouakchott. One of the suspects was found wounded with explosives attached to his belt. Mohamed Lemine Ould Ahmed, the state security chief, July 18 said the attackers had entered the country from Mali. n

AMERICAS

Honduras Zelaya Rejects Reinstatement Plan. Oust-

ed Honduran President Roberto Zelaya Rosales July 22 rejected a 12-point plan to reJuly 23, 2009

instate him that had been drafted with the oversight of mediator Oscar Arias Sanchez, the president of Costa Rica. Zelaya in late June had been forcibly removed from office by the military, who undertook the action with the backing of the country’s national legislature and Supreme Court. Former congressional leader Roberto Micheletti had since assumed leadership of the de facto government. [See p. 480D2] Delegates representing Zelaya at the negotiations in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, said the proposal had too many conditions, and called on international diplomats to increase pressure on the de facto government to allow Zelaya to return. Representatives from Micheletti’s side said they would take the proposal to the other branches of the current regime for review. However, it seemed unlikely that the agreement would gain approval, since the Supreme Court July 20 had ruled that the military had lawfully deposed Zelaya while executing an arrest warrant. Despite the failure of the Costa Rican talks, Zelaya vowed to return to Honduras as early as July 24, and called for his backers to gather at the country’s borders in a show of support. Since his ouster, Zelaya had traveled to several countries in order to bolster support for his attempts to return to power. Earlier Plan Rejected—Arias July 18 had proposed a seven-point plan during the second round of mediation talks in San Jose that would have allowed Zelaya to return to Honduras and receive an amnesty for any alleged crimes. Zelaya’s representatives said they had agreed in principle to all seven elements of the plan, which called for the creation of a unity government comprised of members from all political parties, and would have had Zelaya replaced at the end of his term in January 2010. However, Micheletti’s negotiators July 19 said they could not accept any plan that allowed Zelaya’s reinstatement as president, instead suggesting Zelaya be returned to face trial. In the wake of the faltering negotiations, the U.S. had reportedly ramped up its diplomatic pressure on Micheletti’s regime, calling on it to find a peaceful resolution to the situation. The de facto government July 21 ordered the expulsion of Venezuelan diplomats from Honduras, accusing them of interfering in domestic political affairs. (Zelaya was a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, a leftist populist.) In a further alienation of Micheletti’s regime, the European Union July 20 suspended about $93.1 million in development aid to the country, and warned that additional sanctions might be forthcoming. After being elected in 2006 as a centrist, Zelaya’s political philosophy had shifted sharply leftward. His critics charged that he had tried to consolidate power in the presidency through attempts to revise the country’s constitution. Zelaya’s overthrow had been widely criticized by other countries, none of which recognized Micheletti’s regime as an official government. n

Panama Martinelli Sworn In as President. Supermar-

ket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal of the right-wing Democratic Change party July 1 was sworn in as Panama’s president by National Assembly President Jose Luis Varela. Martinelli, 57, in May had defeated former Housing Minister Balbina Herrera of the populist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) to win the post, and succeeded Martin Torrijos Espino of the PRD. [See p. 308F3] In his inauguration speech, Martinelli said he would attempt to make Panama a more business-friendly country, and would lead an effort to create new jobs. He also said he hoped to become “an active partner” to Colombia and Mexico in fighting drug trafficking cartels. The ceremony was attended by deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who had been ousted by the Honduran military a few days earlier. [See p. 493G1] n

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Venezuela Radio, Television Restrictions Set. Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela’s National Telecommunications Council (Conatel), July 9 said the government would revoke the broadcasting licenses of some 200 radio stations, while instituting new regulations for cable television channels, effective the following day. The new rules compelled cable and satellite televisions that produced 70% or more of their footage in Venezuela to carry footage of the speeches of President Hugo Chavez Frias whenever ordered to do so. [See p. 413B2; 2007, p. 811A1] Opposition legislators criticized the new rules as an infringement on freedom of speech, and warned that they represented a push by Chavez’s government to institute greater control over media outlets in order to silence critics. However, Cabello, who was also minister of public works and housing, said the rules would make the country’s media more democratic. Several analysts said the rules seemed aimed at Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), a television station whose broadcast license had been revoked in 2007, forcing it to move to cable and satellite distribution, which had much smaller audiences. Cabello July 3 had said 240 radio stations would have their broadcast licenses revoked in the near future, due to failure to pay taxes and mistakes made in regulatory filings. Separately, the government May 21 had raided the home of Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of 24-hour news channel Globovision, accusing him of usury crimes. The channel also faced a multimillion-dollar fine, and several government investigations. Chavez was reportedly angered by Globovision’s coverage of a minor earthquake in May, and had instructed senior officials to crack down on the station. Thousands of people June 27 marched in 493

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opposing rallies supporting either Globovision or Chavez in Caracas, the capital. Mayor Ends Six-Day Hunger Strike—

Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma July 8 ended a six-day hunger strike held to protest Chavez’s policies. Ledezma, a Chavez opponent, had won the mayorship in November 2008. However, he had protested an April move by Chavez to create a “head of government” in Caracas who took over many of the mayor’s duties, including control of the city’s budget. Ledezma, 56, had held his hunger strike in the Caracas offices of the Organization of American States (OAS), and wanted the organization to investigate Chavez’s alleged power grabs. [See 2008, p. 871E2] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australia Stimulus Package Passed. The Australian

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Senate Feb. 13 voted to pass a A$41.5 billion ($26 billion) economic stimulus package. The bill, which was supported by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s ruling Labor Party, included A$12.3 billion for payments to low-income families, farmers and students, among others, as well as A$28.8 billion for infrastructure construction and maintenance, schools and tax cuts for small businesses, among other initiatives. Australia had previously passed a A$10.4 billion stimulus package in October 2008. [See 2008, pp. 978F2, 740F3] Australia’s House of Representatives Feb. 5 had passed the bill after an all-night debate. However, the Senate, in which the Labor Party did not have a majority, Feb. 12 rejected the bill by one vote. The Senate passed it the following day, after concessions were made to an independent senator and the Green Party to obtain their support. Rudd had announced the stimulus plan Feb. 3 and had said that the government would consider passing a third stimulus package if the global economic slowdown continued. Rudd said that, following the passage of the stimulus plan, the Australian government was forecasting a A$22.5 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30. Rudd also said that the Australian government expected a A$115 billion decline in federal tax revenues over the next four years; in November, the government had estimated that the decline would total A$40 billion. He noted that six of Australia’s 10 largest markets for its exports were currently in recession, including the U.S. and Japan. Separately, the Reserve Bank of Australia April 7 lowered its benchmark interest rate to 3%, from 3.25%, to help bolster the economy. The cut was the latest in a series of decreases, beginning in September 2008, that had lowered the rate from 7.25%. The current rate was Australia’s lowest since March 1960. Australia Avoids Recession—The Australian Bureau of Statistics June 3 announced that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 0.4% between 494

January and March, allowing Australia’s economy to narrowly avoid a recession by the common definition of two consecutive quarters of declining economic growth. Analysts attributed the growth to an unexpected increase in the country’s exports. Australia’s GDP had declined by 0.5% between October and December 2008, its first decline in eight years. Experts had suggested that it was unlikely that Australia would be able to avoid a recession while most of the world’s other large economies posted declines in growth. n

China Second-Quarter GDP Shows Rebound.

China’s National Statistics Bureau July 16 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at an annual rate of 7.9% in the second quarter of the year, a sharp increase from the 6.1% rate recorded in the first quarter. The data suggested that China was entering into a recovery from the effects of the global economic slowdown more quickly than previously anticipated, a rebound attributed to the government’s aggressive stimulus spending program and a state-directed policy to promote bank lending. [See p. 186C3] The figure made it appear likely that China might achieve its stated goal of 8% GDP growth for the whole year. However, National Statistics Bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao called the apparent rebound “uneven” across industrial sectors, and noted that prices continued to fall, suggesting that there was still need to continue with the stimulus measures. China’s central bank and chief bank regulatory body had reportedly signaled concern that the surge in lending was creating new real estate and stock market bubbles. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index was up more than 85% from its November 2008 low. n

Indonesia Coordinated Hotel Bombings Kill Seven.

Two suicide bombers July 17 set off explosions at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, killing seven people and wounding another 53 in the first major terrorist attack in Indonesia since October 2005. Both bombers were also killed in the blasts. The bombings appeared to target dining rooms at both hotels and the explosions took place within minutes of each other. Analysts suggested that the bombers had targeted the luxury hotels because they were frequented by foreigners. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. [See 2005, p. 691E2] Indonesian authorities confirmed the deaths of at least three Australians—including Australian trade official Craig Senger, the first Australian government official to be killed by a terrorist attack—as well as those of one New Zealander, one Singaporean and one Indonesian. A total of 17 of the 53 wounded were foreigners, including eight U.S. citizens and citizens of India, Italy, Canada, Norway, the Nether-

lands, Britain and South Korea, among other countries. Indonesia’s large hotels were thought to have some of the world’s strictest security measures, including metal detectors at all entrances, examinations of all luggage and roadblocks to prevent cars from approaching too closely to a hotel. The bulk of the security measures had been put in place following an August 2003 car bombing at the Marriott that killed 12 people, and was carried out by Jemaah Islamiah (JI), an Islamic terrorist network based in Southeast Asia. [See 2003, p. 614E1] Both hotels were known for catering to foreign guests, and were seen as symbols of Indonesia’s growing economic clout on the global stage. Some members of Britain’s Manchester United soccer team had been scheduled to stay at the Ritz-Carlton July 19—before playing a game against a collection of all-star Indonesian players on July 20—but the match was cancelled following the attack. The attack was also seen as a setback for the Indonesian goverment, which since 2005 had carried out a largely effective campaign to crack down on terrorism. Yudhoyono Condemns Attack—Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono July 17 in a public address said the bombings had been a terrorist attack but did not place blame on any particular group. Yudhoyono said his government would “use the full extent of the law” to capture “those who did it, those who helped them and the masterminds.” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that day condemned the bombings, calling them “barbaric.” U.S. President Barack Obama said that the bombings demonstrated that terrorists in the region were still willing to kill innocent civilians in order to advance their aims. The attacks were also criticized by the European Union and the United Nations Security Council, among others. Yudhoyono July 18 visited the site of the attack. The same day, he spoke over the phone with Obama, who reportedly offered U.S. assistance in investigating the bombings. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) July 18 reported on its Web site that 500 soldiers had been put on standby in Jakarta in order to assist police in the area. In addition, security procedures were reportedly tightened around the country. JI Member Suspected in Attack— Indonesian counterterrorism officials July 18 said they strongly suspected that JI member Noordin Muhamad Top, or groups affiliated with him, had played a role in the attack. Noordin, a Malaysian bomb-maker and JI fundraiser, was thought to be the mastermind behind previous JI bombing attacks in Indonesia. [See 2008, pp. 573G2, 332C3] The Associated Press (AP) July 19 reported that the Indonesian government had asked the government of Malaysia for its cooperation in finding Noordin, who had previously lived in Malaysia and had been a fugitive for a number of years. FACTS ON FILE

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a government-funded think tank, July 16 had issued a report arguing that JI was split between moderate members who had renounced bombing attacks because of the public backlash they engendered, and extremists who favored using terrorist tactics to achieve the group’s goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia. The report said extremists within JI might launch new attacks in an attempt to bolster their influence within the group. Bombs Assembled Within Hotels—The Wall Street Journal July 18 reported that both suicide bombers had checked into a room at the Marriott on July 15 under aliases, and had apparently smuggled in the components of the explosives by disguising them in their luggage. The bombs were apparently constructed inside the Marriott. Police had discovered a third, unexploded bomb in the bombers’ room, and had matched DNA from the room to two people who had been decapitated in the explosion, identifying them as the bombers. The unexploded bomb contained nails, bolts and ball bearings and resembled bomb-making materials found during a raid of Noordin’s father-in-law’s property earlier in July. Indonesia’s state-run Antara News Agency July 19 reported that police had discovered a laptop that was believed to have belonged to the suicide bombers. The laptop, which was found in the Marriott, was thought to contain codes that the two men had used to communicate before the attack. Indonesian police July 22 publicly released sketches of the suspected suicide bombers that were based on the decapitated heads of the two men. One of the suspects appeared to be an adult between the ages of 20 and 40, while the other suspect was thought to be 16 or 17. Police July 21 had announced that they had taken DNA from people believed to be relatives of the suspects in the hopes of identifying the two suspected bombers. One of the bombers was reportedly thought to be Nur Sahid, a lieutenant of Noordin’s. Police July 22 announced that they had arrested a woman in Indonesia’s Central Java province who was thought to be Noordin’s wife. The woman, Ariana Rahma, had been arrested along with her two children and her mother and had been charged with obstruction of justice. Police had reportedly also arrested at least two other people, including a man who claimed to have been trained by Noordin to become a suicide bomber. n

North Korea U.N. Council Sanctions Firms, Officials.

The United Nations Security Council July 16 imposed new sanctions on five companies and five people cited as contributors to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. A Security Council resolution passed in June had authorized the new sanctions to be imposed once council members determined a list of target companies and officials. The companies included two that were July 23, 2009

recently singled out for new sanctions by the U.S., Namchongang Trading Corp. of North Korea and Iran-based Hong Kong Electronics. [See pp. 495D2, 462A3, 403E3] The sanctioned individuals included three officials of North Korea’s atomic energy agency and its Yongbyon nuclear facility, and two executives from the sanctioned companies, who faced an international travel ban and the freezing of their assets outside North Korea. The Security Council also added two products to a list of goods that it was prohibited to sell to North Korea because they could be used in building missiles: a certain kind of graphite, and para-aramid synthetic fiber such as Kevlar. New Report of Kim Illness—South Korea’s YTN news channel July 13 reported that, according to unidentified intelligence sources, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, 67, was suffering from pancreatic cancer, which was particularly difficult to treat. However, the report did not provide the evidence for that conclusion, and many observers said skepticism was warranted over uncorroborated reports on matters of such sensitivity to the secretive North Korean state. Speculation about Kim’s health and possible successors had intensified since 2008 reports that he had suffered a stroke. In his first major public appearance since April, he attended a July 8 event in Pyongyang, the capital, marking the 15th anniversary of the death of his father, founding North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. Footage of the memorial showed him limping and looking gaunt. [See p. 215B3] n

Other Asia-Pacific News North Korea, Myanmar Main Issues at Forum.

Thailand July 23 hosted the 16th Annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum on the resort island of Phuket. The forum, which followed five days of meetings between representatives of ASEAN member nations and representatives of other countries, including China, the U.S. and Japan, focused on discussions of counterterrorism, North Korea’s nuclear program and Myanmar’s human rights record, among other issues. [See p. 135E2] Thailand’s government had reportedly deployed 10,000 soldiers and security officers in and around Phuket in an effort to head off protests and potential terrorist attacks. Thai antigovernment protesters had forced the cancellation of an ASEAN summit in the city of Pattaya in April after storming the location where it was being held. Additionally, the pre-forum meetings began one day after suicide bombers July 17 carried out coordinated attacks against hotels in Jakarta, the capital of ASEAN member nation Indonesia. [See pp. 494D2, 250C2] Foreign ministers of all 10 ASEAN member nations July 20 began holding a series of meetings on regional issues, including the effects of the global economic crisis,

terrorism and the A(H1N1) swine influenza virus. [See p. 386E2] The 10 foreign ministers that day officially approved the creation of an independent human rights investigative body. The ASEAN charter required the creation of such a group before the end of 2009. However, the body would have no power to stop or punish member nations that violated human rights. Myanmar and other member nations had reportedly opposed giving the body punitive powers. [See p. 135D3] Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva July 20 defended the planned human rights body, saying, “It’s better to make a start than to leave this hanging with no progress at all.” North Korea–Myanmar Links Cited—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing at the Phuket forum, July 21 said there were “growing concerns about military cooperation between North Korea” and Myanmar, which the U.S. government called Burma. (Myanmar’s ruling military junta had changed the name of the country in 1989.) She argued that such cooperation “would be destabilizing for the region” and would “pose a direct threat” to neighboring countries. [See p. 462E3] Clinton July 22 expressed concern that North Korea might attempt or already be attempting to transfer some of its nuclear technology to Myanmar. North Korean officials had been photographed assisting in the creation of a series of underground facilities in Myanmar, and were thought to have attempted to export nuclear technology to other countries in the past, including Syria. Myanmar was a signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Clinton July 21 criticized Myanmar’s junta for its human rights abuses, including the detention of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, and the repression of pro-democracy activists and ethnic minorities, which allegedly included the gang rape of minority women and girls. Myanmar was largely cut off from the rest of the world and was subject to U.S. and European Union sanctions for its treatment of dissidents. [See p. 462D2] Separately, Clinton July 22 said the U.S. government would consider setting up a “defense umbrella” for its allies in the Middle East if it were unable to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. [See p. 485E2]

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Clinton Calls for Release of Suu Kyi—

Clinton July 22 said the release of Suu Kyi, who was currently on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest, was “critical” to improving relations between the U.S. and Myanmar. She said that if Suu Kyi “were released, that would open up opportunities at least for my country to expand our relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma.” U.S. President Barack Obama May 15 had extended a U.S. ban on investment in Myanmar until 2010. Separately, U.S. officials July 22 met privately in Phuket with representatives of Myanmar’s government, part of a continued 495

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effort by the U.S. to reopen lines of communication with the junta. Myanmar July 20 had said in a statement that pressure from the U.S. and other developed nations was only making it more difficult for it to make a transition toward democracy. Clinton July 22 called on ASEAN to expel Myanmar if it failed to release Suu Kyi, a plea that was rejected July 23 by Abhisit, who was ASEAN’s current chairman. However, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda July 21 had argued that Myanmar’s scheduled 2010 democratic elections could not be considered free and legitimate if Suu Kyi were not freed. U.S. Signs ASEAN Cooperation Treaty— Clinton July 22 signed ASEAN’s 1976 Trea-

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ty of Amity and Cooperation, which called for signatories to push for the peaceful resolution of disputes between ASEAN member nations, and for countries not to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. She also announced that the U.S. intended to become the first nation to appoint a permanent ambassador to ASEAN’s secretariat. [See 1976, p. 148A2] The U.S. had previously refused to sign the treaty due to concerns about how it would affect its ability to conduct its foreign policy in the region. Clinton depicted the change of heart as a symbol of the Obama administration’s desire for closer relations with ASEAN member nations. Some ASEAN member nations had criticized the previous U.S. administration of President George W. Bush for failing to make the region a priority. Clinton said, “I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we are fully engaged and committed to our relationships in Southeast Asia.” North Korea Pushed to Disarm—Following meetings with representatives of Japan, China, Russia and South Korea regarding North Korea’s nuclear program, Clinton July 22 said there was “remarkable” unity among the five nations on how to respond to continued provocations by North Korea. She said they all agreed on the necessity of implementing new sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council in June, and suggested that North Korea would need to do more than reestablish negotiations to have the sanctions dropped. [See pp. 495F1, 403E3] Clinton said a path toward re-engagement with the rest of the world was open to North Korea “and it is up to them to follow it. Unless and until they do, they will face international isolation and the unrelenting pressure of global sanctions.” However, she said, “Full normalization of relationships, a permanent peace regime and significant energy and economic assistance are all possible in the context of full and verifiable de-nuclearization.” Ri Hung Sik, a spokesman for North Korea attending the forum, said that talks between North Korea and the other five nations were “dead” and would not be revived unless the U.S. ended what he described as its “deep-rooted hostile policy” against North Korea. 496

Separately, state-controlled North Korean media July 23 reported that a spokesman for the North Korean government had criticized Clinton for a remark she had made earlier in the week, saying that the comment had shown that Clinton was a “funny lady” whose ignorance of “elementary etiquette” demonstrated that she was “by no means intelligent.” Clinton July 20 had compared North Korea’s recent missile and Nuclear tests to the actions of “small children and unruly teenagers” who act out to get attention. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

U.S. Vice President Biden Visits Ukraine, Georgia Reassures Countries of U.S. Support. U.S.

Vice President Joseph Biden July 21–23 visited Ukraine and Georgia, both former Soviet states that had in recent years sought membership to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) despite strong objections from Russia. U.S. President Barack Obama earlier in July had traveled to Russia for meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in which he had spoken of a “reset” in U.S.Russia relations. Biden repeatedly assured Ukraine and Georgia that the improvement of relations with Russia would not come at their expense. [See pp. 453C3, 449F3, 379D1] Biden called on both Ukraine and Georgia to resolve ongoing domestic political disputes. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko—who together had lead 2004’s peaceful “Orange Revolution” that ousted the authoritarian former President Leonid Kuchma—had been at odds for years, and their disputes often brought Ukraine’s government to a halt. In Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s opposition had recently organized weeks-long street protests aimed at forcing his resignation. [See pp. 378D1, 274F1] Biden Rejects ‘Spheres of Influence’—

In Ukraine, Biden July 21 said, “We do not recognize, and I want to reiterate it, any spheres of influence. We do not recognize anyone else’s right to dictate to you or any other country what alliance to belong to or what bilateral relationships you have.” The comments were widely interpreted as referring to Russian suggestions that it rightfully retained a degree of influence over former Soviet states. Yushchenko had led Ukraine’s push for NATO membership, but was widely expected to be voted out of office in a January 2010 presidential election. Tymoshenko and Russian-aligned Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich, the presidential front-runners, were less anxious for Ukraine to join NATO, as was most of Ukraine’s population, according to opinion polls. However, Biden said, “If you choose to be part of the Euro-Atlantic integration, which I believe you have, we strongly support that.”

In a July 22 address, Biden said, “Ukraine, in my humble opinion, must heed the lesson of history. Effective, accountable government is the only way to provide a stable, predictable and transparent environment that attracts investment, which is the economic engine of development.” He also said “political posturing” prevented progress, “especially now, in especially difficult economic times.” Biden also urged Ukraine to become more energy efficient. Biden said if Ukraine could match the energy efficiency of countries like Poland, “your need for energy imports would dramatically decline.” Ukraine and Russia had had periodic disputes over gas prices and supplies for years. [See p. 37C1] Before leaving for Georgia, Biden met separately with Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, Yanukovich, former parliament speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk and current parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. All five were expected to run in the 2010 elections. Biden Travels to Georgia—Biden July 22 arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, where his motorcade was greeted by hundreds of Georgians, many with signs encouraging the U.S. to continue supporting Georgia’s government. The U.S. had sent $1 billion in aid to Georgia following its brief war with Russia in 2008, when Georgia had invaded the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of South Ossetia. The Georgian troops had been crushed, and the war ultimately served to reinforce Russia’s presence in the splinter regions. (Medvedev July 13 had made his first visit to South Ossetia, where he said it was necessary for it and Russia to maintain defense ties.) At a meeting with Biden in the presidential palace, Saakshvili emphasized Georgia’s wariness of Russia, and claimed that his country was “building democracy at gunpoint” because Russian artillery was pointed at “this palace, this city, right now as we speak.” He also compared Georgia’s de facto borders with South Ossetia and another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, Abkhazia, to “a new Berlin wall.” Biden recalled his 2008 visit to Georgia, and said, “The reason I’m back, and the reason President Obama asked me to come back, was to send an unequivocal, clear, simple message to all who will listen, and those who even don’t want to listen, that America stands with you at this moment and will continue to stand with you.” He asserted, “Your territorial integrity is recognized. We refuse to recognize that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not part of Georgia.” However, he also urged Georgian leaders to bolster the country’s democratic insitutions, saying, “Many other people in the world are looking to you to see whether or not you can bring the [2003] revolution to full fruition and…plant those roots of democracy very deep.” (In 2003’s peaceful “Rose Revolution,” President Eduard Shevardnadze was ousted; he had been in power since 1992.) In addition to the summit with Saakashvili, Biden also met with Georgian opposiFACTS ON FILE

tion leaders Irakli Alasania and Nino Burdzhanadze. Also, a senior U.S. official July 23 said Saakashvili had asked Biden for military aid in monitoring the de facto borders with its splinter regions. However, the official later said he had made that remark in error. The Washington Post July 22 reported that Saakashvili had made such a request. n

Russia Rights Activist Abducted, Shot Dead.

Chechen human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, 50, July 15 was found dead with two close-range gunshot wounds to the head, hours after she was abducted from her home in Grozny, Chechnya’s regional capital. Chechnya was a volatile republic in the Russian Caucasus region that, along with neighboring republics Ingushetia and Dagestan, frequently experienced violence perpetrated by feuding local clans, separatist fighters and Islamic radicals. [See below, p. 497F2] Estemirova had worked for the Russiabased rights group Memorial, which gathered evidence of alleged government abuses. Prior to her death she had documented instances in which Chechens’ homes were allegedly burned down by local security forces because the residents’ relatives were suspected of belonging to antigovernment insurgent groups. Memorial July 20 said it had suspended its work in Chechnya. Employer Accuses Chechen President—

Oleg Orlov, chairman of Memorial, in a July 16 statement on the organization’s Web site accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of orchestrating Estemirova’s murder. Memorial also claimed that Estemirova in March 2008 had been summoned to Kadyrov’s office and personally threatened, and that Estemirova in April had been questioned for hours at the Chechen interior ministry. Kadyrov, who had long been accused by rights groups of using strong-arm tactics like abductions and torture against political opponents, rejected the accusation, and his spokesman July 17 said he planned to sue Orlov for defamation. Orlov the following day said he stood by his remarks and was prepared to defend himself in court. Kadyrov’s lawyer July 20 began legal proceedings against Orlov. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev expressed outrage over the murder and ordered an investigation. He July 16 dismissed accusations that Kadyrov was involved. Kadyrov had been appointed president in 2007 by then-Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was now prime minister. The Russian prosecutor general’s office July 16 said Estemirova’s murder was related to her work, an assertion echoed by Medvedev. Russian officials July 22 said experts from the United Nations could not conduct an independent investigation into Estemirova’s murder, but could give evidence to Russian police. In a statement, the U.N. investigators said Russian assurances of a thorough investigation “will be worth July 23, 2009

little unless the authorities take steps that go beyond what has been done in the past, which has all too often led to a cycle of impunity…we offer our assistance to the Russian authorities in light of the failure to effectively and impartially investigate the killings and attacks on a number of human rights defenders in recent years.” Several of Kadyrov’s opponents had been killed in recent months. They including Sulim Yamadayev, a powerful independent Chechen leader killed in March; Umar Israilov, a Chechen dissident who had accused Kadyrov of torture and abductions, and was shot dead in January; Stanislav Markelov, a rights lawyer who often represented Chechens, and was shot dead in January; and Ruslan Yamadayev, Sulim’s brother, who was shot dead in September 2008. Slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in 2006, had also investigated alleged government abuses in Chechnya. Estemirova had worked with both Markelov and Politkovskaya. [See p. 497F2, 273E2, 36G3, 36D2; 2008, p. 731G3] n News in Brief. Nine Chechen police officers July 4 were killed and as many as 10 wounded when militants ambushed their convoy in Ingushetia, a republic in the Russian Caucasus region. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said, “Those bandits must be identified, found and eliminated as soon as possible. There can be no mercy or leniency for them.” Security forces from Chechnya, a neighboring Russian republic, had been operating in Ingushetia following an uptick in violence there. [See below, p. 449B3] Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had appointed Ingush Prime Minister Rashad Gaisanov acting president of the southern republic, according to a July 3 government statement. His appointment followed an assassination attempt on Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in June. Officials July 3 said Yevkurov had regained consciousness and was “actively improving.” Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of Korruptsiya i Prestupnost, or “Corruption and Crime,” a newspaper based in the southern city of Rostov, died June 29, from a major head injury he had suffered in April. Yaroshenko April 30 had been found unconscious with a head wound near the entrance to his apartment building. The newspaper ceased publications after the April attack. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based advocacy group, June 29 called for an investigation of his death. [See below] Russia’s Supreme Court June 25 reversed the February jury acquittals of three men who had been accused of involvement in the 2006 murder of human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The men, brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, and former police officer Sergei Khadzikurbanov, would be retried later in the year at the same military court in Moscow, the Russian capital, that had delivered the acquittals. Politkovskaya’s supporters expressed concern that the gunman who shot her, and the individual who ordered

her murder, remained at large. A third Makhmudov brother, Rustam, was suspected of carrying out the shooting. He was believed to be hiding outside of Russia. [See p. 329D1] Mikhail Stavsky, 17, son of the vice president of oil giant OAO Rosneft, who had the same name, June 18 was released unharmed about two months after he had been kidnapped in Moscow. The details of his release were unclear. [See p. 378G3] n

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President Sworn In for Second Term.

President Ivan Gasparovic, 68, an ally of the leftist Direction-Social Democracy (Smer) party, June 15 was sworn in for his second five-year term following a victory in April elections. He was the first Slovakian president to win a second term. The position of president in Slovakia was largely ceremonial. [See below, p. 226F1] Facts on Gasparovic—Ivan Gasparovic was born March 27, 1941, in Poltar, a town in what was then Czechoslovakia. In 1964, he earned a law degree from Comenius University in Brataslava, which later became the capital of Slovakia. He went on to earn a doctorate there in 1968, and then continued as a law professor. From 1990 to 1992, Gasparovic served as attorney general of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic. In 1992, he was elected speaker of the national council of the Slovak Republic, which had come into existence alongside the Czech Republic in 1992. (The two countries had composed the former Czechoslovakia.) While at that post, he coauthored the Slovak constitution. Gasparovic held the council speaker position until 1998. He also served as the acting Slovakian president for eight months in 1998. He continued to serve in the parliament until 2002, when he founded Slovakia’s Movement for Democracy party (HZD) and became its leader. After his parliamentary term ended, he returned to teaching at Comenius University. Gasparovic was married with two adult children. n

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Iraq Maliki Stresses New U.S. Relationship in Visit.

Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki July 21 arrived in New York City on his first visit to the U.S. since 2006, and July 22 met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C. Maliki and Obama emphasized the redefined relationship between Iraq and the U.S. following a U.S. troop withdrawal from most Iraqi cities at the end of June. It was the first time the two leaders had met since then. [See pp. 483F1, 437A1] At a press conference after the meeting, Obama said he was “very encouraged” by the progress Iraq security forces had made in assuming security responsibilities, although he warned that there would be “some tough days ahead.” Maliki added 497

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that Iraqi forces had become “highly capable” after working with the U.S. military and its allies. Obama stressed the importance of Maliki’s Shiite Muslim–dominated government resolving ethnic tensions in Iraq. Relations were especially strained between Arabs and Kurds, and the leaders of the autonomous Kurdistan region—Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani—July 16 had warned that Iraq and Kurdistan were more likely to go to war now than at any point since 2003, when U.S.-led forces had invaded Iraq. Tensions also remained between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and between Shiite groups. Obama and Maliki also agreed that the U.S. would try to persuade the United Nations Security Council to lift sanctions placed on Iraq after the 1990–91 Persian Gulf war. Obama said, “It would be a mistake for Iraq to continue to be burdened by the sins of a deposed dictator,” referring to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Iraq currently had to pay Kuwait 5% of its oil revenue as reparations for Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq paid Kuwait about $100 million a month, and Iraqi officials said that money would be better used to rebuild Iraq. Lifting the sanctions would involve securing the approval of the four other permanent members of the Security Council besides the U.S—Britain, France, Russia and China—as well as Kuwait. Maliki July 22 had met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in New York City. He also was scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and U.S. congressional leaders during his weeklong trip. Basra Attack Kills Three U.S. Troops—

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Insurgents July 16 launched mortar shells or rockets on a U.S. military base outside the southern city of Basra, killing three U.S. soldiers. Basra had been relatively quiet after the Iraqi military launched a campaign against Shiite militias there in 2008. The Iraqi police July 18 arrested two men in Basra who they said had been trained by Iran to launch rocket and bomb attacks, and who possessed several rockets and a list of targets. Two more rockets July 19 hit a U.S. base in the southern province of Diwaniya, but there were no fatalities. In other violence, gunmen on motorcycles July 22 attacked a convoy of buses carrying Iranian Shiite pilgrims in Diyala province, killing five people. However, an annual Shiite pilgrimage to a shrine in the Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, July 18 had ended without major violence. In the past, pilgrims to the shrine had been attacked by Sunni insurgents. Four bombs July 21 hit the Baghdad neighborhoods of Sadr City and Dora, killing at least 15 people in total. A series of attacks by gunmen July 20 killed five Iraqi police officers and three civilians in the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, a day after security forces had conducted a security 498

sweep in an eastern part of the city. Mosul was one of the last remaining urban centers of the Sunni insurgency. A suicide bomber July 15 attacked a funeral tent in Sadr City, killing five people. Another suicide bomber that day attacked a police checkpoint in Ramadi, a city in the western province of Anbar, killing at least five people. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The U.S. State Department inspector general’s office July 22 reported that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was overstaffed, and that its personnel should be significantly reduced immediately. The embassy was the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world, with 1,873 employees. [See 2008, p. 501B1] o The Washington Post July 18 reported that according to U.S. military commanders, the Iraqi government was stringently enforcing provisions of a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that limited U.S. troop activities in a way that they said went beyond the agreement’s intent, and made it difficult to safeguard U.S. troops against attack. They said the Iraqi military July 2 had ordered U.S. troops remaining in Baghdad to “stop all joint patrols” with Iraqi forces, and that U.S. forces had been prevented from responding to intelligence on immanent attacks by requirements that their operations be cleared in advance with Iraqi commanders. n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Spike in British Death Toll Fuels Criticism.

The British Ministry of Defence July 10 announced that eight soldiers had been killed earlier that day in fighting in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, the deadliest day for British troops in nearly 30 years. The deaths prompted criticism in Britain that its soldiers were lacking in equipment, particularly helicopters, and that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had hindered the war effort by withholding funds. [See pp. 465D3, 449C1] The July 10 violence brought the British death toll to 15 in the previous 10 days, and to 184 since 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion toppled the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban from power. The number of British troops killed in Afghanistan as of that day surpassed the 179 troops who had died in the Iraq war; the Afghan toll later climbed to 188 when a bomb blast July 22 killed a soldier in Helmand. The recent spike in casualties came after British forces in June launched a major operation in Helmand—dubbed “Panther’s Claw”—to gain control of territory held by the Taliban. [See p. 466D1] The public’s emotional shock from the deaths reached its peak July 14, when the bodies of the eight soldiers who had died July 10 were returned to Britain. Thousands of mourners that day gathered in Wootton Bassett, a town in Wiltshire, England, to pay their respects to the soldiers, as hearses containing their coffins drove

through the streets. The event was broadcast live by British television stations. The opposition Conservative (Tory) Party criticized the ruling Labour Party for slashing £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) in funding for helicopter purchases in 2004. Tory leader David Cameron July 11 said, “It is a scandal that our forces still lack the helicopters they desperately require to move around in Helmand.” Critics said helicopters would allow troops to avoid the roadside bombs that had come to plague U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan. Britain had made about 30 helicopters available to its 8,300 troops in Afghanistan, most of whom were stationed in Helmand, in comparison with the hundreds of helicopters that the U.S. had provided to its 68,000 troops in the country. Brown dismissed such criticisms, saying the sudden rise in casualties was largely due to Operation Panther’s Claw, which put British troops in increased danger as they stepped up their engagement with the Taliban. Brown also claimed that helicopter deployments to the country had increased by 60% in the past couple of years. Brown was also criticized for his decision in June to deny requests from British military commanders for an increase of some 2,000 troops, which they had said was necessary for British forces to hold and secure hard-won territory. It was reported that Brown’s cabinet had been concerned about the increased cost that a bump in troop levels would entail. Instead, Brown authorized the deployment of an additional 700 troops, bringing the total to about 9,000, but said the extra troops would return to Britain after they helped provide security for Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 presidential election. However, Brown July 16 indicated that he would allow those 700 troops to remain on a more permanent basis, and July 13 had said he would review requests for even more troops. It was reported that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was concerned that a growing public backlash against Brown could lead to a drop in British support for the war effort. Obama July 11 praised Britain’s “extraordinary” role in combating the Taliban, and argued that it was in Britain’s national security interests to continue fighting, saying, “The likelihood of a terrorist attack in London is at least as high, if not higher, than it is in the United States.” Brown July 10 had also defended the war effort, saying that while British troops faced a “very hard summer,” the mission was “vital to the safety of the world.” Britain’s Guardian newspaper July 13 published a poll showing that 47% of the British public opposed Britain’s involvement in the Afghan war, while 46% supported it. The percentage who supported the war had increased by 15 percentage points since 2006. July Deadliest Month for U.S. Troops—

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month of July. That made July the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. The rise in violence was largely attributed to a major operation that had been launched earlier in July by 4,000 U.S. Marines in Helmand. Analysts said the rising death toll was also a result of the Taliban increasing its use of crude roadside bombs. Also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the bombs had been used to devastating effect against coalition forces in Iraq. The Washington Post July 20 reported that IED attacks in southern Afghanistan had increased by 78% from the previous year. As of July 23, 221 NATO soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009, including 123 U.S. soldiers, according to the Web site icasualties.org. Bagram Prisoners Protest Detention—

International media outlets July 16 reported that since the beginning of July, hundreds of prisoners at the U.S. Air Base in Bagram had refused to leave their cells in protest of their indefinite definition. Officials with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the prisoners were not receiving visitors nor participating in programs that allowed them to communicate with their families by videoconference. However, the prisoners were reportedly not on hunger strikes and had not behaved violently. There were about 600 prisoners at Bagram, which was located just north of the Afghan capital of Kabul. The U.S. had classified prisoners at Bagram as enemy combatants, which meant that they did not have access to legal counsel and could be held indefinitely. A U.S. court in April had ruled that Bagram detainees had a right to challenge their detention, but the Obama administration was currently appealing that decision, arguing that the detainees were prisoners of war, and hence did not have the same legal rights as other prisoners. (The Obama administration was currently conducting a review of the U.S.’s detention policies.) The U.S. had also transferred terrorism suspects arrested in other countries to Bagram. [See p. 199D2] Report: Probes of Killings Squashed—

The New York Times July 11 reported that officials within the administration of previous U.S. President George W. Bush had squashed efforts to investigate an alleged mass killing of Taliban soldiers in 2001. The Times said the Bush administration did not want to pursue an investigation of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord accused of orchestrating the killings, because Dostum had cooperated with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military, and had been a member of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government. [See 2007, p. 388F3; 2002, p. 712G2] The killings allegedly occurred in November 2001, shortly after the U.S. invasion, when thousands of Taliban militants in the northern city of Kunduz surrendered to forces loyal to Dostum, who was part of the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. The militants were then reportedly crammed into metal shipping containers, where many died of suffocation. The Times, citJuly 23, 2009

ing a declassified 2002 U.S. State Department report, said 1,500 militants had been killed. Investigations of the incident had been sought by human rights groups, members of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and members of the U.S. State Department, but were later dropped due to resistance from the Bush administration. The Times, citing an unidentified former official at the U.S. Defense Department, reported that in 2003 then–Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had said the U.S. was not interested in pursuing an investigation. Dostum denied the allegations in a column published July 17 on the Web site of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Dostum said it was “unimaginable” that his forces could have committed killings “to the extent that has been claimed.” Karzai in June had reappointed Dostum to his position as military chief of staff, a year after he was dismissed for allegedly threatening to kill a political rival. Dostum was currently living in exile in Turkey. Obama, in an interview with Cable News Network (CNN) broadcast July 13, said the allegations against Dostum had only recently been brought to his attention, and that he had asked his national security team to “collect the facts.” He said, “We’ll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all of the facts gathered up.” Other News—In other developments in Afghanistan: o The Taliban July 18 released a 28minute video on the Internet of a U.S. soldier who had been abducted in late June. The U.S. Defense Department identified the soldier as Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl, 23, from Ketchum, Idaho, and said he had been stationed in the eastern province of Paktika. In the video, Bergdahl said he had been captured after falling behind on a patrol. He urged the U.S. government to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, saying, “Please bring us home.” A spokesman for the U.S. military said, “The use of the soldier for propaganda purposes we view as against international law. We are continuing to do whatever possible to recover the soldier safe and unharmed.” [See p. 466G1] o A helicopter July 19 crashed at a NATO military base in the southern province of Kandahar, killing 16 civilians on board. The incident followed a helicopter crash July 14 that killed six civilians in Helmand. Neither incident was attributed to Taliban hostility. The helicopters had been transporting civilian contractors and supplies to remote areas of the country. o A powerful truck bomb July 9 exploded in Logar province, killing as many as 25 people, at least 13 of whom were reported to be children. The truck was carrying timber and had reportedly been found turned over on the side of the road before the explosives were detonated. It was unclear if the truck’s target had been Kabul, which was just north of Logar. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. n

India Suspect Confesses to Mumbai Attack.

The only surviving suspect from a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, July 20 confessed his involvement in the attack, reportedly taking everyone at his trial by surprise, including his lawyer. The suspect, Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, was accused of being one of 10 gunmen who had carried out a three-day rampage across the city that left 170 people dead, including the other nine gunmen. [See p. 417F3] Kasab, 21, had pleaded guilty to involvement in the attack shortly after his arrest in November 2008. However, he later recanted his confession, saying his interrogators had extracted it from him by force. Kasab’s trial, at a Mumbai court, began in April. He faced 86 charges, including murder and waging war against India, and if convicted could be sentenced to death. He had entered a plea of not guilty in May. Kasab July 20 told the court that he had decided to confess when he learned that Pakistan, his native country, had acknowledged that he was a Pakistani citizen, and was increasing its cooperation with India in investigating the attack. He said he had learned of these developments from the guards assigned to him. According to some reports, Kasab that day told the presiding judge, “Sir, I plead guilty to my crime.” Kasab said Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba had organized the attack, and that militant leader Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi had been the attack’s mastermind, which matched claims that had been made by Indian officials. Lakhvi was currently being held by Pakistani authorities. Kasab said he had joined Lashkar-eTaiba in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab, in order to receive weapons training so that he could become a robber. Kasab said that after he had undergone training, he and the nine other gunmen were moved to a safe house in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi some six weeks before the Mumbai attack, where they learned how to use inflatable boats. He said they left Karachi on Nov. 26, 2008, and needed four boats to reach Mumbai, which was on India’s western coast. Kasab provided vivid details of an attack on Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, in which Kasab and another gunman, whom he identified as Abu Ismail, killed more than 50 people. Kasab at the time was caught on camera holding an automatic assault weapon as he prowled the station, in what had since become an infamous image. Kasab said, “I was firing, and Abu was hurling hand grenades.” The prosecution warned that Kasab could be confessing to avoid the death sentence, and noted that parts of his confession contradicted evidence that had been gathered by investigators. Kasab July 22 told the court he had no such motivation, and that he was willing to accept the death penalty. The presiding judge July 23 said the trial would continue and that Kasab’s confession would go on the record. 499

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Cink Beats Watson in Playoff to Win Golf’s British Open

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Ends Watson’s Bid to be Oldest Major Winner.

Stewart Cink of the U.S. July 19 defeated compatriot Tom Watson in a playoff to win the 138th British Open, the third major of the year, at the Ailsa course in Turnberry, Scotland. Cink, 36, claimed his first career major title, thwarting the 59-year-old Watson’s attempt to become the oldest golfer to win a major tournament. (The oldest major winner in history was 48-year-old Julius Boros, who had claimed the PGA Championship in 1968.) [See 2008, p. 511B3] Watson had won eight majors in his career, including five British Opens (with the 1977 victory coming at Turnberry), as well as three Senior British Opens. His last major victory had come at the 1983 British Open, and in recent years he had mainly played on the seniors’ Champions Tour. That made his performance in the current British Open, where he was in the lead or near the top of the standings throughout all four rounds, all the more remarkable. [See 2007, p. 534F3; 1977, p. 659G2] After the first round July 16, Watson was tied for second at five under par, one stroke behind Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez. He held a share of the lead with Steve Marino of the U.S. after the July 17 second round, with both golfers at five under. Watson entered the final round in the lead at four under, one stroke ahead of Matthew Goggin of Australia and Ross Fisher of England. Cink was three strokes back, at one under. In the final round, Cink, playing three groups ahead of Watson, sunk a 15-foot putt for birdie on the par-four 18th hole to post a score of 278, two under par. Watson teed off on the 18th needing only a par to win. However, he missed an eight-foot par putt and bogeyed the hole, forcing a fourhole playoff with Cink. In the playoff— played on the fifth, sixth, 17th and 18th holes—Watson crumbled, bogeying the fifth and double bogeying the 17th. Meanwhile, Cink played the four holes in two under par, including an eagle on the 18th and final hole to seal the victory. England’s Chris Wood and Lee Westwood finished tied for third, at one under par. Cink earned about $1.221 million in prize money for the victory. n 500

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India, Pakistan to Share Intelligence—

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani July 16 pledged to “share real-time, credible and actionable” intelligence to combat terrorist threats. The joint statement came after a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and was seen as a sign of improvement in relations between the two countries, which had soured after the Mumbai attack. Singh and Gillani agreed not to link the issue of terrorism to other bilateral matters, which would give India and Pakistan increased flexibility to make progress on other issues, such as a territorial dispute over the region of Kashmir. [See p. 418E3] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff,

47, who was gravely injured in a roadside blast while on assignment in Iraq in early 2006, July 13 returned to Iraq as a reporter for the first time since being injured. His slow and laborious recovery from his injuries was the subject of a 2007 prime-time ABC special, as well as a best-selling book, In An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing, co-authored with his wife, Lee Woodruff. [See 2007, pp. 216B1, 151A3; 2005, p. 884E2] U.S. mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, 40, July 4 slipped onstage during an opening-night performance as Rosina in Gioacchino Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville at London’s Royal Opera at Covent Garden and fractured her right leg. She managed to finish the performance using a stick and a crutch, and sang the role at the next scheduled performance of the opera, on July 7, while seated in a wheelchair. [See 2008, p. 496A2] n

O B I T UA R I E S AKSYONOV, Vasily Pavlovich, 76, Russian author, trained as a physician, who practiced medicine for several years before turning to writing full time in 1960; in 1961, he published an adventurous novel about disaffected Soviet youth, A Ticket to the Stars, that made him a Soviet literary icon; later, though, he ran afoul of the government and was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1980 and stripped of his citizenship; it was restored in 1990, but by then he was settled in the Washington, D.C. area, as a professor of Russian literature at George Mason University; he remained in the U.S. until 2004; a number of his books, including The Burn (1980) and The Island of Crimea (1983) were not published in his native land until the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union; born Aug. 20, 1932, in Kazan, in what was then the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic; died July 6 at a hospital in Moscow, well over a year after suffering a stroke that had left him in a coma. [See 1990, p. 762F3; 1981, p. 166F3; Indexes 1979–80, 1968–69, 1965] ALLEN, Betty (Elizabeth Louise), 82, opera singer, classical recitalist, voice teacher and arts administrator; a mezzo-soprano, she belonged to the second generation of African American singers to achieve major success on the operatic stage, along with such artists as Leontyne Price and Shirley Verrett; a number of prominent U.S. composers, including Virgil Thomson, wrote music specifically for her; she taught at New York City’s Manhattan School of Music for many years and was also executive director of the city’s Harlem School of the Arts; born March 17, 1927, in Campbell, Ohio; died June 22 at a hospital in Valhalla, N.Y., of kidney disease complications. CRONKITE, Walter (Walter Leland Cronkite Jr.),

92, television journalist who anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, when Dan Rather replaced him; with his avuncular manner and air of trustworthiness, he became a national institution in an era when Americans relied on network television for news coverage much more than they later would; he entered the world of TV after working as a radio broadcaster, and as a print journalist assigned to the European theater during World War II; in the 1950s, he held a variety of assignments at CBS, including hosting a long-running series, “You Are There,” which reenacted historical events; when he took over as anchor, evening news broadcasts on all three major TV networks were 15 minutes long; CBS’s broadcast was the first to expand to 30 minutes, in September 1963; when it did, Cronkite began using what became his trademark sign-off, “And that’s the way it is”; perhaps his greatest impact as a broadcaster came in 1968, when, after a trip to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, he hosted a special program on the war in which he was instrumental in turning U.S. public opinion against the conflict by calling for it to be ended

Walter Cronkite in 1979.

through negotiations; after leaving his anchor’s post, he worked for CBS as a special correspondent, and also appeared on other media outlets, including the CNN cable network and National Public Radio; born Nov. 4, 1916, in St. Joseph, Mo.; died July 17 at his home in New York City, of cerebrovascular disease. [See 2004, p. 951F3; 2000, pp. 371A2, 220E3; Indexes 1995–98, 1992–93, 1988–89, 1984, 1980–82, 1967–77, 1963– 64, 1961, 1957] GATTI, Arturo, 37, Italian-born boxer who grew up in Montreal, Canada, and fought as an amateur there before turning pro in 1991; nicknamed “Thunder” for his brutal punches, he won the International Boxing Federation (IBF) super featherweight crown in 1995, then defended it three times before moving to a higher weight class; he won the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) light welterweight title in 2004, then defended it twice before being beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2005; he retired with a record of 40 wins (31 by knockout) and nine losses after being knocked out by Alfonso Gomez in July 2007; born April 15, 1972; found dead July 11 in a hotel room in Porto de Galinhas, a seaside resort in northeastern Brazil; he appeared to have been strangled and also had a head injury; local authorities July 12 arrested his Brazilianborn wife, Amanda Rodrigues, 23, in connection with his death. [See 2006, p. 1037F3; 2005, p. 993A1, B1; Indexes 2004, 2000, 1997] McCOURT, Frank (Francis), 78, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Angela’s Ashes (1996), which also became a major best-seller; the book dealt with the travails of growing up in a poverty-stricken household in Ireland, to which his Irish-born parents had returned after failing to better their economic lot in the U.S.; his first book, it was published when he was in his mid-60s, after he had retired from years of teaching English in New York City high schools; it netted him a Pulitzer Prize in 1997, and was the basis for a 1999 film directed by Alan Parker; he published two other volumes of memoirs, ’Tis (1999), about his early adulthood in New York, and Teacher Man (2005), about his teaching experiences; one of his brothers was author and actor Malachy McCourt; born Aug. 13, 1930, in New York; died there July 19, of melanoma and meningitis. [See 2005, pp. 1000B1, 864B1; 2000, pp. 144B1, 72B1; Indexes 1996–99] PRESNELL, Harve (George Harvey), 75, actor, trained as an opera singer, who originated the lead male role in Meredith Willson’s Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1960), opposite Tammy Grimes; he reprised the role, opposite Debbie Reynolds, in the Hollywood film version of the show, released in 1964, at a time when Hollywood musicals were on the wane; he later appeared in national tours of Broadway musicals and as a (nonsinging) character actor in television shows, and in films such as Fargo (1996) and Saving Private Ryan (1998); born Sept. 14, 1933, in Modesto, Calif.; died June 30 at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., of pancreatic cancer. [See 1996, p. 232F1; 1992, p. 1010C2; Indexes 1964, 1960] ROBERTS, Ken (born Saul Trochman), 99, announcer who was the voice of dozens of radio shows in the 1930s and 1940s before moving over to television in the 1950s; his TV work included lengthy stints as the announcer of the daytime soap operas “Love of Life” (from 1951–71) and “The Secret Storm” (from 1954–74); he was the father of actor Tony Roberts; born Feb. 22, 1910, in New York City; died June 19 at a New York hospital, of pneumonia. n

July 23, 2009

Kurdish President Barzani Reelected in Iraq Strong Showing by Opposition Coalition.

Iraq’s election commission July 29 announced that Kurdish President Massoud Barzani had won a second term, garnering 70% of the vote in a regional presidential election held July 25. The commission said Kurdistan’s ruling coalition—which was comprised of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—had won 57% of ballots cast in parliamentary elections also held July 25. However, a strong showing by the Gorran coalition—with 24% of the parliamentary vote—was seen as an expression of increasing Kurdish dissatisfaction with the ruling coalition, which had been accused of corruption, nepotism and other abuses of power. [See p. 498A1] The KDP and the PUK had jointly led the autonomous region since 2003, when U.S.led forces invaded Iraq and toppled President Saddam Hussein from power. Kurdistan had been spared the intense sectarian violence that subsequently erupted between Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni Arab Muslims, and the ruling coalition had been credited with keeping Kurdistan peaceful and relatively prosperous. However, the coalition reportedly controlled all aspects of the Kurdish government and economy, as well as the region’s security forces, leading some to accuse it of authoritarianism. Gorran (which meant “change” in Kurdish) was led by Nawshirwan Mustafa, a former PUK member and deputy to Jalal Talabani, who was Iraq’s federal president and the leader of the PUK. While Gorran had some policy differences with the ruling coalition—including advocating greater cooperation with Iraq’s Arab-dominated federal government—it had been formed mainly to protest the ruling coalition’s dominance over Kurdish affairs. The Kurdish elections had been closely watched, since unresolved disputes between Kurdistan and the federal government were seen as potential sources of instability for the entire country. Barzani July 28 said he rejected a United Nations proposal to turn Kirkuk province into an autonomous region, a plan backed by U.S. officials. Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmens had all made territorial claims on Kirkuk, which possessed vast oil reserves and had been the site of minor clashes between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi national army. Observers said a U.S. troop presence in the province was the principal reason that violence between the two sides had not escalated. [See p. 275C2] Barzani’s government had inflamed the situation June 24, when the Kurdish parliament passed a draft regional constitution that proclaimed Kirkuk was part of the “geographic and historic entity” known as Kurdistan. Barzani had intended to include a referendum on the constitution on the July 25 ballot, but said he had refrained from doing so at the urging of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, who had visited Iraq in early July. Barzani said Kurds would vote on the constitution in a fall referendum. [See p. 465A1]

Despite the push to put the constitution to a referendum, Barzani maintained that the ultimate status of Kirkuk would be determined after the federal government completed a national census, as mandated by the Iraqi constitution. The long-planned census had been repeatedly delayed. Kurdistan and the federal government had also yet to reach agreements on other controversial issues, including a law determining the distribution of national oil revenues, and the status of Kurdistan’s security forces, known as the pesh merga. U.S. Troop Withdrawal Could Accelerate—

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates July 29 said there could be a “modest acceleration” in the rate of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq in 2009, due to an improving security situation. Gates said an additional 5,000 troops could join the 10,000 troops that were slated to leave Iraq by the end of the year. All of the U.S.’s 130,000 troops in Iraq were to leave by 2011, according to a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. Gates made his remarks at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, after making a two-day visit to Iraq. Gates and Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, July 28 had told reporters that cooperation between U.S. and Iraqi troops was improving, following a U.S. troop withdrawal from most Iraqi cities at the end of June. Gates July 29 said the transfer of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces was going “better than expected.” He warned that there would be an “occasional hiccup” in the transition, but added, “On the whole we are quite pleased.” One such hiccup occurred July 21 when an Iraqi officer attempted to detain U.S. soldiers who had killed three Iraqi civilians during a gun battle in the Abu Ghraib suburb of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The U.S. soldiers said they had fired in self-defense, which was permitted under the 2008 security agreement. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki July 25, on the last day of a weeklong trip to the U.S., said the officer had been “out of line.” Maliki met with Gates and Odierno July 28 in Baghdad. [See p. 497F3] Gates July 29 met with Barzani before traveling to Turkey. He said he had told Barzani to take advantage of the increased stability afforded by the presence of U.S. troops to resolve Kurdistan’s disputes with Iraq’s federal government. Gates said he had told him, “We have all sacrificed too much in blood and treasure to see our gains lost over political differences.” Odierno the previous day had said, “Probably our number one driver of instability is Kurd-Arab tensions.” Security Forces Raid Iranian Camp—

Iraqi security forces July 28 raided a camp that was home to some 3,000 exiles belonging to Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group. The raid was praised by Iranian officials, but was reportedly opposed by the U.S., which since 2004 had protected the group as part of an effort to glean information about Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Analysts said the raid was evidence of Iraq’s increased independence from the U.S., and

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3580 July 30, 2009

B its growing ties with Iran, which like Iraq had a Shiite majority. [See p. 209B1] The camp, called Camp Ashraf, was located just north of Baghdad and near the Iranian border, in Iraq’s Diyala province. Iraqi officials said the purpose of the raid was to establish a police station inside the camp, but Maliki’s office later July 28 said the camp would be closed for good. Clashes continued July 29, and the MEK said as many as eight of its members had been killed and 400 wounded. However, a government spokesman said no one had died in the raid. Odierno July 28 said the U.S. had been given no prior warning of the raid. U.S. officials did not publicly criticize the raid. MEK had been given shelter in Iraq by Hussein, a Sunni, and had supported his regime during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. MEK members said they could return to

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Kurdish President Barzani reelected in Iraq. PAGE 501

WHO discontinues swine flu tracking. PAGE 502

Senate panel backs Sotomayor nomination to Supreme Court. PAGE 503

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California budget deal sets deep cuts. PAGE 503

Paulson defends response to financial crisis. PAGE 504

Prominent black scholar’s arrest in Massachusetts causes furor. PAGE 504

Young detainee’s release from Guantanamo ordered. PAGE 505

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Congo Republic’s President SassouNguesso reelected. PAGE 507

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya briefly returns, camps at border. PAGE 507

Kyrgyz President Bakiyev reelected in disputed vote. PAGE 510

Refugees from fighting allowed to return to Pakistan’s North-West Frontier. PAGE 514

Cyclist Contador wins Tour de France. PAGE 515

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Iran if the Iraqi government closed Camp Ashraf, but only if they were given international guarantees that they would not be arrested inside Iran. Analysts said Iran was unlikely to abide by such a guarantee. n

Swine Flu WHO Discontinues Case, Death Tracking. The World Health Organization (WHO)

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July 16 said it would halt the tracking of cases and deaths in the A(H1N1) swine influenza virus pandemic. The WHO, in a statement posted on its Web site, said the volume of new cases was making it “difficult, if not impossible, for countries to try and confirm them through laboratory testing.” The statement added, “At this point, further spread of the pandemic, within affected countries and to new countries, is considered inevitable.” [See p. 386E2] The new strain of swine flu had emerged in late April, and quickly spread across the globe. The WHO in June had declared a worldwide pandemic for the first time since 1968. The organization July 16 said the swine flu had taken only six weeks to spread widely, while previous pandemics had taken up to six months to cover the same area. As of July 6, the last date for which the WHO issued a tracking report, 94,512 cases of the swine flu virus had been found in 135 countries and territories, with 429 deaths linked to the disease. The WHO recommended that countries continue to track clusters of deaths or especially virulent cases, or other unusual infection patterns. However, it said continuing to report every laboratory-confirmed case was a waste of resources. Epidemiologists had also noted that perhaps millions of people had contracted mild cases of the swine flu that had gone undocumented, rendering the WHO’s count meaningless. The flu season was in its early stages in the Southern Hemisphere, and the virus was expected to spread again with the start of the flu season in the Northern Hemisphere in the fall. Experts believed that the virus still posed a significant health threat, as it might mutate into a deadlier form. Drug companies were in the process of creating a swine flu vaccine, but it remained unclear if they would be able to create an adequate amount of the vaccine before the start of the Northern Hemisphere’s flu season. Vaccine Production Problems Seen—

Vaccine makers Novartis AG of Switzerland and Baxter International Inc. of the U.S. July 16 said they were obtaining unusually low yields of a key ingredient during their production process, in which viruses were cultivated and rendered inactive. The announcements raised concerns that the manufacture of enough vaccine to fill orders from various governments might be significantly delayed. It was also thought that people might need two doses of the vaccine in order for them to develop resistance to swine flu, further complicating vaccination programs. The WHO July 13 had declared the swine flu virus “unstoppable,” and advised countries to establish priorities for who

would receive vaccinations first. The organization July 24 said the virus was increasingly being found in older people, but that school-aged children were still the group most affected by the disease. U.S. Sets Vaccination Plan—The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama July 9 outlined its plans for a governmentfunded swine flu vaccination program to begin in the fall of 2009. “The potential for a significant outbreak is looming,” Obama said. U.S. officials said they hoped to have 100 million doses of vaccine ready by the beginning of flu season in mid-October, but that the timeline would depend on whether clinical trials showed that the vaccine was effective. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an expert panel of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), July 29 recommended a plan for vaccine distribution in the U.S. Health care workers and emergency responders were given first priority to receive the vaccine, followed by pregnant women, those aged six months to 24 years, and those aged 25–64 with certain chronic illnesses. Officials with the CDC June 26 said it estimated that more than one million people in the U.S. had been infected by the swine flu virus. The officials said that only a small number of those infected with the disease had been tested for it, and those with mild cases had not sought treatment or been tested. Other News—In other swine flu news: o The U.S. Health and Human Services Department July 2 said it would donate 420,000 courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to the Pan-American Health Organization for use in Latin American countries particularly hard hit by the disease. The department said treatment of the disease would help keep Latin America and the U.S. secure. o Danish health officials June 29 reported that they had found the first case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu. The WHO June 30 said the instance was isolated and did not present a wider health threat. n

United Nations Japanese Envoy Elected Head of IAEA.

The 35-member governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations body tasked with monitoring nuclear programs around the world, July 2 voted, 23–11, to elect Yukiya Amano of Japan as the agency’s new director general. Mohamed ElBaradei, the current head of the agency, had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 along with the agency, and was scheduled to retire in November. [See p. 342B3; 2005, p. 721B3] The candidacy of Amano, who was the Japanese envoy to the IAEA, had been backed by the U.S. and most of the board’s other developed nations, while another candidate, South Africa’s Abdul Samad Minty, had been supported primarily by developing countries. A group of four other candidates had dropped out after failing to receive a significant number of votes in a June 9 informal poll.

Amano had been the front-runner in five votes held earlier the same day, as well as five votes held March 26, but had repeatedly failed to win the vote by the required two-thirds margin. He was elected after an unidentified country that had previously voted in favor of Minty reportedly instead abstained from voting. n

Other International News Former CIA Officer Charged With Rape.

Andrew Warren, a former station chief in Algeria for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), June 18 was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on one count of sexual abuse in connection with allegations that he had raped a woman in Algeria in February 2008. The criminal indictment was unsealed June 30. [See p. 65A3] According to the indictment, the alleged rape victim had been drugged by Warren and was therefore “incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct and was physically incapable of declining participating in, or communicating unwillingness to engage in the sexual act.” She had reportedly told investigators that she had found herself unable to move after drinking two martinis prepared by Warren. Investigators found the prescription drugs Xanax and Valium during a search of Warren’s residence. Warren, a U.S. citizen who had converted to Islam prior to joining the CIA, faced a possible sentence of life imprisonment if convicted in the case. He was also suspected of drugging and raping at least one other woman during his time in Algeria. He had previously denied raping either woman. Warren had reportedly been fired by the CIA after a criminal investigation into the allegations began in January. n

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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Supreme Court Senate Panel Backs Sotomayor Confirmation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee July 28 voted, 13–6, to approve President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The committee’s approval sent the nomination to the full Senate, which was expected to begin debate on her confirmation the following week. Sotomayor was expected to win confirmation relatively easily, since 60 of the Senate’s 100 members belonged to the Democratic caucus. [See p. 469A1] Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) was the only Republican to join the committee’s 12 Democrats in voting to support Sotomayor. Republicans voting against her raised doubts that she was capable of judging impartially, in light of public statements she had given suggesting that her identity as a woman and a Hispanic played a prominent role in her decision-making process. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, said her comments indicated that she could not “set aside her personal opinions and biases.” Sessions also said her rulings showed a “liberal, pro-government ideology.” Democratic committee members addressed those concerns, with committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (Vt.) describing Sotomayor as a “restrained, fair and impartial judge who applies the law to the facts to decide cases.” Graham said Sotomayor was “left of center but certainly within the mainstream.” He added that it would be a “good thing” if Sotomayor inspired “young women, particularly Latina women, to seek a career in the law.” Several senators expressed dismay that the hearings had failed to reveal much of substance regarding Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy. Like other nominees in recent years, Sotomayor had largely avoided voicing direct opinions on hot-button issues that could imperil her nomination. Sen. Herb Kohl (D, Wis.) said confirmation hearings should be changed to elicit “greater candor” from nominees. Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.) said, “We can’t get real answers in these hearings.” n

Politics Sen. Bunning Forgoes Reelection Bid.

Sen. Jim Bunning (R, Ky.) July 27 announced that he would not run for reelection to a third term in 2010. Bunning, 77, had faced pressure to step aside from fellow Republicans concerned that he was likely to lose his seat. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) had led the effort to persuade Bunning not to run. [See p. 477G3; 2004, p. 872A1] Bunning issued a statement blaming his Republican colleagues for cutting off his campaign finances. He said, “Over the past year, some of the leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate have done everything in their power to dry up my fund-raising.” He July 30, 2009

added, “The simple fact is that I have not raised the funds necessary to run an effective campaign for the U.S. Senate. For this reason, I will not be a candidate for reelection in 2010.” Bunning was a former Major League Baseball pitcher who had been elected to the Hall of Fame. He was known for a hot temper and for making controversial remarks. He had behaved erratically during his 2004 reelection campaign, repeatedly insulting his Democratic opponent and failing to appear for debates. In February, Bunning had apologized after predicting that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would die of cancer within nine months. [See p. 131B1] Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson was viewed as the strongest Republican candidate for Bunning’s seat. State Attorney General Jack Conway and Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, Bunning’s 2004 opponent, were competing for the Democratic nomination. Five other Republican senators—Christopher Bond (Mo.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), Mel Martinez (Fla.) and George Voinovich (Ohio)—had previously said they did not intend to run for reelection in 2010. So had Democratic Sens. Roland Burris (Ill.) and Ted Kaufman (Del.), both appointed to fill vacant seats in January. Hutchison to Run for Texas Governor—

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, Texas) July 13 announced that she planned to challenge Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican gubernatorial primary in March 2010. Hutchison in a radio interview July 29 said she would resign her Senate seat in October or November in order to devote herself to her campaign for governor. n

State & Local Politics California Budget Deal Sets Deep Cuts.

The California state legislature July 24 voted to approve a package of budget measures that would nearly close the state’s $26 billion budget deficit by means of severe cuts to spending on government programs, particularly education and health care. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) July 20 had reached a budget agreement with the leaders of the Democratic majorities in the legislature, after several weeks of stalemate. The package of about 30 bills received final approval after a last round of marathon negotiations among lawmakers. [See p. 340G1] The deal called for $16 billion in spending cuts. Nearly $9 billion of the cuts would come from education spending. Furloughs of state workers were projected to save $1.3 billion; another $1.3 billion would be cut from Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, funded jointly by the states and the federal government. The budget deal called for $1.2 billion in cuts from funding for the state prison system. But lawmakers deferred making decisions on specific prison cuts, after Republicans objected to the possibility of early releases for prisoners.

Additional savings would be achieved by means of accounting maneuvers and by borrowing about $2 billion from local governments. Schwarzenegger prevailed in his demand that no taxes be raised to close the budget gap. He also won agreement to his proposals for benefit-cutting reforms of welfare and health care programs. The deal approved by the legislature fell some $1 billion short of fully eliminating the deficit, after the Assembly rejected two parts of the July 20 agreement that the Senate had approved: taking gasoline tax revenues from local governments and allowing new oil drilling concessions off the Santa Barbara coast. The Assembly, in partial recompense, instead eliminated a $500 million reserve fund for future deficits. Schwarzenegger signed the package July 28 after exercising his line-item veto power to remove another $489 million in spending, in order to restore the reserve fund. The line-item cuts included $80 million for programs to aid poor and neglected children, and $50 million for health care for poor children, as well as funds for other social services and state parks. Democratic leaders criticized the vetoes and said they planned to challenge their legality. Cuts Seen Prolonging Recession—Independent budget analysts warned that the heavy budget cuts would negate the positive effects of federal economic stimulus spending, and might cause the nationwide recession to last longer in California than in other states. The state’s unemployment rate had risen to 11.5%, higher than the national rate of 9.5%. California’s bond rating had sunk to the worst of any state. To avoid running out of cash, the state July 2 had begun issuing IOUs to its creditors, including contractors, local governments and residents who received them instead of income-tax refunds and other payments. The state comptroller’s office July 28 said more than 200,000 IOUs worth $1.07 billion had been issued. The annual deadline for the new budget in California and most other states was July 1. About a dozen other states had called legislators into special sessions to balance their budgets, coping with sharply lower tax revenues due to the recession. n

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New Jersey Politicians Charged in FBI Sting.

Federal prosecutors July 23 charged several New Jersey elected officials, including mayors and state Assembly members, with accepting bribes from a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant posing as a real estate developer seeking favorable treatment for his projects. Forty-four suspects were arrested by federal agents and charged that day. Among them were five rabbis from the Syrian Jewish community based in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn and in coastal New Jersey, who were accused of money laundering. Another suspect also allegedly sold human organs for transplants. [See p. 373A3] The informant, Solomon Dwek, 36, was a prominent member of the Syrian Jewish community, and known as a philanthropist. He had amassed a fortune of nearly $500 503

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million as a developer before the FBI charged him with a $25 million bank fraud in 2006. Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell (D) July 28 resigned, becoming the first officeholder to step down after being charged in the case. He was accused of accepting a $10,000 bribe from Dwek, who had told him he wanted to build a hotel in Secaucus. Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano 3rd (D) was also arrested and charged with accepting $25,000 in bribes. Cammarano, a former City Council member, had taken office as mayor July 1. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) had called for the resignations of all the elected officials charged in the case. A member of Corzine’s cabinet, Joseph Doria, commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, resigned July 23 after federal agents raided his home that day. Corzine was running for reelection in November. Polls showed him trailing his Republican opponent, former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, who had led a broad crackdown on political corruption in the state. One of those charged on July 23, Democratic political consultant Jack Shaw, 61, was found dead July 28 in his apartment in Jersey City. Prosecutors said he might have committed suicide. Shaw had been charged with advising Dwek to give campaign contributions to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy (D) in exchange for building approvals. Shaw allegedly took $10,000 in cash from Dwek and said he passed it to Healy for that purpose. The rabbis accused of money laundering had allegedly laundered about $3 million for Dwek by accepting checks he wrote for their charities and returning the sums to him in cash, subtracting a fee. Dwek was said to have told them that the money came from illegal activities. Authorities said Dwek also agreed to buy a kidney for $160,000 from accused organ trafficker Levy Izhak Rosenbaum.n

before the committee in June—Paulson was peppered with accusations and skeptical questions from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Paulson acknowledged that he had threatened to remove Bank of America’s top executives if the Merrill Lynch deal fell through. He said financial markets at the time were driven by “fear and uncertainty” and that it was in the country’s economic interest for the deal to be completed. Lewis had agreed to the deal in September 2008, but in December of that year told regulators that he wanted to cancel it, after discovering that Merrill Lynch was poised to post a massive quarterly loss. Paulson said he told Lewis that the government would provide Bank of America with financial support to complete the deal. In January, the Treasury injected $20 billion into the combined company after Merrill Lynch posted a $15 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. Paulson stepped down from his post later that month, upon the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D, N.Y.), the committee chairman, said the merger was a “shakedown” in which Bank of America had profited at taxpayers’ expense. Rep. Jim Jordan (R, Ohio) said Paulson and Bernanke were guilty of a “clear pattern of deception and intimidation.” Lawmakers also said Paulson in 2008 had misled Congress about a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Paulson had said the money would be used to buy toxic assets from financial institutions, but much of it was used to provide them with capital injections. Paulson said the Treasury “needed to change gears” as the crisis deepened, leading it to bolster the capital reserves of ailing companies. Rep. Michael Turner (R, Ohio) called the decision the “largest theft in history.” n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis

New Home Sales Jumped 11% in June.

Paulson Defends Response in Congress.

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Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. July 17 defended his response to a severe financial crisis in 2008 in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, saying the emergency measures he had supported had prevented the crisis from worsening. Paulson also defended the actions he had taken to ensure the completion of a merger between Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co., testifying that a failed deal would have resulted in a “significant disruption” of fragile financial markets. [See p. 456G2] The hearing was part of an investigation into whether Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had behaved improperly during the January merger, but had also turned into a broader forum on the policies the government had implemented during the crisis. Like Bernanke and Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis—both of whom had appeared 504

Economy The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) July 27 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes rose 11.0% in June from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 384,000 units, up from the revised May rate of 346,000 units. The report was the third released in July showing renewed vigor in the housing market, providing some indication that the U.S. housing market was emerging from a deep, three-year slump. [See below, p. 428A1] The spike in home sales was attributed to falling prices, lower mortgage interest rates and government programs that encouraged home-buying. However, economists warned that the housing market remained weak in historical terms. New homes in June had sold at a rate that was 21.3% below the rate in June 2008. The median price of a new single-family home sold in June was reported to be $206,200, down 12.0% from June 2008.

Existing Home Sales Rose 3.6% in June—

The National Association of Realtors July 23 reported that sales of existing homes rose by 3.6% in June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million units, up from the revised 4.72 million units rate in May. It was the third month in a row that existing home sales had risen. The median sale price for existing homes in June was $181,800, down 15.4% from a year earlier. [See p. 456D2] Housing Starts Rose 3.6% in June—

The Departments of Commerce and HUD July 17 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in June was 582,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 3.6% from the May revised rate of 562,000, but down 46.0% from the June 2008 rate of 1,078,000. Building permits were issued in June at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 563,000 units, 8.7% above May’s revised rate of 518,000. [See p. 428B1] n Durable Goods Orders Fell 2.5% in June.

The Commerce Department July 29 reported that the value of durable goods orders in June was $158.6 billion, a decrease of 2.5%, or $4.1 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were so-called bigticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 428B1] n

Civil Rights Prominent Black Scholar Arrested. Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard University professor and prominent scholar of black history and race issues, July 16 was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass., and charged with disorderly conduct. Gates, who had just returned from a trip to China, had reportedly been unable to get his front door open, causing a bystander who was concerned about a possible break-in to call 911. After his arrest, Gates was handcuffed and taken to the Cambridge jail, where he was booked, locked in a cell and held in custody for four hours, he said. Prosecutors July 21 dropped the disorderly conduct charge against Gates. The same day, the city of Cambridge issued a statement calling Gates’s arrest “regrettable and unfortunate.” [See 2007, p. 873C1; 2002, p. 1016E3; 1998, p. 883D1] Gates, who was black, had accused arresting officer James Crowley of targeting him based on his race and refusing to identify himself when Gates asked for his name and badge number. Crowley wrote in his police report that Gates had initially refused to provide proof that the house was his residence. He wrote that he had arrested Gates for “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior.” However, both Gates and Crowley agreed that Gates had shown identification prior to the arrest. Gates July 21 demanded that Crowley apologize for arresting him. Crowley July 22 said that he was “not a racist” and that he would not apologize to Gates. Crowley had reportedly taught a course for the past five years at Massachusetts’s Lowell Police Academy on how to avoid racial profiling of criminal suspects. The CamFACTS ON FILE

bridge Police Superior Officers Association, Crowley’s police union, July 22 expressed “full and unqualified support” for his actions in Gates’s arrest. Obama Criticizes Arrest on Television—

President Barack Obama, a friend of Gates, July 22 said in a nationally televised news conference that the Cambridge police had “acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.” He said that police had been correct to respond to the report of the possible burglary and acknowledged, “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played.” However, Obama added, “What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.” Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas July 23 said his department was “deeply pained” by Obama’s comments. He said Crowley had acted correctly in arresting Gates, but added that the department “deeply regrets” the arrest. He also maintained that Crowley’s behavior toward Gates was not motivated by racism. The Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association and the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association unions July 24 called on Obama to apologize for his comments and criticized him for weighing in on the issue without having examined all relevant information on the matter. Obama that day said that he wished that he had “calibrated” his words more carefully and regretted that his comments “helped to contribute to ratcheting” up the controversy surrounding the arrest. He said, “I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically.” He suggested that while he believed that police had overreacted to the incident, he felt that Gates had “probably overreacted as well.” Obama said he hoped the controversy would become “a teachable moment” to show “how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities.” Obama also announced that he had spoken personally by telephone with both Gates and Crowley to discuss the situation. Obama invited both men to the White House to have a beer and talk further, an idea that Crowley first proposed, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The meeting was held July 30 on the South Lawn of the White House. Following the meeting, Crowley told reporters that he and Gates had “agreed to disagree” about the arrest and had not spent “too much time dwelling on the past.” Gates said that he and Crowley had “hit it off” at the meeting, explaining, “When he’s not arresting you, Sergeant Crowley is a really likeable guy.” Gates and Crowley also said they intended to meet again to continue their discussion. Recordings Released—Cambridge police July 27 publicly released recordings of the 911 call that led to Gates’s arrest, as July 30, 2009

well as tapes of radio transmissions made by police officers during the incident. On the recording of the 911 call, the caller— Lucia Whalen, an employee of Harvard’s alumni magazine—said she had seen two men attempting to force their way into a house. (Gates had been assisted in trying to open his front door by his taxi driver.) However, Whalen also noted that the men were carrying luggage and suggested that she was unsure if they lived there or were attempting to carry out a burglary. During the call, Whalen did not mention the race of Gates or his driver until asked by the operator. She replied that she was unsure and that one of men had “looked kind of Hispanic.” However, in Crowley’s police report, he had written that he had spoken to Whalen after arriving at the scene and claimed that she had described the two men trying to enter the house as black. An attorney representing Whalen July 26 had said that Whalen did not tell the police that the two men were black and claimed that Whalen was “personally devastated” by media reports that suggested that she had called 911 out of racial bias. Whalen had reportedly backed the release of the tapes to clear her name. Whalen, 40, July 29 held a news conference in Cambridge to reiterate her side of the story, saying, “When I was called a racist, I was the target of scorn and ridicule because of things I never said.” n News in Brief. Rev. Eric Lee, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) civil rights group, had been threatened by the organization with dismissal over his support of same-sex marriage, the New York Times reported July 11. Lee had been an outspoken opponent of Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative passed in November 2008 that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The SCLC national board May 27 had ordered Lee to appear before it on June 4 in order to explain his position on the issue, But Lee had declined, saying he could not make the trip to Atlanta, Ga., so soon. It remained unclear if the national board had the authority to dismiss Lee. [See p. 352A3; 2001, p. 608A1] A spokesman for New York Gov. David Paterson (D) July 10 said the governor would delay a plan to force the state Senate to vote on a bill legalizing gay marriage until September. Paterson had previously pledged to force a vote on the measure before the Senate adjourned for its summer recess. However, the Senate had been thrown into disarray after two members of the Democratic majority in June agreed to form a coalition with Senate Republicans, giving them a two-vote majority in the 62seat body. The move had stalled legislative action in the Senate for weeks as a leadership battle played out. [See p. 353G1] n

Terrorism Detainees Detainee Jawad to be Released. The Justice Department July 29 announced in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that it would “promptly release” terrorism

suspect Mohammed Jawad from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and send him to his home country of Afghanistan, in what was seen as an attempt to avoid a showdown with a federal judge over Jawad’s continued detention. The government said it would release Jawad in approximately 22 days, giving it time to notify Congress—which could block the transfer—and work out logistical issues surrounding his release. [See p. 391A2; 2008, pp. 832D3, 723D3] About 230 detainees were still held at Guantanamo, which had been set up by the administration of then-President George W. Bush in 2002 to indefinitely hold terrorism suspects without charge. About 200 detainees had filed habeas corpus lawsuits after the Supreme Court in June 2008 ruled that they had the constitutional right to challenge their detention in U.S. federal court. Judges in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., which had jurisdiction over the Guantanamo cases, had found that 26 of the detainees had been wrongly detained and that five should continue to be held; the rest of the cases were pending. However, only nine of the 26 prisoners who had won their cases had been released, due to difficulties in finding appropriate countries willing to accept the rest of them.

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Exact Age of Detainee Unknown—

Jawad, whose exact age was unknown, was thought to have been 17 years old or younger at the time of his capture; the Afghan government had claimed he could have been as young as 12. He had been captured in Afghanistan in 2002 after allegedly throwing a grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. He had been in U.S. custody for more than six years, and was thought to be one of the youngest suspects ever held at Guantanamo. Under the Bush administration, Jawad had been charged in connection with the grenade attack under the military commissions system set up for trying terrorist suspects by the 2006 Military Commissions Act. However, the presiding military judge in that case had ruled that the government could not use confessions Jawad had made in Afghanistan as evidence, since Afghan officials had tortured him during interrogations. In addition, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who had been serving as the military prosecutor in the case, had resigned in September 2008, citing concerns about the government’s case against Jawad and its failure to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence. Case ‘Riddled With Holes’—Judge Ellen Huvelle, who was overseeing Jawad’s habeas corpus petition, July 16 criticized the government for continuing to hold Jawad even though the case against him was “riddled with holes.” Huvelle said the Obama administration had until July 24 to justify its continued detention of Jawad, and suggested that she was considering ordering his repatriation to Afghanistan. The Justice Department July 16 conceded that most of its case was based on confessions made by Jawad under torture in Afghanistan, and agreed not to use them in court. 505

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The Justice Department July 24 filed a document with the court saying it would no longer classify Jawad as a terrorism detainee, but that it would continue to hold him pending a possible indictment on U.S. criminal charges. The Justice Department claimed that it had “multiple eyewitness accounts” of Jawad’s alleged role in the attack “that were not previously available.” In a statement released that day, the Justice Department said a task force reviewing the cases against each detainee had previously recommended that Jawad be considered for criminal prosecution in U.S. courts. Attorneys for Jawad July 28 filed documents arguing that the government had given up its right to continue holding Jawad by ceasing to classify him as a terrorism detainee. Huvelle July 30 said, “Enough has been imposed on this young man to date.” She ordered the government to repatriate Jawad to Afghanistan, and submit a report on his status by Aug. 24. The Justice Department was reportedly still considering filing criminal charges against him, which could complicate repatriation efforts. Other News—In other Guantanamo detainee news: o Judge Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., April 2 ruled in response to a Tunisian detainee’s habeas corpus petition that the U.S. government was justified in continuing to hold him at Guantanamo without charge. The detainee, Hedi Hammamy, had been captured in Pakistan in April 2002. The government had provided Italian law enforcement reports documenting his involvement in an Italian terrorist cell, and noted that his identity papers had been found in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region after a battle between U.S. and allied forces and members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist group. Hammamy’s attorneys had argued that he was not a member of the Italian cell and had lost his identification after entering Pakistan. [See 2008, p. 958F2] o Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern July 29 announced that Ireland had agreed to accept two detainees from Guantanamo in order to support U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to close the prison. The two detainees were reportedly Uzbek men who had been classified by the U.S. government as not posing a threat, but who could not be returned to Uzbekistan due to concerns that they would be mistreated there. Ahern said the transfer of the two prisoners would take place within a few months. Other European Union nations, including Spain, Portugal and Switzerland, were considering accepting detainees, though no agreements had been announced. [See p. 416C3] o Two Obama administration task forces examining issues related to Guantanamo and its scheduled 2010 closure July 21 missed deadlines to submit their final reports. One task force was charged with determining a new policy to govern the detention of terrorism suspects following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., while the other was required to formulate 506

new rules for the interrogation of such suspects. They were granted extensions of six months and two months, respectively. The detention task force had reportedly been delayed by internal disagreements about whether detainees could legally be held indefinitely under certain circumstances. Analysts suggested that the delays could complicate the Obama administration’s closure of the prison, but Obama administration officials July 20 said the closure would not be affected by the extensions. [See p. 28A3] o Judge Gladys Kessler of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., May 4 ruled in favor of a Yemeni terrorism detainee who had filed a petition challenging his detention without charge at Guantanamo. Kessler found that the U.S. government had based its case for the continued detention of the detainee, Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, on the testimony of unreliable witnesses, at least one of whom had apparently been tortured during questioning. As part of the ruling, Kessler ordered the U.S. government to begin negotiations to clear Ahmed’s release. [See 2008, p. 958F2] n

Space Moon Landing Anniversary Marked. President Barack Obama July 20 hosted the members of the Apollo 11 astronaut crew, which in 1969 had made the first manned landing on the moon, at the White House on the 40th anniversary of the event. Obama praised the three astronauts—Edward (Buzz) Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins—as “genuine American heroes.” Obama, who was seven years old at the time of the landing, recalled his memories of the event. He said it had inspired many young people at the time to study math and science, and pledged to help make those subjects “cool again.” [See 1999, p. 547C3; 1969, p. 465A1] However, Obama did not address the future goals of the space program or the plans developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to revive lunar exploration and eventually send a manned mission to Mars. That plan, adopted under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was under review by a special panel appointed by the administration June 1. Also on the July 20 anniversary, the Apollo 11 crew and four members of other Apollo missions visited NASA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., where some of them expressed the desire to see the new exploration plans go forward. Separately, the Senate July 15 by voice vote confirmed Obama’s nominee to become NASA administrator, Charles Bolden Jr. The Associated Press July 21 reported that in an interview, Bolden had expressed determination to pursue a mission to Mars, but signaled a possible shift away from the original plan of first launching new moon missions. [See p. 373E1] n

Business Crime News in Brief. The Federal Bureau of Prisons July 14 announced that financier Ber-

nard Madoff had been transferred to a pris-

on in Butner, N.C., earlier that day to begin a 150-year sentence for masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud. Madoff had received his sentence, one of the most severe ever given for a white-collar offense, in late June. [See p. 441A3] Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in New York City July 14 sentenced Marc Dreier, former managing partner at law firm Dreier LLP, to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a $700 million fraud. Dreier May 11 had pleaded guilty to selling $700 million worth of fake promissory notes—a form of corporate debt—to investors, resulting in $400 million in losses. The scheme involved Dreier pretending to investors that he was selling promissory notes for U.S. real estate company Solow Realty & Development Co. and Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. [See 2008, p. 955B2] An eight-member jury in U.S. District Court in New York City July 7 ruled that Maurice “Hank” Greenberg did not owe $4.3 billion in damages to his former company, insurance giant American International Group (AIG) Inc. AIG had accused Greenberg and a company under his control of improperly seizing AIG shares that had been used to fund a retirement plan in 2005, when Greenberg was ousted from AIG amidst an accounting scandal. Greenberg and the company—Starr International Co.—then sold some of the shares, making $4.3 billion. AIG had said it would use the money to pay back the government, which since 2008 had provided the company with some $180 billion in aid following a crisis in financial markets. Rakoff in August was expected to make a final decision on whether Greenberg had committed a breach of trust toward AIG. [See p. 242A1] The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) April 27 filed civil charges against Danny Pang, former head of investment company Private Equity Management Group Inc. (PEMGroup), with running a fraud amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang had allegedly run a Ponzi-like scheme, in which investors’ supposed returns were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors. A court-appointed receiver for PEMGroup June 25 said its clients, many from Taiwan, could lose between $287 million and $654 million in the fraud. Pang was arrested on a minor money-laundering charge April 28, and was currently confined to his home in Newport Beach, Calif. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York Jan. 9 dropped criminal charges against former CEO David Stockman and three other executives of bankrupt auto parts maker Collins & Aikman Corp. Stockman—who in the 1980s had been director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Ronald Reagan—in 2007 had been accused of hiding problems at the company from investors in 2005, when it went bankrupt. He and the other executives had argued that they had invested heavily in the company to save it. [See 2007, p. 209F3] n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Congo Republic President

Sassou-Nguesso

Reelected.

Congo Republic July 12 held presidential elections for the first time since 2002. The electoral commission July 15 declared that President Denis Sassou-Nguesso had won a second seven-year term in office, garnering 78.6% of the vote in a field of 13 candidates. [See 2006, p. 63C3; 1997, p. 797C1; for facts on Sassou-Nguesso, see p. 507D1] Sassou-Nguesso, 66, had first ruled Congo Republic from 1979 to 1992. That year, he lost power when Pascal Lissouba won the country’s first multiparty presidential election. Sassou-Nguesso returned to power in 1997 after militias loyal to him overthrew Lissouba, and in 2002 won a seven-year term in an election that the main opposition candidates either boycotted or were barred from running in. Many opposition candidates called on their supporters to boycott the July 12 election, due to a dispute over verification of the electoral rolls. The ministry of territorial administration July 15 said the official turnout in the election was 66.42%. However, SassouNguesso’s opponents alleged that the government had inflated both the number of eligible voters and the turnout. Opposition candidate Clement Mierassa July 23 said that he and four other presidential candidates—Mathias Dzon, Bonaventure Mizidy, Guy Romain Kinfoussia and Jean Francois Tchibinda Kouangou— had filed a formal challenge to the election result with the Constitutional Court, the FACTS ON SASSOU-NGUESSO

Denis Sassou-Nguesso was born in 1943 in Edou, in the north of what was then the French colony of Middle Congo. He joined the army in 1960, the year Congo Republic gained independence from France. He trained in Algeria and France, and by the early 1970s attained the rank of colonel. Around that time he also became active in politics, joining the Marxist-Leninist Congolese Workers Party (PCT). In 1975, at the age of 32, he was named defense minister by President Marien Ngouabi. After Ngouabi was assassinated in 1977 and his successor, Joachim YhombiOpango, was forced to resign in 1979, Sassou-Nguesso that year was named Congo Republic’s president and head of the PCT. He remained in power until 1992, when Pascal Lissouba won the country’s first multiparty presidential election. [See 1992, p. 998D1; 1979, p. 85E3] Sassou-Nguesso returned to power in 1997 after militias loyal to him overthrew Lissouba. That sparked a civil war that lasted until 1999. In 2002, Sassou-Nguesso decisively won a seven-year term in a presidential election that was boycotted by the main opposition candidates. He was elected to the one-year rotating presidency of the African Union (AU) in 2006. [See 2006, p. 63C3] Sassou-Nguesso July 15 was declared the winner of a July 12 presidential election, with 78.6% of the vote. While his opponents alleged fraud, the AU declared the election free and fair. [See p. 507A1] July 30, 2009

country’s highest court. Mierassa alleged “massive fraud,” including irregularities in the electoral lists. The court July 25 rejected the challenge and confirmed SassouNguesso’s victory. Observers from the African Union (AU) said the election was free and fair; however, local rights groups also alleged fraud. Analysts said the splintered opposition had difficulty galvanizing support for its protests. Although the Congo Republic was Africa’s fifth-largest oil producer, an estimated 70% of its citizens lived in poverty. SassouNguesso’s government was widely seen as corrupt. A French magistrate in May had allowed an embezzlement lawsuit against Sassou-Nguesso, Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba (who died July 8) and Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, to proceed. The lawsuit had been filed by the French office of anticorruption watchdog Transparency International and the French jurist association Sherpa. [See p. 394G1] n

Guinea-Bissau Sanha Wins Presidential Runoff. Guinea-

Bissau’s electoral commission July 29 declared Malam Bacai Sanha of the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) the winner of a runoff presidential election held July 26. In the election, Sanha, a former interim president, garnered 63% of the vote, compared with 37% for former President Kumba Yala of the Social Renewal Party (PRS). The two candidates had placed first and second, respectively, in the first round of voting in late June. [See below, p. 458A3] Turnout was reportedly 61% of GuineaBissau’s 600,000 registered voters. European Union election observers July 28 said the vote met international standards. Sanha, 62, would succeed President Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira, who had been assassinated in March by soldiers who were apparently avenging the murder of the army chief less than 24 hours earlier. The PAIGC was led by Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, and it held the majority of the seats in the country’s unicameral parliament, the National People’s Assembly. Both candidates had pledged during their campaigns to work toward peace and stability in Guinea-Bissau, which had been wracked by poverty and military coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974. In recent years, the West African country had become a major transit point for South American gangs trafficking illicit drugs to Europe. Facts on Sanha—Sanha was born May 5, 1947, in the Quinara region of what was then the colony of Portuguese Guinea. He was educated in communist East Germany, and went on to join the PAIGC, which led Guinea-Bissau to independence. Beginning in 1975, he served in various government positions, including several cabinet posts.

From 1994 to 1999, Sanha was head of the National People’s Assembly. In May 1999, Vieira—who had seized power in a coup in 1980—was ousted by the military, and Sanha was named interim president. He served until January 2000, when he was defeated by Yala in a presidential election. Yala was ousted in a 2003 military coup, and Vieira defeated Sanha in a presidential election in 2005. [See 2005, p. 545G1; 2000, p. 90D2] n

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Court Rules on North-South Border Dispute.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands, July 22 ruled on a long-standing dispute between the Sudanese central government, based in Khartoum, the capital, and the semiautonomous region of south Sudan over the boundary in the oil-rich Abyei region. The boundary had been a source of tension between the two sides since the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended a 20-year-long civil war between the Muslim-majority, Arab-dominated north and the mainly black, Christian and animist south. In June, officials from both sides had agreed to abide by the court’s decision. Both sides July 22 reaffirmed that they would respect the ruling. [See p. 430D3] The ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration was seen as a compromise that could foster peace efforts in the region, which had recently experienced an upsurge in violence. The court ruled that the Chinese-operated Heglig oil field and its pipeline infrastructure were outside Abyei’s boundaries, meaning that it fell under the north’s control. Meanwhile, it placed most of the disputed territory, including a smaller oil field and areas populated by the Ngok Dinka tribe, inside Abyei. Under the CPA, south Sudan would hold a referendum in 2011 in which residents would vote on whether to secede and form an independent state. A separate referendum would be held in Abyei on whether it wanted to join the south. The court’s decision to place land populated by the Ngok Dinka inside Abyei reportedly increased the chances that the region would vote to become part of south Sudan, because the tribe identified with the south and its ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement n (SPLM).

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Honduras Zelaya Briefly Returns, Camps at Border.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales July 24 briefly entered the border town of Las Manos, Honduras, by foot from Nicaragua, but quickly crossed back in order to avoid arrest. Zelaya made the largely symbolic gesture accompanied by his supporters and a group of reporters. Zelaya in late June had been deposed by the military, with the backing of the country’s Supreme Court and national legisla507

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ture. However, the de facto government that replaced him, led by congressional leader Roberto Micheletti, had not been recognized by any other country and remained isolated. [See p. 493G1] Zelaya had crossed under a chain link fence into Honduran territory, and shook the hand of the commanding officer of a group of soldiers and police officers under orders to arrest him should he enter the country. Police backed away and did not apprehend Zelaya, saying he had not officially entered the country. “I am exercising my right as the president and as commander in chief of the armed forces,” Zelaya said. “The people will no longer permit a president imposed by force.” He added that he would establish a camp at the border, and stay there intermittently for the next several days. Groups of Zelaya supporters during the following days defied a curfew imposed by the de facto government to travel to areas near Las Manos and set up encampments. Reconciliation talks between the two sides, led by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, had stalled earlier in the week, raising concerns that the impasse could lead to violence in Honduras, where the public was polarized over Zelaya’s deposition. Honduran police July 24 reportedly fired tear gas at a group of Zelaya supporters in the town of El Paraiso who were attempting to reach Las Manos. Arias that day called on countries to exert continued diplomatic pressure and maintain sanctions on the de facto government until a resolution was reached. Zelaya supporters July 30 fought with police in at least four areas of the country, arresting some 100 people. The worst violence was reported in an area north of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. One person there had reportedly been shot in the head, and several others were wounded. The Honduran military July 25 issued a communique indicating that it would not block an agreement, known as the San Jose Accord, that had previously been rejected by Micheletti. The agreement would allow Zelaya to return to his post, but under severe restrictions. The New York Times, citing unidentified officials involved in the negotiations, July 30 reported that Micheletti had indicated support for the San Jose Accord for the first time. Micheletti had reportedly told Arias that he could not convince some elements of the de facto government to accede to a plan allowing Zelaya to return, and July 29 had requested Arias to send an international envoy to Honduras to aid in his lobbying efforts. The Times reported that the request might be a sign that other political and business figures in Honduras besides Micheletti were responsible for blocking Zelaya’s resumption of power. Separately, the U.S. State Department July 28 revoked the diplomatic visas of four high-ranking members of the Honduran de facto government as part of efforts to ramp up pressure on it. n 508

Peru Fujimori Convicted on Graft Charge. A threejudge panel of Peru’s Supreme Court July 20 sentenced and convicted former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, 70, to seven and a half years in prison for paying Vladimiro Montesinos, his spy chief, a $15 million bribe with government funds. [See p. 222D3; 2007, p. 828A2] Fujimori in December 2007 had been convicted of illegally ordering a search of Montesinos’s wife’s house, and was sentenced to a six-year prison term. Fujimori in April had also been convicted of authorizing military death squads responsible for at least 25 murders, and was sentenced to 25 years in jail. Under Peruvian law, Fujimori would serve all three prison terms concurrently. Fujimori, at the start of his trial, July 13 had admitted that he had made the payment in 2000 to induce Montesinos to quit his post. Fujimori July 17 testified that he had made the payment to prevent a possible coup attempt by Montesinos. “I was obligated to do it because the security of the country was at risk,” he said. However, he asserted that he had repaid the government the full $15 million with funds he had discovered in Peru’s spy agency headquarters, a claim challenged by prosecutors. During Fujimori’s 1990–2000 rule, Montesinos had used the intelligence apparatus to combat the country’s Maoist rebels, while simultaneously controlling and intimidating the political opposition. Some analysts believed that Montesinos’s power came close to rivaling that of the president’s, and that he was instrumental in keeping Fujimori in power. In 2000, video surfaced showing Montesinos bribing a congressman, sparking a corruption scandal that led Fujimori to resign and flee to Japan that year. The succeeding administration pursued human rights charges against him. Fujimori secretly traveled to Chile in 2005, but was discovered there and arrested. He was extradited to Peru in September 2007 in order to face trial on various charges. Some observers said Fujimori had admitted to the bribe payment in order to quickly end the trial, and thus limit any damage to a potential presidential bid by his daughter, Keiko Fujimori. Despite his several convictions, Alberto Fujimori still enjoyed sizeable support in Peru. Keiko Fujimori had said she would pardon her father if elected president in 2011. n

Other Americas News Brazil and Paraguay Reach Power Deal.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez July 25 announced an energy agreement in Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital. Under the agreement, Brazil agreed to pay Paraguay market rates for electricity generated by the Itaipu dam hydroelectric plant, which was jointly owned by both countries and straddled the Parana River on their shared border. [See 1984, p. 850F1]

Paraguay and Brazil had agreed to construct the dam and power plant in 1973, while both countries were governed by military dictatorships, and had brought both into operation in 1984. Each country was able to use up to 50% of the plant’s power, but was required to sell any unused energy to the other country. In 1985, Paraguay had agreed to sell its unused energy to Brazil below market rates, in order to help Brazil cope with an economic crisis. Brazil used about 90% of the dam’s energy output. The new agreement would allow Paraguay to sell Brazil its unused energy at market rates. The change was expected to almost triple the annual payments made to Paraguay by Brazil, to about $360 million, from $124 million. The energy rates had long been a source of contention between the two countries, with Brazil previously rejecting the possibility of renegotiating the agreement. However, the deal was seen as part of efforts by da Silva to increase goodwill with Brazil’s neighbors and emerge as a regional leader in South America. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australia Indian Students Protest Attacks. A group of about 3,000 demonstrators, primarily Indian students, May 31 marched in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, to protest a recent spate of robberies and assaults against Indians that the protesters said were racially motivated. The march was broken up by police after demonstrators damaged a nearby train station with projectiles; a total of 18 protesters were arrested. [See 2005, p. 898E1] Foreign students made up 25% of Australia’s college population and were a major source of income for the Australian economy, generating A$15.5 billion ($12.3 billion) during 2008. Indians comprised about 18% of Australia’s foreign students, the second-largest group, after Chinese. About 90,000 Indian students were currently enrolled at Australian colleges and universities, including about 50,000 in and around Melbourne. According to police statistics in Australia’s Victoria state, which contained Melbourne, a total of 1,447 Indian residents had been victimized by assaults or robberies between July 2007 and June 2008, an increase of 365 over the previous year. But police suggested that they were targeted not because of racial hatred, but because many walked home alone from late-night jobs. The attacks and robberies were widely reported in the Indian news media, particularly a May 24 assault in Melbourne that left a 25-year-old Indian student hospitalized and three other students injured. The student, Sravan Kumar Theerthala, had been attacked at a party by members of an uninvited group and stabbed in the head with a screwdriver. He had partially recovered and was expected to be moved to a rehabilitation center. FACTS ON FILE

Police in Melbourne May 29 arrested five teenagers in connection with the attack on Kumar, one of whom was charged with attempted murder. The names of the teenagers were not publicly released because the suspects in the case were minors. Another Indian student in Melbourne, Baljinder Singh, May 24 was stabbed by two thieves during a robbery at a train station and hospitalized. A student in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, May 24 suffered burns on over 30% of his body after his residence was set on fire in a suspected gasoline bomb attack. In another incident, an Indian nursing student June 2 was robbed and slashed across the chest with a boxcutter by thieves in Melbourne. Rudd Condemns Attacks— Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd June 1 called the recurrent attacks against Indian students “deplorable acts of violence” and said that they “threatened to impair” relations between Australia and India if they were not addressed. Rudd said that the Australian government would create a special task force to examine the violence, to be overseen by a former head of Australia’s Special Forces. Rudd May 29 had called Indian Prime Minister Manmoham Singh and had reportedly assured him that most Indian students were safe in Australia. Indian Tourism Minister Kumari Selja June 11 announced that she had postponed a planned July trip to Australia in light of the attacks. Indian Film Union Boycotts Australia—

The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), India’s largest film labor union, June 4 announced that it had barred its members from working on film projects in Australia until “the racism issue is resolved.” India’s film industry was one of the world’s largest, and several Indian films had been partially shot in Australia in recent years. Separately, Indian film actor Amitabh Bachchan May 30 had rejected an honorary doctorate he had been scheduled to receive in July from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Queensland. Bachchan said that “my conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen,” but said that he “meant no disrespect to the institution that honours me.” New Attack Triggers Reprisals—A group of about 200 Indian protesters June 8 assembled and clashed with a smaller group of Lebanese men in Sydney after they allegedly attacked an Indian student. The fighting was broken up by police, who arrested two Lebanese men and one Indian student. The conflict was reportedly exacerbated by a rumor that the group of Lebanese men had kidnapped an Indian student. Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna June 9 urged Indian students in Australia to be “restrained” in responding to attacks, and said that they should focus on their studies and refrain from reprisals against suspected assailants. n July 30, 2009

China U.S. Hosts Expanded ‘Dialogue.’ Senior U.S.

and Chinese officials July 27–28 met for talks in Washington, D.C., in the first such high-level meetings since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January. The talks, called the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, were the successor to a series of meetings inaugurated under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, called the Strategic Economic Dialogue. The new talks encompassed a wider array of topics than the previous framework, which had focused on economic issues. The talks were led on the U.S. side by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and the visiting Chinese delegation was led by Vice Prime Minister Wang Qishan and Dai Bingguo, a state councillor. [See pp. 414A2, 108F3; 2008, p. 897F1] Obama inaugurated the meetings with remarks emphasizing the importance of the two countries’ bilateral relationship and the broad array of matters that required their cooperation, including the recovery from the global economic slowdown, climate change and nuclear proliferation, particularly with regard to stopping North Korea’s nuclear program. He said, “Some in China think that America will try to contain China’s ambitions; some in America think there is something to fear in a rising China. I take a different view.” Obama touched on concerns about China’s human rights policies, proclaiming that “all peoples should be free to speak their minds—and that includes ethnic and religious minorities in China.” Violence between China’s Muslim ethnic Uighur minority and members of its Han majority had recently erupted in the region of Xinjiang. [See p. 509A3] Dai July 27 also emphasized the two countries’ common interest in restoring economic growth, despite the existence of long-standing tensions on trade issues. At the end of the meetings July 28, the two sides again expressed unity, but Chinese officials were pointed in their concern over the U.S. federal government’s deficit and its potential for hurting the value of the U.S. dollar and thereby of China’s extensive holdings of U.S. government securities. Geithner offered reassurances of the U.S.’s plans to reduce the deficit, which had grown with the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program, once the economy recovered and by a target date of 2013. China reiterated its commitment to encouraging greater reliance on domestic consumer demand in growing its economy, rather than on exports. U.S. officials warned that China’s exports to the U.S. would grow more slowly as U.S. consumers increased their savings rate to a healthier level. On the North Korea issue, Wang vowed to “seriously and faithfully implement” sanctions against the country recently approved by the United Nations Security Council, in an unusually vocal backing

from China of a strong line against North Korea. [See p. 495F1] n Xinjiang Police Shootings Acknowledged.

The chairman of the government of China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang July 19 said that security forces had shot to death 12 ethnic Uighurs during rioting July 5 in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. It was unusual for Chinese authorities to publicly acknowledge killings by police forces. In the latest official accounting of the toll from the violence, the government July 19 said 197 people had died, and more than 1,700 people wounded. [See p. 460D3] China July 10 for the first time had given a breakdown of the dead by ethnic group, saying that of the 184 deaths then tallied, 46 were Uighurs, the largest group in Xinjiang, and 137 were members of the Han ethnic group, which was predominant in China overall and also formed a majority in Urumqi. The violence had begun after a demonstration by Uighurs in Urumqi against discrimination, and spread to attacks on Han residents and businesses, and revenge attacks by Han groups. Chinese authorities characterized the violence as a coordinated campaign by Islamist separatists, while Uighur rights groups said China had cracked down violently on a peaceful protest, and trumped up the supposed threat of separatist terrorism to justify repression of Uighurs. Xinjiang Chairman Nur Bekri said the 12 shootings had been lawful and that armed security forces had shown proper restraint in contending with the violence. It was unclear whether the 12 Uighurs shot by police included two men shot July 13. Authorities said the two, and another man who was shot and wounded, had been attacking another Uighur and had tried to fight off the police. Uighur activists claimed that China had greatly understated the number of people killed and detained by police. Exiled Uighur rights leader Rebiya Kadeer, speaking in Tokyo July 29, claimed that as many as 10,000 Uighurs had “disappeared” in the immediate aftermath of the July 5 riots, but did not provide evidence for the claim. Although many businesses were said to be reopening July 12 in Urumqi, the city and other parts of Xinjiang reportedly remained subject to a heavy deployment of security forces, including the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary riot police force. Police July 10 had ordered mosques to remain closed and prayers canceled that day, a Friday, Islam’s day of worship, but relented after protesters demonstrated against the order. Turkish PM Blasts ‘Genocide’—Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan July 10 called China’s actions in Xinjiang “a genocide,” provoking sharp demands from China for him to retract the statement. In reaction from other Muslim countries, some clerics in Iran criticized their government for not speaking out more forcefully against China’s actions against Muslims in Xinjiang, suggesting that it was muting its response in order not to upset Iran’s extensive ties with China. Iranian 509

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state media July 12 said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had expressed “concerns among Islamic countries” to China. A British security consulting company July 14 said the North Africa–based radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had issued a call for attacks on Chinese targets in retaliation for the deaths of Muslims in Xinjiang. China’s embassy in Algeria later that day in an online advisory urged Chinese businesses in that country to “enhance” their security precautions. [See p. 493E1] n New Leader of Macao Elected. Fernando Chui, 52, July 26 was named the next chief executive of Macao, a former Portuguese colony that had reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1999. Chui was to begin his fiveyear term in December, becoming only the second chief executive since the 1999 transfer, after Edmund Ho. Macao’s chief executive was chosen by a 300-member electoral committee in a system that benefited the favored candidate of China’s central government. Chui in June had virtually assured his election by securing nominations from 286 of the committee’s members, becoming the only candidate. He won 282 of the 296 votes cast July 26, with 14 blank ballots submitted, some reportedly in protest of the absence of a more broadly democratic electoral system. [See 1999, p. 930A1] Chui was a member of a prominent wealthy family with strong connections to China’s government and its ruling Communist Party. In his campaign he vowed to strengthen the competitiveness of Macao’s central gambling industry, but also to diversify its tourist sector beyond gambling. [See 2007, p. 67G2] n

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New Constitution Planned. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama July 1 announced that the country’s military-controlled government had outlined a “road map” to democracy that included the creation of a new national constitution by 2013 and legislative elections in 2014. Bainimarama had come to power in 2006 after ousting Fiji’s elected government in a military coup. In April, he had temporarily stepped down after Fiji’s Court of Appeal ruled that his government was illegal; however, he was reappointed as prime minister later the same month by President Josefa Iloilo after Iloilo suspended Fiji’s constitution and fired all of the country’s judges. [See p. 251D3] Bainimarama said the new constitution would remove provisions that had required indigenous Fijians and members of the nation’s Indian ethnic minority to vote for candidates from their own ethnic groups, and would lower the voting age to 18, from 21. He said the process of writing a new constitution would begin in 2012 and conclude the following year, and that new elections could not be held until the constitution was in place. Bainimarama had previously announced his intention to hold elections first by 2009 and later by 2012. 510

The U.S. State Department July 6 issued a statement criticizing Bainimarama’s proposed “road map” on the grounds that it had been created “without the participation or consent of the Fijian people.” The statement also raised concerns about Bainimarama’s decision to delay elections and continue security measures in Fiji “that curb freedoms of speech, press and political assembly.” Bainimarama’s government had reportedly detained journalists, lawyers, trade unionists and other political critics following the dissolution of the constitution, and expelled a number of foreign journalists. Military Government Appoints Judges—

The Fijian government May 22 announced that it had begun to fill judiciary vacancies created by Iloilo’s April decision to fire all of the country’s judges. British citizen Anthony Gates was appointed as chief justice of the country’s High Court. Daniel Gounder and Devendra Pathik were also named to seats on the High Court. Both Gates and Pathik were former members of the High Court who had been part of a three-judge panel that upheld the legality of Bainimarama’s government in an October 2008 ruling; that ruling had been overturned by the appeals court. Critics of Bainimarama’s regime had reportedly urged prominent lawyers in the region to decline appointments to Fiji’s judiciary on the grounds that accepting them would legitimize the military government. n

Kazakhstan Former Nuclear Agency Head Arrested.

Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the former head of Kazakhstan’s state nuclear agency, Kazatomprom, May 25 was arrested on suspicion of stealing tens of billions of dollars in rights to the country’s uranium deposits. Dzhakishev May 21 had been fired as head of the agency. Opposition figures suggested that his arrest was politically motivated, possibly by individuals looking to enter the country’s lucrative uranium industry. Kazatomprom was the world’s second-largest uranium producer. [See p. 68A1; 2006, p. 936E2] Seven managers were implicated along with Dzhakishev, who was credited with rebuilding the nuclear agency and securing investment in the country’s nuclear program following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan’s national security committee June 1 released a video in which several former Kazatomprom vice presidents described how Dzhakishev had allegedly used offshore companies and joint ventures to misappropriate shares in Kazakh uranium deposits. The committee May 27 had said his alleged actions had “inflicted significant economic damage” on Kazakhstan. Twenty-two business leaders had sent an open letter to President Nursultan Nazarbayev defending Dzhakishev and suggesting that his arrest was harmful to Kazakhstan’s business climate, it was reported June 10. Dzhakishev’s wife June 13 was prevented from leaving Kazakhstan, Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported June 15. Dzhakishev’s arrest was part of a larger government campaign against alleged corruption, which some viewed as a sign of power struggles in the government. Officials March 30 had announced the arrest of Nurlan Iskakov, a former environment minister, on charges of embezzlement. Isakov June 16 went on trial, along with two former deputy ministers. Kazhimurat Mayermanov, a deputy defense minister, April 10 had been arrested on charges of abusing his office. Nazarbayev June 17 also fired Defense Minister Danial Akhmetov, a former prime minister known for his loyalty to Nazarbayev. New Law Restricts Internet Media—

Nazarbayev July 10 signed a law that expanded government control over the media to include information published on the Internet, and imposed greater control over Internet access. The law also reportedly prohibited the media from covering certain political issues, including elections and campaigns. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security organization, criticized the law as repressive. Kazakhstan was slated to take on the rotating OSCE presidency in 2010. [See 2007, p. 851A3] n

Kyrgyzstan Bakiyev Reelected in Disputed Vote. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev July 23 easily won reelection in a landslide victory, according to final results of the presidential election issued July 27 by the central election commission. However, opposition leaders immediately rejected the results, holding protests throughout the country that led to dozens of arrests. Western and local monitors also questioned the legitimacy of the vote, citing major infractions favoring Bakiyev. [See p. 252B3] The commission July 27 reported that Bakiyev had secured 76% of the vote, while his closest opponent, former Prime Minister Almaz Atambayev, garnered only 8.4%. Voter turnout was put at 79.3%. Atambayev of the Social Democratic Party July 23 had dropped out of the contest before voting finished, claiming widespread electoral fraud. Exit polls conducted by the opposition contended that Atambayev had won the election with more than 60% of the vote. Radmila Sekerinska, the head of the observing mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), July 24 had called the election “a disappointment,” saying it “fell short of key standards.” The preliminary report from the OSCE cited examples of ballotbox stuffing, voter intimidation and media bias in the election. A local independent monitoring group, the Union of Civic Organizations, that day accused government officials of carrying out the irregularities. While Western monitors criticized the election, the U.S. remained silent on the subject. In June, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament had reversed an edict from earlier in the year that would have closed the U.S. air base at FACTS ON FILE

Manas, Kyrgyzstan. The base had been used since 2001 to support military operations in Afghanistan. The Central Asian country also hosted a Russian military base, making it a key regional player in the fight against terrorism. [See p. 440C3] Atambayev July 27 arrived in Moscow, Russia’s capital, to discuss the election results with members of parliament, although Russian officials were generally supportive of Bakiyev’s government. An observer mission from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet republics, July 25 had characterized the election as “open and free.” Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had yet to officially congratulate Bakiyev, but earlier in the month the two countries had agreed to talks about opening a joint counterterrorism training facility in Kyrgyzstan. Protests Held, Arrests Reported—

Opposition activists July 29 held protests against the election results in the streets of Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. Law enforcement forces arrested as many as 41 demonstrators, including 30 women, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that day. Rallies were also held in the town of Balykchy, seeking the release of opposition supporters who had been arrested there on election day. Atambayev vowed to continue protests in Balykchy the next day, but that plan was canceled out of concern for demonstrators’ safety. Bakiyev’s government itself had come to power through a popular revolt that ousted the previous president, Askar Akayev, in 2005. However, analysts did not expect another such revolution to occur, given the disorganized state of the opposition. Bakiyev July 28 gave a televised speech in which he reiterated reform promises he had made during the campaign. [See 2005, p. 177A1] Journalist Dies After Beating—Independent journalist Almazbek Tashiyev July 12 died of injuries he had sustained eight days earlier. Before his death, he claimed that he had been beaten by several inebriated police officers after an argument. The Kyrgyz interior ministry July 14 said a police officer had confessed to beating up Tashiyev, and that the argument had been unrelated to Tashiyev’s work. The investigation into his death was then reportedly closed. [See p. 272G1] Tashiyev had most recently worked for the independent Kyrgyz newspaper Agym, or “Stream,” which was critical of the country’s government. n

Asia-Pacific News in Brief Singapore: GDP Rebounds. The ministry

of trade and industry July 14 reported that Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at a 20.4% annualized rate in the second quarter of the year from the previous quarter. That was a dramatic rebound from the record 12.7% revised GDP decline recorded in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2008. (Second-quarter GDP was down 3.7% from the year-earlier period.) However, the ministry cautioned that some factors in the strong showing were not likeJuly 30, 2009

ly to be sustained, and warned that economic troubles in the U.S. and Europe threatened continued weakness for Singapore’s exports. The ministry revised its prediction for Singapore’s yearlong GDP decline to 4–6%, from the 9% previously forecast. [See 2008, p. 764B2] n Taiwan: President Named to Lead Party.

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou July 26 was elected chairman of his political party, the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). Ma ran unopposed for the post. Chinese President Hu Jintao July 27 sent a congratulatory telegram, and Ma sent a response, in the first direct communication between Chinese and Taiwanese presidents since 1949. Observers noted that Ma’s election as party chairman could pave the way for an eventual meeting with Hu, the chief of China’s ruling Communist Party. China claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and therefore did not recognize the office of the Taiwanese president, but it was thought that a meeting could be held between the two as leaders of their respective parties. However, while Hu’s message reportedly expressed hopes for a meeting someday, Ma had said the prospect was currently too divisive in Taiwan to entertain. [See p. 415B3] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

or ministry June 24 had released information indicating that about 256,000 Albanians lacked an identification card or passport that would allow them to vote. Election observer missions from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other groups June 29 said the elections had been a significant improvement from the previous poll in 2005, but that they had still fallen short of international standards. The Democratic Party and the Socialist Party had accused each other of election fraud before voting had finished, and problems such as voter intimidation and procedural irregularities had been reported at some polling stations. Also, Aleksander Keka, 34, a regional leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Party, June 18 had been killed in an explosion while driving his car about 75 miles (120 km) north of Tirana. Police that day said Keka was a suspected drug dealer and arms smuggler, and suggested that organized crime might have been responsible for the attack, but members of his party said the bombing had been politically motivated. The country April 28 had formally applied for EU candidate status, and the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, was expected to review the request by fall 2009. n

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Albania Prime Minister Berisha Wins Reelection.

Albania’s Central Election Commission July 28 announced that Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s conservative Democratic Party had won parliamentary elections held June 28. According to results, the Democratic Party secured 68 seats in the 140-seat national assembly. Its allies, the Republican Party and the Union for Justice and Integration, won one seat each, giving the coalition 70 seats, one short of the simple majority needed to control the legislature. [See p. 213D2; 2005, p. 477B1] The leftist Socialist Party garnered 65 seats, while the Socialist Movement for Integration won four seats. The Unity for Human Rights Party (PBDN), a Greek minority party, won one seat. Berisha July 4, during a vote recount, said his coalition had agreed to ally itself with the left-wing Socialist Movement for Integration in order to secure a majority. Berisha, a 64-year-old heart surgeon, and his main opponent, 45-year-old Edi Rama of the Socialist Party, had waged similar campaigns. They both had pledged to work to improve Albania’s economy while seeking membership in the European Union. Rama was the mayor of Tirana, Albania’s capital, and a former artist. The elections were seen as a necessary step in Albania’s quest to join the EU. They had been closely watched for signs of irregularity or vote-rigging, and as an indication of the country’s ability to meet widely recognized democratic standards. It had become common for elections to be challenged in Albania since the fall of communism in 1991, with losers alleging voter fraud and other problems. The interi-

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Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnian Serbs Convicted of War Crimes.

Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, July 20 found cousins Milan and Sredoje Lukic guilty of war crimes committed during the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war. Those crimes included forcing as many as 130 Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, including women, children and the elderly, into two houses in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad in June 1992, and then setting the houses on fire and shooting those who tried to run away. Judge Patrick Robinson said their crimes were “characterized by a callous and vicious disregard for human life,” and that the burning alive of Bosniaks “exemplified the worst acts of humanity that one person may inflict on others.” [See p. 377D3; 2008, p. 682F2] Milan Lukic had been the leader of a paramilitary force called the White Eagles, and the judges found that he had spearheaded the Visegrad massacre. They also found him guilty of murdering 12 Muslim civilians. He was sentenced to life in prison. Sredoje Lukic was found guilty of aiding and abetting one of the fires, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Both men had pleaded not guilty. Mladic Home Videos Broadcast—Home videos featuring Ratko Mladic, a BosnianSerb wartime leader who was wanted by the ICTY on charges of war crimes and genocide, were broadcast June 10 on Bosnian public television. The videos, some of which reportedly were shot as recently as 2008, showed Mladic in Serbia and Saraje511

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vo, the Bosnian capital, and raised questions about Serbia’s stated commitment to tracking down Mladic and turning him over to the ICTY. Serbian officials the same day called the videos dated and irrelevant, and asserted that authorities were searching for Mladic in order to arrest him. [See 2008, p. 497C2] The Netherlands and Belgium refused to negotiate Serbia’s European Union accession until Mladic was captured. n IMF Board Approves $1.6 Billion Loan. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)

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July 8 officially approved a three-year, $1.57 billion standby loan to Bosnia and Herzegovina meant to protect it from the impact of the global economic downturn. About $282 million was immediately released. The remaining funds were subject to quarterly IMF reviews before they could be disbursed. [See p. 448B3] The IMF in June had blocked the loan due to concerns about the country’s 2009 budget. Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation, one of the country’s two states, had refused to abide by a previous plan to slash by 10% payments to veterans and victims of the country’s 1992–95 civil war. (Veterans constituted an important electoral bloc.) The IMF approved the loan after leaders said they would slim down the budget by rooting out individuals who received those benefits illegally, rather than reducing veterans’ benefits across the board. n

France Gang Leader Guilty of Anti-Semitic Murder.

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A jury in a Paris court July 10 convicted gang leader Youssouf Fofana of the 2006 kidnapping, torture and murder of a Jewish man, 23-year-old Ilan Halimi, who had been held by the gang for 24 days, burned with acid and stabbed repeatedly, then left for dead. The case had fueled concerns about rising anti-Semitism in France, especially among young Muslims. The trial, which was closed to the public because some of the defendants were minors, had started April 29. [See 2006, p. 174C2] Fofana, 28, whose parents were immigrants from Ivory Coast, received the maximum sentence of life in prison. He would have to serve at least 22 years before he could become eligible for parole. Fofana’s two main accomplices were convicted on lesser charges and received prison sentences of 15 and 18 years. A young woman who had used the promise of a date to lure Halimi into the hands of the gang, which was called “the Barbarians,” received a nine-year sentence. Prosecutors had sought a 10- to 12-year sentence for the woman, who had been 17 at the time of the crime. The public prosecutor’s office July 13 said it would pursue a retrial of 14 of the 27 defendants, including the woman, at the request of Justice Minister Michele AlliotMarie, who criticized their sentences as too lenient. Several had received suspended six-month sentences. Fofana would not be retried. Halimi’s family and Jewish groups had said the sentences were not severe enough, given the anti-Semitic nature of the crimes. 512

The gang had demanded a ransom from the family, saying that it had singled out a Jewish victim because it believed that all Jews were rich. n

Hungary Four Embassies to Close. Hungarian For-

eign Minister Peter Balazs June 16 announced that Hungary would close its embassies in Chile, Luxembourg, Malaysia and Venezuela in order to reduce government spending. In addition to the embassies, the Hungarian consulates in Dusseldorf, Germany; Lyon, France; Krakow, Poland; Toronto, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Sydney, Australia; Hong Kong; and the U.S. city of Chicago would close. The buildings were expected to be sold, and the 70 diplomats whose positions were eliminated through the closures would be transferred to other foreign ministry posts. The move was expected to save the government about $10 million annually. [See pp. 336E3, 272F3] Fidesz, the center-right opposition party, criticized the government’s decision to close international offices. Zsolt Nemeth, a Fidesz leader and member of Parliament, said the move was a form of “self-destruction.” Hungary’s economy had been battered by the current global economic downturn. The International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank in 2008 had agreed to extend Hungary a $25.1 billion line of credit. n

Iceland EU Membership Application Backed. Iceland’s parliament, the Althingi, after six days of debate July 16 voted, 33–28, with two abstentions, to back Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir’s plan to apply for European Union membership. The votes in favor just cleared the threshold of 32 needed for approval. The membership bid would have to be submitted for the approval of Icelandic voters in a referendum. [See p. 295C3] Icelandic public opinion had long opposed joining the EU, but the country’s economic collapse in 2008 had increased the appeal of EU membership. The Icelandic currency, the krona, had plunged in value, prompting new support for adopting the far more stable euro, the currency used by 16 of the EU’s 27 member nations. Iceland’s bid, formally submitted to the EU July 17, quickly passed its first hurdle when foreign ministers of the EU member nations July 27 agreed to ask the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, to begin an assessment of Iceland’s preparedness for membership. Iceland’s membership process was expected to take at least two years, advancing on a much faster track than the pending bids of Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey. Five other Balkan nations were pursuing membership but had not yet formally applied. Iceland belonged to the European Economic Area, a regional trade bloc, so it was already in compliance with many of the EU’s laws. It also was a signatory to the Schengen agreement, which allowed cross-

border travel without passports between 25 European countries. The most difficult part of the EU membership talks was expected to arise from Iceland’s insistence on maintaining the independence of its fishing industry from EU regulations. Bank Restructuring Set— Iceland July 20 unveiled a plan to restructure the country’s three largest banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing, which had all collapsed in October 2008. The government said it would issue $2.1 billion in bonds to provide the banks with new capital. Sigurdardottir June 6 had announced an agreement to accept more than $5 billion in loans from the British and Dutch governments in order to compensate customers in Britain and the Netherlands who lost their deposits in the collapse of Icesave, a unit of Landsbanki. The deal, which still required approval by the Althingi, was widely unpopular in Iceland and faced growing opposition among lawmakers. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said approval of an Icesave compensation deal was a condition for the release of $4.6 billion in emergency loans for Iceland from n the IMF and Nordic countries.

Lithuania First Female President Takes Office. Da-

lia Grybauskaite, who had won Lithuania’s presidential election in May, July 12 was sworn in as the country’s first female president. Grybauskaite, a former finance minister, had run as an independent candidate but was supported by the governing Homeland Union–Conservatives (TS) party. She succeeded President Valdas Adamkus, who was stepping down due to term limits. Presidents in Lithuania could serve a maximum of two five-year terms. [See below, p. 344C1] Facts on Grybauskaite— Grybauskaite was born March 1, 1956, in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which was then a part of the Soviet Union. She attended Zhdanov University in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Russia, and in 1983 received a degree in political-economic sciences. She then began working as a lecturer at the Vilnius Communist Party school, a post she held until 1990. In 1988, she received a doctorate in economics from the Moscow Academy of Social Studies. From 1991 to 1994, Grybauskaite served in Lithuania’s ministry of international economic relations and the ministry of foreign affairs. From 1994 to 1995, she worked in government positions related to Lithuania’s European Union accession, including a stint as the Lithuanian envoy to the EU. From 1996 to 1999, she served as Lithuania’s ambassador to the U.S. Grybauskaite in 1999–2000 was Lithuania’s deputy finance minister, and in 2000– 01 was deputy foreign minister. From 2001 to 2004, she was finance minister, and in 2004 was named the EU commissioner for financial programming and budget. Grybauskaite had never been married and had no children. n FACTS ON FILE

Russia News in Brief. A law banning casinos and slot machine parlors July 1 took effect

across Russia. As many as 350,000 people lost their jobs as a result of the ban. Russian authorities July 21 announced that the ban also applied to poker clubs. The government would allow casinos only in four remote areas of the country: the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, which was detached from the Russian mainland; the Altai region in southern Siberia; Primorsky Krai, near the borders with North Korea and China; and near the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. Medvedev June 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, signed an accord under which Russia would buy 500 million cubic

meters (17.6 billion cubic feet) of natural gas a year from Azerbaijan beginning in

2010. Some analysts suggested that the deal was meant to complicate Western plans to import gas to Europe through a pipeline system that bypassed Russia. Russia exported much of the natural gas it bought from Central Asian countries to Europe. [See p. 473B2] British medical journal the Lancet June 26 released a study indicating that more than half of all 15-to-54-year-old Russians who had died between 1990 and 2001 had perished as a result of excessive alcohol consumption. The journal examined 60,000 deaths across three Russian cities. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev June 30 said, “We [currently] drink more than in the 1990s, though times were hard then. We must prepare a step-by-step program and take measures against this.” Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had instituted strict anti-alcoholism measures in the mid-1980s, June 29 said alcoholism had brought Russia to the brink of “catastrophe.” [See 2008, p. 316E3; 1985, p. 430E2] A Moscow court June 25 convicted exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky of embezzling $4.5 million from AvtoVAZ, an auto dealership, in the mid-1990s. The Russian prosecutor’s office said it would use the verdict as the basis for an extradition request. Berezovsky had fled Russia in 2000, and received asylum in Britain in 2003. He had claimed the allegations against him were politically motivated. [See 2007, p. 813E1] n

Spain Two Bombings Target Police; ETA Blamed.

A car bombing July 29 struck a Civil Guard paramilitary police barracks in the city of Burgos in northern Spain, shearing off the front of the 14-floor building and injuring more than 60 people, but causing no deaths. Police officers and their families were sleeping in the barracks before dawn at the time of the blast. A bombing the next day killed two officers outside a Civil Guard station near Palma, the capital of the Balearic island of Mallorca, a popular summer holiday resort in the Mediterranean Sea. The Basque separatist militant group July 30, 2009

Euzkadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) was suspected in both attacks. [See p. 226C2] Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba July 30 said the Burgos bombing showed that ETA was a group of “murderers” and “savages.” ETA was to mark the 50th anniversary of its founding July 31. It had killed more than 800 people in terrorist attacks since 1968, when it began its armed campaign for an independent Basque nation in northern Spain and southwestern France. ETA had declared a cease-fire in 2006, but peace talks with the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero broke off after a December 2006 ETA bombing at Barajas international airport near Madrid, the capital. Since then, an intensified crackdown on ETA by Spanish and French authorities had weakened the group. Over the past 18 months, several top leaders of the group’s leadership had been arrested in France, previously a safe haven for them. n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Britain Urges Reconciliation With Insurgents.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband July 27 called for “a more coherent effort” from the Afghan government to reconcile with moderate elements of the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, in a foreign policy address delivered at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Miliband emphasized that political progress by the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai would be as important in defeating a Taliban insurgency as NATO and U.S. military operations. [See p. 498D2] Miliband’s speech was seen as a response to a growing public debate in Britain about the country’s involvement in the Afghan war, following a spike in British troop deaths. The British Ministry of Defence July 30 reported that 22 British troops had been killed since the beginning of July, a record monthly toll since the war began in 2001. The climb in casualties was attributed to Operation Panther’s Claw, a major offensive in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand that had been launched by British troops in June. Miliband depicted the Taliban as an informal coalition of hard-core Islamic extremists and more moderate Pashtun tribes, and argued that the latter remained loyal to the insurgency for money, or out of distrust of the Afghan government and coalition forces. Miliband suggested that financial incentives or incorporation with the Afghan army could peel off moderate fighters from the insurgency. He also said corruption in Karzai’s government had to be eliminated in order to convince moderates to “leave the path of confrontation with the government.” Analysts noted that the idea of reaching out to moderate Taliban members had been broached before, including by Karzai. On the day of Miliband’s speech, the Afghan government announced that it had reached a temporary truce with a Taliban group in the

northern province of Badghis. While the truce was not permanent, it would allow civilians in Badghis to safely participate in a presidential election scheduled for Aug. 20. The government was expected to agree to similar truces in other areas of the country. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said Karzai’s government should embrace Taliban fighters who had renounced ties to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and laid down their arms, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) published online July 27. The British Ministry of Defence July 27 announced that the first phase of Operation Panther’s Claw had been completed, and that the British troops would now focus on securing territory they had gained from the Taliban.

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Karzai Backs Out of Presidential Debate—

Karzai July 22 pulled out of a televised debate that had been organized by independent channel Tolo TV for three of the candidates in the Afghan presidential election, saying he had not been notified in time to prepare for the debate. His office also claimed that Tolo was biased against Karzai, and that the debate would be incomplete without the presence of the other 38 candidates vying for the presidency. The two other invitees—former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani—July 23 participated in the debate without Karzai. In the debate, Abdullah and Ghani criticized Karzai for failing to improve security in the country, which had rapidly worsened in recent years. They also criticized the rampant corruption in his government. Abdullah said, “One of the reasons behind the incapacity of the government is that it is not answering the people, like the president who did not come here to answer questions.” Karzai July 24 told some 3,000 supporters at a rally in Kabul, the Afghan capital, that if reelected president he would reach agreements with the U.S. and other NATO countries that would give his government greater control over the actions of foreign forces. Tapping into deep anger over civilian casualties caused by coalition forces, he said, “It should be known who is the owner of the house and who is the guest.” [See p. 434D2] n

India News in Brief. Finance Minister Pranab

Mukherjee July 6 unveiled a budget for the 2009–10 fiscal year, ending March 31, 2010, that would see the government invest heavily in India’s agricultural sector. The budget followed a resounding victory for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition in May parliamentary elections, in which it had campaigned on a promise of increased assistance to the rural poor. Included in the budget was a plan to provide farmers with 3.2 trillion rupees ($66 billion) in credit at relatively low interest rates. The Bombay Sensex stock exchange that day fell 5.8%, as investors worried about the impact the ramped-up spending would have on the government’s deficit. 513

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Mukherjee said the spending would help India’s gross domestic product (GDP) return to the 9% annual growth rate it had enjoyed before a global economic downturn struck in 2008. GDP had grown at a 6.7% rate in the year ending March 31. [See pp. 382F1, 345B2] The Delhi High Court July 2 ruled that a law criminalizing consensual gay sex was a violation of India’s constitution. The law, known as Section 377 of the penal code, had been enacted in 1860 by India’s former colonial ruler, Britain. The court’s ruling would apply only to New Delhi, the capital, but was considered a milestone for India’s gay community, which in recent years had pushed for greater equality in a society whose sexual mores were deeply conservative. Analysts said the government was now faced with the choice of appealing the decision to India’s Supreme Court, or decriminalizing gay sex throughout the country. Influential Hindu and Muslim groups denounced the decision, as did the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). India’s Supreme Court July 9 agreed to hear a challenge to the ruling filed by a Hindu opponent. [See 2006, p. 1033G1] n

Pakistan Refugees Allowed to Return to Northwest.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani July 9 announced that some of the roughly two million civilians who had been displaced by recent fighting in the NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP) could begin returning home. The Pakistani military in April had launched a major campaign to regain control of territory in the NWFP’s Malakand division—which included the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir—that had been seized by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. [See p. 314D3] The Pakistani military claimed that it had killed about 1,700 Taliban militants in the operation, and that Malakand’s main cities and towns were secure. However, near-daily clashes between the Taliban and the army continued outside urban areas, and the government had failed to kill or capture any of the Taliban’s top leaders. It was thought that many Taliban fighters had retreated ahead of the army’s offensive, and were currently hiding in the region’s mountainous areas. [See below] Thousands of refugees July 13 began returning to the NWFP, many of whom had been living under difficult conditions in government-run camps for the past several months. However, fewer than 500,000 refugees had returned to the NWFP as of July 27, over reported fears that the Taliban could return to urban areas. The government had attempted to assuage such concerns, saying it would maintain a military presence in the region for some time. It was also widely reported that the government had been eager to allow the refugees to return, over concerns that a prolonged exile in the camps could turn public opinion against the military operation. The Pakistani government had said it would need $2.5 billion in aid to provide struggling civilians with cash payments 514

and to rebuild Malakand’s infrastructure, which had been badly damaged during the operation. The government said it had received international pledges for less than a quarter of that amount, despite strong support for the operation from the U.S., which was currently battling Taliban factions in neighboring Afghanistan. Analysts said the complicated process of returning refugees to the NWFP and rebuilding the region could delay a previously announced plan for the military to launch an offensive in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal area located between the NWFP and Afghanistan that served as a stronghold for Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, in an interview with the Washington Post published July 27, said, “Baitullah Mehsud is a dreadful man, and his elimination is imperative. However, the first imperative is to secure the areas the refugees are going back into.” During a visit to Pakistan July 22, Holbrooke had reportedly been told by Gillani that Pakistan objected to an ongoing U.S. military operation against Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, since it could push the militants across the border into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. It was widely reported that Pakistan was unwilling to transfer troops from its eastern border with India, its traditional rival, to protect its western border with Afghanistan. [See p. 513C2] Army Arrests Pro-Taliban Cleric— The Pakistani army July 26 arrested Maulana Sufi Muhammad, a radical Islamic cleric with ties to the Taliban, on charges of fomenting violence and terrorism. Muhammad had brokered a February peace deal between the government and the Taliban that allowed for the establishment of sharia, or traditional Islamic law, in Swat. In exchange, Taliban militants were required to lay down their arms, but they later invaded the surrounding districts, prompting a public outcry and the subsequent military response in April. [See p. 102G3] Muhammad was the father-in-law of Maulana Fazlullah, who was the head of the Taliban in Swat. The army in early July had claimed that Fazlullah had been seriously wounded in an attack. However, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) July 23 reported that a Taliban spokesman had claimed that Fazlullah was alive and well. It was also reported that Fazlullah had been heard delivering sermons on the radio, weeks after his purported injury. Bin Laden Son Reported Killed— U.S.based National Public Radio (NPR) and the Long War Journal blog July 22 reported that unidentified U.S. counterterrorism officials believed that a U.S. missile in a Pakistani tribal area had killed Saad bin Laden, a son of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. It was reported that the missile had been fired by a Predator drone aircraft operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was thought to have conducted dozens of attacks against sus-

pected terrorists in the tribal areas since 2008. Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said it was investigating the claim. [See p. 38G3] Osama bin Laden, originally from Saudi Arabia, was thought to have had at least a dozen sons by different wives. Saad bin Laden, 27, had been under house arrest in Iran for several years, after fleeing Afghanistan in 2001, when a U.S.-led coalition invaded the country. U.S. officials had said he had moved to Pakistan’s tribal areas in late 2008 or early 2009. It was unclear whether he had escaped from Iran—which was ruled by a Shiite Muslim regime that reportedly distrusted the Sunni Muslim– dominated Al Qaeda—or if he had been released by the authorities there. An unidentified U.S. official told NPR that Saad bin Laden had not ranked high enough in Al Qaeda’s leadership to have been targeted specifically by the CIA, and that he had likely been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o A senior Pakistani official with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) July 16 was shot dead as he left the Kacha Garhi refugee camp near Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP. The official, Zill-e-Usman, 59, was the latest U.N. employee to be targeted by terrorists, following a June bombing at Peshawar’s Pearl Continental Hotel that had killed two U.N. aid workers. A spokesperson for the UNHCR said the gunmen had shot Zill-e-Usman after an apparent kidnapping attempt was botched. Another UNHCR employee and a security guard were injured in the attack. [See p. 418F2] o A three-member U.N. team July 16 arrived in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, to begin an investigation into the events surrounding the December 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The team, led by Heraldo Munoz, Chile’s ambassador to the U.N., would attempt to “establish the facts and circumstances of the assassination,” but would not pursue a criminal investigation, which the U.N. said was the responsibility of the Pakistani government. U.S. officials and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had blamed Mehsud for the assassination, but conspiracy theories about Bhutto’s death reportedly abounded in Pakistan, with many blaming ISI, among others. Few suspects had been arrested, and no one had been brought to trial in connection with the murder. [See 2007, p. 857A1] o At least nine people were killed and 60 injured July 13 when an explosion tore through a house in Mian Channu, a town in the eastern province of Punjab. The house was reportedly owned by a suspected Islamic extremist, and had been used as a storage space for explosives. It was unclear what caused the explosion. n Sharif Acquitted of Hijacking Charge. Pakistan’s Supreme Court July 17 acquitted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of a decade-old hijacking charge, removing what FACTS ON FILE

was thought to be the last legal obstacle to Sharif running for political office. Sharif was the leader of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) party, and would now be eligible to run in a parliamentary byelection or in national elections scheduled for 2013. [See p. 383F1] The charge stemmed from actions allegedly taken by Sharif in 1999, when he was prime minister and attempting to prevent a coup by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who was then the chief of the army. Sharif was accused of forbidding Musharraf’s plane from landing as it ran low on fuel, jeopardizing Musharraf’s life. A cabal of military officers circumvented Sharif’s orders, ensuring that the plane landed, and Musharraf eventually took over the government, becoming president. Sharif was convicted of the hijacking charge in 2000, and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until 2007, when he returned to Pakistan to challenge Musharraf’s rule. [See 1999, p. 738D2] Musharraf resigned in 2008, and Sharif was now thought to be one of Pakistan’s most popular leaders. He met July 17 with President Asif Ali Zardari, leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). It was reportedly the first time in eight months that the two rivals had met, after a ruling coalition of the PML-N and PPP fell apart in 2008. [See 2008, p. 596G1] Musharraf to Explain Emergency Rule—

The Supreme Court July 22 summoned Musharraf to explain his decision in November 2007 to declare a state of emergency, which allowed him to suspend Pakistan’s constitution and dismiss some 60 judges. Musharraf at the time had been facing serious challenges to his presidency, including from the Supreme Court, which had been considering whether his reelection as president had been unconstitutional. One of the judges fired in the state of emergency was Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who had been reinstated to his position in March. [See p. 175E1; 2007, p. 725A1] It was thought to be the first time that a former Pakistani military leader had been called on by the court to explain actions taken during his rule. Pakistan had had four military rulers since 1947, when it gained independence from Britain. Analysts said a court battle could inflame tensions between the civilian government and the army, which at the government’s urging was currently conducting a major operation against the Islamic militant group the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest. [See p. 514C1] However, Musharraf—who was currently living in London—skipped the July 29 summons date. The court was expected to continue its investigation without Musharraf’s testimony. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Spanish Cyclist Contador Wins Tour de France Armstrong Returns, Places Third. Alberto

Contador of Spain July 26 won the 96th Tour de France, cycling’s premier race. July 30, 2009

Contador’s win was his second in three years, and the fourth straight victory for a Spaniard. The race also marked the return to the Tour de France of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong of the U.S., who had retired after his 2005 victory. Armstrong finished third, behind Contador and secondplace finisher Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. [See 2008, p. 527G3] The doping scandals that had dominated headlines during the past three years were overshadowed by the rivalry between Contador and Armstrong, both members of the Astana team. Prior to the race, Astana manager Johan Bruyneel had awarded Contador the symbolic jersey of team leader. The pecking order within the Kazakh-sponsored team was closely watched throughout the race. The day after the teammates shared the Tour podium, Contador called his relationship with Armstrong “zero.” Armstrong July 23 had announced that he was forming a new team for the 2010 Tour, sponsored by Texas-based consumer-electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. He had spent much of his comeback thus far helping his Astana teammates, rather than as team leader. During a warm-up race in Spain, Armstrong March 23 fell hard from his bike, breaking his right collarbone. He recovered in time to compete in a supporting role for Astana during the Giro d’Italia in May. [See below] The 2,150-mile (3,459.5-km) 2009 Tour de France had begun July 4 in Monaco and ended in Paris. It consisted of 21 stages, but lacked the short time-trial “prologue” included in most years. Contador, 26, finished the race in 85 hours, 48 minutes and 35 seconds. Schleck, a member of the CSC Saxo Bank team, finished four minutes and 11 seconds behind, while Armstrong, 37, was five minutes and 24 seconds back. Schleck, 24, won the white jersey as the best young rider in the race. Italy’s Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas claimed the polkadot jersey as the king of the mountains. Norway’s Thor Hushovd of Cervelo TestTeam took the green jersey as the top sprinter. Astana easily bested the other squads to win the award for the top team. Contador, widely regarded as the best climber in the sport, July 19 earned the race leader’s yellow jersey for the first time, after he won Stage 15, a mountain stage in the Alps. On July 23, he nearly ensured his second Tour de France title by winning Stage 18, an individual time trial. He held a lead of several minutes over both Schleck and Armstrong going into the largely ceremonial final stage. Stages 13 and 14 saw the event’s close fan interaction along the route take turns for the worse. In Stage 13 on July 17, two riders were struck with pellets, most likely from an air rifle, officials said. Both men were injured, but managed to cross the finish line that day. The following day, a spectator was killed during Stage 14, when she was hit by a police motorcycle. The spectator, a 61-year-old woman, had been trying to cross the road. Top-Ranked Valverde Out of Tour—

While no positive doping tests emerged from the 2009 Tour de France, several top

cyclists were hit with bans in the lead-up to the race. Most notably, Spain’s Alejandro Valverde June 23 announced he would not compete in the Tour de France because Italy had banned him for doping. Valverde was in the midst of challenging the twoyear ban that had been imposed in May, but the international Court of Arbitration for Sport would not hear the appeal until after the Tour course briefly entered Italy on July 21. Thomas Dekker of the Netherlands July 1 was told of a retroactive test on a 2007 blood sample that had yielded a positive result for the banned synthetic hormone erythropoietin (EPO). Dekker, who had been set to ride with the Silence-Lotto team in the Tour, that day was banned from competing in the race. The Quick Step team May 9 suspended Tom Boonen of Belgium, after an April 24 drug test came back positive for cocaine. Boonen had similarly tested positive for cocaine in 2008, forcing him to miss the Tour that year as well. [See 2008, p. 528A2] Italy’s Danilo Di Luca of the LPR Brakes–Farnese Vini team, which was not invited to the Tour, had twice tested positive for a newly created drug known as continuous erythropoietin receptor activator (CERA), the International Cycling Union (UCI) said July 22. Di Luca was provisionally suspended, pending a hearing with the Italian Cycling Federation. The UCI June 17 had announced the results from the initial round of a recently developed antidoping program, known as blood profiling. Riders had submitted multiple blood and urine samples to create individual body-chemistry profiles. Once variations from their known baseline levels were spotted, the cyclists became subject to further scrutiny. Five riders, including three Spaniards and two Italians, June 17 were tapped for disciplinary cases based on the first results from the program. Former Olympic gold medalist Tyler Hamilton of the U.S. April 17 announced his retirement from the sport, following his admission that he had tested positive for a banned dietary supplement known as dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). He said he took the drug before a February test to fight depression. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) June 16 banned Hamilton for eight years, imposing the severe punishment because it was his second positive test for a banned substance. [See 2007, p. 355G2] Menchov Wins Giro d’Italia—Denis Menchov of Russia May 31 finished 41 seconds ahead of Di Luca to win the Giro d’Italia, a 2,148-mile, 21-stage race that ended in Milan. Menchov’s team, Rabobank, had been contacted by Austrian investigators as part of a doping probe, it was reported May 27. Menchov that day denied any wrongdoing on his part. n

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O B I T UA R I E S ALLINGHAM, Henry William, 113, British veteran of World War I who had been the last surviving original member of the Royal Air Force (RAF), formed in 1918; he was also reportedly the oldest man ever to have lived in Britain and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s oldest man during the final month of his life; born June 6, 1896, in London; died July 18 at a nursing home in Brighton, England. [See 2008, p. 208E2] CUNNINGHAM, Merce (Mercier Philip), 90, choreographer who created some of the most striking and innovative dance works of the 20th century; in his youth, before becoming a choreographer, he distinguished himself as a dancer, particularly during his six years (1939–45) as a member of Martha Graham’s dance troupe; in 1944, he presented a performance of dance solos to music by John Cage that he later referred to as his first authentic choreography; he and Cage would continue to collaborate until Cage’s death in 1992, and were also longtime lovers; like Cage, he was drawn to random procedures, including use of the I Ching, the Chinese “book of changes,” and created dance works whose movements, though far from improvised, were independent of their accompanying music; he also worked closely on sets and decor with a number of leading visual artists, beginning with Robert Rauschenberg, but also including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and others of their caliber; he formed his own troupe, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, in 1953, continued to dance with the New York City– based group until late in life, and led it and choreographed for it until his death; his troupe won international acclaim in the 1960s before becoming wellknown in the U.S.; he pioneered the use of film and AP Photo/Steven Mark Needham

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lished the results of a broad study of African genetics in the journal Science Express. The study’s results suggested that the first anatomically modern humans originated in southwest Africa, near the Kalahari Desert—the homeland of the San people, also known as the Bushmen—and that humans migrated northeast and eventually entered Eurasia by crossing the Red Sea 50,000 years ago. [See p. 280E1] The survey, which looked at 121 African, four African American and 60 nonAfrican populations, identified 14 “ancestral clusters” to which all present-day humans could be assigned. Nine of those were in present-day Africa, making the continent more genetically diverse than the rest of the world combined. The study, led by Sara Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, was seen as bringing new racial breadth to surveys of genetics, which in the past had largely focused on Europeans and Asians. The study’s authors said the high diversity and genetic mixing found among African populations meant that it would be difficult for African Americans using popular commercial genealogy services to fully trace their ancestry. n Cow Genome Deciphered. An international team of scientists April 23 published the genome of a cow, and the journal Science April 24 published three papers based on the findings. More than 300 scientists from 25 countries had worked for six years to sequence the 22,000 genes of an eight-year-old female Hereford cow, in a project costing $53 million. [See 2008, p. 912C2] The cow was the first livestock animal to have its genome sequenced, and the genome was thought to have the potential to help scientists boost milk and meat production and disease resistance, as well as reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by cows. n

Choreographer Merce Cunningham in 1955.

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Actor Robert Redford, 72, July 11 in Hamburg, Germany, married German-born abstract artist Sibylle Szaggars, 51. The couple had reportedly been romantically involved since the 1990s. Redford’s one previous marriage had ended in divorce, in 1985. [See 2008, p. 876E2] Actor Matthew Broderick, 47, and his wife, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, 44, June 22 became parents of twin girls, born to a surrogate mother somewhere in Ohio. The couple were married in 1997 and had a son, born in 2002. [See 2002, p. 880E3] The Philadelphia Museum of Art June 29 named art historian Timothy Rub, 57, as its new director and chief executive, effective in September. Rub would succeed Anne d’Harnoncourt, who led the museum from 1982 until her death in 2008, at age 64. Rub had been director of the Cleveland Museum of Art since 2006. [See 2008, p. 440A3; 2006, p. 40C3] n 516

video to capture dance movements and in recent years came to increasingly rely on computer graphics for his choreography; in April, his troupe premiered Nearly Ninety, a 90-minute work marking his 90th birthday; two months later, he announced that his troupe would be dissolved after his death; born April 16, 1919, in Centralia, Wash.; died July 26 at his New York City home; no cause of death was reported. [See p. 420G2; 2008, p. 336D3; 2000, p. 880F2; 1996, pp. 712F3, 568B3; 1992, p. 604C3; Indexes 1970, 1968] DOWNES, Sir Edward (Thomas), 85, British conductor who was a major champion and interpreter of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, which he often conducted at London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and elsewhere; his association with Covent Garden began in the early 1950s, and he led some 950 performances there, bowing out with 10 performances of Verdi’s Rigoletto in 2005; he was also identified with the Russian repertoire, notably the music of Sergei Prokofiev; in 1973, during his four years as music director of the Australian Opera, he inaugurated the Sydney Opera House with Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace; he was also principal conductor of the Manchester, England–based BBC Philharmonic from 1980 to 1991 (the ensemble was known as the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra before 1982); he was knighted in 1991; born June 17, 1924, in Birmingham, England; committed suicide July 10 at an assisted-suicide clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, by drinking a cocktail of barbiturates; his wife of 54 years, Joan Downes, 74, a onetime dancer and choreographer, died that day

in an adjacent bed after also being administered a lethal cocktail; the couple died in the presence of their son and daughter; she had reportedly had terminal cancer, whereas he, although apparently not terminally ill, had become nearly blind and had lost much of his hearing. [See 2005, p. 968B1; 1973, p. 893A2] GRAY, Harry J. (born Harry Jack Grusin), 89, corporate executive who turned Hartford, Conn.–based United Technologies Corp. into one of the world’s leading conglomerates; under his control, which lasted from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, United Technologies, which was originally an aerospace company (it was known as United Aircraft before 1975) acquired a wide range of businesses, including Otis Elevator Co. and air-conditioning manufacturer the Carrier Corp.; his reputation for playing hardball in effecting mergers led to his being nicknamed both the “Grand Acquisitor” and the “Gray Shark”; born Nov. 18, 1919, in Milledgeville Crossroads, Ga.; died July 8 at a Hartford hospital; no cause of death was reported. [See 1986, p. 696C2; 1985, pp. 748B2, 416A2; Indexes 1982–84, 1977–79] KIRALY, Bela Kalman, 97, commander of Hungarian military forces in the short-lived 1956 popular uprising against the Soviet domination of Hungary, which was brutally suppressed by Soviet troops after they invaded Hungary in November of that year; he then fled to Austria, and soon settled in the U.S., where he earned graduate degrees in history from New York City’s Columbia University and became an academic historian; he returned to Hungary in 1989, as an invited guest for the reburial of Imre Nagy, the Hungarian premier at the time of the uprising, who, along with several of his aides, had been convicted of treason and executed in 1958; Nagy was officially rehabilitated shortly thereafter, while Kiraly was elected to the Hungarian parliament in 1990, in the country’s first postcommunist election, and served a four-year term; in 1993, he was honored as a “righteous gentile” by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, for having saved the lives of 400 Jewish slave laborers under his command on the Ukrainian front during World War II; born April 14, 1912, in Kaposvar, Hungary; died July 4 in Budapest, Hungary; no cause of death was reported. [See 1989, p. 463E3; 1959, pp. 346G1, 187A1; Indexes 1956–57] KLEIN, Allen, 77, accountant turned music industry executive who in the 1960s and 1970s managed the finances of some of rock and roll’s top acts, including Sam Cooke, the Rolling Stones, and, briefly, the Beatles, before their 1969 break-up, to which he was said to have contributed; many of his clients ended up suing him after falling out with him, and some of that litigation dragged on for years; in 1979, he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to two months in prison; born Dec. 18, 1931, in Newark, N.J.; died July 4 at his home in New York City, of Alzheimer’s disease complications. [See 1979, pp. 656E2, 392F3; 1972, p. 240D2] KOLAKOWSKI, Leszek, 81, Polish philosopher whose best-known work was his three-volume Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth and Dissolution (1978); a devout Marxist in his youth, he gradually grew disenchanted with communism and was expelled from the Polish Communist Party in 1966, two years before going into exile; he later taught at several major Western universities, starting with McGill University in Montreal, Canada, but was mainly associated with Britain’s Oxford University; in 2003, he was named the first recipient of the U.S. Library of Congress’s John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences, a $1 million award; born Oct. 23, 1927, in Radom, Poland; died July 17 at a hospital in Oxford, England, after a brief illness. [See 2003, p. 967G2; 1976, p. 268F1; Indexes 1966, 1958] PATCH, Harry (Henry John), 111, last of Britain’s army veterans of World War I; in 2007, at the age of 109, he published a memoir of his combat experience on that war’s Western Front, The Last Fighting Tommy; born June 17, 1898, in Combe Down, England; died July 25 at a nursing home in Wells, England; he died a week after the death of Britain’s only other remaining survivor of the Western Front campaign, 113-year-old RAF veteran Henry Allingham. [See above] SHI Pei Pu, Chinese opera singer who, masquerading as a woman, had a two-decade-long love affair with a low-ranking French diplomat who, after the affair was unearthed by Chinese authorities, agreed to spy for China; he and the diplomat, Bernard Boursicot, were both convicted of espionage in France in 1986, and both were later briefly imprisoned; their relationship was the basis for David Henry Hwang’s 1988 Tony Award–winning play M. Butterfly, a film version of which was released in 1993; born in the late 1930s in China’s eastern Shandong province; died June 30 in Paris. [See 1988, pp. 824F1, 432D1] n

July 30, 2009

Former U.S. President Clinton Visits North Korea, Gains ‘Pardon’ for Captured Journalists Meets With Kim Jong Il. Former U.S. Pres-

ident Bill Clinton early Aug. 4 arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, on a visit to win the release of two U.S. reporters who had been arrested on the North Korean border in March and sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor. Shortly after a meeting later that day between Clinton and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea announced that Kim had issued a “special pardon” of the reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and ordered their release. Lee and Ling returned to the U.S. with Clinton, landing at the Burbank, Calif., airport, Aug. 5. [See p. 395G3] Lee and Ling had been captured along North Korea’s border with China while reporting on North Korean refugees and human-trafficking victims. In June, they were put on trial and declared guilty of illegally entering the country and unspecified other “grave” offenses. North Korea was widely seen as seeking to use the reporters as bargaining chips amid currently elevated tensions with the U.S. over its nuclear and other illicit weapons programs. [See below, p. 495F1] The U.S. had initially called the charges against Lee and Ling “baseless” and urged their release on humanitarian grounds. But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president’s wife, July 10 had urged North Korea to grant the reporters “amnesty,” in a seeming indication that the U.S. was willing to acknowledge some degree of wrongdoing on the women’s part as it tried to gain their release. Ling’s sister, journalist Lisa Ling, July 9 said that, in a recent phone call, Laura Ling said she and Lee had violated an unspecified North Korean law and asked that the U.S. government seek “amnesty.” Lisa Ling Aug. 6 said her sister had told her upon her return that the reporters had “touched North Korean territory very, very briefly...maybe 30 seconds, and everything just got sort of chaotic.” North Korea Aug. 4 said that it had granted the pardon after Bill Clinton “apologized” for the reporters’ offense, but the secretary of state denied that such an apology, or any reward, had been given. Nevertheless, some conservative U.S. critics said the mission amounted to ransoming the journalists by awarding the North Korean regime a propaganda coup. White House Calls Trip ‘Private’— Bill Clinton’s trip was not publicly disclosed prior to his departure. Robert Gibbs, press secretary to U.S. President Barack Obama, Aug. 4 said Clinton was traveling in a private capacity, not as a representative of the U.S. government, and declined to comment on it in detail. However, the Obama administration reportedly played a central role in organizing the trip, through contacts with North Korea’s mission to the United Nations, in response to signals that North Korea wished for a gesture of respect in the form of a visit to Kim by a figure of great stature. The agreement on releasing the women during

Clinton’s visit was reportedly reached before his departure. The administration had reportedly first considered asking Al Gore to travel as an envoy to seek the reporters’ release. Gore had been Clinton’s vice president, and had cofounded media company Current TV LLC, for which Lee and Ling worked. But North Korean officials reportedly told Ling and Lee that they would be released if Clinton made a visit, which the reporters relayed to relatives in the telephone contacts they were allowed. Clinton was believed to be esteemed by North Korea because of efforts during his presidency to improve bilateral relations, which had nearly led to a visit to the country by him as president. His trip recalled a 1994 visit to North Korea during the Clinton administration by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, which led to an agreement freezing North Korea’s nuclear program, but at the time was reportedly seen by the Clinton administration as an unwanted interference in its foreign policy. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, had suspended contacts with North Korea, leading to the unraveling of the 1994 agreement. The Bush administration later rejoined nuclear negotiations in the form of six-nation talks. Clinton’s mission was a dramatic return to the world stage for the former president, who had been a vocal supporter of his wife’s hard-fought battle against Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He had had to agree to strict vetting of his high-profile global philanthropic activities in order for Hillary Clinton to take the secretary of state post. However, he had reportedly recruited his network of high-level business contacts in putting together his trip to North Korea; the private Boeing 737 jet he used on the trip was lent by Hollywood producer and Democratic donor Steve Bing. [See p. 29F2] Clinton Meets Kim—The state news media of North Korea, a highly isolated country, Aug. 4 released footage of Clinton’s arrival. He was greeted by officials including Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea’s nuclear negotiator, raising the possibility that North Korea sought to discuss the nuclear issue with Clinton. The official reports said Kim hosted a dinner for Clinton that evening at which they had discussed an array of “opinions.” North Korea said Clinton had relayed a message to Kim from Obama, something the White House denied. North Korea also released images of his Aug. 4 meeting with Kim, whose health and possible successor had been a topic of speculation for nearly a year. Clinton was accompanied by a number of personal advisers, including John Podesta, who had served as his White House chief of staff. Podesta currently headed the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, and had also been Obama’s presidential transition chief. South Korean news media July 10 had reported that, according to a U.S.-based

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Volume 69, No. 3581* August 6, 2009

B political scientist who had visited North Korea recently, Ling and Lee had not been sent to a labor camp, but were being held at a “guest house” in Pyongyang. That suggested that North Korea was anticipating negotiations on terms for releasing them. The Obama administration had said it treated the case of Ling and Lee as completely separate from the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear programs, although observers suggested that reaching an agreement through Clinton on releasing them could segue into a renewed period of engagement between the two countries. Since Obama took office in January, North Korea had proclaimed its abandonment of the six-nation talks, and conducted a second nuclear test as well as several missile launches, provoking new United Nations sanctions. However, North Korea, while reiterating its refusal to rejoin the six-nation talks, July 27 said it was willing

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Former U.S. President Clinton visits North Korea, gains ‘pardon’ for captured journalists; meets Kim Jong Il. PAGE 517

Iran’s Ahmadinejad inaugurated after disputed election; dissidents placed on trial.

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Sotomayor confirmed as Supreme Court justice; becomes court’s first Hispanic. PAGE 519

Health care bill advances in House. PAGE 520

U.S. GDP shrank at 1.0% rate in second quarter. PAGE 521

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Hundreds killed in Nigerian Islamist sect violence. PAGE 525

Colombian FARC rebels’ arms linked to Venezuela. PAGE 526

Communists lose majority in Moldovan parliament. PAGE 529

Baghdad Shiite mosque blasts kill 29. PAGE 529

Ramirez, Ortiz linked to MLB doping list. PAGE 530 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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to reopen nuclear talks on a bilateral basis with the U.S. alone—a message that, it was later reported, was taken as a signal of North Korea’s sincerity about the deal to free Ling and Lee. Freed Reporters Arrive in U.S.—Ling, Lee and Clinton Aug. 5 arrived in Burbank, where they were publicly greeted by their families and Gore, who expressed gratitude to Clinton, the Obama administration and others who had contributed to the effort to release them. Ling described being told by guards to come to a meeting, and her elated surprise at coming face-to-face with Clinton. Hillary Clinton Aug. 5 said she was “extremely excited” at the release, and Obama also thanked Bill Clinton and called Lee and Ling’s return “a source of happiness” for “the entire country.” Lisa Ling Aug. 6 said that her sister had described being held mostly in isolation in a small cell without hot water, and receiving meals composed mostly of rice with rocks in it. South Korean Boat Crew Seized—

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North Korea July 30 seized a South Korean squid-fishing boat and its crew of four when it entered North Korean waters. South Korea’s government said the fishermen had reported a malfunction in their satellite-guided navigation system. South Korea said it had asked for the return of the crew, but North Korea responded that it was undertaking an investigation of their “illegal” intrusion. [See p. 84A1] The waters off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula, where North Korea refused to recognize a U.N.-defined sea border, had been the scene of numerous tense confrontations since the end of the 1950– 53 Korean War. In 1987, a boat with a crew of 12 had been seized and never returned, but another crew detained in December 2006 was returned within weeks. North Korea was also holding an executive of a South Korean company who worked at an industrial park in North Korea, accused of insulting North Korea’s political system. [See p. 342G3] n

Iran’s Ahmadinejad Inaugurated After Disputed Election 100 Dissidents Placed on Trial. Iranian Pres-

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ident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Aug. 5 took the oath of office for his second term as president in Tehran, the Iranian capital, two days after he was formally approved by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad had claimed victory after a June election that the opposition said was rigged. Iranian authorities had forcibly suppressed massive protests in the weeks after the election, and Aug. 1 began the trials of more than 100 alleged dissidents who had been arrested. [See below, p. 485A1] In the Aug. 3 ceremony, which was constitutionally required before the inauguration, Ahmadinejad awkwardly kissed Khamenei on the shoulder, instead of embracing him and kissing him on the hand as he had done at his first ceremony in 2005.

That was seen as the latest sign of rifts in Iran’s governing elite, which was also split over Ahmadinejad’s appointments to his cabinet. [See below] The ceremony was boycotted by a number of officials, legislators and other figures who would have normally attended it. They included former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, reformists who had run against Ahmadinejad in the election; former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had spoken out in favor of the opposition movement; and Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranians protested in central Tehran, but were violently suppressed by riot police and the Basij paramilitary force. Karroubi joined one of the protests, but was forced to leave by police. Opposition leaders also boycotted the inauguration, as did dozens of reformist legislators; several more walked out after Ahmadinejad began a speech. There were reports of scattered protests largely quashed by a heavy police presence. In his inaugural speech, Ahmadinejad denied that there were splits in Iranian society, saying, “No one must feel that their rights have been taken away from them.” He criticized Western countries that had not congratulated him on his reelection, saying to them, “No one in Iran is waiting for your messages. Iranians will neither value your scowling and bullying nor will they pay attention to your smiles and greetings.” Confessions Used in Dissident Trial—

Iranian authorities Aug. 1 began a mass trial in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court of more than 100 alleged dissidents, including many former senior public officials. The government had previously announced that 20 dissidents would be tried, and the larger trial came as a surprise. Defendants were not allowed access to lawyers or told the specific charges against them. Prosecutors accused them of conspiring with foreign nations to discredit and overthrow the Iranian government. In addition to the defendants, prosecutors also named as coconspirators other Iranians who had not been arrested, including some living abroad. Prosecutors described what they said was a videotaped confession by one of the defendants—Muhammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president in Khatami’s administration. He supposedly said that reformists had been plotting the downfall of the Iranian government for years, and that Moussavi, Khatami and Rafsanjani had “promised to always back each other up” in disputing the election results. Prosecutors also said another defendant—Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist for the U.S. magazine Newsweek—had confessed that Western media had orchestrated the election protests, a common claim by the Iranian government. Bahari appeared at a news conference at the court to repeat those claims.

Opposition leaders decried the trial and the confessions, which they said had been procured by abusing the defendants. Iranian state television Aug. 2 broadcast televised confessions by Abtahi and Muhammad Atrianfar, a former deputy interior minister, in which they said that they had “changed” since their arrests, and that their confessions had not been obtained through torture. Renewed Demonstrations Mark Deaths—

Thousands of Iranians July 30 took to the streets of Tehran to mark the deaths of protesters killed after the election, in the largest and most violent demonstrations in weeks. The protests marked the end of a 40-day mourning period for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a 27-year-old woman whose shooting death during a protest had been captured on video and had become an emblem of the opposition movement. The government said 20 people had died in the earlier protests, but opposition activists had identified additional people who they said had been killed by the police, and some claimed that there had been hundreds killed. Protesters gathered at Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in southeast Tehran, where Soltan and other protesters were buried, but were attacked by police with tear gas and batons. Moussavi and Karroubi attempted to join the protesters but were ordered back by police. Protesters later gathered in central and northern Tehran but were again dispersed. The Iranian government July 28 had released 140 people who had been arrested during the post-election demonstrations, and closed Tehran’s Kahrizak prison because of substandard conditions there. Those moves were seen as an attempt to

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mollify public concerns over the treatment of prisoners, after reports had emerged over the previous days that four detainees had died in custody, and many more had been tortured. One of those who had died in prison, Mohsen Ruholamini, was the son of an adviser to Mohsen Rezai, a conservative opponent of Ahmadinejad in the presidential race. His death provoked criticism among conservatives who had previously supported the government. Cabinet Picks Cause Stir—The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) July 24 reported that Ahmadinejad had reversed his appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as vice president, under pressure from Khamenei. Ahmadinejad had originally defied Khamenei’s order to drop Mashai as his pick, an order Khamenei gave because of comments Mashai had made that were seen as friendly to Israel, which Iran considered an enemy. The tension had been seen as indicative of growing splits within Iran’s governing elite, and several influential government figures July 25 questioned why Ahmadinejad had delayed obeying Khamenei. Ahmadinejad July 25 named Mashai as his chief of staff, and the next day fired his intelligence minister, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, while Culture Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi resigned under pressure. The two ministers had reportedly supported Khamenei in the dispute over Mashai’s appointment. Ahmadinejad also that day appointed Ali Kordan as special inspector, whose job it was to investigate government corruption. Kordan in 2008 had resigned as interior minister after it was discovered that he had falsely claimed to hold a law degree from Britain’s Oxford University. [See 2008, p. 857B1] n

Space ‘Endeavour’ Flight Completes Station Lab.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour July 15– 31 carried out a mission to the International Space Station, installing the final portion of a Japanese-built science laboratory module, among other tasks, and exchanging a station crew member. [See p. 372F2; 2008, pp. 879D3, 429B1] Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:03 p.m. Eastern daylight time July 15.It was the 127th space shuttle flight, and the 23rd for the Endeavour. A number of pieces of debris fell from its fuel tank at launch and struck the orbiter, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) later concluded that the debris strikes had not caused damage that would threaten the safety of the craft upon reentry into the atmosphere. In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia had broken up during reentry after sustaining damage from fuel tank debris during liftoff. [See 2008, p. 949F1] The Endeavour’s mission commander was Mark Polansky, 53, and the pilot was U.S. Marine Col. Douglas Hurley, 42. The August 6, 2009

mission specialists were U.S. Navy Cmdr. Christopher Cassidy, 39; Dr. Thomas Marshburn, 48; Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, 45; Dr. David Wolf, 52; and U.S. Army Col. Timothy Kopra, 46, who became the newest member of the International Space Station crew, replacing Koichi Wakata of Japan, 45, who had been aboard the station since March and returned to Earth aboard Endeavour. (The station’s crew had been expanded to six people, from three, in May. Russia’s Roman Romanenko, Belgian Frank DeWinne of the European Space Agency and Canadian Bob Thirsk May 29 arrived in a Russian Soyuz capsule launched from Kazakhstan May 27.) Endeavour docked with the station July 17, and its crew entered the station, setting a new record for the most astronauts in orbit on a single vessel, 13. In the mission’s first space walk, Wolf and Kopra July 18 installed a “porch” on the Japanese Kibo lab module that would serve as a site for experiments conducted in exposure to space. In the second space walk July 20—the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon—Wolf and Marshburn installed a number of other pieces of equipment to the station’s exterior. [See p. 506D2] The following day, a Japanese payload carrier containing experiments for the new external porch was taken out of Endeavour’s cargo bay and temporarily installed on the station. On July 23, a Japanesemade robotic arm on the space station was put to its first operational use, moving the contents of the temporary container to the porch, and on July 26, the arm was used to put the carrier back aboard Endeavour for return to Earth. Meanwhile, on the third space walk July 22, Wolf and Cassidy began installing new solar batteries on the station. The work was cut short when carbon dioxide levels increased to abnormal levels inside Cassidy’s spacesuit, apparently due to a malfunction in the device intended to remove that gas from it. Cassidy and Marshburn completed the battery work in the fourth space walk July 24. Those two astronauts also carried out other miscellaneous installation and maintenance tasks on Kibo and other parts of the station July 27, in the fifth and last space walk. Also during the Endeavour visit, the main toilet on the space station broke down July 19, limiting the station’s crew to one working facility and forcing the Endeavour crew to rely on the orbiter’s toilet. The toilet was fixed the following day. Endeavour undocked from the station July 28, and landed July 31 at Kennedy Space Center at 10:48 a.m. Water Recycling System Starts— The space station crew May 20 inaugurated a system for recycling the water from astronauts’ urine, sweat and exhalations into drinking water. The equipment had been taken to the station in November 2008, but its use had been delayed by the need to replace a faulty part. [See p. 239A2] n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

A

Sotomayor Confirmed as Supreme Court Justice Becomes Court’s First Hispanic. The Sen-

ate Aug. 6 voted, 68–31, to confirm federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, 55, became the first Hispanic in the court’s history, and its third woman. She had been nominated to the position by President Barack Obama in May to succeed retiring Associate Justice David H. Souter. She was scheduled to be sworn in Aug. 8 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. [See p. 503A1] Obama Aug. 6 praised Sotomayor’s ascension to the court as “breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union.” Sotomayor had been expected to win confirmation handily, since 60 of the Senate’s 100 members belonged to the Democratic caucus. All of them voted for Sotomayor, with the exception of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), who was currently being treated for brain cancer and was absent. Nine of the Senate’s 40 Republicans voted to confirm Sotomayor. During the floor debate on her nomination, which began Aug. 4, many Republicans raised doubts that she was capable of judging impartially, in light of public statements she had made suggesting that her identity as a woman and a Hispanic played a prominent role in her decision-making process. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) Aug. 6 said, “A judge must be able to check his or her personal or political agenda at the courtroom door and do justice evenhandedly, as the judicial oath requires. This is the most fundamental test. It is a test that Judge Sotomayor does not pass.” Democrats rebutted those claims, saying Sotomayor’s 17 years as a federal judge had shown her to be an impartial arbiter who was in the mainstream of judicial thought. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Aug. 6 said, “Attempts at distorting her record by suggesting that her ethnicity or heritage will be the driving force in her decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court are demeaning to women and all communities of color.” Before nominating Sotomayor, Obama had described his ideal judge as one who would have “empathy” for those who would be affected by court rulings. But Democrats had largely avoided asserting that empathy was a valuable qualification for the court, and Republicans said they had succeeded in removing such a liberal standard from the larger debate over the judiciary’s proper role in government. Some analysts said that, in deferring to their conservative base and voting against Sotomayor, Republicans could have alienated Hispanics, the country’s fastest-growing and largest minority group. Sen. Robert Menendez (D, N.J.), who was of Cuban parentage, said, “I believe the Republicans will pay a price for saying ‘no’ to this judge.” n 519

B

C

D

E

F

G

Senate Finance Panel Talks Continue—

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

Medicine & Health Health Care Reform Bill Advances in House.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee July 31 voted, 31–28, to advance a bill that would overhaul the U.S. health care system. The committee was the third and final one in the House that needed to approve the measure before it could be brought for a floor vote. House leaders said they would spend much of Congress’s August recess reconciling the committee’s bill with versions already passed by the Ways and Means Committee and the Education and Labor Committee. [See p. 487A1] Democratic lawmakers and President Barack Obama had made a priority of reforming health care in the U.S. in order to provide coverage to the uninsured and reduce overall health care costs. Republicans had generally opposed the efforts, arguing that the plans’ costs were too high and would give the government an outsized role in individual health care management. Some fiscally conservative Democrats had also criticized the plans for their high cost, which had been estimated at around $1 trillion over 10 years by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). There was also wide debate over how a reform plan should be paid for, with some Democrats proposing an income surtax on high wage earners. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s version of the bill was similar to other House versions in that it called for the creation of a government-managed public health insurance option, designed to compete with private insurance. The bill also required all Americans to obtain insurance, and banned private insurers from refusing to provide coverage because of a person’s pre-existing illness or gender. The measure required employers, with the exception of some small businesses, to provide employees with insurance or else pay a penalty to the government. Debate on the bill had stalled in the committee until July 29, when Democratic leaders in the House struck an agreement with a group of fiscally conservative Democrats, known as the Blue Dog Coalition, that would exempt more small businesses from providing health insurance or paying the fine. The bill had originally provided exemptions to businesses with annual payrolls of less than $250,000; the new threshold was $500,000. The deal would also reduce the cost of the overall plan by $100 billion by charging people with low incomes more for insurance premiums, and requiring states to pay a greater share of the costs of expanding Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for the poor. Under the agreement, the public health insurance option would not use a fee schedule to reimburse doctors and hospitals providing Medicare services, instead negotiating rates with individual providers in the same way private insurance companies did. The deal was criticized by some members of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, who argued that the concessions weakened the public health insurance plan too much. 520

In the Senate, talks continued among a group of three Democrats and three Republicans, led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D, Mont.). The committee had proposed establishing a network of member-owner, nonprofit health care cooperatives, instead of a public health insurance option. Baucus July 30 said the committee would not convene in the week before the August recess, effectively ending any chance the panel would advance a reform bill before September. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) July 23 acknowledged that the Senate would not be able to vote on a reform bill before the summer recess, set to begin Aug. 8. Obama had set the date as an informal deadline for both houses of Congress to pass the legislation, but had backed away from it after it became clear that neither chamber would be able to do so. Obama Continues Lobbying Efforts—

Obama Aug. 4 met with Senate Democrats in order to rally support for the overhaul efforts. White House officials the same day began an Internet campaign consisting of videos and blog posts aimed at rebutting criticisms of the reform plan. Obama July 28 had attended a forum held by AARP, the senior citizens’ advocacy group. He reassured attendees that his plan to pay for the reform plan by cutting Medicare spending would not affect the benefits received by those enrolled in the program, which provided care to the elderly and disabled. The CBO July 25 reported that a plan by Obama to create an “independent Medicare advisory council” to set Medicare payment policies would save $2 billion over four years at most, falling short of figures that Democrats had cited as a goal. The CBO added that there was a significant possibility that the new agency would not yield any savings. Advocates on both sides of the reform debate were gearing up for a lobbying and advertising blitz during Congress’s August recess. Democrats were reportedly planning to step up criticisms of the insurance industry in an effort to garner public support for their plan, with Obama and other high-ranking Democrats continuing to appear at several “town-hall” style meetings. Several such meetings were attended by groups of protesters who had sometimes jeered and taunted Democrats. An effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr. (D, Md.) had reportedly been hanged from a noose outside the congressman’s district office. The Democratic National Committee Aug. 5 released a video accusing the Republican Party and its allies of organizing the protests. Several Democrats said the protests appeared to be too well-organized to be the result of grassroots groups’ efforts. A Wall Street Journal–NBC News poll conducted July 24–27 and published July 30 found that public support for Obama’s reform plan had declined since mid-June. According to the poll, 42% of respondents called the plan a bad idea, while 36% called it a good one. Respondents had previously been evenly split on the issue. Obama’s popularity had also been declining in recent weeks. According to the

Web site RealClearPolitics.com’s average of results from nationwide polls taken between July 27 and Aug. 6, Obama’s approval rating stood at 53.8%, with a disapproval rating of 40.5%. n Mass. Panel Recommends Payment Change.

A 10-member state commission in Massachusetts July 16 unanimously voted to recommend that the state radically change the way doctors and hospitals were paid for health care, in an effort to reduce climbing costs and improve patient care. The panel recommended that health care providers receive a “global payment”—one set payment that would cover a patient’s care for one year, instead of charging fees for each visit or medical procedure. The existing payment system was widely criticized for encouraging doctors to perform unneeded tests and procedures that did little to improve patient care, while driving up costs. [See 2008, p. 312F3] Massachusetts in 2006 had passed a universal health care law that required all state residents to obtain insurance, and provided subsidies to those who could not afford it on their own and tax incentives for others. The program was considered a success since about 97% of state residents now had some form of health insurance. However, health care costs in Massachusetts had climbed sharply under the new law, growing at an annual rate of 6%–9% and straining the state budget. Members of Congress and President Barack Obama had cited the program as a potential model for national health care reform, a centerpiece of Obama’s domestic agenda. [See p. 520A1] State legislators in June had approved a state budget that eliminated a part of the program that provided insurance to about 30,000 legal immigrants, in order to save an estimated $130 million. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) signed the budget but asked lawmakers to restore $70 million in funds to cover immigrants. Also, the Boston Medical Center hospital July 15 filed a lawsuit against the state, charging that the law was forcing it to spend too much of its own money on health care for the poor. In order for the global payment system to take effect, the recommendation would have to be approved by the state legislature and signed into law by Patrick. The state would also need to obtain waivers from rules governing Medicare and Medicaid. Also, health care services would have to be significantly reorganized so that one doctor could coordinate each patient’s care. Several commission members warned that if annual fees were too low or unadjusted for people requiring greater care, the payment system could cause financial trouble for doctors and hospitals. Conn. Sets Universal Coverage Goal—

Both houses of Connecticut’s state legislature July 20 overrode a veto by Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell (R) of a universal health care bill that would provide insurance to most of the state’s residents. The state House voted, 102–40, to override Rell’s veto, and the Senate had voted, 24–12. Rell July 8 had vetoed the bill, arguing that the FACTS ON FILE

planned health care program, SustiNet, was too expensive, with an estimated $1 billion annual cost. The bill established a nine-member panel tasked with creating a universal health care system in the state, which had an estimated 350,000 uninsured people. The panel was to make recommendations on establishing the health care plan by Jan. 1, 2011, and the plan was scheduled to take effect by July 1, 2012. The plan would create a health insurance pool in which state employees were grouped with those receiving Medicaid. Those with private employment or no insurance would be offered the same benefits as state employees. However, details of the plan and how it would be paid for had not yet been determined. n

Taxes Obama Again Vows No Middle-Class Hike.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Aug. 3 said President Barack Obama intended to uphold his campaign commitment not to raise taxes on middle-class families that earned less than $250,000 a year. Obama reportedly reiterated that vow at a meeting with his economic advisers that day. [See pp. 487A1, 458C2] His pledge had come into question the previous day, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, both said in television interviews that the administration could not rule out the possibility that tax increases might be necessary to reduce the federal budget deficit. Asked about possible tax hikes on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Summers said, “It’s never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what.” Geithner made similar comments on ABC’s “This Week.” Dismissing the idea of middle-class tax increases, Gibbs said, “The president made a commitment in the campaign. He’s clear about that commitment, and he’s going to keep it.” The Congressional Budget Office had projected that the deficit would increase to $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2009, which would end Sept. 30. The Treasury Department reported that the national debt had risen to $11.669 trillion by July 31, up by more than $1 trillion since Obama took office in January. Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress planned to let income tax cuts for the top 5% of earners expire in 2010. That would raise the top tax rates to 36% and 39.6%, from 33% and 35%. The lower rates had been enacted by a Republican Congress under Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. Some economic analysts questioned whether raising taxes only for the wealthiest people would suffice to cut the deficit and pay for Obama’s ambitious domestic agenda, including a health care reform plan whose cost was estimated at $1 trillion over 10 years. House Democrats had proposed paying for the health care plan by imposing a new income tax surcharge on the highest earners. n August 6, 2009

Politics Ex-Rep. Jefferson Guilty of Bribe Scheme.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Aug. 5 convicted former Rep. William Jefferson (D, La.) on 11 felony counts, including solicitation of bribery, money laundering and racketeering, in connection with business deals in Africa in which he and his family had financial stakes. The jury acquitted Jefferson on five counts, including wire fraud, obstruction of justice and bribery of foreign government officials. The verdict came after a seven-week trial and five days of jury deliberations. [See 2008, p. 902A2] Judge T.S. Ellis 3rd scheduled sentencing for Oct. 30, allowing Jefferson to remain free on bond until then. Jefferson faced a maximum of 150 years in prison and forfeiture of about $500,000. Jefferson, 62, had served in the House for 18 years. He lost his bid for reelection in December 2008 after he was indicted the previous year. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents had raided his homes in 2005, finding $90,000 in cash hidden in a freezer. The money had been given to him by an FBI informant in a plan to bribe then–Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar to win approval for a telecommunications deal. At the trial, the prosecution presented video and audio recordings of Jefferson’s meetings with the informant. Jefferson, with bipartisan support, had challenged a subsequent FBI search of his office in 2006 as an unconstitutional intrusion on his rights as a member of Congress. The Supreme Court in March 2008 declined to hear the case. [See 2008, p. 217G1] In closing arguments at his trial, Jefferson’s lawyers July 30 argued that his actions might have been reckless and unethical, but not criminal. They said his promotion of U.S. businesses abroad was standard practice for members of Congress. Prosecutors alleged that Jefferson had used his official influence between 2000 and 2005 to collect about $400,000 in bribes that were paid to businesses controlled by his family. n Sen. Specter Draws Primary Challenger.

Rep. Joe Sestak (D, Pa.) Aug. 4 announced that he planned to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter (D, Pa.) in a Democratic primary election in May 2010. Specter, 79, had switched parties to become a Democrat in April, after a four-decade political career as a Republican. [See p. 284A2] President Barack Obama had pledged to support Specter’s reelection bid for a sixth term. So had Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) and most of the state’s Democratic establishment. But some labor union leaders said they might back Sestak. Sestak, 57, was a retired Navy admiral. He was first elected to the House in 2006, representing a district in the Philadelphia suburbs. In April, Specter had said he was switching parties because he did not think he could win a Republican primary, due to

what he called a shift to the right by the Republican Party. Former Rep. Pat Toomey (R, Pa.), a conservative who had founded an antitax activist group, the Club for Growth, had led Specter in polling on their expected Republican primary matchup. Specter had voted with the Democratic Senate majority nearly 93% of the time since switching parties, according to a Washington Post analysis. Sestak Aug. 4 questioned Specter’s reliability as a Democrat, asking, “Where will he be in the future?” He cited Specter’s previous votes as a Republican for the Iraq war, President George W. Bush’s tax cuts and “privatizing Social Security.” Specter that day said the difference between him and Sestak was “a matter of experience.” He touted his ability to deliver jobs and federal funds to Pennsylvania. Specter’s campaign also criticized Sestak for missing more than 100 votes so far in 2009 while traveling the state on a “taxpayer-financed self-promotion tour.” Specter reportedly had $7.6 million in campaign money on hand, while Sestak had $4.3 million. Polls showed Specter with a wide lead over Sestak, who said, “I love being the underdog.” n

A

B

C

Economy GDP Shrank at 1.0% Rate in Second Quarter.

The Commerce Department July 31 reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.0% in the second quarter of 2009, a much slower rate of contraction than had been reported for the first quarter, leading many observers to conclude that the U.S. economy was beginning to pull out of a deep recession. The department’s secondquarter estimate of GDP—which was a measure of the output of goods and services produced within a nation’s borders— would be revised twice. [See p. 456C2] The Commerce Department that day also released a comprehensive revision of historical GDP data, an endeavor that it undertook approximately every five years. Most of the revisions concerned data released after 1998, but the department said it would release more detailed revisions for the period between 1929 and 1998 in August. The department said that according to the revisions, the economy had shrunk at a 6.4% annual rate in the first quarter of 2009, a faster rate than the 5.5% previously reported. [See below] In response to the second-quarter report, President Barack Obama July 31 said he was “guardedly optimistic” that the economy was improving. But with the national unemployment rate currently at 9.5%, he added, “As far as I’m concerned we won’t have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs.” [See p. 456B1] The improvement in the GDP report was partly attributed to a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law by Obama in February, which caused federal spending in the second quarter to grow at an annual rate of 10.9%. Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, estimated that the 521

D

E

F

G

Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

$0.8418 $1.6940 $0.9377 $1.4412 95.33 13.1165 $0.9439

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$956.80

Silver (per troy oz.)

$14.2900

2001; it had originally reported that GDP had contracted at a 0.2% rate in that time period. [See 2003, p. 577E3] ‘Beige Book’ Sees Stabilization— The Federal Reserve July 29 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the previous six weeks, which found that there were “signs of stabilization” in some areas of the country. The Fed warned that the overall economy remained weak, but that the rate of decline “appeared to be moderating.” The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 389C2] The Fed said there were signs of improvement in manufacturing and the housing market since it released its last beige book in June. The Fed also saw improvement in the labor market, but warned, “The weakness of labor markets has virtually eliminated upward wage pressure, and wages and compensation are steady or falling in most districts.” The Fed also said the commercial real estate market and consumer spending remained weak. n

$71.58

Consumer Confidence Fell in June, July.

$2.49

The Conference Board business research group July 28 reported that its index of consumer confidence fell to 46.6 in July, down from a its 49.3 level in June, unchanged in the revised calculation. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 355D3] The Conference Board June 30 had originally reported that the index had fallen to 49.3 in June, down from a revised 54.8 in May. n

August Financial Update

A

(Close of trading Aug. 3 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

9,286.56

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

1,002.63 2,008.61 4,682.46

(see box, p. 522E3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100)

Tokyo Stock Exchange

10,352.47

Toronto Stock Exchange

10,787.15

(Nikkei index)

(TSX Composite Index)

B

C

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released July 26)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

D

F

G

$5.7100

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

-1.4%

Unemployment rate

9.5%

(consumer price index 12-month increase through June 2009; see p. 477D2) (June 2009; see p. 456B1)

Gross domestic product growth

-1.0%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized second-quarter 2009 rate, preliminary report; see p. 521C3)

E

3.63% 0.27%

stimulus package added two to three percentage points of growth in the quarter. Contributing to GDP contraction were falling business inventories, which declined by $141 billion from the first quarter. But analysts said the figure could presage improved GDP growth in the third quarter, as businesses purchased goods to restock depleted inventories. However, analysts also noted worrisome trends in the GDP report. Consumer spending—which accounted for more than two-thirds of GDP—fell at a 1.2% annual rate, indicating that the rising unemployment rate was compelling consumers to cut back on purchases.

Leading Indicators Rose 0.7% in June.

The Conference Board business research organization July 20 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.7% in June, to 100.9. Based on revised data, the index had increased 1.3% in May, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 456E2] Seven of the 10 indicators in June were “positive” contributors, led by interest rate spread and building permits. Three indicators—real money supply, manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods and consumer expectations—were “negative.” n

Revised Data Shows Depth of Recession—

The Commerce Department July 31 reported that GDP shrank at a 2.8% annual rate between the fourth quarter of 2007—when the recession was thought to have started— and the first quarter of 2009. That was faster than the 1.8% rate previously reported, and confirmed that the current recession was the deepest to have struck the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. The department said GDP grew at a 0.4% annual rate in 2008, down from the 1.1% growth rate originally reported. The department reported that the 2001 recession had not been as severe as initially thought. The department said GDP grew at a 0.1% annual rate between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the third quarter of 522

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Troubled Banks Paid Billions in Bonuses.

Nine banks that had received a total of $175 billion in federal aid had paid $33 billion in bonuses to employees in 2008, according to a report released July 31 by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The banks had received the aid from a $700 billion government rescue fund—known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—that had been designed to ensure stability in the financial industry during a severe credit crisis. The report raised concerns that the aid was being used to reward banking executives and traders who had been blamed for causing the crisis

and pushing the economy into a recession. [See p. 490F1] Cuomo in his report said pay practices on Wall Street—where performance-based bonuses comprised the bulk of individual compensation—had encouraged risky bets for short-term profits that hurt the companies in the long run. Additionally, Cuomo said the size of the bonuses did not jibe with the overall performance of the banks, which between them had lost more than $80 billion in 2008. Cuomo said, “When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well. And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well.” Cuomo found that some 4,800 employees at the nine banks had received at least $1 million each. Cuomo also said six of the nine banks had doled out more in bonuses in 2008 then they had made in profits. The banks were J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of New York Mellon Corp., State Street Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co., which was acquired by Bank of America in January. [See below] Rep. Edolphus Towns (D, N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, July 31 said the committee would begin hearings on banking compensation in September. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that day said that President Barack Obama “continues to believe that the America people don’t begrudge people making money for what they do as long as...we’re not basically incentivizing wild risk-taking that somebody else picks up the tab for.” The Obama administration was currently in the process of determining how much compensation to allow for top earners at banks that had received “exceptional assisDow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

July 1 2 3 6

7

8 9 10 13 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 27 28 29 30 31

8,504.06 8,280.74 Holiday 8,324.87 8,163.60 8,178.41 8,183.17 8,146.52 8,331.68 8,359.49 8,616.21 8,711.82 8,743.94 8,848.15 8,915.94 8,881.26 9,069.29 9,093.24 9,108.51 9,096.72 9,070.72 9,154.46 9,171.61

Volume (in millions of shares) 948.4 625.7 Holiday 1,137.5 1,105.0 1,434.1 1,004.8 921.3 1,188.3 976.6 1,367.0 1,173.8 1,288.2 1,125.3 1,205.9 1,077.1 1,390.4 1,023.4 1,042.4 1,241.2 1,143.6 1,356.4 1,504.7

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tance” from the government, including Bank of America and Citigroup. Some of the banks—like J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs—had already paid back the TARP aid. [See p. 387G2, A2] Defenders of current compensation practices said the companies had to reward top performers, even if the profits they generated were outweighed by steep losses caused by others. Banks also said bonuses were necessary to retain talented employees who could be lured away by competitors offering more attractive compensation. House Passes Executive Pay Bill—The House July 31 voted, 237–185, to pass legislation that would give shareholders greater influence over executive pay packages, and enable financial regulators to limit compensation practices that could encourage excessive risk-taking. The bill passed largely along party lines, with many Republicans criticizing Democrats for extending the government’s reach into the private sector. The bill was expected to be taken up by the Senate after the August congressional recess. Under the bill, shareholders would be given a nonbinding vote on executive pay packages. Company compensation committees could not have members who had a financial stake in the company. Federal regulators would have nine months to write new rules regulating pay packages at companies with more than $1 billion in assets, in order to limit “inappropriate or imprudently risky compensation practices.” Changing the compensation culture at U.S. financial institutions was part of a broader legislative proposal by the Obama administration to reform financial regulation. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner July 31 said the House bill was a “positive step forward to increase accountability and transparency.” [See p. 407A1] Bank of America Settles Bonus Charge—

Bank of America Aug. 2 agreed to pay a $33 million fine to settle a civil charge brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had accused Bank of America of misleading shareholders about bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees. Bank of America did not admit or deny wrongdoing in settling the case. Bank of America’s $50 billion acquisition of Merrill Lynch had drawn scrutiny from the SEC, Cuomo and Congress, over claims that regulators at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve had threatened Bank of America executives with dismissal, and used TARP money improperly, to ensure that the acquisition was completed. [See pp. 504E1, 291G1] The SEC said Bank of America and Merrill Lynch had sent documents in November 2008 to their respective shareholders saying that Merrill Lynch would need Bank of America’s consent to pay year-end bonuses to its employees before the deal was completed. However, Bank of America had already authorized Merrill Lynch to pay $5.8 billion in bonuses, and did not reveal that agreement to shareholders before they voted on the deal. Merrill Lynch disbursed $3.6 billion in bonuses in December August 6, 2009

2008, shortly before the deal closed. Merrill Lynch had lost nearly $28 billion in 2008, and the combined company had received $45 billion in TARP aid. However, Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in New York City Aug. 5 refused to approve the settlement, which he said obscured important aspects of the case. Observers said he could order the SEC to name those who approved the November 2008 documents. Rakoff scheduled an Aug. 10 hearing on the settlement. n

Business Microsoft, Yahoo in Search Partnership.

Software giant Microsoft Corp. and Internet services company Yahoo Inc. July 29 said they had agreed to a 10-year partnership that would combine their Internet search and advertising businesses. The partnership was widely seen as a bid by both companies to compete more effectively with rival Google Inc., which currently owned the most popular search engine and was the runaway leader in the lucrative search-advertising industry. [See 2008, p. 309E1] Under the terms of the partnership, Yahoo Web sites would host Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, which had been unveiled May 28. In return, Microsoft would pay the costs of running the search engine, and Yahoo for the first five years would receive 88% of the revenue that came from search ads on its Web sites. (Search ads appeared next to a user’s search results.) Yahoo would also take responsibility for search-advertising sales for both companies. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carol Bartz said the partnership “establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development.” Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., currently handled about 8% of the searches in the U.S. It was reported that CEO Steve Ballmer had long wanted to boost Microsoft’s share of the search-advertising market to compete with Mountain View, Calif.–based Google, which commanded about 65% of U.S. searches. Microsoft in 2008 had offered $47.5 billion to acquire Sunnyvale, Calif.–based Yahoo—which handled about 20% of U.S. searches—but the deal fell apart, leading to the ouster of then–Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Yahoo had announced Jan. 13 that Bartz—the former CEO at software company Autodesk Inc.— would be its new CEO. Microsoft and Yahoo said they hoped the partnership would begin in early 2010, after it passed an antitrust review. Observers said regulatory approval for the partnership could be withheld, since it would reduce the number of major search engine providers in the U.S. However, Microsoft and Yahoo argued that the partnership would enhance competition, since it was the only way they could credibly compete with Google. n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills House Passes Defense Funds. The House

July 30 voted, 400–30, to pass an appropriations bill that would provide $636.6 billion

for the Defense Department and national security programs for fiscal year 2010. That amount was $3.8 billion less than President Barack Obama had requested. The House stripped out funding for new F-22A Raptor fighter jets that had provoked a veto threat from Obama. The bill was the last of 12 appropriations bills to be passed by the House; the Senate had not yet voted on a defense appropriations bill. [See p. 489A3] The bill would appropriate $128.2 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $348 million less than Obama’s request. It would also fund a 3.4% pay raise for military personnel, 0.5 percentage points higher than the one requested by Obama. The bill had originally included $369 million to procure parts for 12 more F-22s than Obama had requested. However, Rep. John Murtha (D, Pa.), the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee and the bill’s sponsor, July 30 introduced an amendment that would redistribute that funding to other programs, and the House that day passed it, 269–165. Murtha said that while he was concerned that having fewer F-22s would endanger national security, the Obama administration’s opposition and the Senate’s vote to remove F-22 funds from a defense authorization bill earlier in July made it unlikely that the new planes could receive funding. However, the House defied veto threats by keeping money for other defense projects opposed by Obama in the bill. The legislation included $560 million for the development of an alternative engine for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, and $485 million to finish construction on five VH-71 presidential helicopters. The Obama administration had blasted all three programs as wasteful, and had proposed to cut their funds. The bill contained some $2.75 billion in “earmarks,” or spending items requested by individual legislators. Republican Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and John Campbell (Calif.) unsuccessfully proposed amendments to cut the earmarks. They focused attacks on earmarks linked to Murtha that referred to particular companies, but Murtha said they were appropriate for bringing needed jobs to Pennsylvania, and that companies would have to competitively bid on the contracts. A defunct lobbying firm with close ties to Murtha, PMA Group, was under federal investigation for influence-peddling in connection with earmarks. n House Passes Labor-HHS-Education Bill.

The House July 24 voted, 264–153, to pass a fiscal 2010 appropriations bill funding the Labor Department, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), and the Education Department. The bill provided for a total of $730.5 billion in funds, an increase of $58.9 billion over the previous year, and $1.9 billion more than requested by President Barack Obama. The measure provided $163.4 billion in discretionary funding, $1.8 billion more than requested by Obama, and $11 billion more than appropriated in fiscal 2009. [See 2008, p. 702E1; 2007, p. 479F3] Under the measure, the HHS would get $603.5 billion, an increase of $7.4 billion 523

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over fiscal 2009. The figure exceeded Obama’s request by $2 billion. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would receive $31.3 billion, an increase of $942 million from the previous year, and $500 million more than requested by Obama. The discretionary programs of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be funded at $6.7 billion, exceeding Obama’s request by $38 million, and representing a jump of $67 million from fiscal 2009. The bill also set aside $2.2 billion for community health centers intended to provide primary care to 17 million people, 40% of whom lacked health insurance. The bill funded the Education Department at $67.8 billion, an increase of $1.3 billion over the previous year’s level, but $18 million less than requested by Obama. The measure would provide $14.5 billion for Title I grants, given to school districts with poor students. Another $545 million would be given to 13,000 schools nationwide with poor academic records. The measure set aside $15.9 billion for the Labor Department, $1.1 billion more than enacted in fiscal 2009, but $23 million less than Obama’s request. The bill would provide $1.4 billion for training and other services for workers who had lost their jobs in plant closings or mass layoffs. The legislation would also supply $1.5 billion for the hiring of 600 new, full-time employees at various agencies to enforce labor laws. The measure also provided the Social Security Administration (SSA) with $11.4 billion for administrative expenses, and would give the Corporation for Public Broadcasting $541 million. The House earlier July 24 had defeated, 218–211, an amendment to the bill that would have ended a ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs. Proponents of such programs said they stopped the spread of HIV and other diseases, while detractors said they encouraged illegal drug use. n

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House Passes Food Safety Bill. The House July 30 voted, 283–142, to pass a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded powers to conduct food inspections and recall food products linked to outbreaks of illness. The bill was approved after several instances of foodborne illness outbreaks over the past three years, some of which had required massive recalls and whose origins had taken weeks to pinpoint. [See p. 167D2] The legislation would require the FDA to conduct inspections of food facilities much more frequently, with those facilities deemed “high-risk” investigated at least once a year. Other facilities would be reviewed at least once every three years. The bill would also give the FDA the ability to mandate food recalls, instead of relying on companies to voluntarily recall their products. Under the bill, the agency would be required to develop a system to track food along supply chains to make recalls faster. The FDA would be granted the power to quarantine food products in a spe524

cific area, in order to prevent their distribution. It also would be granted new powers to impose civil and criminal penalties. In order to pay for the new activities, each food facility would be required to pay an annual fee of $500; payments from larger companies with numerous facilities would be capped at $175,000 annually. Those food products already regulated by the Agriculture Department (USDA)—such as meat—would not be subject to FDA regulation or new fees. The bill July 29 had been narrowly defeated in the House in a vote under special rules that limited debate and prevented the attachment of amendments. Under the rules, the bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, or 286 votes, but had won only 280 votes, with 150 lawmakers opposed. The bill was then passed the following day under normal rules. Panel Seeks Stricter Safety Standards—

The Food Safety Working Group, a panel comprised of members of President Barack Obama’s administration, July 7 released recommendations for enhancing the country’s food safety regulations. The panel, cochaired by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, made recommendations focused on preventing outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. “The food safety system in our country needs a significant update,” Vice President Joseph Biden said at a White House event marking the panel’s recommendations. The responsibility for overseeing food inspections was currently split among at least 15 agencies, in a system the Obama administration said it wanted to streamline. Along with the recommendations, the FDA issued a final rule requiring egg farmers to regularly test for contamination by the salmonella bacterium, and to buy their chicks from producers who tested their animals. It also required eggs to be refrigerated on farms and in shipment, as well as in wholesale and retail outlets. The FDA said the changes would reduce illnesses from raw or undercooked eggs by 60%. The USDA said it would establish new standards aimed at reducing salmonella’s presence in poultry. It also said it would increase enforcement and testing at meat processing facilities. The FDA said it would release suggestions for reducing bacterial contamination of tomatoes, melons and leafy greens. The FDA and the USDA also said they would add more positions to facilitate coordination with each other. n

Consumer Affairs Cookie Dough Recalled Over E. Coli. Nestle USA, a unit of Switzerland-based Nestle

SA, June 19 voluntarily recalled its cookie dough products sold under the Toll House brand name, after several cases of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacterial infection were linked to the items beginning in March. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) June 22 said tests had found 70 people in 30 states infected with a particular strain of E. coli, and that 30 of them had been hospitalized. However, no deaths

linked to the outbreak had been reported. [See 2008, p. 619F1] The FDA recommended that people discard the dough, even though cooking it to the proper temperature would kill the bacterium. The outbreak was unusual in that the strain of E. coli in question, O157:H7, was usually found in the intestines of cattle, and was more commonly linked to contamination in raw beef. However, cookie dough contained raw eggs, which could also carry E. coli. The FDA June 29 said cookie dough manufactured on Feb. 10 at a Nestle plant in Danville, Va., had tested positive for E. coli O157:H7. n

State & Local Politics New York State Senate Power Struggle Ends.

New York State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. July 9 rejoined the Senate’s Democratic caucus, ending a power struggle that had deadlocked the chamber since Espada and a fellow New York City Democrat, Hiram Monserrate, defected June 8 to join the Republicans. The defections briefly shifted control of the Senate to the Republicans, but Monserrate soon returned to the Democratic caucus, leaving each party with 31 seats until Espada also switched back, restoring the Democratic majority. [See p. 46E2; 2008, p. 182F1] The Republicans had named Espada Senate president, but the Democrats refused to recognize the appointment or sit in session with the Republicans during the standoff, stalling a number of prominent pieces of legislation. However, as part of the deal for Espada’s return, the Democrats named him Senate majority leader, under restored Senate President Malcolm Smith. Espada, from the borough of the Bronx, reportedly faced investigations by state and local authorities into corruption allegations. [See p. 505F2] Lt. Gov. Appointment Disputed— In a bid to break the deadlock, Gov. David Paterson (D) July 8 appointed Richard Ravitch, a veteran public servant, to fill the vacant position of lieutenant governor, which came with the power to break tie votes in the Senate. The lieutenant governorship had remained vacant since Paterson, who had held the post, became governor upon the March 2008 resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) during a prostitution scandal. As Senate president, Espada had been next in the line of succession to the governorship. Republicans immediately filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Ravitch appointment. They noted that the move was unprecedented, and argued that the state constitution only allowed the post to be filled by an election. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) also objected to the appointment as unconstitutional. n

Crime No Contest Pleas in ‘Jena Six’ Case. Five

members of the so-called Jena Six June 26 pleaded no contest in Louisiana’s 9th FACTS ON FILE

Judicial District Court to charges of misdemeanor simple battery related to their alleged December 2006 assault on a high school classmate. The Jena Six was comprised of a group of black former and current students accused of attacking a white classmate, Justin Barker, at Jena High School in Jena, La. The sixth member of the group, Mychal Bell, had pleaded guilty in December 2007 to one juvenile count of aggravated battery in connection with the case. [See 2007, pp. 808D1, 633C2] The five other defendants—Carwin Jones, Theodore Shaw, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Jesse Ray Beard—were each fined $500 and sentenced to seven days probation in connection with the attack. All but Shaw were also ordered to pay $500 in court costs. As part of the agreement with prosecutors, all five defendants issued a statement that said that Barker had not said anything to precipitate the attack, contradicting rumors that he had used racial slurs. The group had initially been charged with attempted murder; the charges were later downgraded to aggravated battery. The case had drawn national attention, spurring a September 2007 protest march attended by thousands who contended that the Jena Six had been treated unfairly by prosecutors because of their race. Bell had been convicted of aggravated battery after being tried as an adult, but his conviction was overturned in September 2007. A financial settlement between Barker’s family and members of the Jena Six was finalized June 26. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. n News in Brief. Judge Larry Paul Fidler of California’s Los Angeles Superior Court May 29 sentenced pop music producer Phil Spector to 15 years to life in prison for second degree murder and another four years for illegal use of a firearm, in connection with the February 2003 death of actress Lana Clarkson, who was fatally shot in Spector’s home. Spector, 69, was also ordered to pay $9,740 to a California state victims’ restitution fund and $16,811 for Clarkson’s funeral expenses. He would not be eligible for parole until 2028. Spector June 22 was incarcerated at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran. [See p. 269B1] Dale Hausner, 36, March 13 was convicted in Arizona’s Maricopa County Superior Court of six counts of first degree murder as well as 74 other charges related to a series of 2005–06 fatal shootings in Phoenix, Ariz., known as the “Serial Shooter” killings. A jury March 27 gave Hausner six death sentences, one for each murder conviction. A judge March 30 sentenced him to two life sentences as well as an additional 365 years in prison for dozens of other convictions, including attempted murder and conspiracy. Hausner’s co-defendant, Samuel Dieteman, 33, July 29 was sentenced to life in prison. (Dieteman, who testified against Hausner, had pleaded guilty April 11, 2008, to two counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy.) [See 2006, p. 632C1] n August 6, 2009

AFRICA

Nigeria Hundreds Killed in Islamist Sect Violence.

The leader of a radical Islamic sect July 30 was shot dead while in police custody, after five days of violence between the Boko Haram sect and security forces left hundreds of people dead in northeastern Nigeria. The military said about 700 people were killed in the fighting there. [See p. 358G1] Boko Haram sought to overthrow the Nigerian government and impose strict Islamic law, or sharia, on the whole country. (Twelve states in Nigeria’s mostly Muslim northern half had introduced a system of partial sharia in 1999; southern Nigeria was mostly Christian.) Boko Haram was said to model itself after the Taliban, the Islamist movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The name Boko Haram translated as “Western education is forbidden.” The violence began July 26 when Boko Haram launched attacks on government buildings, police stations and churches in Bauchi state, retaliating for the arrest of several members of the sect. The fighting soon spread across three states in northeast Nigeria. Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua July 28 said he had ordered security forces to “contain” the sect “once and for all,” and called the situation “under control.” The military was called in to join a police counteroffensive, and army artillery units that day shelled the sect’s compound in Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Boro state, killing about 100 people. Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf, 39, escaped the compound with about 300 followers. He was caught July 30, reportedly hiding in a goat pen. Hundreds of other sect members were arrested. Police said Yusuf was “killed by security forces in a shoot-out while trying to escape” during his capture. However, Col. Ben Ahanotu, commander of the military operation against Boko Haram, July 31 said Yusuf had surrendered to him unarmed. Ahanotu said he had handed Yusuf over to the police alive. International human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, said Yusuf and other unarmed prisoners appeared to have been victims of extrajudicial killings, which they said were commonly carried out by Nigerian authorities. The groups called for an investigation into the deaths. Nigerian human rights groups also accused security forces of killing innocent civilians during the attack on the Boko Haram compound. Yar’Adua Aug. 5 said he had ordered an investigation into the circumstances of Yusuf’s death, along with a “full report” on the “overall events” of the violence. The Nigerian Red Cross Aug. 5 said most of the 4,000 residents of Maiduguri who fled the fighting had since returned to their homes, while 161 whose homes had been destroyed continued to be sheltered in a military barracks outside the city.

Security Forces Blamed in ’08 Killings—

Human Rights Watch July 20 issued a report alleging that soldiers and police were responsible for the “arbitrary killings” of 133 men and boys in the central Nigerian city of Jos during sectarian Muslim-Christian mob violence in November 2008 that left a total of more than 700 people dead. Human Rights Watch said the security forces summarily executed unarmed civilians, nearly all of them Muslims. [See 2008, p. 884A3] n

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South Africa Widespread Strikes, Protests Test Zuma.

Unions representing some 150,000 South African municipal workers July 31 agreed to end a five-day strike after securing a pay increase. The strike was the latest in a wave of protests by workers in a broad array of industries—including mining, construction and broadcasting—that had presented President Jacob Zuma with his first major challenge since taking office in May. In addition, the strikes had been accompanied by widespread demonstrations by poor residents in South Africa’s townships, who had demanded access to affordable housing, running water, electricity and other basic services. [See below, p. 359B1] Zuma, leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), had campaigned on a platform of reducing poverty in South Africa, where 40% of the population lived below the poverty line. He had presented himself as a populist, in marked contrast to his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, whom critics had described as being overly protective of business interests. In the country’s April parliamentary elections, Zuma and the ANC had received valuable support from labor unions and the South African Communist Party, groups that wanted the government to focus more on improving the lives of the poor and the working class. In his first state-of-the-nation address, Zuma June 3 said eradicating poverty would be his government’s primary goal. He vowed to create 500,000 jobs by the end of 2009, and an additional four million jobs by 2014. However, the global economic downturn that began in 2008 had pushed South Africa into its first recession since 1992, erasing some of the gains that its economy, the largest in Africa, had made in recent years. Statistics South Africa July 28 reported that the national unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2009 rose to 23.6%, up from 23.5% in the first quarter. The labor report said 4.1 million South Africans were unemployed, and that a further 1.5 million laborers were too discouraged to look for work, thus excluding them from the unemployment rate calculation. Analysts said Zuma’s campaign and rhetoric had led to high expectations from the working class and the township residents that his election would drastically improve their lot. There were about one million people residing in shacks in the townships, whose squalid living conditions had remained largely unchanged since 525

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1994, when apartheid ended and the ANC came to power. Municipal Unions Agree to Pay Raise—

South Africa’s two largest municipal workers’ unions July 31 agreed to a 13% wage increase from the government, lower than the 15% they had originally demanded when their workers went on a nationwide strike July 27. The strike had seen thousands of workers take their demands to the streets, where they toppled garbage bins and damaged property. It was reported that dozens of workers were arrested during the strike. Unions representing miners July 28 agreed to a 9–10.5% wage increase from gold producers, avoiding a rupture that could have taken a heavy toll on the lucrative gold mining industry. Another miners’ union that day said it had agreed to a 9– 10% wage increase from coal producers. Unions representing construction workers July 15 agreed to a 12% wage increase from contractors, ending a strike by approximately 70,000 workers that had begun July 8. The strike had led to a halt on the construction of five out of 10 stadiums that were either being built or refurbished in preparation for soccer’s 2010 World Cup. The World Cup, the first to be held in Africa, was expected to attract thousands of visitors from around the globe. The strike had reinforced doubts about the ability of Zuma’s government to prepare for the highly anticipated event. Workers in the broadcasting industry went on strike July 29–30, demanding better pay. Strikes were also held by workers July 20 in the paper, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Township Protesters Clash With Police—

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Police July 28 fired rubber bullets to break up a crowd of 200 protesters in the Thokoza township near the city of Johannesburg. The demonstrations were the latest in a series of violent outbursts in more than 20 townships across the country, as poor residents blamed corruption and nepotism amongst local ANC government officials for years of neglect. As many as 200 protesters had been arrested since the beginning of July. [See 2008, p. 362A1] Police July 22 fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters living near Johannesburg, in Western Cape and Mpumalanga provinces. Residents in the Meyerton township, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, that day were reported to have occupied private farmland. Riots had been reported as early as July 12 in Diepsloot, an informal township also near Johannesburg. The riots, which saw protesters set fire to cars and buildings, reminded observers of township protests in 2008 that led to the deaths of 62 people. Many of the dead were foreigners from other African nations who were perceived as having taken jobs from South Africans. It was reported that as many as 100 foreigners July 23 had taken refuge with the police following riots in Mpumalanga. Zuma at first had vowed to crack down on township protesters. Zuma July 23 said, “There can be no justification for violence, looting and destruction of property or attacks on foreign nationals residing in our 526

country.” But he later tempered his remarks, and July 25 said, “The troubles we are seeing in our townships prove to us that there is much work to do and much to repair. But there must be no violence between us. Let us work together.” n

AMERICAS

Colombia FARC Rebel Arms Linked to Venezuela.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez July 26 confirmed that the military had recovered Swedish-made antitank rockets during an October 2008 raid on an encampment of rebels belonging to the Marxist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Colombian Defense Ministry officials July 27 said the recovered weapons bore serial numbers indicating that they had originally been purchased by Venezuela. [See 2008, p. 398D1] The officials said the rockets, shoulderfired AT4 models, had been manufactured by Swedish firm Saab Bofors Dynamics, a subsidiary of Saab AB. The magazine Jane’s Intelligence Review July 20 had reported on its Web site that the weapons had originally been sold to Venezuela in the 1980s and 1990s. Swedish officials July 28 confirmed that serial numbers supplied by the Colombian government indicated that the weapons had been sold to Venezuela in the late 1980s. Swedish officials said they had launched an investigation and requested that Venezuela explain how the rockets had been obtained by the FARC rebels. Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Tarik El Aissami July 27 had denied that Colombia’s “government or institutions have ever collaborated with any type of criminal or terrorist organizations.” Analysts said it was possible that corrupt Venezuelan officials had brokered arms sales without the knowledge of the government. The revelations exacerbated tensions between Colombia, which was closely allied with the U.S., and Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez Frias, was a strident critic of the U.S. Colombia had long alleged that the Venezuelan government had provided aid and support, including weapons, to FARC. Venezuela had criticized ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Colombia that would significantly expand the U.S.’s use of Colombian military bases. Venezuela ‘Freezes’ Ties—Chavez July 28 recalled the Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia, Gustavo Marquez, and all other Venezuelan diplomats in Colombia. He said he would “freeze” all commercial and diplomatic relations with Colombia in response to the weapons allegations, and that he was considering seizing the assets of Colombian businesses operations in Venezuela. Colombian officials July 29 said they would attempt to maintain trade relations with Venezuela. Chavez July 21 had announced that he was reviewing Venezuela’s relationship with Colombia in light of the military-base

cooperation agreement it was negotiating with the U.S. Computer Evidence Reveals Links—

Computer information seized from FARC and analyzed by Western intelligence agencies showed that Venezuela supported the rebel group by facilitating arms purchases and providing forged identity documents, the New York Times reported Aug. 3. The material under review consisted partially of communications between FARC’s ruling seven-member secretariat, and had been obtained in recent months, according to the Times. In one intercepted communication, FARC commander Ivan Marquez reportedly said he had received help from several highranking Venezuelan officials, including former Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, to secure rifles, surface-to-air missiles and radios. The Venezuelan government had previously rejected similar claims as false and politically motivated. Other News—In other news related to FARC: o Former FARC commander Gerardo Aguilar Ramirez, commonly known by the alias “Cesar,” July 16 was extradited from Colombia to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Aguilar had been captured during a July 2008 operation by the Colombian military that freed several high-profile hostages held by FARC, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. Defense Department contractors. [See 2008, p. 452A1] o The Colombian military June 11 captured the FARC leader known as Martin Cuero, a close aide to the rebel commander known as Mono Joyjoy. Military officials alleged that Cuero was in charge of working with Colombian drug traffickers to finance weapons purchases with drug trade profits. n Top Alleged Drug Lord Herrera Captured.

Colombian police April 15 captured Daniel Rendon Herrera, known by the alias “Don Mario,” the country’s most wanted alleged drug lord. Police apprehended Herrera in an early-morning raid by some 300 police officers in the northern town of San Jose de Apartado. [See 2008, p. 977C2; 2007, p. 594G2] Herrera was accused of acting as a liaison for a Colombian right-wing paramilitary cocaine trafficking organization to Mexican drug cartels. He was thought to oversee a militia comprised of more than 1,000 men allegedly responsible for more than 3,000 killings over the previous year and a half. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official said the U.S. would seek Herrera’s extradition to face cocaine distribution charges. n

Cuba Communist Party Congress Postponed.

Cuba’s Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party July 31 decided to indefinitely postpone a party congress that had been scheduled to take place by the end of the year, citing the need to address the FACTS ON FILE

country’s severe economic crisis. The decision was published in Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party. The congress would have been the sixth since the country’s Communist Party was formed, and the first since 1997. [See p. 249B2] Cuba’s economic woes had worsened in the summer of 2008, when three hurricanes hit the island in close succession, causing more than $10 billion in damage to infrastructure and agriculture. Problems were exacerbated by the global financial crisis and recession. Businesses in Cuba had reportedly cut back on operating hours in order to save electricity, while the government had reduced agricultural and other subsidies. The government had twice scaled back its estimate for gross domestic product growth in 2009, first from 6% to 2.5%, and then again to 1.7%. “The principal matter is the economy,” said Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz, according to Granma. “We are up against an imperative to make full accounts of what the country really has available.” The congress was expected to plan a leadership succession following the departure of Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz, 78, and his older brother, Communist Party leader and former President Fidel Castro Ruz, 82, from the government. Raul Castro in 2008 had formally succeeded an ailing Fidel Castro, who in 2006 had ceded dayto-day governing duties to his brother, and had not been seen in public since. Granma reported that the congress was to be the last led by the “historic leadership of the revolution.” Fidel Castro had come to power during a 1959 revolution that ousted Gen. Fulgencio Batista. Raul Castro, in a speech before the country’s national assembly, Aug. 1 said Cuba would remain a socialist country after he and his brother were no longer in power. “I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism. Not to destroy it,” he said. Castro added that he was willing to enter talks with the U.S. on any issue, but that Cuba’s “political and social system” was non-negotiable. Separately, the U.S. in June had removed a five-foot- (1.5-m-) tall electronic billboard that it maintained in the windows of the American Interests Section located in the Swiss embassy in Havana, Cuba’s capital, it was widely reported July 28. The sign had been mounted in 2006 under then–U.S. President George W. Bush, and displayed pro-democracy messages and criticism of Cuba’s government, as well as news items. In response, Cuba had blocked the screens with black flags and billboards criticizing Bush. The U.S. billboard’s removal was not immediately noticed due to the obstructions. The removal was seen as another step on the part of U.S. President Barack Obama to ease Cuban relations. [See 2006, p. 172C3] n

Haiti Migrant Boat Capsizes, Killing at Least 15.

A boat with as many as 200 Haitian migrants aboard either July 26 or July 27 capAugust 6, 2009

sized after striking a coral reef about 2.5 miles (4 km) off the coast of West Caicos, an island in the British archipelago territory of Turks and Caicos. (According to reports, it was unclear exactly when the boat sank.) The boat was about 70 miles north of Haiti and about 550 miles southeast of Miami, Fla., when it capsized. [See 2008, p. 314B2] Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard July 28 said it had rescued 118 survivors, about 70 of whom had been stranded on a reef, and recovered 15 bodies. Survivors said the boat had been at sea for three days when it attempted to hide from a police boat behind a reef but instead ran aground, causing the accident. Haitians looking for work often attempted to reach Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas or the U.S., using shoddy boats. The U.S. Coast Guard late July 29 ended its search for survivors, with at least 67 people unaccounted for. n

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Fiji President Iloilo Retires. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama July 28 announced that Fijian President Josefa Iloilo would retire as president. Iloilo, 88, retired July 30 and was replaced by Vice President Epeli Nailatikau, who became acting president; a new president was expected to be appointed by the cabinet. [See pp. 510E1, 251D3] Iloilo had been president since 2000, except for a brief period from Dec. 5, 2006, to Jan. 4, 2007, when Bainimarama had assumed presidential powers during a military coup in which he deposed the democratic government of then–Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. In April, Iloilo had dissolved Fiji’s constitution and fired its judiciary after the country’s Court of Appeal found that Bainimarama’s post-coup government was illegal. Analysts suggested that Iloilo’s retirement would further consolidate Bainimarama’s control of the government. n

Philippines Cease-fire With MILF Announced. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo July 23 ordered a unilateral cease-fire in the government’s military campaign against the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as part of an effort to restart peace talks with the group. Government officials expressed hope that the cease-fire would allow more of the approximately 300,000 people displaced by the fighting to return to their homes. [See p. 415E2] Britain’s Economist magazine reported July 16 that the U.S. had pushed the Philippine government to begin negotiations with MILF in order to marginalize other militant groups in the region and prevent further inroads by Jemaah Islamiah (JI), an Indonesian-based affiliate of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network. Negotiations between MILF and the government had broken down in 2008 after the

Philippine Supreme Court blocked a proposed peace deal that would have increased the size and self-determination of the Philippines’ Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, a group of MILF commanders in August 2008 carried out attacks against civilians on Mindanao, triggering a military response by the government. (An ongoing police investigation targeting three MILF leaders linked to the August 2008 attacks was not affected by the cease-fire order.) MILF negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said the group would reciprocate the cease-fire beginning July 24. Iqbal claimed that most members of MILF had continued to respect a 2003 cease-fire, and suggested that a rebel faction making up only about 20% of MILF’s overall membership had been involved in the violence. He also said that MILF would not take part in negotiations unless the Philippine government allowed an international organization such as the United Nations to monitor the government’s compliance with any peace agreement. Army Claims Military Victories—Col. Medardo Geslani, an army brigade commander, June 15 announced that the military had captured eight bases on Mindanao that had been used by the rebel faction of MILF. Geslani also said the military had killed 93 militants and wounded dozens more since beginning an offensive against MILF June 4. Geslani said that the military believed that the rebel faction had begun receiving assistance from elements within the main body of MILF, raising the possibility of a wider conflict between the group and the military. [See 2008, pp. 622F1, 560C3] Geslani claimed that fewer than 12 soldiers had been wounded during the fighting and none had been killed. Representatives of the militants contended that the first site captured by the government was a Muslim village and not a military base. Separately, two assailants June 20 carried out grenade attacks in Sarangani province, killing one person and injuring 32 others. Officials in the province, which was about 600 miles (965 km) south of Manila, the capital, linked the attack to MILF militants.

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Army Lt. Col. Arnulfo Burgos June 23 had announced that the military had captured both a high-ranking member of Abu Sayyaf, another Muslim terrorist group operating in the southern Philippines, and a top member of MILF. Both of the men captured, Mubin Sakandal of Abu Sayyaf, also known as Abdurajak, and Ansar Venacio of MILF, were displayed to journalists the same day at an army base in Manila. Sakandal, captured in Patikul in Sulu province, was described by Burgos as a “pioneer member” of Abu Sayyaf and was linked to the kidnappings of dozens of people from Southeast Asian resorts in 2000 and 2001. [See 2001, p. 441D2; 2000, p. 705F2] 527

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Burgos said that Venacio, arrested in Mindanao’s Marawi City, had served as a financial conduit between MILF and members of JI. Burgos also claimed that more than 30 members of JI were currently in the Philippines and that some were assisting in the training of MILF militants in Mindanao. [See p. 494E2; 2008, p. 981G3] Red Cross Hostage Released—Abu Sayyaf July 12 released Eugenio Vagni, 62, an Italian employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who had been held hostage on the Philippine island of Jolo since January. The group had previously released two other ICRC employees kidnapped at the same time. [See p. 415F2] Vagni, who suffered from hypertension and an untreated hernia, was released without payment of a ransom; however, an intermediary who had helped arrange Vagni’s release had reportedly been paid 5,000 Philippine pesos ($1,035). A group of 40 militants linked to Abu Sayyaf June 13 had ambushed Philippine marines and police officers searching for Vagni, killing five marines and wounding 10 marines and a police officer. The number of Abu Sayyaf members killed in the encounter was unknown. The group was thought to have about 400 militants operating in the Philippines. Bombings Kill 12— A series of four bombings July 5 and July 7 in the southern Philippines killed 12 people and injured 111 others. The Philippine government reportedly suspected various militant separatist and other armed groups in the bombings, including the Abu Sayyaf and MILF, both of which were active in the area. [See 2007, p. 758A2] A bomb July 5 was detonated near a Roman Catholic cathedral in Mindanao Island’s Cotabato City. The attack killed six people and wounded 55 others. The explosive was believed to have been set off remotely by cellular phone, and police reportedly arrested a man seen nearby using his cell phone at the time of the explosion. Military officials claimed that the attack was carried out by militants associated with MILF. However, a spokesman for MILF denied that the group had had any involvement in the attacks. Pope Benedict XVI July 5 spoke out against the attack, saying, “While I pray to God for the victims of this ignoble gesture, I raise my voice to condemn yet again the recourse to violence, which is never a worthwhile way to solve existing problems.” Separately, a bomb was set off July 5 in Mindanao’s Datu Piang township, wounding three people. An explosive hidden on a motorcycle July 7 exploded near a store on Jolo Island, destroying it and killing six people and wounding another 40. A second bomb was found near the island’s Mount Carmel Cathedral and was disposed of safely, along with a suspicious package discovered by police nearby. Police officials reportedly suspected that the bombing had been carried out by Abu Sayyaf. 528

The same day, a bomb was detonated inside a parked car in Mindanao’s Iligan City, wounding 16 people. A second bomb exploded outside the city limits, blowing up an electrical tower and cutting off power in parts of the island. Following the bombings, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo July 7 held a security meeting with the nation’s army and police generals to discuss the attacks. The wave of bombings had triggered calls by some politicians and Roman Catholic bishops for a resumption of the government’s peace talks with MILF, which had collapsed after the proposed peace settlement was scuttled by the Supreme Court. U.S. Citizen Kidnapped, Released— A group of unidentified men May 19 kidnapped Melissa Roxas, a U.S. citizen who had been volunteering as a health worker in the Philippines, as well as Edward Jandoc and Juanito Carabeo, two Filipino coworkers, in Tarlac province. Both Roxas and Carabeo were released May 25; however, Jandoc’s whereabouts were unknown. An attorney for Roxas June 2 in a filing with the Philippine Supreme Court said Roxas had been kidnapped and tortured by members of the military, who accused her of belonging to the militant wing of the country’s Communist Party. Roxas June 1 had returned to the U.S. Lt. Gen. Isagani Cachuela, who headed the Philippines’ Northern Luzon Command, June 3 announced that he had ordered Maj. Gen. Ralph Villanueva to initiate a second investigation into the kidnapping. Cachuela said that he had previously ordered an investigation after Roxas and Carabeo were released. Villanueva said that the military believed that “the alleged abduction was stage-managed to put the blame on our soldiers.” The military had previously been accused of kidnapping and murdering hundreds of suspected leftists. [See 2007, p. 852B1] n News in Brief. The Philippine government July 8 announced that it had reached an agreement with the rebel Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to hold negotiations on a peace settlement. The CPP’s mil-

itant New People’s Army reportedly had about 5,000 members, down from about 25,000 in the 1980s, and had been fighting the government for more than 40 years. The government had agreed to grant temporary immunity to the CPP negotiators and to suspend criminal prosecutions against them, while the CPP agreed to drop its demand for removal of the group from international terrorism lists as a precondition for talks. The negotiations were expected to begin in August in Oslo, Norway’s capital. (Norway had helped to broker the initial agreement.) [See 2007, p. 852E1] Tropical storm Nangka passed over the Philippines June 24–26, killing at least 11 people and leaving another eight missing. The storm, which featured winds of 40 mph (65 kmph) to 80 mph, triggered landslides, flooding and a tornado, and stranded some 10,000 boat and ferry passengers. The storm destroyed 758 houses and

caused damage to 6,665 others across the Philippines, the government’s disaster agency said. [See 2008, p. 437F1] Philippine President Gloria MacapagalArroyo visited the White House in Washington, D.C., July 30 for the fourth time in her presidency, and met for the first time with U.S. President Barack Obama. The meeting reportedly focused on combating terrorism but also touched on alleged human rights abuses in Myanmar and North Korea’s nuclear program. Obama said that the Philippines continued to be the U.S.’s “coordinating country” in its relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). [See 2003, p. 398A3] International health officials and the Philippine government Jan. 23 announced that a non-deadly strain of the Ebola virus known as Ebola Reston was thought to have spread from pigs to an employee of a Philippine pig farm. (The government Jan. 30 announced that another four workers had been diagnosed with the disease.) The Philippine government had first suspected that pigs were infected with the strain in 2008 and had shuttered two pig farms and ordered tests of 6,000 pigs and 50 workers. Experts expressed concern that pigs could act as incubators for more serious or virulent variants of the disease, which could then spread to humans. The infection of the Philippine pigs with Ebola Reston was confirmed in a report published in the July 10 issue of the journal Science. [See p. 386E2; 2007, p. 556A3] n

Other Asia-Pacific News Myanmar: Landslides Kills About 30. A se-

ries of landslides July 4 in Myanmar’s northern Phakant region killed about 30 people and left more than 1,300 others without shelter. The landslides, which damaged more than 350 houses, were reportedly caused by debris from nearby jade mines blocking the region’s Uru river. Reuters reported July 15 that multiple international aid organizations, including the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), had responded to the landslides and were assisting local authorities. [See p. 83C1; 2008, p. 301A1] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

France Sarkozy Collapses While Jogging. French

President Nicolas Sarkozy July 26 collapsed while jogging at an official retreat near Versailles, west of Paris. Sarkozy, 54, was airlifted by helicopter to the Val-deGrace military hospital in Paris. He left the hospital the next day after undergoing cardiological tests. [See p. 432F2] According to a statement issued by the Elysee Palace, the presidential headquarters, doctors found no signs of heart disease or other health problems, and ascribed the collapse to exercise in hot weather and fatigue from a heavy workload. Sarkozy FACTS ON FILE

was known for maintaining a frenetic pace of activity. Speaking to the media July 29, Sarkozy said he planned to slow down over the next few weeks and take a family holiday. “I need to rest,” he said. The health of French presidents had traditionally been shielded from full public disclosure. In 2005, President Jacques Chirac spent a week in the hospital without revealing the nature of his condition, giving rise to rumors that he had suffered a stroke. n

Moldova Communists Lose Majority in Parliament.

Moldova’s ruling Communist Party July 29 lost its majority in the second parliamentary elections of the year, according to preliminary results issued the following day by the country’s election commission. The previous vote, held in April, had left the Communists one vote short of the governing majority required to elect the next president. In June, outgoing President Vladimir Voronin of the Communist Party had called for fresh elections, when parliament twice failed to elect his preferred successor, Zinaida Greceanii. [See p. 416E3] According to final results issued Aug. 4, the Communists won 44.7% of the popular vote and 48 seats in the 101-member parliament, leaving it short of the majority the party had held since 2001. A collection of pro-Western opposition parties vowed to form a coalition after winning 53 seats in the elections. However, the Communist Party’s remaining strong minority led many analysts to doubt the fragile coalition’s chances of effectively governing the country. The streets of Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, remained relatively quiet following the release of the unofficial results. The Communist Party’s victory in the April elections had triggered protests in the capital that turned into violent riots, leaving more than 270 people injured. Opposition leaders had disavowed any connection to the violence. [See p. 225E2] Leaders had accused neighboring Romania of organizing the election-related riots, a claim Romania denied. The two countries, parts of which had been united from the mid-19th century until 1940, had been at odds following a change in Moldova’s visa rules. The former Soviet republic was roughly divided between a Western-leaning younger generation and an older generation who supported Voronin and his Communist Party. Moldova, Europe’s poorest country, depended heavily on remittances sent from workers abroad. However, with the recent global economic downtown, many of those workers had been forced to return to Moldova after losing their jobs abroad. n

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Iraq Baghdad Shiite Mosque Blasts Kill 29. A series of bombs July 31 exploded outside five Shiite Muslim mosques in Baghdad, August 6, 2009

Iraq’s capital, killing at least 29 people. The mosques were affiliated with the movement of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the attacks were seen as attempts by Sunni Muslim insurgents to provoke sectarian violence. [See p. 501A1] In the most serious attack, a car bomb outside a mosque in the Shaab neighborhood killed at least 24 people. Another attack, in the Diyala Bridge area, killed five people. Iraqis afterward criticized Iraqi security forces for failing to prevent the attacks. U.S. troops had stopped their patrols and pulled out of Iraq’s cities ahead of a June 30 deadline. In other violence, gunmen early July 28 broke into a bank in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad and stole $6.3 million worth of Iraqi dinars. Eight security guards were found shot to death, one of whom police suspected of helping the robbers. Iraqi authorities Aug. 1 announced that three members of the Iraqi presidential guard had been arrested in connection with the robbery. The arrests triggered infighting between Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, who used the presidential guard for security, and Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad alBolani. Mahdi accused the interior minister of negligence and falsely claiming credit for the arrests, while Bolani claimed that “powerful” political parties had masterminded the robbery. Both aspired to become prime minister after January 2010 parliamentary elections. A motorcycle bomb July 28 killed at least eight people in the New Baghdad neighborhood of Baghdad. A bomb July 30 exploded at the offices of a Sunni political party, the Reform and Development Party, in Baqubah, the capital of the northeastern province of Diyala, killing at least five people. The offices had previously been bombed in January. Also July 30, a suicide car bomber attacked a police station in Qaim, in the western province of Anbar near the Syrian border, killing at least four people. A car bomb Aug. 2 exploded outside a hospital in Haditha, in Anbar, killing at least five people. Bombs Aug. 3 destroyed two passenger buses in Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing six people, according to an Iraqi interior ministry official. U.S. Adviser Urges Quick Exit— A senior U.S. adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command had written a secret memorandum urging the U.S. military to pull all its forces out of Iraq by August 2010, ahead of the Obama administration’s withdrawal timetable, the New York Times reported July 31. The adviser, U.S. Col. Timothy Reese, said the U.S. had overstayed its welcome in Iraq and was causing Iraqis to resent its presence. He said it was time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.” [See p. 501B2] Reese said Iraqi forces had imposed “unilateral restrictions” on U.S. troops after the U.S. pulled out of Iraq’s cities, and had become less cooperative. He said the Iraqi military was capable of securing the country, but detailed its many flaws that he

said U.S. training could not remedy, including poor management, corruption and vulnerability to Shiite sectarian influence. A spokeswoman for Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said the memorandum was not intended for release and was only Reese’s opinion, not U.S. policy. She added that some of the issues Reese had raised had been resolved since he wrote the memorandum in early July. Bolani July 31 dismissed Reese’s criticism of Iraqi forces, saying they had “succeeded in fortifying society against all the problems it faced over the past three to four years.” Iraq July 30 missed a deadline to hold a referendum on a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that authorized a U.S. presence in Iraq until the end of 2011. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government had proposed holding the referendum in January 2010, in conjunction with parliamentary elections. If voters rejected the agreement, U.S. forces would have to leave Iraq within one year. Some Iraqi legislators said a withdrawal timeline proposed by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had reduced the urgency of the referendum, but other Iraqi politicians and officials blamed Maliki, parliament or the elections commission for the failure to hold it. Also, Britain July 31 officially ended its presence in Iraq, leaving the U.S. as the sole member of the Multi-National Force– Iraq coalition with a presence in the country. (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] still had a small training contingent stationed in Iraq, but was not considered part of the U.S.-led coalition.) Britain withdrew to Kuwait about 100 troops who had been training Iraqi forces, after the Iraqi parliament failed to approve an agreement extending their authorization past July. British forces had suffered 179 deaths since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the war had long been unpopular among the British public.

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Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh Aug. 3 announced that the Shiite extremist group Asa’ib al-Haq—which meant League of the Righteous—had agreed to give up violence against Iraqis, IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Aug. 6 [See pp. 529G1, 437F1]:

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after members met with Maliki. Dabbagh later said the government would also treat attacks on U.S. and British personnel as violations of the law, but an Asa’ib al-Haq spokesman said the group would continue attacks on U.S. soldiers. Several group members had been released from custody over the past few months. Asa’ib al-Haq was implicated in the killing of five U.S. soldiers in the southern city of Karbala in 2007, and the subsequent kidnapping of five Britons. Two of the British hostages’ bodies had been found in June, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown July 29 said that two others had also been killed. The fifth, Peter Moore, was believed to still be alive. [See p. 433C3] Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The Iraqi government Aug. 3 said it had arrested a man for the 2006 killing of a well-known Iraqi journalist, Atwar Bahjat. The suspect, Yasser Mohammed Hamad al-Takhi, in a videotaped confession shown on Iraqi television said he and three other men had stopped Bahjat and two members of her television crew at a checkpoint outside Samarra, in Salahuddin province. He said he had raped and killed Bahjat, while another member of his gang had fatally shot the two crew members. An Iraqi army spokesman said Takhi’s brother, who was part of the gang, had already been arrested and had confessed. [See 2006, p. 121E2] o The U.S. military Aug. 3 said Iraqi and U.S. forces July 24 had captured Fakri Hadi Gari, a leader of the Sunni insurgent group Ansar al-Islam, and nine other people in a joint raid in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh. o Maliki and the newly reelected president of the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, Aug. 2 met for the first time in a year, at a resort outside the northeastern city of Sulaimaniyah, in Kurdistan. Maliki and Barzani agreed to form committees to resolve the major points of contention between the federal and Kurdish governments, including the sharing of oil and gas revenues, the border between Arab and Kurdish regions of Iraq, and control of the oil-rich, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk. o The Times July 30 reported that Iraqi authorities had arrested seven leaders of the Awakening movement, a mostly Sunni paramilitary force, in Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighborhood in late July. There had been a surge in arrests of Awakening members by the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in March and April, but the number of arrests had since gone down. The latest arrests were reportedly the first since the June withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities. [See p. 433F2] o A British government-appointed panel led by Sir John Chilcot July 30 began an investigation into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war. Chilcot said the investigation would be conducted in public “wherever possible” and added, “The committee will not shy away from making criticism.” Chilcot said former British Prime Minister 530

Tony Blair, who had led the country to war, would be among the witnesses. Chilcot said the panel would not publish its findings until late 2010 at the earliest. [See p. 449C1] o The U.S. Defense Department inspector general’s office July 27 reported that the failure of “multiple systems and organizations” on the part of both the U.S. military and military contractor KBR Inc. had led to U.S. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth being electrocuted while showering at Camp Slayer military base in Baghdad in January 2008. The report said KBR had not properly grounded equipment during installation or reported the flaw after maintenance check-ups, while the military had not conducted proper oversight over KBR’s work. Seventeen other U.S. service members and contractors reportedly had also been electrocuted in Iraq. [See p. 38D2] n

Other Middle East News U.S. Hikers Arrested After Crossing Into Iran.

Iranian authorities July 31 arrested three U.S. citizens who had crossed the Iranian border from Iraq’s Kurdistan region without permission. The Iranian state television station Al Alam Aug. 1 confirmed their arrest, and said border guards had first warned them “not to get near the border.” Iraqi Kurdish officials identified the three U.S. citizens as Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, students and journalists who had been hiking in the region. [See pp. 518F1, 330B1] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was “concerned” about the U.S. citizens, and called on Iran to release them quickly. She said Swiss diplomats were seeking information regarding the case; Swiss diplomats routinely handled U.S. affairs in Iran, as the U.S. and Iran did not have diplomatic relations. News reports said the hikers might be used as bargaining chips in negotiations over Iran’s controversial nuclear program. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates July 27 during a visit to Israel warned that U.S. offers to engage Iran in direct talks were “not open-ended,” and that the U.S. would press for tougher sanctions if Iran tried “to run out the clock.” However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said “no option should be removed from the table,” referring to the possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iran. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Bootleg Liquor Leads to 123 Deaths. Police July 12 said 123 people in recent weeks had died from drinking bootleg liquor in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Gujarat was the only state in India where the consumption and sale of alcohol was banned, leading to a thriving underground market in which liquor was often laced with harmful chemicals to increase its power. The deaths led to calls for Gujarat to lift the ban, and for the ouster of Chief

Minister Narendra Modi, a hard-line Hindu nationalist who supported the ban. Since the deaths came to light, Gujarat police had raided bootleg liquor outlets and arrested some 800 suspected bootleggers. [See 2008, p. 526C3; 1989, p. 278D1] n

Pakistan Musharraf 2007 Emergency Ruled Illegal.

A 14-member panel of Pakistan’s Supreme Court July 31 ruled that a state of emergency imposed by then-President Pervez Musharraf in November 2007 had been unconstitutional. The court’s ruling raised the possibility that the government could bring treason charges against Musharraf, who had been the chief of the army before seizing power in a 1999 coup. But analysts said such a move could anger the army, which was currently battling the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest. [See pp. 515C1, 514C1] The ruling was delivered by Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who had been ousted following the declaration of emergency rule, which enabled Musharraf to suspend the constitution and dismiss some 60 federal judges. Musharraf at the time had said emergency rule was necessary to protect Pakistan from Islamic extremists, but the move had been widely viewed as a way to maintain his grip on power, which had been facing constitutional challenges from the Supreme Court. Musharraf in 2008 resigned under political pressure, and Chaudhry was reinstated to his position in March. The ruling voided the judicial appointments Musharraf had made during the emergency rule, which lasted for six weeks. The ruling also said parliament could review the validity of dozens of laws enacted during the emergency rule. Musharraf was currently living in London. The court earlier in July had summoned him to appear before it, an order Musharraf ignored. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Baseball Ramirez, Ortiz Linked to ’03 Doping List.

The New York Times July 30 reported that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, two sluggers who had made up the heart of the Boston Red Sox lineup through much of the past decade, were on the list of Major League Baseball (MLB) players who had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Ramirez, who had since been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, July 3 returned from a 50-game suspension in May for a separate violation of the league’s drug policy. However, the latest revelation marked the first time Ortiz was linked to any performance-enhancing drugs. [See pp. 484F1, 347C3] In 2003, MLB had for the first time conducted anonymous tests on 1,198 players, as part of a labor agreement signed before the start of the season with the MLB Players Association (MLBPA). Despite the promises of FACTS ON FILE

August 6, 2009

pitcher Roy Halladay ended up staying with the Toronto Blue Jays, after spending most of the month on the trading block. In other notable trades, the Seattle Mariners July 31 dealt left-handed pitcher Jarrod Washburn to the Detroit Tigers for two pitching prospects. First baseman Adam LaRoche was traded twice in the weeks leading up to the deadline. First, the Red Sox acquired him on July 22 in a deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates for two minor leaguers, before sending him to the Atlanta Braves on July 31 for first-baseman Casey Kotchman. The Dodgers strengthened their bullpen in a July 30 trade with the Baltimore Orioles, when the team acquired left-handed pitcher George Sherrill in exchange for two minor leaguers. The Indians July 29 traded left-handed pitcher Cliff Lee and left fielder Ben Francisco to the Philadelphia Phillies for four minor leaguers. Another National League contender, the St. Louis Cardinals, July 24 acquired left fielder Matt Holliday from the Oakland Athletics for three minor leaguers. Other News—In other MLB news: o Outfielders Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice July 26 were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. They were both elected in January. The late second-baseman Joe Gordon was also inducted that day, after the Veterans Committee elected him in December 2008. [See p. 71E2] o Right-handed pitcher Pedro Martinez July 15 agreed to a one-year, $1 million deal with the Phillies. Martinez last pitched in MLB for the New York Mets in 2008, earning a 5–6 record that season. [See 2004, p. 1090E2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Katherine Jackson, the 79-year-old mother of pop singer Michael Jackson, who in late

June had died suddenly in Los Angeles, Aug. 3 was granted permanent custody of her son’s three children—Prince Michael I, 12, Paris, 11, and Prince Michael II, 7—by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. The judge, in effect, approved a July 30 agreement between Katherine Jackson and Debbie Rowe, 50, the biological mother of the two oldest children, that the children would be raised by their grandmother, with Rowe, the singer’s second wife, having visitation rights; the youngest child had been born to an unidentified surrogate mother with no legal standing in the matter. At the Aug. 3 hearing, the judge also admitted Michael Jackson’s will into probate without a challenge. [See pp. 467E1, G2, 436E2] n

O B I T UA R I E S AQUINO, Corazon C. (born Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco), 76, president of the Philippines,

1986–92; she was thrust into the limelight in 1983, after the assassination of her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., who had been at the time the leading opponent of the authoritarian regime of then–Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos; having become the focal point of

AP Photo/Alberto Marquez

anonymity, the results from the testing were never destroyed, and the information was later seized by federal agents investigating drug distribution in professional sports. In media reports earlier in 2009, sluggers Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa had been linked to the 2003 list as well. The Times said the information about Ramirez and Ortiz was supplied by lawyers involved in current litigation over the test results between the baseball players’ union, which called the seizure of the test results illegal, and the government. [See p. 87B1] Ortiz and Ramirez were on the Red Sox together during the team’s two championship runs earlier in the decade, including the 2004 World Series, which ended an 86year title drought for the franchise. Neither player denied the Times report, nor did they elaborate on what drug they had tested positive for in 2003. The Boston Globe Aug. 1 reported that two security members from the Red Sox clubhouse had been fired in 2008, after the league found they were involved in steroid use. The probe, however, did not indicate that any performance-enhancing drugs had been sold to players. Buehrle Pitches Perfect Game— Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox July 23 pitched the 18th perfect game in the history of MLB, in a 5–0 defeat of the Tampa Bay Rays in Chicago. In a perfect game, a pitcher threw a complete game without allowing a batter to reach base, in what was considered to be one of the greatest accomplishments in baseball. The last pitcher to throw a perfect game had been Randy Johnson, then with the Arizona Diamondbacks, in 2004. [See 2004, p. 391A3] Buehrle, 30, threw 116 pitches—76 of which were strikes—in the game, which was the second no-hitter of his career. He had also no-hit the Texas Rangers in 2007. A remarkable catch in the ninth inning from center fielder Dewayne Wise preserved the perfect game, by robbing Rays outfielder Gabe Kapler of a home run. Wise jumped above the wall to snag the ball with his glove hand, only to see it fall out before he caught it with his bare hand to record the out. [See 2007, p. 455D2] In his next start, against the Minnesota Twins July 28, the left-handed Buehrle kept all hitters from reaching first into the 6th inning, setting the MLB record for the most consecutive hitters retired, with 45 straight. (He had begun the streak in his start prior to the perfect game.) Buehrle’s streak ended with a walk to second baseman Alexi Casilla, after retiring the first 17 hitters. The previous record had been 41 consecutive hitters, held by both Jim Barr and Buehrle’s teammate Bobby Jenks. Players Dealt At Trade Deadline— The MLB trade deadline passed on July 31, with several major trades occurring in the hours and days before. A last-minute blockbuster deal saw the San Diego Padres ship righthanded pitcher Jake Peavy to the White Sox in exchange for four pitching prospects. Also that day, the Cleveland Indians traded catcher Victor Martinez to the Red Sox for right-handed pitcher Justin Masterson and two pitching prospects. All-Star

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Philippine President Corazon Aquino in 1986.

the opposition to Marcos, she agreed to run against him in early 1986 snap elections, which he initially claimed to have won; amid glaring evidence of electoral fraud, however, Marcos was confronted by a massive “people power” uprising that led to his fleeing the Philippines within days; he eventually took refuge in Hawaii, where he died in 1989; during Aquino’s six years in office, she withstood seven coup attempts or military revolts and managed to restore democratic institutions that had been undermined during Marcos’s 20 years in power; in 1992, she decided not to run for reelection, and backed the candidacy of her defense secretary, Fidel Ramos, who succeeded her as president in June of that year; out of office, she remained politically active; born Jan. 25, 1933, in Paniqui, Philippines; died Aug. 1 in Makati City, Philippines, of colon cancer. [See 2006, p. 152C1; 2005, pp. 612E1, 495A1; Indexes 1999–2001, 1997, 1983–93] DEVI, Gayatri, 90, glamorous member of India’s pre-independence aristocracy (Vogue magazine once listed her as among the world’s 10 most beautiful women) who in 1939 became the third wife of the maharajah of Jaipur, then a fiefdom in northwestern India; after India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, Jaipur was integrated into the state of Rajasthan and royal titles were eventually abolished; she was easily elected to the lower house of India’s Parliament in the early 1960s and served three terms before being jailed without trial in 1975 (five years after the death of her husband) on tax-related charges during a state of emergency declared by then–Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; after being released from prison in early 1976, she spent the rest of her life as a private citizen; born May 23, 1919, in London; died July 29 at a hospital in Jaipur, where she was being treated for stomach and respiratory problems. [See 1976, p. 29E1; 1975, p. 580E2; 1970, p. 491F3] EIKERENKOETTER II, Frederick Joseph, 74, flamboyant black preacher, better known as Reverend Ike, who preached the virtues of material success; the founder-minister of a New York City–based church that came to be known as Christ Community United Church, he was most prominent in the 1970s, when his sermons were carried on hundreds of U.S. radio and television stations; the monetary contributions he received from many of his followers enabled him to live a lavish lifestyle; both the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Postal Service probed his financial dealings, but no charges were ever brought against him; in recent years, he had turned over the day-to day operation of his ministry to his son, Xavier Frederick Eikerenkoetter; born June 1, 1935, in Ridgeland, S.C.; died July 29 at a hospital in Los Angeles; he had never recovered from a stroke suffered in 2007. FORREST, Vernon, 38, boxer who held the welterweight title of the World Boxing Council (WBC) from 2002 to 2003; he won the WBC’s light-middleweight title in July 2007, lost it to Sergio Mora in June 2008, and regained it from Mora three months later; he subsequently had to vacate the title because of a rib injury; outside the ring, he was known as a benefactor of young people in Atlanta, Ga., with mental health problems; born Jan. 12, 1971, in Augusta, Ga.; gunned down July 25 in Atlanta, after being robbed at gunpoint at a gas station there and then reportedly chasing his assailants and firing his own weapon at them; as of Aug. 6, Atlanta police had arrested two suspects in the case and were searching for a third one. [See 2003, p. 319D1; 2002, p. 738E3] GWATHMEY, Charles, 71, New York City–based architect who designed homes for such celebrities as

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BEST SELLER LISTS

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Publishers Weekly Aug. 3 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 452A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) 2. Swimsuit, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) 3. Black Hills, by Nora Roberts (Putnam) 4. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s) 5. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam/Amy Einhorn)

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General Hardback 1. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 3. Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions) 4. Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson, by Ian Halperin (Simon Spotlight Entertainment) 5. Catastrophe, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (Harper) Mass Market Paperback 1. My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult (Pocket) 2. Smoke Screen, by Sandra Brown (Pocket) 3. TailSpin, by Catherine Coulter (Jove) 4. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris (Ace) 5. Moscow Rules, by Daniel Silva (Signet)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Aug. 1 issue listed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 452C1]:

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1. “I Gotta Feeling,” The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 2. “Best I Ever Had,” Drake (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown) 3. “You Belong With Me,” Taylor Swift (Big Machine/Universal Republic) 4. “Knock You Down,” Keri Hilson featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo (Mosley/Zone 4/Interscope) 5. “Fire Burning,” Sean Kingston (Beluga Heights/Epic)

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1. Leave This Town, Daughtry (RCA/RMG) 2. BLACKsummers’night, Maxwell (Columbia/Sony Music) 3. Hannah Montana 3, soundtrack (Walt Disney) 4. Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 31, Various Artists (EMI/Universal/ Zomba/Sony Music) 5. The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope/IGA) Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jerry Seinfeld; these reflected his Modernist approach and love of geometrical complexity; with his longtime partner, Charles Siegel, he also designed such nonresidential structures as a 1992 addition to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the most recent site (since 2002) of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.; born June 19, 1938, in Charlotte, N.C.; died Aug. 3 in New York, of esophageal cancer. [See 1959, p. 340C3] HARRIS, E(verette) Lynn, 54, author of best-selling novels largely concerned with black men in various walks of life living on the “down low,” or secretly having sex with other men while presenting themselves as strictly heterosexual; before self-publishing his first book, Invisible Life, in 1991, he had been a computer salesman; his first best-seller was And This Too Shall Pass (1996), about a bisexual football player; all his later novels, including the most recent, Basketball Jones (2009), also became best-sellers; born June 20, 1955, in Flint, Mich.; died July 23 at a hospital in Los Angeles, after falling ill during a book tour for Basketball Jones; the Los Angeles coroner’s office July 29 attributed his death to heart disease linked to hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure. [See 2001, p. 600A1; 2000, p. 556A1; Index 1996] LEFEVER, Ernest Warren, 89, foreign-policy expert who in 1976 started a conservative think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in Washington, D.C.; in 1981, he withdrew as President Reagan’s nominee for a U.S. State Department human rights post after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended that the full Senate reject his nomination, on the

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al television shows June 29–Aug. 2 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 452A2]:

1. “Major League Baseball All-Star Game” (Fox), July 14 (8.9) 2. “America’s Got Talent” (NBC), July 21 (8.2)* 3. “NCIS” (CBS), July 7 (7.2)* 4. “MLB All-Star Pregame Show” (Fox), July 14 (7.0) 5. “The Mentalist” (CBS), June 30 (6.7)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of July 24–30 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 452B2]:

1. G-Force, Disney ($49.4 million, 1) Directed by Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr. With Bill Nighy, Will Arnett and Zach Galifianakis, and the voices of Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi and Tracy Morgan. 2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros. ($237.8 million, 2) Directed by David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton and Helena Bonham Carter. 3. The Ugly Truth, Sony ($41.5 million, 1) Directed by Robert Luketic. With Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler, Eric Winter, John Michael Higgins and Nick Searcy. 4. Orphan, Warner Bros. ($19.5 million, 1) Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. With Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman, CCH Pounder and Jimmy Bennett. 5. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, 20th Century Fox ($176.5 million, 4) Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Michael Thurmeier. With the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah and Simon Pegg. 6. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Paramount ($383.5 million, 5) [See p. 452B2] 7. The Proposal, Disney ($144.0 million, 6) [See p. 452C2] 8. The Hangover, Warner Bros. ($250.7 million, 8) [See p. 452C2] 9. Public Enemies, Universal ($90.7 million, 4) Directed by Michael Mann. With Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and David Wenham. 10. Bruno, Universal ($58.2 million, 3) Directed by Larry Charles. With Sacha Baron Cohen and Gustaf Hammarsten.

grounds that he was ideologically unsuited for the job; born Nov. 12, 1919, in York, Pa.; died July 29 at a nursing home in New Oxford, Pa.; he had been battling Lewy Body dementia, a progressive brain disease. [See 1981, pp. 954G1, 809G3, 497A1, 392A1, 173G1] RUSSELL, George Allen, 86, jazz composer, music theorist and pianist; after World War II, he developed the “Lydian chromatic concept” of improvisation, in which, roughly speaking, chords were replaced by scales developed from the notes of chords; this approach led to the development of “modal jazz” by Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others, and perhaps reached its apotheosis in Davis’s Kind of Blue (1959), the best-selling jazz album of all time; in 1964, he left the U.S. for Scandinavia, and did not return to the U.S. until 1969, when he began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Mass.; he remained on its faculty until 2004; born June 23, 1923, in Cincinnati, Ohio; died July 27 in Boston, of Alzheimer’s disease complications. SCHULBERG, Budd (Seymour Wilson Schulberg), 95, novelist, journalist, short story writer and

screenwriter; the son of B. P. Schulberg, a leading Hollywood producer in the 1920s and early 1930s, he created a sensation in 1941 with his first novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, a blistering portrait of naked Hollywood ambition as exemplified by the book’s main character, Sammy Glick; his best-known screenplay was the one he wrote for Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954), for which he won an Academy Award in 1955, one of eight Oscars won by that film; he also wrote the script for Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957) and co-authored the screenplay for The Harder

They Fall (1956), a film based on his 1947 boxing novel of the same name; a lifelong boxing enthusiast, he was the first boxing editor at Sports Illustrated magazine and the author of many essays on the sport; having been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s, he, like Kazan, controversially identified former colleagues as communists in early 1950s testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; his last Hollywood screenplay was for Wind Across the Everglades (1958); over the years, he also wrote a number of television scripts; born March 27, 1914, in New York City; died Aug. 5 at his home in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., of natural causes. [See 2004, p. 415C3; 2003, p. 780E2; Indexes 1995, 1972, 1966, 1964, 1953–58, 1950–51, 1947] SHULMAN, Julius, 98, architectural photographer known for his striking images of Modernist houses in Southern California, including Pierre Koenig’s widely photographed Case Study House No. 22, built in 1959 in Los Angeles’s Hollywood Hills and also known as the Stahl House; born Oct. 10, 1910, in New York City; died July 15 at his Los Angeles home. [See 2004, p. 300C3] SIMS, Naomi Ruth, 61, first black model to appear on the cover of the mainstream women’s magazine Ladies’ Home Journal; after she appeared on the cover of the magazine’s November 1968 issue, she modeled for five more years, and became known as the first black supermodel; thereafter, she ran a highly successful cosmetics and hair-care business aimed at black women, known as the Naomi Sims Collection; born March 30, 1948, in Oxford, Miss.; died Aug. 1 in Newark, N.J., of breast cancer. n

August 6, 2009

Pakistani Taliban Chief Reported Killed Taliban Denies Claim. Pakistani

officials Aug. 7 claimed that Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani branch of the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, had been killed Aug. 5. U.S. and Pakistani officials reportedly believed that a missile fired by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft had killed Mehsud as he underwent treatment for a kidney ailment in his father-in-law’s house in South Waziristan, a tribal area in Pakistan’s northwest. However, Taliban members contended that Mehsud was still alive, and officials acknowledged that they had not confirmed his death by recovering a body identified as his. [See below, pp. 514F2, 466E2] Mehsud, a diabetic, was reportedly killed as he received an intravenous drip for his kidney ailment in the village of Zanghra. The attack was thought to have killed as many as a dozen people, including one of Mehsud’s two wives and his fatherin-law. Mehsud’s apparent death was considered a significant development in the two countries’ efforts to disrupt Islamic extremist terrorist networks in Pakistan. The Aug. 7 claims by the Pakistani officials—Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi—followed a day of news reports that Mehsud might have been killed. Pakistani authorities could not confirm his death with absolute certainty, since South Waziristan was under the Taliban’s control, and bodies of the victims of the attack could not be recovered. Journalists for the most part did not have physical access to the remote region, and it was U.S. policy not to publicly acknowledge its use of Predator strikes, which were thought to be carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). But U.S. and Pakistani officials were highly confident that Mehsud was dead, with Qureshi Aug. 7 saying, “He has been taken out.” U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones said he was 90% sure Mehsud was dead, in an Aug. 9 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Officials from both countries reportedly based their conclusions on communications intercepts, witness accounts and a video of the missile attack apparently taken by a Predator. Pakistani officials Aug. 8 claimed that Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud’s deputy, had been killed in a dispute over who would succeed Baitullah Mehsud as the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban. However, those claims, as well as reports of Baitullah Mehsud’s death, were later disputed by an individual purporting to be Hakimullah Mehsud in telephone interviews with news outlets. [See below] Attack Part of Intensified Campaign—

The CIA was thought to have conducted at least 30 Predator attacks in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas in 2009, killing some 360 people. The attacks were part of a ramped-up antiterrorism campaign that had been started in 2008, and intensified in 2009 under the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. The campaign large-

ly targeted members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, and Taliban insurgents from neighboring Afghanistan who were fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in that country. Both groups received aid and shelter from the Pakistani Taliban. Baitullah Mehsud had become a principal target of Predator strikes only in recent months. The change in focus reportedly came at the urging of Pakistani officials, after Taliban fighters in April seized control of territory in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which bordered the tribal areas, prompting a large military operation to oust them. [See p. 514C1] In addition, Mehsud was thought to have been behind dozens of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including the December 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and a September 2008 suicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the capital, that killed more than 50 people. [See 2008, p. 685B3; 2007, p. 857A1] Mehsud—who was believed to have been in his mid-to-late 30s—had risen to prominence in 2007 as the leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban, a loose coalition of more than a dozen Islamic extremist groups operating in the tribal areas. Mehsud was thought to have commanded between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters. While Tehreek-e-Taliban’s central goal was to undermine the Pakistani government, Mehsud had become increasingly involved with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, raising his profile as a potential threat to U.S. national security interests. The U.S. State Department March 25 had authorized a $5 million reward for information that would lead to Mehsud’s capture. While his death was thought to have sown confusion within the Pakistani Taliban, analysts said it was unlikely that it would stop the group from carrying out terrorist attacks and cooperating with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. It remained unclear whether the Pakistani army would carry out a previously made pledge to invade South Waziristan, or if Pakistan would take advantage of the disarray surrounding Mehsud’s death to win the allegiance of more moderate members of Tehreek-e-Taliban. It was also reported that U.S. and Pakistani officials were concerned that a leadership vacuum could allow Al Qaeda or Afghan warlords to exert control over the Pakistani Taliban. Officials Claim Taliban Infighting— Malik Aug. 8 said a meeting convened to determine Mehsud’s successor had erupted into a gunfight between two leading candidates, Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur Rehman, leading to the death of one of them. While Malik did not specify who had died at the meeting, which he said was held in the Sara Rogha area of South Waziristan, anonymous Pakistani officials were widely cited as saying Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed.

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3582 August 13, 2009

B However, those claims were quickly rebutted. A man claiming to be Hakimullah Mehsud Aug. 10 told Reuters news agency in a telephone interview that he and Baitullah Mehsud were still alive. The Associated Press and the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 8 had also reported that they had made contact with Hakimullah Mehsud. Rehman Aug. 9 also contacted Reuters, saying he and Hakimullah Mehsud had met uneventfully Clashes broke out Aug. 12 in NWFP district of Tank, which bordered South Waziristan, between fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud and a rival tribe led by warlord Turkestan Bhaitani. The Pakistani army reportedly sent helicopter gunships into the area to support Bhaitani, who had objected to the suicide attacks Mehsud had carried out in Pakistan. Reported death counts from the fighting varied widely—

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Pakistani Taliban chief reported killed; Taliban denies claim. PAGE 533

U.S. unemployment falls to 9.4% in July. PAGE 535

Fed keeps interest rate target near zero. PAGE 535

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‘Cash for clunkers’ funds renewed. PAGE 535

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton tours seven African nations; discusses trade, regional conflicts. PAGE 540

North American leaders meet in Mexico; talks focus on trade, swine flu. PAGE 541

Indonesia arrests, kills bombing suspects. PAGE 542

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Myanmar pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi convicted, sentenced to 18 months. PAGE 543

British intelligence chief denies torture complicity. PAGE 544

Bombings hit Iraqi Shiite areas, killing 113. PAGE 545

Afghan civilian deaths rise in first half of 2009. PAGE 546

Records obliterated at world championships.

swimming PAGE 547

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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ranging between five and 100—and could not be independently confirmed. Separately, a suspected U.S. Predator attack Aug. 11 reportedly killed at least eight militants in the Kani Gurram region of South Waziristan. Earlier that day, militants had launched rockets into Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, killing two people and injuring 10. n

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U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, in a ceremony in Mons, Belgium, June 30 was sworn in as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supreme allied commander in Europe, and July 2 took up his post, after being appointed May 12. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen Aug. 3 took office as NATO’s new secretary general. He had been chosen in April at the alliance’s 60th anniversary summit. [See pp. 547F2, 213A1; 2006, p. 948A1; 2004, p. 87D1] Stavridis, 54, replaced U.S. Army Gen. Bantz Craddock as the alliance’s top military leader, a post always held by a U.S. officer. Prior to his new posting, Stavridis had led the U.S.’s Southern Command, which oversaw Latin America, since 2004 and had also headed the Navy’s Deep Blue antiterrorism strategic planning group. He was the first naval officer to lead NATO’s military forces. Stavridis June 30 also assumed his post as the head of the U.S. military’s European Command, which covered all of Europe. Rasmussen, 56, replaced Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands as secretary general, a post always held by a European civilian. Rasmussen had been Denmark’s prime minster from 2001 until April, and had held the rotating presidency of the European Union in 2002. He was the highest-ranking official to become NATO’s secretary general. His candidacy had at first been opposed by Turkey because he had defended the right of a Danish newspaper to publish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, which had sparked an uproar among many Muslims worldwide in 2005– 06. n

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Extradition of Alleged Arms Dealer Blocked.

A three-judge panel of Thailand’s Bangkok Criminal Court Aug. 11 blocked the extradition of Russian alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout to the U.S., ruling that the case against Bout did not satisfy the requirements contained in Thailand’s extradition treaty with the U.S. Bout, 42, who had long been suspected of supplying illegal arms to terrorists and warring groups, had been arrested in Thailand in March 2008 after allegedly agreeing to sell surface-to-air missiles and other armaments to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents posing as members of Colombia’s leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) militant group. [See 2008, pp. 340A3, 161A1]

In May 2008, the U.S. Justice Department had unsealed an indictment against Bout charging him with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals and conspiracy to acquire and use an antiaircraft missile. He faced a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted on all charges. According to the panel, Bout’s alleged agreement to sell weapons to persons he believed to represent FARC could not be considered as the basis of a criminal case for extradition because Thailand officially classified FARC as a political organization, rather than a criminal or terrorist group. The panel also ruled that it could not “judge a case regarding aliens killing aliens outside of Thailand,” and that the extradition treaty did not apply to alleged crimes that did not involve Thailand or its citizens. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, Aug. 11 expressed surprise and disappointment regarding the ruling, but said, “We think the facts of the case, our extradition treaty and the relevant Thai law all clearly support extraditing Viktor Bout to the United States to stand trial.” The Russian government praised the decision and expressed hope that Bout would be freed. Thai prosecutors Aug. 13 announced that they had informed an appeals court of their intention to challenge the panel’s extradition ruling. Under Thai law, if prosecutors had not announced their intention to appeal within 72 hours of the ruling, the Thai government would have been required to release Bout. The Thai government was required to present its case to the appeals court by Sept. 12. n Putin Visits Georgian Splinter Region.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Aug. 12 visited the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of Abkhazia, which Russia had recognized as independent following a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Speaking in Moscow, the Russian capital, before traveling to Abkhazia, Putin announced that Russia would spend as much as $487 million to secure Abkhazia’s border with Georgia and to expand the Russian military presence there. Putin’s visit came shortly after the first anniversary of the 2008 war. [See p. 496B2] The aid came in addition to as much as $76 million Russia had already sent Abkhazia in 2009. Putin pledged “slightly less” than that figure for 2010. Russia’s presence in Abkhazia and another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, South Ossetia, had increased following the August 2008 war. The conflict had begun when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the Georgian army into South Ossetia to assert Georgian control over it. (South Ossetia and Abkhazia had gained de facto autonomy from Georgia in wars during the 1990s.) However, the Georgian army was routed. The U.S. had steadfastly expressed support for Georgia during and after the conflict, and had pledged $1 billion in reconstruction aid. Putin said “practically all of international society” recognized that Georgia had

started the 2008 war. He added that Western countries “are all under a certain pressure from NATO’s [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s] leading country, the United States. And to put it bluntly, many of them don’t publicly state their positions, because they would diverge from the U.S. position.” The Georgian foreign ministry said Putin’s visit was a “provocation” meant to “destabilize the situation and escalate tension in the Caucasus region.” n Russia to Open Second Base in Kyrgyzstan.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev Aug. 1 signed a memorandum outlining a plan for Russia to establish a second military base in Kyrgyzstan. The planned pact would allow Russia to operate the new base for 49 years with options to extend its presence beyond that. The deal was expected to be finalized by November. Russia since 2003 had operated another air base about 12 miles (20 km) from Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. [See p. 440C3] Kyrgyz officials said the base would host a battalion of Russian troops as well as a training center, and would be constructed near the Kyrgyz border with Uzbekistan. The Uzbek foreign ministry Aug. 3 said the “implementation of such projects” could encourage the militarization of Central Asia and “seriously destabilize the situation in the vast region.” It added that “there is no need” to open the base. The U.S. in June won permission from Kyrgyzstan to continue operating its air base at Manas. Kyrgyzstan had threatened to close the base but eventually relented when the U.S. agreed to pay millions of dollars more annually to lease it. n

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Unemployment Falls to 9.4% In July First Decline Since April 2008. The unem-

ployment rate in July was 9.4% after seasonal adjustment, Unemployment down from its 9.4% June level of July 2009 Previous Month 9.5% 9.5%, the Labor Year Earlier 5.8% Department reported Aug. 7. It was the first time that the unemployment rate had fallen since April 2008, and was seen as the latest sign that the U.S. economy was beginning to pull out of a severe recession. However, employers continued to shed jobs in July, and economists noted that the unemployment rate fell largely due to a spike in the number of workers who had dropped out of the workforce, and were thus not part of the unemployment rate calculation. [See p. 456B1] An estimated 247,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in July, down significantly from the June figure of 443,000, and the smallest monthly drop since August 2008. The July labor report brought the total number of jobs lost to 6.7 million since the recession began in December 2007. President Barack Obama Aug. 7 said the unemployment rate and other recent economic indicators showed that the economy was “pointed in the right direction.” The jobs report was published a week after the Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product (GDP) had shrunk at a 1.0% rate in the second quarter, a much slower rate of contraction than had been reported in the first quarter. Obama said a $787 billion economic stimulus package that he had signed into law in February had “rescued our economy from catastrophe.” [See p. 521C3] However, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs warned that the administration expected the unemployment rate to reach 10%. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, in describing the economy and the government’s efforts to rejuvenate it, said, “We’re stabilizing the patient, but the patient is still sick.” Stock markets that day rose on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 114 points, or 1.2%, to close at 9,370.07, the index’s highest level since November 2008. The unemployment rate was 16.3% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. That was down from 16.5% in June. 140 Million Jobs Held in July—According to a household survey, 140.0 million people held jobs in July, the Labor Department reported Aug. 7. The department counted 14.5 million people as unemployed. The department counted 796,000 workers as discouraged in July. About 8.8 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. August 13, 2009

The average workweek was 33.1 hours in July, up slightly from 33.0 in June. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.8 hours, up from 39.5 the previous month. Factory workers’ average overtime was 2.9 hours, remaining unchanged from the previous month. The average hourly wage for production workers rose three cents, to $18.56. Economists said the rise in workweek hours and hourly wages was a positive sign, indicating that it was possible that employers were no longer slashing wages to reduce on costs. The unemployment rate among whites in July was 8.6%, down from 8.7% in June. The jobless rate for blacks was 14.5%, down from 14.7% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 12.3%, up from 12.2% in June. For men age 20 and over, June unemployment was 9.8%, down from 10.0% in June. For adult women, it was 7.5%, down from 7.6% the previous month. The teenage rate was 23.8%, down from 24.0% in June. For black teenagers it was 35.7%, down from 37.9% the previous month. n

Other Economic News Fed Keeps Interest Rate Target Near Zero.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Federal Reserve, Aug. 12 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federalfunds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed said economic activity was “leveling out” after more than a year of volatility and decline, indicating that the U.S. economy was beginning to recover from a deep recession. [See p. 427F2] The Fed said it would conclude a plan to buy $300 billion worth of Treasury securities in October. The move was widely seen as the first step toward winding down the program—which was designed to keep interest rates down and boost growth—and a gesture of confidence in the reviving economy. Some analysts also said the Fed was concerned that the program could be perceived as a way for it to keep interest-rate payments low on the U.S.’s growing debts. However, the Fed warned that “economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time,” and that it would likely keep its benchmark rate at “exceptionally low levels...for an extended period.” The Fed said consumer spending—which accounted for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity—“remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth and tight credit.” The Fed also said it would continue a $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgagebacked securities, and a $200 billion program to buy debt issued by the mortgagefinancing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Those programs were designed to keep mortgage interest rates low. Stock markets reacted positively to the report, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average that day climbing 120.16 points, or 1.3%, to close at 9,361.61. n

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

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Deficit/Surplus* June May 2009 2009 -18.43 -3.70 -1.60 -4.51 -3.43 0.36

-17.48 -1.91 -0.54 -2.77 -3.94 0.26

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

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Trade Deficit Rose to $27 Billion in June.

The Commerce Department Aug. 12 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in Trade Deficit goods and servic(in billions) es for June was June 2009 $27.01 $27.0 billion, up Previous Month $25.97 from a revised Year Earlier $60.18 $26.0 billion in May. Both imports and exports rose, with imports climbing higher due to an increase in oil prices and a greater U.S. demand for energy. Analysts said the rise in exports was a measure of improvement in the global economy, since it showed that the U.S.’s trading partners were buying more goods. [See p. 477G1] Exports in June rose to $125.8 billion, a $2.4 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was led by increased exports of industrial supplies and materials, capital goods, and foods, feeds and beverages. Imports increased by $3.5 billion in June, to $152.8 billion. Besides oil and other petroleum products, the change was led by increased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) Aug. 12 closed at $70.16 a barrel, up 59% since the beginning of the year. n Retail Sales Fell 0.1% in July. The Commerce Department Aug. 13 reported that the value of retail sales in June was $342.3 billion after seasonal adjustment, down 0.1% from the revised figure for June. The report raised concerns that consumer spending—which accounted for two-thirds of U.S. economic activity—remained weak as the U.S. struggled to overcome an ongoing recession. [See p. 477B3] Auto sales climbed 2.4% in July, after the government’s so-called “cash for clunkers” program took effect July 24. Under the program, consumers were given vouchers worth up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for ones that were more fuelefficient. [See p. 535G3] n

Automobiles ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Funds Renewed. Funding for the federal “cash for clunkers” program, under which consumers could ex535

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change vehicles with poor fuel efficiency for a credit of up to $4,500 toward a more efficient new vehicle, was exhausted just days after the program, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, took effect July 27. Lawmakers had initially designated $1 billion for the program in a supplemental spending bill enacted in June, enough to fund about 250,000 exchanges. A $2 billion extension of the program passed in the House July 31, 316–109, and the Senate Aug. 6, 60–37, after some uncertainty over whether the Senate would approve it. President Barack Obama signed the extension into law Aug. 7, the same day a congressional recess began. The new funds came from the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed in February. [See pp. 424F3, 385A1] Under the program, consumers could exchange vehicles with fuel economy ratings of 18 miles per gallon or less for a credit to purchase a more fuel-efficient vehicle. The amount of the credit was dependent on the fuel efficiency rating of the new car. The traded-in cars were scrapped. Republicans criticized the plan as an expensive measure that would artificially inflate auto sales. U.S. auto sales had fallen dramatically over the past year as Michigan-based automakers General Motors Co. (GM) and Chrysler Group LLC had accepted billions of dollars in federal loans before both ultimately underwent governmentguided bankruptcy restructuring. Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.) Aug. 6 suggested that as soon as the funds for the program were exhausted, auto sales would “go right back down,” expressing concern that Democrats would seek to extend the program again. Democrats said the program was not meant to go on indefinitely. A number of Republican-sponsored amendments to the extension legislation that would block subsequent renewals of the program, as well as others targeting the Treasury’s aid to the financial industry, were defeated in the Senate; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) called the Republican effort “vexatious.” Several automakers, including GM, Michigan-based automaker Ford Motor Co., Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp. and Germany-based Volkswagen AG reported increases in small-car sales following the program’s launch. GM Announces Employee Buyouts—

GM Aug. 3 announced that 6,000 hourly workers had accepted buyout packages of as much as $115,000 in cash, plus $25,000 vouchers for new vehicles. The New York Times the following day reported that GM needed to reduce its workforce by about 7,500 in order to meet a year-end goal of employing 40,500 people. GM had employed about 91,000 people at the end of 2008. [See p. 475F1] Also, GM Aug. 11 announced that its Chevrolet Volt model, an electric vehicle slated for release in 2011, would be the first consumer-oriented vehicle to achieve a triple-digit fuel-efficiency rating, which the company estimated at 230 miles per gallon for in-city driving. It was expected to cost as much as $40,000. The Environ536

mental Protection Agency (EPA), which drafted the methodology used to determine auto mileage ratings, was unable to confirm the estimate, but praised GM’s efforts. [See p. 198B2] Other News—In other automotive industry news: o Autodata Corp., a research and statistics firm, Aug. 3 released data showing that Ford had sold 2.4% more vehicles in July 2009 than in July 2008. GM’s sales declined by 19.4% for the same period, and Chrysler’s sales fell by 9.4%. [See p. 164D3] o Southfield, Mich.–based auto parts maker Lear Corp. July 7 filed for bankruptcy after most of its shareholders agreed to a debt restructuring plan. The company, which made auto seats and electronic car components, had been liable for $3.6 billion in debt. A federal bankruptcy judge July 30 approved $500 million debtor-inpossession financing, which was provided by a consortium of lenders headed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. [See p. 164D2] o Energy Secretary Stephen Chu June 23 announced the first loans from a $25 billion low-interest program intended to help “financially viable” automakers retool their factories to build vehicles that were more fuel-efficient. Ford received $5.9 billion to update 11 U.S. factories. Japanbased Nissan Motor Co. received $1.6 billion to renovate a Tennessee factory, and California-based Tesla Motors received $465 million for electric vehicle development. The loan program had been created by Congress in 2007. n

Supreme Court Sotomayor Sworn In as Associate Justice.

Sonia Sotomayor Aug. 8 was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the first Hispanic and the third female to sit on the bench. Sotomayor, 55, was sworn in by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in a small ceremony at the Supreme Court. Sotomayor had been confirmed to the position by the Senate two days before. She was the court’s 111th justice. [See p. 519A3] President Barack Obama Aug. 12 hosted Sotomayor, his first high court nominee, at a White House reception, where she made her first public remarks since joining the court. She said, “It is this nation’s faith in a more perfect union that allows a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx to stand here now,” an event that Obama called “proof that in America the doors of opportunity must be open to all.” n

Politics Rove Push to Fire Prosecutors Documented.

The House Judiciary Committee Aug. 11 released thousands of pages of internal e-mail messages and related documents from the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush, which showed the involvement of Bush’s top political adviser,

Karl Rove, in pressing for the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. The firings had drawn allegations that the Bush administration had improperly politicized the Justice Department. The controversy led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2007. [See 2008, p. 701G3] The House committee turned over the documents to Nora Dannehy, a U.S. attorney who in 2008 had been appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate the firings. Justice Department internal investigators in September 2008 had reported that political motives were involved in some of the firings, but said it was unclear whether any criminal offense had been committed. The newly released documents showed that the discussions on whether to fire the prosecutors had begun months earlier than previously established. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D, Mich.) said, “The basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons.” However, Rove in a statement issued that day said the documents “show politics played no role in the Bush administration’s removal of U.S. attorneys, that I never sought to influence the conduct of any prosecution, and that I played no role in deciding which U.S. attorneys were retained and which replaced.” Judiciary Committee Republicans also said the documents did not prove any wrongdoing. Rove Testifies—Rove July 29–30 had testified about the firings in a closed session before the House Judiciary Committee. He and former Bush White House counsel Harriet Miers had previously resisted subpoenas issued by congressional committees demanding that they appear to testify on the matter. Rove and Miers had cited executive privilege, or the president’s right to protect the confidentiality of discussions with advisers, claiming that it still applied even after Bush left office in January. In response, the House committee had voted to cite both Rove and Miers for contempt of Congress. The committee March 4 had announced that Rove and Miers had agreed to testify under oath, in a deal brokered by President Barack Obama’s White House counsel, Gregory Craig. Under the deal, Rove and Miers were not to be questioned about any discussions with Bush on the topic of the prosecutors’ dismissal. The House committee had focused much of its two-and-a-half-year probe on the firing of the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias. White House e-mails from 2005–06 showed that Bush aides discussed replacing Iglesias in response to complaints from New Mexico Republican officials that he had not prosecuted local Democrats for voter fraud and corruption in the run-up to the 2006 elections. ThenSen. Pete Domenici (R, N.M.) and his staff had repeatedly contacted the White House to demand Iglesias’s ouster. Miers testified that Rove had called her in September 2006 to discuss Iglesias. She said Rove was “very agitated” and “upset,” FACTS ON FILE

called Iglesias a “serious problem,” and told her he “wanted something done about it.” Bush administration officials later claimed that Iglesias was fired for poor performance, but that explanation was contradicted by favorable evaluations of his work by the Justice Department. Obama Nominates Fired Prosecutor—

Obama July 31 nominated Daniel Bogden, former U.S. attorney in Nevada, to his old post, which he had held from 2001 to 2006. Bogden was one of the nine U.S. attorneys who were fired in 2006. Internal Bush administration e-mails showed that he had been singled out for not zealously prosecuting voter fraud and obscenity cases. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) had called for Bogden’s reinstatement. Bogden was registered as a nonpartisan voter. n Sen. Dodd Discloses Prostate Cancer.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) July 31 announced that he had been diagnosed six weeks earlier with prostate cancer and would undergo surgery to remove his prostate. Speaking at his office in Hartford, Conn., Dodd said he would have the surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City during Congress’s August recess. [See p. 191B2; 2004, p. 870E3] Dodd, 65, said he had received a diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer in June. In a statement released by Dodd’s office, his doctor said his “prognosis for full recovery is excellent.” Prostate cancer was the most common cancer among men, and curable for those in whom it was detected at an early stage. Dodd said he planned to run for a sixth term in 2010. He was expected to face an unusually difficult race, in part because of perceptions that he had grown too close to the financial industry, which he oversaw in his role as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He trailed his likely Republican opponent, former Rep. Rob Simmons, by nine percentage points in a recent poll. The Senate Ethics Committee was investigating allegations that Dodd had received favorable terms on two mortgage loans from Countrywide Financial Corp. because he was a friend of founder Angelo Mozilo. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June had charged Mozilo with fraud and insider trading. [See pp. 537B2, 388C2; 2008, p. 412A2] Dodd had also drawn criticism for inserting legislative language into a February economic stimulus bill that allowed insurer American International Group Inc. (AIG) to pay $165 million in bonuses to its staff. AIG had received $180 billion in federal aid since late 2008 to save it from collapse. Dodd said he had inserted the provision at the request of the Obama administration. [See p. 161C3] Dodd had also caused some resentment in Connecticut by moving his family to Iowa during his long-shot bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He dropped out of the race in January 2008 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, August 13, 2009

the first contest of the primary season. [See 2008, p. 1A1] As chairman of the Banking Committee, Dodd had a key role in President Barack Obama’s plans for overhauling U.S. financial regulations. [See p. 407A1] Dodd had also stepped in to lead the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as it worked on major health care reform legislation during the extended absence of its chairman, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), who was battling brain cancer. [See p. 476F2] n Senate Ethics Panel Clears Dodd, Conrad.

The Senate Ethics Committee Aug. 7 said it had found “no credible evidence” that either Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) or Sen. Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) had violated Senate gift rules by improperly soliciting discounted mortgages they had both accepted from Countrywide Financial Corp. However, the committee, in letters to the two senators, said they “should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment.” [See p. 537B1; 2008, p. 412A2] It was reported in June 2008 that Dodd and Conrad had obtained preferential mortgage rates under a VIP program for friends of Countrywide’s then–chief executive officer, Angelo Mozilo. The senators had claimed to be unaware of receiving any special treatment. The allegations of impropriety had been particularly damaging to Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, who was up for reelection in 2010. The Ethics Committee’s investigation had been prompted by a complaint filed by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). CREW Aug. 7 criticized the committee for making a “practice” of absolving fellow senators of wrongdoing, and called for stricter rules for senators’ personal mortgage negotiations. n Sen. Martinez Sets Early Resignation. Sen. Mel Martinez (R, Fla.) Aug. 7 announced that he would resign once Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) appointed a replacement to finish his term, which would end in January 2011. Martinez in 2008 had said he did not plan to seek a second term, but his resignation with more than a year left in his term came as a surprise. [See p. 503F1; 2006, p. 877E2; 2004, p. 871B1] At a news conference in Orlando, Fla., he said, “This is of my own free will,” adding, “There is no impending reason, only my desire to move on and get on with the rest of my life.” He said he was in good health and wished to spend more time with his family. Crist said he would begin the process of selecting a replacement for the Senate seat immediately, and pledged not to appoint himself. Crist, a popular centrist, May 12 had announced that he would run for Martinez’s seat in 2010, so he was expected to appoint someone who would not seek another term after completing Martinez’s. Crist was viewed as the front-runner in a Republican Senate primary race against

conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio. Rep. Kendrick Meek was the top Democratic candidate for the seat. Crist’s Senate bid also cleared the field for the Florida gubernatorial election in 2010. Martinez, 62, had served as housing and urban affairs secretary under President George W. Bush. He was elected to the Senate in 2004. While a senator, he also served a simultaneous stint as general chairman of the Republican National Committee, the executive body of the Republican Party, from 2006 to 2007. Martinez, a native of Cuba, was the sole Hispanic Republican in the Senate. In his last major vote, he was one of only nine Republicans join Democrats Aug. 7 in voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice. She became the court’s first Hispanic member. [See p. 536D2] In July, another Republican, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas), had announced that she planned to resign later in the year to devote herself to a primary challenge against Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) had also resigned in July, with 18 months left in her first term. [See pp. 503D2, 455A2]

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Sen. Gillibrand Avoids Primary Fight—

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D, N.Y.) Aug. 7 announced that she had decided not to mount a primary challenge against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, N.Y.) in 2010. New York Gov. David Paterson had appointed Gillibrand in January to fill the seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Liberal Democrats had objected to Paterson’s choice, calling Gillibrand’s positions on gun control and other issues too conservative for the state. [See p. 46E2] Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) and other leaders of the state’s Democratic establishment had discouraged Maloney and others from challenging Gillibrand, warning that a divisive primary would give Republicans a chance at an upset victory in the general election. n

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Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills Senate Passes Agriculture Bill. The Senate

Aug. 4 voted, 80–17, to pass a $124.3 billion agricultural appropriations bill for fiscal 2010, which would begin Oct. 1. Mandatory spending was set at $100.8 billion, and discretionary spending at about $23 billion. Domestic food programs like food stamps would receive $86 billion. The legislation was currently slated for conference committee talks between the Senate and the House, which had passed its own version, to hammer out a final bill. [See p. 489E1] The Senate version of the bill notably included $350 million to increase milk price supports, government purchases of surplus milk. The amendment, if included in the final bill, was expected to result in higher milk prices. The price of milk had fallen by about 41% over the past year. The Senate bill would also lift a ban on poultry products imported from China, in contrast to the House version. n 537

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Transportation Bill Would Ban Texting While Driving. Demo-

cratic senators July 29 introduced legislation that would encourage states to ban text messaging while driving. Under the legislation, which was spearheaded by Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.), states would be required to pass laws banning the practice within two years, or lose a quarter of their federal highway funds annually. Text messaging while driving was illegal in 14 states. [See 2008, p. 678G3] The legislation was introduced just after data from two studies concerning cell phone usage by drivers were made public. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute July 28 published a report concluding that truck drivers who sent text messages while driving were 23 times more likely to become involved in a crash or near crash than an attentive driver. The New York Times July 21 had reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had withheld research which concluded that cell phone use by drivers was responsible for an estimated 955 deaths and 240,000 automobile accidents in 2002. The Times reported that then-NHTSA head Jeffrey Runge had decided not to publish the data for fear of angering Congress, which in 2003 had instructed the agency not to use its research to pressure states to pass certain legislation. n

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A private airplane Aug. 8 collided with a tourist helicopter above the Hudson River in New York City, killing all nine people aboard both aircraft, including five Italian tourists. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) the following day said it would investigate the accident. However, the investigation would be complicated by the fact that neither aircraft carried “black box” flight data recorders, required on larger flights. [See pp. 95C2, 33F1] In the days following the crash, local officials and other analysts raised questions about the safety of the Hudson River air traffic corridor, in which small aircraft were allowed to fly at altitudes below 1,100 feet (335 meters), where they were subject to few regulations and received no direction from air traffic controllers. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) Aug. 8 indicated that he opposed closing the low-altitude corridor, which many observers criticized as too crowded, because low-altitude flights along the Hudson were important to the city’s tourism industry. However, on Aug. 10 he said he would defer to aviation regulators’ recommendations on the matter. NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman Aug. 9 said both pilots were properly licensed and had passed appropriate medical exams. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Aug. 13 suspended two air traffic workers at New Jersey’s Teterboro airport. They had been responsible for overseeing 538

the small plane’s flight. One, a controller, had been having “inappropriate” telephone conversations at the time of the crash, and the other, a supervisor, was improperly absent from the building then. But the agency said their actions had probably not contributed to the accident. n News in Brief. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) July 9 said it had determined that billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett had died when his personal airplane became caught in a downdraft and crashed into a mountain. Investigators concluded that the wind was traveling downward at a rate of at least 300 feet per minute. Fossett had disappeared after heading out for a pleasure flight in 2007. His remains were discovered and identified through DNA analysis more than a year later. [See 2008, p. 818E2] All the plaintiffs in civil lawsuits over the 2007 Crandall Canyon mine collapse in Utah had agreed to a settlement, it was announced May 12. The terms of the payments were not released. Six miners and three rescuers had died in the cave-in. A federal criminal investigation into the mine collapse was also in progress. [See 2008, p. 219D1] n

Housing Report Finds Increase in Homeless Families.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) July 9 released its Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, finding that the estimated number of members of families who used homeless shelters between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, had risen by 9%, to about 516,700; the government in 2008 had reported that family homelessness had decreased by almost 20% from 2005 to 2007. Homelessness in rural and suburban areas also increased by 56%, although urban adult males were still the largest group of homeless individuals. [See p. 504E2; 2008, p. 905F1] The estimated overall number of sheltered homeless people remained relatively flat between 2007 and 2008 after years of declines, at about 1,594,000. The number of chronically homeless also remained constant, at about 124,000; that figure was based on a census of homeless people conducted on a single night in January. The worsening homelessness situation came in the midst of an ongoing nationwide recession and housing crisis. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said the statistics did not yet reflect the full impact of the economic downturn, and added that the department needed to devote more attention and funding to homeless families. HUD July 9 released $1.2 billion in stimulus funds for homeless services and rent relief. n

Civil Rights NYC Suburb Settles Desegregation Suit.

Westchester County, a largely affluent area of New York State north of New York City, Aug. 10 agreed to build or acquire 750 affordable housing units, mostly in towns

that were predominantly white, and to aggressively market them to minorities. The agreement with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Justice Department settled a $180 million lawsuit brought in 2007 by a New York City housing advocacy group, the Anti-Discrimination Center. The county Board of Legislators had to approve the settlement, and a $32.9 million bond sale to help finance the construction, within 45 days. [See 2007, p. 873E1] The county had settled after Judge Denise Cote of U.S. District Court in New York City Feb. 24 ruled that it had falsely claimed to have encouraged desegregation of predominantly white communities when it applied for federal housing funds, while actually failing to act against communities that discouraged the construction of lowincome housing and failing to monitor where such housing was built. The settlement was seen as a sign that the Obama administration would more closely monitor the policies of local governments that accepted federal housing funds. Yonkers, a city in Westchester, had settled a similar desegregation lawsuit in 2007, after fighting it for 27 years and nearly bankrupting itself in the process. n

Medicine & Health News in Brief. New Hampshire Gov. John

Lynch (D) July 10 vetoed a bill that would have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana by those with severe illnesses. Lynch said the measure lacked proper controls on the growth and distribution of the drug. He had also strongly opposed a provision, dropped from the final bill, that would have allowed patients to grow their own marijuana. The state’s legislature June 24 had cleared the bill, which would have created three “compassion centers” to grow the marijuana. [See 2008, p. 811C3] An FDA advisory panel June 30 voted, 20–17, to recommend that two widely prescribed painkillers, Percocet and Vicodin, be banned because of possible damaging effects on the liver. The two drugs combined acetaminophen with narcotics—oxycodone in Percocet and hydrocodone in Vicodin. Acetaminophen was known to cause liver damage in high doses, and taking Percocet and Vicodin in excess of recommended doses could be harmful. The panel also voted, 24–13, to lower the highest dosage in over-the-counter acetaminophen pills, like Tylenol, to 325 milligrams, from 500 milligrams. [See 2006, p. 1008D2] The Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the National Academy of Sciences, April 28 recommended that doctors refuse gifts, money and drug samples given to them by drug manufacturers. The institute also recommended that medical schools reassess their relationships with drugmakers to ensure there were no conflicts of interest, and that medical professional groups refuse funding for the development of patient treatment guidelines. The report suggested that Congress pass a law requiring drug and medical device manufacturers to pubFACTS ON FILE

licly disclose payments made to physicians. [See 2008, p. 791G3] The FDA April 22 said it would relax rules governing the sale of the emergency contraception medication Plan B, also known as the “morning after” pill. Under the new rules the medication would become available without a prescription to women as young as 17. A federal judge in March had ruled that the FDA’s 2006 decision to limit the drug to women over 18 had been politically motivated, and had ordered the FDA to reconsider its rule. The medication had engendered controversy, with some saying it was tantamount to having an abortion. [See p. 184D2] n

Religion Episcopal Church to Allow Gay Bishops.

The two legislative bodies of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, July 12 and 14 voted to approve a resolution stating that gays and lesbians were eligible for “any ordained ministry.” The measure in effect overturned a 2006 moratorium that said the church should “exercise restraint” by not electing gays and lesbians as bishops. Despite the moratorium, several gay priests in recent years had been nominated to serve as bishops, but none garnered enough support to be elected. Currently there was one openly gay Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who had been consecrated in 2003. [See below, p. 132E3; 2006, p. 594C1] The resolution stopped short of requiring all dioceses to allow gay bishops. It also affirmed the Episcopal Church’s “abiding commitment” to the worldwide Anglican Communion. However, analysts widely suggested that the move would intensify a split between liberal and conservative communities within the Anglican Communion. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams July 27 said in a statement on his Web site that there were two paths for Anglicans, one that adhered to the “covenantal structure” and another with “fewer formal expectations.” He added that Anglicans should discuss the two styles “not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication, but plainly as what they are—two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relations will certainly need working out.” Several conservative Episcopal dioceses in recent years had withdrawn from the Episcopal church and aligned with more conservative Anglican dioceses abroad. The Episcopal Church July 17 also approved a measure calling for the development of proposed ceremonies for “the blessing of same-gender relationships.” A report on the research would be presented in 2012, when the church would vote on whether to adopt the liturgies. Three Gay Priests Nominated—The Episcopal dioceses of Minnesota and Los Angeles, Calif., Aug. 1–2 nominated three openly gay priests to serve as bishops. The Los Angeles diocese, which sought to fill two assistant bishop positions, nominated August 13, 2009

Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, 55, of the diocese of Maryland, and Rev. John Kirkley, 42, of the diocese of California, as well as four heterosexual candidates. The diocese of Minnesota nominated Rev. Bonnie Perry, 47, of the diocese of Chicago, to serve as a bishop. Two others were tapped as nominees for the post. n

Crime News in Brief. Judge George Wu of U.S.

District Court in Los Angeles July 2 overturned three misdemeanor convictions returned by a jury against a Missouri woman who had created a false identity on MySpace, an Internet social networking Web site, and used it to mislead a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The woman, Lori Drew, 50, had been convicted of unauthorized computer access for violating MySpace’s terms of service, and had faced up to three years in prison and a $300,000 fine. Wu said in his ruling that the convictions had transformed a breach of contract into a criminal offense, and questioned whether MySpace had given sufficient notice of its terms of service to its members. [See 2008, p. 905F2] A former member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a 1970s radical group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974, May 10 was released from prison on parole in California. The parolee, James Kilgore, had spent more than 25 years in hiding under an assumed name before being arrested in South Africa in 2002. Kilgore had been convicted in 2003 on state charges for taking part in a 1975 bank robbery in which a bystander was killed, as well as on federal passport-fraud and explosives charges. He was paroled after serving three years of a six-year prison sentence. (He had previously served two years in prison on the federal charges.) He was allowed to move to Illinois, where his wife lived, following his release. [See 2004, p. 404B3] Devaughndre Broussard May 7 pleaded guilty in California’s Alameda County Superior Court to two counts of voluntary manslaughter in connection with the 2007 murder of Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey. As part of a plea agree-

ment with prosecutors, Broussard agreed to confess to the murder of Bailey and another person and to testify against his former employer, Yusuf Bey 4th, and an associate, Antoine Mackey, in exchange for a sentence of 25 years in prison. (Bey, who had allegedly ordered Bailey’s murder and two others, and Mackey, who was accused of carrying out the third murder, had been indicted on murder charges on April 29.) [See 2007, p. 530E1] Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York City April 30 sentenced Haji Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan businessman linked to the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, to life in prison following his December 2008 conviction on conspiracy charges related to drug smuggling. Attorneys for Noorzai, who

had been guaranteed a sentence of at least 10 years under federal mandatory mini-

mum sentencing guidelines, had claimed that he had been enticed to visit the U.S. under false pretenses by the U.S. government, leading to his arrest. [See 2008, p. 960C3] Judge Algenon Marbley of U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, March 27 sentenced Lance Poulsen, former chief executive officer (CEO) of health-care financing company National Century Financial Enterprises Inc., to 30 years in prison for his role in a $1.7 billion fraud. Poulsen had been convicted in October 2008 on charges stemming from a scheme to provide unsecured loans to health-care companies, and then deceiving investors who purchased the loans as bonds. The scheme unraveled in 2002, leading to the bankruptcy of Na-

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tional Century and 275 health-care facilities. Marbley March 27 also sentenced

former National Century Vice Chairwoman Rebecca Parrett to 25 years in prison. Parrett was currently at large; she had become a fugitive after being convicted of fraud in March 2008. [See 2008, p. 259D2] A man accused of sending 64 threatening letters filled with white powder (as well as an additional letter that did not contain white powder) to banks and government offices March 16 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, to one count of issuing threats and one count of making threats and hoaxes. The man, Richard Goyette, had targeted the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and bank branches of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The powder in the letters was later determined to be harmless. Goyette June 4 was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison and was ordered to pay $87,734.40 in restitution as well as a $5,000 fine. Goyette had reportedly sent the letters after losing money when Washington Mutual Inc. was seized by the FDIC and sold to J.P. Morgan Chase. [See 2008, pp. 959G1, 671C3] A jury in California’s Riverside County Superior Court March 6 convicted Raymond Oyler, a former auto mechanic, of five counts of first degree murder, 20 counts of arson and 17 counts of using an incendiary device for setting a series of wildfires that killed five firefighters in 2006. Judge W. Charles Morgan June 5 sentenced Oyler to death, as the jury had recommended. Oyler, 38, was eligible for capital punishment under California law because he was convicted of multiple murders that were committed during the commission of another felony. [See 2006, p. 930D3] Federal authorities Feb. 25 arrested Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, who were charged that day with several counts stemming from an alleged $667 million fraud. Greenwood and Walsh were accused of attracting $667 million in investments from universities, pension funds and charities, and then stealing $550 million for lavish personal expenditures. The SEC and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission that day filed civil complaints against the financiers, who had operated several investment companies, including WG Trading Co. and WG Trading Investors LP. n 539

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Aug. 4 began an 11-day tour of Africa that included stops in Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde. The tour followed U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Ghana in July, and U.S. officials said it demonstrated the administration’s commitment to enhancing the continent’s role in international affairs. Clinton’s talks mostly aimed at bolstering trade partnerships, while also addressing regional conflicts. [See p. 471D3] The visits to Africa by Obama and Clinton were the earliest to the continent by both the president and the secretary of state in any U.S. administration. Clinton had also departed from the traditional practice of making the secretary of state’s first official journey abroad to either Europe or the Middle East, instead visiting Asia in February. [See p. 108F3] Clinton’s first stop on the African tour was Kenya, where Obama’s father was born. She arrived in Nairobi, the capital, Aug. 4 to attend the next day’s African Growth and Opportunity Act Forum trade conference. In her speech to the forum, she urged African countries to expand exports to reduce their dependence on foreign aid. She also tied the continent’s economic progress to its “strong democratic institutions,” a link she would continue to stress in other countries on her trip. Addresses Kenyan Political Crisis—

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Clinton Aug. 5 met with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to discuss delays in the implementation of a power-sharing deal struck after a 2007 disputed presidential election led to ethnic clashes throughout the country. She urged the leaders to prosecute the perpetrators of the post-election violence, in which some 1,300 people were killed. Senior government officials and cabinet members were thought to be among the organizers of the violence. [See pp. 540F3, 221A3] Kibaki had announced in late July that the government would try suspects in domestic courts, rejecting proposals to create a special tribunal or refer cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands. Many Kenyans perceived their judiciary system as a corrupt institution that would shield members of the government from prosecution. Kibaki had vowed to expedite reforms to clean up the courts before the trials began. Prior to Clinton’s arrival, the U.S. embassy in Kenya Aug. 4 released a statement expressing deep concern over the country’s plans not to set up a special tribunal. The ICC, which had been handed a list of suspects by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, was threatening to try any alleged organizers of the post-election violence if Kenya neglected the issue. 540

On Aug. 6 in Nairobi, Clinton met with Somali interim President Sharif Ahmed in an attempt to bolster his beleaguered transitional government. Following the meeting, Clinton hailed Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, as the “best hope we’ve had for some time.” She also said the U.S. would provide Somalia with military equipment for its fight against radical Islamists led by the Al Shabab group. She asserted that Eritrea was supporting the insurgency, and warned that the U.S. would “take action” if it did not stop. Eritrea had denied aiding Al Shabab. [See p. 430A1] Travels to South Africa, Angola—Clinton Aug. 6 arrived in South Africa, and met the next day with International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite NkoanaMashabane. They discussed cooperation on a variety of topics, including climate change and the crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe. Following the meeting, NkoanaMashabane vowed to aid in Zimbabwe’s transition to a unity government created by a power-sharing deal following the violent fallout of a 2008 disputed presidential election. [See p. 152F1] The talks also appeared to ease tensions over South Africa’s HIV/AIDS policies, a subject that had strained relations between the U.S. and South Africa in recent years. Clinton called on South Africa to “make up for lost time,” in reference to the policies of former President Thabo Mbeki, which were widely criticized throughout the international community. Clinton Aug. 9 traveled to Durban to visit President Jacob Zuma. There, discussions continued on HIV/AIDS, as well as on some of the conflicts troubling the continent. [See p. 325E1] Clinton later that day arrived in Angola, one of the continent’s largest oil producers. After meeting in Luanda, the capital, with Foreign Minister Assuncao Afonso, Clinton called for a “timely” presidential election. The country had held a parliamentary vote in 2008, but otherwise had not held elections since 1992, when a disputed result restarted a civil war that raged until a truce was signed in 2002. During her visit, Clinton also oversaw the signing of an agricultural agreement between U.S. oil company Chevron Corp., the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Angolan petroleum ministry. [See 2008, p. 636A3]

dia coverage. In a question about Chinese contracts in the country, the student apparently asked for the opinion of Clinton’s husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton. In a sharp response, Hillary Clinton said, “My husband is not the secretary of state, I am.” Earlier in August, Bill Clinton had visited North Korea and quickly secured the release of two U.S. reporters who had been arrested in March, a dramatic return to the world stage that some observers saw as eclipsing his wife’s actions thus far as secretary of state. [See p. 517A1] Clinton the following day traveled with Kabila to the eastern city of Goma to meet with victims of sexual violence. There were estimates of as many as 400 rapes a month in the conflict-ridden provinces. Clinton called for the arrest and punishment of those responsible for the acts, condemning the violence as “the worst example of man’s inhumanity to women.” During her visit, she announced $17 million in new huminitarian aid to assist the victims. Wraps Up Tour in West Africa—Clinton Aug. 12–13 made stops in Nigeria and Liberia. In Nigeria, she met Aug. 12 with President Umaru Yar’Adua, hailing the country’s role in ending civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. She also supported efforts to fight corruption in advance of the 2011 presidential vote, following 2007 elections that were marred by widespread allegations of irregularities and fraud. [See 2008, p. 972E1] While discussing problems in Nigeria’s electoral system, she drew comparisons to the 2000 U.S. presidential race that went to a recount in Florida, where Jeb Bush, brother of candidate George W. Bush, was governor. Republicans in the U.S. denounced her remarks for breaking the tradition of refraining from disparaging domestic politicians while abroad. [See 2008, p. 837A1] Clinton Aug. 13 flew to Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, to meet Africa’s only female head of state, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Liberia, a country founded by freed U.S. slaves, was traditionally a strong ally of the U.S. in Africa. Clinton reaffirmed this position in her quick stopover, before departing for Cape Verde later that day. She was scheduled to leave Cape Verde for the U.S. Aug. 14. n

Condemns Sexual Violence in Congo—

On Aug. 10, Clinton flew to Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, to meet with President Joseph Kabila. She voiced concerns that illicit mining in the eastern Kivu provinces was fueling the conflict there. The violence had escalated in January, when Rwandan and Congolese troops launched a joint operation against Hutu militias, comprised mainly of Rwandan Hutu extremists who fled that country after leading a genocide in 1994 that killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. [See p. 34A1] Also that day in Kinshasa, a forum with Congolese students featured a testy response from Clinton to one of the students, which attracted intensive U.S. me-

Kenya Post-Election Violence Prosecutions Set.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki July 30 announced that domestic courts would try suspects linked to the ethnic violence that followed a disputed December 2007 presidential election. The decision came out of a cabinet meeting that day where other proposals—such as creating a special tribunal or using the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands—had been considered. Kibaki said he would expedite judicial reforms intended to reduce corruption, in response to concerns that the courts would shield government officials FACTS ON FILE

involved in organizing the violence. [See pp. 540E1, 202A3] The clashes had broken out after Kibaki, leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU), had been declared the winner over Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Allegations by the opposition of widespread vote-rigging led to months of ethnic violence that killed some 1,300 people and displaced more than 250,000 others. Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had mediated a February 2008 agreement to create a unity government, which led to Odinga’s swearing-in as prime minister in April 2008. The unity government had struggled to implement many of the reforms agreed upon in the 2008 accord, particularly the creation of a tribunal to probe the electionrelated violence. Kenya’s parliament had failed to approve the constitutional amendment necessary to establish the tribunal. The cabinet July 20 postponed a decision on whether to pursue the allegations through domestic courts or the ICC. Both Odinga and Kibaki reportedly preferred using local courts, while recent polls indicated most Kenyans desired the cases to be heard by the ICC. Annan July 9 had provided the ICC with a list of the top suspected organizers of the violence in an effort to increase pressure on the government to establish the tribunal. The names on the list were not disclosed, but reportedly included several influential businessmen and politicians. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a state-run agency, July 17 released a list of 219 people and organizations suspected of crimes in the post-election violence. The list included such prominent names as Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta of the PNU and Agriculture Minister William Ruto of n the ODM.

AMERICAS

North American Leaders Meet in Mexico Talks Focus on Trade, Swine Flu. U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa Aug. 9–10 met for an annual North American Leaders Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico. It was Obama’s first joint meeting with the leaders of Canada and Mexico since he had taken office in January, although he had already met with both separately. The leaders during their talks reportedly discussed recovery from the global economic downturn, the increase in drug trade–related violence in Mexico and the continuing spread of the A(H1N1) swine influenza virus, as well as issues related to trade, energy, climate and security. [See pp. 502A1, 270E3, 91F1; 2008, p. 280F3] Annual summits between the three countries, whose economies were heavily dependent on one another, had begun in 2005. Obama and Calderon Aug. 9 met for bilateral discussions that reportedly focused August 13, 2009

on Calderon’s efforts to combat the illegal drug trade in Mexico, which had led to an epidemic of deadly violence. The pair also discussed ways to share information on the new swine flu virus, which was thought to have originated in Mexico. [See p. 480C3] Calderon also reportedly raised the possibility of canceling a provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allowing Mexican truckers to operate in the U.S. The U.S. Congress in March had canceled a pilot program allowing border crossings by Mexican trucks. In response, Mexico had imposed billions of dollars worth of new tariffs on U.S. goods. [See p. 447E2] Both Canada and Mexico had also expressed concerns over the so-called Buy American provision of a recently enacted $787 billion U.S. stimulus plan, requiring many public works projects to use materials manufactured in the U.S. The provisions were reportedly discussed during the meeting of all three leaders Aug. 10. Obama that day defended the provision, and did not announce a plan to address the concerns. “We have not seen some sweeping steps toward protectionism,” he said. [See p. 90D3] U.S. Immigration Reform to Wait—

Obama Aug. 10, at a news conference ending the two-day summit, said his administration would not focus on substantially reforming the U.S. immigration system until 2010, citing the need to center legislative efforts on other important issues, including health care reform, financial regulation and climate change. “We can create a system in which you have strong border security and an orderly process for people to come in, but we’re also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so that they don’t have to live in the shadows,” Obama said. Mexico-Canada relations had recently been strained when Canada July 14 enacted a rule requiring Mexicans, as well as Czechs, to obtain a visa before traveling to the country. Canada said the surge of people from those countries seeking refugee status had necessitated the visa requirement. About 9,400 Mexicans had sought refugee status in 2008, triple the 2005 number. In response, Mexico had required Canadian diplomats and officials to obtain visas, but had not extended the requirement to Canadian nationals for fear it would reduce tourism revenues. Also at the meeting, all three leaders expressed support for Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the Honduran president ousted by the military in late June in a bloodless coup d’etat. The U.S. had faced criticism from some, among them Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, for not advocating strongly enough for Zelaya’s return. [See p. 507F3] n

Other Americas News Colombia-U.S. Ties Focus of Latin Summit.

Members of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a South American re-

gional political group, Aug. 10 met in Quito, Ecuador’s capital. At the meeting, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa assumed the rotating presidency of the organization. (Correa the same day was sworn in to a second term as Ecuadoran president, after winning reelection in April.) The summit was dominated by concerns over negotiations for the U.S. to use Colombian military bases. [See 2008, p. 453B1] Details of the base agreement, currently being negotiated, had not been released. However, the pact reportedly would allow the U.S. use of seven bases, and the Colombian government said the number of U.S. personnel and contractors allowed in the country would be limited to 1,400. U.S. advisers had been training Colombian troops since 2000. The U.S. sought to move the headquarters of its South American antinarcotics operations from Ecuador to Colombia, after Ecuador declined to renew the lease on a U.S. military base there, set to expire in November. [See 2008, p. 705F1] Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, a strident critic of the U.S., lambasted the U.S.-Colombia negotiations. “This could provoke a war in South America,” he said. Bolivian President Evo Morales Aima, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez and Correa also expressed unease with the agreement, which Morales had said was aimed at undermining leftist governments like his and Chavez’s. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez did not attend the meeting. Despite the criticisms, UNASUR members were unable to reach consensus on a statement rejecting the long-term use of Colombian military bases by the U.S. Some countries, while expressing misgivings about the agreement, said they accepted Colombia’s rights as a sovereign nation. UNASUR leaders said they would reconvene to discuss the issue again following a preliminary meeting for defense ministers scheduled for Aug. 27. Uribe the week before the UNASUR summit had quickly organized a tour of South America to bolster support for the U.S. agreement. Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez was the only leader to explicitly endorse Colombia’s negotiations with the U.S. Relations between Colombia and Venezuela had deteriorated recently, after it was revealed in July that Colombian rebels with the Marxist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had been found in possession of Swedish-built rockets sold to Venezuela in the 1980s and 1990s. Colombia had long alleged that Venezuela supported FARC, charges that Venezuela rejected. In response to the new allegations, Chavez had withdrawn Venezuela’s diplomats from Colombia. [See p. 526B2] Chavez Aug. 8 instructed his ambassador to Colombia, Gustavo Marquez, to return to Bogota, Colombia’s capital, 11 days after he was recalled. Chavez Aug. 9 accused Colombia of sending an army patrol across the Venezuelan border, which 541

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Indonesia Bombing Suspects Arrested, Killed. Indo-

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nesian police and antiterrorism operatives investigating July bombing attacks against two U.S.-owned hotels in Jakarta, the capital, Aug. 7–8 killed three suspected militants and arrested at least five others in two separate raids on residences on the Indonesian island of Java. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, chief of the Indonesian National Police, Aug. 8 said one of the raids had foiled a planned assassination attempt against Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. [See p. 494D2] Police Aug. 8 raided a home near Yudhoyono’s residence, killing two suspected militants who had reportedly been carrying explosives. The police seized bomb components, more than 100 kg (220 pounds) of explosives and a truck, which were thought to have been procured as part of a planned suicide bomb attack targeting Yudhoyono. The two deceased militants were reportedly suspects in the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta. [See 2004, p. 700B3] Indonesia’s Detachment 88 antiterrorism squad Aug. 7 had surrounded a house in the town of Temanggung after arresting two men thought to be related to the house’s owner, and stormed the house Aug. 8 after a stand-off that lasted at least 17 hours. One suspected militant was killed during the raid. Indonesian media Aug. 8 reported that the suspected militant killed in the Temanggung raid was Noordin Mohammed Top, a member of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) Islamist terrorist group who had been linked to multiple bombing attacks in Indonesia, including the July hotel bombings. However, the Indonesian National Police Aug. 12 announced that DNA testing had instead identified the deceased as Ibrohim, a former florist at the two bombed Jakarta hotels who was suspected of involvement in the July attacks. A spokesman for the Indonesian National Police Aug. 12 announced that the investigation into the July hotel bombings had concluded, and said that while “three to five” of the suspects in the case were still at large, eight had been captured. n Presidential Election Results Upheld. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court Aug. 12 rejected lawsuits from unsuccessful presidential candidates Megawati Sukarnoputri and Jusuf Kalla, the current vice president, that had challenged the results of the country’s July presidential election, ruling that the claims made by the plaintiffs were “legally baseless.” Megawati and Kalla had alleged that systematic electoral fraud benefiting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had been reelected by a wide margin, had rendered the election invalid. [See p. 461G2] Constitutional Court Head Judge Mohammad Mahfud said during the hearing 542

that while “there were various election violations, both administrative and criminal,” the violations had not been shown to be “structured, systematic and massive” and “did not cause the election to be void or illegal.” Attorneys representing Megawati and Kalla said both candidates would accept the ruling and cease challenging the legitimacy of Yudhoyono’s victory. Indonesia’s National Election Commission July 24 had publicly released final results for the presidential election that confirmed earlier reports of a Yudhoyono victory. The final results showed Yudhoyono receiving 60.8% of the approximately 121 million votes counted in the election, versus 26.8% for Megawati and 12.4% for Kalla. By winning more than 50% of the national vote, and at least 20% of the vote in each of Indonesia’s 33 provinces, Yudhoyono was able to avoid a runoff election with Megawati. n Violence Near Mine Kills Three in Papua.

Gunmen July 11–22 killed three people and wounded at least 12 others in a series of attacks near a gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s Papua region. Operations at the mine, owned by U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., were reportedly largely unaffected by the violence. The attacks were the most serious against the mine since the 2002 killing of an Indonesian and two U.S. citizens. [See 2006, pp. 1022F2, 246F1] The military blamed the attacks on Papuan separatists active in the region for decades. However, police said no evidence had been found linking separatist groups to the attacks. Some observers suggested that they could have been carried out by security forces paid to protect the mine in order to increase demand for their services. The mine, which was one of the world’s largest in size and output, had been constructed under the regime of Suharto, the country’s longtime authoritarian president. It was seen by some in Papua as a symbol of the Indonesian government’s continued domination of the region, which was impoverished despite being rich in natural resources. Gunmen Strike in Ambushes—In the first attack, gunmen July 11 shot and killed Australian mine technician Drew Grant as he drove on a road connecting the mine to the nearby town of Timika. Markus Rattealo, an Indonesian security guard for the mine, July 12 was fatally shot by gunmen while assisting a group of police officers investigating Grant’s murder. The attack sparked a shoot-out between police and gunmen in which seven people were wounded. The body of a police officer who had disappeared during the skirmish was found July 13; he was thought to have died after falling down a ravine while trying to escape the fighting. Gunmen July 15 ambushed a group of police officers on the road, wounding two officers, one of them critically. Following the ambush, Freeport reportedly ordered its workers not to use the road, making it difficult for hundreds of them to make their way to and from work.

A group of mine workers and police officers who were responding to a car accident on the road July 22 were attacked by gunmen, leaving three people wounded. The crash had reportedly left one person dead. Arrests Made in Shootings—Papua police July 21 announced that they had arrested 14 people in connection with the mine shootings. Police July 30 arrested five more people in connection with the shootings, including four Freeport employees. The police July 31 announced that one of the Freeport employees was being treated as a suspect in the shootings, and that the other four people arrested had been released. Police July 27 announced that they had charged seven people with murder and the illegal possession of weapons in connection with the shootings, including two Freeport employees. It was unclear what positions the two employees held at the company. Police July 31 said murder and weapons charges linked to the shootings had been filed against two others. n

Malaysia Protest Held Against Security Law. Police

Aug. 1 used force to disperse at least 10,000 peaceful demonstrators who had assembled in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, to protest the government’s use of the Internal Security Act, a British colonial-era law that allowed indefinite detention without charge for reasons of national security. The unauthorized protest was the largest demonstration in Malaysia since November 2007. Malaysian law barred public gatherings of four or more people without a permit. [See p. 223D1; 2007, p. 828G3] Anwar Ibrahim, the head of the opposition People’s Alliance coalition, led the protest. He told the crowd, “We gather here today to fight a cruel law under a cruel administration.” Anwar had previously been detained under the law, which had been used against political dissidents as well as suspected terrorists and others allegedly threatening national security. About 5,000 police officers were sent to disperse the crowd using chemically treated water and tear gas. The police said they had arrested a total of 589 protesters; only 39 remained in custody as of Aug. 2, according to an opposition lawyer. Among those arrested was Sivarasa Rasiah, the vice president of Anwar’s People’s Justice Party (PKR), which belonged to the People’s Alliance. Sivarasa Aug. 3 was released on bail, but was ordered to report to a police station Aug. 17 to face possible charges of illegal assembly; if convicted, he faced up to one year in prison and a fine. Analysts suggested that the crackdown on protesters could hurt the liberal image of Prime Minister Najib Razak, Anwar’s political rival, potentially benefiting the People’s Alliance. Najib had said he would consider amending the Internal Security Act, and had released 13 prisoners held under the law since taking office in April. Najib’s ruling National Front coalition had been in power since the end of British FACTS ON FILE

rule in 1957, but had been weakened in recent years by the rise of the People’s Alliance. The opposition coalition brought together parties representing the country’s Indian and Chinese ethnic minorities, as well as liberal members of the Malay ethnic majority and devout Muslims. The Malaysian Bar Council, a legal organization that represented more than 12,000 of the country’s lawyers, Aug. 3 issued a statement condemning the police crackdown on the protesters. The council argued that Najib’s “government appears determined to continue stifling public opinion, persecuting and punishing those who dare speak out while blaming them for creating unrest and disorder.” It asserted that the government’s actions violated the “constitutionally protected rights” of Malaysia’s citizens. n

Myanmar Suu Kyi Convicted, Sentenced to 18 Months.

A court controlled by Myanmar’s ruling military junta Aug. 11 convicted pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of violating the terms of her house arrest and sentenced her to three years in prison. However, her sentence was subsequently commuted by Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the junta, to 18 months of house arrest, on the grounds that Suu Kyi was the daughter of independence hero Gen. Aung San, and because the junta did not want to increase instability or national divisions prior to planned 2010 democratic elections. [See pp. 462D2, 327D2] Suu Kyi, who had been detained for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, had been charged along with two of her housekeepers in connection with a May incident in which a U.S. citizen carried out a two-day unauthorized visit to her residence in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The housekeepers, Win Ma Ma and Khin Khin Win, were also sentenced to three years before having the sentences commuted to 18 months of house arrest. They were expected to be allowed to stay with Suu Kyi during their detention. The U.S. citizen, John Yettaw, Aug. 11 was convicted of violating Suu Kyi’s house arrest, breaking immigration laws and swimming in a restricted area. He was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. He reportedly suffered from epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes, and had been hospitalized Aug. 3–11 after a series of seizures. Lawyers for Suu Kyi and Yettaw Aug. 12 said they would appeal their sentences. Verdict, Sentence Condemned—United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who had visited Myanmar in July, Aug. 11 said he “strongly deplores” Suu Kyi’s conviction and continued detention, and called for the release of Suu Kyi and all of Myanmar’s estimated 2,100 political prisoners. The U.N. Security Council Aug. 12 met on the urging of the French government to consider whether to issue a statement condemning Myanmar’s treatment of Suu Kyi and calling for her immediate release. However, August 13, 2009

Russia and China reportedly rejected the proposed statement on the grounds that it would improperly interfere with Myanmar’s internal affairs. [See p. 462D1] French President Nicolas Sarkozy Aug. 11 announced that his government would push the European Union to impose new sanctions on Myanmar banning the importation of Myanmar rubies and hardwood. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Suu Kyi’s trial was a “sham,” and called for a U.N. embargo on weapons sales to Myanmar. Myanmar was also criticized by U.S. President Barack Obama, and the governments of Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, among others. However, India and China, both major trading partners of Myanmar’s regime, did not publicly criticize the verdict. [See below] The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which included Myanmar, Aug. 12 issued a statement that expressed “deep disappointment” over Myanmar’s decision to convict and detain Suu Kyi. ASEAN had traditionally been unwilling to criticize human rights abuses or the mistreatment of political dissidents by its member nations. However, Thailand, which currently chaired the group, had called for Suu Kyi’s release in July. [See p. 495C3] Defense Challenges Legal Basis of Trial—

Attorney Khin Moe Moe July 10 testified on behalf of the defense that Suu Kyi was being prosecuted under a provision in the country’s 1974 constitution that had been superseded by a new constitution adopted in 1988. She argued that the charges were invalid because the laws Suu Kyi was accused of violating had not existed for more than 20 years. (Khin Moe Moe had previously been barred from testifying by the court, but her testimony was later allowed.) [See p. 462E2] Suu Kyi’s trial concluded July 28 following closing arguments by attorneys for the prosecution and the defense. Suu Kyi’s attorneys argued that her house arrest had been illegally extended by the government, making it impossible for her to violate its terms, and noted Khin Moe Moe’s testimony that Suu Kyi was being prosecuted under a lapsed law. Following the hearing, Suu Kyi reportedly thanked foreign diplomats who were in attendance for attempting to “promote a just outcome” in the case. Myanmar’s state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper July 28 published an article suggesting that Yettaw’s visit to Suu Kyi’s residence could have been part of an attempt to assist Suu Kyi in escaping, and that he had been sent there by unidentified person or groups. The next day, the newspaper published an editorial claiming that anyone who publicly speculated about whether Suu Kyi would be convicted or not could be prosecuted for contempt of court. Myanmar’s government July 31 said the announcement of a verdict in Suu Kyi’s case would be delayed until Aug. 11 due to unidentified legal complications in the case. Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) party Aug. 3 publicly released a transcript of Suu Kyi’s July 24 testimony in the case. In her testi-

mony, Suu Kyi argued that her alleged crime could not be fairly examined without a simultaneous examination of the legality of her house arrest, which had been extended for six consecutive years, one year more than allowed under Myanmar’s law. She also suggested that the verdict in her case would reflect on the current state of the judicial system in Myanmar. U.S., EU Extend Sanctions—Obama July 28 signed legislation extending U.S. economic sanctions against Myanmar that were put into place by the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. (Myanmar had been known as Burma prior to 1989.) The bill barred all importation of jade and other gems from Myanmar, even when they were not directly purchased from sources within the country. [See p. 360D1] The EU Aug. 13 announced that it had extended sanctions, including asset freezes and bans on travel to Europe, to cover judges who oversaw Suu Kyi’s case, as well as 60 companies linked to the junta. However, critics said the refusal of India and China to support sanctions backed by the U.S. and EU had reduced the effectiveness of the measures. Junta to Consider Amnesty— U Than Swe, Myanmar’s ambassador to the U.N., July 13 said his government was considering releasing political prisoners in order to allow them to participate in the 2010 elections. Their release had reportedly been pushed by Ban during his visit earlier in July, along with other recommendations intended to advance democracy and political reconciliation in Myanmar. U Than Swe said Myanmar intended to put “all appropriate recommendations” made by Ban into place. The New Light of Myanmar June 6 reported that representatives of the junta had met with four high-ranking members of NLD on June 5 in order to reprimand the group for its continued criticism of Suu Kyi’s arrest and detention. The government reportedly argued that the NLD was “misleading the public” by criticizing Suu Kyi’s trial. A court controlled by the junta June 16 sentenced two supporters of Suu Kyi to 18 months in prison following their conviction on charges of insulting religion. The two defendants had been accused of holding prayers for Suu Kyi’s release at a Buddhist pagoda in the town of Twante, about 40 km (25 miles) south of Yangon. Security officers July 19 arrested 20 NLD members who were marching to the mausoleum of Aung San, Suu Kyi’s father. The NLD members were reportedly briefly questioned and then released without charge. Aung San had been assassinated on July 19, 1947, and the anniversary of his death was celebrated annually in Myanmar as Martyr’s Day. Security forces July 31 detained 28 members of the NLD and other opposition groups. Some of those detained were reportedly later freed without charge. Khin Yi, the head of Myanmar’s national police force, Aug. 7 announced that 15 people, including members of the NLD and 543

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other opposition groups, had been arrested for plotting to plant explosive devices in order to disrupt Ban’s July visit. (Separately, government security forces July 12 had reportedly cited explosives charges in arresting three members of the NLD handing out photographs of Suu Kyi in Yangon.) Khin Yi also said at least 20 security officers who had failed to prevent Yettaw from entering Suu Kyi’s compound had been demoted in rank and that an undisclosed number had been jailed. n

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Azerbaijan Bloggers Detained on Hooliganism Charges.

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Two prominent Azerbaijani bloggers, Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, July 8 were arrested after they complained to police that they had been beaten up in a restaurant. The police arrested the bloggers on charges of hooliganism, claiming that they had attacked two other individuals who were “trying to restore order in the restaurant.” Hajizada and Milli’s arrest came about a month after they posted a satirical video on the Internet, which reportedly lampooned the Azerbaijani government for paying huge amounts of money to import donkeys. They faced as many as five years in prison. [See p. 252F3] Human rights activists suggested that the bloggers’ arrest had been planned. London-based rights group Amnesty International July 17 said, “This is not the first case in which the Azerbaijani authorities have used criminal charges to silence peaceful dissenting voices.” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt July 20, in Baku, the capital, said he had “informed [President] Ilham Aliyev about [the European Union’s] concern over the arrest of the youth activists.” A court in Baku July 20 rejected the bloggers’ appeal for pretrial release, and ruled that they should be detained until their trial. n

Great Britain Intelligence Chief Denies Torture Complicity.

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Sir John Scarlett, head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6, in an interview aired by the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 10 denied allegations that MI6 had been complicit in the torture of terrorism suspects interrogated in other countries. Scarlett’s interview was reportedly the first ever given by a serving head of the secretive MI6. [See pp. 505G2, 112E1] Scarlett dismissed the allegations, declaring, “No torture, and there is no complicity with torture.” He added that MI6 officers “have the responsibility of protecting the country against terrorism, and these issues need to be debated and understood in that context.” The Joint Human Rights Committee of the two chambers of Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, Aug. 4 had called on the government to order an independent inquiry into the matter, citing 544

a “disturbing number of credible allegations” of British complicity in torture. The committee said government ministers had proven “determined to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and accountability” in the matter. A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he did not support the calls for an inquiry. Two cabinet ministers, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson, in a joint op-ed article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper Aug. 9 denied the allegations of collusion in torture. But they said Britain could not have “the same level of assurance” that prisoners would be treated according to British standards “when they are held by foreign governments, whose obligations and practices may differ from our own.” Seven former detainees of the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had filed a lawsuit against the British government, alleging that British officials had “aided and abetted” their torture by providing their interrogators with intelligence. Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian native and legal British resident who had been released without charge from Guantanamo in February, claimed that he had been tortured in Pakistan and Morocco with British collusion. He had been arrested in Pakistan in 2002, and transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. A British government lawyer July 29 said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had warned Miliband that the U.S. might restrict intelligence cooperation with Britain if the British High Court released a classified section of an August 2008 ruling on Mohamed’s case. The court had initially sealed the section in question in response to a similar warning from the previous U.S. administration of President George W. Bush. Mohamed’s lawyers and several media organizations had sued for the release of the material. Other Cases—In addition to Mohamed’s case, the parliamentary joint committee cited the claims of Salahuddin Amin, who had been sentenced to prison in 2007 in connection with a bombing plot against Britain. Amin had been arrested in Pakistan, and said he had been tortured during his detention there, where he was also questioned by British intelligence officers. [See 2007, p. 285D1] Another man convicted on terrorism charges in Britain, Rangzieb Ahmed, also said he had been tortured after being arrested in Pakistan and before being turned over to Britain. David Davis, a former member of the opposition Conservative Party’s leadership team, July 7 said in Parliament that British police had allowed Ahmed to leave the country in 2006 despite having evidence against him, and that British intelligence had then suggested that Pakistan arrest him, in what Davis called an “obvious case of the outsourcing of torture.” Ahmed, accused of being a top operative in Britain of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network, had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison in December 2008 on charges of directing terrorism. n

Russia Chechen Charity Head Abducted, Murdered.

Zarema Sadulayeva, the head of Save the Generations, a charity that helped young people affected by violence in Russia’s southern republic of Chechnya, and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, Aug. 11 were found dead in the trunk of their car in a suburb of Grozny, Chechnya’s regional capital. Both had gunshot wounds to the head and chest. They had been abducted from the charity’s main office in Grozny the previous day. The Russian prosecutor general’s office opened an investigation into the murders, which came less than a month after the abduction and murder of Natalya Estemirova, a Chechen human rights activist. [See p. 497B1] Dzhabrailov had previously served time in prison for participating in a Chechen separatist movement. He had been released from detention several months before his murder. He and Sadulayeva had married shortly after his release. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office Investigations Administration for Chechnya Aug. 12 said, “The number of abductions [in Chechnya] in the first six months of the year grew 475% year-on-year from four to 23, while the number of murders increased 50%, from 52 to 78.” Tatyana Lokshina, the director of the Moscow branch of Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy group, Aug. 11 said that “working in Chechnya is now impossible for rights groups. The level of risk is over the top.” Other News—In other Russian Caucasus news: o Ruslan Amerkhanov, the construction minister for the republic of Ingushetia, Aug. 12 was shot dead at point-blank range in his office. He had reportedly been investigating corruption within the republic’s construction industry. [See below, p. 497C2] o Malik Akhmedilov, a reporter for the newspaper Hakikat, or “The Truth,” Aug. 11 was discovered dead in a car near Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan republic. He was also the editor of the monthly newspaper Sogratl, or “Mountain Village,” and was known for his investigative reports on unsolved assassinations in Dagestan. [See p. 497E2] o Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who survived a June assassination attempt, Aug. 10 was released from a Moscow hospital. In remarks to reporters, he emphasized his commitment to fighting militants and corruption in Ingushetia. He was expected to return to work later that month. [See p. 497D2] o Three reportedly unarmed workers from the Russian emergency situations ministry Aug. 2 were killed in Ingushetia when militants fired on their car. o Isa Yamadayev, a figure opposed to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, July 29 said he had survived an assassination attempt carried out the previous day. A Moscow court spokeswoman said the court had “sanctioned the arrest” of a suspected atFACTS ON FILE

tacker the same day. Yamadayev’s brothers Ruslan and Sulim had been killed in September 2008 and in March, respectively. Both had also been regarded as opponents of Kadyrov. [See p. 329A1] o Col. Magomed Gadaborshev, Ingushetia’s top police official, July 10 died in a hospital, three days after he was shot outside a shopping center in Nazran, the republic’s main city. n

Other European News Germany, France Post Economic Growth.

Germany and France Aug. 13 both reported that their economies recorded gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 0.3% in the second quarter of 2009, compared with the previous quarter. They rebounded from first-quarter contractions of 3.5% in Germany and 1.3% in France. [See pp. 521D3, 417D2] The combined GDP of the eurozone, comprised of 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency, had contracted for the fifth consecutive quarter, at a quarterly rate of 0.1% in the second quarter, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported Aug. 13. The German and French economies were the largest in the eurozone. Their unexpected resurgence eased the downturn in the eurozone, whose GDP had shrunk by 2.5% in the first quarter. However, secondquarter eurozone GDP was down 4.6% from a year earlier, indicating that Europe was still in the grip of a severe recession. The U.S. two weeks earlier had reported that its GDP contracted by 1.0% in the second quarter, on an annual basis. Britain, which was not part of the eurozone, July 24 had reported that its GDP contracted in the second quarter at a 0.8% quarterly rate, or 5.6% at an annual rate, the biggest annual drop since 1955. Eurostat July 31 reported that the unemployment rate in the eurozone rose to 9.4% in June, the highest level in 10 years. Meanwhile, consumer prices in July fell at a record 0.6% compared with a year earlier, raising concerns about deflation. n

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Iraq Bombings Hit Shiite Areas, Killing 113.

A series of bombings largely targeting Shiite Muslim areas of Iraq Aug. 7–11 killed at least 113 people. The attacks were the worst since major U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraqi cities in June, and were blamed on Sunni Muslim insurgents seeking to provoke sectarian bloodshed. However, Shiite clerics and leaders had counseled patience, and there were no reported retaliatory attacks. [See p. 529G1] A truck bomb Aug. 7 detonated outside a Shiite mosque and funeral hall used by members of the Turkmen ethnic group near the northern city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province. The bombing, in the village of Shirakhan, killed at least 37 people, and destroyed at least 10 houses. Also that August 13, 2009

day, roadside bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killed at least 12 people, according to Iraqi police. Another bomb planted that day on a motorcycle in western Baghdad killed at least six people, including three policemen. Two trucks packed with powerful explosives early Aug. 10 blew up, leveling the village of Khazna, near Mosul, and killing at least 28 people. Khazna was mostly inhabited by Shabaks, members of a Shiite Kurdish-speaking minority group. Although the village was in Nineveh, which was governed by Arabs, it was located in a disputed area that was also claimed by the semiautonomous Kurdistan region, and was largely controlled by Kurdish pesh merga security forces. The Iraqi federal government and the Kurds each blamed the other side for allowing the bombing to occur. Also Aug. 10, two separate bombs went off near day laborers waiting for work in Baghdad’s mostly Shiite Shurta and Amil neighborhoods, killing nine and seven people, respectively. Several other bombings across Baghdad later that day killed at least six people. Four bombs Aug. 11 went off within minutes of each other in the predominantly Shiite Amin al-Thaniyah neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least eight people. Blast Barriers to Be Removed—The Iraqi government Aug. 5 announced that it would remove most of the blast barriers that clogged Baghdad’s streets within 40 days. The barriers, which had been erected starting in 2006 by U.S. forces, had been meant to block insurgents’ access to sensitive areas and prevent easy getaways, and to separate neighborhoods with rival sectarian groups. However, they also blocked traffic and added to Baghdad’s grim atmosphere. The government’s move was seen as an attempt to make the city feel more peaceful and normal. In another attempt to improve living conditions, the Iraqi cabinet Aug. 6 said it would introduce a bill that would ban smoking in all public buildings, government offices, schools, movie theaters and public and private transportation. The bill would need to be approved by parliament, and supporters said it might be backed both by proWestern progressive parties for its health benefits, and by conservative Sunnis who held that Islam forbade smoking. However, smoking was widespread in Iraq, and many Iraqis said it was doubtful that a ban would be followed or could be easily enforced. Contractor Allegedly Kills Two—A British security contractor Aug. 9 allegedly fatally shot two of his coworkers in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, then shot and injured an Iraqi as he was trying to escape, before being arrested. The alleged shooter was identified as Danny Fitzsimons, and the slain contractors were Briton Paul McGuigan and Australian Darren Hoare. All three worked for ArmorGroup Iraq, which was owned by British security contracting company G4S PLC. Foreign contractors in January had lost their immunity to Iraqi prosecution, under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, and

Fitzsimons could be the first foreign security contractor tried under Iraqi law. [See p. 398A3] n

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Other Middle East News Fatah Holds Party Conference. The Palestinian nationalist movement Fatah Aug. 4– 11 held its first party conference since 1989 in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. The more than 2,000 delegates attending the conference Aug. 8 overwhelmingly reelected Mahmoud Abbas—the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controlled the West Bank—as the party’s leader. [See p. 403E1; 1989, p. 300C3] The conference was seen as a chance for Fatah to rejuvenate itself. The movement, which was seen as corrupt and divided, had lost 2006 parliamentary elections to the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), and Hamas in 2007 had driven Fatah from the Gaza Strip. “We have made mistakes,” Abbas said at the conference’s opening Aug. 4, adding that the conference should be a “platform for a new start.” [See 2007, p. 379A1; 2006, p. 41A1] Abbas after his election Aug. 8 pledged that Fatah would continue to work towards establishing an independent Palestinian state. He said Fatah’s past armed resistance to Israel had been appropriate, but that the movement was now committed to nonviolence. Abbas had run unopposed, and only 65 delegates did not vote for him. Fatah Aug. 11 held its first elections since 1989 for the Central Committee, Fatah’s main decision-making body. According to preliminary results, 14 of the 18 people elected to the committee had not served on it before, including Saeb Erekat, the top Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel. The new members, many of whom were of a younger generation than the outgoing members, had grown up in the Palestinian territories rather than in exile. They were largely seen as more pragmatic and willing to work with Israel. However, one of the newly elected members was Marwan Barghouti, a militant and politician who was considered a leader of Fatah’s younger generation, but was serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his involvement in five deaths during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel, which began in 2000. Israel had permitted Fatah delegates to enter the West Bank from other Arab nations such as Lebanon and Syria. However, Hamas had prevented 300 Fatah delegates from leaving Gaza, and they were forced to vote by telephone. Israeli officials protested a statement from Fatah maintaining that the movement reserved the right to continue resistance to Israel “in all its forms.” They also criticized a resolution claiming that Israel had poisoned Fatah founder Yasir Arafat, who died in 2004. [See 2005, p. 621A1] Arab States Rebuff U.S. Peace Moves—

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal July 31 refused to agree to incentives to encourage Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians, such as granting visas to Israeli citizens and opening air corridors, and said 545

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peace would not come from “incrementalism and the step-by-step approach.” Speaking while on a visit to Washington, D.C., he claimed that Israel was trying to distract attention from the peace process by focusing on minor issues. He called for the terms of a peace deal to be defined “at the outset” of talks, and that from there the two sides should address so-called final-status issues, such as the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel and the status of Jerusalem. Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh Aug. 3 also rejected reaching out to Israel. U.S. President Barack Obama July 13 had said that he had written letters to Arab leaders promoting such confidence-building measures as a step towards restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks. The U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, held meetings with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the peace process June 30 in New York City and July 6 in London. Mitchell July 27 met with Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and July 28 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Mitchell reportedly discussed freezing all settlement growth in the West Bank with the Israelis, but Netanyahu said some construction was necessary to account for “natural growth,” referring to population growth from births or adoptions. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman July 6 had said he had recused himself from talks with the U.S. because he lived in a settlement, which he said could be seen as a conflict of interest. However, there was speculation that he had been marginalized from the negotiations because of his hard-line views. Hamas chief Khaled Meshal, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published July 31, called on Israel to freeze settlement growth, stop its blockade of the Gaza Strip and agree to the right of return and the establishment of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. If it did those things, he said, Hamas would agree to a cease-fire with Israel and a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. He said Hamas would also swap Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who had been captured in 2006, for some of its fighters. However, Meshal did not say he would recognize Israel’s right to exist. [See p. 210E2] East Jerusalem Building Proceeds—

Netanyahu July 19 said plans to build a Jewish housing development in the predominantly Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem would proceed, despite Palestinian and international protests. Netanyahu rejected conceding East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, and said, “We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase [homes] in all parts of Jerusalem.” [See p. 313F2] Separately, Israeli security forces Aug. 2 evicted two Palestinian families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes, and witnesses said Jewish nationalists moved into the houses. The Palestinian families had been involved in a decades-long legal dispute over the 546

sites’ ownership, which was still being contested in Israeli courts. Britain Bars Some Arms Exports—Israeli and British officials July 13 said the British government had banned the export of some arms to Israel. Britain reportedly revoked five licenses to provide spare parts for the Israeli navy’s Saar 4.5 Class Corvette, a type of gunboat that Britain had said probably fired on the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war with Hamas in December and January. British and European Union laws barred exporting arms that were used for internal repression or external aggression. Israeli and British officials said relations between the two countries remained friendly, and that there were still 177 intact British arms-export licenses. [See p. 312D3] The Israeli government July 30 released a report claiming that its attack on Gaza was provoked by “incessant” Hamas rocket attacks. It said alleged Israeli war crimes were due to mistakes committed in the heat of battle, but acknowledged that several criminal investigations were ongoing. A 15-member United Nations team led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone June 1 had arrived in Israel to investigate human rights abuses and war crimes allegedly committed by Israel and Hamas during the war. Israel had refused to cooperate with the probe, saying it was biased, but Goldstone July 7 said Hamas and the PA had also refused to cooperate fully and that his investigation would be fair. The New York City–based advocacy group Human Rights Watch June 30 condemned Israel for allegedly using missilefiring aerial drones during the Gaza war that unlawfully killed at least 29 Palestinian citizens. Israel would not confirm or deny that it used armed drones, but said it had followed international law. U.S. Envoy Meets Syrian President—

Mitchell July 26 met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria’s capital. Mitchell and Assad reportedly discussed the resumption of peace talks between Syria and Israel over the contested Golan Heights region. The Obama administration had sought to build ties with Syria and to pull the country away from an alliance with Iran. During the meeting, Mitchell reportedly said that Obama would seek to ease sanctions prohibiting the sale of aircraft parts and telecommunications and information-technology equipment to Syria. They also discussed the U.S. sending a second group of military officers to Syria to discuss cooperating on efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq. [See p. 465D2] A spokesman for Netanyahu May 20 had said Netanyahu was “willing to have talks with the Syrians without preconditions—either Israeli preconditions or Syrian ones.” Other News—In other Israeli-Palestinian news: o Israel’s High Court July 1 ordered the Israeli military advocate general to increase the severity of charges against a commander and a soldier who had partici-

pated in a July 2008 incident in which a Palestinian was bound and shot in the foot with a rubber bullet. They had been charged with “unworthy conduct,” which did not carry a criminal record. [See 2008, p. 625D2] o Israeli and Palestinian security officials June 25 said Israel had given PA forces greater security responsibilities in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Jericho. PA security forces would be allowed to operate 24 hours a day with less coordination with the Israeli troops, which indicated that Israel might carry out fewer nighttime raids. However, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called for a complete stop to Israeli raids in the West Bank. Israel had also removed several significant checkpoints in the West Bank. [See p. 403E3] o Israeli June 23 freed the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Aziz Duwaik, after he spent almost three years in prison. (Parliament had stopped functioning after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.) Duwaik and dozens of other politicians had been arrested for belonging to Hamas in 2006, shortly after Shalit’s capture. His prison term was set to expire in August, and prosecutors were unable to convince an Israeli military court to extend it. o Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter June 16 visited Gaza and met with Ismail Haniya, Hamas’s leader in the territory. He called for an end to the Israeli blockade, saying Palestinians in Gaza were being treated “more like animals than human beings.” [See 2008, p. 270G2] n

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Afghanistan Civilian Deaths Rise in First Half of 2009.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) July 31 reported that 1,013 civilians had been killed in conflict-related violence in the country during the first six months of 2009, up 24% from the 818 reported for the same period in 2008. The UNAMA said 595 of the deaths in 2009 had been caused by antigovernment forces, including the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, which was currently waging an increasingly violent war against the Afghan government and its Western allies. The UNAMA said U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Afghan army forces had been responsible for 310 civilian deaths. [See p. 513C2] The UNAMA said the spike in civilian casualties stemmed from the Taliban’s increased use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks near “civilian traffic, residential compounds and marketplaces.” The group said the Taliban appeared to “deliberately favor the use of indiscriminate tactics” in crowded areas. The UNAMA also said the Taliban had an “active policy” of basing fighters in heavily populated areas, in order to attract coalition attacks that could kill or injure civilians. FACTS ON FILE

The UNAMA said about two-thirds of the civilians killed by the coalition had died from air strikes. Critics had accused the coalition, and particularly the U.S., of using air strikes recklessly and without regard for civilian life. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) published online July 31, said he was “deeply” concerned about civilian casualties, and was working to inculcate a “tremendous sensitivity” toward the civilian population among coalition forces. The UNAMA said deaths caused by the coalition had led to a “strong feeling of anger and disappointment among the Afghan general public,” and undermined support for the “continued presence of the international military forces.” The UNAMA said civilian casualties could rise as a consequence of U.S. President Barack Obama authorizing the deployment of an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2009. The UNAMA said a coalition effort to secure areas of the country before an Aug. 20 presidential election could also contribute to a bump in civilian casualties. Military casualties had also risen in 2009, with 43 U.S. soldiers dying in action in July, the highest monthly toll since a U.S.-led force invaded Afghanistan in 2001. A total of 75 foreign troops were killed in July. Nine Coalition Soldiers Killed—Nine coalition soldiers were killed Aug. 1–2 in a deadly weekend of fighting in Afghanistan. Three U.S. troops were killed Aug. 1 by roadside bombs in the southern province of Kandahar; another three U.S. troops were killed Aug. 2 by a bomb-and-ambush attack in the eastern province of Wardak. A French soldier was killed Aug. 1 in a gun battle just north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, becoming the 29th French soldier to die since the war began. Two Canadian soldiers that day were killed in the southern province of Kandahar, raising Canada’s death toll to 128. A remote-controlled bomb Aug. 3 detonated in the western city of Herat, in Herat province, killing 10 people and wounding 29, including a police chief of a nearby district. The Taliban said the police chief had been its target. The Taliban Aug. 4 launched eight rockets into Kabul, one of the most secure cities in the country. As many as two rockets landed in neighborhoods near the U.S. embassy, but no one was killed. Also that day, a British soldier was killed in the southern province of Helmand, and a suicide bomber killed five people and injured 18 in the southern province of Zabul. A group of Taliban gunmen Aug. 10 launched an attack on the provincial governor’s office and police headquarters in Pule-Alam, the capital of eastern Logar province. At least four people, including one police officer, were killed in the attack. At least three Taliban fighters died, including one who had blown himself up. There were conflicting reports as to whether U.S. troops were involved in the fight. August 13, 2009

A roadside bomb Aug. 12 killed 11 civilians in Helmand, and another roadside bomb that day killed three children in Kandahar. U.S. Military to Target Drug Traffickers—

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Aug. 11 released a report saying the U.S. military had placed 50 prominent Afghan drug traffickers on a list of 367 targets that could be captured or killed. The additions to the target list was a policy shift for the U.S., which had previously refrained from targeting traffickers over fears that it could anger powerful warlords. The Senate report said the Obama administration considered the new policy legal under international laws governing warfare, since the traffickers provided the Taliban with a crucial source of funding. [See p. 466C2] The policy shift was the U.S.’s latest regarding Afghanistan’s thriving drug industry, which produced 90% of the world’s heroin. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, in March had said the U.S. would stop poppy eradication programs, arguing that they did little but turn poor Afghan farmers against the coalition. The U.S. was expected to provide farmers with incentives to grow other crops. According to the Senate report, U.S. officials believed that the Taliban received $70 million–$125 million a year in revenue from drug sales. That was considerably less than the $400 million figure reported by the U.N. in 2008. Other Developments—In other developments in Afghanistan: o The Wall Street Journal Aug. 12 reported that the Afghan government, with help from the U.S. military, had launched a program to enlist tribal fighters to provide security for the Aug. 20 presidential election. The program came amidst reports that Taliban groups across the country were threatening to terrorize citizens that participated in the vote. The Journal reported that if the program was successful, its life could be extended beyond the election, as part of a broader goal of securing the allegiance of Afghanistan’s tribes. The Journal said 18 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces would be involved in the effort, which was loosely based on a program that had been started in 2008 in Wardak. [See 2008, p. 988G3] o The North Atlantic Council, NATO’s governing body, Aug. 4 officially authorized a reorganization of NATO’s command structure in Afghanistan. A new Intermediate Joint Headquarters would be created in Kabul, to oversee day-to-day operations in the war and report to McChrystal. The new division would be led by U.S. Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez. [See p. 434G1] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Swimming Records Obliterated at World Championships.

Forty-three world records July 26–Aug. 2 were broken at the 13th International Swimming Federation (FINA) World Cham-

pionships in Rome, Italy, amid controversy over the legality of performance-enhancing swimsuits. The 100% polyurethane swimsuits at the center of the controversy gave their wearers added buoyancy, compressed their muscles and allowed them to cut more quickly through water. FINA July 31 announced that a ban on the suits would take effect Jan. 1, 2010. [See p. 159E3] The controversy over the new swimsuits came to a head when relatively unknown German swimmer Paul Biedermann, 23, July 28 bested the U.S.’s Michael Phelps, 24, in the 200-meter freestyle, breaking Phelps’s 2008 world record in the process. Biedermann wore a suit completely made of polyurethane—the Arena X-Glide— while Phelps donned a Speedo LZR Racer, the same type of suit he had worn at the 2008 Olympics where he won eight gold medals. The Speedo suit, which used polyurethane panels, was widely considered outdated. Biedermann July 26 had also broken Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe’s 2002 record in the 400-meter freestyle. Biedermann July 28 said, “I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without the suit,” and added that FINA ultimately bore responsibility for resolving the issue. FINA July 28 had announced that a ban on the suits had been ratified but would probably not take effect until mid-2010 because a scientific panel needed time to decide what kind of swimsuit materials would be allowed. In response Bob Bowman, Phelps’s coach, angrily threatened to pull Phelps from all swimming competitions until the ban was enacted. FINA three days later announced that the ban would take effect on the originally planned date at the start of 2010. Swimmers from 17 countries earned gold medals at the championships. In the overall standings, the U.S. and China tied with 11 gold medals each. Russia won eight gold medals, followed by Germany with seven, and Britain, Australia and host country Italy with four each. n

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Astronomy Amateur Spies Apparent Jupiter Impact.

An Australian amateur astronomer July 19 observed a dark spot in the southern polar region of the planet Jupiter, which scientists said appeared to be the aftermath of a collision with a comet or other small body. The observer, Anthony Wesley, alerted astronomical researchers, who trained powerful telescopes on Jupiter’s “bruise,” including the Infrared Telescope Facility operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and, on July 23, the Wide Field Camera 3 newly installed on the Earth-orbiting Hubble Telescope in May. [See 2003, p. 755C2; 1994, p. 527B3] The sighting occurred during the 15th anniversary of the collision of parts of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter, which had been anticipated and studied 547

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intensively for new information about Jupiter’s composition. The latest impact occurred without advance warning, and scientists said they were not sure exactly what kind of object had struck the planet. Some scientists credited Jupiter’s strong gravitational pull for diverting objects from a collision course with Earth, but also suggested that in some cases, Jupiter’s mass actually drew bodies into paths near Earth that they might not otherwise have followed. Long Solar Eclipse Across Asia—In another widely noted event, the longest total solar eclipse that would occur in the 21st century was seen across much of Asia July 22. After reaching its maximum duration over the Pacific Ocean, six minutes and 39 seconds, the total eclipse’s path passed over the southernmost islands of Japan, and across China, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and India. [See 2002, p. 1071G3] The next total solar eclipse was to occur July 11, 2010, mostly over the southern Pacific. An annular solar eclipse, in which a ring of the sun’s disk remained visible around the moon, would be seen Jan. 15, 2010, along a path extending from Africa to Southeast Asia. n

Awards 16 Receive Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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President Barack Obama Aug. 12 honored 16 people with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor. The ceremony was held at the White House. [See 2008, p. 480E1] Two of the medals were awarded posthumously. One of those went to gay political activist Harvey Milk, who at the age of 48 was slain in 1978 in San Francisco, Calif., where he had been the first openly gay person elected to the city’s Board of Supervisors. The award was presented to his nephew, Stuart Milk. In February, actor Sean Penn had won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in the film Milk. [See p. 120F1; 1978, p. 920G1–D3] The other posthumously awarded medal went to Republican politician Jack Kemp, a nine-term U.S. representative from New York and the GOP’s vice presidential candidate in 1996. Kemp’s medal was presented to his widow, Joanne Kemp. He was honored three months after his death, at age 73. [See p. 316F3] All but one of the 14 living recipients of the award attended the White House ceremony. Missing was Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), 77, a member of the U.S. Senate since 1962. Kennedy’s award was presented to his daughter, Kara Kennedy. The senator, who was battling brain cancer, was honored a day after the death of one of his sisters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She had likewise been honored in 1984, by then– President Ronald Reagan, for her work on behalf of the developmentally disabled. [See pp. 548F3, 441A2; 1984, p. 250C2] The other recipients were: Nancy Goodman Brinker, 62, founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which raised money for breast cancer research [See 2005, p. 676G1–A2]

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Pedro Jose Greer Jr., 53, founder of a Miami, Fla., clinic providing medical care to the poor [See 1993, p. 480A1] Stephen Hawking, 67, British theoretical physicist and best-selling author confined to a wheelchair for many years due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [See 2002, p. 40G1] Billie Jean King, 65, onetime tennis champion and prominent women’s and gay rights advocate [See 1981, p. 335E3] Joseph Lowery, 87, Methodist minister and civil rights leader [See p. 26C2] Joseph Medicine Crow, 95, last living Plains Indian war chief Sandra Day O’Connor, 79, first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, where she served from 1981 until her 2006 retirement [See 2005, pp. 453A2–455D1] Sidney Poitier, 82, actor who in 1964 became the first black actor to win the Academy Award for best actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field (1963) [See 1997, p. 307G3; 1964, p. 128A1] Chita Rivera, 76, actress, singer and dancer who in 1957 originated the role of Anita in the classic Broadway musical West Side Story [See 2005, p. 997C1; 2002, p. 956B1] Mary Robinson, 65, first female president of Ireland (1990–97), who resigned to become United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a post she held until 2002 [See 2002, p. 207E1; 1997, p. 525D3] Janet Davison Rowley, 84, medical researcher who discovered that genetic abnormalities could cause leukemia and other forms of cancer [See 1998, p. 703F3] Desmond Tutu, 77, retired South African Anglican archbishop who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1984 for his anti-apartheid efforts [See pp. 327G1, 222C3; 1984, p. 823A1] Muhammad Yunus, 69, Bangladeshi economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for developing a bank that offered “microcredit” to the poor to help them become economically self-sufficient [See 2006, p. 807D3] n

People Former Rep. James Leach (R, Iowa) Aug. 12 was sworn in as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), while Broadway producer Rocco Landesman that day was sworn in as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Leach, 66, and Landesman, 62, had both been confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7. [See pp. 373C2, G2–A3, 332C2] Canadian producer Garth Drabinsky, 59, Aug. 5 in Toronto, Ontario, was sentenced to seven years in prison for bilking investors in his theatrical production company, Livent Inc., once the largest such business in North America, of C$500 million (about US$450 million). His former business partner, Myron Gottlieb, 66, was sentenced to six years in prison. Both men had been convicted of fraud in March, seven years after charges were originally brought against them. [See 2002, p. 897D2, F2] Police in Recife, Brazil, July 30 reclassified the death of Canadian boxer Arturo Gatti as a suicide by hanging and that day freed his Brazilian-born wife, Amanda Rodrigues, who July 12 had been arrested as a murder suspect a day after the 37year-old fighter was found dead at a resort near Recife. Gatti’s body had been flown back to his birthplace, Montreal, Quebec, where he was buried July 20. Authorities in Montreal July 31 exhumed his body to enable the local coroner’s office to per-

form a second autopsy, at his family’s request, amid widespread incredulity that he could have taken his own life. That autopsy was performed Aug. 1, and toxicology tests were ordered after it proved inconclusive. Those tests would probably take weeks to complete. [See p. 500C3] One of the largest private collections of African-American and African art in the U.S. was destroyed in a July 29 fire that gutted the Washington, D.C., mansion of arts patron Peggy Cooper Cafritz, 62, while she and her son were on vacation in Cape Cod, Mass. The collection included more than 300 pieces and had been amassed over the previous two decades. Film critics Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz, who in 2008 had been named cohosts of the television movie-review show “At the Movies,” had been replaced by New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, 43, and Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, 48, it was announced Aug. 5. The announcement was made by Disney Co.’s ABC Media Productions, which syndicated the show. [See 2008, p. 547F1] n

O B I T UA R I E S HOUT, Shafiq al-, 77, Palestinian political activist who in 1964 helped found the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); he served as the group’s official spokesman from 1974 to 1992, and was its longtime representative in Lebanon; he fell out with PLO leader Yasir Arafat in 1993, after Arafat agreed to recognize Israel under the Oslo peace accords; born Jan. 13, 1932, in Jaffa, in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine; died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, of cancer. [See 2004, p. 890A1; 1993, pp. 679D1, 622D1; Indexes 1982–83, 1979, 1975–76] HUGHES, John (John Wilden Hughes Jr.), 59, screenwriter, director and producer who made iconic films about disaffected suburban teenagers coming of age in the 1980s, including Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986); his films featured such emerging talents as Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy, who collectively came to be known as the “Brat Pack”; his biggest commercial success came with Home Alone (1990), which he scripted and produced but did not direct; the film, which starred Macaulay Caulkin as a young boy accidentally left behind by his vacation-bound family, spawned two sequels that he also wrote and produced; in recent years, he had become increasingly reclusive, occasionally writing films under the pseudonym Edmond Dantes, the name of the hero of Alexander Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo; born Feb. 18, 1950, in Lansing, Mich.; died Aug. 6 during a visit to New York City, of a heart attack. [See 1993, p. 76E1; 1992, p. 1011A1; 1991, p. 848D1; 1990, pp. 1003D3, 900B2; Indexes 1983–89] SHRIVER, Eunice Kennedy (born Eunice Mary Kennedy), 88, founder of the Special Olympics and

second-youngest of five sisters of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (D), Sen. Robert Kennedy (D, N.Y.) and long-serving Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.); as executive vice president of a family foundation established after World War II in memory of her oldest brother, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who died in that war, she did much to improve the welfare of people with developmental disabilities; one such person was her oldest sister, Rosemary Kennedy, whose condition she revealed in a pioneering article for the Saturday Evening Post in 1962; she organized the first Special Olympics, a quadrennial sporting event for athletes with such disabilities, in 1968 in Chicago; since 1953, she had been married to R. Sargent Shriver Jr., founding director (1961) of the Peace Corps and the 1972 Democratic vice presidential nominee; among their five children was onetime television journalist Maria Shriver, the wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R); born July 10, 1921, in Brookline, Mass.; died Aug. 11 at a hospital in Hyannis, Mass., after a series of strokes; among her siblings, only Ted Kennedy, who was ailing with brain cancer, and her youngest sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, survived her. [See 2006, p. 740G3; 2005, p. 24F3; Indexes 2003, 1986, 1984, 1979, 1972, 1966] n

August 13, 2009

Afghans Vote in Presidential, Local Elections Taliban Attacks in Bid to Intimidate Voters.

BANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

Voters in Afghanistan Aug. 20 went to the polls to participate in presidential and local elections, despite scattered attacks by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, which had threatened voters in an attempt to disrupt the elections. President Hamid Karzai was running for reelection to a second term, facing a strong challenge from former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. A field of more than 30 other candidates was also running for president, while some 3,300 other candidates competed for 420 provincial council seats. [See p. 546E3] Karzai was seen as the front-runner, but it was widely expected that he would have to face Abdullah in a second round. The top two finishers would be required to compete in a runoff if no presidential candidate won more than 50% of the vote in the first round. Election officials began counting ballots as soon as the polls closed, but preliminary results were not expected for at least two days, and final results were not due until Sept. 17. Karzai held a news conference as the polls closed, praising the courage of the voters. “The Afghan people dared bombs, rockets and intimidations, but came out and voted,” he said, citing reports of 73 violent incidents, including bomb and rocket attacks, across the country that day. The violence appeared to have been fairly minor, causing relatively few casualties. Abdullah also hailed the voters, saying, “They stood up to those who wanted to take away the people’s right to choose their destiny.” A spokesman for the defense ministry said more than 300,000 police and soldiers had been deployed to protect voters, including both Afghan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. Afghan forces had taken charge in securing the election. International donors had spent $500 million on preparations for the vote. U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, toured polling stations in Kabul, the capital, on election day. Holbrooke said he observed “open and honest voting,” and declared, “So far, every prediction of disaster turned out to be wrong.” The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the election “seems to be working well” despite the Taliban attacks. An election viewed as free and fair was a high priority for the U.S. and its allies, as

Afghan women Aug. 20 display their identification cards as they wait in line to cast ballots at a polling station in the southern city of Kandahar.

they sought to boost waning public support in Western countries for their Afghanistan mission. Obama had authorized the deployment of an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2009, bringing the total U.S. deployment to about 68,000. U.S. and NATO forces had suffered rising casualties in recent months as they intensified operations against the Taliban. Turnout Said to Drop From ’04— Voter turnout reportedly was lower than the 70% of registered voters who participated in 2004, when the first presidential election was held since a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power in 2001. Turnout was reported to be especially low in southern and eastern provinces where the Taliban was strong. There were also widespread complaints of fraud. Most vote monitoring was done by Afghan election observer groups, in contrast with the heavy presence of international observers for the 2004 election. One prominent presidential candidate, former World Bank official Ramazan Bashardost, said he had been able to wash off the supposedly indelible ink on his finger, which was used to mark all voters’ fingers to prevent them from voting more than once. He called on officials to “immediately stop this election.” Another presidential candidate, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, told the U.S. embassy that he had received reports of ballot-stuffing by his rivals. In Kabul police reportedly killed two would-be suicide bombers. In the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban reportedly hanged two people whose fingers were marked with ink. Rocket attacks were reported in Kandahar and in Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold. Government officials said 26 Afghans were killed in election-day attacks by the Taliban, including nine civilians, nine police officers and eight soldiers. Two foreign soldiers, one from the U.S. and one from Britain, were also reported killed. The government Aug. 19 had announced that it would shut down Afghan media organizations and expel foreign journalists if they reported on election-day violence during voting hours. The ban was widely flouted. Insurgents Aug. 18 had fired mortars at the presidential palace in Kabul, but the shells reportedly landed on the grounds and caused no casualties. A suicide bombing hit a NATO convoy headed to a British base outside Kabul that day, killing eight people, including one NATO soldier and two Afghan employees of the U.N, and wounding 55. A suicide bombing near the main entrance of NATO’s Kabul headquarters Aug. 15 had killed at least seven people and wounded 91, according to the defense ministry. Three gunmen Aug. 19 attacked a bank in Kabul, starting a gun battle with police in which all three were killed. It was not clear whether they were Taliban members.

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3583 August 20, 2009

B The Taliban had also attacked a number of polling places in the days before the election, despite the government’s efforts to keep the locations of the 7,000 polls secret until election day. Exiled Warlord Returns, Endorses Karzai—

Karzai had made deals with an array of ethnic leaders and former warlords to obtain their electoral support. Among them was Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek general who had been accused of many human rights violations, including an alleged mass killing of Taliban prisoners in 2001. [See p. 499F1] Dostum had gone into exile in Turkey in 2008, but he was allowed to return to Afghanistan Aug. 16. He held a mass rally in favor of Karzai the next day in Shiberghan, a heavily Uzbek city in northern Afghanistan, where Dostum had wide support.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Afghans vote in presidential, local elections; Taliban attacks in bid to intimidate voters. PAGE 549

Lockerbie bomber released on humanitarian grounds; terminally ill Megrahi returns to Libya. PAGE 550

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Russian navy locates missing cargo ship; eight arrested. PAGE 550

Obama administration downplays public health care option; furor engulfs reform debate during congressional recess. PAGE 551

Zambian ex-President Chiluba cleared of corruption. PAGE 555

North Korea eases border curbs. PAGE 558

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U.S. Sen. Webb visits Myanmar; U.S. citizen released. PAGE 558

Typhoon kills hundreds in Taiwan. PAGE 559

Iranian opposition alleges rape of jailed dissidents. PAGE 561

Attacks on Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad kill 95. PAGE 562

Yang upsets Woods to win PGA Championship. PAGE 563

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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In an interview with Britain’s Reuters news service, Dostum Aug. 19 denied that he had any “personal agreement with Karzai.” Karzai, a member of the Pashtun ethnic group, the country’s largest, had been depending on strong turnout in the south, which was heavily Pashtun, as was the Taliban. Abdullah, who was part Tajik, drew much of his support from ethnic Tajiks in less volatile northern Afghanistan. n

Lockerbie Bomber Released on Humanitarian Grounds Terminally Ill Megrahi Returns to Libya.

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Scotland Aug. 20 released Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a terminally ill former Libyan intelligence agent who had been convicted of the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet, Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland. The bombing killed 259 people on board, including 189 U.S. citizens, and 11 people on the ground. [See p. 416B2; 2007, p. 443E3] Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said he had decided to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds, despite the opposition of the U.S. government to his release, because he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. Megrahi was allowed to leave for Libya that day on a Libyan jet that departed from Glasgow Airport in Scotland, after he was transported in a police convoy from Scotland’s Greenock prison. MacAskill said that although the Lockerbie bombing was “a heinous crime,” “Our beliefs dictate that justice be served, but mercy be shown,” MacAskill acknowledged that Megrahi had shown “no compassion” to his victims, but said he had decided that Megrahi should be “allowed to return to Libya to die.” The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement that it “deeply regrets” the decision, adding, “We continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland.” Libyan officials hailed Megrahi’s release, and he was greeted upon arrival later that day in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. More than 1,000 young men who were bused to the airport gave Megrahi a hero’s welcome, cheering and waving Libyan and Scottish flags. Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan ruler Col. Muammer el-Qaddafi, accompanied Megrahi on his flight. Megrahi’s lawyers issued a statement in his name after his release. He reiterated his claims of innocence, adding, “To those victims’ relatives who can bear to hear me say this: they continue to have my sincere sympathy for the unimaginable loss they have suffered.” Megrahi, 57, had been sentenced in 2001 to life in prison, with a minimum term of 27 years. His lawyer, Margaret Scott, in court Aug. 18 requested his release on compassionate grounds, citing a prognosis that he had less than three months to live. The High Court in Edinburgh, Scotland, Aug. 18 had granted a request by Megrahi

to drop his second appeal of his conviction. That cleared the way for MacAskill to consider a request from the Libyan government for Megrahi to be either transferred to serve his sentence in Libya or released into freedom there. MacAskill said he had decided not to approve a transfer to Libyan custody, under a previous Libyan-British agreement, because the U.S. government and families of the victims had been led to expect that Megrahi would serve his sentence in Scotland. The Scottish government, established in 1999, had autonomous powers to handle certain matters, including criminal justice. The British government had not expressed an opinion on Megrahi’s release, calling it Scotland’s decision to make. Clinton Opposes Release—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Aug. 18 reiterated her previously expressed opposition to the possibility of Megrahi’s release or transfer to Libya, which she said would be “absolutely wrong.” Seven U.S. senators, including John Kerry (D, Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a letter to MacAskill Aug. 17 had also called for Megrahi to serve out his full term in Scotland. They said the Lockerbie bombing was “a horrific act of international terrorism.” While most families of U.S. victims of the bombing strongly opposed Megrahi’s release, some of the families of British victims had expressed doubts about his guilt and supported his return to Libya. Qaddafi had taken steps to restore relations with the West in the past several years. In 2003, Libya had agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program, renounce terrorism and pay $1.5 billion in compensation to families of U.S. victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Libya completed the payments in 2008, and the U.S. in return had declared Libya immune from terrorism-related lawsuits. n

Scientists said the area was 3,000 square miles (7,800 sq km), well below previous estimates of more than 8,000 square miles. Scientists said unusually strong winds and ocean currents had mixed large amounts of oxygen into the water in the area. [See 2008, p. 897D3] The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo., April 6 reported that the 2008–09 winter Arctic Sea ice had been measured at the fifth-lowest level since the scientists began recording the data 30 years earlier. The scientists also found that the amount of thicker, mature ice at least two years old had reached its lowest level ever, at 9.8% of total ice coverage, or about one-third the average amount found between 1981 and 2000. [See 2007, p. 630G1] n

Other International News Missing Cargo Ship Located; Eight Arrested.

A Russian navy frigate had secured a Finnish-owned cargo ship, the Arctic Sea, and its Russian crew, about 300 miles (480 km) from Cape Verde, an island nation off the coast of western Africa, after the ship had been missing for nearly two weeks, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Aug. 17. The following day, Serdyukov said the Arctic Sea’s crew of 15 had been taken captive by eight hijackers while the ship was in Swedish waters, and that the hijackers were arrested when the frigate peacefully seized control of the vessel. Serdyukov Aug. 20 said the Arctic Sea was being towed to a Russian port on the Black Sea for investigation. The crew arrived safely in Moscow, Russia’s capital, the same day. [See p. 269A2]

Global Environment

Facts On File

News in Brief. A team of researchers report-

(ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680

ed in the July 31 issue of the journal Science that 63% of the world’s marine species fished for food had populations below healthy levels. The report was an unusual collaboration between marine ecologists and fishery management scientists, who were frequently critical of one another, and represented one of the most comprehensive assessments of marine species to date. The scientists said half of the species at unhealthy levels could recover if given protection. The study was led by Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Canada. [See 2006, p. 875B2] Scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium July 27 said an oxygen-depleted “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico inhospitable to marine life was smaller than had been predicted. The zone was caused by fertilizer and other runoff pollution from the Mississippi River, which fed algal blooms that starved the ocean of oxygen during decomposition.

World News Digest With Index

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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The Arctic Sea had departed Finland July 23 and was scheduled to dock in Algeria Aug. 4, but never arrived. If Russian reports were confirmed, the incident would represent the first time a ship was hijacked in European waters since the 17th century. The alleged hijackers were identified only as four Estonians, two Latvians and two Russians. Some observers doubted that a hijacking could have occurred in the heavily trafficked waters the ship had been traveling through. Maltese Officials Report Hijacking—

The Malta Maritime Authority, in a July 31 statement, said the Arctic Sea, which was registered in Malta, July 24 had been hijacked by as many as 12 armed men “allegedly masked and wearing uniforms” marked “police.” According to the statement, the armed men blindfolded, gagged and assaulted crew members, and subjected them to harsh interrogations about drug trafficking. They also reportedly searched the ship. After about 12 hours, the captain radioed the ship’s Finnish operator saying the armed men had left in a small boat, and that the Arctic Sea would continue to Algeria. The ship made radio contact with maritime officials July 28 as it sailed through the Strait of Dover between England and France, and again July 31 from off the coast of Portugal, when the captain reportedly spoke with Swedish officials. No problems were reported on either date. However, Serdyukov Aug. 18 said that after the hijackers took control of the ship July 24, they forced the crew at gunpoint to sail the ship to Africa “with all of its communications and navigation equipment shut down.” The Russian defense ministry Aug. 19 said crew members had “confirmed that the captors demanded a ransom and threatened to blow up the vessel if their orders were not obeyed.” The ship’s Moscow-based insurer the previous day said it had received a ransom demand of $1.5 million Aug. 3. Russian officials did not comment on the Arctic Sea’s previous reports that the armed men had disembarked, nor did they shed light on why hijackers might be interested in an older ship with a relatively inexpensive cargo of timber. The events fueled numerous rumors that organized crime groups had been involved in the incident, and about a secret, possibly nuclear, cargo aboard the Arctic Sea. The Washington Post Aug. 18 reported that Finnish authorities had tested the ship for radiation before it sailed for Africa, and the results were negative. There was also speculation that the ship might have been involved in arms trafficking. The European Union said 22 countries had been involved in investigating the disappearance of the Arctic Sea. Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Aug. 20, said, “I believe that the cooperation with NATO and the alliance’s informational support helped us to direct our warship to the target with great precision and to successfully conduct the hostage-rescue operation.” n August 20, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Obama Administration Downplays Public Health Option Furor Engulfs Recess Reform Debate. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secre-

tary Kathleen Sebelius and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Aug. 16 indicated that the administration of President Barack Obama might be willing to forgo a government-run health insurance plan as part of negotiations to overhaul the U.S. health care system. Obama himself the previous day had downplayed the importance of a public option. [See p. 520A1] The proposed public health insurance plan in recent weeks had drawn fierce criticism from Republicans and others who asserted that it would drive private insurers out of business and lead to a complete takeover of health care by the government. Much of the criticism had been voiced at “town-hall” style meetings hosted by members of Congress during their August recess, or sometimes at raucous protests held outside the halls. Obama had argued that the so-called public option would create competition with private insurers by keeping them “honest,” and lead to lower insurance costs for consumers. But Sebelius in a CNN interiew Aug. 16 said the so-called public option was “not the essential element” of the administration’s reform plan. Gibbs, appearing on the CBS show “Face the Nation,” said Obama “will be satisfied” as long as reform led to more “choice and competition” in the insurance market. Obama at a town-hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., Aug. 15 had said the public option was “not the entirety of health care reform.” He added, “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.” High-ranking administration officials and aides had said that Obama was also open to the idea of creating nonprofit, member-owned health care cooperatives, consisting of individuals and businesses. The cooperative idea had been promoted by Sen. Kent Conrad (D, N.D.). Critics had raised doubts over the difficulties such groups might face in starting and operating on a large scale. Three House committees had passed separate versions of a health reform bill that relied on the public option as a key element. The Senate Finance Committee was working on a version of the bill that used the health care cooperative model. Liberal Democrats who supported the public option expressed concern at Sebelius’s comments. The Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus Aug. 17 sent Sebelius a protest letter. Other Democrats, including Sens. John Rockefeller 4th (W. Va.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.), Aug. 17 voiced similar concerns. The White House that day sent out an email message indicating that Obama still supported the public option, and that Sebelius had only been reiterating the administration’s stance that it was open to other reform plans. Gibbs also said Obama’s position on the issue remained unchanged.

Critics Flood Town-Hall Meetings— In recent weeks, opponents of the Democrats’ reform plans had flooded town-hall style meetings hosted by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Angry crowds heckled and shouted down legislators at many such events, and in several instances police were called in to control the crowds and arrest unruly protesters. There were also several reports of minor violence at some events. Democrats asserted that the Republican Party and corporate lobbyists had organized or promoted the town-hall protests, while Republicans claimed that the public response was the natural result of growing anger toward the reform plan. Some rightwing media commentators and smaller political groups encouraged people to disrupt the events. Legislators said they were often confronted by inaccurate or false claims made by protesters about the reform plan, often in extreme terms characterizing it as a “Nazi” policy. One widely circulated false rumor was that the reform plan would create “death panels” comprised of government bureaucrats who would rule on whether ill or elderly people would receive health care. The rumor, and the phrase, had gained prominence after former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) Aug. 7 posted an update on her personal page on the social networking Web site Facebook claiming that the reform plan would result in the creation of “Obama’s ‘death panel.’” [See p. 455A2] The rumor was thought to have stemmed in part from a provision included in all three House versions of the overhaul bill that would allow patients to receive reimbursement from Medicare for end-oflife counseling. Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, at a town hall meeting Aug. 12 said that people had “a right to fear” that such counseling could lead to a government program that would decide whether “to pull the plug on grandma.” Obama had used that phrase the previous day, at a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., to debunk what he called the idea that he backed “death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that it’s too expensive for her to live anymore.” He said, “Let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations.” Grassley Aug. 13 said the Finance Committee had eliminated the end-of-life counseling provision from its version of the bill, because it might be “misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.” Obama defended the reform efforts in an op-ed published Aug. 16 in the New York Times. “In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain,” he said, adding, “But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary—truly risky—is the prospect of doing nothing.” Also, the Wall Street Journal Aug. 14 reported that several groups that supported the overhaul effort, including the AFL-CIO labor federation and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), were orga551

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nizing efforts to send counterdemonstrators to town-hall events. Groups on both sides of the debate were boosting their advertising. The Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracked television ad spending, said various interest groups had spent $57 million on health care ads over the previous six months, the Times reported Aug. 16. Supporters of reform had spent $24 million, compared with $9 million spent by opponents. The prescription drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) had emerged as one of the largest spenders on ads in support of the overhaul, with lobbyists reportedly authorized to spend up to $150 million on the effort. Obama in June had said that PhRMA had agreed to cut drug costs by $80 billion. PhRMA Aug. 5 claimed that, as part of the deal, the White House had agreed not to seek the power to negotiate lower Medicare drug prices. White House officials at first confirmed, but then denied, that account of the deal. An NBC News poll conducted Aug. 15– 17 and released Aug. 18 found that support for reforming health care remained largely unchanged from the previous month. The poll found that 36% of respondents thought Obama’s efforts were a good idea, while 42% thought they were a bad idea. The poll measured Obama’s approval rating on health care at 41%, and found that his overall approval rating was 51%, a 10-point drop from April. Obama Stumps for Reform—Obama Aug. 12–17 continued to appear at his own series of town-hall meetings across the country to bolster support for the overhaul. Many of the events also attracted pro- and antireform crowds who demonstrated outside the town hall venues. Several protesters were seen carrying guns at rallies outside both the Aug. 12 Portsmouth event and an appearance by Obama Aug. 17 in Phoenix, Ariz. Local laws allowed guns to be carried openly. The Secret Service said it was aware of those protesters, but did not consider them a threat. Obama Aug. 19 met with a group of religious leaders and asked them to lobby in support of health care reform, which he called a “moral obligation.” The White House Aug. 10 launched a Web site dedicated to refuting some of the allegations made about reform efforts. But the White House Aug. 18 said it would shut down an e-mail address that it had launched Aug. 4 as a means for people to report “disinformation about health insurance reform.” The tip line had been criticized by Republicans who said the government should not be collecting information on the political beliefs of citizens. Other News—In related developments: o Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) Aug. 17 sent a letter to more than 50 insurance companies requesting information on their total revenues, net income and compensation given to employees earning more than $500,000 a year between 2003 and 2008. The letters 552

asked for the information by mid-September. Waxman, as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had played a key role in the House overhaul legislation efforts. o The Tennessee-based nonprofit group Remote Area Medical Aug. 11–18 provided free health and dental care to thousands of people in Los Angeles. The group, which usually targeted its services to the rural poor, said it had initially been overwhelmed by the demand for care. o America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group representing 1,300 health insurance companies, Aug. 11 released a list of the highest bills submitted to some of its members in 2008. The list detailed bills for various health procedures that sometimes were thousands of dollars more than fees paid by Medicare for those services. The group said it released the list in response to charges that its members were making excessive profits. o Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf Aug. 7 said the cost of expanding preventive health care would likely negate any savings that would result from such efforts. Elmendorf said adding more care such as cancer screening, wellness training and cholesterol management would likely lead to “higher, not lower, medical spending overall.” n

Politics Rep. Heller Declines to Challenge Sen. Reid.

Rep. Dean Heller (R, Nev.) Aug. 11 told Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, that he had decided not to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) in 2010, according to Republican officials. [See p. 537E2] Reid, 69, was running for a fifth term. Republicans viewed him as vulnerable, citing a June poll by the Las Vegas ReviewJournal newspaper showing that his public approval rating in Nevada was just 34%. Heller, 49, was first elected to Congress in 2006, and had been viewed as Reid’s strongest potential challenger. Reid’s role as majority leader allowed him to boast of his ability to use his influence on Nevada’s behalf. But it also gave Republicans an opportunity to depict him as excessively partisan and liberal, and out of touch with ordinary Nevadans. Reid had been actively raising campaign funds in anticipation of a difficult race. He reported having $7.3 million on hand at the end of June. In a local television interview, Heller Aug. 12 said an adultery scandal involving Sen. John Ensign (R, Nev.) had been “an important part” of his decision not to run for the Senate, because he had counted on Ensign’s help in a campaign. Heller called on Ensign to answer more questions about his extramarital affair with a woman who had served as his campaign treasurer and whose husband had been his chief of staff. In July, Ensign had revealed that his parents had made $96,000 in payments to the woman and her husband. [See p. 478F1]

Heller’s comments sparked speculation that he might be angling to run for Ensign’s seat in 2012. n Hawaii Reconfirms Obama Birth Records.

Hawaii’s state health department July 27 issued a statement reconfirming that it had valid records on file proving that President Barack Obama had been born in Honolulu, the state capital, on Aug. 4, 1961. The department had issued a similar statement Oct. 31, 2008, just before the presidential election that Obama won. It reaffirmed its findings after recently receiving a sharply increased number of questions from both individuals and news organizations about the matter. [See 2008, p. 307G3] Hawaiian Health Director Chiyome Fukino restated that he had “seen the original vital records maintained on file” by the department, verifying that Obama “was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen.” Proponents of a popular right-wing conspiracy theory, who were known as “birthers,” claimed that Obama’s birth certificate was fake, and that he had actually been born in Kenya, his father’s homeland. If that were true, he would not be a naturalborn U.S. citizen, failing to meet one of the basic qualifications that the Constitution set for the presidency. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution stated, “No person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Cable New Network (CNN) television and radio host Lou Dobbs had repeatedly called for evidence of Obama’s birthplace to be produced. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh July 21 declared on his program that Obama “has yet to prove that he’s a citizen.” GOP Congressman Rejects Kenya Claim—

Media coverage of the subject had increased after a June 30 town hall meeting on health care reform in Georgetown, Del., at which Rep. Mike Castle (R, Del.) was confronted by a woman brandishing a U.S. flag. She claimed that Obama was “a citizen of Kenya.” Castle rejected her claim, saying, “If you’re referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States.” His response drew jeers from the audience. A video of the exchange had since been widely viewed on the Web site YouTube. [See p. 551A2] Hawaii state officials had restricted public access to Obama’s file, saying that Hawaiian law did not allow viewing of birth certificates by those who did not have a direct interest in them. Obama’s presidential campaign had posted a scanned image of his certificate on the Internet. An independent news Web site, FactCheck.org, in 2008 had reported that it had obtained access to the birth certificate and verified that it “meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.” There was also a birth notice for Obama in the Aug. 13, 1961, edition of the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper. The U.S. House July 27 unanimously approved a resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood, which FACTS ON FILE

noted that Obama was born in the state. However, 10 Republican members of Congress had sponsored a bill that would require presidential candidates to produce copies of their birth certificates. During the 2008 presidential campaign, a similar controversy had surrounded the fact that Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, when it was a U.S. territory. A handful of lawsuits had challenged McCain’s credentials as a natural-born citizen. n

State & Local Politics Rep. Conyers’s Wife Admits Taking Bribes.

Federal prosecutors June 26 announced that Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of Rep. John Conyers (D, Mich.), had pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a waste-management company in exchange for her vote to award the company a sludge-treatment contract. Conyers submitted her resignation June 29. She faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. [See p. 306A3] Rep. Conyers, 80, was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. According to the plea agreement, Monica Conyers, 44, had taken envelopes containing a total of less than $10,000 in cash at two parking lot meetings in 2007 with representatives of Synagro Technologies, based in Houston, Texas. Synagro won the $47 million sludge contract in a 5–4 vote by the City Council after Conyers switched her vote to back the contract, which she had previously opposed. The vote took place between the first bribe and the second one. The Justice Department said that there was no evidence that Rep. Conyers was aware of his wife’s crimes, and that he had not tried to influence the investigation. His committee oversaw the Justice Department. City Council President Kenneth Cockrel (D) Aug. 7 filed a request for the Detroit Police Department to investigate the disappearance of about $21,000 worth of computers and other city property that had gone missing from Conyers’s office after she resigned. Authorities said the bribery case was part of a broader anticorruption crackdown in Detroit. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) had served 99 days in prison after pleading guilty in 2008 to obstruction of justice in a cover-up of an affair with his chief of staff. Mayor Dave Bing (D) Aug. 4 placed first in a nonpartisan mayoral primary election, with 74% of the vote, and would face second-place finisher Tom Barrow in the Nov. 3 general election. Bing had been in office for just three months since winning an election in May to replace Kilpatrick for the eight months remaining in his term. n

Supreme Court Hearing in Death Row Case Ordered. The

Supreme Court Aug. 17 ordered the U.S. District Court in Savannah, Ga., to hold a August 20, 2009

hearing considering evidence that might demonstrate the innocence of death row inmate Troy Davis, who had been convicted in 1991 of murdering an off-duty police officer. The court’s decision came in response to a so-called original writ of habeas corpus, which was filed directly with the Supreme Court after lower courts refused to review evidence that lawyers for Davis argued would justify a new trial. It was the first time in almost 50 years that the Supreme Court had responded to such a petition. [See 2008, p. 770F1] Davis had been convicted largely on the testimony of nine eyewitnesses; no physical evidence was found connecting him to the crime. However, seven of the nine witnesses had subsequently recanted their earlier identification of Davis as the killer, and some maintained that local police had unduly influenced their testimony in the case. In addition, three new witnesses claimed that Sylvester (Red) Coles, a prosecution witness against Davis, had confessed to the murder. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in an opinion concurring with the decision that “the substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death” in the case “clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing.” Stevens’s opinion was joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the hearing would almost certainly be fruitless and suggested that the Constitution did not bar the execution of a defendant who had a fair trial but was later shown to be innocent. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia’s dissent. It was unclear how Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Anthony M. Kennedy had voted in the court’s decision; however, at least five of the court’s nine justices were required to back such a decision for it to go into effect. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who had joined the court earlier in August, did not take part in the decision. Sotomayor Casts First Vote— The Supreme Court Aug. 17 rejected, 5–4, a final appeal filed by condemned inmate Jason Getsy, allowing his execution the following day. Sotomayor voted with Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens in favor of granting a temporary stay of execution; the vote was Sotomayor’s first as a member of the Supreme Court. Getsy, 33, had been convicted of murdering a 66-year-old woman in 1995 while attempting unsuccessfully to murder her son as part of a contract killing. He was the fourth person executed in Ohio in 2009 and the 32nd person since the state death penalty was reinstated in 1999. The Ohio Parole Board July 17 had voted, 5–2, to recommend clemency for Getsy on the grounds that he had been given a sentence disproportionately harsher than that of John Santine, who had hired Getsy to carry out the killing. Santine had been sentenced to life in prison. However, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) Aug. 14 rejected the board’s recommenda-

tion that he commute Getsy’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He argued that because “Mr. Getsy and Mr. Santine had different roles in the murder,” it was not necessary to make their punishments equivalent. n

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Civil Rights Justice Dept. Alters Marriage Law Stance.

Lawyers for the Justice Department Aug. 17 for the first time filed a court brief describing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as “discriminatory,” in what was viewed as a shift in the department’s stance on the law. DOMA defined marriage as between a man and a woman, denied federal benefits for same-sex marriage partners and allowed state governments to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Gay rights advocates argued that the law discriminated against homosexuals by violating their right to equal protection under the Constitution. [See p. 408E2] Under long-standing tradition, the Justice Department defended existing laws in court regardless of the policy stance of the president. The department in June had filed a brief defending DOMA in a lawsuit that challenged the law’s constitutionality. The brief angered many gay rights activists, who said it had used aggressive arguments against recognition of same-sex marriages. The lawsuit was Smelt v. United States. In the August filing, Assistant Attorney General Tony West wrote, “This administration does not support DOMA as a matter of policy, believes that it is discriminatory and supports its repeal” by Congress. The government continued to defend the law’s constitutionality, but on narrower grounds than in the June brief. Obama Aug. 17 issued a statement reiterating his pledge, made as a candidate during the 2008 presidential election, to seek the repeal of DOMA. Obama had also been criticized for failing to address the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which forbade openly gay people from serving in the military. Separately, the Justice Department Aug. 18 confirmed that it had appointed Matt Nosanchuk to serve as a liaison to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) groups as a member of the department’s Civil Rights Division. The appointment of Nosanchuk, a former staffer for Sen. Bill Nelson (D, Fla.) and an adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign on gay issues, was seen as an attempt by the Obama administration to mollify critics of his gay rights positions. Other News—In other gay rights news: o Dan Sullivan, the Republican mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, Aug. 17 vetoed a bill that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Sullivan said, “The vast majority of those who communicated their position on the ordinance are in opposition.” The Anchorage Assembly Aug. 11 had passed the law, 7–4. Eight votes were needed to override Sullivan’s veto. 553

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o Equality California, a leading state gay rights group, Aug. 12 said it would postpone until 2012 a ballot proposition effort to legalize same-sex marriage. Voters in California in November 2008 had approved a ballot initiative, Proposition 8, that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Equality California, which had spearheaded the unsuccessful effort to defeat the proposition, said it would need time to change public opinion on the issue. However, other gay rights groups, including the Courage Campaign, said postponing the effort would result in a loss of momentum on the issue, and that they would push to overturn Proposition 8 in 2010. [See p. 352A3] n

Crime Three Indicted in Largest Credit Card Theft.

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The Justice Department Aug. 17 charged three men with the theft of more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers between late 2006 and early 2008, in what was thought to be the largest known case of computer crime and identity theft to date. Albert Gonzalez, 28, and two unidentified Russian nationals were charged with conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers, to commit fraud in connection with computers and damage them, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A federal jury that day returned an indictment against the men in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J. [See p. 133B2; 2008, p. 570G2] According to prosecutors, the trio had infiltrated the computer systems of five large companies, among them credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems Inc., supermarket chain Hannaford Bros. and convenience store operator 7-Eleven Inc. The men allegedly installed so-called sniffer programs on company networks, allowing them to capture card information as it was being transmitted for payment processing. The men then sold the captured information to people who used it for fraudulent purchases and bank withdrawals. Gonzalez had been taken into custody in May 2008 for his alleged role in stealing data from the Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain. He also faced similar charges for data theft from several other companies, including clothing retailer TJX Cos., bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. and B.J.’s Wholesale Club Inc. Gonzalez in 2003 had served as an informant for the Secret Service and federal prosecutors, turning against his co-conspirators after he was arrested for credit card fraud. According to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the data breach had cost Heartland $32 million as of June, although those costs were expected to rise. The theft had cost TJX at least $200 million. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a standards organization for the payment card industry, July 16 had released new guidelines for securing wireless networks at retailers, banks and 554

network security companies, among other businesses. (Hackers in the TJX breach were thought to have exploited weaknesses in wireless networks at retail stores in obtaining data.) n Gunman Kills Three in Pa. Gym Shooting.

A lone gunman Aug. 4 opened fire during an aerobics class at a health club near Pittsburgh, Pa., killing three women and wounding another nine before fatally shooting himself. The shooter, George Sodini, had worked as a systems analyst for a local law firm and had no documented history of mental illness and no criminal record. He had reportedly entered the L.A. Fitness health club in Collier Township, Pa., twice on Aug. 4 prior to the shooting, and had turned off the lights in the aerobics classroom before opening fire. [See p. 246C2] Sodini, 48, had begun keeping an online diary in November 2008 that documented his feelings of alienation and frustration toward women, whom he saw as sexually rejecting him en masse. Sodini was not thought to have known any of his victims and had apparently targeted the aerobics class because it was entirely female. The diary indicated that Sodini had intended to carry out a similar shooting Jan. 6 but had “chickened out” at the last minute. Police Aug. 7 said that Sodini had legally purchased the two semiautomatic weapons used in the attack, and noted that Sodini had bought accessories for a handgun from Wisconsin-based TGSCOM Inc., which had also sold weapons or accessories to the gunmen responsible for an April 2007 shooting spree at Virginia Tech University and a February 2008 shooting at Northern Illinois University (NIU). [See 2008, pp. 451E1, 127E3] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Aug. 10 reported that Sodini had been investigated by Pennsylvania’s Port Authority of Allegheny County in connection with a July 28 incident where a man matching his description had openly displayed a hand grenade on a bus. Sodini had reportedly been questioned and photographed by police but had not been charged, because the eye witness in the case could not be certain he was the perpetrator. n ‘Squeaky’ Fromme Released on Parole.

Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, a former follower of convicted mass murderer Charles Manson, Aug. 14 was released on parole from the Federal Medical Center Carswell prison in Fort Worth, Texas, after serving more than 30 years in prison for pointing a gun at then-President Gerald Ford in 1975. Fromme, 60, was the first woman ever convicted of attempting to assassinate a U.S. president. [See 2007, p. 906C3; 1987, p. 964D1; 1975, p. 957G3] Fromme had first been eligible for parole in 1985 but for years had declined to request a parole hearing. She was granted parole in July 2008 but had not been immediately released because she was required to serve a prison sentence related to a 1987 prison escape before she could be discharged. n

Education Court Upholds Professor’s Dismissal. A Denver, Colo., judge July 7 upheld the University of Colorado at Boulder’s decision to dismiss Ward Churchill, a professor fired in 2007 for academic misconduct. Churchill had been dismissed after the university found evidence of “research misconduct” in his work on American Indians. His dismissal came two years after a controversy over an essay by Churchill, in which he compared victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City with Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi German official who was an architect of the Holocaust. [See p. 307E3] A jury in April ruled that Churchill had been terminated largely because of his political views, but it was up to Judge Larry Naves to decide whether Churchill could return to his position at the university. Naves said the university’s regents had acted as judicial officers when they had fired Churchill, and were therefore legally protected from Churchill’s bid to reverse their decision. Naves also cited the jury’s April decision to award Churchill $1 in damages as evidence that he had not been significantly harmed by the university’s decision. Churchill July 21 again asked Naves to reinstate him to his position at the university. Bethany Newell, who had served as a juror in Churchill’s case against the university, submitted an accompanying affidavit in which she wrote, “A majority of the jurors thought that the academic misconduct charges were not valid…we felt that the procedures afforded to Churchill by the University of Colorado, before his termination, were biased.” n University of Ill. Manipulated Admissions.

An Illinois state commission Aug. 6 said top officials at University of Illinois had developed a secret admissions program by which underperforming undergraduate and graduate students with political and other prominent connections were improperly admitted to the university. University President B. Joseph White and Richard Herman, cancellor of its Urbana-Champaign campus, were among those implicated in the scandal. Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) had called for the inquiry in June after the Chicago Tribune reported that hundreds of students won admission to the university after powerful family members or friends had intervened on their behalf. [See 2008, p. 678E2] The commission said the university was in a “full-fledged crisis purely of its own making” which had come from a longstanding culture of “cynicism and crass opportunism…perhaps unparalleled among universities in its level of formality and structure.” It recommended that the entire board of trustees resign and an inspector general position be created for the state’s university system. Niranjan Shah, chairman of the school’s board of trustees, whom the Tribune had accused of creating a well-paying university position for his future son-in-law, Aug. 3 submitted his resignation to Quinn. In an Aug. 11 interview with the Tribune, HerFACTS ON FILE

man said he was “sorry for my role in this,” but that he did not intend to resign. The state panel had said Herman was “the ultimate decision-maker” in admitting privileged applicants, who under the shadow admissions program were labeled as “Category I.” White also apologized that day, but did not indicate that he would resign. The University of Illinois had three campuses and about 70,000 students. n

Environment

ment could not use the Endangered Species Act to restrict greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the habitat of endangered polar bears. Salazar said the loss of habitat resulting from climate change spurred by emissions was the greatest threat to polar bears’ survival. However, he said addressing climate change required a comprehensive policy approach, and that it was not appropriate to use the Endangered Species Act to do so. The polar bear had been declared a “threatened” species in May 2008. [See 2008, p. 725G1] n

EPA Assumes Coal Ash Spill Cleanup Tasks. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Medicine & Health

Administrator Lisa Jackson May 11 said her agency would manage the cleanup of a 5.4-million-cubic-yard (four-million-cubic-meter) coal ash spill that occurred in December 2008 at the Kingston Fossil power plant near Harriman, Tenn. Coal ash was the toxic solid waste produced by coalfired power plants. Jackson said the affected area would be declared a Superfund site, making it eligible for federal cleanup funds. [See p. 33E2] The coal ash had been stored at a mitigation pond at the Kingston facility and the spill destroyed nearby houses and leeched into waterways. The plant was operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the country’s largest public utility. Bill Walton of engineering consulting company Aecom USA Inc. June 25 released a study on the cause of the coal ash spill, which found that the earthen dikes holding the sludge back had been “on the verge of failure” for up to a year before the accident. Walton said the height of the coal ash and the amount of water in it had contributed to the failure of the dikes, as had a layer of fly ash slime that had increased pressure on dike walls. The EPA June 29 released a list of 44 coal ash storage sites it deemed as having a “high hazard potential.” n News in Brief. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., Aug. 5 reinstated a 2001 rule issued by then-President Bill Clinton that prohibited logging and road building in more than 50 million acres (20 million hectares) of federal forests. In 2005, the U.S. Forest Service under then-President George W. Bush had reversed the so-called roadless rule. The court found that the Bush administration had not followed environmental laws in issuing its decision. [See 2006, p. 800C3] Interior Secretary Ken Salazar July 16 said the Interior Department had reversed a decision that would have allowed a doubling of the amount of logging permitted in 2.6 million acres of federal old-growth forests in Oregon. In 2008, the Bush administration had permitted the expansion of the logging area to include the habitat of the endangered spotted owl. Salazar said the Bush administration had failed to adequately review the logging plan’s effect on the species as required by the Endangered Species Act. [See 2008, p. 957D1] Salazar May 8 said the Interior Department would support a rule issued under the Bush administration that said the governAugust 20, 2009

News in Brief. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) July 29 said that dental amalgam fillings containing mercury, com-

monly called silver fillings, did not pose a health risk to adults and children older than six. Some consumer advocacy groups had raised concerns that the fillings, composed of a powdered alloy and liquid mercury, could release high enough quantities of mercury vapor to cause brain damage. The FDA, after reviewing more than 200 studies, concluded that there was no evidence to support that claim. However, it classified the fillings as a medical device posing “moderate risk.” [See 2006, p. 376E1] The FDA July 1 ordered drugmakers Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC to add “black box” warnings, the strongest kind, to the labels of their antismoking drugs. The FDA said the drugs, Pfizer’s Chantix and Glaxo’s Zyban, had been linked to significant behavioral changes, including suicidal thoughts, hostility and depression. The FDA had received 4,762 reports of psychiatric events in patients taking Chantix since the drug’s approval in 2006. Those taking Zyban, also sold as the antidepressant Wellbutrin, and generic versions of the drug had reported a total of 526 events to the FDA. [See 2007, p. 786D2] A study published in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry linked the use of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drugs by children to unexplained sudden death. The researchers had compared 564 youths who had died unexpectedly for unclear reasons to 564 killed in car accidents. They found that 1.8% of those in the first group had been taking the ADHD drug methylphenidate, sold under the brand name Ritalin, while only two of those killed in car accidents were taking a stimulant; of those two, one was taking Ritalin. The research was led by Madelyn Gould, a professor of child psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City. [See 2006, p. 146G3] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) April 7 launched a fiveyear, $45 million initiative to increase awareness of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. The campaign, called Act Against AIDS, would include print advertisements, public service announcements, text messages and a Web site. CDC officials said the idea for the campaign had come after statistics showed that the annual HIV infection rate was higher than previously thought. [See 2008, p. 535G3] n

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Madagascar Political Rivals Sign Power-Sharing Deal.

The two feuding politicians claiming to be the rightful leader of Madagascar Aug. 9 agreed to a power-sharing deal. In talks mediated by former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), exiled former Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana and Andry Rajoelina, to whom the military had handed power after ousting Ravalomanana in March, agreed to form an interim government for 15 months, after which elections would be held. [See p. 459A3] Also participating in the talks, held in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, were representatives of two other major political players in Madagascar: former President Didier Ratsiraka, a rival of Ravalomanana, and another former president, Albert Zafy. A previous round of talks, sponsored by the United Nations and the African Union (AU), had collapsed in June. Under the deal, a transitional unity government would be established, led by a president, vice president, prime minister and three deputy prime ministers. Ravalomanana Aug. 9 said he would not play a part in the transitional government, although members of his political party would. Rajoelina Aug. 14 asserted that he was the only person capable of leading the government, raising some doubts about whether he intended to abide by the Aug. 9 agreement. Another round of talks was scheduled to begin Aug. 25 in Maputo to determine the government’s make-up. Also under the deal, Ravalomanana was granted amnesty for a June 3 conviction in absentia by a Malagasy court for abuse of power while in office. He had been sentenced to four years in jail and fined $70 million for using government funds to purchase a $60 million presidential jet. (Rajoelina had previously threatened to arrest Ravalomanana if he attempted to return to Madagascar.) Ratsiraka, whom Ravalomanana had defeated in a 2001 presidential election and had been living in exile in France, was also granted amnesty, for a 2003 conviction. [See 2003, p. 763G1] Since the coup, Madagascar had become increasingly isolated internationally. Both the SADC, a 15-member grouping of southern African countries, and the AU had suspended Madagascar after Ravalomanana’s ouster. Additionally, donors including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S. had halted all nonemergency aid. The country’s lucrative tourist industry was also suffering due to the ongoing political instability. n

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Zambia Ex-President Chiluba Cleared of Corruption.

A court in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, Aug. 17 acquitted former President Frederick Chiluba of embezzling $500,000 in government funds while he was in office from 555

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1991 to 2002. The verdict ended a six-year trial that had been delayed numerous times due to Chiluba’s poor health. [See 2007, p. 402B3] Chiluba, 63, had left office in January 2002 due to term limits, and handed power to his anointed successor, Levy Mwanawasa. During his time in office, Chiluba had accumulated vast wealth, although his annual salary was an estimated $10,000. Mwanawasa soon after taking office initiated a crackdown on political corruption that led to the arrest of several top officials in the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy party, to which both Mwanawasa and Chiluba belonged. Chiluba in February 2003 was stripped of immunity from prosecution, and later that month was arrested and charged with stealing millions of dollars from the state treasury. His trial had opened in December 2003. Chiluba was originally charged with 80 counts of corruption for embezzling more than $40 million, but prosecutors in 2004 dropped those counts and filed eight new charges of theft by a public servant that reduced the amount he was accused of stealing to $500,000. [See 2004, p. 1087D1] Also, Mwanawasa’s government had filed a civil lawsuit against Chiluba in London’s High Court, seeking to recover millions that he allegedly stole from the state to pay for his lavish lifestyle. (Mwanawasa had died in 2008, and Rupiah Banda was elected to succeed him.) The London court in May 2007 had ordered Chiluba and 19 associates to repay Zambia’s government around $50 million. Chiluba had claimed that he had been the target of an “imperialist” plot. (Britain was Zambia’s former colonial ruler.) [See 2008, p. 818G2] In the Zambian case, Chiluba was accused of using a secret bank account to funnel state funds to family members and associates. The defense argued that the money in the account, as much as $8.5 million, had been private gifts to the president, which were not restricted under Zambian law. The court ruled that the prosecution had not established that the $500,000 in question had been obtained illegally. Chiluba had been the first former African head of state to be prosecuted in his home country on such charges, and anticorruption advocates had hoped that a conviction would set a precedent for trying other African leaders suspected of corruption. Chiluba’s Wife Imprisoned— Chiluba’s wife, Regina Chiluba, March 3 was convicted by a court in Lusaka of receiving funds embezzled from the state during Chiluba’s tenure, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. n

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Mexico U.S. Rights Report Opens Aid Possibility.

The U.S. State Department Aug. 13 released a report concluding that Mexico had made progress in protecting human rights while the military and federal troops fought 556

drug trafficking cartels. The report opened the possibility of the release of more than $100 million from the U.S. in aid to combat drug cartels. Since 2006, Mexico had dispatched some 45,000 troops across the country to fight the cartels. The resulting violence had killed an estimated 12,000 people. [See p. 480C3; 2008, p. 490C1] The U.S. Congress in July had approved a three-year, $1.4 billion aid package to Mexico known as the Merida Initiative, amid concerns that efforts by Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa to fight trafficking groups had resulted in widespread rights abuses by soldiers and police officers. Mexico said it had received 1,508 rights abuse claims in 2008–09. The U.S. Congress had the ability to withhold 15% of the funds until the State Department concluded that the Mexican government was adequately addressing human rights concerns. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) Aug. 5 had blocked the release of the State Department report, saying its conclusions conflicted with other reports of rights abuses, including torture and kidnappings, that had been carried out by government forces. “Mexico needs effective police forces and a justice system that works,” he said. After Leahy’s action, the State Department said it had obtained additional evidence from Mexico of its military’s action against abuses. The Washington Post July 28 reported that Calderon had come under increasing domestic pressure to change his approach to combating the drug cartels. Other News—In other news related to drug trafficking and violence: o U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Aug. 20 announced that 43 men in Mexico and the U.S. had been charged with operating smuggling cartels that brought billions of dollars worth of drugs from Mexico into the U.S. Officials said 10 of those charged were considered to be leaders of cartels. The three leading suspects were Joaquin Guzman Loera, Ismael Zambada Garcia and Arturo Beltran Leyva, all of whom were associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the Federation. Thirty-five of those charged, including the top three suspects, remained at large. The groups were accused of bringing nearly 200 tons of cocaine and heroin, worth an estimated $5.8 billion, into the U.S. between 1990 and 2008. [See pp. 359G2, 171E2; 2003, p. 1089B3] o A grand jury in San Diego, Calif., Aug. 13 indicted 17 men on charges linked to their alleged membership in a kidnapping gang which operated across the U.S.Mexico border. Authorities said the group, Los Palillos, was a rogue cell of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, based in Tijuana. The indicted men were accused of killing nine people between 2004 and 2007, and dissolving two of the bodies in chemicals. They had allegedly participated in a number of kidnappings, demanding high ransoms and sometimes killing their captives even after being paid. Eight of those indict-

ed remained at large, while the remaining nine were already in custody. o U.S. Army Private Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, Aug. 10 was arrested in connection with the May murder of reputed Mexican drug cartel operative Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana outside his home in El Paso, Texas. Also arrested were Ruben Rodriguez Dorado, 30, and Christopher Andrew Duran, 17. According to police, Dorado, a mid-level figure in the Juarez cartel, had hired Apodaca to kill Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel member suspected of becoming a police informant. U.S. officials that day confirmed that Gonzalez had been working as an informant for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). o At least 12 people were killed Aug. 6 during a shootout between a group of suspected drug cartel members and police in Pachuca, in Mexico’s Hidalgo state. Among those killed were at least three police officers and nine gunmen. According to reports, police, acting on a tip, had stopped the truck the assailants were traveling in, and were then attacked. n News in Brief. Pedro Canabal, a spokesman for Mexico’s Tax Administration Service, Aug. 16 said the country had replaced all of its customs inspectors with 1,400 newly trained agents over the previous two days. Reports of the number of replaced agents varied from 700 to 1,100. Canabal said the replaced agents had not been fired, but that their employment contracts had not been renewed. The new agents were part of efforts to eliminate corruption, increase tax collection and discover smuggled goods such as guns and drugs. [See p. 556G1] Prisoners at the Gomez Palacio penitentiary, about 135 miles (220 km) south of the U.S. border in Durango state, rioted Aug. 14, killing at least 19 inmates. A fire reportedly erupted in the evening, allowing inmates to take control of the facility. Durango state officials said the need to house often dangerous federal inmates in less secure state prisons because of overcrowding might have contributed to the violence. [See 2008, p. 729B2] The Mexican Supreme Court Aug. 12 ordered the release of 20 men convicted of participating in a December 1997 massacre of 45 Tzotil Indians in Acteal, a remote village in Chiapas state. The high court also ordered new trials for six others convicted in the attack. The court ruled that prosecutors had violated the constitutional rights of the defendants, who were also Tzotils, by failing to provide them with adequate legal representation and translators who spoke Tzotil. The victims of the attack were thought to have been sympathetic to leftist Zapatista rebels who advocated greater rights for Mexico’s indigenous populations. The attackers had been accused of working with right-wing paramilitary groups allied with the government. [See 2007, p. 882D1] The Mexican Supreme Court Aug. 6 said it would establish a commission to investigate a day-care facility fire that had killed 49 children in June. The investigation was announced after allegations surFACTS ON FILE

faced that public officials had failed to properly investigate the fire because of the political ties of the facility’s owners. Local media July 2 had reported that Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora sought the arrest of the day-care owners, who had ties to Sonora state Governor Eduardo Bours. (The fire had taken place in Sonora.) [See p. 431F2] n

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China Legal Activist Arrested. Chinese civil rights

group Open Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng) July 30 said its founder, Xu Zhiyong, had been detained in Beijing, the capital, by authorities the previous day, as part of what activists said was a crackdown on activist legal advocacy organizations. Gongmeng had been closed down July 18, allegedly for failing to pay taxes, a charge it denied. Xu Aug. 12 was formally arrested and charged with tax evasion, his lawyer said Aug. 18. [See p. 448G1] Gongmeng had taken on high-profile cases, including that of parents whose children had been sickened or killed by milk products tainted with the chemical melamine. It had been formed as a private company after it was unable to receive permission to register as a nongovernmental organization. Numerous other activist lawyers handling human rights and other sensitive public interest cases had seen their law licenses revoked in recent months. Observers said the government appeared to be clamping down on dissent ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in October. [See p. 35C2] An advocacy group for hepatitis patients, the Yirenpeng Center, was raided by police July 29, and said it was accused of “illegal publishing.” Earthquake Activist Tried—Tan Zuoren, a writer and activist who had pushed for a fuller investigation of the collapse of school buildings in a 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province, Aug. 12 was tried on subversion charges at a court in Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital. A number of supporters who had planned to attend or testify at the closed trial were prevented from doing so by police who detained them at their hotel until the trial was over. [See p. 326B3] Among them was Ai Weiwei, a wellknown artist who had collaborated on the design of the Beijing National Stadium, known as the “Bird’s Nest,” built for the 2008 Summer Olympics. He had also led a campaign for an investigation of shoddy construction practices that critics said led so many schools to collapse, and for a full accounting of all the children killed. Another activist involved in the earthquake issue, Huang Qi, had gone on trial in Chengdu Aug. 5 for illegal possession of state secrets. [See 2008, p. 541D1] n WTO Rules Against Media Import Rules. A panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Aug. 12 ruled in favor of U.S. complaints against Chinese regulations governAugust 20, 2009

ing the distribution of imported media products, including films, digital video discs (DVDs) and printed materials such as books and magazines. The WTO judges said China’s requirement that state monopoly companies distribute media content violated WTO rules, as well as specific pledges China had made upon joining the WTO in 2001 concerning the liberalization of its markets. The panel also said China had to remove obstacles to foreign music companies’ ability to sell music online to Chinese customers. [See p. 440C1] China said it would examine the ruling and determine whether to file an appeal. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called the ruling “a significant victory.” U.S. companies welcomed the legal vindication, but suggested that it remained to be seen how quickly China complied with it, and said that due to other aspects of China’s media system, the decision would not lead to a rapid increase in sales. The panel did not endorse all the complaints in the U.S. petition. It let stand China’s 20-per-year limit on foreign films in theatrical release. Hollywood studios said that limit contributed to the flood of pirated DVDs in China. The ruling also did not affect China’s censorship powers for determining what products were permissible. Separately, the U.S. government’s International Trade Commission June 29 recommended the imposition of tariffs on imported Chinese tires. A U.S. labor union had requested the action, under a provision of China’s accession to the WTO that allowed other member countries to counteract “surges” of Chinese imports that threatened domestic companies. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was to decide whether to implement the tariff recommendation by September. n News in Brief. China’s minister of industry and information technology, Li Yizhong, Aug. 13 said the government would not require the preinstallation of Internet-filtering software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, on all computers sold in China, as suggested in a May order by the ministry. Li said the idea that the order would make it mandatory to install the software had been a misunderstanding. The order had been challenged by foreign computer makers as well as by critics who said the software would enable political censorship and damage computers’ security. The government insisted that the software was intended only to block pornography and other material inappropriate for minors. Li said it would be installed in computers in public places, like schools and Internet cafes. The U.S. government, which had warned that the Green Dam requirement might violate free-trade rules, welcomed the decision. [See p. 448B1] A remote town of about 10,000 people in the western province of Qinghai had been quarantined after the deaths of three people from pneumonic plague, it was reported Aug. 3. State media said the blockade of the town, Ziketan, was officially lifted Aug. 8, after a week had passed without new infections. Pneumonic plague was

spread through coughing and was often fatal if not treated within 24 hours. Nine other people who had been infected were reportedly recovering. Ziketan was populated primarily by ethnic Tibetan herders; plague outbreaks in the region were often traced to contact with infected animals. Authorities reportedly disinfected the town and exterminated rodents and insects. [See 2005, p. 526E3; 1994, p. 866A2] n

Japan First Trial Held Under New Jury System.

Japan’s first trial under a 2004 law reinstituting jury trials for the first time since World War II ended Aug. 6 with a conviction and 15-year-sentence in a murder case, in Tokyo District Court. Under the new law, six jurors, or “lay judges,” joined with three judges in deliberating verdicts in serious criminal cases. Criminal trials had previously been lengthy procedures, dominated by prosecutors and focusing on transcribed confessions rather than courtroom testimony, with a high conviction rate. The new system was intended to be quicker and more transparent, and included questioning by jurors. The inaugural trial, in which 72year-old Katsuyoshi Fujii pleaded guilty to the stabbing murder of a neighbor, lasted four days. [See 2008, p. 981D2] Under the new system, at least one judge had to concur with the majority ruling by the jurors for it to stand. The full panel of judges and jurors also determined sentences. Jurors were selected randomly from voter rolls. Only those over age 20 who had completed lower-secondary school were eligible. Members of legal and law-enforcement professions, and elected officials, were excluded. Japan had introduced jury trials in 1928 but discontinued them in 1943, during World War II. The system faced skepticism from some Japanese about the fitness of ordinary citizens to pronounce on the fates of others, particularly in capital cases. About 300 mock trials had been conducted under the system to familiarize the public with it. n News in Brief. An earthquake struck Japan Aug. 11, injuring at least 100 people and causing landslides that forced the closure of highways, a high-speed rail line and nuclear reactors. The quake, with a magnitude of 6.4 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), was centered in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Shizuoka, 110 miles (175 km) southwest of Tokyo. Another earthquake, put at a 7.1 magnitude by the USGS, Aug. 9 had been centered at sea about 110 miles farther to the south, shaking parts of Japan but causing no reported damage or casualties. [See 2008, p. 637F3] A court in Yokohama, Japan, July 30 convicted a U.S. sailor for the March 2008 killing of a taxi driver in the city of Yokosuka, where the seaman, Olatunbosun Ugbogu, had been based. Ugbogu, a 23-yearold Nigerian citizen, was sentenced to life 557

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in prison for the killing, which prosecutors said he had committed in order to rob the driver, Masaaki Takahashi, 61. [See 2008, p. 365C1] n

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North Eases Border Curbs. North Korea Aug. 17 announced that it would ease restrictions on its border with South Korea, allowing the resumption of group tours and family reunions, and business visits by South Koreans. The announcement came after an Aug. 10–17 visit to North Korea by Hyun Jun Eun, chairwoman of South Korea’s Hyundai Group conglomerate, which was the main investor in an industrial park joint venture with North Korea, and also operated the tours. Hyun met Aug. 16 with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and gained the release that day of an employee at the industrial park who had been detained since March. [See pp. 517A1, 342F3; 2008, p. 490G3] Along with the release during a recent visit by former U.S. President Bill Clinton of two U.S. reporters held by North Korea since March for illegally entering the country, the events were seen as signs of North Korea’s desire to revive contacts with the U.S. and South Korea. Relations with South Korea had steadily worsened since South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2008, espousing a harder line against North Korea. Tourist visits by South Korean groups had halted after a visitor who North Korea said had entered a military zone was shot dead in July 2008. The future of the industrial park, at Kaesong, had been clouded earlier in the year by North Korea’s demand for a rent increase and higher wages for North Korean workers. It was not clear whether Hyun’s visit had resolved or addressed those issues. North Korea Aug. 17 said a round of reunions of relatives separated by the countries’ border since the 1950–53 Korean War would be held during the Chuseok harvest festival in early October, at the Mt. Kumgang tourist area. Tour excursions to Mt. Kumgang as well as Kaesong, an ancient Korean capital, would resume “as soon as possible,” according to North Korea’s state news media, which also said the North Korean government intended to “energize” the Kaesong industrial park. South Korea’s government in a statement Aug. 17 expressed a “positive” response to the announcement. However, it noted that it was based on a “nongovernmental” agreement between North Korea and Hyundai, and said that implementing the resumed contacts would require diplomatic talks with South Korea. Separately, South Korean President Lee Aug. 15 gave an address on the holiday marking the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule, in which he urged the reduction of both countries’ conventional forces along their common border, and offered the prospect of more economic assistance if North Korea ended its nuclear weapons program. Hyundai Employee Freed—The detained Hyundai worker, engineer Yoo Seong Jiun, who was accused of criticizing North Ko558

rea’s political system and encouraging a North Korean woman to defect, was released and deported Aug. 13. North Korea continued to hold four South Korean fishermen seized when their boat, according to North Korea, illegally entered its territorial waters. S. Korean Satellite Launch Scratched—

South Korea Aug. 19 canceled the planned launch of a satellite minutes before its scheduled liftoff, blaming an unidentified technical problem. The launch, which would be South Korea’s first from its own territory, threatened to raise tensions with North Korea, which had conducted a rocket launch in April that was condemned by the United Nations, and demanded a similar response to South Korea’s planned launch. [See p. 238G3] North Korea claimed to have successfully launched a communications satellite as part of a legitimate space program, but the launch had been viewed by the U.S. and its allies as in fact a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. South Korea and the U.S. rejected North Korea’s comparison of the two launch efforts, saying its program was transparent and in keeping with the country’s international treaties. South Korea was party to an agreement that limited it to developing only short-range ballistic missiles, a restriction that some South Koreans opposed in light of North Korea’s missile activities. [See 2001, p. 1071B3; 1999, p. 992E1] However, experts noted that much of the technology used in space launch rockets was also employed in long-range missiles. North Sends Delegations to South, U.S.—

South Korea said the satellite would observe Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. The launch had been delayed several times by technical setbacks. The Naro-1 rocket built for it was partly constructed by Russia. Amid notable efforts by other Asian nations to develop their own space programs, South Korea aimed to develop a fully domestically produced rocket by 2018, and launch a mission to the moon by 2025. [See 2008, pp. 766D2, 698A2; 2005, p. 156D3] North Korea Aug. 19 expressed condolences for the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, and said it would send a high-level delegation to Kim’s funeral. North Korea’s official news agency quoted ruler Kim Jong Il as praising Kim Dae Jung’s efforts “to achieve national reconciliation.” [See p. 564A3] North Korean diplomats with the country’s delegation to the United Nations Aug. 19–20 held talks with Gov. Bill Richardson (D) of the U.S. state of New Mexico, at his residence in Santa Fe, N.M. Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., had visited North Korea three times, to discuss the nuclear issue, and to negotiate for the release of U.S. citizens and the remains of U.S. soldiers who died in the Korean War. [See 2005, p. 766B1] Richardson said he was not acting as a direct representative of the U.S. government in the talks, but reported that the North Koreans had requested the meetings and told him that their country was “now prepared to have a dialogue with us.” n

Myanmar U.S. Sen. Webb Visits, U.S. Citizen Released.

U.S. Sen. James Webb (D, Va.), who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Aug. 14–16 visited Myanmar as part of a tour of Southeast Asian nations that included stops in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Following an Aug. 15 meeting with Webb, Than Shwe, the head of Myanmar’s ruling junta, authorized the release of a U.S. citizen sentenced earlier in August to seven years’ imprisonment in connection with his illegal entry into the home of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. [See below, p. 543C1] Webb was the first U.S. official to meet with Than Shwe and the first member of Congress to visit Myanmar in more than 10 years. He had previously visited the country in 2001, before he was a senator. The U.S. State Department Aug. 14 said that Webb was not making the trip as a representative of the administration of President Barack Obama, but that Webb had been briefed on Myanmar by the State Department prior to his departure. Webb had previously said that the U.S. should consider reducing sanctions against Myanmar as part of a policy of engagement, arguing that such an approach was more likely to lead to political and social change in the country than current U.S. attempts to isolate the junta. Webb Meets Junta Leader, Suu Kyi—

Webb Aug. 15 met with Than Shwe as well as Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, Foreign Minister Nyan Win and other government officials. Webb Aug. 16 said that Than Shwe had agreed to Webb’s requests for the U.S. citizen, John Yettaw, to be freed and for a meeting with Suu Kyi, but had refused to release Suu Kyi. She had recently been convicted of violating terms of her house arrest in connection with Yettaw’s entry into her house, and was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest. Webb also said that while he had not discussed rumors that Myanmar was pursuing nuclear weapons with Than Shwe, he had been told by members of Myanmar’s government that such claims were untrue. After his meeting with Than Shwe, Webb Aug. 15 traveled to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and met with Suu Kyi for 40 minutes at a guest house owned by the government. Webb Aug. 17 said that, following his conversation with Suu Kyi, he believed that she was not opposed to having some sanctions against Myanmar lifted if doing so seemed likely to have positive effects. Webb also suggested that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) might push Myanmar, a member nation, to grant amnesty to Suu Kyi. ASEAN had traditionally avoided criticizing Myanmar’s human rights abuses and mistreatment of dissidents, but had been more vocal about protesting Suu Kyi’s treatment in recent months. Yettaw Freed, Examined—Yettaw Aug. 16 was released and flew with Webb to Thailand later the same day. Yettaw, who suffered FACTS ON FILE

from diabetes, post-traumatic stress disorder and epilepsy, was medically examined in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, and returned to the U.S. on Aug. 19. Yettaw had claimed to have dreamed that Suu Kyi would be assassinated by terrorists, and that he had traveled to her residence from the U.S. on a mission from God to warn her. He said Aug. 19, “If I had to do it again, I would do it a hundred times, a hundred times, to save her life.” Dissidents Issue ‘Reconciliation’ Plan—

A group of exiled Myanmar pro-democracy organizations known as the Movement for Democracy and Rights of Ethnic Nationalities Aug. 12–13 held a meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, to discuss their future approach to securing democracy and national reconciliation in Myanmar. The group, which did not include Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, Aug. 13 released a “Proposal for National Reconciliation” that argued that 2010 legislative elections planned by the junta should be considered legitimate only if Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners were released and allowed to participate in the vote, among other measures. n

Philippines Raids on Militants Leave At Least 44 Dead.

The Philippine military Aug. 12 raided two camps held by the Abu Sayyaf Islamic terrorist group on the country’s southern island of Basilan, triggering clashes that left at least 23 soldiers dead and 22 others wounded. The military Aug. 13 said that as many as 40 militants could have been killed in the fighting but that only 21 bodies had been recovered. Abu Sayyaf, which allegedly had links to the Al Qaeda international terrorist network, among other militant groups, was thought to have about 400 members in the region. [See pp. 527E2, 415E2] The military had raided the two camps in search of Abu Sayyaf commanders Furuji Indama and Khair Mundus, who were wanted in connection with terrorist acts carried out by the group. It was not immediately clear whether either of them had been killed in the fighting. Soldiers, police and marines reportedly seized homemade explosives and high-powered guns, as well as documents, in the raids. The military Aug. 13 said that the militants had been using the bases as locations to build explosives and temporarily hide kidnapping victims. Philippine Navy Vice Adm. Ferdinand Golez Aug. 13 said not all of the militants killed were necessarily members of Abu Sayyaf and suggested that some could have been members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an Islamic separatist group that was active in the region. A spokesman for the MILF Aug. 13 confirmed that 10 members of the group had been killed during the fighting, but said that they had not been working with Abu Sayyaf and merely happened to be nearby when the shooting began. 10 Militants Killed in Hostage Rescue—

Philippine police and marines Aug. 19 clashed with alleged militants on the southAugust 20, 2009

ern island of Palawan, killing 10 and capturing another five. The leader of the militants, Abdullah Abdurajak, who had been wanted by the police on gun charges, was among those killed during the fighting. The militants Aug. 15 had taken control of a mosque on Palawan and had allegedly been holding hostages and extorting payments from local residents. More than 2,000 people had fled the island following the arrival of the militants. Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) head Nur Misuari Aug. 20 said the militants had been MNLF members and described the clashes as “a massacre” carried out by the military. Misuari called the extortion and kidnapping allegations false, and said that while the MNLF would take no military action in response to the killings, the group might take legal action against the military. The MNLF had signed a peace deal with the Philippine government in 1996 in exchange for the founding of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. n

Thailand Thaksin Supporters Petition for Royal Pardon.

A group of more than 20,000 supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Aug. 17 assembled in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to present a petition to King Bhumibol Adulyadej requesting a royal pardon for Thaksin. Thaksin had fled the country in August 2008 while on trial on corruption charges linked to his term as prime minister and had been sentenced in absentia to two years in prison. [See p. 295A2; 2008, p. 773E2] Thaksin supporters claimed that the petition had more than four million signatures, demonstrating continued support for him almost three years after he was ousted as prime minister in a bloodless 2006 military coup. Analysts suggested that it was unlikely that Bhumibol, who traditionally avoided interfering in political matters, would grant Thaksin a pardon. The government, controlled by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, one of Thaksin’s political opponents, had argued that the petition was illegal because only convicts currently serving prison sentences could petition the king for a pardon under Thai law. The government July 31 had broadcast a television program which argued against the legality of the petition drive, and announced the creation of government lists to allow people who had signed the petition to indicate that they wanted their names removed from it. Thaksin Aug. 17 addressed his assembled supporters by phone from abroad, saying, “The people are here today not because of me, but because they feel fed up with three years of injustice” and said that he hoped that Bhumibol would help to end the injustice by pardoning him. Abhisit’s antiThaksin Democrat Party had come to power in December 2008 after the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP)—which had been voted into office in December 2007—had been dissolved by the country’s Constitutional Court after high-ranking party mem-

bers were found guilty of electoral fraud. [See 2008, p. 926F2; 2007, p. 887A2] Thaksin Supporters Rally in Bangkok—

A group of about 20,000 protesters June 27 assembled peacefully in Bangkok in support of Thaksin. The assembly, which was led by the pro-Thaksin United Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) group, was the largest by Thaksin supporters since massive protests in April that forced the cancellation of a planned Association of a Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Pattaya, Thailand. Thaksin addressed the group by phone from overseas and accused the current government of “hounding” him. He also asked the crowd to continue working to help him return to Thailand and to exert pressure on the current government. n

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Other Asia-Pacific News Typhoon Kills Hundreds in Taiwan. Typhoon

Morakot Aug. 7–9 crossed Taiwan, dumping more than 80 inches (two meters) of rain and causing flooding and large landslides, with authorities estimating as of Aug. 20 that at least 600 people had been killed. The storm was called the island’s worst natural disaster in half a century, and anger over the government’s response became a political crisis for President Ma Ying-jeou. [See p. 511A2; 2000, p. 638F3] Although the death toll Aug. 20 officially stood at 141, authorities said some 380 people were believed to have died in Hsiao Lin, a village in the southern county of Kaohsiung, which was completely buried by an early Aug. 9 landslide. Rescue operations were hampered by continuing severe weather and the destruction of roads and bridges in the mountainous region. Helicopters began reaching Hsiao Lin Aug. 11; one rescue helicopter crashed into a mountain that day, killing the three rescuers aboard. Some 15,000 people were eventually airlifted to safety. Taiwan’s government Aug. 13 ordered more troops to join the rescue efforts, and appealed to foreign countries for aid, including large aircraft that could carry excavation equipment to remote affected areas, and prefabricated housing. Dozens of countries offered assistance, including the U.S., which sent heavy-duty helicopters, and China, which said it would provide $15 million in aid. Ma that day denied allegations that the government had at first declined foreign assistance, but it was revealed the following day that the foreign ministry had instructed its diplomats abroad in a memorandum to refuse offers of aid. Vice Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia Aug. 18 resigned to take responsibility for the memo. After defending the government’s response, Ma Aug. 16 said he was “sorry” for its shortcomings. Opposition lawmakers said he had waited too long to declare a national emergency, failing to speedily mobilize the military. Ma at a news conference Aug. 18 repeated his apology, and said he would shift the military’s primary focus to disaster response, suggesting that “nature” 559

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rather than China posed the more immediate threat to Taiwan. Defense Minister Chen Chao-min and Cabinet Secretary General Hsieh Hsiangchuan Aug. 19 submitted their resignations over the slowness of the government’s response. Prime Minister Liu Chao-shiuan said the offers would be considered in deliberations in early September. Typhoon Morakot was also blamed for 23 deaths in the Philippines and at least eight in China, where some 1.4 million people had been evacuated from their homes in the southern provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. Another typhoon, Etau, killed 13 people in Japan Aug. 10, causing landslides that were exacerbated by an earthquake Aug. 11. [See p. 557F3] n

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Georgia U.S. Marines to Train Georgian Battalion. The

U.S. Defense Department Aug. 14 announced that 60–70 U.S. marines would train a Georgian infantry battalion in counterinsurgency tactics prior to its planned 2010 deployment to Afghanistan. The training program would take place in Georgia and begin Sept. 1. [See pp. 534E2, 496C3] Georgia in 2003 had sent about 2,000 troops to Iraq, but they were called back to Georgia during the country’s five-day war with Russia in August 2008 over the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. U.S. military training of Georgian troops had been discontinued after that conflict, in which the Georgian army was routed. No weapons would be supplied to Georgia as part of the program. A Defense Department spokesman said the program was “not designed to get [Georgian troops] ready for any internal defense.” He added that the U.S. had been “very forthright with our Russian counterparts about what we are doing.” Russia had expressed strong opposition to U.S. military aid to Georgia, and had recently announced an expansion of its military presence in Abkhazia. n

Germany Ex-Nazi Officer Convicted of War Crimes.

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A court in Munich, Germany, Aug. 11 convicted a former Nazi officer, Josef Scheungraber, 90, of ordering the executions of 14 Italian civilians during World War II in reprisal for the deaths of two German soldiers. Scheungraber was convicted on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and acquitted on four additional murder charges. He was sentenced to life in prison. The trial had opened in September 2008. [See p. 352D2; 2005, p. 917E1; 1997, p. 547F1] Prosecutors had charged that on June 26, 1944, in the village of Falzano di Cortona, near Arrezzo, in Tuscany, Scheungraber, then a lieutenant in command of an engineering company, had ordered his men to retaliate for the killing of their two comrades by Italian partisans. He allegedly or560

dered his troops to shoot three Italian men and one 74-year-old woman, then herd 11 civilians into a barn and blow it up. Scheungraber denied ordering the massacre, claiming that he handed the victims over to military police and was not in the village when they were killed. Prosecutors conceded that there were no living witnesses who had heard him order the reprisal killings, but cited photographs that showed him at the burials of the slain German soldiers. In 2006, an Italian military tribunal had convicted Scheungraber in absentia for the massacre and sentenced him to life in prison. Germany did not extradite him to appear at that trial or serve the sentence. The only survivor of the massacre, Gino Massetti, who was 15 at the time, testified at the Munich trial in October 2008. He said he had seen an officer arrive on a motorcycle before the barn was blown up, but had not been able to understand his German speech and could not describe his appearance. Since the war, Scheungraber had lived in Ottobrunn, a Munich suburb, running a furniture shop and serving on the town council. A former employee testified in July that Scheungraber in the 1970s had once referred to the killings to explain why he could not travel to Italy. The witness, identified only as Eugen S., said Scheungraber had described the massacre “as if it were his decision,” although he did not explicitly say that he had ordered the killings. n

Russia Suicide Bomber Kills 21 in Ingushetia. A

suicide bomber Aug. 17 detonated a minivan filled with explosives in the courtyard of a police station in Nazran, the main city in the southern republic of Ingushetia, killing 21 people and injuring more than 138. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that day criticized the Ingush police, called the attack preventable and fired Ingushetia’s interior minister. Shootouts between police and rebels were common in Ingushetia and the nearby republics of Chechnya and Dagestan, and a number of prominent officials in the area had recently been assassinated. [See below, p. 544A3] Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who was recovering in Moscow from an assassination attempt, said the attack was meant to “destabilize the situation and sow panic.” He said “Arab mercenaries” had traveled to Muslim republics in southern Russia to fight alongside local rebels. He also suggested that Western countries had a hand in destabilizing Ingushetia, saying that “the West will strive not to allow Russia to revive its former Soviet might.” The bombing was the deadliest attack in Ingushetia since 2004, when hundreds of rebels attacked Nazran, killing 92 people. [See 2004, p. 464F3] Militants Kill Seven in Dagestan Sauna—

Unidentified militants Aug. 13 killed seven woman who were reportedly prostitutes at a sauna in the Dagestani town of Buynaksk. Local police said the same group of rebels had earlier fired on Dagestani traffic police, killing at least four people, before

reportedly hijacking a minibus and moving on to the sauna. The same day, four policemen and two rebels were killed in a shootout in Chechnya. n Power Plant Accident Kills At Least 17. An explosion at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant on the Yenisei River in Siberia Aug. 17 caused massive flooding inside the plant, killing at least 17 people. An additional 58 were missing and presumed drowned, according to Russian officials. The blast, whose cause was not immediately known, sent an oil slick of about 10 square miles (25 sq. km) floating down the Yenisei. The Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant was the largest in Russia. [See 2008, p. 841E2; 2004, p. 613C3] n

Switzerland Tax-Evasion Settlement Gives U.S. Bank Data. U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Com-

missioner Douglas Shulman Aug. 19 announced a settlement between the U.S. and Swiss governments, under which Swiss bank UBS AG would hand over the names and account information of about 4,450 U.S. customers suspected of tax evasion. Switzerland also agreed to facilitate U.S. requests for information on suspected tax evaders believed to have accounts at other Swiss banks. [See p. 163G1] Shulman said the agreement would provide the IRS with “an unprecedented amount of information.” He estimated that the UBS accounts had once been worth a total of more than $18 billion, but said he did not know their current value. Shulman said the UBS clients would be notified and given a chance to voluntarily disclose secret accounts and pay fines before the Sept. 23 expiration of an IRS tax amnesty program. He said he expected 5,000 people to seek amnesty, in addition to the clients to be named by USB. Those who did not come forward voluntarily faced criminal and civil charges. About 150 U.S. citizens were under criminal investigation for tax evasion in connection with the UBS case. The agreement settled a civil lawsuit filed in February by the U.S. Justice Department on behalf of the IRS, which had originally demanded the names and account information of 52,000 UBS clients. The new agreement added to concessions made by Switzerland earlier in the year, which had eroded the Swiss tradition of banking secrecy, under pressure from the U.S. and other European countries to crack down on tax evasion. In February, UBS had settled separate criminal tax fraud charges brought by the IRS, agreeing to pay $780 million in fines and other penalties, and to reveal the names of about 250 U.S. clients suspected of evading taxes with the assistance of UBS bankers. The Swiss government Aug. 20 sold its 9.3% stake in UBS for a profit of about 1.2 billion Swiss francs ($1.13 billion). The government had taken the stake in 2008 as part of a rescue package to help UBS survive the global financial crisis. [See 2008, p. 739A2] n FACTS ON FILE

Turkey Pipeline Deals Struck With Russia, West.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Ankara, the Turkish capital, Aug. 6 signed an agreement to build pipelines to ship Russian natural gas across Turkish territory. Turkey July 13 had signed a deal with four European Union member nations—Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria—to build a rival gas pipeline, known as Nabucco, which would circumvent Russia. [See p. 37C1; 2007, p. 793C1] The 2,000-mile (3,300-km) Nabucco pipeline project, intended to carry gas from the Caspian Sea region, was viewed as a response to European concerns about overdependence on Russian gas supplies. Russia in January had cut off gas shipments to countries in Central and Eastern Europe during a pricing feud with Ukraine, through which most Russian gas passed en route to the West. Russia had cut off gas to Ukraine in a similar dispute two years earlier. The long-delayed Nabucco project was still uncertain, with no committed supplies or financing. Azerbaijan was expected to be a major supplier for the pipeline. Iraq had also offered to supply gas. Russia had proposed a competing project, known as the South Stream pipeline, to run under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. In the Aug. 6 agreement, Turkey said it would allow the pipeline to be built through Turkish territorial waters. In return, Russian companies would help build other projects, including a pipeline across Turkey’s Anatolian Peninsula, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Putin also offered to discuss possible Russian assistance for the construction of nuclear plants in Turkey. n

Other European News Muslim Swimsuits Stir Controversy. Local officials in Emerainville, a Paris suburb, Aug. 12 said they had banned a Muslim woman from wearing a full-body, head-totoe swimsuit in a public pool because of concerns about hygiene, not in disapproval of her religious beliefs. The mayor of a town in northern Italy had also banned the so-called burqini, it was reported Aug. 19. The three-piece swimsuit, similar to a wetsuit with an attached hood, was designed for Muslim women who wanted to cover their bodies. It was called a burqini because it was based on a full-length, face-hiding women’s Muslim garment known as the burqa or niqab. [See p. 432F2] In June, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had said he viewed the burqa as demeaning to women and supported a move by legislators to ban it in France. A special parliamentary committee was deliberating on the issue. The French newspaper Le Parisien Aug. 12 had reported on the case of the woman banned from wearing her burqini, which she had bought during a vacation in Dubai, August 20, 2009

in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The report identified the woman only as Carole, 35, a French convert to Islam. She said that after she was banned from the pool Aug. 1, she tried to file a complaint about the incident at a local police station, but was rebuffed. She denounced the ban as a form of “segregation,” and said she planned to ask for support from human rights groups. Daniel Guillaume, a regional swimming pool official, Aug. 12 said hygiene regulations did not allow swimmers to wear clothing that could be worn outside the pool and might bring contaminants into the water. He noted that France had strict rules for all patrons of public pools. Italy’s ANSA news agency Aug. 19 reported that Mayor Gianluca Buonanno of the northern Italian town of Varallo Sesia had imposed a fine of 500 euros ($700) on any woman who wore the burqini at local pools or rivers. Buonanno belonged to the Northern League, a party known for its anti-immigration stance. Meanwhile, special swimming sessions for Muslims at a number of municipal and school pools in Britain had drawn criticism from members of Parliament, the British Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Aug. 15. Some of the pools reportedly had separate sessions for men and women, and dress codes requiring women to cover themselves from the neck to the ankles, and men from the navel to the knees. n

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Iran Opposition Alleges Rape of Jailed Dissidents.

Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric and opposition leader who had run against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a controversial June election, had charged that people arrested during the post-election protests that swept the nation had been raped while in prison, it was reported Aug. 9. Iranian authorities had admitted that some prisoners had been physically abused, but the government vehemently denied the charges of rape, a taboo subject in Iran. [See pp. 562F1, 518F1, B2] In a letter dated July 29 to former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who headed Iran’s influential Assembly of Experts, and who had indicated support for the opposition, Karroubi wrote, “I heard accounts of boys and girls being violently raped in prison,” some so brutally that they suffered serious “genital injuries.” He said he learned of the rapes from officials “who hold sensitive positions in the country.” If the charges were true, he said, “it would overshadow the sins of many dictatorships including that of the deposed shah” of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani Aug. 12 said an investigation had shown that the rape allegations were “sheer lies” and that there was no evidence backing them. Clerics giving sermons at Friday prayers in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and in the cities of Qum and Mashad Aug. 14 also de-

nounced the rape accusations as an assault against the Iranian government, and called for Karroubi to be prosecuted. Mir Hussein Moussavi, who had also run against Ahmadinejad, and subsequently headed the opposition movement, Aug. 18 charged that “establishment agents” had raped and tortured prisoners. He called for a “quick, open and precise investigation of complaints by detained protesters and their families.” Iran’s prosecutor general, Qorbanali Dori-Najafabadi, Aug. 8 had acknowledged the abuse of prisoners after the election, including “the Kahrizak incident,” referring to the reported deaths of at least four prisoners at Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, which was subsequently closed. He said “mistakes” had resulted in some “painful accidents which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished.” However, Brig. Gen. Esmail AhmadiMoqaddam, the national police chief, Aug. 9 said that while prisoners had been abused at Kahrizak, the deaths there were due to “viral illness” rather than torture. Iranian legislators and media Aug. 10 said Ahmadinejad had fired at least four senior intelligence ministry officials who had contradicted government claims that dissidents were trying to overthrow the government, and who had opposed publicly broadcasting dissidents’ confessions. Two of the fired officials, including the head of counterintelligence, were reportedly close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s opposition Aug. 11 said it had verified that at least 69 people had been killed in the election’s aftermath. The government had said there had been 20 deaths, but human rights groups said the death toll was likely far higher. Supreme Leader Challenged—A group of former reformist legislators had written an unprecedented open letter to Rafsanjani demanding that the Assembly of Experts investigate whether Khamenei was fit to rule, it was reported Aug. 15. The Assembly of Experts was technically responsible for monitoring the supreme leader’s fitness and removing him if necessary, although it had generally remained subservient to Khamenei. A group of clerics Aug. 15 anonymously issued a similar letter calling for Khamenei’s removal, charging that he was responsible for the post-election violence and had made the media and the Revolutionary Guards into his personal tools. They said they had not signed their names because they feared his “dictatorship.” The letter was posted on opposition Web sites. Such letters were not considered a threat to Khamenei, who was believed to have a firm grip on the government. However, the supreme leader was traditionally considered above criticism, and the direct attacks on him were considered some of the strongest manifestations of opposition to the government since the election. Also Aug. 15, Moussavi announced on his Web site that he was forming a new “grass-roots and social network” to pro561

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mote democracy and the rule of law. The network would not be a political party, which would have required a government permit. The movement was known as the Green Way of Hope; green had been the color of Moussavi’s presidential campaign, and had been taken up by protesters after the election. Dissident Trial Continues— The mass trial of more than 100 alleged dissidents arrested after the election Aug. 8 continued with a second session in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. Prosecutors again charged that the opposition had been involved in a Western-backed plot to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government in a “velvet revolution” similar to those that took place in Ukraine and Georgia in recent years. Families of the defendants protested outside the courthouse, but were beaten back by police. Several defendants took the stand to confess and apologize for their role in the protests. (The opposition claimed that the defendants’ confessions had been obtained by torture.) Among the defendants were Hossein Rassam, an Iranian citizen who had worked as a political analyst at the British embassy; and Clotilde Reiss, a French researcher who admitted to passing information to the French embassy. Both denied that they were spies, and the British and French governments called for their release, as well as that of a French embassy staffer, Nazak Afshar. (Afshar Aug. 11 was conditionally released to the French embassy, and Reiss Aug. 16 was also released to the embassy after the French government agreed to pay her bail. However, she was not allowed to leave Iran until a ruling was handed down in her case.) Prosecutors Aug. 16 brought charges against an additional 28 people in the trial’s third session, bringing the total number of defendants to 135. Several defendants reportedly blamed Moussavi and other opposition leaders and newspapers for persuading them to join the protests. Although Moussavi had not been charged with any crimes, some government officials had called for his arrest. Moussavi at a meeting Aug. 15 reportedly said the trial was aimed at “proving a baseless illusion.” n Ahmadinejad Nominates Loyalist Cabinet.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad late Aug. 19 nominated a new cabinet, purging ministers who had criticized him and replacing them with loyalists. (Ahmadinejad Aug. 16 had announced the names of six nominees.) He submitted his slate just before a constitutional deadline, in what was seen as an attempt to limit the time parliament had to review it. However, parliament Speaker Ali Larijani postponed the session of parliament that was to vote on approval of the cabinet. Larijani and other legislators in the past weeks had warned Ahmadinejad to nominate ministers based on competence rather than personal loyalty, and were expected to reject some of his choices. [See pp. 561D2, 519B1, 518F1] Ahmadinejad replaced all but five ministers of the 21-member cabinet; among those 562

who were replaced were all 10 ministers who had criticized Ahmadinejad over his July nomination of Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as Iran’s vice president. (Ahmadinejad eventually dropped the nomination, which was opposed by Khamenei, but then appointed Mashai his chief of staff.) Several of the candidates were relatively young and had little experience in their ministry’s areas, notably the nominee for oil minister, current Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi; and the nominee for intelligence minister, Heidar Moslehi. Ahmadinejad nominated three women to the cabinet, who if confirmed would be the first female Iranian ministers since the Islamic Revolution. They were Marzieh Vadi Dastgerdi, for health minister; Fatemeh Ajorlou, for welfare minister; and Sousan Keshavarz, for education minister. Current Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was slated to become interior minister. He had close ties to the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, while Moslehi had served as Khamenei’s representative to the Basij paramilitary force, both of which had played a large role in violently suppressing protests after a disputed presidential election in June. Manouchehr Mottaki retained his post as foreign minister. Ahmadinejad Aug. 19 did not announce the names of his defense and justice nominees. However, media reports Aug. 20 identified the prospective defense minister as Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, currently the deputy defense minister for research and development. The international police agency Interpol had sought Vahidi for questioning in connection with the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina. The justice candidate was identified as Morteza Bakhtiari, currently a provincial governor. [See 2006, p. 881D3] Ahmadinejad Aug. 20 in a televised interview defended his cabinet choices, saying that he had been given a mandate in the presidential election. In other appointments, Khamenei Aug. 15 named Sadeq Larijani—a conservative member of the powerful Guardian Council, and Ali Larijani’s brother—to replace Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi as the judiciary chief. The term of Shahroudi, another conservative, was ending, and Sadeq Larijani’s appointment was not seen as linked to the post-election turmoil and allegations of prisoner abuse. Sadeq Larijani Aug. 19 appointed Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei as the national prosecutor general. Mohseni-Ejei had been dismissed in July as intelligence minister by Ahmadinejad after attacking Mashai’s nomination as vice president. n

Iraq Attacks on Government Buildings Kill 95.

Two massive car bomb blasts Aug. 19 hit the finance and foreign ministry buildings in heavily fortified areas of central Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, killing at least 95 people and wounding nearly 600. The attacks were the worst since U.S. forces had mostly pulled out of Iraq’s cities in June

and handed security responsibility over to the Iraqi government. [See p. 545F1] In the more powerful of the two blasts, a suicide truck bomber detonated an estimated two tons of explosives outside the foreign ministry, breaching the blast wall, damaging the ministry building and nearby apartment buildings, and incinerating vehicles in the road. The attack killed at least 60 people. The other truck bomb, which exploded around the same time near the finance ministry, killed at least 35 people, and caused the collapse of a nearby elevated highway. The Iraqi government blamed the attacks on former members of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. They had occurred a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during a visit to Syria had asked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to turn over Baathists suspected of involvement in attacks in Iraq. The Iraqi government in recent weeks had said that security had essentially stabilized, and Maliki the previous week had proposed removing most of Baghdad’s concrete barriers, which were meant to prevent bombings. Maliki Aug. 19 said the attacks were “a vengeful response” to his proposal, and that it would be reconsidered. Baghdad security spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the attacks were “a security breach for which Iraqi forces must take most of the blame.” The Iraqi government Aug. 20 announced that 11 army and police commanders had been arrested for negligence. [See p. 545D2] U.S. troops established a security cordon around the attack sites. However, U.S. troops said they could not assist rescue and medical efforts in the aftermath because Iraq did not request that they intervene. Under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, U.S. forces were allowed to take only limited actions without Iraqi permission. Also Aug. 19, other bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad killed up to eight people, although some reports said there were no fatalities. Two suicide bombers Aug. 13 had blown themselves up in a cafe in the northern city of Sinjar, killing 21 people. Sinjar was mostly populated by the minority Yazidi sect, which combined elements of Islam with ancient religious teachings from other faiths and segregated itself from mainstream Iraqi society. There had been two other attacks in the past week on other minority groups in the province of Nineveh. Although Sinjar was in Nineveh, which was governed by Arabs, it was also claimed by the government of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region. After a 2007 quadruple truck bombing in two Yazidi villages had killed hundreds of people, Kurdish pesh merga security forces had fortified Sinjar. [See 2007, p. 521A1] Kurdish and Arab forces had come close to open combat in recent months, and the bombings in the region were seen as intended to increase sectarian tensions. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Aug. 17 proposed sending U.S. troops to the disputed territory to particiFACTS ON FILE

pate in joint patrols with pesh merga and Arab forces in order to decrease the possibility of violence. Maliki Calls for U.S. Pact Referendum—

Maliki Aug. 17 said he would propose legislation to hold a national referendum on the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. The referendum, which first had to be approved by Iraq’s parliament, would be held during January 2010 parliamentary elections. The agreement currently required the U.S. to withdraw all of its forces from the country by the end of 2011; if Iraqis approved the referendum, U.S. troops would instead have to leave by January 2011. [See p. 529B3] The U.S. had reportedly lobbied Iraq not to hold the referendum. The agreement had called for such a national vote, but a deadline to set the referendum had passed in July. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o Iraqi officials Aug. 18 said Iraqi and U.S. troops had seized about a dozen Iranian-made rockets aimed at a U.S. base in the southern city of Basra, and arrested three people. U.S. commanders in the past had accused Iran of providing weapons to Iraqi Shiite Muslim militias, which had made Basra a stronghold before largely being swept out in a 2008 Iraqi operation. o The U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Aug. 17 released a report charging that Shiite militiamen might have tortured and killed hundreds of gay men in predominantly Shiite areas. Many of the killings were reportedly carried out in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, which said homosexuality was forbidden by Islam. The report said the Iraqi government had not done anything to address the problem. Homosexuality was taboo throughout Iraq, but had been tacitly accepted during the last years of Hussein’s regime. o Odierno Aug. 17 said the U.S. would release more members of a Shiite militia that had agreed to a cease-fire with the Iraqi government. The group—Asa’ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous—was thought to be responsible for the killing of five U.S. soldiers and the abduction of five Britons in 2007. Five senior group members had been released from U.S. custody so far. The cease-fire deal would reportedly resolve the case of Peter Moore, the only one of the abducted Britons whose death had not been confirmed, and U.S. Spec. Ahmed al-Taie, who had disappeared in 2006 and whose fate was also unknown. [See p. 529E3] n

West Bank & Gaza Strip Hamas Clashes With Islamists in Gaza.

Security forces belonging to Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), the militant group that controlled the Gaza Strip, Aug. 14–15 battled with members of a more extreme Islamist group in the Gaza city of Rafah. The fighting reportedly killed at least 22 people, including the extremists’ leader—Abdel Latif Moussa, a radical August 20, 2009

cleric and doctor—and a Hamas police commander. [See p. 380E3] Moussa Aug. 14 had arrived at a Rafah mosque with armed followers and declared “the birth of the Islamic emirate” in Gaza. Moussa for months had been criticizing Hamas for being too moderate in imposing Islamic law, and his group—Jund Ansar Allah, which meant Warriors of God— claimed to be inspired by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. Hamas police surrounded the mosque, and after calling on Moussa and his followers to surrender, a gunfight broke out for several hours and continued into the next day. Six Hamas policemen, including the senior official, and a child were among the slain. Moussa and a top aide were killed in an explosion that some Hamas officials said was caused by a suicide belt. The battle undermined Hamas’s claim that it had a firm grip on Gaza. Hamas for months had been struggling to keep other Islamist groups, such as Jund Ansar Allah, under control and keep them from firing rockets at Israel. Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, Aug. 14 rejected Israeli assertions that foreign Islamist militants might have infiltrated the territory in order to carry out attacks, saying that Gaza “only contains its people.” n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Yang Upsets Woods to Win PGA Championship First Asian-Born Man to Win Golf Major.

Yong-Eun (Y.E.) Yang of South Korea Aug. 16 won the 91st Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championship, the final men’s major tournament of the year, at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn. Yang, 37, won just his second PGA Tour title, and beat top-ranked Tiger Woods of the U.S., who had led going into the final round. [See below, p. 255A3; 2008, p. 563G1] Yang’s victory was a stunning upset of Woods, who was vying for his 15th major victory. Woods had never lost a major tournament after leading through the third round. He had returned to the Tour in February after an eight-month absence due to reconstructive knee surgery, and had not won a major since the 2008 U.S. Open. [See p. 139C1] Yang, who was ranked 110th in the world and only began playing golf at the age of 19, became the first Asian-born man to win a major tournament. Se Ri Pak of South Korea in 1998 had been the first Asian-born golfer to win a major when she triumphed in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Championship. Asian women, especially South Koreans, had become a major force on the LPGA Tour over the previous decade, but Asian men had yet to establish a similar presence on the PGA Tour. [See 1998, p. 445E3] Woods had led after each of the first three rounds of the PGA Championship. In the third round Aug. 15, Yang shot a fiveunder-par 67 to post a 54-hole score of six under. That pulled him into a tie for second

place and earned him a spot in the final pairing the next day with Woods, who was two shots ahead at eight under. For the first time in his career, Woods stumbled in the final round of a major, shooting two over par on the front nine and one over on the back nine. Meanwhile, Yang held steady, with an even-par 36 on the front nine and a two-under 34 on the back nine, including an eagle on the parfour 14th. Woods sealed his fate by bogeying both the 17th and 18th holes. Yang shot a 70 in the final round to finish with an eight-under-par 280. He earned $1.35 million for the victory. Woods ended up three shots back in second place, and Lee Westwood of England and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland tied for third, at three under. Other News—In other golf news: o Woods Aug. 9 won the World Golf Championships–Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio. He shot a 12-under-par 268—including a 65 in the final round—to claim his 70th win on the PGA Tour and $1.4 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 563B3] o Woods Aug. 2 won the Buick Open in Grand Blanc, Mich. He shot a 268, 20 under par, and collected a $918,000 winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 512D1] o Nathan Green of Australia July 27 won the Canadian Open in Oakville, Ontario, defeating Retief Goosen of South Africa on the second playoff hole. Both golfers had posted regulation scores of 270, 18 under par. Green earned $918,000 for the victory. [See 2008, p. 563B3] o Steve Stricker of the U.S. July 12 won the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill. He posted a 20-under-par 264 for the tournament, and took home $774,000 in prize money. [See 2008, p. 512C1] o Woods July 5 won the AT&T National, a tournament he hosted, in Bethesda, Md. He shot a 13-under-par 267, and won $1.08 million. [See 2008, p. 512E1] o Kenny Perry of the U.S. June 28 won the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn. He finished with a tournamentrecord score of 258, 22 under par, and earned $1.08 million for the win. [See 2008, p. 512E1] o Brian Gay of the U.S. June 14 won the St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn. He shot an 18-under-par 262, and collected a $1.008 million winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 512E1] o Woods June 7 won the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio. He finished with a 276, 12 under par, and earned $1.08 million for the victory. [See 2008, p. 512F1] o Stricker May 31 won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, on the second playoff hole. Stricker and Steve Marino of the U.S. and Tim Clark of South Africa had all finished regulation with scores of 263, 17 under par. Stricker collected $1.116 million for the win. [See 2008, p. 512F1] 563

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o Rory Sabbatini of South Africa May 24 won the Byron Nelson Classic in Irving, Texas. He shot a 261, 19 under par, and earned a $1.17 million winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 512C2] o Zach Johnson of the U.S. May 17 won the Texas Open in San Antonio on the first playoff hole. Johnson and James Driscoll of the U.S. had been tied after 72 holes at 265, 15 under par. Johnson earned $1.098 million for the win. [See 2005, p. 827A2] o Henrik Stenson of Sweden May 10 won the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. He finished with a 12under 276, and collected $1.71 million in prize money. [See 2008, p. 512B1] o Sean O’Hair of the U.S. May 3 won the Quail Hollow Championship (formerly the Wachovia Championship) in Charlotte, N.C. He shot an 11-under 277, and earned $1.17 million. [See 2008, p. 512B2] o Jerry Kelly of the U.S. April 26 won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in Avondale, La. Kelly finished with a 14-under 274, and earned $1.134 million. [See 2008, p. 267B2] o Gay April 19 won the Verizon Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C. He posted a tournament-record 20-under-par 264, 10 shots ahead of the second-place finishers. Gay earned $1.026 million for the win. [See 2008, p. 512C2] n

Football Vick Completes Sentence, Joins Eagles.

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Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick July 20 completed his sentence for running a dog-fighting ring, after serving 18 months in a federal prison and two more months in home confinement. Following a July 22 meeting with Vick, National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell July 27 partially lifted the indefinite suspension levied against Vick in 2007. Under Goodell’s plan, Vick, 29, could immediately sign and practice with a team, but his conditional reinstatement would not come until later in the 2009–10 season. [See 2008, p. 992C2] The NFL had appointed former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy as Vick’s mentor throughout the reinstatement process. Following negotiations with several teams, Vick Aug. 13 signed a contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Vick would earn $1.6 million in the first year, with an option for a second year. He would serve as a backup to Eagles starting quarterback Donovan McNabb, a longtime friend who had been instrumental in the signing. It was expected that Vick would be fully reinstated by no later than the sixth week of the season. Vick had missed two NFL seasons after pleading guilty to federal conspiracy charges related to a dog-fighting ring known as Bad Newz Kennels that had been operated on property owned by Vick in Surry County, in rural Virginia. He left the game as one of the top-paid players, known for his unique ability to scramble for rushing yards as a quarterback. The Falcons June 12 had officially released him, freeing 564

the former franchise quarterback to sign with any team pending his reinstatement. At an Aug. 14 news conference, Vick thanked the NFL and the Eagles organization for “this second chance,” saying he “won’t disappoint.” In reference to his past mistakes, he expressed remorse, questioning why he had been “involved in such pointless activity.” The signing was generally met with resistance by the Philadelphia, Pa., media and the Eagles fan base. The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) immediately condemned the move. Vick the next day joined the Eagles at the team’s practice facility, where he was greeted by a few protesters.n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Theater Openings Burn the Floor. Ballroom-dancing spectacle mounted on Broadway after a decade-long international tour. Directed and choreographed by Jason Gilkison. With Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy. In New York City, at the Longacre Theater. Aug. 2. Enron. Drama charting the rise and fall of Enron Corp., the Houston, Texas–based energy giant that collapsed in 2001. By Lucy Prebble. Directed by Rupert Goold. With Samuel West, Tim Pigott-Smith, Tom Goodman-Hill and Amanda Drew. In Chichester, England, at Minerva Studio. July 23. [See 2008, pp. 654F3, 434G2, 35D3] Jerusalem. Dark comedy set at an outdoor festival in the English countryside. By Jez Butterworth. Directed by Ian Rickson. With Mark Rylance, Mackenzie Crook, Tom Brooke and Lucy Montgomery. In London, at the Royal Court Theatre. July 15. [See 2002, p. 352D1; 1997, p. 1015B2] The Mountaintop. Historical drama set in the Memphis, Tenn., motel where U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. By Katori Hall. Directed by James Dacre. With David Harewood and Lorraine Burroughs. In London, at Trafalgar Studios. July 20. [See 2008, p. 238C3] Next Fall. Drama about a gay couple with clashing religious values. By Geoffrey Nauffts (a playwright better known for his earlier work as an actor). Directed by Sheryl Kaller. With Patrick Heusinger and Patrick Breen. In New York City, at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. June 3. [See 1999, p. 411G2] Up. Drama inspired by the 1982 flight of truck driver Larry Walters in a lawn chair tethered to 45 weather balloons; Walters later committed suicide. By Bridget Carpenter. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro. With Ian Barford, Lauren Katz, Jake Cohen and Philippe Petit. In Chicago, at Steppenwolf Theater Co.’s Downstairs Theater. June 28. [See p. 120B2; 1982, p. 964A2] n

People Grammy Award–winning rapper Coolio June 26 in Los Angeles pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine, whereupon he was ordered to undergo 18 months of rehabilitation but was spared a jail sentence. Coolio, 45, had been arrested in March at Los Angeles International Airport after cocaine was found in his luggage. [See 1996, pp. 332A2, 154F3] n

O B I T UA R I E S CASSIN, Riccardo, 100, Italian mountaineer; of his 2,500 climbs, which included treks through the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes, roughly 100 were along routes never taken before; these included a July 1961 conquest of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, North America’s tallest peak, via a steep southern ridge previously considered unscalable, and subsequently dubbed the Cassin Ridge in his honor; he was also a leading manufacturer of climbing equipment; born Jan. 2, 1909, in San Vito al Tagliamento, Italy; died Aug. 6 at his home in Piani Resinelli, Italy.

HEWITT, Don(ald Shepard), 86, creator of CBS Inc.’s pioneering television newsweekly “60 Minutes,” on the air since September 1968; he was the show’s executive producer from its inception until his retirement in 2004; earlier highlights of his long career at CBS News included his 1960 orchestration of the first televised presidential debate, between Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and his role as executive producer of “CBS Evening News” in 1963, when the show, anchored by Walter Cronkite, became the first half-hour network newscast; born Dec. 14, 1922, in New York City; died Aug. 19 at his home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., of pancreatic cancer. [See p. 500G2; 2003, pp. 155E1, 75B3; Indexes 1998, 1992–93, 1983, 1969] KIM Dae Jung, 85, president of South Korea, 1998–2003, and the sole recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000; the first opposition leader to take power in South Korea—on his fourth attempt—he was awarded the prize for his pro-democracy efforts during long stretches of military rule in his country, and for his “sunshine policy” of reaching out to North Korean leader Kim Jung Il after becoming president; his five-year term in office, however, was marred by corruption scandals involving various aides, and his three sons, two of whom went to prison; his successor, Roh Moo Hyun, who served from 2003 to 2008, committed suicide in May after being tainted by corruption charges after he left office; born, according to his presidential library’s Web site, on Jan. 6, 1924, in the Jeolla district of what was then southern Korea, when Korea was a Japanese colony; other records, listing a December 1925 birth date, were believed to have been falsified to make him appear younger than he was, enabling him to avoid conscription into the Japanese military; died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, of pneumonia complications. [See pp. 558E2, 361C1; 2008, pp. 491B1, 39F3; Indexes 2006, 1995–2004, 1971–93] MAKAREZOS, Nikolaos, 90, key figure, as economic policy maker and in other roles, of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974; the junta’s main leader was George Papadopoulos, who died in 1999; its third dominant figure, Stylianos Pattakos, was still alive; after Greek democracy was restored in 1974, all three were sentenced to death for treason but then had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment; Makarezos, however, was released in 1990, on grounds of ill health; born in 1919 in Gravia, Greece; died Aug. 3. [See 1999, p. 556D3; 1975, pp. 637D1, 599F2, 78A3; Indexes 1967–74] NOVAK, Robert D(avid Sanders), 78, conservative political columnist and television commentator; from 1963 to 1993, he collaborated with Rowland Evans Jr. on a column called “Inside Report,” which at its peak was syndicated in about 300 newspapers; after Evans retired in 1993, Novak continued writing the column by himself until 2008, seven years after Evans’s death; both men also frequently appeared on the CNN cable network in the 1980s and 1990s; Novak was dropped by CNN in 2005, after he got into an onair row with liberal commentator James Carville; thereafter, he occasionally appeared on Fox News; in a 2003 column, he revealed the name of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative, Valerie Plame, precipitating a political scandal with which he became strongly associated; born Feb. 26, 1931, in Joliet, Ill.; died Aug. 18 at his home in Washington, D.C., of brain cancer. [See 2008, pp. 644B2, 547D1; 2007, pp. 764B3–D3, 430A2, 138A1, 137C1, C3, 81G1, 80D3, 47D2; Indexes 2003–06, 2001, 1994, 1990, 1982–88, 1976–77, 1973, 1971, 1965–67, 1963] PAUL, Les (born Lester William Polsfuss), 94, virtuoso guitarist, bandleader and guitar designer; he invented a series of electrical guitars that helped bring the guitar to the forefront of both jazz and rock-androll, and introduced various innovative recording techniques, including overdubbing and multitrack recording; his second wife, to whom he was married from 1949 to 1964, was singer Iris Colleen Summers, known professionally as Mary Ford; he and Ford, who died in 1977, had a string of hit songs in the early 1950s, including “Vaya Con Dios” (1953) and “I’m a Fool to Care” (1954); he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988; born June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wis.; died Aug. 13 at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y., of pneumonia complications. [See 2007, p. 795A2; 2006, p. 120D1; Index 1977] ROBSON, Sir Bobby (Robert William), 76, British soccer coach who led England to the 1990 World Cup semifinals, in which it was eliminated by West Germany, which went on to win the tournament; he later coached teams in the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, and was knighted in 2002; born Feb. 18, 1933, in Sacriston, England; died July 31 at his home in County Durham, England, of cancer. [See 2002, p. 464G3; 1990, pp. 547E2, 522G1, 454F3; Index 1988] n

August 20, 2009

Special Prosecutor to Investigate Alleged Abuses of Detainees by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency New Details of Interrogations Released.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Aug. 24 announced the appointment of John Durham as special prosecutor to investigate U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees and contractors who had allegedly mistreated or abused terrorism detainees during interrogations. Holder’s announcement followed the release earlier that day of a 2004 report by then–CIA Inspector General John Helgerson on abuses in the CIA terrorism detention and interrogation program, along with other documents related to the government’s antiterrorism activities. The inspector general’s report had previously been released in 2008 in a more heavily censored form. [See below, pp. 544F1, 257A1] Holder said CIA interrogators who had followed legal limits on interrogations set down in a series of controversial memorandums written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) would not be investigated by the special prosecutor. The new probe was reportedly focused on interrogators who had exceeded the limits set down by the OLC, as well as interrogators who made use of techniques that had not been approved, or used approved techniques before approval was officially given or after the approval had been withdrawn. Holder had reportedly been considering appointing a special prosecutor to probe detainee abuses for several months since reading the allegations contained in the 2004 report. The New York Times reported Aug. 24 that the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which oversaw ethics within the department, had recommended reopening some detainee abuse cases noted in the report. A group of nine Republican senators, including U.S. Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.), the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Aug. 19 had sent Holder a letter opposing the appointment of a special prosecutor. In the letter, the senators wrote that any such appointment could “have serious consequences, not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans.” Bond Aug. 24 accused Holder of breaking a private promise not to investigate CIA interrogators that he had made to Republican senators prior to his confirmation. U.S. President Barack Obama had barred the use of controversial intelligence techniques authorized by the Justice Department under his predecessor, George W. Bush, that critics suggested violated laws and treaties banning torture. But Obama had expressed a wish to “look forward” rather than pursue criminal cases against Bush administration figures. A White House spokesman Aug. 24 emphasized that the decision to appoint a special prosecutor had been Holder’s alone. Durham Named Special Prosecutor—

Holder said Durham, an assistant U.S. attorney for Connecticut, had been instructed to carry out “a preliminary review into

whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations.” Durham, a registered Republican, was also required to submit recommendations to Holder on whether a wider criminal probe of the matter was warranted by the available evidence. [See p. 129C2] In January 2008, then–Attorney General Michael Mukasey had appointed Durham to serve as a special prosecutor to investigate the 2005 destruction of videotapes documenting the interrogations of terrorism detainees Abu Zubaydah, also known as Zain al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. That investigation was reportedly ongoing. The subject matter of the new investigation would overlap significantly with Durham’s existing probe. Nashiri, who had been linked to the 2000 attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole in Yemen’s port of Aden, and Zubaydah, who the CIA had erroneously thought was a high-ranking member of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network, were both subjected to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, and the destroyed tapes had been viewed by Helgerson as part of the investigation that led to the 2004 report. [See p. 199C3] During the Bush administration, Justice Department prosecutors had probed more than 20 cases in which the abuse of terrorism detainees was alleged. However, they had shelved the majority of the cases, reportedly due to inadequacies in the available evidence. Durham was expected to review fewer than 12 of those cases. More than 100 detainees were known to have died in U.S. custody, and many current and former detainees had alleged that they were tortured or otherwise abused by U.S. personnel or contractors, or by foreign interrogators working in concert with the U.S. government. Panetta Calls Allegations ‘Old Story’— CIA Director Leon Panetta Aug. 24 issued

a memo to agency employees in which he described the abuse allegations contained in Helgerson’s report as “in many ways an old story” and said that he would continue to “stand up for those [CIA] officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given” by the OLC. Panetta had reportedly strenuously opposed Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor. Report Examines ‘Inhumane’ Abuses—

The Justice Department Aug. 24 released a copy of Helgerson’s 2004 report that found that multiple CIA interrogators had made use of “unauthorized, inhumane and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques” during the imprisonment and questioning of terrorism detainees, and argued that the program had lacked sufficient supervision and oversight. Helgerson reportedly began his investigation at the urging of unidentified CIA agents who had expressed concern that the agency’s interrogation and detention programs were

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3584 August 27, 2009

B potentially illegal and violated the U.S.’s proclaimed values. According to the report, interrogators brandished weapons including a power drill and a handgun, staged a mock execution and threatened the families of at least two detainees. In addition, it found that many interrogation techniques that had been approved by the Justice Department were regularly used by CIA interrogators in unapproved ways, potentially violating federal laws. The report was released, along with other related documents, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in 2003 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Helgerson had based the report on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and experts, as well as on more than 38,000 documents that were reviewed by his office. Investigators also ex-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Special prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses of detainees by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency; new details of interrogations released. PAGE 565

Scotland defends Lockerbie bomber release; anger over celebrations in Libya.

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Sen. Edward Kennedy, longtime liberal Democratic leader, dies at 77. PAGE 569

White House sees $9 trillion 10-year deficit. PAGE 570

Bernanke nominated to second Fed term. PAGE 571

Amnesty for Nigeria oil region rebels begins.

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OAS mission to Honduras fails to secure Zelaya return. PAGE 575

Afghan vote results trickle in as fraud is claimed. PAGE 577

Pakistani Taliban ‘deputies’ confirm leader’s death. PAGE 577

Sprinter Bolt sets records at World Championships. PAGE 579

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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amined the 92 videotapes of CIA interrogations that were later destroyed by the agency. The version of the report publicly released Aug. 24 contained fewer censored sections than a version released in 2008. However, the redacted sections still included information on the deaths of three detainees in U.S. custody, as well as a list of 10 recommendations made by Helgerson on how to address the flaws in the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs. Helgerson Aug. 24 said that he was disappointed that his recommendations had been omitted from the publicly released version of the report. He also said that the report had “helped lead to clarification of the law, to strengthened management controls and operational procedures, and to more judicious use of interrogation techniques, including the abandonment of waterboarding.” Nashiri Threatened With Gun, Drill—

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The report found that a CIA interrogator in late 2002 and early 2003 had twice threatened Nashiri during his detention by brandishing a semiautomatic pistol near him. In addition, the same interrogator also revved a power drill near Nashiri while he was being kept naked and hooded. According to the report, CIA interrogators also made unauthorized use of stress positions on Nashiri, holding him by his arms in a manner that had not been approved by the OLC. The report found that some witnesses had become concerned that Nashiri’s treatment could dislocate his shoulders. Nashiri also reportedly suffered abrasions on his legs when interrogators intentionally brushed his legs with a stiff brush. In one instance, the report found that an interrogator had told Nashiri that his mother could be brought in to the prison as part of his interrogation, implying that she would be raped in front of him. Similarly, the report found that a CIA interrogator had threatened to kill the children of Al Qaeda official Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if any additional terrorist attacks took place within the U.S. Mohammed was believed to be the mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. that were carried out by Al Qaeda; his children were in U.S. custody at the time. Mock Execution Staged—According to the report, a group of CIA personnel staged a mock execution in an attempt to coerce another detainee into making a confession. The operatives had fired a gun in a cell adjacent to the one holding the detainee and then had walked the detainee past the room, where a CIA operative was dressed and posed to resemble a murdered detainee. The report found that the employee responsible for the incident had not taken the CIA’s mandatory course on how to conduct prisoner interrogations. Analysts suggested that the incident could violate U.S. antitorture statures banning the government from threatening prisoners with imminent death as part of an interrogation. Other incidents cited in the report included an October 2002 incident in which an in-

terrogator blew smoke in a detainee’s face until the detainee agreed to answer questions and a July 2002 incident where an interrogator applied pressure to the carotid artery in a detainee’s neck, cutting off the flow of blood to the brain and causing the detainee to pass out, a process that was reportedly repeated twice on the detainee. Interrogation Guidelines Overstepped—

Helgerson’s report found that interrogators had regularly exceeded or violated guidelines set down by the OLC governing the use of sleep deprivation and waterboarding against detainees. According to the report, while the OLC had approved the use of waterboarding when only a small amount of water was used to wet a cloth obstructing the detainee’s mouth and nose, the CIA regularly applied large amounts of water continuously to the cloth, intensifying the technique. The CIA’s Office of Medical Services, which oversaw the medical aspects of the interrogations, at one point refused to certify the agency’s use of waterboarding as “efficacious or medically safe” because of the “frequency and intensity” with which it was employed. The report also suggested that the CIA’s decision to waterboard Zubaydah and Mohammed 83 and 183 times, respectively, had possibly violated the OLC authorization for waterboarding, making it possible that criminal charges could be filed against those who carried out the waterboarding. [See p. 258C2] The report found that, under the CIA’s interrogation program, “when a detainee did not respond to a question posed to him, the assumption at headquarters was that the detainee was holding back and knew more” than he was saying, leading government officials supervising the program to “recommend resumption” of harsh interrogation techniques to convince the detainee to talk. According to the report, many of the detainees who were subject to harsh interrogation tactics had been detained even though allegations against them were “unsupported by credible evidence,” raising the possibility that some of those abused were innocent of any involvement in terrorist activities. The report found that while the Justice Department under the Bush administration had argued that the use of harsh interrogation methods did not constitute torture, the OLC had failed to legitimately address concerns that the CIA’s treatment of detainees might violate international agreements banning the “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners or detainees. The report also noted that some CIA employees who had been interviewed as part of the investigation were concerned that they were committing human rights abuses during interrogations and feared being prosecuted for their actions. Cheney Defends Harsh Interrogations—

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney Aug. 24 said that the use of harsh interrogation methods against terrorism detainees “provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about Al Qaeda” following the Sept. 11 attacks and maintained that the use of methods like waterboarding “saved lives and pre-

vented terrorist attacks.” Cheney had previously defended the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation methods, and had asked the government to declassify and release two documents that he claimed showed that the techniques had been essential to the government’s antiterrorism effort; those two documents were also released Aug. 24. [See pp. 322F2, 258G2] The two documents were a 2004 report on Mohammed’s interrogation and a 2005 report examining the importance of detainee interrogations to the gathering of antiterrorism intelligence. According to the Mohammed report, which was dated July 13, 2004, information gathered from Mohammed during interrogations had led directly to the capture of four members of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a terrorist network based in Southeast Asia, including Hambali, its former leader, as well as Malaysian terrorist Yazid Sufaat, who had worked with Al Qaeda on a proposed anthrax weapon. [See 2008, p. 980D3] However, the Mohammed report did not discuss whether the use of harsh interrogation tactics, many of which were based in part on Korean War–era torture tactics used by the Chinese army to elicit confessions that often turned out to be false, had led Mohammed to make false confessions, something analysts suggested was a likely result of the use of the tactics. In addition, the report did not detail which pieces of intelligence provided by Mohammed had been obtained before he was waterboarded. (Helgerson’s 2004 report found that most of Mohammed’s useful information had been provided after waterboarding, but had found that it did not contribute to the foiling of any imminent plots, and argued that it was unclear if harsh methods were more

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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effective than normal interrogation techniques.) [See p. 289D2] The second document, written June 3, 2005, was titled “Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al-Qaeda.” The report found that “detainee reporting has become a crucial pillar of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, aiding intelligence and law enforcement operations to capture additional terrorists, helping to thwart terrorist plots, and advancing our analysis of the alQaeda target.” However, the report did not include any mention of the use of harsh interrogation tactics resulting in meaningful intelligence. Documents Describe Detainee Treatment—

Other documents released Aug. 24 by the Obama administration included a December 2004 memo to then–Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin from lawyers for the CIA that described the step-bystep treatment of high-level detainees such as Mohammed following their capture. According to the memo, such detainees were kept nude or diapered, fed liquid food and routinely shackled while standing to deprive them of sleep, as part of a routine intended to make them vulnerable to interrogation. Similarly, a 2006 memo released the same day detailed the methods used by the CIA to evoke feelings of isolation in detainees. According to the memo, detainees had their heads and facial hair shaved, were kept in cells with lights that were never turned off, and were forced to wear goggles or “other opaque material” over their eyes. The memo also says that recordings of “white noise” were used to make it impossible for detainees to communicate with each other during their detention. Another released document, a memo written by then–OLC head Steven Bradbury on July 20, 2007, said that the government had held a total of 98 high-level detainees since the CIA’s detention program began in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and disclosed that 30 of those detainees had been subject to harsh tactics. The memo also said that the CIA intended to capture and interrogate more high-level members of Al Qaeda despite a 2006 order by Bush transferring all CIA prisoners to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The document release also included a series of memos sent in June and July 2004 in which then–Attorney General John Ashcroft pushed then–CIA Director George Tenet to ask Helgerson to make changes to the inspector general’s report. According to the memos, Ashcroft objected to a section of the report saying that Ashcroft had been aware that waterboarding had been used more than 100 times against Mohammed. Tenet reportedly informed Helgerson of Ashcroft’s complaints, but Helgerson refused to change the section, arguing that it was accurate and backed up by documented evidence. Other documents released Aug. 24 included a 2007 Justice Department memo reauthorizing the CIA’s use of harsh tactics against detainees and a series of Justice Department memos from 2006 examining August 27, 2009

conditions in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, known as “black sites.” New Interrogation Unit Announced—A White House spokesman Aug. 24 announced that Obama had signed an executive order establishing the High-Value Interrogation Group, a new government organization assigned to carry out future interrogations of terrorism suspects and other detainees held in U.S. custody. The creation of the group had reportedly been recommended by an Obama administration task force formed to determinine future interrogation policies. Under the executive order, the group would employ well-trained interrogators, linguists and support staffers from government agencies, including the Justice Department and the CIA, who would travel to far-flung locations to question detainees. The group was expected to be overseen by the White House’s National Security Council (NSC) but its day-to-day operations would be run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), rather than the White House. The group was reportedly intended to focus on gathering intelligence rather than assembling evidence for criminal trials, and decisions on whether to inform prisoners of their right against selfincrimination and other similar rights was expected to be made on a case-by-case basis. The group was required to limit itself to interrogation techniques approved by the Army Field Manual, which banned all types of coercive or abusive treatment (the restrictions also applied to all other interrogations carried out by the government). However, the group was also tasked with developing a research program intended to test the effectiveness of new interrogation techniques for use by other parts of the government; it was unclear how the use of new interrogation methods would be approved. Renditions to Continue— The White House’s Interrogation and Transfer Policy Task Force Aug. 24 announced that the Obama administration would continue to transfer detainees and other prisoners between countries, a practice known as “rendition.” Under the Bush administration, current and former detainees had accused the U.S. of transferring them to foreign countries, including Egypt and Morocco, where they were tortured or otherwise abused. The U.S. had traditionally asked countries for assurances that prisoners transferred by the U.S. would not be abused; however, it was unclear if such assurances were effective in countering abuses. The task force called for the State Department to investigate whether the assurances given by countries receiving detainees were sincere. The Los Angeles Times Aug. 22 had reported that the Obama administration had carried out its first confirmed rendition of a prisoner in April. The prisoner, Raymond Azar, had been seized by FBI agents in Afghanistan, where he was working for a Lebanese construction company. He was reportedly photographed naked, blindfolded and

flown to Virginia to face bribery charges related to allegations that he had paid kickbacks to an officer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan in exchange for construction contracts for his company. Azar Aug. 18 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to conspiracy to commit bribery; he faced up to five years in prison following his plea. n

Scotland Defends Lockerbie Bomber Release Anger Over Celebrations in Libya. Scottish

Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill at an emergency session of the Scottish parliament Aug. 24 defended his decision the previous week to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. MacAskill had ordered Megrahi to be freed early and allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds, citing a diagnosis that Megrahi had terminal prostate cancer and less than three months to live. [See p. 550B1] Megrahi’s release, and the jubilant welcome he received at the airport in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, drew strong condemnation from U.S. officials and from families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing, 189 of whom were U.S. citizens. Megrahi, 57, had been convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 27 years. U.S. President Barack Obama Aug. 21 said he thought the Libyan welcome for Megrahi was “highly objectionable.” Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, earlier that day had called Megrahi’s reception “outrageous and disgusting.” U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller 3rd Aug. 21 sent MacAskill a letter harshly critical of Megrahi’s release. Noting that he had, as a Justice Department official, overseen the Lockerbie investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991, Mueller told MacAskill, “Your action is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world.” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Aug. 23 criticized the release as “obviously a political decision.” A U.S. State Department spokesman Aug. 24 warned that if Libya continued to “lionize” Megrahi, “these kinds of public demonstrations can only have a profoundly negative effect on our relationship.” The U.S. had lifted economic sanctions on Libya in 2003, after Libya agreed to give up its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, renounce terrorism and pay $2.7 billion in compensation to families of Lockerbie victims. Minister Denies Economic Influence—MacAskill in his Aug. 24 statement to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, called back from its summer recess to discuss Megrahi’s release, denied that “economic consider567

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ations” involving British oil and gas interests in Libya had played any role in his decision, as had been suggested by Seif al-Islam elQaddafi, son of Libyan ruler Col. Muammer el-Qaddafi. [See below] MacAskill expressed “great regret” at the triumphant tone of the welcome, saying, “Assurances had been given by the Libyan government that any return would be dealt with in a low-key and sensitive fashion.” MacAskill said that when he had asked the British government to weigh in while he considered the case, “They declined to do so,” adding, “They simply informed me that they saw no legal barrier to transfer and that they gave no assurances to the U.S. government at the time. They declined to offer a full explanation. I found that highly regrettable.” Leaders of Scottish opposition parties denounced MacAskill’s decision as damaging to Scotland’s reputation and its relations with the U.S. Some lawmakers called for a parliamentary inquiry into the release. The current Scottish government was controlled by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party in opposition. Brown Aug. 21 released a letter he had sent to Muammer el-Qaddafi, asking him to conduct the welcome for Megrahi “with sensitivity,” out of respect for the Lockerbie victims’ families. The letter also alluded to a discussion between Brown and Qaddafi about Megrahi, at a Group of Eight (G-8) economic summit meeting in Italy six weeks earlier. The British government said it had left the decision on whether to release Megrahi in the hands of the local Scottish government, which had autonomy over matters including criminal justice. But David Cameron, leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative Party, Aug. 21 sent a letter to Brown calling on him to explain his government’s role in the release, and to say whether he thought it was right or wrong. Brown, vacationing at his home in Scotland, did not comment on the controversy for several days. Brown Aug. 25 broke his silence on the matter, saying that he was “angry and repulsed” by the Libyan reception for Megrahi. But he said that the decision fell under Scotland’s jurisdiction, and “it was a matter in which we could not interfere and had no control over the final outcome.” Meanwhile, families of Lockerbie victims in the U.S. had begun an Internetbased campaign called Boycott Scotland, calling for a boycott on tourism in Scotland and Scottish products. The campaign also called for a boycott to single out British oil company BP PLC, which it saw as a key player in the BritishLibyan trade relationship. BP in May 2007 had signed a $900 million deal to resume operations in Libya, when then–British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Qaddafi in Libya and reached agreements on matters including the possible transfer of prisoners such as Megrahi into Libyan custody. [See 2004, p. 233G3] 568

Qaddafi Greets Megrahi, Thanks Britain—

Envoys Pay Respects to Late President—

Qaddafi Aug. 21 personally welcomed Megrahi in a televised meeting in Tripoli. A Libyan news agency quoted Qaddafi as thanking Brown and British Queen Elizabeth II for “encouraging” Scotland to release Megrahi “despite all the illogical objections.” Qaddafi reportedly added, “This step is in the interest of relations between the two countries.” Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, who escorted Megrahi on his flight home, Aug. 21 was quoted by a Libyan television channel as saying that “in all commercial contacts for oil and gas with Britain,” Megrahi’s release “was always on the negotiating table.” Megrahi, who had always maintained his innocence, in an interview with the Times of London published Aug. 22 said he intended to “put out the evidence” that would exonerate him. He also said he did not plan on going anywhere except to “the hospital for medical treatment,” adding, “Don’t worry, Mr. Obama—it’s just three months,” referring to his terminal cancer prognosis. However, Richard Simpson, a Labour member of the Scottish Parliament who was also a physician and expert on prostate cancer, Aug. 25 questioned the prognosis on which MacAskill had based his decision. Simpson said, “It is clear to me from the medical reports and the opinion of the specialists that Megrahi could live for many more months.” n

The North Korean delegation, which arrived Aug. 21, was led by Kim Ki Nam, secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party, and Kim Yang Gon, the country’s intelligence chief, who was also responsible for South Korean relations. Upon their arrival, they laid a wreath at a memorial altar for Kim Dae Jung, who had died three days earlier. Kim Dae Jung had taken historic steps as president to improve ties with North Korea, holding a summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts later that year. The North Koreans Aug. 22 met with South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In Taek, after which the request to meet with Lee was announced. A spokesman for Lee said that in his half-hour Aug. 23 meeting with the visiting delegation, the president had “explained our government’s consistent and firm policy toward North Korea” and asked that his message be passed on to Kim Jong Il. He said Lee also expressed confidence that the countries’ differences could be addressed through dialogue. Kim Ki Nam, upon departing that day, said, “We’re returning in a positive mood.” The delegation left before the state funeral held for Kim Dae Jung later Aug. 23.

Korean Peninsula North’s Delegation Meet South’s Lee. A North Korean delegation Aug. 21 traveled to South Korea to pay respects to the memory of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, and met Aug. 23 with current South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. It was the first such high-level meeting between officials of the two countries since 2007, and it came only after the North Koreans Aug. 22 asked to see Lee, extending their planned one-night stay by a day. They reportedly delivered an oral message to Lee from North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il, expressing hopes for greater cooperation between the two countries. [See pp. 564B3, 558A1] The visit was the latest expression of a recent sharp shift in North Korea’s demeanor toward South Korea, as well as the U.S. When Lee took office in early 2008, he had promised to make aid to North Korea conditional on stiffer conditions regarding its nuclear weapons program. North Korea had subsequently increased its bellicose rhetoric against South Korea and withdrawn from talks on abandoning its nuclear program, conducting a second nuclear test. However, in recent weeks, it had signaled a new desire to revive contacts with both South Korea and the U.S., freeing citizens of each country whom it had detained, and easing restrictions it had imposed on South Korean tourist and business visits. North and South Korean Red Cross officials Aug. 26 opened talks on resuming occasional reunions of relatives separated by the countries’ border.

North Korea Said to Invite U.S. Officials—

South Korean news media Aug. 25 reported that North Korea had invited two U.S. officials to visit Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, for talks the following month. The officials were Stephen Bosworth, the U.S.’s special envoy for North Korea, and Sung Kim, the U.S. representative to the six-nation nuclear talks that North Korea had quit earlier in the year. A U.S. State Department spokesman would not confirm such an invitation, but said there were clear indications that North Korea wanted to open bilateral talks with the U.S. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama reiterated the U.S.’s long-standing position that it would communicate with North Korea on the nuclear issue only through the six-nation talks. Philip Goldberg, the U.S.’s special envoy for enforcement of a June United Nations Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea, Aug. 13 announced a tour of Asian nations to promote that goal. India Aug. 10 said it had detained and searched a North Korean ship that had dropped anchor in its waters Aug. 5 and was viewed as suspicious, the first time the U.N. resolution’s authorization of such action against ships suspected of carrying illegal weapons was put into practice. The search uncovered no contraband aboard the ship, the MV San. [See p. 462E3] North’s

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Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, in television interviews Aug. 9 said that during a recent visit to North Korea by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Kim Jong Il “appeared to be in control of his government” and “of his faculties,” after reports that he had suffered a stroke in 2008. Clinton had traveled to North Korea to win the release of two U.S. journalists FACTS ON FILE

Other International News 1971 U.S.-Brazil Chile Coup Pact Detailed.

The U.S. National Security Archive Aug. 16 released recently declassified documents detailing a 1971 agreement between U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and Brazilian President Gen. Emilio Garrastazu Medici to coordinate efforts to oust Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens in 1970. Allende, who was democratically elected and formed a Socialist government, died in a 1973 coup d’etat that had received the backing of the Nixon administration. It was unclear from the documents if Brazil had contributed to Allende’s eventual ouster. [See 1973, p. 758D1; 1971, p. 969B2] The newly released documents consisted of White House memorandums, including one recording the details of a Dec. 9, 1971, meeting between Nixon and Medici. According to the memos, Nixon asked Medici if Brazil had the ability to engineer an overthrow of Allende’s government, and offered to provide Brazil with money or “other discreet aid” for such a purpose. Historians and analysts said the documents, written by then–national security adviser Henry Kissinger, revealed a closer collaboration between the U.S. and Brazil’s then-military government on the topic of regional intervention than was previously known. The documents had been declassified in July. Isabel Allende, Salvador Allende’s daughter, Aug. 18 requested that Brazil release any secret documents detailing any possible role it had played in the coup. n August 27, 2009

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Sen. Edward Kennedy, Longtime Liberal Democratic Leader, Dies at 77 Obama Mourns Nation’s ‘Greatest’ Senator.

Sen. Edward Moore (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.) died Aug. 25 at the age of 77, at his family’s vacation compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., after battling brain cancer for more than a year. His death prompted an outpouring of tributes to his storied political career, led by President Barack Obama, who called him “the greatest United States Senator of our time,” and “one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.” [See p. 580E3; 2008, pp. 375F2, 51D3] Kennedy was the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D, N.Y.). He had served in the Senate since 1962, when, at 30, the minimum age for a senator, he won a special election for the seat vacated by his brother John after the latter won the 1960 presidential election. At his death, Kennedy was the thirdlongest serving senator in U.S. history, after Robert Byrd (D, W. Va.)—who, at 91, was still in office but, like Kennedy, had missed most of the current term due to poor health—and the late Strom Thurmond (R, S.C.). After the assassinations of brothers John, in 1963, and Robert, during his 1968 presidential campaign, Edward became the last pillar of the family’s political dynasty, having narrowly escaped death himself in a 1964 airplane crash. He assumed a leading role in the Democratic Party, and it was widely expected that he would follow his brothers in running for president. [See 1968, p. 226F3; 1963, p. 409A1] Scandal Haunted Presidential Hopes—

However, he was tarnished by scandal in 1969, when a car he was driving plunged off a small wooden bridge into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old former campaign worker for Robert F. Kennedy, drowned. Kennedy said he had tried to rescue her, but he did not report the accident until the next day. He pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, and received a suspended sentence. [See 1969, p. 452B2] His reputation severely damaged by the scandal, Kennedy did not run for president until 1980, when he lost a Democratic primary race in which he challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter. He ran a lackluster campaign, in which he struggled to articulate his reasons for seeking the presidency. But he did not concede defeat until the Democratic National Convention, where he made a defiant speech that electrified the delegates. Some Democrats blamed him for splitting the party and weakening Carter, who lost to Republican Ronald Reagan in the general election. [See 1980, p. 610D1] In 1991, Kennedy endured scandal again when a woman accused his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, of raping her at a Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after Smith was out drinking with the senator.

Smith was acquitted, but the trial drew attention to Kennedy’s reputed drinking and womanizing. [See 1991, p. 937C3] Kennedy in a speech that year admitted “the faults in the conduct of my private life.” In 1992, he married for the second time, to Victoria Reggie. (He had divorced his first wife, Joan Bennett Kennedy, in 1982.) He avoided scandal for the rest of his life. [See 1992, p. 204A2; 1981, p. 38B1]

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Making his lasting mark in the Senate, Kennedy had played a key role in much of the major social legislation of recent decades. Over the years, and especially since his unsuccessful presidential bid, he built a reputation both as an idealistic champion of liberal values and as a skilled, pragmatic legislator known for negotiating bipartisan compromises with conservative Republicans, such as his frequent counterpart in such efforts, Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah). Most recently, he had teamed with President George W. Bush to enact the No Child Left Behind education reform law in 2002, and to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare, the health care program for the elderly and disabled, in 2003 (although he opposed the final bill as modified by congressional Republicans). Meanwhile, he was an outspoken opponent of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Yet he worked with Bush again in 2006 on a failed effort to pass an immigration reform bill, which he cosponsored with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. [See 2006, p. 272A2; 2003, p. 978C1; 2002, p. 76C2] Among the other legislation with which Kennedy had been closely involved was a 1965 immigration reform law that ended restrictions on non-Europeans; the 1972 Title IX law, which barred sex discrimination by any educational program that received federal funding; and the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities. [See 1990, p. 553B2; 1972, p. 484D3; 1965, p. 357F1]

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convicted of entering the country illegally. [See p. 517A1] Some analysts had speculated that North Korea’s increased hostility over the past year had been a posture taken by its military leadership while Kim was incapacitated, and uncertainty reigned regarding his likely successor. Those analysts suggested that North Korea’s interest in resuming engagement was the product of a recovered Kim’s resumption of control. Jones reiterated that Clinton had not passed on any official messages from the Obama administration, and had conveyed “his personal views” of the importance of “making sure nuclear weapons do not appear on the Korean Peninsula.” Jones said the administration, which had not previously revealed details of Clinton’s meeting with Kim, was still “debriefing” him. South Korea Launches Satellite—South Korea Aug. 25 launched a satellite from its own territory for the first time, but officials said the satellite entered orbit at an altitude higher than intended. South Korea had canceled a previous launch attempt at the last moment the previous week, due to a technical malfunction. There was no immediate reaction to the launch from North Korea, which had been condemned by the U.N. for a rocket launch it claimed had sent a peaceful satellite into space. North Korea had urged that South Korea’s launch be treated similarly. n

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Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) addressing the Democratic National Convention in 1980, after losing the presidential nomination to incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

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Despite his penchant for bipartisan dealmaking, Kennedy was also capable of engaging in ideological combat. In 1987, he launched a fierce attack that helped scuttle President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. Kennedy denounced Bork as a conservative “extremist.” [See 1987, pp. 783B2, 478B2] Absence Felt in Health Care Debate—

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National health-care coverage had long been a goal of Kennedy’s. As chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Kennedy had been poised to shepherd Obama’s health-care reform plan, but his illness had forced him to remain absent from the Capitol for most of the current year. Some Republican colleagues, including McCain, said they believed that only Kennedy could have forged a consensus behind the plan, which had stirred an increasingly heated partisan debate at townhall meetings during the August congressional recess. [See p. 551A2] Some Democrats said Kennedy’s example should inspire members of both parties to set aside partisan rhetoric and work together to reach a compromise. Byrd issued a statement declaring, “Let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.” Urged Change in Succession Law—

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Kennedy’s death left the Democrats with a Senate majority of 59 seats, one short of the minimum of 60 they needed to prevent Republican filibusters. Kennedy Aug. 19 had sent a letter to leaders of the Massachusetts legislature, asking them to change state law to allow Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to appoint a temporary replacement to fill his seat in the event of his death. Under current law, the seat would remain vacant until a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy occurred. Patrick Aug. 27 said he would sign the proposed change into law if the legislature passed it. 570

In 2004, the Democratic-controlled state legislature had removed the governor’s power to name a temporary replacement in such situations. Sen. John Kerry (D) was the Democratic presidential nominee that year, and the Democrats acted to prevent then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) from appointing a fellow Republican in case Kerry won the presidency and resigned the Senate seat. But Kerry stayed in the Senate after losing to Bush in the presidential election. Tributes—Obama, vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, reportedly learned of Kennedy’s death when aides woke him at 2:00 a.m. local time to give him the news. Obama telephoned Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Kennedy, and then issued a statement, saying, “For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.” Obama also said, “An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time.” Obama made a second, televised statement at his rented vacation estate later that day. In January 2008, Kennedy’s endorsement, in which he likened Obama to John F. Kennedy, had given a big boost to Obama’s campaign against then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) for the Democratic nomination. Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer that May, after suffering a seizure, but he addressed the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo., in August, where he said health care was “the cause of my life.” He attended Obama’s inauguration in January, but suffered a seizure soon after Obama took the oath of office. [See p. 26A3] Leaders in Ireland and Britain also paid tribute to Kennedy, recalling that he had played a major role in the negotiations leading to the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, which ended decades of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland. Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said, “He lived to see two great chasms bridged, between Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland and between black and white in his own United States.” The Kennedys had long been popular in Ireland, the family’s ancestral home. Funeral Plans—A motorcade procession Aug. 27 carried Kennedy’s body from Hyannis Port, on Cape Cod, to Boston, where it was to lie in state at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Obama was expected to give a eulogy at a funeral Mass in Boston Aug. 29. The body was to be flown that day to Washington, D.C., for a private burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, close to the graves of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Edward Kennedy’s death left his sister Jean Kennedy Smith, former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, as his last living sibling, among the nine children of wealthy

businessman and U.S. ambassador to Britain Joseph Kennedy and his wife, Rose Kennedy. Another sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, had died earlier in August. [See p. 548F3] n

Federal Budget White House Sees $9 Trillion 10-Year Deficit.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Aug. 25 released a midyear budget review that reduced the projected deficit for fiscal year 2009 by $262 billion, to $1.58 trillion. However, the OMB increased its estimate for the 10-year cumulative deficit, through fiscal 2019, to $9 trillion. That was an increase of $2 trillion from the previous OMB projection in February. [See pp. 521C1, 289A1] The OMB said it had reduced its deficit estimate for the current fiscal year, which would end Sept. 30, because the financial system appeared to have stabilized to such an extent that an extra $250 billion set aside for further bank rescues would not be needed. The earlier projection had also overestimated the costs of moves by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to respond to the financial crisis. [See p. 285D3] However, the projected fiscal 2009 deficit would still be a record in dollar terms, far surpassing the previous mark of $455 billion, set in fiscal 2008. The worsened long-term outlook was based on new forecasts that the ongoing recession would hit the U.S. economy harder than the White House Council of Economic Advisers had predicted in February. Christina Romer, chairwoman of the council, projected that gross domestic product (GDP) would contract by 2.8% in 2009, compared with the more optimistic February forecast of a 1.2% contraction. The White House forecast 2% GDP growth in 2010, down from its previous forecast of 3.2% growth in 2010. Romer also forecast that the unemployment rate would average 9.3% in 2009, up from the previous forecast of 8.1%, and 9.8% in 2010. She said she expected the jobless rate, which dropped to 9.4% in July, to reach 10% later in the year. [See p. 535A1] The White House projected that the national debt would increase to 66.3% of GDP in 2010. That would be the highest percentage since the 1940s, during World War II, when the debt peaked at more than 121% of GDP. The debt stood at $11.7 trillion as of Aug. 25. The White House projected that interest payments on the debt would consume 3.4% of GDP in 2019. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Aug. 25 released its own budget review, also projecting a fiscal 2009 deficit of nearly $1.6 trillion. The CBO attributed the drastic deficit increase mainly to the recession, which had caused sharply lower tax revenues, and prompted heavy federal spending to counter its effects, notably a $787 billion stimulus package enacted in February. FACTS ON FILE

Republicans Blast Obama Agenda’s Cost—

Republican members of Congress pointed to the increased long-term deficit forecast as evidence for their criticism of Obama’s agenda as an unaffordable expansion of government. In particular, they said the forecast supported their opposition to Obama’s push for a health care reform plan that was expected to cost about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. [See p. 551A2] OMB Director Peter Orszag reiterated the administration’s argument that health care reform would in fact help reduce the deficit by restraining the rapidly escalating costs of Medicare and Medicaid, the government health care programs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled. Orszag said the Obama administration in its next budget plan, to be unveiled in early 2010, would announce broader “proposals to put the nation on a fiscally sustainable path.” But he said there was no immediate urgency to cut the overall federal budget, deeming it “desirable to allow deficits to increase during an economic downturn,” when government spending could provide a stimulus. n

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lizing the financial industry during a tumultuous period in 2008, which saw the government organize rescues for insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) and investment bank Bear Stearns Cos., while allowing the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which sent shock waves throughout the global financial system. Bernanke had also been accused of improperly using the Fed’s clout in 2008 to force a merger between Bank of America Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. It was reported that the Obama administration did not seriously consider other contenders for the Fed chairmanship, since Bernanke’s response to the crisis had been widely praised by economists and Wall Street investors. In addition, the administration reportedly believed that the economy was still too fragile to cope with a change in leadership. Analysts said that, if confirmed, Bernanke’s main challenge in the coming years would be to unwind the emergency policies the Fed had implemented. They said the timing of such a move would be critical, since a premature pullback could stall an economic recovery, while an overdue one could allow inflation to spike.

Bernanke Nominated to Second Fed Term.

Bernanke Sees ‘Return to Growth’—

President Barack Obama Aug. 25 nominated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second four-year term. Since taking office in 2006, Bernanke had overseen the Fed’s response to what was widely considered the worst U.S. economic downturn since the Great Depression, and his actions, many of which were unprecedented in U.S. history, had drawn both plaudits and criticisms. Bernanke’s nomination was subject to confirmation by the Senate. [See p. 487C3; 2006, p. 70C3] Obama and Bernanke that day appeared together at a press conference on the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, where Obama and his family were on vacation. Obama hailed Bernanke’s response to the economic crisis, saying, “Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom; with bold action and out-of-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic freefall.” Bernanke said, “We have been bold or deliberate as circumstances demanded, but our objective remains constant: to restore a more stable economic and financial environment in which opportunity can again flourish.” Bernanke, whose current term was scheduled to end Jan. 31, 2010, was considered likely to win Senate confirmation. However, he was expected to come under criticism from lawmakers for failing to rein in a massive housing bubble that burst in late 2006, leading to a debilitating credit freeze and a severe recession. The Fed’s subsequent programs to unlock credit markets—which included lowering its benchmark interest rate to near zero and flooding financial markets with trillions of dollars of liquidity—were also expected to come under scrutiny. [See p. 535C2] Bernanke was also likely to face questions about the Fed’s involvement in stabi-

Bernanke Aug. 21 said global economic activity appeared to be “leveling out” following a “sharp slowdown,” and that the “prospects for a return to growth in the next year appear good.” Bernanke made his remarks at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., which was attended by central bankers from around the world. Bernanke’s comments followed the release of data showing improvement in the U.S., German, French and Japanese economies. However, Bernanke warned that “strains persist in financial markets,” and European Central Bank President JeanClaude Trichet that day said there was still an “enormous amount of work to do.” [See pp. 576C3, 545B1, 521C3] Bernanke that day also defended the aggressive response to the crisis by central bankers around the world, saying, “History is full of examples in which the policy resonses to financial crises have been slow and inadequate.” He added, “In this episode, by contrast, policy makers in the U.S. and around the globe responded with speed and force to arrest a rapidly deteriorating and dangerous situation.”

August 27, 2009

New York Fed Names Board Chairman—

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York Aug. 24 announced that Denis Hughes— president of the New York State branch of the AFL-CIO labor group—would be the chairman of its board of directors. Hughes had been acting chairman since May 7, when Stephen Friedman resigned due to a controversy over his relationship to banking company Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Goldman Sachs had come under the Fed’s supervision in 2008, and Friedman, a former executive at the company, had remained on its board of directors and bought some of its stock, which was seen by critics as a conflict of interest. [See p. 44A2; 2008, p. 672B1]

Lending Program Extended— The Fed and the Treasury Aug. 17 said they would extend a lending program designed to encourage lending to consumers and businesses, particularly those in the struggling commercial real estate market. The program, known as the Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), called for the government to issue loans to investors buying assets backed by consumer and business loans, and to protect the investors against potential losses. [See p. 177F2] The program was intended to provide much-needed financing to lenders, and the Fed and the Treasury said credit markets remained weak enough that most of the program, which was due to expire at the end of 2009, would be extended to March 31, 2010. Lending to investors of newly issued assets backed by commercial real estate loans would be extended to June 30, 2010. TALF had $29.6 billion in outstanding loans as of Aug. 12. n Consumer Prices Flat in July. The Labor Department Aug. 14 reported that its consumer price inInflation (CPI) dex (CPI), which 2009 0.0% tracked prices July Previous Month 0.7% paid for con- 12-Month Increase -2.1% sumer goods by all urban consumers, remained unchanged in July, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after rising 0.7% in June. The report allayed ongoing concerns that the government’s programs to combat a severe recession—which including a $787 billion stimulus package and trillions of dollars of asset purchases by the Federal Reserve— posed the risk of a spike in inflation. [See p. 477D2] For the 12-month period through July, the overall unadjusted inflation rate dipped to -2.1%, the fastest annual price drop since January 1950. The yearly decline was driven by a 28.1% fall in the price of energy. Energy prices fell 0.4% in July. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.1% in July. For the 12-month period through July, core consumer prices rose 1.5%. Producer Prices Fell 0.9% in July—The Labor Department Aug. 18 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in July fell 0.9% after seasonal adjustment. Core producer prices fell 0.1% in July, while energy prices fell 2.4%. [See p. 477D3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 172.6% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $172.60 in July. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods fell 0.2% in July, and prices for crude goods fell 4.5%. n Existing Home Sales Jumped 7.2% in July.

The National Association of Realtors Aug. 21 reported that sales of existing homes jumped by 7.2% in July, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.24 million units, up from a revised 4.89 million units in June. It was the largest monthly increase since 571

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1999, and the fourth month in a row that existing home sales had risen, leading analysts to project that the U.S. housing market was beginning to emerge from a deep slump. [See p. 504A3] The housing report helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 155.91 points, or 1.7%, to close at 9,505.96, the index’s highest closing since November 2008. The spike in existing home sales was attributed to cheap housing prices, which had undergone a years-long slide, and government programs designed to keep mortgage interest rates low. The median sale price for existing homes in July was $178,400, down 15.1% from a year earlier. The housing market had also been buoyed by a government program that offered a tax credit of as much as $8,000 to first-time home buyers. The program was due to end Nov. 30, and analysts questioned whether the housing market could continue its rebound without it. Congress was currently considering an extension of the program. [See p. 90D1]

2008—when production was ramped up following a hurricane season that led to disruptions in the industrial sector—the index had not increased since December 2007. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had fallen 0.4% in June. [See p. 477G2; 2008, p. 740F1] The overall index now stood at 96.0% of its 2002 base average, up from its revised level of 95.5% for June. Manufacturing production rose 1.0% in July, led by a rise in auto sales. The output of utilities fell 2.4%, and mining output rose 0.8%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 68.5% of their total capacity in July. n

New Home Sales Rose 9.6% in July—

Current Account Deficit Fell in First Quarter.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Aug. 26 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes rose 9.6% in July from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 433,000 units, up from the revised June rate of 395,000 units, and the highest rate since September 2008. The median price of a new single-family home sold in July was reported to be $210,100. [See p. 504B3] Housing Starts Fell 1% in July—The Departments of Commerce and HUD Aug. 18 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in July was 581,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was down 1.0% from the June revised rate of 587,000. However, analysts noted that the decline was largely driven by a drop in multifamily housing starts, a more volatile market than single-family starts, which rose 1.7% in July, its fifth straight monthly gain. [See p. 504E2] Building permits were issued in July at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000 units, 1.8% below June’s revised rate of 570,000. n GDP Shrank 1.0% in Second Quarter. The Commerce Department Aug. 27 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.0% in the second quarter of 2009. That was unchanged from the department’s “advance” estimate reported in July. The new figure contained revised data showing that businesses had depleted inventory more rapidly than originally reported, indicating that businesses in the third quarter could purchase more goods to restock their stores, which would boost economic activity. The latest data was “preliminary” and would be revised once more. [See p. 521C3] n Industrial Production Rose 0.5% in July.

The Federal Reserve Aug. 14 reported that its industrial production index increased 0.5% in July. The report was the latest indication that the economy was recovering from a deep recession. Excluding October 572

Business Inventories Down 1.1% in June.

The Commerce Department Aug. 13 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of June was $1.4 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.1% from the revised value at the end of May. The ratio of inventories to sales—a measure of how long it would take businesses to unload their inventories at the current sales pace— was 1.38. [See p. 477C3] n The U.S. current account, the broadest measure of the nation’s international trade, recorded a deficit of $101.5 billion in the first quarter of 2009, down from a revised $154.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, and the smallest deficit since the fourth quarter of 2001, the Commerce Department reported June 17. The drop was attributed to a global economic slowdown that led to a falloff in trade. The current account included investment income and foreign aid as well as trade in goods and services. [See p. 240F2] n Durable Goods Orders Rose 4.9% in July.

The Commerce Department Aug. 26 reported that the value of durable goods orders in July was $168.4 billion, an increase of 4.9%, or $7.8 billion, from the previous month. The increase was the largest in two years, and was mostly attributed to a jump in aircraft and motor vehicle sales. Analysts said the government’s “cash-forclunkers” program—in which consumers received a voucher of up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for more fuel-efficient ones— had helped auto sales. Durable goods were so-called big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See pp. 535F3, 504C3] n

Terrorism Ridge Claims Pressure on Terrorism Alert.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Aug. 9 reported that a forthcoming memoir by former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge suggested that officials in the administration of President George W. Bush had attempted to make use of the U.S. terrorism alert system for Bush’s political advantage prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election, won by Bush. The book, titled The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, was scheduled to be released Sept. 1. [See 2004, pp. 860D3, 577A1] Critics of the Bush administration had previously accused it of politicizing the

terrorism alerts issued by the Homeland Security Department as well as other aspects of U.S. antiterrorism activities. Ridge had previously denied that political considerations had ever played a role in the issuing of threat alerts or raising or lowering the country’s color-coded threat level system. Rumsfeld, Ashcroft Pushed for Increase—

In the book, Ridge wrote that then–Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then–Attorney General John Ashcroft had pushed to increase the country’s terror alert level on Oct. 30, 2004, four days before the election. The discussion had taken place one day after Al Qaeda international terrorist network leader Osama bin Laden released a threatening message criticizing Bush. Ridge wrote that he had opposed the idea because “a threatening message, audio or visual, should not be the sole reasons to elevate the threat level,” and that he had been supported by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller 3rd. Ridge wrote that one of his advisers informed an adviser to President Bush that he opposed an increase in the threat level; the proposal was subsequently dropped. Ridge wrote that when Rumsfeld and Ashcroft pushed for the threat level to be increased, he privately wondered, “Is this about security or about politics?” However, he did not present further evidence that politics had motivated the suggestion. Analysts at the time considered terrorism a winning political issue for Bush, who was then in a close race with Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.). Ridge said the incident strengthened his determination to leave the government; he resigned after the election. [See 2004, pp. 943A1, 859F1] Frances Fragos Townsend, who had served as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism under Bush, Aug. 21 denied that the discussion about raising the threat level had been motivated by politics. Townsend also questioned the motives of Ridge and his publisher, saying, “You have to wonder if this is not just publicity meant to sell more books.” August 2004 Alert Called Legitimate—

Ridge wrote that a controversial terrorism alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security in August 2004 had been based on solid intelligence, and had not been issued as part of an attempt to influence the 2004 election, as critics had suggested. The alert, which followed Kerry’s nomination as the Democratic candidate, had been based on evidence that was then more than three years old and predated Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Ridge wrote that while he still believed the alert had been necessary, he regretted having acceded to White House pressure to include language in the alert that, by praising Bush’s stewardship of the country’s antiterrorism efforts, appeared to suggest that “only the Republican incumbent [Bush] could keep Americans safe.” n FACTS ON FILE

Terrorism Detainees Detainee Jawad Flown to Afghanistan, Freed.

Mohammed Jawad Aug. 24 was flown to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and released after spending more than six years at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Jawad had been arrested in Kabul in December 2002 in connection with a grenade attack that had wounded two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter; he was subsequently questioned by Afghan police and then transferred to Guantanamo in January 2003. [See p. 505G2] During the administration of President George W. Bush, Jawad had been charged under Guantanamo’s military commissions system. However, Col. Stephen Henley, the presiding military judge in the case, ruled in October 2008 that a confession Jawad had made to Afghan police in 2002 was inadmissible because his interrogators had threatened to kill his family if he did not talk. In July, a federal judge had granted Jawad’s petition of habeas corpus challenging his indefinite detention at Guantanamo, prompting the U.S. Justice Department to announce that he would be released. The Associated Press (AP) cited unidentified department officials as saying that, although the Justice Department had not closed its criminal investigation of Jawad, it was unlikely he would ever be charged. Jawad’s family was reportedly considering filing a lawsuit seeking compensation from the U.S. government for Jawad’s detention and alleged mistreatment. Jawad’s case had drawn international attention in part because he had been one of the youngest detainees ever held at Guantanamo. Relatives of Jawad had maintained that he had been 12 at the time of his arrest. The U.S. government had argued that Jawad was about 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo, citing a bone density scan taken of him after his arrival at the prison. Jawad reportedly did not have a birth certificate. Following his release, Jawad Aug. 24 met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Karzai and Jawad reportedly discussed Jawad’s imprisonment at Guantanamo and his treatment in U.S. custody. The same day, Karzai issued a statement expressing optimism that improvements in Afghanistan’s police and justice system would allow others charged with attacking U.S. soldiers to be tried in Afghanistan under Afghan law. n

Immigration Employee Verification Program Set. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) July

8 announced that beginning Sept. 8, federal contractors would be required to use a DHS database called “E-Verify” to confirm that their employees were eligible to work in the U.S. The verification program had initially been proposed by the administration of President George W. Bush. [See pp. 573C2, 341A1] August 27, 2009

However, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano that day said the Obama administration would abandon another plan introduced by the Bush administration, which would have forced employers to fire workers whose names did not match their Social Security numbers. [See 2007, p. 683F3] Under that program, as many as 140,000 employers would have received “no-match letters” indicating discrepancies in workers’ Social Security information. The employer then would have 90 days to rectify the situation by either providing valid Social Security numbers for those workers or firing them. Failure to comply could result in criminal penalties. The plan had been blocked in 2007 by a federal judge who said it would result in “irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers,” largely because of errors in the government’s Social Security records. Business and immigration groups criticized the E-Verify program. They charged that the E-Verify database, which used both Social Security and immigration records, was rife with errors, and that the program could cost legal workers their jobs. n Immigration Detention Overhaul Planned.

The Obama administration Aug. 6 announced plans to overhaul the detention system under which illegal immigrants without criminal records were held while awaiting legal proceedings. The overhaul was intended to move the immigration detention system away from a prison model and toward what John Morton, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assistant secretary for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), called a “truly civil detention system.” [See pp. 573F1, 268G3–269A1] Currently, illegal immigrants in U.S. custody were held in a mix of about 350 local, state or privately operated jails and prisons across the country. The government’s detention methods for illegal immigrants had been criticized in recent years for poor conditions, including failure to provide adequate medical facilities and other essential services. According to Morton, the DHS would create a new Office of Detention Policy and Planning, which would review and redesign ICE detention facilities. The ICE inspection unit would become the Office of Detention Oversight. Its agents would be responsible for conducting checks on facilities and investigating detainees’ complaints. Morton also said he would appoint managers to review operations at the 23 largest detention centers in the country. Also, the ICE would no longer send immigrant families to the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, in Taylor, Texas. In 2007, the federal government had settled a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in response to reports that children at the facility were held in cells, were forced to wear prison uniforms and attended school only a few hours per week. Under the new plan, the facility would be converted into an immigration detention facility for women. [See 2007, p. 559E2] There were currently no enforceable standards for illegal immigrant detention centers. A federal judge June 25 said the

DHS’s two-and-a-half-year delay in re-

sponding to a petition that called for such standards was “unreasonable.” The petition had been filed in January 2007 by advocacy groups and former detainees, but was not acknowledged until July 2008. The number of immigration detainees in federal custody had risen sharply since the administration of President George W. Bush cracked down on illegal immigration during his second term. There were currently about 33,400 detainees in custody; that number was up from about 19,700 in 2006. Detainee Deaths Went Unreported—

The Obama administration Aug. 17 said more than one in 10 deaths in the past six years had been omitted from the official count of detainees who died while in federal custody. ICE officials said they had discovered 10 unreported deaths in immigration detention facilities, bringing the total number of such deaths to 104 since October 2003. The ICE earlier in the year had told Congress there had been 90 such deaths. The omissions came to light following litigation by the ACLU to obtain records under the Freedom of Information Act. ACLU lawyer David Shapiro said the findings showed that the immigration detention system was “plagued by a total lack of transparency and accountability.” He asserted that “there is no way we can be fully confident that there are not still more deaths that have somehow gone unaccounted for.” n News in Brief. A Stuart, Fla., state court jury July 27 sided with Martin Memorial Medical Center, which in 2003 had placed a paraplegic, brain-damaged illegal immigrant on a $30,000 charter flight to his home country of Guatemala, against the wishes of his legal guardian. The jury found that the hospital was not guilty of false imprisonment and was not liable for damages. The hospital had cared for the patient, Luis Jiminez, 37, for several years before seeking his deportation after it was unable to find a nursing home that would accept an uninsured patient. His cousin and legal guardian, Montejo Gaspar, had filed the lawsuit, which sought $1 million to pay for Jiminez’s medical costs in Guatemala, where he currently lived in a remote village with his elderly mother. The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which was part of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a unit of the Justice Department, were authorized to share drug-related intelligence with each other, as well as with other agencies, it was announced June 18. A cap on the number of ICE agents permitted to investigate drug crimes was also lifted. The move came in response to an April report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which said arguments over jurisdiction were hindering the agencies’ operations. [See p. 341C1] n

Religion Lutherans Loosen Rules On Gay Clergy.

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(ELCA), at its national assembly in Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 21 voted, 559–451, to “open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships.” Gays had previously been allowed to serve as clergy, but only if they remained celibate. A similar measure had been defeated by the ELCA, the U.S.’s largest Lutheran denomination, in 2005. [See p. 539B1; 2005, p. 670A2] A number of objecting pastors and congregations threatened to leave the ELCA over the vote. A group of conservative dissenters on the issue, Lutheran Coalition for Reform (CORE), was scheduled to hold a conference in September. A dispute over the status of gay clergy was also causing divisions within the Anglican Communion and its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church. n

Social Security Numbering System Weakness Reported.

A group of researchers reported in the July 6 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the system used to assign Social Security numbers could be determined using statistical techniques, making it possible for many, and sometimes all, of the digits in an individual’s number to be guessed. The researchers had developed an algorithm to deduce the numbers using a person’s birth location and date. [See p. 573A2; 1998, p. 772G2] The algorithm had been tested using information included in the “Death Master File” of the Social Security Administration (SSA), a record of the Social Security numbers and birth dates and birthplaces of dead people. By researching the Social Security numbers of deceased people with a birth date and birthplace similar to that of a living person, the scientists were able to calculate many of the digits in the Social Security number of the living person. Social Security numbers were originally developed in the 1930s by the federal government as a method of tracking individuals’ Social Security benefit accounts. Since that time they had become a de facto identifier for a range of public and private institutions. In recent years, identity thieves had increasingly used stolen Social Security numbers to commit fraud. The researchers said their work showed that publicly available information about a person, such as that shared on a social networking Web site, could be used to discover an individual’s Social Security number and use it for fraud. The research was led by Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa. n

Medicare Dozens Indicted, Charged in Fraud Schemes.

The Justice Department June 24 unsealed criminal indictments against 53 people accused of defrauding the Medicare system. According to the indictment, those charged in the scheme, based in Detroit, Mich., had 574

submitted claims worth $50 million for expensive HIV/AIDS drug treatments and physical therapy that was never provided to patients. In a separate case, eight defendants in Miami, Fla., the same day were arrested and accused of attempting to defraud the Medicare program of $100 million in a similar scheme. [See 2008, p. 727D2] Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius May 20 had announced the expansion of joint Justice Department–HHS “Medicare Fraud Strike Force” teams, which focused on fraud in specific areas, to Detroit and Houston, Texas. The pair also announced the creation of an interagency fraud combat unit called the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), to address Medicare fraud, waste and abuse. The administration of President Barack Obama had reportedly given priority to addressing Medicare fraud while Democrats attempted to pass legislation that would reform the U.S. health care system. Part of the reform proposals called for reducing spending on Medicare. Strike Force agents July 29 arrested 32 people in Texas, New York, Massachusetts and Louisiana on charges related to submitting $16 million in fraudulent Medicare claims. In the schemes, clinic owners were accused of charging Medicare for largely useless “arthritis kits,” and for liquid food that was never distributed to patients. n

Education News in Brief. Former Attorney General

Alberto Gonzales, who had resigned from that post in 2007, would teach a political science class at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, in the fall of 2009, it was reported July 8. The Associated Press July 30 reported that 74 faculty members at Texas Tech had signed a petition objecting to his hire because of alleged “ethical failings” during his tenure as attorney general, saying Gonzales had misled Congress and politicized the Justice Department. Chancellor Ken Hance the same day said he would not change his mind about the appointment, and added that he had hired Gonzales, the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general, to help recruit minority students to the university system. Gonzales would be paid $100,000 for a one-year visiting professorship. [See p. 475A1; 2007, p. 553A1] Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., June 2 announced that it would endow the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality. The

position, which was the first of its kind in the U.S., was funded by a $1.5 million gift from the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus. Matthiessen, a longtime Harvard faculty member and prominent literary critic who was gay, had committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 48, reportedly depressed after the death of his companion, while being investigated for his leftist political views. [See 2001, p. 284E2; 1950, p. 109G] n

AFRICA

Niger President Wins Referendum on Third Term.

Niger’s electoral commission Aug. 7 said President Mamadou Tandja had won the backing of 92% of voters in an Aug. 4 referendum that would allow him to amend the constitution and run for a third term. His current five-year term was set to expire in December. The highly controversial referendum was criticized by most opposition leaders and civil society groups in the impoverished, landlocked country, who called for a boycott. [See 2007, p. 365C2] The electoral commission said 68% of Niger’s six million eligible voters turned out for the referendum. However, opposition groups claimed that turnout was less than 5%. Tandja, 71, had first been elected in 1999—in a return to democratic rule for Niger after a military coup—and won a second term in 2004. He had been constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. Opposition leaders alleged that Tandja’s government had recently become increasingly authoritarian. Tandja May 26 dissolved parliament, one day after the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, issued an opinion stating that the proposed referendum was unconstitutional. The president June 26 declared that he would rule the country by emergency powers. He signed a decree Aug. 19 setting a date of Oct. 20 for voters to elect a new parliament. The Constitutional Court, in a legally binding decision on the matter, June 12 had ruled that the referendum was illegal. Tandja responded June 29 by disbanding the court and appointing a new one packed with his supporters. The new court Aug. 14 validated the result of the referendum. Tandja and his allies argued that the people of Niger, which was rich in uranium, wanted him to remain in office to oversee lucrative oil, mining and infrastructure agreements. However, the move was condemned by many groups within Niger, as well as by regional and international observers, as harmful to democracy in the country. Opponents had held sporadic protests and strikes, especially in the capital, Niamey, since Tandja first proposed the referendum earlier in the year. Protests and arrests of opposition supporters continued in the aftermath of the referendum. n

Nigeria Amnesty for Oil Region Rebels Begins.

The government of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua Aug. 6 began a 60-day amnesty for members of all militant groups based in the southern, oil-rich Niger Delta region. Attacks by such groups, led by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), on foreign oil installations and workers over the previous three years had reduced Nigeria’s oil production by more than 20%. The groups claimed to be fighting for a greater share of the reFACTS ON FILE

gion’s oil wealth for its impoverished inhabitants. [See p. 358G1] MEND, which in May had declared an “all-out war” in the region in response to an army offensive, July 15 agreed to a separate deal with the government, which included a 60-day truce. The deal came after the release of one of its leaders, Henry Okah, who July 13 had been given amnesty and freed from prison. Okah in 2008 had been put on trial for treason and illicit weapons smuggling and possession. The government reportedly wanted to use the 60-day cessation of hostilities to negotiate a peace deal with MEND, the strongest militant group in the region. [See 2008, p. 521G1] Some 1,000 fighters and their commanders Aug. 22 surrendered weapons including machine guns, bullets and rocket launchers in the southern city of Yenegoa, leading the government to declare the amnesty program a success. Among those surrendering was senior MEND commander Ebikabowei Victor Ben, also known as General Boyloaf. Under the amnesty deal, the militants would receive an unconditional pardon and a job or monthly cash stipend from the government. The deal was scheduled to end Oct. 4. However, a faction of MEND Aug. 22 denounced the amnesty and vowed a return to violence, saying, “In the midst of such sheer deceit, MEND will be compelled to resume with ferocious attacks on the oil industry at the end of our cease-fire on September 15, 2009.” The government Aug. 24 urged the faction to “reconsider” its plan to resume attacks. Critics of the government’s amnesty program said it did little to address the root causes of the conflict in the region: poverty, underdevelopment and the unequal distribution of oil revenues. In contrast, many on the government side alleged that the militants were no more than criminal gangs seeking to get rich by targeting foreign oil companies. n

AMERICAS

Cuba New Pictures of Fidel Castro Published.

Cuba’s state-run Communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, Aug. 23 published a photo of former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz in which he looked healthier than he had in previous photos. Castro in July 2006 had ceded day-to-day governing duties to his younger brother, current President Raul Castro Ruz, citing illness. (Details of his condition were considered a state secret and had never been made public.) Since that time, he had not appeared in public. However, pictures of him had appeared intermittently in staterun media amid rumors that he had died. Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s younger brother, had officially assumed the presidency in February 2008. [See p. 134C3] In the recent photo, Fidel Castro, 83, was shown at a meeting with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa in Cuba. Later that August 27, 2009

day, the state-run television channel Cubavision aired footage of Castro speaking to a group of Venezuelan law students that it said had been taken on Aug. 22. The Cuban government had last published a photo of Castro on Feb. 17, and the most recent publicly broadcast footage of him had been released June 17, 2008. n

Honduras OAS Mission Fails to Secure Zelaya Return.

A delegation from the Organization of American States (OAS) Aug. 24–25 visited Honduras and met with the de facto government in an effort to broker an agreement on the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya Rosales. The Honduran military, with the backing of the federal legislature and the country’s Supreme Court, in late June had deposed Zelaya in a bloodless coup d’etat. [See p. 507F3] Since then, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez had brokered ineffective reconciliation talks between Zelaya and the interim government, headed by congressional leader Roberto Micheletti. The OAS delegation, comprised of the foreign ministers of seven of its member nations and OAS President Jose Miguel Insulza, Aug. 25 said it had been unsuccessful in its attempt to get the de facto government to agree to an Arias-backed plan, known as the San Jose Accord, that would allow Zelaya to reassume the presidency under new restrictions limiting his power. The de facto government that day said it was not concerned by the possibility that international economic sanctions would be imposed in response to its rejection of the San Jose Accord. It also said it would move forward with plans to hold new presidential elections on Nov. 29, even if the results of the polling were not recognized by other countries. (No country had recognized Micheletti’s regime as the rightful government of Honduras.) The interim government Aug. 27 released a plan for Zelaya’s return in which Micheletti would resign if Zelaya renounced his claim to the presidency. Jorge Rivera, the president of the Supreme Court and next in line of presidential succession, would then take the office. In return, Zelaya would be granted limited “political amnesty not involving common crimes.” However, it was unclear if Zelaya would still face prosecution on charges related to his alleged embezzlement of $2 million in government money. OAS negotiators dismissed the proposal as a stalling tactic by the de facto government. Various elements of the de facto government had previously sent mixed signals regarding under what circumstances Zelaya would be allowed to return to the country. The Honduran Supreme Court Aug. 22 rejected the San Jose Accord, saying that the current government had come to power as part of a legal “constitutional succession.” The court also said that Zelaya would be subject to the “established procedures of the penal process” if he returned to the country.

Also, the five generals who headed the country’s military Aug. 4 said they had backed Zelaya’s ouster in order to defend the country’s constitution against his plans to rewrite it to push through a leftist agenda. The remarks were broadcast on the nationally aired television program “Face to Face,” in what was seen as an attempt by the military to justify its actions to the public, which remained starkly polarized over Zelaya’s ouster. Rights Abuses Alleged—The advocacy group Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Aug. 21 released a report detailing “widespread” human rights abuses—including murders, disappearances and sexual violence—by the Micheletti regime following Zelaya’s deposition. The commission in an Aug. 17–21 visit to the country had investigated rights abuses, and had discovered evidence of violence against protesters opposed to the coup. London-based rights group Amnesty International Aug. 18 had issued a report detailing the use of beatings and mass arrests by the military against demonstrators opposed to the de facto government. An estimated 10,000 protesters Aug. 11 had demonstrated in Tegucigalpa, the capital, in support of Zelaya. Another 4,000 protesters opposed to the new government the same day gathered in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city. In response, the government reinstituted a nighttime curfew in Tegucigalpa. Argentine Diplomats Ousted— The de facto Honduran government Aug. 18 ordered all Argentine diplomats to leave the country within three days. The move came in response to an Aug. 13 decision by Argentina to expel the Honduran ambassador, Carmen Eleonora Ortez Williams, for recognizing Micheletti’s regime. (Argentina had been an outspoken critic of Zelaya’s ouster.) Venezuela’s diplomats in Honduras had also been ordered to leave by the de facto government, but had refused to do so, arguing that they did not recognize the new regime. Separately, the U.S. State Department Aug. 25 said it would stop issuing most visas to Hondurans at its embassy in Tegucigalpa. The department said new visas would be limited to emergency situations and those seeking to immigrate to the U.S. The decision was an attempt to increase pressure on the de facto government to restore Zelaya to power. Zelaya Aug. 5 had criticized the U.S. response to the coup as weak and ineffective. The U.S. State Department had sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R, Ind.) condemning Zelaya’s removal from power, but also criticizing Zelaya for “undertaking provocative actions” that ultimately led to his ouster, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 6. n

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Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela’s National Telecommunications Council (Conatel), July 31 said the government 575

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would close 32 radio stations and two television stations for broadcasting illegally. At least 13 stations, among them the Circuito Nacional Belfort Network (CNB) radio station, went off the air during the following two days. Critics of the station shutdowns said they were part of efforts by the administration of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias to silence political dissent. [See p. 493C3] Conatel earlier in July said it would revoke the broadcasting licenses of dozens of stations for various reasons, including failure to pay taxes. Chavez had also threatened to shut down the opposition television station Globovision, which often criticized the president and his policies. A group of about 35 people allied with the pro-Chavez Union Patriotic Venezolana (UPV) Aug. 3 stormed Globovision headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, fired tear gas into offices and brandished weapons. Interior Minister Tarik El Aissami quickly condemned the action, and said there would be a criminal investigation into the incident. Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega July 31 also introduced draft legislation to the National Assembly outlining a variety of “media crimes” punishable by up to four years in prison. Under the draft bill, journalists could face charges for causing panic, disturbing the social peace or violating national security. The bill came under fierce criticism from human rights groups as a serious assault on freedom of expression. Election Changes Passed—A Chavezbacked reform of election law advanced when the National Assembly Aug. 2 passed a bill that allowed candidates to effectively be nominated for a seat in the federal legislature twice: once as an individual by one party and once by another party as a member of its party list. Critics said the change would allow Chavez’s ruling Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) to gain an advantage over smaller parties. The law also allowed the national electoral council to redraw electoral districts, raising fears that the council would do so to benefit PSUV candidates. n

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China Second Children Encouraged in Shanghai.

The government of the Chinese city of Shanghai was launching a campaign to encourage couples to have two children if they were eligible to do so under existing family-planning laws, it was reported July 24. Population-control policies limited most urban families in China to a single child. However, in Shanghai, certain couples, such as those in which both parents were only children, or whose first child was disabled, were allowed to have two children. [See 2008, p. 168F1] The city said that, because of the need for more young people to care for the expanding elderly population, it would actively encourage second children among 576

eligible couples, although the existing restrictions would not be changed. Abortion Rate Increases—Separately, the state-run newspaper China Daily July 30 reported that an estimated 13 million abortions were performed in the country annually, a notable increase from the nine million estimated to have been performed in 2003. The report said that most were sought by single women, and attributed the increase to inadequate sex education. Researchers said almost half the women who underwent abortions had not used contraception. China’s abortion rate was about 24 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. By comparison, the country with the highest rate was Russia, with nearly 54; the U.S. rate was 15. The statistics did not include the many abortions carried out in unregistered clinics, or the use of abortion-inducing pills, some 10 million of which were reportedly sold every year in China. n

Europe (OSCE), a regional security monitor, Aug. 11 said it had sent a letter to Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin asserting that Esergepov’s sentence conflicted with international standards and the OSCE’s commitment to media freedom. Kazakhstan was slated to take on the rotatn ing OSCE presidency in 2010. Prominent Boxer Dies After Shooting. Rising Kazakh boxer Yermek Serikov, 20, Aug. 11 was shot in the leg and died during surgery. Interfax news outlet Aug. 17 reported that three suspects in his death had turned themselves in to authorities. Some observers speculated that Serikov’s death was connected to organized crime groups. Kazakhstan’s boxing program was entirely state-funded, and winning boxers could receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money from the government. A number of prominent Kazakh athletes had been killed or died under suspicious circumstances in recent years, including several other boxers. [See p. 510D2] n

Japan

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GDP Growth Returns. The Japanese government Aug. 17 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown in the second quarter of the year by 0.9% from the previous quarter, or at an annual rate of 3.7%. It was the first quarterly GDP growth recorded by Japan since the first quarter of 2008. Japan’s GDP had contracted at a revised 11.7% annual rate in the first quarter of 2009. [See p. 414E3] Japan followed a number of countries in Asia and Europe that had returned to economic growth after experiencing recessions as part of a global slowdown. However, analysts noted that the expansion had resulted from increased exports and government stimulus programs, rather than an increase in domestic consumer demand, leaving it uncertain how durable Japan’s recovery from recession would prove. n

News in Brief. Opposition leader Alikbek Dzhekshenkulov, who in March had been

Kazakhstan Newsman Sentenced for Disclosing Secrets.

A Kazakh court Aug. 8 found Ramazan Esergepov, owner and editor in chief of the weekly newspaper Alma-Ata Info, guilty of publishing state secrets and sentenced him to three years in prison. Esergepov had been arrested Jan. 6 after printing a letter in Alma-Ata Info that he claimed showed a connection between a Kazakh businessman and the country’s intelligence agency, the National Security Committee. The Kazakh Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, Aug. 13 upheld Esergepov’s sentence. [See p. 510D2] In its Aug. 8 decision, the court found another defendant, businessman Sultan Makhmadov, guilty of tax evasion, as well as illegally accessing state secrets and publishing them in Esergepov’s newspaper. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders Aug. 10 said it was “appalled” by Esergepov’s sentence. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in

arrested for alleged involvement in the 2007 murder of a Turkish businessman, had been moved from jail to house arrest due to ill health, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported Aug. 15. Dzhekshenkulov, a former foreign minister, maintained that the charges against him were political retribution for his involvement with the “For Justice” opposition movement. [See p. 187C2] Syrgak Abdyldayev, an independent journalist who in March survived an attack in which he was stabbed more than 20 times and both his arms were broken, had fled Kyrgyzstan and applied for political asylum in an unspecified country, it was reported Aug. 14. Abdyldayev and his family reportedly fled after receiving a number of threats. [See p. 187F2] Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev Aug. 2 was sworn in for his second fiveyear term in Bishkek, the capital, after winning July elections that the opposition had called fraudulent. In his inaugural speech, Bakiyev called his landslide victory a “win for everybody,” and added, “the very principle of democracy and the ideals of tolerant society were victorious.” President Nursultan Nazarbayev of neighboring Kazakhstan attended the ceremony. [See p. 510D3] n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Bulgaria New Prime Minister Borissov Inaugurated.

The Bulgarian parliament July 27 voted, 162–77, to approve Boyko Borissov of the center-right Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party as the country’s new prime minister. Borissov and his cabinet, which was also approved by the parliament that day, were then sworn in by President Georgi Parvanov. GERB’s FACTS ON FILE

FACTS ON BORISSOV

Boyko Borissov was born June 13, 1959, in Bankya, a town just outside Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. In 1982, he graduated from the Higher Specialized School of the interior ministry, which was now known as the Interior Ministry Academy, with an engineering degree in firefighting. He then began working as a firefighter in Sofia, eventually becoming a company commander. In 1985, he returned to the academy, where he taught until 1990. He also earned a doctorate while teaching there. In 1991, Borissov founded IPON-1 Ltd., a private security company whose customers included Bulgaria’s former communist leader, Todor Zhivkov. In 2001, Borissov was appointed to serve as Bulgaria’s chief secretary of the interior, and reached the rank of lieutenant general in 2004. He successfully ran for parliament in 2005 out of loyalty to then–Prime Minister Simeon SaxeCoburg, but declined to serve, and resigned from the ministry that year. Later in 2005, Borissov ran for mayor of Sofia as an independent candidate after the previous mayor, Stefan Sofiyanski, had stepped down early to serve in parliament. Borissov won in a landslide victory. He was reelected two years later as the candidate of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), a party created in 2006. In July, voters ousted the Bulgarian Socialist Party in favor of GERB. Borissov and his government July 27 won parliamentary approval and were sworn into office. [See p. 576G3] Borissov held a black belt in karate. He was divorced, and had one daughter.

parliamentary members were joined by deputies from several smaller parties in voting to approve Borissov and his government. Those parties included the conservative, market-oriented Blue Coalition, the ultranationalist Ataka coalition and the Order, Law and Justice party. [See p. 482B2; for facts on Borissov, see p. 577A1] Borrisov’s new government succeeded that of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and his Bulgarian Socialist Party, which had been ousted in June elections. n

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Wildfires.

Wildfires Aug. 21 broke out about 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Athens, the Greek capital, and destroyed or damaged about 300 homes and other buildings, and burned some 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of forest, farmland and olive groves, before receding Aug. 24. Thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his government drew criticism over the response to the fires. Opposition parties, environmental groups and newspapers said the government had failed to react quickly enough, or to prepare adequately for such a disaster, after wildfires killed 65 people in 2007. [See 2007, p. 564D2] The government Aug. 22 had declared a state of emergency and requested aid from the European Union. Fellow EU member nations France, Italy and Cyprus sent firefighting airplanes to Greece. August 27, 2009

A Greek water-dropping plane Aug. 27 crashed while fighting a fire on the island of Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea, killing the pilot, a Greek air force colonel. Karamanlis paid tribute to the pilot, expressing his “deep sadness and grief.” A public prosecutor Aug. 24 opened an investigation into allegations that arson had caused the wildfires. Arson had frequently been used in Greece to clear protected forest lands for illegal real estate development or for livestock grazing. The government said it would provide financial aid to help owners of legally built homes rebuild, and would also take action to help farms and forests recover. n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Vote Results Trickle in as Fraud is Claimed.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission Aug. 26 announced that President Hamid Karzai had received 45% of votes cast in a presidential election held the previous week, outpacing his main rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who had garnered 35%. The commission had thus far counted ballots from only 17% of the country’s polling stations, and final results were not expected until Sept. 17. The release of partial results was accompanied by accusations of widespread election rigging, most of it allegedly in favor of Karzai. [See p. 549A1] Unless one of the more than 30 presidential candidates won more than 50% of the vote, there would be a runoff between the two top vote-getters. If needed, a runoff election would likely take place in October. Spokesmen for both Karzai and Abdullah had claimed that their candidates were on track to win the most votes. The commission the previous day had released results from 10% of polling stations showing Karzai with 41% of the vote and Abdullah with 39%. Abdullah Aug. 25 claimed that he had evidence of election fraud, showing reporters stacks of paper ballots that had all allegedly been marked for Karzai ahead of the election. Abdullah also played a video that appeared to show Karzai backers stuffing ballot boxes. Six other candidates, including former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, that day released a joint letter saying widespread rigging had occurred, and that a marred election “could result in increased tension and violence.” Independent election observers had also cited instances of fraud, although on a lesser scale than had been claimed by Karzai’s opponents. Hundreds of complaints had been submitted to Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission, a body run jointly by Afghans and international arbiters. Karzai’s supporters dismissed the claims, and in turn accused Abdullah and others of vote rigging. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Aug. 23 downplayed the seriousness of the accusations, saying, “Of course there were some irregularities; that

happens in the U.S.” However, it was reported that U.S. officials were concerned that if the election was perceived as illegitimate, it could undermine the government’s authority and exacerbate ethnic tensions between Afghanistan’s north and south. The north was ethnically mixed, but was thought to be a base of support for Abdullah, who was part Tajik and part Pashtun. The Pashtun-dominated south was seen as largely loyal to Karzai, a Pashtun. There were also concerns that the low turnout on election day could deprive the election of legitimacy. It was reported that fewer than 50% of registered voters went to the polls, and only 5%–10% voted in the south, where an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban was strongest. Many voters, particularly women, had reportedly refrained from voting over fears that the Taliban would punish them. Bombing Attack Kills 43 in South—A car bombing attack Aug. 25 killed 43 people and injured more than 65 in the southern city of Kandahar, in Kandahar province. The attack, which appeared to target a Japanese construction company, was thought to have been carried out by the Taliban, though no group claimed responsibility. It was reported that the Taliban had carried out several attacks since the election, including cutting off voters’ fingers that had been stained with ink, which had been used to prevent voters from voting twice. Four U.S. soldiers Aug. 25 died in fighting in Afghanistan, bringing the total number of foreign troops killed in 2009 to 295. That made 2009 the deadliest year for foreign troops since a U.S.-led force invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and toppled the Taliban from power. The spike in casualties was attributed to major new offensives being conducted by U.S. and British forces in the south and east. A total of 802 U.S. troops and 206 British troops had been killed since 2001. n

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Pakistan Taliban ‘Deputies’ Confirm Leader’s Death.

Two individuals claiming to be deputies to Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani branch of the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban, Aug. 25 told reporters by telephone that Mehsud had been killed by a U.S. missile strike launched in early August. The acknowledgment of his death by the two purported deputies—Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali-ur Rehman—backed assertions that had been made by Pakistani and U.S. officials. The deputies also said Hakimullah Mehsud had been chosen to lead the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban, a loose coalition of more than a dozen militant groups. [See p. 533A1] Taliban spokesmen had previously denied that Mehsud had been killed. The two deputies said the Aug. 5 strike, which was believed to have been launched by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft, had badly injured Mehsud, and that he died of his wounds Aug. 23. 577

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However, some Pakistani officials insisted that Hakimullah Mehsud was also dead, saying he had been killed in a gun battle with Rehman after the two clashed over who would succeed Baitullah Mehsud. The two deputies Aug. 25 denied that there was infighting in the Taliban’s ranks. They said Rehman had been chosen to lead Taliban fighters in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal area in Pakistan’s northwest that had served as a stronghold for Baitullah Mehsud. The latest development followed weeks of confusion surrounding Tehreek-e-Taliban’s leadership. Another deputy, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, Aug. 19 announced that he was the interim head of Tehreek-e-Taliban. However, Mohammad three days later said Hakimullah Mehsud was the group’s new leader, and dismissed the rumors of his death. Hakimullah Mehsud was considered a murderous commander who had recently orchestrated a suicide bombing of a luxury hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar and an attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, capital of eastern Punjab province. [See pp. 418F2, 137D3] U.S. officials had reportedly pushed Pakistan to use the apparent disarray surrounding Baitullah Mehsud’s death to clamp down on the Taliban. The Pakistani military had recently conducted a major operation to expel Taliban insurgents from the Swat Valley region in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and had said it would invade South Waziristan. But U.S. officials were reportedly concerned that the Pakistani military would back off following the death of Mehsud, the country’s most notorious terrorist. A series of U.S. military and diplomatic officials in August met with Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, chief of the Pakistani military, in Islamabad, the capital, to reportedly encourage a more aggressive campaign to defeat the Taliban. They included Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, Aug. 19; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in neighboring Afghanistan, Aug. 17; and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Aug. 18. Separately, Pakistani officials Aug. 18 said they had captured the Taliban’s main spokesman, Maulvi Said Muhammad, the previous day. Muhammad, also known as Maulvi Omar, was captured in the Mohmand tribal area, the officials said. Taliban Bodies Discovered in Swat—

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The corpses of three suspected Taliban militants Aug. 25 were found near Mingora, the main city in Swat, bringing the total number found since the previous day to 22. Many of the victims had reportedly been found blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs, and had multiple bullet wounds. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent advocacy group, said the army was responsible for the killings. It was reported that Taliban corpses had become a common sight on Mingora’s 578

streets after the army invaded Swat in April. However, the recent discoveries— which included the finding of 18 bullet-riddled bodies in Swat on Aug. 16—prompted concerns that the army was conducting extrajudicial killings. The army denied those accusations, and dismissed calls for an independent investigation into the matter. Separately, a suicide truck bomber Aug. 15 killed three soldiers and two civilians in Swat, in what was considered the first major attack in Swat since the army gained control of the region. n

Sri Lanka Tamil Party Wins Plurality in Local Election.

An ethnic Tamil political party that had supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) separatist group—whose insurgency had been defeated by the Sri Lankan army in May—Aug. 8 won a plurality of seats in local elections held in the northern city of Vavuniya. The strong showing by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) party was considered an upset victory over the United People’s Freedom Alliance party (UPFA) led by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, an ethnic Sinhalese. The elections, along with others held that day, were seen as emblematic of the ethnic tensions that continued to divide Sri Lanka, despite pledges from Rajapaksa to reconcile the country’s minority Tamils and majority Sinhalese. [See p. 363E1] The TNA won five seats out of 11 on Vavuniya’s urban council, while the UPFA won only two. The TNA was expected to form a coalition with a smaller party to control the council. The UPFA won 13 out of 23 seats on the municipal council in the northern city of Jaffna, while the TNA won eight seats. Jaffna, like Vavuniya and other areas in Sri Lanka’s north, was predominantly Tamil. The UPFA had recruited a Tamil minister to lead its Jaffna branch, and its campaign received substantial financial support. The elections in Jaffna and Vavuniya were the first to be held in 11 years. The UPFA also won 25 out of 34 seats in provincial council elections held in the southeastern province of Uva, which, like the rest of the south, was predominantly Sinhalese. The UPFA’s victory was seen as an endorsement of the government’s successful campaign to vanquish the LTTE insurgency. Victory Comes Despite Displacement—

The TNA’s strong performance in the Aug. 8 Vavuniya elections came despite the fact that thousands of Tamil civilians in the region had been displaced by the fighting between the army and the LTTE. Since May, as many as 300,000 Tamil refugees had been interned in 30 government-run camps across the north. International human rights groups had called on the government to release the refugees from the camps, which were ringed with barbed wire and overcrowded, and had limited access to aid relief. The government had also restricted journalists and human rights investigators from visiting the camps.

The government maintained that the camps had to be screened thoroughly for LTTE insurgents who had eluded capture, and that it would be dangerous for refugees to return to their homes in the north, since the area was laced with land mines planted by the LTTE. Rajapaksa had said 80% of the refugees would be freed by the end of the year, but it was considered unlikely that the government would meet that deadline. An estimated 10,000 refugees had been released since May. Following the defeat of the LTTE insurgency—which had been waged on and off since 1983—Rajapaksa had promised to reach out to disaffected Tamils, who had long claimed that the Sinhalese-dominated government discriminated against them. However, observers said a prolonged internment of the refugees could exacerbate tensions between the two sides. Rajapaksa had also put off reaching an agreement that would give Tamil regions greater autonomy from the central government, saying such an agreement would be finalized only after the next presidential election, which was expected to be held in 2010. Heavy rains Aug. 15 led to flooding at several camps, leaving thousands of families without shelter and exposing them to contaminated water. The government said 1,000 families had to be relocated, although some reports said the number of affected people was higher. Flooding at the camps threatened to become a major problem during Sri Lanka’s monsoon season, which was expected to begin in October. Rebel Leader Pathmanathan Arrested—

Government officials Aug. 7 announced that LTTE leader Selvarasa Pathmanathan was in government custody in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, following his arrest the previous day in Southeast Asia. There were conflicting reports as to whether Pathmanathan—who also went by the nom de guerre KP—was arrested in Thailand or Malaysia. Pathmanathan had been named the head of the LTTE July 21, after the group’s longtime leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was killed by army forces in May, along with many other members of the LTTE’s senior leadership. Pathmanathan had pledged to use nonviolent means to achieve the LTTE’s primary goal of creating a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka. Prior to succeeding Prabhakaran, he had overseen the LTTE’s weapons purchases and fund-raising, and was wanted by international police agency Interpol. IMF Loan Approved—The International Monetary Fund (IMF) July 24 approved a $2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka, which was designed to help the country rebuild areas ravaged by war as it struggled with economic woes brought on by a global downturn. The U.S. and Britain abstained from voting on the 20-month loan, citing concerns over alleged human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government. Both countries reportedly wished to see Sri Lanka make progress on its refugee situation. FACTS ON FILE

The U.S. and Britain were also concerned about reports that the Sri Lankan army had killed some 7,000 civilians in the final months of fighting against the LTTE. Rajapaksa had rebuffed attempts by the United Nations Human Rights Council and other international bodies to conduct investigations of possible war crimes. Other Developments—In other developments in Sri Lanka: o Sri Lanka’s media ministry June 24 confirmed that it was considering reestablishing a press council with the authority to charge, fine and jail journalists. The council had been disbanded in 2002. The government had come under criticism for its tight control of the media in recent years, which included banning journalists from the war zone. In addition, more than a dozen journalists had been killed since 2006, in what was seen as an attempt by pro-government elements to suppress criticisms of the war effort. [See p. 9G2] o Judge Nissanka Udalagama said the Sri Lankan army had not been responsible for the 2006 killing of 17 employees of Parisbased aid agency Action Against Hunger in the town of Muttur, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) published online July 14. Udalagama, the head of a government panel investigating alleged human rights abuses, said the army at the time was not in Muttur. The assertion contradicted earlier statements by army officials, and European peacekeeping monitors in 2006 had blamed army troops for the deaths. Udalagama said the LTTE or other government security forces could have been responsible, but that the panel had not finished its investigation because it “ran out of funds.” [See 2008, p. 335A3] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Track & Field Bolt Sets Records at World Championships.

Sprinter Usain Bolt of Jamaica Aug. 16 and Aug. 20 broke his own world records in the men’s 100 meters and 200 meters, respectively, at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships. Bolt claimed a third gold medal Aug. 22 with the Jamaican 4x100-meter relay team. Bolt’s achievements were among the highlights of the championships, held Aug. 15–23 in Berlin, Germany. [See 2008, p. 579F1] In the overall medal standings, the U.S. placed first, with 22 (10 golds, six silvers and six bronzes). Jamaica (seven golds, four silvers and two bronzes) and Russia (four golds, three silver and six bronze) were tied for second, with 13. [See 2007, p. 582G3] Bolt, who turned 23 on Aug. 21, posted a time of 9.58 seconds Aug. 16 in the 100 meters. That shattered the record of 9.69 seconds that he had set at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China—when he appeared to ease up just before crossing the finish line. The record was lowered by the largest margin since the introAugust 27, 2009

duction of electronic timekeeping in 1968. Tyson Gay of the U.S. took second place, with a time of 9.71, an American record, and Asafa Powell of Jamaica was third in 9.84. Bolt Aug. 20 set his second record of the championships by running the 200 meters in 19.19 seconds, besting his previous record of 19.30, set at the 2008 Summer Olympics, by 0.11 of a second. Panama’s Alonso Edward took the silver medal, with a time of 19.81, and Wallace Spearmon of the U.S. took the bronze in 19.85. S. African Teen in Gender Row— Newcomer Caster Semenya of South Africa, 18, Aug. 19 won the women’s 800 meters. She posted a time of 1:55.45, claiming her first senior title (she had won the event in the African Junior Championships July 31). Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei was second, with a time of 1:57.90, and Jennifer Meadows of Britain was third in 1:57.93. However, in an unusual turn of events, Pierre Weiss, the general secretary of the IAAF, took Semenya’s place at the postrace press conference. He stated that earlier in the day, Semenya, who had a muscular build and deep voice, and had quickly risen to the top of her sport, had been asked by the IAAF to undergo sex-determination testing to prove that she was a woman. Weiss said the testing had been requested due to “ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating.” [See 1981, p. 183D3] The gender testing, which reportedly was complicated and could take several weeks to complete, entailed assessments by an endocrinologist, a gynecologist, an internal medicine expert, an expert on gender and a psychologist. They reportedly would examine her external genitalia, hormonal levels and chromosomal make-up, and would also look for certain medical conditions that could result in a woman having some male characteristics. It was reported Aug. 25 that Semenya in previous tests had been found to have levels of testosterone that were three times higher than that of a normal woman. However, experts said it was unlikely that any of the tests being conducted would be able to prove definitively whether Semenya was female or male. The decision reportedly would be based on whether she possessed certain male characteristics that gave her an unfair advantage over her female competitors. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 21 reported that it had seen a copy of Semenya’s birth certificate stating that she was female. Also, several relatives and neighbors were quoted as saying that she had grown up as a girl. The gender row surrounding Semenya, who grew up in a small village in rural South Africa, caused an uproar in her home country. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party Aug. 20 called Semenya “our golden girl.” It added that “Caster is not the only woman athlete with a masculine build,” and that the IAAF “should know better.” The more radical ANC Youth League called the tests part of the “racist

agenda” of “imperialist countries.” Leonard Chuene, the president of Athletics South Africa, the sport’s governing body in the country, Aug. 22 resigned in protest. Semenya was greeted by huge crowds upon her return to South Africa Aug. 25, and met President Jacob Zuma. IAAF President Lamine Diack Aug. 23 had said confidentiality had been breached in Semenya’s case, calling the situation “regrettable” and saying that there would be an investigation. Other Highlights—In other highlights of the world championships: o The U.S. Aug. 23 won both the men’s and women’s 4x400-meter relays. [See 2008, p. 599E1–G1] o Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland Aug. 22 set a new world record in the women’s hammer throw. Her throw of 77.96 meters broke the record of 77.80 meters set by Tatyana Lysenko of Russia in 2006. o Jamaica Aug. 22 won the women’s 4x100-meter relay. [See 2008, p. 579F2– D3] o Allyson Felix of the U.S. Aug. 21 won the women’s 200 meters. o Shelly-Ann Fraser of Jamaica Aug. 17 won the women’s 100 meters. o Anna Rogowska of Poland Aug. 17 won the women’s pole vault, after defending champion Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia failed to clear any height. [See 2008, p. 580F1] o Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia Aug. 17 won the men’s 10,000 meters for the fourth time in a row. He completed the socalled distance double Aug. 23 when he took the men’s 5,000 meters. [See 2008, p. 599A2] n

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Following are the top 10 teams in the 2009 Associated Press (AP) preseason poll of media members, released Aug. 22, and the USA Today preseason coaches’ poll, released Aug. 7, for Division I-A National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football teams [See p. 23B3; 2008, p. 627E1]:

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Academy of Sciences, the other by Shaorong Gao of the National Institute of Biological Sciences. [See 2008, pp. 931C1, 64G1] n

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Three teams of researchers, in separate studies, reported in the April 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that most adults had unexpectedly large deposits of so-called brown fat, which burned large amounts of calories and generated heat. The fat gained its color from high levels of iron-rich mitochondria, which generated energy for cells. The fat was previously thought to occur only in infancy to protect babies from the cold before the instinct to shiver developed. [See 2008, p. 931A2] In one study, led by Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, researchers used positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) scans to determine that brown fat in lean men had four times the activity of overweight men after both groups had been exposed to cold. A second study, led by Sven Enerback of the University of Gotenberg in Sweden, reported that PET-CT scans found active brown fat deposits in volunteers kept in cold rooms with their feet in an ice bath. The third study, led by Ronald Kahn and Aaron Cypess of the Joslin Diabetes Center in the U.S., found that a review of PET-CT scans taken over three years revealed apparently active brown fat in 7.5% of women and 3.1% of men. The reports said the fat was more commonly found in thinner people, younger people and women. Researchers said they hoped to learn to control brown fat to aid people in weight-loss efforts. n News in Brief. Researchers reported in the Aug. 2 issue of the journal Nature Medicine that they had identified a new subtype of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a 62-year-old woman living in Par-

is who was originally from Cameroon. The scientists said the new subtype—called subtype P—seemed to have originated in gorillas, and theorized that it had spread to humans through the slaughter of gorillas, and the handling or consumption of their meat. The research was led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen in France. [See 1998, p. 727E1; 1995, p. 617B2] Two teams of Chinese scientists working independently of one another July 23 published reports on the Web sites of the journals Nature and Cell Stem Cell detailing techniques used to breed mice by reprogramming skin cells to act like embryos. The work was notable since the technique appeared to obviate the traditional means of creating stem cells, which involved the controversial step of destroying embryos. Both research teams had used viruses to instruct the skin cells to mimic the behavior of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The new cells were then injected into embryos that would otherwise be unable to develop on their own. One research team had been led by Qi Zhou of the Chinese 580

People Preliminary toxicology findings by the Los Angeles coroner’s office indicated that pop singer Michael Jackson, who died in Los Angeles in late June at age 50, had died from having been injected with propofol (Diprivan), a powerful anesthetic, via an intravenous drip, minutes before the physician who administered the drug, Conrad Murray, noticed that he had stopped breathing, according to court documents unsealed Aug. 25 in Houston, Texas. Murray had administered a number of other sedatives in the preceding hours in an unsuccessful effort to make Jackson fall asleep. The documents had been filed in July to enable law enforcement officials to search Murray’s Houston office and storage unit. Other searches had taken place in Las Vegas, Nev., where Murray, 51, also had an office, as well as a home. Murray, a cardiologist who had been hired to be Jackson’s personal physician in advance of a London concert series, had admitted administering propofol to Jackson as an insomnia treatment. Medical experts, however, claimed that the drug was not suitable for treating insomnia, and was too dangerous to be used outside of hospitals and by anyone without special training in anesthesiology. There was speculation that Murray might eventually be charged with manslaughter. [See pp. 531E2, 467E3] Rhythm and blues singer Chris Brown, who in June had pleaded guilty to felonious assault on pop singer Rihanna, Aug. 25 in Los Angeles was sentenced to five years’ probation and six months of community labor, as previously arranged; his community service would be done in Virginia. his home state, under the supervision of the Richmond, Va., police chief. Papers filed with the Los Angeles court that handled his case alleged that there been two unreported incidents “related to domestic violence” before the Feb. 8 incident for which Brown was sentenced. [See p. 451D3] n

O B I T UA R I E S COHEN, Jerry (Gerald Allen), 68, Canadian-born political philosopher who, by rigorously applying 20th-century analytical techniques to Marxist theory, created a new school of Marxist thought called Analytic Marxism; he taught at University College, London, before being appointed to a prestigious philosophy professorship at Oxford University in 1985; he was the author of such books as Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (1978) and If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? (2000); born April 14, 1941, in Montreal, Quebec; died Aug. 5 in Oxford, England, after suffering a massive stroke. DUNNE, Dominick (John), 83, journalist and author who wrote celebrity profiles, and accounts of high-profile crimes and criminal trials; his work had been a regular feature of Vanity Fair magazine since the mid-1980s; Vanity Fair assigned him to cover the 1994–95 Los Angeles murder trial of former football star O.J. Simpson, the subject of his best-selling book Another City, Not My Own (1997); he also wrote such best-selling novels as A Season in Purgatory (1993) and An Inconvenient Woman (1990); before turning to writing, he was a Hollywood producer, whose films in-

cluded The Panic in Needle Park (1971), scripted by the husband-and-wife team of John Gregory Dunne (one of his brothers) and Joan Didion; two of his children also had Hollywood careers, actor and director Griffin Dunne and actress Dominique Dunne, murdered in 1982; it was her murder that ignited his interest in criminal trials; born Oct. 29, 1925, in Hartford, Conn.; died Aug. 26 at his home in New York City, after battling prostate and bladder cancer. [See 2005, p. 955D2; 2003, p. 1107B3; Indexes 1997, 1993, 1991, 1988–89, 1986, 1983, 1971–72] FORD, Ruth (Elizabeth), 98, leading 1930s model turned actress who appeared in a number of Broadway productions, including a 1959 adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel Requiem for a Nun, in which she starred opposite actor Zachary Scott, her husband at the time (he died in 1965); she also had a relatively modest film and television career; her longtime home at the Dakota, a landmark New York City apartment house, was a gathering spot for notable figures in the arts, quite a few of them homosexual, including Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee and Stephen Sondheim; she met many gay artists through her brother, avant-garde author Charles Henri Ford (1913–2002), the longtime lover of Russian-born painter Pavel Tchelitchew (1898-1957); born July 7, 1911, in Brookhaven, Miss.; died Aug. 12 at her New York home, of age-related causes. [See 1973, p. 1024C1; 1967, p. 581B1; Indexes 1966, 1963, 1959, 1955, 1946–47] FRIEDMAN, Rose (born Rose Director), 98, economist who was married to the leading 20th-century champion of free-market economics, Milton Friedman, from 1938 until his death in 2006, and who collaborated with him on a number of books, including the best-selling Free to Choose (1980); the two met while both were graduate students at the University of Chicago, where Milton Friedman later taught for many years; she was the sister of another University of Chicago economist, Aaron Director (1901–2004), who pioneered the application of free-market economic principles to legal matters; believed to have been born in December 1910 in a region of czarist Russia that was now part of Ukraine; died Aug. 18 at her home in Davis, Calif., of a heart ailment. [See 2006, p. 904E3; 2004, p. 832E3; Index 1980] HUTCHINS, Carleen (born Carleen Maley), 98, violin maker who did hands-on acoustic research in the basement of her home that enabled her to develop a set of eight violins proportional in size and pitch and known collectively as the new violin family; over the years, she built six such octets, for which music was written by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Henry Brant and others; born May 24, 1911, in Springfield, Mass.; died Aug. 7 at her home in Wolfeboro, N.H., of congestive heart failure. [See 2008, p. 352C2] KENNEDY, Edward Moore, 77, liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, popularly referred to as Ted Kennedy, who had been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1962 and was a scion of one of the U.S.’s most prominent political families; during his decades in the Senate, he adhered to the core values of liberalism while working productively with conservative Republicans; he helped shape key legislation in areas ranging from civil rights to education to health care; Massachusetts voters continued to reelect him to the Senate by large margins despite his long-standing reputation as a womanizer and heavy drinker; nothing tarnished his image more than a 1969 car accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., in which a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne drowned; if not for Chappaquiddick, he might have secured the Democratic nomination in the 1980 presidential election, which instead went to incumbent President Jimmy Carter; thereafter, he never sought the presidency again; on Aug. 12, President Barack Obama, whose presidential candidacy he had backed early on, awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the honor came a day after the death of one of his two surviving sisters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver; he was too ill to attend the ceremony, though, having been battling brain cancer since 2008, and was also too ill to attend his sister’s Aug. 14 funeral; born Feb. 22, 1932, in Boston, Mass.; died Aug. 25 in at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass. [See pp. 569A2, 548F1, F3, 473D1, 390E2–B3, F3, 256G1, 124C2, 26A3–B3; Indexes 1960–2008] WEXLER, Anne (born Anne Levy), 79, longtime Democratic political operative; she played a major role in voter-registration efforts in the early 1970s and served as a key aide to President Jimmy Carter from 1978 to 1981; after leaving the White House, she founded the first major Washington, D.C., lobbying firm to be led by a woman; born Feb. 10, 1930, in New York City; died Aug. 7 at her Washington home, after a long battle with breast cancer. [See 1984, p. 498B2; 1980, p. 260A1; Indexes 1978, 1971–72] n

August 27, 2009

Democratic Party of Japan Ousts Long-Ruling Liberal Democrats Hatoyama Set to Become Prime Minister PM Aso Resigns as LDP Chief. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won

JAPAN’S 2009 DIET ELECTION

Following are results of Japan’s Aug. 30 elections to the lower house of the Diet (parliament) [See p. 581A1]:

Party Democratic Party of Japan Liberal Democratic Party* New Komeito* Japanese Communist Party Social Democratic Party Others

Seats Held Before After Election Election 112 303 31 9 7 16

308 119 21 9 7 16

*Governing coalition in outgoing Diet. Two seats were vacant in the Diet at dissolution.

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3585* September 3, 2009

B KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images

an overwhelming victory in Aug. 30 elections to the lower house of Japan’s Diet (parliament), ousting the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which, excepting a months-long period in 1993–94, had been in government since 1955. A DPJ victory had been widely predicted since Prime Minister Taro Aso, the latest in a succession of short-term LDP prime ministers who had failed to reverse the party’s flagging fortunes, called the election in July. DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama was expected to form a government in coalition with smaller parties, and take office as prime minister in September. [See p. 482B1; 2005, p. 621G1; for election results, see p. 581F1; for facts on Hatoyama, see p. 582E1; for facts on the DPJ, see p. 582A1] The DPJ won 308 of the 480 seats in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, to 119 for the LDP. Before the election, the LDP had 303 seats, and the DPJ, only 112. Turnout, at about 69%, was the highest since the current voting system was instituted in 1996. [See 1996, p. 750C3] Hatoyama Aug. 31 called the election “revolutionary,” but cautioned that the DPJ was only at the “starting line” of its effort “to create a new kind of politics that will fulfill the expectations of the people.” Aso, who had been prime minister for a little less than a year, that day acknowledged the “deep dissatisfaction with our party,” and resigned as LDP leader. Era of LDP Machine Ends— The election appeared to signal the end of an era in which the LDP presided over consensus through a political machine that encompassed government bureaucracy, corporate and agricultural patronage, and vote-getting public spending programs. The party had overseen Japan’s emergence as a global economic superpower in the decades after the country’s defeat in World War II. However, Japan’s economy had stagnated since the collapse of a stock market and real estate bubble in the 1990s, gradually increasing disillusionment with the political establishment.

The LDP nevertheless held on to power in the absence of a strong opposition with experience in government. The LDP was out of power briefly in 1993–94, when a group of opposition parties, none with more seats than the LDP on its own, formed a fragile coalition that lasted only 11 months. Some Japanese expressed hope that the election would usher in a properly functioning two-party system in which parties would compete more actively for the votes of a more politically discerning electorate. [See 1994, p. 453A1] Hatoyama, 62, had belonged to the DPJ since its founding in 1998. He was a grandson of a founder of the LDP and its first prime minister, Ichiro Hatoyama, illustrating the Japanese political class’s pervasive roots in the LDP. (The DPJ’s former leader and main strategist, Ichiro Ozawa, had once been a major LDP power broker.) [See p. 342C2; 1996, p. 750F3] The DPJ in 2007 had gained control of the less powerful upper chamber of the Diet, the House of Councillors, allowing it to significantly delay government initiatives. [See 2007, p. 499B2] Brakes on Market Reform Pledged— In the election campaign, which officially began Aug. 18, the DPJ vowed departures from LDP policies in both foreign and domestic affairs. The current economic downturn was the new government’s most pressing challenge, with a record unemployment rate registered in July at 5.7%. The DPJ said that to stimulate the economy, it would expand government benefits paid to individuals, instead of the traditionally favored government aid to companies. Among the party’s proposals were a new monthly allowance for families with children, a higher minimum wage, more generous retirement pensions, and tax and fee cuts. The Liberal Democrats warned that the opposition had not explained convincingly how it would pay for those benefits, estimated to cost about 7.1 trillion yen ($77 billion) in the next full fiscal year—especially given that the DPJ said it would not countenance an increase in the 5% consumption tax rate for the next five years. The DPJ said cutting infrastructure spending projects and reducing waste would cover its initiatives’ cost. Hatoyama also said that, in office, he would roll back the market liberalization that had been pursued by the government in recent years. He blamed insufficient regulation for the financial crisis that had struck worldwide in the past two years. He said market reforms and overreliance on exports had left Japan excessively vulnerable to global economic forces and disrupted Japan’s communities, invoking his campaign byword, yuai, meaning friendship or fraternity. Targeting one major LDP labor-market reform, the DPJ proposed restoring a ban on the hiring of temporary contract workers in the

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Aug. 30, when the DPJ ousted the longruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) from power in parliamentary elections.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Democratic Party of Japan ousts longruling Liberal Democratic Party; Hatoyama set to become prime minister. PAGE 581

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British Prime Minister Brown denies secret Lockerbie deal. PAGE 582

WHO warns of severe form of swine flu. PAGE 583

Obama delivers Kennedy.

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Insurance giant AIG reports secondquarter profit. PAGE 585

European leaders mark anniversary of World War II’s start.

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Iraqi Shiite parties create alliance without Maliki. PAGE 592

Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert indicted for corruption. PAGE 593

Palestinian leader calls for independent state by 2011. PAGE 593

U.S. Gen. McChrystal calls for strategic shift in Afghanistan. PAGE 593 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was founded in April 1998 by the merger of four small liberal and leftist opposition political parties. Those parties were the Good Governance Party, the New Fraternity Party, the Democratic Reform Party and a previous DPJ, cofounded in 1996 by Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan, who had left the small New Party Sakigake. The new DPJ sought to create a viable alternative to the long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and to reform what it said was the hidebound, bureaucratic political establishment that the LDP represented. [See 1998, p. 382C3; 1996, p. 750F3] In 2002, Hatoyama, who had been DPJ president since 1999, resigned after party members were angered by his proposal that it merge with another opposition group, the Liberal Party. The parties did merge in 2003, prior to an election in November of that year, in which the enlarged DPJ made unprecedented gains against the LDP. [See 2003, p. 761C2; 2002, p. 953C3] Hatoyama’s successor, former Liberal leader Ichiro Ozawa, led the party to control of the less-powerful upper house of the Diet (parliament) in 2007 elections, allowing it to seriously delay the government’s initiatives. [See 2007, p. 499B2] Ozawa resigned as leader in May 2009, as a September deadline for holding lower house elections approached, over corruption allegations against an aide. Hatoyama again became leader, and was expected to become prime minister after the party won a large majority in Aug. 30 elections. [See pp. 581A1, 342C2]

manufacturing sector. The use of such workers had expanded since short-term contracts became permitted in 2004, but temporary workers had borne the brunt of the economic downturn, losing work first and enjoying few benefits. Business leaders, historically closely tied to the LDP, expressed alarm at the proposal, and argued that the flexibility of temporary contracts had had a revitalizing effect on the economy. Hatoyama also vowed to scale back the power of the government’s civil service

bureaucracy, which had historically wielded strong influence over policy at the expense of elected officials’ initiative. He planned to create a new National Strategy Bureau, whose chief would be a member of the cabinet, that was intended to shift highlevel policy-making to government leadership, from the bureaucracy. Foreign Policy Shift Away From U.S.—

The DPJ vowed to conduct a foreign policy that was more independent of the U.S. and more focused on cultivating ties with Japan’s Asian neighbors, after decades in which the LDP had made the alliance with the U.S. a priority. Hatoyama had criticized the U.S. as the model for the “market fundamentalism” that he said had damaged Japan’s economy, and the DPJ had aligned itself with opponents of the U.S. military presence in Japan and the overseas deployment of its military forces. However, as the election approached, the party toned down its proposals for altering Japan’s security and military agreements with the U.S. The party had previously called for a “radical revision” of an agreement with the U.S. on realigning U.S. forces stationed in Japan, but in a new policy statement issued July 23, it scaled back its position to saying only that it would “propose revisions.” The party also moderated its opposition to the deployment of Japanese naval tankers to refuel U.S. warships in the Indian Ocean, and to other overseas military missions undertaken by the government. The LDP had sought to expand the activities of Japan’s military forces, which were circumscribed by pacifist provisions in the country’s postwar constitution. [See p. 109D2] In a televised debate with Hatoyama Aug. 12, Aso emphasized security issues, suggesting that the LDP was a better choice to “protect Japan” than the inexperienced DPJ. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama Aug. 30 issued a statement

FACTS ON HATOYAMA

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Yukio Hatoyama was born in Tokyo, Japan’s capital, on Feb. 11, 1947, into a prominent Japanese political family. His grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama, had been prime minister, from 1954 to 1956, and a founder of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955. His father, Iichiro Hatoyama, had served as foreign minister from 1976 to 1977. His mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, was heiress to the Bridgestone Corp. tire company fortune, and financially supported the family’s continuing political involvement. [See 1959, p. 80E2] Hatoyama graduated from Tokyo University in 1969 and in 1976 received a Ph.D. in engineering from Stanford University in the U.S., where he also met his wife, Miyuki. He worked in academia in Japan before joining his father’s parliamentary staff in 1983. In 1986, he won his father’s former seat in the lower house of the Diet (parliament). After a 1993 general election in which the LDP lost its majority for the first time since 1955, Hatoyama left the party, cofounding the

New Party Sakigake. In 1996, he left Sakigake to cofound another new party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which merged with three other parties in 1998. He served as its president from 1999 to 2002, when he resigned over a controversy in the party over his suggestion that it merge with the Liberal Party, which it did the following year. [See 2002, p. 953C3; 1999, p. 750F1; 1996, p. 750F3; 1993, p. 457G2] Hatoyama was elected party leader again in May, after Ichiro Ozawa stepped down over corruption allegations against an aide. After the DPJ won a historic victory over the LDP in Aug. 30 lower house elections, he was expected to form a government and become prime minister in September. [See pp. 581A1, 342C2] Hatoyama was nicknamed “the alien” for his unusual hairstyle and stiff demeanor, as well as his unusual political message of yuai, meaning friendship, fraternity or love. Hatoyama and his wife, a spirituallyminded lifestyle author, had one son.

greeting Hatoyama’s victory as “historic,” and expressing confidence that “the strong U.S.-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will continue to flourish.” Hatoyama Sept. 3 said he had “reaffirmed that the U.S.-Japanese alliance is the foundation” of Japan’s foreign policy in a telephone conversation with Obama and a meeting with the U.S. ambassador. As part of the DPJ’s tilt toward cultivating Asian diplomacy, Hatoyama Aug. 11 had said that if he was elected, he would not pay visits to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, where convicted World War II–era war criminals were among those honored. Visits to Yasukuni by Japanese prime ministers and other top officials routinely drew protests from China, South Korea and other countries that suffered under imperial Japanese military occupation. Hatoyama said the LDP should “face history with courage,” which would “improve relations between Japan and China.” [See 2007, p. 636E3] Hatoyama’s pledge came days before the Aug. 15 anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, the customary date for high-profile visits to Yasukuni. Aso did not visit the shrine that day, but former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe did. At a memorial ceremony that day in Tokyo, Aso expressed “remorse” for the “tremendous damage and suffering” inflicted on other countries by Japan. n

British Prime Minister Brown Denies Secret Lockerbie Deal Says No Link to Libyan Oil in Release.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Sept. 2 denied that his government had engaged in any “double-dealing” leading to

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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the release two weeks earlier, by Scottish authorities, of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. [See p. 567B3] A triumphal welcome for Megrahi at the airport in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, had fueled outrage over his release, especially among families of the 189 U.S. victims of the bombing, which was the deadliest terrorist attack in British history. Brown said, “There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to [Libyan ruler] Col. [Muammer el-] Qaddafi.” Brown reiterated that he had told Qaddafi that the decision on Megrahi’s release was left to the Scottish government, under the British system of regional autonomy in areas of policy including criminal justice. The Scottish government said it had decided to release Megrahi, 57, on compassionate grounds, citing a diagnosis that he had terminal prostate cancer, with less than three months to live. Compassionate release was a common practice for dying prisoners in Scotland. But there were suspicions that the British government had pressured Scotland to release Megrahi, as part of a secret deal to win Libyan oil and gas contracts for British companies. Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam elQaddafi, had claimed that Libya had consistently made such contracts part of the long-running negotiations for Megrahi’s release. Brown insisted, “Our interest throughout has been to strengthen the coalition against international terrorism. I made it clear that for us there was never a linkage between any other issue and the Scottish government’s own decision about Megrahi’s future.” The Scottish parliament Sept. 2 voted, 73–50, with one abstention, to pass a motion condemning Megrahi’s release. In a debate before the vote, opposition parties united in sharply criticizing Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who made the decision to free Megrahi after he served only eight years of a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years. Official

Correspondence

Released—

Britain and Scotland Sept. 1 made public the correspondence between government ministers leading to the release. The London Sunday Times newspaper Aug. 30 had published leaked excerpts from the correspondence, reporting that in 2007, Britain had secretly reached a deal with Libya to include Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement that Libya saw as a path to his eventual release. According to the report, Britain included Megrahi in the transfer agreement after Libya used him as a bargaining chip in negotiations on access to Libyan oil and gas reserves for British company BP PLC. Libya reportedly ratified the BP deal six weeks after the transfer agreement was finalized. September 3, 2009

One excerpt published by the Sunday Times came from a Dec. 19, 2007, letter from British Justice Secretary Jack Straw to MacAskill. Straw reportedly had written, “The wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage and in view of the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom, I have agreed in this instance the [prisoner transfer agreement] should be in the standard form and not mention any individual.” Straw had previously advocated explicitly excluding Megrahi from the agreement. Straw in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 30 said, “The suggestion that at any stage there was some kind of backdoor deal done over Mr. Megrahi’s transfer because of trade is simply untrue.” Straw that day issued a statement dismissing the issue as “academic,” since Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds, not under the transfer agreement. British opposition parties called for a parliamentary investigation into the matter. A second letter from Straw about the transfer agreement, dated Feb. 11, 2008, was addressed to Scotland’s head of government, First Minister Alex Salmond, who had opposed including Megrahi. Straw wrote, “You ask what I meant by ‘national interests.’ Developing strong relations with Libya, and helping it to reintegrate into the international community, is good for the U.K.” Among the documents released by Scotland Sept. 1 was one that said a British official, Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, had told Libya earlier in 2009 that Britain did not want Megrahi, 57, to die in prison. Rammell’s chief, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Sept. 2 confirmed that the government had viewed such an outcome as undesirable. Majid al-Dursi, head of Libya’s State Information Agency, Sept. 1 said of Megrahi, “His health is deteriorating very fast since he arrived,” adding, “Only God knows when it will be over. But he is dying now.” Some cancer experts in Britain and the U.S. had questioned Megrahi’s prognosis, saying that it was possible that he might survive longer than three months. Libya Celebrates Qaddafi’s 40-Year Rule—

Libya Sept. 1 opened several days of celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of Qaddafi’s seizure of power in a coup d’etat. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias was the guest of honor. A number of African heads of state were also present. Most Western leaders had turned down invitations to attend the festivities. [See 1969, p. 650F2] However, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Aug. 30 had visited Qaddafi in Tripoli to mark the one-year anniversary of an Italian-Libyan friendship treaty, in which Italy had agreed to pay $5 billion in reparations for its colonization of Libya from 1911 to 1943. Qaddafi had visited Rome in June, in the latest of a series of visits he had made to Western European capitals in the past few years.

Libya had begun to improve its relations with the West in 2003, when it dismantled its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, renounced terrorism and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. However, the U.S. State Department and U.S. Rep. Steven Rothman (D, N.J.) Aug. 28 announced that Qaddafi would be restricted to New York City while attending the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in late September, on his first visit to the U.S. Preparations for Qaddafi to stay in a tent on the grounds of a Libyan embassy– owned property in New Jersey during his visit were canceled. Local residents and politicians in the town of Englewood, N.J., had strongly objected to Qaddafi’s planned stay, noting that 38 of the Lockerbie bombing victims had lived in New Jersey. The State Department cited a 1982 law, the Foreign Missions Act, limiting the use of embassy properties to ambassadors and their families. U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice Sept. 2 said that “virtually every American has been offended by the reception accorded to Mr. Megrahi in Libya.” She warned, “How President Qaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not.” n

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Swine Flu WHO Warns of Severe Form of Disease. The World Health Organization (WHO)

Aug. 28 reported that a severe form of infection by the A(H1N1) swine influenza virus had been increasingly found worldwide. According to the WHO, the severe form of the disease directly infected the lungs, a circumstance that could lead to respiratory failure and required that patients be treated in hospital intensive care units. [See p. 502A1] The WHO said some cities had reported that almost 15% of patients hospitalized with swine flu had required intensive care. It also noted that the severe form of the disease had been found in “young and otherwise healthy people,” something rarely seen during normal seasonal flu infections. The A(H1N1) swine flu virus had first emerged in Mexico in April, but quickly spread worldwide, raising concerns that it could mutate into a deadlier form. It was unclear how many people had been infected or killed by the disease, as the WHO in July had stopped tallying such data, saying that to do so was a poor use of its resources. However, millions of people were thought to have been infected, suffered only mild symptoms, and then fully recovered. Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Aug. 21 said the virus had not appeared to have mutated as it spread through the Southern Hemisphere, which was in the middle of its flu 583

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season. The peak flu season in the Northern Hemisphere was to begin in January. Chilean officials Aug. 21 said tests showed that swine flu had been detected in turkeys in the country, proving that the virus had the ability to infect birds. The discovery raised concerns that the H1N1 flu might recombine with a strain of avian flu to yield a virus that was easily transmitted and deadlier. Vaccine Trials Progress—The CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Aug. 21 said clinical trials of a new swine flu vaccine had not shown any serious side effects. The trials had begun Aug. 7, and initial results from the studies were expected by mid-September. Officials said the absence of any serious side effects 10– 14 days after the vaccine’s administration had given them the confidence to start clinical trials in children. Researchers had yet to determine how many shots people might need, or what the correct dosage of the vaccine should be. Latin American Leaders Diagnosed—

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Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez Aug. 11 tested positive for H1N1 swine flu, becoming the first head of state confirmed to have the disease. Arias said he had a fever and sore throat, but otherwise felt well. Some of his duties were given to cabinet members on a temporary basis. Arias was later said to have fully recovered from the illness. The Colombian government Aug. 30 announced that President Alvaro Uribe Velez had tested positive for swine flu, and was also said to be recovering. Virus Continues U.S. Spread—The CDC Aug. 21 said that swine flu had continued to spread across the U.S., with 7,963 hospitalizations and 522 deaths reported. CDC official Jay Butler noted that the continued spread of the disease during the flu off-season was unusual. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Aug. 24 released a report detailing a “plausible scenario” in which 60 million–120 million people in the U.S. contracted swine flu in the upcoming fall and winter, resulting in 30,000–90,000 deaths. (The seasonal flu normally caused about 36,000 deaths in the U.S. annually.) The council said its estimates were not a prediction, but a model to be used to aid officials in their planning efforts. The scenario nonetheless was widely reported by news media. U.S. health officials Aug. 20 suggested that colleges and universities instruct students and faculty who contracted swine flu to remain home until symptoms subsided, and consider halting classes should a widespread outbreak occur. Officials Aug. 7 had recommended that elementary and secondary schools remain open unless they had a large number of students with medical conditions that might present a danger in case of infection, or a large number of students became infected. They recommended that decisions about whether to close schools because of swine flu be made by local authorities. n 584

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Politics Obama Delivers Eulogy for Sen. Kennedy.

President Barack Obama Aug. 29 delivered a eulogy for Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.) during a funeral Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a Roman Catholic church in Boston, Mass. Obama said Kennedy was “the heir to a weighty legacy, a champion for those who had none, the soul of the Democratic Party, and the lion of the United States Senate.” Kennedy had died Aug. 25, at the age of 77, after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He had served in the Senate since 1962. [See pp. 580E3, 569A2] Three former presidents attended the funeral service: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton—accompanied by his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton—and George W. Bush, whose father, former President George H.W. Bush, reportedly was too ill to attend. Kennedy’s sons, Edward Kennedy Jr., 47, and Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D, R.I.), 42, recalled childhood memories of their father helping them through illness and other difficulties. Kennedy later that day was buried in a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, near the graves of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D, N.Y.), who had both been assassinated, in 1963 and 1968, respectively. Kennedy’s body was flown from Boston to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, then driven in a hearse to the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where members of Congress, his staff and the public paid their respects before the hearse drove on to Arlington. An earlier ceremony for family and friends was held Aug. 28 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, where some 50,000 people had come to pay respects during two days of public viewing of the coffin Aug. 27–28, according to Boston police. At the Aug. 28 ceremony, Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime Senate colleague, was among the speakers at the ceremony. He recalled how Kennedy had consoled him and persuaded him to remain in the Senate after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972. Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) also spoke, attesting to Kennedy’s skill at building bipartisan relationships and negotiating compromises on legislation. Special Election Scheduled—Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) Aug. 31 scheduled the special election to fill Kennedy’s seat for the remainder of his current term, which would end in January 2013. The primary was set for Dec. 8, and the general election for Jan. 19, 2010. Meanwhile, leaders of the Democraticcontrolled Massachusetts state legislature Aug. 31 scheduled a hearing for Sept. 9 on Kennedy’s proposal, issued in a letter shortly before his death, for a change in

state law that would allow a temporary replacement to be named to his seat. Patrick said he supported Kennedy’s “very reasonable request.” Under the current law, the seat was to remain vacant until a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy occurred. In his letter, Kennedy said that a temporary appointee should give the governor “an explicit personal commitment” not to run in the special election. Democrats were eager for Patrick to name a temporary Democratic replacement as soon as possible, arguing that the state should be fully represented in the Senate at a time when important issues were being debated in that chamber. Kennedy’s death left them with a majority of 59 seats in the Senate, one short of the minimum required to prevent Republican filibusters. A vote was expected soon on health-care reform legislation that had long been a priority for Kennedy. Republicans accused Democrats of hypocrisy, noting that the legislature in 2004 had removed the governor’s power to name a temporary replacement to a vacant Senate seat. Democrats at that time had feared that then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) would appoint a Republican to the seat of Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, if Kerry won the presidential election. But Kerry lost to George W. Bush and remained in the Senate. Speculation on Possible Candidates—

Speculation was rampant on who would run in the special election. Former Rep. Joseph Kennedy 2nd (D, Mass.), 56, a son of Robert Kennedy, was reportedly considering entering the Democratic primary, as were several other current and former members of Congress from outside the family. State Attorney General Martha Coakley Sept. 3 became the first to declare her candidacy. Given the state’s traditional Democratic leanings, the party’s nominee would be heavily favored in the general election, though former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R) was said to be weighing a bid. Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, known for his conservative views, Sept. 2 said he was considering a run. Sens. Hatch and Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) Aug. 30 both said Sen. Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, 55, would make a good interim appointee if the law was changed, but she reportedly had said she was not interested in that job, or in competing in the special election. The Senate seat had remained in the hands of the Kennedys for all but two years since John F. Kennedy first won it in 1952. After he won the 1960 presidential election, his college roommate, Benjamin Smith 2nd (D), former mayor of Gloucester, was appointed to fill the seat, until Edward Kennedy won it in a special election in 1962 after turning 30, the minimum age for a senator. [See 1962, p. 390B2; 1960, p. 469C2] n Fla. Gov. Taps Ex-Aide to Fill Senate Seat.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) Aug. 28 appointed his former campaign manager and chief of staff, George LeMieux, to fill FACTS ON FILE

a vacant U.S. Senate seat that Crist himself planned to run for in a 2010 election. Sen. Mel Martinez (R) had resigned from the seat earlier that month. LeMieux, 40, was to serve the 17 months left in Martinez’s term. [See p. 537E2] LeMieux, viewed as a placeholder for Crist, was not expected to run for a full term for himself. LeMieux Aug. 28 said, “My time in Washington will be brief.” Like Crist, he was considered a moderate Republican. Crist passed over several Hispanic contenders for the vacancy. Martinez had been the only Hispanic sitting Republican senator. State Rep. Marco Rubio, a former speaker of the Florida House and a conservative of Cuban heritage, planned to compete with Crist in the Republican primary, while Rep. Kendrick Meek was the leading contender for the Democratic nomination. Both Rubio and Meek, and the Florida Democratic Party, criticized the appointment of LeMieux as self-serving cronyism, but Crist dismissed the attacks. LeMieux would become the fifth senator seated by appointment in 2009, joining the Democratic replacements for President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. In Massachusetts, Democrats were calling for a change in the succession law to allow a temporary appointee to replace Sen. Edward Kennedy (D), who had died earlier that week. [See p. 584F2] n

2009 Elections California Lt. Gov. Wins House Primary.

California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) Sept. 1 won a special primary election for a vacant House seat representing the state’s 10th Congressional District, located east of San Francisco. Garamendi won 26% of the vote in an all-party field of 14 candidates. The district’s Democratic leanings made him the front-runner in the Nov. 3 general election, in which he would face Republican businessman David Harmer, who won 21% of the primary vote, and three nominees of smaller parties. Garamendi fell far short of the threshold of more than 50% of the vote needed to win the seat outright and avoid the runoff. [See p. 478A3] The seat was left vacant when seventerm Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D) resigned in June, upon her confirmation by the Senate as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. n

Banking FDIC Deposit Fund Reaches 16-Year Low.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Aug. 27 said its deposit fund had dwindled to $10.4 billion in the second quarter, down from $45 billion the previous year, and its lowest level since 1993. The fund insured individual customer bank deposits of up to $250,000 in the case of bank failures. The FDIC said the drop mostly came from its setting aside $32 billion to September 3, 2009

pay for an expected spike in bank failures over the next year. [See pp. 388C1, 354D3] The FDIC said its so-called “problem list” of banks at risk of insolvency had climbed to 416 in the quarter, up from 305 in the first quarter. The FDIC said 81 banks had failed so far in 2009. While much of the financial industry in recent months had recovered from a global credit crisis, many smaller banks that had not received government aid continued to struggle. Additionally, while the credit crisis was sparked by Wall Street investments in risky, exotic loans, smaller banks were seeing a surge of defaults on traditional loans due to an ongoing recession. FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair that day said, “The difficult and necessary process of recognizing loan losses and cleaning up balance sheets continues to be reflected in the industry’s bottom line.” She added, “These credit problems will outlast the recession by at least a couple of quarters.” If the FDIC deposit fund ran out, it could tap a $100 billion credit line with the Treasury. Bair said she did not intend to borrow from the Treasury, but added, “I never say ‘never.’” The fund was paid for by bank fees, and the FDIC was expected to raise those fees to replenish the fund. Analysts said the additional costs would place further pressure on banks, which had already reduced lending over fears that defaults would rise. There were also growing concerns that continued problems in credit markets could stall a recovery in the broader economy. The FDIC said defaults were rising on credit-card and small business loans. A particular area of concern was the deteriorating commercial real estate market, which was expected to see a large number of defaults. [See p. 571A3] Guidelines Approved for Bank Buyouts—

The five-member board of the FDIC Aug. 26 voted, 4–1, to approve guidelines for private-equity firms buying failed banks. The vote was part of an FDIC initiative to encourage a broader swath of investors to acquire failed banks, which would ease some of the burden on the FDIC. The guidelines were laxer than what the FDIC had originally proposed. The FDIC was reportedly concerned that privateequity firms would further destabilize the banking industry by cutting costs at the banks they acquired and quickly selling them, a practice private-equity firms excelled at. There were also concerns that the firms would have their banks make risky loans in the pursuit of dramatic returns. Under the guidelines, banks bought by private-equity firms would have to keep reserves equal to 10% of their assets, double what was required of banks bought by traditional banks. In addition, privateequity firms had to own the banks for at least three years before selling them. n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis AIG Reports Second-Quarter Profit. Government-controlled insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) Aug. 7 reported that it had made a $1.8 billion

profit in the second quarter of 2009, its first quarterly profit since 2007. AIG had received more than $180 billion in government aid since September 2008, when it nearly collapsed due to risky insurance policies it had underwritten for mortgagebacked assets. [See p. 319C2] AIG said its profits had climbed as a result of recent changes to accounting rules that gave financial institutions greater discretion in valuing troubled assets. AIG’s profits had also been lifted by a broader recovery in financial markets. However, AIG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Edward Liddy warned that AIG’s traditional insurance businesses “remain challenged,” and that while the company had seen “stabilization in certain of our businesses,” it could expect “volatility” in the coming quarters. AIG said it would continue to sell assets to help pay back some of its government debt. [See p. 220D3] AIG’s share price made a dramatic rise in August, closing at $47.84 on the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 27, up from $13.14 at the beginning of the month. Analysts attributed the rise to several factors, including renewed investor confidence in the financial industry, AIG’s return to profitability and the naming of a new CEO in early August. [See below] Benmosche Named New CEO—AIG Aug. 3 said Robert Benmosche, a former CEO at insurance company MetLife Inc., would replace Liddy as CEO on Aug. 10. AIG Aug. 6 announced that Harvey Golub, a former CEO at credit-card company American Express Co., would become AIG’s chairman. The Treasury had asked Liddy to take the reins at AIG in September 2008, after the government took control of nearly 80% of the company. Liddy’s yearly compensation had been $1, and he said he had taken the job to help the government stabilize the financial industry. AIG Aug. 17 announced that Benmosche would have a yearly salary of $7 million in cash and shares, with the potential to make an additional $3.5 million in bonuses. The pay package had received “approval in principle” from Kenneth Feinberg, the special master in charge of determining compensation for top earners at companies that had received “exceptional assistance” from the government during the financial crisis. It was reported that Benmosche had said he would not take the job without the guarantee of a salary and a possible bonus. [See pp. 522F2, 387G2]

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Verdict in Favor of Greenberg Upheld—

Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in New York City Aug. 31 upheld a July jury verdict that found that former AIG CEO Maurice (Hank) Greenberg had not committed a breach of trust with AIG when a separate company he owned sold some $4.3 billion in AIG stock. AIG had claimed that Greenberg had made an oral agreement that the stock would be used to fund an AIG retirement plan, a claim Greenberg denied. AIG and Greenberg that day announced that they were ready to settle other outstanding legal disagreements through arbitration. [See p. 506C3] n 585

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Economy Consumer Confidence Rose in August.

The Conference Board business research group Aug. 25 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 54.1 in August, up from its level of 47.4 in July. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 522C2] n Leading Indicators Rose 0.6% in July. The Conference Board business research organization Aug. 20 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.6% in July, to 101.6. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.8% in June, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 522D2] Six of the 10 indicators in July were “positive” contributors, led by interest rate spread and average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance. Three indicators—index of consumer expectations, real money supply and building permits— were “negative.” Manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials was neither positive nor negative. n

Automobiles ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Program Ends Early.

The “cash for clunkers” program, in which consumers could trade in vehicles with

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September Financial Update (Close of trading Sept. 1 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

9,310.60

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

988.04 1,968.89 4,819.70

(see box, p. 586A2)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100)

Tokyo Stock Exchange

10,530.06

Toronto Stock Exchange

10,689.78

(Nikkei index)

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(S&P/TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

F

$0.8267 $1.6163 $0.9059 $1.4218 92.87 13.6482 $0.9383

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$956.35

Silver (per troy oz.)

$14.7400

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Aug. 23)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

G

3.37% 0.22%

$68.05 $2.64 $4.6525

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

-2.1%

Unemployment rate

9.4%

(consumer price index 12-month change through July 2009; see p. 571C3) (July 2009; see p. 535A1)

Gross domestic product growth

-1.0%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized second-quarter 2009 rate, preliminary report; see p. 572E1)

586

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

Aug. 3 4

5 6 7 10 11 12 13 14 17 18 19 20 21 24 25 26 27 28 31

9,286.56 9,320.19 9,280.97 9,256.26 9,370.07 9,337.95 9,241.45 9,361.61 9,398.19 9,321.40 9,135.34 9,217.94 9,279.16 9,350.05 9,505.96 9,509.28 9,539.29 9,543.52 9,580.63 9,544.20 9,496.28

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,212.4 1,246.8 1,877.0 1,379.2 1,462.9 1,085.1 1,197.0 1,225.5 775.1 1,093.2 1,218.1 991.0 988.3 1,046.3 1,475.6 1,230.5 1,141.7 1,052.0 1,161.3 1,186.1 1,377.7

poor gas mileage for a government-provided credit of up to $4,500 toward the purchase of a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle, ended Aug. 24. The program had been expected to last through Nov. 1, but proved so popular that the $3 billion that Congress had set aside to fund it was rapidly expended. President Barack Obama Aug. 20 said the program was “successful beyond anyone’s imagination.” [See p. 535G3] Despite the program’s success, some dealers had withdrawn from it before the deadline because the government was unable to immediately reimburse dealers for discounted sales. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Aug. 19 said he understood dealers’ frustration and reassured them they would be paid. Administrative slowdowns were attributed to the glut of applications for the program, which strained staff and overloaded computer systems. Total vehicle sales in the U.S. in August increased 1% compared with sales in August 2008, and jumped 26% compared with sales in July. Analysts said the clunkers program boosted sales for Asian automakers that made small cars, as well as for Michigan-based automaker Ford Motor Co., whose Focus compact car sold well in the program. n

Terrorism Company Tied to CIA Assassination Unit.

The New York Times reported Aug. 20 that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2004 had hired the private security contracting firm then called Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe, to assist with a controversial secret program intended to assemble a unit that could carry out the assassinations of high-ranking members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The secret program had been started after Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., but Congress had not been informed of its existence until June. [See p. 473A3]

The program had been terminated in June by CIA Director Leon Panetta. According to the Times, the CIA’s hiring of Blackwater was a factor in Panetta’s decision to end the program and brief Congress on its existence. Blackwater’s involvement with the program had reportedly ended before Panetta took over as CIA director in February. The CIA had not signed a contract with Blackwater concerning the company’s involvement in the program; instead, the agency had reportedly made informal agreements with high-ranking Blackwater executives. The Washington Post reported Aug. 21 that, according to an unnamed former intelligence official, Blackwater had done its work on the program for no profit, billing the CIA only for expenses and overhead related to its work. However, intelligence sources also said the CIA had paid Blackwater millions of dollars to train and equip the assassination teams. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D, Calif.) Aug. 20 issued a statement saying, “It is clear to me that the failure to notify [Congress] before now constituted a violation of law.” She said she believed that the program “had, in fact, gone beyond the simple planning stage.” Feinstein also criticized the CIA decision to employ outside contractors, saying, “I have believed for a long time that the Intelligence Community is over-reliant on contractors to carry out its work.” Panetta’s predecessor, Michael Hayden, Aug. 20 said that he believed that the program had “never reached either the political or the legal threshold” that would have required the CIA to inform Congress about its existence. He said that the program never left the planning stages, and ended before he took office in 2006. It had begun under Hayden’s predecessor, Porter Goss. Xe Involved in Drone Air Strikes— The Times reported Aug. 21 that Xe was currently working under contract to assist in the CIA’s use of unmanned aerial drones to kill Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Xe personnel were reportedly responsible for assembling and loading missiles and laser-guided bombs onto the Predator drones. The contractors reportedly had no involvement in choosing targets or carrying out the air strikes. [See p. 577E3] The contractors involved in loading and preparing the drones were reportedly stationed at an air base in Shamsi, Pakistan, as well as a second base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Jalalabad, which had not previously been linked to the drone program, was reportedly the base for most of the recent drone attacks carried out by the CIA. The Times reported that drone operations had mostly shifted there in response to concerns that the unpopularity of drone strikes in Pakistan, which had caused civilian casualties, might lead the Pakistani government to shut down the Shamsi base. The State Department Sept. 2 said it had extended a contract with a Xe unit to transport diplomatic personnel in Iraq, mainly FACTS ON FILE

by helicopter. The contract was Xe’s last one in Iraq. The Iraqi government had revoked the company’s operating license after a 2007 incident in which Blackwater security guards shot dead 17 civilians in Baghdad, the capital. [See 53B2] n

Terrorism Detainees Detainee Attorneys Investigated. The Wash-

ington Post reported Aug. 20 on its Web site that the Justice Department had questioned three defense attorneys for terrorism detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, earlier in August as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The investigation, which was examining whether the attorneys had committed a crime by showing photographs of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents to detainees, had not previously been reported. It was unclear what laws the defense attorneys were suspected of breaking. [See pp. 565C3, 337A1; 2008, p. 291C1] The defense attorneys, who were members of the military Judge Advocate General’s Corps and represented detainees accused of involvement in Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., were advised of their rights against self-incrimination and to seek legal counsel before being questioned. The attorneys were reportedly asked if they had shown photos of the CIA agents to their clients. However, it was unknown if the attorneys had identified the CIA agents to their clients. The photographs were reportedly gathered by the John Adams Project, which had been founded by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to assist in the legal defense of detainees held at Guantanamo. The photos were reportedly part of an effort by the groups to identify CIA officials who took part in controversial harsh interrogations of terrorism detainees outside the U.S. The Post reported that some of the photos had been taken without the CIA agents’ knowledge. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero Aug. 21 criticized the investigation as “a misguided effort to shut down the vigorous defense of defendants at the sham Guantanamo proceedings and an attempt to divert the public’s attention from the torture and abuse of detainees by their CIA interrogators.” He said the ACLU and the NACDL were “confident that no laws or regulations were broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients.” n

Medicine & Health Pfizer Pays $2.3 Billion to Settle Drug Case.

Officials with the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department and the Justice Department Sept. 2 announced that pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. had agreed to pay a $2.3 billion fine to settle charges that it had improperly marketed several of its medicines, including the painkiller Bextra. As part of the agreement, the Pfizer September 3, 2009

subsidiary Pharmacia and Upjohn Co. would plead guilty to a violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. It was the largest health care fraud settlement ever reached by the Justice Department. [See p. 49G1; 2008, p. 792D2] The $2.3 billion fine included a $1.3 billion criminal penalty for fraud related to the marketing of Bextra, as well as another $1 billion in civil fines for marketing fraud related to the antipsychotic medication Geodon, the antibiotic Zyvox and the epilepsy medicine Lyrica. The fines had been expected, since Pfizer in January had set aside $2.3 billion to resolve the Bextra issue. Pfizer had marketed Bextra for several so-called off-label uses, which had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2005 the company had withdrawn the drug from the market amid safety concerns. The illegal marketing practices had come to light after six whistle-blowers had informed the government of them. n

Abortion News in Brief. Oklahoma County (Okla.)

District Judge Vicki Robertson Aug. 18 overturned a state law requiring that women seeking an abortion first receive an ultrasound and detailed description of the fetus from a doctor. The 2008 law had never

been enforced because of legal challenges, but was considered among the strictest of its kind in the U.S. Robertson ruled that the law violated the Oklahoma constitution, which required laws to address one subject alone. The law contained separate provisions that would have required certain signs to be placed outside abortion clinics and would have allowed health care providers to refuse to participate in abortions for ethical or moral reasons, among others. Republican state legislators the following day said they would redraft the law in order to get it passed again. [See 2008, p. 749A1] The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals July 14 ruled that an Illinois state law requiring notification of the parents, grandparents or guardians of girls aged 17 and under seeking an abortion was valid. A law

passed in 1984 and updated in 1995 required young girls to notify their parents at least 48 hours before getting an abortion. A U.S. District Court judge in February 2007 had ordered a ban on enforcement of the law. The law was supposed to again take effect Aug. 5, but the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation ordered a 90-day delay after state and federal lawsuits challenging the latest ruling were filed. [See 2006, p. 1008E1] The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., June 24 ruled, 6–5, that a Virginia state law banning a controversial late-term abortion procedure, known as in-

tact dilation and extraction, was constitutional. The decision by the full panel overturned a May 2008 ruling by a threemember panel of the same court. The procedure, called “partial birth abortion” by its opponents, was rarely used, but required the doctor to partially deliver the fetus and then crush its skull to ease extraction. Some doc-

tors said the procedure was sometimes needed to save the mother’s life. Opponents of the ruling said it could dissuade some doctors from performing other types of legal abortions. [See 2008, p. 345D3] n

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Crime Kidnapping Victim Found Captive in Yard.

Phillip and Nancy Garrido Aug. 28 pleaded not guilty to 29 criminal charges, including kidnapping and rape, in connection with the 1991 abduction of an 11-year-old girl, Jaycee Dugard, in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and her ensuing 18-year captivity. Two days earlier, police had arrested the Garridos and discovered a hidden compound behind the couple’s home near Antioch, a San Francisco Bay Area suburb, where Dugard and two girls believed to be her daughters had been held. Dugard, 29, was reunited with her family Aug. 27. The two children, aged 11 and 15, had lived most of their lives in the backyard of Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender, who was accused of raping Dugard and fathering them. [See p. 172G2] In June 1991, Dugard had been forced into a kidnapper’s car in full view of her stepfather, Carl Probyn, who helplessly chased after the car on a bicycle. A search, and a nationally televised appeal for clues to finding the missing girl, failed to yield any suspects. According to the authorities, Dugard had been held in an intricate maze of tents and sheds secretly erected in the Garridos’ backyard. Her daughters had never seen a doctor or attended school, and had been told Dugard was an older sister, not their mother. Following the emotional reunion with her mother and younger sister, Dugard was described as guilt-ridden for having bonded with her kidnapper and for never having attempted an escape over the years. Probyn, who had since separated from Dugard’s mother but remained in close contact with the situation, said, “Jaycee has strong feelings with this guy.” He also revealed the two girls’ deep confusion following the revelations about their true mother and their allegedly abusive father.

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Police uncovered the backyard compound after Garrido showed up at an Aug. 26 parole meeting with his wife, his two daughters and Dugard, who was introduced under the alias Allissa. Dugard eventually revealed her true identity to the parole officer, and Garrido and his wife were placed under arrest. Garrido had drawn suspicion a day earlier while handing out religious pamphlets with his two daughters at the University of California at Berkeley. The campus police searched criminal databases for information on Garrido and found prior convictions for a 1976 rape and kidnapping also in South Lake Tahoe. Garrido had served 11 years of a 50-year federal sentence for the 1976 abduction, but remained a registered sex offender on parole. Over the previous 10 years, he had run a printing business out of his home. According to reports emerging after his 587

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arrest, Garrido had even introduced several of his clients to Dugard as his daughter “Allissa.” The revelations concerning Garrido’s past criminal record led to many questions as to how the secret backyard compound went undetected for nearly two decades. Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf Aug. 28 admitted to several missed opportunities to discover what the Garridos were doing, saying the department “should have been more inquisitive.” Police continued to search the backyard and the surrounding area for clues related to the Dugard kidnapping, as well as to other cases including a string of nine murders in the area from 1998 to 2002. A bone fragment Aug. 31 was found on a neighboring property, but police did not immediately confirm whether the piece had came from a human body. n

Armed Forces Vietnam War Lt. Regrets My Lai Massacre.

Former U.S. Army Lt. William L. Calley Jr. Aug. 19 issued a public apology for his role in the 1968 massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, in which U.S. troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. Calley, 66, addressing a local Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Ga., said, “Not a day goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened.” Following his brief statement, he took questions from the audience. [See 1998, p. 157A1] Calley was the only U.S. soldier, out of 26 initially charged, convicted by court martial in relation to the killings. Despite receiving a life sentence, Calley only served three years under house arrest, after his punishment was reduced. Calley had never denied his role in the massacre, but insisted he was following the orders of his superior, former Capt. Ernest L. Medina, who was acquitted of all charges in a court martial. In response to a query about whether he was culpable for obeying an unlawful order, Calley said, “I believe that is true.” n

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al judge in Tucson, Ariz., Aug. 11 sentenced migrant aid volunteer Walt Staton, 27, to one year of unsupervised probation and 300 hours of picking up trash. Staton had been convicted of littering in June after he was caught leaving jugs of water for illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. across the arid, 118,000-acre (47,750 hectare) Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona. Staton was also banned from the refuge for a year. [See 2006, p. 194B2; 2003, p. 377F2] His lawyer had argued that leaving the water jugs was a humanitarian act. Staton acted as a member of the volunteer aid group No More Deaths. But prosecutors argued that Staton was aiding illegal immigrants and drug traffickers, as well as endangering local wildlife. Staton had opted for a trial instead of paying a $175 fine. n 588

AFRICA

Zimbabwe Zuma Visits; Meets Mugabe, Tsvangirai.

South African President Jacob Zuma Aug. 27–28 visited neighboring Zimbabwe for the first time since taking office in May. Zimbabwe since February had been run by a shaky unity government led by President Mugabe of the longtime ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. [See p. 203C3] South African mediators, led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, had been instrumental in negotiating Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal, known as the Global Political Agreement, which was instituted after a disputed 2008 election sparked a political crisis. The deal also included a smaller MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara, who was made deputy prime minister. However, the unity government had been plagued by infighting, including continued recriminations over violence and arrests by the ZANU-PF government and its supporters related to the 2008 election, as well as disputes over political appointments, constitutional reforms, the handling of the country’s collapsed economy and relations with potential donor countries and institutions. The MDC reportedly was especially angered by ongoing attacks and harassment against its supporters, allegedly by ZANU-PF operatives. [See below] Zuma, who currently held the rotating chairmanship of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), had been asked by SADC to mediate the unresolved issues, although officially he was visiting Zimbabwe to attend the opening of an agricultural show. According to an Aug. 26 statement by Gwede Mantashe, secretary general of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, Zuma in mediating between the Zimbabwean leaders would be “more vocal” in criticizing “what we see as deviant behavior,” in comparison with the “quiet diplomacy” favored by Mbeki. Mantashe added that the ANC’s goal was to reverse the “economic and humanitarian crisis” in Zimbabwe. Zuma Aug. 27–28 met with Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara. After the meetings, which reportedly made little progress on the disputed issues, Zuma called on the government to “fully implement the Global Political Agreement and thus create confidence in the process.” A clear commitment to the power-sharing government, Zuma said, would encourage badly needed foreign economic aid. His statements were largely optimistic; he asserted that there had been “significant progress…under the auspices of the inclusive government” and that “the most difficult path has already been traveled.” Tsvangirai Seeks Aid on Foreign Tour—

Tsvangirai June 7–25 visited the U.S. and seven European countries, in a tour aimed

at restoring Zimbabwe’s frayed ties with the West and securing aid to revive the country’s economy. In stops in the U.S., Britain, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and France, Tsvangirai managed to secure nearly $200 million in aid. However, that was much less than the $7 billion that the finance ministry claimed it needed to get the formerly prosperous country back on its feet. Also, much of the aid promised by the West would not go to the Zimbabwean government directly, but instead would be channeled through international aid agencies, in what observers said was a sign of continued mistrust of Zimbabwe’s government. Tsvangirai June 30 announced that China had pledged to give Zimbabwe a loan of $950 million to help its economy. Other News—In other Zimbabwe news: o South Africa’s Times newspaper Aug. 26 reported that Mugabe, 85, had recently sought treatment for an undisclosed illness in the United Arab Emirates. ZANU-PF officials later that day denied the report, saying it was a “load of rubbish” and that the president had been “away on holiday.” Mugabe reportedly appeared healthy when he met with Zuma. o Mugabe, speaking at a state funeral for longtime ally and Vice President Joseph Msika, who had died Aug. 5 at the age of 85, Aug. 10 criticized the West for opposing his government and refusing to withdraw sanctions. Addressing some 20,000 mourners at a ceremony in Harare, the capital, Mugabe responded to criticism by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her recent visit to South Africa, saying, “Why should America not recognize the work we are doing as an inclusive government? These Anglo-Saxon nations are giving us problems. We tell them today, ‘Leave us alone. We don’t need your interference because we can do it alone.’” [See p. 540B2] o Zimbabwe’s minister of media, information and publicity, Webster Shamu, had lifted reporting restrictions imposed in 2001 on the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and the U.S.’s Cable News Network (CNN), the Zimbabwe Times reported July 29. The two news organizations had been barred from Zimbabwe for allegedly breaking the country’s strict media laws. [See 2001, p. 176B3] o The process of drafting a new constitution got under way June 24, with the first of several scheduled public hearings on the issue at a conference center in Harare. A formal constitutional conference, with some 4,000 delegates, began July 13, but lasted just 10 minutes before it was adjourned after delegates from the ZANU-PF jeered and heckled the opening address by parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo, a member of the MDC. The conference was relaunched July 14. o Mugabe May 25 reiterated his refusal to remove Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, whom he had reappointed in February despite objections from the MDC. The MDC blamed Gono for Zimbabwe’s ecoFACTS ON FILE

nomic collapse, including its record inflation rate, and held Tomana responsible for what it said was the unlawful detention of its supporters and human rights activists. Tsvangirai Sept. 1 said the ongoing dispute over the posts was undermining the powersharing government. [See below, p. 152F3] o Gono April 20 admitted in a statement that he had removed hard currency from the bank accounts of private businesses and foreign aid organizations without their permission, and had given it to several government ministries in the form of loans. The ministries used the currency to pay for power and grain imports, Gono said. He said the currency would be returned to the private accounts once the ministries repaid the loans. [See 2008, p. 975A1] o The state-run Sunday Mail newspaper April 12 quoted Economic Planning Minister Elton Mangoma as saying that the country’s currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, would be taken out of circulation for “at least a year.” Hyperinflation had made the currency practically worthless, and the government in January had begun to allow transactions in currencies other than the Zimbabwean dollar. [See p. 67F2] n

AMERICAS

Canada Liberals Make Push for Fall Election.

Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, Sept. 1 said his party would no longer support the minority government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party. The Liberal Party said it would call for a no-confidence vote as soon as possible, which likely meant in late September or early October, after the government presented a report on the budget. Ignatieff made his remarks at a party caucus in Sudbury, Ontario. [See p. 50B2] The Conservatives were voted into power in January 2006, but had not secured the outright majority of seats in the Parliament needed to form a government on their own. Instead, the party had been forced to rule with some combination of support from the center-left Liberals, the leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) and the separatist Bloc Quebecois (BQ) party. [See 2006, p. 43B1] In his remarks, Ignatieff criticized Harper and the Conservatives for failing to foster job creation, improve public finances and defend Canada’s universal health care system against attacks by U.S. opponents of health care reform proposals, who compared them disparagingly to Canada’s system. “We will hold Stephen Harper to account and we will oppose his government in Parliament,” Ignatieff said. It was unclear how the NDP and BQ would respond to the Liberal Party’s declaration. Both had previously indicated that they would not support a Conservative government if a no-confidence vote was brought before Parliament. NDP leader Jack Layton Aug. 25 met with Harper, and said afterward that the September 3, 2009

NDP was “the least likely of the political

parties to support the Conservatives,” but stopped short of stating unequivocally that his party would not do so. Recent polls had indicated that neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals enjoyed enough support to be the clear front-runner in an election. Analysts said voters had wearied of federal elections and their attendant campaigning, having gone through three such cycles since June 2004. n

Other Americas News U.S.-Colombia Base Deal Assailed. Leaders

of several Latin American countries harshly criticized plans for the expansion of the U.S.’s military presence in Colombia at an Aug. 28 meeting of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a South American regional political group. The meeting was held in Bariloche, Argentina. The U.S. planned to use space at seven Colombian bases for 10 years to wage antinarcotics efforts in Latin America. [See p. 541G2] The U.S. State Department Aug. 18 had said it had reached a provisional agreement with Colombia on a “defense cooperation” plan, but that the plan was undergoing final review and had not been signed. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that day had said there would be no “significant” increase in U.S. troops stationed in Colombia, and maintained that the U.S. would build no military bases there. However, the secretive nature of the discussions, which were revealed through media reports in July, had reportedly raised suspicions among Latin American leaders about the U.S.’s motivations. It had also raised concerns among U.S. legislators. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, an outspoken critic of the U.S., at the UNASUR meeting alleged that the U.S. planned to use the Colombian bases as a staging point for “expeditionary” forces, and said the U.S. was “mobilizing for war.” He cited a document prepared by the U.S. Defense Department which he claimed showed a “U.S. global strategy for domination.” (A U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman said the paper was an “academic document.”) Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales Aima, both leftists who were often critical of the U.S., also condemned the U.S.-Colombia military base plans. The more centrist governments of Argentina, Brazil and Chile had also expressed concern about the pact, but some countries also said they intended to respect Colombia’s sovereignty and its right to enter into such an agreement. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez defended the pact, saying the U.S. was the only country willing to aid Colombia in its fight against drug traffickers and rebels with the Marxist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He said the bases would remain under Colombian control. Under the plan, the U.S. would gain use of three Colombian air force bases, two naval bases and an army installation. It re-

portedly gave U.S. soldiers stationed in Colombia immunity from Colombian prosecution, and outlined millions of dollars of U.S. aid to Colombia for military hardware and infrastructure. Officials said that the U.S. would not station more than 800 troops and 600 civilian contractors in Colombia, limits already in force under a 2004 law. (There were currently about 250 members of the U.S. military stationed in the country.) Some leaders at the meeting suggested allowing UNASUR to inspect member nations’ military bases to ensure that foreign troops were not threatening other countries in the region. However, many leaders left the meeting while the statement was being drafted, and did not sign it. Chavez Aug. 25 said he was preparing to break off diplomatic ties with Colombia over the agreement. n

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Mexican Drug Possession Decriminalized.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa Aug. 20 signed into law a controversial bill that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Instead of facing jail time, those caught with small quantities of drugs intended for “personal and immediate” use would be referred to treatment programs and treated as patients, not criminals. [See 2008, p. 837B1; 2006, p. 379G1] Those caught with drugs a third time would be forced to enter a drug treatment program. Under the law, people could carry up to five grams of marijuana, half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams of LSD. Mexico’s Congress in April had cleared the bill as a way to keep the legal system and prisons free for more dangerous criminals, and help drug users treat their addiction. The bill had passed with little debate amid a raft of other legislation. The legislature had passed a similar measure in 2006, but that bill, sharply criticized by the administration of then–U.S. President George W. Bush, died when then–Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada refused to sign it.

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Marijuana Decriminalized in Argentina—

Argentina’s Supreme Court Aug. 25 unanimously ruled that the 2006 arrest of five youths for possession of marijuana cigarettes was unconstitutional. The court found that the use of marijuana “in private” should not be punished by law, if it did not harm other people. It also encouraged public officials to focus law enforcement efforts on drug trafficking, and to treat drug use as a health problem. Analysts said the court’s ruling could be interpreted to be applied to the private use of other drugs. Argentine cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez said the court’s decision represented a break with “the repressive policy that the [U.S.] Nixon administration invented” in the early 1970s. However, the ruling was criticized by conservatives and the Roman Catholic Church, which remained a powerful influence in Argentina. Recent drug decriminalization movements in other Latin American countries, 589

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including Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia, had broken with a longstanding practice of heavy drug penalties started when many countries were ruled by U.S.-backed military dictatorships. Many countries in Latin America—where much of the world’s illegal drug production was centered—had begun criticizing the U.S.style “war on drugs” as ineffectual and often harmful to society. n Brazil Sanctions on U.S. Goods Approved. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Aug.

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31 ruled that Brazil could impose $295 million worth of retaliatory trade sanctions annually against the U.S. for its failure to eliminate subsidies to U.S. cotton producers. Brazil’s government in 2002 had filed a complaint with the WTO, arguing that the U.S. had provided $12 billion in subsidies to cotton growers between 1999 and 2002. Brazil had sought to impose $2.5 billion worth of annual sanctions on U.S. goods. [See 2008, p. 977A1] Critics of the U.S. said its subsidies had driven down the cost of cotton on the global market, making it difficult for farmers in poor countries to export the crop for profit. Brazil had won a series of rulings on the dispute over the past seven years. n

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Victory Over Ethnic Chinese Militia Declared.

The government of Myanmar Aug. 30 announced that its military had successfully gained control of Shan State, which bordered China, after clashes with an ethnic Chinese militia based in the region. The government had previously claimed that the violence, which had led more than 30,000 Shan State residents to flee to China, had resulted from military operations in the area aimed at curbing drug trafficking. Analysts suggested that the fighting was part of a continuing effort by Myanmar’s government to marginalize opposition and rebel groups in the run-up to planned 2010 legislative elections. [See p. 415A2] The government said 26 government soldiers and security operatives had been killed in the fighting, along with eight members of the ethnic Chinese Kokang militia. The same day, the Chinese government announced that two of its citizens had been killed during the fighting and more than 10 had been injured. Confrontation Triggered Violence—Myanmar’s government Aug. 8 sent about 7,000 troops into Shan State, reportedly as part of an effort to convince the Kokang militia, which had about 1,500 members, and other ethnic groups in the area to become part of a national border patrol group under the supervision of Myanmar’s army. The Kokang militia had reportedly refused a government request in July to join the border patrol. Myanmar’s government and the militias in the region had been observing a cease-fire since 1989. Myanmar had more than 100 distinct ethnic groups, many of which had organized armed militias in isolated regions of the 590

country. Many ethnic militias exerted strong military and political control over their regions, and had been accused of cultivating and distributing heroin and other controlled substances to fund their activities. Government troops Aug. 8 reportedly conducted a raid on the home of Kokang militia head Phone Kyar Shin (known also as Peng Jiasheng) purportedly as part of a search for illegal drugs, triggering a violent confrontation. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Aug. 31 that Myanmar’s government had blamed the fighting on the militia, which it said had kidnapped 39 of its police officers, necessitating a hostage-rescue operation that descended into violence. Following the outbreak of fighting, the first group of refugees Aug. 8 fled Shan State and crossed over into China’s Yunnan Province. However, some reportedly later returned to Myanmar. Myanmar’s military Aug. 24 reportedly took control of Laogai, the largest town in Shan State’s border region, from the Kokang. The fighting Aug. 24–25 triggered a second wave of refugees, who reportedly crossed into China at the rate of thousands per day. It was reported Aug. 27–28 that clashes continued between the Kokang militia and the military. About 2,000 members of a second militia, the United Wa State Army, Aug. 28 reportedly joined the fighting on behalf of the Kokang militia, but retreated late the same day. The United Wa State Army was thought to have about 20,000 members and possessed antitank missiles and heavy artillery. An explosive Aug. 28 was projected across the Chinese border, killing one person and wounding two others. Myanmar declared victory in Shan after an Aug. 29–30 offensive, and regional news organizations said the military was sending more troops there to consolidate its hold on the area. China Urges Myanmar to Quell Conflict—

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Aug. 28 said that the Chinese government was “closely following developments in the situation” in northern Myanmar and urged Myanmar’s government to “properly deal with its domestic issue to safeguard the regional stability of its bordering area.” The comment was viewed as a mild but unusual criticism of Myanmar’s government by China, its closest economic and political ally. Analysts said that the Chinese government had asked Myanmar to hold off on conducting military operations in the region until after Oct. 1, when China would celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding as a communist country. They suggested that Myanmar’s unwillingness to abide by China’s instructions signaled Myanmar’s increasing independence from China, which had extensive mining and energy investments in Myanmar. The Chinese government had set up seven camps for refugees in Yunnan, who reportedly included Myanmar citizens of ethnic Chinese descent, as well as Chinese citizens who had been conducting long-

term business ventures in northern Myanmar. China also reportedly intensified security measures and its military presence near its border with Myanmar in response to the violence. Refugee Numbers Peak— Yunnan police chief Meng Sutie Aug. 30 announced that an estimated 37,000 people had taken refuge in the province as a result of the fighting between the militias and Myanmar’s military. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the influx of refugees into China was the largest since a group of about 260,000 Vietnamese entered the country as a result of China’s 1979 war with Vietnam. The Chinese government Aug. 31 announced that at least 4,000 of the refugees had returned to Myanmar. About 9,000 of the refugees were still in camps in Yunnan; the rest were reportedly staying in hotels or with their families or had departed the region. Observers Aug. 30 said that about half of the Kokang militia had fled into China as a result of the fighting and had turned over their uniforms and weapons to Chinese authorities in order to be let into the country. Chinese officials in Yunnan Sept. 1 ordered foreign journalists to leave the region surrounding the refugee camps and ceased to comment on the refugee situation, except to say that “necessary humanitarian assistance” for the refugees was still being provided. n

Tonga Two Dead, 93 Missing After Ferry Accident.

A Tongan overnight ferry Aug. 5 capsized and sank about 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Nuku’alofa, the capital, while en route to the country’s Vava’u island group, killing two people and leaving up to 93 others missing and presumed dead. Rescuers from New Zealand and Tonga rescued 54 passengers from the ferry, the Princess Ashika, and recovered the bodies of two passengers. The survivors of the ferry accident were reportedly all adult men; female passengers and child passengers had reportedly been housed below deck on the ferry, making it more difficult for them to escape the ship when it capsized. [See p. 84B2] As many as 93 passengers were thought to be still missing, including five foreigners from France, Japan and Germany. However, it was unclear how many passengers and crew members had been on the ferry when it capsized; at least 15 survivors of the accident had not been listed on the official passenger list. Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele Aug. 7 said there was little chance that any additional survivors would be found. Rescue operations in the area where the ferry sank were suspended at nightfall the same day. Maka Tuputupu, the captain of the Princess Ashika, Aug. 10 said that he believed the ferry had sunk because rusted loading ramps had allowed water to leak into the boat. He claimed that the Tongan government had been aware of the boat’s safety problems but had pressured him to continFACTS ON FILE

ue operating it anyway. Sevele and Tongan Transportation Minister Paul Karalus had previously maintained that the Princess Ashika had been seaworthy and recently inspected. n

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Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis Sept. 2 called early parliamentary elections, saying that he was “seeking a fresh political mandate” to deal with the nation’s “economic crisis.” He did not specify a date for the elections, but Reuters news service reported that they would be held Oct. 4, according to an unnamed “senior government source.” [See p. 577F1; 2008, p. 910G2; 2007, p. 616A1] Karamanlis’s conservative New Democracy Party had won a second term in 2007, after coming to power in 2004. A new election had not been due until 2011. New Democracy held a majority by a margin of just one seat in the 300-seat parliament, and trailed the main opposition party, the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), by six percentage points in two recent public opinion polls. Karamanlis’s move preempted a PASOK plan to force early elections in March 2010. The government had drawn heavy criticism for its response to wildfires at the end of August. It had also endured a series of corruption scandals that led to the resignations of several cabinet ministers. Meanwhile, the country had experienced a new wave of social unrest since widespread rioting broke out in December 2008 after police killed a teenager. Stock Exchange Bombed—Earlier Sept. 2, a bomb exploded outside the stock exchange in Athens, the Greek capital, causing minor injuries to one woman and severely damaging the building and several cars. However, the exchange’s electronic systems were unaffected, and trading opened as scheduled that day. Another bombing less than an hour earlier had targeted a government building in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Police said they suspected that the farleft terrorist group Revolutionary Struggle was responsible for the apparently coordinated blasts. The group had fired a grenade at the U.S. embassy in Athens two years earlier. [See 2007, p. 36G3] Gunmen in Athens June 17 had killed an officer protecting a witness who had testified against Revolutionary Struggle in a 2004 trial. A bombing July 4 had hit a McDonald’s restaurant in the city, causing heavy damage but no casualties. Revolutionary Struggle had claimed responsibility for bombing two bank branches earlier in the year. n

Russia Caucasus Sees Rise in Suicide Attacks.

Eight police officers in Russia’s southern, mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya Aug. September 3, 2009

21–28 were killed by suicide bombers in a series of attacks. Several other policemen and civilians were injured in the attacks. [See p. 560D2] Four policemen Aug. 21 were killed in several suicide attacks carried out on bicycles in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. A suicide bomber Aug. 25 killed another four policemen in an attack carried out in the village of Mesker-Yurt. Another three police officers Aug. 28 were injured in a suicide bombing in the town of Shali. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, Sept. 2 warned residents that “several suicide terrorists have arrived in the republic.” He urged citizens to report suspicious vehicles and warned of impending police searches. He also urged parents not to allow their children and relatives to go “into the forests” to join militant groups. Violence in the Russian Caucasus had been steadily increasing over 2009. The violence was attributed to radical Islamists who traveled to the region from abroad, as well as an atmosphere of enduring poverty and official corruption. Analysts also suggested that strong-arm tactics by local authorities drove young people to join antigovernment militias. n

Other European News Leaders Mark Anniversary of WWII’s Start.

Leaders including Polish President Lech Kaczynski, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin Sept. 1 gathered at the Polish port city of Gdansk to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II. Germany’s attack on Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, which opened with the shelling of Gdansk, led the Allied nations to declare war on Germany. It also led to the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union according to a plan outlined in the MolotovRibbentrop Pact between the two powers. [See 2005, pp. 318A2, 317A1] Merkel said, “No country suffered from the German occupation as much as Poland…I commemorate all the Poles who suffered unspeakably from the crimes of the German occupying forces.…” Earlier that day she said on German television, “Germany triggered the Second World War…we brought endless suffering to the world.” Nazi Germany had constructed some of its concentration and death camps in Poland. At least six million Poles died in World War II, half of whom were Jews. Polish PM Criticizes Russian Invasion—

Kaczynski opened the Sept. 1 ceremony with a speech in which he said the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland that quickly followed the initial German attack was a “stab in the back…this blow came from Bolshevik Russia.” Kaczynski also recalled the victims of the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre, in which 20,000 Poles, including military officers, political activists, landowners and others were killed by the Soviet secret police. He compared the massacre to the Holocaust, saying its victims had been killed because they were Poles, as Jews

were targeted by the Nazis. The Soviets had initially blamed the massacre on the Nazis, but in 1990 admitted that the Soviet NKVD secret police had been responsible. [See p. 136F3; 1990, p. 251C1] Putin, who spoke after Kaczynski, said, “All attempts to appease the Nazis between 1934 and 1939…were morally unacceptable and politically senseless, harmful and dangerous.” He added, “We must admit these mistakes. Our country has done this,” while noting that other countries had made similar mistakes. He also said, “Russians and Poles together were fighting against one enemy—the Nazis,” and highlighted the losses suffered by Russia in the war, which it entered when it was invaded by Germany in 1941. He went on to call for improved ties between Russia and Poland. While Putin’s speech was reportedly well-received, the same day, Russian officials at a Moscow conference released what they claimed were previously unpublished wartime documents that showed that Poland had conspired with Germany against the Soviet Union in the prelude to World War II. The 400 pages were said to have been collected between 1935–45 by Russian foreign intelligence agents. Lev Sotskov, a retired veteran of the KGB Soviet foreign intelligence service who had compiled the documents, said, “Without a doubt, a portion of the blame for unleashing the Second World War lies with Poland.” Polish journalists at the conference accused Russia of faking the documents. [See 1987, p. 819G1–E2] Also, some Poles reportedly viewed the U.S.’s decision to send national security adviser James Jones, rather than a more senior official, to the ceremony as a snub. The events came amid reports that Obama was reviewing the previous U.S. administration’s plan to build parts of a missile defense system in Poland. Poland had considered the U.S.-supported missile defense system, which Russia vehemently opposed, an important enhancement to its defenses. [See 2008, p. 464A2] n Armenia, Turkey Near Diplomatic Ties. Armenian and Turkish officials Aug. 31 reached an agreement on steps toward the establishment of diplomatic relations between their two countries. In a joint statement, they said that formal protocols to establish ties were to be completed within six weeks and submitted for ratification by each nation’s parliament. Talks on the issue, mediated by Switzerland, had been held for the past year. [See p. 296E1] The Turkish foreign ministry Sept. 1 said Turkey would open its border with Armenia once diplomatic relations took effect. Turkey had closed the border in 1993, acting in support of Azerbaijan in a dispute over Armenia’s military backing for separatist rebels in the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Armenia and Turkey had long been at odds over the massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire during World War I. Turkey had refused to recognize the mass killings as a genocide, as Armenia demanded. Armenian President Serge Sargsyan Sept. 1 told the British Broadcasting Corp. 591

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(BBC) that “recognition of the genocide itself is not viewed as a precondition for normalizing our relations with Turkey.” But he said such a recognition would be an important step in improving their ties. n

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A group of Iraqi political parties, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), one of the largest Shiite Muslim parties in the country, Aug. 24 announced the creation of a new political alliance to contest elections scheduled for January 2010. The alliance did not include the Shiite-dominated Dawa party, which was led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the ISCI, Aug. 26 died of lung cancer. [See p. 563A1] A group of some 40 politicians Aug. 24 announced the creation of the supposedly nonsectarian alliance, known as the Iraqi National Alliance, in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. The alliance’s “guiding principles” called for national unity and sectarian peace, but also pledged to respect mandates issued by Shiite religious leaders. The alliance said it would not recognize the state of Israel. The ISCI had close ties to Iran and had been Iraq’s most influential bloc following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, but had lost power over the last year to Dawa. Other parties in the alliance included the political movement of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, two smaller Sunni Muslim parties and an ethnic Turkmen party, but no Kurdish parties. The new alliance included Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi; former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari; and former Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, a secular politician who before the 2003 invasion had been influential in garnering support among conservatives in the U.S. government for the overthrow of then– Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. Maliki reportedly refused to join the Iraqi National Alliance because it would not guarantee that he would be its candidate for prime minister in the 2010 elections and IRAQ CASUALTIES

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(Range based on news reports of deaths) *As of Aug. 27 Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

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that Dawa would receive a certain number of seats, although alliance leaders said he was still welcome to join them. Maliki instead was said to be forming a rival coalition that included a leader of the Awakening Movement, which was made up of Sunnis who had turned against a Sunni insurgency. Maliki had cast himself as a nonsectarian leader who was strong on security, and was generally popular among Iraqis, although his administration had come under criticism for failing to stop a recent series of major bombings. Shiite Leader Hakim Dies of Cancer—

Hakim, 59, Aug. 26 died of lung cancer in a hospital in Tehran, Iran’s capital, where he had been undergoing treatment. Hakim had led the ISCI since Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, his brother and the previous party leader, had been killed in a bombing in August 2003. Abdul Aziz alHakim before the 2003 invasion had lived in exile in Iran and fought against Hussein’s regime, and was held in high regard by Iraq’s Shiite population. He had maintained close ties to Iran, but had also received backing from the U.S. [See 2008, p. 305E1; 2003, p. 685A1] A funeral procession Aug. 27 was held for Hakim in Tehran, and his body was flown the next day to Iraq, where thousands of Iraqis came out for a procession in Baghdad. Hakim Aug. 29 was buried in the Shiite holy city of Najaf beside his brother, who had died six years earlier that day. Iraqi and U.S. leaders and politicians, including Maliki and U.S. President Barack Obama, issued statements praising Hakim’s leadership. The ISCI Aug. 31 nominated Hakim’s son, Ammar al-Hakim, to take his father’s place as the party’s leader. Ammar alHakim had previously run the party’s social organization and had been groomed for leadership, but analysts questioned whether he could match his father’s authority. Hakim Aug. 28 had called for Maliki to join the Iraqi National Alliance. Dispute Continues Over Ministry Attack—

Iraqi officials Aug. 21–22 continued to dispute who was responsible for a truck bombing attack earlier that week on the foreign and finance ministry buildings in Baghdad. The death toll had reached 132 as of Aug. 29, from an initial count of 95, as seriously wounded victims died in hospitals. The government Aug. 21 announced the arrests of several suspects, who it said were insurgents loyal to Hussein’s deposed government. [See p. 526G2] Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari Aug. 22 said members of the Iraqi security forces might have collaborated in the attack, and the Iraqi military Aug. 23 announced the arrest of army and police officers who it said had accepted bribes in order to allow the truck bombs to travel to Baghdad. Also Aug. 23, the military showed what it said were excerpts from a videotaped confession of one of the attack’s masterminds. The suspect, identified as Wisam Ali Khazim Ibrahim, said he was a former police officer loyal to Hussein’s banned Baath party. Ibrahim said he had been ordered by a man in Syria to organize the attack on the finance ministry.

The Iraqi government Aug. 25 called on Syria to hand over two people it said had helped to organize the attacks, Mohammad Younis al-Ahmed and Sattam Farhan. Maliki that day said the attacks had been organized by “other countries and governments,” although he did not mention Syria by name. Iraq and Syria had reestablished diplomatic ties in 2006 after 24 years, but analysts said the current controversy might damage relations. Also Aug. 25, the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack, and said it had targeted Maliki’s government for being pro-Iranian. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A car bomb north of Baquba, the capital of the northeastern province of Diyala, Aug. 31 killed at least four people. o The Iraqi defense ministry Aug. 30 said it had recently discovered that it owned 19 MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets, which were currently being stored in Serbia. The jets reportedly had been sent to Serbia by Hussein’s government for repairs in the late 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war but sanctions prevented their return. The Iraqi defense ministry said two of the jets would be returned immediately, with the others following later. Iraq’s air force currently had only 87 aircraft, and no jets. The U.S. military had agreed to deliver to Iraq a propellerdriven trainer plane for jet pilots in December, and a U.S. military spokesman said Iraq still had to develop the infrastructure and a trained corps of pilots in order to use the jets. [See 2008, p. 631D1] o Insurgents Aug. 29 attacked a police station in the village of Hamad, in northern Nineveh province, with a truck bomb, killing at least 10 people. Another truck bomb in the city of Sinjar, in Nineveh, blew up in a marketplace, killing at least four people, and a motorcycle rigged with explosives killed two people in eastern Baghdad. o U.S. State Department Acting Inspector General Harold Geisel Aug. 25 released a report projecting that running the U.S. embassy in Baghdad would cost more than $1.8 billion per year in 2010 and 2011, compared to an estimated $1.5 billion for 2009. He said most of the cost increase was due to additional security that would be needed as U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq. He also said the Iraq Transition Assistance Office, an embassy office responsible for overseeing large-scale infrastructure projects, was understaffed and might not finish its work before its charter expired in May 2010. In a separate report also issued Aug. 25, Geisel said the U.S. would not open consulates in Iraq to replace the closing provincial embassy offices. [See p. 498B2] o Bombs attached to two buses traveling to the Shiite city of Kut from Baghdad Aug. 24 exploded, killing at least 11 passengers. o Ramadan began Aug. 22 for both Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq. In past years, the holiday had seen an increase in attacks. FACTS ON FILE

o Gunmen Aug. 20 attacked the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Diyala, killing five people. n

Israel Former PM Olmert Indicted for Corruption.

Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and the State Prosecution Aug. 30 indicted former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on corruption charges in a Jerusalem court. Olmert had resigned in September 2008 amid mounting allegations, after having already been weakened politically by his perceived failure to defeat the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah in a 2006 war. The corruption charges, which included fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate records and failing to report income, stemmed from the period before Olmert became prime minister in 2006, when he was mayor of Jerusalem and then minister of trade and industry. [See 2008, p. 685G1] The charges were connected to three main cases. In one, U.S. businessman Morris Talansky in 2008 had testified that he gave Olmert more than $600,000 between 1997 and 2005; prosecutors accused Olmert of hiding the money and abusing his governmental position to benefit Talansky’s business interests, although they did not say that he had taken bribes. Olmert was also charged with double-billing Israeli and U.S. government agencies and charities for trips abroad, and using the more than $92,000 in ill-gotten gains for private and family travel. In the third case, Olmert was alleged to have improperly promoted the business interests of his former law partner, Uri Messer; in return, Messer provided Olmert services including running a “secret fund” containing money from Talansky and others. An Olmert spokesman said the indictment was flawed and that Olmert would “prove his innocence in court.” The indictment also listed fraud and wiretapping charges against Olmert’s former office manager, Shula Zaken, in connection with the case against Olmert. n

Other Middle East News Palestinian Leader Calls for State by 2011.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Aug. 25 announced a plan to build the institutions of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2011, regardless of the result of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which had become stalled. He said independence “can and must happen within the next two years,” and that the plan would bring the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories to a quicker end. Fayyad made the announcement at a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. [See p. 545A3] The plan outlined a state including Palestinian lands occupied by Israel in 1967, with East Jerusalem as a capital. It laid out the functions of each government ministry, plans for tax incentives encouraging local and foreign investment, and the construction of an international airport in the Jordan Valley and other transportation infrastructure. September 3, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the plan. However, two Israeli officials—Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, and Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party—denounced it as unilateral and harmful to the negotiations, and said it contravened previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. The New York Times Aug. 26 reported that Jacob Walles, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, had praised Fayyad for creating a “concrete plan” and doing practical work toward creating an independent state. U.S. President Barack Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Aug. 18 had met in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Middle East peace process. It was their third meeting in three months, and Mubarak’s first trip to the U.S. in five years. Mubarak urged Obama to push Israel to reengage in direct talks with the Palestinians. Both leaders expressed some optimism, and Obama said he saw “movement in the right direction” on Israel’s construction of settlements in Palestinian areas. Obama and Mubarak had both called for a freeze on such building. Netanyahu, during an Aug. 24–27 visit to Europe, met Aug. 26 with the U.S.’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in London to discuss restarting talks with the Palestinians. Israel Blasts Organ Theft Charges—

Netanyahu Aug. 23 called on the Swedish government to condemn an “outrageous” article in a Swedish newspaper alleging that Israeli soldiers had harvested organs from wounded or killed Palestinians. The allegations, published Aug. 17 in the Aftonbladet, had come from Palestinian sources in the 1990s. The author, Donald Bostrom, linked the allegations to the July arrests of 44 people for corruption in the U.S., one of whom had allegedly offered to sell human organs from Israeli donors. [See p. 503F3] Netanyahu and other Israeli officials compared the article to the medieval antiSemitic “blood libels,” and said it could incite violence against Israelis. Israeli officials also said that they would delay issuing press credentials to two Aftonbladet journalists seeking to visit the Gaza Strip, and that the dispute might overshadow Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s visit to Israel, scheduled for September. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt Aug. 22 had said he could not comment on the article because of Sweden’s laws protecting freedom of speech. Other News—In other Israeli-Palestinian news: o Israeli soldiers Aug. 24 shot and killed one Palestinian man and wounded another who they said had approached the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip in a suspicious manner. Later that day, several rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, wounding an Israeli soldier. Israel Aug. 25 bombed a smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt, killing three people inside. The border between Israel and Gaza had been relatively quiet in the weeks preceding the latest violence.

o U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Aug. 13 reported that Israeli soldiers in January had fired upon at least seven groups of Palestinian civilians carrying white flags to indicate noncombatant status, during Israel’s war against the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the Gaza Strip. The report said five women, two men and four children had been killed in the incidents.n

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U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, Sept. 1 said a strategic shift by coalition forces was necessary to defeat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. Among other recommendations, McChrystal said the coalition needed to focus on protecting civilians and increasing the size of Afghanistan’s security forces. McChrystal’s recommendations, his first official assessment of the Afghan war since becoming top commander in June, came in a classified review submitted to U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command. [See pp. 577C2, 434A1] The review was not released publicly, but details of it were reported by media outlets, and McChrystal himself had made similar recommendations in public. In a statement accompanying the completion of his report, McChrystal said, “The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable and demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.” U.S. President Barack Obama was expected to receive the review in the coming days. The assessment was seen as part of a push by McChrystal and others in the U.S. military to convince Obama to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Obama had already authorized the deployment of an additional 21,000 troops in 2009, which would bring the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 68,000, and the total number of coalition troops to about 100,000. McChrystal was currently conducting a separate strategic review that directly addressed the question of troop levels. The deployment of even more troops could prove problematic for Obama, since U.S. public support for the Afghan war had recently dropped. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Aug. 20, 51% said the war was not worth fighting, in comparison with 47% who thought it was. Additionally, the Taliban insurgency had gained strength in recent years, leading to a spike in U.S. troop deaths. Two U.S. soldiers were killed Aug. 31, bringing the August death toll to 47, the deadliest month for U.S. troops since a U.S.-led force toppled the Taliban from power in 2001. The total number of foreign troops killed in 2009—at 306 as of Aug. 31—was already a record yearly high. 593

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The U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan was further complicated by allegations of widespread rigging by supporters of President Hamid Karzai in a presidential election held earlier in August. An election that was perceived as being illegitimate could undermine efforts to win the allegiance of civilians wary of the U.S.-backed government. [See below] Protecting Civilian Populations Stressed—

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McChrystal’s Sept. 1 review reportedly stressed the importance of protecting Afghanistan’s civilians, a strategy meant to win popular support and diminish the Taliban’s influence. He said civilian populations in the southern province of Kandahar and the eastern province of Khost were particularly vulnerable, and would need additional coalition troops for protection. McChrystal called for an expansion of Afghanistan’s security forces, and said new recruits had to be trained more quickly. There were currently about 134,000 police officers in Afghanistan, and 82,000 army soldiers. McChrystal also stressed the need to reduce government corruption, which was widespread in Afghanistan, and improve local economic development. Obama had narrowed the U.S.’s goals in Afghanistan to defeating the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, and depriving its members of safe haven in the country. His administration argued that a defeat of the Taliban, an Al Qaeda ally, and a strengthening of government institutions were central elements of achieving its goals. The Obama administration was currently determining benchmarks that could be used by the U.S. Congress to measure progress in Afghanistan. [See p. 424D3] It was unclear whether Obama was receptive to the idea of further increasing U.S. troops levels, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that day said, “I think there’s broad agreement that for many years, our effort in Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily, economically.” However, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that day warned that a bump in U.S. troops could make the U.S. seem like an “occupier” of the country rather than a “partner.” Election Fraud Claims Grow— Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission, a body run jointly by Afghans and international observers, Sept. 1 said 2,615 complaints had been submitted since the Aug. 20 presidential election. The complaints included accusations of bribery, ballotstuffing and government corruption. The New York Times Sept. 1 reported on its Web site that Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, had stolen 23,900 votes in the Shorbak district in Kandahar. The Times, citing tribal leaders from Shorbak, said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the leader of the Kandahar provincial council, had detained the governor of the district and shut down all its voting stations. The district’s ballot boxes were then filled with ballots marked for Hamid Karzai and sent to Kabul, the Afghan capital. Karzai had denied accusations of fraud. He needed more than 50% of the vote to 594

avoid a runoff and win reelection. Afghanistan’s Independent Elections Commission Sept. 2 said Karzai had received 47% of the vote among ballots counted thus far, leading his main rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who had won 33%. The commission had counted ballots from about 60% of the country’s polling stations, and final results were not expected until Sept. 17. ‘Explosive’ Meeting Reported—The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 27 reported on its Web site that an Aug. 21 meeting between Karzai and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, turned “explosive” after Holbrooke raised concerns about the electoral fraud allegations. The BBC also said Holbrooke had upset Karzai by suggesting that a runoff vote could make the election more legitimate. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, also reportedly attended the meeting. The incident appeared to confirm previous reports that the Obama administration, which had remained neutral in the presidential contest, was cool to Karzai, whom it reportedly saw as corrupt and ineffective. However, U.S. officials denied that the meeting had erupted into an argument. The Times, citing unidentified U.S. officials, Aug. 29 reported that Karzai had leaked a false account of the meeting to portray the U.S. as a meddler in Afghan affairs, in a bid to benefit from strong anti-U.S. sentiment in the country. British PM Brown Visits Troops—British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Aug. 29 visited British troops stationed at Camp Bastion in the southern province of Helmand, where he urged the Afghan government to reconcile with more moderate elements of the Taliban. Brown also encouraged a more rapid expansion of Afghanistan’s security forces. Brown had come under heavy domestic criticism for his stewardship of the war effort, following a spike in British troop deaths and accusations that British forces had not been provided with necessary equipment. Two British soldiers were killed Aug. 31, bringing Britain’s death toll to 210 since 2001. [See p. 513C2] Deputy Intelligence Chief Killed—A suicide bomber Sept. 2 killed Afghanistan’s second-highest ranking intelligence officer, Abdullah Laghmani, as he left a mosque in Mehterlam, the capital of eastern Laghman province. Laghmani had been the deputy director of the National Directorate for Security, the country’s intelligence agency, and had previously served as intelligence chief in Kandahar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for the detentions of militants in Kandahar. As many as 23 other people were killed and dozens were wounded. The assassination raised concerns about the Taliban’s growing reach, since Laghman was one of the more stable provinces in the country. Misconduct by Contractors Reported—

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a U.S. watchdog group, Sept. 2 accused civilian security contractors guarding the U.S. embassy in Kabul of “blatant and longstanding violations.” The contrac-

tors were employed by ArmorGroup North America, a subsidiary of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.–based Wackenhut Services Inc. POGO’s claims were contained in a letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which recommended that the U.S. Defense Department take over the embassy’s security responsibilities. [See pp. 586G2, 208G3] POGO said about 30 contractors had engaged in “lewd and deviant” behavior that had compromised the embassy’s security. The contractors had reportedly shirked their duties, hazed colleagues and engaged in other abuses, including hosting debauched parties in which contractors urinated on each other and drank alcohol off each other’s naked buttocks. POGO said the U.S. State Department was partly responsible for the fiasco, since in July it had renewed ArmorGroup’s $180 million annual contract through July 2010, despite evidence of security lapses at the embassy. A spokesman for the State Department said the allegations were “very serious” and would be reviewed. The allegations renewed criticisms that the U.S. relied too heavily on civilian contractors to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Congressional Research Service Sept. 2 reported that 57% of the Defense Department’s personnel in Afghanistan were civilian contractors, the highest such percentage “in any conflict in the history of the U.S.” n

India News in Brief. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) between April and June was

6.1% greater than the year-earlier period, a faster growth rate than the 5.8% recorded in the previous quarter, according to government data released Aug. 31. The acceleration in growth was partly attributed to increased government spending and interest rate cuts by the country’s central bank. However, the weakness of the current monsoon season threatened to hamper India’s agricultural sector in the coming months. While agriculture represented a relatively small portion of India’s GDP, the majority of Indian workers made a living through farming. A drop in their income could result in a widespread dip in consumer spending, and analysts also warned that a decrease in agricultural output could lead to a spike in food inflation. [See p. 513F3] An Indian court Aug. 6 sentenced two men and a woman to death by hanging for their role in a 2003 attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed more than 50 people and injured as many as 200. Ashrat Shafiq Mohammed Ansari, Syed Mohammed Haneef Abdul Rahim and Fahmeeda Syed Mohammed Haneef, Rahim’s wife, had been convicted on July 27 of murder and other charges related to the bombing attack. Prosecutors said the three conspirators were members of Pakistanibased Islamic extremist group Lashkar-eTaiba, which had been accused of orchestrating November 2008 attacks on Mumbai that killed more than 170 people. [See p. 499A3; 2003, p. 672A3] n FACTS ON FILE

Pakistan News in Brief. The Lahore High Court Sept.

2 reinstated government restrictions limiting the movement of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former leader of a now-defunct nuclear technology smuggling network. The court Aug. 28 had lifted the restrictions, prompting an appeal by the government. The Islamabad High Court in February had freed Khan from a five-year house arrest, but the government since then had prevented him from leaving Pakistan, and required him to notify authorities of any travel plans within the country. The February ruling had drawn objections from the U.S., which still considered Khan, who had allegedly sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a proliferation risk. [See p. 75C2] Pakistani police June 17 said they had arrested a militant suspected of participating in a March attack against the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, that killed seven people. The police said the suspect, Muhammad Zubair, was one of six militants who had carried out the attack, and that two others had planned it. The police said the six attackers had received weapons training in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas in the northwest, a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, and had connections to Punjab-based militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The claims were seen as further evidence that the Taliban was coordinating terrorist attacks with Punjabi militant groups. [See p. 137D3] n

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One major factor in the players’ displeasure reportedly was the loss of seven tournaments from the LPGA Tour calendar since 2007, which was blamed in part on the current economic crisis. However, Bivens, 56, was accused of alienating some sponsors with new financial demands; for example, McDonald’s Corp. would not sponsor the LPGA Championship in 2010. Another factor was continued fallout from a controversial policy, proposed and later dropped by Bivens in 2008, under which the Tour would have required all its members to be able to converse in English or face suspension. [See 2008, p. 643D1] Marsha Evans, a retired Navy rear admiral who was a member of the LPGA board, was named interim commissioner. Evans had previously served as president of the American Red Cross. Matthew Takes Women’s British Open—

Catriona Matthew of Scotland Aug. 2 won the Women’s British Open, the final women’s major of the year, at Royal Lytham and St. Annes Golf Club in Lytham St. Annes, England. Matthew, 39, claimed her first major title, just 10 weeks after giving birth to her second child. [See 2008, p. 626A3] Matthew—the first Scottish winner of a women’s major—took a three-shot lead into the final round Aug. 2, and shot a oneover-par 73 for the round to post a final score of 285, three under par. Karrie Webb of Australia was second, three shots back, and Hee-Won Han of South Korea, Ai Miyazato of Japan, and Americans Paula Creamer and Christina Kim tied for third, at one over par. Matthew earned $335,000 for the victory. Nordqvist Wins LPGA Championship—

Women’s Golf Ji Wins U.S. Open; Commissioner Quits.

South Korea’s Eun-Hee Ji July 12 won the U.S. Women’s Open, the third of four annual major tournaments in women’s golf, at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa. Her win came amid turmoil in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), as Commissioner Carolyn Bivens July 13 announced her resignation under pressure from leading players. [See below; 2008, p. 626C3] Ji, 23, claimed her first major title by sinking a 20-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to post a score of even-par 284. It was the first time she led in the entire tournament. The birdie putt allowed her to avoid a playoff with Candie Kung of Taiwan, who finished second, at one over par. Cristie Kerr of the U.S.—who had started the final round with a two-shot lead—and In-Kyung Kim of South Korea tied for third, at two over par. Ji earned $585,000 for the victory. Bivens Resigns Under Pressure—Bivens July 13 announced that she would resign as commissioner of the LPGA, after taking over the position in June 2005. Golfweek magazine July 6 had reported that a group of leading players sent a letter to the LPGA’s 13member board of directors (which was comprised of seven players and six non-players, including Bivens), conveying dissatisfaction with her leadership. [See 2005, p. 412F1] September 3, 2009

Anna Nordqvist of Sweden June 14 won the LPGA Championship, the second women’s major of 2009, at Bulle Rock Golf Course in Havre de Grace, Md. Nordqvist, a rookie, shot a 15-under-par 273 to finish four shots ahead of Lindsey Wright of Australia. Jiyai Shin of South Korea was third, at 10 under. Nordqvist took home $300,000 in prize money. [See 2008, p. 626E3] U.S. Wins Solheim Cup Again—The U.S. Aug. 23 beat Europe, 16 points to 12 points, at Rich Harvest Farms golf club in Sugar Grove, Ill., to retain the Solheim Cup, a biennial match-play competition between the top female golfers from Europe and the U.S. The U.S. had won the previous two competitions. [See 2007, p. 815G1] The U.S. team, captained by Beth Daniel, Aug. 21 took a 4½–3½ lead after the first day of the competition. The Europeans, led by Alison Nicholas, Aug. 22 rallied in the second round of matches to tie the score at eight points each. The U.S. decisively won the 12 singles matches Aug. 23, 8–4, to seal the victory. Other News—In other women’s golf news: o Rookie M.J. Hur of South Korea Aug. 30 won the Safeway Classic in North Plains, Ore., on the second playoff hole. She had been tied with Suzann Pettersen of Norway and Michele Redman of the U.S. after 72 regulation holes at 203, 13 under par. Hur

earned $255,000 for the victory, her first on the LPGA Tour. [See 2008, p. 267G3] o Miyazato July 26 won the Evian Masters in Evian-les-Bains, France, on the first playoff hole. She had been tied with Sophie Gustafson of Sweden at 274, 14 under par, at the end of regulation play. Miyazato earned $487,500 for the win, her first on the LPGA Tour. [See 2008, p. 627A2] o Eunjung Yi of South Korea July 5 won the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic in Sylvania, Ohio, on the first playoff hole. Both Yi and Morgan Pressel of the U.S. had shot a 266, 18 under par, in regulation. Yi claimed $210,000 in prize money. [See 2008, p. 627B2] o In-Kyung Kim June 7 won the State Farm Classic in Springfield, Ill. She shot a 17-under-par 271, and earned a $255,000 winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 627A2] o Ji Young Oh of South Korea May 17 won the Sybase Classic in Clifton, N.J. She shot a 14-under-par 274, and earned $300,000. [See 2008, p. 627C2] n

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Medical Research News in Brief. A team of scientists reported

in the July 9 issue of the journal Science that a calorie-restricted diet had allowed a group of rhesus monkeys to live longer and suffer from less age-related disease, such as cancer and heart disease, when compared with a group fed a normal amount of calories. The study had begun in 1989 with 30 monkeys; another 46 were added in 1994. When the animals reached adulthood, their caloric intake was reduced about 30% below normal levels. The researchers found that 13% of the monkeys on the restricted diet had died of age-related diseases, in comparison with 37% in the normal diet group. The research was led by Richard Weindruch of the University of Wisconsin in the U.S. Researchers reported in the March 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that circumcised males had a significantly reduced risk of contracting both the herpes simplex virus Type 2 (HSV-2) and the human papilloma virus (HPV). Scientists tracked 1,684 healthy men in Uganda who were circumcised, comparing them to 1,709 uncircumcised men over a two-year period. They found that those who had been circumcised were 35% less likely to contract HPV, and 25% less likely to get HSV-2. An earlier study had linked circumcision to a reduced risk of contracting HIV. The research was led by Ronald Gray, a reproductive epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. [See 2007, p. 189D2] n

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Jenna Hager, one of former U.S. President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, had been hired as a correspondent by the NBC televi-

sion network’s “Today” show, it was reported Aug. 31. Hager, 27, would contribute education-oriented stories to the show

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Publishers Weekly Aug. 31 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 532A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

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1. South of Broad, by Pat Conroy (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese) 2. The White Queen, by Philippa Gregory (Touchstone) 3. Dreamfever, by Karen Marie Moning (Delacorte) 4. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam/Amy Einhorn) 5. That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo (Knopf) General Hardback 1. Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies, by Michelle Malkin (Regnery) 2. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle (Knopf) 3. In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, by Ronald Kessler (Crown) 4. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment, by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 5. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown)

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Mass Market Paperback 1. The Brass Verdict, by Michael Connelly (Grand Central) 2. The Quickie, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Vision) 3. Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Dead and Alive, by Dean Koontz (Bantam) 4. My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme (Anchor) 5. From Dead to Worse, by Charlaine Harris (Ace)

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Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Aug. 29 issue listed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 532C1]:

Singles 1. “I Gotta Feeling,” The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 2. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus (Hollywood) 3. “Run This Town,” Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West (Roc Nation) 4. “You Belong With Me,” Taylor Swift (Big Machine/Universal Republic) 5. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon (RCA/RMG)

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1. Twang, George Strait (RCA Nashville/UMGN) 2. Hot August Night/NYC, Neil Diamond (Columbia/Legacy/Sony) 3. The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope/IGA) 4. Hot Mess, Cobra Starship (Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen) 5. Only by the Night, Kings of Leon (RCA/RMG)

al television shows Aug. 3–30 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 532A2]:

1. “America’s Got Talent” (NBC), Aug. 4 (7.8)* 2. “60 Minutes” (CBS), Aug. 16 (7.6)* 3. “NCIS” (CBS), Aug. 18 (6.6)* 4. “NFL Preseason Football: Chicago Bears vs. Denver Broncos” (NBC), Aug. 30 (6.5) 5. “Two and a Half Men” (CBS), Aug. 24 (6.2)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Aug. 21–27 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 532B2]:

1. Inglourious Basterds, Weinstein Co. ($53.7 million, 1) Directed by Quentin Tarantino. With Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruehl and Til Schweiger. 2. District 9, Sony ($80.1 million, 2) Directed by Neill Blomkamp. With Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike and John Sumner. 3. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Paramount ($124.4 million, 3) Directed by Stephen Sommers. With Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Leo Howard and Karolina Kurkova. 4. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Warner Bros. ($41.4 million, 2) Directed by Robert Schwentke. With Rachel McAdams, Eric Bana, Ron Livingston, Jane McLean and Arliss Howard. 5. Julie & Julia, Sony ($63.6 million, 3) Directed by Nora Ephron. With Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina and Jane Lynch. 6. Shorts, Warner Bros. ($8.7 million, 1) Directed by Robert Rodriguez. With Jimmy Bennett, Devon Gearhart, Trevor Gagnon, Jon Cryer and James Spader. 7. G-Force, Disney ($109.0 million, 5) [See p. 532B2] 8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros. ($291.8 million, 6) [See p. 532C2] 9. The Ugly Truth, Sony ($84.2 million, 5) [See p. 532C2] 10. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Paramount Vantage ($12.6 million, 2) Directed by Neal Brennan. With Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn and Tony Hale.

about once a month while continuing to work as a schoolteacher in Baltimore, Md. [See 2008, p. 336F1] Actor Jeremy Piven, 44, who in December 2008 had abruptly quit the cast of a Broadway revival of David Mamet’s play Speed-the-Plow, Aug. 27 was found not to have breached his contract with the producers of the show by doing so. The finding was made by a professional arbitrator who had been brought in to settle the dispute after the producers in February filed a grievance with Actors’ Equity Association, the labor union representing Broadway actors. The producers had challenged Piven’s claim that he could not work because he contracted mercury poisoning from eating too much fish. [See 2008, p. 998F1] n

Elektra, the title characters in two Richard Strauss works; she studied law before deciding to pursue a singing career at the age of 26; she was already past 30 when she made her operatic debut, as a lyric soprano, in 1971; she became a fixture on international opera stages after triumphing as Salome at the 1977 Salzburg Festival in Austria; born Feb. 9, 1937, in Varel, Germany; died Aug. 18 at a hospital in Tokyo, after apparently suffering an aortic aneurysm while on her way to Kusatsu, a Japanese resort town, where she had been scheduled to present master classes and a recital.

O B I T UA R I E S

KAPLAN, Stanley H., 90, pioneer in preparing students for standardized tests in ways that might raise their scores on those tests; he entered the test-preparation business in 1938, as a private tutor operating out of the basement of his parents’ New York City apartment; by the time he sold his eponymous business to Washington

BEHRENS, Hildegard, 72, German dramatic soprano who excelled in such operatic roles as Brunnhilde in Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle, and as Salome and

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GREENWICH, Ellie (Eleanor Louise), 68, songwriter who wrote or co-wrote some of the best-known pop songs of the 1960s, including “Da Doo Ron Ron” (1963), “Be My Baby” (1963) and “Leader of the Pack” (1964); her chief collaborators were Jeff Barry, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1965, and record producer Phil Spector; many of these hit songs were written for and introduced by “girl groups,” including the Shangri-Las and the Ronettes; her life and work were the focus of the 1985 Broadway musical Leader of the Pack; born Oct. 23, 1940, in New York City; died Aug. 26 at a New York hospital, of a heart attack while being treated for pneumonia. [See pp. 525D1, 120A3; 1985, p. 292F2]

Post Co. in 1984, it had grown into a nationwide operation with nearly 100,000 students; in 1979, the Federal Trade Commission released a report that concluded that his methods could modestly boost Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, a claim that had been challenged by the Educational Testing Service, which administered the SAT; born May 24, 1919, in New York; died Aug. 23 at his New York home, of a heart ailment. [See 1995, p. 234C2; 1994, p. 991A1; 1979, p. 785C2] SPRINKEL, Beryl Wayne, 85, economist who chaired President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from soon after the beginning of Reagan’s second term in 1985 until the conclusion of that term in January 1989; born Nov. 20, 1923, on a farm near Richmond, Mo.; died Aug. 22 near Chicago Heights, Ill., while being transported to a Chicago Height hospital from a nearby nursing home; he had been suffering from Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, a rare neuromuscular condition. [See 1989, p. 19G1; 1988, pp. 929B3, 873C3, 569E2, 553E3, 458D2, 338C3, 124D1; Indexes 1981–87] WALKER, Doris Brin (born Doris Lorraine Brin),

90, Northern California–based lawyer and champion of progressive causes who helped clear political radical Angela Davis of murder and kidnapping charges in 1972; in those days, she was a partner in a law practice with Robert Treuhaft, who for many years was married to author Jessica Mitford; born April 29, 1919, in Dallas, Texas; died Aug. 13 at a hospital in San Francisco, Calif., after suffering a stroke. [See 2001, p. 944F3; 1972, p. 428B1; Index 1971] n

September 3, 2009

U.S. President Obama Urges Congress to Pass Health Care Reform in Address to Joint Session Calls for End to ‘Bickering.’ U.S. President Barack Obama before a rare joint session of Congress Sept. 9 delivered a speech aimed at rejuvenating public and congressional support for legislation that would significantly reform the U.S. health care system and extend coverage to millions of people who currently lacked it. Since taking office in January, Obama had made a legislative overhaul of the health care system the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. [See pp. 551A2, 105A1; for excerpts from Obama’s speech, see p. 598A1] However, he had largely remained uninvolved in the details of crafting several health care reform bills as they were drafted in both houses of Congress. Those plans had been met with fierce criticism from Republicans and some fiscally conservative Democrats, who said the plans would be costly and lead to an intrusive role for government in health care. Also, Obama had recently been increasingly criticized by more left-leaning Democrats, who said efforts to reach a bipartisan consensus on the reform bill would weaken it to the point of making the reforms insubstantial. Obama’s push for reform had also been marked by contention at town hall–style meetings held by lawmakers during Congress’s August recess, many of which had devolved into shouting matches and minor violence. According to several polls, public support for both Obama and the overhaul effort had dropped in recent months under the onslaught of criticism. A Washington Post–ABC News poll conducted Aug. 13–17 and published Aug. 21 found that Obama’s overall approval rating was 57%, down from its April high of 69%. Disapproval of his health care reform efforts was 50%, the highest level recorded thus far in his presidency. Reform Plan Detailed—Obama in his nearly 50-minute speech provided the most detail to date on the plan he favored, which drew heavily from bills currently making their way through Congress. He spelled out his case for reform, saying, “Our collective failure to meet this challenge—year after year, decade after decade—has led us to a breaking point.” Obama lamented the “extraordinary hardships” of “the uninsured who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.” He pointed to several people in attendance who had suffered from serious illnesses, but were plagued by problems in obtaining care paid for by their insurance companies. “We are the only democracy, the only advanced democracy on Earth, the only wealthy nation that allows such hardship for millions of its people,” he said. He said the plan would cost $900 billion over 10 years, and would be paid for through taxes on insurers and health care industries, and cost savings from eliminating “waste and inefficiency” in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Obama for the first time backed the idea of imposing a new tax on insurers’ “most expensive policies” in order to pay for the plan. He also

did not rule out the need for additional spending cuts if costs were greater than expected. “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future,” he said. Obama also reiterated his support for the creation of a not-for-profit, government-run insurance plan, known as the “public option,” that would compete with private insurers. He argued that such a plan would foster competition, thereby driving down consumer costs while improving service. He said that he was willing to consider alternatives to the public option if they helped create competition, noting that it was “only one part of my plan.” However, Obama said, “I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.” Obama said his plan would require everyone in the U.S. to obtain health insurance, arguing that the costs of treating the uninsured were unfairly passed on to others. Tax credits, low-cost health insurance options and hardship waivers would be provided to individuals and small businesses who could not otherwise afford coverage. Obama sought to reassure those satisfied with their current coverage that “nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have,” but that it would force insurers to improve their service to patients. He said insurance companies would be forbidden to refuse to provide insurance to people with preexisting medical ailments, and that they would also be unable to drop coverage when people fell ill, as was currently possible. Obama said arbitrary caps placed on the amount of coverage provided by insurers would also be eliminated. Obama’s plan called for the creation of “health insurance exchanges,” newly created marketplaces where individuals and small businesses could compare health insurance policies. He said the resulting large pools of customers would give individuals and small businesses the leverage needed to negotiate lower prices and improved policies. Obama drew Republican applause when he said he would consider some version of tort reform to lower the costs to the health care system of malpractice lawsuits. Rebuts, Criticizes Opponents— Obama also rebutted several rumors that had circulated regarding his health plan, chief among them the false claim that the government would create “death panels” comprised of bureaucrats with the power to make life-or-death decisions regarding the health care of senior citizens. “Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple,” he said. He also denied that the reform plan would extend insurance to undocumented immigrants—drawing an outburst from one representative—or government funds for abortions. [See below] Obama also defended the public option against claims that it would lead to a government takeover of the entire health care

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3586 September 10, 2009

B system. Obama said the public option was intended to provide insurance to those otherwise unable to obtain it, and that no one would be forced to sign up for it. He said the public option would not need government funds to operate, instead relying on premiums it collected. Obama said the program would save money by eliminating the high administrative costs and large executive salaries common to private insurance companies. He decried opponents of reform who had “used this opportunity to score shortterm political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a longterm challenge.” He called on legislators to end their “bickering” on the issue, and said the “partisan spectacle” had hardened the “disdain many Americans have toward their own government.” He added, “I will; not waste time with those who have made

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Obama urges Congress to pass health care reform in address to joint session; calls for end to ‘bickering.’ PAGE 597

U.S. says Iran has ‘breakout capacity’ to build nuclear bomb. PAGE 599

U.S. unemployment at record high in August.

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Supreme Court rehears challenge to campaign finance limits. PAGE 602

Report says Madoff scheme was aided by SEC mistakes. PAGE 603

Late Gabonese ruler’s son elected president. PAGE 604

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New protests erupt in China’s Xinjiang. PAGE 605

German Chancellor Merkel’s party loses state elections. PAGE 607

British court convicts three in airline bomb plot. PAGE 608

Iranian parliament madinejad cabinet.

approves

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Partial recount ordered in Afghan presidential election. PAGE 610

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it.” Obama read from a letter written in May by the late Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), an outspoken advocate of health care reform who had died in late August. Kennedy had given instructions for the letter to be delivered to Obama after his death. Quoting Kennedy’s letter, Obama said, “What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” [See p. 584A2] S. Carolina Rep. Interrupts Speech— In an unusual breach of protocol, Rep. Joe Wilson (R, S.C.) responded to Obama’s assertion that undocumented immigrants would not receive insurance under the reform plan by shouting “You lie!” from the House floor. Wilson afterward again shouted out “Not true!” after Obama said no government funds would be used to fund abortions. The outbursts shocked many in attendance, and were criticized by both Democrats and Republicans as disrespectful to the office of the president. Wilson later that evening issued a public apology to Obama for his “lack of civility,” saying his remarks were “inappropriate and regrettable.” Several Democratic legislators reportedly called for Wilson to apologize on the House floor in front of his colleagues. Obama Sept. 10 said he accepted the apology, saying, “We all make mistakes.” Legislation under consideration in the House expressly stated that federal subsidies for obtaining insurance would not go to illegal immigrants. However, some observers questioned how well such a prohibition would be enforced. Illegal immigrants would not be prevented from purchasing health insurance in the exchanges envisioned by the legislation. Wilson continued to dispute Obama’s assertion, and Sept. 10 said he was referring to the fact that proposed House amendments that would have added new citizenship-verification requirements had been rejected. Although Wilson’s remarks dominated media coverage, other Republicans during Obama’s speech had reportedly shouted, booed and whistled in response to several of his remarks, and some held up small, handmade signs intended to challenge his assertions. Rep. John Shimkus (R, Ill.) walked out on the speech a few minutes before it ended. GOP Response—The official Republican response speech Sept. 9 was given by Rep. Charles Boustany Jr. (La.), a heart surgeon. Boustany said Republicans were willing to cooperate with Obama on “common-sense reforms that our nation can afford,” and said Democrats’ reform plans would create new layers of government bureaucracy. Boustany also said “government-run health care” would be “much more expensive” than the current system. Several other Republicans said that Obama had failed to do more to reach a compromise with them. Sen. John McCain

(R, Ariz.) said the cost of Obama’s proposal was “the key issue” in the debate. Sen. Jon Kyl (R, Ariz.), the second-ranking Republican, described the speech as “partisan” and “disingenuous,” and said it lacked any indication the two sides could find a “common solution.” The speech appeared to help Obama unify Democratic support for reform. Obama Sept. 10 invited 17 Democratic legislators, most of whom were regarded as centrists, to meet with him at the White House on health care reform in what the attendees called a positive meeting. Obama

Addresses

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Rally—

Obama Sept. 7 addressed a Labor Day rally organized by the AFL-CIO labor federation, criticizing reform opponents’ “lies” in sharp terms, and challenging his critics, “What’s your answer? What’s your solution?” Obama Sept. 10 continued his attempts to rally support for reform in an address to the American Nurses Association in Washington, D.C. Sen. Baucus to Start Committee Work—

Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, Sept. 9 said his committee would begin to mark up its version of a health care reform bill by Sept. 21. Baucus had led a group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee, known as the “Gang of Six,” in crafting a bipartisan reform bill. Baucus, speaking before Obama’s address, said he would instruct his committee to take up the bill by his deadline, even if he had not yet reached a compromise with his Republican colleagues. [See p. 520A2] Baucus Sept. 5–6 had reportedly begun circulating a draft overhaul bill that represented the plan conceived with the most Republican input thus far. However, Baucus during a Sept. 8 meeting of the Gang of Six failed to get its members to agree to the draft proposal. Under that plan, the threshold for those qualifying for Medicaid, the joint statefederal health insurance program for the poor, would be raised to 133% of the federal poverty level, from 100%. The proposal would also levy fines ranging from $750 per year to $950 per year on individuals without insurance earning between 100% and 300% of the poverty level. The annual fines for families without insurance ranged from $1,500 to $3,800. The proposal did not include a public option, instead providing federal “seed funds” to establish nonprofit health insurance cooperatives. State insurance exchanges would be established to allow customers to shop for policies. The plan would be funded in part by a range of fees to be assessed on various health care industries—$6 billion annually on health insurance companies, $4 billion on medical device makers, $2.3 billion on pharmaceutical companies and $750 million on clinical laboratories. A new 35% excise tax would also be levied on health insurance policies that cost more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families.

However, observers said the chances of the Gang of Six talks yielding a bipartisan bill had waned after two Republicans in the group began openly criticizing Obama’s reform efforts. One member, Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Aug. 29 in the Republican Party’s weekly radio and Internet address said Obama’s plan would “make our nation’s finances sicker,” and would interfere with “the relationship between a doctor and a patient.” Another member of the group, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa), had sent out a fund-raising letter asking supporters to “help stop ‘Obama-Care,’” a derisive term for Obama’s overhaul plan used by its opponents, it was reported Sept. 2. The White House had reportedly focused its efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise on the lone remaining Republican member of the group, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine). Sen. Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y.), the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat, Aug. 23 had said his party was working on a plan to pass health care reform with a simple majority, working around the 60-vote threshold normally needed to avoid a filibuster. That would likely entail the use of the “reconciliation” process reserved for items that altered federal spending or revenue, a tactic Republicans opposed. Schumer made the remarks during an interview on the NBC News television program “Meet the Press.” Other News—In other health care news: o The Census Bureau Sept. 10 reported that the number of people in the U.S. without health insurance had climbed to 46.3 million in 2008, from 45.7 million the previous year. Bureau official David Johnson said the data had been collected in March 2008, before many people had lost their jobs and accompanying insurance in the

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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FACTS ON FILE

EXCERPTS FROM OBAMA’S SPEECH ON HEALTH CARE REFORM

Following are excerpts from U.S. President Barack Obama’s Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress on health care reform [See p. 597A1]: On Past Reform Efforts I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session. Our collective failure to meet this challenge— year after year, decade after decade—has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover. We are the only advanced democracy on Earth— the only wealthy nation—that allows such hardships for millions of its people. There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.... On Partisan Rancor We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before. Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies—many of whom opposed reform in the past. And there is agreement in this chamber on about eighty percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been. But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term

U.S.’s economic recession. [See 2007, p. 559E3] o Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) Sept. 9 said he would not take over as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, formerly led by Kennedy. Dodd, along with other Democrats, had led committee work on a health reform bill while Kennedy was absent from the Senate while undergoing treatment for brain cancer. Sen. Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) would take over as chairman under the Democratic Party’s succession rules. Dodd said he would retain his chairmanship of the Banking Committee. n

Iranian Nuclear Dispute ‘Breakout Capacity’ to Build Bomb Reported.

Glyn Davies, the new U.S. envoy to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Sept. 9 warned the body that Iran was close to being able to quickly produce a nuclear weapon. The IAEA Aug. September 10, 2009

political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned. Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care. Outline of Plan The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health-care costs for our families, our businesses and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge—not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from senators and congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans; and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election. Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan. First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid or the [Veterans Affairs Department], nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this. Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have. What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies—because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives. That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan—more security and stability. Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or

change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange—a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.... On Opponents’ Claims Still, given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight I’d like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there. Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple. There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false—the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up—under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place. My health-care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a “government takeover” of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare. So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.... On Paying for the Plan Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber and to the public—and that is how we pay for this plan. Here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion-dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for—from the Iraq war to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care.…

28 had reported that Iran over the past months had increased its ability to enrich uranium into nuclear fuel, but had reduced its output. Iran insisted that its nuclear program was only for civilian purposes, but the U.S. and its allies said Iran was attempting to build nuclear weapons. [See below, pp. 530E2, 485E2] Davies said Iran was close to having a “possible breakout capacity,” meaning that it had, or was close to having, enough technical expertise and low-enriched uranium that it could move quickly to further enrich the uranium and build one nuclear weapon. Davies’s statement was seen as the toughest so far by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama against Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. had given Iran until late September to enter into negotiations aimed at stopping enrichment activity, or face severe economic sanctions. Iran Sept. 9 delivered a new set of proposals to the five permanent U.N. Security Council members—the U.S. (represented in negotiations with Iran by Swit-

zerland), Britain, France, Russia and China—and Germany. However, diplomats reportedly said the proposals were vague and skirted nuclear questions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Sept. 10 said that he supported Iran’s proposals as a basis for negotiations, and that Russia would not support a Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sept. 7 had invited the six negotiating nations to Iran for talks on international issues, but said that Iran would not give up enriching uranium. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei the same day said that the agency was in a “stalemate” with Iran.

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IAEA Reports Enrichment Capacity Up—

The IAEA Aug. 28 reported that Iran had more than 8,300 uranium-enrichment centrifuges installed, an increase of more than 1,100 from June. The amount of enriched uranium it possessed was also up: 1,508 kg (3,325 lbs), from 839 kg in June. Analysts said that was almost enough to construct two nuclear weapons. However, the report 599

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also said Iran had decreased the number of centrifuges it was actively using for enrichment, to 4,592, from 4,920. The IAEA said Iran had allowed inspectors access to several sites that had previously been closed. However, Iran reportedly still refused to allow them to interview key nuclear program personnel or see documents that might link the nuclear program to the Iranian military. The report included explicit allegations and evidence that Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons. According to the IAEA, the allegations were not new. They had reportedly been included at the request of Western governments, over the objections of ElBaradei. An assessment by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research disclosed Aug. 6 said Iran would not be able to produce the highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon before 2013. The assessment was included in a document given by U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence after a hearing in February. It had been obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by Steven Aftergood, a Federation of American Scientists analyst, and published on his Web site. Other News—In other Iranian defense news: o In an interview broadcast Aug. 31 by Pakistan’s Aaj News Television, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former leader of a nowdefunct nuclear smuggling network, said he and other senior Pakistani officials had worked to help Iran develop nuclear weapons by putting it in contact with suppliers Pakistan had used in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Khan said that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, it and Pakistan “will be a strong bloc in the region to counter international pressure.” (Pakistan had successfully tested nuclear weapons in 1998.) The interview was considered an unusually direct allegation of official Pakistani support for Iran’s nuclear program, although Pakistan’s government denied it. The interview was translated into English by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence’s Open Source Center and posted Sept. 8 on the Federation of American Scientists’ blog Secrecy News. [See p. 595A1] o Diplomats Aug. 28 said the UAE several weeks earlier had seized a cargo ship that was transporting arms, including rocket-propelled grenades, to Iran from North Korea. The Bahamas-flagged vessel was the first to be seized under a June Security Council resolution banning most arms sales to or by North Korea. o A U.S. federal grand jury in Mobile, Ala., Aug. 27 charged a Belgian arms dealer with trying to smuggle jet fighter engines and parts to Iran from the U.S., in violation of a U.S. trade embargo. Jacques Monsieur, 56, was charged with six counts of conspiracy, smuggling, money laundering and violating weapons-trafficking laws and export controls. An alleged Iranian government agent who was also indicted, Dara Fotouhi, 54, was still at large. n 600

Korean Peninsula South Seeks Apology for Deadly Flood.

Water levels on the Imjin River, which flowed across the border between North Korea and South Korea, Sept. 6 rose dramatically, flooding a campsite on the South Korean side. Six campers were swept away in the surge. Rescue workers the following day recovered three of the bodies, while the remaining victims were presumed dead. Later that day, North Korean authorities, at the behest of South Korea’s unification ministry, issued a brief explanation for the flash flood without mentioning the deaths. [See p. 568D2] According to the statement, rising reservoir levels behind the recently constructed Hwanggang Dam on the Imjin River in North Korea forced an abrupt release of water. The release, which came without warning, resulted in the deadly flash flood downstream in South Korea. Declaring dissatisfaction with the message, Chun Hae Sung, a spokesman for the unification ministry, Sept. 7 demanded “a full explanation and an apology by a responsible member of the North’s government.” The rising tensions over the dam incident threatened to set back recently improved relations on the Korean Peninsula. In August, a North Korean delegation had visited South Korea to pay respects upon the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. The delegation extended their stay to meet with current South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, the first such high-level meeting between officials of the two countries since 2007. Following the meeting, North Korea offered additional conciliatory gestures toward South Korea. North Frees Fishermen— North Korea Aug. 29 released a South Korean squidfishing boat and its crew of four, nearly a month after they had been seized for entering North Korean waters due to a malfunction in their satellite-guided navigation system. The South Korean coast guard retrieved the boat with the fishermen on board at the two countries’ sea border off the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula. [See p. 518C1] North Korea the previous day had agreed to free the fishermen, as well as to resume family reunions of relatives separated by the countries’ border. The reunions would take place in late September at the Mt. Kumgang tourist area. During Red Cross–brokered talks on the reunions over the previous three days, South Korean officials also attempted to raise the issue of prisoners of war held in North Korea since the 1950–53 Korean War, but no progress was made on that issue. North Korea Sept. 1 reopened a border crossing to Kaesong, the North Korean city that hosted an industrial park where several South Korean companies operated. Traffic to the joint industrial park had been severely curtailed since late 2008. [See p. 558A1] North Korea’s series of overtures toward South Korea followed months of provocative actions, including several missile

launches and a nuclear test, which had led to new international economic sanctions. Uranium Weapon Progress Reported—

North Korean officials Sept. 3 sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council detailing the country’s latest steps in developing nuclear weapons, including a uranium enrichment program that had entered “completion stage.” (U.S. intelligence reports had long suggested that North Korea was enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, but North Korean officials had denied the existence of such a program prior to an admission in June.) In addition, they vowed to continue the use of spent fuel from the Yongbyon plutonium-processing complex. The announcement about the country’s nuclear program came amid a tour of the region by the U.S.’s special envoy to North Korea, Steven Bosworth. [See p. 568C3] Bosworth Sept. 3–6 visited China, South Korea and Japan, promoting the enforcement of sanctions levied against North Korea by the Security Council in June. Bosworth and his counterparts in each country condemned North Korea’s intensified activity in enriching weapons grade fuel. [See p. 404D1] In August, North Korea had signaled its interest in bilateral talks with the U.S. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, however, reiterated its stance that it would communicate with North Korea on the nuclear issue only through six-nation talks that also included China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton had recently traveled to North Korea in an unofficial capacity to win the release of two U.S. journalists convicted of entering the country illegally across the border with China. U.S. Reporters Recount Capture— The freed reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, Sept. 1 posted a detailed account of their arrest on the Web site of Current TV, the media company that employed the two women. They admitted to briefly entering North Korea at the urging of their guide, before crossing back over the border to China. Lee and Ling claimed to have been “firmly back inside China” when they were captured and dragged back over the border by North Korean guards. A spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry Sept. 3 rejected that claim. [See p. 517A1] Also in the posting, the reporters expressed “regret” over any “increased scrutiny” that their high-profile case had brought to activists and North Korean refugees living along the border. Lee and Ling had been reporting on North Korean refugees and human-smuggling in the area when they were arrested. A refugee aid group Aug. 23 claimed that the footage gathered by the reporters had been seized by Chinese authorities from a producer working with Lee and Ling, and that there had been retaliation against activists they had contacted. Ling and Lee said they had gone to great lengths to protect their sources by destroying materials they possessed after they were arrested. The producer, U.S. citizen Mitch Koss, had been arrested by Chinese border FACTS ON FILE

guards during the incident, and later released. The guide, an ethnic Korean Chinese national, was thought to remain in Chinese custody. n

Other International News Google Makes Concession on Books.

U.S.-based Internet company Google Inc. Sept. 8 announced that it had reached a settlement with European book publishers over its project to digitally scan books and offer access to them online. Google said it would remove from its database all books that were out of print in the U.S. but still commercially available in Europe, unless it received permission from authors to include their books. [See 2008, p. 968C1] Google in October 2008 had settled lawsuits filed by U.S. publishers and authors, agreeing to pay $125 million for the right to digitize out-of-print books. The terms of that agreement only applied in the U.S. The German government, French publishers and copyright agencies in several European countries strongly opposed the U.S. settlement, while some major European publishers supported it. In its agreement with European publishers, Google said it would name two nonU.S. representatives to the governing board of the Books Rights Registry, which would administer the U.S. settlement and distribute royalties from online sales. The U.S. Justice Department July 2 confirmed that it had opened a review of the 2008 settlement to determine whether it complied with antitrust law. Opponents of the settlement argued that it gave Google an unfair exclusive license over millions of books, in violation of copyright laws, and would prevent competitors from entering the online book market. Google’s U.S.-based rivals Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. Aug. 20 said they had joined the coalition opposing the settlement, along with groups representing authors and libraries. Another rival in the online book market, U.S.-based Amazon.com Inc., was also reportedly joining the coalition. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee Sept. 10 held a hearing on the Google project and its impact on competition in digital books, at which Google announecd that it would allow booksellers, including Amazon, to sell access to the books it scanned. Also at the hearing, Marybeth Peters, the register of the U.S. Copyright Office, said in written testimony that her agency had initially welcomed the 2008 settlememt, but had grown “increasingly concerned.” She said parts of the settlement violated the U.S. Constitution and copyright law, and might have “serious international implications.” A hearing on the 2008 settlement was scheduled to be held in U.S. District Court in New York City Oct. 7. n EU Probes Oracle Acquisition of Sun. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, Sept. 3 opened an antitrust investigation of U.S.-based busiSeptember 10, 2009

ness software maker Oracle Corp.’s $7.4 billion deal, announced April 20, to acquire a U.S.-based computer software and hardware maker, Sun Microsystems Inc. The Commission said it would complete its review by January 2010. The deal could not close until it gave its approval. Oracle Aug. 20 had said the U.S. Justice Department had approved the deal. [See 2008, p. 125G2] Oracle was the world leader in the market for business database software. Sun’s cheaper MySQL business database product—an open-source program, or one that others could adapt in developing new products—had gained on Oracle. The deal would give Oracle control of Sun’s widely used Java programming language, as well as its Solaris operating system, used by most Oracle software. The deal would also give Oracle a major hardware asset in Sun’s computer servers, which were often sold with Oracle’s database software. Oracle had announced its deal with Sun just two weeks after Oracle’s top rival, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), dropped its own bid for Sun. Oracle had spent more than $30 billion on acquisitions in recent years. n Chinese Firm Probed in Namibia Bribe Case.

Two Namibians and a Chinese national had been arrested in Namibia on suspicion of paying bribes to win a government contract for a Chinese company linked to Hu Haifeng, the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao, it was reported July 22. The company, Nuctech Co. Ltd., in 2008 had won a $55.3 million contract to supply Namibia’s customs inspectors with scanning devices. Prosecutors said the company paid $4.2 million in kickbacks to a sham consulting company operated by the Namibian defendants, one of whom was a public service commissioner. [See 2007, p. 93C1] Hu Haifeng, 38, had been president of Nuctech at the time the contract was secured, and was now the Communist Party secretary of its parent company, Tsinghua Holdings Co. No evidence had been disclosed indicating that he had been aware of the alleged kickback scheme. Namibian investigators said they wished to question him as a witness, rather than a suspect. China blocked Chinese-language online news articles mentioning Hu in connection with the case. The contract was financed with the help of a development loan extended to Namibia on a 2007 visit to the country by Hu Jintao. Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba July 22 suspended Lt. Gen. Martin Shalli, the country’s defense force chief, over “serious allegations of irregularities,” reportedly in connection with Nuctech. Namibian prosecutors July 31 said they were also investigating suspected bribery in the case of another government contract awarded to a Chinese firm, to build a railway link. Nuctech was under investigation by the European Union over separate accusations of “dumping,” or undercutting competitors by selling at artificially low prices. n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

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Economy August Unemployment Rate at 26-Year High.

The unemployment rate in August was 9.7% after seasonal adjustment, up from its July level of Unemployment 9.4%, and a 269.7% year high, the La- August 2009 Month 9.4% bor Department Previous Year Earlier 6.2% reported Sept. 4. While the pace of job losses continued to decelerate, the report fueled concern that the labor market would remain weak for some time, even as other recent data showed that the economy was recovering from a deep recession. Economists warned that if weakness in the labor market persisted, it could further depress consumer spending and stall an economic recovery. [See p. 535A1] An estimated 216,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in August, down from the July figure of 276,000, and the smallest monthly drop in 2009. Construction and manufacturing were the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, slashing 65,000 and 63,000 jobs, respectively. The health care and education sectors added jobs, as did the government. The August labor report brought the total number of jobs lost to 6.9 million since the recession began in December 2007. The administration of President Barack Obama that day defended a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law by Obama in February, saying it had prevented additional job losses. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed that the stimulus was “cushioning the blow,” and Vice President Joseph Biden said the economy was “making progress.” However, Biden said, “We will not be satisfied until we’re adding jobs on a monthly basis.” Republicans seized on the report as evidence that the stimulus package had failed to create jobs, while bloating the budget deficit. Republicans also said Obama and Democratic lawmakers should concentrate on fixing the economy instead of pursuing legislation that would reform the U.S. health care system and limit greenhouse gas emissions. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) that day said Democrats needed to “abandon their plans for a job-killing government takeover of health care.” [See pp. 5971A1, 570A3, 445A1] The unemployment rate was 16.8% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 140 Million Jobs Held in August— According to a household survey, 139.6 million people held jobs in August, the Labor Department reported Sept. 4. The department counted 14.9 million people as unemployed. The department counted 758,000 workers as discouraged in August. About 9.1 million people who sought full-time 601

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employment were working part-time instead. The average workweek was 33.1 hours in August, remaining unchanged from July. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.8 hours, the same as the previous month. Factory workers’ average overtime also remained unchanged at 2.9 hours. The average hourly wage for production workers rose six cents, to $18.65. The unemployment rate among whites in August was 8.9%, up from 8.6% in July. The jobless rate for blacks was 15.1%, up from 14.5% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 13.0%, up from 12.3% in July. For men age 20 and over, August unemployment was 10.1%, up from 9.8% in July. For adult women, it was 7.6%, up from 7.5% the previous month. The teenage rate was 25.5%, up from 23.8% in July, and the highest rate since the government began keeping such records in 1948. For black teenagers it was 34.7%, down from 35.7% the previous month. n

Education Obama Delivers Back-to-School Speech.

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President Barack Obama Sept. 8, in a televised daytime address that his administration encouraged schools to show in the classrooms, urged the nation’s elementary and secondary school students to accept responsibility for their education and work toward academic success. Obama noted that some students might become distracted from school due to difficult situations at home, but said such potential obstacles were “no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude…there’s no excuse for not trying.” He closed by telling students, “I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you.” [See p. 149B2] In the days prior to the address, conservative commentators and activists and some Republican officials criticized the planned speech as a means of “indoctrinating” children with “socialist” politics. (The address followed an August congressional recess in which a number of lawmakers were confronted at town-hall meetings by rowdy audiences denouncing Obama’s push for a health care reform bill as “socialist.”) A number of school districts, citing such concerns expressed by parents, said they would not air the address, or would excuse students from viewing it at their parents’ request. [See p. 597A1] Some critics disapproved of a list of accompanying classroom activities published by the Department of Education, which suggested, among other things, that students “write a letter to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” In response to criticism, the activity was revised Sept. 2 to suggest that students “write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term educational goals.” A transcript of the speech Sept. 7 was posted on the 602

White House Web site for parents and schools to review. White House officials insisted that the speech was not partisan in nature, and that school participation was voluntary. Education Secretary Arne Duncan Sept. 6 said concerns about liberal propaganda being pitched to children were “just silly.” President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar address to students in 1991. Democrats at the time criticized the speech for using taxpayers’ money to produce “paid political advertising.” n

Obama Administration ‘Green Jobs’ Aide Quits Over Radical Past.

Van Jones, a White House adviser on creating jobs linked to the environment and alternative energy, or “green jobs,” resigned Sept. 6 after drawing condemnation from Republicans and conservative commentators over several of his past statements and radical associations. Conservatives had cited Jones’s past as a sign of what they viewed as President Barack Obama’s leftist agenda, which they were fighting to block on several fronts, including Obama’s plan for health care reform and a speech he gave Sept. 8 to the nation’s schoolchildren. [See pp. 602C1, 597A1] Jones Sept. 3 had issued an apology for signing, in 2004, a petition suggesting that President George W. Bush’s administration “may indeed have allowed” the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. “to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.” Jones said the petition, circulated by the group 911Truth.org, “certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever.” Jones had also apologized for using an obscenity to refer to Republicans at a Feb. 11 speech in Berkeley, Calif. A video of that event had been posted Sept. 1 on the Web site YouTube.com. Critics further noted that Jones had belonged to a group in the San Francisco Bay Area called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), and had campaigned for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black radical convicted of murdering a Philadelphia, Pa., police officer in 1981. [See 2001, p. 1005F3] Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck had spearheaded the conservative criticism of Jones since July. During the same period, Color of Change, an advocacy group founded by Jones, who was black, had called on advertisers to boycott Beck’s show after Beck called Obama a racist. Rep. Mike Pence (R, Ind.), a member of the Republican House leadership team, Sept. 4 issued a statement calling on Jones to resign, saying, “His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Republican Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Christopher Bond (Mo.) also demanded Jones’s ouster. Jones, 40, was a well-known environmental advocate, founder of several nonprofit groups and a motivational speaker. He was the author of a bestselling book,

The Green Collar Economy, published in 2008. He had been hired in March as a special adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a post that did not require Senate confirmation. In a statement issued late Sept. 6, Jones said, “On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.” He said he was stepping aside so his colleagues would not have to “expend precious time” defending him. n Cybersecurity Official Resigns. White House cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway Aug. 3 announced that she had withdrawn her application to become the government’s so-called cybersecurity czar and would resign her current position, effective Aug. 21. Hathaway had overseen a White House report, released in May, that had recommended the creation of the czar position and the drafting of cybersecurity guidelines for governmental agencies and private groups. [See p. 410B3] The czar was tasked with coordinating the administration’s response to cyberattacks against the government and was expected to develop legislative proposals related to cybersecurity in consultation with Congress. The Washington Post reported Aug. 4 that about 30 people had been interviewed by the Obama administration for the position, according to an unidentified former government official. Hathaway, who had been appointed to her position in 2007 during the administration of President George W. Bush, said that she had decided to resign because she had “concluded that I can do more now from a different role” to assist the country in addressing gaps in the nation’s cybersecurity system. The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 4 that Hathaway had been marginalized at the White House following clashes with Obama’s economic advisers over her support for regulating cybersecurity standards for the private sector. Homeland Security Official Resigns—

The Post Aug. 8 reported that a second Obama administration cybersecurity official—Mischel Kwon, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team— had tendered her resignation, effective Sept. 2. According to the Post, unidentified coworkers of Kwon’s said that she had felt that her cybersecurity work had been stymied by a lack of authority and by the department’s bureaucracy. RSA, the security division of EMC Corp., Aug. 10 announced that Kwon had been hired as its vice president of public sector security solutions and would assume the post in September. n

Supreme Court Campaign-Finance Limits Challenged. The Supreme Court Sept. 9 heard oral arguments for the second time in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election CommisFACTS ON FILE

sion, in which it would decide whether government limits on corporate spending in elections were constitutional. It was widely reported that the court’s conservative members—who formed a majority on the court—appeared skeptical of claims that such limits did not violate the First Amendment’s free speech protections. [See p. 444A3] The case centered around a highly critical documentary of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton produced by the conservative nonprofit corporation Citizens United, which was funded by corporate donations. The documentary, Hillary: The Movie, had been scheduled for release in 2008, when Clinton, then the junior senator from New York, was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. The FEC said the documentary violated the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which barred “electioneering communications” funded by corporations within 30 days of a presidential primary or within 60 days of a general election. (The law was also known as the McCain-Feingold act, after its main sponsors, Sens. John McCain [R, Ariz.] and Russell Feingold [D, Wis.].) The court first heard the case in March, but in June made the unusual move of ordering a rehearing before its 2009–10 term began on Oct. 5. At issue in the new hearing were two Supreme Court precedents that had upheld limits on corporate spending in elections. They were the 2003 decision McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld parts of the McCain-Feingold act, and the 1990 decision Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which barred corporations from using profits to pay for campaign efforts. [See 2003, p. 973G2; 1990, p. 221F3] Solicitor General Elena Kagan suggested that the government would accept a ruling in favor of Citizens United, as long as it was a narrow one that did not completely overturn the two precedents. When pressed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Kagan said, “If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a position as to the way it loses, if it has to lose, the answer is yes.” Kagan also said the government had changed its position since March, when a government lawyer argued that the FEC could bar corporate-funded books that supported or criticized a candidate. Roberts had appeared to take particular objection to that line of reasoning, saying, “We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.” The liberal members of the bench— which included Justice Sonia Sotomayor, making her first appearance at oral arguments after being formally seated as a member of the court the previous day—said the limits were reasonable, and expressed concerns about the effect that unlimited corporate spending would have on elections. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg objected to the notion that corporations were protected by the First Amendment, saying, “A corporation, after all, is not endowed by its Creator with inalienable rights.” n September 10, 2009

Business Crime Madoff Scheme Aided by SEC Mistakes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had missed multiple opportunities over the course of 16 years to uncover a massive fraud orchestrated by disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, according to a report by the SEC inspector general released Sept. 4. Madoff in March had pleaded guilty to the fraud—in which his clients might have lost up to $65 billion— and was currently serving a 150-year sentence. The fraud had resulted in losses for thousands of investors worldwide, including banks, charities and individuals. [See p. 506G2] SEC Inspector General David Kotz Sept. 2 had released an executive summary of the report, in which he wrote, “The SEC never properly examined or investigated Madoff’s trading and never took the necessary, but basic, steps to determine if Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme.” In a typical Ponzi scheme, investors’ profits were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors, not by real returns on investments made. Kotz said the SEC since 1992 had received six credible warnings that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme through the investment-advisory unit of his brokerage, Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC. In response, the SEC conducted three investigations and two examinations, but failed to discover the fraud due to several factors, including incompetence, inexperience and laziness on the part of investigators, as well as bureaucratic disorganization. Kotz said the “most egregious failure” by the SEC was its decision in 2006 not to verify Madoff’s purported trades with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTC), the clearinghouse for settling most securities trades. Madoff told Kotz that he himself had been “astonished” that the SEC had not conducted a verification, which would have shown that Madoff had made far fewer trades than he had claimed. Kotz detailed several other lapses. At one point, two separate SEC units were investigating Madoff without knowledge of each other. In another incident, SEC officials declined to examine Madoff’s trades because it would take “a ton of time.” Kotz also said SEC investigators were not competent enough to fully understand fraud claims made by Madoff’s competitors and private investigators like Harry Markopolos, who had warned the SEC about Madoff several times. [See p. 114A1] According to Kotz, Madoff profited from the SEC’s mistakes by telling potential clients that the SEC had investigated his business and found that it was clean. SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro, who had taken charge of the SEC after the Ponzi scheme came to light, Sept. 2 said, “It is a failure we continue to regret, and one that has led us to reform in many ways.” Kotz said SEC officials had not been improperly influenced by Madoff. That appeared to clear suspicions surrounding Eric

Swanson, a former SEC employee who was married to Madoff’s niece, Shana Madoff. [See 2008, p. 917E3] Madoff

Lieutenant

Pleads

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Guilty—

Frank DiPascali, the chief financial officer at Madoff’s brokerage, Aug. 11 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to 10 charges stemming from the Ponzi scheme, including fraud and conspiracy. Judge Richard Sullivan denied bail to DiPascali, surprising federal prosecutors who had agreed to a $2.5 million bail in exchange for DiPascali’s cooperation in the ongoing investigation. Sullivan said DiPascali, who faced 125 years in prison, posed a flight risk. DiPascali that day had revealed to the court several details about the fraud. He said he and unidentified others had created millions of pages of forged documents to facilitate the scheme, including false accounting statements for clients and false trading tickets to fool regulators. DiPascali said the firm conducted wire transfers between its New York City and London offices to give the appearance that it was conducting trades. DiPascali also said the firm set a predetermined profit goal, and then pretended that it had bought stocks that would have yielded that result. DiPascali said, “No purchases or sales of securities were actually taking place in [investors’] accounts. It was all fake. It was all fictitious. It was wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time.” The SEC that day reached a partial settlement with DiPascali, in which he neither denied nor admitted wrongdoing. DiPascali was the third person to face criminal charges in the case. David Friehling, Madoff’s accountant, July 17 had pleaded not guilty to fraud charges in U.S. District Court in New York City. However, Friehling waived his right to an indictment by a grand jury, which analysts said could be a first step toward his reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. [See p. 245G1] Other Developments—In other developments in the Madoff case: o Hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group Sept. 8 said it would pay $8 million to settle civil fraud charges brought by Massachusetts regulators. The hedge fund had been one of several so-called “feeder funds” that had channeled their clients’ money to Madoff’s investment-advisory unit. The hedge fund did not admit or deny wrongdoing in the settlement. [See p. 245F1] o Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee responsible for recovering losses for Madoff clients, July 29 sued Madoff’s wife, Ruth Madoff, for $45 million. While Ruth Madoff had not been implicated in the fraud, Picard claimed that the fraud’s profits had allowed her to live a “life of splendor,” and that she had not been entitled to that money. Ruth Madoff in June had forfeited her claim to more than $80 million in assets in an agreement with federal prosecutors. She was left with $2.5 million. [See p. 442F2] n 603

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AFRICA

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Gabon Bongo, Son of Late Ruler, Elected President.

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Gabon’s electoral commission Sept. 3 declared Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba, the son of President Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had died in June, the winner of an Aug. 30 presidential election. The announcement of Bongo’s victory, which was confirmed by the constitutional court Sept. 4, sparked protests and rioting by opposition supporters. [See p. 393A3; for facts on Ali Ben Bongo, see p. 604A2] Omar Bongo upon his death had been the world’s longest-serving head of government and Africa’s longest-serving ruler, having led Gabon, an oil-rich nation in West Africa, since 1967. He amassed great wealth during his rule, while most of Gabon’s 1.5 million citizens lived in poverty. He also maintained close ties with France, Gabon’s former colonial ruler, which had 1,000 troops stationed in the country as well as substantial economic interests. The 50-year-old Ali Ben Bongo, who inherited much of his father’s fortune and political prestige, had served as defense minister since 1999 and had been the heavy favorite to win the poll. Running as the candidate for the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), he garnered 41.73% of the vote. Former Interior Minister Andre Mba Obame, who at one time had been a member of the PDG, came in second, with 25.88%. Pierre Mamboundou of the opposition Union of Gabonese People, who had placed a distant second to Omar Bongo in the 2005 presidential vote, was third, with 25.22%. [See 2005, p. 879B1] Obame, who ran as an independent, had been interior minister under Omar Bongo and had been expelled from the ruling party for running against Ali Ben Bongo, state television reported Aug. 23. (At least four candidates who had been serving as government ministers were fired in the run-up to the election.) The field had originally included more than 20 candidates, but at least five withdrew from the race Aug. 28 and threw their support behind Obame. Opposition Supporters Protest, Riot—

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The Sept. 3 announcement of Bongo’s victory sparked protests in some areas of the country. Many protesters expressed anger at alleged vote-rigging to extend the Bongo family dynasty, which had enriched itself while the population remained poor. In Libreville, the capital, soldiers and police fired tear gas at opposition supporters. Louis-Gaspon Mayila, a Mamboundou ally, said the candidate had been injured during the protest and that he had gone into hiding; however, the extent of his injuries was not revealed. Also that day, about two dozen Gabonese students set fire to Gabon’s embassy in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. The worst violence took place in Port Gentil, an oil hub that was Gabon’s second-largest city and an opposition stronghold. Port Gentil, on the Atlantic coast about 100 miles (160 km) south of Libre604

FACTS ON BONGO

Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba was born Feb. 9, 1959, in Brazzaville, in what was then the French territory of Middle Congo (now the Republic of Congo). His father was Omar Bongo Ondimba, who assumed power in Gabon in 1967 and ruled until his death in June. His mother was Gabonese singer and musician Patience Dabany. Ali Ben Bongo was educated in France starting at age nine, and went on to earn a law degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. He joined Gabon’s ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) in 1981. His father appointed him minister of foreign affairs in 1989, but he was forced to resign in 1991 due to a new constitutional amendment stipulating a minimum age of 35 for ministers. Also that year, he was elected to Gabon’s parliament. In 1992, he arranged to have U.S. pop superstar Michael Jackson perform in Gabon. In 1999, he was installed as defense minister, and continued to hold that position when his father died in office. Bongo, who inherited the vast wealth and political influence that Omar Bongo had accumulated during his 42-year rule, immediately became the favorite to succeed his father. [See p. 393A3] Ali Ben Bongo, running as the PDG candidate, Sept. 3 was declared the winner of an Aug. 30 presidential election. However, opposition leaders alleged that the election had been rigged, triggering protests and rioting in parts of the country. [See p. 604A1] Bongo had four children with his current wife, French-born Sylvia Valentin Bongo. He also had three children with a previous wife, American Inge Bongo, who lived in the U.S. Some reports said the couple had never divorced; however, Bongo in 1973 had converted to Islam, which allowed men to have multiple wives.

ville, was the center of operations for major foreign oil corporations, including France’s Total SA. Opposition leaders alleged that France had helped manipulate the election in favor of Bongo, an allegation that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner denied Sept. 4. Protesters Sept. 3 burned France’s consulate, attacked Total’s offices, plundered shops and freed inmates from the city’s prison. Total Sept. 5 evacuated its foreign staff in Port Gentil to Libreville. (About 10,000 French citizens lived in Gabon.) Sporadic violence continued in Port Gentil through Sept. 6, resulting in more than 300 arrests. Both Gabonese and French troops were deployed to restore order. Opposition leaders had claimed that at least 15 people had been killed in the protests, while the government insisted that only three people had died, and that they had been looters shot dead by shopkeepers, it was reported Sept. 10. Also that day, it was reported that the government had banned opposition leaders from leaving the country. Despite opposition allegations of fraud, election observers reportedly declared the vote free and fair. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had sent a letter of congratulation to Bongo, it was reported Sept. 8. At least 16 opposition candidates Sept. 7 called for a recount in a statement read at a news conference in Libreville.

Omar Bongo Laid to Rest—Several world leaders, including Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, and many African heads of state, June 16 attended the state funeral for Omar Bongo at the presidential palace in Libreville. The late president was laid to rest June 18 in a mausoleum inside his opulent palace in Franceville, in his native region in southeastern Gabon. Sarkozy and Chirac were jeered as they entered the presidential palace in Libreville, reportedly by supporters of Omar Bongo who were angry about an embezzlement lawsuit that was pending in a French court against the late president and two other African leaders. [See p. 394F1] n

AMERICAS

Cuba U.S. Officially Lifts Travel, Remittance Limits.

The U.S. Treasury Department Sept. 3 said it had lifted most of the restrictions on travel by U.S. residents to Cuba to visit relatives, and had significantly eased the process by which Cuban Americans sent money to family members in Cuba. U.S. President Barack Obama in April had ordered those and other changes as part of efforts to open a dialogue with Cuba, which had been subject to U.S. trade sanctions first imposed in 1962 under then–U.S. President John F. Kennedy. [See p. 248A3] Under the new rules, U.S. nationals could make an unlimited number of visits to anyone deemed a “close relative” living in Cuba. The policy expanded the definition of a close relative from parents, spouses and children, to include aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins. Previously, U.S. travelers had been limited to one family visit every three years. In addition, those in the U.S. could send an unlimited amount of money to Cuban relatives, as long as the recipients were neither government officials nor members of the Communist Party. Under the previous rules, remittances were limited to $1,200 per person per year. The U.S. Treasury Department also put into effect policies allowing U.S. telecommunications companies to establish fiber optic Internet connections and satellite links to Cuba, and to form ventures with Cuban businesses to provide cell phone roaming service. n

Mexico Attorney General Medina Mora Replaced.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Sept. 7 resigned amid criticism of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa’s campaign to eradicate the country’s drugsmuggling cartels. Tens of thousands of federal troops and soldiers had been dispatched across the country since Calderon had taken office in December 2006. The resulting violence had killed some 14,000 people and led to charges that the military had engaged in widespread human rights abuses. Dozens of alleged cartel members had been captured, and record drug seiFACTS ON FILE

zures had resulted from the campaign. [See p. 359D1] Despite those gains, political opponents said the strategy was failing. Analysts said the military and the public security ministry had led the antidrug efforts, with the attorney general’s office failing to play a substantial role. Medina Mora’s ouster was thought to have resulted from a power struggle between him and Public Safety Minister Genaro Garcia Luna over how to best prosecute the war against traffickers. Calderon Sept. 7 nominated Arturo Chavez Chavez, a former deputy interior minister, as Medina Mora’s replacement. His appointment required approval from the Senate. Chavez had served from 1996 to 1998 as the attorney general in Chihuahua state, an area that was a center of drugrelated violence. Chavez’s nomination quickly came under fire from opponents who said that, during his tenure as Chihuahua’s attorney general, his office had failed to properly investigate the deaths of hundreds of women who had been raped and killed, and whose bodies were found on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, the state’s largest city. Calderon Sept. 7 also nominated Juan Jose Suarez Coppel as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of the state-run oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). He replaced Jesus Reyes Heroles. The output from Pemex had declined to a rate of 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, from a peak of 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004. Calderon that day also nominated Francisco Javier Mayorga as the new agriculture minister, replacing Alberto Cardenas. 18 Killed in Drug Treatment Clinic— A group of as many as 12 hooded gunmen Sept. 2 broke into a drug treatment center in Ciudad Juarez, and shot and killed 18 people after lining them up against a wall. It was unclear why the rehabilitation center had been targeted in the attack, but cartel members were known to both hide in such centers and recruit patients from them. Local media reported that the attack might have resulted from a disagreement between two rival gangs. Police had captured a suspect in the killings, it was reported Sept. 5. Ciudad Juarez had become emblematic of the increasingly gruesome violence that had resulted from Calderon’s assault on drug cartels. An estimated 3,000 people had died violently in the city since January 2008. Legislative Candidate, Family Killed—

The bodies of Tabasco state legislative candidate Jose Francisco Fuentes Esperon, his wife and two young sons Sept. 5 were discovered inside their home in Villahermosa, the state capital. According to local media reports, Fuentes had been shot in the neck, his wife had been shot in the head, and his sons, aged 8 and 10, had been asphyxiated. Fuentes had launched his campaign the previous day as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI after Fuentes’s death called for a moratorium on campaigning for the seat he had sought, and other political parties agreed. September 10, 2009

It was suspected that drug traffickers, who had previously targeted elected officials, might have been behind the deaths. However, state-run news agency Notimex Sept. 6 reported that thieves who had robbed Fuentes’s house of valuables had carried out the murders. n Calderon Backs Drug Fight in Annual Speech.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa in his Sept. 2 annual report, or informe, to the national Congress said he planned to continue his efforts to combat the country’s violent drug trafficking cartels. Calderon in his speech said the country’s military would continue efforts to reform local and state police forces, which were widely acknowledged as corrupt and often worked with drug cartels. He also said efforts to reform the country’s judiciary would continue. [See pp. 604F3, 460D2; 2007, p. 578D3] Under an offensive begun when Calderon took office in 2006, the government currently had military forces deployed against drug groups in 16 of the country’s 31 states, as well as the federal district of Mexico City, the capital. Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Sept. 2 said that, since the offensive began, 80,000 people suspected of working for drug organizations had been arrested, among them 10 alleged cartel leaders. Medina Mora said several high-ranking government officials allegedly working with cartels had also been arrested. (Medina Mora resigned Sept. 7.) Some 14,000 people had been killed in drug-related violence since Calderon’s campaign began. Calderon in his speech also noted a number of other problems Mexico had faced over the last year, including an outbreak of swine flu that led to the shutdown of schools and government for several days, continuing effects from the global economic crisis and problems with oil production at the state-owned company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Calderon also outlined a list of 10 reforms he desired, led by a concerted effort to address the country’s poverty. Calderon said the country required “truly transformational reforms,” and not modest ones “watered down by compromise.” [See pp. 605C1, 583D3] However, Calderon, the leader of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), faced renewed opposition from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had won a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower legislative house, in July elections, wresting control of the body from the PAN. Members of the new chamber were sworn in on Sept. 1. The PAN still controlled the Senate. Budget Plan Delivered—Mexican Finance Minister Agustin Carstens Sept. 8 delivered Calderon’s budget proposal to Congress. The outline called for legislators to raise several taxes while cutting spending in order to keep the government financially healthy during the recession. The budget for fiscal year 2010 would result in a 60 billion peso ($4.5 billion) deficit, a figure equal to about 0.5% of the country’s cur-

rent gross domestic product (GDP). Calderon proposed temporarily raising the maximum income tax rate to 30%, from 28%, as well as instituting a new 2% sales tax on all items, among other new taxes. Calderon also said he planned to scrap the tourism, agrarian reform and public administration ministries to save money. The tourism ministry’s duties would be taken on by the economy ministry, while the functions of the agrarian reform ministry would be split between the social development ministry and agriculture ministry. The job of the public function ministry, an anticorruption office, would be absorbed by the comptroller general. n

A

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A S I A - PA C I F I C

China New Protests Erupt in Xinjiang. Thousands of ethnic Han protesters in Urumqi, the capital of the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, Sept. 3 demonstrated to demand increased security, following rumors of HIVtainted syringe attacks perpetrated by ethnic Uighurs. The following day, armed security forces blocked the demonstrators from approaching government buildings, using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Later Sept. 4, Urumqi Deputy Mayor Zhang Hong reported that at least five people had died in the clashes, which ended on Sept. 5 with the deployment of military police. [See p. 509A3] The reports of the needle attacks against Han Chinese victims revived ethnic tensions in the city that had erupted in violent riots in July. Chinese authorities had characterized that episode as a coordinated campaign of attacks by Islamist separatists, while Uighur rights groups said China had cracked down violently on peaceful protests. The official death toll from the July violence was put at 197 people, with more than 1,700 people injured. Urumqi’s main prosecutor Sept. 6 reported that four Uighurs had been charged in connection with the syringe attacks, three of whom were reportedly drug users. Chinese authorities that day said that anyone convicted of stabbings with tainted needles would face tough punishments, including the possibility of death sentences. Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu blamed the attacks on separatist forces plotting to “undermine ethnic unity.” Since the rumors of attacks had spread, more than 531 people, mostly Han Chinese, reportedly sought treatment for needle attacks, but only a small percentage showed any marks of physical harm, and none of the patients had been infected or poisoned. Some activists and residents of Urumqi blamed the spread of the rumors on one-sided official news coverage of the incidents. Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said the government’s version had “contributed to the mismanagement of the crisis.” Top City Official Ousted— The ruling Communist Party Sept. 5 replaced the party secretary of Urumqi, Li Zhi, with Zhu 605

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Hailun. The region’s police chief, Liu Yaohua, was also ousted that day, and Zhu Changjie was named his replacement. Demonstrators in Urumqi had specifically called for the resignation of the Xinjiang region’s party secretary, Wang Lequan, a close associate of Chinese President Hu Jintao. However, the firing of the local officials did appear to be an unusual concession by the government to the demands of protesters. The central government sought to quell any unrest in the region ahead of the Oct. 1 celebration for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Hu Aug. 22–25 had paid a visit to the region, his first since the July riots in Urumqi. Although Uighurs were the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang’s population of 21 million, the mass migration of Han Chinese to Urumqi, encouraged by the government, had made them a majority within the city, and they also held many of the best jobs there. Tensions over similar issues had erupted in the neighboring region of Tibet in 2008. China had long contended that Uighur unrest in Xinjiang was stoked by separatist terrorists, particularly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Uighur rights groups said China had trumped up the threat of separatist terrorism to justify the repression of Uighurs. The government contended that the latest violence had been directed by separatist Uighur groups from outside China. They singled out the leader of the exiled World Uyghur Congress, Rebiya Kadeer, who lived in the U.S., denied the accusation. Australia Rift Over Kadeer Visit—China had canceled a visit by its vice foreign minister to Australia over a tour by Kadeer and the screening of a documentary on her life at an Australian film festival, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported on Aug. 18. The film, The 10 Conditions of Love, had premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival Aug. 8. Kadeer, 62, was granted a visa for the festival and addressed Australia’s National Press Club on Aug. 11, where she compared the plight of the Uighur “to the situation of the Tibetans.” Relations between the two countries had already soured earlier in the year, when Chinese authorities arrested the general manager of an Australian mining company’s Chinese iron ore division on charges of espionage. Diplomats from the Chinese embassy in Canberra, Australia’s capital, had pressured the film festival to cancel the premiere of the documentary. The festival’s Web site had also been the victim of several cyberattacks in the weeks leading up to the event. [See p. 606A3] Prior to her tour of Australia, Kadeer July 28 had visited in Japan, where she met with members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In response, Chinese authorities summoned Yuji Miyamoto, Japan’s ambassador to China, to protest the visit and Kadeer’s “separatist activities.” Number of Arrests, Trials Disputed—

The state-run newspaper China Daily Aug. 24 reported that more than 200 people 606

would stand trial for their roles in the July riots, a number that was disputed the next day by local government officials, who put the tally at around 80 people. Earlier in August, official reports had put the number of arrests linked to the violence at around 1,500, while the World Uyghur Congress claimed that the actual number of those detained was much larger. A prominent Uighur economist, Illham Tohti, Aug. 22 was released by authorities after a month of detention in his own home and a hotel near Beijing, China’s capital. Shortly after the July violence broke out, Tohti had commented on the unrest through his Web site, Uyghur Online. Two days after his release, police returned to his home to deliver a stern warning to halt his criticism of the government’s response to the July riots. Alleged Bomb Threat Diverts Plane—

Aviation authorities at Urumqi airport Aug. 9 turned back a Kam Air flight from Afghanistan following an alleged bomb threat. After initially reporting that the plane had been hijacked, China’s state-controlled news agency changed its report, citing instead a bomb threat as the reason for the order to block the incoming flight. The plane had been flying over Kyrgyzstan when its crew received word to return to Afghanistan. The deputy chief of Kam Air, an Afghan carrier, denied there had been any bomb threat. n Legal Activist Unexpectedly Released. Xu Zhiyong, a prominent legal activist who had been detained in late July and charged with tax evasion, was unexpectedly released on bail Aug. 23 in Beijing, China’s capital. Xu was a cofounder of the Open Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng) civil rights group. Rights advocates said the tax charge was a pretext for retaliation against his and the group’s legal actions, including attempts to file lawsuits on behalf of parents whose children were made ill by tainted milk products. [See p. 557B1] Xu credited his release in part to an online campaign carried out by supporters publicizing his case. It remained unclear whether he would still face prosecution on the tax charges. An assistant, Zhuang Lu, who had also been detained July 29, was initially reported to have been freed the same day as Xu, but it was later reported that she remained in some kind of government custody. Banned Party Figure Sentenced—A dissident arrested in 2008 on subversion charges for trying to organize a meeting of a banned pro-democracy political party was sentenced Sept. 1 to 13 years in prison by a court in Changsha in Hunan province. The dissident, Xie Changfa, had founded a Hunan chapter of the party, the China Democracy Party, and had discussed organizing a national party meeting. Independent political parties were not permitted in China; authorities had launched a crackdown on the China Democracy Party soon after it was founded in 1998. [See 2006, p. 1021C1] Xie, 57, had previously been sent to a labor camp for three years for criticizing the

violent crackdown on 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. n Australian Mining Co. Employees Charged.

Chinese state news media Aug. 11 reported that four employees of Australian mining company Rio Tinto Ltd. had been formally arrested on charges of bribery and illegally obtaining trade secrets. The four, including Stern Hu, the head of Rio Tinto’s Shanghai office, had been detained in July on suspicion of espionage and stealing state secrets in connection with sensitive negotiations over the price of iron ore, but they were not charged with those more serious offenses Aug. 11. [See p. 481A2] The four had been detained after Rio Tinto canceled a major planned investment by a Chinese company, and during the contentious iron ore price negotiations. The Australian government and others had criticized China’s handling of the case for a lack of transparency, suggesting in particular that the application of state secrets laws to a commercial case would make foreign investors hesitant about dealings in China. Rio Tinto maintained that it was not aware of any evidence of wrongdoing by the employees. n

Indonesia Earthquake Kills 65, Injures Hundreds. An

earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 Sept. 2 struck the Indonesian island of Java, killing at least 65 people and injuring more than 400 others. A total of 125 people were hospitalized on Java following the quake, including 10 people who were in critical condition. The government Sept. 2 issued a tsunami alert related to the earthquake; however, the alert was withdrawn later the same day. [See p. 153D3] The epicenter of the earthquake was located about 70 miles (115 km) southwest of the city of Tasikmalaya. It was reportedly felt as far away as Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, which was located about 300 miles from the epicenter. The earthquake triggered a landslide in Java’s Cianjur district, about 60 miles south of Jakarta, the country’s capital, that buried 11 buildings. Dozens of people were missing and presumed dead following the landslide, including 13 children. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Sept. 3 visited Cianjur and said his government would earmark nearly five billion Indonesian rupiah ($500,000) for relief efforts on Java. The earthquake caused buildings to shake in Jakarta and injured 27 people there. Jakarta Mayor Fauzi Bowo Sept. 2 ordered a safety review of 700 of the city’s skyscrapers following the earthquake. A spokesman for the Indonesian Disaster Management Agency Sept. 4 said about 87,000 houses on Java had been damaged or knocked down by the earthquake, and that about 28,000 people still lacked shelter following the disaster. Separately, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 Sept. 7 struck off the coast of Java, about 165 miles south of Yogyakarta. No injuries or damage was reported. n FACTS ON FILE

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Azerbaijan News in Brief. Two bloggers arrested in

July on hooliganism charges some observers called politically motivated Aug. 21 were also charged with assault. The two, Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, claimed that they had been attacked at a restaurant and then arrested when they complained to police about it. Prior to their arrest, the bloggers had published a video in which they lampooned the government for alleged corruption. Their trial was expected to begin in September. [See p. 544B1] The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Aug. 18 reported that Azerbaijan’s national security ministry had summoned several people to its office to ask why they had voted for Armenia in the 2009 annual Eurovision song contest, which was meant to fos-

ter a spirit of friendly competition between countries without involving politics. Authorities at Eurovision said they were investigating the reports. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia had been strained over control of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, located within Azerbaijan’s borders. Final rankings in the Eurovision contest had been announced May 16, with Azerbaijan finishing third, behind first-place Norway and second-place Iceland. [See 2008, p. 152E1] Novruzali Mammedov, the former editor of Talyshi Sado, a now-defunct publication that had been geared toward Azerbaijan’s ethnic Talysh minority, Aug. 17 died in prison. Mammedov in 2008 had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for Iran, following a closed-door trial in which the government’s evidence was never publicized. Mammedov had reportedly been ill for months prior to his death, though Azerbaijani officials said he had become ill suddenly, and died of vein thrombosis. Mammedov’s lawyer said he had been denied medical treatment that was offered in June by a visiting European Union delegation. U.S.-based advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists Aug. 18 called for an independent inquiry into his death. n

Georgia Turkish Tanker Seized, Released. Mehmet

Ozturk, a Turkish sea captain who Sept. 1 had been sentenced by a Georgian court to 24 years in prison for trying to deliver a shipment of fuel to Abkhazia, a Russianaligned Georgian splinter region, was released Sept. 8. Georgia had instituted an economic embargo on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, following the country’s brief war with Russia in 2008. [See pp. 561A1, 534D2] The tanker captained by Ozturk, which had been carrying 2,700 tons of fuel to Sukhumi, the Abkhaz capital, had been intercepted Aug. 14 by the Georgian coast guard in the Black Sea. Georgian officials September 10, 2009

said the tanker, Buket, had been detained in Georgian waters, but Densa Tanker Isletmeciligi Ltd. Sti., the ship’s Turkish operator, claimed the vessel was seized at gunpoint in international waters. The court ordered Ozturk’s release after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Sept. 8 met in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, to discuss the case. Densa also said it paid $60,000 in fines to secure Ozturk’s release. U.S.-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Sept. 1 had reported that the rest of the ship’s crew had been released. Sergei Bagapsh, the separatist president of Abkhazia, Sept. 2 said he had issued an order to the Abkhaz navy to “destroy Georgian ships violating Abkhazia’s sea border.” Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili that day said there was no such thing as Abkhaz territorial waters because Abkhazia was part of Georgia. Utiashvili added that the Abkhaz navy “does not exist,” and that “if there is an attack on Georgian ships, Russia would be responsible, not the separatist government.” The Georgian coast guard had reportedly impounded five merchant ships thus far in 2009 from various countries that had transported goods to Abkhazia. Defense Minister Replaced—Saakashvili Aug. 27 appointed Bacho Akhalaia, 28, to serve as the country’s new defense minister. Akhalaia replaced Vasil (David) Sikharulidze, who had served as defense minister since December 2008. Akhalaia had headed Georgia’s prison system from 2005 to 2008, and was known as a Saakashvili loyalist. [See 2008, p. 927F3] n

Germany Merkel’s Party Loses State Elections. Ger-

man Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centerright party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), suffered heavy losses in two of three state elections held Aug. 30. The CDU was still widely favored to win national elections scheduled for Sept. 27, and keep the popular Merkel as chancellor, but the state election setbacks raised questions about whether the CDU would be able to form the ruling conservative coalition of its choice. [See p. 396E2] The CDU had governed Germany since 2005 as the senior partner in a “grand coalition” with its traditional rival, the centerleft Social Democratic Party (SPD). The two parties had joined forces after neither one won enough seats to form a coalition with a smaller party on its own side of the political spectrum. The CDU sought to win the national elections decisively enough to form a new coalition with a smaller party, the probusiness Free Democratic Party (FDP), and jettison the SPD from the government. But the state results raised doubts about whether the conservative parties would reach the necessary threshold of seats to govern by themselves. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD candidate for chancellor,

had warned on the campaign trail that a conservative ruling coalition would make Germany much like the U.S. under President George W. Bush. Merkel, meanwhile, had maintained a campaign strategy of avoiding direct attacks on Steinmeier and the SPD, and making few specific promises or proposals for a second term in office. Merkel ally Dieter Althaus Sept. 3 resigned as premier of the eastern state of Thuringia. The CDU, led by Althaus, Aug. 30 had lost its absolute majority in the state parliament for the first time in 10 years. The CDU also lost its absolute majority in the western state of Saarland. The third state to hold elections that day, Saxony, in the east, was the only one in which the CDU and the FDP won enough seats to form a ruling coalition together. The calculus of coalition-making at the national level was complicated by the SPD’s refusal to work with the Left party, founded in 2005 by former East German communists and West German leftists and labor unionists. The Left, led by former Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine, won more seats than the SPD in both Saxony and Thuringia, and 21% of the vote in Saarland, Lafontaine’s home state, where it had won just 2% in 2004 elections. A weekly nationwide Forsa poll for Stern magazine Sept. 9 showed the Left gaining on the major parties. The CDU led with 35%, down one percentage point from the previous week, trailed by the SPD with 21%, also down one point, the FDP unchanged at 14%, and the Left also at 14%, up four points. Afghanistan Air Strike Disputed— Merkel’s low-key campaign was buffeted by heavy criticism over civilian casualties in Afghanistan, caused by a Sept. 4 U.S. air strike called in by German troops who were deployed as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force. The Afghanistan mission had already been unpopular in Germany, with a majority of voters opposing it. [See p. 611G1] Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung of the CDU Sept. 6 had initially insisted that no civilians were killed in the air strike. But U.S. and NATO commanders had confirmed that at least some of the dead were civilians, which Jung admitted the next day. In an address to parliament, Merkel Sept. 8 said she regretted the civilian deaths, but declared that she refused to tolerate any “premature judgments” on the Sept. 4 incident, either in Germany or abroad. Germany had about 4,200 troops in Afghanistan, the third-largest deployment among NATO members, after the U.S. and Britain. But Germany had set rules for its troops’ operations that were meant to keep them out of combat and mostly confine them to peacekeeping duties, such as training Afghan forces or working on civil reconstruction projects. Germany was particularly cautious about foreign military commitments, due to historical sensitivities about the Nazi German aggression that started World War II. Neither Merkel nor Steinmeier had called for a timeline for withdrawing Ger607

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man troops from Afghanistan. But former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of the SPD at a campaign rally Sept. 5 called for a pullout by 2015. The Left was the only party in the German parliament to call for an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. In a speech in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, Lafontaine Sept. 9 said, “This war cannot be won.” He warned that the civilian deaths would incite terrorism. n

Great Britain Three Convicted in Airline Bomb Plot. A jury

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in Woolwich Crown Court in London Sept. 7 convicted three British Muslim men on charges of plotting to bomb seven transAtlantic passenger jets, using liquid explosives disguised as beverages. Five others were acquitted on some charges. The plot, uncovered by British and U.S. intelligence agencies, had also targeted various sites in London, including oil refineries and other infrastructure. British officials said they believed that the plot had been directed by senior operatives of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda based in Pakistan. [See 2008, p. 639D2] The verdicts came after a six-month retrial. A jury in a previous trial in September 2008 had rendered a mixed verdict, finding the same three men guilty of conspiracy to murder, but not guilty of the more serious charge of plotting to bomb the planes. The public disclosure of the plot in August 2006 had immediately prompted an international ban on liquids brought onto airplanes by passengers. The ban was lifted the next month, but restrictions on liquids in carry-on bags remained widely in effect. The three men found guilty of conspiring to bomb the planes were the alleged ringleader, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28; alleged bomb-maker Assad Sarwar, 29; and Tanvir Hussain, 28. Sentencing was set for Sept. 14. They faced a maximum penalty of life in prison. The jury Sept. 7 acquitted three other defendants of conspiracy to cause explosions on aircraft, and could not reach verdicts on charges of conspiracy to murder. Those defendants were Ibrahim Savant, 28; Arafat Waheed Khan, 28; and Waheed Zaman, 25. They were convicted only of conspiracy to cause public nuisance. Prosecutors said they would review the verdicts and decide whether to seek a third trial for those three defendants on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Umar Islam (a convert to Islam formerly known as Brian Young), 31, was convicted of conspiracy to murder, but the jury could not reach a verdict on whether he was involved in the plane-bombing plot to the extent of knowing the specific targets. An eighth man, Donald Stewart-Whyte, 23, another convert to Islam, was acquitted on both charges, but pleaded guilty to illegal firearms and cannabis possession. The defendants claimed that they had planned only harmless explosions at London’s Heathrow Airport, intended as a “political stunt” to protest British and U.S. foreign policy. 608

Prosecutors said the plot to bomb the seven planes within two and a half hours could have killed as many as 1,500 people. The plotters had prepared a mixture of chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, which they planned to carry onto the planes in sports drink bottles. They planned to assemble and detonate the explosives in mid-flight. The months-long investigation was said to have been the largest-scale counterterrorism operation in British history. The combined cost of the operation and the prosecution was reportedly £35 million ($70 million). Evidence—The prosecution introduced as evidence a computer memory stick containing information on Heathrow flight schedules and security, which Ali had been carrying when he was arrested. He had also written out details of the plot in a notebook. The plot targeted flights between Heathrow and airports in the U.S. and Canada. Investigators had placed a surveillance camera in an apartment in northeast London used by the plotters as a bomb factory. The camera recorded video footage of Ali and Hussain preparing the chemicals. Ali and Hussain had made videos in which they explained their motives for the attack, denouncing the U.S. and Britain for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other perceived injustices against Muslims. In his video, Ali warned that their attack would be followed by “floods of martyrdom operations.” Prosecutors said the statements were typical of the “martyrdom videos” often prerecorded by Islamist suicide bombers. The defendants claimed that the videos were part of a documentary they were making as part of their supposedly nonviolent political protest. Prosecutors said Ali had traveled several times to Pakistan for training. The Al Qaeda operative who contacted the plotters with instructions reportedly was Britishborn Rashid Rauf. He was believed to have been killed in November 2008 by a U.S. air strike in a Pakistani tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. [See 2008, p. 875C1] Electronic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly played a key role in detecting the plot, but the British legal system did not permit the use of intercepted communications as courtroom evidence. The difficulties that the two trials revealed in proving a terrorist conspiracy prompted some calls for a revision of the rules of evidence. Prosecutors were barred from using intercepted e-mail messages between the defendants as evidence in the first trial. They circumvented the rules in the retrial by using a court order to obtain the e-mails from U.S.-based Internet services company Yahoo Inc. n

Slovakia Law Restricting Minority Languages Enacted.

A new law that restricted the use of languages other than Slovak took effect Sept.

1. Under the legislation, citizens were required to speak Slovak when dealing with public officials, such as police or doctors. The law also included rules on how inscriptions on plaques, memorials and other public structures could be displayed. Violators could receive a fine of as much as $7,000, though it was unclear how strictly the law would be interpreted. The Slovakian parliament had passed the legislation June 30, and standards on its enforcement were expected by the end of the year. [See p. 497B3; 2001, p. 1054D2] About 10% of Slovakia’s population were ethnic Hungarians; a number of countries in the area had significant Hungarian minorities as a result of borders that were redrawn at the end of World War I and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Slovakia, which became independent from Czechoslovakia in 1993, had been ruled by the kingdom of Hungary for hundreds of years prior to World War I, and historic tensions endured between Hungary and Slovakia. [See 1997, p. 735C3] Ethnic Hungarians and others criticized the language law as discriminatory, but Slovak officials maintained that the legislation was not designed to discriminate against Hungarian-speakers. Slovakian leaders also noted that Knut Vollebaek, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) High Commissioner on National Minorities, had said the language law was in line with international norms. Hungary Aug. 3 said it would complain to the United Nations Human Rights Council about the law. The European Union, to which both countries belonged, had yet to weigh in on the dispute. Hungarian President Barred—Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom Aug. 21 was barred from entering Slovakia. He had planned to attend the private unveiling of a statue of medieval Hungarian king St. Stephen in the ethnic Hungarian border town of Komarno, Slovakia. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said Solyom’s visit was a “provocation” because it coincided with the 41st anniversary of the Soviet invasion of what was then Czechoslovakia, in which the Hungarian army had participated. Fico said Solyom could visit Slovakia on any other day, and Slovakian officials said they had repeatedly suggested to Solyom that he postpone his visit. The move to bar Solyom from entering Slovakia represented a break with the EU’s rules on freedom of movement. Both countries had joined the EU in 2004. n

European Business News GM Board Backs Opel, Vauxhall Sale. The board of U.S.-based automaker General Motors Corp. (GM) Sept. 10 said it had backed a deal to sell a majority stake in GM’s largest European units—Adam Opel, based in Germany, and Vauxhall, based in Britain—to a group led by Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc. The buyers’ group also included two Russian companies: stateowned bank OAO Sberbank and automaker OAO GAZ. [See p. 366F1] FACTS ON FILE

An earlier version of the deal had been announced in May, just before GM declared bankruptcy. But since the company emerged from bankruptcy protection in July, GM’s new board had looked into other options, including a rival bid from a Belgian investment firm, RHJ International SA. GM also raised the possibility of not selling the European units and restructuring them itself. GM had expressed concerns that its intellectual property might not be secure in Russian hands under the Magna deal. Under the terms of the deal set Sept. 10, GM would sell a 55% stake in Opel and Vauxhall to Magna and its partners. GM would retain a 35% stake, while employees would own 10%. The deal still required approval from labor unions after talks on restructuring Opel’s four plants in Germany. The German government had already provided 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in loans to help keep Opel operating. The government had said further financing would be offered only if GM completed the sale to Magna. German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed credit for the deal, which was seen as politically charged in the run-up to national elections in Germany at the end of September, with unemployment ranked as the top issue among voters. Merkel had pushed hard for the Magna deal, calling it the best option for preserving Opel’s 25,000 jobs in Germany. [See p. 607D2]n

Other European News Medvedev Criticizes Ukraine’s Yushchenko.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko made public Aug. 11, sharply criticized Yushchenko, accusing Ukraine of pursuing an “anti-Russian course.” Medvedev said Yushchenko had “consistently” sought to “break traditional economic ties with Russia, first and foremost in the energy sector.” [See p. 496B2] Medvedev said Ukraine had endangered Europe’s natural gas supply by failing to maintain friendly ties with Russia. (Most of the natural gas Russia shipped to Europe passed through Ukrainian pipelines, and disputes between the two countries over gas prices routinely caused disruptions further down the supply line.) [See p. 37C1] Medvedev went on to criticize Yushchenko’s push for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as Ukraine’s efforts to have its 1932– 33 famine recognized as a genocide. The famine, known in Ukraine as Holodomor, killed between two million and 10 million people, and was generally believed to have been caused by agricultural collectivization programs introduced by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Medvedev said he would postpone sending a new ambassador to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. He implied that only new Ukrainian leadership could facilitate improved relations between the countries. September 10, 2009

Yushchenko Aug. 13 said he was “deeply disappointed” by Medvedev’s “unfriendly” letter. Some observers suggested that Medvedev’s public critique was meant to influence the Ukrainian presidential election, which was scheduled for January 2010. Yushchenko was running for a second term, though his approval rating was currently in the low single digits. Russia Says Ukraine Aided Georgia—

The Russian prosecutor general’s office, in an Aug. 24 statement, said it had “irrefutable evidence” that Ukraine had sent troops to fight on the Georgian side during the brief war between Georgia and Russia in 2008. The office said, “Soldiers from Ukraine’s regular defense ministry detachments and at least 200 members of the UNA-UNSO [Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense] nationalist organization took part in the armed aggression against South Ossetia,” one of two Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions. Russia made the claim on Ukraine’s independence day. [See p. 534D2] Ukraine’s defense ministry said no Ukrainian soldiers had taken part in the war, but added that it was possible that Ukrainian citizens fought on the Georgian side. UNA-UNSO also said the charges “regrettably” were not true, it was reported Aug. 25. n Animal Rights Radicals Target Novartis CEO.

Suspected animal rights extremists Aug. 3 set fire to the family vacation home of Daniel Vasella, chief executive of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG, in Austria. In July, the graves of his mother and other relatives had been desecrated in his hometown in Switzerland, and graffiti, including the slogan “Death to Vasella,” was spray-painted around the town. [See 2007, p. 84E1; 2004, p. 1065D1] The Austrian interior ministry said a group known as Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences had claimed responsibility for the attacks. Extremists in Britain had made a number of attacks in recent years against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a British company that tested drugs and other products on animals. HLS did not identify the drugmakers for which it conducted testing, but Novartis said it had not hired HLS in years. Vasella in an interview on the U.S. cable television channel CNBC Aug. 11 denounced the attacks as a form of “terrorism,” saying, “These people tried to hinder medical progress and stand in front of new medicines for patients.” Analysts said a crackdown by British authorities on animal rights violence appeared to have driven extremist activities onto Continental Europe. The homes and automobiles of several other Novartis board members and employees had been vandalized in recent months in Switzerland and Germany. Employees of other drugmakers had been victims of similar attacks in Belgium. Dutch intelligence officials had reported that a series of arson attacks in the

Netherlands in late 2008 had targeted employees of stock market operator NYSE Euronext, apparently because HLS’s parent company, Life Science Research Inc., listed its shares on NYSE’s Arca exchange. Anonymous extremists had claimed on the Internet that they had vandalized the homes of employees of British bank Barclays PLC in Paris and London, alleging that Barclays units owned shares in Life Sciences Research. n

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Iran Parliament Approves Ahmadinejad Cabinet.

The Iranian parliament Sept. 3 confirmed 18 of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 21 nominees for his cabinet. They included Marzieh Vadi Dastgerdi, a conservative politician and gynecologist whose appointment as health minister made her Iran’s first female minister since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The confirmation of most of Ahmadinejad’s choices was seen as shoring up his power, and indicating a measure of reconciliation between him and parliament. Legislators had previously predicted that parliament would reject more cabinet nominees, many of whom they described as unqualified Ahmadinejad cronies. [See p. 562E1] Legislators narrowly voted to reject Mohammad Ali-Abadi as the nominee for energy minister. Two female nominees— Fatemeh Ajorlou, for welfare minister, and Sousan Keshavarz, for education minister—were rejected by wide margins. Ahmadinejad cast the rejections in a positive light, as a sign that parliament was an effective check on the government’s power. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi was approved to head the defense ministry by 227 legislators out of the 286 present, the most of any nominee. The international police agency Interpol had sought Vahidi for questioning in connection with the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina, which killed 85 people. His overwhelming approval was seen as a reaction against international condemnation of his nomination. Current Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was confirmed as interior minister, and Heidar Moslehi was confirmed as intelligence minister. Najjar had close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, while Moslehi had served as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s representative to the Basij paramilitary force; both groups had played a large role in violently suppressing protests after a disputed presidential election in June. A Web site linked to parliament speaker Ali Larijani Sept. 2 reported that legislators had been told that Khamenei “would like all proposed ministers to get votes of confidence.” Opposition Offices Raided—Iranian authorities Sept. 7–8 raided offices linked to former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, reformist candi609

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dates who had run against Ahmadinejad in the June election. Moussavi and Karroubi had subsequently become leaders of the opposition movement that sprang up as allegations emerged that the Iranian government had rigged the election results. Authorities also arrested two prominent opposition figures—Alireza Hosseini-Beheshti, Moussavi’s top aide, and Morteza Alviri—and sealed the office of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, an organization founded by journalist and prominent human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi. The raids were seen as a possible step toward the arrest and prosecution of Moussavi and Karroubi, which Ahmadinejad had called for in an Aug. 28 speech. (However, Khamenei Aug. 26 had denied claims that the opposition leaders were in league with foreign countries seeking to overthrow Iran.) A mass trial of hundreds of other alleged dissidents was ongoing, and had featured defendants reading confessions and apologies to the government that the opposition said were coerced. Prosecutors at a trial hearing Aug. 25 called for the judge to ban Iran’s two largest reformist political parties, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organization. The raids and trial were part of a continuing crackdown by the government since the election unrest. Opposition Web sites Sept. 4–5 reported that universities had begun to suspend or otherwise discipline students who had participated in the protests. Also, the Washington Post Sept. 7 reported that the government had canceled or scaled down several religious events during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, reportedly over fears that they would give opposition figures a platform to attack the government and spark renewed protests. Abuse Said to Have Killed Prisoner—

The semiofficial Mehr News Agency Aug. 31 reported that a prisoner arrested in the election protests had died of abuse while in jail. The victim, Mohsen Ruholamini, 25, had reportedly died of “physical stress, conditions of imprisonment, repeated blows and harsh physical treatment,” according to “informed sources.” Ruholamini’s father was an adviser to Mohsen Rezai, a conservative candidate in the presidential election, and his death had outraged many Iranian conservatives. The reform movement alleged that at least 69 people had been killed in the postelection crackdown, while the government put the death toll at 30. Analysts said the apparent admission that Ruholamini’s death was due to abuse was part of Khamenei’s strategy to defuse the political crisis caused by the election turmoil. (The chief of Iran’s judiciary, Sadeq Larijani, Aug. 29 had appointed a parliamentary committee to look into the prison abuse allegations and the post-election unrest, but the panel Sept. 9 said it would cede that role to a military court.) Iran’s judiciary Aug. 31 released Hamzeh Ghalebi, a legislator close to Moussavi 610

whose health had deteriorated while he was held in solitary confinement for two months. n

Iraq Truck Bombing in Kurdish North Kills 20.

A truck bomb early Sept. 10 exploded in the Iraqi Kurdish village of Wardek, outside of Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, killing at least 20 people and flattening numerous buildings. Iraqi authorities said they had stopped a second truck bomb from detonating, shooting the driver after he began acting suspiciously at a security checkpoint. Sunni Muslim insurgent groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq remained strong in Nineveh, and reportedly had carried out attacks to fan sectarian tensions between the area’s Kurdish and Arab populations. [See p. 592A1] In other violence, a car bomb Sept. 9 killed eight members of a family in Kirkuk, a northern city whose control was disputed by its various ethnic groups. A roadside bombing Sept. 8 killed a U.S. soldier in southern Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and another roadside bomb in northern Iraq killed three U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military said. It was the highest number of U.S. deaths in Iraq in one day since June. A suicide bomber Sept. 7 detonated his truck bomb at an Iraqi checkpoint in Ramadi, in the western province of Anbar, killing at least seven people, including at least four police officers. Also that day, a bomb attached to a minivan blew up after crossing a checkpoint in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. Former U.S. Soldier Jailed for Life—

U.S. Judge Thomas Russell in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky., Sept. 4 formally sentenced former U.S. Army soldier Steven Green to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Green in May had been convicted of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and killing her and three of her family members, in the Iraqi town of Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, but the jury had been unable to agree to execute him, and the life sentences were automatically imposed. Green at the sentencing told Russell that he had been following orders from other soldiers present at the attack. [See p. 362F2] Other News—In other Iraqi news: o Iraqi police officials Sept. 4 said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had deployed thousands of security forces to the Syrian border, after Iraq’s government accused Syria of harboring two suspects in an August bombing in Baghdad that had killed nearly 100 people. Syria had refused Iraq’s request to extradite the suspects. The Iraqi government Sept. 8 announced that 29 police and army officers had been charged with negligence in allowing the bombers to carry out the attack. [See p. 592E2] o A court in Baghdad Sept. 2 sentenced four suspects in a fatal bank robbery to death, and acquitted a fifth suspect. Four

more suspects in the case—in which the robbers had tied up and executed eight guards and stolen $4.3 million from a Baghdad bank—had reportedly disappeared from custody. Some of the suspects were bodyguards of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, and the case had caused a controversy over the alleged complicity of Mahdi and other Shiite politicians in the robbery. [See p. 529B2] o The Iraqi government Sept. 2 said the remains of one of five British hostages captured by Iraqi insurgents in 2007 had been returned to British authorities in Baghdad. The remains had not been identified, but were believed to be of one of two hostages who the British government in July had said were dead; the remains of two others had been found in June, while a fifth was believed to still be alive. The remains were reportedly returned as part of truce negotiations between the Iraqi government and a Shiite extremist group—Asa’ib al-Haq, which meant League of the Righteous— said to be behind the kidnapping. [See p. 530A1] n

Lebanon Hariri Drops Unity Government Bid.

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri Sept. 10 announced he was stepping down from his post, after failing to form a unity government with opposition groups. Hariri had led the March 14 Movement, a pro-Western coalition, to victory over the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah and its allies in June parliamentary elections. President Michel Suleiman had appointed Hariri as the country’s prime minister later in June, charging him with the task of assembling a unity government. [See p. 450A2] Earlier in the week, Hariri had proposed a cabinet, which Hezbollah rejected. The rival coalitions had agreed upon a cabinet consisting of 30 ministers, with 15 from the March 14 Movement, 10 from Hezbollah and five selected by Suleiman. However, the individual selections proved much more contentious over the 10-week negotiations. Suleiman would have to make another nomination for prime minister following a round of consultations with parliament. It was expected that he would reappoint Hariri. n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Partial Election Recount Ordered. Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission Sept. 8 ordered a partial recount of ballots from the country’s August presidential election, saying it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at numerous polling stations. The announcement came the same day that the Independent Elections Commission said President Hamid Karzai had received 54% of the vote from a tally of nearly 92% of the country’s polling stations. Karzai needed at least 50% of FACTS ON FILE

the vote to avoid a runoff with his main rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who had thus far received 28% of the vote. [See p. 594F1] Claims of widespread ballot-stuffing had grown since election day, with international observers saying that most of the fraud had been conducted in favor of Karzai. It was widely reported that thousands of ballots marked for Karzai had been submitted by polling stations that had never opened, or by stations that did not actually exist. The Electoral Complaints Commission—which was comprised of two Afghans and three international observers appointed by the United Nations— was currently investigating about 700 fraud claims. The commission said recounts were needed at polling stations where one candidate had received more than 95% of the vote, or where turnout reached or exceeded 100% of registered voters. The Independent Elections Commission—whose members had been appointed by Karzai—said the recount could take several months to complete. The elections commission Sept. 6 had said it would exclude ballots from nearly 450 polling stations due to fraud concerns. However, the commission the following day abruptly changed course and included the tainted ballots, adding hundreds of thousands of possibly fraudulent votes to the count and potentially handing Karzai the simple majority he needed to avoid a runoff. It was reported that the commission had come under pressure from Karzai’s supporters, but officials with the commission denied such accusations. A spokesman for Abdullah Sept. 8 said, “We do not accept these results,” and Abdullah in recent days had described the election as a “state-engineered fraud.” Karzai Sept. 9 said he “welcomed the partial election results,” and praised the elections commission for its “impartial and faithful national spirit.” Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Sept. 8 called for a “complete and vigorous vetting” of the election results. He added, “It is very important that these elections are seen as legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people and in the eyes of the international community.” Analysts said the accusations of fraud could undermine the U.S.’s attempts to work with Karzai’s government—if he won reelection—to combat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. By the end of 2009, the U.S. was expected to have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan. [See p. 593B3] Civilians Reportedly Killed by Air Strike—

A U.S. air strike called in by a German commander Sept. 4 reportedly killed dozens of people in the village of Omar Kheil, in northern Kunduz province. The strike, aimed at Taliban militants who had seized two fuel tankers, immediately became controversial after it was reported that several civilians had also been killed. There were conflicting accounts of the total death toll, which varied from a few dozen to more than 100. The number of civilians reported September 10, 2009

killed ranged from a handful to as many as 70. [See p. 546E3] U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, that day promised an investigation into the attack, saying, “I take this possible loss of life or injury to innocent Afghans very seriously.” Since becoming the top commander in June, McChrystal had emphasized the need to protect Afghanistan’s civilian population, and had restricted the use of air strikes in an effort to limit civilian casualties. High civilian death tolls had stoked broad popular anger against coalition forces, which had been accused of using powerful air strikes with reckless disregard for civilian lives. Karzai that day said he was “deeply saddened” by the incident, adding, “Targeting civilian men and women is not acceptable.” German military officials came under heavy Afghan and international criticism for the strike, especially after German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung Sept. 6 said “only Taliban terrorists” had been killed, a claim he later retracted after NATO acknowledged that some civilians had likely died. Jung had also said the strikes were “absolutely necessary” and based on “very detailed information” that the Taliban was planning on using the tankers to attack a German base in Kunduz. (There were conflicting reports as to why civilians were at the scene, with some media outlets reporting that they were siphoning fuel for themselves, and others saying they had been helping the Taliban unload the fuel.) U.S. military officials had reportedly suggested that German forces violated McChrystal’s new restrictions on air strikes, and had failed to properly investigate the scene after the strike. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Sept. 5 said the strike was “a big mistake.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel Sept. 8 shot back that she would not tolerate “premature judgments,” while also saying “every innocent person who dies in Afghanistan is one too many.” [See p. 607D3] The episode appeared to exacerbate continuing disagreements between coalition forces. Germany currently had 4,200 troops in Afghanistan, the third-largest of any coalition member, but their activities were largely restricted to civilian reconstruction projects and training Afghan police in the relatively peaceful north. That left the heavy fighting in the east and south to other members of the coalition, including the U.S., Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. The restrictions on German troops were driven by weak popular support for the war effort in Germany, and analysts said the latest incident could undermine any attempts by Merkel to keep Germany’s deployment at its current level. NATO Sept. 8 announced that Canadian Maj. Gen. C.S. Sullivan would head the investigation into the air strike. Brown Defends British War Effort—

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Sept. 4 defended Britain’s military involvement in the country, saying the mission to stabilize Afghanistan was “realistic and

achievable,” and vital to national security interests. British public support for the war had dipped in recent months due to a rising number of British casualties and questions over whether the war was worth such sacrifices. Brown’s speech came a day after an aide to British Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth resigned in protest of the war, highlighting internal divisions over Afghan policy within Brown’s ruling Labour Party. [See p. 594D2] Brown also called on NATO allies to contribute more to the fight in Afghanistan, saying, “While it is right that we play our part, so, too, must others take their fair share of this burden of responsibility.” Brown was thought to be referring to European countries that had long resisted boosting troop levels, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Britain currently had 9,100 troops in Afghanistan, the second-most of any NATO member. Brown and Merkel Sept. 6 called for a U.N. conference to discuss transferring security responsibilities in Afghanistan to the government there. The two leaders, speaking in Berlin, the German capital, said the conference could also be a venue to increase coordination on military and civilian reconstruction efforts. French President Nicolas Sarkozy also reportedly supported the conference, while the U.S. government did not immediately comment on the proposal. Journalist Rescued; Translator Killed—

British special forces Sept. 9 rescued a British-Irish journalist with the New York Times who had been captured by the Taliban Sept. 5, in a raid that killed his Afghan translator. The journalist, Stephen Farrell, and his translator, Sultan Munadi, had been kidnapped while investigating the air strike in Kunduz. The raid also killed one British commando and at least one other Afghan civilian. [See p. 434D3] The Times Sept. 10 reported that the raid was ordered after it became clear that the Taliban was considering moving Farrell, 46, and Munadi, 34, to neighboring Pakistan. The Times, citing Farrell, said the Taliban constantly changed its captives’ location to avoid detection. Farrell said the kidnappers fled once the raid on their hideout began, and that he and Munadi left shortly thereafter. He said Munadi was cut down in the midst of a firefight as he tried to identify himself as a journalist, and that it was unclear whether the Taliban or British forces had killed him. Farrell said, “He was trying to protect me up to the last minute.” The rescue came under criticism from Afghan journalists, who said it proved that the coalition was more concerned with protecting Westerners than Afghans. It recalled a 2007 incident in which an Italian journalist was freed from captivity in exchange for Taliban prisoners, while his translator and driver were left to die. Brown Sept. 9 said the operation had been carried out “after extreme planning and consideration,” and sent his condolences to Munadi’s family. [See 2007, p. 233F2] The Times did not report the kidnapping and asked other media outlets to follow 611

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suit, over fears that publicity could endanger the captives’ lives. The Times had made the same request during the kidnapping of U.S. journalist David Rohde, who had escaped from the Pakistani Taliban in June after seven months in captivity. Other Developments—In other developments in Afghanistan: o The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, an aid agency, Sept. 7 accused U.S. troops of raiding one of its hospitals in Wardak province in pursuit of Taliban fighters. The agency said the troops had tied up its staff members and claimed that the U.S. military would decide who could be treated at the hospital from then on. U.S. officials the following day denied the charges, saying the troops had not threatened anyone or tied anyone up. o The amount of land used to cultivate opium poppies—from which the drug heroin was made—had decreased 22% in Afghanistan in 2009 from the previous year, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reported Sept. 3 in its annual survey of Afghan opium production. The decline was largely attributed to an oversupply of opium on the global market, which had brought down prices and reduced demand. The decline was also helped by NATO efforts to encourage Afghan farmers to produce other crops. However, the opium industry remained a central element of the Afghan economy, and a source of revenue for the Taliban. Afghanistan produced 90% of the world’s opium. [See p. 466C2] n

India First Moon Mission Ended. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the

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national space agency, Aug. 31 announced that it was ending the country’s first moon mission after losing radio contact with the unmanned Chandrayaan-1 orbiter Aug. 29. Chandrayaan-1 had been launched in October 2008 to take three-dimensional pictures of the moon’s surface and scan for natural resources. The mission had been expected to last two years, but ended after only 312 days, with the satellite making 3,400 orbits around the moon. ISRO officials said the satellite had completed almost all of its objectives, including capturing 70,000 images of the moon. [See 2008, p. 766D2] n

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Eight Christians Killed in Riots. Thousands of Muslim rioters in the town of Gojra, in the eastern province of Punjab, July 30– Aug. 1 set fire to more than 100 houses in a Christian community, and killed as many as eight Christians, six of whom were burned alive. The riots started after Christians were accused of desecrating a Koran, a charge that government officials said was baseless. At least 12 people had been arrested as of Aug. 2, and authorities said banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Sipah-i-Sahaba had stoked the violence. The incident raised questions about the government’s commitment to protecting 612

minority religious groups in Pakistan, which was overwhelmingly Muslim. [See 2005, p. 882E1; 2003, p. 840E2] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Soccer Sky Blue Win Inaugural WPS Title. Sky Blue FC, based in New Jersey, Aug. 22 defeated the Los Angeles Sol, 1–0, in Carson, Calif., to win the inaugural championship of Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), a new women’s league. [See 2003, p. 860B1] The seven-team WPS filled the void left by the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) league, which had folded in 2003. It featured many of the same players, including international stars such as Brazil’s Marta, who had been named the world player of the year by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) three years in a row, and played for the Sol. [See p. 159D3] The league March 29 had kicked off its first season with a 2–0 victory by the Sol over the Washington Freedom in Carson in front of a crowd of 14,832 fans. The Sol at the end of the regular season Aug. 9 had the best record in the league, with 12 wins, three losses and five ties. n

Baseball California Team Wins Little League Title.

A team from Chula Vista, Calif., Aug. 30 defeated a team from Taoyuan, Taiwan, 6– 3, in South Williamsport, Pa., to win the Little League World Series. It was the fifth straight championship won by a U.S. team. On Aug. 29, Chula Vista had defeated a team from San Antonio, Texas, 12–2, and the Taiwanese team beat a team from Reynosa, Mexico, 9–4, to advance to the title game. [See 2008, p. 995C2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Pop singer Michael Jackson, who died in Los Angeles in late June at age 50, was buried Sept. 3 in a marble mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, a cemetery in Glendale, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb. It was reported that some 200 invited guests, including two longtime friends of the singer, actress Elizabeth Taylor, 77, and actor Macaulay Culkin, 29, attended the funeral. Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, 54, spoke at the funeral, and soul singer Gladys Knight, 65, sang. Four days earlier, on Aug. 30, the day before Jackson would have turned 51, the Los Angeles coroner’s office announced that it had classified his death as a homicide and had determined that two drugs administered by his doctor, the anesthetic propofol (Diprivan) and the sedative lorazepam (Ativan), were “the primary drugs responsible for” his death. The case was still being probed by the police. [See pp. 580A2, 468D1; 2005, pp. 326G2, D3– E3, 107G2; 1997, pp. 140A2, 116B2] The ABC television network Sept. 2 announced that journalist Charles Gibson, 66,

who since May 2006 had been the sole anchor of the network’s evening news program “World News,” had decided to retire at year’s end. Gibson would be replaced by Diane Sawyer, 63, a longtime host of its “Good Morning America” show. Sawyer would become only the second solo female news anchor in network TV history; Katie Couric had been anchoring “CBS Evening News” since September 2006. [See 2007, p. 90D2; 2006, pp. 439G3, 267D3; 2005, p. 368E1] n

O B I T UA R I E S BROWN, Ernest (Brownie), 93, diminutive tap dancer (under five feet tall) who was a founding member of the Original Copasetics, a group formed in 1949, after the death of leading tap dancer Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, to help keep the tap-dancing tradition alive; he was also part of a long-running tap-dancing, comedy and tumbling act, called Cook and Brown, that appeared in leading clubs in cities such as New York, London and Paris; his partner in that act, Charlie Cook, died in 1991; born April 25, 1916 in Chicago; died Aug. 21 at a nursing home in Burbank, Ill., of prostate cancer. [See 1949, p. 384J] CONNOR, Chris (born Mary Jean Loutsenhizer),

81, jazz singer who recorded a number of 1950s and 1960s solo albums, including I Miss You So (1956) and A Portrait of Chris (1960), that came to be regarded as pop-jazz classics; her signature song was “All About Ronnie,” a ballad by Joe Greene that she recorded with the Stan Kenton Orchestra before embarking on a solo career in 1953; born Nov. 8, 1927, in Kansas City, Mo.; died Aug. 29 at a hospital in Toms River, N.J., of cancer. [See 1979, p. 671F2] FAWEHINMI, Gani(yu Oyesola) , 71, Nigerian lawyer and human rights activist; fearless in his defense of leftists and leftist causes, he was frequently harassed or beaten, and sometimes jailed; he cofounded the country’s National Conscience Party in 1994 and was its presidential candidate in 2003; born April 22, 1938, in Ondo, Nigeria; died Sept. 5, after a twoyear battle with lung cancer. [See 1998, pp. 461F2, 385E1; 1996, p. 1008E2; Indexes 1992–93] KELTON, Elmer Stephen, 83, prolific author of westerns whose peers, the members of the Western Writers of America, voted him the greatest western writer of all time in 1995; one of his most highly regarded books was The Time It Never Rained (1973), a fictional account of a drought that ravaged Texas farm country in the 1950s; born April 29, 1926, on a ranch near Andrews, Texas; died Aug. 22 at a nursing home in San Angelo, Texas, of multiple causes. MIKHALKOV, Sergei Vladimirovich, 96, Russian author of children’s verse, satirical fables, plays, screenplays and memoirs who was a pillar of the Soviet literary establishment; he was commissioned to write new lyrics for the Soviet national anthem in 1943, and altered those lyrics twice, in 1977, before the demise of the Soviet Union, and in 2000, at the behest of then–Russian President Vladimir Putin; he was the father of film directors Nikita Mikhalkov and Andrei Konchalovsky; born March 12, 1913, in Moscow; died Aug. 27 in a Moscow hospital; he had long battled heart problems. [See p. 211B3; 2000, p. 1033A2; 1990, p. 232F2; Indexes 1970, 1968, 1965, 1944] POIRIER, Richard William, 83, essayist and literary and cultural critic who taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey for many years; he founded the literary journal Raritan: A Quarterly Review at Rutgers in 1981 and was one of the founders of the Library of America, a nonprofit publisher of the collected works of major U.S. authors that since 1982 had issued nearly 200 volumes; born Sept. 9, 1925, in Gloucester, Mass.; died Aug. 15 at a hospital in New York City, of injuries suffered in a fall at his home. WILSON, Margaret Bush (born Margaret Berenice Bush), 90, civil rights lawyer who was the first

black woman to chair the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); she held the post from 1975 to 1983, when she was forced out after she was deemed to have abused her authority by dismissing then–NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks without the consent of the rest of board, which had him reinstated; born Jan. 30, 1919, in St. Louis, Mo.; died Aug. 11 at a St. Louis hospital, of multiple organ failure. [See 1983, pp. 543F3, 473C3, 409E2–B3, 388E1-G1, 385D1; 1982, p. 493G1, D2; Index 1975] n

September 10, 2009

U.S. President Obama Abandons Eastern Europe Missile Defense Shield New Plan to Focus on Short-Range Threat.

U.S. President Barack Obama Sept. 17 announced that his administration, on the advice of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would abandon plans introduced by former President George W. Bush to build a defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland to protect against longrange nuclear missiles from Iran. Instead, Obama said his administration planned to implement a new missile defense system that would “provide stronger, smarter and swifter defenses” than the previous plan would have. [See pp. 591D3, 453D3, 217B3] The Bush plan, which the Obama administration had been reviewing prior to Obama’s announcement, focused on deterring long-range Iranian missiles. Obama said the new system would instead deploy sensors and interceptors to protect against short- and medium-range missiles from Iran. Gates said, “The intelligence community now assesses that the threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range ballistic missiles…is developing more rapidly than previously projected.” He added that Iranian development of long-range missiles had slowed in recent years. Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Bush plan had been ineffective against short- and medium-range missiles. Under the Obama plan, by 2011, U.S. Navy ships equipped with SM-3 interceptors would be deployed to the eastern Mediterranean and North seas. By 2015, the marine interceptors would be updated and land-based SM-3 interceptors would be deployed, allowing the defense system to cover more ground. The interceptors would be upgraded again in 2018, and by 2020 were expected to be capable of intercepting long-range missiles. A radar station was also expected to be constructed in the Caucasus region as part of the plan. While some missile defense equipment envisioned in the Bush plan had never been tested or had failed to perform properly in tests, Obama emphasized that the new system was “proven and cost-effective.” SM3 missiles had been successfully tested eight times—in one case, to shoot down a satellite. Administration officials said the new system would be deployed up to seven years sooner than the Bush plan had mandated. Russia had strongly opposed Bush’s plan to build a powerful radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland, arguing that the system could be used to compromise its defenses. While the Czech and Polish governments had supported the Bush plan as a symbol of U.S. commitment to Eastern Europe and for its potential to protect against Russian aggression, public support for the systems in both countries had been low. Obama emphasized that his decision to modify the missile defense plans was based on security concerns, updated intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program and newly available technology, rather than pressure from

the Russian government. Obama also insisted that Russian concerns over the Bush plan were “entirely unfounded.” However, Cartwright later said the radar station in the Czech Republic that Bush had proposed would have had “a very deep peering capability into Russia.” Gates said Russia “simply cannot…rationally argue” that SM-3 interceptors posed a threat to it. The Russian foreign ministry confirmed that it had not been involved in any kind of deal with the U.S. that prompted Obama’s decision. A number of observers suggested that by modifying the missile defense plans, Obama had removed a potential obstacle from planned negotiations over renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a program that limited the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. The treaty, which had been in force since 1991, expired in December 2008. Also, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said the U.S. was still planning to deploy Patriot missiles to Poland, as it had promised in 2008. U.S. administration officials confirmed his claim. Obama also did not rule eventually out stationing components of the new system in the Czech Republic and Poland. [See 2008, p. 568E1] Reaction—Reaction to Obama’s Sept. 17 announcement that he would retool the missile defense program was mixed. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Obama had made “a responsible move.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the decision “a positive step.” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Obama’s “brilliant” decision was “a giant step forward.” Mirek Topolanek, the former Czech prime minister who had negotiated the missile defense deal with the Bush administration, said Obama’s decision to modify the missile defense system “puts us in a position that we in Central Europe have known for the last 100 years: we’re not anchored by a strong security partner, a strong ally…I see that as a threat.” (Topolanek had resigned in March after the Czech Republic’s lower house of parliament had passed a no-confidence resolution on his leadership. The country was currently being administered by a caretaker government.) [See p. 188A2] U.S. Republicans were also critical of Obama’s decision. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said Obama’s decision “does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe.” John Bolton, who had served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in the Bush administration, criticized Obama’s move as a “concession to the Russians with absolutely nothing in return.” Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), whom Obama had defeated in 2008’s presidential election, said the decision to scrap the Bush plan called into question the U.S.’s commitment to Poland and the Czech Republic “at a time when Eastern European nations are increasingly wary of renewed Russian

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3587 September 17, 2009

B adventurism.” He suggested that U.S. influence in Eastern Europe might decline as a consequence. McCain added that the U.S. “should look to strengthen our defenses, and those of our allies…I believe the decision to abandon [missile defense] unilaterally is seriously misguided.” A number of media outlets pointed out that Obama’s decision to abandon the Bush plan somewhat awkwardly coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland during World War II. n

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U.S. and Iran Agree to Face-to-Face Nuclear Talks Five Other Nations to Join Negotiations.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama Sept. 11 said that it would accept Iran’s offer to hold face-to-face

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama abandons Eastern Europe missile defense shield; new plan to focus on short-range threat. PAGE 613

U.S. and Iran agree to face-to-face nuclear talks. PAGE 613

U.N. report finds Israeli, Hamas war crimes in Gaza.

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Sen. Baucus formally releases health care reform proposal. PAGE 617

Obama pushes Wall Street to accept reform. PAGE 618

U.S. strike in Somalia kills reputed terrorist leader. PAGE 622

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Hatoyama takes office as Japanese prime minister. PAGE 624

Taiwanese prime minister, cabinet quit over typhoon response. PAGE 625

British court sentences airline bomb plotters to life. PAGE 626

Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei warns opposition in speech. PAGE 628

Del Potro, Clijsters win tennis’s U.S. Open. PAGE 631

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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talks, and said the talks would include discussion of Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Iran Sept. 14 agreed to the talks, which European Union officials said would take place Oct. 1. In addition to Iran and the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany would take part in the talks. Iran said that its nuclear program was for civilian purposes, but the U.S. and its allies claimed that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons. [See pp. 613A1, 599G1] Iran in early September had presented the six negotiating nations with a five-page proposal for negotiations. Posted Sept. 10 on the Web site of the ProPublica news service, it addressed broad international issues, including universal nuclear disarmament, but U.S. officials complained that it did not specifically discuss Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. had previously offered Iran a “freeze for freeze” deal, in which Iran would stop enriching uranium in exchange for a halt on new United Nations sanctions. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi Sept. 14 said, “Talks will focus on disarmament and international concerns, not the Iranian rights enshrined by the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” referring to what Iran said was its right to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear power generation. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Sept. 15 insisted that the U.S. was intent on discussing “the questions surrounding [Iran’s] nuclear program and ambitions.” Saying, “We have no illusions about the Iranian government,” she added that the Obama administration would not be sidetracked by diplomatic stalling. Obama had pledged to hold face-to-face talks with Iran, and the meeting would be the first direct one between U.S. and Iranian diplomats since he took office in January. U.S. President George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, had at first rejected direct contacts between the two countries, but in July 2008 had sent an envoy to attend talks between Iranian and EU diplomats. [See 2008, p. 510C3] n

Middle East U.N. Finds Israeli, Hamas War Crimes in Gaza.

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A United Nations fact-finding team Sept. 15 reported that both Israel and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) had committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during fighting in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. It called on Israel and Hamas to carry out independent investigations of the alleged crimes, and said that if either side refused, the U.N. Security Council should refer the evidence to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. [See pp. 593A3, 546C2] The U.N. report looked at what it said were 36 representative cases that took place during the conflict, rather than at the conflict as a whole. It said that Israeli forces had directly attacked civilians in 11 cases, and that in 10 of those cases there was “no justifiable military objective” for the attack. It said the Israeli assault on

Gaza was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” Alleged Israeli crimes included in the report included: shooting civilians who had displayed white flags; making Palestinians serve as human shields at gunpoint in order to enter unsecured buildings; destroying vital civilian infrastructure, including water, sewage and food-production facilities; bombing areas with significant numbers of civilians to kill disproportionately small numbers of militants; and using weapons such as white phosphorus—a chemical compound used to create smokescreens, but that could also cause severe burns—in a “systematically reckless” manner in urban areas. The report said Israel had counted 1,166 Palestinian deaths during the conflict, while Hamas had counted 1,444. It did not say how many of the dead were civilians. The report accused Hamas of firing rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel in a manner that “was deliberate and calculated to cause loss of life and injury to civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure,” and of deliberately operating from densely populated urban areas. Israel said the Hamas bombardment during the conflict had killed three civilians and a soldier in Israel; nine more Israeli soldiers had been killed by fighting in Gaza, including four by friendly fire. The report also said Hamas and its rival Palestinian movement Fatah had both violated human rights by carrying out political attacks, including assassinations and torture, against each other’s members. The 15-member team was led by Richard Goldstone, a former South African Constitutional Court judge who had been the U.N.’s chief prosecutor for war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The 574-page report was released in advance of its formal presentation Sept. 29, to give members of the U.N. Human Rights Council time to study it. Israel Rejects Report—The Israeli foreign ministry Sept. 15 rejected the report as one-sided, and said the Human Rights Council had long been biased against Israel. Israel had refused to cooperate with the U.N. investigation. However, investigators had entered Gaza through Egypt after being denied access through Israel, and Israeli witnesses to the Hamas bombardment were flown out of Israel to give testimony in Switzerland. Israeli officials Sept. 16 continued their criticism of the report. Israeli President Shimon Peres said the report “draws no distinction between the attacker and the attacked” and “essentially grants legitimacy to acts of terrorism.” Israel had said it had invaded Gaza in self-defense, in order to stop the rocket bombardment by Hamas and other militant groups. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sept. 16 said Israel would not carry out an inde-

pendent investigation of the allegations, as called for by the report. He said Israeli military inquiries already under way were “a thousand times more serious” than the U.N. investigation. [See p. 312D3] Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to Hamas’s government in Gaza, Sept. 16 said local authorities would investigate the allegations. However, he said Hamas had fired rockets at Israel in self-defense, and that Israeli civilians had been killed because the Palestinians only had “primitive weapons, and with such weapons, mistakes are to be expected.” Little Progress Seen on Restarting Talks—

The U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, Sept. 15–16 met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but did not announce progress toward restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Mitchell called for Israel to freeze construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and for moderate Arab nations to offer Israel incentives in exchange such as allowing Israeli trade offices to reopen and Israeli airliners to use their airspace. [See p. 593E1] Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Sept. 7 authorized plans to build 455 new homes in West Bank settlements, mostly in areas that Israel intended to retain after the foundation of any Palestinian state. However, Israeli officials Sept. 4 had also indicated that Israel planned to freeze construction for six to nine months, in order to placate the U.S. and Arab nations and help to restart the peace talks. The plans were criticized both by Israeli settler groups and by Palestinian, U.S. and Arab officials. PA Economy Minister Bassem Khoury and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan

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Shalom Sept. 2 held talks in Jerusalem on economic cooperation. The meeting was the first between cabinet-level PA and Israeli officials since Netanyahu took office in March. Other News—In related news: o PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Sept. 16 in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said that because some donor countries had not followed through with their promises of aid, the PA faced a $400 million deficit through the end of 2009, on its $3.2 billion budget. The PA had requested $1.5 billion in aid for 2009; the aid request was reduced from $1.7 billion in 2008, when it had a $2.8 billion budget, because of the West Bank’s growing economy. [See p. 123C2] o Two rockets Sept. 11 were fired into Israel from Lebanon, and Israeli forces fired back in response. No one was hurt in the exchange, the first since February. Israel had said that a July 14 explosion in a U.N.-patrolled truce zone in southern Lebanon had occurred at a secret arms cache kept by the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, with which Israel had fought a war in 2006. [See p. 312F2] o The parents of an Israeli soldier captured in 2006 by Palestinian militants Sept. 9 released a letter he had written to them three months after his capture. In the 14line letter, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, now 23, said his health was failing and that he suffered from deep depression, and called his captivity an “intolerable and inhumane nightmare.” Shalit called on the Israeli government to secure his release from his “closed and solitary prison.” [See p. 546E1] o A Hamas spiritual leader, Yunis al-Astal, Aug. 31 blasted reports that U.N.-run schools in Gaza would teach children about the Holocaust as a “war crime,” and said such instruction would be “marketing a lie and spreading it.” Other Hamas officials also said teaching about the Holocaust would undermine Palestinian culture. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which ran 221 schools in Gaza, said that it had been considering adding references to the Holocaust to a new human rights program, but that it had not finalized the curriculum. [See p. 210A3] n

International Trade U.S. Tire Tariffs on China Spark Spat. The U.S. Sept. 11 announced that it would impose high tariffs on imports of Chinese car and light-truck tires, in response to a “surge” of such imports that it said had overwhelmed the U.S. market and harmed domestic tire makers. China two days later announced that it was opening an investigation into whether U.S. exports to China of auto parts and chicken meat were either subsidized or “dumped” at below-market prices in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. China said that announcement was unrelated to the U.S. tire tariffs, but it was widely seen as a retaliatory move that threatened to escalate trade September 17, 2009

friction between the two economic powers. [See p. 557G1] The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama set the tire tariffs on the recommendation by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), issued in June in response to a request for such action by the United Steelworkers labor union. The administration set the tariff at 35% for the first year—lower than the 55% suggested by the ITC. It would decrease to 30% in the second year and 25% in the third. The tariffs were the first imposed under the socalled safeguard provision negotiated with China as part of its 2001 entry to the WTO, which allowed the U.S., until 2013, to respond with duties to a surge of imports from China deemed to have “disrupted” the market in a particular sector. [See 2003, p. 936C3; 1999, p. 829B3] Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had rejected four such recommendations by the ITC for tariffs on Chinese goods during his presidency. Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign had pledged to take a tougher stand on trade issues, and observers noted that labor union support was important to the administration in its current struggle to win congressional passage of a health care reform bill. [See p. 617A1] China swiftly denounced the duties as a “serious act of trade protectionism.” Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, defended the move as a decision “based on the facts and the law.” Chinese tire exports to the U.S. had increased to 46 million in 2008, from 14.6 million in 2004, boosting China’s share of the U.S. tire market to 16.7%, from 4.7%. U.S. Car Parts, Chicken Investigated—

China Sept. 13 said its decision to investigate U.S. auto parts and chicken was “based on the laws of our country and on World Trade Organization rules.” If China concluded that the U.S. was illegally subsidizing the exports, or that they were being “dumped” abroad at below-cost prices, it could move to impose punitive tariffs. U.S. officials said they would examine China’s actions, and noted that if they were found to be unjustified and undertaken merely as retaliation, the U.S. would be in a position to take action in response. China also said it was requesting talks with the U.S. on the tire duties under WTO rules, a step designed to allow countries to try to resolve a dispute before seeking a judgment from the organization. Although China’s action raised concerns of a widening trade battle, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Sept. 15 emphasized China’s wish for the dispute not to “have any negative impact on bilateral economic and trade ties.” Chicken and auto parts had been subjects of previous trade actions between the two countries. They had banned each other’s chicken products during an avian influenza outbreak in 2004. China had eased its ban, but April 17 had complained to the WTO that the U.S. was failing to live up to a pledge to resume chicken imports from China. China Aug. 28 had announced that it would comply with the first WTO judgment

issued against it, ordering China to reduce heavy taxes imposed on imported auto parts. The U.S. and the European Union had filed a complaint over the taxes in 2006, and China had lost its appeal of the adverse judgment in December 2008. [See 2006, p. 380B1] Other News—In other U.S.-China trade news: o The U.S. Commerce Department Sept. 10 announced the imposition of duties on Chinese steel pipes used for shipping oil, in response to alleged Chinese subsidies. o A court in Suzhou in eastern China Aug. 20 convicted four people of copyright infringement for selling pirated versions of software including the Windows operating system produced by Microsoft Corp. of the U.S. The four were fined a total of 11 million yuan ($1.6 million) and given prison sentences ranging from two to three and a half years. U.S. software industry representatives hailed the verdict as an unprecedented move by China to prosecute rampant software piracy. n WTO Rules Airbus Aid Illegal. The World Trade Organization (WTO) in a confidential 1,000-page interim ruling Sept. 4 reportedly said that European airplane maker Airbus had received illegal subsidies from European governments. The U.S. had filed the case in 2004, alleging that European Union member nations had given Airbus about $20 billion in preferential loans for developing its A380 passenger jet, in violation of WTO rules. Airbus was a unit of the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (EADS), a French-German consortium. [See 2005, p. 367A2] The WTO was also expected to deliver a ruling on an EU complaint against U.S. government aid for Airbus’s rival, U.S.based airplane maker Boeing Co. Boeing was currently competing with EADS for a $40 billion fuel tanker contract from the U.S. Defense Department. Some members of the U.S. Congress said the WTO ruling should weigh against Airbus’s joint bid with U.S.-based defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. [See 2008, p. 449F1] n

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Space Shuttle ‘Discovery’ Flies to Station. The U.S.

space shuttle Discovery Aug. 28–Sept. 11 carried out a mission to the International Space Station, delivering supplies and equipment, among other tasks, and exchanging a station crew member. Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 11:59 p.m. Eastern daylight time Aug. 28, after delays due to a malfunctioning fuel valve. It was the 128th space shuttle flight, and the 37th for Discovery. [See pp. 519E1, 239A2] The crew’s commander was Marine Col. Rick Stuckow, 48; the pilot was retired Air Force Col. Kevin Ford, 49; and the mission specialists were retired Army Col. Patrick Forrester, 52; Jose Hernandez, 47; John (Danny) Olivas, 43; Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang, 52; and Nicole 615

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Stott, 46, who joined the space station crew, replacing Army Col. Timothy Kopra, 46, who returned with Discovery after 57 days in space. Discovery docked with the International Space Station Aug. 30. In the first of the mission’s three space walks, Olivas and Stott Sept. 2 collected items from the station’s exterior to be returned to Earth, including an empty ammonia tank that was part of its cooling system, and completed scientific experiments. In the second space walk Sept. 4, Olivas and Fuglesang installed a new ammonia tank, and they carried out other tasks on the final space walk two days later. Discovery departed the station Sept. 8, and landed Sept. 11 at 5:53 p.m. Pacific daylight time at Edwards Air Force Base in California, after plans to land at Cape Canaveral were delayed and then canceled due to weather conditions. Japan Launches Cargo Vessel—The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Sept. 10 for the first time launched a new unmanned vessel, the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), designed to carry cargo to the International Space Station. The HTV lifted off aboard a Japanese H-2B rocket, also launched for the first time, from Tanegashima, Japan. It spent a week in orbit undergoing testing, before its rendezvous with the station Sept. 17. Separately, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Sept. 10 successfully test-fired the first stage of a new rocket model, called Ares I, being developed as a possible replacement for the space shuttle fleet, which was scheduled to be retired in 2010. n

Other International News Russia Rejects Arms Shipment Reports.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Sept. 8 sharply rejected media reports claiming that the Arctic Sea, a Finnishowned cargo ship with a Russian crew that had disappeared for weeks before a Russian navy frigate located it off the coast of Cape Verde in August, had carried a secret cargo of powerful S-300 antiaircraft missiles bound for Iran or Syria. Russian officials the same day said a search of the Arctic Sea had produced only the lumber registered in the ship’s cargo log. Russian authorities Sept. 16 said Russia’s investigation into the incident was complete, and that the ship would be returned to Malta, where it was registered. [See p. 550C3] Several media outlets, citing Russian and Israeli military sources, in the days preceding Lavrov’s statement had reported that the Arctic Sea picked up components for S-300 missiles while it underwent repairs at a port in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania. According to the reports, Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, ascertained the ship’s cargo and notified Russian authorities. Iran in 2007 had said Russia had agreed to sell it S-300 missiles. However, the deal faced fierce international opposition be616

cause the missiles could be used to defend Iran’s nuclear facilities against a strike by Israel. There had never been any official confirmation that the deal was completed. Israeli President Shimon Peres Aug. 18 met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in the southern Russian city of Sochi, and the following day said Medvedev had promised to reconsider the arms deal. [See p. 614A1; 2007, p. 892G1] According to Russian authorities, the Arctic Sea, shortly after it set sail in July from Finland en route to Algeria, had been boarded by eight men who took the crew hostage. The crew was eventually rescued by the Russian navy, which took the alleged hijackers into custody. Authorities Aug. 27 charged the eight men with kidnapping and piracy. Many observers questioned why the alleged hijackers had targeted the Arctic Sea, given its path through a heavily trafficked shipping route and relatively inexpensive cargo. [See below] Journalist Flees After Arctic Sea Reports—

Mikhail Voitenko, a journalist who Aug. 8 had broken the story of the Arctic Sea’s disappearance and suggested that it was carrying arms, Sept. 3 said he had fled Russia after being threatened. Voitenko had published extensive reports about the Arctic Sea in the online publication Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht, which he edited. Voitenko said an unidentified person had telephoned him, saying that “serious people” were “very upset” about his dispatches. He suggested that the caller was a member of Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB). [See p. 497E2] Voitenko Sept. 4 said he had been fired as the editor of Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht. Sovfrakht OAO, a group of cargo companies, in a Sept. 7 announcement on its Web site said Voitenko had resigned. Netanyahu Secretly Visits Russia— After days of media speculation and official silence, Dan Meridor, Israel’s deputy prime minister, Sept. 12 confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had visited Russia, but refused to say why. Netanyahu’s office Sept. 7 had said the prime minister was visiting a security installation in Israel that day, but Israeli media outlets two days later reported that Netanyahu had instead secretly flown to Moscow to express concern over arms sales to Iran. [See p. 403D2] n Chavez Visits Russia, Sets Arms Deal.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias Sept. 9–11 visited Russia, meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Chavez agreed to new arms and energy deals with Russia during the trip. It was his eighth trip to Russia as Venezuela’s president. The visit was part of an 11-day international tour from Aug. 31 to Sept. 11, in which he also visited Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Italy and Spain. [See 2008, p. 540C1] Chavez Sept. 9 arrived in Moscow, Russia’s capital, and delivered a speech at the People’s Friendship University of Russia in which he criticized the U.S. for attempting to “dominate the entire

world,” and praised Russia for resisting those efforts. Chavez Sept. 10 met with Medvedev, and announced that Venezuela would recognize the independence of the two Georgian splinter regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which were allied with Russia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia had gained de facto autonomy from Georgia in wars during the 1990s. However, Georgia still considered them a part of the country. Russia in August 2008 had fought a brief war with Georgia over control of South Ossetia, and soon after had recognized the independence of both regions. Nicaragua had been the only other country to do so. [See p. 534D2; 2008, p. 549A1] The announcement inserted Venezuela into one of the issues of greatest contention between Russia and Western countries. The Georgian foreign ministry that day issued a statement describing Venezuela’s position as “extremely unfriendly.” Chavez Sept. 11, after returning to Venezuela, said he had reached an agreement to purchase short-range missiles and several tanks from Russia. The type of missiles to be bought were not specified, but he said they would have a range of about 185 miles (300 km). Chavez said the missiles would be used only as “defense tools.” Venezuela in recent years had signed agreements with Russia totaling about $4 billion for the purchase of helicopters, fighter jets and automatic weapons, among other items. A U.S. State Department spokesman Sept. 14 said the U.S. was concerned that Venezuela’s weapons purchases could set off an arms race in South America. Chavez

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Chavez, in a news conference with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, the capital of Syria, Sept. 3 criticized Israel as a “country that annihilates people and is hostile to peace.” He also denounced Israel for the December 2008–January 2009 war it had waged in the Gaza Strip, and described its actions as “genocidal.” [See p. 614F1] Chavez Sept. 7 met with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. Chavez reportedly lobbied Berdymukhammedov to join a coalition of natural gas–producing countries similar to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The gas cartel had first been proposed by Russia and Qatar in early 2007. Since then, Venezuela, Iran and Algeria had expressed interest in joining it. Anti-Chavez Protests Held—Thousands of demonstrators Sept. 5 marched in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, to protest what they said was the continuing expansion of Chavez’s political powers. Many of the protesters said they were opposed to a new law requiring schools to base their curricula on the philosophy of the 19th-century revolutionary Simon Bolivar. Similar protests had also been held the previous day in cities elsewhere in Latin America, as well as in the U.S. and Europe. n FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Health Care Reform Sen. Baucus Formally Releases Proposal.

Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sept. 16 formally released his legislative proposal for an overhaul of the U.S. health care system. Of the five proposals generated by congressional committees working on health care reform, Baucus’s had been written with the most input from Republicans. Baucus had worked with a group of two other Democratic senators and three Republican senators, known as the “Gang of Six,” in conceiving his plan. However, it did not garner pledges of support from any Republicans, and was also criticized by liberal Democrats for providing inadequate subsidies to consumers. [See p. 597A1] The most significant difference between Baucus’s reform effort and those proposed by the four other committees was its lack of a government-run health insurance program, commonly referred to as a “public option.” President Barack Obama also supported the public option, saying it would help lower costs and improve policies offered by private insurers by generating competition. The public option idea had generated a large amount of controversy, with detractors arguing that it would put private insurers out of business and lead to an aggrandized government role in health care. Baucus’s plan called for the creation of not-for-profit health care insurance cooperatives in each state. The cooperatives were intended to compete with private insurers, and would be provided with federal loans to use as start-up money. Starting in 2013, all citizens and legal residents would have to obtain health insurance, except for those who qualified for hardship provisions. A sliding scale of tax subsidies would be provided to low- and middle-income individuals and families who could not otherwise afford insurance. A maximum penalty of $950 would be assessed on individuals who did not get insurance; the maximum penalty on families would be $3,800. The plan would also expand the Medicaid program, which provided health care to the poor, to give coverage to millions currently without insurance. The bill also called for “health care exchanges” in which small businesses and individuals could use their combined purchasing power to negotiate better premiums and policy terms from private insurers. The plan also prohibited insurers from dropping people from coverage, or denying policies to those with pre-existing medical conditions, as was currently possible. The legislation, unlike the other proposals, did not require businesses to provide health insurance to employees. But companies with more than 50 employees would have to pay some or all of the cost of government subsidies used by workers who obtained their own insurance. September 17, 2009

Baucus’s bill was the least expensive of the five congressional proposals, with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimating it would cost $774 billion over 10 years. The plan called for a new 35% excise tax on health insurance companies that provided policies worth more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. It would also be funded by a range of fees assessed on various health care industries— $6 billion annually on health insurance companies, $4 billion on medical device makers, $2.3 billion on pharmaceutical companies and $750 million on clinical laboratories. The CBO said the plan would still leave 25 million people without insurance in 2019. Plan Met With Criticism, Caution—Republicans quickly criticized the Baucus plan as too costly. House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) that day said, “Democrats should scrap their expensive plans and work with Republicans on a fiscally responsible proposal.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said small businesses and families would suffer under new financial burdens imposed by the plan. The plan was also given a lukewarm endorsement by the Obama administration. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of the bill, “I don’t think this is a mirror of what the president was talking about,” referring to a speech delivered by Obama the previous week detailing his desires for a reform plan. However, he described the measure as “an important building block [that] gets us closer to comprehensive health care reform.” Democrats said the bill was likely to undergo significant changes in the Senate Finance Committee before it was brought for a floor vote. Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), a Republican member of the Group of Six, Sept. 15 had said he could not endorse Baucus’s plan since it was too expensive, but added that he hoped to continue working with Democrats to reach a compromise. Another Republican member of the group, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Sept. 16 also said she remained open to working with Baucus on the legislation. Snowe, during a Sept. 13 appearance on the CBS network television news program “Face the Nation,” had called on Obama to take the public option “off the table,” saying it was “universally opposed” by Senate Republicans. Several Democrats had also criticized the Baucus bill, arguing that the proposed subsidies were not large enough to make insurance policies affordable for many low- and middle-income individuals and families. Other Democrats criticized the legislation for eliminating the public option provision. The bill was also lambasted by labor unions, which said the proposed excise tax would be passed on to employees. House Rebukes Wilson for Outburst—

The House Sept. 15 voted, 240–179, to approve a “resolution of disapproval” against Rep. Joe Wilson (R, S.C.) for an outburst he had made during a speech Obama delivered to a joint session of Congress the pre-

vious week. Wilson had yelled, “You lie!” in response to Obama’s assertion that his reform proposals would not provide free health care to illegal immigrants. [See p. 598B1] Following the outburst, which was viewed as a significant breach of protocol and congressional decorum, Wilson apologized both publicly and to Obama via a phone call to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Obama had said he accepted the apology. However, Wilson rejected a demand made by several Democrats to formally apologize on the House floor. Some lawmakers suggested Wilson’s outburst was racially motivated. (Wilson was white, and Obama half-black.) Since the remark, both Wilson and his Democratic opponent in the 2010 House elections, Iraq war veteran Rob Miller, had each raised more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions. Former President Jimmy Carter Sept. 15 said he believed that Wilson’s interruption was “based on racism,” during a town hall meeting held at his presidential library in Atlanta, Ga. He added, “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.” Carter said many of the recent attacks on Obama ostensibly made in protest of his health care policies were “not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate.” (Several reform protesters had been pictured holding signs equating Obama with Adolf Hitler or calling him a Nazi.) The remarks were quickly criticized by Republicans. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Sept. 16 said Carter’s remarks were “a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president’s wildly unpopular” health care reform plan. Gibbs Sept. 16 said Obama did not believe that criticism of the reform effort was “based on the color of his skin.” Obama Speaks at Rallies—Obama Sept. 12 appeared at a campaign-style public rally before an estimated 15,000 people in Minneapolis, Minn., as part of his continuing efforts to gain support for an overhaul of the health care system. Obama, in making his case, cited a report from the Treasury which indicated that “nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point over the next 10 years.” The White House said the rally was the first of several events planned to bolster public support for reform efforts. Obama Sept. 17 appeared at a similar event held in College Park, Md., at the University of Maryland. Obama Sept. 15 appeared at the Pittsburgh, Pa., convention of the AFL-CIO labor federation to rally union support for health care reform. Employer Benefit Reductions Reported—

The nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust Sept. 15 released an annual report of health costs, which found that 21% of employers that offered health coverage had reduced benefits or increased costs for employees. The survey found that 617

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15% of businesses had raised insurance premiums for workers, and that 40% planned to raise the out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits. Separately, a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Sept. 10–12 and published Sept. 14 found that 46% of those polled supported the Democrats’ attempt to reform health care, while 48% opposed it. Obama’s overall approval rating was at 54%, with 43% of respondents disapproving of his performance. n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Obama Pushes Wall Street to Accept Reform.

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President Barack Obama in New York City Sept. 14 urged the financial industry to embrace his administration’s proposals for financial regulatory reform, declaring, “We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis.” Obama delivered his remarks at Federal Hall on Wall Street, on the one-year anniversary of the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which sent shock waves throughout the financial system and helped push the U.S. economy into a severe recession. [See pp. 522F2, 407A1; 2008, p. 645A1] Obama’s speech followed a monthslong rebound in the financial industry, which had led companies to post large profits and reward employees with lavish compensation, fueling criticisms that Wall Street was engaging in the type of excessive risk-taking that had sparked the crisis. Obama warned, “Normalcy cannot lead to complacency,” and added, “History cannot be allowed to repeat itself.” Obama also said the industry had a moral obligation to embrace reform, after the government enacted a raft of expensive emergency programs to help financial companies stay afloat. He said, “It is neither right nor responsible after you’ve recovered with the help of your government to shirk your obligation to the goal of wider recovery, a more stable system and a more broadly shared prosperity.” Obama’s speech was seen as an attempt to revitalize his proposals to reform financial regulation, which had been sidelined in Congress as lawmakers became absorbed with controversial proposals to reform the U.S. health care system. It was also widely acknowledged that the financial industry’s return to health had diminished the urgency of Obama’s calls for wide-ranging regulatory reform. [See p. 617A1] Additionally, the industry was strongly opposed to some of Obama’s proposals, and had reportedly intensely lobbied Congress to have them killed. The proposals, first unveiled by Obama in June, would see the creation of a financial consumer protection agency, an expansion of the Federal Reserve’s regulatory powers and greater oversight of markets that were lightly regulated. Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, that day said he intended to push ahead with regulatory reform in the coming 618

months despite objections from the financial industry. Bernanke Says Recession ‘Likely Over’—

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke Sept. 15 said the recession was “very likely over at this point,” his strongest such assertion since economic data in recent months began indicating that a recovery was under way. However, Bernanke warned that “it’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time,” and that the unemployment rate—currently at 9.7%—could remain relatively high in the coming months. His remarks came after a speech to the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C. [See pp. 601A3, 571C2] Bernanke’s optimistic comments were backed by new data released that day showing that retail sales had jumped 2.7% in August from the previous month. The Commerce Department reported that the value of retail sales in August was $351.4 billion. The increase was seen as a significant development, since consumer spending accounted for about 70% of gross domestic product. [See p. 535E3] Treasury to End Money Market Support—

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Sept. 10 said financial markets were stable enough that the Treasury would allow a program supporting the mutual fund industry to expire on Sept. 18. The program— one of many implemented in the days following Lehman’s collapse—guaranteed up to $3 trillion in money market mutual fund assets against losses. Geithner made his comments in testimony to the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund. [See 2008, p. 672B2] Geithner testified that the Treasury was considering ways to roll back other emergency measures that the government had enacted during the crisis, saying it was part of the government’s shift “from crisis response to recovery.” But he warned that a premature exit from such policies could destabilize an industry that was still fragile. Geithner said the Obama administration had not decided whether to request an extension of TARP, which was due to expire at the end of 2009. He said the Treasury would have to determine the “capacity of the financial system to live on its own” without government assistance. Financial companies had returned some $70 billion in TARP investments—earning the government about $12 billion in returns—and Geithner said the Treasury expected companies to repay an additional $50 billion worth of TARP money in the “next 12 to 18 months.” n SEC–Bank of America Settlement Rejected.

Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in New York City Sept. 14 threw out a $33 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp., saying it did “not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality.” The SEC had accused Bank of America of misleading its shareholders during the acquisition of Merrill Lynch &

Co., a New York City–based brokerage, but Rakoff said the settlement was a “contrivance designed to provide the SEC with a facade of enforcement,” which came “at the expense of the sole alleged victims, the shareholders.” [See p. 523E1] The settlement centered around $3.6 billion in bonuses that Bank of America had paid to Merrill Lynch’s employees before the $50 billion acquisition was approved by shareholders in December 2008. Bank of America in November had sent a letter to its shareholders that said no bonuses would be paid without Bank of America’s approval, but it did not disclose that the bonuses had already been sanctioned. The payouts came under heavy criticism when Merrill Lynch announced massive losses shortly after the deal was completed, which prompted the government to inject $20 billion into the combined company to help keep it afloat. Bank of America had neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the settlement, and the SEC claimed that it had found no evidence that executives at Bank of America had committed any infractions, saying the November 2008 letter had been written by company lawyers. Rakoff in his ruling asked, “Why are the penalties not then sought from the lawyers?” Rakoff noted that the SEC’s policies required it to seek redress when possible from “culpable individual offenders” rather than the corporation as a whole, since in the latter case the cost would eventually be shouldered by shareholders. Rakoff also criticized Bank of America for agreeing to the settlement, saying it was perverse for “the very management that is accused of having lied to its shareholders to determine how much of those victims’ money should be used to make the case against the management go away.” Rakoff said a trial would begin in February 2010. Both the SEC and Bank of America defended the settlement, although it was still possible that the two sides would revise it before going to court. The SEC could also decide to appeal the decision or drop the case. Rakoff’s decision was considered unusual, since it cast a critical light on the type of civil settlement that was regularly approved by judges. The vast majority of the SEC’s charges were resolved through settlements in which companies paid fines, but did not deny or admit wrongdoing. Additionally, the SEC did not normally file charges against individuals. Rakoff’s decision was another black eye for the SEC, which had been accused of failing to prevent the financial crisis that struck in 2008 and to detect a massive fraud orchestrated by financier Bernard Madoff. [See p. 603A2] Bank of America executives also faced a warning from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that he might file fraud charges against them. Cuomo’s office Sept. 8 had sent a letter to Bank of America accusing it of failing to disclose to shareholders relevant information about the Merrill Lynch deal in at least four instances. Cuomo had issued subpoenas to FACTS ON FILE

five directors who had served on the bank’s audit committee at the time of the shareholder vote in December 2008, it was reported Sept. 17. n

Economy

goods. A spike in auto parts imports was attributed to the “cash-for-clunkers” program—in which consumers received a voucher of up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for more fuel-efficient ones—which led auto companies to ramp up production. [See p. 586C1] n

Poverty Level Rise, Income Fall Reported.

Consumer Prices Rose 0.4% in August.

The Census Bureau Sept. 10 reported that the U.S. poverty rate had risen to 13.2% in 2008, from 12.5% the previous year, its highest level in 11 years. The change represented an additonal 2.6 million people who had fallen into poverty in 2008, for a total of 39.8 million. The poverty rate among children rose to 19%, from 18%. The bureau defined poverty as an annual income of $22,025 or less for a family of four. Economists said the poverty rate was likely to increase in 2009, as the effects of higher unemployment rates registered. [See p. 598D3; 2007, p. 559E3] The bureau also reported that the median household income had fallen 3.6% in 2008, to $50,303, from $52,163. It was the largest year-to-year decline in 40 years, and the lowest level since 1997. Hispanics suffered the largest income decline, 5.6%, followed by Asians (4.4%), blacks (2.8%) and non-Hispanic whites (2.6%). n

The Labor Department Sept. 16 reported that its consumer Inflation (CPI) price index (CPI), 2009 0.4% which tracked August Previous Month 0.0% prices for con- 12-Month Change -1.5% sumer goods by all urban consumers, rose 0.4% in August, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after neither rising nor falling in July. The rise was largely led by a 4.6% jump in energy prices, while “core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.1% in August. [See p. 571C3] For the 12-month period through August, the overall unadjusted inflation rate dipped to -1.5%. The yearly decline was led by a 23.0% fall in energy prices, which had made a sharp rebound in recent months. Core consumer prices in the 12month period rose 1.4%. n Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Reserve Sept. 9 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the period between mid-July and late August, finding that economic conditions had “continued to stabilize” during that time. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 522A2] The Fed said businesses in most parts of the country were “cautiously positive” about the economic outlook. The Fed said moderate improvements had been made in the auto industry, largely due to the “cashfor-clunkers” program, in which consumers received a voucher of up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for more fuel-efficient ones. The Fed also said residential real-estate markets had improved. [See p. 586C1] However, the Fed warned that “retail activity was flat,” depressing consumer spending, and that the labor market remained weak. The Fed said credit conditions remained tight and that the commercial real estate market continued to struggle. n

Trade Deficit Rose to $32 Billion in July.

The Commerce Department Sept. 10 reported that the Trade Deficit seasonally adjust(in billions) ed U.S. trade defi- July 2009 $31.96 cit in goods and Previous Month $27.49 services for July Year Earlier $64.89 was $32.0 billion, up from a revised $27.5 billion in June. Both imports and exports rose, with imports climbing higher due to a surge in production by U.S. auto companies. Analysts said the rise in imports and exports was a measure of improvement in the U.S. and the global economy, since it showed that the U.S. and its trading partners were buying more goods. [See p. 535A3] Exports in July rose to $127.6 billion, a $2.7 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was led by increased exports of automotive vehicles, parts and engines, and capital goods. Imports increased by $7.2 billion in July, to $159.6 billion. The change was led by increased imports of automotive vehicles, parts and engines, and consumer

Politics Conservative Protesters Rally at Capitol.

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA Deficit/Surplus* July June 2009 2009

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

-20.42 -3.89 -2.16 -7.96 -2.93 0.28

-18.43 -3.70 -1.53 -4.51 -3.43 0.36

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

September 17, 2009

Tens of thousands of conservatives Sept. 12 rallied outside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., protesting the policies of President Barack Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress. The protesters denounced those policies as causing dangerous deficits and an expansion of the federal government that could lead to socialism. Some also expressed support for gun rights and opposition to abortion and illegal immigration. The protest, called the “Taxpayer March on Washington,” was reportedly the largest against Obama since he took office in January. [See pp. 602B2, C1, 597A1, 242C3] The protesters marched to the Capitol from Freedom Plaza next to the White

House. Police did not provide official estimates of the size of the crowd, but a spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services estimated that the number of demonstrators was “in excess of 75,000.” Conservative activists had regrouped in the months since the Republican losses in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. In recent weeks, they had mounted outspoken opposition to Obama’s health care reform plan, and called for a boycott of a speech by Obama to the nation’s schoolchildren. FreedomWorks, a conservative group led by former House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R, Texas), had promoted the event, along with a loose network of other conservative groups. In April, FreedomWorks and its allies had promoted hundreds of antitax protests, called “tea parties,” in cities across the U.S. to mark the annual tax filing deadline and criticize Obama’s policies. It had also promoted confrontations with Democratic lawmakers over health care reform at town-hall meetings during Congress’s August recess. (Armey in August had quit his job at lobbying firm DLA Piper after drug companies backing Obama’s health care plan objected to FreedomWorks’ fight against Obama’s reforms.) Armey, in a speech to the crowd outside the Capitol, suggested that Obama’s deficit spending had violated his “commitment of fidelity to the U.S. Constitution.” The crowd responded with an anti-Obama chant of “Liar!” Many protesters carried signs saluting Rep. Joe Wilson (R, S.C.) for shouting “You lie!” at Obama during the president’s address on health care to a joint session of Congress three days earlier. [See p. 617G2] Sen. Jim DeMint (R, S.C.) spoke at the rally, repeating his comment in July that Republicans, by blocking Obama’s health care plan, could “break” the president and make the issue his “Waterloo.” That was a reference to the battle in Belgium in 1815 that resulted in the final defeat of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Mike Pence (Ind.), the third-ranking House Republican, also addressed the rally, as did Republican Reps. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) and Tom Price (Ga.). Republican leaders and strategists reportedly had debated how closely to align themselves with the demonstration, fearing that some marchers might express extreme views that could backfire on the party. Some demonstrators did reprise themes that had appeared at the tea parties and the health care town halls, likening the Obama administration to Nazis and questioning the president’s citizenship. Many conservative activists, for their part, remained skeptical of congressional Republicans, whom they blamed for heavy federal spending under Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. n Rangel Reports Failure to Disclose Assets.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, Aug. 12 filed forms disclosing that he had failed to report at least $500,000 in income and assets in a yearly statement 619

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for 2007, filed in May 2008. Rangel had omitted the disclosures from an annual financial statement that members of Congress were required to file. [See 2008, p. 675D1] Rangel also reported that he had failed to disclose assets worth several hundred thousand dollars in statements filed from 2002 through 2006. His amended disclosures were first reported in the media Aug. 25. Republicans Aug. 28 responded to the filings by renewing their calls for Rangel to be ousted as Ways and Means Committee chairman. The House Ethics Committee had already opened two investigations into several financial matters involving Rangel, including his failure to report rental income from a villa in the Dominican Republic, after those issues came to light in 2008. The new forms reported Rangel’s net worth to be in a range between $1 million and $2.5 million, about twice what he had reported in his initial report in May 2008. Intentionally filing false congressional disclosure forms was a felony offense. Former Sen. Ted Stevens (R, Alaska) had been convicted on such a charge in 2008, but the verdict was overturned in April due to misconduct by prosecutors. [See p. 218G1] n Richardson Corruption Probe Dropped.

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The office of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) Aug. 27 said federal prosecutors had decided not to file charges after a yearlong investigation into allegations that Richardson had steered state investment contracts to a campaign contributor. The Justice Department did not publicly confirm the decision, which had been reported by the Associated Press (AP) earlier that day. News of the investigation had forced Richardson to withdraw as President Barack Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary in January. [See p. 6B1] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a grand jury in Albuquerque, N.M., had probed a $1.5 million contract awarded in 2004 to CDR Financial Products, a firm based in Beverly Hills, Calif. The New Mexico Finance Authority had hired the firm for advice on a transportation bond issue. Before the contract was awarded, CDR and its president, David Rubin, had given a combined $100,000 to political action committees formed by Richardson. Both Richardson and CDR denied that there was any connection between the contributions and the contract. The New Mexico probe was reportedly part of a nationwide investigation into such alleged “pay-to-play” deals, in which investment advisers were hired by state and local governments or pension funds after paying politically connected middlemen or making campaign contributions to elected officials. n

G September 11 Attack Aftermath U.S. Marks Eighth Anniversary of Attacks.

The U.S. Sept. 11 held ceremonies in New York City, Arlington, Va., and near Shanksville, Pa., to commemorate the eighth anni620

versary of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks carried out by the Al Qaeda terrorist network, which killed almost 3,000 people at the three locations. The anniversary was the first since the designation of Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance in a bill signed by President Barack Obama on April 21. [See 2008, p. 633B3] In Arlington, Obama placed a wreath in front of the Pentagon memorial, which had been installed in 2008 to commemorate the 184 people killed there in the attacks. Speaking before an assembled crowd, he said that while the attacks had united the U.S. “in our resolve to stand up for the country we love,” it was nonetheless true that “no turning of the season can diminish the pain and loss of that day.” Following his remarks, Obama met with family members of the victims. (Obama had also marked the anniversary earlier in the day in a short ceremony at the White House.) In New York City, hundreds of people attended a commemorative ceremony, including survivors and family members of the victims. They were joined by Vice President Joseph Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, New York Gov. David Paterson (D) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), among other political figures. Multiple moments of silence were observed, and the names of the more than 2,700 New York City victims were read out by their relatives and other attendees. At the ceremony near Shanksville, former Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a crowd of thousands, including relatives of the 40 passengers and crew members of United Airlines Flight 93, which had crashed there after the passengers attempted to regain control of the plane from Al Qaeda hijackers. The names of the victims were read at 10:03 a.m., the time at which the crash occurred. Separately, a group of about 1,000 soldiers stationed at or near the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan took part in a foot race to mark the anniversary. The race was 9.11 km (5.5 miles) in length. Developer Requests Arbitration— Real estate developer Larry Silverstein—whose company, Silverstein Properties Inc., had been contracted to build three skyscrapers on the former World Trade Center site in New York City—Aug. 4 requested binding arbitration in order to settle an ongoing disagreement with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the site. Silverstein and the Port Authority had clashed over how to fund the project; arbitration was allowed under a 2006 agreement signed by both parties. Silverstein issued a statement that said, “Today’s action is designed to provide a complementary—and expedited—route to resolving this impasse.” He reportedly blamed the disagreement on the Port Authority’s failure to complete preliminary work on two of the planned towers, as well as on the site’s transit hub and vehicle security center. Under the 2006 agreement, Silverstein had agreed to fund the buildings using insurance payments related to the

Sept. 11 attacks, private loans and tax-free bonds. However, the global financial crisis had made borrowing for major real estate and construction projects difficult. [See 2008, p. 958A1] Bloomberg May 21 had held a private meeting between Port Authority officials and Silverstein in the hopes of ending the dispute. The meeting was also attended by Paterson, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) and other political figures. It did not result in an agreement by Bloomberg’s informal deadline of June 11. Silverstein reportedly wanted the Port Authority to guarantee financing of up to $3.2 billion so he could begin construction on the final two skyscrapers (construction of the first building was under way). Experts questioned whether the office space that would be afforded by the additional towers was necessary, and suggested that it might be difficult for Silverstein to find tenants for the space. Silverstein had rejected offers from the Port Authority to guarantee the financing if he raised at least $625 million in private funds, prompting the Port Authority Aug. 4 to criticize him for pushing the government to shoulder most of the financial risk associated with the project. Silverstein had also rejected a plan proposed by Paterson that would have suspended above-ground construction of the final two skyscrapers until private financing could be found. Flight 93 Memorial Agreements Reached—

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Aug. 31 announced that the government had finalized agreements with landowners to purchase nine plots of land near Shanksville that would become part of a planned memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. Salazar said the government had agreed to pay $9.5 million for the land, which covered 1,395 acres (565 hectares) and included the place where the plane had crashed. The first section of the memorial was expected to cost $58 million and was scheduled to open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. [See p. 65F1] Salazar said, “Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the landowners, the Families of Flight 93 [a nonprofit group representing the victims’ families] and the employees of the National Park Service, we have reached this important milestone.” The Interior Department had threatened to use eminent domain to take the land if landowners refused to sell it, in order to make sure that the initial section of the memorial could be completed on time. Separately, a plaque Sept. 9 was unveiled at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., that honored the crew and passengers of Flight 93 for their attempt to regain control of the plane. The plaque stated that the fatal attempt had “not only saved countless lives, but may have saved the U.S. Capitol from destruction.” (The Capitol was thought to have been one possible target of the Al Qaeda hijackers.) The event was attended by families of the victims, among others. FACTS ON FILE

2007 Fire Deaths Report Issued— New York City’s Department of Investigation June 19 issued a report that blamed city agencies and employees for errors that led to the death of two firefighters in an August 2007 fire in the city’s Deutsche Bank building, which had been damaged during the Sept. 11 attacks and had been scheduled to be demolished. The report found that a “lack of communication up and down the chain of command” at the city’s Fire Department, and inadequate training and oversight at the city’s Department of Buildings, had contributed to their deaths. [See 2008, p. 957D3] According to the report, Department of Buildings inspectors had not been instructed on what to inspect at the Deutsche Bank building, leaving important safety lapses unreported. The report also found that despite multiple warning signs, the Fire Department had failed to enforce a city rule requiring checks every 15 days of standpipes in skyscrapers that were being built or being torn down. The lack of a standpipe, which gave firefighters access to water when fighting blazes in tall buildings, had complicated efforts to put out the fire. The Fire Department June 24 announced that it had censured seven of its officers for failing to ensure that the required standpipe inspections had been made. The officers had reportedly agreed to the reprimand, a largely symbolic penalty, in order to avoid administrative charges that could have resulted in termination. Union officials representing the officers June 24 criticized the decision, arguing that the city’s fire commissioner and the Bloomberg administration had not emphasized the importance of the standpipe rule. The Department of Buildings July 10 issued reprimands to two senior officals, Thomas Connors and Christopher Santulli. The department said they had neglected their responsibility to provide inspectors with adequate training. However, the reprimand did not affect the pension or salary of either official. A third official who had directly supervised the Deutsche Bank building inspectors had reportedly resigned in February in order to avoid a disciplinary hearing over his actions. Check Scheme Uncovered After Fire—

Prosecutors in New York City July 28 announced that they had indicted two businessmen on 122 counts of falsifying business records and 64 counts of failing to file currency transaction reports in connection with an illegal check-cashing scheme that came to light as part of the criminal investigation into the Deutsche Bank building fire. The two men, Neil Goldstein of Marlboro, N.J., and Riad Khalil of New York City, pleaded not guilty to all charges. According to prosecutors, the investigation had uncovered evidence that John Galt Corp., the subcontractor responsible for removing asbestos from the building, had been one of 389 construction-related companies that had paid Khalil and Goldstein to illegally cash checks in order to avoid paying income taxes. The scheme, which lasted from October 2006 until July 2008, September 17, 2009

had reportedly involved about $40 million in funds. Prosecutors said they had found bank records suggesting that Khalil held a Swiss bank account totaling $2.4 million. Prosecutors said a third businessman, Charles Goldberg of Tenafly, N.J., had pleaded guilty earlier in July to charges of falsifying business records, as did two businesses he owned. He faced up to four years in prison following his plea. Reported Bin Laden Tape Surfaces—A recording marking the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks Sept. 13 appeared on a Web site used by Al Qaeda. The recording, which was attributed to Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden, featured a still photo of bin Laden and a recorded audio message. [See p. 369B2] In the message, bin Laden claimed that the group had been motivated by the close U.S. relationship with Israel to launch its attacks against the U.S., and said its armed conflict against the U.S. would only end if the U.S. concluded its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and distanced itself from Israel. He also said “pressure groups” were still controlling U.S. foreign policy, and that the Obama administration was largely indistinguishable from the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush. n

Defense U.S. to Give Detainee Names to Red Cross.

The New York Times Aug. 22 reported on its Web site that, according to unidentified military officers, the U.S. military for the first time would provide the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with the names of detainees held at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan run by U.S. Special Operations forces. The prisons, located on military bases in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanistan, were short-term facilities where detainees were held immediately after their capture. [See pp. 630C2, 565A1] Detainees had previously been held at the prisons for up to two weeks without being identified to the ICRC. Their captors would then either transfer them to longterm prisons, which were accessible to the ICRC; request one-week renewable extensions from Defense Secretary Robert Gates or his representatives; or release them. Under new regulations, which went into effect earlier in August with no public announcement, the military had to inform the ICRC of prisoners’ names and identification numbers within two weeks of their capture, and could not request extensions. However, the military rejected the ICRC’s request to gain access to the short-term facilities. Military officials said between 30 and 40 prisoners were held at the Iraq prison at any given time, and said the population of the Afghan prison was smaller. The Times in 2006 had reported abuses of prisoners at the short-term U.S. detention facility in Iraq, which at that time was in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. There had also been reports of abuse at the U.S. Air Base at

Bagram, including the deaths of two prisoners. [See 2006, p. 207F2] The change had been recommended by Air Force Lt. Gen Philip Breedlove in a June 17 classified report, after he carried out an investigation of the Special Operations facilities ordered by Gates. n

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Armed Forces Gates Blasts AP Over Photo of Dying Marine.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a letter to Associated Press (AP) Chief Executive Officer Thomas Curley Sept. 4 criticized the AP for distributing a photograph of a dying marine in Afghanistan, saying it showed an “appalling” lack of compassion and decency. The marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during an ambush by members of the Afghan Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban Aug. 14, and the photograph shows his severed leg bleeding profusely while his face bore a shocked expression; Bernard was evacuated but died later that day. Bernard’s family had requested that the AP not distribute the photograph. [See p. 132A1] Gates Sept. 3 in a telephone call asked Curley to respect the family’s wishes, but, after additional consultation with AP editors, the news service distributed the photograph. The AP said it did so because the photograph “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.” Media reports said the photographer had not violated military regulations in taking the photograph. n

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Environment Vehicle Emissions, Fuel Economy Rules Set.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson Sept. 15 released details of a proposal for new regulations that would impose the first-ever national limits on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal also included new fuel economy rules for cars and light trucks. The plan had first been announced by President Barack Obama in May in order to end regulatory discrepancies between the federal government and a group of states, led by California, that wanted to impose regulations that were stricter than federal rules. [See p. 339B2] Under the proposed regulations, automakers would be required to create a fleet of new vehicles with an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2016. The rules called for vehicle fuel efficiency to increase by about 5% annually beginning with 2012 model year vehicles. Under current regulations, cars needed to average 27.5 mpg, while light trucks needed to average 23.1 mpg. Federal officials said the rules would result in a savings of 1.8 billion barrels of oil, and a reduction of almost 950 million metric tons (1.1 billion tons) in greenhouse gas emissions, between 2012 and 2016. Officials said the new regulations would increase the cost of new vehicles by up to 621

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$1,100 by 2016, but that gas savings resulting from greater efficiency would average to $3,000 over the life of the vehicle. The new regulations provided some exemptions for automakers that sold fewer than 400,000 vehicles in the U.S. annually. The proposal also exceeded regulations set out in a 2007 law that would have required automakers to reach a 35 mpg fuel economy standard by 2020. [See 2007, p. 843C3] The proposed regulations were subject to a 60-day public comment period, and needed to be finalized by March 2010 in order to take effect by the 2012 model year. n

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Nathaniel Nicholson, the son of disgraced former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official Harold Nicholson, Aug. 27 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and acting as an agent of a foreign government. Prosecutors said Harold Nicholson, 58, who had pleaded guilty in 1997 to spying for the Russian government, had recruited his son to meet with Russian operatives on multiple occasions between 2006 and 2008, and to accept payments on his behalf. [See p. 132E1] As part of his plea agreement, Nathaniel Nicholson, 25, admitted to meeting with Russian agents in Mexico, Cyprus and Peru, among other locations, and accepting about $35,000 in cash. He had reportedly distributed most of that money to members of his family, in keeping with instructions he had been given by his father. Nathaniel Nicholson was scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 25, 2010, and faced up to 25 years in prison. However, prosecutors had agreed to recommend probation in the case in exchange for his agreement to testify against his father if necessary. Harold Nicholson, who was currently serving a 23-year sentence, was expected to go on trial on related charges in May 2010; he faced life in prison if convicted. n

Tobacco Companies File Advertisement Lawsuit.

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Reynolds American Inc. and Lorillard Inc., the U.S.’s second- and third-largest tobacco companies, respectively, Aug. 31 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, Ky., seeking to block several provisions of a recently enacted law regulating tobacco products. They were joined by several other companies, including cigarette maker Commonwealth Brands Inc. and retailer Discount Tobacco City & Lottery Inc. The tobacco companies argued that the law, enacted in June, restricted their First Amendment rights by limiting the ways in which they could advertise. The law required cigarette packs to bear large signs indicating the health risks of smoking, and large images of potential organ damage that could result from long-term smoking. [See p. 428G2] n 622

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Somalia U.S. Strike Kills Reputed Terrorist Leader.

U.S. Special Forces commandos in helicopters Sept. 14 killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan of Yemeni descent who reportedly was a top regional operative of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, near Baraawe in southern Somalia. [See p. 430A1; 2008, pp. 313A2, 149A2] The U.S. alleged that Nabhan, who was believed to have been around 30 years old, had built the bomb used in an attack on an Israeli-run hotel in 2002 that killed 13 people in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, and had been involved in an unsuccessful 2002 missile attack on an Israeli airliner in Mombasa. Nabhan had also been linked to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The U.S. had long maintained that a radical Somali Islamist insurgent group known as Al Shabab had among its ranks Nabhan and other Al Qaeda members, and Nabhan reportedly had been the target of at least two previous U.S. air strikes in Somalia, in January 2007 and March 2008. In the Sept. 14 strike, Special Forces troops in at least four helicopters from a U.S. Navy ship off Somalia’s coast fired on two vehicles carrying Nabhan and several other Al Shabab members in broad daylight as they traveled through the desert. At least one of the helicopters then landed and collected the bodies of Nabhan and others for forensic testing. Reports varied as to the number of people killed and wounded in the attack. Analysts said the location, timing and manner in which the attack was carried out indicated that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was seeking to minimize civilian casualties as well as to preserve the bodies for DNA analysis. The previous U.S. strikes—which were carried out during former U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration—had been conducted mainly by long-range missiles, in an apparent effort to lessen the risk to U.S. troops. Somalia had been wracked by nearly three years of fighting between the transitional government—which was backed by the United Nations and supported by about 5,000 African Union (AU) troops—and radical Islamists led by Al Shabab. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former leader of a moderate Islamist group, had been elected Somalia’s interim president in January; however, Al Shabab refused to recognize his government. Al Shabab and its allies currently controlled most of southern and central Somalia. The Washington Post Sept. 15 cited an unnamed U.S. counterterrorism official as saying that Nabhan had been a senior member of Al Shabab and had connections with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Islamists Launch Revenge Attack— Al Shabab Sept. 15 vowed revenge for the strike, saying it would attack Western targets, and Sept. 16 called for more foreign fighters to join its ranks. On Sept. 17, insur-

gents disguised as U.N. personnel detonated two suicide car bombs at an AU peacekeeping base at the airport in Mogadishu, the capital, killing at least 14 peacekeepers, including the deputy commander of the AU force, Burundian Maj. Gen. Juvenal Niyonguruza. At least seven more people reportedly were killed in a retaliatory strike by the AU force. Al Shabab later that day claimed responsibility for the attack on the AU base. n

Sudan Woman Convicted for Wearing Trousers. A court in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, Sept. 7 convicted Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese journalist and former United Nations employee, of violating the country’s decency laws by wearing trousers in public, and imposed the equivalent of a $200 fine. Hussein, who could have been sentenced to up to 40 lashes, refused to pay the fine and was ordered to be jailed for a month as a result. However, Sudan’s journalists’ union paid her fine the next day, and she was released. The case drew worldwide attention, and was portrayed by Hussein and her supporters as a battle for women’s rights in Sudan. [See 2007, p. 809B1] Parts of Sudan were governed by Islamic law, or sharia, which imposed penalties on women for acts such as drinking alcohol or wearing “indecent” clothing in public. Hussein, a 34-year-old widow, and 12 other women wearing trousers July 3 had been arrested while attending a party at a Khartoum cafe. They were arrested under an article of the penal code that called for persons who committed “an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing” to be subject to a fine or up to 40 lashes. Ten of the women reportedly agreed to accept a punishment of 10 lashes and pay a fine of about $100, while Hussein and two others refused. At the time of her arrest. Hussein was working as a public information assistant for the U.N. in Sudan, which some legal experts said gave her immunity from prosecution. Hussein July 29 told the court that she would resign from her U.N. position in order to relinquish that immunity. In an interview published Aug. 2 in Britain’s Observer newspaper, Hussein, a Muslim, said she wanted to challenge the decency law, which Sudanese women’s rights activists said was vague and subject to the interpretations of individual police officers. She asserted that it was not against Islamic law for women to wear trousers. The presiding judge Aug. 4 adjourned the hearing to look into whether she had diplomatic immunity. About 50 mainly female protesters gathered outside the courthouse, and reportedly were tear-gassed and beaten by police. About 150 Sudanese women’s rights activists again gathered outside the courthouse in Khartoum for Hussein’s Sept. 7 hearing. They reportedly clashed with male counterprotesters wearing traditional Islamic dress. Riot police arrested more than 40 women during the confrontation, and reportedly beat some of the protesters. FACTS ON FILE

In attendance at Hussein’s hearing were representatives from the British, French, Canadian, Swedish and Dutch embassies. Hussein attended the trial wearing the same pair of loose-fitting green trousers that she had worn when she was arrested. According to one of her lawyers, Manal Awad Khogali, only police witnesses were called and Hussein was not permitted to testify. After her trial, she said she would appeal, adding that her prison sentence would give her a “chance to explore the conditions in jail.” Sudan’s journalists’ union, according to some sources, had links to the government. Hussein said she believed that there had been political pressure to have her released from prison. n

AMERICAS

Colombia Congress Backs Third Term for Presidents.

Colombia’s House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, Sept. 1 voted, 85–5, with 76 abstentions, to approve a bill that would allow a president to run for a third term. Under current law, the president was limited to serving two four-year terms. The Senate Aug. 19 had approved the bill, 56–2. In order for the law to take effect, it still needed to be approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, and then receive the public’s endorsement in a national referendum in which at least 25% of the electorate participated. [See 2005, p. 784D2] Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez had first been elected in 2002, when the 1991 constitution limited presidents to one four-year term. He had quickly won widespread popularity for gaining control of areas of the country from rebel guerrillas with the Marxist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Subsequent victories against guerrillas had kept his approval rating high during most of his tenure. The Constitutional Court in November 2005 had approved a constitutional amendment adopted the previous year that allowed a president to seek a second consecutive term in office. Uribe had easily won reelection in May 2006. [See p. 67D3] Uribe had not indicated that he would seek a third term in elections scheduled for May 2010, but it was widely assumed that he would, since he faced no significant opposition and still enjoyed widespread popularity. Some political commentators said the amendment would weaken democratic institutions in the country by creating an excessively powerful executive. It was reported that the referendum might take place during legislative elections scheduled for March 2010. n

Honduras U.S. Warns Interim Government on Vote.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly Sept. 4 released a statement indicating that the U.S. would not support the results of a Honduran presidential election scheduled for November. In late June, the Honduran September 17, 2009

military, backed by the country’s legislature and Supreme Court, had ousted President Manuel Zelaya Rosales in a bloodless coup d’etat. The groups behind Zelaya’s deposition alleged that he had tried to illegally push through constitutional reforms that would have ended the one-term limit on the presidency. [See p. 575B2] Since the coup, the de facto government, led by congressional leader Roberto Micheletti, had come under increasing international pressure to accept a mediation plan negotiated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez. That plan, known as the San Jose Accord, called for Zelaya to be allowed to return to Honduras to serve out the remainder of his term, which expired in January 2010. However, the de facto government had said it would not allow Zelaya to return, and instead would move forward with the November presidential election, scheduled prior to the coup. The interim regime, which was diplomatically isolated, had expressed hope that the government that took control following the election would gain international credibility. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Sept. 4 met with Zelaya and said the U.S. would formally suspend $30 million in aid to Honduras. The U.S. State Department also said another $200 million in aid could be suspended if Zelaya was not reinstated. U.S. efforts to reach a diplomatic solution on the issue had been complicated by the emergence of a small group of U.S. Republican legislators who argued that Zelaya had been rightfully deposed in accordance with the Honduran constitution. One of them, Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), had held up key U.S. State Department nominations to express his displeasure at the suspension of aid to the interim government. Micheletti Sept. 12 said the U.S. had revoked his tourist and diplomatic visas. Honduran officials said the U.S. visas of the foreign minister, attorney general and armed forces chief of the interim government, as well as those of the country’s 14 Supreme Court judges, had also been revoked. Zelaya Sept. 2 had called on the U.S. to suspend more financial aid to the interim government, and revoke the visas of its leaders. He said he was making plans to return to the country. n

Americas News in Brief Argentina: Farmers Hold Strike. Farmers in

Argentina Aug. 28–Sept. 4 held a strike halting the sale of beef and grain in an ongoing feud with the government over a 35% export tax on soybeans. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Aug. 25 had vetoed parts of a law that would provide tax relief to farmers on goods produced in drought-afflicted regions, sparking the boycott. The farming dispute, which had led to several previous strikes over the past two years, was seen as one reason Fernandez de Kirchner’s political allies had suffered significant losses in June mid-term congressional elections. [See p. 203F3] n

Brazil: Recession Over. The Brazilian gov-

ernment statistics agency Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica (IBGE) Sept. 11 said the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had expanded 1.9% in the second quarter, when compared to the previous quarter. The data showed that Brazil had emerged from a recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP. Brazil’s economic growth was led by the manufacturing sector, which grew 2.1% from the first quarter. However, the country’s GDP had shrunk 1.2% from the second quarter of the previous year. Brazil’s government had spent heavily on public infrastructure projects and cut taxes in order to stimulate the economy. [See p. 447F1] n

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Guatemala: Food Crisis Calamity Declared.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom Caballeros Sept. 8 declared a state of national calamity to allow the government to more easily purchase and distribute food to those in need. Colom attributed Guatemala’s high rates of hunger and chronic malnutrition to drought, global warming and fallout from the global economic crisis. However, he said the country’s “history of inequality” had also led to endemic poverty and malnutrition. The United Nations World Food Program said it would send Guatemala 20 tons of food aid. [See 2002, p. 261B3] n

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Venezuela: Broadcast Licenses Revoked.

Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's National Telecommunications Council (Conatel), Sept. 5 said the government would shut down 29 radio stations, and filed a new charge against the Globovision television station, which was often critical of the government. The announcement followed the July shutdown of 32 radio stations and two television networks, in what critics said was a crackdown on freedom of expression in the country. [See p. 575G3] n

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Australia Climate Change Legislation Blocked. The

Australian Senate Aug. 13 voted to reject a bill backed by the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) that would have introduced a “cap-and-trade” system, in which the government would have issued pollution permits that could be bought and sold by corporations and other polluters. Critics of the planned pollution market, which was similar to a cap-and-trade system in effect in the European Union, argued that it would hinder economic growth and increase prices for Australian consumers. The bill had been passed June 4 by Australia’s ALP-controlled House of Representatives. [See pp. 494C1, 445A1; 2007, p. 811B3] The proposed bill, which would have gone into effect in July 2011, would have mandated a 5% decrease in Australia’s emissions of carbon dioxide from their 2000 levels by 2020. In addition, the bill would have allowed the government to require up to a 25% decrease by 2020 if an international agreement on combating cli623

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mate change was reached. The bill would have issued an unlimited number of permits the first year at prices of A$10 (US$7) per ton of carbon emissions, and would have reduced the number of available permits over time, forcing polluters to lower their emissions or purchase unused permits from other companies. Penny Wong, Australia’s climate change minister, Aug. 13 said the administration of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would reintroduce the bill to the Senate in three months, as allowed by Australian law. Analysts suggested that Rudd might call early parliamentary elections if the bill was defeated again, in the hopes of gaining enough Senate seats to ensure its passage. The conservative opposition Liberal Party–National Party coalition held a plurality of the seats in the Senate; the remainder of the seats were held by the ALP, the leftist Green Party and two independent senators. Protesters Call for Climate Action—

Thousands of protesters in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, and other locations June 13 held demonstrations urging Australia’s government to increase its efforts to protect the environment and combat climate change. The protests, known as the National Climate Emergency Rallies, were backed by religious organizations and labor unions, as well as traditional environmental activists. The protesters called for Australia to play an active role in upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations scheduled to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. Renewable Energy Bill Passed— Australia’s Parliament Aug. 20 passed a bill that would require the country to generate 20% of its electricity using renewable methods, such as solar and hydroelectric power, by 2020. The government was expected to spend A$4.5 billion to support the initiative, which Australia’s Clean Energy Council advocacy group said could create 28,000 jobs and attract A$28 billion in private investment. Green Party leader Sen. Bob Brown Aug. 20 criticized the bill for containing too much financial assistance for companies known to be major polluters. n Aborigine Program Called Discriminatory.

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United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Human Rights James Anaya Aug. 27 said the Australian government’s controversial intervention into the country’s Aboriginal communities to combat child abuse was discriminatory. He also argued that the intervention had violated multiple international agreements to which Australia was a party. Anaya’s comments followed an Aug. 16–27 fact-finding visit to Australia’s Aboriginal communities, primarily in the country’s Northern Territory. [See 2007, pp. 851A2, 467D3] Anaya, a U.S. law professor who focused on human rights law, was the first U.N. special rapporteur on Indigenous Human Rights to visit Australia. His visit had reportedly been requested by Aboriginal groups who felt the intervention had violated their human rights. 624

Australia’s indigenous population had a life expectancy that was 17 years shorter than the Australian population as a whole, and suffered from widespread poverty, alcoholism and unemployment. A government report issued July 2 found that substantiated incidents of child abuse and neglect in Aboriginal communities occurred about six times more often than the national average. Intervention Motivated by Report— The intervention, known officially as the Northern Territory Emergency Response, had been enacted in 2007 by then–Prime Minister John Howard in response to a report that found widespread child abuse linked to alcoholism in 73 Aboriginal communities. The program had continued under the administration of current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had taken office in 2007. Under the intervention, the government had dispatched military units and social workers to Aboriginal communities, and suspended the country’s Racial Discrimination Act in order to institute bans on the possession of alcohol and pornography by Aborigines. The government also required health examinations for all children under 16 and required Aborigines receiving welfare money to spend at least half of it on food and other essentials. Intervention Said to Violate Conventions—

Anaya said the government’s measures “overtly discriminate against aboriginal peoples, infringe their right to self-determination and stigmatize already stigmatized communities.” He argued that the intervention violated Australia’s obligations under several treaties, among them the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Anaya praised Rudd’s 2008 apology for the past treatment of Australia’s indigenous peoples, but said the Racial Discrimination Act should be reinstated. (Australia’s Indigenous Affairs Ministry Aug. 17 had announced that Parliament intended to reinstate the law in October.) He also said he had seen “numerous” successful programs, run by Aboriginal groups, that were intended to “address issues of alcoholism, domestic violence, health, education and other areas of concern, in ways that are culturally appropriate and adapted to local needs.” He called on Australia’s government to provide logistical and financial support for such initiatives. n

Japan Hatoyama Takes Office as Prime Minister.

Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had won late August parliamentary elections, Sept. 16 took office as prime minister of Japan, bringing to an end a decades-long era of virtually uninterrupted government by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Hatoyama led a governing coalition composed of the DPJ and two small parties, the leftist Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the conservative

People’s New Party (PNP). [See below, p. 581A1] The lower house of the Diet (parliament) formally elected Hatoyama after Prime Minister Taro Aso of the LDP officially resigned. A total of 327 members backed Hatoyama, while 119 voted for former Agriculture Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi of the LDP. The LDP had not yet chosen a successor to Aso as party leader, and chose Wakabayashi as its stand-in nominee. Leading a party inexperienced in power into a government facing a severe economic slump, Hatoyama cautioned, “This is not a time for rejoicing,” and predicted that “there will be various trials and errors.” He said his top priority would be to “boost household incomes,” and reiterated his campaign pledges to sideline Japan’s traditionally powerful bureaucracy and make government more accountable to the public. He said he planned to thoroughly review the country’s military pacts with the U.S., such as an agreement on redeploying some of the U.S. troops stationed in Japan, as part of a shift away from what he called Japan’s “passive” relationship with the U.S. However, while he said he wanted Japan to “actively and frankly voice” its own foreign policy perspective, he said the “basic policy” of maintaining a close alliance with the U.S. would not change. [See below] Cabinet Named—Hatoyama after assuming office Sept. 16 unveiled his cabinet appointments. He appointed the DPJ’s secretary general and former leader, Katsuya Okada, as foreign minister. Okada was seen as a moderate who was unlikely to promote a dramatic change in ties with the U.S. Another top party figure, Naoto Kan, was named deputy prime minister, and would lead a newly created National Strategy Bureau, which was intended to reassert political control over high-level decision-making that had long been dominated by bureaucracy. Kan had served as health minister in the 1990s, when he gained popularity for exposing official negligence in the infection of hemophiliacs with HIV, the virus that caused AIDS, from tainted blood products. [See 2001, p. 362D2; 1996, p. 750G3] As expected, Hatoyama named Hirohisa Fuji as finance minister. Fuji had held the same position in the only previous non-LDP government since 1955, a fragile coalition that held power in 1993–94. Fuji, 77, in a number of interviews before his formal appointment had said he opposed government intervention to lower the value of the currency, the yen, to aid Japan’s flagging exports. In an interview with Britain’s Financial Times published Sept. 9, Fuji said the new government should make substantial cuts in an economic stimulus package enacted by Aso’s government, which focused on infrastructure spending, and redirect efforts to revive the economy toward direct payments to households. Named financial services and postal reform minister was Shizuka Kamei, leader of the PNP, who had broken with the LDP in 2006 over its centerpiece of market reform, the privatization of Japan’s postal service. He said Sept. 16 he would “revise” that FACTS ON FILE

policy. [See p. 482A2; 2005, p. 765E3; 2003, p. 761E1] The SDP’s leader, upper house lawmaker Mizuho Fukushima, was named consumer affairs minister. Hatoyama Sept. 4 had named Ichiro Ozawa, a former leader of the DPJ and its chief campaign strategist, as party secretary general, a post outside the government. The extent of Ozawa’s influence in the new government had been a topic of widespread speculation since the election. The DPJ had said it wished to reduce the policy influence exercised over the government by external party officials under the LDP, but Ozawa was known for a long career as a power broker, first in the LDP and then among defectors from that party. Ruling Coalition Formed—The DPJ Sept. 9 reached an agreement with the SDP and the PNP to form a governing coalition. Although the DPJ had won a comfortable majority in the more-powerful lower house of the Diet in the August election, it did not achieve a two-thirds majority, which was needed to sweep aside delays of legislation by the upper house. The DPJ was the largest party in the upper house, but did not hold a majority there. Negotiations reportedly focused on the coalition’s policy toward the U.S. The DPJ had moderated its previously stated strong opposition to the base deal with the U.S., a position the SDP maintained. Tougher

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Hatoyama Sept. 7 confirmed his commitment to a campaign pledge to set a new goal for reduction of Japan’s emissions of carbon dioxide, a principal greenhouse gas thought to contribute to climate change. Hatoyama said the government would target a 25% reduction in emissions from their 1990 levels by 2020, up from the outgoing government’s 8% goal. Japan would commit to a 25% cut, contingent on other countries setting similar goals at a climatechange conference to be held in Denmark in December. [See p. 405B2] Environmental groups praised Hatoyama’s stance as a rare example of an industrially developed country setting an emissions-reduction goal in line with what they said was shown to be necessary by scientific evidence. But Japanese business groups said requiring such large cuts would hinder the country’s economic recovery. n

Taiwan Cabinet Quits Over Typhoon Response.

Taiwanese Prime Minister Liu Chaoshiuan Sept. 7 announced his resignation and that of the rest of his cabinet, effective Sept. 10, to take responsibility for shortcomings in the government’s response to Typhoon Morakot, which had struck Taiwan in August and left more than 700 people dead or missing. Critics had blamed the severity of the death toll on the government’s failure to order timely evacuations or promptly accept foreign assistance in aiding victims, causing a political crisis for President Ma Ying-jeou. [See p. 559C3] September 17, 2009

Ma Sept. 7 said he had chosen Wu Denyih, secretary general of the ruling Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), to replace Liu as prime minister, a post that was much less powerful than president. Wu Sept. 9 unveiled the appointments to his cabinet, which took office the following day. Finance Minister Lee Sush-der and ShinYuan Lai, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, which handled relations with China, were among those who retained their posts in the new cabinet. Dalai Lama Visits—The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Sept. 1 held a prayer ceremony commemorating the victims of the typhoon in Taiwan’s southern city of Kaohsiung. The Dalai Lama had arrived in Taiwan Aug. 30 for a six-day visit that he said was purely humanitarian in its purpose, to offer spiritual comfort to victims of the disaster. China, which regarded him as a promoter of separatism in its Tibet region, denounced the visit, which was seen as particularly sensitive to China because it regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province. [See p. 327A1] However, some observers said China’s criticism was expressed in less harsh terms than would be expected under such circumstances. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had extended the invitation to the Dalai Lama, and China singled out the DPP, rather than Ma’s government, for criticism. China’s relations with Taiwan had been improving since Ma, who favored greater cooperation with China, took office in May 2008. n Ex-President Chen Sentenced to Life. A court in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, Sept. 11 convicted former President Chen Shuibian and his wife, Wu Shu-chen, on corruption charges, and sentenced both to life in prison. They were also fined a total of 500 million Taiwanese dollars (US$15.2 million). They had been accused of misappropriating some US$3 million from a special presidential fund during Chen’s 2000–08 tenure as president, accepting US$12 million in bribes in kickbacks connected to a government-related land deal and a government contract, and money laundering. Chen had denounced the trial as a politically motivated case pursued to benefit the ruling Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) of President Ma Ying-jeou. [See p. 135A1] Although the verdict had been widely expected, the sentences were unexpectedly severe. Political interpretations of the trial’s outcome abounded, with Chen’s supporters echoing his claim that he was the victim of a prosecution driven by political animus, and critics claiming that it was a sign of judicial progress that even a president was not above the law. Under Taiwanese law, convictions with life prison sentences were automatically appealed. The couple’s son, Chen Chih-chung, and his wife, Huang Jui-ching, had pleaded guilty earlier in the year to money-laundering. The son Sept. 11 was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Huang’s sentence of a year and eight months was sus-

pended for five years’ probation and a 200 million Taiwanese dollar “public welfare donation” to the state. Both were fined 150 million Taiwanese dollars. Other relatives in the case received suspended sentences, and two former aides to Chen Shui-bian were sentenced to prison terms of 16 and 20 years. Wu Sept. 2 had been convicted on separate perjury charges for assisting relatives in providing false testimony in the case, and sentenced to a year in prison. n

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Turkmenistan Students Barred From Studying Abroad.

U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch in an Aug. 31 statement urged Turkmenistan to revoke “a new travel ban imposed on students bound for foreign private universities.” It also criticized “new, burdensome requirements for studying abroad that violate rights to freedom of movement and to education.” Under those rules, students who wished to attend public universities abroad were reportedly required to collect extensive documentation before they were allowed to leave Turkmenistan, including copies of the university’s license and state-affiliation status. [See p. 135C2] William Stevens, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital, had said Turkmenistan did not recognize neighboring Kyrgyzstan’s American University in Central Asia (AUCA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported Sept. 5. The U.S. State Department each year awarded full four-year scholarships to as many as 15 Turkmen students to study at the university. Stevens confirmed that Turkmen students had been denied permission to leave the country to n attend AUCA.

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Albania Parliament Approves New Government.

Albania’s parliament Sept. 16 voted, 74–1, to confirm Prime Minister Sali Berisha, 65, of the conservative Democratic Party and his new cabinet. The opposition Socialist Party, which held 65 seats in the 140-seat parliament, was boycotting the parliament because it claimed that the Democratic Party had rigged legislative elections held in June. The Democratic Party held 70 parliamentary seats. In order to reach a parliamentary majority, it had entered a coalition with the leftist Socialist Movement for Integration, which held four seats. [See below, p. 511D2] Successful elections were viewed as necessary for Albania’s bid to join the European Union to move forward. In a Sept. 17 letter, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn congratulated Berisha on his reelection, and said the elections had been held in accordance with most of the guidelines spelled out by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security monitor. How625

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ever, Rehn added that Albania had to improve its rule of law, strengthen democratic institutions and maintain an independent judiciary in order to demonstrate its readiness for EU membership. Facts on Berisha— Berisha was born Oct. 15, 1944. In 1967 he graduated from medical school at the University of Tirana in Tirana, the Albanian capital. He then took a position as a cardiologist at the Tirana general hospital, and also worked at the University of Tirana as an assistant professor of medicine. He later became a professor of cardiology at the school. Following the 1985 death of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Berisha became involved with democratic reform movements. In February 1991, he was elected chairman of the new Democratic Party. In April 1992, he was elected Albania’s first non-Communist president. Berisha was widely believed to have been involved with pyramid investment schemes—in which hundreds of thousands of Albanians had invested—that began to collapse in early 1997. The parliament reelected Berisha as president in March of that year, but he resigned several months later, after the Socialist party won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections. [See 1997, p. 546A1] In July 2005, Berisha led a coalition of center-right parties to victory in parliamentary elections, and in September 2005 he became prime minister. In parliamentary elections held in June, Berisha’s Democratic Party won 70 seats, and allied with the small Socialist Movement for Integration party to form a working majority. Albanian President Bamir Topi Sept. 9 formally appointed Berisha to another term as prime minister. Berisha was married, and had two children. n

E Great Britain Airline Bomb Plotters Get Life Sentences.

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A judge in Woolwich Crown Court in London Sept. 14 sentenced three British Muslim men to life in prison for plotting to bomb at least seven trans-Atlantic passenger jets with liquid explosives in 2006. Judge Richard Henriques sentenced the plot’s ringleader, Adulla Ahmed Ali, 28, to a minimum term of 40 years in prison before he could be eligible for parole; Assad Sarwar, 29, to a minimum of 36 years; and Tanvir Hussain, 28, to a minimum of 32 years. [See p. 608B1] A jury had convicted the men the previous week, after a six-month retrial. The jury in the first trial in November 2008 had returned mixed verdicts. A fourth man, Umar Islam (a convert to Islam formerly known as Brian Young), 31, received a sentence of at least 22 years in prison. He had been convicted of conspiracy to murder, but the jury had been unable to reach a verdict on whether he knew the details of the bomb plot. Henriques said, “The intention was to perpetrate a terrorist outrage that would 626

stand alongside the events of Sept. 11, 2001,” referring to attacks on the U.S. by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda that killed nearly 3,000 people. Henriques said the trial evidence proved that “the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan.” Prosecutors had alleged that senior Al Qaeda operatives directed the plotters from Pakistan. British authorities had placed the plotters under surveillance before arresting them in August 2006, when the suicide bombing attempt was believed to be imminent. The disclosure of the plot led to international restrictions on the amount of liquids that passengers could carry on to their flights. Prosecutors Sept. 11 said they would request a second retrial for three defendants who were acquitted of the bomb plot charges, and for whom the jury was unable to reach verdicts on charges of conspiracy to murder: Ibrahim Savant, 28; Arafat Khan, 28; and Waheed Zaman, 25. A hearing was set for Oct. 5 to consider the retrial request. The Crown Prosecution Service acknowledged that the request for a third trial was unusual, but cited a “very considerable public interest in having the allegation determined by a jury one way or the other.” n Cadbury Rejects Kraft Takeover Bid. British candy-maker Cadbury PLC Sept. 7 rejected a £10.2 billion ($16.7 billion) cashand-stock takeover offer made public that day by Kraft Foods Inc. of the U.S., the world’s second-largest food-maker. Cadbury said the offer, a 31% premium to its closing share price on the previous day of trading, Sept. 4, “fundamentally undervalues” its worth. [See 2008, p. 292E1] Together, the two companies would have $50 billion in annual revenues. A deal would give Kraft access to new markets outside the U.S., including emerging markets like India. Cadbury was the world’s second-largest candy and chocolate maker, after Mars Inc. of the U.S., which acquired chewing-gum maker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. of the U.S. in 2008. Analysts said a rival such as Hershey Co. of the U.S., which distributed Cadbury products in the U.S., or Swiss-based Nestle SA, might make a competing bid or partnership offer for Cadbury. n Merger to Create New Cell Phone Leader.

Deutsche Telekom AG of Germany and French rival France Telecom SA Sept. 8 announced a plan to merge their brands in Britain—T-Mobile and Orange, respectively. The joint venture, subject to regulatory approval, would create the largest British cellular telephone operator. [See 2008, p. 834B2] The O2 brand of Spain’s Telefonica SA was the current leader in the British cell phone market, with a 27.1% share, by number of customers. Vodafone Group PLC of Britain was second, with 23.6%. The combination of T-Mobile and Orange would hold about 38% of the market, or some 30 million customers. Analysts said the deal could prompt similar cost-saving mergers in the cell phone market across Europe. Companies faced

dwindling revenue as they contended with limits imposed by the European Union on the prices they could charge for voice and text services. Also, customers had cut their spending during the global recession. n

Italy Berlusconi Denies New Prostitution Claims.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Sept. 10 denied new claims that he had received sexual favors from prostitutes procured for him by a businessman from the southern city of Bari. Italian newspapers the previous day had reported that the businessman, Giampaolo Tarantini, had testified that he had brought about 30 women to 18 parties hosted by Berlusconi at his palazzo in Rome, the capital, and paid some of them for providing sexual services, without telling Berlusconi. [See p. 463A2] Speaking during a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Rome, Berlusconi rejected the reports as “absolute lies and absolute slander.” He dismissed a reporter’s question about whether the scandal might force him to resign. He said, “I sincerely believe I’m the best prime minister that Italy has had in its 150-year history.” Newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Stampa Sept. 9 had published excerpts from transcripts of Tarantini’s questioning by prosecutors in Bari. Tarantini said he paid the expenses of the women who attended Berlusconi’s parties. He said he paid some of the women 1,000 euros ($1,460) extra to provide sexual services “if the need arises.” He added, “I introduced them as my friends and kept quiet that I was sometimes paying them.” Berlusconi, 72, acknowledged that Tarantini “came to some dinners bringing beautiful women with him,” but insisted that he had never paid anyone for sex. One of the women linked to Tarantini, professional escort Patrizia D’Addario, in June had claimed that she was paid to attend parties and spent a night with Berlusconi in November 2008. She said she had secretly recorded conversations with Berlusconi that night. The news magazine L’Espresso July 23 posted her audio recordings on its Web site. The scandal surrounding the personal life of Berlusconi had started in May when his wife, Veronica Lario, announced that she was seeking a divorce and accused him of consorting with young women. Sues Newspapers—Berlusconi’s lawyer, member of parliament Niccolo Ghedine, Aug. 28 said he had filed lawsuits against three newspapers for defamation over their reporting on the scandal: Italy’s La Repubblica, Spain’s El Pais and the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. Dino Boffo Sept. 3 resigned as editor of Italian newspaper Avvenire, published by the Italian Bishops Conference, after drawing personal attacks from Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi’s brother, Paolo Berlusconi. FACTS ON FILE

In response to letters from readers about the scandal, Boffo in an editorial published Aug. 12 had written, “People have understood the unease, the mortification, the suffering that this arrogant neglect of sobriety has caused the Catholic Church.” Il Giornale responded with articles calling Boffo a homosexual and alleging that he had paid a fine to settle a 2002 sexual harassment case. n

Moldova Parliament Speaker Confirmed as President.

The Moldovan Constitutional Court Sept. 17 confirmed parliament speaker Mihai Ghimpu as Moldova’s acting president, following the Sept. 11 resignation of President Vladimir Voronin of the Communist Party. Voronin had served two terms since his election in 2001, and was barred from serving a third term. However, he had continued to serve in an interim capacity while Moldova’s divided parliament struggled to elect a new president. Following his resignation, Voronin would serve as a member of parliament. [See p. 529B1] Ghimpu, who led the Liberal Party, one of the four parties that composed Moldova’s current majority pro-Western coalition, would serve as acting president until the parliament elected a new president. He was expected to nominate a prime minister, and organize a fresh presidential election. If no presidential candidate won the required 61 parliamentary votes after two rounds of voting, the constitution mandated that the parliament be dissolved and new legislative elections be scheduled. Moldova’s constitution allowed only two parliamentary elections per year. Because two legislative elections had already been held in 2009, another round could not be conducted until 2010. A Communist-led parliament elected in April was forced to resign in June after it was unable to win enough votes to elect Voronin’s preferred successor, Zinaida Greceanii. In July’s parliamentary elections, the pro-Western coalition won 53 of the 101 parliamentary seats, eight short of the 61 required to elect a president. The opposition Communist Party held the remaining 48 seats. n

Norway Center-left Government Wins Reelection.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his center-left coalition won a second term in Sept. 14 parliamentary elections, according to official results announced Sept. 15, with 99.9% of the vote counted. The three-party coalition won 86 seats in the 169-seat parliament, one less than it previously held. [See 2005, p. 740B2] Stoltenberg’s Labor Party won 35% of the vote and would have 64 seats in parliament, a gain of three. Its coalition partners, the Socialist Left and the Center Party, each won 11 seats. The victory left Stoltenberg’s coalition as the only remaining left-wing governSeptember 17, 2009

ment in Scandinavia, and one of the few in Western Europe, after a trend of centerright victories in recent years. The government was the first to win a second term in Norway since 1993. Stoltenberg, 50, had been prime minister since 2005. He had served a previous stint in the post in 2000–01. In a statement issued Sept. 15, he said he would meet with his coalition partners to “form an ambitious policy for the coming four years, where safe employment, better schools and focus on care of the elderly and climate will be central areas.” The conservative, populist Progress Party, the largest opposition party, won 41 seats, with about 23% of the vote. That was its best performance ever, but short of projections based on preelection polls. The more moderate Conservative Party, Labor’s traditional adversary, won 30 seats, for a gain of eight. Oil Spending Softened Recession—The government had boosted spending on social welfare programs to help soften the effects of a recession brought on by the global financial crisis of the past year. The unemployment rate, at 3%, remained the lowest in Europe. The government had kept taxes high while increasing spending from the nation’s $400 billion sovereign wealth fund derived from its North Sea oil and gas resources. But it pledged to restore limits on oil fund spending once the economy revived. Norway was the world’s fifthleading crude-oil exporter, and the leading Western European exporter of natural gas. Norway’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 2.5% in the second quarter of 2009, compared with a 4.8% contraction in the combined GDP of the 27-member European Union. The left-wing coalition’s victory was expected to prevent any new discussion of a bid for EU membership, which the Center Party opposed. Norwegian voters had rejected joining the EU in 1972 and 1994 referendums. Progress leader Siv Jensen had called for cutting taxes and tapping the oil fund to pay for infrastructure projects. She also urged tighter restrictions on immigration, and proposed building asylum centers in Africa for would-be immigrants. After a surge in immigration since the 1970s, more than 10% of Norway’s population was of foreign origin. n

Turkey Istanbul Flash Floods Kill at Least 32.

Flash floods in Istanbul and the surrounding area in northwestern Turkey Sept. 9 killed at least 32 people. The flooding occurred after a few hours of heavy rains, inundating low-lying areas of the city and the main highway to the airport. The rainfall was said to be the heaviest in the area in 80 years. [See 2003, p. 356F3] About 400 rescue personnel, using heavy machinery and army helicopters, worked to rescue people stranded on top of their vehicles, in apartments or in trees.

The dead included seven women who drowned while trying to escape a minibus they were riding to work at a textile factory. At least 26 people died in Istanbul, where rapid urban expansion and haphazard infrastructure planning were blamed for leaving newer areas vulnerable to floods. The government drew criticism for failing to regulate the city’s development while its population had increased to more than 12 million. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, called the flooding the “disaster of the century.” He pledged to build stronger flood barriers for areas built on riverbeds, which were especially vulnerable to floods. n

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European Union Barroso Reelected Commission President.

The European Parliament, the legislative body of the European Union, Sept. 16 voted, 382–219, with 117 abstentions, to reelect Jose Manuel Barroso of Portugal to a second five-year term as president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. The leaders of the EU’s 27 member nations had already endorsed Barroso, who was the only candidate for the post. [See p. 396G1; 2004, p. 487A3] The result gave Barroso an absolute majority in the 736-member parliament, clearing a threshold that had been seen as a test of whether he could claim a strong mandate, even though he only needed a simple majority to win reelection. He became the first commission president to be reelected since Jacques Delors of France, who served from 1985 to 1994. Barroso, 53, a former Portuguese prime minister, was backed by the European Parliament’s center-right majority, which had boosted its numbers in June elections. But he faced sharp criticism from Socialist leader Martin Schulz of Germany and other left-wing members in a Sept. 15 debate on his nomination at the parliament building in Strasbourg, France. They said he had failed to direct a strong response to the global financial crisis of the past year, and had not demonstrated independence from the larger member nations, namely Germany, France and Britain. In a bid to win over some of his opponents, Barroso pledged to defend the rights of workers, women and minorities, and to work in closer cooperation with the parliament. He also called for stricter financial regulations and action to counter climate change. Barroso’s next task would be to nominate the members of his new commission, which would have one representative from each EU member nation. Each commissioner oversaw a different area of policy. The commission had regulatory powers over matters including antitrust law, trade, agriculture and the environment. The nominees would have to be approved by the European Parliament before the new commission could take office, as scheduled, at the beginning of 2010. 627

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However, the nominations were not expected to proceed until after an Oct. 2 referendum in Ireland, where voters would decide whether to approve the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which contained major institutional reforms. Irish voters had already rejected the treaty once, and a second defeat could be fatal. The treaty required ratification by every member nation. Ireland was the only one to put it to a referendum, rather than the safer choice of a parliamentary vote. [See p. 432D1] n

Other European News Hague Court Official Fined for Contempt.

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The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Sept. 14 found Florence Hartman, a former spokeswoman for a prosecutor at the court, guilty of contempt, and fined her 7,000 euros ($10,100). The court ruled that Hartman, a French journalist who from 2000 to 2006 had worked as spokeswoman for then–chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, had revealed secret court decisions in her 2007 book, Peace and Punishment. Judge Bakone Moloto of South Africa said Hartman’s conduct might “deter sovereign states from cooperating with the tribunal where the provision of evidentiary material is concerned.” [See p. 511D3; 2008, p. 419F3] In her book, Hartman said the ICTY had secretly decided not to release minutes of Serbia’s Supreme Defense Council during the trial of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. According to Hartman, the documents allegedly showed that Milosevic’s government had controlled the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992–95 Bosnian war and could therefore be linked with wartime atrocities committed by it, such as the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica. As many as 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys were killed in the massacre. Guenael Mettraux, Hartman’s lawyer, said Hartman planned to appeal the court’s ruling. He said the court’s decision “makes a journalist who was doing her job a criminal.” Mettraux had argued that information about the secret documents was already in the public domain at the time Hartman’s book was published. Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was currently facing ICTY charges of genocide over the Srebrenica massacre, as well as other wartime atrocities committed by the Bosnian Serb army. An ICTY judge Sept. 8 said Karadzic’s trial could begin as soon as Oct. 19. Ratko Mladic, Karadzic’s deputy, faced similar charges, but remained at large. The Netherlands and Belgium refused to consider Serbian accession to the European Union until Mladic was captured. [See p. 274D2] Bosnian Serb President To Be Freed— ICTY President Patrick Robinson Sept. 15

approved the early release of Biljana Plavsic, the former president of the autonomous Bosnian Serb Republic, who in 2003 had been sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to crimes against humanity. (As a result of her guilty plea, other 628

charges against her, including genocide, had been dropped.) Plavsic had been serving her sentence in Sweden, and under Swedish law, prisoners were eligible for release after serving two-thirds of their term. She would become eligible for release Oct. 27. Her release was subject to formal approval by Sweden. [See 2003, p. 148A2] Robinson, in supporting his decision to release Plavsic, said she had taken responsibility for her crimes. He noted that she had admitted guilt toward the beginning of her trial, and later testified against former Bosnian Serb politician Momcilo Krajisnik, who in 2006 was sentenced by the ICTY to 27 years in prison for crimes against humanity. The court found that he had orchestrated the Bosnian Serb army’s ethnic cleansing campaign. [See 2006, p. 786F2] The ICTY March 17 had overturned Krajisnik’s previous convictions of extermination and persecution, and reduced his sentence to 20 years. The court Sept. 7 said he had been sent to Britain to serve the remainder of his sentence. n Slovenia Lifts Veto on Croatian EU Talks.

Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor Sept. 11, after meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor in Slovenia, said his country would lift its veto on Croatian accession to the European Union. Kosor the same day informed Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which currently held the rotating EU presidency, that Croatia would withdraw controversial membership application documents in which it claimed disputed Adriatic waters in the Bay of Piran. Slovenia, arguing that Croatia’s territorial claims obstructed its access to the Adriatic Sea, in December 2008 had blocked Croatia’s EU membership talks over the border dispute. [See p. 463B1] The leaders said discussions on finalizing an agreed border would continue with EU mediation. The dispute originated when both Croatia and Slovenia had declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia began EU membership talks in 2005. Slovenia, which joined the EU in 2004, was the only country in the former Yugoslavia with EU membership. n

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Iran Khamenei Warns Opposition in Speech.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Sept. 11 in a nationally televised speech warned opposition leaders that the government would deliver a “harsh response” if they continued their protests. The speech, given at Friday prayers at Tehran University, in Tehran, Iran’s capital, was Khamenei’s second since demonstrations rocked the country in the wake of a disputed presidential election in June. It was seen as a possible prelude to the arrests of former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi, two election candidates turned opposition leaders. [See p. 609G3] Khamenei said, “The system will not take action against anyone as long as they

perform within the framework of the system, do not resort to violence, do not disturb the calm in society and do not carry out unlawful actions such as spreading lies and rumors.” However, he said, “Confronting the system and the principles of the establishment, resisting it and drawing a sword against it will have a harsh response.” He did not specifically name Moussavi or Karroubi in the speech. Khamenei also warned Iranians not to protest against the government at an annual pro-Palestinian rally scheduled for Sept. 18. Karroubi and Moussavi had called for demonstrations at the rally, and Karroubi Sept. 15 said he would attend. A Web site linked to Moussavi Sept. 11 reported that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful politician who supported the opposition, had said that Khamenei had ordered Karroubi’s arrest. Other reports said the order, although not yet carried out, had been issued several weeks earlier, and that it had prompted Rafsanjani to threaten to resign his post as head of the Council of Experts, which had the power to dismiss the supreme leader. Opposition Web sites Sept. 15 reported that Iranian authorities the previous day had arrested at least seven children or grandchildren of senior Shiite Muslim clerics in the holy city of Qom. Several clerics from Qom had spoken out in favor of the opposition movement, departing from their traditional lack of overt involvement in politics. One of them, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Sept. 14 had posted a statement on his Web site urging other clerics to criticize “the violations that are happening under the name of religion,” and to back the opposition. A mass trial of alleged dissidents resumed Sept. 14. The trial had featured confessions and apologies to the government, which the opposition said had been coerced through abuse. It was the first session since Sadeq Larijani became head of Iran’s judiciary; Larijani had said that he would free many of those who had been arrested after the protests. A government judicial panel Sept. 12 ruled that Karroubi’s allegations that jailed protesters had been raped were baseless. Karroubi Sept. 14 responded by presenting details of four cases of abuse, including rape. The government Sept. 13 freed Alireza Hosseini-Beheshti, a senior Moussavi aide who had been arrested earlier in the week after he investigated prison abuse allegations. n

Iraq U.S. VP Biden Visits to Help Break Stalemate.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden Sept. 15–17 made an unannounced visit to Iraq, in an attempt to prod Iraqi legislators into breaking a political stalemate that had stalled progress on several important pieces of legislation. It was Biden’s third trip to Iraq since the U.S. presidential election in November 2008; his last visit had been in early July. [See pp. 610A2, 464D3] FACTS ON FILE

Biden met with Iraqi leaders including Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and President Massoud Barzani of the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan. In a series of meetings, he reportedly listened to their concerns and pressed them to pass laws establishing rules for parliamentary elections scheduled for 2010; encouraging foreign investment in oil; and affirming a 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, rather than moving it up a year, as was called for in a proposed referendum. Biden Sept. 15 said he could act as an “interlocutor” between Iraqi politicians, but acknowledged that the “real bargaining will begin” only after the 2010 elections. Mortar shells Sept. 15 and 16 landed near the U.S. embassy, where Biden was staying, in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, the capital. The attacks killed three Iraqis. Bush Shoe-Thrower Released—Iraqi authorities Sept. 15 released from prison Muntader al-Zaidi, an Iraqi reporter who during a press conference in December 2008 had thrown his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush in protest of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Zaidi had been convicted of insulting a visiting head of state and was originally sentenced to three years in prison. However, his sentence was reduced to a year in April, and he was ultimately released after nine months for good behavior. [See p. 228F1] Zaidi Sept. 15 told reporters that he had been tortured while in custody, starting as soon as he was detained, and while the press conference with Bush was still going on. He said Iraqi security personnel had beaten him with pipes and steel cables, given him electric shocks, and soaked him with water and left him in an unheated area overnight. Zaidi reportedly looked to be in good health but was missing a front tooth, which his family said was a result of the abuse. After his release, Zaidi’s family said he had left the country and traveled to Greece. They said he feared for his safety because he planned on naming his abusers, who allegedly included senior Iraqi government and military officials. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The U.S. military Sept. 16 announced that Camp Bucca, once Iraq’s largest prison, would be closed once 180 remaining “high-risk detainees” were transferred to other U.S.-run prisons. Located in southern Iraq, Camp Bucca had reached a maximum of more than 26,000 prisoners in 2007. Most of the prisoners had been freed or turned over to Iraqi authorities, as required by a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. About $50 million worth of infrastructure at the prison would also be transferred to Iraq. [See p. 189B3] o A contractor employed by U.S.-based KBR Inc. Sept. 13 was killed at a U.S. military base in the city of Tikrit, in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The military said a U.S. soldier had been detained in connection with the case. September 17, 2009

o Two bombs Sept. 12 exploded at a Shiite Muslim shrine in Baghdad’s Bab alMuadham neighborhood, killing three Iraqis. At another Shiite shrine in Baghdad that day, police found explosives hidden inside a Koran. o The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Sept. 11 dismissed a case accusing two U.S. private contracting companies of torturing Iraqis. The Iraqi plaintiffs—which included the victims, as well as relatives of victims— said detainees at Abu Ghraib prison had been abused by interpreters and interrogators provided to the U.S. government by CACI International Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.’s Titan unit. The court ruled, 2-1, that the companies’ status as government contractors gave them immunity to the lawsuit, rejecting the plaintiffs’ arguments that the companies were not immune because the alleged abuse was not part of the work for which they had been contracted. [See 2008, p. 443C2] n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan Mullen Says More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed.

U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sept. 15 testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that more U.S. troops would “probably” be needed to defeat an insurgency in Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. Mullen’s remarks came as violence in Afghanistan reached record levels, and U.S. public support for the war dipped, leading to growing opposition among the Democratic majorities in Congress for a possible troop increase. [See below, p. 593B3] Mullen argued that in order to achieve U.S. President Barack Obama’s main goals in Afghanistan—disrupting the activities of international terrorist network Al Qaeda and depriving the group of a safe haven in the country—U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces had to defeat the Taliban, a close Al Qaeda ally. He rejected suggestions that the U.S. limit its focus to killing or capturing Al Qaeda members, using a modest number of U.S. trooops on the ground. Mullen said Al Qaeda would regroup if the coalition did not stabilize Afghanistan, strengthen its government institutions and help develop its economy. While Mullen did not specify how many U.S. troops should be deployed, he said 2,000 to 4,000 additional trainers would be needed to train Afghanistan’s security forces. Coalition forces had set a goal of increasing the size of Afghanistan’s national army to 134,000, and the country’s police force to 96,000, by the end of 2010. Mullen warned that it would take at least two to three years before Afghan forces could bear a more significant share of the country’s security responsibilities. Mullen was challenged by Sen. Carl Levin (D, Mich.), the committee chairman, who said the U.S. should intensify its training efforts before committing additional

troops. Levin proposed increasing the size of the Afghan army to 250,000, and the police force to 160,000, by the end of 2012. He said such a strategy would “demonstrate our commitment” to success in Afghanistan, “while avoiding the risks associated with a larger U.S. footprint.” Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), the committee’s ranking Republican, disagreed with Levin, arguing that the U.S.’s recent experiences in the Iraq war proved that a troop increase was necessary. He said hesitation to boost U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and premature efforts to transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, had exacerbated instability in that country for several years. McCain said a greater U.S. troop commitment in Afghanistan would avoid “the nearly catastrophic mistakes” that were made in Iraq. Obama had authorized the deployment of 21,000 troops to Afghanistan earlier in the year, which would bring the total number of U.S. troops in the country to 68,000 by the end of 2009, but he had not yet indicated whether he was willing to further increase troop levels. Obama Sept. 16 said he would resist pressure to make a decision quickly, saying he first wanted “absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be.” Mullen was appearing before the committee to seek Senate confirmation for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates March 18 had recommended Mullen’s renomination to Obama. U.S. Support for War Drops—A poll released Sept. 15 by Cable News Network (CNN) and Opinion Research Corp. showed that 39% of the U.S. public supported the war in Afghanistan, down from the 53% that the poll had found in April. The latest poll showed that 58% of Americans opposed the war. Support among Democratic voters, at 23%, was particularly low, compared with 62% for Republicans. Democratic lawmakers had also become increasingly critical of the war, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Sept. 10 saying, “I don’t think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in Congress.” Analysts said Obama would likely look for support from Republican lawmakers if he decided to boost troop levels, and members of his own party opposed the funding for a troop increase. Fraud Charges Undermine Vote Results—

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission Sept. 16 said preliminary results from an August presidential election showed that President Hamid Karzai had received 55% of the vote, which meant that Karzai had won the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff with his main competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who had garnered 28% of the vote. However, a European Union election monitoring mission that day said about onethird of the votes cast for Karzai were possibly fraudulent and required investigation. The mission’s claim came a day after Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission ordered a recount of tainted ballots 629

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from 10% of the country’s polling stations. [See p. 610F3] Karzai’s campaign office Sept. 16 blasted the findings of the EU mission as “partial and irresponsible,” while Abdullah said the mission had validated his claims that Karzai had stolen the election. The mission said a total of 1.5 million votes demanded investigation, 1.1 million of which had gone for Karzai, and 300,000 for Abdullah. The Electoral Complaints Commission, which was backed by the United Nations, Sept. 15 had said 2,500, or 10%, of the country’s polling stations met its criteria for investigation. The commission had targeted polling stations where one candidate had received more than 95% of the vote, or where turnout reached or exceeded 100% of registered voters. The election results would not be made final until all recounts and investigations were completed, which was expected to take some weeks. There were growing concerns that a prolonged electoral dispute could further destabilize the country and weaken public support for Karzai’s government, whose supporters had been accused of brazen ballot-stuffing and other election abuses. Also, a disqualification of tainted votes could bring Karzai’s vote tally below 50%, and it was reported that time was running out to hold a runoff, since the approaching winter season would make many areas of the underdeveloped country inaccessible. That would potentially leave the result of the election in limbo until the spring of 2010. The U.S. and NATO were reportedly concerned that it would be difficult to win the allegiance of the Afghan public and defeat the Taliban if their partner in the Afghan government was perceived as being illegitimate. Additionally, analysts said the electoral dispute could dissuade U.S. and European lawmakers from supporting additional troop deployments to the country. There were reports that Karzai was in talks to cut a deal with Abdullah that would bring him into Karzai’s government, in a bid to resolve the standoff. The Independent Election Commission Sept. 16 said voter turnout had been about 38%, well below the 70% turnout seen in the 2004 election. The Taliban had threatened reprisals against anyone who voted. 30 Civilians Reported Killed in Air Strike—

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The Wall Street Journal Sept. 17 reported that 30 civilians and about 70 militants had been killed by a U.S. air strike in the northern province of Kunduz in early September, according to the preliminary findings of a NATO investigation. The casualty figures, which at first had been in dispute, matched those released that day by an Afghan investigative commission appointed by Karzai. The strike had provoked strong international and Afghan criticism, particularly against German forces who had called in the strike, which targeted Taliban fighters who hijacked two fuel tankers. NATO’s ongoing investigation was expected to determine whether a German commander had breached NATO rules of engagement intended to limit civilian casualties. [See p. 611F1] 630

In other violence in Afghanistan, six Italian troops and 10 Afghan civilians were killed in a Sept. 17 attack near the U.S. embassy in Kabul, the country’s capital. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that day said it was time to “bring our young men home as soon as possible,” fueling concern that Italy could pull its estimated 3,000 troops out of the country. While Berlusconi had supported the Afghan mission in the past, his comment was one of the most explicit criticisms of the war to date by a European head of state. Like Berlusconi, other European leaders were grappling with low domestic support for the war. Three U.S. soldiers were killed Sept. 15 by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. As of Sept. 17, a total of 355 coalition personnel had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009, according to the Web site icasualties.org. That was already the highest yearly total since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. Bagram Detention Challenges Allowed—

The Washington Post and the New York Times Sept. 13 reported that the Obama administration was preparing guidelines that would allow detainees at the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base, just north of Kabul, to challenge their detention, a reversal of the policy implemented by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. The Obama administration was currently reviewing all of Bush’s antiterrorism detention policies, and while Obama had overturned some of them, he had also embraced others. The Justice Department was currently appealing an April decision by a U.S. judge that granted Bagram detainees the right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. [See pp. 621D2, 499B1, 199D2] Under the latest guidelines, each of Bagram’s 600 detainees would be assigned a U.S. military representative. The represenatives would not be lawyers, but would be allowed to gather evidence on behalf of detainees and challenge their detention before a review board comprised of military officers. The detainees were currently classified as “enemy combatants,” and had no legal representation and no right to know what allegations had been made against them. They could be held indefinitely, and some had been imprisoned for as long as six years. Human rights groups cautiously praised Obama’s shift as a step in the right direction. n

Pakistan Taliban Spokesman in Swat Captured. The Pakistani military Sept. 11 announced that it had captured five militants with the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, including Muslim Khan, the Taliban’s chief spokesman in the Swat Valley region. The military had recently completed a major operation to defeat a Taliban insurgency in Swat—in which some 2,000 militants were killed—but most of the Swat Taliban’s leaders remained at large, raising doubts about Pakistan’s commitment to combating Islamist terrorism. [See p. 577E3] Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the military, said Khan’s arrest was a

“major breakthrough,” since he was “at the top of the hierarchy” in the Swat Taliban. It remained unclear when Khan was arrested, and it was widely speculated that the military had waited until the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. to announce Khan’s detainment, in a bid to show the U.S. that it was making good on its pledge to fight terrorism. The military said Khan had been captured in a “successful operation” just outside Mingora, the main town in Swat, which also netted Mahmood Khan, a Taliban commander, and three lower-level militants. However, it was also reported that the military had ensnared the five militants by inviting them to fake peace negotiations, a claim that the military denied. The military had largely regained control of Swat, and was facilitating the return of some two million civilian refugees who had fled the fighting. However, the region continued to see sporadic bursts of militant violence, including an Aug. 30 suicide bombing in Mingora that killed 15 police recruits. Additionally, Taliban corpses continued to be found on the streets of Mingora and other towns, with some of them reportedly bearing marks of torture. Human rights groups and other observers had accused the military of carrying out extrajudicial killings in retaliation against the Taliban. Other Developments—In other developments in Pakistan: o Pakistani officials Sept. 14 said more than 100,000 civilians had fled the Khyber district in the North-West Frontier Province since Sept. 1, when the military began an operation to secure the Khyber Pass. The pass was used to transport supplies to U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in neighboring Afghanistan. The operation began after a suicide bomber Aug. 27 killed 22 police officers guarding the Khyber Pass. The military said some 170 militants had thus far been killed in the operation. [See p. 103F1] o Gunmen on motorcycles Sept. 2 wounded Hamid Saeed Kazmi, Pakistan’s religious affairs minister, and killed his driver in an attack on his car in Islamabad, the capital. Kazmi had been an outspoken critic of the Taliban. The attack raised concerns that even well-guarded areas like Islamabad were vulnerable to militant attacks. n U.S.-Made Missiles Reportedly Altered.

The New York Times Aug. 30 reported that the U.S. had accused Pakistan of illegally altering U.S.-made antiship missiles so that they could be used against land targets. The Times said U.S. officials were concerned that Pakistan was stockpiling arms that it would deploy against India, its traditional rival, in the event of a war. The accusation had reportedly been made in June, after Pakistan conducted an unannounced missile test on April 23. The missiles were purchased in the 1980s during the administration of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. The Times said Pakistani officials had denied the charge, which would be a violation of the U.S. Arms Control Export Act, and had invited U.S. officials to examine its arsenal of antiship missiles. [See pp. 500A1, 486D1] n FACTS ON FILE

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Del Potro, Clijsters Win Tennis’s U.S. Open Top-Ranked Federer Upset in Final. Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro, the sixth seed, Sept. 14 defeated the world’s top-ranked player, five-time defending champion Roger Federer of Switzerland, 3–6, 7–6, 4–6, 7–6, 6–2, to win the men’s singles title at the U.S. Open in New York City. Unseeded wild card Kim Clijsters of Belgium, in just her third tournament since emerging from retirement, Sept. 13 had defeated Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, the ninth seed, 7–5, 6–3, to claim the second Grand Slam title of her career. [See below; 2008, p. 642F1] Both finals were delayed by one day, after rain caused the cancellation of all play Sept. 11. The men’s final lasted four hours and six minutes. Federer, vying for his 16th Grand Slam title, claimed the first set, 6–3, against the 20-year-old, six-foot, six-inch Argentine, and seemed to be on the way to an easy victory. Federer, 28, went on to take a 5–4 lead in the second set. But del Potro broke Federer’s serve and fought back to force a tiebreaker, which he won, 7–5. Federer won the third set, 4–6, but engaged in an uncharacteristic argument with the chair umpire late in the set. In the fourth set, Federer began to make more and more unforced errors—his final tally in the match was 15, to four for del Potro—and the Argentine hit several forehand winners. The two players battled to a tiebreaker, which del Potro won, 7–4. He went on to easily win the fifth set, 6–2, and claim his first Grand Slam title. Del Potro in the semifinal Sept. 13 had easily defeated Rafael Nadal of Spain, the third seed, 6–2, 6–2, 6–2. Federer in his semifinal that day beat Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the fourth seed, 7–6, 7–5, 7–5. Del Potro became the first Argentine man to win the U.S. Open since Guillermo Vilas in 1977. He also became the first player other than Nadal to defeat Federer in a Grand Slam final, as well as the first player to beat Federer at the U.S. Open since 2003. [See 1977, p. 787C1] Clijsters Win in Comeback—Clijsters, 26, with her Sept. 13 victory became the first wild card to win the women’s title at a Grand Slam. A former top-ranked player who had won the U.S. Open in 2005, Clijsters had retired in May 2007, citing chronic injuries and the desire to start a family. She subsequently got married, and had a daughter, Jada, in February 2008. She returned to professional tennis in August. [See 2007, p. 391A1] Semifinal

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Clijsters Sept. 12 defeated defending champion Serena Williams of the U.S., the second seed, 6–4, 7–5, to advance to the final. During the match, Williams became increasingly frustrated with calls by the line judges and her own inconsistent play, at one point smashing her racket on the court, breaking it and earning a warning from the chair umpire, Louise Engzell. Later, with September 17, 2009

Williams serving at 5–6, 15–30 in the second set, a lineswoman called a foot fault, causing her to lose the point and go down 15–40, match point for Clijsters. Clearly angered by the call, Williams approached the lineswoman and unleashed a profanitylaced tirade, including a threat to shove the ball down her throat. She also shook her racket at the lineswoman, who was seated. The lineswoman then went over to Engzell and conveyed to her what Williams had said. The tournament referee, Brian Earley, was called onto the court and, after a discussion with Engzell and the lineswoman, Williams was assessed a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. That penalty, combined with her earlier warning, automatically meant the loss of a point and handed Clijsters the victory. The U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) Sept. 13 announced that it was fining Williams $10,000 for her outburst and $500 for breaking her racket. Williams that day issued a statement through a public-relations agency, in which she said she had “handled the situation poorly,” but did not apologize. The next day she amended her initial statement in a post on her Web site, apologizing to “the lines woman, Kim Clijsters, the USTA, and tennis fans everywhere for my inappropriate outburst.” She added, “I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately.” The Grand Slam Committee, which oversaw tennis’s four Grand Slams, reportedly opened an investigation into the incident, which could lead to a fine equivalent to all of Williams’s prize money from the tournament ($350,000 for reaching the singles semifinal and $210,000 for winning the women’s doubles title). The committee also had the power to suspend her from a Grand Slam tournament. [See below] In the other women’s semifinal Sept. 12, Wozniacki, 19, beat unseeded Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium, 6–3, 6–3, to advance to her first Grand Slam final. Doubles Results—Serena and Venus Williams Sept. 14 won the women’s doubles final, defeating Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the U.S., 6–2, 6– 2. In the men’s final Sept. 13, Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes of India had defeated Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas, 3–6, 6–3, 6–2. And in mixed doubles, Americans Carly Gullickson and Travis Parrott Sept. 10 beat defending champions Black and Paes, 6–2, 6–4, to claim the title. Other News—In other tennis news: o Elena Dementieva of Russia Aug. 23 defeated countrywoman Maria Sharapova, 6–4, 6–3, to win the women’s Rogers Cup title in Toronto, Canada. [See 2008, p. 642F3] o Federer Aug. 23 won the Cincinnati Masters in Ohio, beating Djokovic, 6–1, 7– 5. [See 2008, p. 642B3] o Jelena Jankovic of Serbia Aug. 16 won the Western & Southern Financial Group Women’s Open in Mason, Ohio, beating top-ranked Dinara Safina of Russia, 6–4, 6–2.

o Andy Murray of Scotland Aug. 16 won the men’s Rogers Cup title in Montreal, Canada, beating del Potro, 6–7, 7–6, 6–1. [See 2008, p. 875B3] o Former top-ranked player and ninetime Grand Slam winner Monica Seles of the U.S. July 11 was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. Also inducted that day were Andres Gimeno, in the master’s player category; and Donald Dell and Robert Johnson, in the contributor category. [See 2008, p. 643A1; 1996, p. 76E1] n

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Football NFL Season Opens. The National Football League (NFL) season opened Sept. 10 with a 13–10 overtime victory by the defending Super Bowl champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, over the Tennessee Titans in Pittsburgh, Pa. The other 30 NFL teams opened their seasons Sept. 13–14. [See p. 70B1] Several notable stars went down with injuries in the opening week, including Steelers safety Troy Polamalu, Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. When McNabb left the Eagles’ Sept. 13 game against the Carolina Panthers with a cracked rib, he was replaced by backup quarterback Kevin Kolb. The Eagles’ other backup, Michael Vick, was suspended through the first two weeks of the season, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Sept. 3 had ruled him eligible to play in the third week. Vick, a former starter for the Atlanta Falcons, had served 18 months in prison for running a dog-fighting ring. [See p. 564D1] New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the league’s most valuable player (MVP) in the 2007 season, Sept. 14 returned to lead his team in a dramatic 25–24 comeback win against the Buffalo Bills in Foxborough, Mass. Brady had suffered a season-ending knee injury in the opening game of the 2008 season. Without their star quarterback, the Patriots had missed the playoffs in 2008 for just the third time in a decade in which they had won three Super Bowl titles. [See 2008, p. 667E2]

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Legendary quarterback Brett Favre Sept. 13 made his debut for the Minnesota Vikings, leading the team to a 34–20 road victory over the Cleveland Browns. Favre, 39, in February had announced his retirement from the sport for the second time in less than a year. However, Favre, who had spent most of his career with the Green Bay Packers, Aug. 18 signed a two-year, $25 million deal with the Vikings, after declining an earlier invitation to Minnesota’s training camp. [See p. 176B2] Favre’s return with the Vikings kept alive his consecutive regular-season games streak, which as of Sept. 17 stood at 270, a record for an NFL quarterback. Controversy over the streak erupted earlier in September, when Favre admitted to having played the final third of the 2008 season for the New York Jets with an undisclosed torn biceps tendon injury. League rules re631

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quired teams to list any player injuries on weekly reports. Mike Tannenbaum, the Jets general manager, Sept. 10 admitted to mishandling the situation. The Jets Sept. 16 were fined $75,000, while Tannenbaum and former coach Eric Mangini were penalized $25,000 apiece for the violation. Burress Agrees to Plea Deal— Former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress Aug. 20 pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, after accidentally shooting himself in the thigh with a handgun he was carrying illegally in a New York City nightclub in November 2008. As part of the plea deal, Burress agreed to a two-year prison sentence and two years of supervised release. Goodell that day suspended Burress until he completed the jail term. [See p. 299D1] A New York City grand jury Aug. 4 decided against indicting Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce, who had accompanied Burress to the nightclub on the evening of the shooting. Pierce also drove Burress to a hospital that night and returned the gun to his teammate’s home in Totowa, N.J. In an Aug. 4 statement, Pierce said he was “not sorry for how I acted that night.” In another legal case involving an NFL player, Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth served 24 days in jail during the offseason. On June 15, he had pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges related to a March accident in Miami, Fla., in which Stallworth hit and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk. Following his release from prison, Goodell Aug. 13 suspended Stallworth for the entire 2009 season without pay. Other News—In other football news: o Recently retired television analyst and former NFL coach John Madden Sept. 10 was named a special adviser to Goodell. In the role, Madden, a former head coach of the Oakland Raiders, would oversee the coaches’ subcommittee of the league’s competition committee. [See p. 299C1] o The Patriots Sept. 6 traded defensive lineman Richard Seymour to the Oakland Raiders in exchange for a first-round draft pick in 2011. o Goodell Aug. 28 ruled that the jumbo video screens in the new Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas, would not be raised further from field level for the 2009 season, despite concerns that the screens would obstruct play on kickoffs or punts. The league laid out the ground rules that day in case the ball struck one of the screens. The Cowboys would host their first home game in the new stadium on Sept. 20 against the Giants. o Giants quarterback Eli Manning Aug. 14 signed a six-year extension with the team that would pay him an average salary of $15.3 million starting in 2010. Manning had led the Giants to a victory in Super Bowl XLII in 2008. [See 2008, p. 78F3] o Six honorees—wide receiver Bob Hayes and linebacker Derrick Thomas, both deceased, and offensive guard Randall McDaniel, defensive end Bruce Smith, defensive back Rod Woodson and Bills owner Ralph Wilson Jr.—Aug. 8 were inducted 632

into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. [See p. 176C2] o Jets linebacker Calvin Pace July 2 was suspended without pay for the first four games of the 2009 season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. Pace claimed that the violation was a result of taking an over-the-counter dietary supplement that he did not know was banned by the NFL. o The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) June 4 settled a lawsuit with a group of retired players, agreeing to pay $26 million. The players’ union had been ordered to pay $28.1 million in damages in November 2008 for failing to properly distribute licensing fees to retired players. The settlement reduced the total payment, but the retired players would receive their shares sooner, about $10,000 each over the next two years. [See 2008, p. 992D2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People Rapper Kanye West, 32, Sept. 13 created a stir at the MTV Video Music Awards when he noisily interrupted an acceptance speech by country music singer Taylor Swift, 19, after she had been announced as the winner of the prize for best female video, to say that he thought the award should have gone to rhythm-and-blues singer Beyonce, 28. West later gave apologies for his outburst in various forums, including during a guest appearance on the Sept. 14 premiere of the primetime NBC television show hosted by Jay Leno, who in May had stepped down as the host of the network’s “Tonight Show.” Even U.S. President Barack Obama got caught up in the flap surrounding West’s remarks, after an off-the-record Sept. 14 comment by Obama referring to West as a “jackass” ended up being publicized after being posted on the Web site Twitter. [See pp. 383F3, 212D1, 88D2, A3, 72D1; 2008, p. 912F2] n

O B I T UA R I E S BOHR, Aage Niels, 87, Danish physicist who was one of three winners of the 1975 Nobel Prize in physics; the three were honored for showing that atomic nuclei could be distorted by the rotational motion of the protons and neutrons within them; Bohr was the son of another Nobel physics laureate, Niels Henrik David Bohr, who won the prize in 1922 for helping to lay the foundation for quantum mechanics; in 1963, a year after his father died, Aage Bohr succeeded him as director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, Denmark, later renamed the Niels Bohr Institute; born June 19, 1922, in Copenhagen; died there Sept. 8; no cause of death was reported. [See 1975, p. 790G2; 1962, p. 424D2; Index 1960] BORLAUG, Norman Ernest, 95, agricultural scientist, trained as a plant pathologist, who developed improved strains of wheat and rice credited with saving millions of lives in the developing world, particularly in Mexico–where he was based for many years– India and Pakistan; widely referred to as the father of the agricultural movement known as the Green Revolution, he was the recipient of many honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in 2007; since 1984, he had been a distinguished professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University in College Station; the school was the site of an agricultural research institute named after him; born March 25, 1914, on a farm near Saude, Iowa; died Sept. 12 at his home in Dallas, Texas, of

cancer complications. [See 2007, p. 472A2; 1974, pp. 923C1, 680A3, 275G2, 60A3; Indexes 1970–71] GELBART, Larry Simon, 81, comedy writer, playwright, screenwriter, and director and producer; he helped develop and produce the long-running U.S. television comedy series “M.A.S.H.” (1972–83), and was the primary writer of the show during its first four seasons; his film credits included the screenplays for such comedies as Oh, God! (1977) and Tootsie (1982); his substantial work on Broadway netted him two Tony Awards, for co-authoring the book to the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and for writing the book to the musical City of Angels (1989); born Feb. 25, 1928, in Chicago; died Sept. 11 at his home in Beverly, Hills, Calif., of cancer. [See 2004, p. 415D3; 2002, p. 427A3; Indexes 1996, 1989–90, 1984, 1982, 1978, 1966, 1962–63] KNIGHT, Marie (born Marie Roach), 89, gospel singer best known for her performances and recordings in the late 1940s and early 1950s with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the first gospel singers to reach a wide public; Tharpe died in 1973; born June 1, 1920, in Sanford, Fla. (she claimed to have been born in 1925 but, according to the New York Times, was born in 1920); died Aug. 30 at a nursing home in New York City, after battling pneumonia. [See 1973, p. 960B1] KRAMER, Jack (John Albert), 88, tennis player who from 1946 to 1953 was deemed the world’s No. 1 player; he won the men’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1947, the year he turned professional, and did so while wearing shorts, the first Wimbledon competitor to wear them; after an arthritic back forced him to retire from competitive tennis in 1954, he became one of the sport’s leading promoters; in 1972, he helped found the Association of Tennis Professionals, the men’s players union, and became its first executive director; a Wilson Sporting Goods tennis racket bearing his signature became the best-selling tennis racket ever; he also did television commentary on tennis in both the U.S. and Britain, and owned several golf courses and many racehorses; born Aug. 1, 1921, in Las Vegas, Nev.; died Sept. 12 at his home in Los Angeles, weeks after being diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma, a form of cancer. [See 2006, p. 480D3; 1980, p. 607B3; Indexes 1959–60, 1957, 1953–55, 1946–50] POWELL, Jody (Joseph Lester Powell Jr.), 65, White House press secretary during the Democratic administration of President Jimmy Carter (1977–81); he had previously been Carter’s press secretary during Carter’s four years (1971-75) as governor of Georgia; after leaving the White House, he wrote a syndicated newspaper column and was a news commentator for the ABC television network; born Sept. 30, 1943, in Cordele, Ga.; died Sept. 14 outside his home near Cambridge, Md., of an apparent heart attack; he died little more than a year after the death of Hamilton Jordan, a fellow Georgian roughly his age who had been President Carter’s chief of staff. [See 2008, p. 352B3; 1983, p. 500E2; Indexes 1976–81] SWAYZE, Patrick (Wayne), 57, dancer turned actor who achieved stardom—and a reputation as a Hollywood heartthrob—by portraying a dance instructor at a summer resort in Dirty Dancing (1987); three years later, he starred opposite Demi Moore in Ghost, playing a banker slain by a mugger and returning as a ghost; his other films included Point Break (1991) and Donny Darko (2001); he also worked in theater and television; born Aug. 18, 1952, in Houston, Texas; died Sept. 14 in Los Angeles, 20 months after having been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer; while undergoing chemotherapy, he filmed 13 episodes of “The Beast,” an A&E cable TV series that premiered in January. [See 1995, p. 751F2; 1992, p. 340F1; Indexes 1989–91, 1987, 1984] TRAVERS, Mary Allin, 72, singer who was the “Mary” in the folk-pop trio Peter, Paul and Mary, which was extremely popular in the 1960s; the group’s other members were Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey; the trio recorded hit versions of such iconic protest songs as Pete Seeger and Lee Hays’s “If I Had a Hammer” (recorded in 1962) and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963); active in the civil rights movement, the trio performed at the 1963 March on Washington organized by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and at other political rallies in the U.S. and abroad; the group disbanded in 1970 but reunited in 1978 and toured and recorded on a limited basis thereafter; born Nov. 9, 1936, in Louisville, Ky.; died Sept. 16 at a hospital in Danbury, Conn., of side effects from the chemotherapy she had needed since receiving a bone-marrow transplant in 2005, after being diagnosed with leukemia in 2004. [See 1997, pp. 756C3, 268G3; 1986, p. 64B3; 1971, p. 310D1; 1970, p. 375E2; 1969, p. 744E1] n

September 17, 2009

United Nations Opens Annual General Debate Obama Debuts at Assembly. United Na-

tions Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Sept. 23 opened the general debate of the 64th Annual General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City. In his speech, Ban called on the U.N.’s member nations to “create a United Nations of genuine collective action” in order to address world crises, including the global financial crisis and the spread of the A(H1N1) swine flu virus. He also discussed violence in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Sudan’s Darfur region, and urged member nations to work to rid the world of nuclear weapons. [See 2008, p. 697A1] Among the speeches that followed that day, U.S. President Barack Obama made his first address to the General Assembly and pushed for a “new era of engagement” between countries to combat the world’s problems. Longtime Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi, also speaking for the first time before the General Assembly, gave a rambling, unusually long speech in which he called for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council for the African continent. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denials of the Holocaust, and rebutted a report alleging war crimes in Israel’s recent war in Gaza. [See below] Separately, meetings between world leaders took place on the sidelines of the General Assembly session, including a meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The general debate was scheduled to conclude Sept. 29. [See below] Obama Calls for Cooperation— In his speech to the General Assembly, Obama Sept. 23 said that his administration had worked to end the “skepticism and mistrust” that the world had come to feel about the U.S. during the presidency of his predecessor, George W. Bush, by banning the torture of terrorism detainees, preparing to end the war in Iraq and renewing the effort to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. However, Obama said that other nations had sometimes been guilty of a “reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for our collective inaction.” Obama said that “those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” and argued that it was now “time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.” Obama said that the U.S. would do its part to combat climate change and push for a world without nuclear weapons, but that real progress in those and other areas required genuine global cooperation. Council Approves U.S. Nuclear Measure—

Obama Sept. 24 presided over a meeting of the U.N. Security Council at which its 15 members voted unanimously to adopt a resolution, drafted by the U.S. government, expressing serious concern about the continued spread of nuclear weapons, and urging nations to help stop nuclear prolifera-

tion and pave the way for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. The resolution did not mention Iran or North Korea by name, reportedly because China and Russia had rejected doing so, but Obama singled out the two countries by name in his speech to the Security Council. It was the first time a U.S. president chaired a Security Council meeting. Obama had laid out his worldwide nonproliferation goals in an April speech in the Czech Republic. [See p. 215C2] The U.S. also attended for the first time in a decade the biennial U.N. meeting on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, held Sept. 24–25. The U.S. Senate had voted against ratifying the treaty in 1999. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said winning ratification was a goal of the Obama administration. Qaddafi Criticizes Security Council—

During his Sept. 23 speech, Qaddafi criticized the Security Council, which he said should be called the “terror council,” and had created a sort of “political feudalism for those who have a permanent seat.” He called for Africa to be given a permanent seat on the Security Council. At one point, Qaddafi held up a copy of the U.N. charter and, after saying he did not recognize the document’s authority, apparently tore part of it. In his speech, Qaddafi complained about his jet lag from traveling, and suggested that U.N. headquarters be moved to Libya in order to avoid the problem in the future. He theorized that A(H1N1) swine flu might have been created in a biological weapons lab, and called for new investigations into the 1960s assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Qaddafi’s speech lasted about 90 minutes, far longer than the 15 minutes officially allotted to each speaker in the general debate. Other speakers, including Obama, had also exceeded the 15-minute limit, but Qaddafi’s speech was thought to be the longest before the General Assembly since a 1960 speech by then–Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro Ruz. [See 1960, p. 325A1] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking before the General Assembly later the same day, criticized Qaddafi for his handling of the charter, saying, “I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations charter, not to tear it up.” The same day, a U.N. spokeswoman called Qaddafi’s attack on the charter “unacceptable.” Local objections had scuttled Qaddafi’s plans to shelter in his accustomed tent during his visit, in either New York’s Central Park or in New Jersey. It was reported Sept. 22 that authorities in Bedford, N.Y., had stopped a plan for him to set up the tent on land there owned by real estate developer Donald Trump. It was unclear where Qaddafi stayed. Qaddafi in recent years had renounced nuclear weapons and taken other steps to bring Libya back to normalized relations with the U.S. and its allies, after decades of being stigmatized as a sponsor of terrorism.

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3588 September 24, 2009

B However, Libya’s effusive reaction to the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent convicted in the 1988 bombing of an airliner that killed 270 people, had revived animosity toward Qaddafi and his regime. [See p. 636C2] Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, an inveterate critic of the U.S., Sept. 24 welcomed the sentiments of Obama’s speech, saying that he no longer detected the “smell of sulfur,” alluding to his 2006 general debate address, in which he called Bush “the devil,” suggesting that he had brought a scent of brimstone to the chamber. In his hourlong speech, however, he wondered, “Is there one Obama or are there two?” and added, “Let us hope that the one we heard yesterday will prevail.” [See 2006, p. 725C2]

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE United Nations opens annual general debate; Obama debuts before assembly. PAGE 633

U.S. commander calls for more troops for Afghanistan. PAGE 635

U.N. hosts global climate summit.

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Sen. Baucus revises health care reform bill to lower costs. PAGE 637

Kirk appointed to fill Kennedy Senate seat. PAGE 638

Ousted Honduran President Zelaya makes surprise return. PAGE 643

Indonesia kills major terrorist suspect in raid.

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Former French prime minister goes on trial for alleged smear campaign. PAGE 644

Iranian opposition protests at government rally. PAGE 645

Government air strike on Yemeni refugee camp kills 80. PAGE 645

Renault penalized for Formula One race-fixing. PAGE 646

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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he largely avoided the topic of Iran’s nuclear program, but said he supported a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad criticized the capitalist system he said the West and Israel had imposed on the world, and said that it was unacceptable that “private networks” controlled by a “small minority” dominated global politics and the economy. That was seen as a veiled anti-Semitic reference, and diplomats from the U.S. and many other countries walked out on his speech or did not attend in the first place. Ahmadinejad in his address said Iranians had “entrusted me once more with a large majority” in a June presidential election, which he said was “glorious and fully democratic.” That election was widely seen as having been rigged, and had touched off protests across Iran that were brutally suppressed. Thousands of people, mainly Iranian-Americans, Sept. 23 protested outside the U.N. against Ahmadinejad and in support of the Iranian opposition. [See p. 645A3] Israel’s Netanyahu in his address Sept. 24 directly attacked Ahmadinejad’s antiSemitic claims, as well as those he had made in a speech the previous week claiming that the Holocaust was a “lie.” Netanyahu displayed Nazi documents laying out plans for the Holocaust and original blueprints of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps to rebut Ahmadinejad’s statements, asking, “Is this a lie?” (Netanyahu had been presented with the documents during a visit to Germany in August.) [See p. 645D3] Netanyahu commended the diplomats and leaders who walked out or absented themselves from Ahmadinejad’s speech. But he criticized the U.N. for giving a platform to a Holocaust denier, saying that it was a “disgrace of the U.N. charter.” He warned, “History has shown us time and time again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.” Netanyahu in his speech also repeated Israel’s condemnation of a U.N. report released the previous week that charged Israel with committing war crimes during its conflict with the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the Gaza strip in December 2008 and January 2009. Although the report had also accused Hamas of war crimes, Netanyahu said it was one-sided and overlooked what he said was Israel’s right to self-defense against Palestinian rocket attacks. (U.S. officials Sept. 17–18 had also called the report unfair to Israel, in the Obama administration’s first reaction since it was released Sept. 15.) [See p. 614E1] U.S. Gains Support on Iran Sanctions—

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Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Sept. 23 met with Obama on the sidelines of the summit, and indicated that Russia would support additional U.N. Security Council economic sanctions against Iran if it did not agree to stop enriching uranium. Iran claimed that it was enriching uranium only for civilian purposes, but the U.S. and its allies said Iran was attempting to build a nuclear weapon. [See p. 613C3]

Medvedev after the meeting said, “The Russian position is simple…Sanctions rarely lead to productive results. But in some cases sanctions are inevitable.” Russia in the past had been reluctant to take action against Iran’s nuclear program, and had sent adverse signals the previous week. But the U.S. later that week had announced that it was abandoning plans to build a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, which the U.S. said was aimed at defending against Iran but which Russia had said could compromise its defenses. Analysts said that decision might have influenced Russia’s changed stance toward sanctions against Iran. [See p. 645B1] Representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council—the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France— and Germany Oct. 1 were scheduled to meet with Iranian diplomats in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss a so-called freeze for freeze proposal, in which Iran would freeze enrichment in exchange for no new sanctions. The Obama administration and its allies were pushing for harsher sanctions if Iran did not agree to the deal. Foreign ministers from the six nations negotiating with Iran Sept. 23 met at the U.N. to discuss strategy for the October talks. China reportedly backed warning Iran of possible sanctions at that meeting. However, a Chinese government spokeswoman the next day reiterated China’s previous opposition to sanctions, saying, “At present it is not conducive to diplomatic efforts.” Ahmadinejad Sept. 23 told reporters and editors from the Washington Post and Newsweek that he was willing to allow scientists from the U.S. and the other negotiating countries to meet with Iranian nuclear experts and discuss the nuclear program. Iran had previously refused to allow such a meeting. Ahmadinejad also said Iran at the October talks would attempt to buy enriched uranium for medical purposes from the U.S. Such uranium would be nearly 20% enriched. The 3%–5% enriched uranium Iran currently produced could only be used for energy generation. Weaponsgrade uranium had to be more than 90% enriched. Obama Pushes for Broad Mideast Talks—

Obama Sept. 22 met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. session. Obama downplayed his previous demands that Israel implement a full freeze on the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and that the PA improve security in order to discourage activity by Palestinian militant groups. He said that he would push for restarting broader peace talks. [See p. 614B3] “Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon,” Obama said after meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas, adding, “It is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward.” Permanent status negotiations would encompass key issues such as the future status of East Jerusalem, the borders of a prospective Palestinian state and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

George Mitchell, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, Sept. 18 returned from a weeklong round of shuttle diplomacy in the region, but did not report any progress. He had met with Netanyahu and Abbas several times in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, as well as traveled to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, in an attempt to broker an agreement on the settlements. Israel had announced a construction freeze for several months, but had also approved building permits for new housing in settlements. U.S. Adjusts Myanmar Policy— Clinton Sept. 24 announced at the U.N. that the Obama administration had decided to pursue a policy of partial engagement with Myanmar’s ruling military junta, which was isolated internationally for its oppressive rule. The announcement followed an internal U.S. government review of its Myanmar policy that was initiated after Obama’s January inauguration. Clinton said that U.S. sanctions against Myanmar would remain in effect, but could be eased if Myanmar allowed increased democracy or released political prisoners. She said, “We believe that sanctions remain important as part of our policy, but by themselves they have not produced the results that had been hoped for.” She also argued that “engagement versus sanction is a false choice.” An attorney representing detained prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Sept. 24 said that Suu Kyi was supportive of the change in U.S. policy toward Myanmar, as long as opposition groups were included in the dialogue between the ruling junta and the U.S. government. Suu Kyi had previously pushed for strong sanctions against Myanmar’s government in the hopes of pressuring the regime to shift to a democratic system. [See p. 543C1] n

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U.S. Commander Calls for More Troops for Afghanistan Warns of Likely ‘Failure’ Otherwise. The

Washington Post Sept. 20 reported on its Web site that U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, had said additional troops would be necessary to defeat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, in a confidential strategic review submitted to the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama in early September. The Post, which had obtained a copy of the 66-page review and posted a redacted version of it online, quoted McChrystal as saying the mission “will likely result in failure” if more troops were not deployed within the next year. [See p. 629C2] The review, which was harshly critical of the Afghan government and the NATO coalition’s efforts to date, said the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country called for urgent action. McChrystal wrote, “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)—while Afghan security capacity matures—risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.” However, McChrystal included a note of optimism, saying, “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.” The review’s publication intensified an ongoing debate on the U.S.’s role in Afghanistan. Obama in March had set out his goals for the region, which centered on disrupting the activities of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and depriving it of a safe haven in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Obama had said his goal would be met by stabilizing Afghanistan and defeating the Taliban, an Al Qaeda ally. But the Obama administration reportedly decided to reassess its strategy following a spike in U.S. casualties over the summer, a drop in U.S. public support for the war and growing opposition to a potential troop increase among the Democratic majorities in the U.S. Congress. The strategy had also been complicated by an August Afghan presidential election that had been tarnished by widespread accusations of fraud. Preliminary results showed that President Hamid Karzai had won reelection. [See p. 629F3] Obama administration officials said they would resist pressure to quickly make a decision on troop levels. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Sept. 21 said, “We’re not going to make any decisions of any significance until we know the outcome” of the presidential election. Prior to the review’s publication, Obama Sept. 20 in multiple television interviews said he wanted to settle on a strategy before committing new troops. McChrystal’s review did not specify how many troops would be needed, which would come in a separate strategic review, but it was reported that he might request as many as 50,000 additional troops. Obama earlier in the year had authorized the deployment of September 24, 2009

21,000 more troops, which would bring the total number of U.S. troops in the country to 68,000 by the end of 2009. Afghan Corruption Criticized—McChrystal’s review said corruption in the Afghan government had led to a “crisis of confidence among Afghans” that was undermining the coalition’s efforts to win the support of local populations. He said the “weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials” had “given Afghans little reason to support their government.” The flawed presidential election was widely seen as a further blow to the Karzai government’s legitimacy. McChrystal also criticized the coalition, saying it was “not adequately executing the basics” of a counterinsurgency strategy, which placed a heavy emphasis on protecting the civilian population from insurgent violence. He said coalition troops had to take greater risks to protect civilians, and acknowledged that coalition casualties “will increase” as a result. He added, “Afghan social, political, economic and cultural affairs are complex and poorly understood” by coalition forces, who he said “must receive training in local languages.” McChrystal also highlighted problems in Afghanistan’s prison system. He said the prisons mixed petty criminals with hardcore Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, which gave the Taliban and Al Qaeda “the opportunity to radicalize and indoctrinate” other prisoners, and use prisons as “a sanctuary and base to conduct lethal operations.” He said a 2008 bombing at a luxury hotel in Kabul, among others, had been linked to the prison system. [See 2008, p. 25C3] McChrystal said the size of the Afghan army should eventually expand to 240,000 troops, and the police force to 160,000. He said the coalition should help facilitate a reconciliation between the government and moderate Taliban fighters, possibly by providing them with “employment and protection.” McChrystal also identified three main insurgent factions, which he said had links to Al Qaeda and Pakistani-based extremist groups, and received support from elements of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s powerful spy agency. The factions included the Quetta Shura Taliban, which had established a shadow government in several areas of Afghanistan, replete with governors, Islamic courts of law and tax collectors. The faction was led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, who was believed to be based in Quetta, Pakistan. [See p. 229E1] The second, the Haqqani network, was led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, and was based in southeastern Afghanistan. McChrystal said the Haqqanis’ links to Al Qaeda had grown, and that they could provide the group with a safe haven if they cemented control of their territory. [See p. 381F3] The third faction was Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, which was led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The group had bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and “aims to negotiate a major role in a future Taliban government.”

Republicans Support Troop Buildup—

McChrystal’s call for more troops was largely welcomed by Republican lawmakers, who pushed Obama to act quickly on the anticipated request. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) in a statement Sept. 21 said he was “deeply troubled...by reports that the White House is delaying action on the General’s request for more troops,” and urged Obama to “clarify where he stands.” Democrats were skeptical of prolonging a mission that was in its eighth year but had made little headway in defeating the Taliban, and could sap the military’s resources indefinitely. It was also widely reported that there were differences within the Obama administration on how to proceed. One alternative approach—reportedly supported by Vice President Joseph Biden—would see the U.S. limit its focus to a counterterrorism strategy, in which troop levels were reduced, and Predator drones and U.S. special forces were used to kill or capture Al Qaeda members. Others argued that McChrystal’s broader counterinsurgency strategy would be more effective. Clinton Sept. 21 said, “If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast Al Qaeda would be back in Afghanistan.” [See p. 577E3] The call for a troop buildup was was met with a tepid response by the U.S.’s NATO allies in Europe. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Sept. 21 said, “There is no military prospect of a victory.” European public support for the war had long been at low levels, and had dipped further as casualties increased. Thousands of Italians Sept. 21 attended a state funeral in Rome, the Italian capital, for six soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan the previous week. [See p. 630A2] Analysts said growing doubts about the mission and faltering support would test Obama’s previous assertion that the war in Afghanistan was “a war of necessity.” [See p. 368A2] The U.S. Defense Department turned down requests from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to make McChrystal available for hearings on Afghanistan. McChrystal, in an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 24, denied that the review had created a rift between the Obama administration and the military. He said, “A policy debate is warranted,” adding, “This is the right kind of process.” McChrystal also denied rumors that he had threatened to resign from his post if Obama did not authorize a troop increase. Separately, the Obama administration Sept. 16 submitted to Congress 50 benchmarks by which lawmakers could measure the U.S.’s progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Other Developments—In related news: o A statement attributed to Omar that was posted on an Islamist Web site Sept. 19 warned Obama of the dangers of keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan, saying the country was the “graveyard of empires.” Omar cited several historical examples of Afghanistan defeating foreign invaders, 635

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from the days of ancient Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great to the Soviet occuption of the 1980s. Omar also blasted Karzai’s government for “rampant corruption” and “drug trafficking.” The release of Omar’s statement was timed to coincide with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. o Obama Sept. 17 awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S.’s highest military decoration, to Sgt. First Class Jared Monti, who had died in Afghanistan in 2006 attempting to save a comrade. Monti, 30, was the first Army soldier in the Afghan war to receive the honor, which Obama presented to his parents in a ceremony at the White House. [See 2008, p. 384C2] n

Global Environment

standards. However, he did not announce a specific plan for U.S. emissions reductions. Analysts said it was unlikely that the U.S. Senate would ratify a climate treaty, since it was preoccupied by efforts by Obama and Democratic legislators to reform the U.S.’s health care system. (China and the U.S. were the two largest generators of greenhouse gases, accounting for a combined 40% of worldwide emissions, roughly equally divided between the two.) Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in his remarks said Japan would reduce its emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by a 2020 deadline. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on industrial leaders to meet in mid-November, before the Copenhagen meeting, to renew momentum on the climate treaty negotiations. n

U.N. Hosts Climate Summit. Nearly 100

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heads of state and government Sept. 22 attended a one-day Summit on Climate Change convened by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in New York City. The summit was intended to generate support for a new treaty that would mitigate global climate change, set to be negotiated in December in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. The new treaty was intended to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrialized countries to reduce their total emissions to 95% of 1990 levels by 2012. The Kyoto Protocol’s main provisions were set to expire in 2012. The summit was held a day before the start of a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. [See pp. 633A1, 405B2] Talks leading up to the Copenhagen meeting had reportedly slowed, with developed countries and poorer, less-developed nations remaining sharply divided over who would take responsibility for cuts to greenhouse gas emissions thought to contribute to climate change. Developing nations argued that richer countries had a responsibility to shoulder the weight of more emissions reductions, since they had played a larger historical role in emitting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Poorer countries had also pressed for aid from developed nations in order to obtain methods of reducing emissions, and dealing with economic costs resulting from rising temperatures worldwide. Chinese President Hu Jintao, in a speech at the summit, said his country would reduce its output of atmospheric carbon per economic unit by a “notable margin” from 2005 levels by 2020. The comments were the first time China agreed to place measurable reductions on its emissions. However, Hu did not provide details on the amount of reductions the changes would yield. Hu also said China would attempt to add some 99 million acres (40 million hectares) of forest to the country, a move intended to help absorb atmospheric carbon. U.S. President Barack Obama during his speech said the world had been “slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat.” He said the U.S. was engaged in several actions intended to reduce emissions, including renewable energy investments and stricter vehicle fuel economy 636

Other International News Freed Lockerbie Bomber Tries to Clear Name.

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, Sept. 18 posted documents on the Internet in an attempt to prove his innocence. Scotland’s regional government had released Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August and allowed him to return to Libya, citing a diagnosis that he had terminal prostate cancer and less than three months to live. [See p. 582D3] His release after serving just eight years of a life sentence, and the triumphal welcome he received in Libya, had stirred outrage in the U.S. and Britain, leading British officials to deny that they had arranged the release in order to gain access to Libyan oil and gas resources. Megrahi, who had consistently maintained his innocence, posted a 289-page dossier on the Web site www.megrahimystory.net. The documents were from a legal brief that his lawyers had filed with a Scottish appeals court earlier in the year. In a statement on the Web site, Megrahi said, “As a result of the abandonment of my appeal I have been deprived of the opportunity to clear my name through the formal appeal process. I have vowed to continue my attempts to clear my name.” Megrahi’s dossier focused on challenging evidence that had been used to link him to the suitcase believed to have contained the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103. A shop owner in Malta, Tony Gauci, had identified Megrahi as the man who bought clothing that was used to conceal the bomb in the suitcase. Megrahi denied that he had bought the clothes. His lawyers argued that Gauci gave confused and selfcontradictory testimony. The brief also asserted that the suitcase might not have been planted in Malta, but could have entered the baggage system in Frankfurt, Germany, or in London. It also said the judges in the case had wrongly dismissed evidence that a Palestinian terrorist group financed by Iran, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General

Command, might have been responsible for the bombing. Scotland’s chief prosecutor, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, denounced Megrahi’s arguments, saying, “I deplore the efforts…to challenge his conviction through selective publication of his view of the evidence in the media after he has abandoned his second appeal against conviction.” A Scottish government spokesman said Megrahi “remains in the eyes of Scottish justice the murderer of 270 people.” The U.S. Senate Sept. 23 voted unanimously to approve a resolution, introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.), condemning Megrahi’s release and demanding that Libya apologize for the “lavish” celebration of his return. The voice vote was held while Libyan leader Col. Muammer el-Qaddafi addressed the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, on his first visit to the U.S. [See p. 633C2] Minister Acknowledges Oil Influence—

British Justice Minister Jack Straw, in an interview published Sept. 5 in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, acknowledged that trade with Libya, especially oil, “was a very big part” of Britain’s decision to include Megrahi in a prisoner-transfer agreement with Libya. Straw added, “Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it—and subsequently there was the BP deal.” British oil company BP PLC had won a $900 million exploration contract in Libya in May 2007. Libya reportedly gave final approval to the deal shortly after Britain approved the prisoner-transfer agreement in late 2007. BP Sept. 4 said it had lobbied the British government to approve the transfer agreement. Although Megrahi’s release was eventually granted on compassionate grounds, the transfer agreement had been sought by Libya as a means of securing his return. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier in September had insisted that “no deal on oil” had influenced the handling of the Megrahi case. Brown Backs IRA Victims’ Claims—

Brown Sept. 6 announced that the British government would assign officers in the Foreign Office and its embassy in Libya to provide legal and other assistance to the families of victims of terrorist acts by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who filed claims for compensation from Libya. Libya had allegedly supplied explosives and weapons to the IRA from the 1970s through the 1990s. [See p. 173B1] The Sunday Times newspaper that day had published two letters sent by Brown to a lawyer representing the families. In one letter, the prime minister said “the U.K. does not consider it appropriate to enter into a bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter.” He also denied the lawyer’s assertion that the government’s “core reason for not entering into direct negotiations with Libya is that of trade.” Brown cited cooperation against terrorism as a key part of the relationship with Libya. The letters were dated Sept. 11, 2008, and Oct. 7, 2008. FACTS ON FILE

Libya in 2003 had agreed to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims, but Britain had not negotiated for any compensation from Libya for the IRA victims, although U.S. victims of the IRA had obtained payment from Libya. Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam elQaddafi, Sept. 7 said Libya would not offer compensation to the IRA victims, and that the matter should be decided in court. n Thatcher Ire at German Reunification Detailed.

The British Foreign Office Sept. 11 published a volume of documents from 1989– 90 on German reunification, providing new details on the opposition expressed by then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand to the prospect of a reunified Germany. The discussions took place between the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, and the official reunification of West and East Germany on Oct. 3, 1990. [See 2000, p. 741C3; 1999, p. 839E1] After West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl outlined his reunification plan, Thatcher told Mitterrand in December 1989 that Kohl “seemed to have forgotten that the division of Germany was the result of a war which Germany had started.” The documents included a report on a January 1990 meeting in Paris at which Mitterrand warned Thatcher that a reunified Germany would bring back the “bad” Germans and have more influence over Europe than Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ever did. However, Mitterrand subsequently accepted the inevitability of reunification, while Thatcher continued to fight it, seeking to at least slow the process. The documents reportedly showed tensions between Thatcher and British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, who took a more positive view of reunification. British diplomats warned that Thatcher’s perceived intransigence was sapping British influence in Europe. The Times of London Sept. 11 reported that Soviet documents, smuggled to Britain in the 1990s by Russian researcher Pavel Stroilov, also detailed futile efforts by Britain and France to block German reunification. The documents reportedly included transcripts from a 1989 Moscow meeting in which Thatcher voiced her concerns to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The transcripts quoted Thatcher as saying, “We do not want a united Germany,” adding, “This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.” In remarks that jarred with the public stance of the Cold War–era West urging the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination, she expressed understanding of Gorbachev’s desire that the Warsaw Pact, the mutual defense treaty of Eastern European communist countries, be preserved. The transcript also included an account of remarks by Thatcher that she specified should not be recorded, in which she said she and U.S. President George H.W. Bush did not desire to take steps that the Soviet Union would perceive as threatening to its security. n September 24, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Health Care Reform Sen. Baucus Revises Bill to Lower Costs.

Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, Sept. 21 said he would modify his proposed legislation to overhaul the U.S. health care system in order to lower the cost of obtaining insurance for low- and middle-income individuals and families under the bill. He released details of his changes on Sept. 22, and the committee that day began debating his measure, becoming the last of five congressional committees to consider a health care reform bill. Baucus had formally released his plan the previous week, but it was quickly criticized by some Democratic legislators for failing to provide adequate federal subsidies to families, required under the proposal to obtain insurance. [See p. 617A1] Detractors said the plan would force some people to choose between getting policies they could not afford or incurring financial penalties for not having insurance. Baucus said, “Affordability is a big question that I heard about frequently over the last week.” Under his original proposal, people at the federal poverty level would be expected to pay 3% of their annual income on insurance, while those earning between 300% and 400% of the poverty level would spend 13% of their income. (The federal poverty level was an annual income of $22,050 for a family of four.) Under his new plan, the spending levels would range between 2% and 12% of income. Baucus said he would expand the subsidies offered to those with moderate incomes who got insurance through newly created “health care exchanges.” In such exchanges, individuals and small businesses would combine their purchasing power to negotiate better terms from private insurers. Baucus also said he would lower the financial penalties assessed on those who did not get insurance. Under the previous version of his plan, the maximum annual penalty for a family was $3,800. That was lowered to $1,900. Baucus also raised the threshold for some people subject to an excise tax he proposed be assessed on “gold-plated” insurance policies. Under the original threshold, all policies worth more than $8,000 for individuals, and $21,000 for families, would be subject to the tax. Baucus raised the threshold for retirees over 55 and people in high-risk occupations, such as police officers and firemen, by $750 for individuals and $2,000 for families. But he also proposed raising the tax to 40%, from 35%, in order to offset the loss of revenue from the changes. Labor unions in particular had criticized the excise tax proposal. They argued that many union members, who often had relatively generous benefits, would be subject to the tax, which was likely to be passed on to policy holders. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Baucus’s original bill would cost $774 billion over 10 years, and yield a $49 billion surplus during the same period. Baucus said the changes he was consider-

ing would cost an additional $28 billion over 10 years, reducing the surplus to $21 billion. Baucus Sept. 22 said he would also impose a higher fee on health insurance companies than he had originally proposed, which would generate an extra $700 million annually. One other Senate committee had approved another version of a reform bill, and a separate bill had been passed by three House committees. Baucus’s plan differed from all of those proposals in that it would not create a government-run health insurance program, commonly called a “public option.” Baucus had created his plan with substantial input from Republicans on his committee, but it had failed to garner the support of any of them. However, it had reportedly been embraced by fiscally conservative House Democrats in the so-called Blue Dog Coalition who had expressed concern over the high cost of the various House measures. Members of the Senate Finance Committee had proposed at least 564 amendments for Baucus’s bill, many of which were intended to expand subsidies to reduce the cost of policies, or otherwise make them more affordable. Sen. Olympia Snowe (Wash.), one of the three Republicans whom Baucus had worked with in creating his proposal, Sept. 19 spelled out the amendments she desired, intended to expand insurance coverage and reduce its cost. Snowe proposed creating a “trigger mechanism” that would lead to the creation of a public option within a particular state, should 95% of that state’s residents be unable to find “affordable coverage.” Snowe had been courted by the administration of President Barack Obama and Democratic legislators as a key vote in passing health care reform in the Senate. Since the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), Democrats had controlled 59 seats in the Senate, which would force them to rely on at least one Republican vote to stave off the threat of a filibuster. However, Democrat Paul Kirk Jr. was appointed Sept. 24 to temporarily fill Kennedy’s seat, and was scheduled to take office Sept. 25. [See p. 638F1]

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The Senate Finance Committee Sept. 22 began debating Baucus’s proposal. Republican committee members continued to criticize the bill, with Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) describing the provision mandating that people obtain insurance as “a stunning assault on liberty.” Committee Republicans Sept. 23 attempted unsuccessfully to restore several proposed cuts to the Medicare federal health care program for the elderly and disabled, which were intended to yield savings that would fund other elements of the reform plan. The National Republican Congressional Committee had recently begun sending advertisements to House districts with large elderly populations, saying the proposed changes to the Medicare program were “unconscionable.” (Polls had shown that the elderly, who generally voted in high numbers, expressed wariness of health care reform, out of concern that it 637

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would be carried out at the expense of their existing Medicare benefits.) Baucus had proposed cutting $123 billion from so-called Medicare Advantage plans, privately managed plans paid for by the government, over 10 years. Democrats had criticized the plans for being more expensive than traditional Medicare. They said savings from Medicare would come only from reducing wasteful spending, not from cutting any benefits. One committee Democrat, Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.), said he would propose legislation intended to preserve current enrollees’ Medicare Advantage benefits. The Obama administration Sept. 21 had instructed Humana Inc., one of the largest health insurers in the U.S., to end mailings to its Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. The mailings had claimed, “Millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage plans so valuable.” The administration officials said the mailings were “misleading and confusing,” and subject to governmental review under Medicare rules. The panel Sept. 24 defeated a proposal by Nelson to allow the government to negotiate larger discounts on drugs for lowincome seniors under Medicare. Obama in June had agreed not to demand the discounts as part of a deal he had brokered with drug companies to secure their support for his reform efforts. Obama Takes Case to TV Networks—

Obama Sept. 18 taped five interviews with several television networks at the White House as part of his continuing efforts to bolster public support for a reform plan. Portions of the interviews, conducted by broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC and cable networks CNN and the Spanish-language Univision, were aired on Sept. 18 evening news programs and Sept. 20 Sunday morning talk shows. On ABC, he strongly disputed the contention that a mandate to obtain insurance would amount to a “tax increase.” Obama in the interviews said that while there were people who did not like him because of his race, he did not believe that racism was driving opposition to his reform efforts. (Former President Jimmy Carter earlier in the week had said he thought racism was the cause of much of the harsh criticism of Obama, who was black, and his policies.) n

Politics Kirk Appointed to Kennedy Senate Seat.

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Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) Sept. 24 appointed former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Paul Kirk Jr. to temporarily fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) a month earlier. Kirk would serve as interim senator until January 2010, when a special election was scheduled for the remainder of Kennedy’s current term, which would end in January 2013. [See p. 584A2] Kirk said he would not be a candidate in the special election. State Attorney General 638

Martha Coakley (D) and Rep. Michael Capuano (D) so far were the only declared candidates. Former Rep. Joseph Kennedy 2nd (D), Edward Kennedy’s nephew, Sept. 7 had announced that he would not run. The Kirk appointment gave Democrats their 60th senator, the minimum number needed to prevent filibusters by the Republican minority. Democrats had been particularly eager to fill Kennedy’s seat as they prepared to bring contentious health care reform legislation to a vote. [See p. 637A2] Kirk, 71, was an aide to Kennedy from 1969 to 1977, and was chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. He chaired the DNC, the executive body of the Democratic Party, when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. The Kennedy family reportedly had urged Patrick to choose Kirk, who had been a close friend of the senator. Dukakis, 75, reportedly had also been considered as a possible appointee. Kirk, a lawyer, had worked as a registered lobbyist 10 years earlier for drugmaker Hoechst Marion Roussel Inc. He was currently a member of the board of directors of insurer Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. The Massachusetts legislature Sept. 23 had given final approval to a bill restoring the governor’s power to name an interim replacement to a vacant Senate seat. Kennedy had asked for the change in a letter sent shortly before he died of brain cancer. In order to make the law take effect immediately, Patrick had to declare the situation an emergency. The Democratic-controlled legislature had removed the governor’s appointment power in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee, and Gov. Mitt Romney (R) would have been able to name a Republican to Kerry’s seat if he became president. But Kerry lost the election to incumbent President George W. Bush and remained in the Senate. During a debate over the bill, Republicans and some Democrats had argued that restoring the appointment power would be a hypocritical and excessively partisan maneuver, but Republicans were able to delay the measure only for a few days. n Bills Would Bar Funding for ACORN.

The House Sept. 17 voted, 345–75, to bar federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a liberal activist group that sought to promote homeownership and organize political engagement among lowincome people and minority communities. The provision was added to an unrelated bill that would make the government the sole provider of federal student loans. ACORN, a frequent target of criticism by conservatives, had drawn fresh outrage after a recent series of videos showed its employees giving advice on tax evasion and other illegal activities. [See p. 641F1; 2008, p. 743G3] The Senate that day voted, 85–11, to approve an amendment, sponsored by Sen. Mike Johanns (R, Iowa), to an Interior Department spending bill, prohibiting any of

the bill’s funding to go to ACORN. The Senate Sept. 14 had voted, 83–7, to approve another Johanns amendment, barring the organization from receiving any federal housing or community grants, to an appropriations bill for the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) departments. Stung By Undercover Videos—ACORN

had come under fire the previous week after a series of videos that were posted first on the conservative Web site Biggovernment.com and then on the video-sharing site YouTube.com, and aired frequently on the Fox News Channel. They showed two conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute asking for business advice from ACORN employees at field offices in five cities. James O’Keefe 3rd, a 25-yearold, made the videos, captured with a hidden camera, and played the role of the pimp. Hannah Giles, 20, played the prostitute. ACORN employees appeared to advise the pair on matters such as evading taxes, laundering money in order to obtain government housing aid, and smuggling underage girls from El Salvador as illegal immigrants to work in a brothel. U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine Sept. 21 said he was probing whether ACORN had applied for or received any grants from the department. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Sept. 23 said it had ended a partnership with ACORN, which had provided free tax preparation assistance to about 25,000 people in 2008. Governors in several states had suspended or cut off aid to ACORN since the controversy over the videos erupted. ACORN Sept. 22 said it had named former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshberger (D) to lead an internal investigation. The group had announced its plan for such a probe the previous day. It said it had fired some of the workers who appeared in the videos, but insisted that their behavior was anomalous. ACORN also claimed that the audio recordings in the videos had been manipulated. ACORN Sept. 23 said it planned to file a lawsuit against O’Keefe and Giles in Maryland District Court, alleging that the video shot in the group’s Baltimore, Md., office without its workers’ consent amounted to illegal wiretapping. The suit also named Andrew Breitbart, a conservative commentator who ran Biggovernment.com and other Web sites. ACORN said it planned to file a similar suit in California. Obama Backs Investigation—President Barack Obama in a television interview broadcast Sept. 20 on ABC’s “This Week” said the behavior of the ACORN workers in the video “was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.” But he declined to say whether he backed the moves by Congress to cut off the group’s funding, saying, “Frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely.” He added, “I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.” The office of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said ACORN had FACTS ON FILE

received $53 million in federal funding since 1994. Federal funds reportedly made up 10% of the group’s annual $25 million budget. Congressional Republicans had called for an investigation into ACORN’s use of federal funding. During the 2008 election campaign, Republicans had accused ACORN of using its get-out-the-vote programs to help elect Democrats, in violation of laws requiring that the group’s activities be nonpartisan. Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), the Republican presidential nominee, in a debate with Obama, then the Democratic nominee, had alleged that ACORN was engaging in widespread voter-registration fraud. ACORN Sept. 17 said it was considering ending its voter-registration program. In the 1990s, as a community organizer and lawyer in Chicago, Obama had worked with an ACORN affiliate and represented the group in a lawsuit. n Conservative ‘Values Voters’ Meet. More than 1,800 social conservatives Sept. 18– 19 met in Washington, D.C., for a “Values Voter Summit” convened by the Family Research Council activist group. Speakers criticized President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan and hailed a Washington demonstration that had drawn tens of thousands of conservatives the previous week. [See p. 619F2] Republican congressional leaders addressed the meeting, as did three potential candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Huckabee and Romney had both run unsuccessfully for the 2008 nomination. The summit ended with a straw poll for the 2012 nomination. Huckabee won, with 28% of the votes. Palin

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, Sept. 23 gave a speech to bankers and investors in Hong Kong, at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. The speech was billed as her first outside the U.S. It was viewed as part of an effort to strengthen her foreign policy credentials before a possible bid for the 2012 presidential nomination. She had resigned as governor in late July, with 18 months left in her first term. (Palin was known as a social conservative, but did not attend the Values Voter Summit.) [See p. 455A2] In the speech, which was closed to the media, Palin reportedly described herself as a “common-sense” conservative, and addressed topics including the global economic downturn, U.S.-China relations and Obama’s health care plan. She defended her controversial claims that his reforms would lead to rationing and bureaucratic “death panels” that would decide the fate of the elderly and disabled. n

State & Local Politics White House Urges N.Y. Gov. Not to Run.

New York Gov. David Paterson (D) Sept. 20 declared that he still intended to run for September 24, 2009

a new term in the 2010 gubernatorial election, despite news reports the previous day that an aide to President Barack Obama had urged Paterson to make way for a stronger Democratic candidate. [See p. 537C3; 2008, p. 182F1] White House political director Patrick Gaspard reportedly had met with Paterson Sept. 14, when Obama visited New York City to deliver a speech on Wall Street. According to White House officials and Democratic strategists who spoke to the media Sept. 19–20 on condition of anonymity, Gaspard told Paterson that Obama had lost confidence in his ability to win the election. Obama was said to be especially worried about the possibility that former New York City Mayor Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani (R) would enter the race. Paterson and Gaspard reportedly discussed polls showing that Paterson would lose badly to Giuliani, who ran unsuccessfuly for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Former Rep. Rick Lazio (R, N.Y.), known for his unsuccessful 2000 Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sept. 22 formally declared his candidacy for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. [See 2000, p. 855E1] Obama had intervened in another New York race earlier in the year, when he persuaded Rep. Steve Israel not to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic primary. Paterson’s January appointment of Gillibrand to the seat vacated by Clinton when she became secretary of state had been one of his most controversial moves since he became governor in March 2008. Paterson had been lieutenant governor when Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) resigned in a prostitution scandal. Paterson replaced him for the remainder of his term. Obama Sept. 21 visited Troy, N.Y., just outside Albany, the state capital, to give a speech on higher education and technology at Hudson Valley Community College. Paterson met him at Albany International Airport. The two men embraced and appeared to exchange cordial greetings. During his speech, Obama briefly acknowledged Paterson’s presence, calling him “a wonderful man.” But Obama had more words for state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who was widely seen as a possible rival to Paterson for the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Obama jokingly called Cuomo “your shy and retiring attorney general,” adding, “Andrew’s doing great work enforcing the laws that need to be enforced.” Cuomo, the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo (D), had made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2002, when he angered black leaders by taking on then–state Comptroller Carl McCall, who was black. [See 2002, p. 689F1] Observers said the White House was likely concerned that tough Republican challenges in the Democratic stronghold of New York, in either the gubernatorial or Senate races, would consume money and other resources that would be needed in other states in 2010. There were also con-

cerns that Paterson, at the top of the ticket, could hurt the chances of Democratic House members in close races. Obama had also endorsed Sens. Arlen Specter (D, Pa.) and Michael Bennet (D, Colo.), who both faced strong primary challenges. Republicans

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Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), the executive body of the Republican Party, in a television interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sept. 20 criticized Obama’s intervention in New York. Steele, who was black, said, “I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to only one of two black governors in the country not to run for reelection.” Paterson and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) were the only sitting black governors; Obama was the first black president. Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) Sept. 21 said, “To weaken and undermine the governor, beyond the weakness that already exists…doesn’t serve the interests of the state.”

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Court Upholds Lt. Gov. Appointment—

The New York Court of Appeal, the state’s highest court, in a 4–3 ruling Sept. 22 upheld Paterson’s July appointment of veteran civil servant Richard Ravitch (D) as lieutenant governor. The appeals court reversed lower court rulings that he did not possess the authority to make the appointment. The post had remained empty since Paterson became governor, until he appointed Ravitch in an attempt to end a power struggle that had paralyzed the state Senate for weeks. Republicans had challenged the appointment, arguing that the state constitution allowed such a vacancy to be filled only by an election. [See 524B3] n

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Ex–eBay CEO Whitman Enters Calif. Race.

Meg Whitman, former chief executive of Internet auction company eBay Inc., Sept. 22 formally declared her candidacy for the 2010 Republican nomination for governor of California. She gave a speech in Fullerton, in the conservative stronghold of Orange County, and began airing radio advertisements statewide. Whitman, 53, in February had signaled her interest in running by setting up an exploratory committee. She had reportedly already spent $19 million of her own money on her campaign. If elected, she would be California’s first female governor. [See p. 503E2] Whitman pledged to fix the state’s chronic budget problems by cutting at least $15 billion in government spending and firing 40,000 state workers. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was barred by law from seeking a third term. Whitman’s rivals for the Republican nomination were former Rep. Tom Campbell and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a former computer industry entrepreneur who had spent $4.2 million of his own money on his campaign to date. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Jerry Brown were the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination. Brown had served as 639

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governor from 1975 to 1983, and ran unsuccessfully for president three times. Former President Bill Clinton, who had defeated Brown in a bitter 1992 primary campaign, Sept. 15 endorsed Newsom. n

Economy Fed Keeps Interest Rate Target Near Zero.

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The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Federal Reserve, Sept. 23 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federalfunds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed said “economic activity has picked up following its severe downturn,” but that “ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth and tight credit” continued to restrain consumer spending. As a result, the Fed said it would keep its benchmark rate “at exceptionally low levels” for “an extended period.” [See p. 535C2] The Fed that day said it would conclude a plan to buy $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities in March 2010. The move was widely seen as the first step toward winding down the program—which was designed to keep mortgage interest rates low—and an acknowledgment that the housing market was beginning to recover from a years-long slump. The Fed said it would “gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth transition in markets.” [See p. 571G3] However, the program accounted for the majority of purchases of mortgage-backed securities in the country, and analysts said the fragile housing market could struggle without the Fed’s continued support. The Fed said it would also continue a program that would buy $200 billion worth of debt issued by the government-controlled mortgage-financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At its last policy-making meeting in August, the Fed had said it would conclude a program to buy $300 billion in Treasury securities in October. n Housing Starts Rose 1.5% in August.

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The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sept. 17 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in August was 598,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 1.5% from the July revised rate of 589,000, and the highest rate since November 2008, in what was seen as the latest indication that the U.S. housing market was recovering from a years-long slump. [See p. 572D2] Building permits were issued in August at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 579,000 units, 2.7% above July’s revised rate of 564,000. n Business Inventories Down 1% in July.

The Commerce Department Sept. 15 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of July was $1.3 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.0% from the revised value at the end of June. The ratio of inventories to sales was 1.36, meaning 640

that it would take businesses 1.36 months to unload their inventories at the current sales pace. [See p. 572B2] n Industrial Production Rose 0.8% in August.

The Federal Reserve Sept. 16 reported that its industrial production index increased 0.8% in August. It was the second straight month that industrial activity had increased, and was seen as evidence that the sector was beginning to recover from a deep recession. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had jumped 1.0% in July. [See p. 572G1] The overall index now stood at 97.4% of its 2002 base average, up from its revised level of 96.7% for July. Manufacturing production rose 0.6% in August. The output of utilities increased 1.9%, and mining output rose 0.5%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 69.6% of their total capacity in August. n Producer Prices Rose 1.7% in August. The Labor Department Sept. 15 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in August rose 1.7% after seasonal adjustment. The spike was led by an 8.0% rise in energy prices, while “core” prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2%. [See p. 571E3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 174.3% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $174.30 in August. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods rose 1.8% in August, and prices for crude goods climbed 3.8%. n Current Account Deficit Fell in 2nd Quarter.

The U.S. current account, the broadest measure of the nation’s international trade, recorded a deficit of $98.8 billion in the second quarter of 2009, down from a revised $104.5 billion deficit in the first quarter, and the smallest deficit since the fourth quarter of 2001, the Commerce Department reported Sept. 16. The drop was attributed to a global economic slowdown that led to a falloff in trade. The current account included investment income and foreign aid as well as trade in goods and services. [See p. 572C2] n

Banking Fed to Exert Control Over Pay Policies.

The Wall Street Journal Sept. 18 reported that the Federal Reserve was considering implementing new rules to limit bank compensation policies that encouraged excessive risk-taking. The new rules were aimed at preventing banks from offering incentives that critics said had encouraged dramatic short-term growth at the expense of long-term stability, leading to the severe financial crisis that struck the industry in 2008. [See pp. 618B1, 523B1, 387G2] According to the Journal and other subsequent news reports, the new rules would allow the Fed to review and alter compensation policies at any of the 5,000 banks that it regulated, although the Fed would focus most heavily on the country’s 20 to

25 largest banks. The Fed would review compensation policies for a broad range of employees—including traders, loan officers and executives—but would not determine or cap individual compensation packages. The rules were expected to include a so-called “clawback” provision, which would allow banks to reclaim compensation from employees who had taken excessive risks that led to large losses. The rules would also encourage practices that rewarded long-term growth, such as payments that came in the form of restricted stock. The proposals were to be voted on by the Fed’s board in the coming months, and would then be subject to a period for public comments. The Journal reported that the Fed believed it did not need congressional approval to implement the rules, but Republican lawmakers questioned whether the Fed was reaching beyond its purview. Officials in the Obama administration appeared to back the plan, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying, “You don’t want people being paid for taking too much risk,” in an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 19. The proposed rules came ahead of a Sept. 24–25 summit of the Group of 20 (G20) nations in Pittsburgh, Pa., where leaders from the world’s industrialized and emerging economies were expected to discuss financial reform intended to prevent a repetition of the crisis. The Fed’s compensation rules were less stringent than those proposed by European countries such as France, which had called for caps on bank compensation. The rules were the latest attempt by the government to reform compensation practices. Congress was currently considering legislation that would give shareholders a greater say over executive pay packages, and the Treasury was in the process of determining the salaries of top earners at the dozen or so companies that had received “exceptional” assistance from the government during the crisis. Sen. Dodd Proposes ‘Super-Regulator’—

The Times Sept. 20 reported that Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, would propose legislation that would combine four of the country’s federal financial regulators—the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)—into one “super-regulator.” The plan would clash with the Obama administration’s recommendations for regulatory reform, which only called for the merger of the OTS and the OCC. Dodd told the Times that his idea was better because each regulator currently had unique oversight weaknesses that could be exploited unless the agencies were combined. Dodd’s plan was criticized by the financial industry, as well as the different regulators. Dodd also said he would push to strip the Fed of its powers over the banking and mortgage industries, since it had failed to prevent a massive bubble in the housing FACTS ON FILE

market that led to the financial crisis. Republicans had indicated support for such a measure, but it was opposed by the Obama administration, which had proposed elevating the Fed’s oversight powers. Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Sept. 23 announced that his version of regulatory reform legislation would alter the administration’s proposal to create a consumer financial protection agency, which was intended to protect consumers from predatory financial practices. He said the proposal would no longer require financial companies to offer so-called “plain vanilla” loans, such as 30-year fixed-rate mortgages and low-fee credit cards. He also said he would limit the types of financial companies over which the agency would have jurisdiction. Geithner, testifying before Frank’s committee that day, said he supported the changes. Bank Exits Guarantee Program— Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. Sept. 21 paid a $425 million fee to exit an arrangement that had seen the government guarantee $118 billion of the bank’s assets against losses, in what was seen as a preliminary step toward repaying the government a total of $45 billion in aid. Bank of America had absorbed the assets—many of which were backed by mortgages—when it acquired troubled New York City–based brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. in January. The government provided the combined company with capital injections and asset guarantees to help keep it afloat. [See p. 618G2] Bank of America that day also said it was exiting a program in which the FDIC guaranteed all its corporate bonds against default. [See p. 318F2] Insurance Giant AIG Seen as Stable—

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative branch of Congress, Sept. 21 reported that $180 billion in government aid had helped stabilize insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG), but that it would need “continued government support” for the time being. The report said it remained unclear whether AIG would ever be capable of repaying the government in full. [See p. 585G2] n

Legislation House Bill Bars Private Student Lenders.

The House Sept. 17 voted, 253–171, to approve a bill that would eliminate bankbased student loan programs and shift student lending responsibilities to the federal government beginning June 30, 2010. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the bill, which eliminated subsidies to private student lenders, would result in a savings of $87 billion over 10 years, before government administrative costs were considered. The savings would be redirected to community colleges, early childhood education programs and other grants and school improvements. While private lenders would be barred from originating student loans, they could still serSeptember 24, 2009

vice government-issued student loans. [See pp. 602C1, 477C1; 2008, pp. 771F2, 556E2] Of the expected savings, $40 billion would be used to increase the maximum federal Pell Grant. The maximum grant would rise to $5,500 in 2010, and increase each year by the rise in the consumer price index plus an additional percentage point. At that rate, the grant maximum was predicted to be $6,900 by 2019. About $10 billion would be pumped into community colleges, and about $8 billion into early childhood education programs. About $4.1 billion would go toward repairing and upgrading schools. Also as part of the bill, the interest rate on student loans would become variable beginning in 2012, and would be capped at 6.8%. The federal Perkins Loan Program, which offered low-interest loans to needy students, would also be expanded. Republicans, who almost unanimously voted against the bill, said it would destroy jobs, and that the new spending programs included would likely cost more than the projected savings. A number of Republicans backed an alternative program spearheaded by student lending giant Sallie Mae, which they claimed would save as many as 50,000 jobs and allowed private lenders to continue disbursing loans. During debate, the House voted down three Republican amendments to remove components of the legislation. It also voted, 265–165, to reject an amendment sponsored by Rep. Brett Guthrie (R, Ky.) that would have preserved federal subsidies for private lenders through 2014, as well as created a commission to overhaul private sector student lending. Added to the bill before final passage was a measure to bar the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal funds. [See p. 638F2] The Senate was expected to produce similar legislation. President Barack Obama had described student loan reform as one of his top domestic priorities. n

Terrorism Arrests in Colo., NYC in Alleged Bomb Plot. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

agents Sept. 19 arrested Najibullah Zazi, 24, and his father Mohammed Zazi, 53, during a raid of Najibullah Zazi’s home in Aurora, Colo., and charged both men with making false statements to federal agents. A third man, Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, was arrested in New York City’s borough of Queens and was also charged with making false statements to federal agents in connection with the case. The arrests followed a series of antiterrorist raids conducted in New York and Colorado that were linked to Najibullah Zazi. [See 2008, p. 963E1] Najibullah Zazi, a Denver, Colo., airport shuttle bus driver, Sept. 24 was indicted in federal court in New York City on charges of conspiring with unidentified others to make “weapons of mass destruction,” specifically explosives, while the false-state-

ments charge filed against him in Colorado was dismissed the same day. Analysts said the plot was the most serious to be foiled by the government since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Najibullah Zazi faced life in prison if convicted, while his father and Afzali faced up to eight years in prison. Mohammed Zazi Sept. 24 was released on bail, but kept under electronic monitoring. Afzali was released on bail late the same day. The U.S. government’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was composed of local, state and federal officers who collaborated on antiterrorism cases, Sept. 14 had raided two apartments in Queens after they were visited by Najibullah Zazi, who had been under government surveillance in connection with suspicions that he might have links to the Al Qaeda international terrorist network. Residents of the two apartments were reportedly questioned at length, and investigators seized a computer and cell phones from the apartment, along with other objects. Officials had denied that the raids had any connection to President Barack Obama’s Sept. 14 visit to New York City, and described them as preventive. The government investigation into Najibullah Zazi had reportedly been speeded up after Zazi Sept. 10 arrived in New York City, just prior to the eighth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the U.S. Suspect Denies Terrorism Links—

Najibullah Zazi Sept. 15 denied that he was connected in any way to Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups and said that he had traveled to New York City in order to deal with a family business matter. Zazi, who was a U.S. legal resident, had been born in Afghanistan, and had lived in Pakistan before moving to Queens in 1999. He had moved to Colorado with his family after the Sept. 11 attacks and had married a Pakistani woman and returned to Pakistan on multiple occasions. Zazi had arrived in New York City Sept. 10 and had been stopped earlier the same day on the George Washington Bridge while crossing into the city from New Jersey. His car was searched by investigators and was towed the following day. Zazi Sept. 12 left New York City and said Sept. 15 said that he had decided to cut short his visit because he was tired of being harassed by police. However, investigators said that they believed Zazi had left after being tipped off about the investigation into his activities by Afzali, a Queens imam.

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Najibullah Zazi Sept. 16–18 was questioned by FBI agents in Denver, reportedly about his visits to the Pakistani city of Peshawar. His wife lived in Peshawar, which was near tribal areas of Pakistan that were havens for members of Al Qaeda. Zazi also provided handwriting and DNA samples, as well as fingerprints, and allowed FBI agents to examine his cell phone. During Zazi’s interrogation, investigators searched his home in Aurora. Media sources Sept. 18 reported that attorneys for Zazi were discussing the possi641

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bility of a plea bargain in which he would admit to having received terrorist training, likely at an Al Qaeda–linked camp in Pakistan. Bomb-Making Instructions Found—New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly Sept. 20 said that a document containing handwritten instructions for making explosives had been found on a computer possessed by Najibullah Zazi at the time of his Sept. 10 traffic stop near the George Washington Bridge. The instructions were thought to have been written by Zazi himself. (Zazi had also reportedly possessed a video recording of New York City’s Grand Central Terminal train station, and objects that tested positive for explosives had reportedly been taken from the two apartments searched Sept. 14.) Kelly said Zazi had been charged with making false statements for telling FBI agents that he had no knowledge of the instructions. He also said that Afzali, who had been approached by investigators for assistance in their investigation, had been charged for claiming he had not tipped off Najibullah Zazi about the investigation, and that Mohammed Zazi had been charged for denying that he had spoken to Afzali. The Cable News Network (CNN) reported Sept. 20 that a partial transcript of a Sept. 11 phone call between Najibullah Zazi and Afzali that was released as part of court records in the case included an exchange in which Afzali told Zazi that he had vouched for him to police and warned that their conversation was being monitored. Afzali’s attorney denied that his client had tipped off Zazi, and claimed that Afzali, who had been aware that the call was being monitored, had been attempting to assist the investigation. Alerts on Mass Transit, Stadiums Issued—

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Federal counterterrorism officials at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Sept. 18 issued a security bulletin that called on U.S. transit agencies to be on the lookout for possible terrorist attacks against subways and other mass transit systems. The bulletin, issued in connection with the investigation, recommended that random checks of transit stations and vehicles be instituted. The bulletin, which made specific mention of Grand Central Terminal, warned of the risk of an attack using hydrogen peroxide–based explosives, a type that Zazi was suspected of conspiring to use, and that had been used in a July 2005 terrorist attack on the London mass transit system. New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Sept. 22 announced that increased security measures, including heavier police presence, were being taken in light of the terrorism investigation and the security bulletin. Counterterrorism officials Sept. 21 issued two additional security bulletins expressing concern about potential terrorist attacks against sports stadiums, hotels and other locations. The bulletins were reportedly not based on government knowledge of any specific plots. 642

Filings Suggest Advanced Plot—Prosecutors Sept. 24 filed documents in federal court in New York City that accused Najibullah Zazi of plotting with unidentified coconspirators to build and detonate hydrogen peroxide–based explosives within the U.S. The court documents alleged that Zazi’s involvement in the plot had begun as early as August 2008, when prosecutors said that he had taken part in training carried out by Al Qaeda during a visit to Peshawar. According to the documents, Zazi had searched on the Internet for information about hydrochloric acid and laboratory safety during the summer of 2009 and had subsequently purchased explosive ingredients at a number of beauty supply stores in the Denver area. Prosecutors alleged that Zazi Sept. 6 had rented a Denver-area hotel room with a kitchen and had attempted to create explosives. Following the attempt, Zazi reportedly contacted an unidentified associate and asked for better instructions for creating the explosives. Zazi Sept. 8 allegedly conducted Internet searches on whether a Queens home improvement store carried muriatic acid, an ingredient of the explosives. He reportedly left for New York City the following day. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Sept. 24 said the government’s investigation into the plot was ongoing, but that he believed that “any imminent threat arising from this case has been disrupted.” n

In situations where the state secrets privilege was invoked by the government, the presiding judge in the cases would be given a report explaining the government’s arguments for invoking the privilege and would have the right to ask to examine classified documents related to a given case. However, it was unclear if judges would necessarily be given access to such documents if they requested them. No New Legislation on Detentions—

The Justice Department Sept. 23 announced that it would not seek additional legislation to justify the indefinite detention of terrorism detainees currently held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arguing that the administration already had the authority to detain terrorism suspects under an authorization-of-force resolution against the Al Qaeda terrorist network that was passed by Congress in 2001. About 50 of the more than 200 detainees still held at Guantanamo were thought by the Obama administration to be too dangerous to release, but reportedly could not be charged. The Bush administration had claimed a broad authority grounded in the Constitution that allowed the president to indefinitely detain prisoners for reasons of national security, a claim that the Obama administration had withdrawn. Obama had previously suggested in a May speech that his administration would collaborate with Congress on establishing a new legal basis for the continued detention of prisoners. [See p. 337C2] n

Obama Administration Use of ‘State Secrets’ Privilege Restricted.

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Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Sept. 23 issued new Justice Department guidelines for the government’s use of the so-called state secrets privilege to block civil lawsuits. The government invoked the privilege to claim that national security would be endangered if secret government documents related to a given case were subpoenaed. Under the administration of former President George W. Bush, the privilege was repeatedly used to block lawsuits by plaintiffs who claimed to have been illegally wiretapped or tortured as a result of Bush administration policies. President Barack Obama had previously vowed to limit the use of the privilege. [See pp. 290E1, 244B1] The new policy was scheduled to go into effect Oct. 1, but would not affect the use of the state secrets privilege by the government in connection with lawsuits filed against the Bush administration. Under the new guidelines, all uses of the state secrets privilege to attempt to block lawsuits would have to be signed off on by a Justice Department committee, as well as by the attorney general. The government would be barred from using the privilege merely to avoid public embarrassment or to obscure illegal behavior or incompetence, and would be allowed to assert the privilege only if disclosing the information related to the lawsuit would cause “significant harm” to national security.

FDA Bans Flavored Cigarettes. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Sept. 22 implemented a ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes, as required by a law enacted in June. The ban applied to candy, clove, fruit and other flavored cigarettes, but not those flavored with menthol or mint, which were more widespread. It was intended to stop children and teenagers from starting to smoke. [See p. 428G2] The FDA said it would study the possibility of regulating menthol cigarettes more strictly. It also warned tobacco companies not to attempt to avoid the law by introducing smaller flavored cigars; it was unclear if the law applied to cigars. However, the agency sent a letter to tobacco companies asserting that the ban applied to any product similar to a cigarette, including a small cigar. (Generally, a cigarette was wrapped in paper, while a cigar was wrapped in tobacco or paper made from tobacco.) Kretek International Inc., the U.S.’s largest distributor of clove cigarettes, Sept. 23 filed suit against the FDA in order to prevent it from banning flavored cigars. In a related development, Lawrence Deyton, chief of public health and environmental hazards at the Veterans Affairs Department, Aug. 19 had been named the first director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. The center had been created by the June law, and was authorized to regulate tobacco. n FACTS ON FILE

tional press after making his presence known, and said he wanted to “initiate a national and international dialogue” that would peacefully return him to the presidency. “I am here for the restoration of democracy,” he said. [See p. 623G1] Zelaya had been deposed by the military, which had the backing of the country’s legislature and Supreme Court. His opponents said he had tried to seize power through an illegal constitutional amendment that would allow him to be reelected; there was currently a one-term limit on presidents. Following Zelaya’s ouster, congressional leader Roberto Micheletti had been named president by the legislature. Since then, Zelaya had twice made unsuccessful attempts to return to Honduras. [See pp. 507F3, 459D3] Micheletti, after initially denying that Zelaya had returned, Sept. 21 called on Brazil to turn him over to Honduran authorities to face trial on 18 charges, including treason. “A court is ready to proceed against him legally, and a jail is also ready,” Micheletti said. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said his government had played no role in Zelaya’s return. Micheletti that day imposed a nationwide curfew that was later extended to the evening of Sept. 23. The de facto government Sept. 21 also shut down airports and mobilized police forces. Despite his ouster, polls showed that Hondurans remained almost evenly split in their support of Zelaya, and his return raised concerns that violence would follow. No other country had recognized the de facto government led by Micheletti, and it remained under diplomatic pressure from the U.S., the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union, among other groups, to restore Zelaya to power. Negotiations held over the summer for Zelaya’s return, led by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, had faltered. The de facto regime had expressed hope that a new government voted into power in elections scheduled for Nov. 29 would be deemed legitimate by the international community. The OAS Sept. 21 called an emergency meeting to discuss Zelaya’s return.

AMERICAS

Harper Visits Obama, U.S. Congress. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Sept. 16–17 met with U.S. President Barack Obama and members of the U.S. Congress during a visit to Washington, D.C., to discuss trade issues and the deployment of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, among other topics. [See pp. 541E1, 91F1] Harper Sept. 16 held a 70-minute meeting with Obama at which the pair reportedly discussed Canadian concerns about protectionist U.S. trade policies stemming from a U.S. $787 billion stimulus plan enacted in February. The stimulus package included so-called Buy American provisions requiring many public works projects to use materials manufactured in the U.S. [See p. 90D3] “There is no prospect of any budding trade wars between our two countries,” Obama said at a news conference held following the meeting. Harper described the Buy American provisions as “important irritants,” but added that they were “relatively small compared to the overall scale of Canadian-American trade.” The two leaders also said they were close to settling a disagreement over the ability of Canadian companies to operate charter flights for National Hockey League (NHL) teams. Obama also thanked Canada for its deployment of some 2,500 troops to Afghanistan, as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force fighting the Taliban Islamist fundamentalist group there. He also said he was not concerned about Canada’s plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2011. [See p. 635A1] In an unusual visit to Capitol Hill, Harper Sept. 17 met with Democratic and Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress in order to lobby them to pass exemptions for Canada from the Buy American provisions. Harper that day met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.). He also talked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) at a separate meeting. A Canadian government spokesman said Harper had also discussed climate change, border security and energy issues with them. n

Honduras Zelaya Makes Surprise Return. Honduran

President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who in late June had been ousted in a bloodless coup d’etat, Sept. 21 secretly returned to the country and took refuge at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Zelaya said he had crossed into Honduras from Guatemala, traveling through remote mountain areas and back roads to avoid detection during a 15-hour trip. Several press reports offered contradictory accounts of his method of return. Zelaya gave several interviews to internaSeptember 24, 2009

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Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, speaking to reporters at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa Sept. 24 after his return to Honduras.

Violence Follows Protests—Thousands of Zelaya supporters Sept. 21–22 gathered outside the Brazilian embassy in defiance of the curfew to rally behind the deposed leader. Honduran government security forces Sept. 22 clashed with demonstrators, using tear gas and water cannons in attempts to disperse them. Protesters fought back using rocks and other objects. Sporadic violence between police and thousands of protesters outside the embassy continued Sept. 23. The de facto government Sept. 22 had cut power, phone service and water supplies to the Brazilian embassy, but restored them the following day. The government Sept. 23 eased the curfew for a few hours, in order to allow purchases of food, fuel and other supplies. Micheletti Offers Dialogue— Micheletti Sept. 23 said he was willing to hold talks with Zelaya, but added that the crisis could only “be resolved within the parameters of the constitution.” Zelaya rejected the offer, describing it as a “total manipulation.” Micheletti the previous day had restated that he would not cede his office to Zelaya. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, called on the de facto government to immediately return Zelaya to power. He also called on other countries “to ensure the inviolability of Brazil’s diplomatic mission” in Tegucigalpa. Da Silva had reportedly asked Zelaya not to provoke the de facto government into storming the Brazilian embassy, which was legally considered Brazilian territory. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Sept. 23 reported that Micheletti had said the de facto government did not intend to use force to seize Zelaya. n

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Indonesia Major Terrorist Suspect Killed in Raid. Indonesian National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri Sept. 17 announced during a televised news conference that terrorism suspect Noordin Muhamad Top had been killed earlier the same day in a police raid of a residence in Indonesia’s province of Central Java. Noordin had been linked to multiple terrorist bombings in Indonesia, including the July bombing of two hotels in Jakarta, the capital, which had been the first major terrorist attack in the country since 2005. [See pp. 542A1, 494E2] Noordin, 41, had evaded capture for more than seven years. Once a member of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) Islamist terrorist group, he was thought to have founded his own terrorist organization, which was believed to have carried out the July attacks. He was believed to have recruited new militants in Malaysia, his native country, as well as in Indonesia and the Philippines. Police officers and Indonesian journalists attending Danuri’s speech reportedly cheered when Noordin’s death was announced. Danuri said the government had ascertained that he was among those killed 643

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in the raid through fingerprint evidence. The government Sept. 19 said DNA testing had further confirmed his death. Indonesian police had previously said that Noordin had been killed in an August raid on a terrorist safe house, but had later admitted that he had escaped. Danuri said that documents and computer files discovered after the Sept. 17 raid confirmed that Noordin had been the head of the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Southeast Asia. Analysts had previously noted operational similarities between Noordin’s terrorist cell and Al Qaeda, suggesting that he might be affiliated with the group. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Sept. 17 said that Noordin’s death was “an important step in the context of successfully overcoming terrorism,” but warned that “we must continue to be vigilant and take optimal preventive steps to continue teaching terrorist leaders a lesson.” Arrests Led to Raid—Indonesian security forces Sept. 16 had surrounded the suspected terrorist safe house in Central Java after arresting two of Noordin’s accomplices earlier in the day, one of whom reportedly had led the security forces to the house. Security forces attempted to enter the house just before midnight on Sept. 16, but were fired on, triggering a five-hour standoff between the militants and Indonesian security personnel that was followed by an early Sept. 17 raid by security forces. During the raid, four suspects—including Noordin—were fatally shot after refusing to surrender to security forces and another three people were arrested, including a pregnant woman. Convicted terrorist Bagus Budi Pranato was also killed. Also known as Urwah, he had been accused of involvement in the July hotel bombings, and had previously been convicted of involvement in a 2004 bomb attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta. [See 2004, p. 700A3] Police recovered a computer, paper documents, rifles and grenades from the house, as well as about 440 pounds (200 kg) of explosives. An explosion had reportedly occurred inside the house during the standoff, but it was unclear what had caused it. n

EUROPE

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Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin Sept. 21 went on trial in a Paris court, accused of plotting to spread false bribery allegations against President Nicolas Sarkozy and others. The smear campaign allegedly took place in 2004, when both men were cabinet ministers and rivals to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy was one of about 40 plaintiffs in the case, but, as a sitting president, would not be required to testify. [See 2008, p. 927B3] In 2004, an anonymous informer had sent documents to a judge, alleging that 644

Sarkozy and other French politicians and businessmen had secret bank accounts at a Luxembourg financial clearinghouse, Clearstream. The accounts were said to be used to launder kickbacks from a $2.8 billion sale of French warships to Taiwan in 1991. The scandal had become known as the “Clearstream affair.” Villepin, who was foreign minister at the time, learned of the documents and asked a senior intelligence official, Gen. Philippe Rondot, to investigate the claims. Rondot determined that the documents were false. Prosecutors alleged that Villepin had failed to report that finding in a timely manner, allowing the false documents to circulate unchallenged, in order to sabotage Sarkozy’s preparations for a presidential bid in 2007. Villepin, 55, was charged with “complicity in false accusation, complicity in using forgeries, receipt of stolen property and breach of trust.” If convicted, he faced up to five years in prison. Among his four codefendants was JeanLouis Gergorin, former vice president of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (EADS), the parent company of aircraft maker Airbus. Gergorin, a friend of Villepin, had admitted that he was the one who had sent the false documents to the judge, but claimed that he had done so at the request of Villepin. Another former EADS employee, Imad Lahoud, in a December 2008 deposition had admitted to fabricating the documents. He claimed that Villepin had ordered him to insert Sarkozy’s name into the list of alleged bribe-takers. The other two defendants were Denis Robert, the journalist who first reported on the story, and Clearstream accountant Florian Bourges, accused of stealing the clearinghouse’s records. Villepin, speaking to reporters before entering the Palais de Justice, maintained his innocence, saying, “I am here because of the determination of one man, I am here because of the vindictiveness of one man, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also president of the French republic.” Former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was one of the witnesses scheduled to testify in the trial, which was expected to last about one month. Villepin’s lawyers Sept. 24 said they would take legal action against Sarkozy for prejudicing the trial after he described the Clearstream defendants as “guilty men” in a television interview aired the previous night. n Sarkozy Sets Carbon Tax. French President Nicolas Sarkozy Sept. 11 announced that France would impose a new tax on carbon dioxide emissions by businesses and households, starting Jan. 1, 2010. France’s economy would be the largest among the handful of countries that had tried such a tax. [See pp. 636C1, 201E2; 2008, pp. 927D1, 915E3] Sarkozy also called for a European tax on imported products from “countries that don’t respect the rules” on reducing emissions. He said that “a carbon tax at the border is vital for our industries and jobs,” but

added, “This has nothing to do with protectionism. This is about fair play.” Sarkozy had made the same proposal on previous occasions, drawing charges of protectionism. The proposal was seen as aimed mainly at China, India and other countries with developing economies that had resisted pressure to agree to cut emissions along with developed nations. France had pledged to cut its emissions by 75% from 1990 levels by 2050. Under the French plan, each metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels, including gasoline, heating oil and coal, would be taxed 17 euros ($25). The tax would not apply to electricity consumption, since nearly 90% of France’s power was produced by nuclear plants, which did not generate carbon emissions. Households would receive tax rebates to offset the carbon tax. A local corporate tax would be eliminated to offset the carbon tax on businesses. As a result, Sarkozy pledged, no household or business would face a higher overall tax burden. However, large-scale emitters, such as oil refiners, would be exempt from the tax, since they were already subject to a European Union cap-and-trade system, under which they bought and sold the right to emit certain amounts of carbon. Environmentalist groups criticized Sarkozy’s plan, calling the tax too low and predicting that the rebates and other offsetting measures would cancel out any incentive to cut down on fossil fuel use. A report commissioned by Sarkozy had recommended setting the tax at an initial level of 32 euros per metric ton, and raising it by 5% every year until it reached 100 euros per ton in 2030. Sweden had first imposed a carbon tax in 1991, and currently taxed each ton at 128 euros. The Swedish government said the country’s economy had grown 44% since the tax was imposed, contradicting opponents of carbon taxes who warned that they would reduce growth. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Switzerland had also imposed carbon taxes since then. But France’s economy was larger than any of theirs. Sweden currently held the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, and had used the post to urge the 27-member EU to adopt the carbon tax policy. A United Nations conference on reducing emissions was to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. Backs Shift From GDP Measurement—

Sarkozy Sept. 14 endorsed a proposal for international organizations to adopt a broader measurement of “well-being” and sustainability that would replace gross domestic product (GDP) as the main statistic for gauging economic activity. He backed a recommendation made by a 22-member commission that was led by U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. Sarkozy had commissioned the report in early 2008. He said he had asked the French national statistics institute to adopt the changes. [See p. 545B1; 2001, p. 823G1] FACTS ON FILE

GDP measured the value of all the goods and services produced by an economy. The panel called for using a wider range of statistics on household income, consumption and wealth, as well as income distribution, access to education and health care, crime and the state of the environment. It would also incorporate nonmarket activities, such as leisure pursuits. The proposed change would reduce the U.S. lead over France in per capita GDP. Sarkozy suggested that a reliance on GDP data favored an “ideological system” of U.S.-style free-market capitalism over the French model of a more generous welfare state and shorter working hours. n

Other European News Putin Praises U.S. Missile Shield Plans.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Sept. 18 praised U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to revise U.S. plans for a European defense shield designed to protect against long-range missiles from Iran, which Obama had announced the previous day. Putin said he hoped that “after this correct and brave decision, others will follow.” [See pp. 633D3, 613A1] The initial missile defense plan, which was spearheaded by Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, had envisioned a powerful radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland to defend against long-range missiles from Iran. Obama’s version of the plan called for mainly sea-based protection against short- and medium-range Iranian missiles, and a radar station in the Caucasus. (Obama did not exclude eventually placing land-based components of the shield in Eastern Europe.) Russia had vociferously argued that the Bush plan could undermine its defenses. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin Sept. 19 said Russia would abandon a previously announced plan to station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, in response to Obama’s modifications. However, Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia’s general staff, Sept. 21 said “no such decision” had been made, adding that such a decision “should be made by the president.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Sept. 18 said the U.S., NATO and Russia should “explore the potential for linking” their missile defense systems “at an appropriate time.” Relations between Russia and NATO had been strained due to Ukraine’s and Georgia’s efforts to join the alliance. (Russia considered Ukraine and Georgia, both former Soviet states, within its historic sphere of influence.) Rasmussen said that while differences existed, Russia and NATO should work together on matters on which they agreed. Putin Sept. 18 called for the U.S. to support Russian efforts to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO) as part of a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. September 24, 2009

Russia had been working toward WTO membership since 1993. [See p. 405G1] n Russian Signs S. Ossetia, Abkhazia Pacts.

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov Sept. 15 signed defense agreements with his counterparts from the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Under the agreements, which were valid for 49 years, Russia was authorized to establish military bases in both regions that would acommodate 1,700 troops each. Those troops would be in addition to hundreds of Russian soldiers already guarding the de facto borders of the two regions, and whose deployments had been authorized by separate, prior agreements. [See p. 607F1] Ships with Russia’s coastal guard Sept. 20 began patrols in the Black Sea, off the coast of Abkhazia, which had thrown off Georgian rule in 1992. Georgia Sept. 22 said Russia was in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which stipulated that both waters within 12 miles of the coast of Abkhazia, and the region’s continental shelf, fell within Georgia’s internationally recognized maritime borders. Russia Sept. 15 had said it would seize ships that violated what it called Abkhazia’s maritime border. Georgia had blockaded both splinter regions following a brief 2008 war with Russia over control of South Ossetia. Georgia’s military had been routed in that conflict, and most of the larger vessels in its navy had been severely damaged or destroyed. The Georgian navy currently consisted of 19 ships, most of which were patrol boats. Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela were the only countries to recognize the splinter regions’ independence. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Gordon Sept. 22 said the U.S. would continue to discourage countries from recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent. He also urged Russia to withdraw its troops from the regions in accordance with cease-fires negotiated in 2008. n Czech Republic Expels Russian Diplomats.

The Czech Republic had expelled two Russian diplomats for allegedly spying for the Russian intelligence services, it was reported Aug. 17. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the expulsions were a “provocation,” and Russia the following day expelled two Czech diplomats. Former Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg Aug. 20 said the decision to expel the Russian diplomats had been made in the spring, but that the Czech government had delayed action until its six-month European Union presidency was over. [See pp. 613A1, 311B1] Relations between the Czech Republic and Russia had soured after the U.S. in 2007 unveiled plans to build a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. However, U.S. President Barack Obama Sept. 17 revised the plans for that system in a way that would reduce the use of sites in Eastern Europe. [See pp. 613A1, 311B1] n

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Tens of thousands of supporters of the Iranian opposition Sept. 18 marched in the streets on the day of a government rally in Tehran, the capital. Protests were also reported in other Iranian cities. The government had warned the opposition not to “politicize” the annual Quds Day (also known as Jerusalem Day) rally, which was intended to showed support for the Palestinians. The protests were the first major ones in two months; demonstrations against a June presidential election that was widely regarded as having been rigged had been violently suppressed by Iranian security forces and by the Basij militia, resulting in dozens of deaths. [See pp. 633D3, 628B3] Opposition protesters on Tehran’s streets Sept. 18 were attacked by crowds of government supporters who in many cases outnumbered them, and by the Basij. However, police largely took no action other than a few reported arrests, and in some cases even broke up fighting. Rallies were attended by former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and former Presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who had become leaders of the post-election opposition. Opposition Web sites reported that pro-government protesters tried to attack Moussavi and Khatami, but that they were able to escape unharmed. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a Quds Day anti-Israel speech at Friday prayers at Tehran University. As on a number of previous occasions, he questioned whether the “Holocaust was a real event,” and said it was a “lie” that was used to provide a pretext for Israel’s creation. Iran’s state-run Press TV Sept. 16 had reported that the government had banned Rafsanjani from giving the Friday prayer sermon. Rafsanjani had given the sermon every year on Quds Day for more than two decades, but was replaced by a hard-line cleric, Ahmad Khatami. n

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Yemen Air Strike on Refugee Camp Kills 80. The Yemeni government Sept. 16 launched an air strike on a refugee camp in northern Yemen, reportedly killing more than 80 people. The strike was part of a five-year-old conflict between the government and insurgents known as the Houthis, which had intensified since August. [See 2008, p. 317A3] The Houthis, who were members of a Shiite Muslim sect known as the Zaidis, complained of official discrimination and said they wanted more autonomy. However, the government claimed that the group was trying to restore a Zaidi-led theocratic monarchy that had ruled Yemen until 1962, and said the Houthis received support from Iran’s Shiite-led government; the Houthis denied both claims. Yemen’s government had reportedly used radical Sunni 645

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Muslim militants as proxy forces against the Houthis. [See 1962, p. 346A3] Yemen’s government Aug. 11 had launched a major offensive against the Houthis in Saada province, in the country’s north, after it said that rebel attacks over the previous months had violated a previous peace agreement, which had been in effect for the last year. It said initial bombing attacks had killed at least 27 rebels. Journalists were barred from the conflict zone, and it was difficult to confirm reports. The Sept. 16 air strike reportedly hit a refugee camp in Adi, near the Houthi-controlled town of Harf Sufyan in Saada. Yemen’s military Sept. 17 said it was investigating the strike, but added that the military was working to minimize civilian casualties and that rebels were trapping civilians in the conflict zone. The U.N. said the recent fighting had added up to 50,000 new refugees to the 100,000 already displaced by violence. The Yemeni military Sept. 18 announced a truce through the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which was celebrated Sept. 20–22 in Yemen. However, each side Sept. 19 accused the other of violating the truce. Hundreds of Houthis early Sept. 20 launched attacks on three military checkpoints and the presidential palace in Saada, the capital of Saada province, but were driven back. News reports said dozens of rebels were killed in the fighting. Other News—In other Yemeni news: o Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Sept. 1 said 16 Somalis had drowned the previous weekend after being pushed overboard from two ships into the Gulf of Aden by smugglers who had been hired to take them to Yemen from Somalia. Mahecic said 64 other Somalis who had been pushed overboard reached shore safely. According to the refugee agency, some 36,000 Africans had crossed into Yemen over the Gulf of Aden from northern Somalia in 2009. [See 2008, p. 751D3] o Security forces July 23 opened fire on crowds of protesters in the southern town of Zinjibar, in Abyan province, killing at least 12. Some of the protesters supported a southern separatist movement that had increased its activity over the past months. [See 1994, p. 356D1] o Yemen’s special terrorism court had sentenced six men to death for their participation in attacks carried out by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, it was reported July 13. Ten others, including four Syrians and a Saudi, received prison sentences. The defendants had been convicted of participating in terrorist plots in Yemen, including the murder of two Belgian tourists; attacks on the U.S. embassy in Sana, the Yemeni capital, and on housing for foreign workers; and an attempted attack on an oil facility. Separately, a Yemeni interior ministry official June 14 had said security forces June 12 had arrested Hassam Hussein bin Alwanin, whom he described as Al Qaeda’s “biggest and most influential” financier in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Security experts had warned that Al Qaeda might 646

turn Yemen into a haven for its activities. [See 2008, p. 665E3] o Nine foreign nationals June 12 were kidnapped in Saada, and the remains of at least three of them were found June 15; the fate of the others was unknown, although some reports said all nine had been found dead. The victims—a Briton, a South Korean and seven Germans, including several children—had been picnicking in the area. The adults had worked for World Wide Services Foundation, a Dutch medical aid group. The government initially blamed the kidnapping on the Houthis, but the group denied the charge. Security analysts also said that members of Al Qaeda might be responsible. Numerous foreigners had been kidnapped for ransom in Yemen, but deaths were rare. [See 2006, p. 772C1] o An explosion March 15 killed four South Korean tourists near the historic fortified city of Shibam, a U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. Some reports also said two Yemenis were killed. The Yemeni government said the blast was caused by a terrorist attack, and March 16 announced the arrest of 12 alleged members of Islamist groups said to have information about the perpetrators. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Outcry Over U.S. Treatment of Actor. Super-

star Indian film actor Shahrukh Khan Aug. 14 was stopped for questioning at the U.S.’s Newark Liberty International Airport, prompting a public outcry in India over what was seen as part of a pattern of discriminatory treatment against South Asian Muslims traveling to the U.S. Khan, a Muslim, was in the U.S. to promote the film My Name is Khan, about discrimination against Muslims following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. He was released after about an hour, and U.S. customs officials said Khan had not been singled out for his religion, claiming that the questioning was part of a routine process. [See 2008, p. 503F2] The incident followed the April 21 frisking of former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, also a Muslim, at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, the Indian capital, before he boarded a flight to New York City on U.S. airline Continental Airlines Inc. Continental July 22 issued a public apology to Kalam. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Automobile Racing Renault Penalized for F1 Race-Fixing. The

World Motor Sport Council of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), at a hearing in Paris, Sept. 21 handed the Renault Formula One racing team a suspended permanent ban from the sport, after finding that members of the team had conspired to fix the outcome of the September

2008 Singapore Grand Prix by ordering driver Nelson Piquet Jr. to deliberately crash his car. Former Renault team managing director Flavio Briatore was barred from the sport for life, and former team engineering head Pat Symonds received a five-year ban. [See 2008, p. 930A1; 2007, p. 903E2] Piquet, from Brazil, had been fired by Renault Aug. 3, and soon after, his racefixing allegations began being leaked to the news media. The FIA Aug. 30 announced that it was opening an investigation of the Singapore race. Piquet claimed that Briatore and Symonds had ordered him to deliberately crash his car into a wall on lap 14 of the Singapore race—two laps after Renault teammate Fernando Alonso of Spain, one of the race’s leaders, had refueled at a pit stop. The crash triggered the deployment of a safety car while the wreckage of Piquet’s car was cleared from the track. That put Alonso at an advantage, because it allowed him to take the lead as the other leaders made pit stops. Alonso went on to claim victory. In 2008, Alonso had been the team’s top driver, and Piquet its number-two driver. (Alonso had won the Formula One season title in 2005 and 2006.) Analysts said it was common for teams to use their number-two driver as part of a strategy to help the top driver win a race. However, a deliberate crash was widely seen as crossing the line. [See 2006, p. 831D1] Renault initially denied the allegations made by Piquet, and Sept. 11 began criminal proceedings against the driver and his father, three-time Formula One champion Nelson Piquet, alleging blackmail and false allegations. The FIA that day offered Piquet Jr., 24, immunity in exchange for testifying about the alleged race-fixing. [See 1992, p. 435C1] Briatore and Symonds—who had long been prominent figures in Formula One— Sept. 16 resigned from Renault, and the team said it would not dispute the allegations. In a statement released after the Sept. 21 hearing, the FIA described Renault’s actions as being of “unparalleled severity” that “not only compromised the integrity of the sport but also endangered the lives of spectators, officials, other competitors and Nelson Piquet Jr. himself.” However, the FIA agreed to suspend Renault’s penalty in light of several mitigating factors, including an apology from the team, Briatore and Symonds’s agreement not to contest the charges and to leave the team, and Renault’s agreement to pay the costs of the investigation and to contribute to FIA “safety-related projects.” The ban would be implemented if Renault committed a similar infraction in the next two years. Both Renault’s internal investigation and the FIA probe determined that only Briatore, Symonds and Piquet Jr. had been involved in the planned crash. Alonso and other Renault team members were cleared. FIA President Max Mosley after the hearing told reporters that other Renault members had “demonstrated that they had FACTS ON FILE

absolutely no moral responsibility for what took place.” It was the biggest scandal to hit Formula One since the McLaren Mercedes team in September 2007 was fined $100 million for spying on rival Ferrari. The sport had also endured a 2008 sex scandal involving Mosley, and a threatened revolt by several top teams earlier in 2009 over cost-cutting measures. [See below; 2008, p. 299C2] The scandal came amid a time of financial uncertainty for Formula One due to the global financial crisis, which had hit the auto industry particularly hard. Two major automakers that sponsored teams—Japan’s Honda Motor Co. in December 2008 and Germany’s BMW AG July 29—had recently pulled out of the series. The Renault team was owned by French carmaker Renault SA, which in February had received emergency aid from the French government. [See below, p. 84F2; 2008, p. 930C1] FIA, Top Teams Settle Dispute—The Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), which comprised eight of the 10 teams in Formula One, June 19 threatened to form a breakaway racing series in 2010. FOTA had made the threat after the FIA tried to impose a cap on teams’ budgets, starting at 100 million euros ($139 million) in the 2010 season and 45 million euros in following seasons. Mosley had reportedly sought the cap in order to halt what he called a “financial arms race” in Formula One. Teams that agreed to the caps reportedly would have received unspecified technological advantages over those that did not, prompting objections from teams owned by big auto manufacturers that used Formula One to showcase new technology. [See 2008, p. 930E1] Five of the eight teams in FOTA were backed by big manufacturers—Ferrari, McLaren Mercedes, Toyota, BMW Sauber and Renault; they were joined by Brawn, Red Bull and Toro Rosso. The two that agreed to go along with the FIA’s plan were Williams and Force India. Formula One teams in December 2008 had agreed to several voluntary cost-cutting measures, but FOTA argued that the cap would compromise the quality of racing in Formula One, and that the majority of the teams opposed it. The FIA later June 19—which had been the deadline for teams to confirm their participation in Formula One for 2010—responded to FOTA’s threat by saying it would take the group to court. Negotiations between the two sides, which also included Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s powerful main promoter and commercial rights holder, continued June 20–24. A resolution was reached after Mosley June 24 agreed to drop plans for the budget cap and to not seek reelection as the organization’s president in October. (He had led the FIA since 1993.) However, he reneged on the latter pledge the next day, after Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo called him a “dictator.” Mosley July 15 again backtracked and said he would not in fact seek reelection in October. September 24, 2009

Driver Injured in Freak Accident— Brazil’s Felipe Massa, who drove for Ferrari, July 25 suffered a fractured skull when he was hit just above his left eye by a metal spring that flew off fellow Brazilian Rubens Barrichello’s car during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest. Massa, 28, was apparently knocked unconscious by the spring, causing him to crash into a tire barrier. He underwent surgery and remained in an artificial coma until July 27, but then made a rapid recovery and flew home to Brazil Aug. 3. Ferrari July 29 announced that former driver Michael Schumacher of Germany, who had won an unprecedented seven Formula One titles before retiring in 2006, would take Massa’s place on the Ferrari team for the remainder of the 2009 season. However, Schumacher, 40, after several practice runs Aug. 11 said he would not be able to make a return to Formula One, due to the lingering effects of neck injuries sustained during a motorcycle race in February. Backup Ferrari driver Luca Badoer replaced Massa for two races, but his lackluster performances led Ferrari Sept. 3 to secure the services of veteran driver Giancarlo Fisichella for the rest of the 2009 season. Fisichella, an Italian, had been driving for Force India. n

Sports News in Brief Boxing:

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the U.S. Sept. 19 defeated Mexico’s Juan Manuel Marquez in a unanimous decision in a welterweight contest in Las Vegas, Nev., his first bout since December 2007. In June 2008, then– World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Mayweather, 32, had retired with an unbeaten record; he announced his comeback in May. Mayweather Sept. 18 had weighed in at 146 pounds, two pounds over the limit and four pounds heavier than Marquez; he reportedly was fined $600,000 for exceeding the weight limit. Mayweather’s next opponent was expected to be Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines, who had recently taken over Mayweather’s former unofficial title as the world’s best poundfor-pound fighter. [See p. 383D2, G2] n Marathons: Gebrselassie Wins in Berlin.

Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie Sept. 20 won the men’s race in the Berlin Marathon in Germany for the fourth year in a row. Gebrselassie, 36, finished the race in two hours, six minutes and eight seconds. He had set the marathon world record in the 2008 Berlin Marathon. Atsede Besuye of Ethiopia, 21, won the women’s race, with a time of 2:24.47. [See 2008, p. 844D1] n Tennis: Henin Sets Comeback. Former topranked player Justine Henin of Belgium Sept. 22 announced that she would return to competitive tennis in early 2010, after retiring in May 2008. Henin, 27, said she had been able to “recharge my physical batteries, mental batteries [and] emotional batteries” during her time away from the sport. Her announcement came less than two weeks after countrywoman Kim Clijsters

had won the U.S. Open in her third tournament since emerging from retirement. [See p. 631A1, F1; 2008, p. 423A1] n

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UNITED STATES

Awards Emmy Awards Dominated by Veterans.

The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Sept. 20 presented its 61st annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony, shown on the CBS network, was hosted for the first time by actor Neil Patrick Harris, who in June had hosted Broadway’s Tony Awards ceremony. The Emmys had been cohosted by five TV reality-show hosts in 2008; that multiple host format, however, had been deemed a failure. [See p. 399D3; 2008, p. 687C1] “Mad Men,” an AMC cable-network show about a 1960s advertising agency, won the Emmy for best drama series for the second year in a row. The award for best comedy series went to NBC’s “30 Rock” for the third year in a row, while one of that show’s stars, Alec Baldwin, was named best actor in a comedy series for the second straight time. Also winning top acting honors for the second consecutive year were Bryan Cranston, named best actor in a drama series for his role in AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” and Glenn Close, named best actress in a drama series for her role in “Damages,” carried by the FX cable network. [See 2008, p. 687A2, B2] Named lead actress in a comedy, and winning her first Emmy, was Toni Collette, for the Showtime cable network’s “United States of Tara.” Veteran actress Jessica Lange, 60, a two-time Academy Award winner, also won her first Emmy, in the category of lead actress in a miniseries or movie, for playing an eccentric relative of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy in “Grey Gardens.” That HBO cable TV presentation was also named best made-forTV movie. A British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) adaptation of Charles Dickens’s mid-19th-century novel Little Dorrit, aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations in the U.S., was named best miniseries. [See 1995, p. 243E2; 1983, p. 316F3] For the seventh year in a row, the satirical newscast “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” on the Comedy Central cable network won the Emmy for best variety, music or comedy series. In the reality competition category, CBS’s “The Amazing Race” also won for the seventh straight year. The Emmy winners included: Drama Series: “Mad Men” (AMC) Actor, Drama Series: Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad” (AMC) Actress, Drama Series: Glenn Close, “Damages” (FX) Comedy Series: “30 Rock” (NBC) Actor, Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock” (NBC) Actress, Comedy Series: Toni Collette, “United States of Tara” (Showtime) Miniseries: “Little Dorrit” (PBS) 647

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Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Brendan Gleeson, “Into the Storm” (HBO) Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Jessica Lange, “Grey Gardens” (HBO) Variety, Music or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” (Comedy Central) Reality-Competition Program: “The Amazing Race” (CBS) Reality-Competition Host: Jeff Probst, “Survivor” (CBS) n

People British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Sept. 10 used his office’s official Web site, Number10.gov.uk, to issue an official apology for the “appalling” treatment of Alan Turing, the British computer scientist and World War II code-breaker who committed suicide in 1954 at the age of 41. Turing killed himself two years after having been sentenced to experimental chemical castration, following his conviction for “gross indecency” for having sex with another man. Turing’s tragic story was depicted in a 1986 Hugh Whitemore play, Breaking the Code. Brown issued the apology in response to a petition, launched by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming, that more than 30,000 people ended up signing. Among them were novelist Ian McEwan, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell. [See 2008, p. 116F1; 2004, p. 1098G3; 1986, p. 1007C1] n

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ALMEIDA Bosque, Juan, 82, only black commander of the Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro Ruz, who overthrew the U.S.-backed military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959; at the time of his death, he was one of several vice presidents serving under Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz, Fidel Castro’s brother, as well as a member of the country’s ruling Communist Party leadership; he was also a well-known songwriter; born Feb. 27, 1927, in Havana, Cuba; died there Sept. 11, of a heart attack. [See p. 8A1; 2008, p. 118C3; Index 1970] ARCHERD, Army (Armand Andre), 87, longtime columnist for the entertainment trade magazine Daily Variety; in his 900-word “Just for Variety” column, which ran from 1953 to 2005, he broke countless Hollywood-related stories, perhaps none bigger than his July 23, 1985, revelation that actor Rock Hudson was being treated for AIDS; two days later, after initial denials, the Hudson camp confirmed that the actor had AIDS; Hudson died of AIDS in October 1985; besides writing his column, Archerd appeared on television and was for nearly 50 years the official greeter at the Academy Awards; born Jan. 13, 1922, in New York City; died Sept. 8 at a hospital in Los Angeles, of a rare form of mesothelioma, apparently linked to exposure to shipyard asbestos as a Navy enlistee during World War II. [See 1985, pp. 748F2, 559D3] BACON, Kenneth Hogate, 64, onetime Wall Street Journal reporter who was chief Pentagon spokesman during most of the administration of President Bill Clinton; his secretary at the Pentagon in 1996 and 1997 was Monica Lewinsky, whose affair with Clinton led to Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s; after leaving the federal government, Bacon served as president of Refugees International, a Washington, D.C.– based advocacy group for displaced persons around the world; born Nov. 21, 1944, in Bronxville, N.Y.; died Aug. 15 at his summer home in Block Island, R.I., of melanoma that had spread to his brain. [See 2001, p. 955G2; 2000, pp. 1012F3, 628A3, 411E3, 368C2; Indexes 1995–99] BATTEN Sr., Frank, 82, longtime chairman (1967– 98) of privately owned media company Landmark Communications Inc. (now Landmark Media Enterprises), whose flagship newspaper was Norfolk, Va.’s Virginian-Pilot; the company went national in 1982,

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when it launched cable television’s Weather Channel, featuring nonstop weather-related programming; the station eventually reached more than 99 million households; in 2008, Landmark sold the Weather Channel to NBC Universal and two private equity firms for about $3.5 billion; a University of Virginia graduate, he gave the school $100 million in 2007, its largest gift ever; born Feb. 11, 1927, in Norfolk; died there Sept. 10, after a period of failing health; he was a throat cancer survivor who had breathed through his neck since having his larynx removed in 1979, and in recent years he had broken a hip. BRAND, Myles Neil, 67, onetime philosophy professor who was president of the University of Oregon from 1989 to 1994 and of Indiana University from 1994 to 2002; as head of the latter school, he gained national attention in 2000, when he sanctioned and subsequently fired prominent basketball coach Bob Knight for abusive behavior; since 2003, he had been president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); the first former university president to head the NCAA, he made academic reform an NCAA priority; under his watch, the NCAA, for example, in 2004 approved penalties against Division I colleges from which student-athletes did not graduate at a minimally acceptable rate; born May 17, 1942, in New York City; died Sept. 16 at his home in Indianapolis, Ind., of pancreatic cancer. [See 2004, pp. 999B1, 655F1; 2003, p. 199B2; Indexes 2002, 2000] CARROLL, Jim (James Dennis), 60, memoirist, poet and rock musician; a journal he kept during high school chronicling his experiences in New York City as a combination student-athlete, drug addict and male prostitute became the basis for his book The Basketball Diaries (1978), made into a 1995 film; as a youth, he also published verse that attracted the attention of such established poets as Allen Ginsberg and Ted Berrigan; in the early 1980s, he fronted a punk rock band; perhaps his best-known song was “People Who Died,” a tribute to various friends of his who died young; born Aug. 1, 1949, in New York; died Sept. 11 at his New York home, of a heart attack. [See 1999, p. 287A2] DUNLAP, Max, 80, onetime Arizona contractor who in 1994 was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice in the 1976 car-bombing death of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles; his previous conviction in the case, in 1977, had been overturned in 1980; another key figure in the case, convicted murderer James Harvey Adamson, who had admitted to planting the remote-controlled bomb that killed Bolles, died in 2002; born in May 1929; died July 21 in the Rincon medical unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex facility in Tucson, of natural causes; he had been suffering from diabetes. [See 2002, p. 1075F3; 1994, p. 17F3; Indexes 1993, 1990, 1987, 1980, 1976–78] FLANAGAN, Barry, 68, British sculptor whose early work was in an austere, postminimalist style but who later achieved wide popularity for his playful bronze hares and other animals; born Jan. 11, 1941, in Prestatyn, Wales; died Aug. 31 in Ibiza, Spain, of motor neuron disease. GOLDSMITH, Edward Rene David, 80, Frenchborn British environmentalist known for his longstanding opposition to global industrialization, and to capitalist institutions such as the World Bank; he edited the British magazine the Ecologist, which he cofounded in 1969, from 1970 to 1989 and from 1997 to 1998; the publication was partly bankrolled by his younger brother, financier Sir James Goldsmith, who died in 1997; a manifesto he co-authored and published in the Ecologist in 1972, called “A Blueprint for Survival,” led to the formation, a year later, of the People Party, the forerunner of Britain’s Green Party; born Nov. 8, 1928, in Paris; died Aug. 21, in Siena, Italy, from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia. [See 1997, p. 536D3] GOTTSCHALK, Alfred, 79, rabbi who, as president of Reform Judaism’s major U.S. institution of higher learning, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, ordained the first woman rabbi in the U.S., in 1972, at the seminary’s Cincinnati, Ohio, campus; during his 25 years as Hebrew Union’s president (1971–96), he also ordained Israel’s first Reform rabbi (in 1980) and its first woman rabbi (1992), and invested the first American female cantor (1975); under his guidance, Hebrew Union also became the first Jewish seminary to admit openly gay and lesbian rabbinical students (1990); born March 7, 1930, in Oberwesel, Germany; died Sept. 12 at a Cincinnati hospital, of complications from an October 2008 car accident. [See 1972, p. 563D3] KRISTOL, Irving William, 89, one of the founding fathers of the U.S. neoconservative movement, a

group of left-leaning intellectuals who, for various reasons, became disenchanted with liberalism; the movement was credited with helping pave the way for the presidency of conservative Republican Ronald Reagan (1981–89); he made his mark as an editor, publisher and essayist linked to a number of magazines whose relatively small readership belied their influence; those included Commentary, Encounter, the New Leader and the Public Interest; he was perhaps best known to the general public as a longtime contributor of opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal; after teaching at New York University from 1969 to 1987, he became a fellow at the Washington, D.C.–based conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute; he was the husband of cultural historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, whom he married in 1942, and the father of conservative columnist and author William Kristol; born Jan. 22, 1920, in New York City; died Sept. 18 at a hospice in Arlington, Va., of lung cancer complications. [See p. 56C1; 2008, p. 44F2; 2002, p. 572E1; 1995, p. 528D3; Indexes 1972–73] KUNZEL Jr., Erich, 74, founding conductor, in 1977, of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in Ohio; his recordings with the orchestra on the Telarc label sold millions of copies; the ensemble’s repertory ranged from light classics to film scores to tunes by the Beatles and Billy Joel; in recent years, he had led the National Symphony in annual Memorial Day and Fourth of July concerts on the Capitol Building lawn in Washington, D.C.; born March 21, 1935, in New York City; died Sept. 1 near his home on Swan’s Island, Maine, of cancer of the pancreas, liver and colon. [See 2007, p. 795G1; 2006, p. 942B3] LUKINS, Sheila (born Sheila Gail Block), 66, cookbook author whose series of best-selling Silver Palate cookbooks, written with Julee Rosso, helped popularize gourmet cooking in U.S. home kitchens; those books included recipes for items served by the two women at their Silver Palate food shop, located in a trendy area of New York City; the women ran the shop from 1977 to 1988; Lukins also wrote several cookbooks on her own, and in 1986 succeeded Julia Child as food editor at Parade magazine; she held that job for the rest of her life; born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1942; died Aug. 30 at her New York home, of recently diagnosed brain cancer; she had suffered a nearly fatal stroke in 1991. [See 2004, p. 632E2] ROGALLO, Francis Melvin, 97, aeronautical engineer who in 1948 invented a flexible, ultralight wing that paved the way for such recreational activities as hang-gliding, paragliding, sport parachuting and stunt kite flying; born Jan. 27, 1912, in Sanger, Calif.; died Sept. 1 at his home in Southern Shores, N.C.; no cause of death was reported. ROSEN, Louis, 91, physicist who spent his entire career at the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory, where he led the effort to create the world’s most powerful linear accelerator; he first came to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project, the top-secret program that produced the atomic bomb during World War II; born June 10, 1918, in New York City; died Aug. 20 in Los Alamos, N.M., of a subdural hematoma. [See 2008, pp. 844E2, 268E3; 1963, pp. 232E3, 92F2] WATERHOUSE, Keith Spencer, 80, British author of Billy Liar, a 1959 comic novel about workingclass life in northern England that served as the basis for a play (1960), a film (1963), a musical (1974) and a television series (1973–74); he adapted the play and film versions of the novel with a boyhood friend, Willis Hall, with whom he also collaborated on a number of other plays and screenplays, as well as on television scripts; he also wrote a biweekly newspaper column for many years; it appeared in the Daily Mirror from 1970 to 1988 and in the Daily Mail from 1988 until shortly before his death; born Feb. 6, 1929, in Leeds, England; died Sept. 4 at his home in London; the cause of his death was not reported; he died four years after Hall. [See 2005, p. 239A3; 1992, p. 1010G2; Indexes 1980, 1962, 1960] WILKEY, Malcolm Richard, 90, U.S. Justice Department official (1953–61), federal appeals court judge (1970–85), U.S. ambassador to Uruguay (1985– 90), White House ethics panel co-chairman (1989), and overseer of a 1992 probe into a check-kiting scheme at the internal bank of the U.S. House of Representatives, in which three House members were convicted of felonies and a fourth pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor; born Dec. 6, 1918, in Murfreesboro, Tenn.; died Aug. 15 at his home in Santiago, Chile; he had settled in Chile in 1990 with his Chilean-born wife. [See 1992, pp. 711E2, 371B3, 332B1, 308F1, A2–A3, 249A2–B2; 1989, pp. 183F3, 43A3; Indexes 1982–83, 1978–79, 1976, 1973, 1965, 1957–59] n

September 24, 2009

U.S. and Allies Accuse Iran of Building Secret Nuclear Facility U.S. and Iran Hold First High-Level Direct Talks Since Revolution Iran Test-Fires Missiles That Can Hit Israel.

U.S. President Barack Obama, joined by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sept. 25 accused Iran of building a secret facility to enrich nuclear fuel near the Iranian Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, and called on Iran to allow international investigators immediate access to the site. He made the announcement on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G-20) conference in Pittsburgh, Pa. The accusation was seen as a way for the U.S. and its allies to increase their leverage over Iran ahead of Oct. 1 face-to-face talks between Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council— the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia—plus Germany. The U.S. and its allies claimed that Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Iran insisted that its nuclear program was only for civilian energy purposes. [See below, pp. 651D1, 634G1] Obama said, “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow, endangering the global nonproliferation regime.” Obama warned that unless Iran disclosed information about the site and gave up its alleged nuclear weapons program, it would “continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation.” (Media outlets reported that Obama was probably not threatening military action. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sept. 25 told Cable News Network [CNN] that military action against Iran could not stop its nuclear program, but only “buy time— the estimates are three years or so,” referring to the amount of time a military strike could set back Iran’s nuclear program.) Brown labeled Iran’s actions a continuation of “the serial deception of many

years,” and said, “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.” Sarkozy said Iran would have two months to stop its enrichment activity. Iranian officials Sept. 25 described the Qom site as a “semi-industrial fuel enrichment facility,” and said it was not being used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the sidelines of the general debate of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, said that Iran’s voluntary disclosure of the site to the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sept. 21 made Iran’s activities legal, although IAEA officials said it should have been disclosed far earlier. Ahmadinejad also mocked the West for thinking that the revelation of the facility gave it “some winning card here.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Sept. 29 said the Qom facility’s construction violated U.N. Security Council resolutions, and added that “the burden of proof is on [Iran’s] side” to show that it was not developing nuclear weapons. U.S. Officials Reveal Facility Details—

U.S. officials Sept. 25 disclosed to media outlets additional details on the Iranian facility, which they said was located under the mountains 20 miles (32 km) away from Qom, in a base of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Qom facility reportedly had space for about 3,000 centrifuges. An enrichment plant at Natanz, which had been made public in 2002 and was subject to IAEA inspections, currently held more than 8,000 centrifuges, and was designed to hold at least 54,000. U.S. officials said they believed the Qom facility was likely being used to enrich fuel for a nuclear weapon because of its design and Iranian efforts to hide it. The site was also thought to be too small to enrich enough uranium to supply a civilian nuclear reactor for power generation, but could easily generate the much smaller amount that would be needed for a nuclear bomb. If it became operational, the Qom plant reportedly would have the capacity to make enough fuel for one to two bombs a year. Since the site was still under construction, the revelation of its existence did not change current projections of when Iran

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3589 October 1, 2009

B would be capabable of making a bomb. Iran was thought to be one to five years away from such a breakthrough. Iranian officials in the days after Obama’s announcement released some details on the facility. Hassan Qashqavi, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Sept. 28 said it was located in the village of Fordo, which was located near Qom, 115 miles south of Tehran, the Iranian capital, and 60 miles from Natanz. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s nuclear program, Sept. 29 said the facility had been built into the side of a mountain and on the Revolutionary Guard base for maximum protection against air strikes. Other known Iranian nuclear sites included Bushehr, where the country’s first nuclear power plant was being built with Russian assistance, a heavy-water reactor at Arak and research facilities at Isfahan.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. and allies accuse Iran of building secret nuclear facility; U.S. and Iran hold first high-level direct talks since revolution. PAGE 649

G-20 countries agree to reforms. PAGE 651

Filmmaker Polanski arrested in Switzerland.

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EPA unveils curbs.

industrial

emissions PAGE 654

Senate Finance Committee rejects public health care option. PAGE 655

Indonesian earthquake kills hundreds. PAGE 662

Tsunami kills 150 in Samoa, Tonga.

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Merkel’s center-right coalition wins German elections. PAGE 664

European Union releases report on 2008 Russia-Georgia war; finds that both violated international law. PAGE 665

NATO said to expect Karzai reelection in Afghanistan. PAGE 668

HIV vaccine shows some effectiveness. PAGE 671

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Medium-Range Missiles Tested—

Iran Sept. 27 announced that it had test-fired at least two short-range missiles, and Sept. 28 test-fired several medium-range missiles that had the capability to hit Israel. Iran said the tests had been planned before the revelation of the Qom facility, but they were seen as a sign of Iran’s defiance. The missiles tested Sept. 27 reportedly had ranges of 90–125 miles. The missiles tested Sept. 28 were the liquid-fueled Shahab-3, which had a range of 800–1,250 miles, and the solid-fueled, twostage Sejil-2, which had a similar range but was easier to hide, transport and reassemble, protecting it from air strikes. The Israeli city of Tel Aviv was about 650 miles away from some parts of Iran.

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U.S. officials Sept. 25 said they had known about the Qom facility for several years. The Washington Post Sept. 26 quoted an unidentified official as saying, “We have excellent access and multiple, independent sources of information that allow us to corroborate,” indicating that the U.S. had penetrated the facility with spies. Satellite imagery was also reportedly used to track developments at the site. The U.S. government had reportedly shared the information with Britain and France. Obama was reportedly briefed on the facility’s existence in late 2008, after his election. Obama in his announcement said he had not previously made the information public because it “is very important in these kind of high-stakes situations to make sure the intelligence is right.” That was seen as a reference to his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who in 2002 had released evidence supposedly showing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, which was used as a justification for the invasion of that country in 2003. Iraq was later found not to have such weapons. U.S. spy agencies early in 2009 reportedly discovered that sensitive equipment was being moved into the Qom facility, indicating that it was nearing completion. They later found that Iran had become aware that the facility had been discovered, which was thought to have compelled Iran to notify the IAEA of the facility on Sept. 21. IAEA officials Sept. 22 told senior Obama administration officials that Iranian officials the previous day had sent them a

vague letter revealing the facility’s existence. The Obama administration reportedly then decided to publicize the intelligence it had gathered on the Qom facility, in order to gain Security Council support for imposing additional economic sanctions on Iran to halt its nuclear program. Obama Sept. 23 told Russian President Dmitri Medvedev about the facility during a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Medvedev afterwards indicated that Russia would support more sanctions, which it had previously opposed. Medvedev Sept. 25 said Iran must cooperate with IAEA investigators and that Russia would assist an inquiry “by any available means.” U.S. senior national security officials Sept. 23–24 conveyed their intelligence to the IAEA, and briefed their Russian and Chinese counterparts on the facility. However, China, which like Russia had long opposed sanctions, reportedly did not commit to new sanctions. Separately, an Iranian exile group called Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) Sept. 24 said it had discovered two additional sites used by the Iranian government for nuclear work. It said Iran was researching and manufacturing detonators for nuclear weapons at the sites, in eastern Tehran and about 20 miles to the east of the city, and that it did not believe Western governments were aware of the sites. MEK had repeatedly accused the Iranian government of attempting to develop nuclear weapons, and its findings in the past had led to the discovery of other Iranian nuclear sites, including Natanz.

Iran Oct. 1 said it would allow IAEA inspectors to visit the Qom facility, and agreed to send most of its lightly enriched uranium out of the country to be processed into fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran. Iran made the concessions at a meeting outside Geneva, Switzerland, between its envoys and those of the six negotiating nations. However, it did not agree to a so-called freezefor-freeze proposal that had been offered by the U.S. and its allies, in which Iran would stop enriching uranium in exchange for a halt to new economic sanctions. U.S. officials said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei would travel to Tehran Oct. 3 to negotiate the timing of the

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inspections, which Iranian nuclear envoy Saeed Jalili said would take place within two weeks. Iran agreed in principle to transfer most of its stockpile of lightly enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be further enriched to the level necessary for the production of medical isotopes, which was far below weapons grade. It did not specify the amount to be transferred, but U.S. officials said it might be as much as 1,200 kg (2,650 lbs), some three-quarters of Iran’s declared stockpile. The IAEA and the U.S. had concluded that Iran had amassed enough nuclear fuel to begin constructing one nuclear weapon. U.S. officials said Iran sending uranium out of the country would give the U.S. and its allies more time for negotiation before Iran was able to do that. However, if Iran had undisclosed additional stores of enriched uranium, that effect would be decreased. The talks were the first high-level direct ones between the U.S. and Iran since the U.S. cut diplomatic relations after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Bush in 2008 had sent Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns to attend talks between European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Jalili, but he did not directly participate. Additionally, the U.S. and Iran had held a series of talks on Iraq’s security in 2007. [See 2008, p. 510C3; 2007, p. 516E3] At the Geneva talks, Burns and Jalili met privately for 45 minutes, reportedly focussing on the nuclear issue but also touching on human rights in Iran and other matters. Obama in a televised address praised the Geneva talks as “constructive,” but added that “it must be followed by constructive action.” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who Sept. 30 had made a rare visit to Washington, D.C., Oct. 1 said that Iran was ready to continue talks, and that Iran was not building any nuclear facilities other than the one in Qom. n

Global Economy G-20 Countries Agree to Reforms. Heads of

state and government from the Group of 20 (G-20), which was comprised of the world’s leading industrialized and emerging economies, Sept. 25 agreed to a series of reforms intended to prevent a repetition of the global financial crisis that struck in 2008, on the final day of a two-day summit in Pittsburgh, Pa. The G-20 that day also said it would replace the Group of Eight (G-8) as the world’s premier forum for the discussion of global economic issues. [See p. 193A1] In a communique released Sept. 25, the G-20 said the global economy had improved since its leaders last met in April, largely thanks to the collective efforts of its members. “Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and stabilize financial markets,” the G-20 said. However, the group warned that improving market conditions should not stand in the way of far-reaching financial reform, saying, “A sense of normalcy October 1, 2009

should not lead to complacency.” The group also said it would be premature to end many of the emergency policies that had been enacted to combat the crisis “until recovery clearly has taken hold.” Analysts said the pledged reforms could significantly alter the financial industry, but it was noted that the G-20’s members would face no penalties if they failed to meet their pledges. [See below] The G-20’s eclipsing of the G-8, which was dominated by Western nations, was seen as recognition that rising economic powers—such as China, India and Brazil— had to be included in any high-level global economic talks. The G-8 was comprised of the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia and Japan. The G-20 included the G-8, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union. However, analysts warned that increasing the number of participants could make it more difficult to reach consensus on important economic matters. The growing clout of emerging economies was further underlined by the G-20’s pledge to increase the voting shares of those countries at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by 5%, and at the World Bank by 3%. Thousands of protesters, gathered from around the world to critique the social effects of the policies of the economic powers, Sept. 24 had clashed with police in Pittsburgh. Police used sound cannons and tear gas to dispel the protesters, and more than a dozen were arrested. Minor clashes also occurred Sept. 25. G-20 Agrees to ‘Peer Reviews’—The G20 Sept. 25 said its members had agreed to participate in “peer reviews” designed to reverse economic trends that were seen as detrimental to long-term stability. Under the peer review, a country’s economic policies would be monitored by the IMF and fellow G-20 members. Countries would be encouraged to correct imbalances in the global economy, such as the U.S.’s large budget deficit, and China’s and Japan’s heavy dependence on exports for economic growth. The G-20 agreed to raise requirements for the amount of capital that banks held in reserve, which would help protect those banks in case of another financial crisis. The G-20 said it would increase regulation of exotic financial products, such as credit derivatives, and strengthen the ability of governments to take over large, troubled companies that could damage the global financial system if they failed. The G-20 also said its members would enact new compensation guidelines that would limit excessive risk-taking in the financial industry and reward long-term growth, such as payments that came in the form of deferred stock. The compensation agreement was not as strict as what had been proposed by France and Germany, which wanted to impose limits on compensation. The U.S. and Britain had resisted compensation caps. [See p. 640F2]

The G-20 also said it was committed to ending government subsidies that encouraged the production and consumption of fossil fuels. However, the group did not provide a firm deadline for the pledge, saying the subsidies would end “over the medium term.” [See p. 636B1]

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Central Banks Scale Back Programs—

The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, Sept. 24 said it would scale back an emergency lending program that had been implemented in December 2007, due to “continued improvements in financial market conditions.” The Fed said it would gradually reduce the maturity dates on the loans it made to banks through its Term Auction Facility to 28 days, from the current 84 days. The European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank that day said they would stop offering U.S. dollar loans to European banks with a maturity date of 84 days, but that they would continue issuing seven-day loans. [See 2007, p. 818B2] n

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United Nations General Assembly Debate Ends. The annual general debate of the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 29 concluded after seven days of speeches from world leaders and representatives of the U.N.’s member nations. Separate meetings took place on the sidelines of the proceedings, including a meeting between representatives of the U.S. and Myanmar. Issues including nuclear proliferation, international terrorism and economic problems related to the global financial crisis were repeatedly discussed during the general debate. [See p. 633A1] Libyan Ali Abdussalam Treki, the president of the 64th General Assembly, Sept. 29 said in his statement closing the debate session that it was “evident that the greatest challenges facing us today span the entire globe and cannot be solved by one country, a small group or one region alone.” He also said that he believed there was “a readiness by member states to agree on a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and to make the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen [Denmark] a success. We must now maintain this momentum.”

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Mugabe Denounces ‘Divisive Antics’—

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Sept. 25 said during his address to the General Assembly that continued sanctions levied against his country by the U.S. and the European Union were “illegal,” and asked that they “please stop their filthy, clandestine, divisive antics.” Mugabe’s government had drawn international condemnation for its jailing and persecution of political opponents, among other abuses. [See p. 661A1] Mugabe said that, in contrast, other southern African countries had “made huge sacrifices and given Zimbabwe financial and other support at a time when they too are reeling from the effects of the global economic crisis.” The same day, Somali Interim President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed used his address 651

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to the General Assembly to appeal for additional international aid and support for his country, which was plagued by widespread piracy and an ongoing Islamist insurgency. He said, “We will spare no effort to bring an end to the political conflict, to find a lasting solution to protect our sovereignty, the security of our people and of our territory.” Ahmed asked the African Union (AU) to deploy more peacekeepers to Somalia and for the rest of the world to provide additional humanitarian aid. [See p. 622A2] Madagascar Leader’s Speech Blocked—

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc of 15 southern African nations, Sept. 24–25 succeeded in preventing Andry Rajoelina, who had come to power in a military-backed coup in Madagascar in March, from addressing the General Assembly. Ban’s office had reportedly sent an invitation to the General Assembly debate to Madagascar’s mission at the U.N., which had forwarded it to Rajoelina. However, both SADC and the AU did not recognize Rajoelina’s government. [See p. 555A3] Rajoelina was originally scheduled to speak Sept. 24, but his speech was delayed until Sept. 25 due to objections from SADC. In a confusing sequence of events, Treki Sept. 25 said he had been told of SADC’s opposition, but that after speaking to the U.N.’s legal counsel, he could not “prohibit [Rajoelina] from being given the floor, because he was invited by the United Nations.” However, Treki also said any nation could appeal his decision, and then the issue would be put to a vote. Alexis Mwamba, the foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—which currently held the rotating presidency of SADC— then asked for a vote. After several rounds of balloting among the few representatives in attendance, the vote was 23–4 against Rajoelina speaking. Madagascar strongly protested the decision, and government officials Sept. 29 threatened to withdraw from SADC and deny its officials visas to enter the country. SADC had been mediating between Rajoelina and supporters of ousted President Marc Ravalomanana. In early August, Rajoelina, Ravalomanana and other Malagasy political leaders had reached a power-sharing deal. However, Rajoelina Sept. 8 unilaterally named a new government comprised mainly of his supporters and with himself as the head. The opposition and international mediators protested his action, saying it violated the power-sharing pact. The next round of negotiations, which was supposed to include SADC officials, was scheduled to begin Oct. 6. Pakistani President Cites Slain Wife—

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Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari Sept. 25 addressed the General Assembly with a photograph of his late wife, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, placed next to him on the lectern. Zardari thanked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for creating an independent commission to investigate Bhutto’s 2007 assassina652

tion; the commission had begun its investigation in July. [See p. 514D3] Zardari said during his address that his government was ready to reopen negotiations with India over the disputed region of Kashmir, which was claimed by both countries, and that Pakistan would prize positive relations with India. He said Pakistan was also committed to helping to stabilize Afghanistan. He asked for additional international economic assistance, arguing that it was necessary to “address the causes of deprivation, poverty and illiteracy” in order to effectively combat extremism and terrorism in Pakistan. Obama Critiqued by Cuba—Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Sept. 28 said during his address to the General Assembly that U.S. President Barack Obama had failed to follow through with promises to alter U.S. policies toward Cuba. But he said Cuba was open to normalizing relations with the U.S. and would continue to work with the U.S. on combating drug trafficking, among other issues. Analysts said that the address was unusually conciliatory. [See pp. 661F1, 604C3] Rodriguez noted that the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba could be rolled back only by the U.S. Congress, but called on Obama to use executive orders to end a U.S. ban on travel to Cuba and to unfreeze Cuban government assets held in U.S. banks. He also called for the U.S. to return the U.S. Navy base and military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Cuban government. The Obama administration earlier in September had lifted restrictions that limited visits and the transfer of money to Cuba by Cuban Americans. Myanmar Prime Minister Calls for Aid—

Gen. Thein Sein, the prime minister of Myanmar, Sept. 28 called for an end to economic sanctions placed against his country by the EU and the U.S., saying that sanctions were an attempt to “pressure developing countries” and to “influence the political economic system of those countries without taking into account the historical and cultural backgrounds.” He argued that “sanctions have no moral basis as they not only hinder the economic and social development of the people,” but also intruded on internal political matters. [See p. 634B3] Thein Sein, who was the highest-ranking member of Myanmar’s government to appear before the General Assembly in 14 years, called on the international community to provide more financial support to help the country rebuild after Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, among other locations, in 2008. Nargis had killed at least 77,000 people and had caused major structural damage. Thein Sein Sept. 28 met with Ban to discuss the political situation in Myanmar. Ban’s office issued a statement saying that Ban had pushed Thein Sein to implement recommendations that Ban had made during his July visit to Myanmar, including “the release of [detained pro-democracy leader] Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, as well as dialogue with all

stakeholders” in Myanmar’s political future. The same day, Thein Sein also met with U.S. Sen. James Webb (D, Va.), who had visited Myanmar in August. Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Asia, Sept. 29 met with U Thaung, Myanmar’s health minister, outside the General Assembly. It was the first official diplomatic meeting between a U.S. State Department official and a representative of Myanmar’s government in more than 10 years. Campbell said they had discussed U.S. concerns about Myanmar’s ties with North Korea, as well as human rights issues. n

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North Korea Sept. 26–Oct. 1 hosted reunions of hundreds of North and South Korean relatives who had been separated by the country’s border since the 1950–53 Korean War. It was the first such event to be held since October 2007, after which North Korea suspended a program of regular reunions established in 2000. North Korea in August had agreed to resume the reunions as one of a number of conciliatory gestures toward South Korea. [See p. 600A2] Ninety-seven elderly South Koreans traveled to the Mount Kumgang resort area in North Korea to meet 228 North Korean relatives Sept. 26–28. Another reunion, of 99 North Koreans and 449 South Korean relatives, was held at Mount Kumgang Sept. 29–Oct. 1. In another development in North-South relations, South Korea’s unification ministry Sept. 11 said North Korea the previous day had dropped a demand for an unusually large wage increase for North Koreans working for South Korean companies at the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea. The ministry said North Korea had revised its original demand—to raise the labor charges to $300 a month per worker, from $75—to a more routine 5% increase. (The labor charges were paid to the North Korean government, and it was not known how much of them the employees actually received.) North Korea also had not repeated its demand for an increase in the rent paid by the South Korean companies operating at Kaesong, to $500 million, from $16 million, for a 50-year lease. North, U.S. Mull Talks—The U.S. Sept. 11 said it would be willing to hold a bilateral meeting with North Korea to discuss the resumption of six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. North Korea had declared its withdrawal from the talks, and the resumption of its nuclear activities, earlier in the year, and conducted its second nuclear test. It had indicated that it wanted to discuss the nuclear issue only with the U.S. The U.S. had insisted that it would hold negotiations with North Korea on the issue only in the setting of the six-way talks. A U.S. State Department official said the Sept. 11 announcement did not reflect an alteration of that policy, but was merely intended to help FACTS ON FILE

bring North Korea back to the six-nation talks. No date or place was yet set for the proposed talks, at which the U.S. would be represented by its special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth. Chinese state news media Sept. 18 reported that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il had told a visiting Chinese official that day that North Korea was “willing” to engage in “bilateral and multilateral talks” on reaching “the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The statement was taken as a possible sign that North Korea would return to the sixnation talks. However, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan expressed skepticism, saying that North Korea’s likely actual goal was to enter “nuclear arms reduction talks” with the U.S. as a recognized nuclear power. Yu, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada Sept. 21 met at the United Nations in New York City, where the annual General Debate session of the General Assembly was being held, to discuss the possible U.S.–North Korea meeting. [See p. 651C3] South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, in interviews and a speech in New York City, suggested offering a “grand bargain” to North Korea. Lee called his proposal a “one-shot deal” in which economic and other incentives would be extended to North Korea to end its nuclear program “once and for all,” rather than in the gradual process that had been outlined in the six-nation talks. North Korea Sept. 28 said Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would visit North Korea Oct. 4–6. Analysts saw the trip as another sign of North Korea’s willingness to hold new nuclear talks, because Wen would be otherwise unlikely to undertake such a visit. New North Korean Constitution— The South Korean unification ministry Sept. 28 released what it said was a revised North Korean constitution formally approved by North Korea’s parliament in April but not previously made public. The new constitution officially designated Kim “supreme leader” of the country, giving an explicit title to the position he had de facto possessed as chairman of the National Defense Commission. [See p. 215B3] The new constitution omitted previous references to “communism” as the country’s guiding philosophy, although it referred to socialism. It enshrined a principle called “military first,” promulgated by Kim to justify heavy defense spending during a period of economic collapse in North Korea. Analysts said Kim might be consolidating his military powers after a recent illness, while leaving internal affairs to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, thought to possibly be his designated successor. The new document also introduced language invoking the protection of North Koreans’ “human rights,” despite the notoriety of the government’s repressive policies. n October 1, 2009

Other International News Filmmaker Polanski Arrested in Switzerland.

Authorities in Zurich, Switzerland, Sept. 26 arrested prominent filmmaker Roman Polanski, acting on a request from prosecutors in Los Angeles, where Polanski was wanted for fleeing sentencing in a statutory rape case in 1978. Polanski, 76, was arrested at the Zurich airport as he arrived for a film festival where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award. His arrest drew high-level protests from both France and Poland, where he held dual citizenship. [See 2008, p. 905D2; 1978, p. 116A2] Polanski Sept. 29 filed a legal motion requesting his release. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court said it would rule sometime “in the coming weeks” on Polanski’s request, “following arguments by both parties.” Under the terms of the U.S.-Swiss extradition treaty, U.S. authorities had up to 60 days to file an extradition request. Swiss authorities rarely released foreigners on bail, viewing them as flight risks. Since fleeing the U.S., Polanski had resided mainly in France, although he owned a chalet in the ski resort of Gstaad, Switzerland, which he was said to visit several times a year. He had traveled throughout Europe, while avoiding some countries, such as Britain, where he could face extradition to the U.S. Polanski in 1978 had pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. The victim, a 13-year-old girl, had testified that Polanski gave her champagne and a sedative drug, Quaalude, before assaulting her. The incident occurred at the home of actor Jack Nicholson, the star of Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). [See 1984, p. 947G3] Under the terms of the plea bargain, prosecutors had dropped other charges of rape, sodomy and providing drugs to a minor. The agreement also was supposed to limit Polanski’s prison sentence to the time he had already served, 42 days of psychiatric evaluation. He fled while free on bail, in fear that the judge had decided to disregard that deal and give him a harsher sentence. French

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French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Sept. 27 issued a statement saying that he had contacted his Swiss counterpart, Michele Calmy-Rey, and urged that “the rights of Mr. Polanski be fully respected and that this affair rapidly find a favorable resolution.” Kouchner Sept. 28 called the arrest “a little sinister.” He and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said they were writing to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to ask her support for Polanski’s immediate release on bail. Sikorski said he was considering requesting that U.S. President Barack Obama proclaim “an act of clemency, which would settle the matter once and for all.” French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand Sept. 27 said he “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so

many of them.” About 100 international filmmakers and actors, including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, had signed a petition protesting Polanski’s arrest. However, a number of French politicians, including members of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement, Sept. 29 criticized the defenders of Polanski as members of a political and cultural elite who seemed to consider one of their peers to be above the law. A French government spokesman Sept. 30 adopted a more neutral position, saying that Polanski was “neither above nor beneath the law.” He added, “We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that day asked his cabinet to exercise “greater restraint” in commenting on a “case of rape and of punishment for having sex with a child.” Swiss Defend Arrest—Swiss authorities defended the arrest as the regular response to an international warrant issued with advance notice that Polanski would enter the country at a certain date for the film festival. The Los Angeles district attorney’s office backed up that account, saying that it had previously sought Polanski’s arrest in at least 10 other countries. The Swiss government denied speculation that it was using the case to mend relations with the U.S. after a period of tensions over U.S. pressure to crack down on Swiss banks complicit in tax evasion. [See p. 560C3] Polanski was born in Paris to PolishJewish parents, who raised him in Poland, where his mother died in the Auschwitz Nazi death camp and he escaped the Jewish ghetto in Krakow during World War II. Polanski rose to fame as a director in the 1960s with suspense films such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968). In 1969, his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in their Los Angeles home by followers of cult leader Charles Manson. One of her murderers, Susan Atkins, died in prison Sept. 25 of brain cancer, at 61. [See p. 672F1; 1969, p. 720A3] In 2003, Polanski won an Academy Award for best director for his film about the Holocaust, The Pianist. He accepted in absentia, giving a speech by satellite link. [See 2003, p. 226E3] In December 2008, Polanski’s lawyers had filed a request in Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss the case against him, arguing that a new documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, proved that there had been judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Peter Espinoza Feb. 17 conceded that the documentary appeared to show “substantial” misconduct, but rejected the appeal, ruling that Polanski could not ask for the case to be dropped while he remained a fugitive. The victim in the case, Samantha Geimer, now 45, had previously said she thought the case should be dropped. She had settled a lawsuit against Polanski for an unspecified amount of money in 1994. n 653

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Dutch commodities company Trafigura Beheer BV Sept. 20 agreed to settle a classaction lawsuit filed in a British court by about 30,000 victims of the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast’s largest city and commercial capital, in August 2006. The settlement was approved by Britain’s High Court in London Sept. 23. [See 2007, p. 110F3] Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed by the court, but Trafigura Sept. 20 had said it would pay some $1,550 per person. The case stemmed from an August 2006 incident in which the tanker Probo Koala, which had been chartered by Trafigura to carry toxic waste containing a mixture of gasoline residues and caustic sodas used for cleaning, dumped the waste at about 15 sites around Abidjan. Soon after, thousands of residents became sick, complaining of skin burns, bleeding and breathing difficulties. More than 100,000 Ivorians reportedly sought medical treatment after the waste was dumped. Trafigura had denied that the waste could have caused those illnesses. The Ivorian plaintiffs, represented by British law firm Leigh Day & Co., had alleged that the waste caused at least 15 deaths as well as miscarriages and serious health problems. However, Leigh Day & Co. in a Sept. 23 statement said that “in light of the expert evidence,” it would “now acknowledge that the slops could at worst have caused a range of short term, low level flulike symptoms and anxiety.” It added that “it is also clear that there are many claims which have been made for symptoms…which are unconnected with any exposure to the slops.” That statement contradicted a United Nations report released Sept. 16 that suggested that there was a strong link between the deaths of 15 Ivorians and the dumping of the toxic waste. Trafigura rejected the findings of the report. Trafigura in February 2007 had agreed to a $200 million settlement with the Ivory Coast government to pay for clean-up costs and to avoid legal proceedings in that country. However, it did not admit guilt. Trafigura continued to maintain that the Ivorian company it had contracted to dispose of the waste, Compagnie Tommy, was responsible for the illegal dumping. The owner of that company had reportedly been convicted of poisoning in Ivory Coast in 2008, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In a related development, Britain’s Guardian newspaper Sept. 16 reported that Trafigura had threatened legal action against several media outlets—including the Guardian, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and journalists in the Netherlands and Norway—for alleged defamatory and libelous reporting on the toxic waste dumping case. The Guardian that day published internal Trafigura e-mails that appeared to demonstrate that company executives were aware that the waste on the Probo Koala was so toxic that it was banned from being disposed of anywhere in Europe. n 654

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Environment EPA Unveils Industrial Emissions Curbs.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sept. 30 released a detailed proposal to use the agency’s existing regulatory powers under the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial sites. The proposal was released hours after Senate Democrats introduced a climate change and energy bill, a companion measure to legislation passed by the House in June. Both moves came in advance of United Nations–backed talks scheduled for December in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, intended to forge a new international climate treaty. [See below, pp. 636B1, 621D3] The EPA’s proposed regulations would only apply to U.S. facilities that generated 25,000 tons (22,700 metric tons) or more of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The facilities that fell into that category were responsible for generating almost 70% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, which were thought to contribute to global climate change. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the proposal had been written to exclude small emissions generators— such as farms, small businesses and office buildings—from the requirements. Instead, the rules would focus largely on some 400 new and recently modified power plants, requiring them to prove that they had incorporated the “best available control technologies and energy-efficiency measures” to limit emissions. Those found in violation of the rules, which could take effect as early as 2011, would face fines. Violators could also have their permits to operate revoked. The proposal was subject to a period of public comment, and was likely to be revised. Industry groups opposed to emissions regulation quickly criticized the move, and the rules were expected to face court challenges to their legality. President Barack Obama had previously said he would prefer that U.S. emissions be reduced through new, comprehensive legislation. However, he had authorized the EPA to begin regulation efforts in the absence of movement on the issue by Congress, ostensibly in the hope that it would motivate lawmakers to address the issue. Senate Bill Proposes Deeper Cuts—

Sens. John Kerry (D, Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) Sept. 29 introduced legislation intended to reduce U.S. emissions to 20% below 2005 levels by a deadline of 2020, and 83% below 2005 levels by 2050. The proposed reductions were greater than those in the House measure, which had called for cutting emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. [See p. 445A1] Like the House bill, the Senate measure would establish a so-called cap-and-trade program, under which polluters would pay the government for permits that allowed them to release a predetermined amount of carbon emissions. The permits could be traded or sold on a market. The Senate version included a “soft collar” provision in-

tended to limit volatility in the carbon permit market. Under the provision, when carbon permits hit $28 per ton, reserve permits would be released to the market in order to keep their price below that level. The price trigger would rise 5% annually for the first five years in order to keep pace with inflation, and then 7% annually after that. The bill would also require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), an independent government regulatory agency, to set the rules governing the carbon trading market. However, the proposal did not specify the mechanism by which the carbon permits would be allocated. Republicans criticized the bill for failing to detail the permit allocation mechanism, saying the economic costs of the measure could not be gauged without that information. Proposals Divide Industry Groups—Exelon Corp., one of the U.S.’s largest power utilities, Sept. 28 had said it was breaking with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of that group’s stance opposing emissions regulations. John Rowe, Exelon’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), said a cap-and-trade system was needed to “drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible.” The company was the latest of several utilities to leave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the issue, and the move was viewed as representative of the growing rift between power producers and other industry groups over emissions regulations. Large California-based utility PG&E Corp. Sept. 22 had also left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and was followed Sept. 24 by PNM Resources Inc., a New Mexico– based utility. Executives from those companies had reportedly been concerned by a plan proposed by a chamber executive calling for a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” that would challenge the science supporting the theory that man-made emissions were contributing to climate change. (The Scopes trial of 1925 had tested a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution in public classrooms, in favor of a curriculum that taught creationism.) The utilities were reportedly concerned that such a “trial,” and opposition to climate change legislation in general, might damage their reputation among consumers. Athletic apparel manufacturer Nike Inc. Sept. 30 said it was resigning from the chamber’s board, but that it would remain a member of the organization. In a statement, the company said it “fundamentally disagreed” with the chamber’s stance on climate change. Nike had reportedly come under pressure from institutional shareholders to renounce the chamber’s position. However several oil and gas industry groups, among them the American Petroleum Institute and America’s Natural Gas Alliance, had reportedly stepped up their lobbying against climate change legislation. America’s Natural Gas Alliance had reportedly raised $80 million for such efforts, which included a national advertising campaign. Meanwhile, the coalition group Clean Energy Works, comprised of environmenFACTS ON FILE

tal, religious, labor and veterans groups, Sept. 8 had formally launched an campaign to garner grassroots support for climate change legislation. Fake Opposition Letters Reported—The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a trade group for coal miners and power companies, Aug. 3 released a statement saying it had indirectly hired a lobbying firm that had authored and sent to federal lawmakers letters falsely appearing to have been written by grassroots groups expressing opposition to climate change legislation. The ACCCE said it had hired the Hawthorne Group public relations firm to lobby against the legislation. Hawthorne in turn had hired another lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates, which had sent the fake letters. The letters had been sent to the offices of at least three Democratic representatives: Chris Carney (Pa.), Tom Perriello (Va.) and Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.). They had purported to have been written by members of a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a Virginia-based Hispanic social-services group. The ACCCE that day disavowed any knowledge of the letters. Bonner admitted that it had sent the letters, but said it had fired the person responsible for them. Rep. Edward Markey (D, Mass.) Aug. 5 sent a letter to the ACCCE asking why it had not informed members of Congress of the fake letters more quickly. (The ACCCE had said it had learned of the letters on June 24.) Congressional investigators Aug. 18 reported that they had discovered five more fake letters written by Bonner, raising to at least nine the number of nonprofit groups whose identities had been falsely attached to letters in the scheme. n News in Brief. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the U.S.’s largest public utility, Sept. 14 said it would spend $40 million on economic development projects in Roane County, Tenn., as part of the cleanup of a toxic coal waste spill in December 2008. The spill resulted from a breach at a waste mitigation pond used by the Kingston Fossil power plant near Harriman, Tenn., and released some 5.4 million cubic yards (four million cubic meters) of coal ash into the surrounding area. The TVA had estimated that the cleanup would cost $1.2 billion. The economic development money would be used for infrastructure and recreation projects, and would be managed by an eight-member board comprised of local government officials and TVA officials. [See p. 555B1] Judge Donald Molloy of U.S. District Court in Billings, Mont., Sept. 8 ruled that state-managed hunts for gray wolves in Idaho and Montana could proceed. The Interior Department May 4 had formally removed gray wolves in the two states from the endangered species list. (Populations of the species remained on the list in several other states.) Environmentalists had challenged the delisting and hunting plans in a lawsuit. Molloy said up to 30% of the population of 1,350 wolves in the two states could be killed without long-term harm beOctober 1, 2009

falling the species. The Idaho hunting plan, which began Sept. 1, allowed up to 220 wolves to be killed. The Montana plan, which began Sept. 15, allowed up to 75 wolves to be killed. [See p. 267E3] The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Aug. 19 reported that it had discovered mercury in each of hundreds of fish taken from 291 freshwater bodies throughout the U.S. The agency, part of the Interior Department, said more than 25% of the fish had levels of mercury considered harmful to humans. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the data showed “how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds and many of our fish in freshwater streams.” Most mercury entered the environment as an airborne pollutant generated by coal-fired power plants. [See p. 94G2] Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Aug. 13 stopped a plan by the Interior Department to overturn a mining waste rule implemented in 2008 under the administration of President George W. Bush. The rule had allowed mining companies using a particularly destructive method known as “mountaintop removal” mining to deposit waste in or near streams, in conflict with a 1983 law prohibiting the practice. Salazar in April had requested that courts nullify the regulation. Kennedy in his decision said Salazar’s action had attempted to bypass “established statutory procedures for repealing an agency rule.” [See p. 356C3] The USGS Aug. 6 reported that three glaciers in Washington and Alaska had shrunk dramatically since 1958. The study found

that the South Cascade Glacier in Washington had lost almost 50% of its volume and 25% of its mass between 1958 and 2008. It also found that the Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers in Alaska had each lost almost 15% of their mass. The three glaciers were used as benchmarks representative of other glaciers with similar elevations and climates in North America. USGS scientists said the losses had resulted from global climate change. [See 2008, p. 211A2] n

Health Care Reform Sen. Finance Panel Rejects Public Option.

The Senate Finance Committee Sept. 29 twice rejected amendments to a health care reform bill that would have incorporated a government-run health insurance program, commonly known as a public option, into the measure. The issue of a public option had become a flashpoint in the debate over health care reform, with President Barack Obama supporting it, saying it would provide needed competition to private insurers. Republicans opposed the proposal, arguing that it would result in an outsized role for government in the health care system, and might put some private insurers out of business. [See p. 637A2] The bill being debated by the Finance Committee had been written by Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), but despite Republican input on the bill solicited by Baucus, it had failed to secure the support of any Republicans. Baucus had omitted a public option from his bill, arguing that the Democrats

could not muster the 60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome a Republican fillibuster. The other versions of health care reform legislation being considered in Congress included a public option provision. The public option amendment was first offered by Sen. John Rockefeller 4th (D, W. Va.), and was defeated in a 15–8 vote, with five Democrats joining the panel’s Republicans in voting against it. Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) offered a second, similar amendment, which was defeated, 13–10, with three Democrats voting with Republicans. Baucus voted against both amendments. “No one has been able to show me how they can count up to 60 votes with a public option in the bill,” Baucus said. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) had pledged that a public option would be included in the final House version of the bill. However, House Democrats attempting to forge a consensus out of several versions of a health care reform bill passed by various committees remained divided over the public option, the cost of the health care overhaul and other issues. Abortion Restrictions Rejected— The Senate Finance Committee Sept. 30 voted, 13–10, to reject a Republican amendment that would have tightened restrictions on the use of government subsidies to pay for abortions. Under the bill, low- and moderate-income individuals and families would be able to get subsidies in order to pay for their health insurance. Insurers would be required to separate money received from the government from income generated by private insurance premiums, and use only nongovernment money to pay for abortions, in keeping with existing restrictions on federal funding for abortion. The amendment, proposed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R, Utah), would have prevented any health insurance plan that received government funds under the bill from providing abortion coverage, with a few exceptions, such as rape, incest and saving a mother’s life. The amendment reflected the growing emergence of abortion as another highly contentious issue in the reform debate. The committee Oct. 1 approved, 22–1, an amendment lowering the financial penalties assessed on families who did not obtain health insurance, as required by the bill. The measure had previously imposed a maximum annual fee of $1,900 on a family without insurance. The scheme was changed so that the maximum penalty would be $200 in 2014, and rise incrementally to a maximum of $800 in 2017. The amendment also lowered the threshold for families exempted from the penalties, to those who could not find insurance that cost less than 8% of their annual income. The previous threshold had been 10%. The committee that day also narrowly defeated, 12–11, a Republican amendment that would have stripped the bill of any taxes or fees imposed on individuals earning less than $200,000 annually, or families earning less than $250,000 in a year. They said the proposed taxes violated a pledge made by Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on families 655

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Rep. Alan Grayson (D, Fla.), in remarks on the floor of the House, Sept. 29 criticized Republicans over their position on health care reform, saying, “If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly. That’s right. The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick.” Republicans quickly criticized Grayson for the remarks, and called on him to issue an apology to the House. Grayson refused to apologize, and Sept. 30 on the House floor again urged passage of a reform bill. “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America,” he said. Some Republicans again criticized Grayson for using the term “holocaust,” suggesting that he was comparing the U.S. health care system to the Nazi Holocaust. Rep. Tom Price (R, Ga.) was reportedly drafting a “resolution of disapproval” of Grayson, similar to one approved in the House earlier in September rebuking Rep. Joe Wilson (R, S.C.) for shouting an interruption of a speech on health care delivered by Obama before a joint session of Congress earlier that month. Democrats said Grayson’s comments were less inflammatory than the false suggestion, promoted among some conservatives in August, that Obama’s health care reform proposals included the establisment of government “death panels” to impose life-or-death medical decisions. [See p. 617G2] Other News—In related developments: o The New York Times Sept. 29 reported that legislators in several states were pushing for amendments to their state constitutions that would outlaw requiring people to obtain health insurance, or else incur fines. The insurance “mandate” was an element of discussion in the health care reform efforts, with those in favor of the idea saying it was necessary to guarantee that insurance would be affordable for everyone. At least 10 state legislatures had reportedly considered outlawing mandated insurance. Constitutional scholars said it was unlikely that state laws could prevail over a federal one in court on the matter, but that such litigation would be expensive and time-consuming. o A Times/CBS News poll conducted Sept. 19–23 and reported Sept. 25 found that 52% of respondents thought Obama had better health care reform ideas than Republicans, while 27% preferred the GOP’s ideas. The poll also found that 47% of people approved of Obama’s handling of health care, up from 40% in August. Obama’s overall approval rating stood at 56%, the poll found. n

Obama Administration McHugh Confirmed as Army Secretary.

The Senate Sept. 16 confirmed by voice vote Rep. John McHugh (R, N.Y.) as secretary of the Army. The Senate voted after 656

several Republicans dropped Final Presidential Vote Totals blocks on his confirmation earlier Sept. 16. McHugh The Federal Election Commission Jan. 22 released final results for the Sept. 21 resigned from ConNov. 4, 2008, U.S. presidential election. The candidates, with their principal party affiliations, and their totals, follow [See 2008, p. 801A1]: gress, and later that day was sworn in to his new post. Jonathan E. Allen (HeartQuake ’08) 477 (0.00%) McHugh, 60, was one of sevGene C. Amondson (Prohibition Party) 653 (0.00%) eral moderate Republicans Chuck Baldwin (Alaskan Independence, 199,314 (0.15%) Constitution, Independent, Independent nominated by President American, Independent Green, Reform, Barack Obama for positions U.S. Taxpayers) in his administration. [See p. Bob Barr (Independent, Libertarian) 523,686 (0.40%) 373B2] Jeffrey Boss (Vote Here) 639 (0.00%) Roger Calero (Socialist Workers) 5,127 (0.00%) Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts Richard Duncan (Independent) 3,902 (0.00%) (R) and Sam Brownback (R) James Harris (Socialist Workers) 2,424 (0.00%) had been blocking the conCharles Jay (Boston Tea, Independent) 2,422 (0.00%) firmation of McHugh and Alan Keyes (America’s Independent, Amer- 47,694 (0.04%) ican Independent) nine other Obama nominees. Gloria La Riva (Socialism and Liberation, 6,808 (0.01%) However, they backed down Independent, Unaffiliated) after they said the Obama Bradford Lyttle (U.S. Pacificist) 110 (0.00%) administration had indicated John McCain (Republican, Conservative, In- 59,934,814 (45.66%) that it would not transfer terdependence) Frank Edward McEnulty (Unaffiliated) 828 (0.00%) rorism detainees to Fort Cynthia McKinney (Green, Independent, 161,603 (0.12%) Leavenworth, Kan., from Mountain Party, Pacific Green, Unaffiliated) the U.S. prison camp at Brian Moore (Independent, Liberty Union, 6,528 (0.00%) Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Socialist) Ralph Nader (Independent, Populist, Peace, 738,475 (0.56%) which Obama said he inPeace and Freedom) tended to close. Sen. Jeff Barack Obama (Democratic, Democratic69,456,897 (52.92%) Sessions (R, Ala.) also Farmer Labor, Democratic Nonpartisan agreed to let the vote go League, Working Families) Ron Paul (Constitution) 42,426 (0.03%) ahead after being assured George Phillies (Libertarian) 531 (0.00%) that the Army Corps of EnJohn Joseph Polacheck (New) 1,149 (0.00%) gineers would remain neuThomas Robert Stevens (Objectivist) 755 (0.00%) tral in a water dispute beJeffrey J. Wamboldt (Independent) 764 (0.00%) tween Alabama and Ted Weill (Reform) 481 (0.00%) Georgia; Sessions had None of these candidates (Nevada ballot option) 6,267 (0.00%) charged that the Corps had Write-in (miscellaneous) 112,554 (0.09%) favored Georgia. Total votes cast 131,257,328 McHugh had previously been the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. Politics He had served in Congress since 1993, Democratic Donor Hsu Sentenced for Fraud. representing the 23rd Congressional Dis- Judge Victor Marerro of U.S. District trict in northern New York. The district’s Court in New York City Sept. 29 sentenced biggest employer was Fort Drum, home of former Democratic fund-raiser Norman the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. Hsu to 24 years and four months in prison. McHugh had worked to secure federal Hsu May 7 had pleaded guilty to 10 counts funding for the base and protect it from of mail and wire fraud, for bilking investors closure. n of more than $50 million in a Ponzi Sunstein Confirmed as Regulatory Chief. scheme. A jury May 19 also convicted him The Senate Sept. 10 voted, 57–40, to con- on four counts of campaign finance fraud. firm Harvard Law School professor Cass [See 2007, p. 803G1] Sunstein as administrator of the Office of Hsu, 58, had been a leading fund-raiser Information and Regulatory Affairs. The for the presidential campaign of then-Sen. influential office, a unit of the White House Hillary Rodham Clinton (D, N.Y.) when he Office of Management and Budget, re- was charged with fraud in 2007. Clinton viewed new regulations drawn up by agen- returned about $850,000 in contributions cies across the federal government, af- raised by Hsu. fecting many areas of policy, from health Nemazee Indicted for Bank Fraud— and safety to the environment and business. Prosecutors Sept. 21 unsealed a federal [See p. 6G2; 2007, p. 60D2; 2001, p. grand jury indictment of financier and 589E3] prominent Democratic fund-raiser Hassan Most Republicans voted against Sun- Nemazee for defrauding banks of $292 stein’s confirmation, after using a fili- million by using false documents to obtain buster to block his nomination for five loans. The U.S. attorney for the Southern months. District of New York, Preet Bharara, alConservatives had criticized Sunstein, a leged that Nemazee had committed the prolific author, for his views on several fraud in order to “lead a lavish lifestyle and issues, including his past support for a ban play the part of heavyweight political fundon recreational hunting, and for giving raiser.” Nemazee Sept. 23 pleaded not animals legal rights, including the right to guilty. Nemazee, 59, had served as national fisue. However, liberal groups also expressed nance chairman both for Clinton’s 2008 concern about Sunstein’s advocacy of presidential campaign and for the Demousing cost-benefit analyses to judge the cratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He utility of regulations. n also raised money for then-Sen. Barack FACTS ON FILE

Obama (Ill.) after he defeated Clinton in the Democratic primaries. n

Economy Second Quarter GDP Contraction Set at 0.7%.

The Commerce Department Sept. 30 reported that, according to its third estimate, gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2009 had contracted at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.7% from the first quarter. That was a revision from the department’s second estimate, in August, that the GDP had contracted by 1.0%. The change was attributed to revisions to business and consumer spending, which were stronger than originally reported. [See p. 572F1] n Existing Home Sales Fell 2.7% in August.

The National Association of Realtors Sept. 24 reported that sales of existing homes fell by 2.7% in August, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.10 million units, down from a revised 5.24 million units in July. It was the first decline in existing home sales in five months, casting doubt on recent assessments that the housing market was emerging from a years-long slump. [See p. 571G3] Separately, the Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sept. 25 reported jointly that sales of new single-family homes rose 0.7% in August from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 429,000 units, up from the revised July rate of 426,000 units, but not as large a rise as had been expected. The median price of a new single-family home sold in August was reported to be $195,200. [See p. 572C1] n Durable Goods Orders Fell 2.4% in August.

The Commerce Department Sept. 25 reported that the value of durable goods orders in August was $164.4 billion, a deDow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

Sept. 1 2 3

4 7 8 9 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 21 22 23 24 25 28 29 30

October 1, 2009

9,310.60 9,280.67 9,344.61 9,441.27 Holiday 9,497.34 9,547.22 9,627.48 9,605.41 9,626.80 9,683.41 9,791.71 9,783.92 9,820.20 9,778.86 9,829.87 9,748.55 9,704.44 9,665.19 9,789.36 9,742.20 9,712.28

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,634.7 1,377.2 1,161.6 1,019.7 Holiday 1,317.6 1,242.4 1,494.4 1,294.3 1,211.9 1,496.9 1,581.4 1,515.2 2,275.0 1,198.4 1,266.6 1,320.1 1,367.8 1,203.0 979.4 1,182.5 1,774.8

crease of 2.4%, or $4.0 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were socalled big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 572D2] n

Stocks and Bonds

Consumer Confidence Fell in September.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

9,509.28

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

1,029.85 2,057.48 5,047.81

The Conference Board business research group Sept. 29 reported that its index of consumer confidence fell to 53.1 in September, down from its level of 54.5 in August. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 586A1] n Leading Indicators Rose in 0.6% August.

The Conference Board business research organization Sept. 21 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.6% in August, to 102.5. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.9% in July, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 586A1] Five of the 10 indicators in August were “positive” contributors, led by index of supplier deliveries and interest rate spread. Three indicators—real money supply, average weekly claims for unemployment insurance and manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods—were “negative.” Manufacturing hours and manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials were neither positive nor negative. n

October Financial Update

(see box, p. 657E1)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100)

Tokyo Stock Exchange (Nikkei index)

Toronto Stock Exchange

(S&P/TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

Bank of America CEO Lewis Steps Down.

Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis Sept. 30 announced that he would retire at the end of 2009, ending a tenure that had been buffeted by controversy surrounding the company’s acquisition of brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. in January. [See p. 641C1] Lewis, 62, had become CEO in 2001, and through a series of acquisitions turned Bank of America into the largest commercial bank in the U.S. He was widely praised within the industry for his decision in September 2008 to buy the teetering Merrill Lynch amidst a severe credit crisis that had crippled financial markets. Many said he had prevented an institutional failure that could have damaged the global economy. [See 2008, pp. 71E1, 18B3; 2005, p. 474G3; 2003, p. 866C2; 2001, p. 164B3] But the Merrill Lynch deal turned sour when Lewis learned that the brokerage was set to post a massive loss for the fourth quarter of 2008. Officials from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury pressured Lewis to finalize the deal, and in January buoyed the combined company with a capital injection of $20 billion, which came on top of the $25 billion Bank of America had received in 2008. The behind-the-scenes negotiations between the government and Lewis had been the subject of several congressional hearings. Bank of America’s shareholders had also criticized Lewis, saying he had hidden Merrill Lynch’s troubles prior to their vote to approve the merger. Bank of America’s

9,978.64 11,071.76 3.19% 0.14%

Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

$0.8682 $1.5930 $0.9220 $1.4519 89.78 13.7684 $0.9595

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$999.20

Silver (per troy oz.)

$16.5500

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Sept. 27)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

$4.3650

Unemployment rate

9.7%

Gross domestic product growth

-0.7%

Prime rate

3.25%

(annualized second-quarter 2009 rate, third report; see p. 657A1)

C

$2.52

-1.5%

(August 2009; see p. 601A3)

B

$70.82

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

(consumer price index 12-month change through August 2009; see p. 619A2)

Banking

A

(Close of trading Oct. 1 except where indicated)

share price hit a low of $3.14 shortly after the deal was completed, far below its peak of $54.85 in 2006. (The share price Sept. 30 closed at $16.92 on the New York Stock Exchange.) Shareholders in April voted to strip Lewis of his title as chairman. In addition, Bank of America had been accused of misleading its shareholders about $3.6 billion in bonuses it had paid to Merrill Lynch employees. A judge in September rejected a $33 million settlement the company had reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it was possible that the bonus case would have to go to trial. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had also threatened to bring civil charges against Bank of America and its executives over the matter. It was widely reported that Lewis had grown weary from the constant stream of accusations and controversies. His resignation reportedly came as a surprise to the board of directors, which had not named his replacement as of Oct. 1.

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Morgan Stanley CEO Mack Resigns—

Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack Sept. 10 announced that he would resign Jan. 1 and be succeeded by James Gorman. Mack said he would stay on as chairman for at least two years. Mack, 64, had been CEO since 2005. The Australian-born Gorman, 51, was copresident and head of the bank’s global wealth management business. Mor657

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gan Stanley’s profits had trailed those of its competitors lately, and its shares had lost nearly a third of their value during Mack’s tenure. [See p. 490F3] n FDIC Seeks $45 Billion to Shore Up Fund.

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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Sept. 29 proposed a $45 billion plan to shore up its deposit fund, which it said would run out of cash the following day. The fund—which insured individual customer bank deposits of up to $250,000 per bank—had been depleted by a string of bank failures caused by the financial crisis and an ongoing recession. The last time the fund had fallen into the red was in 1991, during a savings-and-loan crisis that had emerged in the 1980s. [See p. 585F1; 1991, p. 988D3] The fund was paid for by annual bank fees, and the FDIC said its plan would require that banks prepay the fees they would owe through 2012. The FDIC said banks would not have to record the prepayments in their accounting books until the year they normally would have been paid, which meant that banks would avoid a large one-time hit to their short-term profits. The FDIC also announced that in 2011 it would raise annual bank fees by three cents for every $100 in deposits. Banks currently paid between 12 and 16 cents for every $100 in deposits. The plan would be open for public comment for 30 days before the FDIC decided whether to proceed with it. The FDIC said customers were not in danger of losing their deposits in the case of a bank failure. The FDIC had previously taken out $30 billion from the fund to pay for anticipated bank failures in the coming months. The plan was seen as a compromise between raising the fees immediately, which would have weighed on the still-fragile banking industry, and tapping the FDIC’s $100 billion credit line with the Treasury. FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair said the latter option could have been interpreted by the public as the latest in a series of government bailouts for the financial industry. “It’s clear that the American people would prefer to see an end to policies that look to the federal balance sheet as a remedy for every problem,” she said. The FDIC acknowledged that it had underestimated the severity of the problems in the banking industry, which had recently struggled with mounting loan defaults. The FDIC said it expected bank failures to cost the FDIC $100 billion between 2009 and 2013, up from its May estimate of $70 billion, and that 95 banks had failed so far in 2009. n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills

G

Stopgap Bill Cleared. The Senate Sept. 30 voted, 62–38, to clear a stopgap spending bill for fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1. The bill would keep most federal government agencies operating at current spending levels through Oct. 31. The House Sept. 25 had approved the bill by a vote of 217–190. The interim measure, 658

known as a continuing resolution, was required because Congress so far had failed to pass all but one of the annual appropriations bills with funding for the new fiscal year. [See pp. 658D2, F2, D3, 320C2; 2008, p. 702E1] The continuing resolution added spending for the Veterans Health Administration and the Census Bureau, which was preparing for the 2010 census. It also extended highway programs and allowed the Postal Service to defer $4 billion in payments to a health care fund for its retired employees. [See p. 659D1] Legislative Branch Funding Cleared—

The first of the annual appropriations bills to be cleared, providing $4.7 billion in funding for congressional operations, was attached to the continuing resolution for final approval. Most Republicans voted against the package, arguing that it provided too much funding for Congress during a time of economic hardship, and that approving it before other appropriations bills gave an appearance of selfinterest. [See p. 489C2] The bill would increase legislative branch spending by 3.5%, or $155 million. It included $1.4 billion for House operations, up $68 million from fiscal 2009, and $926 million for the Senate, up $31 million from the previous year. n Senate Passes Interior Appropriations Bill.

The Senate Sept. 24 voted, 77–21, to pass a fiscal 2010 appropriations bill to fund the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies. The measure included $32.1 billion in discretionary funds, a 16% increase from fiscal 2009 levels, excluding funds received as a result of the $787 billion economic stimulus package passed earlier in the year. The Interior Department would receive $11.1 billion in funding, and the EPA $10.2 billion. The House in June had passed its version of the appropriations bill. [See pp. 638F2, 488C1] The Senate Sept. 24 defeated an amendment proposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R, Alaska) that would have limited the EPA’s power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and other industrial sites. The Supreme Court in 2007 had ruled that the agency had the power to regulate such facilities under 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. [See p. 654A2] n Senate Passes Transportation-HUD Bill.

The Senate Sept. 17 voted, 73–25, to pass a $122 billion bill funding the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1. The bill represented a 13% increase in funding compared with legislation passed for fiscal 2009. The Senate version of the bill provided $67.7 billion in discretionary spending, including $1.2 billion for high-speed rail projects, which was $200 million more than President Barack Obama had requested. The House version had provided $4 billion for high-speed rail. However, members of the Senate Appropriations panel had argued that Obama’s

plans for developing such a rail system were too vague. [See below, p. 321E1] An amendment to bar HUD from offering grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a volunteer organization accused of corruption, passed Sept. 14, 83–7. The Senate also passed an amendment stipulating that passengers on Amtrak, the nation’s passenger rail system, be allowed to carry firearms in their checked luggage. [See pp. 659A2, 638F2] House Provides Billions in Rail Funding—

The House of Representatives July 23 had voted, 256–158, to approve a $123.1 billion version of the Transportation-HUD bill. The bill set aside $4 billion for high-speed rail grants, $3 billion more than Obama had requested. The legislation indicated that $2 billion of that could be transferred to a national infrastructure bank if one were approved before the end of fiscal 2010. That money came in addition to $8 billion already provided for high-speed rail development by the $787 billion economic stimulus package Obama had signed into law in February. The House bill also provided $785 million to modernize the country’s air traffic control system. The House version provided $68.8 billion in discretionary spending, 25% more than in fiscal 2009. The House rejected a couple of Republican-sponsored amendments that would have reduced discretionary spending. n Energy-Water Bill Advances. The House July 17 voted, 320–97, to pass a $33.3 billion Energy-Water appropriations bill to fund the Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers water infrastructure projects in fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1. The Senate July 29 voted, 85–9, to pass its $34.3 billion version of the bill. The two chambers were expected to easily reconcile their two similar versions into a final bill. President Barack Obama had requested $34.4 billion in energy and water funding in his budget proposal. [See p. 320D2] The bills would provide about $27 billion in funding for the Energy Department; about $5.5 billion for the Corps of Engineers water projects; and about $1 billion for water resource projects in Western states managed by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation. Most of the Energy Department funding was for nuclear weapons programs, including maintenance of the U.S.’s arms stockpile, waste cleanup and nonproliferation activities. In one of the major differences with the White House, the Senate version of the bill would provide $190 million for research into hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, up $21 million from fiscal 2009. The White House had called for cutting the research funding by $68 million. Energy Secretary Steven Chu had called the technology one of the least practical alternative fuels for vehicles, although former President George W. Bush had supported hydrogen fuel-cell research, and the federal government had spent $1.5 billion on it since 2001. Major automakers also FACTS ON FILE

backed federal funding for the hydrogen technology. [See 2002, p. 214C2] The House bill would also give much less funding than the $280 million Obama sought for “energy innovation hubs” planned by Chu to research and develop alternative energy technologies. The House bill set aside $35 million for the plan, enough for just one hub. n

Legislation Wind-Energy Bill Passed By House. The

House Sept. 9 passed, by a voice vote, a bill that would authorize federal funds to support the development of more efficient and reliable wind-energy technologies. The bill, known as the Wind Energy Research and Development Act of 2009, would fund research intended to improve the design of wind turbines and maximize the transmission of electricity generated by turbines to other parts of the electrical grid. The bill would authorize $200 million per year between 2010 and 2014 to support such research, which would be the first time that wind energy research had been granted its own specific authorization in the federal budget. The bill had yet to be taken up by the Senate. [See p. 445C1; 2007, p. 843D3] n

Census Senate Approves Census Bureau Chief.

The Senate July 13 confirmed Robert Groves, the director of the University of Michigan’s Survey Research center, who had been nominated by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Census Bureau. Some Republicans had initially opposed his confirmation, but relented after he pledged not to allow statistical sampling in the 2010 census to compensate for the undercounting of groups including minorities and immigrants. The census was conducted every 10 years, and its findings were used to determine how many seats each state had in the House of Representatives, as well as how to distribute funds in many federal programs. [See 2008, p. 569G3] The 2010 census would cost a record $14 billion to conduct. It would employ a shorter census form than past counts, with only 10 questions, to encourage people to respond. The bureau would advertise the census in 28 different languages, up from 17 languages in 2000. Unlike past census forms, none of the questions concerned people’s legal eligibility to live in the U.S. The 2010 census was expected to show a marked increase in the country’s Hispanic population. For the first time, 13.5 million households would receive census forms in both English and Spanish. In order to encourage participation by Hispanics, many of whom were historically reluctant to participate in the census count due to immigration-related concerns and language barriers, the Census Bureau had also collaborated with a Spanish-language soap opera to create a character employed as a census worker. Groves, speaking before the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census October 1, 2009

and the National Archives Sept. 22, expressed concern that the ongoing recession could negatively impact the number of people who returned census forms. He said increases in foreclosures and homelessness could make it difficult to locate some residents. Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN—

The Census Bureau Sept. 11 severed its ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a volunteer organization that earlier in the year had collaborated with the bureau to help publicize the census. Groves, in a letter to ACORN’s president, said the organization’s association with the Bureau’s promotional efforts “has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation” with the census count. Groves Sept. 23 said the Census Bureau never had a contract with ACORN. [See pp. 658A3, 638F2] ACORN, a frequent target of Republican criticism, had been accused of fraud in its voter registration drives in 2008. It came under renewed fire in September after secretly recorded videotapes surfaced that showed its employees offering counsel to actors pretending to need illicit advice on operating a brothel. Brian Kettering, ACORN’s deputy national director, Sept. 11 said the organization would continue to publicize the census despite the bureau’s move. Other News—In other census news: o The Census Bureau had said it would not include Mormon missionaries living abroad in its count, the New York Times reported Aug. 18. It had not included missionaries in 2000, when Utah, where the Mormon church was based, fell just 857 people short of securing a fourth House seat. However, Utah’s population had increased since 2000, and the state was considered likely to win the additional seat even if missionaries were not counted. (The census counted only military personnel and federal employees among U.S. citizens living abroad.) [See 2001, p. 349B1] o The Census Bureau June 19 announced that the 2010 census would for the first time count legally married same-sex couples as “married.” The move was a reversal of the bureau’s policy under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, which held that the federal Defense of Marriage Act prohibited the census from recognizing same-sex marriages. [See 2008, p. 537E1] n

Terrorism Lawsuit Against Ashcroft to Proceed. A

three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., Sept. 4 ruled, 2–1, that a U.S. citizen held by the government as a “material witness” after Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. could sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft. The plaintiff, Abdullah al-Kidd, accused Ashcroft of overseeing the Justice Department’s use of

material witness statutes to detain terrorism suspects who could not be charged with a crime. About 70 people were believed to have been held as material witnesses under that policy after the Sept. 11 attacks. [See p. 428E1] The panel’s decision upheld a Sept. 28, 2006, ruling by Judge Edward Lodge of U.S. District Court in Boise, Idaho, that Kidd had legal standing to sue Ashcroft, despite Ashcroft’s status as a prosecutor, which usually afforded personal immunity from civil lawsuits related to conduct in office. Lodge had found that the law could be used only to “secure a material witness when it would be impractical to secure that witness through a subpoena.” He found that the Justice Department’s detention of material witnesses had violated the law because it had been instead used to detain a person “suspected of criminal activity for which probable cause had not yet been established.” Kidd had been detained by federal agents in March 2003 at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., as he prepared to fly to Saudi Arabia. He was held as a material witness in the case of Sami Omari al-Hussayen, who had been accused of providing material support for terrorists. (Hussayen was later acquitted.) The Justice Department had reportedly falsely informed the magistrate who issued the material witness warrant for Kidd that he had a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, when he in fact had a round-trip ticket. Prosecutors suggested that Kidd was a flight risk, withholding evidence to the contrary such as that he was a U.S. citizen with family in the U.S., and had previously been cooperating with the investigation of Hussayen. Kidd was strip-searched, chained and held for 16 days in cells, in three states, that were fully lit at all times, before a judge ordered his release. Following his release, Kidd was required to report to a probation officer, despite never having been charged with a crime, and his movements were legally restricted for more than a year. Immunity Ruled Not Absolute—The panel ruled that while Ashcroft had immunity from lawsuits that resulted from the attorney general’s role as a prosecutor, the immunity only applied to decisions he made regarding the prosecution of criminal cases, and did not shield him from lawsuits related to the Justice Department’s alleged abuse of the material witness law. The panel did not rule on the merits of Kidd’s allegations against Ashcroft, which would be considered as part of his lawsuit in federal court in Idaho. However, Judge Milan Smith Jr. wrote in the majority opinion that the suggestion that the government had the power to detain citizens indefinitely without evidence that they might have committed a crime was “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.” Judge Carlos Bea, who dissented from the panel’s ruling, wrote a minority opinion in which he argued that while Ashcroft’s Justice Department might have mis659

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used the material witness law, Ashcroft did enjoy immunity due to his status as a prosecutor. All three of the judges had been appointed by Republican presidents and were widely viewed as conservative. n

Tobacco Dead Smoker’s Daughter Wins Suit. A jury

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in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Aug. 24 voted, 9–3, to award the daughter of a lifelong smoker who died of lung cancer a $13.8 million punitive damages award from tobacco company Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc. The dead woman, Betty Bullock, had filed suit against Philip Morris in April 2001 for fraud and product liability, but had died in February 2003 at the age of 64. Her daughter, Jodie Bullock, then became the plaintiff in the case. A jury in 2002 had ordered Philip Morris to pay a record $28 billion to the elder Bullock, but a judge later reduced the award to $28 million. A federal appeals court then ordered a new trial in the District Court. [See p. 357E1; 2002, p. 1019G1] n

Mergers & Acquisitions News in Brief. Round Rock, Texas–based computer maker Dell Inc. Sept. 21 an-

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nounced that it would purchase Plano, Texas–based information-technology services provider Perot Systems Corp. for $3.9 billion in cash. The deal, which was expected to be completed in January 2010, would enable Dell to offer a wider variety of services to its corporate and government customers. The deal, valued at $30 a share, was a 68% premium on Perot’s Sept. 18 share price of $17.91 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Perot had been founded by H. Ross Perot, a two-time U.S. presidential candidate. [See p. 601G1; 2008, p. 414E3] Burbank, Calif.–based media conglomerate Walt Disney Co. Aug. 31 announced that it would acquire New York City–based comic book company Marvel Entertainment Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal worth $4 billion. The deal would give Walt Disney the rights to some 5,000 Marvel characters, which in recent years had inspired a series of highly successful movies (such as the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises), television shows and video games. Based on the two companies’ Aug. 28 share prices on the NYSE, the deal valued Marvel at $50 a share, a 29% premium on its closing price that day of $38.65. [See 2007, p. 906F1; 2006, pp. 1041E1, 50A3] Oil field–services provider Baker Hughes Inc. Aug. 31 said it would buy competitor BJ Services Co. in a cash-andstock deal worth $5.5 billion. The acquisition would provide Baker Hughes with BJ Services’ pressure-pumping technology, which allowed it to extract oil and natural gas from shale rock and other dense geological formations. Based on the Aug. 28 NYSE share price of the two companies—both based in Houston, Texas—the deal valued BJ Services at nearly $18 a share, a 16% premium on its closing share price that day of $15.43. [See 2006, p. 414A2] n 660

AFRICA

Guinea Up to 157 Killed in Anti-Junta Protests.

Soldiers of Guinea’s ruling military junta Sept. 28 opened fire on a pro-democracy demonstration in the capital, Conakry, killing at least 157 people, a local human rights group said the next day. The killings drew widespread international condemnation. [See p. 34E3] The junta, which called itself the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), had seized power after the death of longtime President Lansana Conte in December 2008. It was led by Moussa Dadis Camara, a previously obscure 45year-old army captain. The coup was for the most part condemned by the international community—Guinea was suspended from the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a result. However, Camara and the junta had initially been welcomed by Guineans after years of oppressive, corrupt rule by Conte. (Guinea was rich in natural resources, mainly bauxite, but most of the population lived in poverty.) Camara had taken several steps to root out corruption and drug trafficking in Guinea, and to punish those who had benefited from such activities under Conte. Camara also pledged to hold presidential and legislative elections by the end of 2009, and stated that he would not run for president. [See below] However, dissatisfaction began to grow as the junta continued to push back the date of the elections; they were currently scheduled for January 2010. Camara, whose behavior reportedly had become increasingly erratic, Aug. 23 indicated that he might renege on his promise not to stand in the presidential election, prompting objections from opposition parties and regional leaders. The AU Sept. 18 said it would impose unspecified sanctions on Camara if he ran for president, and gave him a one-month deadline to clarify his intentions. Also, according to news reports, elements within the military in recent months had increasingly been attacking and harassing opposition leaders and journalists, as well as ordinary civilians, stoking popular discontent with the junta. Witnesses Describe Killings, Rapes—

The Sept. 28 rally, which had been banned by the junta the previous day, was scheduled to be held at a sports stadium in Conakry. It was organized by several opposition groups to protest Camara’s potential presidential candidacy. An estimated 50,000 people showed up for the rally, and police and soldiers reportedly arrived soon after it began. Witnesses said clashes erupted between protesters and the security forces, who used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd and then fired indiscriminately, also attacking people with bayonets. The Guinea Human Rights Organization Sept. 29 said 157 people had been killed and 1,253 others wounded. Witnesses also reported that

soldiers had raped women in the streets, and looted shops. However, the government claimed that only 57 people had died, and that most had been trampled or suffocated by the crowds. Several opposition leaders were arrested, including former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, head of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG). In a Sept. 29 interview with Radio France Internationale, Camara blamed the “atrocities” on “uncontrollable elements in the military.” Camara, in a nationally televised address that day, ordered an investigation into the killings, banned all “subversive” public gatherings, and ordered two days of national mourning. Mandjou Deoubate, a CNDD official, Sept. 30 called for “the formation of a government of national unity integrating members of different political parties and tasked with transition” to democracy; however, opposition leaders Oct. 1 rejected that proposal. Camara that day warned that if he stepped down, other elements of the military would seek to take his place, leading to “clashes within the army.” Diallo Oct. 1 fled Guinea in a plane sent by the president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade. Diallo reportedly planned to travel to France for medical treatment. International Reaction—The international community Sept. 29–30 widely condemned the crackdown. France, Guinea’s former colonial power, said it was suspending military cooperation with the country, and was considering halting aid. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the European Union, the U.S., the AU and ECOWAS also issued statements of condemnation, and the AU renewed its threat of sanctions. The U.N. Security Council Sept. 30 expressed its concern over the killings and other violence. Unrest in Guinea sparked fears that it could destabilize other parts of West Africa, including the fragile democracies in neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Junta Exposed Former Officials— The military junta Feb. 23 had detained Ousmane Conte, Lansana Conte’s son, for alleged drug trafficking. Ousmane Conte Feb. 25 admitted to involvement in drug trafficking on national television, under questioning by Camara himself. Conte, a former army officer, made the confession from a hospital bed, and reportedly was hooked up to an intravenous drip. However, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Sept. 29 reported that no charges had been filed against Conte, sparking speculation that his and other televised confessions had been staged. In another apparent effort to reinforce his power, Camara had forced members of the elite presidential guard to crawl on their hands and knees on national television and beg for forgiveness after they allegedly assaulted a superior officer, the BBC reported July 24. Additionally, the BBC April 2 reported that former Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souare and two former mines ministers, Ousmane Sylla and Lounceny Nabe, had FACTS ON FILE

been released from detention after they repaid millions of dollars that they had embezzled from the government during Lansana Conte’s rule. n

Zimbabwe Unity Deal Anniversary Marked. Zimbabwe-

an President Robert Mugabe Sept. 15 vowed to further implement a power-sharing deal, known as the Global Political Agreement, signed one year earlier. The agreement had created a unity government led by Mugabe, leader of the longtime ruling African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party, and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. The pledge followed a year of infighting and delays, amid international calls for further reforms. [See pp. 651F3, 588A2] Leaders from southern Africa Sept. 7–8 had convened for a two-day summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital. The final communique from the summit urged the international community to lift sanctions levied against Zimbabwe, noting “the progress made in the implementation of the Global Political Agreement.” The sanctions, levied against government officials by Western nations, froze their bank accounts and limited their travel. A delegation from the European Union (EU) Sept. 13 said economic sanctions against Mugabe and members of his party would remain in place until disagreements over the power-sharing deal were settled. The announcement came at the end of the first high-level EU visit to Zimbabwe since 2002, which Mugabe Sept. 12 had welcomed “with open arms.” The delegation, however, found continued human rights abuses linked to the ZANU-PF. At a Sept. 13 rally, Tsvangirai criticized the ongoing attacks and harassment against his supporters, allegedly by ZANU-PF operatives. While the EU continued to take a hardline stance against Zimbabwe, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Sept. 4 loaned the country over $400 million from a fund dedicated to bolstering the foreign currency reserves of developing countries hit by the global economic crisis. An additional $102 million would become available once Zimbabwe cleared $140 million worth of debt. The funds marked the first significant investment in Zimbabwe by the IMF in 10 years. n

AMERICAS

Cuba High-Level Talks Reported With U.S.

Bisa Williams, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, earlier in the month had held talks with Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez, the Associated Press (AP) reported Sept. 29, citing unidentified U.S. State Department officials. The talks, which had not been publicly disOctober 1, 2009

closed, were the highest-level contact between the two countries in years. They were viewed as another sign of improving relations between the U.S. and Cuba following U.S. President Barack Obama’s election. (Obama had lifted restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, among other policy moves considered friendly.) [See p. 376A2] The discussions followed publicly known Sept. 17 talks on the possible resumption of mail service, suspended in 1963, between the two countries. After the conclusion of the mail talks, Williams had reportedly stayed in Cuba for five more days, and met with Rodriguez as well as with several Cuban political dissidents. Williams also reportedly toured areas affected by recent hurricanes, as well as an agricultural facility. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Williams had met with “government officials and a wide range of representatives from civil society,” but did not offer many details of the visit. The talks were the first time U.S. State Department officials had traveled to Havana since 2002. A State Department official Sept. 17 had said regular contact between U.S. diplomats and their Cuban counterparts, which had been suspended in 2006, had resumed. Obama Sept. 15 signed a one-year extension of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWTEA), the law that imposed the U.S.’s trade embargo on Cuba, over the protest of some human rights groups. However, Obama’s act was mostly symbolic because of other legislation that would have kept the embargo in force even if TWTEA had been allowed to expire. n Peace Concert Held in Havana. Hundreds of thousands of people Sept. 20 attended an a open-air peace concert held in Revolution Square, in Havana, Cuba’s capital, that featured performances by 15 Spanish, Latin American and Cuban performers. The Colombian musician Juanes organized and headlined the “Peace without Borders” concert, which he said was an apolitical event designed to spread a message of “peace and unity.” [See p. 376A2] The square was a highly symbolic site in Cuba, having served as a backdrop for some of Cuba’s largest rallies and several of former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz’s famous hours-long speeches. The Cuban Communist Party was headquartered in the area, and the late Pope John Paul II had delivered a historic mass there in 1998. Plans for the concert had been sharply criticized by Cuban exiles opposed to the regime of Castro and his brother, current Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz. Opponents of the concert said participation in it would amount to endorsing the Castro regime. Juanes, whose real name was Juan Esteban Aristizabal Vasquez, had received several death threats for organizing the event. Anti-Juanes protests were also held in the U.S. in Miami, Fla., where a large population of Cuban exiles lived. The concert also featured performances by Spanish musician Miguel Bose, Puerto Rico’s Olga Tanon and Cuban Silvio Rodriguez, among others. n

Honduras Civil Liberties Temporarily Suspended.

The de facto government of Honduras late Sept. 27 ordered an emergency decree that revoked several key civil liberties, the day before an expected march in Tegucigalpa, the capital, by supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya Rosales. The order banned unauthorized public gatherings, and allowed police to arrest anyone considered to be a threat. It also allowed the government to shut down media outlets. Zelaya earlier Sept. 27 had encouraged his supporters to amass in Tegucigalpa in a “final offensive” that would restore him to power. However, few people heeded his call. [See p. 643F1] The emergency decree had been intended to last for 45 days. However, de facto government leader Roberto Micheletti Sept. 28 said he would rescind the order after it was widely criticized by Honduran political figures, including several congressional leaders in the de facto government. The leaders had reportedly been concerned that the order further undermined the legitimacy of the de facto government. Micheletti that day asked for “forgiveness from the Honduran people” for the order, and said he would request that the Supreme Court end the decree “as quickly as possible.” Zelaya in late June had been deposed by the military, with the backing of the National Congress and the Supreme Court, in a bloodless coup d’etat. Micheletti, the former leader of Congress, had assumed the role of president after Zelaya’s ouster. However, the de facto government had not been recognized by any other country, and was under diplomatic pressure to restore Zelaya to power. Zelaya in mid-September had secretly returned to Honduras and taken up residence at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. His return had raised concerns that Honduras, whose population was almost evenly split in their support for Zelaya or the interim regime, would be riven by violence. While the emergency decree suspending civil liberties had still been in effect, the military Sept. 28 had raided and shut down the offices of two news outlets, the Radio Globo radio broadcaster and television station Channel 36. The two outlets had been broadcasting telephone calls made by Zelaya from the Brazilian embassy, and were considered his strongest supporters in the media. The de facto government Sept. 27 also refused to grant access to a group of diplomats from the Organization of American States (OAS) attempting to help mediate the dispute. According to some reports, one of the diplomats, OAS Special Adviser John Biehl of Chile, had been allowed in the country for reasons that were not clear. In response to the de facto government’s actions, the OAS held a high-level emergency meeting on the issue in Washington, D.C. The de facto government had expressed a desire to hold elections on Nov. 29 that 661

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had been scheduled prior to Zelaya’s ouster, hoping that the move would confer legitimacy on the new government. Brazilian Embassy Threatened—Carlos Lopez, the foreign minister of the de facto government, Sept. 27 said Brazil had a 10day deadline to either hand Zelaya over to Honduran authorities to face trial on several charges, including treason, or grant him political asylum. Lopez said the embassy risked being stripped of its diplomatic status if it ignored the deadline. In response, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his government would not “comply with an ultimatum from a government of coup-mongers.” The United Nations Security Council Sept. 25 had called on the de facto government to “cease harassing” the Brazilian embassy, after water and power service to the building were interrupted earlier that week. Key Figures Encourage Resolution—Key businessmen and politicians who had backed Zelaya’s ouster had indicated that they were open to his return during discussions held Sept. 27 with Hugo Llorens, the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, and Biehl, it was reported Sept. 30 by the Los Angeles Times. Adolfo Facusse, president of the country’s leading industrial association, said business leaders would back Zelaya’s resumption of the presidency, as long as strict limitations were placed on his power, according to the Times. Gen. Romeo Vasquez Vasquez, head of the Honduran armed forces, Sept. 29 said he supported diplomatic talks that would lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Vasquez had been fired by Zelaya in June, but was reinstated by the Supreme Court after the coup. Sporadic Protests Reported— Demonstrations both in support of, and in opposition to, Zelaya Sept. 25–Oct. 1 were reported in Tegucigalpa. Police early Oct. 1 stormed the National Institute for Agrarian Reform in the capital, arresting more than 50 Zelaya supporters who had camped out there for three months. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Indonesian Earthquake Kills Hundreds

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earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 on the open-ended Richter scale of ground motion Sept. 30 struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing 777 people, according to the government’s death toll as of Oct. 1, with the toll expected to rise as rescue workers continued their search for victims. The United Nations Oct. 1 estimated that at least 1,100 people had been killed. The western port city of Padang, with a population of 900,000, was hardest hit by the disaster, which badly damaged most of the city’s high-rise buildings. The following day, Sumatra was hit by a second earthquake, registering at a magnitude of 6.6. [See p. 606C3] According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicenter of the first earthquake was 662

located about 30 miles (50 km) offshore from Padang. The epicenter of the second earthquake was about 140 miles southeast of Padang. No deaths were reported related to the second earthquake, but rumors of further seismic activity caused thousands to flee in panic. Tourists and locals alike camped out at Padang’s airport. An underwater earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 Sept. 29 had triggered a fatal tsunami that hit the South Pacific islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga. While all the earthquakes took place along the fault line where the Eurasian and IndoAustralian plate tectonics collided, seismic experts said there was no causal link between the South Pacific and Indonesian earthquakes. Following the Sumatra earthquake, a tsunami warning had been issued to countries with coasts along the Indian Ocean, but the alert was lifted an hour later after no large waves formed. [See p. 664G1] The pair of Indonesian earthquakes came less than a month after another deadly earthquake struck the island of Java. Sumatra had been hardest hit by the 2004 tsunami triggered by an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, which killed over 200,000 people across South Asia. [See 2004, p. 1021A1] Damage Extensive in Port City—Tremors from the Sept. 30 earthquake were felt in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, but Padang and the surrounding countryside suffered the greatest impact. According to the Indonesian Disaster Management Agency, at least 500 buildings in Padang, including the city’s hospitals and schools, were badly damaged by the earthquake. Many of the structures had been reinforced before the most recent disaster, but collapsed anyway. Several fires broke out throughout the city. Before departing for Padang on Oct. 1, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari estimated that thousands of people remained trapped under the debris from collapsed buildings. Disruptions in the area’s telecommunication services made it difficult for officials to verify information concerning the damage and casualties caused by the disaster. Heavy rainstorms triggered landslides on roads to Padang, severely hindering rescue efforts. Two transport planes arrived Oct. 1, carrying medical supplies and tents for shelter. Damage to the city’s main hospitals had forced aid workers to set up makeshift outdoor facilities to treat victims. Corpses were reportedly lined up in body bags in the open air. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Oct. 1 returned from the U.S., where he had attended the Group of 20 (G-20) summit, to deal with the disaster. He told reporters that the country was prepared to handle relief efforts, but would accept assistance from foreign countries. Australia, South Korea and Japan were among the initial donors to offer aid. [See p. 651E1] n Tsunami Kills 150 in Samoa, Tonga. An earthquake measuring 8.0 on the openended Richter scale of ground motion Sept. 29 struck 120 miles (190 km) south

of the Samoan capital of Apia, triggering a tsunami that killed at least 150 people in Samoa, Tonga and the U.S. territory of American Samoa. The earthquake was followed by three major aftershocks, one of which measured 5.6 on the Richter scale. At least 110 people were killed in Samoa, 31 in American Samoa and nine in Tonga. The death toll from the tsunami was expected to rise. [See 2006, p. 582D2; 2004, p. 60D2] Waves as high as 20 feet (6.1 m) struck Samoa and American Samoa, traveling up to one mile inland and causing severe destruction. The waves reportedly struck Samoa and American Samoa about 25 minutes after the earthquake, giving officials only about 10 minutes to warn residents. Experts said the numerous deaths pointed to deficiencies in the islands’ tsunami warning systems, particularly in situations where only a brief warning period was possible. Samoa reportedly used text messages to warn residents about tsunamis, but poor reception in some parts of the country was thought to have undermined the system. Samoan residents reported that some radio stations had not broadcast warnings prior to the tsunami. Following the earthquake, a general tsunami warning for the South Pacific region was issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was rescinded later the same day. [See p. 662E1] Obama Declares State of Emergency—

U.S. President Barack Obama Sept. 29 declared a state of emergency in American Samoa, allowing federal national disaster money to be used to fund relief and rebuilding efforts in the territory. Obama promised that the U.S. would lead a “swift and aggressive” aid program in response to the disaster. Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, was reportedly heavily damaged by the tsunami, which had washed boats inland and pulled cars and people out to sea. One of the island’s two power plants was destroyed by the waves, and debris temporarily covered runways at Pago Pago International Airport. The U.S. government Sept. 30 flew in thousands of pounds of medicine, food, water and other supplies to Pago Pago. A total of 75 members of the Hawaiian National Guard were dispatched to assist in relief efforts, along with 20 employees of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and a U.S. Navy vessel. USA Today Sept. 30 reported on its Web site that a hospital run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on American Samoa would provide medical care to non-veterans affected by the disaster. About 2,200 people were reportedly in emergency housing in seven shelters. At Least 15,000 Affected on Samoa—

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi Oct. 1 said multiple villages in the country had been completely flattened or swept away by the tsunami, including his home town of Lesa. The Samoan chapter of the International Committee for the FACTS ON FILE

Red Cross (ICRC) set up camps where fresh water, first aid supplies and other necessities were distributed to displaced people. About 15,000 people on Samoa were believed to have been directly affected by the disaster. The European Union Oct. 1 announced that it would provide at least 150,000 euros ($220,000) to help fund Samoa’s rescue and rebuilding efforts. The government of New Zealand pledged one million New Zealand dollars ($710,000) in aid, while Australia said it would send medical workers and humanitarian aid. Villages Destroyed in Tonga—In Tonga, the tsunami washed away part of one of the country’s islands, and destroyed two of that island’s three villages. In addition, the waves reportedly damaged a hospital and an airport runway, and destroyed multiple government buildings and residences. n

Kazakhstan Rights Activist Convicted of Manslaughter.

Kazakh human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, 54, Sept. 3 was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison, following a two-day trial. Zhovtis, the director of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) the International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, July 26 had struck and killed a pedestrian while driving. Zhovtis’s colleagues alleged that the trial had been orchestrated as a punishment for his rights activism. [See pp. 663A2, 576E2] Tests conducted directly after the accident indicated that Zhovtis had not been drunk, and had not had enough time to avoid striking the pedestrian. However, additional tests later ordered by Kazakh authorities contradicted those results, concluding that Zhovtis had been drinking alcohol that day, and that he should have been able to avoid hitting the man. Vitaly Voronov, Zhovtis’s lawyer, said the judge repeatedly denied requests made by the defense, and that he suspected Zhovtis’s guilty verdict had been written in advance of the trial’s conclusion, according to a Sept. 4 article published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Kazakhstan’s human rights conditions had been under scrutiny since the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security and election monitor that promoted democratic development, had announced in 2007 that Kazakhstan had won its rotating chairmanship for 2010. [See 2007, p. 851A3] The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, in a Sept. 4 letter to Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev, said it had “grounds for serious doubt” that Zhovtis’s trial had been fair. The U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan the same day said it had “expressed our concerns about this case and urged the Kazakhstani authorities to provide Mr. Zhovtis access to fair legal proceedings.” Zhovtis had appealed his conviction, but a hearing had not been scheduled. October 1, 2009

Yerzhan Ashykbayev, a spokeman for the Kazakh foreign ministry, Sept. 21 said Zhovtis’s trial had been in line with Kazakh law. He added that his appeal hearing would be transparent. n Independent Newspaper Fined. A Kazakh court Sept. 9 ordered the independent weekly newspaper Respublika to pay a $400,000 fine to state-controlled BTA Bank for “moral damages” resulting from an article it had published. The bank had claimed that a March 6 article in Respublika allegedly containing false information about its business practices had prompted account holders to withdraw about $45 million in deposits. [See pp. 663C1, 68A1] Authorities Sept. 18 confiscated about 23,000 copies of the paper as partial payment of the fine, and froze the accounts of its publisher. Respublika, which planned to appeal the ruling, accused the Kazakh government of political persecution, and said it would be forced to close if the fine was upheld. Miklos Haraszti, a free press specialist with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Sept. 22 said Kazakh authorities had made an “evident attempt to remove one of the few remaining critical voices in Kazakhstan.” He added, “The level of intolerance toward the free flow of information and opinion is troubling in light of Kazakhstan's forthcoming OSCE chairmanship in 2010.” Also, U.S.-based advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists Sept. 18 reported that the independent Kazakh newspaper Taszhargan, or “Stone Breaker,” had been forced out of business because it could not pay $300,000 in courtordered damages to Roman Madinov, a member of parliament. Madinov had sued the paper for “damaging his reputation and honor” after Taszhargan in April 2008 had published an article accusing him of crafting legislation that benefited his business interests. Bakytgul Makimbay, Taszhargan’s editor, had called the court case politically motivated. n

Uzbekistan At Least Three Killed in Tashkent Shootout.

Police killed at least three people described as suspected Muslim militants in an Aug. 29 shootout in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. There were also unconfirmed reports that as many as six police officers died in coordinated attacks that day. Uzbek officials said a number of militants were apprehended after the shootout, all of whom allegedly confessed they had received terrorism training abroad. [See 2008, pp. 983B3, 774F1] Authorities had said Shaukat Makhmudov, a high-ranking figure in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a terrorist organization with links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, was among those killed in the shootout, it was reported Sept. 9. Makhmudov had been accused of involvement in a series of Tashkent car bombings in 1999, which killed 16 people and injured more than 100. A number of IMU fighters were believed to have based themselves in Pakistan and joined the Tali-

ban militia in Afghanistan its its insurgency against the Afghan government and its U.S. and other international allies. [See 1999, p. 498E1] Police linked Makhmudov’s alleged terrorist cell to several other recent murders, including that of Hasan Asadov, an interior ministry official who had been investigating the murders of two religious figures in Tashkent. (Makhmudov was also suspected of involvement with those murders.) Asadov Aug. 9 had been shot dead at pointblank range in his apartment. Both Uzbek and Western officials said Asadov’s murder was thought to be related to his investigations. Human rights activists noted that it was difficult to independently verify the government’s account of the events, and said the government was prone to exaggerate the threat posed by Islamist militants to justify crackdowns on unapproved religious actitivities. Suicide Attack Kills One—Uzbek officials May 26 said a suicide bomber had detonated himself in Andizhan, killing one policeman and injuring several other people. The same day, a shootout between police and suspected Islamic militants reportedly took place in Khanabad, an Uzbek town near the Kyrgyz border. Explosions were also reported. Uzbek officials said no one was killed or apprehended in the incident, and said the militants had crossed into Uzbekistan from Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz officials denied the claim. Kyrgyz media outlets said four Uzbek border police officers were killed in the attack. It remained unclear who was responsible for the attacks. Some Russian reports attributed them to the IMU. Other observers suggested that the shootout in Khanabad had been between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz security services, or organized crime groups. The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), an offshoot of the IMU, reportedly claimed responsibility for both attacks, but there was no corroboration of that claim. Both Khanabad and Andizhan lay in the Ferghana Valley, a densely populated area that stretched across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Growing poverty in the area had reportedly aggravated ethnic tensions. Tensions With Kyrgyzstan Rise—An Uzbek government–sponsored news Web site Sept. 15 said “national chauvinism” in Kyrgyzstan was approaching “the level of state policy.” It added that “clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbek youths [in Kyrgyzstan] are becoming commonplace…authorities and the public do not simply turn a blind eye to this, they also encourage lawlessness.” It reported that ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan were creating “self-defense units.” [See below] Uzbekistan Aug. 28 had closed its border with Kyrgyzstan. Uzbek officials initially claimed that the border would be closed for two weeks in anticipation of Uzbekistan’s Sept. 1 Independence Day holiday. However, the U.S.’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Sept. 14 reported that the border remained closed, and that Uzbek border guard officials had 663

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said the prolonged closure was a preventive measure against foot-and-mouth disease, which affected livestock. Other News—In other Uzbekistan news: o Uzbekistan declined to participate in Aug. 26 joint military exercises organized by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Central Asian security alliance headed by Russia. Some analysts suggested that Uzbekistan was distancing itself from Russia, and exhibiting stronger interest in its relations with the U.S. and the European Union. [See p. 423D2] o Uzbekistan appeared to be in the process of constructing a large military base near Khanabad, RFE/RL reported Aug. 26, citing residents’ eyewitness reports. Uzbek officials denied the claim. Following the May shootout in Khanabad, the Uzbek government had evacuated the area. Reports suggested that the evacuation was ordered to make way for the base. [See p. 534B3] n

Other Asia-Pacific News At Least 392 Killed by Storm Ketsana.

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Tropical storm Ketsana Sept. 26–Oct. 1 struck the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, causing flooding and landslides that killed at least 392 people. The storm had fluctuated in intensity, striking the Philippines as a tropical storm and Vietnam as a typhoon, and had generated winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour (93 mph) and individual gusts of up to 204 mph, as well as heavy rains. [See p. 560A1] 277 Killed in the Philippines— Ketsana Sept. 26 struck the Philippine island of Luzon, where Manila, the capital, was located, producing heavy rainfall and causing flooding that killed at least 277 people. At least 37 other people were still missing as of Sept. 29. The Philippine government Sept. 26 declared an official state of calamity in Manila and in 25 affected provinces in order to free up emergency funds for rescue and cleanup operations. Recovery efforts were expected to cost more than 1.4 billion Philippine pesos ($30 million). Almost 1.9 million people were directly affected by the flooding, including about 380,000 people who were forced into emergency housing by the storm and more than 12,000 people who were rescued by volunteers, police or others after being stranded by the flooding. Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical & Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) head Nathaniel Cruz Sept. 28 said that more than 40 centimeters (16 inches) of rain had fallen on Manila during a 12-hour period Sept. 26. Manila usually averaged about 39 centimeters of rainfall during the entire month of September. Ketsana’s winds reportedly reached highs of about 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) as it passed over the Philippines. At the height of the storm, about 80% of Manila was underwater. Other towns in the region, Cainta in Luzon’s Rizal province, were partially or fully submerged as a result of flooding related to Ketsana. 664

The flooding triggered power and fresh water outages throughout the affected area, and disrupted road, ferry and air traffic; airports reopened Sept. 27. A second typhoon, Parma was expected to hit Luzon on Oct. 3. Experts said that Parma could potentially have stronger winds than Ketsana, though it was believed to threaten less rain than the previous storm. Arroyo Asks for International Assistance—

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Sept. 26 appealed to other countries and to international aid groups for assistance, saying that food, fresh water, clothing and blankets were needed by thousands of people affected by the disaster. The U.S. reportedly provided 20 soldiers, boats and a helicopter for rescue missions and pledged $100,000 in funds for recovery efforts. The government of Japan also reportedly pledged aid. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) Sept. 29 announced that it would help to coordinate international aid efforts in the Philippines and said that it would provide 600 tons of rice to people displaced by the flooding. A representative of the Philippine National Disaster Coordinating Council Sept. 28 said that the government was “concentrating on massive relief operations,” but expressed concern about the government’s resources, saying, “The system is overwhelmed, local government units are overwhelmed” by the needs of those affected by the storm. Arroyo’s press secretary, Cerge Remonde, Sept. 28 announced that a section of the presidential palace would be used to house displaced people and would act as “a center of relief operations.” Arroyo’s government had been widely criticized for slowness in dispatching rescuers to many stranded victims. Analysts suggested that the criticism could hurt the 2010 presidential campaign of Defense Minister Gilbert Teodoro, who was backed by Arroyo. At Least 101 Killed in Vietnam— Ketsana Sept. 29 struck Vietnam as a typhoon after growing in intensity while crossing the South China Sea. The typhoon entered Vietnam about 60 km south of Danang, Vietnam’s fourth-largest city. Flooding, landslides and other storm-related hazards killed at least 101 people in Vietnam and injured another 179 people; at least 18 people were still listed as missing as of Oct. 1. Ketsana had directly affected about 1.4 million people and had flooded or otherwise damaged about 350,000 homes and caused an estimated $168 million in damage in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government had reportedly evacuated about 350,000 people from coastal areas near Danang prior to the storm. Government officials in the city of Hue, near Danang, reported that up to 50 cm of rain had fallen on that city on Sept. 29. Flooding and other effects of the storm had blocked roads, caused power outages in the region surrounding Danang and forced the cancellation of flights into airports in Hue and Danang, stranding hundreds of travel-

ers. About 1,000 people were reportedly stranded Sept. 29 in a railway station in Hue by the typhoon. Ketsana, downgraded to a tropical storm, Sept. 30 struck Cambodia, killing at least 14 people and knocking down at least 92 houses in the country’s Kampong Thom province. The Cambodian section of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Sept. 30 announced that it would help cover funeral expenses for the families of the dead, and provide food and blankets to survivors. Separately, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Oct. 1 on its Web site that at least 10 people were missing in Laos following the storm. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Merkel’s Center-Right Coalition Wins German Elections Social Democrats Ousted from Government.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won Germany’s Sept. 27 parliamentary elections, taking enough seats to form a new coalition government with a smaller party, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP). The two parties would hold a majority of about 332 seats in the 622-seat Bundestag, the lower chamber of parliament. [See p. 607E2; 2005, p. 838G1; for election results, see p. 664A1] The CDU’s traditional rival, the centerleft Social Democratic Party (SPD), led by Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had its worst electoral showing since before World War II. The CDU and the SPD had governed together in a so-called grand coalition since the 2005 elections, when the CDU finished first, but by such a narrow margin that neither party had enough seats to govern on its own or with a more like-minded party. Merkel had taken office following that election. Merkel and the CDU had campaigned for a mandate that would allow them to form a center-right coalition and jettison the SPD from the government, ending a period of awkward power-sharing and deadlock on economic reforms. A coalition with the FDP would be Germany’s first center-right government since the one led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl from German reunification in 1990 until 1998, when an SPD-led coalition took over until 2005. [See 1998, p. 685A1] The result continued a trend of centerright ascendancy in Europe’s largest countries, where center-left parties remained in power only in Britain and Spain, and with the British Labour Party widely expected to lose the next election, due by June 2010. Socialist parties, riven by internal disputes, had proven unable to take advantage of the global financial crisis of the past year, while center-right parties such as the CDU had moderated their traditionally pro–free market economic policies. [See p. 666C2] Results—The CDU’s success in achieving a center-right parliamentary majority was tempered by its own lackluster FACTS ON FILE

said the talks should conclude before the opening of parliament Bundestag Seats and Oct. 27. Party Percentage of Popular Vote* Merkel Sept. 28 said she would move quick2005 2009 ly to make good on her Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU)** 226 (35.2%) 239 (33.8%) pledge of income tax 222 (34.2%) 146 (23.0%) Social Democratic Party (SPD) cuts, and would considFree Democratic Party (FDP) 61 (9.8%) 93 (14.6%) er corporate tax reform. The Left 54 (8.7%) 76 (12.0%) But she indicated that Greens 51 (8.1%) 68 (10.7%) she would not press for broader free-market Others — (3.9%) — (6.0%) policies sought by the 614 622 Total Seats FDP, which had campaigned for larger tax 77.7% 70.8% Voter turnout cuts and labor market reforms to make it easi* Preliminary reults; percentages may not total 100% due to rounding. er for businesses to hire **The national Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian and fire workers. StakSocial Union (CSU), its sister party in the state of Bavaria. ing out a more centrist position, Merkel had performance. According to preliminary re- pledged to labor unions during the camsults, the CDU won 33.8% of the party-pref- paign that she would not remove job protecerence vote, down 1.4 percentage points tions. from 2005, for its worst showing since the Observers said the new government first postwar West German election, in might also find it difficult to cut taxes be1949. (Voters under Germany’s electoral cause it faced a growing budget deficit resystem cast one vote for a representative for sulting from the economic downturn of the their constituency, and a second for their past year. Gross domestic product was expreferred party.) The CDU won a projected pected to contract by about 5% in 2009. total of 239 seats in the Bundestag. Both the CDU and the FDP supported The FDP won 14.6% of the vote, up 4.8 nuclear power, another hotly debated campoints from 2005, for a total of 93 seats. It paign issue, and were expected to seek the was the party’s best result to date. FDP lead- repeal of a 2000 law that would shut down er Guido Westerwelle, 47, was expected to all 17 German nuclear plants by 2020. become vice chancellor and foreign minisMerkel Campaign Avoided Specifics— ter in Merkel’s new government. He would Merkel, 55, a former physicist, was be the first openly homosexual politician to Germany’s first female chancellor, and its hold such high positions in Germany. first from the former East Germany. She The SPD took 22.9% of the vote, down had run a campaign that mostly avoided 11.2 points from 2005, for a total of 147 specific policy pledges. That contrasted seats. The environmentalist Greens, the with her 2005 campaign, when she had SPD’s coalition partner from 1998 to 2005, promised sweeping free-market economic won 10.7%, up from 8.1% in 2005, for 68 reforms, which were largely cast aside seats. once she entered the grand coalition with The populist Left party won 12% of the the SPD. She had reversed course, opting vote, up from 8.7% in 2005, for 76 seats. for more government intervention and The party reportedly drew support from spending to help Germany’s economy, the many voters who had backed the SPD in the largest in Europe, ride out the recession. past. The Left was founded before the 2005 However, facing a late surge in the polls election by SPD renegades and former East for the SPD, Merkel Sept. 18 pledged to cut German communists, and was led by income taxes “for every taxpayer.” The former finance minister and onetime SPD CDU proposed tax cuts totaling 15 billion leader Oskar Lafontaine. euros ($22 billion), while the FDP camThe SPD had ruled out the possibility of paigned for 35 billion euros in tax cuts. coalition talks at the national level with the Poll showed that a majority of undeLeft, although the two parties had formed cided voters felt that Steinmeier had won governing coalitions at the state level. The the single televised debate between him Left, for its part, said the SPD would have and Merkel, held Sept. 13, in which he was to move in a leftward direction before they widely seen as having given a more articulate performance than the chancellor. could work together. Turnout among eligible voters was However, critics deemed the debate boring and insufficiently combative, with too 70.8%, down from 77.7% in 2005. A victory in a state election in northern much agreement between the candidates. Steinmeier broke most sharply with Schleswig-Holstein Sept. 27 was expected to give the CDU and FDP a majority of 37 Merkel in calling for a minimum wage and seats in the upper chamber of parliament, restrictions on pay for corporate executhe 69-seat Bundesrat. Germany’s 16 states tives, and opposing her proposal to reconwere represented in the Bundesrat, which sider the phase-out of nuclear power. had the power to delay or reject legislation. Al Qaeda Makes Threats in Video— Police in Stuttgart Sept. 24 arrested a 25Merkel Outlines Coalition Plans—Merkel and Westerwelle met Sept. 28 to dis- year-old Turkish man for posting a video cuss a timetable for their coalition talks, on the Internet in which a German-speakwhich would begin the next week. Merkel ing member of the international terrorist GERMAN ELECTION RESULTS

October 1, 2009

network Al Qaeda threatened that Germany would suffer attacks unless it withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Three Al Qaeda videos had appeared on the Internet in recent days, featuring Bekkay Harrach, 32, a German national of Moroccan origin. A fourth message, posted online Sept. 25, was a recording purportedly made by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with subtitles in English and German. The speaker warned Europeans to stop the “oppression” of Afghanistan, alluding to Al Qaeda–linked attacks in Madrid, Spain, in 2004, and London, in 2005. The Taliban, the insurgent Islamist group in Afghanistan, also released a video threatening Germany that day. German officials reportedly increased security measures at airports, train stations and other public sites in response to the warnings. About 4,000 German soldiers were in Afghanistan, deployed as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) coalition; 35 had died. The war was unpopular in Germany, with a majority favoring a withdrawal. Controversy over the war had intensified in early September after a German officer called in a U.S. air strike that was believed to have killed a number of civilians. [See p. 669A1] In a separate attempt by extremists to influence the elections, the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) had sent fake official letters to 30 parliamentary candidates of Turkish and other immigrant heritage, warning that they would “be repatriated to their countries of origin.” Berlin prosecutors Sept. 22 said they were opening an investigation into the letters, “based on suspicion of racial incitement.” The government had sought to ban the NPD in 2003, classifying the group as neoNazi, but the country’s highest court rejected the case. The party had since won several seats in state legislatures, but had no representation in the Bundestag. [See 2006, p. 736C3] n

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European Union Releases Report On 2008 Russia-Georgia War Finds That Both Violated International Law.

A European Union–commissioned report on the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, released Sept. 30, concluded that while Georgia had initiated the war, Russia had responded to the Georgian attack with excessive force, and both countries had violated international law. The report, produced by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, found that 850 people had died in the war, and more than 100,000 were displaced. Of those, about 35,000 were still homeless. The report concluded that the risk of a fresh conflict between Russia and Georgia “remains serious.” The investigating mission was led by Heidi Tagliavini, a Swiss diplomat. [See p. 645A2] The report also said, “There was evidence of systematic looting and destruction of ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia,” a Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, pointing to “the conclusion that 665

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ethnic cleansing was indeed practiced.” [See p. 406C2] Following the initial Aug. 7, 2008, Georgian shelling of Tshkinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, Russia had routed the Georgian forces, and pushed deeper into Georgia before pulling back to South Ossetia and another Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, Abkhazia. After the war, Russia recognized both regions as independent, and stationed thousands of troops in each, angering Georgian authorities and drawing repeated rebukes from the West. The report said Russia’s initial defense of Tshkinvali after the Georgian shelling had been justified because Russian peacekeepers there had been in danger. However, it found that Russia’s drive further into Georgian territory had been illegal. The report also said Russia had been engaged in a low-level military buildup in South Ossetia prior to the initial Georgian attack. However, it said Georgian claims of a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia prior to the Aug. 7, 2008, assault on Tshkinvali could not be “sufficiently substantiated.” Georgian officials highlighted the report’s conclusion that the war’s outbreak “was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents.” Timur Iakobashvili, Georgia’s minister for reintegration, said the report “proves that Russia was all the time preparing this war and August 7 and 8 were the culmination.” Russian officials lauded the report’s conclusion that Georgia had started the war. Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to the EU, seized on the report’s conclusions to criticize Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who he said “should have retired long ago.” Chizhov added, “Those countries and leaders that have been vocal in supporting Mr. Saakashvili will now think twice.” n

France Migrant

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French police Sept. 22 shut down a makeshift camp outside the northern port city of Calais, on the English Channel, that was used by foreign migrants seeking to enter Britain illegally. More than 600 police officers took part in the operation, detaining 278 migrants after scuffling with human rights activists who attempted to shield the camp, which was known as “the jungle.” About 200 journalists were also on hand. Among the detainees were 132 minors. Most of the migrants were reportedly from Afghanistan; there were also Pakistanis, Iraqis and Eritreans. Bulldozers razed their shelters after the camp was cleared. [See 2002, p. 1035C3] French Immigration Minister Eric Besson had issued a warning the previous week that the raid was imminent, prompting hundreds of migrants to flee in the days leading up to the raid. Besson Sept. 22 said, “This is not a humanitarian camp,” asserting, “It’s a base for human traffickers.” Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, condemned the raid as a 666

“totally inhumane act that will not solve the problem.” The British government for several years had pressed France to shut down the camp. In 2002, French authorities had shut down an International Committee of the Red Cross refugee camp in Calais, leading to the growth of the illegal encampment In Calais, the migrants usually tried to stow away on trucks heading to Britain by ferry or through the Channel Tunnel. British ministers Sept. 22 rejected claims that the migrants were refugees with legitimate claims to asylum in Britain, and said migrants should instead apply for asylum in the first country they entered in the European Union. France said it would allow some of the detained migrants to apply for asylum or voluntarily accept to be sent back to their home countries. Others would be returned to Greece, where most of them had entered the EU. n

Great Britain Embattled Labour Party Holds Conference.

Britain’s Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Sept. 27–Oct. 1 held its annual conference in Brighton, England. It would be the last conference before a general election due by June 2010 at the latest, which Labour, after 12 years in power, was widely expected to lose to the resurgent Conservative (Tory) Party. [See p. 397D1] Brown in his address to the conference Sept. 29 vowed “to stand, to fight and to win.” He said he would ask voters to choose “not a fourth-term Labour government” but rather “the first Labour government of this new age.” Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair, had led Labour to three straight election victories, in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Brown, viewed as a less talented campaigner, took over from Blair in June 2007, and had not yet led the party into an election. Brown defended his handling of the financial crisis and economic recession of the past year, and accused the Tories of making a series of errors in their prescriptions for responding to the crisis. But he acknowledged that a rising budget deficit would require cutting government spending and raising taxes for the highest earners in the next year. However, he offered a long list of social policy proposals, including an expansion of free child care for low-income families and supervised homes for teenage parents. Others were seen as meant to appeal to middle-class voters, such as offering more rapid results for cancer tests through the National Heath Service. Brown called for cracking down on binge drinking and other antisocial behavior by giving local authorities the power to ban 24-hour alcohol sales, reversing a law implemented in 2005. [See 2005, p. 858A2] Brown pledged political reforms, such as removing “once and for all” the last hereditary members of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British Parliament. The Labour government had previously replaced most of those peers with

lifetime appointees. Brown also called for a referendum on electoral reforms and giving voters a means to recall corrupt members of Parliament. Parliament had been tarnished earlier in the year by a scandal over members claiming reimbursement for improper expenses. [See p. 343D2] The Tories mocked Brown’s speech as “a long shopping list with no price tag.” A public opinion poll published Sept. 28 by the Independent newspaper showed the Tories leading Labour by 15 percentage points. Tabloid Switches Stance to Back Tories—

The Sun, a tabloid newspaper owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Sept. 30 announced that it had switched its support to the Tories. The Sun, Britain’s topselling paper, had boasted that its endorsements won the 1992 election for the Tories and the 1997 election for Labour. Brown downplayed the importance of the endorsement, saying, “It is the people who decide elections.” [See 1997, p. 198C2] British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) interviewer Andrew Marr Sept. 27 asked Brown about a rumor that he was taking “prescription painkillers and pills.” Brown denied the rumor and called the question inappropriate. He also denied a rumor that he was going blind. Brown had lost one eye in a rugby accident in his student days. n

Moldova Pro-Western

Government

Sworn

In.

Vladimir Filat of the pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party Sept. 25 was sworn in as Moldova’s new prime minister, along with his cabinet. Following Filat’s confirmation, the parliament had two months to elect a president. If a president could not be elected, the constitution required that new legislative elections be held. [See p. 627B1] The Moldovan government had been paralyzed for months because the parliament had been unable to elect a president, which required a 61-vote majority, after July parliamentary elections. Filat’s pro-Western coalition government held 53 seats in the 101-seat parliament, to the opposition Communist Party’s 48. Therefore, the coalition would need the support of at least eight Communist members of parliament to elect its preferred presidential candidate. Filat pledged to bring Moldova, which from 2001 to 2009 had been governed by the Communist Party, closer to the European Union. He also said resolving the status of Trans-Dniester, a Russian-aligned Moldovan enclave where about 1,000 Russian troops were stationed, was a priority, as was securing the withdrawal of those troops. The EU welcomed the new government’s confirmation as “an essential first step” in enabling Moldova to take on “critical challenges.” Also, acting President Mihai Ghimpu Sept. 17 lifted visa requirements for Romanian citizens who visited Moldova. The visa regime had been enacted in April, following postelection violence that Communist Party leader and former President FACTS ON FILE

Vladimir Voronin claimed had been organized by Romania. Facts on Filat—Vladimir Filat was born May 6, 1969, in the northeastern Moldovan village of Lapusna, when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. In 1989 he completed mandatory military service in the Soviet army, and in 1994 received a law degree from Romania’s Alexandru Ioan Cuza University. He worked in business in Romania until 1998, when he returned to Moldova to serve as the country’s director of the department for privatization and state property administration. In 1999, Filat served as a minister of state and, in 2000 became deputy chairman of Moldova’s Democratic Party. In 2005 he became a member of parliament, and in 2007 unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Chisinau, Moldova’s capital. Following his unsuccessful mayoral run, Filat took part in creating the Liberal Democratic Party, and in 2008 was elected its leader. Filat was married, with two children. n

Portugal Socialists Reelected, Lose Majority. The ruling Socialist Party of Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa Sept. 27 won a second term in power but lost its parliamentary majority in national elections. Socrates, 52, would next have to decide whether to try to maintain power with a minority government, or negotiate to form a coalition with a smaller party. He said the “political solution” would not be determined until a round of consultation with other parties and President Anibal Cavaco Silva concluded in mid-October. [See 2005, p. 212C1] The prospect of a minority government raised concerns about political instability. Only one minority government, headed by Socialist Premier Antonio Guterres from 1995 to 1999, had lasted a full four-year term since the return of democracy to Portugal in 1974 after four decades under the right-wing dictatorship of Antonio Salazar. According to preliminary results, the Socialists won 36.6% of the vote, down from 45% in the previous elections in 2005. That would give the party 96 seats in the 230-seat parliament, down from 121 seats. The center-right Social Democrats, the main opposition party, led by former Finance Minister Manuela Ferreira Leite, won 29.1% of the vote, about the same as in 2005, and 78 seats, up from 75. The Socialists and Social Democrats had governed together from 1983 to 1985, but Ferreira Leite had ruled out forming such a coalition with Socrates. Smaller parties on both ends of the ideological spectrum made stronger showings. The conservative People’s Party (PP) won 10.5% of the vote, up from 7.2%, and 21 seats, up from 12. The PP was viewed as the most likely coalition partner for Socrates, despite the Socialists’ center-left orientation, because of the radical positions of the parties further to its left. The radical Left Bloc, comprised of former Maoists and Trotskyists, won 9.9% October 1, 2009

of the vote and 16 seats, doubling its total from 2005. A hard-line Communist coalition won 7.9% of the vote, for 15 seats, up from 14. The winners of four seats, representing Portuguese living abroad, had yet to be determined. A business trade group, the Confederation of Portuguese Industry, Sept. 28 warned Socrates against seeking coalition partners among the left-wing parties, saying, “Any government involvement of parties to the left of the Socialists would be fatal to growth, investment and employment.” Portugal remained the poorest country in Western Europe, lagging in education and productivity. In order to revive the economy, which was expected to contract by 3.5% in 2009, Socrates had pledged to boost spending on public works projects, such as a high-speed rail network linking the country to Spain, and a new airport in Lisbon, the capital. Ferreira Leite had called such projects unaffordable, and vowed to cut both taxes and spending. Socrates had pushed through some unpopular labor reforms in his first term, such as raising the retirement age for civil servants to 65, from 60. Those policies had caused anger among the Socialists’ traditional supporters, leading to strikes by teachers, police and other civil servants. Many switched their votes to the left-wing parties. n

Russia Putin Hints at 2012 Presidential Run.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in a Sept. 11 speech to foreign academics and journalists, said he and President Dmitri Medvedev together would decide which of them would run in Russia’s 2012 presidential election. Observers said the statement was Putin’s strongest signal yet that he could return to the presidency. [See 2008, p. 316C2] Putin had served as Russia’s president from 1999 to 2008, when he stepped aside because the Russian constitution barred him from serving more than two consecutive terms. Putin asserted that he and Medvedev, who was widely viewed as Putin’s protege, would not compete for the presidency. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, in a Sept. 20 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), criticized Putin’s statement as arrogant, and called for more involvement by Russian voters in such decisions. Gorbachev went on to describe United Russia, the governing political party headed by Putin, as “a bad copy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” n News in Brief. Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, in a court case that opened Sept. 15 in Moscow, the Russian capital, sued liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta for $300,000 in damages for libeling his grandfather, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The newspaper in 2008 had printed an article claiming that Stalin had signed “death lists,” and committed “crimes against [his] own people.” Novaya

Gazeta’s editor, Dmitri Muratov, said the newspaper would stand by the story and fight the case in court, “because we are anti-Stalinists” dedicated to printing historical truths. It was generally accepted, outside Russia, that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens in famines, labor camps and mass killings of his perceived political enemies. Western media outlets suggested that the outcome of the trial would reflect the government’s position on Stalin, whose reputation had been rehabilitated under former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. [See p. 329B1; 1990, p. 763D1] U.S.-based Conde Nast Publications Inc. had made arrangements for an article in the September 2009 issue of its GQ magazine, titled “Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power,” not to be published in the Russian

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edition of the magazine or on the magazine’s Web site, U.S.-based National Public Radio (NPR) reported Sept. 4. The GQ

article asserted that the Russian security services had engineered a series of 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow as a pretext for launching the second war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Russia maintained that Chechen terrorists were responsible for the bombings. Conde Nast’s Vanity Fair magazine in September 2008 had named Putin to the number one position in its so-called New Establishment list, an annual ranking of the world’s most influential people. [See p. 411C3; 1999, p. 671A2] According to a report published in the September 2009 edition of the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy (MPC) Task Force on Racial Violence and Harassment, made public Aug. 31, a survey conducted in August found that 58.5% of 209 Africans in Moscow said they had been victims of

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cow’s African population at about 10,000, but many more were thought to live there illegally. [See 2006, p. 585A1] Police Aug. 31 briefly detained at least 15 antigovernment protesters who attempted to hold an unsanctioned rally in downtown Moscow. The rally was planned by Other Russia, an opposition coalition. Other Russia said Moscow officials had suggested that the event be held at another location, but the coalition had declined to move it. One of the group’s leaders, Eduard Limonov, was among those detained, as was human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov. Limonov said the rally was meant to draw attention to Article 31 of Russia’s constitution, which guaranteed the right to assemble. A similar protest had been broken up July 31. [See pp. 273F3, 69C1] Russia’s Supreme Court Sept. 3 ordered that the case against three men suspected of involvement in the 2006 murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya be merged with the search for the gunman and an investigation into who ordered her murder. The order came after the Politkovskaya family had complained that previous legal proceedings were insufficient, and requested a unified investigation. [See p. 497F2] n 667

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Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Sept. 29 told reporters that the U.S. was on track to make scheduled reductions in its troop levels in Iraq. He said the U.S. would be able to reduce troop levels to 115,000 by the end of 2009, and to 50,000 by Aug. 31, 2010, a deadline specified by a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. U.S. officers said there were currently slightly more than 124,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, a reduction of 40,000 from 2008. [See p. 628G3] Odierno said he might be able to accelerate the troop withdrawals if Iraqi presidential elections scheduled for January 2010 went well, although he added that troop levels would not drop below 50,000. He said the troops freed up by the withdrawals could be used to reinforce U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where the top U.S. commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had requested up to 40,000 additional soldiers. [See p. 669A1] Odierno said security conditions in Iraq were improved but still challenging. Among particular problems, he listed tensions between Kurds and Arabs, and continued operations by Sunni Muslim insurgent groups, such as Al Qaeda in Iraq, in the country’s north, especially in Nineveh province. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden Sept. 17 had said the U.S. would follow Iraq’s requests on when to withdraw troops. Many Iraqi legislators had supported holding a referendum on whether the timetable for final U.S. withdrawal should be moved up a year from its current Dec. 31, 2011, deadline. The U.S. had opposed holding such a referendum. Accidental Blast Kills 15 Iraqi Soldiers—

An accidental explosion Sept. 25 killed at least 15 Iraqi soldiers, in one of the deadliest single incidents for Iraqi forces. The Iraqi soldiers were attempting to destroy explosives seized from insurgents in the town of Bashika, near Mosul, Nineveh’s capital. Violence Sept. 28 killed at least 18 people around Iraq. There had been a lull in attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which had ended with the Sept. 21–23 holiday of Eid al-Fitr. In the worst attack, a suicide bomber driving a water tanker detonated his explosives outside a police station in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar, killing seven police officers. Other attacks that day included a double bombing in the ethnically mixed Ghazaliya neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, that killed three people, including the commander of an Iraqi army unit; the explosion of a bomb planted in a minibus in Qadisiya province, south of Baghdad, which killed three people; a roadside bombing in Mosul that killed three police officers; and a roadside bombing in Diyala 668

IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Oct. 1 [See pp. 668A1, 592F1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,350 31,514

Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,264 Iraqi civilian deaths: 93,325–101,841 (Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources—U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

province, northeast of Baghdad, that killed two people. A car bombing Sept. 18 in a market in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, killed at least seven people. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The U.S. military Sept. 27 said Iraqi special forces troops and their U.S. advisers Sept. 24 had arrested a suspect in the murders of at least 13 members of the Iraqi national tae kwon do team in May 2006, during the height of the country’s sectarian bloodshed. Fifteen athletes and coaches had disappeared while driving between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in the western province of Anbar, on their way to attend a training camp in Jordan. The remains of 13 people thought to have been members of the team were discovered in June 2007. [See 2007, p. 395E3] o Sixteen inmates, including alleged Al Qaeda in Iraq members, Sept. 23 escaped from a prison in the city of Tikrit, in Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad. Iraqi authorities Sept. 24–25 recaptured six of the prisoners, including a high-ranking Al Qaeda in Iraq leader. They also arrested at least 100 prison officials and guards for questioning about the breakout. o The U.S. military Sept. 22 said Army Spec. Beyshee Velez the previous day had been charged with the murder earlier that month of Lucas Vinson, an employee of U.S. contractor KBR Inc. Vinson had been shot to death on a U.S. military base in Tikrit. [See p. 629G1] o A U.S. UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter Sept. 19 crashed at a U.S. air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, killing one U.S. soldier, the U.S. military said Sept. 20. It was the first U.S. helicopter crash in Iraq since two U.S. helicopters collided with each other in January. [See p. 53E3] n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan NATO Said to Expect Karzai Reelection.

The Washington Post Sept. 27 reported on its Web site that officials from the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries Sept. 25 had told Afghan

Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta that they expected Afghan President Hamid Karzai to serve another five-year term, even though the results from an August presidential election were still being reviewed due to accusations of widespread fraud. [See pp. 635A1, 629F3] The Sept. 25 meeting in New York City was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the foreign ministers of the other NATO members, and Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative to Afghanistan. The Post and subsequent news reports said the attendees had reached a consensus that Karzai would probably win reelection, either in a runoff with his main competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, or if preliminary election results held up under scrutiny. Those results said Karzai had received more than 54% of the vote, securing the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff. Afghanistan’s U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission had said ballots from some 3,000 polling stations needed to be reviewed for possible fraud. The commission Sept. 25 said it would recount ballots from a 10% sample of the polling stations in a bid to speed up the review, which would determine the total number of ballots that should be disqualified, and had the potential to bring Karzai’s vote tally below the 50% threshold. The decision to privately recognize Karzai’s reelection was seen as a way for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to factor in the long-term presence of Karzai’s government in an ongoing reassessment of the U.S’s strategy in Afghanistan. The administration was deliberating whether to continue a broad strategy announced by Obama in March to defeat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, or to limit its focus to counterterrorism operations that would disrupt the activities of international terrorist network Al Qaeda, a Taliban ally. [See below] Clinton and her NATO counterparts reportedly told Spanta that they would intensify an initiative to reconcile moderate Taliban fighters with the government by offering them money and other incentives. U.N. Diplomat Removed From Post—

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Sept. 30 removed Peter Galbraith from his post as Eide’s deputy, saying it was “in the best interest of the mission.” It was widely reported that Galbraith, the highest-ranking U.S. official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, had been fired for his aggressive attempts to get the country’s Independent Elections Commission to investigate the election fraud claims. Eide, from Norway, had reportedly favored a less confrontational stance toward the commission. Tensions between Galbraith and Eide had been reported in the preceding weeks. [See 2003, p. 1020G3; 2001, p. 566G2] In reaction to the development, a spokesman for Abdullah’s campaign said, “By firing someone like Peter Galbraith from his post, it is the first sign that fraud is victorious over the law.” FACTS ON FILE

Request for Troops Reportedly Made—

The New York Times Sept. 27 reported that U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had submitted a request for additional U.S. troops to Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was reportedly submitted at a Sept. 25 meeting between McChrystal, Mullen and Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, at the U.S.’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany. McChrystal earlier in the month had submitted a strategic review that said the U.S. goal of defeating the Taliban would likely result in failure without a troop increase. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sept. 27 said he had received the request, but that he would “sit on it” until the Obama administration completed its reassessment, in an interview with television network ABC. While the request was not made public, it was reported that McChrystal had asked for as many as 40,000 troops. The Obama administration Sept. 29 began a series of high-level national security meetings to review its Afghan strategy. Obama that day met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who afterward told reporters that Obama was correct to question the overall strategy in Afghanistan before making a decision on troop levels. The Obama administration had also resisted calls from Democratic lawmakers to set a deadline for a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Gates, in a Sept. 27 interview with Cable News Network (CNN), said such a deadline would be a “strategic mistake,” since it would embolden the Taliban and Al Qaeda. (Separately, the U.S. Senate Sept. 25 confirmed Mullen for a second two-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.) [See p. 629C3] Other Developments—In related news: o At least 30 civilians were killed and 39 wounded when a bus hit a roadside bomb Sept. 29 in the southern province of Kandahar. The U.N. Sept. 26 had reported that about 1,500 civilians had been killed in insurgency-related violence between January and August, surpassing the 1,145 who had died in the same eight-month period in 2008. [See p. 546E3] o A suicide car bomber Sept. 27 nearly killed Afghan Energy Minister Ismail Khan as his convoy drove through the western city of Herat. At least four civilians were killed and 17 wounded in the attack, which the Taliban acknowledged as an assassination attempt. Khan threatened to quit his cabinet post unless the government formed “a clear strategy to bring peace and security” to Afghanistan. [See p. 594E2] o Five U.S. soldiers Sept. 24 were killed in fighting in Afghanistan, bringing the total number of U.S. casualties to 218 in 2009, a record high since a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban from power in 2001. Four soldiers were killed in the eastern province of Zabul, while a marine was killed in the southern province of Nimruz. October 1, 2009

As of Oct. 1, a total of 384 NATO soldiers had died in Afghanistan in 2009, according to the Web site icasualties.org. n

Pakistan Movements of Extremist Leader Restricted.

Pakistani police Sept. 21 prevented Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of banned Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, from leading prayers during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr at a stadium in Lahore, in the eastern province of Punjab. Indian officials claimed that Saeed had orchestrated a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed 170 people. Pakistan had initially placed Saeed under house arrest, but he was freed in June after a court found that the government did not have enough evidence to detain him. [See pp. 499A3, 383A1] Pakistani authorities said Saeed was currently under investigation, and that his movements would be restricted even though he was not officially under house arrest. Police Sept. 18 had accused Saeed of raising funds for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a banned charity group that the United Nations and others claimed was a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Police that day also charged Saeed with inciting jihad, or a Muslim holy war. Interior Minister Rehman Malik Sept. 19 maintained that Pakistan could not arrest Saeed in connection with the Mumbai attack due to a lack of evidence. Pakistan had previously acknowledged that the attack had been partly planned on its soil. Malik Sept. 19 said seven suspects in Pakistani custody would go on trial Sept. 26 for their role in the Mumbai attack on . That date was later postponed to Oct. 3. [See p. 276D3] The restrictions on Saeed came just days before a scheduled Sept. 27 meeting between Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna on the sidelines of the general debate of the Annual General Assembly at the United Nations in New York City. Analysts said the sudden developments in the case could have been a bid by Pakistan to rebut Indian claims that it was not seriously investigating the attack. [See p. 633A1] Qureshi and Krishna emerged from that meeting with no agreement on when to resume negotiations on a variety of contentious issues between the two countries, including a territorial dispute over the region of Kashmir. Krishna said India expected “further momentum” in Pakistan’s fight against terrorist organizations before it committed to a timetable for negotiations. Lashkar Reportedly Remains Threat—

The New York Times Sept. 30 reported that Lashkar-e-Taiba “remains largely intact and determined to strike India again,” according to an analysis culled from interviews with the group’s members, as well as unidentified U.S., Pakistani and Indian officials. The Times also examined Indian and Pakistani documents containing investigative findings on the attack. The Times said Lashkar-e-Taiba commanded a broad

network of training camps and safe houses in Pakistan, and was capable of organizing sophisticated attacks in a short period of time. The report said the U.S. had warned India of possible attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba in the run-up to India’s national elections in April and May. [See p. 345B2] The Times said Pakistan had concluded “beyond any reasonable doubt” from its own investigation that Lashkar-e-Taiba was behind the Mumbai attack. India had submitted evidence to Pakistan showing that Saeed had masterminded the attack, Indian officials told the Times. The evidence included Saeed’s detailed instructions about the exact time to launch the attack. However, Pakistani officials said India’s evidence was almost entirely based on unreliable confessions from Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman who was currently on trial in India. The Times—citing a senior U.S. intelligence official, retired Pakistani military officers and former members of Lashkar-eTaiba—said the group still maintained a relationship with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency. ISI had helped found Lashkar-eTaiba in the 1980s to serve as a proxy fighting force against India in Kashmir. A Lashkar-e-Taiba member told the Times that former ISI and Pakistani military officers had trained the Mumbai gunmen. The report said there had been no cooperation between the Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies investigating the attack, while some evidence-sharing had occurred on a law-enforcement level. Citing the Pakistani investigation, the Times said some Pakistani authorities were more concerned about the threat to the government posed by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, which operated out of Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal areas. [See p. 630F2] Other Developments—In related news: o A suicide bomber Sept. 26 killed 10 people in Peshawar, the capital of NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP), following warnings by the Taliban that it would increase its use of suicide attacks. The attack was the first on a major city in several months, and came on the heels of a largely successful operation by the Pakistani military to oust the Taliban from the NWFP’s Swat Valley region. The Taliban was also thought to have been weakened by the death of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who had been killed by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft in August. Another suicide bomber Sept. 26 killed at least six people in the NWFP district of Bannu. o The U.S. Senate Sept. 24 passed by voice vote a bill that would triple annual civilian aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion. The five-year plan was part of an intensified U.S. effort to promote stability in Pakistan and win Pakistani public support for its antiterrorism campaign. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, that day acknowledged that “Pakistani public opinion of the U.S. is still surprisingly low,” but added that the bill was “a big step forward.” The House Sept. 30 passed the bill by voice vote. [See p. 418F3] 669

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o The Pakistani military Sept. 20 said Taliban commander Sher Muhammad Qasab died in custody earlier that day from wounds sustained during a firefight with troops. Qasab, one of the Taliban’s top commanders in Swat, had been captured by the military Sept. 16. Qasab, which meant “butcher” in Urdu, had been known for his ruthless tactics, which included beheading captured security forces and civilians. o Police Sept. 19 raided the offices of Pakistani company Inter-Risk, which provided security services to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Police claimed that Inter-Risk possessed unlicensed weapons. The raid came amidst widespread Pakistani media reports that the U.S. had hired U.S.-based Xe Services—formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide—to provide security for its expanding embassy, a claim that the U.S. denied. Blackwater had been accused of involvement in a 2007 shooting in Iraq that killed 17 civilians. [See p. 586F2] o A suicide bomber Sept. 18 killed at least 25 people in a predominantly Shiite Muslim area near the NWFP garrison town of Kohat, a site of past sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunni Muslims. News agency Agence France-Presse reported that Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had claimed responsibility for the attack, but other reports said the Taliban was likely to have been behind the bombing. [See p. 138E3] o Media outlets Sept. 17 reported that a missile fired Sept. 14 by a U.S. Predator drone had killed Najmiddin Kamolitdinovich Jalolov, an Uzbek militant with ties to international terrorist network Al Qaeda. Jalolov at the time was operating in North Waziristan, a tribal area on the border of Afghanistan, and had been suspected of organizing a 2004 attack in Uzbekistan that killed 47 people. It was also reported Sept. 17 that Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani militant linked to Al Qaeda, had been killed in North Waziristan by a Predator strike on Sept. 7. Kashmiri had been implicated in a 2003 assassination attempt on then–Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. [See 2004, p. 741F3; 2003, p. 1090E1] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

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Woods Wins Golf’s FedEx Cup Mickelson Claims Tour Championship. Tiger Woods of the U.S., the world’s topranked player, Sept. 27 placed second in the Tour Championship in Atlanta, Ga., the final event of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour’s FedEx Cup series, to win the points-based FedEx Cup and claim a $10 million prize. Woods had also won the FedEx Cup in 2007. American Phil Mickelson won the Tour Championship, and claimed second place in the FedEx Cup, earning $3 million. [See below; 2008, p. 736D1] The FedEx Cup, with its four playoff events and a $10 million prize, had been inaugurated in 2007 in order to boost interest in the end of the PGA Tour season. Players 670

began accumulating points in the first tournament of the year, and the top 125 players in the points standings advanced to the final four events, the FedEx Cup playoffs. By the start of the Tour Championship, the playoff field was reduced to the top 30 in the points standings. In 2009, the PGA Tour tweaked the format of the FedEx Cup playoffs, after complaints that its previous format had made the Tour Championship anticlimactic by allowing players to clinch the Cup before the final event. The main change was that players’ points were reset prior to the Tour Championship in such a way that anyone competing in the tournament had a chance to claim the $10 million prize. In the Tour Championship, Woods had a one-stroke lead over Padraig Harrington of Ireland and Sean O’Hair of the U.S. going into the third round Sept. 26. That day, American Kenny Perry shot a six-under 64 to post a 54-hole score of eight under and take a two-shot lead over Woods going into the final round. However, Perry shot a 74 in the final round to fall out of contention. Mickelson shot a 65 in the final round to pass Woods and claim victory, while Woods shot an even-par 70. Mickelson finished at 271, nine under par. Woods was three shots back, and O’Hair placed third at five under. The victor’s prize money in each FedEx Cup playoff event was $1.35 million. Mickelson had missed several tournament during the 2009 season after both his wife and mother were diagnosed with breast cancer earlier in the year. [See p. 435C2] Earlier FedEx Cup Playoff Results—

Heath Slocum Aug. 30 won the Barclays in Jersey City, N.J., the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Slocum, ranked 124th in the field of 125, sank a 20-foot par putt on the final hole to earn a one-shot victory over Woods. He finished with a nineunder-par 275. [See 2008, p. 736F1] In the next event, the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass., the field was reduced to the top 100 in the points standings. Steve Stricker of the U.S. Sept. 7 won the event, finishing with a 17-under 267. Woods Sept. 13 won the third playoff event, the BMW Championship in Lemont, Ill. The field was reduced to 70 for that tournament. Woods shot a 19-under-par 265. Other News—In other golf news: o Byeong-Hun An, a native of South Korea, Aug. 30 won the 109th U.S. Amateur championship in Tulsa, Okla. The 17year-old An defeated Ben Martin of the U.S., seven and five, in the 36-hole matchplay final. An became the youngest golfer to win the U.S. Amateur, surpassing 2008 winner Danny Lee of New Zealand. [See 2008, p. 736B2] o Ryan Moore of the U.S. Aug. 23 won the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., on the third playoff hole. Moore and Americans Jason Bohn and Kevin Stadler had tied at 264, 16 under par, in regulation. Moore earned $918,000 for the win, his first on the PGA Tour. [See 2008, p. 736C2] n

Sports News in Brief Basketball: Hall of Fame Inducts Five. The

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., Sept. 11 inducted five new members. The class of 2009— guards Michael Jordan and John Stockton, center David Robinson, Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and Rutgers University women’s coach C. Vivian Stringer—had been elected in April. [See p. 278G3] n

Hockey: Russia Takes World Championship.

Defending champion Russia May 18 won the hockey World Championship in Bern, Switzerland, defeating Canada, 2–1. Jason Spezza scored for Canada early in the first period, but Russia’s Oleg Saprykin tied the game later in the first, and Alex Radulov scored the game-winning goal late in the second period. [See 2008, p. 760C2] n Women’s Hockey: U.S. Wins World Title.

The U.S. April 12 defeated Canada, 4–1, to win the women’s hockey World Championships in Hameenlinna, Finland, for the second straight year. Defenseman Caitlin Cahow scored two goals for the U.S., and goaltender Jessie Vetter made 39 saves. [See 2008, p. 336E1] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Paleontology Smaller T. Rex Predecessor Found. Paleon-

tologists Sept. 17 reported in the online edition of the journal Science that they had discovered a smaller predecessor of the iconic predatory dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery of the smaller species, Raptorex kriegsteini, reportedly challenged previously held theories about how T. rex had evolved. Raptorex lived 125 million years ago, about 35 million years before T. rex. [See 2006, p. 228F1] A nearly complete fossil of a young adult of the new species showed the same characteristics as T. rex: a large head with strong jaws for killing prey, long legs for chasing it down, and undersized forelimbs. However, Raptorex was only about nine feet (three meters) long and and weighed about 150 lbs (68 kg), compared to T. rex’s 43-foot length and 13,000-lb weight. Previously, most paleontologists had argued that T. rex had developed its body shape as an effect of its massive size. However, the new paper put that theory into question because Raptorex had those same characteristics at a much smaller size. A Raptorex fossil had reportedly been illegally excavated somewhere in a region of lake beds in Inner Mongolia, in northeastern China. A U.S. private collector, Henry Kriegstein, legally purchased it at a fossil show in Tucson, Ariz. Kriegstein contacted paleontologist Paul Sereno— who became the lead author of the paper— for help in identifying the fossil, but Sereno assented only after Kriegstein agreed to donate the fossil to science; Kriegstein, for his part, stipulated that the new species be named after his mother and father, both Holocaust survivors. Sereno said the fossil FACTS ON FILE

would eventually be returned to a Chinese museum. n

Medical Research HIV Vaccine Shows Some Effectiveness.

A partnership of government entities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private drug companies Sept. 24 reported that a new AIDS vaccine had protected a large minority of participants in a clinical trial from HIV infection. Scientists said the data indicated that the new vaccine, the first to show a significant degree of effectiveness, reduced the risk of infection by 31.2%. The vaccine combined two genetically engineered vaccines, neither of which had shown a statistically significant protective effect against HIV when administered individually. Scientists said the research was the first indication that a HIV vaccine was a viable method of preventing infection, and that it would aid them in developing a more efficient vaccine. [See 2007, p. 763A3] The vaccine, known as RV 144, had been developed and tested by a group consisting of the U.S. Army, the Thai public health ministry, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, French drugmaker Sanofi Pasteur SA and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases. It had been tested using 16,402 Thai volunteers, and was tailored for strains of HIV commonly circulating in Thailand. In 2006, half of the group was given six doses of two vaccines, and the remaining volunteers were given a placebo. After three years, scientists found that 74 of the volunteers given a placebo had contracted HIV, while 51 of those given the vaccine tested positive for the disease. Scientists said they did not know why the vaccine had conferred protection on some of the trial participants. The researchers also found that all study participants who had contracted HIV had the same level of the virus in their blood. Scientists said that meant that, while the vaccine might prevent infection, it had no effect on the virus in those who had contracted it. In general, vaccines, even when they showed limited efficacy at preventing infection, normally lowered the viral load in those who received them. n

Awards MacArthur Fellowships Announced. The

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Sept. 22 formally announced the winners of its annual MacArthur Fellowships, honoring individuals in many fields. Twenty-four of the “genius grants” were awarded, with each recipient getting $100,000 a year for five years. [See 2008, p. 711G1] The winners were:

Lynsey Addario, 35, Istanbul, Turkey–based photojournalist Maneesh Agrawala, 37, University of California at Berkeley computer scientist concerned with optimizing the visual presentation of data

October 1, 2009

Timothy Barrett, 59, papermaker and founding director of the University of Iowa Center for the Book Mark Bradford, 47, Los Angeles–based mixedmedia artist Edwidge Danticat, 40, Haitian-born author of novels, short stories and memoirs focusing on the Haitian immigrant community in the U.S. [See 2008, p. 172F1] Rackstraw Downes, 69, New York City–based painter of urban landscapes Esther Duflo, 36, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist striving to alleviate poverty in South Asia and Africa Deborah Eisenberg, 63, short-story writer [See 1982, p. 656E3] Lin He, 35, UC Berkeley molecular biologist researching possible cancer treatments Peter Huybers, 35, Harvard University climatologist James Longley, 37, Seattle, Wash.–based filmmaker focusing on the stresses faced by Middle Eastern communities L. Mahadevan, 44, Indian-born applied mathematician at Harvard Heather McHugh, 61, Seattle-based poet and translator on the University of Washington faculty [See 2002, p. 427B2] Jerry Mitchell, 50, investigative reporter for the the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss.; his work had led to the reopening of murder cases linked to the civil rights movement, including the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. [See 2007, p. 314G2] Rebecca Onie, 32, Boston, Mass.–based publichealth activist seeking to improve medical care for the poor Richard Prum, 48, Yale University ornithologist and developmental biologist John A. Rogers, 42, University of Illinois applied physicist and electronics innovator Elyn Saks, 53, lawyer and University of Southern California law school professor battling for the rights of the mentally ill; she herself was a chronic schizophrenic Jill Seaman, 57, physician specializing in infectious diseases endemic to Sudan and other war-torn parts of the world Beth Shapiro, 33, Pennsylvania State University evolutionary biologist Daniel Sigman, 40, Princeton University biogeochemist Mary Tinetti, 58, Yale School of Medicine gerontologist seeking to minimize the risk factors for falls among the elderly Camille Utterback, 39, San Francisco, Calif.– based creator of interactive digital art installations Theodore Zoli, 43, bridge engineer working on technology that would safeguard transportation infrastructure in the event of natural or man-made disasters n

Lasker Medical Awards Announced. The Al-

bert and Mary Lasker Foundation Sept. 14 announced the 2009 winners of its two coveted medical research awards and the 2009 winner of its biennial public service award. The prize money in each category was $250,000, down from $300,000 in 2008. [See 2008, p. 668F1] Two scientists shared the Lasker Award for basic research. They were John Gurdon, 76, of Cambridge University in England, and Shinya Yamanaka, 47, of Kyoto University in Japan; Yamanaka was also affiliated with the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, Calif. Both were honored for their contributions to stem cell research. Gurdon, who began working with frog eggs in the 1950s, made breakthrough discoveries that paved the way for the “nuclear reprogramming” of mammalian egg cells, the technique that produced the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997.

Building upon Gurdon’s work, Yamanaka in 2006 was able to show that stem cells could be created not only from adult egg cells but also from reprogrammed adult skin cells, which would allow scientists to avoid the controversial practice of creating stem cells from embryos. [See 2007, pp. 775E1–A2, G2, 372F1, 371F3–G3; 1997, p. 143E1, A2, E3] Three scientists shared the Lasker Award for clinical research. They were Brian Druker, 54, of the Oregon Health & Science University; Nicholas B. Lydon, 52, a former researcher with Swiss-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG; and Charles L. Sawyers, 50, of New York City’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Druker and Lydon were honored for their discovery of the drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate), which turned what had been a fatal blood cancer, myeloid leukemia, into a manageable chronic condition. Sawyers was honored for finding a way to counteract the resistance to Gleevec that developed among some patients. Novartis won U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Gleevec in 2001. [See 2001, p. 357A2] The Lasker Award for public service went to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I). Bloomberg, 67, was honored for his efforts to combat tobacco use and improve people’s diets. As mayor of New York, he was linked to such initiatives as a 2002 ban on smoking in restaurants and bars and a 2006 measure that banned restaurants from serving food containing trans fats, or trans fatty acids. Bloomberg, a media magnate, had also pledged hundreds millions of dollars towards world antitobacco efforts. [See 2008, p. 727D3; 2006, p. 929D1; 2002, p. 1018E3–F3] n

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People Former CBS television news anchor Dan Rather’s $70 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against the network, filed in 2007, Sept. 30 was “dismissed in its entirety” in a 5–0 ruling by a panel of the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court. An attorney for Rather, 77, said the verdict would likely be appealed to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. [See 2007, p. 651G2] Onetime child television star Mackenzie Phillips, the 49-year old daughter of John Phillips, who led the 1960s pop music group the Mamas and the Papas, Sept. 23 went public with a claim that she and her father, who died in 2001, had had an incestuous affair. She said the affair began as a rape in 1979, when her father was under the influence of drugs, but became consensual and lasted nearly a decade. Others, including two of her father’s exwives, Michelle Phillips and Genevieve Waite, immediately insisted that she was lying, citing her long history of drug abuse and the fact that she made the claim just as she was about to publish a memoir. [See 2001, p. 220D3] n 671

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Publishers Weekly Sept. 28 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 596A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Doubleday) 2. The Last Song, by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central) 3. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam/Amy Einhorn) 4. Alex Cross’s Trial, by James Patterson (Little, Brown) 5. South of Broad, by Pat Conroy (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese)

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General Hardback 1. True Compass: A Memoir, by Edward M. Kennedy (Twelve) 2. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday) 3. What Happy Working Mothers Know: How New Findings in Positive Psychology Can Lead to a Healthy and Happy Work/Life Balance, by Cathy L. Greenberg and Barrett S. Avigdor (Wiley) 4. Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin, by Kathy Griffin (Ballantine) 5. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle (Knopf) Mass Market Paperback 1. Scarpetta, by Patricia Cornwell (Berkley) 2. Divine Justice, by David Baldacci (Vision) 3. 92 Pacific Boulevard, by Debbie Macomber (Mira) 4. Extreme Measures, by Vince Flynn (Pocket) 5. From Dead to Worse, by Charlaine Harris (Ace)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Sept. 26 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 596C1]:

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Singles 1. “I Gotta Feeling,” The Black Eyed Peas (Interscope) 2. “Down,” Jay Sean featuring Lil Wayne (Cash Money/Universal Republic) 3. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus (Hollywood) 4. “Run This Town,” Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West (Roc Nation) 5. “Use Somebody,” Kings of Leon (RCA/RMG)

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1. The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z (Roc Nation/AG) 2. The Time of Our Lives, Miley Cyrus (Hollywood) 3. I Look to You, Whitney Houston (Arista/RMG) 4. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt 2, Raekwon (Ice) 5. #1s...and Then Some, Brooks & Dunn (Arista Nashville/SMN)

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ATKINS, Susan Denise, 61, follower of California cult leader Charles Manson who had been serving a life sentence after being convicted of eight murders committed in the summer of 1969, including that of actress Sharon Tate; while in prison, she had gotten married twice; her first marriage, to self-described Texas oil millionaire Donald Lee Laisure, took place in 1981 and was quickly dissolved; since 1987, she had been married to James W. Whitehouse, who got a law degree after marrying her and became her lawyer; he had represented her in her last few failed attempts to win parole; born May 7, 1948, in San Gabriel, Calif.; died Sept. 24 at the medical unit of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla; in 2008, she had been diagnosed with brain cancer and had had a leg amputated; at her death, she had been California’s longest-serving female inmate. [See 2008, p. 751B1; 1981, p. 762A3; Indexes 1980, 1976, 1969–71] De LARROCHA, Alicia (Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle), 86, Spanish pianist known to classical music

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lovers for decades, through concerts and recordings; she was regarded as a peerless exponent of the keyboard music of such Spanish composers as Enrique Granados, Isaac Albeniz and Federico Mompou but also excelled in the mainstream repertoire, having a particular affinity for the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Robert Schumann; although a diminutive woman with small hands, she was able to reach the interval of a 10th in her prime, but by the mid-1990s could reach only a ninth, which limited her repertoire somewhat; however, she continued performing in pub-

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al television shows Aug. 31–Sept. 27 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 596A2]:

1. “Sunday Night Football” (NBC), Sept. 20 (15.1)* 2. “NFL Thursday Special” (NBC), Sept. 10 (12.8) 3. “NCIS” (CBS), Sept. 22 (12.4) 4. “Jay Leno Show” (NBC), Sept. 14 (11.5) 5. “NCIS: Los Angeles” (CBS), Sept. 22 (11.3) (tie) “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), Sept. 21 (11.3)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Sept. 18–24 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 596B2]:

1. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Sony ($35.4 million, 1) Directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. With the voices of Bill Hader, Lori Alan, Shane Baumel, Robert Bergen and Cody Cameron. 2. The Informant!, Warner Bros. ($14.1 million, 1) Directed by Steven Soderbergh. With Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey and Thomas F. Wilson. 3. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Lionsgate ($39.8 million, 2) Directed by Perry. With Taraji P. Henson, Adam Rodriguez, Brian J. White, Hope Olaide Wilson and Mary J. Blige. 4. Love Happens, Universal ($10.4 million, 1) Directed by Brandon Camp. With Aaron Eckhart, Jennifer Aniston, Dan Fogler, John Carroll Lynch and Martin Sheen. 5. Jennifer’s Body, 20th Century Fox ($8.8 million, 1) Directed by Karyn Kusama. With Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris. 6. 9, Focus Features ($24.3 million, 2) Directed by Shane Acker. With the voices of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover and Martin Landau. 7. Inglourious Basterds, Weinstein Co. ($111.7 million, 5) [See p. 596C2] 8. All About Steve, 20th Century Fox ($27.7 million, 3) Directed by Phil Traill. With Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, Bradley Cooper, Katy Mixon and Sara Sanderson. 9. Sorority Row, Summit Entertainment ($9.6 million, 2) Directed by Stewart Hendler. With Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung and Carrie Fisher. 10. The Final Destination, Warner Bros. ($63.2 million, 4) Directed by David R. Ellis. With Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Haley Webb and Mykelti Williamson.

lic until 2003, some 75 years after she made her concert debut at the age of five; born May 23, 1923, in Barcelona, Spain; died at a hospital there Sept. 25; she had been in declining health since breaking a hip in 2007. [See 1976, p. 460D3] ENDARA Galimany, Guillermo, 73, president of Panama, 1989–94; trained as a corporate lawyer, he was widely believed to have won Panama’s May 1989 presidential election by a wide margin, but then–Panamanian military strongman Manuel Noriega nullified the vote and had his own president installed; Endara was sworn in as president in December 1989, after a U.S. military invasion of Panama in which Noriega, whom U.S. courts had indicted for drug trafficking, was overthrown and arrested; Endara helped restore democracy to Panama during his presidency, which ended with his defeat by Ernest Perez Balladares in Panama’s 1994 presidential election; he later made two additional unsuccessful bids for the presidency, the latest in May, when he got only 2% of the vote; born May 12, 1936, in Panama City, the Panamanian capital; died at his home there Sept. 28, of a possible heart attack; he had been suffering from diabetes and kidney disease and had recently undergone dialysis. [See p. 308F3; 2004, p. 332D2, E3; Indexes 1988–94] LORD, James, 86, author best known for memoirs of the post–War II cultural scene in Paris and as a biographer of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, both of whom were friends of his; born Nov. 27, 1922, in Englewood, N.J.; died Aug. 23 at his Paris home, of a heart attack. [See 1980, p. 392A3; 1973, p. 410A2; 1966, p. 120F1] MOKAE, Zakes Makgona, 75, black South African actor whose role as a servant and surrogate father

for a young white man in a Broadway production of Athol Fugard’s Master Harold...and the Boys netted him a Tony Award in 1982; he and Fugard, a white South African, often worked together, beginning in the 1950s; he appeared in a 1961 production of Fugard’s breakthrough two-character play The Blood Knot that was reportedly the first South African stage production with an interracial cast; after leaving South Africa in 1962, he did not return there until 1982; in the interim, he lived and worked in both Britain and the U.S., in film and television as well as theater, and eventually settled in Las Vegas, Nev., which remained his U.S. base for the rest of his life; born Aug. 5, 1934, in Johannesburg, South Africa; died Sept. 11 at his Las Vegas home, from complications of a stroke suffered in May; he had also been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. [See 1993, p. 455G3; 1989, p. 772C1; Indexes 1988, 1985, 1982, 1970] SAFIRE, William (born William Lewis Safir), 79, onetime speechwriter for Republican President Richard Nixon who left the White House in 1973—a year before Nixon was forced to resign amid the Watergate scandal—to become a New York Times political columnist; he continued to write his widely syndicated column, in which he gave voice to generally conservative opinions, but from a libertarian perspective, until early 2005, winning the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1978; he also wittily dissected the English language in his “On Language” column, which the Times began running in its Sunday magazine in 1979; he continued writing that column until a few weeks before his death; he also published four novels; born Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City; died Sept. 27 at a hospice in Rockville, Md., of pancreatic cancer. [See 2006, p. 987F2; 2005, p. 256D2; Indexes 2003–04, 1996, 1994, 1992, 1990, 1987, 1982, 1977–79, 1972–75] n

October 1, 2009

U.S. President Obama Rejects Substantial Troop Reduction in Afghanistan Mulls Commander’s Request to Add Forces.

U.S. President Barack Obama Oct. 6 had told about 30 members of the U.S. Congress in a closed-door meeting at the White House that he would not substantially reduce U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, it was reported Oct. 7. However, Obama reportedly said he remained undecided on whether to increase troop levels to combat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, which in recent years had gained strength and seized de facto control of parts of the country. The meeting came as the Obama administration was in the midst of conducting a broad reassessment of its strategy in Afghanistan. [See p. 668G2] Lawmakers emerged from the meeting divided over the way forward in Afghanistan. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential election, told reporters that he agreed with the conclusions drawn by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, who in a leaked strategic review said more troops would be needed in the next 12 months to defeat the Taliban. The White House Oct. 7 said it had received a formal request for troops from McChrystal. The request was not made public, but reportedly called for as many as 40,000 troops. McCain urged Obama to make a decision quickly, saying, “It’s pretty clear that time is not on our side.” Democrats were less supportive of a troop increase. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) questioned whether “we have an able partner” in Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose supporters had been accused of perpetrating widespread fraud in the country’s August presidential election. Preliminary results showed that Karzai would serve a second five-year term, but an ongoing investigation of suspicious ballots might push the election to a runoff. [See below] The flawed election was a central factor in the administration’s decision to reassess a counterinsurgency strategy unveiled by Obama in March, which hinged on the cooperation of a legitimate Afghan government. Obama had said it was necessary to defeat the Taliban in order to achieve the U.S.’s primary goal of dismantling the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, a Taliban ally that had used Afghanistan as a base of operations prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Obama in February had authorized the deployment of 21,000 additional troops to quell the growing insurgency, which would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 68,000 by the end of 2009. But members of the Obama administration—reportedly including Vice President Joseph Biden—had grown skeptical of the counterinsurgency strategy, which would require coalition forces to seize and hold territory, protect the civilian population and help foster economic development. They argued that the U.S. should limit its focus to a counterterrorism strategy, which

would target Al Qaeda cells with surgical strikes by Predator drone aircraft and U.S. Special Forces units. Obama at the Oct. 6 meeting reportedly said current troop levels would not be substantially reduced even if the administration settled on a counterterrorism strategy. An unidentified administration official cited by the New York Times told reporters that Obama had wanted to “dispense with the straw-man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan.” It was also thought that a plan to train and increase the size of Afghanistan’s security forces would continue under either strategy. McChrystal Rejects Limited Mission—

McChrystal, in an Oct. 1 speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said a limited counterterrorism focus in Afghanistan would be a “short-sighted strategy,” and that the country needed to be left “in a stable position.” However, he said he approved of the Obama administration’s decision to reassess the strategy. He said, “I think the more deliberation and the more debate we have, the healthier that’s going to be,” adding, “I don’t think we have the luxury of going so fast we make the wrong decision.” McChrystal’s remarks about a possible counterterrorism strategy were seen as a public challenge to Obama, and evidence that there was a growing split between the military and the government on Afghan policy. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Oct. 5 said, “It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations—civilians and military alike—provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately,” in a speech to the nonprofit group the Association of the United States Army. Gates’s comment was seen as being aimed at McChrystal, though a Pentagon spokesman denied that interpretation. In another statement perceived to be directed toward McChrystal, U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones Oct. 4 had said, “Ideally, it’s better for military advice to come up through the chain of command,” in an interview with Cable News Network (CNN). Jones said, “The president should be presented with options, not just one fait accompli.” Obama Oct. 2 met with McChrystal for about 30 minutes aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, to discuss the strategy, after Obama gave a speech urging the International Olympic Committee to award the 2016 Summer Olympic Games to Chicago. It was their first face-toface meeting since McChrystal became the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan in June. [See p. 691C1] McChrystal Oct. 1 had met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reportedly press for an increase in British troops in Afghanistan, which currently numbered about 9,000. Like the U.S., Britain was engaging in a controversial debate about its Afghan policy. Sir Richard Dannatt, the former chief of general staff of the British Army, in an interview with Britain’s Sun newspaper

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3590* October 8, 2009

B published Oct. 6, said Brown had forced the British army to fight with “one arm tied behind one’s back” after he denied a request from the military earlier in the year for an additional 2,000 troops. Brown instead deployed 700 troops. [See p. 498C3] Obama Says Al Qaeda Weakened—

Obama, speaking Oct. 6 at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va., claimed that Al Qaeda had “lost operational capacity” due to the U.S.’s counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan. Those efforts included Predator drone missile attacks that had killed leading Al Qaeda figures in the past year. Obama’s assertion appeared consistent with the argument that a counterterrorism strategy could be effective in disrupting Al Qaeda. [See pp. 670D1, 38A3] Jones Oct. 4 had told CNN that there were fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Many of Al Qaeda’s members, including leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama rejects substantial troop reduction in Afghanistan; mulls commander’s request to add forces. PAGE 673

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U.S. September unemployment rate hit 9.8% PAGE 676

Baucus health care reform bill said to reduce deficit. PAGE 676

Supreme Court 2009–10 term begins. PAGE 677

Top Rwanda genocide suspect arrested in Uganda. PAGE 680

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Myanmar court denies appeal of prodemocracy leader Suu Kyi. PAGE 683

Ireland approves EU treaty in referendum. PAGE 685

Italian court overturns law granting Berlusconi immunity. PAGE 687

Inspections of Iranian nuclear facility set. PAGE 688

Major League Baseball season ends. PAGE 690 *First of two sections Section Two is the Nine-Month index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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had sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Sept. 28. They included similar accusations against Eide. The Electoral Complaints Commission, which was backed by the U.N., Oct. 5 began a recount of votes from a sample of polling stations, scrutinizing ballots that appeared suspicious. Karzai could fall below the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff if enough ballots were disqualified. Preliminary results had showed Karzai with nearly 55% of the vote. Eight U.S. Soldiers Die in Siege—

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Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, at a press conference in London Oct. 1.

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thought to be in Pakistan. Jones said a “central issue” in the administration’s ongoing deliberations was whether a Taliban victory would turn Afghanistan into a base for Al Qaeda. Jones said such a scenario “could” happen, while Gates Oct. 5 said, “There’s no question in my mind that if the Taliban took control of significant portions of Afghanistan, that that would be added space for Al Qaeda to strengthen itself.” Those proposing a counterterrorism strategy, such as Biden, also reportedly tended to view Pakistani-based terrorists as the more menacing threat to U.S. national security. In addition to conducting a Predator campaign, the U.S. had encouraged the Pakistani army to root out Islamic extremist militants in Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal areas. [See p. 669E3] Candidate

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Former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s main challenger in the presidential election, Oct. 3 criticized Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, for failing to properly investigate reports of electoral fraud. Abdullah said the recent firing of Peter Galbraith—a deputy to Eide who had reportedly pushed Afghan officials to address the fraud allegations—raised “serious questions” about Eide’s neutrality, and “seriously damaged the U.N.’s credibility in Afghanistan.” [See p. 668F3] Galbraith, in an essay published Oct. 4 in the Washington Post, wrote that accusations of fraud had undermined the government’s legitimacy, handing “the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting” the insurgency. Galbraith said as many as 30% of Karzai’s votes were “fraudulent,” and that in some areas 10 times as many votes were counted as had actually been cast. Galbraith said Eide had discouraged him from pursuing the fraud issue on multiple occasions, despite the fact that the U.N. mission had a mandate to promote “free, fair and transparent” elections. He said Eide feared that the accusations could further destabilize the country. The New York Times Oct. 1 had published excerpts from a letter that Galbraith

Hundreds of insurgents Oct. 3 laid siege to a U.S. outpost in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nuristan, on the Pakistani border, killing eight U.S. soldiers and at least two Afghan soldiers. There were conflicting reports as to whether the attack was orchestrated by the Taliban or a tribal militia allied with the Taliban. It was the highest single-day death toll for U.S. troops since July 2008, when hundreds of insurgents swarmed a U.S. base in the village of Wanat in eastern Kunar province and killed nine U.S. soldiers. [See 2008, p. 494C1] NATO in a statement Oct. 6 said that the fighting triggered by the attack had killed more than 100 insurgents. McChrystal had said he would begin pulling U.S. troops from remote regions such as Nuristan, saying they would be more useful protecting areas with a high civilian population. The outpost had been set up to track insurgents crossing the porous Afghan-Pakistani border. Separately, five U.S. soldiers Oct. 2 had been killed in Afghanistan. Two were reportedly killed in the eastern province of Wardak by a police officer, though it was possible that the gunman was an insurgent dressed in a police uniform. Indian Embassy Bombed in Kabul— A car bomb Oct. 8 exploded outside the Indian embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 17 people, most of whom were Afghan civilians. The embassy said three Indian guards had been wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the second on the embassy since July 2008, when a car bombing killed 54 people. [See 2008, p. 477C1] The 2008 attack was thought to have been carried out by the Haqqani network, an insurgent group allied with the Taliban, with assistance from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency. Pakistan had long claimed that its rival India was seeking to bolster its influence in Afghanistan. [See p. 669A2] n

Global Economy World Bank, IMF Hold Annual Meetings.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Oct. 6–7 held their annual meetings in Istanbul, Turkey, where the IMF pledged to propose changes to its voting structure by 2011 to give emerging economies a greater say in IMF policies. The pledge came after leaders from the Group of 20 (G-20) economies in September called on the IMF to increase the voting

shares of emerging economies by 5%. [See pp. 651C2, 283A2] The proposed changes to the IMF, long dominated by the U.S. and Europe, had gained traction in the wake of the global financial crisis, which had required deeper coordination between industrialized and emerging economies. In September, the G20—which included fast-rising economies like China, India and Brazil—had said it would replace the Group of Eight (G-8), which was dominated by Western countries, as the premier forum for the discussion of global economic issues. There remained disagreements on how much additional sway emerging economies should gain at the IMF, which had emerged in the past year as an important safeguard for weaker economies buffeted by the crisis. Brazil, Russia, India and China had demanded that voting shares for emerging economies be increased by 7%. European countries that paid hefty dues to the IMF argued that they should retain a higher degree of influence. In days of meetings leading up to the annual summit, economic policy-makers discussed establishing a global insurance fund that could be tapped in the event of another crisis. The fund would be paid for by a new tax on financial institutions. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn Oct. 2 said, “Considering that the financial sector is creating a lot of systemic risks for the global economy, it is fair that the sector pay some of its resources to mitigate risks.” The tax had been proposed by the G-20 in September. 100 Arrested in Protests— Hundreds of protesters in Istanbul Oct. 6 demonstrated against the IMF’s policies, and were dispersed by police firing tear gas and water

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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cannons. About 100 protesters were arrested. The IMF had long been unpopular in Turkey, because the Turkish government, in exchange for nearly 20 IMF loans, had been required to make harsh spending cuts or raise taxes. The two sides were in negotiations for a new loan, as Turkey grappled with a recession. [See 2001, p. 1053A2] In another example of Turkish public frustration with the IMF, a student Oct. 1 threw his shoe at Strauss-Kahn as he finished addressing an audience at Bilgi University in Istanbul. The student, Selcuk Ozbek, was taken into police custody. Afterward, Strauss-Kahn, who was not hit by the shoe, said, “Turkish students are polite. They waited until the end to complain.” The affair was widely compared to a similar incident in December 2008, when an Iraqi journalist flung his shoe at then–U.S. President George W. Bush. [See p. 629C1] IMF Releases Economic Forecast—The IMF Oct. 1 released its World Economic Outlook, finding that the global economy was still “fragile” and that governments should “stand ready to roll out new initiatives” to stimulate growth. The IMF warned that a premature exit from emergency monetary and fiscal policies enacted during the crisis posed a “significant risk” to a sustained rebound. The G-20 had asked the IMF to create guidelines for winding down those policies. [See p. 453A2] The IMF projected that the global economy would grow at a 3.1% rate in 2010, up from its July prediction of 2.5%. It was expected to contract at a 1.1% rate in 2009. The IMF said the U.S. economy in 2010 would grow at a 1.5% rate; the eurozone economy—comprised of the 16 countries that used the euro currency—at 0.3%; the Japanese economy at 1.7%; and the Chinese economy at 9%. The IMF said the U.S. economy in 2009 would contract at a 2.7% rate; the eurozone economy at 4.2%; and the Japanese economy at 5.4%. The Chinese economy was expected to grow at an 8.5% rate in 2009. [See pp. 657A1, 576C2, 545B1, 494B2] The IMF Sept. 30 had released its Global Financial Stability Report, which proclaimed that the “global economy has turned a corner” toward recovery. The report called for substantial financial regulatory reform to prevent a similar crisis, saying governments needed to implement policies requiring banks to increase capital reserves and facilitating the removal of toxic assets from bank balance sheets. The IMF said banks would need fresh capital—either from private or government sources—to offset anticipated losses over the next year. The IMF said the crisis would lead to a total loss of $3.4 trillion for banks and financial institutions worldwide, which was $600 billion less than its April estimate. The change was attributed to a recent stabilization of the value of assets backed by U.S. home mortgages, whose deterioration had driven the financial crisis. The IMF said financial institutions worldwide had recorded $1.3 trillion in losses since the crisis started, and would record an additional $1.5 trillion in losses by the end of 2010. [See p. 283F3] n October 8, 2009

Australia Raises Benchmark Interest Rate.

The Reserve Bank of Australia Oct. 6 raised its benchmark interest rate to 3.25%, from 3%, becoming the first central bank of a developed country to raise its main interest rate since the beginning of the global financial crisis. The Reserve Bank since September 2008 had steadily cut the rate from 7.25% to 3%, the country’s lowest rate since 1960, in order to encourage borrowing and boost economic growth. [See p. 494F1; 2008, p. 741A1] Experts said possible concerns about inflation had played no part in the decision to raise the rate. The bank reportedly sought to gradually return interest rates to a more normal range now that Australia’s economy was no longer threatened by the crisis. Australia had benefited from continued growth in its mining sector fueled by high demand for iron ore and other commodities, particularly from China. It had been one of the world’s only developed nations to avoid falling into a recession as a result of the crisis. After contracting at a 0.5% rate between October and December 2008, its economy had grown at a 0.4% rate between January and March, and at a 0.6% rate between April and June. Both Britain’s Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB) Oct. 8 announced that their interest rates would remain unchanged, at 0.5% and 1%, respectively. Analysts said both central banks were unlikely to raise their benchmark interest rates until at least 2010. [See pp. 433C1, 311D2] n

United Nations New UNESCO Head Selected. The execu-

tive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Sept. 22 voted, 31–27, to elect Irina Bokova, Bulgaria’s ambassador to France and its representative to UNESCO, as the 10th director general of the organization, replacing outgoing Director General Koichiro Matsuura of Japan. Bokova’s selection by the executive board was scheduled to be voted on at an Oct. 15 meeting of the 193 members of the UNESCO general conference; experts considered her confirmation to be a formality. [See 2005, p. 795D3] Bokova, 57, would be the first woman to head UNESCO, as well as the first Eastern European. She was a member of Bulgaria’s opposition Socialist Party, which had previously been the country’s dominant Communist Party. Bokova Sept. 23 said that she would push for UNESCO to have more involvement in U.N. efforts to combat climate change, among other initiatives. Egyptian Culture Minister Defeated—

Bokova had defeated expected front-runner Farouk Hosni, 71, who had served as Egypt’s culture minister for 22 years and would have been the first Middle Eastern and first Arab head of UNESCO. Executive committee representatives from Lebanon, Pakistan, Madagascar and Nigeria were reportedly replaced by their governments after they refused to back Hosni’s candidacy. Hosni Sept. 17 had won 22 of the executive board’s 58 votes, a plurality, in the

first round of voting, but had failed to reach the 30 votes needed for election. Bokova and Hosni Sept. 21 had each received 29 votes during the fourth round of voting. The election was the first time that the executive board’s election of a director general had reached a fifth round. In 2008, Hosni had told Egypt’s parliament that he would personally burn any Israeli books that could be found in the Alexandria, Egypt, library; he later apologized for his comments. In 2001, Hosni had allegedly described Israeli culture as “aggressive, racist, pretentious” and “inhuman.” He had also been accused of banning or censoring numerous artistic works in his capacity as culture minister. His candidacy had been opposed by such notables as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel. Hosni Linked to Hijackers’ Escape—An Arabic-language Web site, Elaph, Sept. 19 reported that Hosni had claimed to have assisted Palestinians who had allegedly taken part in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship, in escaping from Italy in 1985. The allegation could not be independently confirmed. The UNESCO executive board representatives of Spain and Italy had reportedly changed their votes after hearing about Hosni’s alleged role in the escapes. [See 1985, p. 753A1] Hosni Sept. 23 told reporters that his candidacy had been hobbled by a U.S.– based smear campaign “cooked up in New York” that had the support of “European countries and the world’s Jews.” Egypt’s semi-official Al-Akbar daily newspaper Oct. 2 reported that Hosni had said that it had been “the Jewish organizations and lobby who lit a fire of lies behind me.” n

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Council Approves Measure on Sexual Violence.

The United Nations Security Council Sept. 30 voted unanimously to pass a resolution opposing the use of sexual violence as a weapon in international conflict zones. The resolution, sponsored by the U.S. on the final day of its one-month presidency of the council, called for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to appoint a special representative to end sexual violence, among other measures. [See p. 633G1; 2008, p. 616D1] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chaired the council session, said the resolution was designed to lead to concrete actions to assist in the fight against sexual violence in war-torn regions, after two previous resolutions were ineffective in combating the problem. She also referred to the endemic level of rape and sexual assault in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which she had visited in July. The resolution demanded that all armed groups cease “all acts of sexual violence with immediate effect.” It called on Ban to send experts to conflict zones in order to prevent new assaults, and to push for the investigation and prosecution of rapes and sexual assaults. The resolution also suggested that sanctions be considered in situations where conflict-related sexual violence remained widespread due to government inaction. n 675

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The unemployment rate in September was 9.8% after seasonal adjustment, up from its August level of Unemployment 9.7%, the Labor September 2009 9.8% Department rePrevious Month 9.7% ported Oct. 2. It Year Earlier 6.2% was the highest unemployment rate since June 1983, and the 21st straight month that the U.S. economy had shed jobs. While the pace of job losses had slowed significantly from the beginning of the year, the report fueled concerns that the labor market would remain weak for some time and stall a recovery in the broader economy. [See p. 601A3] An estimated 263,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in September, up from the August figure of 201,000. The construction and manufacturing sectors were hard hit, slashing 64,000 and 51,000 jobs, respectively. State and local governments lost 53,000 jobs as they grappled with a drop in government tax revenues. The health care and education sectors added jobs. The September labor report brought the total number of jobs lost to 7.2 million since the recession began in December 2007. The unemployment rate was 17% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. The number of workers who had been unemployed for more than six months climbed to 5.4 million in September. The worsening labor market led to calls for the government to strengthen programs that provided unemployment insurance benefits and health-care subsidies. There were also calls for additional stimulus spending by the government to boost economic growth, or new tax incentives for businesses to make new hires. [See below] 139 Million Jobs Held in September—

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According to a household survey, 138.9 million people held jobs in September, the Labor Department reported Oct. 2. The department counted 15.1 million people as unemployed. The department counted 706,000 workers as discouraged in September. About 9.2 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average workweek was 33.0 hours in September, down from 33.1 hours in August. The average manufacturing workweek was 39.8 hours, down 0.1 hours from the previous month. Factory workers’ average overtime fell 0.1 hours to 2.8 hours in September. The average hourly wage for production workers rose one cent, to $18.67. The unemployment rate among whites in September was 9.0%, up from 8.9% in August. The jobless rate for blacks was 15.4%, up from 15.1% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, 676

the rate was 12.7%, down from 13.0% in August. For men age 20 and over, September unemployment was 10.3%, up from 10.1% in August. For adult women, it was 7.8%, up from 7.6% the previous month. The teenage rate was 25.9%, up from 25.5% in August. For black teenagers it was 40.8%, up from 34.7% the previous month. House Votes to Extend Jobless Benefits—

The House Sept. 22 had voted, 331–83, to pass a bill extending unemployment insurance benefits in some states by 13 weeks, which would help up to 1.4 million unemployed workers whose benefits were scheduled to expire by the end of 2009. The extension would cover 27 states where the unemployment rate was 8.5% or higher, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The bill would cost $1.4 billion, and would be paid for by postponing a planned decrease in an unemployment insurance tax paid by companies. The bill went to the Senate, which was currently debating the extension. n

Health Care Reform Baucus Bill Said to Reduce Deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Oct. 7 released an analysis of a health care overhaul bill being considered by the Senate Finance Committee, concluding that the plan would provide coverage to 29 million people who would otherwise lack insurance, at a cost of $829 billion over 10 years. According to the CBO, the measure would reduce the federal deficit by $81 billion during the same period, but leave 25 million people uninsured in 2019. The drafting of the bill had been overseen by Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, with significant input from committee Republicans. However, it had failed to garner the support of any Republicans. [See p. 655E2] Most of the savings in the bill would be generated by cuts resulting from greater efficiency in the Medicare program, which Democrats said would save money without affecting benefits. The Baucus measure also proposed a series of new taxes and fees on insurers, medical device makers, drug companies and consumers. A September CBO analysis of an earlier version of the plan had concluded that it would cost $774 billion over a decade, and reduce the federal deficit by $49 billion during the same period. The CBO’s analysis was seen as a test of the political viability of the Baucus plan, since Republicans had warned that the Democrats’ health care proposals were too expensive. Also, President Barack Obama, who had strongly pushed for a comprehensive legislative health care overhaul package, had said that a reform plan must not increase the federal deficit. White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag said the CBO analysis showed that “we can expand coverage and improve quality while being fiscally responsible.”

The analysis was nevertheless criticized by some Republicans for being too expensive and leaving too many people without coverage. Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), the committee’s ranking Republican, said insurers were likely to pass new taxes outlined in the plan on to consumers, and that the bill’s Medicaid expansion provisions would impose new “unfunded mandates” on states currently experiencing budget difficulties. (The Medicaid program for the poor was jointly funded by the federal government and the states.) Sen. Judd Gregg (R, N.H.) said the bill would “create a massive new entitlement” for subsidized health care. Republicans also said the cost of the plan would go up after it was reconciled with a more expensive version that had been passed by the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee. House Democrats Oct. 7 also met for ongoing work to reconcile three versions of a reform plan that had been passed by different committees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said much of the discussion had centered on the “public option,” a plan to create a government-run health insurance program to compete with private insurers. Democrats said a public option would increase competition among insurers, thereby improving policies and lowering their costs. Republicans said a public option might drive some private insurers out of business, while leading to an outsized government role in the health care system. (The Baucus plan was the only bill under consideration that did not include a public option, instead calling for the creation of nonprofit health care cooperatives to offer coverage alternatives to traditional private insurers.) Pelosi Oct. 8 said she would send a number of versions of a health care reform bill to the CBO for cost analysis. Finance Panel Concludes Debate— The Senate Finance Committee early Oct. 2 concluded debate on its reform bill. Obama later that day hailed the committee’s work as “another milestone in our effort to pass health insurance reform.” Committee members said they would delay voting on the measure until after the release of the CBO analysis, and Baucus said he would allow the panel some time to review the final legislation before bringing it for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Oct. 8 said the panel would vote on the bill on Oct. 13. Democrats held a 13–10 majority on the panel. However, at least three committee Democrats had expressed reservations about supporting the bill, the New York Times reported Oct. 7. According to the Times, Sen. John Rockefeller 4th (W. Va.) had concerns that health insurance companies would reap excessive profits as a result of the bill. Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) said he worried that it would be too difficult for employees to seek better insurance plans than those offered by their workplace. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) objected to the cost of the bill. The White House Oct. 5–6 had elicited statements from several well-known Republicans supporting efforts to overhaul FACTS ON FILE

the U.S.’s health care system. The statements had come from Tommy Thompson, who had served as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary under President George W. Bush; former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.); Mark McClellan, who had served as head of the Medicare program under Bush; and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who had become an independent, also endorsed the plan. However, all had expressed several differences with Democrats over the details of a reform plan. n

Supreme Court 2009–10 Term Begins. The Supreme Court Oct. 5 began its 2009–10 term, and heard oral arguments that day. The court had 55 cases in its docket, and was expected to add more as the term progressed. The 2009–10 term would be the first for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who had been nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama after Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement in May. She was confirmed by the Senate in August. [See pp. 603F1, 442C3] The following were among the major cases scheduled for to be heard and decided during the 2009–10 term: First Amendment—The Supreme Court in September had held a special rehearing of the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which it would decide whether government limits on corporate spending in elections violated free speech rights. [See p. 602G3] In Salazar v. Buono, accepted Feb. 23, the court would decide whether a cross displayed in California’s Mojave National Preserve, which was federal land, violated the Constitution’s protections against government-imposed religion. An original version of the cross had been erected in 1934 to honor soldiers who had died in World War I. Congress had declared the site a national memorial, and transferred ownership of the acre of land surrounding the cross to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a private organization. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., in 2007 said the land transfer had not eliminated a constitutional conflict, since it had merely created “a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve.” [See 2005, p. 432F3] In United States v. Stevens, the Supreme Court would rule on the constitutionality of a 1999 law that prohibited the sales of videos depicting cruelty to animals. The Obama administration argued that such videos, like child pornography, were not protected by the free speech rights enshrined in the First Amendment. The original plaintiff in the case, Robert Stevens, had been sent to prison for selling a video compilation of footage of dogfights and dogs attacking pigs. [See p. 266G1] Gun Control—The court Sept. 30 accepted McDonald v. Chicago, in which it would decide whether strict state and local gun-control laws violated the Second Amendment. It was the court’s first considOctober 8, 2009

eration of the amendment since the landmark 2008 decision District of Columbia v. Heller, in which it ruled for the first time that the amendment protected an individual right to gun ownership, and struck down a Washington, D.C., handgun ban. [See 2008, p. 429A2] The case had been filed by Alan Gura, who had been the lawyer for the original plaintiff in Heller. The suit claimed that restrictive handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., violated gun ownership rights. The court was expected to clarify whether the Second Amendment applied to the states, since Heller only addressed federal gun-control laws in effect in federal enclaves like Washington, D.C. Nearly all of the provisions in the Bill of Rights applied to the states, but the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in June had noted that the Supreme Court in 1886 had ruled that the Second Amendment did not extend to the states. Criminal Law—The court in two cases would consider whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibited life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders who had committed non-homicide crimes. One case, Sullivan v. Florida, involved a 13year-old who had been convicted of rape, while the second, Graham v. Florida, involved a 16-year-old who had been convicted of armed robbery. The court in 2005, in Roper v. Simmons, had ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the execution of juvenile offenders. [See p. 306G3] The court Oct. 5 heard oral arguments for Maryland v. Shatzer, in which it would decide how long police had to respect a suspect’s request for a lawyer before commencing an interrogation. The original plaintiff in the case, Michael Shatzer, in 2003 had requested a lawyer when police began interrogating him about claims that he had sexually abused his son. Police stopped the questioning and then dropped the case, but questioned him again three years later after new evidence in the case emerged. The Maryland Court of Appeals later ruled that Shatzer’s 2006 confession could not be used in court because the police had never acceded to his 2003 request for a lawyer. [See p. 48G2] Terrorism—The court Sept. 30 accepted Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, which centered on a federal antiterrorism law that made it illegal to provide “material support” to terrorist organizations, such as “expert advice” and “training.” The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2007 had ruled that portions of the law were too vague to let stand, but upheld others, prompting appeals by both the government and the law’s challengers. The government claimed that the appellate court had hindered “a vital part of the nation’s efforts to fight international terrorism.” [See 2006, p. 930G1] The challengers had been accused of supporting two separatist groups—Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)—both of which were consid-

ered terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department. The challengers claimed that the support they had provided was of a lawful, nonviolent nature, such as requests for aid from the United Nations. [See pp. 333A1, 329B3] Business—In Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, accepted May 18, the court would rule on the constitutionality of provisions in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which had been enacted following the collapse of energy giant Enron Corp. At issue was the legislation’s creation of an independent board to oversee accounting firms. The board’s members were appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent agency, and critics said the board effectively wielded executive powers outside the purview of the executive branch, a violation of the Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine. [See 2005, p. 371D3; 2002, p. 576A3] In Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, accepted May 26, the court would decide whether Merck shareholders could sue the pharmaceutical company for securities fraud over the removal of the painkiller Vioxx from the drug market in 2004, after it found that Vioxx posed higher risks of heart attacks and strokes than previously stated. Merck’s shareholders claimed that the company had hidden those risks. At issue was whether the shareholders had waited too long to file the suit. [See 2008, p. 619E2] The court May 18 accepted the appeal of Conrad Black, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of media company Hollinger International Inc. (now known as SunTimes Media Group Inc.), who had been convicted in 2007 for fraud and obstruction of justice. The case would center on whether Black had been improperly prosecuted under a 1988 fraud law that made it illegal to “deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” Black’s lawyers claimed that the law applied to public officials, not private employers. The case was Black v. United States. [See 2008, p. 260A2]

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Former Qwest CEO Appeal Declined—

The Supreme Court Oct. 5 declined without comment to hear an appeal brought by Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of telecommunications company Qwest Communications International Inc. Nacchio had been convicted of insider trading in 2007. [See 2008, p. 199F1] In 2008, a panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo., had overturned his conviction, saying the federal judge in the case had erred by barring the testimony of an expert defense witness. However, the full appellate court Feb. 26 ruled, 5–4, that the judge had been correct to exclude the witness’s testimony. Nacchio April 14 had begun a prison sentence of six and a half years. Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized—Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sept. 24 was hospitalized following a bout of “light-headedness and fatigue” brought on by a treatment for anemia earlier in the day, 677

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according to a statement from the court. The court said her hospitalization was merely a precaution, and she was released from Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., the following day. Ginsburg, 76, had undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer in February, which was followed by chemotherapy. In July, Ginsburg was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia, one of the side effects of her chemotherapy. She had received an iron sucrose infusion about an hour before she began feeling unwell. [See p. 131B1] Separately, a number of news organizations reported that as of the opening of the term, Justice John Paul Stevens had hired only one of the customary four clerks, leading to speculation that the justice, 89, might be preparing to retire. O’Connor Says Decisions ‘Dismantled’—

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Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Oct. 4 said the current Supreme Court had “dismantled” important decisions that she had helped craft as a member of the court. Since O’Connor’s retirement in 2006, the court had moved rightward on issues such as abortion rights, campaign finance and affirmative action. O’Connor’s comments came at a panel discussion hosted by William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Va. n

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Not-Guilty Plea in Bomb Conspiracy Case.

Najibullah Zazi Sept. 29 pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to charges that he had conspired with unidentified other people to build explosives for use in a terrorist attack. Zazi, a U.S. permanent legal resident born in Afghanistan, had been arrested the previous week. He was ordered held without bail, and faced life in prison if convicted in the case, which officials described as one of the most serious terrorist plots in the U.S. since attacks carried out on Sept. 11, 2001. His next court appearance was scheduled for Dec. 3. [See p. 641E2] Zazi’s attorney, J. Michael Dowling, Sept. 29 told reporters that the government had yet to show evidence that would prove a conspiracy charge against Zazi. He argued that “the government will have to produce someone else—they don’t necessarily have to indict them—or the conspiracy charge fails,” because, he said, “you can’t convict [Zazi] of conspiracy without an agreement” between him and someone else to take part in a crime. Zazi Sept. 25 had been transferred by plane from Colorado, where he lived, to New York City to appear in court there. Zazi had once lived in the city’s borough of Queens, and his September visit to the city had escalated the government’s investigation into his activities. Additional Searches Carried Out— Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents Sept. 22 had raided a Queens apartment that had previously been searched Sept. 14 in connection with the case, seizing two calculators and photographing a notebook belonging to Naiz Khan, one of the apart678

ment’s residents and a friend of Zazi’s. The New York Times reported Oct. 8 that Khan was still under police surveillance in the case; it was unclear if he was a suspect. The Associated Press (AP) reported Oct. 8 that Zazi had been in contact with people in New York City, thought by investigators to be his accomplices, during his September drive from near Denver, Colo., to New York. The government was reportedly investigating whether Zazi had instructed the unidentified persons to buy chemicals to construct explosives. According to the AP, the FBI in September had extensively questioned about 10 people in Queens in connection with the alleged plot. The Times Sept. 26 reported that investigators were examining whether Zazi could have constructed a bomb while staying at a hotel room with an attached kitchen near Denver, and had reportedly searched the area for evidence that set off a test explosion. No actual explosives had yet been found; however, Zazi and three suspected accomplices had allegedly purchased beauty products in Colorado that could be used to create hydrogen peroxide– based explosives, and residues from one the chemicals used in such explosives had been found in a vent above the hotel room’s kitchen stove, according to authorities. Holder Praises Interagency Cooperation—

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Oct. 6 said that the alleged plot was “one of the most serious threats to our country since Sept. 11, 2001,” terrorist attacks, adding that if the plot had “not been disrupted, it could have resulted in the loss of American lives.” Holder credited successful cooperation between state and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies for the disruption of the plot, but warned that constant vigilance was needed to safeguard the U.S. against future terrorist attacks. President Barack Obama Oct. 6 visited the government’s National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in McLean, Va., for the first time and praised its workers for their role in helping to prevent Zazi’s alleged bombing plot, among other plots. [See p. 673A3] The Washington Post Oct. 6 reported that Obama had been regularly briefed about the Zazi investigation, beginning in late August, and had been informed about the case within a day of investigators’ beginning to suspect that Zazi was involved in a terrorist plot. Obama and other senior members of the administration had hitherto said little in public about the arrest. But Obama’s and Holder’s remarks were seen as efforts to justify the administration’s position that traditional law-enforcement methods, well executed, would be more effective in combating terrorism than the controversial surveillance and interrogation programs, among others, introduced under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. n News in Brief. A 19-year-old Jordanian man Sept. 24 was charged in U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas, with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to destroy a 60-story skyscraper in Dallas. A

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affidavit said the defendant, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, had parked a car containing an inoperative bomb—which he had received from undercover FBI agents posing as members of the terrorist network Al Qaeda—by Dallas’s Fountain Place building and attempted to set it off via cellular phone. The FBI had reportedly begun investigating Smadi after discovering inflammatory Internet postings in which he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden; however, Smadi was not thought to have any connection to any established terrorist groups. He faced a sentence of life in prison if convicted. [See p. 641G2; 1993, p. 138D1] Michael Finton, a 29-year-old convicted felon, Sept. 24 was arrested in connection with an attempt to detonate an explosive device outside a federal building in Springfield, the capital of Illinois. Finton Sept. 24 was charged in U.S. District Court in Springfield with attempting to murder federal employees and officers, and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faced a sentence of life in prison if convicted of all charges. Finton, who was also known as Talib Islam, had reportedly converted to Islam while in prison for robbery and battery. He had been given the inoperative explosive by undercover government agents who had approached him after he told an FBI informant that he wanted to help Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip. [See p. 641G2; 1995, p. 277A1] Judge James Carr of U.S. District Court in Toledo, Ohio, Aug. 18 ruled that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) had violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment by freezing the assets of KindHearts for

Charitable Humanitarian Development Inc., a charity, in 2006 without showing any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the group. OFAC had accused KindHearts of providing financial assistance to the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and had barred the group from accessing any of its funds, even to pay attorneys. Carr said that OFAC had “effectively shut KindHearts down” and found that the OFAC’s authority to do so without court review was not supported by constitutional law. [See 2006, p. 169E2] Judge Gerald Bruce Lee of U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., July 27 sentenced Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who had been convicted of plotting to assassinate former President George W. Bush, among other crimes, to life in prison. Ali had been convicted in 2005 and had been sentenced to 30 years in prison; his sentence was overturned in June 2008 by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., which ruled that Lee had failed to correctly follow sentencing guidelines in the case, which would have resulted in a life sentence. Lee said that he had reexamined the case and had found that Ali’s “unwillingness to renounce the beliefs that led to his terrorist activities” made it too dangerous to risk his future release. [See 2008, p. 519F2] FACTS ON FILE

A federal grand jury indictment brought in North Carolina July 27 charged eight men in connection with allegations that they had conspired to support international terrorist organizations in places including Jordan, Kosovo and the Palestinian territories. One of the defendants, Daniel Boyd, 39, had also been charged with lying to federal agents. Boyd’s sons, Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22, were among the eight defendants. All were U.S. citizens except for Kosovo-born Hysen Sherifi, a legal U.S. resident. One defendant, Jude Kenan Mohammed, 20, was at large and believed to be in Pakistan. Daniel Boyd and Sherifi Sept. 24 were charged with plotting to attack the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Va. Zakariya Boyd that day was charged with possession of weapons with the intent of committing a violent crime. Daniel Boyd was the son of a marine and a convert to Islam. n

Politics Rep. Castle Sets Delaware Senate Bid.

Rep. Michael Castle (R, Del.) Oct. 6 declared his candidacy in a November 2010 special election in Delaware for the Senate seat previously held by Vice President Joseph Biden. Castle, a popular centrist, was seen as the early front-runner for the seat, which Biden had first won in 1972. Castle, 70, had held Delaware’s lone House seat since 1993. He had also served two terms as governor, from 1985 to 1993. [See 2008, p. 867A3] Castle said he expected his Democratic opponent to be Biden’s son, state Attorney General Beau Biden, who had recently returned from a deployment in Iraq as a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard. Sen. Edward (Ted) Kaufman (D), appointed in January to serve the first two years of Biden’s new term, had said he would not run in the election. The winner of the special election would serve the remaining four years of the term won by Biden in 2008. n Democrats Defeat GOP Bid to Unseat Rangel.

House Democrats Oct. 7 defeated a Republican motion to remove Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.) from his post as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. The House voted, 246–153, in a procedural move to block a resolution by Rep. John Carter (R, Texas) that said a series of alleged ethics violations by Rangel had “held the House up to public ridicule.” The House vote instead referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee, which had already been investigating Rangel for more than a year. [See p. 619G3] It was the fourth failed Republican attempt to censure Rangel in the past 16 months. He had admitted to lapses including a repeated failure to disclose more than $500,000 in personal assets. Two Mississippi Democrats, Reps. Gene Taylor and Travis Childers, joined the Republican minority in the vote, while six Republicans voted with the Democratic October 8, 2009

majority. Thirty-three House members either voted present or did not vote. After the vote, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) issued a statement calling the vote, “just the latest example of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D, Calif.] breaking her promise to have the most ‘open and ethical’ Congress in history.” The Ethics Committee Oct. 8 said it was expanding its probe to examine Rangel’s August admission that he had failed to report assets on congressional financial disclosure forms. n

Automobiles Parts Maker Delphi Exits Bankruptcy.

Auto parts maker Delphi Corp. Oct. 6 emerged from bankruptcy as a new, smaller company called Delphi Holdings LLP. Delphi had been spun off from Detroit, Mich.– based General Motors Co. (GM) in 1999 and entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in October 2005. The new company was owned by a consortium of lenders headed by New York City–based Elliott Management Corp. and Greenwich, Conn.–based Silver Point Capital, both of which were hedge funds. Under the bankruptcy proceedings, the lenders forgave about $3.4 billion in debt in exchange for stakes in Delphi, and would invest $900 million in the company. The restructured Delphi was expected to focus on producing electronic automobile components. [See 2007, p. 576B1] Delphi had filed for bankruptcy due to factors including high labor costs, foreign competition and enormous retiree health care obligations. At the time, Delphi’s bankruptcy was the largest in the history of the U.S. auto industry, but that record was overtaken when GM declared bankruptcy in June. GM had emerged from bankruptcy in July as a smaller company that was 61%owned by the federal government. [See p. 475F1] Under the bankruptcy agreement, Delphi would sell four plants in Indiana, Michigan, New York and Wyoming, as well as its steering component business, to GM for $1.1 billion. GM had also spent an estimated $12.5 billion on Delphi’s restructuring and another $1.7 billion on the new company, and would receive two seats on its new board of directors. Delphi was GM’s biggest supplier, and GM’s acquisition of Delphi’s plants would secure the automaker’s supply of parts. Most of Delphi’s overseas assets would be taken over by the new company. Delphi employed about 100,000 workers in 32 countries. About 15,000 company retirees were obliged to give up health care benefits and significant portions of their pensions under the bankruptcy proceedings. Pension plans for about 70,000 Delphi workers and retirees would be taken over by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which assumed corporate pension obligations when companies defaulted. A new company called DPH Holdings Co. would liquidate Delphi assets that were not being sold to GM or retained by the new investors. Delphi Chief Executive Of-

ficer (CEO) and President Rodney O’Neill would continue to serve the company in those roles. Delphi had been North America’s largest parts supplier, with 50,600 U.S. employees, when it filed for bankruptcy. After restructuring, Delphi was the third-largest North American parts maker, with about 14,000 U.S. employees. n

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General Motors to Close Saturn Division.

Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Co. (GM) Sept. 30 announced that it would close down its Saturn division in 2010, after Bloomfield Hills, Mich.–based Penske Automotive Group unexpectedly withdrew from acquisition talks. Penske Automotive Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Roger Penske, a former racecar driver who was known for revitalizing struggling automotive companies, had said a deal with a potential Saturn manufacturer had been rejected by that company’s board of directors. (The manufacturer was rumored to be the Nissan-Renault alliance.) [See p. 535G3] GM and Penske had previously agreed on a deal under which GM would manufacture Saturns through 2011, at which point manufacturing would have been turned over to Penske. However, Penske had said that he would be unable to complete the acquisition of Saturn without first finding a long-term manufacturer for the brand. About 13,000 people employed by Saturn would lose their jobs, and the 350 Saturn dealers in the U.S. would close as a result of the failed deal. GM, which was 61% owned by the U.S. government, was responsible for winding down the Saturn division. GM had introduced the Saturn brand in the 1980s to compete with fuel-efficient Japanese cars, but its sales had slumped in recent years. Other News—In other GM news: o GM and Internet auction company eBay Inc. Sept. 30 ended a seven-week experimental partnership that had allowed customers in California to purchase or make an offer on GM vehicles through eBay’s Web site. GM sales chief Mark LaNeve said the partnership “was successful” but had been launched at the wrong time. Dealers reportedly complained that many customers submitted unrealistically low bids on vehicles, which created a glut of unnecessary paperwork. o Directors of Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp. Aug. 27 voted to close down a factory in Fremont, Calif., which from its opening in 1984 until June 2009 had operated as a 50/50 joint venture between Toyota and GM. It was the first major closure of an auto factory by a Japanese company. The plant employed about 4,600 people. Business at about 1,000 California parts suppliers and other automotive companies was also expected to suffer as a result of the plant’s closure, leading to more job losses. Unlike all other Toyota plants in the U.S., most of the workforce at the factory, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), was represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union. n 679

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Rwanda Top Genocide Suspect Arrested in Uganda.

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Agents from international police agency Interpol Oct. 5 in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, arrested former Rwandan intelligence officer and army captain Idelphonse Nizeyimana, described as one of the most-wanted alleged perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide still at large. In the genocide, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu extremists in just 100 days. [See p. 248B2] Nizeyimana, a Hutu, had been indicted in 2000 by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which sat in Arusha, Tanzania. He was charged with five counts of genocide, complicity in and incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity. Nizeyimana was accused of being the primary organizer of the massacres in the southern province of Butare. He allegedly compiled lists of Tutsi intellectuals and others to be killed, and established and armed special military units to perpetrate the killings. Among his alleged crimes was ordering the killing of an elderly symbolic Tutsi queen, Rosalie Gicanda; commanding soldiers to kidnap a group of refugees hiding in a convent; and directing an attack on students and teachers at the University of Butare. A Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)—led by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame—halted the genocide in July 1994, and hundreds of thousands of Hutus, including many genocide perpetrators, fled to neighboring countries, mainly Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Nizeyimana in recent years reportedly had been a commander of a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), that terrorized civilians in eastern Congo. (Rwandan and Congolese troops in January had launched a joint military operation against the FDLR.) [See p. 34A1, D2] ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga Oct. 6 said Interpol and Ugandan authorities had arrested Nizeyimana after he entered Uganda from Congo using false documents. They reportedly had received a tip on his whereabouts from an undisclosed source. The U.S. had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Nizeyimana that day was extradited to Arusha to stand trial at the ICTR. Former Mayor Captured in Congo—

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Congolese troops combating the FDLR in eastern Congo Aug. 10 arrested Gregoire Ndahimana, the Hutu mayor of the town of Kivumu during the genocide. Ndahimana, who reportedly was a member of the FDLR, had been indicted by the ICTR in 2001 on charges of genocide or complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. Ndahimana had allegedly conspired with a local priest to bulldoze a church in Kivumu where more than 2,000 Tutsis had taken refuge, killing all those inside. He was extradited to the 680

ICTR Sept. 20, and Sept. 28 appeared be-

fore the tribunal and pleaded not guilty. Related News—In other news related to the trials of genocide suspects: o The genocide trial of Francois Bazaramba, a Rwandan former Baptist pastor, Sept. 1 opened in a court in Porvoo, Finland. Bazaramba had sought asylum in Finland in 2003, and was arrested there in 2007. Finnish law allowed for the prosecution of crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crimes were committed. The Finnish court Sept. 15 began sitting in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. It was expected to spend about a month in the country, hearing testimony from Rwandan witnesses and visiting Nyakizu municipality, where Bazaramba was accused of organizing the slaughter of 5,000 Tutsis. o Rwandan state radio Sept. 3 reported that a traditional gacaca court in Nyarugenge district had sentenced Alfred Mukezamfura, who served as Rwanda’s parliamentary speaker from 2003 to 2008, to life in prison for inciting hatred during the genocide. Mukezamfura, who had fled to Belgium in March, was sentenced in absentia for publishing articles in a state-run weekly newspaper during the genocide that incited Hutus to kill Tutsis. o Justice Andre Denis of Quebec Superior Court in Montreal, Canada, May 22 convicted Desire Munyaneza on seven charges related to the 1994 Rwandan massacres, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Munyaneza, a Hutu who had fled to Canada seeking refugee status in 1997, was found guilty of participating in rapes and murders while acting as a locallevel militia leader in Butare. He became the first person convicted under a 2000 Canadian law that allowed residents who had committed war crimes and other offenses in another country to be prosecuted in Canada. [See 2005, p. 764C2] n

Zimbabwe Supreme Court Clears Activists. Zimba-

bwe’s Supreme Court Sept. 28 threw out terrorism charges against noted human rights advocate Jestina Mukoko and her eight codefendants, following revelations of Mukoko’s abduction and torture while in custody. The nine activists Oct. 1 filed a suit against the government, seeking $500 million in damages for the abuses perpetrated against them during their detentions. At least three others still faced charges in the same case. [See p. 152D3] Mukoko, the head of the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) human rights advocacy group, had been abducted from her home in December 2008 and charged for her role in an alleged armed plot to oust President Robert Mugabe. Her suit against the government accused security forces of simulating drowning, locking her in a freezer and beating her while trying to coerce a confession. She had been freed from prison on bail in May, but the conditions of her release severely limited her travel. The dismissal of charges against Mukoko and her fellow activists could ease ten-

sions between Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The two parties were partners in a power-sharing government that had taken office in February. However, Mugabe and Tsvangirai continued to disagree on many elements of a unity deal signed in September 2008, including the appointment of an MDC official, Roy Bennett, as deputy agriculture minister. [See p. 152C3] Bennett, a white farmer whose land had been confiscated by Mugabe’s government in a land reform program that began in 2000, had been arrested in February on terrorism charges similar to Mukoko’s. His attorney, Trust Maanda, July 1 said his client would stand trial in October on charges of possessing weapons and planning acts of sabotage against the state, which the MDC said were false accusations. Mugabe refused to swear in Bennett until he was acquitted of the crimes. In another related case, 10 members of parliament from the MDC Aug. 19 were arrested, before being released later that day. Nelson Chamisa, a spokesman for the MDC, said the party was “unclear as to the circumstances and motive of the arrest.” In the 2008 parliamentary elections, the MDC had won a slight majority over the ZANUPF. Prior to the latest arrests, four other MDC lawmakers had been sentenced to jail time, which according to Zimbabwean law disqualified them from holding seats in parliament. Many questioned the timing of the crackdown on MDC lawmakers, as the country considered a new constitution that would limit the president’s wide-ranging powers. A new charter would replace the document written in 1979, a year before Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain. Guduza Dlamini, the president of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) parliamentary forum, Oct. 2 said plans for the new constitution were on track, without laying out a specific timeline. With the MDC alleging political bias in the prosecution of its members, Tsvangirai faced mounting pressure from within his own party to stand up against the alleged unfair targeting. Tsvangirai had increasingly defended the power-sharing government, in an attempt to attract the return of foreign donors. Meanwhile, Mugabe had promised to further implement the unity deal, in hopes of Western nations lifting sanctions levied against him and other members of the ZANU-PF. [See below, p. 661A1] Mugabe Seeks Ties With West— In an Oct. 6 address to parliament, Mugabe called for “fresh, friendly and cooperative relations with all those countries that have been hostile to us in the past.” He also reiterated his demands for the U.S. and the European Union (EU) to lift the sanctions that froze the bank accounts and limited the travel of top ZANU-PF officials. Members of parliament applauded Mugabe’s speech, in stark contrast to the previous year’s opening remarks, when he was jeered by MDC lawmakers. FACTS ON FILE

Mugabe’s call for improved ties with Western nations followed a high-level visit from an EU delegation in September. Despite a warm welcome from Mugabe, the delegation had refused to lift the sanctions, instead urging the power-sharing government to settle any disagreements over the implementation of the unity deal. Prior to the visit, Mugabe had long maintained hostile relations with most of the West, often blaming his foreign critics for many of the country’s woes. While most foreign donors had yet to restore aid to the country, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Export-Import Bank had recently loaned a combined $800 million to Zimbabwe. However, Finance Minister Tendai Biti of the MDC and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono of the ZANU-PF were reportedly at odds over the distribution of the funds. Biti argued that the government should agree on a budget before the aid was spent. Biti Sept. 16 had told a mining conference not to expect bilateral aid from foreign donors for a “long while.” Instead, he urged industry leaders “to come up with our own local initiatives.” In recent months, the Zimbabwean economy had shown signs of recovery, mostly due to the government’s decision to abandon the local currency in February. Economic Growth Seen— The World Bank Sept. 11 estimated that Zimbabwe’s economy would grow by 3.7% in 2009. The predicted growth would end nearly a decade of steep decline. An economist for the World Bank credited the change in currency use for a 10.3% drop in prices between January and May. The Zimbabwean dollar had become virtually worthless due to record inflation that reached an estimated 10 sextillion percent. The U.S. dollar and the South African rand had been widely adopted to replace the local currency. [See p. 97B2] The collapse of Zimbabwe’s agriculture industry had left the mineral sector as the country’s main resource to rebuild its economy. Tsvangirai Sept. 17 told the mining conference that he foresaw investments of between $6 billion and $16 billion in the industry by 2018. However, he stressed that reforms in the business structure were needed before investors would fully return. In a ruling that favored foreign investment in the mining industry, High Court Justice Charles Hungwe Oct. 1 ordered the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp. to evacuate a diamond field in Marange, returning the ownership rights to a British company, African Consolidated Resources (ACR). ACR had been evicted from the site in 2006, triggering an extended legal battle over the mining rights to the field. The government had violently seized the field from amateur prospectors illegally n mining there since ACR’s eviction.

Other Africa News Charity Appeals for Drought Aid. British aid agency Oxfam Sept. 29 launched a £9.5 million ($15.1 million) appeal for East Africa, warning that more than 23 million October 8, 2009

people in seven countries were at risk of severe food and water shortages due to the region’s worst drought in a decade. The effects of the drought had been exacerbated by the global economic downturn and high food prices, as well as conflicts and political turmoil in some of the countries. [See 2008, p. 751A2; 2006, p. 280A3] Oxfam said the worst-affected countries were Ethiopia, where 13.7 million people were at risk; Kenya (3.8 million); Somalia (3.8 million); and Uganda (two million). The impact of the drought was also being felt in Sudan, Djibouti and Tanzania. Oxfam said high levels of malnutrition had been reported, and that hundreds of thousands of valuable livestock were dying. Paul Smith Lomas, the East Africa director for Oxfam, added that due to climate change, rainy seasons in the region were becoming shorter and droughts were becoming more frequent, occurring once every two or three years instead of once every 10 years. [See p. 124C1] Shortages Spark Kenyan Violence— At least 65 people had been killed since June in cattle raids in northern Kenya, U.S. government–sponsored broadcaster Voice of America reported Sept. 29. While such raids were common among the nomadic peoples of the region, the fighting reportedly had been intensifying due to the drought. [See 2006, p. 1012D2] n Broadband Internet Reaches East Africa.

An undersea fiber-optic cable that brought high-speed Internet service to southeastern Africa July 23 went live. The $600 million project, which used a 9,300-mile (15,000km) cable, was run by a private company formed to carry out the project, Seacom, headquartered in Mauritius. Three other similar projects were currently in the works, including one partly financed by the Kenyan government. [See 2008, p. 988C2] Internet users in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa had previously accessed the Web via satellite, which was slower and more expensive than fiber-optic cables. Among other benefits, the cable connection was expected to spur development by boosting the ability of businesses and consumers in the region to participate in the global economy. n

AMERICAS

Canada Conservatives Survive No-Confidence Vote.

Canada’s House of Commons Oct. 1 voted, 144–117, to reject a vote of no confidence in the minority Conservative government that had been tabled by the opposition Liberal Party. The Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, survived the vote with the help of the leftist New Democratic Party (NDP), which abstained from the vote. The Liberals were joined in the vote by the separatist Bloc Quebecois (BQ) Party. Had the Conservatives lost the vote, federal parliamentary elections would have been triggered later in the fall. [See p. 589D1] Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, in calling for the no-confidence vote, had said the

Conservatives had failed to properly manage the country’s finances, noting that the projected federal deficit for the current fiscal year had grown to C$56 billion (US$52.6 billion), from C$33.7 billion in January. Ignatieff described the deficit growth as an “abject failure on the public finance management of this country.” Ignatieff in early September had announced his intent to table the no-confidence motion in the Commons, the lower house of Parliament. [See p. 50B3] NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair Sept. 16 had announced his party’s plan to support the Conservatives at least until Conservative-sponsored legislation to extend unemployment benefits was passed. The Commons Sept. 18 had passed, 224– 74, a separate budget bill that also functioned as a confidence vote, thus avoiding the triggering of elections. The Conservatives had passed the measure with the support of both the BQ and the NDP. However, BQ leader Giles Duceppe that day also said his party would support any new no-confidence motions brought by the Liberals. Liberal Poll Decline Seen—The Liberals had been effectively tied for public support with the Conservatives when Ignatieff had announced his intent to introduce a no-confidence vote. However, support for the Liberals fell during the following weeks. A Strategic Counsel/Globe and Mail/CTV poll conducted Oct. 2–4 and reported Oct. 5 found that public support for the Liberals had dwindled to 28%, compared with 41% for the Conservatives. However, the poll results were seen more as an expression of dissatisfaction with Ignatieff than a rallying of support for Harper. Many Canadians had reportedly grown tired of the ongoing threat of new federal elections, a result of a series of minority governments since 2004 under the Liberals and then the Conservatives. The Liberals Sept. 28 had suffered another blow when Denis Coderre, the party’s top organizer in the province of Quebec, resigned. Coderre said he had lost the “moral authority” to remain in his post, a comment widely viewed as an expression of his dissatisfaction with the leadership of Ignatieff, and a sign of deepening internal strife within the Liberal Party. Ignatieff Oct. 7 appointed former astronaut Marc Garneau to replace Coderre. [See 2000, p. 970G3] n Ontario Sues Tobacco Companies. Chris Bently, the attorney general of the Canadian province of Ontario, Sept. 29 said the province had filed a C$50 billion (US$46 billion) lawsuit against at least 12 tobacco companies. The suit alleged that the damages reflected the health care costs incurred as a result of tobacco use that the provincial government had paid for since 1955. Among those named in the suit were the U.S.’s Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc., as well as British American Tobacco PLC of Britain. The Ontario government alleged in the suit that tobacco companies had known of the health risk and addictive nature of their products for decades but had withheld that information 681

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from the public. [See p. 357E1; 2005, p. 719E1] n

Mexico News in Brief. Two Canadian men Sept. 27 were shot and killed outside an apartment building in the Mexican resort city of Puer-

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to Vallarta, in Jalisco state. Jalisco state prosecutor Guillermo Diaz Sept. 28 said the dead men, Gordon Douglas Kendall and Jeffrey Ronald Ivans, were shot by three men, and that Ivans had been carrying a handgun. Officials with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), a Canadian law enforcement agency, said the two slain men were suspected of participating in the drug trade in the Canadian province of British Colombia. However, investigators said it was unclear if the killings were related to drug trafficking. [See p. 605D1] Mexico’s Senate Sept. 25 confirmed Arturo Chavez Chavez as the country’s attorney general, over protests from human

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rights activists. Chavez, 49, had been accused of failing to properly investigate hundreds of rapes and murders of women in the 1990s in Ciudad Juarez, in Chihuahua state, while he was a prosecutor there. Chavez replaced Eduardo Medina Mora, who resigned in early September amid criticism of his handling of a government offensive against drug smuggling cartels. [See p. 604F3] A group of gunmen late Sept. 15 shot 10

people to death in a drug treatment center

in Ciudad Juarez, the second attack on a drug rehabilitation clinic in less than two weeks, and the sixth such assault in 13 months. Two of the victims in the recent attack were reportedly doctors, and the remaining eight, patients. Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz the following day said the violence was linked to a war between two drug organizations, the Carrillo Fuentes gang and rivals from Sinaloa state. Mexican officials said drug rehabilitation clinics often functioned as fronts for drug organizations. [See p. 605D1] An AeroMexico flight en route from the resort city of Cancun to Mexico City, Mexico’s capital, Sept. 9 was hijacked in midflight. Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna said the hijacker informed the plane’s crew that he had a bomb, and demanded to be allowed to speak to Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, or else he would blow up the plane. The suspect was identified as Jose Mar Flores Pereira, a Bolivian-born former drug addict who had become an evangelical preacher. All passengers and crew members were released unharmed shortly after the plane landed, and Flores was arrested. In interviews to the press given after his arrest, Flores said he had made a fake bomb out of a juice can modified with lights, and that his actions had been motivated by a divine revelation. [See p. 606C2] n

Americas News in Brief Argentina: Media Restriction Bill Passed.

Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies, the lower legislative house, Sept. 17 passed, 146–3, a controversial bill allowing the government 682

greater control over media conglomerates, as well as television and radio licenses. Some 100 opposition members of the chamber had walked out before the vote, in protest of what they said was an attempt by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to squelch criticism from the media. Opponents said the bill targeted the country’s largest media conglomerate, Grupo Clarin, which had sharply criticized the president’s move to tax soybean exports. Fernandez de Kirchner countered that the legislation, which had yet to be considered by the Senate, would help diversify the media. [See p. 623F2] n Ecuador: U.S. Leaves Military Base. The U.S. military Sept. 18 formally vacated the Manta air base in Ecuador, handing back control of the facility to the Ecuadoran government. Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa during the country’s 2006 presidential campaign had pledged not to renew the U.S.’s 10-year lease on the base. A new constitution approved in 2008 had also banned the establishment of foreign military bases in the country. The U.S. had run antinarcotics missions from the base. [See p. 541G2; 2008, p. 705B1] n Guatemala: Arrests Made in Lawyer’s Death.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a United Nations– backed group intended to aid the country’s notoriously corrupt judiciary, Sept. 11 said it had arrested seven people in connection with the May killing of prominent lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg. In a tape made prior to his death, Rosenberg had alleged that, if he were killed, it would be because Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom Caballeros had ordered his death. Among those arrested were several police officers and at least one soldier. Carlos Castresana Fernandez, the commission’s head, said he had sought the arrest of nine people, but was forced to move early. He also said the investigation was ongoing. [See p. 376F3] n Peru: Fujimori Pleads Guilty to Bribe Charges.

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, 71, Sept. 28 pleaded guilty to charges of embezzling government funds, establishing illegal wiretaps and bribing government, business and media figures during his 1990–2000 rule. Prosecutors had argued that Fujimori had engaged in the crimes in order to bolster media and legislative support for his attempts to continue as president, as well as eradicate the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebel group. Fujimori Sept. 30 was sentenced to a six-year prison term, to be served concurrently with a 25-year sentence he was already serving for human rights crimes. The case had led to the fourth criminal trial Fujimori had faced since being extradited from Chile in 2007. [See p. 508A2] n Venezuela: Iran Uranium Aid Claims Made.

Rodolfo Sanz, Venezuela’s minister of basic industries and mining, Sept. 25 said Iran was aiding Venezuela in detecting and testing deposits of uranium in remote Venezuelan areas. Sanz said Iran was aiding in “geophysical aerial probes and geochemical analyses” in parts of the country. However, Jesse Chacon, Venezuela’s minister of sci-

ence and technology, Sept. 26 contradicted those claims, saying that the only country helping Venezuela to identify its uranium deposits was Russia. The claims were made as U.S. President Barack Obama and European leaders alleged that Iran had built a secret uranium-enrichment facility. [See p. 688A1] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australia Giant Dust Cloud Covers Sydney, Brisbane.

A massive cloud of orange dust originating from Australia’s outback region Sept. 23 blanketed Australia’s southeastern coast, including the cities of Sydney and Brisbane. The dust cloud over Sydney, capital of New South Wales state, had largely disappeared by midafternoon, but in Brisbane, the capital of neighboring Queensland, the dust lingered until early evening. Experts said that the dust storm was Australia’s worst since the 1940s, and suggested that a long-running drought and unusually powerful winds had contributed to the size of the cloud. [See p. 98B1] The cloud had been caused by powerful storm winds, which had blown thousands of tons of topsoil from the outback, particularly in New South Wales, and propelled it toward the country’s populous coastal regions. Such storms were common in Australia, but rarely traveled beyond the outback. The cloud, which was visible in satellite photos taken from space, reduced visibility within Sydney, slowing car traffic and public transportation and causing flights into Sydney to be delayed or canceled. Ambulance services and hospitals reported an unusually high number of people with breathing difficulties while the cloud covered the city. Children, the elderly and people with heart or respiratory conditions were encouraged to stay indoors for the duration of the dust storm. Air pollution levels along the country’s southeastern coast Sept. 23 reached 15,500 micrograms per cubic meter (439 micrograms per cubic foot). That was a major increase from normal daily levels of 10–20 micrograms per cubic meter, and the highest level since Australia began keeping pollution measurements in the 1970s. The governments of Queensland and New South Wales Sept. 24 temporarily lifted limits on water usage in order to allow residents to wash dust off their cars and homes. The limits had been put in place in response to the ongoing drought. n

China 60 Years of Communist Rule Marked. China’s government Oct. 1 staged an elaborate military parade in Beijing, the capital. The event was the centerpiece of National Day celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China by Communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong in 1949. President Hu Jintao and the other eight members of the Politburo of the ruling Communist Party, FACTS ON FILE

along with Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin, reviewed the parade from a dais overlooking Tiananmen Square. [See 1999, p. 749A2] Hu, dressed in the tunic suit associated with Mao rather than his customary Western business attire, delivered a speech proclaiming, “We have realized the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and asserting, “Only socialism can save China, and only reform and opening up can ensure the development of China, socialism and Marxism.” The parade was reportedly some two miles (3.2 km) long, with more than 180,000 members marching in precise unison. It showcased advanced military hardware, and floats trumpeting industrial achievements of the past six decades and proclaiming harmony among China’s ethnic groups, despite ethnic unrest in recent months in the western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet. Some observers said the parade, laden with slogans praising socialism, resembled the bluntly propagandistic parades of Cold War–era communist nations, rather than the high-tech and stylized pop theatrics that had characterized the ceremonies staged for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. [See pp. 605B3, 327A1; 2008, p. 562D1] Detailed security measures were implemented for the event, and Beijing residents were urged to remain indoors to watch the parade on television and to not even open their windows to view it. (The parade route was generally accessible only to about 30,000 invited guests.) As they had for the Olympics and other high-profile events in the capital, authorities in the run-up to the holiday had reportedly cracked down on citizens who traveled to Beijing seeking to present petitions to officials there, as well as political dissidents across the country. Many migrant workers were also reportedly forced to leave the capital. In Xinjiang, the transport of explosive substances was prohibited for a period around the holiday, and a ban on foreign tourists’ visits to Tibet was imposed Sept. 22. In the autonomous territory of Hong Kong, a book on Chinese history that had been banned in mainland China went on sale Sept. 25, despite reported attempts by the central government to prevent it from being published there just before the Oct. 1 anniversary. The book, Chinese Civilization Revisited by mainland journalist Xiao Jiansheng, described China’s historical development in terms inconsistent with official doctrine. Britain’s Guardian Sept. 24 quoted Xiao as saying that the book discussed “why China’s politics, from the very beginning to now, has not gone through a transition from centralism to pluralism.” Among other nationalist cultural spectacles marking the 60th anniversary of Communist rule in China was the release of an epic film, The Founding of a Republic, which included appearances by world-famous action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Party Committee Holds Meeting— The Central Committee of the Communist Party Sept. 15–18 held its annual plenary October 8, 2009

meeting in Beijing. Observers had anticipated the possibility that Vice President Xi Jinping would be named to the Central Military Commission, confirming that he was the leading contender to succeed Hu as president in 2013. However, no such appointment was announced. [See 2008, p. 183E3; 2007, p. 703G1] The party plenum in a Sept. 18 communique said it had renewed the party’s commitment to combating corruption in its ranks. However, the message did not mention a proposal it had reportedly considered, to require senior party officials to disclose their property and other investment holdings. Separately, it was reported Sept. 25 that Mao Xinyu, grandson of Mao Zedong, had been promoted to major general in China’s People’s Liberation Army. At 39, he was the youngest person to hold the rank. Although such an appointment had not been formally announced, official state media noted that he had been introduced as major general at a recent event. n Govt. Yuan Bond Offered in Hong Kong.

China’s finance ministry Sept. 8 said it would issue six billion yuan ($879 million) in bonds in Hong Kong, in the first such sale of Chinese government securities denominated in China’s currency, the yuan or renminbi, outside of mainland China. The ministry said the sale was intended to “promote the yuan in neighboring countries and improve the yuan’s international status.” China was taking steps to “internationalize” its currency, which was not currently fully convertible, at the same time as its leaders expressed concern about the longterm value of the U.S. dollar, in which most of its foreign reserves were currently held. (The autonomous territory of Hong Kong had a separate, convertible currency, the Hong Kong dollar.) [See p. 414C2] Officials said the bonds would give foreign entities an attractive vehicle for holdings in Chinese currency, allowing them, for example, to invest yuan earned in dealings in China. Sales of the bonds, which had terms ranging from two to five years, with yields of 2.25% to 3.30%, began Sept. 28, and they were to be issued Oct. 27. China Sept. 2 had said it was buying 341 billion yuan ($50 billion) worth of new bonds issued by the International Monetary Fund, becoming the first country to do so. The purchase was paid for in yuan, rather than U.S. dollars as had been customary for such international transactions by China, in another move to promote the use of the yuan outside the country. The IMF bond also represented an investment for China that was less tied to the dollar, because it was denominated in Special Drawing Rights, an instrument used for IMF transactions based on a basket of several currencies. [See p. 283A2] World Bank President Robert Zoellick in a Sept. 28 speech in Washington, D.C., had said that the dollar would likely lose its overwhelmingly dominant position as the world’s reserve currency of choice, with the yuan becoming a significant rival within two decades.

IMF Chief Calls Currency ‘Undervalued’—

At the same time, the exchange value of the yuan, which was controlled by China, remained a point of contention in international trade. The U.S. and other trading partners maintained that China kept its value artificially low, in order to make its exports cheaper. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn Oct. 2 said at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Turkey that “the IMF view is that the renminbi is undervalued.” [See p. 674F2] n

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Myanmar Suu Kyi Appeal Denied. A military-con-

trolled divisional court in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, Oct. 2 rejected an appeal by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that had sought to challenge her August conviction for violating the terms of her house arrest. Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, had been detained by the ruling military government for 14 of the past 20 years, and Oct. 2 was sentenced to 18 additional months of house arrest in connection with her August conviction. [See p. 543C1] Attorneys for Suu Kyi Sept. 18 had argued that Suu Kyi’s conviction was invalid because she had been tried for violating restrictions put in place by Myanmar’s 1974 constitution, which had no longer been valid at the time of the alleged violations. They asked the court to throw out the verdict. Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s attorneys, Oct. 2 said that while the court had rejected Suu Kyi’s request to throw out the conviction, it had agreed with her contention that the restrictions were part of a defunct constitution. However, the court had reportedly ruled that the restrictions still applied, even though the constitution was no longer valid. U.S. government–sponsored Voice of America reported Sept. 25 on its Web site that Suu Kyi had written a letter to Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the junta, offering her assistance in working to get the U.S. and European Union to end their economic sanctions against the country. Suu Kyi had previously backed the sanctions, which were intended to pressure the junta to work with pro-democracy activists and other political opponents. Suu Kyi Oct. 3 met with Aung Kyi, Myanmar’s health minister, at her home in Yangon, marking the first time that she had met with a representative of Myanmar’s government since January 2008. Aung Kyi had been appointed the liaison minister to Suu Kyi in October 2007, but had met with her only seven times. It was unclear what they discussed at the meeting. More Than 7,000 Prisoners Freed—Myanmar’s government Sept. 17 announced that it would release 7,114 inmates from its prisons on humanitarian grounds. The releases took place Sept. 18 and included at least 25 political prisoners, as well as two detained reporters; foreign journalists were allowed to document the releases. They took place on the 21st anniversary of a military coup that followed a 1988 uprising by students and pro-democracy activists. [See 1988, p. 686E2] 683

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Than Shwe Sept. 28 had said during an address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City that Myanmar would grant amnesty to prisoners in order to allow more people to take part in planned 2010 democratic elections. The ruling junta did not officially admit to holding any political prisoners and had freed only a small number of political prisoners during previous prisoner releases. Myanmar was thought to be holding more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Suu Kyi. [See p. 652D2] n Energy Firms Accused of Bolstering Junta.

EarthRights International, a U.S.-based environmental and human rights advocacy group, Sept. 10 released two reports that claimed that a natural gas project headed by energy companies Chevron Corp. of the U.S. and Total SA of France had allowed Myanmar’s ruling military junta to reduce the effects of economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar by the U.S. and the European Union. The group also accused Total and Chevron of using inaccurate information to come up with positive assessments of the project’s impact on surrounding communities in Myanmar. [See 2007, p. 641G2; 2000, p. 977E1] Total held more than a 31% interest in Myanmar’s Yadana natural gas project, which included natural gas extraction facilities as well as a pipeline. Chevron owned 28% of the project, which provided about 60% of the natural gas exported by Myanmar to Thailand. Total and Chevron were allowed to operate the project because the U.S. and EU sanctions did not target oil or natural gas production. According to the two reports, which followed a two-year investigation by the group, the junta had received more than $4.8 billion in profits from the project between 2000 and 2008, but had included only about $30 million of the profits in the country’s budget. The rest of the profits had allegedly been placed in secret bank accounts in Singapore. EarthRights alleged that the project was a “primary reason” that economic sanctions against the junta had been ineffective. According to EarthRights, the impact reports on the project were prepared by a nonprofit organization, hired by Total, that interviewed residents while escorted by personnel associated with the project. EarthRights said residents had previously been warned not to mention anything negative. EarthRights also alleged that security personnel connected with the project had illegally seized land from its owners, pressed residents into forced labor and committed murders, among other abuses. Chevron and Total Sept. 9 denied the allegations and criticized EarthRights for failing to take account of the jobs created by the project and the educational programs that they had funded in the region. Gas Pipeline to China Planned—A representative of Myanmar’s state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise Aug. 25 announced that a business group headed by South Korea’s Daewoo International Corp. had agreed to invest $5.6 billion to fund the 684

creation of an offshore natural gas extraction project as well as a pipeline intended to deliver the gas to China. The planned Shwe project was expected to begin transporting natural gas to China’s state-run China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) beginning in 2013. However, the plan still required final approval by Myanmar’s government. Daewoo owned 51% of the joint venture, while Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise held 15%; other major investors included India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. and Korea Gas Corp. The group had previously been targeted by protesters who accused the investors of indirectly supporting the repressive junta. The project would extract natural gas from Myanmar’s Shwe, Shwe-Phyu and Mya offshore regions, which were thought to hold 4.5 trillion–7.7 trillion cubic feet (125 billion–220 billion cubic meters) of natural gas. It was expected to provide about 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, about 7% of China’s daily usage. Natural gas made up only about 3% of China’s current total energy requirements, but its share was expected to grow. n Police Report Major Drug Seizure. Myanmar’s border police and anti-narcotics squads Aug. 24 had seized 700 kg (1,540 pounds) of heroin and nearly three million methamphetamine pills during a raid on two houses in the town of Tachilek, near the border with Thailand, Myanmar’s state-run media reported Aug. 26. Police arrested four individuals and seized two guns during the raids. About 760 kg of heroin had been discovered by police during raids in the same town in August, along with other drugs. [See pp. 590D1, 415A2] Myanmar’s military had recently stepped up campaigns against ethnic militias near the border with China and Thailand as part of an attempt to bring all parts of the country under the government’s control prior to planned 2010 elections. Experts said that some ethnic groups in the region, including the Wa and Kachin, thought to be heavily involved in the drug trade, had begun increasing their shipments of drugs to fund the stockpiling of weapons for clashes with the military. The New York Times reported Oct. 1 that police in Thailand near the border with Myanmar had seized 1,268 kg of heroin— most of which was thought to have originated in Myanmar—between January and August 2009, up from 57 kg during the same period in 2008. n

Philippines Typhoon Parma Kills At Least 16. Typhoon

Parma Oct. 3 struck the northeastern part of the Philippines, triggering landslides and other natural phenomena that killed at least 16 people and displaced about 85,000 others. The typhoon, which generated winds of up to 175 kmph (108 mph) and gusts of up to 210 kmph, was the second major storm to strike the Philippines in less than two weeks. [See p. 664C1] Typhoon Parma dropped as much as 36 inches (91 cm) of rain on parts of the Philip-

pines and flooded at least 14 villages. The storm also disrupted Internet and telephone services and electricity in many areas. About 2,600 people were stranded by landslides and fallen trees in the Bicol region and on the Philippine island of Catanduanes. The typhoon was thought to have destroyed about $128 million in crops, mostly rice, and caused $57 million in property damage. State of Calamity Expanded—Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Oct. 2 announced that she had expanded a “state of calamity” for Manila, the capital, and 25 provinces to cover the whole country, allowing additional emergency funds to be accessed by her government. The state of calamity had been put into effect in connection with Tropical Storm Ketsana, which had hit the Philippines on Sept. 26, causing hundreds of deaths and massive flooding. Arroyo also ordered the evacuation of people from coastal and low-lying areas in six Philippine provinces that were likely to be hit by Parma. Government personnel were authorized to forcibly evacuate children if the circumstances demanded it. Nearly 170,000 people were evacuated by the government prior to Parma’s arrival and were reportedly being housed in warehouses and schools in high elevations. Ketsana Death Toll Rises— The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 3 that the Philippine death toll from Tropical Storm Ketsana had risen to at least 406. According to the Journal, Ketsana had killed a total of 99 people in Vietnam and 14 people in Cambodia. Voice of America Oct. 2 reported that Ketsana, which had struck Laos Sept. 30, had left at least 16 people dead in that country; at least 100 others were still missing in Laos. The Journal reported Oct. 3 that 300,000 people who had been displaced by Ketsana had returned home, but about 400,000 people still remained in emergency housing. As of Oct. 6, up to two million homes in and around Manila were still partially flooded from Ketsana. The U.S. Cable News Network (CNN) reported on its Web site Oct. 6 that Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, who was leading his country’s relief efforts, had suggested that water levels might not fully recede until late December. United Nations Calls for Donations—

John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Oct. 6 announced that the U.N. was requesting $74 million in donations to fund its efforts to assist survivors of the two storms. The money was expected to fund the cost of additional food, water, shelter and health care, among other needs, for three months for up to 1 million people in the Philippines. Holmes said that the U.N.’s Central Emergency Response Fund had allocated $7 million to help pay for required items and noted that more than $9 million toward the $74 million goal had already been contributed by donors. The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) was expected to receive about $26 million of the funds. n FACTS ON FILE

Other Asia-Pacific News Samoan Tsunami Death Toll Rises. The gov-

ernment of Tonga Oct. 7 announced that the combined death toll in Tonga, Samoa and the U.S. territory of American Samoa from a Sept. 29 tsunami had reached 190. That total included 150 people who had been killed in Samoa, 31 who had been killed in American Samoa and nine people who had died in Tonga. [See p. 662G2] The Tongan government Oct. 7 said it would donate $500,000 to the government of Samoa and $100,000 to American Samoa to supporting continuing relief efforts. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Oct. 2 on its Web site that the Samoan government had ended efforts to search for additional survivors and had decided to prioritize reconstruction efforts. The Samoan government Oct. 6 held a mass burial for some of the unburied victims of the tsunami. Samoans were traditionally buried near their homes; however, the wholesale destruction of multiple villages and major damage to others had complicated normal burial arrangements. The corpses of victims had reportedly been deteriorating quickly due to the high heat on the islands and a refrigerated freight container had been used by the government as a makeshift morgue prior to the burials. Voice of America reported Oct. 6 on its Web site that most telecommunications systems in American Samoa had been repaired and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had stored much of American Samoa’s fresh water supply. However, residents were advised to boil their water before drinking it; the water advisory was canceled Oct. 7. n

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European Union Ireland Approves Treaty in Referendum.

Voters in a referendum in Ireland Oct. 2 approved a European Union treaty by a vote of 67.1% to 32.9%, reversing course after rejecting the treaty in a June 2008 referendum. Ireland was the only one of the EU’s 27 member nations to have submitted the Lisbon Treaty for ratification by a referendum, rather than by a parliamentary vote. Turnout registered at 58% of eligible voters. [See p. 432D1] The treaty would reform the EU’s institutions and create new presidential and foreign affairs posts. It would also alter the group’s internal voting procedures, putting more policy issues to a majority vote instead of requiring unanimous decisions. The treaty was a somewhat watered-down version of a constitution that was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005. [See 2005, p. 365A1] The treaty still required the signatures of the presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic; both country’s parliaments had ratified it. Polish President Lech Kaczynski had pledged to sign the treaty if Irish voters approved it. October 8, 2009

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an outspoken critic of the EU, was seen as the biggest remaining obstacle to the treaty. Klaus had said he would wait until the Czech Constitutional Court ruled on a complaint filed by 17 of his political allies in the Czech Senate, who argued that the treaty did not comport with Czech law. President Jose Manuel Barroso of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, called on Klaus and Kaczynski to sign the treaty as soon as possible. Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer Oct. 7 spoke to Barroso by videophone, offering reassurances that Klaus would be prepared to sign the treaty if the court approved it. Fischer said the Czech government had “created all the conditions for the treaty to be ratified by the end of the year,” adding, “There is no reason for anxiety in Europe.” Klaus Oct. 8 told Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country held the rotating EU presidency, that he wanted to add a “footnote” exempting the Czech Republic from parts of the treaty’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. Supporters of the treaty were pressing to conclude the EU-wide ratification process as soon as possible, partly because of concerns that the Conservative (Tory) Party would win the next general election in Britain, which was due by June 2010, and then carry out its pledge to call a referendum on the treaty. [See p. 685C3] After the first Irish referendum ended in rejection of the treaty, the EU had provided Ireland with guarantees that the country would not be legally bound by the treaty on issues including abortion rights, taxation and military neutrality. The EU also gave assurances that each member nation would continue to have a representative on the European Commission, a key concern for Ireland and other smaller members. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen led the campaign to approve the treaty, as the government moved more aggressively to build support than it had before the first referendum. Most major political parties and business groups in Ireland backed the treaty. However, public anger at the government over its response to an ongoing recession had made the outcome of the referendum uncertain. The sharp shift to support for the treaty in Ireland was largely attributed to the effects of the global economic crisis. The government and other supporters of the treaty had warned that another rejection would leave Ireland isolated in the EU and discourage foreign investment. Presidency Speculation Mounts— With the Lisbon Treaty moving closer to implementation, speculation mounted over who would be appointed to the new post of president of the European Council, which included leaders of the 27 member nations. Currently, the presidency rotated to a different country every six months. The Lisbon Treaty would create a permanent position. The president would be appointed by the council and serve up to two terms of two and a half years each. Although no one was yet overtly campaigning for the presidency, former British

Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely seen as the front-runner. Having served 10 years as prime minister until stepping down in 2007, Blair boasted global stature and experience that could give the EU new credibility on the world stage. However, Blair’s support for the U.S.led invasion of Iraq in 2003 continued to weigh on his popularity in Europe. Also, some smaller EU member nations were expected to oppose a president from one of the bigger members, such as Britain, France or Germany. n

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Great Britain Resurgent Tories Meet in Manchester.

Britain’s main opposition party, the Conservative (Tory) Party, Oct. 5–8 held its annual conference in Manchester, England. The Tories, out of power for 12 years, had a wide lead over the ruling center-left Labour Party in public opinion polls, ahead of a general election due by June 2010 at the latest. [See p. 666C2] Tory leader David Cameron Oct. 8 addressed the conference. Cameron, who would turn 43 Oct. 9, declared that he was “ready to be tested.” He said a Tory government would immediately push through “cutbacks in public spending” and freeze public sector salaries to reduce the budget deficit, estimated at £175 billion ($280 billion) for the current year. He warned that running up more debt would lead to inflation. He vowed to “confront Britain’s culture of irresponsibility” and “tear down Labour’s big government bureaucracy.” However, Cameron said his “first and gravest responsibility” would be the British military deployment in Afghanistan. He said he would “send more soldiers to train more Afghans to deliver the security we need. Then we can bring our troops home.” Cameron confirmed that Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, former chief of staff of the British Army, would join the Tories as an adviser on defense issues. Dannatt, in an interview with the tabloid newspaper the Sun, Oct. 6 said Prime Minister Gordon Brown had rejected his request to send 2,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where 8,300 British troops were already deployed, instead approving only an additional 700 soldiers. [See p. 673A1] EU Treaty Referendum Sought—The issue of the Tories’ cool relations with the European Union threatened to overshadow the conference. In an interview published Oct. 4 in the Sunday Times newspaper, a leading Tory, London Mayor Boris Johnson, called for Britain to hold a referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which had been approved by Irish voters Oct. 2. The treaty would create new positions for an EU president and foreign policy chief, and reform the EU’s voting procedures. [See p. 685F1] Cameron had pledged to call a referendum if the treaty was not in force by the time the Tories came to power, but had not said what he would do if it was already 685

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Britain’s new Supreme Court formally opened in London Oct. 1 with the swearing in of 11 justices. Lord Nicholas Phillips was sworn in as president of the court. A 12th justice was to be appointed later. The Supreme Court replaced the Law Lords as the nation’s highest court of appeal for all criminal and civil cases, except criminal trials in Scotland. [See 2004, p. 187A3] The change had been approved by Parliament as part of the 2005 Constitutional Reform Act. It effectively created a new separation of powers, ending the centuriesold role of the Law Lords, who were members of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament. In another break with tradition, the justices abandoned the wigs and robes of the Law Lords. The court was also supposed to be more accessible to the public. Many of its hearings would be televised. The Supreme Court Oct. 5 heard its first case, in which five terrorism suspects appealed an earlier decision affirming the government’s right to freeze their assets without having convicted them of any crime. At the request of the media, the court lifted an anonymity order, barring reporting of the names of the defendants, for one of the suspects, Syrian-born British citizen Mohammed al-Ghabra, 29. The U.S. in 2006 had alleged that Ghabra arranged for recruits to travel to Pakistan to meet leaders of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and attend training camps. n 686

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ratified by all 27 member nations. Britain and all other members except Ireland had already ratified the treaty by parliamentary votes. Only the Czech and Polish presidents had yet to sign the treaty. Cameron said Oct. 4 that he “would not let matters rest” in the event that the treaty took effect. Cameron had stirred controversy in June by withdrawing the Tories from the mainstream center-right group in the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative branch, and joining a new group made up of parties that opposed increasing EU federalism. Business groups warned that the Tories risked marginalizing British influence over EU policies by aligning themselves with fringe parties and alienating centerright European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. [See p. 432D2] Liberal Democrats Meet— The Liberal Democrats, Britain’s third major party, Sept. 19–23 held their annual conference in Bournemouth, England. Party leader Nick Clegg in a speech Sept. 23 said he wanted to replace Labour “as the dominant force in progressive politics.” He also attacked “a hollow Conservative Party that offers just an illusion of change.” A YouGov poll Oct. 7 found the Tories leading with the support of 43% of voters, trailed by Labour with 29% and the Liberal Democrats with 17%. n

Greece Papandreou Leads Socialists to Victory.

Former Foreign Minister George Papandreou Oct. 4 led the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) to victory in Greek parliamentary elections, defeating the center-right New Democracy Party, which had governed since 2004 under Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. Papandreou was sworn in as prime minister Oct. 6 by the head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens. Papandreou named his cabinet later that day. [See below, p. 591A1; for facts on Papandreou, see p. 686E3] PASOK won an absolute majority of 160 seats in the 300-seat parliament, taking 44% of the vote. New Democracy won 33.5% of the vote, its worst result in its 35year history. The number of its seats in parliament dropped to 91, from 151. Three smaller parties won large enough shares of the vote to earn seats in parliament. The Greek Communist Party (KKE) won 7.5% of the vote, for 21 seats. Another left-wing party, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), won 4.6% and 12 seats. A right-wing nationalist party, the Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), won 5.6% and 15 seats. Karamanlis, 53, Oct. 4 resigned as New Democracy leader immediately after conceding defeat. He had called early elections in September, two years after winning a new four-year term, saying that he sought a new mandate to deal with an economic crisis. His government had been damaged by corruption scandals and drew criticism for its response to wildfires and social unrest over the past year. Papandreou had called for a three billion euro ($4.4 billion) stimulus package of infrastructure projects and pay increases for public employees to help revive the economy, which was expected to contract by about 1% in 2009, after five years of 4% annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates. The global economic downturn had hurt Greece’s key industries of shipping and tourism. Karamanlis, by contrast, had called for cutting spending and freezing public sector hiring and pay. He argued that Greece could not afford Papandreou’s plan. The Greek budget deficit was estimated at more than double the European Union limit of 3% of GDP, and the national debt exceeded 100% of GDP. Papandreou said he planned to increase revenue by cracking down on widespread tax evasion. The election featured a clash of scions of Greek political dynasties. Papandreou, 57, was the son and grandson of former prime ministers, and his father had founded PASOK. Karamanlis’s uncle was a former prime minister and the founder of New Democracy. PASOK’s victory was an exception to a recent trend of defeats for the center-left in European elections, including the loss of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany the previous week. [See p. 664C3]

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou

Cabinet Named— Papandreou Oct. 6 named PASOK spokesman George Papaconstantinou as finance minister. Louka Katseli, a longtime adviser to Papandreou and his father, was tapped for a new post of minister of economy, competitiveness and shipping. Papandreou split the ministry of national economy and finance, calling the move a signal of his resolve to focus on economic revival. He also created a new environment, energy and climate change ministry, naming his aide Tina Birbili as its chief. She was one of five women in his 15-member cabinet. Papandreou said he himself would serve as foreign minister. He had pledged reforms to root out government waste and corruption, vowing to “make the administration effective, transparent and meritocratic.” n FACTS ON PAPANDREOU

George Papandreou was born June 16, 1952, in St. Paul, Minn., in the U.S. His father, Andreas Papandreou, and grandfather, George Papandreou, had both been Greek prime ministers. (Andreas Papandreou had gone into exile in the U.S. in as a young man in 1939, returning to Greece in 1959.) Educated at high schools in the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Greece, he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from Amherst College in the U.S. and the London School of Economics, respectively. [See 1996, p. 456C3; 1968, p. 483A2, E2] He was first elected to the Greek parliament in 1981. His first cabinet post was as minister of education and religious affairs, which he held from 1988 to 1989, and again from 1994 to 1996. He served as foreign minister from 1999 to 2004, improving relations with Turkey and Balkan neighbors. Papandreou led the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), which his father had founded, into the 2004 elections, but lost to the center-right New Democracy Party, led by Costas Karamanlis. New Democracy won a second term in 2007 elections. After Karamanlis called early elections, Papandreou Oct. 4 led PASOK to an absolute parliamentary majority. He was sworn in as prime minister Oct. 6 and named his cabinet, appointing himself as foreign minister. [See p. 686A2] FACTS ON FILE

Italy Court Overturns Berlusconi Immunity Law.

Italy’s Constitutional Court Oct. 7 overturned a law that granted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution. The verdict would reopen at least two pending cases in which the billionaire prime minister and media tycoon was accused of fraud and corruption. A Berlusconi spokesman called the ruling “a politically motivated verdict,” adding that the prime minister and his center-right government would remain in office, rejecting speculation that a court defeat would force him to call early elections or step down. Berlusconi later that day vowed to press on and said he had expected the ruling because the court had “11 leftwing judges.” [See pp. 626A3, 99D3] Berlusconi on a television talk show Oct. 8 also accused President Giorgio Napolitano of leftist bias. Berlusconi had already been under pressure in recent months over allegations that he had entertained prostitutes at his homes. But his public approval rating remained at about 50%, while the center-left opposition was still in disarray after its defeat in April 2008 elections. The immunity law, enacted in July 2008, soon after Berlusconi returned to power for a third time, also shielded the president and two parliamentary leaders. Prosecutors in Milan months later had filed an appeal of the law with the Constitutional Court in Rome, the capital. The 15-member court ruled, 9–6, that the immunity law violated the constitutional principle of equal protection for all citizens. It also ruled that the measure should have been treated as a constitutional reform, requiring a two-thirds majority vote of approval in parliament, rather than an ordinary law needing only a simple majority to approve it. The court had rejected a previous version of the immunity law in 2004. [See 2004, p. 20G1] Berlusconi’s lawyers had argued that he would be unable to fulfill his duties as prime minister if he was forced to defend himself in court at the same time. Found ‘Co-Responsible’ for Bribery—

Berlusconi was dealt an earlier legal setback when a judge in a Milan civil court Oct. 3 ruled that he was “co-responsible” for bribing a judge in 1991 in a takeover battle involving his media empire. The court ordered his family holding company, Fininvest SpA, to pay 750 million euros ($1.1 billion) to CIR SpA, a company controlled by rival media magnate Carlo De Benedetti. Fininvest had defeated CIR in a struggle for one of Italy’s largest publishers, Arnoldo Mondadori SpA. Charges against Berlusconi in that case had been dropped in 2007 due to the statute of limitations. Berlusconi Oct. 5 issued a statement on the Fininvest verdict, calling it a “judicial monstrosity,” and vowing that it would not deter him from completing his five-year term in office. October 8, 2009

Fininvest, which controlled the largest Italian broadcaster, Mediaset SpA, said it would appeal the verdict. In February, a court in Milan had convicted British lawyer David Mills of accepting a $600,000 bribe in exchange for giving false testimony on Berlusconi’s behalf in two 1990s trials. Berlusconi had been a codefendant in that case until the immunity law took effect. He was also a defendant in a separate case in which he was accused of fraud in a purchase of film rights by Mediaset. In a third case, Berlusconi reportedly faced charges of incitement to corruption, in an alleged attempt to persuade two senators to withdraw their support from the center-left government in 2007. Berlusconi, 73, had escaped lasting convictions in a series of previous criminal cases since he entered politics in the 1990s, either through acquittal or the statute of limitations. He had repeatedly blamed his legal troubles on biased leftwing judges. Other News—In related developments: o Tens of thousands of people Oct. 3 joined a demonstration in Rome in support of freedom of the press, protesting Berlusconi’s control over the Italian media through both his privately owned companies and the state-run broadcaster RAI. Organizers said 300,000 people participated in the protest, while police estimated the crowd at 60,000. Berlusconi in August had sued several newspapers in Italy, France and Spain over their reporting on his private life. o Patrizia D’Addario, the escort at the center of the Berlusconi sex scandal, Oct. 1 appeared in a nationally broadcast live interview on RAI. She said Berlusconi knew she was a prostitute on the occasion when she claimed to have spent a night with him at his Rome palazzo in November 2008. “Certainly he knew that I was an escort,” she said. Berlusconi had denied paying for sex, and asserted that he was unaware that women had been paid by a businessman to attend his parties. The businessman, Giampaolo Tarantini, was arrested Sept. 18 on drug-dealing charges in the southern city of Bari. He was also under investigation on prostitution charges. n

Serbia Gang Beats French Soccer Fan to Death.

A gang of soccer fans associated with the Serbian club Partizan Belgrade Sept. 17 beat a French soccer fan with baseball bats and iron bars. The victim, Brice Taton, 28, Sept. 29 died of his injuries. The attack occurred hours before a Europa League match in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, between Partizan Belgrade and the French club Toulouse, which Toulouse won, 3–2. (The UEFA Cup had changed its name to the Europa League for the 2009–10 season.) [See below, p. 687D3; 2007, p. 103E1; 1986, p. 515F1] Serbia’s top prosecutor Sept. 29 said Taton’s assailants would be charged with first-degree murder, which carried a

maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. Police had arrested 11 people in connection with the attack. Many soccer fan clubs in Serbia were reportedly linked with aggressive ultranationalist groups and organized crime. The Serbian prosecutor’s office Oct. 1 said it would request that the country’s constitutional court ban the fan clubs associated with the Belgrade soccer clubs Red Star, Partizan Belgrade and Rad. The office Sept. 25 had also requested bans on the ultranationalist groups Obraz and the Serbian National Movement 1389. Serbian President Boris Tadic Oct. 1 attended a memorial for Taton, and told journalists that violence in society was a continuation of ethnic strife that had accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia.

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FIFA Warns Serbia Over Fan Behavior—

Serbian soccer officials Oct. 8 said the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), world soccer’s governing body, had warned Serbia over fans’ rowdy behavior at recent World Cup qualifying matches. FIFA threatened to dock the Serb team’s qualifying points for the World Cup if fans did not behave, and it also levied a $24,000 fine against Serbia in response to a recent incident in which Serb fans had thrown fireworks onto the field during a match between Serbia and France. n Gay Pride Parade Canceled Amid Threats.

Organizers of a gay pride parade slated to take place in central Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, Sept. 19 canceled the event after police said they were unable to guarantee security there. Anti-gay groups had threatened violence if the parade were allowed to proceed. Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic suggested that the organizers move the event to a sports arena, but parade organizers declined. At Serbia’s last gay pride parade, in 2001, police had failed to protect participants from protesters, and a number of people had been seriously injured in the subsequent clashes. [See pp. 687F2, 379B1] The move to cancel the parade came after Serbian President Boris Tadic Sept. 18 had promised to “protect people, whatever their national, religious, sexual or political orientation.” Graffiti reading “We’re expecting you” had cropped up around Belgrade in the days before the parade was scheduled to take place. The Serbian National Movement 1389 called the cancellation “a great victory for normal Serbia.” Serbian officials were currently seeking to ban the movement, along with several other ultranationalist groups, for allegedly jeopardizing human rights that were guaranteed by Serbia’s constitution. Officials Sept. 19 banned all public gatherings in Belgrade. However, ultranationalists Sept. 20 attempted to hold a rally in the center of the city. Police arrested 37 people and charged at least five with crimes. Belgrade police had arrested one member of the 1389 group the previous day, also for attempting to hold a rally. n 687

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United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei Oct. 2 traveled to Iran, and Oct. 4 announced in Tehran, the Iranian capital, that IAEA inspectors would visit a recent disclosed Iranian nuclear facility near the city of Qom on Oct. 25. ElBaradei said the IAEA had no “concrete proof” that Iran was developing nuclear weapons, and praised the Iranian government for “shifting from confrontation into transparency and cooperation.” But he warned that the agency had “concerns about Iran’s future intentions” regarding its nuclear program. [See p. 649A1] Iran’s top nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, Oct. 4 said he would meet Oct. 19 with envoys from the U.S., France and Russia to discuss an agreement for Iran to obtain enriched uranium for a medical research reactor. Iran in a meeting days earlier had reportedly agreed to send much of its lightly enriched uranium to France and Russia for the further enrichment needed to make it into fuel for the medical reactor. However, Iran’s state-run Press TV Oct. 4 reported that Iranian officials denied making such a deal, but said they would discuss buying enriched uranium at the Oct. 19 meeting. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Oct. 7 accused the U.S. of involvement in the disappearance of Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who had disappeared in July while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Amiri reportedly had links to the Qom facility, and Mottaki said he had been arrested by the Saudi Arabian government; however, some news reports said he had defected to the U.S. A U.S. State Department spokesman denied having any information on Amiri’s whereabouts. Secret Report Says Iran Can Make Bomb—

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The New York Times Oct. 4 reported that an unreleased IAEA report claimed that Iran had “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device.” Implosion-based weapons were compact enough to be used as a missile warhead. The IAEA said Iran had “most likely” obtained the information “from external sources.” Iran was believed to have obtained such designs from a black market ring led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. [See p. 599G1] The Associated Press (AP) Sept. 17 had published initial excerpts from the report. More extensive excerpts had been published Oct. 2 on the Web site of the Institute for Science and International Security, run by nuclear expert David Albright, and had been confirmed by unnamed senior European officials. U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 had reported that Iran had stopped its program to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, although some other countries had said that it had since restarted the program. James Jones, the U.S. national security adviser, 688

Oct. 4 said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. stood by its 2007 report. [See 2007, p. 797A1] n Students Protest Against Government.

Thousands of students Sept. 28 protested against the Iranian government on the first day of the academic year at Tehran University in Tehran, the capital. The protests were repeated Sept. 29 at another major university in Tehran, Sharif University. The student demonstrations represented a new front in the Iranian opposition movement’s campaign against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, after mass protests following disputed June presidential elections were brutally crushed by security forces. [See p. 645A3] Security forces Sept. 28 reportedly did not enter Tehran University, but clashed with crowds who had gathered outside to support the students. The protests caused Ahmadinejad to cancel an appointment to speak at Tehran University Sept. 28, and the higher education minister, Kamran Daneshjoo, the next day cut short an appearance at Sharif University. Authorities Oct. 2 arrested 18 student leaders in northern Tehran who belonged to the Office for Consolidating Unity, a pro-democracy student group that had been targeted by the government. Opposition Web sites Oct. 6 reported that the government had shut down three pro-reform newspapers. State media reported Oct. 5 that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had appointed a new leader of the Basij militia, which had taken a lead role in putting down the post-election unrest. The new leader was Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a prominent figure in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite branch of the military that had also helped to put down the protests. Naqdi was accused by opposition figures of involvement in torturing reformists and suppressing student protests, and had been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council in 2008 for his alleged role in Iran’s nuclear program. Also, the Revolutionary Guards Sept. 27 purchased a stake of more than 50% of the Telecommunications Company of Iran. The $7.8 billion deal, which was billed as part of a government privatization plan, was seen as giving the Revolutionary Guards more control over Iran’s Internet and cellular phone services, which had been used by opposition activists to organize protests but were partially cut off by the government during the unrest. The Revolutionary Guards’ only competition for the deal was a company affiliated with the Basij. Under Ahmadinejad’s administration, the Revolutionary Guards had increased their holdings in many of Iran’s industries, and had been awarded more than 750 construction, oil and gas contracts. n

Iraq Maliki Sets Broad Coalition for 2010 Elections.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Oct. 1 announced that he had formed a broad coalition of political parties to contest parlia-

mentary elections in January 2010. The coalition, which was led by Maliki’s Shiite Muslim–dominated Dawa Party, included some 40 political parties, and Maliki invited more to join. It was called the State of Law coalition, taking its name from a previous Maliki-led coalition that had performed well in January provincial elections. [See pp. 668A1, 592A1, 118B1] Maliki said the coalition would run on a platform of national unity, backing a strong central government and an independent judiciary. He pledged to bolster human rights, expand opportunities for women and fight corruption. Critics had accused Maliki of amassing too much power as president, but members of the coalition said it aimed to be inclusive and act by consensus, although it reportedly was still led by Maliki. The coalition included Shiite, Sunni Muslim, Kurdish and Christian politicians, and figures from Iraq’s tribes. However, few of them were considered to be national leaders with large followings. Its main rival was expected to be the Iraqi National Alliance, a coalition formed in August that was led by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), one of the largest Muslim parties in the country, and by the political movement of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Maliki had turned down offers to join that coalition because it would not guarantee that he would be its candidate for prime minister and that Dawa would receive a certain number of seats in parliament. The elections were scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010. However, the Iraqi parliament had not yet passed legislation governing the elections, which among other things would require a decision on power-sharing in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, whose control was contested by its various ethnic groups. Violence Increases in Anbar—Bombings in the western province of Anbar Oct. 5–6 killed at least 16 people. Anbar had once been a center of the Sunni insurgency, but had grown more peaceful as Sunni tribesmen turned against the insurgents and joined so-called Awakening Councils allied with the U.S. and the Iraqi government. However, U.S. troops had pulled out of most of their bases in the province in 2009, and it had seen violence increase again with a series of attacks over the last month. In the deadliest recent attack, a pickup truck loaded with explosives Oct. 6 blew up in the city of Amiriya, killing at least nine people. The previous day, a suicide bomber had attacked a funeral in the town of Haditha, killing at least six mourners, and three bombings in the city of Fallujah had left one person dead. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o The Iraqi government Oct. 7 released from custody 36 members of an Iranian exile group, Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), six weeks after an Iraqi judge had ordered them to be freed. The MEK members had been arrested after Iraqi police clashed with the group at their compound, Camp Ashraf, located north of Baghdad. At least six people had reportedly been killed in those clashes. [See p. 501G2] FACTS ON FILE

o The Washington Post Oct. 7 reported that Iraqi troops Sept. 28 had detained four U.S. private security contractors in the heavily fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. According to a spokesman for Falls Church, Va.–based DynCorp International Inc., which employed the contractors, and an account of the incident apparently written by a DynCorp employee, Iraqi troops had stopped a convoy in the Green Zone guarded by the contractors. After a contractor hit an Iraqi officer, the Iraqis reportedly detained the contractors for several hours and beat them severely. The U.S. military later secured their release and flew them out of the country to avoid possible criminal charges against them. Iraqi officials confirmed the detainment but said the contractors had not been beaten. The incident was seen as an example of increased Iraqi assertiveness in displaying authority over U.S. contractors, who were put under Iraqi jurisdiction by a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect Jan. 1. [See p. 53B2] o An unnamed Iraqi security official Oct. 2 told media outlets that Iraqi forces over the past week had arrested more than 150 suspected insurgents in a sweep of Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh and one of the remaining urban centers of the Sunni insurgency. He said some U.S. troops took part in the operation in a supporting role. n

Israel Former PM Olmert’s Corruption Trial Begins.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sept. 25 appeared in a Jerusalem court at the start of his trial on corruption charges including fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate records and failing to report income. Olmert, 63, did not testify at the procedural hearing, but proclaimed his innocence and said that after “an almost inhumane campaign of defamation and inquiries” over the past three years, the court must focus on “facts, and facts alone.” Olmert, who had served as prime minister from 2006 until he resigned in September 2008, was the first sitting or former Israeli prime minister to stand trial. [See p. 593A1] The judge Sept. 25 ruled that the next stage of the trial would begin Feb. 22, 2010; defense lawyers had pushed to delay it until April 2010. The charges against Olmert related to three main cases. In one, U.S. businessman Morris Talansky in 2008 had testified that he gave Olmert more than $600,000 between 1997 and 2005; prosecutors accused Olmert of hiding the money and abusing his government position to benefit Talansky’s business interests, although they did not say that he had taken bribes. Olmert was also charged with double-billing Israeli and U.S. government agencies and charities for trips abroad, and using the more than $92,000 in ill-gotten gains for personal and family travel. In the third case, Olmert was alleged to have improperly promoted the business interests of his former law partner, Uri Messer; in return, Messer alOctober 8, 2009

legedly provided Olmert services including running a “secret fund” containing money from Talansky and others. Police Recommend Minister’s Indictment—

Separately, Israeli police Aug. 2 recommended that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice and witness tampering. In a statement, the police said associates of Lieberman’s had transferred millions of shekels on his behalf over the past nine years, using their companies and front companies to hide his involvement. The recommendation would have to be approved by the state prosecutor’s office and then by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz before Lieberman could be formally indicted. [See p. 209F3] Lieberman, who headed the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, the main coalition partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said he was innocent, and claimed, “For 13 years the police have conducted a campaign of persecution” against him based on his politics. n

Other Middle East News Video of Kidnapped Israeli Soldier Released.

The Israeli government Oct. 2 received a video recording of an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Palestinian militants in June 2006, in exchange for releasing 20 Palestinian prisoners. The video was the first that had been seen of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit since his abduction, and the Israeli government said it proved that he was still alive and in relatively good condition. The deal, which had been mediated by Germany and Egypt, had been announced Sept. 30. [See p. 615D1] In the recording, Shalit, 23, reportedly looked thin but healthy, and demonstrated that he could walk. He identified himself and held up a Palestinian newspaper dated Sept. 14, 2009. Shalit said the military wing of the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the Gaza Strip, was treating him “excellently,” but called on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to secure his release. The Israeli government Oct. 2 received a digital video disc (DVD) of the recording, and Israeli officials, including Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, viewed it and verified its authenticity. A copy was given to Shalit’s family, and, after they authorized its wider release, it was broadcast on all Israeli television channels. Israel Oct. 2 released 19 of the Palestinian prisoners—all women—and Oct. 4 released the 20th woman. Eighteen of the prisoners were residents of the West Bank, while the remaining two returned to the Gaza Strip. A Hamas official said four of the prisoners belonged to his organization; five to the rival Fatah movement; three to the more extreme Islamic Jihad; and one to the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; with the remainder not being affiliated with any group. Hamas had demanded that Israel free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for

Shalit’s release, many of whom were convicted of involvement in deadly attacks. Israeli President Shimon Peres Sept. 30 said the current deal was a “positive step,” but cautioned that securing Shalit’s release would still be difficult.

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U.N. Vote on Gaza Report Dropped—

The United Nations Human Rights Council Oct. 2 deferred action on a report that accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during their conflict in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. The council pushed back a vote on whether to forward the report to the U.N. Security Council until March 2010. [See p. 614E1] The decision came after the Palestinian Authority (PA), under heavy U.S. pressure, Oct. 1 withdrew its support for the resolution, which the U.S. said would have derailed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israel had attacked the report as biased, and Netanyahu Oct. 1 said that approving the resolution would deal peace prospects “a fatal blow.” The PA decision was strongly criticized and protested by many in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the Middle East, and Hamas officials denounced it as a betrayal. PA officials Oct. 7 said they would reconsider their decision, and the Palestinian Observer Mission at the U.N. endorsed a motion for the Security Council to take up the issue. Palestinians, Police Clash in Jerusalem—

Israeli police Sept. 27 clashed with about 150 Palestinian protesters at a holy site revered by both Jews and Muslims in the Old City of East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed after the 1967 Israeli-Arab War. The clashes started after Palestinians threw stones at a group of what they said were Jewish settlers trying to enter the site, a complex known as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, to Muslims, and as the Temple Mount to Jews. However, Israeli police said the group was actually made up of non-Jewish French tourists. Media sources reported differing numbers of Palestinians and Israeli police injured, and also reported several arrests. Police closed the site after Palestinian officials called on Palestinians to gather there. There were further clashes between Palestinians and police reported that day around Jerusalem, and again Oct. 4–6, which coincided with the start of the Jewish holiday week of Sukkot. The initial clash occurred a day before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and the anniversary of the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 2000. The second intifada had started with clashes at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif site, after then–Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon paid a controversial visit there. [See 2000, p. 731A1] Other News—In related news: o Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon in September declined an invitation to speak at a charity event in Britain over fears that he would be arrested for alleged war crimes, it was reported Oct. 5. Ya’alon’s spokesman 689

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said he had been advised not to travel to Britain because pro-Palestinian activists were seeking his arrest for his involvement in an air strike that had killed a Hamas leader and 14 civilians in Gaza in 2002, while he was the Israeli army’s chief of staff. British law allowed for individuals to file war crimes complaints against foreign nationals for actions committed outside of Britain. Activists Sept. 29 had sought to obtain a warrant for the arrest of Barak for alleged war crimes committed during the December 2008–January 2009 Gaza conflict, but were turned down because Barak was in Britain on an official visit and therefore had immunity. [See 2002, p. 549A1] o An Israeli air strike in Gaza Sept. 25 killed three Palestinian militants who the Israeli military said were on their way to fire rockets at Israel. Islamic Jihad said the men were members of its military wing, and Israel accused them of being involved in numerous rocket and mortar attacks on Israel in recent weeks. The air strike took place in the Tufah area, east of Gaza City. Targeted Israeli strikes on Palestinian militants had reportedly been rare since the fighting in Gaza ended in January. n

2009 Final Major League Baseball Standings American League EAST DIVISION W L Pct.

D New York Boston* Tampa Bay Toronto Baltimore

E

Minnesota Detroit Chicago Cleveland Kansas City Los Angeles Texas Seattle Oakland

103 95 84 75 64

— 8 19 28 39

CENTRAL DIVISION** W L Pct.

GB

.534 .528 .488 .401 .401

— 1 7½ 21½ 21½

WEST DIVISION W L Pct.

GB

97 87 85 75

76 77 83 97 97 65 75 77 87

.599 .537 .525 .463

— 10 12 22

EAST DIVISION W L Pct.

GB

National League

F

Philadelphia Florida Atlanta New York Washington St. Louis Chicago Milwaukee Cincinnati Houston Pittsburgh

G

Los Angeles Colorado* San Francisco San Diego Arizona

93 87 86 70 59

.574 .537 .531 .432 .364

— 6 7 23 34

CENTRAL DIVISION W L Pct.

GB

91 83 80 78 74 62

69 75 76 92 103

.562 .516 .494 .481 .457 .385

— 7½ 11 13 17 28½

WEST DIVISION W L Pct.

GB

95 92 88 75 70

71 78 82 84 88 99 67 70 74 87 92

.586 .568 .543 .463 .432

— 3 7 20 25

*Won wild-card berth **Minnesota beat Detroit Oct. 6 in a one-game playoff to decide the A.L. Central Division winner.

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MLB Season Ends Twins Claim A.L. Central in Playoff. The

Minnesota Twins Oct. 6 defeated the Detroit Tigers, 6–5, in 12 innings in Minneapolis, Minn., to win a one-game playoff to determine the winner of the American League (A.L.) Central Division. Both teams had finished with a regular-season record of 86 wins and 76 losses. The other 28 Major League Baseball (MLB) teams had ended their seasons Oct. 4. [See p. 483F2] With the loss, the Tigers became the first team in MLB history to relinquish a three-game division lead with four games left in the season. The New York Yankees Sept. 27 clinched the A.L. East with a 4–2 home win over the division rival Boston Red Sox. The Yankees finished the season with the best record in MLB: 103 wins and 59 losses. The Red Sox clinched the A.L. wild card Sept. 29, when the Texas Rangers lost to the Los Angeles Angels, 5–2, in Anaheim, Calif. The Angels Sept. 28 had

clinched the A.L. West with an 11–0 win over the Rangers in Anaheim. N.L. Playoff Races—The Los Angeles Dodgers Oct. 3 clinched the National League (N.L.) West division with a 5–0 victory at home over the second-place Colorado Rockies. The Rockies took the N.L. wild-card berth. The defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies Sept. 30 had clinched the N.L. East when their closest competitor at the time, the Atlanta Braves, lost 5–4 to the Florida Marlins in Atlanta, Ga. The St. Louis Cardinals Sept. 26 clinched the N.L. Central with a 6–3 victory over the Rockies in Denver, Colo. [See 2008, p. 799D2] Other News—In other MLB news: o The Cleveland Indians Sept. 30 fired manager Eric Wedge; however, he remained to manage the team’s last six games. [See 2007, p. 776A2] o The Houston Astros Sept. 21 fired manager Cecil Cooper. Third base coach Dave Clark took over for the rest of the season. [See 2007, p. 659F1] o Yankees captain and shortstop Derek Jeter Sept. 11 got his 2,722th career hit,

2009 Final Major League Baseball Statistical Leaders** American League

National League

Individual Batting†

Individual Batting†

G

GB

.636 .586 .519 .463 .395

87 86 79 65 65

59 67 78 87 98

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Mauer, Minnesota Suzuki, Seattle Jeter, New York Cabrera, Detroit Young, Texas Bartlett, Tampa Bay Cano, New York Aybar, Los Angeles Span, Minnesota Ordonez, Detroit

138 146 153 160 135 137 161 137 145 131

AB

R

523 94 639 88 634 107 611 96 541 76 500 90 637 103 504 70 578 97 465 54

H

Avg.

191 225 212 198 174 160 204 157 180 144

.365 .352 .334 .324 .322 .320 .320 .312 .311 .310

RUNS BATTED IN—Teixeira, New York, 122; Bay, Boston, 119; Lind, Toronto, 114; Longoria, Tampa Bay, 113; Hill, Toronto, 108; Martinez, Boston, 108; Morales, Los Angeles, 108. HOME RUNS—Pena, Tampa Bay, 39; Teixeira, 39; Bay, 36; Hill, 36; Lind, 35. DOUBLES—Roberts, Baltimore, 56; Butler, Kansas City, 51; Cano, 48; Pedroia, Boston, 48; Lind, 46. TRIPLES—Ellsbury, Boston, 10; Span, 10; Aybar, 9; DeJesus, Kansas City, 9; five tied with eight. HITS—Suzuki, 225; Jeter, 212; Cano, 204; Cabrera, 198; Hill, 195. RUNS—Pedroia, 115; Figgins, Los Angeles, 114; Roberts, 110; Damon, New York, 107; Jeter, 107. STOLEN BASES—Ellsbury, 70; Crawford, Tampa Bay, 60; Figgins, 42; Upton, Tampa Bay, 42; Davis, Oakland, 41. EARNED RUN AVERAGE—Greinke, Kansas City, 2.16; Hernandez, Seattle, 2.49; Halladay, Toronto, 2.79; Sabathia, New York, 3.37; Lester, Boston, 3.41. VICTORIES—Hernandez, 19–5; Sabathia, 19– 8; Verlander, Detroit, 19–9; Beckett, Boston, 17–6; Feldman, Texas, 17–8; Halladay, 17–10. STRIKEOUTS—Verlander, 269; Greinke, 242; Lester, 225; Hernandez, 217; Halladay, 208. SAVES—Fuentes, Los Angeles, 48; Nathan, Minnesota, 47; Rivera, New York, 44; Aardsma, 38; Papelbon, Boston, 38.

G

Ramirez, Florida 151 Sandoval, San Francisco 153 Pujols, St. Louis 160 Helton, Colorado 151 Votto, Cincinnati 131 Coghlan, Florida 128 Braun, Milwaukee 158 Tejada, Houston 158 Lopez, Milwaukee 151 Morgan, Washington 120 Prado, Atlanta 128 Wright, New York 144

AB

R

576 101 572 79 568 124 544 79 469 82 504 84 635 113 635 83 604 88 469 74 450 64 535 88

H

Avg.

197 189 186 177 151 162 203 199 187 144 138 164

.342 .330 .327 .325 .322 .321 .320 .313 .310 .307 .307 .307

RUNS BATTED IN—Fielder, Milwaukee, 141; Howard, Philadelphia, 141; Pujols, 135; Braun, 114; Lee, Chicago, 111. HOME RUNS—Pujols, 47; Fielder, 46; Howard, 45; Reynolds, Arizona, 44; Gonzalez, San Diego, 40. DOUBLES—Tejada, 46; Pujols, 45; Sandoval, 44; Rollins, Philadephia, 43; four tied at 42. TRIPLES—Victorino, Philadelphia, 13; Bourn, Houston, 12; Drew, Arizona, 12; Pagan, New York, 11; Fowler, Colorado, 10. HITS—Braun, 203; Tejada, 199; Ramirez, 197; Sandoval, 189; Lopez, 187. RUNS—Pujols, 124; Braun, 113; Utley, Philadelphia, 112; Zimmerman, Washington, 110; Howard, 105. STOLEN BASES—Bourn, 61; Morgan, 42; Kemp, Los Angeles, 34; Rollins, 31; Pierre, Los Angeles, 30. EARNED RUN AVERAGE—Carpenter, St. Louis, 2.24; Lincecum, San Francisco, 2.48; Jurrjens, Atlanta, 2.60; Wainwright, St. Louis, 2.63; Kershaw, Los Angeles, 2.79. VICTORIES—Wainwright, 19–8; Carpenter, 17–4; De la Rosa, Colorado, 16–9; eight tied with 15 wins. STRIKEOUTS—Lincecum, 261; Vazquez, Atlanta, 238; Haren, Arizona, 223; Wainwright, 212; Gallardo, Milwaukee, 204. SAVES—Bell, San Diego, 42; Cordero, Cincinnati, 39; Franklin, St. Louis, 38; Wilson, San Francisco, 38; Hoffman, Milwaukee, 37.

*The complete names of the players are found in the index. †Based on minimum 3.1 plate appearances for each game a player’s team played. **Minnesota and Detroit players’ statistics include Oct. 6 playoff to decide the A.L. Central Division winner.

FACTS ON FILE

surpassing the legendary first baseman Lou Gehrig as the player with the most hits for the storied franchise. Jeter Aug. 16 had broken Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio’s MLB record for hits by a shortstop (2,673). [See 2008, p. 710F3] o The Tampa Bay Rays Aug. 28 traded pitcher Scott Kazmir, a two-time All-Star, to the Angels for two minor-league players and a player to be named. o Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, in an Aug. 8 press conference, responded to a late July report in the New York Times that he had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Ortiz claimed that he had never used steroids, but admitted that he had been “careless” about taking over-the-counter supplements and vitamins that could have led to the positive test. [See p. 530E3] o The Red Sox Aug. 7 designated veteran pitcher John Smoltz for assignment. Smoltz, 42, Aug. 19 signed with the Cardinals for the rest of the season. [See p. 278D1] n

Olympics Rio Picked to Host 2016 Summer Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Oct. 2 at a meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, voted to select Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Rio beat out bids from Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid, the Spanish capital, to become the first South American city to be chosen as an Olympic host. [See 2007, p. 471F2] Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting, receiving 18 votes, compared with 28 for Madrid, 26 for Rio and 22 for Tokyo. Tokyo was knocked out in the second round, with 20 votes, to 46 for Rio and 29 for Madrid. In the final round, Rio won decisively, garnering 66 votes to Madrid’s 32. Chicago’s first-round elimination surprised many observers, as it had been considered the favorite along with Rio. U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama traveled to Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago, which was the Obamas’ hometown. President Obama Oct. 2 prior to the vote had given what was described as an impassioned speech in support of Chicago’s bid. He was the first sitting U.S. president to address the IOC as part of an American city’s Olympic campaign, and his personal popularity and charisma had been expected to aid Chicago’s bid. The three other contenders also gave presentations to the IOC prior to the vote. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also traveled to Copenhagen in support of the bids. Da Silva in his speech during Rio’s presentation said, “For the others it would be just one more Games, for us it would be an unparalleled opportunity,” referring to the fact that the three other countries had hosted Games in the past. Selecting Rio, he added, “would send a message [that] the October 8, 2009

Olympic Games belong to all people, all continents and all humanity.” IOC President Jacques Rogge, in announcing the winner, praised Rio for presenting a “very strong technical bid, built upon a vision of the Games being a celebration of the athletes and sport, as well as providing the opportunity for the city, region and country to deliver their broader long-term aspirations for the future.” Three Sports Added— The 15-member IOC executive board, meeting in Berlin, Germany’s capital, Aug. 13 voted to include women’s boxing in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, which would be held in London. The executive board that day also recommended that men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s rugby sevens be included in the 2016 Games; the full IOC was widely expected to approve that recommendation in an Oct. 9 vote. The executive board rejected bids by softball, baseball, karate and roller sports to be included. [See 2006, p. 314E3] Golf had been played in only two other Olympics, in 1900 and 1904. Many of the world’s top players, including world number one Tiger Woods of the U.S., had indicated that they would participate in the Olympics. Fifteen-a-side rugby had been played in four Games between 1900 and 1924, but the seven-a-side format had never before made an appearance. The IOC in 2005 had voted to eliminate baseball and softball from the Games starting with the 2012 Olympics. In 2006, softball lost an appeal of the decision. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Paleontology Human Predecessor ‘Ardi’ Older Than ‘Lucy.’

An international team of scientists Oct. 1 displayed the pieced-together fossilized skeleton of a primate predecessor of humans that lived 4.4 million years ago. The newly discovered species, Ardipithecus ramidus (nicknamed “Ardi”), was older and more primitive than the famed “Lucy”—a member of the human predecessor species Australopithecus afarensis—who lived 3.2 million years ago. Members of the scientific team, led by Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley, announced their discovery in dual press conferences in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. They published 11 papers in the Oct. 2 edition of the journal Science. [See 2006, p. 1041C2] A molar of Ardi’s was first discovered in 1992, and the first bones were found in 1994, with excavation and analysis continuing until the present. The 125-piece fossil was discovered in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia, 140 miles (225 km) northeast of Addis Ababa and 45 miles south of Hadar, where Lucy was found in 1974. The region was currently a desert, but had been woodland when Ardi lived there. Scientists said Ardi probably was a female, and was about four feet (1.2 m) tall

and weighed about 110 lbs (50 kg), a foot taller and twice the weight of Lucy. She had had a brain the size of a modern chimpanzee’s. Ardi showed traits indicating that she was in the midst of an evolutionary transition from life in the trees to walking upright on two legs, whereas the savannah-dwelling Lucy had more fully made the transition. For instance, Ardi had grasping big toes for tree-climbing that Lucy lacked, and did not have Lucy’s arched feet. Lucy also had larger molars than Ardi, reflecting Lucy’s more varied diet on the savannah. Scientists said Ardi did not bear much resemblance to modern chimpanzees, suggesting that chimpanzees had evolved significantly from the “last common ancestor” of chimpanzees and humans, while that ancestor would have borne more of a resemblance to Ardi. Scientists were still searching for the last common ancestor, which many said lived some seven million years ago. Male Ardipithecus were reported not to have the projecting canine teeth that apes used as weapons or for displays of dominance. Some scientists said that indicated that Ardipithecus had developed a social system involving some male-female pair bonding and less competition among males, but others disputed that. n

Medical Research Prescribed Heroin Effective as Treatment.

A study published Aug. 19 on the Web site of the New England Journal of Medicine reported that prescribed heroin was the safest and most effective treatment for people with a hard-core addiction to the drug. Researchers in Canada had enrolled 226 heroin addicts in the study, all of whom had failed to respond to other treatments. Of the participants, 111 were treated with methadone, a drug that prevented the effects of heroin withdrawal, but did not provide a similar high. Another 115 addicts were given prescribed doses of diacetylmorphine, the active ingredient in heroin. [See 2000, p. 287E1] The researchers found that 88% of the addicts given prescribed doses of heroin had remained in the study after 15 months, compared with 54% in the methadone group. Of those given heroin, 67% said they had curtailed their use of illicit drugs and other illegal activities, while only 48% of those given methadone reported a similar response. However, those given heroin suffered from a higher risk of overdoses and seizures. The results of the study were not expected to have an effect on treatment practices in the U.S., where heroin could not legally be used for medical purposes. However, the treatment had been already found effective in several European countries; Switzerland had prescribed heroin to addicts for 10 years. The research was led by Martin Schechter, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health in Canada. n 691

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Awards Historical Novel Wins Man Booker Prize.

Britain’s top literary award, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, worth £50,000 (about $80,000), Oct. 6 was awarded to British author Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall, a sprawling novel about 16th-century England focusing on the court of King Henry VIII and, in particular, on the rise to power of that monarch’s main adviser, Thomas Cromwell. Mantel had been the odds-on favorite to win the prize, which Britons tended to bet heavily on, and was the first betting favorite to win it since Yann Martel won for Life of Pi in 2002. [See 2008, p. 779C3; 2002, p. 840D1] Mantel, 57, was the author of 10 novels, as well as a short-story collection and a memoir. Although her previous books had generally been well-received, she had never been a Man Booker finalist before. She had worked on Wolf Hill for years, and had already begun working on a sequel. Mantel had been one of six writers shortlisted for the prize on Sept. 8. All the shortlisted authors, including Mantel, won £2,500. The other five were: A.S. Byatt, for The Children’s Book, about Britons coming of age in the period leading up to World War I; J.M. Coetzee for Summertime, a fictionalized memoir; Adam Foulds, for The Quickening Maze, about the confinement of 19th-century British poet John Clare in an insane asylum; Simon Mawer, for The Glass Room, a historical novel set in a house built in 1930s Czechoslovakia; and Sarah Waters, for The Little Stranger, a story mirroring the collapse of the British class system after World War II. Byatt had won the prize once before, in 1990, for Possession, while Coetzee, the 2003 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, had been in line to win it for an unprecedented third time, following his 1983 and 1999 wins, for Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace, respectively. [See 2003, p. 819F1; 1999, p. 807F1; 1990, p. 804G1] n

People CBS television talk show host David Letterman on his Oct. 1 “Late Show” announced

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that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had had sexual relationships with a number of his female employees, which Letterman, 62, admitted was true. That day, New York City police arrested CBS News employee Robert J. Halderman, 51, a producer of the network’s true-crime show “48 Hours Mystery,” as the would-be extortionist. [See p. 192A1] Letterman told his audience that, after three meetings with Halderman, he had brought the matter to the attention of the office of the district attorney for the New York City borough of Manhattan. They worked out the details of a sting operation that called for Letterman to give Halderman a bogus $2 million check. Halderman was arrested Oct. 1 after trying to cash it. Letterman representatives Oct. 2 identified Stephanie Birkitt, Letterman’s onetime personal assistant, as one of the female 692

staffers Letterman had slept with. Birkitt, 34, had until recently lived with Halderman in Norwalk, Conn. Meanwhile, Halderman Oct. 2 in Manhattan pleaded not guilty to attempted first-degree grand larceny and was released on $200,000 bail. Letterman Oct. 5 devoted a segment of his show to issuing an apology to his wife, Regina Lasko, and the members of his staff. Letterman had married Lasko, 49, in March, after a lengthy courtship. They were the parents of a son, born in 2003, who had been targeted in a 2005 kidnapping plot foiled by Montana police. [See 2005, p. 724E2] n

O B I T UA R I E S EDELMAN, Marek, 90, Polish Jew who had been the last survivor among the five leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, the first and largest act of armed urban resistance to Nazi German forces during World War II; a year later, he joined non-Jewish Polish resistance fighters in another failed attempt to liberate Warsaw from the Germans; after the war, he obtained a medical degree and became one of Poland’s leading cardiologists; in 1968, during a wave of anti-Semitism in Poland, his Polish-Jewish wife and their two children left Poland and settled in Paris, but he decided to remain in the country; he was active in the 1980s Solidarity labor movement that was instrumental in the overthrow of Poland’s communist regime; born Sept. 19, 1919, in Homel (or Gomel), in a region of Eastern Europe that was now part of Belarus; died Oct. 2 at the Warsaw home of a friend of his; no cause of death was reported. [See 1986, p. 859E3; 1983, p. 306A2] PENN, Irving, 92, fashion, portrait and art photographer, who for decades was, along with Richard Avedon, the dominant U.S. photographer at the crossroads of fashion and art; from 1943 on, the main showcase for Penn’s fashion photography was Vogue magazine, for which he shot more than 150 covers; his work was known for its austerity, as he preferred to shoot against a plain backdrop and not use props; since the 1960s, he had printed his own pictures using platinum salts rather than the conventional silver, an elaborate process that enhanced the luminosity of his images; he photographed not only models and celebrities but also tradesmen—wearing their work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade—and indigenous peoples in places ranging from Peru to Morocco to New Guinea; he even made a series of stylized photographs of crushed cigarette butts, exhibited at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1975; he was the older brother of Arthur Penn, who directed such films as Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and was also a stage director; born June 16, 1917, in Plainfield, N.J.; died Oct. 7 at his New York home; no cause of death was reported. [See 2004, pp. 788F2, 415D3; 1967, p. 520G2] RHONE, Trevor Dave, 69, Jamaica’s most renowned dramatist; his plays included Smile Orange (1971), about Jamaican tourism, and Old Story Time (1979), a family saga; with Perry Henzell, he scripted the film The Harder They Come (1972), which became an international cult classic; Henzell died in 2006; born March 24, 1940, in Kingston, Jamaica; died Sept. 15 at a Kingston hospital, of an apparent heart attack. [See 2008, p. 268B2; 2006, p. 943D3] SOSA, (Haydee) Mercedes, 74, Argentine singer who, singing in a powerful contralto voice, was among the leading exponents of the socially engaged Nueva Cancion (New Song) movement that flourished in Latin America in the 1960s, at a time when the continent was largely wracked by political turmoil; after the military took control of Argentina in the mid-1970s, she was increasingly harassed, before being arrested in 1979, while performing in the university town of La Plata; she subsequently went into exile, living in Spain and France until 1982, when she returned to Argentina, not long before the restoration of democracy; in the latter part of her career, she broadened her repertory to include material by younger, folk-rock-oriented songwriters like Charly Garcia and Fito Paez; as her international reputation grew, she worked with leading non–Latin American artists, including Luciano Pavarotti, Sting and Joan Baez; she made dozens of recordings over the years, and was a three-time recipient of the Latin Grammy Award for best folk recording, in 2000, 2003 and 2006; born July 9, 1935, in San Miguel de Tucuman, Argentina; died Oct. 4 at a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina; she was being treated for kidney disease and heart and lung ailments. n

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October 8, 2009

U.S. President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize Award Early in Term Greeted With Surprise Praised For Diplomatic, Nuclear Efforts.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee Oct. 9 in Oslo, Norway, announced that it had awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, 48. The other 2009 Nobel Prizes were announced in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 5–12. Each award carried a monetary value of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.4 million). [See 2008, p. 758D1] Obama won the peace prize less than nine months into his presidency; the deadline for the submission of nominations for the prize had been Feb. 1, just 11 days into his term. Obama was awarded the prize for having “created a new climate in international politics” and “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The Nobel committee more specifically cited his strong support for nuclear disarmament and his calls for stronger international action to combat global warming. [See p. 633F1] Obama, who reportedly did not even know that he had been nominated for the prize, was awakened with the news at the White House in Washington, D.C., at 6:00 a.m. Five hours later, in the White House’s Rose Garden, he delivered a brief public statement about the prize, saying, “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize.” Nevertheless, he indicated that he would accept the award in Oslo on Dec. 10, “as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century.” The White House said he intended to donate the prize money to charity. By then, calls had already been issued by critics of the president on both ends of the political spectrum for him to turn down the award, precisely because he had not yet done enough to deserve it. Only one winner of the Nobel Peace Prize had ever declined it, North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho in 1973. [See 1973, p. 882A3] Obama was the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, after Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919); both of them had won it during their second term in office. Former President Jimmy Carter had won it in 2002, more than two decades after leaving office, and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won it in 2007. Obama was also the third black American to win the award; the first had been diplomat Ralph Bunche, in 1950, and the second had been civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1964. [See 2007, p. 690A2; 2002, p. 798B2; 1964, p. 341C3; 1950, p. 418K] In an official statement issued Oct. 9 by the Republican National Committee, the group’s chairman, Michael Steele, said of the Nobel Peace Prize going to Obama, “The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’” However, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), congratu-

lated Obama and said, “I join my fellow Americans in expressing pride in our president on this occasion.” Many Republicans—and not only Republicans—reportedly felt that Obama had been awarded the prize largely because, as a statesman, he was far more appealing to Europeans than his Republican predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush, had been. (Bush made no public comment about Obama’s Nobel Prize.) Critics also pointed out that Obama was overseeing two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was in the process of considering whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. [See p. 695E3] Breaking with the tradition of Nobel Prize jurors not commenting on their decisions, four of the five members of the Nobel Peace Prize panel Oct. 13 defended their selection of Obama. The panel’s chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway (1996–97), cited two of Obama’s actions as president—reaching out to the Muslim world and scaling down a Bush-era proposal for a missile shield in Eastern Europe—as key factors behind the panel’s decision to award him the peace prize. [See pp. 613A1, 368B2; 1996, p. 955B2] The other awards, listed by category, were: Literature—The Swedish Academy of Letters Oct. 8 awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Romanian-born German novelist and essayist Herta Mueller, 56. Born into Romania’s ethic German minority community in the southwestern region of Banat, Mueller’s earliest book was a 1982 short-story collection, written in German. At the time she wrote it, she was being harassed by Romania’s secret police, which helped prop up the authoritarian, communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, executed in 1989 after being overthrown in a popular revolution. [See 1989, p. 957A1] Mueller’s writing, which dealt with the political oppression suffered by Romanians during the Ceausescu era, was censored by his regime; an uncensored version of her first story collection was published in West Germany in 1984. Three years later, she and her husband and fellow writer Richard Wagner, also born into Romania’s ethnic German community, emigrated from Romania to West Germany and settled in what was then West Berlin. Mueller was the author of some 20 books but only a handful of them had previously been translated into English. Perhaps the best known of these was the novel Herztier (1994), which appeared in English translation in 1996 as The Land of Green Plums. Dealing with student life in a totalitarian regime, the book was awarded the 1998 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Mueller, whose Nobel Prize citation described her as a writer “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,” won the Nobel Prize shortly before the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that epitomized

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3591 October 15, 2009

B the collapse of communism in Europe. [See 1989, p. 829A1] Physiology or Medicine—The Karolinska Institute for Medicine in Stockholm Oct. 5 awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to three U.S. scientists for research on cellular growth and aging. Each of the three would receive a third of the prize. Honored were Australian-born Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 60, of the University of California at San Francisco; Carol W. Greider, 48, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md.; and British-born Jack W. Szostak, 56, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. Szostak, who grew up in Canada, was a U.S. citizen, while Blackburn held dual U.S. and Australian citizenship. The three were honored for work leading to the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that prevented structures at the ends

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize; award early in term greeted with surprise; praised for diplomatic, nuclear efforts. PAGE 693

Pakistani army frees hostages after attack on its headquarters; wave of attacks as Waziristan offensive set.

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Britain’s Brown announces Afghan troop increase. PAGE 695

Senate Finance panel approves health care reform bill. PAGE 698

Gay rights march held in Washington, D.C. PAGE 698

ICC probes killing, abuse of protesters in Guinea.

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Annan urges action on Kenyan political reforms. PAGE 702

Chinese court sentences six to death over Xinjiang riots. PAGE 702

Philippines storms’ death toll hits 712. PAGE 704

Turkey and Armenia to normalize relations. PAGE 707

U.S. retains golf’s Presidents Cup. PAGE 708

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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of chromosomes, called telomeres, from becoming too short for cells to be able to continue to divide. Blackburn and Szostak had elucidated the DNA structure of telomeres, which involved repeating sequences of DNA units, and explained how such a structure would stabilize chromosomes. Greider in late 1984, as a graduate student of Blackburn’s at the University of California at Berkeley, succeeded in tracking down telomerase, whose existence Blackburn and Szostak had predicted. Blackburn, Szostak and Greider had shared an Albert Lasker Medical Research Award in 2006 for their work on telomeres and telomerase, which was crucial to an understanding of both the aging process and cancer growth. [See 2006, p. 775D1] Physics—The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Oct. 6 awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists who had made key discoveries in the field of optical technology. Half the prize went to Charles K. Kao, 75, a native of China who held dual U.S. and British citizenship; the other half was split equally between Willard S. Boyle, 85, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, and U.S.-born George E. Smith, 79. Kao was honored for postulating, in 1966, while working in a telecommunications laboratory in Harlow, England, that glass fibers would conduct digital signals, in the form of light, much more efficiently if the glass were purified. His insight led to the development of optical fiber in which about 95% of a light pulse survived after traveling through one kilometer of fiber, compared to a 1% survival rate after 20 meters in fiber that contained impurities. That advance had led to the fiber-optic networks that now carried telephone, television and Internet data around the world. Boyle and Smith were honored for their 1969 invention of the charge coupled device (CCD), a digital image sensor, roughly the size of a postage stamp, containing millions of light-sensitive cells, or photocells. They invented the CCD while working at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, which in its heyday, when it was part of AT&T Corp., was perhaps the world’s leading center for corporate-sponsored research. Boyle and Smith’s work, which was the basis for technology ranging from digital cameras to the Hubble Space Telescope, was the seventh Bell Labs breakthrough to have been awarded a Nobel Prize. [See p. 372F2; 1998, p. 759F3] Chemistry—The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Oct. 7 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three scientists who had mapped out the structure of ribosomes, molecular complexes in cells that converted DNA to proteins. The three, who would each get a third of the prize money, were Venkatraman Ramakrishan, 57, an Indianborn U.S. citizen who since 1999 had been affiliated with Britain’s Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; U.S.-born Thomas Steitz, 69, of Yale University; and Ada Yonath, 70, a native of Jerusalem whose entire career had been spent at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot,

Israel. She was the fourth woman to win the chemistry prize and the first since 1964. Working independently, the three scientists used X-ray crystallography to create three-dimensional models of the hundreds of thousands of atoms in ribosomes. All three published their findings in 2000. Their work was currently being used to develop new antibiotics; the effectiveness of antibiotics had been shown to be related to their ability to block the functioning of ribosomes in bacteria. Economics—The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Oct. 12 awarded the Bank of Sweden Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics to two Americans: Elinor Ostrom, 76, a political economist at Indiana University in Bloomington, and Oliver E. Williamson, 77, a retired professor of business, economics and law at the University of California at Berkeley. They were honored for exploring economic decision-making outside the marketplace. Ostrom was the first woman to win the economics prize since its inception in 1969, while Williamson was the 62nd male. Ostrom was also the fifth woman to win a Nobel Prize in 2009, the most in a single year, joining winners in three previously announced categories: literature, medicine and chemistry. [See above; 1969, p. 720E2] Ostrom, whose doctorate was in political science, not economics, was honored for having demonstrated that communitydriven projects could be more efficient than government- or corporate-run projects. Her work ended up challenging the traditional view of the “tragedy of the commons,” that people who earned a living from a natural resource they shared tended to destroy it. Based on fieldwork she had conducted in many parts of the world, she had concluded that people were adept at developing social control mechanisms to safeguard their common property. Much of her work had been done in collaboration with her husband, Vincent Ostrom, 90, a professor emeritus at Indiana. Williamson’s research, which dealt with the inner workings of corporations, showed that companies often were in a position to make better economic decisions than the market as a whole. Consequently, it was sometimes in a company’s best interest to develop products in-house rather than outsourcing some or all of the work and having to rely on contracts being properly fulfilled. The foundation for his research was laid in the late 1960s, when he was working for the U.S. Justice Department Antitrust Division. n

Pakistani Army Frees Hostages After Attack on its Headquarters Wave of Attacks as Waziristan Offensive Set.

Commandos Oct. 11 stormed a building at the Pakistani army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, in the eastern province of Punjab, ending a 22-hour battle with Islamic extremist militants who had penetrated the headquarters the previous day and taken 42 civilians and soldiers captive. The attack on Rawalpindi, one of the most heavily guarded cities in Pakistan, was seen as a

major breach of security and evidence that militants were capable of conducting largescale terrorist attacks against the army on its own turf. [See p. 630F2] A total of 20 people were killed in the attack and the ensuing rescue mission, including nine militants and eight soldiers, and 39 hostages were freed. The Pakistani branch of the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the third terrorist attack in Pakistan since Oct. 5, when a suicide bomber killed five United Nations World Food Program workers at their headquarters in Islamabad, the capital. A suicide bomber Oct. 9 killed 49 people at a marketplace in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Rawalpindi attack was followed by an Oct. 12 suicide bombing targeting an army convoy that killed 41 people in the Shangla district of NWFP’s Swat Valley region. About 30 people were killed Oct. 15 in the Punjabi city of Lahore when teams of gunmen attacked two police academies and a building housing Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency. The dead included 19 police officers and 11 gunmen. At least nine others were killed in attacks that day in Peshawar and the northwestern town of Kohat. The spate of attacks was seen as a response to a planned military operation in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal area in the country’s northwest that served as a base for the Taliban. The army in recent weeks had been bombing the area in preparation for the ground offensive, and the Rawalpindi attack appeared to cement the government’s resolve to proceed with it. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, speaking on television Oct. 10, warned the Taliban,

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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“We are going to come heavy on you,” and said the operation was “imminent.” The attacks followed weeks of relative calm in the volatile country, after the army in the summer largely succeeded in ousting the Taliban from the Swat Valley. In addition, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud had been killed by a U.S. Predator drone missile strike in August, which led to weeks of disarray within the Taliban’s ranks. However, Mehsud’s successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, Oct. 4 warned that the Taliban was prepared to increase its attacks on the army if it carried out the South Waziristan operation. (There had been rumors that Hakimullah Mehsud had also been killed, but Pakistan’s Dawn Television Oct. 5 showed images of him appearing to be in good health. Malik Oct. 6 said he doubted that the man shown in the video was actually Mehsud.) Militants Wore Army Uniforms—Ten militants—disguised in army uniforms and driving vans with army license plates— Oct. 10 engaged in a 45-minute battle with soldiers guarding the headquarters in Rawalpindi. Five militants were killed, while five managed to enter a building and seize hostages. Some of the militants wore suicide-bomb vests, and one militant, threatening to blow himself up, was able to hold more than 20 soldiers and civilians captive for nearly a day before he was shot. Four militants were killed in the Oct. 11 commando raid, while one, the alleged mastermind of the attack, was wounded and captured. The military identified him as Mohammed Aqeel, also known as Dr. Usman. Aqeel was thought to belong to the Islamic extremist group Lashkar-eJhangvi, which had ties to the Taliban and the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. He had allegedly orchestrated a March attack on the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore that killed seven people. He was also thought to be behind the assassination of Pakistan’s army surgeon general in 2008. [See p. 595B1; 2008, p. 134D3] Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army’s spokesman, Oct. 12 said the attackers had intended to use the hostages to negotiate for the release of more than 100 imprisoned militants. The daring attack on Rawalpindi, just 10 miles (16 km) away from Islamabad, raised doubts about the stability of the army, which was thought to wield much more power than the civilian government. However, Pakistan’s allies dismissed concerns that the terrorist threat could jeopardize the security of the country’s nuclear arsenal. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in London, Oct. 11 said the U.S. was “confident” that the weapons were safe. She said the Rawalpindi attack showed that the Taliban was “increasingly threatening the authority of the state,” but added, “We see no evidence they are going to take over.” It was also reported that police in Punjab in July had warned the army that militants were planning an attack on Rawalpindi. Pakistan’s The News newspaper Oct. 5 was the first to publicly disclose the warnings, October 15, 2009

which said the Taliban would team up with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and another Islamist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, to carry out the attack. The reports increased the doubts about the army’s ability to fight terrorism. Army Criticizes U.S. Aid Package—

Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, Pakistan’s army chief, and other senior military officers Oct. 7 released a statement expressing “serious concern” about a five-year, $7.5 billion civilian aid package that had been passed by the U.S. Congress the previous week. The army, as well as political opponents of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, said the package came with stipulations that encroached on Pakistani sovereignty, sparking public outrage. [See p. 669F3] The aid package, which would triple annual U.S. civilian aid to Pakistan, was intended to bolster Zardari’s government, which was considered weak and ineffective. The package was also meant to improve public attitudes toward the U.S., which was widely distrusted in Pakistan. Congress had made the aid conditional on certain requirements, reversing the stance of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who had allowed money to flow to Pakistan with few strings attached. The package required that Clinton report to Congress twice a year on whether Zardari’s government was exercising “effective civilian control over the military,” including its budget and its promotion process. The package also required Pakistan to demonstrate that it had made gains in the fight against terrorism, and to combat extremist groups operating in the cities of Quetta and Muridke. Quetta, in Baluchistan province, was thought to be the base of Mullah Muhammad Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban. Muridke, in Punjab, was the base of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Islamic militant group accused of carrying out a 2008 attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital. [See pp. 669A2, 635E2] Kiyani reportedly objected to the package in an Oct. 6 meeting with U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Oct. 12–15 met with U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., to protest the provisions. U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D, Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Oct. 14 presented Qureshi with an explanatory document assuring Pakistan that the bill did not infringe on its sovereignty. Obama that day signed the bill into law, and the White House released a statement saying it was “the tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the U.S.” The U.S. had also come under heavy criticism in Pakistan for expanding the size of its embassy in Islamabad, and hiring a U.S. company, DynCorp International Inc., to provide security for its diplomats. Critics claimed that the U.S. was trying to surreptitiously bolster its military and civilian presence in Pakistan. [See p. 670B1]

The controversies threatened to undermine U.S. efforts to convince Pakistan to broaden its counterterrorism efforts beyond the Pakistani Taliban to include the Afghan Taliban and others that presented a threat to NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military had historically supported the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had acted as the military’s proxy forces in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir, respectively. The International Republican Institute—a U.S.-based nonprofit group that was associated with the U.S. Republican Party—Oct. 1 published a poll showing that 80% of Pakistanis were opposed to the U.S. helping Pakistan to fight terrorists. The institute said 76% were opposed to Pakistan assisting the U.S. in its Predator attacks against terrorists. [See p. 346F2]

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Charges Against Top Militant Dropped—

A court in Lahore Oct. 12 dropped charges that had been brought against Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-eTaiba. He had been charged with inciting jihad, or a Muslim holy war, against the state, and raising funds for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity organization that was believed to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Saeed’s lawyer said the court had ruled that there was not enough evidence to uphold the charges. Saeed remained under unofficial house arrest. n

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Afghanistan War Britain’s Brown Announces Troop Increase.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Oct. 14 announced a plan to deploy an additional 500 troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the total number of British troops there to about 9,500. Brown said the troop increase was contingent on several factors, including guarantees that the troops would have the necessary equipment; a commitment from other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries in Europe for more troops or resources; and the completion of several milestones by the Afghan government. [See p. 673A1] Brown made his announcement the same day that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama held its fifth cabinet-level meeting in recent weeks to reassess its strategy in Afghanistan. Obama was weighing whether to agree to a troop request that had been made by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. (The number of troops requested was classified.) The troops requested by McChrystal would be in addition to the 68,000 U.S. troops that would be deployed to Afghanistan by the end of 2009. Brown said his decision was “consistent with what the Americans will decide,” which was seen as a suggestion that Obama was leaning toward a troop increase. Brown also said Britain was “dedicated to counterinsurgency,” a statement that appeared to side with those who argued that defeating an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban was vital to Western national security interests. Some 695

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officials within the Obama administration reportedly believed that the U.S. should limit its focus to a counterterrorism strategy that targeted the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, a Taliban ally that in recent years had increased its presence in neighboring Pakistan. [See p. 694F2] Analysts said Brown’s decision was also an attempt to placate senior British military officers who had publicly complained that Brown was depriving the army of the manpower it needed to successfully fight the Taliban. [See p. 673G2] Brown said the 500 troops would be deployed only after the Afghan government accelerated efforts to increase the size of the Afghan army; took measures to curb rampant corruption; strengthened a program to reconcile with non-extremist Taliban fighters; and resolved an ongoing dispute about the August presidential election, which had been tainted by widespread accusations of fraud. [See below] Obama Considering Three Options— ABC News Oct. 8 reported that the Obama

administration was considering three options on troop levels in Afghanistan, including one that involved an increase of “far more” than 40,000 troops, a number that had previously been considered the top limit. ABC said the other possibilities were a “high risk” option of leaving troop levels at their current level, and a “middle” option reportedly preferred by McChrystal—an increase of 40,000 troops. ABC cited an unidentified source that had access to documents outlining the options. The Wall Street Journal the following day reported that the highest option called for more than 60,000 additional troops, while the New York Times Oct. 12 said it was 80,000 troops. McChrystal and Obama Oct. 9 discussed the proposed troop request by videoconference. The Washington Post Oct. 13 reported that Obama had quietly authorized the deployment of an additional 13,000 noncombat troops to Afghanistan. Known as “enablers,” those troops, which included engineers, medical personnel, intelligence officers, explosives specialists and military police provided support to combat forces. However, the Post said the additional troops would not add to the total of 68,000; they would merely increase the number of troops Obama himself had authorized to 34,000, from the 21,000 he had announced earlier in the year. U.N. Envoy Acknowledges Fraud— Kai Eide, the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, Oct. 11 acknowledged that “widespread fraud” had occurred in the August presidential election. The announcement followed accusations by his recently fired deputy, Peter Galbraith, that Eide had failed to properly investigate reports of fraud. Galbraith’s claims had undermined the U.N.’s credibility, and led to accusations that it was siding with President Hamid Karzai in order to maintain stability in the country. [See p. 674E1] The acknowledgment by Eide was seen as an attempt to reassert that the U.N. was a neutral arbiter, and Eide denied that he 696

had quashed reports of fraud. Eide did not specify which candidate had been the main beneficiary of the fraud, even though it was widely assumed to have been Karzai, who had won more than 54% of the vote, according to initial results. Eide said Galbraith’s accusations had “heightened the temperature” of the controversy. Maulavi Mustafa Barakzai—one of two Afghans on a five-member, U.N.-backed panel investigating the fraud claims—Oct. 12 resigned from the panel, claiming that foreigners were improperly interfering in the election. Barakzai was thought to be a Karzai ally. The other members on the panel, known as the Electoral Complaints Commission, were from Canada, the Netherlands and the U.S. Karzai the previous day had also accused foreigners of interfering in the election. Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Said Tayeb Jawad, in interviews with the Times Oct. 14 and Oct. 15, said it was likely that the commission would disqualify enough fraudulent votes to bring Karzai below the simple majority he needed to avoid a runoff. It was thought to be the strongest acknowledgment yet by a member of Karzai’s government that a runoff was likely. Jawad also suggested that a power-sharing deal could be reached between Karzai and his main competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Oct. 14 arrived in Kabul in what was seen as an attempt to resolve the impasse between Karzai and Abdullah. The U.S. State Department said Khalilzad was visiting Afghanistan as a “private citizen.” [See 2008, p. 596D3] n

Other International News Turkey Scraps Military Exercise With Israel.

Israeli defense officials Oct. 11 said Turkey had canceled a joint military exercise with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after Turkey’s decision to exclude Israel led the U.S. and Italy to withdraw from it. The exercise had been scheduled to be held near Konya, in central Turkey, from Oct. 12 to Oct. 23. (Israel was not a NATO member; Turkey was.) [See p. 58A3] Israel and Turkey had cultivated close trade and defense ties, signing a military cooperation agreement in 1996. But their relationship had grown strained since the election of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. Erdogan had sharply criticized Israel for causing excessive civilian casualties during its conflict with the Islamist militant group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. [See p. 614F1] Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Oct. 11 said an improvement in “the situation in Gaza” would “create a new atmosphere in Turkish-Israeli relations as well.” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom Oct. 13 said, “The deterioration of ties with Turkey in recent days is regrettable.” He called on Turkish officials to “realize

that the relationship between the two states is in their interest no less than ours.” Turkey, Syria Move to Improve Ties—

Turkey Oct. 13 moved to improve its relations with Syria, which bordered it on the southeast, at the first meeting of a new cooperation council in Aleppo, Syria. Cabinet ministers from each country signed an array of agreements on matters including defense cooperation projects, a natural gas pipeline, and removing visa requirements at their shared border. [See p. 707D3] Turkey had mediated peace talks between Israel and Syria that began in May 2008, but were suspended during the Gaza war. Turkish-Syrian relations had warmed since 1998, when Syria agreed to end its support for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant Kurdish separatist group whose insurgency in eastern Turkey had left nearly 40,000 people dead since the 1980s. [See 1998, p. 831B1] n

Swine Flu U.S. Begins Vaccinations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Oct. 5 released a new vaccine for the H1N1 swine influenza. Health care providers in the country that day began administering the vaccine to physicians, nurses and other health care workers. The vaccine was given to children beginning Oct. 6. Under the U.S.’s distribution plan, the vaccine would be given first to medical workers, in order to allow them to keep working in case of a severe outbreak of the flu, as well as children and pregnant women, who were at a high risk of suffering complications from the flu. [See p. 583D3] However, the first U.S. vaccine shipments consisted of a type that was administered nasally in mist form, a method considered unsuitable for pregnant women. Shipments of an injectable form of the vaccine were expected by late October. The swine flu virus had first emerged in Mexico in April, but quickly spread worldwide, raising concerns that it could mutate into a deadlier form. As of Sept. 27, the WHO reported that there had been more than 340,000 laboratory-confirmed swine flu cases, and more than 4,100 deaths linked to the disease worldwide. But because the WHO in July had stopped collecting broader case totals from countries, the figures understated the actual number of infections and deaths. Millions of people were thought to have been infected, and suffered only mild symptoms before recovering fully. WHO officials Oct. 7 said swine flu vaccinations were under way in China and Australia, and would begin in parts of Europe in the near future. The organization also reiterated that the vaccine was safe, in an effort to overcome concerns expressed by some about its safety, and called it the “most important tool” available to “fight this pandemic.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Sept. 16 had approved several types of swine flu vaccine manufactured by drugmakers Novartis AG of Switzerland, Sanofi-Aventis SA of France, CSL Ltd. of FACTS ON FILE

Australia and AstraZeneca PLC of Britain. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the same day said at least 50 million doses would be ready for administration by mid-October, weeks earlier than expected. The CDC set a goal of obtaining between 195 million and 250 million vaccine doses, at a cost estimated up to $2 billion, for distribution in the U.S. These were being released to state, city and other local health departments, which then dispensed them to hospitals, doctors’ offices, school systems and other entities providing inoculations. Normally those administering a vaccine would order it directly from the manufacturer; the new distribution method had been developed in response to unusually high demand for swine flu vaccine. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s director for immunization and respiratory disease, Oct. 1 said swine flu had become widespread in the U.S. She said there was “significant flu activity in virtually all states,” adding that it was “quite unusual for this time of year.” Schuchat also said that, since April, when the swine flu outbreak began, 100 pregnant women in the U.S. had required intensive care in hospitals after contracting the flu; 28 of those women had died. Despite a federal educational campaign to highlight the safety and efficacy of the swine flu vaccine, many people remained opposed to getting it. Some cited concerns about possible unforeseen side effects, while others said they remained unconvinced that the vaccine was necessary. Single Shot Found Sufficient—Researchers Sept. 10 reported that preliminary data from clinical trials indicated that a single shot of a vaccine being developed by CSL would confer resistance to the swine flu virus in 96% of adult recipients, rather than the two shots that officials had been planning to administer. The data, if borne out, would effectively double the available amount of vaccine. The research was published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. Federal health officials Sept. 21 said data also indicated that most children and teenagers would also only require one shot. Younger children who had never received a flu shot or come down with the flu would need two doses. U.S. President Barack Obama Sept. 17 said the U.S. would donate 10% of its swine flu vaccine supplies to poorer countries. Similar donations were also pledged by Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland. The pledges were part of a project to dedicate 300 million vaccine doses to countries that could not otherwise afford the medicine. n

AIDS HIV Vaccine’s Success Questioned. An article published Oct. 5 on the Web site of the journal Science reported that researchers who in September had announced that an HIV vaccine had achieved limited success in preventing infection by the virus, had not disclosed another analysis of their data that found no statistically significant protective benefit from the virus. The vaccine, tested October 15, 2009

in Thailand, had been developed by a partnership that included the U.S. Army, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Thai public health ministry, French drugmaker Sanofi Pasteur SA and Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a nongovernmental organization. [See p. 671A1] The Science article, written by Jon Cohen, author of a book on the search for an HIV vaccine and a prominent blogger on the issue, cited unidentified researchers who had been provided with a more indepth look at the data in private briefings. Those researchers said a second analysis, which was usually performed for scientific rigor during vaccine tests, showed that the reduction in infections among recipients of the vaccine was not considered statistically significant. One unidentified researcher quoted in the article said of the research, “It doesn’t meet the standards that have been set for other trials, and it doesn’t fully present the borderline results. It’s wrong.” U.S. Army Cols. Nelson Michael and Jerome Kim, who had helped perform the study, rejected the claims that they had tried to present only positive data from the study. Development of an HIV vaccine had long been a goal of researchers, but all previous efforts had failed. The study in Thailand had also been criticized for having little potential, since it was a combination of vaccines shown to have no protective effect on their own. n Global Rise in HIV Drug Treatment Reported. The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS and the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

Sept. 30 reported that about 42% of people with HIV in the developing world who needed antiretroviral drugs to survive, or about four million people, were receiving such treatment at the end of 2008. That was an increase from about three million people receiving the drugs at the end of 2007. However, another five million people who needed the treatment did not have access to it. [See 2008, pp. 553A2, 535E1] The sharpest increase in access to treatment occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where 2.9 million people were taking drugs in 2008, compared with 2.1 million the previous year. Pregnant women and children were also benefiting from greater access to drugs. However, the groups reported that 2.7 million people had contracted HIV in 2007, the latest year for which there was data. There were 33 million people with HIV worldwide. Teguest Guerma, an AIDS official at the WHO, said more concerted efforts were required in order to achieve a stated international goal of providing universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment worldwide by 2010. n

Space Signs of More Water Seen on Moon. Three teams of scientists reported evidence of the widespread presence of water on the moon, in papers published Sept. 24 on the Web site of the journal Science. Instruments aboard three unmanned spacecraft had analyzed light reflected off the moon’s sur-

face, and found gaps at the wavelengths at which light was absorbed by water or hydroxyl. (A hydroxyl molecule was composed of one hydrogen and one oxygen atom, as opposed to water’s two hydrogen atoms and single oxygen atom.) The moon had previously been thought to be mostly dry outside of its ultracold polar regions, believed to likely contain some ice. [See p. 612D1; 2006, p. 336F1] The discovery suggested the possibility that the water could be extracted and used to support a human base on the moon. Not only might it be useful for a base’s supplies of water itself, but water (or hydroxyl) could also be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen for use in making fuel. Scientists said it was not collected in patches of liquid or ice, but embedded in the minerals of the surface. However, it remained unclear exactly how much water was present. Lawrence Taylor, a co-writer of one of the Science papers, said a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) instrument aboard the Indian moon orbiter Chandrayaan-1 had detected areas where there might be about a quart of water per cubic yard (about one liter per cubic meter). The amount of water appeared to increase during periods of sunlight, suggesting that it was constantly being created by the collision of hydrogen protons in the solar wind with oxygen present in lunar rock. Taylor, of the University of Tennessee, had been at NASA decades earlier when signs of water were observed in soil samples brought back from the moon, but were dismissed as likely the result of contamination on Earth. The findings from Chandrayaan-1 were confirmed by readings that had been taken by two NASA spacecraft, Deep Impact and Cassini. Indian space officials hailed Chandrayaan’s contribution to the discovery, saying it showed the mission was fruitful despite having been aborted early.

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Crash Staged to Examine Soil—NASA

June 18 launched a rocket to the moon carrying a pair of unmanned spacecraft, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS). After deploying the satellites, the rocket was intentionally crashed into the moon’s surface Oct. 9 to create a plume of lunar soil that could be analyzed for possible water content by LCROSS. Minutes after relaying its instruments’ observations, LCROSS itself was crashed into the moon’s surface. The impact did not appear to create the visible plume of soil, up to six miles (10 km) high, that scientists had predicted. But mission principal investigator Anthony Colaprete said LCROSS appeared to have sent back useful spectrographic readings of the impact, which would take time to analyze. NASA scientists Sept. 17 said the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter early on had found that craters near the moon’s south pole that never received sunlight constantly remained at temperatures below -400° Fahrenheit (-240° C), making them possibly the coldest places in the entire solar system. n 697

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Health Care Reform Senate Finance Panel Approves Bill. The Senate Finance Committee Oct. 13 approved, 14–9, a 10-year, $829 billion health care reform bill that would require everyone in the U.S. to obtain health insurance. The main architect of the bill was Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), chairman of the panel; it contained the most input from Republicans of all five separate reform bills being considered by Congress. (Three bills backed by various House committees earlier in the year were being reconciled by House leaders.) Nevertheless, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) was the only Republican on the panel to vote for the measure, joining the committee’s 13 Democrats. [See p. 655F2] The plan would create federal subsidies for some 18 million people who were unable to afford health coverage, and expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor. The reform effort would be paid for in part through new taxes and fees that would raise an estimated $380 billion over 10 years. The bill also called for reductions to the Medicare program as a way of saving money. Snowe’s vote was seen as a political victory for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who had made health care reform the centerpiece of their domestic policy agenda, and had strongly courted Snowe. “Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it,” Snowe said. She added, “I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.” The measure was criticized by Republican leaders, who said its high cost would inevitably be paid for by taxpayers. They also warned that the bill represented a dangerous expansion of the federal government’s power. Sen. Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) said the measure put the U.S. on “a slippery slope toward more and more government control of health care.” The bill also came under criticism from a wide variety of groups. Labor unions complained that the bill, unlike the four other plans considered by Congress, did not include a government-run health insurance program, known as a “public option.” The public option was intended to compete with traditional private insurers, thereby improving policies and lowering costs. In lieu of a public option, the bill called for the creation of nonprofit cooperatives. The AFL-CIO labor federation and many of its affiliates Oct. 14 took out ads in several newspapers criticizing the finance panel bill as “deeply flawed” for its lack of a public option. Several liberal groups, among them Moveon.org, also assailed the plan for leaving out the government-run insurance program. Business groups joined with unions in expressing dismay at an element of the plan that would impose a tax on high-end insurance policies, variously known as “Cadil698

lac” or “gold-plated” plans. The plans called for taxes to be imposed on policies worth more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for families beginning in 2013. The groups said the tax would increase costs both for union workers, who often received generous benefits packages, and for employers. The tax would technically be levied on insurance companies. Insurers Step Up Reform Criticism—

Health insurance companies also opposed the bill, arguing that it would raise the cost of premiums. An insurance industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Oct. 12 had released a report claiming that insurance premiums would rise sharply under the Baucus bill. The report said a family insurance policy currently costing $12,300 would rise to $25,900 on average by 2019. Karen Ignani, AHIP’s president, in a letter to the group’s board members dated Oct. 11, said the Baucus reform plan would “cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system.” Democrats quickly struck back, questioning the veracity of the report, as well as the timing of its release, which came a day before the Senate finance panel’s vote. White House spokesman Reid Cherlin Oct. 12 described the report as “distorted and flawed.” He said the report ignored elements of the plan that would “lower costs for those who have insurance, expand coverage and provide affordable insurance options to millions of Americans.” The AHIP also began airing advertisements in several states claiming that the reform measure would result in the reduction of Medicare benefits for seniors. However, the group said it remained committed to some form of health care overhaul. The emergence of AHIP’s opposition to the Baucus bill was seen as a change in strategy by the insurance industry, which was credited with helping to defeat a similar reform effort undertaken by Democratic President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Obama earlier in the year had worked to marshal the support of insurance companies; the promise of a reform law requiring everyone to obtain insurance, which would give the companies more customers, had ostensibly placated them. While the Baucus bill did include such a requirement, it had expanded exemptions from the mandate, and lowered financial penalties assessed on those who did not get insurance. Senate Leaders Start to Merge Bills—

Baucus, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), the acting chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Oct. 14 met with senior Obama administration officials at the White House. The talks were held to begin the process of reconciling the Baucus bill with the legislation approved by the health committee in July. They were attended by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag, among others.

The task was considered a politically complex one, as it required finding a middle ground between liberal and centrist elements within the Democratic Party without alienating Snowe. Democrats remained split over the inclusion of a public option, and Snowe had said she was open to a provision triggering a government-managed insurance plan within a particular state, should the residents of that state be unable to find affordable insurance. There was also a division among Democrats over the tax on high-end insurance plans. The Senate Democrats’ efforts were aided Oct. 14, when Sen. Susan Collins (R, Maine) said she would “work with members on both sides of the aisle” to forge a bipartisan bill. She said she had “serious concerns” with the finance panel’s bill, but that it was the “best effort so far.” n

Civil Rights Gay Rights March Held in Washington, D.C.

Supporters of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights Oct. 11 marched in Washington, D.C., at an event organized by the group Equality Across America, which had been founded earlier in the year. March organizers said there were 150,000 people in attendance; government officials did not provide an estimate of the crowd size. [See p. 553A3] The march’s organizers said they were among the growing number of gay rights activists frustrated at the slow pace taken by President Barack Obama in addressing inequities facing gays and lesbians. Chief among gay advocates’ concerns were the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which forbade gays from serving openly in the military, and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The law denied federal benefits for same-sex marriage partners and allowed state governments to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. [See p. 390G1] Some gay rights activists had called for patience as they worked to overturn laws and policies that discriminated against gays. Much of the activism in support of the march was thought to have grown out of anger over a ballot initiative, known as Proposition 8, passed by California voters in November 2008, that amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman. The initiative had nullified an existing provision in California’s constitution permitting same-sex marriages in the state. Julian Bond, chairman of the civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), delivered the rally’s main address. He compared the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “We have a lot of real and serious problems in this country, and same-sex marriage is not one of them,” Bond said. Obama Oct. 10 had addressed the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the U.S.’s largest gay rights group, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington, D.C. Obama in his speech said he would end the “don’t ask, FACTS ON FILE

don’t tell” policy, renewing a pledge he had made during the 2008 presidential campaign. However, he did not say when he planned to reverse the policy. [See 2007, p. 525G3] Obama had faced criticism for moving too slowly to reverse antigay policies, and failing to support gay marriage. (Obama said it conflicted with his Christian faith.) He also angered gay rights advocates after choosing Rev. Rick Warren, a prominent evangelical preacher and author opposed to gay rights, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration in January. “I appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough,” Obama said. He added, “Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach.” A number of protesters gathered outside the benefit dinner to express dissatisfaction with Obama’s record on gay rights. Calif. Recognizes Outside Marriages—

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Oct. 11 signed into law a bill that would recognize same-sex marriages that had been performed in other states during a five-month period in 2008 in which gay marriage had been legal in California. The period had lasted from June 2008 to November 2008, ending with voters’ approval of Proposition 8. The bill gave same-sex couples married in other states following Proposition 8’s approval the same rights and responsibilities of married couples, without the designation of “marriage.” [See p. 352A3] Schwarzenegger the same day signed a bill establishing May 22 as an annual day of recognition of Harvey Milk, a gay rights leader. Milk in 1977 had been elected to the Board of Supervisors, the municipal legislature of San Francisco, Calif, becoming one of the first openly gay people to hold elected office in the U.S. Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone had been assassinated by Dan White, a former supervisor, in November 1978. Schwarzenegger in 2008 had vetoed a similar measure honoring Milk. However, he said Milk’s being posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S.’s highest civilian honor, in August and a widely acclaimed biographical film about him, Milk, had elevated his status to a level befitting the honor. The law encouraged public schools to teach students about Milk’s life and accomplishments on that day. [See pp. 548D1, 120F1] D.C. Gay Marriage Bill Introduced—

Washington, D.C., city council members Oct. 6 introduced a measure that would legalize same-sex marriage in the district. The bill was considered likely to be passed by the city council, and signed by Mayor Adrian Fenty (D). However, laws enacted by the District of Columbia’s government could be overturned by the federal Congress within 30 days of their enactment. [See p. 492G1] The city council in May had passed a law recognizing same-sex marriages performed in states where they were legal. Congress had not acted to nullify that law, but analysts said that socially conservative House Republicans and Democrats facing reelection October 15, 2009

contests in 2010 might be more likely to attempt to override the recent measure. Other News—In other gay rights news: o Judge Tena Callahan of Texas Family District Court in Dallas Oct. 1 ruled that two men who were married in Massachusetts in September 2006 could seek a divorce in Texas. Callahan in her ruling said a state law banning same-sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. The couple had moved to Texas from Massachusetts in 2007, and had decided to divorce in January. However, they were forced to file for divorce in Texas, because Massachusetts only allowed state residents to do so. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the state would appeal the ruling. [See 2004, p. 367A3] o A Nevada state law establishing domestic partnerships Oct. 1 took effect, and Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller that day began issuing certificates for the practice. The domestic partnerships gave either heterosexual or gay couples who lived together many of the same legal rights and obligations as marriage, such as community property and post-breakup financial support. However, couples in domestic partnerships were not guaranteed employer insurance benefits through their partners, although employers could offer such benefits. An estimated 700 couples received their domestic partnership certificates that day. [See p. 371E1] o The Boston Globe Sept. 30 reported that an article in an upcoming issue of Joint Force Quarterly, the top scholarly publication of the Defense Department, concluded that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy undermined unit cohesion in the U.S. military, and called for its repeal. The article was an unusually strong expression within the military of support for gays serving openly. The article concluded that there was “no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” It said that several countries that had changed policy to allow gays to serve openly had not suffered a “mass exodus” of heterosexual service members. The article was authored by Air Force Col. Om Prakash while he was a student at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and had been reviewed by the office of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, prior to publication. It was published in the fourth quarter 2009 issue of the publication. o Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) Sept. 2 signed a proclamation placing the issue of same-sex marriage on a ballot proposition, putting the issue before voters in an election scheduled for Nov. 3. Baldacci in May had signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriage that had been scheduled to take effect Sept. 12. However, opponents of the law had gathered enough signatures to have it brought to a vote, thereby postponing its enactment. [See p. 304A1] o A state law legalizing gay marriage Aug. 31 took effect in Vermont, which became the fifth state to legalize same-sex

marriage, after Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Iowa. (New Hampshire’s law was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2010.) [See p. 216G2] o Judge Vaughn Walker of U.S. District Court in San Francisco Aug. 19 scheduled a trial over Proposition 8 to begin on Jan. 11, 2010. The ballot initiative had been challenged by two gay couples, who in May filed a lawsuit arguing that it violated their rights to equal treatment and due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. n

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Economy Trade Deficit Fell to $31 Billion in August.

The Commerce Department Oct. 9 reported that the seasonally adjusted U.S. trade deficit in goods Trade Deficit and services for billions) August was $30.7 August (in 2009 $30.71 billion, down Previous Month $31.85 from a revised Year Earlier $60.91 $31.9 billion in July. A rise in exports was attributed to a months-long decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which had made U.S. goods around the world cheaper. [See p. 619C1] Exports in August rose to $128.2 billion, a $0.2 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was spurred by increased exports of capital goods and other goods. Imports decreased by $0.9 billion in August, to $158.9 billion. The change was led by decreased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and consumer goods. The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracked the value of the dollar against a basket of global currencies, Oct. 14 fell to 75.49, from 74.94 the previous day; earlier Oct. 14 the index had fallen to its lowest point since August 2008. The U.S. dollar that day was worth C$1.0255. A British pound was worth $1.5970 and the euro was worth $1.4919. [See pp. 683G2, 194D1, 164A1] The dollar’s fall was attributed to several factors, including concerns about the U.S.’s long-term economic health and its large budget deficit. Policies by the Federal Reserve, which had kept its benchmark interest rate near zero to boost economic growth, had also led investors to look to other countries for higher returns on their investments. [See pp. 640A1, 570A3] n

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Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* August July 2009 2009 -20.23 -4.34 -1.51 -5.44 -3.95 0.65

-20.42 -3.89 -2.09 -7.96 -2.93 0.28

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*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

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The Labor Department Oct. 15 reported that its consumer price index (CPI), which tracked prices for Inflation (CPI) consumer goods 2009 0.2% by all urban con- September Previous Month 0.4% sumers, rose 12-Month Change -1.3% 0.2% in September, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after rising 0.4% in August. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile food and energy costs, rose 0.2% in September. [See p. 619A2] For the 12-month period through September, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was -1.3%. The yearly decline was led by a 21.6% fall in energy prices, which had rebounded in recent months. Core consumer prices in the 12-month period rose 1.5%. n

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Guilt of Executed Texas Prisoner Questioned.

Craig Beyler, a fire expert hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Aug. 17 submitted a report finding that there was no evidence that a 1991 fire in Corsicana, Texas, that had killed three children had been an instance of arson. The report, which had drawn wide attention after the New Yorker magazine published an article on the case, criticized investigators in the case for using deductive methods that the report called more “characteristic of mystics or psychics” than arson investigators. Cameron Todd Willingham, the father of the three children, had been executed by the state of Texas in February 2004 after being convicted of murder for setting the fire. [See below; 2006, p. 432D3] The report examined the fire-related evidence in the Willingham case, as well as a similar case brought against Ernest Willis, who had been convicted of setting a 1986 fire that had killed two women; Willis had been pardoned in 2004 after an investigation discredited the evidence cited as proof that arson had been committed. Beyler found that there was no scientific basis for claims by police and fire investigators that the 1991 fire had been the result of arson, and said that investigators had failed to prove that the fire was not accidental in nature. He also found that investigators had ignored evidence that did not confirm their suspicions regarding Willingham. The Texas Forensic Science Commission had been formed by the Texas government to examine allegations of misconduct or errors in forensics used in criminal cases in the state. The commission had begun its investigation into the Willingham case in 2008. Willingham—who was convicted in 1992—was the only person to have been put to death in the U.S. for an arson-related murder since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. Since 1976, more than 130 death row inmates had been exonerated. Arson Finding Disputed in 2004 Report—

In 2004, prior to Willingham’s execution, Gerald Hurst, a fire and explosives expert, was asked by one of Willingham’s relatives 700

to examine the fire evidence used in the case against him. Hurst found that the arson case against Willingham was based on discredited beliefs about identifying cases of arson. Hurst’s report on the fire evidence in the case was sent by Willingham’s attorneys to the office of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) and to the Texas Board of Paroles and Pardons less than two hours before the execution in February 2004. Prosecutors responded by arguing that Hurst’s report should not be considered grounds for an appeal because it was not newly discovered evidence. Willingham was executed after the Board of Paroles and Pardons recommended against clemency and Perry refused to grant a 30-day stay requested by Willingham’s attorney to allow for an examination of the Hurst report. Perry Replaces Forensics Appointees—

Perry Sept. 30 replaced three members of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, including the group’s chairman, two days before Beyler was scheduled to appear at a hearing before the group to discuss his findings in the Willingham case. (Perry Oct. 8 replaced a fourth member of the nine-member panel.) As one of his first acts, John Bradley, the new head of the commission, announced that the planned hearing would be indefinitely delayed. Perry said that the changes were routine and noted that the terms of the members had expired Sept. 30. Critics argued that Perry’s decision not to reappoint the members to an additional term was part of an attempt to block the investigation into the Willingham case. Samuel Bassett, who was replaced by Bradley as the head of the commission, alleged that he had been pressured by members of the Perry administration to alter the course of the commission’s work, the Chicago Tribune reported Oct. 12. According to Bassett, aides to Perry had questioned the cost of the commission’s investigation of the Willingham case, and suggested that it fell outside the commission’s purview. The Houston Chronicle reported Oct. 11 that Perry’s office had refused to release documents related to Perry’s decision not to offer Willingham clemency. The documents reportedly would show whether Perry had looked at the Hurst report before deciding to reject Willingham’s clemency request. Texas State Sen. John Whitmire (D) Oct. 12 announced that the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee would hold a special hearing on Nov. 10 to examine how Perry’s replacement of the Texas Forensic Science Commission members had affected the ongoing investigation into the Willingham case. Perry Oct. 14 called Willingham a “heinous individual who murdered his kids,” and said the courts had upheld his conviction “every step of the way.” He also denied that it had been inappropriate to replace the members of the commission. Prosecutor Defends Execution— Texas’s Corsicana Daily Sun newspaper Aug. 28 printed an article about the Willingham case written by Judge John Jackson of Texas’s 13th District Court, who had served as

a prosecutor in the case. Jackson had argued that while the arson investigation was “undeniably flawed,” the remaining evidence was strong enough to justify the conviction and argued that if there could be a new trial in the case, Willingham would still be convicted and executed. Article Challenges Prisoner’s Guilt—An article in the Sept. 7 issue of the New Yorker magazine detailed flaws in the evidence against Willingham and suggested that Willingham might have been innocent of murder. Other independent investigations of the fire by the Tribune in 2004 and the Innocence Project—an advocacy group that sought the release of wrongly convicted prisoners—in 2006 had also reported that the arson case against Willingham was fundamentally flawed. The New Yorker article, by David Grann, noted discrepancies in the accounts of eyewitnesses to the fire, and questioned the reliability of the testimony of a jailhouse informant who said at Willingham’s trial that Willingham had confessed to killing his children, and of a psychiatrist who served as a prosecution expert witness. The article also cast doubt on arguments made by the prosecutor that Willingham had set the fire to cover up evidence that he had physically abused his daughters. n

Legislation House Passes Defense, Hate Crimes Bill.

The House Oct. 8 voted, 281–146, to pass the final version of a bill that authorized $680.2 billion in discretionary spending for fiscal year 2010 for Defense Department and other national security programs, and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill included a measure expanding the definition of federal hate crimes to include those committed because of a victim’s gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. The bill had strong support in the Senate, and President Barack Obama had indicated that he would sign it. [See pp. 701A2, 489A3] Under current laws, federal hate crimes were defined as those motivated by the victim’s race, color, national origin or religion. The bill would authorize $5 million a year to assist state and local police departments with investigating the new categories of hate crimes, and would allow the Justice Department to respond to requests for assistance in the investigation and prosecution of those crimes. If local authorities failed to prosecute the crimes, the Justice Department would be authorized to step in. Sen. Carl Levin (D, Mich.) said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had records of more than 77,000 hate crimes committed between 1998 and 2007, and said crimes based on the victim’s sexual orientation seemed to be increasing in frequency. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) noted that the bill’s passage came days before the 11th anniversary of the Oct. 12, 1998, murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay university student in Wyoming. The hate crimes provision of the bill was named for FACTS ON FILE

Shepard and for James Byrd Jr., a black man who had been chained to a truck and dragged to his death by three white men in 1998 in Texas. The bill was backed by 237 Democrats and 44 Republicans, and opposed by 131 Republicans and 15 Democrats. Republican legislators who opposed the bill said it created a new category of “thought crimes” that would punish a perpetrator for what he or she was thinking. They complained that the provision had been attached to a vital military bill. Republicans also raised concerns that preachers who expressed antigay opinions would be vulnerable to hate-crime prosecution if their opinions were later linked to a crime committed by someone else. (However, the bill included language barring prosecution based on the expression of “racial, religious, political or other beliefs,” and said the hate crimes provision should not be “construed to diminish any rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.”) Some of the Democrats who voted against the bill were social conservatives who opposed the hate crimes expansion, while others were staunch liberals voting against the bill’s military provisions. Bill Strips F-22 Funding— The authorization bill stripped funding for the procurement of parts for 12 more F-22A Raptor fighter jets than the Obama administration had requested. The F-22 provision had prompted Obama to threaten to veto the previous version of the authorization bill, which the House had passed in June. Obama had called for production of the highly advanced stealth fighter to be capped at 187, ordering only four more of the aircraft. The bill would authorize $6 billion for the production of 30 F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jets that Obama had requested, but also would authorize $560 million for the development of an alternate engine for the F-35, which the Obama administration had opposed. It also authorized $1.5 billion to purchase 18 F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, which was nine more aircraft than Obama had requested, at an additional cost of $512 million. The bill authorized funds for the construction of several classes of ships, including $3.9 billion for next-generation Virginia-class attack submarines; $1.7 billion for littoral (coast-hugging) combat ships; and $1.1 billion for two LPD-17 San Antonioclass amphibious ships, $60 million more than requested. The bill authorized $1.1 billion for the newly developed DDG-1000 Zumwalt stealth destroyers, but also authorized $2.3 billion to restart production of its less-expensive predecessor, the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer. The bill also authorized $9.3 billion for the Missile Defense Agency; $2.5 billion for the Future Combat System, a program featuring an array of high-technology innovations designed to modernize the Army; and $6.9 billion for new equipment for the National Guard and reserve units, $600 million more than Obama had requested. n October 15, 2009

AFRICA

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills Senate Passes Defense Appropriations.

The Senate Oct. 6 voted, 93–7, to pass an appropriations bill that would provide $636.3 billion for the Defense Department and national security programs for fiscal year 2010. The bill included $128.2 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House in July had passed a $636.6 billion defense spending bill. [See pp. 700D3, 523G2] The final bill stripped out funding for several weapons systems that had drawn veto threats from President Barack Obama. Obama said the systems—the highly advanced F-22A Falcon stealth fighter jet, an alternate engine for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, and the VH-71 Kestrel replacement presidential helicopter—were behind schedule, over their budget and unnecessary. The House bill contained $560 million for the F-35 alternate engine. The bill included $2.5 billion in funding for 10 C-17 cargo planes, which the Obama administration had not requested, and $512 million for nine more F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets than Obama had requested. A bipartisan amendment delayed the retirement of 149 older fighter and ground-attack aircraft, over legislators’ concerns that it would leave gaps in the U.S.’s air-defense system. Several amendments to the Senate bill opposed policies that Obama had championed. The Senate voted to bar the transfer of terrorism detainees to the U.S., from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama in January had promised to close. It also adopted an amendment to stop the government from redirecting between $50 million and $151 million that was set aside in fiscal 2009 for groundbased interceptor development. One of that amendment’s sponsors, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, Ala.), Oct. 2 said it was in response to Obama’s September decision to reverse plans to establish a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. [See pp. 701D2, 645B1] The bill contained $2.7 billion in “earmarks,” or spending items requested by individual legislators. Democrats defeated several Republican amendments aimed at cutting some or all of the earmarks. n

Environment Water-Monitoring Benefit Seen. The envi-

ronmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Aug. 23 released a report which found that regular municipal monitoring of drinking water often minimized a potential health threat from the presence of atrazine, a common herbicide. The group said current monitoring methods counted only the annual average of atrazine present in drinking water, and failed to account for spikes of the chemical’s presence following rains or springtime application. People exposed to atrazine could suffer from endocrine disruption and organ damage. EPA officials said they would review current policies on regulating atrazine. [See 2003, p. 249F2] n

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Guinea ICC Probing Killing, Abuse of Protesters.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Oct. 14 said in a statement that his office was conducting a “preliminary examination” of a crackdown by Guinea’s military junta on protesters in late September in Conakry, the capital. According to human rights groups, at least 157 people were killed and 1,200 others were injured when troops opened fire on the protesters. ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the court was also examining evidence of sexual violence against women perpetrated by “men in uniform.” She added, “Those responsible must be held accountable.” [See p. 660A2] Guinea’s junta, the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), had seized power in December 2008 and was led by army Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara. The rally at which the killings and abuses had occurred had been held at a sports stadium to protest Camara’s apparent backtracking from a pledge not to run for president in a planned January 2010 election. The CNDD maintained that fewer than 60 protesters had died in the incident, and that they had been trampled to death. Camara had denied responsibility for any abuses that had occurred, saying they had been perpetrated by out-of-control elements of the security forces. Camara Oct. 7 announced the creation of a 31-member commission to investigate the incident; however, the opposition reportedly rejected the commission and called for an international inquiry. The killings and other abuses were widely condemned by the international community. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Oct. 4 said France, Guinea’s former colonial ruler, could “no longer work with Dadis Camara and...there has to be an international intervention.” Camara Oct. 6 responded angrily to those comments, saying, “Guinea is not a district of France. When the French foreign minister says something like that, this is a way of denigrating the people of Africa.” Also, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Oct. 7 called the attack on the protesters “criminality of the greatest degree,” and said that “those who committed such acts should not be given any reason to expect that they will escape justice.” Karel De Gucht, the European Union’s development minister, Oct. 14 said Camara should stand trial for crimes against humanity. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Oct. 5 sent Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore to Guinea to mediate talks between the junta and opposition groups. However, opponents of the junta had demanded Camara’s resignation as a precondition to talks, U.S. government–sponsored broadcaster Voice of America reported Oct. 7. An international “contact group” on Guinea, which included representatives of 701

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the United Nations, the EU, the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS, Oct. 13 at a meeting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, called for the perpetrators of the abuses to be brought to justice, and threatened to impose targeted sanctions on leaders of the junta, as well as an arms embargo. Unions Call General Strike— Guinea’s trade unions Oct. 12–13 held a two-day nationwide strike to protest the crackdown on the protesters. Much of Conakry reportedly was deserted Oct. 12. The union group, the National Organization of Free Trade Unions in Guinea (ONSLG), said the strike was also intended to honor the protesters who had been killed and wounded. The junta Oct. 12 issued a statement saying it supported the strike. “We have agreed, like the unions, to hold two days of mourning,” the statement said. China Deal Confirmed, Criticized—Mamadi Kallo, the junta’s secretary of state in charge of public works, Oct. 13 confirmed that the junta had reached a $7 billion deal with a private Chinese firm, China International Fund. The Chinese firm would reportedly invest in infrastructure projects in Guinea. However, analysts said the deal likely also involved Chinese access to Guinea’s vast mineral resources, including bauxite. China had yet to confirm the deal, which was criticized by human rights groups for lending support to an undemocratic regime and undermining the efforts of the international community to hold it accountable for the killing and abuse of protesters. China had been criticized in the past for doing business with pariah regimes, such as those in Sudan and Zimbabwe, in order to obtain the natural resources needed to feed its growing economy. [See p. 170E1] n

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Annan Urges Action on Political Reform.

Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan Oct. 4–7 visited Kenya to assess the progress of political reforms that the government had pledged to implement in a February 2008 power-sharing deal, which Annan had brokered. Annan, who met with Kenyan political and civil society leaders during his visit, Oct. 7 scolded the government for failing to implement the promised changes, saying, “Kenyans are concerned that the window of opportunity to deliver reforms is rapidly closing.” [See p. 540F3] Ethnic violence had broken out in early 2008 after President Mwai Kibaki, leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU), was declared the winner over Raila Odinga of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in a December 2007 presidential election. Allegations by the ODM of widespread vote-rigging led to ethnic violence that killed some 1,300 people and displaced more than 250,000 others. Much of the violence was between Kibaki’s Kikuyu ethnic group and the Luo and Kalenjin ethnic groups, who supported Odinga, a Luo. Under the deal, Kibaki remained president, Odinga became Kenya’s prime min702

ister, and their two parties agreed to work together to implement reforms to the constitution, the electoral system, the police and judiciary, and the distribution of land. They also pledged to bring to justice the main organizers and perpetrators of the violence. In late 2008, the government had laid the foundations for the creation of a special criminal tribunal to prosecute crimes committed in the election’s aftermath, as well as a truth commission that would investigate human rights abuses dating back to 1963, when Kenya gained independence from Britain. However, little progress had been made toward enacting the reforms or establishing the tribunals. The government reportedly claimed that plans for the reforms were working their way through the necessary government channels. The one significant reform that had been undertaken was the Sept. 8 firing of most of the nation’s top police officials, including the commissioner, Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali. The police had reportedly been responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings during the election-related violence. Ali was reassigned to run the nation’s post office. [See p. 203F1] In an effort to spur the government into action, Annan in early July had given the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, a list of the main organizers of the violence. The list reportedly contained the names of several powerful political and business leaders, including members of the cabinet. [See below] Annan Oct. 7 said there existed in Kenya a “crisis in confidence” in the current government, and warned that there was a “serious risk” of renewed violence in the run-up to the next election, in 2012, if concrete action was not taken soon. He said he supported both local and international trials for the election-related violence, with the ICC prosecuting the “big men” who organized the attacks and Kenyan courts dealing with lower-level perpetrators. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) that day reported that Kenya’s rival ethnic groups were stockpiling illegal arms in preparation for the next election. ICC Prosecutor to Pursue Charges—

The office of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Sept. 30 in a statement said Moreno-Ocampo was committed to prosecuting “those most responsible” for Kenya’s ethnic violence. The statement said the prosecutor favored a “three-pronged approach” to justice and accountability in Kenya: ICC trials; a special tribunal created by the Kenyan parliament to try other perpetrators; and “other reforms and mechanisms,” including the truth commission. Moreno-Ocampo’s statement came as the Kenyan government missed a Sept. 30 deadline to set up its own tribunal to try ringleaders of the violence. Kenyan Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo Oct. 2 said the government would cooperate with the ICC investigation, and many Kenyans reportedly supported ICC involvement. Moreno-Ocampo reportedly planned to visit Kenya in the coming weeks to begin investigating the ICC’s case. Kilonzo Oct.

13 said he had asked Moreno-Ocampo to delay his visit until Nov. 3 in order to give the government more time to prepare. U.S. Warns of Travel Bans—The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, Sept. 24 said the U.S. government had sent letters to 15 prominent Kenyans, threatening them with travel bans and other sanctions if they did not cooperate with the political reforms. Ranneberger did not name the recipients of the letters, which were signed by Johnnie Carson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Kenya’s presidential press service Sept. 26 reported that Kibaki had responded to the letters by writing directly to U.S. President Barack Obama, expressing his “displeasure and concern” over the threatened bans. Anti-Corruption Chief Resigns—Aaron Ringera, the head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), Sept. 30 resigned, ending a standoff between Kibaki and opposition members of parliament over his post. Kibaki Aug. 31 had unilaterally reappointed Ringera and two of his deputies to second five-year terms. However, members of parliament, especially those from the ODM, strongly objected, arguing that Kibaki was required to consult lawmakers and the KACC’s advisory board before making the appointments. They also criticized Ringera’s record as head of the KACC, saying he had accomplished little during his first term. Rampant corruption in Kenya had been condemned by international aid donors and the Kenyan public, and was seen as a major impediment to foreign investment in the country. Kibaki’s supporters, including Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Mutula Kilonza, countered that the president was acting within his powers in making the appointments. Ringera, for his part, had reportedly blamed the KACC’s lack of progress in fighting high-level corruption on Kenya’s inadequate laws and court system. Lawmakers Sept. 16 voted to nullify Ringera’s reappointment; however, analysts said Kibaki was not bound by the vote. Parliament, which after the vote went into recess until Nov. 10, had reportedly threatened to block government spending bills if Ringera remained. Ringera, in announcing his resignation Sept. 30, defended his record on fighting corruption. “In all that we have done, we have discharged our mandate with integrity, courage, complete independence and utmost professionalism,” he said, adding, “We have given the fight against corruption our all.…We could not possibly have done better.” n

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China Six Sentenced to Death Over Xinjiang Riots.

A court in Urumqi, the capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, Oct. 12 convicted six people of murder, arson and other charges in connection with July riots in the city, and sentenced them to death, according to state news media reports. A sevFACTS ON FILE

enth defendant was given a sentence of life in prison, reportedly because he admitted the charges against him and cooperated in apprehending another of the accused. [See p. 605B3] Six more defendants Oct. 15 were reportedly sentenced to death by the same court for involvement in the riots. The verdicts were the first handed down in connection with the riots. The government said they had been fomented by ethnic Uighur separatists, and that most of the 197 reported killed had belonged to China’s Han ethnic majority. Uighur activists said the violence had stemmed from a violent crackdown on peaceful Uighur protests against discrimination, and that more Uighurs had been killed than the government acknowledged. All seven of the defendants convicted and sentenced Oct. 12 appeared to be Uighurs, judging from their names. They were among 21 people who China Sept. 25 said had been charged so far over the July violence. One of the men reportedly sentenced to death Oct. 15 had a Han name. Sentences in Factory Fight—A court in the southern province of Guangdong Oct. 10 convicted and sentenced 11 people in connection with a June brawl at a factory there between Han workers and Uighur migrant workers from Xinjiang. The fight left two Uighurs dead, sparking demonstrations in Xinjiang that erupted into the riots. One man was sentenced to death and another to life in prison, both on manslaughter charges, and the other defendants were given prison sentences ranging from five to eight years. Not all the defendants’ names were reported by state media. The two convicted of manslaughter had Han names, and three were reportedly Uighurs. The court said some of the defendants had beaten Uighur victims with iron bars, and tried to prevent medical workers from treating them. Authorities said that nine other people had suffered serious or minor injuries in the brawl, in contrast to previous reports that about 120 people had been hurt. The violence was reportedly triggered by a false rumor of rapes of Han women by Uighur workers. Sentences in Needle Attacks—Three people were convicted Sept. 12 in an Urumqi court of attacking or threatening people with medical syringes, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 15 years. The three defendants, all Uighurs, were the first to be prosecuted over a reported rash of syringe attacks in August by Uighurs against Han Chinese in Xinjiang. Reports of the attacks, and rumors that they involved injections of poison or HIV or other viruses, had further stoked ethnic tensions, sparking demonstrations by Han dissatisfied with the response by authorities. However, officials said there was no evidence that any victims had been poisoned or infected. Another four Uighurs were convicted and given similar prison sentences Sept. 17. October 15, 2009

Other News—In other news related to the Xinjiang unrest: o China’s public security ministry Sept. 16 said six members of a “terrorist gang” had been arrested in Xinjiang. Officials said the suspects, whose names were Uighur, had set up an explosives-making operation and produced about 20 bombs that had been destined for terrorist attacks. o Abu Yahia al-Libi, a high-ranking member of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, in a video message on the Internet had urged China’s predominantly Muslim Uighurs to “seriously prepare for jihad,” or holy war, against the Chinese government, it was reported Oct. 8. Libi called the recent events in Xinjiang an “uprising” against “systematic repression” of China’s Muslim minority. [See p. 510A1] n

Japan Afghan Refueling Mission to End. Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa Oct. 13 said the government would not renew Japan’s naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan, when the mission’s current legal mandate expired in January 2010. Officials in recent days had suggested that the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, elected in September, was likely to make such a decision. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had opposed the refueling mission, begun in 2001 under the then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), as inconsistent with Japan’s pacifist constitution. Hatoyama had also promised to make Japan’s foreign policy more independent of the U.S., the country’s longtime major ally. [See p. 624F2; 2008, p. 22F3] However, Japanese officials suggested that the government was likely to adopt new ways to support civilian reconstruction programs in Afghanistan after the refueling mission concluded, a shift U.S. officials had reportedly indicated that they would accept. A Japanese government spokesman said offering “civilian support for the people’s livelihood in that country, such as agricultural reconstruction, will lead to a fundamental solution to what constitutes the basis of terrorism.” Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada Oct. 7 had said Japan was considering assisting with job training for former fighters with the Taliban insurgency. Hatoyama’s government was also currently considering its approach to an agreement with the U.S. on relocating a number of the many U.S. troops stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The government had intended to move thousands of U.S. troops stationed on one part of the island to a new base on Okinawa, but many local activists called for an end to the U.S. deployments on Okinawa altogether. The DPJ had campaigned on a pledge to revise the agreement, but the U.S. said it considered the deal final. In another sign of the new government’s desire to make Japan’s foreign policy less U.S.-centered, Hatoyama espoused creating an “East Asian Community” economic

bloc, analogous to the European Union. Hatoyama raised the proposal at a meeting Sept. 21 with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the United Nations in New York City, and Oct. 10 with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Chinese President Wen Jiabao in Beijing, China’s capital. Stimulus Package Cut Back—In one of its first moves to address Japan’s deep economic recession, the new government Sept. 18 directed cabinet ministers to seek out ineffective spending programs to be cut from a stimulus package enacted earlier in the year by the preceding LDP government. The DPJ had criticized the stimulus package, which focused on traditional methods such as infrastructure spending, as wasteful, and had proposed expanding benefits paid directly to taxpayers instead. The government was also formulating legislation to make it easier for small businesses and laid-off mortgage holders to seek a temporary reprieve on their loan payments to banks. Concerns about the measure’s effects on Japanese banks were blamed in part for a recent decline in bank stock prices. Financial Services and Postal Reform Minister Shizuka Kamei Sept. 29 denied suggestions that the government planned to institute an across-the-board, three-year debt payment moratorium. Two days later, he emphasized that the government would take necessary steps to prevent a program delaying loan payments from causing banks to fail. Separately, Kamei Sept. 20 said the government would propose legislation to halt a planned initial public offering (IPO) of shares in Japan Post Bank Co. Ltd., the savings bank arm of the Japanese postal system. The privatization of the Japan Post companies, scheduled to be completed in 2017, had been a centerpiece reform project of recent LDP governments. Japan Post Bank was the world’s largest bank in terms of deposits. Yen Rises on Minister’s Comments—

On another economic front, Japan’s currency, the yen, in the weeks after the election rose in value against the U.S. dollar, passing the level of 90 to the dollar. The rise was aided by indications by Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii that the government would not intervene to try to keep the yen’s value lower. (A lower yen would aid Japanese exporters by making their products cheaper abroad.) However, after the yen Sept. 28 touched an eight-month high against the dollar of 88.22, Fujii Sept. 29 said he did not rule out taking action to address “abnormal” movements in the yen, and complained that he had been misrepresented as favoring a stronger yen. LDP Elects New Leader—The LDP Sept. 28 elected Sadakazu Tanigaki as its new leader, to succeed former Prime Minister Taro Aso, who had stepped down after the party’s historic defeat in the September election. Tanigaki, 64, had held several cabinet posts, including finance minister. He defeated two candidates, Taro Kono and Yasutoshi Nishimura. Both in their forties, they had presented themselves as more ready than Tanigaki to contemplate funda703

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mental changes needed to ensure that the LDP, after holding nearly uninterrupted power for decades, could survive in a more competitive political system. n

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France Physicist Investigated for Al Qaeda Ties.

Philippines Death Toll From Storms Hits 712. The Phil-

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ippine National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) Oct. 14 announced that the official death toll from Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma, which had struck the Philippines on Sept. 26 and Oct. 3, respectively, had reached 712 people. More than three million people had been affected by the two storms and more than 120,000 people had been evacuated by the government in response to Parma. The Associated Press (AP) reported Oct. 11 that more than 287,000 people were still housed in temporary camps following the two storms. [See pp. 684G2, 664C1] The U.S. Navy Joint Typhoon Warning Center Oct. 15 announced that a tropical storm was approaching the Philippines and could become a typhoon before making landfall. The Philippines was currently operating under an official state of calamity declaration in response to the two previous storms; large sections of Manila, the capital, as well as northern regions of the country were still flooded or significantly damaged as a result of the storms. John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Oct. 13 announced that the U.N.’s efforts to raise $74 million for relief and rescue efforts in the Philippines had fallen significantly short. A total of about $19 million had been donated as of Oct. 13. Landslides, Flooding Kills More Than 200—

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At least 225 people were killed by landslides or flooding Oct. 8–10, including at least 152 people in Benguet Province and 23 in Mountain Province on the Philippine island of Luzon. The flooding and landslides, which were triggered by continuing rainfall resulting from Parma, had reportedly made many bridges and roads impassable, complicating rescue efforts. Officials in Luzon’s Pangasinan Province Oct. 9 said 32 of the province’s 48 towns were flooded and that thousands of people in the province had been stranded by floodwaters. Officials Oct. 8 had released water from multiple dams in the region in order to keep them from bursting, swelling floodwaters in the province. The NDCC Oct. 9 said that 30,000 people in Pangasinan had been evacuated. Philippine Defense Minister Gilbert Teodoro, who was leading the country’s rescue and relief efforts, Oct. 9 said he had asked the U.S. government to redeploy its troops assisting in reconstruction operations in Manila to northern Luzon in order to assist in rescue efforts there. The U.S. had reportedly sent two Navy vessels, multiple helicopters and more than 200 U.S. Marines to transport aid and carry out rescue missions. The U.S. had reportedly agreed to contribute $4.3 million to the Philippine government for storm relief. n 704

A French investigating magistrate Oct. 12 reportedly opened a formal investigation into a physicist suspected of ties to an Algerian-based branch of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The physicist, a French citizen of Algerian origin, worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) at its Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, which was located near Meyrin, Switzerland, on the French border. [See 2008, p. 996C1; 2006, p. 475E3] The physicist’s name was not disclosed by authorities, but he was identified in the media as Adlene Hicheur, 32. He reportedly had been arrested Oct. 8 at his home in Vienne, France, near the eastern city of Lyon, along with a younger brother, 25, who was released without charge Oct. 10. The physicist was suspected of being in contact with Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a radical Islamist movement formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). The group had killed hundreds of people in terrorist attacks in Algeria and elsewhere in North Africa. The group had claimed responsibility for an Aug. 8 suicide bombing at the French embassy in Mauritania, which wounded two guards. [See p. 370B1; 2005, p. 963C1] The investigating magistrate reportedly filed preliminary charges of “criminal association with a terrorist enterprise.” The physicist was said to have exchanged email messages with AQIM and discussed targets for possible attacks. CERN Oct. 9 issued a statement disclosing the physicist’s arrest. It said, “His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” adding, “None of our work has potential for military application, and all our results are published openly in the public domain.” CERN stressed that its work dealt with “fundamental questions about the nature of matter and the Universe,” and had nothing to do with “nuclear power or nuclear weaponry.” The particle accelerator had been plagued by a series of accidents since its initial activation in September 2008. It was scheduled to restart in December. n

Great Britain Clinton Reaffirms ‘Special Relationship.’

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Oct. 11–12 visited Britain, offering reassurances that the U.S. still valued the “special relationship” between the two countries, and encouraging the peace process in Northern Ireland. The visit came in the middle of a European trip by Clinton. [See pp. 707C1, 705D3, 173B1, 124A2] Clinton Oct. 11 met with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Later that day, she visited Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Chequers, the prime minister’s

countryside retreat in Buckinghamshire, England, where she pointedly reaffirmed the U.S.’s special relationship with Britain. In August, the U.S. had expressed displeasure after Scottish authorities released Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent convicted for the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. [See p. 636C2] The Scottish government had called the release an act of compassion, saying that Megrahi had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. British officials had disclaimed any direct role in the decision, but acknowledged that trade issues, especially Libyan oil and gas resources, had played a role in the case. Miliband Oct. 12 told the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the British Parliament, that the government had judged that British interests “would be damaged, perhaps badly, if Megrahi were to die in a Scottish prison rather than in Libya.” But he insisted that “the decision on Megrahi’s fate was exclusively for Scottish ministers and the Scottish judicial system.” (Under the British system of “devolution” introduced in the late 1990s, governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had been granted autonomous authority over local matters.) British commentators had warned that the U.S. would retaliate for Megrahi’s release by downgrading relations with Britain. It was reported in the British press that Brown had been refused a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama during a trip to the U.S. in September for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and a meeting of the Group of 20 (G-20) economic powers. British and U.S. officials had denied those claims. [See pp. 651E1, 633A1] Urges Northern Ireland Peace Progress—

After an Oct. 11 visit to Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in Dublin, the Irish capital, Clinton Oct. 12 addressed the provincial assembly in Belfast, the capital of the British province of Northern Ireland, where she was the highest-level foreign dignitary to have been given that honor. Clinton noted the key role played by the administration of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in the talks leading to the 1998 Good Friday peace accord. [See 1998, p. 633D2] That agreement had largely ended three decades of sectarian violence between proindependence, mostly Roman Catholic republicans, and mostly Protestant unionists, who favored continued British rule. Under the terms of the pact, the two sides now shared power in the provincial government. Clinton said the U.S. would not meddle in a dispute over the transfer of police and judicial authority from the British government to the provincial government, which was the last major step called for by the 1998 agreement. But she warned that dissident armed groups were “looking to seize any opportunity to undermine the process and destabilize this government,” and “watching this FACTS ON FILE

assembly for signs of uncertainty or internal disagreement.” She added, “Moving forward with the process will leave them stranded on the wrong side of history.” Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), opposed a transfer of police and judicial powers unless the British government provided funding for a new provincial Justice Department. The DUP also said there should be broader public support for such a transfer. Sinn Fein, which was the leading republican party in the assembly and shared power with the DUP in the government, wanted an immediate transfer and accused the DUP of using delaying tactics. After her speech, Clinton met privately with Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein to discuss the transfer. She also presided over a meeting that brought together U.S. investors and local businesses. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a republican militant group that splintered off from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1975, Oct. 11 announced that its “armed struggle” was over. It was reportedly in talks with an international monitor on decommissioning its weapons. The INLA had declared a cease-fire in 1998, but was reportedly still active in organized crime, including extortion and robbery. The INLA had killed more than 100 people between 1975 and 2001. Its deadliest attack had been the 1982 bombing of a pub in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, which killed 17 people. [See 1982, p. 985E1] The IRA itself had renounced violence in 2005. Sinn Fein was its former political wing. Both McGuinness and the party’s leader, Gerry Adams, were reputedly former IRA commanders. Some IRA dissident factions remained active. In March, violence had flared again in Northern Ireland when two British soldiers and a local police officer were shot dead. Two IRA splinter factions, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, had claimed responsibility. n

Italy 58 Dead or Missing in Sicily Mudslides.

Mudslides caused by torrential rains Oct. 2 killed 23 people and left 35 missing around the city of Messina in northeastern Sicily. Another 29 people were hospitalized and 564 were displaced from their homes, according to the Civil Protection Service. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Oct. 4 toured the area by helicopter and assured survivors that they would receive new housing and tax exemptions. [See p. 253C3] Commentators said many homes on the outskirts of Messina had been poorly built and located in areas at risk for landslides. Deforestation and unregulated real estate development were also blamed for causing soil erosion. Civil Protection Service chief Guido Bertolaso blamed poor drainage on “illegal construction.” October 15, 2009

Illegal building had also been blamed as a factor in severe damage caused by an earthquake in April that killed nearly 300 people and left 70,000 homeless in Italy’s central Abruzzo region. n

Poland Ministers Resign Amid Lobbying Scandal.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk Oct. 7 accepted the resignations of Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Grzegorz Schetyna, Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma and Deputy Economy Minister Adam Szejnfeld after they were implicated in a lobbying scandal. Sports Minister Miroslaw Drzewiecki was also implicated, and had resigned on Oct. 5. The dismissals followed allegations by the government’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) that government officials had illegally lobbied on behalf of the country’s gambling industry to weaken a new law that would increase taxes on casinos. The scandal was considered a major embarrassment for Tusk, who was reportedly planning to run in Poland’s 2010 presidential election. [See p. 613A1; 2007, p. 771C3] The scandal broke after the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita Oct. 1 printed a leaked transcript of a telephone conversation recorded by the CBA, in which Zbigniew Chlebowski, head of Tusk’s Civic Platform party, allegedly told a gambling parlor owner that Drzewiecki could help block the new casino taxes. Chlebowski the same day stepped down as Civic Platform leader at Tusk’s request. The revenue from the proposed gambling tax would go toward paying for the Euro 2012 soccer championships, which were slated to be held in Poland and Ukraine. Prosecutors Oct. 6 charged Mariusz Kaminski, the head of the CBA, with abuse of power. Tusk and his centrist Civic Platform party had long argued that the CBA abused its power in order to assist Tusk’s rivals. Kaminski had been appointed as CBA head by Tusk’s primary political rival, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. n

Romania Minority Government Loses Confidence Vote.

Romania’s minority government, headed by Prime Minister Emil Boc’s center-right Democratic Liberal Party (PDL), Oct. 13 lost a parliamentary confidence vote, 254– 176. The vote, initiated by two opposition parties, followed the Sept. 30 breakup of the governing coalition of the PDL and the leftist Social Democratic Party (PSD), over Boc’s Sept. 28 firing of Interior Minister Dan Nica, a PSD member. Boc said Nica had failed to maintain order in Romania. Nica Sept. 25 had accused the PDL of harboring plans to rig the country’s Nov. 22 presidential election in favor of President Traian Basescu, an independent PDL ally. Basescu had approved Nica’s dismissal. [See p. 207B3]

The government’s collapse came as Boc had been trying to win approval for austerity measures required by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order for Romania to qualify for further tranches of a 20 billion euro loan extended in March. Those measures included reducing Romania’s budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2011, cutting civil servants’ wages and passing cost-saving pension reform legislation. Romania had already received about half of the loan, and the IMF planned to send a delegation to Romania in November to discuss further installments. Boc’s government would stay in power in a caretaker capacity until Basescu could appoint a new prime minister, who would be required to present a cabinet for approval within 10 days. Snap parliamentary elections would be held if the parliament twice rejected Basescu’s nominee. However, because Romania’s constitution barred dissolving the parliament in the last six months of a president’s term, parliamentary elections could not be held until after November’s presidential election. Boc’s critics attributed the no-confidence vote to his government’s alleged economic mismanagement. However, some analysts suggested that the vote was aimed at damaging Basescu’s reelection bid. In an opinion poll conducted through Oct. 7, he had a 37%–24% lead over his closest rival, PSD leader Mircea Geoana. A runoff would be required if no candidate received an absolute majority of votes. [See 2007, p. 336E2] n

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Russia Clinton Meets With Lavrov on Iran. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Oct. 13 met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss their two countries’ policies toward Iran, which the U.S. and others suspected of attempting to build a nuclear weapon. Clinton that day asserted that the U.S. was not planning to impose new sanctions on Iran, but added that it would not rule them out “in the absence of significant progress and assurances” that Iran was not seeking to build a nuclear bomb. Lavrov said threatening sanctions was counterproductive, and that diplomacy with Iran should be vigorously pursued. [See pp. 704F2, 613A1] Clinton Oct. 14 said, “I believe if sanctions become necessary we will have support from Russia.” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the same day said it was “too early” to speak of sanctions, adding, “There is no need to scare the Iranians. There is a need to reach an agreement.” Putin was speaking from China, where he was attending a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Clinton and Lavrov, speaking jointly Oct. 13, said the U.S. and Russia had made significant progress in talks on renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which limited both countries’ nuclear arsenals and would expire at the end of 2009. Clinton Oct. 13 met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at his dacha outside 705

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Moscow, the capital. She spoke the following day at Moscow State University, where she urged students not to cling to a Cold War mentality that pitted the U.S. and Russia against each other, and expressed concern about numerous attacks on human rights activists and independent journalists in Russia. U.S. President Barack Obama had recently revised U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe. The initial plan, which Russia had vehemently opposed, called for the U.S. to build components of the shield in the Czech Republic and Poland to defend against long-range Iranian missiles. The new plan, which Putin had praised, called for sea-based protection against medium and short-range Iranian missiles and a radar station in the Caucasus. Some analysts suggested that Russia might agree to the threats of sanctions on Iran if they were deemed necessary as a quid pro quo for the revisions to the missile shield plan. However, U.S. officials maintained that they did not expect Russian concessions in return for revising the missile shield plans. Russia Will Not Rule Out Nuclear Strikes—

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Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, in an Oct. 14 interview in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, affirmed that Russia would not rule out preemptive nuclear strikes in order to protect against aggression. He added that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the U.S. posed potential threats to Russia. Patrushev said officials would present Medvedev with an overhaul of military policy before the end of 2009. n Chechen Leader Kadyrov Names Successor.

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Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, in an interview with the ultranationalist newspaper Zavtra (Tomorrow) published Sept. 24, said he had selected Adam Delimkhanov to succeed him as Chechnya’s leader. Delimkhanov was a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament. He was currently wanted by the international police agency Interpol for orchestrating the March murder of former Chechen military commander Sulim Yamadayev in the United Arab Emirates. Delimkhanov maintained that he had not been involved in the murder. As a member of the Russian parliament, he could not be extradited from Russia. [See pp. 667B3, 329A1] In the same interview, Kadyrov, referring to ongoing unrest in the Russian Caucasus, said, “We are fighting in the mountains with the American and English special services.” He added that the West was intent on cutting off the Caucasus region from Russia. Both the U.S. and Britain had dismissed such assertions as absurd. [See p. 613E1] Akhmed Kadyrov Statue Removed— A large bronze statue of Akhmed Kadyrov, Ramzan Kadyrov’s father, who led Chechnya for four years before his assassination in 2004, Sept. 10 was removed from Grozny, the Chechen capital. The decision to remove the statue was reportedly made by the Kadyrov family, and the square it had stood in would be converted to a me706

morial to Chechens who died fighting terrorists and Islamic militants. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty the same day reported that other Akhmed Kadyrov statues around Chechnya were being removed. n

Turkey Largest Media Group Fined $2.5 Billion.

The Turkish Tax Ministry Sept. 7 imposed a record 3.75 billion lira ($2.5 billion) fine on the country’s largest news media company, Dogan Yayin Holding AS, which controlled more than half of Turkey’s newspapers and television channels. The government was seeking to collect from Dogan collateral worth 4.8 billion lira, a figure that included interest and other penalties. Dogan was appealing the fine in court, arguing that it would force the company out of business. Dogan’s total assets as of June 30 had been listed at $2.8 billion. [See p. 226E3] Dogan Oct. 12 said the government had rejected the collateral it offered in a filing at the Oct. 9 deadline, and put a lien on three Dogan television businesses. The fine was allegedly for tax evasion, but it raised concerns that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was using the case as a pretext to retaliate for critical coverage of his government by Dogan outlets such as the leading newspaper Hurriyet. Dogan had been hit with a previous, $500 million tax-evasion fine in February, in connection with its sale of a stake in its television unit to German media company Axel Springer AG. Miklos Haraszti, the media freedom representative for the Paris-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in a letter to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Sept. 16 said, “The amount of penalties levied upon the Dogan Group is unprecedented and alarming.” He called on the Turkish government to “practice self-restraint in employing the state’s legal power.” Dogan’s news outlets had criticized Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which had roots in political Islam, for policies perceived as running counter to Turkey’s secular constitution. Dogan media had also reported on allegations of corruption linked to AKP fund-raising. Erdogan had called on supporters to boycott Dogan newspapers in the run-up to local elections in April. In 2008, Turkey’s highest court had rejected a prosecutor’s request to shut down the AKP for its alleged efforts to impose Islamic law on the country. Since then, prosecutors had indicted dozens of former military officers, journalists and others for alleged involvement in a secularist, ultranationalist conspiracy to topple the government. Erdogan Denies Payback Intent— At a dinner with European ambassadors in Ankara, the Turkish capital, Erdogan Sept. 14 denied that the Dogan fine was intended as a political payback. He said, “I have no thoughts of applying political or economic pressure on the media, but certain media

establishments have no right to see themselves above the law.” In an interview published Oct. 5 in the Wall Street Journal, Erdogan compared the case with the 1930s prosecution of gangster Al Capone on tax charges in the U.S. He rejected comparisons between the Dogan case and Russia’s use of back-tax charges to seize oil company OAO Yukos and imprison its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in 2004, in a case which had also been criticized as politically motivated. [See p. 328B3] Dogan’s chairman, billionaire Aydin Dogan, was considered part of a secular elite that had dominated Turkish public life until the rise of the AKP. Commentators said Dogan had profited from close relationships with previous governments. Since the AKP came to power in 2002 parliamentary elections, two other large media companies had gone bankrupt after their owners were charged with fraud. In 2007, a company managed by Erdogan’s son-in-law won an auction for one of them, the ATV-Sabah group, which had been seized by the government. EU Cites Case in Progress Report—The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, Oct. 14 cited the Dogan tax case in its latest annual progress report on Turkey’s long-running bid for EU membership. The EU had demanded increased freedom of the press as one of the key conditions for Turkey’s application process, which had formally opened in 2005, but had been slowed by widespread opposition in the EU. The report said the Dogan tax fines “affect freedom of the press in practice,” adding, “There is a need to uphold the principles of proportionality and of fairness in these tax-related procedures.” In another free speech issue, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Turkey to protect its most famous novelist, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, from further court cases over statements he made in 2005 acknowledging the mass killings of Armenians during World War I. Turkey denied that the massacres constituted a genocide. Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals Oct. 7 ruled that Pamuk could be sued for compensation over his remarks. [See 2008, p. 333E3] However, Rehn praised Turkey for taking “historic steps” to normalize relations with Armenia. The two countries had signed agreements Oct. 10, but they still required ratification by their parliaments. [See p. 707A1] The EU report criticized Turkey for slowing progress on economic, judicial and political reforms. It also called on Turkey to end its trade embargo on Greek Cyprus, which was an EU member. Turkey was the only country to recognize the independence of Turkish Cyprus, an enclave on the north of the island. The EU had suspended processing Turkey’s membership in 2006, partly over the Cyprus issue. [See 2006, p. 983A1] During a visit to EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Erdogan June 26 had criticized Germany and France for their FACTS ON FILE

opposition to full EU membership for Turkey. He said Turkey “cannot accept” their alternative offer of a “privileged partnership.” n

Other European News Turkey and Armenia to Normalize Relations.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian Oct. 10, in Zurich, Switzerland, signed an accord under which Turkey and Armenia would establish diplomatic relations, open their shared border within two months and create a number of councils to work on bilateral issues. The agreement, which was negotiated with the mediation of Swiss diplomats, was subject to approval by each country’s parliament. Russia, the European Union and the U.S. praised the accord, but nationalists in both countries criticized it, as did Azerbaijan, a historic rival of Armenia with close ties to Turkey. [See p. 591E3] The agreement was signed after lastminute mediation efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov smoothed over disagreements between Turkish and Armenian officials over prepared speeches at the signing ceremony. Neither Nalbandian nor Davutoglu spoke at the signing. [See pp. 705D3, 704F2] Relations between predominantly Christian Armenia and mostly Muslim Turkey were embittered over the killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in eastern Turkey, in what was then the Ottoman Empire, during and after World War I. Turkey sharply rejected Armenians’ characterization of the deaths as an Ottoman-sponsored genocide. Also, disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave located within Azerbaijan’s borders, had followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. (Both countries had been Soviet republics.) Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan, which had been fighting ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Oct. 11 called for Armenia to withdraw troops from Nagorno-Karabakh, which still experienced occasional unrest. He suggested that a withdrawal would encourage Turkey’s parliament to approve the protocols. Despite the overture, Azerbaijan the same day sharply criticized the agreement between Turkey and Armenia for casting “a shadow over the spirit of brotherly relations” between it and Turkey. Azerbaijan also alleged that the protocols risked further destabilizing the Caucasus region, which was already home to separatist movements in Georgia and Russia, as well as Islamic rebels blamed for frequent attacks in several southern Russian republics. However, Western officials lauded the agreement for its potential to stabilize that region. [See pp. 665E3, 591G1] The protocols did not mention the genocide controversy, but included language that would establish a council to study the October 15, 2009

“historical dimension” of relations between Turkey and Armenia. Sargsyan Visits Turkey for Soccer Game—

Armenian President Serge Sargsyan and Turkish president Abdullah Gul Oct. 14 together attended a World Cup qualifier match between the two countries’ soccer teams in Bursa, Turkey. The Turkish team won the game, held under heavy security, 2–0. Gul in 2008 had made the first visit to Armenia by a Turkish president, to watch a soccer game with Sargsyan. [See 2008, p. 638F3] n Director Polanski Denied Bail. The Swiss Justice Ministry Oct. 6 rejected an appeal by filmmaker Roman Polanski to be released on bail from a jail in Zurich, where he had been held since his arrest in late September on an international warrant. Prosecutors in Los Angeles sought his extradition as a fugitive. He had fled the U.S. in 1978, when he faced a prison sentence after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl. [See p. 653A2] Polanski, 76, held dual citizenship in France and Poland, and owned a home in Switzerland. A Swiss Justice Ministry spokesman said Polanski was considered likely to flee the country if released. Court filings released Oct. 2 showed that Polanski in 1993 had agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the victim of the sexual assault, Samantha Geimer. It was unclear if he had paid that sum. The last filing, from 1996, said Polanski owed Geimer $600,000, including interest. In January, Geimer had asked a Los Angeles court to drop the criminal case against Polanski, saying that it “causes harm to me, my husband and my children.” Polanski’s lawyer, Herve Temime, in an interview with Agence-France Presse published Oct. 11, voiced concern about Polanski’s health, saying that he had found the director “very worn out” in a visit to his cell Oct. 9. Temime said Polanski was “very touched by the support he has received,” but “also knows that some of it is counterproductive.” French and Polish cabinet ministers had initially made strong protests in response to Polanski’s arrest, as had eminent filmmakers and actors. But both governments subsequently adopted a more neutral tone, after a backlash among politicians and the media against the suggestion that Polanski was entitled to special treatment. French Minister in Sex Tourism Row—

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, one of Polanski’s outspoken supporters, Oct. 8 appeared on television to defend himself against allegations that he had engaged in pedophilia. In an autobiography published in 2005, La mauvaise vie (The Bad Life), Mitterrand said that he had been in the habit of paying “young boys” for sex during trips to Thailand, and that the “rituals of the market for youths, the slave market, excited me enormously.” Marine Le Pen, vice president of the National Front, a far-right French political party, Oct. 5 had read extracts from Mitterrand’s book on television, and demanded his resignation. French Socialist Party

spokesman Benoit Hamon Oct. 7 also called on Mitterrand to resign, calling it “shocking” that he would defend Polanski after writing a book discussing his own “sexual tourism.” Mitterrand in an interview on the TF1 television network Oct. 8 said the experiences described in his book constituted “a mistake, certainly, a crime, no…because each time I was with people of my own age and who consented.” He said he would not resign. Mitterrand, 62, was the nephew of the late Socialist French President Francois Mitterrand, and was openly gay. President Nicolas Sarkozy had named Mitterrand to his cabinet in June. Mitterrand had called Polanski’s arrest “horrifying,” and said it revealed “an America which is frightening.” Politicians from several parties, including Sarkozy’s center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), had criticized those comments as excessive. n

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Syria Saudi King Abdullah Visits to Mend Ties.

Saudi King Abdullah Oct. 7 flew to Damascus, the Syrian capital, and Oct. 7–8 held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was Abdullah’s first visit to Syria since he was crowned in 2005; Assad had visited Saudi Arabia several times during the previous two years. The Syria visit was seen as an attempt by the two countries to improve ties, which had frayed over the past decade. [See p. 696G2; 2008, p. 225E3] The Syrian official news agency Oct. 8 said the two leaders had called for a “national unity government” in Lebanon, where there was an ongoing political stalemate between the pro-Western March 14 Coalition, which had Saudi support, and the political movement of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which was backed by Syria. Media reports prior to Abdullah and Assad’s meeting had also said they would talk about the stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks. [See pp. 614B3, 610C3] Saudi-Syrian relations had been hurt when the U.S., a Saudi ally, invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; Assad had opposed the invasion. Saudi Arabia froze diplomatic ties with Syria after the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was backed by Saudi Arabia. Syria had been accused of involvement in the assassination, an allegation it denied. Assad in 2006 had called the Saudis and Egyptians “half men” for not opposing Israel’s war against Hezbollah that year. Saudi Arabia’s new approach toward Syria was seen as a tactic to diminish Syrian ties to the Shiite government of Iran, whose influence in the Middle East was opposed by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim Arab governments. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had been 707

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seeking to increase its engagement with Syria. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad Sept. 28 had visited Washington, D.C.; he was the first Syrian official invited to visit by the U.S. government in five years. [See p. 546E2] n

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U.S. Retains Presidents Cup. The U.S. team Oct. 11 beat the International team, 19½ points to 14½ points, to win the Presidents Cup, a biennial match-play competition between the top U.S. golfers and the top golfers from the rest of the world, excluding Europe. The event was held at Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco, Calif. The U.S. had won four of the last five Cups; the 2003 event had ended in a tie. [See 2007, p. 815C1] The U.S. team was captained by Fred Couples, and the Internationals were led by Australian Greg Norman. A team needed to reach 17½ points to win. The U.S.’s clinching point came when Tiger Woods, the world’s top-ranked player, beat YongEun (Y.E.) Yang of South Korea, six and five. Woods was undefeated in his five matches in the competition. During the first three days of the tournament Oct. 8–10, the teams had competed in pairs in both the alternate shot format, in which each member of a pair took turns playing the same ball; and the better ball format, in which each golfer played his own ball. The U.S. held a 12½–9½ lead entering the 12 singles matches Oct. 11. n Haas Wins Senior Players Championship.

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Jay Haas of the U.S. Oct. 4 won the Senior Players Championship, the final major tournament of the season on the Champions Tour, in Timonium, Md. Haas birdied the last hole to post a final score of 267, 13 under par, and defeat American Tom Watson by one stroke. He earned $405,000 for the victory. [See 2008, p. 993B3] In the four other Champions Tour majors of 2009: o Mike Reid of the U.S. Aug. 23 won the JELD-WEN Tradition in Sunriver, Ore. He birdied the first playoff hole, after finishing regulation tied with John Cook of the U.S. at 272, 16 under par. Reid earned $392,000 for the win. [See 2008, p. 736C2] o American Fred Funk Aug. 2 won the U.S. Senior Open in Carmel, Ind. Funk finished with a 20-under-par 268, and claimed a $470,000 winner’s check. [See 2008, p. 563A3] o Loren Roberts of the U.S. July 26 won the Senior British Open in Berkshire, England, on the third playoff hole. Roberts, Funk and Mark McNulty of Zimbabwe had all ended regulation with a score of 268, 12 under par. Roberts claimed $315,600 in prize money. [See 2008, p. 563C3] o Michael Allen of the U.S. May 23 won the Senior Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Championship in Beachwood, Ohio. He shot a 274, six under par, and earned $360,000 for the victory. [See 2008, p. 512G1] n 708

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People Anthony D. Marshall, the son of New York City philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor, who died in 2007 at the age of 105, Oct. 8 was convicted on charges of taking advantage of the dementia from which she had suffered in the last years of her life to loot her multimillion-dollar estate in various ways. After a months-long trial and 11 full days of deliberations, a New York State Supreme Court jury in New York City’s Manhattan borough convicted Marshall, 85, of 14 of the 16 charges filed against him. Marshall’s codefendant, estate attorney Francis X. Morrisey Jr., 66, was convicted on all five of the fraud and conspiracy counts brought against him, including forging Astor’s signature on an amendment to her will. The pair were scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 8; Marshall faced a prison term of up to 25 years. [See 2007, p. 536A2; 2006, pp. 847A3, 604F2] Musician Brian Wilson, 67, the former leader and principal songwriter of the Southern California band the Beach Boys, had been granted permission by the estate of composer George Gershwin to complete songs left unfinished by Gershwin upon his death in 1937, it was announced Oct. 8. The announcement was made by Walt Disney Records, with which Wilson had signed a two-album contract. One of those albums would include covers by Wilson of Gershwin standards, as well as his fleshedout versions of the unfinished material; the album was set to be released in 2010. [See 2007, p. 835F3; 2005, pp. 272A2, 107B3] British author David Benedictus’s Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorized sequel to A.A. Milne’s children’s stories about Winnie-the-Pooh, Oct. 5 was published simultaneously around the world in 16 languages. Milne’s character, a bear, had previously appeared in two story collections, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Those books owed much of their success to their illustrations: line drawings by E.H. Shepard. The illustrator for the new Pooh sequel—which contained 10 stories and introduced a new character, Lottie the otter—was Mark Burgess. Since the 1960s, Walt Disney Co., which acquired the rights to the Pooh characters after Milne’s death in 1956, had released a number of animated films revolving around those characters. [See 2005, pp. 480G3, 140D2; 2004, p. 276G1; 1998, p. 85G1; 1996, p. 292E3] British pop star Sir Elton John, 62, Sept. 14 was told by the government of Ukraine that he was “too old” to be allowed to adopt a 14-month-old boy from that country, and did not meet the country’s marriage requirement for adoption. John had entered into a same-sex civil union with his partner, David Furnish, in Britain in late 2005, but Ukraine did not recognize such civil unions as marriages. Also, Ukrainian law called for an adoptive parent to be no more than 45 years older than an adopted child. John and Furnish, 46, had sought to adopt the boy after meeting him on a tour of a

Ukrainian orphanage as part of an antiAIDS charity campaign. The boy had tested positive for HIV, the virus that caused AIDS. [See p. 399G3; 2005, p. 964F1] n

O B I T UA R I E S FERRANTE, Art(hur Richard), 88, half of the piano duo of Ferrante & Teicher, who recorded many best-selling “easy-listening” recordings over a fourdecade-long partnership; Teicher died in 2008; born Sept. 7, 1921, in New York City; died Sept. 19 at his home in Longboat Key, Fla.; no cause of death was reported. [See 2008, p. 564G3] FISHER, Donald George, 81, founder with his wife, Doris Fisher, of the San Francisco, Calif.–based clothing retailer The Gap Inc.; the business, of which was chairman from its founding until 2004, began with a single San Francisco store that opened in 1969; it grew into a global empire with estimated sales of $14.5 billion in 2008, and was the parent company for both the Banana Republic and Old Navy clothing chains; the Fishers became leading philanthropists and also amassed a huge collection of contemporary art that, it was announced Sept. 25, would likely be permanently housed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; born Sept. 3, 1928, in San Francisco; died Sept. 27 at his San Francisco home, of cancer. [See 2003, p. 1067C2; 2002, p. 790C3] FLOYD, Keith, 65, British restaurateur and celebrity chef; he hosted a series of British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) television cooking shows in the 1980s and 1990s, including “Floyd on Fish” and “Far Flung Floyd,” that made him a household name in Britain; while on the air, he was known to frantically improvise at times; some of his shows appeared on U.S. public TV; born Dec. 28, 1943, near Reading, England; died Sept. 14 in Bridport, England, of a heart attack. FUCHS, Bernie (Bernard Leo), 76, illustrator whose work appeared in a wide range of magazines, including Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, Cosmopolitan and the New Yorker; he was also an art teacher, children’s book author, postage stamp designer and unofficial portraitist of U.S. presidents; born Oct. 19, 1932, in O’Fallon, Ill.; died Sept. 17 at a hospice in Fairfield, Conn., of esophageal cancer. GIBSON, Henry (born James Bateman), 73, actor who became well-known for holding a giant flower and reciting doggerel on the television comedy show “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” (1968–73); he was also a character actor in a number of films, notably Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), in which he played an egocentric country singer; born Sept. 21, 1935, in Germantown, Pa.; died Sept. 14 at his home in Malibu, Calif., of cancer. [See 2008, p. 368C3; 1975, p. 1030F2] KIRCHNER, Leon, 90, composer of atonal (but not 12-tone) music who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for his Third String Quartet, which combined the two violins, viola and cello of the standard string quartet with electronic sounds; he taught at Harvard University for many years; born Jan. 24, 1919, in New York City; died Sept. 17 at his New York home, of congestive heart failure. [See 1967, p. 407B2] RONIS, Willy, 99, French photographer known for his lyrical black-and-white images of Parisian street life; he also took memorable photos of everyday life in Provence, in southeastern France; his work was somewhat overlooked for a number of years, but interest in it rebounded in the 1970s and 1980s; born Aug. 4, 1910, in Paris; died there Sept. 12. SIMON, Melvin, 82, shopping mall developer whose Indianapolis, Ind.–based Simon Property Group fully or partially owned more than 300 shopping malls in the U.S., Europe and Japan; he was among the developers of one of the world’s biggest malls, the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., which opened in 1992 and was run by his firm until 2006; since 1983, he and his brother, Herb Simon, had owned the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers team; he was also a film producer; born Oct. 21, 1926, in New York City; died Sept. 17 in Carmel, Ind.; the cause of his death was not disclosed. [See 1996, p. 241D1; 1992, p. 880E3; 1979, p. 1008A2] SUTTON, Crystal Lee (born Crystal Lee Pulley),

68, textile mill worker whose efforts to unionize workers at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., in the early 1970s inspired the 1979 film Norma Rae, for which Sally Field, who played a character based on her, won the 1980 Academy Award for best actress; born Dec. 31, 1940, in Roanoke Rapids; died Sept. 11 at a hospice in Burlington, N.C., of brain cancer. [See 1980, p. 296G1; 1979, p. 174C3] n

October 15, 2009

Pakistani Army Launches Major Operation Against the Taliban Long-Awaited Move Follows Recent Attacks.

The Pakistani army Oct. 17 launched a major operation against the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, sending some 30,000 troops into the group’s stronghold in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal area in Pakistan’s northwest. The long-awaited operation followed six terrorist attacks by the Taliban in less than two weeks that had killed more than 150 people across Pakistan, fueling concerns about the nucleararmed nation’s stability. [See p. 694F2] The army was targeting the Mehsud tribe, which led a loose coalition of a dozen militant tribes known formally as Tehreeke-Taliban. The Taliban harbored members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, and had links to other Pakistani Islamic extremist groups thought to have helped the Taliban carry out the recent terrorist attacks in the eastern province of Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Army ground forces, backed by fighter jets and helicopters, attacked the Mehsud tribe’s base, a mountainous region in central South Waziristan, from three directions. Soldiers reportedly moved in from the towns of Jandola in the east, Razmak in the north and Shakhai in the west. The army reportedly met stiff resistance from some 10,000 militants, who had had months to prepare for the operation and call in reinforcements from other tribal areas. The Taliban’s ranks were also thought to include foreign fighters from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, with about 1,500 from Uzbekistan. The battle for control of Kotkai, a village near the Afghan border, was reportedly particularly fierce. Kotkai was the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud, who had become the leader of the Taliban after a U.S. missile strike from a Predator drone aircraft killed his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, in August.

As of Oct. 21, 105 militants and 16 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, according to army officials. Those figures could not be independently verified because journalists had limited access to the war zone. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the military, Oct. 17 said the operation was expected to last six to eight weeks. The military had launched three smaller offensives in the tribal areas between 2004 and 2008, but none had been successful in asserting the central government’s control over the area. The offensives had resulted in cease-fires that were widely thought to have allowed the Taliban to regroup and extend its influence. [See 2008, p. 298B1; 2006, p. 703A1; 2004, p. 973B2] However, analysts said the current operation had the strong support of the Pakistani population, which had been lacking in previous operations. Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira Oct. 17 said, “There is total consensus among the political leaders for the army action.” The South Waziristan operation followed a largely successful effort by the army over the summer to retake territory held by the Taliban in the Swat Valley region of the NWFP. As many as 150,000 civilians had reportedly fled the war zone, and many were living in camps in the nearby towns of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. Aid officials said the number of displaced civilians could eventually reach 250,000, and warned that they lacked shelter, clean water and food. South Waziristan normally had a population of about 500,000. U.S. ‘Encouraged’ by Tribal Operation—

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Oct. 20 said the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama was “encouraged” by the operation in South Waziristan. Addressing journalists during a visit to Tokyo, the Japanese capital, Gates said, “We obviously are very supportive of what the Pakistanis are doing.”

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3592 October 22, 2009

B The U.S. had long pushed Pakistan to make an aggressive push against militant groups that had created a safe haven in the tribal areas, saying they posed a threat to U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces operating in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. had also wanted the Pakistani army to crack down on Al Qaeda. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2009 was thought to have conducted more than 40 Predator missile attacks against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the tribal areas, with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government. It was reported that the U.S. was sharing intelligence collected by drones with the Pakistani army in the current operation, and that U.S. troops in Afghanistan were working to prevent Pakistani militants from escaping or resupplying across the border.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Pakistani army launches major operation against the Taliban. PAGE 709

Afghan President Karzai agrees to runoff election. PAGE 710

Iran agrees to draft uranium transfer deal.

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U.S. deficit hits record $1.42 trillion for fiscal year 2009. PAGE 713

Botswana’s ruling party wins elections. PAGE 722

Russia’s governing party dominates provincial elections. PAGE 727

Kurdish rebels cross Turkish border to surrender.

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Iraqi parliament fails to pass elections law. PAGE 729

United Nations rights council backs Gaza war crimes report. PAGE 730

SPECIAL FEATURE World heads of state and government leaders listed. PAGES 732–736

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the Middle East and Central Asia, and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Oct. 19 met with Pakistani civilian and military officials in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. [See p. 710F1] Army Strikes Deal With Rival Tribes—

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Abbas Oct. 19 acknowledged reports that the army had made deals with two tribes that were rivals of the Mehsud tribe. The tribes—led by Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur—had formerly been allied with Baitullah Mehsud, and Bahadur’s fighters were thought to have carried out a June attack on an army convoy that killed 30 soldiers. Under the new agreement, the army could safely send supplies and troops across territories controlled by Nazir and Bahadur that abutted the Mehsuds’ redoubt, while their tribesmen would remain neutral and be allowed freedom of movement on roads controlled by the military. [See p. 466G3] Observers noted that both Nazir and Bahadur were allied with Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan warlord who, with his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, led an insurgent group that was fighting against Western forces in Afghanistan. Abbas said the alliances were necessary to isolate the Mehsud tribe. [See 635F2] Suicide Bombers Kill 11 in Peshawar—

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A group of three suicide bombers Oct. 16 attacked a police station in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP, killing at least 11 people. Peshawar, which was close to the tribal areas, had been the target of several Taliban attacks in recent weeks. Two suicide bombers Oct. 20 killed at least six people, including themselves, when they attacked the International Islamic University in Islamabad. The attack surprised observers, since the university was a respected center of religious teaching, and it appeared to harden public opinion against the Taliban. The government subsequently closed schools and universities until the end of the week. Two gunmen Oct. 22 opened fire on a Pakistani army jeep in Islamabad, killing two people, including a senior military officer, Brig. Moinudin Ahmed. The attack was thought to be in retaliation for the South Waziristan operation. n

Afghan President Karzai Agrees To Runoff Election Follows Days of International Pressure.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai Oct. 20 agreed to accept the conclusions of a United Nations–backed panel finding that he had received less than 50% of the vote in an August presidential election, paving the way for a Nov. 7 runoff with his main competitor, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai had reportedly threatened to reject the findings, but yielded to intense pressure from the U.S., Britain and other members of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) coalition fighting an insurgency by the Islamic fun-

damentalist group the Taliban. [See pp. 696F1, 695D3] Karzai made his announcement at a press conference in Kabul, the capital, where he was joined by U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D, Mass.), as well as diplomats from other Western countries and the U.N. Karzai questioned the U.N. panel’s decision to disqualify about one third of his votes as fraudulent, saying, “Why these votes were disrespected should be investigated.” But he concluded, “Now is the time to move forward to stability and national unity. I prefer to put the interests of the Afghan people above my personal interests.” According to preliminary election results, Karzai had received more than 54% of the vote, achieving the simple majority he needed to avoid a runoff with Abdullah, who had placed a distant second with 28%. However, the election had been tainted by accusations of widespread fraud, and it was thought that the Western coalition would face greater difficulty in winning the allegiance of Afghans if the government was considered illegitimate. After weeks of review, the U.N.-backed panel, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), reportedly concluded that about one million of Karzai’s three million votes were fraudulent. While the ECC’s findings were not made public, it was reported that the discounted ballots brought Karzai’s total to about 48%. The ECC Oct. 19 submitted its report to the Afghan government’s Independent Elections Commission (IEC), whose members had been appointed by Karzai. It was reported that Karzai had considered ordering the IEC to reject the ECC’s report. In the end, the IEC Oct. 20 said Karzai had received 49.7% of the vote. Abdullah Oct. 21 said he was prepared to participate in the runoff, though he warned that measures needed to be taken to prevent further vote fraud. Abdullah denied that he had come under international pressure to reach a power-sharing agreement with Karzai, as had been widely reported. The U.N. said 200 of the 380 district election officials had been fired and would be replaced. It was also reported that authorities would work to reduce the number of “ghost” polling stations, those which had submitted ballots but had never opened on election day or existed only on paper. There were other concerns about the forthcoming runoff, including the likelihood that the Taliban would step up attacks intended to intimidate voters; the onset of Afghanistan’s winter season, which brought heavy snows that might make it difficult for voters in the underdeveloped country to reach polling stations; and increased tensions between ethnic Pashtuns, who largely supported Karzai, and ethnic Tajiks, who largely supported Abdullah. U.S. Sen. Kerry Plays Central Role—

Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Oct. 16 asked Kerry, who was in Kabul that day on a previously planned trip, to assist in negotiations with Karzai, after it became clear that he was prepared to reject the ECC’s report. Western officials reportedly feared that such a move would

not only undermine the government, but lead to violent unrest. Kerry reportedly met with Karzai frequently in the days that followed to ensure that he agreed to a runoff, even returning to Kabul Oct. 19 after a trip to neighboring Pakistan. Karzai also reportedly spoke on the telephone with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. [See p. 709A1] Kerry Oct. 20 explained to reporters that he and Karzai were “friends,” and said he had spoken to Karzai about his own election disappointment in 2004, when he lost the U.S. presidential race to George W. Bush. He added that Karzai genuinely believed that he had won the election fairly. Karzai’s relationship with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, had reportedly grown strained after Holbrooke suggested a runoff would be necessary. [See p. 594B2; 2004, p. 857A1] The U.S. also sent signals to Karzai that President Barack Obama would delay making a decision on U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan until the dispute was resolved. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the U.S. needed a “true partner” in Afghanistan before it could commit additional troops to help quell the insurgency, in an Oct. 19 interview with Cable News Network (CNN). Kerry that day reinforced that notion in an interview with television network CBS, saying additional forces were dependent on an “adequate government” in Afghanistan. Obama was currently weighing whether to deploy an additional 40,000 U.S. troops to the country. Foreign leaders Oct. 20 were quick to praise Karzai for agreeing to the runoff. Obama said the decision was in “the best in-

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terests of the Afghan people,” while Brown said Karzai had been “statesmanlike.” White House officials Oct. 21 said it was “certainly possible” that Obama could make a decision on the troop levels before the runoff was held. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking to reporters Oct. 20 in Tokyo, the Japanese capital, had said the U.S. would move forward with its military plans regardless of the political situation in Afghanistan. n

Iranian Nuclear Dispute Draft Uranium Transfer Deal Agreed. Irani-

an diplomats Oct. 21 agreed to a draft agreement stipulating that Iran transfer three-quarters of its known stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia and France. The deal came on the third day of contentious talks in Vienna, Austria’s capital, between Iran, the U.S., Russia and France; Iran earlier in the talks had threatened to abandon the deal. Iran had agreed to the talks in early October, in the wake of the late September disclosure of a secret nuclear facility near the Iranian holy city of Qom; international inspectors were due to visit that plant Oct. 25. [See p. 688B1] The deal would have to be approved by the Iranian, U.S., Russian and French governments by Oct. 23. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy at the talks and its ambassador to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicated that there were uncertain prospects for approval by the Iranian government, reflecting internal tensions. The deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Rezaq Bahonar, Oct. 22 said the deal was “not acceptable,” but added that “we have announced that this draft plan has to be reviewed, and for the time being we are not saying whether we accept or reject it.” Under the deal, Iran would ship 2,600 pounds (1,200 kgs) of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further enriched to the 19.5% level necessary for it to be used as fuel in a research reactor in Tehran, Iran’s capital, to produce medical isotopes. (That enrichment level was still far below the one needed to make nuclear weapons.) The uranium would then be sent to France, where it would be fashioned into metal plates used by the reactor. The deal did not affect Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, which the U.S. and its allies had been trying to persuade it to give up but which Iran defended as its right. Many details of the prospective deal had not been publicized. Analysts said sending 2,600 pounds of enriched uranium out of Iran would delay the government’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear weapon by about a year, if the IAEA’s estimate that Iran had a total of 3,500 pounds of low-enriched uranium was correct. That would provide more time to negotiate a more far-reaching deal on Iran’s nuclear program. However, they said that if Iran had additional uranium hidden away from inspectors, the deal’s impact would be lessened. Similarly, if Iran transferred the uranium to Russia in small installments rather than in one shipment, it would reportedly be able October 22, 2009

to enrich enough new uranium to replace the outgoing material. If the deal was approved, analysts said it would be a validation of U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy of engaging with Iran over its nuclear program. The deal was also seen as a demonstration by the U.S. and its allies that they were making a goodfaith effort towards Iran; if Iran refused, it would lend additional weight to a push for harsher economic sanctions. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Oct. 21 said that unless Iran and North Korea curbed their nuclear programs immediately, they would face continued international pressure. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Oct. 22 called for “the cessation of enrichment by Iran and not just the removal of the enriched material.” He added that no “option” should be “removed from the table,” referring to the threat of further sanctions or military action against Iran. U.S. House Passes Divestment Measure—

The U.S. House Oct. 14 passed, 414–6, a bill that would allow local and state governments and educational institutions to divest from and prevent investment in companies with ties to Iran’s energy sector. The bill would also protect them from lawsuits resulting from such actions. The bill did not impose any sanctions on Iran. The U.S. House had previously passed two similar bills, without action by the U.S. Senate. [See 2008, p. 874F2] Britain Oct. 12 instituted rules forbidding British financial-services companies from dealing with two Iranian companies with alleged links to Iran’s nuclear program. The companies were Bank Mellat and the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. n

Religion Vatican Invites Anglican Converts. The Vatican Oct. 20 unexpectedly announced a decree from Pope Benedict XVI, called an Apostolic Constitution, that would allow disaffected clergy and laity of the worldwide Anglican Communion to convert to the Roman Catholic Church while retaining some Anglican traditions, notably married priests. The Vatican’s move to invite converts came amid a growing split between liberal and conservative factions of Anglicans. The division was mainly over the ordination of women and homosexuals as bishops, practices accepted by the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, but opposed by more conservative churches elsewhere, as well as by groups of conservatives within the U.S. church. The Roman Catholic Church only allowed celibate men to serve as priests and bishops. [See pp. 711F3, 539B1] The Catholic Church had previously allowed married Anglican priests to convert and be reordained as Catholic priests on an individual basis. The Vatican’s new decree allowed entire Anglican congregations to convert to Catholicism. Vatican officials said as many as 50 Anglican bishops were preparing to convert, and that the Vatican’s move came in response to a rash of requests from dissident Anglicans across the

globe. Married bishops would not be allowed under the Vatican’s decree. The Vatican said it would spell out the procedures for accepting Anglican congregations in the coming weeks. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Communion, the same day said the Vatican’s decree had “no negative impact on the relation of the [Anglican] communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.” However, Williams, in a letter to Anglican bishops published Oct. 20, said he had been informed of the Vatican’s move “at a very late stage.” The Church of England, the “mother church” of the Anglican Communion, had split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, after Pope Clement VII denied English King Henry VIII’s demand for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. n News in Brief. The U.S. Roman Catholic diocese of Wilmington, Del., Oct. 18 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, one day before eight trials on clergy-sex abuse were slated to begin. The filing would freeze all pending litigation against the diocese, and allow the state bankruptcy court to designate a set amount of money to compensate abuse victims. Church officials estimated that the dozens of pending abuse cases against it could cost as much as $500 million. The diocese claimed assets of between $50 million and $100 million. It was the seventh Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. to file for bankruptcy amid a rash of sexual abuse cases initiated against numerous dioceses. The others were Davenport, Iowa; Fairbanks, Alaska; Portland, Ore.; San Diego, Calif.; Spokane, Wash.; and Tucson, Ariz. [See below; p. 132C2] India Oct. 13 rejected a request by Albania to return the remains of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mother Teresa, an ethnically Albanian Roman Catholic nun who spent much of her life working in Kolkata, India (formerly known as Calcutta), and founded an order there dedicated to serving the poor. Albanian officials had said they wanted her remains returned before the 100th anniversary of her birth in 1910. Mother Teresa, who was born in Skopje, Macedonia, had been granted Indian citizenship in 1951, and was buried in Kolkata after she died in 1997. [See 2007, p. 605D3] The conservative congregation of St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Los Angeles, Calif., which in 2006 had broken ties with the more liberal Episcopal Church, Oct. 12

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surrendered its property to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in accord with a

judge’s order. St. Luke’s had appealed the ruling, but California’s Supreme Court had rejected the appeal. The dispute stemmed mainly from the Episcopal Church’s acceptance of gay and female bishops, and disputes over biblical authority. [See p. 711D2] The U.S.-based National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) Oct. 8 urged the U.S. Congress to create a path for illegal immigrants to eventually become citizens. The NAE, which was composed of representa-

tives from many denominations and often took liberal positions, stressed the impor711

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tance of family reunification programs. NAE President Leith Anderson said at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship that current immigration policies were antiquated and overly bureaucratic. [See p. 721D2] Pope Benedict XVI Oct. 4, in Rome, Italy, opened a three-week synod of African bishops. He praised Africa, whose Catholic population had grown to 146 million in 2007, from 55 million in 1978, as a “great spiritual lung” for the church. He warned against the influence of materialism and “toxic spiritual garbage” exported by wealthy countries, calling it an extension of their “political colonialism” of the continent. He also warned against the “virus” of “religious fundamentalism, mixed with political and economic interests.” African cardinals Oct. 14 condemned “cultural imperialism” on the part of rich countries, which they said was apparent in their trade, aid and health care policies toward Africa. [See p. 195C3] The Vatican Sept. 23 announced on its Web site that it had accepted the resignation of Angelo Caloia, head of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), the Vatican’s bank. Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and professor of ethical finance at Milan, Italy’s Catholic University, was appointed to replace Caloia, who had resigned 18 months before the end of his term. The IOR’s management board was also replaced. An unnamed Vatican official reportedly said the new leadership was a move toward increased transparency at the IOR, which was overseen by five top cardinals who reported to the pope. Caloia had been appointed in 1989, after the institute was implicated in financial scandals earlier that decade. [See 1987, p. 556F1] The Archdiocese of Chicago, Ill., July 21 announced that it would pay six victims of sexual abuse by priests a total of $3.9 million. The archdiocese also released a deposition by Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert, in which he detailed the church’s efforts to keep the abuse secret. n

Korean Peninsula China Urges U.S.–North Korea Talks.

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Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, hosting a summit meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, Oct. 10 urged the U.S. and North Korea to undertake “serious and constructive dialogue” to revive international talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Wen, who Oct. 4–6 had visited North Korea, said North Korea’s recent expressions of willingness to return to discussions on abandoning its nuclear activities could “be fleeting” and should be taken up without delay. North Korea in April had declared its withdrawal from six-nation talks on the issue, which had also included the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. [See p. 652B3] Wen on his trip to North Korea Oct. 5 had met with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il. Kim reportedly told Wen that North Korea was willing to return to the six-way talks if it first held bilateral talks 712

with the U.S. that showed progress in reducing hostility between the two countries. The U.S. insisted that it would address the nuclear issue only in the six-way talks, but had recently suggested that it would agree to a bilateral meeting with North Korea, intended only to persuade it to return to the multinational forum. Wen, newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak Oct. 10 issued a joint statement pledging to work for the quick resumption of the six-way talks. The statement did not address Japan’s and South Korea’s differences with China on aid and trade with North Korea. Wen during his trip had signed new agreements on economic cooperation with North Korea. Meanwhile, at an Oct. 9 summit in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Lee and Hatoyama said they favored withholding economic aid and cooperation until North Korea made substantial moves toward ending its nuclear and illicit missile programs. Hatoyama also backed Lee’s proposal for a new approach to North Korea and the nuclear issue. Lee had proposed a one-time “grand bargain” in which North Korea would be offered substantial economic and other incentives in exchange for dismantling its nuclear programs entirely, instead of the step-by-step process that had been pursued for years in the six-nation talks. Hatoyama backed the “grand bargain” idea, which Lee said would avoid the North Korean “negotiation tactics of the past,” in which it had frequently reneged on its pledges, demanding concessions anew as a condition for returning to negotiations. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency Oct. 7 reported that according to unidentified U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials, North Korea was close to completing the restoration of its main plutonium plant, which it had begun to disable under a 2007 agreement reached in the six-way talks. North, South in River Talks—Officials of North and South Korea Oct. 14 met in Kaesong, North Korea, to discuss flood control on the rivers that flowed between the two countries. South Korea said North Korea had offered a statement of regret and condolences over a September incident in which North Korea without warning released water from a dam on the Imjin River, causing sudden flooding downstream in South Korea that killed six people. The officials said North Korea had said the release of the water had been necessary to avert a greater catastrophe, but had not provided further details. A spokesman for Lee welcomed North Korea’s statement as evidence of its “willingness…to improve relations.” Representatives of the two countries’ governments and Red Cross societies Oct. 16 met to discuss holding another round of reunions of families separated by the North-South border since the 1950–53 Korean War. South Korean officials said afterward that no agreement had yet been reached because North Korea was demanding new humanitarian aid in exchange for agreeing to the reunions. The two countries in late September and early October had held the first such reunions since 2007.

North Korea Oct. 15 accused South Korea of sending warships into its territorial waters numerous times in recent days, a charge South Korea dismissed as unfounded. North Korea Oct. 12 had also fired five short-range missiles off of its eastern coast, according to South Korean officials. Separately, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Oct. 21–22 visited South Korea, where he encouraged South Korea to spend more on national defense. He said plans for transferring wartime command of South Korean forces from the U.S. to South Korea in 2012 were on track. [See 2007, p. 182E2] n

Other International News Obama Delays Meeting With Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, Oct. 5 arrived in Washington, D.C., to receive an award from the U.S. Congress and to meet with the recently appointed U.S. coordinator for Tibet. However, U.S. President Barack Obama decided to delay meeting the Dalai Lama until after Obama’s November visit to China, which regarded the Dalai Lama as a promoter of separatism in Tibet. The postponement was a departure from the practice of three previous presidents, all of whom had met with the Dalai Lama during his visits to the U.S. capital. [See p. 625B2] In the face of criticism from human rights activists and congressional Republicans who said it had bowed to pressure from the Chinese government, the Obama administration contended that a stronger relationship between the U.S. and China would allow Obama to advocate on behalf of Tibetans. The Dalai Lama’s envoy, Lodi Gyari, Oct. 6 also said improved ties between the U.S. and China would “create conditions that support the resolution of the legitimate grievances of the Tibetan people.” Gyari said the Dalai Lama looked forward to a future meeting with Obama “at the appropriate time.” The 74-year-old Dalai Lama met with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero at his hotel Oct. 5. Otero Oct. 1 had been named the special coordinator for Tibetan issues. She, along with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, had visited the Dalai Lama the previous month in Dharamsala, India, the base of his Tibetan government in exile. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Oct. 6 presented the Dalai Lama with the inaugural Lantos Human Rights Prize, an award in honor of the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D, Calif.). At the ceremony, the Dalai Lama urged lawmakers to address the “huge gap, rich to poor,” in the U.S. In 2007, he had received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress, at a ceremony attended by then–U.S. President George W. Bush. That had been the first public appearance by a sitting U.S. president with the Dalai Lama, prompting expressions of outrage from the Chinese government. [See 2007, p. 679C1] n FACTS ON FILE

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Federal Budget Deficit Hits Record $1.42 Trillion. The Treasury Department Oct. 16 reported that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, was a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the previous record in dollar terms, $459 billion, set the previous year. As a share of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit measured about 10%, the highest since 1945, when it reached 21.5% at the end of World War II. The fiscal 2008 deficit had equaled 3.2% of GDP. [See p. 570A3; 2008, p. 746E1] The Treasury reported that government receipts declined 16.6% in fiscal 2009, to $2.1 trillion. Revenues from individual income taxes and corporate taxes had dwindled due to a severe recession that began in December 2007, causing millions of layoffs and billions of dollars in corporate losses. Federal outlays increased 18.2%, to $3.52 trillion, with much of the rise caused by spending on various measures designed to mitigate the recession. Those outlays included $113 billion spent so far from a $787 billion stimulus package signed by President Barack Obama in February. Another costly emergency program was a $700 billion rescue fund for the financial industry, which had been requested by the administration of Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush. The Obama administration argued that the stimulus package and other programs had succeeded in stabilizing the economy, and that the deficit would have been worse without those expenditures. The administration noted that the actual deficit was $400 billion less than an August projection by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In a joint statement, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and OMB Director Peter Orszag Oct. 16 said the fiscal 2009 deficit was “largely the product of the spending and tax policies inherited from the previous administration, exacerbated by a severe recession and financial crisis that were underway as the current administration took office.” Orszag said, “The president recognizes that we need to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable path,” adding that different options for reducing the deficit were being considered for the fiscal 2011 budget, which Obama was to unveil in February 2010. Obama and members of the Democratic congressional majorities had blamed Bush for leaving office in January with the budget deep in deficit, after entering office with a budget surplus in 2001. However, Republicans argued that Obama’s policies had worsened the fiscal situation. Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, Oct. 16 said, “Congress and the administration have made a bad situation worse with an unrelenting spending binge that has plunged our nation into a dangerous level of deficit and debt.” October 22, 2009

The OMB in August had projected a $9 trillion cumulative deficit over the next 10 years, through fiscal 2019. Democratic

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The deficit was viewed as a constraint on the agenda of Obama and the Democrats. Their top priority was a health care reform bill taking shape in Congress, which was expected to cost about $900 billion over 10 years. Obama had insisted that the cost of the measure be fully offset by tax increases or spending cuts so that it would not add to the deficit. The deficit could also weigh on Obama’s deliberations on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. [See pp. 713A3, 710F1] Meanwhile, Obama and Congress were considering additional economic stimulus measures. Although GDP was believed to have started growing again, job losses had continued, with the unemployment rate rising to 9.8% in September. Congress was considering extending unemployment benefits. Obama had also proposed sending $250 checks to senior citizens. [See pp. 714E1, 676A1] National Debt Nears $12.1 Trillion Limit—

The national debt, mainly in the form of Treasury securities, had risen to $11.9 trillion as of Sept. 30. Geithner Aug. 7 had formally requested that Congress increase the statutory debt limit, which stood at $12.1 trillion. Geithner warned that the limit might be reached by mid-October. If the total of outstanding debt breached the limit, the government could be forced to shift funds between various accounts, withhold interest payments to federal trust funds, or, as a last resort, shut down some of its operations to avoid a default on its obligations to creditors. The House April 29 had approved a $925 billion increase in the debt limit, to $13.029 trillion. Under House rules, the increase passed automatically as part of an annual budget resolution; the Senate required a separate vote to clear the measure. Congress had raised the debt ceiling 76 times since 1960, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s. The last increase—to $12.1 trillion, from $11.3 trillion—had been part of the stimulus package enacted in February. [See p. 89A1] The Hill, a newspaper that covered Congress, Oct. 19 reported that a group of nine Democratic senators, joined by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.), had sent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) a letter calling for a special legislative process to expedite debt reduction measures. They said authorization for such a process should be attached to the next debt-limit increase. International concern over the U.S.’s deteriorating fiscal situation and growing debt was viewed as a factor in a monthslong decline in the value of the dollar against other currencies. The euro, the currency used by 16 members of the European Union, Oct. 21 passed the $1.50 mark for the first time in 14 months. [See p. 699B3; 2008, p. 897D2] n

Health Care Reform Senate Blocks Medicare Payment Reform.

The Senate Oct. 21 voted, 53–47, not to advance debate on a bill that would have halted scheduled cuts in Medicare payments to doctors for 10 years, a move that was seen as a setback for health care reform efforts being led by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. The vote, which effectively scuttled the bill, was also viewed as a defeat for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.), since 12 Democrats and one independent had joined all Republicans in voting against it. Those voting to block the bill said they were concerned because there had been no plan to offset or pay for its cost, estimated at $247 billion over 10 years. [See p. 698A1] A 1997 deficit-reduction law mandated that payments made to doctors under Medicare face a series of cuts. Since 2003, Congress had been able to put off implementing the payment cuts through a series of bills passed each year, but was usually able to offset the resulting cost. Under the existing law, physicians faced a 21.5% cut in Medicare payments in 2010, and then 5% annual cuts for several years after. Senate Democrats had attempted to pass the Medicare payment-cut freeze separately from a much broader health care reform bill, in order to keep the overall cost of the latter below $900 billion. That cost ceiling had been imposed by Obama. The bill was also part of efforts to secure the support of the American Medical Association (AMA), a physician’s professional group opposed to the cuts, for the broader health care reform bill. Democrats also said the bill was needed to ensure that doctors would continue to accept people on Medicare as patients. Separately, the Senate Judiciary Committee Oct. 21 voted, 20–9, to advance a bill that would end insurance companies’ exemption from federal antitrust laws, which had been in place since 1945. However, some insurance industry analysts said ending the exemption would do little to change the practices of insurers toward patients, since it mostly affected issues unrelated to market share and consolidation. It was likely that the bill would be folded into the broader health care reform measure in the Senate. [See 1945, p. 79K] Chambers Work to Craft Single Bills—

Both Senate and House leaders also continued work on reconciling their own chambers’ varying versions of health care reform legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Oct. 20 said she would promote the inclusion of a “robust” version of a government-run health insurance plan, known widely as a “public option,” in the House’s version of the legislation, and was close to reaching the support of 218 members needed to pass the bill. The public option was controversial, with its detractors saying it would be expensive and lead to an aggrandized government role in health care. Only one of the five versions of health care reform legislation passed by various 713

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House and Senate committees did not contain a public option. That version had been passed by the Senate Finance Committee, under the guidance of Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), the panel’s chairman, with the input of several Republicans. However, inclusion of the public option in the Senate bill was enjoying new support from liberal members of the chamber. Several Democrats said there was an improved chance that the version of the bill brought for a Senate floor vote would include some form of a public option. Reid, during an Oct. 22 meeting of Democratic leaders at the White House, reportedly told Obama that he was leaning toward including a public option in the Senate’s bill. A Washington Post–ABC News poll conducted Oct. 15–19 and reported Oct. 20 found that public support for the government-run health insurance program had increased in recent months. According to the poll, 57% of respondents favored such a plan, while 40% opposed it. In mid-August, only 52% of respondents had supported the public option. Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Oct. 16 issued a memorandum saying the government would end an order prohibiting insurance companies from sending information to customers warning of cuts to Medicare benefits resulting from the health care reform effort. The Obama administration in late September had issued the order to Humana Inc., after the insurance company had sent out such mailings. The order, which had applied to all insurance companies, had been criticized by Republicans as an infringement of companies’ free speech rights. [See p. 638B1] n

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No Social Security Increase in 2010. The Social Security Administration (SSA)

Oct. 15 announced that there would be no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase in 2010 in Social Security benefits paid to the elderly and disabled. It was the first time there would be no annual increase in Social Security benefits since 1975, when changes were made to automate the adjustments by tying them to the inflation rate. The Labor Department that day had reported that the consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation, had fallen 2.1% over the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, due largely to a large decrease in energy prices. (Social Security payments were not allowed to decrease.) [See p. 324D1; 2008, p. 906E1] The SSA in January had raised Social Security benefits by 5.8%, the largest increase since 1982. The inflation rate in 2008 had been unusually high because of a sharp climb in energy prices. President Barack Obama Oct. 14, anticipating the Social Security benefits freeze, called on Congress to approve a second round of one-time $250 payments to those on Social Security, veterans or disability benefits and retired government employees not receiving Social Security, among others. The $787 billion economic stimulus 714

package enacted in February had contained a $250 payment to those groups that had already been distributed. The proposed payments would be roughly equal to a 2% increase in benefits for the year for the average Social Security recipient. [See pp. 90B3, G2] The White House estimated that the cost of the payments would be $13 billion, and said the money would not come from the Social Security trust fund. However, he did not offer an alternative means of funding the proposal, raising the possibility that the government would borrow the needed money, thereby raising the federal deficit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) joined Obama in urging Congress to approve the new payments, but some other lawmakers questioned whether they were necessary. Advocates for the elderly said the payments were needed, since older people tended to spend more money on health care, the cost of which had been outpacing inflation. n Medicare B Premiums to Rise 15% in 2010.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Oct. 16 announced that premiums for Medicare Part B, which covered physician services and outpatient hospital care for the elderly and disabled, would rise to $110.50 per month, from $96.40. However, the rise in premiums would only affect about 27% of Medicare beneficiaries—those who were either new to the program, had high incomes or had their premiums paid for by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor. [See p. 714D1; 2008, p. 727D1] The other 73% of beneficiaries were shielded from the increase by a law that did not allow Medicare premium increases to exceed increases in Social Security benefits. The Social Security Administration (SSA) Oct. 15 had announced that there would be no increase in Social Security benefits in 2010. The formula used to calculate the annual increase, or cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), in Social Security benefits was tied to the inflation rate. The consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation, had decreased over the previous year. The House Sept. 24 passed, 406–18, a bill that would eliminate any premium increase for Medicare Part B. However, Democrats’ moves to put the measure to an immediate vote in the Senate was blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.), who called it “unsustainable.” n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills Homeland Security Bill Cleared. The House Oct. 15 voted, 307–114 to pass the final version of an appropriations bill that would provide $44.1 billion to the Homeland Security Department in fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1. The Senate Oct. 20 voted, 79–19, to clear the bill. President Barack Obama was expected to sign the bill. [See pp. 488F1, 338F1] The bill would provide $42.8 billion in discretionary spending, a 6.6% increase from the previous year, and more than the $42.7 billion requested by Obama. It in-

cluded $10.1 billion for the department’s Customs and Border Protection division, $8.8 billion for the Coast Guard, $7.7 billion for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), $1.5 billion for the Secret Service and $903 million for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), among other divisions and programs. The bill contained a provision, agreed to by the conference committee Oct. 7, which would allow the Obama administration to transfer terrorism detainees currently held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the U.S., but only to face trial. The bill barred the Obama administration from releasing any detainees who were cleared by the government of terrorism charges into the U.S., and required that all detainees be added to government no-fly lists and blocked from receiving U.S. immigration benefits. (The House Oct. 1 had voted, 258–163, to add to its version a measure prohibiting any detainees from entering the U.S., including for prosecution; however, that provision was altered in the final bill.) The bill included $32 million in funding for a planned infectious diseases research lab in Manhattan, Kan., that was intended to replace a facility on Plum Island, N.Y. However, the bill required the Homeland Security Department to study whether the lab could safely be built in Kansas, which regularly experienced tornadoes, and provided $2 million for a review of that study by the National Academy of Sciences. The bill also altered the so-called “widow penalty,” which invalidated permanent residency applications made by foreign nationals married to U.S. citizens if their spouses died before the second anniversary of the marriage. Under the bill, any foreign national married to a U.S. citizen would have a two-year window following the death of their spouse to petition for residency, as long as they had not remarried. The bill would also grant any foreign national whose U.S. spouse had died before their second anniversary a two-year window from the enactment of the law to petition for residency, regardless of how long ago their spouse had died. n House, Senate Pass Energy-Water Bill.

The House Oct. 1 voted, 308–114, to pass a final $34 billion Energy-Water appropriations bill intended to provide funding for the Energy Department and the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as other related agencies and projects, for fiscal 2010, which began that day. The Senate Oct. 15 voted, 80–17, to pass the bill, negotiated Sept. 30 by a House–Senate conference committee. [See p. 658D3] The bill included $33.5 billion in discretionary funds, slightly more than the previous year’s $33.3 billion, and less than President Barack Obama’s request of $34.4 billion. It would provide $27.1 billion to the Energy Department, including $2.2 billion for renewable energy initiatives and $6.4 billion to maintain, repair and safeguard the country’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. The bill would also set aside $5.4 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, FACTS ON FILE

including $2 billion for flood planning and other projects. The bill would effectively halt the development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada, by allotting only $197 million for the project and mandating the creation of an expert commission to examine alterative ways to dispose of nuclear waste. The facility, which had cost about $13.5 billion so far, was opposed by both President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.). n

Banking Mixed Third-Quarter Reports From Banks.

Banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Oct. 14 reported a $3.59 billion profit for the third quarter of 2009, which was seen as the latest indication of stabilization in the financial industry, and helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average above the 10,000 mark for the first time since October 2008. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Oct. 15 announced a $3.19 billion profit for the quarter. However, Citigroup Inc. that day reported a meager profit of $101 million, and Bank of America Corp. the following day posted a $1 billion loss, fueling concerns that rising losses on consumer loan defaults could hamper a broader recovery in the industry. [See p. 490F1] The profits at J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs—both based in New York City—were spurred by strong gains in their investment-banking divisions. Analysts said those divisions had benefited from the financial crisis that began in 2008, which weakened some of their competitors, like Morgan Stanley, and caused the outright failures of others, like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The Dow Oct. 14 rose 144.80 points, or 1.5%, to close at 10,015.86. J.P. Morgan Chase also reported losses stemming from rising defaults on home, credit-card and other consumer loans, which had been caused by an ongoing recession and a rising unemployment rate. The bank in the third quarter set aside $2 billion to offset anticipated loan losses, bringing the total amount of money it had placed in reserve to $31.5 billion. [See p. 676A1] New York City–based Citigroup and Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America continued to struggle with mounting loan losses. Bank of America set aside an additional $2.1 billion in reserves, bringing its total to $35.8 billion, while Citigroup set aside $800 million, for a total of $36.4 billion. Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis Oct. 16 said loan losses were “our major financial challenge going forward.” The Dow that day fell 67.03 points, or 0.67%, to close at 9,995.91. San Francisco, Calif.–based Wells Fargo & Co. Oct. 21 reported a $3.2 billion profit for the third quarter, and said the rate of growth on loans that would likely not be repaid was “slowing.” New York City– based Morgan Stanley that day reported a October 22, 2009

$757 million profit, its first quarterly profit since 2008. Profits Spark Criticism— The surging profits at J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs renewed criticisms that the financial industry had returned to the types of risktaking practices that had sparked the financial crisis, despite having received enormous amounts of assistance from the government to stay afloat. Both companies had borrowed money from the government at the height of the crisis in 2008 (which they subsequently repaid), and continued to benefit from programs that allowed them to borrow cheaply from the Federal Reserve and sell corporate bonds with a guarantee from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). The two companies were also criticized for planning to reward their employees with exorbitant compensation, which critics said encouraged excessive risk-taking. J.P. Morgan Chase Oct. 14 announced that so far in 2009 it had reserved $8.8 billion for bonuses and compensation, while Goldman Sachs Oct. 15 said it had set aside $16.7 billion. Goldman Sachs was on track to match the record payments it had doled out to employees in 2007, a year before the crisis struck. Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer David Viniar defended the company’s pay practices, saying, “We are very aware of what is going on in the world, but we have to trade that off with being fair to our people who, we believe, have performed admirably throughout the crisis.” The company that day also announced that it was donating $200 million to its charity foundation, in what was seen as an attempt to mitigate criticism over its compensation policy. Officials in the administration of President Barack Obama Oct. 18 criticized the pay packages. White House senior adviser David Axelrod, in an interview with ABC, said the high level of compensation was “offensive,” and criticized the banks for lobbying against regulatory reform designed to tighten oversight of the industry. Reform legislation was currently being considered in Congress. [See p. 640F2] No Pay For Bank of America Chief—

Lewis Oct. 15 agreed to forego his annual salary of $1.5 million in a deal with Kenneth Feinberg, the special master in charge of determining compensation for the top earners at seven companies that had received exceptional assistance from the government during the financial crisis. Bank of America had received a total of $45 billion in government aid. Lewis in September had announced that he would retire at the end of the year. [See p. 657D2] Under the agreement, Lewis would not receive a yearly bonus and would return the $1 million in compensation that he had already received in 2009. Lewis’s retirement package—comprised of stocks, cash and pension benefits—was expected to total $69 million, but Feinberg did not have authority to alter the terms of the package, which had been agreed to before the financial crisis began.

Watchdog Criticizes AIG Payments— A watchdog for the government’s $700 billion financial industry rescue plan Oct. 14 said the $168 million in bonuses that insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG) had paid to its employees in March was the result of “a failure of management” on the part of the Treasury. The bonuses had caused a public uproar because AIG since 2008 had received more than $180 billion in government aid, far more than any other company. The special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Neil Barofsky, made his comments in testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. [See pp. 585G2, 219F3] Barofsky said the Treasury failed to communicate with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which had known about the bonuses. He said that while the bonuses were based on legally binding contracts, the Treasury could have found ways to prevent their disbursement if it had become aware of them sooner. Barofsky that day released a report showing that AIG employees who had pledged to return $45 million in bonus money had returned only $19 million as of Aug. 31. The report said Feinberg was working to recoup all of the $45 million, and reduce the planned payment of an additional $198 million in bonuses in March 2010. AIG continued to sell its assets as part of a plan to repay the government. AIG Oct. 13 announced that it had sold Nan Shan Life Insurance Co., a Taiwan-based life insurer, to a group of investors led by Hong Kong–based company Primus Financial Holdings Ltd. for $2.15 billion. It was thought to be the largest sale AIG had made since the crisis began.

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Banks Agree to Limit Overdraft Fees—

Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase Sept. 23 announced that they would limit their use of overdraft fees, a controversial practice that had drawn criticisms from Congress and consumer protection groups. Most bank customers were automatically enrolled in overdraft programs, which allowed them to overdraw their bank accounts, but charged them a fee for doing so. The fees had become a major source of revenue for the banking industry; banks expected to make nearly $40 billion in such fees in 2009. Critics said the programs targeted the poorest of depositors. Bank of America announced that as of Oct. 19 customers would not be charged if they overdrew their accounts by less than $10. The bank also said customers could be hit with fees only four times a day, down from the current 10, and could opt out of the program. J.P. Morgan Chase said customers would be enrolled in overdraft protection only if they explicitly chose to. J.P. Morgan Chase said that in 2010, customers enrolled in the program would not be charged if their account was overdrawn by less than $5, and that customers could be fined only three times a day, down from the current six. Wells Fargo Sept. 24 also announced changes to its overdraft policies. Congress 715

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Financial Markets Inspector General Proposes SEC Reforms.

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The inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Sept. 29 released a report calling on the SEC to enact top-to-bottom reforms in order to strengthen its investigative capabilities. Inspector General David Kotz earlier in the month had issued a report that was highly critical of the SEC, highlighting multiple oversight failures that had allowed disgraced financier Bernard Madoff to carry out a $65 billion fraud undetected. [See p. 603A2] Kotz made 37 recommendations for the SEC’s inspections and examinations office. They included the establishment of a formal system for identifying potential infractions, which would require the creation of a database to track all tips and complaints made by financial industry insiders. Kotz also urged the office to create guidelines for following up on those tips. Kotz made 21 recommendations for the SEC’s enforcement office, including a requirement that tips be reviewed by two SEC employees with previous experience in the relevant area of the financial industry. The SEC said it had accepted Kotz’s recommendations. Analysts said they were so basic that many had assumed the SEC had set up such systems. SEC Proposes New Financial Rules—

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The SEC had also been heavily criticized for its failure to properly oversee the financial industry as a whole, allowing a proliferation of risky practices that led to a severe financial crisis that began in 2008. The SEC in 2009 had proposed several rules that would allow it to exert greater control over financial markets: o The SEC Sept. 17 proposed a ban on so-called flash orders, a trading practice that critics said gave a select group of institutional investors an advantage over other investors. Investors with flash-order capabilities were able to see orders to buy and sell stocks as much as half a second before other investors. With the help of highspeed computers, that window of time enabled them to determine a pattern, and race ahead of their competitors to buy or sell shares for a profit. o The SEC Sept. 17 adopted rules to strengthen oversight of credit-ratings agencies, which had been criticized during the crisis for providing safe ratings to highly risky securities that ended up losing value. The new rules would require agencies to disclose more information about previous ratings to give investors a better sense of their performance. Financial institutions would have to make more information public about the assets being rated, which would allow competing agencies to provide independent ratings. The SEC said it would consider a rule to allow lawsuits against agencies in the event that their ratings proved unreliable. [See p. 408D1] 716

The SEC Aug. 17 proposed the reinstatement of the so-called uptick rule, which was intended to limit the impact of short-sellers on the stock market. Shortsellers borrowed stocks and sold them in the hopes that prices would decrease. They then bought back the stocks at a lower price and returned them to the lender, making a profit. Short-selling had been blamed for the precipitous decline in the share prices of major financial institutions in 2008, and had been temporarily banned. The uptick rule, a version of which had been discarded in 2007, would force short-sellers to sell the stock at a higher price than the lowest one currently on the market, effectively delaying a stock sale until the price rose, or made an uptick. [See 2008, p. 713F2] o The SEC July 28 finalized guidelines intended to limit “naked” short-selling, a practice in which the trader made the short sale before formally locating stocks to borrow. Naked short-sellers had been accused of manipulating stock prices downward. The SEC’s guidelines required short-sellers to deliver the underlying stock to the buyer within three days of a sale. The SEC also required that more information be made public about short-sale transactions, which would help regulators and investors identify if manipulative naked short-selling was taking place. [See 2008, p. 647E3] o The SEC June 24 proposed rules to bolster the security of the money-market industry, which had experienced large withdrawals of cash in 2008 when the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck,” meaning that its assets were worth less than $1 a share, the industry standard. The Reserve Primary Fund had invested heavily in short-term debt sold by investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which went bankrupt in September 2008. Under the proposed rules, the funds would not be allowed to invest in lower-rated securities. They could halt redemption requests if investors began a run on the funds. The funds would also be required to keep a certain percentage of easily saleable assets, so that if need be they could raise money quickly. [See 2008, p. 762B2] n o

2009 Elections Polls Tighten in N.J. Gubernatorial Race.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) and his Republican challenger, former federal prosecutor Christopher Christie, Oct. 16 clashed in their second of three debates before the Nov. 3 election. Corzine, running for a second term, had trailed in the polls by about 10 percentage points in early September. But he had closed the gap since then as his campaign, funded largely by his personal fortune, aired a barrage of negative advertisements. The third debate was held Oct. 22. [See p. 373A3] A third candidate, independent Christopher Daggett—a former New Jersey environmental protection commissioner— also took part in the debates. Daggett, 59, had gained in the polls after an assertive

performance in the first debate Oct. 1, in which he promised to cut property taxes by 25%. The Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, Oct. 11 gave its endorsement to Daggett. In the Oct. 16 debate, Christie accused Corzine’s campaign of “character assassination,” referring to television ads that used unflattering footage to highlight Christie’s heavyset physique. Corzine denied trying to draw attention to the subject, saying, “I don’t give a hoot about Mr. Christie’s weight.” Christie, 47, was a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey. He had been appointed by Republican President George W. Bush. Christie had sought to use Corzine’s successful business career against him. With Wall Street widely blamed for causing the global financial crisis of the past year, Christie argued that the governor, a former chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was out of touch with ordinary voters and had mismanaged the state’s finances. Christie had trumpeted his record of crackdowns on political corruption, but faced questions about a $46,000 undisclosed loan he had given to a former colleague in the U.S. attorney’s office. The New York Times Oct. 20 reported that the colleague, Michele Brown, might have taken actions intended to benefit Christie’s campaign. Brown had resigned Aug. 25, soon after the loan was disclosed. Corzine reportedly had outspent Christie by three to one. Corzine, 62, had spent more than $100 million of his own money on his political campaigns over the past 10 years, and planned to spend $25 million on his reelection bid. Christie, by contrast, had accepted public financing, which would limit him to $10 million in spending. Republican Leads in Virginia Race—

In Virginia, the only state aside from New Jersey holding a gubernatorial election in 2009, the Republican candidate, former state Attorney General Robert McDonnell, 55, held a lead in the polls over his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, 51. Incumbent Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) was barred by law from seeking a second term. [See p. 391D1] In their first prime-time television debate, aired live statewide Oct. 12, McDonnell repeatedly said Deeds planned to raise taxes. Deeds accused McDonnell of falsely presenting himself as a moderate, charging that McDonnell’s “record as a legislator was governed by a rigid social agenda.” They traded similar charges in their final debate Oct. 20. Deeds had previously sought to make an issue of a thesis written by McDonnell in 1989 for a master’s degree in public policy from Regent University in Virginia Beach, a school founded by evangelical leader Pat Robertson. But Deeds did not directly refer to the thesis in the debate. The Washington Post Aug. 30 had first reported on the McDonnell thesis, titled, “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade.” According to the Post, the thesis FACTS ON FILE

assailed working women and called for government discrimination against “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” and in favor of married couples. The Deeds campaign had claimed that the thesis amounted to a “secret blueprint” of religious conservative policies that McDonnell would pursue as governor. But McDonnell said his thinking had evolved since his student days. He insisted that he no longer disapproved of working women, and did not condone any form of discrimination. Deeds had closed to within a few points of McDonnell in the polls soon after the thesis resurfaced, but McDonnell had since regained ground and opened his lead to an average of about eight or nine points. McDonnell was viewed as a more effective campaigner than the low-key Deeds. Former President Bill Clinton Oct. 20 spoke to Deeds supporters at a campaign office in Tysons Corner, Northern Virginia, urging them not to be disheartened by the polls. Obama Campaigns—President Barack Obama Oct. 21 visited Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack, N.J., to campaign for Corzine, as part of a parade of appearances in the state by high-profile Democratic supporters. Vice President Joseph Biden Oct. 19 had appeared at a campaign event with Corzine in Edison, and Clinton Oct. 20 spoke at a Corzine rally at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Observers said losing the governorship in heavily Democratic New Jersey would be a political setback for Obama, as would a defeat for Deeds in Virginia, where in 2008 Obama had become the first Democrat to win the state’s presidential vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Both races were viewed as tests of strength ahead of the 2010 midterm congressional elections. Republicans, on the attack against Obama’s agenda, were increasingly confident that they could at least recoup some of their losses from the 2008 elections, if not regain a majority in either the House or Senate. History showed that a president’s party usually lost seats midway through the first term. Obama Oct. 20 appeared at a New York City fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the party’s executive body, that was expected to collect as much as $3 million. Obama Oct. 15 had raised $3 million for the DNC at a fund-raiser in San Francisco, Calif. His efforts came after Democrats had seen their fund-raising totals decline in the first six months of the year from the corresponding period two years earlier. The party’s past major donors had restrained their giving, particularly those in the financial sector, reportedly out of pique over the administration’s rhetoric blaming Wall Street for the financial crisis and its plans to increase financial regulation. There was also concern that donations would be seen as payback for the government rescue programs that had helped return many financial institutions to healthy profits. [See p. 715C1] n October 22, 2009

Politics Rep. Wexler Sets January Resignation.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D, Fla.), at his office in Boca Raton, Fla., Oct. 14 announced that he would resign in January 2010, midway through his seventh term, to become president of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, a nonprofit institute based in Washington, D.C. Wexler, 48, represented Florida’s heavily Democratic 19th Congressional District in the southeastern part of the state, covering parts of Palm Beach and North Broward counties. [See p. 584G3] Gov. Charlie Crist (R) would schedule a special election for Wexler’s seat. Crist himself was running for a Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Sen. Mel Martinez (R) in August. n

Media White House Spars With Fox News Over Bias.

White House communications director Anita Dunn Oct. 11 accused Fox News of acting like “a wing of the Republican Party,” and said it was “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” Her statement touched off the latest and most intense round of a public feud between the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama and the News Corp.–owned cable news channel, which was seen as having a conservative slant. [See pp. 638B3, 602E2, 242E3] Speaking about Fox during an appearance on “Reliable Sources” on the Cable News Network (CNN), Dunn said the administration would “treat them the way we would treat an opponent.” She alleged that Fox unfairly attacked White House policies and personnel. Fox’s senior vice president for news, Michael Clemente, Oct. 11 responded by accusing the White House of wasting attention on attacking Fox, when “the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about.” Fox News commentators who had generally opposed Obama’s policies, including Glenn Beck and Karl Rove—who had acted as an adviser for Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush—also criticized Dunn’s statements. Fox also emphasized the difference between its opinion shows and its news operation, which it said was unbiased. Fox Oct. 12 said the White House had told it that Obama would not grant the channel an interview until 2010 at the earliest. (Alone among the major networks, Fox’s broadcast channel had not shown an early September health care speech given by Obama; Obama Sept. 20 had given back-to-back interviews on health care reform with CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and the Spanish-language network Univision, but not Fox, in what was seen as retaliation.) [See pp. 638D1, 597A1] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Oct. 13 joined the fray, saying he had “watched many stories on that network that I have found not to be true.” David Ax-

elrod, a White House senior adviser, and Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, Oct. 18 opined on other news talk shows that Fox was not an impartial news source. Emanuel said other news organizations should not let Fox influence their own coverage of events as if it were a “legitimate” outlet. However, Axelrod said Obama officials would continue to appear on Fox. Public tensions between Obama and Fox had existed since the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama in a June 16 interview on CNBC had said, “I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration,” apparently referring to Fox. The Web site Politico Oct. 6 reported that Axelrod and Fox Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Roger Ailes in September had met privately in New York City to discuss Fox’s news coverage. Some analysts said the Obama administration had made a mistake in directly confronting Fox because it was undignified for the White House to lower itself to a news channel’s level, and because its actions would be seen as trying to stifle freedom of the press. They also said that as well as conservatives, Fox’s audience, the largest of any cable news channel, included significant numbers of moderates and independents whom the Obama administration wanted to reach. n

Supreme Court Uighur Detainee Case Accepted. The Supreme Court Oct. 20 accepted Kiyemba v. Obama, in which it would decide whether federal courts had the authority to release into the U.S. detainees held at the U.S. prison center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The case concerned 17 detainees who belonged to the Uighur ethnic group, which was native to China’s Xinjiang region. [See pp. 391A2, 148D3; 2008, p. 389A1] The 17 detainees had been captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001, but had since been cleared of involvement in terrorism and were no longer classified as enemy combatants. However, the U.S. was reluctant to return them to China over fears that they would be subject to the Chinese government’s crackdown on Uighurs, Muslims who had long been accused of being separatists. [See p. 702G3] A federal court in October 2008 had ordered their release into the U.S., but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in February overturned that ruling, saying it violated federal immigration laws. The Supreme Court in the 2008 case Boumediene v. Bush had ruled that Guantanamo detainees had a right to challenge their detention in federal courts. Lawyers for the Uighurs argued that Boumediene had little practical value if federal judges could not order the release of wrongly imprisoned detainees. Four of the Uighur detainees had been sent to Bermuda, while the Pacific island nation of Palau had extended invitations to 12 detainees. However, one mentally ill detainee had not been able to secure a new home. Analysts said the administration of President Barack Obama, which had urged 717

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the Supreme Court to decline the case, could circumvent a ruling by finding a country willing to take the last detainee. n Ex-Enron Chief Skilling’s Appeal Accepted.

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The Supreme Court Oct. 13 accepted an appeal from Jeffrey Skilling, who had been convicted in 2006 on 19 counts related to the collapse of energy giant Enron Corp. The case was Skilling v. United States. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, La., Jan. 6 had upheld the conviction, but ordered that his 24-year sentence be reduced. [See p. 677D3; 2007, p. 611C2] Skilling argued that he had been improperly prosecuted under a controversial fraud law that made it illegal to “deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.” Skilling said he could not be prosecuted under the law since his deceptions had not resulted in a private gain for himself. Skilling also argued that the original trial in Houston, Texas, had not been fair, since harsh media criticism had unduly influenced the proceedings. The Supreme Court in May had accepted the appeal of former media mogul Conrad Black, who was also challenging the “honest services” fraud law. n Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized Again. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Oct. 14 was hospitalized after she collapsed on an airplane just before it departed for London. A court spokesman Oct. 15 said the collapse had been an adverse reaction to a combination of medication and a sleeping aid, and that her hospitalization had merely been a precaution. Ginsburg that day was released from Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. It was her second trip to the hospital since late September, when she experienced lightheadedness and fatigue. Ginsburg, 76, had undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer in February. [See p. 677G3] n

E Terrorism Detainees Guantanamo Unlikely to be Closed on Time.

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Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Oct. 6 said it was unlikely that the government would meet a deadline set by President Barack Obama to close the U.S. military prison for terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January 22, 2010. The prison still reportedly held about 220 detainees. Other government officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, had previously suggested that the deadline would be difficult to meet. [See pp. 642A3, 28G1] Holder said the government would still attempt to close the prison on time, arguing that its continued operation would benefit terrorist organizations, which had long used the prison’s history of detainee abuse as a recruiting tool. He also expressed “great concern” over bills passed by Congress that would limit the Obama administration’s ability to transfer detainees to the U.S., saying they would likely make it more difficult for the deadline to be met. (The Senate Oct. 20 cleared a bill that 718

would allow the administration to bring detainees to the U.S. to face criminal charges.) [See p. 714A3] Holder argued that U.S. prisons were perfectly capable of safely holding dangerous suspects, and noted that many terrorists, including Ramzi Yousef, who had overseen a 1993 bomb attack against New York City’s World Trade Center, were already being held in the U.S. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court Oct. 20 said it would decide whether federal courts had the authority to release into the U.S. 17 ethnic Uighur Guantanamo detainees who had been cleared of involvement in terrorism. [See p. 717C3] Detainees Sent to Portugal— The Justice Department Aug. 28 announced that two unidentified Syrian detainees had been flown from Guantanamo to Portugal. Both had been cleared of any involvement in terrorism. They were part of a group of up to 60 detainees who had been found to pose no security threat, but could not be returned to their home countries due to concerns that they would be tortured or abused by their own governments. [See p. 573A1] Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai Sept. 16 announced after a meeting with Daniel Fried, a U.S. diplomat, that his government had agreed to accept one detainee from Guantanamo. Fried was in charge of the U.S. government’s efforts to find countries willing to accept Guantanamo detainees. Hungary’s Nepszabadsag newspaper Sept. 30 reported that the government had accepted a Palestinian detainee, who was expected to be transferred to Hungary before the end of 2009 and would initially be barred from leaving that country. Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern Sept. 27 announced that two Uzbek detainees had arrived in Ireland from Guantanamo. The two men, one of whom was identified in media reports as Oybek Jabbarov, were given state-provided housing and permanent residency by the Irish government, and were authorized to work and travel within the European Union. The U.S. Justice Department Sept. 26 announced that it had transferred Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni detainee who had been held in U.S. custody for seven years, to Yemen. His release had been ordered in May. He was expected be interviewed by Yemeni security officials prior to his release there. [See p. 506B2] The U.S. Justice Department Oct. 9 announced the release of two more detainees. Kuwaiti Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Mutairi, who was sent to Kuwait, had been ordered released July 29 by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., after more than seven years of detention, and was placed in a rehabilitation program intended to ease his reintegration into Kuwaiti society. The second detainee, sent to Belgium, was not publicly identified. He was granted permanent residency in Belgium and would reportedly receive a new identity. Kollar-Kotelly, in a decision declassified Sept. 25, had ordered the U.S. government to release Kuwaiti Fouad al-Rabiah, a former health club owner who had

been captured in Afghanistan in October 2001 and held at Guantanamo since 2002. Kollar-Kotelly found that the evidence cited by the government to justify his continued detention was based on confessions made by other detainees under harsh interrogation methods, and said that the confessions “defy belief.” Rabiah was the 30th detainee ordered freed by a federal judge since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2008 that Guantanamo detainees had the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. court. A total of seven detainees had had their continued detention upheld by federal judges. Death Penalty Ruled Out for Detainee—

Holder Oct. 2 instructed federal prosecutors in New York City not to seek the death penalty against former Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who had been charged in U.S. District Court in New York City in connection with 1998 attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Prosecutors informed Judge Lewis Kaplan of Holder’s decision Oct. 5. [See p. 391D3] Ghailani in 1998 had been charged with murder, conspiracy, and the use and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction against U.S. nationals, among other charges. Under Holder’s order, he faced life in prison if convicted. Ghailani, who had been captured in 2004 and held in Guantanamo from 2006 until June, had accused the government of subjecting him to harsh interrogation techniques while he was in U.S. custody. His trial was scheduled to begin in September 2010. A Justice Department spokesman Oct. 5 noted that “other defendants in the embassy bombings case have either already received life sentences or will not be subject to the death penalty because the U.S. agreed not to seek it as a condition of their extradition.” September 11 Attack Cases Delayed—

Military Judge Stephen Henley Sept. 21 accepted a request from the Obama administration for a 60-day delay in the military commissions trials of five Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. The detainees, who included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the attack’s alleged mastermind, faced the death penalty if convicted. [See p. 244G2] Henley had reportedly held the hearing in order to give Mohammed and two other detainees, all of whom were acting as their own attorneys, an opportunity to respond to the request. The three detainees informed Henley by note that they had no objection to the proposed delay, and the attorneys representing the other two detainees charged in the case had previously agreed to the delay. The Obama administration Sept. 16 had filed motions with Henley’s military commissions court and with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking to be given until Nov. 16 to determine whether to charge the five men in U.S. federal court or to continue their prosecutions under the military commissions system. The Obama administration had FACTS ON FILE

previously been granted two separate 120day delays in connection with the cases. Canada Ordered to Seek Repatriation—

The Federal Court of Canada April 23 ruled that the Canadian government had violated the rights of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, by failing to seek his repatriation to Canada from Guantanamo, and ordered the government to request his return. The court found that the refusal of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to seek Khadr’s return “offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr’s rights.” [See 2008, p. 769C3] Harper had previously said Khadr, 23, should be tried under the U.S. military commissions system at Guantanamo. The Canadian government had reportedly told the Federal Court that prosecuting Khadr under Canadian law would be difficult. Khadr had been captured in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15, and accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade. The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal Aug. 14 upheld the Federal Court’s ruling in the case. The Aug. 14 ruling was appealed by the Canadian government and was scheduled to be heard by the Canadian Supreme Court Nov. 13. At Guantanamo, Michael Berrigan, principal chief defense counsel for detainees charged under the military commissions system, April 3 announced that he had removed Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler from his position as Khadr’s chief defense counsel. Berrigan said that the removal was “in the best interests of the client.” Military Judge Patrick Parrish, who was overseeing Khadr’s case, April 7 blocked Kuebler’s removal, ruling that only a military judge had the authority to dismiss a lawyer under the rules governing the military commissions system. However, Parrish Oct. 7 authorized Kuebler’s resignation as Khadr’s lead counsel and appointed Barry Coburn and Kobie Flowers as his new attorneys. CIA Tapes Documents Kept Secret—

Judge Alvin Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in New York City Sept. 30 ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was not required to release 580 documents related to 92 destroyed videotapes of detainee interrogations that had been sought under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) civil rights advocacy group. The ACLU had previously forced the release of secret memoranda authorizing harsh interrogations of detainees. [See pp. 257A1, 129C2] Hellerstein said that after reviewing 65 of the requested documents, he concluded that he was legally obliged to allow CIA Director Leon Panetta to decide which documents could be released. Panetta had previously claimed that releasing the documents would endanger national security. The House Oct. 8 passed the 2010 Defense Authorization Act’s conference report, which included a provision that would require the government to videotape all interrogations of detainees held by the October 22, 2009

military or conducted at any Defense Department facility, even if the interrogations were done by another agency, such as the CIA. The provision, which was proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D, N.J.), did not apply to interrogations conducted by troops in the battlefield. [See p. 700D3] n

Terrorism News in Brief. Businessman Abdul Tawala

Ibn Ali Alishtari Sept. 29 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to charges of financing terrorism. Alishtari had transferred $152,000 at the behest of an undercover agent who told him that the money would be used to equip a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. An attorney for Alishtari said that his client had made the transfer in order to curry favor with the undercover agent, whom he believed to be a prospective client, not because he believed in supporting terrorist activity. Alishtari was also convicted of stealing millions of dollars from a loan investment program he operated. He faced up to 20 years in prison. [See p. 491E2] Judge John Keenan of U.S. District Court in New York City Sept. 15 sentenced Oussama Abdullah Kassir, a Lebanon-born Swedish citizen, to life in prison in connection with his May conviction on charges that he founded a terrorist training camp in 1999 in Oregon and ran Web sites providing instructions for making explosives and other deadly devices for use in terrorism. Kassir had been extradited to the U.S. in 2007 after being detained in the Czech Republic. The Bly, Ore., camp had allegedly been intended to train European recruits to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See p. 411G2] n

Capital Punishment Botched Execution Prompts Ohio Stays.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) Oct. 5 announced that he would delay the scheduled executions of two death row inmates in the state, following a Sept. 15 incident in which a condemned prisoner, Romell Broom, spent two hours waiting to be executed while technicians attempted unsuccessfully to find a vein that could be used for lethal injection. The state of Ohio, which had put 32 people to death since executions resumed there in 1999, left unchanged the scheduled execution of prisoners in December and in January and February 2010. [See pp. 700C1, 553G1; 2008, p. 414A2] In June 2008, Judge James Burge of Ohio’s Lorain County Court of Common Pleas had ordered the state to alter its lethal injection protocols, on the grounds that the current system violated an Ohio law barring the government from subjecting prisoners to unnecessary pain. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction May 19 had announced that it had instituted a new protocol that added a second dose of sedatives to the lethal injection procedure to ensure that condemned prisoners

were unconscious when the execution was carried out. Needle Inserted About 18 Times—In an affidavit filed by his lawyers challenging a second attempt to execute him, Broom, who had been convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1984, said he had been stuck about 18 times by technicians attempting to find a vein. Broom said he had been jabbed accidentally in a bone, causing severe pain. His attempted execution was thought to be the longest in Ohio history. After two hours, Strickland Sept. 15 ordered Broom’s execution delayed until Sept. 22, marking the first time than an execution in progress had been delayed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Judge Gregory Frost of U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 18 delayed Broom’s execution until Sept. 28, and Sept. 22 delayed it again until at least Nov. 30, when the court would hold a hearing on Broom’s attorneys’ claim that mounting a second execution attempt would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Strickland’s Oct. 5 order delayed the execution of Lawrence Reynolds Jr., which had been scheduled to take place Oct. 8, until March 9, 2010, and delayed the execution of Darryl Durr, who had been scheduled to be executed Nov. 10, until April 20, 2010. Reynolds had been convicted of strangling a 67-year-old female neighbor in 1994, while Durr had been convicted of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 1988. Prior to Strickland’s announcement, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 5 had ruled, 2–1, that Reynolds’s execution should be delayed to allow him to take part in a pending court case on the legality of Ohio’s use of lethal injection. The Ohio State’s Attorney’s Office earlier Oct. 5 had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a stay request from Reynolds’s attorneys. It was unclear what had triggered the sudden change in the state policy regarding Reynolds’s execution. Strickland said that he had ordered execution delays in order to give the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, which oversaw the executions, additional time to examine ways to update its execution protocols in situations where technicians were likely to have trouble finding usable veins. The Associated Press (AP) reported Oct. 6 that the department was considering lethal injections into prisoners’ muscles or bones in instances where usable veins could not be found. Separately, a poll by the Gallup Organization, conducted Oct. 1–4, found that about 65% of U.S. respondents supported the death penalty and 31% opposed it. n

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G Medicine & Health Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Eased.

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inal marijuana, instructing them not to focus their resources on prosecuting patients using or caregivers providing the drug who were in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state laws. The memorandum, written by Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, reflected a significant change in policy on the issue under the administration of President Barack Obama. [See p. 538D3; 1996, p. 822C3] Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana was prohibited as a Schedule 1 drug, a designation meaning that it was considered to have no medical application and was highly addictive. Under Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had often raided medical marijuana distribution centers, even when their operators were in compliance with state laws. In a statement accompanying the memo, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said, “It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana.” He added that the Justice Department would continue to seek the prosecution of “drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal.” California voters in 1996 had approved a medical marijuana initiative, in conflict with federal law. The California law allowed doctors to prescribe marijuana and for providers to sell it to patients, although not at a profit. In practice, the state had left implementation of the law to municipalities, which controlled the distribution of marijuana in varying ways. The Justice Department memo was applauded by drug-law reform advocates, who said marijuana could ease some symptoms of those suffering from AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Some Republicans and local police officials criticized the decision, saying it would benefit Mexican drug cartels that profited from the illegal marijuana trade. n FDA Says Device Approved After ‘Pressure.’ The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

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Sept. 24 released an internal report criticizing the agency for approving a knee medical device in December 2008 after coming under “extreme” pressure from Democrats in Congress. The report had been ordered by Joshua Sharfstein, the FDA’s deputy commissioner, in March, shortly after he joined the agency. The device, marketed under the name Menaflex, was produced by Hackensack, N.J.–based ReGen Biologics Inc., and consisted of surgical mesh used to repair damaged tissue in the knee. [See p. 221E2; 2008, pp. 106G2, 73B3] The report renewed concerns that the FDA’s procedures for approving medical devices were insufficient and subject to outside influence. It also revived criticism of the FDA’s fast-track approval process, known as 501(k) within the agency, for medical devices. Under the process, devices were subject to less-thorough clinical trials to prove their safety and efficacy. Menaflex had been rejected by FDA scientists three times before it was approved, 720

with agency inspectors saying that patients might suffer adverse effects from the device, and that it did little to help damaged knee tissue heal. However, the report found that the FDA had come under significant pressure from four Democratic federal lawmakers from New Jersey: Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, and Reps. Steven Rothman and Frank Pallone Jr. All four had received substantial campaign contributions from ReGen months before exerting the pressure, the report said. The report also found that then–FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach in 2008 had also pressured agency scientists to approve the device. Von Eschenbach had had unusually frequent contact with ReGen executives during that period, according to the report. The report said that the FDA’s congressional liaison said the pressure he had come under regarding the device was “the most extreme he had seen, and the agency’s acquiescence to the company’s demands for access to the commissioner and other officials in the commissioner’s office as unprecedented.” Despite the report’s conclusions, Sharfstein said the device would remain on the market while the FDA conducted a new review of it. The FDA Sept. 23 had asked the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, to conduct an external review of its device approval process. n

Armed Forces Petraeus Was Treated for Prostate Cancer.

The military Oct. 5 announced that Gen. David Petraeus, 56, had been treated for early-stage prostate cancer in February. Petraeus was the head of the U.S. Central Command, which directed U.S. military operations in the Middle East, North Africa and Central and South Asia, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Media outlets had previously reported that he had been largely absent from debates within the Obama administration over its Afghanistan policy, in contrast to the more prominent role he had played as U.S. commander in Iraq during the administration of former President George W. Bush. [See pp. 711A1, 669A1] Petraeus’s spokesman, Col. Erik Gunhus, said Petraeus had undergone two months of “successful” radiation treatment, and had been able to continue performing his duties. Gunhus said President Barack Obama and senior administration officials had been informed about Petraeus’s illness, but it had otherwise been regarded as a “personal matter” and kept private. n News in Brief. The Defense Department Oct. 13 reported that the military had met all of its recruiting goals for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the first time it had done so since the all-volunteer military was established in 1973. It said it had recruited 168,900 active duty troops, which represented 103% of the annual goal, and 128,000 National Guard and reserve troops, which was 104% of the goal. Military officials also said the quality of the recruits had increased, with 95% of re-

cruits having high school diplomas, up from 83% in fiscal 2008, and lower numbers of marginally qualified recruits and those with criminal records. Military officials attributed the success to the recession, which made it difficult for potential recruits to find civilian jobs; large signing bonuses; and significant Defense Department spending on recruiting efforts. [See p. 491B2] Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in written Congressional testimony distributed Sept. 25 indicated that he supported allowing women to serve on submarines. Senior Navy officials also indicated that they would work to repeal the ban on female officers and enlisted personnel in submarines, although they said they would have to solve problems relating to the cramped living space on the vessels, which were at sea for months at a time. Women were already allowed to serve on Navy surface vessels and in combat aircraft. Five of the 42 countries that had submarine fleets— Australia, Canada, Norway, Spain and Sweden—allowed women to serve in them. [See 2008, p. 962C3] The Army accepted the resignation of the first U.S. commissioned officer to face a court-martial for refusing deployment to Iraq, his lawyer said Sept. 25. First Lt.

Ehren Watada in 2006 had refused to deploy with his unit to Iraq, claiming that the war was illegal and that serving in Iraq would involve him in war crimes. The Army charged him with missing the deployment, as well as conduct unbecoming an officer for denouncing then-President George W. Bush, but his court-martial ended in a mistrial in February 2007. A U.S. district court judge in October 2008 ruled that Army efforts to court-martial Watada again would violate double-jeopardy protections, and the Justice Department dropped efforts to appeal the ruling in May. Watada’s lawyer, Kenneth Kagan, said he was granted a discharge under “other than honorable conditions,” and had previously tried to resign but had been refused by the Army. [See 2008, p. 704D3] Navy officials Aug. 2 announced that U.S. Marines in Iraq’s western province of Anbar had found the remains of the only

U.S. service member missing in action from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The service

member, Navy Capt. Michael Speicher, was a fighter pilot who had been shot down by an Iraqi jet in January 1991, during the opening days of the war. It had long been rumored that he might have survived the crash and been captured. However, Iraqi civilians reportedly told Marines that Speicher had been found dead at the crash site and was buried by Bedouins, and led them to the site. Speicher’s remains were identified by matching a jawbone to his dental records. [See 2008, p. 571F2; 2005, p. 634F2] A 23-year-old Muslim convert, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, July 31 in a Pulaski County, Ark., court pleaded not

guilty to charges that he had shot and killed one soldier and wounded another at

an Army recruiting station in June. Prosecutors said they would seek the death senFACTS ON FILE

tence. Muhammad had reportedly told the Associated Press that he did not consider the killing a murder because it was justified as a response to U.S. military actions in the Middle East. [See p. 392A2] n

Defense War Reporters Profiled by Military. The news-

paper Stars and Stripes Aug. 24 reported that the U.S. military had commissioned reports on journalists preparing to embed with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, focusing on how their past work had portrayed the military. (Stars and Stripes was a military-focused newspaper that was partially funded by the Defense Department, but which maintained editorial independence.) The reports were prepared by The Rendon Group, a private contractor that had previously been involved in other controversial Defense Department public relations projects. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of communications for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Aug. 31 said in an e-mail that the military had terminated its contract with Rendon, and that the company’s work had become a “distraction to our main mission here.” [See p. 324B2] According to Stars and Stripes, Rendon classified reporters’ past coverage as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative” towards the military. U.S. military officials acknowledged that they had reviewed reporters’ coverage, but said it was only to check for accuracy and to inform military personnel of the reporters’ interests. They said they had not used the “positive,” “neutral” or “negative” classifications given to them by Rendon, and that Rendon had stopped providing those classifications in October 2008. However, Stars and Stripes Aug. 27 reported that confidential Rendon files showed that the classifications had continued through July 2009, and possibly longer, and that the reports proposed ways to manipulate reporters’ coverage based on their past stories. Stars and Stripes Aug. 29 reported that a military officer had admitted to barring reporters from embedding with U.S. military units in Afghanistan based on the classifications. Stars and Stripes June 24 had reported that military officials earlier in 2009 had barred one of its reporters from embedding with a U.S. unit in Iraq for a second time, after he had “refused to highlight” positive developments while embedded with the unit in an earlier tour. Other News—In other news on military public affairs programs: o Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Aug. 28 published an essay in the military journal Joint Forces Quarterly that was critical of U.S. “strategic communications” efforts directed at the Muslim world. “We need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” he wrote. Mullen’s essay came at a time when the Obama administration was trying to counter increasingly effective Islamist propaganda around the world. [See p. 367B2] October 22, 2009

o The Congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) July 21 reported that a Defense Department public relations program had not broken laws prohibiting propaganda. The program, which had first been reported in April 2008 by the New York Times, had recruited retired military officers to appear on television and radio news programs as independent “military analysts.” It had been terminated after its existence was reported. The GAO report did not mention whether companies connected with the retired officers might have improperly benefited from the officers’ links with the program, as critics had charged. o Defense Department officials April 15 said the department had eliminated its office for support to public diplomacy, which under the administration of former President George W. Bush had been seen as overstepping its mandate by violating department transparency and accuracy regulations. The office had been established in 2007 to coordinate military public affairs efforts with those of the rest of the government. However, U.S. military officers in Afghanistan had criticized sets of “talking points” distributed to them in 2008, saying Afghans would see them as propaganda, and had refused to use them. n

Immigration Detention Overhaul Announced. The administration of President Barack Obama Oct. 6 announced plans to overhaul the federal immigrant detention system, which had been criticized for having inadequate housing and medical facilities, and for mistreatment of detainees. The plans included programs to separate violent from nonviolent offenders, centralize oversight of detention facilities and create a medical classification system to “improve awareness of an individual detainee’s medical and mental health conditions from the time the individual first enters detention,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a DHS agency. The statement said the reforms would be “budget neutral” or result in savings. [See below, p. 573C2] ICE said the administration planned to put all detention facilities under the supervision of a central authority, and submit in the coming months plans for a national “alternatives to detention” program for nonviolent, noncriminal offenders. Under such a program, those offenders could be supervised with electronic ankle bracelets and other remote tracking methods. The ICE/DHS also planned to develop a “risk assessment and custody classification” system. Under that system, offenders deemed dangerous or a flight risk would be held in high-security facilities, away from less risky offenders like children and noncriminal offenders. ICE said it would look into placing some low-risk offenders in converted hotels and nursing homes, as opposed to more costly detention centers. ICE also said it would eventually solicit bids to build two new immigration detention centers.

The current immigration detention system consisted of a sprawling conglomeration of local jails, federal detention facilities and privately run prisons. Each year as many as 400,000 people passed through the immigration detention system, at a cost of $2.4 billion per year. Report Criticizes ICE Practices—ICE’s announcement coincided with the Oct. 6 release of a critical Obama administration report on the U.S. immigration detention system, which was compiled following an eight-month review. The report concluded that the fastest-growing group of people held for immigration offenses consisted of noncriminals who had been detained as part of federal immigration enforcement programs meant to combat violent crime. Under one such program, known as 287(g), local police officers were deputized as ICE agents. [See below, p. 151G1] The report found that of all people in immigration detention facilities on Sept. 1, 51% of those held were felons, 11% of whom had committed violent crimes. It said the current, “correctional incarceration standards…impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary to effectively manage the majority of the detained population.” The report also concluded that “ICE is comprised primarily of law enforcement personnel with extensive expertise performing removal functions, but not in the design and delivery of detention facilities and community-based alternatives.” Other News—In other immigration news: o Immigration officials said they suspected that several hundred thousand foreigners who entered the U.S. on legal visas had remained in the U.S. after their visa expired, the New York Times reported Oct. 12. The current system of monitoring departing foreigners required them to turn in a form as they exited the U.S. Lawmakers called for a more thorough exit-monitoring system after it was discovered that Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a Jordanian citizen accused of plotting to blow up a Dallas, Texas, skyscraper, had overstayed a tourist visa. [See p. 678G2] o Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who was known for carrying out high-profile immigration sweeps under the 287(g) program, Oct. 6 said ICE had rescinded his 160 federally trained deputies’ authority to detain suspected illegal immigrants in the field. They would still be allowed to conduct immigration checks on people who were already in jail for other offenses. Arpaio said he planned to continue making field arrests using state anti–human smuggling laws, and said that if ICE agents would not accept people his deputies detained, he would “turn them over to the border.” [See 1996, p. 722G1-A2] o The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, Sept. 17 released a report that said a federal initiative to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border to deter illegal immigration was years behind schedule and had created billions of dollars in maintenance 721

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costs. In 2006, DHS officials had said the fence would be operational in 2009, but that estimate had been pushed back to 2016. The GAO also said DHS had not determined an objective method of measuring how effective the fence was, and currently relied on dispatches from top border patrol agents. [See 2008, p. 677E1] o Federal officials in Los Angeles had settled a lawsuit claiming that individuals detained on suspicion of being illegal immigrants had been held in “barbaric” conditions, it was announced Sept. 17. Under the settlement, the detention facility, located in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, had to provide detainees with soap, water, writing materials and access to lawyers. Also, with limited exceptions, detainees could not be held there for more than 12 hours. Prior to the suit, detainees had complained of regularly overflowing toilets and lack of access to clean clothes and sanitary napkins for women, as well as detentions that lasted for weeks. Lawyers for the detainees said the issues they complained about were resolved after the lawsuit was filed. n

Other U.S. News Census Worker Found Dead. A part-time

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worker for the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau Sept. 12 was found dead in a cemetery in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Clay County, Ky. The worker, Bill Sparkman, 51, had reportedly been hanged by the neck and was found naked and gagged, with his hands and feet ducttaped and his Census Bureau identification card taped to his neck. The word “fed” had been written on his bare chest with a felttipped marker. Sparkman had been missing for at least two days before his body was found. [See p. 659D1] Sparkman, a substitute teacher, had been conducting a door-to-door survey on behalf of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which gathered data each year about household income and education levels, along with other information. The Census Bureau Sept. 27 said it was suspending canvassing in Clay County until the circumstances of Sparkman’s death were clarified. The Kentucky State Medical Examiner’s Office had identified asphyxiation as the cause of the death, but had not yet ruled whether it was the result of a homicide, suicide or accident. Analysts said that while the message written on Sparkman’s chest suggested that his death was linked to his work for the federal government, it was possible that the message could have been intended to mislead investigators. In April, the Homeland Security Department had warned that antigovernment and rightwing extremism might rise due to difficult economic conditions and the election of President Barack Obama, the country’s first black president. Also, several observers noted that Sparkman had been found in an area known for its illicit drug and alcohol activities. n 722

AFRICA

Botswana Ruling Party Wins Elections; Khama Sworn in.

The governing Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had ruled Botswana since it gained independence from Britain in 1966, Oct. 18 was declared the overwhelming winner of Oct. 16 general elections. President Ian Khama, the BDP’s leader, Oct. 20 was sworn in to a five-year term in office. Khama, the 56-year-old son of Botswana’s founder, Sir Seretse Khama, had led the country since April 2008, when, as vice president, he replaced President Festus Mogae, who stepped down voluntarily. [See 2008, p. 221A1] In the general elections, the BDP won 45 of the 57 National Assembly seats being contested, and about 54% of the popular vote. It had won 44 seats in the previous general elections, in 2004. The opposition Botswana National Front (BNF) garnered six seats, down from 12 in 2004, and the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) took four seats, up from one. (In Botswana, the leader of the party with the most seats in the 63member National Assembly automatically became president. Along with the 57 members elected by the public, four were elected by the assembly, and the nation’s president and attorney general were automatically members.) Botswana had long been one of Africa’s most politically and economically stable nations. However, the economy had dominated the election campaign; Botswana’s gross domestic product (GDP) was reportedly expected to contract by 10% in the current fiscal year due to reduced global demand for its main export, diamonds, which accounted for 40% of GDP. Sheila Khama, the chief executive of mining giant De Beers Group in Botswana, in an interview published in Britain’s Financial Times Oct. 19, said the worldwide diamond market was recovering, and that the company’s flagship mines in Botswana had returned to operating at about 80% of capacity. n

Gabon Bongo Sworn In After Court Affirms Victory.

Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba, the son of longtime President Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had died in June, Oct. 16 was sworn in as Gabon’s new president, succeeding his father. Bongo was inaugurated after the Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court, Oct. 12 had confirmed his victory in an August presidential election. [See p. 604A1] The Constitutional Court in its Oct. 12 decision dismissed a challenge filed by Bongo’s opponents in the race. The court, after conducting a recount and examining opposition complaints of fraud, ruled that the election was valid and that Bongo, the candidate of the governing Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), had won the most votes, with 41.79%. The court found that Pierre Mamboundou of the opposition Union of Gabonese People received 25.64%, followed by former Interior Minister Andre

Mba Obame, with 25.33%. (According to the initial results announced by the electoral commission in early September, Bongo had received 41.73%; Obame, 25.88%; and Mamboundou, 25.22%.) The initial announcement of Bongo’s victory in early September had sparked protests in Libreville, the capital, and in the opposition stronghold of Port Gentil, an oil hub that was Gabon’s second-largest city. Soon after, 11 separate complaints were filed with the Constitutional Court by Bongo’s opponents, leading to its Sept. 27 decision to recount all the ballots. However, most challengers boycotted the recount after the court Sept. 29 ruled that their representatives could not observe the process. Another unsuccessful presidential candidate, Jean Eyeghe Ndong, the head of a coalition that included four other opposition candidates, Oct. 14 said of the court’s ruling, “We…express our rejection of these decisions and the disgust that they inspire.” He added that there had been “massive fraud” and “irregularities” in the balloting, and called the court decision a “masquerade.” Bongo, in his Oct. 16 inauguration speech in Libreville to a crowd of 600, including several regional leaders, said, “I want a Gabon where the elites circulate and are renewed.” He added that he also aimed to end corruption and injustice. The 50year-old Bongo had inherited much of the vast fortune and political power that his father accumulated while ruling Gabon since 1967. The majority of the country’s 1.5 million people lived in poverty despite Gabon’s oil wealth, which mainly benefited the elite and foreign oil companies. n

Africa News in Brief Cameroon: Prime Minister Replaced. Cameroon President Paul Biya June 30 replaced Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni with Philemon Yang, a former diplomat and top official in the presidential office. No reason was given for the move, which was made on the same day as nine other ministerial changes. The other major change was the replacement of Defense Minister Remy Ze Maka with former police chief Edgar Alain Mebe Ngo’o. Biya had ruled Cameroon since 1982, and parliament in 2008 had approved a constitutional amendment that removed presidential term limits. [See 2008, p. 262D1] n Congo Republic: Government Reshuffled.

Congo Republic President Denis SassouNguesso Sept. 15 reshuffled his government. The most prominent move was the elimination of the post of prime minister, which had been held by Isidore Mvouba. (The opposition had criticized the inclusion of the post in the previous government, arguing that a prime minister was not mandated in the country’s constitution.) The president also replaced Oil Minister JeanBaptiste Taty Loutard with Andre Raphael Loemba. The move came after SassouNguesso, who had ruled the country for all but five years since 1979, won a July presidential election. [See p. 507A1] n FACTS ON FILE

AMERICAS

Canada Terrorism Plot Members Plead Guilty.

Zakaria Amara, 24, an alleged leader of a terrorist plot to detonate three bombs in Canada, Oct. 8 pleaded guilty to charges of knowingly participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. Amara and 16 others had been arrested in June 2006 and charged with crimes related to an alleged plot to detonate two bombs in Toronto, Ontario, and one at an unidentified military base in Ontario. Another person was arrested in connection with the plot in August 2006, and the group had come to be known as the “Toronto 18.” [See p. 413C1; 2008, p. 728A1] The alleged targets of the plot included the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), the Toronto office of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the CN Tower, a tourist attraction. The group had also reportedly entertained the idea of storming Parliament and beheading Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Amara became the fifth person to plead guilty to charges stemming from the plot, and faced a life prison term. Seven of the Toronto 18 had had their charges dropped, and six more remained in police custody awaiting trial. Amara had been arrested after receiving what he thought to be three metric tons (3.3 tons) of fertilizer, ostensibly to be used to make explosives. He had also been accused of organizing camps at which attendees underwent poorly organized military training and were exposed to extremist Islamic teachings. Law enforcement officials said Amara had been motivated to carry out the attacks as part of efforts to get Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. The Canadian military had sent some 2,700 troops to Afghanistan as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force combating the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. Another member of the group, Saad Khalid, 23, May 4 had pleaded guilty to a charge of intending to cause an explosion. Khalid Sept. 3 was sentenced to a 14-year prison term, and was given seven years’ credit for time spent in pretrial custody. Ali Dirie, 26, Sept. 21 pleaded guilty to charges related to the plot, and Oct. 2 was given a seven-year sentence. However, he was credited with five years of time already served. Saad Gaya, 21, Sept. 28 pleaded guilty to a charge of intentionally trying to cause an explosion for a terrorist group. He was scheduled to be sentenced in December. n

Cuba New York Philharmonic Cancels Havana Trip.

The New York Philharmonic orchestra Oct. 1 said it had canceled plans to travel to Havana, Cuba’s capital, to play two concerts during a trip lasting Oct. 30–Nov. 2. The October 22, 2009

orchestra said it was forced to end its plans after the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversaw U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba, denied a request for patrons of the group paying for the trip to also travel to Cuba for the shows. [See p. 661G1; 2008, p. 131A1] Orchestras often raised the money to pay for their tours from wealthy benefactors, who then accompanied the groups during their travels. About 150 donors for the Cuba concerts had agreed to pay $10,000 each for the privilege of attending the concerts. However, the U.S. State Department, which guided the U.S. Treasury Department in its Cuban sanction rulings, said that while there was a provision allowing the orchestra’s musicians and staff members to travel to Cuba as performing artists, there was no exception that could be made for patrons, who were considered tourists under the law. The concerts had been announced amid improving relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments. The orchestra had also gained international attention for a trip it had made in February 2008 to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, as part of a cultural diplomatic outreach to the isolated country. Separately, the Cuban government Oct. 14 denied permission for Yoani Sanchez, a prominent Cuban blogger who was sometimes critical of the government, to travel to New York City to accept a journalism award. Sanchez had been given Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize, awarded to journalists who furthered interAmerican understanding, for her writing on the blog Generacion Y. [See 1981, p. 849B1] n

Ecuador At Least One Killed During Indian Protests.

A group of indigenous protesters blockading a highway near the southeastern Ecuadoran city of Macas Sept. 30 clashed with police, resulting in the death of at least one demonstrator. The protesters Sept. 28 had launched their demonstration, declaring it an “uprising” against a proposed law they said would privatize water sources and allow the release of more pollution in the country’s Amazon rain forest region. They also demanded that the government halt oil and mining operations in the area. [See 2008, p. 705B1; 1994, p. 626B3] Government officials said Bosco Wisum, a teacher from the indigenous Shuar nation, was killed Sept. 30, and nine protesters and 40 police officers were injured in the clashes. However, a leader from the indigenous group Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENIAE) said at least three demonstrators were killed, and 10 injured. Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa Oct. 1 said police sent to the region had not been armed, and that Wisum had been killed by fellow protesters bearing shotguns. However, he said he was “devastated” by the killing, and called for an investigation into the incident. Government officials claimed that they had attempted to disperse the

highway blockade using tear gas, and were met by gunfire from the protesters. Correa also maintained that the proposed laws would not privatize water, and had been drafted to ensure that mining and oil operations would not damage the environment. Hundreds of Shuar protesters Oct. 1 returned to the barricade, saying that they would not leave the area until Correa came to discuss the issues of contention personally. Correa had initially said he would not engage the protesters in dialogue unless they ended their blockades. However, he and several of his cabinet members Oct. 5 hosted talks in Quito, the capital, with a contingent of indigenous leaders. The meetings yielded a six-point accord that called for consideration of revisions to the pending water use and mining legislation, as well as a “truth commission” tasked with investigating Wisum’s death, among other issues. n Judge Removed From Chevron Lawsuit.

Ecuadoran Attorney General Washington Pesantez Sept. 4 said he had requested the removal of Judge Juan Nunez from a lawsuit brought by the country’s indigenous people against U.S.-based oil company Texaco Inc. in 1993. (Texaco was bought by the U.S.’s Chevron Corp. in 2001.) The plaintiffs in the case alleged that Texaco had dumped millions of gallons of crude oil into lakes and other waterways in Ecuador between 1972 and 1990, seriously polluting the area. [See 1993, p. 892D3] Chevron Aug. 31 had released video and audio recordings made surreptitiously in May and June by a former Chevron contractor and a businessman with no links to the company, who had posed as representatives of a company seeking cleanup contracts from the government. Chevron said the recordings showed officials from the ruling Alianza Pais (National Alliance) party discussing the payment of bribes in exchange for such contracts. The recordings also showed the two men discussing the case with Nunez, but did not clearly show that Nunez was involved in the bribery scheme or that any bribes were paid. Chevron said the videos made it impossible for Nunez to deliver a “legitimate decision,” and called for all of his prior rulings on the case to be thrown out. Nunez rejected the footage as “edited and manipulated,” but said he had stepped aside in order to maintain transparency in the case. He was replaced by Judge Nicolas Zambrano. Pesantez said the release of the tapes by Chevron was a delaying tactic intended to postpone a ruling by Nunez, which had been expected in late 2009 or early 2010. Analysts estimated that Chevron could face damages of $27 billion should it lose the lawsuit. Chevron, in the past, had advocated for the case to be tried in Ecuador, when the country had been ruled by governments friendly to foreign oil companies. It also said it had ended its liability over the issue in 1995, after a Texaco subsidiary, Texpet, agreed to pay $40 million to clean up the area. It also said a separate document signed by Ecuadoran government in 1998 723

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had released it from liability. Plaintiffs in the case said the remediation efforts were unsatisfactory, and that the agreements had not compensated them for their long-term suffering. They had gained an ally in Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who had been elected in 2006, and had often harshly criticized Texaco and Chevron for their pollution practices. Chevron Sept. 23 said it had filed an arbitration claim with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands. In a statement, the company said it had filed the claim because Ecuador’s judicial system was “incapable of functioning independently of political influence.” Steven Donziger, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the move was “a sign the company is getting more and more desperate to avoid its legal responsibilities in Ecuador.” n

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Capital Utility Shut Down by Government.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa Oct. 11 announced that the government would close down a state-run electricity utility, Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC), which largely served the capital, Mexico City, and its surroundings. Calderon said the operations of LFC were plagued by inefficiency and that the federal government, facing an ongoing fiscal crisis, could not afford to continue providing the company with large subsidies. [See 2002, p. 657D3] Calderon said the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), another state-run utility, would assume LFC’s operations. Calderon late Oct. 10 had begun sending more than 1,000 riot police to occupy LFC’s facilities. The government Oct. 11 rejected claims that the move was part of a plan to privatize the company. The shutdown would result in the layoff of about 44,000 workers. The move came amidst a labor dispute between the government and electrical workers. Government labor authorities had refused to recognize the July election of Martin Esparaza as secretary general of the powerful Mexican Electricians Union (SME), citing voting irregularities. The union, which represented LFC workers among about 60,000 workers in total, denied that there were any polling problems. Alejandro Munoz, who had run against Esparaza in the race, joined with his former opponent in protesting the government’s closure of LFC. SME members Oct. 8 had marched to protest the government’s stance, blocking rush-hour traffic and demonstrating outside the presidential palace. Analysts said the shutdown of LFC could spell the demise of the SME. (Electrical workers at CFE were represented by a separate union.) SME members Oct. 11 gathered in protest of Calderon’s decree, calling it illegal, but ended the demonstration at Esparaza’s behest. Union members Oct. 12 called on the federal legislature to intervene and reverse Calderon’s decree.n 724

Other Americas News Two Shot in Mexico-U.S. Border Rush.

Three vans holding some 75 Mexicans Sept. 22 attempted to storm the San Ysidro Port of Entry to the U.S., which connected San Diego, Calif., to Tijuana, Mexico, in a failed attempt to smuggle the passengers across the border. The vans were stopped from crossing after U.S. Homeland Security Department agents fired on one of them. [See p. 185A3; 2008, p. 677E1] The three vans approached a border booth, with the driver of the first van engaging the U.S. agent in a conversation. When the agent stepped away from the van, the driver attempted to run the border, but became trapped in traffic. The drivers of the two other vans attempted to back up and find open lanes allowing them to cross into the U.S. Three agents fired upon one of the vans after it bore down on them; two people in that vehicle suffered minor gunshot wounds. At least one other person in the van was injured in the van’s subsequent crash. U.S. federal agents that day arrested two men, one of whom, Sergio Guzman, was allegedly the driver of the van that had been shot at. It was not clear what role the other arrested man, Jose Jaramillo, had played in the incident. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said one of the drivers had escaped back into Mexico, but had been captured by Mexican police. They did not say what had happened to the third driver. In response to the incident, the border crossing, one of the largest, was closed for four hours. n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

China Smelters Blamed for Lead Poisoning. Chi-

nese state media Oct. 19 reported that some 15,000 residents in the area of Jiyuan, in the central province of Henan, would be relocated away from smelting plants blamed for causing widespread lead poisoning in children. State media Oct. 13 had reported that of 2,743 children tested in Jiyuan, 968 showed signs of lead poisoning. Jiyuan was at least the fourth Chinese locality where tests had found extensive lead poisoning among children due to emissions from smelters or other industrial plants in recent weeks. Lead poisoning impaired mental development and caused other growth problems in children. [See 2007, p. 884E3] In Shaanxi province in northern China, residents of villages near Baoji city Aug. 17 had stormed a lead and zinc smelting plant, after hundreds of children there were found to have excessive blood levels of lead, with more than 150 hospitalized. The plant had ceased some operations Aug. 6, and Baoji officials said it would shut down completely by Aug. 22. State news media Aug. 20 reported that a manganese smelter in Wugang, in the central province of Hunan, had been closed after more than 1,300 children were found to have lead poisoning. And in Longyan, in

Fujian province in southeastern China, officials Sept. 26 disclosed that 121 of 287 children tested had shown signs of lead poisoning, leading to the closure of a battery factory there. China’s rapid economic growth in recent decades had resulted in serious pollution problems, and anger at local officials’ corrupt relationships with polluting businesses had in some cases provoked unrest in affected areas. n News in Brief. The U.S. Treasury Department Oct. 15 issued its semiannual report on foreign exchange rate practices, expressing “serious concerns” about the value of China’s currency, the yuan or renminbi. While the Treasury’s language was stronger than in its previous report, it continued to refrain from labeling China as a currency “manipulator,” which could lead to sanctions against the country. The U.S. and other trading partners had long maintained that China kept the yuan’s value artificially low in order to make its exports cheaper. [See p. 683A3] According to the U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights in China, a court in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu Oct. 16 sentenced a former Nanjing Normal University professor, Guo Quan, to 10 years in prison for “subversion of state power.” Guo had been detained in November 2008, following his online criticism of the government’s response to a massive 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province. He had also founded an unauthorized political party, the New Democracy Party of China, in 2007. [See p. 557E1] n

Indonesia Death Toll From Quakes Reaches 1,117.

Gamawan Fauzi, the governor of Indonesia’s West Sumatra province, Oct. 14 said that the death toll from two earthquakes that had struck the region in late September and early October had reached 1,117. The epicenters of the earthquakes had been 30 miles (50 km) and 140 miles from the West Sumatran city of Padang, and most of the victims had been killed in and around the city. [See p. 662E1] The government said about 90,000 families had been left homeless after the earthquakes, which destroyed or damaged more than 180,000 buildings in West Sumatra. Fauzi said the Indonesian government had distributed 45 billion Indonesian rupiah ($4.5 million) directly to survivors, in addition to funds spent on rescue and relief operations. Rescue teams from South Korea, Australia and Britain Oct. 3 arrived in Padang. There was reportedly little coordination between local and international rescue teams, complicating the process. More than 500 buildings had been toppled by the earthquakes in Padang, a city of about 900,000 people that was located near a major fault line and therefore, experts warned, was vulnerable to potentially greater destruction in a future earthquake. International media reported Oct. 2 that Padang Pariaman, a suburb of Padang, had FACTS ON FILE

received no government assistance in connection with the quake. Pariaman had suffered massive landslides that were thought to have buried hundreds of people and up to 80% of its buildings had been damaged. The Indonesian army and a rescue team from Britain Oct. 3 arrived in Padang’s outlying suburbs, bringing equipment that could be used to search for bodies. At least three villages in West Sumatra near Padang had been buried by landslides, along with a wedding party thought to number about 100 people. Fauzi Oct. 7 said that the government was considering leaving the bulk of the bodies buried and declaring the areas mass graves. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Oct. 5 that rescue efforts in Padang had concluded. Experts said that it was unlikely that people buried in the rubble could survive without food or water for six days; no additional survivors had been rescued in Padang since Oct. 2. The government began razing collapsed and heavily damaged buildings in the city in order to speed up the search for bodies and to aid rebuilding efforts. Foreign Nations Pledge Support— U.S. President Barack Obama Oct. 2 spoke by telephone with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, promising significant aid to Indonesia’s rescue and rebuilding efforts, including $3 million in financial assistance. Germany had reportedly pledged $1.5 million and China and South Korea had both promised $500,000 to help with rebuilding and recovery work. John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Oct. 14 visited affected areas in West Sumatra. Holmes Oct. 15 said he had “authorized $7 million from the [U.N.] Central Emergency Response Fund” for relief and cleanup efforts, and said the U.N. would push for $38 million in international donations. The Wall Street Journal Oct. 5 reported that the Indonesian government had pledged about $400 million in financial assistance for rebuilding efforts in West Sumatra. Experts said that repairing damaged infrastructure and rebuilding destroyed or crippled buildings could cost $600 million. New Earthquakes—A set of three separate earthquakes Oct. 15–16 struck Indonesia, triggering a brief evacuation of downtown Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital Oct. 16 and causing minor property damage. No injuries were reported. n

Kyrgyzstan Bakiyev Consolidates Executive Power.

Prime Minister Igor Chudinov and his cabinet Oct. 20 resigned, after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had won re-election earlier in the year, presented reforms that would dramatically shrink the central government and shift responsibilities to the presidency. Bakiyev appointed his chief of staff, Daniyar Usenov, to serve as the new prime minister, and said the previous ministers would stay on in a caretaker capacity October 22, 2009

until a new government was assembled. [See p. 576E3] Bakiyev said the new government structure would streamline the administration’s decision-making process, discourage corruption and save the government $11.5 billion. Opposition leaders criticized the reforms as a way for Bakiyev to assume cabinet responsibilities. Bakiyev said, “The presidential administration will be abolished, and in its place a presidential institution will be established as the sole body for decision-making.” The presidential body would include the foreign minister, a defense adviser, the parliament speaker and prime minister. Bakiyev said experts would also be periodically invited to participate in the council. Under the reforms, the financial police and the State Committee for National Security, Kyrgyzstan’s successor to the Soviet-era KGB intelligence agency, would fall under the president’s direct control. Kyrgyzstan’s security council was also abolished; its responsibilities would be partially picked up by the defense adviser’s office. Also, as many as 50% of central government employees would be laid off. Bakiyev said the existing bureaucracy was “cumbersome and incapable of timely responding to crises and swift changes in situation.” n

Mongolia Copper and Gold Mine Deal Signed. The government of Mongolia Oct. 6 signed a long-negotiated deal with two major foreign mining companies to develop the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in the South Gobi Desert, near Mongolia’s border with China. The talks on the project, expected to be the first of a number of such deals to exploit Mongolia’s extensive mineral resources, had begun in 2003. They had been hampered by a 2006 Mongolian law imposing a steep windfall tax on minerals extracted by foreign companies. Mongolia’s parliament Aug. 25 repealed the law, effective January 2011. [See p. 377F2] The Oyu Tolgoi mine was to be developed by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. of Canada and Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto PLC. Rio Tinto would provide the principal financing for the $4 billion project, by significantly increasing its current 9.9% stake in Ivanhoe. The mine was expected to begin production in 2013, and eventually reach a peak output of 450,000 tons of copper and 330,000 troy ounces of gold a year over its expected life of 45 years. Separately, Mongolian and Russian state-owned nuclear power companies Aug. 25 reached an agreement on a joint venture to mine the Dornod uranium deposit. The two companies each had a 21% stake in the venture that held the license to mine the deposit, while the remaining 58% stake was held by Canadian-based Khan Resources Inc. However, Khan said there remained uncertainty about the impact on the project of a Mongolian law passed July

16, entitling the state to up to a 51% stake in uranium deposits in the country. The Russian-Mongolian agreement was concluded after Mongolia settled a $150 million Soviet-era debt. [See 2003, p. 1094E3] n

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Myanmar Suu Kyi Meets With Foreign Diplomats.

Myanmar’s ruling military junta Oct. 9 allowed detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with diplomats from the U.S., Australia and Britain to discuss international sanctions levied against Myanmar. Suu Kyi, who had been held under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years, had been sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest in August for violating the terms of her detention. [See p. 683C3] In September, Suu Kyi had written to Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the junta, to say she was willing to consider working to remove U.S. and European Union sanctions against Myanmar. She asked to be allowed to meet with foreign diplomats and members of her pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) in order to further that goal. A spokesman for the NLD Oct. 9 expressed optimism that Suu Kyi would be allowed to meet with the group. Suu Kyi Oct. 3 and Oct. 7 had met with Myanmar Labor Minister Aung Kyi, who had been appointed the government’s special liaison to Suu Kyi in October 2007, following the military’s violent clampdown on peaceful protesters. Suu Kyi Oct. 9 was taken from her home in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, to a guesthouse owned by the government, where the hour-long meeting with the diplomats took place. British ambassador to Myanmar Andrew Heyn Oct. 9 said Suu Kyi had pressed the diplomats for specific data about the sanctions and their effect on Myanmar’s government and people. Heyn said she wanted to know details about how the sanctions functioned before she would take a firm stance on them. Heyn said it was unlikely that sanctions would be eased without evidence that the junta was improving its human rights record and taking concrete steps toward democracy. Myanmar was scheduled to hold legislative elections in 2010; however, the 2008 constitution barred Suu Kyi from participating in the elections and allowed the military to retake power at any time. Thaung Htun, the unofficial United Nations representative of Myanmar’s government in exile, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, Oct. 7 said it was “not the right time to even think about lifting sanctions,” arguing that the situation on the ground in Myanmar had grown worse in recent months. He said there had been “more violence in the last seven months, more political prisoners, more arrests and more military attacks in the ethnic areas.” n 725

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Samoa Drivers Switch Sides. New Samoan driv-

ing rules requiring all motor vehicles to drive on the left side of the road, rather than the right, took effect Sept. 8. The new rules, which went into effect at 6:00 a.m., made Samoa the first country since the 1970s to switch which side of the road its vehicles drove on. About 70% of the world’s drivers lived in countries where cars were driven on the right side of the road, and most countries that had previously changed their rules had switched from left to right. Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sailele Malielegaoi had first announced the planned switch in 2007. It was intended to increase the number of vehicles available to Samoans by making it easier for Samoan expatriates living in Australia and New Zealand, who totaled about 170,000 people—roughly equivalent to Samoa’s resident population—to donate old cars to their families and others in Samoa. (Cars in both Australia and New Zealand were driven on the left.) Most vehicles currently driven in Samoa were reportedly imported from the neighboring U.S. territory of American Samoa or from the U.S., and were often less fuel-efficient than cars from Japan and other left-side-driving countries in the region. Critics, including People Against Switching Sides (PASS), an anti-switch group, argued that the change was unnecessary and would increase the risk of traffic accidents. Samoa’s Supreme Court Aug. 31 had rejected a lawsuit filed by PASS seeking to halt the switch. Anti-switch protesters Sept. 7 blocked traffic for several hours in a village on the Samoan island of Savai’i. Prior to the switch, the Samoan government widened some roads and added speed bumps and additional road markings, as well as signs reminding drivers about the change from right to left. The government declared Sept. 7–8 a national holiday and instituted a three-day ban on alcohol purchases in an attempt to minimize the number of car accidents during the changeover. Police officers and emergency vehicles Sept. 7 were stationed at every one of the country’s intersections. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Sept. 9 that only 18 buses were currently operating in Samoa, due to new rules that prohibited the use of buses that had not switched their passenger doors from the left side of the bus to the right side. According to AFP, many Samoan bus owners had refused to make the alterations or had pressed the government to pay for the necessary changes. Malielegaoi Sept. 11 said that bus owners had three weeks to make the alterations, and said they were eligible for special loans to cover the expense and an exemption from the next year’s bus licensing fee. n

Thailand Thaksin Supporters Hold Protests. At least

20,000 supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Sept. 19 held a peaceful demonstration in the Royal Pla726

za in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to mark the third anniversary of the 2006 bloodless military coup that removed Thaksin from power. The protesters, led by the proThaksin United Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) group, were known as “red shirts.” They called for the dissolution of Parliament and the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, one of Thaksin’s political opponents, as well as royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda, a former prime minister, whom the red shirts accused of masterminding the 2006 coup. [See pp. 559C2, 295A2] The Thai cabinet Sept. 18 had invoked the country’s Internal Security Act, effective Sept. 18–22, in response to the planned protest. Under the act, the government was authorized to deploy troops and close roads in order to maintain order; the roads surrounding the Government House, which contained the prime minister’s office, were closed prior to the protest and 6,500 police officers and soldiers were deployed. However, no violence was reported at the Sept. 19 protest. Thaksin had fled Thailand in August 2008 while on trial for corruption charges linked to his time in office and had later been convicted in absentia. During the demonstration, which had originally been scheduled for Aug. 30, he addressed his supporters from overseas via video link. He said that “three years after the coup, our country has slid backwards,” and asked, “Is our economy better? Have people reconciled? How about people’s rights and justice? Have the past three years hurt the country enough?” He argued that “the longer this government stays, the bigger the disaster is for the country. Give me just six months as prime minister and I will bring this country back to normal.” More than 10,000 pro-Thaksin protesters Oct. 17 surrounded the Government House, marking two months since the delivery of a petition asking Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej to grant Thaksin a royal pardon. The government had said it would take at least two months for the petition to be processed, and suggested that Thaksin was not eligible for a pardon because he was not currently incarcerated. The cabinet Oct. 13 had invoked the Internal Security Act, effective between Oct. 15 and Oct. 24. Clashes Near Disputed Temple—About 4,000 members of the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), Sept. 19 marched on Preah Vihear, a 900-yearold Hindu temple once claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia, leading to clashes with Thai security forces and residents of Thailand’s Sisaket Province that injured 17 people. Anti-Thaksin protesters aligned with PAD, known as “yellow shirts,” had taken over the Government House compound and occupied two airports near Bangkok in 2008 as part of an effort to oust the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP), which had controlled Thailand’s parliament before it was dissolved in December 2008. [See 2008, pp. 886F1, 730D2]

In 1962, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, had awarded the Preah Vihear to Cambodia, but had not ruled on the ownership of disputed land surrounding most of the temple. Both the Thai and Cambodian governments had deployed soldiers near the temple, and multiple clashes between the two sides had killed at least six people since July 2008. [See p. 310F1] The protesters, who were upset about planned Cambodian construction projects near the temple, had been pelted with rocks by residents as they arrived in buses in the region and later fought with residents with sticks, guns, and homemade weapons. The Thai government Sept. 19 declared a state of emergency in the province’s Kantharalak district; however, police in the area were ordered to exercise restraint and most were equipped only with riot shields, complicating efforts to quell the violence. The protesters pushed through roadblocks set up by Thai security forces and almost reached the temple. Abhisit subsequently ordered security forces to negotiate with PAD. A group of about 30 PAD members, escorted by Thai security forces, Sept. 20 were allowed to approach the temple and to make a statement calling on the Thai government to push out Cambodian troops from land claimed by Thailand. Abhisit Sept. 20 called on protesters to refrain from violence, and assured them “that we are not losing territory” near the temple to Cambodia. Coup Rumors Circulate— Thai media sources reported Aug. 3 that military officers frustrated with Abhisit’s government were plotting to topple Abhisit and replace him with Somkid Jatusriphithak, who had served as deputy prime minister under Thaksin. Somkid had been banned from politics for five years in 2007 after the dissolution of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party; however, the figures said to be behind the coup allegedly intended to amend Thai law to allow Somkid to serve as prime minister. Gen. Coonsang Niampradit, Thailand’s former supreme military commander, Aug. 4 called the reports groundless. King Bhumibol Hospitalized—Thailand’s Royal Household Bureau Sept. 20 announced that Bhumibol had been admitted to Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital the previous day after complaining of fatigue, fever and a loss of appetite. The bureau said that Bhumibol was being treated with antibiotics and an intravenous drip and that he was expected to recover. Bhumibol, who was widely revered in Thailand, had previously been hospitalized in 2007. [See 2007, p. 770B2] The Stock Exchange of Thailand Oct. 14 closed down more than 2% and Oct. 15 dropped an additional 5.3% following rumors that Bhumibol’s condition was more serious than had been reported. Analysts said that Bhumibol was widely viewed as a stabilizing influence in Thailand, and suggested that his continued hospitalization was triggering uncertainty in financial markets in the country. The Royal Household Bureau Oct. 15 announced that Bhumibol was suffering FACTS ON FILE

from pneumonia, but said that his condition was “good.” Bhumibol Aug. 21 had said in a speech that he believed Thailand was currently “going toward ruin,” but expressed hope that major problems could be avoided if the country could end its political divisiveness and band together to deal with its economic and political troubles. Bhumibol’s speech was broadcast by Thai media on Aug. 22. Conviction in Royal Insults Case—

Former journalist Daranee Charncherngsilpakul Aug. 28 was convicted of three counts of insulting the Thai royal family and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Under Thailand’s lese-majeste law, it was illegal to threaten, insult or defame the Thai king, queen, regent or heir apparent. Daranee had faced up to 45 years in prison for the crime. [See p. 154C1] Daranee, who was reportedly a Thaksin supporter, had been arrested in July 2008 after giving a speech critical of the 2006 coup that the court said contained coded criticisms of the Thai royal family. She had been held without bail and had been tried in secret on the grounds that a public trial could endanger national security. Separately, Suwicha Thakhor April 3 had pleaded guilty to two counts of lese-majeste for anonymously posting comments and pictures on Web sites that were deemed insulting to the royal family. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison; however, his sentence was reduced to 10 years in recognition of his decision to plead guilty. n

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Bosnia and Herzegovina EU, U.S.–Sponsored Reforms Rejected.

Leaders of Bosnian Croat, Serb and Muslim groups Oct. 20 rejected a U.S.- and European Union–sponsored plan to reform the country’s constitution to better prepare it for eventual membership in the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The reforms would have strengthened the central government’s authority over Bosnia’s two states: the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serb Republic. Leaders of the Muslim-Croat Federation, who supported a more integrated state with a centralized government, said the proposed reforms were not strong enough. Bosnian Serbs, conversely, sought more autonomy from the central government, and had rejected the planned reforms even before meeting with international negotiators. [See p. 511D3] Following the rejection, observers expressed concern about renewed ethnic conflict in Bosnia, which was still recovering from a brutal 1992–95 civil war that had divided the population along ethnic and religious lines. While observers generally concurred that negotiations had stagnated, Swedish Foreign Minister and EU President Carl Bildt and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, in a joint statement, Oct. 21 said “limited progress” was made in talks October 22, 2009

held that day, and reform negotiations would continue. The continuing talks were called “Dayton II,” a reference to the U.S.negotiated Dayton accords that had ended Bosnia’s civil war in 1995. Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, the current high representative for Bosnia, had said the country was “in a state of paralysis,” and rife with damaging nationalist rhetoric, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Oct. 21. The international high representative, a position created by the Dayton Accords, was the supreme authority on interpreting Bosnia’s constitution, and had the ability to nullify laws and fire officials. The proposed reforms had called for the elimination of that position. [See p. 448E2] n

Bulgaria Ex-Minister Charged Over Land Deals. Nikolay Kokinov, the top prosecutor in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, Sept. 8 announced that Valeri Tsvetanov, who had served as agriculture minister in former Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s government, would be charged with signing off on fraudulent land swap deals. Stefan Yuroukov, the former head of Bulgaria’s state forestry agency, would face similar charges. Both had served under the previous, Socialist-led government, which was unseated in June legislative elections. The announcements came a day before newly elected Prime Minister Boyko Borissov made his first official visit to the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The EU had long urged Bulgaria to combat corruption, and had withheld aid in the past over corruption concerns. [See below, p. 576F3] Before parliament banned the practice in January, Bulgarian companies and individuals could apply to swap parcels of land they owned for similarly valued state-owned land in another location. However, officials had reportedly signed off on numerous swaps of forested land in the country’s interior for valuable acreage on the Black Sea, without subjecting the deals to approval by the cabinet, as required. In many cases, the seafront land was then subdivided and sold by its new owner. Tsvetanov and Yuroukov were accused of approving such swaps after parliament had banned them, but two days before before the ban took effect March 1. The Sofia-based Center for the Study of Democracy, a nongovernmental organization, said fraudulent land swaps had cost Bulgaria about $984 million in 2008. EU Releases Millions in Farm Aid—

The EU Sept. 7 approved the release of about $156 million in farm aid to Bulgaria. The decision was made after EU officials ruled that Bulgaria had implemented sufficient safeguards against fraud and corruption. n

Great Britain Brown, Other MPs Asked to Repay Expenses.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown Oct. 12 said he would comply with the request of an independent auditor and repay more than

£12,000 ($19,000) in expenses for which he had been reimbursed by taxpayers. An independent audit panel, headed by Sir Thomas Legg, had reviewed the expenses claims filed by members of parliament (MPs) since 2004. A scandal had ignited in May after media reports that many MPs had claimed reimbursement for improper expenses. [See p. 343D2] Legg, a retired civil servant named by Brown to lead the inquiry, Oct. 12 informed MPs of his preliminary findings, and asked for repayment of claims he judged to be unreasonable. The audit was to conclude in December. The sum Legg asked Brown to repay included £10,716.60 for cleaning expenses. It also included claims for painting, gardening and other services. David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservative (Tory) Party, agreed to provide Legg with documentation for a £280 overpayment for a mortgage-interest claim, which he had already repaid. He called on all members of his party to comply with Legg’s requests. Nick Clegg, leader of the third major party, the Liberal Democrats, agreed to Legg’s request that he repay £910 in gardening expenses. Some MPs criticized Legg for applying his judgments retroactively to claims that had not violated any preexisting standards. A few said they would refuse to comply with his requests for repayment. n

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Russia Governing Party Dominates Local Elections.

Local leaders affiliated with United Russia, the powerful ruling party headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, overwhelmingly dominated provincial polls held Oct. 11 in 76 of Russia’s 83 administrative regions, according to results released the following day. President Dmitri Medvedev Oct. 12 said the elections, in which thousands of local leaders were chosen, were conducted “without major violations.” However, opposition figures claimed that officials had obstructed democratic candidates’ campaign activities, and in many cases blocked them from running entirely. Opposition leaders also said elections across the country had been riddled with violations, including ballot stuffing and multiple voting. [See pp. 667D2, 208B1] The opposition was particularly incensed over elections for Moscow’s city council, in which United Russia and the Communist Party were the only parties to garner enough votes to pass the 7% threshold needed to win council seats. (United Russia won 32 of the 35 seats; the remaining three went to the Communist Party.) Dozens of activists Oct. 12 gathered in downtown Moscow, the capital, to protest the elections. Police broke up the rally and reportedly detained several dozen people. As many as 18 more protesters Oct. 16 were detained in Moscow after holding a similar protest. [See p. 667E3] 727

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Some 135 deputies from three opposition parties loosely allied with United Russia Oct. 14 walked out of the 450-seat Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, in a rare protest by legislators of the election’s lopsided results. However, by Oct. 21, all three parties—the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia—had returned to the Duma after Medvedev agreed to meet with them to discuss their concerns. Some observers suggested that the walkout had been engineered by members of Russia’s political elite for their own benefit. The incident had reportedly received an unusual amount of coverage in Russia’s state-run media outlets, which normally avoided stories about antigovernment protests. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in an interview published Oct. 19, denounced the elections as “a mockery of the people.” [See p. 667F2] n Two Dagestani Officials Assassinated. Alimsultan Alkhamatov, head of the Russian republic of Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district, and Alimsultan Atuyev, deputy head of Dagestan’s criminal investigations department, Sept. 27 were shot dead in separate incidents. [See p. 91G1] Alkhamatov was gunned down in Moscow, Russia’s capital, as he was getting out of his car. His driver was seriously injured in the attack. Police detained one man who allegedly drove a getaway car, and Sept. 29 said they were searching for as many as four other accomplices. Alkhamatov had reportedly been the target of three previous assassination attempts. Atuyev and his nephew, a police officer, were shot dead while driving a police vehicle in a Dagestani village. Assassinations and other violence had become common across Russia’s southern Caucasus region in recent months. The unrest was attributed to separatist fighters, Islamic militants and the region’s persistent poverty and official corruption. Other News—In other Russian Caucasus news: o The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, Sept. 24 found that two kidnappings in 2002 and 2003 in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya had been carried out by Russian security services. The two kidnapped men were never found. The court ordered Russia to pay $132,000 to their relatives. The court in 2009 had ordered Russia to pay more than $700,000 to kidnapping and assault victims and their families. [See p. 417G1] o Gunmen Sept. 20 shot dead Ismail Bostanov, an influential Muslim cleric in the relatively peaceful southern Russian republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia. Bostanov, who had been known for his opposition to radical Islam, had reportedly survived an assassination attempt in 2006 in which he was stabbed, and his wife was beaten. [See 2006, p. 74B3] o A female suicide bomber Sept. 16 detonated her explosives near a police car in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital. No one was killed in the attack but as many as eight 728

people were reportedly injured, including several police officers. o Maksud Maksudov, a deputy prosecutor in Dagestan who oversaw the region’s prisons, Sept. 11 was shot dead in Makhachkala, the regional capital. o Russian security services Sept. 4 killed a man who was allegedly planning a terrorist attack in Moscow. Officials said the suspect was killed after he resisted arrest. Detonators, an explosives belt and other weapons allegedly belonging to the suspect were reportedly found at the scene of the clash. n

Turkey Kurdish Rebels Cross Border to Surrender.

A group of 34 ethnic Kurds, including eight members of a separatist militant group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), along with supporters and refugees, Oct. 19 crossed the border into southeast Turkey from northern Iraq and surrendered to the Turkish army. Most of them were freed immediately, but five were held for questioning by prosecutors before being released the next day. [See p. 329A3] A crowd of about 3,000 supporters had camped out by the border, near the town of Silopi, and cheered the arrival and release of the group. About 100,000 people Oct. 21 greeted the group with fireworks in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast. The members of the group said they were acting as “peace envoys” under the orders of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had been imprisoned by Turkey since 1999. The PKK’s 25-year-old insurgency had left about 40,000 people dead in Turkey. The government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had pledged to grant lenient treatment to PKK members who surrendered and were cleared of responsibility for violent acts. The surrender was seen as a move by the PKK to test the sincerity of that promise. The offer was part of a peace initiative announced Aug. 11 by Erdogan. Details had yet to be determined, but the plan was expected to concede new rights to the 12million-member Kurdish minority, whose language and culture had long been repressed. The European Union had called for such concessions to the Kurds as one of the political and human rights reforms required to advance Turkey’s bid for EU membership. [See p. 706C3] Erdogan, speaking in the eastern city of Sirit, Oct. 21 hailed the surrender of the PKK members and said he hoped “more will come,” although he condemned the celebratory welcome they received as “an irresponsible provocation.” He vowed, “We will press ahead with this process.” The idea of leniency for the PKK remained controversial in Turkey, where the PKK was designated as a terrorist group. A group of families of soldiers killed by the PKK Oct. 21 denounced what it called “a state ceremony to welcome the terrorists,”

adding, “The politicians who prepared the ground for this initiative are committing treason.” The PKK had carried out cross-border attacks from bases in the Qandil mountains in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Turkey had long pressed Iraq to expel the fighters, and launched air strikes and a brief ground offensive against the bases in 2008. n

Other European News Russia to Loan Serbia One Billion Euros.

Russia planned to loan Serbia one billion euros ($1.46 billion) to cover Serbia’s budget deficit and fund infrastructure improvements, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Oct. 5. Serbia’s economy minister, Mladjan Dinkic, that day said, “The European Union is our strategic partner, but unfortunately they couldn’t help too much in the crisis—they could only provide 100 million euros…Obviously that is not enough for our needs.” The loan deal was made official when Russian President Dmitri Medvedev visited Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, Oct. 20, though its terms had yet to be publicized. [See p. 482D3] Dinkic also announced Oct. 5 that the World Bank had pledged 270 million euros ($400 million) to Serbia, which was meant to help plug the budget deficit and fund a new highway that would link Serbia with Bulgaria. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May had extended Serbia’s existing “standby” credit line to $4 billion, but demanded that Serbia slash public spending before it released more funds. Kudrin the same day said Russia would cancel a planned $550 million loan installment to Belarus. He said that the decision had been made bilaterally. Kudrin also said Russia was unable to loan Ukraine $5 billion it had requested in February. [See p. 423B3] Also during Medvedev’s Oct. 20 visit to Belgrade, Serbia and Russia agreed on a plan to build gas storage facilities that would make Serbia a hub of the South Stream pipeline intended to carry Russian natural gas to Europe. [See p. 561A1] n

European News in Brief Georgia: Abkhaz Orthodox Church Splits Off.

Officials for the Abkhaz Orthodox Church in Abkhazia, a Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region, Sept. 15 decided to separate from the Georgian Orthodox Church. Georgian officials the following day said the Georgian Orthodox Church refused to recognize the Abkhaz church as independent. [See p. 665E3] n Macedonia: 15 Drown in Boat Accident. A sightseeing boat carrying mostly Bulgarian tourists Sept. 5 sank in Lake Ohrid, killing 15 of its 57 passengers. Officials were investigating whether the 70-yearold boat had broken apart because it was overloaded. The boat was reportedly FACTS ON FILE

meant to carry no more than 42 people. [See p. 590D3] n Portugal: Minority Government Set. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates Pinto do Sousa Oct. 22 announced that he and his Socialist Party had decided to form a new minority government, after fruitless talks with other parties on a possible coalition. The Socialists had won reelection but lost their parliamentary majority in September elections, and now held 97 of 230 seats. Socrates would have to seek support from other parties to pass legislation. Most key ministers remained in place in his new cabinet. [See p. 667C1] n

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Iran Suicide Bombing Kills Guard Commanders.

A suicide bomber in Iran’s restive southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province Oct. 18 killed at least 42 people, including at least five commanders of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran’s military, Iranian state media reported. Iran blamed the attack on the Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundullah— whose name meant God’s Brigade, and which Iran said had links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda—but also accused unspecified foreign governments of involvement. It was reportedly the most deadly attack in Iran since the end of the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war. [See p. 485C3] According to Iranian news reports, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at or before a meeting between the Revolutionary Guard commanders and Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribal and local leaders, which was billed as an effort to encourage unity between Sunnis and Shiites. The meeting was taking place in the town of Pishin, near Iran’s porous border with Pakistan. Among the Revolutionary Guards members reportedly killed were Brig. Gen. Nour Ali Shoushtari, the lieutenant commander of ground forces, and Rajab Ali Mohammad-Zadeh, the provincial commander for Sistan-Baluchistan. At least 20 local leaders were also said to have been slain. Some reports said there had been a second attack, in which a roadside bomb struck a car filled with Revolutionary Guard members. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “Those who committed such criminal and inhuman acts will receive their response soon.” A U.S. State Department spokesman condemned the attack and denied U.S. involvement. A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman denied that the attack had been planned in Pakistan, but said the Pakistani government would investigate. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Ali Jafari, Oct. 19 said Iran had evidence of “direct ties” between U.S., British and Pakistani intelligence agencies and the attackers, and vowed to “retaliate.” n October 22, 2009

Iraq Parliament Fails to Pass Elections Law.

Iraq’s parliament Oct. 21 adjourned without having passed legislation that would govern parliamentary elections, after attempting to reach an agreement on the law over the previous week. The United Nations had set Oct. 15 as the deadline for passing the law, but the Iraqi parliament that day had postponed a vote. Parliamentary elections were currently scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010, but it was feared that the legislative deadlock might push them back. [See pp. 688G2, 629A1] The Iraqi parliament transferred the prospective legislation to the Political Council for National Security to break the deadlock. The council included Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the country’s deputy prime minsters and vice presidents, and the leaders of parliament’s political parties. Parliament scheduled another vote on the issue for Oct. 25. Iraq’s previous election law had been widely criticized for allowing Iraqis to only vote for lists of candidates; party leaders then chose the members of parliament. The new legislation would allow voting for individual candidates. However, legislators had been unable to resolve conflicts over how voters would be registered in the northern province of Kirkuk, where the Kurdish population had grown since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Arabs and Turkmens in the region said the influx was an attempt by Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region to gain control of the province, while Kurdistan said the demographic shift resulted from a return of Kurds who had been expelled by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime. U.S. Defense Department officials Oct. 21 said planned withdrawals of U.S. troops might be affected if the election date slipped. U.S. military commanders had said they would review Iraq’s security situation 30 to 60 days after the election, and use that to shape a withdrawal schedule. Bombs Kill at Least 19 in Anbar—A series of three car bombs Oct. 11 were detonated outside the provincial government and police headquarters in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar, killing at least 19 people. The first car bomb went off in the parking lot, and two others exploded in sequence as police and emergency workers responded to the first attack. Government officials and tribal leaders were reportedly meeting in the provincial government building at the time of the first blast, but none were harmed. [See p. 688E3] Anbar had seen a rise in attacks in recent weeks, as U.S. troops withdrew from their bases in the region. A suicide truck bomber Oct. 17 destroyed a major bridge in Ramadi over the Euphrates River, stopping traffic on the main route between Anbar and Jordan and Syria. Another roadside bomb the same day destroyed a smaller bridge in the city of Fallujah, killing four Iraqi sol-

diers. Also, a car bomb in Saqlawiyah Oct. 20 killed three policemen and a civilian. In other violence, a suicide bomber Oct. 16 fired an assault rifle into a crowd of worshippers and then blew himself up in a mosque in Tal Afar, in the northern province of Nineveh. At least 13 people were killed, including the prayer leader, who had spoken out against the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. Tal Afar was mostly Shiite Muslim and Turkmen, but the mosque was Sunni. Three bombs Oct. 14 exploded in the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least six people. The bombs went off near the city’s Husseini and Abbas shrines. The same day, armed men robbed several jewelry shops in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, and killed eight people before they escaped. Local residents reportedly said Iraqi soldiers had let the robbers pass through security checkpoints, and accused them of complicity. The Iraqi interior ministry said seven Iraqi soldiers had been arrested in the aftermath for failing to secure the area. [See p. 610G2] Iraq’s human rights ministry Oct. 13 released a report stating that from 2004 to 2008, a total of 85,694 people had been killed in conflict-related violence in Iraq, and 147,000 had been wounded. That period covered the height of Iraq’s sectarian strife. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o Prosecutors in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Oct. 19 unsealed an indictment charging a former U.S. State Department employee with illegal receipt of kickbacks and bribes, and with wire fraud, for taking tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for steering contracts to Iraqi construction companies. Richard Lopez Razo, 52, was the first U.S. State Department employee to be charged with fraud related to the Iraqi reconstruction effort. Razo from 2005 to 2008 had been employed as a logistics specialist for three U.S. companies working in Iraq, and beginning in September 2008 had worked as a provincial program manager in southern Iraq; it was unclear when he had left the U.S. State Department. [See p. 255C1] o Ali al-Musawe, a Maliki adviser, Oct. 16 said Malaysian authorities had arrested Mohammad al-Daini, a former Sunni member of the Iraqi parliament who had allegedly planned several deadly attacks, including a 2007 suicide bombing in the parliament’s cafeteria. Musawe said the Iraqi government was seeking Daini’s extradition. [See p. 177G2] o A report by U.S. military investigators posted Oct. 16 on the Web site of the Multinational Corps–Iraq found that a U.S. soldier who had killed five other U.S. service members at a combat stress clinic on a U.S. military base in Iraq had behaved erratically for weeks and had made suicide threats, but that communication errors and a lack of guidance and coordination had prevented an effective response. The soldier, Sgt. John Russell, was receiving medical treatment in the 729

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U.S., and faced murder and aggravated assault charges. [See p. 330B2] o Iraq Oct. 15 refused to accept 41 of 50 Iraqi refugees that Britain had deported, and sent them back to Britain, Iraqi officials said Oct. 17. Iraq’s displacement and migration minister, Abdul Samad Sultan, that day said nine Iraqis who volunteered to stay and could prove they were from south or central Iraq were allowed to remain. He said the others were from the northern region of Kurdistan, whose government retained independence from Iraq in many matters, or had been involuntarily returned to Iraq. Britain had been trying to expel the Iraqi refugees for several years. o Maliki Oct. 14 shut down Baghdad’s prestigious Mustansiriya University for a week due to reports that a gang of Shiite students, known as the Students League, had gained control of the school and assaulted and murdered numerous faculty members and students. He also ordered the suspension of political activity at the school and banned all student groups, and said government forces would provide security for the campus, in conjunction with the university’s security guards. It was reportedly believed that the Students League had ties to officials in the Dawa party, which Maliki led. Maliki was a Mustansiriya alumnus. [See 2007, p. 112D1] o The Iraqi parliament Oct. 13 passed a security agreement with Britain that would allow 100 British navy personnel to return to Iraq, and train and support Iraqi navy personnel responsible for protecting Um Qasr, which was Iraq’s only port on the Persian Gulf. The British sailors had been forced to leave Iraq after Britain’s security mandate ended in July. The U.S. and Iraq in 2008 had signed a similar security agreement. [See p. 529D3] o The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Oct. 13 said a four-year drought had displaced more than 100,000 people in northern Iraq since 2005, and 36,000 more were preparing to leave their homes. UNESCO blamed the crisis in part on the collapse of the region’s ancient system of underground aqueducts, or karez, which it said had mostly failed. [See 2008, p. 391B1] o Kurdistan’s natural resources minister, Ashti Hawrami, Oct. 9 in a letter said the Kurdish government and two international oil companies working in the region had jointly agreed to stop oil exports until the Iraqi central government paid the companies for the oil. The Kurdish government Oct. 12 posted the letter on its Web site. The central government in May had agreed to allow the companies—DNO International ASA of Norway and Genel Energy International Ltd. of Turkey—to export oil using its pipelines into Turkey, after previously contending that their contracts with the Kurdish government were invalid; however, it still reportedly considered the deals illegal and had refused to pay them agreed-upon fees. [See pp. 501B2, 362B3] n 730

Other Middle East News U.N. Council Backs Gaza Crimes Report.

The United Nations Human Rights Council Oct. 16 voted, 25–6, to pass a resolution endorsing a U.N. report detailing evidence of war crimes committed by Israeli forces and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) during fighting in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. The report called for Israel and Hamas to mount independent investigations of the allegations, and said that if they failed to do so, the U.N. Security Council should submit the evidence to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. Israel had complained that the report was biased against it, and said the report endangered not only its right to self-defense but also Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. [See p. 689A3] The Human Rights Council in early October had deferred action on the report for six months, after the Palestinian Authority (PA) withdrew its support for the resolution. However, the PA Oct. 8 reversed its position after Palestinians and others throughout the Arab world protested its initial decision. The U.S. and five European nations voted against the Human Rights Council resolution, which was spearheaded by Muslim and Arab nations and supported by Russia and China. Eleven countries abstained, while five—including Britain and France—did not vote at all. Israeli legislators Oct. 16 condemned the Human Rights Council vote. The Israeli cabinet Oct. 20 said it would call for the U.S. to use its Security Council veto power to stop the resolution from making progress in that chamber. The U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, Oct. 8–11 traveled to the region for the latest round of shuttle diplomacy, speaking with officials including Israli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem, the West Bank city of Ramallah and Cairo, the Egyptian capital. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—the leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party—Oct. 8 said in a radio interview that a “comprehensive agreement” between the Palestinians and Israelis was “apparently… impossible to achieve,” and that only “a long-term intermediate agreement” that “left the tough issues for a much later stage” was realistic. The Israeli-Palestinian talks were widely viewed as having reached a stalemate. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Hockey NHL Season Opens. The 2009–10 National Hockey League (NHL) season opened

Oct. 1, with four games that day. Among those games, the Colorado Avalanche defeated the San Jose Sharks, 5–2, in Denver, after a pregame ceremony retiring the number 19 jersey of their former captain, Joe

Sakic. Sakic July 9 had announced his retirement after a 20-year career in which he had led the Avalanche to two Stanley Cup titles and won the league’s most valuable player (MVP) award in 2001. He was eighth on the NHL’s all-time scoring list, with 1,641 career points. [See 2008, p. 759F2; 2002, p. 137G2; 2001, p. 503E3] The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins Oct. 2 won their first game, 3–2, over the New York Rangers at home. Also that day, the Florida Panthers beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4–3, in a shootout in Helsinki, Finland—the NHL’s first regular-season game in Finland—and the St. Louis Blues defeated the Detroit Red Wings, 4–3, in Stockholm, Sweden. Both games were part of the league’s ongoing effort to broaden its audience in Europe. [See p. 419E3] The NHL would suspend its regular season for two weeks in February 2010 to allow its players to compete in the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. Fate of Coyotes Remains Unresolved—

Judge Redfield Baum of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix, Ariz., Sept. 30 rejected a bid to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes by Canadian billionaire businessman James Balsillie. The NHL opposed Balsillie’s $242 million offer to buy the team and move it to Hamilton, Ontario, from its current location in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale—a plan supported by the team’s current owner, Jerry Moyes. The NHL Aug. 25 had been forced to file its own bid for the team in bankruptcy court in an effort to prevent Balsillie from taking over, after all other potential bidders dropped out. The NHL’s bid was $140 million. [See p. 435B3] The NHL’s Board of Governors, in a July 29 vote, had rejected Balsillie’s application to buy the team. Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, Sept. 30 praised Baum’s ruling, saying the league was “pleased that the bankruptcy court has confirmed the league’s rights to select its owners and the location of its franchises.” The league, if it succeeded in its bid to take over the Coyotes, reportedly planned to resell the franchise, preferably to a buyer who would keep the team in Glendale. NHL legend Wayne Gretzky Sept. 24 announced his resignation as the Coyotes’ head coach, citing indications that none of the team’s potential buyers planned to retain him in that role. The team had failed to make the playoffs during his four seasons as coach. General manager Dan Maloney later that day introduced Dave Tippett, who had coached the Dallas Stars for the past six seasons, as Gretzky’s replacement. [See 2005, p. 723G2] Other News—In other NHL news: o The Ottawa Senators Sept. 12 traded disgruntled star forward Dany Heatley and a fifth-round draft pick to the Sharks, in exchange for forwards Milan Michalek and Jonathan Cheechoo and a second-round draft pick. [See 2005, p. 722E3] o The NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) Aug. 31 announced that its 30member executive board had voted “overFACTS ON FILE

whelmingly” to remove Executive Director Paul Kelly. The union did not give a specific reason for the decision, instead citing a “whole host of issues.” Kelly had been hired in October 2007, replacing Ted Saskin, who was fired for secretly accessing players’ private e-mail accounts. NHLPA general counsel Ian Penny Aug. 31 was named interim executive director. [See 2007, p. 902E2] o The New Jersey Devils July 13 hired Jacques Lemaire as their new head coach. Lemaire, who had previously coached the Devils from 1993 to 1998, replaced Brent Sutter, who had resigned in June. [See p. 435E3–F3] o Longtime Montreal Canadiens captain and center Saku Koivu July 8 signed a oneyear deal with the Anaheim Ducks. [See 2007, p. 503E2] o The Chicago Blackhawks July 1 signed four-time All-Star forward Marian Hossa, a free agent who most recently had played for the Red Wings. [See 2008, p. 760B1] o The Rangers June 30 traded center Scott Gomez, along with minor-leaguers Tom Pyatt and Mike Busto, to the Montreal Canadiens for forward Chris Higgins and defensemen Ryan McDonagh and Pavel Valentenko. [See 2007, p. 503F2] o The New York Islanders June 26 selected 18-year-old Canadian center John Tavares, the leading scorer in the history of the Ontario Hockey League, as the first pick in the annual NHL draft. [See 2008, p. 760B1] o Forward Sergei Fedorov June 25 signed with Metallurg Magnitogorsk, a team in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). The 39-year-old Fedorov, the NHL’s MVP in 1994, had defected from the Soviet Union in 1990 in order to play in the NHL. He spent 13 years with the Red Wings, winning three Stanley Cups, and most recently had been a member of the Washington Capitals. [See 2008, p. 759A3, G3; 1994, p. 1011A2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Astronomy Giant Ring Around Saturn Discovered.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Oct. 6 announced that infrared images from its orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope had led to the discovery of a planetary ring around Saturn that was far larger than the planet’s previously known rings. Consisting of tiny particles of ice and dust, the ring orbited at a tilt of 27 degrees from the other rings around Saturn. The faint ring reflected very little visible light, but could be seen in the infrared images. [See 2006, p. 199B1] The newly discovered planetary ring was the largest known in the solar system. Most of the material in the ring was between 3.7 million miles and 7.4 million miles (six million–12 million km) from Saturn. Anne October 22, 2009

Verbiscer, an astronomer from the University of Virginia in the U.S., Oct. 7 published details of the discovery on the Web site of the journal Nature. Verbiscer said the ring corresponded with the orbit of Saturn’s most distant moon, Phoebe, and was likely composed of debris created from the collision of objects with Phoebe. n

Space Canadian Circus Founder Visits Station. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, along with a Canadian “space tourist,” Sept. 30 launched from Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan. The tourist, 50-yearold Guy Laliberte, Oct. 11 returned to Earth with the station’s outgoing crew. Laliberte, founder of the Cirque du Soleil theatrical circus company, reportedly paid $35 million to become the first Canadian paying private citizen to visit the space station. [See p. 615F3] Traveling to the station with Laliberte were U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev, who started their planned six-month stay after docking with the station Oct. 2. Returning to Earth were Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt, leaving a crew of six people still aboard the station. Padalka and Barratt had arrived at the station in March. Laliberte, the self-proclaimed “first clown in space,” wore a red clown’s nose for much of his trip. During his stay on the station, he hosted a Web broadcast that promoted water conservation. Among those contributing to the broadcast from Earth were former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Irish rock band U2 and Colombian singer Shakira. Opportunities for space tourism were thought to be dwindling with the planned retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet in 2010, which would place greater demands on Soyuz flights for station needs. n

People Sudanese billionaire businessman Mo Ibrahim Oct. 19 announced that the $5

million Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, intended to honor former African heads of states for good governance, would not be awarded in 2009, its third year in existence, because the prize committee could not settle on a winner. Candidates for the prize had reportedly included former South African President Thabo Mbeki, former Ghanaian President John Kufuor and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. [See p. 7E2, G2, B3; 2008, pp. 780A2, 679A1; 2007, p. 351E1] n

O B I T UA R I E S ALI, (Mahaboob) Ben, 82, founder of Ben’s Chili Bowl, a landmark restaurant in Washington, D.C.’s black business and entertainment district known for its chili-covered half-smoke sausages; Ali, a Trinidadian native of Indian ancestry, opened the restaurant in 1958, thirteen years after his arrival in the U.S.; af-

ter Barack Obama was elected the U.S.’s first black president in 2008, he and his family joined comedian Bill Cosby as the only patrons said to be allowed to eat at Ben’s “for free”; born June 13, 1927; died Oct. 7 at his Washington, D.C., home, of congestive heart failure. BELLMON, Henry Louis, 88, moderate Republican from Oklahoma who in 1962 became the first GOP candidate to be elected governor of his state; after a term-limits law then in effect kept him for running for reelection in 1966, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968; he mounted his Senate campaign after resigning as national chairman of Republican Richard Nixon’s ultimately victorious 1968 U.S. presidential campaign; he served two full terms in the Senate before serving a second term as governor of Oklahoma from 1987 to 1991; born Sept. 3, 1921, in Tonkawa, Okla.; died Sept. 29 at a hospital in Enid, Okla., of Parkinson’s disease complications. [See 1996, p. 658G2; 1990, p. 639D2; Indexes 1986–87, 1978–81, 1965–76, 1962– 63] GELFAND, Israel Moiseevich, 96, mathematician who made key contributions to fields ranging from functional analysis to representation theory to integral geometry; his research in the latter area provided the theoretical framework for computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans and other medical imaging technology; after spending most of his life in the Soviet Union, where his being Jewish reportedly hindered his career, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1989; since 1991, he had been a distinguished professor at New Jersey’s Rutgers University; his many honors included a 1994 MacArthur Fellowship, awarded to him at the age of 80; born Sept. 2, 1913, near Odessa, in what was then czarist Russia and now Ukraine; died Oct. 5 at a hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., of natural causes. [See 1994, p. 540A2; 1968, p. 407C3] HART, John, 91, actor who, from 1952 to 1954, played the masked lawman the Lone Ranger in 52 episodes of the television series of that name; in about 170 episodes of the show, which ran from 1949 to 1957, the character was played by Clayton Moore, who died in 1999; born Dec. 13, 1917, in Los Angeles; died Sept. 20 at his home in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, after battling dementia. [See 1999, p. 1000G2] HOUSTON, Charles Snead, 96, physician who made major contributions to high-altitude medicine, including detailing the physiological effects of reduced oxygen (hypoxia); he himself was an accomplished mountain climber, who, however, stopped climbing mountains after leading a failed 1953 attempt, in which one climber died, to scale Mt. Godwin Austen (K2) in the Himalayas, the world’s second-tallest mountain; born Aug. 24, 1913, in New York City; died Sept. 27 in Burlington, Vt. [See 1953, p. 312B3; 1950, p. 427G] MOHN, Reinhard, 88, German businessman who, as chief executive of Bertelsmann AG from 1947 to 1981, helped turn his family-owned enterprise into one of the world’s largest media groups; originally a publisher of religious books, the company had been founded by his great-great-grandfather, Carl Bertelsmann, in 1835; born June 29, 1921, in Gütersloh, Germany; died Oct. 3; no cause or place of death was reported. [See 2002, p. 619B1, D1–G1, C2–D2] SONNENFELDT, Richard Wolfgang, 86, Germanborn Jew who escaped from Nazi Germany before World War II and who, after the war, served as chief interpreter for U.S. prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals; he later became an electrical engineer who helped develop color television; born July 23, 1923, in Berlin; died Oct. 9 at his home in Port Washington, N.Y., of stroke complications. [See 2008, pp. 532B2, 87D1; 2007, p. 796C1] WASSERSTEIN, Bruce Jay, 61, Wall Street investment banker who was involved in nearly ever major corporate takeover battle of the 1980s, most notably the 1988 battle for RJR Nabisco Inc., eventually won by the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; for years, his closest associate was Joseph Perella; the two men co-headed the mergers and acquisitions unit at First Boston Corp. before forming their own company in 1988; Perella left it in 1993, and Wasserstein ran it on his own until 2000, when he sold it to a German bank for nearly $1.5 billion; since 2002, he had been chairman and chief executive of Lazard Ltd.; among his siblings was playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who died in 2006 at age 55; after her death, he had adopted the daughter she had conceived through artificial insemination and given birth to at the age of 48; born Dec. 25, 1947, in New York City; died there Oct. 14, days after having been hospitalized for what was termed an irregular heartbeat. [See 2006, pp. 129C3, 84F3; 2005, p. 343D1–E1; Indexes 2003–04, 2001, 1993, 1987–88] n

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The following were the heads of state, government leaders and selected cabinet members for the countries listed, as of Oct. 1 unless otherwise noted. For changes after Oct. 22, consult the Index. Spellings are based on various schemes of transliteration and may occasionally vary from earlier or subsequent versions contained in news accounts. Adapted from information provided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. [See p. 232A1]

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Afghanistan*—President: Karzai, Hamid; Vice Presidents: Masood, Ahmad Zia; Khalili, Abdul Karim; Min. of Defense: Wardak, Abdul Rahim; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Spanta, Rangeen Dadfar; Min. of Interior: Atmar, Muhammad Hanif *Afghanistan Aug. 20 held a presidential election; the winner would be determined in a Nov. 7 runoff between Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. [See p. 710F1] Albania, Republic of—President: Topi, Bamir; Prime Minister: Berisha, Sali; Min. of Defense: Oketa, Gazmend; Min. of Finance: Bode, Ridvan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Basha, Lulzim Algeria, Democratic and Popular Republic of— President, Min. of National Defense: Bouteflika, Abdelaziz; Prime Minister: Ouyahia, Ahmed; Min. of Finance: Djoudi, Karim; Min. of Industry: Temmar, Abdelhamid; Min. of State for Foreign Affairs: Medelci, Mourad; Min. of State for Interior & Local Governments: Zerhouni, Noureddine Yazid; Min. of Justice & Keeper of the Seals: Belaiz, Tayeb Andorra, Principality of*—Prime Minister: Cassany, Bartumeu Jaume; Min. of Economy & Finance: Agras, Pierre Lopez; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Institutional Relations: Miro, Xavier Espot *Andorra was under the formal sovereignty of the president of France and the Roman Catholic bishop of Seo de Urgel, Spain. Angola, Republic of—President: dos Santos, Jose Eduardo; Prime Minister: Kassoma, Antonio Paulo; Min. of Defense: Paihama, Kundi; Min. of External Relations: dos Anjos, Assuncao Afonso Sousa; Min. of Finance: de Morais, Jose Pedro; Min. of Petroleum: de Vasconselhos, Jose Maria Antigua and Barbuda—Governor General: LakeTack, Louise Agnetha; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Spencer, Baldwin; Min. of National Security: Cort, Eroll; Min. of Tourism, Civil Aviation & Culture: Maginley, John Argentina (Argentine Republic)—President: Fernandez de Kirchner, Cristina; Min. of Defense: Garre, Nilda; Min. of Economy & Public Finance: Boudou, Amado; Min. of Foreign Relations, International Trade & Worship: Taiana, Jorge; Min. of Interior: Randazzo, Florencio; Min. of Justice, Security & Human Rights: Alak, Julio; Min. of Labor, Employment & Social Security: Tomada, Carlos; President, Central Bank: Redrado, Martin Armenia, Republic of—President: Sargsyan, Serge; Prime Minister: Sargsyan, Tigran; Min. of Defense: Ohanian, Seyran; Min. of Finance: Davtian, Tigran; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nalbandian, Eduard Australia, Commonwealth of—Governor General: Bryce, Quentin; Prime Minister: Rudd, Kevin Michael; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Education, Employment & Workplace Relations, Min. for Social Inclusion: Gillard, Julia; Treasurer: Swan, Wayne Maxwell; Attorney General: McClelland, Robert; Min. for Defense: Faulkner, John Philip; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Smith, Stephen Francis; Min. for Immigration & Citizenship: Evans, Chris; Min. for Trade: Crean, Simon Austria, Republic of—President: Fischer, Heinz; Chancellor: Faymann, Werner; Vice Chancellor, Min. of Finance: Proell, Josef; Min. of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment & Water Management: Berlakovich, Nikolaus; Min. of National Defense & Sports: Darabos, Norbert; Min. of European and International Affairs: Spindelegger, Michael; Min. of Justice: Bandion-Ortner, Claudia; Governor, Austrian National Bank: Nowotny, Ewald Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani Republic)—President: Aliyev, Ilham; Prime Minister: Rasizade, Artur; Min. of Defense: Abiyev, Col. Gen. Safar; Min. of Finance: Sharifov, Samir; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mammadyarov, Elmar; Min. of Internal Affairs: Usubov, Ramil Bahamas, Commonwealth of the—Governor General: Hanna, Arthur Dion; Prime Minister, Min. of Fi-

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nance: Ingraham, Hubert; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Immigration: Symonette, Theodore (Brent); Min. of Health: Minnis, Hubert; Min. of Tourism & Aviation: Vanderpool-Wallace, Vincent Bahrain, Kingdom of—King: Khalifa, Hamad bin Isa al-; Prime Minister: Khalifa, Khalifa bin Salman al; Min. of State for Defense: Khalifa, Muhammad bin Abdallah al-; Min. of Finance & Economy: Khalifa, Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hamad bin Abdallah al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Khalifa, Khalid bin Ahmad alBangladesh, People’s Republic of—President: Rahman, Zillur; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Hasina Wazed, Sheik; Min. of Finance: Muhith, Abu Maal Abdul; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Moni, Dipu Barbados—Governor General: Husbands, Sir Clifford; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Development & Energy, Min. of Labor & Civil Service: Thompson, David; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade: McClean, Maxine; Min. of Home Affairs, Attorney General: Stuart, Freundel; Min. of Tourism: Sealy, Richard; Min. of Economic Affairs & Empowerment, Innovation, Trade, Industry & Commerce: David Eastwick Belarus, Republic of—President: Lukashenko, Aleksandr; Prime Minister: Sidorsky, Sergey; Min. of Defense: Maltsev, Leonid; Min. of Finance: Kharkovets, Andrey; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Martynov, Sergey Belgium, Kingdom of—King: Albert II; Prime Minister: Van Rompuy, Herman; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Leterme, Yves; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Finance & Institutional Reform: Reynders, Didier; Min. of the Interior: Turtelboom, Annemie; Vice Prime Minister, Min. of Social Affairs & Public Health: Onkelinx, Laurette; Min. of Employment: Milquet, Joelle; Min. of Defense: De Crem, Pieter; Min. of Justice: de Clerck, Stefaan Belize—Governor General: Young, Sir Colville; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Barrow, Dean Oliver; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Natural Resources & the Environment: Vega, Gaspar; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. Foreign Trade: Elrington, Wilfred Benin, Republic of—President: Yayi Boni, Thomas; Min. of Foreign Affairs, African Integration, Francophonie & Beninese Diaspora: Ehouzou, Jean-Marie; Min. of State in Charge of National Defense: N’Douro, Issifou Kgui; Min. of State in Charge of Economic Forecasting, Development & Evaluations of Public Action: Koupaki, Pascal Irene Bhutan, Kingdom of—King: Wangchuck, Jigme Khesar Namgyel; Prime Minister: Thinley, Jigme; Min. of Education: Powdyel, Thakyr Singh; Min. of Information & Communication: Rai, Nandalal Bolivia, Republic of—President: Morales Aima, Juan Evo; Vice President: Garcia Linera, Alvaro; Min. of Defense: San Miguel Rodriguez, Walker; Min. of Economy & Public Finance: Arce Catacora, Luis Alberto; Min. of Foreign Relations & Worship: Choquehuanca Cespedes, David; Min. of Government: Rada Velez, Alfredo; Min. of Hydrocarbons & Energy: Coca Antezana, Oscar; Min. of the Presidency: Quintana Taborga, Juan Ramon; Min. of Environment and Water: Orellana Hualkyer, Rene Gonzalo Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of—Chairman, Collective Presidency: Radmanovic, Nebojsa (Serb); Members, Collective Presidency: Komsic, Zeljko (Croat), Silajdzic, Haris (Bosniak); Chairman, Council of Ministers: Spiric, Nikola; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Alkalaj, Sven; President, Muslim–Croat federation: Krsto, Borjana; President, Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska): Kusmanovic, Rajko Botswana, Republic of—President: Khama, Seretse Khama Ian; Min. of Finance & Development Planning (Acting): Matambo, Kenneth; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Skelemani, Phandu Tombola Chaka; Min. of Health: Motsumi, Lesego; Min. of Trade & Industry: Moroka, Daniel Neo Brazil, Federative Republic of—President: Da Silva, Luiz Inacio Lula; Vice President: Alencar, Jose; Min. of Defense: Jobim, Nelson Azevedo; Min. of Development, Industry & Trade: Jorge, Miguel; Min. of Finance: Mantega, Guido; Min. of Foreign Relations: Amorim, Celso Luiz Nunes; Min. of Justice: Genro, Tarso; Min. of Sports: Silva, Orlando; President, Central Bank: Meirelles, Henrique de Campos Brunei (Negara Brunei Darussalam)—Sultan, Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Min. of Defense: Hassanal Bolkiah, Sir; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. of Trade: Mohamed Bolkiah, Prince Bulgaria, Republic of—President: Parvanov, Georgi; Prime Minister: Borissov, Boyko; Min. of Defense:

Mladenov, Nikolay; Min. of Finance: Djankov, Simeon; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zheleva, Rumiana; Min. of Interior: Tsvetanov, Tsvetan; Min. of Labor & Social Policy: Mladenov, Totyu Burkina Faso —President: Compaore, Blaise; Prime Minister: Zongo, Tertius; Min. of Defense: Boly, Yero; Min. of Economy & Finance: Bembamba, Lucien Marie Noel Burma, Union of—See Myanmar, Union of Burundi, Republic of—President: Nkurunziza, Pierre; First Vice President: Sahinguvu, Dr. Yves; Min. of External Relations & Cooperation: Nsanze, Augustin; Min. of Finance, Economy, Cooperation & Development: Nizigama, Clotilde; Min. of National Defense & War Veterans: Niyoyankana, Lt. Gen. Germain Cambodia, Kingdom of—King: Norodom Sihamoni; Prime Minister: Hun Sen; Min. of Economy & Finance: Keat Chhon; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Hor Namhong; Min. of Justice: Ang Vong Vattana; Min. of National Defense: Gen. Tea Banh Cameroon, Republic of—President: Biya, Paul; Prime Minister: Yang, Philemon; Min. of Economy, Planning & Regional Development: Motaze, Louis Paul; Min. of External Relations: Ayissi, Henry Eyebe; Min. of Finance: Menye, Lazare Essimi Canada—Governor General: Jean, Michaelle; Prime Minister: Harper, Stephen; Min. of Agriculture & Agri-Food, Min. of the Canadian Wheat Board: Ritz, Gerry; Min. of Citizenship & Immigration: Kenney, Jason; Min. of the Environment: Prentice, Jim; Min. of Finance: Flaherty, Jim; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Cannon, Lawrence; Min. of Health: Aglukkaq, Leona; Min. of Indian Affairs & Northern Development & Federal Interlocutor for Metis & Nonstatus Canadians: Strahl, Chuck; Min. of Industry: Clement, Tony; Min. of Intergovernmental Affairs & La Francophonie: Verner, Josee; Min. of Western Economic Diversification, Min. of Labor: Ambrose, Rona; Min. of International Cooperation: Oda, Bev; Min. of International Trade & the Asia-Pacific Gateway: Day, Stockwell; Min. of Justice, Attorney General: Nicholson, Rob; Min. of National Defense & the Atlantic Gateway: Mackay, Peter; Min. of National Revenue: Blackburn, Jean-Pierre; Min. of Natural Resources: Raitt, Lisa; Min. of Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness: van Loan, Peter; Min. of Public Works & Government Services: Paradis, Christian; Min. of Transport, Infrastructure & Communities: Baird, John; House Leader: Hill, Jay; President of the Treasury Board: Toews, Vic; Governor, Bank of Canada: Carney, Mark Cape Verde, Republic of—President: Pires, Pedro Verona Rodrigues; Prime Minister: Neves, Jose Maria Pereira; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation & Communities: Brito, Jose; Min. of Justice & Local Administration: Morias, Marisa Helena Central African Republic—President, Min of Defense: Bozize, Francois; Prime Minister: Touadera, Faustin Archange; Min. of Finance & Budget: Ndoutingai, Sylvain; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration & Francophonie Affairs: Gambi, Antoine Chad, Republic of—President: Deby, Idriss; Prime Minister: Abbas, Youssouf Saleh; Min. of Economy & Urban Planning: Breme, Ousman Matar; Min. of Finance and Budget: Mourcha, Abakar Mallah; Min. of Foreign Relations: Faki, Moussa Mahamat Chile, Republic of—President: Bachelet Jeria, Michelle; Min. of Defense: Vidal Salinas, Francisco; Min. of Economy, Development & Reconstruction: Lavados Montes, Hugo; Min. of Finance: Velasco Branes, Andres; Min. of Foreign Relations: Fernandez Amunategui, Mariano; Min. of Interior: Perez Yoma, Edmundo; Min. of Justice: Maldonado Curt, Carlos; Min. of Mining: Gonzales Larrain, Santiago; President, Central Bank: De Gregorio, Jose China, People’s Republic of—President, Chairman, Central Military Commission: Hu Jintao; Vice President: Xi Jinping; Prime Minister, State Council: Wen Jiabao; Executive Vice Prime Minister, State Council: Li Keqiang; Vice Prime Ministers: Hui Liangyu, Zhang Dejiang, Wang Qishan; Min. of Commerce: Chen Deming; Min. of Finance: Xie Xuren; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Yang Jiechi; Min. of National Defense: Liang Guanglie; Governor, People’s Bank of China: Zhou Xiaochuan Hong Kong Special Administrative Region—Chief Executive: Donald Tsang; Chief Secretary for Administration: Tang, Henry; Secy. for Finance: Tsang, John Macao Special Administrative Region*—Chief Executive: Edmund Ho

FACTS ON FILE

*Ho’s chosen successor, Fernando Chui, was scheduled to take office Dec. 20. [See 510B1] China, Republic of (Taiwan)—President: Ma Yingjeou; Vice President: Siew, Vincent; Prime Minister: Wu Den-yih; Min. of Economic Affairs: Shih Yenshiang; Min. of Finance: Li Sush-der; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Ou, Francisco; Min., Mainland Affairs Council: Lai Shin-yuan; Min. of National Defense: Yang, Timothy Colombia, Republic of—President: Uribe Velez, Alvaro; Vice President: Santos Calderon, Francisco; Min. of Commerce, Industry & Tourism: Plata, Luis Guillermo; Min. of Defense: Silva Lujan, Gabriel; Min. of Finance & Public Credit: Zuluaga Escobar, Oscar Ivan; Min. of Foreign Relations: Bermudez Merizalde, Jaime; Min. of Interior & Justice: Valencia Cossio, Fabio; President, Central Bank: Uribe Escobar, Jose Dario; Prosecutor General: Iguaran Arana, Mario German Comoros, Union of the—President of the Union: Sambi, Ahmed Abdallah; Vice Presidents: Dhoinine, Ikililou; Nadhoim, Idi; President of Anjouan: Toybou, Moussa; President of Grand Comore: Abdoulwahabi, Mohamed; President of Moheli: Said, Mohamed Ali; Min. of External Relations, Cooperation, Francophonie & the Arab World: Jaffar, Ahmed Ben Sa’id Congo, Democratic Republic of the—President: Kabila, Joseph; Prime Minister: Muzito, Adolphe; Min. of Defense & Veteran Affairs: Mwanda Nsimba, Charles; Min. of Finance: Matenda Kyelu, Athanase; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Thambwe Mwamba, Alexis; Min. of Interior: Kalume Numbi, Denis; Min. of Mines: Kabwelulu Labilo, Martin; Min. of State for Agriculture: Basengezi Katitima, Norbert Congo, Republic of the—President: Sassou-Nguesso, Denis; Prime Minister: Mvouba, Isidore; Min. of Economy, Finance & Budget: Issoikbeka, Pacifique; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Intl. Cooperation, & Relations with Francophone Countries: Ikouebe, Basile; Min. of Security & Public Order: Mbot, Gen. Paul Costa Rica, Republic of—President: Arias Sanchez, Oscar; Min. of Justice: Paris, Hernando; Min. of Finance: Phillips, Jenny; Min. of Foreign Relations: Stagno Ugarte, Bruno; Min. of Foreign Trade: Ruiz, Marco Vinicio; Min. of Labor & Social Security: Gonzales, Alvaro Cote d’Ivoire, Republic of—President: Gbagbo, Laurent; Prime Minister: Soro, Guillaume; Min. of Finance: Phillips, Jenny; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bakayoko, Youssouf; Min. of Justice & Human Rights & Keeper of the Seal: Kone, Mamadou; Min. of Mines & Energy: Monnet, Emmanuel Leon Croatia, Republic of—President: Mesic, Stjepan; Prime Minister: Kosor, Jadranka; Min. of Defense: Vukelic, Branko; Min. of Finance: Suker, Ivan; Min. of Foreign Affairs & European Integration: Jandrokovic, Gordan; Min. of the Interior: Karamarko, Tomislav Cuba, Republic of—President of the Council of State and of the Council of Ministers: Castro Ruz, Gen. Raul; First Vice President of the Council of State and of the Council of Ministers: Machado Ventura, Jose Ramon; Vice Presidents of the Council of State: Casas Reguiero, Gen. Julio (also Min. of the Revolutionary Armed Forces); Colome Ibarra, Gen. Abelardo (also Min. of Interior); Lazo Hernandez, Esteban; Min. of Economy & Planning: Murillo Jorge, Marino; Min. of Foreign Relations: Rodruguez Parilla, Bruno Cyprus, Republic of*—President: Christofias, Demetris; Min. of Defense: Papacostas, Costas; Min. of Finance: Stavrakis, Charilaos; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kyprianou, Markos; Governor, Central Bank: Orphanides, Athanasios *A separate entity known since 1983 as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus came into existence after Turkey invaded the island in 1974. Turkey was the only foreign country that formally recognized the enclave. Mehmet Ali Talat had been president since 2005. Czech Republic—President: Klaus, Vaclav; Prime Minister: Fischer, Jan; Min. of Defense: Bartak, Martin; Min. of Finance: Janota, Eduoard; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kohout, Jan; Min. of Interior: Pecina, Martin; Min. of Justice: Pospisil, Jiri Denmark, Kingdom of—Queen: Margrethe II; Prime Minister: Rasmussen, Lars Lokke; Min. of Defense: Gade, Soren; Min. of Economic & Business Affairs: Espersen, Lene; Min. of Environment: Poulsen, Troels Lund; Min. of Finance: Frederiksen, Claus Hjort; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Moller, Per Stig Djibouti, Republic of—President: Guelleh, Ismail Omar; Prime Minister: Dileita, Mohamed Dileita; Min. of Defense: Ahmed, Ougoureh Kifleh; Min. of Economy, Finance & Privatization: Bouh, Yacin Elmi; Min. of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation & Parliamentary Relations: Youssouf, Mahamoud Ali

October 22, 2009

Dominica, Commonwealth of—President: Liverpool, Nicholas J.O.; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Social Security & National Security: Skerrit, Roosevelt; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Immigration & Labor: Henderson, Vince; Min. of Tourism, Legal Affairs & Civil Aviation: Douglas, Ian Dominican Republic—President: Fernandez Reyna, Leonel; Vice President: Alburquerque de Castro, Rafael; Secy. of State for Finance: Bengoa Albizu, Vicente; Secy. of State for Foreign Relations: Morales Troncoso, Carlos; Secy. of State for Interior & Police: Almeida Rancier, Francisco; Secy. of State for Tourism: Garcia Fernandez, Francisco Javier East Timor—See Timor Leste Ecuador, Republic of—President: Correa Delgado, Rafael; Min. of Finance: Viteri Acaitumi, Maria Elsa; Min. of Foreign Relations, Foreign Trade & Integration: Falconi, Benitez, Fander; Min. of Mines & Petroleum: Pinto, Germanico; Min. of Industry & Competitiveness: Abad Vicuna, Xavier Egypt, Arab Republic of—President: Mubarak, Mohammed Hosni; Prime Minister: Nazif, Ahmed Mohamed; Min. of Agriculture & Land Reclamation: Abaza, Amin; Min. of Culture: Hosni, Farouk; Min. of Defense: Tantawi, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein; Min. of Finance: Boutros-Ghali, Yousef; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Aboul Gheit, Ahmed Ali; Min. of Interior: El-Adly, Habib El Salvador, Republic of—President: Funes Cartagena, Carlos Mauricio; Vice President: Sanchez Ceren, Salvador; Min. of Defense: Payes, David Munguia; Min. of Economy: Dada Hirezi, Hector; Min. of Finance: Caceres, Carlos; Min. of Foreign Relations: Martinez Bonilla, Hugo Roger; Min. of Government: Centeno, Humberto Equatorial Guinea, Republic of—President: Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Brig. Gen. Teodoro (ret.); Prime Minister: Tang, Ignacio Milam; Min. of Economy, Commerce & Promotion: Ndong, Jaime Ela; Min. of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation & Francophone Affairs: Ondo Bile, Pastor Micha; Min. of Mines, Industry & Energy: Elantugu Nsa, Anastasio; Min. of National Defense: Mba Nguema, Gen. Antonio Eritrea, State of—President: Issaias Afwerki; Min. of Defense: Sebhat Ephrem; Min. of Finance: Berhane Abrehe; Min. of National Development: Woldai Futur Estonia, Republic of—President: Ilves, Toomas Hendrik; Prime Minister: Ansip, Andrus; Min. of Defense: Aaviksoo, Jaak; Min. of Finance: Ligi, Jurgen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Paet, Urmas Ethiopia, Federal Democratic Republic of—President: Girma Woldegiorgis; Prime Minister: Meles Zenawi; Min. of Defense: Siraj Fegisa; Min. of Finance & Economic Development: Sufian Ahmed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Seyoum Mesfin; Min. of Trade & Industry: Girma Birru Fiji, Republic of*—President (Acting), Min. for Foreign Affairs & External Trade: Nailatikau, Epeli; Prime Minister, Min. for Information, Min. for Home Affairs & Immigration; Min. for Foreign Affairs & External Trade: Bainimarama, Cmdr. Josaia Voreqe (Frank); Min. for Finance, National Planning, Public Enterprise & Sugar Industry: Chaudhry, Mahendra Pal *A military coup led by Bainimarama in December 2006 had overthrown the democratically elected civilian government. Bainimarama in January 2007 had had himself sworn in as interim prime minister; the other cabinet positions were also held on an interim basis. [See p. 510E1] Finland, Republic of—President: Halonen, Tarja; Prime Minister: Vanhanen, Matti Taneli; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Katainen, Jyrki; Min. of Defense: Hakamies, Jyri; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Nordic Cooperation: Stubb, Cai-Goran Alexander; Min. of Justice: Brax, Tuija; Min. of Economic Affairs: Pekkarinen, Mauri; Governor, Bank of Finland: Liikanen, Erkki France (French Republic)—President: Sarkozy, Nicolas; Prime Minister: Fillon, Francois; Min. of State for the Environment: Jouanno, Chantal; Min. of State for Development of the Capital Region: Blanc, Christian; Min. of Food Supply, Agriculture & Fisheries: Le Maire, Bruno; Min. of Budget, Public Accounts, the Civil Service & State Reform: Woerth, Eric; Min. of Culture & Communication: Mitterrand, Frederic; Min. of Defense: Morin, Herve; Min. of Economy, Industry & Employment: Lagarde, Christine; Min. of Labor, Labor Relations,Family & Solidarity: Darcos, Xavier; Min. of Foreign & European Affairs: Kouchner, Bernard; Min. for Health, Youth, Sports & Associations: Bachelot-Narquin, Roselyne; Min. of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, & Co-Development: Besson, Eric; Min. of the Interior, Overseas France & Lo-

cal Authorities: Hortefeux, Brice; Min. of Justice & Liberties & Keeper of the Seals, Min. of State: AlliotMarie, Michele; Min. of National Education & Government Spokesperson: Chatel, Luc; Governor, Bank of France: Noyer, Christian

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*Bongo was sworn in Oct. 16. [See p. 722F2] Gambia, Republic of the—Head of State: Jammeh, Yahya; Vice President: Njie-Saidy, Isatou; Secy. of State for Finance & Economic Affairs: Kolley, Abdou; Secy. of State for Foreign Affairs: Touray, Omar Georgia, Republic of—President: Saakashvili, Mikheil; Prime Minister: Gilauri, Nikoloz; Min. of Defense: Sikharulidze, Vasil (David); Min. of Foreign Affairs: Vashadze, Grigol; Min. of Internal Affairs: Merabishvili, Vano; Min. of Justice: Adeishvili, Zurab Germany (Federal Republic of Germany)*—President: Koehler, Horst; Chancellor: Merkel, Angela; Vice Chancellor, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Steinmeier, Frank-Walter; Min. of Defense: Jung, Franz Josef; Min. for Environment & Nuclear Safety: Gabriel, Sigmar; Min. of Finance: Steinbrueck, Peer; Min. of the Interior: Schaeuble, Wolfgang; Min. of Justice: Zypries, Brigitte; Min. for Labor & Social Security: Scholz, Olaf; Min. for Transportation, Construction & Housing: Tiefensee, Wolfgang; President, Bundesbank: Weber, Axel A. *Merkel’s center-right coalition won parliamentary elections Sept. 27, and was holding talks on forming a new government. [See p. 664C3] Ghana, Republic of—President: Atta Mills, John Evans; Min. of Defense: Smith, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Joseph; Min. of Finance & Economic Planning: Duffuor, Kwabera; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration: Mumuni, Muhammed Great Britain—See United Kingdom Greece (Hellenic Republic)*—President: Papoulias, Karolos; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Papandreou, George; Min. of National Defense: Venizelos, Evangelos; Min. of Justice: Kastanidis, Haris; Min of Finance: Papaconstantinou, George; Min. of National Economy, Competitiveness & Shipping: Katseli, Louka; Min of Environment, Energy & Climate Change: Birbili, Tina; Governor, Bank of Greece: Provopoulos, Yeoryios *Papandreou and his cabinet were sworn in Oct. 6, after his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won Oct. 4 elections. [See p. 686A2] Grenada—Governor General: Glean, Carlyle Arnold; Prime Minister, Min. of Information, Min. of Legal Affairs, Min. of National Security: Thomas, Tillmann; Min. of Foreign Affairs: David, Peter Charles; Min. of Health: Peters, Ann Guatemala, Republic of—President: Colom Caballeros, Alvaro; Vice President: Espada, Jose Rafael; Min. of Defense: Valenzuela Gonzalez, Maj. Gen. Abraham; Min. of Economy: Morales Monroy, Ruben Estuardo; Min. of External Relations: Rodas Melgar, Haroldo Guinea, Republic of*—President of the National Council for Democracy and Development: Camara, Capt. Moussa Dadis; Prime Minister: Komara, Kabine; Min. of Defense: Konate, Gen. Sekouba; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Loua, Alexandre Cece; Min. of Security: Camara, Gen. Mamadouba Toto * Army officers led by Camara seized power in December 2008. A presidential election was scheduled for January 2010. [See p. 701A3] Guinea-Bissau, Republic of—President: Sanha, Malam Bacai; Prime Minister: Gomes Junior, Carlos; Min. of Defense: Silva, Artur; Min. of Finance: Vaz, Mario; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nandigna, Adiato Guyana, Cooperative Republic of—President: Jagdeo, Bharrat; Prime Minister, Min. of Public Works: Hinds, Samuel; Min. of Finance: Singh, Dr. Ashni; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Rodrigues-Birkett, Carolyn; Min. of Health: Ramsammy, Leslie Haiti—President: Preval, Rene Garcia; Prime Minister: Pierre-Louis, Michele Duvivier; Min. of Justice & Public Security: Exume, Jean Joseph; Min. of the Economy & Finance: Dorsainvil, Daniel; Min. of For-

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eign Affairs & Worship: Nicolas, Alrich; Min. of Interior & Territorial Collectivities: Bien-Aime, Paul Antoine Honduras, Republic of—President: Zelaya Rosales, Jose Manuel; Min. of Defense: Orellana Mercado, Angel Edmundo; Min. of Finance: Santos Rivera, Rebeca Patricia; Min. of Foreign Relations: Rodas Baca, Patricia Isabel; Min. of Industry & Commerce: Cerrato Valladares, Fredis Alonso; Min. of Government & Justice: Meza Lopez, Victor Orlando Hungary, Republic of—President: Solyom, Laszlo; Prime Minister: Bajnai, Gordon; Min. of Defense: Szekeres, Imre; Min. of Finance: Oszko, Peter; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Balazs, Peter; Governor, National Bank of Hungary: Simor, Andras Iceland, Republic of—President: Grimsson, Olafur; Prime Minister: Sigurdardottir, Johanna; Min. of Fisheries & Agriculture: Bjarnason, Jon; Min. of Environment: Sveinbjarnadottir, Thorunn; Min. of Finance: Sigfusson, Steingrimur J.; Min. of Foreign Affairs & External Trade: Skarphedinsson, Ossur; Dir., Central Bank of Iceland: Oddsson, David India, Republic of—President: Patil, Pratibha; Prime Minister: Singh, Manmohan; Min. of Finance: Mukherjee, Pranab; Min. of Commerce & Industry: Sharma, Anand; Min. of Defense: Antony, A.K.; Min. of External Affairs: Krishna, S.M.; Min. of Health & Family Welfare: Azad, Ghulam Nabi; Min. of Home Affairs: Chidambaram, Palaniappan; Governor, Reserve Bank of India: Subbarao, Duvvuri Indonesia, Republic of*—President: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; Vice President: Boediono; Coordinating Min. for Political, Legal & Security Affairs: Suyanto, Djoko; Min. for Finance: Sri Mulyani, Indrawati; Min. of Defense: Purnomo Yusgiantoro; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Natalegawa, Raden Mohammad Marty Muliana; Attorney General: Supandji, Hendarman; Coordinating Min. for Economic Affairs: Radjasa, Hatta *As of Oct. 22, when cabinet ministers appointed for Yudhoyono’s second term were sworn in. [See p. 542F1] Iran, Islamic Republic of—Supreme Leader: Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini; President: Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud; Min. of Defense & Armed Forces Logistics: Vahidi, Ahmad; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mottaki, Manouchehr; Min. of Interior: Najar, Ret. Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammed; Min. of Petroleum: Mirkazemi, Massoud Iraq—President: Talabani, Jalal; Prime Minister: Maliki, Nouri Kamel al-; Vice Presidents: Abdul Mahdi, Adel; Hashimi, Tariq al-; Deputy Prime Minister: Issawi, Rafi al-; Min. of Defense: Obaidi, Abdul Qadir al-; Min. of Finance: Jabr, Bayan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zebari, Hoshyar Mahmud; Min. of Interior: Bolani, Jawad al-; Min. of Oil: Shahristani, Hussain alIreland, Republic of (Eire)—President: McAleese, Mary; Prime Minister: Cowen, Brian; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Enterprise, Trade & Employment: Coughlan, Mary; Min. for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food: Smith, Brendan; Min. for Defense: O’Dea, Willie: Min. for Foreign Affairs: Martin, Micheal; Min. for Health & Children: Harney, Mary; Min. for Justice, Equality & Law Reform: Ahern, Dermot; Governor, Central Bank of Ireland: Hurley, John Israel, State of—President: Peres, Shimon; Prime Minister: Netanyahu, Benjamin; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lieberman, Avigdor; Min. of Defense: Barak, Ehud; Min. of Finance: Steinitz; Min. of Industry, Trade & Labor: Ben-Eliezer, Binyamin; Min. of Interior: Yishai, Eliyahu; Min. of Justice: Neeman, Yaakov Italy (Italian Republic)—President: Napolitano, Giorgio; Prime Minister: Berlusconi, Silvio; Under Sec. for the Prime Min.: Letta, Gianni; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Frattini, Franco; Min. of Defense: La Russa, Ignazio; Min. of Environment: Prestigiacomo, Stefania; Min. for Economic Development: Scajola, Claudio; Min. of Economy & Finance: Tremonti, Giulio; Min. of Interior: Maroni, Roberto; Min. of Justice: Alfano, Angelino; Governor, Bank of Italy: Draghi, Mario Ivory Coast—See Cote d’Ivoire, Republic of Jamaica—Governor General: Allen, Patrick Linton; Prime Minister, Min. of Planning & Development: Golding, Bruce; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs & Trade: Baugh, Kenneth; Min. of Agriculture: Tufton, Christopher; Min. of Finance & Public Service: Shaw, Audley; Min. of Health & Environment: Spencer, Rudyard; Min of National Security: Nelson, Dwight Japan—Emperor: Akihito; Prime Minister: Hatoyama, Yukio; Chief Cabinet Secretary: Hirano, Hirofumi; Min. of Economy, Trade & Industry: Naoshima, Masayuki; Min. of Defense: Kitazawa, Toshimi; Min. of Finance: Fujii, Hirohisa; State Min., Economic

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& Fiscal Policy & Science & Technology: Kan, Naoto; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Okada, Katsuya; Min. of Internal Affairs & Communications: Haraguchi, Kazuhiro; Min. of Justice: Chiba, Keiko; Min. of Land, Infrastructure & Transport: Maehara, Seiji; Governor, Bank of Japan: Shirakawa, Masaaki Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of—King: Abdullah II; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Dahabi, Nader al-; Min. of Finance: Salem, Bassem al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Judeh, Nasser; Min. of Interior: Qadi, Nayef alKazakhstan, Republic of—President: Nazarbayev, Nursultan; Prime Minister: Masimov, Karim; Min. of Defense: Dzhaksybekon, Adilbek; Min. of Finance: Zhamishev, Bolat; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Saudabayev, Kanat Kenya, Republic of—President: Kibaki, Mwai; Vice President, Min. for Home Affairs: Musyoka, Stephene Kalonzo; Prime Minister: Odinga, Raila Amolo; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Finance: Kenyatta, Uhuru; Deputy Prime Minister: Mudavadi, Wycliffe Musalia; Attorney General: Wako, Amos; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Wetangula, Moses; Min. of State for Defense: Haji, Yussuf Mohamed Kiribati, Republic of—President, Min. for Foreign Affairs: Tong, Anote; Min. for Environment, Lands & Agricultural Development: Tofinga, Martin; Min. for Finance & Economic Development: Mwemwenikarawa, Nabuti Korea, North (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)—General Secretary, Korean Workers’ Party; Chairman, National Defense Commission; Supreme Cdr., Korean People’s Army: Kim Jong Il; President, Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium: Kim Yong Nam; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pak Ui Chun Korea, South (Republic of Korea)—President: Lee Myung Bak; Prime Minister: Chung Un Chan; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Trade: Yu Myung Hwan; Min. of National Defense: Kim Tae Young; Min. of Strategy & Finance: Yoon Jeung Hyun; Min. of Unification: Hyun In Taek; Governor, Bank of Korea: Lee Seong Tae Kosovo, Republic of*—President: Sejdiu, Fatmir; Prime Minister: Thaci, Hashim *Kosovo had declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. Sixty-two countries, including the U.S., recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty, which Serbia rejected. [See 2008, p. 910G3] Kuwait, State of—Emir: Sabah, Sabah al-Ahmed al-Jabir al-; Prime Minister: Sabah, Nasir Muhammad al-Ahmad al-; First Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Sabah, Jabir Mubarak al-; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sabah, Muhammad al-Sabah al-Salim al-; Min. of Finance: Shimmali, Mustafa al-Jassim al-; Min. of Oil: Sabah, Ahmad al-Abdallah al-Jabir alKyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz Republic)—President: Bakiyev, Kurmanbek; Prime Minister: Usenov, Daniyar; Min. of Defense: Kalyev, Bakytbek; Min. of Finance: Sultanov, Marat; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sarbaev, Kadyrbek *Bakiyev Oct. 20 appointed Usenov, who had yet to unveil a new cabinet. [See 725G1] Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic)—President: Choummali Saignason, Lt. Gen.; Vice President: Boun-gnang Volachit; Prime Minister: Bouasone Bouphavanh; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Thongloun Sisoulit; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of National Defense: Douangchai Phichit, Maj. Gen.; Deputy Prime Ministers: Asang Laoli, Maj. Gen.; Somsavat Lengsavat; Thongloun Sisoulit Latvia, Republic of—President: Zatlers, Valdis; Prime Minister: Dombrovskis, Valdis; Min. of Defense: Liegis, Imants; Min. of Economics: Kampars, Artis; Min. of Finance: Repse, Einars; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Riekstins, Maris Lebanon, Republic of—President: Suleiman, Michel; Prime Minister: Siniora, Fouad; Deputy Prime Minister: Abu Jamra, Issam; Min. of Defense: Murr, Elias; Min. of Economy & Trade: Safadi, Muhammad; Min. of Finance: Chattah, Mohammed; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Emigrants: Salloukh, Fawzi; Min. of Interior: Baroud, Ziad Lesotho, Kingdom of—King: Letsie III; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense & National Security: Mosisili, Pakalitha Bethuel; Min. of Finance & Development Planning: Thahane, Timothy; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tsekoa, Mohlabi Kenneth Liberia, Republic of—President: Johnson-Sirleaf, Ellen; Min. of Finance: Ngafuan, Augustine; Min. of Foreign Affairs: King-Akerele, Olubanke; Min. of National Defense: Samukai, Brownie Libya (Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahir-

iya)—Leader: Qaddafi, Col. Muammer Abu Minyar el-; Secy., General People’s Congress: Shamikh, Mubarak Abdullah al-; Secy., General People’s Committee (Prime Minister): Mahmudi, al-Baghdadi Ali al; Secy. of the General People’s Committee for Foreign Liaison & International Cooperation: Kousa, Mousa Liechtenstein, Principality of—Head of State: Prince Hans Adam II; Prime Minister: Tschuetscher, Klaus; Chairman, Liechtenstein State Bank: Fehr, Josef Lithuania, Republic of—President: Grybauskaite, Dalia; Prime Minister: Kubilius, Andrius; Min. of National Defense: Jukneviciene, Rasa; Min. of Finance: Simonyte, Ingrida; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Usackas, Vygaudas Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of—Grand Duke: Henri; Prime Minister, Min. of Treasury, Min. of State: Juncker, Jean-Claude; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Asselborn, Jean; Min. of Economy & Foreign Trade: Krecke, Jeannot; Chairman, Luxembourg Central Bank: Mersch, Yves Macedonia, Republic of*—President: Ivanov, Georgi; Prime Minister: Gruevski, Nikola; Min. of Defense: Konjanovski, Zoran; Dep. Prime Min. for Finance: Stavreski, Zoran; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Milososki, Antonio; Min of the Interior: Jankulovska, Gordana *The country was known internationally as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but the U.S. in 2004 had recognized its constitutional name, the Republic of Macedonia. Greece, which had a region called Macedonia, objected to that name. Georgi Ivanov won an April 5 presidential election, and was scheduled to take office May 12. [See p. 225G1] Madagascar, Republic of*—President of the High Transitional Authority: Rajoelina, Andry; Transitional Prime Minister: Roindefo, Monja *President Marc Ravalomanana March 17 resigned after being ousted in a military coup. The military installed Andry Rajoelina as president of a transitional government. [See p. 555A3] Malawi, Republic of—President, Min. of Agriculture & Food Security: Mutharika, Bingu wa; Vice President: Banda, Joyce; Min. of Education: Chaponda, George; Min. of Finance: Kandodo, Ken; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Banda, Etta Malaysia—Paramount Ruler (King): Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Mahmud AlMuktafi Billah Shah; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak; Min. of Defense: Zahid, Hamidi Ahmad; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Anifah Aman; Governor, Central Bank: Zeti Akhtar Aziz Maldives, Republic of—President: Nasheed, Mohamed; Min. of Defense & National Security: Faisal, Ameen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Shaheed, Ahmed Mali, Republic of—President: Toure, Amadou Toumani; Prime Minister: Sidibe, Modibo; Min. of Defense & Veterans: Plea, Natie; Min. of Economy & Finance: Toure, Sanovssi; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Ouane, Moctar; Min. of Internal Security & Civil Protection: Gassama, Col. Sadio Malta, Republic of—President: Abela, George; Prime Minister: Gonzi, Lawrence; Minister of Finance: Fenech, Tonio; Deputy Prime Minister: Borg, Tonio Marshall Islands, Republic of the*—President: Tomeing, Litokwa; Min. of Finance: Ading, Jack; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Silk, John *Tomeing was ousted by a no-confidence vote Oct. 21, and Ruben Zackhras was named interim president. Mauritania, Islamic Republic of—President: Abdel Aziz, Ret. Gen. Mohamed Ould; Prime Minister: Laghdaf, Moulaye Ould Mohamed; Min. of Finance: Raiss, Sid’ Ahmed Ould; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mouknass, Naha Mint; Min. of National Defense: Lemine, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed Mauritius, Republic of—President: Jugnauth, Sir Anerood; Prime Minister, Min. of Defense & Home Affairs: Ramgoolam, Navinchandra; Min. of Civil Service & Administrative Reforms: Hookoom, Dr. Balkissoon; Min. of Finance & Economic Development: Sithanen, Rama Krishna; Min. of Foreign Affairs, Regional Coopertation & International Trade: Boolell, Arvin; Min. of Local Government, Rodrigues & Outer Islands: David, James Burty Mexico (United Mexican States)—President: Calderon Hinojosa, Felipe de Jesus; Attorney General: Medina Mora Icaza, Eduardo; Secy. of Economy: Ruiz Mateos, Gerardo; Secy. of Energy: Kessel Martinez,

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Georgina; Secy. of Finance & Public Credit: Carstens Carstens, Agustin; Secy. of Foreign Relations: Espinosa Cantellano, Patricia; Secy. of Government: Gomez Mont Urueta, Francisco Fernando; Secy. of Labor & Social Welfare: Lozano Alarcon, Javier; Secy. of National Defense: Galvan Galvan, Guillermo; Secy. of Public Education: Lujambio Irazabal, Alonso; Secy. of Tourism: Elizondo Torres, Rodolfo; Governor, Bank of Mexico: Ortiz Martinez, Guillermo Micronesia, Federated States of—President: Mori, Emanuel; Vice President: Alik, Alik; Secy. of Foreign Affairs: Robert, Lorin Moldova, Republic of*—Acting President: Ghimpu, Mihai; Prime Minister: Filat, Vladimir; Min. of Defense: Vrabie, Vitale; Min. of Finance: Durlesteanu, Mariana; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Stratan, Andrei; Min. of Internal Affairs: Mejinschi, Gen. Valentin *Moldova had been without an elected president since April due to a parliamentary stalemate. [See p. 666D3] Monaco, Principality of—Chief of State: Prince Albert II; Min. of State: Proust, Jean-Paul Mongolia—President: Elbegdorj, Tsakhiagiin; Prime Minister: Bajar, Sanjaagiin Montenegro, Republic of—President: Vujanovic, Filip; Prime Minister: Djukanovic, Milo; Min. of Defense: Vucinic, Boro; Deputy Prime Minister for Economic & Financial Policy: Lazovic, Vujica; Minister for European Integration: Djurovic, Gordana; Min. of Finance: Luksic, Igor; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Rocen, Milan Morocco, Kingdom of—King: Mohammed VI; Prime Minister: Fassi, Abbas el; Min. of Economy & Finance: Mezouar, Salaheddine; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Fassi-Fihri, Taieb; Min. of Interior: Benmoussa, Chakib; Min. of Justice: Radi, Abdelwahed Mozambique, Republic of—President: Guebuza, Armando Emilio; Prime Minister: Diogo, Luisa Dias; Min. of Finance: Chang, Manuel; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Baloi, Oldemiro; Min. of Defense: Nhussi, Fillipe Jacinto Myanmar, Union of—Prime Minister: Thein Sein Lt. Gen.; Chairman, State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), Min. of Defense: Than Shwe, Sr. Gen.; Vice Chairman, SPDC: Maung Aye, Vice Sr. Gen.; First Secy., SPDC: Tin Aung Myint Oo, Lt. Gen.; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Nyan Win, Maj. Gen. Namibia, Republic of—President: Pohamba, Hifikepunye; Prime Minister: Angula, Nahas; Min. of Defense: Namoloh, Maj. Gen. Charles; Min. of Finance: Kuugongel Wa-amadhila, Saara; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Hausiku, Marco Nauru, Republic of—President, Min. for Public Service, Min. for Home Affairs, Min. for Nauru Phosphate Trust, Min. for Police, Prisons & Emergency Services: Stephen, Marcus; Min. for Foreign Affairs & Trade, Min. for Finance & Sustainable Development: Keke, Dr. Kieren; Min for Transport, Min. for Telecommunications: Dabwido, Spernt Nepal, Federal Democratic Republic of—President: Yadav, Ram Baran; Prime Minister: Nepal, Madhav Kumar; Min. of Defense: Bhandari, Bidya; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Koirala, Sujata; Min. of Finance: Pandey, Surendra; Min. of Home Affairs: Rawal, Bhim Bahadur; Min. of Law & Justice: Singh, Bahadur; Min. of Local Development: Limbu, Purna Kumar Sherma Netherlands, Kingdom of the—Queen: Beatrix; Prime Minister: Balkenende, Jan Peter; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Finance: Bos, Wouter; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Youth & Family Affairs: Rouvoet, Andre; Min. of Defense: van Middelkoop, Eimert; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Verhagen, Maxime; Min. of Housing, Communities & Integration: Van Der Laan, Eberhard; Min. of Justice: Hirsch Ballin, Ernst; Min. of Social Affairs & Employment: Donner, Piet Hein; President, Central Bank: Wellink, Nout New Zealand, Dominion of—Governor General: Satyanand, Anand; Prime Minister: Key, John Phillip; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Min. of Infrastructure: English, Bill; Min. of Defense: Mapp, Wayne Daniel; Attorney General, Reserve Bank Governor, Min. of Arts, Culture & Heritage, Min. for Waitangi Negotiations: Finlayson, Christopher; Min. of Education: Tolley, Anne; Min. of State Services: Ryall, Tony; Min. of Justice: Power, Simon; Min. of Maori Affairs: Sharples, Pita Nicaragua, Republic of—President: Ortega Saavedra, Daniel; Vice President: Morales Carazo, Jaime; Min. of Environment & Natural Resources: Argenal,

October 22, 2009

Juana; Min. of Finance & Public Credit: Guevara Obregon, Alberto Jose; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Santos Lopez, Samuel; Min. of Labor: Chavez Gomez, Jeannette Niger, Republic of the—President: Tandja, Mamadou; Prime Minister: Oumarou, Seine; Min. of Defense: Hamadou, Djida; Min. of Economy & Finance: Lamine, Ali Zeine; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mindaoudou, Aichatou Nigeria, Federal Republic of—President: Yar’Adua, Umaru; Vice President: Jonathan, Goodluck; Min. of Defense: Abbe, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Godwin Osagie; Min. of Finance: Muhtar, Mansur; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Maduekwe, Ojo; Min. of Interior: Mustapha, Shettima; Min. of Justice: Aondokaa, Michael Kaase; Min. of Petroleum, Lukman, Rilwanu; Governor, Central Bank: Sanusi, Lamido Norway, Kingdom of*—King: Harald V; Prime Minister: Stoltenberg, Jens; Min. of Defense: Faremo, Grete; Min. of Environment & Development Cooperation: Solheim, Erik; Min. of Finance: Johnsen, Sigbjoern; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Store, Jonas Gahr; Min. of Petroleum & Energy: Riis-Johansen, Terje; Min. of Justice & Police: Storberget, Knut; Min. of Trade & Industry: Giske, Trond; Governor, Bank of Norway: Gjedrem, Svein *Stoltenberg’s cabinet was sworn in Oct. 20. [See p. 627F1] Oman, Sultanate of—Sultan, Prime Minister, Min. of Defense, Min. of Finance: Said, Qaboos bin Said al-; Min. of Oil & Gas: Rumhi, Muhammad bin Hamad bin Sayf alPakistan, Islamic Republic of—President: Zardari, Asif Ali; Prime Minister: Gillani, Yousaf Raza; Min. of Defense: Mukhtar, Chaudhry Ahmed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Qureshi, Shah Mahmood Makhdoom; Min. of Information & Broadcasting: Kaira, Qamar Zaman; Min. of Law, Justice & Human Rights: Naik, Farooq; Min. for Kashmir Affairs & Northern Areas: Kaira, Qamar Zaman; Min. of Interior: Malik, Rehman; Army Chief of Staff: Kiyani, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Palau, Republic of—President: Toribiong, Johnson.; Vice President, Min. for Administration: Mariur, Kerai Panama, Republic of—President: Martinelli, Ricardo Berrocal; First Vice President, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Varela, Juan Carlos; Min. of Commerce & Industries: Henriquez, Roberto; Min. of Economy & Finance: Vallarino Clement, Alberto; Min. of Government & Justice: Mulino, Jose Raul; Min. of Presidency: Papadimitriu, Demetrio; Min. of Public Works: Suarez, Frederico Jose Papua New Guinea, Independent State of—Governor General: Matane, Sir Paulius; Prime Minister: Somare, Sir Michael; Min. for Defense: Dadae, Bob; Min. for Treasury & Finance: Pruaitch, Patrick; Min. for Foreign Affairs, Trade & Immigration: Abal, Sam Paraguay, Republic of—President: Lugo Mendez, Fernando; Min. of Finance: Borda, Dionisio; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lacognata Zaragoza, Hector; Min. of Interior: Filizzola, Rafael; Min. of Justice & Labor: Blasco, Humberto; Min. of National Defense: Bareiro Spaini, Luis Peru—President: Garcia Perez, Alan; Prime Minister: Velasquez Quesquen, Javier; Min. of Defense: Rey Ray, Rafael; Min. of Economy & Finance: Carranza Ugarte, Luis; Min. of Energy & Mines: Sanchez Gamarra, Pedro; Min. of Foreign Relations: Garcia Belaunde, Jose Antonio; Min. of Interior: Salazar Miranda, Octavio Philippines, Republic of the—President: Macapagal-Arroyo, Gloria; Vice President: De Castro Jr., Noli; Executive Secretary: Ermita, Eduardo; Secy. of Finance: Teves, Margarito Gary; Secy. of Foreign Affairs: Romulo, Alberto; Secy. of Interior & Local Government: Puno, Ronaldo; Secy. of National Defense: Teodoro, Gilberto Jr.; Secy. of Trade & Industry: Favila, Peter Poland, Republic of—President: Kaczynski, Lech; Prime Minister: Tusk, Donald; Min. of Finance: Rostowski, Jacek; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sikorski, Radoslaw; Min. of Interior & Administration: Schetyna, Grzegorz; Min. of Justice: Czuma, Andrzej; Min. of National Defense: Klich, Bogdan; President, Polish National Bank: Skrzypek, Slawomir Portugal (Portuguese Republic)—President: Cavaco Silva, Anibal Antonio; Prime Minister: Socrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, Jose; Min. of Agriculture, Rural Development & Fisheries: Silva, Jaime; Min. for the Economy & Innovation, Min. of Finance: Teixeira dos Santos, Fernando; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Amado, Luis Felipe Marques; Min. for Internal Administration: Pereira, Rui Min. of Justice: Costa, Alberto; Min. for

National Defense: Severiano Teixeira, Nuno; Governor, Bank of Portugal: Constancio, Victor Qatar, State of—Emir, Min. of Defense: Thani, Hamad bin Khalifa al-; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Thani, Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-; Min. of Energy & Industry: Atiyah, Abdallah bin Hamad al-; Min. of Finance & Economy: Kamal, Yusuf Husayn alRomania—President: Basescu, Traian; Prime Minister: Boc, Emil; Min. of Defense: Stanisoara, Mihai; Min. of Economy: Videanu, Adriean; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Diaconescu, Cristian Russia (Russian Federation)—President: Medvedev, Dmitri A.; Prime Minister: Putin, Vladimir V.; First Deputy Prime Minister: Shuvalov, Igor I., Zubkov, Viktor A.; Min. of Defense: Serdyukov, Anatoly E.; Min. of Agriculture: Skrynnik, Yelena Borisnova; Min. of Finance: Kudrin, Aleksei L.; Min. of Industry & Trade: Khristenko, Viktor B.; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lavrov, Sergei V.; Min. of Justice: Konovalov, Aleksandr V.; Min. of Natural Resources & Ecology: Trutnev, Yuri P. Rwanda (Rwandese Republic)—President: Kagame, Paul; Prime Minister: Makuza, Bernard; Min. of Defense & National Security: Gatsinzi, Maj. Gen. Marcel; Min. of Finance & Economic Planning: Musoni, James; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Museminari, Rosemary Kobusingye; Min. of Justice: Karugarama, Tharcisse St. Christopher (St. Kitts) and Nevis, Federation of—Governor General: Sebastian, Cuthbert Montraville; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs, Min. of Immigration, Min. of National Security, Min. of Sustainable Development, Min. of Tourism & Culture: Douglas, Dr. Denzil; Min. of Finance & International Trade: Harris, Dr. Timothy St. Lucia—Governor General: Louisy, Dame Pearlette; Prime Minister, Min for Finance, Econmic Affairs, Economic Planning & National Development: King, Stephenson; Min. for Tourism & Civil Aviation: Chastanet, Allen St. Vincent and the Grenadines—Governor General: Ballantyne, Sir Frederick Nathaniel; Prime Minister, Min. of Finance, Min. of Planning & Economic Development, Min. of National Security, Min. of Energy: Gonsalves, Ralph; Dep. Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs, Commerce & Trade: Straker, Louis; Min. of Tourism, Youth & Sports: Beache, Glen Samoa, Independent State of—Head of State: Tui Atua Tupua Tupuola Efi Tamasese; Prime Minister, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Tuila’epa Sailele Malielegaoi; Deputy Prime Minister: Misa Telefoni Retzlaff San Marino, Republic of—Secy. of State for Foreign & Political Affairs & Economic Planning: Mularoni, Antonella; Secy. of Budget & Finance: Macina, Stefano; Secy. of Interior & Civil Protection: Ciavatta, Valeria Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of—President: de Menezes, Fradique; Prime Minister: Branco, Joachim Rafael; Min. of Planning & Finance: Santiago, Angela Viegas; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Tiny, Carlos Alberto Pires Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of—King, Prime Minister: Saud, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-; Crown Prince, First Deputy Prime Minister: Saud, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-; Min. of Finance: Asaf, Ibrahim Abdul Aziz al; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Saud, Saud al-Faisal al-; Min. of Interior: Saud, Nayif bin Abdul Aziz al-; Min. of Justice: Issa, Muhammad bin Abd al-Karim bin Abd alAiziz al-; Min. of Petroleum & Mineral Resources: Naimi, Ali Ibrahim al-; Min. of Pilgrimage Affairs & Religious Trusts: Farisi, Abd al-Salam Muhammad alSenegal, Republic of—President: Wade, Abdoulaye; Prime Minister: Ndiaye, Soulayemane Ndene; Min. of State for Defense: Diop, Becaye; Min. of State for Finance: Diop, Abdoulaye; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Gadio, Cheikh Tidiane Serbia, Republic of—President: Tadic, Boris; Prime Minister: Cvetkovic, Mirko; Min. of Defense: Sutanovac, Dragan; Min. of Finance: Dragutinovic, Diana; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Jeremic, Vuk; Min. of Internal Affairs: Dacic, Ivica Seychelles, Republic of—President, Min. of Defense: Michel, James Alix; Vice President: Belmont, Joseph; Min. of Finance & Designated Min.: Faure, Danny; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pillay, Patrick Georges Sierra Leone, Republic of—President: Koroma, Ernest Bai; Vice President: Sam-Sumana, Samuel; Min. of Defense & National Security: Conteh, Paulo; Min. of Finance & Development: Kamara, Samuel; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Bangura, Zainab Hawa

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Singapore, Republic of—President: Nathan, S. R.; Prime Minister: Lee Hsien Loong; Min. of Finance: Shanmugarathnam, Tharman; Senior Minister; Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore: Goh Chok Tong: Min. of Foreign Affairs: Yeo, George; Minister Mentor: Lee Kuan Yew Slovakia (Slovak Republic)—President: Gasparovic, Ivan; Prime Minister: Fico, Robert; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Interior: Kalinak, Robert; Min. of Defense: Baska, Jaroslav; Min. of Finance: Pociatek, Jan; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Lajcak, Miroslav Slovenia, Republic of—President: Turk, Danilo; Prime Minister: Paitor, Borut; Min. of Defense: Jelusic, Ljubica; Min. of Finance: Krizanic, Franc; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zbogar, Samuel Solomon Islands—Governor General: Kabui, Frank Ofagiorno; Prime Minister: Sikua, Dr. Derek; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Rural Development: Fono, Fred; Min. of Finance & Treasury: Rini, Snyder; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Haomae, William; Min. of Justice & Legal Affairs: Chan, Laurie Somalia, Republic of*—Interim President: Ahmed, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh; Interim Prime Minister: Sharmarke, Umar Abdirashid Ali *Somalia had been without a permanent functioning central government since 1991. [See p. 430A1] South Africa, Republic of—President: Zuma, Jacob; Deputy President: Motlanthe, Kgalema; Min. of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries: Joemat-Pettersson, Tina; Min. of Defense & Military Veterans: Sisulu, Lindiwe; Min. of Finance: Gordhan, Pravin; Min. of Health: Motsoaledi, Dr. Pakishe Aaron; Min. of Justice & Constitutional Development: Radebe, Jeff; Min. of State Security: Cwele, Siyabonga Spain, Kingdom of—King: Juan Carlos I; Prime Minister: Rodriguez Zapatero, Jose Luis; Min. of Defense: Chacon, Carme Piqucras; Min. of Economy & Finance: Salgado, Elena Mendez; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation: Moratinos Cuyaube, Miguel Angel; Min. of Interior: Rubalcaba, Alfredo Perez; Min. of Justice: Caamano Dominguez, Francisco; Governor, Bank of Spain: Fernandez Ordonez, Miguel Angel Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of—President, Min. of Defense, Min. of Finance & Planning: Rajapaksa, Mahinda; Prime Minister: Wickremanayake, Ratnasiri; Min. of Defense: Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bogollagama, Rohitha; Governor, Central Bank: Cabraal, Ajith Nivard Sudan, Republic of the—President: Bashir, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al-; First Vice President: Kiir Mayardit, Salva; Vice President: Taha, Ali Osman; Senior Assistant to the President: Minnawi, Minni; Min. of Defense: Hussein, Abdel Rahim Mohammed; Min. of Energy & Mining: Hasan, Al Zubayr Ahmad al; Min. of Finance & Planning: Hassan, Zubeir Mohammed; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Deng Alor Kuol Suriname, Republic of—President: Venetiaan, Ronald; Vice President: Sardjoe, Ramdien; Min. of Defense: Fernald, Ivan; Min. of Finance: Hildenberg, Humphrey; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kraag-Keteldijk, Lygia; Min. of Justice & Police: Santhoki, Chandrikapersad; Min. of Natural Resources: Rusland, Gregory Swaziland, Kingdom of—King: Mswati III; Prime Minister: Dlamini, Barnabus Sibusiso; Min. for Agriculture: Dlamini, Clement; Min. for Finance: Sithole, Majozi; Min. for Foreign Affairs & Intl. Cooperation: Dlamini, Lufto Sweden, Kingdom of—King: Carl XVI Gustaf; Prime Minister: Reinfeldt, Fredrik; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. of Enterprise & Energy: Olofsson, Maud; Min. of Agriculture, Food & Fisheries: Erlandsson, Eskil; Min. of Defense: Tolgfors, Sten; Min. of Environment: Carlgren, Andreas; Min. of Finance: Borg, Anders; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Bildt, Carl; Governor, Swedish Central Bank: Ingves, Stefan Switzerland (Swiss Confederation)—President, Chief, Dept. of Finance: Merz, Hans-Rudolf; Vice President: Leuthard, Doris; Chief, Dept. of Home Affairs: Couchepin, Pascal; Chief, Dept. of Transportation, Communications & Energy: Leuenberger, Moritz; Chief, Dept. of Justice & Police: Widmer-Schlumpf, Eveline; Chief, Dept. of Foreign Affairs: Calmy-Rey, Micheline; Chief, Dept. of Defense, Civil Protection & Sports: Maurer, Veli; Chief, Dept. of Economic Affairs: Leuthard, Doris; Chairman, Swiss National Bank: Roth, Jean-Pierre Syria (Syrian Arab Republic)—President: Assad, Bashar al-; Prime Minister: Utri, Muhammad Naji al; Min. of Defense: Turkmani, Lt. Gen. Hassan; Min. of Finance: Husayn, Muhammad al-; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mouallem, Walid; Min. of Interior: Sammur,

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Maj. Gen. Said Muhammad Taiwan—See China, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of—President: Rakhmon, Emomali; Prime Minister: Oqilov, Oqil; Min. of Defense: Khayrulloyev, Col. Gen. Sherali; Min. of Finance: Najmuddinov, Safarali; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Zarifi, Hamrohon Tanzania, United Republic of—President: Kikwete, Jakaya Mrisho; Prime Minister: Pinda, Peter Mizengo; President of Zanzibar: Karume, Amani Abeid; Min. of Defense & National Service: Mwinyi, Hussein; Min. of Finance, Planning, Economy & Empowerment: Mkulo, Mustapha; Min. of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation: Membe, Bernard Kamillius Thailand, Kingdom of—King: Bhumibol Adulyadej; Prime Minister: Abhisit Vejjajiva; Min. of Defense: Prawit Wongsuwan; Dep. Prime Ministers: Suthep Thueaksuban, Kopsak Saphawasu, Sanan Kachornprasat; Justice Minister: Phraphan Saliratwiphak; Min. of Finance: Kon Chatikawanit Timor Leste, Democratic Republic of—President: Ramos-Horta, Jose; Prime Minister: Gusmao, Jose Alexandre (Xanana); Vice Prime Minister: Guterres, Jose Luis; Min. for Justice: Lobato, Lucia; Min. for Planning & Finance: Pires, Emilia; Min. for Foreign Affairs: Da Costa, Zacarias Togo, Republic of—President: Gnassingbe, Faure; Prime Minister: Houngbo, Gilbert; Min. of Economic Affairs & Privatization: Ayassor, Adji Otheth; Min. of Foreign Affairs & Regional Integration: Esaw, Kofi; Min. of Security: Titikpina, Col. Atcha Tonga, Kingdom of—King: Tupou V, Siaosi; Prime Minister: Sevele, Feleti (Fred); Deputy Prime Minister: Tangi, Dr. Viliami; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Sevele, Feleti Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of—President: Richards, George Maxwell; Prime Minister: Manning, Patrick; Min. of Finance: Tesheira-Nunez, Karen; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Gopee-Scoon, Paula Tunisia, Republic of—President: Ben Ali, Zine elAbidine; Prime Minister: Ghannouchi, Mohamed; Min. of Finance: Kechiche, Mohamed Rachid; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Abdallah, Abdelwaheb; Min. of Justice & Human Rights: Tekkari, Bechir; Min. of National Defense: Morjane, Kamel Turkey, Republic of—President: Gul, Abdullah; Prime Minister: Erdogan, Recep Tayyip; Deputy Prime Ministers: Arinc, Bulent, Babalan, Ali, Cicek, Cemil; Min. of Finance: Simsek, Mehmet; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Babacan, Ali; Min. of Interior: Atalay, Besir; Min. of Justice: Davutoglu, Ahmet; Min. of National Defense: Gonul, Mehmet Vecdi; Governor, Central Bank: Yilmaz, Durmus Turkmenistan, Republic of—President: Berdymukhammedov, Gurbanguly; Deputy Chairman for Intl. Relations, Min. of Foreign Affairs: Meredow, Rasit; Min. of Defense: Berdiyew, Yaylym; Min. of Internal Affairs:Mulikow, Isgender; Min. of National Security: Amanow, Carymyrat Tuvalu—Governor General: Telito, Hon. Rev. Filiomea; Prime Minister: Ielemia, Apisai; Deputy Prime Minister, Min. for Communications & Transport, Min. for Works & Energy: Sopoanga, Saufatu; Min. of Finance, Economic Planning & Industries: Metia, Lotoala Uganda, Republic of—President: Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta; Prime Minister: Nsibambi, Apollo; Min. of Defense: Kiyonga, Crispus; Min. of Finance, Planning & Economic Development: Bumba, Syda; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Kutesa, Sam; Min. of Justice & Constitutional Affairs: Makubuya, Kiddu Ukraine, Republic of—President: Yushchenko, Viktor; Prime Minister: Tymoshenko, Yulia; Min. of Defense:Ivashchenko, Valeriy; Min. of Finance: Umansky, Ihor; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Khandohiy, Volodymyr; Min. of Internal Affairs: Lutsenko, Yuriy United Arab Emirates—President: Nuhayyan, Khalifa bin Zayed al-; Vice President, Prime Minister, Min. of Defense: Maktoum, Mohammed bin Rashid alUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—Queen: Elizabeth II; Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, & Minister for the Civil Service: Brown, Gordon; Chancellor of the Exchequer: Darling, Alistair; Secy. of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform: Mandelson, Peter; Secy. of State for Children, Schools & Families: Balls, Ed; Secy. of State for Communities & Local Government: Denham, John; Secy. of State for Defense: Ainsworth, Robert William; Secy. of State for Scotland: Murphy, James; Secy. of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs: Benn, Hilary; Secy. of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs: Miliband, David; Secy. of

State for Health: Burnham, Andy; Secy. of State for the Home Dept.: Johnson, Alan Arthur; Secy. of State for International Development: Alexander, Douglas; Secy. of State for Justice & Lord Chancellor: Straw, Jack; Secy. of State for Northern Ireland; Woodward, Shaun; Secy. of State for Transport: Adonis, Lord; Secy. of State for Work & Pensions: Cooper, Yuche; Secy. of State for Wales: Hain, Peter; Leader of the House of Commons, President of the Council & Labour Party Chairman: Harman, Harriet; Leader of the House of Lords: Baroness Ashton; Governor, Bank of England: King, Mervyn United States of America—President: Obama, Barack Hussein; Vice President: Biden, Joseph Robinette Jr. Cabinet—Secy. of Agriculture: Vilsack, Tom; Attorney General: Holder Jr., Eric; Secy. of Commerce: Locke, Gary; Secy. of Defense: Gates, Robert; Secy. of Education: Duncan, Arne; Secy. of Energy: Chu, Steven; Secy. of Health & Human Services-designate: Sebelius, Kathleen; Secy. of Homeland Security: Napolitano, Janet; Secy. of Housing & Urban Development: Donovan, Shaun; Secy. of the Interior: Salazar, Ken; Secy. of Labor: Solis, Hilda; Secy. of State: Clinton, Hillary Rodham; Secy. of Transportation: LaHood, Ray; Secy. of the Treasury: Geithner, Timothy; Secy. of Veterans’ Affairs: Shinseki, Eric Congress—President pro Tempore, Senate: Byrd, Robert; Majority Leader, Senate: Reid, Harry; Minority Leader, Senate: McConnell, Mitch; Speaker, House of Representatives: Pelosi, Nancy; Majority Leader, House: Hoyer, Steny; Minority Leader, House: Boehner, John Supreme Court—Chief Justice of the U.S.: Roberts Jr., John. G.; Associate Justices, Supreme Court: Stevens, John Paul; Scalia, Antonin; Kennedy, Anthony M.; Thomas, Clarence; Ginsburg, Ruth Bader; Breyer, Stephen G.; Alito Jr., Samuel A.; Sotomayor, Sonia. Uruguay, Oriental Republic of—President: Vazquez, Tabare; Vice President: Nin Novoa, Rodolfo; Min. of Agriculture, Livestock & Fishing: Agazzi, Ernesto; Min. of Economy & Finance: Garcia, Alvaro; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Vaz, Pedro Ramela; Min. of Industry, Energy & Mines: Sendic, Raul; Min. of Labor & Social Welfare: Bonomi, Eduardo; Min. of National Defense: Fernandez, Gonzalo Daniel Dominguez Uzbekistan, Republic of—President: Karimov, Islam; Prime Minister: Mirziyayev, Shavkat; Min. of Defense: Berdiyev, Qobul; Min. of Finance: Azimov, Rustam; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Norov, Vladimir; Min. of Internal Affairs: Matlyubov, Bakhodir Vanuatu, Republic of—President: Kelekele, Kalkot Matas; Prime Minister: Natapai, Edward; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Natuman, Joe; Min. of Finance: Molisa, Sela Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of—President: Chavez Frias, Hugo; Executive Vice President: Carrizalez Rengifo, Ramon Alonzo; Min. of Defense: Carrizalez, Ramon Alonzo Rengifo; Min. of Energy & Petroleum: Ramirez Carreno, Rafael Dario; Min. of Finance: Rodriguez Araque, Ali; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Maduro Moros, Nicolas; Min. of Interior & Justice: El Aissami, Tarik Vietnam, Socialist Republic of—President: Nguyen Minh Triet, Gen.; Prime Minister: Nguyen Tan Dung; Min. of Finance: Vu Van Ninh; Deputy Prime Minister & Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pham Gia Khiem; Min. of National Defense: Thanh, Sr. Lt. Gen. Phung Quang; Min. of Industry & Trade: Vu Huy Hoang Yemen, Republic of—President: Saleh, Ali Abdullah; Prime Minister: Mujawar, Ali Muhammad; Min. of Defense: Ali, Brig. Gen. Muhammad Nasir Ahmad; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Qirbi, Abu Bakr al-; Min. of Interior: Masri, Mutahir Rashid al-; Min. of Oil & Minerals: Aydarus, Amir Salim alZambia, Republic of—President: Banda, Rupiah; Vice President: Kunda, George; Min. of Defense: Mpombo, George; Min. of Finance & National Planning: Musokotwane, Situmbeko; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Pande, Kabinga; Min. of Mines & Mineral Resources: Mwale, Maxwell Zimbabwe, Republic of—President: Mugabe, Robert; Prime Minister: Tsvangirai, Morgan; Vice Presidents: Msika, Joseph; Mujuru, Joyce; Deputy Prime Ministers: Mutambara, Arthur; Khuoe, Thokozani; Min. of Agriculture, Mechanization & Irrigation Development: Made, Joseph; Min. of Defense: Mnangagwa, Emmerson; Min. of Finance: Biti, Tendai; Min. of Foreign Affairs: Mumbengegwi, Simbarashe; Min. of Home Affairs (shared): Mohadi, Kembo; Mutsekwa, Giles; Min. of Justice & Legal Affairs: Chinamasa, Patrick; Min. of Local Government: Chombo, Ignatius; Governor, Reserve Bank: Gono, Gideon

October 22, 2009

Powerful Car Bomb Kills 101 in Pakistan’s Northwest Taliban Retaliates Against Army Offensive.

A powerful car bomb Oct. 28 killed as many as 101 people and injured about 150 in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). No group claimed responsibility for the blast, but it was thought to have been in retaliation for an army offensive that had been launched 11 days earlier against the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan since October 2007, when a bomb attack killed 140 people at a political rally for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. [See p. 709A1; 2007, p. 677A1] The Peshawar bombing was the latest in a string of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, which in the last month had claimed the lives of about 300 people. Peshawar, which was close to the Taliban’s base in the country’s northwest tribal areas, had been a frequent target in the attacks. A suicide bombing earlier in the month had killed 48 people there. The latest blast ripped through a crowded marketplace that was mostly frequented by women, and women and children comprised the bulk of the casualties. In other recent violence in Pakistan, a suicide bomber Oct. 23 had killed seven people in Kamra, a town 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Islamabad. The bomber targeted the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, the Pakistani air force’s maintenance and research facility. Also that day, at least eight people were killed when a bomb exploded near a restaurant in Peshawar, and at least 16 people were killed by a roadside bomb in the Mohmand tribal area. Bomb Hits During Clinton Visit to Country—

The Oct. 28 attack came just hours after the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Clinton condemned the attack as “cowardly” and “nihilistic,” and vowed that the U.S. would continue to assist Pakistan in its battle against terrorism, saying, “This fight is not Pakistan’s alone. This is our struggle as well.” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi pledged to keep up the pressure on the Taliban. “We will fight you because we want stability and peace in Pakistan,” he said.

Clinton was in Pakistan for a three-day visit to assure the government that the U.S. was committed to developing Pakistan’s economy. Clinton earlier that day had told reporters that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama wanted to correct a “lopsided” relationship that had focused too heavily on “security and the counterterrorism agenda.” While the U.S. had pressured Pakistan to take on the Taliban— which harbored members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda—it had also recently enacted a $7.5 billion civilian aid package to the country. Clinton that day pledged an additional $125 million in aid to begin addressing Pakistan’s severe energy-shortage problem. Clinton also sought to improve the U.S.’s image in a country where antiAmericanism was widespread. She was scheduled to appear on numerous Pakistani television shows and to meet with politicians, tribal elders, student groups and others. Many Pakistanis believed that the Taliban’s terrorist campaign had been spurred by the U.S.’s military presence in neighboring Afghanistan, and the dozens of missile strikes that had been carried out in Pakistan’s tribal areas by U.S. Predator drone aircraft. [See pp. 750E2, 577E3] Additionally, there had been a public uproar over the $7.5 billion aid package, which contained conditions that some said infringed on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Clinton Oct. 28 said, “It is unfortunate that there are those who question our motives,” adding, “I want to try to clear the air on that while I’m in the country.” [See p. 695A2] Clinton Oct. 29 held a question-andanswer session with students at the Government College University in Lahore, in eastern Punjab province, where she was peppered with Pakistani grievances against the U.S., such as its past support for former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who had seized power in a 1999 coup. Clinton later that day told a group of journalists she was skeptical of Pakistan’s commitment to root out Al Qaeda members, saying, “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3593 October 29, 2009

B knows where they are, and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to.” The controversial remark reportedly angered the Pakistani government. Army Captures Key Taliban Town—The Pakistani army Oct. 24 announced that it had captured the town of Kotkai, in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which was seen as the army’s first major victory in its offensive against the Taliban. Kotkai was the hometown of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Taliban, and had also served as a base of operations for Qari Hussain, a Taliban leader who reportedly ran a training camp for suicide bombers. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, an army spokesman, said the taking of Kotkai was a “big success” that had required great effort on the part of the military, which found that most of the homes in the town had been turned into Taliban bunkers. Abbas said

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Powerful car bomb kills 101 in Pakistan’s northwest; Taliban retaliates against army offensive. PAGE 737

Truck bombs targeting Iraqi government ministries kill 155. PAGE 738

U.S. GDP grew 3.5% in third quarter.

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House Democrats unveil health care reform bill.

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U.S. declares swine flu emergency, spread continues. PAGE 741

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Tunisian President Ben Ali reelected. PAGE 746

Former guerrilla presidential vote.

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Karadzic boycotts opening of Hague war crimes trial. PAGE 749

German Chancellor Merkel’s new government takes office. PAGE 749

October deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. PAGE 750

Yankees, Phillies win baseball pennants. PAGE 751

Firefighters putting out flames and others searching for survivors at the site of an Oct. 28 car bombing at a market in Peshawar, Pakistan, that killed as many as 101 people.

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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many Taliban fighters had deserted and were shaving their customary beards to blend in with civilians fleeing the area. However, analysts expected the army to continue meeting stiff resistance as it penetrated the Taliban’s base. According to figures released that day by the army, 95 insurgents and 23 soldiers had been killed thus far in the operation. Those numbers could not be independently confirmed because journalists were barred from the war zone. Separately, a presumed U.S. Predator drone attack that day killed at least 14 people in the tribal area of Bajaur. The reported target of the attack, militant leader Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, escaped unharmed. [See p. 578B1] n

Truck Bombs Targeting Iraqi Government Ministries Kill 155

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Deadliest Attack Since 2007. Two trucks packed with explosives Oct. 25 blew up outside government buildings in central Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. Iraqi officials said the death toll had reached 155 as of Oct. 26, with more than 500 people injured. The suicide attacks were the worst in Iraq since a quadruple bombing in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh killed hundreds in August 2007. Another car bombing attack on the Iraqi foreign and finance ministries in August had killed at least 132 people. [See pp. 729F2, 562G2; 2007, p. 521A1] The first bomb went off outside the justice ministry and the municipalities and public works ministry, while the second hit Baghdad’s provincial council headquarters immediately afterward. The attacks occurred in the morning, as the streets were packed with traffic and the targeted buildings were crowded with employees and ordinary citizens. In the aftermath, all three government buildings were seriously damaged, the ceilings in nearby buildings caved in, and a blast wall near the provincial council collapsed on top of bystanders. The blast apparently severed a water main, filling the streets with water as rescuers searched for survivors. Some reports said up to 30 children who had been at day-care centers in the justice ministry had been killed, but others said the number was much lower. The government buildings were in a fortified area of Baghdad, but the Iraqi government in August had ordered most of the concrete blast barriers in the city to be removed, leaving the buildings less protected. The barriers were replaced in the wake of the attack. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the scene after the attacks. He called them “cowardly,” and blamed them on ex-members of former President Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath Party, and on the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization of Sunni Muslim extremist groups that included Al Qaeda in Iraq. The Islamic State of Iraq Oct. 26 in a posting on an Islamist Web site claimed responsibility for the attacks, as well as for the August attack.

Iraqis Oct. 25 gathered in front of the labor ministry in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, in the wake of two truck bombings. The bombings in central Baghdad seriously damaged the justice ministry, the municipalities and public works ministry, and the Baghdad provincial council headquarters, and killed at least 155 people.

Many Iraqis reportedly said the attacks shook their confidence in Maliki, who was running in parliamentary elections scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010, largely on his reputation for increasing Iraq’s security. U.S. President Barack Obama called Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to express his condolences. He released a statement saying that the U.S. “will stand with Iraq’s people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year.” The U.S. military Oct. 26 said Iraqi forces, with U.S. military advisers, had arrested eight members of a suicide bombmaking cell in western Baghdad. However, they said the cell’s leader, who was allegedly connected with the August and October bombings, had not been found. The Iraqi interior ministry that day said at least 70 people had been arrested in connection with the most recent attacks, but did not give further details. Baghdad security spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi Oct. 29 said 61 police and military officers who were responsible for security in the area around the bombings had been arrested for negligence. The bombers had been filmed passing through several checkpoints without incident before reaching the government buildings. Security forces had been arrested after some previous attacks, but Moussawi said it would now become standard practice. Some Iraqi officials also called for the arrest of Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad alBolani for negligence. Elections Law Deadlock Continues—

Some Iraqi officials and analysts said the attacks were aimed at undermining efforts to break a parliamentary deadlock that was preventing the passage of legislation governing the elections. They said that if an elections law was not passed that week, elections would probably have to be held

later than the scheduled date. [See p. 729A2] Spurred by the attack, the Political Council for National Security, a group of senior officials including Maliki and Talabani that was trying to break the stalemate, Oct. 26 reportedly reached a compromise on the legislation’s wording. However, the Iraqi parliament Oct. 27 failed to agree on the law, due to disagreement over how to calculate the population of the northern province of Kirkuk. Hussein had driven out much of Kirkuk’s Kurdish population, but since his over-

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throw in 2003 the Kurdish population there had risen again. Some legislators supported using voting registration records from 2004 that would show a lower Kurdish population, while others supported using 2009 records that showed a higher percentage of Kurds. Parliament Oct. 29 again adjourned without a vote after failing to reach a quorum due to a boycott by the Kurdish bloc. Kurdish legislators had objected to putting the choice of whether to use records from 2004 or 2009 to a vote, saying it should instead be negotiated. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o A bomb Oct. 26 exploded in a minibus entering the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people. o The U.S. State Department inspector general’s office Oct. 22 reported that the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad “was significantly deficient in multiple areas,” and recommended that the State Department seek $132 million in damages from the primary construction company, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co. The report said the substandard construction included flawed emergency shelters, shoddy wiring, cracked walls and walkways, and inadequate fire protection systems. It also faulted the U.S. Bureau of Overseas Building Operations for not properly overseeing the work. The embassy, which officially opened in July after 34 months of construction that cost more than $700 million, was the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world. [See p. 592E3] n

Religion Pope Benedict XVI Canonizes Five. Pope Benedict XVI Oct. 11, in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, canonized five new saints. He praised the five as people who had responded to the call of Jesus without “calculation or personal gain.” [See 2007, p. 308D3] Among the five new saints was Belgianborn priest Jozef De Veuster, known as Father Damien, who had died of leprosy in 1889 after 16 years of ministering to the sick on Hawaii’s isolated Molokai Island. U.S. President Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii, sent a delegation to the ceremony, as well as a note urging individuals to follow De Veuster’s example in “answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick.” [See p. 473E1] The other new saints were: Zygmunt Szcezensy Felinski, a 19th-century Polish bishop who defended the Roman Catholic Church after Russia annexed Poland and closed churches there; Jeanne Jugan, a 19th-century French nun who helped found the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order that ran homes for the elderly and destitute around the world; Francisco Coll y Guitart, a 19th-century Spanish monk who founded an order of Dominicans; and Spaniard Rafael Arnaiz Baron, a 20th-century Trappist monk who had renounced his wealth to dedicate his life to prayer. n October 29, 2009

Other International News Deals Signed During Putin Visit To China.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Oct. 13–15 visited China, and officials of the two countries Oct. 13 signed trade and investment deals worth a total of some $3.5 billion. It was the first visit to China by Putin, formerly Russia’s president, since he became prime minister in 2008. The trip was timed to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the newly founded People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. [See p. 682G3; 2008, p. 949E3] The some 40 trade agreements signed included two loans of $500 million each to Russian banks by Chinese banks, Chinese investment in Russian construction companies, and a plan for the two countries’ state oil firms to jointly build a refinery in China. The two sides said they signed a “preliminary” agreement on a plan for Russia to supply China with natural gas via two new pipelines. The plan had been announced in 2006, but had stalled over a failure to reach agreement on pricing and other terms. [See 2006, p. 245G3] Analysts said China offered Russia much-needed financing for its energy and other sectors, while China sought to secure from Russia a reliable source of energy supplies for its growing economy. n Kazakhstan, France Seal $6 Billion in Deals.

France and Kazakhstan Oct. 6 agreed on 24 deals worth $6 billion during a visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital. Among the accords was a pact under which French military personnel and equipment were allowed to pass through Kazakhstan en route to Afghanistan. The two countries also finalized a deal, reportedly worth one billion euros ($1.46 billion), in which the French companies Total SA and GDF Suez took a 25% stake in Kazakhstan’s Khavalynskoye offshore natural gas field, located in the Caspian Sea. [See p. 663C1; 2008, p. 59E1] Kazakhstan also awarded a group of French companies a $2 billion contract to build a pipeline that would allow the export of oil from the Kashagan oil field, also in the Caspian Sea. In another deal, Areva SA, France’s state nuclear company, would join with Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s state nuclear company, to market nuclear fuel in Asia. They agreed to explore the possibility of producing the fuel in Kazakhstan, whose borders encompassed about a fifth of the world’s uranium reserves. Sarkozy expressed support for Kazakhstan’s planned 2010 chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security and election monitor that promoted democracy. Since the rotating chairmanship was awarded in 2007, Kazakhstan had been under increased scrutiny for alleged rights violations. Sarkozy said he had discussed human rights issues in his meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, but was not there to “give lessons.” n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

GDP Grew 3.5% in Third Quarter Aided by Federal Stimulus Spending. The Commerce Department Oct. 29 reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5% in the third quarter of 2009 from the second quarter, the first time the economy had grown since the second quarter of 2008. The data was seen as evidence that the U.S. was emerging from a severe recession that had begun in December 2007. The growth was fueled by a massive intervention by the government into the economy, which included a $787 billion stimulus packaged signed into law by President Barack Obama in February. [See p. 657A1] Obama Oct. 29 said the GDP report—a measure of the output of goods and services produced within a nation’s borders— was “an affirmation that this recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.” He added, “But I also know that we have a long way to go to fully restore our economy, and recover from what has been the longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression.” Federal spending rose at a 7.9% rate in the quarter, and analysts said it remained unclear whether the economy could maintain its momentum without additional government assistance. In addition to the stimulus package, the Federal Reserve had implemented emergency policies to keep interest rates on loans low and prop up the banking system. [See p. 640C1] A 3.4% jump in consumer spending— which accounted for about 70% of GDP— was attributed to specific government programs. They included an $8,500 tax credit for new home buyers, which was due to end Nov. 30, and the now-expired “cashfor-clunkers” program, in which consumers had received a voucher of up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for more fuel-efficient ones. [See pp. 740C2, 586C1] There were also concerns that economic growth would be slow to lift up the battered labor market, as businesses remained cautious of hiring new workers. The unemployment rate in September had reached 9.8%, the highest it had been in 26 years. [See p. 676A1] The GDP report was the Commerce Department’s “advance” estimate, and would be revised twice. n

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Other Economic News Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The

Federal Reserve Oct. 21 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the period between September and midOctober, finding that economic conditions had either stabilized or shown “modest improvements” during that time. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 619C2] The Fed said, “Reports of gains in economic activity generally outnumber declines, but virtually every reference to im739

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provement was qualified as either small or scattered.” The Fed said the most prominent improvements came in the residential housing market and the manufacturing industry. The housing market had been helped by an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers that was due to expire at the end of November. [See p. 740C2] The Fed said the commercial real estate market was the “weakest” sector, and that consumer spending, which accounted for 70% of gross domestic product (GDP), remained weak. The Fed said the labor market was showing “occasional pockets of improvement,” but on the whole was “characterized as weak or mixed.” The Fed said there was little upward pressure on prices, and that demand for loans was “weak or declining.” President Named for Minnesota Fed—

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The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minn., Sept. 30 appointed Narayana Kocherlakota as its president and chief executive officer, replacing Gary Stern, who had announced his retirement on Sept. 3. Kocherlakota was an economics professor at the University of Minnesota, and was formerly the chairman of its economics department. He began his post at the Minnesota Fed Oct. 8. Five regional Fed presidents each year had a vote on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)—the policy-making body that determined the Fed’s benchmark interest rate—and Kocherlakota would serve as an FOMC member in 2011. [See p. 640A1] n Producer Prices Fell 0.6% in September.

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The Labor Department Oct. 20 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in September fell 0.6% after seasonal adjustment. The drop was attributed to weak demand, as the economy struggled to emerge from a recession. [See p. 640C2] “Core” prices, which excluded volatile food and energy costs, fell 0.1% in September. The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 173.4% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $173.40 in September. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods rose 0.2% in September, and prices for crude goods decreased 2.1%. n Retail Sales Down 1.5% in September. The Commerce Department Oct. 14 reported that the value of retail sales in September was $344.7 billion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.5% from the revised figure for August. The drop was driven by the August expiration of the “cash-for-clunkers” program, in which consumers had been given vouchers worth up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for ones that were more fuelefficient. [See pp. 618B2, 586C1] n Business Inventories Down in August.

The Commerce Department Oct. 14 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of August was $1.3 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 1.5% from the revised value at the end of July. The ratio of inventories to sales was 1.33, meaning that it would take businesses 1.33 months to un740

load their inventories at the current sales pace. [See p. 640G1] n

Health Care Reform

Industrial Production Rose in September.

House Democrats Unveil Merged Bill.

The Federal Reserve Oct. 16 reported that its industrial production index increased 0.7% in September. It was the third straight month that industrial activity had increased, and was seen as evidence that the sector was beginning to recover from a deep recession. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had jumped 1.2% in August. [See p. 640A2] The overall index now stood at 98.5% of its 2002 base average, up from its revised level of 97.8% for August. Manufacturing production rose 0.9% in September. The output of utilities decreased 0.7%, and mining output rose 0.7%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 70.5% of their total capacity in September. n New Home Sales Fell 3.6% in September.

The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Oct. 28 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes fell 3.6% in September from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 402,000 units, down from the revised August rate of 417,000 units. The drop, the first since March, was unexpected, and analysts said it could be tied to the forthcoming expiration of an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. The program was scheduled to end Nov. 30, by which point sales had to be completed to be eligible, while the newhome statistic counted contracts when they were first signed. [See p. 657C1] The median price of a new single-family home sold in September was reported to be $204,800. Existing Home Sales Rose 9.4%— The National Association of Realtors Oct. 23 reported that sales of existing homes jumped by 9.4% in September, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units, up from a revised 5.09 million units in August, and the highest rate since July 2007. It was seen as an indication that the housing market was recovering from a years-long slump. [See p. 657B1] Housing Starts Up 0.5%— The Departments of Commerce and HUD Oct. 20 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in September was 590,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 0.5% from the August revised rate of 587,000. Building permits were issued in September at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 573,000 units, 1.2% below August’s revised rate of 580,000. [See p. 640E1] n Durable Goods Orders Rose in September.

The Commerce Department Oct. 28 reported that the value of durable goods orders in September was $165.7 billion, an increase of 1.0%, or $1.6 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were so-called bigticket items designed to last three years or more. It was the second increase in three months, leading to optimism that the manufacturing industry was beginning to emerge from a deep recession. [See p. 657D1] n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Oct. 29 unveiled a health care reform bill crafted by Democrats that would extend coverage to an estimated 35 million–36 million people without insurance, at an estimated cost of $894 billion over 10 years. Pelosi and Democratic leaders had merged three reform bills passed by separate committees in July. The measure called for the creation of a government-run health insurance program, commonly called a “public option,” intended to compete with private insurers, thereby lowering costs and improving policies. Most people in the U.S. would be required to obtain insurance by a deadline of 2013. Individuals, families and small businesses would be able to shop for insurance on “exchanges” that would allow them to compare various policies. [See p. 713A3] The bill would also substantially expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for the poor, by allowing individuals with an annual income of $16,200 or less to qualify for the program. Under a previous version of the bill, that threshold had been set at $14,400. Government subsidies would also be made available to individuals and small businesses to purchase insurance. Large employers would be required to provide insurance to their workers, and would face financial penalties for failing to do so. Payment rates for health care providers being reimbursed under the public option were to be negotiated between the government and caregivers. More liberal Democrats, including Pelosi, had pushed for the payments to be based on Medicare fees. However, some rural and centrist Democrats had strongly opposed the scheme, arguing that it would drive many health care providers out of business because Medicare reimbursement rates were too low. Private insurance companies would be barred from refusing to sell coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions, or from dropping people who developed illnesses while under insurance coverage. Insurers would also be required to allow children to remain covered by their parents’ insurance policies until they turned 27. The plan would be paid for in part by a new 5.4% income surtax assessed on individuals making $500,000 or more per year, or families with annual incomes exceeding $1 million. Cost savings would also be achieved through cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The measure also called for a 2.5% annual excise tax on manufacturers of medical devices, estimated to raise $20 billion by 2019. House Democrats, citing the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), said the cuts and taxes would yield $500 billion over 10 years. Democrats had managed to lower the overall cost of the reform plan by splitting off into a separate bill a provision that would increase Medicare payments to physicians and other care proFACTS ON FILE

viders. That provision was estimated to cost $200 billion over a decade. That move had allowed the bill to meet a stipulation made by President Barack Obama that the reform plan’s cost be less than $900 billion over 10 years. Obama Oct. 29 hailed the measure as a “critical milestone” of the reform effort. He also said the bill met two other criteria he had set: “It is fully paid for and will reduce the deficit in the long term.” The CBO Oct. 29 said the bill would reduce projected federal budget deficits by $104 billion over the next 10 years. Republicans criticized the bill as a costly expansion of the government’s role in the health care system. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) said the legislation was “costly and unsustainable.” He added, “Instead of listening to the American people, Democrats hid behind closed doors and came back with a bill designed to appease the liberal special interests.” The measure would need the support of 218 House members to pass, and it was generally assumed that no Republicans would back the bill. Pelosi had reportedly secured the support of just over 200 colleagues so far. Pelosi, while working on combining the committee bills, had lobbied strenuously for inclusion of the public option in the legislation. Support for the public option had waned earlier in the year, following summer protests by opponents who said it would drive private insurers out of business and lead to an aggrandized government role in health care. However, in recent weeks public approval of the public option had increased, renewing support by Democratic lawmakers. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported Oct. 28 found that 48% of respondents supported a public option, compared with 42% who were opposed. In a poll conducted in September, 46% had supported the plan and 48% had opposed it. Reid Backs Public Option—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) Oct. 26 announced that a Senate reform plan merging two bills passed by different committees would also include a public option. The provision would allow states to opt out of providing the federal insurance plan to its residents, but a spokesman for Reid said many of the details had not yet been decided. The plan had reportedly been engineered by Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) as a compromise between liberal and moderate groups in his party. Reid also said his bill would include the creation of nonprofit insurance cooperatives that would also compete with private insurers. Of the five reform bills passed by various congressional committees, only that of the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.), had left out a public option provision. Baucus’s legislation had received the most input from Republicans, but won the vote of only one— Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine). It was not clear if Reid could muster the 60 votes October 29, 2009

needed to overcome a filibuster of the bill. Snowe Oct. 26 said she would not support a bill that included a public option, and several moderate Democrats had also expressed concern over the creation of a government-run health insurance plan. [See p. 698A1] Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), an independent who normally caucused with the Democrats, Oct. 27 said he was likely to side with Republicans in filibustering the bill unless the public option provision was dropped. n

Swine Flu U.S. Emergency Declared, Spread Continues.

U.S. President Barack Obama Oct. 23 signed a declaration calling the H1N1 swine flu outbreak a national emergency, a designation that gave Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius expanded powers in dealing with the disease. The move was publicly announced on Oct. 24. The Obama administration in April had declared the outbreak a public health emergency, which had allowed the government to move a federal cache of vaccine to states, should they be needed. [See p. 696C3] Under the new declaration, Sebelius was authorized to allow hospitals to move emergency treatment centers offsite, in order to speed the delivery of care and insulate those who did not have the disease from exposure to infected patients. Administration officials said the declaration had stemmed from a need to give hospitals and other health care providers greater flexibility in responding to the swine flu, and not because the disease’s threat to the populace had grown. Some health officials expressed concern that the declaration would cause unnecessary anxiety among the public over the virus’s dangers. The swine flu virus had first emerged in Mexico in April, but quickly spread worldwide, raising concerns that it could mutate into a deadlier form. As of Oct. 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there had been more than 414,000 laboratory-confirmed swine flu cases worldwide, and almost 5,000 deaths linked to the disease. But because the WHO in July had stopped collecting broader case totals from countries, the figures understated the actual number of infections and deaths. Millions of people were thought to have been infected, and to have suffered only mild symptoms before recovering fully. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Oct. 23 reported that the swine flu was widespread in 46 states and had caused more than 20,000 hospitalizations in the U.S. An estimated 1,000 people had died of the disease, and another 2,400 deaths were thought to be linked to it. The swine flu had disproportionately affected the young, and not the elderly as the seasonal flu normally did. The CDC Oct. 16 said 86 people younger

than 18 had died so far in 2009 from the swine flu. U.S. Vaccinations Delayed by Shortage—

Obama’s declaration was made amid a shortage of the swine flu vaccine in the U.S. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s director for immunization and respiratory disease, Oct. 16 said there had been delays in making and distributing the swine flu vaccine because of production problems experienced by vaccine companies. The CDC had continually lowered its estimates for the amount of vaccine that would be available by the end of October. In July, the Obama administration had estimated that 80 million to 120 million doses would be available. However, the CDC Oct. 16 estimated that 28 million to 30 million doses would be ready. Health officials Oct. 28 said that only 23.3 million vaccine doses had been made available to the public. “We are nowhere near where we thought we’d be by now,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden said Oct. 23. In addition to the delays, a vaccine formulated by drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC had yet to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Sebelius Oct. 26 said there would eventually be enough vaccine to administer to anyone in the U.S. who wanted a vaccination. Concerns over swine flu had led to high demand for the vaccine, with long lines reported at numerous vaccine distribution sites. Health care workers, pregnant women and children had been given priority for the vaccines, according to the government’s response plan. However, other people had expressed concerns over the vaccine’s safety, with some raising the potential health threat of a vaccine ingredient called thimerosal, which contained trace amounts of mercury. CDC officials rejected claims that the vaccine was dangerous, and said a proportion of the vaccines had been made without thimerosal, for use by pregnant women and children. Other News—In other swine flu news: o The United States Agriculture Department (USDA) Oct. 19 said a pig shown at the Minnesota State Fair had conclusively tested positive for the H1N1 virus, the first time it had been detected in a pig in the U.S. The USDA Oct. 17 had said preliminary tests indicated that the pig had tested positive for the virus in late August. Swine flu had previously been determined to have been transmitted from humans to pigs in other countries. The disease was thought to have originally developed in pigs. o The WHO Oct. 16 warned health care providers to prepare for large numbers of patients with swine flu who developed other serious illnesses. The warning was issued in response to recent studies showing that swine flu victims were more likely than seasonal flu patients to suffer from viral pneumonia, a dangerous complication. The WHO advised doctors to quickly give antiviral drugs to patients suspected of having pneumonia. n 741

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Financial Regulation Regulator Cuts Pay at Seven Companies.

A Treasury Department regulator Oct. 22 slashed compensation at seven companies that had received exceptional assistance from the government during the financial crisis that began in 2008. The move came in response to public criticism of hefty pay packages and bonuses that were being given to employees at companies that had received aid from a $700 billion government rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Federal Reserve that day unveiled new rules governing compensation policies in the financial industry. [See below, pp. 715E2, 640F2] The Treasury regulator, Kenneth Feinberg, had been appointed the special master of TARP compensation in June, after insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG)—the recipient of $180 billion in government aid—paid bonuses to employees at its financial-products unit, which had been largely responsible for the near collapse of the company in September 2008. The companies under Feinberg’s authority had yet to repay the government, and included AIG; banking giants Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc.; automakers General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC; and auto-loan-financing companies GMAC Inc. and Chrysler Financial. Feinberg’s pay cuts, details of which had been widely reported Oct. 21, applied to the five top executives and the next 20 highest earners at each of the companies. Average compensation for those employees was reduced by more than 50% from 2008 levels. Average compensation in the form of cash was reduced by 90% from the previous year, with some of it replaced by company stock that could only be sold in installments beginning in 2011, unless the company repaid its government aid before then. That was an attempt to reverse pay policies that critics said had rewarded short-term profits at the expense of long-term growth, fueling the excessive risk-taking that provoked the crisis. The employees could not receive bonuses unless their companies repaid the TARP aid, and met certain goals that were formulated in consultation with the Treasury. Additionally, the bonuses would come in the form of stock that could not be sold unless the employees remained at the company for three years after the bonuses were awarded. Other perquisites worth more than $25,000 required approval from the Treasury. The payment restrictions only applied to the months of November and December, but would serve as a boilerplate for the Treasury’s compensation policies in 2010. Feinberg chose not to enact a “clawback” policy that would allow his office to recoup compensation that had already been paid in 2009. Feinberg’s pay cuts were criticized for both being too lax and unduly extending the government’s reach into the private sector. While he cut pay at the seven companies by about $879 million from the pre742

vious year, analysts noted that several executives would continue to make multimillion-dollar salaries. Their substantial pay packages were balanced out by others who were making much less, such as Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis, who had previously agreed to forgo his entire 2009 salary. Another such employee was Andrew Hall, the head of Citigroup’s commoditiestrading unit Phibro LLC, who had been reportedly slated to receive $100 million in compensation and bonuses in 2009. Citigroup Oct. 9 had sold Phibro to Occidental Petroleum Corp. for the bargain-sale price of $250 million, in what was seen as an attempt to avoid a confrontation with Feinberg. Hall’s 2009 compensation from Citigroup was deferred to a later year. Fed Rules Apply to 28 Institutions—

The Fed Oct. 22 unveiled rules that would require 28 unidentified financial institutions that came under its regulatory jurisdiction to present their compensation policies for review. While the Fed would not set caps on pay, it could reject policies that posed a risk to the financial system, such as those that did not tie compensation to longterm stability. The Fed would also establish a second regulatory approach to monitor the compensation practices at smaller banks. The Fed said the results of the reviews would not be publicized. The rules would also affect the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. They would be open to a 30-day comment period before taking effect. n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Obama Announces Small Business Aid.

President Barack Obama Oct. 21 announced a plan to provide more aid to small businesses struggling to access credit amidst a deep recession, using the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial industry rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Obama, speaking at a storage company in Landover, Md., said the plan would help the companies that were “the engine of job growth in America.” [See p. 164B1] Under the plan, community banks with less than $1 billion in assets would be able to borrow TARP money at a 3% interest rate, down from the current 5%. To qualify for the program, community banks would have to prove that the money was being loaned to small businesses, and provide the government with quarterly updates on those loans. Financial institutions offering loans to low-income areas would be able to borrow TARP money at a 2% interest rate. The TARP loans would be capped at $20 million per bank. Government officials said the relatively low amount meant that banks would not have to significantly curb executive compensation or offer the government warrants to buy stock, as was required for bigger loans. Another part of the plan would raise the cap on a type of loan offered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to $5 million, up from the current $2 million. Con-

gress, which was currently considering a similar proposal, would need to approve the cap hike. n

Legislation Defense, Hate Crimes Bill Enacted. The Sen-

ate Oct. 22 voted, 68–29, to clear the conference committee version of a bill that authorized $680.2 billion in discretionary spending for fiscal year 2010 for Defense Department and other national security programs, and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama Oct. 28 signed the bill. It included a measure expanding the definition of federal hate crimes to include those committed because of a victim’s gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. The House had passed the bill earlier in October. [See p. 700D3] Obama had been a strong supporter of the hate crimes provision, and said after the signing, “After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we’ve passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are.” Obama had recently come under pressure from gay and lesbian activists for not acting quickly enough to implement gay rights measures he had promised to support. [See p. 699A1] The bill cut funding for several weapons systems that the Obama administration had argued were wasteful and unnecessary, such as the F-22A Raptor fighter jet and the VH-71 Kestrel replacement presidential helicopter. However, it authorized $560 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, which Obama opposed and had threatened a veto over. Obama at the signing ceremony said there was “more waste we need to cut.” The bill was supported by 56 Senate Democrats, 10 Republicans and two independents, and 28 Republicans and one Democrat voted against it. Republicans who opposed the bill claimed it created a category of “thought crimes” and criminalized criticizing homosexuality, and also criticized its attachment to vital military legislation. The lone Democrat who opposed the bill, Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.), said he did so because it did not include measures that would help to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. n

Environment Senate Panel Begins Climate Bill Debate.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Oct. 27 began hearings on a bill that called for reducing the U.S.’s emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% of their 2005 levels by a deadline of 2020. The House in June had passed a measure calling for a 17% reduction of 2005 emissions in the same time frame. [See p. 654F2] The Senate bill, cosponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D, Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.), would create a so-called capand-trade system under which the governFACTS ON FILE

ment would issue pollution credits to businesses and industries. Those permits could then be bought and sold on a market. The measure would also establish millions of dollars in government subsidies for carbon sequestration programs, which would capture and store carbon dioxide pollution instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. As the committee opened its discussions, Obama administration officials campaigned to promote the legislation. Obama that day visited a solar energy installation in Florida, while Vice President Joseph Biden visited a facility in Delaware producing electric-powered cars. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu was one of five senior administration officials to testify in support of the Kerry-Boxer bill before the Senate committee. Republicans argued that the measure would increase energy costs in the U.S., thereby putting domestic companies at a disadvantage to their international competitors. Several Republicans said they would work to block the bill if there was no comprehensive analysis of its costs by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.) said he thought the measure advocated changes that were too drastic. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus would influence the crafting of a final version of the bill. He also warned Boxer, the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, against advancing the bill without the support of moderate Democrats and some Republicans. Boxer and Kerry Oct. 23 had released a more detailed version of their legislation. Under the proposed cap-and-trade plan, 25% of the emissions credits would be auctioned off by the federal government, so that the proceeds would ensure that the bill did not increase the deficit. The rest of the credits would be given away during a 20year transition period as part of efforts to insulate consumers and energy-hungry businesses from its costs. The number of permits issued each year by the government would gradually decline, thereby reducing the country’s overall emissions. Separately, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf Oct. 14 had said an analysis of the House version of the cap-and-trade program would cause “significant” job losses in fossil fuel industries in the U.S. He also said the program would reduce the U.S.’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.25%– 0.75% by 2020. Elmendorf also noted that the climate changes the bill was intended to prevent would also result in economic costs. Proponents of the legislation said it would result in the creation of many new jobs in clean-energy technologies. Passage Before Treaty Talks Unlikely—

Carol Browner, the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and a top aide to Obama, Oct. 2 said there was almost no chance that Congress would be able to pass a climate change bill before talks on drafting a global climate change treaty began. The international talks were scheduled to take place in December in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capOctober 29, 2009

ital, to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol treaty, whose main provisions were set to expire in 2012. The Obama administration had come under increasing pressure to win passage of a U.S. cap on its greenhouse gas emissions, which was thought likely to have a dramatic effect on the willingness of other countries to agree to an international climate treaty. Browner’s remarks were the first from the White House indicating it did not expect passage of the legislation by December. [See p. 636B1] Browner noted that the White House in recent months had largely focused its efforts on getting a comprehensive health care reform bill passed. Boxer Oct. 12 said she maintained hope that her panel would advance the measure before the December talks. Also, the New York Times Oct. 11 had published an opinion piece by Kerry and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R, S.C.), in which the pair pledged to set aside partisanship in order to get the legislation passed. Chu Oct. 12 also said he was “hopeful” that Obama would be able to sign a climate bill into law by December. Obama Oct. 23, in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, called on Congress to pass a climate change bill. n

Business Hedge Fund Founder Charged With Fraud.

Federal prosecutors in New York City Oct. 16 charged billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, with running an insider-trading scheme. Rajaratnam and five others were arrested that day in connection with the alleged plan, which prosecutors described as the biggest insider-trading scheme involving a hedge fund. A federal judge that day set Rajaratnam’s bail at $100 million. [See 2007, p. 159A3] According to prosecutors, the scheme had raked in some $20 million in ill-gotten gains since 2006. Rajaratnam, 52, reportedly used his contacts in a variety of different industries to acquire nonpublic information about forthcoming mergers, announcements and joint ventures, and then used that information to make profits on the stock market. In exchange, the informants received money or other nonpublic information. Rajaratnam was charged with four counts of conspiracy and nine counts of securities fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed civil fraud charges against him. Investigators busted the alleged scheme with the help of an unnamed informant, who was later revealed to be Roomy Khan, a former employee at Galleon. Starting in November 2007, Khan taped her conversations with Rajaratnam, and investigators subsequently tapped Rajaratnam’s phones. Prosecutors said it was the first time that phone taps had been used to investigate an insider-trading case. Khan had pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges in exchange for a lesser sentence. Also charged in the scheme were the contacts who gave Rajaratnam information. They were Robert Moffat, 53, an ex-

ecutive at computer maker International Business Machines Corp. (IBM); Rajiv Goel, 51, an executive at computer-chip manufacturer Intel Corp.; Anil Kumar, 51, a director at consulting firm McKinsey & Co.; Mark Kurland, 60, a trader at hedge fund New Castle Partners LLC; and Danielle Chiesi, 43, a manager at New Castle. Kurland and Moffat were charged with conspiracy, while the others were charged with conspiracy and fraud. Prosecutors said the investigation was ongoing. The charges filed against Rajaratnam included references to unidentified contacts at credit-ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service, computer-chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and other companies. Rajaratnam maintained that he was innocent. Galleon Oct. 21 began liquidating its investments in order to satisfy investors who had demanded their money back. n

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Aviation Distracted Pilots Fly 150 Miles Past Airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Oct. 27 revoked the licenses of two Northwest Airlines Corp. pilots after an incident during an Oct. 21 flight from San Diego, Calif., to Minneapolis, Minn., in which they overshot the flight’s destination, Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, by about 150 miles (240 km) before backtracking over Wisconsin and landing the plane. The pilots had reportedly ignored more than a dozen air traffic controllers, who attempted to contact them over the radio for more than 90 minutes. The pilots only realized that they had passed the airport after a flight attendant asked when the plane was scheduled to land. In addition to the pilot and copilot, the plane was carrying three flight attendants and 144 passengers. [See 2008, p. 818B2; 2002, p. 653D2] After interviewing the captain, Timothy Cheney, 53, and the first officer, or copilot, Richard Cole, 54, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in an Oct. 26 report said the pilots lost track of time after becoming distracted while the plane was on autopilot. The NTSB said they had been discussing a new scheduling system put in place by Atlanta, Ga.–based Delta Air Lines Inc., which had acquired Northwest in 2008. Both pilots used their personal laptop computers to examine the new system, according to the report. Personal laptop use by pilots in the cockpit was prohibited by the airline. Both pilots passed breathalyzer tests to check for alcohol use after the flight. The NTSB said both men had denied that they were fatigued, and had had a 19-hour layover in San Diego before flying to Minneapolis. (Many observers had initially speculated that the pilots had fallen asleep while the plane was on autopilot.) Both pilots said they were in good health and had not been involved in any prior accidents or violations. They said they had noticed conversations on the radio, but had ignored them during their intense discussion. 743

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According to the NTSB, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder retained only the most recent 30 minutes of data, and the preserved recording began only upon the plane’s eventual descent toward Minneapolis. A spokesperson for the North American Aerospace Defense Command had said that after being notified of the plane’s erratic movement, four fighter jets had been put on “runway alert,” according to an Oct. 27 report in the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 29 that the FAA took more than 40 minutes to notify the military of the runaway flight. Normally, the FAA was required to notify the military of potentially dangerous situations within 10 minutes of noticing them. The FAA was conducting an internal review of its response to the incident. Some analysts suggested that the episode highlighted problems with antiquated radio equipment still commonly used by air traffic controllers. Pilots normally had to manually change radio frequencies dozens of times during cross-country flights. Observers suggested that digital radio systems would eliminate the need to switch frequencies as often, and allow for clearer radio transmissions. n Boeing Takes Charge for Jet Delays. Chicago-based Boeing Co. Oct. 6 announced that it would record a charge of $1 billion as a result of delays in producing its 747-8 freighter jet, bringing the company’s thirdquarter charges to $3.5 billion. The additional charges were attributed to ongoing problems with the 787 “Dreamliner” passenger jet, composed mainly of carbon composites intended to make it light and fuel-efficient. The company Oct. 21 reported a third-quarter loss of $1.56 billion. [See p. 615D3; 2008, p. 853D2] Boeing had initially planned to begin delivering Dreamliner jets in 2008. The company Aug. 27 said the plane would be ready for test flights by the end of 2009 and for delivery by the fourth quarter of 2010. The 747-8 freighter was expected to be ready for test flights in early 2010, with deliveries beginning in the fourth quarter of that year. Boeing Aug. 31 had announced that Scott Carson, 63, the president and chief executive of its commercial airplane division, would step down from that position the next day and retire at the end of 2009. He was replaced by Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems division. Boeing’s main competitor, Airbus Industrie, was also designing a next-generation passenger jet, the A350, expected to be ready for customers in 2013. Airbus had also experienced major delays in the production of its A380 “superjumbo” jet, which was first delivered in 2007, more than a year and a half behind schedule. Airbus was owned by the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (EADS), a French-German consortium. [See 2007, p. 729G1] n News in Brief. The House Oct. 14 voted, 409–11, to stiffen federal regulations on pilot training. The bill would require all com744

mercial pilots to acquire an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, which required 1,500 hours of flying time. Currently, entry-level commercial airline pilots were required to have 250 hours of flying time. Some academic courses would count as flight hours. The bill also required pilots to go through training on how to recover from a full stall, something analysts said flight training programs did not adequately address. The House bill would also implement a 1990 recommendation from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to require a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) review of the effects of pilot fatigue and update its rules accordingly. Finally, the bill would require the FAA to create a comprehensive database of pilot records within 90 days of the bill’s signing. [See p. 357G1] Continental Airlines Inc. July 21 announced that it would cut 1,700 jobs, or about 3.4% if its workforce. Continental and other airlines had sharply reduced the number of flights they operated, in response to a slump in demand stemming from the economic recession. The airline July 21 also reported a loss of $213 million for the second quarter. It had taken $44 million in charges to write down the value of its airplanes. The company Oct. 21 said it had lost $18 million in the third quarter. [See 2008, p. 468B2] n

Internet FCC Moves to Draft ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Oct. 22 unanimously voted to draft new rules that would bar telecommunications companies or Internet service providers from favoring certain content distributed over their networks. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Sept. 21 had proposed such so-called net neutrality rules. In addition to imposing net neutrality on regular Internet providers, he said he would seek to do so on the mobile broadband services offered by cellular telephone providers, who generally imposed more stringent restrictions on users. [See p. 145B2] Genachowski, in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., said net neutrality regulations were necessary because Internet service providers often also provided television and telephone service, which directly competed with equivalent Internet-based services. Internet service providers could theoretically slow service to their competitors unless they were prohibited from doing so. In addition, he said, users often had a limited selection of service providers, and had difficulty checking whether providers were throttling service. Net neutrality had been supported by companies that did business over the Internet, such as Internet search-engine and advertising giant Google Inc., which owned the video-sharing Web site YouTube. Those companies, whose services often used high amounts of bandwidth and might be subject to discrimination by Internet service providers, said net neutrality would promote innovation.

However, telecommunications companies, led by AT&T Inc., argued that the regulations would be an unnecessary government intrusion on the Internet, and would reduce their ability to deal with network congestion caused by bandwidth-hungry services such as streaming video and file sharing. Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Sept. 17 said he would back a net neutrality bill introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D, Calif.) and Edward Markey (D, Mass.). However, 72 Democratic members of Congress Oct. 16 wrote to Genachowski outlining their concerns about government intervention in the Internet. Republican legislators and state governors from both parties had also registered opposition to net neutrality provisions. Apple Ban of Google Program Probed—

The FCC Aug. 1 said it was looking into why Apple Inc. had not allowed Google to sell its Google Voice application, or app, and other related programs for Apple’s iPhone cellular phone in Apple’s online App Store. It also said it would probe whether AT&T Inc., the iPhone’s exclusive service provider, had been consulted over the application ban. The ban had first been reported July 29 in the New York Times. [See 2008, p. 749C3; 2007, p. 876A2] Google Voice allowed users to make free or cheap cellular phone calls and use one telephone number for cellular, landline and Internet calls. Calls made using Google Voice would go over the standard telephone or wireless networks. AT&T Aug. 21 had said that it had not been consulted by Apple about Google Voice. Apple Aug. 22 told the FCC that it had not banned Google Voice but was “still pondering” whether to allow it in the App Store. Apple said Google Voice would duplicate essential iPhone features, and also said it had privacy concerns over Google’s use of iPhone users’ contacts. Apple had previously banned from the iPhone other calling services, such as Skype, that made calls over the Internet, at the request of AT&T. Google in a filing made public Sept. 18 said Apple had rejected Google Voice; however, Apple that day said the issue was still being discussed. Apple and Google had a history of both close cooperation and competition. The Wall Street Journal May 5 had reported that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was looking into whether overlap of two directors on both companies’ boards of directors violated antitrust laws. Google Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Eric Schmidt Aug. 4 announced he was resigning from Apple’s board, and the other common director—Arthur Levinson, the former CEO of biotechnology company Genentech Inc.—Oct. 12 stepped down from Google’s board. In a related case, the FCC Oct. 9 said it was investigating whether Google Voice blocked some calls to rural areas in order to reduce the access charges it had to pay, after AT&T filed complaints. Google argued FACTS ON FILE

that Google Voice was not a traditional “common carrier” telephone service and thus was not barred from call-blocking, under a 2007 FCC ruling. It said the blocked calls were to numbers linked to sex chat lines or conference call centers that artificially increased access costs. Google Oct. 28 said it was now only blocking calls to fewer than 100 numbers linked to fee-inflation schemes. n

Space Panel Sets Options for Program’s Future.

A 10-member panel appointed by the administration of President Barack Obama to review plans for the U.S. human space flight program’s future delivered its report Oct. 22. The panel said that existing plans for manned landings on the moon and, eventually, the planet Mars, could not be carried out at the budget levels currently envisioned for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The report described options that could be pursued under the existing planned budget, about $100 billion over the next 10 years, and also proposed options for exploration that would cost about $3 billion more per year. [See p. 506E2] The current plan, developed under President George W. Bush and known as Constellation, called for the development of a new rocket, Ares I, and astronaut capsule, Orion. They had been intended to eventually replace the space shuttle fleet, scheduled to be retired by the end of 2010, in carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. Ares I would be followed by the introduction of a “heavy-lift” rocket, Ares V, for landings on the moon by 2020. Constellation’s long-term goal was a manned mission to Mars. (NASA Oct. 28 conducted a test launch of an Ares I prototype.) The first of the five options laid out by the panel would be to retain the Constellation plan, but adapted to NASA’s budget outlook. Under those constraints, the Ares I and Orion would not begin service until after the scheduled decommission of the International Space Station in 2016. Ares V would not be available until the 2020s, and lunar landings would not be feasible “until well into the 2030s, if ever.” The second proposed option also hewed to the currently envisioned funding level. It would extend the life of the space station until 2020. Instead of proceeding with the Ares I rocket, NASA would develop a derivative version of Ares V, called Ares V Lite, but would also not provide for a lunar mission by the 2020s. Transportation of astronauts into low-Earth orbit would be carried out by new commercial services, in what would be a departure from the program’s historical practice. The other three options would require funding increases. One would be to carry out the original Constellation plan. The second, called “moon first,” would allow for a manned moon mission by “the mid2020s,” either using Aries V Lite or by extending the life of the shuttle fleet to 2015 and developing a new vehicle that was more based on the shuttle. October 29, 2009

The final option, called “flexible path,” would use Ares V or a different heavy-lift vehicle to launch manned “fly-by” missions around the moon, Mars and other points deeper in space, avoiding at first the costs associated with developing landing vehicles. Flexible path could lead to a manned moon mission, or missions to moons of Mars. The moon-first and flexible-path proposals would both depend on commercial low-Earth-orbit transportation. White House officials said the administration would review the recommendations, giving little indication of what it would ultimately adopt. The panel had aired the direction of its thinking at a series of hearings in July and August, and presented a summary report in September. The House Science and Technology Committee Sept. 15 held a hearing on the panel’s proposals, followed by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee the following day. Some members of the House committee expressed disagreement with the proposals for abandoning the Ares I rocket, given how far along its development was. Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Sept. 15 testified before the Science and Technology Committee, calling the proposal to develop commercial human space transportation “risky in the extreme.” n

Energy Utility to Pay $25 Million Over 2008 Blackout.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) Oct. 8 announced that Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) had agreed to pay a $25 million penalty in connection with a February 2008 blackout that caused outages for 950,000 people across southern and central Florida. The blackout had been caused by human error on the part of an FPL engineer in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. [See 2008, p. 217G3] FPL agreed to pay $10 million to the U.S. Treasury and $10 million to NERC, and to earmark $5 million for repairs and alterations intended to help avoid future blackouts, including alterations to the electrical lines that connected the company’s power plants to its substations. The penalty was reportedly the largest ever assessed against a power company in connection with the country’s electrical grid. FPL, which did not admit blame as part of the settlement, was barred from collecting any of the cost of the settlement from its customers. An FPL spokesman Oct. 8 said that the money would be taken from “shareholder funds and will not affect customer bills.” n

Other U.S. News Balloon Incident Called Hoax. Sheriff Jim

Alderden of Colorado’s Larimer County Oct. 18 announced that a high-profile Oct. 15 incident, in which a balloon thought to be carrying a six-year-old boy drifted

across Colorado, had been a hoax contrived by Richard and Mayumi Heene, the boy’s parents. Alderden said his office was recommending that the Heenes be charged with conspiracy, false reporting, attempting to influence a public official and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He also suggested that government officials would likely attempt to recover costs associated with the incident from the family. [See p. 308C1; 2005, p. 956A3] Richard and Mayumi Heene Oct. 15 had alerted police and other authorities after an experimental balloon they were constructing was released from their yard in Fort Collins, Colo. They informed officials that Falcon Heene, their son, had been seen getting onto the balloon prior to its release. The balloon’s flight subsequently received widespread media attention in the U.S., including live national television coverage. The balloon traveled for about 90 minutes and reached heights of 7,000 feet (2,100 m) before landing in a field near Colorado Springs, Colo., about 50 miles (80 km) from the Heene residence. During the balloon’s flight, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had temporarily grounded planes in the region and a helicopter had been deployed to try to force down the balloon. Officials had searched the balloon after it landed, but failed to find Falcon Heene, triggering concern that he could have fallen from the balloon during its journey. Falcon Heene was later found in the rafters of the Heenes’ garage and claimed to have been playing and napping there throughout the incident. The Heene family Oct. 15 appeared on the Cable News Network (CNN) program “Larry King Live,” hosted by Wolf Blitzer, to discuss the incident. When Falcon Heene was asked why he had failed to respond to officials who had shouted his name while searching the Heene residence for him, he said, to his father, “You guys said we did this for the show.” His comment led to widespread speculation that the balloon incident had been a hoax. The following day, Falcon Heene vomited while being questioned about the incident during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show. The celebrity gossip Web site TMZ Oct. 16 reported that Richard Heene, a meteorologist, had unsuccessfully pitched a television reality-show about his family to multiple production companies and television networks. The Heene family had appeared on the reality show “Wife Swap” on ABC in March. Wife Reportedly Confesses—The Coloradoan newspaper Oct. 23 posted on its Web site a copy of an official search warrant affidavit including sworn statements made by Mayumi Heene to investigators on Oct. 17. According to the affidavit, Mayumi Heene admitted that she and her husband had known that their son was not in the balloon and had knowingly lied to investigators about the incident. She also said that they had concocted the hoax two weeks before it was carried out in order to make the family “more marketable” to the media. n 745

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Tunisia President Ben Ali Reelected Again. Tunisia’s interior ministry Oct. 26 declared President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali the winner of an Oct. 25 presidential election, securing a fifth five-year term. Ben Ali had led Tunisia since taking power in a bloodless coup in 1987. The country’s constitution had been modified in 2002 to allow presidents to serve more than three terms. [See 2004, p. 974F2; for facts on Ben Ali, see p. 746D1] The interior ministry said Ben Ali, 73, had won 89% of the vote, down from 94% in 2004 and about 99% in 1999, 1994 and 1989. The second-place finisher, Mohamed Bouchiha, garnered 5%, and Ahmed Inoubli finished third with 3.8%; however, both were seen as supporters of Ben Ali’s government. The official turnout was about 89%. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (PDP) and the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (FTDL) boycotted the vote. Observers deemed the vote free and fair, but opposition and human rights groups criticized an alleged climate of political repression in the country, and said the outcome was predetermined. Despite that criticism, Tunisia, with its relatively low levels of poverty and Islamist violence, was generally praised as one of North Africa’s most stable nations. FACTS ON BEN ALI

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Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was born Sept. 3, 1936, in the coastal Tunisian town of Hammam Sousse. As a young man, he joined the movement that led Tunisia to independence from France in 1956. Ben Ali then attended military schools in France and the U.S., and received a degree in electrical engineering. In 1964, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba placed Ben Ali in charge of military security. In 1974, he was appointed military attache to Morocco and, in 1980, ambassador to Poland. Bourguiba named him head of national security in 1984; in 1986, he was appointed interior minister. In October 1987, Bourguiba appointed Ben Ali prime minister. The next month, Ben Ali ousted Bourguiba on the grounds that the 84-year-old president was senile and unfit to govern. Ben Ali ran unopposed and won 99% of the vote in a 1989 presidential election, and won by the same margin in 1994 and 1999. In the 2004 election, he garnered 94%. [See 2004, p. 974F2; 1999, p. 805E2; 1994, p. 419B3; 1989, p. 294D2; 1987, p. 837D3] Ben Ali in the early 1990s began a crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism in the Muslim country; as a result, Tunisia had experienced little of the Islamist violence suffered by its neighbors in North Africa. In 2002, voters approved a constitutional amendment that eliminated presidential term limits. [See 2002, p. 450E2; 1992, p. 103E3] Ben Ali Oct. 26 was declared the winner of a presidential election held the previous day, with 89% of the vote. [See p. 746A1] Ben Ali was married to Leila Ben Ali, and they had three children. He also had three children from a previous marriage. 746

In legislative elections also held Oct. 25, Ben Ali’s Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party claimed 161 seats in the 214member parliament. n

Zimbabwe

the Congo, Angola and Mozambique to drum up support in his dispute with Mugabe. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) late Oct. 28 sent a mediation team to Harare. The delegation was set to meet with both Tsvangirai and Mugabe Oct. 30. n

Arrest Triggers MDC Government Boycott.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party Oct. 16 called for his party to boycott the unity government created in February with President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. In his announcement, Tsvangirai said the ZANU-PF had been a “dishonest and unreliable partner.” The move followed the Oct. 14 rejailing and formal indictment of MDC official Roy Bennett, the party’s nominee for deputy agriculture minister. [See p. 680E2] The nomination of Bennett—a white farmer whose land had been confiscated by Mugabe’s government in a land reform program that began in 2000—to the agriculture ministry had been one of the many disputes over the implementation of a power-sharing deal signed in September 2008. Bennett had been arrested in February on charges of possessing weapons and planning acts of sabotage against the state, which the MDC said were false accusations. He was released in March, but Mugabe refused to swear him in until the charges were cleared. At his court hearing on Oct. 14, Bennett was indicted on the terrorism charges and ordered back to jail. Under Zimbabwean law, an indicted defendant was automatically put in prison and required to reapply for bail. Bennett Oct. 16 was freed on bail. His trial had been scheduled to start Oct. 19, but was delayed until Nov. 9 to give his lawyers time to prepare. The MDC saw Bennett’s case as part of a broader campaign by Mugabe’s supporters to intimidate MDC members. Authorities Oct. 23 raided a house used by MDC executives in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Police said they were searching for weapons, but MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti claimed they took “valuable party material” during the raid. Three days later, a senior party official, Sheila Mashaire, was stopped and beaten by a group of armed militants, according to party spokesman Nelson Chamisa. Unity Government to Continue—Despite the MDC’s boycott of the unity government, Tsvangirai Oct. 23 clarified that the powersharing deal was still in effect, claiming that his party had merely “disengaged” from the ZANU-PF. Mugabe had continued to meet with members of his party for weekly cabinet sessions without Tsvangirai and ministers from the MDC. Mugabe and Tsvangirai met on Oct. 26 in an attempt to resolve their differences, but the two leaders were still “worlds apart,” according to Chamisa. Tsvangirai Oct. 20 had embarked on a regional tour, meeting with the leaders of South Africa, the Democratic Republic of

AMERICAS

Uruguay Former Guerrilla Leads Presidential Vote.

Jose (Pepe) Mujica, a 74-year-old senator and former Marxist guerrilla leader who represented Uruguay’s governing Broad Front coalition, Oct. 25 finished first in a presidential election, with 47.49% of the vote, according to results released the following day. However, he failed to secure the 50% needed to avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher, conservative former President Luis Alberto Lacalle of the National Party, 68, who garnered 28.53%. Pedro Bordaberry of the center-right Colorado Party finished third, with 16.66%, but Oct. 26 conceded defeat and said he would support Lacalle. Mujica and Lacalle would face each other in a runoff election scheduled for Nov. 29. [See 2005, p. 138A3; 1999, p. 881G3] Mujica during the 1960s had helped lead the Tupamaros guerrilla movement in Uruguay, which had been inspired by the 1959 Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro Ruz. The group had carried out a series of bombings, kidnappings and other assaults against the democratically elected conservative governments of the era. Mujica in 1971 was convicted in the death of a policeman, and served a 14-year prison term lasting through the country’s 1973–85 military dictatorship, during which he had sometimes been tortured. However, after being released in 1985 during the restoration of democracy, he aided the transformation of the guerrilla movement into a mainstream political organization. He had since distanced himself from his radical past. [See 1985, p. 230E3] Mujica during the campaign had pledged to continue the economic policies of President Tabare Vazquez, the country’s first leftist leader. Vazquez, who took office in 2005, had been credited with helping Uruguay to emerge from a financial crisis that had struck in 2002. Vazquez had positioned himself as a business-friendly leftist, while instituting taxes on the wealthy to pay for social programs for the poor, such as health care and housing. Vazquez remained popular among Uruguayans, but was prohibited from seeking reelection under the country’s constitution. [See 2002, p. 546E1] Lacalle during the campaign had pledged to make policy more businessfriendly, lower taxes and “go in with a chainsaw” to reduce government bureaucracy. But he had also said he would continue Vazquez’s broader economic policies. Lacalle, who had served as president from 1990 to 1995, also said he would push to privatize state-run businesses. [See 1989, p. 899B2] FACTS ON FILE

It was thought that the runoff election would be close if Lacalle could attract Bordaberry’s supporters. However, Mujica was believed to have built strong support in part due to his lack of political refinement, considered a sign of his authenticity by some. Legislative Elections—Uruguay Oct. 25 also held simultaneous legislative elections, in which voters selected candidates from the same party whose presidential candidate they had chosen. The Electoral Court said that, according to preliminary results, the Broad Front would maintain its control of the legislature, winning bare majorities in both the upper Chamber of Senators and lower Chamber of Deputies. The Broad Front won 16 seats in the 30-seat Chamber of Senators, and 50 seats in the 99-seat Chamber of Deputies. The National Party would have nine senators and 31 deputies. The court said it still had to count mailed ballots, but that they would not change the seat apportionment. A final tally was expected on Oct. 31. n

Other Americas News Mexican Cartel Members Arrested in U.S.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Oct. 22 said the Justice Department Oct. 21–22 had arrested 303 people in 19 states accused of working for one of Mexico’s most notorious drug-trafficking cartels, La Familia Michoacana. Holder said the arrests were the result of a larger, four-year-long investigation, dubbed Project Coronado, of the group’s activities in the U.S. Some 3,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents had carried out the raids, conducted in 38 cities. [See pp. 480C3, 359D1] The arrests targeted a distribution network used largely to traffic methamphetamine that originated at the Mexican Pacific Ocean port of Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan state. The port, a center for production of the drug, was controlled by La Familia. U.S. officials said most of those arrested were low-ranking operators of networks, street drug dealers or gun smugglers. However, they said the number of cartel members arrested would significantly disrupt the group’s drug distribution efforts. “While this cartel may operate from Mexico, the toxic reach of its operations extends to nearly every state in our country,” said Holder. U.S. officials said Project Coronado had resulted in 1,186 arrests and the seizure of 2,700 pounds (1,200 kg) of methamphetamines, 4,400 pounds of cocaine and 29 pounds of heroin over 44 months. Mexican law enforcement officials Oct. 22 said they had arrested six members of La Familia, two of whom were considered mid-level figures in the group. However, U.S. officials said it was difficult to target the group’s leaders in Mexico, since they were often allied with corrupt politicians and police officers there. La Familia had been founded in the 1980s as a vigilante organization aimed at October 29, 2009

driving drug cartels from the western Mexican state of Michoacan, but had itself evolved into a trafficking organization. Led by Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, the cartel said it made methamphetamine only for export to the U.S., and forbade its members from either using the drug or selling it in Mexico, in order to protect Mexicans. Gonzalez, also known as “El Mas Loco,” or “The Craziest One,” was known for advocating a religious philosophy based on the Bible. He reportedly required core members of the group to attend church and carry Bibles. La Familia claimed not to be motivated by money, and said it did not kill innocent people or women, describing its victims as recipients of “divine justice.” The group had gained notoriety in 2006, when a group of masked gunmen associated with it burst into a bar in Michoacan and tossed the severed heads of five drug dealers on the floor. They had also carried out attacks against Mexican federal police, killing a number of agents. [See 2006, p. 913C1] Separately, Mexican officials Oct. 2 said they had intercepted 37 tons of chemicals used to make methamphetamine, the largest seizure of such chemicals ever. The chemicals had been seized in two operations: one at the Mexican port city of Manzanillo in the Pacific coast state of Colima, which yielded 20 tons of material, and one at the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from the U.S. city of Laredo, Texas, in which 17 tons of chemicals were taken. n

Hatoyama Oct. 25 confirmed that he was still weighing the issue, and said he did not feel pressured to resolve it before a planned November visit to Japan by U.S. President Barack Obama. Gates Oct. 20 praised Japan’s refueling aid as “a contribution” to an international war effort that was “commensurate with its standing…as the second-wealthiest country” in the world, rather than as aid to the U.S. specifically. However, he also indicated that the U.S. accepted the likelihood that Japan would end the mission, and said he had discussed other possible ways for Japan to continue its contribution to the Afghan effort. Gates, in a meeting Oct. 21 with Kitazawa, reportedly also expressed concern about the new Japanese government’s investigation into secret nuclear-weapons agreements that Japan had made with the U.S. in the 1960s. Gates reportedly sought to prevent the investigation from harming bilateral relations, or divulging sensitive information that might hinder efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the agreements, governments of Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had allowed U.S. ships armed with nuclear weapons to stop at its ports, and permitted the emergency use of Okinawa to store nuclear weapons, both of which were against the country’s policy banning the presence of nuclear weapons on its soil. (Officials said the agreements were no longer active, and no nuclear-armed ships made stops in Japan anymore.) n

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Japan U.S.’s Gates Insists on Base Plan. U.S. De-

fense Secretary Robert Gates Oct. 20–21 visited Japan, and held talks with newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa. They discussed proposed changes to aspects of Japan’s alliance with the U.S., part of Hatoyama’s program to make Japan’s foreign and security policies more independent of it. The new government, controlled by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), had said it would seek the renegotiation of a 2006 agreement to relocate U.S. soldiers currently stationed at the Futenma Marine Corps base on the island of Okinawa. It had also announced plans to end a naval mission in the Indian Ocean that provided refueling to U.S.-led forces operating in Afghanistan. [See p. 703C2; 2006, p. 418A2] Gates Oct. 20 said that in the U.S.’s view, there were “no alternatives” to the existing Okinawa base agreement. He said the two countries had considered and rejected numerous alternatives to the final arrangement in years of complex negotiations. Under the agreement, about half of the 18,000 marines currently based at Futenma would be relocated to Guam, and a new base would be built in another part of Okinawa. Many residents of the island, where the heavy concentration of U.S. forces had long been controversial, wanted the troops removed from Okinawa entirely.

Thailand Islamic Militants Recruited in Schools. The International Crisis Group (ICG), a

Belgian-based nonprofit advocacy group, June 22 issued a report that found that Islamic militant groups in the majority-Muslim southern Thai provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani had recruited between 1,800 and 3,000 insurgents from a network of Islamic schools that educated 100,000 students in the region. [See p. 416C1; 2005, p. 510B2] According to the report, the militant groups used recruitment methods—including military-style training and the administering of oaths—that were reminiscent of those used by international Islamic terrorist organizations Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah (JI). However, the report found no evidence that the Islamic insurgency in majority-Buddhist Thailand was connected to foreign terrorist or militant groups. The report also found that extrajudicial killings and torture carried out by Thai security forces in the region had made it easier for Islamic insurgents to recruit students by stoking outrage against the Thai government among the region’s ethnic-Malay Muslims. In 2005, the government of then– Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had instituted an emergency decree that allowed security forces to detain suspects for up to a month without charge, and gave security personnel immunity from criminal prosecution. 747

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Thai security personnel Oct. 12 detained 60 teachers and students at an Islamic school in Narathiwat after receiving reports that people there had information about an Oct. 10 attack on a government motorcade. A police spokesman said people who were not involved in the insurgency would be released. The New York Times Sept. 1 reported that the Thai government had spent 109 billion baht ($3.2 billion) since 2004 in the three provinces to fight the ongoing insurgency. About 60,000 soldiers and police officers were stationed in the three provinces, which had a combined population of about 1.7 million. The government had also paid and armed about 71,000 militia members in the region. As of Sept. 14, more than 340 people had been killed in the conflict in 2009, in bombings and ambushes by insurgents and raids on militants by security forces. Attacks had intensified since a June attack by gunmen outside a mosque that killed 11 people. Among the recent attacks, a car bomb in Narathiwat Aug. 25 exploded near a restaurant during lunchtime, injuring 42 people. The bomb, which was detonated remotely by cellular telephone, was thought to have been planted by Islamic militants who had stolen the car after murdering its owner, a Thai government worker. A group of at least eight insurgents Sept. 13 ambushed and killed five members of a Thai volunteer militia in Yala. The militia men had reportedly been returning from a mosque at the time of the attack; two of the victims were Muslim and three were Buddhist. n

Other Asia-Pacific News ASEAN Discusses Trade, Human Rights.

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Thailand Oct. 23–25 hosted the 15th summit meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the town of Cha-am Hua Hin. Leaders discussed the planned 2015 creation of an East Asian economic grouping modeled on the European Union as well as other regional topics, including human rights. [See p. 495E2] More than 35,000 Thai soldiers and police officers were stationed around the summit location and in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, in an attempt to prevent disruptions by antigovernment protests. In April, supporters of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had carried out protests that had forced the cancellation of a planned ASEAN summit meeting. Thaksin, who had been ousted by Thailand’s military in a bloodless coup in 2006, had been convicted on corruption charges in absentia in 2008. [See p. 726A2] Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Oct. 23 said in his opening address that ASEAN should be proud of its record of building increased cooperation between its member nations, but suggested that the group’s future would turn in part on whether previous agreements were successfully implemented. 748

Cambodia Offers Thaksin Asylum—

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen Oct. 23 told reporters at the summit that his government would be willing to grant Thaksin political asylum in Cambodia, and suggested that Thaksin could serve as an economic adviser to his government. Hun Sen said, “People talk about Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar. Why can’t we talk about Thaksin?” (Suu Kyi was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and pro-democracy activist who had been imprisoned by Myanmar’s ruling junta for 14 of the past 20 years.) The Cambodian government Oct. 23 confirmed that it would refuse to extradite Thaksin to Thailand if he decided to accept Hun Sen’s offer. Abhisit Oct. 23 urged Hun Sen not to make decisions regarding Thaksin that could potentially damage relations between Thailand and Cambodia, and suggested that Hun Sen was misinformed about Thaksin. ASEAN Human Rights Body Initiated— ASEAN Oct. 23 officially launched its new

human rights body, known as the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. The creation of the commission, which did not have the authority to investigate human rights complaints or to punish member nations found to be abusing residents, was mandated by the ASEAN charter, which had been adopted by all member nations in 2007. Critics said the commission was impotent. The New York Times Oct. 24 reported that the commissioners for the human rights body had been secretly chosen by member nations without input from human rights groups. Abhisit Oct. 23 had conceded that the commission had its limitations, but argued that it could still help raise awareness about human rights issues in the region. The same day, representatives chosen by human rights groups from Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines were barred from an ASEAN human rights discussion after the governments of their countries backtracked on a previous agreement to meet with them. Myanmar and Singapore had reportedly selected their own human rights representatives to meet with, freezing out independent activists from both countries. Both Cambodia and Myanmar had refused to meet with human rights representatives at an ASEAN meeting in February. The human rights representatives who had been allowed to attend the meeting were reportedly barred from speaking. Rights representatives from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia walked out of the meeting in protest. Regional Economic Group Discussed—

Leaders of ASEAN member nations Oct. 24 met with the leaders of South Korea, India, Japan and China to discuss regional trade and the possibility of creating a larger regional economic community. There was reportedly no consensus within ASEAN over which non-ASEAN countries should be asked to join such a community. [See below] Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama had pressed ASEAN and other regional

leaders to support his proposal for the creation of an EU style economic community and suggested that the group should consider including the U.S. as a member. [See p. 703G2] ASEAN Oct. 24 issued a statement that expressed the group’s concern over North Korea’s nuclear program. The statement urged the North Korean government to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program. [See p. 712E1] ASEAN Oct. 24 also issued a statement that called on Myanmar to ensure that its planned 2010 legislative elections were “conducted in a free, fair, inclusive and transparent manner” that would “be credible to the international community.” The statement also stressed the importance of political reconciliation between Myanmar’s ruling junta and political dissidents, including pro-democracy groups and ethnic minorities. [See p. 725B3] Suu Kyi was not mentioned in the statement, reportedly because ASEAN was encouraged by Myanmar’s decision to allow her to meet with foreign diplomats earlier in October. Abhisit Oct. 25 said Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein had expressed optimism about the possibility of Suu Kyi playing a significant role in national reconciliation. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Oct. 24 held a private meeting on the sidelines of the summit to discuss a long-running border dispute between the two countries and India’s growing trade deficit with China, among other issues. Wen and Singh reportedly agreed to continue negotiations regarding the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which was also claimed in part by China. Australia, New Zealand Join Talks—

The leaders of New Zealand and Australia Oct. 25 joined the summit to discuss increased economic cooperation between ASEAN and neighboring countries. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd reportedly pushed for the proposed economic community to include the U.S. and possibly other North and South American countries with coasts along the Pacific Ocean, in a grouping similar to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum. Analysts said China was likely to oppose plans for an economic community that included the U.S., preferring to strengthen ties between Asian nations, while Japan was open to the inclusion of the U.S. as a counterbalance to the rising economic power of China. The same day, ASEAN signed multiple agreements with the Chinese government, including those intended to protect intellectual property rights in the region, and to set regulatory standards for trade between ASEAN member nations and China. ASEAN, India Reach Free-Trade Deal—

Representatives of the Indian government and ASEAN Aug. 13 finalized and signed a free-trade agreement in Bangkok that would eliminate tariffs on 80% of products traded between India and ASEAN member nations by 2016. The agreement, which would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2010, was FACTS ON FILE

expected to boost trade between ASEAN and India to about $60 billion, from $47 billion in 2008. Tariffs would be maintained on 489 products, including computer software. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

Karadzic Boycotts Opening of Hague War Crimes Trial Judge Rules Trial Will Continue Without Him.

Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who was apprehended by Serbian police in July 2008 after 13 years as a fugitive, Oct. 26 refused to appear at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, where his trial for genocide and other wartime atrocities was set to begin. Karadzic, who was being held at an ICTY facility, had denied the allegations and refused to enter a plea. Judge O-Gon Kwon adjourned the court after about 15 minutes, and affirmed that the trial would begin the following day without Karadzic if he again refused to participate. Karadzic, 64, faced 11 charges of war crimes, and a maximum sentence of life in prison. [See pp. 628B1, 274D2] Karadzic, who planned to represent himself, had claimed that he needed an additional nine months to prepare his defense, it was reported Oct. 26. Observers suggested that Karadzic was attempting to obstruct his trial as a means of discrediting the ICTY. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who had faced 66 charges, including genocide, at the ICTY, had died of a heart attack in 2006 in the middle of his trial, which at that point had been going on for more than four years. Milosevic had also represented himself, and became known for long courtroom tirades about his political grievances. Milosevic’s trial proceedings were further delayed by his poor health, and were terminated after his death. Karadzic Oct. 27 again refused to appear for his trial. The prosecution that day began its opening arguments after the court ruled that the trial could proceed without Karadzic present. Prosecutor Alain Tieger said, “In the course of conquering the territory that [Karadzic] claimed for Serbs, his forces killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, imprisoned thousands more in squalid and brutal camps and dettion facilities, and forced hundreds of thousands away from their homes.” The prosecution was also expected to introduce tapped phone conversations in which Karadzic reportedly said he intended to turn Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, into “a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die.” Prosecutors urged ICTY judges to impose a legal counsel on Karadzic in order to circumvent his attempts to draw out his trial. However, Karadzic’s lawyer in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, had said Karadzic would reject any counsel the ICTY imposed on him, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Oct. 27. The trial that day was adjourned until Nov. 2. October 29, 2009

Karadzic was expected to follow Milosevic’s example in attempting to turn his trial into a probe of Western involvement in the Bosnian war. He was also expected to argue that the death toll at Srebrenica, where as many as 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys were believed to have been killed, had been vastly exaggerated. Former Bosnian Serb Chief Plavsic Freed—

Karadzic’s successor, former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic, Oct. 27 was released from detention. Plavsic in 2003 had been sentenced by the tribunal to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to crimes against humanity. She had been serving her sentence in Sweden, and was granted early release for good behavior after serving two-thirds of her jail term. [See p. 628G1] n

Germany Merkel’s New Government Takes Office.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Oct. 28 was sworn in for a second-four year term. Merkel and her new center-right government took office a month after her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), won parliamentary elections. Merkel and the CDU Oct. 24 had announced a coalition deal with a smaller party, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), after four weeks of negotiations. [See p. 664C3] The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU’s governing partner for the past four years in a “grand coalition” of traditional rivals, was excluded from the new government after its worst election showing in the post–World War II era. Under the coalition deal, the new government’s agenda would include income tax cuts of 24 billion euros ($36 billion), as well as corporate tax cuts and increased benefits for middle-class families. The added tax cuts and spending were intended to help the economy recover from a recession. The measures were expected to increase the budget deficit. FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, 47, became vice chancellor and foreign minister. He was the first openly homosexual person to hold such high positions in Germany. The FDP took five out of 16 cabinet posts in all, a large number for the junior partner in a German coalition government. In the secret ballot to formally approve the new government, only 323 members of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, voted in favor, nine fewer than the 332 members of Merkel’s coalition. Observers suggested that the withheld votes constituted a warning of potential conflicts within the coalition, likely from its more conservative quarters. Schaeuble Becomes Finance Minister—

The CDU’s Wolfgang Schaeuble, 67, became finance minister. He had served as interior minister for the past four years. A political veteran, he had led the West German negotiating team in the talks that led to the reunification of Germany in 1989. He used a wheelchair, having been paralyzed from the chest down when he

was shot by a mentally ill gunman in 1990. Merkel replaced him as CDU leader in 2000 after he was forced to step down due to a fund-raising scandal. [See 2000, p. 198A3; 1990, p. 779A2] In an interview published Oct. 25 by the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Schaeuble said that the budget would not be balanced during the next four years. “It certainly doesn’t make sense to talk about savings measures when the economy needs an impulse,” he said. The government had projected a record deficit of 86 billion euros in 2010. The FDP had both sought the finance ministry and called for larger tax cuts. The 24 billion euros in income tax cuts was a compromise between the CDU’s proposal of 15 billion euros in cuts and the FDP’s preferred total of 35 billion euros in cuts. Schaeuble had argued in the coalition talks that the FDP’s tax cuts were unaffordable. Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg of the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s sister party in the southern state of Bavaria, became defense minister in the new government. He would oversee the country’s unpopular military mission in Afghanistan, where about 4,000 German troops were deployed. FDP deputy leader Rainer Bruederle took over as economy minister. The FDP’s Philipp Roesler, 36, became health minister and the youngest member of the cabinet. The Vietnam-born Roesler, a physician who previously served as deputy premier of Lower Saxony state, became the first German cabinet minister of Asian origin. He would be responsible for health care reforms that the government aimed to implement by 2011. n

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Italy Center-Left Opposition Elects New Leader.

Pierluigi Bersani Oct. 25 won an election to become the new leader of Italy’s main opposition party, the center-left Democratic Party. Bersani, 58, was an excommunist, and had served as economic development minister in the center-left government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, which was in office from 2006 to 2008. Bersani had also served as industry and transport minister. He was a former president of the central region of Emilia Romagna. [See p. 100A1] The party leadership election was open to all voters over the age of 16. Bersani said more than three million people had voted. Bersani won more than 50% of the vote, defeating interim party leader Dario Franceschini and senator Ignazio Marino. Franceschini had taken over as interim leader in February, after Walter Veltroni resigned following the party’s defeat in a regional election. Bersani became the Democratic Party’s fourth leader in two years. The party had been in disarray since losing 2008 parliamentary elections. It had failed to overtake Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centerright party, People of Freedom, in public opinion polls despite a series of sex 749

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scandals and legal woes that had beset Berlusconi in recent months. [See below] The Democratic Party endured its own sex scandal just before the leadership election. Piero Marrazzo, head of the regional government of Lazio, where Rome, the capital, was located, resigned Oct. 24 after four police officers were arrested on charges of attempting to blackmail him with a video allegedly showing him with a transsexual prostitute. Marrazzo said the video was fake, but he acknowledged that it would be “inappropriate” for him to remain in office. Berlusconi Fraud Trial Set to Resume—

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A court in Milan Oct. 26 scheduled a trial in which Berlusconi faced charges of tax fraud to resume Nov. 16. The case was related to the acquisition of television and film rights by his family’s media company, Mediaset SpA. Italy’s Constitutional Court earlier in October had struck down a law that granted legal immunity to the prime minister, the president and the speakers of both chambers of parliament while they remained in office. Berlusconi’s allies had passed the law shortly after he returned to power in 2008. [See p. 687A1] In a separate trial yet to be scheduled, also related to his business interests, Berlusconi faced charges of bribing British lawyer David Mills to give false testimony. A Milan appeals court Oct. 27 upheld Mills’s conviction for taking about $600,000 in bribes, although it found no evidence that the money came from Berlusconi. Mills’s lawyer said he would appeal the verdict to Italy’s highest court of appeal. Mills had been sentenced to a prison term of four years and six months. In a third case, a judge in Milan agreed to temporarily suspend a 750 million euro ($1.1 billion) fine that Berlusconi’s family holding company, Fininvest SpA, had been ordered to pay to a rival media group, CIR SpA, in a dispute over a takeover battle. Berlusconi had faced a number of criminal prosecutions, but had escaped lasting convictions through acquittals or the statute of limitations. He blamed his legal troubles on left-wing judicial bias. n

Moldova Grenade Attack Injures 40. An Oct. 14 gre-

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nade explosion at a concert in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, injured as many as 40 people. Police attributed the blast to foreign terrorists who sought to destabilize Moldova, which had been without an elected president since April due to a parliamentary stalemate. (Under the Moldovan constitution, the president was elected by the parliament.) Officials Oct. 17 said they had arrested one person in connection with the blast, which occurred on a Moldovan holiday that commemorated the founding of Chisinau. [See p. 666D3] n

Other European News Biden Pledges Support for Eastern Europe.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden Oct. 21– 23 visited Poland, Romania and the Czech 750

Republic, where he affirmed the U.S.’s commitment to democracy in Eastern Europe. Poland Oct. 21 and the Czech Republic Oct. 23 approved a U.S. plan to station components of a missile defense shield in their respective countries. Biden insisted several times during the trip that recent modifications to the defense shield plan— which was first proposed by the previous administration of U.S. President George W. Bush—had not come in response to Russian pressure, as a number of analysts had suggested. [See pp. 705D3, 613A1, 496B2] U.S. President Barack Obama in September had announced the modifications to the defense shield, which was meant to guard against nuclear threats from Iran. Under Obama’s revisions, the shield would protect against short- and medium-range missiles instead of long-range missiles, which U.S. officials had said were less of an immediate threat. Officials had also said a radar station was planned for the Caucasus region. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Sandy Vershbow, speaking Oct. 20 from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, which was located in the heart of the Caucasus, affirmed that components of the shield would be built only in countries that belonged to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The U.S. was currently encouraging Georgia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries to implement reforms so that they could eventually join the organization. Russia was opposed to an eastward expansion of NATO, which it viewed as an encroachment on territory with which it had close historic ties. Biden, speaking Oct. 22 in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, said European Union members in Eastern Europe could “help guide Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine along the path to stability and prosperity.” He added that there was “much work to be done in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.” n

SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan October Deadliest Month for U.S. Forces.

Two roadside bombings Oct. 27 killed eight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, bringing the October U.S. death toll to 54, according to the Web site icasualties.org. That made October the deadliest month for U.S. forces since a U.S.-led military coalition toppled the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban from power in 2001. Two helicopter crashes the previous day had led to the deaths of 14 Americans, although U.S. military officials said the helicopters had not been shot down by Taliban insurgents. [See p. 710F1] The Oct. 27 bombings occurred in the southern province of Kandahar. In one attack, seven U.S. servicemen and an Afghan translator were killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), crude roadside bombs that the Taliban had used to great effectiveness against U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) soldiers. A separate

IED attack was responsible for the eighth

U.S. death. Seven U.S. troops and three civilian agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Oct. 26 had been killed when their helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan. Eleven U.S. troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were injured. The crash followed a raid on a compound reportedly used by drug traffickers, part of a larger strategy to disrupt the revenue the Taliban received through opium sales. More than a dozen Taliban fighters were killed during the raid, according to military officials. The second crash occurred in southern Afghanistan, where two helicopters collided and killed four U.S. soldiers. It was the single deadliest day for U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan since June 2005, when the Taliban killed 16 U.S. troops by shooting down a helicopter. [See 2005, p. 460A2] The spike in U.S. casualties threatened to undermine U.S. public support for the war effort, which had waned in recent months as the Taliban insurgency gained ground. President Barack Obama was currently considering a proposal to send an additional 40,000 troops to the country. In an Oct. 26 speech at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Fla., Obama said the fallen soldiers had sacrificed their lives “to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven” for the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, a Taliban ally that had used the country as a base to plan its Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Obama Oct. 29 was present at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, for the return of the remains of 18 Americans who had been killed in Afghanistan. They included the eight who had died Oct. 27 in Kandahar, and the 10 who had died Oct. 26 when their helicopter crashed in western Afghanistan. Obama, arriving at the base just after midnight, saluted the flag-covered coffins as they were carried out of a C-17 cargo plane. Part of the event was covered by the media, which in February had been given access to such events for the first time since 1991. Afterward, Obama met with families of the victims in private. [See p. 132A1] U.N. Workers Killed in Kabul Attack—A group of at least three gunmen wearing suicide-bomb vests Oct. 28 stormed a guest house used by United Nations employees in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing at least five foreign employees and one Afghan security guard. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and said it was a warning to U.N. workers who were helping the Afghan government prepare for a Nov. 7 presidential runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. The three gunmen were killed during the attack, although the Taliban claimed that a total of five gunmen were involved, and that two had escaped. One U.S. citizen was among the foreigners killed. Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, that day said, “This is a very dark day for the U.N. in Afghanistan,” but vowed that the U.N. would continue to assist in the election and “reconstruct a warFACTS ON FILE

torn country.” However, the attack raised concerns that the U.N. could shut down certain development programs over security fears. The attack came as a surprise, since the U.N. had maintained a presence in Afghanistan for decades, and had rarely been targeted in relatively stable areas like Kabul. There were reports of separate attacks in Kabul that day on another U.N. guest house and the Serena luxury hotel, which often received foreign guests and had been the scene of a Taliban attack in January 2008. No casualties were reported from those attacks. [See 2008, p. 25C3] Election Official Called on to Quit—Abdullah Oct. 26 called for the resignation of the head of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC), Azizullah Lodin, claiming that he was biased in favor of Karzai. The members of the IEC had been appointed by Karzai, and were considered his allies. The IEC had been accused of failing to properly investigate widespread claims of fraud in the August election, the initial results of which showed Karzai winning the simple majority he needed to avoid a runoff. Karzai agreed to disqualify fraudulent votes and enter a runoff only after intense international pressure. Abdullah said Lodin had “no credibility,” and made other demands to ensure that the runoff was free and fair. He called for the dismissal of local election officials, the closing of polling sites that were susceptible to fraud and the suspension of government ministers who had campaigned for Karzai before they were officially allowed to do so. Karzai responded that he would not fire Lodin or suspend the ministers. The continued tension between the two camps raised concerns that the legitimacy of the runoff would be called into question. Both sides Oct. 24–25 had publicly rejected the possibility of a power-sharing arrangement. The New York Times Oct. 28 reported that Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the leader of the Kandahar provincial council, had been receiving regular payments from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2001. In exchange, Ahmed Wali Karzai reportedly helped the CIA create an Afghan paramilitary group, known as the Kandahar Strike Force; rented a compound to CIA officers and U.S. Special Operations forces outside Kandahar city, which used to house Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s leader; and acted as an intermediary between the CIA and insurgents, some of whom the U.S. hoped to persuade to turn against the Taliban. [See p. 594F1] Ahmed Wali Karzai was suspected of profiting greatly from the opium trade and helping rig the August election in favor of his brother. The Times’s revelation made the U.S. vulnerable to accusations that it was not committed to achieving its stated goals of disrupting drug trafficking and helping establish a legitimate Afghan government. Ahmed Wali Karzai denied receiving payments, although he acknowledged aiding the CIA in a variety of ways. October 29, 2009

The Kandahar Strike Force had been involved in the June killing of Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati. The circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear. [See p. 466A2] 10 Population Centers to be Protected—

The Times, citing unidentified U.S. officials, Oct. 28 reported that the Obama administration was considering a strategy that would reduce the U.S. military presence in remote areas in Afghanistan to bolster the protection of 10 heavily populated areas. Under the plan, remote areas that could serve as safe havens for Al Qaeda would be targeted by U.S. Predator drone aircraft and Special Operations forces. The strategy appeared to be a compromise between competing strategies that had emerged during the Obama administration’s weeks-long reassessment of its Afghan policy. One camp reportedly agreed with the conclusions of U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who had called for a broad counterinsurgency strategy that would require a substantial troop increase to protect Afghanistan’s civilian population from the Taliban. The other camp, reportedly led by Vice President Joseph Biden, had argued for a narrower counterterrorism strategy that utilized surgical strikes to defeat Al Qaeda. According to the Times, the administration was now debating how many troops would be needed to execute the compromise strategy. The 10 areas included major cities, vital economic regions and important highways. NATO defense ministers, meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, Oct. 23 endorsed McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy, putting additional pressure on Obama to approve a troop increase. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said there was “broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach.” The meeting was attended by McChrystal and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said he had only been “in listening mode.” It remained to be seen whether the endorsement would have any influence on European NATO members, many of which had long resisted increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. Obama had come under criticism from U.S. Republicans for taking too much time to conduct his reassessment. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in an Oct. 21 speech at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., said Obama had been “dithering” on a troop-level decision. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Oct. 22 responded, “I think it’s pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan,” referring to Cheney. [See p. 566G2] The Washington Post Oct. 27 reported that Matthew Hoh, a State Department official in Afghanistan’s Zabul province, had become the first U.S. official to resign in protest of the war. Hoh in a Sept. 10 resignation letter had said, “I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan.” He said the growing U.S.

presence there had only served to inspire Afghans to join the insurgency. Italy Denies Taliban Payments— Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Oct. 15 dismissed as “completely groundless” a report published earlier that day claiming that Italy had paid the Taliban not to attack Italian forces in the Sarobi district east of Kabul. The report by Britain’s Times newspaper said French forces that replaced Italian troops in Sarobi in July 2008 had been unaware of the payments, and a month later came under an attack that left 10 French soldiers dead. Members of France’s opposition Socialist Party Oct. 16 urged the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy to conduct an investigation into the claims. [See 2008, p. 576F3] n

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UNITED STATES

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Philadelphia Aims for Back-to-Back Titles.

The New York Yankees Oct. 25 beat the Los Angeles Angels, 5–2, at home to win the best-of-seven American League Championship Series (ALCS), four games to two. The Philadelphia Phillies Oct. 21 had defeated the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers, 10–4, to win the National League Championship Series (NLCS), four games to one. The two champions would meet in the World Series. [See p. 690A2] The Phillies, managed by Charlie Manuel, would attempt to win their second straight World Series. In 2008, they had defeated the Tampa Bay Rays, four games to one. [See 2008, p. 799E2] The Yankees, managed by Joe Girardi, had the best regular-season record in Major League Baseball (MLB) in 2009. They reached the World Series for the first time since 2003, when they lost to the Florida Marlins; in 2000, they had won their fourth World Series in five years. [See 2003, p. 859A1] Yankees Outlast Angels—The Yankees Oct. 16 won the first game of the ALCS, 4– 1, in New York City, in the first playoff game in the new Yankee Stadium. Starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia allowed just one run and four hits in eight innings, and veteran closer Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth to earn a save. Angels starter John Lackey took the loss, giving up nine hits and four runs in five and two-thirds innings. In game two Oct. 17, the Yankees bested the Angels, 4–3, in 13 innings at Yankee Stadium. The two teams battled for more than five hours on a chilly night in New York. They were tied, 2–2, after nine innings. The Angels scored a go-ahead run in the top of the 11th, when third baseman Chone Figgins drove in a run with a single. However, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez answered with a solo home run in the bottom of the inning. Then, in the bottom of the 13th, Yankees pinch hitter Jerry Hairston Jr.—in the first postseason at-bat of his 12-year career—singled, and scored the winning run when the Angels 751

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misplayed a ground ball hit by outfielder Melky Cabrera. The series moved to Anaheim, Calif., for games three through five. The Angels Oct. 19 won the third game, 5–4, in 11 innings to gain a foothold in the series. The Yankees led, 3–1, after five innings. The Angels tied the score in the sixth when designated hitter Vladimir Guerrero hit a two-run homer off veteran Yankees starter Andy Pettitte, and took a 4–3 lead in the seventh. The Yankees tied the score again in the eighth on a homer by catcher Jorge Posada. The Angels scored the winning run when second baseman Howie Kendrick singled off Yankees reliever Alfredo Aceves with two out in the bottom of the 11th, and was driven in by a double by catcher Jeff Mathis. The Yankees Oct. 20 defeated the Angels, 10–1, to take a three-games-to-one series lead. Sabathia turned in another strong start, allowing just one run in eight innings. Rodriguez led the Yankees’ offense, with three hits and three runs scored. The Angels Oct. 22 managed to stave off elimination, coming from behind to win, 7–6. The Angels took a 4–0 lead in the first inning off Yankees starter A.J. Burnett. New York rallied for six runs in the seventh, but the Angels scored three in the bottom of that inning to secure the lead. First baseman Kendry Morales drove in the winning run with a single off Yankees reliever Phil Hughes. The Yankees Oct. 25 clinched the series behind a solid start from Pettitte and two runs batted in (RBI) from left fielder Johnny Damon. Pettitte, who had pitched for the Yankees during their 1996–2000 run of four titles in five years, earned his record 16th postseason win, and another veteran of that era, closer Mariano Rivera, earned his record 37th postseason save. Sabathia, who gave up just two runs in 16 innings of work in the series, was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the ALCS. A.L. Division Series Results—The Yankees Oct. 11 beat the Minnesota Twins, 4– 1, in Minneapolis, Minn., to sweep their best-of-five A.L. Division Series (ALDS). It was the last baseball game played in the Metrodome in Minneapolis; the Twins would move to a new outdoor stadium, Target Field, in 2010. (The National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings would continue to use the Metrodome as their home field.) The visiting Angels Oct. 11 defeated the Boston Red Sox, 7–6, to sweep their ALDS. [See 2006, p. 774D2] Phillies Overpower Dodgers—The visiting Phillies Oct. 15 took the opening game of the NLCS, beating the Dodgers, 8–6. Philadelphia scored five runs in the fifth off Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw to take a 5–1 lead. Los Angeles rallied for three runs in the bottom of the inning off Phillies starter Cole Hamels, but the Phillies struck again in the eighth, when left fielder Raul Ibanez hit a three-run homer off Dodgers reliever George Sherrill. Los Angeles rallied again for two runs in the bottom of the eighth, but Phillies closer Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless ninth to earn a save. 752

The Dodgers evened the series at home in game two Oct. 16, winning, 2–1. Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard gave his team the lead with a solo home run in the fourth off Dodgers starter Vicente Padilla. The Phillies held that lead until the eighth, behind a strong performance by starter Pedro Martinez. However, the Phillies self-destructed in the eighth, allowing one run on a throwing error by second baseman Chase Utley and another on a bases-loaded walk by reliever J.A. Happ. Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton pitched a perfect ninth to earn the save. The series moved to Philadelphia for games three through five. The Phillies Oct. 18 routed the Dodgers, 11–0, behind a dominant performance from starter Cliff Lee, who allowed three hits and had 10 strikeouts in eight innings. Howard and center fielder Shane Victorino led the Phillies’ offense with three RBIs each. The Phillies Oct. 19 took a three-gamesto-one series lead, winning, 5–4. The Dodgers took a 4–3 lead into the bottom of the ninth. With Broxton on the mound, Phillies pinch hitter Matt Stairs started the rally by drawing a walk with one out; Stairs was then replaced by pinch runner Eric Bruntlett. Broxton hit the next batter, catcher Carlos Ruiz, to put runners at first and second. Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins then won the game with a two-out, tworun double that drove in Bruntlett and Ruiz. In the clinching fifth game Oct. 21, the Phillies scored six runs in the first four innings off Padilla, and added four more off an ineffective Dodgers bullpen. The Phillies slugged four homers in the game, including two by right fielder Jayson Werth. Howard, who hit .333 with two homers and eight RBIs in the series, was named the MVP of the NLCS. N.L. Division Series Results—The Phillies Oct. 12 won their N.L. Division Series (NLDS), three games to one, with a 5–4 defeat of the Colorado Rockies in Denver. The visiting Dodgers Oct. 10 had defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 5–1, to sweep their NLDS. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Oct. 26 presented its 12th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to comedian and actor Bill Cosby, 72. Cosby had starred in one of the most popular situation comedies in the history of U.S. television, “The Cosby Show,” which ran from 1984 to 1992. Among those joining him at the awards ceremony were Phylicia Rashad, 61, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, 39, who co-starred with him on that show. The previous Twain Prize winner, comedian George Carlin, had died days after being tapped for the award, and had been honored posthumously in November 2008. [See 2008, p. 440G2; 2004, pp. 1011E3, 451D3; 1992, p. 340E2] Classical violinist Aaron Rosand, 82, had sold a violin he had owned since 1957

for a record or near record price of $10 million, the New York Times reported Oct. 22. Rosand declined to identify the buyer, who the Times said was a Russian billionaire. The instrument, which dated to 1741, had been crafted by Italian violin maker Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, who died in 1744. Rosand reportedly donated $1.5 million of the proceeds from the sale to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pa. Rosand had attended that conservatory and was a longtime member of its faculty. [See 2000, p. 580F3; 1998, p. 212C3] n

O B I T UA R I E S KENNEDY, Sir Ludovic (Henry Coverley), 89, British journalist, author and television broadcaster; he devoted much of his career to exposing miscarriages of justice, notably in the case of Timothy Evans, a mentally retarded man wrongly hanged in 1950 for the murder of his wife and child; Kennedy’s book about the case, 10 Rillington Place (1961), was thought to have been instrumental in the 1965 decision to abolish capital punishment in Britain; a film based on that book was released in 1971; Kennedy, who ran unsuccessfully for Parliament several times, was knighted in 1994; from 1950 until her death in 2006, he was married to British ballerina Moira Shearer, the heroine of the classic ballet film The Red Shoes (1948); born Nov. 3, 1919, in Edinburgh, Scotland; died Oct. 18 at a nursing home in Salisbury, England. [See 2006, p. 84G2– E3; 1971, p. 821G3; Indexes 1958, 1950] MANERI, Joe (Joseph Gabriel Esther), 82, jazz musician who played the saxophone and clarinet and was a composer and a master improviser; he explored the realm of microtonal music and helped develop a keyboard in which each octave was divided into 72, rather than 12, notes; he taught for many years at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass.; born Feb. 9, 1927, in New York City; died Aug. 24 at a Boston hospital, of heart failure. MARTINO, Al (born Jasper Cini), 82, singer of romantic ballads who was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s; he was cast as wedding singer Johnny Fontane (said to have been modeled after Frank Sinatra) in Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather (1972) and reprised the role in Coppola’s The Godfather Part III (1990); born Oct. 7, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pa.; died Oct. 13 at his home in Springfield, Pa., of an apparent heart attack. [See 1990, p. 1003B2; 1972, p. 240F2] MIZZY, Vic(tor), 93, composer of film and television music; he was perhaps best known as the creator of the catchy themes for the TV situation comedies “The Addams Family” (1964–66) and “Green Acres” (1965–71); born Jan. 9, 1916, in New York City; died Oct. 17 at his home in Los Angeles, of heart failure. [See 2005, p. 379D3; 1988, p. 724C3] NELSON, Jack (John Howard), 80, investigative reporter who headed the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Los Angeles Times from 1975 to 1996; earlier in his career, as a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for exposing inhumane treatment of patients at a mental hospital in the Atlanta area; he also wrote or collaborated on a number of nonfiction books and appeared frequently on television news programs; born Oct. 11, 1929, in Talladega, Ala.; died Oct. 21 at his home in Bethesda, Md., of pancreatic cancer. [See 1991, p. 339G2; 1976, pp. 800A1, 801A1; Indexes 1971–74, 1965, 1963, 1960] SALES, Soupy (born Milton Supman), 83, comedian, puppeteer and children’s entertainer known for frantic skits that ended with pies being thrown in his face; a mainstay of live U.S. television in the 1960s, he once estimated that he had been hit by more than 25,000 pies during his career; he was a panelist on the TV game show “What’s My Line?’ from 1968 to 1975; born Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, N.C.; died Oct. 22 at a hospice in New York City, to which he had been admitted a week earlier with multiple ailments. [See 2007, p. 272G1] UNRUH, Howard Barton, 88, gunman who shot 13 people to death in Camden, N.J., in 1949, in the U.S.’s most notorious such crime of that era; after his rampage, he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, never went to trial, and was confined to a state psychiatric hospital for the rest of his life; born Jan. 21, 1921, in Haddonfield, N.J.; died Oct. 19 at a nursing home in Trenton, N.J., of natural causes. [See 1959, p. 48F1; 1950, p. 143B; Index 1949] n

October 29, 2009

President Karzai Declared Winner of Afghan Election Ruling Follows Withdrawal of Rival Abdullah.

Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) Nov. 2 declared President Hamid Karzai the winner of an Aug. 20 presidential election, a day after his rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from a runoff contest that was to be held Nov. 7. The announcement ended a months-long dispute over the election, which had been marred by widespread accusations of fraud and had undermined the legitimacy of the government as it battled an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. [See pp. 751B1, 750E2] Prior to the election, Karzai had been widely expected to secure a second fiveyear term with support from his Pashtun base, the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan. However, his popularity nationwide had been badly damaged by rampant government corruption and the deteriorating security situation in the country, which was experiencing its highest levels of violence since a U.S.-led force toppled the Taliban from power in 2001. Initial results showed that Karzai was the runaway winner of the election, but the fraud accusations cast the results into doubt and bolstered the widely held view that Karzai and his government allies were corrupt. Under intense international pressure, Karzai in October agreed to throw out one million tainted votes—about a third of his total—and enter a runoff with Abdullah, the runner-up in the election. However, Abdullah Nov. 1 withdrew from the race after his proposals to ensure a free and fair election were rejected. [See below] Karzai Nov. 3 pledged to tackle corruption, saying, “We will strive, by any means possible, to eradicate this stain.” However, he did not make any specific commitments to reach that goal, and rejected firing corrupt governors and ministers, saying, “We can’t solve the problems by replacing or appointing some people in some posts.” Karzai also promised to create a national unity government that included his political rivals, representatives from different ethnicities and members of the Taliban who were willing to lay down their arms. “Those who want to work with me are most

welcome, regardless of whether they opposed me in the election or whether they supported me,” he said. U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders congratulated Karzai on his victory. Obama Nov. 2 spoke to Karzai on the telephone, and later told reporters that while the election was “messy,” the result was “in accordance with and followed the rules laid down by the Afghan constitution.” Obama called on Karzai to “make a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption,” adding, “The proof is not going to be in words; it’s going to be in deeds.” Doubts about Karzai’s legitimacy posed a major problem for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan, which needed the presence of a legitimate central government to help rally support against the Taliban. The flawed election was a central factor in the Obama administration’s ongoing reassessment of the U.S. strategy in the country, and had delayed a decision on whether to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan. The U.S. and its allies reportedly believed that unless Karzai made a genuine effort to combat corruption, his government could hamper the coalition’s efforts. However, analysts said that by acknowledging Karzai’s victory, the coalition had risked appearing as if it had sided with Karzai at the expense of a fair election. The Taliban Nov. 3 released a statement saying the election “showed that decisions on Afghanistan are made in Washington [D.C.] and London, while the announcements are made in Kabul,” the Afghan capital. Abdullah Says Officials Are ‘Biased’—

Abdullah Nov. 1 announced his withdrawal from the race at a gathering of his supporters in Kabul, saying he had been compelled to do so because the IEC was biased in Karzai’s favor. “Everyone knows it is biased in favor of the incumbent, and the incumbent is misusing resources,” he said. The IEC, whose members were appointed by Karzai, had been accused of failing to investigate fraud claims. Abdullah had demanded the resignation of the IEC chief, Azizullah Lodin, and other allegedly corrupt officials, as well as the closing of poll-

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3594* November 5, 2009

B ing stations vulnerable to fraud. Karzai had reportedly refused to meet Abdullah’s demands in behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two sides. However, Abdullah said the “door should be open” to his cooperating with Karzai’s government. He did not urge his supporters, the bulk of whom were ethnic Tajiks, to boycott the election. He also called on them to refrain from violence, easing concerns that his withdrawal could lead to ethnic unrest. Kai Eide, the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, praised Abdullah for quelling potential violence, saying he had behaved in a “statesmanlike” manner. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hoped that Abdullah would “stay engaged in the national dialogue.” However, David Axelrod, a White House senior adviser, downplayed the impact that the

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE President Karzai declared winner of Afghan election; ruling follows withdrawal of rival Abdullah. PAGE 753

Palestinians blast U.S. Secretary of State Clinton over settlements. PAGE 754

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Republicans win New Jersey, Virginia gubernatorial elections; Democrat wins New York congressional race. PAGE 755

Army doctor kills 13 in shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas; gunman was being deployed to Afghanistan. PAGE 757

Photos: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Ford posts $997 million 3rd quarter profit. PAGE 757

U.S. unveils Sudan policy shift.

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GM cancels sale of European units. PAGE 765

Iranian opposition protests disrupt anti-U.S. rally. PAGE 767

New York Yankees defeat Philadelphia Phillies to win 27th World Series title. PAGE 770

French anthropologist Claude LeviStrauss dies at 100. PAGE 772

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s opponent in Afghanistan’s presidential election, announcing his withdrawal Nov. 1.

*First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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withdrawal would have on the election’s legitimacy in a Nov. 1 interview with the U.S.’s CBS television network, saying, “Every poll that had been taken there suggested that he was likely to be defeated anyway, so we are going to deal with the government that is there.” The IEC Nov. 2 canceled the runoff, saying there was no point in holding it if there was only one candidate running. The cancellation was reportedly met with relief by the NATO coalition and the U.N., which had helped organized the runoff. There were concerns that the Taliban would target voters and U.N. workers, who had come under attack the previous week when armed gunmen stormed a U.N. guest house in Kabul. Abdullah Nov. 4 said Karzai’s election was “illegal,” but that he would not challenge the result. [See p. 750E3] United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, during a Nov. 2 visit to Kabul, said the U.N. would continue to provide “every support and assistance to the new government.” However, the U.N. Nov. 5 announced that it was temporarily relocating some 600 foreign employees in Afghanistan over security concerns. Five British Troops Killed by Policeman—

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British military officials Nov. 4 said a “rogue” Afghan police officer had killed five British troops the previous day in the southern province of Helmand. The officer reportedly opened fire on the troops as a joint British-Afghan force visited a checkpoint. The incident brought the British death toll to 92 in 2009, the deadliest year for British troops in Afghanistan since 2001. The infiltration of Afghan security forces by Taliban insurgents had become a concern for NATO forces. An Afghan police officer had killed two U.S. soldiers the previous month in the eastern province of Wardak. [See p. 674D2] n

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Palestinian and Arab officials Oct. 31– Nov. 2 rejected U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s efforts to persuade the Palestinian Authority (PA) to reopen direct peace talks with Israel, after Clinton Oct. 31 seemed to back away from a U.S. demand that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank. Clinton was at the tail end of a weeklong trip that included stops in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel, Morocco and Egypt. [See pp. 769C2, 730A2] Clinton Oct. 31 met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, and later that day held a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Afterward, Clinton said Netanyahu had offered “unprecedented” concessions on settlement construction, and urged Palestinians to take part in talks “without preconditions” with Israel. Netanyahu said, “I think the place to resolve differences of opinion is around the negotiating table,” and added, “We are prepared to start peace talks immediately.”

Clinton repeated the stance of the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama that “all settlement activity” must stop, but her opposition to Israeli settlements was seen as being weaker than what the Obama administration had previously articulated. Clinton then relayed Netanyahu’s offer to Palestinian officials. Saeb Erekat, the lead Palestinian negotiator, said that while Netanyahu had offered to restrain settlement activity in the West Bank, some 3,000 housing units already under construction would be excluded from the restrictions, as would all activity in East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and which Palestinians wanted as the capital of a future Palestinian state. He claimed that the U.S. had said it was the “best they can get” from Netanyahu, but that it did not meet the PA’s condition that all settlement activity stop before talks began, and therefore the PA would not participate in talks with Israel. Palestinian criticism of Clinton’s comments continued Nov. 1, with an Abbas spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, saying that the peace process was “in a state of paralysis” due to “Israel’s intransigence and America’s backpedaling.” The same day, Egypt and Jordan issued statements backing the PA’s stance. Clinton Nov. 2 attended a conference of Middle Eastern and North African foreign ministers in Marrakesh, Morocco. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Clinton’s statements had been a “slap in the face” to Palestinians, and added, “President Obama said something totally different than what she said. We have to ask her: Does she really think this is an acceptable thing?” Clinton in Marrakesh seemed to amend her previous statement, and other U.S. officials indicated that she had misspoken. Clinton said, “As the president has said on many occasions, the U.S. does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” However, she added that while the Israeli offer on settlements “falls far short” of U.S. demands, she would “offer positive reinforcement to the parties when I believe they are taking steps that support the objective of reaching a two-state solution,” even if those steps were less than ideal. Clinton Nov. 3 made a previously unscheduled stop in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, one of the key players in IsraeliPalestinian negotiations. She returned to the U.S. Nov. 4. Abbas Will Not Seek Reelection—Abbas Nov. 5 in a surprise televised address from his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah announced that he had “no desire to run” for reelection as president of the PA. Abbas said his decision was made because of his dismay that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was deadlocked, although he said he believed peace with Israel was “still possible.” Abbas had been elected in 2005, and was regarded as a moderate. He did not say whether he would

step down before elections scheduled for January 2010. [See p. 545A3] Abbas said, “This decision does not at all amount to bargaining or political maneuvering.” However, some of his aides reported said it might nonetheless be a negotiating gambit. Abbas Oct. 23 had announced that elections would be held Jan. 24, 2010. However, analysts expected that they would be delayed, because they required a reconciliation between the PA, which controlled the West Bank, and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the Gaza Strip. Hamas, which had won the last elections in 2006, had said it would prohibit voting in the Gaza Strip in the absence of a new understanding with the PA. [See 2006, p. 41A1] Other News—In other Israeli-Palestinian news: o Israel’s military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Nov. 3 said Hamas had successfully test-fired an Iranianmade rocket that had a range of 37 miles (60 km), putting Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest urban center, at risk of attack. Hamas’s previous rockets could fly up to 25 miles. [See p. 690B1] o London-based human rights group Amnesty International Oct. 27 reported that Israel was denying Palestinians in the West Bank access to adequate water supplies, and that in the Gaza Strip the situation had reached a “crisis point.” The report said Israel had blocked water infrastructure projects and pumped a disproportionate amount of water from the aquifer under the West Bank. The Israeli government denied the charges and said it was providing more water to Palestinians

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than was required under the 1993 Oslo peace accords. [See p. 614B2] o Israeli riot police Oct. 25 used stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Palestinian protesters at a holy site revered by both Jews and Muslims in the Old City of East Jerusalem. They arrested at least 18 Palestinians at the site, a complex known as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, to Muslims, and as the Temple Mount to Jews. There had been previous clashes between police and Palestinian protesters at the site Oct. 9 and in September. [See p. 689D3] o Israeli officials Oct. 15 criticized Turkey after a new series on Turkish stateowned television Oct. 14 showed dramatized scenes depicting Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian children. Netanyahu said he was “disappointed by the incitement on Turkish television,” and Israeli officials summoned Turkey’s acting ambassador, Ceylan Ozen, to protest. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Oct. 16 responded by criticizing the “tragedy in Gaza” caused by Israel. Relations between Turkey and Israel had been deteriorating, and Turkey in October had excluded Israel from planned North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exercises, causing them to be canceled. [See p. 696E2] n

Other International News Merkel Visits U.S., Addresses Congress.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Nov. 3 visited Washington, D.C., meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House and addressing a joint session of Congress. Merkel had been sworn in for her second four-year term the previous week, after her center-right coalition won parliamentary elections in September. [See pp. 749C2, 386C1] Merkel became the first German leader to address the U.S. Congress since West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1957. In her speech, Merkel, a native of East Germany, marked the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. She expressed thanks to the U.S. for supporting West Germany during the Cold War, saying, “Twenty years ago, even traveling to the U.S., let alone standing here today, would have been beyond my imagination.” Merkel drew a standing ovation from Congress when she delivered a warning to Iran over its nuclear program. She said, “Zero tolerance needs to be shown when there is a risk of weapons of mass destruction falling, for example, into the hands of Iran and threatening our security.” [See p. 768B2] She said such a scenario was especially unacceptable because Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had denied the Holocaust and threatened Israel with destruction. Merkel also called for united action in response to climate change, but drew a more mixed reaction, with Democrats rising to applaud while Republicans stayed seated. [See p. 742F3] n November 5, 2009

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Republicans Win New Jersey, Virginia Gubernatorial Elections; Democrat Wins New York Congressional Race GOP Trumpets Resurgence in Off-Year Races.

Republicans Nov. 3 won gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, taking back control of both states from the Democrats. The results were seen as a setback for Democratic President Barack Obama, in the first major contests since his victory in the presidential election a year earlier. [See p. 716F2] Republicans said their New Jersey and Virginia victories were a rebuke to Obama’s liberal policies, and a sign of their party’s resurgence ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, in which the Democrats would be defending their congressional majorities. The White House downplayed the Democratic losses, attributing them to local issues. However, the nationwide recession of the past two years was widely seen as a dominant issue in both races. In heavily Democratic New Jersey, former federal prosecutor Christopher Christie (R) ousted incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D). Christie took 49% of the vote, to 44% for Corzine. Independent candidate Christopher Daggett, a former state and federal environmental official, came in third with 5%, making less of an impact than expected. In Virginia, former state Attorney General Robert McDonnell (R) beat Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds, 59% to 41%. In each state, exit polls showed that the Republican candidate won a majority of independent voters, whose support had been key to Obama’s victory in 2008. Also, many of the younger and minority voters who backed Obama in 2008 did not turn out to vote for either Corzine or Deeds. National polls in recent months had shown that a growing percentage of independents disapproved of Obama’s policies, such as his push for health care reform, and were concerned about the growth of the federal deficit. [See pp. 740A3, 713A1] The results of the two elections left Democrats with 26 state governorships and Republicans with 24. In another closely watched race, Democratic lawyer Bill Owens won a special election for a House seat in upstate New York, beating Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. The race drew attention to nationwide divisions among Republicans, who had held the seat for more than a century. Conservatives pressured the party’s moderate candidate, Dede Scozzafava, to withdraw just three days before the election and clear the field for Hoffman. [See p. 755F3] Obama Support Failed to Save Corzine—

Obama had visited New Jersey three times in recent days to campaign for Corzine, most recently on Nov. 1 for rallies in Newark and Camden, and White House staff reportedly advised Corzine’s campaign. Obama had won New Jersey’s presidential vote by 15 percentage points in 2008. But his assistance could not rescue the unpopu-

lar governor, who had raised taxes and cut spending to balance the state budget. Corzine, a former cochairman of banking company Goldman Sachs Group Inc., spent at least $23 million on the race, mostly his own money. Christie was outspent by nearly three to one and faced a barrage of negative advertisements from Corzine. Corzine, 62, tried to paint Christie, 47, as a conservative in the mold of former President George W. Bush, who had appointed Christie as U.S. attorney in New Jersey. Christie blamed Corzine for New Jersey’s economic problems, including rising unemployment and the nation’s highest property taxes. Christie also pledged to clean up the state’s persistent political corruption. As U.S. attorney, he had led crackdowns that resulted in the arrests and convictions of dozens of political figures.

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McDonnell Avoided Social Issues in Va.—

McDonnell, 55, was known as a social conservative from his record in the Virginia legislature, but steered his campaign away from divisive issues such as abortion. Instead, he focused on economic issues, including jobs, taxes and transportation infrastructure, in a bid to win over moderate voters in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Deeds, 51, failed to gain much traction by claiming that McDonnell had a secret plan to impose conservative social values on the state. Obama campaigned twice for Deeds in Virginia, but intervened less energetically in that race than in New Jersey, after McDonnell opened a wide lead in the polls. Days before the election, White House aides had criticized Deeds for running a lackluster campaign, and for attempting to distance himself from Obama, who had been the first Democrat to win the state’s presidential vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Deeds waited until the last days of the race to make a direct appeal to Obama supporters. Republicans swept Virginia’s statewide elections, also winning the races for attorney general and lieutenant governor. Incumbent Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, who was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was barred by law from seeking a second term. Kaine and his Democratic predecessor, Sen. Mark Warner, had held the governorship for the past eight years. n

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Democrat Wins N.Y. Seat After GOP Infighting.

In a special election for a House seat representing New York State’s 23rd Congressional District, in the far north of the state, lawyer Bill Owens (D) Nov. 3 beat the Conservative Party candidate, accountant Doug Hoffman. With most precincts reporting, Owens won 49% of the vote, to 45% for Hoffman. The seat, held by Republicans for nearly 120 years, had been left vacant when nine-term Rep. John McHugh (R) resigned in September to be755

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come Army secretary in the Obama administration. [See pp. 755A1, 656G1] The Republican nominee, state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, Oct. 31 had withdrawn from the race, after facing heavy criticism from conservatives over her relatively liberal views. She then crossed party lines to endorse Owens the next day, in a move reportedly engineered by the White House. Prominent Republican leaders and conservative commentators had argued over whether Scozzafava was too much of a moderate, in what was seen as part of a nationwide debate over the future of the Republican Party. [See pp. 639C1, 353A2] High-profile conservatives, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (Texas) and the Club for Growth, an antitax group, had weighed in on the race. They criticized Scozzafava for supporting gay rights and abortion rights, as well as her ties to labor unions and support for Obama’s economic stimulus spending. They argued that the party should stand for uncompromising conservative principles, and endorsed Hoffman. But Scozzafava’s supporters, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R, Ga.), warned that rejecting unorthodox candidates like her would narrow the party’s appeal, driving away moderate and independent voters. The outcome of the election continued a trend of Republican losses of congressional seats in the Northeast. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the party’s other national arms had supported Scozzafava after she was nominated by the party’s county chairmen in the district. But the RNC switched its endorsement to Hoffman immediately after she withdrew. Vice President Joseph Biden Nov. 2 campaigned for Owens in Watertown, making an appeal to moderate Republicans to “join us in teaching a lesson to absolutists.” Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R, Tenn.) campaigned for Hoffman that day. Despite her withdrawal, Scozzafava’s name appeared on the previously printed ballots, and she won 6% of the vote. Democrat Wins Open Calif. House Seat—

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California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) Nov. 3 won a special election for a House seat representing the state’s 10th Congressional District, east of San Francisco. Garamendi took 53% of the vote, beating Republican businessman David Harmer and the nominees of three smaller parties. He was sworn in Nov. 5. Seven-term Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D) had vacated the seat in June, upon her Senate confirmation as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. [See p. 585D1] n Maine Voters Reject Gay Marriage Law.

Voters in Maine Nov. 3 approved a ballot initiative to repeal a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry. The measure was approved with 53% of the vote. The enactment of the law in May had made Maine the fifth state to legalize 756

gay marriage, but the change was suspended while conservatives campaigned to put the issue to a referendum. [See pp. 698C3, 304A1] The law’s rejection by voters made Maine the 31st state to bar gay marriage in a referendum. The outcome so far had been the same in every state where the issue had been put to a popular vote. The five other states that had legalized gay marriage— Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Iowa—had all done so either by court rulings or legislation. The National Organization for Marriage, a conservative group, spent about $1 million to rally opposition to the Maine law. In 2008, the group had led a successful referendum campaign in California to overturn a ruling by the state Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. But gay marriage supporters had a major financing advantage in the Maine referendum campaign, as well as the backing of Gov. John Baldacci (D), who had signed the law. Meanwhile, in Washington State, voters appeared to have approved a measure upholding a new domestic partnership law that granted same-sex couples all of the same rights as married couples. With votes still being counted, the measure had nearly 52%. Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) had signed the law in May. Other Results—In other notable ballot initiatives: o Voters in Maine approved a measure to allow medical marijuana dispensaries, becoming the fifth state to do so, along with California, Colorado, New Mexico and Rhode Island. [See p. 719G3] o Ohio voters approved a measure to allow casinos in the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. Backers of the measure, approved by about 53% of the vote, said it would raise $650 million in annual revenue for the state, local governments and school districts. n Bloomberg Narrowly Wins 3rd Term in NYC.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) Nov. 3 won a third term, defeating the Democratic candidate, city Comptroller Bill Thompson, by an unexpectedly narrow margin, 50.6% to 46%. Bloomberg, a billionaire media magnate, had spent more than $90 million of his own money on the race, setting a new U.S. record for personal spending on a political campaign. But his margin of victory was little more than 50,000 votes, out of more than one million cast. In another sign of public discontent, turnout was only about 26% of registered voters. [See p. 755A2; 2008, p. 788C3; 2005, p. 798C2] Bloomberg, 67, had enjoyed high public approval ratings. But he had made a widely unpopular move in 2008, when he pushed the City Council to overturn a two-term limit for city officeholders, allowing him to run for another four-year term. Voters had approved the term limit in referendums in 1993 and 1996. Bloomberg became the fourth New York mayor to win a third term, and the first since Edward Koch (D) in 1985.

During the campaign, Thompson had repeatedly attacked Bloomberg for overturning the term limit, accusing him of trampling on the will of the voters. But Bloomberg’s massive financing advantage allowed him to drown out Thompson’s message with a flood of advertising. Bloomberg’s fortune was estimated at about $16 billion, making him the richest resident of the city, according to Forbes magazine. He outspent Thompson by at least 14 to 1. But his unofficial total of 557,059 votes was the lowest of any winner in a New York mayoral election since 1917. His spending worked out to about $200 per vote. Most pre-election polls had shown Bloomberg with a more commanding lead. The unexpectedly close finish led to recriminations among some Democrats for their failure to mount a stronger campaign. The party’s biggest name, President Barack Obama, had given a late and lukewarm endorsement to Thompson, a fellow black Democrat, and did not visit the city to campaign for him. Despite a five-to-one Democratic voter registration advantage in the city, no Democrat had won a mayoral election since David Dinkins in 1989. Bloomberg had run as a Republican in 2001 and 2005, but switched his registration to independent in 2007, while considering a presidential bid. However, he ran on both the Republican and Independence Party ballot lines Nov. 3, taking nearly 75% of his votes on the former. Other Results—In other Nov. 3 mayoral elections: o In Atlanta, Ga., City Council member Mary Norwood (I) and former state Sen. Kasim Reed (D) advanced to a Dec. 1 runoff, since neither cleared 50% of the vote in a six-way contest. Norwood took 45%, to 38% for Reed. If she won the runoff, Norwood would become Atlanta’s first white mayor since 1973. o In Boston, Mass., Mayor Thomas Menino (D) won a record fifth term. o In Detroit, Mich., incumbent Mayor Dave Bing (D) won 58% of the vote to earn his first full term. Bing, a former Detroit Pistons basketball star, had won a special election in May to replace Kwame Kilpatrick (D), who was forced from office in a corruption scandal. [See p. 306A3] o In Houston, Texas, Comptroller Annise Parker and former City Attorney Gene Locke, both Democrats, advanced to a runoff. If Parker prevailed, she would become the first openly homosexual female mayor of a major U.S. city. o In Miami, Fla., Cuban-born Tomas Regalado beat a fellow Republican city commissioner, Joe Sanchez, 72% to 28%. o In Pittsburgh, Pa., incumbent Mayor Luke Ravensthal (D), the U.S.’s youngest big city mayor, won his first full term, after winning a special election in 2007. Ravensthal, 29, beat Franco Dok Harris (I), son of former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris, a member of the National Football League’s Hall of Fame. FACTS ON FILE

2010 Elections S.F. Mayor Drops California Governor Bid.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) Oct. 30 announced that he was dropping out of the 2010 California gubernatorial race. Newsom, 42, had trailed in public opinion polls and fund-raising behind his main rival for the Democratic nomination, state Attorney General Jerry Brown, 71. Brown, a former two-term governor, had not yet formally entered the race, seven months before the primary election. [See p. 639E3] The field vying for the Republican gubernatorial nomination included Meg Whitman, former chief executive of Internet auction company eBay Inc.; state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner; and former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was barred by law from seeking a third term Fiorina Enters Senate Race—Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Palo Alto, Calif.–based computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co., Nov. 4 announced that she was running for the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) in 2010. Boxer, 68, was seeking a fourth term. Fiorina, 54, had delayed her campaign while recovering from chemotherapy for breast cancer. She would face conservative state Assembly member Chuck DeVore, 47, in the GOP primary. [See 2006, p. 1007A3] n

Army Doctor Held in Shooting at Fort Hood, Texas; 13 Killed Gunman Was Being Deployed to Afghanistan.

An Army psychiatrist Nov. 5 opened fire on military personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding at least 28 others before he was shot by emergency responders, according to police. The suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was hospitalized and reportedly was in stable condition. The incident was one of the worst mass shootings to occur at a military base in the U.S. [See pp. 753A1, 720G3, 554A2] Hasan was reportedly distressed about his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan, which would have been his first overseas posting. Fort Hood’s top military commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, said the shooting was probably not an act of terrorism, although that had not been ruled out. According to Army officials, Hasan opened fire on people gathered in a crowded soldier readiness facility, where soldiers awaiting or returning from overseas deNovember 5, 2009

ployments were waiting to see doctors. The dead included 12 military service members and one civilian. The base was locked down, and military personnel secured areas including a nearby auditorium full of soldiers graduating from college. Armed police responded as the shooting continued, and a civilian police officer, Kimberly Munley, shot Hasan four times; Munley was also wounded in the exchange. (Initial reports had erroneously said both Hasan and Munley were killed.) Hasan was hospitalized off the base, and placed under guard. Hasan reportedly used two pistols, including one semiautomatic pistol. Military personnel on the base were authorized to keep registered personal weapons, although it was not known if Hasan’s pistols were registered. Service members on the base generally went unarmed. President Barack Obama in a televised address called the shootings “a horrific outburst of violence,” and promised “to get answers to every single question about this horrible incident.” He added, “It is difficult enough when we lose these men and women in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.” Fort Hood was the largest active duty military post in the U.S., with some 50,000 service members and 150,000 family members and civilian personnel. It was a major hub for troops deploying to or returning from military service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fort Hood was 100 miles (160 km) south of Dallas-Fort Worth, and near the town of Killeen; Killeen in 1991 had been the site of the worst mass shooting in the U.S. at that point, in which a gunman killed 22 people at a cafeteria and then himself. [See 1991, p. 778A2] Shooter’s Motives Probed—Hasan, 39, had been born in Arlington, Va., to Palestinian immigrant parents, and was single. Media reports said he was a devout Muslim, but had listed “no religious preference” on his military records. Hasan in 1995 had joined the Army, which put him through medical school. Coworkers and family members said he thought the U.S. should not be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had unsuccessfully sought a military discharge for several years after being harassed for his ethnicity and Muslim faith. They said he had been deeply affected by the horrific injuries and mental trauma suffered there by soldiers he treated for combat-related mental problems at Washington, D.C.’s Walter Reed Medical Center, and then at Fort Hood after he was transferred there in July. The Associated Press (AP) Nov. 5 reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had become aware of Hasan months earlier after they found Internet postings under the screen name “NidalHasan” expressing admiration for suicide bombers. However, Hasan had not been definitively linked to the screen name. Cone said that according to some witnesses, Hasan had shouted “Allahu akbar”—Arabic for “God is great”—during

AP Photo/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

o In Seattle, Wash., the mayoral election was undecided as of Nov. 5, with vote counting still underway. Mike McGinn (D), a lawyer and environmental activist, held a lead of 515 votes over Joe Mallahan (D), a former executive at cellular telephone company TMobile, out of a total of more than 100,000 counted so far. McGinn’s lead had narrowed from 910 votes in the initial count Nov. 3. A recount would be required if the final margin was less than 2,000 votes and 0.5% of the total. n

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Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 13 people and wounding 28 others in a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5.

the shooting, but other Army officials said they could not confirm that. Two U.S. Muslim groups, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued statements condemning the attack. n

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Automobiles Ford Posts $997 Million 3rd Quarter Profit.

Dearborn, Mich.–based Ford Motor Co. Nov. 2 unexpectedly posted a net profit of $997 million for the third quarter of 2009. Ford cited major cost-cutting initiatives and the introduction of new, more desirable vehicle models for its third-quarter performance. It was the first time Ford had made a profit in North America since 2005. [See p. 586C1] Some observers suggested that Ford’s rebound was partially due to consumer aversion to Michigan-based automakers Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. (GM), which together had received at least $77.9 billion in government loans since 2008, and undergone governmentmandated bankruptcy restructuring. Ford was the only one of the three Michiganbased automakers that did not accept government loans in order to survive the dramatic decline in auto sales that accompanied a deep U.S. recession that became apparent in late 2008. Officials at Ford said they expected the automaker to become “solidly profitable” in 2011. The company in recent years had cut costs by streamlining operations, selling off or discontinuing vehicle brands, closing plants and slashing jobs. Since 2005, Ford had cut about 50,000 positions and closed 17 plants. Despite the profitable performance, Ford was still saddled with debts totaling $26.9 billion. (GM and Chrysler had been able to shed similar debts in bankruptcy court.) Ford’s debt was expected to increase after it made scheduled payments of up to $8 billion into a trust for retiree health care. Executives said Ford would attempt to raise cash through convertible debt offerings and share sales. 757

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UAW Rejects Contract Modifications—

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About 41,000 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union at Ford had rejected contract modifications that would have frozen the pay of newly hired employees and barred the union from going on strike in order to demand higher pay and benefits until 2015, it was reported Oct. 31. The modifications, which the UAW’s leadership had supported, also would have combined certain job classifications, making it easier for Ford to transfer workers. The proposed modifications would not bar union members from striking in protest of wage or benefit cuts. [See p. 184C1] Ford had argued that the concessions were needed to bring the company’s costs in line with those of GM and Chrysler, and would have saved the company about $500 million per year. In return for the proposed concessions, Ford offered to pay each worker a $1,000 bonus in 2010. However, many workers were reportedly unwilling to accept concessions at a time when Ford was returning to profitability. Ford’s unionized workers had already approved a separate concessions package in March. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger Oct. 30 said he would not seek a revote if workers rejected the concessions package. The vote to reject the package would allow Ford to contract some work to other companies, including ones outside the U.S. The current UAW contract at Ford was set to expire in 2011. Canadian Workers Approve Contract—

Ford’s unionized workers in Canada had overwhelmingly approved a concessions package similar to the one U.S. workers rejected, it was reported Oct. 31. Under the contract modifications, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, which represented about 7,000 Ford employees, agreed to a wage freeze for new workers and the elimination of cost-of-living wage increases and two weeks’ paid vacation. Workers also agreed to introduce a monthly payment of $30 per person to cover some health care expenses. [See p. 283A2] In return, Ford had reportedly agreed to manufacture at least as many cars in Canada as it sold there, and to introduce new vehicle models at a plant in Oakville, Ontario. The CAW’s current contract expired in 2012. n U.S. Unlikely to Recover Auto Loans in Full.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, in a report released Nov. 2 said the U.S. Treasury was “unlikely to recover the entirety of its investment” in Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. (GM), “given that the companies’ values would have to grow substantially above what they have been in the past.” Since 2008, the government had injected $77.9 billion into GM and Chrysler to keep them operating, and ultimately forced both companies into bankruptcy proceedings. After bankruptcy restructuring, the government owned 61% of GM and 10% of Chrysler. [See below, pp. 475F1, 385A1] The GAO report estimated that the companies together would need to reach a market value of about $121.7 billion in order 758

for the Treasury to break even on its investment. That figure represented about 30% more than the companies had been worth in 1999. It also did not include $6.4 billion released to the automakers before they declared bankruptcy, which the GAO report assumed would never be repaid. Because Chrysler and GM were no longer publicly traded companies, it was impossible to assess their current market valuation. The GAO also expressed concern that many investment bankers, equity analysts and other experts who had advised the government on its auto loan programs had since left their government positions and had yet to be replaced. The GAO said, “Treasury will need to ensure these staff and any staff that depart in the future are replaced as needed with similarly qualified personnel.” The government had said it was working toward issuing GM shares in an initial public offering sometime in 2010, and would sell its stake in Chrysler later that year. The GAO report also revealed that the administration of President Barack Obama, which had maintained that it did not want to interfere with the automakers’ day-today operations, had imposed production requirements on both companies. The requirements on GM were more flexible than those imposed on Chrysler, which was considered the most troubled of the three Michigan-based automakers. (Dearborn, Mich.–based Ford Motor Co. had not taken government loans.) [See p. 757C3] Other News—In other automotive industry news: o Chrysler Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sergio Marchionne and other top Chrysler executives Nov. 4 laid out details of Chrysler’s future business plans. They emphasized plans to retool Chrysler brands to incorporate fuel-efficient technology from Italy’s Fiat SpA, with which Chrysler had merged as part of its bankruptcy restructuring. (Marchionne was also the CEO of Fiat.) Chrysler Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer said the automaker would return to profitability by 2011, and planned to repay all government loans by 2014. Marchionne said at the close of September, Chrysler had $5.7 billion in cash on hand, up from $4 billion in June, when it had exited bankruptcy. He added that the automaker had broken even in September. o GM, in a Nov. 2 regulatory filing, said the government had granted it permission to use $2.8 billion in borrowed funds to acquire a stake in Delphi Holdings LLP, the automaker’s former parts division. Delphi, which GM had spun off in 1999, had filed for bankruptcy in 2005, and emerged from bankruptcy proceedings in October. The $2.8 billion earmarked for Delphi was deducted from an escrow account, which had been created in July to hold funds left over from the $30 billion GM had received from the government after its bankruptcy filing in June. GM said that after the withdrawal, about $13.6 billion remained in the account. [See p. 679B2]

o Ford Oct. 13 announced the recall of 4.5 million vehicles over a malfunctioning cruise control switch that could lead to fires. Since 1999, Ford had recalled 14.3 million vehicles on eight separate occasions due to the same problem. [See 2007, p. 511F2] o GM and China-based Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Oct. 9 said they had sealed an agreement under which GM would sell its Hummer brand to Tengzhong. Tengzhong was thought to have paid $150 million for the brand’s dealer network and rights to build Hummers beginning in 2012. Tengzhong would reportedly own 80% of Hummer, and the remaining 20% would belong to Suolang Duoji, head of China-based Lumena Resources Corp., a company that produced thenardite, a mineral used for glassmaking and in detergents. The sale was subject to approval by both the U.S. and Chinese governments. Hummer sales were down by 64% so far in 2009, compared with the corresponding period a year earlier. [See p. 475C3] o Chrysler Oct. 5 announced that Peter Fong, head of its Chrysler brand, and Michael Accavitti, head of the Dodge brand, had left the company. The executives stepped down less than four months after they had been promoted to those positions by Marchionne. James Press, Chrysler’s deputy chief executive and one of the only pre-bankruptcy Chrysler executives to receive a position in the “new” Chrysler that emerged after the company’s restructuring, was also reportedly expected to leave the company. n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Lender CIT Group Files for Bankruptcy. New York City–based CIT Group Inc., one

of the U.S.’s largest lenders to small- and medium-sized businesses, Nov. 1 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. CIT Group had relied heavily on short-term loans to finance its operations, and found itself saddled with billions of dollars of debt when a severe credit crisis struck financial markets in 2008. [See p. 491A1] CIT Group, which listed $71 billion in assets and $65 billion in liabilities, would undergo a “prepackaged” bankruptcy, which meant that its bondholders had already determined how to restructure the company. Under the plan, which had been approved by 90% of voting bondholders, each bondholder would receive 70 cents for every dollar that CIT Group owed. The payout would come in the form of new debt and stock, which would make the bondholders the new owners of CIT Group. CIT Group said it expected to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of 2009, with its $30 billion in unsecured debt reduced by $10 billion. Investors that held common or preferred stock in CIT Group were likely to see their investments wiped out. That included the government, which had bought $2.3 billion in preferred stock in December 2008 to help keep the company afloat. The governFACTS ON FILE

November Financial Update (Close of trading Nov. 2 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average

9,789.44

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

1,042.88 2,049.20 5,104.50

Tokyo Stock Exchange

9,802.95

(see box, p. 759A3)

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei index)

Toronto Stock Exchange

(S&P/TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

10,878.35 0.90% 0.05% $0.9036 $1.6397 $0.9277 $1.4766 90.35 13.2258 $0.9782

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$1,059.50

Silver (per troy oz.)

$16.5800

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Oct. 25)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

$78.13 $2.66 $5.0400

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

-1.3%

Unemployment rate

9.8%

Gross domestic product growth

3.5%

(consumer price index 12-month change through September 2009; see p. 700A1) (September 2009; see p. 676A1) (annualized third-quarter 2009 rate, advance report; see p. 739A3)

Prime rate

3.25%

ment in July rejected CIT Group’s request for additional assistance, and since then CIT Group had unsuccessfully tried to launch a debt-exchange program to relieve its debt load. CIT Group was the first financial institution to fail after having received a government bailout in the current financial crisis. Most of CIT’s operating units would remain open for business, including its factoring operation, which provided businesses with financing by purchasing, at a discount, the debts owed to them. CIT Group provided financing to some one million companies, and its bankruptcy was considered to be one of the largest in U.S. history. n

Economy Fed Leaves Interest Rate Target Near Zero. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Feder-

al Reserve, Nov. 4 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federal-funds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed that day said economic activity had “continued to pick up” since the FOMC held its last policymaking meeting in September, but that the economy was “likely to remain weak for a time” as it emerged from a deep recession. [See p. 640A1] November 5, 2009

The Fed said the housing market had improved in recent months, but that consumer spending had been “constrained by ongoing job losses.” The unemployment rate in September had reached 9.8%. The Fed said it expected inflation “to remain subdued for some time,” easing concerns that its low interest rate could encourage upward pressures on prices. The Fed said the interest rate would remain “exceptionally low” for an “extended period.” The Fed said it would buy a total of $175 billion in debt issued by the government-controlled mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, $25 billion less than it had previously announced, due to the “limited availability” of new debt issued by the companies. The program was part of a larger initiative to keep interest rates on mortgages and other loans low. The Fed had completed a $300 billion purchase of Treasury securities in October, and would conclude a $1.25 trillion purchase of mortgage-backed securities by March 2010. n Consumer Confidence Fell in October.

The Conference Board business research group Oct. 27 reported that its index of consumer confidence fell to 47.7 in October, down from its level of 53.4 in September. The Conference Board said the drop largely stemmed from weakness in the labor market; the unemployment rate in September had reached 9.8%. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See pp. 676A1, 657A2] n Leading Indicators Rose 1.0% in September.

The Conference Board business research organization Oct. 22 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 1.0% in September, to 103.5. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.4% in August, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 657B2] Eight of the 10 indicators in September were “positive” contributors, led by interest rate spread and index of consumer expectations. Two indicators—average weekly manufacturing hours and building permits—were “negative.” n

Mergers & Acquisitions Berkshire Hathaway Buys Railroad Operator.

Omaha, Neb.–based holding company Berkshire Hathaway Corp. Nov. 3 announced that it would buy the 77% of Forth Worth, Texas–based railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. that it did not already own for $26.3 billion in cash and stock. The deal valued Burlington, the country’s largest railroad operator in terms of revenue, at $34 billion, or $100 a share, a 31% premium on its share price the previous day on the New York Stock Exchange. [See p. 241F3] Berkshire Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffett described the deal as a bet that the U.S. economy would make a strong recovery from the current recession, since a greater demand for goods would drum up

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

Oct. 1 2 5

6 7 8 9 12 13 14 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 26 27 28 29 30

9,509.28 9,487.67 9,599.75 9,731.25 9,725.58 9,786.87 9,864.94 9,885.80 9,871.06 10,015.86 10,062.94 9,995.91 10,092.19 10,041.48 9,949.36 10,081.31 9,972.18 9,867.96 9,882.17 9,762.69 9,962.58 9,712.73

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Volume (in millions of shares) 1,602.7 1,403.7 1,118.6 1,228.8 1,091.2 1,278.2 990.0 946.9 1,143.4 1,350.8 1,357.6 1,386.4 1,081.4 1,236.9 1,405.9 1,314.7 1,277.1 1,388.2 1,396.4 1,678.4 1,453.2 1,653.1

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business for the transportation industry. Buffett, whose decisions were closely watched because of his long record of exceptionally successful investments through Berkshire, was also reportedly betting that fuel costs would continue to increase in the coming years. That would lead companies to move more goods by rail, a cheaper form of transportation than trucking. As part of the deal, Berkshire would assume $10 billion in Burlington debt. Burlington’s share price Nov. 3 shot up nearly 28%, to close at $97 a share. n

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Environment Senate Panel Advances Climate Bill.

The Senate Public Works and Environment Committee Nov. 5 voted, 10–1, to approve a bill that would mandate a reduction in the U.S.’s emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% of their 2005 levels by a deadline of 2020. All seven Republican members of the panel boycotted the vote, arguing that the bill was being rushed and required analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its potential impact on the U.S. economy. Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.) cast the lone opposing vote, saying the target emissions cuts were too stringent. [See p. 742F3] Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) Nov. 3 had begun debate on the bill, over the objections of Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the committee’s ranking Republican, and his fellow party members. The committee required a quorum of at least two Republicans in order to hold formal debate on dozens of amendments to the bill that had been filed by Democrats, as well as perform other actions. Boxer Nov. 3–4 had suspended some work sessions to allow EPA experts to testify before the panel, regardless of whether there was a quorum. However, Republican committee members did not attend the hearings, 759

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preventing the bill from being “marked up,” or debated and amended. Boxer Nov. 5 put the unamended bill to a committee vote, a move that did not require the presence of any Republicans. Baucus, after casting his dissenting vote, said he would work to reduce the emissions reduction target to 17% below 2005 levels, from 20%. Baucus had also expressed doubt that the climate measure in its current form could muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and be put to a vote in the full Senate. Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.), one of the cosponsors of the bill, Nov. 4 said he would begin separate negotiations on a new climate bill. Kerry said he would work with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) and Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.), as well as the White House and business interests, in crafting a bill that could garner 60 votes. Lieberman said the new bill being negotiated was likely to include some version of the “cap-and-trade” program included in the existing measure. Under such a provision, the government would issue pollution credits to businesses and industries, which could then be either used, or bought or sold on a market. However, the new bill was expected to contain more provisions encouraging offshore oil drilling and new nuclear power plants. n

Terrorism Detainees Former Enemy Combatant Marri Sentenced.

Judge Michael Mihm of U.S. District Court in Peoria, Ill., Oct. 29 sentenced Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri to eight years and four months in prison following his April guilty plea to charges of providing material assistance to terrorists. Marri had been classified as an enemy combatant by the administration of former President George W. Bush, and was held without charge for nearly six years at a U.S. Navy brig near Charleston, S.C. [See p. 305A2] Marri had admitted to attending terrorist training camps run by the Al Qaeda international terrorist network; meeting with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S.; and researching the use of cyanide compounds to assist in future terrorist attacks. Marri, a citizen of Qatar, had been a legal U.S. resident at the time of his detention. At the sentencing hearing, Marri promised that he would never again conspire with terrorists, and apologized for his actions. Mihm said he was unconvinced that Marri had “totally rejected” terrorism and expressed concern that Marri “would do it again after [he went] home, whether here or somewhere else.” Marri had faced up to 15 years in prison, but Mihm reduced the maximum sentence by 71 months for time already served, and cut an additional nine months on the grounds that Marri had been subjected to harsh conditions and severe isolation during his detention. n Six Uighur Detainees Arrive in Palau. Six former terrorism detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 760

Nov. 1 arrived in the Pacific island nation of Palau, which had agreed in June to temporarily accept them. The former detainees, who belonged to the Uighur ethnic group native to China’s Xinjiang region, had been cleared of involvement in terrorism by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, but had not been returned to China because of concerns that they might be persecuted there. [See p. 391A2] The six detainees had been held at Guantanamo for more than seven years and were part of a group of 22 Uighurs who had been captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. Albania had accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 and Bermuda had accepted four in June, while Palau had agreed to accept 12. The 22nd detainee was reportedly excluded because of concerns about his stability and mental health. A federal judge in October 2008 had ordered the U.S. government to release all remaining Uighur detainees into the U.S., but the ruling was later overruled by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Supreme Court in October agreed to consider the case in its current term. [See p. 717D3] The U.S. Justice Department Oct. 31 announced that the detainees had left Guantanamo and identified them as Adel Noori, Ahmad Tourson, Edham Mamet, Anwar Hassan, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman and Dawut Abdurehim. A total of 215 detainees now remained at Guantanamo, including the remaining seven Uighur detainees. Palau President Johnson Toribiong Nov. 1 said the former detainees would receive housing, instruction in English and job placement assistance, among other support. Palau, which had gained its independence from the U.S. in 1994, was heavily dependent on U.S. financial and military aid. It did not have diplomatic relations with China, making it difficult for China to pressure the country in connection with the detainees. A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry Nov. 2 said the U.S. had failed to “fulfill its international antiterror obligations” by sending the detainees to Palau, and called the Uighurs “terror suspects.” n

Terrorism Michigan Imam Killed in Raid. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents Oct. 28

shot and killed a Muslim imam in Dearborn, Mich., after the man refused to surrender and then opened fire on the agents while they were trying to arrest him. The imam, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, had led a Michigan division of the Ummah (“Brotherhood”), a national Muslim organization that pushed for the creation of a separate Islamic state within the U.S. [See 2002, p. 1004C2] Abdullah and 11 other alleged co-conspirators Oct. 28 had been charged in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Mich., with conspiracy to commit federal crimes, dealing in stolen goods and multiple gun offenses. The FBI arrested eight of the defendants during raids in the area. A ninth defendant

Oct. 29 was arrested in Ontario, Canada, and the final two defendants, both Canadian citizens, were arrested in Ontario on Oct. 31. The arrests followed a two-year FBI investigation into Abdullah and his associates. During the investigation, Abdullah had reportedly told an informant about plans to carry out an attack at the Super Bowl in Detroit in 2006, and had urged his followers to kill police officers and attack non-Muslims. Abdullah, 53, had headed the Masjid alHaqq mosque in Dearborn until January, when the congregation was evicted for unpaid property taxes. During the eviction, more than 40 weapons, including two guns, were found in Abdullah’s residence in the building. Abdullah, because of previous felony convictions, had been barred from possessing guns. The Ummah’s leader was Jamil Abdullah al-Amin—formerly known as H. Rap Brown—a 1960s Black Power activist now serving a life sentence for a 2000 murder. [See 2002, p. 443D3] n

Espionage Scientist Accused of Attempted Spying.

Stewart Nozette, a prominent physicist and consultant who had previously worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Defense Department, Oct. 19 was charged in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with attempting to pass classified information to an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent masquerading as an Israeli intelligence operative. Nozette, who had designed a radar experiment that led to the detection of water on the moon, was eligible for the death penalty if convicted. [See pp. 697G2, 306F1; 2008, p. 963G2; 1996, p. 931A1] Nozette, 52, had worked for the White House’s National Space Council under then-President George H.W. Bush in 1989–90. He worked at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which focused on nuclear weapons, from 1990 until 1999. He held varying U.S. government security clearances from 1989 to 2006. He had reportedly been working in recent years as a consultant for NASA in its collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s space agency. Nozette had also worked as a consultant for Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., an aerospace company owned by the Israeli government, between 1998 and 2008. Nozette Oct. 29 pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to all charges in the case. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson rejected a bail request from Nozette’s attorneys, ruling that he was a flight risk. Financial Probe Triggers Sting—The investigation into Nozette’s activities had reportedly began after the office of NASA’s inspector general began examining Nozette’s expense claims and discovered fiFACTS ON FILE

nancial details which suggested that he might be in the employ of a foreign government. According to court documents, Nozette Jan. 6 had departed the U.S. with two external computer hard drives and had returned from an unidentified country, thought to be India, without the hard drives, raising the possibility that he could have used them to transfer classified information. Court records unsealed Oct. 23 showed that Nozette had pleaded guilty on Jan. 8 to overbilling the Defense Department and NASA by more than $265,000 between 2000 and 2006 and using the funds to pay personal debts and maintain his swimming pool. He faced up to two years in prison on those charges, but had not been sentenced because he was cooperating with investigators in connection with other government corruption cases. Nozette had reportedly told a colleague that if the U.S. government attempted to imprison him on the fraud charges, he would flee to Israel or to another country, thought to be India, and reveal everything he knew about classified U.S. programs. His colleague subsequently informed the FBI about his comments. Nozette Sept. 3 received a telephone call from the undercover FBI agent and met with him that day at a Washington, D.C., hotel to discuss the possibility of spying for Israel. Nozette allegedly agreed to provide information about confidential U.S. government programs, including information about nuclear weapons and military space vehicles, in exchange for $2 million and an Israeli passport. The FBI subsequently retrieved an envelope containing secret information about U.S. defense strategy and satellite technology from a “dead drop” location that Nozette had agreed on. n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills Agriculture-HHS Bill Signed by Obama.

President Barack Obama Oct. 21 signed a $121 billion appropriations bill that funded the Agriculture Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies for fiscal year 2010. About $100 billion of the funds would go toward food stamp and other nutrition programs. The House Oct. 7 had voted, 263–162, to clear the final version of the bill, which was agreed to in a House-Senate conference committee. The Senate Oct. 8 voted, 76–22, to clear the final version. [See p. 537E3] The legislation included $350 million to prop up the dairy industry amid a deep decline in milk prices over the past year. The measure also opened the door for the U.S. to resume poultry imports from China, which had been banned since 2004. [See p. 440E1] n

Internet News in Brief. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Oct. 5 said bloggers who endorsed products would have to disclose November 5, 2009

any payments or gifts they had received from the products’ makers, or face fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Observers warned that the policy would be difficult to enforce, given the huge and ever-growing number of blogs. The policy also required celebrities who endorsed products outside of traditional advertisements to disclose their connections with advertisers; forced marketers to reveal whether they had funded research institutes whose findings they cited; and required diet and fitness advertisers to give more information about the weight-loss results users could typically expect. It was the FTC’s first update of its endorsements policy in almost three decades. [See 2005, p. 150G2] EBay Inc. Sept. 1 announced that it would sell a 65% stake in Internet telephone company Skype Ltd. to an investor group led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners for $1.9 billion in cash, including a $125 million loan from eBay. The deal valued Skype at $2.75 billion, slightly more than the 2005 purchase price of $2.6 billion, which had been widely viewed as too expensive. However, Joltid Ltd.—a company owned by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, who had left Skype in 2007— Sept. 16 filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against eBay and the investor group in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., over technology used by Skype. EBay said the lawsuit could affect its sale of the Skype stake. [See 2008, p. 749C3] The Obama administration’s chief technology officer, Vivek Kundra, June 30 announced a new Web site, USAspending.gov, that would track all technology contracts held by major contractors

working for government agencies. He said the contracts entailed more than $70 billion in total spending. The Web site was part of President Barack Obama’s promise to make government more accountable and transparent. The Obama administration May 21 had introduced another site, Data.gov, where government agencies could post data they had gathered, and that day also started accepting citizen suggestions at the WhiteHouse.gov site. [See p. 145C2] The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) April 8 said it would begin work on a plan to make broadband Internet access available to every U.S. home. Congress had ordered it to complete the plan by February 2010, and that $7.2 billion in stimulus funds had been set aside to build high-speed networks. The FCC Sept. 29 reported that it would cost up to $20 billion to bring broadband Internet access to the three million to six million people in the U.S. without Internet access, while speeding up connections for the 10 million people with slower connections could cost as much as $35 billion. The agency said about two-thirds of U.S. residents had Internet connections at home, with 4% having only slower dial-up connections; it said most of the rest had access but chose not to subscribe to Internet service, often due to the cost. [See p. 145B2] n

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Niger Ruling Party Wins Controversial Elections.

Niger’s electoral commission Oct. 24 said President Mamadou Tandja’s ruling National Movement for a Developing Society (MNSD) party and its allies had won 76 seats in the 113-member parliament in elections held Oct. 20. The elections had been boycotted by opposition parties. [See p. 574A3] Voters in an August referendum had approved a constitutional amendment that would allow Tandja, 71, to run for a third term in office. (His second term would expire in December.) Attempts by opposition politicians and the Constitutional Court, Niger’s highest court, to halt the referendum had resulted in Tandja dissolving both bodies and assuming emergency powers. The Oct. 20 elections were held to replace the dissolved parliament. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a 15-member regional body, Oct. 20 carried out its threat to suspend Niger if it went ahead with the parliamentary elections. Niger’s foreign minister, Aichatou Mindaoudou, the next day said, “ECOWAS has misunderstood the political situation in our country and we will continue the dialogue with the organization so that it reconsiders its position.” The suspension, and sanctions imposed separately by ECOWAS Oct. 17 were not expected to affect investments in natural resource development made by companies such as French state-owned energy company Areva SA and China’s state-run China National Petroleum Corp. Tandja had claimed that Nigeriens wanted him to remain in power in order to oversee those and other projects, which were worth billions of dollars.

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Opposition Leaders Face Graft Charges—

Mahamadou Issoufou, leader of the prominent opposition Nigerien Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS), Sept. 14 was charged in connection with a wide-ranging graft investigation that had targeted more than 100 opposition politicians. Issoufou Oct. 30 returned to Niger from a trip abroad to face charges of money laundering, one day after a warrant for his arrest was issued. Former Prime Minister Hama Amadou, who also faced an arrest warrant on similar charges, reportedly refused to return to Niger. [See 2007, p. 365C2; 2004, p. 974E2] n

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Sudan U.S. Unveils Policy Shift. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama Oct. 19 announced a revised policy toward Sudan. The “comprehensive strategy” retained sanctions imposed on the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, but also offered Bashir’s government incentives if it made concrete steps toward ending an ongoing conflict in the western Darfur region and fully implementing a 2005 peace deal with semiauto761

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nomous south Sudan. [See pp. 507B3, 459A1, 446D2] Obama in a statement referred to “gross human rights abuses” and “genocide” in Darfur; however, it was widely believed that the large-scale attacks on civilians that had characterized the early years of the conflict, which began in 2003, were no longer occurring. Nevertheless, an estimated 300,000 people had died from violence, disease or hunger as a result of the conflict, and more than two million had been displaced. The Obama administration reportedly was also concerned about the stability of the 2005 peace deal, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which called for measures including national elections in 2010 and a referendum on full independence for south Sudan in 2011. Representatives of the south, as well as human rights groups, had recently alleged that Bashir’s government was not fulfilling its obligations under the CPA. Obama said, “If the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community.” He called on the Sudanese government to “meet its responsibilities to take concrete steps in a new direction.” Obama Oct. 27 officially renewed for one year the U.S.’s sanctions against Sudan, which included asset freezes and travel bans targeted at top government officials, as well as restrictions on U.S. trade and investment. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Oct. 19 held a joint news conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss the new policy, which analysts said differed from that of Bush by playing up potential incentives for Sudanese cooperation. However, the Obama administration offered few concrete details on the incentives that could be offered. Clinton said the administration had “a menu of incentives and disincentives, political and economic, that we will be looking to.” Rice added, “There will be significant consequences for parties that backslide or simply stand still.” The policy was seen as a compromise between Gration, who reportedly advocated a softer approach toward Sudan—including removing it from the U.S.’s list of state sponsors of terrorism—and human rights groups and some members of Congress, who favored a tougher stance. Unidentified U.S. officials said benchmarks for the Sudanese government to meet included progress in peace talks with Darfur rebels, conducting a successful census in advance of the 2010 national elections and finalizing the demarcation of the northsouth boundary. Observers said the U.S. was unlikely to interact directly with Bashir, who had been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, on war crimes charges in connection with the Darfur conflict. 762

Sudanese Reaction—Ghazi Salahadin, a senior adviser to Bashir, Oct. 19 said the Obama administration’s use of the term genocide was “unfortunate,” but called the new policy a “strategy of engagement.” He added, “Compared to previous policies there are positive points, we don’t see the extreme ideas and suggestions which we used to see in the past.” However, another adviser to Bashir, Mustafa Osman Ismail, Oct. 24 was quoted in the Sudanese media as saying, “We categorically reject the U.S. strategy in its current form.” Ismail Nov. 1 also criticized Obama’s renewal of U.S. sanctions. n

AMERICAS

Cuba Castro Sister Reveals CIA Collaboration.

Juanita Castro, the younger sister of former Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz and current President Raul Castro Ruz, in an Oct. 25 interview with the U.S. Spanish-language channel Univision-Noticias 23 said she had collaborated with the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prior to fleeing Cuba in 1964. Juanita Castro made the revelation a day before the release of her memoir, My Brothers Fidel and Raul: The Secret Story, coauthored with Mexican journalist Maria Antonieta Collins. (Raul Castro, 78, had succeeded Fidel Castro, 83, as Cuba’s president in February 2008.) [See 1998, p. 126D1; 1982, p. 219B3] Juanita Castro, 76, said she had initially supported the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro that had overthrown Gen. Fulgencio Batista, but had grown disillusioned with his regime over the persecution of political dissidents. Juanita Castro had offered her home as a refuge for opponents of the Communist government. Days after defecting from Cuba in 1964, she had held a press conference describing the country as “an enormous prison surrounded by water.” Juanita Castro said she had decided to leave the country after the 1963 death of her mother, who she said was able to protect her from Fidel Castro’s ire over her criticism of his government. She lived in Miami, Fla. [See 1964, p. 218E2] According to the memoir, Juanita Castro had first been approached about working for the CIA during a trip to Mexico in 1961. Castro said she had agreed to gather information on behalf of the CIA, but said she had received no money for her work and had refused to participate in any violent actions. (The CIA had been involved in numerous schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro.) n

Honduras Tentative Deal Struck to Restore Zelaya.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the de facto government that had replaced him, late Oct. 29 signed a U.S.brokered agreement that would allow Zelaya to return to power to serve out the remaining three months of his term. However, the legislature Nov. 3 delayed a vote on

the agreement, throwing its approval into doubt. [See p. 661A3] Zelaya had been deposed in late June in a bloodless coup d’etat led by the country’s military, with the backing of the legislature and Supreme Court. Following Zelaya’s ouster, congressional leader Micheletti was named president by the legislature. However, Zelaya clandestinely reentered Honduras in September, and had been taking refuge in Brazil’s embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital. The de facto government remained diplomatically isolated following the coup, as no other country had recognized its legitimacy. Under the agreement, brokered by a group of high-ranking U.S. diplomats, Zelaya would serve out the remaining three months of his term, set to expire in January 2010. A presidential election that had been scheduled for Nov. 29 prior to the coup would take place, with all sides agreeing to recognize the outcome. The de facto government had previously attempted to bolster its legitimacy by holding the election without Zelaya, in the hopes that foreign governments would recognize the newly elected leader. The deal would also establish a coalition government and a truth commission tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding Zelaya’s deposition. The military would also be temporarily controlled by the country’s electoral authorities, and not the president, while Zelaya served out his term. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Oct. 30 called the agreement “historic.” However, the deal still required the approval of the Honduran legislature, which in June had overwhelmingly voted to strip Zelaya of power. Congressional leader Jose Alfredo Saavedra Nov. 2 said legislators were studying the agreement, but that he would not bow to pressure to call for a vote on it quickly. A committee of 13 legislators Nov. 3 voted not to hold a special session of Congress in order to consider the deal, imperiling the agreement. Zelaya Nov. 4 asked the U.S. to explain why U.S. diplomats had said they would recognize the results of the Nov. 29 election even if he was not returned to power before then. His request followed a statement to that effect by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon, who was leading the U.S. delegation in Honduras. Shannon had arrived in Tegucigalpa Oct. 28. He met that day with both sides in the dispute separately, and reportedly stressed to Micheletti that the U.S. would not recognize the winner of the November election if Zelaya was not restored to power. The Organization of American States (OAS) Oct. 7 had begun a series of intermittent talks to resolve the political crisis. Zelaya Oct. 22 said he would withdraw from talks if he was not restored to the presidency by midnight. The de facto government ignored his ultimatum, and Zelaya Oct. 23 declared the talks a failure. However, Micheletti’s negotiators said they were willing to continue with the talks. Clinton Oct. 23 had spoken by telephone with both Zelaya and Micheletti, and reportFACTS ON FILE

edly criticized Micheletti for refusing to concede to any agreement that would allow Zelaya to reassume the presidency, even with diminished powers. Following those conversations, Clinton dispatched the group of U.S. diplomats to Honduras. There was concern that the political situation in Honduras might worsen if Zelaya was not returned to power prior to the November elections, and his supporters boycotted them. A CID-Gallup poll conducted Oct. 13–19 and reported Oct. 28 found that Zelaya held a 42%–36% advantage in public support over Micheletti. Earlier polls had shown the two politicians with similar amounts of support. A group of 1,000 Zelaya supporters Oct. 28 held protests outside the congressional building, calling for his return. The de facto government Oct. 28 filed legal proceedings against Brazil with the United Nations–backed International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, in an effort to end its embassy’s sheltering of Zelaya. The filing claimed that Brazil was violating international law by allowing Zelaya a political platform that was “threatening the peace and internal public order of Honduras.” Micheletti Oct. 5 had said he had “completely repealed” an emergency decree that had suspended some civil liberties. The decree had given his government the power to shut down media outlets and ban public gatherings. n

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Mongolia Prime Minister Replaced. Mongolian Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar Oct. 27 announced that he would resign, citing health problems. Bayar, 53, had been prime minister since November 2007. He reportedly suffered from hepatitis C and related liver ailments, and had recently been hospitalized. His Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) Oct. 28 nominated Foreign Minister Suhkbataar Batbold to become the new prime minister, and Batbold was confirmed the following day with 62 of the 66 votes cast in the 76-member parliament, the Great Hural. [See p. 725D2] Batbold Oct. 29 pledged continuity with the policies that Bayar had pursued in a virtual coalition arrangement with the Democratic Party of President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. He said the government’s priority would be to help the country emerge from the current global economic crisis, and promised to “do my best to make all Mongolians employed, educated people.” He was widely expected to continue the government’s efforts to conclude deals with international mining companies to exploit Mongolia’s large mineral wealth. The government earlier in October had signed a major gold and copper mining deal after years of stalled negotiations. Mongolia had attempted to impose stiff terms on foreign mining companies, but the slump in commodity prices caused by the economic slowdown had weakened its bargaining position. November 5, 2009

Batbold, 46, was reportedly one of the wealthiest people in the country. From 1992 to 2000 he had been director general of Altai Trading Co. Ltd., whose concerns included a joint gold mining venture with Centerra Gold Inc. of Canada. Educated in Russia and Britain, he had been a member of parliament since 2004, and served as minster for trade and industry from 2004 to 2006. He had become foreign minister in September 2008. n

Myanmar U.S. Diplomats Visit. U.S. Assistant Secre-

tary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell and a deputy, Scot Marciel, Nov. 3–4 visited Myanmar, becoming the first high-ranking U.S. diplomats to do so since then–U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright’s visit in 1995. The trip, which had been announced by the U.S. State Department Oct. 30, was part on an ongoing effort by the U.S. government to promote political reform in military-ruled Myanmar through increased diplomatic engagement. [See pp. 725B3, 683F3] A recent review by the U.S. government of its policy toward Myanmar had concluded that ongoing sanctions against Myanmar had been ineffective in exerting pressure on the ruling junta. Accordingly, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had announced that the U.S. government would attempt to renew diplomatic contacts with Myanmar. The U.S. government had previously said that all U.S. sanctions against Myanmar would stay in place until it saw concrete signs of change, such as the release of the country’s estimated 2,200 political prisoners. Critics of the new U.S. policy argued that it would lend legitimacy to the regime, which was seeking to legitimize planned 2010 legislative elections. The elections were authorized by a controversial 2008 constitution that was approved under dubious circumstances and which allowed the military the right to retake control of the government at any time. Nyan Win, a spokesman for Myanmar’s pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) Party, Oct. 31 said that the party’s detained leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was aware of the pending visit, and had reiterated her support for the U.S.’s new initiative. Separately, the Wall Street Journal Oct. 31 reported that more than 10 journalists and bloggers had been detained by the government in the past two weeks. The junta had reportedly given no justifications for the detentions, and the families of those arrested were not told where they were being held. In September, Myanmar’s government had freed at least 25 political prisoners as part of a larger prisoner release. Meet Prime Minister, Suu Kyi— Campbell and Marciel Nov. 3 flew from Bangkok, Thailand, to Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital. Following their arrival, both men met with Thein Sein, the prime minister of Myanmar; no details of the meeting were publicly released. Later the same day, Campbell

and Marciel met with members of Myanmar’s cabinet, but they did not meet with Than Shwe, who controlled the junta. Campbell and Marciel Nov. 4 traveled to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The government allowed Suu Kyi to leave her home, where she was being held under house arrest, and brought her to a nearby hotel, where she met privately with Campbell for two hours. Later the same day, Campbell and Marciel met in Yangon with other members of the NLD. Campbell Nov. 4 issued a statement calling on Myanmar’s government to open discussions with the NLD and other pro-democracy groups, as well as ethnic minorities, in order to begin taking steps toward genuine national reconciliation. He also called on the government to allow Suu Kyi to meet with members of her party more frequently. Following their return to the U.S., Marciel Nov. 5 said that he and Campbell had “stressed the importance of genuine dialogue between the government and ethnic minorities” in Myanmar and said that the country’s “main problem is a lack of an inclusive political process.” He also called Myanmar’s 2008 constitution “seriously flawed,” and said that the 2010 election could not be considered credible unless the NLD was allowed to fully participate. n

North Korea Plutonium Reprocessing Claimed. North

Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) Nov. 3 reported that the country had completed the reprocessing of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into weaponsgrade plutonium, an amount considered sufficient for one or two nuclear bombs. North Korea’s foreign ministry Nov. 2 had demanded that the U.S. agree to hold one-onone talks with North Korea as a condition for the revival of international talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear programs. The ministry Nov. 2 had said if the U.S. did not agree to bilateral dialogue, North Korea would “go its own way.” [See p. 712E1] The U.S. had insisted that nuclear negotiations with North Korea take place only within the framework of six-nation talks that included South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Those talks had yielded a 2007 agreement under which North Korea had begun disabling its nuclear facilities, but North Korea earlier in 2009 had declared its withdrawal from the talks and its plans to revive its plutonium facility, and conducted a second nuclear test. North Korea was thought to have previously produced enough plutonium fuel for up to six nuclear bombs. The U.S. said it would be willing to participate in a bilateral meeting with North Korea, but only if it were part of the wider six-nation process. Ri Gun, North Korea’s second-ranking envoy to the nuclear talks, had recently been given special permission to enter the U.S., and on his visit Oct. 24 met with his U.S. counterpart, Sung Kim, in New York City to discuss the possibility of such talks. 763

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South Korea Offers Food Aid—South Korea’s unification ministry Oct. 26 offered to send 10,000 tons of corn, 20 tons of milk powder and medical supplies to North Korea, which had suffered massive food shortages for years. If accepted, it would be the first humanitarian aid sent to North Korea by South Korea since South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in February 2008. Lee had said he would make aid to North Korea dependent on its progress toward abandoning its nuclear activities. The offer, made through the South Korean Red Cross, followed a series of conciliatory gestures from North Korea in recent months, and a request from North Korea for humanitarian aid in return for agreeing to more reunions of families separated by the countries’ border. [See 2008, p. 926D1] A South Korean unification ministry spokeswoman noted that the aid offered was small in comparison with North Korea’s food shortfall, estimated by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) at 1.8 million tons for the year. She said the offer did not represent a change in South Korea’s “position that massive food aid depends on how relations between the two countries develop.” Separately, South Korean news media Oct. 22 reported that officials of North Korea and South Korea had met in recent days in Singapore to discuss a possible summit meeting between Lee and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il. South Korean officials refused to confirm or deny the reports. U.N. Official Reports on Rights Abuses—

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Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, Oct. 22 presented a report calling the country’s rights practices “abysmal.” He cited the widespread use of “collective punishment, torture, arbitrary executions, public executions” and rampant discrimination against women. He also highlighted the widespread hunger in North Korea. He said the country “is not poor,” citing plentiful mineral and other natural resources, but said that the proceeds of its exports were “not spent on the people,” but primarily on the military. [See p. 653G1] North Korea was one of 16 countries whose rights records were under review by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The council, which had been established in 2006, reviewed the rights practices of each U.N. member nation every four years. North Korean officials were scheduled to be questioned by the council Dec. 7. The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 22 that human rights groups had recently presented findings to diplomats conducting the review. The groups reportedly found that the use of torture in prisons had declined in line with a 2004 order by Kim, although prison conditions remained inhumane, with additional abuses directed particularly at women. The Journal reported that North Korea had submitted an evaluation of its own rights practices as part of the review, in which it declared that it was free of rights problems, and said criticism of its rights record was part of a “hostile policy” waged by the U.S. and aided by the U.N. 764

A South Korean lawmaker Oct. 17 said in a statement that, according to information collected by South Korean government agencies, North Korea operated six prison camps that held 154,000 political prisoners who had been sentenced to hard labor without trial. The lawmaker, Yoon Sang Hyun, said that North Korea had closed four other such camps since the 1990s, in response to international pressure. n

South Korea News in Brief. The Bank of Korea, South

Korea’s central bank, Oct. 26 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.9% in the third quarter from the preceding quarter, the fastest pace since the first quarter of 2002. GDP was up by 0.6% from the year-earlier period, after three quarters of year-on-year contraction. South Korea had made a dramatic exit from the global economic downturn, aided by a rise in exports, government spending, and low interest rates. The bank Oct. 9 decided to keep its benchmark interest rate at 2%, the level it had been at for eight months. [See 2008, p. 840F1] Scientist Hwang Woo Suk Oct. 26 was convicted of fraud and illegally buying human eggs in connection with his false 2004

claim that a research team he led had successfully cloned a human embryo and extracted stem cells from it, and related fabricated findings. The embezzlement charges stemmed from the diversion of government funding to unapproved research projects. His sentence, of two years in prison, was suspended by the judge because he had apologized and had not misused research grants for personal purposes. Four former researchers for Hwang were also convicted and given suspended prison terms or fines. [See 2006, p. 604C1] South Korea’s parliament, the National Assembly, July 22 approved three mediaindustry reform bills, after a fracas in which opposition lawmakers, attempting to prevent the vote, barricaded the entrance to the chamber and tried to storm the speaker’s podium. The bills, backed by President Lee Myung Bak of the conservative Grand National Party, would lift restrictions preventing companies from owning both newspapers and broadcast outlets, possibly leading to the sale of government-owned broadcast outlets to private newspaper companies. The opposition Democratic Party opposed the changes, in part because in South Korea’s partisan-tinged news media, the large newspapers tended to be more conservative than the state media outlets. The Constitutional Court, South Korea’s highest court, Oct. 29 upheld the validity of the law, despite finding irregularities in the voting procedures in parliament. [See 2008, p. 981A2] n

Uzbekistan EU Lifts Arms Embargo. The European Union Oct. 27 lifted an arms embargo on Uzbekistan, the last of the sanctions that had been enacted following a violent government crackdown on protesters in the

town of Andizhan in 2005. Uzbekistan maintained that 187 people, mainly Islamic extremists, died after government troops opened fire on demonstrators. However, some witnesses had claimed that hundreds more protesters, mostly peaceful, had been killed. The incident had sparked an international outcry over alleged rights violations in Uzbekistan. [See p. 663E2; 2008, p. 774F1] EU foreign ministers, expressing continued concern about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, suggested that lifting the remaining sanctions on the country would encourage it to implement further reforms. They noted that Uzbekistan, since the sanctions were adopted, had released some rights activists from prison, allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisoners, improved conditions in prisons, introduced habeas corpus rights and abolished the death penalty. Three advocacy groups—U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, Belgium-based International Crisis Group and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders—in a joint statement released Oct. 27 condemned the EU’s decision as an “unconscionable abdication of responsibility toward Uzbek victims of abuse.” The groups called on Uzbekistan to release 12 people whom the Uzbek government had imprisoned “for no reason other than their legitimate human rights work.” Germany had driven the push to lift sanctions on Uzbekistan, which was strategically located near Afghanistan, where North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces were combating a violent Islamic insurgency. Uzbekistan housed important transit bases for German military operations in Afghanistan, including one in Termez, on the Afghan border. Some observers criticized Germany for what they characterized as an attempt to further its own national interests in Uzbekistan, despite international concerns about the rights environment there. German officials said sanctions were lifted as a result of an EU decision, not German policy, and pointed out that the Netherlands had been the only EU member to voice reservations over the move. It would have required a consensus of all 27 EU members to keep the sanctions in place. n

Other Asia-Pacific News Islamic Militants Killed in Tajikistan Shootout.

Tajikistan’s interior ministry Oct. 19 announced that four militants thought to belong to the terrorist organization the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had been killed the previous day in a shootout with police. Another militant was detained, and several others were able to escape. The shootout, which reportedly began when the militants refused to surrender to police, occurred at a house in Isfara, a conservative Tajik town in the restive Ferghana Valley, which stretched across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Tajik officials said police were searching for those who escaped. [See p. 663E2] Also, four alleged militants Oct. 19 were detained in Vorukh, a Tajik enclave FACTS ON FILE

in Kyrgyzstan, via a joint operation between Kyrgyz and Tajik forces. The joint mission was assembled after a group of militants Oct. 15 had crossed from Isfara into Kyrgyzstan following a gunfight with Kyrgyz border guards. There were no reported injuries in that incident. Police suspected that the detained men were involved in the shootout. It was unclear if they were also connected with the IMU. Some analysts suggested that the recent uptick in violence in the Ferghana Valley was related to increasing violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the south. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oct. 26 met with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, to discuss joint antiterrorism programs. Petraeus said, “We are very sensitive to the movement of extremists in response to our operations.” Other News—In other Central Asia news: o The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Oct. 23 said the number of Afghan refugees fleeing to Tajikistan could increase. It urged Tajikistan, the only ex-Soviet country to offer official asylum to refugees of the war in Afghanistan, to “keep the doors open and give asylum and protection to those who need it.” [See p. 514C3] o Tajik officials Oct. 19 said Anvar Kaumov, an IMU member, had been sentenced to life in prison for the murders of at least nine border guards and police officers. Five of Kaumov’s accomplices were sentenced to 11 years in prison. o The Tajik Supreme Court had handed down sentences to four Tajik nationals who were found guilty of committing terrorist acts in the early 1990s in Afghanistan and Pakistan on behalf of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Aug. 31. Two of the men received 15-year sentences, and the remaining two received eight years each. It was the first time Al Qaeda members had been tried in Tajikistan. n

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European Union Czech President Signs Lisbon Treaty.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus Nov. 2 signed the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, removing the last obstacle to the treaty’s implementation. The Czech Republic was the last of the EU’s 27 member nations to ratify the treaty, which would reform the group’s institutions and voting procedures. Irish voters had approved the treaty in a referendum in early October, after rejecting it in 2008. [See p. 685E1] The Czech Constitutional Court earlier Nov. 2 had ruled that the treaty comported with Czech law, rejecting a complaint filed by Czech senators allied with Klaus. Klaus said he disagreed with the court’s decision, and warned that once the treaty took effect, “The Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state.” November 5, 2009

EU leaders at a summit meeting at the group’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 29 had granted a concession demanded by Klaus. The deal would allow the Czech Republic to opt out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was part of the treaty. Klaus argued that the charter would allow lawsuits over the forced expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans and Hungarians after World War II from what was then Czechoslovakia. [See 1997, p. 43D3] With Czech approval secured, the Lisbon Treaty was expected to take effect as soon as December. The treaty would create new posts for an EU president and foreign affairs chief. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the most widely known of the candidates being considered for the presidency. However, the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and several other countries suggested at the summit that it was likely that they would not support Blair. n

France Chirac Ordered to Stand Trial for Graft. In-

vestigating magistrate Xaviere Simeoni Oct. 30 ordered former French President Jacques Chirac to stand trial on charges of embezzlement of public funds and breach of public trust, in connection with his 18year tenure as mayor of Paris. Chirac, 76, would be the first former or sitting president to stand trial since the founding of France’s Fifth Republic in 1958. If convicted, he faced up to 10 years in prison, although suspended sentences or fines had been the norm in similar cases. [See 2007, p. 812F2] Chirac was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, and president from 1995 to 2007. As president, he had enjoyed immunity from prosecution as long as he remained in office. But a number of his close associates were prosecuted for corruption. In 2004, former Prime Minister Alain Juppe, then the head of Chirac’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), was convicted on corruption charges linked to Chirac’s mayoralty. Juppe was found guilty of participating in a scheme in which fulltime operatives of the party, then known as Rally for the Republic, were given fake jobs by the city of Paris in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Juppe was the municipal government’s financial chief at the time. The case against Chirac centered on the same allegations that party operatives were put on the city payroll for nonexistent jobs. Simeoni had opened her probe into Chirac himself in 2007, soon after he left office. The prosecutor’s office had subsequently recommended dropping the case, noting that the statute of limitations already applied to most of the period in question. Simeoni accused Chirac of creating fake jobs for 21 people, including Jean de Gaulle, grandson of former President Charles de Gaulle. Chirac’s office Oct. 30 issued a statement saying that he was “serene and determined to establish before the court that none of the jobs that remain contested constitutes a fictitious job.”

The UMP was now led by Chirac’s successor, President Nicolas Sarkozy. In a separate case, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Sarkozy’s onetime rival for the presidency, had stood trial for allegedly being the “primary instigator” in a scheme to spread false bribery claims against Sarkozy. The trial closed Oct. 23. The judges said they would deliver their verdict in January 2010. [See p. 644F1] Prosecutors Oct. 20 had asked for an 18month suspended prison sentence and a 45,000-euro ($67,000) fine for Villepin, who said, “Nicolas Sarkozy has promised to hang me on a butcher’s hook. I see that the promise has been kept.”

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Senator Guilty in Angola Arms Case—

A Paris court Oct. 27 sentenced Charles Pasqua, a conservative French senator and former interior minister, to serve one year in prison for accepting bribes to help carry out a scheme to ship Soviet-made arms to Angola in the mid-1990s. The sales violated a United Nations embargo on arms shipments to Angola, where a two-decade civil war ended after a peace treaty was signed in 1994. Pasqua, a onetime ally of Chirac, was one of more than 40 defendants, including a number of leading politicians and government officials. [See 2001, p. 105B3] Another high-profile defendant in the case was Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, who had served as an adviser on African affairs to his father, the late President Francois Mitterrand. He was convicted Oct. 27 of accepting more than $2 million in payments from the arms sales. He received a suspended two-year prison sentence and was fined 375,000 euros. The convicted ringleaders of the scheme, French businessmen Pierre Falcone and Arkadi Gaydamak, each received six-year prison sentences. The whereabouts of the Russian-born Gaydamak, who also held Israeli citizenship, were unknown. [See p. 769A1] The Angolan government had requested that the case be dismissed, warning that it could damage its relations with France. Pasqua Oct. 29 claimed that Chirac and other high French officials had condoned the Angolan arms sales. He called for the release of secret documents that he said would prove his claims of widespread complicity. n

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Italy 23 U.S. Agents Convicted in CIA Kidnapping.

A judge in Milan, Italy, Nov. 4 convicted 23 U.S. intelligence agents of the 2003 kidnapping in Milan of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. The incident was believed to be an example of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert practice known as extraordinary rendition, in which terrorism suspects were seized abroad and transported to other countries for interrogation. [See 2007, p. 386D3] The convictions were the first in any rendition case to date. Although U.S. President Barack Obama had repudiated some of the antiterrorism policies of his prede765

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cessor, George W. Bush, the CIA in April had said it would continue using renditions. [See p. 567E2] Prosecutors alleged at the trial that the CIA, in a joint operation with Italian intelligence services, abducted Nasr on Feb. 17, 2003, and flew him to Egypt, where his lawyers said he was subjected to torture. He was released without charge after being held for four years. At the time of his kidnapping, he was under surveillance by Italian police, suspected of inciting violence and recruiting fighters for the insurgency in Iraq. The trial had begun in 2007. The U.S. defendants were all tried in absentia, and most were represented by court-appointed lawyers. Judge Oscar Magi issued an order for the arrest of those convicted, but the Italian government had not requested their extradition from the U.S. Magi sentenced Robert Seldon Lady, former CIA station chief in Milan, to eight years in prison. U.S. Air Force Col. Joseph Romano 3rd and 21 other CIA operatives received five-year prison sentences. Magi acquitted three U.S. defendants, including Jeffrey Castelli, a former CIA station chief in Rome, the Italian capital. He said they were protected by diplomatic immunity. Magi convicted two Italian intelligence agents for complicity in the abduction, and sentenced them each to two years in prison. But he acquitted five high-ranking Italian intelligence officials, saying he was forced to do so because the Italian government had refused to release classified evidence. In addition to the prison terms, Magi ordered the convicted defendants to pay 1.5 million euros ($2.2 million) to Nasr and his wife. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. was “disappointed” with the verdicts but declined to comment further, saying appeals were likely. n

Russia Ingush Opposition Figure Slain. Maksharip Aushev, a prominent opposition figure from the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, Oct. 25 died after gunmen opened fire on his vehicle in the neighboring republic of Kabardino-Balkeria. A woman in the car was seriously injured in the attack. Aushev had been a vocal critic of former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, but had abandoned some of his activism after Zyazikov was replaced in 2008 by the more moderate Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. [See p. 728C1–B2] Aushev had worked on a human rights council sanctioned by the federal government, and was known for his criticism of Ingush authorities, whom he accused of abductions and other abuses. Following the 2007 kidnapping of his son and nephew, Aushev had organized mass protests against the Russian security services, which he claimed were behind their abduction. (The two were eventually released after reportedly being tortured in the neighboring republic of Chechnya.) Aushev had also run the opposition Web site Ingushetia.org, which he took over from journalist 766

Magomed Yevloyev after the latter’s death in 2008. Yevloyev was shot dead by Ingush police in an incident authorities later ruled accidental. [See 2008, p. 664C3] Yevkurov, who was known for reaching out to opposition figures, Oct. 26 said the attack on Aushev was a direct challenge to his authority, and suggested that it could have been carried out by law enforcement officers. Yevkurov had been seriously wounded in an assassination attempt earlier in the year. [See p. 449C3] Aushev’s death followed the recent murders of several other activists in the area. Zarema Sadulayeva, who had run a charity aimed at helping war-scarred young people in Chechnya, was abducted in August along with her husband. Both were later found dead in the trunk of their car. Natalya Estemirova, a rights activist who documented government abuses, was found shot to death in July. [See p. 544A3] n British, Russian Foreign Ministers Meet.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband Nov. 2 met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia’s capital, marking the first time a British foreign secretary had visited Russia in five years. Following the meeting, Miliband said Britain and Russia sought to cooperate on issues where they saw a common interest. He added that both countries wanted a “prompt response by Iran” to international proposals that it send about three-quarters of its known stockpile of enriched uranium abroad. Lavrov said the meeting with Miliband demonstrated that “despite certain problems, our countries have a general interest in widening cooperation.” [See pp. 767B3, 705D3] Relations between Russia and Britain had reached a post–Cold War low following the 2006 poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent of the Sovietera KGB security service who had lived in London and became known for his criticism of the Russian government. Britain had accused former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi of poisoning Litvinenko, but Russia had refused to extradite him. Lugovoi was currently a member of the Russian parliament, and therefore could not be extradited under the Russian constitution. Lavrov said Britain’s “unrealistic” extradition request was essentially a request that Russia alter its constitution. Britain had criticized Russia following its August 2008 war with Georgia, and had also refused to extradite individuals wanted on criminal charges in Russia. In early 2008, Russia had closed two Russian offices of the British Council, a cultural organization funded by the British government. [See p. 513E1; 2008, pp. 614A3, 24B3] n FBI Allows Aluminum Magnate to Visit U.S.

The Wall Street Journal Oct. 30 reported that Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who had been banned from entering the U.S. in 2006, had visited the U.S. twice in 2009 after the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) made secret arrangements to secure for him a limited-entry visa from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. State Department had never offi-

cially commented on why Deripaska’s visa was revoked, but some media outlets suggested that it was due to his alleged links to organized crime groups. [See p. 366G1] According to the Journal, while in the U.S., Deripaska met with executives from investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. He also reportedly met with executives from Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Co. (GM), which had been in negotiations to sell part of its European division, Adam Opel AG, to a consortium that included OAO GAZ, a Russian automaker controlled by Deripaska. GM Nov. 3 had called off that deal. [See p. 767D1] Deripaska also reportedly met with FBI agents as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, the focus of which was unclear. Deripaska’s spokesman Oct. 30 said Deripaska had come to the U.S. for “business meetings,” and asserted that he had “no travel restrictions to any country, including the U.S.” Deripaska headed UC Rusal, the world’s largest aluminum company. Rusal had received a $4.5 billion loan from Russia’s state development bank in late 2008, after the effects of the global economic downturn became apparent. Rusal was reportedly seeking to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in 2009 or 2010. [See 2008, p. 841F1] n News in Brief. Shabtai Kalmanovitz, 60, a prominent Russian businessman, Nov. 2 was shot dead in Moscow, the Russian capital. Officials said they were investigating his murder as a contract killing. Kalmanovitz, who was a citizen of Russia, Lithuania and Israel, had been involved in the diamond trade, worked as a concert organizer and was also the owner and manager of Spartak, a professional women’s basketball club. In 1988, he had been convicted by an Israeli court of spying for the Soviet-era KGB intelligence agency, and subsequently spent five years in an Israeli prison. The Soviet Union in the 1970s had reportedly allowed him to leave the country on the condition that he supply information to the KGB. [See below; 1988, p. 114G1] A Soviet-era Ilyushin 76 military cargo airplane Nov. 1 crashed after taking off from Mirnyy in the Sakha Republic, killing all 11 crew members on board. The crash followed an Oct. 7 incident in which an engine had broken off the wing of an Ilyushin 76 as the pilot prepared to take off. Russia had grounded its entire Ilyushin 76 fleet while an investigation was carried out, it was widely reported Nov. 3. [See 2008, p. 683F2; 2003, p. 397E2] Police Oct. 31 detained at least 50 protesters at an antigovernment rally in Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square, which opposition leaders said was meant to defend their constitutional right to freedom of assembly. Viktor Biryukov, a spokesman for Russia’s interior ministry, said demonstrators had been offered two alternate locations to stage their protest, “but they refused and came to Triumfalnaya Square, where a military patriotic event was underway.” Police said about 100 protesters and 100 journalists had attended the demonFACTS ON FILE

stration. Opposition leaders said about 500 people had attended, and about 70 were detained. [See p. 728A1] A Moscow court Oct. 13 rejected a case brought by Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who had claimed that the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta had libeled his grandfather, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Dzhugashvili had sued the newspaper for $340,000 over a 2008 article that claimed Stalin, whom it characterized as a “bloodthirsty cannibal,” had signed off on death lists and committed crimes against his own people. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in a video posted to his Web site Oct. 29, said in reference to Stalin, “It is important to prevent any attempts to vindicate, under the pretext of restoring historical justice, those who destroyed their own people.” In contrast, former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had made efforts to rehabilitate Stalin’s reputation. [See p. 667G2] Olga Starovoitova, the sister of Galina Starovoitova, an opposition parliamentary deputy who was shot dead in 1998, Sept. 7 said Medvedev had agreed to reopen the case into Starovoitova’s murder. Three men had been jailed for involvement in the attack, including the gunman, but her political allies claimed that those who had ordered her murder were still at large. [See p. 667G3; 2005, p. 491C1] n

European Business News GM Cancels Sale of European Units.

U.S. automaker General Motors Co. (GM) Nov. 3 announced that it would cancel its planned sale of its European units, Adam Opel, based in Germany, and Vauxhall, based in Britain. GM said it would retain the units and restructure them itself. GM in September had agreed to sell a majority stake in the units to a group that was led by Canadian car parts supplier Magna International Inc., and included Russian stateowned bank OAO Sberbank and automaker OAO GAZ. [See p. 608F3] The German government sharply criticized GM’s reversal. Chancellor Angela Merkel had supported the Magna deal, viewing it as the best means of preserving Opel’s 25,000 jobs in Germany. GM had a total of 50,000 workers in Europe. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Nov. 5 also criticized GM for what he called its “arrogant attitude.” Russia had expected to use the deal to revive its lagging auto industry. The U.S. government controlled a 60% stake in GM, which had emerged from a rapid bankruptcy restructuring in July after receiving $50 billion in federal rescue funds. Merkel’s office said U.S. President Barack Obama had told her that he was not involved in the decision to abandon the Opel sale. The two had met Nov. 3 at the White House in Washington, D.C. [See pp. 758F1, 755D1] GM’s board of directors, led by new Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr., who had been installed by the U.S. government, made the decision to overturn the deal, overruling GM Chief Executive Officer November 5, 2009

(CEO) Fritz Henderson. The decision was seen as reflecting new confidence in GM’s ability to succeed as a global carmaker after its restructuring. Thousands of Opel workers in Germany Nov. 5 walked out to join rallies protesting GM’s decision. However, labor leaders in Britain praised the move. As part of its new restructuring plan, GM asked the governments of European countries where Opel and Vauxhall plants were located to provide about three billion euros ($4.4 billion) in financing. Germany was expected to contribute about two billion euros. However, the German government Nov. 4 said it was demanding that GM repay the 1.5 billion euros in loans that it had already provided, by their Nov. 30 expiration date. Henderson Nov. 5 said GM was confident that it would obtain the financing needed for its plan. He declined to say how many plant closings or layoffs could be expected, but pledged that GM would “very shortly” present its plan to European governments. Magna had said its plan called for cutting 10,500 jobs. EU Blocked Magna Deal—The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, Oct. 16 had blocked the GMMagna deal by raising questions about Germany’s pledge of 4.5 billion euros in total financing. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the assistance appeared to be conditioned on a sale to the Magna group, violating EU rules on government aid. In response, Germany Oct. 19 said it had formally notified GM that the aid would be offered to any bidder for Opel. Several countries with GM plants, including Britain, Spain and Belgium, had called on the EU to investigate whether the Magna deal protected German jobs at the expense of those in other countries. n

Other European News Defense Lawyer Appointed in Karadzic Trial.

Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Nov. 5 ordered that a lawyer be appointed to defend former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, in the event that he boycotted or otherwise attempted to obstruct or prolong his trial. The judges postponed the trial until March 1, 2010, to give the new defense lawyer time to prepare. [See p. 749A1] Karadzic was accused of two counts of genocide, among other wartime atrocities allegedly committed during Bosnia’s 1992– 95 civil war. He had boycotted the first three days of his trial, which began in October, claiming that his legal team needed an additional 10 months to examine more than a million documents required for his defense. He had first appeared before the court Nov. 3 for a brief procedural hearing. Karadzic would be allowed to represent himself, as he had requested, unless he disrupted the proceedings. Presiding Judge O-Gon Kwon said that if he did, Karadzic would “forfeit his right to selfrepresentation...and the appointed coun-

sel will take over.” The court was expected to ask Karadzic to name a preferred lawyer, though he had two weeks to appeal the judges’ ruling. The judges urged Karadzic to cooperate with the appointed attorney. n

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Iran Opposition Protests Disrupt Anti-U.S. Rally.

Tens of thousands of Iranians Nov. 4 marched in anti-government protests in Tehran, the Iranian capital, that coincided with an official rally marking the thirtieth anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy by Iranian revolutionaries. It was one of the largest opposition protests since the government had brutally cracked down on mass demonstrations that followed a disputed June presidential election. The opposition in September had also staged large protests to counter a government-sponsored Quds Day (also known as Jerusalem Day) rally. [See pp. 688A2, 645A3] Other antigovernment protests Nov. 4 were also reported throughout Iran, including in large cities like Tabriz, Isfahan, Rasht and Shiraz. The protests were seen as a sign that the opposition movement was still strong, despite government repression that included the arrests of many of its senior members. The government had warned opposition activists against holding protests to coincide with the pro-government rally, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Oct. 28 said questioning the election results was “the greatest crime.” As they did every year, participants in the government-sanctioned rally demonstrated in front of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran, shouting anti-U.S. slogans and burning the U.S. flag. Meanwhile, opposition supporters marched through the streets, wearing green—the color signifying the opposition movement—and chanting, “Death to the dictator,” a slogan used in the post-election protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They were separated from the pro-government demonstrators by lines of police and members of the Basij militia, who repeatedly charged them with batons and fired tear gas into the crowds. There were reports of several dozen arrests and numerous injuries. Protesters also marched in front of the Russian embassy in Tehran, saying, “The real den of spies is the Russian embassy.” (Iranians for years had referred to the U.S. embassy as a “den of spies.”) Opposition activists had criticized the Russian government’s early acceptance of Ahmadinejad’s disputed victory in the June election. Security forces reportedly fired a tear gas canister at Mehdi Karroubi, a former parliament speaker and opposition leader who was marching with the protesters. Karroubi reportedly sustained minor injuries, but at least one bodyguard who shielded him was more seriously hurt. Opposition Web sites also reported that an767

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other opposition leader, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, had been prevented from attending the protests by Iranian security forces, who surrounded his office. Some opposition protesters reportedly chanted, “Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them,” seemingly in frustration with U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to diplomatically engage with the Iranian government. Obama before the protests began had issued a statement praising the opposition’s “courageous pursuit of human rights,” and calling on “the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.” [See p. 768D1] U.S.-Iranian Scholar Gets Jail Sentence—

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An Iranian judge Oct. 18 sentenced U.S.Iranian scholar Tian Tajbakhsh to 12–15 years in prison, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Oct. 20. Tajbakhsh, who had been arrested in July, was convicted of working for the U.S.based Open Society Institute, a democracybuilding organization founded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The Iranian government accused the institute of operating in conjunction with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to foment revolution in Iran. [See 2007, p. 892B2] The semiofficial Mehr News Agency Oct. 31 reported that a top Karroubi aide, former Vice President Morteza Alviri, had been released from prison. He had been arrested in early September. [See p. 610A1] Britain’s Foreign Office Oct. 29 said an Iranian employee of its embassy in Tehran who had been arrested in the June protests had been sentenced to four years in prison, and called for his release. Hossein Rassam was a political analyst at the embassy, and had been charged with espionage and inciting violence. [See p. 562C1] Reformist Web sites Oct. 23 reported that Iranian authorities had raided a prayer ceremony in Tehran and arrested many wives and family members of arrested opposition activists. The ceremony was being held after one detainee, Shahab Tabatabee, had been sentenced to five years in prison that week. Government supporters Oct. 23 reportedly attacked Karroubi at a press exhibition in Tehran, and Ali Reza Beheshti, a Moussavi aide, Oct. 25 also was attacked at the exposition. The government Oct. 17 released on bail Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist for the U.S. magazine Newsweek, the publication reported on its Web site. In a mass trial beginning in August, Bahari had confessed that Western media had orchestrated the postelection protests; activists said his and other confessions had been coerced. [See p. 518G2] The semiofficial Iran Student News Agency (ISNA) Oct. 10 reported that three people who had been arrested in the protests and tried in the mass trial that began in August had been sentenced to death. The announcement was the first public notice 768

of death sentences related to the postelection unrest. ISNA said two of the defendants, who were identified by initials, were members of the royalist Kingdom Assembly of God, which sought to reinstate the Shah of Iran, while the other was linked to the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), an exile group that Iran considered to be a terrorist organization. ISNA also said 18 other protesters had received sentences, but did not give further information. A reformist Web site Oct. 8 had identified one of the members of the Kingdom Assembly of God as Muhammad-Reza Ali-Zamani. n Uranium Export Terms Rejected. U.S. and European officials Oct. 29 said the Iranian government had told the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it would not agree to a plan under which it would ship much of its low-enriched uranium stockpiles to Russia and France for further enrichment. Instead, Iranian officials indicated in an informal response that they wanted to modify the proposed plan so that Iran would make a “simultaneous exchange” of its low-enriched uranium for further-enriched nuclear material. [See pp. 766C2, 755F1, 711B1] Under a draft plan proposed by the U.S., Russia and France the previous week and seemingly approved by Iranian diplomats, Iran would ship 2,600 pounds (1,200 kg) of low-enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be further enriched to the 19.5% level necessary for it to be used as fuel in a research reactor in Tehran, Iran’s capital, to produce medical isotopes. (That enrichment level was still far below the one needed to make nuclear weapons.) The uranium would then be sent to France, where it would be fashioned into metal plates used by the reactor. The Iranian government had missed an Oct. 23 deadline to formally respond to the proposal, and stalled on giving an answer over the next week before diplomats proposed the modification of the proposal’s terms. IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei Oct. 29 said the U.S., Russia and France would not agree to the Iranian modifications, and urged the Iranian government to submit a formal written response. The U.S. and its allies had agreed to the original uranium export deal because it reportedly would delay Iran’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear weapon by about a year; the new proposals would not take enough uranium out of Iranian hands at once to have a significant impact. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reportedly supported the deal, but it had been opposed by both conservative and reformist opponents of his. They had warned that once Iran exported uranium, it might not be returned. Ahmadinejad in a speech Oct. 29 said, “We welcome cooperation on nuclear fuel, power plants and technology.” He said the West’s proposal showed that Iran’s efforts to protect its nuclear program had been successful, although he did not address the Iranian changes to the proposal. Speaking ahead of a meeting with the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu Oct. 30 praised the original proposal as “a positive first step” towards making Iran abandon its nuclear ambitions. However, other Israeli officials said it would legitimize Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which was banned by several U.N. Security Council resolutions. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Nov. 2 urged Iran to agree to the original proposal in order to indicate “that Iran does not wish to be isolated” by further sanctions. The same day, Ali Ashghar Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, said that an acceptable alternative to Iran’s exporting uranium for enrichment would be buying enriched uranium from other countries. He said Iran was entitled to do that as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Qom Nuclear Facility Inspected—A team of four IAEA inspectors Oct. 24 arrived in Iran, and Oct. 25 traveled to a formerly secret nuclear facility under construction near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, whose existence had been disclosed in late September. It was the first international inspection of the facility, which was thought to be meant for enriching nuclear fuel. n

Israel Radical Settler Arrested for Fatal Attacks.

Israeli police Nov. 1 announced that they had arrested a radical Jewish settler in October and charged him with carrying out a number of terrorist attacks over the past 12 years, including murdering two Palestinians. Police said the suspect, Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, had confessed to the crimes. Teitel, 37, was born in the U.S. but had immigrated to Israel and become a citizen in 2000. He lived in the West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel. [See 2008, p. 911F1] Teitel was charged with the 1997 killings of a Palestinian taxi driver in Jerusalem and a Palestinian shepherd near the West Bank city of Hebron, which he said were in revenge for Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel. Police had arrested him for the attacks in 2000, but released him for lack of evidence. In addition, Teitel was charged with sending a bomb in March 2008 to a family that belonged to a community of Jews that believed Jesus was the messiah, seriously injuring a boy; bombing the house of Zeev Sternhell, an Israeli political scientist and leading critic of Israeli settlement in the West Bank, in September 2008; and attacking Israeli police in several incidents. [See 2008, p. 709C1] Police said Teitel had also confessed to a shooting attack on a Tel Aviv center for gay youths Aug. 1 that had killed two people. However, they determined that he had not been involved. Other News—In other Israeli news: o Israeli authorities Oct. 1 indicted Russian-born Israeli billionaire Arkadi Gaydamak on charges of fraud and money laundering for allegedly conspiring with Israeli bank officials to hide his financial stake in the acquisition of a Dutch company. Authorities said the fraud was worth about $175 FACTS ON FILE

million. Gaydamak in 2008 had reportedly left Israel for Russia under police investigation, but said he would return to defend himself in court. He was convicted in absentia later in October by a French court in connection with an arms trafficking scheme. Gaydamak was known for his philanthropic efforts in Israel, and in 2008 had unsuccessfully run for mayor of Jerusalem. [See pp. 766D3, 765D3; 2008, p. 843A2] o The Israeli cabinet May 31 voted, 8–3, to reject legislation that would have required Israeli citizens to swear a loyalty oath to Israel as a Jewish state and to “its symbols and values” and affirm that they would serve in the military, or risk losing their citizenship. The legislation had been proposed by the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, which was led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The proposed law was seen as being aimed at Israeli Arabs, who made up about 20% of the country’s seven million citizens. [See p. 190F1] n

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan Suicide Bomber Kills 35 in Garrison Town.

A suicide bomber Nov. 2 killed at least 35 people and injured 45 at a bank near the Pakistani army’s headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, which was located just outside Islamabad, the capital. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was thought to have been in retaliation for an army offensive that had been launched in October against the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, which was based in the country’s lawless northwest tribal areas. [See p. 737A1] The bombing was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks on Pakistani cities, and came on the heels of a powerful blast the previous week that killed more than 100 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar. It was also the second time in the past month that Rawalpindi had been targeted. A group of gunmen in October had stormed the army’s headquarters and held soldiers hostage for about a day before commandoes conducted a rescue operation. [See p. 694F2] In a separate attack Nov. 2, a car bomb at a checkpoint in the eastern city of Lahore wounded 15 people. The two bombers in the car were killed. The Pakistani government earlier that day had announced that it would pay 420 million rupees ($5 million) for information leading to the death or capture of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and 18 of his top deputies. The United Nations that day said it would scale back development programs in the tribal areas and the neighboring NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP) due to security concerns. A suicide bomber in October had killed five U.N. World Food Program employees in an attack on their headquarters in Islamabad. [See p. 694B3] Passport of Sept. 11 Suspect Found—

The Pakistani army Oct. 29 said it had found the passport of Said Bahaji, who had November 5, 2009

been accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. The army found the passport during its ongoing operation against the Taliban, after securing the town of Sherwangai in the tribal area of South Waziristan. While the document appeared to prove that Bahaji had fled to Pakistan just prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, the army said it did not know his current whereabouts. [See 2006, p. 644A1] Bahaji, a German citizen whose father was Moroccan, had been a member of an Islamic extremist cell in Hamburg, Germany, that was led by Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. The cell had joined the international terrorist network Al Qaeda in the late 1990s. German prosecutors had accused Bahaji of helping Atta and two other cell members in their preparations to hijack the planes used in the attacks. The passport said Bahaji had arrived in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi on Sept. 4, 2001, from Istanbul, Turkey. The passport also bolstered U.S. claims that the Taliban was harboring members of Al Qaeda. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ended a three-day trip to Pakistan Oct. 30, had caused controversy by expressing skepticism that the army was doing its utmost to capture Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. Clinton later amended her remarks, saying she was “very impressed by the resolve” of the Pakistani army to tackle terrorism, in an Oct. 30 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. [See p. 737D2] n

Sri Lanka EU Rights Report Threatens Trade. A Euro-

pean Union report published Oct. 19 found that Sri Lanka had committed human rights abuses during the final months of its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group, which had been defeated by the army in May. The report threatened to nullify a valuable 2005 trade agreement that was contingent on Sri Lanka improving its human rights record. The U.S. State Department Oct. 22 submitted a report to the U.S. Congress detailing similar abuses, putting further international pressure on the Sri Lankan government to investigate the claims. [See below, p. 578B2] The EU report, which took a year to complete, found that in the final months of the war “significant numbers of civilians were unlawfully killed in military operations.” The army had been accused of shelling the LTTE’s stronghold in northern Sri Lanka indiscriminately, contributing to the deaths of as many as 20,000 ethnic Tamil civilians between January and May. The report accused the government of numerous other human rights abuses, including the conscription of child soldiers, arbitrary detentions, torture, disappearances and limiting freedom of expression. The report called on Sri Lanka to take “vigorous, rapid and verifiable” action to address the alleged abuses. [See below] The report also criticized the government for the “arbitrary and disproportionate manner” in which it had detained about

250,000 Tamil refugees who had fled the fighting. The refugees were currently being held in temporary camps that were overcrowded, ringed with barbed wire and lacking in basic necessities. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa—an ethnic Sinhalese, the country’s predominant ethnic group—had pledged to release 80% of the refugees by the end of the year, but thus far had freed only about 10%. The government claimed that it had to first screen the camps for LTTE fighters, and clear the civilians’ villages of mines. The EU would now decide whether to remove Sri Lanka from the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP-Plus) program. Sri Lanka was one of 16 countries in the program, which reduced tariffs on exports to the EU in exchange for progress on human rights issues. Sri Lanka was heavily dependent on GSP-Plus, sending nearly 40% of its exports to EU countries. Analysts said a suspension of the tariff agreement would take a large toll on Sri Lanka’s textile industry. In an apparent response to the report, Rajapaksa Oct. 21 announced a new drive to resettle some 40,000 people in the camps over a period of several weeks. Media outlets Nov. 2 reported that the government was speeding up its resettlement program, with some 2,000 to 3,000 Tamil civilians leaving the camps per day. Government officials cited by the media said a total of about 80,000 refugees had been released. U.S. Urges Investigation—Stephen Rapp, the U.S. State Department’s ambassadorat-large for war crimes, Oct. 22 provided the U.S. Congress with a list of alleged human rights abuses and war crimes committed by both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE in the final months of the war. The LTTE had been accused of using civilians as human shields against the army offensive and killing civilians who had attempted to flee the war zone. Rapp called on the Sri Lankan government to investigate the claims, saying, “We want accountability in this situation.” The Sri Lankan foreign ministry said the report was “unsubstantiated and devoid of corroborative evidence.” Rapp’s investigation included reports made by aid agencies, human rights groups, media organizations and the U.S. embassy in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Nov. 1 reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had requested that Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the Sri Lankan army chief, make himself available for questioning on Nov. 4. Fonseka at the time of the request was visiting his daughters, who went to school in Oklahoma. The Sri Lankan government Nov. 2 demanded that the U.S. cancel the interview, the purpose of which was to reportedly elicit evidence against Rajapaksa’s brother, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry Nov. 4 said Fonseka had been allowed to leave the U.S. without being questioned. 769

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Journalist Sentenced to 20 Years— A judge in Colombo Aug. 31 sentenced J.S. Tissainayagam, a Tamil journalist, to 20 years of hard labor for violating Sri Lanka’s antiterrorism laws. Tissainayagam, the former editor of the now-defunct North Eastern Monthly magazine, had written articles that were critical of the government war effort and was arrested in March 2008. Prosecutors said Tissainayagam had used “false information to spur ethnic violence” and had accepted money from the LTTE. Rights groups said Tissainayagam was the latest in a string of journalists to be targeted by the government. London-based rights group Amnesty International said 14 journalists had been killed in Sri Lanka since 2006. [See p. 579B1] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

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Yankees Defeat Phillies to Win World Series New York Claims 27th Title. The New York

Yankees Nov. 4 beat the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies, 7–3, at Yankee Stadium in New York City to win the bestof-seven World Series, four games to two. It was the 27th Major League Baseball (MLB) title in Yankees history, and the first in the new Yankee Stadium, which had opened in April. [See p. 751C3; 2008, p. 799E2] The Yankees, managed by Joe Girardi, won their first World Series since claiming four titles in five years from 1996 to 2000. Girardi had played for the team as a catcher for three of those wins, and four current players—shortstop and captain Derek Jeter, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte, catcher Jorge Posada and closer Mariano Rivera— were members of all of those championship teams. [See 2000, p. 834A1] Yankees designated hitter Hideki Matsui tied a World Series record with six runs batted in (RBI) in the clinching sixth game, and was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the series. (The only other player to collect six RBI in one World Series game was the Yankees’ Bobby Richardson in 1960.) Matsui, 35, went eight for 13 with eight RBI in the series, despite being limited to pinch-hitting duties in the three games in Philadelphia, Pa. He sparked the offense at key moments in the Yankees’ victories in games two and six. Matsui, who had spent 10 seasons playing professionally in his native Japan before joining the Yankees, became the first Japaneseborn World Series MVP, as well as the first full-time designated hitter to win. [See below; 2002, p. 1067D1] The Phillies, managed by Charlie Manuel, came up short in their bid to repeat as World Series champions. Second baseman Chase Utley had five home runs in the series, tying a record set by Reggie Jackson of the Yankees in 1977. Analysts made much of Girardi’s decision to go with a three-man pitching rotation of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Pettitte in the World Series, meaning that the team’s top starters could pitch more games, 770

but on less rest than they were accustomed to. The last team to do so in a World Series had been the San Diego Padres in 1998; they were swept by the Yankees. Manuel, in contrast, stuck with a four-man rotation. First Game—Oct. 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York City (attendance 50,207): R H E Philadelphia...........................001 001 022 6 9 1 New York...............................000 000 001 1 6 0 Winning pitcher—Cliff Lee. Losing pitcher—Sabathia.

The Phillies won game one, 6–1, at Yankee Stadium, behind a superb performance by starter Cliff Lee. Matched up against New York ace Sabathia, Lee shut down the Yankees, pitching a complete game in which he allowed just one unearned run on six hits, and struck out 10 batters. Utley hit two solo home runs off Sabathia, in the third and the sixth—the only two runs allowed by the Yankees’ starter. The New York bullpen allowed four runs in two innings of relief of Sabathia. Second Game—Oct. 29 at Yankee Stadium (attendance 50,181): R H E Philadelphia.........................010 000 000 1 6 0 New York............................000 101 10x 3 8 0 Winning pitcher—Burnett. Losing pitcher—Martinez. Save—Rivera.

The Yankees won the second game, 3– 1, to even the series at one game apiece. The game pitted Yankees starter Burnett, in his first season with the team, against Pedro Martinez, the Yankees’ nemesis in the 2003 and 2004 American League Championship Series, when he played for the rival Boston Red Sox. (Martinez had signed with the Phillies in July.) With the score tied, 1–1, in the bottom of the sixth, Matsui hit a solo home run off Martinez to give the Yankees the lead. The Yankees added an insurance run in the seventh. Burnett gave up one run in seven innings, and Rivera shut down the Phillies in the eighth and ninth to earn the save. [See 2004, p. 829D1, A3; 2003, p. 842B1–A2, E2–A3] Third Game—Oct. 31 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia (attendance 46,061): R H E New York...............................000 231 110 8 8 1 Philadelphia............................030 001 001 5 6 0 Winning pitcher—Pettitte. Losing pitcher—Cole Hamels.

The Yankees won the third game, 8–5, to take a two-games-to-one lead in the series. The Phillies scored three runs in the second off Pettitte, including a solo home run by right fielder Jayson Werth. The Yankees began their comeback in the fourth, when Phillies starter Hamels walked Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. The next batter, third baseman Alex Rodriguez, hit a fly ball to the right field corner that appeared to hit the top of the wall, and then bounced back onto the field. It was initially ruled a double. However, the Yankees argued that the ball had actually hit a television camera in the right field stands, and that the hit should count for a home run. For the first time ever in the World Series, the umpires looked at the video replay and ruled that the hit was indeed a home run.

Pettitte hit a game-tying RBI single in the fifth. A two-run double by left fielder Johnny Damon gave the Yankees a 5–3 lead, and drove Hamels from the game. The Yankees had built an 8–4 lead by the bottom of the ninth. After Yankees reliever Phil Hughes gave up a solo homer to catcher Carlos Ruiz, Rivera was called in and got the final two outs. Fourth Game—Nov. 1 at Citizens Bank Park (attendance 46,145): R H E New York.................................200 020 003 7 9 1 Philadelphia.............................100 100 110 4 8 1 Winning pitcher—Joba Chamberlain. Losing pitcher—Brad Lidge. Save—Rivera.

The Yankees won the fourth game, 7–4, to pull within one game of the championship. Sabathia, pitching on three days’ rest, allowed seven hits and three runs in six and two-thirds innings. The Yankees scored two runs in the first and two more in the fifth off Phillies starter Joe Blanton, but the Phillies tied the game, 4–4, when third baseman Pedro Feliz homered off reliever Chamberlain in the bottom of the eighth. Facing Phillies closer Lidge in the top of the inning, Damon hit a two-out single, and then stole second and third base on the same play. After Lidge hit Teixeira with a pitch to put runners on first and third, Rodriguez doubled to drive in Damon, and Posada singled to drive in Teixeira and Rodriguez. Rivera pitched a perfect ninth to earn the save. Fifth Game—Nov. 2 at Citizens Bank Park (attendance 46,647): R H E New York..............................100 010 031 6 10 0 Philadelphia..........................303 000 20x 8 9 0 Winning pitcher—Lee. Losing pitcher—Burnett. Save—Ryan Madson.

The Phillies staved off elimination by winning the fifth game, 8–6. Burnett, also pitching on short rest, was not sharp, allowing six runs on four hits and four walks, and leaving the game in the third inning. Philadelphia scored two more runs in the bottom of the seventh to build an 8–2 lead. Phillies starter Lee, who had given up just two runs over the first seven innings, allowed three runs in the top of the eighth. Phillies manager Manuel brought in reliever Madson, instead of Lidge, to close out the game in the ninth. Sixth Game—Nov. 4 at Yankee Stadium (attendance 50,315): R H E Philadelphia........................... 001 002 000 3 6 0 New York...............................022 030 00x 7 8 0 Winning pitcher—Pettitte. Losing pitcher—Martinez.

The Yankees won the sixth game, 7–3, to clinch the series. They were led by a solid start from Pettitte, who gave up four hits and three runs in five and two-thirds innings to earn his record 18th postseason career win. Chamberlain, Damaso Marte and Rivera combined to shut out the Phillies for the rest of the game. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ offense was sparked by Matsui’s six RBI, including a two-run home run in the second inning and a two-run single in the third—both off Phillies starter Martinez— and a two-run double in the fifth. n FACTS ON FILE

Off-season Moves Shake Up Teams—

Charlie Villanueva. The moves came two days after the team fired head coach Michael Curry. Former Cavaliers assistant coach John Kuester July 8 was named to replace him. The Minnesota Timberwolves had the most tumultuous off-season in the NBA, beginning with the June firing of coach Kevin McHale. The team Aug. 11 officially named former Lakers assistant coach Kurt Rambis as his replacement. However, the prospects of a fresh start for the struggling franchise seemed to fade by summer’s end, when the team’s first-round draft pick, Ricky Rubio, Aug. 31 decided to continue playing in his home country of Spain, rather than sign a deal with the Timberwolves. [See p. 451B1] A complicated, four-team trade on July 9 saw the Toronto Raptors receive forward Hedo Turkoglu from the Orlando Magic, as well as guard Antoine Wright and forward Devean George from the Mavericks. In return, the Raptors sent forwards Shawn Marion, Kris Humphries and Nathan Jawai to the Mavericks. The fourth team involved, the Memphis Grizzlies, traded guard Greg Buckner to Dallas, in exchange for forward Jerry Stackhouse and a future second-round draft pick from the Raptors. In another offseason move, the Grizzlies Sept. 9 signed former Pistons guard Allen Iverson.

Several teams that had earned playoff spots in the 2008–09 season made moves during the free agency period to build upon their previous success. The Lakers July 2 announced the addition of former Rockets forward Ron Artest to their championship lineup. The Celtics, champions in the 2007–08 season, July 8 signed former Detroit Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace. The Pistons July 2 came to terms with former Chicago Bulls guard Ben Gordon and former Milwaukee Bucks forward

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov Sept. 23 signed a tentative $200 million deal with New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner that would give Probkhorov a majority stake in the Nets and a partial investment in the team’s new arena planned for the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The sale came as legal challenges and lack of financing threatened the arena project, which had been in the works for three years. [See 2007, p. 39F2]

MEN’S BASKETBALL POLLS

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL POLLS

Following are the top 10 teams in the Associated Press (AP) preseason poll of media members and the USA Today/ESPN preseason coaches’ poll, released Oct. 29, for Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s basketball teams [See p. 230D3]:

Following are the top 10 teams in the Associated Press (AP) preseason poll of media members, released Oct. 30, and the USA Today/ESPN preseason coaches’ poll, released Nov. 4, for Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s basketball teams [See p. 230E3]:

Basketball NBA Season Opens. The National Basketball Association (NBA) season opened Oct.

27, with eight teams in action that day. The defending champion Los Angeles Lakers defeated the visiting Los Angeles Clippers, 99–92. [See p. 419C1] In other games Oct. 27, the visiting Boston Celtics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 95–89. Also, the Portland Trailblazers defeated the Houston Rockets, 96–87, in Portland, Ore. The Dallas Mavericks lost their home opener to the Washington Wizards, 102–91. The NBA narrowly avoided opening the season amid a lockout of its referees, reaching a last-minute deal with the referees’ union Oct. 20. The NBA Sept. 18 had locked out the referees after weeks of failed negotiations over proposed changes in retirement benefits in the new contract, to replace the five-year contract that expired Sept. 1. The league had used replacement referees, consisting mostly of officials from the NBA Development League, in preseason exhibition games. The agreement, which the referees ratified on Oct. 23, was a two-year contract in which referees agreed to some concessions in view of the economic downturn.

Nets Sale, Move to Brooklyn Seen—

The ownership change still needed approval from 23 of the NBA’s 30 owners, in a vote that Commissioner David Stern Oct. 22 said would take place before the end of 2009. If the sale was completed, Prokhorov would become the first principal owner of an NBA franchise hailing from outside the U.S. or Canada. Other News—In other NBA news: o The NBA Oct. 2 announced changes in the league’s use of instant replay. Under the new rules, referees would be allowed to review any shot clock expiration to see whether a player got a shot off in time or whether a foul was committed before time ran out. The referees could also use replay in the final two minutes of a game to determine which player last touched the ball before going out of bounds. [See 2008, p. 859A2] o Magic forward Rashard Lewis Aug. 6 was suspended for 10 games after testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone, a violation of the league’s substance abuse policy. Following the suspension, Lewis admitted to taking an over-the-counter supplement, saying he had done so not knowing that it contained a banned substance. o Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy Nov. 4 was released from prison after serving 13 months of a 15-month sentence for his admitted role in a gambling scandal. During his time in jail, Donaghy wrote a tell-all book entitled Blowing the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA. The Web site Deadspin Oct. 28 had posted excerpts from the book, which accused his former colleagues of manipulating the outcome of games with their officiating. Deadspin said the as-yet unpublished book had been acquired by a division of publisher Random House, which then dropped the book under legal threats from n the NBA. [See 2008, p. 858C3]

ARTS & SCIENCES

Associated Press

1. Kansas 2. Michigan State 3. Texas 4. Kentucky 5. Villanova 6. North Carolina 7. Purdue 8. West Virginia 9. Duke 10. Tennessee USA Today/ESPN

1. Kansas 2. Michigan State 3. Texas 4. North Carolina 5. Kentucky 6. Villanova 7. Purdue 8. Duke 9. West Virginia 10. Butler November 5, 2009

Associated Press

1. Connecticut 2. Stanford 3. Ohio State 4. Notre Dame 5. North Carolina 6. Duke 7. Baylor 8. Tennessee 9. Louisiana State 10. Michigan State

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People A documentary film drawn from 120 hours of rehearsal footage for a London concert series that singer Michael Jackson was preparing for in Los Angeles at the time of his death in late June was screened for the first time early Oct. 28 in 17 U.S. and international venues. Within five days, the documentary, Michael Jackson’s This Is It, had reportedly grossed $101 million in combined domestic and international receipts, making it the highest-grossing concert film ever released; the previous record had been set by a Miley Cyrus concert tour film, which earned $70.6 million worldwide in 2008. [See pp. 772D1, C2, 467E3] n

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1. Connecticut 2. Stanford 3. Ohio State 4. Baylor 5. North Carolina 6. Duke 7. Notre Dame 8. Oklahoma 9. Tennessee 10. Michigan State

O B I T UA R I E S DeCARAVA, Roy Rudolph, 89, photographer renowned for his black-and-white images of street life in New York City’s Harlem district, one of the U.S’s most vibrant black neighborhoods; he also photographed many leading jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday and John Coltrane; he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2006; born Dec. 9, 1919, in New York; died there Oct. 27; the cause of his death was not disclosed. [See 2006, p. 942B3]

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BEST SELLER LISTS

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Publishers Weekly Nov. 2 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 672A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time national television shows Sept. 28–Nov. 1 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.5 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 672A2]:

Fiction Hardback 1. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Doubleday) 2. The Scarpetta Factor, by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam) 3. Pursuit of Honor, by Vince Flynn (Atria) 4. Nine Dragons, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown) 5. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam/Amy Einhorn)

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General Hardback 1. Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom (Hyperion) 2. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow) 3. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 4. Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, by Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions) 5. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking) Mass Market Paperback 1. The Associate, by John Grisham (Dell) 2. Cross Country, by James Patterson (Vision) 3. Heat Lightning, by John Sandford (Berkley) 4. Deadlock, by Iris Johansen (St. Martin’s) 5. True Detectives, by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Oct. 31 issue list-

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 672C1]:

D

Singles 1. “Down,” Jay Sean featuring Lil Wayne (Cash Money/Universal Republic) 2. “Whatcha Say,” Jason DeRulo (Beluga Heights/Warner Bros.) 3. “Party in the U.S.A.,” Miley Cyrus (Hollywood) 4. “Run This Town,” Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West (Roc Nation) 5. “3,” Britney Spears (Jive/JLG)

Albums

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1. Crazy Love, Michael Buble (Reprise/Warner Bros.) 2. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, soundtrack (Summit/Chop Shop/Atlantic/AG) 3. The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z (Roc Nation/AG) 4. Love Is the Answer, Barbra Streisand (Columbia/Sony Music ) 5. The Time of Our Lives, Miley Cyrus (Hollywood)

DUCKWORTH, Ruth (born Ruth Windmueller),

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Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Oct. 23–29 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 672B2]:

1. Paranormal Activity, Paramount ($68.2 million, 5) Directed by Oren Peli. With Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat and Michael Bayouth. 2. Saw VI, Lionsgate ($17.3 million, 1) Directed by Kevin Greutert. With Costas Mandylor and Tobin Bell. 3. Where the Wild Things Are, Warner Bros. ($56.7 million, 2) Directed by Spike Jonze. With Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo. 4. Law Abiding Citizen, Overture Films ($44.1 million, 2) Directed by F. Gary Gray. With Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill and Leslie Bibb. 5. Couples Retreat, Universal ($80.6 million, 3) Directed by Peter Billingsley. With Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love and Kristin Davis. 6. Michael Jackson’s This Is It, Sony ($11.2 million, 2 days) Directed by Kenny Ortega. With Michael Jackson. [See p. 771E3] 7. Astro Boy, Summit Entertainment ($7.9 million, 1) Directed by David Bowers. With the voices of Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson and Nathan Lane. 8. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, Universal ($7.7 million, 1) Directed by Paul Weitz. With John C. Reilly, Ken Watanabe, Josh Hutcherson, Chris Massoglia and Ray Stevenson. 9. The Stepfather, Sony ($21.3 million, 2) Directed by Nelson McCormick. With Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard and Sherry Stringfield. 10. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Sony ($115.9 million, 6) [See p. 672B2]

works as Tristes Tropiques (1955), The Savage Mind (1962) and The Raw and the Cooked (1964), he examined the rituals and myths of Indian tribes in Brazil and North America, seeking to undermine the distinction drawn between “primitive” and “civilized” societies; a member of the French Academy since 1973, he beJOEL ROBINE/AFP/Getty Images

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90, Chicago-based sculptor, ceramist and muralist whose work, both large- and small-scale, combined abstract and figurative elements; a native of Germany, she arrived in Britain in 1936 as a refugee from the Nazi regime, and lived there until the mid-1960s; she moved to Chicago to teach at the University of Chicago, and remained on its faculty until 1977; during the last decades of her life, she both lived and worked in a converted pickle factory; one of her best-known largescale pieces was Clouds Over Lake Michigan, installed in the Chicago Board Options Exchange Building; her work was exhibited widely in both the U.S. and Europe; born April 10, 1919, in Hamburg; died Oct. 18 at a Chicago hospice, after a brief illness. HANSEN, Clifford Peter, 97, Wyoming cattle rancher who, running as a conservative Republican, was elected governor of his state in 1962; his one term as governor was followed by two terms of service in the U.S. Senate (1967–78); his voting record in the Senate earned him 100% ratings from the conservative lobbying group Americans for Constitutional Action; born Oct. 16, 1912, in Zenith, Wyo.; died Oct. 20 at his home in Jackson, Wyo., after receiving hospital treatment for a pelvic fracture; at his death, he had been the oldest ex– U.S. senator. [See 1990, p. 620C2; 1978, pp. 856F1, 736C2, 678A2, 550B1, 304B3, 218G1, 177G2; Indexes 1969–77, 1966–67, 1964, 1962] LEVI-Strauss, Claude, 100, cultural anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher, and for decades one of France’s leading intellectuals; in such landmark

1. “World Series Game 4” (Fox), Nov. 1 (13.5) 2. “NCIS” (CBS), Oct. 20 (13.0)* 3. “World Series Game 1” (Fox), Oct. 28 (11.9) 4. “World Series Game 2” (Fox), Oct. 29 (11.7) 5. “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), Oct. 26 (11.3)

of thought positing that certain common patterns underlay all human cultures; in the last years of his life, he was closely involved with the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, an indigenous art museum that opened in 2006; born Nov. 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium; died Oct. 30 at his home in Paris, of natural causes. [See 2008, p. 247E3; 1973, pp. 958A2, 632E3, 176F2] MELNICK, Daniel, 77, U.S. television, film and theater producer; early in his career, he collaborated with David Susskind, who was well-known to the general public as the combative host of a long-running TV talk show; as a film producer, he worked independently, as well as under the aegis of such Hollywood studios as MGM and Columbia Pictures; he was involved in the production of such landmark films as Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) and Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979); born April 21, 1932, in New York City; died Oct. 13 at his home in Los Angeles, of lung cancer and other ailments. [See 1987, p. 132D3; 1982, p. 411A3; Indexes 1980, 1978, 1965]

Claude Levi-Strauss in 2001.

PONSETI Vives, Ignacio, 95, orthopedist who in the 1940s, after his arrival in the U.S. as a Spanish Civil War refugee, developed a nonsurgical treatment for clubfoot, involving gentle manipulation and the use of casts, that became the global standard for treatment of the condition, but not until the 1990s; he developed his clubfoot treatment at the University of Iowa, where he taught for four decades; born June 3, 1914, on the Spanish island of Minorca; died Oct. 18 at a hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, of stroke complications. n

November 5, 2009

U.S. House Narrowly Passes Health Care Reform Bill Projected to Cost $1.1 Trillion Over 10 Years.

The U.S. House Nov. 7 voted, 220–215, to pass a wide-ranging overhaul of the U.S. health care system that would cost an estimated $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Only one Republican, Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao (La.), broke ranks with his party to vote for the bill, after Republican leaders had predicted unanimous opposition. Thirty-nine Democrats, most of whom came from conservative swing districts, voted against the measure. The bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, would provide for the largest expansion of health care in the U.S. since the 1965 approval of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. [See p. 740A3; for highlights of the bill, see p. 774A1; for a list of House members who crossed party lines in the vote, see p. 774E1] Early press reports had pegged the cost of the plan at $894 billion, a figure that only reflected the net cost of expanding coverage—including expected penalties assessed against companies and individuals—and not its gross cost. The bill’s passage in the House was a significant political victory for U.S. President Barack Obama, who had made health care reform the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda. Obama had reportedly personally lobbied several Democratic lawmakers to support the bill during a private meeting with them just hours before the vote. The bill’s passage was also seen as a political win for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.), who had been in charge of corralling the needed votes. However, health care reform was expected to face tougher resistance in the Senate, where it was unclear if it had the support of 60 senators, the threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) Nov. 10 said he planned to have the Senate complete work on its version of the health care reform bill by Dec. 25. However, other Democratic leaders said it was unlikely that a passed bill would be presented to Obama by the end of 2009. The House legislation would extend coverage to 36 million people currently without coverage. It would also end the ability of insurance companies to deny policies to those who had preexisting medical conditions, and to drop from coverage people who developed an illness. It would create a new government-run health insurance plan, known commonly as the public option. It would also provide funding to establish “exchanges,” markets on which health care policies, including the public option, could be compared and purchased by those lacking employer coverage. Most people in the U.S. would be required to obtain some form of insurance, or else face financial penalties. Government subsidies for the purchase of insurance would be provided to low- and middle-income individuals and families. Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for the poor, would be expanded. Employers of companies with annual payrolls exceeding $500,000 would be re-

quired to provide their workers with insurance, or else pay fines. The plan would be paid for by a variety of new taxes and fees, as well as $400 billion in cuts to spending growth in the Medicare program over the next 10 years. Among the new taxes was a 5.4% income surtax on individuals earning more than $500,000 annually, and families earning more than $1 million per year. House members debated the bill for 12 hours prior to the vote, and Democrats on the floor cheered after the bill hit the 218vote threshold needed for passage. Republicans had lambasted the legislation, arguing that it would be too expensive and lead to an outsized government role in health care that could drive private insurers out of business. They also criticized the new fees and taxes that would be used, in part, to offset the costs of the program. Several Democrats had also voiced concerns over the bill’s cost. Abortion Deal Key to Securing Votes—

Prior to the floor vote, the House had voted, 240–194, to amend the bill to severely limit the abortion coverage available to consumers under the reform plan. The amendment barred those who received government subsidies from enrolling in plans that covered abortions, and prevented the public option from covering them. The amendment could also limit insurance companies from offering policies on the government-run exchanges that covered abortions. Pelosi Nov. 6 had met with Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to reach an agreement on the amendment after a contingent of antiabortion Democrats threatened to oppose the health care bill. Antiabortion Democrats had reportedly voiced concerns that the reform bill would allow government money to pay for abortions, reportedly compelling Pelosi to scramble to keep party defections to a minimum. The amendment received strong support from Democrats, with 64 party members, about 25% of the caucus, supporting it. Abortion rights advocates sharply criticized the amendment, arguing that insurers were unlikely to craft a separate insurance policy that included abortion coverage for those people not taking federal subsidies. Nonsubsidized policy holders were likely to have to purchase a separate rider policy for abortions, should they desire it. Some pro-choice legislators said they would work to strip the abortion amendment when the bill was finalized in a conference committee with the Senate. Sen. Ben Nelson (D, Neb.), an opponent of abortions, Nov. 9 said he would not support the Senate’s version of the legislation unless it clearly stated that government money would not be used to fund abortions. Nelson was considered a key swing vote on the bill. Obama that day called on Congress to revise the abortion restrictions. Obama said he did not seek to use federal money to subsidize abortions, but added that he wanted to ensure that the government was not “restricting women’s choices.”

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3595 November 12, 2009

B GOP Offers Alternative Bill—House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio), during a Nov. 1 interview on the Cable News Network (CNN), said Republicans would offer their own legislative proposal for health care reform. Boehner said the Republican legislation would not attempt to expand insurance coverage to the same degree as the Democratic plan, but would be less expensive and would not threaten the private insurance industry. He added that the bill would not require businesses or individuals to purchase insurance, would not raise taxes and would impose new restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits. Republicans Nov. 2 said their measure focused on reducing health care costs, as opposed to expanding insurance coverage, in stark contrast to the Democratic plan. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Nov. 4 released an assessment

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. House narrpowly pases health care reform bill; projected to cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. PAGE 773

U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan questions troop increase. PAGE 775

Obama eulogizes Fort Hood shooting victims; Hasan charged with 13 murders.

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U.S. unemployment rate hit 10.2% in October. PAGE 778

Madagascar rivals reach new powersharing deal. PAGE 782

Ousted Honduran president Zelaya calls deal for return to power ‘dead.’ PAGE 784

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Cambodia names former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin as economic adviser. PAGE 784

China executes nine over Xinjiang riots. PAGE 785

20th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall marked. PAGE 787

Iraqi parliament passes elections law. PAGE 789

Hariri forms unity government in Lebanon. PAGE 790

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL

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Following are elements of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, passed by the U.S. House Nov. 7, that would significantly reform the U.S. health care system [See p. 773A1]: Expansion of Coverage

o

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E

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The bill would expand health insurance to about 96% of the U.S. population under age 65 over 10 years, at a cost estimated by the Congressional Budget Office of $1.055 trillion dollars. After factoring money generated by penalties on individuals and employers who did not adhere to the plan’s new rules, the cost of the bill was projected at $894 billion over that time period. About one-third of the 18 million people without insurance at the end of that period would be illegal immigrants. o The measure would create a governmentrun health insurance plan, known as the “public option,” that would compete with private insurers, intended to improve options available to consumers while lowering costs. Insurance companies would be forbidden from denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions, or penalizing those who developed illnesses from policies. Adult children would also be able to remain on their parents’ insurance policies until they reached the age of 27. o All U.S. residents would be required to obtain insurance, and consumers would be able to

of the Republican plan, finding that it would provide insurance to three million people currently without it, at a cost of $60 billion over 10 years. The Republican plan, submitted as an amendment to the Democrats’ bill, Nov. 7 was defeated, 258–176. Thousands of conservatives opposed to the Democratic reform plan Nov. 5 demonstrated outside the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The demonstration was organized by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R, Minn.), and several House Republicans gave speeches to the crowd. Attention Shifts to Senate—Obama Nov. 8 exhorted the Senate to pass its version of the reform bill, calling on legislators to “take up the baton and bring this effort to the finish line.” Reid had reportedly overseen the merger of two bills passed by dif-

comparison shop for policies on new “exchanges” that would be created and run by the federal government. States would be able to operate their own exchanges, as long as they followed federal guidelines. Those people who did not obtain insurance faced financial penalties that topped out at 2.5% of their annual adjusted gross income. However, hardship waivers would be available for those who said they could still not afford insurance. o Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor, would be expanded to cover anyone with an income of 150% or less than the federal poverty level. o A sliding scale of federal subsidies would become available in 2013 for those who could not otherwise afford insurance. At the lowest income level, a family of four making less than $29,000 annually would have to pay no more than 1.5% of their income for coverage. At the highest income level for subsidies, a family of four making $88,000 in a year would be limited to spending 12% of their annual income on insurance. o Out-of-pocket medical costs for most people with insurance would be capped at $5,000 per year for individuals, and $10,000 per year for families. Employers

o

The bill required all employers to provide their workers with health insurance or else face a

ferent committees, but work on the new bill had stalled while senators waited for a CBO analysis of its costs. While details on the Senate plan had not been released, several key elements of the plan were widely known. The bill did not include the House’s income surtax, instead imposing an excise tax on “Cadillac,” or high-end, health insurance plans costing more than $8,000 annually for an individual and $21,000 annually for a family. It also contained provisions for a government-run health plan, but would allow states to opt out of the program. The Senate plan reportedly faced opposition from a sizeable group of moderate Democrats, further complicating Obama’s efforts to sign the measure before the end of 2009. Differences on the plan’s treatment of abortion were also expectMEMBERS WHO BROKE WITH PARTY ON HEALTH CARE VOTE ed to divide Democratic senators. Democratic House members who voted against the health care reform bill Sen. Susan passed Nov. 7, and the Republican who voted for it [See p. 773A1]: Collins (R, Democrats Voting Against Frank Kratovil Jr. (Md.) Maine) Nov. 9 John Adler (N.J.) Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) held a press conJason Altmire (Pa.) Betsy Markey (Colo.) ference to express Brian Baird (Wash.) Jim Marshall (Ga.) her concern that John Barrow (Ga.) Eric Massa (N.Y.) the Democratic John Boccieri (Ohio) Jim Matheson (Utah) plans did not do Dan Boren (Okla.) Mike McIntyre (N.C.) Rick Boucher (Va.) Michael McMahon (N.Y.) enough to control Allen Boyd (Fla.) Charlie Melancon (La.) the rising cost of Bobby Bright (Ala.) Walt Minnick (Idaho) health care. She Ben Chandler (Ky.) Scott Murphy (N.Y.) said she had been Travis Childers (Miss.) Glenn Nye (Va.) meeting with a Arthur Davis (Ala.) Collin Peterson (Minn.) group of moderate Lincoln Davis (Tenn.) Mike Ross (Ark.) Democrats who Chet Edwards (Texas) Heath Shuler (N.C.) shared her conBart Gordon (Tenn.) Ike Skelton (Mo.) Parker Griffith (Ala.) John Tanner (Tenn.) cerns. Outside Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.) Gene Taylor (Miss.) policy experts had Tim Holden (Pa.) Harry Teague (N.M.) also echoed those Larry Kissel (N.C.) Republican Voting For worries. Sen. JoSuzanne Kosmas (Fla.) Anh (Joseph) Cao (La.) seph Lieberman

penalty of up to 8% of their annual payroll. However, small companies whose annual payrolls did not exceed $500,000 would be exempt from the requirement. The penalty would be assessed incrementally for companies with payrolls between $500,000 and $750,000, when it would top out at 8%. Companies with very small workforces would be given tax credits in return for offering health insurance to their employees. New Taxes and Fees

o

Individuals making more than $500,000 per year, and families making more than $1 million annually, would be subjected to a new income surtax of 5.4%. That tax was expected to generate $460 billion over 10 years, to be used to fund the health care plan. o Medical device makers would face new fees expected to generate $20 billion over 10 years. Additional revenue would be generated by a mix of other corporate taxes and fees, as well as the penalties assessed on individuals and families who did not obtain insurance, and employers who did not offer it. o The plan would also be paid for in part by savings made through cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, projected to amount to $460 billion over 10 years. Included in the planned cuts were reductions in the “Medicare Advantage” program of privately managed health plans for seniors.

(Conn.), an independent who normally caucused with the Democratic Party, Nov. 8 reiterated his pledge to join a filibuster against any reform bill that contained a public option. Former President Bill Clinton Nov. 10 called on Democratic senators to overcome their differences on the bill and pass it as soon as possible. Clinton in the 1990s had undertaken an ultimately futile effort to comprehensively reform the U.S. health

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care system. “The worst thing to do is nothing,” he said. Separately, the Washington Post, citing the Campaign Media Analysis Group, Nov. 10 reported that a total of $150 million had been spent so far in 2009 on advertising related to the health care reform debate. Those in support of the reform plan had spent about $63 million, while those opposed to it had spent an estimated $52 million, according to the report. n

U.S. Ambassador Questions Troop Increase.

had only deepened those concerns. [See pp. 549B3, 313F3] The Obama administration was reportedly considering ways to pressure Karzai to address corruption without threatening a withdrawal of U.S. forces. In a Nov. 9 interview with the ABC television network, Obama suggested that the U.S. could increase its cooperation with provincial governors who had more legitimacy with local populations. Prior to the meeting on Afghanistan, Obama Nov. 11 attended a Veterans Day memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, his first as president.

Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, had sent two classified cables to the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama expressing doubts about increasing U.S. troop levels in the country, it was reported Nov. 12. Eikenberry in the past week had reportedly warned against sending troops unless Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a serious effort to crack down on the rampant corruption that had undermined the legitimacy of his government. [See p. 753A1] Eikenberry’s warning came as Obama Nov. 11 held his eighth meeting in recent months to reassess the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, which was seeing record levels of violence as an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban gained strength. Obama at the meeting was reportedly presented with four options for boosting troop levels, with the lowest increase at about 10,000 and the highest at 40,000, the number of troops reportedly preferred by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan. Eikenberry attended the meeting via videoconference. In his cables, he reportedly warned that Afghanistan had grown overly reliant on Western forces to provide security, at the expense of training its own army and police forces. Eikenberry was a former three-star general who had been the top commander for U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. As ambassador, he had previously called for more civilian aid for Afghanistan. The White House after the meeting issued a statement warning the Afghan government that the U.S.’s commitment to the mission was “not open-ended.” It said, “After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time.” High-ranking members of Karzai’s administration had been accused of corruption, with some believed to be involved in the country’s opium trade. The government’s legitimacy had been further damaged by accusations that widespread fraud had helped Karzai win reelection; he been proclaimed the winner of the August election in early November, after a disputed vote count. The Obama administration was reportedly concerned that Karzai was too weak or unwilling to tackle corruption. The alliances Karzai had made in recent months with notoriously corrupt Afghan warlords

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Nov. 6 said Karzai’s government had become “a byword for corruption,” declaring, “I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption.” However, he said Britain “cannot, must not and will not walk away” from Afghanistan, calling the war against the Taliban necessary to protect Britain against terrorism. But he said that unless Karzai’s government made improvements in several areas, “it will have forfeited its right to international support.” Brown’s comments came four days after five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan police officer. He had recently authorized the deployment of 500 additional troops, bringing Britain’s total to 9,500, the second-highest after the U.S., but was facing strong domestic opposition to the war. [See p. 754C1] He had also been harshly criticized for his handling of the war effort. During a debate in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, three former chiefs of the defence staff, the highest British military post, Nov. 6 said Brown had not provided adequate support to troops, and questioned his commitment to fighting the Taliban. Field Marshal Peter Inge said British troops felt that Brown “had never really been on their side.” [See p. 673G2– B3] Brown had also been caught up in a controversy involving a condolence letter he had written to the mother of a slain soldier, in which he allegedly misspelled the soldier’s last name. Brown Nov. 10 publicly apologized for the perceived gaffe, which he had blamed on his bad handwriting. Other News—In related developments: o Japan Nov. 10 announced that it would provide Afghanistan with $5 billion in aid over the next five years. The aid would go toward bolstering Afghanistan’s police forces, developing local economies and other projects. The announcement came ahead of a Nov. 13 visit to Japan by Obama. Japan had recently announced that in January 2010 it would end a naval mission in the Indian Ocean that provided refueling to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The new aid package was seen as a way for the newly elected government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to keep its campaign promise to end the mission,

Afghanistan War

November 12, 2009

Brown Warns Karzai on Corruption—

while continuing to assist the U.S. in Afghanistan. [See p. 703C2] o NATO officials Nov. 11 said they had recovered the body of one of two U.S. soldiers who had disappeared Nov. 4 in the northwestern province of Badghis. NATO said it would continue searching for the second soldier. A search party for the soldiers Nov. 6 had been ambushed by Taliban fighters, and a subsequent NATO air strike was thought to have been responsible for the deaths of seven Afghan soldiers, in what would be one of the worst friendlyfire cases since the beginning of the war in 2001. NATO said it was still investigating the incident. Five U.S. soldiers and at least 17 Afghan security personnel were wounded during the attack. [See p. 499D2] o The New York Times Nov. 11 reported that a joint Afghan-U.S. operation in the southern city of Kandahar had uncovered an insurgent stash of 500,000 pounds (200,000 kg) of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer used to make crude bombs. The bombs were thought to account for the bulk of coalition deaths in Afghanistan. With about 60 pounds needed to make one bomb, the raid eliminated thousands of potential bombs. About 2,000 pieces of bomb-making equipment were also seized, and 15 Afghans were detained. Much of Afghanistan’s ammonium nitrate was thought to be smuggled from Pakistan. n

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Global Economy G-20 Countries Pledge Continued Support.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 (G-20) leading economies Nov. 6–7 met in St. Andrews, Scotland, where they pledged to continue emergency stimulus programs that had been implemented during the global financial crisis to support economic growth. The announcement Nov. 9 helped send the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average to its highest level since October 2008. [See below, p. 651E1] The G-20 also set a timetable to review economic imbalances seen as detrimental to long-term global stability, such as the U.S.’s growing budget deficit and China’s export-driven economy. Each G-20 member would develop policies and projections for its own economy by January 2010, which would then undergo a review by other G-20 members in April 2010. G-20 members would propose options to bolster global economic stability by June 2010, and make specific policy recommendations by November 2010. The G-20 failed to come to an agreement on a financial plan to combat climate change. Disagreements also emerged over a proposed tax on financial transactions, which would be used to create a global insurance fund to assist financial institutions in times of crisis. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the first time Nov. 7 came out in favor of such a tax, saying, “It cannot be acceptable that the benefits of success in this sector are reaped by the few but the costs of its failure are borne by all of us.” Germany and France also supported 775

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the tax, but the U.S., Russia and Canada opposed it. [See p. 674C3] Dow Continues Bull Run on G-20 Pledge—

The G-20’s pledge to maintain stimulus programs Nov. 9 sent the Dow up 203.52 points, or 2.03%, to close at 10,226.94. The Dow was up 16.5% for the year, and up 56% since it hit a 12-year trough in March. The G-20’s pledge indicated to investors that governments would continue to assist corporations that had recently begun reporting higher profits. The pledge also contributed to the U.S. dollar continuing its months-long slide against the value of other currencies, with the euro Nov. 9 closing at a value of $1.4988 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The New York Times Nov. 10 reported that the value of the U.S. dollar was down 16% since March. The decline in the dollar was seen as also contributing to the rise in stock prices, as investors sought alternatives to dollar holdings. [See p. 699D3] The continuation of the U.S. stimulus program—which included hefty amounts of government spending and ultra-low interest rates—could invite inflationary pressures and would keep returns on U.S. investments low, discouraging investors. The U.S. dollar had also increasingly been used in carry trades, in which investors borrowed in dollars and then invested those loans in countries where interest rates were higher, putting further downward pressure on the dollar. The weak dollar, while traditionally an indicator of economic weakness, had some benefits for the U.S. economy, such as making its exports cheaper on the global market. n

International Trade U.S. Sets Tariffs on Chinese Oil Pipe. The

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U.S. Commerce Department Nov. 5 said it had found that Chinese companies were exporting a kind of steel pipe to the U.S. at unfairly low prices, a practice known as dumping, and announced tariffs on the pipes in question ranging from 36.5% to 99.1%. The decision was the latest in a series of trade actions taken by the U.S. and China against each other, including U.S. tariffs imposed on Chinese tires, and investigations subsequently announced by China into U.S. car parts and chicken exports. The new U.S. ruling preceded a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to China scheduled to begin Nov. 15. [See p. 615F1] The Commerce Department said China had exported $2.6 billion worth of the steel pipe, used in oil wells, to the U.S. in 2008, a fourfold increase from 2006. The tariffs had been requested by U.S. steel companies and the United Steel Workers labor union. The U.S. in September had made a preliminary ruling setting tariffs ranging from 10.9% to 30.69%. The higher duties announced Nov. 5 had to receive final approval by the U.S. International Trade Commission, in a decision expected in March 2010. China’s commerce ministry in a Nov. 5 statement called the action “abusive protectionism,” and claimed that the U.S. 776

companies’ difficulties were due to the global economic downturn. WTO Complaint Over Export Rules—

The U.S., the European Union and Mexico Nov. 5 filed a request for a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel to adjudicate their claim that China imposed improper restrictions on the export of certain raw materials widely used in industrial manufacturing. The U.S. and EU in June had lodged a complaint over China’s 2007 export rules, after two years of unsuccessful attempts to resolve the dispute. That triggered a 60-day consultation period in which the two sides were to seek a resolution. Their failure to do so led to the Nov. 5 request for a dispute-settlement panel. [See p. 615A3] The materials were yellow phosphorus, bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon metal, silicon carbide and zinc. The plaintiffs said China’s restrictions, which included export duties and quotas, raised the price of the materials and the products made with them. China said the rules had the legitimate purpose of protecting its exhaustible resources and the environment. Agreements on Pork, Wind Power—The U.S. and China Oct. 29 reached new agreements on a number of trade matters at talks in Huangzhou, China. China agreed to lift a block on imports of U.S. pork, imposed in May over concerns about the H1N1 swine influenza strain, and the U.S. agreed to ease the restrictions on Chinese poultry imports it had imposed in 2004. U.S. officials said China had also agreed to measures that would make it easier for foreign companies to sell wind-power technology in China, by easing contract specifications requiring the use of locally produced parts. On a topic that U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called a high priority for the U.S. delegation, China agreed to allow U.S.-Chinese joint ventures operating in China to be considered domestic businesses for the purpose of competing for government contracts. Chinese officials Oct. 29 said they had taken steps to investigate whether U.S. government aid to domestic automobile makers had unfairly subsidized exports of U.S.-made cars. The move was considered largely symbolic, because China imported relatively few cars from the U.S. [See p. 757C3] China Oct. 19 had announced a preliminary decision to impose antidumping tariffs of 36% on polycaprolactam, or nylon 6, from the U.S. Nylon 6 was used to make a variety of products including toothbrushes. China set lower tariff rates for nylon 6 from the EU, Russia and Taiwan, and Nov. 8 announced duties of 5%–35.4% on imports of a chemical used to make nylon, adipic acid, from the U.S., the EU and South Korea. China Appeals WTO Media Ruling—

China Sept. 22 filed an appeal of an August WTO ruling against its regulations requiring foreign films and other media products to be distributed through state monopoly companies. Although the documents were not immediately publicly released, the Wall Street Journal Sept. 23

said that it had obtained a copy of China’s appeal, which asserted that its regulations governing media imports were necessary to “protect public morals.” [See p. 557G1] China also appealed another part of the August WTO ruling that said China must remove obstacles preventing foreign companies from selling music recordings online. China reportedly claimed that it had not made any agreements obliging it to open its markets to nonphysical recordings. n

Other International News China Pledges $10 Billion in Loans to Africa.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, at a meeting of Chinese and African leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Nov. 8 announced that China would make available to African nations $10 billion in low-interest loans over the next three years. China had pledged $5 billion at a similar meeting in 2006. [See p. 170E1; 2006, p. 874E1] The meeting, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, was attended by Wen and other Chinese officials, as well as leaders from 49 African nations. China had already made billions of dollars in loans and investments in Africa, including in nations that had been accused of human rights abuses, such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and, most recently, Guinea. [See p. 702C1] Wen also pledged to create a $1 billion program that would give loans to small and mid-sized businesses, as well as to forgive some previously granted interest-free loans. Many Western nations and donors objected to China’s foreign trade and investment strategy, under which it made deals with nations without regard to internal issues such as human rights, democracy or good governance, in order to acquire natural resources to feed its growing economy. Western donors, in contrast, often made loans and aid contingent on the implementation of certain free-market policies or concrete improvements on human rights or political freedoms. [See below] Some in Africa had also criticized what they called China’s exploitation of the continent’s raw materials. However, others noted the benefits of badly needed infrastructure funding. Wen in a press conference said China’s involvement in Africa was “selfless” and, compared with the 2006 deal, “more focused on improving people’s livelihoods.” He also rejected allegations that China had “come to Africa to plunder its resources and practice neo-colonialism.” Congo Revises China Deal—The Democratic Republic of the Congo, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Paris Club, a group of wealthy creditor nations, Nov. 11 agreed to restructure a $9 billion deal with China, reached in 2008. Under that deal, state-owned Chinese companies would help to improve Congo’s infrastructure, building roads, railways and hospitals, in exchange for the rights to develop a copper and cobalt mine in the country. [See 2008, p. 795A1] The IMF and the Paris Club had objected that the deal would not help Congo reduce FACTS ON FILE

its $11 billion in external debt. The IMF indicated that it would not approve a badly needed three-year aid program for Congo without first receiving assurances from the Paris Club that it would reschedule or forgive some of Congo’s debt. The Paris Club said it would not do so unless the deal with China was modified. Under the Nov. 11 restructuring, a $3 billion Congolese government guarantee on the mining deal was eliminated, as was $3 billion in Chinese infrastructure financing, bringing the value of the deal down to $6 billion. Wen Addresses Arab League—Wen Nov. 7 addressed a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt’s capital. In his speech, he sought to reassure Arab nations that China did not discriminate against its Muslim minority, which he said numbered about 20 million people. His statements came in the aftermath of recent violence in China’s western Xinjiang region, which had a large population of ethnic Uighurs, who were Muslim. During the violence, Uighurs clashed with members of the majority Han Chinese community, resulting in at least 197 deaths. [See p. 785E2] “China is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. The basic policy of the Chinese government is to ensure equality among all ethnic groups and speed up the economic development of all regions,” Wen said, adding that China “fully respected” Chinese Muslims’ “beliefs, culture and way of life.” n Moldovan CIS Summit Sparsely Attended.

Moldova Oct. 8–9 hosted a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of 11 former Soviet republics. Heads of state from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan declined to attend the meeting. The participants reportedly discussed cooperation on economic, security and other issues, as well as how to advance the organization itself. [See p. 450G1; 2008, p. 786C1] Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called the summit “successful.” However, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and acting Moldovan President Mihai Ghimpu Oct. 10 suggested that the CIS had outlived its usefulness. Georgia had withdrawn from the CIS earlier in the year; Ukraine was an unofficial member. n Boat Carrying Kosovo Migrants Capsizes.

A boat carrying 19 Kosovo Albanians had capsized in the Tisza River, which divided Serbia and Hungary, it was reported Oct. 22. Sixteen people were believed to have drowned in the incident, which Kosovar officials said had occurred between Oct. 14 and 16. The group had been attempting to cross into Hungary illegally. [See pp. 728G3, 423F3] The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, or EULEX, Oct. 26 said the migrants had paid smugglers as much as 8,000 euros ($11,900) per family for transport to Hungary. EULEX said its investigation of the incident would focus on identifying the organizers of the smuggling operation. n November 12, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Obama Eulogizes Fort Hood Shooting Victims Hasan Charged With 13 Murders. President Barack Obama Nov. 10 memorialized 13 people who had been killed the previous week at Fort Hood, Texas, in possibly the deadliest mass shooting on a military base in the U.S., saying they would “endure through the life of our nation.” Meanwhile, investigations continued into the motives of the alleged shooter, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who had been shot by police and was hospitalized under guard. Military prosecutors Nov. 12 charged Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder. [See p. 757E1] Speaking at Fort Hood to soldiers and their families, Obama Nov. 10 said, “It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know: No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts. No just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice, in this world, and the next.” He said the incident was “even more painful, even more incomprehensible” because the victims “were killed here, on American soil.” Obama said, “Neither this country, nor the values that we were founded upon, could exist without men and women like these 13 Americans.” He praised the military’s diversity, which he said included “man and woman; white, black and brown; of all faiths and all stations—all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.” Obama in his speech did not mention Hasan’s name, or his ethnicity or religion. Hasan was born in Arlington, Va., of Palestinian parents. He was reportedly a devout Muslim, although he had listed “no religious preference” on his military personnel records. (According to the Army, 1,977 active-duty soldiers identified themselves as Muslim, out of a total 553,000 soldiers. However, experts said there were probably many more Muslims in the military who did not officially disclose their religion.) Obama’s speech at Fort Hood was the first time he had acted as a national eulogist after a major tragedy. He had previously spoken at the August funeral of Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.), and in October had made an early-morning visit to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, for the return of the remains of 18 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan. [See pp. 750D3, 584A2] The Army Nov. 7 had released the names of the three women and ten men slain in the attack. They included included 12 armed services members and one civilian, and ranged in age from 19 to 62. Five of the dead were mental health professionals. Hasan Nov. 9 met with his lawyer, retired Col. John Galligan, in Hasan’s hospital room at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Tex-

as. Galligan had previously defended Pfc. Willie Brand, a U.S. military policeman who in 2005 was charged with the severe beating and subsequent death of an Afghan detainee; Brand was demoted but escaped a prison sentence and was honorably discharged. [See 2005, p. 642C3] Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Christopher Grey Nov. 12 announced what he said were the “initial charges,” adding that “additional charges may be preferred in the future, subject to the ongoing criminal investigation.” Unnamed Army officials said prosecutors would seek the death penalty; the last execution of an active-duty service member took place in 1961. Hasan was being tried in military rather than civilian court, reportedly reflecting the Army’s belief that he had acted alone rather than as part of a larger terrorist plot. The New York Times Nov. 12 reported that an unnamed eyewitness to the shooting gave an account of Hasan’s eventual wounding and capture that differed from the initial police account. Fort Hood’s emergency services director, Chuck Medley, Nov. 6 had said that civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley had shot and injured Hasan, while herself being wounded by his fire. However, the witness said Hasan had incapacitated her before she could hit him, and that another officer, Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, had shot Hasan while he was reloading his pistol. During a Nov. 11 appearance together on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” Munley and Todd did not say who had shot Hasan. Todd Nov. 12 in an interview with the Times gave an account similar to the witness’s, saying he had shot Hasan after seeing Munley injured. Grey Nov. 12 said both Munley and Todd “engaged the armed suspect,” and warned against drawing conclusions before all the evidence was analyzed. Other police and Army officials also would not comment on who shot Hasan. Contacts With Radical Imam Questioned—

Government officials Nov. 9 said they were investigating intercepted e-mails between Hasan and a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen sent in December 2008 and early 2009. They said two joint counterterrorism task forces, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had become aware of 10 to 20 messages sent by Hasan to Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been the imam at the Dar alHijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va. when Hasan worshipped there in 2001. Awlaki had been considered a moderate while in the U.S., but since emigrating in 2002 had become known for advocating militancy through videos posted on the Internet. He reportedly had links with international terrorist network Al Qaeda and was known to have met, at Dar al-Hijrah and a San Diego, Calif., mosque, with three of the hijackers who had carried out Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Investigators had reportedly concluded that Hasan did not pose a terrorist threat, because the e-mails were mostly about religious matters and were seen as being consistent with research Hasan was carrying out for his work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and 777

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for his master’s degree thesis. It was unclear whether Hasan had ever met Awlaki while at Dar al-Hijrah. Awlaki Nov. 9 wrote on his Web site that the Fort Hood shooting was “a heroic act,” and said Hasan was “a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.” Dar al-Hijrah released a statement condemning Awlaki’s Web post. Hasan in the summer had undergone a routine FBI background check when he bought one of the handguns that he had used in the attack, but a government official said the previous investigation would not have shown up in the check. An unnamed senior defense official said intelligence and law-enforcement agencies had not warned the Defense Department or the Army about the e-mails between Hasan and Awlaki, news reports said Nov. 11. A lack of information-sharing between agencies before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had allowed warnings of terrorist activity to go unnoticed, and reforms in the wake of the attacks had been aimed at preventing such communications breakdowns in the future. Obama Nov. 12 formally asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair to investigate whether their agencies had handled information on Hasan properly; he had originally made the request Nov. 6. Federal legislators also called for probes into possible intelligencesharing failures. Investigators and Hasan’s family members and coworkers had said he was distressed over his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan, which was scheduled for Nov. 28, and that he had been traumatized by years of treating service members with physical and mental injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan. They said he strongly opposed U.S. military involvement in those countries, and had sought to leave the military rather than be forced to fight other Muslims, although military officials said there was no indication that he had formally asked for a discharge. Reports indicated that two days before the shooting, he had given away possessions to his neighbors and said goodbye to them, although that was seen at the time as preparation for his deployment. The Washington Post Nov. 10 reported that Hasan in June 2007 had given a presentation to his supervisors and colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in which he warned that Muslim soldiers should be allowed to leave military service as conscientious objectors, rather than being forced to fight against fellow Muslims. He warned that such a step was necessary to “increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” The presentation reportedly upset some audience members, but it was not reported to authorities. n

Economy Unemployment Rate Hit 10.2% in October.

The unemployment rate in October was 10.2% after seasonal adjustment, up from its September level of 9.8%, the Labor Depart778

ment reported Unemployment Nov. 6. It was the October 2009 10.2% highest unemPrevious Month 9.8% Year Earlier 6.6% ployment rate since 1983, fueling concerns that the labor market could remain weak for some time even as the economy showed signs of improvement. The Commerce Department in October had reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) had grown at a 3.5% rate in the third quarter of 2009, the first time it had grown since 2008. [See pp. 739A3, 676A1] An estimated 190,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in October, down from previous months and an indication that the pace of job losses was slowing. The construction and manufacturing sectors were hard hit, slashing 62,000 and 61,000 jobs, respectively. The health care and education sectors added jobs. The October labor report brought the total number of jobs lost to 7.3 million since the recession began in December 2007. The unemployment rate was 17.5% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. President Barack Obama Nov. 6 said the unemployment rate was a “sobering number that underscores the economic challenges ahead.” He said, “History tells us that job growth always lags behind economic growth, which is why we have to continue to pursue measures that will create new jobs.” Obama said he might propose additional government spending and new tax cuts for businesses to encourage job creation. The Obama administration Oct. 30 had claimed that a $787 billion stimulus package signed into law in February had created or saved 640,000 jobs, mostly in the education sector. Republicans criticized the relatively small number of jobs affected by the stimulus, and questioned the veracity of the report. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) in a statement released that day said, “The trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ isn’t working, and no amount of phony statistics can change that.” Boehner Nov. 6 criticized the administration again, saying Obama was “falling short” on his pledge to create jobs and that Democrats in Congress were passing “job-killing” legislation to overhaul the health care system. [See p. 773A1] Benefits Extension Signed—Obama Nov. 6 signed into law a bill that extended unemployment insurance benefits by 13 weeks across the country, and by 20 weeks in areas where the unemployment rate had reached 8.5%. The bill also extended an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers that was due to expire Nov. 30, and created a new $6,500 tax credit for home owners buying a new primary residence. Home buyers would be eligible for the $8,000 credit if they signed a contract on a home by April 30, 2010, and closed the deal by June 30, 2010. Home owners would be eligible for the $6,500 credit if they owned their current homes for five consecutive

years in the past eight. Only those individuals making $125,000 or less, and families making $225,000 or less, would qualify. [See pp. 740C2, 676A2] The House Nov. 5 had voted, 403–12, to pass the bill, while the Senate the previous day had voted, 98–0, to pass it. 138 Million Jobs Held in October— According to a household survey, 138.3 million people held jobs in October, the Labor Department reported Nov. 6. The department counted 15.7 million people as unemployed. The department counted 808,000 workers as discouraged in October. About 9.3 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average workweek was 33.0 hours in October, remaining unchanged from September. The average manufacturing workweek was 40.0 hours, up 0.1 hours from the previous month. Factory workers’ average overtime rose 0.2 hours, to 3.2 hours in October. The average hourly wage for production workers rose five cents, to $18.72. The unemployment rate among whites in October was 9.5%, up from 9.0% in September. The jobless rate for blacks was 15.7%, up from 15.4% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 13.1%, up from 12.7% in September. For men age 20 and over, October unemployment was 10.7%, up from 10.3% in September. For adult women, it was 8.1%, up from 7.8% the previous month. The teenage rate was 27.6%, up from 25.9% in September. For black teenagers it was 41.3%, up from 40.8% the previous month. n

Financial Regulation Sen. Dodd Unveils Reform Legislation.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Nov. 10 unveiled a bill to overhaul the financial regulatory system, intended to prevent a repetition of the financial crisis that began in 2008 and helped push the economy into a deep recession. The far-reaching bill was significantly different from a reform proposal made by the administration of President Barack Obama and legislation that was currently being considered in the House. [See pp. 640E3, 618B1, 407A1] Dodd’s bill would create a council of regulators to monitor potential risks to the financial system; merge the four existing federal banking regulators into a single regulator; establish a financial consumer protection agency to prevent predatory practices in the consumer loan market; increase oversight over the trading of credit derivatives and other exotic financial products; and boost funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The proposals would severely limit the powers of the Federal Reserve, taking away its authority to regulate big banks and protect financial consumers. The Fed would also be barred from making emergency loans to struggling companies. Many lawmakers had criticized the Fed for its failure to prevent the financial crisis. Dodd said, “Over the last number of years when [the FACTS ON FILE

Fed] took on consumer-protection responsibility and regulation of bank-holding companies, it was an abysmal failure.” The bill would limit the Fed’s duties to setting monetary policy through its benchmark interest rate target. However, Fed officials had said the Fed’s regulatory authority over banks gave them insight into the financial industry that was necessary to formulate effective monetary policy. Additionally, the Fed’s supporters said the central bank’s emergency policies during the crisis had saved the economy from sliding into a full-blown depression. The Obama administration had proposed making the Fed the most powerful regulatory body in the financial system, and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D, Mass.) was making similar proposals. The administration had proposed the merger of only two federal regulators—the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—while preserving the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Under Dodd’s plan, the FDIC would also lose its regulatory power over banks. However, adminstration officials did not criticize Dodd’s plan. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it “moves us one step closer toward comprehensive financial reform.” There were also many similarities between Dodd’s and Obama’s proposals, such as the consumer financial protection agency and the crackdown on credit derivatives. The consumer financial protection agency had been strenuously opposed by the banking industry and Republican lawmakers, who said it would unduly extend the government’s reach into the private sector. So far, no Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee had come out in support of Dodd’s bill. Dodd said he wanted to put the bill to a committee vote in the coming weeks, but observers said it was unlikely that the full Senate would vote on the bill before the year was out. House Speeds Up Credit Card Reform—

The House Nov. 4 voted, 331–92, to immediately enact new credit card rules that were scheduled to take effect in February 2010. Obama in May had signed into law a bill that would limit the ability of creditcard companies to raise interest rates and charge fees. However, companies since then had reportedly been intensifying such actions before the law took effect, and Frank Nov. 4 claimed that they had taken advantage of the grace period to unfairly “jack up the rates.” Banking groups argued that the weak economy and the forthcoming rules had compelled them to place restrictions on credit. [See p. 354A2] The bill would now go to the Senate. Dodd Oct. 26 had proposed freezing interest rates on existing credit-card balances until the law came into effect in February. The Federal Reserve Nov. 12 announced new rules that would limit the ability of banks to charge fees when customers overdrew their accounts. Under the new rules, banks could no longer automatically enroll customers in overdraft protection programs, a practice that critics said November 12, 2009

allowed banks to charge unwitting customers exorbitant fees when their accounts were overdrawn. The new rules applied to transactions involving debit cards and automated-teller machines, but not checks. They would go into effect on July 1, 2010, for new depositors, and Aug. 15, 2010, for existing depositors. [See p. 715D3] n

Politics House Ethics Committee Probes Leaked.

A leaked House Ethics Committee report showed that the panel and the newly created Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) were investigating the activities of more than 30 lawmakers, according to an Oct. 29 article on the Washington Post’s Web site. The number of probes referred to by the confidential internal report, which dated from July, was much greater than the seven current investigations that had been publicly revealed by the secretive committee. [See p. 679E1; 2007, p. 867D3] Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D, Calif.) Oct. 29 responded to the leak by saying that some of the investigations were at a preliminary stage, and that “no inference” should be drawn from the document as to final judgments in the case of any lawmaker. A statement issued by Lofgren and Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the senior Republican on the committee, said the leak occurred when a junior staff member downloaded the document on a public file-sharing computer network while working from home. They said the staffer had been fired. Republicans said the leak showed that leaders of the Democratic House majority had failed to fulfill their promise of running the most ethical Congress in history. All but two of the lawmakers cited in the leaked document were Democrats. Defense Spending Panel Scrutinized—

According to the Post, seven lawmakers, and some of their staff, were under investigation in connection with a now-defunct lobbying firm, PMA Group, which had represented military contractors. That probe was broader than previously indicated. The seven lawmakers were members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, including Rep. John Murtha (D, Pa.), the chairman of the subcommittee. The others were Reps. Norm Dicks (D, Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D, Ohio), James Moran (D, Va.), Todd Tiahrt (R, Kan.), Peter Visclosky (D, Ind.) and C.W. (Bill) Young (R, Fla.). Only Murtha, Visclosky and Moran had previously been linked to the case. The Ethics Committee was investigating whether the lawmakers had given earmarks, or individual items in spending bills, to PMA’s clients in exchange for campaign contributions. The seven lawmakers had secured $200 million in earmarks for PMA clients over the past two years, and received $6.2 million in campaign contributions from PMA and its clients in the past decade, according to Congressional Quarterly and Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had raided PMA’s offices in November 2008. Visclosky May 29 had confirmed that he and his staff had been served with federal grand jury subpoenas for documents related to the matter. Rep. Jeff Flake (R, Ariz.) Oct. 30 called on House leaders to remove “more than 70 no-bid contracts for former clients of PMA, worth nearly $200 million,” from the annual defense appropriations bill, which the House had approved in July. [See p. 523G2] Two New Probes Announced—The House Ethics Committee Oct. 29 announced that it had opened two investigations, into Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, both California Democrats. The OCE, a semi-independent monitoring body set up under a March 2008 House resolution, had recommended both probes. Waters was being probed over allegations that she had used her influence to obtain federal aid for a bank in which her husband owned stock. Richardson was under investigation for possible failure to report assets on financial disclosure forms required for members of Congress, and a possibly improper benefit linked to the foreclosure of a property she owned. [See p. 243E1] The committee also announced that it had dismissed a case, referred by the OCE, against Rep. Sam Graves (R, Mo.). The OCE concluded that Graves had likely violated ethics rules by inviting a business partner of his wife’s to testify at a hearing. After those three decisions, the Ethics Committee was pursuing seven formal investigations, all of which targeted black lawmakers. Both Waters and Richardson were black, while Graves was white. Some black lawmakers had complained of an unfair racial disparity in the committee’s actions. The committee had previously opened investigations of Rep. Charles Rangel (D, N.Y.), chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, over their alleged use of corporate funds to pay for Caribbean trips. Rangel also faced committee probes of his admitted failures to disclose assets on financial disclosure forms. n

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2009 Elections McGinn Wins Seattle Mayoral Election.

Lawyer and environmental activist Mike McGinn Nov. 9 won the Nov. 3 mayoral election in Seattle, Wash., after an extended vote count showed that he had garnered 51% of the vote. McGinn’s opponent, fellow Democrat and telecommunications executive Joe Mallahan, conceded defeat after the latest count showed McGinn winning by a margin of 4,939 votes, out of a total of about 190,000 cast. [See p. 757A1] McGinn’s lead had grown as the counting progressed. A recount had appeared possible when he led by only about 500 votes in the first days after the election. Vote counting was a lengthy process in Seattle because elections were conducted exclusively by mail-in ballots. The two-term incumbent, Mayor Greg Nickels (D), had lost his bid for reelection, 779

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White House Visitors List Released. The White House Oct. 30 released a partial list of its visitors during the period from President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20 to July 31. Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics, said the White House planned to make regular disclosures of its visitor log every three months, starting in December. [See p. 29B1; 2007, p. 418F3] Obama Sept. 4 had announced the plan to make the log public “for the first time in history.” Eisen said the released lists, made available on the White House Web site, would exclude a “small group of appointments that cannot be disclosed because of national security imperatives or their necessarily confidential nature.” The first list included only names about which a specific request for information had been submitted by the media or other public organizations. Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), was the most frequent guest during the January to July period, visiting the White House 22 times. He met with Obama seven times, and on other occasions met with White House staff or attended public events. John Podesta, head of Obama’s transition team and president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, visited 17 times, meeting with Obama twice and with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel four times. A number of prominent corporate executives appeared on the list. Leading bankers on the list included James Dimon, chief executive officer (CEO) of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., and Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., who each met with Obama twice. Celebrities including television talk show host Oprah Winfrey also appeared on the list. Eisen said two visitors on the list named William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were not the same men with those names who had stirred controversy during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Obama drew Republican criticism for allegedly associating with radicals. [See 2008, p. 803E2] White House Denies Perks for Donors—

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Oct. 28 denied a report by the Washington Times that Obama campaign contributors had received special access to the White House. Gibbs said, “Contributing doesn’t guarantee a visit to the White House, nor does it preclude it.” He also said many of the donors invited to White House events had been longtime personal friends of Obama. [See 2000, p. 623A1] The Times report said the Democratic National Committee, the executive body of the Democratic Party, offered exclusive access to White House officials for donors 780

who gave the maximum legal contribution of $30,400, or who raised $300,000 from other donors. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, Oct. 28 demanded the immediate disclosure of the names of donors who had been given access to the White House. He called for an investigation into “whether there was any quid pro quo offered to donors.” Obama Oct. 26 had made his 26th fundraising appearance since taking office in January, a heavy schedule compared with only six such appearances by his predecessor, George W. Bush, in 2001, his first year in office. Gibbs that day said the reason for the difference was that in 2001, donors could still make unlimited donations to political parties, but the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law had set an annual limit. [See p. 602G3] n

Capital Punishment D.C. Sniper Muhammad Executed. John Allen Muhammad, a former U.S. Army sergeant, Nov. 10 was executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., for taking part in 2002 sniper attacks in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia that had killed 10 people. Muhammad reportedly had no final statement prior to the execution and did not speak after being led to the execution room. However, following his death, one of his attorneys read a statement from Muhammad that maintained his innocence. [See 2008, p. 750E3] Muhammad and his then-teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, had been linked to shootings in Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona, Washington State and Georgia, in addition to the shootings in the Washington, D.C., area, but had not been charged in connection with those additional shootings. Malvo, who was serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole in Virginia, had testified against Muhammad at trial. Muhammad was executed for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers, a victim of the sniper attacks who had been killed at a Manassas, Va., gas station in October 2002. Muhammad was executed five years and eight months after his conviction. That was much shorter than the average period between a U.S. death row inmate’s conviction and execution, which was nearly 13 years. Death Sentence Upheld—A three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., Aug. 7 unanimously upheld Muhammad’s conviction and death sentence for the murder of Meyers. The panel said that it could not “find reversible errors in the conclusions of the state and district courts.” Lawyers for Muhammad had argued that he was severely mentally ill, and should not have been allowed to defend himself during part of his trial. They also said that prosecutors had failed to turn over numerous potentially exculpatory documents, including written opinions by forensics experts that questioned the ballistics evidence used against Muhammad.

The U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 9 declined to review the panel’s ruling, effectively ending Muhammad’s ability to appeal his conviction and death sentence. The Supreme Court did not comment on its decision. However, Justice John Paul Stevens issued a statement, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that criticized Virginia for setting an execution date for Muhammad sooner than the high court would have ordinarily taken up his appeal. Stevens said that while he did not disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear Muhammad’s case, he believed the scheduling of the execution had compromised the careful attention that a capital case deserved from the courts. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (D) Nov. 10 issued a statement announcing that he had decided against granting clemency to Muhammad. He said that he had found “no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was recommended by the jury and then imposed and affirmed by the courts.” n

Terrorism Guilty Plea in Somali Terrorism Case. Kamal Hassan, a Somali-born U.S. citizen and resident of Minnesota, Aug. 12 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minn., to one count of lying to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in connection with his involvement with Al Shabab, a Somali Islamist insurgent group. He faced up to eight years in prison in connection with the charge. [See p. 622G2] Hassan was one of a group of about 20 Somali-born men who were thought to have traveled from the U.S. to Somalia in 2007–08 to fight first against occupying Ethiopian troops and later against Somalia’s transitional government. He and two others later returned to the U.S. and had been charged in connection with their activities in Somalia; at least six of the group were thought to have died in Somalia. Hassan admitted that he had lied to an FBI agent on Feb. 9 when he claimed that he had left Somalia for Yemen after attending an Al Shabab training camp, and said that he had actually fought briefly with Al Shabab and continued to work for them after leaving the camp. He also admitted to concealing the identities of associates in Somalia and Minnesota from the FBI. According to court documents, Hassan Feb. 18 had pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and providing material support for a foreign terrorist organization in connection with his association with Al Shabab. He faced up to an additional 30 years in prison on those charges. Additional Indictments Unsealed— The Justice Department July 13 unsealed indictments against Salah Osman Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, the two other men who had returned from Somalia and been charged. The indictments charged them with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people in a foreign country, among other charges. Isse had been arrested in Seattle, Wash., on Feb. 24; Ahmed was arrested in Minneapolis on July 11. FACTS ON FILE

Isse April 17 had pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support for terrorists. He admitted to helping to construct a training camp run by Al Shabab and receiving weapons training there; he reportedly left the camp and Somalia after about two weeks. He faced up to 15 years in prison for that charge. Ahmed July 28 pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorists and admitted to receiving training with machine guns while at an Al Shabab– run camp in Somalia. He also faced 15 years in prison on the charge. Suicide Bombing Linked to American—

The Associated Press (AP) reported Sept. 25 that the FBI was investigating the possibility that one of the Somali-American men associated with Al Shabab, Omar Mohamud, had died perpetrating a Sept. 17 suicide bombing attack against an African Union (AU) peacekeeping base in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, that killed 21 people. (Another Somali-American, Shirwa Ahmed, had acted as a suicide bomber on behalf of Al Shabab in an Oct. 29, 2008, attack in northern Somalia that killed 21 people.) In addition to Mohamud, Ahmed and the four other members of the SomaliAmerican group reportedly killed in Somalia, Troy Kastigar, a U.S. native who had converted to Islam, Sept. 11 was reported to have been killed in Somalia. He had reportedly traveled there to join Al Shabab, but was not thought to have had any personal connection to Somalia prior to his arrival. Somali President Visits Minnesota—

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, president of the transitional government that controlled only a small portion of Somalia, Oct. 4 gave a speech in Minneapolis during a visit to the U.S. Ahmed discussed his government’s continuing efforts to combat Islamic militants, including members of Al Shabab. He expressed regret over the fates of the Somali-Americans who had been killed, saying they had “become not just part of the problem, but are victims themselves while victimizing others.” n

Environment EPA Agrees to Mercury Emissions Deadline.

The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23 issued a consent decree, or voluntary agreement made to end a lawsuit, in which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to issue new air pollution rules for power plants fueled by coal and oil by a deadline of November 2011. [See p. 94G2–A3] The Clean Air Act of 1990 had mandated that the EPA issue such air pollution rules before the end of 2002. However, the administration of President George W. Bush had argued that the rules were unnecessary, and asked Congress to eliminate the requirement. After Congress rejected that request, the Bush administration attempted to eliminate the requirement through the courts, but those efforts failed in February 2008. A group of environmental and public health November 12, 2009

groups then sued the government in order to force them to put the rules into effect. Under the agreement, the EPA would propose draft regulations by March 2010, which would then be finalized by November 2010. Currently, coal- and oil-fired power plants released 50 tons (45 metric tons) of mercury into the air annually, along with a host of other toxic substances. The pollution contributed to a range of illnesses, including asthma and bronchitis, and contributed to the early death of an estimated tens of thousands of people each year. Power utilities said the rules would raise the cost of electricity. Other News—In other air pollution news: o The EPA Sept. 22 said it would require the largest producers of greenhouse gases to report their emissions to the government beginning Jan. 1, 2010. The regulation applied to entities that created more than 25,000 metric tons (27,600 tons) of carbon dioxide pollution annually. The new rules would apply to an estimated 10,000 petroleum products suppliers and other industrial businesses, responsible for generating about 85% of U.S. emissions. Businesses that supplied fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas and coal, would be required to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the burning of that fuel. The rules had first been proposed in March. [See p. 267C3] o A panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City Sept. 21 ruled that states and land trusts could sue power utilities for emitting greenhouse gases, overturning an October 2005 decision by the U.S. District Court in New York City. The ruling allowed eight states, three conservationist land trusts and New York City to continue with a 2004 lawsuit against a group of power utilities—American Electric Power Co. Inc., Southern Co., Xcel Energy Inc., Cinergy Corp. and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The states were California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. [See 2004, p. 609B3] o The EPA Sept. 16 said it would reconsider smog pollution regulations set during the Bush administration that had been criticized by environmentalists and public health advocates as inadequate. The standards, set in 2008, lowered the level of allowable ground-level ozone to 75 parts per billion (ppb), from the 84-ppb standard set in 1997. However, the new rule had fallen short of the 60–70 ppb level recommended by EPA scientific advisers. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said reassessing the standards might “cut health care costs and make our cities healthier, safer places to live, work and play.” [See 2008, p. 201C2] n News in Brief. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Oct. 13 released a report written in 2007 on the ramifications of global climate change that had been sup-

pressed during the administration of President George W. Bush. The report concluded that six gases posed a threat to the public welfare, and recommended that the EPA begin actions to regulate greenhouse gas emissions generated by automobiles. The report had been sent in Decem-

ber 2007 by EPA official Jason Burnett by e-mail to Susan Dudley, a regulatory official at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). However, Dudley had refused to open the e-mail. Suppression of the document was first reported in June 2008; it was released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests for it. [See 2008, p. 466F3] Judge Donald Molloy of U.S. District Court in Billings, Mont., Sept. 21 restored Endangered Species Act protections to grizzly bears in the three states in which

Yellowstone National Park was situated. Molloy criticized a 2007 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to delist the animals, dismissing the agency’s claim that the bears were “thriving.” Molloy said the government had failed to account for a decline in whitebark pine trees, which served as a food source for the bears, among other considerations. There were an estimated 580 grizzly bears in the three states—Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. [See 2007, p. 246E1] n

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District Court in Chicago Oct. 20 dismissed a lawsuit aimed at forcing classified advertising Web site Craigslist to shut down its “adult services” section, saying that Craigslist was not knowingly promoting prostitution. The suit had been filed March 5 by Cook County, Ill., Sheriff Tom Dart. Separately, Judge C. Weston Houck in U.S. District Court in Charleston, S.C., May 22 had ordered South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster to cease efforts to prosecute Craigslist executives over the adult-oriented portion of the site, which McMaster said promoted prostitution. [See p. 429F1] Law enforcement agents Oct. 7 said they had arrested 33 people in California, Nevada and North Carolina, as part of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operation against “phishing,” a type of Internet scam

in which criminals sent fraudulent e-mails to trick people into giving personal information on counterfeit Web sites, and used the data for financial gain. The FBI said 20 people involved in the phishing ring remained at large in the U.S., and that Egyptian authorities had arrested at least 47 co-conspirators. According to the FBI, between January 2007 and September 2009, the defendants in Egypt had obtained user names and passwords from several thousand customers of the U.S. banks Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., and then transferred more than $1.5 million in total from the customers’ accounts to new ones set up by the U.S. defendants. (Some of the money was reportedly recovered.) All of the U.S. defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and faced prison sentences of up to 20 years; some of them also faced additional charges. [See 2003, p. 1054B1] Internet radio services and SoundExchange, a nonprofit group that collected and distributed royalties to musicians and record labels, July 8 reached a settlement on new royalty rates for online streaming 781

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music. Internet radio services had said the previous rate structure set in March 2007 by the federal Copyright Royalty Board— under which they would pay rates starting at 0.08 cents per song per listener, retroactive to 2006, and increasing to 0.19 cents by 2010—would bankrupt them. Under the new structure, services with more than $1.25 million in revenue would pay the greater of 25% of gross revenue or 0.093 cents per song per listener, rising to 0.14 cents by 2015; services making less than that would pay the greater of 7% of their expenses or 12%–14% of revenues; and subscription-based services would pay 0.15 cents per song per listener, rising to 0.25 cents by 2015. The new structure would not affect broadcast radio stations that also streamed their content online. [See 2002, p. 503A2] A jury in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minn., June 18 found a Brainerd, Minn., woman liable for illegally sharing music and awarded record companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was found to have posted on the file-sharing Web site Kazaa. A different jury in 2007 had awarded the record companies $222,000, but Judge Michael Davis ordered a retrial because he said he had given that jury incorrect instructions. The defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, said she would not be able to pay. A lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it was still open to a settlement, but did not specify how much that might be. Thomas-Rasset’s case was the first out of more than 35,000 legal actions brought by the RIAA over illegal filesharing that had gone to trial; most people targeted by the group had settled for about $3,500 each. [See p. 284B1] Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. April 13 apologized for what it called a technical “glitch” that caused 57,310 books in its inventory to lose their sales ratings, and

said the problem was being fixed. Sales ratings affected books’ position on best-seller lists on the site and the ease of finding them with direct searches. The apology came after days of criticism, mostly from online sources like blogs and social networking Web sites such as Twitter. Critics charged that most of the affected books—which included both fiction and nonfiction, by authors such as E.M. Forster and James Baldwin—had gay and lesbian themes and had been incorrectly flagged as adult books. However, Amazon said the glitch also affected categories such as health, reproductive medicine and erotica. In another move that had drawn criticism, Amazon July 17 deleted without notice electronic copies of books customers had purchased for their Kindle e-book readers. Amazon said it had lost the rights to distribute the books—which included George Orwell’s antitotalitarian parables 1984 and Animal Farm—and gave customers refunds. [See p. 601E1] n

Other U.S. News Coast Guard Drill Triggers Concern.

The Coast Guard Sept. 11 carried out a training exercise in the Potomac River near 782

Washington, D.C., that was erroneously identified by the Cable News Network (CNN) as a violent incident, triggering concern about whether it was part of a terrorist attack. The incident led to criticism of the timing of the exercise and the Coast Guard’s failure to inform law enforcement agencies prior to the drill. It took place on the eighth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and the Washington area, and followed a memorial gathering marking the anniversary in Arlington, Va., that was attended by President Barack Obama. [See pp. 620G1, 357D3, 308C1] The CNN report, which was picked up by other news outlets, said the Coast Guard had fired on an unidentified boat in the Potomac. The report was based on video footage and Coast Guard radio transmissions related to the exercise. In response to the report, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) delayed 17 flights at Reagan National Airport near Washington, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dispatched agents to investigate the reports. The Secret Service, which had not been notified about the planned exercise, said that Obama’s motorcade had passed over a bridge near the Coast Guard boats following the Virginia memorial event but stressed that Obama had not been nearby when the exercise was taking place. Sen. George Voinovich (R, Ohio) criticized the Coast Guard’s decision to hold the exercise, saying, “The anxiety caused by this situation on such a solemn day is extremely disturbing.” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested that “a lot of this might have been avoided” if CNN had not run the story. CNN issued a statement defending its coverage, arguing that “given the circumstances, it would have been irresponsible not to report on what we were hearing and seeing.” John Currier, the Coast Guard’s chief of staff, Sept. 11 said that the Coast Guard would review its conduct in connection with the incident in order to “ensure that, if we need to modify procedures, if we need to modify communications, we will do so in the future.” Internal Review Finds No Violations—

An internal review of the incident by the Coast Guard had found that while the decision to hold the training exercise on Sept. 11 showed poor judgment on the part of the Coast Guard unit involved, it did not violate any Coast Guard rules or policies, the Associated Press (AP) reported Oct. 27. According to the review, the unit had not been informed that Obama would be traveling nearby, and the review found that the exercise would likely have been rescheduled if the unit had been informed. Since the incident, the Coast Guard had reportedly begun scrambling its communications during training exercises in order to minimize the chances of someone listening in and misinterpreting them. The Coast Guard had also reportedly begun providing its monthly training schedule to relevant law enforcement bodies. n

AFRICA

Madagascar Rivals Reach New Power-Sharing Deal.

Two rival political leaders—Andry Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana—each of whom claimed to be Madagascar’s legitimate president, Nov. 6 agreed to form a power-sharing government after talks held at the headquarters of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. The talks were mediated by former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano. [See p. 652B1] Also playing a major role in the talks were former Malagasy Presidents Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy. The four leaders signed the agreement early Nov. 7. Rajoelina, the 35-year-old former mayor of Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital, had come to power in March, after the military had pressured the democratically elected president, Ravalomanana, to resign. The ouster of Ravalomanana, who fled to South Africa, had been widely condemned by the international community, and Madagascar had been suspended by the AU and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). An August agreement, also mediated by Chissano, had fallen apart after Rajoelina unilaterally named a cabinet that was stacked with his supporters. Another deal, agreed Oct. 6 in Antananarivo, had collapsed over objections by Ravalomanana to Rajoelina’s role as transitional president. Details of the Agreement— Under the Nov. 6 deal, Rajoelina would remain president, but two co-presidents were also appointed. One co-president, Fetison Andrianirina, was selected by Ravalomanana, who had earlier said that he would not play any role in a transitional government. The other co-president was Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, an ally of Zafy who had been named vice president under the Oct. 6 deal. It was unclear exactly what role the copresidents would play. Ratsiraka nominated Eugene Mangalaza, a little-known social anthropology and philosophy professor who was viewed as politically neutral, as prime minister; he had first been picked for that role Oct. 11, under the Oct. 6 agreement. He replaced Monja Roindefo, whom Rajoelina had appointed in March. The deal created 31 cabinet posts; each of the four political factions would receive six posts, and the remaining seven would be given to “other political forces.” Also, the deal called for elections to be held in late 2010. Analysts said potential stumbling blocks to the success of the deal included the balance of power between Rajoelina and the two co-presidents, and the distribution of key cabinet posts. The AU Nov. 7 said Madagascar would remain suspended from the body until the transitional government was firmly in place and elections were scheduled. n FACTS ON FILE

Mozambique President, Ruling Party Win Elections.

Mozambique’s electoral commission Nov. 11 declared President Armando Guebuza and his ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) party winners of Oct. 28 presidential and parliamentary elections. It was Mozambique’s fourth democratic election since the end of the country’s civil war in 1992; all four ballots had been dominated by Frelimo. Voter turnout was about 44.5%. [See 2005, p. 73E2] Preliminary results released Nov. 1 had shown landslide victories for Guebuza and Frelimo. The final result had been slowed by delays in the transmission of results from remote areas of the country. Guebuza, a 66-year-old millionaire businessman, earned a second five-year term in office, garnering 75.5% of the vote. Afonso Dhlakama of the opposition Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) party came in second, with 16.5%. (It was Dhlakama’s fourth unsuccessful run for president.) Daviz Simango, the mayor of the country’s second-largest city, Beira, and the candidate for the newly created Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), was third, with 8.6%. Simango had been a major figure in Renamo, but split with the party due to a feud with Dhlakama and founded the MDM in March. In the parliamentary elections, Frelimo—which had ruled Mozambique since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975—won 191 out of 250 seat, up from 160 in the previous election, in 2004. That gave the party the two-thirds majority it needed to change the constitution. Renamo, a former rebel movement, garnered 51 seats, and the MDM took eight seats. The electoral commission, which was run by Frelimo supporters, had barred the MDM from competing for parliamentary seats in nine of the country’s 13 constituencies, on procedural grounds. Guebuza had been praised for bringing foreign investment and economic growth to Mozambique. Although it remained one of the poorest countries in Africa, Mozambique’s economy had grown more than 6% in 2008. Renamo Nov. 12 said it would challenge the election results, alleging that Frelimo supporters had stuffed ballot boxes; the party had alleged fraud in every election since the end of the civil war. Observers from groups including the African Union (AU), the European Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said the vote was generally free and fair. However, EU observers Oct. 29 had criticized the disqualification of a large number of candidates on technicalities. n

Zimbabwe MDC Calls Off Unity Government Boycott.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and his ministers Nov. 11 attended a cabinet meeting chaired by President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai November 12, 2009

Nov. 5 had called off his party’s boycott of Zimbabwe’s unity government, which had been created in February with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). Tsvangirai that day said he would allow Mugabe 30 days to implement power-sharing agreements “on the pertinent issues we are concerned about.” The MDC had maintained that the ZANU-PF had harassed MDC members, and was generally acting in “bad faith.” [See p. 746A2] Tsvangirai announced the end of the boycott after discussions at a special summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, held Nov. 4–5. In addition to Tsvangirai and Mugabe, the summit included King Mswati III of Swaziland, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and Zambian President Rupiah Banda. Tsvangirai had announced the MDC’s boycott in October, after Roy Bennett, the party’s treasurer and nominee for deputy agriculture minister, was formally indicted on terrorism charges and detained for several days. Bennett, who faced a possible death penalty, denied the charges. The MDC said his trial was politically motivated. Bennett was a white farmer whose land had been confiscated by Mugabe’s government under a land reform program that began in 2000. [See below] Trial of Top MDC Politician Begins—

Bennett’s trial on charges of terrorism, insurgency, sabotage and banditry, in connection with an alleged 2006 plot to assassinate Mugabe, opened Nov. 9 in Zimbabwe’s High Court. After brief arguments, the trial was adjourned for two days to give Judge Muchineripi Bhunu time to consider whether the prosecution’s top witness, Peter Hitschmann, an arms dealer who in 2006 had been acquitted of the same charges Bennett faced, should be allowed to testify. (Hitschmann had served more than two years in prison on lesser charges of illegal weapons possession, and was released in July.) [See 2006, p. 191E3] The defense claimed that Zimbabwean authorities, after Hitschmann’s 2006 arrest, had tortured him into writing a confession that implicated Bennett in the plot to assassinate Mugabe. Defense lawyers said Hitschmann refused to sign the confession. They also cited a sworn affidavit and sworn statements that Hitschmann had made before the High Court in 2006, in which he said Bennett was not connected with weapons that were found in Hitschmann’s possession. Bhunu Nov. 11 ruled that Hitschmann would be permitted to testify for the prosecution, but that the defense would be able to argue that his testimony had been coerced. Hitschmann had reportedly said he did not want to testify at Bennett’s trial. The defense Nov. 12 asked Bhunu to recuse himself from the trial over comments he had made concerning Hitschmann’s bail application in 2006. Defense lawyers claimed that the comments were prejudicial to Bennett’s case. U.N. Torture Investigator Expelled—

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Oct. 28 was de-

tained overnight by immigration officers at the airport in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, and placed on a plane to South Africa the following day. Nowak said he had been invited to the country by Tsvangirai, but was informed en route that the government had decided to postpone his planned weeklong mission because it coincided with an Oct. 29–30 SADC meeting in Harare. Nowak attributed the “serious diplomatic incident” to the ZANU-PF, and added that his expulsion reflected Tsvangirai’s lack of power in the unity government. Nowak had planned to investigate claims that Tsvangirai’s supporters had been tortured prior to 2008’s runoff presidential election, which Mugabe had won amid widespread fraud allegations. Nowak had also planned to look into allegations of increasing violence against opposition activists and civic groups. n

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Diamond Watchdog Rejects Suspension.

The Kimberley Process (KP) Certification Scheme, the international diamond industry monitoring body, Nov. 5 decided not to suspend Zimbabwe’s membership, despite lobbying by human rights groups. Instead, members decided to send a monitor to Zimbabwe to assess whether the country’s diamond trade could be certified as complying with the group’s rules. The KP plan also called for the police and private security companies to secure the Marange diamond fields, so that the army could move out. [See p. 681F1; 2007, p. 282A3] Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Nov. 10 said, “Zimbabwe agreed not to export Marange diamonds until the monitoring mechanism is established.” The industry-led organization, whose aim was to prevent the trade of so-called blood diamonds used to fund violent conflicts, held its annual summit in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, Nov. 2–5. The Kimberley Process required diamond exporters to certify the origin of gems for sale on the international market. Rights groups claimed that the Zimbabwean army had killed about 200 illegal miners in late 2008, amid an operation to take control of the Marange diamond fields. The government denied the claims. Rights advocates alleged that the army had subsequently forced the local population to mine diamonds for very little pay, and used the profits from subsequent diamond smuggling operations to fund the military, as well as President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. [See p. 783G1] There were also numerous claims by rights groups and the KP’s own investigators that state security forces at the Marange fields had raped local women and committed acts of extreme violence against unauthorized diamond miners. KP investigators June 30–July 4 had visited the fields, and said they had found that “horrific” rights abuses had taken place there. Zimbabwean Mines Minister Obert Mpofu had maintained that the KP report was not credible. 783

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Mpofu told KP members at the summit that the situation at the Marange fields was improving, and that Zimbabwe had done all it could to follow KP rules and recommendations. He said the army would remain at Marange until private companies set up effective security there to prevent unauthorized mining. A suspension from the KP would have effectively banned Zimbabwe from trading in rough diamonds. However, participation in the KP was voluntary, and Zimbabwean officials would have been responsible for enforcing the suspension. Observers had suggested that a suspension could encourage reputable dealers to acquire diamonds from countries other than Zimbabwe. KP decisions were made by consensus; as a result, one dissenting country could block decisions. Namibia currently chaired the organization. In 2010 the chairmanship would be transferred to Israel. n

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Assembly Oct. 28 voted for the 18th straight year to approve, 187–3 with two abstentions, a resolution condemning the U.S.’s economic sanctions against Cuba. The U.S., Israel and the small archipelago nation of Palau voted against the resolution, while the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. The U.S. had instituted the sanctions in 1962 under President John F. Kennedy. U.S. President Barack Obama since taking office in January 2009 had loosened travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans living in the U.S. as part of efforts to improve relations between the two countries. However, Obama in September had signed a one-year extension of the embargo in a largely ceremonial move, since the trade restrictions would have remained in place regardless. [See p. 661F1; 2003, p. 315D1] The Cuban government Oct. 1 closed state-operated lunchrooms at four ministries that had provided workers with free meals. The workers were instead given 15 pesos ($0.70) with which to buy their own lunches. The government provided about 3.5 million lunches daily at 24,700 lunchrooms across the country. However, the government closed the cafeterias at the four ministries as part of an experiment in cost reductions. The government paid an estimated $350 million annually for the meals, a cost it said it needed to reduce. The government said it hoped the elimination of the lunchrooms would also reduce the theft of food for resale on the black market; an estimated 20% of imported lunch program food was stolen. The halt in the lunch program was part of wider efforts by the government to reduce a range of subsidies. [See p. 134D2; 2008, p. 538B3] Cuban state media June 29–30 published notices indicating that workers would be allowed to hold more than one job

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Honduras

would not recognize the election results unless Zelaya was reinstated. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly Nov. 10 traveled to Honduras to meet with Zelaya. Jose Miguel Insulza, the president of the Organization of American States (OAS), the same day said the group would not send observers to monitor the presidential election. n

Zelaya Calls Deal to Return to Power ‘Dead.’

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Rosales Nov. 6 said a U.S.-brokered deal that would return him to power had failed, hours after a midnight deadline to establish a unity government was missed. “The accord is dead,” he said. [See p. 762F2] Zelaya in June had been deposed in a bloodless coup d’etat by the military, with the backing of the national legislature and Supreme Court. Congressional leader Roberto Micheletti was chosen by the legislature to become the president of the de facto government. Zelaya in September had secretly returned to Honduras in September and taken up residency in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital. Micheletti’s government, which had not been recognized by any other country, had pressed to hold a Nov. 29 presidential election that had been scheduled prior to Zelaya’s ouster in the hopes that the winner would be considered as legitimate. Zelaya and Micheletti the previous week had agreed to the U.S.-mediated power-sharing agreement, but Zelaya Nov. 6 said Micheletti’s government had failed to follow it. Under the agreement, the election would take place, with both Zelaya and Micheletti recognizing the winner as the president. In the meantime, Zelaya would return to the presidency, with reduced powers, and serve out the remainder of his scheduled term, set to expire in January 2010. A coalition government would be formed in order to oversee the election. The National Congress was supposed to hold a vote on the agreement in order for it to take effect, but lawmakers had delayed the vote, decreasing the likelihood that Zelaya would be reinstated. Also, after the agreement had been reached, the U.S. had hinted that it would recognize the winner of the presidential election regardless of whether the powersharing deal was fully implemented, in contradiction to its earlier statements. Zelaya maintained that the Congress had to vote on the power-sharing agreement prior to the midnight deadline. However, Micheletti said the agreement required only that the coalition government’s cabinet members be named by that time. Micheletti Nov. 5 had said the de facto government had “completed the process of forming a unity government,” despite the fact that Zelaya had not submitted any members to it. Zelaya had reportedly resisted submitting names, instead arguing that he should head the interim government. U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly Nov. 6 called on both parties to “return to the table immediately to reach agreement on the formation of a unity government.” The leaders of several Latin American countries that day said they

Nicaragua Court Backs Ortega Reelection Bid. A pan-

el of Nicaragua’s Supreme Court Oct. 19 voted to nullify a portion of the country’s constitution that prohibited a sitting president from seeking a second consecutive fiveyear term. The constitution had previously limited presidents to two nonconsecutive terms. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega Saavedra in July had announced that he would launch a challenge against the term limit, and that he intended to seek reelection in 2011. Ortega, who had been president in the 1980s, before the current constitution, had been elected to his current term in 2006. [See 2008, p. 871G1; 2006, p. 866C3] Ortega, along with more than 100 mayors, Oct. 15 had submitted his petition to change the term limit provision to the Supreme Court. It was backed by six justices, all of whom were thought to support Ortega’s ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party. The constitutional panel’s ruling required the ratification by the full 16-member court, which was considered likely, since it was dominated by Ortega supporters. Opposition politicians condemned the court’s ruling, and some claimed that it was illegal. The country’s congress Oct. 28 declined to hold a debate on whether to reverse the court’s decision. The motion to hold the debate had been put forth by the opposition Liberal Party, but congressional leader Rene Nunez, an FSLN member, had cast the deciding vote against it. U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan that day said the ruling “threatened to undermine the foundations of Nicaragua’s democracy.” Thousands of Ortega supporters Oct. 29 gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, in protest of Callahan’s remarks. Several threw rocks and homemade explosives at the building. Callahan Oct. 30 fled a university fair after Ortega supporters threw fireworks at him. Ortega had led a 1979 revolution by Sandinistas that had toppled Anastasio Somoza Debayle, whose dictatorship had been backed by the U.S. The U.S. had backed the contra rebel movement that fought against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s. n

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Cambodia Thai Ex-PM Thaksin Named Adviser. The

Cambodian government Nov. 4 announced on state-controlled television that Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, would serve as a special economFACTS ON FILE

ic adviser to the government and to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The move, which had been approved by Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, escalated tensions between Cambodia and Thailand. [See pp. 748A2, 726G1] In October, Hun Sen had announced that his government was willing to offer Thaksin political asylum, triggering criticism from Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, one of Thaksin’s political rivals. Thaksin had been ousted as prime minister in 2006 in a bloodless military coup. Currently in self-imposed exile, he was convicted in absentia on corruption charges in 2008. The Cambodian government Nov. 4 said it would refuse any Thai requests to extradite Thaksin, because it viewed his prosecution as politically motivated. Abhisit Nov. 5 announced that Thailand had withdrawn its ambassador to Cambodia, calling the move “the first diplomatic retaliation measure to let the Cambodian government know the dissatisfaction of the Thai people.” He also said that Cambodia’s decision “harmed the Thai justice system” and constituted interference in Thai internal affairs. He said all bilateral agreements would also be reviewed. Cambodia that day recalled its ambassador to Thailand in response. Analysts suggested that Thai leaders were concerned that Thaksin’s physical proximity to Thailand could make it easier for him to organize protests against the country’s current government, which Thaksin and his supporters regarded as illegitimate. There had been mass demonstrations and violent clashes between proand anti-Thaksin demonstrators over the past two years. The two countries had also engaged in a series of recent military confrontations on their border. Thaksin Arrives—Thaksin Nov. 10 arrived in Cambodia after flying into a military airport near Phnom Penh, the capital. He was reportedly expected to stay in the country for only a few days. Abhisit that day announced that, in response to Cambodia’s decision to shelter Thaksin, his cabinet had agreed to terminate a memorandum of understanding between Thailand and Cambodia intended to clarify both countries’ claims to the Bay of Thailand. The cabinet’s decision required approval by Thailand’s parliament before it could go into effect. The Thai government Nov. 11 filed a request for Thaksin’s extradition with the Cambodian government. Cambodia responded later the same day, rejecting the request on the grounds that Thaksin’s prosecution had been motivated by politics and therefore did not fall under the extradition treaty. Thaksin Nov. 12 gave a speech at Cambodia’s finance ministry in Phnom Penh in which he argued that strengthening Cambodia’s economy would have positive effects on the Thai economy, and said that the current rulers of Thailand had failed to exploit the advantages of increased economic ties with its neighbors because of domestic political concerns. November 12, 2009

Anti-Thaksin protesters Nov. 12 demonstrated outside the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. The protesters presented the embassy’s staff with a letter calling on Hun Sen to end his interference with decisions made by the Thai judiciary. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Nov. 12 reported on its Web site that Cambodia had expelled the first secretary of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. A spokesman for the Cambodian government said that the Thai first secretary had been ousted because he had “executed work in contradiction with his position.” The Thai government responded by giving the first secretary of the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok two days to leave the country. Thaksin Discusses Royalty—The Times of London Nov. 9 published an interview in which Thaksin praised Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had been hospitalized in recent weeks, for his long reign as king, but criticized some of Bhumibol’s royal advisers for becoming too involved in Thai politics. Thaksin also said that he had confidence that Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn would make a good king when the time came for him to assume power. The Times reported Nov. 10 that the Thai government had banned Thai media from reporting on Thaksin’s comments and had suggested that the justice ministry would consider whether to charge him under the country’s strict lese majeste laws, which outlawed all criticism of the monarchy. Thaksin accused the Times of distorting his comments to make it appear that he was anticipating Bhumibol’s death. The Times Nov. 10 made public the full transcript of the interview on its Web site to support its contention that his comments had not been taken out of context. n

China Nine Executed Over Xinjiang Riots. China’s

state-run news media Nov. 9 said that nine people convicted of murder and other crimes connected to July riots by ethnic Uighurs in Urumqi, the capital of the western Xinjiang region, had been executed “recently.” The report did not say when the executions had taken place or provide further details. They were reportedly the first executions carried out in connection with the July violence, in which Uighur demonstrations against discrimination by China’s dominant Han ethnic group erupted into rioting, and led to vigilante violence by Han Chinese. [See p. 702G3] Twelve people had been sentenced to death in October—all appeared to be Uighurs by their names except for one apparent Han—but three of the death sentences were suspended for two years, which in China frequently led to commutation to life in prison. Another nine people had received lesser sentences, including eight sentenced Oct. 15. An appeals court Oct. 30 upheld all 21 sentences, and the Nov. 9 report noted that China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court, had reviewed and approved the death sentences, as was now required under Chinese law.

The Nov. 9 report said that 20 more people had been indicted that day, in connection with the deaths of 18 people in the riots and other crimes. China had previously said that 825 people had been detained in connection with the violence, and 196 formally arrested. It said 197 people had been killed in the riots, mostly Han Chinese, but Uighur activists said that many more Uighurs had been killed than was acknowledged by the government. U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch Oct. 21 issued a report describing the cases of 43 adult and teenaged Uighur males who had “disappeared” and were unaccounted for by authorities since being detained after the July riots in largescale neighborhood sweeps or more targeted police raids. The group said there were probably many more such victims of “enforced disappearance” by the authorities in addition to the 43 it had been able to document. Xinjiang officials Nov. 3 said they would conduct a “strike hard” campaign against crime and “terrorism” in the region, the latest in a series of such crackdowns. China maintained that an Islamist Uighur separatist movement had coordinated the riots and posed a terrorist threat, while Uighur rights activists said China trumped up the terrorist threat as a pretext for suppressing Uighurs’ rights and culture. U.S. government–sponsored Radio Free Asia Oct. 29 said that Internet service in Xinjiang, and telephone connections to outside the region, had been severely restricted since the July disturbances, and remained so. Executions in Tibet— China’s foreign ministry Oct. 27 confirmed that two people had recently been put to death for their participation in March 2008 riots in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet region. An India-based Tibetan rights group had said that four Tibetans had been executed Oct. 20, but the additional two executions were not confirmed. Chinese officials said the two people executed had been convicted in April of starting fires during the riots. They were the first executions stemming from the Tibet unrest known to have been carried out. [See p. 327A1] n

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Hard-Charging Magazine’s Staff Resigns.

Hu Shuli, editor in chief of China’s leading independent business magazine, Caijing, resigned Nov. 9, after a dispute over editorial control with the publication’s owners, who had reportedly pressed the magazine to restrain its aggressive journalistic style. An earlier mass resignation of several executives and about 70 other workers from Caijing had been reported Oct. 12 by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Hu, who had founded the magazine in 1998, had stayed on to continue the negotiations over editorial matters with the publisher, Stock Exchange Executive Council Media Group (SEEC), but resigned after failing to win the heightened autonomy she sought for Caijing’s editorial and business staffs. [See 2006, p. 554E1] The magazine was known for maintaining a degree of independence that was rare 785

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Indonesia Anticorruption Officials Arrested. Indone-

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sian police Oct. 29 arrested two suspended members of the country’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in connection with allegations that they had taken bribes from individuals linked to corruption investigations. The police Sept. 15 had named the two men, Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto, as suspects in the case, leading to their suspension from the KPK. Both men maintained that the police investigation against them was politically motivated, and intended to undermine the KPK. The former head of the KPK, Antasari Azhar, had been arrested in May on charges that he had had the husband of a former lover killed, and was currently on trial. [See below, p. 342G1] Indonesia’s House of Representatives Sept. 29 had passed a law that laid down new regulations governing the KPK, which had been founded in 2002 and given broad powers to fight endemic government corruption. The new law preserved the KPK’s authority to conduct wiretapping without a court warrant in corruption investigations, but allowed Indonesia’s judiciary, which was widely seen as corrupt, to play a larger role in overseeing prosecutions brought by the KPK. Tapes Suggest Framing Plot— Indonesian media reported Oct. 30 that KPK wiretap recordings existed that supported claims that Chandra and Bibit had been arrested as part of a conspiracy by members of the Indonesian National Police and the office of Indonesian Attorney General Hendarman Supandji to weaken the KPK. Following the reports, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had been reelected in July on an anticorruption platform, Nov. 2 appointed an independent commission to investigate the evidence against Chandra and Bibit. Hundreds of activists, students and other Indonesian protesters Nov. 2 demonstrated in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, in support of the KPK. Attorneys for Chandra and Bibit Nov. 3 submitted multiple wiretap recordings to Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, which was deliberating on whether the suspension of the two men from the KPK had been legal. The tapes, which were played at the hearing and broadcast live on Indonesian television, featured Anggodo Wijoyo—the brother of a businessman who had fled Indonesia while under investigation for corruption by the KPK— discussing plans to frame Bibit and Chandra with officials of the police and attorney general’s office. In one tape, Anggodo called for Chandra to be murdered in prison following his arrest. Chandra and Bibit Nov. 3 were released from custody. However, the police investigation into allegations against them was not dropped. 786

Deputy Attorney General Abdul Hakim Ritonga and Susno Duadji, a high-ranking Indonesian police official, Nov. 4 were forced to resign their positions after being named in the recordings as part of the alleged plot against Chandra and Bibit. In July, Susno had reportedly been caught on a KPK wiretap asking a criminal suspect for a $1 million bribe; analysts suggested that the KPK’s wiretap of Susno had triggered reprisals by the police department and attorney general’s office. Yudhoyono Nov. 5 called on the Indonesian people to assist his government in fighting widespread corruption, and announced the creation of a dedicated post office box where residents could forward complaints about corrupt officials to his administration. Yudhoyono, who had been sworn in for a second five-year term as president on Oct. 20, had been named on the tapes as supportive of the conspiracy against the KPK, and had been criticized for being slow to respond to the growing controversy. The independent commission set up by Yudhoyono to investigate the criminal allegations against Bibit and Chandra Nov. 9 announced that it had completed its review. The commission said the police had not shown sufficient evidence to charge either man with any crime, but it did not call on the police department to drop its investigation. Police Officer Claims Antasari Framed—

A suspended police officer Nov. 10 testified at former KPK head Antasari’s trial in a court in Jakarta that fellow police officers had conspired to frame Antasari for the murder of businessman Nasrudin Zulkarnaen. The police officer, Wiliardi Wizar, who had been implicated by police in the crime, said he had been told by police officials to fabricate testimony implicating Antasari in exchange for having related charges against him dropped. He also said that Nasrudin’s murder had been ordered by National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri. Danuri Nov. 11 denied Wiliardi’s claims. n

Japan Hatoyama Lays Out Economic Priorities.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Oct. 26 laid out his government’s priorities in his first major policy speech to the Diet, or parliament, since his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)–led government took office in September. Hatoyama said the government’s “most important task is to put Japan’s economy back on a self-sustaining recovery track” from its current severe slump, and that his government would encourage economic growth driven by domestic “private-sector demand.” That was a shift from the long-entrenched model followed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had relied on exports and government spending on infrastructure projects to maintain economic growth. [See p. 703C2] The government Oct. 16 had said it would cancel 2.9 trillion yen ($32 billion)

in spending programs, approved by the preceding LDP government in an economic stimulus package, to free up money that the DPJ said could be used more effectively. The government had not yet specified how it would redirect the funds, but Hatoyama in his speech said the money should be used for “steps that are useful to have the economy recover,” rather than to reduce the government’s ballooning debt. He said the government would implement its campaign promises to boost consumer demand by giving aid directly to citizens in forms including payments to families with children and a reduction in the tax on gasoline. Hatoyama also pledged to put an end to the heavy influence that Japan’s large government bureaucracy wielded over decision-making, which he blamed for years of wasteful spending, and to give the cabinet, which was accountable to the electorate, greater control. He said he would address Japan’s “fiscal-rehabilitation path” from a “long-term perspective,” but did not detail plans for reducing the large national debt, which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated would equal 200% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2010. Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii Oct. 20 had said that due to the economic downturn, tax revenue for the current fiscal year might amount to less than 40 trillion yen, far less than the 46 trillion yen previously projected. He said the government would meet the shortfall mainly by issuing new government bonds, possibly bringing the issuance for the fiscal year to a record 50 trillion yen. Japan’s central bank, the Bank of Japan, Oct. 29 said that, in light of some indications of an incipient recovery, it would end a program in which it purchased corporate debt to ease credit conditions for companies at the end of the year, but would continue other extraordinary lending programs. Fujii Oct. 27 had suggested that the Bank of Japan’s assessment of the economy was too optimistic. The government Oct. 30 said Japan’s consumer price index had fallen by 2.3% in September from a year earlier, the seventh straight monthly decline. That intensified concerns that the economy would become trapped in a deflationary spiral with exceedingly low consumer demand. Also that day, it was announced that the unemployment rate in September was 5.3%, down from July’s record level of 5.7%. Goal of ‘Equal’ Relationship With U.S.—

Hatoyama in his Oct. 26 policy speech affirmed the importance of Japan’s alliance with the U.S., but reiterated his goal of a more “equal” relationship, “in which Japan can actively make proposals about the role of the U.S.-Japan relationship in ensuring a peaceful, safe world.” Japan earlier in the month had indicated that it would not renew a naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan at the end of the year. [See p. 775F2] n FACTS ON FILE

Marshall Islands President Ousted by No-Confidence Vote.

The parliament of the Marshall Islands Oct. 21 voted, 17–15, to remove President Litokwa Tomeing from his position after 22 months in office. The no-confidence vote was the third held by parliament since Tomeing was elected in 2007, and the first to oust a sitting president since the Marshall Islands became an independent democracy in 1986. [See 2007, p. 730A1; 1986, p. 973D2] Tomeing’s ouster had reportedly been triggered by disputes within the ruling Aelon Kein Ad Party, which had been exacerbated by Tomeing’s firing of Foreign Minister Tony deBrum in February. The drive for Tomeing’s removal had been led by former President Kessai Note, who had been defeated by Tomeing in a 2007 election. Parliament Speaker Jurelang Zedkaia Oct. 21 appointed Ruben Zackhras, Tomeing’s minister-in-assistance, as acting president. Under Marshall Islands law, parliament had until Nov. 5 to elect a new president. The parliament Oct. 26 voted, 17–15, to elect Zedkaia as the fifth president of the Marshall Islands. Zedkaia, a five-term member of parliament who had been speaker since January 2008, defeated Note, who had been the only other nominee for the position. n

South Korea Sit-In Ends at Bankrupt Automaker. A 77-

day strike and occupation of a Ssangyong Motor Co. factory ended Aug. 6 when the company and a labor union reached an agreement on planned layoffs. Ssangyong, which was South Korea’s fifth-largest car maker and had been in bankruptcy protection since February, had sought to eliminate more than 2,600 jobs. Some 500 of the affected workers barricaded themselves in the paint shop of a Ssangyong factory in Pyeongtaek. After talks between the company and union broke off Aug. 2, police Aug. 4 and 5 attempted to storm the factory, but refrained from taking the paint shop amid fierce resistance from the occupying workers. The workers warned that a violent clash in the paint shop, laden with flammable chemicals, could result in a deadly disaster. [See 2008, p. 981C2] Under the Aug. 6 agreement, Ssangyong would increase the number of people put on unpaid leave or transferred within the company rather than laid off. In response to the end of the strike, the company’s creditors said they would withdraw their request, filed in court the previous day, to have the company liquidated. Ssangyong, which was majority-owned by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) of China, Sept. 15 submitted a turnaround plan to a court in Seoul, the capital. The plan would swap debt for shares in the company, diluting the stakes held by SAIC and other shareholders. n November 12, 2009

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France Sarkozy Son Gives Up Controversial Job Bid.

Jean Sarkozy, 23-year-old son of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Oct. 22 went on national television to announce that he had withdrawn his bid to run the state agency in charge of La Defense, a high-rise business district on the western edge of Paris. His attempt to win the job while still a secondyear law student had prompted widespread accusations of nepotism, and led to a drop in his father’s public approval ratings. More than 40,000 people had signed an online petition calling on the younger Sarkozy to drop his candidacy. [See pp. 707F2, 644F1] In withdrawing, Jean Sarkozy said he did not want “a victory tainted by the suspicion of favoritism,” and claimed to have been the victim of “a campaign of manipulation.” But he said he would not be driven from public life, declaring, “I have a vocation for politics.” After giving up his bid for the chairmanship, Jean Sarkozy Oct. 23 was elected as a member of the management board of EPAD, the state agency that ran La Defense, which was the country’s most important business district. The controversy had amplified broader criticisms of Nicolas Sarkozy’s use of presidential power. Critics had repeatedly accused him of arrogance and recklessness. While the French presidency had long been seen as an institution with certain monarchic tendencies, his opponents said Sarkozy had pushed for an unusual consolidation of power. Jean Sarkozy had won a seat representing Neuilly-sur-Seine, a wealthy western Paris suburb, on the council of the department, or district, of Hauts-de-Seine. He had also taken over the local leadership of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), his father’s party. Nicolas Sarkozy had begun his own political career in the same district, rising to mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine at age 28. He had also been chairman of EPAD, until 2007. The president Oct. 14 had defended his son against his critics, saying, “It is never right for someone to be thrown to the wolves, without reason and in an excessive manner.” However, Sarkozy Nov. 5 said supporting his son’s bid “was without doubt an error.” n Scientology Branch Convicted of Fraud. A Paris court Oct. 27 convicted the French branch of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology and six of its leaders of fraud, but did not ban the group from France as prosecutors had requested. The judge ordered the group to pay fines amounting to 600,000 euros ($900,000). Alain Rosenberg, the head of Scientology in France, received a suspended sentence of two years in prison and was ordered to pay a fine of 30,000 euros. The French branch of Scientology said it would appeal the verdict. [See 2006, p. 904E2; 1997, p. 582A1] The case had originated with complaints filed by former Scientology members who

said they had been harassed by the group to buy “purification” courses, books, vitamins and other products. One woman said she had spent the equivalent of 21,000 euros on such items after she was recruited to join the group in 1998. In 1993, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service had recognized Scientology as a religion and granted it tax-exempt status. But France, Germany and other European countries still designated the group as a sect or cult, despite criticism by the U.S. State Department. Scientology claimed to have 45,000 followers in France, and 12 million worldwide. The Los Angeles– based group, founded in 1954 by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, boasted a number of celebrities among its believers, including Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta. [See 1997, p. 985G3] The St. Petersburg Times, a Florida newspaper, June 21 had begun publishing an ongoing series of reports on allegations about a “culture of intimidation and violence” inside Scientology, whose spiritual headquarters was located in Clearwater, Fla. Ex-members asserted that David Miscavige, Scientology’s leader since Hubbard’s death in 1986, controlled his inner circle through physical violence, and that defectors were pursued and pressured to rejoin. Scientology denied those claims. n

Germany 20th Anniversary of Berlin Wall’s Fall Marked.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Nov. 9 led commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Key players in the fall of the wall and the subsequent collapse of the communist Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, including former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former Polish President Lech Walesa (who was leader of the pro-democracy labor movement Solidarity in the 1980s), took part in the ceremonies. Berlin had become the German capital after the reunification of East and West Germany in October 1990. [See p. 637A1; 1989, p. 829A1] The leaders of the 27 member nations of the European Union attended the ceremonies, as did Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The Berlin Wall had been built by East Germany, beginning on Aug. 13, 1961, to stop the heavy migration of its own citizens to the West. The wall ran for about 100 miles (160 km), encircling West Berlin, which was located deep in East German territory and had been formally administered since World War II by the Western Allies—the U.S., Britain and France. [See 1961, p. 294F2] On Nov. 9, 1989, after an East German government spokesman made a confused announcement of a new border policy, in which he inadvertently said that travel restrictions would be lifted immediately, tens of thousands of East Berliners had crossed into the West. East German border guards, who had killed at least 136 wouldbe border crossers in the past, allowed the crowds to pass through peacefully. 787

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Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, former Polish President Lech Walesa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left to right) at a Nov. 9 ceremony in Berlin, Germany, marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Merkel Retraces Her Own Steps—Merkel, who was raised in East Germany and was a physicist in East Berlin in 1989, recalled that she was among those who crossed into West Berlin that night. Joined by Gorbachev and Walesa, Merkel Nov. 9 retraced her steps, crossing the Bornholmer Strasse bridge, which had been the site of the first Berlin Wall checkpoint to open. Merkel thanked both Gorbachev and Walesa for their roles in the events of 1989. She praised Gorbachev for not resorting to violent repression to restore Soviet dominance in East Berlin and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. She told him, “You made this possible—you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could have expected.” Later that day, Merkel led a procession of leaders through the Brandenburg Gate, the famous arch which had been in the noman’s-land between East and West Berlin. She was accompanied by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, representing the four powers that had each controlled a sector of Berlin after World War II. Clinton attended on behalf of President Barack Obama, who did not attend, but addressed the gathering by video. Walesa and former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth toppled the first of 1,000 large foam dominoes arrayed along part of the wall’s former length, symbolizing the collapse both of the wall and of communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989. The dominoes had been decorated by schoolchildren to resemble the graffiti-covered wall. Nemeth had opened Hungary’s border with Austria in May 1989, allowing thousands of East Germans to escape to the West. Hungary was the first Soviet-bloc country to open a border with Western Europe. [See 1989, p. 343A2] Sarkozy, Merkel Mark WWI Armistice—

Sarkozy Nov. 11 hosted Merkel at a ceremony in Paris to commemorate the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918. It was the first time that a 788

German leader had taken part in the annual French commemoration of the armistice, marking the defeat of Germany and its allies after four years of a war that left millions dead. [See 1984, p. 806B3] Merkel and Sarkozy laid a wreath together at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe. They hailed the reconciliation of their two nations since the end of World War II. n

Yaponchik, or “the little Japanese,” had been arrested in New York City in 1995 on extortion charges, and spent nearly 10 years in a U.S. prison following his conviction the following year. He was extradited to Russia in 2004 to face murder charges dating to 1992, but was acquitted and subsequently released. [See p. 513A1; 2004, p. 628F1] Russia’s largest automaker, OAO AvtoVAZ, Sept. 24 announced plans to terminate 27,600 positions. Analysts suggested that AvtoVAZ, which manufactured the Lada vehicle, made the cuts due to the effects of the current global economic downturn, coupled with the loss of market share to foreign rivals. AvtoVAZ, which was 25% owned by French automaker Renault SA, had been founded with Italy’s Fiat SpA during Russia’s Soviet era. [See p. 513E1] n

Killer of Muslim Woman Gets Life Sentence.

A court in the city of Dresden in eastern Germany Nov. 11 convicted a man of killing a pregnant Muslim woman in a courtroom in July, and sentenced him to life in prison. He was ruled ineligible for early release, due to the seriousness of the crime. [See p. 482F2] The victim, Egyptian native Marwa Sherbini, 31, had filed a criminal complaint against the man, Russian-born Alexander Wiens, 28, after an altercation at a playground in August 2008. Sherbini, who wore a Muslim head scarf, accused Wiens of calling her a “terrorist” and an “Islamist.” He was convicted in November 2008. After Wiens, a German citizen, appealed the defamation verdict against him, another trial was held in July. Wiens stabbed Sherbini to death after she appeared as a witness. He also attacked her husband, for which he was convicted of attempted murder. The couple’s three-year old son witnessed the attack. At his murder trial, Wiens admitted killing Sherbini, but continued to deny any racist or xenophobic motives. Prosecutors alleged that he acted out of “hatred of nonEuropeans and Muslims.” Protesters outside the court called on the government to take stronger action against anti-Muslim hatred in Germany. The case had prompted protests in Egypt, where Sherbini was buried, against perceived German indifference to her murder. Egypt’s foreign ministry Nov. 12 hailed the life sentence for Wiens as a “warning to those motivated by hate.” n

Russia News in Brief. Vyacheslav Ivankov, a re-

puted mobster whose criminal history reportedly dated back to the 1960s, Oct. 9 died in a Moscow hospital after gunmen in late July shot him in the abdomen. Some Russian media outlets claimed that Ivankov had been mediating a dispute between rival gangs at the time. Other reports suggested that he had been involved in a dispute related to control of illegal gambling houses. Ivankov, who was known as

Turkey Sudan’s Bashir Skips Islamic Summit.

Turkey Nov. 9 hosted a summit meeting of leaders of the 57 member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Istanbul. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir did not attend the summit, after his invitation caused a dispute between Turkey and the European Union. In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued a warrant for Bashir’s arrest, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan. [See p. 459A1] Sudan’s state news agency Nov. 8 reported that Bashir had canceled his visit to Istanbul because he had to return to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, for political negotiations. Bashir that day had attended a China-Africa summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. [See p. 776B3] The United Nations estimated that as many as 300,000 people had died in Darfur since the conflict there began in 2003. Turkey had said it was under no obligation to arrest Bashir, since it had not signed the treaty setting up the ICC. But his planned visit had threatened to pose a new difficulty for Turkey’s bid for EU membership. [See p. 706C3] Before Bashir’s decision not to attend the OIC conference was disclosed, Turkish President Abdullah Gul Nov. 6 rebuked the EU for “interfering” by pressing for Bashir’s invitation to be withdrawn. Turkey’s Anatolian state news agency Nov. 8 reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had denied that Bashir was responsible for a genocide in Darfur. Erdogan was quoted as saying, “A Muslim could not commit genocide,” and remarking that he would be more comfortable meeting with Bashir than with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Turkey itself officially denied that the World War I–era massacres of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the Turkish Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide. [See p. 707A1] FACTS ON FILE

Turkey’s relations with Israel had deteriorated since Erdogan sharply criticized Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip in January. Meanwhile, Erdogan’s government, which had roots in political Islam, had cultivated ties with Muslim neighbors such as Iran and Syria. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the speakers at the OIC summit. [See p. 696E2] A coalition of Turkish human rights groups had protested Bashir’s intended visit, accusing the government of using double standards by welcoming him while condemning Israel. n

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Iraq Parliament Passes Elections Law. Iraq’s par-

liament Nov. 8 voted to pass a long-delayed law governing parliamentary elections, clearing the way for them to be held in January 2010. The legislation was approved by 141 of the 195 legislators present; the parliament had 275 members in total. It was passed after Kurdish and Arab legislators reached a compromise on voter registration in the oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk. U.S. and United Nations officials had heavily lobbied for the law’s passage. It still had to be ratified by Iraq’s presidential council. [See p. 738G2] The elections would be the second national vote since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was deposed in a 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Sunni Muslims had largely boycotted the 2005 elections, which resulted in their lack of representation in the government and contributed to an increase in sectarian bloodshed in subsequent years. However, Sunni Muslim leaders and those of other Iraqi sectarian and ethnic groups said they would participate in the 2010 elections. Hussein had expelled tens of thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk before he was overthrown, and had brought in Arabs to take their place. Since 2003, Kurds had been returning to the province. Legislators had disagreed over whether to use voter registration rolls from 2004 or 2005, which showed Kurds making up a smaller percentage of Kirkuk’s population, or 2009 records that showed them with a larger percentage. IRAQ CASUALTIES

Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Nov. 12 [See pp. 789B1, 668A2]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,364 31,566

Allied military deaths: 318 Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,308 Iraqi civilian deaths: 94,048–102,621

(Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

November 12, 2009

Under a compromise agreement, Kirkuk would use the 2009 voter rolls. However, if a certain number of voting irregularities were found, a committee overseen by the U.N. would be formed to look into possible fraud. The law reserved a quarter of parliamentary seats for women, and mandated that the 2010 elections use open-list ballots, which allowed voters to choose individual candidates. The 2005 elections had used a closed list, in which people voted for political parties that then chose individual members of parliament. Closed-list ballots were seen as benefiting established parties over political newcomers. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki praised the law’s passage as a “historic victory of the will of the people,” and a “strong response” against enemies of Iraq’s democracy. U.S. President Obama also said it was “a significant breakthrough,” and added, “This agreement advances the political progress that can bring lasting peace and unity to Iraq, and allow for the orderly and responsible transition of American combat troops out of Iraq by next September.” Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said the delays in passing the legislation meant that the elections date would probably be pushed back to Jan. 23, 2010, from the previously scheduled date of Jan. 16. (The Iraqi constitution stipulated that the elections be held before the end of January 2010.) Hill said the date change would not delay planned withdrawals of U.S. troops scheduled to begin after the elections. Blackwater Said to Authorize Bribes—

The New York Times Nov. 11 reported that executives of the private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide in December 2007 had authorized the payment of about $1 million in bribes to Iraqi officials in order to stem criticism following a September 2007 shooting incident, in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. The Times article was based on interviews with four former executives of the Moyock, N.C.–based company, including two who had reportedly taken part in negotiations over the payments. [See pp. 670B1, 433E3; 2007, p. 602D1] According to the article, Gary Johnson, Blackwater’s president at the time, approved the cash payments, which were sent from a Blackwater operations hub in Amman, Jordan, to Rich Garner, then a top company manager in Iraq. It was unclear whether the money was ultimately paid to Iraqi officials. However, one Blackwater executive said the intended recipients, whose identities remained unknown, were officials in the Iraqi interior ministry, which licensed foreign private security companies in Iraq. If the money was paid, Blackwater would have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’s ban on bribing foreign officials, and the company and its officials could face criminal charges in the U.S. A spokeswoman for Blackwater— which had renamed itself Xe Services— dismissed the bribery allegations as “baseless.” Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-

Bolani Nov. 11 in an interview with the Cable News Network (CNN) said he had ordered an investigation into the charges. Five of the Blackwater guards involved in the shooting faced federal manslaughter charges, and their trial was scheduled to start in February 2010 in Washington, D.C. A sixth had pleaded guilty in December 2008. The Iraqi government in January had said Xe would not be granted a license to operate in the country, and the U.S. State Department in April gave its contract to another U.S. security company, Triple Canopy Inc. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Nov. 10 released a report warning that minority groups in northern Iraq faced “another full-blown human rights catastrophe” unless they received better protection from the semiautonomous Kurdish government there. They said Christians, Yazidis and Shabaks in northern Iraq had been targeted by insurgent groups in attacks that had killed hundreds. In addition, it said the Kurdish government had taken repressive measures against them, and that they were the victims of an ongoing territorial struggle between the region’s Arabic and Kurdish populations. The Kurdish government dismissed the allegations as “false.” [See p. 562E3] o Italian energy company Eni SpA, leading a consortium that also included U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. and South Korea-based Korea Gas Corp., Nov. 2 signed a 20-year deal to develop the Zubair oil field in southern Iraq. Under the deal, the consortium would invest $20 billion in the field and would receive $2 per barrel of oil above the current output, but it would be taxed at 35% on its profits. Iraq signed similar deals Nov. 3 with Britain’s BP PLC and China National Petroleum Co. to develop the Rumaila field, and Nov. 5 with U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp. and the Netherlands’ Royal Dutch Shell PLC to develop the West Qurna-1 field. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said the three deals were slated to increase Iraq’s total oil production to seven million barrels a day in six years, from the current level of 2.5 million barrels a day. [See p. 730F1] o A bomb Nov. 1 exploded near a police patrol in Hilla, the capital of Babil province south of Baghdad, killing five people. The same day, a magnetic bomb attached to a minibus in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, southwest of Baghdad, killed three people; a car bomb and a suicide bomber killed two police officers in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar; and bombings and shootings killed seven people in the northern province of Nineveh. o Iraqi officials Oct. 31 said a suspect in an October bombing attack on government buildings in Baghdad that had killed at least 155 people had taken a guard’s handgun while in custody and fatally shot a senior inspector, before he himself was killed. It was not known when the shooting had occurred. A U.N. Security Council envoy Nov. 1 arrived in Baghdad to review security there; the Iraqi government had re789

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quested U.N. assistance after the October bombing. [See p. 738C1] o Stuart Bowen Jr., the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR), Oct. 30 reported that U.S. contractor Aecom Government Services Inc. had severely overbilled the U.S. government for vehicle parts it had provided for the Iraqi army. The report reviewed four of 139 invoices Aecom had submitted between July 2005 and September 2009, totaling $29.9 million, and found “about $4.1 million in potential overbillings.” Aecom said the overcharging had resulted from “billing errors” that “occurred early in the contract,” and that it had repaid the government, but the SIGIR report disputed that. Bowen said the incident pointed to larger weaknesses in government auditing of contracts. Aecom in October had announced a $78.8 million, six-month extension of a contract to provide maintenance services in Afghanistan. [See p. 297D2] n

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Hariri Forms Unity Government. Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Said Hariri Nov. 9 announced the creation of a unity government, ending more than five months of political uncertainty. Hariri in September had said he would step down after failing to form a government, but President Michel Suleiman Sept. 16 asked him to make another attempt. Hariri Nov. 9 pledged to concentrate on widely backed priorities such as administrative reform and reducing corruption. [See p. 610C3] Hariri’s pro-Western March 14 Movement, which had narrowly won June elections, received 15 seats in the 30-seat cabinet. An opposition coalition led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah received 10 seats—one short of the 11 seats needed to veto cabinet decisions—while five would be appointed by Suleiman, who was seen as a neutral force in Lebanese politics. Hezbollah itself took only two cabinet seats, heading the traditionally less powerful ministries of agriculture and administrative reform. (It had held one seat in the previous cabinet.) Retired Gen. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, a secular Maronite Christian party allied with Hezbollah, received five ministerial posts, including the heads of the important telecommunications and energy ministries. The deal reportedly would not take away Hezbollah’s right to maintain its own armed forces, separate from Lebanon’s national military. When the government had been seen as taking steps to rein in Hezbollah’s independent military power in May 2008, Hezbollah and its allies clashed with government supporters and took over much of western Beirut, the Lebanese capital. [See 2008, p. 334B1] It was unknown what had precipitated the deal after months of deadlock. However, some observers said Syria and Saudi Arabia, which competed for political influence in Lebanon, had declared a truce in the country and pushed groups they backed to come to an agreement. n 790

Other Middle East News U.N. General Assembly Backs Gaza Report.

The United Nations General Assembly Nov. 5 voted to endorse a U.N. report detailing evidence of war crimes committed by Israeli forces and the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) during fighting in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. The vote was 114–18, with 44 abstentions. Israel had claimed that the report, which was prepared by a team led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, was biased and ignored the country’s right to self-defense. [See p. 730A2] The nonbinding resolution denounced “all targeting of civilians,” and called on both Israel and the Palestinians—although not Hamas specifically—to investigate the allegations within three months. If either side did not take action, it called on the U.N. Security Council to take “further action.” Of the five permanent Security Council members, China supported the resolution, the U.S. voted against, and France, Britain and Russia abstained. The U.S. routinely vetoed resolutions seen as being antiIsrael, and it was reportedly unlikely that the Security Council would take action on the Gaza report. Israel Nov. 6 condemned the report’s passage. It said it did not have “the support of the moral majority,” and that the Israeli military had shown “higher military and moral standards” in Gaza than any “of this resolution’s instigators.” The resolution had been put forward by a bloc of 22 Arab nations. The U.S. House Nov. 3 had voted, 344– 36, to approve a nonbinding resolution calling on U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement” of the report, which it called “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” However, Goldstone in an open letter to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said the U.S. resolution contained “serious factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken grossly out of context” in the resolution. Netanyahu Meets With Obama— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Nov. 9 met with Obama in Washington, D.C., where they reportedly discussed relations between the two countries and how to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Netanyahu had resisted Obama’s efforts to persuade Israel to freeze all settlement activity in the West Bank, and it had been unclear until Nov. 8 whether the leaders were going to meet during Netanyahu’s threeday trip to Washington, D.C., to address the Jewish Federations of North America. [See p. 754E1] In a speech to the Jewish Federations Nov. 9, before meeting with Obama, Netanyahu said he desired the “immediate” resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, adding, “Israel is willing to make great concessions for peace.” However, he did not mention any change in Israel’s policy of continuing to move forward with

some settlement construction. Palestinian and Arab leaders said the speech did not represent any shift in Israeli policy. The Palestinian Authority (PA) refused to resume talks until a settlement freeze was implemented. Netanyahu Nov. 11 met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. They issued a statement afterward, saying they had agreed to move toward “immediately reviving the peace process.” Thousands of Palestinians Nov. 11 gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah for a rally on the fifth anniversary of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s death. PA President Mahmoud Abbas in a speech reiterated his demand for a settlement freeze before returning to negotiations, and said, “We are now embarking on a tough political battle” to set the borders of a future Palestinian state and to resolve other so-called final-status issues, such as the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. [See p. 545G3] Abbas said he did not want to discuss his announcement the previous week that he would not run for reelection in 2010. Israeli President Shimon Peres Nov. 7 had urged him not to step down. Palestinian officials Nov. 12 said they would have to delay presidential and parliamentary elections Abbas had set for Jan. 24, 2010, because Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip, would not allow voting there. [See p. 754F2] Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the envoy from the so-called Quartet for Middle East peace (the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the U.N.), Nov. 10 presided over the opening of a border crossing between Israel and the Jenin refugee camp in West Bank. He also welcomed the arrival of the territory’s second cellular phone company. Wataniya Telecom Maldives Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of Qatarbased Qtel, planned to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the West Bank, which would be the single largest investment in the territory’s economy. Blair had focused his efforts on bolstering the West Bank’s civil-society institutions and economy. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Maoist Rebels Attack as Offensive Prepared.

A group of about 200 Maoist rebels Oct. 8 killed 17 policemen in an ambush in India’s western state of Maharashtra. It was one of the deadliest rebel attacks in 2009, and came as the Indian army prepared to deploy some 70,000 paramilitary forces to several states to quell the growing insurgency. [See p. 346E1; 2007, p. 895F3] The rebels, also known as Naxalites, began their insurgency in 1967, and were seeking to overthrow the central government. The rebels said they were defending indigenous tribal groups whose land had been seized by industrial conglomerates seeking to mine mineral-rich areas of central and eastern India. The indigenous tribes—some of the poorest groups in India—had not benefited from India’s rapid economic ascent of recent years, and had FACTS ON FILE

supported rebel attempts to sabotage mining and other economic projects. The rebels had gained strength over the past year, and were now thought to command some 20,000 fighters in 20 of the country’s 29 states, although most of the rebels were concentrated in a swath of central and eastern India known as the “Red Corridor.” Attacks now occurred on a neardaily basis, and the rebels had become increasingly emboldened to take on security forces. In one of the deadliest attacks in 2009, at least 27 policemen were killed in a July 12 ambush in the eastern state of Chattisgarh. About 600 people had died in insurgency-related violence so far in 2009. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had described the Naxalites as the top security threat in the country. Singh Nov. 4 called on chief ministers of Indian states to ensure that tribal groups were not excluded from the benefits of India’s economic growth. “There has been a systemic failure in giving the tribals a stake in the modern economic processes,” Singh said at a summit in New Delhi, the Indian capital. He added, “The alienation built over decades is now taking a dangerous turn in some parts of our country.” There were concerns that the forthcoming military offensive, dubbed “Operation Green Hunt,” could spark a tribal backlash if a larger number of civilians were killed. The government was also reportedly pursuing peace negotiations with the rebels.n News in Brief. The Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, Oct. 27 announced that banks would have to boost their reserves of government bonds, in what was seen as a first step toward winding down emergency policies that had been implemented during the global financial crisis. Bank reserve levels had been lowered to encourage lending, but there were concerns that the increased liquidity could drive up inflation as the economy began to recover. The Reserve Bank also left its benchmark interest rate at 4.75%, but the reserve requirement was seen as a precursor to a possible increase in the the rate in the coming months. The World Bank Sept. 23 had approved a $4.3 billion loan to India, about half of which was intended to assist its credit markets. The World Bank projected that India’s economy would grow between 5.5% and 6.5% in the current fiscal year, which would end in March 2010. [See p. 382G1–A2] Voters Oct. 13 had reelected the Congress party and its allies to power in three state elections, according to results released Oct. 22. The elections were seen as an early test of Congress’s record after its coalition won a resounding victory in national elections held in May. Congress won a majority of seats in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, and also won a majority in the western state of Maharashtra with the support of its allied offshoot, the National Congress Party. Congress won a plurality of seats in the northern state of Haryana, and was expected to be part of the ruling coalition there. [See p. 345B2] India and China Oct. 21 signed a memorandum of understanding to coordinate November 12, 2009

their efforts to address climate change.

SPORTS

New York City Marathon. Keflezighi, 34, an Eritrean-born U.S. citizen, finished the race in two hours, nine minutes and 15 seconds. Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya finished second, with a time of 2:09:56, and Jaouad Gharib of Morocco finished third in 2:10:25. Keflezighi’s first-place finish was the first time a competitor representing the U.S. had won the New York City marathon since Alberto Salazar in 1982. Six U.S. men finished in the top 10. [See 2008, p. 843G3; 2006, p. 358D3; 2005, p. 811C1; 1982, p. 996A3] Tulu, 37, finished in 2:28:52, beating Britain’s Paula Radcliffe, the 2008 champion and pre-race favorite. Radcliffe finished fourth, with a time of 2:29:27, in only the third marathon in 11 starts that she did not win. Radcliffe had been suffering from tendinitis behind her left knee in weeks prior to the race, and crossed the finish line with a noticeable limp. Ludmila Petrova of Russia, who was the runner-up to Radcliffe in 2008, again finished second, with a time of 2:29:00. Christelle Daunay of France finished third, in 2:29:16. Keflezighi had won the silver medal in the marathon at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Tulu had won gold medals in the 10,000 meters at both the 1992 Summer Olympic games in Barcelona, Spain, and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia; she had also won the 2001 London Marathon. [See 2004, p. 674E2; 2001, p. 912A3; 2000, p. 750F1; 1992, p. 599F3] Wheelchair Results—Kurt Fearnley of Australia Nov. 1 won the men’s push-rim wheelchair race in the New York City Marathon for the fourth straight time, completing the course in 1:35:58. Fearnley, 28, finished just 15-hundreths of a second ahead of Krige Schabort of the U.S. Switzerland’s Edith Hunkeler, 37, won the women’s push-rim wheelchair race for the third year in a row, with a time of 1:58:15. Shelly Woods of Britain finished seven seconds behind Hunkeler. Chicago Race Results—Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya Oct. 11 finished the men’s race at the 32nd annual Chicago Marathon in 2:05:41, a course record and the fastest marathon time ever for a U.S. course. In addition to winning $75,000 for finishing first, he received $100,000 for breaking Khalid Khannouchi’s 1999 course record by one second. Morocco’s Abderrahim Goumri finished second, with a time of 2:06:04, followed by Vincent Kipruto of Kenya, who finished four seconds later. [See 2008, p. 844F1] Liliya Shobukhova of Russia won the women’s race with a time of 2:25:56. Germany’s Irina Mikitenko finished second, in 2:26:31, followed by another Russian, Lidiya Grigoryeva, who finished with a time of 2:26:47.

Keflezighi, Tulu Win New York Race. Meb Keflezighi of the U.S. and Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia Nov. 1 won the men’s and women’s races, respectively, in the 40th annual

The Nov. 1 New York City Marathon marked the conclusion of the 2008–09 World Marathon Majors series, with Wanjiru and Mikitenko emerging as the winners. In the series, runners amassed points from their finishes in the world’s five major

The agreement came ahead of negotiations for a new global climate change treaty that were to be held in December in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, appearing alongside his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in New Delhi, the Indian capital, said the two countries would seek a treaty “that not only protects the environment but promotes the interests of developing countries.” China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, the fourthlargest emitter, had long maintained that emissions caps would stall their burgeoning economies, and that countries that had industrialized earlier should bear the brunt of combating climate change. [See p. 636B1] Government officials Oct. 5 said 240 people in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka had died in heavy flooding sparked four days earlier by monsoon rainfall. Andhra Pradesh was hardest hit, with its death toll reaching 194. More than one million people in both states were forced to seek shelter in temporary camps, and thousands of troops and relief workers were enlisted to assist flood victims. Monsoon rains caused hundreds of deaths in India each year. As of Oct. 5, monsoon-related disasters had killed 1,184 people in 2009, according to government figures. [See 2008, p. 778G2] Government data released Sept. 30 showed that rainfall nationwide in 2009 had dipped 23% below the yearly average, making it India’s worst drought since 1972. Indian farmers were heavily dependent on the monsoon season for crop production, and the weak rainfall threatened to affect the broader economy. The government Oct. 28 announced that it would suspend for one year a 70% tariff on imported rice to bolster food supplies and prevent food price inflation. [See p. 594E3; 1972, p. 1029F3] The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which often campaigned on Hindu nationalist themes, Aug. 19 expelled senior party member Jaswant Singh after he praised Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder

of Muslim-majority Pakistan. The praise was expressed in Singh’s book—Jinnah: India–Partition–Independence—and was considered controversial because Hindu nationalists had long blamed Jinnah for the 1947 partition of Pakistan from India. Singh also wrote that Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, shared some of the blame for partition. Analysts said the expulsion of Singh, a former minister of defense, finance and foreign affairs, was evidence of BJP infighting following its defeat in parliamentary elections held in May. [See p. 345B2; 2004, p. 22B1] n UNITED STATES

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Wanjiru, Mikitenko Win Marathon Majors—

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marathons—Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London and New York—over two years. [See 2008, p. 844G1] In the men’s competition, Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie finished behind Wanjiru, and Cheruiyot finished third. For the women, Ethiopia’s Dire Tune finished second, followed by Shobukhova. Both Wanjiru and Mikitenko received $500,000 for winning the series. n

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France’s most prestigious literary honor, the Prix Goncourt (Goncourt Prize), Nov. 2 was awarded to Marie NDiaye for her novel Trois femmes puissantes (Three Powerful Women), about three women with African roots struggling to survive in both Africa and Europe. NDiaye, 42, who was born in Pithiviers, France, south of Paris, to a French mother and a Senegalese father— she now lived in Berlin—was the first black woman ever to win the Goncourt, which dated back to 1903, and the first woman to win it since Paule Constant in 1998. She had published her first novel at the age of 18 and was also a short-story writer and playwright. [See 2008, p. 876C2; 1998, p. 1002A1] n

Theater Openings Aftermath. Documentary drama based on interviews with Iraqi refugees. By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. Directed by Blank. With Fajer Al-Kaisi, Laith Nakli, Amir Arison, Leila Buck and Demosthenes Chrysan. In New York City, at the New York Theater Workshop. Sept. 15. [See 2002, p. 1074D2] Brief Encounter. U.S. premiere of a British production of a play inspired by a 1946 romantic film of the same name, directed by David Lean; its screenplay, by Noel Coward, was based on Still Life, a mid-1930s one-act play by Coward. Written and directed by Emma Rice. With Hannah Yelland, Milo Twomey, Joseph Alessi and Annette McLaughlin. In San Francisco, Calif., at the American Conservatory Theater. Sept. 16. [See pp. 400C1, 255F3; 1988, p. 8E3; 1982, p. 336G1] Come Fly With Me. Musical set to songs sung by Frank Sinatra. Conceived, choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp. With John Selya, Keith Roberts, Holley Farmer, Karine Plantadit, Charlie Neshyba-Hodges and Laura Mead. In Atlanta, Ga., at the Alliance Theater. Sept. 23. [See 2006, pp. 1042E1, 359A2] Eclipsed. Drama about victimized women in war-torn Liberia. By Danai Gurira. Directed by Liesl Tommy. With Uzo Aduba, Liz Femi Wilson, Ayesha Ngaujah, Jessica Frances Dukes and Dawn Ursula. In Washington, D.C., at Woolly Mammoth Theater. Sept. 6. [See 2005, p. 997A2] Hamlet. Broadway transfer of a London production of William Shakespeare’s tragedy. Directed by Michael Grandage. With Jude Law, Kevin R. McNally, Geraldine James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Ron Cook. In New York City, at the Broadhurst Theater. Oct. 6. [See 2000, p. 1058A3] Punk Rock. Drama set in a British secondary school. By Simon Stephens. Directed by Sarah Franksom. With Tom Sturridge, Jessica Raine, Henry LloydHughes, Sophie Wu and Nicholas Banks. In London, at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. Sept. 8. [See 2008, p. 320D2; 2006, p. 228D2] The Royal Family. Broadway revival of a 1927 comedy about a theatrical family. By George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Directed by Doug Hughes. With Rosemary Harris, Jan Maxwell, Tony Roberts, Reg Rogers, Ana Gasteyer and John Glover. In New York City, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. Oct. 8. [See 1968, p. 183C3; 1961, p. 212G1–A2] A Steady Rain. Broadway production of a play about two Chicago police officers; it premiered in Chicago in 2007. By Keith Huff. Directed by John Crowley. With

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Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman. In New York City, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. Sept. 29. Superior Donuts. Broadway transfer, with the same director and cast, of a 2008 Chicago production of a comedy by Tracy Letts set in a Chicago doughnut shop. Directed by Tina Landau. With Michael McKean, Jon Michael Hill, Kate Buddeke, Yasen Peyankov and Jane Alderman. In New York City, at the Music Box Theater. Oct. 1. [See 2008, p. 780F1] n

People A congressional resolution signed Nov. 6 by President Barack Obama made Polish nobleman Casimir Pulaski, who fought on the side of the American colonists in the Revolutionary War, an honorary U.S. citizen. Pulaski, who died in October 1779 at the age of 35 of wounds sustained while leading a cavalry charge against British troops in Savannah, Georgia, became only the seventh person to have been granted honorary U.S. citizenship. The last such honoree, in 2002, had been another Revolutionary War hero, France’s Marquis de Lafayette. [See 2002, p. 1075D3] Actor Morgan Freeman, who in 2008 was seriously injured when a car he was driving crashed near Charleston, Miss., Nov. 5 reached an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit filed by Demaris Meyer, who had been a passenger in Freeman’s car at the time of the crash and had also sustained injuries. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. In her lawsuit, filed Feb. 25, Meyer had claimed that Freeman had been drinking on the night of the crash and had been driving erratically before it occurred. (After the crash, Mississippi Highway Patrol authorities had ruled out alcohol or drugs as contributing factors.) In announcing her lawsuit, Meyer had also said she wanted to dispel rumors that she had been romantically involved with Freeman. [See 2008, p. 564C1] Michael Arnold, a friend and business associate of British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, 75, Nov. 2 in London was sentenced to 18 months in prison for having defrauded the composer of more than £500,000 ($800,000). Michael Arnold, 76, and his wife Judith Arnold, 73, had managed Davies’s finances for three decades. Michael Arnold had reportedly spent the money he stole from Davies on online gambling. The stolen money reportedly included the composer’s £15,000 annual retainer for serving as master of the queen’s music, a poet laureate–like post he had held since 2004. [See 2004, p. 1099B1] Conductor Leonard Slatkin, who in late 2008 assumed the reins of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Nov. 1 suffered a heart attack while guest-conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Slatkin, 65, was able to complete the performance but then collapsed and was rushed to a Rotterdam hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery late Nov. 1 to insert two stents into a blocked artery. The DSO Nov. 11 announced that Slatkin’s doctors had ordered him to cancel his next two scheduled appearances with the orchestra, on Nov. 19–21 and Nov. 27–29. [See 2007, p. 676G2]

Joe Corbett, who served 19 years in prison after being convicted of the 1960 murder of Colorado beer magnate Adolph Coors 3rd, Aug. 24 was found dead in his Denver, Colo., apartment of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Corbett, 80, had reportedly been suffering from cancer. Coors disappeared in February 1960, and his body was found seven months later in a Douglas County, Colo., garbage dump. Corbett, who was later arrested in Canada, was convicted of murdering Coors during a botched kidnapping attempt. [See 1960, p. 68D3] n

O B I T UA R I E S BROWNE, Ray Broadus, 87, folklorist and literary scholar deemed the founder of the academic discipline of popular-culture studies; he established the first academic department devoted to the subject at Bowling Green State University in Ohio in 1973, six years after founding the Journal of Popular Culture, the field’s first scholarly journal, upon his arrival at Bowling Green, where he taught until his 1992 retirement; born Jan. 15, 1922, in Millport, Ala.; died Oct. 22 at his Bowling Green home, of natural causes. GINZBURG, Vitaly Lazarevich, 93, Russian Jewish physicist who was one of three scientists to win the 2003 Nobel Prize for physics for developing the theory of superconductivity; he had done his prize-winning research in the Soviet Union decades earlier, soon after the end of World War II; in the early post-war era, he was also briefly involved in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, before being dismissed from the project, led by Andrei Sakharov, in 1951, during one of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges (the weapon was first tested in August 1953, months after Stalin’s death); after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Ginzburg, an atheist, spoke out against the increasingly cozy relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government; born Oct. 4, 1916, in Moscow, in what was then czarist Russia; died Nov. 8 in Moscow, reportedly of a heart attack. [See 2003, p. 819C3–D3; 1989, p. 940F3] HALPRIN, Lawrence, 93, landscape architect who designed many urban spaces in which natural and man-made elements were artfully blended; his work, which was particularly well-represented in Northern California, his home for decades, included Ghirardelli Square in the Fisherman’s Wharf area of San Francisco, which opened in the 1960s; his best-known national work was the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C., completed in 1997; he was a 2003 National Medal of Arts recipient; born July 1, 1916, in New York City; died Oct. 25 at his home in Kentfield, Calif., of complications from a fall. [See 2003, p. 200D1; 1997, p. 991F3] SEEGER, Mike (Michael), 75, folk singer and instrumentalist, music historian and collector of vernacular music who played a key role in the U.S. folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s; he was a half-brother of legendary folk singer Pete Seeger; born Aug. 15, 1933, in New York City; died Aug. 7 at his home in Lexington, Va., of multiple myeloma. [See p. 632F3] SEGAL, Sheldon Jerome, 83, embryologist and biochemist who led the scientific team that developed the long-acting contraceptive Norplant, first marketed in the U.S. in 1991 and used by more than 120 million women around the world since its introduction; Norplant was a surgically implanted device that released the female hormone progestin and could prevent pregnancy for up to five years; it was, however, withdrawn from the U.S. market in 2002, after many women filed lawsuits in which they claimed it had made them ill; born March 15, 1926, in New York City; died Oct. 17 at his home in Woods Hole, Mass., of congestive heart failure. [See 2006, p. 839B3; 1990, p. 931D3] WISEMAN, Joseph, 91, Canadian-born character screen, stage and television actor; his best-known movie role was as the wicked title character in Dr. No (1962), the first film in the James Bond spy series; he also appeared in a a number of Broadway productions and had guest roles on many TV shows; born May 15, 1918, in Montreal, Quebec; died Oct. 19 at his home in New York City; his health had deteriorated after he suffered an aneurysm. [See 1994, p. 1013E1; 1989, p. 1000D3; Indexes 1971–72, 1968–69, 1963–64, 1957, 1954, 1952] n

November 12, 2009

Five Accused Sept. 11 Plotters to Face New York Civilian Court Trials Military Trials Set for Five Other Detainees.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Nov. 13 announced that the Obama administration would transfer five terrorism detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City to face trial in federal court on charges that they conspired to carry out Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people. Holder’s announcement preceded a Nov. 16 deadline for the Obama administration to determine whether 10 Guantanamo detainees, including the five Sept. 11 attack suspects, would face trials by military commissions set up by the 2006 Military Commissions Act. [See p. 718E3] Holder said that the detainees—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; Walid Muhammed bin Attash; Ammar al-Baluchi (also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali); and Ramzi bin alShibh—would be tried in U.S. District Court in New York City’s borough of Manhattan. The courthouse was less than one mile (1.6 km) from the site of the World Trade Center, whose twin towers had been destroyed in the 2001 attacks when members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network crashed two hijacked jets into them. Holder had reportedly considered charging the Sept. 11 attack suspects in federal courts in Virginia, in Washington, D.C., or in a different New York City courthouse, and had decided to assign some Virginia prosecutors to assist in the planned New York trials. The defendants were not expected to be moved until January 2010 because of legal requirements mandating that Congress and law enforcement agencies be informed of such transfers 45 days before they took place. U.S. President Barack Obama Nov. 13 said at a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, that he believed that Mohammed and the other suspects would receive a fair trial and “would be subjected to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it, and my administration insists on it.” Critics See Danger to City—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) Nov. 13 criticized Holder’s decision to hold the trials of Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 attack suspects in New York. He said that, as a result of that decision, “our cities will face enormous security problems, and our communities will be potential targets for attack.” Other Republican members of Congress and Democratic Sen. James Webb (Va.) also criticized Holder’s decision. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the highest-ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Nov. 18 said, “I believe this decision is dangerous, I believe it is misguided, I believe it is unnecessary.” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) Nov. 13 said that the city was fully prepared for the trials and argued

that it was “fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered.” Former Republican presidential candidate Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani, who had been mayor of New York at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, Nov. 15 criticized the decision, saying that would give “an unnecessary advantage to the terrorists” and cited it as evidence that Obama had decided that “we’re not at war with terrorists anymore.” Holder Nov. 13 said claims by critics that terrorist suspects could not be safely tried within the U.S. were not “factually based,” and said he was “confident that we can safely hold people there [in New York City] and we can protect the people who surround the courthouse area and bring these cases successfully.” New York Gov. David Paterson (D) Nov. 16 said that trying the Sept. 11 suspects in New York City was “not a decision that I would have made,” saying that “having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers.” However, Paterson said that he had promised Holder that the federal government would receive “my fullest cooperation.” [See p. 639G1] Holder Nov. 18 testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his decision to try Mohammed and the other defendants in federal court. He said that he had “full confidence” that New York City was ready to host the trials and argued that “we need not cower in the face of this enemy. Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.” He said that if Mohammed attempted to use his trial as a propaganda platform, “I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is.” Holder said that he was “not scared of what Khalid Sheik Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to be afraid either.” Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty—

Holder Nov. 13 said that he would instruct prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the Sept. 11 attack suspects, who had previously faced the death penalty after being charged under Guantanamo’s military commissions system. (The Guantanamo charges against the five men were expected to be dropped.) The Manhattan federal District Court had not imposed a death sentence since the 1950s. He also expressed confidence that the suspects would receive a fair trial and would be convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that he had seen classified evidence that would likely guarantee their convictions. Experts suggested that Mohammed, who had been subjected to brutal interrogation methods—including 183 instances of waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that had previously been prosecuted by the U.S. as a war crime—while in U.S. custody, would likely challenge any infor-

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3596 November 19, 2009

B mation the government had obtained using harsh methods or other coercive tactics. [See p. 258C2] Holder at the Nov. 18 hearing refused to entertain questions about what would happen to the defendants if they were acquitted. Some analysts said the administration could argue that it had the right to continue to detain the defendants as suspected terrorists under an authorization-of-force resolution against Al Qaeda that was passed by Congress in 2001. Mohammed also had an outstanding federal indictment against him in New York City related to his alleged role in a failed 1995 terrorist plot known as the “Bojinka” plot, in which terrorists had conspired to simultaneously detonate bombs in 12 passenger jets as they traveled across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. [See 1996, p. 656A1]

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Five accused Sept. 11 plotters to face New York civilian court trials. PAGE 793

U.S. President Obama visits Japan, China, South Korea. PAGE 794

North Korea, South Korea engage in first sea clash since 2002.

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Senate Democrats release merged health care reform bill. PAGE 796

Former Alaska Gov. Palin launches book tour. PAGE 797

Somali pirates release Spanish fishing vessel. PAGE 801

Belgian Prime Minister Van Rompuy named to new EU presidential post.

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IAEA warns of additional Iranian nuclear plants. PAGE 804

Iraq’s Sunni vice president vetoes election law. PAGE 804

Afghan President Karzai sworn in for second term. PAGE 805

Zenyatta wins Breeders’ Cup Classic. PAGE 807

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Nov. 13 announced that five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. would stand trial in New York City: left to right, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid Muhammed bin Attash, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

Military Commissions Trials to Resume—

U.S. to Miss Guantanamo Deadline—

Holder Nov. 13 announced that five other Guantanamo detainees would be prosecuted in military commissions trials rather than in federal court. Those detainees were Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind behind the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole near Yemen, and Omar Khadr, who had been 15 at the time of his capture, as well as Noor Uthman Mohammed, Ahmed al-Darbi and Ibrahim al Qosi. It was not specified whether the military commissions trials would be held at Guantanamo, which the Obama administration was working to close, or in the U.S. (A sixth detainee, Mohammed Kamin, not mentioned by Holder in his remarks, was already scheduled to stand trial under the military commissions system for allegedly planting mines in Afghanistan and providing material support for terrorism.) Obama Oct. 28 had signed a fiscal 2010 defense spending authorization bill, which included the 2009 Military Commissions Act, updating rules governing the military commissions system. Under the new rules, military prosecutors were barred from using hearsay, coerced confessions or other testimony produced using torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. However, the secretary of defense had the right to enact rules that would allow hearsay and coerced statements. Prosecutors were required to turn over all exculpatory evidence, and prisoners were allowed to attend their own trials, review all evidence presented against them, cross-examine witnesses and call witnesses. The law also allowed prisoners to appeal their sentences to the federal court system after a conviction. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy group Nov. 13 praised Holder’s decision to try Mohammed and the other four Sept. 11 attack suspects in federal court, but criticized his decision to try five other detainees under the military commissions system, which ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero called “unsalvageable.” The same day, the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) announced that they would close their joint John Adams Project, which had spent $4 million to assist in the defense of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees at Guantanamo. Both groups said they would continue to push for all Guantanamo detainees to be freed or tried in U.S. courts. [See p. 587A1]

Obama Nov. 18 said in a television interview with the U.S.’s Fox News in Beijing, China, that his administration would not be able to meet a Jan. 22, 2010, deadline that he had set in January for the closure of Guantanamo. Obama said that he anticipated “that Guantanamo will be closed next year,” but said he was reluctant to set a new deadline because “a lot of this is also going to depend on cooperation from Congress.” [See p. 718E1] The Obama administration had struggled to find countries willing to accept terrorism detainees who had been cleared of wrongdoing and approved for release. It also faced political opposition from congressional Republicans and some congressional Democrats over possible plans to move detainees into holding facilities within the U.S. A total of 215 detainees were currently held at Guantanamo, including the five Sept. 11 attack suspects and the six detainees scheduled to be prosecuted at military commissions trials. The Chicago Tribune reported Nov. 14 that the Obama administration was considering moving some Guantanamo detainees to a nearly empty maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill., as part of continuing efforts to close Guantanamo. The administration was also reportedly considering prisons in Montana, Colorado and Michigan, as well as a separate Illinois prison. Current U.S. law barred the Obama administration from transferring detainees from Guantanamo into the U.S., except to stand trial; the law would have to be altered before a U.S. prison could be used for detainees. The prison had been built in Thomson in 2001 to hold 1,600 maximum-security inmates for the state of Illinois, but had sat mostly empty for the previous eight years, due to an ongoing state budget crisis. Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) Nov. 15 expressed support for the Thomson proposal, which they asserted would provide jobs for the state and would not put residents at any additional risk. Illinois Republicans, including Reps. Donald Manzullo, who represented Thomson, and Mark Kirk, who was running for the U.S. Senate, Nov. 15 sent Obama a letter opposing the proposal, which they said would “invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its No. 1 target.” Federal officials Nov. 16 toured the Thomson Correctional Center. n

U.S. President Obama Visits Japan, China, South Korea Challenges in Asia on First Tour. U.S. Pres-

ident Barack Obama Nov. 13–19 conducted his first tour of East Asia since taking office in January, visiting Japan, China and South Korea, and also attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore. Obama hailed the growing economic and political importance of the countries he visited. But his visit to China illustrated China’s assertion of a status as equal to the U.S. and the U.S.’s awkward adjustment to its growing economic interdependence with China. And in Japan, he faced a newly installed government’s desire to alter the country’s historically subordinate relationship with the U.S. on foreign policy and security matters. [See pp. 776D1, 747D2, 108F3] In Japan, Highlights Pacific Ties—

Obama arrived in Tokyo Nov. 13 and met with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Obama in a speech that day at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall called himself the U.S.’s “first

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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Pacific president,” referring to his birth in the island state of Hawaii, and said he viewed the U.S. as a “Pacific nation.” Speaking after his meeting with Hatoyama, he said the U.S. and Japan “have been and will continue to be equal partners,” and said he had made Japan the first stop on his trip because the U.S.’s relations with it were “a foundation for security and prosperity.” In his Suntory Hall speech, Obama highlighted the importance of China to the world economy, and said the U.S. “does not seek to contain China, nor does a deeper relationship with China mean a weakening of our bilateral alliances.” Obama also met with Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. Obama’s bow to the emperor caused a flurry of criticism among his political opponents at home as an improper display of obeisance, particularly in light of the royal house’s role in Japan’s past imperialism and militarism. The U.S. State Department said Obama’s gesture was a proper observance of Japanese etiquette. No Breakthrough on U.S. Base Plan—

Hatoyama raised the first main issue to test the two countries’ relations since his election: his government’s desire to renegotiate a 2006 agreement under which the U.S. would close Futenma Air Station, where 18,000 U.S. marines were stationed, on the Japanese island of Okinawa, and open a new base elsewhere on the island, also redeploying 8,000 of the marines to the U.S. territory of Guam. A total of about 36,000 U.S. service members were stationed on Okinawa, where opposition to the heavy U.S. military presence ran deep, and many residents opposed the construction of a new facility. Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in its election campaign had vowed to demand the reopening of the agreement, but the U.S. had indicated that it considered the matter closed. Obama Nov. 13 agreed to the establishment of a bilateral “high-level working group” to discuss the agreement, although U.S. officials said the group’s task would only be to discuss the implementation of the agreement as concluded, not reopen its provisions to new negotiation. Hatoyama Nov. 16 contended that the working group would in fact be an opportunity for Japan to demand changes to the deal, saying it would be “meaningless” otherwise. Hatoyama’s government had also said it would provide $5 billion in civilian aid to Afghanistan instead of renewing a naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led forces fighting there. Obama said the aid offer “underscores Japan’s prominent role” in international security matters. [See p. 775F2] APEC Leaders Scrap Climate Goal—

Obama Nov. 14–15 attended the 21-nation APEC forum in Singapore. The leaders Nov. 15 issued a statement pledging to combat protectionism and to make advances in opening their economies to multilateral trade and investment. However, they scrapped a proposal from the initial draft of the statement, which set a target of a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, effectively abandoning the goal of reaching a binding international emissionsNovember 19, 2009

reduction agreement before a climatechange summit scheduled to be held in Denmark in December. [See pp. 775F3, 759E3; 2008, p. 880F1] Obama held a number of meetings with APEC leaders on the sidelines of the summit. He Nov. 15 became the first U.S. president to meet simultaneously with the leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Obama reportedly directly urged Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from her longtime house arrest. [See p. 763B2] He also met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev for talks on a nuclear arms– control treaty to succeed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was due to expire Dec. 5. [See p. 705G3] Makes First China Visit— Obama Nov. 15 traveled to China for the first time, arriving in Shanghai, where the following day he held a question-and-answer session with a group of Chinese college students, who had reportedly been rigorously screened, as were their questions. Obama in his opening remarks said the U.S. did not “seek to impose any system of government on any other nation,” but said that the “freedoms of expression and worship, and access to information and political participation”—all of which were sharply restricted in China—“should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any nation.” Obama also answered selected questions that had been submitted to the U.S.’s embassy in China via the Internet, including one asking his opinion of China’s broad efforts to block access to Internet material it deemed politically unacceptable. Obama said unrestricted Internet access “is a source of strength” and “should be encouraged.” However, the session was broadcast only on a local television station, not nationwide in China, and plans to show it live online were curtailed. It was also held in a hall at a museum in a remote location, rather than on a university campus as had been the case in similar past encounters with U.S. presidents. Meets Chinese Leaders—Obama Nov. 17 met in Beijing, China’s capital, with Chinese President Hu Jintao. In a joint appearance after their meeting, they delivered prepared statements without taking questions. They said they had agreed to new cooperation on issues including the global economy, climate change and military relations. Obama repeated his statement that “fundamental human rights” were “universal,” and urged China to resume talks with the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama. [See p. 806A2] Obama said he and Hu agreed on the need to pursue “more balanced” economic relations, in which the U.S. “saves more, spends less and reduces long-term debt,” while China would rely more on domestic consumption, rather than cheap exports, to drive its economic growth. China was the largest holder of U.S. government debt, and had recently expressed concern about the

U.S.’s growing national debt and the longterm stability of those holdings. There was no sign of a breakthrough on the U.S.’s desire that China allow its currency, the renminbi or yuan, to rise in value against the dollar, in order to reduce China’s large trade surplus with the U.S. Trade frictions had increased recently, with the U.S. imposing tariffs in response to perceived trade violations, and countermoves by China. Obama Nov. 18 met in Beijing with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao for talks that also focused on trade and the economy, and yielded similar pledges of cooperation. Observers said Obama’s visit dramatized China’s emergence as a near equal global power to the U.S. The global economic crisis had cemented China’s role as the U.S.’s main creditor and, in China’s eyes, exposed failings in the Western financial system, while China appeared to be emerging from the economic downturn more quickly than the U.S. and other Western economies. The U.S. also needed China’s cooperation in addressing international issues such as climate change and North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, and China appeared to show intensified confidence in paying less heed to U.S. pressure on human rights. Obama did not meet with Chinese rights activists, as some previous presidents had, nor did the U.S. insist on giving a major address broadcast nationally in China. Obama Nov. 17 also toured Beijing’s imperial-era Forbidden City, and the next day visited the Great Wall of China. Before his meeting with Hu, he had reportedly met with Mark Ndesandjo, a half-brother on his father’s side. Ndesandjo lived in Shenzhen, China, and had recently published an autobiographical novel.

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Sunnier Welcome in South Korea—

Obama Nov. 19 visited South Korea, where he met with President Lee Myung Bak in Seoul, the capital, and discussed the North Korean nuclear question and trade issues. Obama’s visit to South Korea was less strained than those to China or Japan because Lee’s conservative government generally favored a close alignment with the U.S. At a joint news conference with Lee, Obama confirmed that the U.S. would send a special envoy to North Korea in December for talks intended to coax it back to the sixnation framework. However, Obama said he and Lee “agree on the need to break the pattern that existed in the past in which North Korea behaves in a provocative fashion, then is willing to return to talks, and then talks for a while, and then leaves the talks and seeks further concessions.” [See p. 795G3] The two leaders said they sought ratification of a free-trade agreement, signed in 2007 but not yet ratified by either country’s legislature. [See p. 51B3] n

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Ships of North Korea’s and South Korea’s navies Nov. 10 exchanged fire in the disputed waters off the western coast of the 795

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Korean Peninsula, in the first such sea clash since 2002. Each country accused the other’s ships of intruding into its waters. The incident took place in the Yellow Sea, about 140 miles (220 km) west of the South Korean coastal city of Incheon. [See pp. 763D3, 600E2; 2002, p. 603D2] South Korean officials said that a North Korean patrol boat had crossed the Northern Limit Line, a United Nations–defined sea border set in 1953 that North Korea did not recognize, prompting verbal warnings and warning shots from a South Korean vessel. They said the North Korean boat opened fire at the South Korean boat, which returned fire. South Korea said the North Korean vessel retreated across the line in flames and severely damaged, while the South Korean boat sustained only minor bullet-hole damage. It was not known whether any North Korean sailors were killed or injured; no South Korean casualties were reported. North Korea’s official state news agency Nov. 10 said a North Korean patrol boat had been investigating an “unidentified object” in North Korean waters when it was set upon by a group of South Korean warships, to which it dealt a “retaliatory blow,” sending them back to South Korean waters. The report called on South Korea to apologize, and another state media dispatch Nov. 12 vowed that South Korean “forces will be forced to pay dearly for the grave armed provocation.” Some observers speculated on the possibility that North Korea had deliberately provoked the clash at a sensitive juncture: while the U.S. was trying to coax it back into six-nation talks on abandoning its nuclear weapons program, and just before an Asian tour by U.S. President Barack Obama, on which he was planning to discuss the nuclear issue with regional leaders. However, South Korean officials, noting that North Korea had in recent months been making conspicuously conciliatory gestures toward South Korea, said it was possible the incident had been the result of a mere mistake by the North Korean ship as it patrolled waters where numerous Chinese fishing boats were operating illegally. North Korean incursions across the Northern Limit Line were routine; South Korea said there had been 22 so far in 2009. The most recent violent skirmishes had taken place in 1999, when a North Korean boat was sunk after a days-long standoff, and in 2002, when a South Korean boat was sunk. [See 1999, p. 432B2] Plan to Send U.S. Envoy Unchanged—

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Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, Nov. 10 expressed the hope that there would be “no further actions in the Yellow Sea that could be seen as an escalation.” Obama administration officials the previous day had told reporters that the U.S.’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, would travel to that country by the end of the year for talks intended to lead North Korea back to the six-nation nuclear negotiations. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Nov. 11 said the naval incident would have no effect on that plan. n 796

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Health Care Reform Senate Democrats Release Merged Bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) Nov. 18 released a health care reform bill that would provide health insurance to 31 million people currently without it, at a cost of $848 billion over 10 years. Reid and other Democratic leaders had crafted the legislation out of two separate measures approved by the Senate Finance Committee in October, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in July. Like the House version of the bill passed earlier in the month, the Senate measure called for the creation of a government-run health insurance program, commonly known as a “public option.” However, the Senate’s version would allow states to pass legislation to opt out of that program. [See pp. 773A1, 698A1, 476F2] In comparison, the House bill would provide coverage to all of the U.S.’s 36 million uninsured people at a cost of $1.055 trillion over 10 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the Senate measure would reduce projected federal deficits by $130 billion over the next decade. Reid’s plan pushed back the implementation of many of the provisions in the House version of the bill to 2014, from 2013, in order to rein in costs. The legislation, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, required most people in the U.S. to obtain health insurance by a deadline of 2014. Subsidies consisting of tax credits would be made available to families making up to 400% of the federal poverty income level in order to make insurance more affordable. Individuals who had not obtained insurance by 2014 would face a fine of $95 that would rise incrementally to $750 by 2016. Fines for families without insurance topped out at $2,250. The bill also called for an expansion of Medicaid, the joint state-federal insurance program for the poor, to cover those making up to 133% of the federal poverty income level. According to an estimate by the CBO, about 24 million people would remain uninsured in 2019 under the bill, with about one-third of that group comprised of undocumented immigrants. The measure called for the creation of health insurance “exchanges,” or marketplaces on which individuals, families and small businesses could comparison shop for insurance policies. The bill would also create nonprofit insurance cooperatives intended to compete with private insurers. Under the plan, employers were not explicitly required to offer insurance to their workers. But companies with more than 50 employees that had at least one worker who qualified for federal subsidies would be forced to pay a penalty of about $750 per employee if they did not provide insurance. Insurance companies were prohibited from denying coverage to those with preexisting medical conditions. Reid’s plan proposed a 40% tax on highend, or “Cadillac,” health insurance policies worth at least $8,500 for individuals

and $23,000 for families. The bill also called for a Medicare payroll tax increase for individuals making more than $200,000 annually, or couples making more than $250,000 per year. Their payroll tax rates would be increased to 1.95% of their wages, from 1.45%. The measure also proposed creating a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgeries, with exceptions made for procedures related to disfiguring diseases, abnormalities or traumatic injuries. Significant savings were also expected from cuts in spending for Medicare, which provided health care to the elderly and disabled. Those cuts were projected to yield $436 billion over 10 years. A series of fees levied on private insurers, medical device makers and pharmaceutical drug companies were supposed to generate about $100 billion between 2010 and 2019. Unlike the House measure, the Senate bill would allow women receiving federal subsidies to sign up for an insurance plan that covered abortions. The Senate version also allowed companies receiving federal money to sell policies that covered abortions, in another break from the House version. The Senate bill also included a government long-term-care insurance program that had been backed by the late Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, Mass.). The program would allow employees the option to enroll in a plan that would cover expenses such as assisted-living care and nursing homes. Those who enrolled in the plan would have premiums deducted from their paychecks. The House bill contained a similar provision. Reaction—Republicans quickly criticized the bill as a dangerous expansion of government power that would lead to higher insurance costs, and raise taxes. “This is yet another trillion dollar experiment, but it is not what Americans bargained for,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said. The bill was applauded by the administration of President Barack Obama, who had made health care reform the priority of his domestic policy agenda. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the measure “provides protection from insurance companies, contains true cost controls and extends coverage to working families.” It remained unclear if the bill had the support of 60 senators, the minimum needed for it to overcome a procedural vote hurdle in the Senate that would bring the bill up for debate. Democrats controlled 58 seats, and two more were filled by indepedents who normally caucused with them. Senate Republicans were assumed to unanimously oppose the bill, and were expected to seek to filibuster any move to open debate on the measure. Democrats themselves remained divided on varying issues in the reform plan, including the public option provision and how abortion was addressed. Three centrist Democratic senators—Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)—had expressed hesitation about supporting the bill in the vote to begin debate, owing to their concerns over the pubFACTS ON FILE

lic option. Reid was reportedly working to push the bill to a final vote before the end of 2009, in order to avoid continued negotiations over the bill during an election year. Drug Price Inquiries Sought—Four House Democrats in a letter dated Nov. 18 requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate allegations that pharmaceutical companies had recently raised the wholesale prices of their products in anticipation of government cost controls that would take effect under a reform plan. The letter was signed by Reps. Charles Rangel (N.Y.), Henry Waxman (Calif.), Pete Stark (Calif.) and John Lewis (Ga.). The same day, Sen. Bill Nelson (D, Fla.) requested that the inspector general of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department start an “investigation into drug industry pricing and recent increases, and the extent to which these increases may affect the Medicare and Medicaid programs.” Both requests were sparked by a Nov. 16 article in the New York Times, which reported that the wholesale price of brandname drugs had climbed 9% in the 12month period ending Sept. 30. Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Nov. 12–15 and reported Nov. 17 found that respondents were almost evenly split over the health care reform effort, with 48% supporting it and 49% in opposition. Support for the public option was at 53%. Obama’s overall approval rating had held steady since late summer, at 56%. n

Politics Palin Launches Book Tour. Former Alaska

Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, Nov. 17 launched a promotional tour for her new book released that day, Going Rogue: An American Life. Palin had resigned as governor in July, 18 months before the end of her first term. [See p. 639E1] Palin Nov. 16 appeared on television in an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, which had been recorded Nov. 9. Asked by Winfrey if she planned to run for president in 2012, Palin replied that the possibility was “not on my radar screen right now.” Palin said she was currently focused on helping Republicans in the 2010 elections. Asked by Winfrey if she planned to invite Levi Johnston, the father of her teenage daughter Bristol’s child, to Thanksgiving dinner, Palin replied that he had an “open invitation.” But she criticized him for posing for nude photos to appear on the Web site of Playgirl magazine (which had discontinued print publication earlier in the year), saying, “I call that porn.” She also said he had been spreading lies about her family. [See p. 160D2] In a television interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, aired Nov. 17, Palin called President Barack Obama’s economic policies “back assward,” and criticized him for “dithering and hesitation with some of our national security questions.” November 19, 2009

Palin’s book tour included a bus trip through several key battleground states in the 2008 election, with a stop in Iowa, the state with the first presidential primary contest in the nation. The tour began Nov. 18 in Grand Rapids, Mich. The aspect of Palin’s book that drew the most attention was the criticism she leveled at advisers to Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, who chose her as his running mate. Palin accused McCain’s top aides of mishandling her relations with the media during the campaign, including the announcement that Bristol was pregnant. She claimed that the campaign had left her with a $50,000 legal bill for its vetting of her background. McCain, in a Nov. 16 interview with The Hill, a newspaper that covered Congress, disputed Palin’s account of the legal bill. McCain said the bill was not for vetting, but rather for legal services related to an Alaska state ethics investigation into Palin’s dismissal of a state trooper who was her former brother-in-law. [See 2008, p. 805A1] Nonetheless, McCain said he enjoyed reading the book, adding, “I hope she sells lots of them.” Palin wrote her book with the assistance of Lynn Vincent, an editor at World, an evangelical Christian magazine. Palin reportedly received a $5 million advance payment for the book from her publisher, HarperCollins. n Ex-Rep. Jefferson Gets 13-Year Prison Term.

Judge T.S. Ellis 3rd of U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., Nov. 13 sentenced former Rep. William Jefferson (D, La.) to 13 years in prison for corruption in office. In August, a jury had convicted Jefferson of bribery, money laundering and racketeering in connection with business deals in Africa. [See p. 521A2] Jefferson’s prison sentence was the longest ever given to a former member of Congress convicted on corruption charges, breaking the previous record of eight years and four months given to former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R, Calif.) in 2006. [See 2006, p. 165B2] However, prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 27 to 33 years for Jefferson, in line with federal sentencing guidelines for his felonies. Prosecutor Mark Lytle said Jefferson had carried out “the most extensive and pervasive pattern of corruption in the history of Congress.” Jefferson’s lawyers had said they intended to appeal his conviction. He did not speak at his sentencing, nor had he testified at his trial. Jefferson, 62, had lost his reelection bid in December 2008. He had first won his seat, representing the New Orleans area, in 1990, becoming the first black member of Congress elected in Louisiana since the post–Civil War Reconstruction era. In 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had raided Jefferson’s home, finding $90,000 in cash hidden in a freezer. The money had been given to him by an FBI informant, as part of a plan to bribe then–Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar to win approval for a telecommuni-

cations deal. Prosecutors said Jefferson had both taken and offered bribes in a number of similar schemes, collecting about $400,000 in illicit payments to companies run by his family. In 2006, the FBI had raided Jefferson’s congressional office. It was the first such raid in history, setting off a constitutional dispute that ended when the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 2008. n

Obama Administration Craig Resigns as Counsel, Bauer Tapped.

White House counsel Gregory Craig Nov. 13 announced that he planned to resign at the end of the year and return to private legal practice. President Barack Obama named prominent Democratic attorney Robert Bauer to replace Craig as his chief in-house lawyer. [See pp. 288C3, 28G1] Craig had drafted several executive orders, issued soon after Obama took office in January, that reversed key antiterrorism policies of his predecessor, President George W. Bush. One of those orders called for shutting down the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within one year. [See p. 793A1] That plan drew strong opposition from Congress. Lawmakers resisted the idea of sending the prisoners to their states, and passed legislation that would limit the administration’s ability to move the prisoners to the U.S. for trial. In October, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. had said the one-year deadline for closing Guantanamo was unlikely to be met. Craig, 64, reportedly had been blamed inside the White House for failing to anticipate the resistance to the plan, and was relieved of responsibility for carrying it out. [See p. 718E1] Craig said that his resignation was unrelated to Guantanamo, and that he had always intended to leave his post after one year. His departure was the highest-level personnel change in the Obama administration to date. There were still 215 detainees at Guantanamo. Holder Nov. 13 announced that five linked to Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be tried in federal court in New York City. Bauer, 57, was a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Perkins Coie LLP, and was known for his expertise in election and campaign finance law. He had served as general counsel for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and had been Obama’s personal lawyer since Obama became a senator in 2005. He was also general counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party’s executive body. Communications

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Resigns—

Anita Dunn Nov. 10 resigned as White House communications director. Her deputy, Dan Pfeiffer, replaced her. Dunn (who was married to Bauer) had taken over the position in April, on an interim basis, when Obama’s first communications director, 797

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Ellen Moran, left to join the Commerce Department. Dunn reportedly would continue to serve as an outside consultant to the White House. Dunn had drawn attention with her recent attacks on the conservative bent of the Fox News Channel, which she had branded “a wing of the Republican Party.” [See p. 717C2] n

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Hunger Hits Record Level. The Agriculture Department (USDA) Nov. 16 reported that

the number of people without regular access to enough food was 49 million in 2008, an increase of 31%, or 13 million people, from the previous year. The figure was the highest since the USDA began tracking “food insecurity” in 1995. According to the figures, 17 million households had reported some level of food insecurity in 2008, a climb from 13 million households the previous year. [See p. 440E2] The USDA said about two-thirds of those households had enough to eat, but had been forced to rely on government aid, food pantries and soup kitchens to supplement their food, or had switched to eating cheaper or less varied food. About one-third of the group was considered to have suffered “very low food security,” meaning that they had reduced their portions or skipped meals because of a lack of money. Also, almost 17 million children, or 22.5% of the U.S. population of children, lived in a household that had experienced a scarcity of food in 2008. That was an increase of four million children from 2007. Analysts said the rise in the food insecurity level was linked to the rise in unemployment in the U.S. Food prices had also climbed sharply in 2008. [See p. 778G1] Climb in State Poverty Rates Reported—

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The Census Bureau Sept. 29 released part of its annual American Community Survey, which found that overall poverty rates had increased in 31 states and Washington, D.C., in 2008. In 2007, poverty rate increases had been reported in only 10 states. However, the poverty rate increases in 2008 were considered statistically significant in only eight states: California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Pennsylvania. The federal poverty rate was defined as a family of four with two children that made less than $22,000 annually. [See 2005, p. 609A1] n

Economy Trade Deficit Climbed in September. The

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Commerce Department Nov. 13 reported that the seasonally Trade Deficit adjusted U.S. (in billions) trade deficit in 2009 $36.47 goods and servic- September Previous Month $30.85 es was $36.5 bil- Year Earlier $60.14 lion in September, up from a revised $30.8 billion in August. Exports rose, due in part to a months-long decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which had made U.S. goods cheaper 798

MERCHANDISE TRADE DATA

Country/ Region China Japan Canada European Union Mexico NICs†

Deficit/Surplus* September August 2009 2009 -22.10 -4.13 -1.50 -5.54 -4.56 0.75

-20.23 -4.34 -1.48 -5.44 -3.95 0.65

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

abroad. However, imports climbed even higher, largely because of an increase in oil prices. [See p. 699B3] Exports in September rose to $132.0 billion, a $3.7 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was spurred by increased exports of capital goods, and industrial supplies and materials. Imports increased by $9.3 billion in September, to $168.4 billion. The change was led by increased imports of industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles, parts and engines. The dollar’s slide had benefited U.S. exporters, but had also raised concerns that inflation could rise. One euro Nov. 13 was worth $1.4921 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a 15% increase from the beginning of the year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Nov. 16 said the Fed was “attentive to the implications” that the dollar’s low exchange value posed, and that the Fed would “continue to monitor these developments closely.” However, Bernanke said the Fed would likely keep its benchmark interest rate “exceptionally low” for an “extended period.” The Fed’s interest rate of near zero had contributed to the dollar’s decline, since it had lowered yields on dollar-denominated investments, leading investors to put their money elsewhere. Bernanke’s comments were seen as unusual, since the Treasury was traditionally responsible for currency exchange matters. Bernanke, speaking at the Economic Club of New York in New York City, also warned that the high unemployment rate and the limited availability of credit would probably weaken the U.S.’s recovery from a severe recession. He said the jobless rate, which rose to 10.2% in October, would likely remain “quite high” over the next year. [See p. 778G1] n Consumer Prices Rose 0.3% in October.

The Labor Department Nov. 18 reported that its consumer Inflation (CPI) price index (CPI), October 0.3% which tracked Previous2009 Month 0.2% prices for con- 12-Month Change -0.2% sumer goods for all urban consumers, rose 0.3% in October, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after rising 0.2% in September. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, rose 0.2% in October. [See p. 700A1]

For the 12-month period through October, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was -0.2%. Producer Prices Rose 0.3% in October—

The Labor Department Nov. 17 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in October rose 0.3% after seasonal adjustment. “Core” prices, which excluded food and energy costs, fell 0.6% in October. The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 174.1% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $174.10 in October. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods rose 0.3% in October, and prices for crude goods increased 5.4%. n

Automakers GM to Begin Repaying Federal Loans. Fritz Henderson, chief executive of Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Co. (GM), Nov. 16 announced that the company beginning in December would repay $6.7 billion in government loans in installments of about $1 billion per quarter. The government reportedly had not expected GM to begin repaying the loans until they were due in July 2015. [See pp. 758F1, 757C3] Henderson also announced that GM had lost as much as $1.2 billion between the time it exited bankruptcy and the close of the third quarter of 2009. He warned that GM would also post a loss in the fourth quarter of 2009 due to ongoing restructuring costs, a $2.8 billion settlement payment to its former parts unit, Delphi Holdings LLP, and repayment of federal loans. [See p. 758F2] GM also owed the Canadian government about $1.4 billion. It planned to repay that debt in quarterly installments of $200 million, starting in December. The U.S. Treasury had invested about $50 billion in GM since late 2008, when the effects of a global financial crisis became apparent. Most of that investment took the form of a 60.8% equity stake in GM. The Treasury planned to eventually sell its stake in GM in order to recoup its investment. GM Chairman Edward Whitacre Nov. 10 had said it was “too early to speculate” on when GM would launch an initial public offering of its shares. Henderson had previously suggested that shares might become available in 2010. GMAC Head Replaced—GMAC Financial Services, a major auto loan provider for GM and Chrysler Group LLC customers and dealers, Nov. 11 announced that Chief Executive Alvaro de Molina would be replaced by Michael Carpenter, a member of GMAC’s board of directors. The move came as GMAC was negotiating a third federal loan package of as much as $5.6 billion with the Treasury. GMAC since 2008 had received $12.5 billion in federal loans, and was 35.4% owned by the government. [See pp. 742A1, 319D1] Treasury officials said the government had not been involved in the decision to replace Molina. n FACTS ON FILE

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Fed Faulted Over Payments to AIG Partners.

A special Treasury Department watchdog Nov. 17 reported that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had “refused to use its considerable leverage” in negotiations over derivatives contracts made by insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG), giving AIG’s trading partners a $62 billion “backdoor bailout.” The findings of the watchdog, Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the government’s $700 billion financial industry rescue fund—known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—had been widely reported the previous day. [See pp. 715A3, 162B1] AIG had nearly collapsed in 2008 due to the company’s credit defaults swap (CDS) business, in which it essentially underwrote insurance on complex mortgagebacked securities. The value of those securities fell in value after the housing market entered a deep slump, leading AIG’s CDS trading partners to demand billions of dollars in collateral. The Fed in September 2008 extended an $85 billion credit line to AIG to help the company keep up with its collateral payments and stay afloat. Officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York—then led by Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury secretary—in November 2008 met with representatives from eight top financial institutions to negotiate the CDS contracts. The Fed’s plan was for AIG to purchase the underlying securities so that it could cancel the CDS contracts and halt the collateral payments. But even though the securities had lost much of their value, the Fed agreed that the financial institutions should essentially be paid the original value of the securities, and be allowed to keep the collateral AIG had already paid, for a total of $62 billion. Barofsky said only one financial institution—Switzerland’s UBS AG—volunteered to accept a lower payment for the securities, but only on the condition that the other institutions did so. Barofsky also said a French regulator representing French banks Societe Generale SA and Calyon Credit Agricole CIB had prohibited them from receiving a discounted payment. Barofsky said the $85 billion credit line had undercut the Fed’s negotiating power, since it prevented the Fed from threatening to let AIG go bankrupt, a development that would have hurt AIG’s trading partners. He also said the Fed had approached the negotiations as a creditor, and not in its capacity as a bank regulator, sacrificing its leverage. As a result, “tens of billions of dollars of government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG’s counterparties,” Barofsky said. In a letter accompanying the report, the Fed said its actions had been “designed to prevent a system-wide collapse and achieved that end.” The central bank also said it would have been a “misuse” of power to act as a regulator, since it was representing AIG in the negotiations. The Treasury Nov. 16 said the episode showed that November 19, 2009

the “government needs better tools to deal with the impending failure of a large institution.” Separately, AIG Nov. 6 had reported a $455 million profit for the third quarter, its second straight profitable quarter. The company, nearly 80% of which was owned by the government, had benefited from recent stabilization in the financial industry. [See p. 585G2] n

Medicine & Health Fewer Mammograms Recommended. The

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of 16 experts appointed by the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, Nov. 16 released new guidelines for breast cancer screenings, recommending a reduction in routine examinations in order to prevent potential harm from unnecessary overtreatment. Under the new guidelines, it was suggested that women begin routine screenings at age 50, not 40, as was previously recommended. [See 2002, p. 191E2] The task force also recommended that women aged 50–74 receive mammograms once every two years, a reduction from the previous recommendation of once a year. Doctors were also advised not to teach women to do regular self-examinations of their breasts, since they had shown no benefit in several studies. The recommendations did not apply to a small group of women genetically predisposed to developing breast cancer, whose chests had been exposed to large amounts of radiation or who had a family history of breast cancer. The new guidelines were published on the Web site of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, and were based on data from several studies that had included hundreds of thousands of women. The task force in 2002, then comprised of different members, had issued guidelines advocating wider screening. However, current task force members said those recommendations could lead to unnecessary tests, including biopsies, that could cause anxiety in healthy people. They also noted mammograms often detected slowgrowing cancers that would not present a threat to a woman’s health within her lifetime. Also, an estimated 10% of mammograms returned false-positive results that could lead to unnecessary treatment, including radiation therapy, surgery and chemotherapy. However, several groups, among them the American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology, criticized the new guidelines for understating the benefits of routine screening and mammograms. Some also questioned whether the recommendations had been politically motivated, since they came amid an effort by the administration of President Barack Obama to reduce the costs of health care. Task force members rejected those claims. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Nov. 18 said the panel’s recommendations would not result in a change in federal policy on mammograms. She also said insur-

ance companies were unlikely to change their policies as a result of the recommendation. An estimated 40,000 women died from breast cancer annually, and mammograms were thought to reduce the death rate from the disease by 15%. n News in Brief. President Barack Obama Oct. 30 said the U.S. would end the ban on entry to the country by foreigners with HIV, the virus that caused AIDS, as tourists or immigrants. The ban had been instituted in 1987, amid widespread concern that HIV was passed by respiratory or casual contact, theories that had since been proven to be false. Although it had been possible for an HIV-positive person to receive a waiver from the ban, the process was so arduous that it was rarely undertaken. The rule change was scheduled to take effect Jan. 4, 2010. Obama announced the change at a ceremony at which he signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, which provided federal support for HIV treatment programs. [See 1993, p. 120G1; 1987, p. 428B2] Drugmaker Merck & Co. Oct. 16 said the Food and Drug Administration had approved its Gardasil vaccine, which blocked four strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), for use by males aged nine to 26. The vaccine was approved in 2006 for use by women to prevent infection by HPV, which caused most types of cervical cancer and genital warts. Merck had been criticized for aggressively lobbying to make vaccinations with Gardasil mandatory. A federal advisory committee with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Oct. 21 recommended that the vaccine be given to males aged nine to 26, but not as a matter of routine. [See 2008, p. 792A2; 2005, p. 712F2] n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills 2nd Stopgap Bill Cleared, Signed. President Barack Obama Oct. 30 signed a stopgap spending bill to keep government agencies operating through Dec. 18. The bill, known as a continuing resolution, was necessary because Congress had yet to pass seven of the 12 annual appropriations bills for fiscal year 2010, which began Oct. 1. The stopgap bill was attached to an appropriations bill for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The House Oct. 29 voted, 247–178, to pass the bill, and the Senate cleared it that day by a 72–28 vote. [See pp. 658G1, D2] The measure funded agencies still awaiting their fiscal 2010 appropriations at the spending levels of the previous fiscal year. It was the second stopgap bill since the start of the new fiscal year; the previous one expired Oct. 31. The bill allocated $32.2 billion for the Interior Department and the EPA, a 17% increase from fiscal 2009, much of which went to clean-water projects. Obama Oct. 28 had signed the fiscal 2010 Energy-Water and Homeland Security appropriations bills. [See p. 714F2, F3] n 799

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Business Crime Madoff Accountant Pleads Guilty to Fraud.

David Friehling, the former accountant for disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, Nov. 3 pleaded guilty to fraud charges stemming from a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that had been run by Madoff. Madoff was currently serving a 150-year sentence for orchestrating the scheme, in which investors’ profits were actually funded by principal investments made by newer investors, not by returns on real investments made. [See pp. 603A2, 245G1] Friehling denied that he had been aware of the Ponzi scheme, claiming that he had merely certified Madoff’s doctored accounting statements, a practice that had tricked investors into believing Madoff’s operation was legitimate. Friehling pleaded guilty to nine criminal counts, including securities fraud, investment-adviser fraud, obstructing or impeding the administration of Internal Revenue Service laws and submitting false filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Friehling faced up to 114 years in prison, and was cooperating with prosecutors in the hopes of receiving a lighter sentence. He reached a partial settlement with the SEC that day, agreeing not to challenge its assertion that he had “enabled Madoff’s fraud.” The SEC was expected to assess financial penalties against him at a later date. Friehling was the third person to admit guilt in the case. Madoff had pleaded guilty in March, and Frank DiPascali, Madoff’s deputy, had pleaded guilty to fraud in August. DiPascali had not been sentenced, and was also cooperating with investigators. Other Developments—In other developments in the Madoff case: o Federal prosecutors in New York City Nov. 13 charged two computer programmers, Jerome O’Hara and George Perez, with helping Madoff create false records that hid the Ponzi scheme from investors and regulators. O’Hara and Perez were arrested that day and charged with conspiracy, filing false records and other counts. Neither entered a formal plea, and both were later released on bail. According to prosecutors, O’Hara and Perez used sophisticated computer programs to manufacture thousands of false client-account statements and trading records. Additionally, Madoff in 2006 had allegedly given each of the two programmers a $60,000 bonus and a 25% pay raise to remain quiet about the affair. They each faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted. o Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee for Madoff’s firm, Oct. 28 said a total of $21.2 billion in investors’ money had been lost in the scheme, up from the $13 billion he had estimated in June. Picard said the losses could mount as the investigation proceeded. Picard said he had recovered $1.4 billion in assets, which would be used to pay the $4.4 billion in approved claims made for 1,558 investor accounts. The Securities Investor Protection Corp., a group funded by the industry to protect in800

vestors against losses stemming from fraud, had thus far paid out $534 million in claims. Madoff had previously estimated that the fraud could total $65 billion, including fictitious returns credited to customers’ accounts. [See p. 442A3] o Jeffrey Picower, a philanthropist and longtime investor with Madoff’s firm, died of a heart attack Oct. 25 in a swimming pool at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. Picard May 12 had filed a lawsuit seeking to reclaim $6 billion that Picower and his wife, Barbara Picower, had made through investments with Madoff, despite claims by the Picowers that they had known nothing of the fraud. (Picard Sept. 30 increased the claim to $7.2 billion.) The suit said the Picowers’ accounts with Madoff were “riddled with blatant and obvious fraud,” and that they “knew or should have known” that the profits from the firm were tainted. Picard Oct. 25 said the suit to retrieve the money would continue. Picard had filed several other so-called clawback suits against investors who had profited from Madoff’s scheme. n

bullying to preserve its stranglehold on the market,” and had “unfairly restricted potential competitors” and “hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices.” Intel said it had not committed any wrongdoing and that consumers had benefited from its actions. According to the lawsuit, Intel had paid billions of dollars in “rebates” to computer makers like Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co. (H-P) and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to use its chips or to limit their use of chips made by AMD, and threatened to reduce the payments if the computer makers increased their business with AMD. The lawsuit filings included e-mails sent between Intel and the computer makers documenting the financial deals. In one, after Dell Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Dell threatened to switch to AMD processors because Intel chips were slower, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the $1 billion in rebates and payments Intel had given Dell “was judged by your team to be more than sufficient to compensate for the competitive issues.” In a later e-mail to a colleague, Otellini called Dell “the best friend money can buy.” n

Computers Intel, AMD Settle Antitrust Lawsuits. San-

ta Clara, Calif.–based computer-chip maker Intel Corp. Nov. 12 agreed to pay its leading rival, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), $1.25 billion in order to settle antitrust lawsuits against it, in a move to end two decades of legal disputes between the two companies. Intel, which controlled some 80% of the microprocessor market, continued to face a string of antitrust probes in the U.S. and overseas. [See p. 343F1] In return for AMD agreeing to drop antitrust complaints, Intel said it would not pay computer makers to use Intel chips, or threaten those who decided to use other companies’ chips. However, Intel did not admit to having improperly done that in the past. The settlement also allowed AMD greater freedom in manufacturing chips at factories it did not own. Intel said the settlement was a business decision that would allow both companies to focus on improving their products, rather than an admission of wrongdoing, and that negotiations on the settlement had started in April. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had been expected to take antitrust action against Intel in the near future. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said it would “review the settlement.” Spokespeople for the European Union’s competition commissioner and the office of New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said the settlement would not alter antitrust lawsuits they were bringing against Intel. Intel was fighting a record 1.06 billion euro ($1.45 billion) fine levied by the EU in May. [See below] N.Y. Attorney General Files Antitrust Suit—

Cuomo Nov. 4 had brought an antitrust lawsuit against Intel in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del. Cuomo said Intel had “used illegal threats, coercion, fines and

Environment News in Brief. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Oct. 22 proposed establish-

ing a 200,000-square-mile (520,000-sqkm) expanse of sea, ice and land on Alaska’s northern coast as a protected habitat for polar bears. If approved, the proposal would create the largest federal habitat zone to date. The habitat would encompass the two polar bear groups that lived in U.S.controlled areas: the Chuki Sea and Southern Beaufort Sea populations, which together numbered about 3,500 bears. Under the proposal, existing commercial activities could continue in the protected area, but any new activities, such as shipping, mining and oil extraction, needed to be assessed to make sure they did not adversely affect the bears’ habitat. The Interior Department in May 2008 had declared the polar bear a “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act, as a result of melting sea ice used by the bears to hunt, rest and breed, and other threats. [See 2008, p. 725G1] Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Oct. 7 released a proposal to create seven preserves for wild horses and burros by 2014, and sterilize or relocate a significant number of them. There were an estimated 69,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states that had no natural predators, and were blamed for damaging the environment and robbing wildlife and cattle of needed resources. About 32,000 of the horses were held in corrals, and cared for by the government. Salazar said two preserves, in the Midwest and in the East, could be created at a cost of $96 million, with annual operating and maintenance costs of $1.7 million. Each preserve could hold 3,600 animals. Salazar said five other preserves could be created through partnerships with nonprofits and other organizations. [See p. 357A1] n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Somalia Pirates Free Spanish Fishing Vessel. Somali pirates Nov. 17 released the Alakrana, a Spanish tuna fishing boat with 36 crew members on board that had been seized in the Indian Ocean Oct. 2. A representative of the pirates said a ransom of about $3.5 million had been paid for the release. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, in a news conference announcing the release, did not confirm that a ransom had been paid, but said that “the government has done what it had to do.” [See p. 269A2] Piracy in the region had increased in the previous two months, after a lull in attacks due to heavy seasonal rains. Pirates were currently holding 11 ships and 262 crew members off the central and northern Somali coast, with most anchored off the town of Harardhere. While private shipping companies typically paid ransoms to free their vessels and crew, such payments by governments were generally discouraged. The pirates holding the Alakrana had previously demanded the release of two alleged Somali pirates who had been captured Oct. 3 by a Spanish naval vessel in the area around the Alakrana, and reportedly had threatened to kill some of the 16 Spaniards among the crew. The two captured pirates Nov. 16 were charged with armed robbery and kidnapping in a court in Madrid, Spain’s capital. The Spanish opposition Popular Party (PP) Nov. 18 called on Zapatero’s government to give a full account of the conditions of the Alakrana’s release, including whether the government or the company that owned the ship had paid the ransom. The problem of piracy off Somalia was seen partly as a consequence of nearly two decades of armed conflict and government failure to maintain order in the country. Currently, the country’s transitional government—which was backed by the United Nations and supported by more than 5,000 African Union (AU) troops—was battling Islamist insurgents. The Islamists, led by the radical Al Shabab group, controlled most of southern and central Somalia. However, many of the pirates were based in coastal towns in the quasi-autonomous Puntland region of northern Somalia, which was poor but relatively peaceful. [See p. 622A2] Coalitions led by the U.S., the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as individual nations such as Russia and China, had deployed warships to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off Somalia, in an effort to stem attacks in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. However, analysts said it would be nearly impossible to adequately patrol such a vast area, and that the pirates had responded to the stepped-up presence near Africa’s eastern coastline by targeting vessels farther out to sea. British Couple Seized From Yacht— A retired British couple, Paul Chandler, 59, November 19, 2009

and Rachel Chandler, 55, Oct. 23 went missing a day after departing the Seychelles for Tanzania on their private yacht, the Lynn Rival. They sent a distress signal that day; however, news of their disappearance did not become public until Oct. 27, when news outlets reported that they had spoken to pirates who were holding the Chandlers. Ships and aircraft from the Seychelles, the U.S. and the EU Oct. 24–25 reportedly searched for the Lynn Rival. The British Ministry of Defence Oct. 29 said a naval ship had found the empty yacht. Britain’s ITV News Oct. 29 reported that Paul Chandler had telephoned the news outlet from the Kota Wajar, a Singaporeflagged container ship that had been captured by pirates Oct. 15. Chandler said he and his wife had been kidnapped from their yacht Oct. 23 by gunmen and moved to the container ship. The pirates Oct. 30 demanded a $7 million ransom for the Chandlers in a phone call to the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), but the British government the next day said it would not pay a ransom or make any “substantive concessions to hostage-takers.” A local Somali elder Nov. 2 said the Chandlers had been moved to shore and that factions of the pirate gang that had captured them were fighting over whether to hand them over to an Islamist militia. The British military revealed Nov. 13 that the crew of a British Navy vessel in the area, the Wave Knight, had watched the seizure of the Chandlers but decided against intervening for fear of further endangering the couple. The Wave Knight was a replenishment tanker, and its crew carried only light arms. Other News—In other news related to piracy off Somalia’s coast: o The Maersk Alabama, a U.S.-flagged container ship that had been hijacked in April, leading to a successful intervention by the U.S. Navy, Nov. 18 was attacked for a second time, by pirates firing automatic weapons. Private guards on the ship managed to repel the attack by firing back and using a high-decibel noise device that emitted high-pitched sounds. Many in the shipping industry opposed the use of armed, private security guards on commercial vessels; however, some in the U.S. reportedly disagreed with that stance. A U.S. Navy surveillance plane monitored the ship as it continued to its destination, the Kenyan port city of Mombasa. o An EU naval force Nov. 17 said pirates the previous day had seized a Mombasa-bound, Virgin Islands–owned chemical tanker, the MV Theresa VIII, with 28 North Korean crew members aboard, about 180 nautical miles (330 km) northwest of the Seychelles. One of the pirates Nov. 18 said the captain of the ship, which was operated from Singapore, had died from gunshot wounds suffered during the seizure. o Representatives from several nations and organizations patrolling the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean Nov. 6–7 met in Beijing, China’s capital, to discuss antipiracy strategies. China had first joined the international effort to combat piracy in

2008, and analysts said its hosting of the meeting showed that it sought to play a larger role in that effort. A Chinese cargo ship, the De Xin Hai, that was carrying coal to India from South Africa Oct. 19 had been hijacked near the Seychelles with 25 crew members on board. [See 2008, p. 973A1] n

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Sudan Registration for 2010 Elections Begins.

Electoral workers across Sudan Nov. 1 began registering voters for multiparty national elections in 2010, the country’s first in 24 years. The estimated 20 million eligible voters in Sudan would have one month to register, a time period criticized as too short by the Sudanese opposition and international observers. Voters would select a president, legislators and state governors. [See p. 761F3] The elections had been a key provision in a 2005 peace deal, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), that ended a 22-year civil war between the Muslim-majority, Arab-dominated north and the mainly black, Christian and animist south. Also under the CPA—which was signed by President Omar Hassan alBashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)—the oilrich south became semiautonomous, and would hold a referendum on independence in January 2011. The SPLM became the ruling party in south Sudan, and the region’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, held the position of first vice president in a national unity government, with the NCP as the senior partner. Sudan had last held multiparty elections in 1986, and Bashir had ruled the country since taking power in a 1989 military coup. The forthcoming elections had first been scheduled for July 2009, under the CPA. However, the date had been pushed back twice due to delays in carrying out a national census, and were currently scheduled for April 2010. Disagreements over the census results remained, but it was widely agreed that the vote should not be further postponed, due to the rainy season that hit much of the country from May to November each year. [See 1989, p. 524F2; 1986, p. 342B1] There were also concerns that holding the vote after November 2010 would interfere with the referendum on southern independence, scheduled for Jan. 9, 2011. Kiir Oct. 26 had insisted that there would be “no change” in the date of the referendum. The registration process and vote were being monitored by the United Nations and the U.S.-based Carter Center. However, representatives of the Carter Center said the government had placed some restrictions on its workers. The National Elections Commission (NEC) reportedly was using mobile registration centers to reach remote areas of the country. Sudanese media outlets reported confusion among potential voters in the early days of the registration period. 801

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Observers expressed concern about the feasibility of reaching potential voters in insecure areas of the war-torn western Darfur region, including refugee camps, as well as some parts of the south. The Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), one of the many rebel groups based in Darfur, Nov. 9 threatened to attack election workers if they traveled to the region. The SPLM and opposition parties Nov. 16 called for a two-week extension of the registration period, alleging that many people had not registered due to a lack of information on the process and poor organization by the NEC. They also accused Bashir’s government of registration fraud. The SPLM and more than 20 opposition parties had threatened to boycott the elections if the NCP-dominated parliament did not pass several pieces of legislation implementing democratic reforms by Nov. 30. Those reforms had been enshrined in Sudan’s interim constitution after the CPA was signed. A major point of contention was a demand for limits on the powers of the government’s security forces and intelligence service, which currently acted with virtual impunity. The parties had begun a one-week boycott of parliament Oct. 20, and Oct. 26 again walked out of the parliamentary session. The boycott continued as of Nov. 17, when parliament went into recess until Dec. 7. In a related development, the NCP had nominated Bashir as its presidential candidate for the 2010 vote, it was reported Oct. 5. Southern Leader Calls for Split—Kiir Oct. 31 called on southern Sudanese to vote for independence in the 2011 referendum, reportedly the first time that he had openly advocated seccession. In a speech in Juba, the capital of south Sudan, Kiir said residents of the south would become “second-class citizens” if voters chose the other option on the referendum—unity with the north. Riek Machar, the vice president of south Sudan, Oct. 16 had said the central government and the SPLM had reached a breakthrough deal on key details of the referendum. Machar said the referendum would be decided by a simple majority, as long as two-thirds of registered voters cast their ballots. The government had previously insisted on a 75% vote in favor of independence. Violence Continues in South— At least 47 people were killed Nov. 16 in a cattle raid by ethnic Mundari gunmen on two ethnic Dinka villages in Lakes state in south Sudan. Similar clashes had been occurring across the region since the beginning of 2009, resulting in more than 2,000 deaths and 250,000 displacements, according to the U.N. [See pp. 681G1, 507B3] The clashes were attributed in part to a severe drought that was plaguing East Africa. However, analysts also said ethnic tensions were increasing in advance of the elections and referendum. Some south Sudanese officials had accused the central government of stirring up hostilities in order to disrupt both votes in the region. n 802

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Australia Chinese Deputy PM Visits. Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Li Keqiang Oct. 29–Nov. 1 visited Australia as part of an effort to strengthen political and financial ties between the two countries. Keqiang signed a number of bilateral agreements and met with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to discuss a proposed free trade agreement between the two countries. Li Nov. 1–3 visited New Zealand and Nov. 3– 5 visited Papua New Guinea. [See pp. 606D1, A3, 481B2] Relations between the two countries had grown tense after British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto PLC in June rejected an investment offer from a Chinese state-owned company and China in July arrested four Rio Tinto employees. In August, Australia had allowed Rebiya Kadeer, a U.S.-based political activist representing China’s Uighur ethnic minority group, to visit Australia, leading China to cancel a visit to Australia by its foreign minister. (China in the past had claimed that Uighur activists were separatists aimed at fomenting terrorism.) Australia and China were major economic partners, with bilateral trade between the two countries reaching A$74 billion ($67.7 billion) in 2008. Analysts said that continuing Chinese demand for Australian minerals and other commodities had likely helped Australia avoid falling into a recession during the recent global financial crisis. However, members of Australia’s political opposition had expressed concern about growing Chinese financial influence over Australia’s natural resources. Li Oct. 29 arrived in Sydney, and, in a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, discussed the global financial crisis and climate change. He also signed bilateral agreements on forestry, illegal logging and education, among other topics. Li also announced that the Chinese government would send two giant pandas to Australia, which were expected to be housed in Australia’s Adelaide Zoo. Li Oct. 30 traveled to Canberra, Australia’s capital, and met with Rudd, a former Australian diplomat to China who was fluent in Mandarin. Following the meeting, Rudd’s office issued a statement announcing that the two leaders had discussed China’s continued investment in Australian natural resources, and had agreed to work together in order to achieve a free trade deal. n

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UNITED STATES

Belgian PM Van Rompuy Named To New EU Presidential Post Britain’s Ashton is Foreign Policy Chief.

Leaders of the 27 member nations of the European Union, meeting Nov. 19 at a summit at EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, voted unanimously to appoint Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the EU’s first full-time president. In another

unanimous decision, they nominated the EU trade commissioner, Lady Catherine Ashton of Britain, as the group’s high representative for foreign policy. Both positions were new creations of the Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the EU’s institutions, and had received final approval earlier in November after years of delay. [See p. 765F1] The presidential and foreign policy posts had been billed as a means of giving the EU new stature and a unified presence on the world stage. But the selection of Van Rompuy and Ashton, both low-profile figures, reflected the growing consensus of the leaders of the EU member states that the new roles should be more limited in scope. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had been viewed as an early frontrunner for the presidency, but lost favor as national leaders expressed a preference for less well-known candidates from smaller countries, rather than a famous figurehead who might overshadow them. Along with Van Rompuy, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga had emerged as candidates. Van Rompuy, 62, had been appointed Belgian prime minister at the end of 2008, when Yves Leterme, his predecessor at the head of the center-right coalition government, resigned. [See 2008, p. 982D2] He would serve a two-and-a-half-year term as EU president, with the possibility of a second term. Currently, the presidency rotated every six months between the member nations. Ashton, 53, had been appointed to the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, in 2008. A member of Britain’s ruling center-left Labour Party, she had previously served as leader of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, since 2007. She had never held elected office. She reportedly was chosen as a late compromise candidate for the EU post, after British Foreign Minister David Miliband declined the job, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed to drop his support for Blair’s presidential candidacy. U.S. President Barack Obama Nov. 19 issued a statement welcoming the selection of Van Rompuy and Ashton, saying they would “enable the EU to be an even stronger partner of the United States.” At a news conference that evening, Van Rompuy noted that there had been “a great deal of talk and comment about the future profile and image of the president,” but insisted that “the key things are dialogue, unity and action.” Van Rompuy was to leave the Belgian premiership and would assume his new office Jan. 1, 2010, and Ashton was expected to assume her duties Dec. 1, pending confirmation of the new European Commission by the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative branch. n

Other European Union News Eurozone Data Shows End of Recession.

Data released Nov. 13 showed that economic growth had returned to the euroFACTS ON FILE

zone, the 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency, ending a recession that had lasted for more than a year. Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, reported that combined gross domestic product (GDP) in the eurozone had grown 0.4% in the third quarter of 2009, compared with the second quarter. The resurgence followed five consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, most recently by 0.2% in the second quarter, according to revised statistics. [See pp. 739A3, 545B1] On an annualized basis, eurozone GDP grew at about 1.6% in the third quarter, compared with a 3.5% annualized growth rate in the U.S. (On a quarterly basis, U.S. GDP grew 0.9% in the third quarter.) In Germany, which had the largest economy in the eurozone, GDP grew 0.7% from the second quarter. France’s GDP grew 0.3% on a quarterly basis, falling short of expectations; Italy’s grew 0.6%. In Spain, GDP contracted 0.3%. Spain had the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone, at 17.9% in the third quarter, according to an Oct. 23 report. Analysts said the eurozone recovery was still fragile, and largely dependent on stimulus spending by governments to offset weak consumer demand, as unemployment rates continued to rise. The overall unemployment rate in the eurozone rose to 9.7% in September, from 9.6% in August, Eurostat reported Oct. 30. That was the region’s highest jobless rate since 1999. The steady rise of the value of the euro against the dollar in recent months was also viewed as a problem for European exporters, since it made their products more expensive abroad. The euro had risen to about $1.50, up by 15% since the beginning of the year. In the third quarter, most large companies based in the eurozone had reported worse sales revenue and profit results than European companies located outside the eurozone, the Financial Times reported Nov. 16. [See p. 798D2] British Recession Continues—In Britain, which was a member of the EU but not part of the eurozone, GDP contracted 0.4% in the third quarter, compared with the previous quarter, according to a preliminary report issued Oct. 23. GDP was down 5.2% from a year earlier. It was Britain’s sixth straight quarter of contraction, the longest downturn on record since the Office of National Statistics began compiling such data in 1955. n

Kosovo Local Elections Are First Since Independence.

Kosovo Nov. 15 held municipal elections, the first polls conducted since it had unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. The European Union, Britain and the U.S. Nov. 16–17 praised Kosovo for holding orderly, multiethnic elections, though British Foreign Secretary David Miliband Nov. 16 acknowledged that “some irregularities” had been reported. Serbia, which rejected Kosovo’s independence and considered Kosovo part of its November 19, 2009

territory, had maintained that the polls were illegitimate. Turnout was estimated at 45%. [See p. 423F3; 2007, p. 772B3] Serbian leaders, in days prior to the elections, had urged Kosovo Serbs to boycott the polls, while Kosovar President Fatmir Sejdiu had urged their participation. There was reportedly a significant turnout of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo’s south. Serb participation in the north of Kosovo, which bordered Serbia, was reportedly very low. Preliminary official results released Nov. 17 by the central election commission showed first-round victories in 16 of Kosovo’s 36 municipalities. (Candidates were required to win a majority of votes plus one in order to avoid a runoff election.) The governing Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), headed by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, won control of five municipal assemblies, followed by the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), which won four. The PDK’s coalition partner, Sejdiu’s Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), won three municipalities, including in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital. Minority party candidates, including at least three ethnic Serbs, won the other four. The remaining 20 municipalities were required to hold runoff elections. Those polls were scheduled for Dec. 13. There were a few disturbances in the days preceding the election, but no injuries were reported. Several people Nov. 11 hurled stones at a convoy transporting Thaci. The following day, a hand grenade reportedly exploded near a shop owned by several Serb candidates in Zvecan, a town in northern Kosovo. Also that day, shots were fired at a vehicle carrying Hiseni Ahmeti, the AAK’s candidate for mayor of Mitrovica. n

Russia Medvedev Urges Industrial Modernization.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Nov. 12, in his annual address to both houses of Parliament, said Russia needed to modernize its “primitive” economy by decreasing its dependence on energy and raw material exports, which were tied to volatile markets. He called for Russia to instead focus on developing high-tech industries including nuclear technology, information technology, space exploration and pharmaceuticals. Medvedev said the country’s Sovietera industrial infrastructure “has kept this country afloat, but is rapidly aging.” [See p. 727D3; 2008, p. 820E1] In a notable break with the policies of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who currently served as prime minister, Medvedev said the government by 2012 should significantly reduce its role in the economy. State control of the economy had increased during Putin’s 1999–2008 presidency, and about 40% of the Russian economy was currently state-controlled. Referring to Russia’s state-owned energy and manufacturing giants, Medvedev said, “I believe this form has no future in our long term.” Medvedev noted that the government had lent billions of dollars to struggling industrial companies since a global recession

became apparent in late 2008, and added that “we won’t be protecting them forever.” Medvedev said Russians should not blame other countries for Russia’s recession, and instead suggested that underdevelopment had left the country vulnerable to the economic downturn. The Russian president also called for several political reforms. Under one proposal, candidates running in regional elections would no longer be required to submit signatures. (Opposition activists had long complained that authorities disqualified them from running in elections after claiming their signatures had been forged.) Medvedev also warned that “any attempts to shatter the situation, destabilize the government and split society with democratic slogans will be prevented.” Medvedev called for a new European security pact, but asserted that Russia was not trying to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He claimed that a new security pact could have prevented an August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over the Georgian splinter region of South Ossetia. He also called for upgrades to Russia’s military, and pledged to fight “terrorist crime” in the Russian Caucasus. [See p. 665E3] Medvedev’s critics said his speech contained few concrete plans, and was only a rehashing of empty promises. Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition figure, said Medvedev’s speech represented “a continuation of Putin’s regime.” It was widely believed that Putin held more power than Medvedev, and could return to the presidency in 2012. Putin had said that he and Medvedev would decide together who would run for president in 2012, when Medvedev’s presidential term expired. [See p. 667D2] n

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Turkey Plan to Expand Kurdish Rights Unveiled.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Nov. 13 unveiled his government’s plan to expand rights for the nation’s Kurdish minority, which made up 15% of the population. The reforms were intended to help bring an end to an insurgency by a Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which had left about 40,000 people dead over the past 25 years. [See p. 728B2] Erdogan’s plan would end restrictions on use of the Kurdish language in broadcasting and political activity. It would restore Kurdish names to cities and towns that had been officially renamed in Turkish. It would also set up a commission to investigate allegations of discrimination, torture and other human rights violations. The government had also introduced legislation that would end the practice of trying Kurdish minors in adult courts, and reduce or commute the sentences of minors who had been convicted as PKK members for taking part in riots. Nationalist Turkish opposition parties vehemently opposed the government’s Kurdish initiative, warning that granting special ethnic rights would undermine 803

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national unity. The plan required parliamentary approval. Erdogan pledged that his reforms would not extend to changing the constitution’s definition of “Turkishness” as the national identity and Turkish as the official language. The PKK had said it no longer sought an independent Kurdish homeland, but demanded constitutional recognition of Kurdish rights and identity. The European Union had called on Turkey to safeguard minority rights, deeming improvement on that issue to be a key condition for Turkey’s pending EU membership application.

IAEA Warns of Additional Nuclear Plants.

Natanz. The letter said construction on the Qom facility was started “in the second half of 2007,” after Iran had repudiated an agreement to report nuclear facilities to the IAEA. However, the report said satellite imagery showed that Iran had actually begun building the plant “between 2002 and 2004,” shortly after the Natanz plant’s existence had been revealed. Construction had reportedly stopped in 2004, but had resumed again in 2006. The report said the Natanz plant had produced about 3,900 lbs (1,800 kg) of low-enriched uranium, which could be used to make one or two nuclear bombs if further enriched. The IAEA reported that Iran had “provided access to all areas of the facility,” but asked Iran to provide blueprints and more information about the plant, as well as access to nuclear scientists and documents. The IAEA in the report also said it had asked Syria about nuclear material it had found at a site in that country that had allegedly contained a secret nuclear facility before it was bombed by Israel in 2007. [See p. 465B3] The report was the last to be issued before outgoing IAEA Inspector General Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt was replaced by Yukiya Amano of Japan at the end of November. The U.S. and its allies in the past had criticized ElBaradei for not being more critical of Iran’s nuclear program. However, the language in the most recent report was considered exceptionally strong.

The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a report made public Nov. 16 warned that Iran might have other secret nuclear facilities besides one near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, whose existence was revealed in September. The report also said the Iranian government planned to begin operations at the Qom facility by 2011. The report was obtained by the Institute for Science and International Security nonprofit group and posted on its Web site. [See pp. 768C3] The IAEA reported that Iran’s September “declaration of the new facility [at Qom] reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction, and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency.” It said it was likely that other facilities would be required to produce nuclear fuel for enrichment by the Qom facility. The report said IAEA inspectors who had visited the Qom plant in late October had found it in “an advanced state” of construction, although no centrifuges used for uranium enrichment had been installed. The facility had a reported capacity of about 3,000 centrifuges. Iran said it would use the plant to produce nuclear fuel for civilian power generation, but inspectors said the amount of fuel it could enrich was not enough for such a use, but would be sufficient for making nuclear weapons. The IAEA said that the Iranian government in a letter had claimed the Qom plant was built in case of a military attack against Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant at

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel newsmagazine Nov. 7 said that if Iran did not take a “constructive position” on a plan under which it would export much of its uranium stockpile for further enrichment, he might support further sanctions on Iran, it was reported Nov. 8. After meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Singapore Nov. 15, Medvedev reiterated that Russia might support sanctions if Iran remained intransigent. [See p. 768B2] Obama had pressed Russia and China to reverse their traditional stances of opposing further sanctions on Iran. However, Obama Nov. 17 was not able to convince Chinese President Hu Jintao after their meeting in Beijing, the Chinese capital, to show any support for sanctions. [See p. 795F2] Speaking in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Obama Nov. 19 said the U.S. had “begun discussion with our international partners” on sanctions because Iran had been “unable to get to ‘yes’” on the uranium export plan. He said the U.S. would develop a series of “potential steps we can take that will indicate our seriousness” over the next few weeks. [See p. 795F3] Iranian diplomats in October had agreed to a deal under which Iran would export low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for further enrichment so it could be used in an Iranian medical research reactor, but Iranian government officials had subsequently repudiated the agreement. ElBaradei Nov. 6 said that, as a compromise, the uranium could be shipped to Turkey instead of to a Western country.

Solitary Confinement of PKK Chief Ends—

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Turkey Nov. 17 said it would no longer hold Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, in solitary confinement. Five other jailed PKK members would be allowed to visit him for up to 10 hours a week. The Council of Europe, a human rights body, had called on Turkey to end Ocalan’s isolation, after a delegation visited him in his cell several times on the prison island of Imrali, near Istanbul. In 1999, Ocalan had been convicted of treason and sentenced to death. In 2002, his sentence was commuted to life in prison. n

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Russian President Backs Sanctions—

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Nov. 18 told the semiofficial Iran Student News Agency (ISNA) that Iran would “definitely not” export any of its uranium. He said Iran might agree to “a simultaneous swap” of some of its uranium for higher-enriched material. Western officials had rejected that approach because it would not remove enough uranium from Iran to delay the construction of a nuclear weapon. The New York Times Nov. 9 had reported that Iran had proposed putting its uranium in the custody of international inspectors but keeping it on the Iranian Persian Gulf island of Kish. Obama administration officials reportedly said that would not be acceptable because Iran could expel the inspectors and take back the nuclear material at any time. Russia Nov. 16 reported that a civilian nuclear power plant it was building in Bushehr, Iran, would not be ready by the end of 2009 as promised. Russia’s energy minister, Sergei Shmatko, said the delay was due to “technical issues” rather than political ones. However, some conservative members of Iran’s parliament criticized that explanation as dishonest. U.S. Moves to Seize Properties— U.S. prosecutors Nov. 12 filed in U.S. District Court in the New York City borough of Manhattan to seize property in several states owned by a foundation that they said had secret links to Iran. The properties included the 36-story Piaget Building in Manhattan, as well as land on which mosques and Islamic centers were located in the New York City borough of Queens; Houston, Texas; Maryland; and California. Federal laws barred trade with Iran. [See 2008, p. 986D3] Prosecutors said the New York City– based Alavi Foundation was secretly run by Iranian government officials, and sought to make it forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. None of the properties had yet been seized, and prosecutors said their tenants were not the subject of any allegations and could still remain on the sites. Also Nov. 12, Obama renewed existing U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. n

Iraq Sunni Vice President Vetoes Election Law.

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi Nov. 18 vetoed a law governing parliamentary and presidential elections, sending the legislation back to parliament and raising concerns that elections scheduled for January 2010 would be delayed. Parliament had passed the law earlier in November after months of political wrangling. Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim Arab, said he was concerned that the legislation did not reserve enough seats in parliament for Iraqis who had fled the country since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the ensuing sectarian violence. He demanded that their quota be raised to 15% of the seats, from 5%. [See p. 789B1] Hashemi said, “Parliament could amend this law in a day,” and urged speed. However, Kurdish legislators Nov. 17 had FACTS ON FILE

threatened to boycott the vote unless they also received more seats in parliament, and negotiations were expected to delay revisions to the legislation. (The law as it stood would increase the number of seats in parliament to 323, from 275.) Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the veto as “a dangerous threat to the democratic and political process.” Iraqi officials said the veto was possibly unconstitutional, because all three members of Iraq’s Presidency Council—which included President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, and Hashemi—had to agree on a veto. Hamdiya al-Husseini, the head of Iraq’s Independent Election Commission, said the veto would delay the elections, which the commission had been planning to hold between Jan. 18 and 21, 2010. Iraq’s constitution required that they be held before the end of January. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top commander of U.S. military forces in Iraq, told reporters that the veto would not delay U.S. troop withdrawals planned to begin after the elections. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o U.S. prosecutors Nov. 16 said a federal grand jury in Atlanta, Ga., had indicted a Kuwait-based military contractor, Public Warehousing Co. KSC, on criminal charges of defrauding the U.S. government of tens of millions of dollars since 2003 by overcharging for food provided to U.S. troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. Public Warehousing, which had changed its name to Agility in 2006, had received more than $8.5 billion in U.S. Defense Department contracts since 2003, and currently had a contract that ran until December 2010. The company denied the charges. Also Nov. 16, federal prosecutors said they were joining a whistleblower’s civil lawsuit filed in 2005 against Public Warehousing and a Kuwaiti subcontractor by Kamal Mustafa al-Sultan, a former business partner of Public Warehousing. [See p. 790A1] o Gunmen Nov. 15 kidnapped 13 men from the villages of Abid and Khodeir Zaidan, west of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and executed them early the next morning, Iraqi government officials said. The dead included the local head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Islamist political bloc. There were reports that the gunmen were wearing Iraqi army uniforms, and that some of the victims had been members of Awakening Councils, mostly Sunni armed movements that had turned against extremists such as the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. n

Other Middle East News Saudis Clash With Yemeni Rebels. Saudi

military forces Nov. 5 launched an assault against Yemeni rebels known as Houthis, after gunmen Nov. 4 attacked a Saudi border patrol, killing two border guards. The Saudi attack opened a new front in the five-yearold war between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, which had intensified since the government launched an offensive in November 19, 2009

August. It was the Saudi military’s first unilateral operation in decades. [See p. 645F3] Houthis Nov. 4 said they had taken control of the Jebel Dukhan area of Saudi Arabia, on the Yemeni border, and fired on Saudi border guards. One of the guards was killed and 11 were wounded, one of whom later died of his wounds. The Houthis said they had launched the attack because Saudi Arabia had allowed the Yemeni government to use its territory as a staging point for operations against the rebels. (Saudi Arabia had previously denied allegations that it was providing military assistance to Yemen.) Saudi fighter jets and artillery Nov. 5–9 bombarded Houthi positions in retaliation, and ground forces clashed with the rebels. The Saudi government said it had only hit areas on its side of the border, but Houthis and Arab diplomats alleged that Saudi forces had also struck inside Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s assistant minister for defense and aviation, Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Nov. 7 said Saudi forces had driven the Houthis out of Jebel Dukhan and back across the border, although the Houthis denied that, and instead said they had achieved victory. Saudi officials said they had killed dozens of Houthis and captured hundreds, while losing three soldiers of their own, but the reports were unverified. Saudi and Yemeni civilian injuries and deaths were also reported, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the Saudi offensive had displaced up to 25,000 people, bringing the total number of refugees in Yemen’s civil war to as many as 175,000 people since 2004. The Houthis Nov. 9 released a videotape of what it said was a captured Saudi soldier, showing a military identification card with what they said was his name. Saudi Arabia said four of its troops had gone missing but asserted that none of them had been captured. Sultan Nov. 10 said the Houthis had to “withdraw dozens of kilometers” into Yemen before Saudi Arabia would end its attack. Saudi Navy Blockades Yemen—The Saudi government Nov. 10 announced that it had imposed a naval blockade on Yemen’s northern Red Sea coast to keep foreign weapons from reaching the Houthis. The Yemeni government had charged that the Houthis received support from Iran. Yemen’s government had never presented any evidence to back up the allegations, and both the Houthis and Iran had denied that they were linked. However, some analysts said the Saudi offensive might drive the Houthis to seek aid from Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Nov. 10 issued what was seen as a warning against Saudi Arabia intervening in Yemen’s affairs. “Those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows,” he said. A Yemeni foreign ministry spokesman the next day said, “Yemen categorically rejects any interference in its internal affairs by any party whatsoever,” in a statement seemingly aimed at Iran.

The Houthis were members of a Muslim sect known as the Zaidis, which was Shiite but had some theological links to Sunni Islam. The Yemeni and Saudi governments were dominated by Sunnis, while Iran had a Shiite government. n

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SOUTH ASIA

Afghanistan President Karzai Sworn In for Second Term.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Nov. 19 was sworn in for a second term in a ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, the Afghan capital. In early November, Karzai had been declared the winner of an August election, after a protracted vote dispute in which he and his allies were accused of committing widespread fraud to secure votes. [See p. 775B1] Karzai Nov. 19 vowed to tackle the rampant corruption that had compromised his government’s legitimacy, saying he was “committed to end the culture of impunity and violation of law, and bring to justice those involved in spreading corruption and abuse of property.” He also said he would appoint ministers who were “competent, professional and in service to the nation.” Karzai reached out to members of the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic group whose insurgency against the government had gained strength in recent years and badly destabilized the country. Karzai said he would call a loya jirga, a traditional tribal council, to negotiate with “dissatisfied compatriots who are not directly linked to international terrorism.” He said, “Afghanistan has placed national reconciliation at the top of its peace-building policy.” Karzai also said that in five years he expected the Afghan army to be “capable of taking the lead” in the country’s security responsibilities, “gradually” reducing the role of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces. The ceremony was attended by foreign dignitaries including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Clinton afterwards praised Karzai’s vow to combat corruption, which had undercut the coalition’s attempts to win the support of local populations. However, she warned that the U.S. wanted to see “results.” Clinton had arrived unannounced in Afghanistan the previous day. She met with Karzai and reportedly said U.S. civilian aid to Afghanistan could be held back if corruption was not seriously addressed. Clinton told U.S. State Department employees that Karzai had to “make a new compact with the people of Afghanistan to demonstrate that now there will be accountability.” It was also reported that U.S. President Barack Obama was considering linking a potential U.S. troop increase to Karzai’s progress on corruption and training Afghan security forces. Obama Nov. 18 told Cable News Network (CNN) that he was “very close to a decision” on troop levels. He 805

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indicated that his decision would put the U.S. on a path toward ending its military involvement in Afghanistan during his presidency. “My preference would be not to hand off anything to the next president,” he said. A spokesman for the Taliban Nov. 19 scorned Karzai’s swearing-in, telling the Associated Press, “Karzai’s call to the Taliban to come to the government has no meaning. He became president through fraud and lies.” Brown Pushes for Troop Increase—

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a Nov. 13 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), said he would press other countries in the NATO coalition, besides the U.S., to deploy an additional 5,000 troops combined. The U.S. had long pressed other members of NATO to increase their troop commitments, but with little success. With 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, and possibly an additional 500 on the way, Britain had the second-largest troop presence in the country, after the U.S., which would have 68,000 troops there by the end of 2009. Obama was reportedly considering deploying tens of thousands of additional troops. Germany Nov. 18 said it would extend its military mission in Afghanistan by a year, pending parliamentary approval. The mission was officially due to expire Dec. 13. Germany had more than 4,000 troops in the country, the third-largest deployment. Other News—In other news: o A suicide car bomber Nov. 19 struck a NATO convoy in the southern province of Zabul, reportedly killing two U.S. soldiers. As of Nov. 19, the U.S. death toll for the year was 292, according to the Web site icasualties.org. A suicide bomber that day killed 10 civilians at a market in the eastern province of Uruzgan. o The Washington Post Nov. 18 reported that Afghan Mines Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Adel had received a $30 million bribe from China Metallurgical Group Corp., a state-owned mining company, shortly after Adel awarded it a $2.9 billion copper-extraction contract in the eastern province of Logar in December 2007. The Post also said Adel in 2006 had demanded that his ministry receive $25 million in cash up front from bidders to run a cement factory in the northern province of Baghlan. The expensive demand reportedly put most competitors out of the bidding, except for Afghan Investment Co., a company run by Karzai’s brother, Mahmoud Karzai. Adel denied taking any bribes. [See p. 751E1] o Taliban fighters Nov. 16 fired rockets at a marketplace in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul, killing at least three civilians and wounding 20. The head of French forces in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Marcel Druart, was meeting with tribal elders near the market. It was unclear if the militants had targeted Druart. About 700 French and 100 Afghan soldiers the previous day had begun an operation in Kapisa’s Tagab Valley to secure an area for a supply route. o A suicide bomber Nov. 13 struck a convoy outside Camp Phoenix, a U.S. mil806

itary installation near Kabul. The blast wounded more than 20 people, including n nine NATO troops.

Army Shows Gains Against the Taliban.

tion against the Taliban, but acknowledged that many militants had fled the region ahead of the fighting to other tribal areas or possibly Afghanistan. [See p. 769C1] Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, an army spokesman, said the army controlled about half of the territory formerly occupied by the Mehsud tribe, which led the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, known as Tehreeke-Taliban. Abbas said most major towns and roads had been secured, and that the army was now entering more rural areas where militants were thought to be hiding. The army said 70 soldiers and more than 500 militants had been killed in the operation, figures that could not be independently verified since journalists were only rarely given access to the war zone. The fighting had caused an estimated 300,000 civilians to flee South Waziristan. Army officials said there was evidence that Uzbek and Arab fighters had helped the Taliban defend Sararogha, which would be consistent with U.S. assertions that the Taliban was harboring members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. U.S. officials had praised the Pakistani operation, but had reportedly pressured the army to broaden its offensive beyond the Pakistani Taliban, which had carried out a devastating terrorist campaign on the country’s cities in recent months and was considered an immediate threat to domestic security. U.S. officials wanted the army to also target threats to U.S. security, such as Al Qaeda; the Afghan Taliban, which had a base in the Pakistani city of Quetta, in Baluchistan province; and the Haqqani network, an Afghan insurgent group that had bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas. [See below] The New York Times Nov. 16 reported that U.S. national security adviser James Jones, on a Nov. 13–14 visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, had pressed army and civilian officials to expand the military operation and hunt down Taliban militants who had fled to North Waziristan, which abutted South Waziristan. Jones reportedly said a failure to do so would undermine the U.S.’s strategy in Afghanistan, where it was fighting an insurgency by the Afghan Taliban. Jones also reportedly delivered a letter from U.S. President Barack Obama to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, in which Obama encouraged him to bolster political support for the fight against Islamic extremists. [See p. 805A3] However, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Nov. 16 asserted that Pakistan “will not be prodded by outsiders,” which was seen as evidence that the U.S. would face difficulties in overcoming the government’s deep suspicions about its strategic intentions in the region, as well as widespread public hostility toward the U.S.

The Pakistani army Nov. 17 escorted a group of foreign journalists to the town of Sararogha, in the northwest tribal area of South Waziristan, which had been seized from the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban the previous week after five days of heavy fighting. Army officials described the capture of Sararogha as a significant milestone in the army’s monthlong opera-

A suicide truck bomb Nov. 13 detonated outside a building owned by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province. The blast killed at least seven people and wounded more than 30, and was the latest in a string of attacks on Peshawar, which was near the

India China Protests Dalai Lama Visit to Northeast.

China’s foreign ministry Oct. 22 protested India’s decision earlier that day to allow the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, to visit India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, the site of a long-running border dispute between the two countries. China claimed that the state’s Tawang region, populated by ethnic Monpas who practiced Tibetan Buddhism, was part of Tibet, which China had taken control of in 1951. India said an independent Tibet in 1914 had recognized Tawang as part of India in a border agreement with Britain, which was then India’s colonial ruler. The Chinese army had briefly occupied Tawang in a 1962 war with India. [See pp. 748D3, 712B3; 2006, p. 919D1] China’s foreign ministry said the Dalai Lama’s planned Nov. 8–15 visit “further exposes the Dalai Lama clique’s anti-China and separatist nature.” The Dalai Lama, whose government in exile was based in the Indian city of Dharamsala, had exacerbated the dispute in 2008 by announcing for the first time that Tawang was in India, bolstering India’s claims. China in March had attempted to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank—a regional group based in the Philippines—because $60 million was slated for projects in Arunachal Pradesh. The loan was eventually approved June 15, but India June 8 had announced that it was deploying as many as 60,000 troops to the region over the next few years. China had amassed troops near the disputed area, and sporadic skirmishes with Indian troops had occurred in the past year. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Oct. 3 visited Tawang, prompting a rebuke from China’s foreign ministry, which Oct. 13 said China was “seriously dissatisfied” with the visit. India’s ministry of external affairs responded that Tawang was an “integral and inalienable part of India.” Upon arriving in Tawang Nov. 8, the Dalai Lama said, “My visit here is non-political.” The Dalai Lama left Nov. 15, after visiting temples and delivering sermons. The territorial dispute threatened to damage diplomatic ties between the two countries, which relied heavily on each other for trade. The two sides had engaged in 13 bilateral talks over the region since 2005. n

Pakistan

Military Spy Agency Targeted in Attack—

FACTS ON FILE

tribal areas. It was also the latest attack on a Pakistani military facility, suggesting that the attacks were in retaliation for the South Waziristan campaign. [See p. 737A1] A blast later that day in the town of Bannu, near the tribal areas, killed at least three people and injured 10. A suicide car bomber the following day killed at least 11 people in an attack on a police checkpoint in Peshawar. A suicide bomber Nov. 18 killed at least 17 people in an attack on the courthouse complex in Peshawar. A suicide car bomber Nov. 10 had killed more than 20 people at a marketplace in the town of Charsadda, which was 12 miles (19 km) from Peshawar; a suicide bomber targeting a group of policemen Nov. 9 had killed three people in Peshawar; and a suicide bombing Nov. 8 had killed 12 people in Peshawar, including Abdul Malik, the mayor of a nearby village, who had been a staunch critic of the Taliban. Gunmen Nov. 6 fired on a car carrying an army brigadier in Islamabad. The brigadier, who was not identified, was wounded in the attack. The brigadier was the latest army officer to be individually targeted. Brig. Moinudin Ahmed had been killed by gunmen in October, and an unidentified brigadier was targeted in an Oct. 27 attack that caused no casualties. [See p. 710E1] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Horse Racing Zenyatta Wins Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Zenyatta, a five-year-old mare ridden by Mike Smith, Nov. 7 won the 26th Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., becoming the first female horse to win the race. Zenyatta, a 5–2 favorite, defeated a field of 11 males, improving her record to a perfect 14–0. The mile-and-aquarter Classic was the premier event of the 14 races featured at the Breeders’ Cup held over two days, Nov. 6–7. [See 2008, p. 823E1, G2] Zenyatta’s victory immediately intensified the debate over horse of the year honors, an argument that would not be settled until the Eclipse Awards in January 2010. Prior to the Breeders’ Cup, three-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra had been the favorite to claim the award, after winning all eight of her starts in 2009, including an impressive run at the Preakness to become the first filly to win the race since Nellie Morse in 1924. Rachel Alexandra’s other victories included the Woodward Stakes in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Sept. 5 and the Haskell Invitational in Oceanport, N.J., on Aug. 2. [See p. 347C1] Jess Jackson, an owner of Rachel Alexandra, Sept. 11 announced that his filly would skip the Breeders’ Cup Classic, despite an offer of an extra $1 million in prize money if Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta both competed in the race. Jackson Oct. 9 ended Rachel Alexandra’s 2009 campaign to begin training for the 2010 season. Zenyatta Rallies in Classic—Regal Ransom, ridden by Richard Migliore, jumped out to an early lead in the Classic. MeanNovember 19, 2009

while, Zenyatta lagged behind out of the gate, falling to last place. Regal Ransom held the lead through the first mile, before Gio Ponti, ridden by Ramon Dominguez, charged to the front of the pack as he hit the home stretch. Having already gained ground on the leaders, Zenyatta took to the outside for her final push down the stretch. She quickly overcame Gio Ponti to finish in first place with a time of two minutes, 0.62 seconds. Gio Ponti was one length behind in second place, followed by Twice Over, ridden by Thomas Queally. Zenyatta, trained by John Shirreffs, paid $7.60 on a $2 bet, and earned her owners, Jerry and Ann Moss, $2.7 million. Other Results—In other Breeders’ Cup results: o Man of Iron, with Johnny Murtagh aboard, Nov. 6 won the one-and-threequarters-mile Marathon, for three-yearolds and up. o Tapitsfly, ridden by Robby Albarado, Nov. 6 won the one-mile Juvenile Fillies Turf, for two-year-olds. o She Be Wild, ridden by Julien Leparoux, Nov. 6 won the one-and-one-sixteenth-mile Juvenile Fillies, for two-yearolds. o Midday, with Queally aboard, Nov. 6 won the one-and-one-quarter-mile Filly & Mare Turf. o Informed Decision, ridden by Leparoux, Nov. 6 won the seven-furlong Filly & Mare Sprint. o Life Is Sweet, ridden by Garrett Gomez, Nov. 6 won the one-and-one-eighthmile Ladies’ Classic, for three-year-olds and up. o Pounced, with Lanfranco Dettori aboard, Nov. 7 won the one-mile Juvenile Turf for two-year-olds. o California Flag, ridden by Joseph Talamo, Nov. 7 won the six-and-a-half-furlong Turf Sprint for three-year-olds and up. o Dancing in Silks, ridden by Joel Rosario, Nov. 7 won the six-furlong Sprint, for three-year-olds and up. o Vale of York, with Ahmed Ajtebi aboard, Nov. 7 won the one-and-one-sixteenth-mile Juvenile, for two-year-olds. o Goldikova, ridden by Olivier Peslier, Nov. 7 won the turf Mile, for three-yearolds and up. o Furthest Land, ridden by Leparoux, Nov. 7 won the Dirt Mile, for three-yearolds and up. o Conduit, with Ryan Moore aboard, Nov. 7 won the one-and-a-half mile Turf, for three-year-olds and up. Sea the Stars Tops European Races—

Sea the Stars, ridden by Mick Kinane, Oct. 4 won the 88th running of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, continental Europe’s most prestigious race, at Longchamp in Paris. Sea the Stars, a three-year-old colt, had won the 2,000 Guineas and the English Derby earlier in 2009, becoming the first horse to win that trio of top European races. Youmzain, ridden by Kieren Fallon,

was the runner-up for the third straight year, and Cavalryman, with Dettori aboard, finished third. [See p. 399G2] Other News—In other horse races: o Shocking, with Corey Brown aboard, Nov. 3 won the Melbourne Cup in Australia. Shocking, a four-year-old colt, beat out Crime Scene by three-quarters of a length to take the two-mile race. [See 2007, p. 855E3] o Summer Bird, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, Aug. 29 won the Travers Stakes in Saratoga Springs, finishing three-and-ahalf-lengths ahead of Hold Me Back. [See 2008, p. 823E3] o Muscle Hill, driven by Brian Sears, Aug. 8 won the Hambletonian, the richest and most prestigious event in harness racing, at the Meadowlands racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J. Muscle Hill finished the race in one minute, 50.20 seconds, breaking the Hambletonian record set by Glidemaster in 2006. [See 2008, p. 823E3; 2006, p. 703C3] o Fame and Glory, ridden by Murtagh, June 28, won the Irish Derby at the Curragh in Dublin. With the victory, trainer Aidan O’Brien won the race for a record seventh time and the fourth straight year. [See 2008, p. 823F3] n

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Basketball Phoenix Wins WNBA Title. The Phoenix Mercury Oct. 9 defeated the Indiana Fever, 94–86, to win the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) title in front of a hometown crowd. The Mercury won the best-of-five finals series, three games to two, to claim its second title in three years. [See 2008, p. 943D3] Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, who had 26 points in the clinching game, was named the most valuable player (MVP) of the finals. Taurasi, a former star for the University of Connecticut, Sept. 29 had won the league’s MVP award for the regular season, after averaging 20.4 points per game. Phoenix, the Western Conference champions, Sept. 13 had finished the regular season with 23 wins and 11 losses, the best record in the WNBA. The Fever had posted a 22–12 record, the best in the Eastern Conference. Mercury Take Early Series Lead— The Mercury Sept. 29 won the opening game of the finals, 120–116, in overtime in Phoenix. It was the highest-scoring game in WNBA history. The Fever Oct. 1 evened the series, with a 93–84 win. The series moved to Indianapolis, Ind., for the third and fourth games. The Fever Oct. 4 claimed victory in game three, winning, 86–85. The Mercury tied the series with a 90–77 victory Oct. 7, forcing the decisive fifth game. Earlier Results—The Mercury Sept. 26 won the Western Conference finals, two games to one, with a 85–74 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Sparks. The contest was the last game for WNBA All-Star and former league MVP Lisa Leslie of the 807

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Sparks, who was retiring. The Fever Sept. 26 defeated the Detroit Shock, 72–67, to win the Eastern Conference finals, two games to one. [See below; 2006, p. 1038F2] The WNBA season had opened June 6. For the 2009 season, the league’s 13th, the WNBA had been reduced to 13 teams, after the Houston Comets folded in December 2008. Also, teams were required to reduce their active rosters to 11 players, from 13. Other News—In other WNBA news: o WNBA President Donna Orender Oct. 20 announced that the Shock would relocate to Tulsa, Okla., starting in the 2010 season. Orender also said Tulsa Pro Hoops LLC, a group of investors led by Oklahoma businessmen Bill Cameron and David Box, would assume ownership of the team from Detroit, Mich.–based businessman Bill Davidson, who also owned the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. The Shock had won three WNBA titles since its debut in 1998, but had been plagued by low attendance. In Tulsa, the team would be coached by Nolan Richardson, a former men’s coach at the University of Arkansas and the University of Tulsa. [See 2008, p. 320A1; 2004, pp. 1000A1, 450E2] o Atlanta Dream forward Angel McCoughtry, the first pick in the April 9 WNBA draft, Oct. 1 was named the league’s rookie of the year. o Dream coach Marynell Meadors Oct. 1 was named coach of the year. o Fever forward Tamika Catchings Sept. 25 was named defensive player of the year. o Sparks forward Candace Parker, the 2008 MVP and rookie of the year, July 5 played her first game of the season, after giving birth to her first child, a girl, on May 13. o In an effort to increase revenue, the Mercury June 1 announced a three-year sponsorship deal with identity-theft protection company LifeLock Inc. Under the deal, the Mercury would become the first WNBA team to display a corporate sponsor’s name on its jersey. The practice was common in international sports, but was rare in the U.S. n

ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

People

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Cable News Network (CNN) television anchor Lou Dobbs, 64, Nov. 11 told viewers of his show “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that he was quitting the show at once in order “to go beyond the role” of a TV anchor in solving the U.S.’s problems. Dobbs had become increasingly identified with anti-immigration and other conservative stances and, since the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the U.S.’s first black president, had repeatedly called on Obama to prove he was born in Hawaii, and not in some foreign country. A number of liberal organizations had been pursuing a “Drop Dobbs” campaign of late, arguing that his confrontational approach clashed with the image of objectivity of CNN as a whole. This was the second time that Dobbs had quit CNN; the first time had been in 1999, when he quit as 808

the network’s chief business correspondent. The network, however, had rehired him in 2001. CNN Nov. 12 announced that John King, 46, who currently anchored its Sunday political talk show “State of the Union,” would take over Dobbs’s weekday evening time slot in early 2010. Dobbs Nov. 19 told Reuters news service that he was considering running for political office, possibly for the U.S. Senate or even the presidency. Dobbs continued to host his daily syndicated radio show. [See p. 552D3; 2001, p. 339B3; 1999, p. 468F2] A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles handling matters related to the estate of pop music icon Michael Jackson, who died in June, Nov. 10 named lawyer John Branca and music executive John McClain permanent co-executors of the estate, rebuffing an attempt by Jackson’s father, Joe Jackson, 80, to block the appointment. The judge noted that Joe Jackson had no standing in the matter since he had been left out of his son’s will. [See p. 468A2–B2] British mathematical physicist Michael Green, a pioneer of “string theory,” which postulated that the fundamental particles of the universe were one-dimensional objects oscillating in space, Nov. 1 succeeded cosmologist Stephen Hawking as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a post dating back to the 17th century; its second holder had been physicist Sir Isaac Newton. Hawking, who had held the post since 1979, retired from it Sept. 30, nearly 10 months after turning 67, the post’s mandatory retirement age. Green, 63, had been named his successor on Oct. 19. [See p. 548A2; 1990, p. 788A1] n

O B I T UA R I E S AYALA Garcia-Duarte, Francisco de Paula, 103, Spanish novelist, short story writer, essayist, literary and film critic, and sociologist; he lived in exile during the fascist regime of Gen. Francisco Franco (1939–75) and much of his work was banned in Spain during that period; one of his major themes was political corruption and abuses of power; one of his best-known novels, Muertes de Perro (Deaths of a Dog) (1958)—published in English in 1964 under the title Death as a Way of Life—dealt with a fictionalized South American country ruled by a shabby dictator; much of his exile was spent in the U.S., where he taught at a number of universities, including Princeton and the University of Chicago; his 100th birthday, in 2006, was publicly celebrated in Spain; born March 16, 1906, in Granada, Spain; died Nov. 3 at his home in Madrid, Spain, after a prolonged battle with bronchitis. COHN, Mildred, 96, biochemist and biophysicist who did major research in a number of areas, including using nuclear magnetic resonance to illuminate the activity of the cellular energy-transfer molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP); her career was initially impeded both by her gender and her being Jewish; in time, she achieved a number of firsts for a woman scientist, becoming, for example, in 1964, the first woman designated a career investigator by the American Heart Association; from 1960 until her retirement in 1985, she taught at the University of Pennsylvania; she was married to theoretical physicist Henry Primakoff from 1938 until his death in 1983; born July 12, 1913, in New York City; died Oct. 12 at a hospital in Philadelphia, Pa., of pneumonia. [See 1997, p. 778G2] CROFTON, Sir John Wenman, 97, Irish-born physician who was one of the world’s leading experts on tuberculosis (TB) and other lung diseases; he was long associated with Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, where, not long after the end of World War II, he pioneered the use of drug combinations to treat TB, after the TB bacillus developed resistance to streptomycin, the first antibiotic shown to be effective against it;

Crofton was also known as a crusader against smoking, particularly in countries of the developing world; he was knighted in 1977; born March 27, 1912, in Dublin; died Nov. 3 at his home in Edinburgh. [See 2008, p. 161C2; 1955, p. 47D2; 1952, p. 338P] KING, Bruce, 85, New Mexico cattle rancher turned Democratic politician who served three nonconsecutive terms as governor of his state—from 1971 to 1975, from 1979 to 1983 and from 1991 to 1995— and was the only three-term governor in New Mexico’s history; during his third term, New Mexico changed its succession law to allow governors to serve consecutive terms; this allowed him to run for reelection in 1994, but he was defeated by his Republican opponent, Gary Johnson; born April 6, 1924, on a ranch in Stanley, N.M.; died there Nov. 13, not long after undergoing surgery to adjust the pacemaker that had been implanted after he suffered a heart attack in 1997. [See 1994, pp. 837G1, 410E3; 1990, pp. 834E3, 422E2; Indexes 1978–82, 1970–71] MARVIN, Michelle Triola, 75, plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit against actor Lee Marvin that established the legal concept of “palimony” for unmarried partners; her suit against Marvin, with whom she lived from 1964 to 1970, led to a 1976 California Supreme Court ruling establishing a right to palimony; in a subsequent trial, in 1979, she was awarded $104,000 for “rehabilitation purposes” but that verdict was reversed on appeal in 1981, so that she never collected any money from Marvin, who died in 1987; after her break-up with Marvin, she had a lengthy relationship with comic actor Dick Van Dyke; born Nov. 13, 1933, in Los Angeles; died Oct. 30 at the Malibu, Calif., home she shared with Van Dyke, of lung cancer. [See 2004, p. 744F3; 1987, p. 652C3; 1981, pp. 762C3, 761G1, 335F3; Index 1979] O’CONNOR 3rd, John Jay, 79, Arizona lawyer whose wife, Sandra Day O’Connor, whom he married in 1952, was the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, serving from 1981 to 2006; her retirement from the court, announced in July 2005, was linked to his struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, with which he had been diagnosed in the late 1980s but which had remained relatively mild for years; towards the end of his life, as a resident at an assisted-care center in Arizona, he reportedly formed romantic attachments with several female residents, dalliances that his wife said did not bother her because they seemed to have lifted his spirits; born Jan. 10, 1930, in San Francisco, Calif.; died Nov. 11 in Phoenix, Ariz., of Alzheimer’s complications. [See 2005, p. 453E3, G3; 1987, p. 335D1, D2; Indexes 1981–82] QIAN Xuesen (Tsien Hsue-shen), 97, rocket scientist widely known as the father of China’s space program, which he led from the 1950s until his 1991 retirement; he received his scientific training at the U.S.’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, as a scientist and teacher at the California Institute of Technology, made important contributions to the U.S. space program until 1950, when he was stripped of his security clearance after being accused of being a member of the Communist Party; after being deported to China in 1955, he never returned to the U.S.; born Dec. 11, 1911, in Hangzhou, China; died Oct. 31 in Beijing, after being bedridden for years. [See 1956, p. 271D2; 1955, p. 329E3; Indexes 1952–53] SOLIS Palma, Manuel, 91, president of Panama, 1988–89; he was named to the post in February 1988 by Panama’s then–military ruler, Manuel Noriega, and held it until shortly before Noriega’s December 1989 ouster, after a U.S. military invasion of Panama; he was also Panama’s education minister, both during the Noriega regime and from 2004 to 2009, under Panamanian President Martin Torrijos Espino, whose term ended June 30; born Dec. 3, 1917; died Nov. 6 at his home in Panama City, of pulmonary edema. [See pp. 672E2, 493A3; 1989, pp. 650G2, 593F1, 507A1, 330D1, 98G3; Index 1988] TREEN Sr., David Conner, 81, Louisiana Republican who in 1979 was elected the first GOP governor of his state since the post–Civil War Reconstruction era; he succeeded popular Democratic Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, who could not run for reelection because of term limits, but who could and did run again in 1983, easily foiling Treen’s reelection bid; Edwards would eventually complete four terms as governor, before a racketeering conviction sent him to prison in 2001; before assuming the governorship, Treen served threeplus terms in the U.S. House of Representatives; after losing to Edwards in the 1983 gubernatorial election, he ran unsuccessfully for governor again in 1995 and 2003 and for Congress in 1999; born July 16, 1928, in Baton Rouge, La.; died Oct. 29 at a hospital in Metairie, La., of complications from a respiratory ailment. [See 2001, p. 30F2; 1999, pp. 399B2, 364C3; Indexes 1983–84, 1978–81, 1974–76, 1971–72] n

November 19, 2009

U.S. Senate Votes to Begin Debate On Health Care Reform Bill Democrats Muster 60 Votes to Pass First Test.

The Senate Nov. 21 voted, 60–39, to begin debate on a comprehensive health care reform bill, clearing a significant procedural hurdle that had threatened to derail the legislation. Under a procedural arrangement adopted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.), at least 60 votes were needed to avoid a filibuster on a motion to open debate on the bill. In its current form, the measure would provide health insurance to 31 million people currently without it, at a cost of $848 billion over 10 years. The vote fell along party lines, with all 58 Democrats and the two independents who normally caucused with the party voting to advance the bill, and 39 Republicans opposing it. (Sen. George Voinovich [R, Ohio] was absent from the vote.) [See p. 796A2] The outcome was a victory for Reid, who had been tasked with rounding up the support needed to advance the bill. A chief point of contention in the measure was the creation of a government-run health insurance plan, commonly called the “public option,” that would compete with private insurers, ostensibly to keep insurance costs down while improving consumer choices. The House version of the health care reform bill that had been passed earlier in November also contained a public option provision. However, the Senate version differed in allowing state legislatures to opt out of the program, an effort by Reid to maintain the support of both liberal and centrist elements within the Democratic Party. Several centrist Democratic senators prior to the vote had expressed concern about the public option provision. Among them were Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), all of whom said their vote to advance the bill to debate did not indicate that they would support the legislation in its current form in a later vote. Nelson Nov. 20 had agreed to vote to start debate on the bill, reportedly in exchange for the removal of a provision in the measure that would have ended antitrust protections for health insurance companies. Both Landrieu and Lincoln Nov. 21 voted to start debate, but Lincoln said she would vote against the measure if it retained its public option provision “as written.” Reid had reportedly agreed to add a provision supplying at least $100 million in additional funds for Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor, in Louisiana, in order to secure Landrieu’s support. Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent who normally voted with the Democratic Party, had also said he would oppose the bill if it contained a public option. The bill’s provisions concerning abortion were also expected to divide Senate Democrats. The measure would not prohibit women receiving federal insurance subsidies from enrolling in private plans that paid for abortions. It would allow the

secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether abortion would be included in the public option insurance plan. However, in both cases, money for abortion coverage would have to come only from premiums, not government subsidies. The bill did require that in every state, there be at least one plan available that covered abortion and at least one that did not. The House version of the bill would prevent women receiving insurance subsidies from enrolling in policies that offered abortions, and excluded abortion coverage from the public-option plan. [See p. 773C2] Debate on the Senate bill was expected to begin in late November or early December, and last several weeks. n

Afghanistan War Obama Prepares to Unveil New Strategy.

U.S. President Barack Obama Nov. 24 vowed that he would “finish the job” in Afghanistan, signaling that in the coming week he would unveil a new military strategy to defeat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. Obama, appearing at a news conference at the White House with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said, “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive.” [See below, p. 805A3] Obama would explain his strategy in a prime-time address to the nation, which was scheduled for Dec. 1. Obama Nov. 23 had convened the ninth, and possibly final, high-level meeting since September to reassess the U.S.’s overall strategy, and to debate whether to deploy tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which was currently seeing its highest levels of violence since the U.S. invaded the country in 2001. Obama Nov. 24 said that in the past eight years, U.S. forces had not been given “either the resources or the strategy to get the job done,” a reference to the decisions of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama was expected to approve a troop increase, but it was believed unlikely that it would match the 40,000 that had been requested by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan. There were currently 68,000 U.S. troops in the country. Obama administration officials were expected to press the U.S.’s European allies to boost their troop deployments in NATO meetings scheduled for Dec. 3–4 in Brussels, Belgium. Obama Nov. 24 said, “The whole world...has a core security interest in making sure that the kind of extremism and violence that you’ve seen emanating from this region is tackled, confronted in a serious way.” Obama had been criticized by Republican opponents—who mostly supported a

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3597 November 26, 2009

B troop increase—for taking too long to conduct his strategic review. He had also come under criticism from members of his own Democratic Party, which had increasingly become opposed to the war. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Nov. 24 had indicated that a troop buildup, with its concomitant fiscal costs, could meet resistance from Democrats concerned about the weak U.S. economy and the ballooning budget deficit. Administration officials were expected to testify before Congress on Afghanistan shortly after Obama’s announcement. The war’s cost had reportedly become a central factor in Obama’s decision-making process in recent weeks. It was reported that it would cost about $1 million a year to fund each soldier in Afghanistan. Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Nov.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. Senate votes to begin debate on health care reform bill; Democrats muster 60 votes to pass first test. PAGE 809

Obama prepares to unveil new Afghanistan war strategy. PAGE 809

U.S. swine flu death toll hits 3,900.

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Probes of Fort Hood shooting set. PAGE 812

Australian government apologizes to abused children PAGE 818

At least 46 killed in political attack in southern Philippines. PAGE 818

British Iraq war inquiry opens. PAGE 820

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Lawyer for British fund dies in Russian jail. PAGE 821

Leaked report on 1992 riots sparks outcry in India. PAGE 822

Mauer, Pujols awards.

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European particle accelerator restarts. PAGE 824

Crash experiment confirms water on moon. PAGE 824

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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23 attended the Afghan strategy session for the first time. Some senior House Democrats, concerned that war spending could constrain funding for domestic programs, had proposed a surtax to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Singh Urges International Support—

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Singh Nov. 23 said, “It is vitally important that all major regional and international players put their weight behind the government of Afghanistan,” in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. Singh also said his government was willing to restart peace talks with Pakistan—which was wedged between India and Afghanistan—if Pakistan made “a break with the past” and clamped down on Islamic extremist groups that operated within its borders. Easing tensions between Pakistan and India, historical rivals in the region, was considered a key step toward focusing Pakistan’s attention on pro-Taliban groups that were based near the Afghan border and posed a threat to U.S. and NATO forces. [See pp. 806F2, 674E2, 669A2] However, Obama Nov. 24 said, “It is not the place of the United States to try to, from the outside, resolve all those conflicts” between India and Pakistan, particularly their long-running dispute over the territory of Kashmir, which was mostly under Indian control. Indian leaders had reportedly bristled at the suggestion that the U.S. viewed India, an emerging world power, as merely part of a larger regional framework that included its far more volatile neighbors. Obama Hosts Singh in First State Visit—

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Singh’s visit to the White House was the first official state visit of Obama’s tenure, and Singh was feted later that day at a state dinner. Obama earlier that day had said, “The U.S. and India are natural allies not just on counterterrorism issues but on a whole host of issues,” adding, “We are the world’s two largest democracies and we share in common a belief in human rights and core freedoms enshrined in our founding documents.” He said the U.S.-India alliance would be “a defining partnership of the 21st century.” The two leaders agreed to cooperate on a number of initiatives, including counterterrorism, global warming and nuclearweapons proliferation. They did not make progress on a civilian nuclear trade agreement that had been signed by both countries in 2008, but had stalled over disagreements on a separate pact that would prevent India from reprocessing U.S. nuclear fuel into material that could be used in nuclear weapons. However, Singh said he was “confident” that the “process can be completed without much further loss of time.” Obama also made a point of easing Indian concerns about the U.S.’s growing ties with China, an Indian rival. Indian officials had reportedly been disturbed by a joint statement issued Nov. 17 by Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, during Obama’s first visit to China, which said China and the U.S. would “work together to promote peace, stability and development” in South Asia. India reportedly took the statement to mean that the U.S. had en-

dorsed Chinese involvement in South Asian affairs, particularly in relations between India and Pakistan, a Chinese ally. India also reportedly believed that the statement could have an impact on its dispute with China over a region in India’s northeast that was claimed by both countries. [See pp. 806A2, 794B3] Singh Nov. 23 told the Council on Foreign Relations that China had recently increased its territorial “assertiveness,” adding, “I do not understand the reasons for it.” He also criticized China’s model of economic growth, which combined freemarket policies and an authoritarian political structure. He said, “I’ve always believed that there are other values which are important than the growth of the gross domestic product,” such as human rights and democracy. However, he said, “It is in all our interests to see the peaceful rise of a strong China.” n

Swine Flu U.S. Death Toll Hits 3,900. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Nov. 12 reported that, between April and October, an estimated 3,900 people in the U.S. had died from infection by the H1N1 swine influenza virus, and that 22 million people had been infected by the virus. The tally was an upward revision from an earlier estimate of 1,200 deaths. The agency also said about 98,000 people had been hospitalized with the disease. The CDC said the revision reflected attempts by the agency to better quantify the effect of the virus, and not that it had become more dangerous or deadly. [See p. 741B2] Normally, the seasonal flu ran from late fall to early spring and caused about 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations in the U.S., with people over 65 comprising about 90% of both of those categories. In contrast, the CDC said about 2,900 of the swine flu deaths had occurred in people between the ages of 18 and 64. Children aged 17 or younger comprised 540 deaths, eight million infections and 36,000 hospitalizations. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Nov. 12 said the spread of the virus was “unprecedented.” She added, “I am expecting all these numbers, unfortunately, to continue to rise.” The swine flu virus had first emerged in Mexico in April, but quickly spread worldwide, raising concerns that it could mutate into a deadlier form. As of Nov. 8, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there had been more than 503,500 laboratory-confirmed swine flu cases in 206 countries and territories, and more than 6,250 deaths linked to the disease. But because the WHO in July had stopped collecting broader case totals from countries, the figures understated the actual number of infections and deaths. Millions of people were thought to have been infected, and to have suffered only mild symptoms before recovering fully. U.S. Vaccine Shortage Continues—As of Nov. 17, only about 42 million doses of a

swine flu vaccine had been distributed in the U.S., despite assurances made earlier in the year by federal health officials that some 120 million doses would be available by October. It had taken longer than anticipated to grow the strain of virus used to manufacture the vaccine, and vaccine makers had suffered other production delays. CDC Director Thomas Frieden Nov. 4 said of the vaccine, “It is quite likely that the current wave of influenza will peak, crest and begin to decline before there are ample supplies.” In addition to the swine flu vaccine, there was also a shortage in the U.S. of seasonal flu vaccine, which was manufactured separately. Frieden Nov. 5 called on state and local health agencies to first distribute the vaccine to those in high-priority categories. The announcement followed reports that some large companies in New York City, including banking companies Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., had received vaccine doses from the city’s health agency. The companies that had received the vaccine had reportedly been required to sign agreements to first distribute it to high-priority groups. In an attempt to quell the furor over the reports, Schuchat Nov. 6 said workplaces should be used as vaccine distribution centers in order to get as many people as possible inoculated. “There’s nothing wrong with an employerbased clinic,” she said. Separately, federal health officials Nov. 2 said clinical studies had shown that one dose of the swine flu vaccine was enough to confer protection to pregnant women. However, they said children aged six months to nine years needed two doses. The issue of how many vaccine doses were needed to protect populations had gained importance as the vaccine shortage became

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a pressing issue. Frieden Oct. 30 said the CDC would release its remaining stockpiles of the children’s version of the antiviral drug Tamiflu in order to help combat the swine flu. Ukraine Orders Restrictions—Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Oct. 30 banned public gatherings, limited people’s ability to travel and shut down schools for three weeks as part of efforts to control the spread of swine flu in the country. Tymoshenko said the virus’s spread had reached the “epidemic threshold.” The banning of public gatherings also applied to political rallies, and was expected to affect the campaign for the presidency, to be decided in an election scheduled for Jan. 17, 2010. (Tymoshenko Oct. 31 had formally registered as a candidate for president.) The WHO said there was no evidence that Ukraine was suffering from an especially bad outbreak of swine flu, but dispatched a team of experts there to aid the government. Ukraine’s health ministry Nov. 1 said 53 people had died from the flu, but it was not clear how many of those deaths had resulted from the swine flu. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Nov. 11 said the number of swine flu deaths in Europe had grown sharply over the last several weeks. Denis Coulombier, head of the ECDC’s preparedness and response unit, Nov. 10 said, “We are heading toward the peak for sure.” Russia’s state public health service Nov. 6 had reported 4,560 confirmed cases of swine flu. Also, Venezuelan health officials Nov. 5 said five Yanomami Indians living in a remote area of the Amazon rain forest had died of H1N1 swine flu. Officials said they did not know how the disease had spread to the area. n

Religion Pope Meets With Archbishop of Canterbury.

Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, Nov. 21 met privately at the Vatican for about 20 minutes. The meeting came weeks after the Roman Catholic Church had unexpectedly announced that dissident conservative Anglicans would be allowed to convert to Catholicism while maintaining some Anglican traditions. The Vatican said the leaders engaged in “cordial discussion” over recent events, and agreed to continue to try to build closer ties between their respective churches. [See p. 711E2; 1992, p. 383F3] A spokesperson for Lambeth Palace, the seat of the Anglican Church, said Williams had “expressed concern” over the Vatican’s invitation to Anglicans, as well as about “the way it happened.” Anglican leaders had said they were not informed of the Vatican’s move until just before the invitation to convert was made public. Williams’s visit to Rome had been scheduled prior to the Vatican’s decree on Anglican conversion. Britain’s Guardian newspaper Nov. November 26, 2009

21 reported that Vatican officials had emphasized that Williams had been invited to Rome by the the Pontifical Gregorian University, and not by Benedict. [See below] The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, in recent years had moved toward greater acceptance of gay and female clergy, which the Roman Catholic Church forbade. Those practices had alienated many conservative Episcopal congregations, some of which elected to split off from their dioceses and join more conservative Anglican dioceses abroad. [See p. 711F3] Williams Addresses Catholics—Williams, in a Nov. 19 speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University, defended Anglicanism, notably its acceptance of female priests. He expressed an optimistic view of the achievements so far in the Catholic-Anglican ecumenical dialogue, asserting that the churches in the past had bridged divides greater than the one over female clergy, and that their remaining differences were not as “fundamental” as some Catholics held. Some observers said Williams implied that if the Roman Catholic Church continued to view the churches’ current divisions as insurmountable, further ecumenical dialogue would be futile. Benedict was scheduled to make his first official visit to Britain in 2010. Vatican Releases Conversion Rules—

The Vatican Nov. 9 released rules on the conversion of Anglicans to Catholicism. Married Anglican priests could become Catholic priests on “a case-by-case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.” The Vatican added that the rules on Anglican conversion did “not signify any change in the church’s discipline of clerical celibacy.” Unmarried Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism were required to remain celibate after their conversion. The Vatican said new structures for converted Anglicans, called Personal Ordinariates, would be created. The ordinariates were analogous to dioceses, but were not geographically defined. The pope would appoint bishops and priests to oversee the ordinariates, which would also collaborate with local dioceses. Anglican bishops who converted would lose their rank as bishops, but would remain priests. n

Energy Global Oil Consumption Estimate Lowered. The International Energy Agency (IEA), a

multigovernmental energy oversight group, Nov. 10 released its annual World Energy Outlook report, which included data about current world oil stockpiles and consumption, and predictions about future rates of production and consumption. According to the report, worldwide oil use in 2008 had averaged about 84.8 million barrels per day. The IEA predicted that worldwide oil consumption would reach 88 million barrels per day by 2014, down from a previous estimate of 94 million barrels per day. The decrease reflected the effects of the global financial

crisis, which had depressed oil demand, as well as new energy efficiency measures. [See pp. 742F3, 486D2; 2008, p. 615D3] The IEA predicted that the U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, would consume 18.9 million barrels of oil per day in 2010, up 0.4% from 2009, while the second-largest oil consumer, China, would increase its consumption by about 3.5%, to about 8.6 million barrels per day in 2010. The IEA laid out two separate sets of long-term predictions, based on whether international talks scheduled to take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December resulted in a new global treaty to combat climate change. If no such agreement were reached, worldwide fuel demand was predicted to rise by 40% over 2007 levels by 2030, including an increase in oil demand from 84.8 million barrels per day to 105 million barrels per day, driven in part by developing nations such as India and China. Under such a scenario, the cost of importing oil and gas to the U.S. would reach 2% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), up from about 1%. Under a scenario in which a comprehensive climate change treaty was reached, the IEA predicted only a mild increase in energy consumption by 2030. The IEA predicted that if a global climate change treaty was reached that capped the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm), there would be a 50% probability that the global increase in temperature could be limited to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2030. The group predicted that temperatures could rise by as much as six degrees Celsius if nothing was done. The IEA report said investment totaling $10.5 trillion by 2030 would be required to avoid increasing greenhouse gas levels above 450 ppm, but found that doing so would decrease worldwide energy costs by at least $8.6 trillion from 2010 to 2030.

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Oil Reserve Estimates Challenged—

Britain’s Guardian newspaper Nov. 9 reported that the IEA had consistently overestimated the future output from unexploited oil fields and underestimated the rate of decline of currently operating oil fields in order to avoid triggering financial panic regarding future oil shortages, according to a source within the IEA. The IEA, which advised 28 nations on energy matters, including the U.S., Japan, Australia and most of the members of the European Union, had previously been criticized for issuing reports on the world’s oil reserves that were seen as too optimistic. In 2005, the IEA had predicted that worldwide oil production levels would reach 120 million barrels per day by 2030, but had decreased its forecast to 105 million barrels per day in 2008. According to the Guardian, pressure from the U.S. government had played a significant role in convincing the IEA to alter its annual figures. The Guardian also reported that an unidentified former IEA official interviewed for its article had claimed that the world’s oil production had already peaked. 811

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IEA Deputy Executive Director Richard Jones Nov. 10 denied that the organization had altered its figures. Jones said the IEA had long warned that oil and gas reserves would run out, but added, “We don’t see it happening as quickly as some of the peak oil theorists.” n

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international food security was held Nov. 16–18 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. The meeting had been organized in response to the 2008 food crisis, in which rising prices for rice, wheat and other dietary staples had pushed global hunger estimates to over one billion people for the first time. Food inflation had led to food insecurity in up to 30 countries, and food riots in a number of nations. [See p. 440E2] The leaders of about 60 of the 192 nations invited to the summit by the FAO had attended; most nations had sent agriculture ministers or other officials instead. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader of a Group of Eight (G-8) nation to attend the summit, leading critics to argue that the summit was being ignored by richer countries. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Nov. 16 opened the summit with a speech that called on U.N. member nations to provide aid to poor countries that would help them become agriculturally self-supporting. Ban noted that 17,000 children died each day from hunger and related ailments, despite the fact that “the world has more than enough food” to feed every person, and called the situation “unacceptable.” He also said that 70% more food would have to be grown by 2050 in order to feed a projected world population of 9.1 billion people. Ban argued that a comprehensive climate change agreement needed to be reached at international talks in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, in December in order to fully address food security issues, and warned that climate change was expected to severely affect agriculture and food production in the coming years. Declaration Backs Off Firm Goals—Attendees Nov. 16 approved the summit’s final declaration, which reaffirmed a 2000 pledge to reduce world hunger by 50% by 2015, and supported increased aid to impoverished countries to develop agriculture, which the FAO argued was more effective and long-lasting than emergency food aid. However, the declaration did not include FAO-backed provisions that would have set a 2025 deadline to eliminate hunger and malnutrition, and would have mandated $44 billion per year in new agricultural aid, increasing the percentage of total worldwide foreign aid spent on agriculture to 17%, from 5%. FAO Director General Jacques Diouf of Senegal criticized the declaration and its lack of firm deadlines and concrete funding targets. 812

The FAO Nov. 17 announced that 16 U.N. member nations had already attained the 2000 goal of reducing hunger among their populations by 50% or more. Those countries included China, Thailand, Vietnam, Georgia, Armenia, Nigeria, Brazil, and Peru. Mugabe Defends Farm Seizures— Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Nov. 17 defended his government against claims that its controversial farmland reallocation program, which had seized white-owned commercial farms and redistributed them to black citizens, had contributed to widespread hunger in Zimbabwe. Mugabe argued that the program had been part of his government’s push for “equity and justice,” and said “hostile interventions,” including sanctions, on the part of “neocolonialist enemies” had been responsible for increasing food shortages. He called for all sanctions against Zimbabwe and its leaders to be dropped. Libyan leader Muammer el-Qaddafi Nov. 17 used his address to the FAO summit to criticize wealthy nations for buying up large tracts of land in Africa for foreign food production, calling it a “new feudalism” that was “cheating African people out of their rights.” He warned that the trend could spread to South America if new rules were not instituted to bar the practice. Saudi Arabia, South Korea and China, among other countries, had purchased farmland in Africa following the 2008 food crisis for the purposes of ensuring sufficient food supplies to their populations. Reuters Nov. 17 reported that according to U.S. think tank the Food Policy Research Institute, at least 15 million hectares of land (37 million acres) in impoverished countries had been purchased by foreign buyers since 2006; however, not all that land was intended for food production. Qaddafi Nov. 15 held a meeting with 200 Italian women selected through a modeling agency and gave a speech on sexism and women’s role in Islam before asking them to consider converting. The women were paid 60 euros ($90) to attend and received a copy of the Koran and a book explaining Qaddafi’s political viewpoints. Qaddafi Nov. 16 held a similar meeting with 200 additional Italian women, who were also paid for attending. A planned third meeting on Nov. 17 was canceled. Pope Benedict XVI Nov. 16 said in his address to the summit that the Roman “Catholic Church will always be concerned for efforts to defeat hunger,” and blamed commodities speculators for increasing the cost of food. Benedict argued that widespread food waste was “no longer acceptable when the tragedy of hunger is assuming ever greater proportions.” Analysts said the summit had been overshadowed by an international focus on the December climate talks in Copenhagen, and that a G-8 pledge in July to spend more than $22 billion over the next three years on agricultural aid had reduced the perceived urgency of the need to agree on new aid. [See p. 453A1] n

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Armed Forces Investigations of Fort Hood Shooting Set.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates Nov. 19 announced that the Defense Department would investigate a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in early November that had killed 13 people, in order to find whether military policies caused personnel to miss warning signs that might have foreshadowed the incident. He also ordered a separate investigation into the military’s medical system. Also Nov. 19, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee opened hearings on the shooting, beginning the first such inquiry by Congress. [See p. 777A2] Gates said the Defense Department would seek to find “whether there are internal weaknesses or procedural shortcomings in the department that could make us vulnerable in the future.” Authorities before the attack had reportedly failed to pass along warnings about the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who had been charged by military prosecutors with 13 counts of murder. Hasan, a Muslim, had reportedly become increasingly and vocally opposed to U.S. military operations against his coreligionists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had been in contact with Anwar alAwlaki, a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who had links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The 45-day review would be led by former Army Secretary Togo West and Adm. Vern Clark, the former chief of naval operations. Gates also ordered an extended, four-to-six-month review of possible “systematic institutional shortcomings” in the military’s handling of medical issues. It would examine treatment of victims of mass-casualty attacks, as well as health care providers’ performance and stress in the armed services. The Wall Street Journal Nov. 23 reported that the Army had chosen Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. Army Europe, to lead a part of the investigation that would examine whether personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., had improperly failed to pass along evidence during the six years Hasan had worked there, prior to his transfer to Fort Hood in July. Ham, a four-star general, had been one of the first senior officers to publicly admit to suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), after his return from Iraq in 2005. (Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, had treated victims of mental trauma who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.) The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had intercepted almost 20 e-mails sent between Hasan and Awlaki, between late 2008 and June, but the FBI had concluded that Hasan did not pose a terrorist threat and did not alert the military. However, the Washington Post Nov. 21 quoted an unnamed source familiar with the case as saying that in some of the later e-mails, Hasan and Awlaki had used “cryptic and coded exchanges” to discuss transferring FACTS ON FILE

money abroad in transactions of less than $10,000 each, the threshold for reporting them to the U.S. government. The source said the e-mails suggested that the money might go toward supporting terrorism, although there was reportedly no direct evidence that Hasan had sent money to terrorism-linked groups. Congressional Hearings Begin—Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, at the Nov. 19 hearing said he thought the shooting had been “a terrorist attack.” He said the committee would investigate “whether that attack could have been prevented, whether the federal agencies and employees involved missed signals or failed to connect the dots.” He pledged that the inquiry would be conducted in a “bipartisan and nonpartisan way,” and that day told the Post that he would “work with the administration and proceed cooperatively as opposed to going into an attack mode.” Five terrorism experts and former government officials—including Frances Fragos Townsend, homeland security adviser under former President George W. Bush— testified at the hearing. Several of them said “political correctness” had caused officials to overlook evidence of the danger posed by Hasan, because he was a Muslim. The Obama administration had refused to allow the homeland security committee to compel current government officials to testify, although it granted the committee access to other evidence. Republican legislators had pressed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) to open a full investigation into the shooting. Democrats largely indicated that they would abide by the White House’s request to allow the military investigations to run their course, although Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) called on President Barack Obama to give his panel the results of an initial investigation. Accused Shooter Hasan Paralyzed—

John Galligan, Hasan’s lawyer, Nov. 22 said Hasan had been paralyzed from the chest down when he was shot by police at Fort Hood after allegedly carrying out the attack, and that doctors thought that his paralysis would be permanent. Galligan also said that Hasan was “coherent,” but that “your ability to have any meaningful exchange with him is limited in time and subject.” According to Galligan, Hasan’s commanding officer Nov. 20 had ordered that he be placed in “pre-trial confinement,” the highest level of confinement in a military court. However, Galligan had asked that Hasan remain under guard in Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas, because of his injuries. Galligan said a magistrate granted the request at a Nov. 21 hearing. n

2.8% in the third quarter of 2009 from the second quarter. That was down from the department’s “advance” estimate in October that GDP had grown at a 3.5% rate. The new figure contained revised data showing that the trade deficit was wider and that consumer spending was lower than previously reported. It was the department’s second GDP report, and would be revised once more. [See p. 739A3] n Retail Sales Rose 1.4% in October. The Commerce Department Nov. 16 reported that the value of retail sales in October was $347.5 billion after seasonal adjustment, up 1.4% from the revised figure for September. The climb was driven by increased sales of automobiles, as demand revived following a steep drop caused by the expiration of the government’s “cash-forclunkers” program, in which consumers had been given vouchers worth up to $4,500 to trade in older cars for ones that were more fuel-efficient. [See p. 740F1] n Business Inventories Fell in September.

The Commerce Department Nov. 16 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of September was $1.3 trillion after seasonal adjustment, down 0.4% from the revised value at the end of August. The ratio of inventories to sales was 1.32, meaning that it would take businesses 1.32 months to unload their inventories at the current sales pace. [See p. 740G1] n Industrial Production Rose in October.

The Federal Reserve Nov. 17 reported that its industrial production index increased 0.1% in October. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had increased 0.6% in September. The overall index now stood at 98.6% of its 2002 base average, remaining unchanged from its September level. Manufacturing production fell 0.1% in October. The output of utilities increased 1.6%, and mining output decreased 0.2%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 70.7% of their total capacity in October. [See p. 740A2] n Leading Indicators Rose 0.3% in October.

The Conference Board business research organization Nov. 19 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.3% in October, to 103.8. Based on revised data, the index had increased 1.0% in September, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 759D2] Six of the 10 indicators in October were “positive” contributors, led by interest rate spread and average weekly claims for unemployment insurance. Four indicators— led by index of consumer expectations and building permits—were “negative.” n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis FDIC Deposit Fund Posts Negative Balance.

Economy Third-Quarter GDP Growth Revised to 2.8%.

The Commerce Department Nov. 24 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of November 26, 2009

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) Nov. 24 announced that its deposit fund had a negative balance of $8.2 billion as of Sept. 30, the end of the third quarter. The fund—which insured individual customer bank deposits of up to $250,000 in a

single institution—had been depleted by a string of bank failures caused by the financial crisis and an ongoing recession. It was the first time the fund had fallen into the red since 1991, following a savings-andloan crisis that began in the 1980s. [See p. 658A1; 1991, p. 800D2] The FDIC in September had warned that the fund would soon be depleted. The fund was paid for by annual bank fees, and the FDIC had unveiled a plan that would require the banking industry to prepay $45 billion in fees to shore up the fund. The FDIC Nov. 24 said customers did not have to worry about the safety of their deposits, since the FDIC had already set aside funds to cover bank failures through 2010. The FDIC said it had seized 124 failed banks so far in 2009, and that 552 banks were on its list of “problem” banks, up from 416 in the second quarter. The FDIC said lending had decreased by 2.8% in the third quarter from the second quarter, as loan demand fell and banks remained hesitant to lend. FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair said, “There is no question that credit availability is an important issue for economic recovery,” adding, “We need to see banks making more loans to their business customers.” There had also been signs of stabilization in the industry. The FDIC said banks had made a $2.8 billion profit in the third quarter, up from a $4.3 billion loss in the second quarter. n FHA Cash Reserves Fall Below Legal Limit.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Nov. 12 announced that its cash reserves had fallen below the limit set by Congress, due to a rise in home loan defaults. The FHA insured private lenders against mortgage defaults, and in recent years had played a critical role in the government’s efforts to prop up the weakened housing market by dramatically increasing the number of loans it insured. Its dwindling reserves raised the possibility that the agency would need a capital injection from the government. [See p. 354B3; 2008, p. 517B3] According to an audit, the FHA said that as of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2009, the reserves in its primary cash fund totaled $3.6 billion, down from $12.9 billion the previous year. The FHA’s current reserve level equaled 0.53% of the $685 billion in loans that it insured, well below the 2% limit set by Congress. It was the first time the reserves had fallen below that limit since 1994. The FHA’s operations were financed by the insurance premiums it charged lenders, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan said he did not foresee the FHA turning to the government for assistance. Donovan said the FHA had an additional fund, and that between the two funds the agency had $31 billion to offset expected losses over the next 30 years. The audit projected that, under a worst-case scenario, the primary fund would run out of cash in 2011, and that the FHA would need to borrow $1.6 billion from the Treasury. 813

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The FHA did acknowledge that it had insured too many loans for borrowers whose credit scores were shaky. The FHA said nearly 20% of the loans it had insured in 2007 were “seriously delinquent,” meaning that the borrowers were at least three months late on their payments. The FHA said 12% of its loans in 2008 fell into that category. The FHA’s loan portfolio had increased by 75% in fiscal 2009 from the previous year. n

Business Crime

27 pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from a $7 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly run by the company’s chief executive officer, R. Allen Stanford. Davis, making his plea in U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas, faced 30 years in prison, but was expected to cooperate with the prosecution in the hopes of receiving a lighter sentence. Stanford in June had pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges, and was denied bail. Stanford Aug. 27 was taken to the hospital from jail near Houston after suffering from heart problems. [See p. 457E1] n

News in Brief. A jury in U.S. District Court

in the New York City borough of Brooklyn Nov. 10 found that two hedge fund execu-

tives at former investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. were not guilty of fraud

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charges. Prosecutors in 2008 had accused the executives, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, of lying to investors about the health of their hedge funds, which had invested heavily in mortgage-backed securities and collapsed in 2007 after the housing market entered a slump, leading to $1.6 billion in losses for investors. Prosecutors relied on e-mails by the two defendants to make their case, in a trial that began Oct. 14. Defense lawyers argued that the emails had been taken out of context, and that the two executives had merely been overwhelmed by a crisis that later swept through the entire financial industry. Cioffi was also cleared of an insider-trading charge. [See 2008, p. 469C2] Federal prosecutors in New York City Nov. 5 accused 14 people, including hedge fund traders, lawyers and company executives, of participating in an insider-trading ring. Prosecutors identified Zvi Goffer, a former trader at hedge fund Galleon Group, as the ring’s leader. Prosecutors in October had charged Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of Galleon, and five others with insider trading, and the two cases were thought to be related, netting a total of $40 million in ill-gotten gains. The 14 people charged Nov. 5 included five who had already pleaded guilty and were cooperating with prosecutors. Among them was Roomy Khan, a principal informant in the Rajaratnam case. The investigation was ongoing, and prosecutors were expected to make additional arrests. [See p. 743D2] Financier Danny Pang, who had been accused of orchestrating a massive fraud, died Sept. 12 after being rushed to the hospital the previous day from his home in Newport Beach, Calif. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April had charged Pang, 42, with running a fraud through his company, Private Equity Management Group Inc., and prosecutors had charged him with money laundering. Unwitting investors were thought to have lost more than $650 million in the scheme. Local police said there was no evidence of foul play in his death. The Wall Street Journal Sept. 21 reported that coroners had found barbiturates and traces of marijuana in his system, and that local police believed he had committed suicide. [See p. 506E3] James Davis, the former chief financial officer of Stanford Financial Group, Aug. 814

National Politics Ethics Committee Admonishes Sen. Burris.

The Senate Ethics Committee Nov. 20 formally admonished Sen. Roland Burris (D, Ill.) for giving misleading accounts of his dealings with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who had appointed Burris in December 2008 to fill the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Earlier in December, Blagojevich had been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which alleged that he had sought to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder. He was impeached and removed from office in January. [See p. 477F3] In February, Burris had admitted that he had offered to raise campaign contributions for Blagojevich in November, during a telephone conversation with the governor’s brother, Robert Blagojevich. Burris had not disclosed that conversation in his sworn testimony before an impeachment committee of the Illinois state legislature in January. A transcript of the conversation, secretly recorded by the FBI, was released in May. The Ethics Committee issued a “public letter of qualified admonition,” its mildest form of censure. It noted that Burris, in that conversation, had “repeatedly brought up your desire to seek the Senate seat,” and “implied that the people you might raise money from would be unhappy if you did not receive that appointment.” The committee said the conversation was “inappropriate in its contents and implications.” The committee told Burris, “Your shifting explanations about your sworn statements appear less than candid.” While the committee concluded that Burris had not broken the law, it judged that his behavior “reflected unfavorably on the Senate.” Burris issued a statement thanking the committee for a “fair and thorough review of this matter.” In July, Burris, 72, had announced that he would not run for a full term in 2010. Blagojevich was scheduled to stand trial in June 2010. n Bush Announces Policy Institute. Former President George W. Bush in a speech at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 12 announced plans to establish a public policy institute at SMU. The institute would be housed in his presidential library and museum, which was to be built on the SMU campus. The think tank

was to be called the George W. Bush Policy Institute. [See 2007, p. 33D1] Bush’s foundation had reportedly already raised more than $200 million in pledges and contributions for his center at SMU, nearing its goal of $300 million. Bush outlined the key areas that his institute would focus on, including global health, education, economic development, and promoting democracy and political freedom abroad. He said its programs would be “designed to make an impact in the real world.” Bush did not mention his successor, President Barack Obama, by name during his speech. But he offered some general principles that were interpreted by some observers as an indirect critique of Obama’s policies. Bush warned against “the temptation to replace the risk and reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control,” adding, “History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement but too much.” Conservatives had assailed Obama for excessive federal spending. [See pp. 713A1, 619F2] However, Bush noted that during the financial crisis in late 2008, he had approved a $700 billion rescue package for the financial industry, a decision that he called “one of the most difficult of my presidency.” He said, “I went against my free market instincts and approved a temporary government intervention to unfreeze the credit markets so that we could avoid a major global depression.” [See 2008, p. 825A1] Bush also called for the U.S. to support “dissidents and reformers” in countries with authoritarian rulers (he cited North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba and Venezuela). He said, “When America stands for liberty, they take heart. When we do not, the dictators tighten their grip.” Conservatives had criticized Obama for approaching Iran and other longtime U.S. adversaries with a new emphasis on conciliatory diplomacy. [See pp. 763B2, 179C1] Bush’s wife, Laura Bush, also spoke at the SMU event, announcing that she would oversee an initiative at the institute on promoting women’s rights around the world, particularly in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Bush had made few public appearances since leaving office in January, and had avoided criticizing Obama directly. By contrast, former Vice President Dick Cheney had repeatedly and forcefully attacked Obama’s policies, particularly concerning national security issues. [See pp. 751F2, 566G2, 166B2] Presidential Library Design Unveiled—

Architect Robert A.M. Stern and Laura Bush Nov. 18 unveiled Stern’s design for the Bush presidential library, museum and policy institute. The 227,000-square-foot (21,000-sq-m) brick and limestone building would have an understated appearance, intended to blend in with the Georgianstyle SMU campus while evoking elements of the White House in Washington, D.C. A landscape garden of wild grasses and wildFACTS ON FILE

flowers would cover about half the 23-acre (10-hectare) site. Groundbreaking was scheduled for late 2010, with the project to be completed by 2013. n

porters he recognized that “I had a moral failing,” but added, “I don’t know how many times one apologizes for that.” n

Sen. Byrd Sets Congressional Tenure Record.

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills

Sen. Robert Byrd (D, W. Va.) Nov. 18 became the longest-serving member of Congress in history, after 56 years and 320 days in office. Byrd, who would turn 92 on Nov. 20, had served in the House from 1953 to 1959, and in the Senate since 1959. He broke a record set by Carl Hayden (D, Ariz.), who served in the House from 1912 to 1927, and in the Senate from 1927 to 1969. In 2006, Byrd had become the longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Later that year, he was elected to a record ninth term. [See 2006, p. 487F3; 2005, p. 709C2] n

State & Local Politics S.C. Legislators Mull Impeaching Governor.

A subcommittee of the South Carolina state House Nov. 24 opened hearings to consider the possible impeachment of Gov. Mark Sanford (R) over his secret five-day trip to Argentina in June to visit a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Sanford had left on the trip without telling his staff where he was going, instructing aides to tell the media that he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. [See p. 455D3] The impeachment resolution, sponsored by four Republicans and one Democrat, accused Sanford of “serious misconduct” and “dereliction of duty” that brought “extreme dishonor and shame” to his office and to the reputation of the state. Sanford’s lawyers Nov. 23 had issued a statement arguing that his actions did not constitute grounds for impeachment. No governor had been impeached in the state’s history. The seven-member subcommittee was expected to meet several times in December and then make a recommendation to the full Judiciary Committee on whether to pursue impeachment. If the full committee voted to send the resolution to the House floor, and two-thirds of the House voted to approve it, then the state Senate would hold an impeachment trial. The panel of the House Judiciary Committee Nov. 24 voted to also review a list of 37 civil charges filed against Sanford the previous day by the State Ethics Commission for misuse of state funds and resources, in connection with personal travel and other matters. Sanford faced fines of up to $74,000 if the Ethics Commission found him guilty of those charges in a separate proceeding. The list included 18 instances in which the governor had improperly flown business class or first class on commercial flights; nine instances of improper use of state aircraft; and 10 instances of his spending campaign funds for personal or unofficial use. Sanford, who had rejected calls from his own party to step down before his term ended in January 2011, Nov. 24 told reNovember 26, 2009

Senate Passes Veterans Affairs Funds.

The Senate Nov. 17 unanimously approved a bill that would appropriate $133.9 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and construction by the Defense Department for fiscal year 2010. The House in June had passed a bill appropriating $133.7 billion for the VA and military construction. [See p. 489D2] The bill included $76.7 billion in discretionary spending, about $400 million more than President Barack Obama had requested. The discretionary spending included $53.2 billion for the VA, $150 million more than Obama had requested and $4 billion more than the fiscal 2009 appropriation. Both the House and Senate bills included $48.2 billion in funds to be used by the VA in fiscal 2011, for medical services, medical and prosthetic research and information technology. The Obama administration said putting the VA medical system on a two-year funding system would prevent vital programs from running out of money because of delays in passing spending bills. Other VA appropriations included $2.1 billion for medical care for veterans of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; $4.6 billion for mental health care; $5.9 billion for long-term care for aging and severely injured veterans; and $1.9 billion for construction of VA medical facilities. The bill would provide $23.2 billion for military construction projects, $286 million more than the Obama administration had requested. It also included $1.4 billion for overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan. Senate Democrats Nov. 17 defeated, 57–43, an amendment by Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.) that would have prohibited any money from the bill going towards building facilities in the U.S. to hold terrorism detainees who were currently held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Obama administration the previous week had announced that five detainees accused of plotting Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. would face civilian trials in New York City, and had asked the Senate to table the Inhofe amendment, saying it would hurt efforts to close Guantanamo Bay. [See p. 793A1] n

CIA Leak Investigation Cheney Interview Notes Released. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a political corruption watchdog group, Oct. 30 released three documents related to a May 8, 2004, interview of then–Vice President Dick Cheney in connection with a criminal investigation into the outing of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent in 2003. CREW

had received the documents, which included a 28-page memo containing Cheney’s answers and notes taken by two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. [See 2008, p. 450C3] The covert CIA agent, Valerie Wilson (also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), had been outed in a July 2003 column written by conservative columnist Robert Novak, triggering a criminal investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had not charged anyone for leaking the information but had successfully prosecuted I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney’s then–chief of staff, for obstruction of justice and perjury. According to the newly released documents, Cheney had refused to answer questions about any conversations with thenPresident George W. Bush, citing executive privilege, and had told Fitzgerald that he had found out that Plame was in the CIA from then–CIA Director George Tenet. Cheney said he had probably spoken with then–White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then–national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Karl Rove, Bush’s top political adviser, about a July 2003 op-ed written by Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson 4th, in the New York Times. (The op-ed had undermined White House claims that the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium in Niger.) Cheney had told Fitzgerald that he did not remember telling Libby about Plame’s status as a CIA agent, or telling Libby to share information from a confidential intelligence estimate about the alleged uranium purchase attempt with then–Times reporter Judith Miller, as Libby had claimed. Cheney said he did not know who had leaked Plame’s identity to Novak, and did not know of any reporters who might have been informed about Plame prior to Novak’s column. CREW Oct. 30 issued a statement asserting that Cheney’s answers had demonstrated “an astonishing inability to recollect even simple facts.” n

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Terrorism News in Brief. Federal prosecutors Oct. 27

charged two men in U.S. District Court in New York City with providing material support to terrorists, among other charges, in connection with allegations that the men had given a handgun, ammunition and a truck to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant posing as a member of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah. One of the men, Indian citizen Patrick Nayyar, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He had been arrested Sept. 24 on gun charges that were later dropped. Prosecutors said the other man, British citizen Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, was likely at large in Britain, but Nayyar’s attorney said he believed Mulholland was in British custody. Both men faced 80 years in prison if convicted. [See p. 678B3] Immigration Judge Kenneth Hurewitz in Florida’s Miami-Dade County Aug. 21 815

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threw out a deportation case against former University of South Florida (USF) student Youssef Samir Megahed, saying

that the government had failed to prove that Megahed had engaged in terrorist activity or would likely do so in the future. Megahed was released the same day. Analysts had expected Megahed to be deported, citing the low level of proof needed for a deportation order in immigration courts. Megahed had been arrested in 2007, along with fellow USF student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, after explosive materials were found in their car after a traffic stop. Megahed, who was a citizen of Egypt and a legal U.S. permanent resident, had been acquitted April 3 on explosives charges and was arrested on related immigration charges on April 6. Mohamed had pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists in June 2008 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Dec. 18, 2008. [See 2008, p. 519D2] Jamal Yousef, a former member of the Syrian military, Aug. 19 was charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy in U.S. District Court in New York City for allegedly offering in July 2008 to trade more than 200 rifles and 2,500 grenades to undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Honduras who he thought belonged to Colombia’s leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group, in exchange for about a ton of cocaine. Yousef had been taken to New York that day from Honduras, where he had been in prison on unrelated charges; he pleaded not guilty to the conspiracy charge. Yousef faced a possible life sentence if convicted. [See 2008, p. 161A1] Tarek Mehanna, a high school math teacher, Oct. 21 was charged in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., with providing material support to terrorists. According to prosecutors, Mehanna had unsuccessfully conspired with two other men, one of whom became an FBI informant in 2006, to kill U.S. soldiers and two unidentified former members of the executive branch, carry out gun attacks against shopping malls and attend a terrorist train-

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was released on the Internet. The video, which featured Al Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, included footage of Zawahiri proclaiming the future defeat of the U.S. by Islamic militants and criticizing the leaders of predominantly Muslim nations that had normalized relations with Israel. The video also showed U.S. citizen Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam alAmriki, who had been charged in absentia 816

with treason in 2006 for joining Al Qaeda, as well as footage purporting to show a U.S. interrogator torturing an Afghan national by pushing his head into a water bucket. Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden had released an audio recording in connection with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks earlier in September. [See p. 621B2] U.S. citizen David Headley Oct. 27 was charged in U.S. District Court in Chicago with conspiracy to murder and maim individuals outside of the U.S., among other charges, in connection with allegations that he had plotted with co-conspirators to kill a cartoonist and an editor behind the 2005 publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s largest-circulation newspaper. Prosecutors also charged Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen, with providing material support to terrorism. (A second count of providing material support against Rana, 48, was added by prosecutors Oct. 28.) Headley, 49, had reportedly met with Al Qaeda–linked operatives and traveled to Denmark to do scouting for a potential attack. Headley faced life in prison if convicted; Rana faced up to 45 years in prison. The New York Times Nov. 22 reported that U.S. and Indian authorities were investigating whether the two men had been involved in a November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. [See 2008, p. 112C2] The New York Times reported July 25 that former President George W. Bush had considered deploying the military on U.S. soil in 2002 to arrest a group of terrorism suspects in Lackawanna, N.Y., a suburb of

Buffalo. Advisers to Bush, including then– Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that an October 2001 memorandum written by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) authorized the president to use troops within the U.S. without violating the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which barred the use of military troops or assets for domestic law enforcement activities. The plan had reportedly been opposed by FBI Director Robert Mueller 3rd and then– national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, among others. Bush eventually ordered the FBI to make the arrests. [See p. 130C1; 2002, p. 705D1] n

Medicine & Health News in Brief. Vice President Joseph Biden

Aug. 20 announced grants totaling about $1.2 billion intended to develop and implement electronic health record systems. The Obama administration said the electronic record systems were an integral element in reducing the cost of health care in the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the switch from paper to electronic records was “fundamental to reforming” the health care system. [See 2008, p. 217E2; 2001, p. 194D1] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Aug. 19 reported that life expectancy in the U.S. had hit an all-time high of 77.9 years in 2007, the last year for

which data was available. That was an increase from 77.7 years in 2006. The death rate in 2007 also fell to about 760 deaths

per 100,000 people, from about 776 the previous year. Heart disease and cancer together accounted for 48.5% of the 2,423,995 deaths recorded in the U.S. in 2007. [See 2008, p. 312D3] Researchers reported in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry that the use of antidepressants in the U.S. had doubled to 10.1% of the population between 1996 and 2005. The scientists estimated that 27 million people in the U.S. over the age of six were taking antidepressants in 2005, the last year for which data was available. During the same time period, the number of people taking antidepressants who also received psychotherapy declined to 19.9%, from 31.5%. The research was led by Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University in New York City. [See 2008, p. 89B1] n

Education Chicago Education Chief Found Dead.

Michael Scott, president of the Chicago Board of Education, Nov. 16 was found dead on the banks of the Chicago River, of a gunshot wound to the head. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office the same day concluded that Scott’s death was a suicide, but Chicago police had yet to make an official ruling on how Scott, 60, had died. A number of Scott’s relatives and supporters said they did not believe he had killed himself. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who had been a close associate of Scott’s, Nov. 17 criticized Medical Examiner Nancy Jones for drawing conclusions too quickly. Jones the same day held a press conference to defend her office’s findings. [See 1993, p. 512F2] Scott had recently been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating whether some students were improperly admitted to Chicago’s top public high schools. He had also been the focus of a Chicago Tribune investigation into whether he had improperly helped a group of ministers develop land near a proposed site for the 2016 Summer Olympics, for which Chicago had made an unsuccessful bid. n News in Brief. A report published Nov. 2 in the Chronicle of Higher Education said 23 presidents of private, nonprofit colleges and universities had earned more than $1 million for the 2007–08 fiscal year. Surveying the salaries of 419 private college and university presidents, the report, which used universities’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filings, found that the median salary was about $358,000. The highest-paid president in the survey was Shirley Ann Jackson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., with a salary of $1,598,247. Chronicle editor Jeffrey Selingo added that presidents and trustees were “worried about how the public perceives a high salary at a time when budgets are being slashed and tuition continues to increase.” [See 2008, p. 904B3] The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group, in a study released Oct. 29, said a record 39.6% of 18– FACTS ON FILE

24-year-olds were enrolled in college in October 2008. The previous record had

been 38.9%, in 2005. The gains were almost entirely found at two-year colleges. The study, which used information from the U.S. Census Bureau, also found that 9.3% of 18–24 year olds had dropped out of high school in 2008, down from 10.2% in 2007. [See p. 602C1] Richard Herman, the embattled chancellor of the University of Illinois’s UrbanaChampaign campus, Oct. 20 announced

his resignation, which university trustees accepted three days later. Herman would stay on as a special assistant to the interim president until June 2010, and also retained his position as a tenured mathematics professor. Herman had been implicated in a shadow admissions scheme at the university, under which students with political and other connections were improperly admitted. Officials at New Mexico State University (NMSU) Oct. 27 announced that Herman was a finalist for its presidency. However, NMSU officials Nov. 11 said that Herman had withdrawn his name from consideration for that post. [See p. 554D3] n

Aviation FAA Fines United Airlines, U.S. Airways.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Oct. 14 levied $9.2 million in fines against UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and U.S. Airways Group Inc. for various maintenance-related violations. U.S. Airways was fined $5.4 million for allegedly operating eight airplanes on 1,647 flights between October 2008 and January 2009 that had not been properly inspected or were otherwise in violation of FAA or U.S. Airways regulations. United was fined $3.8 million for operating more than 200 flights between December 2007 and April 2008 on a jet in which mechanics had capped openings in the plane’s engine with towels instead of the approved protective caps. [See p. 151G2] n

Other U.S. News Death of Census Worker Ruled Suicide.

Kentucky State Police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski Nov. 24 announced that the death of Bill Sparkman, a part-time employee of the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau who had been found bound and hanged in Kentucky’s rural Clay County in September, had officially been ruled a suicide after a two-month police investigation. The discovery of Sparkman’s naked corpse, which had the word “fed” written on his chest, had triggered speculation that his death was the result of growing antigovernment sentiment following the election of President Barack Obama. [See p. 722C1] Rudzinski said police believed that Sparkman had attempted, without the aid of anyone else, to make his suicide appear to be a murder. Sparkman had reportedly been unable to find full-time employment in recent years and had incurred large debts. Prior to his November 26, 2009

death, he had taken out two life insurance policies benefiting his son that would not pay out if he committed suicide. His son would also have been eligible for a payment of up to $10,000 from the government if Sparkman had been ruled to have died on the job. Rudzinski said investigators had determined that the writing on Sparkman’s chest had been written from bottom to top, which was consistent with someone writing on himself. She said that while Sparkman’s hands had been bound, the binding had been loose enough to allow him to hang himself and stuff a rag into his own mouth. Investigators had reportedly found that while Sparkman had died from asphyxiation related to hanging, he was close enough to the ground that he could have averted his death by standing up and releasing the pressure on his neck. A spokesman for the Census Bureau Nov. 24 said Sparkman’s death had been “a tragedy” that constituted “a loss for the Census Bureau family.” The spokesman also announced that Census operations in Clay County, which had been suspended after Sparkman’s death, would resume in December. n Parents Plead Guilty in Balloon Hoax.

Richard Heene and Mayumi Heene Nov. 13 pleaded guilty in Colorado’s Larimer County District Court to charges related to an Oct. 15 hoax in which a balloon thought to be carrying their son, six-year-old Falcon Heene, floated across Colorado. The hoax had received widespread television coverage and had led to rescue attempts that reportedly cost government agencies about $62,000. [See p. 745G2] As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, Richard Heene pleaded guilty to one felony count of attempting to influence a public servant, while Mayumi Heene pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of knowingly filing a false report with emergency services. Richard and Mayumi Heene faced up to 90 and 60 days in jail, respectively, at their sentencing, scheduled for Dec. 23. Richard Heene could be ordered to repay government agencies for the cost of rescue efforts related to the hoax. An attorney for Richard Heene Nov. 12 said the Heenes had decided to accept the deal in order to prevent Mayumi Heene, who was a Japanese citizen, from being charged with a felony; if convicted of a felony, Mayumi Heene could have been deported to Japan. Andrew Lewis, a Larimer County prosecutor, Nov. 13 denied that prosecutors had threatened Mayumi Heene with possible deportation in order to reach a plea agreement. The Associated Press (AP) Nov. 14 reported that police had discovered evidence that the Heene family had been involved in negotiations for a possible television reality-show with RDF USA, the U.S. branch of Britain’s RDF Media Group PLC. In March, the Heene family had appeared on ABC’s “Wife Swap” reality show, which was produced by RDF USA. The production company had reportedly canceled its discussions with the Heene family following the hoax. n

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Colombia U.S. Military Base Agreement Signed. William Brownfield, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, and three Colombian ministers Oct. 30 signed an agreement giving the U.S. military expanded access to seven Colombian bases over 10 years. The pact was signed in Bogota, Colombia’s capital, by Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez, Interior and Justice Minister Fabio Valencia Cossio and Defense Minister Gabriel Silva. Details of the agreement were not immediately released, but officials said it would not change the U.S. law limiting the number of U.S. military and defense contractors allowed in Colombia to 1,400. [See p. 589B2] The U.S. said it intended to use its increased access under the pact, negotiated over several months, to stage counterterrorism and antinarcotics operations in Latin America. However, the agreement had been criticized by several Latin American leaders, chief among them Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias, as a threat to the stability of the region. Chavez had previously said the agreement reflected that the U.S. was “mobilizing for war.” The Colombian foreign ministry Oct. 30 released a statement saying the pact was “based on the principles of total respect for sovereign equality, territorial integrity and not intervening in the internal affairs of other states.” Silva Oct. 27 said the agreement had “no geopolitical or strategic connotation, other than being more effective in the fight against drug trafficking.” n News in Brief. Three gunmen on motorbikes Oct. 7 attacked an eight-man escort transporting leftist guerrilla leader Gustavo Anibal Giraldo, freeing him. Giraldo, a leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group, was accused of ordering the 12-day kidnapping in 2003 of photographer Scott Dalton and reporter Alison Ruth Morris, both of whom had then worked for the Los Angeles Times. One guard was killed in the attack, which took place in the eastern city of Arauca. The ELN was the second largest guerrilla movement in Colombia, behind the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). [See 2006, p. 823C3] Felipe Munoz, head of Colombia’s intelligence service, the Administrative Security Department (DAS), Sept. 18 said the agency would be dismantled. DAS had been

plagued by a series of scandals in which its agents were accused of illegally spying on opposition politicians, judges and reporters. Several former agency officials were also being investigated for taking payments in exchange for providing information on union leaders and human rights activists to right-wing paramilitary groups intending to assassinate them. Munoz said the agency’s 6,000 employees would be transferred to other investigative bodies, and that DAS would be replaced by a new civilian agency. [See 2007, p. 111A2; 2006, p. 416B2] The U.S. State Department Sept. 11 said Colombia had improved its human rights 817

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record to a degree that allowed for the release of $32 million in withheld aid for the use of combating drug smugglers and gangs. The department said the country still needed to improve its investigation of claims that the military had been involved in extrajudicial killings and illegal surveillance activities. It added that there had been improvements in the government’s “efforts to increase the security of its people.” [See p. 180B1] n

Americas News in Brief Costa Rica: Former President Convicted.

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Former Costa Rican President Rafael Angel Calderon, 60, Oct. 5 was convicted of embezzling $520,000 in 2004 from a Finnish loan made to the country’s social security system, intended for public hospitals. Calderon, who had served as president from 1990 to 1994, was sentenced to a fiveyear prison term, and still faced separate corruption charges. Calderon maintained his innocence, and said he would appeal the ruling. [See 2004, p. 1088A2] n El Salvador: Mudslides Kill at Least 144.

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Heavy rains Nov. 7–9 drenched El Salvador, leading to floods and mudslides that had killed at least 144 people as of Nov. 10. Government officials said at least 1,800 homes had been damaged or destroyed, and at least 18 bridges and several roads had been washed away. The United Nations World Food Program said at least 10,000 people would require emergency food supplies as a result of the storms. President Mauricio Funes Nov. 9 declared a state of emergency, and called on legislators to approve $300 million in international loans to be used to fund reconstruction efforts. [See 2005, p. 702E2] n Haiti: Peacekeepers Killed in Plane Crash.

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A United Nations plane Oct. 9 crashed into a mountainside in Haiti, killing all 11 crew members and U.N. peacekeepers aboard. Those on board were all either Uruguayan or Jordanian. U.N. officials said rescue teams had had difficulty reaching the crash site, which was in a remote area east of Port-au-Prince, the capital. More than 9,000 U.N. personnel were stationed in Haiti as part of the peacekeeping force. [See 2007, p. 757E1] n Paraguay: President Fires Military Leaders.

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Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez Nov. 4 fired the commanders of the country’s army, navy and air force amid rumors of a possible coup d’etat attempt by the military. Lugo the following day swore in replacements for the positions. Lugo Nov. 6 also fired the commander of the armed forces, Rear Adm. Cibar Benitez Caceres, who was replaced by Brig. Gen. Juan Oscar Velazquez Castillo. Lugo Nov. 6 denied that the dismissals were related to a possible coup, instead saying he was creating opportunities for younger officers. Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, had been politically weakened after admitting in April to fathering a child out of wedlock. Opposition politicians were attempting to corral support among legislators to have him removed from office. [See p. 294A3] n 818

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Australia Government Apologizes to Abused Children.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull Nov. 16 issued an official apology on behalf of Australia’s government to former British child migrants and others who had suffered from widespread abuse and neglect in Australian child institutions and orphanages in the 20th century. The apology was issued at a ceremony in the Australian Parliament building in Canberra, Australia’s capital; the ceremony was attended by about 900 former child migrants as well as members of parliament and other government figures. Rudd in 2008 had apologized for Australia’s treatment of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders under previous administrations. [See 2008, p. 90B3] The Australian Senate had issued a report in 2001 on the treatment of the child migrants, also known as the “lost innocents,” and issued a second report in 2004 regarding the treatment of Australian-born children in child institutions, who were known as the “forgotten Australians.” The reports had recommended that the Australian government issue official apologies for the treatment of both groups. However, the government of then–Prime Minister John Howard refused to do so. Children Subjected to Neglect, Abuse—

The Australian government estimated that about 500,000 children had been held in institutions in Australia from 1930 until 1970. The Australian Senate’s 2004 investigation into their treatment found that physical and sexual abuse was widespread during that period, particularly in institutions associated with the Roman Catholic Church. The investigation also found that children were often deprived of an education, forced to do unpaid labor and were overseen by untrained and unsupervised staff. Between 1920 and 1967, the British government had assisted nongovernmental groups, including Christian organizations, in resettling about 150,000 British children in current and former British colonies, including South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The largest number of children were reportedly sent to Canada. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was expected to apologize for Britain’s role in the program in 2010. Between 7,000 and 10,000 of the “lost innocents” had been sent to Australia during this period. The program was intended to bolster the white populations of Australia and other former British possessions, and to cut British child welfare costs. The Senate investigation found that while many of the children had been orphans, some children who had been told that their parents were dead had actually been forcibly removed from single mothers, who were seen by the British government as unfit parents. Rudd Calls Story ‘Ugly’—Rudd said the Australian government looked “back in shame at how those in power were allowed

to abuse those who had none,” and proclaimed that “this is an ugly story, and its ugliness must be told without fear or favor if we are to confront fully the demons of our past.” He said the government would work to make sure that Australia’s current child institutions, which held about 30,000 children, did not repeat such treatment. The Australian government had previously ruled out paying financial settlements to those affected. However, the government had created a database intended to allow former child migrants and victims of child institutions to reconnect with family members; had funded an oral history project dedicated to recording the victims’ stories; and had made survivors eligible for special elder care to avoid renewed institutionalization in old-age homes, which was expected to be traumatic for many survivors. n

Philippines At Least 57 Killed in Political Attack. Dozens of people attempting to file nomination papers on behalf of a local political candidate Nov. 23 were kidnapped by about 100 armed men near the town of Ampatuan, in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao. Philippine security forces later that day found the bodies of 21 of the abductees in a mass grave located three miles (4.8 km) from Ampatuan. The perpetrators had reportedly beheaded or otherwise mutilated the bodies of some of the victims. Searchers Nov. 24 found another 25 bodies in the mass grave, and 11 more Nov. 25. [See 2007, p. 335G2] Election violence was common in the Philippines, particularly in local elections in the country’s restive southern region. Presidential, legislative and local elections were scheduled to be held on May 10, 2010, and the government had begun accepting nomination papers on Nov. 20; all nominating forms were due Dec. 1. Candidate’s Wife, Sisters Killed—The political candidate, Esmael Mangudadatu, who was the vice mayor of Maguindanao’s town of Buluan, Nov. 23 said he had sent his wife, Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, and two of his sisters to file his nomination papers for the governorship of Maguindanao because he feared being kidnapped or killed if he delivered them himself, and thought that women would be allowed to travel unharmed. He said that his wife and sisters were among those found dead. The Philippine Star newspaper Nov. 24 reported that Tiamzon-Mangudadatu was thought to have been raped before she was murdered. Mangudadatu accused Andal Ampatuan Jr., the son of current Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., of organizing the kidnappings and murders. Andal Ampatuan Jr., whose family had a political rivalry with the Mangudadatu family, was expected to run for his father’s governorship when his father retired at the end of his current term. The Philippine military Nov. 23 said a private militia loyal to the Ampatuan family was thought to have been involved in the kidnappings and subsequent murders. Security forces were reportedly FACTS ON FILE

searching for Andal Ampatuan Sr., as well as for members of the militia. Mangudadatu said that he had a list of 36 people who had been part of the group when it was abducted. However, another witness reportedly claimed that the number of people riding in the abducted convoy had been as high as 65. At Least 12 Journalists Killed—The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines Nov. 23 announced that at least 12 journalists who had been accompanying Tiamzon-Mangudadatu were among the 21 people whose bodies had been found that day. Paris-based media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders Nov. 23 issued a statement calling the killers “thugs working for corrupt politicians,” and said, “Never in the history of journalism have the news media suffered such a heavy loss of life in one day.” The International Press Institute Nov. 25 reported that as many as 34 journalists were thought to have accompanied the convoy when it was seized. Britain’s Guardian newspaper that day said at least 21 had been killed. Arroyo Vows to ‘Bring Justice’—Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Nov. 23 said, “No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law.” However, Arroyo had political ties with both the Ampatuan and Mangudadatu families and analysts suggested that the families’ rivalry might impede the investigation. Arroyo Nov. 24 declared a state of emergency for Maguindanao and neighboring Sultan Kudarat provinces, as well as nearby Cotabato City. Philippine security forces were authorized to set a curfew and conduct random searches of residences and other buildings as part of their investigation into the murders. A military spokesman Nov. 24 announced that additional troops and helicopters had been moved into the area, which already had a military presence because it was the location of a long-running Islamic insurgency. The Philippine National Police Nov. 24 suspended Abusana Maguid, the police’s provincial director for Maguindanao, and four other officers following reports that some of the police officers had been seen taking part in the Nov. 23 kidnappings. The officers were reportedly placed under restrictive custody in Maguindanao’s police headquarters. Suspect Voluntarily Surrenders—Andal Ampatuan Jr. Nov. 26 surrendered to authorities for questioning, but said he was innocent of any involvement in the massacre. Arroyo’s Lakas Party the previous day had expelled Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his sons, Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Zaldy Ampatuan, in connection with the killings. Philippine state-run media Nov. 26 reported that murder charges had been filed against Andal Ampatuan Jr. and five others, including three police officers. A military spokesman Nov. 26 said 20 people had been arrested in connection November 26, 2009

with the massacre. The Philippine military Nov. 25 had announced that it would disarm and disband the Ampatuan family’s 350-member private militia and had transferred 500 additional troops to the region. Arroyo Nov. 25 had declared the following day a national day of mourning for the victims of the massacre. n Clinton Visits, Pledges Continued Support.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Nov. 12–13 visited the Philippines for the first time as secretary of state. Clinton Nov. 12 met with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila, the capital, as well as other government officials. The same day, she announced that the U.S. government had pledged $5 million in aid to the Philippines for rebuilding after a series of typhoons and tropical storms that had caused widespread flooding and other damage. [See pp. 820B1, 704A1] Clinton said that the U.S. would continue to assist the Philippine government in its struggle against Islamic militants through the U.S. Army’s Joint Special Operations Task Force–Philippines counterinsurgency group, and said the U.S. was “willing to support them [the Philippine government] in any way that is appropriate.” (The New York Times had reported Aug. 21 that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had decided to keep the counterinsurgency group in the Philippines in order to protect recent security gains in the country.) The task force, which was made up of about 600 elite soldiers, provided training and surveillance assistance to Philippine security forces combating the Abu Sayyaf Islamic terrorist group and other insurgents. Abu Sayyaf, which was thought to have financial links to the Al Qaeda international terrorist network, had been significantly weakened in recent years. Clinton Nov. 13 called on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines’s largest Islamic militant group, to finalize a peace agreement with the Philippine government before Arroyo’s term as president ended in June 2010. Clinton said she believed Arroyo was “committed” to making a deal, and suggested that it was “easier to make these difficult decisions when you are on the way out of office, because you know what’s at stake and you are willing to brave the political fire.” The government and the MILF had agreed to a new cease-fire in July; a previous peace agreement had been blocked by the Philippine Supreme Court in 2008. U.S. Soldiers Killed by Explosive— An improvised land mine Sept. 29 killed two U.S. soldiers and a Philippine soldier near the town of Indanan on the southern Philippine island of Jolo, a former stronghold of Abu Sayyaf. The explosive also wounded two other Philippine soldiers. The U.S. soldiers were the first to be killed in the Philippines since 2002. They had reportedly been in the region to supervise the construction of two schools and the digging of artesian wells. [See 2002, p. 775C1] Army Captures Militant Base—The Philippine army Sept. 20 captured a fortified Abu Sayyaf base near Indanan following

six hours of fighting between hundreds of soldiers and an estimated 200 militants. The military had used air strikes to overwhelm the militants defending the base, which was surrounded by trenches, making it more difficult to storm. Following the army’s capture of the base, the bodies of two militants were found; however, the military said it believed that another 17 militants had been killed during the fighting. In addition, two members of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) Islamist terrorist group were reportedly sighted at the base. Abu Sayyaf was thought to have about 400 members, with most located on the islands of Basilan and Jolo. [See p. 559C1] About 100 Abu Sayyaf militants Sept. 21 ambushed a military convoy near Indanan, killing eight soldiers and wounding another nine. During the fighting, soldiers killed 15 militants, including Ustadz Muktar, a high-ranking Abu Sayyaf official. The attack reportedly followed the military’s ceremonial raising of the Philippine flag over the former militant base. Separately, the Philippine government Sept. 1 had announced that it had captured alleged Abu Sayyaf member Hajer Sailani, who had been accused of kidnapping dozens of people, including four U.S. citizens, at the behest of the organization. Philippine soldiers Nov. 3 raided an Abu Sayyaf camp on Basilan, killing five militants. Among those killed was Ridwan Musa, an Abu Sayyaf official linked to multiple kidnappings in the Philippines. Educator Beheaded By Militants— Abu Sayyaf militants Nov. 8 beheaded a Jolo school principal who had been held hostage since late October. The principal, Gabriel Canizares, was reportedly killed after his family failed to come up with the two million pesos ($43,000) demanded as ransom. His severed head was later found at a gas station on Jolo. Philippine Education Secretary Jesli Lapus Nov. 9 said that Canizares was the seventh teacher kidnapped in 2009; the others had been released unharmed. Arroyo Nov. 9 ordered the military to step up its efforts to combat Abu Sayyaf in response to the murder. A spokeswoman for Arroyo said, “We shall make them pay for the enormity of this savagery.” Philippine soldiers Nov. 20 killed Abu Sayyaf official Abdulla Ajijul, also known as Abu Termije, during a military operation in the Basilan town of Al Barka. Termije had been linked to multiple kidnappings and bombings. Agence France-Presse (AFP) Nov. 20 reported that 48 soldiers and at least 70 members of Abu Sayyaf had been killed during clashes in 2009. Communist Raid Triggers Battle—Militants belonging to the New People’s Army wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Nov. 11 attacked a logging business in Mindanao’s Surigao del Sur province, killing four people and setting the business ablaze. Philippine security forces responded to the attack, killing one communist militant and suffering losses of eight soldiers after they were 819

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ambushed. The Philippine government said another 10 militants were thought to have been killed in the fighting. [See p. 528E2] The New People’s Army reportedly had about 5,000 armed members, down from about 25,000 in the 1980s, and had been at war with the Philippine government for more than 40 years. The CPP had been scheduled to hold peace talks with the Philippine government in Norway on Aug. 28, but the negotiations had been indefinitely postponed after the CPP refused to take part unless criminal charges were dropped against two of its leaders. n Irish Priest Kidnapped, Released. A group of unidentified gunmen Oct. 11 kidnapped an Irish Roman Catholic priest from his residence in Pagadian City on the Philippine island of Mindanao. The priest, Father Michael Sinnott, 79, was a member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, and had lived and worked in the Philippines since 1976. Sinnott had undergone heart bypass surgery in 2005 and was thought to be in relatively fragile health. Sinnott Nov. 12 was released by his kidnappers, thought to be rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country’s largest separatist group. Sinnott was transported by boat to Mindanao’s Zamboanga City, after widespread rumors of his death in captivity. [See pp. 819D2, 528A1] The Philippine government had reportedly suspected both the Abu Sayyaf Islamic militant group and the MILF of possible involvement in the kidnapping. Abu Sayyaf had a history of carrying out kidnappings in the southern region of the Philippines to fund its activities. Mohaqher Iqbal, a high-ranking MILF official, Nov. 12 said that his organization had “exerted moral influence on the kidnappers to get the priest out.” Both the Irish and Philippine governments denied paying the ransom set by the kidnappers, communicated in a video of Sinnott released by his kidnappers and broadcast Oct. 31. In the video, Sinnott held a local newspaper dated Oct. 22, and said his kidnappers were demanding a ransom of about 94 million Philippine pesos ($2 million). Patrick O’Donoghue, the head of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, Oct. 31 said the group would not pay the requested ransom, citing a long-standing policy that forbade it from doing so. Sinnott and his kidnappers Oct. 12–13 had been sighted near territory controlled by the MILF in the Philippine province of Lanao del Sur, about 70 km (43.5 miles) from Pagadian City. The Philippine military dispatched soldiers and four Navy gunships to surround the kidnappers, but did not attempt a rescue because of concerns about the risk to Sinnott. After his release, Sinnott told reporters that he was not injured and that he had not been mistreated by his captors. He said his kidnappers had told him that they had resorted to abductions in order to fund their continued violent struggle against the Philippine government. n 820

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Azerbaijan Bloggers Convicted of Hooliganism. A court in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, Nov. 11 convicted bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli of hooliganism, and sentenced them to two and two and a half years in jail, respectively. The bloggers, who were known for producing Internet videos in which they lampooned the government, had been arrested for allegedly starting a fight in July at a Baku restaurant. Hajizada and Milli claimed that state authorities had engineered the fight, and their trial was intended to punish them for their criticism of President Ilham Aliyev’s government. The prosecution denied those claims. Both men planned to appeal their convictions [See p. 607A1] The U.S. State Department condemned the trial for its “non-transparent investigation, closed court hearings,” and “disproportionate legal charges.” n

Belgium Leterme Tapped to Return as Prime Minister.

Belgian King Albert II Nov. 25 nominated Yves Leterme as prime minister, giving Leterme a second chance in the post after his first one, in 2008, was marred by political instability. Leterme was sworn in that day, replacing Herman Van Rompuy, who had been chosen the previous week as the first full-time president of the European Union. [See p. 802G2; 2008, p. 982D2] Leterme had resigned as prime minister in December 2008 over allegations that his government had improperly interfered with a court case over the sale of distressed bank Fortis NV to BNP Paribas of France. He was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing, and rejoined the government as foreign minister in July. Leterme, 49, led the center-right Flemish Christian Democrats. His first government had been hobbled by divisions between Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloon regions. Van Rompuy had managed to smooth over those tensions during his 11 months in office, but largely avoided the fundamental issue of whether the federal government should give more powers to the regional governments. n

Bosnia and Herzegovina Serb Ex-General Gets 30 Years for Genocide.

Judges at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosnian state war crimes court, Oct. 16 sentenced former Bosnian Serb Gen. Milorad Trbic, 51, to 30 years in prison on genocide charges. The court found that Trbic in 1995 had participated in “a joint criminal enterprise…to capture, detain, summarily execute and bury all ablebodied” Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, “with genocidal intent.” As many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, were believed to have died in the Srebrenica massacre. The court

said Trbic had also helped to conceal graves dug for Srebrenica victims. He was acquitted on three other genocide charges due to lack of evidence. [See pp. 822B3, D2, 767E2] Trbic had fled Bosnia for the U.S. after the Bosnian civil war ended in 1995. He was detained there for immigration violations and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 2005. The ICTY had indicted him on genocide charges, and transferred him to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2007. That court had been set up in 2005 to take over lower-profile cases from the ICTY. Separately, Bosnian police Oct. 28 arrested three former Bosnian Serb policemen suspected of participating in the Srebrenica massacre. Other News—In related developments: o A court in Banja Luka, the capital of the Bosnian Serb republic, one of Bosnia’s two component states, Nov. 5 overturned a previous court’s ruling that $50 million in compensation be granted to the city’s Muslim community. Banja Luka’s Muslims had sought reparations from the city for damage to 16 historic mosques incurred during the civil war. Local Muslim leaders said they would appeal the ruling. [See 2001, p. 357A3] o Police Nov. 4 said Nihad Bojadzic, 47, a former deputy commander of a Bosnian Muslim army unit, had been arrested in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on suspicion of murdering more than 20 Bosnian Croats in the southern Bosnian village of Trusina in 1993. Prosecutors said some “19 civilians and three soldiers of the Croatian Defense Council were killed, though they surrendered earlier.” Bojadzic would be turned over to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Four other Bosniaks were currently in detention on related charges. [See 2008, p. 682F2] o The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina Oct. 30 sentenced former Bosnian Serb army commander Predrag Kujundzic, 48, to 22 years in prison for crimes including “committing and coercing sexual slavery, rape, severe deprivation of physical liberty, persecution of non-Serb civilians and other inhumane acts,” such as using Bosniak and Croat civilians as human shields during combat. Kujundzic had headed an army unit known as “Predo’s Wolves,” which had operated around the northern Bosnian town of Doboj during the civil war. n

Great Britain Iraq War Inquiry Opens. A governmentappointed commission Nov. 24 opened its inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq war, holding its first hearing in London. In an opening statement, the panel’s chairman, Sir John Chilcot, said, “We want to establish a clear understanding of the various core elements of the [United Kingdom]’s involvement in Iraq, and how these developed over time.” However, he cautioned, FACTS ON FILE

“We are not a court,” adding, “No one is on trial.” [See p. 449C1] Britain had sent 45,000 troops to Iraq to join the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Britain withdrew the last of its soldiers from Iraq in July; 179 British troops had died in the war. Chilcot had said he would hold most hearings in public, but would hold closed sessions when national security required secrecy. He planned to deliver his report by the end of 2010. The inquiry was to hear testimony from leading British political, diplomatic, intelligence and military officials involved in the decision to go to war. Chief among them was former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was expected to testify in early 2010. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Blair in 2007, could also testify. Blair and then–U.S. President George W. Bush had justified invading Iraq by claiming that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, but no such weapons were found after the invasion. Sir Peter Ricketts, chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee from 2000 to 2001, Nov. 24 testified that British officials in the period leading up to the war had believed Hussein had a “continuing intention” to acquire weapons of mass destruction. However, he said that “it was not our policy that we were seeking the removal of Saddam Hussein,” although there were mounting calls for such regime change among U.S. officials. Ricketts and Sir William Patey, former head of the Middle East department in the British Foreign Office, both said the prewar policy of containing Iraq had been failing. The containment policy, in place since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, relied on sanctions, United Nations weapons inspections and enforcement of “no-fly zones” by U.S. and allied air power to prevent renewed Iraqi aggression. Paper Publishes Leaked Documents—

The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, Nov. 21 began publishing on its Web site a series of leaked documents showing that senior military officials had complained that poor preparation for the war resulted in British troops being inadequately equipped. According to the documents, war planning had begun in early 2002, contradicting Blair’s public statements that year that no such planning was yet underway. The Telegraph Nov. 23 published leaked transcripts of interviews in which British military officers said they had ignored orders from U.S. commanders to begin “offensive operations” against Shiite Muslim militias in southern Iraq in 2004. The British officers said they had instead pursued a strategy of negotiation with the militias, led by radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr. [See 2005, p. 639G1] n Government Sets Pre-Election Agenda.

The government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his center-left Labour Party Nov. 18 announced its legislative agenda November 26, 2009

for the run-up to parliamentary elections that were due by June 2010 at the latest. Queen Elizabeth II read the government’s program before a joint session of Parliament, in an annual tradition known as the queen’s speech. [See p. 685B3] The proposed legislation included new regulations for the financial industry, which would allow the British regulatory agency, the Financial Services Authority, to block the payment of bonuses that it deemed excessively large. [See p. 742A1] Another bill would require the government to cut the budget deficit in half by 2014. The British deficit was projected to amount to between 12% and 14% of gross domestic product in 2010, the largest in any developed nation. Other proposals would guarantee home care for the elderly, decree the elimination of child poverty by 2020 and require equality in private sector pay for men and women. David Cameron, leader of the largest opposition party, the Conservative (Tory) Party, derided the government’s agenda as a “political exercise.” He also criticized it for omitting any proposals to impose new ethics rules for Parliament, in response to a scandal earlier in the year over improper claims filed by many members for reimbursement of expenses. [See p. 727G2] Labour trailed well behind the Tories in most public opinion polls. n

Italy Pakistanis Arrested for Mumbai Attack Aid.

Police in the city of Brescia in northern Italy Nov. 21 arrested a Pakistani father and son accused of playing a role in financing November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, which left more than 170 people dead, including one Italian. The suspects, who ran a Western Union money transfer agency, were identified as Muhammad Yaqub Janjua, 60, and Aamer Yaqub Janjua, 31. They faced charges of aiding and abetting international terrorism and improper financial activity. [See p. 499A3] The two men had allegedly used the stolen identity of another Pakistani man to wire $229, which was used to activate Internet telephone accounts that were used by the 10 gunmen who carried out the Mumbai attacks. The sole surviving gunman, a Pakistani, had pleaded guilty in July. Italian police had opened an investigation into the two men in Brescia after being notified of the transfer by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Indian authorities. Police in Brescia Nov. 21 arrested two other Pakistani men in connection with fraudulent transfers using the same stolen identity. They were accused of money laundering and aiding and abetting illegal immigration, but were not linked to the Mumbai attacks. Police issued a warrant for another Pakistani man who evaded arrest. The identity-theft victim lived in Spain and had never been to Italy. n

Romania Presidential Election Goes to Runoff. Un-

official results for Romania’s Nov. 22 presidential election showed that President Traian Basescu and Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Mircea Geoana, who finished first and second, respectively, would advance to a runoff election set for Dec. 6. Neither candidate had won an absolute majority of votes, which was required to avoid a runoff between the top two candidates. Crin Antonescu of the National Liberal Party (PNL), who finished third, Nov. 24 struck a coalition deal with Geoana, which increased Geoana’s odds of winning the runoff. [See p. 705F2] Romania had been run by a caretaker government since acting Prime Minister and Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) leader Emil Boc’s minority government lost a noconfidence vote in October. (Basescu, an independent figure, was linked with the PDL.) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union Nov. 6 announced that they would delay installments of a loan package worth as much as $30 billion until a new government was in place. The IMF expected Romania’s gross domestic product (GDP) to shrink by as much as 8% in 2009. [See p. 207B3] The president of Romania had the power to choose the prime minister. If the president’s candidate was approved by the parliament, a new government could be assembled. In a separate initiative, Romanians voted overwhelmingly to abolish the Senate, the upper house of parliament, and to reduce the number of seats in the lower house to 300, from 471. Basescu had proposed the changes. n

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Magnitsky, a lawyer for the London-based investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, Nov. 16 died in jail in Moscow, Russia’s capital, while awaiting trial for tax evasion. He had been arrested and jailed in 2008, about a month after he gave testimony that implicated Russian officials in the theft of investments owned by Hermitage. Magnitsky had claimed that he had developed a stomach ailment in detention, but was denied adequate treatment despite filing numerous court complaints. Also, Magnitsky’s colleagues claimed that while he was in jail, officials had attempted to coerce him to fabricate testimony against Hermitage. [See below, p. 328B3; 2006, p. 352C2] Dmitri Kharitonov, Magnitsky’s lawyer, Nov. 18 claimed that Magnitsky had died as a result of negligence by prison authorities. He was buried in a Moscow cemetery Nov. 20. Kharitonov also claimed, according to a Nov. 21 report in Britain’s Financial Times, that prosecutors had refused to allow an indpendent postmortem investigation of Magnitsky’s body. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev Nov. 24 ordered an investigation into Magnitsky’s death. 821

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Magnitsky, 37, had represented Hermitage’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO), William Browder, after the Russian government in 2005 revoked Browder’s visa on the grounds that he was a threat to national security. Russia in 2007 opened a tax evasion investigation into both Hermitage and Browder, who was well known for his stance against poor corporate governance among Russian businesses. The investigation was launched around the same time Browder began campaigning to have his Russian visa restored. Browder denied the charges, and claimed that Russian interior ministry officials in 2007 had raided Hermitage’s offices and confiscated documents that allowed them to take control of the company’s subsidiaries. Browder alleged that the officials then created almost $1 billion in liabilities, allowing the subsidiaries to fraudulently claim a $230 million tax refund. The interior ministry denied the changes. A U.S. court had ruled that Browder could subpoena several U.S. banks’ records in order to track the $230 million, which he claimed was laundered through New York City, it was reported July 31. n Priest Killed in Moscow Church. Daniil Sysoyev, 35, a Russian Orthodox priest known for his efforts to draw immigrants from former Soviet countries and young people to the church, Nov. 19 was shot dead by an unidentified attacker at St. Thomas the Apostle church in Moscow, Russia’s capital. The church’s choirmaster was also injured in the attack. Anatoly Bagmet, a spokesman for the prosecutor general’s office, according to Nov. 20 reports said investigators were “inclined to think that the main motive of the crime was hatred on the basis of religion.” [See pp. 822F1, 766D3] Sysoyev was known for criticism of Islam, and had reportedly warned Orthodox women against marrying Muslim men. The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda Nov. 20 said Sysoyev, in a recent interview, had said his church had “christened 80 Muslims, among them Tatars, Uzbeks, Chechens and Dagestanis.” The paper said he also claimed to have received 14 death threats in recent years. n Antifascist Activist Shot Dead In Moscow.

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Ivan Khutorskoi, 26, a prominent figure in antifascist circles, Nov. 16 was shot dead near his apartment in Moscow, Russia’s capital. The prosecutor general’s office Nov. 17 said Khutorskoi might have been killed because he was “an active participant in the antifascist movement.” Violent clashes between antifascists—mostly young people who opposed the growth of ultranationalism and xenophobia in Russia—and far-right wing groups had increased in recent months. [See pp. 822C1, 667D3] The day after Khutorskoi’s death, dozens of masked antifascists hurled stones, trash and steel rods at the Moscow offices of Young Russia, a pro-government youth group known for staging street rallies and pranks on the political opposition. Antifascists claimed that Young Russia was linked with the radical ultranationalist group 822

Russky Obraz, which they accused of organizing Khutorskoi’s murder. The Associated Press Nov. 18 reported that Maxim Mishchenko, Young Russia’s leader and a member of parliament, had denied the claims. According to the same report, Russky Obraz said it had collaborated with Mishchenko on some projects, but was not a government-supervised entity. Activists from prominent Russian rights groups, including the Moscow-Helsinki Group, Memorial and For Human Rights, Nov. 19 publicly appealed to antifascists to renounce violence. They claimed that violent acts against ultranationalists gave police “a pretext for new repressions.” Khutorskoi had provided security for antifascist gatherings, as well as for human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was slain in January. (Khutorskoi was not providing security for Markelov the day he was shot.) Khutorskoi had reportedly survived three previous assassination attempts. [See p. 36E2] n

Serbia Orthodox Patriarch Dies. Patriarch Pavle, the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church since 1990, Nov. 15 died of cardiac arrest at 95. Pavle had spoken out against violence during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, but critics alleged that he had failed to rein in nationalist bishops who had supported Serb paramilitary activity against Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats. Some analysts expected the anti-Western, nationalist Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic to replace Pavle. Amfilohije had served as acting head of the Serbian Orthodox Church since Pavle had fallen ill in 2007. [See p. 824F3; 2004, p. 884F3] n

Other European News Six Serbs Charged With Roma Murders.

Serbian prosecutors Nov. 6 announced that six former Serb fighters had been charged with the July 1992 murders of at least 23 Roma, or gypsy, civilians in eastern Bosnia during the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war. Five suspects had been arrested Nov. 5, and the other suspect was already serving a prison sentence for war crimes. Prosecutors said the victims had been tortured and sexually abused before they were killed. [See pp. 822B3, 820F2, 767E2; 2006, p. 789A2] n Eight Charged in Croat Publisher’s Murder.

Croatian and Serbian prosecutors Oct. 26 announced that eight men had been charged with the 2008 bombing murders of Croatian newspaper publisher Ivo Pukanic and his marketing director, Niko Franjic. Serbian prosecutors accused Serb businessman Sreten Jocic, who had already been charged with involvement in two other murders, of masterminding the attack. Two of Jocic’s associates were also charged, including Zeljko Milovanovic, a former member of Serbia’s so-called Red Berets special police force, which had been linked to the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Milovanovic was accused of detonating the

bomb that killed Pukanic and Franjic. [See 2008, p. 796D2; 2007, p. 352C3] Croatian prosecutors also indicted Milovanovic and five other people. Of the eight charged of involvement with the murders, seven were currently in detention, and one suspect, Bojan Guduric, was at large. Serbian prosecutors alleged that the suspects had killed Pukanic in exchange for a reward of “at least 1.5 million euros” ($2.2 million). Croatian prosecutors said Pukinic’s murder had been organized by criminal groups who wanted to silence him. He had edited the weekly newspaper Nacional, which was known for investigating organized crime in Croatia. n Croatia Charges Seven With War Crimes.

Croatian prosecutors Oct. 19 announced that seven people had been charged with committing war crimes in neighboring Bosnia in September 1995. The suspects, reportedly former members of the Croatian army, had allegedly detained and later shot dead as many as six Serb prisoners during a joint operation with Bosnian Muslim forces against Bosnian Serb forces. Croatia was currently under pressure from the European Union to prosecute war criminals. It was expected to join the EU in 2010. [See pp. 822D2, 820F2, 377D3] n

European Business News Saab Buyer Group Ends Talks With GM. A consortium led by Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg Group AB Nov. 24 said it had withdrawn from an agreement to buy Swedish brand Saab Automobile AB from General Motors Co. (GM) of the U.S. Earlier in November, GM had canceled its planned sale of its other European units, Adam Opel, based in Germany, and Vauxhall, based in Britain, to a consortium led by Canadian car parts supplier Magna International Inc. and a pair of Russian companies. [See pp. 767D1, 417A2] Koenigsegg issued a statement blaming its decision on “delays in closing this acquisition” that had “resulted in risks and uncertainties.” GM said it had “met all its timing obligations under the terms of the agreement,” and was “obviously very disappointed” at the announcement. The deal, reached in June, had depended on loan guarantees from the Swedish government. After the government declined to provide all the requested funding, Koenigsegg Sept. 9 had said that a Chinese company, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., had agreed to invest 275 million euros ($400 million) to become a minority shareholder. The Swedish government Nov. 24 said it had no intention of rescuing Saab, which had 4,000 workers. n

SOUTH ASIA

India Leaked Report on 1992 Riots Sparks Outcry.

The Indian Express newspaper Nov. 23 reported that a commission investigating the 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque had FACTS ON FILE

found that senior members of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had “meticulously planned” the event, which sparked riots that killed more than 1,000 people, most of whom were Muslims. The allegation prompted an outcry from the BJP, which accused the governing coalition, led by the Congress party, of selectively leaking parts of the commission’s report with the aim of discrediting the BJP. [See 2003, p. 837A3; 1992, p. 927A1] The mosque had been located in the city of Ayodhya, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. It had been destroyed by Hindu radicals who believed that it stood on the site of a Hindu temple that had marked the birthplace of the god Ram, and had been razed by Muslims in the 16th century. The ensuing riots helped raise the national profile of the Hindu-nationalist BJP, which at the time was a smaller, regional party, but later went on to lead the country. However, BJP officials had long denied any active involvement in the mosque’s destruction. The commission was created shortly after the mosque was destroyed, and was known as the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission of Inquiry, named after the jurist in charge of the investigation. The commission June 30 had finally submitted its findings to the government, but the contents had been kept secret until the Indian Express’s report. The findings had been scheduled to be presented to the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, on Dec. 22, but Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented them a day after they were leaked. According to the Indian Express, the commission had found that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, the current opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, had helped plan and incite the mosque’s destruction, contradicting claims that the radicals had been part of a grassroots phenomenon. The commission also reportedly said Kalyan Singh, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, had failed to take steps to stop the radicals from attacking the mosque. Those steps included asking the central government to intervene, an omission that absolved the Congress-led government at the time of wrongdoing or negligence, the commission reportedly said. Advani denied the report’s claims, saying, “It is completely untrue that it was a meticulously planned conspiracy. There was no plan, no conspiracy.” He added that he had been “distressed by the demolition of the structure,” but that the goal of making a “magnificent temple” on the site continued to be the “objective of my life.” Kalyan Singh Nov. 24 was more defiant, saying the day the mosque fell was a “day of national pride.” The commission had reportedly found that a total of 68 people bore responsibility for the mosque’s destruction, but did not recommend any punishment for them. Law enforcement authorities would be responsible for deciding whether to bring charges against any of the BJP leaders. n November 26, 2009

Sri Lanka Tamil Refugees Allowed to Leave Camps.

The Sri Lankan government Nov. 21 announced that it would release the remaining 136,000 ethnic Tamil refugees who had been living in temporary camps since May, when the army defeated an insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group. The announcement was made by Basil Rajapaksa, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and one of the president’s senior advisers. Basil Rajapaksa said the refugees would be allowed to leave on Dec. 1, and that the camps would be shut down by Jan. 31, 2010. [See p. 769D2] The refugees were part of a larger group of 300,000 that had been forced to live in the camps after they fled the fighting in northern Sri Lanka during the final months of the war. The government had come under intense international pressure to free the refugees, and had increased the pace of releases in recent months. John Holmes, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Nov. 19 had urged the government to speed up their release during a visit to Sri Lanka. Analysts said domestic considerations could also have played a role in Rajapaksa’s decision to free the refugees. Gen. Sarath Fonseka—the country’s army chief and a principal architect of the strategy to defeat the LTTE—Nov. 12 announced his resignation, in what was seen as a possible first step toward challenging Rajapaksa in a presidential election. In a letter to troops explaining his decision, Fonseka said he would work to “protect democratic freedoms which we are rapidly losing,” which was thought to be a reference to Rajapaksa’s dubious record on human rights and civil liberties. Rajapaksa Nov. 23 announced that he would call for a snap election to be held as early as January 2010. [See p. 769F3] n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Baseball Mauer, Pujols Win MVP Awards. Minnesota

Twins catcher Joe Mauer Nov. 23 won the American League (A.L.) most valuable player (MVP) award. St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols Nov. 24 was named the MVP of the National League (N.L.) for the second straight year and the third time in his career. [See 2008, p. 857G2] Mauer, 26, became just the third catcher in 34 years to win the A.L. MVP award, after Ivan Rodriguez in 1999 and Thurman Munson in 1976. In the 2009 season, Mauer led the A.L. in batting average (.365—an MLB record for a catcher), on-base percentage (.444) and slugging percentage (.587), hitting 28 home runs with 96 runs batted in (RBI) after sitting out April with a back injury. He led the Twins to the playoffs despite their loss of first baseman Justin Morneau, the 2006 A.L. MVP, with a seasonending back injury. [See p. 690D2; 1999, p. 882A2; 1976, p. 952C1]

Mauer claimed 27 of 28 first-place votes and 387 total points in the MVP balloting, conducted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America at the end of the regular season. New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira was second, with 225 points, and Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was third, with 193 points. Pujols, 29, was the unanimous selection for N.L. MVP, garnering all 32 first-place votes and 448 total points. Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez came in second, with 233 points, and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard was third, with 217 points. In the 2009 season, Pujols batted .327 with 135 RBI, and led the N.L. in on-base percentage (.443), slugging percentage (.658), home runs (47) and runs (124), leading the Cardinals to a division title. [See p. 690D3–E3]

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Greinke, Lincecum Claim Cy Youngs—

Kansas City Royals right-handed starting pitcher Zack Greinke Nov. 17 won the A.L. Cy Young Award. Greinke’s win was notable in that he won just 16 games in 2009, tied for the lowest number of wins for a Cy Young winner in a non-strike year with Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks (2006) and Rick Sutcliffe of the Chicago Cubs (1984), both in the N.L. No previous A.L. Cy Young winner had won fewer than 18 games in a nonstrike season. Greinke, pitching for a last-place team, excelled in other pitching categories. He posted a 2.16 earned run average (ERA), the lowest in the A.L. since 2000. He also had a league-leading 2.33 in a relatively new statistic called fielding independent pitching (FIP) average, which measured a pitcher’s performance regardless of the fielding quality of the team’s other position players. [See p. 690F2] In the Cy Young voting by the baseball writers, Greinke earned 25 of 28 first-place votes and 134 total points. Seattle Mariners starter Felix Hernandez was second, with 80 points, and Detroit Tigers starter Justin Verlander was third, with 14 points. San Francisco Giants right-handed starter Tim Lincecum, 25, Nov. 19 won the N.L. Cy Young for the second straight year. He claimed the award despite not earning the most first-place votes. Lincecum garnered 11 first-place votes, 12 second-place votes and nine third-place votes, for a total of 100 points. The secondplace finisher, Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter, got nine first-place votes and 94 total points, while his teammate, starter Adam Wainwright, earned the most firstplace votes—12—but only 90 total points. It was just the second time since that voting format was introduced in 1960 that the Cy Young winner did not receive the most first-place votes; the other instance was Tom Glavine’s 1998 win. Lincecum in the 2009 season had an even lower win total than Greinke, posting a record of 15–7. But he had a 2.48 ERA, second-best in the N.L., after Carpenter, and led the league in strikeouts (261). He also had a low 1.047 walks-plus-hits per inning (WHIP) average, another relatively new statistic. [See p. 690F3] 823

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Observers said the Cy Young voting reflected a trend of baseball writers placing greater importance on a wider variety of statistics that they felt better reflected a pitcher’s performance, rather than traditional measures such as win total. Scioscia, Tracy Are Top Managers—

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Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels Nov. 18 was named the A.L. manager of the year by the baseball writers. Scioscia, who won the award for the second time, led the Angels to a record of 97–65 and the A.L. Championship Series (which they lost to the Yankees), overcoming the earlyseason death of pitcher Nick Adenhart in a car crash. Scioscia garnered 15 first-place votes and 106 total points. Ron Gardenhire of the Twins was second, with 72 points, and Joe Girardi of the World Series–champion Yankees was third, with 34 points. [See pp. 751E3, 690E1, 277F3] Jim Tracy of the Colorado Rockies that day won the N.L. manager of the year award. Tracy led the Rockies to a 92–70 record and the N.L. wild-card berth, taking over after Clint Hurdle was fired in May. He earned 29 first-place votes and 151 total points. Tony La Russa of the Cardinals was second, with 55 points, and Joe Torre of the Los Angeles Dodgers was third, with 33 points. [See pp. 752D2, 690G1, 484D2] Coghlan, Bailey Earn Rookie Awards—

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Oakland Athletics closer Andrew Bailey, 25, Nov. 16 claimed the A.L. rookie of the year award. Bailey posted a 1.84 ERA, second-best in the A.L. among pitchers with at least 55 innings, and ranked first in opponents’ batting average (.167). He also converted 26 of 30 save chances after becoming the A’s closer in May. In the voting by the baseball writers, Bailey claimed 13 firstplace votes and 88 total points. Texas Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus was second, with 65 points, and Detroit Tigers starter Rick Porcello was third, with 64 points. Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan, 24, that day won the N.L. rookie of the year award. Called up to the majors in May, Coghlan led all N.L. rookies in batting average (.321), runs (84), hits (162) and on-base percentage (.390). Coghlan received 17 first-place votes and 105 total points. He was followed by Phillies starter J.A. Happ, with 94 points, and Atlanta Braves starter Tommy Hanson, who had 37 points. [See p. 690D3] n

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Particle Accelerator Restarted. Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Nov. 20 announced that they had restarted the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, which was located near Meyrin, Switzerland, on the Swiss-French border. The collider had first been activated in September 2008 to much acclaim after 15 years of construction costing $9 billion, but had been shut down a week later after a series of accidents. [See p. 704A2] CERN scientists Nov. 23 said they had caused the first particle collisions in the 824

accelerator, which they had previously thought would not occur until early December. They propelled beams of protons in opposite directions around the collider’s 17-mile (27-km) underground circular track to produce the collisions. The collisions, which were a test of the collider’s ability to synchronize the beams, occurred at the so-called injection energy of 450 billion electron volts. That was much less than the proton energies of 3.5 trillion electron volts that the scientists hoped to achieve in early 2010, when they were scheduled to begin experiments that would seek to recreate conditions immediately after the Big Bang. When it achieved that energy, the Large Hadron Collider would officially become the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, overtaking the Tevatron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., which energized protons to 900 billion electron volts. However, its power would still be just half the Large Hadron Collider’s originally planned capability of seven billion electron volts. Scientists said it might take years of further repairs before it could realize that potential. n

Space Crash Experiment Confirms Water on Moon.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Nov. 13 said that a rocket deliberately crashed into a crater of the moon in October had yielded evidence confirming the existence of water on the moon. NASA in June had launched the rocket carrying two probes, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS). The rocket was then crashed into the Cabeus crater near the lunar south pole, which was extremely cold and perpetually shrouded in darkness. Scientists had suspected there was water present in the soil in such areas, unlike the rest of the extremely dry lunar surface. The mission’s lead scientist, Anthony Colaprete, said, “We didn’t find just a little bit, we found a significant amount” of water. [See p. 697G2] The light traveling from the plume of debris thrown up by the impact was analyzed by LCROSS’s near-infrared spectrometer, which detected the absorption at certain wavelengths associated with water molecules. Also detected was hydroxyl, which was composed of one hydrogen and one oxygen atom, as opposed to water’s two hydrogen atoms and single oxygen atom, and was thought to have been formed on the moon by the breaking up of water molecules. Colaprete said that “no other reasonable combination of other compounds” could have produced the spectrographic readings. The collision had produced less of a visible plume than anticipated, but Colaprete and other scientists said it had been enough to provide the conclusive evidence. They estimated that the plume contained about 25 gallons (95 liters) of water. The findings suggested the possibility that the water could be extracted for use by humans stationed on the moon. It could also be split into its component hydrogen

and oxygen atoms, for a settlement’s oxygen supplies, or to produce rocket fuel. Scientists also said that further research into how the water had come to be on the moon would shed light on the formation of the solar system. n

People Daytime television talk show host Oprah Winfrey Nov. 20 announced on a live broad-

cast that “The Oprah Winfrey Show” would end its run on Sept. 9, 2011, once its 25th season wrapped up. Winfrey, whose syndicated, Chicago-based program had long been the most popular show on daytime TV, indicated that she intended to devote her energies to the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), a cable TV network jointly created by her and Discovery Communications LLC and due to be launched in 2010. Winfrey, 55, had been an early supporter of the successful 2008 presidential candidacy of then– U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D, Ill.) and had achieved major success on a number of fronts, including as the creator of a book club linked to her show and as the publisher of O, The Oprah Magazine, a monthly publication launched in 2000. [See pp. 797E1, 780E1; 2008, pp. 998F2–G2, 44A2; 2007, p. 822B2; 2000, p. 416F2] n

O B I T UA R I E S CHENG, Nien (born Yao Nien Yuan), 94, author of Life and Death in Shanghai (1987), an acclaimed memoir dealing with her harrowing experiences of China’s Cultural Revolution, during which she was tortured and held in solitary confinement for six and a half years, after being arrested on bogus espionage charges in 1967; she was allowed to leave China in 1980, and lived in Canada before moving to the U.S. in 1983 and settling in Washington, D.C.; born Jan. 28, 1915, in Beijing; died Nov. 2 at her Washington home, of cardiovascular and kidney disease. JAVACHEFF, Jeanne-Claude (born Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon), 74, artist who, under the name

Jeanne-Claude, created large-scale, temporary installations in public places with her husband, Christo Javacheff, who also went by his first name only; the daughter of a French army officer, she met the Bulgarian-born Christo in Paris in the late 1950s and married him in 1962, two years before they permanently settled in New York City; one of their most famous projects was “The Gates,” an array of about 7,500 vinyl frames draped with saffron fabric installed in New York’s Central Park in February 2005; they were partial to colorful fabric, which they used to wrap various structures, including Berlin, Germany’s Reichstag building in 1995, as well as outdoor areas, including 11 Biscayne Bay, Fla., islets swathed in pink fabric in 1983; Jeanne-Claude, who began receiving equal billing for the team’s projects in the mid-1990s, handled the private fund-raising and the wooing of local politicians that enabled them to realize their projects; they refused to accept government or corporate funding throughout their collaboration; born June 13, 1935 (the same day as Christo), in Casablanca, Morocco; died Nov. 18 at a New York hospital, of complications from a brain aneurysm linked to a fall. [See 2005, p. 995D3–F3; 1995, p. 476C2; 1983, p. 457F1] PAVLE (born Gojko Stojcevic), 95, patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church since 1990; born Sept. 11, 1914, in Kucanci, a village that was then part of the of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was now part of Croatia; died Nov. 15 at a military hospital in Belgrade, Serbia, where he had been treated for various conditions since 2007. [See p. 822E2; 1999, p. 431E2; Indexes 1996–97, 1994, 1991–92] SPERO, Nancy, 83, figurative artist whose work dealt largely with issues of violence perpetrated against women throughout history; she was married to another prominent figurative artist with strong political tendencies, Leon Golub, from 1951 until his death in 2004; born Aug. 24, 1926, in Cleveland, Ohio; died Oct. 18 in New York City, of respiratory complications from an infection. [See 2004, p. 632G2] n

November 26, 2009

U.S. President Obama Announces Deployment of 30,000 Additional Soldiers to Afghanistan Says Withdrawal Will Begin in July 2011.

U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 1 announced that he would authorize the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, as part of a strategy to weaken an insurgency by the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban and to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. Obama said the strategy would “bring this war to a successful conclusion,” and that U.S. troops would begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011, the first time the U.S. had set such a deadline in the war’s eight-year history. [See p. 809C2; for excerpts from Obama’s speech, see p. 826A1] The announcement, made before an audience of 4,000 cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., came after the Obama administration conducted a three-month reassessment of its strategy in Afghanistan. The reassessment had been prompted by the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, which was seeing its highest levels of violence since a U.S.-led force invaded the country in 2001 and toppled the Taliban from power. More than 920 U.S. troops had died since 2001, and 298 had died so far in 2009, a yearly record for that war. U.S. public opposition to the war had increased in the past year, which was considered a major factor in Obama’s decision to announce a withdrawal date, a plan that took many observers by surprise when it was leaked hours before his speech. Obama said his administration would continue to pursue its main goal for the region, first outlined in March, of “disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al Qaeda and its extremist allies.” He said that goal would be met by weakening the Taliban, an Al Qaeda ally that had allowed the group to use Afghanistan as a base to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Obama said the troop increase would allow the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to “reverse the Taliban’s momentum,” and train Afghan forces so that the international coalition could begin transferring security responsibilities to the Afghan government in 2011. Obama said the strategy would include a civilian component to strengthen government institutions and encourage economic development. A third component would see the U.S. increase cooperation with Pakistan, Afghanistan’s neighbor, to confront Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups that had established strongholds within Pakistan’s borders. Addressing Pakistan, he said, “We cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear.” [See below] Obama defended his decision to escalate the U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan, saying, “If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow.” He said areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan constitut-

ed “the epicenter of violent extremism,” and that Al Qaeda and its allies continued to represent a direct threat to U.S. and international security. He added, “The stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.” Obama also rejected comparisons that had increasingly been made between the war in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War. He said such comparisons were a “false reading of history,” because in Afghanistan, the U.S. was “joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action.” He also said the U.S. was not facing a “broad-based popular insurgency” in Afghanistan, as it had in Vietnam, and noted that “unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan.” Obama ended his speech with a call for national solidarity. “It’s easy to forget that when this war began, we were united— bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again,” he said. U.S. Troop Level Would Near 100,000—

The influx of 30,000 additional troops would come on top of the 21,000 troops that Obama had authorized for deployment earlier in 2009, and would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 98,000. Obama said the newest troops would be deployed at the “fastest possible pace.” Administration officials said the first contingents would begin arriving in Afghanistan before the end of 2009, with all in place by the end of the fall of 2010. The bulk of the new troops would reportedly be sent to Afghanistan’s southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the insurgency was strongest. Obama’s troop buildup fell short of the 40,000 troops that had been reportedly requested by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal Dec. 1 issued a statement saying Obama had “provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task.” McChrystal was the principal architect of the coalition’s current counterinsurgency strategy, which emphasized the protection of areas populated by civilians in an attempt to win their support. McChrystal Dec. 2 reportedly told commanders via videoconference, “In the end the outcome of this campaign will be decided in the minds of the Afghan people.” He said of the troop increase, “We have a level of commitment that we’ve not had before and that will change everything.” Coalition forces would also be in charge of boosting the size of Afghanistan’s security forces. Under the plan, the ranks of the Afghan army would eventually be increased to 240,000 soldiers, up from the

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3598* December 3, 2009

B current 90,000, and the number of Afghan policemen would increase to 160,000, up from the current 93,000. In his speech to commanders, McChrystal said strengthening Afghanistan’s security capabilities would be “the most important thing we do in the future.” Obama administration officials said another key part of the plan was to support and arm local Afghan militias to fight against the Taliban. That strategy was modeled on a largely successful effort in the Iraq war, in which the U.S. aided Sunni Muslim tribal militias, known as Awakening Councils, to fight the Iraqi insurgency. Obama also said the U.S. would encourage the Afghan government to reconcile with moderate members of the Taliban who were willing to lay down their arms and renounce violence. Obama ‘Confident’ of NATO Support—

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Obama Dec. 1 said he was “confident” that the U.S.’s NATO allies would contribute MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Obama sets deployment of 30,000 additional soldiers to Afghanistan; says withdrawal will begin in July 2011. PAGE 825

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U.S., China set emissions limits ahead of climate talks. PAGE 827

Dubai debt problems spark global sell-off. PAGE 828

Couple crashed White House state dinner. PAGE 829

Conservative Lobo wins disputed Honduran presidential election. PAGE 833

Former guerrilla Mujica wins Uruguayan presidency.

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European Commission posts assigned. PAGE 835

Swiss ban minarets in referendum. PAGE 836

IAEA rebukes Iran over nuclear plant. PAGE 837

Iraq election law passed again. PAGE 837

Israel to freeze new settlement building. PAGE 838

Tiger Woods admits ‘sins’ after crash. PAGE 839 *First of two sections Section Two is an interim index. REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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EXCERPTS FROM OBAMA’S SPEECH ON THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

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Following are excerpts from U.S. President Barack Obama’s Dec. 1 speech at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., on the war in Afghanistan [See p. 825A1]: More Troops to Afghanistan

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Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards. There is no imminent threat of the government being overthrown, but the Taliban has gained momentum. [The international terrorist network] Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before [the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S.], but they retain their safe havens along the border. And our forces lack the full support they need to effectively train and partner with Afghan security forces and better secure the population. Our new commander in Afghanistan—Gen. [Stanley] McChrystal— has reported that the security situation is more serious than he anticipated. In short: the status quo is not sustainable.… As your commander in chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined and worthy of your service. That is why, after the Afghan [presidential election] was completed, I insisted on a thorough review of our strategy. Let me be clear: there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war. Instead, the review has allowed me ask the hard questions and to explore all of the different options along with my national security team, our military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and with our key partners. Given the stakes involved, I owed the American people—and our troops—no less. This review is now complete. And as commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative while building the Afghan capac-

more troops to the Afghan mission, despite the fact that European leaders had long resisted such entreaties due to strong public opposition to the war in their countries. The U.S. was reportedly seeking commitments of between 5,000 and 8,000 additional troops, which would bring the total increase closer to McChrystal’s desired level. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Dec. 2 said the U.S.’s allies would “send at least 5,000 more soldiers to this operation, and probably a few thousand on top of that.” However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that day said they would not make a decision on troop levels until after an international conference on Afghanistan that was scheduled to be held on Jan. 28, 2010, in London. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Nov. 30 had announced that he would deploy an additional 500 troops to Afghanistan in December, a plan that his government had been publicly considering for some months. Brown that day also revealed that there were 500 more British troops in Afghanistan than previously disclosed, most of whom operated clandestinely. With the latest increase, Britain would have 10,000 troops in the country, the second-highest deployment after the

ity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.… I do not make this decision lightly. I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by Al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on Sept. 11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger, no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards and Al Qaeda can operate with impunity.… Of course, this burden is not ours alone to bear. This is not just America’s war. Since Sept. 11, Al Qaeda’s safe havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali. The people and governments of both Afghanistan and Pakistan are endangered. And the stakes are even higher within a nuclear-armed Pakistan, because we know that Al Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them. These facts compel us to act along with our friends and allies. Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future. Military Component of Strategy

The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010—the fastest pace possible—so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They will increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.

Because this is an international effort, I have asked that our commitment be joined by contributions from our allies. Some have already provided additional troops, and we are confident that there will be further contributions in the days and weeks ahead. Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. Now, we must come together to end this war successfully.… Civilian Component of Strategy

We will work with our partners, the [United Nations] and the Afghan people to pursue a more effective civilian strategy so that the government can take advantage of improved security. This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over. President [Hamid] Karzai’s inauguration speech sent the right message about moving in a new direction. And going forward, we will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance. We will support Afghan ministries, governors and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people.… Pakistan

We will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan. We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border. In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.

U.S. There were currently about 40,000 non-U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Obama Makes Case for Withdrawal Date—

Obama in his Dec. 1 speech made the case for setting a withdrawal date of July 2011, saying, “The absence of a time line for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.” However, he included the caveat that the drawdown would ultimately depend on “conditions on the ground,” which was seen as a signal that the date could be postponed if security conditions had not improved by 2011. Obama also tied the withdrawal date to the U.S. public’s growing weariness with the war, especially at a time when the U.S. was struggling to recover from a deep recession. He said, “Our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended—because the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.” Obama acknowledged the burden that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had placed on the U.S.’s budget deficit, and said his new strategy would “likely” increase war spending by “roughly $30 bil-

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lion” over the next year. Obama vowed to address those costs “openly and honestly,” but did not provide specifics. Liberal members of his Democratic Party in Congress, concerned that war spending could constrain funding for domestic programs, had proposed a surtax to pay for the wars. The Obama administration reportedly opposed a surtax. No ‘Blank Check’ for Afghanistan—While Obama did not provide many specifics on how the U.S. would help strengthen the civilian government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he warned that Karzai would have to make a serious effort to address the rampant corruption that had undermined his government’s legitimacy. Obama said, “The days of providing a blank check are over,” adding, “We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable.” The troop buildup was reportedly welcomed by Karzai’s government, which had effective control over less than half of Afghanistan and was highly dependent on the U.S. for security. However, the reaction to Obama’s speech was notably muted. One of the only members of Karzai’s cabinet to make a comment to the international press, Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, expressed concern that the withdrawal date meant that the U.S. was not committed to Afghanistan’s long-term security. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Dec. 2 said, “I want to emphasize that we have a very comprehensive approach and a long-term friendship and partnership with Afghanistan.” Spanta said he had also received similar reassurances from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Spanta said he was particularly pleased that Obama had overtly acknowledged that Pakistan was the location of Al Qaeda’s main safe havens. “This is the first time we heard that from the president,” he said, adding, “It is a tremendous change and progress.” U.S., Pakistan Share ‘Common Enemy’—

Obama said the U.S. and Pakistan shared a “common enemy,” citing a spate of recent terrorist attacks on Pakistani cities by the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, which was known to harbor members of Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist organizations. He said the U.S. would “strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups,” and praised the Pakistani army’s ongoing operation against extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Obama also said the U.S. would broaden its relationship with Pakistan beyond counterterrorism issues, saying, “Going forward, the Pakistani people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent.” [See p. 806F2] Obama did not specify how the U.S. would bolster its counterterrorism efforts in Pakistan. The U.S. relied heavily on Predator drone aircraft, operated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to conduct missile strikes against Al Qaeda members in Pakistan’s tribal areas, but U.S. officials did not publicly comment on the campaign as a matter of policy. The New York Times Dec. 2 reported that the December 3, 2009

CIA was expanding its efforts in Pakistan, by sending more agents there and pushing the Pakistani government to allow Predator strikes in the province of Baluchistan, which was thought to be the hideout of Mullah Muhammad Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban. The reaction among Pakistani officials to Obama’s speech was also muted. The foreign ministry issued a short statement that welcomed Obama’s “reaffirmation of partnership,” but also said there was a “need for clarity” on the new strategy. The foreign ministry said it wanted to “ensure that there would be no adverse fallout on Pakistan.” There was reportedly concern that a U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan could cause insurgents to move into Pakistan. Additionally, Obama’s reference to a “common enemy” reportedly rankled many within Pakistan who viewed the U.S.’s involvement in the region as the central factor leading to the rise of violent Islamic extremism there. Obama’s withdrawal date also fueled concerns that the U.S. would abandon the region after 2011, leaving Pakistan at the mercy of extremist groups that it had targeted at the U.S.’s urging. The Pakistani army remained deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions, and since 2001 had reportedly maintained preexisting ties to extremist groups, many of which were used as proxies to secure Pakistani interests in Afghanistan and the disputed territory of Kashmir, most of which was controlled by India. Pakistan’s suspicions traced back to 1989, when the U.S. dropped its support for Pakistan after it achieved its objective of expelling the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. [See 1989, p. 61A1] Obama Officials Testify—Clinton, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dec. 2 testified on Obama’s Afghan strategy before the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Obama’s plan was criticized by Republican lawmakers who said the withdrawal date would allow the Taliban to wait until U.S. troops were gone before resuming the insurgency. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the Senate committee and Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential contest, said a troop buildup accompanied by a withdrawal date was “logically incoherent.” Gates defended the withdrawal date, saying it would “convey a sense of urgency to the Afghans.” However, he suggested that the date could be pushed back depending on a review that would be conducted in December 2010. “I think the president always has the freedom to adjust his decisions,” he said. Gates also rejected the notion that the U.S. should focus on Al Qaeda and that the Taliban did not represent a serious threat to the U.S. He said, “The Taliban and Al Qaeda have become symbiotic, each benefiting from the success and mythology of the other.” Mullen that day testified that the Taliban had a “dominant influence” in 11 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Republicans were largely supportive of a troop increase, but Obama’s new strategy had split Democrats, many of whom were adamantly against a troop buildup. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) and Arlen Specter (D, Pa.) both said they opposed sending more troops to Afghanistan. Clinton, Gates and Mullen Dec. 3 appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Democrats pressed them to specify how long U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan after the 2011 withdrawal date. Gates said that once the process began it would “probably” take two to three years for all U.S. troops to draw down, but added that there were “no deadlines.” Clinton said that while the U.S.’s military commitment was “limited,” its “civilian commitment must continue, even as our troops begin coming home.” n

U.S., China Set Emissions Limits Ahead of Climate Talks China to Reduce Only ‘Carbon Intensity.’

The White House Nov. 25 announced that U.S. President Barack Obama would attend United Nations–led climate treaty talks in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, scheduled for December, at which he would set specific targets for the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In a related move, China’s State Council, or cabinet, Nov. 26 said it would reduce its “carbon intensity,” a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), rather than pledge an absolute reduction in emissions. [See pp. 795F1, 775F3, 636B1] The announcements were the firmest emissions-reduction commitments that the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, had ever made. The promises were also thought to dramatically improve the chances that the Copenhagen talks would yield a climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which was set to expire in 2012. In recent weeks, several world leaders had backed away from the goal of negotiating a treaty in Copenhagen, saying that the slow pace of talks had made that outcome unlikely. The Obama administration Nov. 25 said the cuts would be “in the range of” 17% below 2005 levels by a deadline of 2020, with the reduction increasing to 83% by 2050. However, Obama’s ability to institute the reductions was contingent on the U.S. Congress passing a climate bill. The U.S. House in June had passed a version of the bill that called for emissions reductions of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. The U.S. Senate was currently debating a separate bill that called for a reduction of 20% below 2005 levels in the same time period. Analysts said it was uncertain that the bill could secure the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate. [See p. 742F3] The White House also said Obama would attend the talks, scheduled to take place Dec. 7–18, on Dec. 9, a day before he would travel to Oslo, Norway’s capital, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to 827

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him in October. The White House said Obama did not plan to return during a later period in the talks, when the leaders of other countries were scheduled to arrive, and when hard negotiations over the content of a new treaty were expected to be held. The White House said Obama would be accompanied by senior administration members including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The White House announcement was quickly praised by European leaders and several environmental advocates, who had considered a U.S. emissions reduction pledge a necessary element for the creation of a new treaty. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said, “The visit emphasizes the will of the president to contribute to an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen.” Obama had reportedly come under strong pressure from environmentalists and leaders of both industrialized and developing nations to commit to an emissions reduction figure. The U.S. was the last industrialized country in the world to do so. However, some criticized his planned absence from the important end stages of the Copenhagen talks. European Union members had agreed to cut their emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. However, even that goal fell short of the 25%–40% reduction from 1990 levels over the same time period that some environmentalists said was required to prevent the worst effects of global climate change. China to Slow Carbon Emissions—China Nov. 26 said it would reduce its carbon intensity by 40%–45% of 2005 levels by 2020, despite entreaties from European and U.S. negotiators to pledge actual emissions cuts. The carbon-intensity pledge meant that China’s emissions could remain the same or even increase somewhat, as its GDP continued to grow. China also said Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would attend the Copenhagen talks. China had argued that emissions reduction pledges could slow its economic growth, and had called on industrialized nations to first signal a commitment to firm pollution cuts. China’s argument had been widely echoed by many developing countries, including India, which said that industrialized countries had been able to build up their economies earlier without concern for emissions. Many developing nations had called on the U.S. and other industrialized countries to adopt larger emissions cuts and provide financial aid for the developing world. Despite the lack of a commitment to emissions reductions, China’s announcement was hailed by European and U.S. leaders. “We welcome China’s intention to cut the growth of their emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of their economy,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. However, some environmentalists said the announcement meant little because existing Chinese energy-efficiency policies were already expected to reduce the country’s carbon intensity by 45%–46%. 828

The announcements by China and the U.S. increased pressure on India to make a similar pledge. Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, Dec. 3 said his country would lower its carbon intensity by 20%– 25% below 2005 levels by 2020. Like China’s goal, that benchmark meant that India’s overall emissions were likely to increase, but at a diminished rate of growth. Although India had a low per capita emissions rate, it was the fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Its emissions rate was expected to increase as its economy grew. Ramesh said the country was “prepared to do even more” should an “equitable” agreement be reached during the Copenhagen talks, but said the country would not set legally binding emissions cuts. In the weeks leading up the Copenhagen talks, several industrialized and developing countries had unveiled new policies aimed at reducing emissions. Brazil Nov. 14 said it would reduce its emissions by between 36.1% and 38.9%, mostly through new controls on deforestation in its Amazon rainforest region. South Korea Nov. 17 said it had set a new voluntary emissions reduction target of 30% by 2020. Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, Nov. 18 said Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had pledged to reduce Russia’s emissions by 20%–25% of 1990 levels. Hacked E-mails Fuel Warming Debate—

The Climatic Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia Nov. 21 confirmed that hackers had stolen a series of 1,000 e-mails between leading climate scientists in the U.S. and Britain, as well as 3,000 other documents. The e-mails and documents had been published in the previous days on a number of conservative blogs, where writers alleged that they showed that scientists had conspired to silence critics of the theory that man-made emissions caused global climate change. Conservatives also alleged that scientists had colluded to selectively present data and information in scientific journals that would bolster the theory that humans were causing climate change. Bloggers had drawn attention to one particular e-mail by the university’s climate research center director, Phil Jones, written in 1999 in which he said he used a “trick” to hide data showing a decline in worldwide temperatures. Jones and other scientists whose e-mails had been stolen countered that bloggers had highlighted snippets of exchanges that had been taken out of context, and that the exchanges did not call into question the substantive basis for the theory of climate change. However, the university Dec. 1 said Jones would step down from his role at the research center while it investigated the incident. The university had called the data theft a “criminal breach,” and said it sought to prosecute the perpetrators. In response to the revelations, U.S. congressional Republicans, in a letter dated Dec. 2 and addressed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), called on the Obama administration to halt efforts to regulate greenhouse gases until the agency could show that the “science underlying

these regulatory decisions has not been compromised.” Other News—In related developments: o A decline in the number of people in the U.S. who believed that man-made emissions caused global climate change was reported in a Washington Post–ABC News poll Nov. 25. The poll found that 72% of respondents agreed with the theory of global warming, compared with 80% the previous year. o The International Energy Agency (IEA), a 28–nation organization, Nov. 10 said governments needed to reach a consensus on global warming measures, or else face increased costs, including more expensive oil and gas imports. The IEA said the annual cost of delay could be up to $500 billion. o More than 4,500 events in 173 countries Oct. 24 were staged to demand that countries achieve an international climate treaty. The events were organized by 350.org, which took its name from the goal of reduction atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million (ppm), from its current level of 380 ppm. n

International Finance Dubai Debt Problems Spark Global Sell-Off.

Dubai World—a conglomerate owned by Dubai, one of seven city-states that comprised the United Arab Emirates (UAE)— Nov. 25 asked its creditors for a six-month “standstill” to repay an estimated $60 billion in debt. The request led to steep drops in European and Asian stock markets over concerns that a debt default by Dubai World could lead to damaging losses for international banks that had invested in the company. Markets recovered Dec. 1–2 after assurances from the UAE’s central bank that it would support foreign and local banks in Dubai. [See below; 2008, p. 784E1] Dubai in the past decade had experienced a real estate boom as its political leaders strove to turn the emirate into the leading commercial center in the Middle East. The boom was marked by extravagant construction projects such as the Burj Dubai, which upon completion would be the world’s tallest skyscraper, and the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island off Dubai’s coast that was designed in the shape of a palm tree. Dubai had also made extensive foreign investments; Dubai World in 2007 had bought a stake in U.S. casino operator MGM Mirage, as well as the Barneys New York retail chain. A Dubai World subsidiary had run into controversy in 2006, when it attempted to acquire the operations of several U.S. ports. [See 2007, p. 560F3; 2006, p. 163A3] The Dubai real-estate market entered a deep slump in 2008, and a global recession and credit crisis had exacerbated Dubai’s economic problems. Many of its construction projects had stalled, and many spaces that had been built in recent years remained untenanted. Dubai had relied heavily on borrowed money to finance its construction projects, and over the past year concerns had grown FACTS ON FILE

that it would not be able to pay off its debts. Dubai was thought to have about $80 billion in outstanding debt, with Dubai World responsible for about $60 billion. To ease its debt load, the UAE’s central bank, which was based in Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich capital of the UAE, Feb. 22 announced that it would buy $10 billion worth of Dubai’s debt, as part of a larger program to loan Dubai $20 billion. The National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Al Hilal Bank—both owned by Abu Dhabi—Nov. 25 together bought another $5 billion in Dubai debt. However, those interventions were not enough to stave off Dubai World’s debt problems. Of most immediate concern was a $3.5 billion sukuk, or Islamic bond, that was due to be paid Dec. 14 by Dubai World’s real-estate unit, Nakheel. In announcing the standstill, Dubai World said it would need until May 30, 2010, to resume payments on its loans. The company also said it would undergo a restructuring. European Stocks Fall on Bank Fears—

UAE Central Bank to Aid Lenders— UAE’s central bank Nov. 29 announced that

it would create a lending facility to support local banks and foreign banks with branches in Dubai. The announcement appeared to assure investors, and European and Asian markets had largely recovered from their losses by Dec. 2. Dubai World Nov. 30 had also unveiled plans to begin restructuring about $26 billion in debt with its creditors. However, Dubai’s government Nov. 30 had said it would not guarantee Dubai World’s debt against default. Abdulrahman al-Saleh, the chief of Dubai’s finance department, said creditors “think Dubai World is part of the government, which is not correct.” Dubai’s main stock exchange, the Dubai Financial Market, Nov. 30 fell 7.3% to close at 1,940.36, the first day it had opened since Dubai World’s standstill request. Abu Dhabi’s Securities Exchange fell 8.3% to close at 2,668.23, its worst one-day decline ever. n

AP Photo./Kamran Jebreili

European stock markets Nov. 26 saw steep declines over fears that European banks could be exposed to as much as $40 billion in Dubai debt. Investors’ concerns were also aggravated by doubts about whether Dubai or Abu Dhabi would bail out Dubai World. While Dubai owned Dubai World, it had never explicitly stated that it would be responsible for the company’s debt, as many banks had assumed. London’s Financial Times-Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 index that day fell 3.2% to close at 5,194.1, its worst one-day decline since March. The pan-European FTSE Eurofirst 300 index fell 3.3% to close at 988.1. Germany’s Frankfurt Xetra DAX dropped 3.3% to close at 5,614.2, and France’s CAC 40 index lost 3.4% to close at 3,679.2. Among the European banks thought to have significant holdings of Dubai debt were Britain’s Standard Chartered PLC and HSBC Holdings PLC; Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG; and Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Group. Asian stock markets the following day also dropped dramatically, over concerns

that Asian companies could see credit dry up if their financial backers in Europe were hit hard by Dubai World’s debt woes. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average Nov. 27 fell 3.2% to close at 9,081.52, its largest one-day decline in nearly eight months. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 4.8% to close at 21,099.13. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 4.7% to close at 1,524.50. The UAE’s stock markets were closed Nov. 26–27 due to the Eid al-Adha holiday. However, the cost to insure Dubai’s debt soared on international markets, as it did for the sovereign, or government-issued, debt of other countries that were struggling with large deficits, such as Greece, Ireland, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Brazil, Mexico and Russia. There were concerns that developing economies could continue to suffer credit problems, even as the global economy made a recovery. U.S. markets Nov. 26 were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Nov. 27 fell 154.48 points, or 1.48%, to close at 10,309.92, in a shortened day of trading.

The Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island off Dubai’s coast designed in the shape of a palm tree, in 2007. The Palm Jumeirah was one of the many extravagant construction projects undertaken in Dubai in recent years. Dubai World, a state-owned conglomerate whose Nakheel unit had built the Palm Jumeirah, Nov. 25 asked for a six-month “standstill” to repay an estimated $60 billion in debt.

December 3, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

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Couple Crashed White House State Dinner Security Breach Leads to Investigations.

The Secret Service Nov. 25 confirmed that a Virginia couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, had entered the White House the previous evening without an invitation for a state dinner held in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The incident prompted investigations by the Secret Service and Congress into the security lapse. [See p. 810D1] The Salahis late Nov. 24 had posted photographs of themselves at the White House on the Facebook social networking Web site. The photos showed them posing with Vice President Joseph Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The White House Nov. 27 released a photo that showed the couple being greeted by President Barack Obama, who shook hands with Michaele Salahi as her husband looked on. Tareq Salahi wore a tuxedo and his wife wore a red and gold traditional Indian dress. Michale Salahi was said to be auditioning for a television reality show, “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” which was to air on the Bravo cable network, a unit of NBC Universal. [See pp. 830A3, 817C2] Bravo Nov. 26 issued a statement confirming that the show’s producer, Half Yard Productions, had sent a camera crew to follow the couple to the White House, after the Salahis claimed to have received an invitation to the state dinner. Bravo said the crew filmed the couple as they prepared for the dinner but did not enter the White House grounds with them. It was reported Nov. 29 that representatives for the couple had approached news media outlets since the White House incident, offering interviews with them for a price of several hundred thousand dollars. They appeared Dec. 1 in an interview on NBC’s “Today Show.” Both NBC and the Salahis said they were not paid for the interview. During the interview, Tareq Salahi said, “We did not party-crash the White House.” His wife said, “We were invited, not crashers, and there isn’t anyone who would have the audacity or the poor behavior to do that.” Tareq Salahi’s company, Oasis Enterprises Inc., had filed for bankruptcy protection in February. He had been involved in a family feud over a vineyard in Virginia founded by his parents. He and his wife had also been active in promoting polo matches, but fellow organizers accused them of failing to pay fees. Secret Service Chief Apologizes—Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan Nov. 27 issued an apology, saying that the service was “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the incident. He added, “The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined that established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.” The Secret Service reportedly interviewed the Salahis Nov. 27 and Nov. 28. The Salahis’ lawyer, Paul Gardner, Nov. 27 claimed that they had been “cleared, by 829

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White House/Samantha Appleton

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The government would still own Bank of America warrants that it could convert to common stock. Bank of America could buy the warrants back, but other TARP recipients had allowed the government to sell the warrants to private investors. n

Mergers & Acquisitions

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A photo released by the White House showing President Barack Obama greeting Michaele Salahi, who with her husband Tareq, right, Nov. 24 attended a White House state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, left, despite not having obtained an invitation.

the White House,” to attend the dinner. He did not provide any evidence, but said, “More information is forthcoming.” Salahis Contacted Pentagon Aide—The Washington Post Nov. 30 reported that the Salahis had communicated by e-mail before the state dinner with Defense Department official Michele Jones about the possibility of their being admitted to the event. Jones served as a special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and as a liaison to the White House. Jones Nov. 30 issued a statement saying, “I specifically stated that they did not have tickets and in fact that I did not have the authority to authorize” the Salahi’s admittance, but, “Even though I informed them of this, they still decided to come.” The Associated Press Dec. 2 reported that it had obtained the e-mails, which showed that Jones had tried to help get an invitation for the Salahis. According to the White House, Jones Nov. 24 called the Salahis on their cellular telephone to tell them that she had been unsuccessful. The Salahis sent a reply early Nov. 25, saying that their “cell phone battery died early this evening” and they had not gotten her message, so they went to the White House and had a “wonderful evening.” House Committee Holds Hearing— The House Homeland Security Committee Dec. 3 held a hearing on the incident, but the Salahis refused to attend. Chairman Bennie Thompson (D, Miss.) said the committee might issue subpoenas to compel the couple to appear. However, he rejected a call by Rep. Peter King (N.Y.), the senior Republican on the panel, to subpoena White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, who had also declined an invitation to testify. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said White House staff had no obligation to testify before Congress, due to “the separation of powers.” Sullivan, the sole witness at the hearing, said that the Secret Service had identified three agents responsible for the mishap and placed them on administrative leave, facing possible dismissal. n 830

Banking Bank of America to Repay Federal Aid.

Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. Dec. 2 announced that it had reached an agreement with the government to repay $45 billion in aid that had helped the banking giant stay afloat during the financial crisis. The move would allow the bank to escape compensation guidelines that had been imposed on seven companies that had received “exceptional assistance” from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund. While many financial institutions had repaid their TARP aid, Bank of America was the first “exceptional assistance” company to do so. [See pp. 742A1, 715C1] Bank of America in October 2008 had received $25 billion in TARP aid, and an additional $20 billion in January, after it acquired troubled brokerage Merrill Lynch & Co. Since then the company had largely stabilized along with the rest of the financial industry. However, government officials had reportedly resisted allowing the bank to repay the aid until they were confident that it could stand on its own. To ease those concerns, Bank of America said it would raise an additional $18.8 billion in capital by selling securities that could later be turned into common stock. The bank would use $26.2 billion of cash currently on hand to complete the repayment. Bank of America also agreed to sell $4 billion in assets by 2010. Bank of America Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kenneth Lewis Dec. 2 said, “It is a milestone indicating that public policy has succeeded in helping our industry and the economy begin to recover.” Lewis had announced his resignation in September, and Bank of America was reportedly facing difficulties finding a replacement who would agree to compensation oversight from the Treasury Department. Analysts expected the repayment to make the search for a new chief executive much easier.

Comcast Buys NBC Universal. Philadelphia, Pa.–based cable television provider Comcast Corp. Dec. 3 announced that it would merge with media company NBC Universal Inc. In a deal valued at $30 billion, Comcast would purchase New York City–based NBC Universal from General Electric Co. (GE). [See 2008, p. 854C2; 2005, p. 948B1; 2004, p. 350F3] Under the deal, Comcast would pay GE about $6.5 billion in cash, and contribute cable assets worth about $7.25 billion to the joint venture, for a total of $13.75 billion. The new company would have $9.2 billion in debt added to its books. Comcast would own 51% of the joint venture, which for the present would keep the name NBC Universal, while GE would own 49%. Media outlets Nov. 30 reported that GE had agreed to buy the 20% share of NBC Universal it did not own from French media conglomerate Vivendi SA for $5.8 billion in order to facilitate the deal with Comcast. Vivendi reportedly agreed to accept onethird of the payment immediately, and the rest when the deal closed. Besides its NBC broadcast television channel, and the Universal Studios movie studio, NBC Universal owned Spanish-language network Telemundo, 34 broadcast television stations and 13 cable television networks, including such popular channels as Bravo, USA Network, CNBC and MSNBC. Comcast would contribute its own array of cable stations, including E! Entertainment Television, Versus and the Major League Baseball Channel, as well as 10 regional sports networks. The deal was the first major media merger since President Barack Obama took office in January, and was expected to undergo a high level of scrutiny from regulatory agencies. Comcast was the nation’s largest cable television provider, and it was estimated that the joint venture would control one-fifth of the U.S.’s total television programming. Watchdog groups expressed concern that Comcast would restrict competitors’ access to NBC Universal programming, and also questioned how the merger would affect how viewers could watch programs online. The deal recalled other high-profile media mergers that had performed poorly in recent years, most notably the 2000 purchase of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. by Internet-services provider America Online Inc. (AOL). (Time Warner Nov. 16 said it would spin off AOL to its shareholders on Dec. 9, and AOL Nov. 19 announced that it would lay off almost 2,500 workers, about one-third of its staff.) Comcast itself in 2004 had made a failed hostile takeover bid for media giant Walt Disney Co. [See p. 393B2] n FACTS ON FILE

December Financial Update (Close of trading Dec. 1 except where indicated)

public offering (IPO), and over the sale of GM’s overseas operations. [See p. 767D1] n

Stocks and Bonds Dow Jones Industrial Average (see box, p. 831E2)

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index London Stock Exchange

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100)

Tokyo Stock Exchange (Nikkei index)

Toronto Stock Exchange

(S&P/TSX Composite Index)

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield) Currencies (late New York trading) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars)

10,471.58 1,108.86 2,175.81 5,312.17 9,572.20 11,707.32 3.27% 0.13% $0.9249 $1.6619 $0.9552 $1.5085 86.68 12.8667 $1.0006

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$1,196.60

Silver (per troy oz.)

$18.7200

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price)

Oil (per barrel)

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Nov. 22)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel) (Kansas City market)

$78.37 $2.65 $5.4575

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

-0.2%

Unemployment rate

10.2%

(consumer price index 12-month change through October 2009; see p. 798F2) (October 2009; see p. 778G1)

Gross domestic product growth

(annualized third-quarter 2009 rate, second report; see p. 813G1)

Prime rate

2.8% 3.25%

Automobiles GM Chief Executive Resigns. Edward Whit-

acre, chairman of General Motors Co., which was about 61% owned by the government, Dec. 1 unexpectedly announced the resignation of the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Frederick (Fritz) Henderson. Whitacre said he would serve as GM’s interim CEO until a replacement was found. [See pp. 822D3, 798C3] Henderson, who had worked at GM since 1984, had been appointed CEO in March, after the Obama administration ousted the previous CEO, Richard Wagoner. Whitacre, a newcomer to the auto industry who had served as the chairman and CEO of AT&T Corp. from 1990 to 2007, had been appointed chairman of GM by the Obama administration in June. A spokesman for the Treasury Department Dec. 2 said, “The administration was not involved in this decision.” Of 12 people currently on GM’s board, 10 had been appointed by the Treasury. Of the 10 government-appointed directors, five were holdovers from GM’s board before it filed for bankruptcy. The Canadian government and the United Auto Workers labor union had each appointed one member. Henderson had been the 13th member of the board. Many analysts attributed the departure to differences between Henderson and GM’s board over when to launch an initial December 3, 2009

Economy October Existing Home Sales Rose 10.1%.

The National Association of Realtors Nov. 23 reported that sales of existing homes jumped by 10.1% in October, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.10 million units, up from a revised 5.54 million units in September, and the highest rate since February 2007. The jump was attributed to an $8,500 tax credit for first-time home buyers, deflated housing prices and Federal Reserve policies that had kept interest rates low. [See pp. 778F2, 759F1, 740D2] The tax credit had been scheduled to expire Nov. 30, but Congress in early November extended it and introduced a new credit for existing home owners. Housing Starts Down 10.6%— The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Nov. 18 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in October was 529,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was down 10.6% from the September revised rate of 592,000. The sudden drop was attributed to home-builder uncertainty over whether Congress would extend the $8,500 tax credit. [See p. 740E2] Building permits were issued in October at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 552,000 units, 4.0% below September’s revised rate of 575,000. New Home Sales Rose 6.2%— The Departments of Commerce and HUD Nov. 25 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes rose 6.2% in October from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 430,000 units, up from the revised September rate of 405,000 units. The median price of a new single-

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

Nov. 2 3

4 5 6 9 10 11 12 13 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25 26 27 30

9,789.44 9,771.91 9,802.14 10,005.96 10,023.42 10,226.94 10,246.97 10,291.26 10,197.47 10,270.47 10,406.96 10,437.42 10,426.31 10,332.44 10,318.16 10,450.95 10,433.71 10,464.40 Holiday 10,309.92 10,344.84

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,543.9 1,379.8 1,349.0 1,301.7 1,084.5 1,236.1 1,073.0 1,046.1 1,050.4 985.0 1,145.4 972.1 1,063.5 1,083.8 1,142.4 980.0 952.0 795.2 Holiday 654.8 1,348.3

family home sold in October was reported to be $212,200. [See p. 740C2] n Consumer Confidence Rose in November.

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The Conference Board business research group Nov. 24 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 49.5 in November, up from its level of 48.7 in October. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 759C2] n Durable Goods Orders Fell 0.6% in October.

The Commerce Department Nov. 25 reported that the value of durable goods orders in October was $166.2 billion, a decrease of 0.6%, or $1.0 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were socalled big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 740F2] n

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Politics Bishop Denies Rep. Kennedy Communion.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D, R.I.) Nov. 20 said Providence, R.I., Bishop Thomas Tobin had told him that he could not receive Communion in church because he had defied Roman Catholic orthodoxy by supporting abortion rights. Kennedy, a son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), made the disclosure in an interview with the Providence Journal. [See pp. 773C2, 473A1; 2006, p. 390D1] Tobin, in an interview with the Associated Press, Nov. 22 confirmed that he had asked Kennedy not to take Communion. He said Kennedy, who had undergone treatment for substance abuse, had been acting “erratically” and had “attacked the church.” Since October, Kennedy and Tobin had been engaged in a public dispute over the issue of whether health care reform legislation pending in Congress should allow coverage for abortions. In early November, the House had passed a version of the bill after approving an amendment imposing strict limits on abortion coverage. Kennedy Oct. 21 had challenged the Catholic Church’s stated opposition to any bill that permitted such funding. Tobin publicly rebuked him the next day, and then, in a public letter issued Nov. 9, denounced Kennedy’s stance as “a deliberate and obstinate act of the will.” U.S. Catholic bishops had previously vowed to withhold Communion from other politicians who backed abortion rights, including Sen. John Kerry (D, Mass.) during his 2004 presidential campaign. [See 2004, p. 494D2] n

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Judiciary Hearing on La. Judge’s Impeachment Opens.

The House Judiciary Committee Nov. 17 opened impeachment hearings against Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of U.S. District Court in New Orleans, La., who was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from attorneys in cases he had presided over, among other allegations. Porteous, who had admitted to problems with alcohol and gambling, had been suspened with pay from the federal judiciary in September 2008, and had recused himself from all criminal cases in 2003 after al831

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legations surfaced that he had accepted payments from a bail bondsman. [See p. 479E2] Congress had investigated a total of 78 federal judges since 1803. The House had impeached 14 of those in connection with alleged misconduct, and the Senate had convicted and ousted seven judges from the federal bench, most recently in 1989. The House required a majority vote to impeach a judge and the Senate required a two-thirds majority in order to convict and oust a judge. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had began investigating Porteous as part of its 1999–2007 inquiry into corruption in the state courthouse in Lousiana’s Jefferson Parish, or county, where Porteous had worked as an elected judge from 1984 until he was appointed to a federal judgeship by President Bill Clinton in 1994. A total of 14 people, including two Louisiana judges, had been convicted on charges related to the investigation. In 2007, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans had released a Justice Department report on the criminal investigation into Porteous’s activities that found that he had concealed gifts from lawyers in filing financial disclosure forms, lied while applying for a bank loan and filed for bankruptcy under a false name, concealing gambling debts. The Justice Department had not filed any criminal charges against Porteous, but had forwarded its evidence to the House Judiciary Committee for a potential impeachment inquiry. Payments Called Personal Gifts— Attorney Robert Creely Nov. 17 testified before the committee that he and his law partner, Jacob Amato, had given Porteous gifts totaling about $20,000 since the 1980s, in response to frequent appeals by the judge for financial assistance. The payments included picking up the cost of Porteous’s son’s bachelor party and a cash payment of $2,000 given before Porteous oversaw a civil case involving Amato and Creely’s firm. However, Creely said that he and Amato considered the payments to be personal gifts made to a friend. Creely admitted that his law firm had been given courtappointed work on Porteous’s recommendation, and said that the firm had given some of the resulting fees to Porteous as gifts, but argued that that had not constituted a kickback. Creely, Amato and three other Louisiana attorneys had been granted immunity from criminal prosecution by the Justice Department in 2006 and 2007 in exchange for agreeing to testify about their payments to Porteous before a grand jury and later the judicial council of the 5th Circuit. However, disciplinary complaints were pending against Amato and Creely that could potentially lead to their being disbarred. Judge Sues House Panel—Porteous Nov. 13 filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against a House Judiciary Committee impeachment task force, arguing that the task force had violated his Fifth 832

Amendment rights against self-incrimination by making use of immunized testimony. Porteous had testified about his finances and the alleged payments before the 5th Circuit Judicial Council under an agreement that barred the government from using Porteous’s statements against him. The court rejected Porteous’s request for an immediate injunction halting the impeachment proceedings. n

Civil Rights

sex marriage measure was passed. The bill did not force religious institutions to perform or host same-sex marriages. The archdiocese said it feared that the measure would nonetheless force it to extend employee benefits to same-sex couples. Officials said they would shut down the social services arm of the organization, known as Catholic Charities, which provided services to an estimated 68,000 people. Among them were about one-third of the city’s homeless population, who used shelters operated by the archdiocese. n

N.Y. State Senate Defeats Gay Marriage Bill.

The New York State Senate Dec. 2 voted, 38–24, to defeat a bill that would have legalized gay marriage in the state, in yet another setback for the U.S. same-sex marriage rights movement. The State Assembly in May had approved a similar bill, and New York Gov. David Paterson (D), an outspoken supporter of gay rights, had said he would sign the bill into law if it were sent to him. [See p. 505E2] The margin of the bill’s defeat was seen as a surprise, since Democrats held a slim 32–30 seat majority in the Senate, and New York was considered a relatively liberal state. However, eight centrist Democrats voted with all 30 Senate Republicans against the bill, cementing its defeat. Since 2003, seven states—California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts—had legalized gay marriage. However, the laws in both California and Maine had been overturned by ballot initiative in November 2008 and November 2009, respectively. (New Hampshire’s law would take effect Jan. 1, 2010.) Separately, the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, Nov. 20 ruled, 4–3, that same-sex couples legally married in another state were entitled to certain spousal government benefits in New York. The ruling addressed two separate cases that had been considered together. In one, the New York State Department of Civil Service in 2007 had granted health benefits to the spouses of state and local employees who had entered into a samesex marriage in another state. That policy had been challenged by opponents of same-sex marriages. In the second case, plaintiffs sought to overturn a 2006 order issued by Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, who had ordered local officials to recognize samesex marriages performed out of state. D.C. Council Approves Marriage Bill—

The Washington, D.C., City Council Dec. 1 voted, 11–2, to approve a bill legalizing gay marriage in the city. The legislation was subject to a 30-day review by the U.S. Congress, but it was thought unlikely that any move would be made to block the bill. A second vote by the council, scheduled to take place on Dec. 15, was needed before the bill could become law. [See p. 699F1] The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington Nov. 11 had said that it would be forced to abandon its social service contracts with the city government if the same-

Crime Suspect in Abortion Doctor’s Killing Confesses.

Scott Roeder, who was accused of the May murder of prominent abortion doctor George Tiller, Nov. 9 admitted in an interview with the Kansas City Star that he had fatally shot Tiller, but contended that the killing had been justifiable homicide, not murder. Roeder said that he had killed Tiller because “preborn children were in imminent danger” and said that he did not like “the accusation of murder whatsoever, because when you protect innocent life, that’s not murder.” Roeder’s trial was scheduled to begin Jan. 11, 2010, in Kansas’s Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita; he faced life in prison if convicted. [See pp. 445F1, 370A2] Roeder said that he intended to use the so-called necessity defense at his trial, a tactic that had been unsuccessfully used by a number of antiabortion activists accused of harassing, assaulting or murdering abortion providers. Under the necessity defense, Roeder’s attorneys would argue that he had killed Tiller in order to prevent what Roeder had seen as a greater harm, namely abortions. The Kansas Supreme Court had ruled in 1993 that the necessity defense could not be used when illegal actions were taken by the defendant to prevent a legal activity protected by the Constitution. An attorney for Roeder argued in a court filing released Nov. 23 that his client had the right to use a necessity defense in his trial, in response to a motion filed by prosecutors that would bar Roeder from doing so. The defense attorney, Steve Osburn, had previously said a necessity defense would not be legally “viable” and that Roeder would not make use of it in his defense. A group of 21 antiabortion activists, including Roeder and convicted 1996 Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, Nov. 9 issued a statement arguing that the killing of abortion doctors among others was justified “to defend innocent human life.” FBI Warned About Roeder Before Killing—

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Nov. 13 said that the FBI had received an anonymous letter in April warning that Roeder was a potential “domestic terrorist” who posed a threat to Tiller and other abortion doctors. According to the spokesman, the FBI found that the letter contained no evidence of specific threats against Tiller or other abortion doctors. FACTS ON FILE

It was determined that the letter was written by an unidentified Pennsylvania man who was married to a woman who had had a child with Roeder; the man had reportedly written the letter in the hopes of getting the FBI to include Roeder on the government’s no-fly list, preventing him from visiting his child. Roeder was reportedly involved in a custody dispute with the child’s mother. Operation Rescue Out of Money—Operation Rescue, a prominent antiabortion group that had regularly targeted Tiller and his clinic for protests and harassment prior to his murder, Sept. 14 announced in a fund-raising letter that it was on the brink of insolvency due to major declines in donations. Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said that donations had dropped by at least 30% from 2008 and blamed the economic recession, rather than adverse publicity for the group following Tiller’s murder, for the decrease. Operation Rescue had lost its tax-exempt nonprofit status in 2006 after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that the group had engaged in prohibited political activities during the 2004 election. That made donations to the group non-tax-deductible for the donors. Roeder July 21 had sent Newman a letter criticizing the group’s efforts to distance itself from Tiller’s murder, saying that he had donated at least $1,000 to the group. Newman July 24 had said that the group had no record of receiving any donations from Roeder. (Following Roeder’s arrest, the phone number of an Operation Rescue official had been found on a slip of paper in his car.) Pro-Roeder Internet Auction Canceled—

Internet auction company eBay Inc. Oct. 27 announced that it would bar a group of Roeder’s supporters from holding an Internet auction intended to help fund his defense, on the grounds that such an auction would violate a company policy forbidding listings “that promote or glorify violence, hate, racial or religious intolerance.” The proposed auction was to include items related to Shelley Shannon, an imprisoned antiabortion activist who had shot and injured Tiller in 1993, as well as a so-called Army of God manual, which contained instructions for targeting abortion clinics with vandalism, harassment and bombings. Supporters of Roeder Nov. 1 attempted to hold the auction despite eBay’s announcement. However, the auction was shut down Nov. 2. n

Espionage Couple Pleads Guilty in Cuba Spy Case.

Former State Department analyst Walter Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, Nov. 20 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to charges of working as spies for Cuba since 1978. Prosecutors had accused the couple of using Walter Myers’s State Department security clearance to obtain classified documents that were then supplied by December 3, 2009

Gwendolyn Myers to the Cuban government. The couple had been arrested in June following a three-year investigation, and were reportedly cooperating with investigators. [See p. 392B3] Walter Myers, 72, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while Gwendolyn Myers, 71, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information. Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Walter Myers faced a mandatory life sentence and Gwendolyn Myers faced up to seven years and six months in prison. The couple also agreed to forfeit assets totaling $1.7 million, including an apartment in Washington, D.C., and a sailboat; the amount was reportedly equal to the salary Walter Myers received from the State Department during the time he worked as a Cuban spy. An attorney for the couple Nov. 20 said in a statement that they had become spies “out of conscience and personal commitment” to Cuba, rather than for financial gain, and had “always understood that they might someday be called to account for that conduct and always have been prepared to accept full responsibility for it.” n

Terrorism News in Brief. Judge William Duffey Jr. of

U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Ga., June 10 convicted Syed Haris Ahmed, a former engineering student, of providing material support for terrorism by making video re-

cordings of Washington, D.C., buildings and landmarks and providing the record-

ings to individuals who were later convicted of terrorism in Britain. A jury in U.S. District Court in Atlanta Aug. 12 convicted one of Ahmed’s co-conspirators, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, of providing material assistance to terrorists by helping to make the videos and by sending them to terrorism suspects in Britain. Ahmed faced 15 years in prison, while Sadequee faced up to 60 years in prison. They were scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 14. [See 2006, p. 799C2] Betim Kaizu Sept. 24 was indicted in U.S. District Court in New York City on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to support foreign terrorists in connection with allegations that he had attempted to join an overseas terrorist group and had sought to be instructed at a terrorist training camp. Kaizu, 21, had allegedly attempted to join Al Shabab, a Somali Islamist insurgent group, and had traveled to Pakistan as part of an unsuccessful attempt to be trained to fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, among other locations; he had also reportedly attempted to buy weapons in Egypt. In August, he had been arrested with three other men in Kosovo, reportedly on terrorism-related charges, and was subsequently extradited to the U.S. He faced a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted. [See p. 780C3] n

AFRICA

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Equatorial Guinea President Obiang Easily Wins Reelection.

Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Nov. 29 was reelected to another seven-year term with 95.4% of the vote, according to results released by the government Dec. 3. Obiang, 67, had ruled the small, oil-rich African nation since a 1979 coup. He had won nearly 100% of the vote in the previous two presidential elections, in 2002 and 1996. [See 2006, p. 668D2; 2002, p. 974F3] Obiang, the candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), faced four opponents in the Nov. 29 election. Placido Minko Abogo of the Convergence for Social Democracy Party (CPSD), who won 3.6% of the vote, had been seen as his main challenger; however, observers said Obiang’s victory was never in doubt. Abogo Nov. 29 said the election had not been conducted fairly, and that he would not accept the results. Observers from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) Dec. 2 in a statement posted on Equatorial Guinea’s government Web site called the election free, transparent and credible. However, the group also noted the absence of representatives of political parties at certain polling stations, and said the presence of security forces outside polling booths was “not discreet.” Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders Nov. 30 criticized the dearth of media coverage of opposition candidates and a general lack of press freedom in the country. French Corruption Inquiry Halted— A French appeals court Oct. 29 halted an embezzlement lawsuit against Obiang, Congo Republic President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and the estate of the late Gabonese President Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had died in July. A French magistrate in May had allowed the lawsuit, filed by the French office of anticorruption watchdog Transparency International and the French jurist association Sherpa, to proceed. The groups had requested an inquiry into how the three African leaders had been able to afford their extensive property holdings in France, which included luxury homes and cars. The appeals court ruled that the groups did not have legal standing to file the lawsuit. [See p. 507B2] Transparency International ranked Equatorial Guinea as the 12th most corrupt nation in the world. n

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Conservative Wins Disputed Honduran Presidential Election Ousted President Zelaya Rejects Vote.

Rancher Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa, 61, of the center-right National Party Nov. 29 was declared the victor of a disputed election held that day for the Honduran presidency. According to provisional results from the 833

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Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa was born on Dec. 22, 1947, in Trujillo, a northern coastal city in the Honduran department (state) of Colon, to a family with large land holdings, and raised in nearby Olancho department. In 1965, Lobo graduated from the San Francisco Institute in Tegucigalpa, the capital, with a bachelor’s degree. Lobo received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Miami, in the U.S., in 1970. During the 1980s, he studied in Moscow, then the capital of the Soviet Union, but later shifted his political outlook rightward. As a young adult, Lobo became active in politics in Olancho. In 1990, he was elected to the National Congress, Honduras’s unicameral legislature, under the banner of the center-right National Party. Lobo in 2002 assumed leadership of the Congress, a post he held until 2006. In the country’s 2005 presidential race, Lobo finished second to Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who himself was ousted in a bloodless coup d’etat in June. The National Party in December 2008 named him its presidential candidate. Lobo was declared the victor of a disputed Nov. 29 presidential election, defeating a field of four other candidates. He was set to take office Jan. 27, 2010. [See p. 833G3; 2005, p. 879C2] Lobo, a grain and cattle farmer, had been married three times and had 11 children. He was currently married to Rosa Elana de Lobo.

country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Lobo won 60% of the vote, well ahead of second-place finisher Elvin Santos, 46, of the centrist Liberal Party, who garnered 31%. Three other candidates distantly trailed Santos. However, the TSE said an official tally of the vote could take weeks to finalize. [See p. 784A2; for facts on Lobo, see p. 834A1] The election had been held amid an ongoing dispute over the legitimacy of the de facto Honduran government. The country’s military in June had deposed President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, a Liberal, in a bloodless coup d’etat. (Zelaya’s opponents had alleged that he was attempting to rewrite the constitution as part of a power grab.) The legislature then voted congressional leader Roberto Micheletti, also a Liberal, to replace Zelaya. However, the replacement government was not recognized by any other country. Zelaya in September had secretly returned to Honduras and taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital, where he agitated for his reinstatement. U.S.-mediated talks between Zelaya and the de facto government had failed to yield an agreement under which Zelaya would reassume the presidency for the remainder of his term, which was set to expire on January 27, 2010. Instead, the replacement government held the presidential election, which had been scheduled prior to Zelaya’s ouster, in the hopes that the vote would bolster its credibility in the international community. Zelaya had declared the election illegitimate, and had instructed his supporters to boycott the vote. A minor candidate allied with him had also withdrawn from the race. 834

Polls indicated that Hondurans were about evenly split over Zelaya’s ouster, but despite the divided populace, the voting was relatively peaceful, according to reports. Police in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city, Nov. 29 reportedly used water cannons and tear gas to break up a demonstration by Zelaya supporters. The Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union had both declined to send observers to monitor the election’s fairness, viewing it as an illegitimate undertaking. The United Nations had also refrained from providing election support. Reports of the turnout varied, with the TSE estimating 62% and an independent civic organization estimating only 48%. The U.S., which had lobbied for Zelaya’s return to power, in the days leading up to the election had indicated that it would recognize the winner as the rightful president. Although the U.S. had been joined by several Latin American countries—among them Colombia, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica— most Latin American countries had said they would not recognize the election’s victor. Brazil, in particular, had been an outspoken critic of the U.S.’s recognition of the election. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said recognition of Lobo could encourage a return to the military coups that had once been relatively common in Latin America, it was reported Dec. 1. “There are still many nations, especially in Central America, in vulnerable political situations,” he said. Lobo Nov. 30 called on other countries to recognize his government. He said those who refused to were “punishing those who went to vote, who do so every four years and have nothing to do with what happened on June 28.” Arturo Valenzuela, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, that day said the election was “a significant step in Honduras’ return to the democratic and constitutional order.” Zelaya the same day alleged that the turnout figure offered by the TSE was inflated, and that voter fraud had occurred. The Honduran Congress Dec. 2 voted, 111–14, against restoring Zelaya for the last two months of his term. The vote was an element of a U.S.-brokered agreement to end the political crisis, signed by Zelaya and the de facto government in late October, that had subsequently been declared null by Zelaya. The replacement government said it would continue to pursue corruption and other charges against Zelaya if he left the Brazilian embassy. Zelaya Nov. 20 had said he would ignore the vote. “I won’t accept reinstatement under any condition,” he said. n

Uruguay Former Guerrilla Mujica Wins Presidency.

Jose (Pepe) Mujica, a 74-year-old senator and former leftist guerrilla leader with the governing center-left Broad Front coalition, Nov. 29 was elected president of Uruguay in a runoff election. Mujica won 52.6% of the vote, easily defeating conservative former President Luis Alberto Lacalle of the National Party, who finished with 43.3%.

Mujica and Lacalle had finished first and second, respectively, in a first-round election held in October. Mujica was set to begin serving his five-year term in March 2010, replacing outgoing President Tabare Vazquez, also of the Broad Front, who was constitutionally barred from serving two consecutive terms. [See p. 746B3; for facts on Mujica, see p. 834E3] Mujica in his Nov. 29 victory speechhailed Vazquez, saying, “We’ve won due to the work of this government, for the continuity of this government.” Mujica had been a founding member of the Marxist Tupamaro guerrilla movement that had carried out a wave of bombings, kidnappings and robberies, and was convicted in the death of a policeman. After being released in 1985 during the restoration of democracy, he aided the transformation of the guerrilla movement into a mainstream political organization, and distanced himself from his radical past. Lacalle, who had served as president from 1990 to 1995, in his campaign had said Mujica would attempt to undermine the country’s parliamentary democracy in favor of a more autocratic system, such as that of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. Mujica said he would model his government after that of center-left Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Mujica also pledged to continue the moderate policies of Vazquez, the first leftist president ever elected in Uruguay, who had liberalized the economy while establishing social programs for the poor. Lacalle favored more radical economic liberalization, including the elimination of the country’s income tax. n FACTS ON MUJICA

Jose (Pepe) Alberto Mujica Cordano was born on May 20, 1935, in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital. Mujica was active in the National Party while a youth, but in the early 1960s joined the Tupamaro leftist guerrilla movement, which had drawn inspiration from the 1959 Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro Ruz. Mujica was captured in 1972 on charges related to the murder of a policeman, and spent the next 14 years in prison. He was freed in 1985, when a military dictatorship was ended and democracy was restored to Uruguay. [See 1972, p. 726D3] After his release, Mujica played a role in converting the Tupamaro movement into a mainstream political organization, the Popular Participation Movement (MPP). In 1994, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, Uruguay’s lower legislative house, and then to the Senate in 1999. In 2005, President Vazquez Tabare appointed Mujica agriculture minister. He held the post until 2008, when he resigned during a cabinet shuffle and returned to the Senate. In June, the ruling Broad Front coalition named him its presidential candidate. Mujica in October finished first in the first round of presidential elections but fell short of the 50% showing needed to avert a runoff against conservative Luis Alberto Lacalle of the National Party. Mujica won the Nov. 29 runoff. [See p. 834G2; 2005, p. 138A3] Mujica was married to Lucia Topolansky, also a former Tupamaro movement member who had become a senator. FACTS ON FILE

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East Timor Prime Minister Survives No-Confidence Vote.

The parliament of East Timor Oct. 12 voted, 38–25, to reject a no-confidence motion brought by the opposition Fretilin Party that would have dissolved the cabinet of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and forced new elections. Fretilin had proposed the no-confidence motion in response to Gusmao’s Aug. 30 decision to free Martenus Bere, an Indonesian man accused of involvement in a September 1999 massacre that killed up to 200 people in the East Timorese city of Suai. [See 2008, p. 621C2] Prior to the vote, Gusmao said that while he did not apologize for his decision, he would take full responsibility for Bere’s release. He said that the decision to release Bere was “purely a political decision for our good relationship with Indonesia.” Gusmao and East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta had been criticized by human rights groups for emphasizing political relations with Indonesia over prosecutions of Indonesian military operatives and militia members who had killed up to 1,500 East Timorese citizens before and after East Timor’s 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia. During the parliamentary debate preceding the vote, former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said that Bere’s release had violated the constitution and suggested that Gusmao and Ramos-Horta’s government had “become accustomed to disrespecting the constitution and the law, opposing national and international laws.” Alkatiri was one of 21 Fretilin members of parliament. (The East Timorese Supreme Court was reportedly investigating whether Gusmao’s decision to release Bere had violated provisions of the country’s constitution which gave only the judiciary the right to order a prisoner’s release.) Gusmao Oct. 13 issued a statement accusing Fretilin of “political opportunism” in using the controversy surrounding Bere’s release to try to bring down his government. Indonesian’s Release Triggers Criticism—

Gusmao Aug. 30 ordered the release of Bere on the 10th anniversary of the August 1999 vote that led to independence for East Timor. Bere Aug. 8 had been arrested after entering East Timor from Indonesia to attend a funeral; he had been at large for 10 years and had faced trial on charges including murder, enforced disappearance, torture and rape. Following Gusmao’s order, Bere was turned over to Indonesia’s embassy in Dili, the capital of East Timor, to prepare for his return to Indonesia. (Ramos-Horta Aug. 30 marked the anniversary with a speech arguing that it was necessary for the East Timorese people to forgive Indonesian soldiers and militia members who had “committed heinous crimes against us.” He also called on the United Nations to close its investigations into Indonesian human rights abuses in East Timor.) December 3, 2009

Louis Gentile, the East Timor representative of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Aug. 31 said that Bere’s release “completely undermines the principle of accountability for crimes against humanity” and said that Gusmao’s decision had “global significance.” The parliament of East Timor Sept. 8 voted against allowing Ramos-Horta to travel to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City and then to Europe. Under East Timorese law, all high-ranking government officials were required to request parliamentary approval before leaving the country. Parliament’s rejection of RamosHorta’s travel request was widely seen as a rebuke related to the government’s release of Bere. n

EUROPE

UNITED STATES

European Union European Commission Posts Assigned.

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, Nov. 27 announced his choices for members of the incoming commission. One representative of each of the EU’s 27 member nations received a seat on the commission with a five-year term. Barroso, entering his second term, represented Portugal. Lady Catherine Ashton, nominated the previous week to a new role as high representative for foreign policy, would represent Britain. [See p. 802G2; 2004, p. 647E2] Fourteen members of the outgoing commission were nominated to return for a second term, but all of them except Barroso would rotate to a new post. The new team included nine women, up from eight in the previous lineup. Under the confirmation process, the nominees would appear in January 2010 for hearings before the relevant committees of the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative branch. The full team would be submitted for a parliamentary vote of approval in late January. Frenchman Gets Key Economic Role—

After months of heavy lobbying by the French government, the most coveted post, internal market commissioner, went to Michel Barnier, a former French foreign minister and agriculture minister. He had served on the commission from 1999 to 2004 as regional affairs commissioner. Barnier’s appointment drew concern in Britain, where the London-based financial industry was the largest in the EU. There were fears that France would seek to impose stricter regulations to rein in free-market capitalism following the global financial crisis of the past year. Barroso reportedly rejected a plea from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to create a new post for financial regulation, separate from the internal market commissioner. However, a British bureaucrat, Jonathan Faull, was named director general of the civil service department under Barnier.

Other Notable Picks—Among the other top economic posts, Joaquin Almunia of Spain was tapped to be competition commissioner, the EU’s top antitrust official. He would replace Neelie Kroes of the Netherlands, who was known for her vigorous enforcement actions, including a years-long battle with U.S. software maker Microsoft Inc., and a $1.5 billion fine levied in May against U.S. computer chip maker Intel Corp. She would switch to a commission post overseeing the “digital agenda.” [See p. 343F1] Olli Rehn of Finland, who had served as enlargement commissioner, in charge of the EU’s process for admitting new members, was named to the post of economic and monetary affairs commissioner, replacing Almunia. Stefan Fuele of the Czech Republic was tapped to replace Rehn as enlargement commissioner, and would also oversee relations with former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine, that were not part of the EU. Former Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht was named trade commissioner, the post previously held by Ashton. Barroso named Danish Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard to a newly created post of climate action commissioner. She had led preparations for a December summit on climate change in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. [See p. 827C3] There were two other new positions: home affairs commissioner and justice, fundamental rights and citizenship commissioner. Guenther Oettinger, premier of the German region of Baden-Württemberg, received the nomination for energy commissioner. Commentators said the assignment reflected the importance of Germany’s relations with Russia, Europe’s main supplier of natural gas. n

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Minister Resigns Over Afghanistan Air Strike.

German Labor Minister Franz Josef Jung Nov. 27 resigned from the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Jung said he was taking “political responsibility” for an alleged cover-up of civilian deaths in Afghanistan caused by a September air strike ordered by a German officer. Jung had been defense minister at the time, and had repeatedly denied that any civilians were killed. The air strike, targeting two fuel trucks hijacked by Taliban militants near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, was believed to have killed about 100 people, including as many as 40 civilians. [See pp. 826E1, 629C2] The incident was said to be the deadliest involving German troops since the end of World War II. The Afghanistan war had already been widely unpopular in Germany. The German parliament, the Bundestag, Dec. 3 voted, 445–105, with 43 members abstaining, to extend by one year the mandate for the mission in Afghanistan, where 4,200 German troops were serving. Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan Nov. 26 had resigned as chief of Germany’s armed forces after his handling of the civilian 835

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deaths also drew criticism. A deputy defense minister, Peter Wichert, was also forced out, after the newspaper Bild Nov. 26 reported that leaked documents showed defense officials had withheld information about the bombing from lawmakers and prosecutors. Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Nov. 26 confirmed that the military had concealed that information. Guttenberg had replaced Jung as defense minister in late September. Merkel Nov. 27 named Ursula von der Leyden, minister for families, seniors, women and youth, to replace Jung as labor minister. Merkel tapped Kristina Koehler, a member of her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, to take over as families minister. n

Ireland Catholic Church Apologizes for Child Abuse.

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Cardinal Sean Brady, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Nov. 26 apologized for decades of child abuse by priests in Dublin, the Irish capital. The Irish government and police also apologized for failing to bring the perpetrators to justice. A report released that day by a government-appointed investigating commission said the archdiocese of Dublin had covered up abuses committed between 1975 and 2004. [See p. 361B2] The commission had investigated accusations of abuse made by 320 children against 46 priests. Of those priests, the report identified 11 who had been convicted of sex crimes. The names of the others were not disclosed. The report said four archbishops of Dublin—John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973, Dermot Ryan, who died in 1984, Kevin McNamara, who died in 1987, and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired in 2004—had known of the abuse allegations, but transferred priests between parishes rather than report them to police. The 700-page report said the church authorities, rather than putting the wellbeing of children first, had been intent on “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets.” A report by another Irish commission, issued in May, had identified the members of a male religious order, the Christian Brothers, as the perpetrators of the most abuses at Catholic schools and institutions. The Christian Brothers Nov. 25 said they had agreed to pay 161 million euros ($240 million) in cash and property to help provide support services for abuse victims. n

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Railroad Bomb Kills 27; Terrorists Blamed.

A homemade explosive planted along a luxury rail route between Moscow, Russia’s capital, and the northern city of St. Petersburg Nov. 27 detonated as a train passed over it, killing 27 people and injuring more than 90. The explosion took place 836

in a remote area about 250 miles (400 km) northwest of Moscow. Railways Minister Vladimir Yakunin said the planting of the bomb, which reportedly had the force of 15 pounds (seven kilograms) of TNT, was act of terrorism. Several government officials died in the crash, including Boris Yevstratikov, head of Russia’s Federal Reserve Agency. Several observers theorized that the train had been targeted because it was frequently used by government officials and businesspeople. [See 2007, p. 548D2] The following day, another explosion occurred at the blast site. Aleksandr Bastrykin, head of the Russian prosecutor general’s investigation committee, was injured in the explosion, but was expected to recover. A Dec. 2 statement issued on behalf of the Chechen militant leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the attack. (Chechnya was a republic in the Russian Caucasus region.) Umarov, who was thought to lead the Islamic insurgency in the Russian Caucasus, was suspected of involvement with both a 2004 school massacre in the town of Beslan and the June assassination attempt on Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia. The statement, which was posted to the Internet, said further violence would occur unless the Russian military, which it called “occupants,” ceased a “policy of killing ordinary Muslims” in the Caucasus. [See 2006, p. 558C1; 2004, p. 681A1] Umarov’s claim had not been independently verified. Russian police Nov. 30 released a composite drawing of one suspect, and a description of a second. The men were reportedly seen near the scene of the explosion days before it occurred. Another explosive device Nov. 30 detonated beneath a train in Dagestan, a southern Russian republic that bordered Chechnya, without derailing it. No one was injured in that explosion. Violence, often against officials, had increased in the Russian Caucasus over 2009. Ongoing unrest in the area was attributed to militant Islamists and separatist rebels, as well as persistent poverty and rampant corruption. n

Switzerland Mosque Minarets Banned by Referendum.

Swiss voters in a referendum held Nov. 29 approved a proposal for a constitutional amendment to ban the construction of new minarets, the towers next to mosques that were used for the Islamic call to prayer. The measure was approved with 57.5% of the vote, and voter turnout was relatively high, at 53%. Right-wing political parties had campaigned for the ban, while the Swiss government opposed it. The result drew both domestic and international criticism as an act of religious intolerance that could lead to a Muslim backlash. [See p. 432F2; 2008, p. 401G3] The Swiss Federal Council Nov. 29 issued a statement saying that the ban on new minarets would take effect immediately. However, the council said the ban did not affect the existing four minarets in

Switzerland, and would not prevent the building of new mosques without minarets. Muslim leaders in Switzerland said they might challenge the ban in court. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey Nov. 30 said she had discussed the vote with ambassadors from a number of mostly Muslim countries. She said, “Swiss Muslims are well integrated and will continue to attend the 200 mosques in the country.” She said the Swiss government was concerned that the ban could be interpreted as a “provocation” that “risks inflaming extremism.” Swiss business leaders had warned that approval of the ban could prompt Muslim countries to retaliate by boycotting Swiss products. Danish companies had faced such a boycott in a controversy over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper in 2005. [See 2006, p. 61A1] Ban Backers Warned of ‘Islamization’—

The leading proponents of the ban were the populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and the Federal Democratic Union, a conservative Christian party. Their campaign included warnings that a growing Muslim presence in Switzerland could lead to what they called the “Islamization” of society and the imposition of Islamic sharia law. In 2007, the SVP had won national elections to become the biggest party in the Swiss parliament, after a campaign widely denounced as racist and anti-immigrant. But when the Federal Council ejected the party’s leader in favor of a more moderate member, the party declared itself in opposition to the government. [See 2007, p. 891A2] The result of the Nov. 29 referendum came as a surprise, after public opinion polls in the run-up to the vote had shown that a majority opposed the ban. Observers said many voters had likely been reluctant to admit to poll-takers that they intended to vote for the ban. There was also a divergence in rural and urban voting patterns in the referendum. Fewer than 40% of voters in large cities, where most of the country’s Muslims lived, backed the ban, while more than two thirds of voters in small villages and towns supported it. The Swiss system of direct democracy gave voters the chance to decide policy questions in numerous referendums. Some SVP leaders said the party might follow up its victory by proposing further ballot measures to ban such practices as the wearing of the burqa (a full-length Islamic women’s garment), forced marriages and female circumcision. About 300,000 to 400,000 Muslims lived in Switzerland, which had a total population of about 7.6 million. The Muslim population had grown rapidly in recent decades, from an estimated 50,000 in 1980. Many were from Balkan countries, including Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. In neighboring France, the integration of Muslim immigrants was also a divisive topic. In June, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had endorsed a proposal by lawmakers to ban face-covering Islamic veils FACTS ON FILE

for women. In 2004, France had banned religious symbols in schools, a move seen as aimed in particular at head scarves worn by Muslim girls and women. International Reaction—French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Nov. 29 urged Switzerland to “go back on this decision rather quickly,” calling it “an expression of intolerance.” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called the ban “clearly discriminatory” and a result of “anti-foreigner scare-mongering.” Pillay’s office was based in Geneva, Switzerland, where a number of other U.N. organizations were headquartered. Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, which held the rotating European Union presidency, said the U.N. should consider whether it was appropriate to continue holding meetings in Switzerland. He said the vote “sends a very unfortunate signal to the rest of the world about attitudes and prejudices in Europe.” Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a group that had 57 member nations, condemned the vote as an “example of growing anti-Islamic incitements in Europe by extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering, ultra-right politicians.” Far-right parties in other European countries, including Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, welcomed the referendum result, and said it would encourage them to put forward similar bans. n

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Iran IAEA Issues Rebuke Over Nuclear Plant.

The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nov. 27 censured Iran for operating a once-secret nuclear facility whose existence had been revealed in September, and demanded that it cease uranium enrichment at the plant. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Nov. 29 rejected the IAEA resolution, and said Iran would build 10 more uranium enrichment plants. [See below, p. 804D1] The IAEA had previously passed three resolutions barring Iran from enriching uranium. The new resolution said Iran had committed a “breach of obligations” under U.N. treaties by failing to notify the IAEA of the secret uranium-enrichment facility, near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom. The IAEA also expressed “serious concern” about the possible military applications of the enriched uranium, although Iran said it was only meant for civilian purposes. The IAEA’s board of governors voted, 25–3, to support the resolution, with six abstentions and one country absent. It would be passed on to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions on Iran. All five permanent members of the Security Council supported the resolution in the IAEA vote, including Russia and China, which in the past had been reluctant to approve harsh measures against Iran. U.S. December 3, 2009

President Barack Obama had lobbied the leaders of both countries to support a tougher stance, but although Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in early November had indicated that he would back sanctions, Chinese President Hu Jintao had not. U.S. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the vote “demonstrates the resolve and unity of the international community with regard to Iran’s nuclear program.” He added, “If Iran refuses to meet its obligations, then it will be responsible for its own growing isolation and the consequences.” However, U.S. officials emphasized that they were still open to engaging with Iran and that they had not withdrawn any proposed deals, including one in which Iran could export much of its uranium for enrichment. Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, criticized the resolution as “hasty and undue,” and said Iran would reduce its cooperation with the agency to the “minimum required to fulfill its international obligations.” A senior conservative Iranian legislator, Mohammad Karamirad, Nov. 28 said Iran might leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would mean that its nuclear program would no longer be subject to IAEA supervision. The Iranian parliament the next day also called for the government to reduce cooperation with the IAEA. Ten

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Ahmadinejad Nov. 29 said Iran would build 10 new plants because the country’s energy needs would increase greatly over the next 15 years. “We annually must produce between 250 to 300 tons [225 to 270 metric tons] of nuclear fuel,” he said. He said construction of at least five of the facilities would begin within the next two months, while the government would determine locations for the others. Analysts and diplomats said such a construction program would take Iran years, and was more an aspiration and a political strike at the international community than a realistic goal. Ahmadinejad also said Iran’s cabinet would order a study of how Iran could enrich uranium to the level necessary for use in a medical research reactor in Tehran, Iran’s capital. (The U.S. had proposed that Iran could export uranium to Russia and China for enrichment to that level.) Iran’s top nuclear official, Ali Akbar Salehi, Nov. 30 said Ahmadinejad’s announcement was directly provoked by the IAEA resolution. “We had no intention of building many facilities like the Natanz site,” referring to another enrichment plant Iran was building. “But apparently the West doesn’t want to understand Iran’s peaceful message.” Ahmadinejad Dec. 2 told a crowd in the central Iranian city of Isfahan that “the Iranian nation will produce 20% fuel and anything it needs itself.” That was an apparent reference to the enrichment level needed for fuel for the medical research reactor. However, analysts said 20%-enriched fuel could also be further enriched to the 80%90% level used for nuclear weapons. They also said the lower-enriched fuel itself could be used to create a crude nuclear

weapon, albeit one that was many times heavier than a bomb made with weaponsgrade uranium. n

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Iraq Election Crisis Continues, Law Passes Again.

Iraq’s parliament Nov. 23 passed an amended version of legislation governing parliamentary and presidential elections, after Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi the previous week had vetoed an earlier version. Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim Arab, vowed to veto the new law, which Sunni legislators said would decrease their power, but also signaled that he was willing to compromise on the legislation. The vote was largely boycotted by Sunni members of Parliament failure to reach a deal was reportedly all but certain to delay elections past January 2010, breaking a constitutional deadline. [See p. 804F3] Hashemi had said he had vetoed the original legislation because he wanted a quota of seats reserved for Iraqis—mainly Sunnis—who had fled the country to be increased to 15%, from 5% in the original legislation. However, in the new legislation, which was pushed through by Shiite Muslim Arabs and Kurds over Sunni objections, the refugee quota was abolished altogether. Instead, refugees’ votes would be counted in their home provinces, and the number of seats in parliament would be adjusted by raising figures from 2005 voter rolls by 2.8% for every year to represent population growth. That was expected to effectively lower Sunni representation in parliament. Iraqi politicians Nov. 26 said they had reached a tentative compromise, under which Sunnis would reportedly receive the number of seats the original legislation provided, while Kurds would get the increased share from the amended law. The deal had to be approved by Iraq’s electoral commission. The election had originally been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010, and the Iraqi constitution required that it be held by the end of that month. However, the delays in passing election legislation reportedly made it highly unlikely that the elections would fall before the deadline. Iraqi legislators Dec. 2 said a proposal under consideration in parliament would move the vote to Feb. 27, or possibly March 1. Analysts expressed fears that the violation of the constitution would harm Iraq’s fragile democracy. Men in Army Uniforms Kill Family— A group of men early Nov. 25 broke into a house in the village of Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and killed six members of a family, including women and children, Iraqi officials said. The men were reportedly wearing Iraqi army uniforms, raising fears of the return of death squads, which had killed thousands of Iraqis in the guise of Iraqi security forces during the height of Iraq’s sectarian bloodshed in 2006–07. Gunmen in Iraqi army uniforms the previous week had killed 13 men in villages west of Baghdad, but the Iraqi government had said those killings had resulted from “tribal disputes.” Also Nov. 25, two bombings near Karbala’s main shrine killed at least three people. 837

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Iraqi officials Nov. 30 said 88 civilians had been killed in violence over November, the lowest monthly level since the 2003 invasion and the first time the death toll had fallen below 100. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of U.S.-based Internet search-engine giant Google Inc., Nov. 24 announced at the National Museum in Baghdad that Google would create virtual copies of the museum’s artifacts and make them freely available online. The program, which Google was carrying out at its own expense in conjunction with the U.S. State Department, was scheduled to be finished by early 2010. The museum, which held a renowned collection of artifacts from the region’s Stone Age, and the Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Islamic periods, had been badly looted in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The majority of its collection remained in storage, and although the museum had been reopened, the general public was still not allowed to visit. [See pp. 601A1, 118G1] o U.S. prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Nov. 20 asked Judge Ricardo Urbina to dismiss manslaughter and weapons charges against Nicholas Slatten, one of five guards from the U.S. security contractor formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide—since renamed Xe Services—who had been charged in a 2007 shooting incident in Baghdad that had killed 17 Iraqi civilians. The request, which was not made public, would allow prosecutors the option of filing other charges against Slatten later. [See p. 789D2] o An Iraqi justice ministry spokesman Nov. 19 said Adil Mashhadani, a former leader of an Awakening Council in Baghdad’s Fadhil neighborhood, had been sentenced to death for kidnapping and murder. Awakening Councils were mostly Sunni armed groups that had turned against extremists such as the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq. However, Mashhadani, who was arrested in March on terrorism charges, was accused of collaborating with extremists and extorting bribes from Fadhil residents. [See p. 208A2] n IRAQ CASUALTIES

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Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Dec. 3 [See pp. 837A3, 789F1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,370 31,575

Allied military deaths: 318

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Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,316 (as of

Nov. 29) Iraqi civilian deaths: 94,349–102,949

(Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

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Palestinians Push for State’s Recognition—

Other Middle East News Israel to Freeze New Settlement Building.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Nov. 25 announced that Israel would unilaterally halt new construction of homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. However, Palestinian officials dismissed the Israeli move because it did not affect construction in East Jerusalem or housing units that were already being built. U.S. officials praised the freeze, but also indicated that it was insufficient and that Israel should offer further concessions in order to bring about a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. [See p. 790F2] Netanyahu said no new residential construction would begin for 10 months, after which Israel would “revert to the policies of previous governments in relation to construction” in the settlements. He said some 2,900 housing units already under construction would be completed, as would a limited number of schools, synagogues and other public buildings. The freeze also excluded building in East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed in 1967 and which Palestinians wanted as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Netanyahu said the Israeli move was “difficult” and “painful.” He called on the Palestinians and Arab nations to “seize this opportunity” to take steps toward peace with Israel. Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad dismissed Netanyahu’s announcement as “not new,” and added, “We’re not looking for the resumption of the process for the sake of it.” The PA had refused to resume peace talks with Israel without a complete settlement freeze, and Fayyad said, “The exclusion of Jerusalem is a very serious problem for us.” The U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, said the Israeli plan was “significant and could have a substantial impact on the ground.” However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the same day pressured Israel and the PA to move forward on holding talks toward creating a Palestinian state. She mentioned “1967 lines” as a basis for delineating such a state’s borders, in what was seen as a push for resolution of such “final status” issues based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, said the construction freeze announced by Netanyahu was “a gesture, first of all, to the president of the United States.” Oren reiterated that Israel opposed making the 1967 borders a basis for talks. Relations between the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama and Israel had cooled over U.S. criticism of continued settlement activity, most recently of Israel’s Nov. 17 announcement that it would move ahead with plans to build 900 new housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Israeli police Dec. 2 arrested the mayor of the Beit Aryeh settlement council for confronting police guarding Israeli inspectors sent to stop new construction, and also arrested two protesters in the Elon Moreh settlement who opposed the freeze.

Palestinian officials Nov. 15 said that because peace talks had reached a stalemate, they would ask the United Nations Security Council to unilaterally endorse an independent Palestinian state without seeking Israel’s approval. The move was seen as largely symbolic, since it was expected that the U.S. would veto any such resolution. The PA Nov. 16 asked the European Union to back the plan, but Foreign Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden, which held the rotating European Union presidency, the next day said such a move would be “somewhat premature” because the state had not yet been formed. [See p. 593E1] The Israeli government Dec. 1 criticized a proposal that was to be considered by EU foreign ministers, published that day in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, that would call for the establishment of a Palestinian state “with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Progress Seen on Freeing Israeli Soldier—

Media sources Nov. 23 reported that Israel was moving towards a deal with the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) to swap Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit— an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Palestinian militants in June 2006 and was being held in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controlled—for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Hamas leaders were reportedly meeting in Egypt to discuss a deal, and Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian officials all made comments indicating that a swap was in the works. [See p. 689C2] Some reports said such a deal could include freedom for Marwan Barghouti, who was serving five life sentences for killing Israelis, but who was seen as a possible successor to current PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who had signaled that he would not run for reelection. Netanyahu Nov. 24 said, “There is still no deal, and I do not know if there will be one.” Addressing Israeli censorship of the negotiation details, he said that if a deal was finalized, “We will allow the cabinet ministers and the public in general to discuss the issue.” Israel’s state prosecutor in a Nov. 29 court hearing outlined a broad plan for a prisoner swap for Shalit. Under the plan, about 1,000 Palestinians would be freed: more than 400 in exchange for Shalit, and more than 500 others as a “gesture” to the Palestinians. Hamas Suspends Rocket Attacks— Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, Nov. 13 said that Hamas for the time being had stopped rocket attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip, and was requiring other Palestinian militant groups to do the same. However, the same day, Israeli troops fired at Palestinians who the military said had been placing explosives near a border crossing, killing one and wounding two others, and a rocket from Gaza hit an open area near an Israeli town. [See p. 754C3] Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad Nov. 21 affirmed the suspension, after militants carried out another rocket attack. Israeli aircraft early Nov. 22 bombed two alleged weapons factories in Gaza, wounding at least seven people. Israeli jets also Nov. 27 fired on a group of Palestinian FACTS ON FILE

militants in northern Gaza who the Israeli military said were about to carry out a rocket attack, wounding at least one. n

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan Zardari Transfers Control of Nuclear Arsenal.

President Asif Ali Zardari Nov. 27 transferred formal control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, a member of Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The transfer was seen as a concession to demands from opposition parties that Zardari relinquish presidential powers that had been accumulated during the tenure of his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, who had seized power in a 1999 coup. [See p. 695A2] In the transfer, Zardari relinquished the top position in the National Command Authority, a group of civilian and military leaders that controlled Pakistan’s 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. The transfer was largely symbolic, since the army had de facto control over the weapons. However, the transfer highlighted the growing vulnerability of Zardari, who was reportedly distrusted by the army and highly unpopular with the Pakistani public. The army reportedly saw Zardari as being too close to the U.S., which was urging Pakistan to intensify its crackdown on Islamic extremists. His popularity had fallen for a variety of reasons, including a weak economy and a volatile security situation marked by frequent terrorist attacks. [See p. 806F2] Zardari made the concession after he was unable to secure parliamentary approval to extend a political amnesty that had been granted by Musharraf in 2007. The amnesty had allowed Zardari and his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—who later that year was assassinated— to return to Pakistan from exile without facing pending corruption charges that Zardari and his supporters had claimed were politically motivated. The amnesty, which also extended to thousands of other people, including senior members of Zardari’s administration, expired Nov. 28. [See 2007, p. 675E1] As a sitting president, Zardari was immune to prosecution. However, it was possible that a Pakistani court could use the charges to rule that his 2008 election was illegitimate. Analysts said Zardari could be forced to give up other Musharraf-era presidential powers, such as the right to dissolve parliament, if he wanted to appease political opponents who had been calling for his resignation. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Golf Woods Admits ‘Sins’ After Crash at Home.

Tiger Woods, the top-ranked golfer and one of the most famous athletes in the world, early Nov. 27 was slightly injured when he crashed his Cadillac Escalade sport utility December 3, 2009

vehicle (SUV) into a fire hydrant and then a tree in his neighbor’s front yard, after backing out of the driveway of his mansion in Windermere, Fla. According to police, his wife, Elin Nordegren Woods, smashed the back windows of the SUV with a golf club after the crash in order to remove her husband from the vehicle. The accident came two days after the National Enquirer tabloid had published a story alleging that Woods had an affair with a New York City– based nightclub hostess, Rachel Uchitel. After days of media speculation about the circumstances of the accident and the alleged affair, Woods Dec. 1 issued a statement acknowledging unspecified personal “transgressions.” [See pp. 839F3, 670F1; 2004, p. 808D1] Woods, 33, and Nordegren Woods, 29, had married in 2004 and had two children: daughter Sam, two, and son Charlie, nine months. With a carefully controlled public image, Woods had come to be seen as a representative of his sport and a role model for athletes in general, as well as a soughtafter figure for corporate endorsements. According to the police report, Woods lost consciousness after the 2:25 a.m. accident, and suffered minor lacerations to his face. After being treated at a local hospital and released hours later, he refused to speak to police, despite repeated requests for an interview. He posted a statement on his Web site Nov. 29 in which he said the accident was his fault, adding that “the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors” surrounding the incident were “irresponsible.” In a Nov. 30 statement, he said he was withdrawing from the Dec. 3–6 Chevron World Challenge, a charity tournament in Thousand Oaks, Calif., that he had hosted since 1999, due to the injuries he suffered in the crash. (His withdrawal meant he did not have to attend a pretournament press conference.) The Florida Highway Patrol, after several failed attempts to speak to Woods in person about the accident, Dec. 1 issued him a $164 citation for careless driving and closed their investigation. In a final report released Dec. 2, the highway patrol said Woods had not been wearing a seat belt, had been traveling at 30 miles per hour (48 kmph) and had caused $3,200 in property damage. Woods’s public silence raised questions about the details of the events surrounding the accident and fueled speculation about whether Woods and his wife had been arguing about the alleged affair. Uchitel, 34, Nov. 27 denied the affair, and Nov. 29 hired high-profile attorney Gloria Allred to represent her. Speculation about Woods’s private life increased Dec. 1 after celebrity magazine Us Weekly published a cover story in which another woman, 24-year-old Los Angeles waitress Jaimee Grubbs, claimed that she had a 31-month affair with Woods beginning in April 2007. The magazine also released an audio recording of a voice mail on Grubbs’s phone, left by a man that Grubbs claimed was Woods on Nov. 24. Grubbs also claimed to have more than 300 text messages from Woods stored in her phone.

Woods Appeals for Privacy—Woods Dec. 1, a few hours after the Us Weekly story broke, issued another statement on his Web site. In the statement, Woods acknowledged that he had “let my family down” due to unspecified “transgressions,” but maintained that he and his family were entitled to privacy. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions,” he said. “I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves.” He also denied rumors that the injuries he said he had suffered in the crash had actually been sustained in a fight with his wife. “The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious,” Woods said. “Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.” As of Dec. 3, Elin Nordegren Woods, a native of Sweden who had met Woods while working as a nanny for Swedish professional golfer Jesper Parnevik, had not spoken in public about the controversy. Woods’s main corporate sponsors— athletic apparel manufacturer Nike Inc., sports drink maker Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo Inc.) and video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. (EA)—Dec. 1 all issued statements in support of Woods. n

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Westwood Wins European PGA Tour Title.

England’s Lee Westwood Nov. 22 won the Dubai World Championship in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the final event of the season on the European Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour. The win allowed Westwood, 36, to clinch the European Tour’s “Race to Dubai” season title, awarded to the Tour’s top money-winner. (The honor had previously been known as the Order of Merit.) [See 2008, p. 993E2] Westwood shot a course-record 64, eight under par, in the final round to post a 23-under 265 for the tournament. Ross McGowan of England finished second, six strokes behind, and Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland was third, at 273. Westwood earned $1.25 million for the win, raising his season total to $6,376,984. McIlroy finished second, with earnings of $5,432,358. Westwood, who had also won the European Tour title in 2000, received a $1.5 million bonus for winning the Race to Dubai. [See 2000, p. 1053B2] Other Results—In other golf results: o Tiger Woods of the U.S. Nov. 15 won the Australian Masters in Melbourne. It was the first victory in Australia for the world’s top-ranked golfer, who attracted record crowds to the event. Woods shot a 14-under-par 274 for the tournament, and took home A$270,000 (US$250,000) in prize money, as well as a $3 million appearance fee. [See p. 839G1; 2005, p. 920C1] o Phil Mickelson of the U.S. Nov. 8 won the World Golf Championships–HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, China. Mickelson shot a 17-under 271 in the event, the final World Golf Championship 839

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Publishers Weekly Nov. 30 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 772A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback

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1. I, Alex Cross, by James Patterson (Little, Brown) 2. Under the Dome, by Stephen King (Scribner) 3. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Doubleday) 4. Ford County, by John Grisham (Doubleday) 5. The Wrecker, by Clive Cussler (Putnam) General Hardback 1. Going Rogue: An American Life, by Sarah Palin (Harper) 2. Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi (Knopf) 3. Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom (Hyperion) 4. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown) 5. SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow)

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Mass Market Paperback 1. The Associate, by John Grisham (Dell) 2. Cross Country, by James Patterson (Vision) 3. Lavender Morning, by Jude Deveraux (Pocket) 4. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction, by David Michaels (Berkley) 5. Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Nov. 28 issue list-

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ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 772C1]:

Singles 1. “Empire State of Mind,” Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (Roc Nation) 2. “Fireflies,” Owl City (Universal Republic) 3. “Whatcha Say,” Jason DeRulo (Beluga Heights/Warner Bros.) 4. “Replay,” Iyaz (Time Is Money/Beluga Heights/Reprise) 5. “Need You Know,” Lady Antebellum (Capitol Nashville)

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1. The Circle, Bon Jovi (Island/IDJMG) 2. My Christmas, Andrea Bocelli (Sugar/Decca) 3. Play On, Carrie Underwood (Arista Nashville/SMN) 4. Michael Jackson’s This Is It (soundtrack), Michael Jackson (MJJ/Epic/ Sony Music ) 5. Fearless, Taylor Swift (Big Machine)

of 2009. Mickelson earned $1.2 million for the victory.

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o Ross Fisher of England Nov. 1 defeated Anthony Kim of the U.S., four and three, to win the 36-hole final of the World Match Play Championship in Casares, Spain. Fisher earned $1.1 million for the win. [See 2007, p. 815B1] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

al television shows Nov. 2–29 as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.9 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 772A2]:

1. “Sunday Night Football” (NBC), Nov. 15 (13.7)* 2. “World Series Game 6” (Fox), Nov. 4 (13.4) 3. “Dancing With the Stars” (ABC), Nov. 23 (12.9)* 4. “NCIS” (CBS), Nov. 10 (12.7)* 5. “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS), Nov. 12 (10.9)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Nov. 27–Dec. 3 according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 772B2]:

1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Summit Entertainment ($233.3 million, 2) Directed by Chris Weitz. With Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning. 2. The Blind Side, Warner Bros. ($102.3 million, 2) Directed by John Lee Hancock. With Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Lily Collins and Ray McKinnon. 3. 2012, Sony ($139.4 million, 3) Directed by Roland Emmerich. With John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. 4. Old Dogs, Disney ($25.0 million, 1) Directed by Walt Becker. With John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Ella Blue Travolta, Robin Williams and Matt Dillon. 5. Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Disney ($105.6 million, 4) Directed by Robert Zemeckis. With the voices of Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth and Robin Wright Penn. 6. Ninja Assassin, Warner Bros. ($22.1 million, 1) Directed by James McTeigue. With Rain, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles and Rick Yune. 7. Planet 51, Sony ($28.8 million, 2) Directed by Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez. With the voices of Dwayne Johnson, Gary Oldman, John Cleese, Lewis MacLeod and Emma Tate. 8. Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, Lionsgate ($32.8 million, 4) Directed by Lee Daniels. With Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz. 9. Fantastic Mr. Fox, 20th Century Fox ($10.3 million, 3) Directed by Wes Anderson. With the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Wallace Wolodarsky. 10. The Road, Weinstein Co. ($2.1 million, 1) Directed by John Hillcoat. With Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Charlize Theron.

Times Square entertainment district. The winning bidder was Hong Kong–based businessman Hoffman Ma, who said he was bidding on behalf of a resort hotel in Macau, China. Ma paid much more than the $40,000–$60,000 pre-auction estimate for the glove, which fetched the top price among a variety of Jackson memorabilia auctioned that night. Jackson had died suddenly in Los Angeles in late June. [See p. 436A2] n

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The sequined white glove worn by pop music legend Michael Jackson when he launched his trademark “moonwalk” dance move on U.S. network television in 1983 fetched $350,000 ($420,000, including taxes and fees) at a Nov. 21 auction at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City’s 840

O B I T UA R I E S SIZER, Theodore Ryland, 77, progressive education-reform advocate who launched the Essential Schools movement in 1984, while teaching at Brown University; its umbrella organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools, grew to encompass several hundred schools across the U.S.; 1984 was also the year he published the first in a trilogy of influential books about secondary-school education, Horace’s Compromise:

The Dilemma of the American High School; the other books in the series were Horace’s School: Redesigning the American High School (1992) and Horace’s Hope: What Works for the American High School (1996); born June 23, 1932, in New Haven, Conn.; died Oct. 21 at his home in Harvard, Mass., after a long battle with colon cancer. [See 1984, p. 134C1; 1983, p. 842E1–A2; Indexes 1970, 1964] WOODWARD, Edward (Albert Arthur), 79, British stage, screen and television actor; his stage work included a starring role on Broadway in High Spirits, a musical comedy based on Noel Coward’s play Blithe Spirit that opened in 1964 and ran for almost a year; among his best-known film roles was that of a strongly religious police officer entangled with a pagan cult in The Wicker Man (originally released in 1973 but re-released in an uncut version some years later); his TV work included the title role in the British espionage series “Callan” (1967–72) and the title role in the U.S.made TV drama “The Equalizer” (1985–89), about an ex-spy taking justice into his own hands on behalf of clients whom police had refused to help; born June 1, 1930, in Croydon, England; died Nov. 16 in Truro, England, of pneumonia, after battling heart disease and other physical problems. [See 2007, p. 288F2; 1985, p. 256E1; Indexes 1980, 1966, 1963–64] n

December 3, 2009

Copenhagen Climate Treaty Talks Begin 192 Nations Seek Successor to Kyoto Pact.

A United Nations–sponsored conference on global climate change Dec. 7 opened in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, with the goal of creating a binding greenhouse gas emissions treaty that would help minimize the widely expected detrimental environmental and economic effects of global climate change. The meeting, scheduled to last until Dec. 18, was expected to be attended by representatives from some 192 countries, members of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The central goal of the summit was the replacement of the current 1997 Kyoto Protocol emissions treaty, set to expire in 2012. Also on the agenda was the creation of a multibillion-dollar fund to provide money to developing countries to aid them in dealing with the wide range of expected effects of climate change. [See pp. 845B3, 827C3, 795F1, 775F3, 636B1] During ceremonies opening the talks, Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said that by the conclusion of the summit, “we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today. Hope for a better future.” In the weeks leading up to the talks, several world leaders had backed away from the goal of establishing a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. However, several industrialized and developing countries had recently made pledges intended to either reduce or curb the growth of their emissions. Hope for a new treaty had also been bolstered by U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement of a emissions-reduction target, the first time the U.S. had made such a commitment. Obama had pledged to reduce U.S. emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by a deadline of 2020. Obama

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Dec. 4 announced in a statement that Obama would change the date at which he would appear at the Copenhagen talks to Dec. 18, the last day of the summit, from Dec. 9. The change was considered significant because the most important details of climate change agreements were usually decided in the final days of negotiations. Obama’s new schedule was viewed as a commitment by the U.S. to reach a formal treaty at the talks, and the statement’s expectation of a “meaningful Copenhagen accord” was thought to increase the likelihood of the creation of a formal climate treaty. The White House statement also expressed support for a proposal to set up a $10 billion fund by 2012 to aid poorer countries in cutting emissions and dealing with climate change. EPA Declares Emissions a Danger— In another sign of U.S. support for a treaty, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dec. 8 issued a final ruling which concluded that six man-made greenhouse gases constituted a threat to human health and the environment. The gases were carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The ruling, formally

known as an “endangerment finding,” cleared the way for the EPA to begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions generated by power plants, cars, industrial sites and other sources. However, Obama had previously said he preferred that the U.S. Congress pass legislation regulating greenhouse gases, instead of using the EPA to do so. The U.S. House in June had passed a climate bill that called for the U.S.’s emissions to be reduced by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, in line with Obama’s pledge. The U.S. Senate was considering a similar bill that called for a 20% reduction below 2005 levels during the same time period. [See pp. 759E3, 654A2, 267E1] An April 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling required the EPA to consider the potential dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, and to begin regulating them if they were determined to be harmful to human health or the environment. “There have and continue to be debates about how and how quickly climate change will happen if we fail to act,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said. “But the overwhelming amounts of scientific study show that the threat is real.” [See 2007, p. 206A1] A number of business and industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, criticized the announcement, arguing that the regulation of carbon dioxide would raise consumer and manufacturing costs, making U.S. companies less competitive than foreign rivals. Those concerns were echoed by many Republicans and some Democrats. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R, Tenn.) said, “The costs of compliance with the EPA’s unilateral announcement today could run into hundreds of billions of dollars a year—costs borne by average Americans through huge increases in their electric bills and at the gas pump.” Poor Countries Seek Cuts From Rich—A group of developing countries, led by China, Dec. 8 criticized rich, industrialized nations for failing to commit to more significant cuts. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N. and a representative of the Group of 77 coalition of developing countries, also criticized the plan for an annual $10 billion aid fund as falling far short of the amount needed. Two competing draft proposals for an agreement also began circulating that day. One was put forth by China and was seen as reflecting the stance of developing nations. The other, drafted by Denmark, was thought to grant greater leeway to industrialized countries. Disagreement between the two camps focused on key elements including how fast and sharply countries should attempt to cut emissions; what responsibility developing countries had to rein in the sharp emissions growth resulting from their burgeoning economies; what responsibility rich countries had to poor ones disproportionately affected by climate change; and how to ensure that countries fulfilled their promises to contribute to any aid funds that were established. Todd Stern, the U.S.’s chief climate negotiator, Dec. 9 said he could not envision

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3599 December 10, 2009

B the U.S. subsidizing China’s efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. He said any money given to a fund should instead be directed to the world’s poorest countries. Stern said firm emissions caps by China and other developing countries were “a core part of this negotiation” because most future emissions growth was expected to come from those countries. He also dismissed the idea that the U.S. and other industrialized countries owed poor nations reparations for costs resulting from their decades of unregulated greenhouse gas emissions. Stern’s remarks were criticized by China’s representative, Yu Qingtai.

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U.N. Sets Climate Data-Fixing Inquiry—

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dec. 5 said his group would investigate claims that scientists had manipulated data to bolster the widely accept-

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Copenhagen climate treaty talks begin; 192 nations seek successor to Kyoto pact. PAGE 841

Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo; defends ‘morally justified’ war. PAGE 842

NATO announces buildup of 7,000 troops in Afghanistan.

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U.S. unemployment rate fell to 10% in November. PAGE 846

Senate considers dropping public option from health care reform bill. PAGE 847

South African President Zuma announces expanded AIDS policy. PAGE 850

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Bolivian President Morales easily wins reelection. PAGE 850

Philippines declares martial law in southern province. PAGE 852

Italian court convicts U.S. student of Briton’s murder. PAGE 854

Multiple bombings in Iraqi capital kill at least 124. PAGE 856

Draw held for 2010 World Cup in South Africa. PAGE 858

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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ed theory that man-made emissions were causing global climate change. The announcement resulted from the release several weeks earlier of thousands of stolen emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia in Britain. Skeptics of global climate change alleged that the e-mails and documents showed that scientists had colluded to suppress evidence that contradicted the scientific consensus on climate change. However, Pachauri Dec. 8 said he believed the emails had been stolen and released specifically to derail the Copenhagen talks, and defended the science supporting the theory of global climate change. A group of climate change skeptics Dec. 8–9 also met in Copenhagen, with several presenting alternative explanations and rebuttals of widely held beliefs on a range of climate change issues. A number of members of the U.S. Congress who denied climate change theory, led by Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.), also traveled to Copenhagen to draw attention to their opposition to Obama’s stance. The U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Dec. 8 released an analysis concluding that the period between 2000 and 2009 was the warmest one since the beginning of modern weather records in 1850. The report was seen as a pointed rejoinder to climate change skeptics. Environmental activists converged on Copenhagen to demonstrate in favor of stringent goals for restraining global warming. n

Other Global Environment News News in Brief. Researchers reported in the

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Nov. 24 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that the amount of ice coverage atop Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania had declined 26% between 2000 and 2007. The article, released online Nov. 2, also said 85% of the ice cover present in 1912 had disappeared, and estimated that the ice could completely vanish in 13 to 24 years. In order to calculate the ice decline, the researchers had used aerial photographs and stakes that measured depth. The scientists on the team reportedly held varying views on whether the ice shrinkage on the mountain was primarily due to human-caused global climate change or natural variations in climate conditions. The research was led by Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University in the U.S. [See 2005, p. 431E3] Scientists at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Sept. 17 reported that summer Arctic sea ice shrank to a seasonal minimum of 1.97 million square miles (5.1 million sq km) on Sept. 12, the third-lowest level recorded since the data was first measured in 1979. The decline was 20% below the summer coverage average for the past three decades, and represented a loss of about two-thirds of the ice’s winter peak, measured in March. The report said a “long-term decline” in summer ice levels was expected to “continue in future years.” [See p. 550A3]

Researchers Sept. 4 published on the website of the journal Science a study concluding that man-made greenhouse gas emissions had contributed to the reversal of a millennia-long cooling trend in the Arctic. The scientists said a cooling trend of less than 0.5° Fahrenheit (0.3° C) per millennium over the last two millennia, resulting from a change in the orientation of the North Pole to the sun due to the Earth’s orbital pattern, had stopped. Instead, the Arctic region had warmed 2.2° Fahrenheit since 1900. Theoretically, the Arctic temperatures would be expected to continue dropping for the next 4,000 years, as the distance between the sun and the North Pole grew. Scientists said the shift could delay the onset of a periodic ice age, 17 of which were thought to have transpired naturally over the past two million years. The research was led by Darrel Kaufman, a climate specialist at Northern Arizona University in the U.S. [See p. 124C1] The U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aug. 14 reported that it had recorded the highest-ever global ocean surface temperature in July, which was 1.06° Fahrenheit greater than the 20th-century average of 61.5° Fahrenheit. The NOAA also said the combined global land and ocean surface temperature in July had been the fifth-highest ever recorded, 1.03° Fahrenheit higher than the 20th-century average of 60.4° Fahrenheit. [See 1991, p. 12B3] n

nonviolence. He declared, “I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted [Nazi German leader Adolf] Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince [international terrorist network] Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” Alluding to “a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower,” Obama defended the role of the U.S. in the post–World War II era. He said, “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.” The Nobel committee had cited Obama’s policy of diplomatic engagement with longtime U.S. adversaries, such as Iran. But critics had accused him of failing to stand up for U.S. interests and of apologizing for the country’s past uses of its power. He had also drawn criticism for downplaying human rights on some occasions, such as during a recent visit to China. [See pp. 837E1, 795C3] Obama was the third sitting U.S. president to receive the award, following Theodore Roosevelt, in 1906, and Woodrow Wilson, in 1919. Obama planned to donate the $1.4 million cash award to charities, but had not yet decided which ones, according to the White House. Says Afghanistan Pullout to Be Gradual—

Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Defends ‘Morally Justified’ War in Speech.

U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 10 accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, the capital of Norway. In his 35minute address, Obama acknowledged the questions that his selection in October had raised, given that he was only in the first year of his presidency, with few major achievements to date, and that he was presiding over two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had announced just the previous week that he planned to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. [See pp. 825A1, 693A1; for excerpts from Obama’s acceptance speech, see p. 843A1] Obama said he considered himself far less accomplished than the “giants of history” who had been previous winners of the peace prize. He said he was “someone at the beginning, not the end, of my labors on the world stage,” while there were many other candidates around the world who were “far more deserving of this honor than I.” Confronting the issue of his wartime leadership role, Obama said, “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” He continued, “There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” Obama paid tribute to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. civil rights leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. But Obama said his responsibilities did not allow him to emulate King’s philosophy of

In a Dec. 10 news conference in Oslo before the award ceremony, with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, Obama addressed his plan to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, which he had announced at the same time (Continued on p. 844A1)

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EXCERPTS FROM OBAMA’S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Following are excerpts from U.S. President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway [See p. 842D2]: Your majesties, your royal highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America and citizens of the world: I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations—that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice. And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize—[German-born humanitarian Albert] Schweitzer and [U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther] King; [U.S. general and Secretary of State George] Marshall and [former South African President Nelson] Mandela—my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women— some known, some obscure to all but those they help—to be far more deserving of this honor than I. But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander in chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty-three other countries—including Norway—in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks. Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict— filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other…. Concept of ‘Just War’ Over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers, clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a “just war” emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when it meets certain preconditions: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional, and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence. For most of history, this concept of just war was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations—total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it is hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished. In the wake of such destruction, and with the advent of the nuclear age, it became clear to victor and vanquished alike that the world needed institutions to prevent another world war. And so, a quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations—an idea for which [U.S. President] Woodrow Wilson received this prize—America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide and restrict the most dangerous weapons. In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War…. A decade into a new century, this old architecture is buckling under the weight of new threats. The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war

December 10, 2009

between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale. Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sewn, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed and children scarred. I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace. We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago— “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence. I know there is nothing weak—nothing passive—nothing naive—in the creed and lives of [Indian independence leader Mohandas K.(Mahatma)] Gandhi and King. Facing ‘the World as It Is’ But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted [Nazi German leader Adolf] Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince [international terrorist network] Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism—it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. I raise this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower. Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions—not just treaties and declarations—that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms…. To begin with, I believe that all nations—strong and weak alike—must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I—like any head of state—reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates—and weakens—those who don’t…. America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention—no matter how justified. This becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region… America’s commitment to global security will never waver. But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come…. Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules

of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.… Holding Rogue Regimes Accountable First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to change behavior—for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something. Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure—and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one. One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them…. The same principle applies to those who violate international law by brutalizing their own people. When there is genocide in [Sudan’s western region of] Darfur; systematic rape in Congo; or repression in Burma—there must be consequences. And the closer we stand together, the less likely we will be faced with the choice between armed intervention and complicity in oppression. This brings me to a second point—the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise. And yet all too often, these words are ignored. In some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation’s development.…I reject this choice. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear.… So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like [Myanmar pro-democracy leader] Aung San Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on their side. Let me also say this: The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach—and condemnation without discussion—can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.… But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The nonviolence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached—their faith in human progress— must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey. For if we lose that faith—if we dismiss it as silly or naive; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace—then we lose what is best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass….

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as his troop increase the previous week. Describing the withdrawal as “that transition, that transfer of responsibility” to Afghan security forces, Obama said it would be gradual and “conditions-based,” adding, “We’re not going to see some sharp cliff, some precipitous drawdown” of forces. Stoltenberg said Norway would increase its funding for Afghan military and police training by $110 million over the next four years. The move came in response to Obama’s call for allies to back up his reinforcement plan by adding to their own troop commitments and other contributions in Afghanistan. n

Afghanistan War NATO Announces Buildup of 7,000 Troops. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

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Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Dec. 4 announced that 25 countries had pledged to send a total of 7,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to help combat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. The new commitments came three days after U.S. President Barack Obama said he would send an additional 30,000 troops to the country, and that U.S. troops would begin withdrawing in July 2011. [See p. 825A1] Rasmussen’s announcement, which followed a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, was hailed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who described the new troop pledges as a “significant commitment.” She added, “The additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces.” However, it was reported that 1,500 of the new troops announced by Rasmussen were already stationed in Afghanistan. Those troops had been part of a buildup earlier in the year to increase Afghan security prior to an August presidential election. NATO officials insisted that the figure of 7,000 was accurate, since they had not taken those 1,500 troops into account when planning for operations in 2010. Additionally, Rasmussen did not specify which countries had pledged to send more troops. The Italian defense ministry Dec. 3 had said Italy would send an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan; Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich Dec. 2 had said Poland would increase its troop levels by 600; and Britain in late November had announced the deployment of 500 additional soldiers, which would reportedly come on top of 700 soldiers who had been part of the buildup for the Afghan election. [See p. 826G1] Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili Dec. 7 confirmed that Georgia—a nonNATO country—would send 900 troops to Afghanistan. South Korea, also a non-NATO country, Dec. 8 said it would send 350 troops. France and Germany reportedly came under pressure at the Dec. 4 NATO meeting to together provide as many as 3,500 additional troops. However, foreign ministers from the two countries said they would 844

hold off on such a decision until after an international conference on Afghanistan that was scheduled for Jan. 28, 2010, in London. There was also pressure on Canada and the Netherlands to cancel plans to conduct a withdrawal of a combined 5,000 troops over the next two years. The U.S. was also reportedly asking Turkey to send more troops. [See p. 846A1] Clinton at the meeting reassured her international counterparts that Obama’s withdrawal date did not mean that the U.S. would pull out of Afghanistan entirely in July 2011, saying the pace of the withdrawal would be gradual and adjusted to match the security situation at the time. Rasmussen said, “Transition doesn’t mean exit,” adding, “We are not going to leave Afghanistan to fall back into the hands of terrorists and extremists.” McChrystal Supports Obama Decision—

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Dec. 8 expressed strong support of Obama’s Afghan strategy in testimony to the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees. McChrystal had originally requested a troop increase of 40,000 troops, and had not proposed a set withdrawal date, which had been included at the insistence of the White House. McChrystal that day said, “I’m comfortable with the entire plan,” adding, “By the summer of 2011, it will be clear to the Afghan people that the insurgency will not win, giving them the chance to side with their government.” McChrystal testified alongside Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who had previously warned Obama against a troop buildup unless he was sure that Afghan President Hamid Karzai would make a serious effort to crack down on corruption. However, Eikenberry in his testimony said he was “unequivocally in support” of Obama’s decision, and claimed that he had never opposed a troop increase. He said Obama’s emphasis on strengthening good governance and economic development in Afghanistan had eased some of his concerns. [See p. 775B1] McChrystal and Eikenberry, a retired general, also played down speculation that they were at loggerheads over the strategy, describing each other as “old friends.” McChrystal and Eikenberry reiterated the outlines of Obama’s strategy, which involved weakening the Taliban and protecting the civilian population, so as to prevent the international terrorist network Al Qaeda from establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan. McChrystal warned that U.S. casualties would likely increase as the strategy was implemented, and said the Taliban would resort to using more suicide attacks and roadside bombs. U.S. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was one of several Republicans to assert that a withdrawal date would encourage the Taliban to wait until the U.S. left Afghanistan before resuming the insurgency. McChrystal said such a move by the Taliban would be welcome, since it would give the U.S. and its allies leeway to train Afghan forces who

would eventually be responsible for the country’s security. U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the war in Afghanistan as the head of the U.S. Central Command, Dec. 9 testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it would cost about $10 billion a year to build up Afghanistan’s security forces. The U.S. military had set a goal of boosting the number of Afghan army personnel and police officers to 400,000, up from the current 180,000. Gates Meets With Karzai in Kabul—

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Dec. 8 made an unannounced visit to Kabul, the Afghan capital, to reassure Karzai that the withdrawal date did not mean that the U.S. would abandon his government in 2011. Appearing with Karzai at a news conference that day, Gates said, “We will fight by your side until the Afghan forces are large enough and strong enough to secure the nation on their own.” But he added that the U.S. would not make an “open-ended commitment” to Afghanistan. Karzai said he hoped that the Afghan army and police could take over security responsibilities for “the whole of the country” within five years. But he said the government would not be able to independently fund its forces for another “15 to 20 years.” Gates acknowledged that training Afghanistan’s security forces, which had proved unreliable in the past, would take “some time.” Gates added that he hoped “accelerated economic development” would help Afghanistan pay for its security responsibilities. Karzai had been scheduled to name his cabinet picks that day, but delayed the announcement by a week. He was under intense international pressure to appoint capable technocrats who were not tainted by corruption. But analysts said Karzai had promised cabinet positions to warlords to secure their support during the August election, and that many of them were known to be involved in Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade and other illegal activities. Highlighting the weakness of Afghanistan’s criminal system, the mayor of Kabul Dec. 8 returned to work despite having been sentenced the previous day to four years in prison on corruption charges. The mayor, Abdul Ahad Sahebi, said the charges against him were politically motivated. Other Developments—In related news: o Afghan officials in the eastern province of Laghman Dec. 8 said a U.S. raid the previous night near the city of Mehtar Lam had killed at least six civilians. The claim sparked protests Dec. 8 by hundreds of the city’s residents, leading Afghan soldiers to fire on the crowd and kill at least one protester. NATO denied that it had killed any civilians in the raid, saying the troops had targeted a Taliban bomb-maker and killed seven insurgents. o The U.S. State Department Dec. 8 said it would not automatically renew a contract with ArmorGroup North America to provide security for the U.S. embassy in Kabul, after it was revealed that the company’s guards had engaged in “misconduct.” A watchdog group in September had accused FACTS ON FILE

the guards of throwing wild parties and committing numerous security violations. The contract, which had to be renewed annually, was due to expire in June 2010, and would be open for competitive bidding at that time. ArmorGroup, a unit of Wackenhut Services Inc., would be allowed to enter a bid. [See p. 594G2] o The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Nov. 30 released a report saying failures by U.S. military leaders in December 2001 had allowed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to escape his hideout in the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan. The report said U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks and then–U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected requests for more troops as U.S. Special Operations forces, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers and Afghan soldiers surrounded bin Laden’s redoubt, which was guarded by some 1,000 Al Qaeda fighters. Franks and Rumsfeld at the time reportedly doubted that bin Laden was there, and were concerned that locals in the area would resent a large U.S. troop presence. The report said bin Laden escaped to neighboring Pakistan. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani Dec. 3 denied that bin Laden continued to hide in Pakistan, as many Western officials believed. [See 2005, p. 261D2] o A suicide bomber Nov. 20 killed at least 13 people and wounded at least 23 in the western city of Farah. Also that day, a roadside bomb nearly killed Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a prominent warlord and member of parliament, in an attack on his convoy near Kabul. Five of his bodyguards were killed. [See 2005, p. 969F3] n

Headley traveled between the U.S., Pakistan and India. Between September 2006 and July 2008, Headley traveled to India five times to scout potential attack targets in Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a Jewish community center, a train station and a cafe. Those locations were attacked by 10 heavily armed gunmen during a twoday rampage in November 2008. The complaint said Headley went to Pakistan after each Mumbai visit to share his reconnaissance with Lashkar-e-Taiba. It also said Headley had taken video footage of the Mumbai harbor, which was where the attackers alighted after making a journey by sea from Pakistan. Headley was charged with a total of 12 counts, including conspiracy to bomb public places in India, to murder and maim persons in foreign countries and to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Taiba. Prosecutors also charged Headley with aiding and abetting the murder of the six U.S. citizens who died in the Mumbai attack. He faced the death penalty if convicted. Headley Dec. 9 pleaded not guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Headley was cooperating with U.S. investigators, who in turn were sharing information with their Indian and Pakistani counterparts, reportedly leading to the arrests of five suspects in Pakistan. Headley’s case had raised concerns that Islamic extremist groups were increasing their recruitment of U.S. citizens, who in general faced fewer restrictions on their international travel. U.S. authorities in November had charged a group of people with recruiting U.S. citizens to aid an extremist group in Somalia. [See p. 849A1]

International Terrorism

The Justice Department Dec. 7 also announced two counts of conspiracy against Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major in the Pakistani army. Syed had allegedly helped Headley and another co-conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, plan the Danish newspaper attack. (Rana, a Canadian citizen, had been charged in connection with the case in October.) The Justice Department also said Lashkar-e-Taiba was involved in the plot, as was Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant with ties to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See p. 670E1] U.S. prosecutors did not disclose the whereabouts of Syed, citing the diplomatic problems that his alleged involvement in the plot had raised. The Pakistani military had helped found Lashkar-e-Taiba in the 1990s to fight against the Indian army in the disputed territory of Kashmir, and the latest developments appeared to confirm Indian suspicions that elements of the Pakistani military establishment continued to maintain ties with Islamic extremist groups. The U.S. had also pressed Pakistan to crack down on extremist groups. [See p. 827E1] Pakistan Formally Charges Seven— A court near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, Nov. 25 formally charged seven Lashkar-eTaiba members with planning the Mumbai attack. They included Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the operation; Hamad Amin Sadiq, who had alleged-

U.S. Citizen Charged in Mumbai Attack.

Federal prosecutors in Chicago Dec. 7 charged David Headley, a U.S. citizen, with helping plot a 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, that killed about 170 people. A U.S. Justice Department complaint unsealed that day said Headley between 2006 and 2008 had taken photographs and videotapes of attack targets in Mumbai, which were later passed on to members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based Islamic extremist group that was believed to have orchestrated the attack. [See pp. 821D2, 816A2, 669A2] U.S. authorities Oct. 3 had arrested Headley, 49, at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and he was charged later that month with helping plot an attack on employees of a Danish newspaper. The newspaper in 2005 had published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which had offended many Muslims around the world. [See below] The latest complaint said Headley in 2002 and 2003 had undergone training at Lashkar-e-Taiba’s militant camps in Pakistan. Headley, whose father was from Pakistan and whose mother was American, in February 2006 changed his name from Daood Gilani at the behest of Lashkar-eTaiba, which allegedly believed an American name would arouse fewer suspicions as December 10, 2009

Pakistani Charged in Denmark Attack—

ly arranged the financing for the operation; and Zarar Shah, a computer expert. The trial against the seven suspects began that day, and, after receiving their pleas of not guilty, the presiding judge said the proceedings would resume Dec. 5. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during a Nov. 25 trip to Washington, D.C., praised Pakistan for starting the trial process, but said, “It is our strong feeling that the government of Pakistan could do more to bring to book people who are still roaming around in the country freely and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism.” [See p. 810A1] n

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Commonwealth Biennial Summit Addresses Climate Change.

The Commonwealth of Nations Nov. 27–29 held its biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. The group, whose membership grew by one, to 54 nations at the meeting, had last met in 2007 in Kampala, Uganda. Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma at a meeting in Trinidad ahead of the summit said government leaders would hold a “crisis summit” to address a global economic downturn and climate change, it was reported Nov. 23. [See 2007, p. 780D3] The summit Nov. 27 was opened by Queen Elizabeth II, the titular head of state of Britain and some Commonwealth nations. (The Commonwealth was originally founded as a group of countries once ruled by Britain, but had since expanded to include nations outside that category.) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that day proposed establishing a global fund to aid poorer countries in dealing with the economic and environmental effects of climate change. Under their proposal, wealthier nations would provide $10 billion to the fund annually, with some of the money also being used to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sarkozy attended the summit, along with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, to emphasize the importance of action on climate change. [See p. 841A1] Commonwealth leaders Nov. 28 echoed those concerns, calling for a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty with binding emissions targets intended to reduce the effects of climate change. (World leaders Dec. 7 met in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, to begin United Nations–backed talks to replace the Kyoto Protocol.) Rwanda Admitted— Rwanda Nov. 28 was admitted to the Commonwealth, becoming the 54th country to join the group, and the second without historic constitutional ties to Britain or another Commonwealth member, after Mozambique. Rwanda’s application to the Commonwealth had been criticized by some who said Rwanda’s government had a poor human rights record. Louise Mushikiwabo, a spokeswoman for the Rwandan government, said the accession was “recognition of the tremendous 845

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Turkish PM Erdogan Visits Obama. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Dec. 7 visited U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, D.C. Erdogan rejected Obama’s pleas to support new economic sanctions against Iran, arguing that diplomacy should be the sole means of resolving the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Erdogan also declined to commit to send more troops to Afghanistan, where 1,750 Turkish troops were serving as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force. [See pp. 837E1, 825A1, 788C3] Obama had visited Turkey in April, making his first presidential appearance in a mostly Muslim nation. [See p. 213A1] The U.S. viewed Turkey as a key regional ally, and had urged the European Union to accept Turkey as a member. However, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which had roots in political Islam, had recently moved to improve its ties with Iran and Syria, both longtime adversaries of the U.S. Some observers said Turkey might be reorienting its foreign policy away from the West and toward the Middle East, as a result of resistance among EU member nations, especially France and Germany, to its membership bid. The new focus was described by some as “neo-Ottoman,” referring to the Turkish empire that ruled much of the Middle East for centuries. At a news conference after his meeting with Obama, Erdogan said Turkey could “play the role of a negotiator or mediator” between Iran and the U.S. Turkey held a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, which would have to approve any new sanctions. Erdogan also said Turkey could act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and Syria. However, Turkey’s formerly close ties with Israel had been strained since January, when Erdogan rebuked Israel over civilian casualties caused by its offensive in the Gaza Strip. [See p. 788F3] In November, Turkey had doubled the number of its troops in Afghanistan and taken over the rotating command of NATO’s operations in Kabul, the capital. Turkey was the only Muslim nation in the U.S.-led coalition. Obama the previous week had announced his plan to deploy 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and the U.S. had pressed its allies to contribute more troops as well. Erdogan said Turkey would not send more troops, but pledged that the Turkish contingent would contribute to the training of Afghan security forces. Separately, Obama and Erdogan said they would cooperate to build on Turkey’s October agreement to normalize relations with Armenia. [See p. 707A1] n 846

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Economy November Unemployment Rate Fell to 10%.

The unemployment rate in November was 10.0% after seasonal adjustment, down from its October Unemployment level of 10.2%, November 2009 10.0% the Labor DePrevious Month 10.2% partment reportYear Earlier 6.8% ed Dec. 4. An estimated 11,000 nonfarm jobs were cut in November, the smallest monthly loss since a severe recession began in December 2007. The better-than-expected jobs report fueled hopes that the labor market, typically a lagging economic indicator, was beginning to join the broader economy in a recovery that had begun earlier in the year. [See p. 778G1] President Barack Obama Dec. 4 said the report was “good news,” but warned that the labor market would continue to face challenges in the future. He said, “There are going to be some months where the reports are going to be a little better, some months where the reports are worse, but the trend line right now is pretty good.” Obama made his remarks in Allentown, Pa., the first stop on a tour to promote his economic policies. Obama the previous day had hosted a so-called jobs summit at the White House, where he held meetings with corporate executives, labor leaders and economists. [See below] White House officials said the labor market had been boosted by a $787 billion stimulus package that had been signed into law by Obama in February. They claimed that the package had helped save or create 1.6 million jobs. A total of 7.2 million jobs had been lost since the recession began. [See below] The Labor Department also revised its unemployment figures for October and September, showing that 250,000 jobs had been lost during that time, down from the 409,000 previously reported. The November unemployment rate was 17.2% when it included “discouraged” workers who had stopped looking for work, and were therefore no longer considered part of the workforce, and those who had accepted only part-time employment even though they sought full-time work. 138.5 Million Jobs Held in November—

According to a household survey, 138.5 million people held jobs in November, the Labor Department reported Dec. 4. The department counted 15.4 million people as unemployed. The department counted 861,000 workers as discouraged in November. About 9.2 million people who sought full-time employment were working part-time instead. The average workweek was 33.2 hours in November, up from 33.0 hours in October. The average manufacturing workweek was 40.4 hours, up 0.3 hours from the previous month. Factory workers’ average overtime rose 0.1 hours, to 3.4 hours in November. The average hourly wage for production workers rose one cent, to $18.74.

The increase in workers’ hours was seen as an indication that businesses were boosting production and could begin hiring more workers to meet future demand. In another positive indicator, the economy added 52,000 temporary workers. A hiring of temporary workers was thought to presage an increase in full-time employment. The health and professional and business services sectors added jobs, while manufacturing and construction shed jobs. The unemployment rate among whites in November was 9.3%, down from 9.5% in October. The jobless rate for blacks was 15.6%, down from 15.7% the previous month. For Hispanics, who could be of any race, the rate was 12.7%, down from 13.1% in October. For men age 20 and over, November unemployment was 10.5%, down from 10.7% in October. For adult women, it was 7.9%, down from 8.1% the previous month. The teenage rate was 26.7%, down from 27.6% in October. For black teenagers it was 49.4%, up from 41.3% the previous month. Obama Unveils Job-Creation Proposals—

Obama Dec. 8 unveiled a series of proposals to create jobs, in a speech at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C. “Even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who’ve been swept up in the flood,” he said. Obama did not specify how he would pay for the proposals, many of which built on provisions contained in the $787 billion stimulus package. White House officials said the costs would be determined by congressional Democrats who were currently developing legislation that included many of Obama’s ideas. Obama proposed increasing tax cuts for businesses, investing in infrastructure development, boosting aid to states, extending unemployment insurance benefits and strengthening health care for the jobless. Obama called for a tax rebate for homeowners who weatherized their homes, which was intended to increase energy efficiency while bolstering the construction and manufacturing industries, two sectors that had shed tens of thousands of jobs during the recession. Obama also said the Treasury would make more credit available to small businesses, and suggested that the department could use a $700 billion financial industry rescue fund to finance the initiative. The Treasury Dec. 7 had reported that the fund—known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—would lose $200 billion less than initially projected, leading to calls from Democratic lawmakers that the extra funds be used to promote job growth. Republicans opposed such a move, saying the funds should be used to reduce the U.S.’s growing budget deficit, which had hit $1.4 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. [See p. 713A1] Republicans also questioned whether using TARP funds for stimulus spending was legal. They said the original bill authorizing TARP—signed in 2008 by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush—had exFACTS ON FILE

plicitly limited TARP to stabilizing the financial industry. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) Dec. 8 said, “Using bailout funds for another spending spree would violate both current law and our pledge to return every dollar to the taxpayers.” Obama Dec. 9 held a closed-door meeting with members from both parties at the White House, where he told Republicans to “stop trying to frighten the American people” about the depth of the U.S.’s economic woes, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.). Republicans reportedly retorted that Democrats were spending too much, and that attempts to overhaul the health care system and regulate greenhouse gas emissions were undermining economic growth. [See pp. 847F2, 841G1] The Treasury Dec. 7 had said TARP would cost the government $141 billion over the next 10 years, down from its August projection of $341 billion. The decrease was attributed to recent stability in the financial industry, which had allowed a growing number of banks to repay their TARP aid. Bank of America Corp. the previous week had said it would repay the government its $45 billion allotment of TARP money. The Treasury said it expected to be repaid $175 billion by the end of 2010, and that TARP investments had yielded interest and dividend returns of more than $10 billion. [See p. 830C2] Stimulus Claims to Be Reviewed— Earl Devaney—chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which was assigned to oversee stimulus spending—had said his group would examine how numerous mistakes came to be included in an October report that claimed the stimulus had saved or created 640,000 jobs, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Dec. 4. Media outlets had found that stimulus recipients had been allowed to submit duplicate reports, which falsely boosted job numbers, and other inaccuracies. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) Dec. 3 had said Democrats had made “outrageous claims” about the benefits of the stimulus, leaving them with a “serious credibility problem.” n Bernanke Admits Fed Mistakes at Hearing.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Dec. 3 admitted that the Fed had made mistakes that paved the way for a severe financial crisis that struck in 2008 and helped push the U.S. economy into a recession. But he also defended the Fed’s actions during the crisis, saying that its policies had prevented the recession from turning into a full-blown depression. Bernanke made his remarks to the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which was holding a hearing on his nomination for a second four-year term as Fed chairman. [See p. 571C1] Bernanke said, “I did not anticipate a crisis of this magnitude and this severity.” He said the Fed, as the country’s top banking regulator, should have required banks to hold “more capital, more liquidity,” which could have helped banks weather the December 10, 2009

crisis without government aid. He also said the Fed was “slow on some aspects of consumer protection,” allowing a proliferation of risky mortgages that eventually led to a spike in home loan defaults and huge losses for banks. Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.) praised Bernanke’s performance during the crisis, and said he was “the right leader for this moment in our nation’s economic history.” However, Dodd said the Fed had “failed terribly” as a banking regulator, and that he would proceed with a previously announced proposal to strip the Fed of its regulatory powers. Dodd argued that the Fed should limit its focus to setting the country’s benchmark interest rate, which controlled inflation, and fueling job growth. [See p. 778D3] Bernanke objected to the proposal, saying the Fed’s regulatory powers allowed it “to see what was going on in the banking system.” He said the Fed could not act as a so-called lender of last resort during times of crisis if it did not have a firm understanding of the banking system. Bernanke also came under criticism for the Fed’s role in saving financial institutions that had been deemed “too big to fail,” such as insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG). Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said the Fed had “greatly amplified the problem of moral hazard,” the notion that large financial institutions would start taking even greater risks because they knew the government would not allow them to fail. Bernanke also opposed a House proposal to have Congress audit the Fed’s monetary policy decisions. Bernanke said such a proposal would compromise the central bank’s independence, which was necessary to make prudent economic decisions that could prove to be politically unpopular. Sen. Bernard Sanders (I, Vt.), who was not on the committee, Dec. 2 had said he would place a hold on Bernanke’s nomination, which could mean that Bernanke would need a 60-vote majority for confirmation. Sen. Jim Bunning (R, Ky.), a committee member, Dec. 3 said he would “do everything I can to stop your nomination and drag out this process as long as I can.” Still, Bernanke was expected to be confirmed. His current term was due to expire Jan. 31, 2010, but he would remain in his position on a temporary basis if the Senate failed to confirm anyone by that time. n

Health Care Reform Senate Considers Dropping Public Option.

A group of senior Senate Democrats Dec. 8 reached a tentative agreement to drop a provision that would create a governmentrun health insurance program, commonly known as the “public option,” from a wide ranging health care reform bill currently being debated by the Senate. The public option was considered a key element of Democratic efforts to reform the U.S. health care system, and had been included in a companion reform bill passed by the House in November. In its current form, the

Senate measure would provide health insurance to 31 million people currently without it, at a cost of $848 billion over 10 years. The Senate Nov. 30 had opened debate on the bill. [See p. 796A2] Under the proposal, the Medicare program, which provided health care for the elderly and disabled, would be expanded to cover some people aged between 55 and 64. Currently the program was available to people without disabilities only when they turned 65. The move would extend insurance to an estimated two million to three million people aged 55–64 who had difficulty getting insurance elsewhere. Those people would be able to purchase Medicare insurance at subsidized rates, with their premiums expected to be higher than those paid by people aged 65 or older. People aged 55–64 who could get insurance through their employers would not be eligible for the expanded Medicare plan. The independent federal agency the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would also create a new low-cost, national health insurance program managed by notfor-profit entities created by private insurers. (The OPM currently administered the health care plans offered to federal employees, including members of Congress.) The policies created through the new scheme would be made available to the public via new insurance “exchanges,” or markets, on which consumers could comparison shop for coverage. The plan also would allow the OPM to create a public option, should no private insurers choose to offer an insurance plan through the scheme, but that scenario was considered unlikely. The agreement had been brokered by 10 Senate Democrats appointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) to resolve conflicts over the public option provision, considered among the most controversial elements of health care reform. The group was composed by five liberals, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y.), and five centrists, led by Sen. Mark Pryor (D, Ark.). Reid said he would ask the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to conduct a cost analysis of the agreement. However, it was not certain that other lawmakers who had not been included in the talks would agree with the new plan. Sen. Russell Feingold (D, Wis.) later that day issued a statement criticizing the plan for eliminating the public option. While the overwhelming majority of Republicans had opposed a public option, the issue had split Democrats, with some centrists expressing concern over the cost of such a program. Republicans had also argued that the program represented an aggrandized role for the government in health care that could put private insurers out of business. Supporters of the public option argued that it was needed to increase competition, lower costs and improve policy selection for consumers. The new agreement was seen as an attempt at a compromise between the divergent elements within the Democratic Party. Democrats needed 60 votes to advance the bill in the Senate, but held only 58 seats, and had two 847

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independents who normally caucused with them. Sen. Ben Nelson (D, Neb.), a centrist opposed to the public option who was considered a key vote for the Democrats, Dec. 9 said he would wait for the CBO’s analysis before deciding whether to endorse the plan. Two other centrist Democrats, Sen. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), also said they would wait for the CBO report before considering whether to support the plan. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), one of the independents, had previously said he would oppose a bill that contained a public option. If passed by the Senate, the bill would also need to be reconciled with the House version, which had a public option provision strongly supported by liberal representatives. President Barack Obama, who had made health care reform the center of his domestic policy agenda, Dec. 8 backed the compromise plan as a “creative new framework” by which a bill could be passed in the Senate. “I support this effort, especially since it’s aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost,” he said. Republicans continued to almost uniformly oppose the reform bill, with some questioning the expansion of Medicare at a time when it faced an uncertain financial future. Abortion Restrictions Rejected—The Senate earlier Dec. 8 had voted, 54–45, to defeat an amendment that would have prevented any woman receiving a tax credit intended to subsidize insurance costs from purchasing an insurance policy that covered abortion. Under the bill’s existing language, women who received tax credits for the purchase of insurance could buy their own policies covering abortion; the tax credits would be separated so that none of that money could be used for such a purchase. The amendment had been offered by Nelson, a strong opponent of abortion. The Senate Dec. 3 voted, 58–42, to defeat an amendment that would have stripped a provision eliminating about $500 million from the Medicare program over 10 years. Those cuts, along with new taxes and fees, were intended to help fund the expansion of health insurance to millions currently without it. The Senate that day also approved, 61–39, an amendment that would guarantee women younger than 50 access to mammograms under the bill. That amendment had been sparked by a controversial recommendation made by a federal advisory panel in November for women to receive fewer mammograms, beginning at a later age. [See p. 799B2] The Senate Dec. 4 defeated, 57–41, an amendment that would have removed significant cuts to the so-called Medicare Advantage programs, under which Medicare beneficiaries could enroll in privately managed health care plans paid for by the government. The bill called for cuts of $118 billion–$120 billion to Medicare Advantage plans, criticized by Democrats for being more expensive than traditional Medicare, over 10 years. The Senate also voted, 51– 47, to eliminate the establishment of a new long-term care program. However, 60 votes 848

were needed to strip the program, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (Class Act), from the bill, and it was retained in the legislation. Obama Lobbies Democratic Senators—

Obama Dec. 6 met with Senate Democrats during a rare closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, where he reportedly lobbied them to set aside internal divisions and rally behind reform efforts. White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama used the meeting to highlight the opportunity to provide people with “stability and security” and “affordable coverage.” The CBO and Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation Nov. 30 released a report concluding that the Senate bill would lower or leave unchanged the insurance premiums for the majority of people in the U.S. The report said the relatively small group of people who obtained insurance directly from insurance companies, about one-sixth of the market, would face slightly higher premiums, but would receive better policies as a result. The report also said overall costs for those seeking direct insurance would also be lowered as a result of new subsidies included in the bill. n

2009 Elections

ma’s Afghanistan plan. He took conservative positions on same-sex marriage, gun control and economic issues. If Coakley won, she would become the first woman elected to the Senate from Massachusetts. By winning the primary, she became the first woman nominated for the Senate by a major party in the state. n Reed Wins Atlanta Mayoral Race in Recount.

Former Georgia state Sen. Kasim Reed (D) Dec. 9 was declared the winner of the Atlanta mayoral election, after a recount confirmed his victory in a Dec. 1 runoff against City Council member Mary Norwood (I). Reed won the runoff by a margin of 714 votes, out of a total of 84,000 cast. More voters turned out for the runoff than for the Nov. 3 general election, in which Norwood had placed first with 46% of the vote, trailed by Reed, with 36%, and four other candidates. [See p. 756D3] Reed, 40, would take office Jan. 4, 2010, succeeding Mayor Shirley Franklin and continuing a decades-long tradition of black mayors in the city, which had a black majority. He was backed in the runoff by Franklin and the rest of Atlanta’s political establishment and civil rights leaders. Norwood, 57, would have become the city’s first white mayor since 1973, had she won. n

Coakley-Brown Race Set for Kennedy Seat.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley Dec. 8 won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly 47 years by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), who died in August. Coakley was to face the winner of the Republican primary, state Sen. Scott Brown, in a Jan. 19, 2010, special election for the remainder of Kennedy’s last term, which would end in January 2013. [See p. 638F1] In September, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) had appointed Paul Kirk Jr. (D), a former Kennedy aide, to fill the Senate seat until the special election. In the Democratic primary, Coakley won 47% of the vote. Her leading rival, U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano, placed second, with 28%. He was trailed by Alan Khazei, a cofounder of community service group City Year, with 13%, and Stephen Pagliuca, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics professional basketball team, with 12%. Pagliuca finished last despite spending $7.6 million of his own money on the race. Brown, 50, easily won the Republican primary, taking 89% of the vote, to 11% for his opponent, businessman Jack Robinson. Although the race featured the first open Massachusetts Senate seat in 25 years, the primary drew low turnout, estimated at less than 25% of eligible voters. Coakley, 56, was favored to win the general election in the heavily Democratic state. Like her Democratic rivals, Coakley took liberal positions on most issues. She supported same-sex marriage (legal in Massachusetts since 2004) and abortion rights, and opposed President Barack Obama’s recent decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Brown, a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts National Guard, supported Oba-

State & Local Politics Baltimore Mayor Convicted of Theft. A jury

in Baltimore, Md., Dec. 1 convicted Mayor Sheila Dixon (D) on a misdemeanor charge of fraudulently misappropriating gift cards intended for needy children. The jury acquitted Dixon on felony charges of theft and misconduct in office, and failed to reach a verdict on a second misdemeanor theft charge. Her trial had begun Nov. 9. [See 2007, p. 732D1] Dixon faced up to five years in prison. No date had been set yet for sentencing. Her lawyers Dec. 5 said they planned to request a retrial. Dixon gave no sign that she planned to step down immediately. She resumed her duties the day after the verdict. Under Maryland’s constitution, an official had to be removed from office when a criminal conviction was formally entered into the record, which took place upon sentencing. But in order to result in removal from office, the conviction had to reflect “moral turpitude” and be related to “public duties and responsibilities.” Dixon’s lawyers said her conviction was unrelated to her mayoral duties. Prosecutors alleged that Dixon had used about $500 in gift cards to buy electronics, clothes and other items for herself. A real estate developer, Patrick Turner, had contributed the gift cards. In March 2010, Dixon was scheduled to stand trial on separate charges of perjury, for failing to disclose gifts from another developer, Ronald Liscomb, her former boyfriend. Dixon, a former city council president, had become mayor in January 2007, taking over from Martin O’Malley (D) after his FACTS ON FILE

election as governor. She won a full fouryear term in November 2007. She was Baltimore’s first black female mayor. n

Terrorism New Charges in Somali Terrorism Probe.

The Justice Department Nov. 23 unsealed charges in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minn., against a group of eight Somali-born men who were suspected of conspiring to aid Al Shabab, a Somali Islamist insurgent group. The men were Mohamud Said Omar, Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, Abdiweli Yassin Isse, Ahmed Ali Omar, Khalid Mohamud Abshir, Mustafa Ali Salat, Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan and Zakaria Maruf. Seven of the men were still at large and believed to be overseas; Mohamud Said Omar had been arrested Nov. 8 in the Netherlands. [See pp. 780E3, 622C2] The suspects faced various charges, including conspiracy to support terrorism; conspiracy to kill, maim, kidnap or injure people outside the U.S.; perjury; solicitation to commit violent crime; and gun charges. As many as 20 men were thought to have been recruited and sent to Somalia to fight for Al Shabab between September 2007 and October 2009. According to court documents unsealed Nov. 23, Faarax, Isse, Abshir, Salat, Hassan, Maruf and Ahmed Ali Omar had traveled to Somalia and had been trained to use machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at training camps run by Al Shabab. Some of the men had also allegedly taken part in an ambush targeting Ethiopian soldiers inside Somalia as well as other fighting on behalf of Al Shabab. Mohamud Said Omar had allegedly provided funds to pay for weapons and had helped recruits travel to Somalia. Faarax and Isse had allegedly recruited other potential militants for Al Shabab. Isse was also suspected of raising money to fund recruiting for the group and other activities by soliciting money from members of Minneapolis’s Somali community on the pretense that the funds would allow Somali students to travel to Saudi Arabia to study Islam. Suspect Charged With False Statements—

Abdow Abdow, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, Oct. 9 was arrested in Minneapolis on charges that he had made false statements to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in connection with the FBI’s ongoing investigation into a U.S. conspiracy to provide support and recruits to Al Shabab. Abdow Oct. 14 was indicted in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn. Abdow was accused of lying to the FBI about a trip he took from Minnesota to San Diego, Calif., with four Somali-born men, including Isse and Faarax. The Nevada Highway Patrol Oct. 6 had stopped the group’s car near Las Vegas, Nev., and discovered that Faarax was listed on a government terrorism watch list. The Highway Patrol troopers had contacted the FBI and reportedly were told to allow the men to leave. Isse and Faarax later crossed the U.S. border with Mexico en route to TijuaDecember 10, 2009

na, Mexico, and told border agents that they intended to fly to Mexico City; their current location was unknown. During Oct. 8 questioning by the FBI, Abdow had allegedly said he had gone to Las Vegas with a friend after fighting with his wife. He later admitted to traveling with four men after being told that it was a crime to lie to FBI agents, but denied that he had rented the car they were stopped in. He was arrested Oct. 9 after the FBI discovered that Abdow had used his credit card to rent the car. Man Accused of Recruiting Militants—

Omer Abdi Mohamed, a Somali-born U.S. permanent resident, Nov. 19 was arrested in Minneapolis in connection with allegations that he had recruited U.S. residents as potential militants and provided financial assistance for Al Shabab beginning in September 2007. Mohamed was accused of providing material support to terrorists; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists; and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure. Mohamed Nov. 24 pleaded not guilty to all charges in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis. Mohamed had allegedly assisted six Somali-born men in traveling from Minnesota to Somali in December 2007 to fight on behalf of Al Shabab. The group reportedly included Kamal Hassan, Salah Osman Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, who had all pleaded guilty to charges related to their involvement with Al Shabab. It also included Shirwa Ahmed, who had carried out a suicide bombing on behalf of Al Shabab in 2008 as part of an attack in northern Somalia that killed 21 people. n

Capital Punishment Ohio Inmate Executed Using New Method.

Condemned prisoner Kenneth Biros Dec. 8 was executed at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, ending a temporary suspension of executions in the state announced by Gov. Ted Strickland (D) in October. The execution marked the first time that a U.S. prisoner was put to death using a lethal injection protocol that used a large dose of a single drug, rather than the three-drug cocktail used by most U.S. states. [See p. 719E2] Biros, 51, had been sentenced to death for beating, stabbing, fatally strangling and then dismembering a 22-year-old woman in Ohio in 1991. He was pronounced dead about 10 minutes after receiving the lethal injection, a delay similar to what was typical with the three-drug method; it reportedly took technicians at the prison 30 minutes to find a usable vein. New Lethal Injection Method Announced—

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Nov. 13 had announced that, effective Nov. 30, it would change its lethal injection protocol from the threedrug cocktail to a single, large dose of thiopental sodium, a method similar to that used to euthanize animals. Under the new protocol, condemned prisoners would have a two-drug cocktail injected directly into their muscles if a suitable vein could not be

found for the intravenous thiopental sodium injection. Ohio had altered its lethal injection protocol in response to the failed execution of inmate Romell Broom, who had spent two hours waiting to be executed while technicians attempted unsuccessfully to find a vein that could be used for lethal injection. Strickland had halted the execution and suspended executions in the state to allow the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction time to revise its execution protocols. Neither of Ohio’s proposed lethal injection methods had ever previously been used to execute a prisoner in the U.S., and the state had reportedly relied on animal testing and expert medical advice to select the techniques. Critics argued that the new methods had not been subject to sufficient scrutiny, and suggested that their use on condemned prisoners constituted forced human experimentation.

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 25 ruled that Ohio’s decision to change its lethal injection protocol had invalidated Biros’s legal challenges of the constitutionality of the state’s execution methods, and said the execution could proceed. The full 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Dec. 4 refused to reconsider the panel’s ruling. Attorneys for Biros Dec. 4 asked Judge Gregory Frost of U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ohio, to issue an emergency order delaying Biros’s execution on the grounds that the new method had not undergone sufficient scrutiny. Frost, who had stayed Broom’s death sentence after his failed execution, Dec. 7 denied the request. The U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 8 rejected an emergency request from Biros’s attorney for a stay of execution. n Kentucky Suspends Executions. The Kentucky Supreme Court Nov. 25 ruled, 4–3, that the state government had failed to follow proper administrative procedures when adopting the lethal injection protocol used to execute condemned prisoners in the state. The Kentucky Supreme Court suspended all executions in the state until the government readopted the current lethal injection protocol, a process that required public hearings and which could take more than six months. The decision did not challenge the legality of the protocol itself, which had been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 2008. [See 2008, p. 253E3] The Kentucky Supreme Court’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by condemned prisoners Brian Keith Moore, Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling. The three prisoners argued that the implementation of the Kentucky lethal injection protocol had violated statutes requiring the state to publish the protocol, and to allow for public comment and legislative review before it went into effect. The Kentucky Supreme Court had refused to hear Baze’s and Bowling’s objections to the protocol on the grounds that they had filed a previous lawsuit challenging their pending executions without raising the issue, but ruled in favor of Moore’s claim. Kentucky Supreme Court Justice 849

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Lisabeth Hughes Abramson wrote in the majority opinion, “This court cannot ignore the publication and public hearing requirements set forth in Kentucky statutes.” The state of Kentucky Dec. 4 announced that it would not appeal the ruling, and was expected to readopt the previous lethal injection protocol in accordance with the decision. n

Consumer Affairs

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News in Brief. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Nov. 23 announced the voluntary recall of more than 2.1 million cribs made by Stork Craft Manufacturing

Inc. of Canada, citing a suffocation risk to children. The CPSC said it knew of four instances in which children in the cribs had become trapped and then suffocated. The cribs affected by the recall had been sold between January 1993 and October 2009. They were all “drop-side” cribs, which had a side that dropped down to allow parents to remove children more easily. [See 2008, p. 964F1] The CPSC Nov. 23 said there was a “strong association” between drywall manufactured in China and high levels of the irritant hydrogen sulfide in the air inside a structure. The CPSC said it had received

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2,091 complaints about Chinese-made drywall, with 68% of the complaints originating in Florida. Consumers had complained of a rotten-egg smell; eye, skin and lung irritation; headaches; and corrosion of metals, including wiring and pipes, in new homes. The majority of complaints were from homes built in 2006 and 2007, during a housing boom in the U.S. that had caused a shortage of construction materials. The CPSC also found elevated levels of formaldehyde in the examined cases, but said that was not unusual in new homes that were well-insulated. [See 2008, p. 470B2] The CPSC Nov. 9 said Maclaren USA Inc. of South Norwalk, Conn., had voluntarily recalled about one million foldable strollers, after receiving 15 reports of children injuring their fingers on side hinges. Twelve of the instances had resulted in the amputation of a fingertip. The injuries had been reported over a 10-year period, and had resulted from the folding of the strollers. [See 2001, p. 561A1] Toyota Motor Corp. Sept. 29 said it would recall 3.8 million vehicles because a removable floor mat could cause the accelerator pedal to stick. The recall was the largest ever for the company, and included the top-selling U.S. passenger car, the Toyota Camry, for the model years between 2007 and 2010. Also affected was the Prius gaselectric hybrid car for the model years between 2004 and 2009. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that day said the stuck accelerators posed a significant risk, as they could lead to unintended high speeds and crashes. The NHTSA said it had received 102 reports of stuck accelerators possibly connected to the floor mat problem. Toyota Nov. 25 said it would replace the accelerator pedals on about 4.3 million vehicles to correct the problem. [See 2006, p. 826E3] n 850

AFRICA

Namibia President, Ruling Party Reelected. Namib-

ian President Hifikepunye Pohamba had won a second term in office in elections held Nov. 27–28, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) announced Dec. 5. Pohamba’s South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), which had ruled Namibia since it led the country to independence from South Africa in 1990, retained its large parliamentary majority. [See 2005, p. 198B2] The ECN said Pohamba, 74, had garnered 76.4% of the vote. Former Foreign Minister Hidipo Hamutenya, a SWAPO veteran who had formed the breakaway Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) party in 2007, placed a distant second, with 11.1%. In elections for the 72-member National Assembly, SWAPO won 75.3% of the vote, while the RDP took 11.3%. SWAPO would have 54 seats in the body, down from 55, while the RDP would have eight. No other party would have more than two seats. The RDP and seven other opposition parties Dec. 6 announced that they would challenge the official results in court. The parties alleged that the ECN had committed procedural errors in counting the ballots. However, African observer missions reportedly found the vote to be largely free and fair. Namibia, rich in natural resources such as diamonds and uranium, had come to be considered by the international community as one of the most politically and economically stable nations in Africa since it gained independence. However, some analysts said that view was misleading, and that income disparity in the sparsely populated country meant that many citizens languished in poverty. Opposition parties during the campaign had criticized SWAPO for its allegedly slow action in improving social services and combating unemployment, which had been exacerbated by the global economic crisis. n

South Africa Zuma Announces Expanded AIDS Policy.

South African President Jacob Zuma in a Dec. 1 speech in Pretoria, the capital, said the government would expand its policy on combating HIV/AIDS. The new policy, announced on World AIDS Day, included a pledge to treat all HIV-positive children under the age of one with free, life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs beginning in April 2010. [See p. 325B3] The government of Zuma’s predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, had been widely criticized for its failure to act while South Africa’s AIDS rate rose to the highest in the world, instead questioning the scientific link between HIV and AIDS. A 2008 Harvard University study had found that the delay by Mbeki’s government in providing antiretroviral drugs had led to the premature deaths of some 330,000 people between 2000 and 2005. The influential Congress of South African Trade Unions

(COSATU) Dec. 1 called for Mbeki to apologize to the nation for his inaction; other groups, including the Communist Youth League, had said he should be prosecuted for genocide. In late 2006, Mbeki’s government shifted its stance, launching a five-year plan to fight AIDS, including providing government funding for antiretrovirals. Currently, an estimated 5.7 million South Africans were infected with HIV, the highest total in the world. Additionally, some 59,000 babies were born with the virus each year. A June 8 report by South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council had found that the overall infection rate had leveled off at 10.9%, and that infection rates among children and teenagers were falling. [See 2006, p. 1013G3] Zuma’s Dec. 1 speech was seen as an effort to show a definitive break with the disastrous policies of the past. Other initiatives announced by Zuma, who had taken office in May, included guidelines for public hospitals to provide earlier drug treatment to HIV-positive patients with tuberculosis, and to step up efforts to provide treatment to HIV-positive pregnant women. Zuma also pledged to undergo an AIDS test himself, in what was viewed as a symbolic effort to reduce the stigma associated with the disease. (Zuma, during his 2006 trial for rape, had drawn criticism from AIDS activists for testifying that he had showered after having unprotected sex with his HIV-positive accuser to protect himself from infection. He was ultimately acquitted of rape.) [See 2006, p. 378G1] To assist in paying for the expanded antiretroviral treatment, the U.S. Dec. 1 announced a $120 million aid package, in addition to the $572 million it had already pledged to South Africa for fiscal 2010. [See p. 540C2] Zuma’s new policy was praised by AIDS activist groups such as the influential Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), as well as by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA).n

AMERICAS

Bolivia Morales Easily Wins Reelection. Bolivian

President Evo Morales Aima, 50, of the governing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, Dec. 6 won reelection to a second five-year term, according to preliminary results. Bolivia’s National Election Court Dec. 8 said that with 30.7% of the ballots counted, Morales had won 51.2% of the vote. His closest rival, rightist Manfred Reyes Villa, the former governor of Cochabamba department (state) and a former army captain, garnered about 37.5% of the votes counted so far. Several exit polls had also shown Morales winning the election by a wide majority. Seven other candidates distantly trailed Morales, who had to secure at least 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff election. [See pp. 294A1, 50C1] In addition, MAS candidates made gains in the Senate, the country’s upper legislative house, winning at least 24 of its 36 seats. Previously, opposition candidates had controlled enough seats to prevent new FACTS ON FILE

legislation from being passed. It was not yet clear if MAS had secured a similar majority in the lower Chamber of Deputies. The establishment of a two-thirds MAS majority in both chambers of the legislature would allow Morales to continue reforming the country’s constitution. Morales, an Aymara Indian, in 2005 became the first indigenous person in Bolivia to win the presidency. He was strongly supported by the country’s indigenous and poor populations, who again buoyed him in the Dec. 6 election. Morales had implemented a range of social programs for children, women, the elderly and the poor, further cementing his popularity among those groups. After taking office, Morales had overseen the nationalization of large parts of the country’s lucrative natural gas industry to increase the government’s revenue. [See 2006, p. 866E1; 2005, p. 917E2] He had also convened a constituent assembly that had written a new constitution that was adopted by voters in January. The new constitution abolished the previous single-term limit for presidents, and changed the government’s structure, centralizing the power to set energy, security, foreign and economic policy in the hands of the federal government. That led critics to accuse Morales of undermining Bolivia’s democratic institutions. The new constitution also included changes intended to increase the representation of indigenous groups in the legislature, and secure other rights for Indians. Morales said he was “obligated to accelerate the pace of change,” and indicated that he would continue to push for economic reforms that had riven the country in 2008. Morales’s support was largely concentrated in the country’s Western highlands, which were mostly populated by Indians. Bolivians of mainly European descent who lived in the natural-resource rich eastern lowlands had opposed many of Morales’s economic reforms, and backed opposition political movements that sometimes violently clashed with the government and Morales supporters. [See 2008, p. 660F3] n

A S I A - PA C I F I C

Australia Climate Change Bill Defeated. The Australian Senate Dec. 2 voted, 41–33, to reject for the second time legislation that would have introduced a “cap-and-trade” system, in which the government would have issued pollution permits that could be bought and sold by polluters. Under the proposed bill, carbon dioxide emissions in Australia would have been required to decrease by 5% from 2000 levels by 2020, and could have been required to decline by as much as 25% by 2020 if an international agreement on fighting climate change were reached at talks scheduled for Dec. 7–18 in Copenhagen, Denmark. An earlier version of the bill had been passed by the House of Representatives in June but rejected by the Senate in August. [See pp. 841A1, 623E3] December 10, 2009

Following the bill’s defeat, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP), which had backed the bill, would reintroduce the legislation in February. Under Australian law, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had the authority to dissolve both houses of Parliament and to call elections if a piece of legislation approved by the House was blocked twice by the Senate. The ALP did not currently control the Senate, but analysts said that a new election was likely to increase the number of ALP seats in the Senate, if the current popularity of Rudd and the ALP continued unabated. Bill Amended to Appease Opposition—

Rudd’s government Nov. 24 announced amendments to the August version of the cap-and-trade bill intended to bolster support for the legislation among members of the conservative Liberal Party, Australia’s largest opposition party. The amendments would have increased financial assistance and the allocation of free pollution permits to companies that generated electricity, and would have exempted farmers from any carbon emissions restrictions. Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, who also led the Liberal Party–National Party opposition coalition, Nov. 24 announced that the Liberal Party would back the amended cap-and-trade bill, despite significant internal opposition to it. Liberal members of Parliament opposed to the cap-and-trade bill Nov. 27 delivered a series of speeches in order to delay its consideration until the following week. Parliament had been scheduled to adjourn that day until Feb. 2 for its summer recess. The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 27 that as many as 12 members of the opposition had informed Turnbull that they would step down from the party’s shadow cabinet because of his support for the bill. Turnbull Ousted as Liberal Leader—

Turnbull Dec. 1 was ousted as the leader of the Liberal Party in a leadership election held in response to Turnbull’s decision to support the government’s climate change legislation. Tony Abbott, a right-wing Liberal member of Parliament, defeated Turnbull, 42–41, in the second round of voting to become the new head of the party; a third Liberal member of Parliament, Joe Hockey, had been eliminated from contention in the first round of voting. Following the vote, Abbott announced that the Liberal Party would cease to honor Turnbull’s promise to support the bill and would instead oppose it. Abbott, who had previously expressed skepticism about climate change, said that he believed that climate change existed and that humans played a role in it, but said that the proposed legislation would place an unacceptable burden on the Australian economy. Abbott Dec. 2 announced that he would continue to support a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but said that he would push for the government to use improved land management techniques and increased energy efficiency to achieve that goal, rather than cap-and-trade.

Rudd Dec. 3 called Abbott’s plan unrealistic. Two Liberal senators Dec. 2 voted in favor of the government’s cap-and-trade bill. Rudd Meets With Obama— Rudd Nov. 30 met with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., to discuss their countries’ plans for addressing climate change as well as the ongoing war in Afghanistan. He also met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Australia currently had 1,550 troops in Afghanistan. News media had reported Oct. 21 that Australian Defense Minister John Faulkner was pushing for the withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible. During the meeting Rudd was reportedly informed by Obama about the new U.S. strategy for the war in Afghanistan, which included an increase of about 30,000 U.S. troops to the country. Rudd said afterwards that his government would send more Australian Federal Police officers to help train Afghan police, and other civilian personnel. Rudd Cleared in E-mail Probe—Australian Auditor General Ian McPhee Aug. 4 issued a report that found no evidence that Rudd or Treasurer Wayne Swan had attempted to obtain preferential treatment for a friend under a A$2 billion (US$1.8 billion) Treasury fund intended to provide credit to car dealerships affected by the global financial crisis. Rudd and Swan had denied any wrongdoing and had accused the opposition of attempting to manipulate the controversy for political gain. [See p. 447A3] According to the report, former Treasury official Godwin Grech had overseen the fund’s financial dealings with car dealer John Grant, a friend of Rudd and Swan, and had not provided any special assistance. In June, Grech had accused one of Rudd’s advisers of sending him an e-mail asking for special treatment for Grant. However, the e-mail was later shown to be a fake. Grech Aug. 4 admitted to having faked the e-mail, but said that he had been attempting to reproduce a real e-mail which he could no longer locate. The Senate Privileges Committee Nov. 25 ruled unanimously that Liberal Sen. Eric Abetz had not knowingly made false statements to the Senate in connection with the faked e-mail. In June, Abetz had testified before the Senate that he had first been informed about the e-mail by a journalist, a claim that was called into question by media reports. The Privileges Committee found that Grech had misled the Senate in his testimony about the e-mail, but said that it could not rule on whether Grech had knowingly done so because of complications posed by Grech’s ongoing physical and mental health issues, which included kidney disease and osteoporosis. Grech could have faced a prison term if found guilty of contempt of Parliament. n 851

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Fiji Diplomats Ousted in Dispute Over Judges.

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama Nov. 3 announced that the military-controlled government had ordered Australia’s and New Zealand’s ambassadors to Fiji to leave the country within 24 hours. Bainimarama said that the ambassadors had been ousted because they had waged “a negative campaign against the government and people of Fiji” and interfered with the country’s economy and judiciary. Bainimarama also said that Fiji would shortly withdraw its ambassador to Australia. [See pp. 527C2, 510E1] Bainimarama’s announcement marked the third time that Fiji’s government had expelled New Zealand’s ambassador since a 2006 military coup that had triggered international criticism. It was the first time that Fiji had expelled Australia’s ambassador. Australia Accused of Meddling—Fijian Chief Justice Anthony Gates, a British and Australian dual citizen, Nov. 1 had claimed that Australia had interfered with Fiji’s internal affairs by attempting to dissuade seven Sri Lankan judges from taking up posts in the Fijian judiciary. According to Gates, Australia’s government had threatened travel bans against the judges and their families that would have kept them from traveling through Australia on their way to Fiji. Australia had instituted a travel ban on members of Fiji’s ruling junta following the 2006 coup, and had extended it to include members of the judiciary in April, after then–Fijian President Josefa Iloilo dissolved the constitution and fired all of the country’s judges. The Australian government had reportedly advised the Sri Lankan judges about the travel bans in order to keep them from joining Fiji’s judiciary, which Australia viewed as controlled by the junta. The judges Nov. 2 arrived in Suva, Fiji’s capital. Rudd Criticizes Junta—Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Nov. 4 accused Bainimarama and his government of violating Fiji’s constitution, and said that Australia would take “a deliberately hard-line approach to this regime because we do not want this coup culture to spread elsewhere in the Pacific.” Rudd did not specify what steps his government would take, but Australia and New Zealand that day both announced that they had ordered Fiji’s highest-ranking diplomats to leave, in response to the Nov. 3 ouster of their ambassadors by Fiji. New President Sworn in— Epeli Nailatikau Nov. 5 was sworn in by Gates as the fourth president of Fiji. Nailatikau had been appointed vice president after the 2006 coup, and had served as acting president since the July retirement of Iloilo. He was also the son-in-law of late former President Kamisese Mara. Analysts said that the elevation of Nailatikau, a former head of Fiji’s armed forces, was part of a continuing effort by Bainimarama to consolidate military control of the country. [See 2004, p. 300D3] Nailatikau Nov. 5 swore in four magistrates from Sri Lanka and two judges. 852

The Commonwealth, a group composed of Britain and many of its former colonies, Sept. 1 announced that it had fully suspended Fiji after Bainimarama’s government had missed a Sept. 1 deadline set by the group to schedule democratic elections for 2010. Bainimarama had announced in July that elections would be delayed until 2014 to allow for the creation of a new national constitution. Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma said that the group was “obliged” to suspend Fiji, but that a planned September visit to Fiji by former New Zealand Governor General Paul Reeves, the Commonwealth’s special representative to Fiji, would still take place. Under the full suspension, all Commonwealth aid to Fiji would be dropped and Fijian athletes would be barred from participating in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. Fiji had been suspended from the Commonwealth in 1987 and again in 2000 after previous coups, and had been reinstated in both instances after democratic governments returned to power. The only other country to be fully suspended was Nigeria, in 1995. Fiji May 2 had been expelled from the 16-nation Pacific Island Forum as a result of Iloilo’s dissolution of Fiji’s constitution, and the European Union had reduced its economic aid. Reeves Sept. 9–11 visited Fiji, meeting with Bainimarama and members of the Fijian cabinet. Reeves Sept. 10 said he had pushed Fiji’s government to open discussions with the junta’s political opponents and argued in favor of holding democratic elections as soon as possible, but Bainimarama appeared committed to delaying elections until 2014. n

Philippines Martial Law Declared in Southern Province.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Dec. 4 declared martial law in the southern province of Maguindanao. The declaration followed reports that a 2,400strong militia force loyal to the powerful Ampatuan family were plotting armed resistance to keep the government from arresting Ampatuan family members in connection with the mass killing of 57 people in Maguindanao in November. Under Arroyo’s order, martial law was scheduled to continue for 60 days; the order could only be extended with the support of the Philippine Congress. [See p. 818C3] Arroyo’s order marked the first time that martial law had been invoked in the Philippines since 1981. Under martial law, numerous civil rights, including habeas corpus, were suspended and security forces were authorized to conduct searches of private residences and make arrests without obtaining warrants. Philippine law allowed for the imposition of martial law in cases of rebellion and invasion; critics argued that the reports of planned violence on behalf of the Ampatuan family did not meet that standard. Congress Dec. 9–10 held a joint session to debate whether the Arroyo administra-

tion had acted appropriately by declaring martial law. Arroyo did not attend the session, leading members of Congress to criticize her lack of involvement; however, under the constitution, Arroyo was allowed to forward a written report to Congress on her rationale for declaring martial law, which she had done Dec. 6. The Senate Dec. 7 had voted in opposition to Arroyo’s decision to impose martial law. However, only the House of Representatives, which was dominated by Arroyo’s Lakas Party, had the power to halt the declaration of martial law and was not expected to do so. Congress Dec. 10 suspended the joint session. Alleged Ringleader Charged With Murder—

Prosecutors in Cotabato City, near Maguindanao, Dec. 1 charged Andal Ampatuan Jr., the mayor of the Maguindanao town of Datu Unday, and additional unidentified suspects with 25 counts of murder in connection with the November massacre, which targeted the family of political rival Esmael Mangudadatu. Twenty other people suspected of involvement in the massacre were in custody, including high-ranking members of the Maguindanao police force. Prosecutors said Ampatuan, whose family had largely controlled Maguindanao politics prior to the killings, had been seen by at least 10 witnesses taking part in the abduction and killings of the 57 people near the town of Ampatuan. One witness reportedly claimed that the murders had been plotted at the home of Andal Ampatuan Jr.’s father, Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., days earlier. The Associated Press (AP) reported Dec. 3 that police had arrested Esmail Canapia and Takpan Dilon, two militia members reportedly loyal to the Ampatuan family. Ballistics tests subsequently linked Canapia’s gun to the massacre. Andal Ampatuan Jr., who had denied any involvement in the murders, Nov. 26 said in a television interview that he believed the massacre had been carried out by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an Islamic separatist group that was active in the region. The Philippine government and a spokesman for the MILF both disputed that notion. Justice Minister Agnes Devanadera Nov. 27 had said witnesses had heard Andal Ampatuan Jr. ordering the murders and seen him firing a gun in the massacre. She said some of the men who had taken part in the massacre had turned themselves in because they felt guilty about killing journalists and bystanders. Of the 57 people killed in the massacre, a total of 30 had been identified as reporters or employees of media organizations and 15 were apparently bystanders killed to prevent them from identifying the killers. Devanadera said more than 20 of the victims had been women, including two of Mangudadatu’s sisters and his wife, Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu. She said nearly all of the female victims had had their genitals mutilated by gunshots and that some could have been raped before they were killed. She also said that seven memFACTS ON FILE

bers of the Ampatuan family, including Andal Ampatuan Sr., had been named as suspects in the case and had been barred from leaving the Philippines. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno Nov. 27 announced that he would replace the entire Ampatuan political regime in and around Maguindanao. Earlier the same day, Arroyo had ordered Puno to take direct control of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which was governed by Zaldy Ampatuan, the brother of Andal Ampatuan Jr. Puno Dec. 3 removed all 1,092 members of the Maguindanao police force from duty in order to guarantee an impartial investigation. Mayor, Governors Arrested—Police in Maguindanao Dec. 4 arrested Andal Ampatuan Sr., Zaldy Ampatuan, Maguindanao Vice Governor Akmad Ampatuan and Anwar Ampatuan, mayor of Shariff Aguak, the capital of Maguindanao, in connection with the massacre. Andal Ampatuan Sr. Dec. 6 was hospitalized for high blood pressure. A group of more than 100 soldiers Dec. 3 had raided the homes of Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Andal Ampatuan Sr. on the Ampatuan family compound in Maguindanao after a search near the compound had uncovered a large weapons cache including machine guns, mortars and antitank missiles. A group of at least 20 gunmen thought to be loyal to Ampatuan family Dec. 6 opened fire on a group of police officers in Datu Unday. No injuries were reported as a result of the incident. The AP reported Dec. 7 that the Philippine government was investigating whether the Ampatuan family had illegally acquired some of its wealth. Separately, Leila de Lima, the chairwoman of the government’s Commission on Human Rights, Dec. 9 said the commission was investigating allegations that the Ampatuan family had had at least 200 other people murdered for political reasons prior to the November massacre. Philippine National Police Chief Jesus Verzosa Dec. 9 said that the police had identified 161 suspects who had taken part in the massacre. The suspects included members of the Ampatuan family, local police officers and government officials, and about 100 militia members. A total of 30 of the suspects were currently in custody. The same day, prosecutors in Maguindanao charged 24 people, including Zaldy Ampatuan, with rebellion. A group of gunmen thought to be connected to the Ampatuan family Dec. 10 attacked a police convoy in Ampatuan. Felicisimo Khu, a police superintendent was reportedly the target of the attack. No one was injured in the incident. The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Dec. 10 announced that it had received reports that gunmen loyal to the Ampatuan family were planning an armed raid on NBI headquarters in Manila, the Philippine capital, as part of an attempt to free Andal Ampatuan Jr., who was being held there. Following the reports, the NBI said that it had increased security measures around its compound. December 10, 2009

Puno Dec. 10 swore in ARMM Vice Governor Ansaruddin Alonto-Adiong in Quezon City as acting governor of the ARMM following the arrest of Zaldy Ampatuan on rebellion charges. Mangudadatu to Run for Governor—

Mangudadatu Nov. 27 filed nomination papers in Shariff Aguak in order to run for the governorship of the province. He was accompanied by senior Philippine Army and police officials, as well as soldiers. A convoy carrying Mangudadatu’s wife and sisters had been attempting to file his nomination papers when they were abducted by gunmen and killed; Mangudadatu had sent his wife and sister to file the papers because he had feared being murdered by the Ampatuan family, but believed that women would not be harmed. Mangudadatu said that he felt an obligation to run on behalf of those killed in the attempt to prevent his candidacy, and said that “only death can stop me from running.” Andal Ampatuan Jr. had been expected to run against Mangudadatu for the governorship. U.N. Officials Call for Scrutiny— Frank La Rue, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, and Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Dec. 3 issued a statement calling on the Philippine government to treat the massacre as “a watershed moment for the country.” They said the murders demanded “a more extensive reflection on the elite family-dominated manipulation of the political processes and the need to eliminate such practices.” In the southern Philippines, the central government had armed and funded militias to fight Islamic and communist militants; however, powerful local families, including the Ampatuans, had reportedly used the militias as private armies. Journalists Protest in Manila—A group of about 1,000 journalists Nov. 30 demonstrated near the presidential palace in Manila and called for the government to carry out a full investigation into the 30 journalists killed in the massacre. The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines Nov. 27 had called for the Philippine government to create a special court to try massacre suspects in order to guarantee that political considerations did not taint in the case. (A total of 89 journalists had reportedly been killed in the Philippines in 2009, including those murdered in the massacre.) n

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Albania Oil Tycoon Arrested For Beating Journalist. Rezart Taci, owner of Albania’s ARMO oil

refinery, as well as Taci Oil International, Nov. 5 turned himself in to police in Tirana, Albania’s capital, three days after he and his bodyguards allegedly beat journalist Mero Baze until he fell unconscious. Baze on his television program, “Faktor Plus,” had recently accused Taci of tax evasion and criticized authorities for turning a blind

eye to Taci’s alleged crimes. Baze also edited Tema, a daily newspaper known for its criticism of the government. Baze was hospitalized after the Nov. 2 attack, which took place in a Tirana bar, and released the following day. [See p. 625E3] Taci, who was known as a close associate of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, had turned himself in to police after a Tirana court Nov. 5 ordered that he be detained until he could be tried for assault. Taci denied the charges, for which he faced a maximum sentence of three years in jail, as well as the tax allegations. Two of Taci’s bodyguards had been arrested Nov. 3. Berisha in a Nov. 3 statement called the attack on Baze a “grave and ugly act; unacceptable for a free society.” A paper allied with Berisha in February had called for Baze to be killed, in an article graphically describing possible methods. n

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Germany Demjanjuk Nazi War Crimes Trial Opens.

The war crimes trial of John Demjanjuk, an alleged former Nazi death camp guard who had lived in the U.S. for decades after World War II, Nov. 30 opened in a court in Munich, Germany. Demjanjuk, 89, stood accused of being an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews in the gas chambers of the Sobibor camp in Poland in 1943. The U.S. had revoked the Ukrainian-born retired autoworker’s citizenship and deported him to Germany in May. [See p. 352D2] German doctors had found that Demjanjuk was fit to stand trial, despite claims by his lawyers and family that he was in constant pain from bone marrow disease and other ailments. He appeared in court lying down on a gurney. The court Dec. 2 adjourned the case until Dec. 21 after Demjanjuk became ill with a fever. Demjanjuk said he had been captured while fighting against Germany as a Soviet soldier, and was held in prisoner of war camps for most of World War II. He denied that he had been a guard at Sobibor. Prosecutors Dec. 1 alleged that Demjanjuk had volunteered for guard duty and “took part in all the various parts of the extermination process” at Sobibor. The prosecution planned to call as witnesses 40 relatives of people killed at Sobibor. But there were no living witnesses who could testify to Demjanjuk’s presence or actions at Sobibor. Prosecutors said they would present two key documents as evidence: a wartime identity card that said Demjanjuk served at Sobibor for six months in 1943, and an order sending him to Sobibor from a training camp for guards. The trial was scheduled to last until May 2010. If convicted, he faced a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. In a previous trial in Israel, Demjanjuk had been convicted and sentenced to death in 1988 for serving as a guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. But he was acquitted on appeal in 1993 and allowed to return to the U.S., after it was determined that he had been misidentified. 853

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Demjanjuk’s German lawyers argued that the current charges were similar enough to the ones he faced in Israel as to constitute double jeopardy. They also argued that it was unfair to hold him responsible for so many deaths at Sobibor, when a West German court in 1966 had acquitted five officers at the camp because they could have been killed for refusing orders to execute Jews. [See 1966, p. 521A2] Two Others Face Trial—Two other elderly alleged Nazi war criminals were currently facing trial in Germany. Prosecutors Nov. 17 charged Adolf Storms, 90, a former sergeant in the SS, the armed force of the Nazi party, with 58 counts of murder for a massacre of Jewish forced laborers in Austria in March 1945. Storms lived in Duisberg, near Cologne in western Germany. Heinrich Boere, 88, a former SS soldier, Oct. 27 had gone on trial in the western city of Aachen for killing a Dutch resistance fighter and two civilians in the Netherlands in 1944. His lawyers argued that the trial violated a European Union law against double jeopardy, because he had been tried for the same crimes in the Netherlands and convicted in absentia in 1949. He received a death sentence that was commuted to life in prison, but he had not served any time. Boere Dec. 8 admitted in court that he had killed the three men, but said he had no choice but to follow orders. In August, a court in Munich had convicted a former Nazi officer, Josef Scheungraber, 90, of ordering the executions of 14 Italian civilians in reprisal for the deaths of two German soldiers. He was sentenced to life in prison. [See p. 560F1] n

Great Britain Government Sets 50% Tax on Bank Bonuses.

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British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling Dec. 9 announced that the government would impose a one-time 50% tax on bonuses paid to employees by banks. Darling unveiled the tax as part of a prebudget report outlining the centerleft Labour Party government’s fiscal plans ahead of a general election due by June 2010 at the latest. [See pp. 855F3, 742A1] The budget plan was aimed at cutting the deficit in half by 2013. Britain’s deficit was currently estimated to equal 13% of gross domestic product, one of the largest ratios in Europe. Darling announced his measures in a week in which European stock and bond markets had been roiled by credit downgrades and warnings for Greece and Spain, which were both saddled with large deficits. Ireland, also dealing with deep fiscal problems, Dec. 9 unveiled a more austere budget than Britain’s. Darling estimated that the bonus tax would generate £550 million ($900 million) in revenue, which would be used to fund job creation measures. The tax would take effect immediately and last until April 2010. Bankers warned that the bonus tax would endanger London’s status as the leading financial center in Europe. 854

The tax would exempt the first £25,000 in bonuses, including both cash and other compensation, such as shares. It would not apply to bonuses that were required by preexisting contracts. The tax would be paid by the banks, not the bonus recipients. It would apply not just to British banks, but also to foreign banks that operated in Britain. The British bonus tax was a tougher measure than the steps taken so far by the U.S., where bank bonuses had also stirred controversy following heavy government rescue aid to the financial industry during the financial crisis of the past year. The U.S. government had limited bonuses and salaries at banks that received the most aid, but had not imposed industry-wide caps or taxes. The British tax would apply to all banks, not only those that had received government aid. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a joint op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal Dec. 10 said the proposal of a one-time bonus tax “should be considered a priority,” along with other moves to regulate the global financial industry. The Financial Times Dec. 10 reported that France would act soon to legislate its own version of Britain’s 50% tax. [See p. 206D3] In other British budget measures announced Dec. 9, Darling said all taxpayers who earned £20,000 or more a year would face an increase in taxes that funded national insurance programs. In addition, Darling proposed budget cuts of up to 15% over three years for most government agencies, except for health, education and police funding. He called for capping public sector salary increases at 1%. n

Italy U.S. Student Convicted of Briton’s Murder.

A jury in Perugia, in central Italy, Dec. 5 convicted Amanda Knox, 22, an exchange student from the U.S., of the November 2007 murder of her British housemate, Meredith Kercher, 21. The jury also convicted Knox’s Italian boyfriend, Rafaelle Sollecito, 25. The court sentenced Knox to 26 years in prison, and gave Sollecito a 25year term. Their 11-month trial had drawn international attention. [See p. 765F3] A second man, Rudy Guede, 24, an immigrant from Ivory Coast, had been convicted in October 2008 of playing a role in the killing. He was convicted of murder and sexual assault, and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was appealing the sentence. The court Dec. 5 also ordered Knox and Sollecito to pay Kercher’s family about 4.5 million euros ($6.6 million) in damages. Knox was also convicted of defaming Patrick Lumumba, who owned a bar where she had worked. She had initially accused him of the murder before recanting. Knox testified that the police had pressured her to accuse Lumumba, a Congolese immigrant. Prosecutors alleged that Knox, Sollecito and Guede had tried to coerce Kercher into group sex and killed her when she resisted.

Sollecito allegedly held Kercher down while Knox cut her throat with a kitchen knife. Knox’s family, from Seattle, Wash., vowed to appeal her conviction, arguing that the verdict resulted from a “failure of the Italian justice system.” They said that prosecutors had presented mostly circumstantial evidence, and that attacks on her character in the Italian media had prejudiced the jury, which was not sequestered during the trial. (The jury included two judges and six civilians.) Sollecito’s lawyers also said they would appeal. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D, Wash.) Dec. 5 responded to the verdict by saying, “I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Dec. 7 said U.S. consular staff had been in contact with Knox and her family and would continue to provide support. “I understand that there will be appeals taken, and we will follow that,” Clinton said, adding that she would “meet with anyone who wishes to discuss this case further.” However, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. had no reason to doubt that Knox had received a fair trial. n

Romania President Wins Reelection; Results Disputed.

Official results of Romania’s Dec. 6 presidential election released the following day showed that President Traian Basescu, an independent figure affiliated with the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL), had defeated his rival, Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Mircea Geoana, with 50.3% of the vote. Geoana, who won 49.7% of the vote, Dec. 8 claimed that the election had been rigged, and filed a complaint with the constitutional court. The court was expected to decide if the poll would be re-run by Dec. 11. [See p. 821A3] International observers had said the poll generally conformed to democratic standards. The Dec. 6 election was a runoff vote between Basescu and Geoana, who had emerged as the top two candidates in the first round of polling in November. The runoff had been scheduled because no candidate won an absolute majority of votes in the first round. n

Russia Nightclub Fire in Perm Kills 124. A Dec. 5 fire at a nightclub in downtown Perm, an industrial city about 680 miles (1,100 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, the capital, killed at least 124 people and seriously injured more than 100. The fire began when a pyrotechnic display inside the club ignited its plastic ceiling, which was decorated with tree branches. Most of the deaths were attributed to smoke inhalation or trampling. The nightclub had one narrow exit, had been fined in the past for safety violations and was not authorized to use fireworks indoors. [See 2006, p. 1027A3] FACTS ON FILE

Citizens and leaders, including President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, sharply criticized the nightclub for negligence in the days following the fire. Perm’s regional government Dec. 9 resigned “in connection with the tragic events” at the nightclub, according to an official statement. Oleg Chirkunov, Perm’s regional governor, said a new government would be assembled after authorities concluded an investigation of the fire. Authorities Dec. 6 had arrested three of the club’s employees, including its owner. A fourth man who had organized the pyrotechnic display was also arrested. They were charged with causing multiple deaths through negligence and failing to follow safety regulations. A number of observers suggested that fire safety checks in Russia were ineffective because of extensive corruption among inspectors. n News in Brief. Security officials in the southern republic of Kabardino-Balkeria Nov. 24 said they had discovered the head-

less bodies of a court bailiff and a police officer the previous night. Violence against

officials in Russia’s southern republics had been increasing during 2009. [See p. 766E1] Russia’s Constitutional Court Nov. 19 extended a moratorium on the death penalty that had been scheduled to expire Jan. 1,

2010. The moratorium had been in effect since 1996, when Russia had joined the Council of Europe human rights organization. The death penalty was still a part of Russia’s penal code, but officials said applying it was impossible because Russia had signed off on several international agreements that banned it. Court officials said the moratorium would remain in place until Russia ratified Protocol Six of the European Convention on Human Rights, which banned capital punishment during peacetime. Opinion polls reportedly showed that about two-thirds of Russians wanted to restore the death penalty. [See 2006, p. 435B3] At least eight people Nov. 23 died in an explosion at a navy arms depot in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk. A series of explosions at the same depot Nov. 13 had killed two firefighters and injured 10 people. [See p. 560A3; 2008, pp. 184G3–185A1] Three women Nov. 13 were killed when a bomb exploded at a cemetery in Gubden, a village in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan. The victims were the widow, sister and daughter of Abdulmalik Magomedov, who had served as a local police major before his shooting death in 2008. [See p. 728C1] The defense ministry Nov. 7 announced that a Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance airplane carrying 11 people had crashed in the Pacific Ocean the previous day, and suspended all naval aviation by the Pacific fleet. The plane reportedly crashed because of a mechanical problem. The 11 crew members were presumed dead. [See p. 766E3] The interior ministry Nov. 8 said police officer Maj. Alexi Dymovsky from the southern city of Novorossiysk had been December 10, 2009

fired for slander. Dymovsky Nov. 6 had posted two videos to the Internet in which he claimed that superiors forced officers to arrest innocent people in order to meet quotas, and suggested that inadequate salaries encouraged officers to accept bribes. The interior ministry Nov. 8 said it would investigate the Novorossiysk police force, which denied Dymovsky’s allegations. Investigators Nov. 5 announced that two Moscow residents—Yevgenia Khasis, 24, and Nikita Tikhonov, 29—had been arrested in connection with the January shooting deaths of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova. Officials reportedly linked the two to

the banned far-right organization Russian National Unity. The group denied involvement with the murders and claimed that Khasis and Tikhonov had never been members. [See pp. 822B2, 497B2] The rights group Memorial Nov. 5 said armed men loyal to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov had abducted rights activist Arbi Khachukayev from Moscow and flown him to Grozny, the Chechen capital. Chechnya’s interior ministry the previous day had said Khachukayev was detained because he had participated in an “armed assault.” Khachukayev, who had fled Chechnya for Moscow recently amid concerns for his safety, ran a rights organization called “Law,” which investigated abuses allegedly committed by Chechen security forces. [See below, p. 728G1–A2] A Moscow court Oct. 6 ruled in favor of Kadyrov, who had accused Oleg Orlov, chairman of Memorial, of libeling him. Orlov had accused Kadyrov of involvement in the July murder of rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who had worked for Memorial. He and Memorial were ordered to pay Kadyrov a total of about $2,300 in symbolic damages, and retract the accusations. Kadyrov had sought about $316,000 in damages. [See pp. 706D1, 497D1] n

Serbia News in Brief. Serbia Nov. 23 opened an army base near the Kosovo border, close to

the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac. (Kosovo, which was populated mostly by ethnic Albanian Muslims, had unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia considered Kosovo part of its territory.) Serbian leaders praised the base, which could accommodate 1,000 military personnel, as the most modern in the region, and said it would discourage organized crime. However, ethnic Albanians, who composed the majority in the Presevo Valley area where the base was constructed, complained that the government was militarizing the region. [See 2001, p. 195E1] A Belgrade court Nov. 11 sentenced 41 members of the so-called Road Mafia, a

gang that embezzled money from Serbia’s toll-road system to a total of 131 years in

prison, with the longest individual sentence set at six years. The individuals had been found guilty of stealing from toll collections and selling fake toll payment cards. Three of the suspects reportedly

committed suicide while in prison. Nine other suspects were acquitted. The court reportedly said the scheme’s organizers had not been identified. n

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Switzerland Polanski Posts Bail, Gets House Arrest.

Swiss authorities Dec. 4 released filmmaker Roman Polanski from custody and transferred him to house arrest at his chalet in the ski resort town of Gstaad, Switzerland, pending a ruling on a U.S. request for his extradition as a fugitive from sentencing in a three-decade-old sex crime case. He had posted $4.5 million bail after the Swiss Federal Criminal Court Nov. 25 granted his appeal against continued detention. He had been jailed in Winterthur, near Zurich, since his arrest at the Zurich airport in late September on a U.S. warrant. [See p. 707B2] Polanski, 76, had fled the U.S. in 1978, when he faced sentencing after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13year-old girl. He had lived mainly in France since then, holding dual French and Polish citizenship. At the chalet, Polanski reunited with his wife, French actress Emanuelle Seigner, 43, and their two children, ages nine and 16. He was allowed to receive guests. He was not allowed to leave his property and had to wear an electronic monitoring device strapped to his ankle. He had also surrendered his identity and travel documents to prevent him from fleeing Switzerland. The U.S. had filed a formal request for Polanski’s extradition in late October. Swiss authorities were expected to rule on the request in a matter of weeks. However, if it was approved, Polanski could file an appeal, which might extend the process by several months. Polanski’s lawyers said they would argue for dismissal of his case at a December hearing in a California state appeals court, claiming improper conduct by the judge and prosecutors in his 1978 trial. n

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Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings Dec. 8 cut Greece’s sovereign credit rating by one notch, to BBB-plus, from A-minus. It was the first time in 10 years that a major agency had rated Greece’s debt below A level. The move led to a continuation of a slide in Greek stock and bond markets, which had begun Dec. 7 when the rating agency Standard & Poor’s Corp. (S&P) put Greece on a negative credit watch, warning that it faced an imminent downgrade. [See pp. 686A2, 802G3] The downgrades came in response to the Greek government’s poor fiscal standing. The 2009 budget deficit was projected to equal 12.7% of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest among the 27 member nations of the European Union. The eurozone, the 16 EU members that used the euro currency, normally required member 855

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nations to hold their deficits below 3% of GDP, but exceptions had been allowed during the global economic crisis of the past year. However, the Greek fiscal problems predated the downturn. Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou had taken office in November, vowing to fix the budget, but S&P said his plans so far were not decisive enough. Greece had the lowest credit ratings of any country in the eurozone. Fitch said Greece’s national debt, currently about 112% of GDP, would likely rise to 130% of GDP before it stabilized. Analysts said the downgrade raised the question of whether the EU would extend emergency aid to Greece or let the country face a debt crisis, and possible default, on its own. Yields on Greek bonds had increased sharply following the credit downgrades, which would make it more expensive for the government to finance its debt. Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou Dec. 9 said, “Of course we are under the umbrella of the euro, but we’re not waiting around for someone to save us.” He added, “It’s up to us to solve our own problems,” and vowed to do “whatever is required” to cut the deficit. The Greek finance ministry had projected GDP contractions of 1.3% for 2009, and 0.3% for 2010. It had recently revised the unemployment rate upward to 18%, nearly twice the rate previously reported for September, after an EU-funded job program ended. Spain’s Credit Outlook Slips—Other eurozone members, particularly Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal, were also viewed as vulnerable to credit downgrades. S&P Dec. 9 lowered its outlook for Spain’s debt to negative, from stable, warning of low economic growth and high deficits over the “medium term,” although S&P’s rating itself remained unchanged at AA-plus. Spain’s economy had remained in a recession in the third quarter, when the eurozone as a whole returned to growth. The Spanish budget deficit was expected to exceed 11% of GDP in 2009. S&P Dec. 8 had also issued a warning for Portugal. Ireland Sets Sharp Budget Cuts— Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan Dec. 9 announced an austere budget with four billion euros ($6 billion) in spending cuts, and salary cuts for all government workers, including a 20% cut for Prime Minister Brian Cowen. Lenihan unveiled a new 200,000 euro annual domicile tax on anyone who resided in Ireland with income of more than one million euros a year and five million euros of assets in Ireland. A carbon tax would also take effect, at 15 euros per ton of fossil fuels. [See p. 854E1] n

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Multiple Bombings in Baghdad Kill At Least 121 Parliament Breaks Election Law Deadlock.

A series of bomb blasts Dec. 8 hit government buildings in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, killing at least 121 people and wounding 856

more than 400, according to Iraqi government officials. The attacks, reminiscent of major bombings that had seriously damaged government ministries and killed hundreds of people in August and October, prompted criticism of the Iraqi government’s security efforts. Also, Iraq’s parliament Dec. 6 passed a law governing parliamentary and presidential elections, breaking a months-long political stalemate. [See below, pp. 837A3, 738C1, 562G2] The attacks began when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives next to a technical school in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood, as a police patrol was passing. Over the next 50 minutes, four bombs went off around the city, hitting a bank in downtown Baghdad that was serving as headquarters for the finance ministry, after the ministry’s building was destroyed in the August attack; an appeals court and Baghdad’s art institute in western Baghdad; and a mosque in the Qahira neighborhood. Iraqi legislators in the attack’s aftermath said political infighting, especially between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, had kept security forces from properly protecting the country, and demanded the resignation of senior security officials. Maliki Dec. 9 fired the head of Baghdad Operations Command, Gen. Aboud Qanbar, and replaced him with Lt. Gen. Ahmed Ouda, a deputy chief of staff in the Iraqi army. The Iraqi government blamed the bombings on the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq and on remnants of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath Party, as it had after the August and October bombings. The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization for Sunni extremist groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq, Dec. 10 claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Dec. 10 arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit, flying in from Afghanistan. He met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and U.S. military commanders. A scheduled meeting with Maliki was delayed until Dec. 11 so Maliki could meet with legislators in an attempt to calm criticism of the government. [See p. 844B3] In other violence, an explosion Dec. 7 hit a school in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least one child, with some reports saying up to 15 had been killed, and wounding between 41 and 56 people, including many children. Security officials disagreed over whether the blast was caused by the accidental explosion of a hidden arms cache, a planted bomb or an off-target rocket fired by militants. Also that day, gunmen killed five members of an Awakening Council—part of a mostly Sunni armed movement that had allied with the U.S. and the Iraqi government against extremists—at a checkpoint in northern Baghdad, and two other Awakening Council members were poisoned in the northern city of Kirkuk. Election Law Avoids Veto—In a special late-night session, Iraq’s parliament Dec. 6 unanimously voted to approve a newly revised version of the election law. The vote

was held 10 minutes before a midnight deadline to avoid a veto threat from Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who had vetoed a previous version that parliament had passed in early November because he said it did not include enough representation for Iraqis, mainly Sunnis, who had fled the country. (Parliament had subsequently passed a revised version of the legislation that gave Sunnis even less representation, but the new bill superseded that.) Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, said he would support the new legislation, whose details were not clear but which was reportedly similar to the initial bill. It would increase the size of parliament to 325 seats, from 275. The legislation had to be approved by Iraq’s three-member Presidency Council, of which Hashemi was a member. U.S. and United Nations diplomats reportedly lobbied hard for passage of the bill, and the U.S. government praised the vote. The election was seen as vital in order for the U.S. to be able to proceed with troop withdrawals. The Iraqi government Dec. 8 said the election would be held on March 7, 2010. It had originally been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2010, and the constitution required that it be held by the end of that month, but the date was pushed back because the delay in passing the elections law meant that electoral officials needed more time to prepare. Former U.S. Major Jailed for Corruption—

Judge W. Royal Furgeson of U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 2 sentenced former U.S. Army Maj. John Cockerham to 17 and a half years in prison for participating in a corrupt scheme that netted millions of dollars from misdirecting U.S. Defense Department contracts in Iraq and Kuwait. Furgeson also ordered Cockerham to repay $9.6 million investigators said he had made in kickbacks from contractors. [See 2008, p. 449C3] Cockerham had pleaded guilty to bribery, conspiracy and money laundering in June 2008, in what was considered the largest corruption case in the Iraq war. His was the first sentence in a case that encompassed several other former U.S. officers. n

Iran Students Day Sees Antigovernment Protests.

Tens of thousands of students and other Iranians Dec. 7–8 participated in antigovernment protests in Tehran, the capital, and in other Iranian cities such as Isfahan, Hamedan and Shiraz, and clashed with police and members of the Basij militia and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The protests took place on National Students Day, an official holiday commemorating the 1953 killing of three Tehran University students by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s forces. They were reportedly the biggest and most intense demonstrations since mass demonstrations after a disputed presidential election in June had been crushed by government security forces. [See p. 767B3] The government in the days leading up to the protests had taken steps to stymie the FACTS ON FILE

antigovernment movement, including arresting dozens of student leaders, slowing Internet service in order to keep movement members from communicating with each other, and warning foreign journalists against reporting on the protests. Police Dec. 5 arrested more than 20 women who were attending a weekly protest in central Tehran by mothers of people killed in the postelection protests. Security forces had previously attacked the protests, but those were the first arrests there. Thousands of police early Dec. 7 surrounded Tehran University and other universities in an attempt to suppress the planned protests, but crowds clashed with them throughout the day, and numerous injuries and arrests were reported. Protesters reportedly took a stronger tone against Iran’s theocratic establishment than in previous demonstrations. They shouted slogans against and burned pictures of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the 1979 Islamic Revolution; called for the separation of religion and state; and carried the Iranian flag without the symbol of Allah that had been added after the Islamic Revolution. The clashes continued Dec. 8, as Basij members stormed university campuses— from which they were normally barred— and attacked students. Police in Tehran said they had arrested 204 people the previous day, although the semiofficial news agency Fars said more than 80 of them had since been freed. Iran’s top prosecutor, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Dec. 8 said, “From now on, we will show no mercy” towards protesters. Iranian state media reported that a small group of “rioters” had caused the disturbances. That was a change from its previous policy of generally not reporting the protests at all. Basij members reportedly kept two main leaders of the opposition, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi, from attending the protests. However, Moussavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, Dec. 7 attended a protest at Tehran University, where she was a professor, and was assaulted by female Basij members. Also that day, Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was arrested at a protest in Tehran, although she was later released. Protesters Sentenced to Death— Iranian state television Nov. 17 reported that five people had been sentenced to death in connection with the postelection protests. The government said they had been involved in terrorist and armed opposition groups. Three people linked to the protests had been sentenced to death in October. The executions were seen as part of an increase in Iran’s already-high capital punishment rate that was meant to cow the political opposition and restive ethnic groups. Human rights groups said Iran had executed 115 people between the June 12 presidential election and the Aug. 5 inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [See p. 768G1] December 10, 2009

Iran Nov. 11 executed Kurdish activist Ehsan Fattahian, in the Kurdish city of Kamyaran. Fattahian, 28, a member of the banned militant group Party of Free Life in Kurdistan, had been arrested in 2008, convicted of “armed struggle against the regime” and given a 10-year prison sentence. However, in a rare move, that sentence was changed to death by an appeals court after the Kamyaran prosecutor general asked for a stronger punishment. Prison Doctor’s Death Probed—Iranian news media Nov. 17 reported that Iran’s judiciary was investigating the death of Ramin Pourandarjani, 26, a military doctor who had testified before a parliamentary committee about alleged abuses in Kahrizak prison, which the government subsequently shut down. Pourandarjani had reportedly treated Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of a conservative political figure, whose subsequent death in custody at Kahrizak had prompted an investigation. [See p. 610E1] Police had originally said that Pourandarjani had died of a heart attack Nov. 10, but Iran’s national police chief, Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, Nov. 18 said he had committed suicide after being accused of an unspecified crime. However, an opposition Web site said he had “feared for his life” after testifying before the parliamentary committee. It was reported Dec. 2 that Tehran’s prosecutor’s office had said he died of an overdose of a blood-pressure drug, and that traces of the drug had been found in his food. U.N. Criticizes Rights Abuses—The United Nations Nov. 20 passed a draft resolution criticizing Iran for human rights abuses, including the killing and injuring of opposition members and other Iranians exercising their freedom of expression, the abuse of prisoners, restrictions on the media, the use of violence by the Basij and the arrests of foreign embassy personnel. The U.N. had passed a resolution criticizing Iran’s rights record annually for the last 15 years, but the current one registered especially strong concern over the “rise in human rights violations.” A special committee of all 192 U.N. members voted, 74–48, to forward the resolution to the U.N. General Assembly, where it was considered certain to pass; 59 countries abstained. Many of the countries opposing the measure or abstaining from the vote said that the General Assembly was not a forum for criticizing individual countries, but nonetheless expressed concern over Iran’s behavior. Foreign Reporters Arrested— Agence France-Presse (AFP) Nov. 5 reported that one of its Iranian reporters, Farhad Pouladi, had been detained the previous day as he was going to cover a government-backed rally commemorating the 30th anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy by Iranian revolutionaries. The Danish Union of Journalists the same day said a Danish journalism student, Niels Krogsgaard, had been arrested while covering antigovernment protests concurrent with the official rally, and Fars Nov. 6 said one Japanese

and two Canadian reporters had also been arrested and charged with “unauthorized reporting.” The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency Nov. 7 said one Canadian and two German nationals had been freed after being arrested at the protests, although it did not identify them. n

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British Sailors Held After Crossing Border.

British authorities Nov. 30 said Iran Nov. 25 had seized a racing yacht crewed by five British nationals after it accidentally crossed into Iranian waters. The yacht, Kingdom of Bahrain, had been on its way to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Bahrain to take part in a sailing race when its propeller reportedly broke. Iran Dec. 2 freed the sailors after interrogations led the government to agree that they had crossed the boundary by mistake. The sailors said they were well treated during their detention. [See pp. 857F1, 768D1] The Britons’ detention occurred as Iran’s conflict with the West over its nuclear program intensified, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejecting a United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censure. [See p. 837E1] Britain and Iran had had particularly fraught relations in the past, and Iran in 2007 had seized 15 British sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf and held them for two weeks. [See 2007, p. 218D2] U.S. Hikers Accused of Espionage—

Separately, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, chief prosecutor of Tehran, Iran’s capital, Nov. 9 told the official official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that three U.S. hikers who had been arrested in July after crossing into Iran from Iraq had been accused of espionage, but that investigations into their case continued. According to Iran’s staterun English-language Press TV station, Dolatabadi said that “the final decision about the detained U.S. citizens would soon be announced.” It reportedly was not clear whether Iran had brought formal charges against the hikers. Spying charges could carry a death sentence in Iran. [See p. 530C2] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said there was “no evidence to support any charge” against the hikers—Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd— and called on Iran to “exercise compassion and release them.” Iraq’s government had also called for their release, and the Iranian government had allowed Swiss diplomats to visit the detainees. (Iran and the U.S. did not have diplomatic relations, and Switzerland handled U.S. affairs in Iran.) n

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Pakistan Five U.S. Citizens Held on Terror Suspicions.

Pakistani authorities Dec. 9 confirmed that five U.S. citizens had been arrested in the town of Sargodha, in eastern Punjab province. The suspects were all Muslim men in their late teens and early 20s who normally resided in northern Virginia. Their families 857

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Dec. 1 had reported their disappearance to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), after they found a video that reportedly suggested the suspects had left the U.S. to engage in terrorist activities. [See pp. 849A1, 845D1] Usman Anwar, Sargodha’s police chief, Dec. 10 said the five suspects had been arrested at a home belonging to the uncle of one of the suspects, whom he identified as Umer Farooq, a 25-year-old of Pakistani descent. Anwar said the five suspects had stopped in Sargodha on their way to North Waziristan, a lawless tribal area in Pakistan’s northwest that was home to violent Islamic extremist groups and members of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. Anwar said, “They are proudly saying they are here for jihad,” a Muslim holy war. There were conflicting reports as to the names and national origins of three of the suspects, but it was widely reported that the fourth suspect was Ramy Zamzam, 22, of Egyptian ancestry. Anwar said FBI agents had interviewed the five suspects Dec. 10. The U.S. Justice Department the previous day had said, “We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there, if indeed these are the students who had gone missing.” Upon finding the video, the suspects’ families had reportedly contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, D.C.–based advocacy group, which then urged them to contact the FBI. Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, Dec. 9 told reporters he was “very disturbed by the contents” of the video, which he said “made references to the ongoing conflicts in the world and that a Muslim has to do something about them.” Awad said the video appeared to be a “farewell” that contained “a profound misunderstanding and potential misuse of Koranic verses.” It was reported that the five suspects had arrived in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Nov. 30 or Dec. 1. Before arriving in Sargodha, they reportedly traveled from Karachi to Hyderabad and Lahore, in an alleged attempt to make contact with Islamic extremist groups, possibly including Jaishe-Muhammad and Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Pakistani authorities had arrested the five suspects on Dec. 7 or Dec. 9, it was alternately reported. [See p. 695A2, C3] The arrests were the latest possible example of growing Islamic extremism among U.S. citizens and residents with roots in predominantly Muslim countries. U.S. authorities earlier in the week had charged David Headley, whose father was Pakistani, with helping plot a 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India, which was thought to have been organized by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based extremist group. U.S. authorities in November had charged eight men of Somali descent with aiding an Islamic extremist group in Somalia. n Dozens Killed in Terrorist Attack on Lahore.

Two bombs Dec. 7 struck a crowded marketplace in the eastern city of Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, killing at least 858

49 people and wounding 150. The attack was a continuation of a terrorist campaign on Pakistani cities that had begun after the army began a major operation to combat the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. More than 400 people had died in terrorist attacks since the army began the operation in October. [See p. 806G2] Earlier that day, a suicide bomber killed at least 10 people in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Peshawar was close to the Taliban’s stronghold in Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas, and had been a frequent target of attacks in recent months. A group of militants Dec. 8 attacked the office of Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in the city of Multan, killing at least nine people and wounding 40. Military personnel had also been a favored target for militants. At least 36 people were killed when militants Dec. 4 had carried out a gun-and-suicide-bomb attack on a mosque in the Punjabi city of Rawalpindi, where the army’s headquarters were located. Several senior officers were killed, including a major general. [See p. 769C1] n

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Soccer Draw for 2010 World Cup Held in S. Africa.

The draw for the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament was held Dec. 4 in Cape Town, South Africa. South Africa was the host of the 32-nation tournament, which would begin in June 2010. It was the first time the World Cup would be held on the African continent. [See 2006, p. 560F2; 2004, p. 376E2] The lavish ceremony for the draw attracted worldwide attention, and was attended by luminaries such as South African President Jacob Zuma, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Academy Award–winning actress Charlize Theron, a native of South Africa. The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), world soccer’s governing body, Dec. 2 had announced the eight teams that would be seeded in the World Cup. (Seeded teams would avoid playing another seeded team in the first round.) The seedings were based on FIFA’s October world rankings; also, the host country was automatically seeded. The seeded teams, in order of ranking, were Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, defending champion Italy, Germany, Argentina, England and host South Africa. Each seeded team would be joined by three unseeded teams to comprise the eight groups. The groups, with seeded teams listed first, were: o Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France o Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece o Group C: England, U.S., Algeria, Slovenia o Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana

o Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon o Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia o Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal o Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile Group G was dubbed the “group of death”—the most difficult group—by analysts, as it contained five-time champion Brazil as well as European powerhouse Portugal and Ivory Coast, which was considered the strongest of the six African sides. The opening match of the World Cup, between South Africa and Mexico, was scheduled for June 11, 2010, in Johannesburg. South Africa Gives Security Assurances—

South Africa’s deputy national police commissioner, Andre Pruis—who was head of security for the World Cup—Dec. 5 pledged that visitors traveling to South Africa for the World Cup would be safe. South Africa had one of the highest crime rates in the world, and many observers had expressed concern over the safety of the estimated 450,000 foreign fans who would attend the tournament. The government had announced that it would set up special courts to handle crimes committed during the World Cup, it was reported Nov. 21. Justice ministry spokesman Tlali Tlali had said the courts would “deal with all cases that have to do with the tournament.” [See 2007, p. 879G2] South African Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk Dec. 8 addressed concerns that there would not be enough hotel rooms to accommodate World Cup visitors, saying that a national audit had found “more than 202,000 rooms countrywide.” Final Qualifiers Marred by Controversy—

The final six of the 32 teams in the World Cup were determined in the last round of qualifying matches, held Nov. 14 and Nov. 18. Two contests—France vs. Ireland and Algeria vs. Egypt—attracted international attention for their controversial outcomes. [See below] France Ousts Ireland—France Nov. 14 defeated host Ireland, 1–0, in Dublin in the first leg of the teams’ two-leg playoff. In the second leg, in Saint-Denis, France, the two teams Nov. 18 played to a 1–1 draw. That gave France a 2–1 lead in the twogame aggregate score, allowing them to advance to the World Cup. France’s William Gallas scored the game-tying goal in extra time, in the 103rd minute, after receiving a pass from teammate Thierry Henry, who blatantly handled the ball. However, referee Martin Hansson did not see the hand ball and allowed the goal, despite vigorous protests by the Irish players. After the match, Henry admitted that he had handled the ball, and video replays clearly showed the infraction. The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) Nov. 19 asked FIFA to order a replay of the match. FIFA denied the request Nov. 20, stating that “the result of the match cannot be changed FACTS ON FILE

and the match cannot be replayed.…during matches, decisions are taken by the referee and these decisions are final.” Algeria Advances Over Egypt—The playoff between Egypt and Algeria rekindled nationalist tension between the two predominantly Islamic nations, which had a long-standing rivalry, including a 1989 World Cup qualifying matchup in which Egypt had eliminated Algeria. Prior to the first match in Cairo, Egypt’s capital, the Algerian team Nov. 12 claimed that the bus transporting them from the airport to their hotel had been pelted with stones, and that some players had been injured. FIFA Nov. 13 asked Egypt to “provide written guarantees” that the Algerian team would receive additional security while in Egypt. [See 1978, p. 573D1] The attack on the Algerian team sparked retaliatory violence against Egyptians living in Algeria. Algerian fans reportedly destroyed the offices of the Egyptian national airline and an Egyptian telecommunications company in Algiers, the capital. Egypt won the Nov. 14 match, 2–0, and the two-goal margin of victory meant that the teams would have to play a final match at a neutral location—Khartoum, Sudan’s capital—to determine who advanced to the World Cup. After the match, violence was reported as far away as Marseille, France, which had a large population of Algerian and Egyptian immigrants. The Sudanese government Nov. 18 deployed 15,000 police officers on the streets of Khartoum in an effort to prevent violence between the teams’ supporters during the playoff. Algeria won the match, 1–0, on a first-half goal by Antar Yahia, sending Algeria to its first World Cup since 1986. The result sparked protests and riots in Cairo Nov. 19–21. Demonstrators gathered near the Algerian embassy, and protested alleged violence by Algerian supporters against Egyptians during the Nov. 18 match, as well as the attacks on Egyptians in Algeria. Such demonstrations were rare in Egypt, and the government deployed more than 1,000 security forces to crack down on protesters. The tension entered the political realm Nov. 19 when Egypt recalled its ambassador to Algeria. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Nov. 21 in a statement to the Egyptian parliament said, “Egypt will not be lax with those who harm the dignity of its sons,” an apparent reference to attacks on Egyptians abroad. Libyan state news agency JANA Nov. 24 reported that Libyan leader Muammer elQaddafi would mediate the dispute between Egypt and Algeria, at the request of the Arab League. However, some analysts said that leaders in both countries had stoked the nationalist fervor that arose from the matches to divert attention from domestic discontent and boost their own popularity. [See 2008, p. 244F3] Other News—In other international soccer news: o FIFA Nov. 20 suspended Iraq’s national soccer team from competition, alleging improper government interference in the December 10, 2009

Iraqi Football Association, which oversaw the sport in Iraq. [See p. 483C2] o FIFA Nov. 14 banned Argentine coach Diego Maradona, a former national team star, for two months and fined him $24,250. Maradona was punished for a tirade against the media after Argentina’s 1– 0 victory over Uruguay Oct. 14, which included vulgar statements and gestures. Argentina had qualified for the World Cup with the victory. [See 2008, p. 995D1] o The South African Football Association (SAFA) Oct. 19 fired national team coach Joel Santana, a Brazilian, after the team lost eight of its previous nine matches. SAFA Oct. 23 re-hired Santana’s predecessor, Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, who had resigned in April 2008 after his wife was diagnosed with cancer and had recommended Santana to succeed him. Some in South Africa criticized the reappointment of Parreira, who had led Brazil to victory in the World Cup in 1994, calling for a South African to be appointed instead. [See 2006, p. 656B1] o Mexico July 26 defeated the U.S., 5– 0, to win the Gold Cup, the championship of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), in East Rutherford, N.J. [See 2007, p. 900D3] o Brazil June 28 defeated the U.S., 3–2, in Johannesburg to win the Confederations Cup, an eight-team tournament that featured the champions of the six regional confederations in FIFA plus the defending World Cup champion and the host team. The June 14–28 Confederations Cup, which was hosted by South Africa, was seen as a dry run for the much larger World Cup one year later. [See 2005, p. 531E2] o North Korea June 17 clinched a spot in the World Cup for the first time since 1966. n

land. Officials also seized property and cash worth more than a million euros. The scheme mainly affected lower divisions, though three Champions League matches and 12 Europa League matches were thought to have been manipulated. A spokesman for the Champions League Nov. 23 said the matches in question had been early qualifying games. [See below] Some analysts suggested that the scheme’s perpetrators had been aided by recent growth in sports betting, particularly online. Gamblers were no longer limited to betting on a game’s outcome; they could also bet on more specific events, such as which player might receive the first yellow card in a match, or take the first corner kick. Suspected Clubs Named— The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), European soccer’s governing body, at a Nov. 25 emergency meeting of the nine national soccer associations affected by the scandal, announced the names of five clubs it suspected of involvement in the matchfixing scheme. They were KF Tirana and KS Vllaznia of Albania, FC Dinaburg of Latvia, NK IB Ljubljana of Slovenia and Hungary’s Budapest Honved. UEFA claimed that those clubs were responsible for fixing seven qualifying-round games in the Champions and Europa Leagues, between July 16 and Aug. 6. The association also announced that it was investigating whether three referees and one other official linked with UEFA had been involved in the match-fixing ring. UEFA said it would cooperate with German and other state prosecutors, declaring that European soccer associations were “facing a case of organized crime which exceeds the investigative power of sports jurisdiction.” It pledged to impose harsh penalties against those involved in matchfixing. n

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Extensive Match-Fixing Scheme Uncovered.

Prosecutors in Bochum, Germany, Nov. 20 announced that an international soccer match-fixing scheme, which in 2009 had allegedly affected at least 200 matches in nine countries across various leagues, had been broken up. The scheme’s suspected ringleaders allegedly collected at least 10 million euros ($15 million) in winnings from betting companies in Europe and Asia after placing bets on fixed matches. The scandal was described as the largest ever to hit European soccer. [See 2006, p. 655F2] More than 200 people were suspected of participating in the scheme. The perpetrators allegedly manipulated matches by bribing players, referees, coaches and officials. German prosecutors said matches in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Hungary and Bosnia were under investigation. A number of players were suspended in the days that followed the announcement. The allegations were made public after police in Austria, Britain, Germany and Switzerland Nov. 19 carried out synchronized raids, which resulted in the arrest of 15 people in Germany and two in Switzer-

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Auto Racing Johnson Wins Record 4th NASCAR Title.

Jimmie Johnson of the U.S. Nov. 22 clinched his record fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title, after placing fifth in the final race of the season, the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. The race was won by the U.S.’s Denny Hamlin. [See p. 363C3; 2008, p. 911G3] With the season victory, Johnson, who drove for the Hendrick Motorsports team, became the only driver to claim the championship four times in a row, moving out of a tie with NASCAR legend Cale Yarborough, who had won three straight titles in 1976–78. Johnson, 34, finished with 6,652 points in the drivers’ standings. Teammates Mark Martin (6,511 points) and Jeff Gordon (6,473 points) placed second and third, respectively. Hendrick Motorsports claimed its ninth overall NASCAR team championship, tying Petty Enterprises for the most of all time. First Hall of Fame Class Inducted—The first five members of the newly established NASCAR Hall of Fame Oct. 14 were inducted in a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C. The in859

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ductees were Bill France Sr., who had founded NASCAR in 1948; his son, Bill France Jr., who ran the circuit from 1972 to 2003; and legendary drivers Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Junior Johnson. All the inductions were posthumous, except for Petty’s and Johnson’s. [See 2007, p. 372E3; 2001, p. 126A2; 1992, p. 887G1] n

30 announced that German composer York Hoeller, 65, had been chosen to receive the $200,000 prize for his six-movement orchestral work Sphären (Spheres), given its world premiere in 2008 by an orchestra in Cologne, Germany. A recording of the 40minute work, which added electronics to the orchestral palette, was to be released in 2010. [See 2008, p. 931E2] n

ARTS & SCIENCES

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Awards National Book Awards Presented. The Na-

tional Book Foundation Nov. 18 in New York City presented its 60th annual National Book Awards. The ceremony was hosted by author, comedian and actor Andy Borowitz. Award winners each received $10,000. [See 2008, p. 875F3] Irish-born author Colum McCann, 44, won the fiction award for Let the Great World Spin, a novel set in 1970s New York City and centered on a 1974 tightrope walk between the twin towers of the city’s then recently completed World Trade Center, which would be destroyed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. McCann, a New York resident since the 1990s, based the episode on a real-life stunt by French-born aerialist Philippe Petit, the subject of a 2009 Academy Award–winning documentary. [See p. 120B2] In the nonfiction category, T.J. Stiles won for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a biography of the New York–based 19th-century entrepreneur who, in the words of the judges who selected the book, “all but invented unbridled American capitalism.” In the category of young people’s literature, the winner was Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, about a largely unsung heroine of the U.S. civil rights movement who in March 1955 was arrested for noncompliance with bus segregation laws in Montgomery, Ala., nine months before the similar arrest of Rosa Parks, which sparked a boycott of Montgomery buses and led to the desegregation of buses nationwide. Colvin, now a 70-year-old New Yorker, accompanied Hoose to the awards ceremony and accepted the award on his behalf. [See 2005, p. 776A1] The winner of the poetry award was Keith Waldron, for Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. Two special awards were presented. Honored for service to the U.S. literary community was author and independent publisher Dave Eggers, 39, who in 2002 cofounded a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for children in San Francisco, Calif., that gave rise to other such centers in other U.S. cities. And novelist, essayist, social critic, playwright and screenwriter Gore Vidal, 84, was singled out for his overall contribution to U.S. literature. [See p. 176C3; 2008, p. 320F1] n

German Composer Wins $200,000 Prize.

The University of Louisville, the Kentucky institution that administered the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, Nov. 860

Theater Openings American Idiot. Musical mostly drawn from the 2004

rock album of the same name by the group Green Day. Music by Green Day; lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong; book by Armstrong and Michael Mayer. Directed by Mayer; choreographed by Steven Hoggett. With John Gallagher Jr., Rebecca Naomi Jones, Tony Vincent, Matt Caplan, Michael Esper and Mary Faber. In Berkeley, Calif., at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater. Sept. 16. [See p. 384D1; 2005, pp. 240D1, 107E3] Broke-ology. Family drama set in a black neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan. By Nathan Louis Jackson. Directed by Thomas Kail. With Wendell Pierce, Francois Battiste, Alano Miller and Crystal A. Dickinson. In New York City, at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Oct. 5. Bye Bye Birdie. Musical comedy revived on Broadway for the first time since its 1960 Broadway opening. Book by Michael Stewart; music by Charles Strouse; lyrics by Lee Adams. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom. With Nolan Gerard Funk, John Stamos, Gina Gershon and Bill Irwin. In New York City, at Henry Miller’s Theater. Oct. 15. [See 1963, p. 489F3; 1960, p. 175D1] Circle Mirror Transformation. Comedy about a drama class held in the community center of a Vermont town. By Annie Baker. Directed by Sam Gold. With Deirdre O’Connell, Peter Friedman, Reed Birney, Heidi Schreck and Tracee Chimo. In New York City, at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Oct. 13. County of Kings. Slam poet Lemon Andersen reenacts his rough childhood in New York City’s Brooklyn borough (also known as Kings County, N.Y.); billed as Lemon, he appeared in Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, which won a Tony Award in 2003. Written and performed by Andersen. Directed by Elise Thoron. In New York City, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Newman Theater. Oct. 12. [See 2003, p. 464F2; 2002, p. 1074G3] The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Comic drama set in the world of professional wrestling. By Kristoffer Diaz. Directed by Edward Torres. With Desmin Borges, Kamal Angelo Bolden and Usman Ally. In Chicago, at Victory Gardens at the Biograph. Oct. 5. Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Series of monologues about the special role of clothes in women’s lives; based largely on a book of the same name by Ilene Beckerman. Written by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron. Directed by Karen Carpenter. With Rosie O’Donnell, Tyne Daly, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne. In New York City, at the Westside Theater. Oct. 1. [See p. 596D2; 2006, p. 776B1; 2002, p. 1074F2] Memphis. Broadway musical about the early days of rock and roll. Book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro; music and lyrics by David Bryan; based on a concept by George W. George. Directed by Christopher Ashley; choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. With Chad Kimball, Montego Glover, Cass Morgan, J. Bernard Calloway and James Monroe Inglehart. In New York City, at the Shubert Theater. Oct. 19. The Night Watcher. Solo show about an actress’s experiences taking care of other people’s children. Written and performed by Charlayne Woodard. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. In New York City, at 59E59 Theaters. Oct. 6. [See 2004, p. 1097F1; 1999, p. 998G2] Oleanna. Broadway debut of a 1992 two-character play by David Mamet. Directed by Doug Hughes. With Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles. In New York City, at the Golden Theater. Oct. 11. [See 1992, p. 1010G2] The Power of Yes. Drama exploring the global financial crisis that began in 2008. By David Hare. Directed by Angus Jackson. With Anthony Calf, Bruce Myers, Richard Cordery, Claire Price and Jonathan Coy. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre. Oct. 6. [See 2008, p. 997F3; 2006, p. 1042E1] Wishful Drinking. Broadway show about the life of actress Carrie Fisher. Written and performed by Fisher. Directed by Tony Taccone. In New York City, at Studio 54. Oct. 4. [See p. 672D2; 1997, pp. 252D2, 155C2; 1990, pp. 900F2, 828A2, 712D2] n

People A letter written by George Washington in 1787, two years before the Revolutionary War general became the U.S.’s first president, Dec. 4 fetched $3.2 million at auction at Christie’s International PLC in New York City. It greatly exceeded the previous record price for a Washington document, the $834,500 paid for one of his military reports in 2002. The 1787 letter, written to Bushrod Washington, a nephew of the future president, touted the virtues of the newly drawn up U.S. Constitution. [See 2006, pp. 1040A3, 927A2, 60A1] n

O B I T UA R I E S COOLEY, Earl Everett, 98, one of the first U.S. Forest Service “smoke jumpers,” firefighters tasked with parachuting into forest fires; he and a colleague were the first to do so, in Idaho in 1940; in 1949, he directed a crew fighting a forest fire near Helena, Mont., in which 12 smoke jumpers died; born Sept. 25, 1911, near Hardin, Mont.; died Nov. 9 at his home in Missoula, Mont., of pneumonia. [See 1949, p. 264L] FEOKTISTOV, Konstantin Petrovich, 83, key member of the Soviet space program, as both cosmonaut and spacecraft designer; in October 1964, he made what turned out to be his only spaceflight, as the pilot of Voskhod I, which carried three men into space, in the first spaceflight with a crew of more than one; he was reportedly the only Soviet cosmonaut never to join the Communist Party; born Feb. 7, 1926, in Voronezh, in what was then the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic; died Nov. 21 in Moscow. [See 1985, p. 589F2; 1971, pp. 480E1, 323E1; Indexes 1968–69, 1964–65] HUNT, Waldo Henley, 88, novelty-book packager who for decades was the U.S.’s leading producer of pop-up books, from various children’s titles to Jonathan Miller and David Pelham’s best-selling anatomy book The Human Body (1983), which contained movable internal organs; born Nov. 28, 1920, in Chicago; died Nov. 6 at a hospital in Porterville, Calif., of congestive heart failure. JACOBI, Lou (born Louis Harold Jacobovitch), 95, Canadian-born character actor who spe-

cialized in Jewish roles, both on stage and in films; he played one of eight Jews hiding from the Nazis in the Broadway premiere of The Diary of Anne Frank (1955) and reprised the role in the 1959 film based on that play; other Broadway productions in which he appeared included Paddy Chayefsky’s The Tenth Man (1959) and Woody Allen’s Don’t Drink the Water (1966); Allen later cast him as a cross-dressing middle-aged married man in his 1972 film comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask; Jacobi also appeared in many television shows and released several comedy albums; born Dec. 28, 1913, in Toronto, Ontario; died Oct. 23 at his home in New York City. [See 1978, p. 760F1; 1970, p. 492F3; Indexes 1966, 1963–64, 1959–60] MILLER Jr., Herbert John, 85, lawyer who led the U.S. Justice Department’s war on organized crime in the early 1960s; after entering private practice in 1965, he worked for many leading politicians, most notably Richard Nixon, whose unconditional pardon he helped negotiate after Nixon resigned as U.S. president in 1974, amid the Watergate scandal; born Jan. 11, 1924, in Minneapolis, Minn.; died Nov. 14 at a hospital in Rockville, Md., of kidney failure after being treated for influenza. [See 1987, p. 934F1; 1981, p. 890F3; Indexes 1976, 1974, 1965, 1961–62] WHITCOMB, Richard Travis, 88, aeronautical engineer who in the early 1950s discovered the “area rule,” a means of boosting the already high speed of supersonic aircraft by “pinching in” their bodies where the wings were attached; he later made two other major breakthroughs in aircraft design, the “supercritical wing”—a structure curved more on the bottom than on the top—and “winglets”— small panels attached to the tips of wings to reduce drag; born Feb. 21, 1921, in Evanston, Ill.; died Oct. 13 in Newport News, Va., of pneumonia. [See 1955, p. 305F3] n

December 10, 2009

U.S. to Transfer Guantanamo Detainees To Illinois Prison Refused by Other States. The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 15 released a letter addressed to Illinois Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) that announced the federal government’s plans to transfer some terrorism detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a prison in Illinois. The same day, Quinn and Sen. Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) were briefed on the plan; they both favored the transfer, which supporters said would create more than 3,000 jobs in Illinois. The New York Times reported Dec. 16 that earlier attempts by the Obama administration to find prisons to house the detainees in South Carolina, Michigan and Kansas had been rejected by officials in those states. [See p. 794D2] Prior to the release of the letter, conservative Web site Biggovernment.com Dec. 11 had posted a White House memorandum, dated Dec. 10, that instructed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to have the Federal Bureau of Prisons purchase the Illinois prison and told Defense Secretary Robert Gates to begin transferring detainees “as expeditiously as possible.” Detainees, Prisoners to Share Facility—

According to the Dec. 15 letter, which was signed by Holder, Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, the Bureau of Prisons would purchase a nearly empty maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill., and lease part of it to the Defense Department to hold terrorism detainees. The prison would hold both detainees and federal prisoners, but the two populations would be kept separate. The Illinois facility was scheduled to undergo security improvements before any detainees were transferred; the upgrades were expected to take months. It was not yet known how the Obama administration planned to fund the purchase of the prison and the costs associated with the security upgrades and transfers. However, the Times reported Dec. 15 that the Obama administration was considering including the associated costs as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill still being considered by Congress. [See p. 866B2] Under the plan, the military commissions judicial system created to try terrorism detainees would also be transferred to the Illinois prison. Detainees who were prosecuted in U.S. civilian courts would be transferred to jails near the locations of their trials; six detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., were currently scheduled to face trial in U.S. courts. [See p. 793A1] The Obama administration did not announce how many of Guantanamo’s more than 200 detainees were expected to be moved to the Illinois facility. However, Durbin Dec. 16 estimated that 100 would be transferred. The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 16 that 30 detainees were expected to be detained indefinitely under a resolution,

passed by Congress in 2001, that authorized the use of force against the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. Republican Rep. Mark Kirk (Ill.), who was running for the U.S. Senate, Dec. 15 argued that “the president cannot hold somebody indefinitely without charge” within the U.S., and said that he believed “the much safer policy would be to keep them [detainees] at Guantanamo Bay.” Unidentified Obama administration officials said that if the detention of any inmates in Illinois was ruled unlawful by U.S. courts, the detainees would be flown out of the U.S. or put on trial, rather than released into the U.S., the Times reported Dec. 16. Two Detainees Sent to Italy—The Defense Department Nov. 30 transferred two Tunisian terrorism detainees from Guantanamo to Milan, Italy, where they were taken into custody upon arrival. The two men, Mohammed Tahir Riyadh Nasseri and Abel Ben Mabrouk bin Hamida Boughanmi, had been held at Guantanamo for more than seven years. The men were reportedly sent as part of a planned transfer of three Tunisian detainees to Italy to face trial that was agreed upon between the U.S. and Italy in September; Italian officials said they did not know when the third detainee would be sent. Nasseri and Boughanmi had been charged with terrorism offenses, criminal association and aiding illegal immigration, among other charges, and were suspected of recruiting Tunisians in Italy to carry out suicide missions in other countries. The U.S. Justice Department Dec. 1 announced that an Algerian detainee and a Palestinian detainee had been transferred from Guantanamo to France and Hungary, respectively. The Justice Department did not name the Palestinian, but identified the Algerian as Saber Lahmar. Lahmar, who had reportedly chosen to be sent to France rather than Algeria, had been held at Guantanamo for almost seven years before he and four other Algerians were ordered released during a habeas corpus hearing in November 2008. [See 2008, p. 769C2] Kuwaiti detainee Fouad al-Rabiah Dec. 9 was released from Guantanamo and flown back to Kuwait on the private jet of Kuwait’s emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad alSabah. Rabiah had been ordered released in September by a federal judge who had found no evidence supporting allegations that he was an associate of Al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden. U.S. Military Commissions Convening Authority Susan Crawford Dec. 10 dropped war crimes charges against Rabiah. (The same day, Crawford dropped charges against Afghan detainee Mohammed Kamin; however, new war crimes charges were expected to be filed against him.) [See p. 718G2] Switzerland Dec. 16 announced that it had agreed to accept an Uzbek Guantanamo detainee on humanitarian grounds. The detainee, who was not identified, had been found not to pose a threat to security and

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3600 December 17, 2009

B had been cleared for release from Guantanamo in 2005; U.S. officials had refused to return him to Uzbekistan because of concerns that he might be abused or tortured there. No date for the transfer had been announced. Suspect’s Indefinite Detention Upheld—

Judge Thomas Hogan of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Dec. 14 ruled that the Defense Department had the right to continue the indefinite detention of Guantanamo detainee Musa’ab al Madhwani of Yemen, but said that the evidence on which he had based his ruling had been extracted using coercion and mistreatment. Hogan said that he “had no choice” but to allow Madhwani’s continued detention because Madhwani had trained in a militant training camp in Afghanistan, but said that he believed the detainee posed no threat to the U.S. and said that the evidence against

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. to transfer Guantanamo detainees to Illinois prison. PAGE 861

Thailand seizes North Korean arms shipment. PAGE 862

Senate drops Medicare expansion plan from health care reform bill.

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Wells Fargo, Citigroup to repay Treasury aid. PAGE 864

House passes sweeping financial reform bill. PAGE 865

Omnibus spending package cleared, signed. PAGE 866

Guinea’s junta leader shot and wounded by aide.

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Conservative leads Chilean presidential vote into runoff. PAGE 871

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi injured in Milan statuette attack. PAGE 874

Secret memo shows Iranian nuclear advance. PAGE 876

Tiger Woods sets ‘indefinite break’ from golf. PAGE 879

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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Madhwani should not be used “in any fashion, in any court.” Judge Ricardo Urbina Dec. 16 ordered the release of Guantanamo detainee Saeed Hatim, who was also from Yemen and had allegedly trained at the same Afghan training camp as Madhwani. It was unclear when Hatim would be released; the U.S. government was reportedly reluctant to return detainees to Yemen, which was seen as a center of terrorist activity. [See p. 374C2] Since a June 2008 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that found that detainees had the right to challenge their indefinite detention, 41 detainees had received habeas corpus hearings before the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Of those 41 detainees, 32 had been ordered released and nine had had their indefinite detention upheld. Inquiry Into Alleged Suicides Criticized—

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Newark, N.J.–based Seton Hall University Law School’s Center for Policy and Research Dec. 7 issued a report that characterized the Defense Department’s internal investigation into the June 2006 deaths of three detainees at Guantanamo as a coverup, and questioned the government’s categorization of the deaths as suicides. The Defense Department had issued a heavily redacted report on the suicides in August 2008; however, critics had called for an independent probe of the deaths. [See 2008, p. 657A2; 2006, p. 466F2] The Seton Hall report questioned the plausibility of the government’s suicide theory, under which the three detainees constructed nooses and decoy mannequins from bedsheets, bound their own hands and feet, stuffed rags down their own throats and hanged themselves without attracting the attention of nearby guards. The report noted that autopsies performed on the detainees had found that the three men were dead for at least two hours before they were found, despite regulations requiring guards to check on each detainee every 10 minutes. According to the report, Defense Department investigators read some of the five guards on duty at the time of the deaths their Miranda rights and informed some of the guards that they were suspected of giving false statements about the deaths. However, the guards were also ordered not to write out sworn statements regarding the deaths, in violation of Defense Department regulations. None of the guards was disciplined as a result of the deaths. The Justice Department Dec. 4 filed papers in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in response to a lawsuit brought by the fathers of Saudi detainee Yasser Talal Abdulah Yahya al-Zahrani and Yemeni detainee Ali Abdullah Ahmed, two of the three who had died in the alleged 2006 suicides. The lawsuit sought damages from the government and 24 current and former military officials. In the filing, the Justice Department claimed that a 2008 Supreme Court decision that had given detainees the right to challenge their detention could not apply to detainees who had died, and did not grant the detainees other constitutional rights,

such as the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The Justice Department also argued that no U.S. court had the jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit. n

United Nations Suspicious Powder Sent to U.N. Missions.

Letters containing a suspicious white powder Nov. 9 arrived at the French and Austrian missions to the United Nations in New York City, as well as Uzbekistan’s consulate and U.N. mission there, prompting concerns that the letters might be part of a terrorist attack similar to 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people in the U.S. The three offices were located near the U.N.’s headquarters. The U.S. government’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which was composed of local, state and federal officers who collaborated on antiterrorism cases, had reportedly launched an investigation into the mailings. [See p. 539C3; 2008, p. 959G1] Following the arrival of the letters, 25 people who might have been exposed to the powder were decontaminated as a precaution. There were no reports of any hospitalizations or injuries in connection with the mailings. The German and British missions to the U.N. Nov. 10 received letters containing white powder that were similar to the letters discovered the previous day. The New York Police Department (NYPD) announced that tests had determined that the white powder found in the first three letters was flour. In addition, those letters had reportedly contained handwritten notes bearing the words “Al Qaeda FBI in America.” All five letters had been postmarked at a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail processing facility outside of Dallas, Texas, and bore Dallas return addresses that did not correspond to actual locations. The Russian mission to the U.N. Nov. 11 received a letter containing white powder. The letter was similar to those previously received by the other missions and bore a Texas postmark. The NYPD said preliminary tests had determined that the powder was harmless. The same day, a suspicious letter arrived at the Lithuanian mission to the U.N., but it was subsequently found not to include powder and was not thought to be connected to the other mailings. n

Other International News Thailand Seizes N. Korea Arms Shipment.

Thai authorities Dec. 12 seized 35 tons of arms, including rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missile launchers, from a plane that had previously stopped in North Korea. The crew members, including four Kazakh men and one Belarusian, were also detained. A Thai court Dec. 14 charged the foreigners with illegal arms possession and falsifying the cargo manifest, ordering them held without bail for 12 days while the investigation into the illicit cargo continued. [See pp. 872A3, 600F1]

Thai authorities were acting on a U.S. intelligence tip. A United Nations Security Council resolution passed in June banned the sale of most arms to or from North Korea. Weapons sales had been one of the country’s few major sources of export revenue to fund its nuclear weapons program, the target of the U.N. sanctions. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Dec. 14 hailed the seizure as evidence “that sanctions can work.” [See p. 403E3] The cargo plane late Dec. 11 had requested an unscheduled refueling stop at the Don Muang airport in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital. The weapons cache, officially registered as oil-drilling equipment, was seized the following day. The crew denied any knowledge of the weapons contained in the shipment. A Thai government spokesperson Dec. 14 said the flight plan suggested the aircraft’s next stop would have been Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital. The intended destination of the illegal arms shipment remained unknown as investigators continued to examine its contents. Some analysts suggested that the arms might have been intended for Myanmar, a military-ruled country with improving ties to North Korea. Other speculation focused on the Middle East, in particular Iran. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) had seized a similar North Korean arms shipment in August, when a Bahamian-flagged cargo ship was stopped en route to Iran. The aircraft was an Ilyushin-76 transport plane that had been acquired by a Georgian freight carrier, Air West, in October. Prior to the stopover in North Korea, the plane Dec. 8 had refueled at an airport near Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. Ukrainian officials Dec. 14 launched a probe into the aircraft and its cargo. Reports indicated

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that the plane had initially taken off from Belarus, a claim that the country’s foreign ministry denied. Kazakhstan, despite its four nationals on board, Dec. 14 disavowed any ties to the aircraft. The U.S.’s special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, had visited the country the previous week to discuss its possible return to six-nation talks on dismantling its nuclear program. n Credit Suisse Settles U.S. Sanctions Case.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group Dec. 16 agreed to pay $536 million in fines to U.S. authorities to settle charges that it had violated sanctions on Iran and other countries, including Libya, Sudan, Myanmar and Cuba, by helping banned clients secretly move money through the U.S. financial system. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and District Attorney Robert Morgenthau of New York City’s borough of Manhattan announced the settlement, which would be shared by the U.S. federal government, New York State and New York City. [See pp. 804C3, 560C3] An investigation begun by Morgenthau’s office had found that Credit Suisse helped clients avoid detection by removing their names from wire transfers, processing more than $700 million in payments that violated U.S. sanctions from 2002 to 2006. It also found that Credit Suisse had deceptively processed another $1.1 billion in transactions, dating to the late 1980s, for Iranian banks. Credit Suisse said it had stopped doing business with all sanctioned nations in 2007. In the same investigation, British bank Lloyds TSB Jan. 9 had agreed to pay $350 million in fines, admitting that it violated sanctions by helping Iranian and Sudanese clients access the U.S. financial system. The Credit Suisse settlement came as the U.S. was seeking international support for new sanctions to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program. [See p. 876E3] n Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus Seal Accord.

The presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus Nov. 27, in Minsk, Belarus’s capital, signed agreements that created a customs union between the three countries. The countries would begin using common foreign trade tariffs Jan. 1, 2010. The tariffs were expected to be fully synchronized by July of that year. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said the union was open to any ex-Soviet country that wished to join. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had both indicated that they would work toward joining the union. [See p. 645G1] Igor Shuvalov, a Russian deputy prime minister, said the deal marked the beginning of complicated talks on forming a “supranational” decision-making entity, which customs union members would answer to. Observers suggested that the creation of the customs union might delay Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Russia was the largest economy outside the 153-member WTO, and had been negotiating entry since 1993. All three countries currently had observer n status at the WTO. December 17, 2009

U N I T ESTATES D S TAT E S UNITED

Health Care Reform Senate Drops Medicare Expansion Plan.

Senate Democrats late Dec. 14 dropped from a health care overhaul bill a proposal to expand Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, to people aged 55 to 64 who were not offered insurance by their employers. Currently, Medicare was only available to people after they turned 65. The plan would have allowed people to purchase Medicare policies when they turned 55, at a more expensive rate than current recipients. A group of 10 senior Senate Democrats had reached agreement on the Medicare expansion plan the previous week. It had been intended to replace a proposal to establish a government-run health insurance program, commonly called the “public option.” [See p. 847F2] The Medicare expansion proposal was dropped after a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus hastily called that day by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.), who was tasked with rounding up at least 60 votes for the bill in order to avoid a Republican filibuster. (Democrats held 58 seats, and often relied on the votes of two independents who caucused with them.) Reid had been forced to seek a compromise on the issue after Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), one of the independents, Dec. 13 said he would not support the health care bill if it contained the Medicare expansion provision. During an interview that day on the CBS political talk show “Face the Nation,” Lieberman had said the Medicare expansion would increase the deficit, and described it as “unnecessary.” The move reportedly angered Reid and other Democratic leaders, who said they had been blindsided by Lieberman’s announcement, having assumed that he supported an expansion of Medicare. Hours after the interview, Lieberman reportedly went to Capitol Hill for a meeting with Reid and several White House officials, including White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. President Barack Obama had made health care reform the central element of his domestic policy agenda, and the previous week had endorsed the Medicare expansion plan as an acceptable replacement for a public option. The Medicare provision had been negotiated by a group of five liberal and five centrist Democratic senators as a way to replace the controversial public option, which Lieberman had also opposed. Supporters of the public option said it would introduce competition to the insurance market, thereby increasing the quality of policies while lowering their prices. However, Republicans and some conservative Democrats had said the plan represented an intrusion by the government into the insurance market that would drive private insurers out of business. Lieberman during the health care debate had been criticized for his close ties to the health insurance industry. He had reportedly received more than $1 million in campaign

contributions from health insurers since 1998. Connecticut was also a center of the industry, home to some 22,000 related jobs. Several observers also pointed out that Lieberman himself in September had proposed allowing people to buy policies from the Medicare program early if they could not find insurance elsewhere, or lost their employment. A spokesman for Lieberman said provisions in the proposed health care reform bill that would give people government subsidies for insurance made the Medicare expansion plan redundant. Sen. Ben Nelson (D, Neb.) Dec. 13 had also said he had not committed his support to the health care reform bill, citing concerns that the cost of the Medicare expansion plan would be too great. Nelson, a strong opponent of abortion, had also previously expressed concerns that federal money would be used to pay for abortions under the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) Dec. 10 indicated tentative support for the Medicare expansion plan, but held off on granting the idea a full endorsement until she “saw something in writing.” The House in November had passed a version of the reform bill that contained a strong public option, and Pelosi had pledged to ensure that the final legislation would contain a government-run insurance plan. If the Senate was able to pass a reform bill, it would need to be reconciled with the House version and reapproved by both chambers before being sent to Obama. Also, doctor and hospital industry groups, among them the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals, had reportedly launched an aggressive lobbying campaign opposing an expansion of Medicare. Those groups had argued that Medicare paid them too little for patient treatments. Republicans Vow Obstruction—Republican senators Dec. 16 continued efforts to block the progress of the bill through the Senate using procedural maneuvers, including a ploy to stall debate with the full reading aloud of a lengthy amendment by Democratic-allied Rep. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) to establish a “single payer” nationwide government health insurance system. Sanders withdrew his amendment in response. Reid had stated a goal of approving the bill by Dec. 25, and negotiations over the measure were focused on Nelson, who remained the lone Senate Democrat yet to endorse the legislation. Nelson had said he was awaiting the latest analysis of the bill’s cost by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), as well as an acceptable solution to the abortion issue. Democrats saw one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), as a possible vote in favor, but she said she had unresolved concerns about the bill’s costs. Sanders Dec. 17 said his vote was “not secure” without an acceptable replacement for a public option to “control escalating health care costs.” The Senate Dec. 15 voted, 51–48, to adopt an amendment that would allow the import of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to include 863

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it in the bill. A separate amendment that would have allowed only the importation of drugs cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also fell short of the 60vote threshold, in a 56–43 tally. The amendments had threatened a deal brokered by the White House and congressional Democrats with the pharmaceutical industry, under which drug companies would contribute $80 billion over 10 years for health care reform in the form of drug price reductions, but would not be required to make any other concessions. The House bill would require that drug companies make contributions in excess of the $80 billion figure. Pharmaceutical companies opposed to the amendments argued that imported drugs would have questionable safety, a concern that had been echoed by FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. [See p. 354D1] Obama Again Exhorts Senators—Obama Dec. 15 met with the Senate’s Democratic caucus, imploring them to overcome internal divisions to pass the bill by the Dec. 25 deadline. “It’s clear that we are on the precipice of an achievement that’s eluded Congresses and presidents for generations, an achievement that will touch the lives of nearly every American,” Obama said following the meeting. However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, Md.) said it was unlikely that the House and Senate would reconcile their bills into one that Obama could sign into law by the end of 2009. Liberal Democrats in the following days began criticizing the Obama administration for making too many concessions to conservatives in the health care negotiations. Also, some liberal activists said it would be best to abandon the Senate bill and start over, including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) Dec. 15. A Washington Post–ABC News poll conducted Dec. 10–13 and reported Dec. 16 found that 51% of respondents opposed Obama’s proposed health care reforms, while 44% approved. The poll also found that Obama’s approval rating had fallen to 50%, from 56% the previous month. A separate Wall Street Journal–NBC News poll reported Dec. 17 found that 44% of respondents thought it better to pass no reform bill at all than any of the ones under consideration, while 41% thought it better to pass an overhaul plan. In October, 45% had supported passage of the legislation, while 39% thought no reform bill was better. Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dec. 16 reported that 19.4% of the U.S. population, or about 58.4 million people, had gone without health insurance at some point since January 2008. The CDC also said 45.4 million people, or 15.1% of the population, had no insurance during the first six months of 2009. n

Banking Wells Fargo, Citigroup to Repay TARP Aid.

San Francisco, Calif.–based Wells Fargo & Co. and New York City–based Citigroup 864

Inc. Dec. 14 announced that they would repay the government a total of $45 billion in aid, which had helped the two banks weather a severe financial crisis that had struck in 2008. Wells Fargo and Citigroup were part of a group of nine major banks that in October 2008 had received capital injections from the Treasury’s $700 billion financial industry rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). With the latest announcements, all nine had agreed to plans to repay the government, in what was considered a significant milestone in the effort to stabilize the financial industry. [See p. 830C2; 2008, p. 738A1] Under its agreement with the Treasury, Wells Fargo would raise $10.4 billion in new stock sales to help repay its $25 billion TARP allotment. Citigroup had a more complicated arrangement with the government, which also owned $25 billion of the bank’s common shares, a 34% stake. Citigroup would raise $20.5 billion by issuing stock and other securities to help repay its $20 billion TARP loan. The Treasury would then sell $5 billion worth of Citigroup shares, and was expected to sell off the rest of its stake by the end of 2010. Additionally, Citigroup would exit a program that had seen the government partially guarantee $301 billion of its assets against default. However, the Treasury Dec. 17 delayed its $5 billion stock sale, after Citigroup earlier that day struggled to sell $17 billion in newly issued shares. Weak demand led Citigroup to price the shares at $3.15 apiece, 10 cents less than what the Treasury had paid. The Treasury said it would begin selling Citigroup shares in 2010. Obama Urges Banks to Lend—President Barack Obama Dec. 14 held a meeting with executives from the country’s biggest financial institutions at the White House, where he reportedly urged them to increase lending to small businesses and help struggling homeowners refinance their mortgages. After the meeting, Obama told reporters, “My main message in today’s meeting was very simple: that America’s banks received extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers to rebuild their industry—and now that they’re back on their feet, we expect an extraordinary commitment from them to help rebuild our economy.” The Obama administration faced criticism that it had provided generous assistance to the banking industry, while neglecting to boost economic growth and lower the unemployment rate, which now stood at 10.0%. Obama, appearing the previous night on CBS’s “60 Minutes” television show, had chastised the industry for its reluctance to boost lending, and described industry executives as “fat-cat bankers.” [See p. 846A2] Obama at the meeting also reportedly criticized companies for spending billions of dollars on lobbyists to defeat proposed legislation that would increase government oversight of the financial industry. Afterwards, Obama said, “I made very clear that I have no intention of letting their lobbyists thwart reforms necessary to protect the

American people.” The House Dec. 11 had passed a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system. [See p. 865F1] Bankers at the meeting reportedly promised to increase their efforts to lend to small businesses, and said they were in basic agreement with Obama on the need for regulatory reform. Charlotte, N.C.–based Bank of America Corp. that day pledged that in 2010 it would increase lending to small businesses by $5 billion from the previous year. However, it was widely noted that the government’s clout in the financial industry had diminished now that the major banks were repaying their TARP aid. Obama had been scheduled to meet with 12 executives at the White House, but three executives—from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley—reportedly experienced flight delays as fog enveloped the Washington, D.C., area. They joined the meeting by telephone. Goldman Sachs Cancels Cash Bonuses—

New York City–based Goldman Sachs Dec. 10 announced that the top 30 executives at the company would not receive any bonus payments in cash in 2009. Instead, the executives would be awarded bonuses in the form of deferred stock that could not be sold for at least five years. The bonus could be rescinded if it was shown that an executive’s business decisions had led to significant losses for the company. Additionally, Goldman Sachs said it would grant shareholders a nonbinding vote on general compensation policies, as well as on specific pay packages for the top five executives, at the company’s annual meeting in 2010. [See p. 715B1] The move reportedly came in response to an intense public backlash against Goldman Sachs, a beneficiary of $10 billion in TARP aid that had reported $12.5 billion in profits in first three quarters of 2009. Goldman Sachs had set aside $16.7 billion, about 43% of its net revenue, in total compensation for its employees, leaving it on track to match the record amount of compensation it had paid to employees in 2007. Critics said it was unconscionable for Goldman Sachs to pay such lavish compensation so soon after receiving government aid, and accused the company of rewarding the type of excessive risk-taking that had sparked the crisis. Goldman Sachs’s bonus changes were in line with compensation reform proposals that had been made by the Obama administration. A mandatory, nonbinding shareholder vote on compensation was currently included in the House’s regulatory reform bill. In another perceived attempt to improve its public image, Goldman Sachs Nov. 17 launched a $500 million program to help 10,000 small businesses. The program would be spearheaded by a group of prominent businessmen and academics, including the respected investor Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was Goldman Sachs’s largest shareholder. Goldman Sachs would invest $200 million to help small-business owners get additional business education, and $300 million would go FACTS ON FILE

toward increasing loans and grants to small businesses. Treasury Extends TARP to October 2010—

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a Dec. 9 letter to congressional leaders said he was extending TARP to Oct. 3, 2010. The program had been due to expire Dec. 31, but Geithner wrote that it was “imperative that we maintain this capacity to respond if financial conditions worsen and threaten our economy.” Geithner said he would limit the use of TARP funds in 2010 to preventing home foreclosures, boosting capital levels at smaller banks, increasing lending to small businesses and bolstering a Federal Reserve program designed to make more credit available to businesses and consumers. Geithner said he expected the Treasury to utilize less than $550 billion in TARP money. Geithner the following day testified to a TARP watchdog, the Congressional Oversight Panel, and acknowledged that some of the TARP money would not be returned to the government, particularly investments made in insurance giant American International Group Inc. (AIG), and auto makers General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. [See p. 798C3] The Congressional Oversight Panel Dec. 9 had released a report finding that while TARP was flawed, there was a “broad consensus that the TARP was an important part of a broader government strategy that stabilized the U.S. financial system by renewing the flow of credit and averting a more acute crisis.” The panel criticized a TARP program to reduce foreclosures, saying it had “not yet achieved the scope, scale and permanence necessary to address” a deep slump in the housing market. The program was designed to encourage lenders to reduce monthly loan payments. The Treasury Nov. 30 had announced that it would consider levying financial penalties against lenders that did not modify a significant number of loans, though it did not provide specifics. The Treasury also said it would publicize the names of lenders that did not help homeowners, in an attempt to shame them into making more modifications. n

Financial Regulation House Passes Sweeping Reform Bill. The

House Dec. 11 voted, 223–202, to pass a bill that would reform the financial regulatory system in an effort to prevent a repetition of the financial crisis that struck in 2008 and helped push the U.S. economy into a deep recession. Democratic supporters of the bill hailed it as the most farreaching regulatory overhaul of its kind since the Great Depression. [See p. 778D3] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) that day said lawmakers were “sending a clear message to Wall Street: the party is over.” Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass.), who as chairman of the Financial Services Committee was the bill’s principal architect, said the reforms would encourage “productive parts of the free market economy,” while cutting down on “abuse.” December 17, 2009

The bill received no Republican votes, while 27 Democrats also voted against it. The bill’s opponents claimed that it would unduly expand the government’s presence in the private sector, limit the availability of credit and stunt economic growth. Rep. Spencer Bachus (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the finance committee, said, “The array of new regulations and taxes on consumers, investors and businesses will destroy jobs and further undermine the fragile economy.” The bill was praised by the White House, which had made financial regulatory reform one of its top domestic priorities. President Barack Obama, in his weekly radio and Internet address, Dec. 12 said tougher regulation would have prevented the risky practices in the financial industry that led to a near economic “collapse.” He rebutted Republican criticisms of the bill, saying, “We can’t afford to let the same phony arguments and bad habits of Washington kill financial reform and leave American consumers and our economy vulnerable to another meltdown.” The Senate was currently considering its own version of the legislation, and was not expected to vote on a bill until 2010. Current reform proposals in the Senate differed from the House bill in important respects, and analysts said it was unlikely that all of the House’s proposals would survive in any final legislation. Details of the Bill—The bill passed by the House Dec. 11 would create a consumer financial protection agency, which was designed to protect consumers from abusive practices when they took out home loans, credit cards and other credit products. The agency was strongly opposed by Republicans and the financial industry, which claimed that it would limit credit availability. The agency’s supporters said it would prevent a proliferation of the exotic and risky mortgages that had led to a spike in loan defaults and massive losses for banks. The bill would allow the government to seize control of companies whose potential collapse posed a threat to the entire financial system. The bill created a $150 billion fund—financed through fees on the financial industry—that would be used by the government to conduct an orderly dissolution of those companies. Supporters said the lack of such authority in 2008 had forced the government to pump billions of dollars into tottering companies whose failure would have had systemic repercussions. Republicans said the plan would be a government bailout fund for failing companies, which they said should follow standard bankruptcy procedures. The bill strengthened oversight of the highly unregulated credit derivatives market, which had spread risky, complicated financial products throughout the global economy. It gave shareholders a nonbinding vote on executive pay, which critics said was exorbitant and had encouraged excessive risk-taking. The bill allowed Congress to audit the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, which had enacted expensive emergency policies during the cri-

sis that it said were necessary to stabilize the financial system. The Fed opposed the provision. [See p. 847D2] n

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Economy Fed Leaves Interest Rate Near Zero. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy-making board of the Federal Reserve, Dec. 16 voted unanimously to leave its benchmark federal-funds interest rate target on overnight loans between banks at between zero and one quarter of a percentage point. The Fed that day said economic activity had “continued to pick up” since the FOMC held its last policy-making meeting in November, and that the “deterioration in the labor market is abating.” [See p. 759F1] The Fed said consumer spending appeared to be “expanding at a moderate rate,” but was still “constrained by a weak labor market.” The housing market had “shown some signs of improvement,” and financial market “conditions have become more supportive of economic growth.” The Fed said inflation would “remain subdued for some time,” addressing concerns that the low rate could cause prices to rise. The Fed also warned that economic activity was “likely to remain weak for a time,” and that it would keep its benchmark interest rate at “exceptionally low levels” for an “extended period.” The Fed said several emergency policies that had been implemented during the financial crisis would be allowed to expire on Feb. 1, 2010, due to “ongoing improvements in the functioning of financial markets.” Those policies included efforts to stabilize money-market mutual funds, provide credit to investment banks, support short-term lending markets and establish currency swap lines with foreign central banks. The Fed said a program to boost consumer and small-business lending would end March 31, 2010, although a portion of that program that supported the commercial real estate market would remain in place until June 30, 2010.

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Senate Committee Backs Bernanke—

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Dec. 17 voted, 16–7, to approve Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s nomination for a second term. One Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), joined six Republicans in voting against Bernanke’s confirmation. The committee’s endorsement sent Bernanke’s nomination to the full Senate, which was expected to hold a vote in January 2010. [See p. 847E1] n Trade Deficit Shrank in October. The Commerce Department Dec. 10 reported that the seasonally Trade Deficit adjusted U.S. billions) trade deficit in October(in 2009 $32.94 goods and ser- Previous Month $35.65 $59.39 vices was $32.9 Year Earlier billion in October, down from a revised $35.7 billion in September. Exports rose for the sixth month in a row, due in part to an improving global economy, which had led to greater demand for U.S. products, and a months865

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Deficit/Surplus* October September 2009 2009 -22.66 -4.42 -2.00 -4.92 -4.55 1.28

-22.10 -4.13 -1.53 -5.54 -4.56 0.75

*Bilateral trade figures in billions of dollars unadjusted for seasonal variations. The data—except figures given for Canada—do not include revisions of month-earlier figures. †Newly industrialized countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

long decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, which had made U.S. goods cheaper abroad. Imports rose only slightly, as U.S. demand for oil dropped, and oil prices fell. [See p. 798F1] Exports in October rose to $136.8 billion, a $3.5 billion increase from the preceding month. The change was spurred by increased exports of capital goods and consumer goods. Imports increased by $0.7 billion in October, to $169.8 billion. The change was led by increased imports of capital goods and consumer goods. n Federal Reserve Issues ‘Beige Book.’ The Federal Reserve Dec. 2 issued its “beige book” survey of economic data covering the period between late October and midNovember, finding that economic conditions in the country had “generally improved modestly” since the central bank’s last survey in October. The survey was compiled eight times a year on a rotating basis by the Fed’s 12 regional banks. [See p. 739F3] The Fed said consumer spending had “picked up moderately” since its last report, and that manufacturing conditions “were said to be, on balance, steady to moderately improving.” The housing market had “somewhat improved,” and there were “signs of stabilization and scattered signs of improvement” in the labor market. However, the Fed said banks were facing “weaker loan demand” and “steady or deteriorating loan quality.” Banks also continued to enforce “tight credit standards,” leading to concerns that weakened credit markets could hamper an economic rebound. The Fed also noted that commercial real estate markets and the construction industry “were depicted as very weak and, in many cases, deteriorating.” n

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills

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Omnibus Package Cleared, Signed. The Senate Dec. 13 voted, 57–35, to clear an omnibus spending package that would fund much of the federal government through fiscal year 2010, which would end Sept. 30, 2010. The House Dec. 10 had voted, 221–202, to approve the 2,400-page measure. President Barack Obama Dec. 16 signed the bill into law. [See pp. 799E3, 713A1, 143E3] The package included $447 billion in so-called discretionary spending, which 866

was determined by Congress each year. It also included more than $600 billion in mandatory spending increases for programs such as Medicare, the health care program for the elderly and disabled. The total funding of $1.1 trillion in the omnibus provided average increases of 10% to 12% for numerous federal agencies. Congress had failed to pass seven of the 12 annual spending bills by the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. Democratic leaders consolidated six of the remaining bills, funding 10 cabinet-level departments and agencies, into the omnibus package. Stopgap bills had provided funding for those agencies since Oct. 1 at fiscal 2009 levels. The one remaining spending bill was for the Defense Department, which the House passed Dec. 16. [See below] The discretionary funding provided in the package was reportedly an increase of 12.1% over nonemergency funds provided for the same agencies the previous year. Republicans Criticize Spending—Republicans criticized the omnibus bill as an example of what they called irresponsible spending by Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress. The federal budget deficit had increased to $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009, a record in dollar terms. The omnibus package contained 5,224 earmarks, or spending items requested by individual lawmakers, worth a total of $4 billion, according to the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense. Republicans pointed to the earmarks as another example of wasteful spending. However, some of the earmarks had been secured by Republicans, and the number of earmarks had grown rapidly earlier in the decade during a period of Republican control of Congress. Obama and his administration had said they would focus on deficit reduction in his fiscal 2011 budget, to be issued in February. But they said a more immediate priority was reviving the U.S. economy and encouraging job creation, and argued that reducing federal spending prematurely would remove critical support for the economy. In February, Obama had signed a $787 billion economic stimulus package. The House Dec. 16 voted, 218–214, to approve a short-term $290 billion increase in the national debt limit, to $12.4 trillion. The measure required Senate approval. The Treasury Department had warned that the government could breach the limit by the end of the year, raising the possibility of a credit default. The debt limit was expected to need another increase by February 2010. Democratic leaders had previously said they would seek a longer-term, $1.8 trillion increase, but that proposal lacked enough support from centrist Democrats in the House and Senate to pass over unified Republican opposition. The House Dec. 16 also voted, 217–212, to pass a $154 billion economic stimulus bill that would fund infrastructure construction and deliver aid to states to protect the jobs of teachers and other public-sector workers. It would reallocate $75 billion from a financial industry rescue fund. But

the Senate was not expected to begin assembling its own version of such a measure until early 2010. [See p. 846F3] The House Dec. 16 voted, 395–34, to pass its final version of the $626 billion defense appropriations bill, which included more than $100 billion in funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unrelated measures attached to the bill included twomonth extensions of unemployment benefits and health coverage for the jobless, and an extension of parts of the 2001 USA Patriot Act antiterrorism legislation. The defense spending bill still required Senate approval. [See p. 701A2] Details of the Omnibus Bill—The main components of the omnibus package, grouped by the six annual spending bills it contained, were as follows: o The Commerce and Justice departments, and various scientific agencies, received a total of $64.4 billion in discretionary funds. That was close to Obama’s request of $64.6 billion, and up from the $57.7 billion enacted in fiscal 2009. The Census Bureau, part of the Commerce Department, received $4.2 billion, including a temporary funding boost to pay for the once-a-decade census in 2010. The bill provided $18.7 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). That was $3 billion less than an independent commission had said was required annually to carry out NASA’s human spaceflight plans. [See pp. 745B1, 488C2] o The Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education departments received a total of $163.6 billion in discretionary spending, up from $152.3 billion in fiscal 2009. Obama had requested $161.6 billion. Including mandatory spending for Medicare and Medicaid, the bill provided $603.7 billion for HHS. The Education Department received $68.2 billion, including $21.9 billion in advance funding for fiscal 2011. The Labor Department received $16.2 billion. [See p. 523F3] o Defense Department military construction projects and the Veterans Affairs Department received a total of $78 billion in discretionary funds. That compared with $72.9 billion in fiscal 2009, and Obama’s request of $77.7 billion. The bill also authorized $56.6 billion in mandatory spending, mostly for veterans’ benefits, bringing its total outlay to $134.6 billion. [See p. 815A2] o The Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) departments received $67.9 billion in discretionary funds. That was up from $55 billion in fiscal 2009, and slightly less than Obama’s request of $68.9 billion. The transportation funds included $42 billion for highway programs and $2.5 million in grants for Obama’s plan for a high-speed rail network. It also included a controversial provision that would permit passengers to travel with handguns in their checked baggage on Amtrak, the nation’s passenger rail system. It gave Amtrak a year to decide how to implement the change. [See p. 658F2] FACTS ON FILE

o The State Department and foreign operations received $48.8 billion in discretionary funds. That was $3.3 billion less than Obama had requested. It was the only bill in the omnibus to make a sizable cut to the president’s budget proposal. The foreign nations that would receive the most aid, in combined economic and security funding, included Afghanistan ($2.6 billion), Israel ($2.2 billion), Pakistan ($1.5 billion), Egypt ($1.3 billion) and Iraq ($467 million). The bill also included $7.8 billion for health programs. The final version of the bill dropped an amendment offered by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, N.J.), which would have permanently repealed the so-called Mexico City policy, which banned U.S. aid for international organizations that provided abortions or related counseling, even if they used their own funds to pay for those activities. Obama had already rescinded the policy, but Lautenberg’s amendment would have barred future presidents from reinstating it. Republicans had threatened to block the bill if the amendment was not dropped. [See p. 488G2] o The Financial Services bill would provide $24.2 billion in discretionary funds, up from $22.6 billion in fiscal 2009. Obama had requested $24.2 billion. The total included $13.5 billion for the Treasury Department, of which the Internal Revenue Service received $12.1 billion. The bill included a measure that would establish an arbitration panel for auto dealerships that lost their franchise agreements in the bankruptcies of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC earlier in the year. [See p. 489B1] o The Financial Services bill also provided $752 million in federal funds for the District of Columbia. It would allow the city to proceed with policies that Congress, using its control over the local budget, had barred in previous years: legalizing medical marijuana, which voters had approved in a 1998 referendum; the use of federal and local funds for needle-exchange programs intended to reduce the spread of AIDS among drug users; the use of local tax revenue for abortion services; and benefits for domestic partners. The bill also provided $13 million in funds for a D.C. school voucher program backed by Republicans, although that funding was only for students who were already enrolled in the program. However, the bill said the future of the program “would best be decided by the elected representatives of the people of the District,” signaling that the federally funded program would likely be discontinued soon. n

Court ordered the appellate court to reconsider its decision in light of a new law that gave the defense secretary the authority to exempt such photos from requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). [See p. 330G3; 2008, p. 790C3] The panel in September 2008 had rejected the government’s argument that the release of 44 photos, taken by military officials investigating claims of abuse, would stoke anti-U.S. sentiment and endanger the lives of Americans abroad. The panel said the government had to identify a specific individual who would be endangered by the photos’ release for them to be exempt from mandatory FOIA disclosures. The FOIA lawsuit had been initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy group. President Barack Obama, who took office in January, at first had appeared set to release the photos. However, Obama reversed course in May, saying such a release would endanger U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Obama administration then pressured Congress to pass a law that gave the defense secretary the authority to bar the release of detainee photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, that could “endanger citizens of the U.S., members of the U.S. armed forces or employees of the U.S. government deployed outside of the U.S.” The law was included in a Homeland Security Department appropriations bill signed by Obama in October. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Nov. 13 certified that the photos posed a sufficient danger to be exempt from FOIA requirements. [See p. 799G3] In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Obama administration described the photos as showing U.S. “soldiers pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees.” Other photos showed a soldier apparently hitting a detainee with a rifle butt, and a soldier gripping a broom “as if sticking its end” into a detainee’s rectum. The government had also said the appellate court’s order could lead to the release of photos beyond the 44 photos in question. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, was brief and unsigned. The order to vacate the appellate court ruling meant that the latter could not be used as legal precedent. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a member of the 2nd Circuit Court until August, did not participate in the decision. However, she had not been a member of the three-judge panel that had ordered the photos’ release. [See p. 536D2] n War Veteran Can Challenge Death Sentence.

Supreme Court Ruling on Detainee Abuse Photos Vacated.

The Supreme Court Nov. 30 vacated a September 2008 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City that had ordered the public disclosure of photographs allegedly showing the abuse of detainees held by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Supreme December 17, 2009

The Supreme Court Nov. 30 ruled unanimously that a veteran of the 1950–53 Korean War could challenge his death sentence on the grounds that his lawyer had failed to present evidence of his war-related trauma at the sentencing hearing. In an unsigned opinion, the court said, “Our nation has a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service, especially for those who fought on the front

lines.” The case was Porter v. McCollum. [See p. 553G1; 2004, pp. 415B3, F3] The veteran, George Porter Jr., had been convicted in 1987 of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her lover the previous year in Melbourne, Fla. He represented himself during his trial, but eventually pleaded guilty. A court-appointed lawyer represented Porter at his 1988 sentencing hearing, but was unaware of Porter’s prior military service, for which he was awarded two Purple Hearts. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga., upheld Porter’s sentence, deferring to state courts in Florida that had rejected Porter’s appeal for a new sentencing hearing. The Supreme Court sent the case back down to the 11th Circuit Court, which was expected to order a new hearing. The Supreme Court did not question Porter’s conviction on murder charges. In its opinion, the Supreme Court recalled the testimony of Porter’s company commander during a 1995 hearing, in which he detailed two brutal battles that had led to massive casualties for Porter’s unit. Porter himself was injured in both battles, and in one had been forced to engage in “hand-to-hand” combat with advancing Chinese troops. The Supreme Court said Porter, now 77, returned to the U.S. a “traumatized, changed man,” and likely suffered from what was now known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The court said he had “suffered dreadful nightmares and would attempt to climb his bedroom walls with knives at night.” The court added, “The relevance of Porter’s extensive combat experience is not only that he served honorably under extreme hardship and gruesome conditions, but also that the jury might find mitigating the intense stress and emotional toll that combat took on Porter.” The court said Porter’s lawyer at sentencing had conducted an investigation of Porter’s background that was not “even cursory.” The lawyer, Sam Bardwell, was described as failing to show “reasonable professional judgment.” The decision suggested that lawyers must present available evidence of war-related PTSD at sentencing hearings, which was expected to have a significant impact on trials involving veterans, given the increased awareness of PTSD. The court noted recent testimony given by Veteran Affairs (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki, who said nearly a quarter of the veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seeking treatment from the VA had been “prelimin narily diagnosed with PTSD.” News in Brief. The Supreme Court Dec. 14 accepted City of Ontario v. Quon, in which it would decide whether the police department in Ontario, Calif., had violated an officer’s rights by reviewing transcripts of his text messages. The officer, Sgt. Jeff Quon,

had sent the messages, many of which were sexually explicit and unrelated to work, on a department-issued pager. The department had reserved the right to monitor all “network activity” on official communication lines, but a department lieutenant had also established an informal arrangement by

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which officers could use the pagers for personal matters. Quon insisted that his superiors had violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment, which protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. [See 2008, p. 789B1] The Supreme Court Dec. 7 accepted Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which it would decide whether a public law school could refuse recognition of a Christian student group that limited the membership of homosexuals. The Hastings Col-

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lege of the Law in San Francisco, Calif., had said the city’s chapter of the Christian Legal Society could not be an official student group, depriving the chapter of travel funds and other benefits. The school, part of the public University of California, said the decision was based on its policy of barring discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” The Christian Legal Society prohibited homosexuals from becoming voting members or attaining leadership positions. The group argued that the school was discriminating against its religious belief that “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman” was immoral. [See 2000, p. 463E2] The Supreme Court Nov. 30 declined to hear the appeal of Kevin Cooper, who had been sentenced to death for killing four people in 1983. Cooper maintained that others had committed the murders, and that the police at the time had manufactured evidence against him. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in 2004 had stayed his execution to allow Cooper to conduct new DNA tests. However, a federal judge ruled that the test results did not point to Cooper being improperly convicted, and subsequent appeals courts had upheld that ruling. The case was Cooper v. Ayers. [See 2004, p. 292A3] n

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D.C. Gives Gay Marriage Final Approval.

The Washington, D.C., City Council Dec. 15 voted, 11–2, to give final approval to a measure that would legalize same-sex marriages. The bill had been passed by the council earlier in December in a preliminary vote. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) said he would sign the bill into law. The measure, like all of the city’s legislation, was subject to a 30-day review by the U.S. Congress, during which it could be blocked. However, that was considered unlikely in either the Senate or House, both of which were controlled by Democrats. [See p. 832B2] Opponents of gay marriage nonetheless said they would fight the bill. House Republicans and conservative Democrats could attempt to block the measure in budget manuevering. The legislation was also expected to face a court challenge. Washington already recognized gay marriages performed in states where the practice had been legalized. The city’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer estimated that about 2,000 gay couples in Washington would be married soon after a law took effect. Its analysis also estimated that gay couples traveling to Washington to be married 868

would generate $5 million to $22 million in business for the city over three years. New Jersey Vote Canceled—The New Jersey State Senate Dec. 9 canceled a vote scheduled for the following day on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. The bill’s sponsors, state Sens. Raymond Lesniak (D) and Loretta Weinberg (D), said they decided to withdraw it to move it to the state General Assembly, the lower house of the legislature, where it was thought to have stronger support. Opponents of the proposal said its backers had been forced to withdraw it because of a likely defeat in the Senate. [See 2007, p. 109F2] Gay marriage advocates were attempting to get a bill passed before Gov. Jon Corzine (D), a supporter of same-sex marriage, left office in January 2010. His elected successor, Christopher Christie (R), opposed the bill. n Government Settles Indian Land Trust Case.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Attorney General Eric Holder Dec. 8 said the federal government had reached an agreement to settle a 13-year-old class-action lawsuit over claims that it had mismanaged revenue generated by American Indian land trusts. The government agreed to pay a group of Indians $1.4 billion to end the lawsuit, considered one of the largest and most complicated ever brought against the U.S. government. [See 2006, p. 646F3; 2005, pp. 953F3, 507B2] An 1887 law granted individual Indians parcels of land that ranged in size from 40 acres (16 hectares) to 160 acres, to be held in government trusts for 25 years and then handed over to the individuals. Instead, the government had retained control of the land, which totaled 56 million acres (22.5 million hectares) currently divided into more than 100,000 parcels. The plaintiffs had argued that the government had failed to direct revenue generated by oil and gas leases, mining and grazing on the land to the rightful owners of the property. The Interior Department, which had been tasked with overseeing the program, had also failed to keep adequate records of the properties and revenues. The issue had been further complicated by the deaths of land owners, many of whom had not made wills, leaving the land to be subdivided into millions of tiny fractions over the generations. In 2009, the government had received $298 million in revenue from the land, to be divided among 384,000 accounts. Under the settlement, each member of the lawsuit class would receive $1,000 from the government, with additional payments to be made in proportion to land allotments. Legal fees would also come out of the $1.4 billion fund. In addition, the government would spend $2 billion to purchase the most highly divided parcels of land in an effort to eliminate the necessity of costly record-keeping on them. The settlement would also create a $60 million scholarship fund for Indians. In order to be finalized, the agreement required the approval of Congress and a federal judge. Several members of the class said the payments did not fully account for the

money owed them, but that they were more concerned with getting money to plaintiffs before many of them died. The settlement fulfilled a campaign pledge made by President Barack Obama to resolve the lawsuit, which had begun in 1996 under President Bill Clinton. The lawsuit had included seven trials lasting a total of 192 days, and been overseen by two different federal judges, one of whom was removed in 2006 after a separate court found that he was biased against the Interior Department. n

Religion Episcopal Diocese Elects Lesbian Bishop.

The Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles Dec. 5 elected Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, a lesbian, to serve as an assistant bishop. If her election was confirmed by a national majority of Episcopal bishops and committees, she would become the second openly homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church, and in the worldwide Anglican Communion to which it belonged. Final confirmation of bishops was not often denied and Glasspool, 55, was expected to be consecrated in May 2010. The diocese Dec. 4 had also elected Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce, 53, to serve as an assistant bishop. If confirmed, the two women would become the first female bishops in the diocese’s 114-year history. [See p. 539B1, A2] The Episcopal Church in July had approved a resolution stating that gays and lesbians were eligible for “any ordained ministry.” The approval effectively overturned an earlier moratorium, which had urged the church to “exercise restraint” in electing gay and lesbian bishops. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams Dec. 5 said Glasspool’s election “raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the communion as a whole.” [See p. 811E1] V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, had been consecrated bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. His consecration set off a split between liberal and conservative factions in the Episcopal Church. Some conservative dioceses had voted to split from the Episcopal Church and join more conservative dioceses abroad. Others were promoting a rival body, the Anglican Church in North America. Williams had not officially recognized that group. n

2009 Elections Houston Elects Openly Gay Mayor. Annise

Parker Dec. 13 won a runoff in Houston’s mayoral election, defeating Gene Locke, a fellow Democrat. Parker, a lesbian, became the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city. Parker, 53, was a former gay rights activist who had served on the City Council and was currently city controller. She and her partner of nearly 20 years, Kathy Hubbard, had three children. Locke, 61, was a former city attorney. [See p. 756F3; 2007, p. 732E1] FACTS ON FILE

Parker won 52.8% of the vote, to Locke’s 47.2%, according to complete but unofficial returns. Turnout registered at just 16.5% of eligible voters. The leading Republican in the mayoral race, Ray Morales, had failed to advance to the runoff, finishing fourth in the Nov. 3 general election. Gay rights groups provided volunteers for Parker’s get-out-the-vote efforts. But her sexual orientation had not become a controversial issue until the final week before the runoff, when a group of black pastors warned that she would pursue a homosexual agenda and social conservative activists sent out mailings with similar warnings. Locke, who was black, denied any involvement in the mailings, but it was revealed that two members of his finance committee had given $40,000 to a group led by one of those conservative activists. Many voters said Parker’s experience handling the city’s budget as controller was the main reason they voted for her. Locke had campaigned on a pledge to crack down on crime, seeking to build a coalition of black voters and conservative Republicans, but Parker had effectively attacked him as a lawyer and lobbyist at the service of big business interests. Mayor White Joins Race for Governor—

Parker would take office Jan. 1, replacing Mayor Bill White (D), who was barred by term limits from seeking a third two-year term. White Dec. 4 announced that he planned to enter the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race. White had previously said he planned to run for the seat of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R). Hutchison was challenging incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican gubernatorial primary, which was scheduled for March 2, 2010. Perry, who had held office since 2000, was seeking a third term. Hutchison trailed well behind him in the polls, and had abandoned her previous plan to resign her Senate seat before the end of the year in order to devote herself to the campaign. [See p. 503D2] In his announcement speech, White said, “I’ll be a governor who challenges Texans to lead, not leave, the United States.” That was a reference to a speech by Perry at an April 15 antitax “tea party” in Austin, the state capital, when the governor suggested that Texas had the right to secede from the U.S. [See p. 242C3] Tom Schieffer, a former U.S. ambassador to Australia and Japan, had been considered the top Democratic candidate for governor, but he said he would drop out of the race and back White. White was viewed as an underdog in heavily Republican Texas, which had not elected a Democrat as governor since 1990. But Perry had little support outside his conservative base and was seen as vulnerable to a challenge from White, a popular moderate. n

State & Local Politics S.C. Gov. Sanford Avoids Impeachment.

The South Carolina House Judiciary Committee Dec. 16 voted, 18–6, against a resoDecember 17, 2009

lution to impeach Gov. Mark Sanford (R) over his secret trip in June to visit his mistress in Argentina, concluding that his actions did not meet the constitutional standard of “serious crimes or serious misconduct.” However, the committee unanimously approved a resolution to censure Sanford for dereliction of duty and other misconduct that had “brought ridicule and dishonor to himself, the state of South Carolina and its citizens.” A subcommittee of the panel had voted Dec. 9 to recommend censure rather than impeachment. [See p. 815C1] Sanford had 13 months left in his second term, and was barred by term limits from running for reelection. He still faced 37 civil charges filed against him by the State Ethics Commission for misuse of official resources, which could result in fines of up to $74,000 if he was found guilty of all the charges at a hearing scheduled for January 2010. Meanwhile, state Attorney General Henry McMaster (R) was reviewing the commission’s findings to determine whether Sanford should face criminal charges. The governor’s wife, Jenny Sanford, Dec. 11 announced that she had filed for divorce. Her filing, in Charleston County Family Court, petitioned for divorce “on ground of adultery.” In a statement, she said her decision “came after many unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation, yet I am still dedicated to keeping the process that lies ahead peaceful for our family.” The couple had four sons. Gov. Sanford issued a statement in response, saying he took “full responsibility for the moral failure that led us to this tragic point.” n

Education $4 Billion Program for States Announced.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Nov. 12 released the final rules for a $4.35 billion grant program under which states would compete for funds earmarked for education in the $787 billion stimulus package enacted in February. Under the program, called Race to the Top, states had until June 2010 to submit reform strategies for schools. The application also asked states about their past successes in education. Duncan emphasized that the program was “absolutely a competition…we’re trying to reward excellence.” Grants were expected to be awarded to about 15 states that presented the most aggressive reforms. The winners would be announced by September 2010. [See pp. 602C1, 149A2] States’ strategies would be scored by independent reviewers, according to how well they fulfilled certain criteria. Factors included adopting higher academic standards and better tests, implementing computer systems to track academic progress, recruiting able teachers and encouraging charter schools. The program also rewarded systems by which teachers and principals were evaluated partially by how well their students performed.

Teachers’ unions criticized the program for relying too heavily on standardized tests, and for linking student test scores to individual teachers. Others expressed concern that the funds would be used to plug schools’ budget gaps, instead of for creating lasting programs. n

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Crime 6,500 Pa. Juvenile Convictions Dismissed.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Oct. 29 threw out about 6,500 juvenile convictions found to have been tainted by the alleged misconduct of a disgraced former judge in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County. The former judge, Mark Ciavarella, was accused of taking part in an illegal scheme to sentence offenders to private juvenile detention centers in exchange for kickbacks from the owners of the centers. The court’s order dismissed all convictions overseen by Ciavarella between the alleged start of the kickback scheme in January 2003 and May 31, 2008; the court had dismissed about 800 such cases in March. [See p. 247F1] Most of those affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling had already finished serving their sentences. However, the ruling meant that their convictions would be completely expunged. (Unlike some states, Pennsylvania did not automatically erase juvenile criminal records when offenders turned 18.) Charges against juveniles whose convictions were overturned by the ruling could not be refiled, except for about 100 people who were still in juvenile detention, still owed fines or were still under court supervision. Defendants who had charges refiled against them would be allowed to challenge any retrial on the grounds of double jeopardy. Judge Rejects Plea Agreements—Judge Edwin Kosik of U.S. District Court in Scranton, Pa., July 30 rejected plea deals that had been agreed to by Ciavarella and former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan, his alleged partner in the scheme. Kosik said that he had rejected the deals, which would have sent Ciavarella and Conahan to prison for seven years and three months on wire fraud and income tax fraud charges, because the former judges had refused to take responsibility for their actions. He also noted that the sentence stipulated by the agreement was “well below the sentencing guidelines for the charged offenses.” Ciavarella and Conahan had allegedly conspired to close a publicly owned juvenile detention center in 2002 and then helped two private centers receive $58 million in contracts, in exchange for $2.8 million in secret payments between 2003 and 2008. Following their initial guilty pleas in the case, Ciavarella had denied that there was any quid pro quo in the former judges’ relationship with the juvenile detention centers. Ciavarella and Conahan Aug. 25 withdrew their guilty pleas in the case after Kosik refused to rescind his rejection of 869

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit July 10 unanimously ruled that controversial vehicle checkpoints set up by Washington, D.C., police in the largely black neighborhood of Trinidad in June and July 2008 had violated Fourth Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In the ruling, Judge David Sentelle wrote that it was clear that “citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.” [See 2008, p. 508A2] The D.C. police had instituted the checkpoints—which were part of the district’s Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative—in June 2008 as part of an attempt to crack down on drive-by shootings in Trinidad, many of which were thought to be committed by people from outside the neighborhood. Under the checkpoint policy, all motorists attempting to enter Trinidad were stopped and forced to produce evidence that they lived in the neighborhood or had an acceptable reason for traveling there, such as employment. In June 2008, three of the 48 motorists barred by police from entering Trinidad filed suit against the district, arguing that a 2000 Supreme Court decision had found that random police roadblocks not motivated by a specific criminal investigation were unconstitutional. [See 2000, p. 909A1] D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles Nov. 16 announced in a court filing that the district would not appeal the panel’s decision, and that D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier had canceled the order that had authorized the checkpoint system. n 870

AFRICA

Guinea Junta Leader Shot, Wounded by Aide.

Army Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, leader of Guinea’s ruling military junta, the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), Dec. 3 was shot and wounded by a close aide. The head of the presidential guard, Lt. Abubakar (Toumba) Diakite, Dec. 16 said in an interview with Radio France International (RFI) that he had shot Camara at point-blank range in the neck. Diakite claimed that Camara had been planning to blame him for a Sept. 28 massacre of antigovernment protesters in which 157 people had been killed and scores of women raped. [See p. 701A3] Camara’s driver and bodyguard were said to have been killed in the Dec. 3 assassination attempt. Camara, who initially was reported to have been shot in the head, Dec. 4 was airlifted to Rabat, Morocco’s capital, for medical treatment. Although doctors in Morocco, as well as junta officials, played down the extent of his injuries, as of Dec. 17 Camara had not been seen in public or heard from since the shooting. That had led to speculation about the true extent of his injuries, and whether he was in fact incapacitated. Defense Minister Gen. Sekouba Konate, Camara’s second in command, who had been visiting Lebanon at the time of the assassination attempt, Dec. 5 returned to Guinea and assumed control of the government. In his first public comments since the shooting, Konate Dec. 9 appealed for “cohesion” in the army. Prior to the assassination attempt, analysts said Camara had viewed Konate as his main rival. Officials from France, Guinea’s former colonial power, Dec. 9 said Camara was experiencing a “difficult” medical condition, and that although his life was not in danger, he was not well enough to return to Guinea. The uncertainty about Camara’s medical condition, and a crackdown on his opponents after the attack, prompted fears that Guinea would become the latest country in the unstable West African region to slide into civil war. Guinea was rich in mineral wealth—including being the world’s top producer of bauxite, the basic raw material for producing aluminum— but much of its population lived in abject poverty. [See below]

all responsibility for the events of 28 September on me.” Diakite also indicated that the crackdown on protesters had not been a spontaneous act by rogue elements of the security forces, as members of the junta had claimed previously. “What happened on 28 September was planned.…Everything was planned and I was the one who had to take the blame for everything,” Diakite said. The dispute between Camara and Diakite reportedly had arisen as investigators from a special United Nations commission of inquiry Nov. 25 arrived in the country to probe the incident. According to Diakite, he feared that Camara, who had previously denied responsibility for the massacre, would tell the U.N. team that Diakite had been responsible. Camara Loyalists in Crackdown—After the attack on Camara Dec. 3, elements of the junta loyal to him conducted a sweep of the capital, Conakry, in search of renegade elements of the military. Dozens of civilian opposition supporters were also said to have been arrested in the sweep. There were reports of extrajudicial killings, with witnesses saying the soldiers were torturing and murdering those suspected of opposing Camara. Prior to the assassination attempt, Camara’s behavior reportedly had become increasingly erratic, and splits had emerged in the junta command. Also, Camara’s forces had been targeting his opponents, and the opposition had allegedly been engaging in revenge killings, adding to a general climate of tension and fear in the country. Further, analysts said the simmering conflict in Guinea had an ethnic component that increased the possibility of civil war. Camara was the first member of Guinea’s minority Guerze ethnic group to rule the country. Guinea was dominated by the Malinke, Peul and Sousou ethnic groups; longtime strongman Lansana Conte, who had died in December 2008, sparking the military takeover, had been a Sousou. The Peul comprised about 40% of the population but had never controlled the government. Reuters Dec. 14 reported that most of the protesters killed in the September massacre had been from the Peul group. SEYLLOU/AFP/Getty Images.

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the plea agreement. The withdrawal raised the prospect that their case would go to a trial. New Federal Charges Filed— A federal grand jury in Harrisburg, Pa., Sept. 9 indicted Conahan and Ciavarella on 48 felony counts in connection with the kickback allegations, including money laundering, racketeering, fraud, extortion, bribery and violations of federal tax law. Conahan and Ciavarella Sept. 15 pleaded not guilty to all charges in U.S. District Court in Scranton. Separately, Robert Powell, a co-owner of the two private detention centers involved in the case, July 1 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Scranton to charges that he had concealed payments to Conahan and Ciavarella. He faced up to five years and six months in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Robert Mericle, the owner of the construction company that built both private detention centers, Sept. 2 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Scranton to withholding information about a crime. He had allegedly failed to inform prosecutors about a payment he had made to Ciavarella. He faced up to three years in prison and agreed to donate $2.1 million to a children’s charitable fund. Powell and Mericle were reportedly cooperating with prosecutors. n

Rival Cites ‘Betrayal’—

In the Dec. 16 RFI interview, which had been conducted at an undisclosed location three days earlier, Diakite said he had shot Camara because “there was utter betrayal towards me, a complete betrayal of democracy, he tried to lay

Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara (left), leader of Guinea’s ruling military junta, and the junta’s second in command, Defense Minister Gen. Sekouba Konate, Oct. 2 in Conakry, Guinea’s capital. Camara Dec. 3 was shot and wounded by a close aide, and Konate subsequently took charge of the government.

FACTS ON FILE

Guinea had more than a dozen smaller groups, including the Guerze, who mainly hailed from the southeast and comprised only about 1% of the population. Konate and Diakite were from the Malinke group. ECOWAS Calls for Intervention— The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which had been mediating between the junta and opposition groups in the aftermath of the September massacre, Dec. 6 called on Guinea’s military junta to restore civilian rule. The junta Dec. 9 suspended the negotiations with the opposition, which were being hosted by Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore. On Dec. 13, the bloc called for a foreign intervention force to prevent an escalation of violence in Guinea. The military junta rejected that possibility the next day. Guinea’s neighbors in West Africa— Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast— were all in the process of recovering from bloody civil wars in recent decades. Conte’s iron grip was seen as having spared Guinea from enduring similar strife, although Conte’s government was widely believed to have meddled in the conflicts of Guinea’s neighbors. ECOWAS Oct. 17 had imposed an arms embargo on Guinea, alleging that the junta had committed “mass human rights violations” during the September protests. The European Union followed suit Oct. 27, after international watchdog group Human Rights Watch that day issued a report finding that the September massacre had been premeditated. It also noted the “apparent ethnic nature of the violence,” alleging that the Peul were targeted. Human Rights Watch Dec. 17 released another report on the situation in Guinea, stating that Camara should be held responsible for the events of Sept. 28, which “rise to the level of crimes against humanity.” It said Camara should face trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in October had begun a probe of the incident. n

AMERICAS

Chile Conservative

Leads

Presidential

Vote.

Former senator and businessman Sebastian Pinera Echenique, 60, of the center-right National Renewal (RN) party Dec. 13 finished first in presidential elections, but did not receive the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff election. According to almost complete results released Dec. 14, Pinera led the polling with 44%, easily besting his closest competitor, former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, 67, of the ruling center-left Concertacion coalition, who won 30%. The pair would face each other in a runoff election scheduled for Jan. 17, 2010. Two other candidates, former filmmaker Marco Enriquez-Ominami, 36, a leftist who had split with Concertacion to run as an independent, and Jorge Arrate, 68, of the Chilean Communist Party, finished with 20% and 6%, respectively. [See 2006, p. 36C1] December 17, 2009

Pinera’s showing represented a shift away from support among Chileans for Concertacion, which had ruled the country since it returned to democracy in 1990, after the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. Although analysts said votes in the first round had been split between the three leftist candidates, Pinera remained the front-runner to win the presidency in the second round of voting. Pinera had campaigned on a platform that called for the industrialization of Chile’s economy, which was highly dependent on exports of food products, such as fish and fruit, and raw materials like copper. Pinera had also called for the creation of one million jobs, the improvement of schools and a crackdown on crime. He had distanced himself from social conservatives by supporting gay rights and showing a willingness to discuss abortion during the campaign, relatively progressive moves in socially conservative Chile, where the Roman Catholic Church wielded strong political influence. Pinera’s net worth was estimated at around $1 billion by Forbes magazine, which ranked him as the third-richest person in Chile. In the 1970s, he had founded credit card company Bancard, the original source of his fortune, and maintained stakes in LAN Airlines, the country’s national airline, various media companies and Colo Colo, Chile’s most successful soccer team. In 2006, he had made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency, losing to outgoing President Michelle Bachelet Jeria, whose four-year term was set to end in March 2010. Frei, who had served as president from 1994 to 2000, was unable to capitalize on the strong public support for Bachelet, whose approval ratings topped 80% in some polls. (Bachelet was constitutionally barred from seeking a consecutive term.) Frei had pledged to continue many of Bachelet’s popular social spending programs, but his campaign was criticized for being poorly run. Frei had also invoked his political pedigree with references to his father, Eduardo Frei Montalva, who had been Chile’s president from 1964 to 1970. Some analysts said those references might have been taken by some voters as a failure to break with the country’s political past. [See below; 1993, p. 957G3] Concertacion had also been roiled by the candidacy of Enriquez-Ominami, who had left the coalition in June, after being shut out of its primary process. EnriquezOminami, the son of famous guerrilla fighter Miguel Enriquez, who was killed by security forces in 1974, had criticized the coalition for becoming politically stagnant. He had called for a new constitution and a revamp of the electoral system. Poisoning of Former President Alleged—

Judge Alejandro Madrid of the Court of Appeals Dec. 7 ruled that there was evidence to support the theory that Eduardo Frei Montalva had slowly been poisoned during the months prior to his January 1982 death. The ruling found that doses of mustard gas and the chemical thalium had weakened Frei’s immune system, thereby reducing his ability

to recover from surgery for a stomach hernia. Septic shock resulting from the surgery had originally been cited as the cause of death. [See 1982, p. 80E1] An indictment released by Madrid charged six people in connection with the poisoning. Three of them—a doctor; a former intelligence agent who had served under Pinochet; and Frei’s driver—were accused of murder. Two other doctors were charged with falsifying an autopsy report, and one other person as an accomplice. Members of Frei’s family had long claimed that his death had resulted from a poisoning. Frei had originally supported Pinochet’s regime, but had become the leader of a moderate opposition movement at the time of his death. n

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Jamaica Hijacker of Canadian Jet Sentenced. A man with a gun late April 19 forced his way past security at a Montego Bay, Jamaica, airport and boarded a CanJet Airlines flight bound for Cuba. The man robbed several passengers before letting them go, but held several crew members hostage for about six hours. Jamaican military and police April 20 stormed the plane and arrested the accused hijacker, Jamaican Stephen Fray. Jamaican officials Sept. 24 said Fray had been convicted that day of several charges related to the hijacking, including robbery and assault. Fray Oct. 8 was sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison, but would only serve 20 years at most since the terms were to be served concurrently. n

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Other Americas News Brazil, Paraguay Suffer Huge Power Outage.

A power outage lasting several hours Nov. 10 struck large sections of Brazil, including the country’s two largest cities, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, as well as Brasilia, the capital. The entirety of Paraguay was also left without power for about 15 minutes. The blackout affected an estimated 60 million people, and 18 of Brazil’s 26 states. [See p. 508F2; 2002, p. 162B2] There were widespread reports of chaos in larger Brazilian cities, where the failure of street lights and traffic lights resulted in a number of motor vehicle accidents. Thousands of commuters were stranded on subways and trains, and there were reports of robberies and other street crime. Initial reports said the outage had resulted from a failure at the Itaipu dam hydroelectric plant, which straddled the Parana River on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Brazilian Energy Minister Edison Lobao Nov. 11 said the failure could have been caused by a large storm or other atmospheric disturbance. However, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva later that day said the blackout had been caused by a failure at a transmission substation between the hydroelectric complex and Sao Paulo. He also called for an investigation into the cause of the outage. Several analysts said the blackout reflected the Brazilian government’s failure to 871

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maintain the country’s electricity infrastructure. They said investment in the electrical grid, estimated at tens of billions of dollars in recent years, had still not kept pace with growing demand resulting from sharp economic growth. Brazil in 2001 had been forced to ration electricity, after a severe drought had curtailed its ability to generate power. (Brazil relied on hydroelectricity for about 80%–85% of its power.) n

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Cambodia Thai Man Arrested for Spying on Thaksin.

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Cambodian police Nov. 12 arrested a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, which oversaw airplane flights within Cambodia, for allegedly passing confidential information about the travel plans of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to the first secretary at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. The employee, Siwarak Chothipong, Dec. 8 was convicted of spying and sentenced to seven years in prison, but was pardoned Dec. 11. [See pp. 784G3, 726F2] Thaksin, who had been ousted as prime minister in a 2006 coup, had been appointed as a special economic adviser to the Cambodian government and to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier in November, to the dismay of the Thai government. He had been convicted by a Thai court in absentia on corruption charges in 2008 and was currently living in self-imposed exile. His appointment had worsened tensions between Cambodia and neighboring Thailand, which were embroiled in a dispute over the ownership of land surrounding a 900-year-old Hindu temple. Following the alleged flight-information breach, Cambodia had expelled the Thai first secretary, leading Thailand to oust the first secretary of the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni Dec. 11 pardoned Siwarak. Hun Sen had reportedly recommended that Norodom grant the pardon after receiving a request to that effect from Thaksin. (Thaksin had previously claimed that Siwarak had given the Thai government his flight information as part of a plot to down his plane.) Siwarak Dec. 14 was released to his parents following a ceremony attended by Thaksin, who had returned to Cambodia Dec. 13, and members of Thailand’s pro-Thaksin Puea Thai opposition party. Cambodia Seizes Air Traffic Firm—

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Samart Corp., which owned and operated the Cambodian Air Traffic Service, Nov. 19 announced that the Cambodian government had seized control of the air traffic concern, and had installed a Cambodian citizen as temporary head of the company following the spying allegations. The Cambodian government also temporarily suspended all the company’s Thai employees. Samart said that it would ask the Thai government for assistance in pushing for Siwarak’s release. Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya Nov. 19 called on Cambo872

dia to respect Samart’s contract to manage air traffic in Cambodia, and said that the decision to seize the company did “not seem right.” Thai Loans Ordered Halted— Hun Sen Nov. 30 said the Cambodian government would stop accepting any aid or loans from the Thai government and would examine all current bilateral agreements to see if they should be continued. He said, “Anyone who dares ask for assistance from Thailand without my permission should resign. We [Cambodia] may be poor, but we would rather shed our blood than let you [Thailand] look down on us.” The Cambodian government Nov. 27 had announced that it had canceled a $41 million loan from the Thai government to renovate a highway connecting the two countries, and said that the project would go forward with Cambodian funding. The loan was reportedly canceled over objections expressed by Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. A program that would have sent 20 Cambodian students to study in Thailand was also scrapped by Hun Sen’s government. Separately, Thaksin Nov. 13 met in Cambodia with a group of senior members of Thailand’s pro-Thaksin “red shirts” movement, and left Cambodia Nov. 14. Also, the Cambodian military Nov. 13 pulled 1,000 members of its special forces from the disputed region near the Hindu temple; however, Cambodia continued to maintain a troop presence in the area. n

China Earthquake Activist Sentenced. A court in

Sichuan province Nov. 23 convicted and sentenced a local civil rights activist, Huang Qi, to three years in prison on charges of “illegal possession of state secrets,” after a three-hour closed-door trial in August. Huang, 46, had been detained in June 2008 after meeting with families victimized by a major earthquake in the region the previous month. He had worked with parents of schoolchildren to publicize shortcomings in school construction that were blamed for a high student death toll from the disaster. [See p. 557G1] Huang’s wife, Zeng Li, said he had been tried on vague charges in retribution for his activism. According to Zeng, the judge had convicted Huang of possessing “three documents issued by a certain city government.” She also said Huang was not allowed to speak at the hearing, and was planning to appeal the verdict. Supporters of Huang, who gathered outside the closed-off courthouse, expressed anger at the ruling. Following the May 2008 earthquake, parents had protested the shoddy construction of schools in the affected area, and officials had sought to stifle parents’ demonstrations and bar news coverage of the issue. The government did not release an official death toll of schoolchildren until a year after the disaster, when they said 5,335 pupils had been killed or were still missing. A total of as many as 90,000 people were estimated to have died in the quake. [See p. 326B3] n

Petition Dissident Indicted. Prominent Chi-

nese dissident Liu Xiaobo Dec. 10 was indicted on charges of inciting subversion. Liu, 53, had been arrested in December 2008 for his role in circulating a petition, Charter ’08, which was signed by thousands of intellectuals, seeking significant democratic reforms. The formal charges came one year and a day after the petition was published on the Internet. (The document had been removed by government censors shortly after it appeared.) [See p. 448G1] Liu’s attorney expected his trial to begin as soon as 10 days after the indictment. Charges of subversion typically led to jail sentences of up to 15 years. Human Rights Watch reported that U.S. officials, who accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama on his November tour of Asia, had pressed Chinese authorities on 12 separate activists’ cases, including Liu’s. While Obama had urged greater political freedoms during his visit, he did not hold meetings with any rights activists. [See p. 795C3] n

Japan Government Unveils New Stimulus. The Jap-

anese government Dec. 8 unveiled a 7.2 trillion yen ($81 billion) economic stimulus package intended to prevent Japan’s economy from slipping back into recession and succumbing to a deflationary spiral of the kind it had experienced in the 1990s. It was the first stimulus package proposed since Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took office in September. [See pp. 786F2, 703A3] Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)–led government had previously canceled portions of a bigger stimulus measure enacted earlier in the year by the preceding government, led by the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It had reportedly hoped initially not to have to devise a new stimulus for the current fiscal year, which would end in March 2010. However, Japan’s emergence from a deep recession looked increasingly fragile, prompting the new measure. The government Dec. 9 reported that gross domestic product (GDP) had grown in the third quarter at an annualized rate of 1.3%, down from a previous estimate of 4.8%. Masaaki Shirakawa, the governor of the Bank of Japan, the central bank, Nov. 30 said the economy was in a moderate state of deflation, a situation of falling prices that threatened to become self-perpetuating, as consumers put off purchases in the expectation of lower prices, and businesses reduced investment in response to shrinking profits. The stimulus measures unveiled Dec. 8 included an expansion of a program that gave companies subsidies to forestall layoffs, as well as aid to local governments to compensate for the drop in tax revenues they were experiencing as a result of the downturn. That money was likely to be used for the kind of public works programs that the DPJ had criticized. The package would also extend incentives for taxpayers for home purchases, and to buy fuel-efficient cars or undertake home renovations to increase energy conservation. FACTS ON FILE

The unveiling of the package had been delayed from Dec. 4 due to differences between the DPJ and its coalition partner, the People’s New Party, whose leader, Financial Services and Postal Reform Minister Shizuka Kamei, sought to maximize stimulus spending. [See below] Some analysts said the package did little to address Japan’s long-term economic prospects, which were hampered by a strong currency that made its exports more expensive abroad. The government also faced the problem of Japan’s mounting national debt, which was nearing 200% of GDP, the highest ratio of any nation. In the current fiscal year, the government said it expected tax revenues to total 37 trillion yen, much lower than the original projection of 46 trillion. Tax revenue would be exceeded by new bonds issued, expected to total 53 trillion yen, for the first time since 1946. In a separate move to boost economic activity, the Bank of Japan Dec. 1 had said it would provide 10 trillion yen in shortterm loans to commercial banks. Also, the Diet (parliament) Nov. 30 had approved a measure intended to encourage banks to ease the repayment terms of loans to small businesses and homeowners requesting such aid. Kamei had proposed the measure, causing controversy by initially seeming to suggest that he sought to require lenders to grant a three-year moratorium on loan payments. The final measure did not make it mandatory for banks to change loan terms, but the government would ask banks to explain their compliance with the spirit of the law. [See p. 703B3] Postal Privatization Frozen— The Diet Dec. 4 enacted another measure pushed by Kamei, halting the planned issuance of shares in Japan Post Holdings Co., the company that operated Japan’s postal service as well as its large associated banking and other financial services. The privatization of Japan Post had been the centerpiece economic reform proposal of the preceding LDP governments, but the incoming Hatoyama government had indicated its intention to reconsider the plan. The government reportedly planned to consider a reformulation of Japan Post’s future. Kamei said he wanted to use the company’s large network of branches to help provide an array of social services. [See p. 703D3] Japan Post President Yoshifumi Nishikawa Oct. 20 had been forced to resign, and was replaced the following day by Jiro Saito, a former finance ministry official. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Dec. 8, Nishikawa criticized the decision to halt the privatization plans, saying the government was moving back to an inefficient model in which the vast savers’ deposits held by Japan Post were used to finance public-works programs, when the money could be more efficiently invested in the private sector. Opposition politicians also criticized the appointment of Saito, saying it exemplified the traditional habit, criticized by the DPJ, of filling top agency posts with retired bureaucrats. n December 17, 2009

Hatoyama Apologizes Over Donations. Jap-

anese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Nov. 30 apologized in the Diet (parliament) for the misreporting of donations to his election campaign from his mother and other sources of family wealth. Hatoyama had taken office in September. During the preceding election campaign, he had admitted that his campaign had attributed some 22 million yen ($220,000) in campaign contributions to fictitious donors. However, prosecutors had since broadened the investigation to include millions of dollars in campaign funds actually provided by Hatoyama’s mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, and their family asset-management firm. (Yasuko Hatoyama’s father had founded Bridgestone Corp., the world’s largest tire company.) [See pp. 624G2, 342C2] Japanese news media reported Dec. 2 that prosecutors planned to ask Hatoyama for a written account of the donations. The request for a written explanation, rather than a direct questioning, reportedly suggested that the prosecutors did not expect to pursue serious charges. In contrast with past Japanese campaign finance scandals, which typically involved improper contributions from major construction companies or other business interests, the affair was seen as less likely to damage Hatoyama politically, since it seemingly involved only his and his family’s money. n

North Korea Currency Revalued to Squelch Black Market.

The North Korean government Nov. 30 announced a revaluation of the nation’s currency, the won, in which one new won would equal 100 old won. The government said citizens would have until Dec. 6 to exchange their cash, up to a limit of 100,000 old won per household. The move was widely interpreted abroad as an attempt to clamp down on the black market trading that had grown in recent years amid the foundering of North Korea’s state-directed economy. [See 2006, pp. 636C3, 616C1] The maximum exchange amount of 100,000 old won was officially worth $690, but only about $35 on the black market. There were reports, difficult to confirm because North Korea was generally closed to foreign news media, of public mass protests against the order, a rare event in the country. In response, the government reportedly revised the rules to allow each member of a household to exchange an additional 50,000 old won. North Korea had experienced a severe famine in the 1990s, with chronic food shortages ever since. An unofficial economy of home-grown food as well as goods from China, North Korea’s neighbor and closest ally, had since developed, creating a small merchant class whose wealth, though modest, contrasted sharply with the country’s general impoverishment. It had also fueled inflation in prices for everyday goods. Although foreign analysts had speculated in the past that the regime of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il was considering adopting limited market-oriented economic reforms in imitation of China,

the government in recent years had reaffirmed its commitment to central planning and placed increasing restrictions on private market activities. n U.S. Envoy Visits. The U.S.’s special envoy to international talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, Stephen Bosworth, Dec. 8– 10 visited North Korea for talks with government officials. Bosworth Dec. 10 called the talks an “exploratory” effort to persuade North Korea to return to the six-nation talks in which it had agreed in 2005 to abandon its nuclear weapons activities. North Korea earlier in the year had announced its withdrawal from the talks framework and conducted its second nuclear test. Bosworth said that in his meetings, “We identified some common understanding on the need for…six-party talks and the importance of implementation of the 2005 joint statement,” adding that “it remains to be seen when and how” North Korea would rejoin the talks. [See pp. 796F1, 795E3] Bosworth’s trip was the highest-level contact with North Korea yet undertaken by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Bosworth met with Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju, who was thought to oversee North Korea’s nuclear program, and Kim Gye Gwan, who had been its representative to the international talks. North Korea Dec. 11 in a statement said the two countries in the talks had “deepened the mutual understanding, narrowed their differences and found not a few common points.” The U.S. State Department Dec. 16 confirmed reports that Bosworth had delivered a letter to North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Il from Obama urging North Korea to return to the talks. n

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Aid From South for Swine Flu Cases.

North Korea Dec. 9 reported the detection of nine cases of H1N1 swine influenza in Pyongyang, the capital, and in Sinuiju, a town near the country’s border with China. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak the previous day had cited reports of a bigger swine flu outbreak in North Korea and offered to send medicine and other assistance. North Korea Dec. 10 said it would accept the aid, in a rare admission of need and an unusually swift positive response to an offer of assistance from South Korea. [See pp. 810C2, 795G3] However, the South Korean–based aid group that had first reported the appearance of H1N1 in North Korea, Good Friends, contended that the outbreak was bigger than North Korea acknowledged, and that about 50 people had died of the swine flu in recent weeks. North Korea’s public health ministry said it was implementing a “quarantine system” to prevent the further spread of the illness. Good Friends said North Korea was also tightening controls at the Chinese border. Lee’s government had otherwise sought to impose new conditions on aid to North Korea. But it said in a statement that it considered combating the spread of H1N1 to be a matter “above politics,” and would unconditionally send supplies to treat as many as 500,000 people. n 873

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Martial Law Lifted. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Dec. 12 lifted a declaration of martial law that had been imposed in Mindanao island’s Maguindanao province. Martial law was declared Dec. 4 following the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people by a group of gunmen allegedly controlled by the province’s powerful Ampatuan family. The government said that a state of emergency imposed on Maguindanao and surrounding areas on Nov. 24 would stay in effect and that the military would remain in the province to maintain order. Arroyo had reportedly decided to end martial law in the province after determining that the threat of a rebellion by proAmpatuan militants in the area had been quashed by the military. [See p. 852E2] n

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Major Oil Leak in Timor Sea Halted. Thailand’s state-controlled PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Ltd. (PTTEP) Nov. 3 announced that a large oil and gas leak at an offshore oil rig in the Timor Sea about 250 km (155 miles) from Australia’s northern coast had been stopped after several previous unsuccessful attempts. The rig, which was owned by PTTEP and operated by Norway’s Seadrill Ltd., had begun leaking Aug. 21, forcing the evacuation of 129 employees from the rig and a neighboring ship. The spill was thought to be Australia’s worst in 25 years. [See pp. 682B3, 675B2] The leak had occurred at the West Atlas rig, located above Australia’s Montara oil field, when oil and gas began to seep through a rubber and concrete plug that had been inserted into an oil well. The cause of the leak had not been determined. The oil rig had been scheduled to begin oil and gas extraction in late 2009, but PTTEP pushed back its planned start date until mid-2010 following the leak. According to PTTEP, almost 2,400 barrels of high-density mud were injected into the leaking oil pipe to halt the spill. More permanent measures were expected to be taken to guarantee that the leak did not recur. PTTEP had previously estimated that the rig was leaking about 400 barrels of oil, equal to 16,800 gallons (63,600 liters) per day; however, experts had suggested that as many as 2,000 barrels per day could have escaped. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority had regularly doused the spill with chemical dispersant to break up the oil and to diminish the concentration of oil particles in the area. However, the dispersant had also caused the area of the diluted slick to increase. PTTEP had reportedly opted for the weeks-long mud-injection method over a quicker way to stop the leak, in which the oil flow would have been capped at the top of the leaking pipe, due to safety reasons. The stopping of the plug also made it possible to put out a fire that had broken out at the oil well Nov. 1. 874

PTTEP said it would reimburse the Australian government for costs related to the leak. Group Warns of Environmental Damage—

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Oct. 23 announced that during a visit to the affected area, the group had observed 17 types of seabirds, four species of cetaceans, including dolphins, and two species of endangered sea turtles. Environmental activists and the Australian political opposition had criticized the Australian government for its perceived inaction and slowness in responding to the oil leak. Also, Indonesian fishermen had claimed that thousands of fish near the Indonesian portion of Timor Island had been killed by spreading oil, and that local villagers had become sick from eating tainted seafood, claims that were denied by the Australian government. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Nov. 2 said the leak was not “acceptable,” and described his administration as “angry with” PTTEP. Martin Ferguson, the Australian resources minister, Nov. 2 said that the Australian government would hold a “full and independent inquiry into the cause of the incident” once the leak was stopped. n

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Georgia Abkhaz Leader Bagapsh Reelected. Sergei Bagapsh, the incumbent president of the Russian-aligned Georgian splinter region of Abkhazia, won a Dec. 12 presidential election with 59.4% of the vote, according to preliminary official results released the following day. In his campaign, Bagapsh had pledged to improve living standards in Abkhazia and secure Russian funding for developing its transportation and energy infrastructure. Georgia, the U.S. and the European Union, which all maintained that Abkhazia lay within Georgia’s internationally recognized borders, Dec. 14 released statements calling the election illegitimate. [See p. 645A2; 2005, p. 233D3] The election was Abkhazia’s first since Russia had recognized its independence in 2008. Russia’s move to recognize Abkhazia and another Georgian splinter region, South Ossetia, had followed a brief war between Georgia and Russia over control of South Ossetia. Russian leaders Dec. 14 congratulated Bagapsh on his reelection. [See below] Bagapsh, who had served as Abkhazia’s president since 2005, Dec. 13 had asserted that Abkhazians had “chosen our path, whether the European Union and the United States like it or not…Abkhazia will never again be part of Georgia.” Bagapsh’s closest rival, Raul Khadzhimba, a former agent in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) who had previously served as vice president under Bagapsh after losing a disputed 2004 election to him, won 15.4% of the vote. Khadzhimba complained of widespread fraud and pledged to contest the election results. Election monitors from Russia and

Venezuela said the vote had been fair. [See 2004, p. 1063F2] Bagapsh’s new term would begin Feb. 12, 2010. Nauru Recognizes Splinter Regions—The Pacific island nation of Nauru Dec. 15–16 recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent, becoming the fourth country to do so, after Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Russian newspaper Kommersant Dec. 14 reported that Nauru asked Russia for $50 million in aid. [See p. 616A3] n

Italy Berlusconi Injured in Milan Statuette Attack.

A mentally disturbed man Dec. 13 struck Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the face with a small souvenir replica of Milan’s cathedral, breaking his nose and two of his teeth, and cutting his lips. The attack occurred in a public square in Milan, as Berlusconi greeted supporters after speaking at a rally. Berlusconi, 73, remained in a hospital in Milan until he emerged Dec. 16 with bandages covering his face, and reportedly went to a clinic in Switzerland for further treatment. [See p. 687A1] The attacker, graphic designer Massimo Tartaglia, was arrested immediately after the incident. It was reported Dec. 15 that Tartaglia had written a letter to Berlusconi apologizing for his “cowardly and impetuous” act. A judge Dec. 16 rejected a request by Tartaglia’s lawyers to transfer him to a hospital psychiatric ward from prison. Berlusconi’s spokesman Dec. 16 said he was feeling pain from his injuries and had lost half a liter (one pint) of blood. He had received telephone calls and messages from a number of world leaders wishing him a quick recovery, including Pope Benedict XVI. U.S. President Barack Obama called Dec. 15. Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, Dec. 14 visited Berlusconi in the hospital. Police Dec. 16 detained a 26-year-old man who was caught early that morning in the hospital where Berlusconi was reLIVIO ANTICOLI/AFP/Getty Images

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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shortly after he was struck by a mentally ill man with a souvenir replica of Milan, Italy’s cathedral Dec. 13, after addressing a rally in Milan.

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cuperating, after he reached the floor on which the prime minister’s room was located. The man, who reportedly had mental problems, said he wanted to visit Berlusconi. Police said that they found hockey sticks and kitchen knives in the intruder’s car, but that he was unarmed inside the hospital. He was apparently a Berlusconi supporter, and was expected to be released.

Berlusconi’s spokesman denied the allegations, and called them an attempt by the Mafia to take revenge on Berlusconi for leading an ongoing crackdown on organized crime. Berlusconi Dec. 5 announced the arrest of two alleged top Mafia leaders. He again defended his record of fighting organized crime at the Dec. 14 rally in Milan where he was later attacked by Tartaglia. n

Opposition Accused of Spreading Hate—

Berlusconi and his allies deplored what they called a “climate of hatred” that had spread over Italian politics. Leaders of Berlusconi’s center-right coalition asserted that the prime minister’s leftist opponents, including politicians, judges and journalists, had encouraged dangerous public anger that led to the assault against him. But some opposition leaders said Berlusconi and the right were at fault for rising political tensions. In recent months, Berlusconi had endured a series of personal scandals and legal setbacks. After his wife announced in May that she was seeking a divorce, it was reported that he had consorted with a number of younger women, including prostitutes. In October, a court had overturned his immunity from prosecution while in office, reopening several fraud cases related to the billionaire prime minister’s media empire. Tens of thousands of people Dec. 5 had taken part in an anti-Berlusconi rally in Rome, the Italian capital. Police estimated the crowd at 90,000, while organizers said 350,000 people joined the rally to demand Berlusconi’s resignation. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni Dec. 15 said Tartaglia had carried out a premeditated attack, waiting in the Milan square for hours before Berlusconi’s arrival. Tartaglia had been “developing a rage against the prime minister for some time,” according to Maroni. Maroni said messages on the social networking Web site Facebook that praised Tartaglia for his attack on Berlusconi had drawn thousands of supporters. Maroni said those groups were “inciting criminal activity” and should be prosecuted. Facebook said it had shut down the largest pro-Tartaglia page, which had acquired more than 100,000 members in less than 48 hours. Facebook said it would continue to monitor similar fan pages, warning that it would “remove any content reported to us that makes direct threats against an individual.” Berlusconi Mafia Ties Claimed—A Mafia assassin Dec. 4 testified that a Sicilian Mafia leader had boasted of ties to Berlusconi during a series of bombings in Rome, Milan and Florence in 1993. The hitman, Gaspare Spatuzza, testified in a court in the northwestern city of Turin that he had heard mob boss Giuseppe Graviano claim that he was supported by Berlusconi and one of his political allies, senator Marcello Dell’Utri. Spatuzza, who was cooperating with prosecutors, took the witness stand in Dell’Utri’s appeal of his conviction for Mafia association. [See 2004, p. 994C1; 1998, p. 439F3] December 17, 2009

Romania Incumbent Basescu Wins Presidency. Romania’s constitutional court Dec. 14 announced that a partial recount of votes cast in the previous week’s runoff presidential poll had confirmed the reelection of incumbent President Traian Basescu. The court had ordered the recount Dec. 11, after Basescu’s election rival, Mircea Geoana, filed a motion challenging Basescu’s narrow victory and claiming that the election had been manipulated. Geoana said he accepted the court’s decision, but added that it had ignored “extremely clear evidence.” [See p. 854D3] Basescu, an independent figure aligned with the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL), was inaugurated Dec. 16. He would name a prime minister who would assemble a new government. Romania had been administered by a caretaker government since October, when acting Prime Minister and PDL leader Emil Boc’s minority government lost a confidence vote. n

Other European News Greek Fiscal Plan Fails to Reassure Markets.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou Dec. 14 delivered a nationally televised speech pledging to cut the budget deficit. He made his promises in a bid to calm financial markets after Greece’s government debt was downgraded the previous week by Fitch Ratings. But his speech appeared to fail to persuade the markets, as a second credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Dec. 16 lowered its rating for Greece by one notch, to BBB-plus, the third-lowest investment grade, from Aminus. [See p. 855F3] Papandreou said Greece would cut its deficit from the current level of 12.7% of gross domestic product to less than 3% within four years. The national debt had risen to about 300 billion euros ($440 billion), or 110% of GDP. The eurozone, the 16 European Union member nations that used the euro currency, normally required its members, which included Greece, to hold their deficits below 3% of GDP. But the eurozone had allowed exceptions during the global financial crisis of the past year, as governments increased spending to stimulate their economies. Greece had been hard hit by the downturn, which led to the collapse of a housing construction boom, and hurt the country’s shipping and tourism sectors. Papandreou vowed to cut public spending by 10%, crack down on widespread tax evasion and corruption, and cut the size of

the public workforce by hiring only one new worker for every five who retired. He also called for reforms to the pension system. However, facing the threat of strikes by public-sector workers, he pledged to increase their salaries to keep pace with inflation. Papandreou said, “We must change or sink. Our biggest deficit is the deficit of credibility. Markets want to see actions, not words.” However, financial analysts received Papandreou’s plans skeptically, saying that he had not proposed enough credible measures to overcome doubts stemming from Greece’s long record of fiscal mismanagement. Papandreou and his Socialist government had taken office in October after an election campaign in which he pledged to increase spending. The interest rate on Greek 10-year bonds Dec. 15 rose to a new high of more than 2.5 percentage points above the rate for German bonds, the European benchmark. The euro’s value dropped against the U.S. dollar in currency trading, falling as far as $1.4505, its lowest level in more than two months. S&P’s Dec. 16 downgrade came a week after it issued a credit warning for Greece, triggering a slide in Greek stock and bond markets. The third major rating agency, Moody’s Investors Service, continued to rate Greek debt at A1, three notches higher than S&P and Fitch. Concerns about possible sovereign credit defaults had heightened at the beginning of December, when Dubai’s stateowned investment fund, Dubai World, said it needed to postpone repayment of $60 billion in debt. [See p. 878B1] In Europe, Portugal, Ireland and Spain were also viewed as being at risk for downgrades, prompting speculation that they might need to be rescued by the EU. Austrian Bank Nationalized—Austria also drew attention as a credit risk after its government Dec. 14 nationalized the country’s sixth-largest bank, Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank International AG, a subsidiary of German state-owned bank BayernLB. Hypo had been hit by mounting bad loans in Eastern Europe, raising concerns that other Austrian banks were exposed to similar dangers from their lending in the region. n EU, Microsoft Settle Antitrust Case. The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, Dec. 16 settled its long-running antitrust case against U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. The commission accepted a pledge by Microsoft to offer buyers of its dominant Windows operating system a choice of Internet browsers made by rival companies. [See 2008, p. 332D3] The commission had alleged that Microsoft had violated competition laws by selling Windows with its Internet Explorer browser preinstalled and offering no alternative choices. In the Dec. 16 deal, Microsoft committed to offer a selection of 11 rival browsers in Windows, including the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox, Google Inc.’s Chrome and Apple Inc.’s Safari, for 875

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the next five years. By March 2010, Microsoft would send automatic software updates offering the new choice to Windows users. Microsoft also said it would share more of its software code with those rivals to allow them to adapt their browsers to Windows and other programs. According to a French research firm, AT Internet Institute, Explorer held 62% of the European browser market as of September, trailed by Firefox, with 28.4%, Safari, with 4.3%, and Chrome, with 2.8%. The EU had fined Microsoft a total of 1.7 billion euros ($2.4 billion) to date for failing to comply with its previous rulings in the case, which had also dealt with Microsoft’s bundling of its audio and video Media Player feature into Windows. n HIV ‘Epidemics’ Reported in Ukraine, Russia.

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A Nov. 24 joint report by the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) said Russia and Ukraine were experiencing “especially severe and growing national epidemics” of HIV, the virus that caused AIDS. According to the report, more than 1.6% of Ukraine’s population and more than 1% of Russia’s population were infected with HIV. Ukraine’s rate of infection was the highest reported in Europe. The report cited “sex work” by intravenous drug users as a major source of transmission. [See p. 708F2–A3; 2005, p. 87D2] n

France: Museum Workers End Strike.

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Workers at major French museums and tourist attractions Dec. 9 ended a strike that had lasted several days, shutting down popular sites such as the Louvre Museum and Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the Palace of Versailles. (Parts of the Louvre had reopened Dec. 4.) The strike had spread after beginning Nov. 23 at the Pompidou Center, a modern art museum in Paris, which did not reopen until Dec. 17. Workers were protesting a government plan to reduce the civil service payroll, including staff at state-run cultural institutions, by replacing only one of every two workers who retired. Much of the staff at the Pompidou Center had begun working there when it opened in 1977, and were nearing retirement age. After meeting with union representatives, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand Dec. 2 insisted that the staff reductions would proceed as planned. [See p. 206D3] n Hungary: One Dead in University Shooting.

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Iran Secret Memo Shows Nuclear Bomb Advance.

The Times of London Dec. 13 published on its Web site what it said was a leaked memorandum showing that Iran was testing a neutron initiator, which was used to trigger the explosion of a nuclear warhead. The article said such a trigger was a “key final component of a nuclear bomb.” Iran claimed that its nuclear program was for civilian purposes, but the U.S. and its allies said it aimed to build a nuclear weapon. [See p. 837E1] The authenticity of the memorandum, a two-page, undated document written in Farsi, was reportedly being verified by Western intelligence agencies. The Times said it dated from 2007; U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Iran had stopped work on building a nuclear warhead in 2003. The document said the nuclear trigger used uranium deuteride, which analysts reportedly said had no civilian or military applications other than for building a bomb. Analysts and media sources said that if the memorandum was accurate, it would strengthen the case for increased international sanctions against Iran. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Dec. 15 dismissed the Times report as “baseless” and politically motivated. Iran Offers Uranium Swap in Stages—

European News in Brief

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A 23-year-old student at the Scientific University of Pecs in southern Hungary Nov. 26 opened fire in a classroom there, killing a fellow student and injuring three other people, according to police. The gunman later turned himself in to the authorities. The interior ministry said the gunman had used a nine-millimeter pistol, for which he had a license. A judge Nov. 28 ordered the gunman, whose name was not released, to be held in pretrial detention. [See p. 377G2] n 876

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Dec. 12 said at a regional security conference in Bahrain that Iran was willing to swap some of its uranium for more-highly-enriched material that it said was needed for a medical research reactor. He said such an exchange would take place on the Iranian island of Kish, in the Persian Gulf. However, Western officials said the proposal was unacceptable because it called for the 1,200 kg (2,645 lbs) of nuclear fuel to be swapped in three installments of 400 kg each over a period of several years, allowing Iran to keep enough fuel in the country to build a bomb. [See p. 837E2] The U.S., France, Russia and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in October had offered a deal in which Iran would export the majority of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to Russia and France, where it would be enriched and returned. Iranian diplomats had offered unclear responses to that deal, alternately appearing to reject it and suggesting that the matter was unsettled. Missile Test-Fired—Iranian state media Dec. 16 said the government had successfully test-fired an “optimized” version of the solid-fueled, two-stage Sejil-2 missile. It claimed the missile had a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles), putting Israel, southeastern Europe and U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf within range. A Sejil-2 had first been test-fired in May; however, the Iranian government claimed that the new version was faster to launch and harder to shoot down, and that it would act as a “strong deterrent” against foreign attacks on its nuclear facilities. [See p. 650B3]

Western governments condemned the test launch as a provocative move. However, U.S. Defense Department Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said the missile’s technology was not “particularly different than anything we’ve seen in the past.” Iran had often staged military exercises and claimed weapons advances during times of increased international tensions. U.S. House Votes to Extend Sanctions—

The U.S. House Dec. 15 voted, 412–12, to pass legislation that would allow U.S. President Barack Obama to expand sanctions against Iran. The bill called for sanctioning any foreign company that provided refined petroleum products to Iran. (Sanctions already applied to companies that invested more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector.) Iran was a major crude oil producer, but its refining capability was limited and it imported 40% of its refined fuel. [See p. 711C2] U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Dec. 11 during a visit to Iraq said he expected the international community to levy “significant additional sanctions” against Iran in the near future. He said all options were on the table to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but reiterated his view that “military action would only buy some time, maybe two or three years.” A Dec. 15 meeting between diplomats from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on Iran’s nuclear program was reportedly canceled over Chinese scheduling problems. Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, Dec. 16 agreed to a settlement with U.S. authorities over charges that it had broken sanctions by secretly doing business with Iran and other countries between 2002 and April 2007. It would pay $536 million to settle the case. [See p. 863B1] A sanctions committee of the U.N. Security Council Dec. 10 expressed “grave concern” over reports in the past three months of Iranian arms exports, which violated a 2007 U.N.-imposed embargo. They included the October seizure of the Hansa India cargo ship by Malta, and the Israeli interception of the Francop the following month; both vessels had been bound for Syria and carrying weapons. [See p. 878E1] Iran Will Try U.S. Hikers—Mottaki Dec. 14 said Iran would try three U.S. hikers who had been arrested in July after crossing into Iran from Iraq. Mottaki said the hikers— Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd—had “entered illegally with suspicious objectives,” and Iranian officials had previously accused them of being spies. However, Mottaki did not say what charges they would face, or when the trial would occur. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated the U.S.’s stance that the accusations were “unfounded,” and called on Iran to release the hikers. [See p. 857D3] Iranian officials reportedly had recently called on the U.S. to release 11 Iranians whom Iran said it was holding prisoner, and it was expected that the hikers might be used as bargaining chips. The Iranians included Amir Ardebili, who had been arrested in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in a 2007 sting operation, was extradited to the U.S. FACTS ON FILE

and pleaded guilty to arms trafficking in May 2008, according to court documents released Dec. 2. He was sentenced Dec. 14 in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., to five years in prison. [See p. 688D1] n

Iraq Oil Development Rights Auctioned. Iraq’s oil ministry Dec. 11–12 held its second round of auctions for the rights to develop 10 oil fields. Seven of the contracts attracted winning bids from international energy companies, including those for the massive Majnoon and West Qurna-2 fields. (The previous auction, in June, had produced just one successful bid, although several deals had been concluded since then.) The auction was held in Baghdad, the capital, under heavy security conditions, after a series of bombings targeted at government buildings in the city earlier in the week killed at least 121 people. [See pp. 856G1, 789D3, 437E2] The companies were bidding on 20-year technical services contracts, under which they would be paid a per-barrel bonus for boosting production, rather than a deal including a more lucrative ownership stake, as was common elsewhere. All of the major international oil companies attended the auction, but the expected low profit margins, combined with infrastructural and security problems, reportedly dissuaded some companies from bidding. Russia’s OAO Lukoil and Norway’s state-owned Statoil ASA Dec. 12 submitted a successful bid for West Qurna-2, located in southern Iraq near Basra. The field reportedly had reserves of 13 billion barrels. Lukoil and Statoil accepted a fee of $1.15 per barrel, and promised to raise production there to 1.8 million barrels per day. The previous day, the British-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Malaysia’s stateowned Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) won the contract for the Majnoon field, also in southern Iraq. Shell and Petronas accepted $1.39 per barrel and said they would boost production at Majnoon, which had reserves of 12.6 billion barrels, to 1.8 million barrels per day, from the current daily output of 46,000 barrels. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani Dec. 12 said the new contracts could bring Iraq’s oil production to 12 million barrels per day in six years, from its current capacity of 2.5 million barrels. If it achieved that production, it would pass Russia to become the second-largest oil producer in the world; Saudi Arabia, the highest producer, currently had a capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day, but had said it could increase production to 15 million barrels. The new production could also boost Iraq’s standing in proven oil reserves. Iraq’s proven reserves were currently 115 billion barrels, behind Iran’s 137 billion barrels and Saudi Arabia’s 264 billion barrels. However, the Iraqi figure was based on data from the 1970s, and new exploration and technology could increase it. Iraq had nationalized its oil industry in 1972, barring outside investment. U.S. oil companies had been partners in relatively few of the winning bids in the December 17, 2009

Iraqi oil auctions, despite a popular view that the U.S. had led an invasion of Iraq in 2003 in order to gain access to its oil. U.S.based Exxon Mobil Corp. led a consortium that successfully bid for the rights to develop the West Qurna-1 field in November, while another U.S. company, Occidental Petroleum Corp., was a junior partner in another winning consortium. Bombs Near Government Buildings Kill 4—

Three car bombs Dec. 15 went off within minutes of each other near government buildings in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, killing at least four people. The bombs exploded in parking lots near the foreign and immigration ministries and the Iranian embassy. Police arrested the parking lot owners for failing to inspect the cars and demand proper papers from their drivers. Security forces reportedly found and disarmed a fourth bomb before it exploded. The same day, three bombs went off near churches in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, killing four people. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 17 reported that Shiite Muslim militants had been using inexpensive commercially available software to intercept live reconnaissance video feeds from U.S. Predator drone aircraft flying over Iraq. U.S. troops reportedly had first found evidence of the intercepts in late 2008, and evidence showed that the technique had spread among militant groups since then; some militants in Afghanistan had also reportedly intercepted the signals. Hackers reportedly could not affect the drones’ flight, but could see what U.S. forces were watching, denying them the element of surprise. U.S. military officials said they were working on improving the encryption of the drones’ signals. n

Jordan King Abdullah Taps New Prime Minister.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II Dec. 9 appointed Samir al-Rifai as the country’s new prime minister, replacing Nader al-Dahabi, who had resigned earlier that day. Abdullah Dec. 14 approved Rifai’s cabinet, reportedly the first in Jordan’s history that had been chosen by the prime minister rather than the king. Jordan’s constitution allowed the king to pass laws, appoint new governments and dissolve parliament. [See 2007, p. 813D3] Rifai, 43, had been a royal adviser and businessman. His father, former Prime Minister Zaid al-Rifai, led the Jordanian parliament’s upper house, whose members were appointed by the king. Abdullah Nov. 23 had abruptly dissolved parliament and called early elections, after legislators failed to pass free-market tax reforms and an election law that would have decreased the influence of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. He said the new government would push to enact those laws. n

Lebanon Parliament Approves Unity Government.

The Lebanese parliament Dec. 10 voted to endorse a unity government led by Prime

Minister Saad Hariri. Of the 128-member parliament, 122 members voted for the government, one voted against and one abstained, while four members were absent. [See p. 790C1] Under a power-sharing deal announced in November, Hariri’s pro-Western March 14 Movement, which had narrowly won June elections, received 15 seats in the 30seat cabinet. An opposition coalition led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah received 10 seats, while five were appointed by President Michel Suleiman. Media reports said one of Suleiman’s appointees was actually chosen by Hezbollah, giving the group an effective veto over cabinet decisions. The unity government would allow Hezbollah to keep its own armed forces, despite a United Nations resolution that called for it to disarm and strong criticism from some legislators in the three-day debate leading up to the vote. n Financier Charged in Massive Fraud. Lebanese prosecutors Sept. 12 accused financier and businessman Salah Ezzedine of perpetrating what was said to be the biggest case of fraud in Lebanon’s history, and charged him with embezzlement, passing bad checks and violating fiscal laws. Lebanese newspapers said investors’ losses were at least in the hundreds of millions of dollars and might top one billion dollars. They labeled Ezzedine the “Lebanese Bernard Madoff,” referring to the disgraced U.S. financier. [See pp. 877A3, 800A1] Ezzedine reportedly had been arrested in early September after declaring bankruptcy and turning himself in. An associate of his, Yousef Faour, had also been arrested and charged with the same offenses, while five other men were charged in absentia. Ezzedine reportedly had close ties with the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, and the scandal was seen as a blow to Hezbollah’s domestic reputation for probity. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in a speech said the ties between Ezzedine and his group had been concocted to discredit Hezbollah, and said only a few officials had made investments with him, and that their losses had not exceeded four million dollars. However, other estimates put that total much higher, and analysts said one of the reasons Lebanon’s Shiite community had invested so heavily with Ezzedine was that he seemed to be backed by Hezbollah. n News in Brief. The British government Nov. 23 said a body found the previous week in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon was that of Alec Collett, a British journalist who was kidnapped in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, in 1985, during the country’s civil war. Collett had been reported killed the following year by the Palestinian militant Abu Nidal organization as retaliation for U.S. air strikes on Libya. [See 2002, p. 999B3; 1991, p. 906E1] Lebanon’s military prosecutor June 5 charged 10 Lebanese with spying for Israel. A judicial official said that brought the total number of people charged with belonging to an Israeli spy ring to 55, of 877

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whom 34 were in custody. The suspects, who were mostly from southern Lebanon, included several senior military officers and the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a town in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon was officially at war with Israel, and espionage charges could carry the death penalty. The Lebanese government said two suspects, together with one of the suspects’ families, May 18 had escaped into Israel, and another suspect had crossed into Israel May 5. [See p. 312F2] n

United Arab Emirates Abu Dhabi Bails Out Dubai Company. Abu

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Dhabi Dec. 14 extended a $10 billion bailout to save Nakheel, a state-owned real estate company in the neighboring emirate of Dubai, from defaulting on a $4.1 billion bond that matured that day. Abu Dhabi and Dubai were two of the seven city-states that made up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Of the $10 billion, $4.1 billion was to be used by Nakheel, the real estate unit of the Dubai World conglomerate, to pay back holders of the sukuk, or Islamic bond. The rest of the money would go towards paying creditors while Dubai World negotiated a restructuring of its debt. [See p. 828C3] Dubai Dec. 14 said it would overhaul its bankruptcy procedures, which would be used if Dubai World could not reach a deal with creditors. Dubai World in November had roiled stock markets worldwide when it asked its creditors for a six-month “standstill” to repay an estimated $60 billion in debt. However, the latest move by Abu Dhabi boosted markets, and analysts said it was an indication that state-owned companies were implicitly guaranteed by the governments of Dubai and the UAE. The state-owned Emirates Business newspaper Dec. 17 reported that the bailout had come in the form of interest-bearing bonds, rather than a handout as many had assumed. n

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Israel Seizes Alleged Hezbollah Arms. Israeli navy commandos early Nov. 4 seized a container ship carrying what Israel said were weapons being transported to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah from Iran. The ship—the German-owned, Antigua-flagged Francop— was stopped 100 miles (160 km) off of the Israeli coast, near Cyprus, on what Israel said was a routine antismuggling operation, and towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Israeli officials said the ship’s crew had been unaware of the weapons, which were hidden in containers under civilian goods, and that the ship would be released after its cargo was inspected. [See pp. 877B3, 876D3, 615C1] Israel found an estimated 600 tons (545 metric tons) of weaponry packed into 36 containers, including 3,000 Katyusha rockets, mortars, hand grenades and ammunition for Kalashnikov assault rifles. Israeli officials said the weapons would have been used in terrorist attacks against Israel. The 878

shipment had reportedly left the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas 10 days prior, was transferred to the Francop at the Egyptian port of Damietta, and was scheduled to dock at Latakia, in Syria; Israeli officials said the weapons would have been transported by land to Hezbollah from there. Along with Iran, Syria was a major backer of Hezbollah. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid alMoualem and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the Israeli story and said a ship carrying Iranian consumer goods bound for Syria had been boarded by “pirates.” Hezbollah also denied any connection to the contraband. However, Israeli military Nov. 11 released documents that it said proved that Iran was supplying Hezbollah with the weapons, including a manifest stating that the ship originated in Isfahan, Iran, and a customs form stamped by the Iranian military. The operation was reportedly the largest arms seizure ever carried out by Israel, although analysts said it would not significantly hamper Hezbollah’s operations. A Palestinian arms ship seized by Israel in January 2002, the Karine A, had been carrying about 50 tons of weapons. [See 2002, p. 3C1] Separately, indictments made public Nov. 24 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Pa., charged four men with conspiring to smuggle 1,200 machine guns through Syria to Hezbollah from the U.S. The accused included Hassan Hodroj, reportedly a member of Hezbollah’s political council, and his son-in-law, Dib Hani Harb, both of Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Harb and the two other men, Moussa Ali Hamdan of the New York City borough of Brooklyn and Hasan Antar Karaki of Beirut, were also charged with funneling Hezbollah counterfeit money and funds generated by selling stolen passports. All four men were reportedly overseas. The indictment also charged six other men with operating a smuggling ring trafficking in stolen goods. [See p. 815E3] n

SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan High Court Rules Amnesty Unconstitutional.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court Dec. 16 ruled that an amnesty protecting President Asif Ali Zardari and thousands of other politicians from prosecution on corruption charges was unconstitutional. The decision led opposition parties to call for Zardari’s resignation, and opened the door to charges against some of the country’s top cabinet officials, including Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. [See p. 839A1] The amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, had been granted in October 2007 by Zardari’s predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, allowing Zardari and his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan from selfimposed exile. Bhutto was assassinated in

December 2007, and Zardari went on to become the head of her party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Zardari became president in 2008, after the PPP won a plurality in parliamentary elections and Musharraf resigned. [See 2008, p. 565A1] Zardari had long maintained that the charges against him were politically motivated, and pointed to the fact that he had been imprisoned for a total of 11 years under previous administrations without having ever been convicted of any crime. However, suspicions of Zardari were so widespread that he was commonly referred to as “Mr. 10 Percent,” a reference to the kickbacks he allegedly received in exchange for awarding companies contracts to operate in Pakistan. A representative from the National Accountability Bureau, the government’s anticorruption agency, Dec. 15 told the Supreme Court that Zardari held $1.5 billion in illicit assets, and that he had earned $60 million in bribes during his tenure as a minister in Bhutto’s government in the 1990s. A spokesman for Zardari Dec. 16 rejected calls for his resignation, and noted that, as president, he was immune from prosecution. However, it was reported that opposition politicians were considering challenging Zardari’s eligibility to be president. As many as 6,000 other politicians did not enjoy immunity, and analysts said many of them could soon become embroiled in legal battles. The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, also requested that Swiss prosecutors revive a corruption investigation into Zardari. A Swiss magistrate in 2003 had convicted Zardari on money-laundering charges, but the conviction was later suspended. [See 2008, p. 596C3; 2003, p. 661D2] The court’s decision further weakened Zardari, who was widely perceived as being ineffective and too close to the U.S. Zardari in November had relinquished his control of the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal, in what was seen as a bid to appease his critics. A vulnerable civilian government could complicate the U.S.’s goals in the region. The U.S. earlier in the month had said it would send an additional 30,000 troops to neighboring Afghanistan, and had been pushing Zardari’s government to intensify its crackdown on Islamic extremist militants who used Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas near the Afghan border as a safe haven. [See p. 825A1] n Court Bars Deportation of U.S. Suspects.

The High Court in Lahore, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Dec. 14 barred the deportation of five U.S. citizens who had been detained the previous week on suspicions that they were in Pakistan to join a terrorist group. The court said it would need to review the case before the men could be deported. A civil judge in the Punjabi city of Sargodha, where the Americans were arrested, the following day formally approved their arrests, and authorized Pakistani officials to question them for 10 more days. [See p. 857F3] FACTS ON FILE

The suspects were all Muslim men between the ages of 18 and 24 who usually lived in the U.S. state of Virginia. They were identified as Waqar Khan, Ramy Zamzam, Umer Farooq, Ahmed Minni and Aman Yemer. Pakistani officials said it was possible that the men had been seeking weapons training so that they could fight U.S. troops operating in neighboring Afghanistan. So far, no charges had been brought against them. Pakistani authorities Dec. 12 had said they were searching for an Islamic militant identified as Saifullah, who had allegedly come into contact with the five suspects through the video-sharing Web site YouTube. It was also reported that the suspects and Saifullah communicated through a shared e-mail account. Pakistani officials said the suspects had met with extremist groups Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jamaat-ud-Dawa in order to enroll in militant training camps. Officials said they were turned away, possibly because they did not speak Urdu; did not have anyone to vouch for them; or were suspected of being undercover agents for the U.S. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Tiger Woods Sets ‘Indefinite Break’ From Golf Announces Hiatus Amid Scandal. Tiger

Woods of the U.S., the world’s top-ranked golfer, Dec. 11 announced on his Web site that he would take an “indefinite break from professional golf” to “focus my attention on being a better husband, father and person.” Woods in the announcement admitted “infidelity.” Neither Woods nor his wife, Elin Nordegren Woods, had appeared in public since a November late-night accident in which Woods had crashed his vehicle into a fire hydrant and a tree at their Florida home. Following the accident, several media reports had surfaced alleging that Woods had for years engaged in extramarital affairs with numerous women. Nordegren Dec. 1 had reportedly purchased an island home in her native Sweden. [See p. 839G1] Following his announcement, the golf world was abuzz with speculation over whether the hiatus might hinder Woods in his stated goal of surpassing Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championship titles. Woods currently held 14, and had not won a major tournament since his June 2008 victory in the U.S. Open. A number of prominent golfers also expressed concern that television ratings and championship winnings would decrease in Woods’s absence, whose rise to stardom had massively broadened the popularity of the sport. Since Woods had turned professional in 1996, the average purse for major golf tournaments had quadrupled. Television ratings for golf tournaments in the second half of 2008, when Woods had been recuperating from knee surgery, were about half of what they had been for the tournaments when Woods had competed in them. December 17, 2009

Endorsement Deals Reexamined— After Woods’s Dec. 11 announcement, several companies with which he held endorsement and other business contracts distanced themselves from him. Accenture PLC, a consulting company that since 2003 had featured Woods in many of its advertisements, Dec. 13 ended its relationship with the golfer, saying he was “no longer the right representative” for its advertising. Gillette Co., which was owned by household products manufacturer Procter & Gamble Co., Dec. 12 said it would limit advertisements that featured Woods. Telecommunications company AT&T Dec. 11 said it was “evaluating” its relationship with Woods. Woods had last appeared in a prime-time television commercial Nov. 29. Sportswear maker Nike Inc. Dec. 14 again indicated that it would maintain its relationship with Woods. Dubai Properties Group Dec. 17 announced that plans for a golf-themed resort called Tiger Woods Dubai, which would feature an 18-hole course designed by Woods, would go forward. Named AP ‘Athlete of the Decade’—The Associated Press (AP) Dec. 16 named Woods its “Athlete of the Decade.” The title was decided by a poll of 142 affiliated sportswriters, carried out both before and after Woods’s November accident. Woods won with 56 votes. U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong came in second with 33 votes, followed by Swiss tennis player Roger Federer, who received 25 votes. Woods did not comment on the award. [See 1980, p. 320G3] n

College Football Alabama’s Ingram Wins Heisman Trophy.

University of Alabama Crimson Tide tailback Mark Ingram Dec. 12 won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top college football player at a ceremony in New York City. Ingram, a sophomore, became the first Alabama player to win the prestigious award in its 75-year history. [See 2008, p. 929E2] Ingram, in his first year as a starter, in the 2009 season rushed for 1,542 yards— including eight games of rushing for 100 or more yards—and 15 touchdowns, and broke the Crimson Tide’s single-season rushing record. In the Dec. 5 Southeastern Conference (SEC) title game against the University of Florida, he led Alabama to a 32–13 victory with 113 rushing yards, 76 receiving yards and three touchdowns. That win earned Alabama the top spot in the final Bowl Championship Series (BCS) rankings and a berth in the national championship game against the University of Texas in January 2010. [See below] In the closest Heisman vote in history, Ingram received 227 first-place votes and 1,304 total points, while Stanford University senior running back Toby Gerhart garnered 222 first-place votes and 1,276 points. (Previously, the closest vote had been in 1985, when Bo Jackson of Auburn beat out Chuck Long of Iowa by 45 points.) Texas quarterback Colt McCoy—who had placed second in 2008—was third, with

203 first-place votes and 1,145 points. University of Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh was fourth, with 161 firstplace votes and 815 points, and the 2007 winner, Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, was fifth, with 43 first-place votes and 390 points. Voting was conducted by the media and former Heisman winners. [See 1985, p. 935B3]

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Alabama, Texas to Play for National Title—

The Crimson Tide Dec. 6 topped the final BCS poll of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1-A (also known as Football Bowl Subdivision [FBS]) teams, with the Texas Longhorns finishing second. The two teams would meet Jan. 7 in the BCS Championship Game in Pasadena, Calif., to determine the national champion. Alabama, which finished the season with a record of 13 wins and no losses, had knocked Florida (12–1) out of the top spot with its win in the SEC title game. The Crimson Tide, coached by Nick Saban, would make its first appearance in the BCS title game. Texas (13–0) had last won the national title in 2006. [See p. 579E3; 2006, p. 4G1] As in previous seasons, the final BCS rankings prompted some controversy, because three other teams had finished the season undefeated but would not play for the national championship: the University of Cincinnati (12–0), Texas Christian University (12–0) and Boise State University (12–0). Cincinnati, the Big East Conference champion, would play Florida in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2010. Texas Christian and Boise State, winners of the Mountain West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference, respectively—neither of which qualified for automatic BCS bowl berths—would meet in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 4, 2010. Other News—In other college football news: o Bobby Bowden, the head coach of Florida State University, Dec. 2 announced that he would retire after 34 years with the team. Bowden, 80, had led Florida State to two national championships, in 1993 and 1999. He currently had 388 career wins, second only to Joe Paterno of Penn State among major-college coaches. His last game would be the Jan. 1, 2010, Gator Bowl. Bowden would be succeeded in the 2010 season by assistant Jimbo Fisher. [See 2003, p. 1099B1] o The University of Notre Dame Nov. 30 fired head coach Charlie Weis with six years remaining on his contract. Weis, who had joined Notre Dame in a high-profile move from the National Football League’s New England Patriots in late 2004, had led the team to a 35–27 record in five seasons, including, in 2008, its first bowl victory since 1994. However, the team had posted a 6–6 record in 2009, and would not play in a bowl game. Notre Dame Dec. 11 introduced Brian Kelly as its new head coach. Kelly left the job of head coach at Cincinnati to sign a five-year contract with Notre Dame, and would not coach his former team in the Sugar Bowl. [See 2008, p. 993C1] n 879

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Awards Seeger Gets Lifetime Achievement Prize.

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Folk singer, songwriter, and political and environmental activist Pete Seeger, 90, Sept. 3 in New York City was presented with the 2009 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, worth $200,000. The prize honored creative artists whose work was perceived as having enriched “mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” [See pp. 792E3, 632F3; 2008, p. 876E2] The award was presented to Seeger at a special outdoor tribute staged at an amphitheater in a revitalized waterfront park in New York’s Bronx borough. The Seeger tribute was mounted with the participation of Rocking the Boat, a nonprofit organization designed to teach underprivileged children traditional boat-building skills. Seeger had been involved with the program since it began in the mid-1990s. n

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The editors of Time magazine Dec. 16 revealed that they had selected U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as the magazine’s person of the year. The revelation came two days before the magazine’s year-end issue, dated Dec. 28, hit newsstands. Bernanke, 56, had become chairman of the Fed, the U.S.’s central bank, in February 2006, and had been nominated for a second term in August; the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Dec. 17 endorsed him for a second term, clearing the way for a confirmation vote by the full Senate. In choosing Bernanke, Time credited him with having taken bold and unprecedented steps to keep both the U.S. and the global economy from sinking into a full-scale depression. [See p. 865E3; 2008, p. 944B2] ABC News host George Stephanopoulos Dec. 14 began anchoring the network’s “Good Morning America” television show. ABC had officially announced his appointment to the post on Dec. 10. Stephanopoulos, 48, began his new job a week before its previous holder, Diane Sawyer, was to begin anchoring the network’s evening news program “World News.” Stephanopoulos had hosted ABC’s Sunday morning public affairs program “This Week” since 2002, and would continue to do so until a successor was named. [See p. 612A3; 2002, p. 468B3] n

O B I T UA R I E S

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GAIDAR, Yegor Timurovich, 53, Russian economist who was a leading architect of his country’s transition to a market economy after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union; he briefly served as Russia’s acting prime minister in 1992, and was its economics minister from late 1991 to early 1992, and from late 1993 to early 1994; from 1999 to 2003, he served as a deputy in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma; he also did private economic research and wrote a number of books; in late 2006, he became acutely ill, prompting speculation that he had been poisoned; born March 19, 1956, in Moscow; died Dec. 16 at his country home in Odintsovo, near Moscow, reportedly of a blood clot. [See 2007, p. 256F2; 2006, pp. 938C1, 916D2–E2; Indexes 1991–99]

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HAWKINS, Paula (born Paula Fickes), 82, Florida Republican who served one term (1981–87) in the U.S. Senate; a political conservative who did not consider herself a feminist, she was the first woman to win a Senate seat without benefit of a relationship to a prominent male politician; she lost her 1986 bid for reelection to then–Florida Gov. Bob Graham (D); born Jan. 24, 1927, in Salt Lake City, Utah; died Dec. 4 at a hospital in Orlando, Fla., after a stroke and a fall. [See 1986, p. 832A1; Indexes 1983–86, 1980] HENRICH, Tommy (Thomas David), 96, outfielder with Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees from 1937 to 1950, aside from a three-year break for World War II military service; mostly a right fielder for the Yankees, he came to be known as Old Reliable for his fundamental soundness as a player and his clutch hitting; leading off the bottom of the ninth inning in the first game of the 1949 World Series, in which the Yankees faced the Brooklyn Dodgers, he hit the first walk-off home run in World Series history, giving the Yankees a 1–0 victory; born Feb. 20, 1913, in Massillon, Ohio; died Dec. 1 in Dayton, Ohio; at his death, he had been the oldest ex-Yankee. [See 1990, p. 392E3; 1956, p. 372C2; Indexes 1949–51, 1947] LACEDELLI, Lino, 83, member of an Italian expedition that conquered K2, the world’s second-highest peak, in 1954; he and Achille Compagnoni, who died in May, were the two members of that expedition to reach K2’s summit; born Dec. 4, 1925, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy; died there Nov. 20, in the house in which he had lived all his life, following heart surgery. [See p. 364C3; 1954, p. 344C3] LANDON, H(oward) C(handler) Robbins, 83, musicologist whose efforts led to the restoration of much of the music of Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) to the active repertory; the pinnacle of his Haydn scholarship was his five-volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works (1976–80); he also wrote five books about one of Haydn’s contemporaries, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and made dozens of music-related television films for the British Broadcasting Corp.; born March 6, 1926, in Boston, Mass.; died Nov. 20 in Rabastens, France. [See 1993, pp. 1007E3, 944A2; 1957, p. 102B1] MOORHOUSE, Geoffrey (born Geoffrey Heald),

77, British journalist, travel writer and popular historian; he was chief features writer for the British newspaper the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian) from 1963 to 1970, when he quit to write books full-time; his books covered a wide variety of subjects, ranging from India to New York City to England during the Tudor period; born Nov. 29, 1931, in Bolton, England; died Nov. 26, of a stroke. [See 1972, p. 220D1] MORRIS, Jeremy Noah, 99, British physician who in the early 1950s was the first medical researcher to present convincing evidence that one of the benefits of physical exercise was its protection against heart attacks; he did so by comparing men with similar backgrounds but different levels of on-the-job physical activity; he found, for example, that drivers of doubledecker buses in London were far more likely to have heart attacks than conductors on those buses, who had to climb hundreds of steps a day; born May 6, 1910, in Liverpool, England; died Oct. 28 in London, of pneumonia and kidney failure. PENNER, Mike (Michael), 52, veteran sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times who in 2007 revealed that he was a transsexual; thereafter, he briefly wrote under the byline Christine Daniels, before returning to his original byline in 2008; born Oct. 10, 1957, in Inglewood, Calif.; pronounced dead Nov. 27 at a hospital in Culver City, Calif.; his death was being treated as a suicide. [See 2007, p. 340A3] POLLIN, Abe (Abraham), 85, Washington, D.C.– based real estate developer who brought professional hockey and basketball to the nation’s capital; he owned the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals until 1999, was majority owner of the National Basketball Association’s Washington Wizards and owned the Washington Mystics of the Women’s National Basketball Association until 2005; he spent more than $200 million to build a sports and entertainment complex that revitalized downtown Washington; the facility, now known as the Verizon Center, opened in 1997; he was also a leading philanthropist, who donated millions of dollars to medical research and a wide range of charities; born Dec. 3, 1923, in Philadelphia, Pa.; died Nov. 24, at an undisclosed location, of corticobasal degeneration, a rare neurological disorder. [See 2005, p. 512D1; 2003, p. 611A2, C2; Indexes 1999–2000, 1997, 1991, 1972] ROBERTS, (Granville) Oral, 91, pioneering television evangelist whose “prosperity gospel,” a theology linking Christianity to the attainment of wealth, attracted millions of followers, who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to his ministry, which emphasized

faith healing and other Pentecostal practices; he began his TV career in 1954, and in the late 1960s expanded religious television’s scope by featuring big-name entertainers on his broadcasts; in the early 1960s, he founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.; accredited in 1971, it grew into the largest Pentecostal Christian university in the world; however, the construction of a large medical center affiliated with the university became financially draining, and in January 1987 he issued a televised appeal for emergency funds, telling his followers that God would “call [him] home” if his fund-raising goal was not met; this led to his being widely ridiculed, at a time when his popularity had significantly declined, yet he was quickly able to raise the $8 million he claimed was necessary for his life to be spared; the medical center, however, ended up closing in 1989; in 1993, he stepped down as president of Oral Roberts University, and was succeeded by his son, Richard Roberts; the latter was ousted from the post in 2007, after being named in a lawsuit filed by former faculty members who claimed to have been wrongfully terminated after calling attention to improper use of university funds; born Jan. 24, 1918, in Bebee, Okla.; died Dec. 15 at a hospital in Newport Beach, Calif., of pneumonia complications. [See 2008, pp. 904E3–905A1; 1993, p. 132A2; Indexes 1991, 1989, 1986–87, 1982–83, 1980, 1978] SAMAK Sundaravej, 74, prime minister of Thailand for less than eight months in 2008; he was forced to resign after a Thai court ruled that his acceptance of payments for appearing on a television cooking show hosted by him constituted a conflict of interest; during his four decades in politics, he was closely associated with various authoritarian regimes; he vigorously campaigned against student pro-democracy activists in the 1970s, and was thought to have been instrumental in a violent 1976 crackdown against them; as prime minister he was effectively a proxy for his exiled predecessor, Thaksin Shinawatra; born June 13, 1935, in Bangkok, Thailand; died there Nov. 24, of liver cancer. [See 2008, p. 886A2; Indexes 2008, 1976] SAMUELSON, Paul Anthony, 94, Nobel Prize– winning economist viewed as the main shaper of the modern mathematical approach to economics; he won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1970, the second year it was awarded, becoming the first of many U.S. economists to win it; as the leading liberal academic economist of his day—and a firm believer in the government-interventionist views of British economist John Maynard Keynes—he often matched wits with leading free-market economist Milton Friedman, the 1976 Nobel laureate in economics; a lifelong Democrat, he was particularly influential as an adviser to Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, but also counseled Republican presidents, including Gerald Ford, during whose presidency, in 1974, he coined the term “stagflation” to describe “a period of rising unemployment and high inflation”; he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for many years and was credited with turning MIT into one of the world’s great economic research centers, similar to what Friedman did at the University of Chicago; he was also the author of one of the alltime best-selling textbooks, Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which first appeared in 1948, and was a columnist for Newsweek magazine from 1966 to 1981; born May 15, 1915, in Gary, Ind.; died Dec. 13 at his home in Belmont, Mass.; no cause of death was reported. [See 2006, p. 904D3; 1973, pp. 536A1, 322F2; Indexes 1968–72, 1966, 1961–62] n AP Photo/Daniel Lippitt

ARTS & SCIENCES

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Economist Paul Samuelson in 1998.

December 17, 2009

U.S. and Four Nations Agree to ‘Political Statement’ At Copenhagen Climate Talks Pact Falls Short of Conference’s Goals Aid Fund Set; No Firm Emissions Pledges.

U.S. President Barack Obama late Dec. 18 announced that five major countries—the U.S., China, Brazil, South Africa and India—had reached a “meaningful agreement” on climate change policy at United Nations–backed talks held in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, that were intended to draft an international treaty aimed at curbing greenhouse gases. The talks, attended by representatives from 193 countries, had begun Dec. 7 and had been scheduled to end Dec. 18, but stretched into the afternoon of Dec. 19. [See p. 841A1] Despite Obama’s announcement, the conference fell short of its goal of crafting a binding treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called for countries to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases, and was set to expire in 2012. The new agreement, known as the Copenhagen Accord, was described as a “political statement,” intended to be used as a preliminary framework for a legally binding treaty. The agreement failed to set a 2010 deadline for the creation of a treaty to codify its provisions, another goal of the talks. Monitoring, Temperature Goals Set—The Copenhagen Accord did not contain specific targets for countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, instead establishing a system by which countries would monitor and report their own progress on reaching their individual emissions reduction goals. The final document dropped a target of reducing emissions by 50% by 2050, a goal that had been in draft versions of the accord circulated earlier. However, the pact did set a goal of limiting a rise in the average global temperature to two degrees Celsius

(3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2050. The accord also established an aid fund for developing countries most affected by climate change, to be paid for by richer, industrialized countries at a rate of $10 billion annually between 2010 and 2012. The agreement set a goal of raising $100 billion for the fund annually by 2020, but did not specify how that target would be met. The agreement was described as an “unprecedented breakthrough” by Obama, but was criticized by environmentalists and representatives of several poorer countries as failing to adequately address the threat of climate change resulting from manmade greenhouse gas emissions. The talks had been hindered by continuing divisions between richer, industrialized countries and poorer nations expected to disproportionately suffer from the ill effects of climate change. The U.S. and China, specifically, had been reluctant to commit to binding emissions reductions for fear that doing so would hinder economic growth, and make their businesses and industries less competitive with foreign rivals. Developing Nations Object—The agreement was denounced by Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N., who represented the Group of 77 (G77) bloc of developing nations in the negotiations. “The developed countries have decided that damage to developing countries is acceptable,” Di-Aping said. He added that adhering to the emissions reduction goals in the agreement would still “result in massive devastation to Africa and small island states,” and described the pact as “the worst development in climate change negotiations in history.”

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3601 December 22, 2009

B The price of carbon emissions permits traded in European carbon markets Dec. 21 fell more than 8% in reaction to the Copenhagen Accord. The price of permits had fallen 14% since the beginning of the talks. The decline was thought to reflect a sense among businesses and traders that little progress had been made toward a reduction in emissions, which would have been expected to lead to greater demand for permits. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Dec. 21 said the talks had been “held to ransom by only a handful of countries,” describing them as “at best flawed and at worst chaotic.” He added, “Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down these talks.” His assessment was echoed by environment ministers from several other countries, including Sweden and South Africa.

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE U.S. and four other nations set ‘political statement’ at Copenhagen climate talks; pact falls short of conference’s goals. PAGE 881

Iranian dissident cleric Montazeri dies; funeral becomes antigovernment rally. PAGE 883

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British judge issues warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Livni. PAGE 884

Alabama Rep. Griffith switches parties to GOP. PAGE 885

Exxon Mobil acquires natural gas company XTO for $31 billion. PAGE 886

GM to repay federal loans in mid-2010. PAGE 887

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Suicide bomb kills Somali government ministers. PAGE 889

Khmer Rouge genocide charges filed in Cambodian court. PAGE 889

Turkish court bans Kurdish party. PAGE 893

Afghan President Karzai submits cabinet picks to parliament. PAGE 893

Pacquiao wins seventh boxing title. PAGE 895

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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KEY EVENTS IN CLIMATE SCIENCE AND POLICY, 1988–2009

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Following are key dates in international efforts to curb the emissions of man-made gases widely thought to contribute to global climate change [See p. 881A1]: Nov. 10–12, 1988—The United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in talks with 35 countries held in Geneva, Switzerland. The IPCC is tasked with appraising data on global climate trends, and formulating policies intended to deal with the potential consequences of global climate change. May 25, 1990—The IPCC issues its first report, concluding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by more than 60% in order to prevent a sharp rise in global temperatures over the next 100 years. [See 1990, p. 397D2] June 3–14, 1992—Representatives from 172 countries gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for an “Earth Summit” addressing issues including biodiversity and climate change. The talks yield the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under which deadlines and targets for industrialized nations to cut their emissions are established. [See 1992, p. 440A1] Dec. 11, 1997—Delegates from more than 150 countries meeting in Kyoto, Japan, agree to establish a framework for an

accord, known as the Kyoto Protocol, that sets legally binding emissions reduction targets. During the next several years, all industrialized countries except the U.S. ratify the treaty. [See 1997, p. 897A1] Feb. 19, 2001—The IPCC releases a report concluding that a rise of 2.7–10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years might destroy coral reefs, result in coastal flooding, threaten water supplies and push some animal species close to extinction. The group also concludes with “high confidence” that glaciers, sea ice and wildlife, among other elements, had been affected by a recent rise in global temperatures. [See 2001, p. 187C1] July 23, 2001—A group of 178 countries gathered in Bonn, Germany, reach a compromise on the details of the Kyoto Protocol, under which 38 industrialized countries agree to reduce their annual greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2% below 1992 levels by 2012. However, the U.S. declines to join the treaty, with U.S. President George W. Bush describing it as “fatally flawed.” [See 2001, p. 569A1] Feb. 16, 2005—The Kyoto Protocol takes effect, requiring the 141 countries that had ratified it to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Several developing countries, including China and India, are required only to make voluntary commitments for reductions. [See 2005, p. 95D3]

Feb. 2, 2007—The IPCC releases its fourth and

China, U.S. Hold Tense Negotiations—

the climate change phenomenon. The time for talk is over,” he said. Wen, for his part, called on developed countries to “take the lead in making deep quantified emissions cuts,” and to “provide financial and technological support to developing countries.” African Countries Stage Walkout— A group of delegates from the G-77 Dec. 14 boycotted a meeting of a key working group of the Copenhagen talks, bringing discussions at the conference to a halt. A group of African delegates from the bloc asserted that rich nations had failed to do all in their power to lower their emissions, and accused them of attempting to elude the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol. They also demanded that rich nations commit to a treaty that would provide large amounts of monetary aid to poorer countries. The impasse was ended later Dec. 14 after Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister for the climate talks, proposed creating smaller working groups in which the protesting countries could air their grievances. The G-77, which was actually composed of about 130 countries, had emerged as a key political force during the talks. However, the disparate countries in the group remained divided on many issues and poorly organized. A group of Pacific island and African countries within the bloc had called for an agreement limiting the rise in the global average temperature to 1.5° Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2050. Other, oilproducing members of the coalition had opposed policies that would lead to a decline in fossil fuel consumption. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, the representative of the African

Union, Dec. 16 said Africa would accept a proposal to provide $30 billion in aid annually to developing countries in the short run, with the size of the fund climbing to $100 billion a year by 2020. Japanese officials that day said they would provide $15 billion in aid over the next three years to help poor countries deal with the harmful effects of climate change.

A breakthrough in negotiations, which had largely stalled, was achieved during a series of talks between Obama, who arrived in Copenhagen Dec. 18, and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. China had resisted agreeing to a method by which an international entity would verify individual countries’ emissions cuts, seeing such a mechanism as an infringement on its sovereignty. During a visit to China by Obama in November, Chinese leaders had announced their intent to seek a transparent, nonbinding political agreement to limit emissions during the Copenhagen talks. However, during the talks, China had backed away from that pledge. [See p. 827C3] Obama Dec. 18 was reportedly frustrated after Wen twice sent lower-level officials that day to represent China at meetings with the U.S. and other nations. The Obama administration had set up yet another meeting with Wen for the evening, but administration members arrived to discover Wen already in talks with South African President Jacob Zuma, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Alerted to the meeting, Obama reportedly rushed to the talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to engage all four countries in discussions. It was during those talks that the final elements of the agreement were decided, according to reports. Obama, in remarks following those talks, expressed frustration at the nature of the negotiations. “These international discussions have essentially taken place now for almost two decades, and we have very little to show for it other than an increased acceleration of

largest report to date, concluding that global climate change is “unequivocal.” The group also finds, with 90% certainty, that the changes are being driven by human actions. The Bush administration for the first time says the U.S. will participate in international talks intended to develop a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012. [See 2007, p. 73A1] Oct. 12, 2007—The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the IPCC the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to “build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.” Gore in 2006 had released a documentary film and book, both entitled An Inconvenient Truth, detailing the perils of climate change. [See 2007, pp. 690A2, 135F1] Dec. 18, 2009—U.S. President Barack Obama brokers an agreement among five nations— the U.S., China, Brazil, India and South Africa—to establish a “political statement” intended to function as a framework for an international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol during talks held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The agreement, known as the Copenhagen Accord, is heavily criticized by many countries for failing to set binding emissions-reduction goals or to establish a 2010 deadline for the creation of a treaty to codify its provisions. [See p. 881A1]

Facts On File World News Digest With Index (ISSN 0014-6641) Publication #183680 EDITOR IN CHIEF: Jonathan Taylor MANAGING EDITOR: Jennifer Dunham SENIOR EDITOR: Joshua Lustig EDITORS: Rahul Chadha, Ian McGullam, Ryu Spaeth ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Todd Grennan, Shannon O’Toole DATABASE COORDINATOR: Ben Miller INDEX EDITOR: Jonathan Leith COPY EDITOR: Walter Kronenberg

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FACTS ON FILE

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China United States European Union Russia India Japan Germany* Canada Britain* South Korea Iran Italy* Australia Mexico South Africa Saudi Arabia France* Brazil Spain* Ukraine

6,283.6 6,006.7 4,256.8 1,672.6 1,400.7 1,262.4 835.1 589.9 564.0 516.0 490.3 460.8 456.4 453.0 452.3 433.9 405.1 397.6 383.2 354.4

* European Union member Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

Leaders from the European Union Dec. 11 had pledged to provide $10.5 billion over three years for the same purpose. Clinton Dec. 17 announced that the U.S. would help to mobilize both public and private donations for the $100 billion annual fund, as part of efforts to jump-start the stalled talks prior to Obama’s arrival the following day. Clinton said the aid would be given to the “poorest and most vulnerable among us.” The comment was viewed as a signal that China, which many in the West thought was undeserving of aid, would not be able to access the fund. Clinton also warned that the U.S.’s participation was contingent on all major economies, chief among them China, agreeing to transparent carbon emissions reductions. Thousands Protest Talks—Tens of thousands of protesters Dec. 12 demonstrated in Copenhagen, with estimates of the crowd size ranging from 40,000 to 100,000. The march was led by members of indigenous groups attempting to draw attention to the effects of global climate change on vulnerable populations. Police stopped marchers from reaching Bella Center, the convention center where talks were being held. There were scattered reports of violence, with a small number of protesters reportedly destroying property. Danish police said they had arrested more than 900 people. Protesters again demonstrated on Dec. 16, with police arresting about 260 people that day.

The move was thought to be intended to aid Obama’s negotiating efforts in Copenhagen. Under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, the U.S. had remained opposed to mandatory emissions curbs, and remained the only industrialized country not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. Senate was currently considering a separate cap-and-trade bill calling for emissions cuts of 20% below 2005 levels during the same time period. The U.S. House in June had passed a bill calling for a 17% reduction below 2005 levels, which was also the goal Obama had set for the U.S. just prior to the Copenhagen talks. n

Iranian Dissident Cleric Montazeri Dies Funeral Becomes Antigovernment Rally.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a senior Shiite Muslim cleric who had become one of Iran’s most prominent dissidents, Dec. 20 died in his sleep, at his home in the Shiite holy city of Qom. Montazeri, 87, had lent his backing to the Iranian opposition movement that had formed in the wake of a disputed presidential election in June, and had criticized the government for brutally suppressing post-election protests. Tens of thousands of Iranians Dec. 21 gathered for Montazeri’s funeral in Qom and protested against Iran’s cleric-led government. [See pp. 896B3, 856E3, 628D3] Montazeri had been a key figure in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought Iran’s theocracy to power, and had been the designated successor to its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. However, relations between the two clerics soured after Montazeri criticized the government’s 1988 mass execution of hundreds of political prisoners, and Khomeini was succeeded in 1989 by the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. [See 1989, p. 246B3; 1982, p. 331D1] Montazeri was placed under house arrest from 1997 to 2003 for criticizing Khamenei. Montazeri was thereafter marginalized in official media, which de-

scribed him as a “simple-minded” cleric rather than a grand ayatollah. After the June presidential election, Montazeri publicly denounced Khamenei’s and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s harsh reaction to the post-election protests, and called the government “illegitimate.” [See 2003, p. 112F3; 1997, p. 1003E2] He had reportedly been suffering from diabetes and heart and respiratory problems at the time of his death. Khamenei Dec. 20 offered condolences for Montazeri’s death, but also said he had failed a “crucial test,” referring to his 1989 falling-out with Khomeini. State media in reporting on Montazeri’s death referred to him as the “rioters’ cleric.” Iranians from all over the country traveled to Qom for the funeral, and tens of thousands of people Dec. 21 thronged the streets; opposition Web sites reported that the protesters numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Many marchers wore green, the color of the opposition movement, and shouted slogans against the government and Khamenei. Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi and former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi, leaders of the opposition movement, reportedly attended the protests. There was a heavy security presence but only scattered clashes were reported between police and protesters, a departure from previous protests. Foreign journalists were barred from reporting from Qom. Protests were also reported in Tehran, the capital, and in other Iranian cities. Montazeri’s death occurred during the 10-day holiday of Muharram, which the opposition had previously planned to commemorate with protests. Additionally, the seventh day of his death—an important milestone in Shiite mourning rituals— would coincide with the Dec. 27 holiday of Ashura, for which opposition protests had also already been scheduled.

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Government Admits Detainee Murders—

Iran’s judiciary Dec. 19 acknowledged that three detainees who had died after being taken into custody in post-election protests AFP/Getty Images

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U.S. Sens. John Kerry (D, Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I, Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R, S.C.) Dec. 10 said they had agreed to a “framework” climate bill with a goal of cutting U.S. emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. The trio did not release details of their bill, but said it would rely on a cap-and-trade system by which the government would issue pollution credits to businesses and industries, which could then be either used, or bought or sold on a market. December 22, 2009

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Mourners surround the casket of dissident Iranian cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri during a funeral procession in the holy city of Qom Dec. 21.

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had been beaten to death by security forces. Iranian officials had previously said they had died of meningitis and other diseases, but the judiciary rejected that claim. It said 12 people had been charged in the case, and that three members of the security forces had been charged with first-degree murder, which carried a death sentence. [See p. 857B2] The judiciary’s statement was the clearest acknowledgment by the government so far that detained protesters had been killed by security forces. The three prisoners had been held in Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, which in July had been closed due to substandard conditions. One of the prisoners, Mohsen Ruholamini, was the son of a conservative political figure, and his death had caused an uproar even among hard-line government officials. Khamenei Dec. 13 criticized protesters for reportedly tearing up a picture of Khomeini during demonstrations earlier in the month, and said that such a sacrilegious act meant that the opposition was seeking to undermine Iran’s clerical system. However, the opposition denied that its supporters had destroyed the picture, and charged that state-run media had faked the episode. State media Dec. 14 reported that several people had been arrested in the case. Hackers identifying themselves as the Iranian Cyber Army Dec. 17–18 disrupted service to the social networking Web site Twitter and the Iranian opposition Web site mowjcamp.com, directing users instead to anti-U.S. postings. Twitter had been used by opposition members to organize protests and communicate with supporters outside Iran. [See p. 402G2] n

Space Branson Passenger Craft Unveiled. Virgin

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Galactic, the private space venture of British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Dec. 7 unveiled a spacecraft that was intended to take passengers on commercial flights to space. The SpaceShipTwo craft, christened the Virgin SpaceShip (VSS) Enterprise, would fly to just above the Earth’s atmosphere, giving six paying passengers and two pilots six minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. [See 2008, p. 949B2] The vehicle was set to undergo a series of tests with hopes of beginning flights in 2011. Testing had already begun on White Knight Two, a double-hulled booster aircraft that would carry the spacecraft into the stratosphere. Several other entrepreneurs were working on similar commercial space projects, but Virgin’s was the furthest along in development. SpaceShipTwo would succeed SpaceShipOne, the first privately manned craft to reach space; both had been designed by Burt Rutan. Branson, his family and Rutan would be on board for the first official flight of SpaceShipTwo. Some 300 individuals had already signed up for subsequent flights, agreeing to pay around $200,000 to reserve a spot on the spacecraft. The unveiling took place at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif., where engineers had been working on the 884

craft in secrecy. The planned flights would take off from a launch site scheduled to be completed in Upham, N.M., by the state government in 2010. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) attended the ceremony. n

Other International News British Judge Issues Warrant for Israel’s Livni.

A magistrate’s court in London Dec. 12 issued a warrant for the arrest of former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes during Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. Livni had been invited to an event in Britain that week, but canceled her plans to attend. The court Dec. 14 revoked the warrant after establishing that Livni was not in Britain, but the incident drew strong protests from Israel and threatened to strain relations between the two countries. [See pp. 790A2, 689G3] The Israeli government Dec. 15 condemned the warrant and demanded that Britain take immediate action to prevent a recurrence involving any of its current or former officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Dec. 17 issued a statement declaring, “We reject this absurdity outright.” British law allowed plaintiffs to request arrest warrants under the legal principle of “universal jurisdiction,” which gave judges the authority to have foreign nationals arrested for alleged offenses in other countries, even if the case had no direct connection to Britain. Pro-Palestinian activists had repeatedly requested warrants for the arrest of visiting Israeli officials. In September, a request for an arrest warrant for Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was denied because he had diplomatic immunity while in Britain on an official visit. British Foreign Minister David Miliband Dec. 15 said the government would “urgently” pursue legal changes to “avoid this sort of situation arising again.” He said Israel was a “strategic partner and close friend” of Britain, adding, “Israeli leaders, like leaders from other countries, must be able to visit and have a proper dialogue with British officials.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Dec. 16 telephoned Livni and told her that she was welcome to visit Britain any time. French news agency Agence FrancePresse and the Times of London Dec. 21 both reported that an official of the Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), which controlled the Gaza Strip, had confirmed that Hamas had established a committee that provided information to European lawyers to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Livni. A United Nations Human Rights Council report issued in September had accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes in the Gaza fighting. Israel had dismissed both the council and the report as biased. Spain Curbs Universal Jurisdiction—The Spanish parliament Oct. 15 voted, 319–5, with three abstentions, to give final approv-

al to an amendment that curtailed Spain’s universal jurisdiction law, which allowed the prosecution in Spain of alleged human rights violations anywhere in the world. The revision was backed by both the ruling Socialist Party and the opposition Popular Party. [See p. 329F1] The move came in response to diplomatic tensions over investigations by Spanish judges of former U.S. officials for alleged torture at the prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Israeli officials over a 2002 air strike in Gaza; and Chinese officials in connection with alleged rights violations in the Chinese territory of Tibet. As in Britain, independent groups or ordinary citizens could file complaints, prompting judicial investigations. The change limited the application of the law to cases in which the alleged perpetrators were on Spanish territory, the victims were Spanish, or other Spanish interests were directly at stake. It also said universal jurisdiction would not apply if another “competent court or international tribunal has begun proceedings that constitute an effective investigation and prosecution of the punishable acts.” However, the new limits would not apply retroactively. In the best-known Spanish universal jurisdiction case, Judge Baltasar Garzon had issued a warrant for former Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet Ugarte that resulted in Pinochet being held under house arrest in Britain for more than a year until his release in 2000. [See 2000, p. 134A1] In 2003, Belgium had curbed its own universal jurisdiction law after cases were filed against U.S. and Israeli officials. [See 2003, p. 292A3] n Security Company Linked to CIA Raids.

The New York Times Dec. 10 reported on its Web site that employees of U.S. security company Blackwater Worldwide—now known as Xe Services—had participated in clandestine raids conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq after U.S.-led invasions of those countries in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The Times said the roles of the three groups in such raids were fluid, and that the security guards had moved beyond their official role of protecting CIA officers to helping kill or capture insurgents. [See pp. 838C1, 586F2] The Times said the Blackwater guards—many of whom were former members of elite U.S. Navy Seals or Special Operations units—had originally been hired to protect CIA officers at the agency’s stations in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, and Kabul, the Afghan capital. Their duties expanded as they helped plan raids to maximize safety for CIA personnel, and joined the raids to provide perimeter security as the CIA and the military did the actual killing and capturing of insurgents. However, the chaotic nature of the raids led the security guards to perform some of the duties of the CIA and the military, according to unidentified former Blackwater FACTS ON FILE

employees and CIA officials interviewed by the Times. The Times said it remained unclear whether such actions were against U.S. law. Experts said the revelation raised serious concerns since the Blackwater guards would not have operated under the government restrictions imposed on the CIA and the military. It was also unclear whether CIA higher-ups had approved of the alleged arrangement, or whether CIA officers on the ground had informally recruited their protectors to join them. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Xe Services, Dec. 11 said the company was “never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else.” The Times Dec. 10 also reported that Blackwater guards had provided security on CIA flights shuttling terrorism suspects around the world. Xe Services denied that its employees had ever participated in socalled extraordinary renditions, in which terrorism suspects were flown to other countries to be interrogated. The Times report was the latest controversy involving Blackwater, whose guards had been accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007. CIA Director Leon Panetta in June had shut down a program that would have seen the CIA, with the alleged assistance of Blackwater, develop paramilitary units to assassinate leading terrorists. The program was never put into operation. Panetta was currently conducting a review of all the CIA’s contracts with the company. A CIA spokesman Dec. 11 said the agency had canceled a contract that had hired Blackwater guards to load bombs on to CIA Predator drone aircraft. The drones were used to carry out strikes against suspected terrorists and insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan. [See p. 586E3] n Ahmadinejad Tours South America. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Nov. 23–25 visited Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela on a South American tour, signing a number of agreements with the leaders of those countries. The tour was seen as part of efforts by the Iranian government to bolster its foreign economic ties and demonstrate its international acceptance after a violent crackdown against demonstrators challenging the June presidential balloting in which Ahmadinejad had been reelected. Iran also faced international scrutiny over its intentions for its nuclear program. Iran was currently in negotiations with other countries regarding the shipment of its uranium overseas for enrichment for civilian purposes. [See pp. 883B2, 876E2, 616F2] Ahmadinejad Nov. 23 arrived in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, for meetings with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It was the first visit by an Iranian leader to Brazil, and the pair signed a number of economic and commercial agreements. The meeting was also part of efforts by da Silva to mediate disagreements between Israel and Palestinian leaders; Iran supported Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), the Islamist group that controlled the Gaza Strip. (Da Silva had hosted Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas December 22, 2009

and Israeli President Shimon Peres Nov. 12 and 19, respectively.) Several hundred demonstrators in the city of Rio de Janeiro Nov. 22–23 protested the visit, citing Iran’s poor human rights record and Ahmadinejad’s previous denials of the Holocaust. Analysts said that in welcoming Ahmadinejad, Brazilian leaders might have been trying to demonstrate autonomy in international affairs. However, several said the visit would actually harm Brazil’s image internationally, since it would be seen as legitimizing the disputed Iranian presidential election. An aide to da Silva Nov. 24 said U.S. President Barack Obama Nov. 22 had sent a letter to da Silva asking him to urge Ahmadinejad to agree to an international plan to steer Iran’s nuclear program to peaceful purposes. Da Silva Nov. 23 answered criticism of the visit, saying, “You don’t move forward by leaving Iran isolated.” Ahmadinejad Nov. 24 arrived in La Paz, the Bolivian capital, for meetings with Bolivian President Evo Morales Aima. There, Ahmadinejad opened a hospital and two milk-processing plants built with Iranian funds. The two countries that day signed an agreement by which Iran would help Bolivia mine lithium, a metal used in the manufacture of high-tech batteries. Ahmadinejad and the leftist Morales vowed to cooperate “despite the opposition of imperialism,” an apparent reference to the U.S. Ahmadinejad Nov. 25, in his fourth visit to Venezuela, met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias in Caracas, the capital. Chavez, like Ahmadinejad a strident critic of the U.S., called Ahmadinejad a “gladiator of anti-imperialist struggles.” Iran and Venezuela had established close ties, entering into some 300 industrial and agricultural agreements over the previous five years, although few were believed to be very significant in economic terms. [See 2007, p. 484F2] Both Morales and Chavez defended Iran’s nuclear program. Ahmadinejad on his way to and from Latin America stopped in two African countries: Gambia Nov. 12 and Senegal Nov. 26. Both of those countries’ leaders expressed solidarity with Iran. n U.S.-Russia Nuclear Treaty Expires. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which limited nuclear stockpiles in Russia and the U.S., expired Dec. 5. However, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in a Dec. 4 joint statement, indicated that they would continue to abide by the treaty’s provisions while they worked on a successor. The basic framework of a new treaty had been agreed in July, when Obama met with Medvedev in Russia, and officials of both countries expressed optimism that the leaders would agree on a successor treaty within months. [See p. 453D3] Both the U.S. Congress and the Russian parliament would have to ratify the successor deal before it could take effect. START was initially negotiated in 1991, between then–U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. n

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Politics Alabama Rep. Switches Parties to GOP.

Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) Dec. 22 announced that he was switching parties, leaving the Democrats to join the Republicans. Griffith, speaking to reporters at his home in his northern Alabama district, said, “I can no longer align myself with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy, and drives us further and further into debt.” [See p. 284A2; 2008, p. 812A2] Since beginning his first term in January, Griffith, 67, had compiled one of the most conservative voting records of any member of the Democratic majority in the House. He had been one of 39 Democrats to vote in November against a major health care reform bill backed by President Barack Obama. In February, Griffith was one of seven Democrats to vote against a $787 billion economic stimulus package backed by Obama. Griffith, a radiation oncologist, cited his opposition to the health care bill, currently nearing a vote in the Senate, as one of his main reasons for switching parties. He had narrowly won his seat with 51% of the vote in 2008. In the presidential election, 61% of the voters in his district had backed the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Griffith became the first House Democrat to defect to the GOP since Rep. Rodney Alexander (La.) in 2004. In April, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) had crossed over in the opposite direction, joining the Democrats. Griffith’s switch would leave the Democrats with 257 seats in the House, and the Republicans with 178. Griffith’s switch was widely viewed as the latest indication that the Democrats would face a difficult test in retaining their majority in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. Many members in conservative districts were expected to be vulnerable to Republican challengers, due to discontent in such areas with the liberal policies of Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. Republicans had united against those policies, while Obama’s public approval ratings had sunk below 50% in a number of recent polls. Rep. Bart Gordon (D, Tenn.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Dec. 14 announced that he would not run for reelection in his Nashville-area district, which had voted for McCain by a 25point margin in 2008. Gordon became the fourth veteran House Democrat to announce retirement plans in the past two weeks, adding to concerns over the party’s midterm prospects. The other three, Reps. Dennis Moore (Kan.), John Tanner (Tenn.) and Brian Baird (Wash.), also represented narrowly divided districts. n

Taxes Estate Tax Set to Expire. Senate Republicans Dec. 16 blocked an attempt by Democratic leaders to extend the estate tax, 885

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which was scheduled to expire for one year, starting Jan. 1, 2010. The tax was scheduled to take effect again in 2011, at higher rates and with lower exemptions. Democrats said they might move early in 2010 to reinstate the tax retroactively to the beginning of the year. [See p. 218C1] The temporary expiration of the estate tax was part of a 2001 tax cut package signed by President George W. Bush. That law gradually decreased the estate tax rate and increased exemptions until phasing it out for one year. The current top rate for the estate tax was 45%, with a $3.5 million exemption. If Congress did not act, the tax would come back in 2011 at the levels in force before the 2001 legislation, with a top rate of 55% and an exemption of $1 million. In 2010, while the estate tax was phased out, a capital gains tax rate of 15% would apply to all estates, imposed on the sales of assets by heirs. That tax would have an exemption of $3 million for the spouse of the deceased, and $1.3 million for other heirs. Tax lawyers said the situation was confusing and full of uncertainty as to what Congress would do, deterring some people from proceeding with estate planning. Republicans opposed the estate tax, viewing it as an unfair double taxation of assets that had already been taxed during a deceased person’s lifetime, and a burden on family-owned small businesses. But Democrats said it was only fair that the wealthiest families should pay the tax. The House Dec. 3 had voted, 225–200, to permanently extend the estate tax at its current rates and exemptions. House Votes to Extend Other Breaks—

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The House Dec. 9 voted, 241–181, to extend a variety of other tax breaks for businesses and individuals, for one year. Congress regularly extended most of the breaks each year. The breaks for individuals included a local or state sales tax deduction for residents of states with no income taxes to deduct, and a deduction for teachers’ out-of-pocket expenses. The business breaks included a research and development tax credit, as well as breaks for overseas lending by U.S. banks and improvements to retail stores and restaurants. All but two Republicans voted against the measure because they opposed two revenue raising provisions attached to it by Democrats to offset the cost of the extensions. A tax hike on managers of investment funds would raise an estimated $24.6 billion over the next 10 years by taxing profitsharing fees, or carried interest, as regular income, with a top rate of 35%, rather than as capital gains, at a top rate of 15%. The bill would also seek to raise $7.7 billion by requiring foreign banks to provide more information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to help uncover tax evasion. The Senate, embroiled in a debate on health care reform legislation, had yet to vote on the bill, and it was unclear whether it would do so by the end of the year. That raised the possibility that Congress would retroactively extend the tax breaks in 2010. [See p. 862A2] n 886

Fiscal 2010 Spending Bills Defense Appropriations Bill Cleared, Signed.

The House Dec. 16 voted, 395–34, to pass a conference version of a $636.3 defense appropriations bill for fiscal 2010, which had begun Oct. 1. The Senate Dec. 19 voted, 88–10, to clear the legislation, and President Barack Obama signed it Dec. 22. The defense appropriations bill was one of several essential pieces of legislation passed before the end of 2009. [See pp. 885G3, 865F1, 701A2] The appropriations bill included $128.3 billion to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, it did not contain the $30 billion that Obama said would be necessary to fund the 30,000 additional troops he planned to send to Afghanistan. That money would most likely be included in the fiscal 2011 defense budget. [See p. 844B1] The bill included an amendment backed by Sen. Al Franken (D, Minn.) that would bar the government from giving contracts to defense contractors that restricted employees from going to court if they were sexually assaulted or suffered discrimination on the job. The amendment was inspired by the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee of KBR Inc., then a unit of Halliburton Co. Jones in 2007 had said she was raped by coworkers while in Iraq in 2005, but that KBR covered up the case and her employment contract required that she submit the case to binding arbitration rather than take it to court. The legislation included some $13.3 billion in nondefense spending, most of which went toward extending existing laws and programs by two months. They included the USA Patriot Act antiterrorism law and programs funding highways, small business loans and flood insurance. Also extended were a host of safety-net programs such as unemployment benefits, food stamps and health insurance subsidies for unemployed workers. [See p. 846E2] Senate Republicans Dec. 17 had said they would attempt to filibuster the defense appropriations bill in order to delay action on health-care reform legislation. However, Democrats Dec. 18 won an important vote on the filibuster after Sen. Russell Feingold (D, Wis.) agreed to vote with them despite his antiwar stance, and they overcame it Dec. 19 with the support of 57 of their own party members, two independents and four Republicans. Thirty Republicans ended up voting for the final bill. [See p. 862A2] n

Obama Administration Cybersecurity Coordinator Named. The White House Dec. 22 announced that President Barack Obama had selected Howard Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of the Information Security Forum, a nonprofit computer security group, to serve as the Obama administration’s cybersecurity coordinator. Schmidt, whose appointment was not subject to Senate confirmation, was expected to report to deputy national security adviser John Brennan, and would reportedly have regular, direct contact with

the president. He was tasked with coordinating cybersecurity measures in both military and civilian government agencies. [See pp. 602B3, 410F3] Obama had announced the creation of the position in May as part of a government effort to improve and coordinate government and private sector responses to hackers, identity theft and other cybersecurity threats. The cybersecurity coordinator had originally been expected to report to both the National Security Council (NSC) and the White House’s National Economic Council (NEC), and would not have had direct access to Obama. However, the administration had reportedly revised the post’s place in the administration following months of unsuccessful attempts to attract a qualified candidate for the position. Schmidt was still expected to work closely with the NEC on cybersecurity issues related to the economy. Schmidt, a former chief security officer at software giant Microsoft Inc. and vice president and chief information officer at Internet auction company eBay Inc., had previously worked as White House cybersecurity adviser under President George W. Bush, but had reportedly left the position after most of his recommendations were ignored. n

Supreme Court Ku Klux Klan Member’s Appeal Declined.

The Supreme Court Nov. 2 declined to hear the appeal of James Ford Seale, a Ku Klux Klan member who in 2007 had been convicted on kidnapping and conspiracy charges related to the killing of two black teenagers—Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore—on the MississippiLouisiana border in 1964. Seale was currently serving three life terms in prison. Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia objected to the Supreme Court’s decision, saying the case would have allowed the court to clear up confusion on whether there was a statute of limitations on kidnappings that led to death. There currently was no statute of limitations on that particular crime, but that had not been the case between 1968 and 1994. The case was United States v. Seale. [See 2007, p. 873G1] n

Economy 3rd-Quarter GDP Growth Was 2.2%. The

Commerce Department Dec. 22 reported that, according to its third estimate, gross domestic product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2009 had grown at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.2% from the second quarter. That was a revision from the department’s second estimate, in November, that GDP had grown by 2.8%. The change was attributed to revisions to nonresidential construction and investments in inventories, which were weaker than originally reported. [See p. 813G1] n

Mergers & Acquisitions Exxon Mobil Acquires Natural Gas Company.

Irving, Texas–based oil company Exxon Mobil Corp. Dec. 14 announced that it FACTS ON FILE

would acquire Fort Worth, Texas–based XTO Energy Inc. for $31 billion in an allstock deal. XTO Energy was the U.S.’s second-largest producer of natural gas, and Exxon Mobil said the deal reflected its projection that demand for natural gas would grow as the world increasingly turned to energy sources that emitted less greenhouse gases than oil and coal. [See 2008, p. 538D1; 1999, p. 873B1] Exxon Mobil Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson that day said, “This is not a near-term decision; this is about the next 10, 20, 30 years.” He added, “We think there will be significant demand for natural gas in the future.” XTO Energy specialized in technology that could extract natural gas from dense shale rock formations. The technology had become increasingly advanced in recent years, leading companies to buy up natural gas fields that had previously been considered unprofitable. The U.S. contained a significant number of such fields, and analysts said companies were eager to develop untapped U.S. energy sources, especially as they faced more difficulties extracting such resources from foreign countries. [See pp. 660F1, 574F3, 395B1] The $31 billion deal was a 25% premium on XTO Energy’s Dec. 11 share price on the New York Stock Exchange. Under the terms of the deal, Exxon Mobil would also assume $10 billion in XTO Energy’s debt.n

Automobiles GM to Repay Federal Loans in Mid-2010.

Edward Whitacre, chairman and interim chief executive officer (CEO) of Detroit, Mich.–based automaker General Motors Co. (GM), Dec. 15 said the company would repay $6.7 billion in federal loans by the end of June 2010. He also pledged to repay $1.4 billion owed to the Canadian government by that date. The loans were not due to be repaid until 2015. [See p. 831D1] GM, which had accepted about $50 billion in aid from the U.S. government since 2008, had emerged from a federally mandated bankruptcy restructuring in July. Most of the government aid GM had received was converted into common shares for a 61% stake in the company. The Treasury had imposed compensation restrictions for top executives at companies that, like GM, had taken out large loans from a $700 billion federal rescue fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). A growing number of banks were repaying their TARP loans, in part to rid themselves of the restrictions. It was unclear whether compensation restrictions at GM would be lifted after it repaid the $6.7 billion loan to the Treasury, since the government would continue to hold its majority stake in GM. [See p. 863G1] Whitacre said he was unsure when the automaker would launch an initial public offering, which would pave the way for the government to begin selling its shares. Whitacre had recently taken over CEO responsibilities from Frederick (Fritz) Henderson, who had been ousted by GM’s board of directors earlier in December. Whitacre December 22, 2009

said GM was still looking for a new CEO, a process that had reportedly been complicated by the compensation restrictions. n

Environment California Water Overhaul Bills Passed.

The California state legislature Nov. 4 cleared a series of five bills overhauling the state’s beleaguered water system. California’s water troubles had been exacerbated by a years-long drought that had reduced available drinking water, hindered agricultural production and limited commercial fishing activity. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Nov. 6–13 signed the bills. [See 2007, p. 846F1] The state’s water system was fed by snow and rainfall on mountains in the east. The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, along with a series of dams, collected the water, allowing it to be allocated to southern cities and to farms in the state’s otherwise arid interior. Despite continued agricultural and commercial development, along with a growth in population, the state had not built new water infrastructure in recent years. The river delta—a group of islands, channels and surrounding natural habitats—was also thought to be close to collapse, resulting from the overpumping of water from it. Under the measures, monitoring of groundwater supplies would be mandatory, as it was in many other arid Western states. Democrats had advocated for the state to carry out the monitoring, but had been opposed by rural conservatives, who said they feared it would lead to new state regulations and penalties. Instead, the monitoring was to be carried out by local municipalities. The bills also called for an ecological restoration of the Sacramento– San Joaquin delta, and created an agency that would oversee the region and the transport of water from the state’s north to southern areas. The package called for a 20% reduction in the state’s per capita water use by 2020. It also called for an $11.1 billion bond issue to fund many of the projects. Voters would have to approve the bond issue as a ballot initiative in 2010. The balance of the $40 billion estimated cost would be borne by local municipalities, expected to generate the money through new user fees. About $3 billion would be dedicated to new water storage projects, including dams. The plan also opened the door to the controversial possibility of the construction of a north-south canal. Several environmental advocates criticized the bills, arguing that penalties for the misuse of water were too weak, and that dams could harm populations of fish and other marine animals. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Nov. 8 said his department would review federal policies requiring California to divert water from agricultural areas hit by drought to serve endangered fish populations on the state’s Pacific coast. Schwarzenegger and others had criticized the rules, arguing that they harmed farmers. Salazar said the regulations would be reviewed by March 15, 2010. [See 2004, p. 1055G3] n

Education Study Shows College Tuition Increases.

An Oct. 20 report released by the New York City–based College Board, a nonprofit association of schools and other educational organizations, found that tuition and school fees for the 2009–10 school year at public and private nonprofit four-year colleges had increased by 6.5% and 4.4%, respectively, from the previous school year. The increases contrasted with a 2.1% decline in the consumer price index, a broad measure of inflation, from July 2008 to July 2009. [See p. 816E3–G3; 2002, p. 1016G2] The report found that the average total cost of tuition and fees for in-state students at public colleges in the 2009–10 school year was $7,020, not including room and board. That figure for private colleges was $26,273. The report said about two-thirds of full-time students at four-year universities received financial aid grants. It also found that private education loans for the 2008–09 school year were down by nearly 50% compared to the 2007–08 school year. [See p. 641F1] The report also said that 65% of students who received bachelor’s degrees at the close of the 2007–08 school year had graduated with education loan debt. The average debt after graduation for students who took out loans was about $20,000. n

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Crime Violent Crime Dropped in 2008. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Sept. 14 released a report on U.S. crime rates that found that violent crime had decreased by 1.9% in 2008. The report, known as the Uniform Crime Report, was based on data provided by more than 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies, covering nearly 95% of the U.S. population. A preliminary version of the report, released by the FBI on June 1, had estimated a larger, 2.5% drop in violent crime for 2008. [See 2008, p. 726A1] According to the Uniform Crime Report, the murder rate in 2008 declined by 3.9% from 2007. The report found that nearly 17,000 people were murdered in the U.S. during 2008, and 9,484 of those victims were killed with guns. The report found that the number of forcible rapes had dropped by 1.6%, to about 89,000 in 2008, the lowest number in 20 years. According to the report, property crimes had decreased by 0.8%, including a 12.7% drop in car thefts.

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Crime Rate Declines in First Half of 2009—

Violent crime nationwide dropped by 4.4% during the first six months of 2009, according to a preliminary report released by the FBI Dec. 21. The report was based on data from more than 11,700 law enforcement agencies, and compared crimes committed during the first half of 2009 to the statistics for the first half of 2008. The decline surprised analysts, who had predicted that a lingering economic downturn would lead to an increase in crime. According to the report, the nationwide murder rate dropped by 10%, while the ar887

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son rate dropped 8% and the forcible rape rate declined by 3.3%. The report found that property crimes had dropped by 6.1% and robbery had decreased by 6.5%. Violent crime in cities with more than one million people reportedly dropped by 7% during the first half of 2009 and rose by 1.7% in towns with 10,000 to 25,000 people. n News in Brief. Judge Donald Walter in U.S. District Court in New York City Dec. 7 declared a mistrial in the prosecution of white supremacist blogger Hal Turner, who had been charged with threatening to kill three judges of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in a posting on his Web site. Walter declared the mistrial after jurors said they were deadlocked; he scheduled a new trial in the case for March 1, 2010. Turner had been arrested June 24 for writing on his Web site that the three judges “deserve to be killed” for a ruling upholding a gun ban, and then posting their photos and work addresses. He had faced up to 10 years in prison on the charges. An attorney for Turner Aug. 19 said his client had been paid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) between 2002 and 2007 to say provocative things on his Web site to flush out other extremists, a claim documented by a Nov. 29 report in New Jersey’s Bergen County Record newspaper. [See p. 391G3; 2005, p. 170F2] Anthony Sowell Dec. 1 was indicted in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on 85 criminal counts, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, rape, assault and corpse abuse, in connection with 10 corpses and a human skull discovered by police Oct. 29–Nov. 3 in and around his Cleveland, Ohio, home. Sowell, who had been convicted of attempted rape in 1989 and had been imprisoned until 2005, Dec. 3 pleaded not guilty to all charges by reason of insanity. The same day, prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty in the case. The bodies of the 11 victims, who were all black women, had been found in crawl spaces and shallow graves inside Sowell’s house and buried in his backyard; neighbors had reportedly complained repeatedly about an overpowering stench in the neighborhood, but authorities had blamed a local sausage shop or backed-up sewage lines for the smell. The Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office Nov. 4 made the first identification of one of the victims, a 53-year-old woman who had disappeared on Nov. 10, 2008. [See 2005, p. 120A3] Judge P. Kevin Castel of U.S. District Court in New York City Dec. 1 declared a mistrial in the prosecution of John A. (Junior) Gotti, an alleged leader of the Gambino

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organized crime family, on charges of racketeering and murder conspiracy after jurors in the case said they were hopelessly deadlocked after 11 days of deliberations. Gotti was released from jail later the same day. The Justice Department had prosecuted Gotti on similar charges in three trials in 2005 and 2006 that all ended in mistrials, and had charged Gotti for the fourth time in Florida in 2008; however, the trial had later been moved to New York City. Gotti admitted to having been the head of the Gambino 888

crime family, but claimed to have left organized crime in 1999. [See 2008, p. 960E3] A gunman Nov. 29 fatally shot four police officers in a coffee shop near the Seattle, Wash., suburb of Lakewood. All four police officers were in uniform at the time of the attack and were wearing bulletproof vests. The alleged gunman, Maurice Clemmons, Dec. 1 was shot dead by a Seattle police officer in that city following a twoday manhunt. In 2000, then–Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) had commuted Clemmons’s 95-year prison sentence for robbery and burglary after Clemmons served 11 years; Clemmons was charged in May in Washington’s Pierce County Superior Court with assaulting police officers and raping a 12-year-old. He had been released on bail on Nov. 23 and reportedly told friends and family that he intended to kill police officers and others. Prosecutors in Pierce County Superior Court Dec. 1–4 charged five of Clemmons’s family members and friends with helping him avoid capture following the shootings; Clemmons’s sister Dec. 9 was also charged with helping Clemmons. [See p. 246F3] A gunman Nov. 20 killed four people, including a two-year-old girl and fiveyear-old boy, and wounded eight people, including a four-year-old girl, during a shooting spree on the Pacific island of Saipan, part of the Northern Mariana Is-

lands, a U.S. commonwealth. Following the shootings, the gunman, Chinese citizen Li Zhongren, 42, burned his identification card and other papers and then fatally shot himself. Police on Saipan Nov. 22 said notes left by Li, a Saipan resident, suggested that the killings had been motivated by distress over his emotional and financial problems. [See p. 246C2] Former Mississippi Judge Bobby DeLaughter Nov. 13 was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Aberdeen, Miss., to one year and six months in prison for obstructing a federal investigation. Prosecutors had accused DeLaughter, who in 1994 had successfully prosecuted the murderer of 1960s civil rights leader Medgar Evers, of ruling in favor of class-action lawyer Richard Scruggs in a trial over the fees from a lawsuit in exchange for Scruggs’s influence in helping DeLaughter obtain a federal judgeship. (Scruggs was a brother-in-law of former Sen. Trent Lott [R, Miss.].) DeLaughter July 30 had resigned as a judge in Mississippi’s Hinds County Circuit Court and pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge; in exchange, prosecutors dropped mail fraud and conspiracy charges. The Mississippi Bar Association Nov. 30 asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to disbar DeLaughter in connection with the case. [See 2008, pp. 469B3, 17E2; 1994, p. 104B3] A group of as many as 10 men and boys Oct. 24 beat, robbed and gang-raped a 15year-old girl for more than two hours on the campus of Richmond High School in Richmond, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay area, while up to 20 bystanders watched the assault and recorded it with cameras and video recorders. Under California law, bystanders were not required to report a rape or sexual assault unless the victim was 14

years old or younger. Critics argued that poor security at the school had contributed to the crime, which had occurred at the same time as a school dance. Local police Oct. 27 offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to arrests. The unidentified victim Oct. 28 was released from a local hospital. Six suspects, including three juveniles charged as adults, Dec. 1 pleaded not guilty in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Richmond to charges of rape in concert and other offenses. [See 2008, p. 556G1] Former insurance claims adjuster John Floyd Thomas Jr. April 2 was charged in California’s Los Angeles Superior Court with murdering two elderly women in the 1970s, and was suspected in the killings of as many as 30 women. Police April 29 said Thomas, who had been arrested March 31, had been linked to the crimes after submitting a DNA sample in October 2008 as part of a California initiative to collect such samples from all sex offenders in the state; Thomas, 72, had been convicted of attempted rape in 1957 and rape in 1978. He was thought to be the so-called Westside Rapist, who had raped and strangled at least 17 women in Los Angeles during the 1970s and was also suspected of raping and murdering multiple elderly women in the town of Claremont, Calif., in eastern Los Angeles County. Prosecutors Sept. 23 charged Thomas with the murders of five additional women between 1975 and 1986. The same day, Thomas pleaded not guilty to all charges. [See 2004, p. 1014B3] n

Espionage News in Brief. A jury in U.S. District Court

in Alexandria, Va., Sept. 25 convicted James Fondren Jr., a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, of passing classified

military information to convicted Chinese spy Tai Shen Kuo and lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was

acquitted on charges that he had aided a foreign agent, communicated classified information and conspired to communicate classified information. Fondren, who had worked as the deputy director of the Washington, D.C., liaison office of the U.S. Pacific Command at the time of his arrest in February 2008, faced up to 20 years in prison and was scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 22, 2010. [See 2008, p. 963C3] Judge Cormac Carney of U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., July 16 convicted retired aerospace engineer Dongfan (Greg) Chung, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, on charges of economic espionage, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, making false statements to FBI agents and working as an unregistered foreign agent in connection with allegations that he had passed information about the U.S.’s Delta IV rocket system, space shuttles and military aircraft to China. Chung, 73, faced up

to 110 years in prison and $3.75 million in fines; his sentencing was set for January 2010. The FBI had begun investigating him in 2006 as part of its investigation into convicted Chinese spy Chi Mak. [See 2008, pp. 311D2, 107A3] n FACTS ON FILE

AFRICA

Somalia Suicide Bomb Kills Government Ministers.

A suicide bomber disguised as a woman wearing a burqa (a full-length Islamic women’s garment) Dec. 3 killed at least 22 people, including three ministers in Somalia’s United Nations–backed transitional government, and wounded about 60 others at a graduation ceremony for Benadir University medical students at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, the capital. The bombing was widely believed to have been carried out by the radical Somali Islamist insurgent group Al Shabab, despite a Dec. 4 statement by the group denying responsibility. [See pp. 622A2, 430G1] Bombings and other violence had become commonplace in Mogadishu and other towns in central and southern Somalia, as fighting raged between Islamist insurgents and the transitional government, backed by a largely ineffectual force of more than 5,000 African Union (AU) peacekeeping troops, mainly from Uganda and Burundi. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former leader of a moderate Islamist group, had been elected Somalia’s interim president in January; however, the Islamists refused to recognize his government. The Islamists controlled most of the contested territory, with the government holding sway over only small areas of Mogadishu—including the area in which the Shamo Hotel was located. However, even those areas were not safe, as demonstrated by the Dec. 3 bombing and a September attack on the AU compound at Mogadishu’s airport, which had killed 17 peacekeepers and four civilians. Further complicating the situation, infighting had recently erupted between a rival Islamist faction, Hizbul Islam, and Al Shabab, which sought to impose a strict form of Islam on the traditionally moderate nation and was suspected of having links to the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. [See below] Meanwhile, Somali citizens had been caught in the cross fire. Somalia had not had an effective central government since 1991; the current transitional government, in place since 2004, was the 14th attempt to restore order. Since the Islamist insurgency began in 2007, an estimated 19,000 civilians had been killed, 1.5 million had been displaced, and three million of Somalia’s eight million people were in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, according to international aid groups. Attack Called Intimidation Tactic— The three ministers killed in the Dec. 3 bombing were Health Minister Qamar Aden Ali, Education Minister Ahmed Abdulahi Waayeel and Higher Education Minister Ibrahim Hassan Addow, a Somali-American. Despite the ongoing violence that Somalis had endured, the attack was seen as especially egregious, because the majority of the dead were graduating medical students, their instructors and Somali journalists. (Benadir University had been esDecember 22, 2009

tablished in 2002 to train doctors to replace those who had fled the country or died in the civil war.) The acting head of the AU force, Wafula Wamunyini, said the attack was “intended to intimidate and blackmail” the transitional government. The U.N., the U.S., the European Union and the Arab League in a statement reiterated their support for the transitional government. Ahmed called the bombing a “national disaster,” and appealed for international assistance to fight the Islamists, who reportedly received funding and fighters from abroad. “We beg the world to help defend us from these foreign fighters,” the interim president said. Al Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage Dec. 4 denied that his group had been responsible for the bombing, adding, “We believe it is a plot by the government itself. It is not in the nature of Al Shabab to target innocent people.” Analysts said Al Shabab might have denied responsibility for the bombing due to the widespread condemnation and anger the act had provoked among the Somali people. Hundreds of people, including many friends and relatives of the medical students, Dec. 7 staged what was described as an unprecedented protest against Al Shabab in Mogadishu. The protesters marched from the Shamo Hotel to Benadir University, a distance of about half a mile (one kilometer), and burned the Islamists’ trademark black flag. The next day, residents of Elasha, a suburb of Mogadishu, clashed with rebels from Hizbul Islam, after rebel fighters replaced the Somali flag that had been raised at a secondary school with the Islamists’ flag, and briefly abducted the school’s headmaster. Somali authorities Dec. 7 warned that Al Shabab suicide bombers were planning to target other government installations, such as Mogadishu’s airport, seaport and presidential palace. At least three civilians died Dec. 21 when Islamists fired mortars at the heavily fortified building in Mogadishu where members of the transitional parliament were meeting. It was the first time the parliament had held a session in Mogadishu since August, due to security concerns. The previous day, at least 14 civilians had been killed as insurgents and government forces exchanged mortar fire. Al Shabab Battles Rival Islamists— Al Shabab Sept. 30 declared jihad, or holy war, on Hizbul Islam in the southern port of Kismayo. The two groups had been jointly running the town for about a year, but Al Shabab in recent weeks reportedly had named a new government that excluded Hizbul Islam. The rival groups were believed to have similar ideological leanings—although Al Shabab reportedly advocated a harsher form of Islam than did Hizbul Islam—and had been fighting together against the transitional government. [See p. 430A3–C3; 2008, p. 848D3] Al Shabab was believed to recruit foreign fighters, maintain links with Al Qaeda and receive foreign funding. Meanwhile, Hizbul Islam was said to be more of a homegrown movement—led by veteran radical Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Da-

hir Aweys—and its aim was believed to be to drive foreign troops from Somali soil. [See p. 430E2] Al Shabab sought to impose a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law, in Somalia. Al Shabab had carried out punishments such as amputations for theft and stoning to death for adulterers in areas under its control. The jihad declaration prompted hundreds of residents to flee Kismayo, and schools and businesses to close. At least 28 civilians and an undetermined number of insurgents were reported killed in battles between the two factions Oct. 1. Al Shabab Oct. 2 reportedly took full control of Kismayo, with Hizbul Islam fighters withdrawing to villages to the west. Other News—In related developments: o Two foreign journalists, Canadian freelance reporter Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan, who had been kidnapped near Mogadishu in August 2008, were set free Nov. 25. It remained unclear who had been holding the journalists or whether a ransom had been paid for their release (their captors had demanded $1 million); some reports said their families had paid a ransom. Both Lindhout, 28, and Brennan, 38, said they had often been beaten by their captors, and that they had been frequently moved. They were flown to neighboring Kenya Nov. 26, where they received medical care. A Somali journalist, Abdifatah Mohammed Elmi, who was kidnapped with them had been released in January. [See 2008, p. 751G3] o Al Shabab Oct. 22 threatened to launch attacks on Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, in retaliation for an alleged mortar attack on a market in Mogadishu by the AU peacekeeping force earlier that day that had killed 30 civilians. The AU force said it had been aiming at insurgents who had fired from the market at a plane carrying Ahmed. It was reported Oct. 27 that Uganda and Burundi had increased security in their capitals, and were closely monitoring their Somali expatriate populations. n

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Cambodia Khmer Rouge Genocide Charges Filed. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a joint tribunal run by the United Nations and the Cambodian government to hear criminal cases against high-ranking members of Cambodia’s 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, Dec. 16 charged former Khmer Rouge ideological chief Nuon Chea, 83, and Ieng Sary, 84, a former Khmer Rouge deputy prime minister and foreign minister, with genocide. They were charged in connection with the regime’s massacre of members of Cambodia’s Vietnamese and Cham ethnic minorities. The two men had previously been charged with crimes against humanity for their involvement in the deaths of about 1.7 million people during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975–79 rule. [See 2007, pp. 769C3, 757D2, 614D1] 889

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It was the first time that any member of the Khmer Rouge had been charged with genocide. The massacre of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, who were also Cambodian, did not constitute genocide according to the U.N., which defined genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” As many as 400,000 members of the Cham ethnic group, who were predominantly Muslim, had been killed by the Khmer Rouge following uprisings against the regime in some Cham villages. It was unclear how many Vietnamese had been killed by the regime, which had targeted Cambodia’s Vietnamese residents and carried out border raids into Vietnam that led to the 1979 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia that ousted the Khmer Rouge from power. The ECCC Dec. 18 and Dec. 21 charged former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan and former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary’s wife, with genocide in connection with the killings of Cham and Vietnamese people. Both Khieu Samphan, 78, once Cambodia’s titular head of state, and Ieng Thirith, 78, had previously been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, among other charges. Attorneys for Khieu Samphan had maintained that he had not been responsible for ordering or carrying out any killings during the Khmer Rouge’s rule. The ECCC was not expected to begin the trials of the four defendants until 2011 and the trials were expected to last until at least 2014; the trial of a fifth defendant, Kang Kek Ieu, also known as “Duch,” had begun in February. Critics had expressed concern that delays in the creation of the tribunal and in the legal process there could allow some or all of the defendants to die of natural causes before verdicts were reached in their trials. Closing Arguments in Duch Trial—

Closing arguments Nov. 23 began in Duch’s trial, the first held by the ECCC. Duch, 67, who had run the Khmer Rouge’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as Security Prison 21 (S-21), was accused of overseeing the deaths of more than 14,000 people at the prison. He had become a born-again Christian after the fall of the Khmer Rouge and confessed in 1999 to his involvement in the deaths at the prison, but maintained that he would have been murdered by his superiors if he had failed to obey their orders. [See p. 413B3] Prosecutors Nov. 23 argued that Duch had attempted to minimize his role in the atrocities at Tuol Sleng in the hopes of receiving a lenient sentence, and Nov. 25 called for Duch to be sentenced to 45 years in prison. The ECCC had ruled in June that Duch had been held illegally after his 1999 arrest, and instructed judges overseeing his trial to grant him credit for five years served in illegal detention, making it impossible for Duch to receive a life sentence. Kar Savuth, Duch’s Cambodian defense attorney, Nov. 25 argued before the tribunal that Duch was not guilty of the charges that had been lodged against him. However, Francois Roux, Duch’s French defense 890

attorney, Nov. 26 disagreed with Savuth, arguing that Duch was indeed guilty of overseeing deaths at Tuol Sleng, but noted that he had apologized and cooperated with authorities. Roux also said that the number of deaths at Tuol Sleng, one of the Khmer Rouge’s 189 prison camps, had amounted to less than 1% of the deaths attributed to the regime. Duch Nov. 27 apologized again and asked the tribunal to release him, arguing that it did not have the authority to try him because he was not a senior member of the Khmer Rouge. His request was ignored by the judges, and the trial ended later the same day. A ruling in the case was expected in March 2010. New Prosecutor Appointed—The ECCC Dec. 2 appointed Andrew Cayley of Britain as the tribunal’s new U.N.-backed prosecutor, replacing Canadian Robert Petit, who had resigned effective Sept. 1. Petit had reportedly clashed with Chea Lang, the tribunal’s Cambodian prosecutor, over Petit’s push to charge up to six additional former Khmer Rouge members with war crimes. Cayley had served as a defense attorney for former Liberian President Charles Taylor and had worked as a prosecuting counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands. [See p. 480A1] n

Philippines Government Begins Peace Talks With Rebels.

The Philippine government Dec. 8 began renewed peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an Islamic separatist group active on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The renewed talks, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and were overseen by a representative of the Malaysian government, were the first official talks between the two sides since the government declared a unilateral cease-fire in its conflict with the MILF in July. A previous peace deal between the government and the MILF had collapsed after it was ruled unconstitutional by the Philippine Supreme Court, triggering renewed violence. More than 100,000 people had been killed since the 1970s in fighting between Islamic separatists, including the MILF, and the Philippine government. [See 2008, pp. 622F1, 560C3] Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak Dec. 8 in a statement expressed hope that a final peace agreement between the two sides could be reached before Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo left office in June 2010. In September, representatives of the Philippine government and the MILF had reportedly backed the creation of an informal international contact group made up of Japan, Turkey and Britain to support the peace process; the two sides were reportedly considering allowing soldiers from Brunei and Libya to monitor cease-fire compliance on the part of both the MILF and the Philippine military. Gunmen Free 31 Militants— About 70 gunmen Dec. 13 broke into a prison near

Isabela City on the Philippine island of Basilan, allowing 31 of the prison’s 65 inmates to escape, including five MILF members and 12 members of the smaller Abu Sayyaf Islamic terrorist group, according to military officials. One gunman and one prison guard were shot to death in the raid; only four of the prison’s 16 guards were on duty when the raid occurred. A group of 53 inmates, including 19 Abu Sayyaf militants, had escaped from the same prison in 2004. [See 2007, p. 500B2] MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu Dec. 14 said the group had had no involvement in the raid and claimed that only one of those who had escaped had been a member of the MILF. The same day, a spokesman for Arroyo said the escape would not halt peace negotiations between the MILF and the government. Abdul Basir Latip, an alleged cofounder of Abu Sayyaf, Dec. 16 was arrested at an airport in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, upon his arrival from Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Latip, who denied being a member of Abu Sayyaf, was thought to have links to other militant and terrorist groups, including Jemaah Islamiah and the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. He had been arrested at the behest of the U.S. government; Latip had been indicted in the U.S. in 2007 for his involvement in the 1993 kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in the Philippines. [See 1993, p. 100C3] Separately, the Philippine military Dec. 15 attacked a camp occupied by 60 members of the New People’s Army wing of the rebel Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). A military spokesman said nine militants and one soldier were killed in the fighting, which took place near Valencia City in the province of Bukidnon. [See p. 819G3] n Typhoon Kills 14. Typhoon Mirinae killed 14 people, left four people missing and damaged more than 5,500 homes after making landfall on the Philippine island of Quezon on Oct. 31. Mirinae had winds of up to 93 mph (150 kmph) and individual gusts of up to 115 mph; the storm also subjected the Philippines to heavy rains, including rainfall of 3.3 inches (8.5 cm) in Manila, the capital. Authorities had evacuated more than 115,000 people from Manila and the surrounding region prior to the storm. [See p. 704A1] Mirinae was the third major storm to strike the Philippines since late September, and 87,000 people displaced by earlier storms were still in temporary shelters when Mirinae hit. As of Oct. 24, a total of 929 people had been confirmed dead as a result of Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma and 84 people were still listed as missing. Also, leptospirosis, a waterborne disease that could be contracted by wading through floodwater, had infected 2,000 people and killed 157 in the Philippines following the storms. Britain’s Guardian newspaper Oct. 19 reported that Philippine health officials intended to provide doses of antibiotics to 1.3 million people still living in flooded areas of Manila and other parts of the country. FACTS ON FILE

(A fourth storm, Typhoon Lupit, had been expected to strike the Philippines on Oct. 22, but had veered away from the country Oct. 24 after pelting the northern province of Cagayan with heavy rains.) U.S. government-sponsored broadcaster Voice of America Oct. 18 reported that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had requested a total of $144 million from member nations to aid victims of the storms and to assist with reconstruction. The U.N. had previously requested $74 million in post-storm aid in October, but had received only $26 million. n News in Brief. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Dec. 14

9, had been instructed to put on life preservers, and lifeboats had been launched prior to the ship’s sinking. A total of nine people died as a result of the accident, including a two-year-old boy. Search and rescue operations carried out by the Philippine Navy and Coast Guard, with the assistance of U.S. military helicopters and passing ships, rescued the remaining passengers. One passenger, a 39-year-old woman, Sept. 7 was rescued by helicopter after surviving 30 hours at sea. The Philippine Board of Marine Inquiry Oct. 16 finished its report on the accident but declined to make it public. [See 2008, p. 981E1] n

raised the alert level on the Mount Mayon volcano in the central province of Albay to

Taiwan

level three, signaling that scientists believed the volcano was likely to erupt within weeks. Following the change, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda announced a mandatory evacuation for all residents of 45 towns located near the volcano; more than 47,000 people were expected to be evacuated. Salceda Dec. 17 said soldiers would remove residents who refused to evacuate; as of Dec. 22, more than 45,000 residents had been evacuated to shelters set up in schools and other buildings elsewhere in the province. Mayon, which had last erupted in 2006, was one of the Philippines’s 22 active volcanoes. [See 2006, p. 683G2] A group of at least 15 gunmen Dec. 10 kidnapped 125 people during a raid on a school and surrounding homes near the

town of Prosperidad in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao’s Agusan del Sur province. Following the kidnapping, 50 of the hostages escaped before the gunmen, members of the Manobo ethnic group, who had once belonged to a militia armed and funded by the government, fled with the remaining hostages. Government negotiators Dec. 10 convinced the kidnappers to release all 17 children captured in the raid, as well as an elderly woman. Another nine hostages were released Dec. 11, and two more were freed Dec. 12. The kidnappers were members of the local Perez family and carried out the kidnappings after police had attempted to arrest the group’s leader and his brother on murder charges related to an ongoing feud with a rival family. The kidnappers Dec. 13 freed the final 47 hostages after government representatives signed an agreement that transferred those charges to a tribal court. The Philippines National Police Dec. 15 charged 14 members of the group with kidnapping. [See p. 820B1] A fire in Bacolod City, the capital of the central Philippine province of Negros Occidental, Nov. 2 killed 17 people and burned more than 46 buildings. The fire reportedly began in a boardinghouse and was spread by strong winds. Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia Nov. 8 declared a state of calamity in the neighborhood where the fire broke out, allowing for emergency funds to be spent on reconstruction and burying victims, among other expenses. [See 2004, p. 282G2] A ferry carrying 968 people sank Sept. 6 near Mindanao after listing severely. The passengers aboard the ship, the Superferry December 22, 2009

Opposition Gains in Local Elections. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Tai-

wan’s pro-independence opposition party, made strong gains in local elections held in 17 municipalities Dec. 5, according to results reported the following day. The ruling Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) of President Ma Ying-jeou suffered its first setback at the polls after easily defeating the DPP in the previous presidential and legislative elections, in 2008. [See p. 625F1] Overall, Nationalist candidates won 289 offices in the 17 cities and counties, down by 22 from 2005 local elections, while the DPP won 128 posts, an increase of 21. The opposition gains followed the resignation in September of then–Prime Minister Liu Chao-shiuan and his cabinet, taking the blame for a delayed response to Typhoon Morakot, which had struck Taiwan in August and left more than 700 people dead or missing. Ma had emphasized pursuing areas of cooperation with China, including a series of deals finalized on Nov. 16 that eased cross-strait restrictions on financial industries. Critics of opening up mainland investment said it would create excessive economic dependence on China and undermine Taiwan’s autonomy. Following the losses in the local polls, Ma said his party would “reflect on warnings sent by the elections.” [See below] China Deals Open Financial Markets—

Three memorandums of understanding between Taiwan and China were formalized Nov. 16, further opening China’s financial markets to Taiwanese institutions. The most significant deal of the three allowed Taiwanese banks to establish fully operational branches on the mainland. Previously, those banks could only set up liaison offices in China. [See p. 415C3] Details concerning the implementation of the agreements remained to be settled, including the required waiting period for a liaison office’s transition into a fully operational branch, as well as Taiwanese banks’ ability to deal in Chinese currency. Talks were expected to continue on the issues in negotiations scheduled for 2010 on a planned freetrade deal, known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement. n News in Brief. Raymond Burghardt, chairman of the American Institute in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, Dec. 15 said the U.S.

would continue with arms sales to Taiwan, despite recent protests from China denouncing any such plans. The institute functioned as the U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, with which it did not have diplomatic relations. U.S. State Department official Robert Kovac Dec. 9 had prompted the Chinese objections by telling Reuters news service that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama would soon notify Congress of an arms sale, but he did not say when. [See 2008, p. 730B1] Taiwan’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 8.3% in the third quarter from the preceding quarter, the government reported Nov. 26. GDP was still down by 1.3% from the year-earlier period. Taiwan in the first quarter of 2009 had posted its worst quarterly decline since record keeping had begun in 1961, but outpaced expectations in the second quarter with growth of 20.7%, according to government data released Aug. 21. [See p. 416B1] n

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Thailand Arrests Over Rumors About King. The Royal Thai Police Nov. 1 arrested two people on charges that they had posted “untrue information” about the health of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, in violation of a “national security” provision of Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act. Rumors about Bhumibol’s health following his September hospitalization were blamed for triggering significant drops in the Stock Exchange of Thailand. [See p. 726E3] One of the defendants, former stock trader Teeranun Wipuchanin, Nov. 1 said the reason she had translated an article from the U.S.-based Bloomberg news agency that had linked the stock market drops with Bhumibol’s medical condition was that other Thais were curious as to why the stock market had fallen. Teeranun and fellow defendant Kata Pajajariyapong faced up to five years in prison and a fine of $3,000 if convicted. n

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Uzbekistan News in Brief. The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Nov. 11 reported that children as young as 11 were being removed from school in order to pick cotton for government-paid wages of about nine cents per pound. Students who refused to participate in the harvest reportedly faced expulsion from school or a fine. Uzbekistan was the second-largest cotton exporter in the world. [See 2008, p. 418C1] Sandzhar Umarov, an opposition leader who in 2006 had been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison on tax evasion and embezzlement charges, Nov. 7 was released from custody. Following his release, Umarov, who had founded the Sunshine Uzbekistan reform movement, left Uzbekistan for the U.S., where his wife and three of his children were citizens. [See 2006, p. 173B3] An Uzbek court July 30 found Dilmurod Sayyid, a journalist and rights activist, guilty of extortion and forgery and sentenced him to 12 and a half years in prison. 891

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His lawyer and family were not allowed in the courtroom when the verdict was handed down. Sayyid, 48, had been arrested Feb. 22 on charges that his supporters said were politically motivated. Prior to his arrest, Sayyid had worked to defend farmers whose property was reportedly confiscated by local officials in the fall of 2008. [See 2008, p. 774E2] n

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The upper house of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, Dec. 18 voted, 37–11, to give final approval to an 8.5 billion euro ($12 billion) economic stimulus package of tax cuts proposed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new center-right government. The outcome of the vote had been in doubt as leaders from two of the 16 state governments that were represented in the Bundesrat objected to the bill, saying the loss of tax revenue would be an unaffordable burden on their budgets. (A 35-vote majority was required to pass the measure.) The leaders, both members of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), were won over by pledges of increased federal funding for education in all regions. [See p. 749C2] The package included a larger per-child deduction for families, as well as increased write-off limits and deductions for businesses. It would also cut the value-added tax (VAT), similar to a sales tax, to 7%, from 19%, for stays at hotels. The new tax cuts would tax effect Jan. 1, 2010, as would an additional 14 billion euros in tax cuts approved by Merkel’s previous government before a September general election. The federal budget deficit was expected to rise to a record 86 billion euros in 2010, or about 6% of gross domestic product. Germany planned to issue a record amount of government debt in 2010. German bonds were the benchmark in the European credit market, which had been rattled by downgrades to Greece’s government debt. [See p. 874D2] Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble Dec. 16 said the government would take strong action to reduce the deficit once the global economic crisis ended. The opposition, led by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), had argued that Merkel’s tax cuts were a dangerous departure from Germany’s tradition of fiscal prudence. n

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The large bronze sign at the site of the Auschwitz Nazi German death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, that read “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “work sets you free,” Dec. 18 was stolen, but it was recovered two days later. The theft of the sign, which had been affixed to the camp’s entrance since 1940 and was considered one of the most notorious symbols of the Holocaust, had prompted international outrage. Polish police Dec. 20 re892

covered the sign in three pieces, and arrested five men suspected of stealing it. The men, whose ages ranged from 25 to 39, were not identified. [See p. 364G2; 2006, p. 426B2] Police Dec. 21 said the sign was stolen by criminals with no links to neo-Nazi groups, in a theft that was “undoubtedly robbery-related.” More than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed at the Auschwitz death camp before it was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. The site had been turned into a museum. n

Russia Bombs Discovered Along Gas Pipeline. Officials at OAO Gazprom, Russia’s state-

owned energy giant, Dec. 13 said two explosive devices had been planted along a natural gas pipeline in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia. The bombs were defused the following day. Gas shipments to Ingushetia and another Russian republic, North Ossetia, as well as neighboring Armenia were temporarily suspended because of the incident. [See pp. 892D2, 836G1] Ingushetia had seen an increase in violence in 2009. The unrest was attributed to Islamic rebels, separatist fighters, and enduring conditions of corruption and poverty. n Officer Sentenced for Journalist’s Murder.

A court in Russia’s southern republic of Ingushetia Dec. 11 sentenced policeman Ibragim Yevloyev in absentia to two years in a low-security prison for the negligent homicide of journalist Magomed Yevloyev in 2008. (The two were not related.) Magomed Yevloyev had run a Web site, Ingushetiya.ru (later Ingushetia.org), which detailed alleged abuses committed by local authorities. He was shot while in police custody in 2008. Ingush officials maintained that Yevloyev had been shot by accident after he had tried to seize a police officer’s gun. His family and supporters claimed that he had been shot deliberately. [See pp. 892B2, 766E1; 2008, p. 840E3] Magomed Yevloyev’s family was expected to appeal the verdict. Musa Pliyev, a lawyer for the family, Dec. 11 condemned the court’s ruling, and added that “the Yevloyev precedent will have great significance because from this point onward there is a legal green light for anyone who kills a human rights worker.” A U.S.based advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, called on the Supreme Court of Ingushetia to “overturn this ruling on appeal and launch a credible and thorough investigation” into Yevloyev’s death. Maksharip Aushev, who took over Yevloyev’s Web site after his death, had been killed in October, after gunmen fired on his car in the nearby Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkeria. Ibragim Yevloyev’s whereabouts were currently unknown. n News in Brief. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Dec. 3, in his annual televised phonein show, said he would “think about” running for president in 2012, and indicated that he had no plans to quit politics. Presi-

dent Dmitri Medvedev, who was in Italy that day, suggested that he was also considering a presidential run in 2012. Both leaders maintained that they would reach an agreement on who would run in the presidential election. [See p. 667D2; 2007, p. 705A1] Russia and the Vatican Dec. 3 agreed to establish full diplomatic relations. The move was publicized after Medvedev met briefly with Pope Benedict XVI, in Rome. [See p. 739F1; 2006, p. 163C2; 2004, p. 257F3] Two judges on Russia’s 19-member Constitutional Court, the highest court in the country, had resigned from top judicial posts after publicly criticizing the Russian justice system, it was reported Dec. 2. Vladimir Yaroslavtsev, who was appointed to the court in 1994 by then-President Boris Yeltsin, in August had told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the “strengthening of authoritarianism” was diminishing judicial independence in Russia. A second Yeltsin-appointed justice, Anatoly Kononov, in an October interview with the Russian magazine Sobesednik, agreed with Yaroslavtsev’s criticism. Kononov resigned from the court entirely, while Yaroslavtsev resigned as the court’s representative to the Council of Judges, a powerful group that influenced judicial appointments. He would remain a court justice. [See below] The Russian Black Sea naval fleet, which was based in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, had terminated counterintelligence activities in Crimea, Russian officials said Dec. 1. The 19 officially designated Federal Security Service (FSB) agents in Crimea would reportedly be reassigned to Novorossiysk, a Russian Black Sea port. The Russian fleet’s lease on naval facilities in Crimea expired in 2017. Ukrainian leaders had maintained that the lease would not be renewed. [See 2008, p. 797B1] The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands, Nov. 30 ruled that former shareholders in OAO Yukos, a private oil company that was effectively nationalized by the government in 2004, could seek as much as $100 billion in damages. The court found that Russia was required to abide by the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty, which it had signed, but which was never ratified by its parliament. Russia Oct. 19 had withdrawn from the treaty, which protected investors from expropriation without just compensation. [See pp. 724A1, 328B3; 2005, p. 135F1] A Moscow court Nov. 30 ordered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and the newspaper Kommersant to each pay Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov $17,500 for defamation. Kommersant earlier in the year had

printed an interview with Nemtsov, in which Luzhkov said he was defamed by accusations of corruption. Nemtsov and Kommersant were ordered to retract statements that were found libelous. Both said they would appeal the ruling. [See p. 855D2; 2008, p. 383C3] Medvedev had fired influential government media adviser Mikhail Lesin, who was considered close to Putin, it was reported FACTS ON FILE

Nov. 18. The Russian news outlet Interfax quoted unidentified government officials as saying that Lesin was fired for abuse of power. Other reports suggested that Lesin agreed to step down voluntarily due to conflicts of interest. Lesin was credited as the driving force behind Russia Today, a 24hour English-language television news channel. He had also held top posts in television news and advertising, and served as an adviser to Putin and Yeltsin during their presidencies. [See p. 2004, p. 162B1] Olga Kotovskaya, 50, a prominent journalist in the western Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, Nov. 16 died after falling from the 14th story of a Kaliningrad city building. Authorities initially ruled her death a

suicide, but later opened a criminal investigation. Kotovskaya died six days after a local court had ruled that authorities had fraudulently seized control of a television channel in which she owned a 49% stake. The channel, called Kaskad, was founded in the early 1990s, and was known for objective reporting, live reports and occasional criticism of local authorities. [See pp. 892D2, 667F3] n

Serbia News in Brief. Police Dec. 8 arrested seven

people, including three minors, on suspicion of threatening Brankica Stankovic, a

television reporter for Serbia’s B92 media outlet. Stankovic began receiving death

threats after her television program, “Insider,” Dec. 3 had reported on alleged crimes committed by members of outlawed soccer fan clubs, including drug trafficking, assault and murder. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union and the Council of Europe, in a joint statement released Dec. 9, said they were “deeply concerned about the threats directed at journalists who address important and sensitive issues of public interest in Serbia.” [See p. 687F2] Serbia’s war crimes court Dec. 7 convicted Nenad Malic, a former Bosnian Serb soldier, of murdering two Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) civilians in 1992, and sentenced him to 13 years in prison. Malic’s trial began in Bosnia before he was apprehended by Serbian authorities in January, but the case was transferred to the Serbian court system. [See p. 822E2] n

Turkey Court Bans Kurdish Party. Turkey’s Con-

stitutional Court Dec. 11 ordered the closure of the country’s largest pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), ruling that it posed a threat to national unity through its links to a banned separatist militant group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose insurgency had left 40,000 people dead over the past 25 years. The court banned 37 of the DTP’s members from participating in politics for five years. Among them were two of its 21 members of parliament, including its chairman, Ahmet Turk. The others could remain in office as independents, but they said they would withdraw in protest. [See p. 803E3] December 22, 2009

In November, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had unveiled a plan to expand the rights of the Kurdish minority, which made up at least 15% of Turkey’s population of more than 70 million. Turkish nationalist opposition parties strongly opposed Erdogan’s initiative. The DTP had backed the plan, but refused to join the government and other parties in calling on the PKK to disarm. The DTP had also refused to agree that the PKK was a terrorist group, as it was classified by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. The DTP also went beyond Erdogan’s plan in calling for constitutional recognition of Kurdish identity. The court ruling was seen as a new setback for Turkey’s beleaguered bid for EU membership. The EU had made both political reforms and Kurdish rights key conditions of the membership process, and had warned Turkey against closing down parties, especially the DTP. About 20 parties, including 10 Kurdish parties, as well as Islamist parties deemed a threat to the nation’s secular order, had been closed by the court under a constitution imposed by a military government in 1982. In 2008, prosecutors had attempted to shut down Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which had roots in political Islam, for alleged antisecular activities. Erdogan Dec. 14 said he opposed the court ruling against the DTP. The ban set off days of protests in the largely Kurdish southeast. Two people were killed Dec. 15 during a protest. Weeks of growing unrest among Kurds had preceded the court ruling. It was reported Dec. 10 that more than 900 people had been detained or arrested, and hundreds injured, during several days of protests prompted by Internet rumors that the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, had suffered mistreatment. A radical arm of the PKK Dec. 10 claimed responsibility for a Dec. 7 ambush in which nine Turkish troops were killed near the northern town of Tokat. n

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United Arab Emirates News in Brief. The U.S. and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Dec. 17 finalized a civilian nuclear cooperation deal, under which the U.S. would provide the UAE with

sensitive nuclear materials and technology for power generation. U.S. President Barack Obama May 21 had approved the agreement, and the U.S. Congress allowed it to go through, despite outrage from some U.S. legislators over a video that emerged in April of a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi torturing a man. (Britain’s Financial Times Dec. 10 reported that the royal family member, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, was on trial in a closed courtroom for causing harm and endangering life.) [See p. 331G2, E3] The supreme court of the UAE Oct. 12 convicted a U.S. citizen, Naji Hamdan, of terrorism charges, despite claims by Ham-

dan and rights groups that he had been tortured since being arrested in August 2008,

and coerced into signing a confession. In a closed trial, Hamdan was convicted of supporting terrorism, working with terrorist organizations and belonging to a terrorist group, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, including time served. Rights groups said the U.S. government had pushed the UAE to try Hamdan because it did not have enough evidence to convict him in U.S. courts. [See p. 765F1] French President Nicolas Sarkozy May 26 visited Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, to open a French military base there. The facility, which included barracks and a training camp for some 500 troops, a naval base and space at an air base, was France’s first permanent overseas military base outside its former African colonies in 50 years. Media reports said it was part of Sarkozy’s strategy to balance against the threat from Iran. [See 2008, p. 474F3] Prosecutors in Dubai, in the UAE, April 8 charged a former finance and industry minister, Mohammed Khalfan Bin Kharbash, and Zack Shahin, the former chief executive of real estate company Deyaar Development PJSC, with corruption. Prosecutors said 14 people in total had been charged in three cases that a yearlong investigation had generated. [See 2008, p. 988G1] n

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Afghanistan War Karzai Submits Cabinet Picks to Parliament.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Dec. 19 submitted his list of cabinet picks to parliament, which would hold votes on the nominations in the coming weeks. While Karzai’s picks for the most part appeared to satisfy the U.S. and other foreign allies that had troops in Afghanistan, Afghan critics said the new government was too similar to the previous one to improve governance in the country. [See p. 844B1, D3] Karzai had come under heavy international pressure to clean up his government, which was widely considered to be ineffective and corrupt. Karzai retained several cabinet members reportedly favored by his Western allies, including those who headed the key ministries of defense, finance, education, agriculture, health and the interior. He did not nominate a foreign minister, reportedly because he was concerned that parliament would object to another term for current Foreign Affairs Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, also a Western favorite. Spanta’s position in the government was expected to be clarified after he participated in a January 2010 conference on Afghanistan in London. [See 2007, p. 321F2] Karzai did not stack his government with corrupt warlords who had supported his reelection campaign, as had been feared by international observers. He also announced replacements for Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, the minster of mines, and Sediq Chakari, the minister of religious 893

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affairs, both of whom had been accused of corruption. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said, “This is a government we can work with,” in an interview with the New York Times published Dec. 20. [See p. 806E1] However, Karzai retained Ismail Khan, a warlord who had been accused of atrocities, as the minister of electricity and water. Karzai’s two vice presidents—Muhammad Qassim Fahim and Abdul Karim Khalili— were also controversial warlords. Critics noted that corruption had been allowed to flourish under the leadership of many of the ministers who were to be retained, even if the ministers themselves were not corrupt. Some of those ministers had overseen Afghanistan’s August presidential election, which had been marred by accusations of widespread fraud. [See p. 313F3] Additionally, Karzai did not offer positions to his main opponents in the presidential race, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, fueling concern that the country would remain divided under Karzai’s new government. U.N. Representative to Step Down—

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Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, Dec. 11 announced that he would step down from his position in March 2010. Eide, 60, in September had been accused by his former deputy, Peter Galbraith of the U.S., of failing to investigate reports of fraud in the Afghan presidential election. Eide denied the claim, but the accusation nonetheless was thought to have undermined the U.N.’s status as an impartial actor in Afghanistan. [See p. 696F1] Eide insisted that the latest announcement was not related to the election controversy, and that he had planned on stepping down in 2010 ever since he first took the job in 2008. In a Dec. 10 letter to the International Crisis Group think tank in New York City, Eide said Galbraith had devised a “secret mission” to force Karzai’s resignation after it became apparent that the election had been tainted by fraud. The alleged plan involved urging the Obama administration to replace Karzai with Ghani or former Interior Minister Ahmed Ali Jalali. Eide said he told Galbraith that the plan was a “totally unacceptable international interference” in Afghanistan, and suggested that as a result Galbraith was fired by the U.N. in September. Galbraith responded that there had been “internal discussions” surrounding the election controversy, but that he had never acted on such a plan, in an interview with the Times published Dec. 17. Separately, it was reported that Eide was one of several foreign officials pushing Karzai to delay parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2010, over fears that they would be vulnerable to the types of fraud that had compromised the presidential election. Militants Target Police Headquarters—

Five gunmen wearing suicide-bombing vests Dec. 21 attacked a police headquar894

ters in Gardez, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktika. Officials said the five gunmen were killed in the ensuing battle, which also left four policemen and three civilians wounded. Training Afghanistan’s security forces was a central plank in the U.S.’s strategy to defeat an insurgency by the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban, and the number of attacks against security personnel had reportedly increased in recent weeks. Insurgents Dec. 15 had killed 16 Afghan policemen in two separate attacks in the northern province of Baghlan and the southern province of Helmand. A suicide bomber Dec. 15 killed at least eight people in an attack outside the home of former Vice President Ahmed Zia Massoud in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Officials said Massoud, who was unharmed, could have been the target of the attack. Massoud’s brother, the revered anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud, had been assassinated by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda in September 2001. Officials said the target could also have been the nearby Heetal Hotel, which was frequented by foreigners. [See 2001, p. 732A2] Other Developments—In related news: o Spanish Defense Minister Carme Chacon Dec. 17 announced that Spain would send an additional 511 troops to Afghanistan, most of whom would help train Afghan security forces. The buildup would bring the total number of Spanish troops in the country to more than 1,500. Since announcing a troop increase of 30,000 earlier in the month, the U.S. had pressed its European allies to strengthen their military commitments to Afghanistan. o Britain’s Guardian newspaper Dec. 16 reported that three of its journalists had been freed from captivity earlier that day, after they were held hostage for six days by armed gunmen. The details of their release were not disclosed for security reasons. The Guardian said the journalists at the time of their abduction had been conducting interviews near the Afghan-Pakistani border. The newspaper identified one of the journalists as Gaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi, but withheld the names of his two Afghan colleagues out of concern for their safety. The Guardian did not report the kidnapping until the hostages were freed, as had become customary for news organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [See p. 611D3] o British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Dec. 13 made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to visit British troops in the southern province of Kandahar. Brown also met with Karzai, and at a joint press conference later that day the two leaders attempted to defuse suggestions that their relationship had suffered a rupture. Brown had heavily criticized Karzai’s government as corrupt, and Karzai in turn had described Brown’s comments as “extremely insulting.” Karzai Dec. 13 said he and Brown had a “very trustworthy relationship.” [See p. 775B2]

o German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Dec. 11 made an unannounced visit to the northern province of Kunduz, which had been the site of a September air strike that had killed about 100 people, many of whom were civilians. The strike had been ordered by a German officer, and the German government had come under heavy criticism at home for failing to clarify how the attack had come about. Guttenberg said he was in Afghanistan to interview German soldiers involved in the strike. [See p. 835E3] o U.S. Lt. Gen. William Caldwell 4th Dec. 9 told reporters that a new pay increase for Afghan army soldiers had led to a spike in new recruits. The increase had been announced 10 days earlier, and had led to 2,600 new recruits so far in December, a significant increase from the 831 recruits who had signed up in all of September. Caldwell said a monthly starting salary in the Afghan army was now the equivalent of $240, up from $180. Caldwell said the Taliban reportedly paid its insurgents between $250 and $300 a month, an advantage that had allowed the group to siphon off potential Afghan army recruits. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Soccer Real Salt Lake Wins MLS Title. Real Salt Lake Nov. 22 won the Major League Soccer (MLS) Cup, defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy at Qwest Field in Seattle, Wash. Real Salt Lake won, 5–4, on penalty kicks, after the two teams played to a 1–1 tie in regulation and extra time. It was the first MLS championship for Utah-based Real Salt Lake, which had posted a losing record in the regular season (11 wins, 12 losses and seven ties). [See 2008, p. 891B1] In the title game, the Galaxy scored first, with a 41st-minute goal by forward Mike Magee that was set up by the team’s two stars, midfielder David Beckham and forward Landon Donovan. Real Salt Lake evened the score in the 64th minute, with a goal by forward Robbie Findley off a deflected shot by forward Yura Movsisyan. Neither team scored in the 30-minute overtime period, leading to a penalty-kick shootout. Real Salt Lake claimed victory when defender Ronnie Russell—the 14th man to take a shot—beat Galaxy goalkeeper Josh Saunders. [See below] The only other MLS title game to be decided by penalty kicks had been in 2006, when the Houston Dynamo defeated the New England Revolution. [See 2006, p. 941E3] Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Nick Rimando, who saved two of the penalty kicks, was named the title game’s most valuable player (MVP). Real Salt Lake Nov. 14 had advanced to the MLS Cup by defeating the Chicago Fire, 5–4 on penalty kicks, in Bridgeview, Ill., to win the Eastern Conference title. The Galaxy Nov. 13 beat Houston, 2–0, in overtime in Carson, Calif., to win the Western Conference championship. FACTS ON FILE

The Columbus Crew had posted the best record (13–7–10) in the regular season, which had opened March 19 and ended Oct. 25. Galaxy’s Donovan Named MVP—Donovan Nov. 19 was named the MVP of MLS for the 2009 regular season. Donovan, the Galaxy’s captain, scored 12 goals and added six assists in 25 regular-season matches. [See 2005, p. 548C1] Bruce Arena of the Galaxy Nov. 11 was named MLS coach of the year for the second time in his career. He had also won in 1997, when he was coach of D.C. United. [See 2008, p. 891B2] Beckham Returns From Milan Loan—

Beckham July 16 returned to the Galaxy after a six-month stint with prestigious Italian club AC Milan and the English national team. Beckham, who in an October 2008 deal had agreed to return to the Galaxy from Milan in time for preseason training in February, March 7 struck a deal with the U.S., club that allowed him to extend the loan until Milan’s season ended in May, and also to remain in Europe to play in the English national team’s World Cup qualifying matches in June. Under the deal—the exact terms of which were not disclosed—Beckham, the highest-paid player in MLS, and AC Milan reportedly agreed to pay the Galaxy several million dollars in compensation for Beckham’s absence. [See 2008, p. 891G1] Beckham, who had made a high-profile move to MLS in 2007, said his primary reason for extending his stay in Europe was to improve his chances of playing for England in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. [See p. 858D2; 2007, p. 38A3] In Beckham’s first home match since returning to MLS—an exhibition against AC Milan—Galaxy fans July 19 booed and jeered him throughout for his perceived disloyalty to their team. Their taunts provoked the star midfielder to challenge one fan to a confrontation on the field at halftime. However, analysts said Beckham went on to play a key role for the team in the remainder of the season, and was instrumental in the Galaxy’s run to the MLS title game. AC Milan Nov. 2 confirmed that it had reached a deal with the Galaxy for Beckham, 34, to return to the Italian club in January 2010 on another loan. n Virginia Wins Men’s College Title. The University of Virginia Cavaliers Dec. 13 won the College Cup, the championship of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men’s soccer, in Cary, N.C., defeating the University of Akron Zips, 3–2, on penalty kicks, after the two teams played to a scoreless tie in regulation and overtime. It was Virginia’s sixth NCAA title, and its first since it won four straight from 1991 to 1994. [See 2008, p. 929E3; 1994, p. 966E3] In the semifinals Dec. 11, Virginia had defeated Wake Forest University, 2–1, in overtime, and Akron beat the University of North Carolina Tar Heels on penalty kicks, 5–4. December 22, 2009

North Carolina Takes Women’s Title—

North Carolina Dec. 6 defeated the Stanford University Cardinal, 1–0, in College Station, Texas, to win the women’s College Cup. It was the 20th title for North Carolina in the 28-year history of the women’s NCAA championship. Jessica McDonald scored the game-winning goal for the Tar Heels in the third minute. [See 2008, p. 929F3] In the semifinals Dec. 4, North Carolina had defeated the University of Notre Dame, 1–0, and Stanford beat the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 2–1. n

Boxing Pacquiao Wins Seventh Title. Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines Nov. 14 defeated Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto in a technical knockout to capture Cotto’s World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title in Las Vegas, Nev. Referee Kenny Bayless stopped the match in the 12th and final round, after Pacquiao landed a flurry of punches on a defenseless and bloodied Cotto. Pacquiao had knocked Cotto down once in the third round and again in the fourth round. [See p. 647D2] With the victory, Pacquiao won his seventh world title in a record seven different weight divisions. Pacquiao had begun fighting at 112 pounds and moved his way up in weight classes, before finally reaching 145 pounds in the welterweight bout against Cotto. He improved his record to 50 wins, three losses and two draws. Because of his dominance over formidable opponents in different weight classes, many boxing analysts labeled Pacquiao the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, a title once bestowed upon Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the U.S. before his June 2008 retirement. However, with Mayweather’s recent return to the sport, promoters had begun organizing a “superfight” between the two, with the fighters tentatively agreeing to terms for a bout on March 13, 2010. Disagreements over drug testing for the 2010 fight arose Dec. 22, threatening to derail the planned bout. Mayweather’s camp reportedly sought stricter testing that complied with standards of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), but Pacquiao was balking at that proposal. The State Athletic Commission in Nevada, where the bout was expected to be held, required urine tests only once before the fight and immediately afterward, whereas the USADA mandated random blood and urine tests. V. Klitschko Retains Heavyweight Title—

Vitali Klitschko of Ukraine Dec. 12 defeated Kevin Johnson of the U.S. in Bern, Switzerland, to retain his World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title. Judges unanimously awarded the victory to Klitschko, after the Ukrainian kept Johnson on the ropes for much of the bout. Klitschko improved his record to 39–2, while Johnson’s record fell to 22–1–1. [See 2008, p. 994E1] Other News—In other boxing news: o Kelly Pavlik Dec. 19 beat Miguel Espino of the U.S. in Pavlik’s hometown of

Youngstown, Ohio, to retain his WBC and WBO middleweight titles. Espino’s trainer threw in the towel to stop the fight in the fifth round, after his fighter suffered a third knockdown in two rounds. o The Super Six World Boxing Classic opened Oct. 17 with matches in Germany and England. In the round-robin tournament, presented by the Showtime premium cable network, six super middleweight fighters would compete to determine a unified champion of the division by 2011. The competitors included Arthur Abraham of Germany, Carl Froch of England and Denmark’s Mikkel Kessler, as well as Americans Andre Dirrell, Jermain Taylor and Andre Ward. n

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ARTS & SCIENCES

UNITED STATES

Awards D.C.’s Kennedy Center Honors Five. Five art-

ists who had been selected as recipients of the 32nd annual Kennedy Center Honors were feted Dec. 6 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. A day earlier, the five had been guests of honor at a U.S. State Department dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. [See 2008, p. 912F1] The five honorees were: comedian, producer and director Mel Brooks, 83, whose musical The Producers, based on a 1968 film comedy he directed, won a record 12 Tony Awards in 2001; jazz pianist, composer and ensemble leader Dave Brubeck, who turned 89 on Dec. 6, reportedly making him the first Kennedy Center honoree to be feted at a gala performance on his birthday; black opera singer Grace Bumbry, 72, who broke racial barriers during her career; two-time Academy Award– winning actor Robert De Niro, 66; and singer, songwriter and multiple Grammy Award winner Bruce Springsteen, 60, a 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. [See p. 88G2; 2001, p. 443E1–F1, E2; 1999, p. 215D1; 1994, p. 932B1; 1981, p. 264B2; 1975, p. 368A2] n

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Theater Openings After Miss Julie. Broadway production of an updated

version of August Strindberg’s drama Miss Julie (1888). By Patrick Marber. Directed by Mark Brokaw. With Sienna Miller, Jonny Lee Miller and Marin Ireland. In New York City, at the American Airlines Theater. Oct. 22. [See 2006, p. 1042A1; 1952, p. 139H] Annie Get Your Gun. Revival of Irving Berlin’s musical about sharpshooter Annie Oakley, first seen on Broadway in 1946. Music and lyrics by Berlin; book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, with additional dialogue by April de Angelis. Directed by Richard Jones; choreographed by Philippe Giraudeau. With Jane Horrocks, Julian Ovenden, John Marquez and Liza Sadovy. In London, at the Young Vic. Oct. 16. [See 1999, pp. 467D3, 411A1; 1989, p. 732C3; 1946, p. 159N] Brighton Beach Memoirs. Broadway revival of a 1983 Neil Simon comedy, made into a 1986 film. Directed by David Cromer. With Laurie Metcalf, Noah Robbins, Santino Fontana and Dennis Boutsikaris. In New York City, at the Nederlander Theater. Oct. 25. (Poor ticket sales caused the show to close Oct. 31, and led to the cancellation of a planned Broadway revival of a sequel, Broadway Bound, which was to have opened Dec. 10.) [See 2006, p. 832G1; 1986, pp. 1007C1, 1006C3; 1983, p. 259B3] Equivocation. Play focusing on a character based on Elizabethan dramatist William Shakespeare. By Bill

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Cain. Directed by David Esbjornson. With Joe Spano, Harry Groener, Troian Bellisario, Patrick J. Adams and Connor Trinneer. In Los Angeles, at the Geffen Playhouse. Nov. 17. (This play was first mounted in April at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.) Finian’s Rainbow. Broadway revival of a 1947 Broadway musical set in the fictional Southern state of Missitucky. Music by Burton Lane; lyrics by E.Y. Harburg; book by Harburg and Fred Saidy; book adaptation by Arthur Perlman. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle. With Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson, Jim Norton and Christopher Fitzgerald. In New York City, at the St. James Theater. Oct. 29. [See 2007, p. 907F2; 1997, p. 13C3; 1947, p. 11F] The Habit of Art. Biographical drama about British poet W.H. Auden and British composer Benjamin Britten. By Alan Bennett. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. With Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings. In London, at the Royal National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre. Nov. 17. [See 1976, p. 970C1; 1973, p. 959B3] Idiot Savant. Absurdist play whose title character is called upon to save humanity from “magic words.” Written, directed and designed by Richard Foreman. With Willem Dafoe, Alenka Kraigher and Elina Lowensohn. In New York City, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater’s Martinson Hall. Nov. 4. [See 1995, p. 460F1; 1983, p. 420G1] The New Electric Ballroom. Comedy about three odd sisters and a fishmonger. Written and directed by Enda Walsh. With Rosaleen Linehan, Ruth McCabe, Catherine Walsh and Mikel Murfi. In New York City, at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Oct. 29. [See 2008, p. 643E3] The Orphans’ Home Cycle. Nine one-act plays about a Texas family mounted together for the first time over a nine-hour period. By Horton Foote. Directed by Michael Wilson. With Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey, Hallie Foote, James DeMarse and Annalee Jefferies. In Hartford, Conn., at Hartford Stage. Oct. 17. [See p. 140F2] A Streetcar Named Desire. U.S. premiere of an acclaimed 2009 production of Tennessee Williams’s classic 1947 play by Australia’s Sydney Theatre Company. Directed by Liv Ullmann. With Cate Blanchett, Joel Edgerton and Robin McLeavy. In Washington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Oct. 31. [See p. 468G2; 2008, p. 44C1; 2007, p. 504E2; 2005, pp. 379D2, 139A3] n

People Anthony Marshall, 85, who in October had

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been convicted of looting the assets of his mother, New York City socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor, toward the end of her life, when she suffered from dementia, Dec. 21 in New York State Supreme Court in the city’s Manhattan borough was sentenced to one to three years in prison. His codefendant, attorney Francis X. Morrisey Jr., 67, received the same sentence. In sentencing the two men, Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr. said that they, along with Marshall’s wife, Charlene Marshall, 64—who had not been charged in the case—had been “inextricably linked in the evolution of the acts that ultimately resulted in the convictions” of Marshall and Morrisey. They were both expected to appeal their convictions. [See p. 708A2] n

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BARRY, Gene (born Eugene Klass), 90, actor who was a U.S. television star from the late 1950s through the early 1970s; his first major TV role was in the western “Bat Masterson” (1958–61), in which he played the title character, a suave lawman; he was also a millionaire Los Angeles chief of detectives in “Burke’s Law (1963–65) and a publishing tycoon in “The Name of the Game” (1968–71); the best-known of his more than 20 film roles came early in his career, when he starred as a scientist in the science-fiction classic The War of the Worlds (1953); he also appeared in a number of Broadway productions, including the musical comedy La Cage aux Folles (1983–84), in which he originated the role of Georges, half of a gay couple running a transvestite nightclub on the French

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Riviera; born June 14, 1919, in New York City; died Dec. 9 at an assisted-living facility in Woodland Hills, Calif., of congestive heart failure; he had been battling Alzheimer’s disease. [See 1983, p. 656B1; 1980, p. 216F2; Indexes 1962, 1955, 1953] BROWN, James Franklin, 81, U.S.-born British citizen who, from 1978 to 1984, directed Radio Free Europe (RFE), a still-functioning radio network created during the Cold War and financed by the U.S. government; during his tenure, RFE contributed to the rise of Poland’s anticommunist Solidarity labor movement; born March 8, 1928, in New York City; died Nov. 16 in Oxford, England, of an infection stemming from a broken leg. [See p. 765D1; 1982, p. 319F3] CLANCY, Liam (born William Clancy), 74, Irish singer who in the 1950s and 1960s, as a member of a U.S.-based quartet whose other members were his brothers Tom and Paddy Clancy and friend, Tommy Makem, helped popularize Irish folk music worldwide; after Makem left the group in 1969, he was replaced by a fourth Clancy brother, Bobby, but the group essentially dissolved in 1974, with sporadic reunions thereafter; from 1975 to 1988, Liam Clancy and Makem performed as a duo; since Bobby Clancy’s death in 2002, Liam Clancy had been the last surviving Clancy brother; Makem died in 2007; born Sept. 2, 1935, in Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland; died Dec. 4 in Cork, Ireland, of pulmonary fibrosis, the same disease that claimed the life of Bobby Clancy. [See 2007, p. 536C3; 1998, p. 883B3; 1990, p. 844C3] DISNEY, Roy Edward, 79, last member of the Disney family to have been involved in the operations of Walt Disney Co., the entertainment conglomerate founded by his uncle, animation pioneer Walt Disney (1901–66), and his father, Roy Oliver Disney (1893– 71); he led shareholder revolts in 1984 and 2004, the first of which led to the ouster of Ronald W. Miller, Walt Disney’s son-in-law, as the company’s chief executive, and the second of which led to the ouster of Michael Eisner from that post; he was also a partner in Shamrock Holdings Inc., an investment firm known for hostile takeover bids, including a failed one for photographic equipment manufacturer Polaroid Corp. in the late 1980s; born Jan. 10, 1930, in Los Angeles; died Dec. 16 at a hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., of stomach cancer. [See 2005, pp. 555F1–A2, 190E3, G3; 2004, pp. 1039B3, 1011C1, 153C1, 92F1; Indexes 2003, 1991, 1988–89, 1984–85] HOVING, Thomas Pearsall Field, 78, director of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1967– 77; a charismatic figure, he presided over an expansionist era at the museum, where he pioneered the mounting of blockbuster exhibitions; before becoming Met director, he was briefly New York’s parks commissioner; his directorship of the Met overlapped with his leadership of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting; after leaving the Met, he was an arts correspondent for ABC television’s “20/20” news program (1978–84) and editor of Connoisseur magazine (1981–91); he also wrote books; his father was retailer Walter Hoving, who headed New York’s Tiffany & Co. jewelry store from 1955 to 1980; born Jan. 15, 1931, in New York; died Dec. 10 at his New York home, of lung cancer. [See 1989, p. 924D3; 1987, p. 234A2, B2; Indexes 1975, 1973, 1969–70, 1966] JONES, Jennifer (born Phyllis Lee Isley), 90, actress who won a 1944 Academy Award for her first major screen role, in The Song of Bernadette (1943), as a French peasant girl whose visions at Lourdes caused a sensation in the mid-1800s; she was nominated for four additional Oscars, including for her role as a Eurasian doctor in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955); many of her films were produced by David O. Selznick, to whom she was married from 1949 until his death in 1965, and who, in the view of some critics, often miscast her and otherwise hampered her career; Selznick was the second of her three husbands; the first was actor Robert Walker, who died in 1951, and the third was industrialist and art collector Norton Simon, to whom she was married from 1971 until his death in 1993; after marrying Simon, she made only one film, The Towering Inferno (1974); for a number of years, she was president of the Norton Simon Museum, the Pasadena, Calif., art museum created by Simon to house his collection; born March 2, 1919, in Tulsa, Okla.; died Dec. 17 at her home in Malibu, Calif., of natural causes. [See 1993, p. 456C3; 1981, p. 1008A2; Indexes 1980, 1965, 1962, 1954–58, 1951– 52, 1949, 1946–47, 1944] LAMBSDORFF, Count Otto (Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge, Graf Lambsdorff), 82,

German politician who for decades was a dominant force in the small but disproportionately influential Free Democratic Party (FDP); he served as West Germany’s economics minister from 1977 to 1984, under two chancellors, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl,

until being forced to resign amid a scandal involving West Germany’s giant Flick conglomerate; in 1986, he was acquitted of corruption charges, but was convicted of tax evasion and heavily fined; still, he became chairman of the FDP in 1988, and remained its chief economic spokesman until 1997; in 1998–2000, he represented the German government in negotiations with the U.S. on reparations for Nazi-era slave laborers, which led to the creation of a $5 billion fund for that purpose; born Dec. 20, 1926, in Aachen, Germany; died Dec. 5 in Bonn, Germany. [See 2000, p. 525D2; 1993, pp. 599D3, 21E2; Indexes 1992, 1977–90] MONTAZERI, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali, 87, Iran’s most prominent dissident Islamic cleric; imprisoned in the 1970s under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, he became one of the architects of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, but had a falling-out with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, over human rights issues, which led to his ouster as Khomeini’s designated successor in 1989; that role was assumed by Ayatollah Mohammed Ali Khamenei after Khomeini’s 1989 death; meanwhile, Montazeri had retired to the holy city of Qom, where he taught Islamic jurisprudence, except while under house arrest (1997–2003), a sentence imposed on him for having openly criticized Khamenei; he denounced the suppression of dissent following a disputed presidential election in June; born in 1922 in Najafabad, Iran; died Dec. 20 at his home in Qom; he had reportedly been suffering from diabetes, and heart and respiratory problems. [See pp. 883B2, 628D3, 423A1; 2007, p. 53A1; Indexes 2002–03, 1997, 1985–89, 1981–82, 1979] MURPHY, Brittany, 32, actress whose breakthrough film was the 1995 Hollywood comedy Clueless; she was also known for her work in such films as Girl, Interrupted (1999), 8 Mile (2002) and Sin City (2005), and for voice acting, notably for voicing the animated character Luanne Platter in more than 200 episodes of the Fox television network’s “King of the Hill” series; born Nov. 10, 1977, in Atlanta, Ga.; pronounced dead Dec. 20 at a Los Angeles hospital, to which she had been rushed after going into sudden cardiac arrest at her Los Angeles home; the cause of her death was being investigated; she had reportedly shown flulike symptoms in the days leading up to her death. [See 2006, p. 944C2; 2003, pp. 700D2, 76D2; Indexes 2001–02, 1995] PRICE, Sol, 93, retailer who founded the pioneering Price Club chain of members-only discount warehouses in San Diego, Calif., in 1976; his business paved the way for such competitors as Costco Wholesale Corp., with which it merged in 1993; Price was long a major philanthropist in the San Diego area; born Jan. 23, 1916, in New York City; died Dec. 14 at his home in the San Diego seaside community of La Jolla, of natural causes. [See 1993, p. 575D1] SHUBIN, Lester Donald, 84, chemist, who while working for the U.S. Justice Department in the early 1970s, was instrumental in getting the then-recentlydeveloped synthetic fiber Kevlar incorporated into what turned out to be the first reliably effective bulletproof vests for police officers; born Sept. 27, 1925, in Philadelphia, Pa.; died Nov. 20 at his home in Fairfax, Va., of a heart attack. [See p. 495B2] SODERSTROM, Elisabeth, 82, Swedish soprano, known for her supple voice and strong acting; her wide-ranging operatic repertory included more than 50 roles in 10 languages; active internationally for four decades, she was involved, early in her career, in a series of landmark performances and recordings of the operas of Czech composer Leos Janacek, under the baton of Australian conductor Charles Mackerras; born May 7, 1927, in Stockholm, Sweden; died there Nov. 20, after several years of complications from a stroke. TODD, Richard (born Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd), 90, Irish-born British actor; he began

his acting career before seeing military service in World War II, during which he was among the first British paratroopers dropped into Normandy, France, during the 1944 D-Day invasion; after securing an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a dying soldier in The Hasty Heart (1949), he went on to star in such films as A Man Called Peter (1954) and The Dam Busters (1955); he also appeared in The Longest Day (1962), a film about D-Day, portraying not himself, which he was originally asked to do, but a British major who had led an assault on two bridges during the offensive (another actor ended up portraying him); he reportedly turned down the role of James Bond in Dr. No (1962), the first film in the Bond series of espionage films; the role went to Sean Connery instead, and made Connery a star; born June 11, 1919, in Dublin; died Dec. 3 at his home in Little Humby, England, of cancer. [See p. 386C1; 1965, p. 166G3; Indexes 1962, 1957–58, 1953–55, 1950] n

December 22, 2009

Nigerian Passenger Accused in Failed Attempt to Bomb Plane Over Detroit Attacker Subdued in Christmas Day Plot Suspect Claims Links to Al Qaeda. A 23-

U.S. Marshals Service via Getty Images

year-old Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Dec. 25 set fire to his leg and to the interior wall of a Northwest Airlines jet en route to Detroit, Mich., while attempting to detonate an explosive device hidden in his underwear, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. Passengers and crew members aboard the plane put out the fire, confiscated the device and subdued Abdulmutallab. The plane, an Airbus A330 bound from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, was carrying 278 other passengers and 11 crew, and had reportedly begun its descent into Detroit at the time of the bombing attempt. [See pp. 845D1; 2001, p. 1017E1] Abdulmutallab had transferred to Northwest Flight 253 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, after flying there from Lagos, Nigeria, whose airport was known for deficient security practices. He reportedly used a syringe in an attempt to detonate a bomb made with about 80 grams (2.8 oz.) of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a highly explosive substance used to make the plastic explosive Semtex. In 2001, convicted terrorist Richard Reid had attempted to bomb a passenger jet using PETN-based explosives hidden in his shoes. Experts said that the amount of PETN in Abdulmutallab’s explosive could have been enough to blow a hole in the plane, potentially causing explosive decompression in the cabin that could have killed those aboard the plane. Abdulmutallab, who was badly burned during the incident, was arrested after the plane landed and was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., for treatment; he was moved to a prison in Milan, Mich., on Dec. 27. Following his arrest, he reportedly told authorities that members of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network in Yemen had given him the device and had instructed him on how to carry out the bombing. Abdulmutallab Dec. 26 was charged with placing a destructive device on an aircraft

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian accused of attempting to set off explosives on a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit, Mich., Dec. 25.

and willfully attempting to destroy an aircraft. He faced up to 40 years in prison if convicted on both charges. President Barack Obama, who was vacationing with his family in Honolulu, Hawaii, Dec. 25 was notified about the attempted bombing and held two conference calls with antiterrorism and national security officials about the incident later the same day. Air Security Measures Tightened—Obama Dec. 27, following the attempted terrorist attack announced that he had ordered the federal government to review airline security guidelines, particularly screening procedures for passengers, and the procedures for tracking people included on the government’s terrorism watch list. He said that he had directed national security officials to “keep up the pressure on those who would attack our country,” adding that the U.S. would “not rest” until those responsible for the plot were dealt with. Obama Dec. 25 had ordered the Homeland Security Department’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to institute more comprehensive security measures, including the increased use of bomb-sniffing dogs at airports and the use of stricter techniques for screening passengers. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Dec. 26 said that new airline safety measures had been added following the attempted bombing, but that the measures were intended to be “unpredictable” and would differ among airlines and airports. Media sources reported that the measures included rules barring passengers from leaving their seats, using blankets or pillows or accessing their carry-on baggage during the final hour of a flight, and the frisking of passengers prior to boarding the plane; airlines were also reportedly instructed to turn off in-flight video screen maps that showed the location of the plane. Most of the security measures were reportedly focused on international flights to the U.S. Acting TSA Director Gale Rossides Dec. 28 announced that the TSA had authorized individual pilots to decide whether to allow people to leave their seats or to use pillows and blankets during the final hour of a flight. Napolitano Dec. 27 said, regarding the U.S. government’s response to the attempted bombing, that “the system worked” because “once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly.” Congressional Republicans criticized Napolitano, arguing that she was minimizing the security failure represented by the botched attack. Napolitano Dec. 28 admitted, “Our system did not work in this instance” and said that “no one is happy or satisfied with that.” Obama Dec. 28 announced that the U.S. government would place air marshals on all commercial flights to and from the U.S.

Facts On File

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World News Digest With Index ©2009 by Facts On File News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

Volume 69, No. 3602 December 31, 2009

B There had reportedly been no air marshal on the Dec. 25 flight that Abdulmutallab had attempted to bomb. U.S., Nigeria Warned by Suspect’s Father—

Nigeria’s This Day newspaper reported Dec. 27 that Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, Abdulmutallab’s father, had informed the Nigerian government and the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, earlier in the year that his son had become radicalized in Yemen, and could present a threat to national and international security. He reportedly requested assistance in locating Abdulmutallab and bringing him back to Nigeria. Mutallab, a prominent businessman who had retired as the head of the First Bank of Nigeria PLC earlier in December, was reportedly assisting international authorities with their investigation of the attempted bombing. Abdulmutallab had studied mechanical engineering at Britain’s University College

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MAJOR STORIES IN THIS ISSUE Nigerian passenger accused in failed attempt to bomb plane over Detroit; attacker subdued in Christmas Day plot; suspect claims links to Al Qaeda. PAGE 897

Seven killed in attack on CIA hub in Afghanistan. PAGE 899

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World stock markets rebounded in 2009 after financial crisis. PAGE 900

Senate passes sweeping health care reform legislation; differences remain with House bill. PAGE 904

Highlights of the 2009 congressional session. PAGE 907

Nigerian president’s illness creates political crisis.

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Eight Iranians killed in demonstrations. PAGE 940

British hostage held in Iraq since 2007 released. PAGE 941

Yemeni forces strike at Al Qaeda meeting. PAGE 944

Shiite procession targeted in Pakistan suicide bombing. PAGE 946

Colts set NFL winning streak record. PAGE 947

REFERENCES in brackets give location of background information in this & preceding volumes.

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London from September 2005 until June 2008, when he had dropped out of school. He had reportedly informed his family that he was moving to Yemen to study Islam and had then cut off contact with them; the government of Yemen Dec. 28 said that he had stayed in Yemen for four months before departing earlier in December. Some members of Abdulmutallab’s family had reportedly come to believe that he had joined Nigeria’s Boko Haram, a radical Islamic sect that sought to overthrow the Nigerian government in order to implement strict Islamic law, or sharia, in the country. [See p. 525A2] In June 2008, Abdulmutallab had been issued a U.S. visa that was valid until June 2010. Following his father’s warning to the U.S. embassy, officials flagged his file, requiring a full investigation before any extension of his visa could be granted. However, his visa was not revoked. Mutallab’s information about his son was also shared with U.S. intelligence and antiterrorism operatives, and Abdulmutallab was added to the government’s terrorism watch list, which included 550,000 names. However, he was not added to the smaller 4,000-name government no-fly list, or a list of 14,000 passengers flagged by the U.S. government for special screenings before boarding airplanes, because the U.S. had no knowledge of any specific plots involving him. The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 28 that investigators in the U.S., Britain, the Netherlands, Yemen and Nigeria were collaborating on an investigation into the incident and were attempting to determine whether Abdulmutallab had genuine ties to Al Qaeda and whether he was part of a larger terrorist plot. International media Dec. 29 reported that postings had been discovered on the Islamic Forum Web site that were believed to have been made by Abdulmutallab between 2005 and 2007. In the postings, Abdulmutallab expressed concern about eating with his parents, who he believed were eating meat that was forbidden by Islam, and discussed his difficulties controlling his sexual urges, and his opposition to the U.S. government’s military operations in Muslim countries. Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Plot—

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An affiliate of Al Qaeda active in Yemen Dec. 27 claimed responsibility for Abdulmutallab’s failed bomb attack in an announcement posted on the Internet. The announcement by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed that the attempted bombing had been planned in response to recent U.S.-backed air strikes in Yemen targeting Al Qaeda that the group claimed had killed innocent civilians. [See p. 944G2] The group posted a picture of Abdulmutallab along with its message, praised him for penetrating “all modern and sophisticated technology and devices and security barriers in airports of the world” and said it would “continue on the same path” in the future. Among the members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were two Saudi former detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who had been

freed under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush. Experts said that hundreds of armed militants connected to Al Qaeda were operating in Yemen. The U.S. government had provided $70 million in military aid to Yemen’s government in 2009 and was reportedly considering increasing its funding to as much as $190 million in 2010. The U.S. was also assisting the government of Yemen in its campaign against the group by providing intelligence assistance and counterterrorism training, as well as military support. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Dec. 30 that the U.S. had been using unmanned drones to attack Al Qaeda inside Yemen for about a year. Obama Condemns Intelligence Failures—

Obama Dec. 29 told reporters that preliminary reports on the failed bombing had shown that U.S. intelligence agencies had possessed sufficient information to justify barring Abdulmutallab from boarding a plane bound for the U.S., but said that the information had not been “effectively distributed.” Obama said the government’s failure to stop the attack from taking place was “totally unacceptable” and said that it was “becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years [to screen airline passengers] is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of information we collect and the knowledge we have.” The New York Times reported Dec. 30 that Obama had been informed prior to his comments that U.S. intelligence agencies had possessed intelligence from Yemen prior to the attack suggesting that an unidentified Nigerian would be taking part in an upcoming Al Qaeda–sponsored terrorist attack; the information had reportedly been received in August. According to the Times, Abdulmutallab was not mentioned by name, but could have been identified if the description of the Nigerian plotter had been checked against the U.S. terrorist watch list. Obama Dec. 31 said in a statement that he would hold a meeting Jan. 5, 2010, in Washington, D.C., with advisers and the heads of relevant government agencies, including Napolitano and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, to discuss how problems with passenger screening and intelligence failures had allowed Abdulmutallab to escape scrutiny, and to consider how to prevent future attacks. (White House Ethics Counsel Norm Eisen had granted Brennan, the former head of a private intelligence firm, an ethics waiver allowing him to chair the intelligence review.) Former Vice President Dick Cheney Dec. 31 criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, saying, “President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war” with terrorists. Cheney had previously criticized the Obama administration for pushing to try terrorism detainees in U.S. civilian courts and for seeking to close Guantanamo. Netherlands to Screen U.S. Flights—

Dutch Interior Minister Gussje Ter Horst Dec. 30 announced that all passengers boarding flights bound for the U.S. would be subject to full-body imaging scans in or-

der to help prevent future bomb attacks. The full-body scanners were capable of identifying objects hidden beneath clothes; the Dutch government had begun testing the technology at airports in 2007. Horst said that the scans would begin immediately, but that it would take three weeks for all of the scanners at Schiphol airport to become operational. Napolitano Dec. 29 had contacted the Dutch government and recommended the use of the scanners in screening passengers bound for the U.S. The Dutch government had previously said that the U.S. had barred it from using the technology on flights to the U.S., citing privacy concerns; the Homeland Security Department denied that it had blocked the use of the full-body scanners. Full-body scanners were currently in use at 19 U.S. airports, and experts expected their use to grow significantly in coming years. In the U.S., the full-body scanners, which could see through clothes, had been configured to make it impossible to save the images, and airports using the scanners allowed passengers to submit to frisking instead of being scanned. However, critics argued that the use of the scanners as a standard screening technique on all airline passengers infringed on privacy rights. Stalled Vote on TSA Nominee Pressed—

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) Dec. 29 announced that he would force the Senate to vote in January on whether to approve Erroll Southers, Obama’s nominee for the position of TSA director. Sen. Jim DeMint (R, S.C.) had temporarily blocked Southers’s confirmation because of concerns that Southers would seek to allow employees of the TSA to unionize, a move that DeMint opposed. DeMint Dec. 29 argued that Reid had

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“completely ignored this nominee for weeks until the recent terror attempt,” and was attempting to use the failed attack to make DeMint look bad. A spokesman for Reid called DeMint “petty and vindictive.” Sick Passenger Triggers Attack Scare—

A Nigerian passenger traveling on the same Northwest Airlines route from Amsterdam to Detroit Dec. 27 refused to leave the plane’s restroom, triggering concern that he might also be attempting to carry out a bombing. The unidentified passenger was arrested by an air marshal and questioned after the flight landed. The Homeland Security Department announced Dec. 27 that the passenger had been ill and that the incident was not thought to have any relation to terrorism. The passenger was subsequently released. Somali Incident Called Similar—Somali government officials Dec. 30 announced that a Somali citizen linked to Somalia’s Al Shabab Islamic insurgent group had been detained on Nov. 13 in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, after attempting to board an airplane with explosives and syringes similar to those used by Abdulmutallab in his failed bombing. The suspect was reportedly in Somali custody. n

Afghanistan War Seven Killed in Attack on CIA Hub. A sui-

cide bomber Dec. 30 infiltrated U.S. Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Khost, near the Pakistani border, killing at least seven agents and contractors with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Six other CIA employees were injured. It was thought to be the deadliest single attack on the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight agents. [See p. 893D3; 1983, p. 809D1] The CIA agents at Base Chapman were thought to be responsible for recruiting informants who could penetrate the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban and units of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda that operated near the porous Afghan-Pakistani border. The agents at Base Chapman were also reportedly in charge of planning missions to kill Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, including mission that involved the use of Predator drone aircraft. [See p. 947G1] The Taliban said it was responsible for the attack, though that claim was not confirmed by the CIA. It was reported that the suicide bomber could have gained access to the base by pretending to be a potential informant. Alleged Civilian Killings Spark Protests—

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Dec. 28 issued a statement accusing “international forces” of killing 10 civilians, eight of whom were schoolchildren, in a “series of operations” the previous day in the eastern province of Kunar. Hundreds of university students in Jalalabad, the capital of neighboring Nangarhar province, Dec. 30 held demonstrations to protest the alleged killings, shouting slogans like “death to the foreign troops.” [See p. 844E3] December 31, 2009

A spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Dec. 28 said the incident was being investigated. Karzai dispatched a delegation of Afghan investigators to Kunar, and the team Dec. 30 confirmed that eight students and two adult civilians had been killed. Asadullah Wafa, the head of the delegation, suggested that international forces could have received misleading information that led them to target the civilians. However, Wafa also claimed that the students, from the Ghazi Khan village in Narang district, had been rounded up by the foreign troops and shot dead. NATO issued a statement that day saying there was “no direct evidence to substantiate this claim.” NATO said a joint NATO and Afghan force had killed nine unidentified people when they returned fire after coming under attack in Ghazi Khan. Officials from the southern province of Helmand Dec. 31 accused NATO forces of killing civilians in an air strike the previous night in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. As many as seven civilians were reportedly killed in the attack. Rising civilian casualties posed a major problem for NATO and U.S. forces, which were seeking the support of the Afghan population as part of a strategy to quell an insurgency by the Taliban. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, had revised the rules of engagement to limit civilian casualties, strictly curtailing the use of air strikes. [See p. 466B1] The United Nations Dec. 29 reported that civilian casualties in the first 10 months of 2009 had increased by 10% from the same period in 2008. The U.N. said insurgents were responsible for 68% of those deaths, up from 55% the previous year, whereas coalition forces were responsible for 22% of the casualties, down from 38% in 2008. [See p. 669E1] Karzai Sticks to May Elections Plan—

Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai, Dec. 29 said national parliamentary elections would be held as scheduled by May 22, 2010, despite pressure from the U.S., the U.N. and European countries to delay them. There were concerns that without extensive reforms to Afghanistan’s voting system, the elections would be marred by the same types of fraud that had compromised an August presidential election. About one-third of Karzai’s votes had been discounted as fraudulent by a U.N.-backed monitoring body, but Karzai nonetheless won a second term after his main opponent dropped out of the race. [See p. 894F1] Omar said the Afghan constitution mandated that the elections be held 30 days prior to the end of the current legislative term on June 22, 2010. Omar urged foreign countries and international organizations to help fund and ensure the security of the elections, but claimed that the Afghan government was capable of financing them on its own. Foreign donors had helped fund all of Afghanistan’s elections since a U.S.-led force invaded the country in 2001. A group of U.S. lawmakers Dec. 28–29 visited Afghanistan, and met with Karzai

to reportedly urge him to push back the elections date. Rep. Steve Israel (D, N.Y.) Dec. 29 said it would be “difficult” to approve “more taxpayer funding” for Afghanistan if it did not take steps to ensure that the elections were free and fair. The August election had cost as much as $300 million, while the parliamentary elections were expected to cost about $120 million. Other Developments—In related news: o The Web site icasualties.org Dec. 31 reported that a total of 519 foreign troops had been killed in violence related to the war in Afghanistan in 2009, a record yearly high since the war began in 2001. Of that number, 318 were from the U.S., also a record high. In all, 1,566 foreign troops had been killed in action in Afghanistan since 2001, including 948 Americans. [See 2008, p. 989C1] o NATO Dec. 30 said four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist, Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald, were killed earlier that day when their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in the southern city of Kandahar. [See p. 894D2] o An Afghan army soldier Dec. 29 killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two Italian soldiers in a gun attack on a coalition army base in the western province of Badghis. Italian officials said the shooting was intentional. Analysts said the incident underscored the challenges coalition forces would face as they trained Afghan security forces that were vulnerable to infiltration by insurgents. In November, five British soldiers had been killed by an Afghan police officer. [See p. 754C1] o The Taliban Dec. 25 released a 36minute video on the Internet of Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier who had been abducted in June. The Taliban had released a previous video of Bergdahl in July. NATO confirmed that the man in the video was Bergdahl, who appeared to be in good health. Bergdahl, 23, recorded a message criticizing the U.S. for torturing Muslim terrorism suspects at its prisons. But NATO in a statement said Bergdahl had been “clearly compelled to read a prepared statement,” and criticized the Taliban for exploiting a “young soldier.” [See p. 499D2] o A suicide bomber carrying explosives in a horse-drawn cart Dec. 24 killed eight people in an attack near a hotel in the southern city of Kandahar. The explosives reportedly detonated when police officers opened fire on the cart, after the driver ignored their orders to stop. o Mohammad Younus Shirnagha, a member of the Afghan parliament, Dec. 23 was mistakenly killed by Afghan police officers in the northern province of Baghlan. Shirnagha was reportedly driving home in the early hours of the morning when his driver failed to slow down at a checkpoint, prompting the police officers to open fire. The driver was also killed. Provincial officials said the officers had been warned that insurgents might be traveling on the road, a day after clashes in Baghlan that led to the deaths of at least four policemen and four insurgents. n 899

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Year-End World Financial Update (For U.S. financial data, see p. 910E3)

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(Close of trading Dec. 31 unless otherwise indicated)

Stocks Frankfurt (Germany) stock exchange

5,957.43

Paris Bourse

3,936.33

(Xetra DAX index) (CAC 40)

Sydney (Australia) stock exchange (S&P/ASX 200)

5,412.88

Tokyo Stock Exchange

10,546.44

Toronto Stock Exchange

11,746.11

Currencies (late New York trading) Argentina (peso) (in U.S. dollars) Australia (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) Brazil (real) (in U.S. dollars) Britain (pound) (in U.S. dollars) Canada (dollar) (in U.S. dollars) China (yuan or renminbi) (per U.S. dollar) European Union (euro) (in U.S. dollars) Hong Kong (dollar) (per U.S. dollar) India (rupee) (per U.S. dollar) Japan (yen) (per U.S. dollar) Mexico (peso) (per U.S. dollar) Russia (ruble) (per U.S. dollar) South Africa (rand) (in U.S. dollars) South Korea (won) (per U.S. dollar) Switzerland (franc) (in U.S. dollars) Taiwan (dollar) (per U.S. dollar)

$0.2631 $0.8983 $0.5737 $1.6163 $0.9512 6.8270 $1.4316 7.7537 46.4037 93.08 13.0787 30.312 $0.1350 1,166.04 $0.9658 31.990

(Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100) (Nikkei 225 index, Dec. 30)

B

(S&P/TSX Composite Index)

World Stock Markets Markets Rebound After Financial Crisis.

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Stock markets worldwide recorded dramatic gains in the year ending Dec. 31, as they made a rapid recovery from a severe financial crisis that had struck in 2008. The charge was led by markets in emerging economies that had rebounded quickly from a global slowdown, such as China, India, Brazil and Russia. U.S. stock markets also posted large gains in 2009, even as the broader economy struggled to emerge from a deep recession. [See pp. 900F2, 886F3, 865A3, 846A2, 89A1; 2008, p. 947F1; for tables of stock indexes at year’s end, see pp. 910E3, 900A3] The U.S.’s Dow Jones Industrial Average Dec. 31 closed the year at 10,428.05, up 18.8% from the beginning of 2009, and a 59.3% increase since it hit a 12-year low of 6,547.05 on March 9. The bull run was attributed to a $787 billion economic stimulus package signed by U.S. President Barack Obama in February, and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping its benchmark interest rate at near zero. The low rate and other Fed policies had made borrowing cheaper and encouraged investments in securities that produced higher returns than government bonds. The broader S&P 500 index was up 23.5% for the year, while the technologyheavy Nasdaq Composite Index saw a 43.9% increase. However, the recent gains belied the toll that the financial crisis and the recession had taken on U.S. stock markets. The Dow remained 26.4% below its record high of 14,164.53 reached in October 2007, and 9.3% below its level at the end of 1999. Additionally, analysts said it was unlikely that U.S. stock markets would rise as dramatically in 2010, and could even stumble as the government began winding down the emergency policies it had implemented to counteract the crisis. Leading Asian markets ended 2009 with strong gains, thanks in part to government policies that had increased spending and kept interest rates low. Asian economies, which enjoyed stable banking systems and rising consumer demand, were now seen as the world’s primary growth engine. China’s Shanghai Composite Index ended 2009 up 80%; South Korea’s Kospi stock 900

exchange saw an increase of 49.7%; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped 52%; Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite index rose 87%; and India’s Bombay Sensex climbed 81%. [See pp. 946E2, 932A3, 764B2] Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average posted an increase of 19%, but lagged behind its regional counterparts as Japan struggled to recover from the global downturn, which had slammed its export-dependent economy, the second-largest in the world. [See p. 933D1] Leading stock markets in South America also had a profitable 2009. Brazil’s Sao Paulo Bovespa index rose 83% as the country benefited from a revived global demand for energy products. Argentina’s Merval stock exchange ended 2009 up 115%. [See p. 623A3] Mexico’s IPC All-Share index climbed 43% even as Mexico, tied closely to the U.S. economy, continued to struggle with a downturn. Canada’s TSX/S&P Composite Index rose 30.7% in 2009. [See pp. 929C1, 394B2] Stock markets in Europe also made a broad recovery, as its economies began to grow and central banks adopted policies that made credit more easily available, boosting bank stocks. Germany’s Frankfurt Xetra DAX rose 23.8% in 2009, and Britain’s Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100 index jumped 22.1%. Russia’s RTS Index, which was mostly comprised of oil and gas stocks, was the biggest gainer in Europe, up 128.6% for the year. [See pp. 803E1, 802G3] n

Currency Markets U.S. Dollar Fell Against Major Currencies.

The U.S. dollar fell in value against other major currencies in the year ending Dec. 31, mostly due to concerns about the U.S.’s economic health. In the midst of a severe global financial crisis, investors in 2008 and early 2009 had invested heavily in the historically safe dollar. But when the crisis abated, investors sold their dollar holdings as they regained their appetite for risk and began to focus on the U.S.’s economic woes. [See pp. 900B1, 699C3; 2008, p. 948C1; for a table of currency rates at year’s end, see p. 900A3]

4,870.6

London Stock Exchange

The U.S. dollar ended 2009 down 2.4% against the European euro, which Dec. 31 was valued at $1.4316; down 9.7% against the British pound, valued at $1.6163; and down 13.6% against the Canadian dollar, valued at $0.95. The U.S. dollar climbed 2.6% against the Japanese yen, with one dollar that day buying 93.08 yen. The battered dollar had led to doubts about its status as the world’s reserve currency. China in March had proposed the creation of a new reserve currency that would be monitored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, China in 2009 continued to peg the value of its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar, at a value that critics said was artificially low and increased China’s trade surplus. [See pp. 795A3, 194D1] The falling value of the U.S. dollar also encouraged investors to buy stocks and commodities, which helped push up the price of oil and gold. The benchmark price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) Dec. 31 closed at $79.36 a barrel, up 78% since the beginning of 2009. Oil prices were also driven upward by revived global demand following the financial crisis. The price of gold on the New York Comex exchange Dec. 31 closed at $1,096.96 per troy ounce, up 25% for the year. n

OPEC Output Level Left Unchanged. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Dec. 22 at a meeting in Luanda, Angola, left its oil production level unchanged, at 24.845 million barrels a day. It was the fourth meeting at which the cartel had decided to keep production constant, after there was no change at a Sept. 9 meeting in Vienna, Austria. Crude oil prices FACTS ON FILE

Dec. 22 closed at $74.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), down from $75.08 the previous day. OPEC in 2008 had cut production by a record 4.2 million barrels a day in order to raise prices during the global economic downturn. The next OPEC meeting was scheduled for March 17, 2010. [See p. 486D2] n

Swine Flu U.S., European Infection Peaks Possible. The World Health Organization (WHO) Nov. 20 said the H1N1 swine influenza pan-

demic might have reached its peak in Western Europe and the U.S., but was continuing to move eastward into Eastern Europe and Asia. According to the WHO, more than 208 countries and territories had reported laboratory confirmed cases of the swine flu, resulting in at least 12,220 deaths, as of Dec. 27. The swine flu virus had first emerged in Mexico in April, but quickly spread worldwide, raising concerns that it could mutate into a deadlier form. But because the WHO had stopped collecting broader case totals from countries in July, the figures understated the actual number of infections and deaths. Millions of people were thought to have been infected, and to have suffered only mild symptoms before fully recovering. [See p. 810C2] WHO Director General Margaret Chan, in an interview published by the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 31, said a second wave of swine flu infections was in decline in Western Europe and North America. However, she said the disease continued to be widely transmitted in parts of southern Asia and Central and Eastern Europe. She also said a third wave of the flu was possible. “It is premature to say the pandemic has peaked worldwide,” said Chan. She added, “The situation needs to be watched and monitored at least another six to 12 months.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Nov. 20 said the number of detected cases of swine flu in the country appeared to be declining. It did not say that the pandemic had peaked, reportedly due to concerns that such an announcement could cause people to become complacent about the disease. The CDC said the number of states reporting widespread swine flu activity had fallen to 43, from 46 the previous week, and 48 the week before that. The CDC Nov. 30 reported that the number of swine flu cases in the U.S. had declined for the fourth straight week, indicating that the current wave had at last peaked. However, experts said another surge in cases could occur in early 2010. CDC Director Thomas Frieden Dec. 10 said that between April and Nov. 14, an estimated 47 million people in the U.S. had been infected by swine flu, about 9,820 of whom had died from the disease or complications arising from it. That was an upward revision from the agency’s November estimate of 22 million infections and 3,900 deaths in the U.S. (The seasonal flu normally killed about 36,000 people in the U.S. annually.) Frieden also said about 85 million doses of a swine flu vaccine had been made availDecember 31, 2009

able since October. The U.S.’s vaccine program had been plagued by problems and delays that had sharply curtailed the amount of expected vaccine. The CDC Dec. 15 said French drug manufacturer SanofiAventis SA was recalling about 800,000 doses of children’s swine flu vaccine, after some of it was discovered to have failed to meet potency levels. Separately, the CDC Dec. 4 said a comprehensive review of the swine flu vaccine showed that it was safe, with side effects similar to those of the seasonal flu vaccine. However, the agency said the results of the review were preliminary. Also, CDC officials Nov. 25 had reported that there had been an increase of severe bacterial infections in those who had contracted swine flu. The infections had been caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, which most often inhabited nose and throat tissue. However, the bacterium could more easily infect lung tissue affected by the swine flu virus, causing pneumonia. n

Global Health News in Brief. The March of Dimes, in col-

laboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), Oct. 4 released a report which found that about 9.6% of annual births worldwide were premature, a figure equal to about 12.9 million babies. The report also found that 28% of the four million annual deaths that occurred soon after birth were linked to prematurity. Africa led the world with the most premature births, at 11.9%, followed by North America (10.6%) and Asia (9.1%). Europe had the lowest rate, 6.2%. In the U.S., the rate was 12.7%, considered high for an industrialized country. A premature birth was one that occurred before the 37th week of pregnancy. [See 1995, p. 539F1] The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Sept. 10 reported that the number of children under the age of five dying from preventable causes had declined to 65 per 1,000 live births in 2008, from 90 per 1,000 births in 1990. UNICEF said 8.8 million children under five had died in 2008, a historic low and a drop from 12.5 million in 1990. The decline was attributed to the dissemination of simple life-saving technologies, such as vaccines and mosquito nets that prevented the spread of malaria. A rise in breast-feeding during a child’s first six months of life had also improved the mortality rate, public health experts said. [See 2008, p. 792F2] n

Religion ‘Unstable’ Woman Knocks Down Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI Dec. 24 was knocked to the ground by an unarmed 25-year old woman, widely described as mentally unstable, as he walked down the main aisle of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican at the beginning of the Christmas Eve mass. Benedict was unhurt, and went on to say the mass and deliver the annual papal Christmas Eve address without incident. The woman, Susanna Maiolo, a dual citizen of

Italy and Switzerland, also knocked over Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, who broke his femur in the fall. [See pp. 901B3, 874B3; 1981, p. 323B1] Police quickly arrested Maiolo, who was questioned and transferred to a medical facility in Rome. It was not immediately announced whether she would face charges. The Vatican said Maiolo had attempted to jump at Benedict at the papal Christmas Eve service in 2008. The Vatican Dec. 25 said it would review its security procedures. However, Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said it was essential that the Pope be allowed to walk among his followers. He added, “If the pope wants to be among his people, it is impossible to have total security.” n

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Former Popes Moved Closer to Sainthood.

Pope Benedict XVI Dec. 19 signed a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of two former popes—Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII—a step that brought the two closer to sainthood. The next step in the sainthood process was beatification, which required a miracle accepted by the church as proven. Benedict had put John Paul, who had died in 2005 after serving as pope for more than 26 years, on the fast track to sainthood by skipping a traditional waiting period of five years before taking initial steps to elevate him. [See pp. 901F2, 739D1; 2005, p. 241C2] Pius had been pope from 1939 to 1958. Some historians and Jewish groups argued that Pius had not done enough to condemn or act against Nazi atrocities committed during World War II, and said sealed archives from his papacy should be opened for scholarly examination before the canonization proceess went ahead. After Jewish groups worldwide criticized Benedict’s decree, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi Dec. 23 said the move was not a “hostile act toward the Jewish people, and it is to be hoped that it will not be considered an obstacle on the path of dialogue between Judaism and the Catholic Church.” Benedict had previously said that Pius worked “secretly and silently” to save Jews from the Holocaust. Benedict was scheduled to visit Rome’s main synagogue in January 2010. [See p. 335B2] n

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Internet Non-Latin Characters Allowed in Addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that governed Internet addresses, Oct. 30 at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea, said it would allow Web sites to have addresses written completely in languages using non-Latin alphabets, such as Chinese, Arabic and Greek. ICANN said the policy shift, which came after years of testing and debate, would expand Internet use among people who used those languages in everyday life, and billed it as one of the biggest changes in the Internet’s four-decade history. [See 2008, p. 968A2] 901

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ICANN said it would begin taking applications for Web addresses using non-Latin characters starting Nov. 16, and that Internet users would start to see Web sites using them in mid-2010. Also, the U.S. government Sept. 30 said it would decrease its oversight of ICANN, which was based in the U.S. In a two-year renewal of its partnership with the organization taking effect Oct. 1, the U.S. said it would establish advisory panels made up of government and private sector representatives from around the world to judge whether ICANN was acting in the public interest and promoting competition and stability. Critics had charged that under U.S. supervision, the organization had been too slow to roll out changes that would benefit non-U.S. Internet users, such as non-Latin alphabet Web addresses. [See 2006, p. 784E1] n

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Shuttle ‘Atlantis’ Flies to Station. The U.S.

space shuttle Atlantis Nov. 16–27 carried out a mission to the International Space Station, delivering supplies and equipment, among other tasks, and retrieved a station crew member. Atlantis was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:28 p.m. Eastern standard time Nov. 16. It was the 129th space shuttle flight, and the 30th for Atlantis. [See pp. 615F3, 372F2] The crew’s commander was Marine Col. Charles Hobaugh, 48; the pilot was Navy Capt. Barry (Butch) Wilmore, 46; and the mission specialists were Leland Melvin, 45; retired Navy Capt. Michael Foreman, 52; Marine Col. Randolph Bresnik, 42; and Robert Satcher Jr., 44. Nicole Stott, who turned 47 on Nov. 19, returned from the space station on Atlantis after 91 days in space. Under current plans, she was the last station crew member to be ferried back to Earth from the station aboard a space shuttle; the shuttle fleet was to be retired by the end of 2010, and Russian Soyuz capsules would henceforth be used for transport to and from the station. Atlantis docked with the International Space Station Nov. 18. In three space walks Nov. 19 (Foreman and Satcher), Nov. 21 (Foreman and Bresnik) and Nov. 23 (Bresnik and Satcher), astronauts installed a variety of pieces of equipment on the station’s exterior. Atlantis undocked from the station Nov. 25, and Nov. 27 landed at 8:44 a.m. at Cape Canaveral. n

United Nations News in Brief. The United Nations Gener-

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al Assembly Sept. 14 voted unanimously to merge the U.N.’s Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women, the U.N. International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-ISTRAW) and the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) into a single, more powerful women’s rights agency

headed by an undersecretary general. The resolution, which had been passed after 902

three years of negotiations, instructed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to submit a proposal within one year that would outline the new agency’s mission, organizational structure and funding; the four agencies currently received about $220 million in annual funding, but that amount was expected to rise. The proposal had reportedly been opposed by Egypt, Iran, Sudan and Cuba, and critics complained that those countries had weakened the final resolution. [See p. 675D3] The New York Times reported Sept. 16 that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a memo, dated July 1, that held that the Obama administration was not bound by a provision in the 2009 State Department and foreign operations appropriations act that barred the State Department from attending U.N. meetings chaired by nations, such as Iran, Cuba, and Syria, that were classified as terrorism sponsors. The memo, written by acting OLC head David Barron, found that the provision was an unconstitutional attempt to restrict “the president’s authority to conduct the nation’s diplomacy” and said it could be ignored. The administration of former President George W. Bush, which had treated similar laws as merely advisory, had previously been criticized for relying on OLC legal opinions to contend that presidential authority overrode laws and treaties barring torture and other offenses. [See pp. 322G2, 145D1] n

but its domestic manufacturers lagged behind the technological level of foreign rivals. They had turned to foreign acquisitions as the fastest means of closing the gap. [See p. 932G1] GM Extends Saab Deadline—GM Dec. 30 said it would extend its deadline for last bids for Saab by one week, until Jan. 7, 2010, while preparing to shut down the 62year-old brand if it could not reach an agreement. Spyker Cars NV, a small Dutch maker of luxury sports cars, Dec. 20 had submitted a new bid for Saab after GM rejected its first bid two days earlier. Spyker, which was backed by Russian banking company Convers Group, said its new offer did not require a 400 million euro loan from the European Investment Bank, a condition that had complicated its first offer. GM had previously agreed to sell Saab to another small sports car maker, Koenigsegg Group AB of Sweden, but that deal collapsed in November. Also that month, GM had canceled a deal to sell its main European units, Opel of Germany and Vauxhall of Britain, to a consortium led by Canadian auto parts maker Magna International Inc. The Swedish government had ruled out a direct intervention to rescue Saab, but said it would provide loan guarantees to back a bid. The government had pledged 542 million Swedish kronor ($75 million) in funding for education and job training for Saab workers if the brand was shut down. Saab had about 3,400 workers in Sweden. n

International Business News Chinese Carmaker to Buy Volvo From Ford.

Chinese carmaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Dec. 23 agreed to a tentative deal to buy Swedish auto brand Volvo from Ford Motor Co. of the U.S. Ford said it had worked out “all substantial commercial terms” of the deal with Geely and that it expected to complete the sale by the end of June 2010, once financing, regulatory approval and other matters were settled. Geely reportedly offered about $2 billion for Volvo. (Ford had bought Volvo for $6.5 billion in 1999.) Ford Oct. 28 had named Geely as its preferred bidder. [See p. 822D3; 1999, p. 56D3] Geely reportedly planned to build a Volvo plant in China once the acquisition was complete. Lower labor costs in China would allow increased production. However, Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua Dec. 28 quoted Li Shufu, chairman and founder of Geely, which he and his family privately owned, as saying that “nothing will change for Volvo,” except that it would be run by him, and that “Volvo and Geely will be two independently managed brands.” General Motors Co. of the U.S. Dec. 14 had confirmed that it agreed to sell technology and designs from its Swedish brand, Saab, to another Chinese company, stateowned Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. Beijing Automotive Dec. 23 said it had agreed to pay $200 million for those assets. China had surpassed the U.S. in 2009 to become the world’s largest auto market,

Other International News Report Claims CIA Jails Built in Lithuania.

The Lithuanian parliament’s national security committee Dec. 22 released a report which found that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had built at least two small secret prisons in Lithuania to hold terror suspects in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. The inquiry, which claimed that the prisons had been set up via an agreement between the CIA and the Lithuanian state security department, found no evidence that terrorism suspects were ever held there. It went on to say that the Lithuanian state security department had signed off on the prisons without consulting the president, prime minister or other civil authorities. [See p. 765F3] The report, which drew on testimony from senior Lithuanian politicians and security officers, also claimed that five CIAchartered airplanes had landed in Lithuania between 2003 and 2006, and domestic intelligence services had been prevented from inspecting them. Lithuanian leaders had called for an inquiry into the presence of so-called CIA black sites after U.S.-based ABC News Aug. 20 reported that former CIA officials had claimed that as many as eight top-level terror suspects had been held at a secret prison in Lithuania. The suspects were allegedly held there for more than a year before being transferred elsewhere toward the end of 2005. ABC claimed that it had viewed flight logs indicating that terror FACTS ON FILE

suspects had been flown into Lithuania on CIA-chartered airplanes. A Nov. 18 ABC report identified one of the secret prisons as a converted horseback riding facility located just north of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. According to ABC, the CIA had purchased that facility in March 2004, the same month Lithuania had been inducted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Lithuanian foreign ministry Dec. 23 rejected the parliamentary report, saying “neither facts nor information” attested to the presence of secret CIA prisons in Lithuania. Valdas Adamkus, who had served as Lithuania’s president from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2004 to 2009, Dec. 22 said he was “absolutely sure that there was no CIA prison in Lithuania.” The CIA declined to comment on the parliamentary report. [See p. 512D3] Some analysts suggested that if a CIA prison indeed existed, it was unlikely that Lithuania’s government would have been kept in the dark about it. Poland and Romania were also suspected of harboring secret CIA prisons in the years that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Lithuanian Security Head Resigns—

Povilas Malakauskas, director of Lithuania’s state security department, Dec. 14 resigned. Arvydas Anusauskas, head of the Lithuanian parliament’s national security committee, said the resignation was “partially connected” to the CIA prison inquiry. President Dalia Grybauskaite the following day ordered the recall of Mecys Laurinkus, the Lithuanian ambassador to Georgia. Laurinkus had headed Lithuania’s state security department from 1998 to 2004. n U.N. Sanctions Eritrea Over Somalia Aid.

The United Nations Security Council Dec. 23 imposed sanctions on the small East African nation of Eritrea for its alleged “political, financial and logistical support” of Islamist militants in nearby Somalia. The sanctions included an arms embargo, and an asset freeze and travel ban that targeted top officials in the Eritrean government. The sanctions also called for Eritrea to settle a long-standing border dispute with neighboring Djibouti. Among the 15 Security Council members, only Libya voted against the sanctions, while China abstained. [See pp. 889A1, 341E3] Central and southern Somalia had been wracked by violence for several years, as fighting raged between Islamist insurgents—led by the radical Al Shabab group—and the U.N.-backed transitional government, supported by a largely ineffectual force of more than 5,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers. The Islamists currently controlled most of the contested territory, with the government holding only small areas of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Eritrea was widely thought to have been sending arms to the Islamists for several years, although it denied the allegations. Its involvement in Somalia was believed to be motivated in part by its rivalry with neighboring Ethiopia, which in the past had lent December 31, 2009

support to Somalia’s transitional government. Eritrea, a nation of about five million people that had won independence from Ethiopia in 1993, reportedly was one of the most repressive societies in Africa. In 2008, it was the second-largest source of asylum seekers in the world, after Zimbabwe. It was reported Dec. 18 that its entire national soccer team had sought asylum in Kenya while playing in a tournament there. [See p. 341A2] n Somali Pirate Attacks Set Record in 2009.

The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center Dec. 29 reported that to date in 2009, there had been a record 214 pirate attacks and 47 successful hijackings off the Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Somali pirates were currently holding for ransom 12 ships with 263 crew members. The maritime bureau had recorded 111 pirate attacks in the region in 2008. [See p. 801A1] The Chinese foreign ministry Dec. 28 said 25 Chinese crew members had been rescued from a Chinese cargo ship that was hijacked in October. China in recent years had broken from its traditional naval isolation to take a more active role in combating piracy in the region, after several of its ships were attacked. A Somali pirate Dec. 27 told Reuters news service that a $4 million ransom had been dropped onto the deck of the Chinese ship from a helicopter, but the foreign ministry did not comment on the claim. [See p. 801G2] The pirates Dec. 28 seized two more vessels—the British-flagged chemical tanker St. James Park and the Panama-flagged Greek cargo ship Navios Apollon. Also, European Union naval authorities Nov. 30 had said pirates had captured a Greek-owned oil tanker, the Maran Centaurus, that was carrying some $20 million worth of crude oil from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. The pirates also continued to hold a British couple, Paul Chandler and Rachel Chandler, who had been abducted from their private yacht near the Seychelles in October. Britain’s Channel 4 News Nov. 20 aired a videotape in which the couple was seen pleading at gunpoint for a ransom to be paid. n N. Africa Al Qaeda Group Claims Abductions.

The North Africa–based radical Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in an audiotape aired Dec. 28 by United Arab Emirates satellite television network Al Arabiya, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of an Italian couple whose bullet-ridden car had been discovered in eastern Mauritania Dec. 19. AQIM Dec. 8 had also taken credit for the abductions of three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania Nov. 29 and a Frenchman in Mali Nov. 26. [See pp. 704A2, 370B1] AQIM, which had originated in Algeria and claimed to be the North African wing of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, in 2009 had expanded its reach to areas of Mauritania, Mali and Niger. AQIM in June had killed a British tourist in Mali who had been abducted in January.

The hostages were believed to have been taken to remote northern Mali. Reuters news service Dec. 27 reported that an unidentified source had said the Malian government was making progress in negotiations for the release of the Spaniards and the Frenchman. The source reportedly said a former Tuareg rebel leader was acting as an intermediary. (The Tuaregs were nomads who had waged a rebellion in Mali and Niger for several years before agreeing to a Libyan-brokered peace deal with the two governments Oct. 6. [See 2008, p. 975D1]) U.S. Increases Aid to Mali—The U.S. Oct. 20 said it was increasing its military aid to Mali, in an effort to support its fight against AQIM. The U.S. reportedly would give Mali more than $4.5 million worth of military hardware. Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure July 6 had said his government was waging a “total fight” against AQIM. n Western Sahara Activist Ends Hunger Strike.

Aminatou Haidar, a prominent advocate for independence for the disputed Western Sahara region—which was claimed by Morocco—Dec. 18 returned to her home in Laayoune in Western Sahara, after conducting a 32-day hunger strike in the airport in Lanzarote, in Spain’s Canary Islands. Haidar, 43, had begun the hunger strike Nov. 14, after the Moroccan government refused to allow her to return to Western Sahara from a trip to the U.S. unless she declared her nationality as Moroccan, which she refused to do. As a result, Moroccan authorities sent her back to her previous stop, Lanzarote. [See 2007, p. 612A3] The Moroccan government and Western Saharan activists, led by the Polisario Front rebel group, since 1976 had been fighting over the status of the territory. Morocco had seized the mineral-rich region in 1976, after Spain relinquished its colonial claim. The Algerian-backed Polisario Front then launched a guerrilla war against the Moroccan occupation. Morocco, meanwhile, built a heavily fortified 1,500-mile (2,400km) wall of sand dividing Western Sahara. It also sent settlers to the western portion, which was under Moroccan control and was where Laayoune was located. The eastern section, which bordered Mauritania, was held by the Polisario Front. Since 1991, when the two sides declared a cease-fire, the U.S. and the United Nations had launched several unsuccessful initiatives aimed at resolving the dispute. The Polisario Front and the U.N. advocated a referendum on Western Sahara’s status, which Morocco opposed. U.N.-brokered talks had reached a stalemate. Haidar, 43, was the leader of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). On Oct. 20 in New York City, she had received the Robert F. Kennedy Civil Courage Prize for 2009, awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Upon her return trip from the U.S., Haidar refused to declare her nationality as Moroccan at Laayoune’s airport. Mo903

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roccan officials then confiscated her passport and sent her back to Lanzarote. Haidar refused an offer of citizenship or asylum from Spain, and instead camped out in the airport and began her hunger strike. Her cause attracted attention from Spanish celebrities, such as actor Javier Bardem and filmmaker Pedro Almodovar. Also, diplomats from Western nations, including the U.S. and France, worked to broker a deal that would allow her to return home. Haidar was admitted to a hospital in Lanzarote Dec. 16, after 30 days of drinking only sugar water. That reportedly prompted the intervention of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who asked the Moroccan government to return her passport and allow her to enter Western Sahara. Prior to leaving Lanzarote airport Dec. 18, Haidar said, “This is a triumph for international law, for human rights, for international justice and for the cause.” n Amnesty Tallies Worldwide ’08 Executions.

The London-based human rights advocacy group Amnesty International March 24 released its annual report on worldwide use of the death penalty, which found that at least 2,390 people in 25 countries had been executed in 2008, up from 1,252 in 2007. China executed at least 1,718 people in 2008, followed by Iran, which had executed at least 346 prisoners, including eight juveniles; Saudi Arabia, which had executed 102 people; the U.S., which had executed 37; and Pakistan, which had executed 36. A total of 8,864 prisoners were sentenced to death in 2008 in 52 of the 59 countries that had capital punishment, including 7,003 people in China. Both Argentina and Uzbekistan had abolished their death penalties in 2008, bringing the number of countries that banned capital punishment to 137. [See p. 921A2; 2008, p. 464B2] n Belarus Joins Ex-Soviet Force. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko Oct. 20 signed treaties by which Belarus agreed to join a rapid reaction force within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a grouping of seven former Soviet states that was headed by Russia. Belarus in June had refused to sign off on deals that created the force, amid economic disputes with Russia. The rapid reaction force was intended to fight terrorism, drug trafficking and other threats. [See p. 664A1] The CSTO, which some analysts suggested had been designed as a counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was currently composed of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. With the addition of Belarus, all CSTO members except Uzbekistan had agreed to participate in the rapid reaction force. The Uzbek foreign ministry June 23 had argued that the deal creating the force had lacked “principled positions,” and that such a force could be used to interfere in member states’ domestic affairs. The CSTO rapid reaction force Oct. 2–16 had conducted a two-week exercise in Kazakhstan. n 904

UNITED STATES U N I T E D S TAT E S

Senate Passes Sweeping Health Care Reform Legislation; Bill Would Provide Coverage to 31 Million Differences Remain With House Bill. The Senate Dec. 24 voted, 60–39, to approve a milestone bill that would overhaul the U.S. health care system, providing health coverage to 31 million people who were currently uninsured by 2019. All 58 Democrats and two independents who normally caucused with the party voted in favor of the bill, while all present Republicans voted against it. (Sen. Jim Bunning [R, Ky.] did not attend the vote.) The measure still needed to be reconciled with a House bill that had been passed in November, and then signed by President Barack Obama, in order to become law. If enacted, the bill would represent the largest expansion of health insurance in the U.S. since the creation of Medicare in 1965. [See pp. 863A2, 773A1; for a comparison of the House and Senate bills, see p. 905A1] The legislation was considered a significant political victory for Obama. The president had made health care reform the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, while his proposals had also become a rallying point for his political opponents. “We are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country,” Obama said. He added, “Our challenge now is to finish the job.” The bill’s passage was also seen as a win for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.). Reid had brokered a series of compromises among Senate Democrats in order to secure votes for the bill, and had overcome staunch Republican opposition to the measure to achieve passage by a stated Christmas deadline. Details of the Bill—According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Senate bill passed Dec. 24 would cost $871 billion over 10 years. The measure was to be paid for largely through a series of new taxes expected to generate $400 billion over that time period, and by cuts totaling about $480 billion to growth in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, over a decade. The CBO also said the bill was estimated to reduce federal budget deficits by $132 billion during that decade. The legislation would still leave an estimated 23 million people without insurance in 2019, with onethird of those being undocumented immigrants. The measure required everyone in the U.S. to acquire health insurance, or else face a financial penalty of up to $2,250 for a family or $750 for an individual. An independent federal agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), would help create at least two nationwide insurance policies offered by private firms on state-based insurance “exchanges,” or markets, beginning in 2014. The OPM currently managed health insurance policies for federal workers, including members of Congress. People who made up to 133% of the federal poverty level could join Medicaid, the

joint state-federal health insurance program for the poor that was managed by individual states. (The current federal poverty level was an annual income of $22,050 for a family of four.) Federal subsidies would be provided to those who earned between 133% and 400% of the federal poverty level, and were not able to otherwise obtain insurance. Insurers would immediately be barred from excluding children with preexisting medical conditions from obtaining insurance, and that provision would be extended to all people beginning in 2014. Lifetime limits on insurance coverage would be eliminated, and annual limits would gradually be reduced until they were completely eliminated in 2014. Insurance companies would also be required to spend 80% of all money gained through revenue from premiums on providing care to beneficiaries. Employers who had more than 50 workers would not be required to offer them insurance, but would face fines of up to $750 per employee should any of them seek federal subsidies to help pay for health coverage. In addition, the bill would create a voluntary insurance program for long-term care. The bill also called for $10 billion to be dedicated to community health centers, which provided care to those with low incomes. In order to pay for the plan, the legislation called for a tax on so-called Cadillac highend insurance plans, or plans that cost more than $8,500 for an individual and $23,000 for a family. The portion of the plan that exceeded those levels would be taxed at 40%. The Medicare payroll tax for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually and for couples with annual incomes of more than $250,000 would also be increased, with the imposition of an additional tax of 0.9% on earnings above those levels. (All workers currently paid a 1.45% payroll tax for Medicare.) The bill dropped a proposed 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery, including instead a 10% tax on tanning salon services. Accord Reached on Abortion—Reid Dec. 19 said Democrats had reached an agreement on abortion provisions in the reform bill the previous day, after 13 hours of negotiations with centrist Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.). Democrats held 58 seats in the Senate, and relied on all of those votes, plus two from independent senators who normally caucused with the party, in order to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to advance the bill through a series of procedural votes. Nelson, an abortion opponent, had remained the lone holdout among Democrats in supporting the measure, citing concerns that restrictions on abortion coverage in the bill were too lax. Under Reid’s compromise, which was criticized by pro-choice groups, the measure would allow states to decide individually whether to drop abortion coverage from insurance exchanges. FACTS ON FILE

A COMPARISON OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILLS

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Key Provisions

House Bill (Passed Nov. 7)

Senate Bill (Passed Dec. 24)

Total Cost and Coverage

The House plan would cost an estimated $1.052 trillion over 10 years, and reduce federal deficits by about $139 billion during that time period. The plan would provide coverage to about 36 million currently uninsured people after 10 years, leaving an estimated 18 million people without insurance.

The Senate plan would cost an estimated $871 billion over 10 years, and reduce federal deficits by about $132 billion during that time period. The plan would provide coverage to about 31 million currently uninsured people after 10 years, leaving an estimated 23 million people without insurance.

Paying for the Program

A 5.4% income surtax would be imposed on individuals earning more than $500,000 annually, and on couples earning more than $1 million. The tax was expected to raise $460 billion between 2011 and 2019. The bill also called for cuts in the projected growth of the Medicare program worth $404 billion over 10 years. Also, a new 2.5% excise tax on medical devices sold in the U.S. was expected to generate $20 billion between 2013 and 2019.

The plan called for a 40% excise tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans—those with annual premiums of more than $8,500 for individuals and more than $23,000 for families. That was expected to raise $149 billion between 2013 and 2019. Annual fees would be assessed on insurance companies, medical device makers and pharmaceutical companies, raising more than $100 billion between 2011 and 2019.

Individual Mandate

The bill would require most U.S. citizens and legal residents to obtain health insurance. Individuals with an annual income of more than $9,350 and couples earning more than $18,700 who did not get insurance would face a 2.5% income tax penalty.

The measure would require most U.S. citizens and legal residents to obtain health insurance. Those who did not faced graduated penalties that started at $95 or 0.5% of household income—whichever was greater—in 2014, and topped out at $750 or 2% of income in 2016.

‘Public Option’ and Insurance Exchanges

The plan would create a government-run insurance plan, commonly known as the public option, that would compete with private insurers. It would also establish a single, nationwide health insurance “exchange,” or market, through which people without employer-based insurance could obtain coverage. The public option would be offered through the exchange.

The bill would not create a public option, but instead would establish insurance exchanges managed by individual state governments. The Office of Personnel Management, which managed health benefits for federal employees, would contract insurers to provide at least two multistate plans in each exchange. Those plans would be available to individuals, families and small businesses.

Subsidies for Individuals and Families

Individuals and families making up to 400% of the federal poverty income level would receive subsidies for insurance premiums. The subsidies would be tiered and based on annual income. At the low end, people making 133%–150% of the federal poverty level were limited to subsidies equal to 1.5%–3% of annual income. At the high end, those earning 350%–400% of the federal poverty level were limited to subsidies worth 11%–12% of annual income. The federal poverty level was $22,050 for a family of four in 2009.

Individuals and families making up to 400% of the federal poverty income level would receive subsidies. The subsidies would be tiered, and limited to 2.8% of annual income for those making 100% of the federal poverty level at the low end. At the high end, those making 300%–400% of the federal poverty level would be limited to subsidies equal to 9.8% of annual income.

Employer Requirements

Employers with annual payrolls of at least $500,000 would be required to offer insurance or pay a new payroll tax. The tax would be assessed progressively at 2%–6% for companies with payrolls ranging from $500,000 to $750,000. Employers with payrolls greater than $750,000 would pay 8%. Employers would also be required to pay at least 72.5% of insurance costs for individual employees, and at least 65% of costs for families.

Employers would not be required to offer insurance. However, companies with more than 50 employees would pay a fine of $750 per employee if any workers received federal subsidies to buy insurance.

Medicaid Expansion

The health insurance program for the poor, which was jointly funded by states and the federal government and managed by individual states, would be expanded to cover everyone earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level. The expansion would cover an estimated 15 million additional people. The federal government would pay the entire cost of the expansion for the first two years, and 91% of costs after that.

Medicaid would be expanded to cover everyone with incomes less than 133% of the federal poverty level, adding 14 million new beneficiaries to the program. The federal government would pay the entire cost of the expansion for the first two years. The federal contribution would vary after that, averaging about 90%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The federal government would pay all of the cost of expanding the program in Nebraska.

Insurers could decide whether to provide abortion coverage, but it would not be available through the public option. People who received federal subsidies to purchase insurance through the exchange would not be offered plans that covered elective abortion, but the exchange would offer separate “riders” for such coverage.

Insurers could decide whether to provide abortion coverage, but states could block the sale of insurance plans containing abortion clauses from their exchanges. People receiving federal subsidies who wanted abortion coverage would be required to make two premium payments—one for all coverage except abortion, and one for abortion specifically. Health plans receiving federal money would be required to separate government funds from premiums paid by individuals to ensure that no government money was used to pay for an abortion.

Abortion Restrictions

Any health plan that included abortion coverage would require beneficiaries to make two separate premium payments: one for abortion coverage and one for all other insurance. Nelson had also won extra federal money for his state’s Medicaid program in exchange for his vote. ‘Public Option’ Dropped—In addition to the concessions that won Nelson’s vote, Democrats had agreed to drop a provision that would have created a government-run insurance plan, known as the public option. That provision had been opposed by independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Ct.), as well as by some centrist Democrats. Democratic leaders had also decided to scrap a proposal to expand the Medicare December 31, 2009

program, currently available to people only after they turned 65, to those aged 55 to 64. The decisions to drop those parts of the plan had angered liberal elements of the Democratic Party, as well as progressive groups and unions. At least one such group, Moveon.org, had reportedly lobbied liberal members of the Senate to vote against the bill, arguing that it had been so weakened that it was unacceptable. Bill Advances Despite GOP Fight—The Senate bill Dec. 21–23 passed a series of procedural votes needed to end debate on the bill and move it to a vote on the Senate floor, each of which required at least 60 “yes” votes in order for the measure to advance. Republican Party leaders continued

their attempts to block the bill, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Republicans Dec. 18 had invoked a rarely employed rule requiring the entire 383-page collection of amendments proposed by Reid to be read out loud into the record, which took seven hours. Republicans opposed the new taxes and fees that would be imposed to pay for the expansion of health insurance. They also criticized several elements of the bill as needless earmarks, particularly the Medicaid concessions secured by Nelson, which they described as a sweetheart deal that would come at the expense of all the other states. Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele Dec. 21 asserted that Democrats had pushed 905

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through the bill against the wishes of voters. Sen. John McCain (R, Ariz.), during a Dec. 20 appearance on the television news talk show “Fox News Sunday,” had admitted that Republicans’ power to block the bill was limited, but added, “We’ll fight the good fight, we’ll fight until the last vote.” The Senate early Dec. 21 voted, 60–40, along strict party lines, to advance the bill. Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.) Dec. 20 had angered Democrats by saying, “What the American people ought to pray is that someone can’t make the vote tonight.” Democrats viewed the comment as a call for prayers that Sen. Robert Byrd (D, W.Va.), a 92-year-old who had been in poor health during the past year, would fall ill and be unable to attend the vote, which was scheduled for 1:00 a.m. local time. (Byrd during the final vote Dec. 24 broke with Senate protocol, saying, “Mr. President, this is for my friend Ted Kennedy. Aye.” According to the chamber’s rules, a senator was supposed to “without debate, declare his assent or dissent to the question.” Byrd’s comment was a reference to the late Sen. Edward [Ted] Kennedy [D, Mass.], an outspoken proponent of universal health care, who had died in August.) In a second vote, the Senate Dec. 22 advanced the bill, 60–39, again along party lines. Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.) was absent from the vote. The bill Dec. 23 passed the third and final procedural hurdle, 60– 39, with all Democrats and independents voting in favor and all Republicans opposed, save Bunning, who was absent. (Bunning’s spokesman, Mike Reynard, when asked why Bunning had missed two key votes on the bill, said, “The senator has family commitments.” Bunning in July had announced that he would not seek reelection, under pressure from the Republican Party leadership.) In a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) and Reid, the Republican attorneys general of 13 states threatened legal action over the provision of the Senate bill that would exempt Nebraska’s state government from paying for the expansion of the Medicaid program mandated by the measure, the Associated Press reported Dec. 30. “We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed,” South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster wrote. He was joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Separately, Florida Attorney General William McCollum Dec. 29 said the provision of the law that would force individuals to obtain insurance or else face a fine was potentially unconstitutional. McCollum was running for governor of Florida in 2010. Reconciliation With House in January—

The Senate version of the bill still needed to be reconciled with the House version, passed narrowly in November, a process that was expected to start in January 2010. It was anticipated that House leaders would make the most concessions, since Senate Democrats were barely able to cobble to906

gether a fragile coalition to pass their version. The House bill contained a strong public option program, which was eliminated in the Senate measure. Reconciling that difference between the bills was expected to present the greatest challenge for Democrats. The House version also proposed paying for the reform plan by imposing a new 5.4% income surtax on individuals earning more than $500,000 annually, and on families earning more than $1 million per year. The House measure also contained stricter abortion regulation provisions. It would bar insurance companies from selling abortion coverage to anyone who received federal subsidies for insurance. However, it would allow women to purchase separate “riders” for abortion coverage. It was thought that abortion would remain one of the most contentious issues during the conference committee’s work. Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, Md.) had pledged to work to reconcile the bills and send a final version to Obama as soon as possible. n

2009 Congressional Session Democrats’ Progress Slow Despite Majorities.

The 111th Congress Dec. 24 adjourned for its holiday recess after a session in which the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate labored to deliver on the ambitious agenda of President Barack Obama in his first year in office. The year in Congress was dominated by efforts to respond to the financial crisis and recession of the past year, and by a months-long process of shaping a major health care reform bill that remained unfinished at the end of the year. [See pp. 906G3, 904A2; for a legislative scorecard of the 2009 congressional session, see p. 907A1] The year was marked by a general absence of bipartisan cooperation. The Republican House and Senate minorities stayed unified in opposition to Democratic initiatives, which they criticized as a vast and unaffordable expansion of the federal government. The tone was set in February when a $787 billion economic stimulus bill passed with the support of only three Republicans in the Senate and none in the House. The partisan divide grew even deeper during the drawn-out debate over the health care bill. Compromise was expected to be even scarcer in 2010 as the campaign for the midterm elections in November got underway. Despite their seemingly commanding majorities—the largest for either party since the 1970s—the Democratic leaders also had to contend with dissension and competing factions within their ranks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) managed to narrowly win passage of several major bills over objections from both the liberal and conservative wings of her caucus. Dozens of House Democrats voted against two of Obama’s top priorities: the health care bill and a measure intended to slow climate change by regulating greenhouse gases. The health care bill

passed only after Pelosi made a major concession to conservatives, agreeing to include language barring insurance coverage for abortions. The Senate, where Republicans could set more procedural obstacles, failed to act on several major bills. Chief among them were the climate change bill and a measure that would impose new regulations on the financial industry. [See pp. 865F1, 742F3] Along with Republican obstruction, internal divisions also slowed Democratic priorities. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.) had to negotiate for weeks with recalcitrant members of his caucus and make many concessions before he could bring his version of the health care bill to a vote. The Senate dropped the “public option,” a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, which had been a centerpiece of the House version. While the stimulus bill and health care reform stirred the most debate during the 2009 session, the Democrats were able to enact a number of lower-profile measures that had long been priorities for their party. Those included an expansion of the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP or CHIP); authority for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate tobacco products for the first time; and a broader definition of hate crimes to include those committed because of a victim’s gender, sexual orientation or disability. [See pp. 742A3, 428G2, 62C3] Defectors Left Each Party—Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) switched parties in April, joining the Democrats after decades of public service as a Republican, in a defection that followed a trend of dwindling numbers of Republican moderates in the Northeast. His switch gave the Democrats their 59th vote in the Senate, including two independents who caucused with them. With the addition in June of Sen. Al Franken (Minn.), who was declared the winner of a protracted recount in a 2008 election, the Democrats reached the threshold of 60 votes that they needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate. [See pp. 441A1, 284A2] However, Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) defected from the Democrats in December, joining the Republicans. His move was seen as emblematic of the GOP’s increasing dominance in the South, where conservative opposition to Obama ran high. [See p. 885A3] In other major events of the congressional session, the Senate voted in August to confirm Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, making her the court’s first Hispanic member and third woman in its history. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) died later that month of brain cancer at the age of 77. He had served in the Senate since 1962. [See pp. 569A2, 519A3] n

Federal Budget Senate Clears $290 Billion Debt Limit Increase.

The Senate Dec. 24 voted, 60–39, to clear a $290 billion increase to the statutory national debt limit, raising the limit to FACTS ON FILE

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 CONGRESSIONAL SESSION

Following are key events of the first session of the 111th Congress [See p. 906D2]: Legislation Enacted

Economic Stimulus Package—President

Barack Obama Feb. 17 signed a $787 package of measures intended to stimulate economic growth and end a deep recession. The package totaled $212 billion in tax cuts and $575 billion in new federal spending through fiscal 2019, although most of the bill’s cost would be incurred in the next two years. [See p. 89A1] Appropriations—Obama Dec. 16 signed an omnibus spending package that would fund 10 cabinet-level departments and agencies through fiscal year 2010. The omnibus consolidated six annual spending bills that had been left unfinished when the fiscal year began Oct. 1. [See p. 866G1] Debt Limit Increase—Obama Dec. 28 signed a bill that raised the national debt limit by $290 billion, to $12.4 trillion. A second increase was expected to be necessary by February 2010. [See p. 906G3] Afghanistan, Iraq War Funding—Obama June 24 signed into law a $106 billion supplemental appropriations bill, $80 billion of which would be used to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, the end of the 2009 fiscal year. Obama had said it would be the last time that war funding was authorized in a supplemental bill, and that from now on it would be included in the regular budget. Since 2001, Congress had approved $882 billion worth of war funding in what were described as “emergency” funding bills. Obama Dec. 22 signed a defense appropriations bill that included $128.3 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. [See pp. 886A2, 424B3] Credit Card Regulation—Obama May 22 signed into law a bill that curbed the ability of credit-card companies to raise interest rates and impose fees on customers. The bill had received broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. [See p. 354A2] Gender-Based Pay Discrimination—Obama Jan. 29 signed a bill to give workers more time to sue employers for alleged pay discrimination based on gender. [See p. 47G2]

Bush, had vetoed such a bill twice in 2007. [See p. 62C3] Tobacco Regulation—Obama June 22 signed a bill that gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco products for the first time. [See p. 428G2] Wider Hate Crimes Definition—Obama Oct. 28 signed a measure expanding the federal definition of hate crimes to include those committed because of a victim's gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. The measure was attached to a bill authorizing defense funding for fiscal year 2010. [See p. 742A3] Legislation Pending

Health Care Reform—The House Nov. 7

Obama February 4 signed into law a bill that expanded funding for the state Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP or SCHIP) to cover an additional four million children. Obama’s predecessor, George W.

voted to pass a health care reform bill that would extend coverage to about 30 million people. The Senate Dec. 24 voted to pass its version of the bill after weeks of debate. A key Democratic objective—a “public option” that would offer federal health coverage to compete with private insurers—was dropped by the Senate in a compromise meant to win over moderates. Both versions of the bill also tightened limits on the use of federal funds for abortions. [See p. 904A2] Climate Change—The House June 26 voted to pass a bill that for the first time in the U.S. would regulate the emissions of manmade greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global climate change. It would authorize the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a “cap-andtrade” system, in which the government would issue pollution permits that could be traded on the open market. The Senate had yet to vote on its version of the bill, but Obama pledged U.S. action at a December global climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. [See pp. 881A1, 445A1] Financial Industry Regulation—The House Dec. 11 passed a bill that would reform the financial regulatory system in an effort to prevent a repetition of the financial crisis that struck in 2008. The bill would create a consumer financial protection agency and allow the government to seize control of companies whose potential collapse posed a threat to the entire financial system. The Senate had not voted on its version of the bill by the end of the year. [See p. 865F1] Food Safety—The House July 30 passed a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded powers to conduct food inspections and recall food products linked to outbreaks of illness. The

about $12.4 trillion. The House had voted to approve the increase earlier in the month. President Barack Obama signed the bill Dec. 28. The new ceiling was expected to require another increase by February 2010. If the debt reached the limit, the government faced the possibility of defaulting on its obligations to creditors. [See p. 866E2] The vote was mainly along party lines, with Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) the only Republican to vote for the increase, and Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), who was up for reelection in 2010, the only Democrat to vote against it. Democratic congressional leaders had sought a larger debt-limit increase of about $1.8 trillion, but were unable to get enough support for such a large hike from centrist

Democrats. Republicans were unified against another increase. They accused Obama and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate of fiscal irresponsibility, a theme that was seen as key to the Republicans’ campaign strategy for the 2010 midterm elections. Under Obama, the budget deficit had risen to $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, fueling the growth of the national debt. Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, had also overseen heavy deficit spending and rapid growth of the debt during his eight years in office. Several Democratic senators said they voted for the increase only after receiving promises that the Senate would debate proposals for reducing the deficit and debt in January, before voting on the next debt-

Children’s Health Insurance Expansion—

December 31, 2009

Senate did not act on the bill. [See p. 524E1] Student Loan Reform—The House Sept. 17 passed a bill that would eliminate bankbased student loan programs and shift student lending responsibilities to the federal government. The Senate did not act on the bill. [See p. 641F1]

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Legislation Not Enacted

Job Creation—The House Dec. 16 passed a

$154 billion stimulus package designed to spur job creation. The Senate was expected to begin work on a different package in early 2010. [See p. 865G2] Estate Tax Extension—Senate Republicans Dec. 16 blocked an attempt by Democratic leaders to extend the estate tax, which was scheduled to expire for one year, starting Jan. 1, 2010. The tax was scheduled to take effect again in 2011, at higher rates and with lower exemptions. [See p. 885G3]

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Party Switches—Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.)

April 28 announced that he was switching parties after 28 years in the Senate, leaving the Republicans to join the Democratic majority. Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) Dec. 22 defected from the Democrats to join the Republican House minority. [See p. 885A3]

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Franken Win Gives Democrats 60th Vote—

Minnesota’s Supreme Court June 30 ruled that Democrat Al Franken should be certified as the winner of the state’s November 2008 Senate election, rejecting an appeal by the former Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman. Coleman conceded defeat, ending an eight-month legal battle over the election and giving Democrats their 60th Senate vote, reaching a threshold that would allow them to prevent Republican filibusters. [See p. 441A1] Kennedy Dies—Sen. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) Aug. 25 died of brain cancer at the age of 77. He had served in the Senate since 1962, becoming both a liberal icon and a pragmatic legislator known for bipartisan deal-making. [See pp. 848D2, 569A2]

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Sotomayor Confirmed to Supreme Court—

The Senate Aug. 6 voted, 68-31, to confirm federal appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, 55, became the first Hispanic in the court’s history, and its third woman. Nine Republicans joined the Democratic majority to vote for her confirmation. She replaced Justice David H. Souter, who had announced his retirement in May. [See p. 519A3]

limit increase. A bipartisan group of 31 senators Dec. 24 sent Obama a letter asking him to back their proposal to set up a commission that would recommend debt-reduction measures by the end of 2010. But the House Democratic leadership and some Democratic senators opposed the proposal, saying that it would undercut Congress’s authority over federal spending by giving supervisory powers to an outside panel. The Obama administration had pledged to focus on reducing the deficit in its fiscal 2011 budget, to be issued in February. But administration officials stressed that heavy economic stimulus spending had been necessary to help end the deep recession of the past year and was still needed to bring down the unemployment rate, currently 10%. n 907

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Obama Administration

News in Brief. The House April 23 voted,

New Declassification Policy Set. President Barack Obama Dec. 29 issued an executive order setting out his policy on the release of classified information. The order established a National Declassification Center at the National Archives to help federal agencies comply with the order, which called for greater disclosure whenever possible, and to release by 2013 a vast backlog of World War II and Cold War documents. [See p. 642D2] Obama also instituted a new rule that “no information may remain classified indefinitely,” ordering agencies to conduct periodic reviews to “identify classified information that no longer requires protection and can be declassified.” He reversed an order by his predecessor, George W. Bush, which had allowed intelligence officials to veto declassification decisions. As a presidential candidate, Obama had pledged greater openness in government. On his first day in office in January, he had issued an order calling on agencies to make records more easily available to public access requests under the Freedom of Information Act. [See p. 29B1]

342–78, to pass a bill that would increase funding for the federal government’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program to $1.8 billion, from $1.05 billion, per year and reauthorize the program from 2009 until 2014. The program, which had been introduced in 1994, provided funds to state, local and tribal law enforcement bodies that had allowed for the hiring of more than 117,000 police officers. The bill also included provisions that would authorize recipients to spend up to a total of $350 million per year to purchase or upgrade technology related to law enforcement activities; the recipients would also be allowed to use funds to hire laboratory technicians. [See 2007, p. 765G1] The House March 24 voted, 402–16, to pass the Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act, which would provide funding to initiatives intended to trace the origins of nuclear materials used or intended to be used in a nuclear detonation as part of an effort

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to combat nuclear terrorism. The program would fund five-year fellowships for graduate students studying topics related to nuclear forensics and would authorize the spending of $30 million per year on the development of new methods to trace nuclear materials. The Senate Dec. 22 passed the bill by unanimous consent. [See 2007, p. 445A2] The House March 24 voted, 412–3, to pass a bill that would require major divisions of the Homeland Security Department, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Protections and the Coast Guard, to employ full-time privacy officers. Under the bill, the officers would be required to monitor privacy protections within their divisions in compliance with relevant laws and guidelines, compose privacy impact assessments related to each division’s activities and brief the head of each division on relevant privacy issues. [See 2008, p. 958E1] The House Nov. 17 voted, 416–4, to pass a bill that would require cruise ship operators that used U.S. ports to implement new safety regulations and to report

all crimes committed on board to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), regardless of whether the crimes took place in U.S. waters. The bill was introduced by Rep. Doris Matsui (D, Calif.) in response to a complaint by a constituent who had been sexually assaulted on board a cruise ship in 2006 and had allegedly been unable to get assistance from the operators of the ship in investigating or prosecuting her assailant. Under the bill, all cruise ships carrying more than 250 passengers were required to have at least one employee on board trained in crime scene investigation and to have equipment and procedures necessary for the effective investigation of rape and sexual assault allegations. [See 1999, p. 563B2] n 908

Bush White House E-Mails Found—

Two advocacy groups Dec. 14 said technicians had recovered about 22 million emails that the Bush administration had said were missing during a controversy over the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006. Congressional investigators had sought the e-mails to determine whether political bias played a role in the dismissals. [See 2007, p. 783C3] The two advocacy groups, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive, a research center based at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., said they had settled a lawsuit over the e-mails, which dated from 2003 to 2005. Some of the e-mails would be restored, but might remain classified for several years. n

Politics Judge Orders ACORN Funding Restored.

Judge Nina Gershon of U.S. District Court in the New York City borough of Brooklyn Dec. 11 issued a preliminary injunction blocking legislation that would have cut off previously approved federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a liberal advocacy group. President Barack Obama had signed the cutoff measure into law in October as part of a stopgap spending bill. [See p. 638E2] Gershon agreed with ACORN’s argument, in a lawsuit filed in November, that Congress had unconstitutionally singled out the group for punishment. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution barred Congress from passing “bills of attainder,” or declaring persons guilty of a crime and penalizing them without trial. The House had voted to cut off ACORN’s federal funding in September, during a

furor over videos recorded by two young conservative journalists who posed as a pimp and prostitute to solicit business advice from ACORN employees in several cities. Republicans had previously accused the group of voter registration fraud. ACORN had received more than $50 million in federal funds since 1994. The group faced investigations by the Treasury Department inspector general, the Government Accountability Office and authorities in a number of states. n Baucus Backed Girlfriend for U.S. Attorney.

Sen. Max Baucus (D, Mont.) Dec. 6 acknowledged that in March he had formally recommended his girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, along with two other candidates, for an appointment as U.S. attorney in Montana. Baucus, the chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, defended Hanes, a former member of his staff and former state prosecutor with little federal court experience, as “highly qualified” for the post. President Barack Obama had nominated another candidate for the position after Hanes withdrew. She was reportedly hired in June for another Justice Department post as a political appointee. [See p. 478F1] Baucus, 67, said the relationship began in 2008 while Hanes, 53, was working for him, but after they had both separated from their spouses. The relationship was first reported Dec. 5 in Roll Call, a newspaper that covered Congress, and Main Justice, a Web site that covered the Justice Department. Senators had traditionally exercised patronage powers over U.S. attorney jobs when the president belonged to their party. Obama July 14 had nominated Brendan Johnson, son of Sen. Tim Johnson (D, S.D.), as U.S. attorney for South Dakota. n

2010 Elections Giuliani Forgoes N.Y. Senate, Governor Bids.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) Dec. 22 announced that he had decided not to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, N.Y.) in 2010. Giuliani, 65, had made an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He had also considered running for governor, but it was widely reported Nov. 19 that he had decided against that possibility as well. At a news conference, Giuliani said he had decided that he could not leave his business interests unattended. [See p. 639G1] Giuliani had opened a bid for the Senate in 2000, setting up an anticipated general election contest with Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, but he dropped out of that race after receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Former Rep. Rick Lazio won the Republican nomination and was soundly defeated by Clinton. Giuliani Dec. 22 endorsed Lazio as the Republican candidate to face Gillibrand. Gillibrand had been appointed by Gov. David Paterson (D) in January to serve the remainder of Clinton’s second term after Clinton’s confirmation as U.S. secretary of state. Gillibrand, a former congresswoman, had never run for statewide office. Giuliani FACTS ON FILE

had been seen as the strongest Republican prospect to unseat her. Paterson, a former lieutenant governor, had replaced Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) in 2008 when Spitzer resigned after a prostitution scandal. Paterson had low approval ratings and was expected to face a primary challenge from state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo (D). Kerik Pleads Guilty—Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani appointee, Nov. 5 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., to eight felonies, including tax fraud and lying to the federal government while he was being vetted for a cabinet post. Kerik, 54, admitted that he had accepted more than $250,000 worth of home renovations from a construction company suspected of Mafia ties, Interstate Industrial Corp. He had also spoken to other officials on the company’s behalf while he was corrections commissioner, in charge of the city’s prisons. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 27 to 33 months in prison. Sentencing was set for Feb. 18, 2010. The charges against Kerik had been a political embarrassment for Giuliani, who had urged President George W. Bush to nominate Kerik as homeland security secretary in 2004. (Giuliani had been mayor, and Kerik, police commissioner, at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York.) Kerik had withdrawn his nomination after allegations of improper behavior emerged. [See 2007, p. 751C2] n

Banking Fed Proposes Mechanism to Drain Reserves.

The Federal Reserve Dec. 28 proposed selling “term deposits” to banks, which would allow banks to deposit excess reserves with the Fed and earn interest on them. The mechanism was intended to drain some of the liquidity that the Fed had injected into markets in 2008 and 2009 to offset the effects of a severe credit crunch. The term deposits would also allow the Fed to remove excess cash from the system if inflation threatened to rise. [See p. 865A3] In a statement released that day, the Fed said the proposal had “no implications for monetary policy decisions in the near term,” and that term deposits would be sold only “if necessary.” Banks remained reluctant to lend, and the Fed reportedly thought it unlikely that an estimated $1.1 trillion in excess reserves would soon begin circulating through financial markets. Additionally, the Fed had projected that an ongoing recession would subdue upward inflationary pressures for some time. The Fed said the proposal was part of its “prudent planning” for a winding-down of extraordinary emergency policies it had implemented to address the credit crunch, which included issuing loans and buying securities. The Fed Dec. 28 said its balance sheet of loans and securities had expanded to $2.2 trillion as of Dec. 23, more than double the size of its balance sheet before the crisis began. December 31, 2009

The proposal was meant to supplement the Fed’s main tool for taming inflation and regulating lending—its benchmark interest rate target, which was currently at near zero. The Fed Nov. 30 had also proposed a separate cash-draining mechanism, known as a reverse repurchase agreement. Under such a transaction, the Fed would sell securities from its balance sheet to banks and agree to buy them back at a higher price in the future, which allowed the central bank to drain reserves from the financial system for a period of time. n House Panel to Probe Citigroup Tax Break.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D, Ohio), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy subcommittee, Dec. 17 said his panel would begin investigating a Dec. 11 decision by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to exempt New York City–based banking giant Citigroup Inc. from a tax law that would have caused losses for the bank. The exemption was approved days before Citigroup said it would repay the Treasury Department $45 billion in aid, and the government said it would sell its $25 billion stake in the company. [See p. 864G1; 2008, p. 953B3] The Treasury, which oversaw the IRS, had bought $25 billion worth of Citigroup’s common shares to help the bank stay afloat during the financial crisis. Prior to the stock-sale announcement, Citigroup had expected to claim $38 billion in tax breaks to offset losses from previous years. However, those tax breaks would have lost value after the Treasury sold its stake, since the transaction would have qualified as a change of ownership under a provision of the tax code. The law was designed to prevent companies from buying weaker companies to secure tax breaks. Critics said the exemption had cost the government billions of dollars in tax revenue, and that the Treasury had secretly approved another bailout for Citigroup. The Treasury countered that the government could not disentangle itself from Citigroup if the bank suffered additional losses. The Treasury said those losses would also have depressed Citigroup’s share price, preventing the Treasury from making a profit on its stock sale. Treasury spokesperson Nayyera Haq Dec. 15 said the law was designed to “stop corporate raiders” and “was never intended to address the unprecedented situation where the government owned shares in banks.” n Bank of America Names Insider as New CEO.

The board of directors at Charlotte, N.C.– based banking giant Bank of America Corp. Dec. 16 voted unanimously to select Brian Moynihan as the company’s new president and chief executive officer. Moynihan, 50, had previously headed Bank of America’s retail banking operations, and before that had been an executive at FleetBoston Financial Corp., which was acquired by Bank of America in 2004. He would replace Kenneth Lewis, who had announced his retirement in September. Moynihan would assume his new position on Jan. 1, 2010. [See p. 657D2] n

Mortgage & Credit Crisis Freddie, Fannie to Receive Unlimited Aid.

The Treasury Department Dec. 24 announced that the government-controlled mortgage-financing companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would receive unlimited financial assistance from the government. Under a previous arrangement, the Treasury had said it would cover up to $200 billion in losses for each company. So far, the government had doled out $60 billion in aid to Fannie Mae and $51 billion to Freddie Mac. [See p. 319E2] The Treasury said it did not expect either company to need more than $200 billion in aid, but that the financial guarantee, which would last through 2012, was “necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market.” The companies played a central role in the government’s efforts to rejuvenate the slumping housing market. They owned or guaranteed more than half the mortgages in the U.S., a service that helped keep interest rates low. They were also involved in government programs to prevent foreclosures and restructure loans. The Treasury had the authority to increase aid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a September 2008 agreement that had placed the two companies in a government conservatorship. The Treasury exercised its authority before a Dec. 31 deadline that would have required Congress’s consent for any aid increase. Republican lawmakers criticized the administration of President Barack Obama for expanding bailouts to two companies that had struggled throughout 2009 as home-loan defaults mounted. [See below] The Obama administration in February 2010 was expected to unveil a plan to reform the two companies. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Dec. 24 disclosed that the top 12 executives at the two companies would receive $42 million in compensation for 2009. Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Williams and Freddie Mac CEO Charles Haldeman Jr. could each receive $6 million a year if they met certain company goals. Republicans criticized the pay packages, with Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas) saying that it was “unconscionable” to hand out “$6 million bonuses to essentially federal employees.” The FHFA maintained that competitive compensation was necessary to retain talented executives who could be lured away by higher salaries offered elsewhere. The FHFA also noted that compensation levels at the two companies were down 40% from pre-conservatorship levels. Other Developments—In related news: o Fannie Mae Nov. 5 said it had lost $19 billion in the third quarter of 2009. The company Aug. 6 had posted a $15 billion loss for the second quarter. o Freddie Mac Nov. 6 announced that it had lost $5 billion in the third quarter. The 909

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company Aug. 7 had said it had made a $768 million profit in the second quarter. o FHFA Director James Lockhart 3rd Aug. 5 announced that he was stepping down from his post. Obama Aug. 25 named Edward DeMarco the FHFA’s acting director. DeMarco had been the chief operating officer at the FHFA, and prior to that had served at the Treasury. [See p. 220A3] o Freddie Mac July 21 announced that Haldeman would be its new CEO. He replaced John Koskinen, who had filled the position on an interim basis following the March resignation of CEO David Moffett. Haldeman had previously headed Putnam Investments, a money-management company. [See p. 264D2] n

Automobiles GMAC Receives $3.8 Billion in Federal Aid.

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The U.S. Treasury Dec. 30 announced that it would provide an additional $3.8 billion in loans to GMAC Financial Services, the top loan provider for dealers and customers of Michigan-based automakers General Motors Co. (GM) and Chrysler Group LLC. The Treasury had already loaned GMAC $12.5 billion since 2008. The installment brought the government’s stake in GMAC to 56%. [See pp. 887D1, 798F3] The announced loan was intended to stem losses at GMAC’s mortgage arm, Residential Capital. GMAC had focused heavily on subprime mortgages during the housing boom, and subsequently racked up losses as the economy soured. More recently, GMAC had been adversely affected by a major slowdown in U.S. auto sales. Since 2006, GMAC had reportedly lost as much as $13 billion. GMAC had planned to ask for $5.6 billion in additional loans, but the Treasury said the company did not need that much because federally mandated bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler were carried out with fewer disruptions to GMAC than forecast. The Treasury, which would receive preferred stock in exchange for the loan, gained the right to appoint a total of four directors to GMAC’s nine-person board, up from two previously. It was expected to name those directors by mid-April. [See p. 831F1] The loans to GMAC had been drawn from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Treasury’s announcement came weeks after GM and several banks had said they were healthy enough to begin repaying TARP loans. n

Business Crime News in Brief. Raj Rajaratnam, founder of

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hedge fund Galleon Group, and Danielle Chiesi, a former consultant at hedge fund New Castle Partners LLC, Dec. 21 pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to charges that they had run an insider-trading ring. A grand jury Dec. 15 had indicted Rajaratnam and Chiesi—who together had allegedly made $20.8 million in ill-gotten gains—on 17 counts of conspiracy and fraud. If convicted on all counts, Rajaratnam, 52, faced 145 years in 910

prison, while Chiesi, 44, faced a 155-year sentence. A trial date was expected to be determined by February 2010. Rajaratnam and Chiesi were among 21 people who had been charged in the case, six of whom had already pleaded guilty. [See p. 814D1] Judge Cormac Carney of U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., Dec. 15 dismissed stock-options backdating charges against two executives at Irvine, Calif.– based technology company Broadcom Corp., saying prosecutors had improperly pressured witnesses to testify in the case. Backdating involved pushing back the issue date of a stock option to when the price was lower, generating greater profits for the owner of the option. The practice, not necessarily illegal, was a common method in the 1990s and early 2000s to reward employees, but had come under legal scrutiny after companies like Broadcom allegedly attempted to hide backdating costs. The two executives were Broadcom cofounder Henry Nicholas 3rd and former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) William Ruehle. [See below; 2008, p. 109B2] The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Dec. 7 filed civil fraud charges against former executives at Irvine-based mortgage lender New Century Financial Corp., which had gone bankrupt in 2007. The SEC claimed that the former executives—Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brad Morrice, CFO Patti Dodge and Controller David Kenneally—had illegally hidden the company’s woes from investors. New Financial had once been the U.S.’s third-largest originator of subprime loans, those that were given to homeowners with shaky credit. The company started reporting heavy losses once the housing market entered a slump in 2006 and subprime loans began defaulting at a rapid clip. [See p. 388C2; 2007, p. 224B3] Federal prosecutors Dec. 2 told Judge Charles Breyer of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., that former Brocade Communications Systems Inc. CEO Gregory Reyes would be retried on stock-options backdating charges. Reyes had been found guilty of the charges in 2007, but a threejudge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco Aug. 18 overturned the verdict, citing prosecutorial misconduct. The panel said prosecutors had misled the trial jury by saying the finance department at Brocade, based in San Jose, Calif., was unaware that backdating was occurring at the company. The panel said the department oversaw backdating transactions, which strengthened Reyes’s defense that he had relied on the department to properly record all backdating. Federal prosecutors in Miami, Fla., Dec. 1 charged lawyer Scott Rothstein with running a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. Rothstein that day pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering and wire fraud. Rothstein had allegedly sold investors stakes in nonexistent monetary settlements he said his firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler P.A., had won in legal disputes. Rothstein paid older investors with the money he received from newer investors seeking a cut of the settlements. Prosecutors also said Rothstein, a

prominent contributor to political candidates in Florida, had violated campaign-finance laws by paying his employees hefty bonuses if they made contributions to specific political campaigns. [See pp. 814A2, 800A1] J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., a unit of New York City–based banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Nov. 4 agreed to pay $722 million to settle bribery charges brought by the SEC. The SEC had accused the unit and two of its former executives of paying $8 million to friends of local officials in Jefferson County, Ala., who then hired the bank to sell municipal bonds and other credit products that would be used to pay for a sewer system. The transactions later soured amidst a severe credit crisis in 2008, nearly plunging the county into bankruptcy. The two executives—Charles LeCroy and Douglas MacFaddin—said they would challenge the SEC’s allegations in court. Under the terms of the settlement, J.P. Morgan Securities neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the case. [See 2008, p. 145C3] n

Economy Consumer Prices Rose 0.4% in November.

The Labor Department Dec. 16 reported that its consumInflation (CPI) er price index November 2009 0.4% which (CPI), Previous Month 0.3% tracked prices 12-Month Increase 1.8% for consumer goods for all urban consumers, rose 0.4% in November, with adjustment for seasonal variation, after rising 0.3% in October. The jump was largely attributed to energy costs, which rose 4.1% in November. “Core” consumer prices, which excluded volatile energy and food costs, neither rose nor fell in November. [See p. 798F2] Year-End Financial Update (For world financial data, see p. 900A3)

(Close of trading Dec. 31 except where indicated)

Stocks and Bonds 10,428.05

Dow Jones Industrial Average (see box, p. 911A1)

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index Nasdaq Composite Index U.S. 10-Year Treasury Note (yield) U.S. 6-Month Treasury Bill (yield)

1,115.10 2,269.15 3.84% 0.18%

Commodities Gold (per troy oz.)

$1,096.95

Silver (per troy oz.)

$16.9200

(N.Y. Comex spot price) (London fixing spot price, Dec. 30)

Oil (per barrel)

$79.36

(Nymex crude future)

Gasoline (per gallon)

(nationwide weighted average price at the pump; Lundberg survey released Dec. 20)

Wheat (No. 2 hard, per bushel)

$2.60 $5.1650

(Kansas City market, Dec. 30)

Recent U.S. Data Inflation

1.8%

Unemployment rate

10.0%

(consumer price index 12-month increase through November; see p. 910C3) (November; see p. 846A2)

Gross domestic product growth

(annualized third-quarter rate, third report; see p. 886F3)

Prime rate

2.2% 3.25%

FACTS ON FILE

Dow Jones Industrial Average Trading on the New York Stock Exchange Closing

Dec. 1 2 3 4

7 8 9 10 11 14 15 16 17 18 21 22 23 24 25 28 29 30 31

10,471.58 10,452.68 10,366.15 10,388.90 10,390.11 10,285.97 10,337.05 10,405.83 10,471.50 10,501.05 10,452.00 10,441.12 10,308.26 10,328.89 10,414.14 10,464.93 10,466.44 10,520.10 Holiday 10,547.08 10,545.41 10,548.51 10,428.05

Volume (in millions of shares) 1,132.0 1,032.0 1,132.9 1,574.4 1,059.2 1,178.3 1,082.6 1,062.1 1,024.2 1,076.3 1,179.3 1,166.4 1,718.3 2,679.2 1,013.0 956.2 786.5 318.2 Holiday 705.4 638.4 644.4 679.8

For the 12-month period through November, the overall unadjusted inflation rate was 1.8%. Producer Prices Rose 1.8% in November—

The Labor Department Dec. 15 said that according to its producer price index (PPI), prices charged by manufacturers and producers of finished goods in November jumped 1.8% after seasonal adjustment. The larger-than-expected rise was also attributed to energy prices, which increased 6.9% in November. Core prices rose 0.5%. [See p. 798A3] The finished goods index, before seasonal adjustment, stood at 176.2% of its 1982 base average. That meant that a basket of goods that had cost $100 in 1982 would have cost $176.20 in November. Prices for intermediate, or partially processed, goods rose 1.4% in November, and prices for crude goods increased 5.7%. n November Existing Home Sales Rose 7.4%.

The National Association of Realtors Dec. 22 reported that sales of existing homes jumped by 7.4% in November, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million units, up from a revised 6.09 million units in October, and its highest rate since February 2007. The group said the rise was largely caused by first-time home buyers seeking to complete home purchases before an $8,000 tax credit expired on Nov. 30. Congress extended the credit in November. Housing market observers said the increase could also be attributed to low housing prices. [See p. 831A2] Housing Starts up 8.9%— The Departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Dec. 16 reported jointly that the rate of housing starts in November was 574,000 units, annualized and adjusted for seasonal variation. That was up 8.9% from the October revised rate of 527,000. Building permits were issued in December 31, 2009

November at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 584,000 units, 6.0% above October’s revised rate of 551,000. [See p. 831B2] New Home Sales Fell 11.3%— The Departments of Commerce and HUD Dec. 23 reported jointly that sales of new singlefamily homes fell 11.3% in November from the previous month. The new seasonally adjusted annual rate was 355,000 units, down from the revised October rate of 400,000 units, and a seven-month low. The drop was attributed to concerns among first-time home buyers that they could not close deals on new homes before the $8,000 tax credit expired Nov. 30. The median price of a new single-family home sold in November was reported to be $217,400. [See p. 831D2] n Current Account Deficit Grew in 3rd Quarter.

The U.S. current account, the broadest measure of the nation’s international trade, recorded a deficit of $108.0 billion in the third quarter of 2009, up from a revised $98.0 billion deficit in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Dec. 16. The rise was attributed to an improving U.S. economy, which had led to greater domestic demand for imported goods. It was the first time the deficit had widened since the second quarter of 2008. The current account included investment income and foreign aid as well as trade in goods and services. [See p. 640D2] n Industrial Production Rose in November.

The Federal Reserve Dec. 15 reported that its industrial production index increased 0.8% in November. Based on revised data, the Fed found that industrial production had neither risen nor fallen in October. The overall index now stood at 99.4% of its 2002 base average, up from 98.6% in October. Manufacturing production rose 1.1% in November. The output of utilities decreased 1.8%, and mining output increased 2.1%. Factories, mines and utilities operated at 71.3% of their total capacity in November. [See p. 813D2] n Retail Sales Rose 1.3% in November. The Commerce Department Dec. 11 reported that the value of retail sales in November was $352.1 billion after seasonal adjustment, up 1.3% from the revised figure for October. The bump was reportedly caused by the onset of the holiday shopping season. [See p. 813B2] n November Durable Goods Orders up 0.2%.

The Commerce Department Dec. 24 reported that the value of durable goods orders in November was $166.9 billion, an increase of 0.2%, or $0.3 billion, from the previous month. Durable goods were socalled big-ticket items designed to last three years or more. [See p. 831A3] n Business Inventories Rose in October.

The Commerce Department Dec. 11 reported that the value of business inventories at the end of October was $1.3 trillion after seasonal adjustment, up 0.2% from the revised value at the end of September. The ratio of inventories to sales was 1.30, meaning that it would take businesses 1.30

months to unload their inventories at the current sales pace. [See p. 813C2] n Consumer Confidence Rose in December.

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The Conference Board business research group Dec. 29 reported that its index of consumer confidence rose to 52.9 in December, up from its level of 50.6 in November. The index’s base level of 100 reflected consumer confidence in 1985. [See p. 831A3] n Leading Indicators Rose 0.9% in November.

The Conference Board business research organization Dec. 17 reported that its composite index of leading economic indicators, a gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.9% in November, to 104.9. Based on revised data, the index had increased 0.3% in October, the board reported. The index’s base level of 100 reflected conditions in 2004. [See p. 813E2] Six of the 10 indicators in November were “positive” contributors, led by interest rate spread and average weekly claims for unemployment insurance. Three indicators—index of supplier deliveries, index of consumer expectations and manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods—were “negative.” Manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials were neither positive nor negative. n

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Computers FTC Brings Antitrust Suit Against Intel. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Dec.

16 sued Santa Clara, Calif.–based computer-chip maker Intel Corp. for using its market dominance to stifle competition. It was the latest in a series of antitrust complaints against Intel brought by regulators in Japan, Korea, the European Union and New York State, but went further in alleging that Intel’s anticompetitive activities extended to the video graphics chip market. [See p. 800C2] The FTC was not seeking monetary damages, but instead to bar Intel from using bundled discounts, threats or other means to unfairly manipulate prices, interfere with competition or induce companies to enter into exclusive deals, and from redesigning its software to slow down competitors’ chips. Intel claimed that it had “competed fairly and lawfully,” and that the FTC’s proposed remedies would harm its business and customers. The FTC’s complaint was an administrative action that would be heard by one of the commission’s administrative law judges. Such a trial would reportedly start much sooner and be much shorter than one heard by a jury in federal court. The FTC said it was expected to start in September 2010, and conclude within 20 months. n

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Microsoft Loses Word Processor Dispute.

Judge Leonard Davis of U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas, Aug. 11 ordered Redmond, Wash.–based software giant Microsoft Corp. to stop selling or importing into the U.S. its popular word-processing program Word, ruling that one of Word’s features infringed upon a patent held by Toronto, Canada–based i4i Inc. Davis also ordered Microsoft to pay $277 million in the case— 911

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$200 million awarded May 20 by a jury, plus $40 million for willful infringement and $37 million in prejudgment interest. A threejudge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Dec. 22 rejected an appeal by Microsoft. [See p. 875F3] I4i in March 2007 had sued Microsoft, alleging that a tool in Word used to edit XML code, which allowed users to customize documents’ format, violated a patent it had filed in 1998. I4i produced XML addons for Word. The injunction required Microsoft to stop selling Word by Jan. 11, 2010. However, the company said it would have new versions of the program without the offending code ready for sale by then. n

Telecommunications Court Strikes Down Cable Ownership Cap.

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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Aug. 28 struck down a 2007 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that kept cable television companies from controlling more than 30% of the U.S. market. The rule had first been imposed in 1993, but had been overturned twice before its current incarnation. The panel said the FCC had not significantly changed the rule to comply with past court rulings, and had failed to consider competition from satellite and fiber optic television providers, which could lessen the monopolistic effect of a large cable television provider on a particular market. [See 2007, p. 876E1] The ruling was seen as a victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable television provider and the only one close to the cap. Comcast had some 24 million customers, about 25% of the cable market. [See p. 830A3] n

Media Newspaper Circulation Drops by Over 10%.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, a newspaper industry group, Oct. 26 reported that U.S. weekday newspaper circulation had fallen 10.6% over the six-month period ending Sept. 30, compared to the corresponding period of 2008, while Sunday circulation fell by 7.5%. The data, which was based on reports sent in by 379 of the U.S.’s largest newspapers, showed an average of about 44 million newspaper copies being sold every day, the lowest level since the 1940s. Average daily circulation of U.S. newspapers had been declining since 1987. [See 2008, p. 939E2] USA Today saw a 17% decline in circulation, to 1.9 million, ceding the position of top-circulating newspaper to the Wall Street Journal, whose circulation rose 0.6%, to two million. (Neither newspaper published on Sundays.) In third place, the New York Times’s weekday circulation fell by 7.3%, to 928,000. The Times’s Sunday circulation dropped by 2.7% but still remained the highest in the nation, at 1.4 million. The drop in circulations was attributed by newspapers and analysts to voluntary 912

moves to drop unprofitable subscribers; newsroom cuts that caused a drop in quality; and readers’ migration to the Internet, where most newspapers provided their content free of charge. (The Journal, which charged for access to its Web site, had more than 400,000 online-only subscribers.) Steep declines in advertising revenue had also prompted some papers to raise their per-copy prices. The Newspaper Association of America Nov. 19 reported that industry-wide advertising revenue had dropped 28% in the third quarter of 2009, from the same period in 2008, and the same percentage over the first nine months of the year, to $19.9 billion. USA Today also reportedly suffered from woes in the hospitality and travel industries, because a large part of its business was derived from copies purchased to be distributed for free in hotel rooms. Eight of the 10 newspapers that showed the largest percentage circulation gains were small newspapers with circulations under 100,000 that focused on local news. The Audit Bureau of Circulations April 27 had reported an average 7.1% drop in weekday circulation for the preceding six months, and a 5.4% decline in Sunday circulation. For that period, USA Today’s circulation dropped by 7.5%, to 2.11 million; the Journal’s circulation rose 0.6%, to 2.08 million; and the Times’s weekday circulation fell 3.6%, to 1.04 million. n ‘Boston Globe’ Sale Canceled. The New York Times Co. Oct. 14 said that it would not sell the Boston Globe. Two groups— private equity firm Platinum Equity LLC and a group of local investors led by Stephen Taylor, a former Globe executive—had each submitted bids of about $35 million in cash and the assumption of about $60 million in pension and other obligations for the Globe and another Massachusetts newspaper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. However, the Times Co. said the Globe’s business situation had improved enough so that it made more sense to repair its finances than to accept a low bid. [See p. 393A1] The Times Co. had bought the Globe in 1993 for $1.1 billion, the most money ever paid for a single U.S. newspaper. However, its circulation and advertising revenue had declined sharply, mirroring the newspaper industry as a whole, and the Times Co. in April threatened to close the Globe unless steep cuts were made. The Boston Newspaper Guild—which represented 670 Globe newsroom staffers and other employees, and was the largest union at the newspaper—July 20 voted, 366–179, to accept a package of wage and benefit cuts that would save the newspaper $10 million; they had voted down a similar package in June, and the Times Co. had subsequently imposed a unilateral 23% wage cut. Globe Publisher P. Steven Ainsley Oct. 29 said he would resign at the end of 2009 after holding the post for three years, and the Times Co. said he would be replaced by Christopher Mayer, a longtime Globe executive who was currently the newspaper’s senior vice president for circulation and operations.

The Times Co. Dec. 7 announced that it would not sell the Telegram & Gazette, after Oct. 14 saying that it was still seeking a buyer. The Times Co. had bought that newspaper in 2000 for $296 million. Other News—In other news on print media: o The Nielsen Co. Dec. 10 announced that it would close Editor & Publisher, a newspaper trade publication, and Kirkus Reviews, a biweekly known for its prepublication book reviews. Additionally, it said it would sell the trade publications Adweek, Mediaweek, Brandweek, Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Film Journal International and Backstage, as well as the rights to the Clio Awards for advertising and the Film Expo trade shows, for a reported price of at least $70 million. They would be sold to a newly-created media company, e5 Global Media Holdings LLC, which was a joint venture of private equity fund Pluribus Capital Management and financial services firm Guggenheim Partners LLC. o The Washington Post Nov. 24 announced that it would close its three remaining U.S. bureaus outside Washington, D.C., located in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, in order to cut costs. Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said the Post could send reporters from Washington, D.C., to cover national events, and that it would focus on reporting through a “Washington prism.” The Post still maintained more than a dozen foreign bureaus. [See p. 478G3] o Window Media LLC Nov. 16 shut down the Washington Blade, a Washington, D.C., weekly newspaper aimed at a gay audience. Founded in 1969, the Blade was the U.S.’s oldest gay newspaper, and its employees said they would revive it as an employee-owned venture under another name. Window said it had closed the Blade after its owner, Avalon Equity Fund, was forced into receivership by the Small Business Administration (SBA), which could not find a buyer for the newspaper. Window Media Nov. 16 also shut down the other gay publications it owned: the newspapers Houston Voice, South Florida Blade and Atlanta, Ga.’s Southern Voice, and the magazines David Atlanta and Florida’s 411. [See 2007, p. 801G2] o A group led by Chicago investor James Tyree Oct. 26 finalized its purchase of Sun-Times Media Group Inc., which published the Chicago Sun-Times and a chain of smaller Chicago-area newspapers. A judge Oct. 8 had approved the sale of Sun-Times Media, which filed for bankruptcy in March. [See p. 393G1] o Business magazine BusinessWeek Oct. 13 announced on its Web site that it would be bought by financial information company Bloomberg LP, from McGrawHill Co. Bloomberg Nov. 17 announced that Time magazine Deputy Managing Editor Josh Tyrangiel would become BusinessWeek’s new editor as of Dec. 3. [See 2008, p. 129G] o Conde Nast Publications Inc. Oct. 5 announced that it would close down the piFACTS ON FILE

oneering food magazine Gourmet, which had been launched in 1941, in the face of steeply declining advertising revenues. Conde Nast also said it would shut the wedding magazines Modern Bride and Elegant Bride and the parenting magazine Cookie, and that about 180 employees in total would lose their jobs. Conde Nast Jan. 28 had shut down the style magazine Domino, and April 27 had closed the business magazine Portfolio less than two years after it was launched. Conde Nast, which was owned by Advance Publications Inc., had historically been known for keeping money-losing magazines open for years while they found their footing, but the economic downturn had reportedly forced it to take a harder line with unprofitable titles. [See 1999, p. 140A3] o The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s owner Sept. 28 emerged from bankruptcy, after entering Chapter 11 protection in January. Under a plan filed June 18 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York City and approved Sept. 17, the Star Tribune Media Co., previously known as the Star Tribune Co., emerged with $100 million in debt, down from $480 million at the time of the bankruptcy filing. In return, lenders took some 95% of the new company’s stock. [See p. 168A1] o Timothy Night Sept. 23 announced that he was resigning as publisher of Newsday, after five years at the Long Island, N.Y.–based tabloid. Cablevision Systems Corp., which owned Newsday, said Night would be replaced by Terry Jimenez, the publisher of AM New York, another Cablevision newspaper. Newsday Dec. 11 also replaced its editor of five years, John Mancini, with Debby Krenek, the newspaper’s managing editor and senior vice president for digital media. No reason was given for either of the changes. Separately, Newsday Oct. 22 announced that it would begin to charge for access to its Web site, becoming one of a few U.S. newspapers to do so. [See 2008, p. 903E3] o Freedom Communications Inc., which owned 33 daily newspapers, including the Orange County Register of Santa Ana, Calif., and eight television stations, Sept. 1 filed for bankruptcy in Federal Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Under the filing, control of Freedom would pass to its creditors; the previous owners—the descendants of its founder, R.C. Hoiles, and private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Providence Equity Partners LLC—would retain an equity stake of about 2%. [See 1996, p. 255E3] o Philadelphia Newspapers, a subsidiary of Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC that owned the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 20 filed a Chapter 11 plan in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia, Pa., under which it would be sold to a group of local investors, including housing tycoon Bruce Toll, which backed Philadelphia Media Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brian Tierney. Under the plan, the company would raise $35 million from the investors, and would hand over to creditors $37 million in cash, December 31, 2009

plus the newspapers’ Philadelphia headquarters, valued at $30 million, in order to exit bankruptcy debt-free. (It would also pay $25 million in costs to exit bankruptcy.) Judge Stephen Raslavich of the bankruptcy court Oct. 8 ruled that Philadelphia Newspapers’ creditors could bid for the company using the more than $300 million they were owed, which would allow them to far outbid the local investors. However, Judge Eduardo Robreno of U.S. District Court in Philadelphia Nov. 10 reversed that decision. [See p. 168B1] o Roll Call Group—a unit of the Economist Group that published the newspaper Roll Call, a newspaper covering federal legislative matters—July 21 said it would buy the Congressional Quarterly (CQ) collection of publications and Web sites, which was owned by Times Publishing Co., the owner of the St. Petersburg Times. The purchase price was reportedly about $100 million. Although both Roll Call and CQ covered federal legislative affairs, Roll Call focused more on the personalities of members of Congress and others involved in the legislative process, while CQ detailed the particulars of bills. Times Publishing Nov. 20 announced that it would sell Governing magazine, which focused on local and state governments, to e.Republic Inc., which also published Government Technology magazine. [See p. 168C1] o The Wicks Group, a private equity firm, June 30 announced that it was closing the hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) magazine Vibe, which had been founded in 1993. [See 1999, p. 72F2] o Clarity Media Group, which was owned by conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz, June 17 announced that it had purchased the right-wing Weekly Standard magazine from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for a reported one million dollars. The Standard espoused a “neoconservative” foreign policy and had gained influence during the administration of President George W. Bush. [See 2008, p. 44F2] o Gannett Co. April 28 named John Hillkirk as editor of USA Today, and David Hunke as the newspaper’s publisher. Hillkirk had been serving as USA Today’s acting editor since the previous editor, Kenneth Paulson, resigned Feb. 1. Hunke, formerly the publisher of the Detroit Free Press, replaced Craig Moon, who March 31 had announced his resignation from USA Today, effective April 21. [See 2004, p. 644B2] n ‘Washington Times’ Executives Fired. The Washington Times Nov. 9 fired President and Publisher Thomas McDevitt, Chief Financial Officer Keith Cooperrider and Chairman Dong Moon Joo, and appointed former Vice Chairman Jonathan Slevin as acting president and publisher. The newspaper Nov. 12 said its executive editor, John Solomon, had resigned Nov. 6. Since he was appointed in January 2008, Solomon had worked to segregate the news and opinion pages of the right-leaning newspaper and had started several revenuegenerating efforts, but reportedly felt he

could no longer be effective. [See 2008, p. 44E2] Some reports said the shakeup was due to the worsening economic situation in the newspaper industry, although the Times had long been cushioned by subsidies from its owner, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church; however, there was also speculation that it resulted from infighting among Moon’s heirs. Richard Miniter, the Times’s former editorial page editor and vice president of opinion, Nov. 17 filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), saying that the newspaper had “coerced” him into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony in December 2008 that culminated with Moon performing a mass wedding. Miniter also revealed that he had been fired in October without any reason being given, although he remained on the Times’s masthead. The Times Dec. 2 said it would lay off at least 40% of its 370-member staff. It said it would also change distribution practices to deemphasize newsstand sales and subscriptions, and focus on the newspaper’s “core strengths,” which it said were politics, investigative reporting, national security and “cultural coverage based on traditional values.” n

Terrorism Detainees Twelve Released From Guantanamo. Mc-

Clatchy Newspapers reported Dec. 19 that the U.S. government had repatriated 12 terrorism detainees previously held at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, bringing the number of detainees still held there down to 198. The Justice Department Dec. 20 said a government task force had found the 12 unlikely to pose a security threat. [See p. 861B2] The Obama administration had previously sent 42 Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries and had charged one detainee with terrorism offenses in U.S. federal court; at least five more detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S., were expected to be charged in U.S. courts, and five others were expected to be tried under the government’s military commissions system. The U.S. released four Afghan detainees, two Somalis and six Yemenis, including Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, who had been cleared for release in March. Following the release, about 90 Yemeni detainees remained at Guantanamo; the U.S. government had previously been reluctant to return detainees to Yemen, which was seen as a hub of terrorist activity. McClatchy reported that the two Somali detainees had been taken to Somalia’s breakaway Somaliland region. The U.S. did not recognize Somaliland as a country, and the detainees were reportedly flown into the region by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Associated Press (AP) and Italian media reported Dec. 20 that the U.S. was planning to transfer Tunisian detainee 913

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Moez Ben Abdelkader Fezzani to Italy later the same day to stand trial in Italian court on terrorism charges. The U.S. had sent two terrorism detainees to Italy to stand trial earlier in December. Illinois Prison Plan Delayed—The New York Times reported Dec. 23 that the refusal of congressional Democrats to provide funding for the purchase of an Illinois prison to house terrorism detainees had led Obama administration officials to conclude that Guantanamo could be closed no earlier than 2011, at least a year after the Jan. 22, 2010, deadline announced by President Barack Obama in January. The Obama administration was not expected to win funding to acquire the prison in Thomson, Ill., until at least March, and planned security improvements at the prison were thought likely to take at least eight months after the purchase of the facility. [See p. 861A1] According to the Times, the Obama administration had considered invoking an obscure statute that would allow Obama to declare a national emergency and then use military funds to take control of the prison. However, the administration had reportedly rejected the plan due to concerns that it might alienate Congress. Analysts suggested that the administration’s plans to close Guantanamo could be complicated by an attempted terrorist attack Dec. 25 on board a Northwest Airlines jet bound for Detroit, Mich. A branch of the Al Qaeda terrorist network active in Yemen Dec. 27 had claimed responsibility for plotting the failed bombing, raising the possibility that detainees repatriated to Yemen could pose a security risk to the U.S. Two former Guantanamo detainees who had been released by the administration of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, were members of the Al Qaeda affiliate. [See p. 897A1] Defense Department Official Resigns—

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Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy Phillip Carter Nov. 20 resigned his position after only seven months on the job, the Defense Department announced Dec. 24. Carter had been tasked with overseeing the U.S. detention of terrorism detainees at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan. Officials said he left for family reasons. He was the second prominent Obama administration official connected with detainee policy to resign in November, following the resignation of White House Counsel Gregory Craig. [See p. 797B3] n

Terrorism News in Brief. Judge Joan Lenard of U.S.

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District Court in Miami, Fla., Nov. 20 sentenced Narseal Batiste to 13 years and six months in prison following his conviction for attempting to conspire with the Al Qaeda international terrorist network to carry out terrorist attacks inside the U.S., including a planned attack on the Sears Tower, in Chicago (officially renamed the Willis Tower July 16), among others. Lenard Nov. 18 had sentenced two other conspirators, brothers Burson Ausgustin and Rotschild Ausgustin, to six years and seven 914

years in prison, respectively, and Dec. 19 sentenced the other two convicted members of the plot, Stanley Phanor and Patrick Abraham, to eight years and nine years in prison, respectively. The five conspirators had been convicted in May after two previous mistrials, and had claimed to have no real intention of carrying out any attacks. [See p. 374A3] Judge Jorge Solis in U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas, May 28 sentenced five members of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the largest Islamic charity in the U.S., to prison following their conviction on charges related to the foundation’s funding of schools and hospitals in the Palestinian territories operated by the Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) militant group. Solis sentenced Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi, founding members of the foundation, to 65 years in prison. He also sentenced Mufid Abdulqader to 20 years in prison, Mohammed El-Mezain to 15 years in prison and Abdrulrahman Odeh to 15 years in prison. The sixth foundation member convicted in connection with the case, Akram Musa Abdallah, was scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 18, 2010. [See 2008, p. 938A1] A three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City Nov. 17 upheld the conviction of defense attorney Lynne Stewart and two others for providing illicit aid to a convicted terrorist client, and revoked bail for Stewart and codefendant Mohamed Yousry, a translator. The panel also sent the case back to Judge John Koeltl of U.S. District Court in New York City and instructed him to consider whether Stewart had lied under oath and, if so, whether she should receive a harsher sentence than the 28-month prison term she had received in 2006, following her 2005 conviction. Stewart, 70, began serving her sentence Nov. 19. [See 2006, p. 799A1] Three Malian men thought to belong to Al Qaeda Dec. 18 were charged in U.S. District Court in New York City with drug conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. They allegedly had offered to transport cocaine for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants posing as members of Colom-

bia’s leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group. The defendants, Harouna Toure, Oumar Issa and Idriss Abdelrahman, had been arrested in Ghana Dec. 16 and were thought to be the first members of Al Qaeda to be arrested on drug trafficking charges. [See p. 816C1] n

September 11 Attack Aftermath News in Brief. An attorney for Egyptian

citizen Abdallah Higazy Sept. 24 announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had paid $250,000 to settle a lawsuit in which Higazy alleged that he had been threatened and coerced by an FBI agent into making a false confession to involvement in Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. Higazy, 38, had been accused of using a two-way aviation radio found in his hotel room near the World Trade Center site in New York City to as-

sist the attackers, and had been held for 34 days in 2001–02 before a pilot returned to the hotel to claim the radio. The FBI did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. [See 2002, p. 1003B2] A 26-year-old lawyer Oct. 31 set a fire inside a temporary structure in New York City’s borough of Manhattan that held human remains recovered from the city’s World Trade Center complex, which had

been destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks. The structure, known as the Memorial Park chapel, was a temporary holding space for the remains, which were expected to be transferred to a planned memorial for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The human remains were unaffected by the fire, but the structure suffered minor smoke damage and most mementos left by families of the victims had been either stolen or burned. The lawyer, Brian Schroeder, turned himself in to police later on Oct. 31 and was released on bail Nov. 1. He was reportedly drunk during the incident and could not remember why he had set the fire. Sidley Austin LLP, a Chicago-based law firm that had lost one employee during the Sept. 11 attacks, Nov. 2 rescinded a job offer it had made to Schroeder, who had been scheduled to begin work at the firm’s New York branch in January 2010. [See p. 620E2] The USS New York, which contained 7.5 tons of steel taken from the wrecked remains of New York City’s World Trade Center, Nov. 7 was officially commissioned

into the U.S. Navy at a ceremony in New York attended by 6,000 people, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Gov. David Paterson (D) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I). The amphibious transport ship, which had cost $1.3 billion, had left its home port of Norfolk, Va., on Oct. 29 and had arrived in New York City on Nov. 2. (The ship was named after special permission was given to break from a current Navy policy in which only submarines were given the names of states.) The Navy was scheduled to built two additional ships named after sites involved in the Sept. 11 attacks: the USS Arlington, named after the Pentagon’s location in Virginia’s Arlington County, and the USS Somerset, named after the crash site of terrorist-hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania’s Somerset County. [See p. 620D3] Wikileaks.org, a Web site known for posting confidential documents leaked from government departments and private businesses, Nov. 25 released a collection of about 500,000 private pager messages collected during a 24-hour period surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks. The messages were

presented in the order in which they were sent, and included messages from members of the Defense Department, New York Police Department (NYPD) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as well as ordinary citizens. The messages released by Wikileaks included false claims that a car bomb had exploded outside a building in Washington, D.C., that the U.S. had begun bombing Afghanistan on the day of the attacks, and that a U.S. military helicopter had crashed into the FACTS ON FILE

Pentagon. Wikileaks said on its Web site that the information had come from an unidentified source “which has been intercepting and archiving national US telecommunications since prior to” the Sept. 11 attacks. [See 2008, p. 182E2] n

Armed Forces News in Brief. The Army Dec. 18 reported

that Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, the U.S. commander in northern Iraq, Nov. 4 had issued a policy allowing soldiers under his

command who became pregnant to be court-martialed. Soldiers who impregnated

other soldiers would also be court-martialed under the policy, and civilians reporting to Cucolo could face criminal charges. Military policy had previously been to send pregnant soldiers in Iraq back to the U.S., but Cucolo said that left units short-handed. The policy was criticized by some Democratic legislators as infringing on basic individual rights, and Cucolo Dec. 22 said he would not court-martial pregnant soldiers, but would use lesser disciplinary measures. Stars and Stripes Dec. 24 reported that the U.S. military would not include the pregnancy ban in a comprehensive order for U.S. forces in Iraq that would come into effect Jan. 1, 2010, effectively dropping the policy. [See p. 720B3] Military officials Dec. 2 said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had been charged with 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in connection with a November shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that had killed 13 people and wounded at least 28 others. He had already been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder. [See pp. 944G2, 812A3] Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli Nov. 17 said that the number of suicides among Army soldiers in 2009 was on track to hit an annual high. He said that as of Nov. 16, 140 active-duty soldiers were suspected of having themselves in 2009, the same number as in the whole of 2008, itself a record year. However, he said that about 40 of the suicides had occurred in January and February, and that monthly suicide rates had generally trended downward since then, which he attributed to improved suicide prevention programs. [See p. 244G3] Army Secretary John McHugh Nov. 13 said the Army would investigate poor record-keeping and other operational issues at Arlington National Cemetery that had caused several errors in burying remains. Cemetery workers had reportedly buried cremated remains by accident in a grave that was already being used; marked graves as being those of unknown soldiers after the identity of their occupants was lost due to paperwork errors; and buried a husband and wife in adjacent graves, instead of in the same grave site. Additionally, errors had reportedly been known for years without being remedied. The mistakes at Arlington were exposed in a series of articles published beginning in July in the online magazine Salon.com. [See 2008, p. 571E3] December 31, 2009

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Oct. 8 arrested Richard Strandlof in San Diego, Calif., for falsely claiming to be a decorated veteran of the Iraq war who had won a Purple Heart and Silver Star. The charges were brought under the Stolen Valor Act, which made it a federal crime to falsely claim to have military decorations, and carried a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Strandlof had founded the Colorado Veterans Alliance and worked to help veterans, before his fraud was revealed in May. [See p. 412C1] n

Defense New Bidding Opened for Aerial Tankers.

The Air Force Sept. 24 opened a third round of bidding for a $35 billion contract to replace its aging aerial tanker fleet. The winning company would initially build 179 tankers, but the contract could extend for decades, and could eventually cost $100 billion for 400–500 aircraft. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Sept. 16 had said the Air Force would be in charge of the bidding, even though in July 2008 he had given that authority to the Defense Department after the Air Force’s management of the two previous rounds had been marred by corruption and mistakes. [See p. 615E3; 2008, p. 658A1] Los Angeles–based defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. Dec. 1 asserted that the current rules favored rival contractor Boeing Co., and said it would not bid in the new round unless the Air Force changed the criteria by which the bids would be judged. An Air Force spokesman said the rules were fair, and that both companies had asked for changes that favored their designs. Northrop in previous rounds had bid in partnership with French-German consortium European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (EADS), the parent company of aircraft maker Airbus. If it pulled out, it would leave Boeing as the sole bidder, a potential embarrassment for the Air Force. n News in Brief. A Coast Guard C-130 trans-

port plane and a Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter collided Oct. 29 about

50 miles (80 km) off the coast of San Diego, Calif., leaving all seven Coast Guard members and two Marines on board the aircraft missing and presumed dead. The Coast Guard plane was on its way to search for a missing boater when it hit the helicopter, which was on a training flight. [See p. 266A3] Two F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets collided Oct. 15 about 40 miles off the coast of South Carolina. One of the pilots was killed when his jet crashed, while the other was able to fly his damaged aircraft back to Charleston Air Force Base safely. A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed Aug. 19 near the summit of Colorado’s second-highest mountain, the 14,421-foot (4,396-m) Mount Massive. All four soldiers on board were killed in the crash. The helicopter had taken off from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado

Springs, Colo., about 90 miles east of Mount Massive. n

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Intelligence Lawsuit Over Alleged 1992 Spying Settled.

The Justice Department Nov. 3 announced that it had reached a financial settlement with former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operative Richard Horn, who had sued a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative and a State Department employee for allegedly illegally wiretapping him in Myanmar in 1992. The Justice Department, which was representing the two defendants in the case, agreed to pay Horn a total of $3 million in exchange for dropping his lawsuit and agreeing not to press for legal sanctions against six current and former CIA officials and lawyers in connection with the case. The settlement allowed the government to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information whose nature, the government had argued, should have prevented the lawsuit from proceeding, under the so-called doctrine of statesecrets privilege. [See p. 410E2] Horn’s lawsuit, filed in 1994, had accused CIA operative Arthur Brown of placing a coffee table rigged with listening devices in Horn’s residence in Myanmar and then passing information obtained through the listening device to Franklin Huddle Jr., then the mission chief at the U.S. embassy in Myanmar. Judge Blasts CIA for ‘Fraud’—In rulings unsealed on July 20, Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., announced that he was considering sanctioning former CIA Director George Tenet and five other current and former CIA officials and attorneys for allegedly withholding information that was relevant to the case. He called the officials’ failure to pass on the information “a fraud on the court” and ordered them to submit documents arguing why they should not be sanctioned. Lamberth had served as the head of the secret intelligence court set up by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until 2002. In 2004, Lamberth had thrown out Horn’s lawsuit after the government invoked the state secrets privilege, arguing that allowing the lawsuit to go forward would endanger national security by outing Brown as a covert CIA operative. In 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had reinstated the case, and ruled that Horn’s lawsuit could proceed if he was able to make his case for damages without using classified evidence. The Justice Department informed Lamberth in 2008 that Brown’s cover had actually been lifted in 2002, invalidating the government’s state-secrets argument. Lamberth suggested in his rulings that the information had intentionally been kept from the judiciary in order to get Horn’s lawsuit thrown out. Lamberth Aug. 26 ordered the Obama administration to grant security clearances to private attorneys representing Horn, Huddle and Brown, and to allow them to 915

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review classified evidence cited by Horn as essential to proving his allegations. Lamberth noted that it was unusual for a court to order the executive branch to allow access to classified information, but argued that “the deference generally granted the executive branch in matters of classification and national security must yield when the executive attempts to exert control over the courtroom” by holding back evidence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Sept. 12 stayed Lamberth’s order, allowing the Obama administration to put off releasing the information while it appealed the ruling. Lamberth’s Aug. 26 ruling had been seen as a boost to an unrelated lawsuit, also before Lamberth, filed by the Saudi Arabian Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, an Islamic charity, and its former attorneys, in connection with the warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA). The plaintiffs in that case had argued that they should be given access to classified documents that the government had seized that would show they were illegally wiretapped; the government had argued that doing so would endanger national security. Wired magazine reported Nov. 10 on its Web site that attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Al Haramain case had asked Lamberth not to vacate his ruling as a result of the Horn settlement. n News in Brief. President Barack Obama Oct. 28 signed an executive order that authorized the Intelligence Oversight Board, an appointed body tasked with monitoring intelligence activities, to report any improper intelligence activities to the attorney general, triggering consideration of

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possible criminal charges. In February 2008, then-President George W. Bush had issued an executive order instructing the board to report violations of U.S. law or presidential orders only if they were likely illegal and if they were not being addressed by other officials, and allowed the board to report such violations only to the president, the director of national intelligence and the agency directly involved in the alleged infractions. Obama Oct. 28 also appointed former Sens. David Boren (D, Okla.) and Chuck Hagel (R, Neb.) to the Intelligence Advisory Board, which oversaw the Intelligence Oversight Board and provided intelligence advice to the president. [See 1996, p. 910G3] The Homeland Security Department had improperly gathered information on the Nation of Islam, abortion rights and antiabortion protesters and speakers at a conference on Islam, among others, according to documents released Dec. 16 by the Justice Department in connection with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil liberties advocacy group. The documents found that the investigation of the Nation of Islam, which had lasted for eight months, had violated rules requiring officials to determine within 180 days whether a subject of a probe posed a terrorist threat; a widely circulated government 2007 report on the group was subsequently withdrawn. [See p. 262F3] n 916

Espionage Guilty Plea in Linguist Case. Israeli-Amer-

ican lawyer Shamai Kedem Leibowitz Dec. 17 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., to passing five secret documents in April 2009 to an unidentified blogger who subsequently published information taken from the documents on a public Web site. Leibowitz, 39, who had worked as a contract linguist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from January until August, was expected to serve one year and eight months in prison under an agreement with prosecutors. He had not been paid for the information. Analysts suggested that the documents leaked by Leibowitz could have been related to the April disclosure that Rep. Jane Harman (D, Calif.) had been overheard on a government wiretap, or were connected to the government’s warrantless wiretapping program. [See p. 263F1] n

Education California Tuition Hike Spurs Protests.

The Board of Regents for the University of California (UC) Nov. 19 voted to increase tuition by 32% by the beginning of the 2010–11 school year, resulting in protests at the university’s campuses across the state. The fee hike followed severe cuts in public spending enacted by the state of California in order to close a $26 billion budget deficit gap. In the days preceding and immediately following the vote, sit-ins and other demonstrations in protest of the state cuts and fee hikes took place at the university’s Davis, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz campuses. Dozens of people were arrested for trespassing. [See p. 503E2] UC System President Mark Yudof defended the increase, saying the state budget cuts had left the university no choice but to raise student fees. Professors, clerical workers and other university employees had already been subject to mandatory furloughs that reportedly amounted to an average salary reduction of about 8%. Police at the Berkeley campus early Dec. 12 arrested eight people after a group of protesters vandalized Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s house, which was located on campus. The incident, in which suspects broke windows and planters while Birgeneau and his wife were home, came after police the previous evening had arrested as many as 66 protesters who had partially occupied a UC Berkeley classroom building for four days. Police Dec. 10 arrested some two dozen protesters at San Francisco State University (SFSU) for trespassing and unlawful assembly. The California State Univesity system, of which SFSU was a part, had increased tuition by 30% for the 2009–10 academic year. n

Civil Rights Discrimination Found at Pa. Swim Club.

The Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission Sept. 22 found that a private swim

club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., near Philadelphia, had racially discriminated against a day camp that had predominantly black and Hispanic children, Creative Steps Inc. The commission ordered the swim club, The Valley Club, to pay a $50,000 fine for violating the civil rights of a child whose parents had filed a complaint with the commission. The swim club had asked camp staff and children to leave soon after they had arrived there for an arranged June 29 visit. Campers had reported hearing racial comments while at the club. The swim club had argued that there were insufficient lifeguards on duty to watch the children. [See p. 492D1] n

Immigration Meat Plant Manager Convicted. A

federal jury Nov. 12 found Sholom Rubashkin, the former chief executive of the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa, guilty of 86 of 91 counts of financial fraud. He had not yet been sentenced. Dozens of additional charges against Rubashkin for his alleged efforts to employ illegal immigrants at Agriprocessors were dropped Nov. 19 at the request of the prosecution, which said Rubashkin had already been convicted of crimes that carried the longest sentences. Agriprocessors in 2008 had been raided by federal immigration agents, who had arrested hundreds of workers there for being in the U.S. illegally. [See p. 268F3] n

Energy $100 Million Verdict in BP Chemical Release.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Galveston, Texas, Dec. 18 awarded 10 workers at a Texas City, Texas, refinery operated by Britain’s BP PLC energy company $10 million in punitive damages and between $5,918 and $244,386 in compensatory damages apiece after finding that the workers had been injured by the unannounced release of a toxic chemical at the refinery in April 2007. Critics argued that continued failures to enforce safety guidelines at the refinery—which had been the site of a 2005 explosion that killed 15 people and wounded about 180 others—had endangered the lives and health of many others employees. [See 2008, p. 409B2; 2007, p. 715F2] The 10 plaintiffs in the suit had alleged that more than 100 workers at the refinery had been hospitalized after the release of carbon disulfide, a chemical that could cause flu-like symptoms in humans. They argued that the accident had been caused by insufficient chemical monitoring systems and poor safety controls at the plant. The workers had suffered no lung damage or other permanent injuries. BP had previously maintained that no chemical release had occurred and described the incident as an “odor event.” $50 Million Fine Against BP Upheld—

Judge Lee Rosenthal of U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas, March 12 approved a plea agreement between prosecutors and FACTS ON FILE

BP related to the 2005 explosion that called for the company to pay $50 million in fines. BP had agreed to pay the fine in 2007 as part of an agreement with prosecutors to pay a total of $373 million to settle charges related to the explosion, as well as separate price-fixing and oil spill incidents. Under the deal, BP’s U.S. division would pay $50 million in fines and would plead guilty to criminal charges related to the refinery explosion. Survivors of the explosion and families of victims had criticized the fines as insufficient and had questioned whether BP had implemented required safety measures following the accident. In May 2008, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, La., had sent the case back to Rosenthal after finding that federal prosecutors had violated the 2004 Crime Victims Rights Act by failing to include survivors of the refinery explosion in settlement negotiations. However, the panel’s ruling did not invalidate the agreement. BP Hit With Largest Ever OSHA Fine—

The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Oct. 30 announced that it would fine BP a total of $87.4 million in connection with safety conditions at the Texas City refinery. In 2005, OSHA had fined BP $21.3 million over the refinery explosion. The new fine was reportedly the largest ever issued by OSHA. OSHA alleged that BP had failed to comply with a 2005 agreement that required the company to correct safety hazards that had led to the refinery explosion and had fined BP $56.7 million for those lapses. OSHA had also fined BP an additional $30.7 million after allegedly discovering 439 unrelated safety violations at the refinery. BP denied that it was in violation of the 2005 agreement. n News in Brief. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Feb. 25 announced that the Interior Department would cancel a lease offer made by the administration of President George W. Bush Jan. 15, five days before Bush left office, that would have allowed energy companies holding research leases for oil shale extraction on federal land in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado to expand their holdings by up to 30,000 acres and to pay royalties to the government that were less than half the average rates. Salazar Oct. 20 announced that he had asked Interior Department Inspector General Mary Kendall to probe the circumstances surrounding the Jan. 15 decision in order to answer “serious questions about whether those lease addenda in fact are legal.” The same day, the Interior Department announced that it would begin a second round of oil shale research leases on federal land in the three states, but would cap each lease at 160 acres (65 hectares) during the research phase, with the option to expand the lease by 480 acres for future commercial development. [See p. 94B1] Energy Secretary Steven Chu May 7 announced that the Obama administration December 31, 2009

would cut funding for the development of cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, saying that the Energy Department found it unlikely that such technology would be ready for widespread introduction in the next ten years. Chu said safety concerns related to the transportation of the hydrogen needed to power the cars and difficulties finding methods of producing large amounts of hydrogen without the use of natural gas, a fossil fuel, had led his department to prioritize the development of electric vehicles and biofuels. However, Bloomberg news service reported May 11 that General Motors Co. and Japan’s Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Co. would continue their ongoing efforts to produce commercial cars and trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells. [See 2002, pp. 1018C2, 214C2] Commerce Secretary Gary Locke April 13 announced that the Commerce Department would oppose the creation of a floating natural gas terminal in New York’s Long Island Sound on the grounds that its “adverse coastal impacts outweighed its national interest.” The project, proposed by Broadwater Energy LLC, a joint venture by the Netherlands’ Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Canada’s TransCanada Pipelines Ltd., would be located nine miles (14 km) from New York’s Long Island and 10 miles from Connecticut and would supply a total of about 1.3 billion cubic yards (one billion cubic meters) of natural gas per day to both states. Locke’s announcement upheld an April 2008 decision by New York Gov. David Paterson (D) to reject the project on the grounds that its construction would violate New York’s federally approved coastal management plan; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had previously found that the project would have no significant environmental impact. Analysts said that Locke’s announcement would likely mean the end of the project. [See 2003, p. 1019F2] Salazar Sept. 16 announced during testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee that the royalty-in-kind (RIK) program run by the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service (MMS)—in

which oil and gas companies drilling on federal land paid the government for the right to do so in oil and gas—would be phased out over the next two years. The announcement followed a 2008 scandal in which RIK employees were found to have had sex with and accepted gifts from employees of oil and gas companies being overseen by the program. Salazar said that the Interior Department had not decided how to replace the program, but said that the replacement program would be more transparent in its activities. Energy companies drilling for oil and gas on federal land had underpaid the MMS by as much as $160 million in 2006–07 and by at least $21 million in 2008, according to Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports made public on Sept. 14 and 15. [See 2008, p. 653E3] A former laborer Jan. 26 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Knoxville, Tenn., to one count of disclosing data in violation

of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act, in connection with allegations that he had attempted to sell parts stolen from a closed uraniumenrichment plant to the French government and to an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent posing as a representative of a foreign government. The laborer, Roy Lynn Oakley, 67, had stolen parts from the closed plant, where he was working for the company dismantling it, and had offered to sell them for $200,000 before his 2007 arrest. The French government had reportedly informed the FBI about Oakley’s attempts to sell the parts. Oakley June 18 was sentenced to six years in prison. [See 2008, p. 958C3] Corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. July 29 released a report that found that

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increasing annual expenditures on energy efficiency measures for homes and busi-

nesses in the U.S. over the next decade to $52 billion, up from about $10 billion, would cut projected U.S. energy use by 23% and could result in energy savings of $1.2 trillion by 2020. The report found that increasing funding for energy efficiency to $52 billion would also cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 billion tons (997 million metric tons) per year, the amount produced annually by U.S. cars and trucks. The report recommended increased education about the benefits of energy efficiency, stricter energy efficiency guidelines for appliances and increased financial incentives for making energy efficiency improvements to buildings. [See p. 445C1] n

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Environment News in Brief. The Bureau of Land Management Dec. 28 began a roundup of about 2,500 wild horses living on about 850

square miles (2,200 sq km) of land north of Reno, Nev. The bureau said the area was overpopulated with the horses, and planned to transport them to pastures in the Midwest. Agency officials also said the removal of the horses would increase the amount of grazing land available for cattle ranches in the area. Environmentalists had protested the relocation, arguing that the helicopters used to round up the animals unnecessarily frightened them, and that the horses risked disease, injury and death during their transport. The federal government kept 34,000 horses and burros in captivity, and another 37,000 animals roamed on private and public land in 10 states. [See p. 800F3] The California Air Resources Board, a governor-appointed panel charged with regulating the state’s air pollution, Nov. 24 released a proposal for creating a “cap-andtrade” program that would issue permits allowing businesses and industries to emit greenhouse gases, which could be traded on a market. The goal of the program was to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 15% below current levels by 2020. The plan did not say whether the permits would be auctioned off or given away. Polluters had lobbied for the permits to be given to them in order to reduce their costs. The cap-and-trade program would take ef917

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fect in 2012 under the proposal. [See p. 47G1; 2008, p. 957F2] The California Energy Commission Nov. 18 voted to impose new energy-efficiency standards on flat-panel televisions, which had gained in popularity in recent years and could use up to four times as much energy as older, cathode ray tube televisions. Under the new rule, flat-panel televisions 58 inches (150 cm) or smaller had to use 33% less energy by 2011, and 49% less energy by 2013. Energy efficiency standards had been established for many appliances, but had rarely been instituted for electronics. [See p. 94F1] The Interior Department Nov. 11 said it was removing the brown pelican from the endangered species list. The bird was listed as endangered in 1970, after a sharp decline in its numbers was attributed to the use of the pesticide DDT. The chemical had been consumed by the birds, causing thin egg shells that cracked during incubation. DDT had been banned in 1972. The department estimated that there were about 650,000 brown pelicans in North and Central America. [See 1985, p. 164C3] n

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ment filed Aug. 28 in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., computer hacker Albert Gonzalez had agreed to plead guilty to 19 counts of charges related to the largest known incident of identity theft in U.S. history. Gonzalez in 2008 had been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, among other crimes. He was accused of stealing the credit and debit card information of more than 170 million accounts by hacking into systems operated by retailers, including OfficeMax Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc. and TJX Cos. He faced a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. [See p. 554B1] Three companies agreed to a request from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to voluntarily end the use of decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE), a commonly used fire retardant, in the production of a range of consumer products, it was reported Dec. 19. DecaBDE was toxic to humans and was thought to be a potential carcinogen. The companies—Chemtura Corp., Albemarle Corp. and ICL Industrial Products Inc.—agreed to stop importing, producing or using DecaBDE in any products by Dec. 31, 2012, and the chemical would be totally banned the following year. The chemical was commonly used in the manufacture of television sets and other electronics, as well as in textiles, furniture, mattresses and vehicle construction materials. [See 1981, p. 195F3] The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Dec. 18 voted to delay for the second time the implementation of a rule that would require many children’s products, including toys, to be tested for their lead content. The regulation, requiring

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the CPSC had ordered a delay to allow companies greater time to comply with it. The rule had resulted from a 2008 law enacted after a rash of toy and other product recalls in 2007. Consumer advocacy group U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) Nov. 24 reported that toys it had obtained from major retailers had tested positive for six chemicals banned by the 2008 law, and contained illegally high levels of lead. [See p. 375G1] The CPSC and several importers, manufacturers and retailers of window blinds Dec. 15 issued a recall of more than 50 million Roman-style shades and roll-up blinds

due to a threat of child strangulation. According to the agency, children could become entangled in blind cords, or become trapped by blinds, leading to their strangulation. The CPSC said the shades and blinds had been linked to the deaths of eight children and the near-strangulation of 16 others since 2001. [See 2000, p. 1012G1] n

Medicine & Health NIH Approves 13 New Stem Cell Lines. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Dec. 2 said it had approved 13 new lines of human embryonic stem cells as eligible to receive federal funding. It was the first time new stem cell lines were approved for federal money since then-President George W. Bush in August 2001 restricted government funding to stem cell lines that had already been created. Bush had cited moral concerns for the restriction, since the creation of the lines required the destruction of human embryos. President Barack Obama in March had announced that he would end some of the restrictions imposed by Bush. [See pp. 476B3, 143A2] Eleven of the stem cell lines were created by George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, Mass. The remaining two lines were created by Ali Brivanlou of Rockefeller University in New York City. All of the lines had been created using private funds, in accordance with a congressional rule that forbade government money from being used to destroy human embryos. All of the embryos used by the researchers had been donated from fertility clinics, and the parents of the embryos had signed consent forms allowing their use. Medical researchers hailed the approvals, saying that federal money would dramatically expand research on stem cells. They said the stem cell lines that were allowed to receive funding under Bush’s rule had contained defects limiting their usefulness. It was thought that embryonic stem cells had the potential for a great number of medical applications, including the development of laboratory-created organs for donation, and treatments for ailments including heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, among many others. However, social conservatives condemned the destruction of embryos as tantamount to murder.

Separately, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, a state agency, Oct. 28 announced $230 million in grants intended to aid the development of stem cell therapies. However, only four of the 14 projects receiving state money used embryonic stem cells, with the balance of the programs researching other kinds of stem cells. n News in Brief. The Montana Supreme Court Dec. 31 ruled, 4–3, that the practice of physician-assisted suicide was protected by state law. Montana joined Oregon and Washington as the only states that allowed doctors to assist terminally ill patients in killing themselves. The court issued a narrow ruling that did not determine whether the state’s constitution protected an individual’s right to receive help in committing suicide. The case, Baxter v. Montana, had been brought by Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that supported doctor-assisted suicide, on behalf of Robert Baxter, a Montana resident who had since died, in December 2008, from complications of lymphocytic leukemia. [See p. 184F1] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Dec. 18 reported that an analysis of the 2006 medical records of 306,000 eight-year-olds found that about one in 110 children in the U.S. had been diagnosed with an “autism spectrum disorder.” The CDC had previously estimated

the incidence of such disorders at one in 150. Disorders in the spectrum included autism, Asperger’s syndrome and other developmental problems. Experts said it was unclear what the cause of the increase was, but that it might be due to a heightened awareness of such disorders, which were diagnosed through behavioral observation and interviews. [See p. 132F3; 2007, p. 97E2] The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Nov. 20 released new guidelines for Pap tests, recommending that women wait until they turned 21 to receive their first screening. Under the group’s previous guidelines, women were encouraged to get their first Pap test, which screened for certain cervical cancers, within three years of becoming sexually active and before they turned 21. The organization said the new rules were issued because young women were likely to have abnormalities that looked as if they were precancerous, but often disappeared on their own. The new rules also recommended that women aged 30 or older who had had three consecutive normal Pap tests only receive the screenings once every three years. [See 2000, p. 31B1] n

Medicare & Medicaid 26 Arrested in $61 Million Fraud Scheme.

The Justice Department and the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department Dec. 15 said federal agents that day had arrested 26 people accused of engaging in Medicare fraud totaling $61 million. The arrests had taken place in New York City; Detroit, Mich.; and Miami, Fla. Thirty-two people FACTS ON FILE

were indicted in connection with the cases, which were not all related. [See p. 574G1] In one, Miami physician Fred Dweck and 14 of his coworkers were accused of referring 1,279 people enrolled in Medicare for unnecessary and expensive home therapy treatments. Those in Detroit were arrested in connection with a scheme to recruit patients to falsely claim certain symptoms in order to gain payment for costly tests. A mother and son in New York were accused of giving diabetic patients cheap, over-the-counter shoe inserts, instead of the more expensive ones paid for by the Medicare program. The arrests were part of a joint fraud task force between the Justice Department and the HHS, aimed at reducing the estimated $60 billion in annual Medicare fraud. Since it was formed in 2007, the task force’s efforts had resulted in the indictment of more than 460 people on fraud charges. n Medicaid Enrollment Climbs Sharply. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which funded research into the provision of health care, Sept. 30 released a survey finding that enrollment in state Medicaid programs had climbed by 5.4% during fiscal year 2009, the highest growth rate in six years. Medicaid was a health insurance program for the poor paid for by state and federal money, but administered by individual states. State Medicaid directors had earlier predicted a growth rate of 3.6%, but applications for the program had grown faster during the recession and amid the climbing unemployment rate. [See pp. 846A2, 95G3] The program had generally avoided budget cuts due to an infusion of money from a $787 billion federal stimulus package enacted in February. However, state Medicaid directors said they were concerned about their ability to continue to provide health benefits after that funding ended in 2010. The report also found that Medicaid spending had grown 7.9% in fiscal year 2009, the highest rate in five years. n

Tobacco News in Brief. A smoking ban in bars and restaurants Dec. 1 took effect in Virginia.

However, restaurants were allowed to operate smoking sections that were separately ventilated. Smoking was also allowed at private clubs and on outdoor patios under the law. Virginia, for centuries a center of the U.S. tobacco industry, became the 37th state to enact restrictions on smoking in public places. [See p. 357D1] A jury in a Florida state court Nov. 19 awarded former smoker Cindy Naugle $300 million in damages from tobacco company Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc. The award included $56.6 million for past and future medical expenses, and $244 million in punitive damages. The case had resulted from a 2006 Florida Supreme Court ruling that had decertified a class action lawsuit against Philip Morris. About 8,000 independent cases were filed against the company after the 2006 ruling. [See p. 357E1] n December 31, 2009

Crime Polygamist Gets 33 Years for Child Abuse.

Allan Eugene Keate, 57, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a reclusive sect that practiced polygamy, Dec. 17 was sentenced by a Texas court to 33 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he had claimed as his wife. A jury Dec. 15 had found him guilty of sexual assault of a minor while both were living at the church’s Yearning for Zion (YFZ) compound in El Dorado, Texas. The victim had given birth at age 16. [See 2008, p. 359D2] A second FLDS member, Raymond Jessop, 38, Nov. 10 had been sentenced to 10 years in prison after a Texas jury Nov. 5 had convicted him also of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he had claimed as his wife. That victim also gave birth at age 16. Ten additional FLDS members faced charges of bigamy and sexually assaulting a minor. Both Keate and Jessop had allegedly taken multiple wives. Texas authorities had raided the YFZ ranch in 2008. Documents seized from the compound had provided much of the evidence introduced against Keate and Jessop. More than 400 children were initially removed from the YFZ compound after the raid, but were allowed to return after an appellate court ruled that the state had not proven that the children were in danger there. A Utah court in 2007 had convicted FLDS founder Warren Jeffs of two counts of rape as an accomplice, and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. Jeffs was currently in an Arizona jail awaiting trial on similar charges of arranging underage marriages, and faced additional charges in Texas. The FLDS was a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, which had renounced polygamy in 1890, and did not recognize the FLDS. n News in Brief. Richard Heene and Mayumi Heene, who had pleaded guilty in November to charges related to an Oct. 15 hoax in which a balloon thought to be carrying their six-year-old son floated across Colorado, Dec. 23 were sentenced in Larimer County District Court in Fort Collins, Colo., to 90 days and 20 days in prison, respectively. Both Mayumi and Richard Heene were sentenced to four years of supervised probation following completion of their prison sentences and were barred from making any money in connection with the hoax during that time. An attorney for

the Heenes Dec. 21 said that local, state and federal agencies had billed the couple $42,000 in connection with the hoax. Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Dec. 24 released a letter it had sent to Richard Heene, informing him that the FAA would seek an $11,000 fine against him for operating a balloon in a hazardous manner. [See p. 817C2] Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) May 19 signed legislation that barred any police departments within Maryland from conducting surveillance on any individu-

als or groups without reasonable suspicion of criminal behavior and required the department chief to sign off on any in-state surveillance. The bill, which was passed April 8 by Maryland’s House of Delegates and State Senate, was introduced in response to revelations in 2008 that the Maryland State Police had spied on multiple peaceful activists and activist groups, including human rights group Amnesty International and animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and had entered the names of activists into a state police tracking database, and into the federal government’s Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, used to keep tabs on criminals and terrorism suspects. The bill went into effect Oct. 1. [See 2008, p. 905G3] Judge Warren Wilbert of Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita, Kan., Dec. 22 ruled that Scott Roeder, accused of murdering prominent abortion doctor George Tiller in May, could not use a so-

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called necessity defense in his upcoming trial, which was scheduled to begin Jan. 11,

2010. Wilbert noted that the Kansas Supreme Court had ruled in 1993 that the necessity defense, under which defendants claimed that they had committed a crime to prevent a greater harm, could not be used when illegal actions were taken by the defendant to prevent a legal activity, such as abortion. However, he said that Roeder’s attorneys would be allowed to argue that Roeder should be tried for voluntary manslaughter, rather than murder. [See p. 832B3] New York Gov. David Paterson (D) April 24 signed a bill into law that reformed New York’s harsh 1973 drug laws, known as the Rockefeller drug laws after then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller (R), who had backed their passage. The bill, which had been passed March 4 by the New York State Assembly and April 1 by the State Senate, eliminated most of the mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders put in place by the 1973 laws and gave judges increased powers to send drug offenders to treatment programs rather than prison. However, defendants who failed to complete drug treatment programs under the new law could be imprisoned. The law also allocated $50 million to expand treatment programs and drug courts in the state, but was expected to eventually pay for itself by reducing the high cost of incarcerating drug offenders for minor offenses. The Rockefeller drug laws had previously been reformed in 2004 under the administration of Gov. George Pataki (R), eliminating drug-related life sentences and reducing mandatory sentence lengths for drug offenses. As of Dec. 18, a total of 72 convicted drug offenders had been given shortened sentences as a result of the new law, including 38 who were released. [See 2004, p. 1058B2] Ingmar Guandique, 27, who was currently serving a 10-year sentence for attacking two women in 2001 in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., April 22 was charged with murdering federal intern 919

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Chandra Levy, whose remains had been found in the same park in 2002 after disappearing the year before. Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, May 27 pleaded not guilty in District of Columbia Superior Court to six charges, including murder, attempted sexual abuse and kidnapping. Prosecutors Oct. 16 announced that they would seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Guandique Dec. 2 was charged with threatening to kill a prosecution witness in the case; he pleaded not guilty to the new charges on Dec. 15. Guandique’s trial was scheduled to begin on Jan. 27, 2010. [See p. 149E1] Annie Le, 24, a pharmacology graduate student at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., Sept. 8 disappeared five days before her planned Sept. 13 wedding, prompting speculation that she had fled to avoid getting married. Investigators Sept. 13 found Le’s body hidden in the wall of a laboratory building; she had reportedly been fatally strangled. Raymond Clark 3rd, an animal research technician who worked with Le, Sept. 17 was charged with her murder in Connecticut State Superior Court in New Haven. Police Sept. 18 called the killing an instance of “workplace violence” but said that Clark’s motive might never be known. Clark, 24, had suffered scratches on his face, chest and hands that were consistent with defensive injuries in a strangulation murder and his DNA was found on objects discovered with Le’s body, according to an affidavit unsealed Nov. 13. California prosecutors March 12 charged Howard K. Stern, the lawyer and former boyfriend of late Playboy magazine model Anna Nicole Smith, and two of Smith’s doctors, Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor, with six felony counts each in connection with an alleged conspiracy to furnish prescription drugs to Smith prior to her February 2007 death from a drug overdose. The defendants May 13 pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court to all charges; they faced five years and eight months in prison if convicted on all charges. Stern Sept. 23 was charged with five more felony counts in the case, including charges of obtaining fraudulent prescriptions on behalf of Smith. He pleaded not guilty to the new charges the same day. Prosecutors, citing photographic and video evidence, alleged that Kapoor, who was an openly gay man, and Eroshevich had been sexually involved with Smith in violation of medical ethics. The trial in the case was scheduled to begin Feb. 5, 2010. (The Associated Press [AP] reported Oct. 7 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] had investigated Smith in 2000–01 for allegedly taking part in a planned murder-for-hire plot to kill the son of her late oil tycoon husband, J. Howard Marshall, who was contesting her right to part of his father’s estate; the investigation was reportedly shelved without any charges being filed.) [See 2007, p. 287D3] Naveed Afzal Haq Dec. 15 was convicted of aggravated first degree murder 920

and seven other felonies in Washington’s King County Superior Court in Seattle for a July 2006 shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle that killed one person and wounded five others. The conviction carried an automatic life sentence. Attorneys for Haq, who was reportedly mentally ill, did not deny that their client had been the gunman, but said that he had not understood what he was doing during the shooting; a previous trial in 2008 had ended in a mistrial on 14 of the 15 felony charges after jurors could not agree whether Haq had been sane at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors in the second trial had played tapes of Haq calling himself a “soldier of Islam” in a telephone conversation with his mother after the shooting. [See 2006, p. 667F1] Charles (Charlie Canig) Carneglia, an alleged hit man for the Gambino crime family, March 17 was convicted in U.S. District Court in New York City of murdering four people, including an armored car guard, as well as on counts of robbery and

extortion. He was acquitted of one count of murder conspiracy; the jury had deadlocked over whether to convict Carneglia in the 1976 murder of court officer Albert Gelb. Carneglia Sept. 17 was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 20-year term for extortion, to be served concurrently. [See 2008, p. 107F3] Jeffrey Weaver Aug. 14 pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Va., to charges that he threatened the life of a California transit police officer and committed copyright infringement. Weaver posted messages on a Web site Jan. 5–10 in which he threatened to kill former transit police officer Johannes Mehserle, who was accused of fatally shooting an unruly passenger on a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) platform in Oakland, Calif., in January. Weaver also allegedly threatened to kill a Martinsville, Va., police officer involved in the death of a 17-year-old boy, and illegally downloaded thousands of movies off the Internet with the intention of selling them. Judge Samuel Wilson Dec. 15 sentenced Weaver to three years in prison. (Separately, Judge Morris Jacobson of California’s Alameda County Superior Court Oct. 16 ruled that Mehserle would be unable to receive a fair trial in Alameda County due to heavy media coverage of the case and Nov. 19 ordered the trial to be held in Los Angeles.) [See p. 247B1] Judge W. Charles Morgan of California's Riverside County Superior Court June 5 sentenced former auto mechanic Raymond Oyler to death following his March conviction for intentionally setting a fire that killed five firefighters in 2006, along with other arson-related charges. Oyler was eligible for capital punishment under California law because he had been convicted of multiple murders committed during the commission of another felony. Oyler had denied setting the fire that killed the firefighters, but had admitted to starting 11 other fires. [See p. 539E3] A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 28 unanimously ruled that police of-

ficers could be held liable for using stun guns against suspects in situations where the suspects did not pose an “immediate threat” to the officer. The panel ruled that

a police officer in California’s Sacramento County who had used a Taser stun gun on an unarmed, nonviolent driver in 2005 during a traffic stop—causing the driver to fall, cutting his face and fracturing four front teeth—was not immune from lawsuits in the case because the decision to use the stun gun had not been justified by the situation and was therefore unconstitutional. Experts said the ruling, which was thought to be the first major court decision on police use of the devices, which were primarily made by Taser International Inc., would end common police practices of using the device to stun people who refused to lie down or attempted to practice passive resistance. [See 2005, p. 499E2] Former astronaut Lisa Nowak Nov. 10 pleaded guilty in a state court in Orlando, Fla., to car burglary, a felony, and battery, a misdemeanor, in connection with an attack on a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) colleague and perceived romantic rival, Colleen Shipman, in

2007. Nowak was sentenced to a year of probation and two days in prison, to which jail time already served was credited. A previous felony charge of attempted kidnapping was dropped. Judge Marc Lubet cited Nowak’s good behavior since the offense and her lack of a prior record in explaining the light sentence. [See 2007, p. 482A2] n

Virginia Tech Massacre Report on Mass Shooting Revised. An in-

dependent panel that had been appointed by Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) to probe an April 2007 mass shooting by a student at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., Dec. 4 issued a revised version of its original report. The revision included the entirety of the original report, which had criticized the university’s response to the shootings and called for increased regulation of gun purchases, and contained an addendum that incorporated new information uncovered since the report was first issued in August 2007. [See 2008, p. 451E1; 2007, p. 558G1] According to the addendum, Virginia Tech had been operating under two separate emergency alert policies at the time of the 2007 shooting, leading to confusion over procedures that delayed the issuing of a campus-wide alert for more than two hours after an initial shooting of two people by the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho. Cho killed 30 more people in an academic building minutes after the alert was sent, before killing himself. The addendum also noted that one of the students shot in the initial attack, Emily Jane Hilscher, had survived for at least three hours before dying of her wounds in a nearby hospital. However, her parents were not informed of the shooting or their daughter’s condition until after she had already died. FACTS ON FILE

The addendum alleged that two university officials had informed their families about the initial shootings more than an hour before the first campus-wide announcement, and that a third official had informed an acquaintance in Richmond, Va., about the shooting more than 30 minutes before the announcement, but had asked the acquaintance not to pass on the information. University officials also allegedly locked down two academic buildings and the office of Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, and canceled campus garbage collection prior to the announcement. (A spokesman for Virginia Tech Dec. 4 said that Steger’s office had never been locked down on the day of the massacre, despite an e-mail ordering the lockdown, and that the staff members who had informed family members about the shootings were not top administrators at the university.) Kaine Dec. 4 called the staff members’ decision to inform their families before the university at large “inexcusable” and argued, “If university officials thought it was important enough to notify their own families, they should have let everyone know.” Cho’s Mental Health Records Found—

Kaine July 22 announced that missing counseling records relating to Cho’s mental health prior to the massacre had been discovered and said that the Virginia State Police had initiated a criminal investigation into the disappearance of the records. The records had vanished from Virginia Tech’s Cook Counseling Center. The removal of student counseling records from the center was reportedly illegal. An attorney for Robert Miller, a former director of the center, July 23 said that Miller had accidentally taken home Cho’s counseling records in February 2006 after resigning his position, more than a year before the massacre. Miller had reportedly found the records earlier in July and had informed the university of his discovery. A group of more than 30 relatives of people killed in the massacre July 28 issued a statement calling on Kaine to reopen the independent investigation into the killings. The statement argued that the new information in Cho’s mental health records should be considered and suggested that the previous investigation had been hasty and incomplete. Virginia Tech Aug. 19 publicly released the recovered counseling records. According to the records, Cho had been interviewed once in person and twice over the phone by members of the center’s staff in 2005, but had not been admitted for treatment because he had denied any homicidal or suicidal intentions, making it difficult for the center to compel him to accept counseling. Cho had been ordered by a judge to undergo treatment at the center in December 2005; however, the report had found that counselors at Virginia Tech were not aware of the judge’s order, and no one had attempted to compel Cho to seek treatment after it was issued. n December 31, 2009

Capital Punishment Executions Up, Sentences Down in 2009.

The Death Penalty Information Center, an anti–capital punishment group, Dec. 17 issued a report saying that the number of executions of condemned prisoners in the U.S. had risen to 52 in 2009, from 37 in 2008. Experts suggested that a de facto moratorium on executions during 2007 and 2008, due to the Supreme Court’s consideration of a case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection execution methods, had artificially lowered the number of executions in those years, causing the increase to seem larger. [See p. 167G1; 2008, p. 961E3] The report found that the number of new death sentences issued in 2009 had dropped to 106, down from a high of 328 in 1994. In addition, the report noted that New Mexico had abolished the death penalty in March, becoming the 15th state to end its use of capital punishment. n

Aviation Boeing’s 787 ‘Dreamliner’ Makes Test Flight.

Chicago-based Boeing Co.’s 787 “Dreamliner” jet Dec. 15 completed its first test flight, about two and a half years behind schedule. The aircraft, which was composed mainly of plastic composites, was designed for quiet, fuel efficient flight. The Dreamliner was subject to about 10 months of rigorous testing before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) could certify it to carry passengers. The first deliveries of the plane were now expected in late 2010. [See p. 744C1] n

Atlantic Hurricane Season 2009 Sees Fewest Named Storms in 12 Years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Nov. 30 reported that 2009 had seen the fewest named Atlantic hurricanes since 1997. There were nine named Atlantic hurricanes in 2009, none of which hit the U.S. mainland. NOAA scientists attributed the relatively quiet hurricane season to El Nino, a periodic weather phenomenon that warmed Pacific Ocean currents. The annual Atlantic hurricane season designated by NOAA lasted from June 1 to Nov. 30. [See p. 842C2; 2008, p. 940G1] The hurricane forecast team at Colorado State University Dec. 9 predicted above-average Atlantic hurricane activity in the 2010 season. Researchers forecast that between 11 and 16 named storms would form. Between three and five of those were forecast to develop into category-three hurricanes on the Saffir-Sampson scale of intensity. Category-three storms had4 winds that exceeded 111 miles per hour (178 kmph). n

AFRICA

Democratic Republic of the Congo U.N. Extends Mandate Amid Criticism. The

United Nations Security Council Dec. 23 voted unanimously to extend the mandate

of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for five months, instead of the typical 12 months. The force, which at an estimated 20,000 troops was the largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world, had primarily been involved in providing logistical support to the Congolese army in its efforts to pacify the war-torn east of the country. That included an offensive begun in January against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an extremist ethnic Hutu Rwandan militia. [See below, p. 34A1] Congolese President Joseph Kabila had called for the force, known as the U.N. Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), to have an exit strategy in place by June 30, 2010, when the country would celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from Belgium. Kabila reportedly claimed that security in the east had improved enough for MONUC to pull out. Rwandan troops, which had joined in the operation against the FDLR, Feb. 25 had begun withdrawing from eastern Congo. (The FDLR was largely comprised of Hutu extremists who had led the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that killed some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.) [See p. 923D2] Human rights advocates had pressed for an end to U.N. support for the Congolese army, after numerous reports of troops committing abuses such as murder, rape and forced displacement against civilians. U.S.-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Dec. 14 released a scathing report documenting at least 1,400 murders of civilians and a dramatic increase in sexual violence in eastern Congo, perpetrated both by the army and rebels, since the January offensive began. The report called on the U.N. to “immediately cease all support to the current military operation” against the FDLR. In November, the U.N. had severed connections with specific army units that had been implicated in abuses. Alan Doss, the U.N.’s special envoy to Congo, Dec. 16 told the Security Council that MONUC would shut down its operations in support of the Congolese army’s offensive against the FDLR by Dec. 31. Doss claimed that the joint campaign had “largely achieved” its objective of dispersing and weakening the FDLR, despite numerous reports to the contrary. However, Doss also acknowledged that “there have been very serious humanitarian consequences.” [See below] The Security Council, in its Dec. 23 resolution extending MONUC’s mandate, called on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to submit a “strategic review of the situation” in eastern Congo by April 1, 2010, in advance of the next deadline for the force’s renewal, on May 31 of that year. Analysts said that review would evaluate how to redefine MONUC’s mandate so it could better train the army to protect civilians, and would also include an exit strategy. Leaked Report Finds Army-Rebel Link—

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and other rebel groups smuggle illegally mined gold and other minerals from areas under rebel control out of the country in exchange for weapons. The report further documented how the FDLR was controlled and supported by “a far-reaching international diaspora network” that was “involved in the day-to-day running of the movement; the coordination of military and arms-trafficking activities and the management of financial activities.” That network included Hutu extremist operatives in other African nations, as well as in Europe—with leaders reportedly based in Germany—and the U.S., who were conducting activities such as “fundraising, propaganda and money-laundering activities,” according to the report, which was officially released Dec. 7. [See below] Those activities continued to thrive despite U.N. sanctions on weapons and mineral sales that had been in place for several years. The report also cited the dual loyalties of former rebels from the ethnic Tutsi National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), who had recently been integrated into the Congolese army. The report concluded that MONUC’s efforts to assist the Congolese army in its operations against the FDLR had largely failed. (MONUC cost the U.N. about $1 billion per year.) The report generally painted a stark picture of the situation in eastern Congo, in which all sides were looting the region’s natural resources and perpetrating abuses against civilians. Germany Arrests FDLR Leaders—German federal police Nov. 17 arrested alleged FDLR leader Ignace Murwanashyaka and his deputy, Straton Musoni, on suspicion of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in eastern Congo. Prosecutors Nov. 18 said a German judge had ordered the two men, who were Rwandan, to remain in detention. Murwanashyaka had lived in Germany since before the Rwandan genocide. The FDLR in a statement said the two men were innocent because “the FDLR are in no way involved in the atrocities committed against civilians” in eastern Congo. [See 2006, p. 910G2] n News in Brief. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Nov. 24 opened the trial of two Congolese warlords, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, who faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were charged with leading ethnic Lendu and Ngiti child soldiers in a 2003 attack on the mainly ethnic Hema village of Bogoro in Ituri province in northeastern Congo. Among the crimes they were accused of were ordering attacks on civilians, sexual slavery, rape and enlisting child soldiers. The two men had pleaded not guilty. [See p. 921G2; 2008, p. 970A3] Switzerland’s highest court, the Federal Criminal Court, July 14 ordered the Swiss government to unfreeze about $7 million in assets that had belonged to the late Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko, who had been ousted in 1997 and died later that year. Mobutu’s 32-year rule over Congo, which was then called Zaire, had been 922

marked by repression and corruption. The Swiss government had frozen the assets in 1997, at the request of the government of Mobutu’s successor, which sought the return of the funds on the grounds that they had been plundered from state coffers. The Swiss court ruled that the statute of limitations on seeking the return of the funds had run out. The ruling could not be appealed, and the assets would go to Mobutu’s family. [See 2007, p. 82B2; 1997, p. 351B3] n

Ivory Coast Presidential Election Delayed Until 2010.

Ivory Coast’s political leaders—President Laurent Gbagbo, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara and former President Henri Konan Bedie—Dec. 3 in an agreement brokered by Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore set the date for a long-delayed presidential election for late February or early March 2010. The presidential election in Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, had been delayed numerous times since Gbagbo’s term officially expired in 2005. [See 2008, p. 940G3] The Independent Electoral Commission Dec. 29 extended the deadline for voter registration to Jan. 6, 2010, due to a strike by judicial clerks that had delayed the commission’s ability to process challenges to about one million potential voters. The commission Dec. 29 said only about 40% of the challenges had been processed. A total of 6.4 million people reportedly had registered to vote as of Dec. 31. Delays and irregularities in voter registration had also been the cause of five previous election postponements since 2005; most recently, the electoral commission Nov. 11 had announced that a scheduled Nov. 29 election would be postponed. Most of the voter registration challenges related to long-standing disagreements over who qualified as an Ivorian national. Those issues had sparked a brief 2002–03 civil war and a subsequent standoff between Gbagbo’s government, which controlled the south of the country, and Soro’s rebel New Forces, which controlled the north. Many residents of the north were descended from migrants from Burkina Faso and other neighboring countries, and had long been excluded from Ivory Coast’s political process. n

Kenya ICC Prosecutor Moves Forward With Case.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Nov. 5–7 visited Kenya as part of a probe of postelection ethnic violence in early 2008 that had left some 1,300 people dead and displaced more than 300,000 others. Efforts by the Kenyan government earlier in 2009 to set up a special tribunal within the country to try the top perpetrators of the violence, who reportedly included highranking government officials, had failed. [See p. 702E1, E2]

Moreno-Ocampo Nov. 5 said he would ask the ICC for authorization to open a formal investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the postelection violence. That move came after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga—rivals in the disputed election, held in December 2007—refused to grant permission for such an investigation. Moreno-Ocampo Nov. 26 submitted the request for a formal investigation to the pretrial chamber of the ICC. The chamber was expected to make its decision in 2010. n News in Brief. Thomas Cholmondeley, a descendant of one of the first white settlers

in Kenya who in May had been convicted of manslaughter for the 2006 shooting death of a black man, Robert Njoya, on his family’s ranch, Oct. 23 was released from prison. Cholmondeley, who at the time of his conviction had already been imprisoned for three years, had received an eightmonth sentence. He was released three months early for good behavior. [See p. 375A2] Kenyan authorities Sept. 17 said they had charged two men in connection with the Aug. 11 murder of Campbell Bridges, a world-renowned British geologist and gemstones expert. Bridges, 71, had been killed

by a mob wielding clubs, spears and bows and arrows near the remote southern town of Voi. Bridges was a longtime resident of the region, near the border with Tanzania, and, among other accomplishments, was credited with discovering tsavorite, a dark green gemstone, in the late 1960s. He owned several mines in the region, and his murder reportedly had come amid a dispute over mining rights. His son, Bruce Bridges, and four Kenyan employees were slightly injured in the attack. [See 2007, p. 881C1] n

Nigeria President’s Illness Creates Political Crisis.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua Nov. 23 was flown to a hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for treatment for what was later revealed to be acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart. Yar’Adua, 58, remained hospitalized as of Dec. 31. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan reportedly was presiding over cabinet meetings and fulfilling other presidential duties, but power had not been formally transferred to him, prompting criticism from several political factions in the country. [See p. 574G3; 2007, p. 161C3] The health of Yar’Adua, who also suffered from a chronic kidney ailment, had long been a concern. Since taking office in 2007, he had been hospitalized several times in Germany and Saudi Arabia. His current absence was the longest yet, and a lack of information about his condition had fueled intense speculation and wild rumors about his health. The government had continued most day-to-day operations in his absence, sparking allegations that some of its actions were unconstitutional because they FACTS ON FILE

did not have the president’s approval. Those included the Dec. 30 swearing-in of a new chief justice, Aloysius Katsina-Alu. The ceremony was conducted by the current chief justice, Idris Legbo Kutigi, who was set to retire Dec. 31. In the past, the ceremony had always been conducted by Nigeria’s head of state, and some legal experts claimed that was mandated in the constitution, a claim disputed by Kutigi. Also, a presidency source Dec. 29 said Yar’Adua had signed a supplementary 2009 budget bill from his hospital bed. Various presidential and cabinet officials had argued that Yar’Adua had approved all major decisions and that he could exercise his presidential powers from anywhere. However, important initiatives had stalled in his absence, including peace talks with militants in the restive, oil-producing Niger Delta region in the south and a proposed bill to reform the country’s oil sector. That left some observers to assert that the country, the most populous in Africa, had been left with no legitimate leader. [See p. 923F1] The issue of who was running Nigeria was further complicated by an unwritten agreement between the mainly Muslim north—where Yar’Adua was from—and the predominantly Christian and animist south, the area from which Jonathan hailed, that presidential power would alternate between the two regions. Nigeria’s previous president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was a southerner, and any effort to replace Yar’Adua with Jonathan was expected to face strong opposition from northerners. Also, international focus on Nigeria had intensified after a failed Dec. 25 attempt by a Nigerian citizen to detonate explosives aboard a U.S. passenger jet. [See p. 897A1] Court Challenges Filed—Farouk Adamu Aliyu of the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) Dec. 23 filed a lawsuit in the federal high court calling for Yar’Adua’s dismissal on the grounds that he was failing to fulfill his duties under the constitution. Another suit had been filed Dec. 15 by top human rights lawyer Femi Falana that sought to compel Yar’Adua to turn over power to Jonathan until the president returned to Nigeria. Yar’Adua and Jonathan were members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which also controlled the parliament. n Militants, President Begin Peace Talks.

Representatives of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a militant group based in the restive, oil-producing Niger Delta region in southern Nigeria, Nov. 14 held direct talks with Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua in Abuja, the nation’s capital. Among MEND’s representatives at the meeting was Henry Okah, one of the group’s top leaders, who had been freed from prison in July. MEND Oct. 25 had declared an indefinite cease-fire after Yar’Adua Oct. 19 met with Okah. [See pp. 922E3, 574G3] MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo Nov. 15 said in a statement that the previous day’s meeting “heralds the beginning of seDecember 31, 2009

rious, meaningful dialogue between MEND and the Nigerian government to deal with and resolve root issues that have long been swept under the carpet.” The government had also instituted a 60-day amnesty program for Niger Delta militants, which ended Oct. 4. More than 8,000 militants reportedly had surrendered their weapons in exchange for an unconditional pardon and job training or a monthly cash stipend from the government. The government had also submitted proposals to improve the region’s infrastructure and to pass a law allocating more of the proceeds from oil to the people of the Niger Delta. Both were long-standing demands of the militants. Attacks by MEND on oil installations and kidnappings of foreign oil workers had reduced Nigeria’s oil production by about a million barrels per day. That had allowed Angola to recently overtake Nigeria as Africa’s leading oil producer. Observers said production had increased in the wake of the amnesty and cease-fire. However, Yar’Adua had been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia since Nov. 23, and Gbomo Dec. 18 questioned whether MEND still had a “good-faith partner” in the government. In a Dec. 19 statement, the group alleged that the government was using Yar’Adua’s poor health as a tactic to avoid implementing the promised reforms. MEND said it had carried out an attack on a pipeline the previous day as a warning. n

Rwanda International Tribunal Frees Two Suspects.

An appeals court at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which sat in Arusha, Tanzania, Nov. 16 reversed the 2008 conviction of Protais Zigiranyirazo, the brother-in-law of late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana. Zigiranyirazo, an ethnic Hutu, had been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years in prison for allegedly organizing a massacre of some 1,000 ethnic Tutsis during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists in 100 days. [See p. 680A1; 2001, p. 1070D1] The ICTR appeals court overturned Zigiranyirazo’s conviction on the grounds that serious errors in the handling of evidence had been committed during his trial. The presiding judge, Theodor Meron, said the conviction “violated the most basic and fundamental principles of justice.” Separately, the ICTR Nov. 17 announced that a Roman Catholic priest, Hormisdas Nsengimana, who had been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity had been acquitted. [See 2002, p. 263G3] The two rulings reportedly angered the Rwandan government and genocide survivors. Reuters news service Nov. 21 reported that IBUKA, an umbrella survivors’ group, had threatened to boycott the tribunal unless the decisions were reversed. The U.N. Security Council Dec. 16 extended the mandate of the ICTR until 2012.

The court had been widely criticized for its slow progress. Former Minister Sentenced—The ICTR June 22 convicted Callixte Kalimanzira, Rwanda’s acting interior minister during the massacres, of genocide and incitement to commit genocide, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. Kalimanzira was accused of being one of the main facilitators of the mass killings in the southern region of Butare, and had played a role in luring thousands of Tutsis to their deaths. [See 2005, p. 983F2] n

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South Africa News in Brief. Statistics South Africa, the

national statistics board, Nov. 24 reported that the nation’s economy had emerged from recession, after it grew by an annualized, seasonally adjusted rate of 0.9% in the third quarter of 2009. That compared with a 2.8% revised contraction in the second quarter. The country, whose economy was Africa’s largest, had entered recession in the first quarter of 2009. Its emergence was attributed to growth in the manufacturing and construction sectors, in advance of the country’s hosting of the 2010 soccer World Cup. [See pp. 858D2, 359B1]

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Jackie Selebi, South Africa’s national police commissioner from 2000 to 2008,

Oct. 5 went on trial in Johannesburg on charges of corruption and defeating the ends of justice. Selebi, who had also served as head of international police agency Interpol and was a senior member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, had allegedly accepted bribes worth 1.2 million rand ($157,000) from reputed organized crime boss and convicted drug smuggler Glenn Agliotti and his associates in 2004 and 2005. Selebi had pleaded not guilty. The trial, which had riveted the country, was seen as a critical test of the impartiality of the judicial system. [See 2008, p. 38A2] An anonymous survey conducted by the Medical Research Council, released June 17, found that one in four men in South Africa admitted to having committed rape. South Africa had one of the world’s highest rape rates. The survey found that nearly half of the admitted rapists confessed to having assaulted more than one person. It also found that 73% of those who admitted to rape had first committed the crime in their teens, and that one in 10 respondents said they had been raped by a man. The survey was conducted among 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces. [See 2007, p. 879A3] n

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Sudan Law Passed on Southern Secession Vote.

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Arab-dominated north and the mainly black, Christian and animist south. The northern National Congress Party (NCP) and the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Dec. 13 had announced that they had a struck a deal to pass the law, ending the SPLM’s six-week-long boycott of parliament. [See p. 801B3] Under the law, a simple majority would be needed for southern Sudan, which had had semiautonomous status since 2005, to become independent or remain united with the north, provided that 60% of eligible voters cast their ballots. Southern Sudan was widely expected to secede under the arrangement. The conditions were less stringent than those sought by the NCP, which was the senior partner in a national coalition government with the SPLM. The NCP had initially said southern Sudan, which was rich with oil, would need a twothirds majority for independence, with 75% voter turnout. Parliament Dec. 22 had passed a version of the law, but the SPLM boycotted the vote in protest of an amendment introduced by the NCP that would have allowed southerners living in the north to vote in the referendum. The SPLM said the amendment would have allowed the north to unduly influence the referendum’s result. After strong objections from the U.S., the NCP agreed to scratch the vote and enter into further negotiations with the SPLM. The two sides reached a compromise in which southerners living in the north could vote in the referendum if they were born after Jan. 1, 1956. Those born before that date would have to register and vote in the south. In a related development, parliament Dec. 30 passed a law that allowed the oilrich region of Abyei, in central Sudan, to hold a vote on whether it would join the north or the south, should the south choose to secede. [See p. 507B3] Parliament Passes Security Reform—

Parliament Dec. 20 passed a security reform law, which the SPLM said did not go far enough in curbing the power of Sudan’s security forces and intelligence services seen as tools that the NCP could use to intimidate voters in April 2010 multiparty elections. Under the new law, the two groups would be able to detain suspects for four and a half months, down from the current nine. But they would still be allowed to search and arrest suspects, an authority that the SPLM said should be transferred to police forces. More than 200 protesters Dec. 14 had held rallies in Khartoum, the capital, to call for security and other reforms to ensure free and fair elections. They were dispersed by security forces armed with batons and tear gas. Demonstrations had also been held in Khartoum Dec. 7, leading to the brief detention of three SPLM leaders, including party Secretary General Pagan Amum. Increased Violence in South Seen—Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Dec. 14 reported that violence in southern Sudan in 2009 had led to the deaths of 2,000 people and the dis924

placement of 250,000 more. The group said southern Sudan was currently experiencing its worst bouts of violence since the 2005 peace agreement was signed. The New York Times Dec. 12 reported that southern Sudanese leaders and United Nations officials believed that some of the violence had been encouraged by the north, in an attempt to destabilize the region ahead of the 2011 referendum. n African Union Endorses New Darfur Court.

The African Union (AU), at a meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Oct. 30 endorsed a proposal to create a special court to try those accused of atrocities in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. The court would be composed of Sudanese and foreign judges. The government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said further negotiations were necessary before it could accept the proposal. A leading Darfuri rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, should be the primary venue for trying alleged atrocities. [See p. 459A1] The proposal had been submitted to the AU Oct. 8 by a special panel headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. The panel had been set up in February, shortly before the ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. As many as 300,000 people had been killed in Darfur since 2003, when a conflict began between rebel groups and the Sudanese army, which had been backed by Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. The AU had vowed not to recognize the arrest warrant, saying it was an obstacle to bringing the conflict in Darfur to an end. The new proposal was seen as a way to prosecute atrocities and reconcile the warring parties without the intervention of the ICC. Mbeki Oct. 8 told reporters that “the resolution of the conflict in Darfur has to be brought about by the Sudanese people themselves, and cannot and should not be imposed from the outside.” The proposal for the special court came as violence in Darfur appeared to be abating. Nigerian Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, then the commander of a joint United Nations–AU peacekeeping force in Darfur, Aug. 26 had claimed that the war in Darfur had essentially ended. He said security problems remained, but that the violence mostly stemmed from “banditry” and other “localized issues.” The comments provoked criticisms from international rights groups, which noted that about 2.7 million displaced Darfuris remained in squalid temporary camps due to fears that they would be attacked if they returned to their homes. The decline in violence was attributed to a splintering of the two main rebel groups in Darfur, JEM and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), into more than 20 factions. The breakup had also complicated stalled peace talks between the rebels and Bashir’s government. J. Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Aug. 22 had announced at a summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, that four factions—three

of which had formerly belonged to the SLA—had agreed to work together in future peace talks. Gration said the U.S. would continue to encourage rebel groups to form a unified platform. n

Uganda U.N. Rights Chief Presses for LRA Trials.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay Dec. 21 called for the capture and prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the leaders of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Her remarks came with the release of two U.N. reports on abuses against civilians carried out by the LRA in neighboring Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [See 2008, p. 968E3] The ICC, based in The Hague, the Netherlands, had indicted LRA chief Joseph Kony and other rebel leaders in 2005. Peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government had collapsed in 2008 after Kony and his deputies refused to appear at negotiations, reportedly for fear of arrest and trial before the ICC. The U.N.’s reports found that the LRA, after having been driven out of northern Uganda several years earlier, had been terrorizing civilians in northeastern Congo and southern Sudan. The group, which was notorious for its brutality, had massacred at least 1,200 people in Congo between September 2008 and June 2009 and driven thousands from their homes, according to the report on that country. It was also responsible for widespread rapes, mutilations and abductions in both countries. “The brutality employed during the attacks was consistent, deliberate and egregious,” Pillay said. The LRA had also reportedly been attacking civilians in the Central African Republic throughout 2009. The armies of Uganda, Congo and the semiautonomous region of south Sudan in late 2008 had launched a joint offensive against the LRA in northeastern Congo in an effort to stop the attacks on civilians and to capture LRA leaders. That operation had ended in early 2009, with Uganda beginning to pull out its troops March 15. Human rights groups alleged that the offensive had largely been unsuccessful and had resulted in increased LRA attacks on civilians. Ugandan special forces reportedly continued to hunt the LRA in Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. n Anti-Homosexuality Bill to Be Revised.

The Ugandan government Dec. 23 said it would revise a bill, first introduced in parliament Oct. 14 by legislator David Bahati of the ruling National Resistance Movement party, that would have imposed a minimum life sentence for anyone convicted of having gay sex, and mandated the death penalty for “serial offenders” or if the person was HIV-positive. The bill reportedly had wide support in mainly conservative Christian Uganda, but had drawn condemnation abroad, including from religious and political leaders in major donor nations such as the U.S. and Britain. [See p. 514A1] FACTS ON FILE

Homosexuality was already against the law in Uganda, with anyone engaging in homosexual acts facing jail terms of up to 14 years. However, no one had ever been convicted under the law. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson Dec. 18 said, “We believe that this legislation is a violation of human rights.” A group of influential U.S. Christian leaders Dec. 7 had released a statement repudiating the bill, and Rick Warren, a prominent conservative Christian leader in the U.S., Dec. 10 also issued a statement denouncing it. Further, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, in an interview published in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper Dec. 12, rejected the bill, saying, “The proposed legislation is of shocking severity.” [See pp. 711E2, 25D2] Analysts said the bill reflected a growing division between African and Western Christians, with African nations moving toward conservatism, especially regarding homosexuality, while Western nations were seen as becoming more tolerant. [See 2008, p. 553F2] Ugandan Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo Dec. 23 said the revised bill, which would be considered by parliament in early 2010, would likely remove the death penalty provision. However, he denied that the changes to the bill were influenced by the international outcry against it. n

tions Minister Idriss Cherof Dec. 21 claimed that there had been “a procedural fault in the manner in which the report has been communicated.” [See p. 870A2] n Liberia: Truth Commission Releases Report.

Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) June 30 released its final report. It included a recommendation that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf be banned from politics for 30 years starting at the end of her term, due to its finding that she had at one point financially backed a rebellion led by former warlord and President Charles Taylor. Taylor was currently being tried by the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, the Netherlands, for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone in the 1990s. The TRC report recommended that warlords, including Taylor, and 98 people accused of supporting them face prosecution for war crimes. The TRC’s recommendations were not binding, and parliament was expected to consider them in 2010. While the opposition called for Johnson-Sirleaf’s removal, analysts said a significant number of Liberians opposed that recommendation. [See pp. 925F2, 480A1; 2007, p. 282A3] n Madagascar:

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The government of Equatorial Guinea Nov. 3 said it had pardoned British mercenary Simon Mann and four South African accomplices who had been jailed in 2008 for leading a coup plot against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. The government said the 57-year-old Mann, who had been sentenced to 34 years in prison, had been pardoned partly on medical grounds. Mann returned to Britain Nov. 4, and said he planned to testify against Sir Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had been implicated in the coup plot but had thus far escaped prosecution. [See 2008, p. 520A1] n

Transitional President Andry Rajoelina Dec. 20 formally abandoned internationally mediated power-sharing negotiations. In a statement, Rajoelina named army Col. Vital Albert Camille as prime minister, and claimed that his Dec. 18 dismissal of the previous prime minister effectively annulled peace accords that had been signed in Ethiopia and Mozambique. He added that any attempts by the opposition to form a parliament were illegal. Rajoelina, who had taken power after the army ousted the democratically elected president in March, also eliminated two co-president positions. The moves followed Rajoelina’s Dec. 16 announcement that Madagascar would hold parliamentary elections in March 2010. He did not mention a presidential election, which international mediators had called for. Opposition members Dec. 22 protested outside the parliament building in Antananarivo, the capital, but were dispersed by security forces who fired tear gas at them. [See p. 782A3] n

Guinea: U.N. Calls for Trial of Junta Leader.

Sierra Leone: Special Court Winds Down.

Africa News in Brief Equatorial Guinea: Coup Plotters Freed.

A United Nations panel, in a report released Dec. 21, called for Guinean Army Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, leader of the country’s military junta, and two of his aides to be charged at the International Criminal Court (ICC) with crimes against humanity for attacks on unarmed opposition protesters in September. The report, which was based on nearly 700 interviews, claimed that more than 150 people had been killed and at least 109 women had been raped in the attacks. Camara had maintained that the violence was carried out by rogue elements in the army, but the U.N. report found him directly responsible, along with two aides, one of whom had shot and wounded Camara earlier in the month. Camara had not been seen in public since then, but was reported to be recovering in Morocco. Guinean CommunicaDecember 31, 2009

The Special Court for Sierra Leone, a joint United Nations and national tribunal, Oct. 26 in the final case to be heard in Sierra Leone rejected the appeals of three former rebel commanders in the country’s 1991– 2002 civil war. The men, who were the top surviving members of the Revolutionary United Front, whose uprising had sparked the war, in April had been sentenced to as many as 52 years in jail after they were convicted of crimes against humanity. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was the court’s only remaining case. His trial for crimes against humanity was taking place in the Netherlands due to security concerns. [See pp. 925A2, 480A1] n Zambia: Journalist Cleared in Porn Case.

Zambian journalist Chansa Kabwela Nov. 16 was acquitted of pornography charges

filed after she had sent senior politicians graphic photographs of a woman giving birth in a parking lot outside a hospital, after the hospital had turned her away. The baby had not survived. A judge ruled that the photographs were not obscene. Kabwela, who had faced as many as five years in jail, had argued she distributed the photographs to draw attention to the effects of a June strike by medical workers that had paralyzed hospitals. [See p. 555G3; 2007, p. 33G3] n

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Argentina Former General Convicted in ‘Dirty War’ Case.

Former Gen. Santiago Omar Riveros, who had run a notorious detention center during the 1976–83 “dirty war” waged by Argentina’s ruling dictatorship against leftist dissidents, Aug. 13 was found guilty of torturing and beating to death a 15-year-old boy, Floreal Avellaneda, in 1976. Riveros, 86, and five other officers were also found guilty of kidnapping Avellaneda, the son of a communist labor leader, and his mother, Iris Pereyra, who was released from detention after three years. Riveros was sentenced to life in prison, and the other officers were sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 25 years. [See 2008, p. 680A2; 2007, p. 881E2] Riveros had run the Campo de Mayo military barracks just outside Buenos Aires, the capital. An estimated 5,000 people had been held there during the dictatorship. The government estimated that about 11,000 people were killed or “disappeared” during the dirty war; human rights groups placed that figure at 30,000. Other Trials Open—The trial of former military president Gen. Reynaldo Bignone, who was charged with the kidnapping, murder or torture of 56 people at Campo de Mayo, began Nov. 2. Bignone, 81, had served as the country’s last military president from 1982 to 1983, before power was transferred to democratically elected President Raul Alfonsin. However, all the charges against him related to crimes alleged to have taken place between 1976 and 1978, prior to his rule. Six other former military officers, including Riveros, and a former police officer were also defendants in the trial. More than 130 people were set to testify at the trial, which was expected to last until February 2010. [See 1999, p. 63F2] Also, the trial of former Capt. Alfonso Astiz in the torture and murder of a journalist, two French nuns and three human rights activists began Dec. 11. Astiz, known as the “Blond Angel of Death” for his striking looks and reputation for coldbloodedness, and 18 others were accused of carrying out the crimes at the Navy Mechanics School. The facility had processed an estimated 5,000 prisoners, many of whom died there. Prosecutors charged that Astiz had posed as a rights activist in order to identify the nuns and other government opponents. n News in Brief. Former Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem Oct. 1 was charged with 925

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obstructing the investigation of a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in which 85 people were killed and 300 injured. Menem, who was president at the time of the bombing, was accused of covering up and destroying evidence related to the case in order to protect a Syrian associate who had been linked to the attack. The case had stalled in recent years, and no one had ever been convicted of the crime. However, the investigation had gained new momentum after the Supreme Court in May ruled much of the initial evidence admissible in court. The evidence had previously been ruled faulty after a magistrate attempted to bribe a witness. Investigators said they believed that the bombing had been carried out by the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah at the behest of the Iranian government. [See 2006, p. 881D3] The Senate Oct. 10 passed, 44–24, a controversial measure that gave the government greater control over broadcast media

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outlets. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed the bill into law later that day. The law forced large media conglomerates to divest themselves of some of their holdings in order to allow greater competition. Critics of the bill said it was intended to target the country’s largest media company, Grupo Clarin, which owned press outlets that had criticized Fernandez de Kirchner’s administration. Other critics said it would give the government too much power over the press. [See p. 682G1] Alejandro Freyre, 39, and Jose Maria Di Bello, 41, Dec. 29 became the first same-sex couple to be married in Argentina in a ceremony held in Ushuaia, in the extreme southern Tierra del Fuego province. The pair Nov. 16 had become the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license, after a federal judge said a law banning gay marriage violated the country’s constitution. The couple had planned to get married on Dec. 1, but another judge Nov. 30 had ordered their wedding blocked until the Supreme Court reviewed the case. Tierra del Fuego Governor Fabiana Rios had then issued a special decree allowing the partners to marry in the province. [See 2002, p. 1046C2] n

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Deep-Sea Oil Extraction Rules Set. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Aug. 31 announced a proposal to overhaul the regulations governing the development of deep-sea oil reserves off the country’s coast. The new rules, which were subject to congressional approval, would give staterun oil company Petroleos Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) greater authority to develop untapped oil reserves, in a shift toward the nationalization of Brazil’s oil industry. [See 2008, p. 416B1] Over the past two years, Brazil had discovered a series of deep-sea oil reservoirs in so-called presalt regions that could potentially double its proven reserve of 14.1 billion barrels. If borne out, the new reserves would establish Brazil as a major oil producer. Under current regulations, foreign companies were allowed to bid on the exploration and development of oil fields. 926

The new rules proposed limiting those roles to Petrobras, but awarding production contracts to foreign companies who provided the government with the largest share of revenues generated by oil field development. The proposed regulations also called for the creation of a new state-run company, to be named Petrosal, to manage the oil reserves. n Court Orders Return of Boy to U.S. Father.

Judge Gilmar Mendes, the chief judge of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Dec. 22 ruled that a nine-year-old boy in the custody of his stepfather in Brazil should be returned to the U.S. to live with his biological father, David Goldman. Brazilian Bruna Bianchi, then Goldman’s wife, in 2004 had taken their son, Sean Goldman, to Brazil from the U.S., ostensibly for a two-week vacation. However, days after arriving she informed Goldman that she intended to stay in Brazil indefinitely with their son, and was seeking a divorce. [See p. 186G2] Goldman sought to obtain custody of his son under international child abduction laws. Bianchi later remarried Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, a prominent Brazilian lawyer. Bianchi died in 2008, leaving Sean Goldman in the custody of Lins e Silva. Sean and David Goldman Dec. 24 were reunited at the U.S. consulate in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and later that day flew to Orlando, Fla., on a chartered jet. The dispute had strained diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Brazil. U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D, N.J.) had threatened to propose legislation that would exclude Brazil from tariff exemptions for goods exported to the U.S. if Sean Goldman was not returned to his father’s care. n News in Brief. A single propeller Cessna Caravan plane Oct. 31 made an emergency landing on the Itui River in a remote area of the Amazon rain forest, killing two of the 11 people on board. The plane was carrying four members of the military and seven health ministry employees who provided vaccines to remote Indian villages. The survivors were found by members of the Matis Indian tribe. [See 2007, p. 466G3] London-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch Dec. 8 reported that police in the country’s two most populous states— Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo—had killed more than 11,000 people since 2003 while fighting drug traffickers. The group’s report also uncovered evidence suggesting that police attempted to cover up the circumstances surrounding at least 51 of the deaths. Human Rights Watch said medical evidence often showed that victims had been shot at close range, in contradiction to police accounts of shootouts. The group said it was concerned that police violence would increase in advance of the 2016 Olympic Games, scheduled to take place in Rio de Janeiro city. [See p. 691C1; 2007, p. 228C1] n

Canada Harper Suspends Parliament Until March.

The office of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Dec. 30 announced that

Governor General Michaelle Jean, the country’s titular head of state and representative of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, had agreed to prorogue, or suspend, Parliament’s current session until March 3, 2010, at Harper’s request. The move killed every bill currently being considered by the legislature, which had previously been scheduled to reconvene on Jan. 25, 2010. Harper in 2008 had successfully lobbied Jean to prorogue Parliament, after a coalition of opposition parties threatened to take down his government with a vote of no confidence. [See p. 413A1; 2008, p. 885B1] Harper in a statement suggested that the suspension was intended to give the government time to formulate a new plan to combat an ongoing economic downturn. However, members of the country’s opposition parties quickly criticized the move. Ralph Goodale, leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons, described it as “beyond arrogant” and “almost despotic.” Libby Davies, House leader of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), said, “Clearly this is a move on their part to avoid public scrutiny, to avoid further investigation on Afghan detainees.” Allegations had recently surfaced that the Canadian military had transferred suspected Taliban insurgents to the Afghan government, knowing that the detainees were likely to be tortured. The Canadian military had sent some 2,700 troops to Afghanistan as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force combating the Islamic fundamentalist group the Taliban. The government had maintained that no detainees had been transferred to the Afghan government if there was a threat of torture. By suspending Parliament, a special committee convened to investigate the Afghan torture allegations would also be dissolved, and would have to be reestablished in March 2010. Parliament would be reconvened after the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some observers suggested that the plan would allow the government to evade greater scrutiny on the Afghan detainee issue during the sporting event. The proroguing would also allow Jean to name five new Conservative Party members to vacant Senate seats, giving the government greater power to advance its legislative agenda. Harper was the leader of the Conservative Party, which had a minority government, meaning it needed the support of at least one other political party to continue ruling. Diplomat Attests to Torture Charges—

Richard Colvin, who had served as Canada’s second-highest-ranking diplomat in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, Nov. 18 told the parliamentary committee investigating the torture allegations that all of the suspected insurgents captured by Canadian forces and then turned over to Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), were likely to have been tortured. Colvin also said many of those handed over were innocent, or presented little to no intelligence value. FACTS ON FILE

Colvin said he had sent more than 12 reports to his superiors detailing the torture of transferred detainees at the hands of the Afghan government, but that he was routinely ignored. Gen. Walter Natynczyk, Canada’s chief of the defense staff, in a reversal from his earlier statements, Dec. 9 said the military had been aware that the suspects they captured and handed over to Afghan intelligence agents were at risk of being tortured. Natynczyk Dec. 8 had testified before a parliamentary committee that there was no evidence that any of those suspects had been tortured. The reversal came after he was shown a report from 2006 detailing the arrest by Canadian troops of an unidentified man suspected of being a Taliban member. It was previously public knowledge that the man had been removed from Afghan custody by Canadians after he was badly beaten. However, Canadian military officials had previously maintained that he had never been in their custody. The report contradicted that claim. Natynczyk’s revelation sparked calls from the opposition for a public inquiry into the torture allegations, as well as calls for the resignation of Defense Minister Peter MacKay, who had continually argued that no instance of torture could be proven. MacKay Dec. 9 modified his position, saying the Canadian government had never willfully allowed prisoners to be “exposed to abuse.” The Conservative members of the parliamentary committee investigating the torture charges Dec. 15 did not show up for a scheduled meeting, preventing the committee from achieving the quorum it required to meet. The move was seen as one of the first indications that Harper would attempt to prorogue Parliament. n News in Brief. Canada’s Supreme Court Dec. 22 issued two unanimous rulings that gave journalists new protection from libel lawsuits. Free press activists lauded the rul-

ings for eliminating aspects of the country’s defamation law considered to be archaic and to have a chilling effect on the work of journalists in the country. The rulings granted press outlets that had put out stories containing factual errors some protection from lawsuits, as long as they could show they had attempted to meet fairness standards set by the court. The court ordered new rulings in the two cases, one brought against the Ottawa Citizen and the other against the Toronto Star. [See 2002, p. 526D1] A jury in the province of Ontario Oct. 29 found six men guilty of killing eight other members of their biker gang, the Bandidos. Police had found the slain bikers with gunshot wounds in abandoned vehicles in April 2006. The deaths were the largest known mass killing in Ontario’s history. [See 2006, p. 305B2] Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, an entity separate from the Canadian government, Aug. 27 ruled that Brandon Huntley, a white South African claiming that he was discriminated against and attacked by blacks in his home country,

could receive refugee status in Canada. December 31, 2009

The South African government Sept. 1 formally protested the ruling. The Canadian Department of Citizenship and Immigration, a government agency, Sept. 3 said it would request that a federal court review the ruling, which had received widespread news coverage and criticism in South Africa. [See 2008, p. 704D3] Michael Bryant, the former attorney general for the province of Ontario, Sept. 1 was charged with criminal negligence causing death and with dangerous driving causing death. The charges stemmed from an incident the previous day after Bryant collided with a bicyclist, Darcy Sheppard, while driving in Toronto. After the collision, Sheppard had reportedly hung onto the car door while Bryant allegedly continued driving. Sheppard was reportedly flung off the car after he struck a mailbox, and died of his injuries. n

Colombia Rebels Suspected in Governor’s Death.

Luis Francisco Cuellar, the governor of the Colombian state of Caqueta, Dec. 22 was found dead near Florencia, the state capital, one day after he had been kidnapped. Defense Minister Gabriel Silva Dec. 22 said Cuellar had been abducted by the Teofilo Forero unit of the Marxist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). [See pp. 526A2, 67D3] A group of eight to 10 men dressed as soldiers late Dec. 21 had stormed Cuellar’s home in Florencia, reportedly killing one guard and using explosives to gain entrance to the house, according to police. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez soon after dispatched thousands of police and soldiers to survey nearby jungle in an effort to rescue Cuellar. Uribe Dec. 22 said Cuellar had been found dead on a rural road near Florencia with his throat slit. Cuellar had reportedly been kidnapped three times before, and some analysts said the government rescue operation might have pressured his latest abductors into killing him, instead of holding him for ransom. Uribe, soon after being elected to his first term in 2002, had ramped up a government offensive against FARC, bolstered by U.S. funds and military aid. The efforts had pushed the rebels, once poised to overrun Bogota, the nation’s capital, back into the jungle, while reportedly halving their numbers to about 8,500. Other News—In other news related to Colombian rebels: o Three reputed FARC members Dec. 3 were arrested in the city of Medellin. Prosecutors in U.S. District Court in New York City Sept. 28 had charged the men—Edilberto Berrio Ortiz, Alejandro Palacios Rengifo and Anderson Chamapuro Dogirama—with kidnapping in connection with the April 2008 abduction of Cecilio Juan Padron, a dual U.S.-Cuban citizen. Padron was reportedly kidnapped in Panama City, the capital of Panama, before being turned over to FARC members who held him for ransom. Padron had been released in Feb-

ruary. U.S. prosecutors also charged six other men in the incident. o A three-judge panel of a court in Bogota Nov. 23 convicted former Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui of murder in connection with the July 1997 killing of about 50 civilians believed to sympathize with leftist guerrillas. Uscategui was sentenced to 40 years in prison for his role in the killings, known as the Mapiripan massacre, after the remote village in which it had taken place. Uscategui, then a brigade commander, had been found guilty of allowing right-wing paramilitary death squads to use an army base near Mapiripan to carry out the murders. [See 2001, p. 108B3] o Military forces and FARC rebels Nov. 10 clashed near Corinto, a town about 200 miles (320 km) southwest of Bogota, resulting in the death of nine soldiers. FARC forces had reportedly attacked a military base in Corinto, as well as soldiers on patrol in the town, using mortars and grenades. FARC forces reportedly used a nearby mountain pass to smuggle drugs and weapons, and had clashed with military forces in the area several times earlier in the year. n

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U.S. government contract employee had been detained by the Cuban government, the New York Times reported Dec. 12, citing unidentified U.S. officials. The contractor, who was not identified, was employed by international development company Development Alternatives Inc., based in Bethesda, Md. He had reportedly been distributing laptop computers and cell phones, recently legalized in Cuba, for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as other communications equipment that might have been prohibited by the Cuban government. [See p. 661G1; 2006, p. 552F3] The contractor had reportedly been detained by Cuban officials on Dec. 5 at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba’s capital, as he was attempting to leave the country. Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz Dec. 20 said the man had violated Cuban law by attempting to distribute “sophisticated methods of satellite communication to members of the civil society which they [the U.S.] hope to form against our people.” Castro Dec. 19 had said the U.S. was “giving new breath to open and undercover subversion against Cuba.” In a statement issued Dec. 14, Development Alternatives President James Boomgard said the detained man was “implementing a competitively issued subcontract to assist Cuban civil society organizations.” The Cuban government had recently allowed citizens to own cell phones and computers, but their use was largely limited by prohibitive costs, scant access and close monitoring by the government. The communications equipment distribution was part of a pro-democracy program started by 927

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the U.S. in 1997 that had received tens of millions of dollars. It often used volunteers posing as tourists to distribute equipment, video recordings, books and radios in Cuba. However, the program had been criticized for poor oversight practices. U.S. President Barack Obama in April had ordered the loosening of restrictions on the ability of Cuban Americans to travel to Cuba and send remittances there. However, since then a series of scheduled diplomatic talks on issues including mail delivery and migration had been delayed, and Cuban officials had stepped up anti-U.S. rhetoric in their speeches. n Dissident Blogger Alleges Beating. Yoani Sanchez, a popular blogger who was often critical of the Cuban government, Nov. 6 claimed that earlier that day she and two other bloggers had briefly been held by plainclothes government officials, beaten and warned to stop criticizing the government. Sanchez said she and the two other bloggers—Orlando Luis Pardo and Claudia Cadelo—had been on their way to a march in Havana, Cuba’s capital, when the alleged attack occurred. [See 2008, p. 221F2] Sanchez, who published her work on the blog Generacion Y, was considered the most widely read Cuban blogger, and had won international awards for her work. She largely wrote about daily Cuban life, but her posts had reportedly become more overtly political recently. The U.S. State Department Nov. 9 issued a statement condemning the alleged assault. Sanchez Nov. 18 published on her blog the response of U.S. President Barack Obama to seven questions she had posed to him regarding U.S.-Cuban relations. In his response, Obama said he had reached out to the government of Cuban President Raul Castro Ruz, but was waiting for reciprocation from him. Report Criticizes Rights Record— U.S.based advocacy group Human Rights Watch Nov. 18 issued a report which found that Castro had continued repressive policies started by his older brother, former President Fidel Castro Ruz. (Fidel Castro in July 2006 had temporarily handed over power to Raul Castro, citing an illness. Raul Castro in February 2008 officially succeeded his brother as president.) [See 2008, p. 167G3] According to the group, dozens of political dissidents, including rights activists, journalists and others, who had been imprisoned in 2003 were still being detained. At least 40 others had been jailed since Raul Castro came to power in 2006. Human Rights Watch criticized a policy continued under Raul Castro that allowed the government to jail people for “dangerousness,” which had included the organization of marches that had not been approved by the state, as well as attempts to create independent labor unions. The report also criticized the U.S. trade sanctions against Cuba, saying that they gave the government a rationale for cracking down on political dissidents. n 928

Mexico Reputed Drug Lord Beltran Leyva Killed.

Arturo Beltran Leyva, reputedly one of Mexico’s top drug cartel leaders, Dec. 16 was killed by Mexican special forces troops during a four-hour battle in the southern city of Cuernavaca. Beltran Leyva, who headed an eponymously named cartel, was thought to be the highest-ranking drug lord killed by the government since Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa launched a 45,000 person–strong military and police offensive against drug cartels soon after taking office in 2006. Since then, an estimated 14,000 people had been killed in drug-related violence. [See 2009, p. 604F3] A group of 400 to 500 soldiers late Dec. 16 had surrounded an upscale apartment complex where Beltran Leyva was staying. About 200 soldiers then stormed the complex after coming under fire from cartel gunmen. Six other men suspected of being cartel members were killed during the raid, including one who was thought to have committed suicide. One member of the military, a junior naval officer, was killed. Calderon Dec. 17 described Beltran Leyva’s death as “a convincing blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico and on the continent.” [See below] Beltran Leyva, 48, also known as “el jefe de jefes,” or the boss of bosses, was one of the three most-wanted drug cartel leaders in Mexico. He was one of five brothers who had broken from the Sinaloa cartel in 2003 and then forged an alliance with Los Zetas, a group of former soldiers turned mercenaries who had served as enforcers for the Gulf cartel. The realignment was blamed for causing much of the gruesome internecine bloodshed between cartels that had gripped Mexico in recent years. Some analysts said Beltran Leyva’s death would strengthen the position of rival drug lord Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman Loera, leader of the Sinaloa cartel. Analysts speculated that the power vacuum resulting from Beltran Leyva’s death would also lead to increased violence. Slain Soldier’s Family Murdered— Melquisedet Angulo Cordova, the special forces member killed in the assault on Beltran Leyva’s hideout, Dec. 21 was buried with high military honors. Early the next morning, a group of gunmen stormed the home of his family in Tabasco state, killing four of his relatives, including his mother, in what was believed to be a retaliatory attack by drug cartel members. Cordova’s funeral and the names and pictures of his relatives had been widely disseminated in the Mexican press, and it did not appear that they had received any protection from the government. Still, the killings shocked Mexicans as a new low in barbarism for the cartels. Rafael Gonzalez Lastra, the attorney general of Tabasco state, Dec. 23 said four people alleged to be members of Los Zetas had been arrested in connection with the murders. Gonzalez said two of those arrest-

ed had paid the hitmen, while the others had served as lookouts during the attack. Other News—In other news related to drug trafficking and violence in Mexico: o Human rights group Amnesty International Dec. 8 issued a report finding that the Mexican military had engaged in widespread rights abuses—including illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings—in its offensive against the drug cartels. The report also criticized civilian government officials for failing to investigate or prosecute alleged rights violations. Since Calderon had initiated the antidrug campaign, complaints against the military lodged with the Mexican National Human Rights Commission had jumped to almost 2,000 in 2009, from 182 in 2006. Several rights activists had called on the U.S. to curtail its antinarcotics aid to Mexico until there was improvement in rights protections. o Ricardo Almanza Morales, thought to be a leader of Los Zetas, Dec. 4 was killed during a firefight with military forces near Monterrey, in northern Mexico, military officials said the following day. Military officials said a soldier patrol had been ambushed and returned fire, killing at least seven people, including Almanza Morales. At least five other suspected drug cartel members were killed in a separate shootout in Monterrey later Dec. 4. The second group was thought to be attempting a rescue of those captured during the first fight. o The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Dec. 3 issued a report which found that only about $24 million out of a total $1.3 billion appropriated for antinarcotics aid to Mexico had been spent. The U.S. aid program, known as the Merida Initiative, was meant to provide Mexico with high-tech surveillance equipment, helicopters and bomb-sniffing dogs, among other aid, to combat the drug cartels. The U.S. State Department said the delay in spending had resulted in part by bureaucratic requirements for tracking the money. o A group of gunmen Nov. 27 shot and killed 15 people, including union leader Margarito Montes Parra, in an attack in the northern state of Sonora. The attack was similar to those normally carried out by drug cartels. Montes Parra led the Worker, Peasant and Popular General Union, which was based in the southern state of Oaxaca and had agitated for workers’ rights and increased government support. The union said the attack might have been related to Montes’s work as an organizer, but others noted that Sonora was near a marijuana production and transport hub. n News in Brief. Lawmakers in the local assembly of Mexico City, the Mexican capital, Dec. 21 voted, 39–20, to pass a measure that would legalize gay marriage in the city. The bill rewrote the city’s legal definition of marriage to be “the free uniting of two people,” rather than the union of a man and a woman. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) had said he would not veto the bill, it was reported Dec. 29. The same day, deFACTS ON FILE

tails of the new law were published in the city’s official register, meaning they would go into effect in 45 days. [See 2006, p. 883B1] Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa Dec. 15 released a proposal for an overhaul of election laws that would establish a second round of elections in the presidential contest if no candidate received at least 50% of the vote, and eliminate term limits on many offices. Currently, no elected official could serve two consecutive terms, and presidents were limited to one six-year term. Calderon said the reforms would make lawmakers more responsive to voters. No president had had a majority in Congress since 1997, and analysts said legislative blocks by opposition parties had prevented needed economic, judicial and educational reforms. Calderon’s proposal would require constitutional amendments that needed to be approved by the country’s legislature. [See 2008, p. 294E1; 2007, p. 653D3] Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Dec. 14 lowered Mexico’s credit rating to BBB, from BBB-plus. The new rating was two levels above “junk” status. Another credit rating agency, Fitch Ratings, Nov. 23 had also lowered its rating of the country’s credit to BBB. The revisions reflected concerns over Mexico’s declining oil production and ballooning federal deficit. [See 2008, p. 729C1] Calderon Dec. 9 nominated Finance Minister Agustin Carstens to replace Guillermo Ortiz, the governor of Mexico’s central bank, whose six-year term expired on Dec. 31. Social Development Minister Ernesto Cordero was appointed to replace Carstens at the finance ministry. Carstens had spent 20 years in various roles at the central bank. Cordero was a former finance ministry undersecretary and a close ally of Calderon. [See p. 83D1] n

Venezuela Banks Closed After Irregularities Surface.

The Venezuelan government Nov. 20–Dec. 11 seized eight small, private banks, citing their failure to adhere to a range of regulations. The seizures sparked concerns that the government would move to nationalize the country’s banking system, leading to a drop in the value of the country’s currency, the bolivar, and government-issued bonds. The banks were thought to hold between 8% and 12% of deposits in the country’s banking system. Most of the banks’ owners had amassed fortunes after benefiting from close ties to local government officials. [See 2007, p. 315G3] The government Nov. 20 had assumed control of four banks—Banco Canarias de Venezuela, Banco Provivienda CA, Banco Confederado SA and Bolivar Banco CA— saying they had made as much as $846 million in illegal loans, among other violations. The government Nov. 30 said it would liquidate the assets of Banco Canarias de Venezuela and Banco Provivienda, after regulators determined that they were insolvent. The two other banks were to be absorbed by state-run banks. December 31, 2009

All four of the banks had been owned by billionaire Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco, who reportedly had made his fortune by securing contracts to provide food to Mercal, a state-run chain that sold subsidized food to the public. Fernandez had been jailed on various charges, it was reported Dec. 4. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias Dec. 2 pledged to nationalize the entire banking sector if more problems were discovered. He said a new system would be “socialist, not in favor of the bourgeoisie or multimillionaires, but in favor of the people and national production.” Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said the regulatory discoveries had “revealed weaknesses that need to be corrected, a restructuring of the system of controls to prevent similar situations in the future.” Rodriguez Dec. 4 said the government had assumed control of three additional banks—Baninvest, Banco Real and Central Banco Universal—all of which had allegedly violated banking regulations. The three banks had all been owned by Pedro Torres, a close business associate of Fernandez. Also, Arne Chacon, the brother of Science and Technology Minister Jesse Chacon, was listed as the president of both Banco Real and Baninvest. In an apparent attempt to allay investor concerns, Rodriguez that day downplayed fears that Venezuela had been seized by a banking crisis. Chavez Dec. 4 also stepped back from his earlier rhetoric, saying the bank seizures represented “prudent moves.” About 70% of deposits in Venezuela were concentrated in the country’s 10 largest banks, which were thought to be healthy. State-run banks held 20% of the country’s deposits. Arne Chacon Dec. 5 was arrested as part of the investigation, and Chavez Dec. 6 announced that Jesse Chacon had resigned from the cabinet as a result. Chavez that day said he had instructed prosecutors to quickly ferret out criminals, and said Chacon’s resignation showed that “no one here is untouchable.” Eight bankers had been arrested, and another 25 warrants related to the case had been issued, the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reported Dec. 8. The government Dec. 11 seized the eighth bank embroiled in the scandal, BaNorte Banco Comercial, saying it lacked the liquidity needed to cover its short-term obligations. The government that day said it would reopen Bolivar Banco, Banco Confederado and Central Banco Universal as state-run banks on Dec. 21. n News in Brief. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias and Zhang Ping, chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Dec. 22 presided over the signing of a series of oil and mining agreements during a ceremony in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. One of the agreements allowed the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to develop reserves in Venezuela’s Orinoco River area, which held large heavy crude oil reserves. China also agreed to provide Venezuela with a $1 billion credit line for mining projects, among other agreements. [See 2008, p. 699F1]

Chavez during a Nov. 20 speech delivered in Caracas praised the reputed terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, more widely known as Carlos the Jackal, saying he was a “revolutionary fighter,” and not a terrorist. Ramirez, a Venezuelan national currently serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murders of two French intelligence agents and a Lebanese informant, was linked to a series of hijackings and bombings that took place across Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. He had been captured in Sudan in 1994 by French agents and taken to France. Chavez during the speech also praised Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who was widely criticized for his despotic rule; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime had brutally suppressed protests after a disputed June presidential election; and Idi Amin, the late military ruler of Uganda who was thought responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people during his eight-year rule. [See 1997, p. 953B2] The Venezuelan Central Bank Dec. 29 said the country’s economy had contracted by 2.9% in 2009, according to preliminary data. The bank reported that the oil sector had declined by 6.1%, manufacturing activity by 7.2% and mining by 10.2%. The bank Dec. 17 had reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had contracted by 4.5% in the third quarter, when compared to the same period a year earlier. The third-quarter data officially pushed Venezuela into a recession, traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of contracting GDP. (The country’s GDP had shrunk 2.4% in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period.) [See 2007, p. 147G2] The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) July 20 released a report concluding that corrupt Venezuelan government officials had aided efforts to turn Venezuela into a major trafficking route for illicit cocaine manufactured in Colombia

that was bound for Europe and the U.S. Details of the report were first reported by Spanish newspaper El Pais on July 16. The report concluded that the Venezuelan government had extended a “lifeline” to Colombian Marxist rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), thought to export 60% of Colombia’s cocaine. Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, condemned the report as lacking impartiality, the Financial Times reported July 23. [See 2008, p. 661C3] n

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Americas News in Brief Guatemala: Former General Sentenced.

Former Gen. Marco Antonio Sanchez Dec. 3 was convicted of charges related to the abduction of eight indigenous Guatemalans in 1981, during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. Sanchez that day was sentenced to 53 years in prison. Three of his subordinate officers were also convicted and sentenced for the crimes. They became the first military officers to be found guilty of violating civilians’ human rights during the civil war, 929

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waged between the government and leftist guerrillas. [See 2006, p. 912C3] n Haiti: Aristide Party Barred From Elections.

Haitian election officials Nov. 25 said they had barred Fanmi Lavalas, the party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from legislative elections scheduled to take place in February 2010. Officials also banned 16 other parties from participating in the contest. Officials said Fanmi Lavalas had failed to meet the criteria needed to field candidates, but did not specify what those requirements were. Aristide had first been elected president in 1991, but was ousted in a 2004 coup d’etat. His party remained popular in Haiti, but had also been banned from a 2006 presidential election. [See p. 270C1; 2006, p. 101A1] n Jamaica: Plane Overshoots Runway. An American Airlines flight arriving at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, from Miami International Airport in the U.S. Dec. 22 overshot its runway, but was able to come to a safe stop. No one was killed in the incident, but about 44 people among the 154 passengers and six crew members were taken to hospitals for treatment. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Dec. 23 said it had retrieved the plane’s flight data recorders and was investigating the incident. The plane had landed in heavy rains and crossed a road before coming to a stop on a beach. [See p. 871B3] n Peru: Fat-Draining Gang Hoax Exposed.

Gen. Miguel Hidalgo, Peru’s chief of police, Dec. 1 said he had fired Gen. Felix Murga, the head of the police force’s organized crime unit, after doubts were raised about Murga’s claim that a criminal gang had murdered people in order to harvest their fat and sell it for use in cosmetic products. Murga and other police officials Nov. 19 had said they had three suspects who had admitted to killing five people for their body fat. However, the claim had been challenged by medical experts, who said it was unlikely that a black market for human fat existed. n

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jury in Parramatta, Australia, a suburb of Sydney, Oct. 16 convicted five men of stockpiling weapons, ammunition and dangerous chemicals in preparation for a terrorist attack. The trial, which had begun in November 2008, was thought to have been the longest terrorism trial in Australia’s history, and included testimony from about 300 witnesses. Four other defendants in the case had previously pleaded guilty. The five men faced possible life sentences. [See 2005, p. 807E1] The five defendants—Khaled Cheikho, Moustafa Cheikho, Mohamed Ali Elomar, Mohammed Omar Jamal and Abdul Rakib Hasan—had been accused of purchasing chemical explosives, firearms and 28,000 rounds of ammunition between July 2004 930

and November 2005, when they were arrested in a series of police raids. During those raids, police allegedly discovered bomb-making instructions on some of the defendants’ computers. The defendants had been under police surveillance, including telephone wiretaps, for 16 months at the time of their arrests. Prosecutors had alleged that three of the defendants had trained for a possible attack on an unidentified target at paramilitary camps located in Australia’s state of New South Wales. Defense lawyers had argued that the men had traveled there to go camping and to hunt. Prosecutors had also accused one of the defendants of attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan run by Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Four Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges—

A group of 400 police officers Aug. 4 raided 19 locations in Melbourne, arresting four men in connection with an alleged plot to carry out a suicide attack against an Australian military base near Sydney. The four men, who were Australian nationals of Somali and Lebanese descent, were suspected of having links to Al Shabab, a radical Somali Islamist group. [See p. 889A1] The raids had followed seven months of surveillance of the suspects as part of an investigation involving the state and federal police and intelligence agencies. Police said that they had intercepted numerous telephone calls and text messages that suggested the men were attempting to plan an attack and that the defendants had been seeking an Islamic cleric who would give religious approval to the attack. One of the men, Nayef el Sayed, Aug. 4 was charged in Melbourne with conspiring to plan a terrorist attack, and the others— Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, Abdirahman Ahmed, Yacqub Khayre and Saney Edow Aweys—were charged with the same crime Aug. 5. Ahmed and Aweys were also charged with aiding in the commission of a crime. Police alleged that Fattal had been tasked by the group with scouting out the military base near Sydney, and said that they had security camera footage from March 28 that showed him outside the base. During his trip to Sydney, Fattal had been arrested on unrelated assault charges and had been imprisoned at the time of the August raids. Investigators alleged that at least one of the defendants had traveled to Somalia and had fought with Al Shabab against the United Nations–backed transitional government. Analysts said that international concern regarding Al Shabab’s recruitment of foreign nationals had made it more difficult for sympathizers to travel to Somalia, increasing the chances that such sympathizers would instead carry out attacks in their home countries. Al Shabab was not currently listed as a terrorist organization by Australia, but Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Aug. 5 said the government was reviewing the group’s status. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Aug. 4 said that the arrests were “a reminder to all Australians that the threat of terrorism is alive and well,” and that “continued

vigilance on the part of our security authorities” was essential. However, Rudd’s government did not raise the country’s terrorism threat alert level, which had been set at “moderate” since the warning system was introduced in 2003. Changes to Terrorism Laws Proposed—

Australian Attorney General Robert McClelland Aug. 13 announced that the Australian government intended to amend the country’s terrorism laws, which had been put into place following Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. and a July 2005 terrorist attack in London. McClelland said the existing legislation had been approved “expeditiously” and that it could and should be improved. Under the proposed amendments, police would be allowed to search buildings and residences without a warrant if they believed that the search was relevant to an imminent terrorist threat. The provisions would also make it more difficult for terrorism suspects to be released on bail; cap the detention of suspects without charge in terrorism cases at eight days; and impose criminal penalties for persons who carried out terrorism hoaxes. Critics claimed that the proposed amendments would weaken Australian civil liberties and argued that eight days of detention without charge was excessive. n Sri Lankan Refugees Drown in Boat Sinking.

A boat carrying 39 asylum seekers believed to be headed from Sri Lanka to Australia Nov. 1 sank in the Indian Ocean about 350 miles (560 km) from the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory. A total of 27 people—all Sri Lankan men and boys— were rescued by civilian ships at the request of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA); one body was recovered and another 11 people were presumed dead. [See 2006, p. 650D3] A total of 60 boats carrying 2,727 asylum seekers had arrived in Australian waters in 2009, up from seven boats carrying 161 asylum seekers in 2008. The government of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had blamed the increase on the Sri Lankan civil war and continued fighting in Afghanistan, among other factors; most of the asylum seekers were of Sri Lankan or Afghan descent. However, members of Australia’s opposition Liberal Party–National Party coalition had blamed Rudd’s liberalization of Australia’s immigration policies for encouraging illegal immigrants. Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull Oct. 30 had called for an official inquiry into the sharp rise in the number of asylum-seeking boat people arriving in Australian waters and suggested that it might be necessary to reintroduce harsher immigration laws in order to slow the flow of immigrants. The Sri Lankan boat had sunk in international waters within Australia’s 20-million-square-mile search and rescue zone. However, the AMSA, which had received the boat’s Nov. 1 distress call, had asked any nearby vessels to respond because all Australian navy vessels were more than a day’s journey from the site of the accident. FACTS ON FILE

Rudd Nov. 2 spoke on the telephone with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa about the recent influx of Sri Lankan refugees apprehended en route to Australia, and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith Nov. 9 met with Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Minister Rohitha Bogollagama in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to discuss the issue. Smith reportedly offered additional Australian reconstruction aid in exchange for increased vigilance on the part of the Sri Lankan navy, and pushed the Sri Lankan government to resettle tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils currently living in refugee camps. Smith and Bogollagama Nov. 9 signed a memorandum of understanding between their respective governments on the issue of asylum seekers. Indonesia Intercepts 253 Asylum Seekers—

The Indonesian navy Oct. 12 stopped the Jaya Lestari, a cargo ship containing 253 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, in the Sunda Strait near the Indonesian island of Krakatoa. The ethnic Tamil asylum seekers were reportedly en route to Australia when they were intercepted. The cargo ship was subsequently towed to the coastal city of Merak on the Indonesian island of Java. Rudd Oct. 13 confirmed that he had asked Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Oct. 12 to stop the ship from entering Australian waters. Rudd said that his government would make “no apologies for deploying the most hard-line measures necessary to deal with problems of illegal immigration into Australia.” Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans Oct. 15 said that the Indonesian government had stopped about 2,000 would-be asylum seekers from reaching Australian waters in the past two years. The Australian detention center on Christmas Island was reportedly close to its capacity of 1,200 people, and analysts suggested that if the Jaya Lestari had entered Australian waters, space constraints might have forced Rudd’s government to process the asylum requests from boat people on the Australian mainland, a move that was thought likely to be politically unpopular. Unlike Australia, Indonesia had not signed the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and asylum seekers who were detained in Indonesian waters often had to wait for several years without work permits before a country could be found to accept them as refugees. Virtually all passengers on the Jaya Lestari had refused to leave the ship in order to be processed as refugees. Indonesian authorities Oct. 19 arrested convicted people-smuggler Abraham Lauhenaspessy, also known as Captain Bram, after they discovered that he was hiding on the Jaya Lestari and posing as a member of its crew. Captain Bram had been arrested in Indonesia on people-smuggling charges in 2007 and had reportedly charged each of the boat’s passengers $15,000 to be smuggled into Australian territory. Refugees Rescued Near Indonesia— A boat carrying 78 ethnic Tamil Sri Lankan asylum seekers Oct. 18 issued a distress December 31, 2009

signal from a location 138 miles south of the Indonesian island of Java. An Australian navy vessel rescued the asylum seekers and the boat’s crew. The Australian newspaper Oct. 22 reported that someone on board the boat had intentionally punctured the boat’s hull, causing the sinking of the boat and forcing the rescue. Rudd Oct. 20 visited Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, to attend Yudhoyono’s inauguration for his second term as president. The same day, Rudd and Yudhoyono held a meeting on the issue of asylum-seeking boat people who passed through Indonesian waters on their way to Australia. Rudd reportedly proposed a comprehensive partnership between the countries that would include stepped-up patrols by the Indonesian navy and increased funding for such activities by Australia. Yudhoyono announced that the Indonesian government would accept responsibility for the 78 asylum seekers and would hold and process them as potential refugees. A group of 22 of the asylum seekers Nov. 13 submitted to medical and identity checks carried out by the Indonesian government and were transferred to an Australian-funded immigration detention center on the Indonesian island of Bintan as part of an agreement between the Indonesian and Australian governments. Under the agreement, all asylum seekers who had already been determined to be refugees by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) would be resettled in a host country within one month and any asylum seeker who was later determined to be a refugee by UNHCR would be resettled within 12 weeks. The other 56 asylum seekers Nov. 18 accepted the agreement and were taken to Bintan. Detention Center Expansion Planned—

Evans Oct. 30 said that the Australian government would increase the size of the immigration detention center on Christmas Island. As part of the expansion, the number of asylum seekers who could be held at the center would increase from 1,200 to more than 2,000. The detention center held 1,165 detainees as of Nov. 2. Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Oct. 25 that 96% of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by plane rather than by boat. According to the Daily Telegraph, more than 80% of asylum seekers who arrived by boat were later determined to be legitimate refugees. Explosion Survivors Given Residency—

Australian media Oct. 12 reported that a group of 42 Afghan asylum seekers who had survived an April 16 explosion on a boat that they were using to travel to Australia would be given full refugee status and become permanent residents of Australia. Australian police suspected that the fire that had triggered the explosion on the boat had been intentionally lit by at least one of the asylum seekers, but had failed to find sufficient evidence to charge any of the survivors. A coroner’s inquest into the incident was scheduled to be held in Darwin, Australia, in January 2010. Evans Oct. 12 said that any of the refugees who were

found to have taken part in the explosion would be deported. n News in Brief. Justice Debbie Mullins of Queensland State Supreme Court Dec. 15 dropped child sex tourism charges against former Solomon Islands Attorney General Julian Moti. Mullins ruled that the Australian Federal Police had abused proper procedure by moving the alleged victim and her family to Australia and paying them almost A$150,000 (US$138,000) for living expenses. The alleged victim, who had been 13 years old when she accused Moti of raping her in Vanuatu and the French territory of New Caledonia in 1997, had reportedly threatened to stop cooperating with prosecutors in 2007 if they failed to meet her demands. Moti, a Fiji-born Australian lawyer, had faced up to 17 years in prison if convicted. [See 2007, p. 887C1] Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy Dec. 15 announced that the federal government would introduce legislation in August 2010 to implement mandatory Internet filters that would block all users in Australia from accessing sites flagged for containing child pornography, instructions for drug use and other controversial content. Under the government’s plan, which was not expected to be implemented until 2011, an independent body would decide which sites would be blocked and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would be offered grants to entice them to block additional Web sites, including Internet gambling sites. Critics argued that the move could lead to more widespread censorship and the blocking of sites that did not contain obscene or criminal content. [See p. 557E2] The Australian Federal Police Sept. 9 announced that on Aug. 20 it had opened a war crimes investigation into the 1975 deaths of five journalists in East Timor just prior to the Indonesian invasion of that country. In 2007, a deputy state coroner for the Australian state of New South Wales had ruled that the journalists—two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander— had been deliberately killed by agents of the Indonesian military, contradicting Indonesian claims that the men had been shot accidentally during a firefight. A spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign ministry Sept. 9 said that Indonesia would not reopen its investigation into the killings and that its government considered the matter closed. [See 2007, p. 828G2] n

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China Uighurs Deported From Cambodia. Cambodia Dec. 19 deported to China a group of 20 ethnic Uighurs who had sought asylum status from the United Nations in Cambodia after a Chinese crackdown on Uighur unrest in the western region of Xinjiang. China had demanded the repatriation of the Uighurs, calling them fugitives from justice. Cambodia said it was deporting them because they had entered the country illegally. Human rights organizations, and countries including the U.S., contended that Cambodia was obliged under international agreements not to return the refugees 931

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to a country where they might face persecution. (The whereabouts of two other members of the group that had entered Cambodia were unknown.) [See p. 785E2] The expulsions came a day before a scheduled Dec. 20 arrival in Cambodia by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, who Dec. 21 signed a series of investment agreements with the Cambodian government. More Death Sentences in Xinjiang—Authorities in Xinjiang Dec. 25 announced that five people had been sentenced to death for their roles in rioting that broke out in Urumqi, the regional capital, in July, after trials Dec. 22–23. Eight other defendants were sentenced to life in prison, four received prison terms of 10 years or more and five were given suspended death sentences, which were often converted to life prison terms; all appeared to be Uighurs by their names. The verdicts brought to 22 the number of people sentenced to death in connection with the Urumqi rioting. Five other apparent Uighurs had been sentenced to death Dec. 3. n U.S. Sets Duties on Steel Pipe. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) Dec. 30 voted to give final approval to proposed duties of 10%–16% in imports from China of certain types of steel pipe used in oil drilling, having found that Chinese government subsidies for the products harmed U.S. competitors. The U.S. would decide in 2010 whether to impose additional duties over China’s alleged dumping, or selling abroad below cost, of the pipe. [See p. 776D1] The pipe case was one of a number of disputes inflaming U.S.-Chinese trade relations in recent months. Separately, an arbitration panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Dec. 21 rejected China’s appeal of a decision in a case brought by the U.S., in which the WTO had ruled against Chinese regulations on imported media products. The WTO that day also said it would take up a case brought by the U.S., Mexico and the European Union concerning China’s export restrictions on raw materials. In another ongoing dispute, the EU Dec. 22 extended antidumping duties on shoes imported from China, as well as from Vietnam, first imposed in 2006. China the following day announced antidumping duties against carbon-steel fasteners imported from the EU. China and the EU Nov. 29– 30 had held talks on trade, climate change and other issues in Nanjing, China, that resulted in few breakthroughs. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao after the meetings Nov. 30 rejected anew European demands that China allow its currency, the yuan or renminbi, to rise in value. Critics said China kept its currency at an artificially low level to make its products cheaper abroad. [See 2006, p. 1026A1] n Car Sales, Production on the Rise. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) trade group Dec. 8 reported that sales of passenger cars in China had increased by 98% in November over November 2008, to a record 1.04 million. China’s 932

car sales in January 2009 had been greater than the U.S.’s for the first time, according to CAAM figures released Feb. 10, with 610,600 passenger vehicles sold, to the U.S.’s 522,374. China surpassed the U.S. in sales that month in part with the aid of a severe slump in U.S. sales, but the statistics also highlighted China’s emergence as an important market for cars, as more of its large population were expected to become affluent enough to afford them. [See p. 91B1; 2008, p. 979E1] Chinese car sales had also been aided by incentives that were part of the government’s package of economic stimulus measures, including a reduction in sales taxes on smaller cars, and payments on trade-ins of older cars. According to the Dec. 8 report, which was based on deliveries to dealerships, Chinese sales of passenger and commercial vehicles together were 12.23 million in January–November, up 42.4% from the year-earlier period. U.S. and other foreign car makers, suffering deeply from the drop in domestic sales, were enjoying record sales in China. General Motors Co.’s October sales in China had been more than double October 2008, at 166,911, it was reported Nov. 9, and Ford Motor Co.’s 20,027 vehicles sold that month had represented an 80% yearon-year jump. German high-end automakers Daimler AG, Audi AG and BMW AG Dec. 7 reported strong sales increases in China for November. Car production within China was also on the increase. State news media Oct. 20 reported that China became the first country apart from the U.S. and Japan to produce more than 10 million vehicles in a given calendar year. Among foreign companies announcing new production investments in China, Ford Sept. 25 set plans for its third assembly plant there in an existing joint venture with Chonqing Changan Automobile Co. of China and Mazda Motor Corp. of Japan. South Korea’s largest automaker, Hyundai Motor Co., Dec. 20 announced a joint venture to manufacture commercial vehicles with Baotou Bei Ben Heavy-Duty Truck Co. of China. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 22 reported that Honda Motor Co. of Japan was considering opening a second factory in China, because its China sales were expected to outstrip the capacity of its existing facility, a joint venture with China’s Dongfeng Motor Group Co. China’s government was encouraging the consolidation of China’s array of domestic car companies, and some companies pursued expansion through foreign acquisitions. The largest, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co., in December acquired technology and designs from GM’s bankrupt Swedish Saab unit, and another Chinese company, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., that month agreed to buy Ford’s Swedish brand, Volvo. [See p. 902D2] Chinese government officials April 10 had also described a plan to develop the country’s auto industry as a leader in electric cars, because it was a sector of the industry expected to grow in the future, and

out of concern for the environmental impact of growing car use in China. n News in Brief. China’s government Oct. 21 reported that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 8.9% in the third quarter from the year-earlier period, an increase from the second quarter’s 7.9% growth rate, and confirmation that China was exiting swiftly from a slowdown caused by the global financial crisis. China Dec. 25 released revised economic figures for 2008, saying GDP had amounted to 31.4 trillion yuan ($4.6 trillion), 4.5% higher than the previous estimate, and that GDP growth for 2008 had been 9.6%, up from the previous figure of 9%. The upward revision was attributed chiefly to greater service-sector output than was initially estimated. [See p. 494B2] A British citizen convicted in China in 2008 of drug smuggling was executed Dec. 29 over strenuous objections from the British government. Family and friends of the man, 53-year-old Akmal Shaikh, said he had a history of mental problems that should have been considered in his case, and that he might have been duped into carrying another person’s suitcase, in which some nine pounds (four kilograms) of heroin had been found, on a journey to China. (Shaikh had reportedly traveled to China as part of a deluded plan to become a pop music star.) It was reportedly the first execution of a European national in China since 1951. [See 1951, p. 274C] A court in Beijing, China’s capital, Dec. 25 convicted dissident Liu Xiaobo of “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. Liu, who had been detained in December 2008, was one of the drafters of Charter ’08, a manifesto demanding greater political freedoms in China. Although Liu, 53, could have been sentenced to as many as 15 years in prison, observers said his 11-year term was still relatively harsh, a signal of China’s determination to crack down on political dissidents, and of its disregard of rights activists’ and foreign governments’ objections to the prosecution of Liu. [See p. 872A3] Two men sentenced to death in January for their role in the widespread contamination of dairy products with the chemical melamine in 2007–08, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, were executed Nov. 24. Separately, the first civil lawsuit to be heard over the melamine scandal opened Nov. 27 in Beijing. Three people accused in a new case of the sale of milk powder tainted with melamine, all employees of Jinqiao Dairy Co. in the northern province of Shaanxi, were arrested Dec. 8. In that case, no tainted products reached consumers. [See p. 35C2] A gas explosion in a coal mine Nov. 21 in Hegang City, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, killed at least 104 people, the deadliest disaster in China’s accident-plagued mining industry since December 2007. Separately, state news media Nov. 30 reported that corruption charges had been brought against 48 officials and 10 journalists in connection with the coverup of a July 2008 mine explosion in Hebei province that killed 35 people but was not FACTS ON FILE

publicly disclosed for nearly three months. [See p. 251D2] China Dec. 15 began construction on what was projected to be the longest oversea bridge in the world, linking the autonomous territories of Macao and Hong Kong and the mainland. The bridge, scheduled to be completed in 2015, would be about 31 miles (50 km) long, surpassing the current record holder, completed in China in 2008: a 22-mile bridge over Hangzhou Bay in the eastern province of Zhejiang. (The longest bridge over any body of water was currently the 24-mile Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the U.S. state of Louisiana.) A study published online April 10 by the British journal Nature had found that there were about 32 million more males than females under the age of 20 in China, which researchers attributed to a preference for male offspring and the consequent practice of sex-selective abortion. Abortions for gender selection were illegal, but the practice was nevertheless common in China, where population policies limited most couples to a single child. [See p. 576F1] n

Japan 2010 Budget Plan Unveiled. Japan’s

government Dec. 25 unveiled a 92.3 trillion yen ($1 trillion) proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2010. Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii Dec. 22 had said about one trillion yen would be spent on measures intended to boost the sagging economy, although it was not specified whether that amount counted certain ordinary spending items. Planned bond issuance, at 44.3 trillion yen, was nearly kept down to the government’s pledge of a 44 trillion yen limit, but only because the government planned to make use of 10.6 trillion yen from a special cash reserve. [See p. 872C3] Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s cabinet Dec. 30 approved a broad plan for encouraging long-term growth in the economy. The plan set a target for gross domestic product growth of 2% annually over the next 10 years, and identified certain sectors as having a strong potential for future growth, including health care, environment-related industries and exports to Asian neighbors. Fujii, 77, Dec. 30 appeared at a news conference, after being hospitalized Dec. 28 for high blood pressure and fatigue that officials attributed to the stress of the negotiations over the budget plan. n News in Brief. Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada Dec. 8 said talks with the U.S. on implementing a 2006 agreement to relocate U.S. troops based on the southern island of Okinawa had been suspended. The new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama had pledged to renegotiate the agreement, which was fiercely opposed by critics of the heavy U.S. military presence on Okinawa. The U.S. said it regarded the agreement as a done deal. Hatoyama Dec. 15 indicated that Japan sought to continue to review the deal for “several months” before implementing it. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Dec. 22 met with the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. in WashDecember 31, 2009

ington, D.C., and reportedly demanded that Japan quickly agree to implement the plan. [See p. 795C1] Two former aides to Hatoyama Dec. 24 were indicted for campaign finance law violations in connection with the false reporting of millions of dollars in political donations to Hatoyama, some from members of his family. Hatoyama that day apologized for the scandal, but said he had not been aware of the misreporting and did not intend to resign. [See p. 873A2] A 30-year-old Japanese student, Tatsuya Ichihashi, Nov. 10 was arrested in Osaka for the murder of a British teacher, Lindsay Hawker, 22, whose body had been found buried in sand in a bathtub in Ichihashi’s apartment in Chiba prefecture (province) in 2007. Ichihashi had been a fugitive since then, and had reportedly undergone plastic surgery to alter his appearance. He was charged Dec. 23 with the rape and murder of Hawker. [See 2001, p. 1065G2] The U.S. and Japan Dec. 11 reached agreement on an “open skies” pact that would ease restrictions, dating to 1952, on each country’s airlines’ services to the other. However, the deal had yet to be formally adopted, pending antitrust review. [See 2008, p. 233B3] n

Laos News in Brief. British citizen Samantha

Orobator June 3 pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and was sentenced to life in prison. In August 2008, Orobator, 20, had been arrested at a Vientiane airport with 680 grams (1.5 lbs) of heroin, and could have faced the death penalty under Laotian law. However, she had become pregnant in prison in December 2008 and the Laotian government had said it would not execute a pregnant woman. A minister in the British Foreign Office, Chris Bryant, July 27 signed a memorandum with the Laotian government that allowed for the expedited transfer of Orobator to serve her sentence in Britain; a prison transfer agreement had been signed between the two countries in May. Orobator Aug. 7 arrived in Britain and reportedly gave birth several weeks later. Attorneys for Orobator appealed her conviction before Britain’s High Court, arguing on Dec. 8 that Orobator had been coerced into smuggling drugs and had not received a fair trial. [See p. 932C3] A U.S. federal grand jury in Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 18 issued a superseding indictment charging 12 California residents, including 11 members of the Hmong ethnic group, with plotting to overthrow the communist government of Laos. The new indictment dropped charges against Vang Pao, a former Laotian general in exile who had led Hmong forces backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against the Laotian government during the Vietnam War, but added charges against two other Hmong men. The defendants were charged with violating the 1794 Neutrality Act and conspiring to kill, maim and injure residents of a foreign country, among other offenses,

and faced life imprisonment if convicted on all charges. [See p. 2007, p. 468A3] n

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North Korea U.S. Christian Missionary Arrested. North

Korea’s state-run media Dec. 29 reported that a U.S. citizen had been detained Dec. 24 for illegally entering the country across a frozen river along the border with China. South Korea’s unification ministry was unable to confirm the prisoner’s identity, but according to a South Korean–based activist group, one of its workers had recently snuck into North Korea and was arrested shortly after crossing the border. The group, Pax Koreana, identified the worker as Robert Park, a 28-year-old Christian missionary from Tucson, Ariz., who had reportedly been working in South Korea’s religious activist community since 2008. [See pp. 873A3, 600D3] Jo Sung Rae, the head of Pax Koreana, claimed that Park had actually entered North Korea on Dec. 25, Christmas Day, to “proclaim Christ’s love and forgiveness.” Following his arrest, Pax Koreana posted a copy of a letter that Park had intended to deliver to supreme leader Kim Jong Il. In the letter, Park urged North Korea to open its borders to foreign aid and to release “all political prisoners.” The group also claimed that Park was carrying a second message, which called for Kim’s resignation. In the week prior to his entry, Park had talked openly about his intentions in an interview with Reuters news service, saying he knew he would be arrested and did not “want [U.S.] President Obama to come and pay to get me out.” (In March, two U.S. journalists had been arrested in North Korea also for entering the country illegally across the border with China. After the reporters were convicted and sentenced to hard labor, former U.S. President Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea in an unofficial capacity to secure their release.) Park’s brother Dec. 29 said his family was working with the U.S. State Department to ensure his “eventual safe return.” The U.S. and North Korea had no diplomatic ties, but the Swedish embassy in North Korea had offered to assist in the situation. U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth had visited North Korea earlier in December to discuss its possible return to six-nation talks on dismantling its nuclear program. n News in Brief. The North Korean navy Dec. 21 threatened to fire on any South Korean vessels in the disputed waters off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula. In November, a naval clash had erupted in those waters between the two countries, which were separated by a United Nations– defined sea border set in 1953 that North Korea did not recognize. [See p. 795G3] The South Korean defense ministry Dec. 22 announced plans to upgrade its military communication lines with North Korea. Fiber-optic cables sent across the border in October would replace the copper lines that served as one of the few official modes of communication between the two countries. The outdated system often mal933

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functioned, causing delays at the border crossing for the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea. French President Nicolas Sarkozy Nov. 9 dispatched a special envoy, Jack Lang, for a five-day visit to North Korea. Lang the next day held talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun, with the official goal of establishing bilateral relations between the two countries. As part of his mission, Lang was to later meet with representatives from the six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program. France had never participated in the talks, but was a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. n

South Korea News in Brief. South Korean President Lee

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Myung Bak Dec. 29 issued a presidential pardon to former Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun Hee, who had received a three-year suspended sentence in July 2008 following his conviction on tax evasion charges. Lee Myung Bak cited “national interests” in his decision, and expressed the hope that Lee Kun Hee would return to the International Olympics Committee (IOC) to help bring the 2018 Winter Olympic Games to Pyeongchang, a mountain town that had lost out in the final round of voting for the host of the 2014 Olympics. [See 2008, pp. 541D2, 471G2] A court in Seoul, South Korea’s capital, Dec. 17 approved a turnaround plan for automaker Ssangyong Motor Co., which had been in bankruptcy protection since February. Under the reorganization, Ssangyong’s majority owner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) of China, would see its stake in the company diluted through a debt-for-equity swap. The court accepted the plan despite opposition from foreign creditors, who characterized the measures as insufficient to ensure the company’s viability. [See p. 787D1] Lee Nov. 27 announced his decision to halt a shift of some national government ministries and agencies from Seoul, the capital, to a new city being built south of Seoul. The splitting of the capital was required under a law passed in 2005 at the urging of Lee’s predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun. In defense of his decision, Lee characterized the planned move as expensive and inefficient, but party leaders with various political affiliations vowed to block any changes to the 2005 law. [See 2005, p. 215B3] Officials from the European Union (EU) and South Korea Oct. 15 signed a free trade agreement that would eliminate most tariffs on each other’s goods over a five-year period. The deal faced opposition in the ratification process, mostly from European automakers fearing a sharp increase of cheaper South Korean car imports. The European Council, which consisted of the leaders of the 27 member nations, was scheduled to begin debate early in 2010. The U.S. had reached a similar agreementwith South Korea, also not yet ratified, in 2007. [See 2007, p. 205F1] n 934

Thailand Hmong Refugees Forcibly Returned to Laos.

A group of about 5,000 Thai soldiers, along with Thai government officials and nonmilitary volunteers, Dec. 28 removed 4,371 Laotian members of the Hmong ethnic group from the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in the northern Thai province of Petchabun, and sent them by bus to Laos. Thai officials said that the transfer of the Hmong residents of the camp was accomplished without violence; however, journalists had been barred from the camp in 2007 and were not allowed within seven miles (11 km) of it, making confirmation of that account difficult. The New York Times reported Dec. 28 on its Web site that 130 of the camp residents had resisted attempts to transfer them and had been briefly detained before being turned over to Laotian authorities. [See pp. 933F2, 931G3; 2007, p. 468A3; 2006, p. 1025C2] More than 300,000 Laotians, mostly ethnic Hmong, had fled into Thailand after the 1975 communist takeover of Laos. The U.S., which had recruited thousands of Hmong to fight against the communists during the Vietnam War, had accepted about 150,000 of the refugees; others had been accepted by other nations or had later returned to Laos, which was still communist-controlled. The Thai government had previously said that the Hmong immigrants at Huay Nam Khao were economic migrants, rather than political refugees, and had not allowed the United Nations or independent aid groups to assess the refugee status of the camp residents. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department Dec. 28 called on the Thai government to halt the transfer, which was already in progress, saying that some of the residents of Huay Nam Khao required “protection because of the threats they might face in Laos.” U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D, Vt.) Dec. 27 criticized the transfer, which he said “could badly damage the Thai military’s reputation, and put our military collaboration at risk.” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Dec. 24 said that his government would “act according to the law, and we will be very careful” in carrying out the transfer of the Hmong camp residents. Under Thai law, the Hmong were considered illegal immigrants and were allowed to be forcibly expelled from the country. The Thai government had reportedly received assurances from Laotian officials that any of the repatriated Hmong who were wanted in connection with resistance to the ruling regime would be pardoned after returning. The Hmong residents of Huay Nam Khao were scheduled to be resettled in two Laotian villages. International observers, including the U.N., were expected to have access to them. U.S. Offer to Accept Hmong Rejected—

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Eric Schwartz had visited Thailand earlier in December and had reportedly told Thai officials that the U.S. and other concerned countries would accept the Hmong refu-

gees. However, the Thai government refused the offer, reportedly because of concerns that allowing the Hmong to be categorized as refugees would encourage other economic migrants to enter Thailand. Separately, a group of 158 Hmong had been held for more than three years at Thailand’s Nong Kahi detention center and were reportedly also deported to Laos Dec. 28. The Hmong at Nong Kahi had been examined by representatives of the U.N. and were found likely to face mistreatment if returned to Laos. The U.S. had also reportedly offered to accept the Hmong prisoners at Nong Kahi as refugees but had been turned down by the Thai government. n

Uzbekistan Parliamentary Elections Held. Candidates

from four parties closely linked with President Islam Karimov Dec. 27 competed in elections to the Oliy Majlis, Uzbekistan’s lower house of parliament. The central election commission Dec. 31 said candidates from 96 municipalities had won enough votes to avoid runoff elections. In 39 districts, no candidate won an absolute majority of votes. Therefore, the top two candidates from those districts would compete in runoff elections scheduled for Jan. 10, 2010. Election officials said turnout was about 88%. [See p. 764G2; 2007, p. 887D3] There were no registered opposition parties in Uzbekistan, and independent candidates were not allowed to run for parliament. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a regional security organization that monitored human rights and elections, declined to send a full monitoring mission to Uzbekistan, saying that its previous election recommendations had not been implemented. The OSCE had never deemed an Uzbek election free and fair. U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch Dec. 21 claimed that a pre-election crackdown on the political opposition was “as chilling as it is predictable.” The Uzbek central election commission Dec. 28 said the elections were “held with observance of all democratic norms and principles.” Criticism of the election by Western governments was muted. Analysts suggested that the West was reluctant to denounce the vote because of Uzbekistan’s strategic location next to Afghanistan, where a U.S.led coalition was fighting a war against Islamic extremists. The U.S. and others shipped supplies to Afghanistan through Uzbekistan. Western criticism of Uzbekistan had spiked in 2005, after government forces there opened fire on an antigovernment rally, reportedly killing hundreds of people. Uzbekistan maintained that 187 people had died, mainly Islamic extremists. In accordance with election amendments passed in December 2008, 15 seats in the parliament were set aside for the state-approved Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan. The party had been founded Aug. 2, 2008, around the time Uzbek auFACTS ON FILE

thorities began voicing opposition to hydroelectric projects in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Uzbek law also required 30% of elected deputies to be women. [See p. 934C2] n

Vietnam Government Devalues Currency. The State Bank of Vietnam, the country’s central bank, Nov. 25 announced that, effective Nov. 26, it would reset the official midpoint of the trading range of Vietnam’s currency, the dong, against the U.S. dollar, effectively devaluing the dong by more than 5%. The bank also shrank the dong’s trading band against the dollar to 3% above or below the dollar, down from 5%. The State Bank also announced that it would raise the country’s benchmark interest rate to 8%, from 7%, making it one of the first countries, along with Australia, Israel and Norway, to raise interest rates after the global financial crisis. [See 2008, p. 455A2] The move was reportedly part of an effort to stabilize the value of the dong and to encourage citizens and corporations to stop hoarding dollars as a hedge against inflation, which had reached double digits in 2008. The devaluation also made Vietnamese goods less expensive abroad, which could help the country to reduce its trade deficit, which had reached $10.2 billion in November. It was the third time that the dong had been devalued since June 2008, and analysts suggested that the dong was likely still overvalued at its new exchange rate. Following the announcement, stocks fell 4.5% on the country’s Ho Chi Minh Stock Index and 6% on the Hanoi stock exchange. n Tropical Storm Kills 108. The Vietnamese government Nov. 6 announced that the death toll stemming from Tropical Storm Mirinae had reached 108, with 11 people still listed as missing. The storm had struck Vietnam Nov. 2, dropping 13 inches (33 cm) of rain and causing widespread flooding. It had damaged more than 27,000 residences and had injured 66 people. The government had evacuated more than 50,000 people from coastal regions prior to the storm and had deployed about 6,300 soldiers to assist with rescue and reconstruction efforts. [See p. 890E3] n

Other Asia Pacific News Kyrgyz Journalist Killed in Kazakhstan.

Gennady Pavlyuk, 40, a prominent Kyrgyz opposition journalist of Russian descent, Dec. 16 fell from a sixth-story window in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, and died on Dec. 22 without regaining consciousness. Kazakh police said Pavlyuk’s hands and feet had been bound with tape when they discovered him unconscious near the entrance to the building, it was reported Dec. 21. Kazakh officials were investigating his death as a murder. [See pp. 839B1, 725F1, 576D3] Pavlyuk was known for investigating accusations of high-level corruption in Kyrgyzstan, as well as for his criticism of KyrDecember 31, 2009

gyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.based advocacy group, Dec. 22 reported that Pavlyuk might have traveled to Kazakhstan in order to meet potential partners for a joint opposition newspaper project. Kyrgyz opposition figures claimed that Bakiyev was ratcheting up pressure on his political opponents, and was responsible for Pavlyuk’s murder. Bakiyev had said through a spokesman that he was not connected with the attack, it was reported Dec. 23. Two other Kyrgyz journalists of Russian origin had been beaten around the time Pavlyuk was attacked. Aleksandr Evgrafov, a reporter for Russia’s Baltinfo news agency, Dec. 16 was beaten up in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital. Aleksandr Knyazev, a political analyst known for criticizing the Kyrgyz government, Dec. 9 was beaten up in Bishkek, and reportedly warned against continuing his work. n Uzbekistan Quits Regional Power Grid.

Uzbekistan, after spending more than $1 billion on a new power distribution system, Dec. 1 withdrew from Central Asia’s Soviet-era electricity grid. The move effectively blocked Tajikistan and parts of Kyrgyzstan from using Uzbek infrastructure to import energy from Turkmenistan and other countries. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, both poor, mountainous countries, were expected to experience winter power shortages as a result of Uzbekistan’s move. [See p. 764F3, G2; 2008, p. 60A2] Uzbekistan in recent months had accused Tajikistan of stealing electricity from the power grid, causing power shortages for Uzbeks. Tajik officials denied the allegations, and claimed that Uzbekistan’s move to leave the grid was a response to Tajik plans to expand its hydroelectric power system. Such plans could result in a significant reduction in the water that flowed via the Amu Darya River system through Uzbekistan, which relied on that water to irrigate its principal crop, cotton. Under the Central Asian grid’s original design, each member had supplied or consumed electricity according to the time of year. For example, Tajikistan produced hydroelectric power in the summertime with water from thawed mountain snow. In other seasons, Tajikistan drew on neighboring countries’ surplus power produced from coal and natural gas. Kazakhstan Feb. 26 had withdrawn from the power grid. Turkmenistan had left it in 2003. n Central Asian Pipeline to China Opens.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbek President Islam Karimov Dec. 14 attended a ceremony at a remote Turkmen refinery, where they marked the opening of a gas pipeline that ran from Turkmenistan to China’s Xinjiang province via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. By 2013, the pipeline was expected to reach its capacity of transporting 40 billion cubic meters (1.4 trillion cubic feet) of Turkmen natural gas to China per year. That amount represented about half of

Turkmenistan’s annual gas production. [See pp. 561A1, 473B2] Berdymukhammedov said the project had “political” value, adding that “China, through its wise and farsighted policy has become one of the key guarantors of global security.” Hu Dec. 12 had also attended a ceremony in Kazakhstan that marked the opening of the Kazakh section of the pipeline. The pipeline, which originated at a Chinese-developed Turkmen gas field, notably bypassed Russia, which had a monopoly on the westward flow of natural gas from Central Asia to Europe. Russia had previously been contracted to purchase about 50 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas per year. However, Turkmen gas shipments to Russia had stopped and were never resumed after an explosion in April had damaged a Turkmen supply pipeline to Russia. Analysts suggested that Turkmenistan’s deal with China would help to ease the country’s economic dependence on Russia. Russia did not sell gas to China. [See below, p. 938G3] A European consortium that included Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria was currently developing the Nabucco pipeline, which was designed to transport gas from Central Asia through Turkey without passing through Russia.

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Turkmenistan Awards Gas Contracts—

Berdymukhammedov Dec. 29 signed off on $9.7 billion in contracts for exploration of Turkmenistan’s South Iolotan gas field, which was thought to contain 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. Contracts were awarded to engineering and other companies in South Korea, China, Britain and the United Arab Emirates. China earlier in the year had extended a loan of as much as $4 billion to Turkmenistan to develop the field. [See 2008, p. 796D1] n

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Asia-Pacific News in Brief Cambodia: Opposition Leader Loses Immunity.

Cambodia’s National Assembly Nov. 16 stripped Sam Rainsy, the head of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, of his parliamentary immunity, allowing a criminal investigation into his support for Cambodians who had removed border demarcations between Cambodia and Vietnam. In October, Rainsy had encouraged Cambodians living in the country’s Svay Rieng province, near the border with Vietnam, to remove the demarcations, arguing that the Vietnamese were attempting to lay claim to Cambodian land. The Cambodian government Dec. 29 issued a warrant for Rainsy’s arrest after he failed to appear in a Svay Rieng court Dec. 28 to face charges of intentionally damaging property and inciting racial discrimination. Rainsy, who was thought to be in France, had criticized the case against him as politically motivated. [See 2008, p. 521A3] n Indonesia: ‘Time’ Wins Suharto Appeal.

The Indonesian Supreme Court April 16 ruled that the U.S’s Time magazine had not broken Indonesian law by alleging in a 1999 article in its Asian edition that former Indonesian President Suharto and his family had unethically built a $15 billion fortune during his 32-year rule. The ruling 935

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overturned a 2007 ruling by a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court that had ordered Time to apologize for its allegations and to pay Suharto’s family a total of one trillion Indonesian rupiah ($93 million) in damages. [See 2007, p. 596E1] n Kazakhstan: 37 Die in Hospital Fire. A Sept. 13 fire at a drug treatment facility in the southeastern town of Taldykorgan killed 37 people and injured 10. Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Bozhko said locked doors and barred windows had prevented some of the victims from escaping. The wooden facility, which was reportedly built in 1951, had no alarm system and a history of safety violations. [See p. 854F3] n

the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Al Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim group, had not previously been known to associate with the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah. Shiite Islam was also the official religion of Iran. [See pp. 878E1, 820A2] The trial was held behind closed doors. Defense lawyers boycotted the sentencing as unfair, and pledged to appeal the verdict. Some media outlets had suggested that Hezbollah had been planning an attack in Baku to avenge the 2008 death of Imad Mughniyah, a top Hezbollah leader who had been sought by the U.S. and Israel for numerous terrorist attacks that had killed hundreds of people. [See 2008, p. 94D1]n

Myanmar: Suu Kyi Meets Party Leaders.

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Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Dec. 16 was allowed to meet with three high-ranking members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. The meeting was the first of its kind since January 2008, and was the result of a request Suu Kyi had made to the country’s ruling junta, which had imprisoned her for 14 of the past 20 years. Suu Kyi reportedly informed the NLD officials that she intended to restructure the party’s executive committee by adding younger members. Suu Kyi Nov. 11 had also sent Than Shwe, the head of the junta, a letter requesting a face-to-face meeting. Separately, Myanmar’s Supreme Court Dec. 21 held a hearing considering Suu Kyi’s appeal of her August conviction on charges that she had violated the terms of her house arrest. The court agreed to hear Suu Kyi’s appeal but did not set a date for the hearing. [See p. 763B2] n Singapore: Courts Rule Against Dow Jones.

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A Singapore court March 19 found Melanie Kirkpatrick, a U.S.-based editor of the Wall Street Journal Asia, in contempt of court for publishing two opinion articles and a letter in 2008 concerning alleged corruption in the Singapore judiciary. Kirkpatrick was fined 10,000 Singapore dollars (US$6,500). An appeals court panel Oct. 7 upheld a separate 2008 judgment against the Far Eastern Economic Review, which like the Journal was published by the Dow Jones & Co. unit of international media conglomerate News Corp., for impugning the integrity of top government officials. (Separately, Dow Jones Sept. 21 said it was closing the Hong Kong–based Review, which had been founded in 1946.) [See 2008, p. 942F2] n

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Azerbaijan Six Guilty of Plotting Israeli Embassy Attack.

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A court Oct. 5 found four Azerbaijanis and two Lebanese nationals guilty of plotting in 2008 to attack the Israeli embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, as well as a Russianoperated radar station in the country’s north. They were sentenced to between 12 and 15 years in prison. The prosecution had argued that the suspects were linked to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the international terrorist network Al Qaeda and 936

Croatia Presidential Election Goes to Runoff. Results for Croatia’s Dec. 27 presidential election released that day showed that Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Ivo Josipovic and Milan Bandic, the populist mayor of Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, had finished first and second, respectively, and would advance to a runoff election scheduled for Jan. 10, 2010. Bandic was an independent linked to the SDP. Neither candidate had won a majority of votes, which was required to avoid a runoff election between the top two candidates. President Stjepan Mesic was slated to step down in February after completing his second five-year term. Presidents in Croatia were limited to two terms. [See p. 463A1] Of the 13 presidential candidates who competed in the first round, Josipovic won 32.4% of the vote, to Bandic’s 14.8%. Andrija Hebrang, the candidate for Croatia’s governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), received 12% of the vote and was not eligible to compete in the runoff. Both Josipovic and Bandic were considered pro-European. The winner was expected to oversee Croatia’s accession to the European Union. The position of president in Croatia was largely ceremonial. However, the president acted as the head of the army, and held some influence over foreign policy. n

France Court Rules Google Violated Book Rights.

A Paris court Dec. 18 ruled that U.S.-based Internet company Google Inc. had violated the copyrights of French authors by scanning their books in U.S. library collections and making excerpts from the works available online without their consent. The verdict was the first in which Google’s book digitization program, which included 10 million books to date, had been found illegal. [See p. 601A1] The court ordered Google to pay 300,000 euros ($430,000) in damages to French book publisher La Martiniere Groupe, and to stop using its titles without permission. It also ordered Google to pay 10,000 euros per day in fines until it removed the extracts from its online collection. Google said it would appeal the verdict. La Martiniere had filed its lawsuit against Google in 2006, and had since been

joined by a French publishers’ association and an authors’ group. French President Nicolas Sarkozy Dec. 14 had announced that the government would provide 750 million euros for a program to digitize French books, historical documents, museum archives, films and other national cultural resources. Sarkozy said, “We can’t let this heritage go astray,” adding, “It’s a question of national identity.” In August, the French National Library had disclosed that it was in talks with Google about digitizing its collections, prompting a controversy that led to a suspension of those discussions. The funding for the French digitization plan was part of a broader 35 billion euro economic stimulus package unveiled Dec. 14 by Sarkozy. The stimulus funding would be dedicated to university system upgrades and technological research and development projects. Sarkozy said the government would finance the package by borrowing 22 billion euros and using 13 billion euros in rescue aid recently repaid by banks. Google had reached a settlement with other European book publishers in September, agreeing to remove from its database all books that were out of print in the U.S. but still commercially available in Europe. In 2008, Google had agreed to a settlement with U.S. publishers and authors, paying $125 million for the right to digitize out-of-print books, but the deal had drawn opposition from rival Internet companies, as well as some authors and libraries. The Justice Department in a Sept. 18 court filing had warned that the settlement might violate copyright and antitrust laws. Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York City Nov. 19 granted preliminary approval to a revised version of the settlement, which would limit Google’s collection to books published in the U.S., Britain or Australia. It would also name an independent fiduciary, or trustee, to oversee the handling of so-called orphan books, whose copyright holders were unknown or could not be found. The trustee would be able to grant licenses to other companies to digitize such books; under the earlier version of the settlement, Google would have had exclusive access to them. Chin scheduled a hearing on the revised agreement for Feb. 18, 2010. Also, a Chinese writer, Mian Mian, Oct. 23 filed a lawsuit against Google over its scanning of her novel Acid Lover. Google withdrew the text from its database, but Mian pressed the case, whose first hearing was held Dec. 29 in a court in Beijing, China’s capital. n National Identity Debate Opened. The French government Nov. 2 opened a debate on national identity that was to be held in a series of public meetings and in online discussions. President Nicolas Sarkozy had called for the debate at a time of tension between France’s republican concept of egalitarian citizenship and growing pressure to assimilate Muslim immigrants. France had the largest Muslim population in Western Europe, at about five million. Minister of Immigration, Integration and National Identity Eric Besson was in FACTS ON FILE

charge of the national debate. [See pp. 836F2, 432F2] The opposition Socialist Party accused Sarkozy of using the debate as a political ploy to build support for his center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) ahead of regional elections in March 2010. In a speech on national identity, Sarkozy Nov. 12 asserted that “there is a profound unity of our culture.” But he reiterated his view that “France is a country where there is no place for the burqa,” a full-length, face-hiding Muslim garment for women. In a statement published Dec. 8 on the front page of the newspaper Le Monde, Sarkozy linked the debate to a recent referendum in Switzerland, in which voters had backed a ban on new construction of mosque minarets. Sarkozy said, “I address my Muslim countrymen to say I will do everything to make them feel they are citizens like any other,” and vowed to fight discrimination. However, he also warned Muslims that “in our country, where Christian civilization has left such a deep trace, where republican values are an integral part of our national identity, everything that could be taken as a challenge to this heritage and its values would condemn to failure the necessary establishment of a French Islam.” He advised Muslims to avoid “ostentation or provocation” in their religious practices. Integration had become a fraught topic after nationwide youth riots in 2005 drew attention to the resentments of immigrants living in housing projects in French suburbs, plagued by discrimination and unemployment. n Court Rejects Carbon Tax. France’s Constitutional Council Dec. 30 rejected a new tax on carbon dioxide emissions by businesses and households, proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, that was supposed to have taken effect Jan. 1, 2010. The court said the law would create inequalities and fail as an effective measure against climate change because it would exempt 93% of industrial pollution sources. The law would have imposed a flat 17 euro ($25) tax for every metric ton of carbon emissions. The opposition Socialist Party had asked the court to review the law, arguing that it would place an unfair burden on lowincome families. [See p. 644F2] Prime Minister Francois Fillon said a new version of the legislation, amended to address the court’s objections, would be presented to the cabinet for consideration by Jan. 20, 2010. n

Georgia Monument Demolition Debris Kills Two.

A Georgian woman and her eight-year-old daughter Dec. 19 were killed when they were hit by chunks of flying concrete that fell as a Soviet World War II memorial in Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-largest city, was destroyed in a controlled explosion. Georgian authorities the following day detained the technical director of GruzVzryvProm, a company involved with the demolition. President Mikheil Saakashvili Dec. 20 also December 31, 2009

fired the governor of the Imereti region, of which Kutaisi was the capital. Hundreds of people Dec. 21 gathered at the memorial site to call for punishment of those responsible for the deaths. [See pp. 874D2, 665E3] Saakashvili had spearheaded plans to knock down the 150-foot (46-m) monument, in order to make room for a new parliament building in Kutaisi. (The Georgian parliament currently met in Tbilisi, the capital.) However, a number of Georgians had opposed the demolition plans, arguing that there was room for the new building elsewhere in Kutaisi, and the monument’s planned destruction was an affront to the 300,000 Georgians who had died fighting in World War II. The demolition had initially been scheduled to take place on Dec. 21, Saakashvili’s 42nd birthday. However, the demolition occurred two days before then, in what some observers suggested was a move by Saakashvili to avoid public scrutiny. The memorial, which had featured a horseman stabbing a Nazi soldier with a sword, had been designed by renowned sculptor Murab Berdzenishvili, who was also known for his criticism of Saakashvili. Russian leaders condemned the incident. Both Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, Russia’s capital, suggested that the monument be rebuilt in Moscow. n

Great Britain Assisted Suicide Prosecution Rules Eased.

The director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Keir Starmer, Sept. 23 issued new guidelines that narrowed the circumstances under which people could face criminal charges for helping a relative or friend commit suicide. Assisted suicide would remain illegal in Britain, but Starmer listed a number of factors that would make prosecution less likely, such as the deceased person having had a terminal illness or “severe and incurable physical disability.” Compassion as a motive on the part of the person aiding the suicide would also weigh against prosecution. [See p. 117C1] However, Starmer also listed factors that would make prosecution more likely, including the deceased being under 18 years of age; mentally handicapped; or not suffering from a terminal illness or other severe medical condition. Malicious or self-interested motives would also expose the helper to criminal charges. More than 100 British residents had committed assisted suicide at Dignitas, a clinic in Switzerland that provided terminally ill patients with lethal injections. None of their family members had been prosecuted for helping them travel to the clinic, but the Law Lords, then Britain’s highest court (before the opening of the new Supreme Court in October) had ordered Starmer to clarify the guidelines in July. Swiss Justice Minister Eveline WidmerSchlumpf Oct. 28 said the government would propose legislation to impose

stricter rules on Dignitas and other assisted-suicide clinics, and would shut them down if they did not comply. She said, “We have no interest, as a country, in being attractive for suicide tourism,” and warned against turning clinics into a “profit-driven business.” The new Swiss rules would require patients to produce two medical opinions diagnosing them with a terminal illness, with death expected to occur within months, and attesting that they were mentally capable of making the decision to commit suicide. The proposals would be open for public comment until March 1, 2010, when they would be sent to parliament. n News in Brief. London’s Metropolitan Police and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian man shot by

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police who mistook him for a suicide bomber in July 2005, Nov. 23 announced

that they had agreed to a settlement. Under the agreement, the family would drop all litigation in exchange for an undisclosed payment and a public apology by the police. [See 2008, p. 928B2] A jury in Woolwich Crown Court in London Dec. 8 convicted Adam Khatib of conspiracy to murder for taking part in a

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plot to bomb transatlantic passenger jets with liquid explosives, which was thwarted

by police in 2006. Khatib, 23, was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison. Two other men, Mohammed Shamin Uddin, 39, and Nabeel Hussain, 25, were convicted of participating in the plot, receiving sentences of 15 months and eight years, respectively. Abdulla Ahmed Ali had been convicted and sentenced in September for acting as the plot’s ringleader. [See p. 608B1] Britain’s Payments Council Dec. 16 announced a plan to phase out the national check clearing system, ending the use of paper checks by 2018. The council said it would conduct a review in 2016 to determine whether there were adequate alternatives to checks before abolishing them. Advocates for the elderly and for small businesses criticized the plan, saying that it would mainly benefit banks. Their processing costs were much lower for electronic payments than for checks, whose use had originated in Britain in the 17th century. Ireland, South Africa and Australia were reportedly conducting reviews of the future use of checks. [See 2004, p. 900F2] Anglo-French high-speed rail company Eurostar Dec. 22 resumed service three days after five trains stopped running midway through the English Channel Tunnel. The malfunction trapped 2,500 passengers in the tunnel for as long as 16 hours, and stranded tens of thousands of others whose trains were canceled during one of the year’s busiest travel periods. An independent investigation was opened to assess the causes of the incident. The engine failure was blamed on snow that melted when the trains entered the tunnel, causing condensation that disabled their electrical systems. Heavy snow and ice disrupted rail, road and air travel across Europe that week. n 937

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Greece Budget Cuts Passed After Debt Downgrades.

The Greek parliament Dec. 24 voted to approve an austere 2010 budget proposed by the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou. The budget called for spending cuts and higher taxes designed to cut the deficit, in response to recent downgrades of the government’s credit rating. [See p. 875D2] The budget was aimed at cutting the deficit to 9.1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, from an estimated 12.7% in 2009. It included a combined eight billion euros ($11.5 billion) in spending cuts and tax hikes. The national debt was projected to rise to 120% of GDP in 2010. Greece faced international skepticism that it would be able to deliver on its budget plan, due to the country’s history of broken fiscal pledges. Papandreou, who had been in office only since October, said the budget would allow Greece to begin “rebuilding our credibility.” Credit-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service Dec. 22 lowered its rating for Greek government debt to A2, from A1. However, Greek stock and bond markets rallied on the news, since Moody’s cut Greece’s rating by just one notch, and not two. The other two major agencies, Standard & Poor’s Corp. and Fitch Ratings, had downgraded their credit ratings for Greece earlier in December. They both now rated Greek debt at a lower level than Moody’s, BBB-plus. But Moody’s Dec. 22 also put Greece on a negative credit outlook, signaling that further cuts were possible and would be based on how effective the government’s deficit cutting proved. n

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Bishops Resign in Child Abuse Scandal.

The Vatican Dec. 17 said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Donal Murray, the Roman Catholic bishop of Limerick, Ireland, who was one of five bishops named in a report issued in late November for covering up child abuse by Irish priests over several decades. The Vatican Dec. 11 had said Benedict was “deeply disturbed and distressed” by the report and planned to write to Irish Catholics about the scandal. But an Irish victims’ group said the pope should visit Ireland and make a public apology. [See p. 836C1] It was reported Dec. 23 that James Moriarty, the bishop of Kildare, had offered his resignation to the pope. Two auxiliary bishops of Dublin, the Irish capital, Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, Dec. 24 issued a joint statement saying that they had resigned. Martin Drennan, the bishop of Galway, was the only one of the five bishops named in the report who had not resigned by the end of December. n

Kosovo Local Election Runoffs Held. Kosovo Dec. 13 held a second round of mayoral elections in 21 of its 36 municipalities, for rac938

es in which no candidate had won a majority of votes in the first round in November. The European Union presidency, which was currently held by Sweden, in a statement Dec. 15 welcomed the “orderly” elections, and added that they marked “important progress for the further consolidation of a democratic and multiethnic society in accordance with European standards.” Kosovo in 2008 had declared independence from Serbia, which maintained that the declaration was illegitimate. [See p. 803F1] Results released Dec. 14 showed that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s governing Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) had won 10 of the 21 contested seats. The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), headed by President Fatmir Sejdiu, won five, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) won three. Kosovo’s central election commission Dec. 28 ordered that elections be rerun yet again in two municipalities, after investigators found evidence of fraud in the Dec. 13 voting. The rerun was scheduled for Jan. 31, 2010. Investigators were expected to review results in a third municipality before deciding whether to rerun that election. n

Romania Parliament Approves New Government.

The Romanian parliament Dec. 23 voted, 276–135, to approve a new centrist government headed by Prime Minister Emil Boc. The new government was sworn in that day. Romania had been administered by an interim government since October, when the previous administration, also headed by Boc, had lost a parliamentary confidence vote. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in November had said it would delay installments of a $29 billion loan package until a new government was in place. [See p. 875B2] The IMF, which had extended the loan in March, required Romania to cut state spending before funds could be released. Boc said his government’s priority was to pass an austerity budget by mid-January 2010, with the goal of decreasing Romania’s budget deficit to 5.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, from an estimated 7.3% in 2009. As many as 100,000 state jobs were expected to be cut as part of the budget. Romania’s GDP was forecast to shrink by at least 7% in 2009. n

Russia Prisons Faulted in Lawyer’s Death. The Mos-

cow Public Oversight commission, which had been created in 2008 by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in order to monitor human rights in jails, Dec. 28 released a report that faulted prosecutors, prisons and the interior ministry for failing to attend to the medical needs of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who had died in prison in November while awaiting trial for tax evasion. Medvedev in November had ordered a criminal investigation into his death. He

Dec. 29 banned pretrial jailing for defendants facing first-time tax offense charges. [See p. 821E3] According to the report, Magnitsky, who had worked as a lawyer for Londonbased investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, in June had been diagnosed with pancreatitis and gall bladder disease. A doctor ordered surgery, but Magnitsky weeks later was transferred to Butyrskaya prison, which had limited medical facilities. Magnitsky repeatedly complained of severe stomach pains in the days immediately preceding his death. On the day of his death, Magnitsky claimed that people were trying to kill him, and was subsequently ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination. Magnitsky was then given an injection to ease pain, and died in a prison cell about an hour later. The commission, which named some officials it blamed for Magnitsky’s death, said the denial of treatment “raised questions about the violation of [Magnitsky’s] right to life.” It also said Magnitsky was subjected to “physical and psychological pressure” while detained. Medvedev Dec. 11 had fired 20 prison officials, including Alexander Reimer, head of the federal penitentiary service. Gen. Anatoly Mikhailkin, head of the interior ministry’s tax crime office for Moscow, the capital, Dec. 15 was removed on Medvedev’s order. n Vehicle Carrying Activist’s Family Explodes.

Two relatives of slain rights activist Maksharip Aushev Dec. 16 were killed in Nazran, the main city in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, after their vehicle exploded near a police checkpoint. Aushev’s mother-in-law and brother-in-law died in the explosion. Aushev’s widow, Fatima Dzhaniyeva, and another brother-inlaw were injured. [See p. 892F2] Ingush authorities gave conflicting explanations for the blast. Some said the vehicle exploded after police fired on it when the family made a U-turn and fled before a security checkpoint near Magas, the Ingush capital. Others said a remote-controlled explosive planted on the vehicle had caused the blast. Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Dec. 17 reported that local opposition politician Magomed Khazbiyev claimed that the family had allowed police to search the vehicle, which then exploded after it passed through the checkpoint. A suicide bomber Dec. 17 rammed his explosives-laden car into the same police checkpoint. The ensuing blast injured at least 23 people. Yuri Turygin, Ingushetia’s top prosecutor, Dec. 18 identified the suicide bomber as Batyr Dzhaniyev, Dzhaniyeva’s brother. Turygin said Dzhaniyev, who was not involved in the previous day’s explosion, had apparently wanted to avenge the deaths of his mother and brother. n Siberian Oil Pipeline Opens. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Dec. 28 attended an opening ceremony for the first section of the East Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, which would eventually run from Taishet in East Siberia’s Irkutsk region to the port of Kozmino, on the Pacific Ocean. The first FACTS ON FILE

section, which had been completed in November, ran 1,713 miles (2,757 km) from Taishet to Skovorodino, a town in Russia’s Amur province. Oil was then loaded on rail tankers and transported to Kozmino. A pipeline connecting Skovorodino to Kozmino was currently being developed, as was an oil pipeline linking Skovorodino to the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing. [See p. 935F2, 2008, p. 317E1] Putin said the pipeline was a “strategic project” that allowed Russia to “enter new markets in the Asia-Pacific region.” n News in Brief. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Dec. 29, on a government Web site, said Russia would build new weapons to “preserve a balance” between it and the U.S., which was developing a European missile defense system to guard against short- and medium-range missiles from Iran. Putin urged the U.S. to offer more information to Russia about the missile defense system, and said Russia would in turn “provide some information about offensive weapons.” Russia and the U.S. were currently negotiating a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which limited the number of nuclear weapons each could possess. The treaty had expired in December, but both sides had indicated that they would continue to abide by its terms. [See pp. 941C1, 885F2, 706A1–B1] The interior ministry Dec. 28 announced that 15 Kyrgyz minors who had been forced to act as slave labor at a clothing factory outside Moscow, the capital, had been released. Police said the minors’ documents had been confiscated, they had not received wages or free time and were forced to live “in impoverished conditions under day-and-night guard.” Several Kyrgyz nationals were arrested at the factory, most of whom were living in Russia illegally. [See p. 891E3] The rights group Memorial, which had investigated government abuses in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, Dec. 16 resumed activities there. The office had closed shortly after the July shooting death of rights activist Natalya Estemirova, saying it was too dangerous to conduct rights work in Chechnya. The same day, the European Union presented Memorial with the Sakharov Prize, its top rights award. The EU said the award was meant to signal that Russian rights groups should not be silenced by fears of violent retribution. [See below, p. 855C2] Gennady Prudetsky, 54, director of a rights group called the Foundation to Protect the Rights of Victims of Repression and Convicts, Dec. 10 was found dead in the central Russian city of Kemerovo. He reportedly had been shot to death. [See p. 855B2] Gen. Vasily Khristoforov, the head archivist for the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the Soviet-era KGB intelligence service, in a Dec. 7 interview with Russia’s Interfax news outlet said the remains of Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler had been destroyed in 1970 by KGB agents.

He said the agents had acted on orders from then–KGB head Yuri Andropov, who later served as Soviet leader, from 1982 to 1984. December 31, 2009

Khristoforov said the remains were destroyed because KGB leaders feared that Hitler’s grave could become a place of worship for fascists. According to Khristoforov, the remains of Hitler, his wife Eva Braun, and those of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and his family had been burned and cast into a river in what was then East Germany. He added that fragments of Hitler’s skull and jaw were currently kept at the FSB archives in Russia. [See p. 853C3] n

Serbia EU Membership Application Submitted. Ser-

bian President Boris Tadic Dec. 22 submitted Serbia’s European Union membership application to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which currently held the rotating EU presidency. Serbia’s efforts to join the EU had been delayed over its failure to apprehend and extradite two war criminals—former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who was wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Goran Hadzic, a Croatian Serb rebel leader wanted for war crimes in Croatia. Both were accused of committing crimes against humanity during the 1991–95 ethnic wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. [See pp. 940E1, 893E1, 728B3; 2008, p. 492D3] Tadic submitted the application after EU foreign ministers Dec. 7 had agreed to allow an interim free trade agreement between Serbia and the EU to move forward. The Netherlands had blocked the deal for 18 months over Serbia’s failure to catch Mladic, but relented after ICTY chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz Dec. 3 said Serbian cooperation with the ICTY was progressing. n

Sweden Same-Sex Marriage Legalized. The Swedish parliament April 1 voted, 226–22, to give final approval to a law granting same-sex marriage rights. The law took effect May 1, making Sweden the seventh country to legalize gay marriage, following the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Norway. They had all done so since 2000. Sweden had recognized gay civil unions, but not marriages, since 1994, and made it legal for gay couples to adopt children in 2002. [See p. 868E1; 2005, p. 492G3] The new law would allow same-sex couples to wed in either civil or religious ceremonies, but it allowed individual churches or clergy to refuse to officiate. The Swedish Lutheran Church, the largest church in the country, said it would celebrate and register gay weddings but would not recognize them as marriages. n

Switzerland Geothermal Project Halted After Quakes.

The Swiss government Dec. 10 ordered the termination of a geothermal drilling project near Basel that had inadvertently caused earthquakes. The project had been halted in

2006 after earthquakes that caused nine million Swiss francs ($9 million) in damage to buildings. The strongest quake registered a magnitude of 3.4 on the Richter scale of ground motion. A subsequent analysis found that the drilling was likely to cause further earthquakes and property damage every year, with a 15% probability of a quake that would cause up to $500 million in damage. Those findings prompted the government’s decision to end the project. [See p. 445G3] The project designer, geologist Marcus Haering, went on trial Dec. 15, facing charges of deliberate property damage. He testified that the earthquakes had been “a learning project” for his team, but that an emergency plan had been prepared. He was acquitted Dec. 21. The company behind the project, Geopower Basel, had already paid out compensation for the property damage. The project had been intended to be the first in the world to achieve commercial production of geothermal energy, which was thought to hold great potential as a source of renewable energy. The technique was designed to generate power by drilling as deep as three miles (five kilometers) underground, breaking the hot bedrock of the Earth’s crust and pumping water into the shaft to produce enough steam to generate electricity for 10,000 homes. Two other Swiss geothermal projects were still set to continue. One had begun exploratory drilling near Zurich in November; the other, near St. Gallen, was to begin in 2010. A project in Germany was undergoing a safety review after it was blamed for causing an earthquake Aug. 15 in the southwestern city of Landau in der Pfalz. The German energy company Geo X GmbH was responsible for that project. In the U.S., a Seattle, Wash.–based company, AltaRock Energy Inc., Dec. 11 shut down a geothermal project in California, about 100 miles (160 km) north of San Francisco, after delays caused by drilling problems and safety reviews. The U.S. Energy Department had provided a $6 million grant for the project, known as the Geysers. It had been the first major test of the department’s geothermal program, which had received $440 million in funding in 2009. A department spokeswoman Dec. 11 affirmed that the Obama administration was still committed to the program, saying, “Geothermal energy holds enormous potential to heat our homes and power our economy while decreasing carbon pollution.” [See p. 881A1] n

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Ukraine IMF Modifies Loan Terms. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dec. 30 announced modifications to loan criteria with Ukraine, which would allow the cashstrapped country to use $2 billion from its reserves to pay off debts, including a natural gas bill due to Russia in January 2010. Under the terms of the IMF loan, worth a total of $16.4 billion, Ukraine had been required to keep a certain amount of cash in its reserves in order to qualify for loan in939

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stallments. So far $10.6 billion had been disbursed. The IMF loan was Ukraine’s largest source of foreign income. [See pp. 274F1, 3F1] n

Other European News Karadzic Counsel Appointed. The Interna-

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tional Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Netherlands, Dec. 23 ruled that British lawyer Richard Harvey “would be able to provide effective and professional legal assistance” to former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who faced 11 counts of war crimes allegedly committed during the 1992–95 Bosnian civil war. The ICTY Nov. 20 had appointed Harvey to serve as Karadzic’s defense counsel, after Karadzic, who had insisted that he represent himself, boycotted the first few sessions of his trial. [See p. 767E2] The ICTY earlier in November had ruled that an appointed counsel would take over for Karadzic if he attempted to obstruct his trial, which was scheduled to resume in March 2010. Karadzic Dec. 4 and Dec. 7 filed motions to remove Harvey as his counsel, complaining that Harvey was sympathetic to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and that he should be allowed to choose a Serb lawyer. (NATO had carried out a bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999 to expel its forces from Kosovo, which had since declared independence from Serbia. Serbia rejected the declaration.) The ICTY Dec. 23 said Karadzic’s complaints were “at best, suspicious,” because several of his own pro bono legal advisers were from the U.S., which it said was “widely recognized as the leading NATO power.” [See p. 939B2; 1999, p. 679A3] n EU Lifts Visa Rules for Balkan States. The European Union Dec. 19 began allowing citizens of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia to enter EU member states without a visa, after 20 years of visa requirements. Under the new rules, citizens of the three Balkan countries were allowed to visit the EU for up to 90 days every six months. (Passports were still required of those visitors.) The EU had implemented visa requirements during the ethnic wars of the 1990s that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. [See pp. 939B2, 463C3, 344G1] n U.N. Renews Bosnian Peacekeeping Force.

The United Nations Security Council Nov. 18 passed a resolution that authorized the European Union peacekeeping force in Bosnia to operate for another year. The peacekeeping mission, which was currently composed of about 2,000 troops from 25 countries, was designed to ensure compliance with the 1995 Dayton peace accords that had ended Bosnia’s 1992–95 civil war. The EU had taken over the mission from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004. [See p. 727D1; 2004, p. 1060F3] The resolution emphasized that the Bosnian government was primarily responsible for implementing the Dayton accords. 940

It also reaffirmed the authority of the international high representative, a position created by the Dayton accords that functioned as the supreme authority on interpreting the Bosnian constitution. n

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Eight Iranians Killed in Demonstrations on Shiite Holiday Protests Called Most Violent Since Election.

Tens of thousands of Iranians Dec. 27 protested against the government in Tehran, the capital, and other cities including Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz and Tabriz, on the Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura. State media said eight people were killed in the protests, although they denied any had been killed by police. However, opposition activists said security forces killed as many as dozens of people, and had fired on crowds of protesters. Estimates of how many people were arrested ranged from several hundred to about 1,500. The protests were reportedly the most violent since demonstrations following a disputed June presidential election were brutally suppressed by the government. [See p. 883B2] The demonstrations followed major protests the previous weekend at the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a senior Shiite cleric who had supported the opposition movement. In the week since Montazeri’s death, there had been demonstrations in Tehran, Isfahan, Najafabad and Zanjan. Police in Tehran Dec. 27 reportedly fired into crowds and beat protesters, and there were reports of protesters fighting back against security forces, and burning police cars, motorcycles and a police station. Ashura commemorated the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the hands of the caliph Yazid, in what was seen as a fight against injustice. Violence was traditionally prohibited during the holiday: the Iranian government during the 1980–88 war with Iraq had halted military actions, and protesters had often marched against the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who had ruled Iran from 1941 to 1979, on Ashura so that they would not be attacked by his forces. Protesters were reportedly not expecting Iran’s theocratic government to react as aggressively as it did to the latest protest, and media reports said the clericled government’s violation of the ban on violence could further weaken its legitimacy. One of those killed in the protests was Ali Moussavi, 43, a nephew of former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, an opposition leader. Family members said Ali Moussavi had been run over by a car bearing government agents, and then shot in order to intimidate his uncle. Opposition members also said Moussavi had previously received threats. The government said he had been killed by unknown assailants.

Government officials late Dec. 27 reportedly seized Ali Moussavi’s body, in what his family said was a move to prevent them from holding a funeral at which there might be more protests. However, the government Dec. 28 said it had taken the bodies of Ali Moussavi and four other slain protesters to perform autopsies. Ali Moussavi was buried Dec. 30, and his family said they had been ordered to hold a quiet funeral. The state-run Press TV Dec. 30 said the government had concluded that Ali Moussavi had been assassinated. Press TV also reported that the government had arrested the man who had killed him by running him over with a car. Separately, the semiofficial Iran Student News Agency (ISNA) Dec. 31 reported that a video that had been circulating on the Internet showing a police pickup running over a man in the Dec. 27 protests was a fake, and that no deaths had been reported in the area of Tehran where the video was apparently filmed. Dozens Arrested After Protests—The Iranian government Dec. 28–29 arrested dozens of activists, journalists and other people in the wake of the protests, in what was seen as an attempt to intimidate the opposition movement. Among those arrested were: Ibrahim Yazdi, who had served as foreign minister in the first Iranian government established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and currently headed the opposition Iranian Freedom Party; his niece, Leila Tavassoli; journalist and prominent human rights activist Emadeddin Baghi; Dr. Noushin Ebadi, the sister of Iranian rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who was in London; Mousavi Tebrizi, a senior cleric from the holy city of Qom who was close to Mir Hossein Moussavi; Ali Reza Beheshti, a top Moussavi aide; and Shapour Kazemi, Moussavi’s brother-inlaw. [See pp. 768F1, 610B1, 330D1; 2005, p. 415C1] U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 28 offered his strongest public support yet for the opposition movement, saying that Iranians were demonstrating for “justice and a better life for themselves,” and that “the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband that day also condemned the Iranian crackdown on the protests as “disturbing.” An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Dec. 29 accused the U.S. and Britain of orchestrating the protests, as Iran had claimed after past demonstrations. The semiofficial Fars news agency Dec. 29 reported that the Iranian government had summoned the British ambassador, Simon Gass. The government Dec. 30 sponsored protests against the opposition in Tehran and other cities that were attended by tens of thousands of Iranians. Iran’s national police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, the same day said that in the future “there will be no mercy” shown to antigovernment protesters. FACTS ON FILE

Other Iran News Ahmadinejad Denies Nuclear Trigger Claim.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Dec. 18 dismissed as “fundamentally not true” claims made earlier that month by the the Times of London that Iran was testing a neutron initiator, which was used to trigger the explosion of a nuclear warhead. In an interview with ABC News’s Diane Sawyer, recorded Dec. 18 and broadcast Dec. 21, Ahmadinejad said evidence cited by the Times was “all a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government.” David Axelrod, a senior adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, Dec. 20 said it was “nonsense” to suggest that the U.S. had made up the evidence. [See p. 876A2] Iran said its nuclear program was for civilian purposes, but the U.S. and its allies said it was developing a nuclear weapon. Ahmadinejad Dec. 22 said he would not abide by Western nations’ year-end deadline to agree to a program under which Iran would ship most of its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. However, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Dec. 24 said on state-run television that Iran would agree to swapping the uranium for higher-enriched material in neighboring Turkey; Iran had previously insisted that such a swap take place within its borders. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu praised Mottaki’s announcement and said his government would try to negotiate a successful swap. The Associated Press (AP) Dec. 29 reported that Iran was close to finalizing plans to secretly import 1,350 tons (1,225 metric tons) of purified uranium ore, worth $450 million, from Kazakhstan. Iran was reportedly running out of the ore, which could be refined into nuclear material. The AP had learned of the deal from an intelligence report provided by an unnamed country that belonged to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Both Kazakhstan and Iran denied December 31, 2009

that they were negotiating such a deal, which would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. U.S. prosecutors Dec. 30 announced that Farshid Jahedi—the former head of the Alavi Foundation, a New York City–based organization which U.S. authorities said was secretly run by the Iranian government—had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to obstruction of justice. Jahedi was accused of destroying financial documents in December 2008 that he knew would be subpoenaed as part of a grand jury investigation. [See p. 804C3] n Bin Laden Children Reported in Tehran.

The Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq AlAwsat Dec. 23 reported that six of Al Qaeda international terrorism network leader Osama bin Laden’s children had been living in Tehran, the Iranian capital, since 2001. Asharq Al-Awsat said a total of 30 relatives of bin Laden, including the six children, were living there under house arrest. But one of bin Laden’s sons, Omar bin Laden, and his wife, Zaina, that day told the New York Times that those relatives lived in a comfortable compound and were not under arrest, although they said Iranian guards accompanied them on trips into the city. One of Osama bin Laden’s daughters, Iman, had reportedly eluded her guards while on a shopping trip and had taken refuge at the Saudi embassy. [See p. 514F2] The bin Laden relatives had reportedly been detained in Iran after they fled Afghanistan in 2001 and attempted to reach Saudi Arabia. Omar bin Laden, who currently lived in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, said none of his siblings in Iran was affiliated with the terrorist group. Omar bin Laden had reportedly broken with his father before Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. Another of Osama bin Laden’s sons, Saad bin Laden, had been reported killed by a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan in July. However, Omar and Zaina bin Laden in the Times interview said Saad had been at the Tehran compound at the time of the missile strike, although they said they did not know his current location or whether he was still alive. n News in Brief. Members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps Oct. 26 arrest-

on charges of spying for Israel, spreading propaganda against Iran’s clerical government and “insulting religious sanctities,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. Bahai leaders said the defendants, who had been arrested in 2008, were being persecuted because of their faith. There were some 300,000 Bahais in Iran, the religion’s birthplace, but its practice had been banned as heretical after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. [See 1989, p. 79F1; 1983, p. 413B3] An airliner veered off the runway and caught fire July 24 while landing in the northern city of Mashdad, killing at least 17 of the 153 people on board. The plane, Aria Air Flight 1525, was a Russian-made Ilyushin Il-62. Another Russian-made jetliner had crashed nine days earlier, shortly after taking off from Tehran, the capital, killing all 168 people aboard. [See p. 482F3] n

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British Hostage Held Since 2007 Released.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband Dec. 30 announced that Peter Moore, a British computer consultant who in May 2007 had been kidnapped from the Iraqi finance ministry in Baghdad, the capital, by gunmen dressed as Iraqi police, had been freed and was at the British embassy in Baghdad. The U.S. and Iraqi governments said he had been held captive by the Shiite Muslim militia Asa’ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous. [See p. 563F1] Four British bodyguards who had been kidnapped with Moore—Jason Swindlehurst, Jason Creswell, Alec MacLachlan and Alan McMenemy—were all thought to have been executed. The bodies of Swindlehurst and Creswell had been returned in June, and that of MacLachlan was left at the British embassy Sept. 2, but McMenemy’s body had not been recovered. Miliband said Moore, 39, was in good health and in a “remarkable frame of mind,” and would be returned to Britain as soon as possible. Moore’s relatives Dec. 31

ed about a dozen Iranians after they crossed into Pakistan from Iran. Initial re-

ports said the Iranians were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, but Pakistani officials and Iran’s state-run Press TV later said they were regular border guards who had pursued smugglers into Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Pakistani officials Oct. 27 said the Iranians had been freed. Tensions between Iran and Pakistan had risen after a suicide bombing earlier in October in Iran’s southeastern SistanBaluchistan province killed a number of Revolutionary Guard members. Iran had blamed the bombing on Pakistan, the U.S. and Britain, but all three countries denied involvement. [See p. 729B1] Hassan Haddad, a security judge, Aug. 15 said seven members of Iran’s Bahai community would be tried starting Aug. 18

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AP Photo/Al Arabiya, Via AP Television News, File

Other News—In other Iranian political news: o Fars Dec. 24 reported that Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, who had served as government spokesman under reformist former President Mohammed Khatami, had been sentenced to six years in prison for “acts against the national security, propaganda against the Islamic state and holding classified documents.” He had supported Moussavi in the June presidential election, and had been arrested soon afterward. [See 2000, p. 288D1] o The Council for Cultural Revolution, a body chaired by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Dec. 22 dismissed Moussavi as head of the Academy of Arts, which oversaw arts policy and research. He still served on the Expediency Council, a body that advised Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian legislators and government officials had been calling for Moussavi and other opposition leaders to be arrested and prosecuted. n

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A video image broadcast February 2008 of Peter Moore, a Briton held hostage by Iraqi militants since May 2007. Moore was released Dec. 30.

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Following are tallies of casualties in Iraq since the beginning of a U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, as they stood Dec. 31 [See pp. 941C3, 838F1]: U.S. military casualties:

Deaths Wounded

4,373 31,613

Allied military deaths: 318

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Iraqi security forces deaths: 9,351 Iraqi civilian deaths: 94,939–103,588 (Range based on news reports of deaths) Sources: U.S. casualties: U.S. Defense Department. Allies and Iraqi security forces: www.icasualties.org. Iraqi civilians: www.iraqbodycount.org.

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told the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) said he had received “rough treatment” for the first two years of his captivity. However, they said that during the last six months he was given access to a television, a computer and other amenities. Media outlets Dec. 30 reported that shortly before Moore was released, the U.S. had transferred a suspected Asa’ib alHaq leader, cleric Qais al-Khazali, to Iraqi custody. Khazali and his brother, Laith alKhazali, had been captured in March 2007, but the U.S. had reportedly freed Laith alKhazali in June in return for Asa’ib al-Haq declaring a cease-fire. Iraqi government spokesman Ali alDabbagh Dec. 31 said Qais al-Khazali had not been transferred in exchange for Moore, but as part of a process of encouraging Asa’ib al-Haq to give up violence. He also said that if the Iraqi government could not find sufficient cause to keep Khazali in custody, he would be released. The U.S. military also said Khazali had not been traded for Moore, calling his transfer part of an ongoing shift of detainees to Iraqi from U.S. custody, as required by a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. Iran Blamed for Kidnappings—Britain’s Guardian newspaper Dec. 30 reported that it had found in a yearlong investigation that the kidnapping of Moore and his four bodyguards was engineered by the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It also said the hostages had been held in various locations in Iran—including the holy city of Qom—during their captivity. The Guardian said Iran had kidnapped the Britons to stop Moore from installing an improved tracking system at the Iraqi finance ministry that would have allowed the detection of billions of dollars in aid that had been siphoned off to Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as to take revenge for U.S. threats against Iran and the arrest of Iranians in Iraq. The Guardian charged that Iraqi intelligence officers had discovered where the Britons were being held in Baghdad the night after they were kidnapped and had reported it to the Iraqi defense ministry, but that no action was taken and they were driven across the border the next day into 942

Iran. It also said British intelligence agencies had been aware that the Britons were in Iran, and that the British embassy there had tried to secure their release, but had not approached the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The British Foreign Office said it had “no firm evidence that links Iran directly with the kidnappings.” Sami al-Askari, a senior Iraqi legislator and adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also denied that Iran had a role in the kidnappings, and said he had not traveled to Iran to negotiate for the hostages’ release, as the Guardian had claimed, but had only negotiated with the kidnapping group in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, Dec. 13 told the BBC that he was “90% certain” that Moore had been held in Iran, based on “hard intelligence,” the BBC reported Dec. 31. U.S. Judge Drops Blackwater Charges—

Judge Ricardo Urbina of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Dec. 31 threw out charges against five guards employed by Moyock, N.C.–based private security company Blackwater Worldwide—since renamed Xe Services—who had been accused of killing at least 14 civilians in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, in September 2007. The shooting had strained U.S.-Iraqi relations and put a focus on the controversial role of private security companies in Iraq. It had led to a provision in the 2008 bilateral agreement that subjected security contractors to Iraqi jurisdiction. [See pp. 884D3, 838C1] Iraqi politicians expressed dismay at Urbina’s ruling, and Dabbagh said the government might bring its own case against Blackwater. However, the 2007 shooting was covered by a 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) order that granted foreign private security companies immunity from Iraqi prosecution. The guards—Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, Donald Ball and Nicholas Slatten—had each faced 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter, as well as a count of using a machine gun to commit a violent crime, which carried a 30-year minimum prison sentence. Their trial had been scheduled to start Feb. 1, 2010. (U.S. prosecutors in November had asked Urbina to drop charges against Slatten.) It was not clear how Urbina’s ruling would affect a sixth guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, who in December 2008 had pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and attempted manslaughter and had agreed to testify against the other guards. In a 90-page opinion, Urbina said the case brought by the U.S. Justice Department was invalid because prosecutors had relied on statements the guards had made following the incident after being assured that they would not be used in a criminal case, but only for an internal investigation. Additionally, he said the guards’ constitutional rights had been violated because the U.S. State Department, with which Blackwater was contracted, had threatened them with losing their jobs unless they answered questions.

Urbina said, “In their zeal to bring charges…the government’s trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors.” He said prosecutors’ explanations that they had avoided using the guards’ statements were “often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.” Urbina did not comment on the legality of the guards’ actions. Defense attorneys had argued that they had fired in self-defense after coming under attack from insurgents. Analysts said it would be difficult for the U.S. Justice Department to appeal Urbina’s decision, because his 90-page opinion relied mainly on factual findings rather than legal interpretations. Bombing Kills 24, Wounds Governor—

Two suicide blasts in Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar, Dec. 30 killed at least 24 people and seriously injured the province’s governor, Qasim Abed al-Fahadawi. According to reports, a bomber in a car first detonated his explosives at a checkpoint near Fahadawi’s office, and then a second bomber blew himself up after Fahadawi had come out to investigate, wounding him and killing a provincial council member, a senior security official and many police officers. The second bomber was reportedly wearing a police or an army uniform, and some reports said he was a member of Fahadawi’s bodyguard. Elsewhere in Iraq, attacks on Shiites continued to mount in the days leading up to the Dec. 27 Shiite holiday of Ashura, as pilgrims made their way to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. A double bombing in Hilla, the capital of Babil province, south of Baghdad, Dec. 24 killed at least 10 people, and a provincial council member was accidentally shot by a police officer at a checkpoint immediately afterward. A bomb placed near a funeral tent in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood Dec. 24 killed seven people, and a bomb hidden in a garbage heap Dec. 30 killed at least seven pilgrims in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province. [See p. 8D2] The Iraqi government had sent 50,000 additional troops and police to Karbala and Najaf to provide security for the pilgrimage, and and claimed that it had foiled several attack plots and defused a number of bombs. Iranian Troops Occupy Iraqi Oil Field—

The Iraqi government Dec. 18 said about 11 Iranian soldiers that day had crossed into the southeastern Iraqi province of Maysan and had seized an oil well in the Fakka oil field near the border. Dabbagh said the incident was “a transgression on Iraq’s sovereignty.” An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Dec. 19 initially denied the claim, but Iran’s Armed Services Command the same day released a statement saying, “Our forces are on our own soil, and based on the known international borders this well belongs to Iran.” The border in the area near the Fakka field had been disputed since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980–88, and the Iraqi government said FACTS ON FILE

Iranian troops had made previous border incursions. [See p. 174G2] Iraq Dec. 20 said the Iranian troops had retreated from the Fakka field, although Iraqi Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Labeed Abawi said some still remained in Iraqi territory. Abawi said Iran and Iraq would meet to decide on the border in the region near the Fakka field. Other News—In other Iraqi news: o An Iraqi judiciary spokesman Dec. 29 said three men had been sentenced to death for carrying out a June bombing in the northern town of Taza that had killed at least 68 people. He said they had been arrested in October and had confessed to the bombing. [See p. 433E1] o The British-Dutch energy company Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Malaysia’s state-owned Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) Dec. 20 signed a deal to develop the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, which they had won rights to at an Iraqi government auction of oil rights earlier in the month. Russia’s OAO Lukoil and Norway’s state-owned Statoil ASA Dec. 29 signed a deal to develop the West Qurna-2 field, also in southern Iraq, and the Angolan state-owned Sociedade Nacional de Combustiveis de Angola (Sonangol) Dec. 30 signed deals for the Qaiyarah and Najmah fields in the north. All the deals still needed to be approved by the Iraqi cabinet. [See p. 877A1] o The Iraqi government Dec. 20 said it had stopped oil exports through a pipeline in northern Iraq after it was damaged in an attack. Oil had been exported through the pipeline to Ceyhan, Turkey, from the northern city of Kirkuk, the capital of Iraq’s Kirkuk province. o The Iraqi government Dec. 19 said a mass grave containing 185 bodies of people who were probably killed in the late 1980s and early 1990s had been found near Kirkuk city. n

Israel News in Brief. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israe-

li nuclear technician who was jailed for 18 years for revealing details of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program in 1986, was placed under house arrest pending criminal charges, it was reported Dec. 29. An Israeli police spokesman said he had met with “a number of foreigners,” violating the conditions of his 2004 release from prison, which also stipulated that he not travel abroad; however, Vanunu’s lawyer said he had been arrested because he had a Norwegian girlfriend. Vanunu in 2007 had been sentenced to six months in prison for previously violating the release terms. [See 2006, p. 419A3] Former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who led the opposition Kadima party, Dec. 28 turned down an offer by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to join his government. Netanyahu had made the surprise of-

fer Dec. 24, but Livni said it was not serious and was a ploy to split her party. Kadima had 28 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament, the largest number of December 31, 2009

any party, while Netanyahu’s Likud party had 27 seats. [See p. 190A1] Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pleaded not guilty to corruption charges, his lawyer said Dec. 21 in Jerusalem District Court. Olmert was charged with improperly taking money from a supporter, secretly promoting associates’ interests and double-billing Israeli and U.S. government agencies and charities for trips abroad. [See p. 689D1] n

Kuwait News in Brief. Kuwaiti officials Aug. 15 said a wedding tent had caught fire that day

in Al Jahra, west of Kuwait City, the capital, killing at least 41 people and injuring 76. Wedding parties in the conservative kingdom were segregated by sex; the fire occurred at a women’s party, and all the victims were women and children. The interior ministry Aug. 17 said a suspect had been arrested and had confessed to setting the fire, and local newspapers reported that she was the groom’s former wife. [See 2002, p. 162F2] Kuwaiti authorities Aug. 11 said they had arrested six Kuwaitis who confessed to plotting to attack Camp Arifjan, a U.S. military supply and logistics base south of Kuwait City. They said the men were members of a cell influenced by the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. One of the men had reportedly participated in a 2002 attack on U.S. marines training on Kuwait’s Failaka Island that had killed one marine. [See 2005, p. 980B1; 2002, p. 796A1] n

Lebanon Cargo Ship Sinks, At Least 12 Drown. A Panamanian-flagged freighter Dec. 17 sank off the Lebanese coast in a heavy rainstorm, killing at least 12 of the reported 83 crew members and passengers on board. The Lebanese army Dec. 20 said Lebanese and United Nations ships had rescued 40 people, but that 31 remained unaccounted for. The ship, the Danny F II, sank 11 miles (18 km) off the port of Tripoli, while reportedly carrying livestock to Syria from Uruguay. [See 2008, p. 665B2] Another freighter, the Togolese-flagged Sala II, Dec. 11 had sunk in a storm off the Lebanese port of Tyre, en route to Israel from Greece. Six of its crew members had been rescued by U.N. and Israeli ships, with the other six missing and presumed dead. n

Saudi Arabia Suicide Bomber Injures Prince. A suicide bomber Aug. 27 detonated his explosives close to a senior Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, in the western Saudi city of Jeddah, but the prince was only lightly injured. Mohammed was Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi affiliate of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombing. It was the first assassination attempt on a member of

the Saudi royal family in decades. [See p. 118G3] The bomber, Abdullah Hassan Tali Assiri, was on a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects publicized by the Saudi government in February. He was Saudi but had been based in Yemen, which had become known as a haven for Al Qaeda. He had been able to get close to Mohammed by claiming that he wanted to give himself up to the prince, who had promoted counterterrorism policies in which militants were treated leniently if they turned themselves in. [See p. 944G2] 44 Terrorism Suspects Arrested— The Saudi government Aug. 19 announced that it had arrested 44 terrorism suspects between July 10 and Aug. 2, all but one of them Saudi nationals, and some with links to Al Qaeda. It said Nov. 1 that information from the suspects had led them to a large arms cache in Riyadh, the capital, that included 281 assault rifles. Saudi Arabia April 7 had announced the capture of 11 other militants linked to Al Qaeda, but added that they were not on the list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects released in February. n

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Reformers Appointed in Government Shuffle.

King Abdullah Feb. 14 appointed moderate figures to several ministries and government bodies and dismissed extremist officials, in his first administration shuffle since he came to power in August 2005. He appointed a new education minister, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, and also named the country’s first female deputy minister, Noura al-Fayez, to head a newly created department for female students. Saudi Arabia’s schools had long been dominated by extremist Sunni Muslims, and were known as breeding grounds of militancy. Abdullah also appointed new heads of the health, justice and information ministries and the Shura council, a consultative body. [See 2008, pp. 988A1, 898A3; 2005, p. 528C3] Abdullah fired two officials who had played key roles in blocking reforms: Sheik Saleh al-Luhaidan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sharia—Islamic law—courts, who in 2008 had ruled that the owners of television stations broadcasting immodest programming could be put to death; and Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the head of the religious police, which had become known for brutally enforcing behavioral codes such as bans on alcohol and the mixing of men and women. They were replaced, respectively, by Saleh bin Humaid and Abdel Aziz bin Humain. [See 2008, p. 797A3; 2007, p. 251C2] Abdullah also reconfigured the Grand Ulema Commission—a council of Sunni scholars that could issue fatwas, or religious edicts—and the military establishment to allow for more moderates in those bodies. Municipal Elections Postponed— The Council of Ministers, which was led by King Abdullah, May 18 announced that elections for municipal councils would be postponed by at least two years. The Council of Ministers said it had “extended the mandate” of the current council members so they could draft new electoral regula943

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tions and “expand the participation of citizens in the management of local affairs.” However, analysts said the move was aimed at keeping Islamist political blocs from gaining more power, and postponing controversial debates over women’s role in politics. [See 2005, p. 983A3] The first elections in 2005, in which men only had voted for half of the members of the 178 municipal councils, had been billed as a step towards democracy in the absolute monarchy, but human rights activists decried the postponement. Budget Projects Deficit for Second Year—

The Saudi government Dec. 21 approved a budget for fiscal 2010 that projected a deficit for the second consecutive year. The government was expected to take in 470 billion riyals ($125 billion) in revenue and spend 540 billion riyals. Saudi Arabia in fiscal 2009 had taken in 505 billion riyals in revenue and spent 550 billion riyals. Saudi revenues were largely based on oil production; the 2010 budget did not say what oil price it based its calculations on, but economists said it was an average of $50 a barrel. The Saudi government had reportedly boosted spending to stimulate economic growth, amid the worldwide economic downturn. [See 2008, p. 987E3] n Female Journalist Ordered Lashed. A court in the western Saudi city of Jeddah Oct. 24 sentenced a female Saudi journalist to 60 lashes for involvement in a television show in which a Saudi man talked about his sexual exploits. The journalist, Rozana alYami, 22, said she had not worked on that particular episode and that the judge had cleared her of all charges, but had sentenced her “as a deterrence.” Yami was reportedly the first female journalist to receive such a sentence. However, King Abdullah—who had a reputation as a moderate reformer but faced opposition from Saudi Arabia’s conservative clerical institutions—Oct. 26 ordered that her sentence be suspended, and also ceased proceedings against another female journalist being tried in the same case. [See 2008, p. 797A3] The man who had talked about his sex life, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, Oct. 7 had been sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for offensive behavior, and three other men who also appeared on the show each received two years in prison and 300 lashes. The show had been broadcast in July on the Saudi-owned Lebanese satellite television station LBC. Separately, a 75-year-old widow, Khamisa Sawadi, was sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison for breaking sex segregation laws, her lawyer said March 9. Sawadi had reportedly met with two men who were delivering bread to her, which was illegal because they were not close relatives (one was a nephew). The men were also sentenced to lashes and prison terms. The watchdog group Amnesty International Dec. 14 called on Abdullah to drop Sawadi’s sentence. [See 2007, p. 893A3] n Floods Kill 150 in Jeddah. Heavy rains Nov. 25 caused catastrophic flooding in the western Saudi port of Jeddah, killing an estimated 150 people, according to the gov944

ernment. Some of the deaths reportedly occurred in the cities of Rabigh and Mecca. There was widespread public anger in Saudi Arabia at allegedly negligent public officials who had failed to provide Jeddah with adequate sewage infrastructure, exacerbating the flooding. (Saudi Arabia was an absolute monarchy, and public protests were illegal.) [See 2006, p. 22E3] King Abdullah Nov. 30 ordered an inquiry into the flood deaths, led by Prince Khalid bin Faisal, the governor of the Mecca region, which included Jeddah. Saudi media Dec. 28 reported that at least 40 Saudi officials had been arrested in connection with the investigation. The flooding occurred during the hajj, when an estimated two million Muslim pilgrims traveled to Mecca. However, although Jeddah was the main entry point for pilgrims into Saudi Arabia, none were reported to be among the flood victims. Also, the hajj also avoided a significant outbreak of the H1N1 swine influenza, despite fears that close quarters and people traveling from around the world would allow the virus to spread easily. Saudi Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabeeah Nov. 29 said there had only been 73 laboratory-confirmed cases and five deaths from the virus during the pilgrimage. [See p. 900G3] n

United Arab Emirates South Korean Firms Win Nuclear Contract. A

group of South Korean companies Dec. 27 won a $20.4 billion contract to build four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), beating out U.S.–Japanese and French consortiums. The U.S. earlier in the month had finalized a deal to export nuclear technology and equipment to the UAE in order to start a civilian nuclear program there, which the U.S. said would serve as an example to other countries in the Middle East. The UAE said it needed nuclear power to meet its energy demand, although it was the world’s third-largest oil exporter. The first plant was scheduled to begin generating power by 2017, and all four would be built by 2020. [See p. 893F2; 1999, p. 787C1] The winning group was led by the staterun Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco), and also included Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd., the Samsung Group, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd., along with Westinghouse Electric Co., a U.S. unit of Japan’s Toshiba Corp. South Korean officials said it was the largest foreign contract ever won by a Korean company. n

Yemen Government Strikes at Al Qaeda Meeting.

Yemeni jets Dec. 24 bombed what the government said was a meeting of members of the Al Qaeda international terrorist network from Yemen and abroad in the remote southern province of Shabwa, reportedly killing at least 30 people. The attack was reportedly carried out with the assistance of “intelligence and firepower” from the

U.S. Yemen was known as a haven for Al Qaeda, and the air strike was part of an increasingly intense effort by the Yemeni government to uproot it. [See pp. 898F1, 646F1] Yemeni officials initially said the strike had killed two top Al Qaeda leaders in the region, and possibly also Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric linked to U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who had been accused of carrying out a November shooting in Fort Hood, Texas, that had killed 13 people. However, another Yemeni official Dec. 25 said their deaths could not be confirmed, and friends and relatives said they were still alive. [See p. 812G3] Yemeni ground forces backed by aircraft Dec. 17 had carried out operations against suspected Al Qaeda members in the southern province of Abyan; Sana, the capital; and Arhab district, northeast of Sana. It said at least 34 militants had been killed and 17 captured, and that they had been planning suicide bombings. Another raid against Al Qaeda suspects in western Yemen Dec. 30 captured at least one person. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr alQirbi Dec. 29 told the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) that there were several hundred Al Qaeda operatives still in Yemen, and that Western countries had to do more to support Yemeni efforts against them. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 30 reported that, according to an unnamed U.S. military official, the U.S. was mulling increasing counterterrorism aid to Yemen to as much as $190 million in 2010, up from $70 million in 2009 and nothing in 2008. The U.S. had renewed its focus on terrorism in Yemen after it was revealed that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who Dec. 25 had tried to set off explosives on an airliner flying over Detroit, Mich., had trained in the country. Air Strikes Against Rebels Kill 35— Air strikes Dec. 13 killed at least 35 people in the remote town of Razah in northwestern Yemen, where Yemeni and Saudi forces had been fighting Yemeni rebels known as Houthis. The Yemeni military said it had attacked the Houthis, but the rebels said that the strikes had been carried out by Saudi Arabia, and that they had killed 70 civilians. [See p. 805G1] The Saudi military Dec. 22 said that since it launched its offensive on the Houthis in early November, 73 Saudis had been killed and 26 were missing. Yemeni and Saudi media reports Dec. 27 said the Houthis’ leader, Abdul-Malik alHouthi, had been seriously wounded in an attack in northern Yemen, and might have died. However, the rebels Dec. 31 posted an audio recording by Houthi on their Web site to prove he was still alive. Also Dec. 31, the Houthis said they were ready to negotiate a cease-fire with Saudi Arabia. n

Other Middle East News Israel Authorizes East Jerusalem Building.

The Israeli housing ministry Dec. 28 issued tenders to build nearly 700 homes in three Jewish areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed in 1967 but which PalestinFACTS ON FILE

ians wanted as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Palestinians and the U.S. government criticized the move as harmful to the peace process. Israel in November had announced a 10-month freeze on most construction in West Bank settlements, but that did not cover East Jerusalem. [See p. 838A2] In another move that was seen as encouraging Jewish settlers, the Israeli cabinet Dec. 13 approved a plan that would include several West Bank settlements in socalled national priority zones, which would entitle them to tax benefits and other aid. Liberal Israeli legislators said the plan might let aid go to radical settlers who were defying the government. However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak the same day said the military would end its links with a seminary, or yeshiva, in the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha. The government allowed religious Jews to study at yeshivas while completing their compulsory military service. However, Barak said the Har Brach yeshiva’s rabbi, Eliezer Rabbi Melamed, had incited Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate settlements. West Bank Mosque Burned—A mosque in the Palestinian West Bank village of Yasuf Dec. 11 was damaged by arsonists who were believed to be Jewish settlers. Hebrew graffiti left in the mosque referred to the “price tag” policy followed by some extremist settlers, under which they would retaliate for Israeli actions against them by attacking Palestinians and their property. The attack was seen as a response to the 10month freeze on most settlement construction. [See 2008, p. 911F1] Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the attack and called for the perpetrators to be arrested. Israel’s chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, Dec. 14 visited Yasuf and compared the arson to the Nazis’ destruction of Jewish synagogues during the Holocaust. The comment was considered controversial, since many Israelis resisted comparisons of Palestinian suffering with that of Jews under Nazi Germany, saying it diminished the historical weight of the Holocaust. Israeli police probing the arson Dec. 31 arrested a teenager who lived in a settlement. The suspect’s lawyer said he was “close to Rabbi Meir Kahane,” a U.S.-born politician who had advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and was assassinated in the U.S. in 1990. [See 2001, p. 10E2] In other violence, gunmen Dec. 24 shot dead a settler as he was driving outside the settlement of Einav, near the West Bank settlement of Nablus. Israeli soldiers Dec. 26 raided the Nablus houses of three members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades—a militant group affiliated with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement—in connection with the shooting, and said they had killed them when they refused to surrender. Witnesses said two of the suspects had been shot without warning and were unarmed. The killings were seen as threatening a ceasefire between Israel and groups affiliated with Fatah. December 31, 2009

The same day, an Israeli helicopter killed three Palestinians near the Gaza Strip–Israeli border. The Israeli military said they were planning an attack on Israel, but Palestinians said they had been searching for scrap metal. Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency Dec. 31 reported that 15 Israelis had been killed in conflict-related violence in 2009, down from 36 in 2008 and the lowest total since 2000. Of those, nine were killed during Israel’s December 2008–January 2009 war with the militant Islamist group Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) in Gaza. Shin Bet also reported that 566 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza in 2009— 160 since the end of the Gaza war—compared to more than 2,000 in 2008, and that there were no suicide bombings. Court Opens Road to Palestinians—Israel’s Supreme Court Dec. 29 ruled that the military had to open to Palestinian traffic a 13-mile (21-km) stretch of highway that ran through the West Bank, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The military in 2002 had barred cars with Palestinian license plates from the road after Palestinian militants shot several Israeli drivers during the height of the second intifada, or uprising. However, the court ruled that the military had exceeded its authority, and gave it five months to remove barriers that blocked access from nearby Palestinian villages. [See 2007, p. 762D3] Other News—In other Israeli-Palestinian news: o Hundreds of people on both sides of the Israeli-Gaza border Dec. 31 held protests to commemorate the anniversary of the December 2008–January 2009 war in Gaza. More than 1,000 international activists had gathered on the Egyptian border with Gaza in the previous days, but Egypt only allowed some 85 to cross into Gaza and participate in the protests. [See p. 157A3; 2008, p. 945A1] o A bomb Dec. 27 went off in a suburb of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, reportedly killing at least two members of Hamas. The bombing was near a Hamas office in an area controlled by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Hamas officials said it appeared to target one of the top two Hamas leaders in Lebanon, but that both were unharmed. Hamas maintained a presence in Lebanon, which had a large population of Palestinian refugees, and had made common cause with Hezbollah in their fight against Israel, although Hamas was Sunni Muslim and Hezbollah was Shiite Muslim. [See p. 211E1] o Egyptian officials Dec. 21 confirmed that Egypt was building a steel barrier along its border with Gaza that would extend underground, which analysts said would block Palestinian smuggling tunnels that were used to circumvent the blockade on the territory. However, a foreign ministry spokesman the next day disputed its characterization as “a steel wall.” [See p. 593G2] o Jehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, said on a

documentary aired Dec. 18 on Israeli television that Israeli pathologists in the 1990s had harvested organs from the dead bodies of Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and civilians, and foreign workers without their families’ permission. The Israeli military confirmed the account, but said the harvesting “ended a decade ago.” The Israeli government in August had fiercely criticized a story in Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper that alleged that Israeli soldiers had harvested organs from dead and wounded Palestinians. [See p. 593D2] o The Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Dec. 16 indefinitely extended Abbas’s term in office, in a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Abbas in November had said he would not run in elections set for Jan. 24, 2010. However, PA officials had said they would have to delay the elections, because Hamas would not allow voting in Gaza. The Central Council’s move would avoid a constitutional crisis when Abbas’s term expired in January 2010, but Hamas denounced it as “illegal” and antidemocratic. [See p. 754F2] o Tens of thousands of Palestinians Dec. 14 attended a rally in Gaza to mark the 22nd anniversary of Hamas’s founding. Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said the group would keep fighting Israel and never recognize it. However, unlike at the 2008 rally, Hamas did not mention the captured Israeli soldier Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had been holding since 2006. Israel and Hamas were currently in negotiations to exchange Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. [See p. 838C3] n Lebanese Prime Minister Visits Syria. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri Dec. 19– 20 visited Damascus, Syria’s capital, for talks with Syrian Prime Minister Bashar alAssad. The leaders at a press conference Dec. 20 promised better relations between their two countries. [See pp. 877G2, 707C3] It was the first time Hariri had visited Syria since his father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was killed in a bombing in 2005 and Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon later that year after three decades of occupation. Saad Hariri had blamed Syria for orchestrating his father’s death. The Lebanese parliament earlier in December had approved a unity government led by Hariri that included his March 14 Movement and a coalition led by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which was backed by Syria. n

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India Plan for New State Sparks Backlash. Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram Dec. 9 announced that the federal government had approved a plan to carve out a new state from the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh. The announcement led to protests across the state and resignation 945

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threats from nearly half of the members of Andhra Pradesh’s state assembly, prompting the federal government to revise its initial plan. A spokesman for the Congress party, which led the federal ruling coalition, Dec. 14 said the Andhra Pradesh assembly would have to approve the new state before the federal government took any further action. [See 2000, p. 1042D2] The initial announcement had followed a 10-day hunger strike by K. Chandrasekhar Rao, a regional political leader who had long demanded that the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh be given statehood. The hunger strike had attracted intense attention from the national media and had provoked a week of protests by supporters of Rao and his Telangana Rashtra Samithi party. The protests had largely paralyzed Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh and one of India’s leading information-technology centers. Chidambaram Dec. 9 said the plan for a new state would “bring an end to the agitation.” Advocates for a Telangana state said the region had been neglected and deprived of resources ever since it was incorporated with other regions to form Andhra Pradesh in 1956, as part of a larger reorganization of India’s states along linguistic lines. Since then, India had adjusted its criteria for statehood, and as recently as 2000 had created three new states, resulting in a total of 28 states. Chidambaram’s Dec. 9 announcement reportedly reinvigorated statehood campaigns by groups in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and other states. [See 1973, p. 65A3; 1969, p. 221C3; 1956, p. 444C2] A proposed Telangana state would be located in central Andhra Pradesh and would include Hyderabad, angering lawmakers from the state’s east coast whose constituents had invested heavily in the city in recent years. Additionally, the loss of Hyderabad would deprive Andhra Pradesh of a substantial amount of tax revenue. A general strike Dec. 11 was held across the southern and coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh to protest the proposed split. The state assembly Dec. 14 adjourned indefinitely, and 146 of its 294 lawmakers had threatened to resign as of Dec. 15. The bulk of the resignations were offered by members of the state Congress party, which commanded a majority in the assembly. The federal government was accused of acting unilaterally in launching Telangana’s path to statehood, and Chidambaram Dec. 23 acknowledged that “wide-ranging consultations with all political parties and groups in the state” were necessary. Chidambaram’s statement provoked protests the following the day by supporters of a Telangana state. n News in Brief. A Pakistani suspect who in July had admitted to participating in a November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, Dec. 18 withdrew his confession. Muhammad Ajmal Kasab, allegedly the sole surviving member of a group of 10 gunmen who had carried out the attack, told a Mumbai court that he had been framed by the police. He said he had been arrested three days before 946

the attack, and that the police later shot him to make it appear as if he had been hurt by security forces during the attack. Kasab’s sudden about-face was not expected to have a significant impact on his trial, since dozens of witnesses had identified Kasab as one of the shooters and he had been photographed firing an automatic weapon at civilians in a train station during the attack. [See p. 499A3] Lal Krishna Advani, 82, the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, Dec. 18 stepped down from his post. He was replaced by Sushma Swaraj, 57, who had formerly led the ministries of health and information. Swaraj, who was considered a moderate, became India’s first female opposition leader. The shake-up was seen as a generational succession in Advani’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had been soundly defeated by a coalition led by the Congress party in May national elections. Advani assumed the largely ceremonial post of parliamentary chairman. BJP President Rajnath Singh also stepped down that day, and was replaced by Nitin Gadkari, a member of the BJP’s right-wing affiliate, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. [See pp. 823D1, 791E2] Officials in the northeastern state of Assam Dec. 4 said Bangladeshi authorities earlier that day had handed over separatist leader Arabinda Rajkhowa and his deputy to Indian custody. Rajkhowa was a commander of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), which since the 1970s had fought for a separate homeland for ethnic Assamese. The conflict had led to the deaths of some 10,000 people. The ULFA claimed that Assamese resources were being exploited by the federal government, and that ethnic Bengali migrants from West Bengal and Bangladesh were encroaching on Assam’s territory. The group had been weakened in recent years, as many of its leaders were kicked out of safe havens in Bangladesh and other countries. ULAF’s supreme leader, Paresh Baruah, remained at large. [See 2008, p. 822G3] India’s gross domestic product (GDP) between July and September was 7.9% greater than the year-earlier period, a faster growth rate than the 6.1% recorded in the previous quarter, according to government data released Nov. 30. The acceleration in growth indicated that India was making a solid recovery from the global economic downturn that began in 2008. The increase in GDP was driven by a boost in manufacturing and mining, as well as government policies designed to reverse the downturn, such as increased spending and a low benchmark interest rate. Analysts said the growth could spur inflation, and that inflationary fears could prompt the government to begin winding down its emergency policies. [See p. 594D3] n

Nepal Maoists Demand New National Government.

Former Maoist rebels Dec. 22 demanded that their party be installed at the head of a new national unity government by Jan. 24,

2010, and threatened to initiate an indefinite strike across Nepal if their demands were not met by that time. The deadline was made on the third day of protests by the Maoists in Kathmandu, the capital, and other cities, and threatened to unravel a 2006 peace deal that had seen the Maoists lay down their arms and join Nepal’s political process. [See p. 363A1] The Maoist political party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), had won a plurality of seats in a 2008 election for the Constituent Assembly, an interim legislature responsible for writing a new constitution for Nepal. The Maoists subsequently formed a ruling coalition, and Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal—also known as Prachanda—was elected prime minister. However, the Maoists withdrew from the government in May after Prachanda attempted to sack Nepal’s army chief, who had allegedly failed to integrate 19,000 Maoist fighters into the army, a stipulation of the 2006 peace agreement. The army chief was reinstated by President Ram Baran Yadav, of the rival Nepali Congress Party, a move that the Maoists said was illegal. Prachanda announced his resignation in protest and the coalition collapsed. The Constituent Assembly was currently led by a shaky coalition of 22 parties. Since then, tensions had increased between the Maoists and the government, which had so far refused to enter negotiations to form a new ruling coalition. Thousands of Maoist supporters Nov. 12 demonstrated in Kathmandu, and dozens were injured when police used batons and tear gas to disperse the crowds. Thousands of Maoist-backed peasants Dec. 4 seized government-owned land near Nepal’s western district of Kailali, leading to a crackdown by state security forces that killed as many as six people. The Maoists had also proclaimed several areas within Nepal to be “autonomous” zones beyond the authority of the government. The Maoists organized a nationwide strike Dec. 20–22 that effectively shut down the government and much of the country’s businesses. As many as 70 protesters were arrested Dec. 20, and Maoists claimed that about 100 were injured in clashes with police. In a Dec. 22 address to his supporters in Kathmandu, Prachanda said the Maoists would “create a storm of mass protests which will sweep the government away,” if the Maoists were not named the leaders of a new government by January 2010. n

Pakistan Shiite Procession Targeted in Karachi Blast.

A suicide bomber Dec. 28 killed 30 people and wounded 40 more in an attack on a Shiite Muslim procession in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, in Sindh province. Government officials said the attack was an attempt by extremist groups to provoke sectarian conflict and destabilize the country, in response to a military operation against the Sunni Muslim fundamentalist group the Taliban that had been launched in October. The Taliban and its allies since FACTS ON FILE

then had waged a vicious terrorist campaign on Pakistani cities, killing more than 500 people. [See pp. 858G1, 670C1] Thousand of Shiite mourners had taken part in the procession to commemorate the holy day of Ashura, which marked the death of the revered Shiite martyr Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The bomber was able to infiltrate the procession despite the fact that it was heavily guarded by Pakistani security forces. The attack touched off riots that lasted well into the night, as the mourners set fire to buildings and vehicles, and hurled stones at security forces. President Asif Ali Zardari that day denounced the attack, saying, “A deliberate attempt seems to be afoot by the extremists to turn the fight against militants into a sectarian clash and make people fight against one another.” Analysts said the attack could also have been spurred by simple sectarian animosity. Shiites were thought to make up about one-fifth of Pakistan’s total population, and had been the target of previous Sunni extremist attacks. A suicide bomber Dec. 27 had killed 10 Shiites and wounded 80 more in an attack on an Ashura procession in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan’s portion of the disputed territory of Kashmir. A dozen people were wounded in Karachi the previous day in another bomb attack on Shiite mourners. U.N. to Pull Some International Staff—

Ishrat Rizvi, a spokeswoman for the United Nations in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, Dec. 30 announced that about 20% of the U.N.’s 250 international staff members in Pakistan would be relocated due to security concerns. The U.N. insisted that the relocations were temporary, and that its development and refugee programs would continue. The announcement was seen as a response to an October attack in Islamabad that had killed five employees of the U.N.’s World Food Program. [See p. 769F1] A total of 11 U.N. employees had been killed in Pakistan in 2009. The U.N. had already announced that it would scale back programs in the volatile North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which bordered Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, the site of the army’s offensive against the Taliban. The U.N.’s latest announcement was not expected to affect the roughly 2,500 Pakistanis who worked for the U.N. Other Developments—In related news: o A bomb Dec. 27 exploded at the house of a government official in the northwest tribal area of Kurram, killing the official, his wife and their four children. Kurram and the neighboring tribal area of Orakzai were believed to be the hideouts of Taliban militants who had escaped the army’s primary offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, the former stronghold of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. Kurram and Orakzai had been struck by the army earlier Dec. 27, and the assassination of the official, Sarfaraz Khan, was thought to have been in retaliation for the army offensive. December 31, 2009

o A missile strike reportedly launched by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft Dec. 26 killed as many as 13 militants in the tribal area of North Waziristan. North Waziristan had also become a safe haven for militants escaping the South Waziristan offensive, and was the base of operations for Sirajuddin Haqqani, a warlord fighting U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had reportedly stepped up its Predator attacks in the tribal areas, since the U.S. had so far failed to convince the Pakistani army to broaden its operation to include North Waziristan. o A suicide bomber Dec. 24 killed at least four people in an attack near the office of the state-run airline, Pakistan International Airlines, in Peshawar, the NWFP capital. Peshawar, which was close to the tribal areas, had been a frequent target of militant attacks. A suicide bomber Dec. 22 had killed three people in an attack on the Peshawar Press Club. The New York Times Dec. 25 reported that 720 civilians in NWFP had been killed in terrorist attacks in 2009, 327 of them from Peshawar. n

Sri Lanka Former Army Chief to Run For President.

Retired Gen. Sarath Fonseka, formerly the head of Sri Lanka’s army, Nov. 29 announced that he would challenge President Mahinda Rajapaksa in elections scheduled for Jan. 26, 2010. Fonseka and Rajapaksa had been two of the principal architects of a military strategy that had defeated an insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel group in May. But relations between the two men reportedly soured after the war ended and Rajapaksa appointed Fonseka to a ceremonial post. Fonseka stepped down from the army earlier in November. [See p. 823A2, C2] Fonseka Nov. 29 accused Rajapaksa of being a “tin-pot dictator,” saying he had eroded civil liberties and centralized power in the office of the presidency. He also said Rajapaksa had forced as many as 300,000 ethnic Tamil refugees to live in temporary camps with “appalling conditions” after they escaped the LTTE’s last stronghold in Sri Lanka’s north. However, Fonseka’s critics said he had overseen a military operation that had killed as many as 7,000 civilians in the final months of the war. Fonseka would be the presidential candidate of a coalition of fifteen opposition parties. n

SPORTS

UNITED STATES

Football Colts Set Winning Streak Record. The Indi-

anapolis Colts Dec. 13 defeated the Denver Broncos, 28–16, in Indianapolis, Ind., to set the National Football League (NFL) record for most consecutive regular-season wins with 22 straight victories, surpassing the previous mark of 21 held by the New England Patriots. With the win, the Colts improved to

13–0 on the season, securing the top seed in the American Football Conference (AFC) playoffs. [See p. 631B3] Indianapolis extended the streak the following week with a 35–31 road victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars in Florida Dec. 17. However, the team’s perfect season ended Dec. 27 with a 29–15 home loss to the New York Jets. Looking to prevent any unnecessary injuries, Colts coach Jim Caldwell had pulled most of the team’s starters, including quarterback Peyton Manning, in the second half of the contest with the Jets, a team that was contending for an AFC wild-card playoff berth. The San Diego Chargers Dec. 25 clinched a first-round AFC playoff bye with a 42–17 rout of the Tennessee Titans in Nashville, Tenn. Two days later, the Patriots beat the Jaguars, 35–7, in Foxborough, Mass., to clinch the AFC East division. Also Dec. 27, the Cincinnati Bengals won the AFC North title with a 17–10 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Cincinnati, Ohio. Both AFC wild-card playoff berths remained undecided heading into the final week of the regular season. Saints Lose Perfect Season Bid—After maintaining a perfect record for 13 games, the New Orleans Saints dropped to 13–2 with back-to-back home losses against the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 19 and Dec. 27, respectively. However, the Saints Dec. 28 secured the top seed in the National Football Conference (NFC) when the Minnesota Vikings lost, 36–30, on the road to the Chicago Bears in overtime. The Vikings Dec. 20 had clinched the NFC North when the Green Bay Packers lost that day to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 37– 36, in Pittsburgh, Pa. The Packers Dec. 27 earned an NFC wild-card playoff berth with a 48–10 home victory over the Seattle Seahawks, as well as the 41–9 loss by the New York Giants to the Carolina Panthers in East Rutherford, N.J., that day. The Arizona Cardinals Dec. 20 defeated the Detroit Lions, 31–24, in Detroit, Mich., and with the Philadelphia Eagles’ Dec. 20 home defeat of the San Francisco 49ers, 27–13, the Cardinals clinched the NFC West division. The Eagles wrapped up a playoff berth with their win. The Dallas Cowboys Dec. 27 also secured a playoff spot by defeating the Washington Redskins, 17–0, in Washington, D.C. The Cowboys and Eagles would meet in the last regular season game to determine the NFC East division title. A first-round bye in the NFC playoffs would also be up for grabs in the final week of competition. Head Injuries Policy Questioned— The House Judiciary Committee Oct. 28 held hearings on the league’s policy toward player head injuries. The hearings followed an NFL-commissioned survey that showed an increased risk among former players for dementia and other memory-related disorders. The results of the telephone survey, which was made public in late September, sharply contrasted with the league’s long held official stance of denying any link between the sport’s physical roughness and 947

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the long-term cognitive decline of former players. Several independent studies into the subject, as well as exposés on the devastating long-term effects on former players, had led to increased pressure on the NFL to improve its policies regarding head injuries. At the time, the league had few restrictions in place to limit a player’s availability after suffering a concussion. Team doctors could clear a player to return as soon as his symptoms had subsided. Lawmakers at the hearing pressed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to review the league’s ongoing study into concussions suffered by players. Following the criticism of their work, Drs. Ira Casson and David Viano Nov. 24 resigned as cochairmen of the league’s committee on brain injuries. The NFL did not immediately name replacements for them, and on Dec. 18 officially suspended a multiyear study into concussions, citing conflicts of interest. Greg Aiello, an NFL spokesman, said the league would seek help with the study “through an academic institution.” The league Dec. 20 announced a partnership with researchers at Boston University who studied the brains of deceased football players for abnormal trauma-induced damage, vowing to donate at least $1 million to the project. Also that day, Aiello called the link between concussions and degenerative health problems “quite obvious.” That statement was the most significant concession to date from an NFL official on the long-term effects of head injuries. The NFL Dec. 2 had altered the league’s guidelines on managing players with concussions. Under the new rules, any player who exhibited serious signs of a head injury would be removed from the game or practice immediately, and could not return the same day. The league Nov. 24 also announced that independent neurologists, rather than team doctors, would have to clear players before their return. Bengals’ Henry Dies After Accident—

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Bengals receiver Chris Henry Dec. 17 died from head injuries sustained as a result of a fall from a pickup truck in Charlotte, N.C., the previous night. Police said the accident stemmed from a domestic dispute between Henry and his fiancee, Loleini Tonga, who was driving the vehicle. No charges had been filed in the case, but local authorities continued to investigate the death. Henry, 26, had been away from the Bengals, after being placed on injured reserve in November with a broken arm. [See 2007, p. 323B1] Henry had been drafted by the Bengals in 2005 out of the University of West Virginia. His brief career had been marred by injuries and legal troubles off the field. In 2007, Henry was suspended for the first half of the season, following his arrest on gun, drug and drunk-driving charges. Other News—In other NFL news: o Running back Larry Johnson Nov. 17 signed with the Bengals, following his release from the Chiefs Nov. 10. After posting an antigay slur to his account on the so948

cial networking service Twitter Oct. 25, Johnson had been suspended by the Chiefs for the second time in as many seasons. He had been set to return to the Chiefs on the day the team released him. o The Buffalo Bills Nov. 17 fired head coach Dick Jauron, after starting the season with a 3–6 record. Defensive coordinator Perry Fewell was named the interim replacement. [See 2006, p. 58F2] o An investment group that sought to purchase the St. Louis Rams Oct. 14 announced that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh had been dropped as a limited partner in the proposed deal. Goodell, referring to the controversial commentator, the previous day had said it would be undesirable to have “divisive comments” from “people who are in a responsible position in the NFL.” Initial reports of Limbaugh’s involvement in the early bidding process had been met with a strong backlash, including among players, who were reportedly angered by racially tinged comments on athletes he had made in the past. [See 2003, p. 779F3; 1972, p. 1009D2] n

College Football Florida Coach Meyer Sets Leave of Absence.

University of Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer, who in January had led his team to its second National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-A football championship in three seasons, Dec. 27 announced that he would take an “indefinite leave of absence,” backtracking on a statement made the previous day that he was resigning. Meyer, 45, said he had been suffering from recurring chest pains, including severe pains for which he was hospitalized early Dec. 6, after the Gators had lost the Southeastern Conference (SEC) title game. In a Dec. 26 interview, he said his health problems stemmed from his relentless, “self-destructive” work habits. [See pp. 879E2, B3, 23C3] Meyer, 45, would coach the Gators in the Sugar Bowl Jan. 1, 2010. Longtime assistant Steve Addazio would then take over as interim coach, although Meyer Dec. 27 said he believed he would return to the helm when the 2010 season started. Bowl Results—In the results of bowl games played through Dec. 31 [See 2008, p. 993D1]: o Chick-fil-A Bowl, Dec. 31 in Atlanta, Ga.: Virginia Tech 37, Tennessee 14. o Insight Bowl, Dec. 31 in Tempe, Ariz.: Iowa State 14, Minnesota 13. o Texas Bowl, Dec. 31 in Houston: Navy 35, Missouri 13. o Sun Bowl, Dec. 31 in El Paso, Texas: Oklahoma 31, Stanford 27. o Armed Forces Bowl, Dec. 31 in Fort Worth, Texas: Air Force 47, Houston 20. o Holiday Bowl, Dec. 30 in San Diego, Calif.: Nebraska 33, Arizona 0. o Humanitarian Bowl, Dec. 30 in Boise, Idaho: Idaho 43, Bowling Green 42.

o Champs Sports Bowl, Dec. 29 in Orlando, Fla.: Wisconsin 20, Miami (Fla.) 14. o EagleBank Bowl, Dec. 29 in Washington, D.C.: University of California at Los Angeles 30, Temple 21. o Independence Bowl, Dec. 28 in Shreveport, La.: Georgia 44, Texas A&M 20. o Music City Bowl, Dec. 27 in Nashville, Tenn.: Clemson 21, Kentucky 13. o Emerald Bowl, Dec. 26 in San Francisco, Calif.: Southern California 24, Boston College 13. o Meineke Car Care Bowl: Dec. 26 in Charlotte, N.C.: Pittsburgh 19, North Carolina 17. o Little Caesars Pizza Bowl: Dec. 26 in Detroit, Mich.: Marshall 21, Ohio 17. o Hawaii Bowl, Dec. 24 in Honolulu: Southern Methodist 45, Nevada 10. o Poinsettia Bowl, Dec. 23 in San Diego: Utah 37, California 27. o Las Vegas Bowl, Dec. 22 in Nevada: Brigham Young 44, Oregon State 20. o New Orleans Bowl, Dec. 20 in Louisiana: Middle Tennessee 42, Southern Mississippi 32. o St. Petersburg Bowl, Dec. 19 in Florida: Rutgers 45, Central Florida 24. o New Mexico Bowl, Dec. 19 in Albuquerque: Wyoming 35, Fresno State 28 (2OT). n

Baseball Cy Young Winners Halladay, Lee Traded.

The Philadelphia Phillies Dec. 16 acquired ace pitcher Roy Halladay from the Toronto Blue Jays in a Major League Baseball (MLB) offseason blockbuster deal. The nine-player, four-team trade also saw the Phillies’ top pitcher, Cliff Lee, shipped to the Seattle Mariners. Both pitchers were past winners of the American League Cy Young award. Halladay had never had a chance to compete in the postseason during his 12-year career with the Blue Jays. The Phillies had appeared in the last two World Series, winning the 2008 championship. [See p. 770C1] In the same deal, the Phillies sent catcher Travis d’Arnaud, pitcher Kyle Drabek and outfielder Michael Taylor to the Blue Jays. Taylor was then traded to the fourth team involved, the Oakland Athletics, for third baseman Brett Wallace. Finally, the Phillies acquired outfielder Tyson Gillies as well as pitchers Phillippe Aumont and Juan Ramirez from the Mariners. The Phillies received $6 million from the Blue Jays, and signed Halladay to a $60 million, three-year extension through 2013. In another offseason move, the Mariners Dec. 8 signed former Anaheim Angels third baseman Chone Figgins to a fouryear, $36 million deal. Additionally, the Mariners Dec. 18 received outfielder Milton Bradley from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for pitcher Carlos Silva and $9 million in cash. FACTS ON FILE

Yankees Revamp Team—The 2009 World Series champion New York Yankees Dec. 9 finalized a three-team trade with the Detroit Tigers and the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Yankees acquired Detroit center fielder Curtis Granderson, while sending pitcher Phil Coke and outfielder Austin Jackson to the Tigers, as well as dealing pitcher Ian Kennedy to the Diamondbacks. Detroit shipped pitcher Edwin Jackson to Arizona in exchange for pitchers Max Scherzer and Daniel Schlereth. The Yankees Dec. 22 also received pitchers Javier Vasquez and Boone Logan from the Atlanta Braves. In return, the Braves received outfielder Melky Cabrera, in addition to minor league pitchers Mike Dunn and Arodys Vizcaino. Through an offseason signing, the Yankees Dec. 18 added first baseman Nick Johnson, while declining to re-sign left fielder Johnny Damon. New York officially parted ways with World Series most valuable player (MVP) Hideki Matsui when the designated hitter Dec. 16 signed a one-year, $6 million deal with the Angels. The Yankees’ divisional rival, the Boston Red Sox, made several offseason acquisitions through free agency. The Red Sox Dec. 14 signed former Angels ace John Lackey to a five-year, $82.5 million deal, also adding outfielder Mike Cameron that day. Boston apparently lost an All-Star outfielder, though, when Jason Bay Dec. 29 reportedly reached a tentative four-year deal with the New York Mets. Cubs Sold After Bankruptcy Filing—

Chicago-based media giant Tribune Co. Oct. 27 finalized the $845 million sale of the Cubs and the team’s home ballpark since 1916, Wrigley Field, to the family of billionaire Joe Ricketts, founder of Omaha, Neb.–based stock brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. A 25% stake in Comcast Sportsnet, a cable channel that aired some of the Cubs’ games, was also included in the deal. [See 2008, p. 903C2] The Cubs Oct. 12 had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., as part of the planned sale to the Ricketts family. The move prevented any claims by creditors from the larger bankruptcy of Tribune, which had been filed in December 2008. The properties had been up for sale since the start of the 2007 season, but Tribune, which bought the Cubs from candymaker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. for $20.5 million in 1981, had struggled to find a suitable buyer. Weiner Approved as MLBPA Head—

The MLB Players Association (MLBPA) executive board Dec. 2 unanimously approved Michael Weiner as the union’s new executive director. Weiner, the union’s general counsel, replaced longtime MLBPA head Donald Fehr, who formally vacated the position that day after first announcing his resignation in June. Fehr stepped down after 26 years to allow for a leadership transfer ahead of the collective bargaining negotiations set for 2011. [See p. 483F3] Other News—In other MLB news: December 31, 2009

o Former Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog and former National League umpire Doug Harvey Dec. 7 were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Both non-player electees were voted in by the Veterans Committee. [See p. 531C2; 1991, p. 1011B1] o Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman Nov. 11 was officially named the full-time manager of the team, after taking over as an interim replacement for Manny Acta following his mid-season firing. After Riggleman took over in July, he led the Nationals to a record of 33–42, improving on their 26–61 mark in the first half of the season. [See p. 484G1] o The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Calif., Aug. 26 ruled that federal agents investigating substance abuse in professional sports had improperly seized the results from anonymous drug testing conducted by MLB in 2003. The ruling sided with the MLBPA, which had been fighting the seizure since the records were taken from drug-testing labs in 2004. A judge from the appellate court Sept. 2 ordered the preservation of the records while the government considered an appeal of the August decision. [See p. 530F3] n

Golf AT&T Withdraws Sponsorship of Woods.

Telecommunications company AT&T Inc. Dec. 31 announced that it was ending its sponsorship of the U.S.’s Tiger Woods, the top-ranked golfer in the world. Woods earlier in December had announced that he was taking an “indefinite break” from golf, after revelations had begun to emerge in late November that he had engaged in several extramarital affairs. AT&T, in a brief statement, did not give a reason for its decision. [See p. 879C1] Earlier in December, consulting firm Accenture PLC had become the first sponsor to end its relationship with Woods as a result of the scandal. Other sponsors, such as Swiss luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer and U.S. household products manufacturer Procter & Gamble Co., had reduced their use of Woods in marketing campaigns. Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Christophe Babin Dec. 18 said the company was suspending its use of Woods’s image in its U.S. advertising campaigns due to “recent events.” Woods Dec. 18 had been named the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) player of the year for the 10th time in his 13-year career. Voting for the award was conducted by the PGA’s players. Woods Dec. 17 had been voted the male golfer of the year by the Golf Writers Association of America, also for the 10th time in his career. Woods in 2009 had won six PGA Tour events and claimed the FedEx Cup, the Tour’s season title. [See p. 670F1; 2008, p. 993D2] n Ochoa Claims LPGA’s Top Player Award.

Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa Nov. 23 won the points-based Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) player of the year award for the fourth consecutive year. Ochoa, 28, had won three tournaments in 2009, and

earned 13 top-10 finishes. [See 2008, p. 993D3] Ochoa clinched the award by placing second in the season-ending LPGA Tour Championship in Richmond, Texas. That allowed her to top Jiyai Shin of South Korea, who finished tied for eighth, by one point in the player-of-the-year standings. The tournament, which ended one day later than scheduled and was shortened to 54 holes due to rain, was won by Anna Nordqvist of Sweden. Nordqvist shot a 65 in the final round to post a 54-hole total of 203, 13 under par. Ochoa finished two strokes back. Nordqvist earned $225,000 for the victory. [See p. 595D2] Other News—In other LPGA news: o Prodigy Michelle Wie of the U.S. Nov. 15 earned her first victory on the LPGA Tour, winning the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico. Wie, 20, had turned professional and signed lucrative endorsement deals in 2005, but since then had been hampered by injuries and had failed to live up to expectations. [See 2008, p. 627C1; 2005, p. 767E3] o The LPGA Oct. 28 announced that it had named Michael Whan as its new commissioner. Whan, a marketing executive, in January 2010 would take over the position vacated by Carolyn Bivens, who had been forced out by the Tour’s players in July. (Marsha Evans had replaced Bivens on an interim basis.) The LPGA had endured a troubled season in 2009, with sponsorship losses forcing it to cut its schedule to 27 tournaments, from 34 in 2008. [See p. 595G1] n

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Soccer Messi, Marta Named Players of the Year.

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), world soccer’s governing body, Dec. 21 named Argentine striker Lionel Messi, who played for the Spanish club Barcelona, the men’s world player of the year for 2009. Brazilian midfielder Marta was named the women’s world player of the year for the fourth time in a row. [See p. 159D3] Other News—In other soccer news: o Robert Enke, a goalkeeper for German club Hannover 96 who had been considered one of that country’s top players, Nov. 10 committed suicide by stepping in front of an oncoming train near his home in Hannover. Enke, 32, had battled depression for several years, his wife revealed Nov. 11. o Chelsea May 30 won England’s Football Association (FA) Cup, defeating Everton, 2–1. [See 2008, p. 423C3] o Barcelona May 27 defeated England’s Manchester United, 2–0, in Rome, Italy, to win the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League title. Cameroonian Samuel Eto’o and Messi scored for Barcelona. [See 2008, p. 423F1] o Glasgow-based Rangers May 24 defeated Dundee United, 3–0, to clinch the Scottish Premier League title. [See 2008, p. 423B3] 949

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o Wolfsburg May 23 clinched its first title in Germany’s Bundesliga with a 5–1 defeat of visiting Werder Bremen. [See 2008, p. 423E3] o Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine May 20 beat Werder Bremen, 2–1, in extra time to win the UEFA Cup in Istanbul, Turkey. The second-tier pan-European club tournament would be renamed the UEFA Europa League beginning in the 2009–10 season. [See 2008, p. 423D3] o Barcelona May 16 clinched Spain’s Primera Liga title when second-place Real Madrid lost to Villarreal, 3–2. [See 2008, p. 423D3] o Inter Milan May 16 won its fourth straight Serie A title in Italy when secondplace AC Milan lost, 2–1, to Udinese. [See 2008, p. 423C3] o Manchester United May 16 clinched the English Premier League title when it played to a scoreless draw with its historical rival, Arsenal. [See 2008, p. 423C2] o Manchester United March 1 won the Carling Cup in London, defeating Tottenham Hotspur, 4–1, on penalties, after the two teams played to a scoreless draw. [See 2008, p. 171E3] n

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Button Claims Formula One Title. Jenson Button of Britain, driving for the Brawn Grand Prix team, Oct. 18 clinched the 2009 Formula One title when he placed fifth in the season’s second-to-last race, the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. Brawn also clinched the constructors’ title with Button’s finish in the race, which was won by Mark Webber of Australia. It was the first Formula One title for both Button and Brawn, which had previously been owned by Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. (Honda had withdrawn from Formula One in 2008.) [See below; 2008, p. 930A1] After the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Nov. 1 in the United Arab Emirates, Button had 95 points in the drivers’ standings. Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, who won the race, placed second overall, with 84 points. Brazil’s Rubens Barrichello was third, with 77 points. Other News—In other Formula One news: o Button Nov. 18 signed a multiyear contract with the McLaren Mercedes team, where he would partner with Britain’s Lewis Hamilton, the 2008 Formula One champion. o Luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz, a division of Germany’s Daimler AG, Nov. 16 said it was buying 75.1% of the Brawn team. Abu Dhabi–based investment group Aabar Investments PJSC joined Mercedes in the deal. The team would be renamed Mercedes Grand Prix. Mercedes would continue to supply engines to McLaren through 2015. German driver Michael Schumacher, 40, who had won an unprecedented seven Formula One titles, Dec. 23 announced that he would emerge from 950

three years of retirement to drive for the Mercedes team. [See p. 647B2] o Former driver Jean Todt of France Oct. 23 was elected president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), auto racing’s world governing body. Todt replaced Briton Max Mosley, who had led the FIA since 1993. Mosley in July had agreed not to seek reelection, after his position was weakened by a 2008 sex scandal and a threatened revolt by several top Formula One teams earlier in 2009 over his attempt to impose cost-cutting measures. [See p. 647C1; 2008, p. 299C2] o The Toyota team, owned by Japanbased automaker Toyota Motor Corp., Nov. 4 announced that it was pulling out of Formula One, as part of a company-wide plan to cut costs. [See p. 679F3] n NASCAR’s Johnson Named AP’s Top Athlete.

Jimmie Johnson, who had won his fourth straight NASCAR title in November, Dec. 21 was named by the Associated Press (AP) as the top male athlete of 2009. Johnson, 34, became the first race car driver to win the award in its 78-year history. [See p. 859E3; 2006, p. 1038A2] Patrick to Race in NASCAR Series—

Danica Patrick of the U.S., who in 2008 had become the first woman to win an Indy Racing League (IRL) race, Dec. 8 announced that she had signed a two-year deal to race part time in the Nationwide Series, NASCAR’s second-tier circuit. She would compete for the JR Motorsports team in her first stint as a stock-car driver, while also continuing a full schedule of IRL races for Andretti Autosport. [See 2008, p. 283E3] n Franchitti Wins Indy Racing Crown. Scottish driver Dario Franchitti Oct. 10 clinched the 2009 Indy Racing League (IRL) title when he won the season-ending Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. Franchitti, who had returned to the IRL after a yearlong stint on the NASCAR circuit in 2008, had also won the IRL title in 2007. [See 2008, p. 930G1] In the final drivers’ standings, Franchitti beat out Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon of New Zealand, the 2008 champion, by just 11 points, 616 to 605. Ryan Briscoe of Australia, a member of the Penske Racing team, placed a close third, with 604 points. Both Franchitti and Dixon had five wins in the 2009 season. n

Track & Field Runner in Gender Controversy to Keep Title.

The South African Sports Ministry Nov. 19 announced that track and field’s world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), had agreed to allow 18-year-old South African middledistance runner Caster Semenya to keep the gold medal she had won at the IAAF World Championships Aug. 19. The results of the race had been questioned soon after, when the IAAF said Semenya would undergo gender tests to determine whether she was actually biologically a woman. [See p. 579B2]

Semenya, who had a muscular build and deep voice, and had quickly risen to the top of her sport, reportedly was deeply traumatized by the controversy and the media attention it had attracted. Many prominent South Africans criticized the manner in which the issue was handled by Athletics South Africa (ASA), the sport’s governing body in the country, and by the IAAF as a violation of her privacy. Semenya would be allowed to keep the title, gold medal and prize money she had won at the World Championships, because she had been “found to be innocent of any wrong,” the sports ministry said. The president of the ASA, Leonard Chuene, along with the members of ASA’s board, Nov. 5 were suspended. The suspensions were prompted by the revelation that Semenya had undergone sex-verification testing in South Africa Aug. 7, and that Chuene had sent her to the World Championships despite the fact that the tests had yet to be completed. Chuene also admitted that he had lied when he denied, in the immediate aftermath of Semenya’s win at the World Championships, that the tests had been conducted. The ASA Nov. 5 issued a formal apology to Semenya for its handling of her case. A panel of experts was still examining Semenya’s post–World Championships test results, which the IAAF Nov. 19 said would not be made public. Reportedly, the IAAF had no clear criteria for determining whether a person would be classified as a woman or a man. n IOC Redistributes Jones’s Medals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Dec. 9 redistributed the medals won by disgraced U.S. sprinter Marion Jones at the 2000 Summer Olympics Games in Sydney, Australia. The IOC in 2007 had stripped Jones of her medals—two individual golds and one individual bronze, as well as one relay gold and one relay bronze—after she admitted that she had lied to U.S. federal investigators about her past use of performance-enhancing drugs. Jones spent six months in jail for perjury, and had since retired from the sport. [See 2008, pp. 545F3, 546A1] The IOC notably refused to award Jones’s gold medal in the 100 meters to the runner-up, Greek sprinter Ekaterini Thanou, who had been banned from the 2004 Summer Olympics for missing mandatory drug tests. The IOC instead said there would be no official winner of that race, reportedly the first time in the 113-year history of the modern Olympics that an event would not have a gold medalist. Thanou sent a letter of protest to the IOC regarding the decision. Jones’s gold medal in the 200 meters went to runner-up Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas, and her bronze medal in the long jump was awarded to Russia’s Tatyana Kotova, who had originally placed fourth. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Dec. 18 in a preliminary ruling rejected a motion filed by seven of Jones’s relay teammates in an effort to retain their medals. The teamFACTS ON FILE

mates—Jearl Miles-Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander Clark and Andrea Anderson (members of the goldmedal-winning 4x400-meter relay team), and Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards and Passion Richardson (members of the bronze-medal-winning 4x100-meter relay team)—argued that under IOC rules, no Olympic decision could be changed more than three years after the Games. (A fifth member of the 4x100 team, Nanceen Perry, was not involved in the appeal.) The CAS rejected their argument, stating that “the three-year rule did not prevent the IOC from withdrawing medals which were awarded in a victory ceremony because the distribution of medals, which occurs immediately after the race, is not in itself a ‘decision.’” The CAS would rule on the merits of the appeal in 2010. n

Tennis Davydenko Wins Men’s Season Finale.

Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko Nov. 29 won the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour Finals, the season-ending event on the men’s tennis tour. Davydenko defeated Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro, 6–3, 6–4, in the final, in London. [See 2008, pp. 995A2, 875G2] Other News—In other men’s tennis news: o Spain Dec. 4–6 swept its five matches against the Czech Republic to win its second straight Davis Cup in Barcelona, Spain. [See 2008, p. 875E2] o Novak Djokovic of Serbia Nov. 15 won the Paris Masters, defeating France’s Gael Monfils, 6–2, 5–7, 7–6. [See 2008, p. 875A3] o It was first revealed Oct. 27 that former top-ranked player Andre Agassi of the U.S. had admitted to using the illegal drug crystal methamphetamine in 1997, while playing on the ATP Tour. The revelation came in an excerpt from his autobiography, Open, that was published on the Web site of the Times of London; the book was released Nov. 9. Agassi also said in the excerpt that he had lied to tennis officials after failing a drug test, and had succeeded in getting the test result thrown out. Agassi had retired in 2006, after winning eight Grand Slam titles. [See p. 840B1; 2006, p. 719A2, B3] n S. Williams Takes Women’s Finale. Serena Williams of the U.S. Nov. 1 defeated her older sister, Venus Williams, 6–2, 7–6, to win the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) season finale in Doha, Qatar. [See 2008, p. 875C3] Williams, who Dec. 22 was named the female athlete of the year by the Associated Press (AP), ended the season as the world’s top-ranked player. However, Williams Nov. 30 had been fined $175,000 by tennis’s Grand Slam Committee and given two years of probation for a profanitylaced tirade at the U.S. Open in September. [See p. 631G1; 2006, p. 1038A2] December 31, 2009

Italy Takes Fed Cup—Italy Nov. 8 won its second Fed Cup title in four years, defeating the U.S., four matches to none, in Reggio Calabria, Italy. [See 2008, p. 875D3] n

Hockey News in Brief. New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur Dec. 21 set the National Hockey League (NHL) all-time record for

regular-season shutouts, notching the 104th of his career in a 4–0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. He broke the record set by Terry Sawchuk between 1949 and 1970. Brodeur, 37, Dec. 18 had played his 1,030th NHL game, breaking Patrick Roy’s record for appearances by a goaltender. On Nov. 27, Brodeur passed Roy to set the mark for career minutes played by a goaltender, with 60,280. [See p. 299E3] U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Redfield Baum in Phoenix, Ariz., Nov. 3 approved the sale of the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes to the NHL for about $140 million. The NHL had sought to purchase the team in an effort to ward off potential buyers who would move it from Glendale, Ariz. The league Dec. 11 signed a letter of intent with Ice Edge Holdings, a group of U.S. and Canadian businessmen, to sell the team for $150 million. Final approval of the deal was pending. [See p. 730C3] The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Canada, Nov. 9 inducted six new members. The players inducted were center Steve Yzerman, defenseman Brian Leetch, and forwards Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. Also inducted that day was Lou Lamoriello, the Devils’ president and general manager, and former New York Rangers broadcaster John Davidson. [See p. 435E3] n

Basketball News in Brief. The Web site for CBS Sports

Dec. 24 reported that the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Washington Wizards were investigating the team’s guard Gilbert Arenas for storing unloaded firearms in the locker room at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Under the NBA collective bargaining agreement, weapons were strictly prohibited at league facilities. According to the Washington Post, local police officials Dec. 28 said an investigation had been launched into whether Arenas violated the district’s strict gun control laws. [See 2008, pp. 962B1, 478D3] The New Jersey Nets Dec. 4 defeated the Charlotte Bobcats, 97–91, in East Rutherford, N.J., after losing their first 18 games, the worst losing streak to start an NBA season in league history. Coach Lawrence Frank was fired Nov. 29, just before the team’s 17th loss. Assistant coach Tom Barrise was named his temporary replacement, before general manager Kiki Vandeweghe took over the permanent coaching role on Dec. 3. [See 2004, p. 336G1] Former Memphis Grizzlies guard Allen Iverson Dec. 2 signed a one-year deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, after he had initially announced his retirement on Nov. 25.

Iverson had started the season with the Grizzlies, but played only three games before taking a personal leave of absence on Nov. 7. The two parties parted ways on Nov. 16, freeing Iverson to join any NBA team once he cleared waivers. [See p. 771C2] The New Orleans Hornets Nov. 12 fired coach Byron Scott, naming general manager Jeff Bower as his replacement. The Hornets had started the season with a disappointing 3–6 record. Scott had been named NBA coach of the year in 2008 for leading the Hornets to a franchise-best 56 wins that season. [See 2008, p. 298G2] n

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Sports News in Brief Awards: Johnson Wins Sullivan. Olympic medal–winning gymnast Shawn Johnson April 15 won the 79th Sullivan Award as the U.S.’s top amateur athlete of 2008. Johnson, 17, had won a gold medal on the balance beam at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, as well as silver medals in the all-around competition and the floor exercise. [See 2008, pp. 599A1, 601A2; 2007, p. 904F1] n

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Canadian Football: Alouettes Win Grey Cup.

The Montreal Alouettes Nov. 29 defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 28–27, to win the 97th Grey Cup, the championship of the Canadian Football League (CFL), in Calgary, Alberta. Alouettes kicker Damon Duval missed a 43-yard field goal on the final play of the game, but received a second chance due to a penalty. He then made a 33-yarder to win the title for Montreal. [See 2008, p. 995A1] n

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College Basketball: Griffin Wins Wooden.

University of Oklahoma sophomore forward Blake Griffin April 10 won the John R. Wooden Award as the top player in men’s college basketball in the 2008–09 season. Griffin in June was selected by the Los Angeles Clippers as the top pick in the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. University of Connecticut sophomore forward Maya Moore won the Wooden Award as the best player in women’s college basketball. [See p. 450G3; 2007, p. 904G1] n

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Drugs in Sports: Prominent Doctor Held.

The New York Times Dec. 14 reported on its Web site that Anthony Galea, a Canadian doctor who had treated scores of top athletes including golfer Tiger Woods and Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, Oct. 15 had been arrested in Toronto by Canadian police on charges that included illegally crossing the U.S.-Canada border with human growth hormone (HGH) and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calves’ blood that was banned in the U.S. The Times reported that Galea had been under investigation in both countries since late September for supplying illicit performance-enhancing drugs to top athletes. Galea had become known in the sports world for developing pioneering therapies to help athletes recover from injuries faster. He was charged Dec. 18 in a Toronto court with offenses including conspiracy to smuggle HGH and other illegal drugs across the border. [See pp. 949C2, 87B1–88C1] n 951

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Women’s Basketball: Monarchs Fold. The Sacramento Monarchs, one of the original eight franchises in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Nov. 20 ceased operations. The Monarchs were owned by the Maloof family, which also owned the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. The team had won the WNBA title in 2005. WNBA President Donna Orender said the league was attempting to find a buyer that would keep the team in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. The league Dec. 14 held a dispersal draft for the Monarchs’ players. [See 2005, p. 675B1] n

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Astronomy Planet Made Largely of Water Found. A team

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of astronomers led by David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 16 said they had discovered a planet made mostly of water orbiting the red dwarf star GJ 1214, 40 light years away from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus. The planet was 2.7 times the size of Earth and 6.6 times as massive, and had a surface temperature of about 400° Fahrenheit (200° Celsius). The team reported its findings in the Dec. 17 issue of the journal Nature. Scientists said it was an important step towards finding a planet with conditions suitable for human habitation. [See 2008, p. 995A3] Some 400 planets outside the Earth’s solar system, or “extrasolar planets,” had been discovered in the 15 years since the first was found. A European team led by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland April 21 had reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics that it had found a planet only 1.9 times the mass of Earth, the smallest extrasolar planet yet found. It was orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581, about 20 light years from Earth in the constellation Libra, along with another planet that was about seven times Earth’s mass but which orbited within a theoretically habitable zone where water could exist in liquid form. n

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Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Nov. 30 said the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, had broken the world record for particle acceleration. The accelerator had fired particle beams at 1.18 trillion electron volts, surpassing the previous record of 0.98 trillion electron volts, set by the Tevatron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill. The Large Hadron Collider was located near Meyrin, Switzerland, on the SwissFrench border. [See p. 824F1] n

Paleontology Early Primate Fossil Revealed. A team of

paleontologists May 19 announced that they had found a 47-million-year-old fossil of an early primate that could have evolutionary links to later primates such as monkeys, apes and humans. The paleontologists that day unveiled the fossil at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the online scientific journal PLoS One that day published a paper on the fossil. There was also an elaborate media campaign, including a book and television specials, that promoted the find as a revolutionary discovery about a human ancestor, although other scientists disputed that. [See p. 691D2] The cat-sized fossil, which was unusually complete, had been recovered by private collectors in 1983 from the Messel Shale Pit, a fossil-rich quarry near Darmstadt, Germany. Its existence was first reported May 15 in the Wall Street Journal, after the fossil was studied in secret for two years. The fossil was of a species the paleontologists called Darwinius masillae. The paleontologists said it might be a member of a “stem group” that gave rise to humans and other higher primates, but added, “we are not advocating this.” However, Erik Seiffer of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., Oct. 21 reported in the journal Nature that Darwinius was actually a member of a primate group called the adapoids, which gave rise to modern lemurs and was evolutionarily distinct from the group that evolved into monkeys, apes and humans. That echoed the analysis of many scientists who had complained of the overhyped nature of the original announcement. n

News in Brief. An international team of

physicists Dec. 17 announced that they had detected what they thought was dark matter, which was invisible material that was thought to fill much of the universe. If they were correct, it would be the first time dark matter was registered since its existence was hypothesized in 1933; however, the physicists cautioned that the results were not final, and that there was a one-in-four chance that ordinary particles had been detected instead. Their detector was located 0.5 miles (0.8 km) below ground in an old iron mine in Soudan, Minn., which protected it from interference from other particles such as cosmic rays. The findings were announced on the Web site of the project, the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search. [See 2008, p. 643E2] 952

Archaeology France Returns Artifacts to Egypt. French President Nicolas Sarkozy Dec. 14 handed over five fragments of an ancient Egyptian fresco to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Paris, during a visit by Mubarak to France. Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Oct. 7 had cut ties with Paris’s Louvre Museum, which had purchased the artifacts in 2000 and 2003; Egypt claimed that the Louvre had known they had been stolen in the 1980s, but the museum said it had thought they had been obtained legally. Egypt’s move had suspended the Louvre’s archaeological work in Egypt, as well as several conferences. The fresco fragments were believed to be from the wall of a

3,200-year-old tomb of the nobleman Tetaki, in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor. [See 2007, pp. 905A1, 471G3] Egypt’s aggressive action to win back the Louvre fragments was part of a broader push to secure the return of artifacts from foreign collections. Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, in October had said he would seek the return of a 3,500-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, from the Neues Museum in Berlin if it was found to have been stolen, as he claimed. The moves to secure artifacts in France and Germany came shortly after Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni failed to win election as head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Hosni would have been the first Middle Eastern and first Arab head of the organization, but his candidacy had come under attack from France and the U.S., among other countries. Egyptian and German officials denied there was a connection between Hosni’s defeat and the campaign to secure Egyptian artifacts. [See p. 675G2] n Record Anglo-Saxon Treasure Hoard Found.

British archaeologists Sept. 23 announced that an amateur treasure hunter had found the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure yet to be uncovered, in a farmer’s field in Staffordshire, England. The hoard—some 1,800 pieces, including pieces of swords, daggers, scabbards, helmets and Christian crosses, and amounting to 11 lbs. (five kilograms) of gold items and 5.5 lbs of silver—was judged to be the most important such find ever made, surpassing the 1939 discovery of a seventh-century royal burial chamber in Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk. [See 2008, p. 404C2] The hoard was thought to have been loot taken by warriors from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and dated to around 700 A.D. The first pieces were found in July by a treasure hunter, Terry Herbert, using a metal detector. After he reported it, archaeologists excavated the site in secret. The hoard’s value was initially estimated at one million pounds ($1.6 million), but the British Museum Nov. 25 revised it to £3.285 million. Museums were raising money to purchase the treasure; a reward equal to its value would be split between Herbert and the farmer in whose field it was found. n

Medical Research Virus Linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

U.S. researchers reported in an article published Oct. 8 on the Web site of the journal Science that they had linked a virus that caused cancer in animals to chronic-fatigue syndrome in humans. The syndrome affected an estimated 17 million people worldwide, and was characterized by chronic pain and tiredness. However, there was no treatment for it, and it was typically diagnosed only after other potential causes had been ruled out. Some in the medical community had questioned whether the FACTS ON FILE

syndrome was a distinct disease. [See 1992, p. 79B3] The virus, called XMRV, had been found in 68 out of 101 people being treated for chronic-fatigue syndrome. In contrast, it had been found in eight out of 218 people not diagnosed with the syndrome. Scientists said those suffering from chronic fatigue might benefit from drug cocktail treatments for HIV, the virus that caused AIDS, which was similar to XMRV. The research had been led by Judy Mikovits, a research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nev. n

Awards Poet Valentine Wins Wallace Stevens Award.

The Academy of American Poets Sept. 14 named Jean Valentine the winner of its $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. Born in Chicago in 1934, Valentine was a longtime resident of New York City and a former New York University faculty member. Her work was described by academy chancellor Gerald Stern as having “all the immediacy, the panic, the odd journey that dreams give.” [See 2008, p. 643A3; 2004, p. 936E2] n Bollingen Poetry Prize Awarded to Grossman.

Allen Grossman Feb. 16 was named the winner of the 2009 Bollingen prize in American Poetry. The $100,000 prize, awarded biennially for the best book published during the previous two years or for lifetime achievement, was administered by the Yale University Library. Born in Minneapolis, Minn., in 1932, Grossman was a retired humanities professor at Johns Hopkins University. The three-judge panel that selected Grossman for the award described his most recent verse collection, Descartes’ Loneliness (2007), as “a bold and haunting late meditation” that struck “a precarious balance between an aspirational vision and close attention to the world at hand.” [See 2007, p. 151D1] n

Arts NYC Fall Auctions Continue to Lag. The global financial crisis continued to take take its toll on the flagship fall art auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art held in New York City between Nov. 3 and Nov. 12. Overall sales were under $600 million for New York’s two main auction houses, Sotheby’s Holdings Inc. and Christie’s International PLC. The corresponding figure for November 2008 had been roughly $730 million, compared to $1.6 billion in November 2007, before the onset of the crisis. [See 2008, p. 996B2] Warhol Fetches $43.8 Million—The undisputed star of New York’s November auctions was a 1962 painting by Pop artist Andy Warhol, 200 One Dollar Bills, for which an unidentified bidder at Sotheby’s Nov. 11 paid $43.7 million. It was the second-highest price for a Warhol at auction, exceeded only by the $71.7 million paid for Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), a 1963 work, at Christie’s New York salesroom in May 2007. [See 2007, p. 904F3] December 31, 2009

(The Economist magazine in its Nov. 26 issue ran a lengthy piece arguing that Warhol’s work had become the “bellwether” of the 21st-century art market. In that piece, the magazine revealed that Italian art collector Annibale Berlingieri had privately sold Warhol’s painting Eight Elvises [1963] for $100 million in 2008.) In Sotheby’s fall auction of Impressionist and modern art, held Nov. 4, auction records were set for paintings by Frenchman Andre Derain and Dutch artist Kees van Dongen. For Derain, the record was the $14 million paid for a seascape, Barques au Port de Collioure (1905); for van Dongen, it was the $13.8 million fetched by Jeune Arabe (1910), an image of a man naked from the waist up. [See 1968, p. 296F3; 1954, p. 312G1] Records Also Set at NYC Spring Sales—

New York’s spring auctions, held between May 5 and May 14, had also seen a number of records set for paintings sold at auction. These included the $6.1 million paid May 6 at Christie’s for Tamara de Lempicka’s Art Deco painting Portrait of Madame M. (1932); the $4.1 million paid May 12 at Sotheby’s for a 1988 self-portrait by German artist Martin Kippenberger, the subject of a retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that had closed just before the auction; and the $7.9 million paid May 13 at Christie’s for David Hockney’s Beverly Hills Housewife (1966–67). [See 2006, p. 1039C3; 2004, p. 1095C3] Old Master Records Set in London— A Dec. 8 auction of works by Old Masters at Christie’s London salesroom saw two works fetch a combined £49.4 million (about $81 million). One of them was a Rembrandt painting, Portrait of a Man Half-Length, With His Arms Akimbo (1658); it fetched £20.2 million ($33.2 million), a Rembrandt auction record. The other was a drawing by Renaissance artist Raphael, Head of a Muse; it fetched £29.2 million ($48 million), a record auction price not only for a Raphael but also for any work on paper. It was also the most paid for any artwork at auction in 2009. Both works were bought by anonymous bidders, but the new owner of the Rembrandt was identified in a Dec. 19 New York Times article as casino mogul Steve Wynn. [See 2006, pp. 1039C3, 500E2; 2004, p. 1096F2; 2000, p. 1056D3] At Sotheby’s London salesroom Dec. 9, a self-portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck painted in 1640, a year before his death, fetched £8.3 million ($13.5 million), more than double the previous van Dyck auction record. [See 2002, p. 163B2] n Rome Gets New Art Museum. A new museum devoted to contemporary art and architecture, the Maxxi, designed by Pritzker Prize–winning London-based architect Zaha Hadid, opened to the public for an “architectural preview” Nov. 14. Located on the periphery of Rome’s historic center, the museum was designed to serve as Italy’s “national museum of the 21st century arts.” When the public got its first look at the museum, it did not contain any art; its first shows would not be mounted until

spring 2010. Architecture critics hailed the new museum, more than a decade in the making, for the boldness of its design. For one thing, its walls not only curved but their depth varied with the curvature. [See 2005, pp. 996A2, 108E1; 2004, p. 219E3] Other New Museums—Other 2009 museum unveilings included the Nov. 8 grand opening of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia, in a vast marble Soviet-era structure embedded in a huge hill in the commercial center of Armenia’s capital, and funded by Gerard Cafesjian, an 84-year-old Armenian-American; the Oct. 1 opening of the $110 million Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, Calif.’s Presidio, a former U.S. military base; and the May 16 opening of a $294 million wing for the substantial post–World War II and contemporary art holdings of the Art Institute of Chicago, designed by 1998 Pritzker laureate Renzo Piano. [See 2008, p. 996D3–F3; 1998, p. 280C2; 1996, p. 740D3] n

major additions to the Dallas, Texas, arts district, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, both opened Oct. 18. The buildings faced each other on Flora Street, the district’s main thoroughfare. The theater was designed by New York City–based architect Joshua Prince-Ramus, whose mentor and former employer was 2000 Pritzker laureate Rem Koolhaas of the Netherlands. (The project had begun as a collaboration between the two men, but was taken over by Prince-Ramus after he and Koolhaas had a falling-out.) The designer of the opera house was British architect Sir Norman Foster, who won the Pritzker in 1999. Another recent major addition to the Dallas arts district was the Nasher Sculpture Center, which opened in 2003. [See p. 120D2; 2000, p. 276D1; 1999, p. 320C1] n

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Copenhagen Gets New Concert Hall. A new

concert hall by French architect Jean Nouvel, who won the Pritzker Prize in 2008, opened Jan. 17 in Copenhagen, Denmark. A steel-and-glass cubic structure with a cobalt blue exterior onto which video images were projected at night, the Copenhagen Concert Hall—the new home of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra—contained an 1,800-seat wooden auditorium. Cost overruns led to its final cost reaching around $300 million, reportedly making it the most expensive concert hall to date, a record previously held by Frank Gehry’s $274 million Disney Hall in Los Angeles, which opened in 2003. [See 2008, p. 247F2; 2003, p. 1104B3] n

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Two Venerable Soap Operas Canceled. The CBS television network Dec. 8 announced

that it was canceling “As the World Turns,” the 54-year-old soap opera that had been the last daytime serial owned by Procter & Gamble Co. CBS Sept. 18 had aired the final episode of the penultimate such soap opera, the even more venerable “Guiding Light,” which had been on radio and TV for a combined 72 years, first airing on television in 1952. CBS had announced the 953

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cancellation of “Guiding Light” on April 1. [See 1960, p. 486G1] n Harlem Boys Choir Demise Confirmed.

Terrance Wright, a 39-year-old alumnus of the Boys Choir of Harlem, a renowned New York City chorus, Dec. 13 confirmed long-standing rumors that the choir had ceased to exist. Founded in 1968 by Walter J. Turnbull, the choir had given its last concert around the time of Turnbull’s death, at age 62, which occurred in March 2007. The choir’s demise was thought to have been set in motion by a sex scandal involving a counselor, which led to Turnbull’s resignation as its chief executive in 2004. [See 2004, p. 100D2] n

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U.S. Releases in 2009. The following were the top-grossing films released in the U.S. through Dec. 31, with their cumulative box-office receipts. The figures appeared on the boxofficemojo.com Web site, operated by IMDB.com Inc. According to Variety, movies in 2009 grossed $10.7 billion, exceeding $10 billion for the first time, and topping the previous record, the $9.8 billion set in 2008, by nearly 10%. (Films marked with an asterisk were currently in release as of Dec. 31.) [See 2008, p. 997D2]

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Paramount ($402.1 million) 2. Avatar, 20th Century Fox ($352.1 million)* 3. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros. ($302.0 million) 4. Up, Disney ($293.0 million) 5. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Summit Entertainment ($287.8 million)* 6. The Hangover, Warner Bros. ($277.3 million) 7. Star Trek, Paramount ($257.7 million) 8. The Blind Side, Warner Bros. ($209.1 million)* 9. Monsters vs. Aliens, Paramount ($198.4 million) 10. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, 20th Century Fox ($196.6 million) n

Theater Openings Fela! Broadway production of a musical about Nigeri-

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an musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, first mounted in an off-Broadway theater in 2008. Book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones; music and lyrics by Fela; additional lyrics by Lewis; additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean. Conceived by Jones, Lewis and Stephen Hendel. Directed and choreographed by Jones. With Sahr Ngaujah and Kevin Mambo (alternating as Fela), Lillias White and Saycon Sengbloh. In New York City, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater. Nov. 23. [See 2008, p. 860A1] Have You Seen Us? South African dramatist Athol Fugard’s first play with a U.S. setting. Directed by Gordon Edelstein. With Sam Waterston and Lisa Colon-Zayas. In New Haven, Conn., at the Long Wharf Theater. Dec. 2. [See pp. 672E3, 211B3] In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play. Broadway production of a comedy about sexual repression during the Victorian era. By Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Les Waters. With Laura Benanti, Michael Cerveris and Maria Dizzia. In New York City, at the Lyceum Theater. Nov. 19. (This play had its world premiere Feb. 4 at Berkeley, Calif.’s Berkeley Rep.) [See 2007, p. 552B2; 2006, pp. 968D1, 775A1] A Little Night Music. Broadway revival of a 1973 musical adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; book by Hugh Wheeler. Directed by

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Trevor Nunn. With Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury and Alexander Hanson. In New York City, at the Walter Kerr Theater. Dec. 13. (This production originated at a tiny London theater, the Menier Chocolate Factory; Hanson was in the original cast.) [See 2007, p. 504G1; 1978, p. 619A3; 1973, pp. 321G3– 322A1, D1] A Moon to Dance By. Drama set on British author D.H. Lawrence’s New Mexico ranch in 1939, nine years after his death. By Thom Thomas. Directed by Edwin Sherin. With Jane Alexander, Robert Cuccioli and Gareth Saxe. In New Brunswick, N.J., at the George Street Playhouse. Nov. 20. [See 2003, p. 255C3; 1997, p. 895B1; 1956, p. 272E1] My Wonderful Day. Comedy of manners set in a London town house. Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn. With Ayesha Antoine, Petra Letang, Terence Booth and Ruth Gibson. In New York City, at the 59E59 Theaters. Nov. 18. (This production originated at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England, where Ayckbourn was playwright in residence.) [See pp. 400B1, 348D2] Our Town. Oft-revived play about small-town America. By Thornton Wilder. Directed by David Cromer. With Cromer, Ken Marks, Jennifer Grace and James McMenamin. In New York City, at the Barrow Street Theater. Feb. 26. (This off-Broadway production, which originated in Chicago, Dec. 16 mounted its 337th performance, making it the longest-running Our Town ever; the original 1938 Broadway production closed after 336 performances.) [See 2006, pp. 1040B2, 987A3; 2002, p. 1074F3] Pop! Musical about Pop Art pioneer Andy Warhol and his entourage. Music by Anna K. Jacobs; book and lyrics by Maggie-Kate Coleman. Directed by Mark Brokaw. With Randy Harrison, Doug Kreeger, Emily Swallow, Cristen Page, Leslie Kritzer, Danny Binstock and Brian Charles Rooney. In New Haven, Conn., at the Yale Repertory Theater. Dec. 3. [See pp. 953F1, 516C2; 2007, pp. 904E3, 796C3; 1987, p. 132E3] Race. Broadway production of a new, racially charged drama by David Mamet, marking Mamet’s Broadway directing debut. With James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas. In New York City, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Dec. 6. [See pp. 860F2, 596F1; 2008, pp. 998F1, 116E2] Ragtime. Broadway revival of a musical about early 20th-century America first seen on Broadway in 1998. Book by Terrence McNally, based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel of the same name; music by Stephen Flaherty; lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge. With Quentin Earl Darrington, Stephanie Umoh, Christiane Noll, Bobby Steggert and Robert Petkoff. In New York City, at the Neil Simon Theater. Nov. 15. (This production originated at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where it opened April 25.) [See 1998, pp. 400C1, 212G1; 1981, p. 1003A3] The Starry Messenger. Comic drama with an astronomer as its title character. Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. With Matthew Broderick, Catalina Sandino Moreno and J. Smith Cameron. In New York City, at the Acorn Theater. Nov. 23. [See 2001, p. 424D1; 2000, pp. 348A2, 103E2] This. Comedy about a group of sophisticated urbanites nearing middle age. By Melissa James Gibson. Directed by Daniel Aukin. With Julianne Nicholson, Eisa Davis, Darren Pettie, Glenn Fitzgerald and Louis Cancelmi. In New York City, at Playwrights Horizons. Dec. 2. [See 2007, p. 836C1; 2001, p. 1082B3] n

People Actor Charlie Sheen, 44, Dec. 25 was arrested in Aspen, Colo., after his wife, Brooke Mueller, 32, told police that he had held a knife to her throat during an argument and threatened either to kill her or have a hitman do it. Sheen was arrested under his real name, Carlos Irwin Estevez, and was released later that day on $8,500 bail. He was due to appear in court in February 2010. Sheen, who currently starred in the popular television situation comedy “Two and a Half Men,” had married Mueller 18 months earlier; the couple had ninemonth-old twin sons. In 1997, Sheen had pleaded no contest to battery charges involving a former girlfriend, and had been

sentenced to 300 hours of community service. [See p. 596B2; 1997, p. 468C3] Atlanta, Ga.–based rapper T.I. Dec. 22 was released from a federal prison in Arkansas, where he had been serving a sentence for weapons violations, and was admitted later that day into an Atlanta halfway house, where he would remain for up to three months. [See p. 364E2] Sherry Johnston, the mother of Levi Johnston, the former fiance of 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol Palin, Dec. 21 was returned from prison to her Wasilla, Alaska, home, where she would be allowed to complete a sentence for drug-dealing by wearing an ankle monitoring device. She had been sentenced Nov. 20 to three years in prison for selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin, a controlled substance, to police informants in 2008. She had been arrested in December of that year, days before the birth of her and Sarah Palin’s first grandchild. [See p. 797F1; 2008, p. 998D2] A Lettera 22 Olivetti manual typewriter that had belonged to author Cormac McCarthy since 1963, and on which McCarthy, 76, had typed all his novels, including the 2007 Pulitzer Prize–winning The Road, Dec. 4 fetched $254,500 at auction at Christie’s International PLC’s New York City salesroom. The typewriter, which McCarthy had bought in a Tennessee pawnshop for $50, had been expected to sell for at most $20,000. It was bought by an unidentified American collector. The auction was handled by rare book dealer Glenn Horowitz, a longtime friend of the reclusive author. McCarthy would type his future manuscripts on a replacement typewriter— the same Olivetti model—recently bought for him by another friend for under $20. The proceeds of the auction would go to the Santa Fe Institute, a scientific research center that McCarthy liked to visit. [See 2008, p. 136B1; 2007, p. 252E2] Slain Chilean folk singer and songwriter Victor Jara, one of the most prominent victims of the violence attending the 1973 coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power, Dec. 4 was publicly reburied in the main cemetery in Santiago, the Chilean capital. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria and Jara’s widow, British-born Joan Jara, now an octogenarian, led some 12,000 Chileans in a funeral procession that wound through the streets of Santiago on the way to the cemetery. [See 1991, p. 203D3; 1974, pp. 32G2, 12C2] n

O B I T UA R I E S ARANNE, Ike (born Yitzhak Ahronovitch [one of a number of variant spellings of his original family name]), 86, captain of the Jewish refugee ship Exo-

dus 1947; its violent interception by British forces before it could dock in Palestine, where Aranne had been living since the age of 10, and the forced return of the 4,500 refugees to detention camps in Germany, sparked international outrage in 1947 and helped motivate members of the United Nations to vote for the establishment of the state of Israel, which occurred in 1948; born in Poland in 1923; died Dec. 23 in Hadera, Israel, after a long illness. [See 2008, p. 320D3] BRUTUS, Dennis (Vincent), 85, South African poet and antiapartheid activist; of mixed ancestry, he was classified as “colored” under South Africa’s racial

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code; exercising his political activism most strenuously in the realm of sports, he played a crucial role in getting South Africa suspended, and eventually banned, from the Olympic Games between 1964 and 1992; his activism led to his being imprisoned on Robben Island for about a year and a half, in a cell next to the one occupied by African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela, who in the 1990s would become South Africa’s first black president; in 1963, while he was in prison, the first of his 11 verse collections, Sirens, Knuckles and Boots, was published in Nigeria; in 1966, not long after being released from prison, he was allowed to emigrate to Britain; from 1970 on, he lived in the U.S.; having by then established a reputation as a major African poet, he taught at a number of U.S. universities; in the early 1980s, he won a highly publicized battle to avoid being deported from the U.S.; he returned to South Africa in 1991, after he and other political exiles were “unbanned” during the twilight of white minority rule; in recent years, he had been an environmentalist and outspoken foe of globalization; born Nov. 28, 1924, in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); died Dec. 26 at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, of prostate cancer. [See 1983, p. 729D1; 1976, p. 528C3] CALDERA Rodriguez, Rafael Antonio, 93, twotime president of Venezuela, from 1969 to 1974 and from 1994 to 1999; a six-time presidential candidate, he was also his country’s attorney general early in his political career; trained as a labor lawyer, he was a founder of the country’s Social Christian Party (COPEI) in 1946; in 1958, he was one of three signers of the Punto Fijo pact, which helped Venezuela avoid military rule from then on; under that pact, COPEI and Romulo Betancourt’s Democratic Action Party shared power for nearly four decades; early in his second term as president, he granted amnesty to Hugo Chavez Frias, who, as an army paratroop commander, had been involved in a failed coup attempt in 1993; Chavez succeeded Caldera as president in 1999, and still held the post; since becoming president, he and Caldera had often been at odds; born Jan. 24, 1916, in San Felipe, Venezuela; died Dec. 24 in Caracas, Venezuela, after battling Parkinson’s disease; in announcing his death that day, his son said that Caldera’s family would “not accept any homage” from Chavez’s government. [See 1999, p. 85F2; 1998, pp. 907D1, 209G1, 10G2; Indexes 1993–97, 1977–78, 1968–75, 1963, 1957–59, 1946] CARAZO Odio, Rodrigo, 82, president of Costa Rica, 1978–82; an economist by profession, he was in power when Costa Rica experienced an economic crisis that led to his Unity Party being routed in Costa Rica’s 1982 presidential election; born Dec. 27, 1926, in Cartago, Costa Rica; died Dec. 9 at a hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica, from complications of heart surgery performed Nov. 30. [See 1982, p. 97F3; 1981, p. 754E2; Indexes 1977–80, 1973] CHAVEZ Cano, Esther, 76, Mexican human rights activist; in 1993, she was among the first people to begin documenting unsolved murders and disappearances of women in and around Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city located across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas; many of the victims, whose numbers climbed well into the hundreds over the years, worked on assembly lines in U.S.-owned Juarez factories; in 1999, she founded the first rape-crisis center and battered women’s shelter in the Juarez region; born in 1933 in Chihuahua, Mexico; died Dec. 25 in Juarez, of cancer. [See 2006, p. 714B1] DALY, Cardinal Cahal (Brendan), 92, Roman Catholic archbishop of Armagh, Northern Ireland, and the church’s leader in both parts of Ireland, from 1990 to 1996; he was made a cardinal in 1991, and was a leading voice for peace in Northern Ireland; born Oct. 1, 1917, in Loughguile, Northern Ireland; died Dec. 31 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. FREEDBERG, A(braham) Stone, 101, Harvard University cardiologist who during World War II, decades before two Australian researchers persuaded the medical community that most peptic ulcers were caused by bacteria, reached the same conclusion and published research to that effect; his ulcer research, however was dismissed at the time, and he was dissuaded from continuing it; in their 2005 Nobel acceptance speech, the two Australians, J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall, acknowledged his earlier finding; born May 30, 1908, in Salem, Mass.; died Aug. 25 at his home in Boston, Mass.; he had sustained a leg laceration that led to complications, including pneumonia, and had asked to be released from the hospital because he said he was too old for additional treatment; after returning home, he died after several days of refusing to eat and drink. [See 2005, p. 722D1]

December 31, 2009

HAFEZ, Amin al-, 83, prime minister of Lebanon for two months in 1973; he was forced to resign amid pressure from the country’s Sunni Muslims, who claimed that Hafez, despite being a Sunni himself, did not adequately represent Sunni interests; born in 1926 in Tripoli, Lebanon; died July 13 at a hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, of a chronic illness not identified by his doctors. [See 1973, pp. 532G3, 485A3, 414B3, 391G2, 365C1, B2, 345B1, 329C1] HAFEZ, Amin el- , Syrian general who from July 1963 to February 1966 presided over the country’s Baathist government, serving as president of the National Council of Revolutionary Command throughout that period, and as prime minister for much of that time; after a coup d’etat led to his overthrow, he was arrested, and went into exile in Iraq, where he spent most of the rest of his life; born in Aleppo, Syria, in or around 1921; died in Aleppo Dec. 17. [See 1969, p. 114C2; 1966, pp. 79F2–B3, 80B3; Indexes 1963–65] KREBS, Edwin Gerhard, 91, one of two medical researchers who shared the 1992 Nobel Prize for medicine for their discovery, at the University of Washington in the 1950s, of reversible protein phosphorylation, a key cellular regulatory mechanism; born June 6, 1918, in Lansing, Iowa; died Dec. 21 at a Seattle, Wash., chronic-care facility, of progressive heart failure. [See 1992, p. 805F2; 1989, p. 732E1] LAUGERUD Garcia, Kjell Eugenio, 79, president of Guatemala, 1974–78; a military officer who served as his country’s defense minister in the early 1970s, he became president by winning an election tainted by violence and accusations of fraud; his administration was praised for its swift response to a devastating 1976 earthquake but was also widely criticized for human rights violations; born Jan. 24, 1930, in Guatemala City, the capital; died at his home there Dec. 9, of cancer. [See 1983, p. 956C1; Indexes 1972– 78] LEDERER Jr., William Julius, 97, co-author of the best-selling novel The Ugly American (1958), which severely critiqued U.S. foreign policy in a thinly fictionalized manner; the book led to the phrase “ugly American” entering the English language as a term for Americans with a callous attitude toward the rest of the world; born March 31, 1912, in New York City; died Dec. 5 at a hospital in Baltimore, Md., of respiratory failure. [See 1987, p. 132C3; 1968, p. 546D2; 1965, pp. 464B3, 288G3; Indexes 1963, 1958] LEE Hu Rak, 85, close associate of South Korean President Park Chung Hee, who came to power in a 1961 military coup and ruled South Korea repressively until his 1979 assassination; from 1970 to 1973, Lee was South Korea’s intelligence chief; as such, he helped forge a historic agreement with North Korea in 1972, but was also linked to the 1973 abduction of South Korean pro-democracy activist Kim Dae Jung, who in 1998 became the first South Korean opposition leader to win the presidency; born in 1924; died Oct. 31 at a hospital in Seoul, South Korea, reportedly of a brain tumor. [See p. 564B3; 1985, p. 171F1; Indexes 1979–80, 1977, 1972–74] LEVINE, David, 83, caricaturist whose drawings of politicians, well-known authors and other celebrities graced the pages of the literary and intellectual journal the New York Review of Books almost from its inception in 1963; he contributed more than 3,800 drawings to the publication before 2007, when macular degeneration left him too visually impaired to continue drawing; his work also appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Yorker, Esquire and Time magazines; born Dec. 20, 1926, in New York City; died Dec. 29 at a New York hospital, of prostate cancer complications. [See 2006, p. 500B3; 1983, p. 191A3; Index 1966] LILLY, Ruth, 94, philanthropist who had been the last surviving great-grandchild of pharmaceuticals magnate Eli Lilly; she was estimated to have given away $800 million during her lifetime, largely to institutions in her native Indianapolis, Ind.; an abiding interest in poetry led her to endow one of the U.S.’s leading poetry awards, the annual Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, first presented in 1986 and now worth $100,000; in 2002, she pledged to donate assets then estimated to be worth $100 million to the Chicago-based literary journal Poetry; born Aug. 2, 1915, in Indianapolis; died there Dec. 30; no cause of death was reported. [See p. 364F1; 2002, pp. 996D2, 900D2; Index 1986] MacGINNIS, Marc Christian, 55, onetime lover of actor Rock Hudson, who, after Hudson died of AIDS in 1985, filed a lawsuit against Hudson’s estate that led to a multimillion-dollar settlement; in news accounts of that lawsuit, he was referred to as Marc Christian; he sued for emotional stress, based on the fact that Hudson had continued to have unprotected sex with him after receiving his diagnosis and not sharing that news; MacGinnis, who never tested positive for AIDS, was

awarded $21.75 million in damages by a Los Angeles jury in 1989, before a judge reduced the award to $5.5 million; a final settlement in the case was reached in 1991; born June 23, 1953, in Los Angeles; died June 2 at a hospital in Burbank, Calif., of lung disease linked to heavy smoking. [See 1989, pp. 312A2, 136A3, 116C2, 24B3; 1985, p. 748F2] MAYS, Billy (William Darrell), 50, pitchman who vigorously hawked a variety of products in television infomercials, ranging from OxiClean stain remover to Orange Glo cleaning solution to Mighty Putty glue; born July 20, 1958, in McKees Rocks, Pa.; found dead June 28 at his home in Tampa, Fla.; the Hillsborough County, Fla., coroner’s office Aug. 7 issued an autopsy report attributing his death to “a lethal arrhythmia of the heart caused by hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease,” and citing cocaine use as having contributed to the development of his heart condition. NAKAGAWA, Shoichi, 56, stalwart of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who held several cabinet posts from 1998 on, the most recent of which was as finance minister; appointed to the post in September 2008, he was forced to resign in February, over erratic behavior during a news conference at a meeting of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations in Rome; born July 19, 1953; found dead Oct. 4 at his home in Tokyo; medical tests found signs of circulatory disease and traces of alcohol in his system; no suicide note was found and there was no evidence of foul play. [See p. 98E3–F3; 2008, pp. 783A1, 764B1–C1, 742C1, 682D1; Indexes 2004–06, 1998] PAVIC, Milorad, 80, Serbian author of experimental, nonlinear fiction; his first, and perhaps bestknown, novel, Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words, appeared in English translation in 1988, four years after its publication in SerboCroatian; he was also a historian of Serbian culture; born Oct. 15, 1929, in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia; died Nov. 30 in Belgrade, of a heart attack. PEEK, (Laurence) Kim, 58, model for the autistic savant Raymond Babbitt in the film Rain Man (1988), for which Dustin Hoffman won the Academy Award for best actor in 1989; born with severe brain abnormalities that made him seem autistic (he actually was not), he was a so-called mega-savant, someone with an amazing number of diverse facts stored in his memory; after Hoffman thanked Peek in his Oscar acceptance speech, Peek became a celebrity lecturer, demonstrating his gifts to millions of people and campaigning on behalf of the disabled; born Nov. 11, 1951, in Salt Lake City, Utah; died at his home there (where his father cared for him) Dec. 19, of a heart attack. [See 1989, p. 223A1] ROCHER, Yves, 79, French cosmetics magnate; he began marketing plant-based cosmetics in 1959, and built up a global business, largely through mailorder sales; his company’s annual sales reportedly were now three times as large those of its British– based rival, the Body Shop chain; born April 7, 1930, in La Gacilly, France; died Dec. 26 in Paris. [See 2007, p. 619C3] SULTAN, Larry (Lawrence Allen), 63, photographer whose work was largely identified with Southern California; for example, he photographed homes in the region’s San Fernando Valley that had been used as settings for pornographic films; his “Valley” images of those homes were exhibited in 2004 at the San Francisco Museum of Art, one of a number of major museums to showcase his work, which also appeared in book form; the San Francisco museum gave him his first major show in 1977, when it displayed a collection of found photographs, called “Evidence,” selected by him and photographer Mike Mandel from huge industrial and government archives; a book based on that show became a conceptual-art milestone; born July 13, 1946, in New York City; died Dec. 13 at his home in Greenbrae, Calif., of cancer. SUTTON, Percy Ellis, 89, New York City–based civil rights lawyer, politician and media mogul; the son of a former slave, he opened a law office in New York’s Harlem district in 1953 and became civil rights activist Malcolm X’s lawyer, fulfilling that role until Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination; from 1966 to 1977, he was president of New York’s Manhattan borough, making him New York State’s thenhighest-ranking black official; he later ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and for New York City mayor, but paved the way for other blacks in politics, including David Dinkins, who in 1989 was elected the city’s first black mayor; Sutton also owned the city’s first black-owned radio station, WLIB-AM, which he and his brother bought in 1971, and radio stations in cities like Los Angeles and Detroit, Mich.; he was also credited with rescuing Harlem’s famed Apollo theater in 1981; he headed an investment group that

955

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

BEST SELLER LISTS

A

Books

Television

Publishers Weekly Dec. 21 listed the following hardback and paperback best sellers [See p. 840A1]:

Top-Rated Programs. The following were the most-watched prime-time nation-

Fiction Hardback 1. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Doubleday) 2. U Is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton (Putnam) 3. I, Alex Cross, by James Patterson (Little, Brown) 4. Under the Dome, by Stephen King (Scribner)

B

5. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam/Amy Einhorn)

General Hardback 1. Going Rogue: An American Life, by Sarah Palin (Harper) [See p. 797D1] 2. Have a Little Faith: A True Story, by Mitch Albom (Hyperion) 3. Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, by Greg Mortenson (Viking) 4. Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, by Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions) 5. Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi (Knopf)

C

Mass Market Paperback 1. Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks (Grand Central) 2. The Associate, by John Grisham (Dell) 3. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage) 4. Cross Country, by James Patterson (Vision) 5. Arctic Drift, by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler (Berkley)

Music Best-Selling Singles and Albums. Billboard magazine in its Dec. 19 issue list-

D

ed the five most popular singles (as determined by air play and sales) and the five best-selling albums in the U.S. as the following [See p. 840C1]:

Singles 1. “Empire State of Mind,” Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (Roc Nation) 2. “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga (Streamline/Konlive/Cherrytree/Interscope) 3. “Tik Tok,” Kesha (Kasz Money/RCA/RMG) 4. “Replay,” Iyaz (Time Is Money/Beluga Heights/Reprise) 5. “Fireflies,” Owl City (Universal Republic)

Albums

E

1. I Dreamed a Dream, Susan Boyle (Syco/Columbia/Sony Music) 2. My Christmas, Andrea Bocelli (Sugar/Decca) 3. Fearless, Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 4. Untitled, R. Kelly (Jive) 5. The Fame, Lady Gaga (Streamline/Konlive/Cherrytree/Interscope/IGA )

bought the Apollo at a bankruptcy sale that year, and lavishly renovated it before reopening it in 1985; born Nov. 24, 1920, in San Antonio, Texas; died Dec. 26 at a New York nursing home. [See 1997, p. 625B2; 1992, p. 132G3; Indexes 1976–77, 1971–72, 1966–68, 1964, 1961–62]

F

G

TAVEL, Ronald, 72, avant-garde playwright and screenwriter; he wrote screenplays for a number of underground films made by artist Andy Warhol in the 1960s, including Chelsea Girls (1966); born May 17, 1936, in New York City; died March 23 on a flight from Berlin, Germany, to Bangkok, Thailand, of an apparent heart attack; he had been living in Bangkok since the late 1990s. [See 1987, p. 132F3; 1974, p. 991A1; Index 1973] TSHABALALA-Msimang, Manto, 69, South African physician who was her country’s health minister from 1999 to 2008; during her tenure, she was widely criticized by scientists and AIDS activists for advocating an assortment of folk remedies instead of antiretroviral drugs to fight AIDS; a member of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, she lived in exile from the 1960s until the early 1990s, and received her medical training in the Soviet Union; born Oct. 9, 1940, in Durban, South Africa; died Dec. 16 at a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa; her death was attributed to complications from a 2007 liver transplant. [See p. 325B3; 2008, p. 679G2; Indexes 2006–07, 2001–03, 1999]

956

al television shows Nov. 30–Dec. 31, as determined by A.C. Nielsen Co. (Series marked with an asterisk * had at least one other episode during the period that outranked some of the other programs listed.) Figures in parentheses are rating points; each point represents 1% of the 114.9 million television households in the U.S. [See p. 840A2]:

1. “Sunday Night Football” (NBC), Dec. 13 (12.7)* (tie) “NCIS” (CBS), Dec. 15 (12.7) 3. “NCIS Los Angeles” (CBS) Dec. 15 (10.9) 4. “The Mentalist” (CBS), Dec. 10 (10.3) 5. “60 Minutes” (CBS), Dec. 13 (10.2)

Films Top-Grossing Films. The following were the top-grossing films in the U.S. for the week of Dec. 25–31, according to Variety. Figures in parentheses were each film’s cumulative domestic box-office total and number of weeks in release to date. Information on cast and director is included when a film first appears on the list. [See p. 840B2]:

1. Avatar, 20th Century Fox ($268.9 million, 2) Directed by James Cameron. With Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez. 2. Sherlock Holmes, Warner Bros. ($93.6 million, 1) Directed by Guy Ritchie. With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong and Eddie Marsan. 3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, 20th Century Fox ($112.0 million, 1) Directed by Betty Thomas. With Jason Lee, Zachary Levi, Anjelah Johnson, Wendie Malick and the voice of Justin Long. 4. It’s Complicated, Universal ($35.0 million, 1) Directed by Nancy Meyers. With Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski and Lake Bell. 5. The Blind Side, Warner Bros. ($193.0 million, 6) [See p. 840C2] 6. The Princess and the Frog, Disney ($73.4 million, 5) Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. With the voices of Anika Noni Rose, Keith David, Jenifer Lewis, Ritchie Montgomery and Bruno Campos. 7. Up in the Air, Paramount ($30.8 million, 4) Directed by Jason Reitman. With George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman and Danny McBride. 8. Nine, Weinstein Co. ($9.0 million, 2) Directed by Rob Marshall. With Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren. 9. Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Sony ($19.1 million, 2) Directed by Marc Lawrence. With Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen and Elisabeth Moss. 10. Invictus, Warner Bros. ($25.6 million, 3) Directed by Clint Eastwood. With Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.

WAHID, Abdurrahman ad-Dakhil, 69, liberal Muslim cleric who was president of Indonesia for 21 months between 1999 and 2001; he was Indonesia’s first elected president after 32 years of military rule under Suharto, who was driven from power amid protests and riots in 1998; Wahid quit the presidency after being impeached by the parliament, and was succeeded as president by Megawati Sukarnoputri. the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno; born Sept. 7, 1940, in Jombang, Indonesia; died Dec. 30 at a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, during surgery to remove a blood clot in his heart; various chronic conditions, including diabetes, had left him nearly blind. [See 2008, p. 58E3; 2004, pp. 447D2, 296A2; Indexes 1999–2002] WENDKOS, (Abraham) Paul, 84, director of the highly popular 1959 surfer film Gidget, starring Sandra Dee, and of two sequels; he also directed many made-for-television movies; born Sept. 20, 1925, in Philadelphia, Pa.; died Nov. 12 at his home in Malibu, Calif., after suffering a stroke. [See 2005, p. 124D2] WILLOUGHBY, Bob (Robert Hanley), 82, photographer best known for images captured on Hollywood film sets; his favorite subject was actress Audrey Hepburn, whom he first worked with in 1953 on the set of Roman Holiday; in 2008, he published a photographic tribute to her, Remembering Audrey 15 Years Later; much of his other work was also published in book form; born June 30, 1927, in Los Angeles; died Dec. 18 at his home in Vence, France, of cancer. [See 1993, pp. 235C3, 40G2]

WILSON, (Helen) Charis, 95, major source of inspiration for the work of California-based photographer Edward Weston (1886–1958), to whom she was married from 1939 to 1946; he often photographed her in the nude, in such settings as sand dunes and swimming pools; she wrote much of the text for his seminal work California and the West, published in 1940; born May 5, 1914, in San Francisco, Calif.; died Nov. 20 in Santa Cruz, Calif. [See 1958, p. 8E1] WILSON, William Albert, 95, first full-fledged U.S. ambassador to the Vatican; a California businessman and rancher, he helped bankroll Ronald Reagan’s various political campaigns, including his successful run for the U.S. presidency in 1980; he was appointed Reagan’s personal envoy to the Vatican in 1981, and was elevated to full ambassador in 1984; he resigned in 1986, after it was reported that he had held an unauthorized meeting with Libyan leader Muammer elQaddafi in 1985; born Nov. 2, 1914, in Los Angeles; died Dec. 5 at his home in Carmel Valley, Calif., after battling cancer. [See 2004, p. 421B1–C1; 1989, p. 503G3; Indexes 1986–87, 1984, 1981] YANG Xianyi, 94, translator into English of many classics of Chinese literature, including the 18th-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber; much of his work was done in collaboration with his wife, Gladys Yang, who died in 1999; both of them were imprisoned from 1968 to 1972, during China’s Cultural Revolution; born Jan. 10, 1915, in Tianjin, China; died Nov. 23 in Beijing. [See 1999, p. 884G3] n

December 31, 2009

FACTS ON FILE

TM

World News Digest Cumulative Index

The Cumulative Index is the key to locating all subjects, people, companies, organizations and coun tries in the FACTS ON FILE News Di gest arti cles. The index is also useful as an inde pen dent ref er ence tool for lo cat ing the dates of events, and the full names and ti tles of in di vidu als and as so cia tions.

How to Use: Every subject, personal name, company, organization, geographic area and topic in the news is listed as a heading followed by related entries. The Index headings are arranged alphabetically according to a letter-by-letter alphabetical system. Topical subheadings divide long lists of entries under headings. Every entry in the Index is a shorthand synopsis of a news item followed by the date and the page reference. The date shows the month and day in numerical form (for example, 12-10 means December 10). The page ref er ence shows the page number, the mar gin let ter par al lel to the news item and the col umn in which the item ap pears on the page. En tries in the In dex are usu ally listed in chrono logi cal or der.

Heading

Subheading

NOBEL Prizes Awards Obama accepts peace prize 12-10, 842D2 Entry (shorthand synopsis of news event)

Date of Event

Page Reference

(December 10))

(page 842, margin letter: D, column: 2)

Tips for easy searching: Don’t give up if you don’t find what you are looking for under the first heading you try; try other headings related to the story. Virtually every news story that was widely reported in the national press is in FACTS ON FILE. The Index is studded with cross-references showing where additional or related in for mation can be found. It is of ten helpful to search first for a specific name that you know is part of a story, since broader headings accumulate many entries. Cross-references: The heading and subheading cross-references direct the user to other headings and/or subheadings. The word “See” in the cross-reference means turn directly to the heading or subheading mentioned. The words “See also” indicate that all entries under the heading or subheading should be checked as well as those listed under other related headings or subheadings.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations used in the Index entries are listed on the reverse side.

FACTS ON FILE



Heading

Subheading

Entry

World News Digest Cumulative Index

ADVANCED Cell Technology Inc. Human embryo cloning research 7-11, 549C2 AFFIRMATIVE Action U Ga policy nixed 7-24, appeal set 8-15, 1022D2 Powell addresses GOP conv 7-31, 539F1 Lee named asst atty gen 8-3, 562F2 Lieberman named Gore running mate 8-7, 558D1, B2 AFFIRMED (racehorse) Red Bullet wins Preakness 5-20, 364B1 AFFLECK, Ben Bounce on top-grossing film list 1124—11-30, 948D2 AFGHANISTAN, Islamic State of CIS Relations Russia warns on Chechen rebel aid 5-22—5-24, 412F2 Russia tightens border 10-1, 1033D2 Civil Strife Taliban raid kills UN worker/6 kids 5-25, 398A3 Intl aid/women jobs banned 7-6; workers held 7-9, freed 7-12, 527A1 UN workers slain 8-5, 578C2

Economy & Labor Bakeries closure set 8-16, nixed 8-17, 619D3 Religious Issues US rpt censures 9-5, 776A2, C2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Jet hijacked to UK 2-6—2-7, hostages freed/21 arrested 2-10, 78F3, 79D1 Jet hijackers chrgd in UK 2-14, 90B3 US rpt issued 6-5, 389C3 AFRICAN Americans—See BLACK Americans AFRICAN Methodist Episcopal Church Woman bp (McKenzie) elected 7-11, 504G2 AFWERKI, Issaias (Eritrean president, 1993- ) Ethiopia border war retreat set 5-25, 352D2 AGASSI, Andre Loses US Open quarterfinal 9-5, 716A2 AGRICULTURE—See also USDA Health & Safety Issues UK foot-and-mouth payouts confrmd 8-5, 668B3

“See” Cross-Reference (Go directly to heading specified)

“See also” Cross-Reference (Go elsewhere for additional information)

Abbreviations: In addition to the following list, other standardized abbreviations and acronyms are used in the Index. A—atomic acad—academic, academy acct(g)—account(ing) admin—administration agrmt—agreement agri—agriculture amb—ambassador Amer—American anniv—anniversary apptmt—appointment archbp—archbishop assn—association assoc—associate asst—assistant atty—attorney authrzn—authorization avg—average bd—board biog—biography, biographical bk—book bldg—building bln—billion bp—bishop Brit—British bur—bureau cabt—cabinet CEO—chief executive officer chem—chemical, chemistry chng—change chrg—charge chrmn—chairman cmdr—commander cmnd—command cncl—council cnty—county co—company COL—cost-of-living coll—college com—committee comm—commission comr—commissioner conf—conference confrmd—confirmed

cong—congress, congressional const—constitution(al, ality) cont—continued conv—convention convctd—convicted COO—chief operating officer corp—corporate, corporation CP—Communist Party CPI—Consumer Price Index CR—Costa Rica ct—court DC—District of Columbia defns—defense Dem, dem—Democrat(ic) dep—deputy dept—department dir—director dist—district dvpt—development E—East eastn—eastern econ—economic, economy ed—editor educ—education(al) elec—electric(al) emb—embassy envir—environment Eur—Europe exchng—exchange fed—federal forgn—foreign fscl—fiscal GDP—Gross Domestic Product GNP—Gross National Product GOP—Republican Party gov—governor govt—government HOF—Hall of Fame hosp—hospital hq—headquarters hr—hour HS—high school hwy—highway

ID—identity, identification indep—independen(t,ce) indl—industrial indus—industry info—information inst—institute intell—intelligence intl—international jt—joint km—kilometer KO—knockout ldr—leader legis—legislation, legislature ltd—limited m—meter med—medicine, medical mfg—manufacturing mgr—manager mgt—management mi—mile MIA—missing in action mil—military min—minister mkt—market mln—million MP—member of parliament mtg—meeting munic—municipal N—North natl—national natlzn—nationalization natn—nation northn—northern ofc—office ofcl—official ofcr—officer orgn—organization parlt—parliament PI—Philippines PM—prime minister pol—political, politics POW—prisoner of war PR—Puerto Rico

premr—premier pres—president pro—professional prof—professor prov—province, provincial pub—public pvt—private RC—Roman Catholic rep—representative repub—republic res—resolution resrch—research rpt(d,r)—report(ed,er) RR—railroad S—South schl—school secy—secretary Sen, sen—Senate, senator sentncd—sentenced setlmt—settlement soc—social soclst—socialist southn—southern Sovt—Soviet spec—special sub—submarine subcom—subcommittee sup—supreme suplmtl—supplemental supt—superintendent svc—service tech—technical, technology tourn—tournament treas—treasurer, treasury U, univ—university vet—veteran vp—vice president vs—versus W—West westn—western wk—week yd—yard yr—year

2009 Annual Index and Year in Review ©2010 by FACTS

ON FILE News Services An imprint of Infobase Publishing

FOR QUICK ACCESS TO MAJOR STORIES AND FEATURES, SEE LAST PAGES

A AABAR Investments PJSC Brawn team stake buy set 11-16, 950F1

AARDSMA, David Among AL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G2

AARON, Quinton Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

AARP Health insurnc reforms plan outlined 3-27, 245G2 Health care reform forum held 7-28, 520C2

ABA—See AMERICAN Bar Association ABACHA, Gen. Sani (1943-98) (Nigerian head of state, 1993-98) Shell rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405C3, E3

ABAD, Javier Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

ABAKAROV, Abdurazak Slain 6-5, 417D1

ABAWI, Labeed On Iran troops oil field occupatn 12-20, 943A1

ABBAS, Gen. Athar On tribal areas mil offensives 4-28—4-29, 298G1–B2 Mulls Mingora control 5-30, on hostages rescue 6-2, 382B2–D2, G2–A3 On tribal areas mil operatn preperatns 6-16, 418B1, G1–A2 On tribal areas militants 7-8, 466C3–E3 On Swat militants capture 9-11, 630G2 On army hq hostages use 10-12, 695E1 On tribal areas mil operatn 10-17, admits tribes deals 10-19, 709A2, 710A1, C1 On Kotkai mil control 10-24, 737C3 On tribal areas mil offensive progress 11-17, 806A3

ABBAS, Mahmoud (Abu Mazen) Hosts US spec envoy (Mitchell) 1-29, 42C2

Israeli parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85F3 Hosts US’s Clinton 3-4, 123E3 Fayyad, cabt quit 3-7, 157D1–F1 Visits Iraq 4-5, 228F1 Hosts US’s Mitchell 4-17, Obama mtg invite set 4-21, 313E1 Hosts Pope Benedict 5-13, 335C3 Fayyad sworn premr 5-19, 345G1 Visits US, sees Obama 5-28, 380F2–G2 On US’s Obama Egypt speech 6-4, 369B1 Hosts US’s Mitchell 6-10, 403A3 On Israel’s Netanyahu Palestinian state backing 6-14, 403E2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 7-27, 546C1 Fatah conf held, reelected ldr/central com vote held 8-4—8-11, 545A3, C3 Hosts US’s Mitchell 9-15—9-16, 614B3 US’s Mitchell ends tour 9-18, sees Obama 9-22, 634E2–F2, A3 US’s Mitchell visits 10-8—10-11, 730E2 Sets electns 10-23, doubts reelectn bid 11-5, 754F2 Sees US’s Clinton 10-31, 754F1 Israeli peace talks halt seen 11-1, 754C2 Reelectn bid urged 11-7; marks Arafat death anniv 11-11, electns delayed 11-12, 790B3–C3 Visits Brazil 11-12, 885G1 Israeli troop (Shalit) release deal mulled 11-23, 838D3 Term extended 12-16, 945B3 W Bank raids kill 3 12-26, 945F1

ABBOT, Greg Vows gay couple divorce OK appeal 10-1, 699B2

ABBOTT, Tony Elected party ldr 12-1, backs emissns cut 12-2, 851E2–A3

ABBOTT-Pratt, Joniece Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

ABC Inc. (of Disney) Appointments & Resignations Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 World News anchor (Gibson) sets retiremt, Sawyer named 9-2, 612G2 Good Morning America—See GOOD Morning America Interviews & Debates Obama 9-18—9-20, 638D1–E1 Gates 9-27, 669B1 Axelrod 10-18, 715E2 Obama 11-9, 775A2 Palin 11-17, 797G1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad 12-18, 941D1

Nielsen Ratings—See under TELEVISION Obituaries Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Polls & Surveys Cuba base cont detentns support 1-13—1-16, 28C2 Obama support 2-19—2-22, 105G2 Health care reform support 6-24, 427D2 Obama approval, health care reform support 8-21, 597D1; 9-10, 618A1 Health care reform pub option support 10-20, 714B1 Health care reform support/Obama approval 11-17, 797C1 Climate chng belief 11-25, 828A3 Health care reform support, Obama approval 12-16, 864E1 Programming & Sponsorship Oscars aired 2-22, 120A1 Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331G2, B3, D3 Woodruff returns to Iraq 7-13, 500A2

ABDALLAH, Ahmedou Ould Sees Somalia forgn fighters 5-15, 341B3

ABDALLAH, Akram Musa Holy Land ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914C2

ABDEL Aziz, Gen. Mohamed Ould Quits mil 4-15; pres electn delayed, signs power-sharing deal 6-2—6-27, vote held, win rptd 7-18—7-19, 492A3, 493A1 Facts on 7-18, 492E3

ABDELKADER, Justin Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1–C1

ABDELLAHI, Sidi Ould Sheikh (Mauritanian president, 2007-08) Signs power-sharing deal 6-27, 492A3, F3–G3, 493D1

ABDELRAHMAN, Idriss Held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2

ABDOW, Abdow Stopped/questnd, held 10-6—10-9, indicted 10-14, 849E1–F1, A2

ABDUL-Ahad, Gaith Freed 12-16, 894E2

ABDUL Aziz Abdul Rahim, Judge Orders Perak chief min (Nizar) reinstatemt 5-11, ruling nixed 5-22, 415E1–G1

ABDUL-Jabbar, Kareem Howard tops NBA rebounding, blocks 4-15, 278C3

ABDUL-Jawad, Mazen Sentncd 10-7, 944E1

ABDULLAH (Afghanistan ex-foreign minister) Karzai pres bid formalized 5-4, 314C1 Karzai support polled 6-15, 434B3 In pres debate 7-23, 513C3–D3 Electn held 8-20, 549A1–D1, 550A1 Pres electn vote mulled/ballot stuffing tape issued, initial results rptd 8-23—8-26, 577C2–G2 Partial electn results issued 9-2, 594A2 Electn ballots excluded/reinstated, vote mulled 9-6—9-9, partial results rptd, recount ordrd 9-8, 611A1, D1 Pres electn recount ordrd/fraud seen, preliminary results rptd 9-15—9-16, 629F3, 630A1, E1 Karzai reelectn seen, recount set 9-25, scores UN spec rep dep (Galbraith) ouster 9-30, 668B3, G3 Scores UN envoy (Eide) 10-3, 674D1–E1 US’s Khalilzad visits, pres electn votes nix seen 10-14—10-15, 696C2–D2 Pres electn rpts issued, backs runoff 10-19—10-21, 710G1, B2, D2, F2 Nixes power-sharing deal 10-24—10-25; urges electn ofcl (Lodin) resignatn 10-26, UN workers slain 10-28, 750F3, 751B1–C1 Drops pres bid/alleges bias, defeat seen 11-1; runoff nixed, Karzai win declared 11-2, questns reelectn 11-4, 753A1, D2; photo 753F2 Karzai names cabt 12-19, 894C1

ABDULLAH II, King (Abdullah bin Hussein al-Hashem) (Jordan) Hosts Pope Benedict 5-8, 335D1–E1 Dissolves parlt 11-23; names premr (Rifai) 12-9, OKs cabt 12-14, 877E2

ABDULLAH, Burhanuddin Sentnc appeal nixed 2-9, 462B1–C1

ABDULLAH, Luqman Ameen Chrgd, slain 10-28, 760F2–B3

ABDULLAH, Gen. Said Ahmed On Ninevah mil operatns 2-22, 118A1

ABDULLAH Ahmad Badawi (Malaysian prime minister, 2003- ) On ASEAN rights mtg 2-28, 135E3 Successor (Najib) sworn 4-3; Mahathir rejoins party 4-4 cabt named 4-9, 223D1, C2–D2, C3

960 ABDULLAH— ABDULLAH bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, King (Saudi Arabia) Cabt shuffled 2-14, munic electns delayed 5-18, 943C3–G3 Obama calls 3-13, 180E2 At Arab League summit 3-30, 196D3–E3 Hosts US’s Obama 6-3, 369F1 Visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707C3 Suspends rptr (Yami) sentnc 10-26, widow punishmt drop urged 12-14, 944D1, G1 Orders flooding deaths probe 11-30, 944A2

ABDUL Mahdi, Adel Pol coalitn set 8-24, 592D1

ABDULMUTALLAB, Umar Farouk Mich flight blast fails, held/in hosp 12-25; chrgd/transferred, attack claimed 12-26—12-27, intell mulled, Yemen stay rptd/jt probes set 12-28—12-31, 897A1–E1, B3–C3, 898A1–F1, B2–E2, 899C1; photo 897E1 Yemen counterterror US role hike seen 12-30, 944D3

ABDULQADER, Mufid Sentncd 5-28, 914B2

ABDUL Razak bin Hussein (1922-76) (Malaysian prime minister, 1970-76) Son sworn PM 4-3, 223A3

ABDURAJAK, Abdullah Slain 8-19, 559A2

ABDUREHIM, Dawut Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

ABDYLDAYEV, Syrgak Stabbed 3-3; attack scored 3-4, work link seen 3-5, 187G2–A3 Rptrs attacked 3-25, 272B2 Pol asylum sought 8-14, 576D3

ABE, Shinzo (Japanese premier, 2006-07) Visits shrine 8-15, 582C3

ABEL Prize Gromov wins 3-26, 255B3

ABESS, Leonard Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108E2

ABETZ, Eric Car dealer/Treasury favoritism fake e-mail role mulled, probe blocked 6-19—6-26, 448A1 Sen com false testimony cleared 11-25, 851F3

ABHISIT Vejjajiva (Thai premier, 2008- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C1 Parlt by-electns held 1-11, 51C3–D3 Denies captured refugees abuse claims 1-20, 52D1 Denies captured refugees abandoning policy, opens probe 2-12—2-18, 99A2–C2 Sets royal family insults law review 3-6, 154G1 Protests held, ofc entry block drop ordrd 3-26—4-2; uprising urged 3-28, ‘08 demonstrators chrgd/cabt mtg nixed, at G-20 summit 3-30—3-31, 206B1–F1, C2 On early electns 4-5—4-16; protests turn violent, motorcade attacked/declares emergencies 4-7—4-14, nixes Asian summit, New Year’s festival 4-11—4-13, 249F3, 250B1–D1, B2–B3, E3, 251B1 Scores violnc 4-23; lifts emergency rule 4-24, protests cont 4-25, 295A2–E2 Visits Malaysia, southn insurgency victims aid bill OKd 6-8—6-9, 416G1–A2 Defends ASEAN human rights body 7-20, 495A3 Coup rumors spread, denied 8-3—8-4; security act invoked, protests held 9-18—10-24, Hindu temple clashes hurt 17, urges violnc halt 9-19—9-20, 726A2, C3–D3 Thaksin royal pardon sought 8-17, 559E2, G2 At ASEAN summit, Cambodia offers Thaksin asylum 10-23—10-25, 748G1, B2, D2, C3 Thaksin named Cambodia govt econ adviser 11-4; withdraws amb 11-5, nixes bay claims memo 11-10, 785A1–B1, E1 Cambodia highway project loan nixed 11-27, 872B2 On Laos refugees transfer plans 12-24, 934E2

ABN Amro Holding N.V. RBS shares drop 1-19, 36D2 RBS ‘08 loss rptd 2-26, 155C2

ABOGO, Placido Minko Pres electn held/vote mulled, results rptd 11-29—12-3, 833B3–C3

FACTS ABORTION Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Operatn Rescue funds lack seen 9-14, 833A1 Crime Issues Kan clinic vandalized 5-23—5-30; MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, shooting scored, suspect held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370A2, F2, D3 Kan MD (Tiller) fed slaying probe set 6-5, clinic shut/Operatn Rescue buy mulled, assoc practice cont 6-9—6-10, 445F1, C2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect, Operatn Rescue donatn claimed/denied 7-21—7-24; auctn blocked, FBI warning rptd 10-27—11-13, slaying backed/admitted, necessity defns use sought 11-9—11-23, 832B3, F3, 833C1–D1 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns nixed 12-22, 919C3 Political & Legislative Issues Warren at Obama inauguratn 1-21, 25D2 US intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47C1 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60G2 Gov Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd, nominated 2-28—3-2, 129A2 US stem cell fed funding ban lift signed 3-9, 143C2 GOP chair (Steele) sees choice 3-12, 146B3 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) confrmd 4-28, 285B3 US rights bill mulled 4-29, 285G2 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2–C2; key votes listed 302A1 Obama addresses Notre Dame graduatn 5-17, 338D2 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350C2–D2 EU treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432E1 Va late-term procedure ban upheld 6-24, 587F2 US forgn aid funds measure backed by Sen com 7-6, 488F3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469F2, 471G1–B2; excerpts 470D2 Ill parental notificatn requiremt upheld, delayed 7-14—8-5, 587E2 Okla abortn, ultrasound requiremt nixed 8-18, 587C2 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2 Sen health care reform curbs nixed 9-30, 656C3 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685D2 Sup Ct ex-justice (O’Connor) sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678C1 Rep Pelosi sees RC bps pro-choice assoc dir (Doerflinger) 11-6; health care reform passes House 11-7, curbs mulled 11-9, 773C2 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-21, 809G1–B2 Health care reform curbs nixed by Sen 12-8, 848C1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2–A3 US intl aid measure dropped 12-10, 867B1 DC ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867E1 Health care reform Sen bill mulled 12-13, 863B3 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2 Health care reform deal set, bill passes Sen/measures questnd 12-18—12-30, 904F3, 906B2; key provisns listed 905E1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906A3, 907C2 Religious Issues US’s Pelosi visits Vatican, sees Pope 2-18, 132A3 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2 Moral/religious treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146G1 Pope scores Maputo Protocol 3-20, 196A2 Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473A1–C1 Rep Kennedy backs funding 10-21; RC bp scores 10-22—11-9 Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831C3–E3 Rights Issues Roe v Wade anniv protested 1-22, 47F1 Statistics Chinese young females lack seen 4-10, 933B1 China annual rate 7-30, 576A2 U.S. Political Campaign Issues Electn results 11-3, 755C3, 756B1

ABOTT, Jeremy Wins US champ 1-25, 139D2

ABRAHAM, Arthur Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

ABRAHAM, Patrick Convctd 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374E3 Sentncd 12-19, 914A2

ABRAMOFF, Jack Sen Gregg ex-aide (Koonce) ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D2

ABRAMS, J(effrey) J(acob) Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

ABRAMSON, Justice Lisabeth Hughes Halts inmates executns 11-25, 850A1

ABSHIR, Khalid Mohamud Chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–C1

ABTAHI, Muhammad Ali Trial opens 8-1, confessn aired 8-2, 518F2, A3

ABUBAKAR, Atiku La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521C2 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797G2

ABUBAKAR, Col. Rabe On Delta region mil offensive 5-15, denies civiln deaths 5-21, 358D2, A3

ABU Dhabi—See UNITED Arab Emirates ABU Dhabi, National Bank of Dubai debt buy set 11-25, 829A1

ABU Dhabi Securities Exchange Index drops 11-30, 829E2

ABU-Jamal, Mumia ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602E2

ACABA, Joseph Flies Discovery missn, conducts spacewalks 3-15—3-28, 239C2–E2

ACADEMY Awards (Oscars) Broadcasting Nielsen ratings 2-22, 140A2 Nominations & Presentations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2 Nominatns announced 1-22, 40C1 Awards presented 2-22, 120A1 Obituaries Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Cardiff, Jack 4-22, 300D3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Jarre, Maurice 3-28, 212G2 Jones, Jennifer 12-17, 896F2 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468A3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532G2 People Poitier gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Polanski held 9-26, 653E3

ACADEMY of American Poets Valentine wins Wallace Stevens Award 9-14, 953B1

ACAR, Yusuf Held 3-12, 200D3

ACCAVITTI, Michael Quits 10-5, 753C3

ACCENT on Youth (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

ACCENTURE PLC Woods endorsemt deal ends 12-13, 879A2

ACCIDENTS (number in parentheses: total killed) Aviation US Airways jet engine woes seen 1-13; failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33F1 Afghan copter crash (1) 1-17, 54C3 Iraq/US mil copters crash (4) 1-26, 53E3 NYS plane crash (50) 2-12, 95B2 NYS plane crash ice cited 2-13, pilot errors seen 2-15—2-18, 95D2–F2 Dutch/Turkey flight crash (9) 2-25, 173B3 Dutch/Turkey flight crash preliminary rpt issued 3-4, 173D3 Canada copter crash (17) 3-12, 413G1 Canada copter crash rescue rptd 3-13, sudden oil loss cited 3-23, 413A2 F-22 fighter jet crash (1) 3-25, 266A3 US ‘08 charter flights accidents tallied 4-2, 412G3 NYS plane crash pilot test woes rptd 5-11, hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357G1, C2 Brazil/France flight disappearnc (228) 5-31—6-1, 369D2

ON FILE

Missing Air France flight wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369E2 France/Brazil missing flight air sensors replacemt mulled 6-6—6-9; bodies, wreckage found 6-6—6-11, A-sub search opens 6-10, 387A1 Brazil/France flight victims search halted, black box hunt cont 6-26—7-2, ocean impact mulled 7-2, 473E1 Yemen/Comoros flight crash (152) 6-30, 439A3 Yemen/Comoros flight plane safety woes rptd 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439E3–440B1 Afghan/NATO copter crash (3) 7-6, 466F1 Adventurer (Fossett) plane crash rpt issued 7-9, 538A2 Afghan copter crashes (22) 7-14, 7-19, 499F2 Iran/Armenia flight crash (168) 7-15, 482F3 Iran/Armenia crashed flight black box found, probe ordrd 7-15, 482G3–483A1 Iran plane crash (17+) 7-24, 941B3 NYC plane/copter collisn (9) 8-8, 538D1 NYC plane/copter collisn probe set, pilots credentials rptd 8-9, air traffic worker suspended 8-13, 538D1 Taiwan typhoon rescue copter crash (3) 8-11, 559D3 Colo mil copter crash (4) 8-19, 915G2 Greece firefighting plane crash (1) 8-27, 577A2 Iraq/US copter crash (1) 9-19, 668F2 Haiti UN plane crash (11) 10-9, 818D1 Fighter jets collisn (1) 10-15, 915F2 Afghan/US copter crashes (14) 10-26, 750F2, A3–B3, D3 Mil plane, copter crash (9) 10-29, 915E2 Brazil river plane crash (2) 10-31, 926D2 Russian mil cargo plane crash (11) 11-1, 766E3 Russian naval plane crash kills 11 11-6, 855F1 Jamaica flight missed landing 12-22, 930B1 Construction Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse cos setlmt rptd 3-26, 357G2 Indonesia dam collapse (100+) 3-27, 271G3 Minn bridge collapse victims setlmt OKd 4-16, 292F2 Georgia WWII monumt demolitn debris (2) 12-19, 937F1 Earthquakes—See EARTHQUAKES Fires & Explosions—See FIRES Marine Indonesia ferry sinks, survivors rptd/victims search ends 1-11—1-20, capt held 1-19, 84B2 Viet ferry sinking kills 40+ 1-25, 84D2 UK/French A-subs collide 2-3; incident bared 2-6, crash confrmd, Vanguard/Scotland return rptd 2-16, 91C3 US Navy sub/transport collisn 3-20, 266B3 Libya migrants boat capsizing (230+), survivors search ends/overcrowding rptd 3-30—4-2, 262E2 Haiti migrant boat sinking (15+) 7-26—7-27, 527G1 Haiti migrant boat sinking survivors found, rescue search ends 7-28—7-29, 527A2–B2 Tonga ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590D3 Macedonia boat sinking (15) 9-5, 728G3 PI ferry sinking kills 9 9-6; passenger rescued 9-7, rpt finished 10-16, 891G1 Kosovo Albanians migrant boat capsizing (16) 10-14—10-16, 777F1 Sri Lankan refugees boat sinking (12) 11-1, 930D3 Leb ships sinkings kill (18) 12-11, 12-17, 943D2 Mines China blast (74+), survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251D2 Utah ‘07 collapse setlmt OKd 5-12, 538C2 Myanmar landslides (30) 7-4, 528E3 China blast (104+) 11-21, 932G3 Motor Vehicle Iraq bus crash (7) 2-17, 101A2 Actor (Freeman) crash victim suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792C2 Zimbabwe PM car crash (1) 3-6, 152F1 Zimbabwe PM (Tsvangirai) in Botswana hosp, car crash probe opens 3-7—3-9, foul play denied, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152B2 Calif car crash (3) 4-9, suspect chrgd 4-10, 277E3 MLB ex-pitcher (Fidrych) dump truck mishap (1) 4-13, 256B3 Kids sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link seen 6-15, 555E2 Tour de France cop motorcycle crash (1) 7-18, 515G2 Kazakh car crash (1) 7-26, 663C1 Canada car/bike crash (1) 8-31, 927B2

2009 Index Golfer Woods crashes car 11-27; blames self 11-29, cited, cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839G1 Golfer Woods sets ‘indefinite break’ 12-11, 879D1 Bengals receiver truck mishap (1) 12-16—12-17, 948E1 Oil Spills—See OIL Spills Rail Ger billionaire suicide hit (1) 1-5, 8G1 Calif collisn hearing held 3-3, 357B3 DC Metro train crash (9) 6-22, 428F3 DC Metro train crash computer failure seen/brake woes rptd, suit filed 6-23—6-24, 429A1–E1 Ger suicide hit (1) 11-10, 949E3 Recreation Actress Richardson in skiing mishap, transferred to NYC 3-16—3-17; dies 3-18, brain hemorrhage cited 3-19, 176E3 Pope Angola mass stampede (2) 3-21, 196C2 Wal-Mart ‘08 customer trampling cited 5-26, 412D3

ACCOUNTING & Accountants Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud 1-7, 55G1 Nortel bankruptcy filed 1-14, 67B3 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 147G3 Freddie Mac probe rptd 3-11, 264C2 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141E2 Madoff assoc (Friehling) chrgd, surrenders/freed on bail 3-18, 245G1 US financial indus mark-to-mkt rules eased 4-2, 220D3 Satyam fraud suspects chrgd 4-7, Tech Mahindra stake buy set 4-13, 450C3–E3 Tajik natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272C2 Citigroup, Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-17—4-20, 264A3, F3–G3 Indep acctg oversight bds case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677B3 Madoff assoc (Friehling) pleads not guilty 7-17, 603D3 AIG ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 8-7, 585A3 Madoff assoc (DiPascali) pleads guilty 8-11, 603B3 FDIC deposits insurnc funds sought 9-29, 658C1 US electn results 11-3, 755G3 Madoff acctant (Friehling) setlmt OKd, pleads guilty 11-3, 800A1 Obituaries Klein, Allen 7-4, 516D3

ACEVES, Alfredo Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752B1

ACHESON, David On Setton Pistachio salmonella contaminatn 3-31, 268C2

ACHILLE Lauro (Italian cruise ship) Egypt’s Hosni, hijackers escape aid alleged 9-19, 675C3

ACID Lover (book) Mian files Google bk scanning suit, text removed/hearing held 10-23—12-29, 936E3

ACKER, Shane 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

ACKERMAN, Gary L. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1983- ; Democrat) Scores Madoff fraud scheme SEC handling 2-4, 114B1

ACKLES, Jensen My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

ACLU—See AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) Census ties cut/cont role seen, contract denied 9-11—9-23, 659A2 Fed funding bans passes Cong, voter registratn halt mulled 9-14—9-17; probes set, ldr (Harshberger) named 9-20—9-22, suits seen, IRS partnership ended 9-23, 638E2, A3, F3 Fed funds ban passes House 9-17, 641D2 Cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908E2

ACQUIRED Immune Deficiency Syndrome—See AIDS ACROPOLIS Museum (Athens, Greece) Opens, Elgin Marbles return sought 6-20, 449B2

ACTA, Manny Fired 7-12, 848G1 Riggleman named Natls full-time mgr 11-11, 949A2

—AEROMEXICO ACTION Against Hunger Sri Lanka workers ‘06 slayings army role nixed 7-14, 579C1

ACT Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1

ACTORS & Acting—See MOTION Pictures; TELEVISION; THEATER; personal names ACTORS‘ Equity Association Piven B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596F1

ACWUISTI, Alessandro Sees Soc Sec assigned numbering system weakness 7-6, 574F1

ADAMKUS, Valdas (Lithuanian president, 1998-2003/04-09) Electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344E1 Grybauskaite sworn 7-12, 512D3 Denies CIA secret prisons claim 12-22, 903B1

ADAM Opel AG Fiat seeks financial info 5-29, Magna buy set, deal mulled 5-30—6-3, 366F1, F2–G2, C3, 367A1–C1 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417B2 Buyout offer confmrd 7-8, 475C3–D3 Sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3 Sale blocked 10-16, Ger aid clarified 10-19, 767C2 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766B3 GM nixes sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1–F1, A2 Saab buyout bids deadline extended 12-30, 902B3

ADAMS, Amy Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

ADAMS, Gerry IRA attacks scored 3-9, 155C1 INLA ‘armed struggle’ end declared 10-11, 705D1

ADAMS, John (composer) Reich wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279F2

ADAMS, Lee Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

ADAMS, Patrick J. Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

ADAN Mohamed Nur, Sheikh Seeks forgn mil aid 6-20, 430B2

ADB—See ASIAN Development Bank ADDARIO, Lynsey Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671G1

ADDAZIO, Steve Named Fla U interim football coach 12-27, 948E2

ADDINGTON, David Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329E2

ADDOW, Ibrahim Hassan Slain 12-3, 889F1

ADEL, Mohammad Ibrahim China Metallurgical bribes alleged 11-18, 806E1 Replacemt named 12-19, 893G3

ADELE (Adele Laurie Blue Adkins) Wins Grammys 2-8, 88C2, F2

ADEM, Lara Bashir alHusband named premr 6-27, 450G2

ADEN, Gulf of Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21D2 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht (Tanit) 4-4; French commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 237C1, F1, 238G1; map 238A1 PI sailors travel banned 4-20, Somali pirates free chem tanker 4-21, 269A3 Somali refugees drowning rptd 9-1, 646D1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Pirates patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801G2 Somalia pirates ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2

ADEN, Omar Hashi Urges AU peacekeepers cont stay 2-22, 115A2

ADEN, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Named, sworn dep premr/finance min 2-20—2-21, 115F1

ADENA Springs Named ‘08 top racehorse breeder 1-26, 119G3 Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347F2

ADENAUER, Konrad (1876-1967) (German chancellor, 1949-63) Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755D1

ADENHART, Nick (1986-2009) Pitches game 4-8; dies in car crash 4-9, suspect (Gallo) chrgd 4-10, 277E3 Scioscia named NL top mgr 11-18, 824B1

ADKISSON, Jim Pleads guilty 2-9, 247D3

ADLER, John (U.S. representative from N.J., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

ADLER, Robert Named to CPSC comm 5-5, 340G2

ADOPTION—See under CHILDREN ADRIATIC Sea Croatia territory claim dropped 9-11, 628D2

ADUBA, Uzo Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

ADULTERY Pak dist Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102D3 Lobbyist (Iseman)/NYT suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151D3 Fed intern (Levy) slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149F1 LA mayor (Villaraigosa) reelected 3-3, 131B2 BMW heiress (Klatten) blackmailer pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207E1–F1 Malaysian cops convctd in Mongolian woman slaying 4-9, 223D3–E3, G3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396C3 Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, drops GOP post, woman comes forward 6-17, 410B1 SC gov (Sanford) hiking trip claimed, returns from Argentina/admits affair 6-22—6-24; drops GOP assoc post 6-24, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1, B2 Sen Ensign parents/mistress paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9; harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, reelectn bid cont 7-13, 478F1 Gov Sanford issues apology 6-26; details affair, wife scores 6-30—7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455D3 Sen Ensign scandal answers sought 8-12, 552F2–G2 Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1 NC gov (Sanford) civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1 Golfer Woods affairs alleged/in car crash, blames self 11-25—12-1; mistress hires atty, admits transgressns 11-27—12-1, sponsors back, cited/cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839G1, A3 Woods wife home buy rptd 12-1, sets golf ‘indefinite break’, endorsemt deals mulled 12-11—12-17, 879D1, A2 SC gov (Sanford) censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869C2

ADVANCED Integrated Technologies Corp. Bansal held 3-12, 200D3

ADVANCED Medical Technology Association Health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3

ADVANCED Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Intel, EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343A2–B2 Insider trading suspects chrgd, held 10-16, 743B3 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, setlmt OKd 11-12, 800C2, A3–B3

ADVANCE Publications Inc. Magazines shut 1-28—10-5, 913B1

ADVANI, Lal Krishna Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, drops party ldrship 5-16, 345D3

961

Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt leaked 11-23, denies claims 11-24, 823D1, F1 Drops parlt house party ldrship role 12-18, 946B2

ADVERTISING Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Amer Apparel/Allen lawsuit setld 5-18, 348E2 Computer Issues ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744G2 Crime & Law Enforcement Issues Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ suit filed, nixed 3-5—10-20, prosecutn halt ordrd 5-22, 781C3 ‘Craigslist’ women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20, further victims sought 4-22—4-23, 429G1–B2, F2 Health & Safety Issues FDA drug researchers paymt conflicts rptd 1-12, 65B1 Med devices efficacy/safety FDA reviews questnd 1-15, 64D3 Antipsychotic drug (Zyprexa) mktg suit setld 1-15, 64E3 Pfizer $2.3 bln chrg set 1-26, 49G1 Drug co (Forest) chrgd 2-25, 201E3 White House health care summit held 3-5, 145G3–146A1 FDA tobacco regulatn bill backed, passes House 4-1—4-2, 221A2 FDA tobacco regulatn bill clears House/signed, free-speech challenge seen 6-12—6-22, 428A3, C3–E3 Health care reform spending rptd 8-16, 552A1–B1 Tobacco curbs suit filed 8-31, 622E1 Pfizer drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587A2–B2 Health care reform Sen proposal debate opens 9-22—9-23, 637G3 Sen health care reform bill scored 10-11—10-14, 698F1, D2 Health care reform spending rptd 11-10, 775A1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Time Warner/AOL split set 5-28, 393C2 Microsoft/Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523B2, D2–E2 Clio Awards rights sale set 12-10, 912B3 Obituaries Chambers, Marilyn 4-12, 256A3 Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468A3 Mays, Billy 6-28, 955A3 Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24E3 Whitmore, James 2-6, 120G3 Zieff, Howard 2-22, 192G3 People Madagascar capital mayor (Rajoelina) ousted 2-3, 66B1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina named pres 3-17, 168D3 Madagascar’s Rajoelina sworn 3-21, 184C3 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659E1 Golfer Woods backed 12-1, 839B2, C3 Golfer Woods endorsemt deals mulled 12-11—12-14, 879A2 Tag Heuer halts Woods image use 12-18, AT&T ties cut 12-31, 949D2 Press & Broadcasting Boston Globe shutdown warned, nixed 4-3—5-4, 393D1 Atlantic sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479A2 Endorsemt disclosure rules hiked by FTC 10-5, 761G1 Conde Nast shut magazines 10-5, 913A1 Boston Globe sale nixed 10-14, 912E2 Russian govt media adviser (Lesin) fired 11-18, 893A1 Papers revenue drop rptd 11-19, 912A2 U.S. Political Campaign Issues Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444B3 NJ gov debate held 10-16, 716G2, A3 Electn results 11-3, 755A3, 756A3

ADWEEK (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

AECOM Government Services Inc. Iraq overbilling rptd 10-30, 790A1

AECOM USA Inc. Tenn power plant coal ash spill cause rptd 6-25, 555D1

AEG, Raivo On defns ex-ofcl (Simm) breach 2-26, 136D1

AEROMEXICO Mex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682E1

962 AEROSPACE— AEROSPACE Industry—See AVIATION AFFIRMATIVE Action Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C2; key votes listed 302A2 Sup Ct ex-justice (O’Connor) sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678C1

AFFLECK, Ben He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2 State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

AFGHAN Investment Co. Afghan mines min (Adel) bribe alleged 11-18, 806F1

AFGHANISTAN, Islamic State of Accidents & Disasters Copter crash kills 1 1-17, 54C3 NATO copter crash kills 3 7-6, 466F1 Copter crashes kill 22 7-14—7-19, 499F2 US mil copter crashes kill 14 10-26, 750F2, A3–B3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations US/Pak drone strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-8; transport route reopened 1-2; border violnc kills 86 1-9—1-11, 38C3, 39B1–C1 Pak’s Zardari visits 1-6, 54E3 Pak/UN refugees aid chief (Solecki) seized 2-2, 69F3 Pak supply route bridge reopens 2-6, Malakand Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102B3, D3, F3, 103A1–C1, F1 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103C3 CIA Pak efforts cont 2-25, 138C3 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F3, 176A1 Pak cops acad attack claimed 3-31, 228F3 Pak tribal areas militants arrival rptd 4-14, 276E1, C2 Pak tribal areas mil offensives open 4-26—4-28, 298E1–F1, B2 Pak blast claimed 5-28, tribal areas violnc kills 27+ 5-30, 382F2, E3 Pak tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418D1–E1, 419A1 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill scores, tribal areas militant ldr hurt 6-18—7-8, 466B3, D3 Pak border troops deployed 7-2, 466A1 Pak tribal areas refugees return set 7-9, US mil operatns opposed 7-22, 514A2–C2 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533A2, D2, F2 Pak trasport pass violnc kills scores, civiln exit seen 8-27—9-14, 630D3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills Jalolov 9-17, 670D1 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched, tribes/army deals rptd 10-17—10-19, 709B3–C3, 710C1; map 709E1, F2 US/Japan ‘equal’ ties sought 10-26, 786G3 Pak tribal areas mil offensive hike urged 11-13—11-14, progress seen 11-17, 806C3–E3 Pak’s Zardari visits 11-19, 805E3 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878E3–F3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 13 12-26, 947A2 CIS Relations Uzbek parlt electns held 12-27, 934F3 Civil Strife & Military Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 Post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245C1 US slain troops ‘John Doe’ family letters mistake rptd 1-7, 267C1 Violnc kills scores, US troops raid protested 1-8—1-24; Eur role hike urged 1-15, Gates testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, 54B2, B3–D3 Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16C1 Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, confrmd 1-20, 30A1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19E1 Obama gives inaugural addresss 1-20, 25B1, 27F2 Iraq/US troops transfer urged 1-23, 54B1 Obama visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64E1 Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64C1 Violnc kills scores, ‘08 civiln deaths rise seen 2-2—2-17; Spain troops hike nixed, US deploymt ordrd 2-10—2-17, US arms oversight questnd 2-12, 102C1, B2–A3

FACTS Kyrgyz/US mil base closure seen, regretted 2-3—2-5, air strikes civiln deaths cited, threat end claimed 2-4, 59A1–C1, F1 US/Russia ties hike urged, Kyrgyz mil base closure mulled 2-7, war progress questnd 2-8, 74A2–B2, E2, 75A1 US troops cont stay seen 2-9, coffin returns media ban mulled, review ordrd 2-9—2-11, 78A3, 79A2, C2 Canada troop levels mulled 2-19, 91E2 Obama budget proposals mulled 2-21, 111G1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125C1–D1 US war dead coffin return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132E1 Taliban talks mulled 3-8—3-11, violnc kills scores 3-14—3-16, 195F1, B3 France NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 172F3 US Army troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183C2, F2 Violnc kills scores, Taliban united front set 3-22—4-1; US strategy chngd, plan hailed/troops hike sought 3-27—4-1, UN security conf held 3-31, 194F2, 195B1, G1, G2–A3 Obama, Medvedev mull cooperatn 4-1, 194A1 US Cong com hearings held 4-2—4-3, 229B1–E1 NATO summit held, troops hike mulled 4-3—4-4, 213A1, C3–D3, 215C1 US right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, vets profiling scored/defended, regretted 4-14—4-16, 262F3 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 Violnc kills 100+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 4-13—5-6, UK/Australia troops hikes vowed 4-29, 314D1, A2 Defns Dept pub diplomacy ofc shut 4-15, 721C2 US mil clinics, pvt contractors reimbursemt woes rptd 5-4, 412A1 Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723D1 Civiln deaths protested 5-7; US/NATO cmdr (McKiernan) ousted, McChrystal named 5-11, Khost govt bldgs attack kills 20, captives held/freed 5-12, 317A1, E2, B3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F2 US troops mental health probe vowed 5-11, 330F2 Suplmtl funds pass House 5-14, 338D1–E1 Violnc kills scores, civiln deaths mulled 5-19—6-3; US/NATO cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, US troops casualties tallied 6-3, 381A1, G1, D2, C3–G3 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355D1, A2 US’s Obama visits Saudi 6-3, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367E3, 369A2; excerpts 368F1 Canada detainees abuse claims nixed 6-9, 413A1 Gen McChrystal confrmd cmdr/takes post, strategy mulled 6-10—6-16; violnc rise seen, Europn troops hike set 6-11—6-12, US air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434A1, B2, D2 NATO cuts Kosovo peacekeepers 6-11, 423F3 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424B3, D3 US detainees IDs/Red Cross access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621D2, G2–A3 UK/US mil operatns launched, violnc kills scores 6-19—7-6, pvt security guards held, US troop seized/capture claimed 6-30—7-6, 465D3, 466D1–A2 Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, Russian support mulled 6-24—6-25, 440C3–D3, G3 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489A3–B3, 490A1 Russia, NATO links cont 6-27, 450G1 US/Russian airspace use OKd 7-6, further cooperatn sought 7-7, 454A1, A3 Violnc kills scores, UK role mulled/deaths mourned 7-9—7-23; ‘01 mass slaying probe nix seen, US detainees protests rptd 7-11—7-17, hostage tap issued 7-18, 498D2–499G2 Army troops hike set 7-20, 491B2, D2 UK operatn phase ends/Jul casualties tallied, Taliban reconciliatn talks urged 7-27—7-30, 513C2 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523A3

Civiln deaths ‘09 rise rptd, violnc kills scores 7-31—8-12; NATO cmnd structure chngd 8-4, tribal fighters security aid sought 8-12, 546D3, 547D1, D2, F2 Georgia troops, US training aid set 8-14, 560C1 Violnc kills scores 8-15—8-20, 549D2–G2, B3 US pub support polled 8-20, 593F3 US drone missile strikes Xe work seen 8-21, 586E3–F3 Justice, cops reforms vowed 8-24, 573F1 US rptrs profiling seen, Rendon contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721B1–C1, E1 Violnc kills scores 8-25, 577C3 Violnc kills scores, forgn troops casualties tallied 8-27—9-2, strategy chng urged, civiln deaths curbs sought 9-1, 593B3, 594A1, D2–E2 UK role defended 9-4; violnc kills scores/civiln deaths mulled, air strike probe set 9-4—9-9, US hosp raid alleged, denied 9-6—9-7, 611F1, G2, D3, 612A1 Ger troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607D3 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C2, E2 Troop levels mulled/support polled, detainee appeals authrzn seen 9-10—9-17, violnc kills scores/casualties tallied, civiln deaths rptd 9-15—9-17, 629C2, D3, 630F1, C2 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620E2 Bin Laden recording posted 9-13, 621C2 US benchmarks set, warning posted 9-16—9-19; Sgt Monti honored, troops hike mulled/Obama rift denied 9-17—9-24, Italian troops mourned 9-21, 635A1, A2, A3, G3–636A1 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643A1, D1 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633B1 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665A3–B3 Violnc kills scores, civiln deaths rptd/casualties tallied 9-24—10-1; US troop levels mulled 9-25—9-27; strategy review opens 9-29, 669A1, E1–G1 Pak’s Zardari addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 652A2 US/Iraq troops cont exit seen 9-29, 668C1 Ltd missn debated, McChrystal sees Obama/Brown 10-1—10-5, violnc kills scores/Qaeda threat cut, troop levels mulled 10-2—10-8, 673A1–674F2; photo 674A1 Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720E2 UK troop levels mulled 10-6—10-8, 685D3–E3 US ‘10 defns funds pass Sen 10-6, 701A2 French troops, Kazakh transport deal signed 10-6, 739D2 Japan troops training aid mulled 10-7, US ships refueling missn end set 10-13, 703C2 US troop levels mulled, UK hike set 10-8—10-14, 695D3, 696C1 US ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 700D3 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693B2 Italy/Taliban paymts alleged, denied 10-15, French probe urged 10-16, 751A3 US fscl ‘09 deficit rptd 10-16, 713B2 US troop levels mulled 10-20—10-21, 711A1 Japan/US ships refueling missn hailed 10-20, 747F2, B3 Mil strategy mulled, sacrifices hailed 10-21—10-28; violnc kills scores 10-27—10-28, US ofcl (Hoh) resignatn rptd, slain troops return 10-27—10-29, 750E2, E3, 751A2 Australian troops exit backed 10-21, 851A3–C3 US defns ‘10 authrzn clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742B3, E3 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764C3–D3 US’s Clinton visits Pak 10-28—10-29, 737C2 Ger defns min (Guttenberg) sworn 10-28, 749C3 UK troops slain 11-3, 754C1 Violnc kills scores/bodies found, chem seized 11-4—11-11; UK support questnd, name misspelling regretted 11-6—11-10, US levels mulled 11-11—11-12, 775B1, D2–E2, A3–B3 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held 11-5, 757E1, E2 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought 11-6—11-12, 777F2, 778D1

ON FILE

UK/US troop levels mulled, Ger cont missn seen 11-13—11-18, violnc kills scores, casualties tallied 11-13—11-19, 805G3–806B1, D1, F1–G1 US vets ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815D2 Canadian detainees abuse parlt hearings held 11-18—12-9; govt stance chngd 12-9, com mtg skipped 12-15, 926F3–927B1 Tex mil base shooting probes set 11-19, 812C3, F3 Blast kills 18+ 11-20, 845D1 US strategy mulled/unveiling seen, troop levels debated 11-23—11-24, 809C2, 810A1 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914G3 Air strike civiln deaths Ger info withheld 11-26; Schneiderhan, Jung quit 11-26—11-27, missn extended 12-3, 835E3 UK troops hiked 11-30, 826F1–G1 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867G1, B2 US troops hike set, missn backed/NATO role mulled 12-1—12-2, Cong com hearings held 12-2—12-3, 825A1–827B3; text 826A1 NATO/Georgia/S Korea troops hike set 12-2—12-8, violnc kills 7+, Cong hearings held 12-7—12-9, 844B1, B2, F3 Turkey troop levels mulled 12-7, 846B1, F1–G1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2–A3 Troops pay hike set 12-9; violnc kills scores 12-15—12-21, Spain troops hiked 12-17, 894G1, C2, B3 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize, Norway funding aid hiked 12-10, 842E2, D3, 843G2 Blackwater raids role rptd/deal denied, drone missile strikes work nixed 12-10—12-11, 884E3–F3, 885B1, D1 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 12-16, 866A3 US defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886B2 US drone aircrafts hacking rptd 12-17, 877D2 Violnc kills scores, civiln casualties mulled 12-22—12-31, US troop hostage tape issued 12-25, forgn troops deaths tallied 12-31, 899D1, F1, A3–G3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907C1 Canadian parlt suspended 12-30, 926C3–E3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Govt graft scored 9-19—9-20, 635A2, 636A1 Karzai vows fight 11-3, 754D1 Karzai govt corruptn scored 11-6, 775B2 Mines min (Adel) bribe rptd 11-18, Karzai vows fight 11-19, 805B3, 806E1 Kabul mayor sentncd 12-7, returns to work 12-8, 844F1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Russian opiate trade rise seen 3-6, 274C1 Smuggler (Noorzai) sentncd 4-30, 539G2 Helmand record seizure rptd 5-23, 381G3 US antidrug policy chngd 6-27, 466C2 Traffickers US mil targeters set 8-11, 547A2 Opium poppies farming land drop seen 9-3, 612B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Karzai brother CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 751E1–F1 European Relations UK’s Brown visits 4-27, 314B2 Dostum returns 8-16, 549C3 UK’s Brown visits 8-29, 594D2 UK’s Brown calls Karzai 10-19, 710A3 UK’s Miliband visits 11-19, 805E3 Ger’s Guttenberg, UK’s Brown visit 12-11—12-13, 894F2, A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US/Pak mtg held, regular talks seen 2-24—2-26, 138D3 Karzai sees US ofcls, Pak’s Zardari 5-6, 315F1, A2, C2–D2 Pak/Iran summit held 5-24, 370F1 US/Pak aid package questnd 10-7, 695D2, A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres electn delayed, ‘illegitimate’ vote seen 1-29, 54C1 Early natl electns urged 2-28, delay reaffrmd 3-4, 137A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B1 Electns date chng upheld, Karzai ofc stay seen 3-7—3-29, US aid vowed 3-30, 195D2 Shirzai sees Karzai, exits race 5-1—5-2, Karzai bid formalized, Fahim named running mate 5-4, 313F3 Karzai support polled 6-15, 434A3 Karzai drops pres debate role 7-22; debate held 7-23, Karzai addresses rally 7-24, 513B3

2009 Index Dostum hosts Karzai rally, deal denied 8-17—8-19, pres/local electns held 8-20, 549A1, B2, B3; photo 549F1 Pres electn vote mulled/ballot stuffing tape issued, initial results rptd 8-23—8-26, 577B2 Pres electn fraud claims rise, Karzai brother role rptd 9-1, partial results issued 9-2, 594E1 Pres electn ballots excluded/reinstated, vote mulled 9-6—9-9, partial results rptd, recount ordrd 9-8, 610F3 Pres electn recount ordrd, preliminary results rptd/fraud votes seen 9-15—9-16, voter turnout estimated 9-16, 629F3 Karzai reelectn seen, recount set 9-25, 668G2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732B1 Pres electn recount opens 10-5, 674A2 Pres electn fraud admitted, forgn interfernc alleged 10-11; Barakzai quits probe 10-12, votes nix seen 10-14—10-15, 696F1 Afghan pres electn rpts issued, runoff OKd 10-19—10-21, 710F1 Power-sharing deal nixed 10-24—10-25, electn ofcl (Lodin) resignatn urged 10-26, 741B1 Abdullah drops bid, defeat seen 11-1; runoff nixed, Karzai win declared 11-2, reelectn questnd 11-3—11-4, 753A1, D2; photos 753F1, F2 Karzai sworn 11-19, 805A3 Karzai cabt picks delayed 12-8, 844D3 Karzai ouster plan mulled 12-10—12-17, cabt named, backed 12-19—12-20, 893D3, 894E1–F1 May ‘10 parlt electns plan cont 12-29, 899E2 Human Rights Women curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213E1–A2 Women curbs protested 4-15, 314C2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Australia asylum seekers survive boat blast 4-16, refugee status OKd, deportatn warned 10-12, 930E3, 931F2 French camp raided, migrants held 9-22, 666F1 Refugees Tajik exit rise seen 10-23, 765C1 Iraqi Conflict Aecom overbilling rptd 10-30, 790B1 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2 Middle East Relations Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn hailed 6-14, 403E1 Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649F2, 650B2 Obituaries Varennikov, Valentin I 5-6, 332G3 Press & Broadcasting Seized rptrs escape in Pak 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3 Electn violnc coverage ban set 8-19, 549E2 NYT rptr seized/freed, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3 Guardian rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 29A1 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) treatmt defended 1-13, abuse confrmd 1-14, 20F1 Cuba base detainee (Bismullah) transferred 1-17, 28E3 Cuba base ex-detainees Iraq detentn rptd 2-17, 101D3 US detainees policy cont 2-20, 112F2 Cuba base ex-detainees French convctn nixed 2-24, renditns UK aid admitted 2-26, 150E2, A3–D3 ‘Enemy combatant’ term dropped 3-13, Cuba base detainee transfers mulled 3-16, 165C3, 166A1 US detainee (Marri) bail nixed 3-18; transported 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 184B1 Kabul attack Pak intell agency role alleged 3-19, 229F1 US detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199E3 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200D1 US detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199D2 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506D1 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7, Canada repatriatn ordrd, ruling upheld/appeal filed 4-23—8-14, 719B1 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3 US detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261C1, A2–B2

—AGINCOURT 963 US detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 331B1 Obama detentn policies questnd 5-15, 337F2 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374F2 Saudi royals/charities, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491D3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505A3, D3–E3, G3, 506B1 China flight diverted 8-9, 606B2–C2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns/sees Karzai 8-24, 573A1 Tajik ‘90s attackers sentncd 8-31, 765D1 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816A2 US suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833F2 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) transfer ordrd 9-25, 718A3 US financer (Alishtari) pleads guilty 9-29, 719B2 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717E3 Cuba base detainees transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760B2 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 794D1 Defns Dept dep asst secy (Carter) quits 11-20, 914E1 Bin Laden ‘01 escape rptd 11-30, 845A1 Cuba base detainee (Kamin) chrgs dropped 12-10; Madhwani cont detentn upheld 12-14, Hatim release ordrd 12-16, 861G2, C3, 862A1 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913F3 Bin Laden kids Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Japan cops, rebldg funding set, 110B1 UK hikes aid 4-27, 314B2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406G2–A3, E3 Japan aid set 11-10, 775F2 US’s Obama visits Japan 11-13, 795F1 US ‘10 aid clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 UN Policy & Developments Summit proposed 3-5, 142B1, G1 Security transfer conf sought 9-6, 611B3–C3 Envoy (Eide) scored 9-28—10-3, 674D1 Spec rep dep (Galbraith) ousted 9-30, 668E3 Ban visits, cont aid vowed 11-2, workers relocated 11-5, 754B1–C1 Spec envoy (Eide) quits 12-11, 894C1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sens Biden, Graham visit 1-10, 16C2 Spec envoy (Holbrooke) named 1-22, 29A3 Holbrooke visits 2-12—2-15, 102D2 Amb (Eikenberry) named 3-11, confrmd 4-3, 381A3 Holbrooke, Mullen visit 4-5, 229G1 Karzai visits 5-6, 314F1 Gates visits 5-7, Karzai in DC 5-10, 317F2–G2, B3 Amb (Eikenberry) sees Farah battle survivors 5-19, 381G2 Army Corps bribery worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, Apr renditn confrmd 8-22, 567G2–A3 Holbrooke visits 8-20, 549E1 Holbrooke sees Karzai, argumt rptd/denied 8-21—8-29, Kabul emb contractors misconduct alleged, Defns Dept civiln personnel tallied 9-2, 594A2, G2 Khalilzad visits 10-14, 696D2 Sen Kerry visits/Karzai mtg mulled, Clinton calls 10-16—10-20, 710G2 Obama calls Karzai 11-2, 753A2 Prov govs cooperatn hike seen 11-9, 775A2 Clinton visits 11-18—11-19, 805F3 Ties backed 12-2, 827D1 Gates visits, emb security deal renewal nixed 12-8, 844B3, G3 Lawmakers visit 12-28—12-29, 899G2–A3

AFL-CIO—See AMERICAN Federation of Labor AFONSO, Assuncao Hosts US’s Clinton 8-9, 540D2

AFRICA—See also country, organization names ‘03-07 AIDS death toll drop rptd, PEPFAR/HIV infectns efficacy questnd 4-6, 370A1 World Bank AIDS programs woes seen 4-30, 387F1

Survey traces African ancestry 4-30, 515G3 WFP ‘09 funding woes seen 6-12, 440B3 Sub-Saharan hunger rate estimated 6-19, 440A3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Premature births tallied 10-4, 901D2 ‘09 Ibrahim ldrship prize foregone 10-19, 731F2 China loans set 11-8, 776B3

AFRICAN Americans—See BLACK Americans AFRICAN Consolidated Resources (ACR) Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt diamond field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1

AFRICAN Development Bank Kaberuka sees Zimbabwe’s Biti 2-26, 153C1 Cont loans seen 3-11, 170A1 Kaberuka visits UK 3-16, 170C1

AFRICAN Export-Import Bank Zimbabwe bilateral aid doubted 9-16, 681B1

AFRICAN Growth and Opportunity Act (2000) Kenya forum held 8-4, 540C1

AFRICAN Union (AU) Somalia/Ethiopian troops exit 1-2—1-13, UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21G2, B3 Darfur peacekeepers equipmt delivery ordrd, troops hike set 1-5—1-19; Muhajiriya air strike launched, exit urged 1-24—2-1, govt/rebels peace talks set 2-17, 115G2, 116B1, F1 Somalia blast kills 15+ 1-24, 66C3 Ethiopia summit held, Qaddafi elected chair 2-1—2-4, Mauritania/Guinea sanctns set 2-5, 82E1, A3 Somali interim premr (Sharmarke) named 2-13, violnc kills scores, cont stay urged 2-22—2-25, 115C1, G1 Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) slain 3-1—3-2, cont membership OKd 3-3, 134A1, C1 Emergency mtg held, Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt suspensn urged 3-5, 122D3, 123A1 Madagascar’s Ravalomanana quits, mil names Rajoelina pres 3-17, 168F2 Madagascar suspended, const govt return sought 3-20, 184E3 Madagascar SADC suspensn OKd 3-30, 203G2 Algeria pres electn vote backed 4-10, 248C1 Somalia intl aid conf held 4-23, 270A1 Somalia troops exit sought 4-28, Islamists clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20, 341E2, B3 Madagascar electns urged 4-30, 208C2, G2 Darfur rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375A3, C3 Somali missn extensn OKd by Sec Cncl 5-26, forgn mil aid mulled 6-20—6-22, 430D1, C2–D2 Mauritania power-sharing deal signed 6-27; pres electn held 7-18, results rptd 7-19, 492D3, 493B1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad/Libya summit role confrmd, nixed 7-1, summit held 7-1—7-3 7-1—7-3, 459A1–C3 Congo Repub pres vote backed 7-12, 507G1–A2 Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555C3, F3 Darfur conflict end seen 8-26, 924E2 US/Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, revenge attacks vowed/forgn fighters role urged, blasts kill 14+ 9-15—9-17, 622E2, A3 Somali blast kills 21 9-17, 781B1 Guinea sanctns warned, anti-junta protests turn violent/crack down scored 9-18—9-30, 660B2, E2, D3 Madagascar’s Rajoelina, UN Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, Somalia’s Ahmed addresses 9-25, 652A1, C1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Darfur conflict spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924A2 Guinea protesters attack trials urged 10-13, 702A1 Somali mortar attack kills 30, Islamists warn Uganda/Burundi attacks 10-22; security hiked 10-27, Mogadishu blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889C1–D1, A2, D3 Mozambique electns held 10-28, 783F1 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, suspensn cont 11-7, 782A3, C3, G3 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882G2

Eritrea/Somalia Islamists sanctns set 12-23, 903F1

AFSHAR, Nazak Trial cont, freed on bail 8-8—8-11, 562C1–D1

AFT—See TEACHERS, American Federation of AFTERGOOD, Steven Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600C1

AFTERMATH (play) Opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

AFTER Miss Julie (play) Opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

AFTONBLADET (Swedish newspaper) Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft alleged 8-17; Reinfeldt nixes comments 8-22, claims scored 8-23, 593D2–E2 Israeli, Palestinians ‘90s organ theft confrmd 12-18, 945A3

AFWERKI, Issaias (Eritrean president, 1993- ) Denies Somalia conflict role 5-21, 341G3

AFZALI, Ahmad Wais Held 9-19; evidnc rptd 9-20, chrgd, freed on bail 9-24, 641F2, A3, F3, 642B1–D1

AGASSI, Andre Drug use admitted 10-27, Open published 11-9, 951E1 Open on best-seller list 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

AGE & Aged Persons Salmonella-linked peanut butter recalled 1-13—1-28, 49F3 Madagascar’s Rajoelina named pres 3-17, 168C2 ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 269A1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina sworn 3-21, 184B3 Calif ‘70-80s slayings suspect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3 Russia $90 bln econ recovery plan outlined 4-6, 273E3 Oldest man (Allingham) dies 7-18, 516A2 Swine flu elderly cases rise seen 7-24, 502A2 Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576G1 Health care reform Sen proposal debate opens 9-22—9-23, 637F3–G3 Tinetti wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2 Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast 9-23, 682D3 N/S Korea family reunions held 9-26—10-1, 652C3 French nun (Jugan) canonized 10-11, 739G1 US fscl ‘09 deficit rptd 10-16, 713B2 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818B3 UK legis agenda set 11-18, 821B2 Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851B1 UK check clearing system ‘18 end set 12-16, 937E3 Medicare—See under MEDICINE Pensions—See PENSIONS Social Security—See SOCIAL Security Adminstration

AGEEVA, Yelena Attacked 3-25, 272B2

AGENCE France-Presse (AFP) (French news agency) Polanski atty (Temime) interviewed 10-11, 707D2 Iran rptr held 11-4, 857F2

AGENCY for International Development, U.S. (AID) (of IDCA) Abortns intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47F1 Zimbabwe PM car crash kills wife 3-6, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152B2 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242G1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488G2 Angola/Chevron agri deal signed 8-9, 540E2 Cuba contractor held 12-5; Dvpt Alternatives work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927D3

AGHA-Soltan, Neda (1982-2009) Slain, shooting video posted 6-20, meml disrupted 6-22, 422C1, 423B1 Slaying probe ordrd 6-29, militia imposter role claimed 6-30, 439C2–D2 Death marked 7-30, 518B3–C3

AGHAZADEH, Gholamreza On Bushehr A-plant test, touts program uranium enrichmt 2-25, 174D1, A2 On uranium enrichmt hike 4-9, 254B2 Resignatn rptd 7-16, 485B3

AGINCOURT (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

964 AGLIOTTI— AGLIOTTI, Glenn Ex-police natl comr (Selebi) trial opens 10-5, 923D3

AGNELLI, Giovanni (Gianni) (1921-2003) Sister dies 5-15, 364F2

AGNELLI, Susanna (1922-2009) Dies 5-15, 364F2

AGOSTO, Benjamin Misses US champ 1-24, 139E2 2d in world champs 3-27, 211G2

AGRAWALA, Maneesh Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671G1

AGRELLA, Christopher Loses Calif House seat electn 7-14, 478A3

AGRICULTURE—See also commodity names Appointments & Resignations USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Vilsack confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E3 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627G3 Arts & Culture Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd, value hiked 9-23—11-25, 952C3, E3 Budget & Spending Programs Australia stimulus package set, passes House/nixed by Sen 2-3—2-13, revised bill passes Sen 2-13, 494C1 Obama ‘10 proposals 2-26, 125E1 Fed, Treasury lending program hiked 3-3, 127G2 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, D1 India ‘09-10 fscl yr budget unveiled 7-6, 513F3 USDA ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489E1 US ‘10 funds pass Sen 8-4, 537E3 Mex proposals unveiled 9-8, 605A3 US ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761E1 Crime Issues Bulgaria riots erupts 1-14, 52C2 Venez oppositn ldr (Rosales) chrgd 3-19, 326D2 Pak tribal areas civilns flee 5-5—5-7, 315B1 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377F3 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 406C1 Afghan/US mil strategy chng seen 6-16, 434F1 Afghan/US antidrug policy chngd 6-27, 466D2 Afghan drug traffickers US mil targeting set 8-11, 547C2 Afghan opium poppies farmland drop seen 9-3, 612B1 Depressed & Disaster Areas China drought emergency declared 2-5, 251E2 Greece wildfires erupt 8-21—8-24, 577F1, B2 India drought rptd 9-30, 791D2 Typhoon Parma hits PI 10-3, 684A3 Environmental Issues Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447D2 Fla sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3 EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654C2 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis/signed, fed policies review set 11-4—11-13, 887A2–B2, G2 Health & Safety Issues US food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524D2–E2 Irrigation Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935D2 Labor Issues Uzbek cotton picking child labor rptd 11-11, 891E3 Land Reform Bolivia const referendum held 1-25, 50F1 Uzbek rptr (Sayyid) held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 892A1 Zimbabwe white farmers land seizures cont 2-28, 152G3–153A1 Zimbabwe dep min (Bennnett) freed 3-12, 152C3 Zimbabwe dep min nominee (Bennett) trial set 7-1, 680A3–B3 Zimbabwe dep min nominee (Bennett) held/chrgd, freed on bail 10-14—10-16, 746B2–C2 Migrant Workers—See MIGRANT Workers Obituaries Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2

FACTS Political & Legislative Issues Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 108A1 India parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 345D3 Statistics Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412F2 India ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-29, 382F1 India ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 8-31, 594E3 Tax Issues Argentina soybeans export tax talks open, revenue-sharing plan proposed 2-24—3-20; grains natl bd mulled 3-3, farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3, 204E1 Argentina cong electns held 6-28, 446F3 Argentina farmers tax break vetoed 8-25, 623F2 Argentina farmers strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 Trade & Aid Issues Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A3 Cuba/Russia deal signed 1-30, 85C2 Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2–A3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405F1 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453E2 G-8 vows African aid, Obama visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 471C2, 472G2 Angola/Chevron/USAID deal signed 8-9, 540E2 Russia’s Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko 8-11, 609F1 Brazil/US goods sanctns OKd by WTO 8-31, 590C1 EU/Bulgaria aid released 9-7, 727F2 Cuba/US diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661B2 UN food security summit held, impoverished natns forgn farmland sales rptd 11-16—11-18, 812E1, G1–A2

AGRICULTURE, U.S. Department of (USDA) Secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Vilsack confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Peanut Corp deals halted 2-5, 63C2 Food safety reforms set, ‘downer cattle’ use banned 3-14, 167A3–B3 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412F2–A3 Food-borne illness rpt issued 4-9, 268B3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, D1 World hunger rate estimated 6-19, 440G2 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524C2, E2–F2 Foop stamp enrollmt rise rptd 7-8, ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489E1–F1, B2 FDA food safety bill nixed, passes House 7-29—7-30, 524A2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761E1 Pig swine flu positive test seen, confrmd 10-17—10-19, 741E3 Food insecurity rptd 11-16, 798B1–C1

AGRIPROCESSORS Inc. De La Rosa-Loera sentncd 3-3, 151E2–F2 Ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, ex-mgr (Beillmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Iowa plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3–C3

AGUILAR Ramirez, Gerardo Extradited to US 7-16, 526C3

AGWAI, Gen. Martin Luther Sees Darfur conflict end 8-26, 924E2

AGYM (Kyrgyz newspaper) Rptr (Tashiyev) attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1

AHANOTU, Col. Ben On Islamic sect ldr (Yusuf) arrest 7-31, 525E2

AHERN, Bertie (Irish prime minister, 1997-2008) RC schls abuse rpt issued 5-20, 361D2 On Sen Kennedy death 8-25, 570E2

AHERN, Dermot OKs Cuba base detainees entry 7-29, 506E1 On Cuba base detainees transfer 9-27, 718D2

AHMADI, Niemat Hails Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt 3-4, 123E1

AHMADI-Moqaddam, Gen. Esmail On prisoners deaths 8-9, 561C3 Sees prison MD (Pourandarjani) suicide 11-18, 857C2

AHMADINEJAD, Mahmoud (Iranian president, 2005- ) Accidents & Disasters Orders Armenia flight crash probe 7-15, 482G3 Crime & Civil Disorders Zahedan campaign ofc attack hurts 3 5-29, 398F1 Prisoners rape alleged 8-9—8-18, fires sr intell ofcl 8-10 8-9, 561D2, A3, C3 On Sistan-Baluchistan blast 10-18, 729F1 Post-electn protesters sentncd 11-17, 857G1 Defense & Disarmament Issues On A-program talks 4-8, 217E2 Long-range missile tested, holds campaign rally 5-20, 361E3, G3 Offers A-program talks 9-7, 599F3 Secret A-site revealed 9-21—9-25, 649B2 On uranium transfer proposals 10-29, 768F2 Vows A-plants bldg, scores IAEA res 11-29, mulls enrichmt levels 12-2, 837E1, C2, E2–F2 Denies A-bomb trigger testing 12-18, nixes uranium transfer deadline 12-22, 941C1 Economy & Labor Telecom Co of Iran stake bought 9-27, 688F2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section On US talks 1-15, 2-10, 86G1, B3 Obama on ties 2-9, 79G1 Mottaki visits Iraq 2-11—2-13, 101C3 Visits Kazakh 4-6; A-fuel plant opened 4-9, seeks A-program intl resolutn 4-15, 254F1, A2–C2 At UN racism conf, speech spurs walkout 4-20, 261F3–G3, 262B1–C1 Hosts Afghan/Pak summit 5-24, 370F1–G1 Obama visits Ger, Holocaust marked 6-5, 386E1 At SCO summit 6-15—6-16, 406C3 AU summit role confrmd, nixed 6-30—7-1, 459C3 Addresses UN Gen Assemb, offers US A-scientists mtg/sees med uranium buy 9-23, 633C1, C3, 634D2 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755F1 At Islamic conf 11-9, 789A1 Venez’s Chavez defends 11-20, 929B3 Visits Gambia/Brazil/Bolivia/Venez/Senegal 11-22—11-26, 885E1 Yacht seized 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857C3 Politics Itinerary nixed 1-21; reelectn bid confrmd 1-28, Khatami bid set 2-8, 86D3–E3, G3–87A1 Moussavi sets pres bid 3-10, Khatami mtg held, bid dropped 3-16—3-17, 174C2–D2 Moussavi/Khamenei score, hajj ofcl reinstated 4-6—5-4; Rezai sets pres bid 4-22, candidcacy cleared 5-20, 362E1–F1, A2 In pres debate, insults scored/rallies held 6-3—6-10, 401E1, A2 Electn held, vote questnd/win rptd 6-12—6-13; protests turn violent 6-13—6-18, probe ordrd/recount OKd, cncl mtg set 6-15—6-18, 401A1–403E1; photos 401F1, 402A1, E1 Electn results mulled, vote upheld 6-19—6-23; celebratn held 6-24, scores Obama remarks 6-25, 421A1, D2, F2, 422A1, D2–E2, B3, 423F1 Scores Obama remarks, electn results backed/certified 6-27—6-29; urges protester slaying probe, govt questnd 6-29—6-30, warns protesters 6-30, 438C3, 439A1–D1, A2, C2, E2, G2 Reelectn questnd 7-4; scores forgn interfernc 7-7, protests dispersed 7-9, 463F3, 464G1–A2 Protests cont/crackdown scored, govt referendum sought 7-17—7-21, names vp (Mashai), choice mulled 7-17—7-22, 485A1–B1, F1, B2 Vp apptmt chngd, delay questnd 7-24—7-25; shuffles cabt 7-25—7-26, pre-inauguratn ceremony held, sworn 8-3—8-5, 518E1, 519A1–D1 Names cabt 8-16—8-19, defends choices, defns/justice min picks seen 8-20, 562E1 Cabt confrmatn backed, OKd 9-2—9-3, 609B3 Marks Quds Day 9-18, 645D3 Student protests held, Tehran Univ speech nixed 9-28—9-29, 688B2 Oppositn rallies held 11-4, 767E3–F3 Moussavi fired 12-22, 941B1 Press & Broadcasting Orders US rptr (Saberi) case review 4-19, 274C3, F3–G3

ON FILE

US rptr (Saberi) freed 5-11, 318E1–F1

AHMED, Abdirahman Held, chrgd 8-4, 930D2

AHMED, Ali Abdullah (d. 2006) Suicide suit papers filed 12-4, 862F1

AHMED, Alla Ali Bin Ali Cont detentn nixed 5-4, 506B2 Yemen transfer rptd 9-26, 718E2

AHMED, Hazim Salim Slain 1-29, 53A3

AHMED, Mohamed Lemine Ould On US aid worker slaying suspects 7-18, 493F1

AHMED, Mohammad Younis alIraq transfer sought 8-25, 592A3

AHMED, Brig. Moinudin (d. 2009) Slain 10-22, 710E1 Army ofcr attacks hurt 1 10-27—11-6, 807C1

AHMED, Rangzieb ‘06 UK exit, Pak torture link seen 7-7, 544F2–G2

AHMED, Said Tahlil Slain 2-4, 66C3

AHMED, Salah Osman Held, chrgd/pleads guilty 7-11—7-28, 780F3–781A1 Assoc (Mohamed) held 11-19, pleads not guilty 11-24, 849C2

AHMED, Shakil In border guards mutiny, body found 2-25—2-28, 137B3

AHMED, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh (Somali interim president, 2009- ) Sworn MP 1-28, 66B3 Elected, sworn pres 1-31, disavows extremists 2-1, 66E2–C3 Names interim premr (Sharmarke) 2-13, Mogadishu govt return bid seen 2-23—2-25, 115A1–G1, C2 Islamic law set, OKd 2-28—3-10; ouster tape posted, scores bin Laden remarks 3-19—3-28, hosts US rep (Payne) 4-13, 238A3, E3–F3 Islamic law passes parlt 4-18, at intl aid conf 4-23, 269G3, 270B1 Govt scored 4-28, Islamists clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20, 341E2, G2–C3 Declares emergency 6-22, 430A1, D1 Sees US’s Clinton 8-6, 540A2 US strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, 622F2 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 651G3 Visits US 10-4, 781D1 AU mortar attack kills 30 10-22, Mogadishu blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889C1, A2, E3

AHMED, Shirwa (d. 2008) Somali suicide blast kills 21, Mohamud role probed 9-17—9-25, 781C1 Assoc (Mohamed) held 11-19, pleads not guilty 11-24, 849D2

AHMED, Syed Haris Convctd 6-10, 833D2

AHMEN, Sabauddin Chrgd 2-25, 158E1

AHMETI, Hiseni Convoy attacked 11-12, 803D2

AHRENS, Lynn Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

AHTISAARI, Martti ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

AID—See AGENCY for International Development AID, Foreign—See FOREIGN Aid AIDID, Gen. Mohammed Farah (1937?-96) Saudi High Comm, militia arms linked 6-24, 491E3–F3

AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) Appointments & Resignations Goosby named PEPFAR head 4-27, 369F3 Budget & Spending Programs Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2 US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488B3 Needle exchng fed funding ban end nixed by House 7-24, 524D1 DC ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867E1 Crime & Law Enforcement Zimbabwe PM car crash kills wife 3-6, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152B2 China ethnic protests renewed, clashes kill 5 9-3—9-5, Uighur syringe attacks chrgs rptd, death sentnc mulled 9-6, 605C3 China needle attackers convctd, sentncd 9-12—9-17, 703F1

2009 Index Uganda gay curbs bill introduced/scored, chngd 10-14—12-23, 924G3 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720D1 Medical Ethics World Bank programs woes seen 4-30, 387F1 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held, chrgd 6-24—7-29, 574A2 Obituaries MacGinnis, Marc C 6-2, 955G2 Tshabalala-Msimang, Mmanto 12-16, 956G1 People St Laurent/Berge trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, 160B1 Singer John Ukrainian adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708A3 Japan’s Kan named dep premr 9-16, 624E3 Religious Issues Pope on condoms use, remarks scored 3-17—3-27, 195D3, F3 Research & Treatment Glaxo/Pfizer drug partnership set 4-16, 352A2 HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1 Vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671A1 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697D2 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697G1 US treatmt bill signed, forgners travel ban ended 10-30, 799A3 Statistics TB/HIV infectns rtpd 3-24, 352C2 Africa ‘03-07 death toll drop rptd, PEPFAR/HIV infectns efficacy questnd 4-6, 369G3 S Africa HIV infectn rate rptd 6-8, 850B3 Ukraine, Russia ‘epidemics’ rptd 11-24, 876B1 Testing & Prevention CDC awareness campaign launched 4-7, 555F2 S Africa gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 293C2, E2 S Africa’s Zuma elected, sworn pres 5-6—5-9; cabt named 5-10, Zile remarks rptd, scored 5-12—5-13, 325D2, B3, F3 US’s Clinton visits S Africa 8-7—8-9, 540C2–D2 S Africa govt policy hiked, Mbeki apology sought 12-1, 850E2

AIELLO, Greg Seeks NFL head injuries probe univ aid 12-18, links concussns, ex-players health woes 12-20, 948B1*, C1

AILES, Robert Sees White House sr adviser (Axelrod) 10-6, 717B3

AINGE, Danny Suffers heart attack, exits hosp 4-16—4-19, 278E3

AINSLEY, P. Steven Quits 10-29, 912G2

AINSWORTH, Bob Aide quits 9-3, 611A3

AIR America Radio Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441F2

AIR and Simple Gifts (song) Debuted at Obama inauguratn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

AIRBUS S.A.S. (of EADS, BAE) Brazil/France flight disappears 5-31—6-1; wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369A3 Brazil/France missing flight air sensors replacemt mulled 6-6—6-9; wreckage, bodies found 6-6—6-11, A-sub search opens 6-10, 387A1, D1 Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, crash impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473F1 Yemen/Comoros flight crash kills 152 6-30; safety woes rptd, victims families paymt set 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439A3–C3, E3, 440A1 Govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615C3 Boeing freighter jet delays chrg set 10-6, ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 10-21, 744F1–G1 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, 897B1

—ALBERT AIRCRAFT—See ACCIDENTS—Aviation; ARMAMENTS—Aircraft; AVIATION AIRCRAFT Carriers—See ARMAMENTS—Ships AIR Force, U.S. Department of the US Airways jet engine failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33E2 Afghan detainees policy cont 2-20, 112F2 NASA climate satellite launched 2-24, 131C3 Terror suspects renditn UK aid admitted 2-26, 150C3 Archambault cmnds Discovery missn 3-15—3-28, 239C2* Gration named Sudan spec envoy 3-18, 185A2 F-22 fighter jet crash kills 1 3-25, 266A3 Air Force One, NYC flyover pub info release OKd 4-3, White House ofcl (Caldera) informed, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357F3 Gay ofcr (Witt) ouster block appeal deadline passes 5-3, 392D2–E2 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357E3 Colo copter crash kills 4 8-19, 915G2 Ford pilots Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3 Aerial tanker bidding set, opens 9-16—9-24, rules questnd 12-1, 915B2–E2 Ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888D3 Bases, Military—See under DEFENSE, U.S. Obituaries Blanchard, Doc 4-19, 280B3

AIR Force Academy, U.S. (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Armed Forces Bowl won 12-31, 948G2

AIR France-KLM Group Brazil/France flight disappears 5-31—6-1; plane wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369D2 Brazil/France missing flight air sensors replacemt mulled 6-6—6-9; bodies, wreckage found 6-6—6-11, A-sub search opens 6-10, 387A1 Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, crash impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473E1

AIRPLANES—See ACCIDENTS—Aviation; ARMAMENTS—Aircraft; AVIATION AIR Pollution—See ENVIRONMENT AIR Transport Association Iran/Armenia flight crash kills 168 7-15, 483C1

AIR West Thai seizes plane, N Korean arms found 12-12, 862D3

AISH, Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu alDaughters Israeli mil slayings admitted 2-4, 157B3

AISSAMI, Tarik El Denies Venez/FARC link 7-27, 526D2 Scores Globovisn hq attack 8-3, 576B1

AI Weiwei Sichuan quake student death toll issued 5-7, 326D3 Quake safety activist (Tan) trial held 8-12, 557F1

AJAK, Oyai Deng Named southn cooperatn min 5-30, 431F1

AJMAN—See UNITED Arab Emirates AJORLOU, Fatemeh Named welfare min 8-19, 562B2 Welfare min nominatn nixed 9-3, 609D3

AJTEBI, Ahmed Vale of York wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile 11-7, 807E2

AKAKA, Daniel K. (U.S. senator from Hawaii, 1990- ; Democrat) Reseated Vets Affairs chair 1-6, 5C2

AKAYEV, Askar (Kyrgyzstan president, 1990-2005) Pres electn protests held 7-29, 511D1

AKBAR, Sgt. Asan Iraq clinic shooting kills 5 5-11, 330A3

AKER, Richard On Algeria pres electn vote 4-10, 248E1

AKERMAN, Malin Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

AKHALAIA, Bacho Named Georgian defns min 8-27, 607C2–D2

AKHMEDILOV, Malik Found dead 8-11, 544E3

AKHMETOV, Danial Fired 6-17, 510A3

AKHUNDZADEH, Medhi Sees US’s Holbrooke 3-31, 195A2–B2

AKIHITO, Emperor (Japan) Hosts US’s Obama 11-13, 795B1

AKINNUOYE-Agbaje, Adewale GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

AKOL, Lam Sets party split 6-8, 431F1

AKRAM, George West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

AKRON (Ohio), University of Men’s soccer title lost 12-13, 895F1–G1

AKSYONOV, Vasily Pavlovich (1932-2009) Dies 7-6, 500C2

AKUFO-Addo, Nana Pres electn opponent lead seen, final vote boycott warned/held 1-2, loss rptd 1-3, 7E2–F2, C3–E3

AL—Arabic names bearing this prefix are listed by surname (e.g., ASSAD, Bashar al-) ALABAMA Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Regions stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-Gov Siegelman chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, convctn review sought 4-3, 218G2 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910B3 Crime & Law Enforcement Gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149A1 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425F3 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780D2 Environment & Pollution Power plant coal waste pond spills 1-9, 33C3 Rep McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656D2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Labor & Employment Gender wage parity bills pass House 1-9, 20B1 Medicine & Health Care Benjamin named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1, D1 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599C3 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Obituaries Hunt, Guy 1-30, 72E2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Rep Griffith joins GOP 12-22, 885A3 Sports GMAC Bowl results 1-6, 24D1

ALABAMA, University of (Tuscaloosa) Sugar Bowl lost 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23G3–24B1 Smith in NFL draft 4-25, 298E1 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579F3–G3 Football yr-end polls topped, title game berth set 12-6, 879A3 Ingram wins Heisman Trophy 12-12, 879D2

ALAKRANA (Spanish boat) Seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1

ALAM, Gen. Adib alHeld, chrgd 4-14, 4-23, 312F2, A3

ALAM, Touhidal Border guards mutiny kills 77+ 2-25—2-26, held 3-3, 137C3

ALAN, Lori Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

ALASANIA, Irakli Urges Saakashvili resignatn 1-29, 84C1 Addresses protesters 4-9, 253B2

965

Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 497A1

ALASKA Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-Sen Stevens graft trial prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13, chrgs dropped 4-1, 199D1 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218F1 Gov Palin travel funds complaint filed 7-6, 455F2 Crime & Law Enforcement Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425D3–F3, 426E1–F1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Alaska dealer (Johnston) sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3 Environment & Pollution Lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2 Glaciers loss rptd 8-6, 655D2 Polar bears habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3 Family Issues Palin daughter/Johnston breakup rptd 3-11, 160D2 Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section N Korea rocket launched 4-5, 215F1 Obituaries Hughes, Nicholas 3-16, 192B1 Oil & Gas Developments Shell, Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 Land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409C3–D3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Sen seat ‘08 race mulled 4-1, spec electn urged 4-2, 199C2 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455A2, A3 Palin bk published 11-17, 797D1 Social Issues Anchorage gay bias ban passes assemb 8-11, vetoed 8-17, 553F3 Sports Iditarod results 3-8—3-18, dog deaths probe urged 3-24, 211A2, C2

ALASKA, University of Hughes kills self 3-16, 192B1

ALAVI Foundation US properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Jahedi pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2

ALBANIA, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations India nixes Mother Teresa remains transfer 10-13, 711D3 Crime & Civil Disorders Blast kills 1, organized crime link seen 6-18, 511B3 Rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO entry formalized 4-1, 213D2 European Relations EU applicatn set 4-28, 511C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B1 Voter IDs lack seen, parlt electns held/vote mulled 6-24—6-29; party joins Socialist coalitn 7-4, results rptd 7-28, 511D2 Berisha renamed PM, confrmd/reelectn backed 9-9—9-17, 625E3 Facts on Berisha 9-17, 626A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732B1 Sports Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859C3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, Bermuda transfers rptd 6-11, 391C2 Cuba base detainees transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760B2

ALBARADO, Robby Tapitsfly wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf 11-6, 807B2

ALBASHA, Mohammed Seeks Cuba base detainee (Salih) suicide probe 6-3, 374G2

ALBAUGH, Jim Named Boeing divisn pres, CEO 8-31, 744F1

ALBEMARLE Corp. Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1

ALBERT II, King (Belgium) Names premr (Leterme) 11-25, 820C2

966 ALBOM— ALBOM, Mitch Have a Little Faith on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

ALBREGTS, Daniel On client (Hampton) Sen Ensign affair 6-17, 410D1–E1

ALBRIGHT, David Iran A-program progress mulled 10-2, 688F1

ALBRIGHT, Madeleine K. Diplomats visit Myanmar 11-3—11-4, 763B2

ALBURY, Charles Donald (1920-2009) Dies 5-23, 400B2

ALCOHOL & Alcoholism Accidents & Disasters Actor (Freeman) car-crash victim suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792D2 Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot rpt issued 10-26, 743F3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Polar Venez govt seizure warned 3-4, 204D3 Consumption Issues Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, 624A2–C2 Afghan/US emb contractors misconduct rptd 9-2, 594B3 UK Labour Party conf held 9-27—10-1, 666F2 Crime & Law Enforcement Lobbyist (Boulanger) pleads guilty 1-30, 60E2 Iran rptr (Saberi) held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1 Film dir (Polanski) ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653D2 Judge Kent pleads guilty, sentncd 2-23—5-11; alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 479A3 PI/US marine rapist (Smith) accuser testimony chngd 3-12—3-16, 205A2 Iran rptr (Saberi) spy chrgs set, release urged 4-8, 227F2 Calif car crash kills 3 4-9, suspect chrgd 4-10, 277F3 Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc rptd 4-18, 274D3 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318C1 NFL’s Stallworth pleads guilty, suspended 6-15—8-13, 632D1 CIA Algeria ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 502C3 Kygyz rptr (Tashiyev) attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1 Kazakh car crash kills 1, drunk driving alleged 7-26; Zhovtis convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663D1 Harvard prof (Gates) arrest White House mtg held 7-30, 505F1 Coors ‘60 killer found dead 8-24, 792A3 Census worker found dead 9-12, 722G1 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914C3 Health & Safety Issues Russian ‘90-01 deaths study issued 6-26, curbs mulled 6-29—-6-30, 513D1 India bootleg liquor deaths linked 7-12, 530F2 Samoan driving side switched 9-8, 726E1 People Saudi cabt shuffled 2-14, 943F3 Japan finance min (Nakagawa) quits 2-17, 98E3 Bush bk work confrmd 3-19, 166F3* Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569G2–A3 Japan ex-finance min (Nakagawa) found dead 10-4, 955B3 Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831G3 Sports Issues Preakness attendnc rptd 5-16, 347D2 Tax Issues UK budget unveiled 4-22, 272F2

ALCOHOL, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, U.S. Bureau of (of Justice) Mex gun flow scored 2-24, 171G1 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185C34 Mex border agents hike vowed 4-3, 249B3 Mex gun smuggling curbs questnd 6-18, 481B1

ALDERDEN, Jim Sees balloon incident hoax 10-18, 745G2

FACTS ALDERMAN, Jane Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

ALDRIN Jr., Edward E. (Buzz) Marks Apollo 11 moon landing anniv 7-20, 506D2

ALEJOS, Gustavo Atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6; slain 5-10, tape issued 5-11, 377A1

ALEKSII II, Patriarch (Alexei Ridiger) (Russian Orthodox Church) Successor (Kirill I) named 1-27, enthronemt held 2-1, 85D2

ALESSI, Joseph Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

ALEXANDER, Andrew Scores sponsored salons ethics 7-12, 479D1

ALEXANDER, Donald Crichton (1921-2009) Dies 2-2, 104G2

ALEXANDER, Elizabeth At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26B2

ALEXANDER, Jane Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

ALEXANDER, Lt. Gen. Keith Urges cybersecurity govt coordinatn 4-21, testifies to House com 5-5, 411A1–B1

ALEXANDER, Lamar (Andrew Lamar) (U.S. senator from Tenn., 2003- ; Republican) Seated GOP Conf chair 1-6, 5E2 On EPA emissns threat ruling 12-8, 841D2

ALEXANDER, Rodney (U.S. representative from La., 2003- ; Republican) Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885D3

ALEX Cross’s Trial (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672A1

ALFONSIN Foulkes, Raul Ricardo (1927-2009) (Argentine president, 1983-89) Dies 3-31, 212F1 Bignone trial opens 11-2, 925E3

ALGERIA, Democratic and Popular Republic of African Relations Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins civil courage prize 10-20; return blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903E3 N African forgners seized, kidnappings claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903G2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Chinese businesses security warning issued 7-14, 510A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B1 Electn boycott urged 4-6; vote held, questnd 4-9—4-10, Bouteflika reelectn rptd 4-10, 248A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732C1 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Oil & Gas Developments OPEC output levels retained 3-15, 180D2 Sports Soccer team hurt, Egypt security hike sought 11-12—11-13; World Cup qualifying matches held 11-14—11-18, riots erupt, amb recalled/Qaddafi mediatn set 11-19—11-24, 858E3, 859A1 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704A2, C2 Transportation Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) departs Finland 7-23; hijacking rptd 7-31, found, suspects held 8-17, 551A1, C1 Ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27, 616A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section CIA chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3 CIA ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 502B3, D3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B1 Cuba base detainee transferred 1-17, 28E3

Cuba base detainee (Boumediene) France transfer OKd, confrmd 4-3, 5-6, 305D3 Cuba base detainee transferred 12-1, 861D2–E2

ALI, Abdulla Ahmed Convctd 9-7, 608D1, B2–D2 Sentncd 9-14, 626E1 Assoc convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937D3

ALI, Ahmed Omar Abu Sentncd 7-27, 678F3

ALI, Ali Abdul Karim Leb amb apptmt OKd 3-24, 211D1

ALI, Gen. Hussein Ouster urged 2-25, 3-10, 203F1 Fired 9-8, 702B2–C2

ALI, (Mahaboob) Ben (1927-2009) Dies 10-7, 731G2

ALI, Qamar Aden Slain 12-3, 889F1

ALI, Waheed Cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310B3

ALI-Abadi, Mohammad Energy min nominatn nixed 9-3, 609D3

ALIENS—See IMMIGRATION ALIEN Tort Claims Act (1789) Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405F3

ALIMARDON, Murodali Natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272C2

ALI Said, Col. Slain 6-17, 430A2

ALISHTARI, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Pleads guilty 9-29, 719B2

ALITO Jr., Samuel Anthony (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 2006- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Vs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444G2 Campaign & Election Issues Limits minority voting power protectns 3-9, 167C1 Capital Punishment Ga inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553D2 Censorship Issues Upholds FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1 Defendants’ Rights Backs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266E1 Eases suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374C1 Nixes convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426C1 Vs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307A2 Federal Powers Nixes ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337F3 Health & Safety Issues Backs drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130B3 Judicial Issues Limits evidnc exclusionary rule 1-14, 21B1 Upholds judge sentncg power 1-14, 21E1 Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed 1-21, 48D3 Vs judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarificatn 6-8, 390F1 Labor Issues Backs sex harassmt retaliatn curbs 1-26, 48E2 Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Misses Obama, Biden mtg 1-14, 21G1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D2 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301E2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470D2, 471F1 Racial Bias Finds Conn firefighters test nix bias 6-29, 443E3–F3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130D3, 131A1 State & Local Rights Nixes indigenous Hawaiian land claims 3-31, 246E1 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 442D3, 443D1

ON FILE

ALIYEV, Heydar Alirza (1923-2003) (Azerbaijani president, 1993-2003) Pres term limits drop referendum held, results rptd 3-18—3-19, decree signed 4-2, 253F1

ALIYEV, Ilham (Azerbaijani president, 2003- ) On air force head (Rzayev) assassinatn 2-11, 206A3 Pres term limits drop referendum held, results rptd 3-18—3-19, signs decree 4-2, 253C1, E1 Vs Tazadlar ed, rptr sentncs 4-8, 252G3 Bloggers arrests questnd 7-20, 544D1 Bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820B2

ALIYEV, Nadir Univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, held, role rptd 5-1—5-4, 377A3–B3

ALIYU, Farouk Adamu Files Yar’Adua ouster suit 12-23, 923E1

ALKATIRI, Mari (East Timorese prime minister, 2002-06) Scores Suai massacre suspect (Bere) release, Gusmao survives confidnc vote 10-12, 835C1–D1

ALKHAMATOV, Alimsultan Slain 9-27, suspects sought 9-29, 728C1–D1

ALKHANOV, Ruslan On min bldg blast 5-15, 378A3

ALL About Steve (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

ALLEN, Betty (Elizabeth Louise) (1927-2009) Dies 6-22, 500E2

ALLEN, Bill Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft chrgs dropped 4-1, 199F1, A2 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218D2

ALLEN, Joan Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

ALLEN, Jonathan E. Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

ALLEN, Lily It’s Not Me It’s You on best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

ALLEN, First Lt. Lou (d. 2005) Slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118A3

ALLEN, Mark Mine That Bird wins Kentucky Derby 5-2, 316E1 Warns Indy Express Preakness entry 5-10, 347G1–A2

ALLEN, Michael Wins Sr PGA Champ 5-23, 708G1

ALLEN, Woody (Allen Konigsberg) Setls Amer Apparel lawsuit 5-18, 348E2 Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-27, 653A3

ALLENDE, Isabel Seeks dad ‘70 ouster bid Brazil documts release 8-18, 569G1

ALLENDE Gossens, Salvador (1908-73) (Chilean president, 1970-73) Widow dies 6-18, 451F3 US/Brazil ‘70 ouster bid revealed, documts release urged 8-16—8-18, 569D1–G1

ALLERGY and Infectious Diseases, U.S. National Institute of (of NIH) HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671C1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697A2

ALLIANCE Bank Govt stake bought 2-2, 68A1–B1

ALL I Ever Wanted (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

ALLINGHAM, Henry William (1896-2009) Dies 7-18, 516A2

ALLIOT-Marie, Michele Named justice min 6-23, 432G3 Seeks anti-semitic murder retrial 7-13, 512F1

ALLISON, Herbert Named $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, 264F1–A2

ALLMENDINGER, A. J. 3d in Daytona 500 2-15, 103G3

ALLRED, Gloria Golfer Woods alleged mistress hires 11-29, 839F2

ALLY, Usman Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

2009 Index ALMA-Ata Info (Kazakh newspaper) Esergepov held, convctd 1-6—8-8, sentnc set/scored, upheld 8-8—8-13, 576E2–F2

ALMANAC of the Federal Judiciary Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470F3, 471E2

ALMANZA Morales, Ricardo Slain 12-4, 928C3

ALMEIDA Bosque, Juan (1927-2009) Dies 9-11, 648D1

ALMODOVAR, Pedro Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1

ALMUNIA, Joaquin Named Europn Comm competitn comr 11-27, 835A3–B3

ALONSO, Fernando Piquet fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, cleared 9-21, 646B3–C3, G3

ALONTO-Adiong, Ansaruddin Sworn ARMM acting gov 12-10, 853A2

ALO Presidente (TV special) Aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413B2

ALOR, Deng On forgn airstrike attack 3-26, 197B1

ALSTON, Philip Issues Kenya cops violnc rpt 2-25, seeks activists slayings probe 3-6, 203E1–F1 On PI prov slayings 12-3, 853C2

ALSTON, Rafer Traded to Nets 6-25, 451D2

ALSTON & Bird HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59E3

ALTAI Trading Co. Ltd. Batbold named, confrmd premr 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763A2

ALTANA AG Klatten blackmailer pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207A2

ALTAROCK Energy Inc. Calif geothermal project shut 12-11, 939D3

ALTHAUS, Dieter State electns held 8-30, quits 9-3, 607A3

ALTMAN, Capt. Scott Cmnds Atlantis missn 5-11—5-24, 372B3

ALTMIRE, Jason (U.S. representative from Pa., 2007- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

ALTRIA Group Inc. Smoker death damages awarded 2-18, 357E1 Ore smoking death damages case denied by Sup Ct 3-31, 246F1–G1 Calif smoker (Bullock) death damages awarded 8-24, 660B1 Canada prov suit filed 9-29, 681G3 Ex-smoker (Naugie) damages awarded 11-19, 919F1

ALUMINUM & Bauxite EU/US file China WTO complaint 6-23, 440D1 Guinea anti-junta protests turn violent 9-28, 660C2 China/Guinea infrastructure deal rptd 10-13, 702C1 Russian tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766F2 China export curbs WTO complaint filed 11-5, 776B2 Guinea’s Camara shot 12-3, 870F2

ALUMINUM Corp. of China Ltd. (Chinalco) Rio Tinto investmt deal nixed 6-5, 481A2

ALVAREZ, Bernardo Denies Colombia drug trafficking role 7-16, 929E3

ALVAREZ, David Wins Tony 6-7, 399E3, 400D1

ALVIN and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

ALVIRI, Morteza Held 9-7—9-8, 610A1 Freed 10-31, 768D1

ALWALEED bin Talal al-Saud, Prince (Suadi Arabia) Citigroup govt aid plan chngd 2-27, 127B2

—AMERICAN ALWANIN, Hassam Hussein bin Held 6-12, 646G1

ALWAYS Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316B1

ALYSHEBA (racehorse) Euthanized 3-27, 347B3

AMA—See AMERICAN Medical Association AMADO Ricaardo Guerra, Gen. Jose Named Cuba cabt secy 3-2, 134A3

AMADOU, Hama (Niger premier, 1995-96/2000-07) Issoufou chrgd 9-14; warrant issued 10-29, returns 10-30, 761E3

AMAL Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3

AMANO, Yukiya IAEA head votes held, elected 3-26—7-2, 502F2, A3 Iran A-program further secret sites seen 11-15, 804C2

AMARA, Gen. Abdul Haneen alReplacemt ordrd 1-16, 38A2

AMARA, Zakaria Pleaded guilty 10-8, 723A1, C1–D1

AMARAL, Col. Jorge On Air France missing flight bodies, wreckage find 6-6, 387A1

AMATO, Jacob Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 832D1–F1

AMAZING Race, The (TV show) Emmy won 9-20, 647F3, 648A1

AMAZON Basin Brazil reserve OKd 3-19, 447C2 Brazil econ nun (Stang) slaying suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2 Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3–E3 Peru dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17, repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, 431C3, E3–F3 Peru PM (Velasquez) named 7-11, 481D1 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2 Brazil plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926D2 Venez swine flu spread mulled 11-5, 811D1 Brazil emissns cut set 11-14, 828C2

AMAZON.com (Web site) Bks lost sales ratings regretted 4-13, e-bks deleted 7-17, 782D1 Google bk scanning setlmt opposed 8-20, House com hearing held 9-10, 601E1

AMBROSE, Lauren Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 256A1

AMERICAN Airlines Inc. (of AMR Corp.) Jamaica flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930B1

AMERICAN Apparel Allen lawsuit setld 5-18, 348E2

AMERICAN Association for the Advancement of Science Neanderthal genome draft completed 2-12, 280F1 Lubchenco confrmd NOAA admin 3-19, 267A3

AMERICAN Cancer Society Mammograms cut urge scored 11-16, 799F2

AMERICAN Civil Association NYS immigrant ctr shooter kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246C2

AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Morgan dies 1-8, 40B3 Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64B2 Terror detainee torture info release opposed 2-9, 80D2–E2 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112B2 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt questnd 2-20, 112D3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129D2–F2

Terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148F3 Seeks CIA terror detainees torture indep probe 3-15, 183D3 CIA interrogatn memos release delayed 4-2, issued 4-16, 257B1, E1 Terror detainees abuse photos release set 4-24, CIA renditn aid info release suit reinstated 4-28, 290D1, F2 Detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 331A1 Obama sets terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, 337C1 Illegal immigrants detentn reforms set 8-6, deaths rptg omits seen 8-17, 573F2, C3 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587D1–F1 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses ‘04 rpt issued 8-24, 565C3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes release nixed 9-30, 719F1 Cuba base detainees trials mulled, Mohammed defns aid dropped 11-13, 794F1 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867B2

AMERICAN Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; disavowed 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655A1–D1

AMERICAN College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Pap test guidelines chngd 11-20, 918E3

AMERICAN College of Radiology Mammograms cut urge scored 11-16, 799F2

AMERICAN Electric Power Co. Inc. States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2

AMERICAN Enterprise Institute (Washington, D.C.) Cheney addresses 5-15, 337C2 Kristol dies 9-18, 648A3

AMERICAN Express Co. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2 Malden dies 7-1, 468A3 Golub named AIG chair 8-3, 585D3

AMERICAN Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Health care reform support seen 8-14, 551G3 Hughes named NY bd chair 8-24, 571F2 Obama holds health care reform rally 9-7, 598B2 Pa conv held 9-15, 617F3 Sen health care reform bill scored 10-14, 698F1

AMERICAN Federation of State, County and Municpal Employees (AFSCME) Health insurnc reforms plan opposed 3-27, 245A3

AMERICAN Folklife Center (Washington, D.C.) Green dies 3-22, 231E3

AMERICAN Historical Association Franklin dies 3-25, 192F2

AMERICAN Hospital Association Health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3 Cost cuts OKd 7-8, 457F2 Health care reform Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863D3

AMERICAN Idiot (recording/play) Play opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

AMERICAN Idol (TV show) Nielsen rating 1-14, 72A2; 2-4, 140A2; 3-25, 212A2; 4-1, 316A2; 5-20, 384A2

AMERICAN International Group Inc. (AIG) Fed home loans term chngs set 1-27, 45B3 In govt aid talks, shares drop 2-24, 110B2, 111B1 ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid plan chngd/shares drop 3-2, Sen com hearing held 3-3, 126C2, E3, 127C1 Bonus paymts revealed/scored, distributn opens 3-10—3-17; funds return mulled/info sought, tax passes House 3-11—3-19, govt aid use detailed, House com hearing held 3-15—3-18, 161A1–162G2 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177F1–G1, 178D1 Bonus paymts return set, execs quit 3-23, 219F3, 220E1, G1

967

Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178D2–E2, A3–D3, 179B1 Obama on bonus paymts 3-24, 181B3 NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201A2 Ex-CEO (Greenberg) tenure mulled, House com hearing held 4-2, 242A1 ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd 5-7, House com hearing held 5-13 5-7, 319C2 Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320F1 Travelers, Dow role set 6-1, 372F2 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387A3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407C3 Greenberg damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506C3 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537F1 Benmosche/Golub named execs, compensatn rptd 8-3—8-6; ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd, shares rise 8-7—8-27, Greenberg setlmt seen, damages paymt nix upheld 8-31, 585G2, C3, F3 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Financial stability seen 9-21, 641D1 Nan Shan sale set 10-13, bonus paymts scored, return sought 10-14, 715A3 Exec pay cut 10-22, 742B1–C1 ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-6, Trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-16—11-17, 799A1 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847C2 $700 bln financial indus aid Cong hearing held 12-10, 865C1

AMERICAN Ireland Fund Rooney named Ireland amb 3-17, 182D2

AMERICAN-Islamic Relations, Council on Va Muslims visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/tape detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 858C1–D1

AMERICAN Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) scored 2-19; withdraws 3-10, role rptd 3-12, 144F3–145A1 Secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3 Rep Harman secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; NYT rptg delay mulled 4-20, com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263G1, F2 Rep Harman secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24; NSA warrantless spying denied 4-27, case dropped 5-1, 306G1 Netanyahu addresses 5-4, 313B2

AMERICAN Legion Vets profiling scored 4-15, 263C1

AMERICAN Library Association (ALA) Newbery/Caldecott/Printz awarded 1-26, 55G3 Krug dies 4-11, 256D3

AMERICAN Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (book) Meacham wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2, F2–G2

AMERICAN Medical Association (AMA) UnitedHealth ‘out-of-network’ chrgs paymt OKd 1-15, 64E2 Health insurnc reforms plan outlined 3-27, 245G2 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3 Sen health care reforms proposal opposed 6-11, 391C1 Obama addresses 6-15, 409D1 Health care reform House proposal backed 7-16, 476B3 Medicare paymt reform blocked by Sen 10-21, 713D3

AMERICAN Museum of Natural History (N.Y., N.Y.) Early primate fossil unveiled 5-19, 952C2

AMERICAN Nurses Association Obama addresses rally 9-10, 598B2

AMERICAN Petroleum Institute Utilities exit Chamber of Commerce 9-22—9-28, 654F3

AMERICAN Plan, The (play) Revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3

AMERICAN Public Transportation Association (APTA) ‘08 mass transit use rise rptd 3-9, 202C1, E1

968 AMERICAN— AMERICAN Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009) Signed 2-17, 89A1; highlights listed 90A1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2 Educ funds sent 3-6, 149B3

AMERICAN Samoa (U.S. territory) Bush names marine monumt 1-6, 7B2 Samoan driving side switched 9-8, 726C1 Quake/tsunami hit, deaths rptd 9-29, emergency declared, aid sent 9-29—9-30, 662A3–B3, D3 Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662A2 Svcs restored/water warning lifted, tsunami death toll hiked 10-6—10-7, 685A1–B1, D1

AMERICANS Right at Work Labor secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60C1

AMERICANS With Disabilities Act (1990) Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569E3

AMERICAN Theater Wing Tonys presented 6-7, 399C3

AMERICAN University in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) Turkmen recognitn nixed 9-5, 625C3–D3

AMERICA‘S Got Talent (TV show) Nielsen rating 7-21, 532A2; 8-4, 596A2

AMERICA‘S Health Insurance Plans Preexisting illness pricing end OKd 3-24, 245E3 Women premiums disparity end set 5-5, health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3, 340F1 Members ‘08 highest bills rptd 8-11, 552B2 Sen health care reform bill scored, rpt questnd 10-11—10-12, 698B2–D2

AMERICA‘S Natural Gas Alliance Utilities exit Chamber of Commerce 9-22—9-28, 654F3–G3

AMERICORPS, U.S. Expansion bill clears Cong, signed 3-26—4-21, 355B1 Inspector gen (Walpin) mtg behavior questnd 5-20; fired 6-11, St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458E1, G1, B2

AMERITRADE Holding Corp. Ricketts family buys Cubs 10-27, 949D1

AMERKHANOV, Ruslan Slain 8-12, 544D3

AMFILOHIJE Radovic, Metropolitan (Serbian Orthodox Church) Patriarch Pavle dies 11-15, 822D2

AM General LLC Sichuan Tengzhong/Hummer buy OKd 6-2, 366A2, 367D1

A Milli (recording) Lil Wayne wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

AMIN, Jamil Abdullah al- (H. Rap Brown) Mich imam (Abdullah) slain 10-28, 760B3

AMIN, Rohul On US air strike 5-4, 314F1

AMIN, Salahuddin Torture UK role denied 8-9—8-10, 544E2

AMIN Dada, Idi (1925?-2003) Venez’s Chavez defends 11-20, 929B3

AMIRI, Shahram Disappearnc rptd 10-7, 688D1

AMIRKABIR University of Technology (Tehran, Iran) Burial site protesters held 2-23, 189A2

AMIROV, Dzhavidan Univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, held 5-4, 377C3

AMMAN, Pottu Found dead 5-19, 334C1

AMMIANO, Tom Introduces marijuana legalizatn bill 2-23, 165E2

AMNESTY International Turkmen abuses rpt issued 2-12, 135C2 Israel/Palestinian arms embargo urged 2-23, 157G2 ‘08 worldwide executns tallied 3-24, 904C1 Md cops spying curbs pass legis, signed/enacted 4-8—10-1, 919A3 Nigeria mil offensive civiln deaths alleged 5-21, 358E2 Azerbaijan bloggers arrests questnd 7-17, 544D1 Nigeria Islamic sect ldr (Yusuf) death rptd, arrest mulled 7-30—7-31, probe ordrd 8-5, 525E2 Honduras coup rights abuses rpt issued 8-18, 575B3

FACTS Sri Lankan rptr (Tissainayagam) sentncd 8-31, 770B1 Gaza water shortage seen 10-27, 754D3 Mex mil rights abuses rptd 12-8, 928A3 Saudi widow (Sawadi) punishmt drop urged 12-14, 944G1

AM New York (newspaper) Jimenez named Newsday ed 9-23, 913D1

AMONDSON, Gene C. Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

AMORIM, Celso Denies Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return role 9-21, 643C2

AMOUSSOUGA, Roland On Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) Uganda arrest 10-6, 680E1

AMPATUAN, Akmad Held 12-4, 853B1

AMPATUAN Jr., Andal Madguindanao violnc kills 57+, pvt militia role seen 11-23; party ouster set 11-25, chrgd, surrenders 11-26, 818F3, 819F1–G1 Madguindanao violnc role mulled 11-26—11-27; Mangudadatu gov bid set 11-27, chrgd, home raided 12-1—12-3, 852B3–E3, 853A1, C1, G1, B2

AMPATUAN Sr., Andal Madguindanao violnc kills 57+, pvt militia role seen/disarmed 11-23—11-25; party ouster set 11-25, son chrgd, surrenders 11-26, 818F3, 819A1, F1 Ouster set 11-27, home raided, held 12-3—12-4, in hosp 12-6, 852D3, 853A1–C1

AMPATUAN, Anwar Held 12-4, 853B1

AMPATUAN, Zaldy Party ouster set 11-25, 819G1 ARMM control transfer ordrd 11-27; held, chrgd 12-4—12-9, acting gov (Alonto-Adiong) sworn 12-10, 853A1–B1, F1, A2

AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corp.) Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29D3 Passenger arms carry measure passes Sen 9-17, 658A3 Checked baggage gun authrzn clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866G3

AMUM, Pagan Alleges govt arms distributn 6-15, 431B1–C1 In Khartoum protests, held 12-7, 924G1

AN, Byeong-Hun Wins US Amateur Champ 8-30, 670F2

ANAYA, James Urges Peru protests crack down probe 6-19, 432C1–D1 Probes Australia aborigine program, sees discriminatn 8-16—8-27, 624F1–G1, C2–D2

ANDERSEN, Lemon Cnty of Kings opens in NYC 10-12, 860D2

ANDERSON, Andrea ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

ANDERSON, Chris Among NBA blocks ldrs 4-15, 278C3

ANDERSON, Craig Among NHL save % ldrs 4-12, 299D3

ANDERSON, Greg Bonds perjury trial testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158F2, A3–B3

ANDERSON, Leith Testifies to Sen com 10-8, 712A1

ANDERSON, Robert Woodruff (1917-2009) Dies 2-9, 120F2

ANDERSON, Ryan Traded to Magic 6-25, 451D2

ANDERSON, Tristan Hurt in W Bank protests, in hosp 3-13—4-2, 210E3

ANDERSON, Wes Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

ANDO, Miki 3d in world champs 3-28, 211D2

ANDORRA, Principality of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232C1; 10-1, 732C1

Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-12, 163A2, C2

ANDRESS, Carl Third Story opens in NYC 2-2, 211E3

ANDRIANIRINA, Fetison Named co-pres 11-6, 782D3

ANDRIOLE, Gerald Questns prostate test efficacy 3-18, 191E2

ANDROPOV, Yuri Valdimirovich (1914-84) (Soviet president, 1982-84) Hitler remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1

ANDRUS, Elvis 2d in AL top rookie voting 11-16, 824D1

ANGELA‘S Ashes (book/film) McCourt dies 7-19, 500E3

ANGEL Cordova, Jose Sees swine flu threat drop 5-13, 351B3

ANGELS & Demons (book/film) Bk on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1; 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1 Film on top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

ANGEL‘S Game, The (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

ANGGODO Wijoyo Anti-corruptn ofcls wiretaps issued 11-3, 786F1–G1

ANGIOLINI, Elish Scores Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc post 9-18, 636A3

ANGLICANS Church split mulled 7-27, 539E1 Tutu gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 Calif split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3 RC converts OKd, Archbp Williams knowledge mulled/rift denied 10-20, 711E2 Priests RC conversn rules set 11-9; Williams addresses Pontifical Gregorian Univ 11-19, sees Pope, invite denied 11-21, 811E1, B2, D2 LA Episcopal diocese asst bp choice questnd 12-5, 868C3–E3 Uganda gay curbs bill scored 12-12, 925B1

ANGOLA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Pope mass stampede kills 2 3-21, 196C2 African Relations Mauritania, AU sanctns set 2-5, 82B3 AU summit held 7-1—7-3, 459C2 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours region 10-20—10-23, 746A3 CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 6-26, 455B1, E1 Defense & Disarmament Issues French arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, Chirac backing claimed 10-29, 765B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232C1; 10-1, 732D1 Oil & Gas Developments Nigeria peace talks held 10-19—11-14, 923B2 OPEC mtg hosted 12-22, 900G3 Sonangol, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-30, 943C1 Religious Issues Pope visits 3-20—3-23, 195D3, 196F1 Trade, Aid & Investment USAID/Chevron agri deal signed 8-9, 540E2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 8-9, 540A1, B2

ANI, Omar Farouk alSlain 1-29, 53A3

ANI, Ziad alSurvives blast 1-21, 38E1–F1

ANIMAL Farm (book) Amazon electronic copies deleted 7-17, 782F1

ANIMAL Identification System, National (NAIS) ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489B2

ANIMALS—See also specific kinds (e.g., DOGS) CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340A3 Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatan home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609D2

ON FILE

ANIMATION—See CARTOONS ANISTON, Jennifer He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2 Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

ANNAKIN, Ken(neth Cooper) (1914-2009) Dies 4-22, 300B3

ANNAN, Kofi Atta (U.N. secretary general, 1997-2006) Warns Kenya violnc suspects list ICC handover 2-24, at unity govt reforms conf 3-30—3-31, 202A3, 203B1 Kenya unity govt talks fail 4-4—4-5, Karua, Mungatana quit 4-6—4-7, 221B3, D3 Hands over Kenya post-electn violnc suspects list 7-9, 541A1, C1 Kenya post-electn violnc trial plans scored 8-4, 540G1 Urges Kenya pol reforms 10-4—10-7, 702E1

ANNENBERG, Leonore (Leonore Coen) (1918-2009) Dies 3-12, 192D1

ANNENBERG, Walter Hubert (1908-2002) Widow dies 3-12, 192D1

ANNENBERG Foundation Co-founder dies 3-12, 192D1

ANNIE Get Your Gun (play) Revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

ANNIE Hall (movie) Allen/Amer Apparel suit setld 5-18, 348F2

ANOZIE, Nonso Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

ANSAR, Faheem Ahmed Chrgd 2-25, 158E1

ANSARI, Ashrat Shafiq Mohammed Convctd, sentncd 7-27, 8-6, 594F3

ANSHUTZ, Philip Clarity Media sets Wkly Standard buy 6-17, 913D2

ANTARCTIC Regions NASA climate satellite crashes 2-24, 131C3 Nielsen dies 6-23, 484D3

ANTASARI Azhar Drive-by shooting kills 1 3-14, held 5-4, 342G1–B2 Anti-corruptn comm reforms pass House 9-29, cops framing alleged, denied 11-10—11-11, 786B1, D2

ANTHONY, Carmelo Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3

ANTHONY, Charles Found dead 5-19, 334D1

ANTHRAX Army biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266E3 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539C3 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200D1 ‘01 mailings case review set 5-8, 393D2 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862B2

ANTHROPOLOGY Obituaries Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1

ANTICHRIST (film) Gainsbourg wins Cannes actress prize 5-24, 364C1

ANTI-Discrimination Center NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538A3

ANTI-Doping Agency, U.S. Cyclist Hamilton banned 6-16, 515E3

ANTIGUA & Barbuda Economy & Labor Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27; catastrophy seen 2-18, property seized 2-25, 147E3, 148B1, A2–B2, B3 Financial svcs regulator (King) chrgd, fired/held 6-19—6-25, 457G1–A2, E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D1; 10-1, 732D1

ANTIQUITIES Act (1906) Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7B2

ANTIQUORUM Auctioneers India’s Gandhi belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158E1

ANTI-Semitism—See JEWS ANTITRUST Actions BCS probe opens 1-6, 24B1 Coca-Cola/Huiyuan Juice buy blocked 3-18, protectnsm denied 3-25, 251C2

2009 Index Oracle/Sun buy set, OKd 4-20—8-20, EU antitrust probe opens 9-3, 601G1 Google/Apple bd dirs overlap probe set 5-5, 744F3 Justice Dept probes hike seen 5-11, 343C2 Intel, EU fine set 5-13, 343F1 Ariz papers complaint filed 5-15, 393F1 Google bk scanning setlmt review set 7-2, 601D1 Microsoft/Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523F2 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627G3 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd 9-18, 936D3 Insurnc cos exemptn end bill backed 10-21, 713E3 Intel suit filed 11-4, AMD setlmt OKd 11-12, 800C2, G2 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-20—11-21, 809E1 Europn Comm competitn comr (Almunia) named 11-27, 835A3 Japan/US ‘open skies’ deal OKd 12-11, 933C2 EU/Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875F3 Intel suit filed 12-16, 911D3

ANTOINE, Ayesha My Wonderful Day opens in NYC 11-18, 954B2

ANTONELLI, Cmdr. Dominic (Tony) Pilots Discovery missn 3-15—3-28, 239C2*

ANTONESCU, Crin 3d in pres electn 11-22, sets coalitn deal 11-24, 821B3

ANTONINI Wilson, Guido Alejandro Argentina’s Fernandez de Kirchner pres bid Venez funds muzzler sentncd 3-16, 205D1

ANTOON, A(lfred) J(oseph) (1944-92) Warchus wins Tony 6-7, 400B1

ANUPONG Paojinda, Gen. Sees Sondhi shooting mil arms use 4-23, 295G2 Denies Narathiwat mosque shooting mil role 6-9, 416E1

ANUSAUSKAS, Arvydas On state security dir (Malakauskas) resignatn 12-14, 903C1

ANWAR, Usman On US citizens arrest, FBI interviews 12-10, 858A1, C1

ANWAR Ibrahim Mongolian woman slaying cops convctd 4-9, 223E3 Protests held, dispersed 8-1; arrests rptd, Sivarasa freed on bail/chrgs seen 8-2—8-17, crackdown scored 8-3, 542D3–G3

AOKI, Norichika Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191C1

AOL LLC Time Warner split set 5-28, 393B2 Time Warner sets spin-off 11-16, 2500 jobs cut 11-19, 830F3–G3

AOUN, Gen. Michel (ret.) Parlt electns held 6-7, results rptd 6-8, 397E3 Unity govt set 11-9, 790E1

AP—See ASSOCIATED Press APARICIO, Luis Jeter sets MLB shortstop hits mark 8-16, 691A1

APEC—See ASIA-Pacific Economic Cooperation APES—See MONKEYS APODACA, Pvt. Michael Jackson Held 8-10, 556A3

APOLLO (U.S. spacecraft series)—See SPACE APONDI, Judge Muga Convcts, sentncs alleged poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) 5-7, 5-14, 375A2, E2–F2

APPALACHIAN Voices Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1, 33G2

APPEAL, The (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212C1

APPLE Computer Inc. Obamas visit UK Queen 4-1, 194C2 Google bd dirs overlap probe rptd 5-5, Schmidt, Levinson quit 8-4—10-12, 744F3

—ARGENTINA IPhone/Google app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; FCC probe set 8-1, AT&T role denied 8-21, 744B3 EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875G3

APPLEGATE, Fred Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

APPLIANCES Energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94F1, B2 US energy efficiency spending savings seen 7-29, 917C3

APPOINTMENTS, U.S.—See under OBAMA APPRENDI v. New Jersey (2000) Judge sentncg power upheld by Sup Ct 1-14, 21D1

AQEEL, Mohammaed (Dr. Usman Aqeel) Seizes army hq, hurt/held 10-10—10-11, 695D1

AQUINO Jr., Benigno Aquino (1932-83) Widow dies 8-1, 531G2

AQUINO, Corazon C. (Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco) (1933-2009) (Philippine president, 1986-92) Dies 8-1, 531G2; photo 531A3

ARAB Countries—See country, organization names Israeli Conflict—See ARAB-Israeli Developments

ARAB-Israeli Developments Iranian-Israeli Relations A-program raid plan US oppositn rptd 1-10, 75D1 Peres message aired 3-20, 179C2–D2 Pope Benedict role mulled 5-14, 336A1 Iran long-range missile test mulled 5-20, 362B1 A-program attack mulled 7-5, 464A3–B3 Russian arms sale mulled 8-18—8-19, 616A2 Russian arms sale concern rptd 9-9, 616E2 Iran A-program enrichmt halt sought 10-22, 711B2 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755F1 Jerusalem Palestinian constructn vehicle attack hurts 2 3-5, 313D3 Shooting kills 1 4-7, evictns seen 5-1, 313F2, C3 Israeli setlmt bldg cont, Palestinians evicted 7-19—8-2, return sought 7-31, 546E1–F1 Clashes erupt 9-27—10-6, 689D3 Holy site protesters/cops clash, Palestinians held 10-9—10-25, Israeli setlmts constructn halt offer mulled 10-31—11-2, 754B2, 755A1 Israeli setlmt bldg cont 11-17—11-25, 838A2 Israeli homes bldg Okd 12-28, 944G3 Obituaries Hout, Shafiq al- 8-2, 548C3 Syrian-Israeli Relations Air strike site uranium find mulled 2-19, missile facility claimed 2-24, 465B3 Air strike uranium find mulled 11-16, 804B2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations—See under PALESTINIANS West Bank/Gaza Strip ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C2 Gaza air strikes/rockets fire cont, Israeli troops invade 1-1—1-8; forgners mass exit OKd 1-2, ceasefire mulled 1-5—1-8, 1B1, E2, C3, 2B3; map 2A1 Gaza violnc cont, ceasefire mulled 1-9—1-15; white phosphorus use alleged, ware crimes probe urged 1-10—1-14, UN schl strike stray mortar claimed, mil goals seen 1-11, 13A1–14G1 Gaza violnc cont 1-16—1-17; Israel/Hamas ceasefire declared 1-17—1-18, troops exit sought/completed, death toll rptd, 1-18—1-21, 30D3, G3, 31G1, C2 Gaza tunnels rebldg rptd 1-24; Israeli troops war crimes legal aid set 1-25, violnc kills 2, border crossings shut 1-27, 42D2 Gaza invasn rabbi pamphlets published, mil punishmt rptd 1-26—1-28, 210G1–A2 Israeli troops, Gaza ground invasion debated 1-29, 58A3 Hamas reprisal attacks rptd 1-30, Palestinian MD daughters Israeli mil slaying admitted 2-4, 157B3, D3

Israel/Hamas cease-fire, Gaza border opening deals conditn set 2-15—2-18, envoy fired/reinstated, arms embargo urged 2-23—2-25, 157G1, G2 Violnc kills 2, Hamas ldrs held 3-13—3-19; Israeli troop release talks fail, Gaza invasn casualties tallied 3-17—3-26, mil abuses alleged, probe opens/nixed 3-19—3-30, 209F3, 210E2, C3–E3 Bin Laden tape aired 3-14, 369D2 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196F2, C3 W Bank violnc kills scores 4-2—4-17; Gaza war crimes probe ldr (Goldstone) named, rpts issued 4-3—5-5, rockets launched, tunnels bombed 5-2—5-6, 312D3, 313A3 W Bank constructn halt urged, Gaza humanitarian crisis end sought 5-18, 336D2 W Bank setlmts halt urged, natural growth policy cont 5-27—6-1, clashes kill scores 5-28—6-1, 380E2, G3 Gaza invasn abuses mulled, troops chrgs hike sought 6-1—7-30; Palestinian ex-parlt speaker (Duwait) freed 6-23, W Bank security transferred 6-25, 546D1–E1, B2–D2, G2–B3 Violnc kills 5 6-5—6-8, 403C3 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E3 Gaza war civiln casualties rptd 8-13; Israeli troops organ theft alleged, claims scored 8-17—8-23, border violnc kills 1, rockets fired/tunnel bombed 8-24—8-25, 593D2, F2, A3 Venez’s Chavez scores Gaza war 9-3, 616D3 W Bank setlmt bldg halt seen 9-4; dvpt plans OKd 9-7, Israeli hostage parents letter issued 9-9, 614C3–D3, 615C1 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, rpt scored, indep probes nixed 9-15—9-16, 614E1, E2 Gaza war crimes rpt questnd 9-17—9-18, UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23—9-24, 633B1–C1, 634E1–F1 Gaza air strike kills 3 9-25; Israeli troop tape release set/issued, Palestinian prisoners freed 9-30—10-4, UN war crimes rpt support mulled, action nixed 10-1—10-7, 689C2, A3, 690B1 Gaza war crimes rpt backed, res passes UN Cncl/vote scored 10-8—10-16, US veto sought 10-20, 730A2 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884B3 Israeli setlmts constructn halt offer mulled 10-31—11-2, Hamas, Iranian rockets test rptd 11-3, 754E1, C3 Gaza war crimes rpt mulled 11-3—11-6, W Bank border crossing opens 11-10, 790A2, D3 Sudan’s Bashir Turkey visit mulled 11-6—11-8, 788G3–789A1 Hamas rocket attacks cont/halt claimed, clashes kill 1 11-13—11-27; Israeli troop (Shalit) release deal mulled 11-23—11-29, W Bank setlmt freeze set, mayor held 11-25—12-2, 838A2, C3, F3 Mosque burned/suspect held, road use ordrd 12-11—12-31; setlmt benefits OKd/seminary ties cut 12-13, violnc kills 7/casualties tallied, war anniv marked 12-24—12-31, 945A1–C1, B2, D2

ARABIYA, Al- (UAE TV channel) Obama interview aired 1-27, 42G1, D2 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367D2 N African kidnappings claim tape aired 12-28, 903F2

ARAB League Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal blocked 1-3, 3D1 Kuwait summit held 1-19, 31A3 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt suspensn urged 3-5, 123B1 Sudan’s Bashir summit trip opposed 3-22, 185G1 Qatar summit held 3-30, 196D2, C3* US’s Mitchell seeks Mideast peace deal 4-17, 313A2 Russia’s Medvedev sees Moussa, addresses mtg 6-23, 455D1 Sudan’s Bashir, ICC warrant/AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, 459D1 Mauritania pres electn held 7-18, results rptd 7-19, 492D3 Israeli/W Bank setlmts constructn halt offer scored 11-2, 754D2 Egypt mtg held 11-7, 777B1 Libya’s Qaddafi sets Egypt/Algeria World Cup qualifying dispute mediatn 11-24, 859F1 Somalia interim govt backed 12-3, 889A2

969

ARAFAT, Yasir (Abu Amar) (Mohammed Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini) (1929-2004) Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209A3 Hout dies 8-2, 548C3 Fatah conf held 8-4—8-11, 545F3 Death anniv marked 11-11, 790B3

ARANA, Tomas Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

ARANNE, Ike (Yitzhak Ahronovitch) (1923-2009) Dies 12-23, 954F3

ARCHAEOLOGY Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd, value hiked 9-23—11-25, 952C3 Egpyt, Louvre Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952F2

ARCHAMBAULT, Col. Lee Cmnds Discovery missn 3-15—3-28, 239C2*

ARCHERD, Army (Armand Andre) (1922-2009) Dies 9-8, 648E1

ARCHITECTURE Copenhagen concert hall opens 1-17, 953E3 China city redvpt plans rptd 4-2, 461F2 Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300F1 Chicago Art Inst extensn opens 5-16, 953B3 Acropolis Museum opens 6-20, 449E2 Disney museum opens in San Fran 10-1, 953B3 Dallas arts district theater/opera house open 10-18, 953C3–D3 Armenian arts ctr unveiled 11-8, 953A3 Rome museum (Maxxi) launched 11-14, 953F2, A3 Obituaries Bond Jr, J Max 2-18, 192G1 Erickson, Arthur C 5-20, 384F2 Fehn, Sverre 2-23, 176B3 Gwathmey, Charles 8-3, 531G3 Halprin, Lawrence 10-25, 792D3 Kaplicky, Jan 1-14, 56A2 Shulman, Julius 7-15, 532F3

ARCTIC Drift (book) On best-seller list 12-21, 956C1

ARCTIC Regions US fishing ban OKd 2-5, 268A1 ‘08-09 ice levels rptd 4-6, 550A3 Millennia cooling trend reversal seen 9-4, 842A2 Summer ice loss rptd 9-17, 842F1

ARCTIC Sea (Finnish cargo ship) Departs/registered in Malta, hijacking seen 7-23—7-31; found/suspects held, negative radiatn test rptd 8-17—8-18, details emerge, probe set/crew returns to Russia 8-18—8-20, 550C3–D3, 551A1–C1, E1–F1 Hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27; rptr (Voitenko) flees, firing claimed/denied 9-3—9-7, arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1–F1, A2–C2

ARDEBILI, Amir Guilty plea rptd 12-2, sentncd 12-14, 876G3

ARENA, Bruce Named MLS top coach 11-11, 895A1

ARENAS, Gilbert Gun probes rptd 12-24—12-28, 951E2

ARENS, Moshe Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209B2

AREVA SA India A-power deal signed 2-4, 158A2 Kazatomprom A-fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739E2 ECOWAS sets Niger sanctns 10-17, 761D3

ARE You Being Served? (TV show) Sugden dies 7-1, 484G3

ARGENTINA (Argentine Republic) Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925G3 Crime & Civil Disorders ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904D1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Marijuana possessn arrests nixed 8-25, 589E3 Economy & Labor Soybeans export tax talks open, revenue sharing plan proposed 2-24—3-19; grains natl bd mulled 3-3, farmers stirke set,held 3-20—3-27, 203F3 Farmers tax break vetoed 8-25, strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 Merval ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900D2 Family Issues Gay marriage license issued 11-16, wedding blocked, held 11-30—12-29, 926D1

970 ARGUELLO— Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Progressive ldrs summit held 3-27, 204F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D1 Electns date chng OKd 3-26, 204D1 Cong electns held 6-28, Kirchner drops party ldrship 6-29, 446B3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732E1 Human Rights ‘Dirty war’ ofcrs convctd, sentenced 8-13, ex-pres (Bignone), ex-capt (Astiz) trials open 11-2—12-11, 925B3, D3 Latin American Relations Fernandez de Kirchner pres bid Venez funds muzzler sentncd 3-16, 205D1 Honduras pres (Zelaya) ouster scored 6-28, return mulled 6-29, 438D2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 UNASUR summit held 8-10, 541C3 Honduras diplomatic ousters exchngd 8-13—8-18, 575D3 UNASUR mtg hosted 8-28, 589B2, F2 Monetary Issues Peso ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3 Obituaries Alfonsin, Raul 3-31, 212F1 Sosa, Mercedes 10-4, 692F2 Press & Broadcasting Media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682G1 Media curbs bill passes Sen, signed 10-10, 926B1 Religious Issues RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial remarks opposed 2-9, 76B1 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, 179G3 Sports Dakar Rally results 1-17, 104D1 Soccer natl coach (Maradona) scores media 10-14, suspended, fined 11-14, 859A2 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2–G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Iran’s Vahidi defns min apptmt seen 8-20, 562D2 Iran defns min (Vahidi) confrmd 9-3, 609E3 Trade, Aid & Investment G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section SC gov (Sanford) hiking trip claimed returns/admits affair 6-22—6-24, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1, A2 SC gov (Sanford) issues apology 6-26; details affair, wife scores 6-30—7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455D3, F3, 456A1–B1 NC gov (Sanford) civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1 SC gov (Sanford) censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869A2

ARGUELLO, Alexis (1952-2009) Found dead 7-1, 468D2

ARGUING with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 12-21, 956B1

ARIA, Semyon On client (Bakhmina) release 4-21, 328F3

ARIA Air Iran plane crash kills 17+ 7-24, 941B3

ARIAS Sanchez, Oscar (Costa Rican president, 1986-90/2006- ) Honduras talks role set, open 7-7—7-9, 460A2–C2 Zelaya return talks fail 7-9—7-10, on unity govt deal 7-16, 480F2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return plans proposed, nixed 7-18—7-22, 493A2, C2 Urges cont Honduras intl pressure Zelaya return deal mulled/envoy sought 7-24—7-30, 508C1, F1 Swine flu positive test rptd 8-11, 584C1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return plan nixed, talks fail 8-22—8-25, 575B2–C2 Honduras pres electn US oppositn rptd 9-4, 623B2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) returns 9-21, 643D2

ARIEL Fund Ltd. Merkin chrgd 4-6, 245D1

ARISON, Amir Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

FACTS Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

ARISTIDE, Jean-Bertrand (Haitian president, 1991/94-96/2001-04) Sen electns held 4-19, 270E1 Party banned 11-25, 930A1

ARIZA, Trevor Lakers win NBA title 6-14, 419D2

ARIZONA Crime & Law Enforcement Phoenix serial killers convctd, sentncd 3-13—7-29, 525F1 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780D2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Rapper DMX sentncd 1-30, 88C3 Mex border violnc rise seen 2-23, gun store owner (Iknadosian) trial opens 3-9, 171E1, A2 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185E3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933B3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Language barrier aid funding case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 Migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588F1 Maricopa Cnty sheriff illegals detentn authrzn nixed 10-6, 721E3 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform town-hall mtg held 8-17, 552E1 Obituaries Dunlap, Max 7-21, 648D2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Homeland Security secy nominee (Napolitano) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17A1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92B1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Press & Broadcasting East Valley Tribune wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D2–E2 Papers antitrust complaint filed 5-15, Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393E1 School Issues Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425D2 Science & Technology T rex predecessor fossil buy rptd 9-17, 670F3 Sports Fiesta Bowl results 1-5, 24C1 Coyotes investors sought 1-15, 159F2 Cardinals win NFC champ 1-18, 39E2, A3, C3, E3 Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70B1, B2, B3; photo 70E1 FBR Open results 2-1, 139G1 NBA All-Star Game results 2-15, 159B1 Match Play Champ results 3-1, 139C1 Coyotes bankruptcy declared, appeal filed 5-5—5-7, sale nixed 6-15, 435B3 Coyotes buyout offer nixed/ruling hailed, NHL bid set 7-29—9-30, 730C3, E3 Mercury wins WNBA title 10-9, 807D3, F3–G3 Coyotes, NHL sale OKd 11-3, Ice Edge Holdings buy seen 12-11, 951C2 Cardinals clinch divisn 12-20, 947E3 Insight Bowl results 12-31, 948F2

ARIZONA, University of (Tucson) Men’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 230A1 Low dies 6-11, 452F3 Hill in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1 Holiday Bowl lost 12-30, 948G2

ARIZONA Daily Star (newspaper) Antitrust complaint filed 5-15, Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393F1

ARIZONA State University (Tempe) Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231A1 Harden in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, D1

ARIZONA v. Gant (2009) Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266C1

ARKANSAS Accidents & Disasters Ice storm cuts power 1-27—1-28; damage rptd 2-3, disaster declared 2-6, 133E2–F2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3

Crime & Law Enforcement Army recruiting booth attack kills 1 6-1, shooter held, pleads guilty 6-1—6-2, 392A2

ARLINGTON (Va.) National Cemetery Sen Kennedy buried 8-29, 584C2–D2 Obama visits 11-11, 775B2 Record-keeping woes probe set 11-13, 915F1

ARMAMENTS Aircraft ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C2 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38A3 Israeli/Gaza air strikes cont 1-1—1-8, 1C1, F1, 3E1 Gaza violnc cont, UN schl strike stray mortar claimed/warehouse destroyed 1-10—1-15, 13D1, E1–G1 Gaza violnc death toll rptd 1-19, 30E3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 20+ 1-23, 69G3 Gaza tunnels rebldg rptd 1-24, 42G2 Darfur strike launched 1-24, 116A1–B1 Sri Lanka rebels air strip seized 2-3, strike kills 2 2-20, 119A3 Georgia breakaway region/Russian jets deploymt claimed, denied 2-6, 85D1 Pak/US drone missile strikes scored, kill 60+ 2-10—2-16, 103C1–E1 Leb/Israeli spy suspect held 2-16, 312B3 Israel/Syria air strike site uranium find mulled 2-19, 465B3 CIA Pak efforts cont 2-25, 138B3 Iran oppositn group Iraq camp surrounded 3-13, drone US mil shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174G2 Pak drone missile strikes hike seen 3-18; response attacks claimed 3-31—4-5, strike kills 10+ 4-1, 228G3–229A1, F1, D2 Russian rebels hideout raid kills 21+ 3-19—3-22, 274A1 US/Mex border security hiked 3-24, mil copters use mulled 3-25, 185E3, 186C1 F-22 fighter jet crash kills 1 3-25, 266A3 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 196F3 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 195C1 N Korea satellite launch interfernc warning issued 4-1, 215A3 US/Mex antidrug aid delay rptd 4-5, 249C3 Afghan air strikes kill 106+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 4-13—5-6, 314D1 Defns Dept jet program info hacked 4-21, 411E1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict air strikes use halt vowed 4-26—4-27; hosp shelling kills 100+, MDs flee 5-12—5-13, govt win declared 5-19, 333A2, 334G2, D3 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 308C1 Obama sees Afghan’s Karzai, Pak’s Zardari 5-6, 315A2 Afghan civiln deaths protested 5-7, 317F2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321E3 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357D3 Pak/US drone missile strikes support polled 5-11; jt efforts seen 5-12, video footage aid rptd 5-14, 346B3 Nigeria mil offensive launched 5-15, 358B2–C2 Lockheed pres copters deal ends 5-16, 411G3 Afghan air strike kills 8, civiln deaths mulled 5-19—5-20, 381E2, B3 Suplmtl funds draft OKd by Sen com 5-20, 338C2 NYC terror suspects held 5-20, 375A1 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355F1 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466E2, 467A1 Afghan/US air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434D2 F-22s buys measure backed/cost questnd, nixed by Sen 6-21—7-21, F-35 engine dvpt nixed by Sen, Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25—7-23, 489B3, E3 Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, 440E3 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473F3 Israel/Gaza invasn drone missile strikes use scored 6-30, 546D2 UK/Afghan troops equipmt lack seen, denied 7-11, 498E2, A3–C3 China/US econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888G3 US/India strategic talks set 7-20, 486E1 Pak/US drone missile strike bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, 514G2

ON FILE

Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523A3–D3 US/Persian Gulf MIA troop (Speicher) remains found 8-2, 720F3 Pak/US drone missile strikes kills 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533A1, D1–F1, A2, 534A1 Taiwan typhoon aid sought 8-13, 559E3 US drone missile strikes Xe work seen 8-21, 586E3 Pak Taliban ldr (Mehsud) death confrmd 8-25, 577G3 Iran smuggling suspect (Monsieur) chrgd 8-27, 600F1 Iraq jets ownership seen, Serbia return set 8-30, 592C3 Afghan air strike kills 24+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 9-4—9-8, 611F1 Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615E3 Ger/Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607D3 PI ferry sinking kills 9 9-6; passenger rescued 9-7, rpt finished 10-16, 891A2 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill 2 9-7—9-17, 669F3, 670D1 US/Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, 622C2 Yemen refugee camp strike kills 80+, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, 645E3 Air Force aerial tanker bidding set, opens 9-16—9-24, rules questnd 12-1, 915B2 Afghan air strike civiln deaths rptd 9-17, 630E1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635B3 PI militant base seized 9-20, 819A3 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665C3 Gaza strike kills 3 9-25, 690B1 US/Pak drone missile strikes support polled 10-1, 695A1, B3 Afghan/Pak threat cut seen 10-4—10-6, troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673A2, C3, 674D1 US ‘10 defns funds pass Sen 10-6, 701B2–C2 US ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 701C1 PI storms aid sought 10-9, 704G1 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched, backed 10-17—10-20, 709C1, E1, C3 US defns ‘10 authrzn clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742D3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 14+ 10-24, Clinton visits 10-28—10-29, 737C2, 738B1 Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot fighter jets alert rptd 10-27, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-29, 744A1–B1 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-28, 751B2 Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes erupt 11-5—11-9, 805B2 Israel/Syria air strike uranium find mulled 11-16, 804B2 US ship (Maersk Alabama) pirate attack repelled 11-18, 801E2 Gaza strikes launched 11-22—11-27, 838G3 PI prov deploymt set 11-24, 819E1 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914G3 Afghan strike civiln deaths Ger info withheld 11-26, Schneiderhan, Jung quit 11-26—11-27, 835E3 Pak, CIA operatns hike rptd 12-2, 827G1–A2 Mex antidrug, US aid spending rptd 12-3, 928D3 Blackwater drone missile strikes deal nixed 12-11, 883D1 Ger’s Guttenberg visits Afghan 12-11, 894A3 Yemen rebel clashes kill 35+ 12-13, 944E3 US drone aircrafts Iraq hacking rptd 12-17, 877C2–D2 Yemen offensive kills 30+, Al Qaeda deaths mulled 12-17—12-25, 944F2 Bin Laden son slaying rpts denied 12-23, 941E2 Gaza border strike kills 3 12-26, 945A2 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 13 12-26, 947A2 US/Yemen drone missile strikes rptd 12-30, 898B2 Afghan CIA base blast kills 7+ 12-30, air strike civiln deaths alleged 12-31, 899E1, B2 Chemical & Biological Warfare—See CHEMICAL & Biological Warfare Firearms & Artillery Gaza storehouses destroyed 1-1—1-3, Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal unveiled 1-6, 1G1, 2 C3 Thai’s Sondhi shot 4-17, mil arms use mulled 4-23—4-24, 295A3 Iraq/US mil clinic shooting kills 5 5-11, suspect (Russeell) held, chrgd 5-11—5-12, 330B2, D2–E2 Mex fake troops raid nets auto rifles 6-11, 481A1 Leb clashes erupt 6-28, 450A3

2009 Index N Korea/Iran shipmt seized 8-28, 600F1 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930F1–G1 Foreign Developments—See also other subheads in this section S Africa’s Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 22A1 Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, cont blockade seen 1-20, 31D1–F1, B3 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2 Seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66D3–E3 Afghan/US mil oversight questnd 2-12, 102G2 Israel/Palestinian embargo urged 2-23, 157G2 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 196F3 S Africa’s Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222C1 S Africa gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 293F1, B2 Ethiopia sanctns urged 5-20, 341E3 Somalia port blockade urged 5-20, US shipmt rptd, Sec Cncl authrzn seen 6-25, 430E2–A3 Southn Sudan govt arms distributn alleged, denied 6-15—6-16, 431B1–C1 N Korea ship departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462E3 Albania blast kills 1, victim smuggling alleged 6-18, 511B3 US/China mil talks held 6-23—6-24, 481E3 Saudi High Comm, Somali warlord arms linked 6-24, 491E3–F3 Iraq/France deal set 7-2, 465B1 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480C1, F1 UK/Israel arms exports banned 7-13, 546A2 Nigeria militia ldr (Okah) freed, amnesty deals OKd/open 7-13—8-6, success declared 8-22, 575A1–B1 Leb/Israeli truce zone blast hits 7-14, 615C1 Sri Lankan rebel ldr (Pathmanathan) named, held 7-21, 8-6, 578F3 Venez/Colombia rebels link confrmd, ties denied 7-26—7-28, computer evidnc rptd 8-3, 526A2, A3–B3 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking seen 7-31; found/suspects held 8-17, negative radiatn test rptd 8-18, 551F1 Venez/Colombia amb returns 8-8, army patrol border crossing alleged 8-9, 541F3 Thai blocks Russian alleged dealer (Bout) US extraditn 8-11, appeal filed 8-13, 534F1 Myanmar/UN embargo urged 8-11, 543A2 Venez/Russia deal set, mulled 9-11—9-14, 616F2 US terror suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833G2 Kenya stockpiling alleged 10-7, 702E2 Guinea embargo warned 10-13, 702A1 Guinea embargos set 10-17—10-27, 871C1 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764G2 French/Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, Chirac backing claimed 10-29, 765B3 Saudi cache found 11-1, 943B3 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4, Iran role rptd 11-11, 878E1 Zimbabwe ofcl (Bennett) trial opens 11-9, arms dealer (Hitschmann) testimony OKd 11-11, 783D2 Saudi sets Yemeni blockade 11-10, 805E2 Colombia mil, rebels clash erupts 11-10, 927C3 Russian arms depot blasts kill 10+ 11-13—11-23, 855E1 Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25, 922A1–B1 US/Taiwan sale seen, plan cont 12-9—12-15, 891A3 Iran embargo violatns seen 12-10, 876E3 Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found/crew chrgd 12-12—12-14, flight plan rptd, Ukraine probe set/Kazakh ties denied 12-14, 862F2 Eritrea/Somalia militants backing sanctns set 12-23, 903E1 Russian weapons dvpt set 12-29, 939B1 Iran-Contra Arms Scandal—See IRAN-Contra Arms Scandal Iraq War—See IRAQ Mines (& other explosive devices) Israeli/Iran A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75D1 Pak tribal areas violnc erupts 5-3, 315D1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict displacemts tallied 5-18, 334F2

—ARMED 971 Pak tribal areas deaths tallied 5-21, 346F2 Chechnya blast kills 4 5-25, 378D3 Mex violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431C2–D2 Leb clashes erupt 6-28, 450A3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) release set 7-29, 505D3 Pa gym shooter grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554E2 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 PI blast kills 2 9-29, 819F2 Moldova grenade attack hurts 40+ 10-14, suspect held 10-17, 750E1 Kosovo grenade hits pols 11-12, 803D2 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 794D1 Missiles Russia border deploymt delayed 1-28, 69B2 N Korea test preparatns seen 2-3, 84E1 N Korea test plans scored 2-16, 109A2, C2 Israel/Syria air strike site missile facility claimed 2-24, 465C3 Russia/Iran sale halt urged 3-6, 142A3 N Korea satellite launch interfernc warning issued 3-9, plans set 3-11, 143G1 N Korea launch interfernc warnings issued 3-24—4-1; Japan shoot down ordrd, US plans denied 3-27—3-29, rocket launched, success mulled/S Korea dvpt talsk seen 4-5—4-6, 215D1, E2 China mil US annual rpt issued 3-25, 251A2 Limmt chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 227B3 N Korea rocket launch Sec Cncl res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, 238G3, 239E1 Pak test held 4-23, 630F3 N Korea rocket launch sanctns OKd 4-24, further tests warned 4-29, 342B3, D3–E3 Japan oppositn ldr (Ozawa) quits 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342G2 Iran long-range test held 5-20, 361D3 NYC terror suspects held 5-20, 375B1 N Korea short-range tests held 5-25—5-26, 350A3 N Korea launch preparatns seen 5-30, 404E1 N Korea launches held, scored 7-2—7-6, 462A3 US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 N Korea sanctns pass Sec Cncl 7-16, 495G1, B2 N Korea tests scored 7-20, 496A2 Russian/Iran sale mulled 8-18—8-19, 616G1–A2 Myanmar/China border militia clashes hiked 8-28, 590D2 Pak/US antiship missile chngs alleged 8-30, 630F3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) shipmt denied, probe ends 9-8—9-16, Russian/Iran sales concern rptd 9-9, 616D1, E2 US/Poland deploymt cont 9-17, 613C2 Russia/Poland border deploymt mulled 9-19—9-21, 645E1 Iran tests held 9-27—9-28, 649A1, 650A3; map 650A1 N Korea cont sanctns backed 10-9, missiles fired 10-12, 712B2, A3 Iran test held 12-16, 876F2 Nuclear Weapons & Tests—See also more specific subheads in this section, related headings (e.g., DISARMAMENT) A-arms arsenal maintenance urged 1-8, 266F3 US/UN amb nominee (Rice) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16B2 Intl smuggling suspect (Tinner) bust aid claimed 1-22, brother freed 1-23, 75B3 Pak A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, restraints cont 2-9, 75C2 US’s Feltman sees Syria amb (Moustapha) 2-26, delegatn visit set 3-3, 123D3 Pak Islamic militants threat seen 4-29, 285F2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320B3 Pak program Sen com hearing held 5-14, hike seen, denied 5-19—5-20, 346E3 N Korea test held, blast mulled 5-25, 350A3, 351B1, F1 N Korea attack warned 6-9; sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, May test analysis issued 6-15, 403E3, 404D1–E1, C2 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489D3 Pak blast hurts 30 7-2, 467C1–D1 US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658F3 N Korea test scored 7-20, 496A2

Pak scientest (Khan) movement limits lifted, reinstated 8-28—9-2, 595A1 US sci (Nozette) sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, spying chrgd 10-19, 760E3, 761D1 US safeguards ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 714G3 Russian strikes mulled 10-14, 706C1 Japan/US secret deals probe opposed 10-21, 747B3–D3 Pak arms control transferred 11-27, 839A1 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 825A2 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878E3 Israel A-program whistleblower (Vanunu) house arrest rptd 12-29, 943E1 Obituaries Albury, Charles D 5-23, 400B2 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Rosen, Louis 8-20, 648D3 Ships & Submarines Gaza violnc death toll rptd 1-19, 30E3 Georgia breakaway region, Russian naval base plans seen 1-26, 85F1 Somalia antipiracy Japan forces deploymt set 1-28, 76C2 UK/French A-subs collide 2-3; incident bared 2-6, crash confrmd, Vanguard/Scotland return rptd 2-16, 91C3 Sri Lanka rebels naval base seized 2-5, 119B3 Chinese cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2 US surveillnc ships China harassmt alleged, protested 3-4—3-9, Impeccable locatn mulled, destroyer sent 3-10—3-12, 153F1 Mongolian woman slaying, Armaris paymt linked 3-5, Malaysian cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 224A1 Venez ports seizure ordrd 3-15, 204G2 US Navy sub/transport collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266B3 China mil US annual rpt issued 3-25, 251F1–G1 Nigeria mil offensive launched 5-15, 358B2 Brazil/France missing flight A-sub search opens 6-10, 387E1 China/US mil talks held 6-23—6-24, 481E3 Brazil/France missing flight black box hunt cont 7-2, 473A2 Japan parlt electns held 8-30, 582D2 Georgia breakaway region sea border violatns threat issued, warning qustnd 9-2, 607B2–C2 Russian, Black Sea seizures warned 9-15, patrols open 9-20, 645B2–D2 US mil women submarines role backed 9-25, 720B3 Amer Samoa tsunami aid deploymt sent 9-30, 662F3 Somali pirates held 10-3, 801C1 US ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 701F1 PI storms aid sought 10-9, 704G1 Japan sets US/Afghan ships refueling missn end 10-13, 703C2 S/N Korea warships infringemt alleged 10-15, 712A3 Japan/US ships refueling missn hailed 10-20, 747F2, A3–B3 US/Japan ‘equal’ ties sought 10-26, 786G3 USS NY exits port 10-29; arrives in NYC 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914D3 S/N Korea naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 795G3 Russia nixes Crimea FSB role 12-1, 892D3 N/S Korea disputed waters firing warned 12-21, 933F3 Star Wars Issues US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans mulled 2-7, 74C2–D2 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans mulled 3-6, 142F2–G2 Obama/Medvedev mull Eastn Eur missile shield plans 4-1, 149A1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans mulled 4-5, 214F1 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489C3, E3 US/Eastn Eur missile defns plans mulled 7-6, 454B1, E1–G1 Czech/Russian diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645G2 Obama skips WWII start anniv 9-1, 591D3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped, short-range threat interceptors seen 9-17, 613A1, C2

US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed, NATO future link seen 9-18, 645B1 US ‘10 defns funds pass Sen 10-6, 701D2 US ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 701G1 Obama Nobel Peace Prize choice defended 10-13, 693C2 US’s Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 706A1–C1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield components plan OKd 10-21—10-23, 750A2–B2 US missile defns info sought 12-29, 939B1 Tanks (& other armored vehicles) Israeli troops invade Gaza, friendly fire kills 3 1-3—1-5, 1E2, B3 Gaza violnc cont 1-10—1-11, 13C1 Gaza UN schl strike kills 2 1-17, 31A1 Palestinian MD daughters Israeli mil slaying admitted 2-4, 157B3 Bangladesh tanks deployed 2-26, 137A3 Madagascar tanks deployed 3-12, 169B2 Russia mil exercises open 6-29, 449F3 U.S. Developments—See also specific subheads in this section Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 108A1 US intl sales scored 2-26, 180G1 Fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126B2 Defns ‘08 cost overruns rptd 3-30, fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled, scored 4-6—4-7, 217C1, C2 Defns procuremt reforms pass Cong 5-7—5-19; deal OKd 5-19, bill cleared, signed 5-20—5-22, 354E3–F3 Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411D3 GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365A2 Hezbollah smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878D2–E2 Iran trafficker (Ardebili) guilty plea rptd 12-2, sentncd 12-14, 877A1*

ARMARIS Mongolian woman slaying, paymt linked 3-5, Malaysian cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 224A1

ARMED Forces, U.S.—See also specific branches of service Accidents & Disasters Fighter jets collisn kills 1 10-15, 915F2 African Developments Saudi High Comm, Somali warlord arms linked 6-24, 491B3 Yemen/Comoros flight crash kills 152 6-30, 439E3 Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, 622A2 Appointments & Resignations Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted/mil career end seen, McChrystal named 5-11—5-12, 317A1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381A1, G1 Gen McChrystal confrmd Afghan cmdr, takes post 6-10—6-15, 434A1 Adm Stavridis takes over Europn Cmnd 6-30, 534D1 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 Pak/Afghan transport route reopened 1-2, Russia/Central Asia deals set 1-20, 39C1 Afghan troops slain, raid scored 1-9—1-25; Gates testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, pres electn delayed 1-29, 54E1, C2, E2, A3–D3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge reopened 2-6, 103F1 Afghan troops cont stay seen 2-9, coffins return media ban mulled, review ordrd 2-9—2-11, 78A3–B3, 79A2, C2 Afghan arms oversight questnd 2-12, troops deploymt ordrd 2-17, 102C1, G2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124G3 Afghan early natl electns urged 2-28, delay reaffrmd 3-4, 137C2 Afghan summit proposed 3-5, 142G1 S Korea jt mil exercises open 3-9, 143E1–F1 Afghan troops slain 3-15, 195B3 Afghan violnc kills 5 3-22; Taliban united front set 3-27; strategy chngd, troops hike sought 3-27—4-1,, 194F2, 195G1, A3 Pak/Afghan Cong com hearings held 4-2—4-3, 229A1 Europns vow Afghan troops hike 4-4, 213D1 Afghan air strike kills 100+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 5-4—5-6, 314D1–F1 Afghan’s Karzai, Pak’s Zardari see ofcls 5-6, 315G1–A2, D2 Afghan civiln deaths protested 5-7, govt bldgs captives held, freed 5-12, 317F2–G2, C3

972 ARMENIA— Pak incursions support polled 5-11; jt drone missile strikes seen 5-12, video footage aid rptd 5-14, 346B3–D3 Afghan civiln deaths mulled, violnc kills scores 5-19—6-3; drug seizure rptd 5-23, ‘09 casualties tallied 6-3, 381D2–A3, C3, E3–G3 Petraeus visits Pak 5-27, 382D3 S Korea alert hiked 5-28, 351D2 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368A2, 369A1 Afghan violnc rise seen 6-11; cmnd structure, strategy chngs seen 6-11—6-16, air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434D1–G1, B2, D2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418E1 Afghan violnc kills scores, pvt security guards held 6-29—7-6, troop seized, capture claimed 6-30—7-6, 466E1–A2 Afghan ‘01 mass slayings probe nix mulled, detainees protests rptd/hostage tape issued 7-11—7-17, troops slain, attacks rise seen/casualties tallied 7-20—7-23, 498G3, 499B1, F1, D2 Afghan/Pak border operatns opposed 7-22, 514C2 Japan troops deal chngs sought 7-23, parlt electns held 8-30, 582B2–C2 Afghan reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513D2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) release set 7-29, 505D3 Japan taxi driver slaying seaman convctd, sentncd 7-30, 557G3 Afghan ‘09 casualties rise rptd, violnc kills scores 7-31—8-10; drug traffickers targeting set 8-11, tribal fighters security aid sought 8-12, 547C1–D1, G1–A2, D2 McChrystal, Petraeus visit Pak 8-17—8-19, 578D1–E1 Afghan pres/local electn held, troop slain 8-20, 549A2, E2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan/justice reforms vowed 8-24, 573A1, F1 Afghan troops slain, casualties tallied 8-25, 577D3 Pak/Afghan trasport pass violnc kills scores, civiln exit seen 8-27—9-14, 630D3 Troops slain, casualties tallied 8-31, strategy chng urged/civiln deaths curbs sought, troop levels mulled 9-1, 593A3–C3, E3–G3, 594D1–E1 Afghan air strike kills 24+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 9-4—9-8, hosp raid alleged, denied 9-7—9-8, 611F1, A2, D2, F2, 612A1 Ger/Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607D3–E3 PI ferry sinking kills 9 9-6; passenger rescued 9-7, rpt finished 10-16, 891A2 Troop levels mulled 9-10—9-16; detainee appeals authrzn seen 9-13, troops slain/casualties tallied, civiln deaths mulled 9-15—9-17, 629C2, E3, 630D1, F1, B2–D2 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620E2 Japan’s Hatoyama sworn 9-16, 624C3 Afghan benchmarks issued 9-16; Taliban warning posted 9-19, troops hike mulled, Obama rift denied 9-20—9-24, 635A1, A2, A3, G3 Afghan violnc kills scores, casualties tallied 9-24—10-1; troop levels mulled 9-25—9-27, strategy mtgs open 9-29, 669A1, G1 Storm Ketsana, PI aid set 9-26, 664B2 PI troops slain 9-29, 819F2 Ltd missn debated, McChrystal sees Obama/Brown 10-1—10-5; violnc kills scores 10-2—10-6, troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673A1, B2, 674B2; photo 674A1 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-8—10-14, 695E3–696E1 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693B2 Japan sets Afghan ships refueling missn end 10-13, 703C2, F2 US fscl ‘09 deficit rptd 10-16, 713B2 Gen Petraeus visits Pak 10-19, 709B3, 710A1 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-20—10-21, 710C3–D3, 711A1 Afghan strategy mulled 10-21—10-28; sacrifices hailed, copter crashes/violnc kill scores 10-26—10-27, slain troops return 10-29, 750E2, 751A2 Afghan/Australian troops exit sought 10-21, 851B3 Japan ‘equal’ ties sought 10-26, 786G3 Clinton visits Pak 10-28—10-29, 737C2 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn declared 11-2, UK troops slain 11-3, 753C1, B2, 754D1

FACTS Afghan violnc kills scores/bodies found, chem seized 11-4—11-11; Japan aid set 11-10, troop levels mulled 11-11—11-12, 775B1, G2–B3 Afghan violnc kills scores, casualties tallied 11-13—11-19, troop levels mulled 11-18, Karzai sworn 11-19, 805E3, G3–806A1, D1, G1 Afghan strategy mtg held/plan unveiling seen, troop levels mulled 11-23—11-24, 809C2–F2, B3–C3, 810C1 Bin Laden, Afghan ‘01 escape rptd 11-30; NATO troops hike set, Cong hearings held 12-4—12-9, raid kills 6+ 12-7, 844C1, B2–D2, A3, F3, 845A1 Afghan troops hike set, missn backed/Cong com hearings held 12-1—12-3, 825A1–827B3; text 826A1 Turkey/Afghan troop levels mulled 12-7, 846F1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2–A3 Japan relocatn deal halted 12-8; review cont 12-15, Clinton sees amb 12-22, 933F1 Afghan troops pay hike set 12-9, 894B3 Afghan troops exit plan mulled 12-10, 842D3, 844A1 Afghan troop hostage tape issued 12-25; violnc kills scores, civiln deaths mulled/ ‘09 casualties tallied 12-28—12-31, May ‘10 parlt electns plan cont 12-29, 899C2, G2, B3, C3–D3 Pak drone missile strike kills 13 12-26, 947A2 Bases, Military—See under DEFENSE, U.S. CIS Developments Gen Petraeus visits Tajik 10-26, 765A1 European Developments France NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 172E3 Obama visits Ger/France, D-Day marked 6-5, 386E1 Iraqi Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C2 Green zone control transferred, security deal takes effect 1-1, 8D3 Translators ltd mask use OKd 1-7, 102B1 Bush news conf held 1-12, 18G3, 19D3 Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16C1 Insurgents executns suspect (Mayo) ct-martial set 1-13, troops exit plan mulled 1-14, 23B2–D2* Iran resistnc group attack plans rptd 1-20; Obama seeks troops exit plans 1-21, early withdrawal opposed 1-22, 38A2, G2 Troops exit mulled 1-21, 29B2 Female suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, 57B3 Raid couple slaying rptd 1-24, copters crash kills 4 1-26, 53D2, C3–E3 Casualties tallied 2-5, 58A1 Violnc kills scores, security deal violatns claimed 2-6—2-9, translators mask ban reversal rptd 2-13, 101C2–F2, 102A1 Slain troops coffin media ban mulled 2-9, review ordrd 2-11, 79C2 Abu Ghraib prison reopened, rptr access OKd 2-20—2-21; Ninevah operatn opens, violnc drop seen 2-20—2-22, troops slain 2-23—2-24, 117D3, 118B2 Obama hosts ‘fscl responsibility’ summit 2-23, 111F1 Troops Aug ‘10 exit mulled, set 2-26—2-27, 121A1, D1, C2 Insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124G3 Detainee ‘08 slaying suspect (Behenna) convctd, sentncd 2-27—2-28, Sep ‘09 troops cut set 3-8, 156E1, B3 Casualties tallied 3-5, 121F1 Ex-detainees slain 3-13, Iran drone shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174G2, 175D1 Detainees status mulled 3-22; blast kills 8 3-23, exit costs forecast issued, violnc drop seen 3-24—3-25, 189E2, A3–C3 Attacks drop seen, violnc kills scores 3-26—3-30; Awakening Cncl ldr held, Basra control transferred 3-28—3-31, slayings troop (Mayo) pleads guily, sentncd 3-30, 208A2, E2, G2, B3, D3, 209C1 Casualties tallied 4-2, 208A3 Violnc kills scores, Baghdad fall anniv marked 4-2—4-9, troop (Stovall) pvt contractor slaying chrgd 4-5, 228A1, D1–E1 Obama visits 4-7, 214D3, 215A1–B1 Troops slain 4-10, Awakening Cncl ldrs arrests monitoring set 4-15, 254F2 Insurgent (Delaema) sentncd 4-16, troops hurt 4-20, 275A2, E2

Insurgent ldr capture rptd, raid scored 4-23—4-26; violnc kills scores, bombings role alleged/denied 4-23—4-29, exit preparatns questnd, cities cont stay set 4-26—4-27, 296G2, E3, 297C1, F1–A2, D2 Clinton visits Iraq 4-25, 297C3 Casualties tallied 4-30, 296F3 Violnc kills scores, cities exit deadline backed 4-30—5-4; insurgent interrogatn block rptd 5-1, Awakening Cncl ldr (Jubouri) held, release seen 5-2—5-4, 311G3, 312D1–G1 Rape troop (Green) convctd, boy slain 5-7; cities cont stay set 5-8, mil base clinic shooting kills 5, suspect held/chrgd 5-11—5-12,, 330B2, D3, 331D1, F2 Insurgents Syria border crossing halt urged 5-8; violnc kills scores 5-20—5-21, Spain rptr slaying troops chrgd 5-21, 344G2–A3, D3–E3 ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3–E3 Blast kills 5 5-27, 362C3 Casualties tallied 6-4, 380A1 Insurgency children use seen 6-6, militant freed, cease-fire declared 6-9, 398D2–E2 Violnc kills scores 6-12—6-24, 433F1, A2–B2, E2, B3 Violnc kills scores 6-26—6-30, security transfer mulled, troops exit cities 6-28—7-1, 437A1, D2 Casualties tallied 7-2, 437F1 Biden visits 7-2—7-4, cont attacks urged, Mosul blast kills 12+ 7-8, 464E3–G3, 465D1 Baghdad jt patrols halt ordrd 7-2, 498C2 Iran detainees freed 7-9, 464C3–D3 Violnc kills scores 7-10—7-13, troops Spanish rptrs slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483F1, B2, E2 Violnc kills scores 7-16—7-19; security deal enforcemt seen 7-18, Maliki visits Obama 7-22, 497F3, 498A1, D1, B2 Sunni ldr held, clashes kill scores 7-24—7-31; troop ‘06 electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27, exit referendum deadline missed, hike urged 7-30—7-31, 529A2, F2, 530A1, D1, A2 Kirkuk autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, Troops cooperatn, exit hike seen 7-29, 501F1, B2 Blast barriers removal set 8-5, violnc kills scores 8-7—8-11, 545F1, D2 Casualties tallied 8-6, 529F3 Violnc kills scores 8-13—8-19; Sinjar deploymt proposed/security deal referendum seen, Shiite detainees release mulled 8-17, rockets seized 8-18, 562G2, D3, G3–563A1, C1, E1 Emb costs forecast issued 8-25, fighter jets ownership seen, Serbia return set 8-30, 592D3, F3 Casualties tallied 9-3, 592F1 Rape troop (Green) formally sentncd 9-4, troops slain 9-8, 610C2–D2 Contractor slain, troop held 9-13; Biden visits 9-15—9-17, Camp Bucca closure set 9-16, 629A1, F1–G1 Troops exit mulled 9-17—9-29; copter crash kills 1 9-19, tae kwon do team slaying suspects held 9-24, 668A1, C2, F2 Casualties tallied 10-1, 668A2 Insurgents arrest rtpd 10-2; blasts kill 16+ 10-5—10-6, detained pvt contractors abuse seen 10-7, 688E3, 689B1, D1 Mil base slayings troop (Russell) behavior rptd 10-16, blasts hit bridges 10-17, 729G2, F3 Baghdad blasts suspects held 10-26, 738D2 Impregnated troops ct-martials set 11-4, punishmt curbed, ban nixed 12-22—12-24, 915B1 Electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789C2–D2 Casualties tallied 11-12, 789F1 Electns law vetoed 11-18, 805C1 UK documts leaked 11-23, 821F1 Casualties tallied 12-3, 838F1 Electns law passes parlt 12-6, 856B3 Blackwater raids role rptd, deal denied 12-10—12-11, 884E3–885B1 Drone aircrafts hacking rptd 12-17, 877C2–D2 Prisoner (Khazali) transferred, UK hostage exchng denied/Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 942C1–E1, B2 Casualties tallied 12-31, 942A1 Middle East Developments AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, 263B3 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367D3, 368B3 Yemen counterterror role hike seen 12-30, 944D3 Obituaries Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3

ON FILE

Personnel Issues Obama visits wounded troops 1-19, 28C1 War dead coffin return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132A1 Obama gives Meml Day speech, sends wreaths 5-25, 355C2–D2 Gay troops policy case denied by Sup Ct 6-8, 390F1 Gay troops policy questnd, repeal urged 9-30, DC march held 10-11, 698D3, 699D2 Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720D2 Fscl ‘09 successful recruiting goals rptd 10-13, 720F2 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805D1 POWs Abuse Issues Detainees abuse photos FOIA omit passes Sen 5-21, 355A2 Detainees IDs/Red Cross access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621D2 Prisoners of War (POWs) Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A2–B2, D2 Security Issues Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D1 Cybersecurity coordinatn urged, policies questnd 4-21—4-29, 411B1–D1 NY ‘02 terror arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2 Terror detainees interrogatn videotaping measure passes House 10-8, 719A2 Terror aid suspect (Mehanna) chrgd 10-21, 816E1 Space & Space Flights Communicatns/Russian defunct mil satellite collide 2-10, debris tracking rptd 2-13, 91A3–B3

ARMENIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Iran flight crash kills 168 7-15, 482G3, 4831 Arts & Culture Eurovisn results rptd 5-16, Azerbaijan voters questnd 8-18, 607B1 Yerevan museum opens 11-8, 953A3 CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Defense & Disarmament Issues CSTO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2 CSTO rapid reactn force, Uzbek oppositn rptd 6-23; Kazakh mil exercises held 10-2—10-16, Belarus signs treaty 10-20, 904F1 Economy & Labor Store shelves cleared 3-3—3-5, 206E2 Energy Russian gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892C2 European Relations Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd, opposed 4-22—4-23, genocide anniv marked, Obama remarks scored 4-24—4-25, 296E1, C2 Turkey diplomatic ties seen 8-31, border opening set, genocide admissn mulled 9-1, 591E3 Turkey’s Pamuk ‘05 genocide remarks suit OKd 10-7, EU entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706E3 Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10; Nagorno-Karabakh troops exit sought 10-11, Sargsyan visits 10-14, 707A1, A2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits Turkey 4-6—4-7, 215G2* Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E1; 10-1, 732E1 Middle East Relations A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649E1, 650B1 Monetary Issues Dram floating set 3-3, 206D2–E2 Sports Turkey soccer match lost 10-14, 707A2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Bank/Russia/IMF loans set 2-26—3-6, 206D2 EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 UN Policy & Developments Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden tours region 10-21—10-23, 750D2

ARMEY, Dick (Richard K.) At ‘tea party’ protest 4-15, 242E3 Holds conservatives Capitol rally 9-12, 619B3–C3 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31, 756B1

ARMFIELD, Neil Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 255G3, 256A1

2009 Index ARMITAGE, Karole Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

ARMORED Vehicles—See ARMAMENTS—Tanks ARMORGROUP North America Afghan/US emb misconduct rptd 9-2, 594A3 Afghan emb security deal renewal nixed 12-8, 844G3

ARMS Control—See DISARMAMENT ARMS Export Control Act (1994) Pak antiship missile chngs alleged 8-30, 630G3

ARMSTRONG, Billie Joe Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

ARMSTRONG, Lance Breaks collar-bone 3-23; sets ‘10 team 7-23, 3d in Tour de France, Contador ties mulled 7-26—7-27, 515G1 2d in AP ‘00-09 top athlete voting 12-16, 879C2

ARMSTRONG, Neil Alden Marks Apollo 11 moon landing anniv 7-20, 506D2

ARMSTRONG, Trace NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176E1

ARMY, U.S. Department of the Appointments & Resignations Rep McHugh named secy 6-2, 373B2 McHugh confrmd, sworn secy 9-16, 656G1 Ofcr Watada resignatn OKd 9-25, 720C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Lt Calley regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1 PI Islamic militants fight aid cont 11-12, 819B2 Awards & Honors Sgt Monti awarded Medal of Honor 9-17, 636A1 Bases, Military—See under DEFENSE, U.S. Budget & Spending Programs Fscl ‘10 proposal unveiled 4-6, 217E2, B3 ‘10 authrzn passes House 10-8, 701G1 Health Issues HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671C1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697A2, C2 Iraqi Developments Troop (Maseth) base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38D2 Medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118E2 Detainees slayings troop (Hatley) convctd, sentncd 4-15—4-16, 254E3 Rape troop (Green) sentncd 5-21, 362E2 Ex-maj (Cockerham) sentncd 12-2, 856D3 Personnel Issues Slain troops ‘John Doe’ family letters mistake rptd 1-7, 267C1 ‘08 suicides rise rptd 1-29, 244G3 War dead coffin return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132C1 Reactivated troop (Pagan) brings kids, svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267B1 NC base ‘95 sniper pleads guilty 3-11, sentncd 3-24, 269D1 Troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183C2 Ark recruiting booth attack kills 1 6-1, shooter held/pleads guilty, Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-1—6-4, 392A2 Troops hike set 7-20, 491B2 Recruiter slaying suspect (Muhammad) pleads not guilty 7-31, 720G3 Mex drug smuggler slaying suspect held 8-10, 556A3 Ft Hood shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1, E2, C3; photo 757A3 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780C2 Arlington Natl Cemetery record-keeping woes probe set 11-13, 915F1 ‘09 suicides high seen 11-17, 915D1 Ft Hood shooting suspect (Hasan) chrgs hiked 12-2, 915D1 Pregnant soldr court-martial policy rptd 12-18, 915B1 Security Issues CIA terror suspects interrogatn tactics ltd, natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28F2, A3 Biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266D3 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393E2 Space Flights Kopra flies Endeavour missn, joins intl statn 7-15—7-17, 519A2

—ASTRO Forrester flies Discovery missn, Kopra returns to Earth 8-28—9-11, 615G3–616A1

ARNESON, Dave (David Lance) (1947-2009) Dies 4-7, 256D2

ARNESON, Mark Sentncd 3-3, 247B3

ARNETT, Will Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

ARNOLD, Eddy (Richard Edward) (1918-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2*

ARNOLD, Judith Husband sentncd 11-2, 792E2

ARNOLD, Michael Sentncd 11-2, 792E2

ARNOLD 2nd, Richard Flies Discovery missn, conducts spacewalks 3-15—3-28, 239C2–E2

ARNOLDO Mondadori SpA Fininvest ‘91 bribery found, paymt ordrd 10-3, 687F1

AROUCH, Salamo(n) (1923-2009) Dies 4-26, 364G2

ARPAD, Magyarosi Slain 4-16, Bolivia’s Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294B1

ARPAIO, Joe Illegal immigrants detentn authrzn nixed 10-6, 721E3

ARRATE, Jorge Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 871G1

ARSON—See under FIRES ARTEST, Ron Joins Lakers 7-2, 771D1

ARTHUR, Bea(trice) (Bernice Frankel) (1922-2009) Dies 4-25, 300C3

ARTHUR, Chester Alan (1829-86) (U.S. president, 1881-85; Republican) Obama resworn 1-21, 25C2

ARTILLERY—See ARMAMENTS—Firearms ART Institute of Chicago Contemporary wing opens 5-16, 953B3

ARTS & Culture—See also specific form (e.g., PAINTING) China/Taiwan art loan set 2-16, 310B1 Italy quake rebldg aid set 4-7, 224C2 NEA chair (Landesman) named 5-13, 332C2 French museum workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, Pompidou Ctr reopens 12-17, 876D1

ARTS & the Humanities, U.S. National Foundation on the NEA—See NATIONAL Endowment for the Arts NEH—See NATIONAL Endowment for the Humanities

ASADOV, Hasan Slain 8-9, 663A3

ASBESTOS Grace Mont trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356C2 Mont health emergency declared 6-17, 492C2 WTC site bldg blaze check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621G1

ASCOT Partners LP Merkin chrgd 4-6, 245D1

ASEAN—See ASSOCIATION of Southeast Asian Nations ASHBURN, Richie (Don Richard) (1927-97) Kalas dies 4-13, 280E3

ASHCROFT, John D. CIA interrogatns authrzn role rptd, timeline issued 4-22, 261E2, D3–E3 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3–B3, D3 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474A3, 475B1 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572A3, C3 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn documts issued 8-24, 567E1–F1

Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659F2, E3–660A1

ASHCROFT v. Iqbal (2009) Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337B3

ASHETON, Ron(ald) (1948-2009) Found dead 1-6, 24C3

ASHETON, Scott Brother found dead 1-6, 24C3

ASHKENAZI, Gen. Gabi Gaza invasn abuses alleged 3-20, 210E1 On Hamas rocket attacks halt 11-13, 838F3

ASHLEY, Sir Bernard (Albert) (1926-2009) Dies 2-14, 160A3

ASHLEY, Christopher Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

ASHLEY, Laura (Laura Mountney) (1925-85) Widower dies 2-14, 160A3

ASHPITEL, Ian Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

ASHTON, Lady Catherine Named EU forgn policy chief 11-19, 802F2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835D2, F2–G2, C3

ASHYKBAYEV, Yerzhan Defends rights activist (Zhovtis) trial 9-21, 663A2

ASIA—See also country, organization names Premature births tallied 10-4, 901D2

ASIAN Americans La gov (Jindal) gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105C3 Locke named commerce secy 2-25, 113A1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181G3 NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, 246D2 Calif House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340E2 Calif House seat electn held 7-14, 478F2 ‘08 incomes rptd 9-10, 619C1

ASIAN Development Bank (ADB) Indonesia loan OKd 3-3, 272D1 India loan OKd 6-15, 806D2

ASIA-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748E3 Singapore forum held 11-14—11-15, 794B3, 795F1

ASKARI, Gen. Muhammad alOn Iran drone US mil shoot down 3-16, 174B3

ASKARI, Samil alUK hostage (Moore) kidnapping Iran role mulled 12-30, 942A2

ASMUSSEN, Steve Named ‘08 top trainer 1-26, 119G3 Rachel Alexandra wins Preakness 5-16, 347F1

ASNER, Ed Up on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

ASO, Taro (Japanese premier, 2008-09) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Vows econ recovery 1-28, 51E1 Ldrship scored 2-12, names finance min (Yosano) 2-17, 98F3–99A1 Hosts US’s Clinton 2-16, visits Obama 2-24, 109F1–A2, 110A1 Ozawa aide (Okubo) held 3-3, indicted, denies allegatns 3-24, 252F2 On N Korea rocket launch 4-5, 215C2 Econ stimulus plan unveiled 4-9—4-10, 252A2, C2 Visits Thai, hotel protested/ASEAN summit nixed 4-11, 250D2 Oppositn ldr (Ozawa) quits 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342F2–G2 Obama calls 5-25, 351B2 Sets emissns cut 6-10, 405A3 Interior min (Hatoyama) quits, local electns held 6-12—7-12; dissolves parlt, sets electns 7-13, censured 7-14, 482B1, F1–A2 Debates Hatoyama 8-12; marks WWII surrender 8-15, parlt electns held 8-30, 581B1, 582D2, C3 Hatoyama sworn 9-16, 624A3, F3 Tanigaki elected party ldr 9-28, 703F3

ASPEN Institute FCC chair (Martin) quits 1-15, 49F2

973

ASSAD, Bashar al- (Syrian president, 2000- ) At Arab League summit 3-30, 196F2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 6-13, 465F2; 7-26, 546E2 Hosts Iraq’s Maliki 8-19, 562B3 Hosts Venez’s Chavez 9-3, 616D3 Hosts Saudi king 10-7—10-8, 707C3, E3–F3 Hosts Leb’s Hariri 12-19—12-20, 945D3

ASSASSINATIONS—Note: Initial incident only listed; for subsequent developments see country, personal names Azerbaijan air force head (Rzayev) 2-11, 206A3 Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) 3-2, 133A3, F3, 134C1 Kyrgyz pres ex-staff chief (Sadyrkulov) car crash kills 3 3-13, govt role claimed, denied 3-16, 172G1, E2 Bolivia’s Morales thwarted plot claimed 4-16, 294A1 Indonesia’s Yudhoyono foiled plot claimed 8-8, 542B1

ASSAULT—See under CRIME ASSIRI, Abdullah Hassan Tali Suicide blast hurts prince 8-27, 943A3

ASSOCIATE, The (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1; 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1

ASSOCIATED Press (AP) ‘08-09 coll basketball yr-end rankings 3-16—3-17, 230D3–E3 Bush interviewed 3-18, 166F3* Somalia’s Sharmarke interviewed 4-16, 238B3 Thai’s Thaksin interviewed 4-16, 251C1 Georgia’s Shevardnadze interviewed 5-12, 328B1 SC gov (Sanford) interviewed 6-30, 455F3 Obama interviewed 7-2, 454D2 NASA admin (Bolden) interviewed 7-21, 506F2 ‘09 coll football preseason rankings 8-22, 579E3 Afghan dying troop photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621A3 ‘09-10 coll basketbll preseason rankings 10-29—10-30, 771E1, E2 Bp Tobin interviewed 11-22, 831C3 Woods named ‘00-09 top athlete 12-16, 879C2 NASCAR’s Johnson named top athlete 12-21, 950B2 Tennis’ S Williams named top female athlete 12-22, 951G1

ASSOCIATION for Community Reform Now HUD grants ban passes Sen 9-17, 658F2

ASSOCIATION for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights Ofc sealed 9-7—9-8, 610A1

ASSOCIATION of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ethnic minorities abuse end urged 2-8, 99E1 US treaty mulled 2-18, 109G2 Currency pool hiked, IMF omit seen 2-22—2-23; Thai summit held 2-27—3-1, abandoned refugeestalks failure rptd 3-2, 134E2–G3 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1, D2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi cont detentn mulled 5-19, Thai protest held 5-24, 360C2 Thai’s Thaksin rally held 6-27, 559A3 Mtgs held, US signs treaty 7-17—7-22, Thai summit held 7-23, 495D2–A3, 496A1–B1 PI’s Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528B3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-12, 543B2 US sen (Webb) visits Myanmar 8-14—8-16, 558F3 Thai summit held 10-23—10-25, 758D1, C2, F2–C3, F3–G3 Obama sees ldrs 11-15, 795A2

ASSOCIATION of Tennis Professionals (ATP)—See TENNIS ASTAL, Yunis alOn Gaza schls, Holocaust teaching 8-31, 615E1

AS the World Turns (TV show) CBS drops 12-8, 953F3

ASTIZ, Capt. Alfonso Trial opens 12-11, 925F3–G3

ASTOR, Brooke (Roberta Brooke Russell) (1902-2007) Son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 Son sentncd 12-21, 896D1

ASTRAZENECA PLC Swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, 697A1

ASTRO Boy (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

974 ASTRONAUTS— ASTRONAUTS—See SPACE ASTRONOMY Small extrasolar planet find rptd 4-21, 952D1 Jupiter comet impact seen, telescopes use chngd 7-19—7-23, 547E3 Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1 Saturn giant ring find rptd 10-6—10-7, 731F1 Mostly water planet find rptd 12-16, 952B1 Obituaries Low, Frank J 6-11, 452F3 Phair, Venetia 4-30, 332F3

ASYLUM—See IMMIGRATION ATALAY, Besir On Blige wedding party attack 5-4, 329B3

ATAMBAYEV, Almaz Electn held, drops bid/results rptd 7-23—7-27; visits Russia 7-27, protests held, nixed 7-29—7-30, 510D3, 511D1

ATANASSOV, Ivan On agency graft curbs 6-18, 449B1

AT&T Inc. Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49C1 EFF, NSA warrantless spying suit opposed 4-3, 244F1 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338B1–C1 Warrantless spying suits dismissed 6-3, 410D2 Whitacre named GM chair 6-9, 475A2 IPhone/Google app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; FCC probes set, role denied 8-1—10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744C3–D3, G3 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744A3 Golfer Woods ties mulled 12-11, 879B2 Golfer Woods ties cut 12-31, 949D2

AT&T v. Hulteen (2009) Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338A1

ATATURK, Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938) (Turkish president, 1923-38) Obama visits tomb 4-6, 214D2

ATHANASIADIS, Iason Release rptd 7-5, 464F2

ATHENEUM Publishers Founder dies 2-14, 160D3

ATHENS—See GREECE ATHIAN, Kuol Fired 5-30, 431F1

ATHILL, Diana On Costa shortlist 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139F3

AT Internet Institute EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 876A1

ATKINS, Essence Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

ATKINS, Susan Denise (1948-2009) Dies 9-24, 672E1 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653E3

ATKINS, Tom My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

ATKINSON, Jayne Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3

ATKINS v. Virginia (2002) Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd 6-1, 374A2

ATLANTA Journal-Constitution (newspaper) Nelson dies 10-21, 752E3

ATLANTIC (magazine) Sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479F1

ATLANTIC Media Co. Sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479F1

ATLANTIC Ocean ‘09 hurricanes low rptd 11-30, ‘10 forecast set 12-9, 921E2

ATLANTIS (U.S. space shuttle) Hubble repair missn flown 5-11—5-24, 372F2, A3–B3, G3–373A1 Intl statn missn flown 11-16—11-27, 902C1, E1–F1

ATMAR, Muhammad Hanif On pvt security guards arrests 6-30, 466A2

ATOMIC Energy—See NUCLEAR Power ATOMIC Energy Act (1954) A-plant thief (Oakley) pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3

FACTS ATOMSTROIEXPORT Iran A-plant test opens 2-25, 174A2

ATRIANFAR, Muhammad Confessn aired 8-2, 518A3

ATTA, Mohammed 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, 769B2

ATTA, Gen. Qassim Chrgs MP (Daini) 2-22, 117G2–A3 Files misquote suit 4-13, 254D3

ATTASH, Walid Muhammed bin Trial set/debated, Sen com hearing set 11-13—11-18, 793B1; photo 794A1

ATTENBOROUGH, Michael When the Rain Stops Falling opens in London 5-21, 451D3

AT the Movies (TV show) Co-hosts (Scott/Phillips) named 8-5, 548B3

ATTORNEY General, U.S.—See JUSTICE, U.S. Department of ATTORNEYS—See COURTS ATUYEV, Alimsultan Slain 9-27, 728C1–D1

ATV-Sabah Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706C3

AUBRY, Martine Scores Calais migrant camp raid 9-22, 666G1

AUBURN (Ala.) University Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, 230E3

AUCTIONS & Auctioneering Art & Art Objects Putin painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71C3 Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; St Laurent/Berge trove sold 2-23—2-25, ‘heads’ buyer reneges, sale nixed 3-2—3-3, 159G3, 160F1 Jackson ranch trove displayed, sale halted 4-14, 256B2 NYC spring auctns held 5-5—5-14, 953B2–C2 NYC fall auctns held 11-3—11-12, 953E1–F1 Old Master records set in London 12-8—12-9, 953D2–F2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1–C1 US/China, WTO counterfeit complaint dismissed 1-26, 440B2 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177B2–C2 Iraq oil/gas auctns fail 6-29, BP/CNPC bid OKd 7-1, 437D2 Calif ‘cap-and-trade’ emissns proposal set 11-24, 917G3 Iraq oil fields dvpt rights auctnd 12-11—12-12, 877A1 Collectibles India’s Gandhi belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158E1 Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove fetches $350,000 11-21, 840G1 Washington ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860A3 Author (McCarthy) typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Communication Licenses Digital TV switch success seen 6-12, 412C2 Government Securities—See under TREASURY Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Death Row records sold 1-15, 104E2 GM/eBay partnership ends 9-30, 679E3 People Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns auctn blocked 10-27—11-2, 833D1

AUDACITY of Hope, The: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (book) Obama bares royalty paymts 3-19, 201D1 Obama ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1

AUDEN, W(ystan) H(ugh) (1907-73) Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

AUDI AG China Nov ‘09 sales rptd 12-7, 932C2

AUDIARD, Jacques Prophet wins Cannes 2d prize 5-24, 364A1

AUDIT Bureau of Circulations Papers circulatn drop rptd 4-27, 912C2; 10-26, 912E1

AUERBACH, Red (Arnold Jacob) (1917-2006) Jackson sets NBA titles mark 6-14, 419E1

AUGSTIN, Burson Convctd 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374E3

AUGUSTINE, Rotschild Convctd 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374E3

AUGUSTO, Manuel Domingos On Mauritania sanctns 2-5, 82B3

AUKIN, Daniel This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

AUMONT, Phillippe Traded to Phillies 12-16, 948F3

AUNG Kyi Suu Kyi appeal of conviction denied 10-2, 683E3–F3 Sees Suu Kyi 10-3, 10-7, 725D3

AUNG San, Gen. (1915-47) Assassinatn anniv marked, oppositn members held 7-19, Daughter convctd, sentncd 8-11, 843C1, F3

AUNG San Suu Kyi—See SUU Kyi, Aung San AURIEMMA, Geno Named AP top coach, wins Naismith Award 4-4—4-7, UConn wins NCAA title 4-7, 229F3, 230F2–G2

AUSGUSTIN, Burson Sentncd 11-18, 914G1

AUSGUSTIN, Rotschild Sentncd 11-18, 914G1

AUSHEV, Bashir Slain 6-13, 417E1

AUSHEV, Maksharip (d. 2009) Slain 10-25, Yevkurov challenge seen 10-26, 766E1–B2 Yevloyev slaying suspect convctd/sentncd, ruling scored 12-11, 892F2 Car blast kills kin 12-16, 938D3

AUSTIN College (Sherman, Tex.) US trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2, 182D1

AUSTIN v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444D3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603D1

AUSTRALIA, Commonwealth of Aborigines Child abuse incidents tallied 7-2, 624A2 Interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, racial discriminatn act reinstatmt seen 8-17, 624E1, A2, C2 Accidents & Disasters Victoria bushfires kill 181+, mil aid OKd/bodies search opens 2-7—2-12; arson blamed, probe set 2-9, natl mourning day declared 2-12, 83A2, C2, B3, D3; map 83E2 Victoria bushfires cont, death toll hiked 2-19, 98B1 Afghan asylum seekers survive boat blast 4-16, 931F2 Flooding kills 2, emergencies declared 5-19—5-24, 413E2 Timor Sea oil rig leak opens/halted, fire put out 8-21—11-3; damage assessed 10-23, probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1–D1, F1, A2–C2 Dust storm blankets southeastn coast, air pollutn levels rptd 9-23, water use curbs lifted 9-24, 682B3 Sri Lankan refugees boats sinkings kills 12 10-18—11-1, 930D3, 931G1 Arts & Culture Marchetta wins Printz Award 1-26, 56C1 10 Conditns premiered, Kadeer visits 8-8—8-11, 606E1 Google/bk publishers setlmt chngs OKd 11-19, 936E3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai captured refugees mil abuse photos issued 1-15, 52E1 Thai royals insulter (Nicolaides) pleads guilty 1-19; pardoned 2-19, returns 2-22, 154C1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1 Fiji const nix questnd 4-11, 252A1–B1 Afghan troops hike vowed 4-29, 314B2 Rudd calls India’s Singh, Selja visit nixed 5-29—6-11; actor (Bachchan) nixes honorary degree 5-30, film union boycott set 6-4, 509B1, D1 Khmer Rouge forgn prisoners slayings rptd 6-17, 414A2 Indonesia mine worker slain 7-11, 542E2

ON FILE

JI extremists/moderates split seen 7-16, Indonesia blasts kill 7, attacks scored 7-17, 494F2, D3, 495A1 Indonesia emb ‘04 blast suspects slain 8-8, 542C1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-11, 543B2 China v forgn min trip nix rptd 8-18, 606D1 Samoan driving side switched 9-8, 726B1–C1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sees diplomat 10-9, 725B3 Rudd visits Indonesia 10-20; calls Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa 11-2, Smith visits Colombo 11-9, 931A1, A2 Afghan troops exit sought 10-21, 851B3 China’s Li visits 10-29—11-1, 802A2 Fiji meddling alleged/diplomatic ousters exchngd, Rudd scores junta 11-1—11-4, 852A1–C1, E1 Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931B3, C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447A3, E3 Car dealer/Treasury favoritism probe rpt issued, fake e-mail admitted 8-4, Sen com testimony mulled 11-25, 851C3 Crime & Civil Disorders Victoria bushfires suspect held, IDd 2-13, 2-16, 98C1–D1 Indian students attacked, arrests rptd 5-24—6-8; protests held 5-31, restraint urged 6-9, 508C3, 509F1 Economy & Business Stimulus package set, passes House/nixed by Sen 2-2—2-12, revised bill passes Sen 2-13, 494B1 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 6-3, 494G1 Rio Tinto shares offrd 6-5, 481B2, F2 Rio Tinto, Mongolia mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725E2 Sydney ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900A3 Energy Renewable energy bill passes parlt, scored 8-20, 624D1 IEA oil reserve estimates questnd 11-9, 811F3 Environment & Pollution Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124E1 Climate chng bill passes House/blocked, reintroductn vowed 6-4—8-13, protests held 6-13, 623E3, 624C1 Climate chng bill chngd, debated 11-24—11-27; nixed by Sen 12-2, emissns cut mulled 12-2—12-3, 851F1, B2, G2–A3 CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Chinese mine workers held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481G2–A3 Chinese mine workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3 European Relations Hungary shuts Sydney consulate 6-16, 512B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E1; 10-1, 732E1 Oppositn cabt resignatn set 11-27, Turnball ousted, Abbot elected 12-1, 851B2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Afghan refugees OKd, ousters warned 10-12; Indonesia interceptns rptd, ID/med checks set 10-12—11-18, rise mulled/Sri Lanka memo signed, detentn ctr hiked 10-25—11-9, 930D3–931A3 Migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818A2, D2, G2 Iraqi Conflict Baghdad shooting kills 2, security contractor held 8-9, 545G2 Medicine & Health Care CSL swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16; donatns set 9-17, vaccinatns open 10-7, 696F3, 697A1, F1 US cheaper drugs import measure fails in Sen 12-15, 863G3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nixed, BHP Billiton jt venture set 6-5, 481A2 Monetary Issues A$ Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 A$ Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 A$ Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 A$ Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Interest rate cut 4-7, 494F1 A$ May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 A$ Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 A$ Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 A$ Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 A$ Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 A$ Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 Interest rate hiked 10-6, 675A2

2009 Index A$ Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 A$ Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 A$ ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3 Press & Broadcasting E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe opened 8-20, 931D3 Somalia rptr (Brennan) freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 Science & Technology Blackburn wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3 Web filters set 12-15, 931B3 Sports Australian Open fans clash 1-23, 71G1 Australian Open results 1-31—2-1, 70G3 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E3 Melbourne Cup results 11-3, 807A3 Australian Masters results 11-15, 839F3 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Sydney mil base attack plotting seen 3-28; Melbourne raids net suspects/chrgs filed, Somali group status mulled 8-4—8-5, law chngs proposed 8-13, 930B2, A3 Attack plotters convctd 10-16, 930F1 Trade, Aid & Investment Fiji floods aid set, hiked 1-14—1-16, 68G1 ASEAN free trade deal singed 2-27, 135G2 Indonesia loan OKd 3-3, 272D1 Zimbabwe aid set 3-11, 153D1 China econ interests threat issued 7-15, 481B3 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Indonesia quakes aid vowed 10-1, 662F2 Samoa tsunami aid vowed 10-1, 663A1 Indonesia quakes aid arrives 10-3, 724F3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748D3 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Howard gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2 Rudd visits 11-30, 851A3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150B2

AUSTRALIAN Broadcasting Corp. (Australian TV network) Fiji statns shut, rptr ousted 4-14, 252C1

AUSTRALIAN Opera (Sydney) Downes kills self 7-10, 516F2

AUSTRALIAN Stock Exchange (ASX) Sydney ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900A3

AUSTRIA, Republic of Arts & Culture Haneke/Waltz win Cannes Film Fest prizes 5-24, 363F3 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) ‘Paralysis’ seen 10-21, 727A2 CIS Relations Chechen exile (Israilov) slain, suspect held 1-13, protectn request rptd, probe urged 1-22, 36B3, G3 Crime & Civil Disorders Chechen exile (Israilov) slaying suspects held 1-28, 68A2 Incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, daughter testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2 May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329F3, 330A1 Sikh ldr (Nand) slain 5-24, 417D3 Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatn home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609D2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Cycling team doping probe questng rptd, Menchov denies role 5-27, 515F3 Energy Turkey gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1 European Relations Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 788F1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Iran uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232F1; 10-1, 732F1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-29, 281D1, 282G1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Magna/Opel buy set 5-30, 366C2 Monetary Issues Bank Medici seized 1-2, 114F1

—AUTOMOBILES 975 Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-13, 163A2–B2 Hypo natlzn set 12-14, 875E3 Nazis & Neo-Nazis Fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155D3–E3 Oil & Gas Developments OPEC mtg hosted 3-15, 180B2 OPEC output retained 5-28, 486C2 OPEC mtg hosted 9-9, 900G3 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935C3 Religious Issues Linz RC auxiliary bp (Wagner) named 1-31, 76E1 Sports Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2–G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103E2 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-9, 862A2

AUTISM—See MEDICINE—Mental Health AUTODATA Corp. US Dec ‘08 auto sales rptd 1-6, 48D1 US Jan ‘09 auto sales rptd 2-3, 62A3 US Feb ‘09 auto sales rptd 3-3, 164D3 Jul ‘09 sales rptd 8-3, 536A2

AUTO Delears Association, National GM/Chrysler dealerships dropped, govt role denied 5-14—5-15, 338F3, 339C1

AUTODESK Inc. Bartz named Yahoo CEO 1-13, 523F2

AUTOMOBILE Racing Accidents Massa hurt, has surgery/exits coma 7-25—7-27, returns home 8-3, 647A2 Awards & Honors Johnson named AP top athlete 12-21, 950B2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Petty/Gillett teams merger set 1-8, 104B1 FIA/top teams breakaway warned, ct threat issued 6-19; talks held 6-20—6-24, dispute setld 6-24, 647C1 Honda, BMW drop Formula 1 roles 7-29, 647B1 Toyota drops Formula 1 role 11-4, 950B2 Mercedes sets Brawn buy 11-16, 950F1 Crime Issues Castroneves cleared 4-17, conspiracy chrg dropped 5-22, 363A3–B3 Obituaries Ruby, Lloyd 3-23, 231G3 People Mosley reelectn bid mulled 6-25—7-15, 647G1 Schumacher joins Ferrari 7-29, nixes Formula 1 return 8-11, 647B2 Ferrari’s Badoer ousted, Fisichella named 9-3, 647C2 Button joins McLaren Mercedes 11-18, 950F1 Patrick sets NASCAR Natnwide Series role 12-8, 950C2 Schumacher ends retiremt, joins Mercedes Grand Prix 12-23, 950G1 Professional Todt elected FIA pres 10-23, 950A2 Records & Achievements Johnson sets straight NASCAR title wins mark 11-22, 859E3 Substance Abuse Issues Mayfield suspended, positive test mulled 5-9—5-18, atty hiring rptd 5-21, 363D3 Suspensions & Fines Piquet fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, Briatore/Symonds quit, team banned 9-16—9-21, 646F2 Winners Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Vettel 11-1, 950E1 Brazilian Grand Prix, Webber 10-18, 950D1 Coca-Cola 600, Reutimann 5-25, 363B3 Dakar Rally, de Villiers 1-17, 104C1 Daytona 500, Kenseth 2-15, 103E3 Ford 400, Hamlin 11-22, 859E3 Formula 1 constructors’ title, Brawn 10-18, 950D1 Formula 1 title, Button 10-18, 950D1 Indy 300, Franchitti 10-10, 950D2 Indy 500, Castroneves 5-24, 363F2 IRL Title, Franchitti 10-10, 950D2 NASCAR HOF inducts Frances/Pettyu/Earnhardt/Johnson 10-14, 859G3

NASCAR title, Johnson 11-22, 859E3

AUTOMOBILES—See also company names Accidents—See ACCIDENTS—Motor Vehicle Appointments & Resignations GMAC chair (Merkin) quits 1-9, 48E1 Toyota pres (Toyoda) named 1-20, 51G1 GM v chair (Lutz) sets retiremt 2-9, 92D3–E3 GM CEO (Wagoner) ousted 3-29, 197C2, 198E2, 199B1 Chrysler CEO (Nardelli) sets resignatn 4-30, 282B3 Whitacre named GM chair 6-9, 475A2 Press named Chrysler 6-10, 385G2 US task force head (Rattner) quits, Bloom named 7-13, 475D3 Chrysler execs (Fong/Accavitti) quit, Press exit seen 10-5, 758C3 GMAC CEO (Molina) ousted, Carpenter named 11-11, 798F3 GM CEO (Henderson) quits 12-1, govt role denied 12-2, 831D1 Budget & Spending Programs US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658F3–G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 Japan ‘08 domestic sales rptd 1-5, 51B2 Dec ‘08 US sales rptd 1-6, 48D1 Chrysler Financial govt loan set, further indus talks seen 1-16—1-26; GM ‘08 global sales issued 1-21, Ford ‘08 loss rptd, credit line drawn 1-29, 47C3, 48D1 Toyota ‘08 global sales rptd 1-20, 51B2 UK indus govt aid set 1-27, 52E2 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F2 MEMA $25.5 bln govt aid sought 2-2, Jan ‘09 US sales rptd 2-3, 62A3–B3 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, 74C1 France indus govt loans set 2-9, 84F2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 77F1 China Jan ‘09 sales rptd 2-10, 932A2 US task force set 2-16; GM/Chrysler restructring plans issued, govt loans completed 2-17, cont bailouts opposed, bankruptcy mulled 2-19, 92D3–93E1 Saab bankruptcy declared 2-20, 367C1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106F2–A3, F3, 107A2–B2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124D3 French indus govt aid plan chngd, backed 2-28, 3-1, 136B3 Fed/Treasury lending program hiked, launched 3-3, 127F2–G2 US Feb ‘09 sales rptd 3-3, 164D3 Ford debt reductn plan set, hiked 3-4—3-23, 184B2 Parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164D2 Tata Nano car sale launched 3-23, 418A1 Valeo ex-CEO (Morin) severnc pay rptd, scored 3-24, 206G3 Bondholder chngs urged, equity swaps offer scored 3-26—3-27; GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed, Chevy Volt cost questnd 3-29, warranties backed 3-30, 197A2, F3, 199A1 Ford ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd, GM govt aid hiked 4-24, 282D3–E3 GM, Chrysler govt stakes mulled 4-29, 285C2–D2 Chrysler debt-for-cash swap nixed, bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282C2, E3, 283A1, E1 Chrysler bankruptcy reorgn oppositn dropped 5-8, 339E1 GM/Chrysler dealerships dropped, govt role denied 5-14—5-20, 338D3, G3, 339B1 Chrysler govt funds block nixed by Sen 5-21, 355B2 GM shares price rptd 5-29, bankruptcy filed 6-1, 365A1; key events listed 366A1 GM, Dow ouster set 6-1, 372C2 Chrysler dealerships closure OKd, protectn bill introduced 6-9—6-10, govt loan set/shares sell-off deadline sought, Sen com hearing held 6-10, 385B1, F2, B3 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387A3 GM reorgn OKd, bankruptcy exited 7-5—7-10, 475F1, F2, A3 Lear bankruptcy declared 7-7, financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 Chrysler/GM car dealerships closure block passes House 7-16, 489D1 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program opens, renewal funds clear Cong/signed 7-27—8-7; Jul ‘09 sales rptd, rise questnd 8-3—8-6, Volt release set 8-11, 535G3, 536F1, A2

‘Cash for Clunkers’ program dealership paymts vowed 8-19; success touted 8-20, ended 8-24, 586C1 Ssangyong reorgn plan issued 9-15, 787G1 Saturn closure set 9-30, 679A3 GM/eBay partnership ends 9-30, 679E3 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679B2 China ‘09 productn hits 10 mln 10-20, 932D2 GM/Chrysler pay cut 10-22, 742C1 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739D3 Ford ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757C3 GM/Chrysler govt loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758E1 Chrysler future plans detailed 11-4, 758D2 GM/Ford, China Oct ‘09 sales rptd 11-9, 932C2 GM IPO mulled 11-10, govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798B3 China Nov ‘09 sales rptd 12-7—12-8, 932G1 $700 bln financial indus aid Cong hearing held 12-10, 865C1 GM/Chrysler dropped dealerships arbitratn measure clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867D1 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887D1 Ssangyong reorgn plan OKd 12-17, 934D1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910B1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Collins ex-execs chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3 Obama auto indus task force head (Rattner) pension fund probe linked 4-17, 265A2, F3 Iraq trade min raid nets arrests 4-29, 311B3 African ldrs French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394G1 Car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447C3–D3 Russian tycoon (Berezovsky) convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 Australian car dealer/Treasury favoritism probe rpt issued, fake e-mail admitted 8-4, Sen com testimony mulled 11-25, 851D3 African ldrs French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3 Crime Issues Calif subway passenger slaying protests turn violent 1-7, 247D1 Azerbaijan air force head (Rzayev) slain 2-11, 206B3 Leb/Israeli spy suspect held 2-16, 312B3 Mex/US border drug violnc crackdown rptd 2-25, 171F1 Kenya activists slain 3-5, 203C1 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149C1 Ger gunman kills 15, self 3-11, 154A3 Indonesia drive-by shooting kills 1 3-14, suspect (Antasari) held 5-4, 342A2 Russian activist (Ponomaryov) tires slashed 3-30, 273G3 NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, 246D2 Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266B1 Dutch parade attack kills 8, Queen targeting admitted/driver dies 4-30—5-1, 328A2 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412E1 Calif arsonist (Oyler) sentncd 6-5, 920F2 NFL’s Stallworth pleads guilty, suspended 6-15—8-13, 632D1 DC checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1 Kazakh fatal crash drunk driving alleged 7-26; driver (Zhovtis) convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1 Canada prov atty gen (Bryant) chrgd 9-1, 927A2 US ‘08 theft drop rptd 9-14, 887F3 Mex/US border rush fails, suspects held 9-22, 724A2–D2 Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3 Chile ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871A3 Mauritania forgners car found 12-19, kidnapping claimed 12-28, 903F2 Fuel Issues—See also ‘Pollution Issues’ below Mex stimulus plan set 1-7, 83E1 Dept of Transportatn econ reforms ordrd 1-26, 47G1 US ‘08 mass transit use rise rptd 3-9, 202D1 US econ standards hike set 3-27, 324C3 Japn econ stimulus plan unveiled 4-9—4-10, 252B2 China electric car dvpt hike plan unveiled 4-10, 932G2–A3 UK budget unveiled 4-22, 272F2 US hydrogen cars dvpt funding cut 5-7, GM/Honda/Toyota plans cont 5-11, 917A2 US econ fed standards set 5-19, 339A2

976 AVALANCHES— Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424F3 Factories fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536C2 Honduras curfew eased 9-23, 643B3 Biden visits electric cars facility 10-27, 743B1 Japan econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 872G3 Labor & Plant Issues Chrysler, GM jobs bank program end 1-22—1-28, Ford 1200 cuts set 1-29, 48E1, G1 GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62C2 Peugeot-Citroen 12000 cuts set 2-11, 84A3 UAW workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92C3–D3 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1 UAW workers deal chngs urged 3-26, GM buyouts tallied 3-27, 197D2, D3, 198F1–B2, E3–G3 Chrysler unions deal chngd 4-26—4-29, 282A3, 283G1 GM/UAW deal chngd 5-29, factories shut, jobs cut 6-1, 365C1, B3 Obama rally held 7-14, 477A1 Ssangyong labor talks fail, factory raided 8-2—8-5, deal OKd 8-6, 787D1 GM worker buyouts offrd, cont cuts seen 8-3—8-4, 536F1 Toyota shuts Calif factory 8-27, 679F3 AvtoVAZ 27600 cuts set 9-24, 788B3 Ford/UAW concessns vote mulled 10-30, chngs nixed, Canada workers deal OKd 10-31, 758A1, D1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Chrysler/Fiat jt venture set 1-20, 47G3 Chrysler/Fiat merger ordrd 3-29, GM split mulled 3-30, 197E2, 198C2, C3 Chrysler/Fiat merger set 4-30, 282G2 Opel sale mulled, Hummer bought/Saab talks seen 5-29—6-3; GM bondholders debt swap OKd, govt stake set 5-31—6-1, Chrysler/Fiat deal upheld, appeal filed 5-31—6-4, 365A1–367B2 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10, 385A1, G1 Penske/Saturn buy set 6-5, 475A3–B3 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417A2 Adam Opel buyout offers confrmd 7-8, 475C3–D3 Saab/Beijing Auto Indus stake buy OKd 9-9, 822F3 Opel/Vauxhall sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3 Ford/Chonqing jt venture sest 9-25, 9332D2 Penske/GM buy nixed 9-30, 679B3 Tengzhong/Hummer buy OKd 10-9, 758A3 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sales blocked 10-16, Ger aid clarified 10-19, 767C2–D2 Geely/Volvo buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2 GM/Delphi stake buy OKd 11-2, 758F2 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sales nixed, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1 Koenigsegg/Saab buyout offer dropped 11-24, 822C3 Beijing Auto sets, OKs Saab tech/designs buy 12-14—12-23; Spyker brand bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, GM deadline extended 12-30, 902F2–A3 Hyundai/Baotou jt venture set 12-20, Honda/Dongfeng plans seen 12-22, 932E2 Obituaries Brinegar, Claude S 3-13, 192A2 McNamara, Robert 7-6, 468D3 People BMW heiress (Klatten) blackmailer pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207D1 Bing elected Detroit mayor 5-5, 306C3 Pollution Issues States’ fuel econ waiver EPA reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47G1 US pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 266B2 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478C3, F3 Emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621D3 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636G1 Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781G2 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841A2 Safety & Repair Issues Cell phone use, driving risk withheld data seen 7-21; texting link rptd 7-28, ban bill introduced 7-29, 538A1

FACTS Samoan driving side switch suit nixed 8-31; protests held, preparatns set 9-7, switch made 9-8, 726A1 Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast 9-23, water use curbs lifted 9-24, 682D3, F3 Toyota cars recalled, pedal risk seen/replacemts set 9-29—11-25, 850F1 Ford vehicles recall set 10-13, 758A3 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918F1 Statistics US Jul ‘09 sales 8-13, 535F3 Tax Issues HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59B2, B3, G3 Russian rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69A2 Labor secy nominee (Solis) husband woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60B1 Calif deficit cut deal passes legis, signed 2-19—2-20, 114D2 Trade Issues Russian import tariff protests held 3-15, 274A1 GM, S Korea/Mex imports hike proposal rptd 5-11, UAW opposes 5-15, 339G1 Iraq min (Sudani) submits resignatn/questnd, OKd 5-14—5-27, 362D2 China auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615A3 US, China tire tariffs set 9-11, car parts exports probed 9-13, 615F1, E2 S Korea/EU free trade deal signed 10-15, 934G1 China sets US govt aid probe 10-29, 776E1, E2

AVALANCHES & Landslides Guatemala landslide buries 87, search halted 1-4—1-7, 83C1 Fiji floods kill 11, aid set/hiked 1-8—1-16, 68F1 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh 5-25—5-26, 383A2 Tropical storm Nangka hits PI 6-24—6-26, 528G2 Myanmar landslides kill 30 7-4, intl aid rptd 7-15, 528D3 Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Taiwan landslides hit, death toll estimated 8-9—8-20, 559D3 Indonesia quake spurs landslides 9-2, 606E3 Indonesia quakes hit, landslides halt aid 9-30—10-1, 662E2 Italy mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, Berlusconi visits 10-4, 705F1 Indonesia quakes aid woes rptd 10-2, victims burial mulled 10-7, 725A1 Landslides hit PI 10-3, 684F2, A3 PI landslides cont 10-8—10-11, 704D1 El Salvador floods/mudslides kill 144+, emergency declared 11-7—11-10, 818C1

AVALON Equity Fund Wash Blade shut 11-16, 912E3

AVATAR (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956B2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

AVELLANEDA, Floreal (d. 1976) Slaying suspects convctd, sentncd 8-13, 925B3–C3

AVENTURA (music group) Last on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

AVIATION—See also airline, aircraft company names Accidents—See ACCIDENTS—Aviation Airport Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C1 Iraq site security transferred 1-1, 81E3 Somalia/Ethiopian troops exit 1-2—1-13, UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21G2 Ex-Sen Craig nixes ‘07 guilty plea withdrawal appeal 1-8, 5B3 Dutch MP (Wilders) UK entry barred 2-12, 136C3 Zimbabwe oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held, in ct/chrgs mulled 2-13—2-18, 96E3 US contractor (Custer Battles) Iraq faud liability found 4-10, 255D1 Somalia towns control lost 5-17—5-18, 341C3 Taiwan ex-student ldr (Wu’er) held 6-3, deported 6-4, 395E2 Laos drug trafficker (Orobator) pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3, 933D2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) hurts ankle 6-8, 389F3 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested 6-12, 431D3 Somalia emergency declared 6-22, 430F1

Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, 440E3 SC gov (Sanford) returns from Argentina 6-24, 424B1, G1 Somalia, AU peacekeepers hike opposed 7-3, 459D2 Palestinian ‘11 indep state sought 8-25, 593G1 Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659C3 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627G2 Honduras sites shut 9-21, 643C2 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653A2 Storm Ketsana hits PI/Viet, airport reopens 9-26—9-29, 664A2, G2 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667B2 Quake/tsunami hit Amer Samoa, Tonga 9-29, 662E3, 663B1 Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662A2 UN ofcl (Nowak) Zimbabwe entry blocked, sent to S Africa 10-28, 783A3 Thai’s Thaksin arrives in Cambodia 11-10, 785E1 Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3, G3–904B1 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5, 927E3 Somalia bombings warned 12-7, 889D2 Appointments & Resignations Boeing divisn pres/CEO (Carson) sets retiremt, Albaugh named 8-31, 744E1 TSA dir nominee (Southers) Sen confrmatn vote mulled 12-29, 898C3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321E1 US ‘10 funds pass House 7-23, 658C3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Citigroup corp jet buy nixed 1-27, 44D3 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59D3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 106D3 Continental ‘09 2d 1/4 loss rptd 7-21, 744C2 US’s Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517E2 Boeing sets Dreamliner jets test flights 8-27, 744D1 Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615C3 Boeing freighter jet delays chrg set 10-6, ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 10-21, 744C1 Continental ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 10-21, 744C2 Samart seized, Cambodia govt scored 11-19, 872F1 Boeing 787 jet test flight held 12-15, 921C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Thai/Cambodia spy suspect held, release aid sought 11-12—11-19, convctd, pardoned/freed 12-8—12-14, 872B1, G1 NC gov (Sanford) civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815G1 Crime Issues Iraq MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22, return ordrd, freed 2-25, 117A3 Mex drug cartel suspect (Carrillo Leyva) arrest rptd 4-2, 249E3 Iraq ex-trade min (Sudani) flight return ordrd 5-30, 379F3 Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found/crew chrgd 12-12—12-14, flight plan rptd, Ukraine probe set/Kazakh ties denied 12-14, 862F2 Hijackings & Bombings—For U.S. terror attacks, see TERRORIST Attacks, U.S. US A-reactors jet attack curbs OKd 2-17, 479D3 Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871B3 Iran flight bomb defused/suspects held, Khatami flying schedule rptd 5-30—6-2, 398F1–A2 Pak’s Sharif chrgs cleared 7-13, 514G3 Afghan/China flight diverted 8-9, 606B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns to Libya 8-20, 550B1, B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3, 568A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 582D3, 583F1, A3–B3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636B2, C3 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, B2 AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682E1

ON FILE

UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626E1 Libya’s Qaddafi NY tent stay nixed 9-22, addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633B3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704A3 Somalia flight passenger held 11-13, bombing try rptd 12-30, 899B1 Venez’s Chavez hails Ramirez 11-20, 929A3 UK/US flights bomb plotter convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3 Pak Intl ofc blast kills 4+ 12-24, 947B2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/chrgd 12-25—12-26; attack claimed, sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, intell mulled 12-27—12-31, 897A1, B3, 898E1, B2, 899A1; photo 897E1 Labor Issues Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29C3 Continental sets 1700 cuts 7-21, 744B2 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures PT Garuda sell off vowed 7-5, 461C3 Military Issues—See ARMAMENTS—Aircraft Obituaries Allingham, Henry W 7-18, 516A2 Whitcomb, Richard T 10-13, 860G3 Safety & Security Issues Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29D3 Southwest inspectn woes fine paymt set 3-2, 151G2 S Korea passenger flights warning issued 3-5, 143C1 Air Force One, NYC flyover pub info release OKd 4-3, White House ofcl (Caldera) informed, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357F3–G3 India ex-pres (Kalam) frisked 4-21, Continental Airlines regrets 7-22, 646F2 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 308C1 Swine flu outbreak mulled, Biden remarks clarified 4-30, 282D1–E1 Mex/HK visitor swine flu positive test rptd 4-30; hotel quarantined 5-1—5-2, return flight OKd 5-4, 303C3–D3 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357D3 Japan swine flu measures eased 5-26, 352B1 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488A2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 459D3 Hudson River air traffic mulled 8-8—8-10, 538F1 Indian actor (Khan) NJ airport questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646D2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782B2 Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast 9-23, 682D3 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665B3 Sup Ct justice (Ginsburg) collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718C1 US pilots training requiremts hike passes House 10-14, 744G1 United, US Airways fined 10-14, 817C1 Colo balloon released/lands, boy found 10-15, 745C3 Northwest flight overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licenses revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743C3 US measures hiked, review ordrd 12-25—12-28; pilots authrzn set 12-28, Netherlands body scanners use urged, OKd 12-29—12-30, 897B2, 898G2 Trade Issues China/Taiwan Talks held, deals OKd 4-25—4-26, 309G3 US’s Mitchell visits Syria 7-26, 546F2 Saudi nixes Mideast peace talks concessns 7-31, 545G3 Arab nations, Israeli flights entry urged 9-15—9-16, 614C3 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643C1 Japan/US ‘open skies’ deal OKd 12-11, 933C2

AVIGDOR, Barrett S. What Happy Working Mothers Know on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

AVILA, Rodrigo Pres electn held 3-15, loss rptd 3-16, 170D2, F3

AVISTA Capital Partners Minneapolis Star Tribune bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168A1

2009 Index AVTOVAZ, OAO Russian tycoon (Berezovsky) convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 27600 cuts set 9-24, 788A3

AVVENIRE (Italian newspaper) Berlusconi scandal coverage mulled 8-12, Boffo quits 9-3, 626G3

AWAD, Nihad On terror suspects video 12-9, 858D1

AWADHI, Aseel alWins parlt electn 5-16, 345C1

AWAY We Go (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

AWEYS, Seney Edow Held, chrgd 8-4, 930D2

AWEYS, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Returns to Somalia 4-23, scores Ahmed govt, seeks AU troops exit 4-28, 341A3–B3 Vows forgn troops fighting 6-24, 430D2 Islamists infighting seen 9-30, 889G2

AWFI, Abu Hareth Muhammad alAl Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, 119D1

AWLAKI, Anwar alHails Tex mil base shooting, gunman (Hasan) ties questnd 11-9—11-11, 777E3–F3, 778A1–B1 Ft Hood shooting probes set, Hasan e-mails mulled 11-19—11-21, 812C3, G3 Death mulled 12-24—12-25, 944A3

AXELROD, David Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C3 On health benefits tax 6-28, 457E3 Sees Fox CEO (Ailes) 10-6, alleges bias 10-18, 717G2–B3 Scores bank exec compensatn policies 10-18, 715E2 On Afghan pres candidate (Abdullah) bid drop 11-1, 753C3 Denies Iran A-bomb trigger testing rpts role 12-18, 941D1

AXEL Springer AG Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706D2

AYALON, Daniel On Iran long-range missile test 5-20, 362B1 On Palestinian ‘11 indep state plan 8-25, 593A2

AYBAR, Erick Among AL batting/3B ldrs 10-6, 690D2–E2

AYCKBOURN, Alan Norman Conquests revival opens in NYC 4-23, 348D2 Norman Conquests wins Tony 6-7, 400B1 My Wonderful Day opens in NYC 11-18, 954B2

AYERS, Robert In NFL draft 4-25, 298D3

—BAKARI Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal scored, Nagorno-Karabakh troops exit sought 10-11, 707B1, D1–F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G1 Pres term limits drop referendum held, results rptd 3-18—3-19, decree signed 4-2, 253C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732G1 Middle East Relations A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649E1, 650B1 Oil & Gas Developments Non-OPEC ‘09 output forecast issued 3-13, 180G2 Russia gas deal signed 6-29, 513B1 Turkey/EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561C1 Press & Broadcasting Forgn radio cos broadcast curbs open 1-1, 206B3 Tazadlar ed/rptr convctd, sentncd 4-7; punishmts opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, Azadlyg rptr (Zakhidov) freed, cont imprisonmts rptd 4-9, 252F3 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe urged 8-18, 607D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936F1 Trade, Aid & Investment EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden tours region 10-21—10-23, 750D2

AZERBAIJAN International University (Baku) Tazadlar ed/rptr convctd, sentncd 4-7, punishmts opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, 253A1

AZERBAIJAN State Oil Academy Gunman kills 12, self 4-30, suspects held 5-1—5-4, 377G2

AZILAH Hadri Convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223D3, F3

AZIZ, Maulana Abdul Freed on bail 4-15, addresses followers 4-17, 276E2–A3

AZIZ, Tariq Cleared 3-2, 121B3–C3 Convctd, sentncd 3-11, 156B2–C2

AZLAN Shah Ousts Perak chief min (Nizar) 2-5, dissolves govt 5-7, 415D1 Oppositn ldr (Karpal) chrgd 3-17, 223F2

AZZAWI, Abbas Farhan alSlain 1-29, 53B3

AZZAWI, Samira Ahmed Jassim alHeld 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 57F2, B3

AYERS, William Zakhidov freed 4-9, 253B1

B

AZAR, Gen. Raymond Custody transfer sought 3-1, 211C1 Freed 4-29, 312C2 Pleads guilty 8-18, Apr renditn confrmd 8-22, 567G2–A3

AZARIA, Hank Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

AZERBAIJAN (Azerbaijani Republic) Arts & Culture Eurovisn results rptd 5-16, Armenia voters questnd 8-18, 607B1 CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Russia’s Medvedev visits 6-29, 513B1 Crime & Civil Disorders Air force head (Rzayev) slain 2-11, 206A3 Univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, suspects held 5-1—5-4, 377G2 Bloogers held 7-8; arrests questnd 7-17—7-20, pretrial release nixed 7-20, 544B1 Bloggers chrgs hiked 8-21, 607A1 Bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820A2 European Relations Armenia/Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd, opposed 4-22—4-23, 296F1, B2 Turkey/Armenia border opening seen 9-1, 591F3

BACHMANN, Michelle (U.S. representative from Minn., 2007- ; Republican) At health care reform protests 11-5, 774D1

BACHUS, Spencer (U.S. representative from Ala., 1993- ; Republican) On financial indus reform bill 12-11, 865A2

BACKSTAGE (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

BACKSTROM, Nicklas Among NHL assists ldrs 4-12, 299B3

BACKSTROM, Niklas Among NHL wins/shutouts/goals-vs avg/save % ldrs 4-12, 299C3–D3

BACON, Kenneth Hogate (1944-2009) Dies 8-15, 648F1

BACTERIA & Bacteriology Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses/deaths tallied 1-29, 49C3 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30; FDA review vowed 2-2, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63F1–A2, C2 Salmonella-linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11; Peanut Corp Tex/Va plants shut, recall set 2-12—2-13, bankruptcy filed, illnesses/deaths tallied 2-13—2-19, 95B3 Peanut Corp Tex plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2–A3 Setton pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268B3 Nestle cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524D2–E2 Freedberg dies 8-25, 955F1 Ramakrishan/Steitz/Yonath win Nobels 10-7, 694A2 US infectns rise rptd 11-25, 901B2

BADGLEY, Penn Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

BADOER, Luca Replaced 9-3, 647C2

BAD Romance (recording) On best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

BADUEL, Gen. Raul Held 4-2, 325F2 DR prospect fake ID rptd 2-18, fired 2-26, 277D3

AZADLYG (Azerbaijani newspaper)

Wins Sony Ericsson Open 4-4, 399G1 Loses French Open doubles 6-5, 399C1

Nielsen rating 3-2, 212A2

BAEZ, Jose

White House visit rptd 10-30, 780E1

AZARENKA, Victoria

BACHELOR, The: After the Final Rose (TV show)

BAGAPSH, Sergei Issues Georgia sea border violatns threat 9-2, 607B2 Vote held, reelectn rptd/hailed 12-12—12-14, 874D2

BAGE, Lennart BABACAN, Ali Hosts US’s Clinton 3-7, 143A1 Armenia ties hike ‘road map’ OKd 4-22, 296A2

BABAKULOV, Ulugbek Attacked, in hosp 3-25, 272A2

BABCOCK, Mike Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420A1

BABIN, Jean-Christophe On golfer Woods image use halt 12-18, 949E2

BABUROVA, Anastasia (d. 2009) Slain, Novaya Gazeta links rptd 1-19, 36E2–F2, C3 Slaying suspects held 11-5, 855B2

BACH, Steven (1938-2009) Dies 3-25, 256E2

BACHCHAN, Amitabh Nixes Queensland Univ honorary degree 5-30, 509E1

BACHELET Jeria, Michelle (Chilean president, 2006- ) Sets $4 bln econ stimulus plan 1-5, 35B1 At progressive ldrs summit 3-27, hosts US’s Biden 3-28, 204F3, 205A1 Leads Jara funeral processn 12-4, 954E3 Electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871D2

Rptd IFAD pres 1-1, 3C1

BAGHDADI, Abu Omar alCapture rptd 4-23, photo issued 4-26, 297C1–D1 US mil interrogatn block rptd 5-1, 312F1 Cont attacks urge posted 7-8, 465F1–A2

BAGHDADIA, Al (Iraqi TV station) Rptrs slain 3-10, 156D1

BAGHDAD International Airport (Iraq) US contractor (Custer Battles) faud liability found 4-10, 255D1

BAGHI, Emadeddin Orgn ofc sealed 9-7—9-8, 610B1 In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

BAGINDA, Abdul Razak Mongolian woman slaying, Armaris paymt link claimed 3-5, cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223D3–224A1

BAGMET, Anatoly On Orthodox priest (Sysoyev) slaying motive 11-20, 822D1

BAGUS Budi Pranato (Urwah) Slain 9-17, 644D1

BAHADUR, Hafiz Gul Abandons truce 6-30, 466G3 Tribe, army deal rptd 10-19, 710B1–C1

977

BAHAJI, Said Passport found in Pak 10-29, 769G1–B2

BAHAMAS, Commonwealth of the Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G1; 10-1, 732G1 Medicine & Health Care Travolta son dies 1-2, cremated 1-5, 9B3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59E3

BAHARI, Maziar Trial opens 8-1, 518G2 Freed on bail 10-17, 768F1

BAHATI, David Introduces gay curbs bill 10-14, 924F3

BAHJAT, Atwar (d. 2006) Slaying suspect held 8-3, 530B1

BAHLUL, Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al‘08 top stories reviewed, 12A1

BAHONAR, Mohammad Rezaq Vs uranium transfer draft deal 10-22, 711D1

BAHRAIN, Kingdom of African Relations Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21D2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Iran seizes yacht 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A2; 10-1, 732A2

BAILEY, Andrew Named AL top rookie 11-16, 824C1

BAILEY Jr., Chauncey (d. 2007) Slaying suspects indicted 4-29, Broussard pleads guilty 5-7, 539E2, F2

BAILEY, Pearl Mae (1918-90) Widower dies 2-14, 140G1

BAILEY Jr., Robert Pleads no contest, ‘06 beating victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525B1

BAILEY, Rosemarie Fanthorpe dies 4-28, 316E3

BAI Ling Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

BAINBRIDGE (U.S. destroyer) Somali pirates hostage standoff opens, captors slain/capt freed 4-9—4-12, returns to Kenya port 4-16, 237B1, D2–E2, B3–C3, 238E1–F1 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269C2

BAINIMARAMA, Commodore Frank (Fijian prime minister, 2007- ) Declares flooding emergency 1-12, 68G1 Govt ruled illegal, sets resignatn/renamed PM 4-9—4-10; const nixed, moves questnd/electns block seen 4-10—4-11, names Reserve Bank gov (Reddy) 4-15, 251F3–252B1, E1 Judges named 5-22, new const plans set, proposal scored 7-1—7-6, 510E1–A2, C2 On Iloilo retiremt 7-28, 527C2–E2 Commonwealth suspensn set, hosts NZ’s Reeves 9-1—9-11; ousts Australia/NZ ambs 11-3, Rudd scores, pres (Nailatikau) sworn 11-4—11-5, 852A1–B1, E1, G1–A2, D2

BAIR, Sheila FDIC chair post cont 1-7, 6E2 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 Delays banks’ troubled assets sale plan 6-3, Citigroup CEO (Pandit) ouster push seen 6-5, 387F3, 388C1–D1 On banks cont credit woes 8-27, 585B2 Seeks deposits insurnc funds 9-29, 658E1 On banks lending 11-24, 813C3

BAIRD, Brian (U.S. representative from Wash., 1999- ; Democrat) Visits Gaza 2-19, 157F2 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1 Rep Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3

BAJNAI, Gordon (Hungarian premier, 2009- ) Named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, vote boycotted, early electns sought 4-14, 272F3, 273D1–F1 Facts on 4-14, 273A1 Sees US’s Fried, OKs Cuba base detainee transfer 9-16, 718C2

BAKARI, Bahia Survives Yemen/Comoros flight crash 6-30, IDd 7-1, 440B1–C1

978 BAKER— BAKER, Annie Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

BAKER, David Aaron Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

BAKER, Meredith FCC chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) confrmd 6-25, 458D1

BAKER, Shukri Abu Sentncd 5-28, 914B2

BAKER Hughes Inc. Sets BJ Svcs buy 8-31, 660F1

BAKHMINA, Svetlana Freed 4-21, 328C3–F3

BAKHTIARI, Morteza Justice min apptmt seen 8-20, 562D2

BAKIYEV, Kurmanbek Saliyevich (Kyrgyzstan premier, 2001-02; president, 2005- ) Staff chief (Sadrkulov) quits 1-8, 172B2 Sees US mil base closure 2-3, 58D3, 59A1, E1 Rptr (Abdyldayev) stabbed 3-3; scores attack 3-4, work link seen 3-5, 187G2–A3 Ex-staff cheif (Sadyrkulov) car crash kills 3 3-13; Kazakh fundraising seen, Russian ties oppositn rptd 3-14, assasssinatn claimed, denied 3-16, 172G1–A2, C2–E2 Early electns set 3-20; protests held 3-27, Russia aid arrives 3-31, 252B3–E3 MP (Kadyraliev) slain 4-14, 269G1 US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, 440D3–F3 Electn held/vote mulled, results rptd 7-23—7-27; gives TV speech 7-28, protesters arrested 7-29, 510D3, 511D1 Signs Russian mil base deal 8-1, 534B3 Sworn 8-2, 576E3 Sets govt reforms set, Chudinov quits/names Usenov 10-20, 722F1 Rptr (Pavlyuk) death role denied 12-23, 935A2

BAKULA, Scott Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

BALANCE of Payments, International United States ‘08 4th 1/4 gap, 3d 1/4 revised 3-18, 240F2 ‘09 1st 1/4 gap, ‘08 4th 1/4 revised 6-17, 572C2 ‘09 2d 1/4 gap, 1st 1/4 revised 9-16, 640D2 ‘09 3d 1/4 gap, 2d 1/4 revised 12-16, 911B2

BALAZS, Peter Shuts embs, consulates 6-16, 512A2

BALDACCI, David Whole Truth on best-seller list 3-30, 212B1 First Family on best-seller list 5-4, 316A1 Divine Justice on best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

BALDACCI, John (Me. governor, 2003- ; Democrat) Signs gay marriage bill 5-6, 304A1–C1 Sets gay marriage ballot propositn 9-2, 699F2 Gay marriage ban OKd 11-3, 756B2

BALDWIN, Alec Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24G2 My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2 Wins Emmy 9-20, 647C3, G3 It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

BALDWIN, Chuck Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

BALDWIN, James (Arthur) (1924-87) Amazon regrets bks lost sales ratings 4-13, 782E1

BALDWIN, John 3d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

BALDWIN, Kate Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

BALDWIN, Robert On Heartland credit card data breach 1-20, 133D2

BALE, Christian Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2 Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

FACTS BALKENENDE, Jan Peter (Dutch premier, 2002- ) Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3

BALL, Donald Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942E2

BALLARD, J(ames) G(raham) (1930-2009) Dies 4-19, 280G2

BALLMER, Steven A. Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523D2

BALLOONS & Balloonists Colo balloon released/lands, boy found 10-15; family mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, wife confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745G2, G3 Colo hoax parents plea deal OKd, plead guilty/mom deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817C2 Colo hoax bill set 12-21; parents sentncd 12-23, FAA fine sought 12-24, 919E2

BALLOT Initiatives—See POLITICS—Referendums BALL State University (Muncie, Ind.) GMAC Bowl lost 1-6, 24D1

BALOCH, Ghulan Mohammad Seized, found dead/riots erupt 4-2—4-9, 276E3

BALOHA, Viktor Quits 5-19, 379D1

BALSILLIE, Jim Coyotes buy nixed 6-15, 435C3 Coyotes buyout offer nixed/ruling hailed, NHL bid set 7-29—9-30, 730C3–D3

BALTINFO (Russian news agency) Kyrgyz rptr (Evgrafov) attacked 12-16, 935B2

BALUCHI, Ammar alTrial set/debated, Sen com hearing set 11-13—11-18, 793B1; photo 794A1

BANA, Eric Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

BANCARD Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871C2

BANCO Canarias de Venezuela Seized, liquidatn set 11-20—11-30, 929F1–G1

BANCO Confederado SA Seized 11-20, reopening set 12-11, 929F1, F2

BANCO de Desarrollo Rural (Banural) Exporter (Musa), daughter slain 4-14, 377B1

BANCO de Venezuela BVL Natlzn deal signed 5-22, 395F1

BANCO Provivienda CA Seized, liquidatn set 11-20—11-30, 929F1–G1

BANCO Real Seized 12-4, 929B2–C2

BANCO Santander SA Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27, 114D1–E1 Madoff fruad scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2

BANDA, David Mom 2d Malawi adoptn bid foiled 4-3, 231E2

BANDA, Joyce Sworn vp 5-22, 358B1

BANDA, Rupiah (Zambian president, 2008- ) Chiluba cleared 8-17, 556C1 At SADC spec summit 11-4—11-5, 783B2

BANDIC, Milan Pres electn results rptd, earns runoff 12-27, 936B2–D2

BANDIDOS (motorcycle gang) Canadian members slaying suspects convctd 10-29, 927F1

BANGLADESH, People’s Republic of Accidents & Disasters Cyclone Aila hits, emergency aid sought 5-25—5-31, 383A2–B2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Indian separatist ldr (Rajkhowa) transferred 12-4, 946C2 Awards & Honors Yunus gets US Pres Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2

Civil Strife Paramil mtg held, border guards munity kills 77+/peace deal OKd 2-25—2-26; tanks deployed, guards surrender/asst dir held 2-26—3-3, spec tribunal set, remains found 2-27—2-28, 137F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Zia concedes electn 1-1, Hasina sworn PM 1-6, 9B1 Facts on Hasina 1-6, 9D1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A2; 10-1, 732A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 51G3 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187C3–D3 Obituaries Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452G2 Space & Space Flights Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Boucher visits 2-8, 99F1

BANINVEST Seized 12-4, 929B2–C2

BAN Ki Moon (U.N. secretary general, 2007- ) Administrative Role Rptd secy gen 1-1, 3B1 Women’s agencies merger OKd 9-14, 902A2 Addresses Gen Assemb 9-23, 633A1 Opens food security summit 11-16, 812C1–E1 Africa On Somalia peacekeepers res 1-13, 21B3 Madagascar pol dispute talks nixed 2-25, 169E1 Sees cont Darfur role 3-4, 122G2 On Rwanda genocide 4-7, 248D2 At Somalia intl aid conf 4-23, 269G3 Scores Guinea anti-junta rally crack down 9-29—9-30, 660D3 Congo peacekeeping missn extended 12-23, 921F3 Asia/Pacific Rim Gambari visits Myanmar 1-31—2-3, 188A1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1 Sets Myanmar visit 5-20, 360A2–B2 Visits Sri Lankan refugee camp, intl aid access hike nixed 5-23—5-24, 363A2, C2–D2 Urges Myanmar pol prisoners release 6-29, visits 7-3—7-4, 462D1–C2 Urges China ethnic violnc restraint 7-6, 461C2 Myanmar pol prisoners amnesty mulled 7-13; oppositn members held 8-7, scores Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc 8-11, 543F1, D3, 544A1 Sees Myanmar’s Thein Sein 9-28, 652G1, G2 Afghan envoy (Eide) scored 9-28, 674A2 Ousts Afghan spec rep dep (Galbraith) 9-30, 668E3 Visits Afghan, vows cont aid 11-2, 754B1 Europe Shuts Georgia breakaway region missn 6-15, 406D1 International Issues Urges G-20 intl stimulus package 3-25, 193B3 At Arab League summit 3-30, 196A3 Holds climate chng summit 9-22, 636C1 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675E3–F3 At Commonwealth mtg 11-27, 845E3 Middle East On Gaza violnc 1-6, 2E1 Gaza warehouse destructn regretted 1-15, 13F1 Visits Gaza 1-20, 31A3 Visits Iraq 2-6, 101G3 Seeks Gaza aid entry 2-10, 86F1 Scores Iran’s Ahmadinejad speech 4-20, 262C1–D1 Backs Iran protesters rights 6-23, 423B2 Hosts Iraq’s Maliki 7-22, 498D1 On Iran secret A-site 9-29, 649C2

BANK Medici Seized 1-2, 114F1–G1

BANK Mellat UK financial svcs deals banned 10-12, 711D2

BANK of America Corp. Merrill buy finalized 1-1; shares drop 1-14, govt aid sought 1-15, 14B3, 15C2–D2

ON FILE

Lewis bonus paymt nixed 1-6; ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt stake buy set 1-16, Merrill buy mulled, shares drop 1-16—1-22, 32A1 Merrill CEO (Thain) ofc renovatns repaymt vowed 1-26, 44G2, E3 Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 Home foreclosure halt vowed 2-13, 127G3 Homeowner govt rescue plan launched 3-4, 127G3 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 Mark-to-mkt acctg rules eased 4-2, 221A1 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-20, 264E2 Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, Lewis chair ouster OKd 4-29, 291A2–C2, G2–A3 Stress-test results issued, stock offerings set 5-7—5-8, 318D3 Countrywide ex-execs chrgd 6-4, 388F2 $700 bln financial indus aid return denied 6-9; Merrill Lynch merger Fed documts sought, House com hearing held 6-9—6-11, exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387E2, A3, 388E1 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407E2 Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-25, 456G2–A3, C3, E3 Govt regulators memo OKd 7-16, ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd, share price drops 7-17, 490F2 Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 7-17, 504F1–C2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, SEC chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 522C3, 523A1, E1 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Merrill Lynch merger fraud chrgs warned, subpoenas issued 9-8—9-17, SEC setlmt nixed 9-14, 618F2 Assets govt guarantee programs exited 9-21, 641C1–D1 Overdraft fees ltd 9-23, 715E3–F3 Lewis sets resignatn, shares drop 9-30, 657D2 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781F3 Lewis pay nixed 10-15, ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd, loan losses mulled 10-16, 715C1, E1–F1, F2 Exec pay cut 10-22, 742C1, A2 Govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830C2 $700 bln financial indus aid losses forecast cut 12-7, 847C1 Small business lending hike set 12-14, 864A3 Moynihan named pres, CEO 12-16, 909F2

BANK of Canada Interest rate cut 1-20, ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP forecast 1-22, 83A1–B1 Interest rate cut 4-21, 394D2

BANK of England Interest rate cut 1-8, 8B2 Europn interest rate cut 1-15, 23E1 Govt rescue plan set 1-19, 36A2 Interest rate cut 2-5, 68E3 Interest rate cut, bonds buy set 3-5, 155E2–F2 G-20 summit protests turn violent 4-1, 194E2 EU interest rate cut 4-2, 254C1 George dies 4-18, 280D3 Interest rate retained 5-7, 311D2 Europn 1-yr funds loaned 6-23, 433D1 US$ loans halted 9-24, 651B3 Interest rate retained 10-8, 675C2

BANK of Japan Econ outlook issued 1-22, 51F1 Govt bonds buy hike set 3-18, 163G3 Econ assessmt questnd 10-27, corp debt buys ended 10-29, 786D3–E3 Econ deflatn seen 11-30, short-term bank loans set 12-1, 872E3, 873C1

BANK of Korea Interest rate hiked 10-9, ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 10-26, 764B2

BANK of Marin Bancorp Govt aid returned 3-31, 241D3

BANK of New York Mellon Corp. Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319G1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3

BANK of Spain CCM seized 3-29, 208D1

BANK of Thailand Interest rate cut 4-8, 310E1

BANKRUPTCIES & Reorganizations Foreign Developments—See also other subheads in this section Nortel bankruptcy filed 1-14, 67A3 Saab bankruptcy declared 2-20, 367C1 AbitibiBowater bankruptcy filed 4-16—4-17, 413D1

2009 Index Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417A2–B2 Ssangyong labor talks fail, factory raided 8-2—8-5; deal OKd 8-6, reorgn plan issued 9-15, 787D1 Opel/Vauxhall sale backed, deal set 9-10, 609A1 Ssangyong reorgn plan OKd 12-17, 934D1 U.S. Developments Collins ex-execs chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3 Death Row records sold 1-15, 104E2 Minneapolis Star bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168A1 Peanut Corp bankruptcy filed 2-13, 95E3 GM/Chrysler restructuring plans issued 2-17, bankruptcies mulled 2-19, 92F2–A3, 93A1–B1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92B2 Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356F2 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168B1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107C2 Homeowner rescue plan launched 3-4, 128F1 Mortgage chngs bill passes House 3-5, 147B1–E1 Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347D2 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184D1 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164D2 Natl Century ex-execs sentncd 3-27, 539B3 GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197A2, 198B2–D2, G3, 199D1 Sun Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393G1 Chysler bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282C2, E3, 283A1, D1 Home foreclosure curbs measure nixed by Sen 4-30, 319A3–B3 NHL’s Coyotes bankruptcy declared, appeal filed 5-5—5-7, sale nixed 6-15, 435B3 Chrysler reorgn oppositn dropped 5-8, dealerships nixed 5-14, 338E3, 339B1, E1 Chrysler govt funds block nixed by Sen 5-21, 355B2 Opel sale mulled 5-29—6-3; Chrysler reorgn plan OKd, appeal filed 5-31—6-4, GM bankruptcy declared, govt stake set 6-1, 365A1, D2–E2, 366E1, F1, D2, B3–C3, 367B1, G1–A2 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10; dealerships closure OKd, protectn bill seen 6-9—6-10, loan set/shares sell-off mulled, Sen com hearing held 6-10—6-11, 385A1, G1, F2, B3 Star Tribune reorgn filed, OKd 6-18—9-17, bankruptcy exited 9-28, 913B1 Money-mkt security hike proposed 6-24, 716E2 GM reorgn OKd, bankruptcy exited 7-5—7-10, 475F1 Lear bankruptcy declared 7-7, financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 GM/Chrysler car dealerships closure block passes House 7-16, 489D1 CIT Group financing set 7-20, 491A1, C1–D1 NHL’s Coyotes buyout offer nixed/ruling hailed, NHL bid set 7-29—9-30, 730D3–E3 Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536D1 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1 Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 597E1 Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, 618C1 Chrysler execs (Fong/Accavitti) quit, Press exit seen 10-5, 758C3 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679B2 Sun-Times Media sale OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3 Cubs bankruptcy filed 10-12, sold 10-27, 949D1 Del RC diocese bankruptcy filed 10-18, 711C3 CIT Group bankruptcy filed 11-1, 758D3 Ford ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757E3, G3 GM/Chrysler govt loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758G1–A2 GM/Delphi stake buy OKd 11-2, 758F2 Coyotes, NHL sale OKd 11-3, Ice Edge Holdings buy seen 12-11, 951C2 Chrysler future plans detailed 11-4, 758E2

—BANKS GM IPO mulled 11-10, govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798C3 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-17, 799F1 Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 832C1 GM/Chrysler dropped dealerships arbitratn measure clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867D1 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865F2 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887E1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910D1

BANKS, Nicholas Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

BANKS & Banking Appointments & Resignations FDIC chair (Bair) post cont 1-7, 6E2 Citigroup dir (Rubin) sets retiremt 1-9, 15G2 Merrill CEO (Thain) quits, Moynihan named 1-22, 32E1–G1 Iceland govs resignatn sought 2-2, 69A1 UK regulator (Crosby) quits 2-11, 155B2 Zimbabwe Reserve Bank gov (Gono) ouster sought 2-12, 81E3 Zimbabwe reserve bank gov (Gono) ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 Kelly named Citigroup CFO 3-20, 265C1 Fiji reserve bank gov (Narube) ousted, Reddy named 4-14, 252D1 Allison named $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, 264F1 Bank of Amer chair (Lewis) ouster OKd, Massey named 4-29, 291A3 Zimbabwe Reserve Bank gov (Gono) ouster nixed 5-25, 588G3 Citigroup CEO (Pandit) ouster push seen 6-5, 388C1–D1 Minn Fed pres (Stern) sets retiremt 9-3, Kocherlakota named, takes post 9-30—10-8, 740B1 Morgan Stanley CEO (Mack) sets resignatn, Gorman named 9-10, 657G3 Vatican bank head (Caloia) quits, Tedeschi named 9-23, 712C1 Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) sets resignatn 9-30, 657D2 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847B2 Mex central bank gov (Carstens) named 12-9, 929D1 Bank of Amer pres, CEO (Moynihan) named 12-16, 909F2 Awards & Honors Yunus gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1–E1 Bank of Amer exec (Lewis) bonus paymt nixed 1-6; ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 1-16, shares drop 1-22, 32A1 $700 bln financial indus aid use scored 1-9; curbs, 2d 1/2 funds block pass House 1-21—1-22, disclosure sought 1-22, 32F2 Citigroup/Bank of Amer shares drop 1-14, govt aid sought 1-15, 14B3, 15D2 Citigroup ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, shares drop 1-16, 32A2 UK rescue plan set, RBS shares drop 1-19, 36E1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 30A2 Japan Econ outlook issued 1-22, 51F1 Merrill CEO (Thain) ofc chngs repaymt vowed 1-26; Citigroup corp jet buy nixed 1-27, natlzns nixed, shares rise 1-28, 44G1, B2 Iceland’s Haarde, cabt quit 1-26, 52E3 US indus govt aid seen 1-27, econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41E1, 42C1 Treasury lobbying curbs set 1-27, Wall St bonuses rptd, scored 1-28—1-29, 44B3, F3–G3 $700 bln financial indus aid use mulled, oversight questnd 1-30, Sen com hearing held, fraud warned 2-5, 61F3 Wells Fargo Las Vegas conf nixed 2-3, $700 bln financial indus aid cos exec pay ltd 2-4, 64C2–E2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled, Cong hearings held 2-10—2-11, 76C3–D3, 77G1–A2, G2 UBS ‘08 loss rptd 2-10, 100D2 Merrill bonus paymts revealed 2-11; execs subpoenaed 3-4, info release ordrd 3-18, 220B2 $780 bln financial indus aid cos paymt limits clear Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 91A1–E1 Citigroup/Bank of Amer/JP Morgan home foreclosures halt vowed 2-13, 127G3 Lloyds ‘08 loss seen 2-13, 155A2

RBS bonuses cut, exec pay frozen 2-17; ‘08 loss rptd, govt aid hiked 2-26, ex-CEO (Goodwin) pension mulled 2-26—2-27,, 155B2 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168C1 Citigroup govt aid sought, shares drop 2-23, Bernanke testifies to Cong 2-24—2-25, 111B1–C1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105F1; text 106E2 US indus ‘stress tests’ open, plan detailed 2-25, 110A2, G2 Citigroup govt aid plan chngd, shares drop 2-27, 127G1 FDIC emergency fee set 2-27, 127B3 World Bank Eastn Eur loans set, cash need rptd 2-27, 136A3 HSBC US unit shut 3-2, 127D1 Bank of England bonds buy set, ECB unltd bank loans offrd 3-5, 155F2 Tax havens blacklist issued 3-5; secrecy laws ease vowed 3-6—3-16, pressure cont 3-16, 163G1, E2 BTA allegatns spark bank run 3-6, Respublika fined 9-9, 663A2–B2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162B1 Bank of Japan govt bonds buy hike set 3-18, 163G3 French stimulus package hike nixed 3-19, Societe Generale bd members bonus pay plans dropped 3-22, 206F3, 207A1 Troubled assets sale US plan detailed 3-23, 177A1, A2, 178A1 Budget blueprint backed by House com 3-25, 181A2 Obama sees execs 3-27, 220C3 CCM seized 3-29, 208D1 Signature/Old Natl/IberiaBank/Bank of Marin govt aid repaid 3-31, 241C3 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193C2 US mark-to-mkt acctg rules eased 4-2, 220D3 Wells Fargo ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares rise 4-9, 241A3 Goldman ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-13, 241E1 Obama defends econ plan 4-14, 240F1 JP Morgan ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-16, 241E2 Citigroup/Bank of Amer/Wells Fargo ‘09 1st 1/4 profits rptd, shares drop 4-17—4-22, Morgan Stanley loss rptd, dividend cut 4-22, 264E2, E3, 265D1 US stress-test preliminary results issued 4-23, 318B3 Iceland parlt electns held 4-25, 295E3 Govt stakes mulled 4-29, 285C2–D2 Home foreclosure curbs measure nixed 4-30, bill passes Sen 5-6, 319C3, E3–F3 Bernanke testifies to Cong 5-5, 319B2 US stress-test results issued/questnd, capital needs rptd 5-7, stock sales offrd 5-8, 318A2, C3 EBRD sets Eastn Eur/Central Asia investmt 5-7, 336C3 $700 bln financial indus aid small banks loans set 5-13, 320C2 Banco de Venez natlzn deal signed 5-22, 395F1–G1 Citigroup, Dow ouster set 6-1, 372C2 Troubled assets sale plan delayed 6-3; $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, Citigroup stock conversion plan opens 6-10, 387A2, F3, 388B1 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404G3 Europn stress tests urged 6-13, 417A3 Europn banks cont write-downs seen 6-15, 417D2 Europn 1-yr funds loaned 6-23, 433A1 Fed lending programs cut, cont 6-25, 456G3 China forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440B2 Banks ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16—7-22, Goldman shares rise, Citigroup/Bank of Amer shares drop 7-16—7-17, 490F1–G3 Financial crisis response House com hearing held 7-17, 504E1 Iceland restructuring plan set 7-20, 512A3 $700 bln finanical indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay rptd, curbs pass House/com hearing set 7-31, 522F2, 523B1 FDIC deposit fund low seen, cont credit woes mulled 8-27, 585F1 Japan Post IPO halt sought 9-20, 703D3 Bank of Amer assests govt guarantee programs exited 9-21, 641B1 Overdraft fees ltd 9-23—9-24, 715D3 Fed lending programs cut, Europn US$ loans halted 9-24, 651A3 FDIC deposits insurnc funds sought 9-29, 658A1 Japan debt paymt moratorium denied 9-29, 703C3 IMF financial stability rpt issued 9-30, 675F1

979

‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd, compensatn reserves seen/scored 10-14—10-21, Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) pay nixed, Goldman charity donatn set 10-15, 715B1, A2, F2 US small business govt aid plan set 10-21, 742E2–F2 Financial indus exec pay rules set, Bank of Amer/Citigroup pay cut 10-22, 742C1, C2 Goldman lending program launched 11-17, 864F3–G3 Venez banks seized, reopenings set 11-20—12-11; assets liquidated 11-30, natlzn mulled 12-2—12-4, 929E1 FDIC deposit fund negative balnc rptd, customers security vowed 11-24, 813G2 Dubai debt buys set 11-25, local, forgn banks lending set 11-19, 828D3, 829B1, C2 Japan lending urged 11-30, short-term loans set 12-1, 873C1–D1 Bank of Amer govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830C2 $700 bln financial indus aid losses forecast cut 12-7, 847C1 UK bonuses tax set/proposal backed, French legis seen 12-9—12-10, 854D1 $700 bln financial indus aid cont/rpt issued, Cong hearing held 12-9—12-10, Goldman cash bonuses nixed, lending urged 12-10—12-14, 864D2, C3, 865A1 Wells Fargo/Citigroup govt aid repaymt set 12-14, 864G1 Hypo natlzn set 12-14, 875E3 Fed balance sheet rise rptd 12-28, 909G1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Bank Medici seized 1-2, 114F1 Natl banks racial bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27—1-29, 114D1 Indonesia ex-gov (Abdullah) sentnc appeal nixed 2-9, 462B1–C1 Stanford exec testifies/held, SEC probe rptd 2-10—2-27; hq raided, assets frozen/seized 2-17—2-25, complaint filed, chngd 2-17—2-27, 147E3, 148E1, B2, G2 UBS, US tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100A2 Gabon’s Bongo French accts frozen 2-26, 394A2 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141D1 OneUnited/Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243D1 Tajik natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272C2 Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter slain 4-14, 377B1 Zimbabwe pvt accts cash removal admitted 4-20, 589A1 African ldrs French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394G1 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2 Indonesia ex-dep gov (Pohan) convctd, sentncd 6-17, 462A1 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 441B3 WTC site bldg blaze check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621F1–A2 Hermitage CEO (Browder) laundered funds subpoena OKd 7-31, 822C1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 523E1 Zambia’s Chiluba cleared 8-17, 556D1 UBS, US clients tax evasn data handover deal set 8-19, 560C3–G3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger fraud chrgs warned, subpoenas issued 9-8—9-17, SEC setlmt nixed 9-14, 618F2 Chevron/Total, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684E1 France’s Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644A2 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653D3 Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 768G3 Rep Waters bank aid role probe set 10-29, 779B3 Venez banks owner (Fernandez), pres (Chacon) held 12-4—12-5, arrests, warrants rptd 12-8, 929A2, D2–E2 Crime & Law Enforcement Lloyds sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 1-9, 863D1 Mauritania, AU sanctns set 2-5, 82B3 Madagascar central bank seized 3-16, 169D2 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539C3 ‘70s radical (Olson) freed 3-17, 202F2 RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207B2 G-20 summit protests turn violent 4-1, 194D2–E2 Limmt chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 227C3

980 BaNORTE— G-20 summit protests death tape rptd 4-7; probe set 4-8, cop suspended 4-9, 253A3 Pak tribal areas violnc erupts 5-3, 315D1 ‘70s radical (Kilgore) freed 5-10, 539D2 Iran blaze kills 5 6-1, 398A2 Iraq site robbed 7-28, pres guard members held 8-1, 529B2 Afghan site attack kills 3 8-19, 549G2 Iraq robbers sentncd, suspect cleared 9-2, 610G2 Zimbabwe sanctns lift urged 9-8, 661C1 Dem fundraiser (Nemazee) indicted 9-21, pleads not guilty 9-23, 656F3 Zimbabwe sanctns lift sought 10-6, 680G3 UK financial svcs cos, Iran deals banned 10-12, 711D2 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Interest Rates ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 India rate cut 1-2, 158A1 UK rate cut 1-8, 8B2 Europn rate cut 1-15, 23D1 Mex rate cut 1-16, 83F1 Canada rate cut 1-20, 83A1 Brazil rate cut 1-21, 82G3 US rate retained 1-28, 45B2 UK rate cut, Eur rate retained 2-5, 68E3 S Africa rate cut 2-5, 96F2 Taiwan rate cut 2-18, 135G1–A2 India rate cut 3-4, 157G3 Eur, UK rates cut 3-5, 155E2 Brazil rate cut 3-11, 186B3 US rate retained 3-18, 163A3 EU rate cut 4-2, 254B1 Australia rate cut 4-7, 494F1 Thai rate cut 4-8, 310E1 India rate cut 4-21, 382G1–A2 Canada rate cut 4-21, 394D2 US rates retained 4-29, 291F3 EU rate cut, UK rate retained 5-7, 311B2 S Africa rate cut 5-28, 359C1 US rate retained 6-24, 427F2; 8-12, 535C2; 9-23, 640A1 Australia rate hiked 10-6, 675A2 UK/Europn rates retained 10-8, 675C2 S Korea rate hiked 10-9, 764C2 India rate retained 10-27, 791D1 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739D3 US rate retained 11-4, 759F1 Viet rate hiked 11-25, 935B1 US rate retained 12-16, 865A3 Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae unltd govt aid OKd 12-24, 909C3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Bank of Amer/Merrill buy finalized 1-1, 15D2 IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32D2 Commerzbank govt stake bought 1-8, 8A2 Citigroup/Morgan Stanley jt venture set 1-13, 15E2 Bank of Amer govt stake buy set, Merrill deal defended 1-16, 32A1 Citigroup split plan unveiled 1-16, Nikko sale sought 1-19, 32B2–C2 RBS govt stake buy set, natlzn denied 1-19, 36B2–C2 Japan pvt cos govt stake buys seen 1-27, 51A1 BTA, Alliance govt stakes bought 2-2, 58A1 Lloyds govt stake buy OKd 3-6, 155F1 Goldman shares sold 4-14, 241F1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291G1 Citigroup Japanese unit sold 5-1, 319B1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger Fed documts sought 6-9, House com hearing held 6-11, 388E1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-25, 456G2 UBS govt stake sold 8-20, 560G3 Failed banks buyout rules OKd 8-26, 585D2 Sberbank sets Opel/Vauxhall buy 9-10, 608G3 Belgium premr (Leterme) named 11-25, 820D2 Citigroup shares demand drops, Treasury stake sale delayed 12-17, 864D2 Obituaries George, Lord (Eddie) 4-18, 280D3 McNamara, Robert S 7-6, 468D3 Seidman, L William 5-13, 348D3 Wasserstein, Bruce J 10-14, 731F3 Political & Legislative Issues Sen influence scored 4-27, 319C3 Home foreclosures curbs clear House, signed 5-19—5-20, 354C3–D3 Regulatory Issues India cash reserves requiremt cut 1-2, 158A1 Financial indus reforms proposed, Sen com hearing held 6-17—6-18, 407A1–408A2 EU financial plan OKd 6-19, 432A2

FACTS Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444D2 Citigroup/Bank of Amer govt memos rptd 7-15—7-16, 490C3–E3 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641F1 Fed exec pay curbs mulled 9-18—9-19; ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, reforms House com hearing held 9-23, 640F2, E3 G-20 reforms OKd 9-25, 651E2 India reserve levels hike set 10-27, 791D1 US indus reforms proposed 11-10, 778F3, 779A1–C1 Overdrafting fees ltd 11-12, 779G1–A2 Reverse repurchase agrmts proposed 11-30, 909A2 UK check clearing system ‘18 end set 12-16, 937E3 Fed ‘term deposits’ proposed 12-28, 909D1 Tax Issues US breaks pass House 12-9, 886E1–F1 Citigroup break OKd, defended 12-11—12-15, House com probe set 12-17, 909B2 Trade Issues Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652C2 China/Russia loan set 10-13—10-15, 739B2 Taiwan/China financial deals signed 11-16, 891E2–F2

BaNORTE Banco Comercial Seized 12-11, 929E2

BANSAL, Sushil Held 3-12, 200D3

BAO Tong Zhao memoir published 5-19, 5-29, 395D3

BAOTOU Bei Ben Heavy-Duty Truck Co. Hyundai jt venture set 12-20, 932E2

BAPTISTS White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247E3 Rev Phelps UK ban set 5-5, 310D2 Rwanda ex-pastor (Bazaramba) trial opens 9-1, Kigali testimony heard 9-15, 680A2

BARACK the Magic Negro (recording) GOP chair electn held 1-30, 62A2

BARAK, Gen. Ehud (ret.) (Israeli prime minister, 1999-2001) On Gaza invasion 1-3, 1G2 Mulls Hamas ceasefire, regrets UN warehouse destructn 1-15, 13F1, 14C1 Vows Gaza blast response 1-27, 42E2 Parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85A3 Sees Netanyahu 2-23, 118F3 On Gaza invasn abuses allegatns 3-19, 210E1 Party joins govt coalitn 3-24, 190B1–C1 Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209G2, B3 Sees US’s Mitchell 6-30, 546B1 Hosts US’s Gates 7-27, 530E2 OKs W Bank setlmt bldg plans 9-7, 614C3 In UK, arrest warrant sought 9-29, captured troop (Shalit) tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689F2, 670A1 Seeks Iran A-program enrichmt halt 10-22, 711B2 Livni UK warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; visit urged 12-16, Hamas com role rptd 12-21, 884D2 Ends W Bank setlmt seminary links 12-13, 945B1–C1

BARAKZAI, Maulavi Mustafa Quits pres electn probe 10-12, 696A2

BARBADOS Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B2; 10-1, 732B2

BARBER, Frances Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

BARBER of Seville, The (opera) London soprano role breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2

BARBOUR, David Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

BARBOUR, Haley (Miss. governor, 2004- ; Republican) Nixes econ recovery plan funds use 2-21, at natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111A2

BARCLAYS PLC AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1

Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatan home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609A3

BARDEM, Javier Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1

BARDWELL, Sam Ex-client (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867E3

BARGHOUTI, Abdullah Israeli troop (Shalit) release talks fail 3-17, 210F2

BARGHOUTI, Marwan Elected to party central com 8-11, 545E3 Israeli troop (Shalit) release deal mulled 11-23, 838D3

BAR-Ilan University (Tel Aviv, Israel) Netanyahu addresses 6-14, 403G1

BARKER, Bernard Leon (1917-2009) Dies 6-5, 400C2

BARKER, Justin ‘06 beating suspects plead no contest, financial setlmt OKd 6-26, 525A1–B1, D1

BARNES, David Wilson Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

BARNES, Ricky 2d in US Open 6-22, 435F1–B2

BARNES & Noble Inc. Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554F1 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918C1

BARNETT, Robert On Bush bk work 3-19, 166E3–F3*

BARNEYS New York Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 828F3

BARNICH, Terrence Slain 5-25, 362D3

BARNIER, Michel Named Europn Comm internal mkt comr 11-27, 835E2–G2

BAROFSKY, Neil Seeks $700 bln financial indus aid banks disclosure 1-22, 32A3–B3 Testifies to Sen com, issues fraud warning 2-5, 62A1–B1 Merrill execs subpoenaed 3-4, bonus paymts info release ordrd 3-18, 220E2 Testifies to House com 10-14, 715B3–C3 Questns AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role 11-16—11-17, 799B1, E1–F1

BARON, Rafael Arniaz (1911-38) Canonized 10-11, 739G1

BARON Cohen, Sacha Bruno on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

BARQUES au Port de Collioure (painting) Fetches $14 mln 11-4, 953B2

BARR, Bob (Robert L. Barr Jr.) Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

BARR, Jim Buehrle sets consecutive outs mark 7-28, 531F1

BARRATT, Michael Flies Soyuz missn, intl space statn stay opens 3-26—3-28, 239A3* Returns to Earth 10-11, 731C2

BARRE-Sinoussi, Francoise ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

BARRETT, Jeremy 2d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

BARRETT, Timothy Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

BARRETTA, Ernano Assoc (Sgarbi) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207G1

BARRICHELLO, Rubens Massa hurt 7-25, 647A2 3d in Formula 1 title standings 11-1, 950E1

BARRISE, Tom Named Nets interim coach, replaced 11-29—12-3, 951F2

BARRON, David Nixes UN, Iran/Syria/Cuba chaired mtgs ban 7-1, 902B2

BARROSO, Jose Manuel Durao (Portuguese premier, 2002-04) Scores Russia/Ukraine gas dispute, urges energy EU infrastructure funds 1-20, 37F2–A3 At World Econ Forum 1-30, 58C2 Hosts China’s Wen 1-30, 98C2–D2

ON FILE

On protectnsm concerns 3-1, 136E2 African migrants Italy entry OKd 4-19, 262B2 At China summit 5-20, 448B2 Reelected Europn Comm pres 6-18, 432B2 Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627B3 EU treaty Czech signing vowed 10-7, 685A2–B2 On Russian emissns cut vow 11-18, 828C2 Names Europn Comm 11-27, 835C2–D2, F2, C3

BARROT, Jacques Sees Cuba base detainees resetlmt EU aid 2-3, 64B1

BARROW, John (U.S. representative from Ga., 2005- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BARROW, Tom Detroit mayoral primary held, Bing race set 8-4, 553F1

BARRY, Gene (Eugene Klass) (1919-2009) Dies 12-9, 896F1

BARRY, Jeff Greenwich dies 8-26, 596F2

BARRY Jr., Marion S(hepilov) Vs gay marriage recognitn 5-5, 304D2

BARRY, Sebastian On Costa shortlist 1-5, wins 1-27, 139D3

BARRYMORE, Drew He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2

BARSTOW, David Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139G2–A3 Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C2

BARTHA, Justin Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

BARTLETT, Jason Among AL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D2

BARTLETT v. Strickland (2009) Minority voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 167A1

BARTLEY JR., Justice A. Kirke Sentncs Astor son 12-21, 896E1

BARTOLI, Marion Australian Open results 1-25, 71B1

BARTZ, Carol Named Yahoo CEO 1-13, Microsoft search partnership set 7-29, 523D2–E2

BARUAH, Paresh Rajkhowa transferred to India 12-4, 946E2

BARZANI, Massoud Kirkuk territorial claims draft const passes parlt 6-24, 501F1 US’s Biden mtg nixed 7-4, 465A1 Warns Iraq, Kurdistan war 7-16, 498A1 Vote held, reelectn rptd 7-25—7-29; nixes Kirkuk autonomy proposal 7-28, hosts US’s Gates 7-29, 501A1, E2 Sees Maliki 8-2, 530D1 Hosts US’s Biden 9-15—9-17, 629A1

BARZANI, Nechirvan Hosts Turkey’s Gul 3-23, 189F2 Warns Iraq, Kurdistan war 7-16, 498A1

BASBUG, Gen. Ilker Sees Erdogan, Gul 1-8, 23C1

BASEBALL Awards & Honors HOF elects Henderson, Rice 1-12, 71E2 Matsuzaka named World Baseball Classic MVP 3-23, 190C3 World Baseball Classic all-tourn team named 3-23, 191B1 Lawrie named women’s Coll World Series MVP 6-2, 484A3 Mitchell named men’s Coll World Series MVP 6-25, 484F2 Crawford named All-Star Game MVP 7-14, 483A3 HOF inducts Henderson/Rice/Gordon 7-26, 531C2 Howard/Sabathia named LCS MVPs 10-21, 10-25, 752D1, D2 Matsui named World Series MVP 11-4, 770E1–F1 Coghlan/Bailey named top rookies 11-16, 824C1 Greinke/Lincecum win Cy Youngs 11-17—11-19, 823B3 Scioscia/Tracy named top mgrs 11-18, 824A1 Mauer/Pujols named league MVPs 11-23—11-24, 823E2 HOF elects Herzog/Harvey 12-7, 949A2 Broadcasting All-Star Game/pregame Nielsen ratings 7-14, 532A2 World Series Nielsen ratings 10-28, 10-29, 11-1, 772A2

2009 Index World Series Game 6 Nielsen rating 11-4, 840A2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Natls prospect fake ID rptd 2-18, 277A3 Crime Issues Clemens perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, 87G3 Bonds perjury trial evidnc block sought 1-15; documts unsealed 2-4, drug tests admissn mulled 2-5, 87B3 Tejada chrgd 2-10, pleads guilty 2-11, 87D3 Bonds perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158D2 Tejada sentncd 3-26, 277G3 Labor & Salary Issues Ramirez signs Dodgers deal 3-4, 278B1 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350A2, F2 MLBPA exec dir (Fehr) sets resignatn 6-22, 483F3 Cone testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3–C3 MLBPA exec dir nominee (Weiner) OKd, takes post 12-2, 989F1 Halladay signs Phillies deal 12-16, 948F3 Managerial & Executive Changes Natls fire execs (Rijo/Baez) 2-26; GM (Bowden) quits 3-1, Rizzo named interim replacemt 3-4, 277A3 Diamondbacks fire Melvin, Hinch named 5-7—5-8, 484E2 Rockies fire Hurdle, Tracy named 5-29, 484D2 Natls fire Acta, Riggleman named 7-12—7-13, 484G1 Astros fire Cooper, Clark named 9-21, 690B3 Indians fire Wedge 9-30, 690B3 Riggleman named Natls full-time mgr 11-11, 949A2 Obituaries DiMaggio, Dom 5-8, 332C3 Fidrych, Mark 4-13, 256B3 Henrich, Tommy 12-1, 880A2 Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Kell, George 3-24, 212F3 Pohlad, Carl R 1-5, 40C3 Werber, Bill 1-22, 104G3 Olympics Baseball/softball ‘16 return nixed 8-13, 691B2, D2 People Torre’s Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 MLB’s Rodriguez sees MD, has hip surgery 3-4, 3-9, 158C3 Schilling retires 3-23, 278A1 Angels’ Adenhart dies in car crash 4-9, suspect chrgd 4-10, 277E3 Ky sen (Bunning) nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503A2 Schilling mulls Mass Sen seat bid 9-2, 584E3 Professional MLB season opens 4-5, 277F2 MLB season ends 10-6, 690A2, A3 Purchases, Sales & Moves NYT/Red Sox stake sale sought 2-19, 168G1 Cubs bankruptcy filed 10-12, sold 10-27, 949D1 Records & Achievements Sheffield hits 500th HR 4-17, 277D3 Dodgers opening home winning streak ends 5-7, 348D1 Johnson earns 300th win 6-4, 484C2 Rivera earns 500th save 6-28, 484B2 Sanchez pitches no-hitter 7-10, 484A2 Buehrle pitches perfect game 7-23, sets consecutive outs mark 7-28, 531C1 Jeter sets MLB shortstop hits mark 8-16, 691A1 Jeter sets Yankees hits mark 9-11, 690C3 Matsui ties World Series single game RBI mark 11-4, 770E1 Utley ties World Series HR mark 11-4, 770F1 Stadiums & Parks Carrion named White House urban affairs dir 2-19, 113C1 Statistics MLB 1st 1/2 standings 7-14, 484A1 Final standings 10-6, 690C1 AL/NL ldrs 10-6, 690C2 Substance Abuse Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1 Romero suspended 1-6, 278E1 Steroid dealer (Radomski) claims denied 1-20—1-21, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88A1 Clemens trainer syringes DNA found 2-3, 87F3 Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test rptd/results mulled, rumors cited 2-7—2-9; admits use 2-9, reactns rptd 2-10, 87B1, D2, G2 Obama on Rodriguez steroids use 2-9, 77E3, 78D3, 79D2

—BASKETBALL Rodriguez drug use scored 2-12; news conf held 2-17, interviewed 3-1, 158E3–F3 World Baseball Classic testing rptd 3-4, 191C1 MLB’s Clemens trainer syringes drugs found 3-10, 158G3 Ramirez appeal dropped/suspended, HCG perscriptn admitted 5-6—5-7; sees Dodgers owner, issues apology 5-9—5-15, positive test knowledge rptd 5-18, 347C3 Sosa ‘03 positive test rptd 6-16, House com testimony probe opens 6-17, 484F1 Ramirez returns 7-3, 530F3 Ramirez, Ortiz ‘03 positive tests rptd 7-30, Red Sox clubhouse firings revealed 8-1, 530E3 Ortiz on ‘03 positive test 8-8, 691B1 MLB positive tests list seizure nixed 8-26, preservatn ordrd 9-2, 949B2 Trades, Signings & Releases Giambi joins A’s 1-7, 278D1 Smoltz joins Red Sox 1-8, 278D1 Lowe joins Braves 1-13, 278C1 Griffey joins Mariners 2-18, 278C1 Tigers cut Sheffield 3-31, joins Mets 4-3, 277E3 Braves cut Glavine 6-3, 484B2 Pirates/Braves swap McLouth/Morton, Locke, Hernandez 6-3, 484D2 Martinez joins Phillies 7-15, 531D2 Red Sox/Pirates swap minor leaguers/LaRoche 7-22, 531A2 Cardinals/Athletics swap minor leaguers/Holliday 7-24, 531B2 Phillies/Indians swap minor leaguers/Lee, Francisco 7-29, 531B2 Orioles/Dodgers swap Sherrill/minor leaguers 7-30, 531B2 Padres/White Sox swap Peavy/prospects 7-31, 531G1 Red Sox/Indians swap Masterson, prospects/Martinez 7-31, 531G1 Tigers/Mariners swap prospects/Washburn 7-31, 531A2 Red Sox/Braves swap LaRoche/Kotchman 7-31, 531A2 Red Sox cut Smoltz 8-7, joins Cardinals 8-19, 691B1 Angels/Rays swap minor-leaguers/Kazmir 8-28, 691A1 Figgins joins Mariners 12-8, 948G3 Yankees/Tigers/Diamondbacks swap Coke, Jackson, Kennedy/Jackson, Granderson/ Scherzer, Schlereth 12-9, 949A1 Cameron joins Red Sox 12-14, 949C1 Lackey joins Red Sox 12-14, 949C1 Blue Jays/Phillies/Mariners/A’s swap Halladay/d’Arnaud, Drabek, Taylor, Lee/Gillies, Aumont, Ramirez/Wallace 12-16, 948D3 Matsui joins Angels 12-16, 949B1 Cubs/Mariners swap Bradley/Silva, $ 12-18, 948G3 Johnson joins Yankees 12-18, 949B1 Yankees/Braves swap Cabrera, Dunn, Vizcaino/Vasquez, Logan 12-22, 949B1 Bay, Mets deal rptd 12-29, 949C1 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1 All-Star Game, AL 7-14, 483F2, D3 HR Derby, Fielder 7-13, 483D3 Little League World Series, Chula Vista 8-30, 612D2 Men’s Coll World Series, LSU 6-25, 484E2 Pennants, Phillies/Yankees 10-21, 10-25, 751C3–752E2 Women’s Coll World Series, Wash 6-2, 484G2 World Series, Yankees 11-4, 770C1–G3 World Baseball Classic Japan downs S Korea in final 3-23, 190B2–191B1

BASEBALL Federation, International World Baseball Classic drug testing rptd 3-4, 191C1

BASEBALL Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, N.Y.)—See BASEBALL—Awards BASEBALL Writers’ Association of America Henderson, Rice elected to HOF 1-12, 71E2 Mauer/Pujols named league MVPs 11-23—11-24, 823A3

BASES, Military—See under DEFENSE; DEFENSE, U.S. BASESCU, Traian (Romanian president, 2004- ) Electn rigging plans alleged 9-25; interior min (Nica) ousted 9-28, support polled 10-7, 705G2, B3–C3 Electn held/earns runoff, parlt chngs OKd 11-22, 821A3–B3, D3

Runoff held 12-6; reelectn rptd 12-7, vote questnd 12-8, 854D3–E3 Runoff recount ordrd 12-11, reelectn confrmd, sworn 12-14—12-16, 875B2

BASES Loaded (book) MLB drug probe claims denied 1-20—1-21, published 1-27, 88A1

BASHARDOST, Ramazan Pres electn held, questns vote 8-20, 549C2

BASHIR, Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed al- (Sudanese head of state, 1989- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Marks S Sudan peace deal 1-9, 185G2 ICC surrender urged 1-12, arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—2-23, 115A3–C3, 116A2 Indicted, aid groups ousted 3-4, protests held, ruling mulled 3-4—3-5, 122C1, E2–F2, B3, 123A1, E1 Turabi freed, holds Darfur rally/talks halted 3-9—3-20; orders aid groups exit 3-16, Arab League trip opposed, visits Eritrea/Egypt 3-22—3-25, 185A1–B1, D1, F1–B2, D2 Forgn airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 197D1 At Arab League summit 3-30, 196D2, C3* Darfur peace talks cont 5-6; rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, denies mil civiln attacks 5-12, 375B3, F3–G3, 376B1 Nimeiry dies 5-20, 400D3 Natl census issued 5-21; southn violnc casualties rise seen, summit held 6-1—6-23, ruling party split set 6-8, 430F3, 431G1–A2 Darfur aid groups return seen 6-11, 446B2 ICC warrant, AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, res oppositn rptd 7-3—7-7 7-3, 459A1 Darfur rebel factns peace talks role set 8-22, 924G2 Reelectn bid set 10-5, voter registratn opens 11-1, 801C3–D3, 802D1 Darfur conflict spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924B2–C2 US policy shift set/mulled, sanctns cont 10-19—11-1, 761G3, 762B1, G1–A2 Turkey visit mulled, genocide role denied 11-6—11-8, at China/Africa summit, skips Islamic conf 11-8—11-9, 788C3

BASKETBALL Awards & Honors Bryant, O’Neal named All-Star Game co-MVPs 2-15, 159B1 Cornely named NIT men’s tourn MVP 4-2, 230D2 Griffin/Moore named AP top player 4-3, 230F2 Self/Auriemma named AP top coaches 4-3—4-4, 230F2 Grace named NIT women’s tourn MVP 4-4, 230E2 Naismith Awards announced 4-5—4-7, 230G2 Ellington named NCAA men’s tourn MVP 4-6, 229E3 HOF elects Jordan/Stockton/Robinson/Stringer/Slo an 4-6, 278G3 Charles named NCAA women’s tourn MVP 4-7, 229F3, 230G1 Griffin/Moore win Wooden Awards 4-10, 951D3 Brown named NBA top coach 4-20, 278E2 Howard named NBA top defensive player 4-21, 278D3 Rose named NBA top rookie 4-22, 278D3 James named NBA MVP 5-4, 331G3 Granger named NBA most improved player 5-12, 332B1 Terry named NBA top 6th man 5-12, 332C1 Bryant named NBA Finals MVP 6-14, 419C1 HOF inducts Jordan/Stockton/Robinson/Sloan/String er 9-11, 670A3 Catchings named WNBA top defensive player 9-25, 808D1 Taurasi named WNBA MVP 9-29, 807E3 McCoughtry named WNBA top rookie 10-1, 808C1 Meadors named WNBA top coach 10-1, 808C1 Taurasi named WNBA finals MVP 10-9, 807D3 Broadcasting NCAA men’s champ Nielsen rating 4-6, 316B2 NBA Finals Nielsen ratings 6-4—6-14, 452A2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section US trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2, 182E1 Mercury sponsorship deal set 6-1, 808D1

981

Coaching & Executive Changes Grizzlies fire Iavaroni 1-22, Hollins named 1-25, 159F1 Summitt U Tenn deal extended 2-5, 159A3 Suns fire Porter, Gentry named interim coach 2-16, 159E1 U Ky fires Gillispie 3-27, Calipari named 3-31, 230F3 Thomas named FIU men’s coach 4-15, 279C1 Saunders signs Wizards deal 4-21, 279B1 DiLeo drops 76ers coaching role 5-11, Jordan named 6-1, 419B3 Forman named Bulls GM 5-20, 419D3 Timberwolves fire McHale 6-17, 451F1 Pistons fire Curry 6-30, Kuester named 7-8, 771A2 Timberwolves name Rambis 8-11, 771A2 Richardson named Shock coach 10-20, 808C1 Hornets fire Scott, Bower named 11-12, 951A3 Nets fire Frank, Vandeweghe named 11-29—12-3, 951F2 Collegiate UConn tops women’s yr-end polls 3-9, 3-17, 230E3; final 16 table 231A1 Louisville tops men’s yr-end polls 3-16, 230D3; final 16 table 230A1 ‘09-10 preseason polls rptd 10-29—11-4, 771E1, E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues UConn recruiting violatns alleged 3-25, 230G3 Blowing the Whistle excerpts posted, Random House drop rptd 10-28, 771D3 Crime Issues Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 Donaghy freed 11-4, 771C3 Wizards’ Arenas gun probes rptd 12-24—12-28, 951E2 Labor & Salary Issues Refs contract ends 9-1; lockout opens 9-18, deal set, OKd 10-20—10-23, 771B1–C1 Obituaries Daly, Chuck 5-9, 332G2 Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3 Tisdale, Wayman L 5-15, 348F3 Yow, Kay 1-24, 72G3 People Mourning sets retiremt 1-22, 159F1 Bing wins Detroit mayoral primary electn 2-25, 131E1 Garnett playoff role doubted 4-16, 278E3 Ainge suffers heart attack, exits hosp 4-16—4-19, 278E3 Powe hurts knee 4-20, 278F3 Bing elected Detroit mayor 5-5, 306C3 Parker gives birth 5-13, returns 7-5, 808D1 Bryant/Johnson at Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468C1 Rubio foregoes NBA career 8-31, 771B2 Bing wins Detroit mayoral electn 11-3, 756E3 Iverson takes leave, sets retiremt 11-7—11-25, 951G2 Paguliuca 4th in Mass Sen seat Dem primary 12-8, 848E2 Professional WNBA draft held 4-9, 808C1 NBA season ends 4-15, 278F1 WNBA season opens 6-6, 808A1 NBA draft held 6-25, 450G3; table 451A1 WNBA season ends 9-13, 807E3 NBA season opens 10-27, 771A1 Monarchs shut 11-20, dispersal draft held 12-14, 952A1 Purchases, Sales & Moves Cavaliers stake sold 5-24, 419C3 Prokhorov sets Nets stake buy 9-23, approval vote seen 10-22, 771C2 Shock relocatn, sale set 10-20, 808B1 Records & Achievements Summitt wins 1000th game 2-5, 159A3 Nets set worst-start mark 12-4, 951F2 Rules & Regulations NBA hikes instant replay use 10-2, 771A3 Statistics NBA ‘08-09 final standings/stat ldrs 4-15, 278A2, A3 Substance Abuse Issues Magic’s Lewis suspended, admits banned substnc use 8-6, 771B3 Suspensions & Fines Howard suspended 4-30, 419B3 James fined 6-4, 419A3 Trades, Signings & Releases Marbury released 2-24; terms rptd 2-25, joins Celtics 2-27, 159D1 Timberwolves/Wizards swap Miller, Foye/Thomas, Songaila, Pecherov, pick 6-23, 451E1 Spurs/Bucks swap Thomas, Oberto, Bowen/Jefferson 6-23, 451E2 Timberwolves/Nuggets swap Lawson/pick 6-25, 451E1 Mavericks/Thunder swap Mullens/Beaubois 6-25, 451F1

982 BASKETBALL— Knicks/Lakers swap cash/Douglas 6-25, 451G1 Suns/Cavaliers swap O’Neal/Wallace, Pavlovic, cash, pick 6-25, 451G1 Magic/Nets swap Battie, Alston, Lee/Carter, Anderson 6-25, 451D2 Artest joins Lakers 7-2, 771D1 Gordon, Villanueva join Pistons 7-2, 771D1, A2 Wallace joins Celtics 7-8, 771D1 Magic/Raptors/Mavericks/Grizzlies swap Turkoglu/Marion, Humphries, Jawai, pick/Stackhouse, Wright, George/Buckner 7-9, 771B2–C2 Iverson joins Grizzlies 9-2, 771C2 Grizzlies cut Iverson 11-16, joins 76ers 12-2, 951G2 Winners NBA All-Star Game, West 2-15, 159B1 NBA title, Lakers 6-14, 419C1, G1, F2–G2 NCAA title (men), UNC 4-6, 229B3, 230C1 NCAA title (women), UConn 4-7, 229B3, 230F1 NIT (men), Penn St 4-2, 230D2 NIT (women), S Fla 4-4, 230E2 WNBA title, Mercury 10-9, 807D3

BASKETBALL Diaries, The (book/film) Carroll dies 9-11, 648C2

BASQUES—See under SPAIN BASSETT, Samuel Replaced 9-30, claims Gov Perry pressure 10-12, 700D2

BASTOS de Moura, Vitalmiro Retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2

BASTRYKIN, Aleksandr Hurt 11-28, 836B2

BATARFI, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Release set 3-30, 200C1–E1

BATBOLD, Suhkbataar (Mongolian premier, 2009- ) Bayar in hosp, quits 10-27; named, confrmd premr 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763E1, A2

BATEMAN, Jason Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2 Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

BATES, Evan 2d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

BATES, Judge John Afghan detainees policy cont 2-20, 112F2–G2 Orders Afghan detainees habeas rights 4-2, 199D2–G2 Named FISA chief judge 4-6, 244A2

BATISTA y Zaldivar, Fulgencio (1901-73) Revolutn anniv marked 1-1, 8B1 Castro sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762D2

BATISTE, Narseal Convctd 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374D3–E3 Sentncd 11-20, 914F1

BATTEN Sr., Frank (1927-2009) Dies 9-10, 648G1

BATTERIES—See ELECTRIC Power BATTERY—See CRIME—Assault BATTIE, Tony Traded to Nets 6-25, 451D2

BATTISTE, Francois Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1 Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

BAUCUS, Max (U.S. senator from Mont., 1978- ; Democrat) Reseated Finance chair 1-6, 5B2 Drug cos/health insurers campaign contributns rptd 3-8, 146F1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Proposes overperforming MDs Medicare paymt hike 4-29, 324E1 On overseas profits tax breaks curbs 5-4, 304G3 Sees Obama, letter sent 6-2—6-3, 390A3–B3, D3, F3 On health care reform proposal cost estimate 6-16, 409A1 Health care reform draft bill circulated, sees Sens 6-18, cuts cost 6-25, 426D3, 427B1 Health benefits tax opposed 7-8, 457A3, C3 On health care reform vote delay 7-30, 520A2 Circulates health care reform draft/mtg failure seen, set com work 9-5—9-9, 598C2

FACTS Issues health care reform proposal 9-16, 617A1, B2, D2–F2 Health care reform proposal chngs mulled, com debate opens 9-19—9-24, 637A2, E3, 638A1 Health care reform measures mulled 9-29—10-1, 655G2, B3 Health care reform debate ends, cost estimated/vote set 10-2—10-8, support mulled 10-5—10-7, 676C2, E3 Health care reform bill scored, indus rpt questnd 10-11—10-14; com backs 10-13, in merging talks 10-14, 698A1, B2, D2–F2 Health care reform pub option mulled 10-20, 714A1 Climate chng bill unveiled 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 743C1 Health care reform pub option backed 10-26, 741G1 Vs climate chng bill 11-5, 759E3, 760A1 Girlfriend atty apptmt rptd 12-5, backing confrmd 12-6, 908B3

BAUDOT, Jean-Marc On Haitian Sen electn results 4-20, 270D1

BAUER, Robert Named White House counsel 11-13, 797B3, G3, 797B3

BAUER, Shane Held, IDd 7-31—8-1, 530C2 Spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857E3 Iran trial set 12-14, 876F3

BAUGH, Sammy (Samuel Adrian) (1914-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

BAUM, Judge Redfield Nixes NHL’s Coyotes sale 6-15, 435C3 Nixes Coyotes buyout offer, ruling hailed 9-30, 730C3–D3 OKs Coyotes, NHL sale 11-3, 951C2

BAUMEL, Shane Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

BAUSCH, Pina (Philippine) (1940-2009) Dies 6-30, 468E2

BAUXITE—See ALUMINUM BAXTER, Robert (d. 2008) Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3

BAXTER International Inc. Swine flu vaccine productn woes seen 7-16, 501F1

BAXTER v. Montana Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3

BAY, Jason AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 Among AL RBI/HR ldrs 10-6, 690E2 Mets deal rptd 12-29, 949C1

BAY, Michael Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

BAYAR, Sanjaa (Mongolian premier, 2007-09) In hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd 10-28—10-29, cont policies vowed 10-29, 763D1–E1

BAY Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) MLB players ‘03 drug tests results mulled 2-9, 87F2 MLB’s Bonds perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158E2, A3

BAY Area Rapid Transit (BART) Oakland subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247C1

BAYATI, Hamid alSeeks Persian Gulf War reparatns cut 6-18, 433D3

BAYER AG W Va plant blast info block seen, rpt issued 4-23, 412E3

BAYERISCHE Motoren Werke AG (BMW) Heiress (Klatten) blackmailer pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207D1 Formula 1/top teams breakaway warned, ct threat issued 6-19; talks held, dispute setld 6-20—6-24, series role dropped 7-29, 647B1, E1

BAYH, Evan (U.S. senator from Ind., 1999- ; Democrat) Vs debt limit hike 12-24, 907G1

BAYLESS, Kenny Stops Pacquiao/Hatton bout 5-2, 384D2 Stops Pacquiao/Cotto bout 11-14, 895B2

BAYLOR University (Waco, Tex.) Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn results 4-7, 230E3, 231A3 Men’s basketball loses NIT tourn final 4-2, 230D2 Smith in NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2

BAY of Thailand Thai/Cambodia claims memo nixed 11-10, 785E1

BAYOUTH, Michael Paranormal Activity on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772B2

BAZARAMBA, Francois Trial opens 9-1, Rwanda testimony heard 9-15, 680A2

BAZE, Mero Attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2–B3

BAZE, Ralph Executn halted 11-25, 849F3–G3

BB&T Corp. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2

BEA, Judge Carlos Vs terror ‘material witness’ suit 9-4, 659G3

BEACH Boys, The (music group) Wilson, Gershwin project OKd 10-8, 708C2

BEACHES—See PARKS BEAN, Richard England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3

BEARAK, Barry Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139G2–A3

BEARD, Jesse Ray Pleads no contest, ‘06 beating victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525B1

BEARS—See WILDLIFE BEAR Stearns Cos. Inc., The Fed home loans term chngs set 1-27, 45B3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219C1 CIT Group cont govt aid nixed 7-15, Goldman ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16, 490G1, 491B1 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Hedge fund ex-mgrs (Cioffi/Tannin) trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814B1

BEATLES, The (music group) Jackson dies 6-25, 436F2 Klein dies 7-4, 516D3

BEATRIX, Queen (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard) (Netherlands) Apeldoorn parade car attack kills 8, targeting admitted/driver dies 4-30—5-1, 328A2

BEAUBOIS, Rodrigue In NBA draft, traded to Mavericks 6-25, 451F1, B2

BEAUFORT Sea Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409D3 Shell exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 Polar bears habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3

BEAUFOY, Simon Wins Oscar 2-22, 120B1, C2

BEAUTIFUL Breath, Eau de Violets (artwork) Fetches 8.9 mln euros 2-23, 160D1

BEAUTY Pageants Miss Amer (Stam) crowned 1-24, 56D1 Italy’s Matera Europn Parlt bid set 4-29, 328G1

BECERRA, Xavier (U.S. representative from Calif., 1993- ; Democrat) Seated Dem Caucus v chair 1-6, 5D1

BECK, Glenn ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602E2 Fox News bias alleged 10-11, 717E2 Arguing with Idiots on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 12-21, 956B1

BECK, Hans (1929-2009) Dies 1-30, 104A3

BECK, Jeff Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3

ON FILE

BECK, Simone (1904-91) Mastering Art of French Cooking on best-seller list 8-31, 596B1; 9-28, 672B1

BECKER, Walt Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

BECKERMAN, Ilene Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

BECKETT, Josh Among AL wins ldrs 10-6, 690F2

BECKETT, Samuel Barclay (1906-89) Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2

BECKHAM, David Milan loan cont 3-7; returns to Galaxy, jeered/in fan clash 7-16—7-19, Milan ‘10 loan set 11-2, 895B1 Galaxy lose MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

BECKY Shaw (play) Opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

BEDIE, Henri Konan (Ivory Coast president, 1993-99) Electn delayed 12-3, 922B2

BEE, Samantha Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

BEEBE, Mike (Ark. governor, 2007- ; Democrat) On ice storm damage 2-3, 133F2

BEEF—See MEAT BEER, Samuel Hutchison (1911-2009) Dies 4-7, 280A3

BEGICH, Mark P. (Anchorage, Alaska mayor, 2003-09; U.S. senator from Alaska, 2009- ; Democrat) Seat spec electn urged 4-2, 199D2

BEHENNA, First Lt. Michael Convctd, sentncd 2-27—2-28, 156B3–C3

BEHESHTI, Ali Reza Attacked 10-25, 768F1 In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

BEHIND the Green Door (film) Chambers dies 4-12, 256G2

BEHRENS, Hildegard (1937-2009) Dies 8-18, 596G1

BEIJING Automotive Industry Holdings Co. Execs see Ger ofcls 6-2, 366D2 Adam Opel buyout offer confmrd 7-8, 475D3 Beijing Auto Indus/Saab stake buy OKd 9-9, 822F3 China Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932F2 Saab tech/designs buy set, OKd 12-14—12-23, 902G2

BEIJING University (China) Treasury secy (Geithner) addresses 6-1, 414C2

BEKELE, Kenenisa Wins 10000-m world champ gold 8-17, 579D3 Wins 5000-m world champ gold 8-23, 579D3

BELARUS, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found 12-12, crew chrgd 12-14, 862G2, 863A1 CIS Relations Georgia breakaway regions indep opposed 6-5, 423D3–E3 Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Defense & Disarmament Issues CSTO summit boycotted, agrmt oppossed 6-14—6-15, 423E2–B3 CSTO rapid reactn force treaty signed 10-20, 904E1 European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B2; 10-1, 732B2 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 Russia loan talks fail 5-28; further aid requests nixed 5-29, dairy products ban set, lifted 6-19—6-17, 423F2, B3 WTO entry sought 6-9, 405G1 Russia/WTO entry US backing sought 9-18, 645G1 Russia loan paymt nixed 10-5, 728D3 Kazakh, Russia customs union deal signed 11-27, 863E1

2009 Index U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden tours region 10-21—10-23, 750D2

BELAUNDE, Jose Antonia Garcia OKs Venez oppositn ldr (Rosales) pol asylum 4-27, 326E2

BELBIN, Tanith Misses US champ 1-24, 139E2 2d in world champs 3-27, 211G2

BELDEN, James US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383C3

BELGIUM, Kingdom of African Relations Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Rwanda ex-parlt speaker (Mukezamfura) sentncd in absentia 9-3, 680C2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Wen visits 1-30, 98C2 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Serb (Mladic) home tapes aired 6-10, 512A1 Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8, 628F1 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO/Russia envoys ousted 4-30, 311B1 NATO mtg hosted 6-11—6-12, 434G1 Adm Stavridis sworn NATO cmdr 6-30, 534B1 NATO address hosted 7-27, 513D2 Iran jet smuggling suspects chrgd 8-27, 600F1 NATO mtg hosted 12-4, 844D1 European Relations EU mtg hosted 3-1, 136G1 EU summit hosted 3-19—3-20, 188F2, D3; 6-18—6-19, 432D1 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884D3 EU treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, 765A2 Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802F2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835C3 Swiss mosque minarets ban backed 11-29, 837C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232C2; 10-1, 732C2 Leterme named premr 11-25, 820C2 Medicine & Health Care Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-18, 195G3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Opel/Vauxhall sale opposed 9-10, 609A1 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale blocked 10-16, 767D2 Middle East Developments Al Qaeda Yemen members sentncd 7-13, 646F1 Monetary Issues Bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-12, 163A2 Space & Space Flights DeWinne flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519B2 Sports Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2 Trade, Aid & Investment Eurozone finance mins mtg held 3-9, 163D1 Somalia intl aid conf hosted 4-23, 269F3 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl members electn held 3-31, 336B3 Rwanda genocide anniv marked 4-7, 248D2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 3-4, 123G1 Clinton visit cont 3-5, 142C1, E1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfer rptd 10-9, 718F2–G2

BELIZE Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232C2; 10-1, 732C2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1

BELKIC, Beriz On US’s Biden visit 5-19, 378E2

—BERLUSCONI 983 BELL, Col. Anthony (ret.) Iraq reconstructn deal probe rptd 2-15, 101E3

BELL, Griffin Boyette (1918-2009) Dies 1-5, 9C3

BELL, Heath NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483E3 NL saves ldr 10-6, 690G3

BELL, Jamie Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BELL, Kristen Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

BELL, Lake It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

BELL, Mychal Jena teen beating suspects plead no contest, victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525A1, C1

BELL, Tobin Saw VI on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

BELLEMARE, Daniel Seeks Hariri slaying suspects custody transfer 3-1, 211B1

BELLINGER, John Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306B1

BELLISARIO, Troian Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

BELL Laboratories (New Jersey) Boyle/Smith win Nobel 10-6, 694E1

BELLMON, Henry Louis (1921-2009) Dies 9-29, 731A3

BELLOWS, James G. (1922-2009) Dies 3-6, 192E1

BELLSON, Louie (Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni) (1924-2009) Dies 2-14, 140F1

BELLSOUTH Corp. Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49C1

BELTRAN Leyva, Arturo Cousin prison transfer convoy ambush kills 8 4-21, 359G2 US chrgs set 8-20, 556E2 Slain 12-16, death mulled 12-17, 928A2

BEMIDJI State University (Minn.) NCAA men’s hockey tourn semi lost 4-9, 300C1

BEN, Ebikabowei Victor Arms surrender rptd 8-22, 575C1

BENADIR University (Somalia) Mogadishu blast kills 22+, protests held 12-3—12-7, 889A1, G1, C2

Ben ALI, Leila Husband reelected 10-25, 746G1

Ben ALI, Gen. Zine el-Abidine (Tunisian president, 1987- ) Facts on 10-25, 746D1 Vote held 10-25, reelectn rptd 10-26, 746A1

BENANTI, Laura In the Next Room opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954G1 Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

BENCHELLALI, Mourad French convctn nixed 2-27, 150E2

BENDAVID, Erin Rpts Africa ‘03-07 AIDS death toll drop, questns PEPFAR/HIV infectns efficacy 4-6, 370A1

BENDIXEN & Associates US/Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, 271E2

BENEDETTI, Mario (Mario Orlando Hamlet Hardy Brenno Benedetti Farugia) (1920-2009) Dies 5-17, 364A3

BENEDICT, Claire Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

BENEDICTUS, David Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708D2

BENEDICT XVI, Pope (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) Reinstates bps 1-24; Holocaust denial remarks regretted 1-27, on Auschwitz visits 1-28, 43A2, D2–F2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican, Jewish ties mulled 2-4, calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit set 2-8—2-12, 75F3, 76A1, C1–D1 Hosts US’s Pelosi 2-18, 132A3

Names NYC archbp (Dolan) 2-23, 132D2 Regrets Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) rehabilitatn 3-12, 179B3 Visits Africa, condoms use remarks scored 3-17—3-27, 195C3, F3, 196E1–F1 Italy quake victim Good Friday funeral svc OKd 4-8, 224F3 Paraguay’s Lugo suit filed 4-8; admits fathering illegitimate child 4-13, further allegatns mulled 4-20—4-24, 294C3 Italy quake victims funeral mass held 4-10, 253E3 Visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-8—5-15, 335B1–336D1 Scores PI cathdral attack 7-5, 528E1 Hosts Obama 7-10, 473A1 Opens African bps synod 10-4, 712A1 Canonizes Sts 10-11, 739D1 OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711E2 Addresses UN food security summit 11-16, 812F2 Sees Archbp of Canterbury, invite denied 11-21, 811E1, C2 Sees Russia’s Medvedev, Vatican diplomatic ties OKd 12-3, 892A3 Ireland child abuse rpt mulled 12-11, bps quit 12-17—12-24, 938E1–F1 Italy’s Berlusconi attacked, in hosp 12-13—12-15, 874D3 Signs John Paul II, Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn 12-19, 901B3–C3, E3 Vatican Christmas Eve mass held, knocked down/woman held 12-24, security mulled 12-25, 901F2

BENGAL Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (play) Opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

BENIN, Republic of African Relations AU summit held, Sudan’s Bashir/ICC warrant res opposed 7-1—7-3, 459G1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D2; 10-1, 732D2

BENITEZ Caceres, Rear Adm. Cibar Fired 11-6, 818F1

BENJAMIN, Justice Brent Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390B1–D1

BENJAMIN, Dr. Regina Named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1

BENMOSCHE, Robert Named AIG CEO 8-3; takes post 8-10, compensatn rptd 8-17, 585C3

BENNACK Jr., Frank A. Lincoln Ctr successor (Farley) named 6-8, 400A2

BENNET, Michael (U.S. senator from Colo., 2009- ; Democrat) Named to Sen 1-3, sworn 1-6, 5F2 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, Obama interfenc scored 9-20—9-21, 639A3

BENNETT, Alan Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

BENNETT, Estelle (1941-2009) Found dead 2-11, 120A3

BENNETT, Jimmy Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2 Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

BENNETT, Roy Named dep agri min 2-10, on arrest warrant 2-12, 81B3–C3 Held, chrgs mulled/in ct 2-13—2-18, law chngs urged 2-17, 96C3–G3, 97B1–D1, B2 Freed 3-12, 152C3 Trial set 7-1, 680A3–B3 Held, chrgd 10-14, party boycotts govt, freed on bail 10-16, 746B2–D2 Trial opens 11-9; arms dealer (Hitschmann) testimony OKd 11-11, judge (Bhunu) ouster sought 11-12, 783B2–G2

BENNY the Bull (racehorse) Named ‘08 top male sprinter 1-26, 119F3

BEN‘S Chili Bowl (D.C. restaurant) Ali dies 10-7, 731G2

BENSOUDA, Fatou Seeks Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial witnesses protectn 1-28, 43G1 Guinea protesters attack probe opened 10-14, 701B3

BENTLY, Chris Files tobacco cos suit 9-29, 681F3

BENTON, Rosie Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

BEQUELIN, Nicholas On China ethnic violnc 9-6, 605G3

BERDYMUKHAMMEDOV, Gurbanguly (Turkmenistan president, 2006- ) Rights abuse rpt issued 2-12; pardons prisoners 2-16, Flag Day marked 2-19, 135B2–C2 On China gas deal 6-24, 473D2 Hosts Venez’s Chavez 9-7, 616E3 At Central Asian/China pipeline opening 12-14, signs gas field dvpt deals 12-29, 935F2, A3, C3

BERDZENISHVILI, Murab WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19, 937C2

BERE, Martenus Held 8-8; release ordrd, scored 8-30—8-31, Gusmao survives confidnc vote 10-12, 835B1–F1, A2

BERENGER, Paul (Mauritian prime minister, 2003-05) Hosts China’s Hu 2-17, 170B2

BEREZOVSKY, Boris A. Convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1

BERGDAHL, Pvt. Bowe Hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2; 12-25, 899D3

BERGE, Pierre Sets Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; art trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, Chinese ‘heads’ buyer reneges, nixes sale 3-2—3-3, 159G3–160A1, G1–A2

BERGEN, Candice Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BERGEN, Robert Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

BERGL, Emily Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

BERGMAN, Ingmar (1918-2007) Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954G1

BERING Sea Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409D3

BERISHA, Sali (Albanian president, 1992-97; premier, 2005- ) Parlt electns held 6-28; party joins Socialist coalitn 7-4, results rptd 7-28, 511D2 Renamed PM, confrmd/reelectn backed 9-9—9-17, 625E3 Facts on 9-17, 626A1 On rptr (Baze) attack 11-3, 853A3–B3

BERKSHIRE Hathaway Inc. Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100E2–F2* ‘08 profit rptd 2-28, credit rating cut 3-12—4-8, 241F3 Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759F2 Goldman lending program launched 11-17, 864G3

BERLIN, Irving (Israel Baline) (1888-1989) Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

BERLINGHIERI, Annibale Warhol painting ‘08 $100 mln sale rptd 11-26, 953A2

BERLIN Wall Fall anniv marked 11-9, 787D3, 788B1; photo 788A1

BERLUSCONI, Paolo Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 9-3, 626G3

BERLUSCONI, Silvio (Italian premier, 1994-95/2001-06/08- ) Accidents & Disasters Visits L’Aquila, declares emergency/denies warnings 4-6, sets rebldg aid 4-7, 224C2, D3 Mourns Abruzzo quake victims 4-10, 253C3 Visits Sicily, vows mudslides aid 10-4, 705F1 Crime & Civil Disorders Sicilian Mafia ties alleged 12-4, arrests rptd, Rome rally held 12-5, 875C1, F1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396C3, 397A1 Hosts Libya’s Qaddafi 6-10, 416D2–E2 Visits US 6-15, 416B3 Hosts G-8, MEF summits 7-8—7-9, 453D1, F2–G2 Visits Libya 8-30, 583G2 Seeks Afghan troops exit 9-17, 630A2 Denies Afghan Taliban paymts 10-15, 751A3 Hosts UN food security summit 11-16—11-18, 812C1

984 BERMAN— Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants entry OKd 4-19, 262B2 Medicine & Health Care Orders woman (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt 2-6, 117D1 Personal Europn Parlt candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29; wife seeks divorce 5-3, urges pub apology 5-4, 328C1 Party photos published, seized 6-5; escort use claimed, denied 6-17—6-24, truce set, popular support cited 6-29, 463A2, A3 Escort recordings posted 7-23; scandal coverage mulled, papers suit filed/Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 8-12—9-3, prostitutn svcs alleged, denied 9-9—9-10, 626A3, F3 Alleged escort (D’Addario) interviewed 10-1, press freedoms rally held 10-3, 687C2–D2 Attacked, in hosp/intruder held 12-13—12-16; Bersani visits/Obama calls 12-14—12-15, suspect regrets, transfer nixed 12-15—12-16, 874B3, 875B1; photo 874E3 Politics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 UK atty (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99D3 Dem party ldr (Veltroni) regrets Sardinia gov race party loss 2-17, quits 2-18, 100A1–C1 Fininvest bribery role found, verdict scored 10-3—10-5, immunity law nixed/ruling dismissed, sees Napolitano bias 10-7—10-8, 687A1, E1 Lazio govt head (Marrazzo) quits, Bersani elected Dem ldr 10-24—10-25; cont trial date set 10-26, UK atty (Mills) convctn uphedl 10-27, 749G3–750B1

BERMAN, Howard L. (U.S. representative from Calif., 1983- ; Democrat) Seated Forgn Affairs chair 1-6, 5B1 On Pak’s Zardari aid plea 5-5, 315E2 Hosts Pak’s Qureshi 10-14, 695F2

BERMUDA (British colony) Cuba base detainees transfer rptd 6-11, 391A2 Cuba base detainess transferred 6-11; protests held 6-16—6-18, Brown survives confidnc vote 6-19—6-20, 447B1 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717G3 Cuba base detainees transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760B2

BERMUDEZ, Jaime Signs US mil base access deal 10-30, 817A3

BERNANKE, Ben Shalom Bank of Amer/Merrill buy defended 1-16, 32E1 Sets home loans term chngs 1-27, 45A3–B3 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 Testifies to Cong 2-24—2-25, 111A1–B1 Testifies to Sen com 3-3, 126E1, 127B1 Testifies to House com 3-24, 178A3, C3–D3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291A2, E2–G2 Testifies to Cong 5-5, 319B2 Testifies to House com 6-3, 371A2 Nixes Treasury securities buy hike 6-3, 371C3, 372D1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-11, 388F1, B2–C2 Testifies to House com 6-25, 456G2 Financial crisis response House com hearing held 7-17, 504G1, C2 Testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487C3 Addresses Fed annual conf 8-21, renamed chair 8-25, 571C1, C2 Sees recessn end 9-15, 618A2 On $ value drop 11-16, 798D2–E2 Confrmatn block vowed 12-2—12-3, testifies to Sen com 12-3, 847E1 Named Time ‘Person of Yr’ 12-16, 880C1 Renominatn backed by Sen com 12-17, 865E3

BERNARD, Lance Cpl. Joshua Dies 8-14, AP photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621B3–C3

BERNARD L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F2 Client investmts find nixed 2-20, 113E1 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141A1, G2 Friehling chrgd, surrenders/freed on bail 3-18, 245A2 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 441C3 Fraud scheme SEC probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, 603C2

BERNSTEIN, Leonard (1918-90) West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

FACTS BERNSTEIN, Peter L(ewyn) (1919-2009) Dies 6-5, 420A3

BERRI, Claude (Claude Berel Langmann) (1934-2009) Dies 1-12, 40F2

BERRI, Nabih Hosts US’s Biden 5-22, 380C2 Reelected parlt speaker 6-25, 450A3

BERRIGAN, Michael Ousts Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty 4-3, 719C1

BERSANI, Pierluigi Elected party ldr 10-25, 749E3–G3 Visits Berlusconi 12-14, 874D3

BERSIN, Alan Named ‘border cazr’ 4-15, 341G1

BERTELSMANN AG Mohn dies 10-3, 731E3

BERTHELSEN, Richard NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176D1

BERTHOLLE, Louisette (deceased) Mastering Art of French Cooking on best-seller list 8-31, 596B1; 9-28, 672B1

BERTOLASO, Guido On Sicily mudslides 10-2, 705G1

BERTONE, Cardinal Tarcisio Holds Italy quake victims funeral mass 4-10, 253E3

BESHEAR, Steve (Ky. governor, 2007- ; Democrat) On ice storm damage 2-5, 133G2

BESSER, Richard On swine flu outbreak 4-28, 282B1 On swine flu genetic analysis 5-3, notes patients median age 5-6, 303A2, F2 Replacemt (Frieden) named 5-15, 354G1

BESSIE, Simon Michael (1916-2008) Knopf dies 2-14, 160D3

BESSON, Eric On Calais migrant camp raid 9-22, 666F1–G1 Natl ID debate opens 11-2, 936G3

BEST Friends Forever (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

BEST I Ever Had (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

BESUYE, Atsede Wins Berlin marathon 9-20, 647F2

BETANCOURT, Ingrid ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 FARC ex-cmdr (Aguilar) sent to US 7-16, 526C3

BETHEA, Ty’Sheoma Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108B3

BETTACHI, Robert Asbestos trial opens, evidnc nixed 2-19—4-23; witness testimony questnd, upheld 4-17—4-28, cleared 5-8, 356E2

BETTANY, Paul Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BEVERAGES Energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94B2 Coca-Cola/Huiyuan Juice buy blocked 3-18, protectnsm denied 3-25, 251C2 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, D1, A2 UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626E1, B2 UK/US flights bomb plotter convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3

BEVERLY Hills Housewife (painting) Fetches $7.9 mln 5-13, 953C2

BEY 4th, Yusuf Indicted 4-29, 539F2

BEYLER, Craig Questns Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt 8-17, 700C1, E1, B2

BEYONCE (Beyonce Knowles) ‘Single Ladies’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 I Am...Sasha Fierce on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 West interrupts Swift speech 9-13, 632C2

BHAITANI, Turkestan Tribal areas clashes erupt 8-12, 533C3

BHARARA, Preet Dem fundraiser (Nemazee) indicted 9-21, 656F3

BHAVE, C. B. On Satyam fraud scheme 1-7, 55E1

BHP Billiton PLC Rio Tinto jt venture set 6-5, 481B2, F2

BHUMIBOL Adulyadej, King (Thailand) Pardons royals insulter (Nicolaides) 2-19, 154C1 Thaksin ‘06 coup advisers role seen 3-27, 206A1 Adviser (Prem) home protested, resignatn urged 4-8, 250A2 Thaksin royal pardon sought 8-17, 559C2–F2 Sees Thai ‘ruin’ 8-21; protests held 9-19, in hosp, health rptd 9-19—10-15, 726E2, E3 Health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891C3–D3 Thaksin on reign, remarks mulled 11-9—11-10, 785B2, D2

BHUNU, Judge Muchineripi Adjourns MDC ofcl (Bennett) trial 11-9; OKs arms dealer (Hitschmann) testimony 11-11, ouster sought 11-12, 783D2, F2

BHUPATHI, Mahesh Loses Australian Open men’s doubles 1-31, wins mixed doubles 2-1, 71A2 Loses US Open doubles 9-13, 631E2

BHUTAN, Kingdom of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D2; 10-1, 732D2 Space & Space Flights Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1

BHUTTO, Benazir (1953-2007) (Pakistani prime minister, 1988-90/93-96) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38D3 Protests turn violent/suspects held, rallies banned 3-11—3-1, 175B3 Cops acad attack claimed 3-31, 228F3 Tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418D1 US drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466B3 UN assassinatn probe team arrives 7-16, 514E3 US drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533B2 Widower addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 652G1 Blast kills 101 10-28, 737B1 Pak A-arms control transferred 11-27, 839E1 Pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878G2, B3

BIANCHI, Bruna (d. 2008) Son status mulled 3-14, 186G2 Son US return ordrd 12-22, 926B2–C2

BIBB, Leslie Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

BIBIT Samad Rianto Named graft suspect, held/freed 9-15—11-3; wiretaps rptd, case probed/protests held 10-30—11-9, dep atty gen, cop ofcl quit 11-4, 786B1, D1–A2, C2

BIBLE, The (book) Obama sworn 1-20, resworn 1-21, 25D1, B2 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3, G3–131A1 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C1 Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368G3 Mex cartel alleged members held 10-21—10-22, 747A2

BIDEN, Capt. Beau Dad visits Iraq 7-2—7-4, 464G3 Rep Castle sets Sen seat bid 10-6, 679D1

BIDEN, Jill ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243C1

BIDEN Jr., Joseph R. (U.S. senator from Del., 1973-09; vice president, 2009- ; Democrat) Budget & Spending Programs Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144F1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking On admin abuse policy 3-11, 165D1–E1 Economy & Labor Middle-class task force set 1-28, 63B3 Devaney named $787 bln econ recovery plan monitor head 2-23, 111D2 On May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 388F3 On Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 601D3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Visits Pak/Afghan/Iraq 1-9—1-12, 16C2

ON FILE

Holbrooke/Mitchell named spec envoy 1-22, 29A3 Urges Iraq reconciliatn 2-6, remarks questnd 2-10, 101A3 At Munich Security Conf 2-7, sees Georgia’s Saakashvili 2-8, 74G1, F2, B3 Visits Chile, CR 3-27—3-30, 204D3 Libya activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 359A1 Visits Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo 5-19—5-21, 378G1, C2, F2, A3 Visits Leb 5-22, 380G1 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, 398B1 Visits Iraq 7-2—7-4, 464D3 On Israel/Iran A-program attack, sees cont engagemt 7-5—7-6, 464A3 Visits Ukraine, Georgia 7-21—7-23, 496B2, E2, C3 Iraq prov territorial claims referendum omitted 7-25, 501G1 Visits Iraq 9-15—9-17, 628F3 On Iraq troops exit 9-17, 668D1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635B3 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673G1, 674D1 Tours Eastn Eur 10-21—10-23, 750G1–D2 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-28, 751C2 Health & Safety Issues On swine flu outbreak, remarks clarified 4-30, 282D1–E1 Sees food safety reforms need 7-7, 524D2 On hosp assocs cost cuts 7-8, 457F2 Medicine & Health Care Sets electronic records dvpt grants 8-20, 816F2 Military Issues F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 489F3 Personal ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243C1–D1 Mourns Sen Kennedy 8-28, 584E2 Politics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Electoral coll votes certified 1-8, 6F1 Sees Sup Ct justices 1-14, 21F1 Quits Sen 1-15, 16D2 Sworn 1-20, 25A1, 26D2, F2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105E1, 106D2 Hosts Sen Specter 4-29, 285D1–F1 Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349B1 Backs NJ gov (Corzine) reelectn 6-2, 373D3 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585C1 Rep Castle sets Sen seat bid 10-6, 679C1–E1 Stumps in NJ 10-19, 717C1 Stumps in NY 11-2, 756E1 White House crashers post photos 11-24, 829B3 Religious Issues At Natl Prayer Svc 1-21, 29C2 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Marks 9/11 8th anniv 9-11, 620C2 Transportation Visits electric cars facility 10-27, 743B1

BIEDERMANN, Paul Wins World Champ 400-/200-m freestyles, sets marks 7-26—7-28, on swimsuit 7-28, 547A3–C3

BIEHL, John Visits Honduras, in Zelaya return talks 9-27, 661G3, 662C1

BIERKO, Craig Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

BIES, Michael Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd by Sup Ct 6-1, 374G1

BIG Brown (racehorse) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1 Named ‘08 top 3-yr old male 1-26, 119E3–F3 Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399D2

BIGGOVERNMENT.com (Web site) ACORN tax evasn tapes suits seen 9-23, 638A3, E3

BIGNONE, Reynaldo (Argentine president, 1982-83) Trial opens 11-2, 925D3

BIG Whiskey and the GrooGrux King (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

BIHANI, Ghaleb alCombatant status upheld 1-28, 64C1

BILDT, Carl Sri Lanka entry blocked 4-28, 335A1 On Azerbaijan bloggers arrests 7-20, 544D1 Israeli troops/Palestinians organ theft alleged, claims scored 8-17—8-23, 593E2 On Bosnia govt reforms talks 10-21, 727A2 On Palestinian state backing 11-16, 838A3

2009 Index Scores Swiss mosque minarets ban 11-29, 837B1

BILGI University (Istanbul, Turkey) IMF’s Strauss-Kahn addresses, student tosses shoe 10-1, 675A1

BILIRAKIS, Gus (U.S. representative from Fla., 2007- ; Republican) Scores vets profiling 4-15, 263B1

BILLBOARD Music Awards FCC obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 291B1

BILLBOARD (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

BILLINGSLEY, Peter Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

BILLMEYER, Elizabeth Pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3

BILLY Elliot: The Musical (play) Tonys won 6-7, 399D3

BILSKI v. Doll Accepted by Sup Ct 6-1, 374E1

BINCHY, Maeve Heart and Soul on best-seller list 3-2, 140A1

BING, Dave (Detroit, Mich. mayor, 2009- ; Democrat) Wins Detroit mayoral primary electn, Cockrel race set 2-25, 131E1 Elected Detroit mayor, vows ofc integrity return 5-5, 306A3 Primary held, Barrow race set 8-4, 553F1 Wins electn 11-3, 756E3*

BING, Steve Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517E2

BINGAMAN, Jeff (U.S. senator from N.M., 1983- ; Democrat) Reseated Energy chair 1-6, 5A2

BING Group Founder wins Detroit mayoral primary electn 2-25, 131G1–A2 Founder elected Detroit mayor 5-5, 306C3

Bin LADEN, Iman Iran house arrest escape rptd 12-23, 941C2

Bin LADEN, Omar Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941C2–E2

Bin LADEN, Osama Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20D2 Israel attacks urged 1-14, 13G2, B3 Son locatn mulled 1-16, 38G3 Afghan/US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 78D3 Gaza invasion tape aired 3-14, 369D2 Cheney antiterror remarks scored 3-16, 166B3 Somali interim pres ouster tape posted 3-19, remarks scored 3-28, 238F3 US detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199F3 US vets profiling scored 4-14, 263C1 Tapes aired 6-3—6-4, 369A2 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473D3 Son slaying seen 7-22, 514F2 US terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572B3 Recording posted 9-13, 621B2 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816A2 Tex bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678A3 Afghan ‘oppressn’ warning posted 9-25, 665A3 Qaeda threat cut seen 10-4, 673D3 ‘01 Afghan escape rptd 11-30, 845A1 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) freed, flown to Kuwait 12-9, chrgs dropped 12-10, 861F2 Kids Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941B2

Bin LADEN, Saad Locatn mulled 1-16, 38G3 Slaying seen 7-22, 514F2 Slaying rpts denied 12-23, 941E2

Bin LADEN, Zaina Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941C2, E2

BINSTOCK, Danny Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

Bin TALAL, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad (Jordan) Hosts Pope Benedict 5-9, 335E1

Bin TAMIM, Dahi Khalfan On Chechen ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slaying 4-5, seeks intl probe 4-7, 273C3–E3

—BLACK BIOCHEMISTRY Obituaries Rogers, Lorene L 1-11, 56G2 Segal, Sheldon J 10-17, 792F3

BIOLOGICAL Warfare—See CHEMICAL & Biological Warfare BIOLOGY Hughes kills self 3-16, 192B1 Bat caves entry nix urged 3-26, ordrd shut 5-1—5-21, 356B3 He/Prum/Shapiro win MacArthurs 9-22, 671B2–D2

BIOTECHNOLOGY—See GENETICS BIPARTISAN Campaign Reform Act (2002) Case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444B3, D3 Argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1–D1 Obama fundraising role defended 10-26, 780B2

BIRBILI, Tina Named environmt/energy min 10-6, 686D3

BIRD Flu—See under MEDICINE BIRDS Bush names marine monumt 1-6, 7B2 US Airways jet engine failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33A2 US populatn drop seen 3-19, 267B3 Ore logging curbs ease dropped 7-16, 555G1 Chilean turkeys infectn seen 8-21, 584A1 Timor Sea rig leak damage assessed 10-23, 874A2 Brown pelican delisting set 11-11, 918B1

BIRGENEAU, Robert House vandalized, protesters held 12-12, 916E2

BIRKENFELD, Bradley UBS, US tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100D2

BIRKITT, Stephanie Letterman affair rptd 10-2, 692G1

BIRNEY, Reed Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

BIROS, Kenneth Lethal injectn method OKd 11-25; appeal denied, delay sought/nixed 12-4—12-7, stay rejected by Sup Ct, executed 12-8, 849D2–E2, C3–D3

BIRTH Control & Family Planning Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64B2–D2 US intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47C1 Econ recovery plan measure dropped 1-28, 42A1 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2 Moral/religious med treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146A2 Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-17—3-27, 195D3, F3 ‘Plan B’ FDA limits review ordrd 3-23, 184D2 ‘Plan B’ sale curbs eased 4-22, 539A1 Goosby named PEPFAR head 4-27, 369G3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350C2 Forgn aid measure backed by Sen com 7-6, ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488A3, G3 Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576F1 China annual abortn rate rptd 7-30, 576A2 Obituaries Segal, Sheldon J 10-17, 792F3

BIRTHS—See CHILDBIRTH BIRYUKOV, Viktor On Moscow protesters arrests 10-31, 766F3

BISCHOFF, Sir Win Replacemt (Parsons) named 1-21, 32D2

BISHOP, Kelly Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

BISMULLAH, Haji Transferred 1-17, 28E3

BITI, Tendai Freed 2-6; named finance min 2-10, seeks Reserve Bank ouster 2-12, 81G2 Sworn finance min 2-13, sets forgn currency paymts 2-18, 97F1, B2 At SADC mtg, sees Kaberuka 2-26—2-27, 153B1–C1 At SADC summit 3-30, 203D3 Doubts bilateral aid 9-16, 681B1 On MDC house raid 10-23, 746E2

BIVENS, Carolyn Ldrship questnd 7-6, quits 7-13, 595E1–F1 Whan named LPGA comr 10-28, 949C3

BIYA, Paul (Cameroonian president, 1982- ) Hosts Pope Benedict 3-18, 196E1 Ousts PM (Inoni)/names Yang, shuffles cabt 6-30, 722D3

BJ Services Co. Baker Hughes sets buy 8-31, 660F1

B. J.’s Wholesale Club Inc. Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554F1

BLACH, Leonard Mine That Bird wins Kentucky Derby 5-2, 316E1

BLACK, Bill (William Patton) (1926-65) Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3*

BLACK, Cara Loses Wimbledon mixed doubles 7-5, 467A3 Loses US Open mixed, women’s doubles 9-10—9-14, 631E2

BLACK, Lord Conrad Sun Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393A2 Case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677D3–E3 Enron ex-exec (Skilling) appeal accepted by Sup Ct 10-13, 718C1

BLACK, Dr. David On NASCAR’s Mayfield positive test 5-9—5-18, 363E3

BLACK, Dustin Lance Wins Oscar 2-22, 120C2

BLACK, Jack Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

BLACK, Stephen Donald UK ban set 5-5, 310E2

BLACK Americans Arts & Culture Cafritz house blaze destroys art trove 7-29, 548A3 Awards & Honors Abolitionist (Truth) DC statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2 Poitier gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693F1 Bumbry honored by Kennedy Ctr 12-5—12-6, 895D3 Crime & Law Enforcement Crack cocaine sentncs House com hearing held 4-29, 307E2–F2 La teen beating suspects plead no contest, victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525A1 DC checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-2, 504C3, 505B1, B2 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 701A1 Ohio corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3, 888E1 KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886D3 Employment & Business Dec ‘08 jobless rate 1-9, 14G2–A3 Conn firefighters civil svc exam bias case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 Natl banks bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Jan ‘09 jobless rate 2-6, 80C1–D1 Feb ‘09 jobless rate 3-6, 147F2–G2 Mar ‘09 jobless rate 4-3, 219B3 Apr ‘09 jobless rate 5-8, 323G2–A3 May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 389D1 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2, F2 Jun ‘09 jobless rate 7-2, 456B2–C2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 471D2 Jul ‘09 jobless rate 8-7, 535B2–C2 Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 602B1 ‘08 incomes rptd 9-10, 619C1 Sep ‘09 jobless rate 10-2, 676G1–A2 Oct ‘09 jobless rate 11-6, 778C3 Nov ‘09 jobless rate 12-4, 846B3 Medicine & Health Care US surgeon gen (Benjamin) named 7-13, 476C1–D1 Military Issues Obama sends Meml Day wreaths 5-25, 355D2

985

Obituaries Ali, Ben 10-7, 731G2 Allen, Betty 6-22, 500E2 Bond Jr, J Max 2-18, 192G1 Brown, Anne W 3-13, 192B2 Colescott, Robert H 6-4, 420D3 DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 Eikerenkoetter II, Frederick J (Rev Ike) 7-29, 531E3 Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Harris, E Lynn 7-23, 532F1 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436E1 Kimbro, Warren A 2-3, 104D3 Sims, Naomi 8-1, 532G3 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Wilson, Margaret Bush 8-11, 612G3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Ill’s Burris Sen seat apptmt certificatn sought 1-2; resolutn urged 1-5, seating blocked, sees Reid 1-6—1-7, 4G1, F2 Ill’s Burris Sen apptmt certified 1-9; credentials OKd 1-12, sworn 1-15, 18F2 Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16F2 Obama sworn 1-20, 25A1, 26B1 Sen Gillibrand visits NYC 1-24, 46C3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) backed 1-28; confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60E3 Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62E1 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, Census/White House direct rptg set, pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60A2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79G2 GOP chair (Steele) remarks scored, regretted 3-2, 146A3 Voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 167A1 OneUnited/Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243F1 Obama on race 3-24, 181D3 Sen Burris nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 478F1 Obama addresses NAACP 7-16, 491G3 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602F2 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, Obama interfenc scored 9-20—9-21, 639F2, B3 House com ethics probes set 10-29, 779D3–E3 NYC mayoral electn results 11-3, 756B3 Atlanta runoff held 12-1, results rptd 12-9, 848C3 Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 869B1–C1 Press & Broadcasting Robinson wins Pulitizer 4-20, 279B3 Social Issues Survey traces African ancestry 4-30, 516B1–C1 Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916A3 Space & Space Flights NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373A2 Sports Yale football coach (Williams) named 1-7, 24A2

BLACKBURN, Elizabeth H. Wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3, 694A1–B1

BLACKBURN, Marsha (U.S. representative from Tenn., 2003- ; Republican) At conservatives Capitol rally 9-12, 619E3

BLACK Eyed Peas, The (music group) ‘Boom Boom Pow’ on best-seller list 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1 ‘I Gotta Feeling’ on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1 E.N.D. on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532E1; 8-29, 596D1, 452D1

BLACK Hills (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

BLACKMON, Douglas A. Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2

BLACK Ops (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

BLACK Panthers Kimbro dies 2-3, 104D3

BLACKROCK Inc. Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 178B1

BLACK Sea Georgia breakaway region, Russian naval base plans seen 1-26, 85F1 Ukraine/Romania border chngd 2-3, 137D1 Turkey/Russia gas pipeline deal signed 8-6, 561D1 Turkish tanker (Buket) seized 8-14, 607G1 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking probe set 8-20, 550D3

986 BLACKSTONE— Russian patrols open 9-20, 645B2

BLACKSTONE Group LP Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913F1

BLACKSUMMERS‘night (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

BLACK v. United States Accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677E3

BLACK Watch (play) Olivier Awards won 3-8, 231E1

BLACKWATER Worldwide Iraq civiln deaths suspects plead not guilty 1-6, 9A1 Iraq ouster rptd 1-29, 53B2–F2 Named chngd 2-13, 208G3

BLACKWELL, Ken Loses GOP chair electn 1-30, 62F1

BLACKWOOD, Grant—See MICHAELS, David BLAGOJEVICH, Robert Brother ouster com hearing held 1-8, 93F2 Brother impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1 Sen Burris 2d gov ouster com affidavit rptd, talks mulled/explanatn sought 2-14—2-16; fund-raising bid admitted, probes open 2-16—2-17, resignatn urged 2-18, 93B2–C2, G2–A3 Indicted 4-2, 218B3 Pleads not guilty 4-14, 243B2 Sen Burris wiretap release OKd 5-26, 478C1

BLAGOJEVICH, Rod R. (Ill. governor, 2003-09; Democrat) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Sen seat nominee (Burris) issues affidavit to ouster com 1-5, 93E2–F2 Burris Sen seating blocked 1-6, ouster com hearing held, impeachmt urged 1-8, 3D3, 4F3–G3 Impeachmt passes legis 1-9, Burris Sen apptmt certified, credentials OKd/sworn 1-9—1-15, 18C2, F2 Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29F3 Impeachmt trial held 1-27; seeks, delivers speech 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43A3, E3 Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3 Sen Burris 2d ouster com affidavit rptd, on brother talks/explanatn sought 2-14—2-15; admits fund-raising bid, probes open 2-16—2-17, seeks backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1 House seat spec electn Dem primary held 3-3, 131D1 Pension funds paymt suspects chrgd 3-19—4-15, 265D3 Indicted 4-2; pension reforms signed 4-3, Rep Jackson probe confrmd 4-8, 218B3, 219A1, D1, F1 Pleads not guilty 4-14, reality TV deal rtpd 4-16, 243A2 Brother/Sen Burris wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27; questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, rules out ‘10 run 7-10, 477G3–478B1 Sen Burris admonished 11-20, 814B2–C2, F2

BLAIR, Betsy (Elizabeth Winifred Boger) (1923-2009) Dies 3-13, 192F1

BLAIR, Dennis (U.S. director of national intelligence, 2009- ) Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen 1-5, Brennan named White House advisor 1-8, 6A1 Natl intell dir Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28G2 Natl intell dir Sen com hearing held, testimony issued/confrmd 1-22—1-28, 45D1 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) experience questnd 3-9, testifies to Sen com, withdraws 3-10, 144F2, 145B1–C1 Testifies to Sen com 3-10, 174G1 On surveillnc satellites replacemt 4-7, 244B2 Admits NSA unlawful data collectn 4-16, 243E2 On CIA interrogatn methods 4-16—4-21, 257D1, 258A3 Denies Rep Harman NSA wiretapping 4-27, 206B2–C2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288E3 Issues terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts 5-7, 322E3 On N Korea A-test 6-15, 404C2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600C1 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought 11-12, 778C1

FACTS Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer set 12-15, 861C1

BLAIR, Tony (British prime minister, 1997-2007) Gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2 Mandelson powers hiked 6-5, 397A2 Iraq war probe testimony sought 6-15, 449F1–G1 Iraq war probe opens 7-30, 530A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled 8-21, 568G1 Labour Party conf held 9-27—10-1, 666D2 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685A3 Czech pres (Klaus) signs EU treaty 11-2, 765B2 At W Bank border crossing opening 11-10, 790D3 EU pres (Van Rompuy), forgn policy chief (Aston) named 11-19, 802B3, E3 Iraq war documts leaked 11-21—11-23, probe opens 11-24, 821B1, E1

BLAIRON, Laurence On Sudan’s Bashir indictmt 3-4, 122A2, C2

BLAKEMORE, Michael Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3

BLAME It (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

BLANCHARD, Doc (Felix Anthony Blanchard Jr.) (1924-2009) Dies 4-19, 280B3

BLANCHETT, Cate Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Streetcar Named Desire revival opens in DC 10-31, 896D1

BLANCO, Jorge Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

BLAND, Joey Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

BLANK, Jessica Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

BLANKBUEHLER, Andy 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

BLANKENSHIP, Don Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390C1–D1

BLANKFEIN, Lloyd White House visits rptd 10-30, 780E1

BLANTON, Joe Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770B3

BLAU, Robert Sees El Salvador’s Funes 3-16, 170B3

BLEARS, Hazel Quits 6-3, 397B2

BLIGE, Mary J. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

BLIGH, Anna Declares flooding emergency 5-20, 413F2

BLIND Side, The (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

BLITHE Spirit (play) Opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3 Lansbury wins Tony 6-7, 400C1, E1

BLITZER, Wolf Interviews Colo balloon incident family 10-18, 745D3

BLOCK, Josh Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) smearing rptd 3-12, 145A1

BLOCK, Stephanie J. 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

BLOMKAMP, Neill District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

BLOODGOOD, (Korinna) Moon Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

BLOODY Bloody Andrew Jackson: The Concert Version (play) Opens in NYC 5-17, 348E1

BLOOM, Ron Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93E1 Testifies to Sen com 6-10, 385B3–C3, 386A1 Named auto task force chief 7-13, 475F3

BLOOMBERG, Michael R. (New York City mayor, 2002- ; Independent) On Rep Gillibrand Sen apptmt 1-23, 46A3

Carrion named White House urban affairs dir 2-19, 113C1 Scores Air Force One flyover 4-27, 208E1–F1 Holds Silverstein/Port Auth mtg 5-21, 620A3 Testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3 On Hudson River air traffic 8-9—8-10, 538F1 Marks 9/11 8th anniv 9-11, 620C2 Wins Lasker 9-14, 671C3–D3 Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1 Reelected 11-3, 756E2 At USS NY commissioning 11-7, 914D3 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-13, 793G1

BLOOMBERG L.P. BusinessWk buy set 10-13, Yrangiel named ed 11-17, 912F3 Thai king (Bhumibol) health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891D3

BLOWING the Whistle: The Culture of Fraud in the NBA (book) Excerpts posted, Random House drop rptd 10-28, 771C3

BLUE Cross & Blue Shield Association Preexisting illness pricing end OKd 3-24, 245E3

BLUE Dog Coalition Health care reforms proposal mulled 6-3, 391B1

BLUEPRINT 3, The (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

BLUTMENTHAL, Richard Files med treatmt denial curbs ease suit 1-15, 64G1

BLYSMA, Dan Named Penguins interim coach 2-15, 159D2 Named Penguins full-time coach 4-27, 299F2

BMW—See BAYERISCHE Motoren Werke BMW AG China Nov ‘09 sales rptd 12-7, 932C2

BNP Paribas Belgium premr (Leterme) named 11-25, 820D2

BOAL, Augusto (1931-2009) Dies 5-2, 332F2

BOATS & Boating Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd, boat found 1-12—1-14, 52A1–C1 US Airways jet engine failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, 33G1 Indonesia abandoned refugees found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, Thai mil policy mulled, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99B1–C1, A2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103G2 US/Mex border security hike mulled 4-2, 249A3 ASEAN ldrs exit Thai 4-11, 250E2 African migrants rescued, origins rptd 4-16—4-20, Italy entry OKd, EU rules urged 4-19, 262A2 Venez hydrocarbon seizure authrzn passes Natl Assemb, oil assets natlzn set 5-7, 395C1 Tropical storm Nangka hits PI 6-24—6-26, 528G2 Mumbai terror attack suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499E3 S Korea fishing boat seized 7-30, 518C1 S Korea fishermen, boat freed 8-29, 600D2–E2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782B2–C2 French camp raided/migrants held, UK asylum bids denied 9-22, 666A2 Storm Ketsana hits PI, aid set 9-26, 664A2–B2 Quake/tsunami hit Amer Samoa 9-29, 662E3 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Sri Lankan refugees rescued 10-18; sinking try rptd 10-22, Australia asylum bids tallied 10-25, 931G1, E2 Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801G1 Pvt yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20, 903E2 Iran seizes yacht 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857A3

ON FILE

Accidents & Disasters—See ACCIDENTS—Marine America’s Cup—See AMERICA’S Cup

BOBBY v. Bies (2009) Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd by Sup Ct 6-1, 374A2

BOC, Emil (Romanian premier, 2008) Fires interior min (Nica) 9-28; coalitn nixed 9-30, govt loses confidnc vote 10-13, 705F2–C3 Pres electn held, runoff set 11-22, 821B3 Govt OKd, sworn 12-23, 938D2–E2

BOCCIERI, John (U.S. representative from Ohio, 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BOCELLI, Andrea My Christmas on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

BOEDIONO Rptr attacked, in hosp 6-26; protests held 6-28—7-1, apology rptd 6-30, 461E3

BOEHNER, John A. (U.S. representative from Ohio, 1991- ; Republican) Facts on 1-6, 4E1 Reseated minority ldr 1-6, 5E1 On Obama econ recovery plan 1-8, 7D1 On $825 bln econ recovery plan 1-15, 15C2 Vs $787 bln econ recovery plan 2-13, 89D2 On Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125F3 On Obama budget proposals 3-24, 180F3 Scores Obama budget proposals 4-14, 240G1 Scores vets profiling 4-15, 263B1 On Obama budget cuts 4-20, 264B1 On fscl ‘10 budget blueprint deficit forecast 4-29, 289E1 On terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing 5-7, 323B1 On May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 388E3 Delays climate chng bill vote 6-26, 445F1 On health care reform deficit hike 7-21, 487B3 On Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 601E3 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, 638G3 On health care reform Sen proposal 9-16, 617B2 On Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613F2 Hosts Canada’s Harper 9-17, 643E1 Backs Afghan troops hike 9-21, 635A3 Backs Rep Rangel com chair ouster 10-7, 679A2 Questns health care reform bill 10-29, 741B1 Questns stimulus package job data 10-30, on Oct jobless rate 11-6, 778E2 On health care reform GOP proposal, 773B3 Questns $787 bln econ recovery plan job data 12-3, 847E1

BOEING Co., The Terror detainee torture info release opposed 2-9, 80D2 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112B2 Afghan/US mil detainees policy cont 2-20, 112A3 Dutch/Turkey flight crash kill 9 2-25, 173B3 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 208C1 Terror detainees CIA renditn aid info release suit reinstated 4-28, 290D1 F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1 US’s Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517E2 Dreamliner jet test flights set 8-27; Carson sets retiremt, Albaugh named 8-31, freighter jet delays chrgd, ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 10-6—10-21, 744C1 Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615D3–E3 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2–E2 787 Dreamliner test flight held 12-15, 921C2

BOERE, Heinrich Trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, 854B1–C1

BOFFO, Dino On Berlusconi scandal coverage 8-12, quits 9-3, 626G3–627A1

BOGDEN, Daniel Named fed atty 7-31, 537A1

BOGLE, Bob (Robert Lenard) (1934-2009) Dies 6-14, 420B3

BOGOLLAGAMA, Rohitha Seeks intl aid 4-23, 277G1

2009 Index Hosts Australia’s Smith, signs asylum seekers memo 11-9, 931A1–B1

BOHN, Jason Loses Wyndham Champ 8-23, 670G2

BOHR, Aage Niels (1922-2009) Dies 9-8, 632E2

BOHR, Niels Henrik David (1885-1962) Son dies 9-8, 632F2

BOIES, David Files Calif gay marriage ban suit 5-22, 353B1

BOISE (Idaho) State University Football yr-end rank rptd 12-6, 879C3–D3

BOJADZIC, Nihad Held 11-4, 820D3

BOKOVA, Irina UNESCO dir gen votes held, elected 9-17—9-22, vows climate chng role hike 9-23, 675D2–A3

BOLANI, Jawad alBank robbed, pres guard members held 7-28—8-1, on US troops exit hike urge 7-31, 529C2, A3 Arrest sought 10-29, 738F2 Orders Blackwater ‘07 bribes authrzn probe 11-11, 789G2 Baghdad blasts kill 121+ 12-6, 856C2

BOLANO Avalos, Roberto (1953-2003) Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191B3–D3

BOLANOS, Jorge Cuba immigratn talks return OKd 5-30, 376B2

BOLDEN, Maj. Gen. Charles (ret.) Named NASA admin 5-23, 373F1

BOLDEN, Kamal Angelo Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

BOLDIN, Anquan Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70C3

BOLIVAR, Simon (1783-1830) Chavez protests held 9-5, 616G3

BOLIVAR Banco CA Seized 11-20, reopening set 12-11, 929F1, F2

BOLIVIA, Republic of Crime & Civil Disorders Shootout kills 3 4-16; Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, US role mulled 4-18—4-19, 294A1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking DEA agents exit 1-29, 204B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Const referendum held 1-25, 50C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D2; 10-1, 732D2 Pres electn held 12-6, preliminary results rptd 12-8, 850E3 Latin American Relations Peru indigenous unrest influence seen 6-7, 395A1 Peru amb (Rojas) recalled, Morales scored 6-16, 432B1 UNASUR summit held 8-10, 541C3 UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589E2 Middle East Relations Iran A-program aid alleged, denied 5-25—5-26, 362D1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits 11-24, 885E1, C2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204F1

BOLL, Jared Among NHL penalty minutes ldrs 4-12, 299C3

BOLLES, Don (1928-76) Dunlap dies 7-21, 648D2

BOLLINGEN Prize in American Poetry Grossman wins 2-16, 953D1

BOLSHOI Ballet (Moscow) Maximova dies 4-28, 300G3

BOLT, Usain Wins World Champ medals, sets marks/turns 23 8-16—8-22, 579E1

BOLTON, John R. US seeks Human Rights Cncl seat 3-31, electn held 5-12, 336C3 On Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613F2

BOLTT, Nathalie District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

—BOMBINGS 987 BOMBARDIER Inc. NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot errors seen 2-15—2-18, 95C2

BOMBAY Stock Exchange Index drops 1-7, 55E1 Index rises 5-18, 345A3 Index drops 7-6, 513G3

BOMBINGS Africa Somalia blast kills 15+ 1-24, 66C3 Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154B2 Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme) slain 3-1, 133A3, F3 Somalia blast kills 36+ 6-18, 430G1 Mauritania/French emb blast hurts 2 8-8, 704C2 Somalia blasts kill 14+, attack claimed 9-17, 622A3 Somali blast kills 21, Mohamud role probed 9-17—9-25, 781B1 Somalia flight passenger held 11-13, bombing try rptd 12-30, 899B1 Somalia blast kills 22+ 12-3; Al Shabab denies role 12-4, protests held, further attacks warned 12-7, 889A1, F1 Asia/Pacific Rim Sri Lanka blast kills 3 1-2, 9F2 Afghan blasts kill 17+ 1-8—1-17, 54C3–D3 Afghan blasts kill 41 2-2—2-11, 102E2, A3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 Sri Lanka blast kills 20 2-9, 119B3 Pak dist Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102E3 Pak blast kills 28+ 2-20, 138E3 Myanmar blasts hit 3-3, 188G1 Afghan blasts kill 36+ 3-15—4-1, 195G2, B3 China blast hits cops station 3-17, 327C1 Pak blasts kill 90+ 3-23—4-5, 228D3, 229C2, F2, B3 Pak blast kills 20+ 4-18, 276B3 Pak blast kills 12 4-25, 298A3 Afghan govt bldgs blast kills 20 5-12, 317C3 Nepal blast kills 2 5-23, 363E1 Afghan blast kills 6 5-26, 381F3 Pak blasts kill 35, Lahore attack claimed 5-27—5-28, 382B3 Pak blasts kill 55+ 6-5—6-12, 418F1, D2–F2, B3–D3 Thai blasts kill 1 6-7—6-8, 416F1 Pak blast hurts 30 7-2, 467C1 PI blasts kill 12 7-5—7-7, 528C1 Afghan blasts kill 6 7-6, 466F1 Afghan blasts kill scores, IED attacks rise seen 7-9—7-22, 498F2, A3, G3–499B1, G2 Pak blast kills 9+ 7-13, 514F3 Indonesia blasts kill 7, Yudhoyono visits/standby troops rptd 7-17—7-18; JI role seen, bombers laptop found/IDs sought 7-18—7-22, Noordin wife held 7-22, 494E2, C3, F3, 495B1 India ‘03 bombers convctd, sentncd 7-27—8-6, 594G3 Afghan civiln deaths ‘09 rise rptd 7-31, blasts kill scores 8-1—8-12, 546E3, 547F2 Indonesia hotel blasts suspects held, slain 8-7—8-8, victim ID mulled, probe ends 8-8—8-12, 542A1 Afghan/China flight diverted 8-9, 606B2 Afghan blasts kill scores 8-15—8-20, 549D2, F2–G2 Pak blast kills 5 8-15, 578A2 Afghan blast kills 43 8-25, 577C3 Thai blast hurts 42 8-25, 748C1 Pak blasts kill 37 8-27—8-30, 630B3, D3 Myanmar/China border blast kills 1 8-28, 590D2 China ‘terror gang’ held 9-16, 703A2 Indonesia terror raid kills 4/computer files found, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643E3–F3, 644D1–E1 Pak blasts kill 41+ 9-18—9-26, 669E3–F3, 670C1 Afghan blast kills 34+ 9-27—9-29, 669E1–F1 Pak blasts kill scores 10-5—10-12, 694A3–B3 Afghan blast kills 17 10-8, 674D2 Pak blasts kill 11 10-16—10-20, 710C1 Australia attack plotters convctd 10-16, 930G1–A2 Pak blasts kill 116+ 10-23—10-28, 737A1, D1; photo 737F1 Afghan blasts kill 14 10-27—10-28, 751E2, G2, E3 Pak blasts kill 35 11-2, 769C1 Pak blasts kill scores 11-8—11-18, 806G3–807B1 Afghan fertilizer stash seized 11-11, 775B3 Afghan blasts kill scores 11-13—11-19, 806D1, G1 Afghan blas kills 18+ 11-20, 845D1

Pak blasts kill 95+ 12-4—12-7, 858G1–C2 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845B2 Pak blasts kill scores 12-22—12-28, 946F3, 947F1, B2 Afghan blasts kill 20+ 12-24—12-30, 899D1–E1, C3, E3 Canada Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723A1–F1 Commonwealth of Independent States Russia blast kills 6+ 2-12, 274E1 Russia blast kills 5+ 3-5, 274D1 Chechnya blasts kill 6 5-13, 5-15, 378F2, F3 Uzbek blasts kill 1 5-26, 663G2, C3 Georgia RR blast hits 6-2, 378A2 Russia blast kills 1 6-3, 417A2 Russia blast hits Ingush pres convoy, Yevkurov in hosp 6-22—6-23, 449B3 Russia blast kills 21 8-17, 560D2 Chechnya blasts kill 8, Ingush suicide attacks threat seen 8-21—8-28, 591G1 Russia alleged attack plotter slain 9-4, 728A2 Chechnya blast hurts 8+ 9-16, 728G1 Russia blast kills 3 11-13, 855F1 Russia RR blasts kill 27 11-27—11-30; suspects described 11-30, attacks claimed 12-2, 836G1 Russia gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892B2 Russian car blasts kill 2, cops search rptd/bomber (Dzhaniyev) IDd 12-16—12-18, 938E3 Europe Spain blast hits 2-9, 226F2–A3 UK ‘05 blasts suspects cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310A3 Turkey blast kills 9 4-29, 329C3 Albania blast kills 1 6-18, 511B3–C3 Greek blast hits McDonald’s 7-4, 591F1 Spain blasts kill 2, ETA blamed 7-29—7-30, 513F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns to Libya 8-20, 550B1, B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3, 568A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 582D3, 583F1, A3–B3 Greece stock exchng blast hurts 1 9-2, 591D1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636B2, C3 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, B2 UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626E1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704A3 Croatia ‘08 blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2, A3 Venez’s Chavez hails Ramirez 11-20, 929A3 UK cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3 Italy’s Berlusconi, Sicilian Mafia ties alleged 12-4, 875F1 UK/US flights bomb plotter convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3 Latin America Venez synagogue bombed 2-26, 270D3 CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682E1 Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925A1 Mex antidrug, US aid spending rptd 12-3, 928D3 Middle East Iraq blasts kill scores 1-1—1-8, 8D2 Iraq blasts kill 8 1-12, 23E2 Iraq blasts kill 7, Iran resistnc group attack plans rptd 1-18—1-21, 38D1–F1, F2 Iraq female suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 67F2 Gaza blast kills 1 1-27, 42D2–E2 Iraq blast kills 1 1-28, 53G3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 47A1 Gaza reprisal attacks rptd 1-30, 157D3 Iraq blast kills 14+ 2-5, 57E2 Iraq blasts kill scores 2-9—2-16, 101E1, C2 Egypt blast kills 1 2-22, suspects held 2-23, 117D2 Iraq MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117A3 Iraq blast kills 2 2-23, 117G3

Iraq insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2 Iraq blasts kill 73+ 3-5—3-10, 156A1 Yemen blast kills 4+, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646B2 Israeli blast fails 3-21, 210F2, C3 Iraq blasts kill scores 3-23—3-25, 189C2–F2 Leb blast kills 4 3-23, 211E1 Iraq blasts kill 23+ 3-26—3-31, 209A1, C1 Iraq blasts kill 40+ 4-6—4-7, 217D3 Iraq blasts kill 23+, attacks claimed 4-10—4-15, 254F2 Iraqi insurgent (Delaema) sentncd 4-16, blasts kill 24+, attacks claimed 4-16—4-22, 275F1, E2 Leb’s Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312B2, E2 Iraq blasts kill scores 4-23—4-29, 296F2 Clinton visits Iraq 4-25, 297C3 Iraq blasts kill 16+ 5-1—5-6, 312B1–C1, A2 Iraq blasts kill 10 5-11—5-12, 331C2 Iraq blasts kill 46+ 5-20—5-21, 344E2 Leb’s Hariri slaying Hezbollah role alleged, denied 5-23—5-24, 380D2 Iraq blasts kill scores 5-24—5-27, 362C3–E3 Iran mosque blast kills 25, militants hanged/role denied 5-28—5-30, flight bomb defused/suspects held, Khatami flying schedule rptd 5-30—6-2, 398B1, F1–A2 Iraq blasts kill 21+ 5-29—6-3, 380D1–E1 Iraq blasts kill 37+ 6-8—6-10, 398B2 Iran shrine blast claimed 6-20, 422D1 Iraq blasts kill scores 6-20—6-25, 433D1, G1, G2–A3 Iraq blasts kill 44+ 6-26—6-30, 437A1, C2 Iraq blasts kill 65+ 7-8—7-9, 465B1–E1 Iraq blasts kill scores 7-11—7-13, 483F1, D2–E2 Iran rebels executed 7-14—7-16, 485C3, 486A1 Iraq blasts kill 25+ 7-15—7-21, 498G1–A2 Iraq blasts kill 57+ 7-28—8-3, 529G1 Iraq barriers removal set 8-5, blasts kill scores 8-7—8-11, 545F1, C2 Iraq blasts kill scores 8-13—8-19, 562G2–A3, E3–F3 Gaza blast kills 2 8-14—8-15, 563B2 Iraq forgn/finance min bldgs attack mulled, death toll hiked 8-21—8-29, blasts kill scores 8-24—8-31, 592E2, B3, D3, F3 Saudi blast hurts prince 8-27, 943F2 Iraq blasts kill 51+ 9-7—9-10, 610A2, F2 Iraq blasts kill 3 9-12, 629A2 Iraq blasts kill 22+ 9-18—9-28, 668F1–G1, B2 Iraq blasts kill 16+ 10-5—10-6, 688D3–F3 Iraq blasts kill scores 10-11—10-20, 729E2 Iran blast kills 42+, forgn intell links claimed 10-18, 729B1 Iraq blasts kill 167+, suspects held/security lack arrests rptd 10-25—10-26, 738B1, 739B1; photo 738A2 Iraq suspect held, slain 10-31, UN security envoy arrives, blasts kill 17+ 11-1, 789F3 Israel radical settler (Teitel) held, chrgd 11-1, 768E3 Iraq blasts kill 3 11-25, 837G3 Iraq blasts kill 122+ 12-6—12-7, 856G1 Iraq blasts kill 8+ 12-15, 877A2 Iraq blasts kill 48+, bombers sentncd 12-24—12-30, 942C3, 943B1 Leb blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945E2 United States Terrorist (Jassem) freed 2-19; deported 2-26, arrives in Sudan 3-3, 411B3 ‘70s radical (Olson) freed 3-17, 202F2 USF ex-student (Megahed) cleared 4-3, 816B1 Terror suspect (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411G2 NYC terror suspects held 5-20, 375A1 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488A2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) Colo hotel stay seen/chem sought, visits NYC 9-6—9-12; mass transit alert issued, security hiked 9-18—9-22, held/evidnc rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641E2, 642A1, F1, A2–C2 Terror training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719C2 NYC apartmt raided/bomb plot suspect (Zazi) transferred, hotel search rptd 9-22—9-26; pleads not guilty, chrgs questnd 9-29, accomplices role seen, Khan surveillnc cont 10-8, 678D1, A2–C2 Tex plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678G2 Ill plot suspect (Finton) held, chrgd 9-24, 678B3 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914G3 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914D1 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/chrgd 12-25—12-26; security hiked, intell mulled 12-25—12-31, attack claimed, sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, 897A1–899B1; photo 897E1

988 BO Min— BO Min Yu Ko Sentncd 1-3, 188E1–F1

BOMMENTRE, Brent 3d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

BONAPARTE, Napoleon (1769-1821) (French emperor, 1804-14/15) Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64D1

BOND Jr., J(ames) Max (1935-2009) Dies 2-18, 192G1

BOND, Julian Addresses DC gay rights march 10-11, 698F3

BOND, Kit (Christopher S.) (U.S. senator from Mo., 1987- ; Republican) Questns Panetta CIA dir apptmt 1-5, 5E3 Nixes reelectn bid 1-8, 5A3 On CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns 1-28, 65F3 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 Vs terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt, on pvt promise 8-19—8-24, 565D1–E1 Urges ‘green jobs’ adviser (Jones) resignatn 9-4, 602G2

BONDS—See STOCKS BONDS, Barry Henderson elected to HOF 1-12, 71A3 Perjury trial evidnc block sought 1-15; documts unsealed 2-4, drug tests admissn mulled 2-5, 87B3 Rodriguez admits steroids use 2-9, 87F1 Perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158D2 MLB season opens 4-5, 277G2

BONES (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

BONGO, Ali Ben Dad dies 6-8, urges calm 6-9, 393D3–E3

BONGO, American Inge Husband elected pres 8-30, 604D2

BONGO, El Hadj Omar (Albert-Bernard) (1935-2009) (Gabonese president, 1967-2009) French bank accts frozen 2-26, 394A2 Wife dies 3-14, 393B3 French embezzlemt suit upheld, drops duties 5-5—5-6; in Spain hosp, dies/mourning set 5-31—6-8, body returned 6-11, 393A3, F3, 394F1 Funeral held, buried 6-16—6-18, electn held, results rptd/son win confrmd 8-30—9-4, 604A1–B1, D1, A2–B2, A3 Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 Son pres electn win confrmd 10-12, sworn 10-16, 722F2 French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3

BONGO, Sylvia Valentin Husband elected pres 8-30, 604C2

BONGO Ondimba, Ali Ben (Gabonese president, 2009- ) Dad funeral held, buried 6-16—6-18; electn held, results rptd/win confrmd 8-30—9-4, protests turn violent, France’s Sarkozy backing rptd 9-3—9-10, 604A1, E1–F1, D2, G2 Facts on 8-30, 604A2 Pres electn recount set, boycotted 9-27—9-29; win confrmd, ruling scored 10-12—10-14, sworn 10-16, 722E2

BONGO Ondimba, Edith Lucie Dies 3-14, 393B3

BONGO Ondimba, Pascaline Dad dies 6-8, 393F3

BONHAM Carter, Helena Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

BONINO, Nick Boston U wins NCAA title 4-11, 300B1

BON Jovi (music group) Circle on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1

BONNER, Jo (U.S. representative from Ala., 2003- ; Republican) On com probes leak 10-29, 779C2

BONNER & Associates Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655B1–D1

BONOMY, Judge Iain On Serbia ex-pres (Milutinovic) acquittal 2-26, 110D1

FACTS On Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) kin harassmt claims 4-2, 274A3

BOOKS—See LITERATURE BOOM Boom Pow (recording) On best-seller list 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1

BOOMGARD, James On detained US contractor 12-14, 927F3

BOONE, Megan My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BOONEN, Tom Tests positive 4-24, suspended 5-9, 515B3

BOOTH, Terence My Wonderful Day opens in NYC 11-18, 954B2

BORAD, Chris Questns Sri Lanka cricket team Pak security 3-4, 138E1

BORAS, Scott Drops Ramirez suspensn appeal 5-6, 347G3

BORDABERRY, Pedro Pres electn held, results rptd/runoff set 10-25—10-26, concedes, backs Lacalle 10-26, 746C3, 747A1

BORDER Patrol, U.S.—See HOMELAND Security, U.S. BOREL, Calvin Rachel Alexandra wins Kentucky Oaks 5-1, 315F3 Mine That Bird wins Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315D3, F3 Rachel Alexandra wins Preakness 5-16, 347C1–D1, F1, B2 Mine That Bird 2d in Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399B2

BOREN, Dan (U.S. representative from Okla., 2005- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BOREN, David L. Named intell advisory bd member 10-28, 916E1

BORGES, Desmin Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

BORISSOV, Boyko (Bulgarian premier, 2009- ) Parlt electns held 7-5; vote backed, results rptd 7-6—7-7, govt coalitn sought 7-16, 482B2–D2 OKd, sworn premr 7-27, 576F3 Facts on 7-27, 577A1 Visits EU hq 9-9, 727D2

BORK, Robert H. Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 570C1

BORLAUG, Norman Ernest (1914-2009) Dies 9-12, 632F2

BOROS, Julius (1920-94) Watson 2d in British Open 7-19, 500C1

BOROWITZ, Andy Hosts Natl Bk Awards 11-18, 860B1

BOSE, Miguel Performs at Cuba peace concert 9-20, 661G2

BOSH, Chris Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3

BOSNIA and Herzegovina Civil War ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 US, Afghan/Pak spec envoy (Holbrooke) named 1-22, 29B3 Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claim mulled, appeal denied 2-15—4-7; kin harassmt alleged 4-2, poems publisher punished 4-10, 274D2 Serb ex-pol (Krajisnik) convctns nixed, sentnc cut 3-17, transferred 9-7, 628B2 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377D3 Mladic home videos aired 6-10, Serbs (Lukics) convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511D3, G3 Saudi royals/charities, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491C3 Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8; Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, ex-pres (Plavsic) release OKd 9-15, 628D1, F1–G1 Serb ex-gen (Trbic) convctd/cleared, sentncd 10-16; ex-cops held 10-28, army ex-cmdr (Kujundzic) sentncd 10-30, 820F2, E3 Croatian suspects chrgd 10-19, 822B3 Serb ldr (Karadzic) seeks trial delay/boycotts, counsel mulled 10-26—10-27, argumts open/adjourned, Plavsic freed 10-27, 749A1, A2

Serb ldr (Karadzic) in ct 11-3, atty apptmt ordrd, trial delayed 11-5, 767E2 Muslim army ex-dep cmdr (Bojadzic) held 11-4, Banja Luka community compensatn nixed 11-5, 820C3–D3 Serb ex-fighters held, chrgd 11-5—11-6, 822E2 EU peacekeeping missn extended 11-18, 940F1 Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1 Serb ex-troop (Malic) convctd 12-7, 893E1 Serbia tribunal cooperatn hike rptd 12-22, 939D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Roads agency graft curbs set 6-18, 449B1 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO entry bid woes seen 6-22, 448E3 European Relations EU entry bid woes seen 6-22, 448E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E2 Dayton accords subversn seen, Serb law nix set/backed 6-19—6-22, 448E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732E2 US/EU-backed govt reforms nixed, talks cont 10-20—10-21, ‘paralysis’ seen 10-21, 727D1 Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Sports Australian Open fans clash 1-23, 71E1–F1 Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF loan OKd 5-5, 343B1 IMF loan postponed 6-23, 448C3 IMF loan OKd 7-8, 512B1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 5-19, 379G1, C2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12A2 Welfare & Social Services Vet benefits cut protested 6-18, 448C3

BOSS, Jeffrey Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

BOSTANOV, Ismail Slain 9-20, 728F1

BOSTON—See MASSACHUSETTS BOSTON College Football coach (Jagodzinski) Jets interview rptd 1-5, fired 1-7, 24F1 Raji in NFL draft 4-25, 298F2 Emerald Bowl lost 12-26, 948B3

BOSTON Globe (newspaper) Shutodwn warned/nixed, unions OK concessns 4-3—5-4, Newspaper Guild deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 393A1 Workers pay/benefits cut OKd 7-20; sale nixed 10-14, Ainsley quits, Mayer named 10-29, 912D2

BOSTON Medical Center Universal health care suit filed 7-15, 520E3

BOSTON Newspaper Guild Boston Globe workers pay, benefits cut OKd 7-20, 912F2

BOSTON University Gilroy wins Hobey Baker Award (top coll hockey player) 4-10, 300C1 NCAA men’s hockey title won 4-11, 299G3 ‘Craigslist’ slaying suspect (Markoff) held 4-20, 429F1 Ex-football players study NFL role set 12-20, 948C1

BOSTROM, Donald Alleges Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft 8-17, 593D2

BOSWORTH, Stephen Urges N Korea A-program talks return 6-11, 404A2 N Korea talks sought 8-25, 568D3 Tours Asia, urges N Korea A-program sanctns enforcemt 9-3, 600B3 N Korea A-program talks mulled 9-11, 653A1 N Korea visit set 11-9, plan cont 11-11, 796F1 Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found 12-12, 863A1 Missionary (Park) N Korea entry/arrest rptd, role mulled 12-29, 933E3

BOTSWANA, Republic of African Relations Zimbabwe unity govt deal scroed 1-26, 67D2

ON FILE

Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai transferred 3-7—3-9, 152D2–E2 AU summit held 7-1—7-3; ICC cont cooperatn set 7-5, Sudan’s Bashir warrant res opposed 7-7, 459E1, G1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232F2; 10-1, 732F2 Gen electns held 10-16; results rptd 10-18, Khama sworn 10-20, 722A2

BOTTLING—See CONTAINERS BOUCHACOURT, Father Christian On Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) remarks 2-9, 76B1

BOUCHER, Frederick C. (U.S. representative from Va., 1983- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BOUCHER, Richard Sees Mumbai terror attacks Pak role 1-5, 39D2 Visits Bangladesh, urges Myanmar ethnic minorities abuse halt 2-8, 99F1

BOUCHIHA, Mohamed Pres electn held 10-25, loss rptd 10-26, 746B1

BOUGHANMI, Abel Ben Mabrouk bin Hamida Transferred to Italy 11-30, 861C2

BOUILLARD, Alain On Brazil flight crash impact, cont black box search 7-2, 473E1–F1, A2

BOULANGER, Todd Pleads guilty 1-30, 60D2–E2

BOULEZ, Pierre Krauss ties Grammys mark 2-8, 88A2

BOULKHEIR, Messaoud Ould Pres electn held 7-18; results rptd 7-19, files appeal 7-22, 492C3

BOUMEDIENE, Lakhdar France transfer OKd 4-3, confrmd 5-6, 305D3

BOUMEDIENE v. Bush (2008) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C2 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717F3

BOURGES, Florian Smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644D2

BOURGUIBA, Habib Ben Ali (1903?-2000) (Tunisian president, 1957-87) Electns held 10-25, 746E1

BOURKE, Anthony Lion Called Christian on best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

BOURN, Michael NL steals ldr, among 3B ldrs 10-6, 690E3–F3

BOURS, Eduardo On Sonoro day-care fire victims 6-7, 431A3 Day-care owners arrest sought 7-2, 557A1

BOURSICOT, Bernard Ex-lover dies 6-30, 516G3

BOUSTANY Jr., Charles (U.S. representative from La., 2005- ; Republican) Gives Obama speech response 9-9, 598F1–G1

BOUT, Viktor US extraditn blocked 8-11, appeal filed 8-13, 534F1, A2–D2

BOUTEFLIKA, Abdelaziz (Algerian president, 1999- ) Electn boycott urged 4-6; vote held, questnd 4-9—4-10, reelectn rptd 4-10, 248A1

BOUTSIKARIS, Dennis Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

BOVELL, Andrew When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, London 5-21, 451C3

BOVESPA—See SAO Paulo Stock Exchange BOVINE Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)—See MEDICINE—Mad Cow Disease BOWDEN, Bobby Sets retiremt 12-2, 879E3

BOWDEN, Jim DR prospect fake ID rptd 2-18, quits 3-1, 277A3–D3

BOWEN, Bruce Traded to Bucks 6-23, 451E2

BOWEN Jr., Stuart On Iraq reconstructn funds return 3-16, 175A1 Sees Aecom, Iraq overbilling 10-30, 790A1

2009 Index BOWER, Jeff Named Hornets coach 11-12, 951A3

BOWERS, David Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

BOWLING Obama on ‘Tonight Show’, regrets Spec Olympics joke 3-19—3-20, 182G2–A3

BOWLING, Thomas Executn halted 11-25, 849F3–G3

BOWLING Green (Ohio) State University Browne dies 10-22, 792B3 Humanitarian Bowl lost 12-30, 948G2

BOWMAN, Bob On swimsuits ban 7-28, 547D3

BOWO, Fauzi Orders quake safety review 9-2, 606F3

BOX, David Shock buy set 10-20, 808B1

BOXALL, Bettina Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C2

BOXER (U.S. amphibious assault ship) Somali pirates hostage standoff joined 4-10, 237F2

BOXER, Barbara (U.S. senator from Calif., 1993- ; Democrat) Reseated Environmt/Ethics chair 1-6, 5B2 Introduces emissns cut bill 9-29, 654F2 On climate chng legis passage 10-12; unveils bill 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 742G3, 743B1–D1, B2 Opens climate chng bill debate, EPA experts testify 11-3—11-4, bill backed 11-5, 759F3–760A1 Fiorina sets seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Vs Afghan troops hike 12-2, 827A3

BOXING Bouts (heavyweight) Klitschko decisns Johnson, retains WBC title 12-12, 895F2 Bouts (light-welterweight) Pacquiao stops Hatton, wins IBO title 5-2, 384D2 Bouts (middleweight) Pavlik stops Espino, retains WBC/WBO titles 12-19, 895G2 Bouts (welterweight) Mayweather decisns Marquez 9-19, 647D2 Pacquiao stops Cotto, wins WBO title 11-14, 895B2 Crime Issues Serikov slain 8-11, suspects surrender 8-17, 576A3 Obituaries Arguello, Alexis 7-1, 468D2 Arouch, Salamo 4-26, 364G2 Forrest, Vernon 7-25, 531F3 Gatti, Arturo 7-11, 500C3 Johansson, Ingemar 1-30, 88G3 Macias, Raul 3-23, 231F3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532E3 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56G2 Olympics Women ‘12 additn OKd 8-13, 691B2 People De La Hoya reties 4-14, 383G2 Mayweather sets return 5-2, 383F2 Gatti buried 7-20; death reclassified suicide, widow freed 7-30; body exhumed, autopsy held 7-31—8-1, 548F2 Professional Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895A3 Substance Abuse Issues Pacquiao/Mayweather fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2

BOYD Jr., Allen (U.S. representative from Fla., 1997- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BOYD, Daniel Chrgd 7-27—9-24, 679A1

BOYD, Dylan Chrgd 7-27, 679A1

BOYD, Pastor Brady Reveals Rev Haggard sex partner paymts 1-25, 151F3

BOYD, Zakariya Chrgd 7-27—9-24, 679A1

BOYES, Brad Among NHL power-play/game-winning goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

BOY George (George O’Dowd) Sentncd 1-16, 71D3 Freed 5-11, 348A3

BOYLE, Danny Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2 Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40D2

—BREWSTER Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104E1–F1 Wins Oscar 2-22, 120B1, B2

BOYLE, Susan On ‘Britain’s Got Talent’/loses final, in hosp 4-11—5-31, 383G3 I Dreamed a Dream on best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

BOYLE, Willard S. Wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1–E1

BOYS Choir of Harlem (N.Y., N.Y.) Demise confrmd 12-13, 954A1

BOZICEVICH, Sgt. Joseph Iraq clinic shooting kills 5 5-11, 330A3

BOZIZE, Gen. Francois (Central African Republic president, 2005- ) Ousts govt 1-18, Touadera renamed premr, cabt set 1-19, 34C3

BOZKHO, Vladimir On hosp fire 9-13, 936A1

BOZO the Clown Livingston dies 3-13, 192C3

BP PLC Tex refinery ‘05 blast fine upheld 3-12, 916G3 Iraq oil field bid set, OKd 6-29, 7-1, 437G2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled 8-21, 568F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release UK ofcl correspondnc leaked 8-30, 583G1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, Libya oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5, 636C3–D3 BP Tex refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-3, 789D3 Tex ‘07 chem release damages awarded 12-18, 916D3

BRADBURY, Steven Revokes Bush admin antiterror memos 1-15, 130B1 Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14, response seen 2-17, 94E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutn mulled 4-16—4-21, 257E2–F2, 258B2; excerpts 260A1, F2, C3 Bybee CIA interrogatn memos defended 4-28, 290E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322C3–D3 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn documts issued 8-24, 567D1

BRADEN, Joan Ridley (1922-99) Widower dies 4-3, 256F2

BRADEN, Tom (Thomas Wardell Braden 2nd) (1917-2009) Dies 4-3, 256F2

BRADFORD, Mark Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

BRADLEY, David Defends sponsored salons 7-6, 479G1

BRADLEY, John Named Tex forensic comm chair 9-30, Gov Perry pressure claimed 10-12, 700C2–D2

BRADLEY, Milton Traded to Mariners 12-18, 948G3

BRADY, Cardinal Sean Regrets child abuse church role 11-26, 836C1

BRADY, Tom Weds Buendchen 2-26, 160E2 Patriots/Chiefs swap Cassel, Vrabel/pick 2-28, 176G1 Returns 9-14, 631D3–E3

BRAIN—See under MEDICINE BRAINARD, Lael Named Treasury intl affairs undersecy 3-23, 200F2

BRAMMERTZ, Serge On Serbia cooperatn hike 12-3, 939D2

BRANCA, John Files Jackson will 7-1, named estate coexecutor 7-6, 468A2–B2

BRANCUSI, Constantin (1876-1957) Madame LR fetches 29.2 mln euros 2-23, 160C1

BRAND, Elton NBA season ends 4-15, 278F3

BRAND, Myles Neil (1942-2009) Dies 9-16, 648B2

BRAND, Russell BBC fined 4-3, 256C2

BRAND, Pfc. Willie Tex mil base gunman (Hasan) sees atty 11-9, 777A3

BRANDON, Marlon (1924-2004) Malden dies 7-1, 468A3

BRANDWEEK (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

BRANSON, Sir Richard Virgin space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884D1

BRASS—See COPPER BRASS Verdict, The (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

BRAUCHLI, Marcus Sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 479B1, D1 On US bureaus closure 11-24, 912C3

BRAUN, Eva (1912-45) Remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939A2

BRAUN, Ryan NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 NL hits ldr, among batting/RBI ldrs 10-6, 690D3–E3

BRAVO (cable TV channel) Comcast buy set 12-3, 830D3

BRAZIL, Federative Republic of Accidents & Disasters Flooding deaths, damage rptd 5-26, 447A2 France flight disappears 5-31—6-1; wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369E2–F2, B3–C3 France missing flight air sensors replacemt woes rptd 6-6; wreckage, bodies found 6-6—6-11, A-sub search opens 6-10, 387A1–D1 Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, crash impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473F1, A2 Itui River plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926D2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Xi visits 2-19, 197F1 Da Silva visits China 5-19, 448C2 Crime & Civil Disorders Eco nun (Stang) murder suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447A2 Boxer Gatti found dead 7-11, wife held 7-12, 500D3 Gatti death reclassified suicide, widow freed 7-30, 548F2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking ‘03-09 casualties tallied 12-8, 926E2 Economy & Labor Dec ‘08 jobless rate (6.8%) 1-22, 82E3 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 3-10, 186A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 6-9, 447F1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 9-11, 623A3 Sao Paulo ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900C1, D2 Energy Paraguay dam power deal set 7-25, 508F2 Power outages hit 11-10, cause mulled 11-11, 871D3 Environment & Pollution Amazon reserve OKd 3-19, 447C2 Emissns cut vowed 11-14, 828C2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1, 882B1, F1, C3; table 883B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cuba/US spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392F3 European Relations Hungary shuts Sao Paolo consulate 6-16, 512B2 UK cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Progressive ldrs summit held 3-27, 204F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232F2; 10-1, 732F2 Immigration & Refugee Issues US immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 Latin American Relations El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3 UNASUR summit held 8-10, 541C3 Chile pres (Allende) ‘70 ouster bid role revealed, documts release urged 8-16—8-18, 569D1 UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589F2 Zelaya returns to Honduras, emb handover sought/role denied 9-21; protests turn violent, svcs cut/restored 9-21—9-23, force use nixed, power return urged 9-23, 643F1, B2, A3–D3 Honduras emb harassmt halt ordrd 9-25, warning issued 9-27, 661E3–F3, 662A1

989

Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) emb sheltering halt sought 10-28, return deal signed 10-29, 762A3, 763B1–C1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return deal failure seen 11-6, 784C2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return nixed 11-20—12-2, electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 834F1, C2 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834C3 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu vaccine donatns set 9-17, 697F1 Middle East Relations Palestine’s Abbas/Israel’s Peres/Iran’s Ahmadinejad visit, protests held 11-12—11-23, 885E1–F1, A2 Monetary Issues Interest rate cut 1-21, 82G3; 3-11, 186B3 Real ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3 Obituaries Boal, Augusto 5-2, 332F2 Oil & Gas Developments Petrobras signs Sinopec/CNPC oil deals, reserves exploratn China funding set 2-19, 197E1 China/Petrobras loan set 5-19, 448C2 Deep-sea oil reserves dvpt limits proposed 8-31, 926E1 Sports Confederatns Cup won 6-28, 859D2 Rio wins ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691C1 Brazilian Grand Prix results 10-18, 950D1 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2, A3 Trade, Aid & Investment Jan ‘09 trade gap rptd 2-2, 82D3 US protectnism end sought 3-11, 186C2 G-7, IMF mtg held 4-24—4-26, 283D2, C3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405C1–F1 G-8 summit held 7-9, 453B2 US goods sanctns OKd by WTO 8-31, 590B1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 IMF mtg held 10-6—10-7, 674A3–B3 UN Policy & Developments Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Da Silva visits 3-14—3-16, 186B2 Obama sends da Silva letter 11-22, 885B2 Boy return ordrd 12-22, dad/son reunite, fly to Fla 12-24, 926A2

BREAKING Bad (TV show) Cranston wins Emmy 9-20, 647C3, F3

BREAKING the Code (play) Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

BREASTON, Steve Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70C3, E3

BREEDLOVE, Lt. Gen. Philip Urges detainees IDs, Red Cross access 6-17, 621A3

BREEN, Patrick Next Fall opens in NYC 6-3, 564D2

BREEN, Steve Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

BREES, Drew Named NFL top offensive player 1-6, 55D2

BRENNAN, John Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen 1-5, Brennan named White House advisor 1-8, 6A1 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257D1 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886G2 Mich flight failed blast intell woes mulled 12-31, 898E2–F2

BRENNAN, Neal Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

BRENNAN, Nigel Freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3

BRENNAN Jr., William Joseph (1906-97) (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1956-90) Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301E1

BRESLIN, Abigail My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

BRESNIK, Col. Randolph Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 11-16—11-27, 902D1–E1

BREUER, Lanny Testifies to Sen com 4-29, 307C2, E2–F2

BREWER, Benjamin Son born 2-11, 104D2

BREWER, Jan (Ariz. governor, 2009- ; Republican) Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185E3

BREWSTER, Jordana Fast & Furious on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

990 BREYER— BREYER, Judge Charles Brocade ex-CEO (Reyes) retrial set 12-2, 910E2

BREYER, Stephen G. (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1994- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Backs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444E2 Capital Punishment Orders Ga inmate (Davis) hearing 8-17, 553C2 Backs Ohio inmate (Getsy) stay 8-17, 553E2 Censorship Issues Vs FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1 Defendants’ Rights Backs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266F1 Backs suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374E1 Backs convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426E1 Vs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307B2 Backs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Backs ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337G3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Immigration Issues Curbs ID theft law 5-4, 444G3 Judicial Issues Vs evidnc exclusionary rule limits 1-14, 21C1 Upholds judge sentncg power 1-14, 21E1 Clarifies judges campaign contributns recusal rule 6-8, 390E1 Labor Issues Backs pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301D2, C3 Racial Bias Backs Conn firefighters test nix 6-29, 444B1 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3, 131A1 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443D1

BRIATORE, Flavio Piquet fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, quits, banned 9-16—9-21, 646A3–B3, D3, F3–G3

BRIBERY—See under CRIME BRIDE Wars (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BRIDGES, Bruce Hurt 8-11, 922D3

BRIDGES, Campbell Slain 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3

BRIDGES & Tunnels Gaza/Egypt tunnels destroyed 1-1—1-3, 1G1 Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4; women shrine visitors banned 1-6, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8F2 Gaza violnc cont, Egypt arms smuggling curbs seen 1-10—1-15, 13D1, 14E1 Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31D1–F1 Obama sworn 1-20, 27A2, 28D1 Gaza tunnels rebldg rptd 1-24, 42G2–A3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41G2 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge reopened 2-6, 103F1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90D3 Gaza border opening conditn set 2-18, 157A2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2 Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse constructn cos setlmt rptd 3-26, 357G2 NATO summit held, protests turn violent 4-4, 213D2 Minn bridge collapse victims setlmt OKd 4-16, 292F2 US ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305D2 Gaza tunnels bombed 5-2—5-6, 313E3

FACTS Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan 8-7—8-9, 559D3 Gaza/Egypt tunnel bombed 8-25, 593G2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) visits NYC 9-10—9-12, held/evidnc rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641E3, 642A1 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782C2 Zoli wins MacArthur 9-22, 671E2 PI landslides, flooding cont 10-8—10-10, 704E1 Iraq blasts kill 4 10-17, 729G2 El Salvador floods/mudslides kill 144+, emergency declared 11-7—11-10, 818C1 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 788C1 China/HK/Macao bridge constructn opens 12-15, 933A1 Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3 Egypt/Gaza border wall bldg mulled 12-21—12-22, 945F2

BRIDGESTONE Corp. Hatoyama regrets campaign donatns misrptg 11-30, 873B2

BRIEF Encounter (film/play) Play opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

BRIGHAM Young University (BYU) (Provo, Utah) Las Vegas Bowl won 12-22, 948C3

BRIGHT, Bobby (Montgomery, Ala. mayor, 1999-2009; U.S. representative, 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

BRIGHTON Beach Memoirs (play) Revival opens, closes in NYC 10-25, 10-31, 895F3

BRIN, Sergey Motwani found dead 6-5, 452G3

BRINEGAR, Claude Stout (Claude Rawles Stout) (1926-2009) Dies 3-13, 192A2

BRINKER, Nancy Goodman Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548G1

BRINKER, Norman Eugene (1931-2009) Dies 6-9, 420C3

BRINKER International Inc. Brinker dies 6-9, 420C3

BRISCOE, Ryan 3d in IRL Title standings 10-10, 950E2

BRISMAN, Julissa Slain, held 4-14—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, further victims sought/response mulled 4-20—4-25, 429B2, D2–E2

BRITAIN—See GREAT Britain BRITAIN‘s Got Talent (TV show) Boyle debuts/loses final, in hosp 4-11—5-31, 383G3

BRITISH Academy of Film and Teleivsion Arts (BAFTA) Awards presented 2-8, 104E1

BRITISH American Tobacco PLC Canada prov suit filed 9-29, 681G3

BRITISH Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) Azerbaijan forgn radio broadcasting curbs open 1-1, 206B3 Gaza victims aid appeal airing nixed 1-22, 42B3–C3 Iran rptr (Saberi) held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1 Zimbabwe’s Biti interviewed 2-12, 81E3 Fined 4-3, 256C2 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318C1 Sudan’s Bashir interviewed 5-12, 376C1 Sri Lanka’s Pathmanathan interviewed 5-24, 363A2 Sudan’s Amum interviewed 6-15, 431B1 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402F2 Iran rptr ousted 6-21, 421C1 Iran electn protests role alleged 7-9, 464B1 Sri Lanka judge (Udalagama) interviewed 7-14, 579C1 Zimbabwe rptg curbs lifted 7-29, 588E3 NATO Afghan cmdr (McChrystal) interviewed 7-31, 547A1 Forgn intell chief (Scarlett) interview aired 8-10, 544F1 Straw interviewed 8-30, 583B2 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump libel suit warned 9-16, 654F1 Russia’s Gorbachev interviewed 9-20, 667F2 Brown interviewed 9-27, 666C3 US’s Clinton interviewed 10-30, 769C2 Brown interviewed 11-13, 806B1 Yemeni forgn min (Qirbi) interviewed 12-29, 944C3

Iraq hostage (Moore) relatives interviewed 12-31, 942B1 Obituaries Downes, Sir Edward 7-10, 516G2 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Landon, H C Robbins 11-20, 880C2 Richard, Wendy 2-26, 192F3 Sugden, Mollie 7-1, 484G3

BRITISH Columbia, University of (Canada) Prescribed heroin addictn treatmt efficacy found 8-19, 691G3

BRITISH Museum (London) Greece seeks Elgin Marbles return 6-20, 449C2–E2 Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard value hiked 11-25, 952E3

BRITT, Kenny In NFL draft 4-25, 298G3

BRITTEN, (Edward) Benjamin (1913-76) Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

BRIVANLOU, Ali Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918E2

BROADBENT, Jim Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

BROADCASTING—See TELEVISION BROADCOM Corp. Execs stock backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 810A2

BROADWATER Energy LLC

ON FILE

BROUGHER, Kerry Koshalek named Hirshhorn dir 2-26, 160G2

BROUSSARD, Devaughndre Pleads guilty 5-7, 539E2

BROWDER, William Laundered funds subpoena OKd 11-24, 822A1–C1

BROWN, Anne Wiggins (1912-2009) Dies 3-13, 192B2

BROWN, Arthur DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915C3, F3–G3

BROWN, Bob Scores renewable energy bill 8-20, 624E1

BROWN, Chris In Rihanna clash, held/misses Grammys 2-8, freed on bail 2-9, 88E2 Pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 Sentncd 8-25, 580D2

BROWN, Corey Shocking wins Melbourne Cup 11-3, 807A3

BROWN, Dan Angels & Demons on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1; 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1 Lost Symbol on best-seller list 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

BROWN, Donald In NFL draft 4-25, 298F3

BROWN, Ernest (Brownie) (1916-2009) Dies 8-21, 612B3

NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2

BROWN, Ewart (Bermudan prime minister, 2006- )

BROADWAY—See NEW York City BROADWAY League

On Cuba base detainees transfer 6-11, 391A3 Cuba base detainess transferred 6-11; protests held 6-16—6-18, survives confidnc vote 6-19—6-20, 447B1

‘08-09 season tallied 5-26, 400F1 Tonys presented 6-7, 399C3

BROCADE Communications Systems Inc. Reyes convctn nixed 8-18, retrial set 12-2, 910E2

BRODERICK, Matthew Philanthropist revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2 Surrogate twins born 6-22, 516F1 Starry Messenger opens in NYC 11-23, 954E2

BRODEUR, Martin Sets career wins mark 3-17, 299E3 Sets goaltender minutes/games played marks 11-27—12-18, sets regular-season shutouts mark 12-21, 951A2

BROKAW, Mark After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3 Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

BROKEN Word, The (book) Foulds on Costa shortlist 1-5, 139F3

BROKE-OLOGY (play) Opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

BROLIN, Josh Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

BROLLY, Shane Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

BRONFMAN Jr., Edgar Grandson born 2-14, 104E2

BROOKE, Tom Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

BROOKE Army Medical Center (San Antonio, Tex.) Ft Hood shooting suspect (Hasan) sees atty 11-9, 777G2 Ft Hood shooting suspect (Hasan) cont stay OKd 11-21, 813F1

BROOKINGS Institution UN amb nominee (Rice) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16B2 Brainard named Treasury intl affairs undersecy 3-23, 200F2 Bernanke addresses 9-15, 618B2 FCC chair (Genachowski) addresses 9-21, 744E2 Obama addresses 12-8, 846C3

BROOKS, Mel (Melvin Kaminsky) Kennedy Ctr honors 12-5—12-6, 895C3

BROOKS & Dunn (music group) #1s...and Then Some on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

BROOM, Romell Executn try fails, delays ordrd 9-15—9-22, 719E2, A3–B3 Ohio lethal injectn method chngd 11-13, 849A3, D3

BROWN, Gordon (British prime minister, 2007- ) Africa Hosts ldrs 3-16, 170C1 On Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying 6-3, 370E1 Asia/Pacific Rim Hosts China’s Wen 2-1—2-2, 98F2 Visits Afghan, vows troops hike 4-27, 4-29, 314A2–B2 Defends Afghan war effort, denies equipmt lack 7-10—7-11, mulls troop levels 7-13—7-16, 498E2, B3–F3 Scores Myanmar’s Suu Kyi trial, urges UN arms embargo 8-11, 543A2 Visits Afghan 8-29, 594D2 Defends Afghan war 9-4; seeks security transfer conf 9-6, on NYT rptr rescue raid 9-9, 611G2, G3 Sees Gen McChrystal 10-1, Afghan troop levels scored 10-6, 673G2, B3 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-6, 685E3 Hikes Afghan troops 10-14, 695D3 Calls Afghan’s Karzai, hails pres electn runoff 10-19—10-20, 710A3, 711A1 Afghan troops support questnd, scores Karzai govt corruptn 11-6, regrets name misspelling 11-10, 775B2 On Afghan troop levels 11-13, 806B1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818E2 Sets Afghan troops hike 11-30, 826F1–G1 Visits Afghan 12-13, 894F2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Marks D-Day 6-6, 386B2 Regrets WWII code-breaker (Turing) treatmt 9-10, 648B1 Economy & Labor On RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) pension return 2-27, 155D2 Budget unveiled 4-22, defends tax hike 4-23, 272B3–C3 Backs financial indus crisis tax 11-7, 775G3 Defends bank bonuses tax 12-10, 854C2 Environment & Pollution Scores Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks 12-21, 881C3 Europe Dutch MP (Wilders) entry barred 2-12, 136E3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396A3 Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788E1 Ashton named EU forgn policy chief 11-19, 802E3 Barnier named Europn Comm internal mkt comr 11-27, 835G2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section At progressive ldrs summit 3-27, 204F3 Scores UN’s Ban, Myanmar visit cooperatn scored 7-4, 462B2 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633E2 At Commonwealth mtg 12-8, 845D3

2009 Index Iraqi Conflict Hosts Iraq’s Maliki, ends troops missn 4-30, 297C2 Opens war probe 6-15, OKs ltd pub hearings 6-18, 449C1–F1 On hostages slayings 7-29, 530B1 War probe opens 11-24, 821B1 Middle East Orders Iran diplomats exit 6-23, 423A2 Reveals Iran secret A-site 9-25, 649A1, D1 Urges Israeli forgn min (Livni) visit 12-16, 884E2 Northern Ireland Visits N Ireland, mourns IRA attack victims/urges calm 3-9, 155D1 Seeks IRA victims, Libya compensatn 9-6, 636E3 Politics Brother home cleaning svc expense rptd 5-8; regrets parlt scandal 5-11, urges reforms 5-19, 343D2, D3–E3 Shuffles cabt 6-2—6-5; local electns held 6-4, party backing won, reforms proposed 6-8—6-10, 397D1 Denies pill use, addresses Labour Party conf/Sun backs Tories 9-27—9-30, 666C2–C3 Expenses repaymt sought, OKd 10-12, 727G2 Legis agenda set 11-18, 821G1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Claims thwarted plot 4-9, 253F2 Suspects abuse role probe opposed 8-4, 544A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, scores Libya welcome 8-21—8-25, 568C1–E1, A2 Denies Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release deal 9-2, 582D3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, Libya oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5, 636E3 Trade, Aid & Investment At World Econ Forum 1-28—2-1, 68C3 Hosts G-20 summit 4-1—4-2, 193A2–C2 United States Visits, sets Sen Kennedy honorary knighthood 3-3—3-4, 124A2 Hosts Obama 4-1, 193F1, 194B2–C2 Hosts Clinton 10-11, 704G2, D3

BROWN, James Franklin (1928-2009) Dies 11-16, 896A2

BROWN, Jerry (Edmund G. Brown Jr.) Sets subway passenger slaying probe 1-10, 247E1 Seeks prison health care ofcr ouster 1-28, request nixed 3-24, 356A2, C2 Newsom gov bid backed 9-15, 639G3–640A1 Gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757B1

BROWN, Judith Chomsky On Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setlmt 6-8—6-9, 406B1

BROWN, Mary Patrice Named Justice Dept ethics chief 4-8, 218E2

BROWN, Michele Quits 8-25, Christie NJ gov bid role questnd 10-20, 716C3

BROWN, Mike Named NBA top coach 4-20, 278E2

BROWN, Sandra Smoke Screen on best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

BROWN, Sarah Hosts Obamas 4-1, 194B2

BROWN, Scott Wins Sen seat GOP primary 12-8, 848C2

BROWNBACK, Sam (U.S. senator from Kan., 1997- ; Republican) Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656B2

BROWNE, Ray Broadus (1922-2009) Dies 10-22, 792B3

BROWNER, Carol Mulls CO2 emissns EPA regulatn 2-22, 131F2–G2 Doubts climate chng bill passage 10-2, 743F1, A2

BROWNFIELD, William Signs Colombia mil base access deal 10-30, 817A3

BROWN University (Providence, R.I.) Sizer dies 10-21, 840G2

BROXTON, Jonathan Dodgers lose pennant 10-21, 752A2–C2

—BULLOCK BRUBAKER, Rockne Wins US champ 1-24, 139E2

BRUBECK, Dave Kennedy Ctr honors, turns 89 12-5—12-6, 895D3

BRUCE, Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Elected LA asst bp 12-4, 868C3

BRUCE, Ian Groundswell opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

BRUCE, Thomas (Lord Elgin) (1766-1841) Greece seeks Elgin Marbles return 6-20, 449C2–D2

BRUEDERLE, Rainer Sworn econ min 10-28, 749B3

BRUEHL, Daniel Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

BRUMBY, John OKs Victoria bushfires mil aid 2-8, 83B3

BRUNEAU, Lisa Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

BRUNEI (Negara Brunei Darussalam) Asian/Pacific Rim Relations PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890G2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G2; 10-1, 732G2

BRUNO (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

BRUNTLETT, Eric Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752C2

BRUTUS, Dennis (Vincent) (1924-2009) Dies 12-26, 954G3

BRUYNEEL, Johan Contador wins Tour de France 7-26, 515B2

BRYAN, Bob Wins Australian Open doubles 1-31, 71A2 Wins French Open mixed doubles 6-4, 399D1 Loses Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467A3

BRYAN, David Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

BRYAN, Mike Wins Australian Open doubles 1-31, 71A2 Loses Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467A3

BRYANT, Chris Sets Laos drug trafficker (Orobator) transfer 7-27, 933E2

BRYANT, Kobe West wins All-Star Game, named co-MVP 2-15, 159B1 Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3 2d in NBA MVP voting 5-4, 332B1 Lakers win NBA title, named MVP 6-14, 419C1, G1, C2–D2, F2 At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468C1

BRYANT, Michael In Toronto car, bike crash 8-31, chrgd 9-1, 927A2

BRYGGMAN, Larry Groundswell opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

BSE (Bovine Spongiform Enchephalopathy)—See MEDICINE—Mad Cow Disease BTA Bank Govt stake bought 2-2, 68A1 Allegatns spark bank run 3-6, Respublika fined 9-9, 663A2

BUBLE, Michael Crazy Love on best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

BUCHANAN, James (1791-1868) (U.S. president, 1857-61; Democrat) Obama sworn 1-20, 26D2

BUCHANAN, Patrick J(oseph) Braden dies 4-3, 256G2

BUCK, Leila Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

BUCKLEY Jr., William F(rank) (1925-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

BUCKMASTER, Jim On Craigslist curbs 4-21, sees Ill/Conn/Mo atty gens, rpts ‘misuse’ drop 5-5, 429G2–B3

BUCKNER, Greg Traded to Mavericks 7-9, 771C2

BUDANOV, Col. Yuri Freed 1-15; rights atty (Markelov) slain, death threats rptd/case links denied 1-19, 36F2–B3

BUDDEKE, Kate Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

BUDDHISM Tibet Losar boycott urged, monk held 2-15, ‘08 protesters sentncd 2-19, 116E2, B3 Myanmar prisoners freed 2-20, 188D1 China clashes erupt, suspects held 3-21—3-22, 327B1 Tibet abbot trial opens 4-21, verdict delayed 4-27, 327E1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 5-19, 333B1 Myanmar eastn offensive launched 6-3, govt success claimed, Karen troops movemt seen 6-18, 415B2–C2 Myanmar oppositn members sentncd 6-16, 543E3 Thai Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 745F3 Thai militia men slain 9-13, 748D1 Dalai Lama, India/China border visit protested 10-22, 806B2

BUDGET & Spending Programs, U.S. Appointments & Resignations Orszag confrmd OMB dir 1-20, 26C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C2 Congressional Action Fscl ‘09 omnibus measure nixed, bill cleared 2-25—3-10, signed, House earmark reforms OKd 3-11, 143E3, 144D1, C2 GOP alt plan proposed, nixed by House 3-26—4-2, fscl ‘10 blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 217D3, 218D1 Fscl ‘10 blueprint passed 4-29, 285D3 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338D1, F1 Suplmtl funds measures nixed, bill passes Sen 5-21, 355D1 Suplmtl funds cleared, signed 6-17—6-24, 424B3 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658G1 House com ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2–A3 Stopgap funds clear Cong, signed 10-29—10-30, 799E3 Omnibus bill clears Cong 12-10—12-13, signed 12-16, 866F1, C2, B3–867F1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907B1 Deficit & Surplus Issues $1 trln deficit warned 1-6; fscl yr ‘09 forecast issued 1-7, Obama econ recovery plan questnd 1-8, 7D1 Obama on deficit 2-9, 78E1, 79C1 Obama holds ‘fscl responsibility’ summit 2-23, 111E1 Fscl ‘10 blueprint deficit forecast 4-29, 289D1 ‘09-10 deficits estimated, tax deductn curbs revenue forecast cut 5-11, 321G3 Secy Geithner visits China 5-31—6-2, 414C2, E2 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371A2 Ger’s Merkel questns deficit 6-5, 386A2 Obama addresses AMA 6-15, 409D1 Health care reform House bill deficit hike seen, scored 7-17, 487A3 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 488A1 China talks held 7-27—7-28, 509E2 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast cut, 10-yr hike seen 8-25, 570A3, 571A1 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599D3 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2, C3 G-20 reforms OKd 9-25, 651E2 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, 676C2 $ value drops 10-13—10-14, 699E3 Soc Sec $250 paymt proposed 10-14, 714B2 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd/mark set, spending scored 10-16, 713A1, A2 Health care reform House bill unveiled, deficit cut seen 10-29, 740G3–741A1 Electn results 11-3, 755E2 G-20 mtg held 11-6—11-7, 775E3 Health care reform Sen bill deficit cut seen 11-18, 796C2 Afghan mil strategy mtg held/plan unveiling seen, troop levels mulled 11-23—11-24, 809C3, 810A1 $700 bln financial indus aid losses forecast cut 12-7, 846F3 Health care reform Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863D2 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904E2, 905A2, A3

991

Debt limit hike clears Sen, signed 12-24—12-28, 906G3 Obama Proposals Proposals mulled 2-21, 111G1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, E1, A2; text 107B1, G3 ‘10 proposals submitted, defended 2-26—2-28, Cong hearings held 3-3, 124A3–126E1; highlights listed 125A1 Fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126F1 White House health care summit held 3-5, 145E3 Plan questnd 3-15, 166G2 Proposals mulled, deficit forecast hiked 3-20—3-24, Cong blueprints unveiled, backed 3-24—3-26, 180A3, E3, 181C1 Proposals defended 3-24, 181D2 Rep Boehner scores proposals 4-14, 240G1 Programs end seen 4-18, cuts sought 4-20, 263E3 Pay-as-you-go rules backed, vowed 4-25—4-28, 289F1 ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D2, F2, D3, 321E2; tables 320E3, 321A1 Pay-as-you-go rules urged 6-9, 458C2

BUEHRLE, Mark Pitches perfect game 7-23, sets consecutive outs mark 7-28, 531C1

BUENA Vista Social Club (music group) Lopez dies 2-9, 104E3

BUENDCHEN, Gisele Weds Brady 2-26, 160E2

BUENOS Aires National Wildlife Refuge (Arizona) Migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588F1

BUENOS Aires Stock Exchange Merval ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900D2

BUFFALO (N.Y.) Niagara International Airport Clarence Ctr plane crash kills 50 2-12, 95G2

BUFFALO Springfield (music group) Martin found dead 2-1, 120E3

BUFFETT, Warren E. Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100E2 Berkshire ‘08 profit rptd 2-28, credit rating cut 3-12—4-8, 241G3 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759G2, C3 Goldman lending program launched 11-17, 864G3

BUKET (Turkish tanker) Seized, capt (Ozturk) sentncd/freed 8-14—9-8, 607A2

BULGARIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Macedonia boat sinking kills 15 9-5, 728G3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-agri min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgd 9-8, 727B2 Crime & Civil Disorders Sofia riots erupt 1-14, antigovt protests cont 1-15, 52B2 Energy Turkey gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1, D1 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935C3 European Relations Borissov visits EU hq 9-9, 727D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Support polled 1-14, 52D2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G2 Sofia protests held 6-16, 448F3 Parlt electns held 7-5; vote backed, results rptd 7-6—7-7, Borissov govt sought 7-16, 482B2 Borissov OKd, sworn premr 7-27, 576F3 Facts on Borissov 7-27, 577A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732G2 Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Trade, Aid & Investment EU aid released 6-18, 449A1 EU farm aid released 9-7, 727F2 Transportation World Bank/Serbia loan vowed 10-5, 728D3 UN Policy & Developments Bokova elected UNESCO dir gen 9-22, 675D2–E2

BULLFIGHTING Cintron dies 2-17, 140E2

BULLOCK, Betty (d. 2003) Smoking death damages awarded 8-24, 660B1

BULLOCK, Jodie Mom smoking death damages awarded 8-24, 660B1

992 BULLOCK— BULLOCK, Sandra Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

BUMBRY, Grace Kennedy Ctr honors 12-5—12-6, 895D3

BUM Ho Lee S Korea loses World Baseball Classic, named to all-tourn team 3-23, 190B3, 191C1

BUNCHE, Ralph Johnson (1903-71) Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693F1

BUNIN, Michael Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

BUNNING, Jim (U.S. senator from Ky., 1999- ; Republican) On auto indus govt role 6-10, 386B1 Nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503F1 Vows Bernanke confrmatn block 12-3, 847E2 Misses health care reform votes 12-23—12-24, 904B2, 906D1

BUONANNO, Gianluca Muslim swimsuit fines rptd 8-19, 561B2

BURDZHANADZE, Nino Urges Saakashvili resignatn 1-29, 84C1 Addresses protesters 4-9, 253B2 On protesters attack 5-28, 378G1 Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 497A1

BUREAU of Overseas Building Operations, U.S. Iraq emb constructn woes rptd 10-22, 739C1

BURFORD, Ian Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

BURGE, Judge James Ohio inmates executn method chngd 5-19, 719F2

BURGESS, Mark Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708E2

BURGHARDT, Raymond Sees Taiwan cont arms sale 12-15, 891G2

BURGLARY—See CRIME—Robbery BURGOS, Col. Arnulfo On militants arrest 6-23, 527F3–528A1

BURKE, Gregory Black Watch wins Olivier Awards 3-8, 231E1

BURKINA Faso (formerly Upper Volta) African Relations Compaore visits Guinea 10-5, 701F3 Ivory Coast pres electn delayed 12-3, 922B2, E2 Guinea junta, oppositn talks halted 12-9, 871B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A3; 10-1, 732A3 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1

BURLINGTON Northern Santa Fe Corp. Berkshire sets stake buy 11-3, 759F2, D3

BURMA—See MYANMAR BURMESE Freedom and Democracy Act (2003) Myanmar sanctns extensn signed 7-28, 543B3

BURNETT, A. J. Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752C1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770G1, C2–D2, D3

BURNETT, Jason Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781A3

BURNEY, Maj. Charles US terror detainees interrogatn, Al Qaeda link pressure confrmd 4-21, 261C3

BURNS, Sarah I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

BURNS, William Iran A-program talks role set 4-8, 217D2 In Iran A-program talks, sees Jalili 10-1, 651C1–D1

BURNT by the Sun (film/play) Play opens in London 3-3, 211B3

BURN the Floor (play) Opens in NYC 8-2, 564B2

FACTS BURR, Richard (U.S. senator from N.C., 2005- ; Republican) On FDA tobacco regulatn bill 4-2, 221C2

BURRESS, Plaxico Released 4-3, bonus paymt ordrd 4-6, 299D1 Pleads guilty, suspended 8-20, 632A1

BURRIS, Roland (U.S. senator from Ill., 2009- ; Democrat) Sen apptmt certificatn sought, resolutn urged 1-2—1-5; seating blocked, Reid/Durbin mtg held 1-6—1-7, testifies to gov ouster com 1-8, 3D3–E3, 4F1–G1, F2–G2, F3–G3; photo 3E3 Issues affidavit to gov ouster com 1-5, 93E2 Apptmt certified 1-9; credentials OKd 1-12, sworn 1-15, 18B2 Gov Blagojevich impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44B1 Issues 2d affidavit to gov ouster com 2-4, on Blagojevich brother talks, explanatn sought 2-15, 93G2–B3 Admits Blagojevich fundraising bid 2-16; probes open 2-17, seeks Chicago backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1, C3 Blagojevich brother wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27; questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 477F3 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 Admonished 11-20, 814B2

BURROUGHS, Lorraine Mountaintop opens in London 7-20, 564D2

BURSTYN, Ellen Wins Genie 4-4, 280D1

BURTON, Bill On Sichuan Tengzhong/Hummer buy 6-2, 367E1 On Obama, Sen Dems mtg 12-6, 848A2

BURUNDI, Republic of African Relations Somalia AU peacekeepers slain, cont stay urged 2-22, 115G1–A2 Somalia, AU peacekeepers hike opposed 7-3, 459D2 Somalia blast kills 14+ 9-17, 622A3 Somali mortar attack kills 30, Islamists warn attacks/security hiked 10-22—10-27, Mogadishu blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889C1, D3 Civil Strife Rebel disarmamt opens 3-17, war ends 4-22, 326D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A3; 10-1, 732A3

BUSCEMI, Steve G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

BUSCH, Charles Third Story opens in NYC 2-2, 211E3

BUSCH, Kyle In Daytona 500 crash 2-15, 104A1

BUSES Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48D3 Sri Lanka natl cricket team Pak attack kills 8+, arrests mulled/security questnd 3-3—3-4, 137E3–F3 Myanmar blasts hit 3-3, 188G1 Palestinian constructn vehicle attack hurts 2 3-5, 313D3 NHTSA safety lapses cited 4-21, 324F2 Iraq blast kills 5 4-29, 297B1 Dutch parade car attack kills 8, Queen targeting admitted/driver dies 4-30—5-1, 328A2 UK forgn extremists banned 5-5, 310G2 Iraq blast kills 34+ 5-20, 344F2 Iraq blast kills 3 5-29, 380E1 Iran attack kills 1 6-2, 398A2 Iraq blast kills 9 6-8, 398D2 Iraq blasts kill 10+ 6-22—6-25, 433A3–B3 Pak blast hurts 30 7-2, 467C1–D1 Iraq blasts kill 6+ 8-3, 529E2 Pa gym shooter grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554E2 Russia gunmen kills 11 8-13, 560A3 Samoan driving side switch suit nixed 8-31; protests held, preparatns set 9-7, switch made, buses lack rptd/chngs ordrd 9-8—9-11, 726E1–F1 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627A3 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726B3 Iraq blast kills 3 9-28, 668G1 Afghan blast kills 30+ 9-29, 669E1 Iraq blast kills 12+ 10-26, 739B1

Iraq blast kills 3 11-1, 789F3 Algeria soccer team hurt, Egypt security hike sought 11-12—11-13, 859A1 Palin opens bk tour 11-18, 797A2 Thai/Laos refugees returned 12-28, 934A2 Accidents—See ACCIDENTS—Motor Vehicle

BUSH, Barbara Dad gives farewell address 1-15, 19B1

BUSH, Barbara Pierce In hosp/has surgery, exits 3-4—3-13, 176E2

BUSH, George Herbert Walker (U.S. president, 1989-93; Republican) Bell dies 1-5, 9D3 At White House lunch 1-7, 6G1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301A1, D1, 302F2 Kemp dies 5-2, 316G3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349E1, A2, 350A2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469C2 Misses Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584C2 Obama addresses students 9-8, 602A2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637G1 Russia A-arms treaty cont use seen, expires 12-4—12-5, 885G2

BUSH, George Walker (U.S. president, 2001-09; Republican) Awards & Honors Obama wins Nobel Prize 10-9, 693A2 Budget & Spending Programs Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144B1, G1, E2 Crime Issues Tex/Mex inmate (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31G3 Commutes Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs 1-19, 33D3 Assassinatn plotter (Ali) sentncd 7-27, 678F3 Economy & Labor Seeks $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds sought 1-12, block nixed by Sen 1-15, 14C3, 15A1, E1 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 42A1 Fed contractors pro-union reforms ordrd 1-30, 63E2 Econ recovery plan Cong backing urged 2-9, 73D2 Energy Offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 131F3 Environment & Pollution Names marine monumts 1-6, mammal species protectns lack rptd 1-7, 7A2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G2 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 45F1 Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166B3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815B3 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908B2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section On Gaza violnc 1-2, 1D2 Orders Darfur peacekeepers equipmt delivery, hosts Sudan’s Mayardit 1-5, 116F1 Israeli/Iran A-program raid plan oppositn rptd 1-10, 75E1–F1, B2 Israel/Hamas ceasefire Sec Cncl res vote mulled 1-12, 14G1 Presents Medals of Freedom 1-13, 24B2 UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69A3 N Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35G3 Russia border missile deploymt delayed 1-28, 69E2 China’s Wen gives speech, Cambridge Univ researcher throws shoe 2-2, tape aired 2-3, 98A3 Munich Security Conf held 2-7, 74A2 Chavez sees Obama talks 2-14, 98A1 Afghan/Iran role seen 2-15, troops deploymt ordrd 2-17, 102D1–E1, D2 Egypt oppositn ldr (Nour) freed 2-18, 101A1 Iraq shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) trial opens, delayed 2-19, 118D1 Iraq troops Aug ‘10 exit mulled 2-26, 121D1 Iraq news conf shoe toss rptr (Zaidi) convctd, sentncd 3-12, 174E3 Visits Canada 3-17, 166D3 Obama/Iran video message sent, dismissed 3-20—3-25, 179C2 Iraq shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) sentnc cut 4-7, 228F1 Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, link doubted 5-18, 411F3

ON FILE

Forgn aid family planning funds measure backed 7-6, 489A1 China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615B2 Iraq shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629C1 Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1–F1, A2, G2, B3 Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645C1–D1 Obama addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633D1 Pak aid package questnd 10-7, 695C2 Sudan policy shift set 10-19, 761G3, 762D1 UK/Iraq war probe opens 11-24, 821B1 Medicine & Health Care CHIP funds hike passes House 1-14, 19G2 Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd by FDA 1-21, 49C2–D2 Abortns intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47C1–D1, F1 CHIP funding hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62D3 Stem cell fed funding ban lift signed 3-9, 143A2, E2 Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918C2–D2, F2 Military Issues Gates testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, 54C2–D2 Ofcr (Watada) resignatn OKd 9-25, 720D3 Personal Wife’s bk deal rptd 1-5, 24B3 Returns to Tex 1-20, 26F2 You’re Welcome Amer opens in NYC 2-5, 211G3 Bk work confrmd 3-18—3-19, 166E3–F3* Putin marks birthday 7-6, 454F1, D2–E2 Daughter joins ‘Today’ show 8-31, 596G3 Sets pub policy institute 11-12, library design unveiled 11-18, 814G2, F3 Politics Brother nixes Sen bid 1-6, 5G2 Support polled 1-6—1-16, gives farewell address 1-15, 18A3; text 19A1 Hosts Obama, ex-pres lunch 1-7, 6G1 Obama succeeds 1-20, 25A1, 26C1, 27A1, 28F1 Obama reads note 1-21, 29C2 Obama admin records release curbs eased 1-22, 29A2 Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62G1–A2 Signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145D1–E1 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3 Christie wins NJ gov GOP primary 6-2, 373C3–D3 Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, documts issued 8-11, 536G2, E3–F3, 537A1 Clinton compares ‘00 pres electn, Nigeria pols 8-12, 540D3 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569C3–D3, 570A2 At Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584B2 Electn results 11-3, 755B3 Admin e-mails found 12-14, 908C2 Press & Broadcasting News conf held 1-12, 18F3 Religious Issues Neuhaus dies 1-8, 24F3 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60G2, B3 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65A2 Cuba base detainee hearings halted 1-20; Cong briefed 1-21, prison closure ordrd, CIA interrogatn tactics ltd 1-22, 28F1 ‘Enemy combatant’ term dropped 3-13, 165A3–B3 Obama policies questnd 3-15, 166C2 Detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199E3 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473D3 NY ‘02 arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed, denied 8-9—8-21, 572F2, B3–G3

BUSH, Jeb (John Ellis) Nixes Sen bid 1-6, 5G2 Fugate named FEMA dir 3-4, 145F2 Clinton compares ‘00 pres electn, Nigeria pols 8-12, 540D3

BUSH, Jenna—See HAGER, Jenna BUSH, Kristian Wins Grammys 2-8, 88B3

BUSH, Laura Welch Bk deal rptd 1-5, 24B3 Husband gives farewell address 1-15, 19B1 Returns to Tex 1-20, 26F2 Husband pub policy institute set 11-12, unveils library design 11-18, 814E3–F3

BUSH, Shoshana Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

BUSH v. Gore (2000) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3

2009 Index Calif gay marriage ban suits filed 5-22, 353B1

BUSINESS & Industry—See also company, industry and country names Durable Goods US Dec ‘08 data 1-29, 46B1 US Jan ‘09 data 2-26, 128E3 US Feb ‘09 data 3-25, 183A1 US Mar ‘09 data 4-24, 292E1 US Apr ‘09 data 5-28, 372B2 US May ‘09 data 6-24, 428B1 US Jun ‘09 data 7-29, 504C3 US Jul ‘09 data 8-26, 572D2 US Aug ‘09 data 9-25, 657D1 US Sep ‘09 data 10-28, 740F2 US Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-25, 831A3 US Nov ‘09 data 12-24, 911F2 Environmental Issues Energy secy (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17C3 US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445E1 Japan emissns cut hike vowed 9-7, 625E1 Utilities exit Chamber of Commerce, Nike drops bd role 9-22—9-30, EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654A2, B3 US emissns rptg set 9-22, 781B2 EPA emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2 US climate chng bill talks sought 11-4, 760B1–C1 Calif ‘cap-and-trade’ emissns proposal set 11-24, 917F3 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 881C2 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841C2 French CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1–E1 Executive Compensation Bank of Amer’s Lewis bonus paymt nixed 1-6, 32G1–A2 $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds block nixed by Sen 1-15, 15D1 Wall St workers bonus paymts rptd, scored 1-28—1-29, 44B3 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, 74F1 Financial indus govt aid cos pay ltd 2-4, 61C2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled, Cong hearings held 2-10—2-11, 77D2, G2–B3 Merrill bonus paymts revealed 2-11; execs subpoenaed 3-4, info release ordrd 3-18, 220B2 $780 bln financial indus aid cos paymt limits clear Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 91A1 RBS bonuses cut, pay frozen 2-17, ex-CEO (Goodwin) pension return mulled 2-26—2-27, 155D2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 106F3 AIG bonus paymts revealed/scored, distributn opens 3-10—3-17; funds return mulled/info sought, tax passes House 3-11—3-19, govt aid use detailed, House com hearing held 3-15—3-18, 161A1–162G2 Societe Generale/GdF Suez bonus plans dropped 3-22—3-26; Valeo ex-CEO severnc rptd, scored 3-24, govt aid cos curbs set 3-30, 206G3 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax opposed, Sen vote halte 3-22—3-23; AIG paymts return set 3-23, retro-active limits bill passes House 4-1, 219F3, 220C1 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177F1–G1 Financial indus reforms House com hearing held 3-24, 178A3–D3 Obama on AIG bonus paymts 3-24, 181A3–B3 RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207B2–C2 GM CEO (Wagoner) ousted 3-29, 198G2, C3 NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201A2 Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bonus paymts rptd, scored 4-3, 220F2 Treasury ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named, shareholders role proposed 6-10, 387G2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay rptd, curbs pass House/com hearing set 7-31, Bank of Amer SEC chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 522F2, 523B1, E1 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537F1 AIG CEO (Benmosche) compensatn rptd 8-17, 585E3

—BYRNE 993 Ger’s Steinmeier/Merkel debate 9-13, 665G2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt nixed 9-14, 618A3–C3 Fed banking curbs mulled 9-18—9-19, 640F2 G-20 reforms OKd 9-25, 651F2–G2 Bank of Amer shares drop 9-30, 657E3 AIG bonus paymts scored, return sought 10-14; banks compensatn reserves seen, policies scored 10-14—10-18, Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) pay nixed 10-15, 716B2–E2, A3 Financial indus compensatn rules set, $700 bln govt aid cos pay cut 10-22, 742A1, B2 Bank of Amer govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830G2 UK bank bonuses tax set/proposal backed, French legis seen 12-9—12-10, 854D1 Goldman cash bonuses nixed 12-10, 864C3 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865G2 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887E1–F1, A2 Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae execs ‘09 pay rptd 12-24, 909E3–F3 Factory Rate US Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 US Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 US Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 US Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 US May ‘09 data 6-16, 477B3 US Jun ‘09 data 7-15, 477A3 US Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 US Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 US Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 US Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 US Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 GDP/GNP Data China ‘07 GDP revised 1-14, ‘08 data rptd 1-22, 35E1, A2 UK ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 1-23, 52B3–C3 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 1-30, 61A1 S Africa ‘08 GDP estimate rptd 2-12, 96G2 Eurozone ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-13, 100A3 Japan ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 2-16, 98B3 US ‘09 GDP forecast 2-18, 111A1 Taiwan ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-18, 135G1 Thai ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-23, ‘09 estimate cut 4-22, 310D1 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP revised 2-27, 128F2 India ‘08 GDP rptd 2-27, 157F3 Malaysia ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 2-27, 223F1 Brazil ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 3-10, 186A3 Japan ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP revised 3-11, 252A2 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP final 3-26, 182B3 US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 4-29, 291C3 Ger ‘09 GDP forecast 4-29, 311F2 Eurozone ‘09 GDP forecast 5-4, 311E2 Ger ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-14, 361B2 Japan ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-20, 414F3 Taiwan ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-21, 416B1 S Africa ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-26, 359B1 US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP revised 5-29, 372E1 India ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 5-29, 382F1 Canada ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 6-1, 394B2 Australia ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 6-3, 494G1 Brazil ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 6-9, 447F1 Japan ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP revised 6-11, 414F3 US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP final 6-25, 456C2 Singapore ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 7-14, 511F1 China ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 7-16, 494B2 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP, historical revisns issued 7-31, 521C3, 522F1 Japan ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 8-17, 576C2 Taiwan ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-21, 891B3 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP revised 8-27, 572E1 India ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 8-31, 594D3 Brazil ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 9-11, 623A3 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 644F3 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP final 9-30, 657A1 China ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-21, 932A3 UK ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-23, 803E1 S Korea ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-26, 764B2 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739A3 Eurozone ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 11-13, 802G3 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP revised 11-24, 813G1 S Africa ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 11-24, 923B3 Taiwan ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-26, 891B3 India ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 11-30, 946E2 Japan ‘09 3d 1/4 rptd 12-9, 872E3 Venez ‘09 3d 1/4, ‘09 GDP 12-17, 12-29, 929C3 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP final 12-22, 886F3 China ‘08 GDP revised 12-25, 932A3

Industrial Output US Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 US Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112D1 US Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-16, 183A2 US Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-15, 355A3 Japan Apr ‘09 data 5-29, 414G3 US May ‘09 data 6-16, 477A3 US Jun ‘09 data 7-15, 477G2 US Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-14, 572G1 US Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-16, 640A2 US Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-16, 740A2 US Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 Inventories/Sales US Nov ‘08 data, Oct revised 1-14, 46B2 US Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 2-12, 111A3 US Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 3-12, 183G1 US Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 4-14, 292A2 US Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 5-13, 356A1 US Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 6-11, 428D1 US May ‘09 data, Apr revised 7-14, 477C3 US Jun ‘09 data, May revised 8-13, 572B2 US Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 9-15, 640G1 US Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 10-14, 740G1 Sep ‘09 inventories/sales, Aug revised 11-16, 813C2 US Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 12-11, 911G2 Labor Issues—See LABOR Obituaries Gray, Harry J 7-8, 516A3 Tax Issues Obama econ recovery plan cuts seen, questnd 1-5—1-8, 7A1 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15F1, B2 Econ recovery plan GOP measures nixed by House 1-28, 41B3 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89E1, G2 La gov (Jindal) nixes econ recovery funds 2-20, 111A2 La gov (Jindal) nixes econ recovery plan funds 2-22, 108F2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A1 US overseas profits tax breaks curbs urged 5-4, 304D2 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644F2, C3 Ger corp reform mulled 9-27, 665A2 US fscl ‘09 deficit rptd, mark set 10-16, 713B1 US job creatn cuts seen 11-6, 778D2 Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846D3 US breaks pass House 12-9, 886D1 Trade & Payments Issues US Nov ‘08 trade gap, Oct revised 1-13, 15A3–B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap, Nov revised 2-11, 111E3, 112A1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap, Dec ‘08 revised 3-13, 164F1, A2 US ‘08 4th 1/4 paymts gap, 3d 1/4 revised 3-18, 240F2 US Feb ‘09 trade gap, Jan revised 4-9, 240A2–B2 US Mar ‘09 gap, Feb revised 5-12, 323A3 Japan Apr ‘09 exports rise seen 5-27, 414G3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap, Mar revised 6-10, 389E1, A2 US ‘09 1st 1/4 paymts gap, ‘08 4th 1/4 revised 6-17, 572C2 US May ‘09 trade gap, Apr revised 7-10, 477F1, A2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap, May revised 8-12, 535B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap, Jun revised 9-10, 619C1, F1 US ‘09 2d 1/4 paymts gap, 1st 1/4 revised 9-16, 640D2 US Aug ‘09 trade gap, Jul revised 10-9, 699B3 US Sep ‘09 trade gap, Aug revised 11-13, 798F1 US Oct ‘09 trade gap, Sep revised 12-10, 865F3, 866A1 US ‘09 3d 1/4 paymts gap, 2d 1/4 revised 12-16, 911B2

BUSINESSWEEK (magazine) Sale set 10-13, Yrangiel named ed 11-17, 912F3

BUSSEREAU, Dominique On missing Air France plane wreckage 6-4, 369E3

On Yemen/Comoros flight plane safety woes 6-30, 439E3

BUSSI, Hortensia (Mercedes Hortensia Bussi Soto de Allende) (1914-2009) Dies 6-18, 451F3

BUSTANI, Nidal alSon named premr 6-27, 450E2

BUSTO, Mike Traded to Canadiens 6-30, 731C1

BUTARE, University of (Rwanda) Ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680C1

BUTCHER, Susan Mackey wins 3d straight Iditarod 3-18, 211A2

BUTHELEZI, Mangosuthu On Zuma graft chrgs drop 4-6, 222B3 Gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 292E3

BUTKEVICIUS, Algirdas Pres electn held 5-17, loss rptd 5-21, 344D1

BUTLER, Lord Questns Iraq war probe 6-18, 449G1

BUTLER, Billy Among AL 2B ldrs 10-6, 690E2

BUTLER, Gerard Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

BUTLER University (Indianapolis, Ind.) Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771G1

BUTTERELL, Jonathan Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

BUTTERWORTH, Jez Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

BUTTON, Fiona Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

BUTTON, Jenson 5th in Brazilian Grand Prix, clinches Formula 1 title 10-18, 950D1 Joins McLaren Mercedes 11-18, 950F1

BUTURO, Nsaba On gay curbs bill chngs 12-23, 925C1

BYATT, A(ntonia) S(usan) On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692C1–D1

BYBEE, Jay Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, response seen 2-17, 94D3–F3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutn mulled 4-16—4-21, 257E2–G2, 258A1, B2; excerpts 259A1 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329D2 Defends CIA interrogatn memos 4-28, Sen com testimony 4-29, 290C3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322B3–D3

BYE Bye Birdie (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-5, 860C2

BYLSMA, Dan Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 419F3–G3, 420G1

BYRD Jr., James (1949-98) Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 701A1

BYRD, Robert Carlyle (U.S. senator from W. Va., 1959- ; Democrat) Reseated pres pro temp 1-6, 5D2 Exits hosp 6-30, 441A2 Kennedy dies, on health care debate 8-25, 589C2, 570D1 Sets Cong tenure mark 11-18, turns 92 11-20, 815A1 Backs health care reform 12-21—12-24, 906B1–C1

BYRNE, Gabriel Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2

BYRNE, Rose Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

994 CABANILLAS—

C CABANILLAS, Mercedes Fired 7-11, 481E1

CABELLO, Diosdado Revokes radio licenses, sets broadcasting rules chng 7-3—7-9, 493C3, E3–F3 Shuts radio/TV statns 7-31, 575G3 Shuts radio statns, hikes Globovisn chrgs 9-5, 623D3

CABINET & White House Staff, U.S.—See also specific departments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A2 Members listed 3-3, 236B3 Chief info ofcr (Kundra) reinstatn confrmd 3-17, 200B3 Members listed 4-28, 286A1–288G3 Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 White House visitors pub log set 9-4, list issued 10-30, 780A1 Members listed 10-1, 736B3 Communicatns dir (Dunn) quits Pfeiffer tapped 11-10, counsel (Craig) sets resignatn, Bauer named 11-13, 797B3, G3 White House ofcls House com testimony mulled 12-3, 830F1–G1

CABLE, Tom Named Raiders coach 2-3, 176C2

CABLE News Network (CNN) (of Time Warner) Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 Thai’s Abhisit interviewed 2-12, 99A2 War dead coffins return media ban lift support polled 2-26, 132D1 GOP chair (Steele) remarks scored, regretted 3-2, 146F2–G2 Gupta drops surgeon gen bid 3-5, 145B3 Secy Geithner interviewed 3-19, 162C2 Braden dies 4-3, 256G2 Thai’s Thaksin interviewed 4-13, 250D3 DHS secy (Napolitano) interviewed 4-16, 263E1 Myanmar’s Ban interviewed 5-20, 360B2 UN’s Ban interviewed 5-23, 363C2 Ridge interviewed 5-24, 353C3 Obama interviewed 7-13, 499C2 Cronkite dies 7-17, 500B3 Obama birth records confrmd 7-27, 552D3 Zimbabwe rptg curbs lifted 7-29, 588E3 HHS secy (Sebelius) interviewed 8-16, 551C2 Novak dies 8-18, 564D3 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782A2–B2, D2 Afghan war pub support polled 9-15, 629D3 Obama interviewed 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Gates interviewed 9-25, 649D1; 9-27, 669D1 Emanuel interviewed 10-19, 710C3 Rep Boehner interviewed 11-1, 773B3 Iraq’s Bolani interviewed 11-11, 789A3 Obama interviewed 11-18, 805G3

CABLEVISION Systems Corp. Newsday publisher/ed quit, replacemts named 9-23—12-11, 913D1

CABRAL, Luis de Almeida (1931-2009) (Guinea-Bissau president, 1973-80) Vieira slain 3-2, 133B3 Dies 5-30, 400E2

CABRERA, Angel Wins Masters 4-12, 255G1

CABRERA, Melky Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752A1 Traded to Braves 12-22, 949B1

CABRERA, Miguel Among AL hits/batting ldrs 10-6, 690D2, F2

CACHUELA, Gen. Isagani Orders US citizen kidnapping probe 6-3, 528D2

CACI International Inc. Iraq detainees abuse suit nixed 9-11, 629B2

CAC Industrial Average—See PARIS Bourse CADBURY PLC Kraft buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626C2

CADELO, Claudia Detentn, abuse alleged 11-6, 928C1

CADY, Justice Mark Nixes Iowa gay marriage ban 4-3, 216C1

CAFESJIAN, Gerald Cafesjian Ctr opens 11-8, 953A3

FACTS CAFESJIAN Center for the Arts (Yerevan, Armenia) Opens 11-8, 953A3

CAFRITZ, Peggy Cooper House blaze destroys art trove 7-29, 548A3

CAFTA—See CENTRAL American Free Trade Agreement CAGE, John (1912-92) Cunningham dies 7-26, 516B2

CAGE, Nicolas Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2 G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

CAHOW, Caitlin US wins World Champs 4-12, 670C3

CAIJING (Chinese magazine) Staff, ed quit 10-12—11-9, 785E3–G3

CAI Mingchao Buys Qing Dynasty ‘heads’ 2-25, reneges 3-2, 160A2

CAIN, Bill Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 895G3

CAIRO University (Egypt) US’s Obama gives address 6-4, 367C2

CAJA de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha (CCM) Seized 3-29, 208D1–E1

CALDECOTT Medal, Randolph Krommes wins 1-26, 55G3, 56B1

CALDERA, Louis Receives Air Force One/NYC flyover plan, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357G3 Regrets Air Force One, NYC flyover 4-27, probe set 4-28, 208F1–G1 Quits 5-8, 357D3

CALDERA Rodriguez, Rafael Antonio (1916-2009) (Venezuelan president, 1969-74/94-99) Dies, Chavez ‘homage’ spurned 12-24, 955B1

CALDERON, Jose Among NBA assists ldrs 4-15, 278B3

CALDERON, Rafael Angel (Costa Rican president, 1990-94) Convctd 10-5, 818B1

CALDERON de la Barca, Pedro (1600-81) Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

CALDERON Hinojosa, Felipe (Mexican president, 2006- ) Sets stimulus plan 1-7, 83E1 Ex-gen (Tello) found slain 2-3, 97F2–G2 On drug violnc troops deploymt 2-19—2-27, Chihuahua troops hike rptd 3-14, 171A1, C2–D2 Hosts US’s Clinton 3-25, seeks drug violnc aid 3-27, 185G3, 186C1 Hosts US’s Holder, Napolitano 4-3, 249E2–F2 US antidrug aid release sought 4-5, 249D3 Hosts Obama 4-16, 270E3–271G1 Declares swine flu emergency 4-25, shuts businesses 4-30, 281B2, F2 Businesses, schls reopened 5-5—5-6, 303E2 Swine flu measures eased 5-22, 351A3 Michoacan drug raids net suspects 5-26, 359F1, A2 Nuevo Leon local cops held 6-1; Acapulco violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431D2, F2 Cong, local electns held 7-5, party pres (Martinez) quits 7-7, 460E2–A3 Michoacan cops attacks kill 5+ 7-11, 480F3 Drug war strategy chng urged 7-28, US blocks, issues rights abuses rpt 8-5—8-13, 556A2, D2 At N Amer summit 8-9—8-10, 541E1, G1–A2 Signs drugs possessn decriminalizatn bill 8-20, 589B3 Addresses Cong 9-2, budget proposals unveiled 9-8, 605A2, G2–A3 Names atty gen/agri min, Pemex CEO 9-7, 604F3, 605B1–D1 AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682E1 Electricians protest/deploys riot cops, shuts LFC 10-8—10-11; pvtizatn denied 10-11, reversal sought 10-12, 724C1–D1, G1 Mil rights abuses alleged 12-8, 928B3 Shuffles cabt 12-9, 929D1 Proposes electn law reforms 12-15, 929A1 On drug lord (Beltran Leyva) death 12-17, 928A2, C2

CALDWELL, Jim Named Colts coach 1-12, 55D3 Colts clinch AFC playoffs top seed 12-13, 947A3

CALDWELL 4th, Lt. Gen. William Sets Afghan troops pay hike 12-9, 894B3

CALERO, Roger Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

CALF, Anthony Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

CALGARY Herald (Canadian newspaper) Afghan rptr (Lang) slain 12-30, 899B3

CALIFORNIA Accidents & Disasters RR collisn hearing held 3-3, 357B3 Fullerton car crash kills 3 4-9, suspect chrgd 4-10, 277E3 Southn wildfires hit, disaster declared 5-5—5-9, 393F2 Mil plane, copter crash kills 9 10-29, 915E2 Arts & Culture Golden Globes presented 1-11, 24D2 Grammys presented 2-8, 88E1 Oscars presented 2-22, 120A1 Jackson meml svc held 7-7, LA cost rptd 7-8, 467E3, 468F1 Emmys presented 9-20, 647B3 Bradford/Utterback win MacArthur 9-22, 671A2, E2 Gap founders art trove relocatn set 9-25, 708B3 Disney museum opens 10-1, 953B3 Budget & Spending Programs Deficit cut deal passes legis, signed 2-19—2-20, 114A2, A3 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Ballot measures nixed, ofcls salaries cut 5-20, 340G1 IOUs issued, total rptd 7-2—7-28, budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503E2, C3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32D2 Wells Fargo Las Vegas conf nixed 2-3, 61E2 Debt rating cut 2-3, 114G2–A3 Bank of Marin govt aid repaid 3-31, 241D3 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3 Wells Fargo ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares rise 4-9, 241A3 Craigslist curbs set 4-21; ‘misuse’ drop seen 5-5, erotic svcs shut 5-13, 429G2 Wells Fargo ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-22, 265G1 Wells Fargo stress-test results issued, stock sale rptd 5-7—5-8, 319C1 LA investmt adviser (Chais) chrgd 6-22, 442C2 Tesla factory fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536D2 Wells Fargo ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-22, 490G3 Microsoft/Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523E2 Brocade ex-CEO (Reyes) convctn nixed 8-18, retrial set 12-2, 910E2 NM gov (Richardson) fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620E1 Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 GM/eBay partnership ends 9-30, 679E3 Wells Fargo ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-21, 715G1 Intel/AMD antitrust suits setlmt OKd 11-12, 800C2 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2 New Financial Century ex-execs chrgd 12-7, 910C2 Wells Fargo govt aid repaymt set 12-14, 864G1 Broadcam stocks backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 910A2 Intel antitrust suit filed 12-16, 911D3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19; Obama auto indus task force (Rattner) linked 4-17, Searle role rptd 4-21, 265B2, A3 St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458A2 Crime & Law Enforcement Oakland subway passenger slain 1-1; cop quits, probe set 1-7—1-10, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247B1 Ex-transit cop threatened 1-5—1-10; suspect (Carneglia) pleads guilty 8-14, sentncd 12-15, 920D2 Covina party Santa Claus gunman victims IDd 1-13, 247F3 Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48F2

ON FILE

Prison health care ofcr ouster sought, nixed 1-28—3-24, conditns violatn ruled, populatn cap ordrd 3-2, 356C1, A2 LA diocese child abuse oversight grand jury probe rptd 1-29, cooperatn set 2-1, 132C3 LA ex-RC priest (Miller) sentncd 1-30, 132B3 Film dir (Polanski) ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nized 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, C3, F3 ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) convctd 3-6, sentncd 6-5, 539E3 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920D1 Oakland cops shootout kills 5, gunman sex assualt link seen 3-21—3-24, 246F3 ‘70-80s slayings supsect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3 Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1 Terror detainees CIA interrogatns intell questnd 4-26, 290D1 PEMGroup ex-head (Pang) held 4-28, 506F3 Oakland paper ed (Chauncey) slaying suspects indicted 4-29, Broussard pleads guilty 5-7, 539E2 FBI terror watch list woes rptd 5-6, 411E2 ‘70s radical (Kilgore) freed 5-10, 539C2 Spector sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525D1 Arsonist (Oyler) sentncd 6-5, 920F2 Lakers NBA title win riots erupt 6-14, 419E2 Singer Brown pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 Mex border kidnapping suspects indicted 8-13, 556F2 Singer Brown sentncd 8-25, 580D2 Kidnapping suspects noticed, held/plead not guilty 8-25—8-28; backyard compound/bone fragmt found, cops missed chances admitted 8-26—8-31, victim, family reunited 8-27, 587B3, F3, 588A1 Jackson death called ‘homicide’ 8-30, 612F2 Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933F2 Film dir (Polanski) sex assault victim setlmt rptd 10-2; appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2, D2 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781D3 Richmond HS student attacked/raped, exits hosp 10-24—10-28; arrests reward offrd 10-27, suspects plead not guilty 12-1, 888G2 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855E3 Calif cop text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867F3 Cops stun gun use ltd 12-28, 920G2 Demonstrations & Protests Oakland subway passenger slaying protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, 247C1–D1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Marijuana decriminalizatn bill introduced 2-23, 165E2 Coolio pleads guilty/sentncd 6-26, 564F2 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720C1 Energy Flat-panel TV efficiency rules OKd 11-18, 918A1 AltaRock geothermal project shut 12-11, 939D3–E3 Environment & Pollution Fuel econ waiver EPA reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47A2–E2 Pub lands curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339E2 Fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478C3 NPS dir (Jarvis) named 7-10, 491F1 Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 PG&E exits Chamber of Commerce 9-22, 654D3 Water overhaul bills pass legis/signed, fed policies review set 11-4—11-14, 887A2 ‘Cap-and-trade’ emissns proposal set 11-24, 917F3 Family Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Octuplets born 1-26; fertility MD probe opens 2-6, treatmt bared 2-9, 114E3–F3 Gay marriage ban ballot initiative donors list release ordrd, issued 1-29, 2-2, 150A1 Gay marriage ban hearing held 3-5, 149C3 Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Gay marriage ban suit filed, opposed 5-22—5-27, ban upheld, protests held/ballot initiative set 5-26, 352A3, 353F3–G3 Justice Dept backs Defns of Marriage Act 6-12, 408F2 Jackson mom/kids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, will admitted 8-3, 531E2 Gay marriage ballot initiative delayed 8-12, 554A1

2009 Index Gay marriage ban trial set 8-19, 699A3 Gay marriage recognitn bill signed 10-11, 698E3, 699C1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132B2 N Korea freed rptrs return 8-5, 517B1, 518A1 Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Housing Jackson ranch trove displayed, auctn halted 4-14, 256B2 Immigration & Refugee Issues LA detentn facility conditns suit setld 9-17, 722A1 Mex border rush fails, suspects held 9-22, 724A2 Labor & Employment State workers furloughing order upheld, opens 1-29, 2-6, 114E2 F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1 Toyota factory shut 8-27, 679F3 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd by FDA 1-21, 49C2 Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, 165C2–D2 Swine flu cases confrmd, emergency declared 4-21—4-26, 281G1, D2, C3 Chambers autopsy rpt issued 5-18, 348G2 LA free health care offrd 8-11—8-18, 552A2 Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580A2 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1 Stem cell grants set 10-28, 918A3 Military Issues Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1 False mil decoratn claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2 Obituaries Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Atkins, Susan 9-24, 672E1 Fisher, Donald G 9-27, 708B3 Freeman, Betty 1-3, 56G1 Halprin, Lawrence 10-25, 792D3 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436B1, B2 Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452G2 Klein, Herbert 7-2, 468F2 Lawrence, Andrea Mead 3-30, 256D3 MacGinnis, Marc C 6-2, 955A3 McMahon, Ed 6-23, 436G3 Norse, Harold 6-8, 484E3 Price, Sol 12-14, 896D3 Shulman, Julius 7-15, 532F3 Sultan, Larry 12-13, 955E3 Waldie, Jerome R 4-3, 256G3 Walker, Doris B 8-13, 596G3 Willoughby, Bob 12-18, 956G2 Wilson, Charis 11-20, 956E3 Wilson, William A 12-5, 956F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section LA mayoral electn held 3-3, 131A2 House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 Rep Tauscher confrmd arms control undersecy 6-25, vacates House seat 6-26, 478A3 House seat spec electn held 7-14, 478E2 Milk gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548D1 House seat primary held 9-1, 585D1 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) speech video posted, remarks regretted 9-1—9-3, 602D2–E2 Newsom gov bid backed 9-15, Whitman declares run 9-22, 639D3 Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699D1–E1 DNC fund-raiser held 10-15, 717F1 Newsom drops gov bid 10-30, 757B1 Electn results 11-3, Rep Garamendi sworn 11-5, 756E1 Fiorina sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Press & Broadcasting San Fran Chronicle sale sought 2-24, Platinum/Copley Press buy set 3-18, 167F3–168A1 LA Times/San Diego Union-Tribune win Pulitzers 4-20, 279C2, C3 Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1 Wash Post shuts LA bureau 11-24, 912C3 Religious Issues Episcopal split dioceses property rights nixed 1-5, 132D3 LA Episcopal bps named 8-1—8-2, 539G1–A2 Episcopal split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3

—CAMP 995 LA Episcopal diocese asst bps elected, Glasspool selectn questnd 12-4—12-5, 868B3 School Issues UC tuition hike OKd, protests held/arrests rptd 11-19—12-12, 916C2 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1 Social Issues SCLC LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2 Space & Space Flights NASA climate satellite launched 2-24, 131C3 Discovery lands 9-11, 616B1 Virgin space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884G1–A2 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D1 Rose Bowl results 1-1, 24C1 Chrgrs exit playoffs 1-11, 40A1 Bob Hope Classic results 1-25, 139A2 Buick Invitatnl results 2-8, 139G1 Pebble Beach Natl Pro-Am results 2-16, 139F1 Northn Trust Open results 2-22, 139E1 BNP Paribas Open results 3-22, 399A2 World Baseball Classic results 3-23, 190B2, D3, G3 World figure skating champ results 3-24—3-28, 211D2 Kraft Nabisco Champ results 4-5, 332G1 Sharks win divisn, Ducks make playoffs 4-12, 299G1, D2 Lakers win divisn 4-15, 278D2–E2 Ducks exit playoffs 5-14, 420E2 Atlantis lands 5-24, 373A1 Lakers win NBA title 6-14, 419C1, G1, F2–G2 Beckham returns to Galaxy, jeered/in fan clash 7-16—7-19, 895B1 Sol lose WPS title 8-22, 612A2, C2 Chula Vista wins Little League World Series 8-30, 612D2 Sparks lose WNBA conf finals 9-26, 807G3 Angels/Dodgers win divisns 9-28, 10-3, 690E1, G1, C2, A3 Pres Cup results 10-11, 708B1 Dodgers, Angels lose pennants 10-21, 10-25, 751C3, E3, 752F1, E2 Breeders’ Cup results 11-6—11-7, 807D1 Monarchs shut 11-20, dispersal draft held 12-14, 952A1 Galaxy lose MLS Champ 11-22, 894D3, G3 Poinsettia/Emerald/Holiday Bowls results 12-23—12-30, 948G2, B3 Chrgrs clinch AFC playoffs bye 12-25, 947B3 Transportation Northwest flight overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licenses revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743C3, F3 Welfare & Social Services Recipients rise seen 6-22, 479C2 Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

CALIFORNIA, University of (UC) Berkeley Campus Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231A1 Mack in NFL draft 4-25, 298E3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) ‘01 remarks regretted 5-29, 389B3 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428A2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469C1, C3 Kidnapping suspect noticed 8-25, 587F3 Agrawala, He win MacArthurs 9-22, 671G1, B2 Human predecessor skeleton displayed 10-1, 691F2 Blackburn/Greider/Williamson win Nobels 10-5, 10-12, 694A1, B2 Poinsettia Bowl lost 12-23, 948C3 Budget & Spending Programs Tuition hike OKd, protests held/arrests rptd 11-19—12-12, 916C2 Los Angeles Campus (UCLA) Holiday, Collison in NBA draft 6-25, 451A2 Women’s soccer tourn semi lost 12-4, 895A2 EagleBank Bowl won 12-29, 948A3 Obituaries Granger, Clive WJ 5-27, 384F3 York, Herbert F 5-19, 400G3 San Diego Campus Howe wins Lilly Poetry Prize 4-14, 364G1 San Francisco Campus Goosby named PEPFAR head 4-27, 369F3 Blackburn wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3

CALIFORNIA Flag (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint 11-7, 807E2

CALIFORNIA Institute for Regenerative Medicine Stem cell fed funding ban lift signed 3-9, 143E2 Grants set 10-28, 918A3

CALIFORNIA State University System Fresno Campus NM Bowl lost 12-19, 948C3 People CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued 2-4, 94A1 San Francisco Campus Protesters held 12-10, 916F2

CALIPARI, John Named U Ky coach 3-31, 230F3

CALISHER, Hortense (1911-2009) Dies 1-13, 56E1

CALLAGHAN, Sheila Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

CALLAHAN, Robert Scores Nicaragua pres term limits nix 10-28; emb protested 10-29, flees fireworks attack 10-30, 784E3

CALLAHAN, Judge Tena OKs Tex gay couple divorce 10-1, 699A2

CALLEY Jr, Lt. William L. Regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1–E1

CALLOWAY, J. Bernard Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

CALLOWAY, J. Bernard Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

CALMY-Rey, Micheline Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-27, 653F2 On mosque minarets ban 11-30, 836A3

CALOIA, Angelo Quits 9-23, 712C1

CALYON Credit Agricole CIB AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-17, 799E1

CAMARA, Capt. Moussa Dadis Names govt 1-14, 34E3 Conte son admits drug trafficking, elite guard apology aired 2-25—7-24; mulls pres bid/sanctns warned 8-23—9-18, protests turn violent, blames mil/sets probe 9-28—9-29, 660B2–F2, A3–C3, E3–F3 French ties mulled 10-4—10-6; resignatn urged 10-7, protesters attack scored, probes set/trial sought 10-7—10-14, 701C3–G3 Shot/transferred to Morocco, oppositn crackdown opens 12-3—12-4; health rptd, guard admits role 12-9—12-17, Sep protests mulled 12-14—12-17, 870A2, G2–B3, 871D1–E1; photo 870E2 ICC chrgs urged 12-21, 925F1

CAMBODIA, State of (formerly People’s Republic of Kampuchea) Accidents & Disasters Storm Ketsana hits, deaths rptd/Red Cross aid set 9-30, 664C1, A3 Storm Ketsana death toll hiked 10-3, 684D3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai border violnc warned 3-31; clash kills 3, war denied 4-3—4-5, com mtg held 4-5—4-7, 310F1 Thai temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726F2, A3, C3 Thai’s Thaksin asylum offrd 10-23, 748A2 Thai’s Thaksin extraditn nixed/arrives, bay claims memo nixed 11-4—11-12, ambs recalled, emb protested/1st secys ousted 11-5—11-12, 784G3, 785E1 Thai 1st secy ousters exchngd, border spec forces removed 11-12—11-13, Thaksin sees movemt members, exits/returns 11-13—12-13, 872D1, F1, C2 China’s Xi visits, signs deals 12-20—12-21, 932A1 Civil Strife Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial set 1-19, 68E1 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) UN trial opens 2-17, 98E1 Khmer Rouge tribunal further indictmts opposed 3-31; prison chief (Duch) trial cont, detentn nixed 3-31—6-15, forgner slayings rptd 6-17, 413B3, E3, 414A1, E1 Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, Cayley named 12-2, 890B2

Oppositn ldr (Rainsy) immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 12-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935E3 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial closing argumts heard 11-23—11-27, 890E1 Khmer Rouge genocide suspects chrgd 12-16—12-21, 889F3 Economy & Labor Thai’s Thaksin named govt adviser 11-4, addresses finance min 11-12, 784G3, 785G1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Thai spying suspect held 11-12, convctd/pardoned, freed 12-8—12-14, 872B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B3; 10-1, 732B3 Human Rights ASEAN mtg boycott warned 2-28, 135C3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Chinese Uighurs deported 12-19, 931F3 Trade, Aid & Investment ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748A2, D2–E2 Thai highway loan nixed 11-27, aid halted 11-30, 872A2 Transportation Samart seized, move scored 11-19, 872F1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sen Webb tours region 8-14—8-17, 558A3

CAMBRIDGE University (England) China’s Wen gives speech, researcher throws shoe 2-2, tape aired 2-3, 98A3 Global computers spying operatin rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342F1 China’s Wen, Cambridge Univ shoe toss suspect cleared 6-2, 482A1 Gurdon wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2

CAMBY, Marcus Among NBA blocks ldrs 4-15, 278C3

CAMERON, Bill Shock buy set 10-20, 808B1

CAMERON, Cody Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

CAMERON, David Scores tax hike 4-22, 272B3 MacKay quits 5-14, seeks electns 5-20, 343C3, 344A1 On Brown pol reforms proposal 6-10, 397D2 On Iraq war probe 6-15, 449F1 Sees Afghan troops equipmt lack 7-11, 498A3 Seeks Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release info 8-21, 568D1 On EU treaty 10-4, 685G3–686A1 Addresses Tories conf, turns 43 10-8—10-9, 685C3–E3 Mortgage interest claim documentatn sought 10-12, 727B3 Scores legis agenda 11-18, 821C2

CAMERON, James Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

CAMERON, J. Smith (Jean Isabel Smith) Starry Messenger opens in NYC 11-23, 954E2

CAMERON, Mike Joins Red Sox 12-14, 949C1

CAMEROON, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232B3 PM (Inoni) ousted/Yang named, cabt shuffled 6-30, 722D3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732B3 Medicine & Health Care HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1 Religious Issues Pope visits 3-17—3-19, 195D3, F3, 196E1 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3

CAMILLE, Col. Vital Albert Named Madagascan PM 12-20, 925D2

CAMMALLERI, Mike Among NHL power-play goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

CAMMARANO 3rd, Peter (Hoboken, N.J. major, 2009- ; Democrat) Takes ofc 7-1, held, chrgd in bribery scheme 7-23, 504A1

CAMORRA Family (crime group) Italy quake bldg standards probe set 4-11, 253G3

CAMP, Brandon Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

996 CAMPAIGN— CAMPAIGN for Tobacco-Free Kids Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, 29F1

CAMPAIGN Media Analysis Group Health care reform ad spending rptd 8-16, 552A1

CAMPBELL, Chad 2d in Masters 4-12, 255A2, C2–D2

CAMPBELL, John (U.S. representative from Calif. 2005- ; Republican) Defns ‘10 funds pass 7-30, 523E3

CAMPBELL, Kurt Sees Myanmar’s Thaung 9-29, 652A3–B3 Visits Myanmar 11-3—11-4, 763B2, G2–B3

CAMPBELL, Tom Whitman declares gov bid 9-22, 639F3 Gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757C1

CAMPION, Kieran Amer Plan revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3

CAMPO, Bobby Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

CAMPOS, Bruno Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

CAM‘RON (Cameron Giles) Crime Pays on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

CANABAL, Pedro On replaced customs inspectors 8-16, 556C3

CANADA Accidents & Disasters Newfoundland copter crash klls 17 3-12; rescue rptd 3-13, sudden oil loss cited 3-23, 413G1 Actress Richardson in skiing fall 3-16, transferred to NYC 3-17, 176E3 Toronto car, bike crash kills 1 8-31, prov atty gen (Bryant) chrgd 9-1, 927A2 African Relations Somali interim premr (Sharmarke) named, OKd 2-13—2-14, 115E1 Sudan aid worker seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2 Rwandan genocide suspect (Munyaneza) convctd 5-22, 680C2 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial held 9-7, 623A1 Arts & Culture Genie Awards presented 4-4, 280B1 Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364C1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan detainees abuse claims nixed 6-9, 413A1 Afghan troops die 7-6, 466F1 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 Afghan troops slain 8-1, 547D1 Afghan air strike probe ldr (Sullivan) named 9-8, 611F2 Afghan detainees abuse parlt hearings held 11-18—12-9; govt stance chngd 12-9, com mtg skipped 12-15, 926F3 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844A2 Afghan troops, rptr slain 12-30, 899B3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section GM CEO (Henderson) quits 12-1, US govt role denied 12-2, 831F1 Crime & Civil Disorders Livent ex-execs sentncd 8-5, 548E2 Biker gang slaying suspects convctd 10-29, 927F1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia/NATO envoys ousted 4-30, 311B1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Prescribed heroin addictn treatmt efficacy found 8-19, 691D3 Sports MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951E3 Economy & Business Toronto Jan ‘09 stock exchng rptd 1-2, 6D3 Nortel bankruptcy filed, shares price rptd 1-14, 67A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP forecast 1-22, 83B1 Fscl yr ‘09 budget unveiled/backed, parlt updates sought 1-27—1-28, 50B2, A3 Toronto Feb ‘09 stock exchng rptd 2-2, 61D1 Toronto Mar ‘09 stock exchng rptd 3-2, 128A1 Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347D2–F2 Toronto Apr ‘09 stock exchng rptd 4-2, 198A1 Chrysler CEO (Nardelli) sets resignatn, bankruptcy declared 4-20, 282B3, 283A1 London May ‘09 stock exchng rptd 5-1, 304A3 GM dealerships dropped 5-20, 339A1

FACTS Toronto Jun ‘09 stock exchng rptd 6-1, 371D3 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 6-1, 394B2 Toronto Jul ‘09 stock exchng rptd 7-1, 442D1 Toronto Aug ‘09 stock exchng rptd 8-3, 522A1 Microsoft word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911G3 Toronto Sep ‘09 stock exchng rptd 9-1, 586D1 Budget passes Commons 9-18, 681B3 Toronto Oct ‘09 stock exchng rptd 10-1, 657A3 Ivanhoe, Mongolia mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725E2 Toronto Nov ‘09 stock exchng rptd 11-2, 759A1 Financial indus crisis tax opposed 11-7, 776A1 GM govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798D3 Stork cribs recalled 11-23, 850B1 Toronto Dec ‘09 stock exchng rptd 12-1, 831A1 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887D1 Toronto ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900D2 Energy NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2 Environment & Pollution US bans Arctic fishing 2-5, 268A1 CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883A1 European Relations UK MP (Galloway) entry nixed 3-20, 413F1 Hungary shuts Toronto consulate 6-16, 512B2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Iran/Swiss amb summoned 6-17, 402D3 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Parlt reconvenes 1-27, Liberals/Conservatives ‘new coalitn’ seen, oppositn deal nixed 1-28, 50F2–A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232C3 Layton sees Harper 8-25, confidnc vote seen 9-1, 589C1 Confidnc vote mulled, govt survives 9-16—10-1; Liberals prov organizer (Coderre) quits, Garneau named 9-28—10-7, parties support polled 10-5, 681F2, C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732C3 Parlt suspended 12-30, 926G2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Mex, Czech visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 S African refugee (Huntley) asylum bid OKd 8-27; protest filed 9-1, review set 9-3, 927G1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818E2 Labor & Employment Chrysler union deal chngd 4-26, 283A2 Apr ‘09 jobless rate (8%) 5-8, 394D2 Ford workers deal OKd 10-31, 758D1 Latin American Relations Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871B3 Haiti Sen electn results delay seen 4-20, 270D1 Mex shooting kills 2, victims IDd 9-27—9-28, 682A1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-26, 281D1, D2, 282F1 Pigs swine flu positive tests rptd 5-2, cases tallied 5-7, 303E1, F3 Swine flu cases, deaths tallied 5-27, 351G2 Boxer Gatti buried 7-20, body exhumed, autopsy heled 7-31—8-1, 548G2 Tobacco cos suit filed 9-29, 681F3 US cheaper drugs import measure fails in Sen 12-15, 863G3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Lavi buys Death Row records 1-15, 104E2 Suncor/Petro-Canada buy set 2-23, 204C2 Magna/Opel buy set, deal mulled 5-30—6-3, GM govt stake set 6-1, 365B1, G2, 366F1 Chrysler/Fiat merger completed 6-10, 385D1 GM reorgn OKd, bankruptcy exited 7-5—7-10, 475G1 Opel/Vauxhall sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608G3 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1

Middle East Relations Iran protester freed 11-7, 857A3 Monetary Issues C$ Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Interest rate cut 1-20, 83A1 C$ Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 C$ Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 C$ Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Interest rate cut 4-21, 394D2 C$ May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Pound Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 C$ Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 C$ Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 C$ Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 C$ Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 C$ Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 C$ ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3, D3 Muslim Cartoons Constroversy Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect (Rana) chrgd 10-27—10-82, 816B2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis D-Day marked 6-6, 386B2 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Mongolia uranium deposits state ownership stake set 7-16, 725G2 Obituaries Erickson, Arthur C 5-20, 384F2 Gatti, Arturo 7-11, 500C3 King, Allan 6-15, 452E3 Press & Broadcasting AbitibiBowater bankruptcy filed 4-17, 413D1 Iran rptrs arrest rptd 11-6, 857A3 Somalia rptr (Lindhout) freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 Libel curbs backed by Sup Ct 12-22, 927E1 Science & Technology Boyle wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1 Space & Space Flights Thirsk flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519B2 Laliberte flies intl statn missn 9-30—10-11, 731A2 Sports Intl Bowl results 1-3, 24D1 NHL All-Star Game results 1-25, 159A2 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190F3 Canucks win divisn, Flames/Canadiens make playoffs 4-12, 299A2, C2 Women’s Hockey World Champs lost 4-12, 670C3 Men’s Hockey World Champs lost 5-18, 670B3 NHL’s Coyotes sale nixed 6-15, 435C3 Hockey HOF elects Yzerman/Leetch/Hull/Robitaille 6-23, 435D3 Canadian Open results 7-27, 563C3 Rogers Cup results 8-16, 8-23, 631F2, A3 Hockey HOF inducts Yzerman/Leetch/Hull/Robitaille/Lamori ello/Davidson 11-9, 951D2 Alouettes win Grey Cup 11-29, 951C3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Toronto plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723A1 Toronto plotter freed 5-22, 413C1 US suspects chrgd, held 10-28—10-31, 760A3 Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap, Oct revised 1-13, 15A3–B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap, Nov revised 2-11, 112A1–B1 US econ recovery plan measures opposed 2-18, 91A2 US Jan ‘09 trade gap, Dec ‘08 revised 3-13, 164A2–B2 US Feb ‘09 trade gap, Jan revised 4-9, 240A2–B2 G-7 mtg held 4-24, 298G2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap, Feb revised 5-12, 323D3–E3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap, Mar revised 6-10, 389A2–B2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 G-8 mtg held 6-13, 417G2 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1 US May ‘09 trade gap, Apr revised 7-10, 477A2–B2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap, May revised 8-12, 535A3–B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap, Jun revised 9-10, 619F1–G1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 US Aug ‘09 trade gap, Jul revised 10-9, 699F3–G3 US Sep ‘09 trade gap, Aug revised 11-13, 798A2–B2 US Oct ‘09 trade gap, Sep revised 12-10, 866A1–B1 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 Mali envoy (Fowler), asst freed 4-22, 326E1

ON FILE

UN Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, 890B2 Afghan pres electn probe panel member (Barakzai) quits 10-12, 696B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits 2-19, 91F1 Bush visits 3-17, 166D3 Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3 Harper visits 9-16—9-17, 643A1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees resetlmt sought 2-3, 63D3 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7; repatriatn request ordrd 4-23, ruling upheld, appeal filed 8-14, 719A1

CANADIAN Cinema and Television, Academy of Genie Awards presented 4-4, 280B1

CANAPIA, Esmail Held 12-3, 852D3

CANARY Islands (Spanish territory) African migrants rescued 4-16, Italy entry OKd 4-19, 262D2 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3–D3, 904A1–B1

CANCELMI, Louis This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

CANCER Asbestos Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356E2 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492C2–E2 Awards & Honors Brinker/Rowley get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548G1, C2 Chemical Hazards Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, 33C3 EPA soot rules review ordrd 2-24, 268A1 Obituaries Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436E3 Goody, Jade 3-22, 192G2 Nielsen, Jerri 6-23, 484D3 Novak, Robert D 8-18, 564E3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3 Yow, Kay 1-24, 72G3 People Sen Kennedy at Obama inauguratn, has seizure/in hosp 1-20—1-21, 26A3–B3 Iceland’s Haarde quits, Gisladottir premr bid nixed 1-26, 53A1–B1 Nazi fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155F3 Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Sen Kennedy misses $787 bln econ recovery plan vote 2-13, 89C2 UK reality TV star (Goody) weds 2-22, 140E1 Sup Ct’s Ginsburg returns 2-23, 131B1 Golf’s Mickelson wife bares cancer, suspends season 5-20, returns 6-10, 435C2 Gabon’s Bongo in Spain hosp 5-21, 393C3 N Korea’s Kim pancreatic cancer rptd 7-13, 495B2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537C1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns to Libya 8-20, 550B1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored/prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567C3, 568C2 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569A2, 570D2 Iraq pol party ldr (Hakim) dies 8-26, 592B1, B2 Sen Kennedy mourned, funeral held 8-28—8-29, 584B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 584C1, E2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, UK oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636C2 Gen Petraeus treatmt rptd 10-5, 720D2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704B3 Sup Ct justice (Ginsburg) collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718D1 Fiorina sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907D3 Research & Treatment Putin painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71D3 Experimental cancer drugs Medicare coverage hike rptd 1-27, 133E1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107D2 Prostate test efficacy questnd 3-18, 191B2 Preventive health care costs questnd 8-7, 552C2

2009 Index Druker/Lydon/Sawyers win Lasker 9-14, 671B3 He wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 UK Labour Party conf held 9-27—10-1, 666F2 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720D1 Mammograms cut urged 11-16, policy chngs doubted 11-18, 799B2 Women pap tests guidelines chngd 11-20, 918E3 Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918C3 Smoking Hazards Smoker death damages awarded 2-18, 357E1 Calif smoker (Bullock) death damages awarded 8-24, 660A1 Statistics US life expectancy rise rptd 8-19, 816A3

CANCER Institute, U.S. National (NCI) (of NIH) Prostate test efficacy questnd 3-18, 191D2

CANDY Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626C2

CANIZARES, Gabriel Slain 11-8, 819D3–E3

CANJET Airlines Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871C3

CANNES (France) International Film Festival Prizes awarded 5-24, 363F3

CANO, Robinson Among AL batting/2B/hits ldrs 10-6, 690D2–F2

CANTERBURY, Chandler Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

CANTOR, Eric I. (U.S. representative from Va., 2001- ; Republican) Facts on 1-6, 4C2 Seated minority whip 1-6, 5E1 Vs econ recovery plan 1-28, 41C1

CANTWELL, Maria (U.S. senator from Wash., 2001- ; Democrat) On UK girl Italian slaying trial 12-5, 854B3

CANTWELL, Michaela When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, 451C3

CAO, Anh (U.S. representative from La., 2009- ; Republican) Backs health care reform 11-7, 773A1, 774G2

CAPERTON v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. (2009) Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390A1

CAPE Verde, Republic of Crime & Civil Disorders Missing ship (Arctic Sea) found, hijacking suspects held 8-17, 550C3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232D3; 10-1, 732E3 U.S. Relations-See also other subheads in this section Clinton opens visiot 8-13, 540A1, E3

CAPITAL IQ Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49C1

CAPITAL One Financial Corp. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2

CAPITAL Punishment—See under CRIME CAPITOL Building (Washington, D.C.) Ill’s Burris Sen seating blocked 1-6, 4F2; photo 3E3 Obama, Biden sworn 1-20, 25C1, 28D1; photo 25E1 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, 146C3 House ‘carbon-neutral’ plan dropped 2-27, 131B3 Abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiled 4-28, 300E2 Legis ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-19, 7-6, 489C2 Flight 93 meml plaque unveiled 9-9, 620F3–G3 Conservatives rally held 9-12, 619F2 Health care reform protests held 11-5, 774D1

CAPITOL Records (of EMI) Livingston dies 3-13, 192C3

—CASTRO CAPLAN, Matt Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

CAPONE, Al (1899-1947) Dogan fine mulled 10-5, 706A3

CAPUANO, Michael (U.S. representative from Mass., 1999- ; Democrat) Kennedy nephew nixes Sen seat bid 9-7, 638A2 2d in Sen seat primary 12-8, 848E2

CARABEO, Juanito Seized 5-19; freed 5-25, probe ordrd 6-3, 528B2–D2

CARASSO, Daniel (1905-2009) Dies 5-17, 364B3

CARAZO Odio, Rodrigo (1926-2009) (Costa Rican president, 1978-82) Dies 12-9, 955D1

CARBON Dioxide—See CHEMICALS CARBONNEAU, Guy Fired 3-9, 159C2

CARCIERI, Donald L. (R.I. governor, 2003- ; Republican) Medicaid reforms waiver takes effect 1-19, 96B1

CARCILLO, Daniel NHL penalty minutes ldr 4-12, 299C3

CARD Jr., Andrew H. NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445E3 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 475A1 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3

CARDENAS, Alberto Ousted 9-7, 605D1

CARDIFF, Jack (1914-2009) Dies 4-22, 300D3

CARDIN, Benjamin L. (U.S. senator from Md., 2007- ; Democrat) Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62B2

CARDOZO, Benjamin Nathan (1870-1938) (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1932-38) Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349B2–C2

CARE International Madagascar ‘catastrophe’ warned 4-23, 308C3 Darfur return seen 6-11, 446C2

CAREME, Antonin (d. 1833) Lenotre dies 1-12, 40F2

CAREY, Mariah At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468A1 Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

CAREY & Co., W. P. NYT hq leaseback deal set 3-9, 168F1

CARFAGNA, Mara Berlusconi wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328E1 Hosts Libya’s Qaddafi 6-11, 416A3

CARGILL Inc. Venez plants seizure ordrd 3-4, 204D3

CARHART, Dr. LeRoy On cont practice 6-10, 445E2

CARIBBEAN—See LATIN America; country, organization names CARLIN, George Denis Patrick (1937-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2 Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752G2

CARLSEN, Audun Boy George sentncd 1-16, 71D3

CARLYLE, Warren Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

CARLYLE Group, The Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19, Searle role rptd 4-20—4-21, 265E2, G2 Pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 475F3

CARNEGLIA, Charles (Charlie Canig) Convctd, sentncd 3-17, 9-17, 920B2

CARNEY, Chris (U.S. representative from Pa., 2007- ; Democrat) Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655B1

CARNEY, Judge Cormac Convcts China econ spy (Chung) 7-16, 888F3 Nixes Braodcom stocks backdating chrgs 12-15, 810A2

CAROLE (French swimmer) Muslim swimsuit ban rptd 8-12, 561A2

CARPENTER, Bridget Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

CARPENTER, Chris NL ERA ldr, among wins ldrs 10-6, 690F3 2d in NL Cy Young voting 11-19, 823F3–G3

CARPENTER, Karen Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

CARPENTER, Michael Named GMAC CEO 11-11, 798F3

CARPINELLO, James Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

CARR, Judge James Nixes KindHearts assets freeze 8-18, 678D3

CARR, Judge Robert Nixes terror detainee (Marri) bail 3-18, 183F3, 184A1

CARR, Steve Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

CARRADINE, David (John Arthur) (1936-2009) Found dead 6-4, suffocatn seen 6-5, 400E2

CARRANZA, Luis Keeps finance min post 7-11, 481E1

CARREY, Jim Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

CARRILLO, Viviana Files Lugo paternity suit filed 4-8, illegitimate child admitted 4-13, 294B3–D3

CARRILLO Fuentes, Amado (d. 1997) Son arrest rptd 4-2, 249E3

CARRILLO Leyva, Vicente Arrest rptd 4-2, 249D3

CARRION, Adolfo Named White House urban affairs dir 2-19, 113B1

CARROLL, DeMarre In NBA draft 6-25, 451B2

CARROLL, Jim (James Dennis) (1927-2009) Dies 9-11, 648C2

CARROLL, Stephen (d. 2009) Slaying scored 3-10; funeral held 3-13, suspects held, riots erupt 3-14—3-15, 173D1–E1

CARS—See AUTOMOBILES CARSON, Johnnie Sees Zimbabwe’s Mugabe 7-2, mtg scored 7-5, 459F2 Kenya sanctns warned 9-24, 702A3 Scores Uganda gay curbs bill 12-18, 925A1

CARSON, Johnny (John William) (1925-2005) McMahon dies 6-23, 436F3

CARSON, Scott Sets retiremt 8-31, 744E1

CARSTENS, Agustin On ‘09 GDP forecast 1-8, 83F1 Unveils Calderon budget proposals 9-8, 605F2 Named central bank gov 12-9, 929D1

CARSTENSEN, Kim On climate chng conf 6-12, 405E2

CART, Julie Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C2

CARTER, Ashton Ends Lockheed pres copters deal 5-16, 411G3

CARTER, Jeff NHL game-winning goals ldr, among goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3–B3

CARTER, Jimmy (James Earl Carter Jr.) (U.S. president, 1977-81; Democrat) Bell dies 1-5, 9C3 At White House lunch 1-7, 6G1 Marks China diplomatic ties anniv 1-12, 251C3 Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, 284C2 Visits Gaza 6-16, 546D3 Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517B2 Wexler dies 8-7, 580G3 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569F2 At Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584B2 Powell dies 9-14, 632D3

997

Sees health care debate racism, remarks mulled 9-15—9-16, 617C3–D3 Obama health care reform push cont 9-18—9-20, 638E1 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693E1

CARTER, John R. (U.S. representative from Tex., 2003- ; Republican) Rep Rangel com chair ouster bid fails 10-7, 679F1

CARTER, Phillip Quits 11-20, 914E1

CARTER, Vince Traded to Magic 6-25, 451D2

CARTER Center, The (Atlanta, Ga.) Town hall mtg held 9-15, 617C3 Electns registratn opens 11-1, 801F3

CARTOONS & Cartoonists Denmark’s Rasmussen NATO secy gen bid OKd 4-4, 213B2 Breen wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3 Denmark’s Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen 8-3, 534E1 Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Danish Muhammad cartoonist slaying plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2 Obituaries Disney, Roy E 12-16, 896C2 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436E1 Kaufman, Millard 3-14, 192A3 Levine, David 12-29, 955E2

CARTWRIGHT, Gen. James Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613C1, A2

CASE, Allison Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

CASEY Jr., Gen. George W. Slain troops ‘John Doe’ family letters mistake rptd 1-7, 267D1

CASEY, Paul Loses Match Play Champ 3-1, 139C1 Wins Houston Open 4-5, 255E2

CASEY, Judge Richard Saudi royals/charities, Al Qeada funding linked 6-24, 9/11 victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491G2–A3

CASHMAN, Brian On Rodriguez steroids use 2-10, 87G2

CASILLA, Alexi Buehrle sets consecutive outs mark 7-28, 531F1

CASPIAN Airlines Iran/Armenia flight crash kills 168, black box found/probe ordrd 7-15, 482G3, 483B1

CASPIAN Sea Turkey/EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561B1

CASSAVETES, Nick My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

CASSEL, Matt Traded to Chiefs 2-28, 176G1

CASSIDY, Cmdr. Christopher Flies Endeavour missn, conducts space walks 7-15—7-31, 519A2, D2–E2

CASSIN, Riccardo (1909-2009) Dies 8-6, 564G2

CASSINI (U.S.-European spacecraft) Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697D3

CASSON, Dr. Ira Quits 11-24, 948B1*

CASSPI, Omri In NBA draft 6-25, 451B2

CASTEL, Judge P. Kevin Declares Gotti mistrial 12-1, 888F1

CASTELLI, Jeffrey Cleared 11-4, 766C1

CASTLE, Michael N. (U.S. representative from Del., 1993- ; Republican) Defends Obama citizenship 6-30, 552E3 Sets Sen seat bid 10-6, 679C1

CASTRO, Juanita CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2

CASTRONEVES, Helio Cleared 4-17, conspiracy chrg dropped 5-22, 363A3–B3 Wins Indy 500 5-24, 363F2

CASTRONEVES, Katiucla Cleared 4-17, 363B3

CASTRO Ruz, Gen. Fidel (Cuban premier, 1959-76; president, 1976-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C2 Revolutn anniv marked 1-1, 8B1–D1 Photo published 2-17, 575A2 Havana walks rptd 2-27—3-3, on brother cabt shuffle 3-3, 134D2–E2, B3–C3 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3

998 CASTRO— Hosts US reps 4-7, family visit/remittnc/telecom curbs eased, mulled 4-13—4-14, 248B3, G3–249A1, C1, F1 Clarifies brother’s remarks 4-22, 271A3 Venez’s Chavez talk show aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413C2 El Salvador ties cont 6-1, 394A3 OAS reentry OKd 6-4, 376B3, E3 Hails US spying suspects 6-6, 392G3 Communist cong postponed 7-31, cont socialism seen 8-1, 527C1 Photos published, tape aired 8-23, 575E1 Almeida dies 9-11, 648D1 Havana peace concert held 9-20, 661E2–F2 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633E2 Uruguay pres electn held 10-25, 746C3 Sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2 Rights abuses scored 11-18, 928E1 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834E3

CASTRO Ruz, Gen. Raul (Cuban president, 2008- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C2 Revolutn anniv marked 1-1, on US’s Obama 1-2, 8B1–C1, E1 Visits Russia, signs deal 1-30, 85C2 Shuffles cabt, power grab denied 3-2—3-3, 134D2, C3 Resignatn rptd 3-5, 249B2 Hosts US reps 4-6, 249F1 Econ reforms sought 4-6, 249D2 On US talks 4-16, brother clarifies remarks 4-22, 271G2–A3 On econ recovery 7-31, sees cont socialism 8-1, 527C1–E1 Brother photos published, tape aired 8-23, 575F1–G1 Almeida dies 9-11, 648D1 Havana peace concert held 9-20, 661F2 Sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2–C2 Rights abuses scored 11-18, 928E1–F1 Cuban blog interview posted 11-18, 928D1 On US contractor subversn, violatns 12-19—12-20, 927E3–F3

CATASTROPHE (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

CATCHER in the Rye, The (book) Colting ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484C3

CATCHINGS, Tamika Named WNBA top defensive player 9-25, 808D1

CATERPILLAR Inc. ‘08 fed funded projects rptd 1-14, 29E3 Rehiring mulled 2-11, Obama visits Ill hq 2-12, 79E1 French factory mgr held, freed 3-31, 207D1

CATHERINE of Aragon (1485-1536) RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711B3

CATHOLIC Bishops, U.S. Conference of Doerflinger sees Rep Pelosi 11-6, 773D2

CATHOLIC Church—See ROMAN Catholic Church CATHOLIC Health Association of the U.S. Cost cuts OKd 7-8, 457F2

CATHOLIC University (Milan, Italy) Tedeschi named Vatican bank head 9-23, 712C1

CATHOLIC University of America (Washington, D.C.) Dolan named NYC archbp 2-23, 132E2

CATTLE—See LIVESTOCK CAUCASUS Research Resource Center Georgia protests crowd estimated 4-9, 253A2

CAVACO Silva, Anibal (Portuguese premier, 1985-95; president, 2006- ) Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667D1

CAVALRYMAN (racehorse) 3d in Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807A3

CAVENAUGH, Matt West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

CAYLEY, Andrew Named UN Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor 12-2, 890B2–C2

CBS Inc. Appointments & Resignations Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1

FACTS Rather ouster suit dismissed 9-30, 671E3 Interviews & Debates Obama 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Sen Kerry 10-19, 710D3 White House sr adviser (Axelrod) 11-1, 754A1 Nielsen Ratings—See under TELEVISION Obituaries Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500F2 Hewitt, Don 8-19, 564A3 People Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1 Polls & Surveys Obama pub expectatns 1-18, 25C3 Obama support 2-18—2-22, 105E2 Health care reform support 6-21, 427E2 Obama approval rating, health care reform support 9-25, 656F1 Programming & Sponsorship ‘Guiding Light’ dropped 4-1, last episode aired 9-18, 953G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307C1 ‘As the World Turns’ dropped 12-8, 953F3 60 Minutes—See 60 Minutes

CCTV (Chinese TV station) Beijing hq blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251G2

CDR Financial Products Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6C1 NM gov (Richardson) fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620E1

CEAUSESCU, Nicolae (1918-89) (Romanian president, 1967-89) Mueller wins Nobel 10-8, 693E2

CEDILLO, Michelle MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 133B1–C1

CEDILO, Gil Calif House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340E2

CELLINI, William Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29F3 Indicted 4-2, 218F3 Pleads not guilty 4-16, 243C2

CEMENT Industry Vermoegensverwaltung owner (Merckle) found dead 1-5, suicide rptd 1-6, 8G1 US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 Afghan mines min (Adel) bribe rptd 11-18, 806E1

CEMETERIES Russia blast kills 3 11-13, 855F1 Arlington Natl Cemetery record-keeping woes probe set 11-13, 915F1

CEMETERY Dance (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

CENSORSHIP—See specific subject (e.g., LITERATURE) CENSUS—See POPULATION CENSUS, U.S. Bureau of the (of Commerce) White House direct rptg set, pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60B2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79G2 Obama ‘10 budet proposals detailed 5-7, 321D2 ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488D2 Gay marriages recognitn set 6-19, 659E2 Chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1 Abroad missionaries count nixed 8-18, 659D2 ‘08 uninsured tallied 9-10, 598D3 ‘08 poverty/income rptd 9-10, 619A1 ACORN ties cut, contract denied 9-11—9-23, House com hearing held 9-22, 659G1–A2 Ky worker found dead 9-12, cnty canvassing halted 9-27, 722C1 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 States poverty rates rptd 9-29, 798E1 Coll Oct ‘08 student enrollmt hike seen, HS ‘08 drop outs rptd 10-29, 817A1 Ky worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817E1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866C3

CENTER for American Progress Podesta visits N Korea 8-4, 517G2 Podesta White House visits rptd 10-30, 780D1

CENTER for a New American Security Gen Petraeus addresses 6-11, 434B2

CENTER for Constitutional Rights (N.Y., N.Y.) Terror detainees abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150G1 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setlmt hailed 6-8—6-9, 406B1

CENTER for International Poliicy (Washington, D.C.) N Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35E3

CENTER for Security Policy (Washington, D.C.) Cheney addresses 10-21, 751F2

CENTER for Study of Democracy Bulgaria ex-argi min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgd 9-8, 727F2

CENTERRA Gold Inc. Batbold named, confrmd premr 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763A2

CENTRAL African Republic African Relations Sudan border peacekeeping force control transferred 3-15, 185F1 Uganda rebels abuses rptd 12-21, 924D3, F3 Civil Strife Rebel attack rptd 1-20, 34D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Bozize ousts govt 1-18, Touadera renamed premr, cabt set 1-19, 34C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E3; 10-1, 732E3

CENTRAL America—See LATIN America CENTRAL American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) El Salvador’s Funes visits US emb 3-16, 170B3

CENTRAL Banco Universal Seized 12-4, reopening set 12-11, 929B2, F2

CENTRAL Florida, University of (Orlando) St Petersburg Bowl lost 12-19, 948C3

CENTRAL Intelligence Agency, U.S. (CIA) African Developments Intl arms smuggling suspect (Tinner) bust aid claimed 1-22, brother freed 1-23, 75C3 Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3 Eritrea’s Afwerki denies Somalia conflict role 5-21, 342A1 Algeria ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 502A3 Appointments & Resignations Panetta dir apptmt seen, questnd 1-5, Obama calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5C3 Dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued, Sen com hearing held 2-4—2-6; nominatn backed 2-11, confrmd 2-12, 93C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Pak drone strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38A3 Pak drone missile strike kills 20+ 1-23, 69G3 Mumbai terror attacks intell sharing rptd 2-16, 103D3 Pak efforts cont 2-25, 138A3 Panetta visits Pak 3-21, 228G3, 229A3 Afghan’s Karzai, Pak’s Zardari see ofcls 5-6, 315A2, D2 Pak drone missile strikes support polled 5-11; jt efforts seen 5-12, video footage aid rptd 5-14, 346C3 Pak drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466G2 Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499F1 Pak drone missile strike bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, 514G2, B3 Pak drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying claimed 8-5—8-11, 533D1 Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933G2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn backed 10-20, 709B3 Afghan’s Karzai brother paymts rptd 10-28, 751E1–G1 Bin Laden ‘01 Afghan escape rptd 11-30, 845B1 Pak operatns hike rptd 12-2, 827G1–A2 US/Pak drone missile strike kills 13 12-26, 947A2 Afghan base attack kills 7 12-30, 899D1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132E1, G1–A2 Ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1

ON FILE

Ex-ofcl (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3–D3 Latin Developments Bolivia diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204G1 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392C3 Cuba’s Castro sister ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2 Middle East Developments Iranian scholar (Tajbakhsh) sentncd 10-18, 768C1 Obituaries Barker, Bernard L 6-5, 400D2 Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Plame ID Leak Case Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166C3 Novak dies 8-18, 564E3 Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815F2 Political Issues World ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3 Obama visits hq 4-20, 258D2 World ldrs listed 10-1, 732A1–736G3 Security Issues Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16B3–C3 Terror suspects interrogatn tactics ltd 1-22, 28G1, F2, A3–B3 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 45G1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46G3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2 Terror suspects interrogatn abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150F1 Terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129C2 Terror detainees Sen com probe rptd 3-2, 130D2 Terror detainees torture alleged 3-15, indep probe urged 3-17, 183G2 Terror detainee (Mohamed) failed plea deal documts issued 3-23, 290B2 Terror detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 200A1 Terror detainees abuse rpts release sought 3-31, 290B3 Interrogatn memos release delayed, House com rpt issued 4-2, 257E1, 258F1–G1 Terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244D2 Secret prisons shut 4-9, 262A3 Interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled/footnotes detailed 4-16—4-23, Sen com rpt released, timeline revealed 4-21—4-22, 257A1–261E3; excerpts 259A1–260G3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatn documts issued 4-24; intell questnd 4-25—4-26, methods scored 4-27, 289C2, B3, F3–290B1, B3 Terror detainees renditn Boeing divisn aid info release suit reinstated 4-28, 290E1, A2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 305E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322C3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd, documts issued 5-5—5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 323A1, C1, E1–A2 Qaeda operative (Libi) death rptd 5-10, 331G1–B2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatn Sen com hearing held 5-13, Cheney documts request denied 5-14, 322E1–G1, F2 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) pleads not guilty 6-9, 391F3 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14; ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473A3, 474A1, G1, B2 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474F2, C3, E3 Terror detainees abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed, Durham named 8-19—8-24, documts issued, interrogatn unit order signed 8-24, 565A1–566F2, 567B1–B2 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20; Blackwater role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21, drone missile strikes work seen 8-21, 586F2, E3–F3 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587B1–E1 Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, state security dir (Malakauskas) quits 12-14, 902D3, 903C1

2009 Index Terror detainees interrogatn tapes release nixed 9-30, measure passes House 10-8, 719E1 Italy ‘03 kidnapping agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3 Blackwater, renditn flights security role rptd 12-10, drone missile strike work nixed 12-11, 884D3

CENTRE for Rights, Education and Awareness Kenya activists mass exit seen 3-28, 203D1

CEPEDA, Frederich Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191C1

CE Qu’il Faut Pour Vivre (The Necessities of Life) (film) Genies won 4-4, 280D1

CERA, Michael Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

CERBERUS Capital Management L.P. Chrysler CEO (Nardelli) sets resignatn, bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282B3, 283E1 GM key events listed 6-1, 366B2

CERVERIS, Michael Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3 In the Next Room opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954G1

CESAIRE, Aime Fernand (1913-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

CESPEDES, Yoennis Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191B1

CESSNA Aircraft Co. (of Textron) Brazil river plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926D2

CETIN, Servet (d. 2007) Oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, chrgd, jailing ordrd 3-11, 187C2–D2

CHABERT, Lacey Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

CHACON, Arne Banks seized 12-4, held 12-5, 929C2–D2

CHACON, Carme Sets Afghan troops hike 12-17, 894C2

CHACON, Jesse Denies uranium detectn Iran aid 9-26, 682G2 Banks seized 12-4, quits 12-6, 929C2–D2

CHAD, Republic of African Relations Sudan govt, Darfur rebels peace talks set 2-17, 115D3 Sudan border peacekeeping force control transferred 3-15, 185E1–F1 Sudan peace deal signed 5-3; attack claimed, thwarted 5-5—5-7, Darfur raids rptd, towns control regained/rapes rise seen 5-17—5-30, 376A1, C1, G1 AU summit held, Sudan’s Bashir/ICC warrant res opposed 7-1—7-3, 459G1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E3; 10-1, 732E3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release ordrd 1-14, 20G2 Cuba base detainee (Gharani) transferred 6-11, 391E2

CHAFFETZ, Jason (U.S. representative from Utah, 2009- ; Republican) Vows DC gay marriage recognitn block 5-5, 304B2

CHAHINE, Youssef (1926-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

CHAIN Stores—See DEPARTMENT & Variety Stores CHAIS, Stanley SEC civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442C2–D2, A3

CHAKARI, Sediq Replacemt named 12-19, 893G3

CHALABI, Ahmed Pol coalitn set 8-24, 592E1

CHALFANT, Kathleen Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

CHALFIE, Martin ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

CHALK Garden, The (play) Tyzack wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231G1

—CHEMICALS 999 CHAMBAS, Mohamed Ibn On Guinea-Bissau power transitn 3-3, 134D1

CHAMBERLAIN, Joba Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770B3–C3, F3

CHAMBER of Commerce of the U.S. Workers unionizing vote options bill introduced 3-10, 165A1 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445E1 Utilities exit 9-22—9-28, Nike drops bd role 9-30, 654B3–D3 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841C2

CHAMBERS, Marilyn (Marilyn Ann Briggs) (1952-2009) Found dead 4-12, 256G2 Autopsy rpt issued 5-18, 348G2

CHAMISA, Nelson On MPs arrest 8-19, 680C3 On party ofcl (Mashaire) attack, mulls Mugabe/Tsvangirai mtg 10-26, 746E2, G2

CHAN, Jackie Founding of a Repub released 10-1, 683G1

CHAN, Dr. Margaret Rptd WHO dir gen 1-1, 3C2 On swine flu alert 4-29, 281B1–C1 On swine flu pandemic threat 5-3, 303F1 On swine flu thrat 5-18, 351C3 On swine flu pandemic 6-11, 386A3 On swine flu peak 12-31, 901C1–D1

CHAN, Patrick 2d in world champs 3-26, 211E2

CHAND (Pakistani girl) Whipped 3-7; tape aired 4-2, probe ordrd 4-6, 229C2

CHANDLER 3rd, A. B. (Ben) (U.S. representative from Ky., 2004- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

CHANDLER, Paul Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801G1–D2 Hostage tape aired 11-20, 903E2

CHANDLER, Rachel Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2–D2 Hostage tape aired 11-20, 903E2

CHANDRA Hamzah Named graft suspect, held/freed 9-15—11-3; wiretaps rptd, case probed/protests held 10-30—11-9, dep atty gen, cop ofcl quit 11-4, 786B1, D1–A2, C2

CHANDRAYAAN-1 (Indian satellite) Contact lost, moon missn ended 8-29—8-31, 612D1–E1 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697C3–D3

CHANGELING (film) Jolie gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

CHANNEL 36 (Honduran TV station) Shut 9-28, 661F3

CHAOVARAT Chanwerakul Sets social venues safety inspectns 1-7, 22E3 Nixes protesters force use 3-30, 206B1

CHAPIN, Schuyler Garrison (1923-2009) Dies 3-7, 192C2

CHAPLIN, Charlie (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr.) (1889-1977) Son dies 3-3, 192D2 Jackson meml svc held 7-7, 468B1

CHAPLIN, Sydney Earle (1926-2009) Dies 3-3, 192D2

CHAPTER 11—See BANKTRUPTCIES CHAPUR, Maria Belen SC gov (Sanford) regrets, details affair 6-26—6-30; wife blasts 7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455F3

CHARA, Zdeno Wins Norris Trophy 6-18, 435G2

CHARBONNEAU, David On mostly water planet find 12-16, 952B1

CHARISSE, Cyd (Tula Elice Finklea) (1922-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

CHARITY—See PHILANTHROPY CHARLES, Prince of Wales (Charles Philip Arthur George) (Great Britain) Marks D-Day anniv 6-6, 386C2

CHARLES, Larry Bruno on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

CHARLES, Ray (Ray Charles Robinson) (1930-2004) Cooper dies 1-15, 71F3 Newman dies 1-20, 56D2 Crawford dies 1-29, 71E3

CHARLES, Tina UConn wins NCAA title, named tourn MVP 4-7, 229F3–G3, 230G1

CHARLIE‘S Angels (TV show) Fawcett dies 6-25, 436D3

CHARLTON, Andrew Car dealer/Treasury favoritism e-mail alleged, forgery declared 6-19—6-22, 447B3–C3

CHARTS—See TABLES CHASING Pavements (recording) Adele wins Grammys 2-8, 88F2

CHATHAM House Iran pres electn study issued 6-21, 422D2

CHAUDHRY, Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Reinstatemt rally set 2-25, 138A2–B2 Sharifs pol ban mulled 3-14, reinstated 3-16, 175E1, D3 Returns to Sup Ct 3-22, Sharif pol ban overturned 3-31, 228C2–D2, F2–G2, B3 Orders tribal areas girl whipping probe 4-6, 229B2 Musharraf summoned 7-22, skips Sup Ct appearnc 7-29, 515D1 Musharraf ‘07 emergency order ruled illegal 7-31, 530C3–D3 Amnesty nixed 12-16, 878D3

CHAVEZ Cano, Esther (1933-2009) Dies 12-25, 955E1

CHAVEZ Chavez, Arturo Named atty gen 9-7, 605B1 Confrmd atty gen 9-25, 682C1

CHAVEZ Frias, Lt. Col. Hugo (Venezuelan president, 1999- ) Economy & Labor ‘08 inflatn rate rptd 1-8, 22A3 SIB branch seized 2-19, 148A3 Orders rice plants seizure 2-28, 3-4, 204C3 Orders seaports seizure 3-15, 204F2 ‘09 budget chngs set 3-21, vows cut 3-22, 270C2 On banks natlizatn 12-2—12-4, 929A2, C2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Ousts Israeli amb 1-6, cuts diplomatic ties 1-14, 270C3–D3 Sees US talks 2-14, 97G3 On Cuba’s Castro health 2-27, 134C3 Brazil’s da Silva visits US 3-14, 186F2 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3 Argentina’s Fernandez de Kirchner pres bid funds muzzler sentncd 3-16, 205E1 Calls Obama ‘ignorant’ 3-22, 270G2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn hailed 6-17, 403E1 Honduras const reforms refendum thwarted, scores pres ouster/hikes troops alert 6-28, mtg held 6-29, 438E1, C2, E2 Honduras diplomats ousted 7-21, 493F2 Mulls Colombia ties 7-21; FARC link denied 7-27, recalls amb 7-28, 526E2–G2 Colombia amb returns 8-8, claims army patrol border crossing 8-9, 541F3–G3 N Amer ldrs back Zelaya 8-9—8-10, 541F2 At UNASUR summit 8-10, 541C3 Warns Colombia ties cut 8-25, at UNASUR mtg 8-28, 589D2, B3 Takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2, D3 Marks Libya’s Qaddafi coup anniv 9-1, 583F2 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-24, 633B3 Scores US/Colombia mil base access deal 10-30, 817C3 Hosts Iran’s Ahmadinejad 11-25, 885D2–E2 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834C3 Hosts China’s Zhang, signs deals 12-22, 929F2 Oil & Gas Developments US low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5—1-7, Westn cos dvpt bids sought 1-15, 22E2–F2 Orders oil/steel/iron indus seizures 5-7—5-21, 395B1, E1

Politics Pres term limits end referendum held 2-15, 97B3–F3 Oppositn ldr (Rosales) chrgd/flees, sentncg documt rptd 3-19—4-22; ex-defns min (Baduel) held 4-2, civil rights violatn alleged 4-20, 326B2–D2, F2–A3 Pol powers hike protested 9-4—9-5, 616F3 Gives speech 11-20, 929A3 Sci/tech min (Chacon) quits 12-6, 929D2 Caldera dies, ‘homage’ spurned 12-24, 955C1 Press & Broadcasting Globovision pres (Zuloaga) Venez home raided, protests held 5-21—6-27, radio licenses revoked, broadcasting rules chngd 7-3—7-9, 493D3–E3, G3–494A1 Talk show aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413B2 Radio/TV statns shut, Globovisn hq stormed 7-31—8-3, electn reforms pass Natl Assemb 8-2, 576A1–B1, D1

CHAY Kim Huor (d. 1979) Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial cont 3-31, 414C1

CHEADLE, Don Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

CHEA Lang Tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, 890B2

CHECHNYA Conflict—See under RUSSIA CHEECHOO, Jonathan Traded to Sens 9-12, 730G3

CHEIKHO, Khaled Convctd 10-16, 930G1

CHEIKHO, Moustafa Convctd 10-16, 930G1

CHELSOM, Peter Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

CHEMICAL & Biological Warfare Israeli mil white phosphorus use alleged 1-10, 13B2–C2 US Army biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266D3 Gaza invasn white phosphorus use rptd 3-25, 210C2–D2 Gaza war crimes probe rpt issued 4-22, 313B1 US ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305C2 Qaeda operative (Libi) death rptd 5-10, 331A2 Swine flu US biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3–D3 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614B2 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862A2 Chile ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871G2 Iraq War—See PERSIAN Gulf War; IRAQ

CHEMICALS Accidents & Disasters Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2 China mine blast kills 74+, survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251E2 Bayer W Va plant blast info block seen, rpt issued 4-21—4-23, 412E3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11, cause rptd 6-25, 555B1 ConAgra NC factory blast kills 3 6-9, natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412C3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 BP ‘07 refinery release damages awarded 12-18, 916D3 Appointments & Resignations EPA admin nominee (Jackson) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Iran plant opens 6-25, 423F1 Crime & Terrorism Issues Mex drug cartel murder victims dissolving suspect held 1-23, 97A3 Somali pirates free PI tanker 4-21, 269A3 France anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1 India bootleg liquor deaths linked 7-12, 530G2 Malaysia protests dispersed 8-1, crackdown scored 8-3, 542E3 US/Mex border kidnapping suspects indicted 8-13, 556G2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) Colo hotel stay seen/seeks chem, chrgd 9-6—9-24, mass transit alert issued, NYC security hiked 9-18—9-22, 642F1, A2–C2

1000 CHEMICAL Safety— UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608A2, C2 WWII code-breaker (Turing) UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648B1 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) hotel room search rptd 9-26, accomplices role seen 10-8, 678A2–C2 Mex meth ingredients seized 10-2, 747C2 Australia attack plotters convctd 10-16, 930F1–G1 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1 Afghan fertilizer stash seized 11-11, 775B3 Tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18 11-17, 801F2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, 897C1 Somalia pirates seize UK tanker (St James Park) 12-28, 903D2 Environmental Hazards States’ fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47A2 Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1–D1 Coal plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94C2, E2 House ‘carbon-neutral’ plan dropped 2-27, 131A3 CO2 emissns EPA regulatn mulled 3-2, 131F2 US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267D3 US toxic chem emissns rptg hike signed 3-11, 356F3 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 267E1 Australia climate chng bill passes House/blocked, reintroductn vowed 6-4—8-13, 623G3–624A1 Clean coal project revived 6-12, 445G3–446A1 Timor Sea rig leak opens/halted 8-21—11-3, 874F1 Japan emissns cut hike vowed 9-7, 625D1 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644F2 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636E1–F1 US emissns rptg set 9-22, 781B2 EPA emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2 Emissns cut bill introduced 9-29, EPA proposal issued 9-30, 654C2, A3–B3 Climate chng rallies held 10-24, 828C3 Climate chng bill Sen com hearings open 10-27, 743A1 Brown pelican delisting set 11-11, 918B1 China, India vow ‘carbon intensity’ cut 11-26, 12-2, 827D3, 828A2 Australian climate chng bill nixed 12-2, 851F1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B1; table 883A1 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841G1–A2, C2 French CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1 Health & Safety Issues China tainted milk suit filed, victim parents compensatn OKd 1-16, sentncs issued 1-22, 35C2, G2 Toys testing hike delayed 1-30, lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356C2 China natl cong held 3-5—3-13, 187C1–D1 FDA tobacco regulatn bill backed, passes House 4-1—4-2, 221A2 Pesticides testing ordrd 4-15, 356D3 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492D2 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557C1 Ssangyong factory raided 8-4—8-5, 787E1 China smelters shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2 Gongmeng founder (Xu) freed 8-23, 606E2 Water monitoring benefits seen 8-23, 701F2–G2 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1 Drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850C1 China dairy contaminators executed 11-24; civil suit opens 11-27, new case suspects held 12-8, 932E3

Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1 Labor Issues S African workers stirke 7-20, 526D1 Nuclear Waste—See NUCLEAR Power Pesticides—See PESTICIDES Research & Development NASA climate satellite launched, crashes 2-24, 131D3 Space Issues Intl statn space walk cut 7-22, 519E2 Intl statn space walks conducted 9-2—9-4, 616A1 Trade Issues China sets US polycaprolactam tariffs 10-19, 776E2 China raw materials export curbs WTO complaint filed 11-5, adipic acid duties set 11-8, 776B2, F2

CHEMICAL Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, U.S. Bayer W Va plant blast rpt issued 4-23, 412E3 NC factory blast natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412B3

CHEMISTRY Sigman wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2 Ramakrishnan/Steitz/Yonath win Nobel 10-7, 694F1 Obituaries Shubin, Lester D 11-20, 896E3

CHEMTURA Corp. Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1

CHEN Chao-min Offers resignatns 8-19, 560A1

CHEN Chih-chung Pleads guilty 1-21, 135D1 Sentncd 9-11, 625G2

CHENEY, Richard Bruce (U.S. vice president, 2001-09; Republican) Espionage & Intelligence Issues NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474B3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section On Afghan mil strategy 10-21, 751F2 Iraqi Conflict Backs Libby pardon 1-21, 33G3 On Libby pardon nix, questns Obama antiterror policies/remarks scored 3-15—3-16, 166B2, A3, C3 CIA agent ID leak case interview notes issued 10-30, 815F2 Politics Certifies pres electn electoral coll votes 1-8, 6F1 Swears Ill sen (Burris) 1-15, 18B2 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19B1 At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26A3, 28F1 Questns Powell GOP role 5-10, remarks scored 5-24, 353A2, A3–B3, D3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814F3 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 200B1 Seeks detainees abuse CIA rpts release 3-31, 290B3–C3 Defends CIA interrogatns 4-20, Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 258G2, A3 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329E2 Detainees abuse ban defended 4-29, 285E2 Detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 205F3, 306B1 Detainees CIA interrogatns documt request denied 5-14, 322F2 Questns Obama detentn policies 5-21, 337C2 CIA planned Al Qaeda assassinatn program shut/Cong briefing mulled 6-23—7-14, ‘06 rptg noted/prior halts seen 7-14—7-16, 473C3, 474G1 NY ‘02 arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2 Defends detainees interrogatn techniques 8-24, 566G2 Scores Mich flight failed blast intell woes 12-31, 898F2

CHENEY, Timothy Overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, license revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743E3

CHENG, Nien (Yao Nien Yuan) (1915-2009) Dies 11-2, 824D3

FACTS CHEN Shui-bian (Taiwanese president, 2000-08) Pleads not guilty, opens hunger strike/claims pol motivatn 1-19—2-23, kin pleads guilty 1-21—2-10, 135A1–F1 Ma inauguratn anniv marked 5-20, 415E3 Convctd, sentncd 9-11, 625D2

CHEN Xiwen On jobless migrants 2-2, 134E3–F3

CHERLIN, Reid Questns health care reform bill indus rpt 10-12, 698C2

CHEROF, Idriss On junta ldr (Camara), aides ICC chrgs urge 12-21, 925A2

CHERUIYOT, Robert 2d in NYC marathon, 3d in Majors 11-1, 791A3, 792A1

CHESS Russia’s Kasparov held 1-31, 69G1

CHEVALLIER, Eric Scores pope condoms use remarks 3-18, 195G3

CHEVRON Corp. Nigeria mil offensive launched 5-15, pipelines attacked 5-25, 358B2, B3 Angola/USAID agri deal signed 8-9, 540E2 Ecuador ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31; suit judge ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3 Myanmar junta bolstering allegatns mulled 9-9—9-10, 684B1–D1, F1

CHI (Italian magazine) Berlusconi interviewed 6-24, 463D2, A3

CHIARELLI, Staff Gen. Peter Seen ‘09 troops suicides high 11-17, 915D1

CHICAGO—See ILLINOIS CHICAGO, University of Sunstein named info/regulatory affairs ofc head 1-7, 6G2 Obamas ‘08 tax returns rptd 4-15, 243C1 Duckworth dies 10-18, 772E1

CHICAGO Sun-Times (newspaper) Sun Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393G1 Sun-Times Media sale OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3

CHICAGO Tribune (newspaper) Salopek wins Polk Award 2-16, 139B3* Sen Burris resignatn urged 2-18, 93C3 Phillips named ‘At the Movies’ co-host 8-5, 548B3

CHICKENFOOT (music group) Chickenfoot on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

CHICKENFOOT (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

CHICKENS—See POULTRY CHIDAMBARAM, Palaniappan On cricket tourn hosting nix 3-22, 275D3 On Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Saeed) release 6-2, 383B1 Issues Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt 11-24, 823D1 OKs Andhra Pradesh state plan 12-9, seeks consultatns 12-23, 945G3, 946B1–C1, F1

CHIESI, Danielle Chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3 Indicted 12-15, pleads not guilty 12-21, 910F1

CHILCOT, Sir John Iraq war probe opens 6-15, ltd pub hearings OKd 6-18, 449D1–E1 Opens Iraq war probe 7-30, 530G1; 11-24, 820G3–821A1

CHILD, Julia (Julia Carolyn McWilliams) (1912-2004) My Life in France on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1 Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-31, 596B1 Mastering Art of French Cooking on best-seller list 8-31, 596B1; 9-28, 672B1

CHILD, Lee (Jim Grant) Gone Tomorrow on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

CHILD, Lincoln Cemetery Dance on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

CHILD Abuse—See under CHILDREN CHILDBIRTH (including pregnancy) Abortion—See ABORTION Birth Control—See BIRTH Control Birth Defects & Miscarriages Worldwide premature births rptd 10-4, 901C2

ON FILE

Birth Rates & Fertility US ‘06 teen rate rptd 1-7, 96F1 US ‘07 birth rate rptd 3-18, 201D3 Births Calif octuplets born 1-26; fertility MD probe opens 2-6, clinic bared 2-9, 114E3 Rapper MIA son 2-11, 104D2 WNBA’s Parker girl 5-13, 808D1 Broderick/Parker surrogate twins 6-22, 516F1 Cloning—See under GENETICS Health & Safety Issues Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, 33C3 Immigration care curbs ease clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62E3 ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 269A1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321F3 S Africa AIDS policy hiked 6-8, 850C3 Swine flu vaccine priorities urged 7-29, 502C2 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697E2 US swine flu spread seen 10-1, vaccinatns open 10-6, 696D3, 697C1 Swine flu vaccine delays seen, doses estimated/availability vowed 10-16—10-28, 741D3–E3 Swine flu vaccine dosage set 11-2, 810D3 Zambia porn case rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925A3 Military Issues Iraq/US impregnated troops ct-martials set 11-4, punishmt curbed, ban nixed 12-22—12-24, 915B1 People Laos drug trafficker (Orobator) pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3, UK transfer set, arrives 7-27—8-7, 933D2 Ger ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482F2 Ger ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2 Palin bk published 11-17, 797B2 Social Issues Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338A1

CHILDERS, Travis (U.S. representative from Miss., 2008- ; Democrat) Backs Rep Rangel com chair ouster 10-7, 679G1 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

CHILD Online Protection Act (COPA) (1998) Law nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3

CHILDREN Accidents & Disasters China quake schl constructn probe sought 5-4, student death toll issued 5-7, 326B3–E3 Mex day-care blaze kills 47, smoke inhalatn deaths seen 6-5—6-7; damaged air conditioner cited 6-10, state finance min ofcls held, fed probe set 6-22—6-24, 431F2 Mex day-care owners arrest sought 7-2, fire probe comm set 8-6, 556G3 Adoption & Foster Care Madonna 2d Malawi bid foiled, appeal set 4-3, 231D2 Madonna 2d Malawi bid appeal succeeds 6-12, 420F2 Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408B2 Singer John Ukrainian adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708F2 Arts & Culture Obama bk deal chngd 1-9, 201D1 Awards & Honors Gaiman wins Newbery, Krommes takes Caldecott 1-26, 56A1–B1 Tamer Institute wins Lindgren Award 3-24, 255E3 Child Abuse Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48D3 Suspect atty request expiratn case accepted 1-26, 48A3 LA diocese oversight grand jury probe rptd 1-29, cooperatn set 2-1, 132C3 Calif ex-RC priest (Miller) sentncd 1-30, 132B3 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2–F2 Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2, C3 Ireland RC schls abuse rpt issued 5-20; emergency mtg held, govt role regretted 5-26, compensatn talks set 5-27, 361B2, G2 Australia aborigine incidents tallied 7-2, 624A2 Chicago RC diocese abuse victims paymts set 7-21, 712D1

2009 Index Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn seen 8-27, 624F1, B2 Suspect atty request case argumts heard by Sup Ct 10-5, 677D2 Del RC diocese bankruptcy filed 10-18, 711C3 Polygamists (Jessop/Keate) convctd, sentncd 11-5—12-17, 919A2 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818A2, D2, G2 Christian Brothers setlmt rptd 11-25, Ireland RC role regretted 11-26, 836B1 Ireland RC rpt mulled 12-11, bps quit 12-17—12-24, 938D1 Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931A3 Crime Issues COPA nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3 Australian porn suspect held, IDd 2-13, 2-16, 98D1 Kuwait blaze kills 41+ 8-15, suspect held 8-17, 943B2 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Gov Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700C1–D1, F2, C3 Calif kidnapping suspects noticed/held, plead not guilty 8-25—8-28; backyard compound found, cops missed chances admitted 8-26—8-28, victim, family reunited 8-27, 587A3, E3 PI schl gunmen seize 125, hostages freed 12-10—12-13, suspects chrgd 12-15, 891D1 Australia Web filters set 12-15, 931C3 Custody Issues Afghan women rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213F1 Singer Jackson kids custody set 6-29, 468G1 Jackson mom/kids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531E2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect warning rptd 11-13, 833A1 Brazil boy US return ordrd 12-22, son/dad reunited, fly to Fla 12-24, 926A2 Day Care US reactivated troop (Pagan) brings kids, svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267B1 UK Labour Party conf held 9-27—10-1, 666F2 Education—See EDUCATION (U.S.) Family Issues—See ‘Day Care’ above Health & Safety Issues CHIP funding hike passes House 1-14, 19G1 China tainted milk suit filed, victim parents compensatn OKd 1-16, sentncs issued 1-22, 35D2, G2––B3 CHIP funding hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62C3 Toys chem testing hike delayed 1-30, lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 132G3–133A1* Drug co (Forest) chrgd 2-25, 201E3 Fed tobacco tax hike takes effect 4-1, 357C1 Madagascar risk seen 4-25, 308D3 CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340A3 Sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link seen 6-15, 555E2 China Web filter requiremt complaint filed, postponed 6-24—6-30, 448B1 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557C1 Dental fillings risk nixed by FDA 7-29, 555B2 China smelters shut/plant stormed, lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724E2–A3 US swine flu trials open, progress seen 8-7—8-21, 584B1 Gongmeng founder (Xu) freed 8-23, 606E2 ‘90-08 preventable deaths drop rptd 9-10, 901E2 Swine flu vaccine single shot efficacy rptd 9-21, vaccinatns open 10-6, 696C3–D3, 697E1 Flavored cigarettes banned 9-22, FDA suit filed 9-23, 642E3 Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast 9-23, 682D3 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697E2 Swine flu vaccine delays seen, doses estimated/availability vowed 10-16—10-28, 741D3–E3 Health care reform House bill unveiled 10-29, 740E3 Swine flu drug release set 10-30; vaccine dosage set 11-2, US cases, deaths tallied 11-12, 810E2, D3, 811A1

—CHINA 1001 Maclaren strollers, Stork cribs recalled 11-9, 11-23, 850B1, E1 US food insecurity rptd 11-16, 798D1 UN food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812D1 Toy chems find rptd 11-24, lead testing delayed 12-18, 918G1 Swine flu child vaccine recalled 12-15, 901A2 Window shades/blinds recalled 12-15, 918B2 Autism diagnosis rise seen 12-18, 918C3 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904B3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907E1 Immigration Issues US workplace raids rules set 4-30, 341B1 Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, 573F2 US detentn system overhaul set 10-6, 721G2 Labor Issues Uzbek cotton picking rptd 11-11, 891E3 Russian workers freed, Kyrgyz natls held 12-28, 939D1 Medicine & Health Care S Africa HIV infectn rate rptd 6-8, 850B3 S Africa AIDS policy hiked 12-1, 850F2, B3 Military Intervention & War Gaza schl attack kills 10, rocket fired 1-6, violnc casualties tallied 1-8, 1D1, D3, 2B3 Gaza violnc death toll rptd 1-15, 13B1 Gaza strike kills 5 1-16, death toll rptd 1-19, 30F3, 31A1 Congo rebel staff chief (Ntaganda) defects 1-16, 34C2, G2 Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 43D1, F1 Sierra Leone rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134A2 Pope scores Africa child troops use 3-19, 196F1 Gaza invasn abuses alleged, mil probe opens/nixed 3-19—3-30, 210C1, F1, A2 Iraq blast kills 3 3-25, 189F2 Iraq boy slain 5-8, 331F2 Iraq insurgency kids use seen 6-6, 398D2–E2 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480E1, B2 Turkey airs Gaza war crimes dramatizatn 10-14, Israeli criticisms exchngd 10-15—10-16, 755B1 Sri Lanka govt, rebel war abuses rptd 10-19, 769G2 Iraq blasts kill 155 10-25, 738E1 Congo warlords ICC trial opens 11-24, 922F1 Obituaries DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3 Hun, Waldo H 11-6, 860D3 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436C2 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Levitt, Helen 3-29, 212G3 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Sales, Soupy 10-22, 752F3 Social Issues Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-19, 492D1 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916A3–B3 Welfare & Social Services Chile econ stimulus plan set 1-5, 35D1 Calif budget cuts signed 7-28, 503C3 US ‘08 poverty rate rptd 9-10, 619B1 US states poverty rates rptd 9-29, 798E1 UK legis agenda set 11-18, 821B2 Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851B1

CHILDREN‘S Book, The (book) Byatt on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692C1

CHILDREN‘S Health Insurance Program, U.S. Funding hike passes House 1-14, 19G1 Funding hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62C3–E3 Fed tobacco tax hike takes effect 4-1, 357C1

CHILDREN‘S Literature: A Reader’s History From Aesop to Harry Potter (book) Lerer wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

CHILE, Republic of Arts & Culture Bolano wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191B3 Jara reburied 12-4, 954E3 Crime & Civil Disorders US/Brazil Allende ‘70 ouster bid revealed, documts release urged 8-16—8-18, 569D1 Ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871G2

Economy & Labor $4 bln stimulus plan set, Codelco cash funneled 1-5, 35B1 European Relations Hungary emb shut 6-16, 512A2 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232E3; 10-1, 732F3 Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871E1 Latin American Relations Peru’s Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222G3 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508E2 UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589F2 Peru’s Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682F2 Medicine & Health Care Turkeys swine flu infectn seen 8-21, 584A1 Obituaries Bussi, Hortensia 6-18, 451F3 Sports Dakar Rally results 1-17, 104D1 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 UN Policy & Developments Pak’s Bhutto assassinatn probe team arrives 7-16, 514E3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 3-27—3-29, 204D3

CHILUBA, Frederick (Zambian president, 1991-2002) Wife convctd 3-3, 556F1 Cleared 8-17, 555G3

CHILUBA, Regina Convctd 3-3, 556F1

CHI Mak Assoc (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888G3

CHIMO, Tracee Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

CHIN, Judge Denny Holds Madoff hearing 3-10, revokes bail, orders jailing 3-12, 141A1, B2 Sentncs Afghan drug smuggler (Noorzai) 4-30, 539G1 Sets Madoff assets seizure limit 6-26, issues sentnc 6-29, 441A3, D3, 442A1–B1, F2 OKs Google/bk publishers setlmt chngs 11-19, 936D3–E3

CHINA, People’s Republic of Accidents & Disasters ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G1 Sichuan quake, dam seismic strain linked 2-6, 153G2 Mine blast kills 74+, survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251D2 Sichuan quake schl constructn probe sought 5-4; student death toll issued 5-7, anniv marked 5-12, 326B3, F3 Mine blast kills 104+ 11-21, ofcls, rptrs chrgd 11-30, 932G3 African Relations Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21D2 Hu tours 2-12—2-17, 170E1 Algeria businesses security warning issued 7-14, 510A1 Namibia bribery suspects held, firms govt deals probed 7-22—7-31, 601C2 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Somali pirates patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801G2 Somalia pirates ransom paymt claimed, seized ship/crew freed 12-27—12-28, 903C2 Arts & Culture Beijing museum, Taiwan art loan set 2-16, 310B1 Qing Dynasty ‘heads’ return mulled, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; auctnd 2-25, buyer reneges, sale nixed 3-2—3-3, 160B1, F1 Shanghai gay pride festival held 6-7—6-14, 481F3 Founding of a Repub released 10-1, 683G1 Mian files Google bk scanning suit, text removed/hearing held 10-23—12-29, 936E3–F3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Envoys visit N Korea 1-23, 84F1 Pak hostage (Long) freed 2-14, 103C2 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 195D1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1, D2 N Korea A-program talks halt mulled 4-14, 239E1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi chrgs scored 5-14, 327A3

Mongolia pres electn held 5-24, 377F2 Indian/Australian students attacked, protests held 5-24—6-8, 508E3 N Korea A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast scored 5-25—5-26, 350C3, 351A1, A2 India border troop deploymt set 6-8, 806D2 N Korea A-program mulled, ASEAN summit held 7-22—7-23, 495E2, 496D1 Uyghur Cong ldr (Kadeer) visits Japan/Australia, 10 Conditns premiered 7-28—8-18, v forgn min trip nix rptd 8-18, 606D1 Myanmar border militia clashes erupt, end sought 8-8—8-28, civiln deaths rptd 8-30, 590D1, E2 Japan’s Hatoyama nixes shrine visits 8-11, WWII surrender anniv marked 8-15, 582B3 Ofcl visits N Korea 9-18, Wen trip set 9-28, 653A1, D1 Hu, Wen see Japan’s Hatoyama 9-21—10-10, 703A3 India’s Singh visits border, trip scored 10-3—10-13, 806E2 Wen visits N Korea 10-4—10-6, Japan/S Korea summit held, A-program talks urged 10-9—10-10, 712E1 Li visits Australia/NZ/Papua 10-29—11-5, 802A2 N Korea A-program talks sought 11-2, 763E3 N Korea’s won revalued 11-30, 873F2 N Korea swine flu outbreak rptd, S Korea aid offrd/OKd 12-8—12-10, 873E3, G3 Xi visits Cambodia, signs deals 12-20—12-21, 932A1 US missionary (Park) N Korea entry/arrest rptd, role mulled 12-29, 933A3, D3 CIS Relations Cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2 Hu sees Russia’s Putin, Medvedev 6-17—6-18, 406E3 Russian gambling curbs open, hiked 7-1, 7-21, 513B1 Russia’s Putin visits 10-13—10-15, 739A2 Crime & Civil Disorders Xinjiang ‘08 state security arrests tallied 1-5, 461D2 Security threats named 1-20, 251B2 Xinjiang violnc rise warned 3-6, 461E2 Sichuan blast hits cops station 3-17, Qinghai clashes erupt, suspects held 3-21—3-22, 327A1 ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904C1–D1 Tiananmen sq protests prisoners estimated, ‘hooligan’ (Liu) fred 5-12—5-18; pub acctg urged 6-3, Tiananmen sq crackdwon anniv marked 6-4, 395A2, A3, E3 Xinjiang ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460C3, 461D1, F1–G1 Xinjiang ethnic violnc deaths mulled, security forces shootings admitted 7-10—7-19; clash kills 2 7-13, disappearncs claimed 7-29, 509A3, F3 Software copyright infringemt suspects convctd, sentncd 8-20, 615B3 Uighur economist (Tohti) freed, govt criticism halt warned 8-22—8-24, Xinjiang ethnic violnc trials mulled 8-24—8-25, 606G1 Xinjiang ethnic protests renewed, clashes kill 5 9-3—9-5; cops chief (Liu) ousted, Zhu named 9-5, Uighur syringe attacks chrgs rptd, death sentnc mulled 9-6, 605B3, 606A1 Xinjiang needle attackers convctd, sentncd 9-12—9-17, 703F1 Xinjiang ethnic clashes chrgs rptd 9-25; Uighurs jihad urged 10-8, suspects convctd, sentncd 10-10—10-15, 702G3, 703C1, B2 Xinjiang riot sentncs set/upheld, disappearncs seen 10-15—11-9; Internet/telecom svcs curbed, crime fighting vowed 10-29—11-3, convctns/executns rptd, chrgs cont 11-9, 785E2 Milk contaminators executed 11-24; civil suit opens 11-27, new case suspects held 12-8, 932E3 Xinjiang ethnic violnc death sentncs issued 12-3—12-25, 932A1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2–A3 US talks held 2-27—2-28; surveillnc ships harassmt alleged, protested 3-4—3-9, Impeccable locatn mulled, destroyer sent 3-10—3-12, 153F1, E2 ‘09 mil budget set 3-4, 187B2 US annual rpt issued 3-25, 251D1 Limmt chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 227B3 US mil talks held 6-23—6-24, 481E3 Mao named maj gen 9-25, 683B2

1002 CHINA— Drugs & Drug Trafficking UK smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932B3 Economy & Labor ‘07 GDP revised 1-14, ‘08 data rptd 1-22, 35E1, A2 ‘09 econ woes seen 2-1, jobless migrants tallied 2-2, 134D3 Jan ‘09 car sales rptd 2-10, 932A2 Stimulus spending disclosure urged 3-4, ‘09 GDP forecast issued 3-5, 186D3, F3 Electric car dvpt hike plan unveiled 4-10, 932G2–A3 Domestic spending urged 5-26, 440G1 Xinjiang businesses reopen 7-12, 509E3 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 7-16, 494B2 IMF econ forecast issued 10-1, 675D1 ‘09 car productn hits 10 mln 10-20, 932D2 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 10-21, 932A3 GM/Ford Oct ‘09 car sales rptd 11-9, 932C2 Drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850C1 Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-7—12-8, 932G1 ‘08 GDP revised 12-25, 932A3 Shanghai ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900C1, G1 Education Nanjing Normal Univ prof (Guo) sentncd 10-16, 724C3 Energy Petrobras signs Sinopec/CNPC oil deals, Brazil reserves exploratn funding set 2-19, 197E1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107E1 Petrobras loan set 5-19, 448C2 Turkmen gas deal OKd 6-24, 473B2 CNPC/Iraq oil field bid set, OKd 6-29—7-1, 437G2 Sudan N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507D3 Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684A2, C2 Russia deals signed 10-13—10-15, 739B2 ECOWAS sets Niger sanctns 10-17, 761D3 CNPC/Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-3, 789D3 IEA annual outlook issued 11-10, 811A3–B3 Central Asian gas pipeline opens 12-12—12-14, 935F2 Russian oil pipeline opens 12-28, 939A1 Turkmen gas field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935D3 Environment & Pollution Mercury emissns treaty oppositn dropped 2-16, 124B1 Developed nations emissns cut urged 5-20; climate chng conf held 6-1—6-12, US talks held 6-8—6-10, 405E2–F1 Smelters shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636E1–F1, A2 India climate chng memo signed 10-21, 791G1 ‘Carbon intensity’ cut vowed 11-26, 827B3, 828D1 Climate treaty talks open 12-7—12-9, 841E2, B3 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1, C2, 882D1, C2, C3, 883D1; table 883A1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Global computers spying operatn rptd, govt role mulled 3-29, 342B1 US electric grid, mil jet program info hacked 4-8, 4-21, 411E1, A2–B2 Mine workers held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481G2 US econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 Mine workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3 US Air Force ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888E3 European Relations Wen visits Ger/Belgium/Spain/UK 1-29—2-2, Cambridge Univ shoe toss tape aired 2-3, 98C2 Hu sees France’s Sarkozy 4-1, 194A2 EU summit held 5-20, 448B2 Wen, Cambridge Univ shoe toss suspect cleared 6-2, 482A1 Family Issues Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576F1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section India’s Singh visits US 11-23—11-24, 810G1–B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232F3 Natl cong held 3-5—3-13, 186C3 Zhao memoir published 5-19, 5-29, 395B3

FACTS Hu visits Xinjiang 8-22—8-25, Urumqi CP secy (Li) ousted, Zhu named 9-5, 605G3 CP com mtg held 9-15—9-18, 683G1 Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 682F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732F3 Hong Kong—See HONG Kong Housing Kashgar redvpt plans rptd 4-2, 461E2–F2 Sichuan quake reconstructn rptd 5-11, 326G3–327A1 Human Rights US lists abuse 2-25, rpt scored 2-26, 180B1, F1–G1 ‘Action Plan’ set 4-13, 309G1 Dissident (Liu) held 6-23, 448G1 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, Yirenpeng Ctr raided 7-29, 557B1 Gongmeng founder (Xu) asst held/cont detentn seen, freed 7-29—8-23, 606D2 Quake safety activists (Tan/Huang) tried 8-5, 8-12, 557E1 Dissident (Xie) sentncd 9-1, 606F2 Quake safety activist (Qi) convctd, sentncd 11-23, 872D2 Dissident (Liu) indicted 12-10, 872A3 Activist (Liu) convctd, sentncd 12-25, 932D3 Immigration & Refugee Issues NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 Myanmar mass exit seen 8-8—8-25; refugees estimated 8-30, return rptd 8-31, 590B2–C2, A3 Cambodia deports Uighurs 12-19, 931F3 Latin American Relations Xi visits Brazil 2-19, 197F1 Brazil’s da Silva visits 5-19, 448C2 Zhang visits Venez 12-22, 929F2 Medicine & Health Care Bird flu death rptd 1-6; alert issued 1-7, cases tallied 2-11, 76F1 Tainted milk suit filed, victim parents compensatn OKd 1-16, sentncs issued 1-22, 35C2, G2 Health care overhaul set, detailed 1-21, 4-7, 251A3 Mice skin cell reprogramming seen 7-23, 580F1 Annual abortn rate rptd 7-30, 576A2 Ziketan quarantined 8-3, blockade lifted 8-8, 557G2 Swine flu vaccinatns open 10-7, 696F3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Coca-Cola/Huiyuan Juice buy blocked 3-18, protectnsm denied 3-25, 251C2 China Mobile/FarEasTone stake buy set 4-29, 310A1 Cavaliers stake bought 5-24, 419C3 Sichuan Tengzhong/Hummer buy OKd, Beijing Auto Indus execs see Ger ofcls 6-2, 366D2, 367D1 Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nixed 6-5, 481A2, D2 Adam Opel/Beijing Auto buyout offer confrmd 7-8, 475D3 Beijing Auto Indus/Saab stake buy OKd 9-9, 822F3 Ford/Chonqing/Mazda jt venture set 9-25, 932E2 Tengzhong/Hummer buy OKd 10-9, 758A3 Geely/Volvo buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2 Beijing Auto sets, OKs Saab tech/designs buy 12-14—12-23, 902F2 Hyundai/Batou jt venture set 12-20, Honda/Dongfeng plans seen 12-22, 932E2 Middle East Relations Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn hailed 6-16, 403D1 Monetary Issues Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn testimony issued 1-22, 30D2–E2 Yuan manipulatn denied 1-23, 45A1 Yuan fluctuatns defended 1-29, 98E2 ASEAN currency pool hiked 2-22, IMF omit seen 2-23, 135E3–F3 Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, 194D1 US issues currency rpt 4-15, 283B3 Forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440B2 IMF bonds buy rptd 9-2; Yuan bonds sale set 9-8, offrd 9-28, 683C2 ‘Undervalued’ renminbi seen 10-2, 683A3 US currency exchng rpt issued 10-15, 724B3 Yuan value mulled 11-30, 932F1 Yuan ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3, D3–E3 Obituaries Cheng, Nien 11-2, 824D3

Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 Yang Xianyi 11-23, 956G3 Population US/UNFPA aid reinstated 1-23, 47F1 Young females lack seen 4-10, 933B1 Press & Broadcasting US rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21, 215D3–G3 US rptrs N Korea indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14,, 360E2 US rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 395G3, 396B1 N Korea frees US rptrs 8-4, 517B1 US rptrs N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, claims rejected 9-3, 600E3–601A1 Myanmar refugee camp forgn rptg curbs ordrd 9-1, 590C3 Caijing staff, ed quit 10-12—11-9, 785E3 Religious Issues Xinjiang mosques cont closure ordrd 7-10, 509F3 Science & Technology Web-filter software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414F2 Google porno links scored, forgn sites search block ordrd/access disrupted 6-18—6-25; sex health curbs set 6-24, Web filter requiremt complaint filed, postponed 6-24—6-30, 448B1, D1 Web-filter software requiremt dropped 8-13, 557E2 T rex predecessor fossil found 9-17, 670F3, 671A1 Space & Space Flights Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C2 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E3 HSBC Champs tourn results 11-8, 839G3 Taiwan Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Security threat named 1-20, 251B2 Talks mulled 3-5, 187A1 Talks held, deals OKd 4-25—4-26, 309G3 Ma policies protested, impoved ties touted 5-17—5-20; Wu visits, Guangxi prov delegatn sent 5-25—6-1, investmts hike authrzn rptd 5-28, 415B3, F3–416A1 Ex-student ldr (Wu’er) held 6-3, deported 6-4, 395E2 Hu/Ma telegrams exchngd 7-27, 511A2 Financial deals signed 11-16, 891E2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Afghan flight diverted 8-9, 606B2 Xinjiang gang held 9-16, 703A2 Tibet—See TIBET Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15A3 Dec ‘08 exports drop rptd 1-14, 35A2 US, WTO counterfeit complaint dismissed 1-26, 440A2 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58G1–A2 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112A1 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164A2 US bonds doubted 3-13, investmt hike touted 3-14, 187D1 US chicken imports complaint filed 4-17, 615G2 G-20, IMF mtg held 4-24—4-26, 283C2, A3–C3 US/Mex pork imports halted 4-27, 282A2 GM imports hike proposal rptd, opposed 5-11, 5-15, 339G1 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323D3 GM/UAW deal chngd 5-29, 366C1 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389A2 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2, G2, C3 India, Asian Dvpt Bank loan OKd 6-15, 806D2 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405C1–F1 Zimbabwe aid vow rptd 6-30, 588B3 G-8/MEF summits held, Hu exits 7-8—7-9, 453D1–E1, B2 China poultry imports cont ban passes House 7-9, 489A2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477A2 Australia econ interests threat issued 7-15, 481B3 US agri ‘10 funds pass Sen 8-4, 537G3 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535A3 Media import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557G1 Taiwan typhoon aid set 8-13, 559E3 Auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615G2–A3 US steel pipes duties, tire tariffs set 9-10—9-11, auto parts, chicken imports probed 9-13, 615F1, E2, A3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619F1

ON FILE

French carbon tax set 9-11, 644A3 Media imports WTO ruling appeal filed 9-22, ‘pub morals’ protectn claimed 9-23, 776G2 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2, E2 Indonesia quakes aid rptd 10-2, 725C1 World Bank, IMF mtgs held 10-6—10-7, 674A3–B3 Australia interest rate hiked 10-6, 675B2 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699F3 Guinea infrastructure deal rptd 10-13, 702B1 Russian bank loans, constructn cos investmt set 10-13—10-15, 739B2 Shanghai Cooperatn Orgn mtg hosted 10-14, 705F3 US polycaprolactam tariffs set 10-19, 776E2 US poultry cont imports seen 10-21, 761F1 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2, C3–D3, F3 US deals OKd 10-29, 776C2 Raw materials export curbs WTO complaint filed, US sets steel pipe tariffs/protectnism claimed 11-5, adipic acid duties set 11-8, 776D1, A2, F2 G-20 mtg held 11-6—11-7, 775E3 Africa loans set 11-8, Congo ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11 11-8, 776B3, F3 Forgn farmland buys rptd 11-17, 812D2 EU trade talks held 11-29—11-30, 932F1 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866A1 Media imports WTO ruling appeal denied, raw materials export curbs case accepted 12-21, 932D1–E1 US steel pipe duties OKd 12-30, 932C1 Transportation Macao/HK bridge constructn opens 12-15, 933A1 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—2-23, 115D3 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt opposed 3-5, 123B1 Sudan’s Bashir chrgs drop urged 3-6, 185C1 N Korea rocket launch Sec Cncl res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, 239E1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277C2 Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2 Myanmar pol prisoners release urged 5-22, 360A2 N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404A1, C1 Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn vote abstained 6-15, 406G1 Iraq sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498D1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn/sentnc res opposed 8-12, 543A2 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599E3 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1 Iran A-program sanctns mulled, arms spread res passes 9-23—9-24, 633A2, 634B2–C2 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-23—9-24, talks held 10-1, 649B1, 650F2 Gaza war crimes rpt res passes Human Rights Cncl 10-16, 730C2 Gaza war crimes rpt backed 11-5, 790C2 Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 Iran A-program sanctns hike mulled 11-17, 804E2* Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837G1–A2 Iran A-program mtg nixed 12-15, 876C3 Eritrea sanctns vote abstained 12-23, 903E1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Diplomatic ties anniv marked 1-12, 251C3 Clinton visits 2-20—2-23, 108G3–109A1, E1, D3 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, clarifies remarks 3-11, 144G2, D3–F3, 145C1 Yang visits 3-11—3-12, 309E2 Hu sees Obama 4-1, 193B1, 194A2 Huntsman named amb 5-16, 353D3 Treasury secy (Geithner) visits 5-31—6-2, 414A2 Clinton remarks scored 6-4, 395A3 Locke visits 7-16, 481C3 Harvard prof (Gates) returns home 7-16, 504D3 DC talks held 7-27—7-28, 509A2 Bosworth visits 9-3—9-6, 600B3 Obama visits 11-15—11-18, 794B3, 795B2, E2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees resetlmt sought 2-3, oppositn set, Eur warning rptd 2-5, 63C3, E3–64A1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150A2 Detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261G1

2009 Index Detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 289C2, E2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, Bermuda transfers rptd 6-11, 391B2–C2, C3 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447C1 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717D3–E3 Cuba base detainees transferred to Palau, oppositn rptd 10-31—11-2, 760A2, D2–E2

CHINA, Republic of (Taiwan)—See TAIWAN CHINA Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) Jan ‘09 car sales rptd 2-10, 932A2 Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932G1

CHINA Construction Bank Corp. Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-20, 264B3 Bank of Amer ‘09 2d 1/4 profit rptd 7-16, 490A3

CHINA Development Bank Petrobras laon set 5-19, 448C2

CHINA International Fund Guinea infrastructure deal rptd 10-13, 702C1

CHINAMASA, Patrick Named to Mugabe cabt 2-12, 81D3 Sworn justice min 2-13, cabt mtg held 2-17, 97A2

CHINA Metallurgical Group Corp. Afghan mines min (Adel) bribe alleged 11-18, 806E1

CHINA Mobile Ltd. FarEasTone stake buy set 4-29, 310A1 China/Taiwan investmt hike authrzn rptd 5-28, 415E3

CHINA National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) US natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 144D3 Venez reserves dvpt deal signed 12-22, 929F2

CHINA National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) Petrobras oil deal signed 2-19, 197E1 Iraq oil field bid set, OKd 6-29, 7-1, 437G2 Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684A2 ECOWAS sets Niger sanctns 10-17, 761D3 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-3, 789D3

CHINA Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) Petrobras oil deal signed 2-19, 197E1

CHINESE Academy of Sciences Mice skin cell reprogramming seen 7-23, 580G1

CHINESE Civilization Revisited (book) Chinese pol mulled 9-24, HK sales open 9-25, 683E1

CHINESE Development Bank Brazil oil reserves exploratn funding set 2-19, 197F1

CHIPADZA, Magistrate Livingstone Upholds MDC ofcl (Bennett) chrgs 2-18, 97C1

CHIRAC, Jacques (French premier, 1974-76/86-88; president, 1995-2007) At Gabon’s Bongo funeral 6-16, 604A3 Sarkozya collapses, enters/exits hosp 7-26—7-27, vows rest 7-29, 529A1 Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644G1 Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, backing claimed 10-29, 765C3, E3 Graft trial ordrd, chrgs denied 10-30, 765C2

CHIRKUNOV, Oleg Club fire kills 124+ 12-5, govt quits 12-9, 855A1

CHISSANO, Joaquim (Mozambican president, 1986-2005) Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555A3 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782A3, C3

CHIZHOV, Vladimir On Georgia war rpt findings 9-30, 666D1

CHLEBOWSKI, Zbigniew Casinos tax hike block vow rptd, quits 10-1, 705C2–D2

CHMERKOVSKIY, Maksim Burn the Floor opens in NYC 8-2, 564B2

—CINCINNATI CHO, John Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

CHO, Seung-Hui (1984-2007) Mental records found/issued, indep probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, shooting rpt chngd 12-4, 920F3, 921C1

CHOI, Lt. Dan Comes out 3-19, seeks mil ouster block, denied 5-11—5-12, 392G2–A3

CHOLMONDELEY, Thomas Convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375A2–F2 Freed 10-23, 922B3

CHONGQING Changan Automobile Co. Mazda/Ford jt venture set 9-25, 932D2

CHOPRA, Aneesh Named White House chief tech ofcr 4-20, 264D1

CHRISTIAN, Marc—See MacGINNIS, Marc Christian CHRISTIAN Brothers Child abuse setlmt rptd 11-25, 836F1

CHRISTIAN Legal Society Hastings Coll recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1

CHRISTIAN Legal Society v. Martinez Accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868A1

CHRISTIANS & Christianity—See also specific denominations or groups Africa S Sudan peace deal anniv marked 1-9, 185G2 Ethiopia troops Somalia return seen 5-19, 341F3 Sudan southn violnc casualties rise seen 6-1, summit held 6-23, 430E3 Nigeria ‘08 sectarian violnc rpt issued 7-20, 525A3 Sudan N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507C3 Uganda gay curbs bill introduced/scored, chngd 10-14—12-23, 924G3, 925A1, C1 Sudan electns registratn opens 11-1, 801C3 Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) in Saudi hosp 11-23—12-31, 923C1 Sudan southn succesn vote law passes parlt 12-29, 924A1 Asia/Pacific Rim US’s Clinton visits China 2-23, 110A1 Myanmar eastn offensive launched 6-3, govt success claimed, Karen troops movemt seen 6-18, 415B2 Pak riots kill 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612F1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818E2 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial closing argumts heard 11-23—11-27, 890E1 US missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933A3 Europe Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd 9-23, 952D3 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707C1 Swiss mosque minarets banned 11-29, 836C3 French natl ID bias fight vowed 12-8, 937C1 Middle East Iraq violnc kills scores 2-10, 101D2 Iraq MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117B3 Egypt pigs cull opens 4-29, 282B2 Obama Egypt speech set 5-8, 318C1 Pope Benedict visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-10, 335B1, D1, F1, A3–B3, E3–336B1 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, results rptd 6-8, 397B3 Iraq blasts kill scores 7-12—7-13, 483F1 Iraq’s Maliki coalitn set 10-1, 688B3 Leb unity govt set 11-9, 790E1 Iraq prov minorities abuse rptd 11-10, 789B3 Obituaries Fuller, Millard 2-3, 72F1 United States Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27F2 Natl Prayer Svc held 1-21, 29D2 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60A3–B3 Sears Tower terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374B3 NIH dir (Collins) named 7-8, 491A2 Obama addresses HRC 10-10, 699A1

Hastings Coll group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868A1

CHRISTIE, Christopher Wins NJ gov GOP primary 6-2, 373A3 Corzine urges bribery scheme ofcls resignatns 7-23, 504C1 In gov debates 10-1—10-16; Daggett bid backed 10-11, ex-colleague campaign role questnd 10-20, 716F2, 717C1–D1 Elected NJ gov 11-3, 755C2, A3–B3 Gay marriage Sen vote nixed 12-9, 868B2

CHRISTIE‘S International PLC St Laurent/Berge art trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, 160A1, E1* NYC spring auctns held 5-6—5-13, 953C2 NYC fall auctns held 11-3—11-12, 953F1 Washington ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860A3 Author (McCarthy) typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Rembrandt/Raphael records set 12-8, 953D2

CHRISTINA‘S World (painting) Wyeth dies 1-16, 40F3

CHRISTO—See JAVACHEFF, Christo CHRYSAN, Demosthenes Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

CHRYSLER Group LLC Dec ‘08 sales rptd, finance arm govt laon set 1-6—1-16; Fiat jt venture set 1-20, jobs bank program ends 1-22, 47C3, G3, 48D1, G1 UK auto indus govt aid set 1-27, 52A3 Worker buyouts offrd, Jan ‘09 sales rptd 2-3, 62C2, A3 France auto indus govt loans set 2-9, 84C3 Restructring plan issued, UAW deal chngs seen 2-17, bankruptcy mulled, cont bailouts opposed 2-19, 92D2, C3–E3 US Feb ‘09 sales rptd 3-3, 164D3 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184D1–E1, A2 Auto indus task force head (Rattner) pension fund probe linked 3-17, 265F3 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164E2, B3–C3 Reorgn plan nixed, Fiat merger ordrd 3-29, govt backs warranties 3-30, 197A2, 198C3 Unions deal chngd 4-26—4-29, debt-for-cash swap nixed, bankruptcy declared/Nardelli resignatn set 4-30, 282C2–283A2 Govt stake mulled 4-29, 285C2 Bankruptcy restructuring oppositn dropped 5-8, dealerships nixed, govt role denied 5-14, 338D3, 339B1 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339F2 Govt funds block nixed by Sen 5-21, 355B2 Opel sale mulled 5-29—6-3; reorgn plan OKd, appeal filed 5-31—6-4, GM bankruptcy filed 6-1, 365G1, 366G1, A3–B3, 367B1, G1 Fiat merger upheld/completed, govt loan set 6-5—6-10; dealerships closure OKd, protectn bill introduced 6-9—6-10, Sen com hearing held, Press named CEO 6-10, 385A1, G1, F2, B3 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387A3 Auto task force chief (Rattner) quits, Bloom named 7-13, 475E3 Car dealerships closure block passes House 7-16, 489D1 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program opens, renewal funds clear Cong/signed 7-27—8-7, Jul ‘09 sales rptd 8-3, 536C1, A2 Fong, Accavitti quit 10-5, 753C3 Exec pay cut 10-22, 742C1 Ford ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757E3–F3, 758B1 Govt loan repaymt doubted 11-2, 758F1–C2 Future business plans detailed 11-4, 758D2 $700 bln financial indus aid Cong hearing held 12-10, 865C1 Dropped dealerships arbitratn measure clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867D1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910C1, E1

CHU, Betty Tom Loses Calif House seat electn 7-14, 478G2

CHU, Judy House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 Wins Calif House seat electn 7-14, 478E2

1003

CHU, Steven (U.S. energy secretary, 2009- ) Energy secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17A3 Confrmd energy secy 1-20, 26C3 Awards solar panel dvpt deal 3-20, 479E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287G2 Cuts hydrogen cars dvpt funding 5-7, 917G1 Revives clean coal project 6-12, 445F3–G3 Sets auto indus fuel econ upgrades aid 6-23, 536C2 Energy ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658G3–659A1 On climate chng bill passage 10-12, testifies to Sen com 10-27, 743B1, B2 Climate treaty talks role set 11-25, 828A1

CHUDINOV, Igor (Kyrgyzstan premier, 2007-09) Govt reforms set, quits 10-20, 722F1

CHUENE, Leonard Runner Semenya gender test held 8-7, 950B3–C3 Quits 8-22, 579A3 Suspended 11-5, 950B3

CHUI, Fernando Named Macao chief exec 7-26, 510B1–C1

CHUI, Mathieu Ngudjolo ICC trial opens 11-24, 922E1

CHUKCHI Sea Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409D3 Polar bears habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3

CHUNG, Dongfan (Greg) Convctd 7-16, 888F3

CHUNG, Jamie Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

CHUNG Sang Moon Held 4-7, 361A1

CHUN Hae Sung Questns flash flood N Korea explanatn 9-7, 600C2

CHURCH, Thomas Haden (Thomas R. McMillen) All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

CHURCHES & Cathedrals Tenn church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247D3 US’s Clinton visits China 2-23, 110A1 Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247E3 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 Italy quake historic sites damage rptd 4-13, 253F3 Nepal blast kills 2 5-23, 363E1 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, 370A2, D3 Obama visits Ger 6-6, 386A2 PI blasts kill 12, attack scored 7-5—7-7, 528D1, G1 Iraq blasts kill scores 7-12—7-13, 483F1 Nigeria Islamic sect violnc opens 7-26, 525C2 Rwanda ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10; sent to Tanzania 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680G1 Russian Orthodox priest (Sysoyev) slain 11-19, 822C1 French museum workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, 876D1

CHURCHILL, Ward Ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, reinstatemt sought/opposed, suit warned 4-3—4-9, 307E3–308B1 Ouster upheld 7-7, seeks reinstatemt 7-21, 554A3–D3

CHURKIN, Vitaly On N Korea A-bomb test 5-25, 351A2 On Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn veto 6-9, 406F1

CIAVARELLA, Judge Mark Suspended, pleads guilty 1-26—2-12, juvenile cases review spec master named/convctns nixed, suit filed 2-11—3-26, 247F1–G1, B2–F2 Juvenile ctrs owner, builder plead guilty 7-1—9-2; plea deal nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, convctns dismissed 10-29, 869B3–C3, E3–870C1

CIBULKOVA, Dominika Loses French Open semi 6-4, 399B1

CIGAR (racehorse) Curlin named ‘08 top horse 1-26, 119D3

CIGARETTES—See TOBACCO CIMINO, Michael Bach dies 3-25, 256E2

CINCINNATI (Ohio), University of Orange Bowl lost 1-1, 24E1 Football yr-end rank rptd 12-6, 879C3–D3

1004 CINCINNATI— Kelly named Notre Dame coach 12-11, 879G3

CINCINNATI (Ohio) Pops Orchestra Kunzel dies 9-1, 648B3

CINEMA—See MOTION Pictures CINERGY Corp. States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2

CINK, Stewart Wins British Open 7-19, 500B1

CINTRON, Conchita (Concepcion Cintron Verrill) (1922-2009) Dies 2-17, 140E2

CIOFFI, Ralph Trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814B1

CIRCLE, The (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1

CIRCLE Mirror Transformation (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

CIRCUITO Nacional Belfort Network (CNB) (Venezuelan radio station) Shut 7-31—8-2, 576A1

CIRCUSES Laliberte flies intl space statn missn 9-30—10-11, 731A2

CIRQUE Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

CIRQUE du Soleil Laliberte visits intl sapce statn 9-30, 731B2

CIR SpA Fininvest ‘91 bribery found, paymt ordrd 10-3, 687F1 Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, 750D1

CIS—See COMMONWEALTH of Independent States; CIS subheads; COMMONWEALTH of Independent States; CIS subheads CISCO Systems Inc. Dow role set 6-1, 372D2

CITGO Petroleum Corp. Low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5, 1-7, 22C2–D2

CIT Group Inc. Cont govt aid nixed 7-15; financing confrmd 7-20, assets sale mulled 7-21, 491A1–D1 Bankruptcy filed 11-1, 758D3

CITIES, Suburbs & Towns Appointments & Resignations White House urban affairs dir (Carrion) named 2-19, 113B1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Census Issues Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576F1–G1 Crime & Law Enforcement US ‘09 1st 1/2 violent crime drop rptd 12-21, 888A1 Labor & Employment China jobless migrants estimated 2-2, 134D3–E3 Statistics US Dec ‘08 CPI 1-16, 46C1 US Jan ‘09 CPI 2-20, 111E2 US Feb ‘09 CPI 3-18, 182E3 US Mar ‘09 CPI 4-15, 240G2 US Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355E2 US May ‘09 CPI 6-17, 427D3 US Jun ‘09 CPI 7-15, 477D2 US Jul ‘09 CPI 8-14, 571C3 US Aug ‘09 CPI 9-16, 619B2 US Sep ‘09 CPI 10-15, 700A1 US Oct ‘09 CPI 11-18, 798G2 US Nov ‘09 CPI 12-16, 910D3

CITIGROUP Inc. Rubin sets retiremt 1-9; Morgan Stanley jt venture set 1-13, shares drop 1-14, 14B3, 15E2–G2 ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, split plan unveiled 1-16; shares drop, Nikko sale sought 1-16—1-19, Parsons named chrmn 1-21, 32A2 State racial bias probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Corp jet buy nixed 1-27, 44G2, D3 Pandit testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 Home foreclosure halt vowed 2-13, 127G3 In govt aid talks, shares drop 2-23, 110B2, 111B1 Govt aid plan chngd, shares drop 2-27, 126D3, 127D1, G1 Homeowner govt rescue plan launched 3-4, 127G3

FACTS Mortgage chngs bill passes House 3-5, 147E1 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 Kelly named CFO 3-20, 265C1 Mark-to-mkt acctg rules eased 4-2, 221A1 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-17, 264E3 Chrysler debt-for-cash swap backed 4-30, 282D2 Japanese unit sold 5-1, stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A1 Dow ouster set 6-1, 372C2 Pandit ouster push seen 6-5; $700 bln financial aid funding return denied 6-9, stock conversion plan opens 6-10, 387E2, 388B1 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407E2 Govt regulators memos rptd 7-15—7-16, ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd, share price drops 7-17, 490F2 Lear financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3, 523A1 Occidental/Phibro buy set 10-9, 742A2–B2 ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 10-15, 715C1, E1–F1 Exec pay cut 10-22, 742C1, A2–B2 Swine flu vaccine distributn mulled 11-5—11-6, 810B3 Tax break OKd, defended 12-11—12-15, House com probe set 12-17, 909B2 Obama mtg missed, govt aid repaymt set 12-14, shares demand drops, Treasury stake sale delayed 12-17, 864G1, B3

CITIZENS Energy Low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5, 1-7, 22C2

CITIZENS for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Sen Ensign parents, mistress paymts probe urged 6-24—7-9, 478B2–C2 Sens Dodd/Conrad discounted mortgages gift violatns ruling scored 8-7, 537D2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815F2–G2, E3 Bush admin e-mails found 12-14, 908D2

CITIZENSHIP—See IMMIGRATION CITIZENS United Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444C3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1, D1

CITIZENS United v. Federal Election Commission Rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444A3 Argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 602G3

CITY Club of Chicago Sen Burris addresses 2-18, 93D2

CITY of Ontario v. Quon Accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867F3

CITY Year Khazei 3d in Mass Sen seat Dem primary 12-8, 848E2

CIVIL Disorders—See RIOTS; ‘Crime’ subheads under country CIVIL Rights—See also specific areas and subjects of abuse; also country, organization and regional headings Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33C1 Lowery at Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26C2 Sen Gillibrand visits NYC 1-24, 46C3 Gender pay parity bill signed 1-29, 47A3 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3 Miss mayor (Melton) mistrial declared 2-24, 306E3 EFF, NSA warrantless spying suit opposed 4-3, 244F1 NYS gay marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, 266B2 SCLC LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2 Obama addresses NAACP 7-16, 491G3 Lowery gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 9-22, 916G2 Obituaries Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Morgan Jr, Charles 1-8, 40B3 Neuhaus, Richard J 1-8, 24F3 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Travers, Mary 9-16, 632F3 Wilson, Margaret Bush 8-11, 612G3

CIVIL Rights Act (1871) Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48E3

CIVIL Rights Act (1964) Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48C2 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350E2 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443F2, D3, F3–G3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470E3

CIVIL Service—See PERSONNEL Management CIVIL War, U.S. (1861-65) Obama sends Meml Day wreaths 5-25, 355D2 Obituaries Donald, David H 5-17, 364C3

CLANCY, Liam (William) (1935-2009) Dies 12-4, 896B2

CLANCY Brothers (music group) Liam Clancy dies 12-4, 896B2

CLARION-Ledger (newspaper) Mitchell wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2

CLARITY Media Group Wkly Standard buy set 6-17, 913D2

CLARK, Dave Named Astros interim mgr 9-21, 690B3

CLARK, Earl In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

CLARK, LaTasha Colander ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

CLARK, Mary Higgins Just Take My Heart on best-seller list 5-4, 316A1 Where Are You Now? on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

CLARK 3rd, Raymond Student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920C1

CLARK, Terry (d. 2001) NM death penalty ban passes legis, signed 2-11—3-18, 167C2

CLARK, Tim Match Play Champ results 2-26, 139E1 Loses Crowne Plaza Invitatnl 5-31, 563G3

CLARK, Adm. Vern Ft Hood shooting probes set 11-19, 812D3

CLARKE, Sir Arthur C(harles) (1917-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

CLARKE, Charles US terror suspects renditn aid admitted 2-26, 150E3

CLARKSON, Kelly ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’ on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1 All I Ever Wanted on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

CLARKSON, Lana (1961-2003) Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1–C1 Spector sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525E1

CLAUDETTE Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (book) Hoose wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

CLAVER, Victor In NBA draft 6-25, 451B2

CLAY, Noel On Blackwater Iraq ouster 1-29, 53E2

CLEALE, Lewis Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

CLEAN Air Act (1970/90) EPA admin nominee (Jackson) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 EPA power plants mercury curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94A3* Coal plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94E2 Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356E2 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 266A2 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478D3 EPA emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2

ON FILE

EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654A2 EPA power plant mercury curbs suit setld 10-23, 781F1

CLEAN Energy Works Emissns cut legis campaign opens 9-8, 654G3

CLEAN Water Act (1972) EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 4-1, 307E1, G1, B2 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426A3

CLEARSTREAM (of Deutsche Boerse AG) France’s Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644A2, D2–E2

CLEARY, Daniel Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420F1

CLEESE, John Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

CLEGG, Nick Scores budget 4-22, 272C3 Addresses Liberal Democrats conf 9-23, 686C1 Expenses repaymt sought, OKd 10-12, 727C3

CLEMENS, Roger ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1 Perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, trainer syringes DNA found 2-3, 87F3 Rodriguez admits steroids use 2-9, 87F1 Trainer syringes banned substance found 3-10, 158G3

CLEMENTE, Michael On Fox News bias remarks 10-11, 717D2

CLEMENTS, Ron Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

CLEMENT VII, Pope (Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici) (1478-1534) RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711B3

CLEMMONS, Maurice Freed on bail 11-23; Wash coffee shop shooting kills 4 11-29, slain, family chrgd 12-1—12-9, 888A2

CLEMSON (S.C.) University Gator Bowl lost 1-1, 24E1 Music City Bowl won 12-27, 948B3

CLEVELAND (Ohio) Clinic ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 ‘08 face transplant recipient IDd 5-6, 332D2

CLEVELAND (Ohio) Museum of Art Rub named Philly Art Museum dir 6-29, 516G1

CLIJSTERS, Jada Mom wins US Open 9-13, 631F1

CLIJSTERS, Kim Wins US Open, sets women’s wild card mark 9-13, Williams regrets outburts 9-14, 631A1, E1–C2 Henin sets return 9-22, 647G2

CLIMATE Weather—See WEATHER

CLIMATE Action Partnership Emissns cut plan set 1-15, 65E2

CLIMATE Change Aid Issues Guatemala food crisis calamity declared 9-8, 623C3 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681B2 Appointments & Resignations UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, role hike vowed 9-23, 675F2 Awards & Honors Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693C1 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals, 124B3, 125B1, G2 Blueprint backed by House com 3-25, 181B2 Fscl ‘10 blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 218A1 Fscl ‘10 blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 286B1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Coalitn emissns cut plan set 1-15, 65E2 Utilities exit Chamber of Commerce 9-22—9-28, Nike bd role dropped 9-30, 654B3 Censorship Issues ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781F2 E Anglia Univ scientists e-mails posted 11-20; hack confrmd 11-21, Jones steps down 12-1, 828D2 Data manipulatn probe set, scientists leaked e-mails mulled 12-5—12-8, 841C3 International Conferences & Pacts US’s Clinton visits China 2-21, 109A1, E3–F3

2009 Index Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271G1 Developed nations emissns cut urged 5-20, 405E2 EU/China summit held 5-20, 448C2 Bonn conf held 6-1—6-12, US/China talks held 6-8—6-10, 405B2, F2 G-8/MEF summits held, emissns cuts vowed 7-8, short-term deal seen 7-9, 453A1 Clinton visits India 7-17—7-20, 486B1, F1–A2 China/US talks held 7-27—7-28, 509C2 US’s Clinton visits S Africa 8-7, 540B2 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541G1 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643E1 UN summit held 9-22, 636B1 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633F1 UN Gen Assemb debate ends 9-29, 651E3 India/China cooperatn deal signed 10-21, 791A2 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802E2 IEA annual oil outlook issued 11-10, 811B3–E3 Measures consensus sought 11-10, 828B3 APEC forum held 11-14—11-15, Obama visits China 11-16—11-18, 795F1, F2, C3 UN food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812E1, G2 Commonwealth crisis summit set 11-23, biennial mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845B3 India’s Singh visits US 11-24, 810E1 US’s Obama, China’s Wen set treaty talks roles 11-25—11-26, 827C3, 828E1 China/EU talks held 11-29—11-30, 932F1 Obama treaty conf role chngd 12-4; talks open 12-7—12-9, skeptics mtg held 12-8—12-9, 841A1, E1, E2, 842B1 Copenhagen talks held/boycotted, protested 12-7—12-19; pol statemt set 12-18, conf scored 12-21, 881A1–883F1; tables 881E1, 883A1 Climate policy key events listed 12-18, 882A1 Political & Legislative Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 Energy secy (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17B3–C3 US/UN amb nominee (Rice) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16B2 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27F2 ‘Scientific integrity’ pres memo signed 3-9, 143C3 US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 US emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, Obama proposal spec procedural vote nixed 4-1, 201E2 Polar bears habitat, emissns curbs nix upheld 5-8, 555A2 US bill backed 5-21, com debates deadline set 6-3, 409F2 Australia bill passes House/blocked, reintroductn vowed 6-4—8-13, 623E3 Japan emissns cut set 6-10, 405A3 Livestock emissns rptg measures backed 6-18, 6-25, 488D1–E1 Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655A1 US bill vote delayed, passes House 6-26, tariffs opposed 6-28, 445A1 Japan emissns cut hike vowed 9-7, 625D1 US legis campaign opens 9-8, 654G3–655A1 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644F2 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627F3–G3 Emissns cut bill introduced 9-29, EPA proposal issued 9-30, 654A2, F2 US bill passage mulled, partisanship drop vowed 10-2—10-23; House bill job losses seen 10-14, Sen bill unveiled, com hearings open 10-23—10-27, 742F3, 743D1, G1 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755G1 US bill Sen com debate opens, EPA experts testify 11-3—11-4; Kerry seeks separate talks 11-4, bill backed 11-5, 759E3 Brazil/S Korea/Russia vow emissns cut 11-14—11-18; US levels mulled 11-25, China, India set ‘carbon intensity’ cut 11-26—12-3, 827C3, 828D1 Australian bill chngd, debated 11-24—11-27; nixed by Sen 12-2, emissns cut mulled 12-2—12-3, 851F1, B2, G2–A3 Calif ‘cap-and-trade’ emissns proposal set 11-24, 917F3 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841F1

—CLINTON 1005 US climate bill framework issued 12-10, 883F1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906G2–A3, 907E1, B2 French CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1 Research Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1 Global warming rate hike seen 2-14, 124E1 NASA satellite launched, crashes 2-24, 131C3 Arctic Sea ‘08-09 ice levels rptd 4-6, 550A3 Cow genome deciphered 4-23—4-24, 516E1 US effects rpt issued 6-16, 409B2 US glaciers loss rptd 8-6, 655D2 Ocean surface temperature high seen 8-14, 842C2 Arctic cooling trend reversal seen 9-4, 842A2 Arctic summer ice loss rptd 9-17, 842F1 Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss rptd 11-2—11-24, 842F1 Social Issues GM v chair (Lutz) sets retiremt 2-9, 92E3 Australia protests held 6-13, 624C1 Worldwide rallies held 10-24, 828C3 US belief polled 11-25, 828A3

CLIMB, The (recording) On best-seller list 5-2, 316D1

CLINTON, Bill (William Jefferson) (U.S. president, 1993-2001; Democrat) Drugs & Drug Trafficking Drug czar (Kerlikowske) named 3-11, 165F1 Economy & Labor Fed contractors pro-union reforms ordrd 1-30, 63E2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues CIA dir nominee (Panetta) confrmd 2-12, 93D3 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445A3, E3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section N Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35G3 Wife tours Asia 2-16—2-23, 109D1–E1 AmeriCorps expansion bill signed 4-21, 355C1 Visits N Korea, held rptrs freed/returns 8-4—8-5, 517A1, F1, A2–E2, 518A1–B1 N Korea’s Kim cont control seen 8-9, 568G3–569B1 Wife shoots down Congolese student questn 8-10, 540A3 Freed rptrs N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, China claims rejected 9-3, 600D3 Wife visits Northn Ireland 10-12, 704E3 Missionary (Park) N Korea entry/arrest rptd, role mulled 12-29, 933D3 Medicine & Health Care Abortns intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47C1–D1 White House health care forum held 3-5, 145F3–146A1 Goosby named PEPFAR head 4-27, 369F3 Forgn aid family planning funds measure backed 7-6, 489A1 Sen health care reform bill scored 10-11—10-12, 698E2 On health care reform bill 11-10, 774D3 Personal At Natl Prayer Svc 1-21, 29C2 Franklin dies 3-25, 192F2 Bacon dies 8-15, 648F1 At Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584B2 Politics At White House lunch 1-7, 6G1 Foundatn donors wife interventn rptd 1-13, secy of state confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13—1-15, 16E1–F1, A2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30F2, B3–C3 Wife confrmatn vote delayed 1-20, 28A1 Wife confrmd state secy 1-21, 29G2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60D3, F3 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, Census/White House direct rptg set, pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60B2 Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65E1 Honors Rep Dingell 2-10, 146C3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349A2, 350A2 McAuliffe loses Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391G1 Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, 410F1 SC gov (Sanford) admits affair 6-24, 424D2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469C2

Backs Newsom Calif gov bid 9-15, 640A1 Stumps in NJ/Va gov races 10-20, 717B1–C1

CLINTON, Hillary Rodham (U.S. senator from N.Y., 2001-09; secretary of state, 2009- ; Democrat) Africa Scores Sudan aid groups ouster 3-17, 185A2 On Somali antipiracy plan 4-15, 238F2 Scores Somali pirates release, NATO arrests authrzn mulled 4-20, 269C3–D3 Tours 8-4—8-13, 540A1–E3 Zimbabwe’s Mugabe scores criticism 8-10, 588D3 Scores Guinea protesters attack 10-7, 701E3 Sets Sudan policy shift 10-19, 762D1–E1 Visits Morocco 11-2, 754F1, C2–D2 Appointments & Resignations Donors interventn rptd 1-13, secy of state Sen com confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13—1-15, 16A1 Confrmatn vote delayed 1-20, 26D3 Confrmd state secy 1-21, 29F2 Holbrooke/Mitchell named spec envoy 1-22, 29A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286A1 Asia/Pacific Rim Afghan govt ties mulled 1-27, 54G2 On Kyrgyz mil base closure 2-5, 59G1 Tours 2-16—2-23, 108F3–110A1 Sees regular Afghan/Pak mtgs 2-26, 138D3 Hosts China’s Yang 3-11, 309E2 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175E3 Vows Afghan electns aid 3-30, 195D2 On Holbrooke/Akhundzadeh mtg 3-31, 195B2 Sees Pak’s Zardari militants abdicatn 4-22, 276D2 On Sri Lanka rebel clashes 4-22, 277D2 Testifies to Sen com 4-30, 315A3 Sees Afghan’s Karzai, regrets air strike civiln deaths 5-6, 314F1 Sees Pak’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 315C2 On Myanmar’s Suu Kyi chrgs 5-14, 327G2–A3 Hails Pak tribal areas mil efforts, vows refugees aid 5-19, 346A2, E2 Urges Tiananmen sq pub acctg, remarks scored 6-3—6-4, 395A3 Seeks rptrs N Korea release 6-8, 396D1 Seeks rptrs N Korea amnesty 7-10, 517D1 Visits India 7-17—7-20, 486A1 On N Korea A-program, Myanmar rights abuses 7-20—7-22; signs ASEAN treaty 7-22, at Thai summit 7-23, 495B3–F3, 496B1–E1, A2 Holds China strategic talks 7-27—7-28, 509B2 Husband visits N Korea, hails rptrs release 8-4—8-5, 517D2, 518B1 Afghan emb contractors misconduct rptd 9-2, 594A3 On Afghan troops hike 9-21, 635F1, C3 Sees Japan’s Okada 9-21, 653C1 Chngs Myanmar policy 9-24, 634B3 Sees Afghan’s Karzai reelectn 9-25, 668A3, E3 Pak aid package questnd 10-7, mulls A-arms security 10-11, 695F1, C2 Calls Afghan’s Karzai 10-19, 710A3 Seeks N Korea A-program curbs 10-21, 711B2 Visits Pak 10-28—10-29, 737D1 Pak visit ends 10-30, 769C2 On Afghan pres candidate (Abdullah) bid drop 11-1, 753C3 Diplomats visit Myanmar 11-3—11-4, 763C2 On Bosworth N Korea cont visit 11-11, 796G1 Visits PI 11-12—11-13, 819A2 Visits Afghan 11-18—11-19, 805E3–F3 Hosts Australia’s Rudd 11-30, 851A3 Afghan ties backed 12-2, testifies to Cong 12-2—12-3, 827D1, D2, A3–B3 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844D1, A2 Hails Thai/N Korea arms seizure 12-14, 862A3 Sees Japan amb 12-22, 933G1 Commonwealth of Independent States Hosts Russia’s Lavrov 5-7, 311A2 Visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 705D3 Defense & Disarmament Issues At A-arms test ban mtg 9-24, 633B2 Environment & Pollution Backs climate chng bill 6-26, 445E1 At climate chng treaty talks 12-17—12-18, 882F1, 883C1–D1 Europe Visits Belgium, sees NATO ldrs 3-4, 123G1

Tours 3-5—3-7, 142B1–143A1 Vs Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-18, 550B2 Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-28, 653F2 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707C1 Visits Ireland/UK, reaffrms ‘spec’ ties 10-11—10-12, 704F2, E3–F3, 705B1 Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788E1 ON UK girl Italian slaying trial appeals 12-7, 854C3 Health & Safety Issues White House health care forum held 3-5, 145F3–146A1 Iraqi Conflict Denies Iraq blasts troops role 4-25, 296E3 Maliki visits 7-21—7-22, 498D1 Latin America Visits Mex 3-25—3-26, 185A3, G3 Visits Haiti 4-16, 270F1 On Cuba talks offer 4-17, 271G2 On Cuba immigratn talks return 5-31, at OAS gen mtg 6-3, 376C2, A3–D3 At El Salvador’s Funes inauguratn 6-1, 394A3–B3 On Honduras pres (Zelaya) ouster 6-29, 438B2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) mtg OKd, held 7-6—7-7, 460F1, A2 On Colombia mil base use provisional deal 8-18, 589C2 Sees Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya), halts aid 9-4, 623C2 Calls Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya), de facto ldr (Micheletti) 10-23, hails return deal 10-30, 762D3, G3–763A1 Middle East On Iran intl relatns 1-27, seeks UN compliance 2-3, 86A3–B3 Tours 3-1—3-4, 123F1, E2 Sets Iran A-program talks role, urges rptr (Saberi) release 4-8, 217C2–D2, A3 Links Iran A-program, Mideast peace talks 4-23, 313C2 Tours 4-24—4-26, 297A3, E3 On Iran rptr (Saberi) release 5-11, 318F1 Hosts Egypt’s Gheit, urges W Bank setlmts halt 5-27, 380B3 Denies W Bank setlmts secret deal 6-5, 403B3 On Iran govt recognitn 6-29, 439D1 On Iran A-weapons dvpt 7-22, 485E2 On hikers Iran arrests 7-31, 530D2 On Iran A-program talks 9-15, 614C1 On Iran A-program sanctns 10-13—10-14, 705E3 Seeks Iran A-program curbs 10-21, 711A2 Sees Abbas/Netanyahu, peace talks reopening offer nixed 10-31—11-2; at forgn mins conf 11-2, visits Egypt 11-3, 754E1 On Iran uranium transfer proposals 11-2, 768A3 Gaza war crimes rpt oppositn res passes House 11-3, 790D2 On hikers Iran spy chrgs 11-9, 857E3 Urges Israeli/Palestinian peace talks 11-25, 838E2 On hikers Iran trials 12-14, 876F3 Military Issues At USS NY commissioning 11-7, 914D3 Personal At Natl Prayer Svc 1-21, 29C2 At abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiling 4-28, 300E2 Politics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A2 Kennedy drops Sen seat bid 1-22, 32D3 Sen replacemt (Gillibrand) named 1-23, 46E2 NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201G1 NY House seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared 4-24, 292C2 Dem donor (Hsu) pleads guilty 5-7, sentncd 9-29, 656E3 McAuliffe loses Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391G1 Campaign finance law rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444C3 Rep Maloney nixes NYS Sen seat bid 8-7, 537D3 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 570D2 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585C1 At Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584B2 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1 Fundraiser (Nemazee) indicted 9-21, pleads not guilty 9-23, 656G3–657A1 Lazio sets NY gov bid 9-22, 639C2 Giuliani nixes Sen bid, backs Lazio 12-22, 908F3–G3 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Names Cuba base mil prison closure ofcl 3-12, 166G1 On ‘war on terror’ term drop 3-30, 200F1–G1 Warns UK intell sharing curbs 7-29, 544D2 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer set 12-15, 861C1

1006 CLIO— UN Policy Seeks Human Rights Cncl entry 3-31, 336A3–B3 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675E3

CLIO Awards Rights sale set 12-10, 912B3

CLONING—See under GENETICS CLOONEY, George Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2 Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

CLOSE, Glenn Dad dies 1-15, 104B3 Wins Emmy 9-20, 647D3, F3

CLOSE, William Taliaferro (1924-2009) Dies 1-15, 104A3

CLOTHING & Fashion Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Amer Apparel/Allen lawsuit setld 5-18, 348E2 Nike drops Chamber of Commerce bd role 9-30, 654E3 Crime Issues Thai protests turn violent, provocatn mulled 4-7—4-14, 250A1–B1, F1, F2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, Sen com rpt released 4-21, 260B1–C1, F1 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbery/slaying evidnc rptd 4-20, 429D2 Detainees CIA interrogatn intell questnd 4-26, methods scored 4-27, 289F3, 290C1 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306D1 Afghan govt bldgs attack kills 20 5-12, 317C3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322F1 Russia gay rally broken up, demonstrators held 5-16, 379B1 Iran pres electn protests turn violent 6-13—6-18, 402D1 Ger terror claim convctn appeal heard, ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482F2–B3 Iran electn protests cont 7-17, 785E1 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554E1 US cont renditns rptd 8-22, terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses documts issued 8-24, 567C1, G2 US Census worker found dead 9-12, 722D1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636F2 Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848F3 Ger ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788D2 Somalia blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889A1 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/in hosp 12-25; chrgd, transferred 12-26—12-27, Netherlands body scanners use urged, OKd 12-29—12-30, 897A1, 898A3, C3 Health & Safety Issues Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492D2 LA illegal immigrants detentn conditns suit setld 9-17, 722B1 Military Issues US mil Iraq translators ltd mask use OKd 1-7, 102B1 US mil Iraq translators mask ban reversal rptd 2-13, 102A1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, 381C2 Obituaries Ashley, Sir Bernard 2-14, 160A3 Fisher, Donald G 9-27, 708B3 Penn, Irving 10-7, 692D2 People Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove fetches $350000 11-21, 840G1 Political & Legislative Issues White House crashing rptd, photos issued 11-25—11-27, 829C3 Religious Issues France burqa use opposed 6-22, probe comm set 6-23, 432F2 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622B3 French town Muslim swimsuits ban rptd, Italy town fines set 8-12—8-19, UK spec swimming sessns rptd 8-15, 561E1 French burqa ban cont 11-12, 937A1 School Issues Girl student strip search case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 48G3

FACTS Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425C2 Trade & Aid Issues Storm Ketsana, PI aid sought 9-26, 664B2

CLOUDY With a Chance of Meatballs (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

CLOUSTON, Cory Named Sens coach 2-2, 159E2

CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets US’s Palin addresses conf 9-23, 639E1

CLUB for Growth Toomey sets Pa Sen seat bid 4-15, 284A3 Rep Sestak sets Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521A3 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31, 756B1

CLUB of Paris Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776F3–777A1

CLUSSEXX Three D Grinchy Glee, Ch. (dog) Wins Westminster show 2-10, 159B3

CLYBURN, Jim (James E.) (U.S. representative from S.C., 1993- ; Democrat) Reseated majority whip 1-6, 5D1

CLYBURN, Mignon FCC chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) confrmd 6-25, 458D1

CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)—See MEDICARE & Medicaid Services CNBC (cable TV channel) ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242D3 Obama interviewed 6-16, 402B3, 717A3 Novartis CEO (Vasella) interviewed 8-11, 609F2 Comcast buy set 12-3, 830D3

COA, Eibar Musket Man 3d in Kentucky Derby 5-2, 316E1 Musket Man 3d in Preakness 5-16, 347C2

COAKLEY, Martha Sets Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse constructn cos setlmt 3-26, 357G2 Files fed marriage law suit 7-8, 492F1 Sets Sen seat bid 9-3, 584D3 Kennedy nephew nixes Sen seat bid 9-7, 638A2 Wins Sen seat Dem primary 12-8, 848C2

COAL Tenn power plant ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2 Energy secy (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17B3 SD plant constructn blocked by EPA 1-22, 94B3 Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 Appliances, electronics energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94A2 EPA power plants mercury curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94A3* Plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94C2 China mine blast kills 74+, survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251D2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107A2 Clean coal project ‘08 nix math woes cited 3-11, funding set, revived 5-15—6-12, 445F3, 446F1 Mt mining permits EPA reviews urged, set 3-23—3-24, 267F2 Tenn power plant ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11; cause rptd 6-25, storage sites risk seen 6-29, 555B1 Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655A1 S African mine workers stirke, deal set 7-27—7-28, 526B1 Freshwater fish mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655B2 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644B3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 US emissns rptg set 9-22, 781C2 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 EPA power plant mercury curbs suit setld 10-23, 781F1, A2 China mine blast kills 104+ 11-21, ofcls, rptrs chrgd 11-30, 932G3 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935E2

COAST Guard, U.S. (of Homeland Security) Privacy ofcrs bill passes House 3-24, 908D1 US/Mex border security hike mulled 4-2, 249A3 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488A2 Haiti migrant boat sinking survivors found, rescue search ends 7-28—7-29, 527A2–B2 Potomac exercise spurs panic, review set/rptd 9-11—10-27, 782G1, E2–G2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3 Plane, copter crash kills 9 10-29, 915E2

COBEN, Harlan Hold Tight on best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

COBOS, Julio Cong electns held 6-28, 447A1

COBRA Starship (music group) Hot Mess on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

COBURN, Barry Named Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty 10-7, 719E1

COBURN, Tom (U.S. senator from Okla., 2005- ; Republican) Vs atty gen nominee (Holder) 1-28, 2-2, 60F3 On natl parks gun measure 5-19, 354G2 Nixes Sen Ensign affair testimony 7-13, 478C2–D2 Scores Sup Ct justice nominees Sen com confrmatn hearings 7-28, 503E1 Questns auto sales rise 8-6, 536D1 Blocks Medicare Part B premium freeze 9-24, 714E2 On health care reform vote 12-20, 906A1

COCA-Cola Co., The Huiyuan Juice buy blocked 3-18, protectnsm denied 3-25, 251C2

COCAINE—See DRUGS COCKERHAM, John Sentncd 12-2, 856D3

COCKREL Jr., Kenneth (Detroit, Mich. interim mayor, 2008-09; Democrat) 2d in primary electn, Bing race set 2-25, 131E1 Loses electn 5-5, 306A3 Seeks Conyers ofc missing property probe 8-7, 553E1

CODERRE, Denis Quits 9-28, 681E3

COEN, Ethan ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2

COEN, Joel ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2

COETZEE, J(ohn) M(axwell) On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692C1–D1

COEUR Alaska Inc. Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2, A3

COEUR Alaska Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (2009) Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426G2

COFFEE Guatemala landslide buries 87, search halted 1-4—1-7, 83D1 Bushes host Obamas, Bidens 1-20, 26F2 Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter/atty slain 4-14—5-10, 377A1

COFINDUSTRIA Libya’s Qaddafi addresses 6-12, 416F2

COGGINS, Paul On client (Ensign) parents, mistress paymts 7-9, 478G1–A2

COGHLAN, Chris Among NL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D3 Named NL top rookie 11-16, 824C1

COHEN, Colby Boston U wins NCAA title 4-11, 300B1

COHEN, Jake Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

COHEN, Jerry (Gerald Allen) (1941-2009) Dies 8-5, 580F2

COHEN, Jon Questns HIV vaccine trial success 10-5, 697A2

COHEN, Zach Boston U wins NCAA title 4-11, 300B1

COHMAD Securities Corp. Madoff wife withdrawal rptd 2-11, 113B3–C3 SEC civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442A2–B2, D2, A3

ON FILE

COHN, Marcia SEC civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442B2

COHN, Maurice (Sonny) SEC civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442B2

COHN, Sam(uel Charles) (1929-2009) Dies 5-6, 332G2

COKE, Phil Traded to Tigers 12-9, 949A1

COLAPRETE, Anthony Confrms Moon water 11-13, 824E2–F2

COLBERT, Stephen Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

COLDPLAY (music group) Grammys won 2-8, 88B2, F2–G2

COLD War (U.S.-Soviet post-World War II rivalry) Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 105A2, 108A1 Obama, Medvedev mull treaties 4-1, 193C3 Obama seeks A-arms end 4-5, 214A1 Cuba, OAS reentry OKd 6-4, 376G2–A3 Obama/Putin mull politics 7-2—7-7, 454C2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637F1 US’s Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 706A1 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755E1 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908A2

COLE (U.S. destroyer) Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46F3 Obama sees victims families 2-6, 80B3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs dropped 2-6, 80E3 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns scored 4-27, 289C3 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565B2 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 794B1

COLE, Kresley Kiss of a Demon King on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

COLE, Natalie Wins Grammy 2-8, 88F2

COLE, Richard Overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, license revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743E3

COLEMAN, Chad L. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

COLEMAN, Gregory Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33C1

COLEMAN, Kenyon Traded to Browns 4-25, 299A1

COLEMAN, Maggie-Kate Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

COLEMAN, Norm (U.S. senator from Minn., 2003-09; Republican) Franken declared race winner 1-5, files suit 1-6, 5F1 Sen race absentee votes review ltd 3-31, 201B2–D2 Reelectn race recount rptd 4-7, Franken win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242F2, A3 Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, 284D2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) filibuster doubted 5-27, 350D1 Sen race appeal nixed/concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441A1, C2, F2 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 907C3

COLES, Sylvester (Red) Ga death row inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd by Sup Ct 8-17, 553B2

COLESCOTT, Robert Hutton (1925-2009) Dies 6-4, 420D3

COLETTI, Nick On Ramirez suspensn 5-7, 348C1

COLEY, Anthony On health care reforms proposal 6-5, 390F2

COLEY, John Ford (John Edward Colley) Seals dies 3-25, 256E3

COLGAN Air Inc. (of Pinnacle Airlines) NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot error seen 2-15—2-18, 95C2 NYS plane crash pilot test woes rptd 5-11, hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357G1–C2, F2

COLICOS, Nicolas Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

2009 Index COLLECTIVE Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Russia summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423D2, F2–G2 Uzbek rapid reactn force oppositn rptd 6-23; Kazakh exercises held 10-2—10-16, Belarus signs treaty 10-20, 904E1–G1 Uzbek jt mil exercises nixed 8-26, 664A1

COLLEGE Board ‘09-10 coll tuition rise seen 10-20, 887A3

COLLEGES—See EDUCATION (U.S.) COLLET-Serra, Jaume Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2

COLLETT, Alec Body find rptd 11-23, 877F3

COLLETTE, Toni Wins Emmy 9-20, 647D3, G3

COLLINS Jr., Clifford Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

COLLINS, Francis Named NIH dir 7-8, 491G1

COLLINS, Lily Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

COLLINS, Maria Antonieta My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-26, 762C2

COLLINS, Michael Marks Apollo 11 moon landing anniv 7-20, 506D2

COLLINS, Susan M. (U.S. senator from Me., 1997- ; Republican) Backs econ recovery plan 2-6—2-10, 73E2–F2, B3 Backs $787 bln econ recovery plan 2-13, 89C2 On health care reform debate 10-14, 698B3 On health care reform bill 11-9, 774E2

COLLINS & Aikman Corp. Ex-execs chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3

COLLISON, Darren In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

COLMAN, Olivia England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3

COLOMBIA, Republic of Civil Strife FARC hostages freed 2-1—2-5, 67D3 FARC ldr (Cuero) held 6-11, ex-cmdr Aguilar extradited to US 7-16, 526C3–D3 Venez/FARC arms link confrmd, ties denied 7-26—7-28, computer evidnc rptd 8-3, 526B2, A3 Thai blocks Russian arms dealing suspect (Bout) US extraditn 8-11, 534G1 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 US/Cuba citizen (Padron) kidnapping suspects chrgd, held 9-28, 12-3, 927F2 Guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817D3 Mil, rebels clash erupts 11-10, 927B3 Ex-gen (Uscategui) convctd, sentncd 11-23, 927A3 Gov (Cuellar) seized, found dead/FARC role alleged 12-21—12-22, 927C2 Defense & Disarmament Issues US mil bases use mulled 8-10, 541G2 US mil base use provisional deal set, plans scored 8-18—8-28, 589B2 US mil base access deal defended, signed 10-27—10-30, 817A3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) slain 3-1—3-2, 133D3 Alleged drug lord (Herrera) held 4-15, 526E3 Guinea-Bissau pres electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458D3 Panama pres (Martinelli) sworn 7-1, 493B3 Venez govt trafficking role alleged, denied 7-16—7-23, 929E3 Malian narcoterror suspects chrgd held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2 Economy & Labor SFG-linked brokerages suspended 2-18, 148G2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Intell agency nix set 9-18, 817F3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Venez’s Chavez calls Obama ‘ignorant’ 3-22, 270A3

—COMMERCE Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233A1 Pres term limits hike passes Cong 8-19—9-1, 623B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733A1 Human Rights US hails abuse drop 2-25, 180B1, A2 Record improvemts seen 9-11, 817G3 Latin American Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Venez/US talks seen 2-14, 98A1 Venez ties mulled 7-21, amb recalled 7-28, 526F2–G2 Venez amb returns 8-8, army patrol border crossing alleged 8-9, 541F3–542A1 UNASUR summit skipped 8-10, 541D3 Venez ties cut warned 8-25, UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589B2, B3 Cuba peace concert held 9-20, 661D2 Honduras pres electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 634B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Uribe swine flu positive test rptd 8-30, 584D1 Obituaries Escalona, Rafael 5-13, 364D3 Trade, Aid & Investment US trade rep nominee (Kirk) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182C1 IMF loan sought 4-21, 283F2 Venez trade halted, cont try seen 7-28—7-29, 526F2–G2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Uribe gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2

COLOM Caballeros, Alvaro (Guatemalan president, 2008- ) Exporter (Musa), daughter/atty slain 4-14—5-10, murder warning tape issued, denies role 5-11, 376F3, 377A1–C1 Declares food crisis calamity 9-8, 623B3 Atty (Rosenberg) slaying suspects held 9-11, 682D2

COLON-Zayas, Lisa Have You Seen Us? opens in New Haven 12-2, 954F1

COLORADO Accidents & Disasters Mil copter crash kills 4 8-19, 915G2 Arts & Culture ALA mtg held 1-26, 55G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Rocky Mt News shut 2-27, 167C3 Crime & Law Enforcement Death penalty repeal passes state House, nixed by state Sen 4-22, 5-6, 429D3 Coors ‘60 killer found dead 8-24, 792A3 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) hotel stay seen 9-6; visits NYC, returns 9-9—9-12, questnd, held/chrgd 9-16—9-24, 641E2, F3, 642B2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) transferred, bomb constructn mulled 9-25—9-26; pleads not guilty 9-29, accomplices role seen 10-8, 678F1, A2–C2 Balloon hoax parents plea deal OKd, plead guilty/mom deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817D2 Cuba base detainees transfer mulled 11-14, 794E2 Balloon hoax bill set 12-21; parents sentncd 12-23, FAA fine sought 12-24, 919E2 Actor Sheen held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2 Energy Oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe ordrd 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform town-hall mtg held 8-15, 511D2 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Military Issues Vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412C1–E1 False mil decoratn claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Bennet named to Sen 1-3, 5G1 $787 bln econ recovery plan signed 2-17, 89B1

Religious Issues Ex-pastor (Haggard) sex partner church paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3 Sports Nuggets win divisn 4-15, 278C2 Nuggets exit playoffs 5-29, 419F2 Rockies make playoffs 10-3, 690G1, A3 Rockies exit playoffs 10-12, 752E2 Transportation Balloon released/lands, boy found 10-15; family mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, wife confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745G2–C3

COLORADO, University of (Boulder) Prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, reinstatemt sought/opposed, suit warned 4-3—4-9, 307E3, 308B1 Prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554A3, D3

COLORADO State University (Fort Collins) ‘10 Atlantic hurricanes forecast set 12-9, 921F2

COLORADO Veterans Alliance Founder (Strandlof) held 5-12, disbanded 5-14, 412C1, E1

COLOR of Change ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602F2

COLTING, Fredrik Salinger bk ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484B3

COLUMBIA (U.S. space shuttle) Endeavour intl statn missn flown 7-15—7-31, 519G1

COLUMBIA/HCA Healthcare Corp. Obama health care reform oppositn set 2-25, ads spending rptd 5-11, 340E1

COLUMBIA University (N.Y., N.Y.) China quake, dam seismic strain linked 2-6, 153B3 Chapin dies 3-7, 192C2 Pulitzer Prizes announced 4-20, 279D1 Kids sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link seen 6-15, 555F2 Antidepressants use rise rptd 8-3, 816B3 Cuban blogger (Sanchez) trip nixed 10-14, 723D2

COLUMBINE (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316B1

COLVIN, Claudette Hoose wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

COLVIN, Richard Testifies to parlt com 11-18, 926F3–927A1

COMCAST Corp. Cable ownership cap nixed 8-28, 912D1 NBC buyout set 12-3, 830A3

COMCAST Sportsnet (cable TV channel) Stake sold 10-27, 949D1

COMEDIANS & Comedy Franken declared Minn Sen race winner 1-5, suit filed 1-6, 5F1 Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441A1, E2 Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752F2 Obituaries Brown, Ernest 8-21, 612B3 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Gans, Danny 5-1, 384E3 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 Sales, Soupy 10-22, 752F3

COME Fly With Me (play) Opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

COMEY, James Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60E3 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445E3 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 475A1

COMICS—See CARTOONS COMING Home (play) Opens in New Haven 1-21, 211B3

COMISION Federal de Electricidad (CFE) LFC shut 10-11, 724D1, G1

COMMERCE, U.S. Department of Appointments & Resignations Gregg named secy 2-3, ex-aide (Koonce) lobbying ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D1 Sen Gregg drops secy nominatn 2-12, 79E2 Locke named secy 2-25, 112G3 Secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286G3

1007

Moran successor (Dunn) quits 11-10, 798A1 Budget & Spending Programs Food safety reforms set 3-14, 167D2 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, D2 ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488C2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866B3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, bill passes Sen/fails in House, clears Cong 1-26—2-4, 63C1 Environmental Issues Fed projects endangered species review restored 3-2, 131D2 NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917B2 Fair Trade Issues Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, tariffs set, take effect 3-16—3-17, 171B3 China Web filter requiremt complaint filed 6-24, 448C1 Locke visits China 7-16, 481C3 China steel pipes duites set 9-10, 615A3 China steel pipe tarrifs set 11-5, 776D1, F1 Statistics Nov ‘08 trade gap, Oct revised 1-13, 15B3 Dec ‘08 retail sales, Nov revised 1-14, 15E3 Nov ‘08 inventories/sales, Oct revised 1-14, 46B2 Dec ‘08 housing starts, Nov revised 1-22, 45C3 Dec ‘08 new-home sales/prices, Nov revised 1-29, 45G3 Dec ‘08 durable goods 1-29, 46B1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 1-30, 61A1 Dec ‘08 trade gap, Nov revised 2-11, 111E3 Dec ‘08 inventories/sales, Nov revised 2-12, 111A3 Jan ‘09 retail sales, Dec ‘08 revised 2-12, 111B3 Jan ‘09 housing starts, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 111C3 Jan ‘09 durable goods 2-26, 128E3 Jan ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Dec ‘08 revised 2-26, 128F3 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP revised 2-27, 128F2 Jan ‘09 inventories/sales, Dec ‘08 revised 3-12, 183G1 Feb ‘09 retail sales, Jan revised 3-12, 219E3 Jan ‘09 trade gap, Dec ‘08 revised 3-13, 164F1 Feb ‘09 housing starts, Jan revised 3-17, 183D1 ‘08 4th 1/4 paymts gap, 3d 1/4 revised 3-18, 240F2 Feb ‘09 durable goods 3-25, 183A1 Feb ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jan revised 3-25, 183B1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP final 3-26, 182B3 Feb ‘09 trade gap, Jan revised 4-9, 240B2 Mar ‘09 retail sales, Feb revised 4-14, 240C3 Feb ‘09 inventories/sales, Jan revised 4-14, 292A2 Mar ‘09 housing starts, Feb revised 4-16, 292C1 Mar ‘09 durable goods 4-24, 292E1 Mar ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Feb revised 4-24, 292F1 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 4-29, 291C3 Mar ‘09 trade gap, Feb revised 5-12, 323A3 Apr ‘09 retail sales, Mar revised 5-13, 323E3, 355G3 Mar ‘09 inventories/sales, Feb revised 5-13, 356A1 Apr ‘09 housing starts, Mar revised 5-19, 355E3 Apr ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Mar revised 5-28, 372F1 Apr ‘09 durable goods 5-28, 372B2 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP revised 5-29, 372E1 Apr ‘09 trade gap, Mar revised 6-10, 389E1 Apr ‘09 inventories/sales, Mar revised 6-11, 428D1 May ‘09 retail sales, Apr revised 6-11, 428E1 May ‘09 housing starts, Apr revised 6-16, 428C1 ‘09 1st 1/4 paymts gap, ‘08 4th 1/4 revised 6-17, 572C2 May ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Apr revised 6-24, 428A1 May ‘09 durable goods 6-24, 428B1 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP final 6-25, 456C2 May ‘09 trade gap, Apr revised 7-10, 477F1 Jun ‘09 retail sales, May revised 7-14, 477B3 May ‘09 inventories/sales, Apr revised 7-14, 477C3 Jun ‘09 housing starts, May revised 7-17, 504B3 Jun ‘09 new-home sales/prices, May revised 7-27, 504E2 Jun ‘09 durable goods 7-29, 504C3 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP, historical revisns issued 7-31, 521C3, E3, 522F1 Jun ‘09 trade gap, May revised 8-12, 535B3

1008 COMMERZBANK— Jul ‘09 retail sales, Jun revised 8-13, 535E3 Jun ‘09 inventories/sales, May revised 8-13, 572B2 Jul ‘09 housing starts, Jun revised 8-18, 572D1 Jul ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jun revised 8-26, 572C1 Jul ‘09 durable goods 8-26, 572D2 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP revised 8-27, 572E1 Jul ‘09 trade gap, Jun revised 9-10, 619C1 Aug ‘09 retail sales 9-15, 618B2 Jul ‘09 inventories/sales, Jun revised 9-15, 640G1 ‘09 2d 1/4 paymts gap, 1st 1/4 revised 9-16, 640E2 Aug ‘09 housing starts, Jul revised 9-17, 640E1 Aug ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jul revised 9-25, 657C1 Aug ‘09 durable goods 9-25, 657D1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP final 9-30, 657A1 Aug ‘09 trade gap, Jul revised 10-9, 699B3 Sep ‘09 retail sales, Aug revised 10-14, 740F1 Aug ‘09 inventories/sales, Jul revised 10-14, 740G1 Sep ‘09 housing starts, Aug revised 10-20, 740E2 Sep ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Aug revised 10-28, 740C2 Sep ‘09 durable goods 10-28, 740F2 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739A3, E3 Sep ‘09 trade gap, Aug revised 11-13, 798F1 Oct ‘09 retail sales, Sep revised 11-16, 813B2 Sep ‘09 inventories/sales, Aug revised 11-16, 813C2 Oct ‘09 housing starts, Sep revised 11-18, 831C2 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP revised 11-24, 813G1 Oct ‘09 new-home sales, Sep revised 11-25, 831D2 Oct ‘09 durable goods, Sep revised 11-25, 831A3 Oct ‘09 trade gap, Sep revised 12-10, 865F3 Nov ‘09 retail sales, Oct revised 12-11, 911E2 Oct ‘09 inventories/sales, Sep revised 12-11, 911G2 Nov ‘09 housing starts, Oct revised 12-16, 911G1 ‘09 3d 1/4 paymts gap, 2d 1/4 revised 12-16, 911C2 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP final 12-22, 886F3 Nov ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Oct revised 12-23, 911A2 Nov ‘09 durable goods 12-24, 911F2

COMMERZBANK AG Govt stake bought 1-8, 8A2

COMMISSION on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism Swine flu biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3

COMMITTEE to Protect Journalists Azadlyg rptr (Zakhidov) freed, cont imprisonmts rptd 4-9, 253B1 Korruptsiya i Prestupnost ed (Yaroshenko) death probe opens 6-29, 497F2 Iran rptr arrests ssen 7-7, 464F2 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe urged 8-18, 607E1 Taszhargan closure rptd 9-18, 663D2 Russian rptr (Yevloyev) slaying case ruling scored 12-11, 892F2 Kyrgyz rptr (Pavlyuk) Kazakh travel mulled 12-22, 935A2

COMMODITIES & Commodity Trading—See also commodity names Crime & Commodity Manipulation Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1 Environmental Issues Emissns cut bill introduced 9-29, 654A3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Occidental/Phibro buy set 10-9, 742A2–B2 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6F3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61F1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128C1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198C1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304C3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371F3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442F1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522C1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586F1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657C3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759C1

FACTS Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831C1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900F3, 910F3 Price & Production Issues Russian rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69G1 Regulatory Issues US credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320A2–B2 Business methods patent case accepted by Sup Ct 6-1, 374F1 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 408B1

COMMODITY Futures Modernization Act (2000) Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320A2

COMMODITY Futures Trading Commission, U.S. (CFTC) WG Trading investmt fraud suspects civil complaints filed 2-25, 539G3 Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320B2 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 408B1 Emissns cut bill introduced 9-29, 654A3

COMMONWEALTH, The Malawi pres electn vote questnd 5-21—5-22, 358E1 Fiji ousted 9-1, 852A2 Crisis summit set 11-23; biennial mtg held 11-27—11-29, Rwanda admitted 11-28, 845B3, F3

COMMONWEALTH Brands Inc. Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622F1

COMMONWEALTH of Independent States (CIS) Georgia exit set 6-12, 450G1 Kyrgyz pres vote backed 7-25, 511A1 Moldova summit held, usefulness questnd 10-8—10-10, 777D1

COMMUNISM & Communist Parties Africa S Africa cabt named 5-10, Zille remarks scored 5-12, 325A3, C3, 326A1 S African workers strike, deals set 7-8—7-31, 525D3 S Africa ex-pres (Mbeki) prosecutn sought 12-1, 850A3 Asia/Pacific Rim N Korea’s Kim hosts Chinese envoys 1-23, 84A2 China ‘09 econ woes seen 2-1, jobless migrants estimated 2-2, 134D3, G3 Tibet ‘08 rioters sentncd 2-11, monks pol activity warning issued 2-19, 116F2, A3 China natl cong held 3-5—3-13, 186C3 Dalai Lama marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, 172A1 China rights ‘Action Plan’ set 4-13, 309C2 India parlt electns voting attacks kill 17+ 4-16, 276D3 India parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 345D2, B3, 346E1 Nepal party exits ruling coalitn 5-3; Prachanda quits 5-4, protests held 5-4—5-7, 314E2, G2–C3 Nepal ruling coalitn deal OKd 5-17, Nepal elected, sworn premr 5-23—5-25, 363A1 China’s Zhao memoir published 5-19, 5-29, 395B3 China ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460E3, 461F1 PI peace talks set 7-8, 528E2 Macao chief exec (Chui) named 7-26, 510D1 China’s Hu/Taiwan’s Ma telegrams exchngd 7-27, 511B2 Myanmar/China border militia clashes end urged 8-28, 590F2 PI militants peace talks delayed 8-28, clashes kill 5 11-11, 819F3 China city ofcl (Li) ousted, Zhu named 9-5, 605G3 China party com mtg held 9-15—9-18, 683G1 Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933F2 N Korea chngd const issued 9-28, 653F1 China rule anniv marked 10-1, 682F3 India rebel attack kills 17 10-8, 790E3 Nepal Maoists protests held/arrests rptd, govt land seized 11-12—12-22, natl govt sought 12-22, 946G2 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 871G1 PI rebels camp attack kills 10 12-15, 890D3 Thai/Laos refugees returned 12-28, 934C2 Commonwealth of Independent States Moscow rallies held 1-31, 69E1

Russia munic/regional parlt electns held 3-1; results rptd 3-2, vote questnd 3-3, 208C1 Russian city mayoral electn held 4-26, results rptd 4-27, 328E2 Moldova parlt electns held, results rptd 7-29—8-4, 529B1 Moldova’s Voronin quits 9-11, 627B1, E1 Moldova/Romania visa curbs lifted 9-17, PM (Filat), cabt sworn 9-25, 666E3, G3 Russia’s Putin ‘12 pres bid remarks scored 9-20, 667F2 Russia local electns held 10-11, Duma members walk out, return 10-14—10-21, 727F3, 728A1 Europe Romania parlt electns held/results rptd, protests turn violent 4-5—4-9, 225E2, D3–E3, G3 Moldova protests urged, held 4-6—4-12; parlt electns recount sought, results rptd 4-10—4-22, riots death rptd, chrgs seen/set 4-12—4-24, 273A2 US’s Biden visits Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo 5-19—5-21, 379A2 Moldova pres vote fails 6-3, Lupu sets party exit 6-4—6-10, 397D2–B3 Moldova parlt dissolved, electns set 6-15, 416F3–417A1 Lithuania pres (Grybauskaite) sworn 7-12, 512E3 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637G1 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 665E1 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667G1–A2 Greece parlt electns held 10-4, 686C2 Latin America Cuba revolutn anniv marked 1-1, 81A1–B1 Cuba’s Lage, Perez Roque resignatns rptd 3-5, 249B2–C2 US, Cuba family visit/remittnc/telecom curbs lifted 4-13, 248B3, 249C1 El Salvador’s Funes sworn 6-1, 394F2 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508D2 Cuba cong postponed 7-31, 526G3 Argentina ‘dirty war’ mil ofcrs convctd, sentncd 8-13, 925C3 Cuba’s Castro photos published 8-23, 575E1 Cuba family travel, remittnc curbs eased 9-3, 604E3 Cuba peace concert held 9-20, 661E2 Peru’s Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682F2 Cuba’s Castro sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762D2 Obituaries Almeida, Juan 9-11, 648D1 Brown, James F 11-16, 896A2 Feoktistov, Konstantin P 11-21, 860C3 Kiraly, Bela K 7-4, 516C3 Kolakowski, Leszek 7-17, 516E3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532E3 United States Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27E2

COMMUNITY Oriented Policing Services, U.S. (COPS) (of Justice) ‘09-14 reauthrzn passes House 4-23, 908A1

COMOROS, Federal Islamic Republic of the Accidents & Disasters Yemen flight crash kills 152 6-30; safety woes rptd, victims families paymt set 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233A1; 10-1, 733B1

COMPAGNIE Tommy Ivory Coast toxic waste dump suit setlmt OKd 9-20, 654E1

COMPAGNONI, Achille (1914-2009) Dies 5-13, 364C3 Lacedelli dies 11-20, 880B2

COMPAORE, Capt. Blaise (Burkina Faso head of state, 1987- ) Visits Guinea 10-5, 701F3 Ivory Coast pres electn delayed 12-3, 922B2 Guinea junta, oppositn talks halted 12-9, 871B1

COMPASSION and Choices Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3

COMPEAN, Jose Alonso Sentnc commuted 1-19, 33E3–F3

COMPOSITION With Blue, Red, Yellow and Black (painting) Fetches 21.6 mln euros 2-23, 160C1

ON FILE

COMPREHENSIVE Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization N Korea A-bomb test blast measured 5-25, 351C1

COMPTROLLER of the Currency, U.S. Office of the (of Treasury) Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407B3 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444F2–G2 Citigroup memo rptd 7-16, 490E3 Financial indus ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, 640F3 Financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 779B1

COMPUTERS (& Computer Industry) Appointments & Resignations Hathaway nixes cybersecurity czar applicatn 8-3, econ advisers clash rptd, candidates interviewed 8-4, 602B3 Schmidt quits Apple bd 8-4, 744F3 DHS cybersecurity ofcl (Kwon) quits 8-8, named RSA vp 8-10, 602E3 Schmidt named White House cybersecurity coordinator 12-22, 886F2 Awards & Honors Agrawala wins MacArthur 9-22, 671G1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Intel, EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343F1 Cisco Systems, Dow role set 6-1, 372D2 Microsoft word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911F3 Stocks flash-orders ban proposed 9-17, 716F1 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, AMD setlmt OKd 11-12, 800C2, G2 Europn Comm competitn comr (Almunia) named 11-27, 835A3 EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875F3 Intel antitrust suit filed 12-16, 911D3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud/quits, shares drop 1-7, suspects held, bd dissolved 1-9—1-11, 54F3 Satyam acctg fraud suspects chrgd 4-7, 450E3 Apple/Google bd dirs overlap probe set 5-5, 744F3 Insider trading suspects chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3–B3 Crime & Piracy Issues Sci (Nozette) leaves US 1-6, 761A1 Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20G3 Israeli/Iran A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75G1 Heartland credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133C2–D2 Tex inmate (Richard) executn judge comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3 Global spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled/Dalai Lama info hack seen 3-29—3-30, 342B1 US electric grid cybersecurity questnd 4-7, grid hacked 4-8, 411A2 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-18—4-22, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429B2 Defns Dept jet info hacked 4-21; cybersecurity mulled, mil cmnd post set/policies questnd 4-21—4-29, House com hearing held, guidelines proposed/ofc set 5-5—5-29, 410B3, G3, 411E1 Credit card theft curbs hiked 7-16, suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554C1–D1, G1 Indonesia bombers laptop found 7-19, 495C1 Venez/Colombia rebels link evidnc rptd 8-3, 526A3 Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) ofc missing property probe sought 8-7, 553E1 China software copyright infringemt suspects convctd, sentncd 8-20, 615B3 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918C1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B2 WWII code-breaker (Turing) UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648B1 NYC apartmts raided 9-14, bomb plot suspect (Zazi) held/evidnc rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641B3, 642A1 Indonesia terror raid kills 4/files found, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 644A1, E1 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930A2 Madoff assocs held, chrgd 11-13, 800E1 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5; Dvpt Alternatives work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927D3, G3

2009 Index Iraq/UK hostage (Moore) freed, treatmt mulled 12-30—12-31, 941C3, 942C1 Health & Safety Issues Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot rpt issued 10-26, 743F3 Internet Issues—See INTERNET Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Tech Mahindra/Satyam stake buy set 4-13, 450B3 Oracle/Sun buy set, OKd 4-20—8-20, EU antitrust probe opens 9-3, 601A2 Dell/Perot Systems buy set 9-18, 660C1 Obituaries Motwani, Rajeev 6-5, 452G3 People Fiorina sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Political & Legislative Issues Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41F2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90B2, D2 Space Issues Simonyi visits intl space statn 3-26—4-8, 239A3* Trade Issues China Web-filter software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414F2 China filter software requiremt dropped 8-13, 557E2 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 749A1

CONAGRA Foods Inc. NC factory blast kills 3 6-9, natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412B3

CONAHAN, Judge Michael Suspended 1-26, pleads guilty 2-12, 247F1–A2 Juvenile ctrs owner, builder plead guilty 7-1—92, plea deal nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, 869E3–870B1

CONDE Nast Publications Inc. Magazines shut 1-28—10-5, 912G3 Putin article publishing omits rptd 9-4, 667B3

CONDE-Pumpido, Candido Vs Cuba base detainees abuse probe 4-16, 329F2

CONDIT, Gary A. On fed intern (Levy) slaying case 2-21, 149F1

CONDUIT (racehorse) Named ‘08 top male turf horse 1-26, 119F3 Wins Breeders’ Cup Turf 11-7, 807F2

CONE, David Testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3

CONE, Lt. Gen. Robert On Ft Hood shooting 11-5, 757G1

CONFEDERATION of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon Protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723F2

CONFERENCE Board, The Consumer Confidence Jan ‘09 index, Dec ‘08 revised 1-27, 46G1 Feb ‘09 index, Jan revised 2-24, 129B1 Mar ‘09 index, Feb revised 3-31, 219D3 Apr ‘09 index 4-28, 292B1 May ‘09 index, Apr revised 5-26, 355D3 Jun ‘09 index, May revised 6-30, 522D2 Jul ‘09 index, Jun revised 7-28, 522C2 Aug ‘09 index 8-25, 586A1 Sep ‘09 index, Aug revised 9-29, 657A2 Oct ‘09 index, Sep revised 10-27, 759C2 Nov ‘09 index, Oct revised 11-24, 831A3 Dec ‘09 index 12-29, 911A3 Leading Economic Indicators Dec ‘08 index, Nov revised 1-26, 46A2 Jan ‘09 index, Dec ‘08 revised 2-19, 112B1 Feb ‘09 index, Jan revised 3-19, 183E1 Mar ‘09 index, Feb revised 4-20, 264D3 Apr ‘09 index, Mar revised 5-21, 356B1 May ‘09 index, Apr revised 6-18, 456E2 US Jun ‘09 confidnc, May revised 6-30, 522D2 Jul ‘09 index, Jun revised 8-20, 586A1 Sep ‘09 index, Aug revised 9-21, 657B2; 10-22, 759D2 Oct ‘09 index, Sep revised 11-19, 813E2 Nov ‘09 index, Oct revised 12-17, 911B3

CONFESSIONS of a Shopaholic (book/film) Film on top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Bk on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

—CONGRESS 1009 CONGO, Democratic Republic of the (formerly Zaire) African Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Rwanda ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10, sent to Tanzania 9-20, 680F1 SADC summit hosted 9-7—9-8, 661C1 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680D1–E1 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours region 10-20—10-23, 746G2 Uganda rebels abuses rptd 12-21, 924B3–F3 Civil War ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Rebel staff chief (Ntaganda) defects 1-16; Rwanda troops enter, jt offensive mulled/UN peacekeepers role sought 1-20—1-22, Nkunda held 1-22, 34A1, D2 Warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 42D3 Rwanda troops exit 2-25, 921C3 Ugandan troops exit 3-15, 924E3 Obama scores conflict 7-11, 472C2 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675F3 Warlords ICC trial opens 11-24, 922E1 Army, rebels link alleged 11-25—12-17; civiln deaths, sex violnc rptd 12-14, UN peacekeepers/army jt operatn end set, missn extended 12-16—12-23, 921G2, G3 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Mobutu Swiss assets release ordrd 7-14, 922G1 Sassou-Nguesso French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B1 Pres electn held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, appeals filed nxied 7-23—7-25, 507A1 Facts on Sassou-Nguesso 7-12, 507D1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733B1 Human Rights US lists abuse 2-25, 180C1 Obituaries Close, William T 1-15, 104B3 Trade, Aid & Investment China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776F3 UN Policy & Developments Madagascar’s Rajoelina, UN Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, 652D1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 8-10—8-11, 540A1, F2

CONGO, Republic of the Corruption & Ethics Issues Sassou-Nguesso French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B1 PM post nixed, cabt shuffled 9-15, 722F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733C1

CONGRESS, U.S.—See also HOUSE of Representatives; SENATE Addresses & Briefings Obama 2-24, 104A1, E1, B2–C2; text 106A1–108E3 UK’s Brown 3-4, 124C2 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14; ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473A3, 474A1, G1, B2 Secy Geithner 9-10, 618D2 Ger’s Merkel 11-3, 755D1 Black Caucus Reps visit Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249F1 Health care reform pub option drop opposed 8-17, 551F2 House com ethics probes set 10-29, 779E3 Conference Committee Actions Econ recovery plan talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73A1 Energy/water ‘10 funding bill OKd 10-1, 714F3 Democrats Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5D1, D2; facts on 4A1–E1, D2, A3 Economic Committee, Joint Bernanke testifies 5-5, 319B2 Legislation Defeated (& deferred) $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds block (Sen) 1-15, 14A3 Econ recovery plan GOP measures (House) 1-28, 41B3 Digital TV switch delay (House) 1-28, 62G3 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax (Sen) 3-23, 220C1

Emissns cap proposal spec procedural vote (Sen) 4-1, 201B3 GOP alt budget plans (both houses) 4-2, 218D1 Home foreclosure curbs measure (Sen) 4-30, 319A3 Cuba base prison closing funds (Sen) 5-20, 338A2 IMF funds drop (Sen) 5-21, 355G1 F-22s buys authrzn (Sen) 6-25, 489F3 F-35 engine chng measure (Sen) 7-23, 490D1 Needle exchng fed funding ban end (House) 7-24, 524D1 Food safety bill (House) 7-29, 524B2 Medicare paymt reform (Sen) 10-21, 713A3 Health care reform GOP measure (House) 11-7, 774D1 Terror detentn facilities measure (Sen) 11-17, 815E2 Cheaper drugs import measures (Sen) 12-15, 863G3–864A1 Estate tax extensn (Sen) 12-16, 885G3 Legislation Introduced Workers unionizing vote options bill 3-10, 164E3 Emissns cap bill (House) 3-31, 201E2 Cuba travel ban lift (Sen) 3-31, 249D1 Cuba base detainees US release curbs bill (House) 5-7, 305A3 Auto dealerships closure (House) 6-10, 385B3 Texting/driving ban bill (Sen) 7-29, 538A1 Emissns cut bill (Sen) 9-29, 654F2 Legislation Passed (final action) Gender pay parity bill 1-22, 1-27, 47G2 CHIP funding hike 1-29, 2-4, 62C3–D3 Digital TV switch delay 1-29, 2-4, 62G3 $787 bln econ recovery plan (both houses) 2-13, 89A1, A2; highlights listed 90A1 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill 2-25, 3-10, 143E3, 144D1, C2 Pub lands curbs hike 3-19, 3-25, 246B1 AmeriCorps expansion bill 3-26, 3-31, 355C1 Credit-card reforms 5-19—5-20, 354A2 Home foreclosures curbs (House) 5-19, 354C3 Defns procuremt reforms 5-20—5-21, 354E3 FDA tobacco regulatn bill (House) 6-12, 428A3 Suplmtl funds 6-17—6-18, 424B3 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ renewal funds 7-31, 8-6, 536A1 Stopgap/legis branch funds 9-25, 9-30, 658G1, B2 USDA/HHS ‘10 funds 10-7—10-8, 761F1 DHS ‘10 funds 10-15, 10-20, 714F2 Defns ‘10 authrzn, hate crimes bill (Sen) 10-22, 742A3 Interior/EPA/stapgap funds (both houses) 10-29, 799F3 Jobless benefits hike, home buyers tax credit 11-4—11-5, 778A3 Fscl ‘10 omnibus bill 12-10, 12-13, 866F1, C2, B3–867F1 Defns ‘10 funds 12-16, 12-19, 886A2 Debt limit hike (Sen) 12-24, 906G3 Legislation Passed (preliminary action) CHIP funds hike (House) 1-14, 19G1 Gender pay parity bills (House) 1-14, 20A1 $700 bln financial indus aid curbs, 2d 1/2 funds block (House) 1-21—1-22, 32B3–C3 Digital TV switch delay (Sen) 1-26, 62G3 Econ recovery plan (House) 1-28, 41A1, F1 Econ recovery plan (Sen) 2-10, 73A1 DC House vote bill (Sen) 2-26, 146F3 Mortgage chngs bill (House) 3-5, 147B1 Tibet repressn end urge (House) 3-11, 172D1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax (House) 3-19, 161A1, 162F1 A-forensics bill 3-24, 12-22, 908C1 DHS privacy ofcrs bill (House) 3-24, 908D1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos retro-active bonus limits (House) 4-1, 220F1 Fscl ‘10 budget blueprints (both houses) 4-2, 217D3 FDA tobacco regulatn bill (House) 4-2, 221G1 COPS funding hike (House) 4-23, 908A1 Fscl ‘10 budget blueprint (both houses) 4-29, 285D3 Debt limit hike (House) 4-29, 713D2 Credit-card indus reforms (House) 4-30, 305D1, F1 Home foreclosure curbs (Sen) 4-30, 319A3 Defns procuremt reforms 5-7, 5-13, 354F3

Natl parks gun measure (Sen) 5-12, 354G2 Suplmtl funds (House) 5-14, 338D1 Suplmtl funds (sen) 5-21, 355D1 Tobacco FDA regulatn (Sen) 6-11, 390A2 Pak nonmil aid funds (House) 6-11, 418F3 Detainee abuse photos ban (Sen) 6-17, 425A1 Commerce/Justice ‘10 funds (House) 6-18, 488C2 Slavery apology res (Sen) 6-18, 492A2 Legis ‘10 funds 6-19, 7-6, 489C2 Vets ‘10 funds (House) 6-23, 489D2 Homeland Security ‘10 funds 6-24, 7-9, 488E1 Defns ‘10 authrzn 6-25, 7-23, 489A3, E3 Climate chng bill (House) 6-26, 445A1 Interior/EPA ‘10 funds (House) 6-26, 488C1 State, forgn aid ‘10 funds (House) 7-9, 488G2, C3 USDA ‘10 funds (House) 7-9, 489E1 Financial svcs ‘10 funds (House) 7-16, 489B1 Energy/Water ‘10 funds 7-17, 7-29, 658D3 ‘10 Transportatn/HUD funds 7-23, 9-17, 658F2, B3 Labor/HHS/Educ ‘10 funds (House) 7-24, 523F3 Hawaii statehood anniv res (House) 7-27, 552G3 Defns ‘10 funds (House) 7-30, 523G2 Food safety bill (House) 7-30, 524E1 Exec pay curbs (House) 7-31, 523B1 Agri ‘10 funds (Sen) 8-4, 537E3 Wind-energy fed funds authrzn (House) 9-9, 659A1 ACORN fed funding bans 9-14—9-17, 638E2 Pvt student lenders ban (House) 9-17, 641F1 Jobless benefits extensn (House) 9-22, 676A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release res (Sen) 9-23, 636B3 Interior/EPA/Forest ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 Pak aid bill 9-24, 9-30, 669F3 Medicare Part B premium freeze (House) 9-24, 714E2 Energy/water ‘10 funds 10-1, 10-15, 714E3 ‘10 defns funds (Sen) 10-6, 701A2 ‘10 defns authrzn, hate crimes bill (House) 10-8, 700D3, 701 Iran divestmt bill (House) 10-14, 711C2 Pilot training requiremts hike (House) 10-14, 744G1 Gaza war crimes rpt oppositn res (House) 11-3, 790D2 Credit card reforms hike (House) 11-4, 779E1 Health care reform bill (House) 11-7, 773A1, C2; highlights 774A1; votes listed 774E1 Vets ‘10 funds (Sen) 11-17, 815A2 Cruise ship safety measures (House) 11-17, 908E1 Health care reform bill debate (Sen) 11-21, 809A1 Estate tax extensn (House) 12-3, 886D1 Tax breaks (House) 12-9, 886D1 Climate bill framework (Sen) 12-10, 883F1 Financial indus reform bill (House) 12-11, 865F1, D2 Iran A-program sanctns extensn (House) 12-15, 876A3 Defns ‘10 funds (House) 12-16, 866B2, A3 Debt limit hike (House) 12-16, 866E2 $154 bln stimulus package (House) 12-16, 866G2 Health care reform bill (Sen) 12-24, 904A1–906C2; key provisns listed 905A1 Legislation Proposed $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use (House) 1-9, 15B1 $825 bln econ recovery plan (House) 1-15, 14C3, 15E1 GOP alt budget plan (House) 3-26, 4-1, 218D1 Health care reform bill (House) 7-14, 476D1 Membership 110th Cong adjourns 1-2—1-3, 111th convenes 1-6, 3D3 Party ldrs, com chairs listed 1-6, 5A1; facts on 4A1 Ldrship listed 3-3, 236B3 ‘10 salary freeze signed 3-11, 144C2 Lawmaker NSA wiretapping try rptd 4-15, 243D3 Ldrship listed 10-1, 736B3 111th Cong adjourns 12-24, 906C2, D3; legis roundup 907A1 Presidential Relations Obama mtg held 1-5, econ recovery plan quick action urged, tax cuts/defecit questnd 1-8, 7A3–C3, 8B1–D1 Obama sees bipartisanship lack 2-9, 78E2, 79A1 Iraq troops Aug ‘10 exit mulled 2-26—2-27, 121C2 Obama urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458C2–E2

1010 CONGRESSIONAL— Econ mtg held 12-9, 847A1 Republicans Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5E1, E2; facts on 4E1, C2, B3, D3 Taxation, Joint Committee on Health care reform Sen bill premiums drop seen 11-30, 848B2

CONGRESSIONAL Budget Office, U.S. (CBO) Fscl yr ‘09 deficit forecast issued 1-7, 7D1 Econ recovery plan forecast 1-26, 41F1–G1 Nonprofit hosps tax status questnd 2-12, 202A1 $787 bln econ recovery plan forecast issued 2-13, 89B1, F2 Obama proposals deficit forecast hiked 3-20, 180A3–E3, G3 Soc Sec ‘10-11 ‘cost-of-living’ raise nix seen 4-22, 324D1 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371D2, F2 Tobacco FDA regulatn bill passes Sen 6-11, 390D2 Health care reform proposals cost estimated, mulled/debate opens 6-15—6-17, 408C3–F3, 409A1 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424E3 Health care reform draft bill circulated 6-18, 427B1 Health care reform chngd, uninsured seen 7-2, 457F3–G3 Health care reform House proposal issued 7-14, high costs warned 7-16, 476E1, A3 Health care reform deficit hike seen 7-17, 487C1, A3 Medicare indep cncl savings cut 7-25, health care reform House bill backed 7-31, 520C1, D2 Middle-class tax hike mulled, dismissed 8-2—8-3, 521E1 Preventive health care costs questnd 8-7, 552C2 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast issued 8-25, 570F3–G3 Health care reform Sen proposal issued 9-16, 617A2–B2 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641F1 Health care reform Sen proposal chngd 9-21—9-22, 637G2 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, House measures analysis sought 10-8, 676C2–G2, D3–E3 House climate chng bill job losses seen 10-14; Sen bill unveiled 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 743C1, E1 Health care reform House bill unveiled, deficit cut seen 10-29, 740G3–741A1 Health care reform GOP plan cost rptd 11-4; bill passes House 11-7, Sen vote mulled 11-8, 773C3, 774A1, C2 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 11-18, 796C2, E2 Health care reform Sen bill premiums drop seen 11-30, analysis sought 12-8—12-9, 847E3, 848A1, B2 Health care reform Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863F3 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904E2, 905D3

CONGRESSIONAL Quarterly (magazine) Sale sought 1-28, 168C1 Roll Call sets buy 7-21, 913B2

CONGRESSIONAL Research Service Defns Dept, Afghan civiln contractors tallied 9-2, 594C3

CONLEY, Dan Seeks further ‘Craigslist’ ad victims 4-22, on response 6-20, 429F2–G2

CONNECTICUT Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Silver Point/Delphi stake bought 10-6, 679C2 Maclaren strollers recalled 11-9, 850E1 Crime & Law Enforcement ‘Craigslist’ ad woman slaying suspect (Markoff) held 4-20, 429C2 Craigslist CEO (Buckmaster) sees atty gen 5-5, 429A3 Wesleyan U gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1 Yale student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; suspect (Clark) chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920B1 Energy NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2 Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150E1

Vt gay marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/ruling backed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216B1; table 217A2 Labor & Employment Firefighters civil svc exam bias case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 New Haven firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2–E2, 444C1–D1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470C3, 471D2, B3 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64G1–A2 Universal care bill vetoed, override passes legis 7-8, 7-20, 520G3 Health care reform Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863A3 Obituaries Gray, Harry J 7-8, 516A3 Kimbro, Warren A 2-3, 104D3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537C1, G1 Sports Travelers Champ results 6-28, 563E3 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

CONNECTICUT, University of (Storrs) Intl Bowl won 1-3, 24D1 Yang dies 2-5, 160G3 Women’s basketball yr-end polls topped 3-9—3-17; Auriemma/Moore win awards 4-4—4-7, title won 4-7, 229B3, 230F1, F2, E3, 231A1 Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16; recruiting violatns alleged 3-25, tourn semi lost 4-4, 230B1, F1, D3, G3 Moore wins Wooden Award 4-10, 951E3 Brown in NFL draft 4-25, 298F3 Thabeet in NBA draft 6-25, 451A1, C1 Women’s basketball preseason rankings topped 10-30—11-4, 771E2

CONNELL, Cardinal Desmond (archbishop of Dublin, Ireland) Child abuse role regretted 11-26, 836D1

CONNELLY, Jennifer He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

CONNELLY, Michael Brass Verdict on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1 Nine Dragons on best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

CONNOISSEUR (magazine) Hoving dies 12-10, 896D2

CONNOLLY, Kevin He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2

CONNOR, Chris (Mary Jean Loutsenhizer) (1927-2009) Dies 8-29, 612C3

CONNORS, Thomas Issues WTC site bldg collapse reprimands 7-10, 621E1

CONRAD, Kent (U.S. senator from N.D., 1987- ; Democrat) Reseated Budget chair 1-6, 5A2 Questns Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 126A1 On Obama budget proposals forecast 3-20, unveils blueprint 3-24, 180G3, 181D1–F1, A2 Proposes health care co-ops 6-10, 427D1 Discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared 8-7, 537B2 Health care reform cooperative mulled 8-15, 551E2

CONROY, Pat South of Broad on best-seller list 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1

CONROY, Stephen Sets Web filters 12-15, 931B3

CONSERVATIVE Political Action Conference Limbaugh addresses 2-28, 146C2

CONSERVATIVES for Patient Rights Obama health care reform oppositn set 2-25, ads spending rptd 5-11, 340D1

CONSTANT, Paule NDiaye wins Goncourt Prize 11-2, 792C1

FACTS CONSTITUTION, U.S. Church/State Separation Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1–E1 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130F3–131A1 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C1 Criminal Procedure Rights ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95F1 ‘Enemy combatant’ term use dropped 3-13, 165B3 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C2 Obama sets terror detainees mil comm trials detentn 5-15, defends policies 5-21, 337D1, F1, C2 Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 374D1 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428B2, D2, F2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505B3* Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659G3 Cuba base detentns authrzn request nixed 9-23, 642C3 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908G2 Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942G2 Cruel & Unusual Punishment Judge sentncg power upheld by Sup Ct 1-14, 21D1 Calif prison health care ofcr ouster sought, nixed 1-28—3-24, conditns violatn ruled, populatn cap ordrd 3-2, 356D1–E1, C2 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 307A1 Ohio executn method chngd 5-19, 719G2 Ohio inmate (Broom) executn delayed 9-18, 9-22, 719C3 ‘09 executns rise rptd 12-17, 921A2 Due Process Guarantee Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390A1, D1 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425C3–E3, 426A1–B1, F1 Cuba base suicides suit argumt filed 12-4, 862G1–A2 Equal Protection Gay troops policy case denied by Sup Ct 6-8, 390A2 Justice Dept backs Defns of Marriage Act 6-12, 408E2–F2 Fed marriage law Mass suit filed 7-8, 492F1 DOMA repeal sought, Justice Dept stance chngd 8-17, 553B3–D3 Calif gay marriage ban trial set 8-19, 699A3 Tex gay couple divorce OKd 10-1, 699A2 Federal Powers Bush signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145E1–G1 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill signed 3-11, 144B1 Obama antiterror policies questnd 3-15, 166E2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax opposed 3-22, 220E1 Chrysler reorgn plan appeal filed 6-4, 367A2 NSA warrantless spying legality questnd 7-10, 475E1 Washington ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860B3 Health care reform Sen bill measures questnd 12-29—12-30, 906E1–F1 Freedom of Press Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130F1 Freedom of Speech COPA nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130E3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130F1 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, 306F3 Animal abuse tapes case accepted by Sup Ct 4-20, 266G1–A2 FCC obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 291A1, E1 Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390B1 FDA tobacco regulatn bill challenge seen 6-16, 428E3 Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444B3, D3 Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622G1 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603A1, F1–G1 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 701B1 Medicare health care reform mailings halt order lifted 10-16, 714D1

ON FILE

Interstate Commerce Google bk scanning setlmt House com hearing held 9-10, 601F1 Judicial Role Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301F2, 302G2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470B1, C2, F2 Jury Trial Guarantees Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed by Sup Ct 6-25, 444E1, G1 Privacy Issues Warrantless spying telecom cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410B2–C2 Va late-term abortn ban upheld 6-24, 587G2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470D2, 471A2–B2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect necessity defns use sought 11-23, 832D3 Right to Bear Arms ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11E2 Vets profiling scored 4-15, 263B1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470A3–B3, 471C2 Ill gun curbs case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G1, B2 Search & Seizure Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20F3, 21B1 Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20C3–D3 Utah cops drug dealer home entry upheld by Sup Ct 1-21, 48F3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130E1 Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266B1, E1 Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425C2 DC vehicle checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1 KindHearts assets freeze nixed 8-18, 678D3 Calif cop text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 868A1 Self-Incrimination Salmonella-linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11, 95D3 Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 374D1 Fed judge (Porteous) House com suit filed 11-13, 832G1 Separation of Powers Obama resworn 1-21, 25A2 Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit classified documts use mulled 2-28, 244E1 Indep acctg oversight bds case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677A3–B3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) attacks scored 5-29, 389D3 UN, Iran/Syria/Cuba chaired mtgs ban nixed 7-1, 902C2 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521D2 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619C3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797A3 White House ofcls House com testimony mulled 12-3, 830G1 States’ Rights Health insurnce ‘mandate’ bans seen 9-29, 656E1 Voting Issues Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33A1 States’ chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425C1–E1, G1–C2 Obama birth records confrmd 7-27, 552C3

CONSTRUCTION Industry Accidents & Disasters China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251A3 Budget & Spending Programs Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 42E1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58E2 Australia stimulus package set, passes House/nixed by Sen 2-3—2-13, revised bill passes Sen 2-13, 494C1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90G2, C3–D3 US mil ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815A2, D2–E2 US ‘10 mil funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866E3 $154 bln econ stimulus package passes House 12-16, 866G2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Caterpillar ‘08 fed funded projects rptd 1-14, 29E3 Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65G1, B2 SD coal plant constructn blocked by EPA 1-22, 94B3

2009 Index $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92C1 Homeowners rescue plan launched 3-4, 127F3 WTC site arbitratn sought, govt financial risk scored 5-21, 620A3–C3 India ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-29, 382F1 S Africa ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-24, 923C3 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 828E3, G3; photo 829E1 China/HK/Macao bridge constructn opens 12-15, 933A1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875G2 Corruption & Ethics Issues KBR Iraq reconstructn deal questnd 1-13, 23D2 NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538G2–B3 Japan oppositn ldr aide (Okubo) held 3-3, indicted, denies allegatns 3-24, 252E2, G2–A3 Iraq trade min raid nets arrests 4-29, 311B3 Japan oppositn ldr (Ozawa) quits 5-11, 342D2 WTC site bldg blaze check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621G1 Army Corps bribery Afghan worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, Apr renditn rptd 8-22, 567G2–A3 Pa juvenile ctrc builder (Mericle) pleads guilty 9-2, 870B1 State Dept, Iraq ex-worker (Razo) indicted 10-19, 729D3 US/Iraq emb constructn woes rptd 10-22, 739C1 NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 Crime Issues Palestinian vehicle attack hurts 2 3-5, 313D3 US co pres seized, found dead in Iraq 5-21—5-22, 352G3 Russian repub min (Amerkhanov) slain 8-12, 544D3 Afghan blast kills 43 8-25, 577C3 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726A3 Iran A-program further secret sites seen 11-16, 804E1–F1, A2 Iran A-plants bldg vowed 11-29, 837C2–D2 Environmental Issues NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917D2 Health & Safety Issues China quake schl constructn probe sought 5-4; student death toll issued 5-7, reconstructn rptd 5-11, 326C3, F3–327A1 China quake safety activist (Tan) trial held 8-12, 557E1–F1 Chinese drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850D1 China quake activist (Huang) convctd, sentncd 11-23, 872E2–F2 Labor Issues Total/Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68A3–C3 S Africa workers strike, deals set 7-8—7-15, 525B3, 526B1 US Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 601C3 Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846E3 Statistics US Dec ‘08 bldg permits, Nov revised 1-22, 45D3 US Jan ‘09 bldg permits, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 111D3 US Feb ‘09 bldg permits, Jan revised 3-17, 183D1 US Mar ‘09 bldg permits, Feb revised 4-16, 292D1 US Apr ‘09 bldg permits, Mar revised 5-19, 355F3 US May ‘09 bldg permits, Apr revised 6-16, 428C1 US Jun ‘09 bldg permits, May revised 7-17, 504B3 US Jul ‘09 bldg permits, Jun revised 8-18, 572E1 US Aug ‘09 bldg permits, Jul revised 9-17, 640F1 US Sep ‘09 bldg permits, Aug revised 10-20, 740F2 US Oct ‘09 job cuts 11-6, 778B2 US Oct ‘09 bldg permits, Sep revised 11-18, 831D2 US Nov ‘09 bldg permits, Oct revised 12-16, 911G1 Trade Issues Iraq min (Sudani) submits resignatn/questnd, OKd 5-14—5-27, 362D2 China/Russia investmt set 10-13—10-15, 739B2

—COOK CONSUMER Product Safety Commission, U.S. (CPSC) Toys chem testing hike delayed 1-30, lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 Tenenbaum named chair, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340F2–B3 Maclaren strollers, Stork cribs recalled 11-9—11-23, drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850B1–C1, E1 Window shades, blinds recalled 12-15, 918B2 Child products lead testing delayed 12-18, 918G1

CONSUMERS & Consumer Affairs—See also industry and commodity names Appointments & Resignations Vladeck named FTC consumer div head 4-14, 375D1 CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340F2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32F2 Obama econ recovery plan tax cuts questnd 1-8, 7B1 $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds block nixed by Sen, $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15A1, F1 UnitedHealth ‘out-of-network’ chrgs paymt OKd 1-15, 64E2 Citigroup ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 1-16, 32A2 UK banks rescue plan set 1-19, 36G1 Heartland credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133C2 Gaza tunnels rebldg rptd 1-24, 42G2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) confrmd 1-26, 44G1 Banking indus aid seen 1-27, econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41E1, 42C1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F1 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1 $700 bln financial indus aid fraud warned 2-5, 62B1 Appliances, electronics energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94A2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 76D3, 77F1, E2 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92C1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106A3 FDIC bank fees hiked 2-27, 127B3–C3 Fed, Treasury lending program launched 3-3, 127E2–F2 China stimulus spending disclosure urged, detailed 3-4—3-5, 186E3 Bank of England bonds buy set 3-5, 155A3 Govt backs GM/Chrysler warranties 3-30, 198B3 Russia $90 bln econ recovery plan outlined 4-6, 273E3 Japn econ stimulus plan unveiled 4-9—4-10, 252B2 ‘10-11 ‘cost-of-living’ raise nix seen 4-22, 324E1 Intel, EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343A2 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339F2 Credit-card reforms clear Cong, signed 5-19—5-22, 354D2 Treasury secy (Geithner) visits China 5-31—6-2, 414D2, E2 GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365C2 Citigroup CEO (Pandit) ouster push seen 6-5, 388D1 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404E3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407C1–D1, C2, E3, 408A2 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424F3 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445E1 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444F2, A3 JP Morgan/Bank of Amer/Citigroup ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16—7-17, 490E2, G2 Amazon e-bks deleted 7-17, 782F1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487G3, 488B1 E Africa broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681E2 China/US talks held 7-27—7-28, 509F2 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program opens 7-27; renewal funds clear Cong/signed, sales rise questnd 7-31—8-7, Volt release set 8-11, 535G3, 536B1, G1 Fed/Treasury outstanding loans tallied 8-12, program cont 8-17, 571A3 Australia climate chng bill blocked 8-13, 623F3 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program ends 8-24, 586C1 Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, 618F1 Utilities exit Chamber of Commerce 9-22—9-28, 654E3

Financial indus reforms proposed 9-23, 641A1 Banks overdraft fees ltd 9-23—9-24, 715E3–G3 FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745F2 Banks ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-14—10-16, 715C1, E1 Climate chng Sen bill unveiled 10-23, 743E1 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800A3 US financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 778F3–779D1 IEA annual oil outlook issued 11-10, 811A3 Banks overdrafting fees ltd 11-12, 779G1–A2 FDIC deposit fund negative balnc rptd, customers security vowed 11-24, 813G2, B3 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841C2 $700 bln financial indus aid cont 12-9, 865B1 Financial indus reform bill passes House, Obama backs 12-11—12-12, 865A2–B2, D2 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP final 12-22, 886F3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907D1, E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Israeli arms seizure denied 11-4, 878B2 Health & Safety Issues Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses, deaths tallied 1-29, 49C3 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63E1 Toys chem testing hike delayed 1-30, lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 Salmonella linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11; Peanut Corp Tex/Va plant shut, recall set 2-12—2-13, bankruptcy filed, illnesses/deaths tallied 2-13—2-19, 95B3 Peanut Corp Tex plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2 Setton NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9; pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2 US food safety House com hearing held 3-11, reforms set, ‘downer cattle’ use banned 3-14, 167C2 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268A3 Weight-loss supplemt (Hydroxycut) warning issued 5-1, 412D2 Nestle cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2 US food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524C2 Health care reform House proposal issued 7-14, 476F1 FDA food safety bill nixed, passes House 7-29—7-30, 524E1 Dental fillings risk nixed by FDA 7-29, 555B2 Toyota cars recalled, pedal risk seen/replacemts set 9-29—11-25, 850F1 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, 676E2, A3 Health care reform bill passes House 11-7, 774B1–C1 Maclaren strollers, Stork cribs recalled 11-9—11-23, drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850B1–C1, E1 Toy chems find rptd 11-24, lead testing delayed 12-18, 918G1 China dairy contaminators executed 11-24; civil suit opens 11-27, new case suspects held 12-8, 932E3 Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 847B3–D3 Window shades, blinds recalled 12-15, 918B2 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1 Statistics US Dec ‘08 CPI 1-16, 46C1 US Jan ‘09 confidnc, Dec ‘08 revised 1-27, 46G1 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 1-30, 61A1 US Jan ‘09 CPI 2-20, 111E2 US Feb ‘09 confidnc, Jan revised 2-24, 129B1 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP revised 2-27, 128E3 US Feb ‘09 CPI 3-18, 182E3 US ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP final 3-26, 182B3 US Mar ‘09 confidnc, Feb revised 3-31, 219D3 US Mar ‘09 CPI 4-15, 240G2–A3 US Apr ‘09 confidnc 4-28, 292B1 US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP 4-29, 291D3 US Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355E2 US May ‘09 confidnc, Apr revised 5-26, 355D3

1011

US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP revised 5-29, 372E1 US May ‘09 CPI 6-17, 427D3 US ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP final 6-25, 456C2 US Jun ‘09 confidnc, May revised 6-30, 522D2 US Jun ‘09 CPI 7-15, 477D2 US Jul ‘09 confidnc, Jun revised 7-28, 522C2 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 7-31, 522E1 US Jul ‘09 CPI 8-14, 571C3 Japan ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 8-17, 576D2 US Aug ‘09 confidnc 8-25, 586A1 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP revised 8-27, 572E1 India ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-31, 594E3 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 645A1 US Aug ‘09 CPI 9-16, 619A2 US Sep ‘09 confidnc, Aug revised 9-29, 657A2 US ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP final 9-30, 657B1 US Sep ‘09 CPI 10-15, 700A1–B1 US 12-mo CPI 10-15, 714E1 US Oct ‘09 confidnc, Sep revised 10-27, 759C2 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739A3 Japan Sep ‘09 CPI 10-30, 786E3 Eurozone ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-13, 803C1 US Oct ‘09 CPI 11-18, 798F2 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP revised 11-24, 813G1 US Nov ‘09 confidnc, Oct revised 11-24, 831A3 US Nov ‘09 CPI 12-16, 910C3 US Dec ‘09 confidnc 12-29, 911A3

CONSUMER Watchdog Drug cos/health insurers, Cong campaign contributns rptd 3-8, 146E1

CONTADOR, Alberto Wins Tour de France 7-26, on Armstrong ties 7-27, 515G1

CONTAINERS & Packaging GM-animals rules issued 1-15, 64B3 Pfizer $2.3 bln chrg set 1-26, 49G1 Experimental cancer drugs Medicare coverage hike rptd 1-27, 133A2–B2 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130A3–B3 FDA tobacco regulatn bill backed, passes House 4-1—4-2, 221B2 Antismoking drugs warning ordrd by FDA 7-1, 555D2

CONTE, Gen. Lansana (1934?-2008) (Guinean president, 1984-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2 Ex-sr mil ofcls held 1-6, govt named 1-14, 34E3 Son held 2-23; drug trafficking admitted 2-25, chrgs lack rptd 9-29, 660E3–F3, 661A1 Anti-junta rally banned, protests turn violent 9-27—9-28; mil blamed, probe ordrd 9-29, crackdown scored 9-29—9-30, 660B2–C2 Forgn interventn urged/nixed, Sep protests crackdown mulled 12-13—12-14, 870D3, 871C1

CONTE, Ousmane Held 2-23; admits drug trafficking 2-25, chrgs lack rptd 9-29, 660E3–F3

CONTINENTAL Airlines Inc. NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot error seen 2-15—2-18, 95B2–C2 India ex-pres (Kalam) frisked 4-21, apology issued 7-22, 646F2 1700 cuts set, ‘09 2d 1/4 loss rptd 7-21, 744B2 ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 10-21, 744C2

CONTRACEPTIVES—See BIRTH Control CONTROLLED Substances Act (1970) Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720A1

CONVERS Group Spyker/Saab buyout bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, 902B3

CONWAY, Jack Sen Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503B2

CONWAY, Gen. James Urges Iraq troops ‘09 exit, Afghan redeploymt 1-23, 54B1

CONYERS Jr., John J. (U.S. representative from Mich., 1965- ; Democrat) Reseated Judiciary chair 1-6, 5B1 On CIA interrogatn memos 4-17, 258E1 Urges Judge Kent resignatn 5-11, 479B3 Wife pleads guilty 6-26; quits 6-29, missing city property probe sought 8-7, 553B1 Issues fed prosecutors ouster pol bias documts 8-11, 536B3

CONYERS, Monica Pleads guilty 6-26; quits 6-29, missing city property probe sought 8-7, 553B1–E1

COOK, Charlie (Charles) (1917-91) Brown dies 8-21, 612B3

1012 COOK— COOK, John Loses JELD-WEN Traditn 8-23, 708E1

COOK, Ron Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

COOKIE (magazine) Shut 10-5, 913A1

COOKING & Cookware Energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94B2 India’s Gandhi items auctnd 3-5, 158F1 Obituaries Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3

COOLEY, Earl Everett (1911-2009) Dies 11-9, 860B3

COOLIDGE Jr., John Calvin (1872-1933) (U.S. president, 1923-29; Republican) Obama resworn 1-21, 25B2

COOLIO (Artis Ivey) Pleads guilty/sentncd 6-26, 564F2

COONSANG Niampradit, Gen. Denies coup rumors 8-4, 726E3

COOPER, Bradley He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2 Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

COOPER, Cecil Fired 9-21, 690B3

COOPER, Dominic Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

COOPER, Jim (U.S. representative from Tenn., 2003- ; Democrat) Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2, 479C1

COOPER, Kevin Death sentnc appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-30, 868C1

COOPER, Leroy (1928-2009) Dies 1-15, 71F3

COOPERRIDER, Keith Fired 11-9, 913F2

COOPER v. Ayers Denied by Sup Ct 11-30, 868C1

COORS 3rd, Adolph (1916-60) Killer found dead 8-24, 792A3

COPE, Jason District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

COPENHAGEN (Denmark) Concert Hall Opens 1-17, 953E3

COPLEY, Sharlto District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

COPLEY Press Inc. Platinum sets buy 3-18, 167G3–168A1 Klein dies 7-2, 468F2

COPPER & Brass Codelco govt capitalizatn set 1-5, 35C1 China’s Hu tours Africa 2-12—2-17, 170F1 Mongolia pres electn held 5-24, 377F2 Indonesia violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, arrests rptd/chrgs set, Freeport worker linked 7-21—7-31, 542C2 Mongolia minerals tax reppeal passes parlt 8-25, Oyu Tolgoi mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725D2 Mongolia premr (Bayar) in hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763G1 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3 Afghan mines min (Adel) bribe alleged 11-18, 806E1 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2

COPPS, Michael FCC chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) confrmd 6-25, 458E1

COPYRIGHT Office, U.S. (Of Library of Congress) Google bk scanning setlmt House com hearing held 9-10, 601F1

COPYRIGHTS & Royalties Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, 920D2 US oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe sought 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917F1 US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94D1

FACTS US/China, WTO counterfeit complaint dismissed 1-26, 440A2 Sweden Internet file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284B1, E1 Obama bares bks royalty paymts 3-19, 201D1 Sweden file-sharing ban opens 4-1, 284F1 Obama ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1 Catcher in the Rye ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484D3 Google bk scanning setlmt review confrmd, oppositn rptd 7-2—8-20; Europn publishers deal OKd 9-8, House com hearing held 9-10, 601C1–D1, F1 Internet radio music royalty rates chngd 7-8, 781G3 China software copyright infringemt suspects convctd, sentncd 8-20, 615B3 Skype copyright suit filed 9-16, 761C2 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd, chngs OKd 9-18—11-19; Chinese author suit filed, text removed/hearing held 11-19—12-29, French violatns ruled 12-14, 936E2 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F3

CORALINE (film/play) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Play opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

CORBETT, Joe (Joseph Corbett Jr.) (1928-2009) Found dead 8-24, 792A3

CORDERO, Ernesto Named finance min 12-9, 929D1

CORDERO, Francisco Among NL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G3

CORDERY, Richard Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

CORDOVA, Jose Angel Shuts schls 4-27, 281F2 On swine flu outbreak 5-3, 303D2

CORDOVA, Melquisedet Angulo Slain 12-16; buried 12-21, home raid kills 4 12-22, 928E2–F2

CORKER, Bob (U.S. senator from Tenn., 2007- ; Republican) Vs auto indus cont bailouts 2-19, 93C1 On GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nix 3-29, 199A1–B1

CORN Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412F2 US prices drop 4-27, 282A2 N/S Korea food aid offrd 10-26, 764A1

CORNELL University (Ithaca, N.Y.) Men’s lacrosse title lost 5-25, 399A3

CORNELY, Jamelle Penn State wins NIT, named tourn MVP 4-2, 230D2

CORNWELL, Bernard Agincourt on best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

CORNWELL, David NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176E1

CORNWELL, Patricia Scarpetta on best-seller list 9-28, 672C1 Scarpetta Factor on best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

CORNYN, John (U.S. senator from Tex., 2003- ; Republican) Seated GOP com chair 1-6, 5E2 Delays state secy (Clinton) confrmatn vote 1-20, 26D3, 28A1 State secy nominee (Clinton) confrmd 1-21, 29G2 Vs atty gen nominee (Holder) 1-28, 2-2, 60F3 Vs econ recovery plan 2-10, 73E2–F2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 On Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) attacks 5-29, 389D3 On Conn firefighters test nix bias ruling 6-29, 444C1 Rep Heller nixes Nev seat bid 8-11, 552D2 Urges ‘green jobs’ adviser (Jones) resignatn 9-4, 602G2

CORPORACION Nacional del Cobre (Codelco) Govt capitalizatn set 1-5, 35C1

CORPORATION for National and Community Service—See AMERICORPS CORPORATIONS—See BUSINESS; corporate names CORR, William Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, 29E1–F1

CORRALLO, Mark Denies Iraq/Afghan raids role 12-11, 885B1

CORREA, Rafael (Ecuadoran president, 2007- ) Vote held 4-26; vows improvemts 4-27, reelectn seen 4-28, 294B2 Electn final results issued 5-5, 308E3 Sees Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya), return mulled 6-29, 438E2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 Sworn 8-10, 541A3 Hosts UNASUR summit 8-10, 541A3 Cuba’s Castro photos published 8-23, 575G1 At UNASUR mtg 8-28, 589E2 Ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31; Chevron suit judge (Nunez) ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 724A1 US mil base exited 9-18, 682B2 On Indian protester death, talks sought/sees ldrs 10-1—10-5, 723G2–A3

CORRIERE della Sera (Italian newspaper) Actress (D’Addario) interviewed 6-17, Berlusconi cites poll support 6-29, 463D2, B3

CORSAIR (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212A1

CORZINE, Jon (N.J. governor, 2006; Democrat) At Silverstein/Port Auth mtg 5-21, 620A3 Wins primary, Biden backs reelectn 6-2, 373A3 Urges bribery scheme ofcls resignatns 7-23, 504B1 In debates 10-1—10-16; Daggett bid backed 10-11, Biden/Clinton/Obama stump 10-19—10-21, 716F2, A3, D3, 717C1 Obama stumps 11-1, loses electn 11-3, 755C2–D2, G2 Gay marriage Sen vote nixed 12-9, 868B2

COSBY, Bill Ben’s Chili Bowl owner dies 10-7, 731A3 Gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752F2

COSMETICS & Toiletries FDA comr (Hamburg), dep comr (Sharfstein) named 3-14, 182A2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) hotel room search rptd 9-29, 678E2 Peru body fat slayings alleged 11-19, police ofcl (Murga) fired 12-1, 930D1 Obituaries Rocher, Yves 12-26, 955D3 Sims, Naomi 8-1, 532G3

COSMONAUTS—See SPACE COSMOS 2251 (defunct Russian satellite) In US communicatns satellite collisn 2-10, debris tracking rptd 2-13, 91A3

COSSIO, Fabio Valencia Signs US mil base access deal 10-30, 817B3

COSTA Book of the Year Award Shortlist announced 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139D3 Nolan dies 2-20, 160E3

COSTA Rica, Republic of Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-pres (Calderon) convctd 10-5, 818B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233C1; 10-1, 733C1 Latin American Relations Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) arrives 6-28, 437C3, 438 Honduras pres ouster talks set, open 7-7—7-9, 460A2, C2 Honduras ex-pres (Zelaya) return talks fail 7-9—7-10, unity govt deal rtpd 7-16, 480E2–F2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return plans proposed, nixed 7-18—7-22, 493A2, D2 Honduras cont intl pressure urged, Zelaya return deal mulled/envoy sought 7-24—7-30, 508C1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return deal nixed, talks fail 8-22—8-25, 575C2 Honduras pres electn US oppositn set 9-4, 623A2

ON FILE

Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) returns 9-21, 643D2 Honduras pres electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 634B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Arias swine flu positive test rptd 8-11, 584C1 Obituaries Carazo, Rodrigo 12-9, 955D1 Press & Broadcasting Ill ex-gov (Blagojevich) reality TV deal rptd 4-16, 243D2 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 3-29—3-30, 204D3

COTE, Judge Denise Rules NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure 2-24, 538B3

COTE d’Ivoire—See IVORY Coast COTILLARD, Marion ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2 Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

COTTER, Holland Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

COTTO, Miguel Stopped by Pacquiao, loses WBO title 11-14, 895B2–C2

COTTON African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3 Tajik natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272D2 Brazil/US goods sanctns OKd by WTO 8-31, 590B1 Uzbek child labor rptd 11-11, 891E3 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935D2

COULOMBIER, Denis Sees swine flu peak 11-10, 811C1

COULTER, Ann Guilty on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

COULTER, Catherine KnockOut on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1 TailSpin on best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

COUNCIL of Advisors on Science and Technology, President’s Flu season plan issued 8-24, 584E1

COUNCIL of Economic Advisers, U.S. (CEA)—See ECONOMIC Advisers, U.S. Council of COUNCIL of Europe Turkey PKK ldr (Ocalan) solitary confinemt ends 11-17, 804B1 Russia death penalty ban cont 11-19, 855D1 Serbia rptrs threats concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Human Rights, European Court of Chechen exile (Israilov) slain 1-13, 37A1 Exiled dissident (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58B2 Chechen missing detainees setlmts ordrd 5-28, 378C3 Chechen missing detainees family paymts ordrd 6-11, 417G1 Chechnya ‘02-03 kidnappings paymts ordrd 9-24, 728E1

COUNCIL on American-Islamic Relations Tex mil base shooting scored 11-5, 757C3

COUNTRYWIDE Financial Corp. Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-20, 264G2 Ex-execs chrgd 6-4, 388C2–C3 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537E1 Sens Dodd/Conrad discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared, ruling scored 8-7, 537B2–C2

COUNTY of Kings (play) Opens in NYC 10-12, 860D2

COUP for the Rich, A (book) Ungpakorn chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154E1

COUPLES, Fred US wins Pres Cup 10-11, 708B1

COUPLES Retreat (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

COUPS d’Etat Guinea ex-sr mil ldrs held, US aid halted 1-6; ECOWAS membership suspended 1-10, govt named 1-14, 34E3 Turkey plot suspects held, mil/govt talks held 1-7—1-11, 23A1

2009 Index Thai royal family insults suspect (Ungpakorn) chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154E1 Guinea-Bissau mil rule nixed, AU cont membership OKd/ECOWAS delegatn sent 3-2—3-3, 134B1–D1 Turkey plot suspects indicted 3-25, 227B1 Georgia troops mutiny thwarted 5-5, 311G1 Guinea-Bissau’s Dabo/Proenca slain, Embali held 6-5; electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458C3, E3–F3 Honduras pres (Zelaya) ousted/’resignatn’ OKd, Micheletti named 6-28; protests turn violent, return mulled 6-28—7-1, addresses UN Gen Assemb 6-30, 437B3, 438A2–B2 Mauritania/AU reentry OKd, sanctns lifted 7-1, 459E2 OAS suspends Honduras 7-4, 460D1 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508C2 Thai rumors spread, denied 8-3—8-4, 726D3 Honduras pres ouster defended, US response mulled 8-4—8-6; rights abuses probed, rpts issued 8-17—8-21, Zelaya return deal nixed/talks fail, govt plan issued 8-22—8-27, 575B2, B3, D3 US/Brazil, Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid revealed 8-16, documts sought 8-18, 569D1 Honduras pres electn US oppositn set 9-4, 623A2 Laos plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933F2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) returns 9-21, 643F1 Honduras emergency declared, lift mulled 9-27—9-28, diplomatic talks backed 9-29, 661D3, 662D1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return deal signed 10-29, 762A3–B3 Fiji forgn meddling alleged, Australia/NZ diplomatic ousters exchngd 11-1—11-4, Rudd scores junta 11-4, pres (Nailatikau) sworn 11-5, 852B1, D1–F1 Equatorial Guinea coup plotter (Mann) pardoned, freed/returns 11-3—11-4, 925D1 Thai’s Thaksin named Cambodia govt econ adviser 11-4, 785B1 Paraguay mil cmdrs fired/replacemts sworn, plot denied 11-4—11-6, 818F1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return deal failure seen 11-6, 784B2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return nixed 11-20—12-2, electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 834B1, E1, C2 Haiti party banned 11-25, 930B1

COURAGE Campaign Equality Calif gay marriage ballot initiative delayed 8-12, 554B1

COURIC, Katie Sawyer named ABC World News anchor 9-2, 612A3

COURT of Arbitration for Sport Cyclist Valverde nixes Tour de France role 6-23, 515A3 Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950G3, 951B1

COURTS & Legal Profession—See also subjects of rulings Appointments & Resignations Kagan named solicitor gen 1-5, 6D2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30F2, B3 Fed prosecutors ouster probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1 Saudi Islamic ct head (Luhaidan) fired, Humaid named 2-14, 943E3–F3 Olson named Cuba base detainees task force ldr 2-20, 112E3 Zimbabwe atty gen (Tomana) ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 Miers, Rove House com testimony set 3-4, 536E3 Sharifs pol ban mulled 3-14, Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175E1, D3 NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176D1 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2 Pak chief justice (Chaudhry) returns to Sup Ct 3-22, 22C2 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7, Coburn/Flowers named 10-7, 719C1–D1 FISA chief judge (Bates) named 4-6, 244A2 Justice Dept ethics chief (Brown) named 4-8, 218E2 Fiji jude apptmts nixed 4-10, ousters scored 4-14, 251D3, 252C1

—COURTS 1013 US ‘border czar’ (Bersin) named 4-15, 341G1 Pak local judges quit 4-23, 276A2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E2 Justice Souter sets retiremt, indep hailed 5-1; replacemt mulled 5-3—5-4, Sen com GOP ldr (Sessions) named 5-5, 301A1, D1, G2, 303A1; photo 301E1; key votes listed 302A1 Sotomayor sees Obama, named to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, D2, 350E1, C2; photo 349F1 Fiji high ct judges named 5-22, 510B2 Zimbabwe Atty Gen (Tomana) ouster nixed 5-25, 588G3 Facts on Sotomayor 5-26, 350A1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) remarks regretted, attacks mulled 5-29—6-3; sees Sens/hurts ankle, submits com query 6-2—6-8, confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389E2 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387G2 Justice Souter honored 6-29, 443E1–G1 Niger const ct ousted 6-29, 574D3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, filibuster nixed/NRA oppositn set 7-13—7-16, 469A1–471C3; excerpts 470A1 US atty (Johnson) named 7-14, 908D3 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed by Sen com, hearings scored 7-28, 503A1 Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, documts issued 8-11, 536G2, D3 Miss judge (DeLaughter) quits, disbarmt sought 7-30, 11-30, 888F2 Bogden named US fed atty 7-31, 537A1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519A3 Sotomayor sworn Sup Ct justice 8-8, White House event held 8-12, 536D2 Iran judiciary chief (Larijani), prosecutor gen (Mohseni-Ejei) named 8-15—8-19, 562E2–F2 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed, Durham named 8-19—8-24, 565A1, G1, F2 US atty ofc worker (Brown) quits 8-25, 716C3 Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, Cayley named 12-2, 890B2 Mex atty gen (Medina Mora) quits, Chavez named 9-7, 604F3 Sup Ct justice (Sotomayor) formally seated 9-8, 603F1 Mex atty gen nominee (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1 UK Sup Ct sworn 10-1, 686D1 Justice Stevens clerks lack rptd 10-5, 678B1 Fiji forgn meddling alleged, Australia/NZ diplomatic ousters exchngd 11-1—11-4, Sri Lankan judges arrive, sworn 11-2—11-5, 852A1, C1–D1, G1 Indonesia dep atty gen (Abdul) quits 11-4, 786A2 White House counsel (Craig) sets resignatn, Bauer named 11-13, 797B3 Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1 Russian Const Ct judges quit 12-2, 892B3 Sen Baucus girlfriend atty apptmt rptd 12-5, backing confrmd 12-6, 908B3 Bush admin e-mails found 12-14, 908D2 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907E3 Nigeria chief justice (Kastina-Alu) sworn 12-30, 923A1 Attorney Fee Issues US govt, Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868F2 Awards & Honors Sup Ct ex-justice (O’Connor) gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Saks wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Justice ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488C2 US ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges suspended, plead guilty 1-26—2-12, cases review spec master named/convctns nixed, suit filed 2-11—3-26, 247F1, B2, D2 Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft trial prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13, chrgs dropped 4-1, 199D1 UK atty (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99D3 Tex inmate (Richard) executn judge comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3 Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) claims trial pol motivatn 2-23, 135F1 Spain justice min (Bermejo) quits 2-23, 226C3

Judge Kent pleads guilty, sentncd 2-23—5-11; alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 469D2 Syria ct abuses alleged 2-24, 465G2 Ala ex-gov (Siegelman) chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, convctn review sought 4-3, 218G2 WSJ Asia ed (Kirkpatrick) contempt found 3-19, 936D1 S Africa’s Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222A1, A2 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218F1 Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, Yirenpeng Ctr raided 7-29, 557B1 Gongmeng founder (Xu) asst held/cont detentn seen, freed 7-29—8-23, 606D2 Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges plea deal nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, convctns dismissed 10-29, 869A3, E3, 870A1 Miss ex-judge (DeLaughter) pleads guilty 7-30, sentncd 11-13, 888D2 Brocade ex-CEO (Reyes) convctn nixed 8-18, retrial set 12-2, 910E2 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587A1 Ecuador ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31; Chevron suit judge (Nunez) ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3 Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, 628B1 Colombia intell agency nix set 9-18, 817F3 France’s Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644G1, C2, E2 Fininvest ‘91 bribery found 10-3, verdict scored 10-5, 687E1 Italy’s Berlusconi immunity law nixed 10-7, 687A1 US atty ofc ex-worker (Brown), Christie NJ gov bid role questnd 10-20, 716C3 UK atty (Mills) Italy convctn upheld 10-27, 750C1 Indonesia anti-corruptn ofcls case wiretaps issued 10-30—11-3, 786D1, F1 Insider trading suspects chrgd, plead guilty 11-5, 814D1 Azerbaijan bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820C2 Fed judge (Porteous) House com suit filed 11-13, impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831F3, 832D1, G1 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896E1 Crime Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G1, G2–12B1 Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspens urged/appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-11—2-28, civil liberities suit opposed 4-3, 243E3, 244F1 Liberia’s Taylor son sentncd 1-9, 50A1 Cuba base cont detentns support polled 1-13—1-16, 28D2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing opens 1-15, 16D3–E3 Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20A3 Bush admin antiterror memos revoked 1-15, 130B1 Tex/Mex inmate (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31D3 Russian rights atty (Markelov) slain, death threats rptd/col case links denied 1-19; honored, probe urged 1-20, rallies held, slaying scored 1-21, 36E2, E3–F3 Cuba base detainee hearings halted 1-20; Cong briefed, prison closure ordrd/CIA interrogatns ltd 1-21—1-22, mil detentn review ordrd, govt brief deadline delay sought 1-22, 28B2, E2–E2, B3–D3 Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 43F1–G1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46C3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, 80D2–G2 Obama sees terror attacks victims families 2-6, 80C3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs dropped 2-6, 80E3 Zimbabwe oppositn secy gen (Biti) freed 2-6, 81G2 Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1–A2* Terror detainee torture info release opposed 2-9, 80C2

Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, Justice Dept ex-ofcls responses seen 2-17, 94C3, 95A1, C1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 Forensic lab methods questnd 2-18, 307A3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, sent, questnd/freed 2-24, 112G1 Afghan/US mil detainees policy cont 2-20, 112F2 Holder visits Cuba base prison 2-23, 112F3 Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3 Qwest ex-CEO (Nacchio) witness testimony nix upheld 2-26, 677F3 Leb’s Hairi slaying UN tribunal opens 3-1, 210G3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129F3, 130A1 Bush admin policies truth comm proposal Sen com hearing held 3-4, 130A2 NYS drug laws reform passes legis/signed, sentncs cut rptd 3-4—12-18, 919E3 Cuba base detainees claim 9/11 role 3-10, 244B3 PI/US marine rapist (Smith) accuser testimony chngd, atty role mulled 3-12—3-16, probe sought 3-24, 205F1–D2 Late model (Smith) atty chrgd, pleads not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920D1 Obama terror detainee policy questnd 3-14, 165D3 US/Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199D2 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15, 243D2 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329E1, C2 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2 Yukos atty (Bakhmina) freed 4-21, 328B3 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 920A1 Iran rptr (Saberi) attys chngd 5-5, 330D1 Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6; slain 5-10, funeral held/tape issued, Colom denies role 5-11, 376F3, 377A1 Sears Tower terror plot trial juror ouster rptd 5-12, 374G3 Obama sets terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, 337A1 Chechen dep prosecutor (Kaziakhmedov) slain 5-21, 378E3 Warrantless spying classified documts protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen, govt sanctns nixed/case upheld 5-29—6-3, telecom cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410G1, D2 Russian bailiff (Ugurchiev) slain 6-5, 417G1 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) in ct, pleads not guilty 6-9, 391D3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi trial witnesses block appeal filed, upheld 6-11—6-29, trial delayed 7-3, 462D2 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428E1, C2 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445A3 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888B1 Ger ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482F2 NSA warrantless spying legality questnd 7-10, 474F2, 475C1 Bush assassinatn plotter (Ali) sentncd 7-27, 678F3 US’s Clinton visits Kenya 8-5, 540F1 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700G2 Kazakh rights activist (Zhovtis) convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1–A2 Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659F2, E3 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608E2–F2 Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) slaying suspects held 9-11, 682C2 Russian repub dep prosecutor (Maksudov) slain 9-11, 728A2 Cuba base detainees trial delay sought, OKd 9-16—9-21, 718E3 LA illegal immigrants detentn conditns suit setld 9-17, 722B1 Justice Dept ‘state secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642D2–A3 Darfur conflict spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924A2

1014 COUSO— Serb ldr (Karadzic) seeks trial delay, boycotts 10-26, counsel mulled, argumts open/adjourned 10-27, 749A1 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns auctn blocked 10-27—11-2, necessity defns use sought 11-23, 832E3, 833D1 Cuba base detainees mil comm trials chngs bill signed 10-28, 794D1 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914A3 Serb ldr (Karadzic) in ct 11-3, atty apptmt ordrd, trial delayed 11-5, 767E2 Russian atty (Markelov) slaying suspects held 11-5, 855B2 Zimbabwe ofcl (Bennett) trial opens 11-9; arms dealer (Hitschmann) testimony OKd 11-11, judge ouster sought 11-11, 783C2–F2 Ger ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2–D2 Cuba base detainees trials set/debated, Sen com hearing held 11-13—11-18, 793A1, F1, E2, 794B1; photos 794A1, A2, A3 Terror aid atty (Stewart) convctn upheld 11-17, opens sentnc 11-19, 914C2 Russia death penalty ban cont 11-19, 855D1 S Africa World Cup spec cts set 11-21, 858D3 Russian bailiff found slain 11-24, 855C1 Mumbai terror attacks Pak trial opens 11-25, 845A3 Gotti mistrial declared, freed 12-1, 888F1 Cuba base suicides suit argumt filed 12-4, Madhwani cont detentn upheld, Hatim release ordrd 12-14—12-16, 862B1, G1–A2 UK girl Italian slaying suspects convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, US support cont 12-7, 854A3–C3 Israeli forgn min (Livni) UK warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; legal chngs sought 12-15, Hamas com role rptd 12-121, 884B2 Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931A3 US/Israeli atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2 Russian atty (Magnitsky) prison death rpt issued 12-28, pre-trial jailings curbed 12-29, 938F2 Judicial Reform Pak dist Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102B3 US hails Colombia chngs 2-25, 180A2 Yukos founder (Khodorkovsky) trial opens 3-31, 208A1 Pak tribal areas Islamic law ct opens 5-2, recognitn nixed 5-3, 315C1 Japan jury trial system opens 8-6, 557B3 Afghan reforms vowed 8-24, 573F1 Mex’s Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605B2 Indonesia anti-corruptn comm reforms pass House 9-29, 786C1 Kenya reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702A2 US’s Clinton visits Northn Ireland 10-12, 704F3, 705A1 Turkey, EU entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706F3 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884G2 Labor Issues Justice Dept ex-ofcl (Schlozman) violatns rptd 1-13, 16G3–17A1 Obituaries Alfonsin, Raul 3-31, 212F1 Bell, Griffin B 1-5, 9C3 Caldera, Rafael 12-24, 955B1 Endara, Guillermo 9-28, 672E2 Fawehinmi, Gani 9-5, 612D3 Miller Jr, Herbert J 11-14, 860F3 Morgan Jr, Charles 1-8, 40B3 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Venkataraman, Ramaswany 1-27, 56G3 Walker, Doris B 8-13, 596G3 Wilkey, Malcolm R 8-15, 648F3 Wilson, Margaret Bush 8-11, 612G3 People Ghana pres electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7G2, A3, E3 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46F2 Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Sup Ct’s Ginsburg returns 2-23, 131B1 Madoff atty (Sorkin) cont representatn OKd 3-10, 141B2 S Korea ex-pres (Roh) kills self 5-23, 360C3, 361B1 NJ gov GOP primary held 6-2, 373A3, C3 Justice Ginsburg anemia treatmt rptd, in hosp/exits 9-24—9-25, 677G3 Ex-justice (O’Connor) sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678B1

FACTS Hermitage atty (Magnitsky) dies, buried 11-16—11-20; Russian prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 821E3 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848D2 Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 868G3, 869C1 Political & Legislative Issues Sup Ct justices host Obama, Biden 1-14, 21F1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92B2 Mortgage chngs bill passes House 3-5, 147B1 Home foreclosure curbs measure nixed by Sen 4-30, 319A3–B3 Dayton accords subversn seen, Bosnian Serb law nixed 6-19, 448G2 NJ’s Christie in gov debates 10-1—10-16, 716F2 US electn results 11-3, 755C2–E2, C3, E3–F3, 756F3, 757A1 Supreme Court Rulings Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd 1-14, 20E3 Judge sentncg power upheld 1-14, 21C1 Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed 1-26, 48F2 Suspect atty request expiratn case accepted 1-26, 48A3 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed 3-4, 130E2 Ore smoking death damages case denied 3-31, 246A2 Warrantless car searches curbed 4-21, 266B1 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted 5-4, 306G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd 5-4, 307C1 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed 5-18, 337A3 Suspect questng curbs eased 5-26, 373G3–374D1 Merck shareholders suit case accepted 5-26, 677C3 Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd 6-1, 374G1 Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified 6-8, 389G3 Student strip search opposed 6-25, 425D2, B3 Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed 6-25, 444E1 Natl banks state suits backed 6-29, 444D2 Ga death row inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553G1 Suspect atty request case argumts heard 10-5, 677D2 Qwest ex-CEO (Nacchio) appeal denied 10-5, 677E3 Enron ex-exec (Skilling) appeal accepted 10-13, 718B1 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F2 Death row inmate (Cooper) appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-30, 868D1

COUSO, Jose (d. 2003) US troops slaying chrgs reinstated 5-21, 344F3 US troops slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483B2

COVE, The (film) Sundance Festival award won 1-24, 104C2

COVER, Jack (John Hickson Cover Jr.) (1920-2009) Dies 2-7, 120B3

COVINGTON, David Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

COWARD, Sir Noel Pierce (1899-1973) Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3 Lansbury wins Tony 6-7, 400C1 Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

COWEN, Brian (Irish prime minister, 2008- ) Visits US 3-17, 182E2 Holds RC schls abuse rpt mtg, regrets govt role 5-26, compensatn talks set 5-27, 361G2–B3 EU treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432F1 EU treaty referendum held 10-2, 685D2 Hosts US’s Clinton 10-11, 704D3 Budget unveiled 12-9, 856F1

COWLES, Fleur (Florence Freidman) (1908-2009) Dies 6-5, 420E3

COWLES Jr., Gardner (1903-85) Ex-wife dies 6-5, 420E3

COWS—See LIVESTOCK COY, Jonathan Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

COYOTES Holdings LLC Bankruptcy declared 5-5, 435B3

CRABTREE, Michael In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

CRACK a Bottle (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140C1

CRADDOCK, Gen. Bantz Replacemt (Stavridis) takes ofc 7-2, 534C1

CRAIG, Daniel Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Steady Rain opens in NYC 9-29, 792A2

CRAIG, Gregory On Obama terror detainees policy 1-21, 28A2 Rove, Miers House com testimony set 3-4, 536E3 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257D1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C3 Sets resignatn 11-13, 797B3 Defns Dept dep asst secy (Carter) quits 11-20, 914F1

CRAIG, Larry E. (U.S. senator from Idaho, 1991-2009; Republican) Nixes ‘07 guilty plea withdrawal appeal 1-8, 5A3

CRAIG, Wendy Mortimer dies 1-16, 56C2

CRAIGSLIST (Web site) ‘Adult svcs’ suit filed, nixed 3-5—10-20, prosecutn halt ordrd 5-22, 781C3 Ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429F1, B2, F2 Curbs hike seen 4-21; Ill/Conn/Mo atty gens mtg held, ‘misuse’ drop seen 5-5, erotic svcs shut 5-20, 429G2

CRAMPS, The (music group) Interior dies 2-4, 120C3

CRANE, David On Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial defns 7-14, 480C2

CRANK: High Voltage (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

CRANSTON, Bryan Wins Emmy 9-20, 647C3, F3

CRAWFORD, Carl AL wins All-Star Game, named MVP 7-14, 483A3 Among AL steals ldrs 10-6, 690F2

CRAWFORD, Hank (Bennie Ross Crawford Jr.) (1934-2009) Dies 1-29, 71E3

CRAWFORD, Susan Confirms Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) abuse 1-14, 20E1, G1, B2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 47A1 Drops Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs 2-6, 80D3 Drops Cuba base detainees chrgs 12-10, 861F2

CRAWFORD, Vicky Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2–D2

CRAWFORD v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn. (2009) Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2

CRAZY Love (recording) On best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

CREAN, Simon Questns Fiji const nix 4-11, 252A1

CREATIVE Steps Inc. Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916A3

CREDIT, Consumer Heartland data breach rptd 1-20, 133B2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 77F1 Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129B3 Fed, Treasury lending program launched 3-3, 127F2 Indus reforms backed 3-31, 305G1 Obama sees indus execs, seeks reforms 4-23, bill passes House 4-30, 305C1 Amer Express stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2

ON FILE

Reforms clear Cong, signed 5-19—5-22, 354A2, G2 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407F3 JP Morgan ‘09 2d 1/4 profit rptd 7-16, 490F2 Theft curbs hiked 7-16, suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554B1 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918D1 US indus reforms proposed 9-23, 641B1 Somali terror ties suspects stopped/questnd, held 10-6—10-9, 849A2 JP Morgan ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-14, 715E1 Interest rates freeze proposed 10-26, indus reforms hike passes House 11-4, 779E1 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865D2 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871C2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907D1

CREDIT Cards—See CREDIT, Consumer CREDIT Suisse Group Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829E1 Iran A-program sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1

CREEL, Gavin Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

CREELY, Robert Testifies to House com 11-17, 832D1–F1

CRENNEL, Romeo Successor (Mangini) named 1-7, 55A3

CRESWELL, Jason (d. 2009) Remains returned, IDd 6-20—6-21, 433C3 Iraq hostage (Moore) freed 12-30, 941D3

CRICHTON, (John) Michael (1942-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

CRICKET Stanford/UK bd talks halted, Antigua woes seen 2-17—2-18, 148B3–C3 Sri Lanka team Pak attack kills 8+, NZ tour nxied 3-3, arrests mulled, security questnd 3-4, 137D3 India tourn hosting nixed 3-22, S Africa move set 3-24, 275G2 Sri Lanka natl team Pak attack suspect held 6-17, 595B1

CRIME (U.S.) Airplane Hijackings—See AVIATION—Hijackings Arson—See under FIRES Assassinations—See ASSASSINATIONS Assault & Battery Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247E3 NC mil base ‘95 sniper pleads guilty 3-11, sentncd 3-24, 269E1 Singer Brown pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 La teen beating suspects plead no contest, victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 524G3 Singer Brown sentncd 8-25, 580D2 Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3 Actor (Sheen) held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2 Bombings—See BOMBINGS Bribery, Fraud & Extortion Enron ex-exec (Skilling) convctn upheld, sentnc cut 1-6, appeal accepted by Sup Ct 10-13, 718A1 NYS ex-health comr (Novello) authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64B3 Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356E2 Ariz gun store owner (Iknadosian) trial opens 3-9, 171A2 Info tech deals bribery suspects held 3-12, 200B3, D3 Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677D3 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held, chrgd 6-24—7-29, 574G1 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4, chrgd 6-5, 392B3 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554B1 Army Corps bribery Afghan worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, 567A3 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918D1 Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781E3 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2

2009 Index Iowa raided plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896D1 Capital Punishment Tex/Mex inmate (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31D3 NM ban passes legis, signed 2-11—3-18, 167G1 Tex inmate (Richard) executn judge comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3 ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904D1 Colo repeal passes state House, nixed by state Sen 4-22, 5-6, 429D3 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C2; key votes listed 302A3 Ohio executn method chngd 5-19, 719F2–A3 Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd by Sup Ct 6-1, 374G1 Calif ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) sentncd 6-5, 359E3 Ohio inmate (Getsy) clemency urged, nixed 7-17—8-14; executn stay rejected by Sup Ct 8-17, executed 8-18, 553E2 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7; case denied by Sup Ct, clemency nixed 11-9—11-10, executed 11-10, 780C2, F2 Ga death row inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd by Sup Ct 8-17, 553G1 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Gov Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700C1–C3 Ohio inmate (Broom) executn try fails, delays ordrd/stays issued 9-15—10-5; death penalty support polled 10-1—10-4, injectn method chngs mulled 10-6, 719E2, A3 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718B3 9/11 plot suspects death penalty sought 11-13, 793E2 Ohio lethal injectn method chngd, inmate (Biros) use OKd/appeal denied 11-13—12-4, delay sought/nixed, stay rejected by Sup Ct 12-4—12-8, executed 12-8, 849D2, F2, C3 Ky executns halted 11-25, appeal nixed 12-4, 849D3 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F2 Inmate (Cooper) appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-30, 868C1 ‘09 executns rise rptd 12-17, 921A2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking—See DRUGS Drunk Driving—See AUTOMOBILES—Crime Espionage—See ESPIONAGE Gambling—See GAMBLING Iran-Contra Arms Scandal—See IRAN-Contra Arms Scandal Juvenile Delinquency—See YOUTH Issues—Crime Kidnapping ‘70s radical (Olson) freed 3-17, 202E2 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429A2 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425E3 Mex border suspects indicted 8-13, 556F2 Calif suspects noticed, held/plead not guilty 8-25—8-28; backyard compound/bone fragmt found, cops missed chances admitted 8-26—8-31, victim, family reunited 8-27, 587A3, E3 Colombia rebels chrgd 9-28, held 12-3, 927F2 Ohio corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3, 888D1 KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886D3 Labor Corruption—See LABOR—Corruption Libel—See LIBEL Misdemeanors Ex-Sen Craig nixes ‘07 guilty plea withdrawal appeal 1-8, 5A3 MLB’s Tejada chrgd 2-10, pleads guilty 2-11, 87D3 Lakers NBA title win riots erupt 6-14, 419E2 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, tapes issued 7-26—7-29, 504D3–E3

—CROATIA 1015 Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848D3 Murder (& Manslaughter) Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247B1 Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, passenger shooting fair trial nixed, move ordrd 10-16—11-19, 920D2 Blackwater/Iraq civiln deaths suspects plead not guilty 1-6, 9A1 Tenn church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247D3 Fed intern (Levy) slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149D1 Iraq insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2 Calif ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) convctd 3-6, sentncd 6-5, 359E3 Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247E3 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149A1 NC mil base ‘95 sniper pleads guilty 3-11, sentncd 3-24, 269E1 Ariz serial killers convctd, sentncd 3-13—7-29, 525F1 ‘70s radical (Olson) freed 3-17, 202F2 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 Calif cops shootout kills 5 3-21—3-24, 246F3 Calif ‘70-80s slayings suspect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3 NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246C2 Pa gunman kills 3 4-4, racist postings rptd 4-7, 246B3 Calif car crash suspect (Gallo) chrgd 4-10, 277F3 Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1 ‘Craigslist’ ad woman slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-14—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-22, evidnc rptd 4-20—4-25, 429F1, A2, D2 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 919G3 Calif paper ed (Chauncey) slaying suspects indicted 4-29, Broussard pleads guilty 5-7, 539E2 Wesleyan U gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393D2 Music producer (Spector) sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525D1 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, suspect held, chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370A2 Ark mil recruiting booth attack kills 1 6-1, shooter held/pleads guilty, Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-1—6-4, 392A2 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) fed slaying probe set 6-5, 445F1 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) chrgd 6-10—6-11, 391G3 NFL’s Stallworth pleads guilty 6-15, 632C1 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888B1 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect, Operatn Rescue donatn claimed/denied 7-21—7-24, defns auctn blocked 10-27—11-2, 833C1–F1 Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921C1 Boxer (Forrest) slain, suspects held 7-25, 531G3 Pa gym gunman kills 3, self 8-4, guns buy rptd 8-7, 554A2 Coors ‘60 killer found dead 8-24, 792A3 Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580D2 Jackson death called ‘homicide’ 8-30, 612F2 Yale student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; suspect (Clark) chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920B1 Census worker found dead 9-12, 722C1 ‘08 drop rptd 9-14, 887E3 Late model (Smith) FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920F1 Ohio corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3, 888D1

KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886D3 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1, D2; photo 757A3 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled, intell probe sought/’07 speech rptd 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777A2, E3 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying backed, suspect confesses 11-9; FBI warning rptd 11-13, necessity defns use sought 11-23, 832B3, F3 Northn Mariana gunman kills 4, self 11-20, motive mulled 11-22, 888C2 Wash coffee shop shooting kills 4 11-29, suspect slain, family chrgd 12-1—12-9, 888A2 Tex mil base shooting suspect (Hasan) chrgs hiked 12-2, 915D1 Wash Jewish Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920G1 ‘09 1st 1/2 drop rptd 12-21, 887G3 MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns nixed 12-22, 919C3 Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942C2, E2–F2 Obituaries Atkins, Susan 9-24, 672E1 Barker, Bernard L 6-5, 400C2 Cover, Jack 2-7, 120B3 Dunlap, Max 7-21, 648D2 Dunne, Dominick 8-26, 580G2 Kimbro, Warren A 2-3, 104D3 Unruh, Howard B 10-19, 752G3 Obscenity—See PORNOGRAPHY Obstruction of Justice Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356E2 Judge Kent pleads guilty, sentncd 2-23—5-11; alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 469D2 SFG exec (Pendergest-Holt) held 2-26, 148D1 Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166C3 CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677D3 St Hope funds misuse probe rptd 6-17, 458A2 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815B3 Miss ex-judge (DeLaughter) sentncd 11-13, 888E2 Alavi Foundatn ex-head (Jahedi) pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2 Organized Crime (including Mafia) Gambino hit man (Carneglia) convctd 3-17, sentncd 9-17, 920B2 NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 Gotti mistrial declared, freed 12-1, 888F1 Perjury ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1 MLB’s Clemens grand jury probe rptd 1-12, 87G3 MLB’s Bonds trial evidnc block sought 1-15; documts unsealed 2-4, drug tests admissn mulled 2-5, 87D3 Libby pardon backed 1-21, 33G3 Somali terror group ties suspect (Hassan) admits role, pleads guilty 2-9—8-12, 780C3, E3 Sen Burris resignatn urged 2-18, 93C3 MLB’s Bonds perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158D2 Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129B3 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141A2 Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166C3 MLB’s Tejada sentncd 3-26, 277G3 CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 Sen Burris questnd 6-15, chrgs nixed 6-19, 478D1–E1 China econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 Air Force ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888E3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815B3 Police—See POLICE Political Corruption—See POLITICS—Corruption Pornography—See PORNOGRAPHY Prisons & Prisoners Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C3

Calif health care ofcr ouster sought, nixed 1-28—3-24, conditns violatn ruled, populatn cap ordrd 3-2, 356C1, A2 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112G1 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200E1 Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199D2 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506C1 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C2 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 306G3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16, release set 7-29, 505B3, F3 Calif budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503G2 Illegal immigrants detentn reforms set 8-6, deaths rptg omits seen 8-17, 573C2, B3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan 8-24, 573C1 Cuba base prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718A2 Cuba base detainees Ill transfer mulled 11-14—11-16, 794D2–G2 Cuba base suicides suit argumt filed 12-4; Ill prison fed buy seen, detainees transfer plans mulled 12-11—12-16, Madhwani cont detentn upheld, Hatim release ordrd 12-15—12-16, 861A1, C1, 862B1, G1 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914A1 Prostitution—See PROSTITUTION Rape—See RAPE Robbery & Burglary Paleontologist (Murphy) admits pvt property fossil find 1-22, pleads guilty 4-14, 280B2 ‘70s radical (Olson) freed 3-17, 202F2 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429F1, A2, C2, E2 ‘70s radical (Kilgore) freed 5-10, 539D2 Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3 US ‘09 1st 1/2 drop rptd 12-21, 888A1 Sex Crimes—See SEX Crime Statistics Mex/Ariz border violnc rise seen 2-23, 171E1 ‘08 violent crime drop rptd 9-14, 887D3 ‘09 1st 1/2 violent crime drop rptd 12-21, 887F3 Stock Manipulation—See STOCKS—Crime Tax Evasion—See under TAXES Terrorism & Conspiracy—See TERRORISM

CRIME (non-U.S.)—See country names CRIME Pays (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

CRIME Scene (racehorse) 2d in Melbourne Cup 11-3, 807A3

CRIME Victims Rights Act (2004) BP ‘05 Tex refinery blast fine upheld 12-18, 917B1

CRISLER, Marshand Jackson mayoral electn held 5-5, 306F3

CRIST, Charlie (Fla. governor, 2007- ; Republican) Hosts Obama 2-10, 79D1 Fugate named FEMA dir 3-4, 145F2 On sugar fields land deal chngs 4-1, 356E3 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537E2–A3 Names LeMieux to Sen 8-28, 584G3–585B1 Rep Wexler sets resignatn 10-14, 717B2

CRISTOFER, Michael Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

CRITTENDEN, Gary Named Citigroup divisn chrmn 3-20, 265C1

CROATIA, Republic of Civil War—See under BOSNIA Crime & Civil Disorders Zagreb blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO entry formalized 4-1, 213C2 European Relations EU entry block scored, Slovenia border dispute mulled 7-4, efforts vowed 7-7, 463B1–C1, A2 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512F2 Kosor visits Slovenia, EU entry block lifted/Adriatic waters claim dropped 9-11, 628C2

1016 CROCKER— Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D1 Sanader quits 7-1, Kosor elected party ldr/premr, sworn 7-4—7-7, 463A1, D1 Facts on Kosor 7-7, 463E1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733D1 Pres electn results rptd, Josipovic/Bandic runoff set 12-27, 936B2 Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Science & Technology Neanderthal genome draft completed 2-12, 280G1 Sports Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1

CROCKER, Ryan Vs Iraq troops early exit 1-22, 38C2 Successor (Hill) named 2-2, 58B1–C1 Obama touts Iraq elections 2-9, 78A3

CROCKETT, Affion Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

CROMER, David Our Town revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2 Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

CRONKITE, Walter (Walter Leland Cronkite Jr.) (1916-2009) Dies 7-17, 500F2; photo 500A3 Hewitt dies 8-19, 564A3

CROOK, Mackenzie Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

CROSBY, Sir James Quits 2-11, 155B2

CROSBY, Sidney Among NHL pts/assists ldrs 4-12, 299A3 Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 419E3, 420E1, A2, C2

CROSS, Ben Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

CROSS, David Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

CROSS, Eddie On Tsvangirai, wife ties 3-6, 152B3

CROSS Country (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1

CROSSFIRE (TV show) Braden dies 4-3, 256G2

CROW, Joseph Medicine Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

CROW, Trammell (1914-2009) Dies 1-14, 56F1

CROWE, Russell State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

CROWLEY, Sgt. James Arrests Harvard prof (Gates), chrgs dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, at White House mtg 7-21—7-30, 911 caller racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-29, 504E3–505A1, C1–F1, B2

CROWLEY, John Steady Rain opens in NYC 9-29, 792G1

CROWLEY, P. J. On Darfur ‘genocide’ 6-18, 446E2

CROWN Publishing Group (of Random House) Obama bk contract chngd, signs new deal 1-9—1-15, bares royalty paymts 3-19, 201C1–D1 Bush bk work confrmd 3-18—3-19, 166E3

CRUDUP, Billy Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

CRUISE, Tom French Scientology branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787B3

CRUZ, Nathaniel On strom rainfall 9-28, 664F1

CRUZ, Nelson Loses HR Derby 7-13, 483D3

CRUZ, Penelope Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104A2* Wins Oscar 2-22, 120F1–G1, C2 G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

FACTS CRVENKOVSKI, Branko (Macedonian premier, 2002-04; president, 2004-09) Pres electn runoff held 4-5, 225B2 Successor (Ivanov) sworn 5-12, 344C2

CRYER, Jon Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

CRYOGENIC Dark Matter Search Dark matter detectn seen 12-17, 952G1

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV show) Nielsen rating 3-5, 212A2; 11-12, 840A2

CSL Ltd. Swine flu vaccine single shot efficacy rptd 9-10, OKd by FDA 9-16, 696G3, 697D1

CTV Inc. Canadian parties support polled 10-5, 681C3

CUBA, Joe (Gilberto Miguel Calderon) (1931-2009) Dies 2-15, 160B3

CUBA, Republic of Arts & Culture Peace concert held 9-20, 661D2 CIS Relations Castro visits Russia 1-30, 85C2 Crime & Civil Disorders Bloggers detentn/abuse alleged, scored 11-6—11-9, 928B1 Economy & Labor Castro reforms sought 4-6, 249D2 2d job curbs eased 6-29—6-30, govt lunchrooms shut 10-1, 784E1, G1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues US spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3 Castro sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2 US spies plead guilty 11-20, 833F1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section OAS entry urged 4-17, 271D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C2 Revolutn anniv marked 1-1, 8A1 Castro photo published 2-17, 575A2 Castro walks rptd 2-27—3-3, cabt shuffled, power grab denied 3-2—3-3, 134D2, C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D1 Lage, Perz Roque resignatns rptd 3-5, 249A2 Communist cong postponed 7-31, cont socialism 8-1, 526G3 Castro photos published, tape aired 8-23, 575E1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733D1 Human Rights Abuses scored 11-18, 928E1 Immigration & Refugee Issues US cont talks proposed, OKd 5-22—5-30, 376A2 Latin American Relations El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3 Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871C3 Venez’s Chavez talk show aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413C2 El Salvador ties cont 6-1, 394A3 OAS reentry OKd 6-4, 376G2 Uruguay pres electn held 10-25, 746C3 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834E3 Monetary Issues Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Obituaries Almeida, Juan 9-11, 648D1 Barker, Bernard L 6-5, 400D2 Lopez, Orlando (Cachaito) 2-9, 104E3 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190D2, E3, G3–191A1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 Trade, Aid & Investment US trade embargo failure seen 2-23, 249E1 US embargo drop urged 3-14, 186F2 US cont embargo seen 3-28, 205A1 US trade embargo end urged 3-30, 249D1 US embargo lift support polled 4-14—4-16, end urged 4-17, 271C2–D2, F2 US embargo end urged 4-16, 271G1 US embargo extensn signed 9-15, 661C2–D2 US cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784C1 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2

Chaired mtgs, US role ban nixed 7-1, 902B2 Women’s agencies merger opposed 9-14, 902C2 Rodriguez addresses Gen Assemb 9-28, 652B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama hailed 1-2, 8E1 Travel, trade curbs ease clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144E2–F2 Travel ban lift bill introduced, reps visit 3-31—4-7; money flow ease sought 4-8, family/remittnc/telecom curbs ended, mulled 4-13—4-14, 248A3, 249F1 Talks mulled 4-16—4-22, 271G2 Missn sign removal rptd 7-28, 527E1–F1 Family travel, remittance curbs eased 9-3, 604B3 Cont mail svc mulled, diplomatic talks rptd 9-17—9-29, 661G1 NYC orch concert plans nixed 10-1, blogger (Sanchez) trip denied 10-14, 723G1 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814D3 Obama interview posted 11-18, 928D1 Contractor held 12-5; Dvpt Alternatives work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927C3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath)—For U.S. base issues, see DEFENSE, U.S.—Security

CUBAN American National Foundation Cuba money flow ease sought 4-8, 249A1

CUBAVISION (Cuban TV station) Castro tape aired 8-23, 575A2

CUCCIOLI, Robert Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

CUCKOOS, a Blue and Pink Rug, The (painting) Fetches $46 mln 2-23, 160C1

CUCOLO, Maj. Gen. Anthony Sets Iraq impregnated troops ct-martials 11-4, curbs punishmt 12-22, 915B1

CUELLAR, Luis Francisco Seized, found dead/FARC role alleged 12-21—12-22, 927C2–D2

CUERO, Martin Captured 6-11, 526D3

CULKIN, Macaulay At Jackson funeral 9-3, 612F2

CULLEN, Dave Columbine on best-seller list 5-4, 316B1

CULP, Connie IDd ‘08 face transplant recipient 5-6, 332D2

CULP, Thomas Wife IDd as ‘08 face transplant recipient 5-6, 332E2

CULTURE—See ARTS CULTURE of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596B1

CUNNINGHAM, Duke (Randy) La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797E2

CUNNINGHAM, Merce (Mercier Philip) (1919-2009) Legacy trust set 6-9, 420G2 Dies 7-26, 516B2; photo 516C2

CUOMO, Andrew UnitedHealth paymts suit setld 1-13, 64F2 Kennedy drops Sen seat bid 1-22, 32G3 Rep Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46F2 Reveals Merrill bonus paymts 2-11; subpoenaes execs 3-4, info release ordrd 3-18, 220B2–E2 Seeks AIG bonus paymts info 3-16, issues details 3-17, 162A1 Chrgs pension funds paymt suspects 3-19, 4-15, 265B2, D2, A3–B3 Sets AIG bonus paymts return 3-23, 219F3–220A1 Chrgs Madoff assoc 4-6, 245D1–E1 Issues Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts 4-23, 291G1, B2, D2–F2 Carlyle pension fund paymts probe setld 5-14, 475F3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-11, 388A2 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444A3 Ravitch named NYS lt gov 7-8, 524F3 Auto task force chief (Rattner) quits 7-13, 475E3 Issues $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus pay rpt 7-31, 522F2, A3–B3

ON FILE

Warns Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger fraud chrgs, issues subpoenas 9-8—9-17, 618G3 Sees Obama 9-21, 639E2–F2 Bank of Amer shares drop 9-30, 657F3 Files Intel antitrust suit 11-4, on AMD seltmt 11-12, 800F2–G2 Giuliani gov bid nixed 11-19, 909A1

CUOMO, Mario M. Son sees Obama 9-21, 639F2 Giuliani gov bid nixed 11-19, 909A1

CUOMO v. Clearing House Association (2009) Accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444D2

CURIOUS Case of Benjamin Button, The (film) Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40D1–E1, A2, C2 On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Oscars won 2-22, 120A2

CURLEY, Thomas Afghan dying troop photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621B3–C3

CURLIN (racehorse) Named ‘08 top horse/older male 1-26, 119C3

CURRENCY & Money Issues Africa Z$50 bln, Z$10 trln notes issued 1-12—1-16; forgn currencies use OKd 1-29, Z$ revalued 2-2, 67E2 S Africa Dec ‘08 inflatn drop rptd 1-28, 96A3 AU single currency vote set 2-2, 82D2 Zimbabwe pub workers forgn paymts vowed 2-11, Reserve Bank gov ouster sought 2-12, 81A2, E3–F3 Zimbabwe US$ paymts set 2-18, 97B2 IMF loan curbs eased 3-11, 169G3 Z$ use halt seen 4-12, 589B1 Zimbabwe, IMF funds loaned 9-4, 661E1 Zimbabwe econ growth seen 9-11, 681C1–D1 Asia/Pacific Rim S Korea cabt shuffled 1-19, 51G2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn testimony issued 1-22, 30D2 China yuan manipulatn denied 1-23, 45A1 Yuan fluctuatns defended 1-29, 98E2 ASEAN currency pool hiked 2-22, IMF omit seen 2-23, 135E3 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 Fiji forgn exchng curbs set 4-14, F$ devalued 4-15, 252D1 US issues China rpt 4-15, G-7 mtg held 4-24, 283A3–B3 Treasury secy (Geithner) visits China 5-31—6-2, 414D2–E2 China forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440B2 China/IMF bonds buy rptd 9-2; Yuan bonds sale set 9-8, offrd 9-28, 683C2 Japan finance min (Fuji) named 9-9, 624F3 Yen 8-mo high hit, govt action mulled 9-28—9-29, 703E3 ‘Undervalued’ renminbi seen 10-2, 683A3 Yuan value questnd 10-15, 724B3 US’s Obama visits China 11-15—11-18, 795A3 Taiwan/China financial deals signed 11-16, 891F2 Viet sets dong devaluatn 11-25, 935A1 N Korea’s won revalued 11-30, 873D2 Yuan value mulled 11-30, 932F1 Econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 873A1 Commonwealth of Independent States Russian ruble benchmark set/value drops, rallies held 1-22—2-2, 69C1, G1–A2 Kazakh’s tenge drops 2-4, 68C1–D1 Dram floating set, Armenia store shelves cleared 3-3—3-5, 206D2–E2 Europe Slovakia joins eurozone 1-1, 53F1 Eurozone exits denied 1-21, 53G1–A2 Pound drops 1-23, 52C3 Iceland’s Haarde, cabt quit 1-26, 52F3 Lat devaluatn opposed 2-26, 110B2 Euro adoptn curbs ease backed 3-1, 136B2–D2 Forint hits low vs Euro 3-6, 189C1–D1 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 273D1 Iceland/EU entry deal sought 4-26, 295F3–G3 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512E2 Euro value rise rptd 10-21, 713G2 Euro value rptd 11-13, 798C2 Euro drops 12-15, 875B3–C3 Latin America Venez ‘08 inflatn rate rptd 1-8, 22A3 Bolivar devaluing mulled 3-21, 270F2

2009 Index Venez banks seized, natlizatn mulled 11-20—12-11, 929E1 Middle East US contractor (Custer Battles) Iraq faud liability found 4-10, 255C1, E1 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6E3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61E1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128B1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198B1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304B3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371E3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442E1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522B1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586E1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657B3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759B1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831B1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900F2, B3 United States World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58A3 El Salvador’s Funes visits emb 3-16, 170B3 $ drops vs Euro 3-18, 163G3–164A1 Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, Geithner mulls, $ drops/rises 3-25, 194D1 Secy Geithner visits China 5-31—6-2, 414C2 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406B3–C3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405E1 Fed lending programs cont 6-25, 457D1 China talks held 7-27—7-28, 509E2 WTC site bldg blaze check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621F1 $ reserve currency use drop seen 9-28, 683G2 $ value drops 10-13—10-14, 699D3 Forgn exchng rpt issued 10-15, 724B3 $ value rptd, drop seen 11-9—11-10, 776A1–C1 $ value drop mulled 11-16, 798D2–E2 Arms smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878D2

CURRENT (cable TV channel/Web site) Rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215E3 Rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396A1 Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517A2 Rptrs N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, claims rejected 9-3, 600D3

CURRIER, John Sets Potomac exercise review 9-11, 782E2

CURRY, Aaron In NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3

CURRY, Michael Fired 6-30, 771A2

CURRY, Stephen In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

CURTIS Institute of Music (Philadelphia, Pa.) Rosand sells violin for $10 mln, sets donatn 10-22, 752A3

CUSACK, Joan Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2 My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

CUSACK, John 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

CUSHING, Brian In NFL draft 4-25, 298G2

CUSSLER, Clive Corsair on best-seller list 3-30, 212A1 Medusa on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1 Wrecker on best-seller list 11-30, 840A1 Arctic Drift on best-seller list 12-21, 956C1

CUSSLER, Dirk Arctic Drift on best-seller list 12-21, 956C1

CUSTER Battles LLC Iraq fraud liability found 4-10, 255C1–E1

CUSTOMS & Border Protection, U.S. Bureau of (of Homeland Security) Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185B3 Privacy ofcrs bill passes House 3-24, 908D1 Mex border failed rush arrests rptd 9-22, 724C2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3

CUTLER, Jay Traded to Bears 4-2, 299F1

—DALAI CVETKOVIC, Mirko (Serbian premier, 2008- ) On gay pride parade nix 9-19, 687D3

CYCLING Accidents & Disasters Tour de France cop motorcycle crash kills 1 7-18, 515G2 Awards & Honors Schleck named Tour de France top young rider 7-26, 515E2 Pellizotti named Tour de France top climber 7-26, 515E2 Hushovd named Tour de France top sprinter 7-26, 515E2 Astana named Tour de France top team 7-26, 515E2 Armstrong 2d in AP ‘00-09 top athlete voting 12-16, 879C2 Crime Issues Tour de France riders shot 7-17, 515F2 People Armstrong breaks collar-bone 3-23, 515C2 Hamilton retires 4-17, 515E3 Contador on Armstong ties 7-27, 515B2 Substance Abuse Issues Hamilton admits positive test 4-17, banned 6-16, 515E3 Boonen tests positive 4-24, suspended 5-9, 515B3 Rabobank doping probe questng rptd, Menchov denies role 5-27, 515F3 UCI blood profiling results issued, cases set 6-17, 515D3 Valverde nixes Tour de France role 6-23, 515G2 Dekker positive EPO test rptd, Tour de France ban set 7-1, 515B3 Di Luca positive CERA tests rptd, suspended 7-22, 515C3 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D1 Giro d’Italia, Menchov 5-31, 515F3 Tour de France, Contador 7-26, 515G1

CYPESS, Aaron Finds adults energy-burning fat cells 4-9, 580C1

CYPRUS, Republic of Espionage & Intelligence Issues US spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233E1; 10-1, 733E1 Trade, Aid & Investment Greece wildfires emergency declared 8-22, 577G1 Turkey, EU entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706F3–G3 Transportation Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4, 878F1

CYRUS, Billy Ray Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

CYRUS, Miley

European Relations France auto indus govt loans opposed 2-9, 84B3 EU mtg urged 2-11, 136A2 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 EU mtg held 3-1, 136G2 EU pres role cont 3-24, 188C2 EU summit hosted 4-5, 214F2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396C3 Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5, 463C2 EU summit held, Lisbon treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432G1 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432D2 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686A1 EU treaty signing vowed, charter exemptns sought 10-7—10-8, 685G1–B2 EU treaty concessn OKd 10-29, complaints nixed, Klaus signs 11-2, 765F1 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835B3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section China/EU summit hosted 5-20, 448B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Topolanek govt confidnc vote passes parlt 3-24, quits 3-26, 188A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-26, 233F1 Fischer named interim premr 4-9, 224G3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733F1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Canada visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 Middle East Relations Iran chrg d’affaires summoned 6-23, 423A2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis KKK ex-ldr (Duke) held 4-24, exit ordrd 4-25, 378B1 Obituaries Kaplicky, Jan 1-14, 56A2 Sports Davis Cup lost 12-4—12-6, 951D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US suspect (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411G2 US training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719D2 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Topolanek scores stimulus package 3-25, 188D3 Obama visits 4-5, 214A1, F1–G1 Biden visits 10-23, 750G1–A2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfer sought 4-29, 305D3

CZISNY, Alissa Wins US champ 1-25, 139C2 11th in world champs 3-28, 211D2

CZUMA, Andrzej Quits 10-7, 705B2

Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 ‘Climb’ on best-seller list 5-2, 316D1 ‘Party in USA’ on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Time of Our Lives on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Michael Jackson’s This Is It sets concert film grossing mark 10-28—11-1, 771F3

D

CZECH Republic CIS Relations Topolanek visits Russia, Ukraine 1-10—1-11, 37C2 Russian rights atty (Markelov) slaying probe urged 1-20, 36F3 Russian diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645E2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia border missile deploymt delayed 1-28, 69C2, E2 US missile shield plans mulled 2-7, 74C2 US missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 US missile shield plans mulled 3-6, 142F2; 4-5, 214F1 US missile defns plans mulled 7-6, 454B1 US missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1, F1–A2, C2–E2, G2 US missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645C1 US ‘10 defns funds passes House 10-6, 701E2 US’s Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 706B1 US missile shield components plan OKd 10-23, 750A2 Economy & Labor Eurozone ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 12-13, 100D3

DABANY, Patience Son elected pres 8-30, 604A2

DABBAGH, Ali alOn fscl ‘09 budget cut 1-26, 54A1 On US troops cities exit deadline 5-4, 312B1 On US contractor slaying suspects release 6-10, 398B3 On insurgent group violnc drop 8-3, 529E3, 530A1 Denies UK hostage/prisoner exchng, sees Blackwater civiln deaths chrgs 12-31, 942D1, D2

DABBASHI, Ibrahim Urges Sudan’s Bashir chrgs drop 3-6, 185B1–C1

DABO, Baciro Slain 6-5, 458E3

DACIC, Ivica On war crimes tribunal verdicts 2-26, 110G1

DACRE, James Mountaintop opens in London 7-20, 564D2

DADDAH, Ahmed Ould Pres electn held 7-18; results rptd 7-19, files appeal 7-22, 492C3

1017

D‘ADDARIO, Patrizia Alleges Berlusconi escort use 6-17, 463D2–A3 Berlusconi recordings posted 7-23, 626E3 On Berlusconi escort use allegatns 10-1, 687D2

DAEWOO Group Madagascar land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2 Myanmar offshore gas project investmt set 8-25, 684G1–A2

DAFOE, Willem Arouch dies 4-26, 364G2 Idiot Savant opens in NYC 11-4, 896B1

DAGGETT, Christopher In gov debates 10-1—10-16, bid backed 10-11, 716G2–A3 Loses electn 11-3, 755C2

D‘AGOSTO, Nicholas Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

DAHABI, Nader al- (Jordanian premier, 2007- ) Parlt 11-23, quits 12-9, 877E2

DAHLKEMPER, Kathy (U.S. representative from Pa., 2009- ; Democrat) Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655B1

DAHRENDORF, Lord (Ralf Gustav) (1929-2009) Dies 6-17, 451G3

DAI Bingguo Holds US strategic talks 7-27—7-28, 509B2, D2

DAILY Mail (British newspaper) Waterhouse dies 9-4, 648F3

DAILY Mirror (British newspaper) Waterhouse dies 9-4, 648F3

DAILY Racing Form (newspaper) Eclipse Awards announced 1-26, 119D3

DAILY Show With Jon Stewart, The (TV show) Emmy won 9-20, 647F3, 648A1

DAILY Telegraph (British newspaper) Justice min (Straw) interviewed 9-5, 636C3 Iraq war documts leaked 11-21—11-23, 821E1–F1

DAIMLER AG Chrysler bankruptcy declared 4-30, 283E1 Mercedes sets Brawn team buy 11-16, 950F1 China Nov ‘09 sales rptd 12-7, 932C2

DAINI, Mohammed alChrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117G2–D3 Held in Malaysia 10-16, 729E3

DAIRY Products China tainted milk suit filed, victim parents compensatn OKd 1-16, sentncs issued 1-22, 35C2, G2 Lithuania riots erupt 1-16, 37D3 Iceland govt protested 1-21, 52G3 Russian activist (Ponomaryov) egged 3-11, 274A1 Cow genome deciphered 4-23—4-24, 516D1 Russia/Belarus imports ban set, lifted 6-9, 6-17, 423F2, A3–B3, E3 Nestle cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524D2 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557C1 US agri ‘10 funds pass Sen 8-4, 537F3–G3 Gongmeng founder (Xu) freed 8-23, 606E2 US ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761F1 N/S Korea aid offrd 10-26, 764A1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia 11-24, 885C2 China contaminators executed 11-24; civil suit opens 11-27, new case suspects held 12-8, 932E3 Obituaries Carasso, Daniel 5-17, 364B3

DAKAR Rally De Villiers wins 1-17, 104C1

DALAI Lama Govt ouster anniv Tibet holiday set 1-19, return urged 2-15, 116D2–E2 China/EU summit OKd 1-30, 98D2 Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set 2-20, 160G1 Ofcl history issued 3-2; marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, repressn end urge passes House 3-11, 171C3, 172D1, F1 S Africa entry blocked 3-23, 327E1 S Africa entry block scored 3-24, 325C3

1018 DALDRY— Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled/info hack seen 3-29—3-30, 342D1, F1 Hu sees France’s Sarkozy 4-1, 194A2 China/EU summit held 5-20, 448B2 Visits Taiwan, typhoon victims prayer svc held 8-30—9-1, 625B2 Visits US/Obama mtg delay mulled, gets Lantos award 10-5—10-6, 712B3 India/China border trip OKd, protested 10-22, visits 11-8—11-15, 806A2 Obama urges China talks 11-17, 795F2

DALDRY, Stephen Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40D2 Wins Tony 6-7, 399F3, 400E1

DALEY, George Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918D2

DALEY, Richard M. (Chicago, Ill. mayor, 1989- ; Democrat) Scores educ bd pres (Scott) suicide ruling 11-17, 816D3*

DALHOUSIE University (Canada) Ocean fisheries populatn woes rptd 7-31, 550F2

DALLAS (Tex.) Opera Steel named NYC Opera dir 1-22, 40E2

DALTON, Scott Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817E3

DALY, Bill Hails Coyotes buyout offer nix 9-30, 730D1

DALY, Cardinal Cahal (Brendan) (1917-2009) Dies 12-31, 955E1

DALY, Chuck (Charles Jerome) (1930-2009) Dies 5-9, 332G2

DALY, Tyne Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

DAMAGES (TV show) Close wins Emmy 9-20, 647D3, F3

DAMIANO, Jennifer Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2

DAMON, Johnny Among AL runs ldrs 10-6, 690E2 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752D1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770A3, C3 Johnson joins Yankees 12-18, 949B1

DAMON, Matt Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2 Invictus on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956E2

DAMS & Reservoirs China quake, dam seismic strain linked 2-6, 153G2 Rainstorm hits Indonesia 3-26; dam collapse kills 100+, Yudhoyono visits/maintenance woes cited 3-27—3-28, victim compensatn, search cont 3-29—4-1, 271G3 US ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305D2 US cybersecurity guidelines proposed 5-29, 410E3 Brazil/Paraguay power deal set 7-25, 508G2–A3 S Korea flash flood kills 6, bodies found 9-6—9-7, N Korea explanatn issued, scored 9-7, 600A2 Rep McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656C2 PI water released 10-8, 704E1 N/S Korea flood control talks held 10-14, 712E2 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis, signed 11-4—11-13, 887B2, F2 Power outages hit Brazil, Paraguay 11-10, 871F3

DANCE Diversity wins ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ 5-30, 383G3 Darling wins Tony 6-7, 399F3 Cunningham legacy trust set 6-9, 420G2 Rivera gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Obituaries Bausch, Pina 6-30, 468E2 Brown, Ernest 8-21, 612B3 Cunningham, Merce 7-26, 516B2; photo 516C2 Manning, Frankie 4-27, 300F3 Maximova, Ekaterina 4-28, 300G3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3

DANCE Flick (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

DANCING in Silks (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Sprint 11-7, 807E2

FACTS DANCING With the Stars (TV show) Nielsen rating 3-9, 212A2; 4-20, 316A2; 5-4, 5-19, 384A2; 9-21, 672A2; 10-26, 772A2; 11-23, 840A2

DANCY, Hugh Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

DANDALA, Bishop Mvume Pres bid set 2-20, 152A1–D1 On Zuma graft chrgs drop 4-6, 222B3 Loses pres electn 5-6, 325F1

DANESHJOO, Kamran Sharif Univ appearnc cut 9-29, 688C2

DANGER in a Red Dress (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212C1

DANIEL, Beth US wins Solheim Cup 8-23, 595F2

DANIELS, Jeff God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

DANIELS, Lee Push wins Sundance Festival awards 1-24, 104B2 Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

DANISH National Symphony Orchestra (Copenhagen) New home opens 1-17, 953E3

DANNATT, Gen. Sir Richard Scores Afghan troop levels 10-6, 673G2 Seeks Afghan troops hike 10-6, Tories role set 10-8, 685E3

DANNEHY, Nora Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias documts issued 8-11, 536A3

DANNENBERG, Konrad (1912-2009) Dies 2-16, 160B3

DANNER, Mark Alleges CIA terror detainees torture 3-15, 183C3

DANNY F II (Panamanian ship) Sinking kills 12+, survivors rescued 12-17—12-20, 943E2

DANONE SA, Groupe Carasso dies 5-17, 364B3

DANSBY, Karlos Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70D3

DANTICAT, Edwidge Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

D‘ANTONI, Mike Marbury released 2-24, 159D1

D‘ANTUONO, Maria Survives quake, rescued 4-6—4-7, 224A2

DANURI, Bambang Hendarso Claims Yudhoyono assassinatn foiled plot 8-8, 542B1 On terror suspect (Noordin) slaying 9-17, 643E3, G3–644A1 Denies drive-by shooting suspect (Antasari) framing 11-11, 786E2

DAR al-Hijrah Islamic Center (Falls Church, Va.) Tex mil base shooting hailed, gunman (Hasan)/imam ties questnd 11-9, 777E3–F3, 778A1

DARANEE Charncherngsilpakul Convctd, sentncd 9-19, 727B1–C1

DARBI, Ahmed alMil trial set 11-13, 794C1

DARFUR—See SUDAN D‘ARIENZO, Chris Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

DARK Horse (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

DARK Knight, The (film) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2 Ledger wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2 Ledger gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2 Ledger wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104A2* Oscars won 2-22, 120D1, C2

DARK Summer (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

DARLING, Alistair Denies RBS natlzn 1-19, 36C2 At G-20 finance mins mtg 3-13—3-14, 162D3 Unveils budget 4-22, 272E2–A3 At G-7 mtg 4-24, 284A3 Cont cabt post set 6-5, 397A2 Unveils budget, sets bank bonuses tax 12-9, 854D1, F1, D2

DARLING, Peter Wins Tony 6-7, 399F3

d‘ARNAUD, Travis Traded to Blue Jays 12-16, 948F3

DARRINGTON, Quentin Earl Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

DART, Tom Files Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ suit 3-5, 781D3

DARVISH, Yu Japan wins World Baseball Classic 3-23, 190B3–C3

DARWIN, Charles Robert (1809-82) Descendant (Padel) elected Oxford poetry prof 5-16, quits 5-25, 364C2

DARWISH, Mahmoud (1941-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

DAS, Kamala (1934-2009) Dies 5-31, 452F1

DASCHLE, Tom (Thomas A.) HHS secy confrmatn hearing held 1-8, 6F2 HHS secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-8, tax records probe cont 1-15, 17E2 Late taxes paymt rptd, regrets error 1-30—2-2; HHS secy nominatn backed 2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59A2, D2–E2, G2–B3 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79B3 Gov Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd, nominated 2-28—3-2, 129D1–E1 White House health care forum held 3-5, 146A1 Treasury secy (Geithner) defended 3-18, 162G2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, tax woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221D1

Da SILVA, Luiz Inacio Lula (Brazilian president, 2003- ) Hosts China’s Xi 2-19, 197F1–G1 Seeks US protectnism end 3-11, visits 3-14—3-16, 186B2 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3 Amazon reserve OKd 3-19, 447D2 At progressive ldrs summit 3-27, 204F3 Visits China 5-19, 448C2 Sets Paraguay dam power deal 7-25, 508F2, C3 At UNASUR summit 8-10, 541C3 Proposes deep-sea oil reserves dvpt limits 8-31, 926E1 Seeks Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) power return 9-23, 643C3 On Honduras emb threat 9-27, 662B1 Rio wins ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691F1 On power outages 11-11, 871G3 Hosts Palestine’s Abbas/Israel’s Peres/Iran’s Ahmadinejad 11-12—11-23; Obama sends letter 11-22, defends Ahmadinejad visit 11-23, 885F1–B2 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834C3 On Honduras govt recognitn 12-1, 834C2 At Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks, pol statemt set 12-18, 882F1

Das NEVES Sales, Rayfran Retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2

DASS, Sant Niranjan Hurt 5-24, 417E3

DASSIN, Jules (1911-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2

DASSIN, Lev Rpts CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn 3-2, 129D2–E2 On Madoff probe 3-10, 141D3

DASTGERDI, Marzieh Vadi Named health min 8-19, 562B2 Confrmd health min 9-3, 609B3

DATA.gov (Web site) Unveiled 5-21, 761E2

DATI, Rachida Replacemt (Alliot-Marie) named 6-23, 432F3

DATSYUK, Pavel Misses All-Star Game, suspended 1-25, protest filed 2-25, 159B2 Among NHL pts/assists/plus-minus ldrs 4-12, 299A3–C3 Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420F1 Wins Selke, Lady Byng Trophies 6-18, 435A3

DAUGHTRY (music group) Leave This Town on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

DAUNAY, Christelle 3d in NYC marathon 11-1, 791B3

DAUSSET, Jean Baptiste Gabriel Joachim (1916-2009) Dies 6-6, 452G1

ON FILE

DAVALOS, Alexa Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

DAVE & Buster’s Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554E1

DAVE Matthews Band (music group) Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

DAVID, Keith Coraline on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

DAVID Atlanta (magazine) Shut 11-16, 912E3

DAVID Garcia, Mario Atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6, 377E1

DAVIDSON,, Bill Shock sale set 10-20, 808B1

DAVIDSON, John Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

DAVIDSON (N.C.) College Curry in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

DAVIES, Glyn Warns Iran A-program progress 9-9, 599G1, F2

DAVIES, Howard Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3

DAVIES, Libby On parlt suspensn 12-30, 926C3

DAVIES, Sir Peter Maxwell Defrauder (Arnold) sentncd 11-2, 792E2

DAVIS, Angela Yvonne Walker dies 8-13, 596G3

DAVIS, Arthur (U.S. representative from Ala., 2003- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

DAVIS, David Sees terror suspect (Ahmed) ‘06 exit, Pak torture link 7-7, 544F2–G2

DAVIS, Eisa This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

DAVIS, Glenn (Woodward) (1924-2005) Blanchard dies 4-19, 280B3

DAVIS, Glenn (actor) Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

DAVIS, Gray Deficit cut deal passes legis, signed 2-19—2-20, 114D2

DAVIS, Hope God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1

DAVIS, James SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 147F3–148A1, D1 Stanford indictmt unsealed 6-19, 457D2 Pleads guilty 8-27, 814G1

DAVIS, Kristin Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

DAVIS, Judge Leonard Orders Microsoft word processor sales halt 8-11, 911F3–G3

DAVIS, Lincoln (U.S. representative from Tenn., 2003- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F1

DAVIS, Meryl Wins US champ 1-24, 139E2

DAVIS, Judge Michael Music piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782C1

DAVIS, Rajai Among AL steals ldrs 10-6, 690F2

DAVIS, Troy Evidnc hearing ordrd by Sup Ct 8-17, 553G1

DAVIS, Viola Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2

DAVIS, Vontae In NFL draft 4-25, 298F3

DAVIS Cup—See under TENNIS DAVIS-Thompson, Pauline Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, 950F3

DAVUTOGLU, Ahmet Visits Georgia 9-8, 607A2 Dogan fine mulled 9-16, 706D2 Signs Armenia diplomatic ties deal 10-10, 707A1, C1 On Israeli ties 10-11, 696F2 Scores Gaza war crimes 10-16, 755C1 On Iran uranium transfer deal proposal 12-24, 941F1

2009 Index DAVYDENKO, Nikolay Wins ATP World Tour Finals 11-29, 951C1

DAWKINS, Richard Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

DAWN Television (Pakistani TV station) Taliban ldr tape aired, doubted 10-5—10-6, 695B1

DAYANITHI, Velayutham Surrender rptd 4-22, 277A2

DAY Care—See under CHILDREN DAYE, Austin In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

DAY Lewis, Daniel ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2 Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

DAY ‘N’ Nite (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

DAYTONA 500—See AUTOMOBILE Racing DAY26 (music group) Forever in a Day on best-seller list 5-2, 316E1

DEAD and Gone (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

DEAD and Gone (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1

DEADLOCK (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

DEAD Until Dark (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532C1

DEAN, Bertram Frank (d. 1912) Daughter dies 5-31, 384F1

DEAN, Howard Successor (Kaine) named 1-8, 6B2 Party chair successor (Kaine) OKd 1-21, 62C2 Vs health care reform Sen bill 12-15, 864D1

DEAN, Millvina (Elisabeth Gladys) (1912-2009) Dies 5-31, 384F1

De ANGELIS, April Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

DEAN Koontz’s Frankenstein: Dead and Alive (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

DEARIE, Blossom Margrete (1924-2009) Dies 2-7, 88E3

DEAR John (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1

DEATH and the King’s Horseman (play) Opens in London 4-8, 255G3

DEATH Issues—See under MEDICINE DEATH Penalty—See CRIME—Capital Punishment DEATH Penalty Information Center US ‘09 executns rise rptd 12-17, 921A2

DEATH Row Records Sold 1-15, 104E2

DEATHS—Note: Persons whose deaths are recorded in Facts On File are listed alphabetically below. Abakarov, Abdurazak 6-5, 417D1 Abdullah, Luqman Ameen 10-28, 760F2 Abdurajack, Abdullah 8-19, 559A2 Addow, Ibrahim Hassan 12-3, 889F1 Adenhart, Nick 4-9, 277E3 Agha-Soltan, Neda 6-20, 422C1 Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2 Ahmed, Moinudin 10-22, 710E1 Ahmed, Said Tahlil 2-4, 66C3 Ahmed, Shakil (found) 2-27—2-28, 137B3 Akhmedilov, Malik (found) 8-11, 544E3 Aksyonov, Vasily P 7-6, 500C2 Albury, Charles D 5-23, 400B2 Alexander, Donald C 2-2, 104G2 Alfonsin, Raul 3-31, 212F1 Ali, Ben 10-7, 731G2 Ali, Qamar Aden 12-3, 889F1 Ali Said, Col 6-17, 430A2 Alkamatov, Alimsultan 9-27, 728C1 Allen, Betty 6-22, 500E2 Allingham, Henry W 7-18, 516A2 Almanza Morales, Ricardo 12-4, 928C3 Almeida, Juan 9-11, 648D1 Amerkhanov, Ruslan 8-12, 544D3 Amman, Pottu (found) 5-19, 334C1 Anderson, Robert W 2-9, 120F2 Ani, Omar Farouk al- 1-29, 53A3 Annakin, Ken 4-22, 300B3

—DEATHS Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1 Anthony, Charles (found) 5-19, 334D1 Aquino, Corazon C 8-1, 531G2; photo 531A3 Aranne, Ike 12-23, 954F3 Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Arguello, Alexis (found) 7-1, 468D2 Arneson, Dave 4-7, 256D2 Arouch, Salamo 4-26, 364G2 Arpad, Magyarosi 4-16, 294B1 Arthur, Bea 4-25, 300C3 Asadov, Hasan 8-9, 663A3 Asheton, Ron (found) 1-6, 24C3 Ashley, Sir Bernard 2-14, 160A3 Atkins, Susan 9-24, 672E1 Atuyev, Alimsultan 9-27, 728C1 Aushev, Bashir 6-13, 417E1 Aushev, Maksharip 10-25, 766E1 Baburova, Anastasia 1-19, 36E2 Bach, Steven 3-25, 256E2 Bacon, Kenneth H 8-15, 648F1 Bagus Budi Pranato 9-17, 644D1 Ballard, JG 4-19, 280G2 Baloch, Ghulan Mohammad (found) 4-9, 276E3 Barker, Bernard L 6-5, 400C2 Barnich, Terrence 5-25, 362D3 Barry, Gene 12-9, 896F1 Batten Sr, Frank 9-10, 648G1 Bausch, Pina 6-30, 468E2 Beck, Hans 1-30, 104A3 Beer, Samuel H 4-7, 280A3 Behrens, Hildegard 8-18, 596G1 Bell, Griffin B 1-5, 9C3 Bellmon, Henry L 9-29, 731A3 Bellows, James G 3-6, 192E1 Bellson, Louie 2-14, 140F1 Beltran Leyva, Arturo 12-16, 928A2 Benedetti, Mario 5-17, 364A3 Bennett, Estelle (found) 2-11, 120A3 Bernard, Lance Cpl Joshua 8-14, 621B3 Bernstein, Peter L 6-5, 420A3 Berri, Claude 1-12, 40F2 Bin Laden, Saad (rptd) 7-22, 514F2 Blair, Betsy 3-13, 192F1 Blanchard, Doc 4-19, 280B3 Boal, Augusto 5-2, 332F2 Bogle, Bob 6-14, 420B3 Bohr, Aage 9-8, 632E2 Bond Jr, J Max 2-18, 192G1 Bongo, El Hadj Omar 6-8, 393A3 Bongo Ondimba, Edith Lucie 3-14, 393B3 Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2 Bostanov, Ismail 9-20, 728F1 Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Brand, Myles N 9-16, 648B2 Bridges, Campbell 8-11, 922C3 Brinegar, Claude S 3-13, 192A2 Brinker, Norman E 6-9, 420C3 Brisman, Julissa 4-14, 429B2 Brown, Anne W 3-13, 192B2 Brown, Ernest 8-21, 612B3 Brown, James F 11-16, 896A2 Browne, Ray B 10-22, 792B3 Brutus, Dennis 12-26, 954G3 Bussi, Hortensia 6-18, 451F3 Cabral, Luis 5-30, 400E2 Caldera, Rafael 12-24, 955B1 Calisher, Hortense 1-13, 56E1 Canizares, Gabriel 11-8, 819D3 Carasso, Daniel 5-17, 364B3 Carazo, Rodrigo 12-9, 955D1 Cardiff, Jack 4-22, 300D3 Carradine, David (found) 6-4, 400G2 Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 Casssin, Riccardo 8-6, 564G2 Chambers, Marilyn (found) 4-12, 256G2 Chapin, Schuyler G 3-7, 192C2 Chaplin, Sydney 3-3, 192D2 Chavez, Esther 12-25, 955E1 Cheng, Nien 11-2, 824D3 Cintron, Conchita 2-17, 140E2 Clancy, Liam 12-4, 896B2 Clemmons, Maurice 12-1, 888A2 Close, William T 1-15, 104A3 Cohen, Jerry 8-5, 580F2 Cohn, Sam 5-6, 332G2 Colescott, Robert H 6-4, 420D3 Collett, Alec (rptd) 11-23, 877F3 Compagnoni, Achille 5-13, 364C3 Connor, Chris 8-29, 612C3 Cooley, Earl E 11-9, 860B3 Cooper, Leroy 1-15, 71F3 Corbett, Joe (found) 8-24, 792A3 Cordova, Melquisedet Angulo 12-16, 928E2 Cover, Jack 2-7, 120B3 Cowles, Fleur 6-5, 420E3 Crawford, Hank 1-29, 71E3 Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500F2; photo 500A3 Crow, Trammell 1-14, 56F1 Cuba, Joe 2-15, 160B3 Cuellar, Luis Francisco (found) 12-22, 927C2 Cunningham, Merce 7-26, 516B2; photo 516C2 Dabo, Baciro 6-5, 458E3 Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 451G3 Daly, Cardinal Cahal 12-31, 955E1 Daly, Chuck 5-9, 332G2

Dannenberg, Konrad 2-16, 160B3 Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Dausset, Jean 6-6, 452G1 Dean, Millvina 5-31, 384F1 Dearie, Bossom 2-7, 88E3 DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 De Larrocha, Alicia 9-25, 672F1 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Des Forges, Alison 2-12, 95A3 Dia, Mamadou 1-25, 71F3 DiMaggio, Dom 5-8, 332C3 Disney, Roy E 12-16, 896C2 Donald, David H 5-13, 364C3 Downes, Sir Edward 7-10, 516F2 Downes, Joan 7-10, 516G2 Dreyfus Jr, Jack J 3-27, 231D3 Druon, Maurice 4-14, 280C3 Duckworth, Ruth 10-18, 772E1 Dudin, Abed al-Majid 5-28, 380G3 Dunakin, Sgt Mark 3-21, 246G3 Dunlap, Max 7-21, 648D2 Dunne, Dominick 8-26, 580G2 Dwyer, Michael Martin 4-16, 294B1 Dzhabrailov, Alik (found) 8-11, 544A3 Dzhaniyev, Batyr 12-17, 938F3 Eckert, Beverly 2-12, 95G2 Edelman, Marek 10-2, 692B2 Eikerenkoetter II, Frederick J (Rev Ike) 7-29, 531E3 Elon, Amos 5-25, 384G1 Endara, Guillermo 9-28, 672E2 Englaro, Eluana 2-9, 117C1 Enke, Robert 11-10, 949E3 Erickson, Arthur C 5-20, 384F2 Escalona, Rafael 5-13, 364D3 Estemirova, Natalya (found) 7-15, 497B1 Fanthorpe, U A 4-28, 316G2 Farmer, Philip J 2-25, 192E2 Fattahian, Ehsan 11-11, 857A2 Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436D3 Fawehinmi, Gani 9-5, 612D3 Fehn, Sverre 2-23, 176B3 Feoktistov, Konstantin P 11-21, 860C3 Ferrante, Art 9-19, 708A3 Fidrych, Mark (found) 4-13, 256B3 Fisher, Donald G 9-27, 708B3 Flanagan, Barry 8-31, 648E2 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Forrest, Vernon 7-25, 531F3 Foss, Lukas 2-1, 72E1 Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Freedberg, A Stone 8-25, 955F1 Freeman, Betty 1-3, 56G1 French, Marilyn 5-2, 332D3 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 Friedman, Rose 8-18, 580C3 Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3 Fuller, Millard D 2-3, 72F1 Furchgott, Robert F 5-19, 384G2 Gadirov, Farda 4-30, 377A3 Gaidar, Yegor T 12-16, 880F1 Gans, Danny 5-1, 384E3 Gatti, Arturo (found) 7-11, 500C3 Gayatri, Devi 7-29, 531D3 Gazgireyeva, Aza 6-10, 417E1 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Gelfand, Israel M 10-5, 731B3 Geng Jinping 11-24, 932E3 George, Lord (Eddie) 4-18, 280D3 Getsy, Jason 8-18, 553E2 Gibson, Henry 9-14, 708D3 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Godber, Sir George 2-7, 160C3 Goldsmith, Edward 8-21, 648E2 Goody, Jade 3-22, 192G2 Gorelkin, Alexander 3-5, 274D1 Gottschalk, Alfred 9-12, 648F2 Granger, Clive WJ 5-27, 384F3 Grant, Dew 7-11, 542E2 Grant, Oscar 1-1, 247C1 Gray, Harry J 7-8, 516A3 Green, Archie 3-22, 231E3 Greenwich, Ellie 8-26, 596F2 Gwathmey, Charles 8-3, 531G3 Hafez, Amin al- 7-13, 955A2 Hafez, Amin el- 12-17, 955A2 Hakim, Abdul Aziz al- 8-26, 592B1 Halprin, Lawrence 10-25, 792D3 Haney, Paul P 5-28, 400A3 Hansen, Clifford P 10-20, 772F1 Harris, E Lynn 7-23, 532F1 Hart, John 9-20, 731C3 Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3 Hassan, Maulawi 3-23, 195A3 Hawkins, Paula 12-4, 880A2 Hege, Ofcr John 3-24, 246G3 Henderson, Sir Nicholas 3-16, 192A3 Henrich, Tommy 12-1, 880A2 Henry, Chris 12-17, 948E1 Hewitt, Don 8-19, 564A3 Hingle, Pat 1-3, 104C3 Hoare, Darren 8-9, 545G2 Holzer, Hans 4-26, 332E3 Houston, Charles S 9-27, 731D3 Hout, Shafiq al- 8-2, 548C3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Hughes, John 8-6, 548D3 Hughes, Nicholas 3-16, 192B1 Hunt, Guy 1-30, 72E2 Hunt, Waldo H 11-6, 860D3

1019

Husaini, Haitham Kadhim al- 1-16, 38C1 Hutchins, Carleen 8-7, 580D3 Interior, Lux 2-4, 120C3 Isham, Heyward 6-18, 452E2 Israilov, Umar 1-13, 36B3 Ivankov, Vyacheslav 10-9, 788F2 Ivans, Jeffrey Ronald 9-27, 682A1 Jaburi, Ahmed Fatthi al- 2-11, 101B2 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436A1; photo 436A3 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 Jagan, Janet 3-31, 212E2 Jahmi, Fathi al- 5-21, 358G3 Jaki, Stanley L 4-7, 256C3 Jalolov, Najmiddin Kamolitdinovich 9-14, 670D1 Jameson, Betty 1-31, 88F3 Jarre, Maurice 3-28, 212G2 Jassim, Gen Hakeem 5-9, 331E2 Javacheff, Jeanne-Claude 11-18, 824E3 Johansson, Ingemar 1-30, 88G3 Johns, Stephen 6-10, 392B1 Jois, Pattabhi 5-18, 420F3 Jones, Jack 4-21, 300E3 Jones, Jennifer 12-17, 896F2 Kadyraliev, Sanjar 4-14, 269G1 Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Kalmanovitz, Shabti 11-2, 766D3 Kaplan, Stanley H. 8-23, 596G2 Kaplicky, Jan 1-14, 56A2 Kashmiri, Ilyas 9-7, 670E1 Kastigar, Troy (rptd) 9-11, 781D1 Katzir, Ephraim 5-30, 384G3 Kaufman, Millard 3-14, 192A3 Kazemi, Sahel (found) 7-4, 467B3 Kaziakhmedov, Seyfudin 5-21, 378E3 Keka, Aleksander 6-18, 511B3 Kell, George 3-24, 212F3 Kellerman, David (found) 4-22, 264B2 Kelton, Elmer S 8-22, 612D3 Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316F3 Kendall, Gordon Douglas 9-27, 682A1 Kennedy, Edward M 8-25, 569A2; photos 569F3, 570A1 Kennedy, Sir Ludovic 10-18, 752B3 Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452F2 Khan, Sarafaraz 12-27, 947G1 Khutorskoi, Ivan 11-16, 822E1 Kim, Cardinal 2-16, 140F3 Kimbro, Warren A 2-3, 104D3 Kim Dae Jung 8-18, 564B3 King, Allan 6-15, 452E3 Kingara, Oscar Kamau 3-5, 203C1 Kini, Usama al- 1-1, 38B3 Kiraly, Bela K 7-4, 516B3 Kirchner, Leon 9-17, 708E3 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 Klein, Allen 7-4, 516D3 Klein, Herbert G 7-2, 468F2 Knight, Marie 8-30, 632B3 Knopf Jr, Alfred A 2-14, 160C3 Kolakowski, Leszek 7-17, 516E3 Kolff, Willem J 2-11, 120C3 Kotovskaya, Olga 11-16, 893B1 Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 Krebs, Edwin G 12-21, 955B2 Kretschmer, Tim 3-11, 154A3 Kristol, Irving 9-18, 648G2 Krug, Judith 4-11, 256D3 Kunzel, Erich 9-1, 648B3 Lacedelli, Lino 11-20, 880B2 Laghi, Cardinal Pio 1-10, 56B2 Laghmani, Abdullah 9-2, 594E2 Lambsdorff, Count Otto 12-5, 896G2 Landon, H C Robbins 11-20, 880C2 Lang, Michelle 12-30, 899B3 La Rue, Danny 5-31, 400B3 Laugerud, Kjell 12-9, 955B2 Lawrence, Andrea Mead 3-30, 256D3 Lawrence, Jack 3-15, 192B3 Le, Annie (found) 9-13, 920B1 Lederer Jr, William J 12-5, 955C2 Lee Hu Rak 10-31, 955D2 Lefever, Ernest W 7-29, 532G1 Legget, Chris 6-23, 493E1 Lemacon, Florent 4-10, 238D2 Lenotre, Gaston 1-8, 40F2 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Levine, David 12-29, 955E2 Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1; photo 772F2 Levitt, Helen 3-29, 212G3 Libi, Ibn al-Shaykh al- (rptd) 5-10, 331G1 Lilly, Ruth 12-30, 955F2 Livingston, Alan W 3-13, 192C3 Li Zhongren 11-20, 888D2 Lopez, Orlando (Cachaito) 2-9, 104E3 Lord, James 8-23, 672G2 Low, Frank J 6-11, 452F3 Luhaibi, Hassan Zaidan al- 1-18, 38D1 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3 MacGinnis, Marc C 6-2, 955G2 Macias, Raul 3-23, 231F3 MacLachlan, Alan (found) 9-2, 941D3 Maddox, Sir John 4-12, 280F3 Magnitsky, Sergei 11-16, 821E3 Magomedtagirov, Adilgrirey 6-5, 417C1 Makarezos, Nikolaos 8-3o, 564C3 Makmudov, Shaukat 8-29, 663F2 Maksuodv, Maksud 9-11, 728A2 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468G2

1020 DeBAKEY— Malik, Abdul 11-8, 807B1 Maloof, Sam 5-21, 400C3 Mammedov, Novruzali 8-17, 607D1 Maneri, Joe 8-24, 752C3 Manning, Frankie 4-27, 300F3 Mansur, Mullah (claimed) 6-2, 381D3 Markelov, Stanislav 1-19, 36E2 Martin, Dewey (found) 2-1, 120E3 Martino, Al 10-13, 752D3 Martyn, John 1-29, 104F3 Maw, Nicholas 5-19, 364F3 Maximova, Ekaterina 4-28, 300G3 May, Ernest R 6-1, 420G3 Mays, Billy 6-28, 955A3 McAfee, George A 3-4, 192D3 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 McDonald, Wesley L 2-8, 160D3 McGoohan, Patrick J 1-13, 40G2 McGuigan, Paul 8-9, 545G2 McLendon, Michael 3-10, 149C1 McMahon, Ed 6-23, 436F3 McMillan, Jeanice 6-22, 429A1 McNair, Steve (found) 7-4, 467A3 McNamara, Robert 7-6, 468C3; photo 468E3 Medhat, Kamal 3-23, 211E1 Melnick, Daniel 10-13, 772F3 Melton, Frank 5-7, 306D3 Mercado Jr, Ralph 3-10, 192E3 Merckle, Adolf 1-5, 8F1 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Miller Jr, Herbert J 11-14, 860F3 Mixon, Lovelle 3-21, 246F3 Mizzy, Vic 10-17, 752D3 Mohammad-Zadeh, Rajab Ali 10-18, 729E1 Mohamud, Omar 9-17, 781B1 Mohn, Reinhard 10-3, 731E3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672G2 Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24D3 Montazeri, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali 12-20, 883B2 Montes Parra, Margarito 11-27, 928E3 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Morgan Jr, Charles 1-8, 40B3 Morris, Jeremy N 10-28, 880D2 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 Motwani, Rajeev (found) 6-5, 452G3 Moussavi, Ali 12-27, 940G2 Msika, Joseph 8-5, 588C3 Muhammad, John Allen 11-10, 780C2 Muhammad Hussein Addow 6-19, 430A2 Muktar, Ustadz 9-21, 819B3 Munadi, Sultan 9-9, 611D3 Murphy, Britanny 12-20, 896C3 Musa, Khalil 4-14, 377A1 Musa, Marjorie 4-14, 377A1 Musa, Ridwan 11-3, 819C3 Nabhan, Saleh Ali Saleh 9-14, 622A2 Nadesan, Balasingham (found) 5-19, 334C1 Naeemi, Sarfraz Ahmed 6-12, 418D2 Naess, Arne 1-12, 56D2 Nakagawa, Shoichi (found) 10-4, 955B3 Nand, Sant Rama 5-24, 417E3 Nelson, Jack 10-21, 752E3 Neuhaus, Richard J 1-8, 24F3 Newman, David (Fathead) 1-20, 56D2 Nielsen, Jerri 6-23, 484D3 Nimeiry, Gafaar 5-20, 400C3 Niweigha, Ken 5-27, 358C3 Niyonguruza, Gen Juvenal 9-17, 622A3 Nolan, Christopher J 2-20, 160E3 Noordin Muhamad Top 9-17, 643E3 Norse, Harold 6-8, 484E3 Novak, Robert D 8-18, 564D3 Obaidi, Harith al- 6-12, 433C2 O’Brien, Vincent 6-1, 400E3 O’Horgan, Tom 1-11, 56E2 Omar Hashi Aden 6-18, 430G1 Oulu, Paul 3-5, 203C1 Pang, Danny 9-12, 814F1 Patch, Harry 7-25, 516F3 Paul, Les 8-13, 564F3 Pavic, Milorad 11-30, 955C3 Pavle, Patriarch 11-15, 822C2 Pearson, James B 1-13, 56F2 Peek, Kim 12-19, 955C3 Pell, Claiborne 1-1, 9D3 Penn, Irving 10-7, 692D2 Penner, Mike 11-27, 880E2 Perle, George 1-23, 72F2 Phair, Venetia 4-30, 332F3 Picower, Jeffrey 10-25, 800A2 Pinelli, Tullio 3-7, 192E3 Planchon, Roger 5-12, 400E3 Pohlad, Carl R 1-5, 40C3 Poirier, Richard 8-15, 612F3 Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 Ponseti, Ignacio 10-18, 772G3 Pourandarjani, Dr Ramin 11-10, 857B2 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Prabhakaran, Vellupillai (rptd) 5-18, 333A1 Presnell, Harve 6-30, 500F3 Price, Sol 12-14, 896D3 Proenca, Helder 6-5, 458F3 Prudetsky, Gennady 12-10, 939F1 Purdy, James 3-13, 176B3 Qasab, Sher Muhammad 9-20, 670A1 Qati, Matiullah 6-29, 466C2

FACTS Rattealo, Markus 7-12, 542F2 Renslow, Capt Marvin 2-12, 95F2 Rhone, Trevor 9-15, 692E2 Richard, Wendy 2-26, 192F3 Richardson, Natasha 3-18, 176C3 Roberts, Ken 6-19, 500G3 Roberts, Oral 12-15, 880G2 Robson, Sir Bobby 7-31, 564G3 Rocher, Yves 12-26, 955D3 Rogallo, Francis M 9-1, 648D3 Rogers, Lorene L 1-11, 56G2 Roh Moo Hyun 5-23, 360A3 Romans, Sgt Ervin 3-21, 247A1 Ronis, Willy 9-12, 708E3 Rosen, Louis 8-20, 648D3 Rosenberg Marzano, Rodrigo 5-10, 376F3 Rozsa Flores, Jorge Eduardo 4-16, 294B1 Ruby, Lloyd 3-23, 231G3 Ruholamini, Mohsen 8-31, 610E1 Russell, George A 7-27, 532F2 Rzayev, Gen Rail 2-11, 206A3 Sadulayeva, Zarema (found) 8-11, 544A3 Sadydrkulov, Medet 3-13, 172G1 Safire, William 9-27, 672F3 Safwat, Samir 2-18, 101C2 Sakai, Sgt Daniel 3-21, 247A1 Sales, Soupy 10-22, 752F3 Salih, Muhammed Ahmad Abdallah 6-1, 374B2 Salih, Tayeb 2-28, 176F3 Samak Sundaravej 11-24, 880C3 Samuelson, Paul A 12-13, 880D3; photo 880F3 Saulnier, Raymond J 4-30, 348C3 Schneer, Charles H 1-21, 72E3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532G2 Scott, Michael (found) 11-16, 816C3 Seals, Dan 3-25, 256E3 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 4-12, 280G3 Seeger, Mike 8-7, 792E3 Segal, Sheldon J 10-17, 792F3 Seidman, L William 5-13, 348D3 Senger, Craig 7-17, 494G2 Serikov, Yermek 8-11, 576A3 Shaikh, Akmal 12-29, 932B3 Shank, Bud 4-2, 256F3 Sharabi, Abdul Karim al- 2-12, 101B2 Sharrer, Honore D 4-17, 348E3 Shaw, Jack (found) 7-28, 504C1 Shepherd Jr, Mark 2-4, 120F3 Shepiyev, Gilani 2-5, 85A2 Sheppard, Darcy 8-31, 927B2 Sherbini, Marwa el- 7-1, 482G2 Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 Shirnagha, Mohammad Younus 12-23, 899F3 Shoushtari, Gen Nour Ali 10-18, 729E1 Shriver, Eunice Kennedy 8-11, 548F3 Shubin, Lester D 11-20, 896E3 Shulman, Julius 7-15, 532F3 Siam, Said 1-15, 13E1 Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3 Sims, Naomi 8-1, 532G3 Sizer, Theodore R 10-21, 840G2 Snodgrass, W D 1-13, 40D3 Soderstorm, Elisabeth 11-20, 896E3 Sodini, George 8-4, 554A2 Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Soosai (found) 5-19, 334C1 Sosa, Mercedes 10-4, 692F2 Sparkman, Bill (found) 9-12, 722C1 Spero, Nancy 10-18, 824G3 Sprinkel, Beryl W 8-22, 596F3 Stanczak, Piotr (confrmd) 2-9, 103A2 Storm, Gale 6-27, 484F3 Sugden, Mollie 7-1, 484G3 Sultan, Larry 12-13, 955E3 Sutton, Crystal Lee 9-11, 708G3 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3 Swedan, Sheikh Ahmed Salim 1-1, 38C3 Sysoyev, Daniil 11-19, 822C1 Tagayev, Akhmed 5-25, 378D3 Tagme Na Waie, Gen Batista 3-1, 133A3 Taton, Brice 9-29, 687F2 Tavel, Ronald 3-23, 956F1 Taylor, Koko 6-3, 400F3 Tello Quinones, Gen Mauro Enrique (found) 2-3, 97E2 Termije, Abu 11-20, 819E3 Thorneloe, Col Rupert 7-1, 466E1 Tiamzon-Mangudadatu, Genalyn 11-23, 819E3 Tiller, George 5-31, 370A2 Tisdale, Wayman L 5-15, 348F3 Tochiev, Isa 6-3, 417A2 Todd, Richard 12-3, 896F3 Tomlinson, Ian 4-1, 253G2 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56G2 Travers, Mary 9-16, 632F3 Tshabalala-Msimang, Mmanto 12-16, 956G1 Tsvangirai, Susan 3-6, 152F1 Unruh, Howard B 10-19, 752G3 Updike, John 1-27, 56B3; photo 56B3 Upward, Edward F 2-13, 160F3 Urgurchiev, Timur 6-5, 417G1

Usman, Zill-e- 7-16, 514C3 Van Bruggen, Coosje 1-10, 56F3 Van Es, Hubert 5-15, 348G3 Varennikov, Valentin I 5-6, 332G3 Venkataraman, Ramaswany 1-27, 56G3 Vieira, Joao Bernardo 3-2, 133A3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3 Waayeel, Ahmed Abdulahi 12-3, 889F1 Wahid, Abdurrahman 12-30, 956E2 Waldie, Jerome R 4-3, 256G3 Walker, Doris B 8-13, 596G3 Walters, Sir Alan 1-3, 40E3 Wasserstein, Bruce J 10-14, 731F3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Wendkos, Paul 11-12, 956F2 Werber, Bill 1-22, 104G3 Wexler, Anne 8-7, 580G3 Whitcomb, Richard T 10-13, 860G3 Whitmore, James 2-6, 120G3 Wickramatunga, Lasantha 1-8, 9G2 Wilkey, Malcolm R 8-15, 648F3 Willoughby, Bob 12-18, 956G2 Wilson, Charis 11-20, 956E3 Wilson, Margaret Bush 8-11, 612G3 Wilson, William A 12-5, 956F3 Wiseman, Joseph 10-19, 792G3 Wisum, Bosco 9-30, 723F2 Wolfe, Cmdr Duane 5-25, 362D3 Wong, Jiverly 4-3, 246D2 Woodward, Edward 11-16, 840F3 Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40F3 Yamadayev, Sulim 3-28, 273F2 Yang, Jerry 2-5, 160G3 Yang Xianyi 11-23, 956G3 Yaroshenko, Vyacheslav 6-29, 497E2 Yevstratikov, Boris 11-27, 836A2 York, Herbert F 5-19, 400G3 Yow, Kay 1-24, 72G3 Yusuf, Mohammed (rptd) 7-31, 525D2 Zhang Yujun 11-24, 932E3 Zieff, Howard 2-22, 192G3

DeBAKEY, Dr. Michael Ellis (Michel Deabaghi) (1908-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

De BEERS Group Worldwide diamond mkt recovery seen 10-19, 722D2

De BENEDETTI, Carlo Fininvest ‘91 bribery found, paymt ordrd 10-3, 687F1

De BOER, Yvo At climate chng conf 6-1—6-12, 405D2

DeBRUM, Tony Tomeing loses confidnc vote 10-21, 787B1

DEBT, Foreign Latvia premr (Godmanis), cabt quits 2-20, 117G1 Dubai debt buy set 2-22, 829A1 Zimbabwe’s Biti sees African Dvpt Bank pres 2-26, 153D1 US limit hike passes House 4-29, 713D2 US debt surpasses $11 trln 5-16, 371F2 US limit hike urged 8-7; rise rptd 9-30, reductn measures sought 10-19, 713C2 US debt tallied 8-25, 570F3 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3–777A1 US’s Obama visits China 11-15—11-18, 795G2–A3 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought, buy set 11-25; mkts drop/recover 11-26—12-2, guarantee nixed, restructuring plan unveiled 11-30, 828C3, 829C1, D2; photo 829E1 Greece credit watch set, rating cut 12-7—12-8, Spain warning issued 12-9, 855F3, 856A1–B1, D1 Econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 873B1 US limit hike passes House 12-16, 866E2–F2 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885A3–D3 Greek rating cut 12-22, ‘10 budget passes parlt 12-24, 938A1 US comm proposal backing sought, limit hike clears Sen/signed 12-24—12-28, 906G3, 907B1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907B1

De CAMP, Lt. Col. Philip Spain/Iraq rptr slaying chrgs reinstated 5-21, 344F3

DeCARAVA, Roy Rudolph (1919-2009) Dies 10-27, 771G3

De CHIRICO, Giorgio (1888-1978) Ghost fetches 11 mln euros 2-23, 160C1

DECHY, Nathalie Loses Australian Open mixed doubles 2-1, 71A2

DEE, Henry Hezekiah Slayer (Seale) appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-2, 886D3

ON FILE

DEEDS, Creigh Wins Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391D1–E1, A2 McDonnell coll thesis rptd 8-30; in gov debate held 10-12, Clinton stumps 10-20, 716E3–717B1, D1 Loses Va gov electn 11-3, 755D2, D3–E3

DEEP Impact (U.S. spacecraft) Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697D3

DEER—See WILDLIFE DEFENDERS of Human Rights Center Ebadi named Iran rptr (Saberi) atty 4-20, 275C1

DEFENSE, U.S. Department of—See also specific branches of service Accidents & Disasters F-22 fighter jet crash kills 1 3-25, 266B3 African Developments Somali pirates US ship hijacking fails 4-8, plan mulled 4-13, 237C2, 238F2 Saudi High Comm, Somali warlord arms linked 6-24, 491E3 Appointments & Resignations Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, dep secy nominee (Lynn) Sen confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29E1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286A2 Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted/mil career end seen, McChrystal named 5-11, 317A1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381D1, A2–C2 Dep asst secy (Carter) quits 11-20, 914E1 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments China talks held 2-27—2-28; surveillnc ships harassmt alleged, protested 3-4—3-9, Impeccable locatn mulled, destroyer sent 3-10—3-12, 153G1, C2, F2 China mil annual rpt issued 3-25, 251D1–E1, G1 N Korea satellite launch interfernc plans denied 3-29, rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, 215E1, A3 Pak tribal areas mil offensives hailed 4-29, 298C2 N Korea missile launch curbs set 6-18, 462C3 Afghan air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434D2–E2 China mil talks held 6-23—6-24, 481E3 Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499A2 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2 PI Islamic militants combat cont aid OKd 8-21, 819C2 Afghan troop levels mulled 9-1, emb security control urged, civiln contractors tallied 9-2, 594E1, A3, C3 Afghan dying troop/AP photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621A3 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635E3 Afghan troops hike request mulled 9-27, 669B1 Afghan ltd missn debated, Qaeda threat mulled 10-5, 673D2 Gates backs Pak tribal areas mil operatn 10-20, 709D2 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-20, 711A1 Gates visits Japan 10-20—10-21, 747D2 Gates visits S Korea 10-21—10-22, 712A3 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-23, 751E2 Bin Laden ‘01 escape rptd 11-30, Gates visits Afghan 12-8, 844B3, 845B1 Bases, Military Kyrgyz pres staff chief (Sadyrkulov) quits 1-9, 172B2 Kyrgyz base closure seen, regretted 2-3—2-5, alternate locatns mulled 2-4, 58D3, 59C1 Kyrgyz base closure mulled 2-7—2-8, 74E2 Kyrgyz mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, Russia oppositn rptd, denied 6-24—6-25, 440C3 Venez/Colombia ties mulled 7-21, 526G2 Russia/Kyrgyz base deal signed 8-1, 534D3 Colombia use mulled 8-10, 541A3–E3 Kuwait attack plot suspects held 8-11, 943C2 Colombia bases use provisional deal set, plans scored 8-18—8-28, 589B2 Ecuador base exited 9-18, 682B2 Marine base attack plot suspects chrgd 9-24, 679B1 Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652D2 Disney museum opens 10-1, 953B3 Japan site relocatn plan mulled 10-20—10-25, 747D2 Colombia access deal defended, signed 10-27—10-30, 817A3 Ft Hood shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1, E2; photo 757A3

2009 Index Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled, intell probe sought/’07 speech rptd 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777A2, E3 Japan deal working group mulled 11-13—11-16, 795C1 Ft Hood shooting probe set/Ham named ldr, Sen com hearings open 11-19—11-23; Hasan confinemt ordrd/cont hosp stay OKd, paralysis rptd 11-20—11-22, imam e-mails mulled 11-21, 812A3, 813A1, E1 Ft Hood shooting suspect (Hasan) chrgs hiked 12-2, 915D1 Budget & Spending Programs Fscl ‘10 proposal issued, scored 4-6—4-7, 217C1, C2 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242E1–G1 Iraq/Afghan mil clinics, pvt contractors reimbursemt woes rptd 5-4, 412A1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320F2, A3, G3, 321A1, E2 Mil constructn ‘10 funds pass House 6-23, 489E2, G2 ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489A3, E3 F-22s buy authrzn backed/cost questnd, nixed by Sen 6-25—7-21, F-35 engine chng nixed by Sen 7-23, 489F3, 490C1 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523G2 ‘10 funds pass Sen 10-6, 701A2 ‘10 authrzn passes House 10-8, 700D3, 701C1 ‘10 authrzn clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742A3 ‘10 authrzn signed 10-28, 794D1 Mil constructn ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815A2 ‘10 mil constructn funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866E3 ‘10 funds pass House 12-16, 866B2, A3 ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886A2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907D1 Contract & Billing Issues ‘08 cost overruns rptd 3-30, 217A2–B2 Arms procuremt reforms pass Cong 5-7—5-13; deal OKd 5-19, bill cleared, signed 5-20—5-22, 354E3 Lockheed pres copters deal ends 5-16, 411G3 Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615E3 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805D1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing cleared 1-16, probe questnd 1-17, 242B2 Propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing probe rpt revoked 5-5, 324A2 Propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing upheld 7-21, 721A2 War rptrs profiling seen, Rendon contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721A1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Sci (Nozette) leaves US/returns, pleads guilty 1-6—1-8; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3, 761B1 European Developments Gates visits Turkey 7-29, 501B2 Georgia troops training aid set 8-14, 560C1–D1 Iraqi Developments Troops exit plan mulled 1-14, 23B2 ‘03 invasn rpt Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3 Troop electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27, 530A2 Gates visits, troops exit hike seen 7-28—7-29, 501B2 Parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729D2 Gates visits 12-10, 856D2 Latin Developments Mex border drug smuggling troops plan mulled 4-25, 359F2 Middle East Developments Israeli/Iran A-program raid oppositn rptd 1-20, 75F1 Iran A-bomb dvpt capabilities doubted 3-1, 174F1 Gates visits Israel, Iran direct talks offer mulled 7-27, 530E2 Iran A-program mil strike mulled 9-25, 649D1 Iran A-program cont sanctns seen 12-11, missile test mulled 12-16, 876A3–B3 Obituaries Bacon, Kenneth H 8-15, 648F1 McNamara, Robert 7-6, 468C3; photo 468E3 York, Herbert F 5-19, 400G3 Personnel Issues Post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245B1 Slain troops coffin media ban review ordrd 2-11, 79C2

—De GAULLE 1021 War dead coffin return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132A1 Fscl ‘08 sex assaults rise seen 3-17, 267A1 Vets electronic med records set 4-9, 244C3 Mental health probe vowed 5-11, 330F2 Army troops hike set 7-20, 491B2–C2 Gay troops policy questnd, repeal urged 9-30, 699D2 Fscl ‘09 successful recruiting goals rptd 10-13, 720F2 White House crashers e-mails rptd 11-30—12-2, 830C1 Security Issues—For Pentagon terrorist attack, see under WASHINGTON, D.C. ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G1, 12A1–B1 Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28F3 Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20E2 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) treatmt defended 1-13, abuse confrmd 1-14, 20E1–F1, B2–C2 Cuba base cont detentns support polled 1-13—1-16, detainees transferred 1-17, 28C2, E3 Cuba base ex-detainees terror return rptd, claims doubted 1-13—1-15, 166D1 Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release ordrd 1-14, 20F2–G2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16E3 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 Cuba base detainee hearings halted 1-20; Cong briefed 1-21, prison closure ordrd 1-22, 28G1, A3–B3 Cuba base ex-detainees Al Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, Saudi terror suspects list issued 2-3, 119A1, C1–D1 Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64C1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46C3 Cuba base detainees Canadian resetlmt sought 2-3, China oppositn set, Eur warning rptd 2-5, 63D3–E3 Cuba base detainees resetlmt EU aid seen, backed 2-3—2-4, 64A1–B1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, 80E2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs dropped 2-6, 80D3–E3 Obama sees terror attacks victims families 2-6, 80C3 Cuba base ex-detainees Iraq detentn rptd 2-17, 101D3 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112E1 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued, questnd 2-20, Olson named task force ldr, Holder visits 2-20—2-23, 112C3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A2 Cuba base ex-detainees French convctns nixed 2-24; UK renditns aid admitted 2-26, interrogatn abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150F1–F2, F3 Cuba base detainees Spain transfer mulled 2-24, 165G3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129G3 Cuba base detainees claim 9/11 role 3-10, 244A3–C3 Cuba base mil prison closure ofcl (Fried) named 3-12; ‘enemy combatant’ term dropped, Obama policy quesntd 3-13—3-14, detainee transfers mulled 3-13—3-16, 165G2–B3, E3–166A1, G1 Obama antiterror policies questnd 3-15, 166D2 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15, 183A3 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200C1 Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199F2, B3 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506C1 Cuba base detainne France transfer set 4-3, 213B3 Cuba base detainee (Boumediene) France transfer OKd, confrmd 4-3, 5-6, 305D3 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7; Canada repatriatn ordrd 4-23, ruling upheld, appeal filed 8-14, 719A1–C1

Cuba base detainees abuse Spain probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329F1, A2, D2–E2 Cuba base detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, CIA memos release backed 4-23, 257C1, 261B1–C1, C2 Jet program info hacked 4-21; ‘cyber cmnd’ post set 4-22, policies questnd 4-29, 410G3, 411E1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatn photos release set 4-24, intell questnd 4-25, 289A2, 290E2–A3 Cuba base detainees Europn entry urged 4-29, Sen com hearing held 4-30, 305E2–F2, B3–C3 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C2, 302C2 Cuba base detainee (Ahmed) cont detentn nixed 5-4, 506B2 Cuba base detainees US release curbs bill introduced 5-7, 305A3 Detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 331A1 Suplmtl funds draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, Cuba base prison closing funds nixed 5-20, 338F1 Obama sets terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, policies mulled 5-21, 337A1, E1, G1–D2, G2 Suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355F1 Cuba base prison closure backed 5-24, 353A3 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1, 374B2 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367F3, 368C2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10; Ghailani in ct, pleads not guilty 6-9, Bermuda/Iraq/Chad transfers rptd 6-11, 391A2–F2, D3–F3 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447B1 Cuba base detainees Italy transfer OKd, EU deal set 6-15, 416C3–D3 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424G3 Cuba base closure funds block nixed by House 6-18, 488F2 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488A2 Forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488D3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505A3–D3 Cuba base prison task forces deadline miss mulled 7-20, 506G1 Cuba base detainees Ireland entry OKd 7-29, 506E1 US/UK intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, Cuba base detainees torture UK role denied 8-9—8-10, 544B2–C2 Cuba base detainee (Mutairi) release ordrd 7-29, 718F2 Terror alert system pol pressure alleged 8-9, 572A3 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587B1, D1–E1 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn documts issued 8-24, 567E1 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan/sees Karzai 8-24, 573A1–E1 Cuba base detainees Portugal transfer rptd 8-28, 718B2 McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656C2 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd 9-16—10-9; Ghailani death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5; prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718E1, C2–D2, A3–C3 Cuba base detentns authrzn request nixed 9-23, 642B3 Cuba base detainees transfer measures backed, bill clears Cong 10-1—10-20, 714B3 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884B3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717D3, F3 Cuba base detainees transferred, Palau aid rptd 10-31—11-1, China oppositn seen 11-2, 760G1–C2 Cuba base detainees trials set/debated, Sen com hearing held 11-13—11-18, Ill transfers mulled, closure deadline miss seen 11-14—11-18, 793A1–B1, E2, 794B1–C1, G1, B2 Detainee abuse photos release block backed 11-13, 867D2 Terror detentn facilities measure nixed by Sen 11-17, 815E2–F2 Cuba base detainees transferred 11-30—12-1, 861B2 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A2, C2

Cuba base suicides suit argumt filed, probe questnd 12-4—12-7; detentns end/cont, chrgs dropped 12-9—12-16, Ill prison buy seen, transfers mulled 12-11—12-16, 861A1–862A2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843A3 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, Ill prison plan delay seen 12-23, 913D3, 914A1 Mich flight failed blast claimed, intell woes scored 12-27—12-31, 898G1, G2 Star Wars Issues Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1 Strategic Planning & Technology A-arms arsenal maintenance urged 1-8, 266F3 Obama visits Pentagon 1-28, 64D1 Strategy & Tactics Pub diplomacy ofc shut 4-15, 721B2

DEFENSE Contractors ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, dep defns secy nominee (Lynn) Sen confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29F1 US troop (Maseth) Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38E2 Iraq reconstructn deals probe rptd 2-15, 101E3 US fed review ordrd 3-4, 126C2 Mongolian woman slaying, Armaris paymt linked 3-5, Malaysian cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223G3–224A1 Iraq/US reconstructn funds returned 3-16, 175A1 Defns Dept ‘08 cost overruns rptd 3-30, fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled, scored 4-6—4-7, 217E1, G1–A2, C3 Defns Dept jet program info hacked 4-21, 411G1 Iraq fuel scheme suspect (Jeffrey) chrgd 4-24, 297F2 Iraq/Afghan mil clinics reimbursemt woes rptd 5-4, 412A1 Defns procuremt reforms pass Cong 5-7—5-13; deal OKd 5-19, bill cleared, signed 5-20—5-22, 354E3 Lockheed pres copters deal ends 5-16, 411G3 Iraq contractor slain 5-25, 352E3 Iraq/US contractor slaying suspects held, release claimed 6-7, 6-10, 398A3 Iraq slaying suspects freed, transferred 6-10—6-14, 433F3 FARC ex-cmdr (Aguilar) sent to US 7-16, 526C3 Colombia use mulled 8-10, 541A3–C3 Iraq detainees abuse suit nixed 9-11, KBR worker slain, US troop held 9-13, 629G1–A2 Iraq worker slaying troop (Velez) chrgd 9-21, 668E2 Iraq workers held, abuse mulled 9-28—10-7, 689A1 House com probes leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779E2 Aecom, Iraq overbilling rptd 10-30, 790A1 US/Colombia mil base access deal signed 10-30, 817B3 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805C1 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2–E2 Army ex-maj (Cockerham) sentncd 12-2, 856D3 Defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2–D2

DEFENSE of Marriage Act (1996) Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150B1–C1 Vt gay marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/ruling backed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216F2 Justice Dept backing set, scored 6-12—6-15, fed workers domestic partner benefits hiked 6-17, 408C2–E2 Census sets gay marriages recognitn 6-19, 659F2 Mass suit filed 7-8, 492F1 Repeal sought, Justice Dept stance chngd 8-17, 553A3–E3

DEFENSE of Marriage Act (DOMA) (1996) DC gay rights march held 10-10, 698D3

DEFIANCE (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

DeFILIPPO, Gene Fires football coach (Jagodzinski) 1-5, 24G1

De GAULLE, Gen. Charles Andre Joseph Marie (1890-1970) (French president, 1959-69) NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 172D3–E3

1022 De GAULLE— NATO cmnd return formalized 4-3—4-4, 213C2 Chirac graft trial ordrd 10-30, 765G2

De GAULLE, Jean Chirac graft trial ordrd 10-30, 765G2

De GAULLE International Airport, Charles (Paris, France) Brazil flight disappears 5-31—6-1, 369G2

DeGREGORY, Lane Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B3

De GUCHT, Karel Urges Guinea’s Camara trial 10-14, 701F3 Named Europn Comm trade comr 11-27, 835C3

DeGUERIN, Dick On client (Kent) alcoholism 5-11, 469A3

De HOOP Scheffer, Jaap Afghan regional security talks mulled 1-27, 54F2 Vs Russia/Georgia breakaway regions mil bases plan 3-5, 142F1 Successor (Rasmussen) apptmt OKd 4-4, 213B1 On Macedonian pres runoff vote 4-5, 225E2 Sets Afghan/Europn troops hike 6-12, 434A2 Sees Bosnia, NATO entry bid woes 6-22, 448E3 Replacemt (Rasmussen) take ofc 8-3, 534D1

DeJESUS, David Among AL 3B ldrs 10-6, 690E2

DEKKER, Thomas Positive EPO test rptd, Tour de France ban set 7-1, 515B3

De KLERK, Frederik W. (South African president, 1989-94) Peace conf nixed 3-24, 327G1

De KLERK, Fritz On Zille criticism 5-12, 326B1

DELAEMA, Wasem Pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2–G2 Sentncd 4-16, 275F2

De La HOYA, Oscar Retires 4-14, 384E2, G2

DELAHUNTY, Robert Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130C1, F1

DELAMERE, 3rd Baron (1870-1931) Great-grandson (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375B2

De la ROSA, Jorge Among NL wins ldrs 10-6, 690F3

De La ROSA-Loera, Martin Sentncd 3-3, 151E2

De LARROCHA, Alicia (Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle) (1923-2009) Dies 9-25, 672F1

DeLAUGHTER, Judge Bobby Quits, pleads guilty 7-30; sentncd 11-13, disbarmt sought 11-30, 888D2

DELAWARE Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Nortel subsidiary bankruptcy filed 1-14, 67B3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Military Issues War dead coffins return media ban lifted 2-26, 132B1 Obama visits Dover Air Force Base 10-29, 750D3* Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Bidens travel to DC 1-17, 28D1 Rep Castle holds town-hall mtg 6-30, 552D3 Rep Castle sets Sen seat bid 10-6, 679C1 Religious Issues Wilmington RC diocese bankruptcy filed 10-18, 711C3 Transportation Biden visits electric cars facility 10-27, 743B1

De LEMPICKA, Tamara (1898-1980) Portrait of Madame M fetches $6.1 mln 5-6, 953C2

DELGADO, Franscico Velasco Held 2-9, 97F2

DELHOMME, Jake Panthers exit playoffs 1-10, 39D3

DELIC, Amer Australian Open match fans clash 1-23, 71E1

De LIMA, Leila Sets Ampatuan family probe 12-9, 853D1

FACTS DELIMKHANOV, Adam Chechen ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slaying order alleged 4-5, 273C3–D3 Intl warrant issued, extraditn nixed 4-27, 329A1 Named Chechen ldr successor 9-24, 706D1–E1

DELL, Donald Inducted to HOF 7-11, 631A3

DELL, Michael Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800B3–C3

DELLAPINA, Matthew Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

DELL Inc. Perot Systems buy set 9-21, 660C1 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800A3–C3

DELL-Utri, Marcello Berlusconi, Sicilian Mafia ties alleged 12-4, 875G1

DELORS, Jacques Barroso reelected Europn Comm pres 9-16, 627D3

DELPHI Holdings LLP GM key events listed 6-1, 366A2 Bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679B2 GM stake buy OKd 11-2, 758F2 GM govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798D3

Del PORTO, Juan Martin Loses French Open semi 6-5, 399A1 Loses Rogers Cup 8-16, 631A3 Wins US Open 9-14, 631A1 Loses ATP World Tour Finals 11-29, 951C1

DELTA Air Lines Inc. Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot rpt issued 10-26, 743E3

DeLUISE, Dom(inick) (1933-2009) Dies 5-4, 332B3

DeMARCO, Edward Named FHFA dir 8-25, 910A1

DeMARSE, James Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

DEMENTIEVA, Elena Loses Australian Open semi 1-29, 71B1 Loses Wimbledon semi 7-2, 467E2 Wins Rogers Cup 8-23, 631F2

De MEURON, Pierre Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300G1

DeMINT, Jim (U.S. senator from S.C., 2005- ; Republican) Vs state secy nominee (Clinton) confrmatn 1-21, 29F2 IMF funds drop nixed 5-21, 355G1 On health care reform deficit hike 7-20, 487B3 Honduras aid halted 9-4, 623D2 At conservatives Capitol rally 9-12, 619D3 On TSA dir nominee (Southers) confrmatn vote 12-29, 898D3, 899A1

DEMJANJUK, John Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239B3, F3–G3 US deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352D2–F2 Trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3

De MOLINA, Alvaro Ousted 11-11, 798F3–G3

De NARVAEZ, Francisco Cong electns held 6-28, 446D3

DENCH, Dame Judi Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1 Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

DENG Xiaoping (Deng Xixian) (1904-97) (Chinese leader, 1978-97) Zhao memoir published 5-19, 5-29, 395C3–D3

De NIRO, Eobert Kennedy Ctr honors 12-5—12-6, 895D3

DENIS, Justice Andre Convcts Rwandan genocide suspect (Munyaneza) 5-22, 680C2

DENMARK, Kingdom of Arts & Culture Copenhagen Concert Hall opens 1-17, 953E3 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO summit held, Rasmussen secy gen apptmt OKd 4-3—4-4, 213B1, B2 Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen post 8-3, 534B1, D1–E1 Environment & Pollution Climate chng conf held 6-1—6-12, 413D2 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 US’s Obama, China’s Wen set climate treaty talks roles 11-25—11-26, 827C3, E3, 828B1–C1, E1, B2

Climate treaty talks open, skeptics mtg held 12-7—12-9, 841A1, E1, F2, 842B1, D1 Climate chng treaty talks hosted, protests held 12-7—12-19, 881A1, C1, B3, 882C1, D2, C3, 883E1–F1 European Relations Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Rasmussen quits 4-5, successor takes ofc, cabt named 4-5—4-7, 225C1 Facts on Rasmussen 4-5, 225E1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 4-5, 233G1; 10-1, 733F1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Antiviral drug (Tamiflu) swine flu resistnc seen 6-29, 502E2 Muslim Cartoons Controversy Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect (Headley) held 10-3, 845F1 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings suspect (Syed) chrgd 12-7, 845D2 Obituaries Bohr, Aage 9-8, 632E2 Press & Broadcasting Iran rptr arrest rptd 11-5, 857G2 Sports ‘16 Olympics host city vote held 10-2, 691C1, E1 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 UN Policy & Developments Intl short-term emissns cuts deal seen 7-9, 453F1 Australia climate chng protests held 8-13, 624D1

DENNEHY, Brian Desire Under the Elms revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

DENNEY, Caydee 2d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

DENSA Tanker Isletmeciligi Ltd. Sti. Tanker (Buket) seized, capt (Ozturk) sentncd/freed 9-1, 607A2

DENTISTRY—See under MEDICINE DENVER Post (newspaper) Rocky Mt News shut 2-27, 167F3

DEOUBATE, Mandjou Seeks unity govt 9-30, 660B3

DePARLE, Nancy Ann Named health care reform dir 3-2, 129D1, A2–B2 White House health care forum held 3-5, 146B1 Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2, 479C1

DEPARTMENT & Variety Stores Statistics US Dec ‘08 sales, Nov revised 1-14, 15E3 US Jan ‘09 sales, Dec ‘08 revised 2-12, 111B3 US Feb ‘09 sales, Jan revised 3-12, 219E3 US Mar ‘09 sales, Feb revised 4-14, 240C3 US Apr ‘09 sales, Mar revised 5-13, 323E3, 355G3 US May ‘09 sales, Apr revised 6-11, 428E1 US Jun ‘09 sales, May revised 7-14, 477B3 US Jul ‘09 sales, Jun revised 8-13, 535E3 US Aug ‘09 sales 9-15, 618B2 US Sep ‘09 sales, Aug revised 10-14, 740F1 Eurozone ‘09 3d 1/4 sales drop seen 11-16, 803D1 US Oct ‘09 sales, Sep revised 11-16, 813B2 US Nov ‘09 sales, Oct revised 12-11, 911E2

DEPARTMENT of Defense v. ACLU (2009) Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed 11-30, 867E2

DEPARTURES (films) Oscar won 2-22, 120C2

De PLESSIS, Jan On Chinalco investmt deal nix 6-5, 481C2

DEPORTATION—See EXTRADITION DEPOSITORY Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTC) Madoff fraud scheme SEC probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, 603D2

DEPP, Johnny Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

DERAIN, Andre (1880-1954) Seascape fetches $14 mln 11-4, 953B2

ON FILE

DERAKHSHAN, Hossein Case review ordrd 4-19, 274F3

DERIPASKA, Oleg Magna/Opel buy set, deal mulled 5-30—6-3, 366G1 ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766G2–C3

DeROZAN, DeMar In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

Der SPIEGEL (German magazine) Pak intell agency chief (Pasha) interviewed 1-7, 39B2 Russia’s Medvedev interviewed 11-7, 804D2

DeRULO, Jason ‘Whatcha Say’ on best-seller list 10-31, 772D1; 11-28, 840D1

DERVIS, Kemal Rptd UNDP admin 1-1, 3A2

DESCARTES‘ Loneliness (book) Grossman wins Bollingen Prize 2-16, 953D1

D‘ESCOTO Brockmann, Miguel Rptd Gen Assemb pres 1-1, 3A1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 459G3

Des FORGES, Alison (Alison B. Liebhafsky) (1942-2009) Dies in plane crash 2-12, 95A3

D.E. Shaw & Co. Summers financial disclosure form issued 4-3, 266A1

De SHIELDS, Andre Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

DESIO, Ardito (1897-2001) Compagnoni dies 5-13, 364C3

DESIRE Under the Elms (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

DESORMEAUX, Kent Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399A2, C2 Summer Bird wins Travers Stake 8-29, 807B3

D‘ESPAGNAT, Bernard Wins Templeton Prize 3-16, 191G2–B3

DETROIT Free Press (newspaper) Schaefer/Elrick win Polk Award 2-16, 139C3 Pulitzer won 4-20, 279D2, A3 Hunke named USA Today publisher 4-28, 913E2

DETROIT (Mich.) Symphony Orchestra Slatkin suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, nixes shows role 11-11, 792F2

DETTORI, Lanfranco Cavlryman 3d in Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807A3 Pounced wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf 11-7, 807D2

DEUTSCHE Bank AG AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19; punishmts set, scored 6-24—7-10, check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A1, E1–F1 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829E1

DEUTSCHE Borse—See FRANKFURT Stock Exchange DEUTSCHE Telekom AG France Telecom UK brands merger set 9-8, 626E2

DEVANADERA, Agnes On Maguindanao violnc 11-27, 853E3–F3

DEVANEY, Earl Named $787 bln econ recovery plan monitor head 2-23, 111D2 Sets $787 bln econ recovery plan job data probe 12-4, 847D1

DEVELOPING Nations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-18, 196A1 IAEA head successor votes held, Amano elected 3-26—7-2, 502G2 Climate chng conf held 6-1—6-12, 413E2 Swine flu pandemic declared 6-11, 386A3 Russia summit held 6-16, 405C1 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453E2 G-8 vows African aid 7-10, 472D3 Zimbabwe, IMF funds loaned 9-4, 661E1 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644A3 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636E1 G-20 summit held, reforms OKd 9-25, 651B2–C2 Myanmar’s Thein Sein addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652E2 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697D2

2009 Index India/China climate chng cooperatn deal signed 10-21, 791A2 US’s Obama sets climate treaty talks role 11-25, China, India vow ‘carbon intensity’ cut 11-26—12-3, 828C1, E1–F1, B2 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829B2 Commonwealth mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845E3 Climate treaty talks open 12-7—12-9, 841C1, E2–F2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A2, C2, 882C2–D2, D3 Obituaries Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2

DEVELOPMENT Alternatives Inc. Cuba contractor held 12-5; work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927D3, F3

DEVELOPMENT Bank of Japan Pvt cos govt stake buys seen 1-27, 51A1

DEVERAUX, Jude Revolutnary Rd on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1 Lavender Morning on best-seller list 11-30, 840C1

De VEUSTER, Jozef (1840-89) Canonized 10-11, 739E1

DEVI, Gayatri (1919-2009) Dies 7-29, 531D3

De VILLEPIN, Dominique (French premier, 2005-07) Smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644F1, A2–E2 Suspended sentnc sought 10-20, smear trial ends 10-23, 765A3–B3

De VILLIERS, Giniel Wins Dakar Rally 1-17, 104C1

DEVINE, Kelly Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

DeVORE, Chuck Fiorina sets Sen seat bid 11-4, 757E1

DEWEY: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

DeWINNE, Frank Flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519A2

DE Xin Hai (Chinese ship) Seized 10-19, 801A3

DEYAAR Development PJSC Graft suspects chrgd 4-8, 893C3

DEYE, Sid’ Ahmed Ould Quits 7-23, 493A1

DEYTON, Lawrence Named FDA tobacco regulatn dir 8-19, 642G3

D‘HARNONCOURT, Anne (1943-2008) Successor named 6-29, 516G1

DHAWAN, Sacha England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3

DHLAKAMA, Afonso Pres electn held 10-28, loss rptd 11-1—11-11, 783C1

DIA, Mamadou Moustapha (1910-2004) (Senegalese premier, 1960-62) Dies 1-25, 71F3

DIAKITE, Lt. Abubakar (Toumba) Shoots Camara 12-3, admits role 12-16, 870A2, G2–B3, 871A1

DIALLO, Cellou Dalein (Guinean premier, 2004-06) Held 9-28, flees to France 10-1, 660A3, C3

DIAMOND, Neil Hot Aug Night/NYC on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

DIAMONDS Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2 Zimbabwe field abuses probed 6-30—7-4, 783F3–G3 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480C1, F1 Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1 Worldwide mkt recovery seen 10-19, 722D2–E2 Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 Kimberly Process summit held, Zimbabwe monitoring set/exports halted 11-2—11-10, 783B3

—DISARMAMENT Namibia electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850D2

DIANA, Princess of Wales (Lady Diana Frances Spencer) (Great Britain) (1961-97) Jackson meml svc aired 7-7, 467G3

DI-Aping, Lumumba Stanislaus On climate treaty talks 12-8, 841E2 Scores Copenhagen climate chng pol statemt 12-18, 881C2–D2

DIAZ, Cameron My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

DIAZ, Guillermo IDs Puerto Vallarta shooting victims 9-28, 682A1

DIAZ, Kristoffer Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

DIAZ Jr., Ruben Vs gay marriage bill 4-16, 266D2

DIAZ-Balart, Lincoln (U.S. representative from Fla., 1993- ; Republican) Vs Cuba curbs ease 4-13, 249B1 Vs Cuba immigratn talks return offer 5-22, 376E2

DIAZ-Balart, Mario (U.S. representative from Fla., 2003- ; Republican) Vs Cuba curbs ease 4-13, 249B1 Vs Cuba immigratn talks return offer 5-22, 376E2

DiCARLO, Rosemary On Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn veto 6-15, 406B2

DICK, Bryan Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

DICKENS, Charles (1812-70) Little Dorrit adaptatn wins Emmy 9-20, 647E3

DICKENS, Chris Wins Oscar 2-22, 120C1

DICKER, Richard On Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt 3-4, 123E1

DICKINSON, Crystal A. Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

DICKS, Norman D. (U.S. representative from Wash., 1977- ; Democrat) Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

DIDDLEY, Bo (Otha Elias Bates) (1928-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3 Obamas puppy gift rptd 4-12, Bo introduced 4-14, 256A2

DIDION, Joan Brother-in-law dies 8-26, 580A3

DiDONATO, Joyce Breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2

DID You Hear About the Morgans? (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

DIESEL, Vin Fast & Furious on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

DIET & Exercise—See under MEDICINE DIETEMAN, Samuel Sentncd 7-29, 525G1

DIGNITAS UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, Swiss legis proposed 10-28, 937F2, A3

DIGNITAS Personae (Vatican document) Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473C1

DiLEO, Tony Drops coaching role 5-11, 419B3

DILLAHUNT, Garret Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

DILLON, Jonathan (deceased) Lincoln watch opened, inscriptn confrmd 3-10, 300G2

DILLON, Kevin Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

DILLON, Matt Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

DILON, Takpan Held 12-3, 852D3

Di LUCA, Danilo Positive CERA tests rptd, suspended 7-22, 515C3

DiMAGGIO, Dom(inic Paul) (1917-2009) Dies 5-8, 332C3

DiMAGGIO, Joe (Joseph Paul) (1914-2009) Brother dies 5-8, 332C3

DiMAGGIO, Vince (Vincent Paul) (1912-86) Brother dies 5-8, 332C3

DIMON, James Seeks govt aid return 4-16, 241F2–G2 White House visits rptd 10-30, 780E1

Di MONTEZEMOLO, Luca Scores Mosley 6-25—7-15, 647G1

DiNAPOLI, Thomas Sets pension fund investmt reforms 4-22, 265C3

DINGELL Sr., John D. (1894-55) (U.S. representative from Mich., 1933-55; Democrat) Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599A1

DINGELL Jr., John D. (U.S. representative from Mich., 1955- ; Democrat) Honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146B3 On GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nix 3-30, 199C1

DINKIC, Mladjan On Russia/World Bank loans 10-5, 728B3–C3

DINKINS, David N. NYC mayoral electn results 11-3, 756C3

DINOSAUR National Monument (Utah/Colo.) Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94C1

DINOSAURS US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94C1 Paleontologist (Murphy) admits pvt property fossil find 1-22, pleads guilty 4-14, 280C2 T rex predecessor fossil found 9-17, 670D3

DIOUF, Jacques Rptd FAO dir gen 1-1, 3C1 On world hunger rate 6-19, 440F2, A3 Scores food security summit goals 11-16, 812G1

DiPASCALI, Frank Pleads guilty 8-11, 603A3–D3 Madoff acctant (Freihling) pleads guilty 11-3, 800D1

DiPIETRO, Joe Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

DIRECTOR, Aaron (1901-2004) Sister dies 8-18, 580C3

DIRIE, Ali Pleads guilty 9-21, sentncd 10-2, 723F1

DIRRELL, Andre Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

DISABLED Persons Obama on ‘Tonight Show’, regrets Spec Olympics joke 3-19—3-20, 182F2 Vets electronic med records set 4-9, 244D3 Fed hate-crimes hike passes Cong 4-29, 7-23, 489D3 Judge Kent alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 479A3 Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd by Sup Ct 6-1, 374G1 Spec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F1 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 441D3 Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576G1 Fla brain-damaged illegal (Jiminez) ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3 Hawking gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, 937E2–F2 US hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700D3 US $250 paymt proposed 10-14, 714G1 Hate crimes bill clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742B3 Ger finance min (Schaeuble) sworn 10-28, 749G2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907A2 Medicare—See under MEDICINE Obituaries Nolan, Christopher J 2-20, 160E3 Peek, Kim 12-19, 955C3 Shriver, Eunice Kennedy 8-11, 548F3

1023

DISARMAMENT & Arms Control African Developments S Sudan arms drop opens 2-10, 185A3 Burundi rebel disarmamt opens 3-17, war ends 4-22, 326E1 Darfur rebels arms drop urged 3-18, 185A2 Southn Sudan campaign opens 5-27, 431E1 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 N Korea A-program uranium warning issued, enrichmt mulled 1-7—1-19, ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35C3, 36B1 Sri Lanka rebel cease-fire offer nixed 1-25, 119F1 N/S Korea cooperatn deals halted, talks return urged 1-30, 84D1 US/Russia cooperatn hike urged 2-7, 74B2 N Korea A-program dismantling sought 2-16, 109A1–D1, C2 Pak tribal areas rules set 3-4, 138F2 N Korea A-program mulled 3-6, 142D2 S Korea Proliferatn Security Initiative role mulled 4-13, N Korea A-program talks halted, Yongbyon facilities reopened/IAEA inspectors ousted 4-14, 238G3, 239G1–A2 N Korea A-program talks dropped, plutonium reprocessing cont/activity seen 4-24—5-13, 342A3 US rptrs N Korea indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14, 360G2 S Korea joins Proliferatn Security Initiative 5-26, N Korea A-program reopening seen 5-27, 351E1, C2 A-program mulled, attack warned 6-6—6-13; sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, May ‘09 test analysis issued 6-15, 403E3, 404C1, F1, C2 US rptrs N Korea relase sought 6-8, 396A1 Pak nonmil funds pass House 6-11, 418G3 N Korea A-program mulled, talks return urged 6-15—6-18, 406A3, F3–G3 N Korea A-program mulled 6-23—6-24, 481E3 N Korea cont uranium enrichmt seen, A-program cos linked 6-30, 462D3, G3 US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 N Korea A-program mulled, ASEAN summit held 7-22—7-23, 495E2, C3–D3, 496D1 N Korea A-program mulled 7-27—7-28, 509C2, G2–A3 N Korea A-program US bilateral talks sought 7-27, 517D3, 518A1 PI’s Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528A3 US’s Clinton visits N Korea 8-4, 517C1, C2, E2 N Korea’s Kim cont control seen, ship detained 8-9—8-10; US’s Goldberg sets regional tour, talks sought 8-13—8-25, delegatn visits S Korea 8-21—8-23, 568F2, D3–F3, 569B1 Iran A-program progress seen, talks offrd 8-28—9-9; Pak aid revealed 8-31, Sec Cncl proposals mulled 9-9—9-10, 599G1, G3, 600D1 N Korea A-program progress claimed, sanctns enforcemt urged 9-3—9-6, 600A3 N Korea A-program talks mulled 9-11—9-21, 652F3–653D1 N Korea A-program talks mulled/plutonium plant cont use seen, sanctns backed 10-4—10-10, 712F1–D2 N Korea A-program curbs sought 10-21, 711B2 N Korea A-program talks return urged 10-24, 748A3 N Korea A-program envoy (Ri) visits US 10-24; talks sought 11-2, plutonium reprocessing rptd 11-3, 763D3 France/N Korea spec envoy (Lang) dispatched, talks held 11-9—11-10, 934B1 US’s Obama visits China, S Korea 11-15—11-19, 795C3, E3 India’s Singh visits US 11-24, 810E1 PI pvt militia disarmamt set 11-25, 819A2 US’s Bosworth visits N Korea, talks mulled/Obama letter delivery confrmd 12-8—12-16, 873A3, C3 European Developments Turkey Kurdish party banned 12-11, 893A2 International Organizations IAEA head successor votes held, Amano elected 3-26—7-2, 502E2 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, A-arms spread res passes Sec Cncl, Test Ban Treaty mtg opens 9-24, 633B1, F1–G1 Iraqi Developments—See IRAQ Middle East Developments Israeli/Iran A-program raid plan US oppositn rptd 1-10, 75D1–A2 US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69B3–C3 US/Iran talks mulled 1-15—2-10, satellite launched 2-3, 86B2, E2, F2

1024 DISASTER— Iran resistnc group Iraq attack plans rptd 1-20, 38F2 US/Iran ties progress seen 1-27, 42C2 Iran A-program drop urged 2-7, 74B2, C3 Iran’s Khatami sets pres bid 2-8, 86E3 Obama mulls Iran ties 2-9, 78C2, 79F1 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled, bomb dvpt capabilities debated 2-17—3-8, Sen com hearing held 3-10, 173F3 Israel/Syria air strike site uranium find mulled 2-19, 465B3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 Iran A-program mulled 3-5—3-6, 142D1, C2–D2 Iran’s Moussavi sets pres bid 3-17, 174D2 Obama/Iran video message sent 3-20, 179C2 Iran exiled resistnc group Iraq relocatn set 3-27, 209B1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196D3 Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 227C2 Iran uranium enrichmt hike claimed 4-9, A-program intl resolutn sought 4-15, 254A2–C2 Iran A-program, Mideast peace talks linked 4-23, Israeli threat mulled 5-4, 313C2 US/Syria sanctns renewed 5-8, 344E3 Israel’s Netanyahu visits Obama 5-18, 336E1–A2 Iran pres candidates cleared 5-20, 362F1 Iran A-program Venez/Bolivia aid alleged, denied 5-25—5-26, 362D1 US’s Obama visits Saudi 6-3, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367C3, 369E1, A2; excerpts 368A3 Iran pres electn held 6-12, A-program halt sought 6-16, 401B2, 402C3 Iran A-program opposed 6-14, 403D2 Iran A-program US talks mulled 6-23, 423E1; 6-26, 439F2 Israel, Iran A-program attack mulled 7-5, arms dvpt seen 7-7, 464B3 Iran A-program, Gen Assemb talks set 7-8, 453D2–E2 Iran A-program cont talks proposal seen 7-11; Aghazadeh resignatn rptd 7-16, arms dvpt US response mulled 7-22, 485E2 US/Iran direct talks offer mulled 7-27, 530E2 Iran oppositn group Iraq raid kills 8, camp shut/US role mulled 7-28—7-29, 501G2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600B1 Iran A-program talks proposals posted 9-10; US role set 9-11, talks OKd, mulled 9-14—9-15, 613C3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645C1–D1 Iran secret A-site rptd, Sec Cncl res violatn seen/IAEA inspectns OKd 9-21—10-3, mil strike mulled, talks held 9-25—10-1, 649A1–651E1; map 649E1 Iran A-program sanctns mulled, med uranium buy seen 9-23—9-24, 634A1, F1 Iran A-program progress mulled, IAEA dir visits/Qom site inspectns set 10-2—10-4; med uranium talks OKd, enrichmt deal denied 10-4, scientist disappearnc rptd 10-7, 688A1, E1 Iran militia ldr (Naqdi) named 10-5, 688E2 UK financial svcs cos, Iran deals banned 10-12, US govt divestmt bill passes House 10-14, 711D2 Iran A-program mulled 10-13—10-14, 705E3–F3, 706B1 Iran A-program curbs sought, uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21—10-22, 711B1 Iran A-program secret site inspected 10-24—10-25, uranium transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2, B3 Iran A-program enriched uranium proposals mulled 11-2, 766C2–D2 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755F1 Iran A-program uranium transfer proposals mulled, sanctns cont/hike backed 11-6—11-19; US properties seizure sought 11-12, further secret sites seen 11-16, 804D1, D2, C3 US’s Obama visits China 11-15—11-19, 795C3 Israel/Syria air strike uranium find mulled 11-16, 804B2 Iran A-program mulled, Ahmadinejad visits S Amer 11-22—11-25, 885F1, B2, E2 Iran A-program secret site censured, res scored/IAEA ties drop seen 11-27—11-30; plants bldg vowed 11-29, enrichmt levels mulled 12-2, 837D1, D2

FACTS Iran A-program sanctns backing sought 12-7, 846B1 Leb unity govt OKd 12-10, 877B3 Iran A-program sanctns extensn seen, passes House 12-11—12-15; uranium swap offrd 12-12, bomb advances claimed, denied 12-13—12-15, 876A2, D2, A3 Credit Suisse, Iran A-program sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863D1 Iran A-bomb trigger testing denied, US rptg role mulled 12-18—12-20; uranium transfer deadline nixed, Turkey deal proposed 12-22—12-24, Kazakh import plans seen 12-29, 941C1 Obituaries McNamara, Robert S 7-6, 468D3 Pell, Claiborne 1-1, 9E3 York, Herbert F 5-19, 400G3 U.S. Developments Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16D1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27F2 A-forensics bill passes Cong 3-24, 12-22, 908C1 Swine flu biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3–D3 Arms control undersecy nominee (Tauscher) confrmd 6-25, 478A3 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693C1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843B3 U.S.-CIS Developments (including NATO issues) A-pact talks OKd 3-6, 142E2 Obama, Medvedev mull treaties 4-1, 193B1, C3 Obama seeks A-arms end 4-5, 213A1, 214A1 Russia’s Lavrov visits US 5-7, 311A2–B2 Russia, NATO links cont 6-27, 450G1 Obama visits Russia, A-arms cut OKd 7-6, curbs urged 7-7, 453C3, 454C1, A3 A-arms treaty talks mulled 10-13, 705G3 Medvedev sees Obama 11-15, 795B2 A-arms treaty use cont, expires 12-4—12-5, 885F2

DISASTER Emergency Committee Gaza violnc victims aid appeal airing nixed, shown 1-22—1-26, 42B3

DISCOUNT Tobacco City & Lottery Inc. Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622F1

DISCOVERY (U.S. space shuttle) Intl statn missn delayed 2-3—3-11, 239C2* Space statn missn flown 3-15—3-28, 239A2–G2* Atlantis flies Hubble repair missn 5-11—5-24, 372G2 Space statn missn flown 8-28—9-11, 615F3

DISEASE Control and Prevention, U.S. Centers for (CDC) (of HHS) Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses, deaths tallied 1-29, 49D3 ‘06 teen birth rates rptd 1-7, 96F1–G1 Gerberding quits 1-9, 65C1 Salmonella outbreak illnesses/deaths tallied 2-19, 95B3 AIDS awareness campaign launched 4-7, 555F2 Food-borne illness rpt issued 4-9, 268A3–C3 Swine flu cases confrmd, deaths seen 4-21—4-29, 281G1–A2, 282A1–B1, D1 Swine flu genetic analyis rptd 5-3, schls closure urge ends 5-5, 303A2, A3 Swine flu outbreak mulled 5-15—5-26, elderly resistnc seen 5-20, 352D1 Frieden named dir 5-15, 354F1 Swine flu spread rptd 6-1, 386B3 FDA tobacco regulatn bill clears House, signed 6-12—6-22, 428B3 Nestle cookie dough linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, 524G2 Swine flu cases estimated 6-26, vaccine priorities urged 7-29, 502B2–C2 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 524A1 Swine flu vaccine trial opens, progress seen 8-7—8-21, spread cont, mutatn threat mulled 8-21, 583G3–584A1, D1 Life expectancy rise rptd 8-19, 816G2 Swine flu spread seen 10-1, vaccinatns open 10-5, 696C3, 697A1–B1 Swine flu vaccine delays seen/doses estimated, youth deaths tallied 10-16—10-23, US spread rptd 10-26, 741F2–B3, D3 HPV vaccine (Gardasil) male use recommendatns issued 10-21, 799D3

Swine flu child drug release set 10-30; peak seen, vaccine distributn urged 11-4—11-5, deaths estimated, spread mulled 11-12, 810C2–E2, A3, 811A1 Swine flu peak seen, cases tallied 11-20—12-10; bacterial infectns rise rptd 11-25, vaccine review issued 12-4, 901E1–F1, A2–B2 US uninsured rptd 12-16, 864F1 Autism diagnosis rise seen 12-18, 918C3

DISEASES—See under MEDICINE DISNEY, Roy Edward (1930-2009) Dies 12-16, 896C2

DISNEY, Roy Oliver (1893-1971) Son dies 12-16, 896C2

DISNEY, Walt(er Elias) (1901-66) Nephew dies 12-16, 896C2

DISNEY Co., The Walt ‘At the Movies’ co-hosts replaced 8-5, 548B3 Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708E2 Beach Boys’ Wilson, Gershwin project OKd 10-8, 708C2 Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830G3 Roy Disney dies 12-16, 896C2

DISNEY Family Museum, Walt (San Francisco, Calif.) Opens 10-1, 953B3

DISNEY‘S A Christmas Carol (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

DISTRICT 9 (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

DISTRICT Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne (2009) Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425D3

DISTRICT of Columbia v. Heller (2008) Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470B3, 471C2 Ill gun curbs case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677A2–B2

DIVERSITY (dance group) Wins ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ 5-30, 383G3

DIVINE Justice (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

DIVORCE & Separation NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2 LA mayor (Villaraigosa) reelected 3-3, 131B2 Palin daughter/Johnston breakup rptd 3-11, 160D2 Afghan women rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213F1 Italy’s Berlusconi Europn Parlt candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29, wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328C1 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396C3 Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5; escort use claimed, denied 6-17—6-24, truce set, popular support cited 6-29, 463B2 Tex gay couple divorce OKd 10-1, 699A2 SC gov (Sanford) wife files divorce 12-11, 869C2 Italy’s Berlusconi attacked 12-13, 875C1

DIXON, Jamie Wins Naismith Award 4-5—4-7, 230G2

DIXON, Scott 2d in IRL Title standings 10-10, 950E2

DIXON, Sheila (Baltimore, Md. mayor, 2007- ; Democrat) Trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848D3–G3

DIZZIA, Maria In the Next Room opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954G1

DJIBOUTI, Republic of African Relations Somalia UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21C3 Somalia power-sharing parlt sworn, mandate extended 1-28, Ahmed elected pres 1-31, 66E2, B3 Somali govt Mogadishu return bid seen 2-23—2-25, 115C2 Somali pirate attacks map 4-12, 238A1 Somalia mil aid sought 6-20, 430C2 Eritrea border dispute setlmt sought 12-23, 903E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233G1; 10-1, 733G1 Trade, Aid & Investment Drought aid sought 9-29, 681B2

ON FILE

UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2

DJINDJIC, Zoran (1952-2003) Croatia ‘08 blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822G2

DJOKOVIC, Novak Australian Open match fans clash 1-23, 71E1 Wins Barclays Dubai Champ 2-28, 139B1 Loses Sony Ericsson Open 4-5, 399G1 Loses Monte Carlo Masters 4-19, 399F1 Loses Rome Masters 5-3, 399E1 Loses Cincinnati Open 8-23, 631G2 Loses US Open semi 9-13, 631D1 Wins Paris Masters 11-15, 951D1

DJUKANOVIC, Milo (Montenegrin premier, 1991-97/2003- ) Parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226B1–E1 Govt OKd 6-10, 463C3–D3

DLAMINI, Guduza On Zimbabwe const chngs 10-2, 680D3

DLAMINI-Zuma, Nkosazana Gen electns held 4-22, 293C3 Named S Africa home affairs min 5-10, 325D3

DLOUHY, Lukas Wins French Open doubles 6-6, 399C1 Wins US Open doubles 9-13, 631E2

DMX (Earl Simmons) Sentncd 1-30, 88C3

DNO International ASA Iraq prov oil exports halted 10-9, 730G1

DOBBS, Lou Obama birth records confrmd 7-27, 552D3

DOCKERY, Michelle Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3

DOCTER, Pete Up on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

DR. Dre ‘Crack a Bottle’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1

DOCTOROW, E(dgar) L(awrence) Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2 Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364E1

DOCTORS Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres Sudan group ousted 3-4, 122E2 Sudan workers seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2–D2 Sri Lanka intl aid sought 4-23, 277G1 Myanmar landslides aid rptd 7-15, 528E3 Southn Sudan violnc rise seen 12-14, 924G1

DODD, Christina Danger in a Red Dress on best-seller list 3-30, 212C1

DODD, Christopher J. (U.S. senator from Conn., 1981- ; Democrat) Reseated Banking chair 1-6, 5A2 Scores Madoff fraud scheme regulatn failure 1-27, 113E3 Questns $2 trln financial indus rescue plan 2-10, 76E3 $700 bln financial indus aid cos exec paymt limits clear Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 91B1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos exec pay limits measure mulled 3-18, 162A2–C2 Health care reforms draft, bill issued 6-5—6-9, 390A3 On auto indus govt role 6-10, 386A1 On health care reform proposal cost estimate 6-16, opens debate 6-17, 408F3, 409C1 On financial indus reforms proposal, holds com hearing 6-17—6-18, 407B2, 408F1, A2 Health care reform proposal chngd, uninsured seen 7-2, 458A1 Health care reform bill backed 7-15, 476F2 Reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537C1 Discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared 8-7, 537B2 On Sen Kennedy successn apptmt 8-30, 584E3 Nixes heatlh com chair post 9-9, 599E1 Financial indus ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, 640E3 Opens health care reform bills merging talks 10-14, 698F2 Proposes credit card interest rates freeze 10-26, 779F1 Unveils financial indus reforms proposal 11-10, 778D3 Hails Bernanke crisis performnc 12-3, 847A2–B2

DODGE, Marcia Milgrom Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

2009 Index DODGE, Patti Chrgd 12-7, 910C2

DOD Mantle, Anthony Wins Oscar 2-22, 120C1

DOE, Gen. Samuel Kanyon (1950?-90) (Liberian president, 1980-90) Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A2

DOERFLINGER, Richard Sees Rep Pelosi 11-6, 773D2

DOGAN, Aydin Co fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706B3

DOGAN Yayin Holdings AS Fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706A2–D3

DOGIRAMA, Anderson Chamapuro Chrgd, held 9-28, 12-3, 927F2

DOG Racing Iditarod opens 3-8; Mackey wins 3-18, dog deaths probe urged 3-24, 211A2

DOGS Smith named NFL top coach 1-4, 55E2 Rapper DMX sentncd 1-30, 88D3 Westminster show results 2-10, 159B3 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149B1 US/Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185C3 Obamas puppy gift rptd 4-12, Bo introduced 4-14, 256A2 Animal abuse tapes case accepted by Sup Ct 4-20, 266A2 US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261F1, B2 Kenya alleged poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375D2 UK parlt expenses misuse rptd 5-8—5-14, 343A3 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 5-19, 381G2 Ireland RC schls abuse rpt issued 5-20, 361E2 NFL’s Vick completes sentnc 7-20, 564D1, F1–G1 NFL’s Vick suspensn lift set 9-3, 631D3 Mex antidrug, US aid spending rptd 12-3, 928D3 Air security measures hiked 12-25, 897C2

DOLAN, Archbishop Timothy (Milwaukwee, Wis.) Named NYC archbp 2-22, 132D2

DOLATABADI, Abbas Jafari On US hikers spy chrgs 11-9, 857D3

DOLE, Bob (Robert Joseph) Kemp dies 5-2, 316G3

DOMBROVSKIS, Valdis Named premr, vs lat devaluatn 2-26, 117A2–B2 Facts on 3-12, 173D2 Govt coalitn OKd 3-12, 173A2–C2, A3–B3

DOMENICI, Peter V. (U.S. senator from N.M., 1973-2009; Republican) Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, 536G3

DOMINGO, Colman Coming Home opens in New Haven 1-21, 211B3

DOMINGUEZ, Ramon Gio Ponti 2d in Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807A2

DOMINICA, Commonwealth of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233A2; 10-1, 733A2

DOMINICAN Republic Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233A2; 10-1, 733A2 Housing US rep (Rangel) admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 620B1 Sports MLB’s Rodriguez news conf held 2-17, 158D3, F3 Natls prospect fake ID rptd 2-18, 277B3–D3 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E2, G2, F3

DOMINIK, Mark Named Buccaneers GM 1-17, 55B3

DOMINO (magazine) Shut 1-28, 913A1

—DRUGS 1025 DOMNINA, Oksana Wins world champs 3-27, 211G2

DONAGHY, Tim Blowing the Whistle excerpts posted, Random House drop rptd 10-28, freed 11-4, 771C3

DONALD, David Herbert (1920-2009) Dies 5-13, 364C3

DONGFENG Motor Group Co. Honda jt venture plans seen 12-22, 932E2

DONOVAN, Landon Named MLS MVP 11-19, 895A1 Galaxy lose MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

DONOVAN, Shaun (U.S. HUD secretary, 2009- ) HUD secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, confrmd 1-22, 30B1 On ‘08 delinquent home loans 2-18, 92D1–E1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287A2 On ‘07-08 homless families rise 7-9, 538C2 On FHA cash reserves drop 11-12, 813F3

DONZIGER, Steven On Chevron arbitratn claim 9-23, 724B1

DOOSAN Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd. UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944F2

DORGAN, Byron L. (U.S. senator from N.D., 1992- ; Democrat) Reseated Indian Affairs chair 1-6, 5C2

DORIA, Joseph Home raided, quits 7-23, 504B1

DORI-Najafabadi, Qorbanali Admits prisoners abuse 8-8, 561B3

DOSS, Alan Sets Congo peacekeepers/army jt operatn end 12-16, 921E3

Dos SANTOS, Jose Eduardo (Angolan president, 1979- ) Hosts Pope Benedict 3-20, 196A2–B2 Hosts Russia’s Medvedev 6-25, 455G1

DOSSETT, John Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348A2

DOSTUM, Gen. Abdul Rashid Taliban ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, denies allegatns 7-17, 499F1–G1, B2–C2 Returns to Afghan 8-16; hosts Karzai rally 8-17, denies deal 8-19, 549C3, 550A1

DOUBLE Sextet (musical composition) Reich wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2, E2

DOUBT (play/film) Streep/Hoffman/Adams/Davis get Oscar nominatns 1-22, 40B2–C2

DOUGLAS, Jim (James H.) (Vt. governor, 2003- ; Republican) Vetoes gay marriage bill 4-6, override passes legis 4-7, 216B1, F2

DOUGLAS, Toney In NBA draft, traded to Knicks 6-25, 451G1, C2

DOURI, Izzat Ibrahim al Tape aired 4-7, 228C1 Urges US troops cont attacks 7-1, 437A2

DOVER, Strait of Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) radio contact rptd 7-28, 551C1

DOW Jones Industrial Average—See under STOCKS DOWLING, J. Michael Questns client (Zazi) chrgs 9-29, 678E1

DOWN (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

DOWNES, Sir Edward (Thomas) (1924-2009) Kills self 7-10, 516F2

DOWNES, Joan Kills self 7-10, 516G2

DOWNES, Rackstraw Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

DOWNEY Jr., Robert Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2 Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2 Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

DPH Holdings Co. Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679G2

DRABEK, Kyle Traded to Blue Jays 12-16, 948F3

DRABINSKY, Garth H. Sentncd 8-5, 548E2

DRAKE (Aubrey Drake Graham) ‘Best I Ever Had’ on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

DRAKES Bay Oyster Co. Jarvis named NPS dir 7-10, 491F1

DRAME, Tiebile Madagascar’s Rajoelina protectn rptd 3-9, 169G1

DRAPER, Kris Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420A2

DREAMFEVER (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

DREAMS From My Father (book) Obama contract chngd, signs new deal 1-9—1-15, bares royalty paymts 3-19, 201C1–D1 Obama ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1

DREIER, Marc Pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506A3

DREIER LLC Dreier pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506A3

DRENNAN, Bishop Mar tin Child abuse rpt mulled 12-11, bps quit 12-17—12-24, 938F1

DRESDNER Bank AG Commerzbank govt stake bought 1-8, 8B2

DREW, Amanda Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

DREW, Lori MySpace suicide insults convctn nixed 7-2, 539B2

DREW, Stephen Among NL 3B ldrs 10-6, 690E3

DREYFUS Jr., Jack Jonas Dies 3-27, 231D3

DRISCOLL, James Loses Tex Open 5-17, 564A1

DROUGHT Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1–D1 China emergency declared 2-5, 251E2 Australian bushfires erupt 2-7—2-12, 83C2 Argentina farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 204A1 Southn Calif wildfires hit 5-5—5-9, 393G2 Argentina farmers tax breaks vetoed 8-25, strike held 8-28—9-4, 623G2 Guatemala food crisis calamity declared 9-8, 623C3 Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast, air pollutn levels rptd 9-23, water use curbs lifted 9-24, 682C3, F3 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681G1 Kenya cattle raids rptd 9-29, 681C2 India drought rptd 9-30, rice imports tariffs halted 10-28, 791D2 Iraq refugees rptd 10-13, 730E1 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis/signed, fed policies review set 11-4—11-13, 887A2, G2 Power outages hit Brazil 11-10, 872A1

DRUART, Gen. Marcel Survives Afghan rockets attack 11-16, 806F1

DRUG Control Policy, U.S. Office of National Kerlikowske named dir 3-11, 165D1–E1

DRUG Enforcement Administration, U.S. (DEA) (of Justice) Bolivia agents exit 1-29, 204B2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148A2 Colombia alleged drug lord (Herrera) held 4-15, 526F3 ICE coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 ICE intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 Ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3 Thai blocks Russian arms dealing suspect (Bout) extraditn 8-11, 534G1 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720B1 Afghan/US copter crash kills 3 10-26, 750A3 Malian narcoterror suspects chrgd held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2

DRUGS & Drug Abuse African Developments Guinea ex-pres son (Conte) held 2-23; admits trafficking 2-25, chrgs lack rptd 9-29, 660C2, E3 Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) slain 3-1—3-2, 133C3–D3

Guinea-Bissau pres electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458D3 S Africa ex-natl comr (Selebi) trial opens 10-5, 923D3 AIDS—See AIDS Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Afghan govt ties mulled 1-27, 54G2 Afghan ‘narco-state’ denied 2-8, 74C1 Afghan violnc kills 2 3-16, Iran border woes mulled 3-31, 195B2, B3 Afghan record seizure rptd 5-23, 381G3 Afghan/Pak summit held 5-24, 370F1–G1 Laos trafficker (Orobator) pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3; UK transfer set, arrives 7-27—8-7, appeal filed 12-8, 933D2 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2 Afghan/US mil strategy chng seen 6-16, 434F1 Afghan/US antidrug policy chngd 6-27, mil operatn launched 7-2, 466C1, C2 Myanmar/China border militia clashes erupt, mil victory declared 8-8—8-30, 590D1, A2 Afghan traffickers US mil targeting set 8-11, 547A2 Myanmar homes raided 8-24, Thai border seizure rptd 10-1, 684C2 Afghan opium poppies farmland drop seen 9-3, 612B1 China syringe attacks chrgs rptd, death sentncs mulled 9-6, 605E3 Afghan/US copter crash kills 10 10-26, Karzai brother CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 750A3, 751G1 Afghan govt corruptn scored 11-11, 775F1 Australia Web filters set 12-15, 931C3 China/UK smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932B3 Budget & Spending Programs Forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488B3 CIS Developments Russian opiate trade rise seen 3-6, 274C1 Russian internal affairs head (Tochiev) slain 6-3, 417A2 CSTO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2 Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, 440E3 Belarus joins CSTO rapid reactn force 10-20, 904E1 Russia/Ukraine, HIV ‘epidemics’ rptd 11-24, 876C1 Colombia Drug War Suspect (Herrera) held 4-15, 526E3 FARC ldr (Cuero) held 6-11, 526D3 FARC ex-cmdr (Aguilar) sent to US 7-16, 526C3 Venez govt trafficking role alleged, denied 7-16—7-23, 929E3 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 Colombia rights record improvemts seen 9-11, 818A1 US/Colombia mil base access deal defended, signed 10-27—10-30, 817B3, D3 Mil, rebels clash erupts 11-10, 927C3 Crime & Law Enforcement—For non-U.S. issues, see other subheads in this section Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20G3 Interior secy nominee (Salazar) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17E3 Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs commuted 1-19, 33D3 Utah cops dealer home entry upheld by Sup Ct 1-21, 48E3 Rapper DMX sentncd 1-30, 88C3 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148A2 Calif marijuana legalizatn bill introduced 2-23, 165E2–F2 Miss mayor (Melton) mistrial declared 2-24, 306E3 Cops illegal immigrants deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151B2 NYS laws reform passes legis/signed, sentncs cut rptd 3-4—12-18, 919D3 Phish reunion tour show confiscatns rptd 3-9, 176F2 Drug czar (Kerlikowske) named 3-11, 165C1 Obama holds Internet pub forum 3-26, 200A1–B1 US ‘border czar’ (Bersin) named 4-15, 341G1 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266E1 Crack cocaine sentncs House com hearing held 4-29, 307C2 Afghan drug smuggler (Noorzai) sentncd 4-30, 539G2 DEA/ICE intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed by Sup Ct 6-25, 444F1 Coolio pleads guilty/sentncd 6-26, 564F2

1026 DRUGS— Ariz migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588G1 Census worker found dead 9-12, 722G1 Mex cartel alleged members held 10-21—10-22, 747C1, E1–F1 Alaska dealer (Johnston) sentcd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3 Malian narcoterror suspects chrgd held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2 European Developments Turkey wedding party attack kills 45 5-4, 329C3 Albania blast kills 1, victim dealing alleged 6-18, 511B3 Bulgaria parlt electns held 7-5, 482F2 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking rptd 7-31, 551B1 UK terror suspect (Stewart-Whyte) pleads guilty 9-7, 608G1 Italian suspect (Tarantini) held 9-18, 687E2 Serbia outlaw clubs crimes alleged 12-3; rptr (Stankovic) threats suspects held 12-8, concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Health & Safety Issues Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, Ore govt control bill introduced 3-11, 165A2 Calif RR collisn hearing held 3-3, 357C3 NH med marijuana bill clears legis 6-24, vetoed 7-10, 538D3 Needle exchng fed funding ban end nixed by House 7-24, 524D1 Prescribed heroin treatmt efficacy seen 8-19, 691D3 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814G1 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 719G3 Maine OKs med marijuana measure 11-3, 756D2 DC ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867E1 Latin Developments—See also ‘Colombia Drug War’ above Mex cartel murder victims dissolving suspect held 1-23, 97A3 Bolivia DEA agents exit 1-29, 204B2 Mex ex-gen, assocs seized 2-2, found slain 2-3, 97E2, G2 Mex violnc troops deploymt mulled 2-19, 171D2 Mex/Ariz border violnc rise seen, gun flow scored 2-23—2-24; gun flow scored/House com hearing held, troops deploymt mulled 2-25—3-11, gun store owner trial opens 3-9, 170E3, 171B1–B2 Mex cartel head (Guzman) among Forbes richest 3-11, listing scored 3-12, 171E2 Venez ports seizure ordrd 3-15, 204A3 Union Pacific drug smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269F1 Mex suspects held, most-wanted listed 3-19—3-24, US border security hiked, violnc mulled/aid sought 3-24—3-27, 185A3, G3, 186G1 Mex cartel alleged ldr arrest rpd 4-2; US’s Napolitano/Holder visit, border security hike vowed 4-2—4-3, aid delay rptd 4-5, 249F2–E3 US reps visit Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249G1 Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter slain 4-14, 377B1 US lists Mex kingpins 4-15, Obama visits 4-16—4-17, 270E3–271E1 Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271B2 Mex prisoner convoy ambush kills 8 4-21, 359G2 US/Mex border smuggling troops plan mulled 4-25, 359F2 Mex cartels prosecutn mil abuses rptd 4-29, arrests tallied 5-1, 359D2 Mex prison break frees 53 5-16, 359C2 Mex state raids net suspects 5-26, prosecutor (Garcia Hurtado) quits, surrenders 5-27, 359D1 US/Cuba talks OKd 5-30, 376B2 Mex local cops held 6-1; Acapulco violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431B2, E2 Panama pres (Martinelli) sworn 7-1, 493B3 Mex parlt, local electns held 7-5, 460B3 Mex cops attacks kill 5+, suspects held 7-11—7-12; corpses found, IDd 7-13—7-14, Michoacan gov half-brother warrant issued 7-14, 480C3, 481G3 Mex war strategy chng urged 7-28, 556D2 US blocks, issues Mex rights abuses rpt 8-5, 8-13, 556A2 Mex shootout kills 12+ 8-6, 556B3 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541F1, A2 Mex smuggler (Gonzalez) slaying suspects held, ICE informant status confrmd 8-10, 556A3

FACTS Mex/US border kidnapping suspects indicted 8-13, 556G2 Mex customs inspectors replaced 8-14—8-16, 556D3 US/Colombia mil bases use provisional deal set, plans scored 8-18—8-28, 589G2 Mex smuggling suspects chrgd 8-20, 556D2 Mex possessn decriminalizatn bill signed 8-20, Argentina arrests nixed 8-25, 589B3, E3 Mex violnc kills 18, suspect held 9-2—9-5, atty gen (Medina Mora) quits, Chavez named 9-7, 604F3, 605B1–D1, A2 Mex arrests tallied, Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605A2 AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682F1 Mex clinic shooting kills 10 9-15, drug war blamed 9-16, 682D1* Ecuador/US mil base exited 9-18, 682B2 Mex atty gen nominee (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1 Mex shooting kills 2, victims IDd 9-27—9-28, 682B1 Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652C2 Mex meth ingredients seized 10-2, 747C2 Mex violnc kills scores, cartel ldr (Beltran Leyva) death mulled 11-27—12-22; US aid spending rptd, mil abuses alleged 12-3—12-8, slaying suspects held 12-23, 928A2, F2, A3–E3 Brazil ‘03-09 casualties tallied 12-8, 926E2 Obituaries Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 People Pitchman (Mays) death, cocaine link seen 8-7, 955A3 Mamas and Papas frontman daughter claims incest 9-23, 671F3 Rep Kennedy Communion denial rptd 11-22, 831D3 Sports Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D1–E1 MLB’s Romero suspended 1-6, 278E1 McGwire misses HOF electn 1-12, 71B3 MLB’s Clemens perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, trainer syringes DNA found 2-3, 87F3 MLB’s Bonds perjury trial evidnc block sought 1-15; documts unsealed 2-4, drug tests admissn mulled 2-5, 87B3 MLB steroid dealer (Radomski) claims denied 1-20—1-21, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88A1 Swimmer Phelps pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended, Kellogg endorsemt dropped 2-5, 71B2 MLB’s Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test rptd/results mulled, rumors cited 2-7—2-9; admits use 2-9, reactns rptd 2-10, 87B1, D2, G2 Obama on MLB’s Rodriguez steroids use 2-9, 77E3, 78D3, 79D2 MLB’s Tejada chrgd 2-10, pleads guilty 2-11, 87E3 MLB’s Rodriguez use scored 2-12; news conf held 2-17, interviewed 3-1, 158C3, E3–F3 Swimmer Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3 MLB’s Bonds perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158D2 World Baseball Classic testing rptd 3-4, 191C1 MLB’s Clemens trainer syringes banned substance found 3-10, 158G3 MLB’s Tejada sentncd 3-26, 277G3 MLB season opens 4-5, 277G2 Cyclist Hamilton admits positive test 4-17, banned 6-16, 515E3 Cyclist Boonen tests positive 4-24, suspended 5-9, 515B3 MLB’s Ramirez appeal dropped/suspended, HCG perscriptn admitted 5-6—5-7; sees Dodgers owner, issues apology 5-9—5-15, positive test knowledge rptd 5-18, 347C3 NASCAR’s Mayfield suspended, positive test mulled 5-9—5-18, atty hiring rptd 5-21, 363D3 Cycling team doping probe questng rptd, Menchov denies role 5-27, 515F3 MLB’s Sosa ‘03 positive test rptd 6-16, House com testimony probe opens 6-17, 484F1 Cycling blood profiling results issued, cases set 6-17, 515D3 MLBPA exec dir (Fehr) sets resignatn 6-22, 483F3, 484E1 Cyclist Valverde nixes Tour de France role 6-23, 515G2 Cyclist Dekker positive EPO test rptd, Tour de France ban set 7-1, 515B3

NFL’s Pace suspended 7-2, 632A2 MLB’s Ramirez returns 7-3, 530E3 Cyclist Di Luca positive CERA tests rptd, suspended 7-22, 515C3 MLB’s Ramirez, Ortiz ‘03 positive tests rptd 7-30, Red Sox clubhouse firings revealed 8-1, 530E3 NBA’s Lewis suspended, admits banned substnc use 8-6, 771B3 MLB’s Ortiz on ‘03 positive test 8-8, 691B1 MLB positive tests list seizure nixed 8-26, preservatn ordrd 9-2, 949B2 Canadian MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951E3 Tennis’ Agassi drug use admitted 10-27, Open published 11-9, 951E1 Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950E3–F3 Pacquiao/Mayweather fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2

DRUGS & Health-Care Products—See under MEDICINE DRUKER, Brian Wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3

DRUMMOND, Chris When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, 451C3

DRUON, Maurice (1918-2009) Dies 4-14, 280C3

DRYDEN, John (1631-1700) Duffy named UK poet laureate 5-2, 316F2

DRZEWIECKI, Miroslaw Casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1, quits 10-5, 705B2–C2

DUBAI—See UNITED Arab Emirates DUBAI Properties Group Woods resort plans cont 12-17, 879B2

DUBAI Stock Exchange Index drops 11-30, 829E2

DUBAI World Debt repaymt halt sought, buys set 11-25, restructuring plan unveiled, guarantee nixed 11-30, 828C3–F3, 829A1–C1, A2, C2–E2 Dubai bankruptcy chngs seen 12-14, 878C1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875D3

DUBNER, Stephen J. SuperFreakonomics on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

DuBOIS, Joshua Named White House faith-based ofc head 1-29, on orgns fed funding 2-5, 60A3, C3

DUBOIS, Lee William Iraq fuel scheme suspect (Jeffrey) chrgd 4-24, 297G2

DuBOIS, Peter Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

Du BRUL, Jack Corsair on best-seller list 3-30, 212A1

DUCEPPE, Gilles Nixes oppositn coalitn deal 1-28, 50G2 Mulls confidnc vote 9-18, 681C3

DUCHAMP, Marcel (1887-1968) Beautiful Breath fetches 8.9 mln euros 2-23, 160B1, D1

DUCKWORTH, Ruth (Ruth Windmueller) (1919-2009) Dies 10-18, 772E1

DUDDY, Patrick Obama greets Venez’s Chavez 4-17, 271C3

DUDIN, Abel al-Majid Slain 5-28, 380G3

DUDLEY, Robert TNK-BP chair (Fridman) named 5-27, Summers deal ends 6-1, 379A1

DUDLEY, Susan Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781A3

DUDLEY, William Named Fed member 1-27, 44A2

DUFFEY Jr., Judge William Convcts Ga terror training suspect 6-10, 833D2

DUFFY (Aimee Ann Duffy) Wins Grammy 2-8, 88F2

DUFFY, Carol Ann Fanthorpe dies 4-28, 316E3 Named UK poet laureate 5-2, 316G1 Padel elected Oxford poetry prof successor 5-16, quits 5-25, 364D2

DUFFY, Colin Held, riots erupt 3-14, 173F1–G1

ON FILE

DUFLO, Esther Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

DUGARD, Jaycee Kidnapping suspects noticed/held, plead not guilty 8-25—8-28; backyard compound found, cops missed chances admiteed 8-26—8-28, sees family 8-27, 587B3–F3, 588A1–B1

DUGGER, Celia W. Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139G2–A3

DUGUID, Gordon On Pak A-bomb ‘father’ (Khan) release 2-6, 75D2

DUHAMEL, Josh Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

DUI Hua Foundation Tiananmen sq protests prisoners estimated 5-12, ‘hooligan’ (Liu) freed 5-18, 395E3–F3

DUKAKIS, Michael Stanley Sen Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638B2

DUKE, David Held 4-24, Czech exit ordrd 4-25, 378B1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) ‘01 remarks regretted, attacks mulled 5-29—6-3, 389C3

DUKES, Jessica Frances Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

DUKE University (Durham, N.C.) Women’s/men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn results 4-6—4-7, 230A3, D3–E3 Franklin dies 3-25, 192F2 Sedgwick dies 4-12, 280G3 Henderson in NBA draft 6-25, 451C1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470F1 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2

DUNAKIN, Sgt. Mark Slain 3-21, 246G3–247A1

DUNCAN, Arne (U.S. education secretary, 2009- ) Educ secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18C1–E1 Confrmd educ secy 1-20, 26C3 On econ recovery funds 3-6, 149A3–B3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287B3 Dismisses pres back-to-schl speech propaganda concerns 9-6, 602A2 Sets states $4 bln program 11-12, 869E2–F2

DUNCAN, Mike Loses GOP chair electn 1-30, 62F1

DUNCAN, Richard Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

DUNCAN, Tim Among NBA rebounding ldrs 4-15, 278B3

DUNE Capital Management LP IndyMac buy OKd 1-2, 32E2

DUNGEONS & Dragons (game) Arneson dies 4-7, 256D2

DUNGY, Tony Sets retiremt 1-12, 55D3 Uncommon on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1 Vick signs Eagles deal 8-13, 564E1

DUNHAM, Stanley (1918-92) Grandson marks D-Day anniv 6-6, 386C2

DUNKIRK (racehorse) 2d in Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399C2–D2

DUNLAP, Max (1929-2009) Dies 7-21, 648D2

DUNN, Anita Alleges Fox News bias 10-11, 717C2–E2 Quits 11-10, 797G3

DUNN, Mike Traded to Braves 12-22, 949B1

DUNNE, Dominick (John) (1925-2009) Dies 8-26, 580G2

DUNNE, Dominique (1959-82) Father dies 8-26, 580A3

DUNNE, Griffin Father dies 8-26, 580A3

DUNNE, John Gregory (1932-2003) Brother dies 8-26, 580A3

DUOJI, Suloang Hummer stake buy OKd 10-9, 758B3

DUPLICITY (film) On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

DURAN, Christopher Andrew Held 8-10, 556A3

2009 Index DURAN, Franklin Sentncd 3-16, 205C1–D1

DURANG, Christopher Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

DURANT, Kevin Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3

DURANT, William C. (1861-1947) GM key events listed 6-1, 366A1

DURBIN, Richard J. (Dick) (U.S. senator from Ill., 1997- ; Democrat) Facts on 1-6, 4A3 Reseated majority whip 1-6, 5D2 Sees Burris 1-7, 4G2 OKs Burris credentials 1-12, 18E2 Seeks terror detainees interrogatn rpt status 2-16, 95C1–D1 On Sen Burris revelatns 2-18, 93D2 Questns terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review 3-31, 322E3 Scores banks influence 4-27, 319C3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4, 322G2–A3 Clean coal project revived 6-12, 446E1 Sen Burris nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 478E1 Backs Cuba base detainees transfer proposal 11-15, 794F2 Cuba base detainees/Thomson prison transfers set, mulls plans 12-15—12-16, 861A1, G1

DURHAM, John CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129F2–G2 Named terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor 8-24, 565A1, G1

DURKIN, Jim Questns Sen nominee (Burris) 1-8, 93F2

DURR, Darryl Executn stay issued 10-5, 719C3–D3

DURRANI, Mahmud Ali Confirms Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) citizenship, fired 1-7, 39C2

DURSI, Majid alOn Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) health 9-1, 583D2

DUTCH—See NETHERLANDS DUVAL, Damon Alouettes win Grey Cup 11-29, 951D3

DUVAL, David 2d in US Open 6-22, 435G1–B2, D2

DUVALL, Robert Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

DUWAIK, Aziz Freed 6-23, 546C3

DWECK, Dr. Fred Indicted, held 12-15, 919A1

DWEK, Solomon NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503G3–504A1, C1–E1

DWYER, Michael Mar tin Slain 4-16, Bolivia’s Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294B1, A2–B2

DYER, Edwin UK detainee (Qatada) release sought 5-30, slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1–E1

DYER, Samuel Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 223A1

DYMOVSKY, Maj. Alexi Claims cops false arrests 11-6, fired, probe set 11-8, 855G1

DYNCORP International Inc. State Dept Iraq security proposal sought 1-29, 53F2 Iraq workers held, abuse mulled 9-28—10-7, 689A1 US/Pak aid package questnd 10-7, 695G2

DZAGANIYA, Yury Sochi mayoral electn held 4-26, results rptd 4-27, 328E2

DZHABRAILOV, Alik Seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, 544A3–B3

DZHAKISHEV, Mukhtar Fired, held/funds misuse alleged 5-21—6-1; arrest questnd 6-10, wife exit blocked 6-13, 510D2–A3

DZHANIYEV, Batyr Suicide car blast hurts 23+ 12-17, IDd 12-18, 938F3

DZHANIYEVA, Fatima Hurt 12-16, brother car blast hurts 23+ 12-17, 938D3, F3

—ECONOMY 1027 DZHEKSHENKULOV, Akilbek Power abuse chrgd, denied 3-5—3-11; held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, chrgd, jailing ordrd 3-11, 187C2–F2 House arrest transfer rptd 8-15, 576C3

DZHEKSHENKULOV, Bekkul Dad held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, 187E2

DZHUGASHVILI, Yevgeny Novaya Gazeta libel suit opens 9-15, 667G2 Grandfather libel suit nixed 10-13, 767A1

DZON, Mathias Pres vote held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, files appeal, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn upheld 7-23—7-25, 507D1

E EARLES, Jason Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

EARLEY, Brian Williams threatens lineswoman 9-12, 631A2

EARNHARDT Jr., Dale In Daytona 500 crash 2-15, 104A1

EARNHARDT, Dale (1951-2001) Inducted to NASCAR HOF 10-14, 860A1

EARTH (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

EARTHQUAKES ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G1 China quake, dam seismic strain linked 2-6, 153G2 Italy quake hits, Berlusconi visits/emergency declared 4-6; warning mulled, rescue cont/death toll rptd 4-6—4-9, aid set, hiked 4-7—4-9, 224B1, D3; photo 224E1; map 224A2 Italy quake victims funeral held 4-10; bldg standards probe set 4-11, historic churches damage rptd, reconstructn cost estimated 4-13—4-14, 253C3 China quake schl constructn probe sought 5-4; student death toll issued 5-7, reconstructn rptd, anniv marked 5-11—5-12, 326B3, F3 Globovision pres (Zuloaga) Venez home raided 5-21, 493G3 Italy quake hits 7-3, G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453F2 China safety activists (Tan/Huang) tried 8-5, 8-12, 557E1 Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Ger geothermal drilling spurs quake 8-15, 939D3 Indonesia quakes hit, tsunami alert issued/safety review ordrd 9-2—9-7; Yudhoyono visits, sets aid 9-3, damage rptd 9-4, 606C3 Quake/tsunami hit Samoa, Tonga 9-29; emergency declared, aid sent 9-29—10-1, damage rptd 10-1, 662G2–A3, C3 Indonesia quakes hit, death toll mulled 9-30—10-1, aid arrives, Yudhoyono returns 10-1, 662E1, C2 Indonesia quakes aid mulled/intl teams arrive, rescue efforts halted 10-2—10-15; victims burial seen 10-7, quakes spur Jakarta evacuatns 10-15—10-16, 724D3, 725C1, E1 China safety activist (Qi) convctd, sentncd 11-23, 872D2 Swiss geothermal drilling halted, designer (Haering) trial opens/cleared 12-10—12-21, 939G2

EARTHRIGHTS International Total/Chevron, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684B1, E1–F1

EAST Anglia, University of (England) Climate chng scientists e-mails posted 11-20; hack confrmd 11-21, Jones steps down 12-1, 828D2 Climate chng data manipulatn probe set 12-5, scientists leaked e-mails mulled 12-8, 842A1

EAST Carolina University (Greensville, N.C.) Liberty Bowl lost 1-2, 24E1

EASTENDERS (TV show) Richard dies 2-26, 192F3

EASTERN Orthodox Churches Georgian Orthodox Church Georgia oppositn members release urged 5-7, 327F3 Early electns urged 5-28, 378F1 Abkhaz split set 9-15, 728F3 Greek Orthodox Church Papandreou sworn premr 10-6, 686B2 Russian Orthodox Church Kirill I elected patriarch 1-27, enthronemt held 2-1, 85C2 Moscow priest (Sysoyev) slain 11-19, motive mulled, Muslim christenings rptd 11-20, 822C1 Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Pavle dies 11-15, 822C2

EAST Timor, Democratic Republic of Civil Strife Suai massacre suspect (Bere) held, release ordrd/scored 8-8—8-31, 835B1, E1 Australia opens forgn rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, Indonesia probe reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236B2; 10-1, 736B2 Gusmao survives confidnc vote 10-12, opportunism alleged 10-13, 835A1 UN Policy & Developments E Timor pres (Ramos-Horta) UN Gen Assemb travel blocked 9-8, 835A2–B2

EAST Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz. newspaper) Gabrielson/Giblin win Pulitzer 4-20, 279D2–E2

EASTWOOD, Clint Gran Torino on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Invictus on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956E2

EBADI, Dr. Noushin In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

EBADI, Shirin Named US rptr (Saberi) atty 4-20, 275C1 Iran rptr (Saberi) rep nixed 5-5, 318D1 Sister in protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

EBARD, Marcelo Cuts pub health alert 5-22, 351B3

EBAY Inc. Skype stake sale set 9-1, copyrights suit filed 9-16, 761B2 Whitman declares Calif gov bid 9-22, 639D3 GM partnership ended 9-30, 679E3 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns auctn blocked 10-27—11-2, 833D1 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886C3

EBERSOLE, Christine Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3

EBRARD, Marcelo Nixes gay marriage bill veto 12-29, 928G3

EC (European Community)—See EUROPEAN Union ECCLESTON, Christoper GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

ECKERT, Beverly Dies in plane crash 2-12, 95G2–A3

ECKHART, Aaron Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

ECLIPSE Awards—See HORSE Racing ECLIPSED (play) Opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

ECLIPSES Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1

ECOLOGIST (British magazine) Goldsmith dies 8-21, 648E2

ECONOMIC Advisers, U.S. Council of (CEA) Soulnier dies 4-30, 348C3 Health care spending rpt issued 6-2, 390E3 May ‘09 jobless rate mulled 6-5, 388E3 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP mulled 7-31, 521G3 Sprinkel dies 8-22, 596F3 10-yr deficit forecast hiked 8-25, 570D3

ECONOMIC Club of New York Bernanke addresses 11-16, 798E2

ECONOMIC Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Guinea membership suspended 1-10, 34F3

Guinea-Bissau delegatn sent, aid sought 3-3, 134D1–E1 Guinea anti-junta protests turn violent/crack down scored 9-28—9-30, 660B2, D3 Guinea junta, oppositn talks mediator sent 10-5, protesters attack trials urged 10-13, 701F3, 702A1 Niger sanctns imposed 10-17; suspended 10-20, cont talks seen 10-21, 761C3–D3 Guinea arms embargo set 10-17; civiln govt return urged 12-6, forgn interventn urged 12-13, 871A1 Equatorial Guinea pres electn vote backed 12-2, 833C3

ECONOMIC Research, National Bureau of (NBER) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1

ECONOMICS & Econometrics Yunus gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 China’s Tohti freed 8-22, govt criticism halt warned 8-24, 606A2 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 644F3 Duflo wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2 Ostrom/Williamson win Nobel 10-12, 694B2 Obituaries Bernstein, Peter L 6-5, 420A3 Carazo, Rodrigo 12-9, 955D1 Friedman, Rose 8-18, 580C3 Gaidar, Yegor T 12-16, 880F1 Granger, Clive WJ 5-27, 384F3 Samuelson, Paul A 12-13, 880D3; photo 880F3 Saulnier, Raymond J 4-30, 348C3 Sprinkel, Beryl W 8-22, 596F3 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3 Walters, Sir Alan 1-3, 40E3

ECONOMY (U.S.) Bush Economic Plan ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use proposed 1-9; 2d 1/2 funds sought 1-12, block nixed by Sen 1-15, 14A3 $700 bln financial indus aid use scored 1-9; curbs, 2d 1/2 funds block pass House 1-21—1-22, disclosure sought 1-22, 32F2 Farewell address 1-15, 19D2 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46B3 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) confrmd 1-26; lobbying curbs set 1-27, banks natlzns nixed 1-29, 44G1, D2, F2, A3, F3, 45A1 $700 bln financial indus aid use mulled, oversight questnd 1-30, Sen com hearing held, fraud warned 2-5, 61F3 $700 bln financial indus aid bank execs House com hearing held 2-11, 77G2 $700 bln financial indus cos lending urged 11-30, 865D1 Bank of Amer govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830C2 $700 bln financial indus aid losses forecast cut 12-7, 846F3, 847C1 $700 bln financial indus aid cont/rpt issued, Cong hearing held 12-9—12-10; Wells Fargo/Citigroup govt repaymt set 12-14, Citigroup shares demand drop, Treasury stake sale delayed 12-17, 864G1, 865A1 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887D1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910E1–F1 Business Inventories Nov ‘08 data, Oct revised 1-14, 46B2 Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 2-12, 111A3 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 3-12, 183G1 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 4-14, 292A2 Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 5-13, 356A1 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 6-11, 428D1 May ‘09 data, Apr revised 7-14, 477C3 Jun ‘09 data, May revised 8-13, 572B2 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 9-15, 640G1 Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 10-14, 740G1 Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 11-16, 813C2 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 12-11, 911G2 Consumer Confidence Jan ‘09 index, Dec ‘08 revised 1-27, 46G1 Feb ‘09 index, Jan revised 2-24, 129B1 Mar ‘09 index, Feb revised 3-31, 219D3 Apr ‘09 index 4-28, 292B1 May ‘09 index, Apr revised 5-26, 355D3 Jun ‘09 index, May revised 6-30, 522D2 Jul ‘09 index, Jun revised 7-28, 522C2 Aug ‘09 index 8-25, 586A1 Sep ‘09 index, Aug revised 9-29, 657A2 Oct ‘09 index, Sep revised 10-27, 759C2 Nov ‘09 index, Oct revised 11-24, 831A3 Dec ‘09 index, Nov revised 12-29, 911A3 Durable Goods Dec ‘08 data 1-29, 46B1 Jan ‘09 data 2-24, 129B1 Feb ‘09 data 3-25, 183A1 Mar ‘09 data 4-24, 292E1 Apr ‘09 data 5-28, 372B2 May ‘09 data 6-24, 428B1 Jun ‘09 data 7-29, 504C3 Jul ‘09 data 8-26, 572D2 Aug ‘09 data 9-25, 657D1 Sep ‘09 data 10-28, 740F2 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-25, 831A3

1028 ECUADOR— Nov ‘09 data 12-24, 911F2 Factory Rate Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 May ‘09 data 6-16, 477B3 Jun ‘09 data 7-15, 477A3 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 Gross Domestic Product ‘09 3d 1/4 final 12-22, 886F3 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ‘08 4th 1/4 1-30, 61A1 ‘09 forecast 2-18, 111A1 ‘08 4th 1/4 revised 2-27, 128F2 ‘08 4th 1/4 final 3-26, 182B3 ‘09 1st 1/4 4-29, 291C3 ‘09 1st 1/4 revised 5-29, 372E1 ‘09 1st 1/4 final 6-25, 456C2 ‘09 2d 1/4, historical revisns issued 7-31, 521C3, 522F1 ‘09 2d 1/4 revised 8-27, 572E1 ‘09 2d 1/4 final 9-30, 657A1 ‘09 3d 1/4 10-29, 739A3 ‘09 3d 1/4 revised 11-24, 813G1 Housing Starts Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-22, 45C3 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 111C3 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-17, 183D1 Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-16, 292C1 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-19, 355E3 May ‘09 data, Apr revised 6-16, 428C1 Jun ‘09 data, May revised 7-17, 504B3 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-18, 572D1 Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-17, 640E1 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-18, 831C2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-16, 911G1 Industrial Output Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112D1 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-16, 183A2 Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-15, 355A3 May ‘09 data 6-16, 477A3 Jun ‘09 data 7-15, 477G2 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-14, 572G1 Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-16, 640A2 Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-16, 740A2 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 Inflation & Recession ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 1-14, 15F3 Citigroup ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 1-16, 32A2 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 25B1, 27B1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 2-24—2-25, 111A1–B1 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 3-4, 147A3 $ drops vs Euro 3-18, 164A1 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 4-14, 241B1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 5-5, 319B2 Fed/Treasury securities buy hike nixed 6-3, 372D1 Ger’s Merkel questns deficit 6-5, 386A2 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 6-10, 389B2 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487C3 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 7-29, 522A2; 9-9, 619C2 Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, Bernanke sees recessn end 9-15, 618B1, A2 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 10-21, 739F3 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759G2 ‘Beige bk’ assesses econ 12-2, 866C1 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847B2 Leading Economic Indicators Dec ‘08 index, Nov revised 1-26, 46A2 Jan ‘09 index, Dec ‘08 revised 2-19, 112B1 Feb ‘09 index, Jan revised 3-19, 183E1 Mar ‘09 index, Feb revised 4-20, 264D3 Apr ‘09 index, Mar revised 5-21, 356B1 May ‘09 index, Apr revised 6-18, 456E2 Jun ‘09 index, May revised 6-30, 522D2 Jul ‘09 index, Jun revised 8-20, 586A1 Aug ‘09 index, Jul revised 9-21, 657B2 Sep ‘09 index, Aug revised 10-22, 759D2 Oct ‘09 index, Sep revised 11-19, 813E2 Nov ‘09 index, Oct revised 12-17, 911B3 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6G3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61G1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128D1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198D1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304D3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371G3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442G1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522D1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586G1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657D3

FACTS Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759D1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831D1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900D1–F1, 910E3 Obama Economic Plan Tax cuts seen 1-4; Cong ldrs mtg held 1-5, recovery plan quick action urged 1-8, 6A3 $825 bln econ recovery plan backed, proposed 1-10, 1-15, 15E1 Recovery plan forecast issued, passes House 1-26—1-28, banking indus aid seen 1-27, 41A1, F1, B3 Recovery plan debate opens/Cong backing urged, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10; opens tour 2-9, talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73A1, G1, E2, D3 Advisory bd unveiled 2-6, 79C3 Obama visits Ind/Fla/Va/Ill, recovery plan mulled 2-9—2-12, 77C3, 78A1–A2, E2–G2, 79A1 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled, Sen coms hearings held 2-10—2-11, 76A3–77F2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79E2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89A1–91E1; highlights listed 90A1 Recovery plan measures Canada oppositn rptd 2-18, 91A2 Handling support polled 2-19—2-22, 105F2 Recovery plan funds wasteful use warning issued 2-20; La, Miss govs nix funds 2-20—2-21, Devaney named monitoring head 2-23, 111A2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, E1; text 106E1, G1, E2 Banks ‘stress tests’ open, plan detailed 2-25, 110A2, G2 Recovery plan educ funds sent 3-6, 149A3 Cheney scores policies 3-15, 166C2 Treasury small business aid set 3-16, 164B1 Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178A2, A3, 179A1 Budget proposals defended, stimulus spending hike urged 3-24, 181E2, G2–A3 Internet pub forum held 3-26, 200G3 NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201A2 Recovery hope seen 4-14, 240A1 News conf held 4-29, 285A2 Financial indus reforms proposed, Sen com hearing held 6-17—6-18, 407A1–408A2 Stimulus package, policies defended 7-12—7-14, 476F3 Medicaid ‘09 enrollmt rise seen 9-30, 919D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan job data rptd, questnd 10-30, 778D2–E2 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31, 756C1 $787 recovery plan job data questnd, probe set 12-3—12-4, lawmakers mtg held 12-9, 847A1, D1 Fscl ‘10 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866E2 Small business lending urged 12-13, execs mtg held 12-14, 864D2 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885B3–C3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906E2, 907A1 Price Indexes Dec ‘08 producer prices 1-15, 46E1 Dec ‘08 CPI 1-16, 46C1 Jan ‘09 producer prices 2-19, 111G2 Jan ‘09 CPI 2-20, 111E2 Feb ‘09 producer prices 3-17, 219C3 Feb ‘09 CPI 3-18, 182E3 Mar ‘09 producer prices 4-14, 240D3 Mar ‘09 CPI 4-15, 240G2–A3 Apr ‘09 producer prices 5-14, 355B3 Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355E2 May ‘09 producer prices 6-16, 427F3 May ‘09 CPI 6-17, 427D3 Jun ‘09 producer prices 7-14, 477D3 Jun ‘09 CPI 7-15, 477D2 Jul ‘09 CPI 8-14, 571C3 Jul ‘09 producer prices 8-18, 571E3 Aug ‘09 producer prices 9-15, 640C2 Aug ‘09 CPI 9-16, 619A2 Sep ‘09 CPI 10-15, 700A1 12-mo CPI 10-15, 714E1 Sep ‘09 producer prices 10-20, 740D1 Oct ‘09 producer prices 11-17, 798A3 Oct ‘09 CPI 11-18, 798F2 Nov ‘09 producer prices 12-15, 911D1 Nov ‘09 CPI 12-16, 910C3 Recession—See ‘Inflation’ above Retail Sales Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-14, 15E3 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-12, 111B3 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-12, 219E3

Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-14, 240B3 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-13, 323E3, 355G3 May ‘09 data, Apr revised 6-11, 428E1 Jun ‘09 data, May revised 7-14, 477B3 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-13, 535E3 Aug ‘09 data 9-15, 618B2 Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-14, 740F1 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-16, 813B2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-11, 911E2 Unemployment Rate Dec ‘08 rate (7.2%) 1-9, 14A2, E2 Jan ‘09 rate (7.6%) 2-6, 79E3, 80B1 Feb ‘09 rate (8.1%) 3-6, 147F1, E2 Mar ‘09 rate (8.5%) 4-3, 219B2, G2 Apr ‘09 rate (8.9%) 5-8, 323A2–B2, E2 May ‘09 rate (9.4%) 6-5, 388C3–D3, 389B1 Jun ‘09 rate (9.5%) 7-2, 456B1–C1, A2 Jul ‘09 rate (9.4%) 8-7, 535A1, G1 Aug ‘09 rate (9.7%) 9-4, 601A3, G3 Sep ‘09 rate (9.8%) 10-2, 676A1, E1 Oct ‘09 rate (10.2%) 11-6, 778G1–A2, A3 Nov ‘09 rate (10.0%) 12-4, 846A2, F2

ECUADOR, Republic of Corruption & Ethics Issues Ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31; Chevron suit judge ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3 Crime & Civil Disorders Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-30—10-5, 723D2 Defense & Disarmament Issues US mil base exited 9-18, 682B2 Economy & Labor SFG-linked brokerages suspended 2-18, 148A3 Environment & Pollution Indian protests held 9-28—10-1, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2–B3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cuba/US spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B2 Pres vote held 4-26; Correa vows improvemts 4-27, reelectn seen 4-28, 294B2 Pres electn final results issued 5-5, 308E3 Correa sworn 8-10, 541A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733B2 Latin American Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Regional ldrs mtg held, Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return mullled 6-29, 438E2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 UNASUR summit hosted 8-10, 541A3 Cuba’s Castro, Correa photos published 8-23, 575G1 UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589E2

EDELMAN, Marek (1919-2009) Dies 10-2, 692B2

EDELSTEIN, Gordon Coming Home opens in New Haven 1-21, 211B3 Have You Seen Us? opens in New Haven 12-2, 954F1

EDGERTON, Joel Streetcar Named Desire revival opens in DC 10-31, 896D1

EDITOR & Publisher (trade publication) Shut 12-10, 912A3

EDUCAP Inc. HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59D3

EDUCATION (non-U.S.)—See country names EDUCATION (U.S.) Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Duncan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18C1 Duncan confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287B3 Gonzales, Tex Tech poly sci teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574D2 U Ill bd chair (Shah) quits 8-3, 554G3 Ill U chancellor (Herman) resignatn OKd, set 10-17—10-20, NMSU pres bid rptd, dropped 10-27—11-11, 817B1 Colleges & Universities U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, reinstatemt sought/opposed, suit warned 4-3—4-9, 307E3 Harvard, Matthiessen prof endowmt set 6-2, 574F2 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554A3 U Ill admissns manipulatn alleged, regretted 8-6—8-11, 554D3 Oct ‘08 student enrollmt rptd 10-29, 816G3

ON FILE

Pvt schl pres ‘07-08 salaries rptd 11-2, 816E3 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1 Corruption & Ethics Issues WG Trading investmt fraud suspects held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3 Crime & Abuse Issues Girl student strip search case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 48G3 Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48D3 Wesleyan U gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1 Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921C1 Yale student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; suspect (Clark) chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920B1 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700G3 Calif HS student attacked/raped, exits hosp 10-24—10-28; arrests reward offrd 10-27, suspects plead not guilty 12-1, 888G2 Chicago bd pres (Scott) found dead 11-16, suicide seen, ruling questnd/defended 11-16—11-17, 816C3 Elementary & Secondary Schools Obamas move to DC 1-4, 6B2 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C3 Calif budget ballot measures nixed 5-20, 340A2 Calif budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503E2–F2 Pres speech activity chngd 9-2; propaganda concerns dismissed, transcript posted 9-6—9-7, Obama addresses students 9-8, 602C1 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619A3 HS ‘08 student drop outs rptd 10-26, 817A1 Federal Aid USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27C1, A2 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D1, B2–D2 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1, 74A1 Obama on econ recovery plan 2-8, 78D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89E1, 90F1; highlights listed 90C1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, A2–B2; text 107F2 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong/signed, DC schl voucher program mulled 2-25—3-11, 144A2–B2 Econ recovery funds sent 3-6, 149A3 Obama reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149A2 Obama nixes budget proposals cut, Cong blueprints unveiled/backed 3-20—3-26, 181A1, D1, B2 A-forensics bill passes Cong 3-24, 12-22, 908C1 Obama holds Internet pub forum 3-26, 200G3 Obama defends econ plan 4-14, 240B1–C1 Fscl ‘10 budget blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 285G3, 286B1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, F1, F2 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424E2, A3 Community coll program unveiled 7-14, 476F3 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 $787 bln econ recovery plan job data rptd, questnd 10-30, 778D2 States $4 bln program set 11-12, 869E2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3, 867E1 $154 bln econ stimulus package passes House 12-16, 866G2 Gifts & Grants Trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2, 182D1 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219A1 Health Issues ‘06 teen birth rates rptd 1-7, 96G1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter recalled 1-13—1-28, 49F3 Peanut Corp, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63C2 NYC students swine flu cases confrmd 4-26, shut schls tallied 4-30, 282A1, F1 FDA tobacco regulatn bill clears House/signed, free-speech challenge seen 6-12—6-22, 428D3–E3 Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425C2 Schl closings mulled 8-7, coll/univ curbs urged 8-20, 584F1–G1 Obituaries Brand, Myles N 9-16, 648B2 Browne, Ray B 10-22, 792B3 Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2

2009 Index Kaplan, Stanley H. 8-23, 596G2 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 Pell, Claiborne 1-1, 9E3 Roberts, Oral 12-15, 880A3 Rogers, Lorene L 1-11, 56G2 Samuelson, Paul A 12-13, 880E3 Sizer, Theodore R 10-21, 840G2 Political Campaign Issues LA mayor (Villaraigosa) reelected 3-3, 131B2 Religious Issues NH gay marriage deal OKd/clears legis, signed 5-29—6-3, 371C1 Sports NFL head injuries probe halted, aid sought 12-18, Boston Univ role set 12-20, 948C1 Teachers (& other staff issues) Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48C2 Ill pension reforms signed 4-3, 219F1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld 6-5—6-9, 385A2 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, tapes issued 7-26—7-29, 504D3, 505A2 Tuition & Student Aid HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59D3 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 77F1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90C1, F1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals, Sallie Mae shares drop 2-26, 125B1, E1, B3 Fed, Treasury lending program launched 3-3, 127F2 AmeriCorps expansion bill clears Cong, signed 3-26—4-21, 355B1 Spec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F1 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641F1 ‘09-10 coll tuition rise seen 10-20, 887A3 UC tuition hike OKd, protests held/arrests rptd 11-19—12-12, 916C2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907A3

EDUCATION, U.S. Department of Secy nominee (Duncan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18C1 Duncan confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Econ recovery funds sent 3-6, 149A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287B3 Swine flu shut schls tallied 4-30, 282F1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424A3 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 Pres back-to-schl speech activity chngd 9-2; propaganda concerns dismissed, transcript posted 9-6—9-7, Obama addresses students 9-8, 602F1–A2 States $4 bln program set 11-12, 869E2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3

EDUCATION Amendments Act (1972) Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569E3

EDWARD, Alonso Wins 200-m world champ silver 8-20, 579A2

EDWARDS, Adrian On Afghan pres electn delay 1-29, 54G1

EDWARDS, Carl In Daytona 500 crash 2-15, 104A1

EDWARDS, Chet (U.S. representative from Tex., 1991- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1

EDWARDS, Elizabeth Resilience on best-seller list 6-1, 384B1

EDWARDS, Herman Fired 1-23, 55F2 Replacemt (Haley) named 2-6, 176C2

EDWARDS, Torri ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

E! Entertainment Television (cable TV channel) Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830D3

E5 Global Media Holdings LLC Nielsen publicatns buy set 12-10, 912B3

EFRON, Zac 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

EGAN, Cardinal Edward (archbishop of New York) Replacemt (Dolan) named 2-26, 132D2, F2–G2

EGGERS, Dave Wins special Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860F1

—ELECTRIC EGGS—See DAIRY Products EGYPT, Arab Republic of African Relations Sudan’s Bashir visits 3-25, 185F1 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 196F3 Arab Relations Gaza tunnels destroyed 1-1—1-3, Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal unveiled 1-6, 1B2, 2B3; map 2D1 Gaza violnc cont, ceasefire mulled/arms smuggling curbs seen 1-10—1-15, 13D1, 14B1–C1, E1 Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16; Israel/Hamas ceasefire declared 1-17, blockade end sought, reconstructn aid mtg hosted 1-18, 31E1, A2, D2, G2 Gaza tunnels rebldg rptd 1-24, border crossings shut 1-27, 42F2–G2 Israel/Hamas border opening conditn set, questnd 2-18, 157A2, D2 Hamas/Fatah talks open 3-10, 157D1 Arab League summit skipped 3-30, 196C3* Hamas/Fatah talks end 4-28, 313E2; 5-18, 345A2 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614F2 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707F3 Arab League mtg hosted 11-7, 777B1 Gaza border wall bldg mulled 12-21—12-22, war anniv marked 12-31, 945D2, F2 Arts & Culture Lourve Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Pak’s Gillani/India’s Singh mtg hosted 7-26, 500A1 China’s Wen visits 11-8, 776B3 CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 6-23, 455B1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Oppositn ldr (Nour) freed 2-18, 100E3 Crime & Civil Disorders Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781E3 European Relations Ger ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, Merkel/Mubarak mtg held 7-8, 482F2 Ger ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2, E2–F2 Mubarak visits France 12-14, 952F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B2; 10-1, 733B2 Immigration & Refugee Issues US ex-student (Megahed) held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816B1 Medicine & Health Care Bird flu cases rptd 2-9, 76A2 Pigs cull opens 4-29, 282B2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis MD fugitive (Heim) ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155C3 Sports Algeria soccer team hurt, security hike sought 11-12—11-13; World Cup qualifying matches held 11-14—11-18, riots erupt, amb recalled/Qaddafi mediatn set 11-19—11-24, 858E3, 859A1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Indonesia emb firebombed 1-20, security hiked 1-21, 153E3 Cairo blast kills 1 2-22, suspects held 2-23, 117D2 US suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833G2 Trade, Aid & Investment Palestinians aid conf hosted 3-2, 123A2 US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488C3 US ‘10 aid clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 Transportation Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4, 878F1 UN Policy & Developments Israel/Hamas ceasefire Sec Cncl res vote mulled 1-12, 14G1 Women’s agencies merger opposed 9-14, 902A2 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Hosni loses electn 9-17—9-22, claims smear campaigns 9-23—10-2, 675F2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mitchell opens Mideast tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2–D2 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, 65D3 Clinton visits 3-1—3-2, 123F1, A2 Obama/Mubarak mtg invite set 4-21, 313A2 Obama Jun speech set 5-8, 318A1, C1–D1

Obama visits, gives Cairo Univ address 6-4, 368B2, 369A2, C2; excerpts 368A1 Mubarak visits 8-18, 593B2–C2 Mitchell tour ends 9-18, 634A3 Clinton visits 11-3, 754F1, F2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28G3 Suspects cont renditns rptd 8-24, 567E2 Suspect (Higazy) FBI detentn suit setld 9-24, 914F2 Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3, 766A1

EICHMANN, Adolf (1906-62) U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, 306E3–F3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3

EICHNER, Daniel Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

EIDE, Kai Backs Afghan pres electn 8-20, 549E1 Sees Afghan’s Karzai reelectn 9-25, dep (Galbraith) ousted 9-30, 668A3, F3 Afghan role scored 9-28—10-4, 674E1–A2 On Afghan pres electn fraud 10-11, 696F1–A2 On Afghan workers slayings 10-28, 750G3 Hails Afghan pres candidate (Abdullah) bid drop 11-1, 753C3 On Afghan’s Karzai ouster plan 12-10, quits 12-11, 894C1–F1

EIGHT Belles (2005-08) (racehorse) I Want Revenge exits Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315E3

EIGHT Elvises (painting) ‘08 $100 mln sale rptd 11-26, 953A2

8th Confession, The (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

EIGHT Is Enough (book/TV show) Braden dies 4-3, 256F2

808s & Heartbreak (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

EIKENBERRY, Lt. Gen. Karl (ret.) Named, confrmd Afghan amb 3-11—4-3, visits Farah battle survivors 5-19, 381G2–A3 Sees Afghan’s Karzai, argumt rptd/denied 8-21—8-29, 594B2 Seeks Afghan pres electn runoff talks aid 10-16, 710G2 On Afghan troop levels 11-12, 775B1–D1 Backs Afghan ties 12-2, 827D1 Testifies to Cong 12-8, 844D2–E2

EIKERENKOETTER II, Frederick Joseph (Reverend Ike) (1935-2009) Dies 7-29, 531E3

EIRE—See IRELAND EISEN, Norm White House visitors pub log set 9-4, list issued 10-30, 780B1 Mich flight failed blast intell woes mulled 12-31, 898F2

EISENBERG, Deborah Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

EISENHOWER, Dwight David (Ike) (1890-1969) (U.S. president, 1953-61; Republican) Saulnier dies 4-30, 348C3

EJIOFOR, Chiwetel 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

EJOGO, Carmen Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

ELABORATE Entrance of Chad Deity, The (play) Opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

ELAM, Abran Traded to Browns 4-25, 299A1

ELASHI, Ghassan Sentncd 5-28, 914B2

ELBA, Idris Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

ElBARADEI, Mohamed Rptd IAEA dir gen 1-1, 3C1 On Iran A-program uranium enrichmt 2-17, 174D1 Successor votes held, Amano elected 3-26—7-2, 502F2 Iran A-program progress seen 8-28, sees ‘stalemate’ 9-7, 599F3, 600B1 On Iran secret A-site inspectns 10-3, 650D3 Visits Iran, sets Qom A-site inspectns 10-4, 688A1

1029

On Iran uranium transfer proposals 10-29, 768E2 Proposes Iran A-program uranium Turkey transfer 11-6, further secret sites seen 11-16, 804C2, G2

ELBEGDORJ, Tsakhiagiin (Mongolian premier, 2005-06; president, 2009- ) Pres electn held 5-24, win rptd, hailed 5-25, 377F1–G1, D2–F2 Facts on 5-24, 377A2 Bayar in hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd premr 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763F1

ELDERLY—See AGE ELECTIONS—See POLITICS ELECTRIC Power Accidents & Disasters Thai club blaze kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22C3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33F2, C3 Ky, Ark ice storms cut power 1-27—2-11; damage rptd 2-3—2-5, disasters declared 2-5—2-6, 133E2 Tenn power plant coal ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11, cause rptd 6-25, 555B1 Australia storms kill 2, emergencies declared 5-19—5-24, 413F2 Iraq/US troop electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27, 530A2 Russian blast kills 17+ 8-17, 560A3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 Storm Ketsana hits PI, Viet 9-26—9-29, 664A2, G2 Quake/tsunami hit Amer Samoa 9-29, 662E3 Typhoon Parma hits PI 10-3, 684A3 Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937G3 Appointments & Resignations Energy secy (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17B3 Blackouts & Brownouts Honduras capital power out 6-28, 438B1 FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745D2 Power outages hit Brazil, Paraguay 11-10, cause mulled, probe set 11-11, 871D3 Budget & Spending Programs Mex stimulus plan set 1-7, 83E1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A2 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90E2, A3 Iraq/US reconstructn funds returned 3-16, 175A1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Mex union protests held, riot cops deployed/LFC shut 10-8—10-11; pvtizatn denied 10-11, reversal sought 10-12, 724C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues US troop (Maseth) Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38D2 Environmental Issues Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 Appliances, electronics energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94A2 EPA power plants mercury curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94A3* Coal plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94C2–E2 US’s Clinton visits China 2-21, 109F3 EPA soot rules review ordrd 2-24, 267F3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125G2–B3, G3 US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 266B2 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307E1–G1 Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655A1 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445C1 Freshwater fish mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655B2 Australia renewable energy bill passes parlt, scored 8-20, 624D1 States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2 EPA emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2 EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654A2 EPA mercury curbs suit setld 10-23, 781F1, B2 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841A2 Political & Legislative Issues Uzbek parlt electns held 12-27, 935A1 Price & Production Issues Gaza crisis claimed 1-14, 14A1

1030 ELECTRONIC— Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 S Africa township protests turn violent 7-12—7-28, 525C3 Honduras/Brazil emb svc cut 9-22, 643B3 Honduras/Brazil emb harassmt halt ordrd 9-25, 662B1 Riots & Unrest Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3 Terrorism & Sabotage US cybersecurity measures questnd 4-7; grid hacked 4-8, guidelines proposed 5-29, 410E3, 411A2 Pak tribal areas violnc erupts 5-3, 315D1 Iran electn protests cont 7-6, 464C1 PI blast cuts power 7-7, 528A2 Trade & Aid Issues Israeli/Iran A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75G1 Kazakh exits Central Asia power grid 2-26, 935F2 Zimbabwe pvt bank accts cash removal admitted 4-20, 589B1 Brazil/Paraguay dam power deal set 7-25, 508F2 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935C2

ELECTRONIC Arts Inc. Golfer Woods backed 12-1, 839C3

ELECTRONIC Arts Inc. (EA) NFL’s Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1

ELECTRONIC Frontier Foundation (EFF) NSA warrantless spying suit opposed 4-3, 244F1 Warrantless spying telecom cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410D2 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1

ELECTRONICS Industry Energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94F1, B2 Obamas visit UK Queen 4-1, 194C2 Lear bankruptcy declared 7-7, financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 Rogers wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679C2 Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848F3 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918F1 Computers—See COMPUTERS Obituaries Shepherd Jr, Mark 2-4, 120F3

ELECTRONIC Surveillance—See WIRETAPPING ELEGANT Bride (magazine) Shut 10-5, 913A1

ELEMENTARY and Secondary Education Act (1965) Educ ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 524B1

ELEMENTARY Schools—See EDUCATION (U.S.) ELGIN Marbles (sculptural panels) Greece seeks return 6-20, 449B2–E2

ELI Lilly & Co. Antipsychotic drug (Zyprexa) mktg suit setld 1-15, 64E3

ELIZABETH II, Queen (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary) (Great Britain) Sen Kennedy honorary knighthood set 3-4, 124C2 Hosts Obamas 4-1, 194B2 D-Day anniv marked 6-6, 386C2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled 8-21, 568A2 Legis agenda set 11-18, 821A2 Opens Commonwealth mtg 11-27, 845D3 Canada parlt suspended 12-30, 926A3

ELLEMANN, Karen Named Denmark home/social affairs min 4-7, 225F1

ELLINGTON, Duke (Edward Kennedy) (1899-1974) Bellson dies 2-14, 140F1

ELLINGTON, Wayne UNC wins NCAA men’s basketball title, named tourn MVP 4-6, 229E3, 230E1 In NBA draft 6-25, 451C2

ELLIOTT, Sam Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

ELLIOTT, Scott Groundswell opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

ELLIOTT Management Corp. Delphi stake bought 10-6, 679C2

ELLIS, David (prosecutor) Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43E3–F3

FACTS ELLIS, David R. (director) Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

ELLIS, Nelsan Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

ELLIS, Judge Ronald Upholds Madoff bail release 1-12, 113A3

ELLIS 3rd, Judge T. S. Finds Custer Battles, Iraq fraud liability 4-10, 255E1–F1 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Sentncs La ex-rep (Jefferson) 11-13, 797D2

ELLISON, Keith (U.S. representative from Minn., 2007- ; Democrat) Visits Gaza 2-19, 157F2

ELLSBURY, Jacoby AL 3B ldr 10-6, 690E2

ELMENDORF, Douglas Warns health care reform proposals high costs 7-16, 476A3 Questns preventive health care costs 8-7, 552C2 Sees House climate chng bill job losses 10-14, 743E1–F1

ELMI, Abdifatah Mohammed Forgn rptrs freed 11-25, 889C3

El NINO (weather phenomenon) ‘09 Atlantic hurricanes low rptd 11-30, 921E2

ELOMAR, Mohamed Ali Convctd 10-16, 930G1

ELON, Amos Dan (1926-2009) Dies 5-25, 384G1

EL Pais (Spanish newspaper) Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published 6-5, 463B2 Italy’s Berlusconi defamatn suit filed 8-28, 626F3 Russian Const Ct judge quits 12-2, 892B3

ELRICK, M.L. Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139C3

EL Salvador, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Floods/mudslides kill 144+, emergency declared 11-7—11-10, 818C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Munic electns held 1-18, results rptd 1-24, 50C3 Pres electn held 3-15, results rptd 3-16, 170C2 Facts on Funes 3-15, 170E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-15, 233C2 Funes sworn 6-1, 394E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733C2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149E1* US fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 920A1 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, IRS partnership ended, suit seen 9-23, 638C3 Latin American Relations Cuba ties cont 6-1, 394A3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1, B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Funes visits emb 3-16, 170B3 Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1

EL Universal (Mexican newspaper) Calderon interviewed 2-27, 171D2

ELWELL, Dennis (Secaucus, N.J. mayor, 2000- ; Democrat) Held, chrgd in bribery scheme 7-23, quits 7-28, 504A1

E-Mail—See INTERNET EMANUEL, Rahm (U.S. representative from Ill., 2003-09; White House chief of staff, 2009- ; Democrat) Halts pending fed regulatns 1-20, 28A1 On Limbaugh GOP ldrship 3-1, 146D2 House seat spec electn Dem primary held 3-3, 131C1–D1 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219B1 House seat spec electn held 4-7, 219A2 Vs CIA interrogatn prosecutns 4-19, remarks mulled 4-21, 258A2–B2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288G2 On pub health care option 7-6, 457C3–D3 F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 489G3

Obama speech, Wilson outburst rebuke passes House 9-15, 617A3 In health care reform bills merging talks 10-14, 698G2 Sees Fox News bias 10-18, 717A3 On Afghan troop levels 10-19, 710C3 Podesta White House visits rptd 10-30, 780D1 On health care reform Sen bill 11-18, 796E3 White House crashers post photos 11-24, 829B3 Sees Sens Reid, Lieberman 12-13, 863E2

EMBALI, Faustino (Guinea-Bissau prime minister, 2001) Held 6-5, 458F3

EMBLEMS—See FLAGS EMC Corp. Kwon named RSA vp 8-10, 602F3

EMIGRATION—See IMMIGRATION EMINEM (Marshall Mathers 3rd) ‘Crack a Bottle’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1 Relapse on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

EMMANUEL, Charles McArthur (Charles Taylor Jr.) Sentncd 1-9, 50A1–B1

EMMERICH, Roland 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

EMMY Awards Primetime awards presented 9-20, 647A3, F3

EMOND, Bernard Wins Genie 4-4, 280D1

EMOND, Linda Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

EMORY River Power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-2, 33G2

EMORY University (Atlanta, Ga.) Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2

EMPIRE State of Mind (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

EMPLOYMENT & Unemployment (U.S.)—See under LABOR EMPRESAS Polar Venez govt seizure warned 3-4, 204D3

E.N.D., The (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532E1; 8-29, 596D1

ENDANGERED Species Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisting set 1-14, halted 1-21, 65C2 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3 Fed projects review restored 3-2, 131C2 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisting upheld 3-6, 267E3 ‘Scientific integrity’ pres memo signed 3-9, 143C3 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, hunting OKd 9-8, 655G1 Polar bears habitat, emissns curbs nix upheld 5-8, 555A2 Ore logging curbs ease dropped 7-16, 555F1 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781A3 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3 Calif water system, fed policies review set 11-8, 887G2 Brown pelican delisting set 11-11, 918B1

ENDANGERED Species Act (1973) Northn Rocky Mts gray wolves delisting set 1-14, halted 1-21, 65C2 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3 Fed projects review restored 3-2, 131E2 Polar bears habitat, emissn curbs nix upheld 5-8, 555A2 Ore logging curbs ease dropped 7-16, 555G1 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781A3 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800E3

ENDARA Gallimany, Guilermo (1936-2009) (Panamanian president, 1989-94) Dies 9-28, 672E2

ENDEAVOUR (U.S. space shuttle) Atlantis flies Hubble repair missn 5-11—5-24, 373A1 Intl statn missn flown 7-15—7-31, 519E1

ENERBACK, Sven Finds adults energy-burning fat cells 4-9, 580C1

ON FILE

ENERGY, U.S. Department of Sci (Nozette) leaves US/returns, pleads guilty 1-6—1-8; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760E3 Secy nominee (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17A3 Chu confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Appliances, electronics efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94F1 Clean coal project ‘08 nix math woes cited 3-11, funding set, revived 5-15—6-12, 445G3, 446B1, D1, F1 Solyndra solar panel dvpt deal awarded 3-20, 479E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287G2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1 Hydrogen cars dvpt funding cut 5-7, 917G1 Auto indus fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536C2 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489C3 ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658D3 ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 714E3 Chu testifies to Sen com 10-27, 743B1 ‘10 funds signed 10-28, 799G3 Chu climate treaty talks role set 11-25, 828A1 AltaRock geothermal project shut, efforts cont 12-11, 939E3

ENERGY & Power—See also specific sources (e.g., PETROLEUM) Appointments & Resignations USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18B1 US secy (Chu) confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287G2 TNK-BP chair (Fridman) named 5-27, Summers deal ends 6-1, 379A1 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) Calif speech video posted, regrets 9/11 petitn signing 9-1—9-3; resignatn urged 9-4, quits 9-6, 602B2, A3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama econ recovery plan quick action urged 1-8, 7B1, C1 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15A2 EU infrastructure funds urged 1-20, 37A3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D1, G1, D2–E2 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1 Obama on econ recovery plan 2-8, 78D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89E1, 90D2–E2; highlights listed 90C2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, C2; text 107E1 Gov Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 108F2 US fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144A2 Obama nixes proposals cut, Cong blueprints unveiled/backed 3-20—3-26, 181A1, D1 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 273D1 Obama defends econ plan 4-14, 240B1–C1 US fscl ‘10 budget blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 286B1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1 US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658D3 US efficiency spending savings seen 7-29, 917B3 US ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 714E3 US ‘10 funds signed 10-28, 799G3 Environmental Issues Appliances, electronics efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94F1 Obama defends reform efforts 7-12, 477F1 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636G1 House climate chng legis job losses seen 10-14; Sen bill unveiled 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 743B1, E1–F1 Calif flat-panel TV efficiency rules OKd 11-18, 918A1 Australia emissns cut backed 12-2, 851G2 Nuclear Power—See NUCLEAR Power Political & Legislative Issues Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27C1 Bolivia const referendum held 1-25, 50E1–F1 Price & Production Issues US Dec ‘08 producer prices 1-15, 46E1 US Dec ‘08 CPI 1-16, 46D1 US Jan ‘09 producer prices 2-19, 111G2 US Jan ‘09 CPI 2-20, 111F2 US Feb ‘09 producer prices 3-17, 219C3 US Mar ‘09 producer prices 4-14, 241A1 US Mar ‘09 CPI 4-15, 240B3 US Apr ‘09 producer prices 5-14, 355C3 US Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355G2 May ‘09 producer prices 6-16, 427F3 US May ‘09 CPI 6-17, 427E3

2009 Index US Jun ‘09 producer prices 7-14, 477D3 US Jun ‘09 CPI 7-15, 477D2 US Jul ‘09 CPI 8-14, 571E3 US Jul ‘09 producer prices 8-18, 571F3 US Aug ‘09 producer prices 9-15, 640C2 US Aug ‘09 CPI 9-16, 619B2 Trade & Aid Issues Obama visits Canada 2-19, 91G1 Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271G1 Saudi, Madagascar investmt set 5-3, 308D3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405F1 Russian delegatn visits Egypt, Africa 6-23—6-26, 455C1, G1 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541G1 Myanmar/China border militia clashes end urged 8-28, 590G2 Venez/Russia deal set 9-11, 616F2 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643E1 US govt, Iran divestmt bill passes House 10-14, 711C2 US/Pak aid vowed 10-28, 737B2

ENERGY Policy and Conservation Act (1975) Appliances, electronics efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94G1

ENGINEERING Pak/Chinese captive (Long) freed 2-14, 103C2 Iraq/US forces Sep ‘09 cut set 3-8, 156G1 China/US econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 Hyundai worker (Yoo) freed, deported 8-13, 558G1 Zoli wins MacArthur 9-22, 671E2 Afghan/US noncombat troops hike OKd 10-13, 696D1 Turkmen gas field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935D3 Obituaries Rogallo, Francis M 9-1, 648D3 Shepherd Jr, Mark 2-4, 120F3 Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Whitcomb, Richard T 10-13, 860G3

ENGINEERS, U.S. Corps of (of Army) Mt mining curbs nixed 2-13, 94F2 Iraq reconstructn funds return rptd 3-16, 175A1 Mt mining permits EPA reviews urged, set 3-23—3-24, 267F2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 Wolfe slain 5-25, 352E3 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426G2–A3 ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658D3–E3 Afghan bribery worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, 567A3 McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656C2 ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 714F3–G3 Amer Samoa svcs restored, water warning lifted 10-6—10-7, 685D1

ENGLAND—See GREAT Britain ENGLAND, Judge Morrison Orders Calif gay marriage ban ballot initiative donors list release 1-29, 150A1

ENGLAND People Very Nice (play) Opens in London 2-11, 211C3

ENGLARO, Beppino Daughter feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6, dies 2-9, 117E1

ENGLARO, Eluana Feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6; dies 2-9, autopsy rptd 2-11, 117C1–E1

ENGLE, Robert (Robert Fry Engle 3rd) Granger dies 5-27, 384F3

ENGLISH, Larry In NFL draft 4-25, 298G2

ENGLISH Language—See LANGUAGE ENGZELL, Louise Williams threatens, fined/outburst regretted 9-12—9-14, 631G1–B2

ENI SpA Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-2, 789D3

ENKE, Robert Kills self 11-10, depressn rptd 11-11, 949E3

ENKHBAYAR, Nambariin (Mongolian premier, 2000-04; president, 2005- ) Electn held 5-24, concedes 5-25, 377F1–G1, C2–D2

ENRIQUEZ, Miguel (1944-74) Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 871F2

—EPHRON ENRIQUEZ-Ominami, Marco Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 871G1, F2

ENRON (play) Opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

ENRON Corp. Ex-exec (Skilling) convctn upheld, sentnc cut 1-6, appeal accepted by Sup Ct 10-13, 718A1 Indep acctg oversight bds case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677A3 Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

ENSIGN, Darlene Husband admits affair 6-16, 410D1

ENSIGN, John (U.S. senator from Nev., 2001- ; Republican) Scores Obama/Venez’s Chavez exchng 4-19, 271D3 Admits affair 6-16, drops GOP post, woman comes forward 6-17, 410B1 SC gov (Sanford) admits affair 6-24, 424B2 Parents/mistress paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9; harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, reelectn bid cont 7-13, 478F1 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455C2 Rep Heller nixes Reid seat bid 8-11, cites affair scandal 8-12, 552F2–A3

ENSOR, James (1860-1949) Jealousy of Pierrot fetches 5 mln euros 2-23, 160B1, D1

ENTERGY Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc. (2009) EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 4-1, 307C2

ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency, U.S. (EPA) Air Pollution ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 States’ fuel econ waiver reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47G1, B2–C2 SD coal plant constructn blocked 1-22, 94B3 Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 Coal plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94C2 CO2 emissns regulatn mulled 2-22, 131F2–G2 Soot rules review ordrd 2-24, 267F3 Emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 Emissns ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 267E1 Cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307E1 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339E2 Livestock emissns rptg measures backed 6-18, 6-25, 488E1 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445B1 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478C3 GM electric car release set 8-11, 536G1 Auto emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621D3 ‘08 smog rules mulled 9-16, emissns rptg set 9-22, 781B2, E2 Emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654A2 Sen climate chng bill unveiled 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 743C1 Power plant mercury curbs suit setld 10-23, 781F1 Climate chng bill Sen com debate opens, experts testify 11-3—11-4; Kerry seeks separate talks 11-4, bill backed 11-5, 759E3, G3 Climate chng science sought 12-2, 828G2 Emissns threat seen 12-8, 841F1 Appointments & Resignations Admin nominee (Jackson) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 17F3 Jackson confrmd admin 1-22, 30D1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288A2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321C1 ‘10 funds pass House 6-26, 488C1–D1 ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 10-29—10-30, 799E3, G3 Chemical Hazards Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-2, 33E2, G2 Power plants mercury curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94A3* Pesticide testing ordrd 4-15, 356D3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup set 5-11, storage sites risk seen 6-29, 555B1 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492C2 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1

Corruption & Ethics Issues Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781F2 Water Pollution Mt mining permits reviews urged, set 3-23—3-24, 267E2 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426A3–B3 Munic monitoring benefits seen 8-23, 701G2

ENVIRONMENT & Pollution Amazon Basin—See AMAZON Basin Appointments & Resignations EPA admin nominee (Jackson) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 17F3 Jackson confrmd EPA admin 1-22, 30D1 US trade rep nominee (Kirk) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182B1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 182A1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288A2 NPS dir (Jarvis) named 7-10, 491E1–F1 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) Calif speech video posted, regrets 9/11 petitn signing 9-1—9-3; resignatn urged 9-4, quits 9-6, 602B2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321C1 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489C3 EPA ‘10 funds pass House 6-26, 488C1–D1 EPA ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 EPA ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 10-29—10-30, 799E3–G3 Japan econ long-term growth plan OKd 12-30, 933E1 Climate Change—See CLIMATE Change Conservation Issues Plum Creek fed land road paving request nixed 1-5, 65F2 Bush names marine monumts 1-6, mammal species protectns lack rptd 1-7, 7A2 Arctic fishing ban OKd 2-5, 267G3 Wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1 US pub lands curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 245G3 Bird populatn drop seen 3-19, 267A3 Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447C2 Mt mining permits EPA reviews urged, set 3-23—3-24, 267E2 Bat caves entry nix urged 3-26, ordrd shut 5-1—5-21, 356B3 Fla sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3 Brazil econ nun (Stang) slaying suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2 Mt mining rules chng nix sought 4-27, 356C3 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh 5-25—5-26, 383C2 EU/US file China WTO complaint 6-23, 440E1 Iran businesses shut 7-7—7-8, 464D1 Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550F2 Ocean fisheries populatn woes rptd 7-31, 550E2 Mt mining rules chng upheld 8-13, 655B2 Greece wildfires erupt, probe opens 8-21—8-24, 577F1, A2 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2, A3 Wild horse preserves proposed 10-7, 800F3 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis, signed 11-4—11-13, 887F2 China raw material export curbs WTO complaint filed 11-5, 776B2 Nev wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917D3 Court Rulings EPA power plants mercury curbs omit nix appeal dropped 2-6, 94G2 Mt mining curbs nixed 2-13, 94F2 EPA soot rules review ordrd 2-24, 267F3 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409B3 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307E1 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2 US natl forests protectns reinstated 8-5, 555E1 States, power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2 EPA power plant mercury curbs suit setld 10-23, 781E1 Crime & Law Enforcement Bulgaria riots erupts 1-14, 52C2

1031

Endangered Species—See ENDANGERED Species Health Issues Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall failures rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2 China unrest curbs urged 2-2, 134G3 Toxic chem emissns rptg hike signed 3-11, 356G3 Pesticide testing ordrd 4-15, 356D3 Tenn power plant coal ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11; cause rptd 6-25, storage sites risk seen 6-29, 555B1 Mont asbestos emergency declared 6-17, 492F2 China smelters shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2 Freshwater fish mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655A2 Water monitoring benefits seen 8-23, 701F2 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 645A1 Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 Obituaries Brutus, Dennis 12-26, 955B1 Goldsmith, Edward 8-21, 648E2 Lawrence, Andrea Mead 3-30, 256D3 Oil & Gas Developments Interior secy nominee (Salazar) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17F3 US Dec ‘08 leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1–E1 Obama visits Canada 2-18, 91B2–C2 Suncor/Petro-Canada buy set 3-23, 204E2 NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917B2 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405D3–E3, 406C1 Ecuador, Chevron suit judge (Nunez) ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3, G3–724A1 Timor Sea rig leak damage assessed 10-23, 874A2 Exxon Mobil/XTO Energy buy set 12-14, 887A1 Ozone—See OZONE People Seeger gets Gish Prize 9-3, 880A1 Political & Legislative Issues Iceland’s Gisladottir govt sought 1-27, 53B1 Mercury emissns treaty mulled, draft talks OKd 2-16—2-20, 123G3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105C2, 107E1, 108A3 House ‘carbon-neutral’ plan droppped 2-27, 131A3 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 267E1 Australia renewable energy bill passes parlt, scored 8-20, 624D1 US electn results 11-3—11-5, 757A1 Smog States’ fuel econ waiver EPA reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47G1 SD coal plant constructn blocked 1-22, 94B3 Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 Coal plants CO2 emissns review set 2-17, 94C2 CO2 emissns EPA regulatn mulled 3-2, 131F2 China electric car dvpt hike plan unveiled 4-10, 932A3 US high-speed RR system urged 4-16, 324B3 US autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339A2 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478C3 GM electric car release set 8-11, 536G1–A2 Auto emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621D3 EPA ‘08 rules mulled 9-16, emissns rptg set 9-22, 781B2, E2 Australia southeastn coast air pollutn levels rptd 9-23, 682E3 EPA emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2 G-20 reforms OKd 9-25, 651A3 Solid Waste—See WASTE

ENZI, Michael B. (U.S. senator from Wyo., 1997- ; Republican) Scores health care reform efforts 8-29, Baucus mtg failure seen 9-8, 598A3

EPA—See ENVIRONMENTAL Protection Agency EPHRON, Delia Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

EPHRON, Nora Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

1032 EPIDEMICS— EPIDEMICS—See MEDICINE—Diseases EPISCOPAL Church, Protestant Calif split dioceses property rights nixed 1-5, 132E3 Robinson at Obama preinaugural concert 1-18, 25B3 Gay bps OKd, nominatns set 7-12—8-2, gay couples ceremonies OKd 7-17, 539B1, G1 Calif split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3 RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711F2 Archbp of Canterbury sees Pope 11-21, 811A2 LA diocese asst bps elected, Glasspool selectn questnd 12-4—12-5, 868B3

EPSTEIN, David Rpts Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test 2-7, 87D2

EQUAL Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. (EEOC) Wash Times bias claim filed 11-17, 913B3

EQUALITY Across America DC gay rights march held 10-11, 698C3

EQUALITY California Calif gay marriage ballot initiative set 5-26, 352G3 Gay marriage ballot initiative delayed 8-12, 554A1

EQUALIZER, The (TV show) Woodward dies 11-16, 840G3

EQUATORIAL Guinea, Republic of African Relations Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Obiang French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394G1 Obiang French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833D3 Crime & Civil Disorders Coup plotters pardoned, freed/Mann returns to UK 11-3—11-4, 925D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D2; 10-1, 733C2 Pres electn held/vote mulled, results rptd 11-29—12-3, 833A3

EQUESTRIAN—See HORSEBACK Riding EQUIVOCATION (play) Opens in LA 10-17, 895G3

ERASMUS Medical Center (Netherlands) Prostate test efficacy questnd 3-18, 191F2

ERDOGAN, Recep Tayyip (Turkish premier, 2003- ) Coup plot suspects held, sees mil chief (Basbug) 1-7—1-11, 23B1–C1 Urges Israel UN ouster 1-16, 31C1 At World Econ Forum, in Israel’s Peres clash 1-28—2-1, 58A3–C3 Kurdish parlt speech spurs uproar 2-24, 227A1 Hosts US’s Clinton 3-7, 142B3, 143A1 Gul visits Iraq 3-23, 189C2 Local electns held 3-29, on party losses 3-30, 226E3 Hosts Obama 4-7, 214E2, C3 On Blige wedding party attack 5-4, 329B3 Visits EU hq 6-26, 706G3 Scores China ethnic violnc 7-10, 509F3 Signs Russia gas pipeline deal 8-6, 561A1 Sets Kurdish rebels peace initiative 8-11, hails surrender 10-21, 728D2–F2 Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706C2, E2, G2 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627A3 NATO jt mil exercise nixed 10-11, 696E2–F2 Seeks Nagorno-Karabakh troops exit 10-11, 707E1 Denies Sudan’s Bashir genocide role 11-8, 788F3, 789A1 Unveils Kurdish rights hike proposal 11-13, 803E3–F3, 804A1 Visits US 12-7, 846A1 DTP party banned, vs ruling 12-11—12-14, 893A2–C2

EREKAT, Saeb On Israeli talks 4-1, 209E3 On Israel’s Netanyahu/Obama mtg 5-18, 336D2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 6-10, on Israel’s Netanyahu Palestinian state backing 6-14, 403E2, A3 Elected to party central com 8-11, 545D3 On W Bank setlmts constructn halt offer 10-31, 754A2

FACTS E.REPUBLIC Inc. Governing buy set 11-20, 913C2

ERICKSON, Arthur Charles (1924-2009) Dies 5-20, 384F2

ERICKSON, Nancy Blocks Ill’s Burris Sen seating 1-6, 4F2

ERICSSON, Jonathan Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420C1, B2

ERIKSEN, Mikkel S. Wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

ERITREA, State of African Relations Madagascar pol dispute talks nixed 2-25, 169E1 Sudan’s Bashir visits 3-23, 185F1 Somali pirate attacks map 4-12, 238A1 Somalia/Ethiopia full-scale interventn nixed 6-24, 430F1 Somalia interfernc warning issued 8-6, 540A2 Somalia Islamists backing sanctns set 12-23, 903D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D2; 10-1, 733D2 Human Rights Widespread abuses alleged 4-16, 341A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues French camp raided, migrants held 9-22, 666F1

ERNST & Young LLP Tajik natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272C2

EROSHEVICH, Dr. Khristine Chrgd, pleads not guilty 3-12, 5-13, 920D1

ERSHAD, Gen. Hossein Mohammed (Bangladeshi president, 1982-90) Hasina sworn PM 1-6, 9E1

ESA—See EUROPEAN Space Agency ESBJORNSON, David Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

ESCALONA Martinez, Rafael Calixto (1927-2009) Dies 5-13, 364D3

ESCHENBACH, Henry Asbestos trial opens, evidnc nixed 2-19—4-23; witness testimony questnd, upheld 4-17—4-28, cleared 5-8, 356E2

ESERGEPOV, Ramazan Held, convctd 1-6—8-8, sentnc set/scored, upheld 8-8—8-13, 576E2–A3

ESHELMAN, Drew Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

ESHOO, Anna (U.S. representative from Calif., 1993- ; Democrat) ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, 744A3

ESPADA Jr., Pedro Joins GOP 6-8; Ravitch named lt gov 7-8, returns to Dems 7-9, 524B3–D3, F3

ESPARAZA, Martin Electricians protest, LFC shut 10-8—10-11, 724E1–G1

ESPER, Michael Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

ESPINER, Mark Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

ESPINER, Tom Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

ESPINO, Miguel Stopped by Pavlik 12-19, 895G2

ESPINOSA, Patricia Hosts US’s Clinton 3-25, 186B1 Scores HK visitor swine flu positive test response 5-2, 303C3

ESPINOZA, Judge Peter Sees Polanksi ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’, nixes appeal 2-17, 653F3

ESPIONAGE Act (1917) AIPAC secrets transfer case dropped 5-1, 306A2

ESPIONAGE & Intelligence Issues—For Iraq war issues, see IRAQ War—Intelligence Africa CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3 Sudan aid groups exit ordrd 3-16, 185B1 Eritrea’s Afwerki denies Somalia conflict role 5-21, 342A1 CIA Algeria ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 592A3

Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680A1 Sudan security reforms pass parlt 12-20, 924E1 Asia/Pacific Rim US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38A3–B3 Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-5—1-6, intell agency govt orders claimed 1-7, 39A2–B2 N Korea A-program uranium warning issued 1-7, 36C1 Bin Laden son locatn mulled 1-16, 39A1 Pak drone missile strike kills 20+ 1-23, 69G3 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, CIA intell sharing rptd 2-16, 103A3, D3 N Korea A-program dismantling sought 2-16, 109D1 CIA Pak efforts cont 2-25, 138A3 US surveillnc ships China harassmt alleged, protested 3-4—3-9, Impeccable locatn mulled, destroyer sent 3-10—3-12, 153G1–B2 Afghan terror attack Pak agency role alleged 3-19, 229F1 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 195C1 Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342B1 N Korea satellite launch interfernc warning issued 4-1, 215A3 Pak benchmarks Sen com hearing held 4-3, Holbrooke visits Pasha 4-7, 229D1, G1 Sri Lanka rebel ldr (Prabhakaran) death confrmd 5-24, 363G1 N Korea A-program reopening seen 5-27, 351E1 Pak blast kills 24 5-27, 382C3–D3 N Korea missile launch preparatns seen 5-30, Kim successn mulled 6-2, 404E1, F2 Pak hotel blast kills 18 6-9, 418A3 US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486G2, D3 Pak drone missile strike bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, 514G2–A3 Pak/India terror intell sharing deal set 7-26, 500A1 Australia raids net terror suspects 8-4, 930C2 China quake safety activist (Huang) trial held 8-5, 557G1 Chineses mine workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3–B3 Afghan intell ofcr (Laghmani) slain 9-2, 594E2 Afghan insurgent threats IDd 9-20, 635E2 Lashkar-e-Taiba cont threat seen 9-27, 669B3–C3 N Korea plutonium plant cont use seen 10-7, 712D2 Afghan/India emb blast kills 17 10-8, 674E2 Afghan/US noncombat troops hike OKd 10-13, 696E1 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930A2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709C3 Afghan’s Karzai brother CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 751E1–F1 Thai/Cambodia spy suspect held, release aid sought 11-12—11-19, convctd, pardoned/freed 12-8—12-14, 872B1, G1 Pak blast kills 7+ 11-13, 806G3 Canadian/Afghan detainees abuse parlt hearings held 11-18—12-9; govt stance chngd 12-9, com mtg skipped 12-15, 926G3–927A1 Pak, CIA operatns hike rptd 12-2, 827A2 Pak intell agency ofc attack kills 9+ 12-8, 858B2 Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found 12-12, 862A3 CIA Afghan base attack kills 7+ 12-30, 899D1 Canada Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723B1 Commonwealth of Independent States Alma-Ata Info state secrets publishing suspects held, convctd 1-6—8-8, sentnc set/scored, upheld 8-8—8-13, 576E2 Estonia defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, breach mulled, assoc intl warrant issued 2-25—2-26, 136A1 Russia mil divisn head (Korabelnikov) ousted, Shlyakturov named 4-24, 328A3 NATO/Russian envoys ousted 4-30, 311B1 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe sought 8-18, 607D1

ON FILE

Russian/Czech diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, 645E2 Russian WWII documts issued 9-1, 591B3–C3 Kyrgyz govt reforms set 10-20, 722B2 Russian ex-spy slaying suspect (Lugovoi) UK extraditn mulled 11-2, 766D2 Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 Russia nixes Crimea FSB role 12-1, 892D3 Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1 Europe Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) Morocco torture mulled 2-23, 112E2 Cuba base ex-detainees French convctns nixed 2-24, 150D2, F2 UK intell ofcrs N Ireland probe rptd 3-6, 155A1 US terror detainee (Mohamed) abuse UK probe urged 3-26, 290D2–E2 US/UK terror intell sharing curbs warned 7-29; suspects torture role probe urged 8-4, allegatns denied 8-9—8-10, 544E1, E2 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, C2, E2 Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3 Latin America Bolivia/US diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204G1 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508A2, C2 Venez/Colombia rebels link evidnc rptd 8-3, 526A3 US/Brazil, Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid revealed 8-16, documts release urged 8-18, 569D1 Colombia rights record improvemts seen 9-11, 818A1 Colombia agency nix set 9-18, 817F3 Cuba’s Castro sister/CIA ties revealed, My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-25—10-26, 762B2 Mex antidrug, US aid spending rptd 12-3, 928D3 Chile ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871A3 Middle East Israeli/Iran A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75A2 Leb/Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312E2 Iran A-bomb dvpt capabilities warned 3-8, Sen com hearing held 3-10, 174F1–G1 Iran exiled oppositn group Iraq camp surrounded 3-13, drone US mil shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174D3 Iran rptr (Saberi) spy chrgs set, release urged 4-8, 217F2 Iran rptr (Saberi) secret trial held 4-13, 254C2 Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc rptd, self-incriminatn questnd 4-18; case review ordrd, Iraq detainees link denied 4-19—4-20, Ebadi named atty, appeal filed 4-20—4-21, 274C3 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 330B1–C1, A2 Leb spy suspects Israel escape seen, chrgd 5-5—6-5, 877G3 Iran, UK/France emb workers trial cont 8-8, Afshar, Reiss released 8-11—8-16, 562C1 Iran/Israel spying trial opens 8-18, 941A3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616G1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped, short-range threat interceptors seen 9-17, 613C1, G1 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-22—9-25, 650D1–F1, D2–E2 Iran A-program progress mulled 10-4, 688G1 Iran blast, forgn intell links claimed 10-19, 729G1 Iran/UK emb worker sentnc rptd 10-29, oppositn rallies held 11-4, 767F3, 768D1 Hamas, Iranian rockets test rptd 11-3, 754C3 US hikers Iran spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857D3 Iran A-bomb advances claimed 12-13, US hikers trial set 12-14, 876B2, F3 Yemen air strike kills 30+ 12-24, 944G2 Iraq/UK hostage (Moore) kidnapping Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 942G1–B2 Israeli conflicts ‘09 casualties tallied 12-31, 945A2 Obituaries Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Lee Hu Rak 10-31, 955D2 Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 United States ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G2 CIA dir apptmt (Panetta) seen, questnd 1-5, Obama calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5C3

2009 Index Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged/appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-11—2-28, civil liberties suit opposed 4-3, 243E3, 244F1 Sci (Nozette) leaves US/returns, pleads guilty 1-6—1-8; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3, G3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 18D3, 19D1, F1 Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20A3 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 CIA terror suspects interrogatn tactics ltd, natl intll dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28G1, G2–B3 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com hearing held, testimony issued/confrmd 1-22—1-28, 45E1 CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132E1 UK intell cooperatn threat claimed, denid 2-4—2-5, 80G2–A3 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued, Sen com hearing held 2-4—2-6; nominatn backed 2-11, confrmd 2-12, 93C3 Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) scored 2-19—3-9; Sen com hearing held, withdraws 3-10, China remarks clarified, AIPAC role seen 3-11—3-12, 144F2, F3 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3 Terror detainees abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150F1, C2 CIA detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129C2 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130E1 Bush admin policies truth comm proposal Sen com hearing held 3-4, 130B2 Cuba base detainees claim 9/11 role 3-10, 244B3 Obama antiterror policies questnd, Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166D2, C3 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185E3 CIA interrogatn memos release delayed, House com rpt issued 4-2, 257E1, 258F1–G1 Mex antidrug aid delay rptd 4-5, 249C3 Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, spy satellites replacemt set 4-7, 217E2–G2, D3 FISA chief judge (Bates) named 4-6, 244A2 Surveillnc satellites replacemt plan OKd, rptd 4-6—4-7, 244B2 US terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244D2 Electric grid cybersecurity questnd, hack rptd 4-7—4-8, 411A2 CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 Md cops spying curbs pass legis, signed/enacted 4-8—10-1, 919G2 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262A3 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, House com hearing set 4-16, 243D2, C3–D3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled/footnotes detailed 4-16—4-23, Sen com rpt released, timeline revealed 4-21—4-22, 257A1–261E3; excerpts 259A1–260G3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; NYT rptg delay mulled 4-20, com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263F1, F2 Obama visits CIA hq 4-20, 258D2 Mil jet program hacked 4-21; cybersecurity coordinatn urged, mil cmnd post seen/policies questnd 4-21—4-29, House com hearin held, guidelines proposed/ofc set 5-5—5-29, 410B3, F3, 411E1 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24; NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, chrgs dropped 5-1, 306F1, B2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd, documts issued 5-5—5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 322F3, 323G1 Obama anti-terror policies questnd 5-21, 337E2 Warrantless spying classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen, govt sanctns nixed/case upheld 5-29—6-3, telecom cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410G1, D2 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3

—EUROPEAN NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445G2 ICE/DEA intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14; ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473A3, 474A1, G1, B2 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474E2, C3, 475C1 China econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed/nix sought 8-26—11-10, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3, D3 Terror alert system pol pressure alleged 8-9, 572F3 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20, Blackwater role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21, 586F2 CIA/Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, state security dir (Malakauskas) quits 12-14, 902D3, 903C1 Spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622B1 Justice Dept ‘state secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642D2 Air Force ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888E3 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) case work hailed, Obama briefings rptd 10-6, Khan surveillnc cont 10-8, 678A2, D2, F2 Intell oversight bd/atty gen rptg ordrd, advisory bd members named 10-28, 916D1 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815F2 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan)/imam ties questnd, intell probe sought 11-9—11-12, 778B1–C1 Cuba spies plead guilty 11-20, 833F1 Blackwater, CIA renditn flights security role rptd 12-10, drone missile strike work nixed 12-11, 884D3 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 Israeli/US atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) warning rptd, intell woes mulled 12-27—12-31, 898B1, B2 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908A2

ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) Rodriguez interviewed 2-9, 87C1 ‘08-09 coll basketball yr-end rankings 3-9—3-16, 230D3 ‘09-10 coll basketball preseason rankings rptd 10-29—11-4, 771E1, G1, E2, G2

ESPOSITO, Capt. Phillip (d. 2005) Slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118A3

ESSENTIAL Schools Movement Sizer dies 10-21, 840G2

ESTATES—See WILLS ESTEMIROVA, Natalya (d. 2009) Found dead, Meml shut 7-15—7-20; Kadyrov role alleged/denied, suit opens 7-16—7-20, UN indep probe nixed 7-22, 497B1–D1, F1–G1, B2 Chechen charity head (Sadulayeva)/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, 544B3 Kadyrov libeling ruled, Memorial/Orlov damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Ingush oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, 766B2 Meml, Chechnya work cont 12-16, 939E1

ESTONIA, Republic of Espionage & Intelligence Issues Defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, Yakovlev intl warrant issued, breach mulled 2-25—2-26, 136A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D2; 10-1, 733D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit outlook review set 2-24, 117C2

ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) (Basque Homeland and Liberty)—See SPAIN ETCHEGARAY, Cardinal Roger Knocked down/breaks hip, woman held 12-24, 901A3

ETHANOL USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18B1 Brazil’s da Silva visits US 3-14—3-16, 186C2–D2

ETHICS and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.) Lefever dies 7-29, 532G1

ETHIOPIA, Federal Democratic Republic of African Relations Somalia troops exit 1-2—1-13, 21E2 Somalia troops exit completed 1-25, 66A3 AU summit hosted 2-1—2-4, 82E1 Somali interim premr (Sharmarke) named 2-13, Hudur seized 2-25, 115C1–D1, D2 AU emergency mtg hosted 3-5, 123A1 Somali pirate attacks map 4-12, 238B1 Eritrea rights abuses alleged 4-16, 341B2 AU mtg hosted 4-30, 308G2 Somalia Islamists clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20; troops return seen 5-19, IGAD mtg hosted 5-20, 341F2, D3, F3–G3 Somalia blast kills 36+ 6-18; forgn mil aid sought 6-20, full-scale interventn nixed 6-24, 430D1–G1, C2 Somali terror group ties suspect admits role, pleads guilty 8-12, 780D3 Darfur summit hosted 8-22, 924G2 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782A3 Madagascar power-sharing deal nixed 12-20, 925D2 Environment & Pollution Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882G2 European Relations Meles visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233E2; 10-1, 733D2 Science & Technology Human predecessor skeleton displayed 10-1, 691F2–G2 Human predecessor Ardipithecus fossil rptd 10-1, 691E2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Somali group ties suspects US chrgs hiked 11-23, 849D1 Trade, Aid & Investment Drought aid sought 9-29, 681A2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, 80D2

ETO‘O, Samuel Barcelona wins Eur Champ Cup 5-27, 949G3

EU—See EUROPEAN Union EURONEXT NV Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatan home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609A3

EUROPE—See also country, organization names Premature births tallied 10-4, 901D2

EUROPEAN Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. (EADS) Gergorin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644C2 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915E2

EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Eastn Eur banks loan set 2-27, 136A3 Romania $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207C3 Eastn Eur/Central Asia banks investmt set 5-7, 336D3

EUROPEAN Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) Swine flu peak seen 11-10, deaths rise seen 11-11, 811C1

EUROPEAN Central Bank—See EUROPEAN Union—Economic EUROPEAN Community (EC)—See EUROPEAN Union EUROPEAN Court of Human Rights—See COUNCIL of Europe EUROPEAN Investment Bank Eastn Eur banks loan set 2-27, 136A3 Spyker/Saab buyout bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, 902B3

EUROPEAN Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704B2, D2–E2 Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824F1–G1 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2

EUROPEAN Space Agency (ESA) Orbiting telescope launched 5-14, 373E1 DeWinne flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519B2

1033

EUROPEAN Union (EU) African Relations Guinea-Bissau pres (Vieira) slaying scored 3-3, 134D1 Chad peacekeeping force control transferred 3-15, 185E1 Eritrea aid scored 4-16, 341A2 Somalia aid vowed 4-22, 270A1 Somali pirates in Kenya ct 4-23, 269D3 Darfur peace talks cont 5-6, 376A1 Malawi pres electn vote questnd 5-21—5-22, 358E1 Guinea-Bissau pres electn vote backed 6-28, 458E3 Mauritania pres electn fraud probe urged 7-23, 493A1 Guinea-Bissau pres runoff vote backed 7-28, 507D2 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking probe mulled 8-20, 551F1 Zimbabwe delegatn visits, sanctns lift nixed 9-12—9-13, 661D1–E1 Zimbabwe’s Mugabe addresses UN Gen Assem 9-29, 651F3 Guinea anti-junta rally crack down scored 9-29—9-30, 660D3 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Zimbabwe sanctns lift sought 10-6, 680G3–681A1 Guinea protesters attack trials urged 10-13—10-14, 701F3, 702A1 Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs Seychelles, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2 Guinea arms embargo set 10-27, 871D1 Mozambique electns held 10-28, candidates nix scored 10-29, 783F1 Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seizure rptd 11-17, 801F2 Somalia pirates seize oil tanker (Maran Centaurus) 11-30, 903D2 Somalia interim govt backed 12-3, 889A2 Appointments & Resignations Rasmussen NATO secy gen bid OKd 4-4, 213A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Wen sees Barroso 1-30, 98C2–D2 UN’s Gambari visits Myanmar 1-31—2-3, 188B1 Japan ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-16, 98D3 Sri Lanka rebel cease-fire offer nixed 2-23, 119C2 UN Afghan security conf held 3-31, 195A2 Myanmar sanctns extended 4-27, 360E1 China summit held 5-20, 448B2 China, WTO complaint filed 6-23, 440C1 Indonesia blasts scored 7-17, 494D3 Myanmar rights abuses scored 7-21, 495E3 Myanmar sanctns hike urged 8-11, extensn set 8-13, 543A2, A3 China auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615A3 Total/Chevron, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684B1, D1 Afghan pres electn fraud seen, denied 9-16, 629G3–630A1 Samoa tsunami aid vowed 10-1, 663A1 Myanmar sanctns end aid offrd 10-2, 683E3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi, diplomats mtg OKd 10-9, 725C3 S Korea free trade deal signed 10-15, 934F1 Sri Lankan govt, rebel war abuses rptd 10-19, 769D2 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 758E1, A3 China sets adipic acid duties 11-8, 776F2 China trade talks held 11-29—11-30, 932F1 China, Viet shoes import duties extended 12-22, China fasteners import duties set 12-23, 932E1 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Bosnian Serb law annulmt backed 6-22, 448B3 Peacekeeping missn extended 11-18, 940F1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Intel/AMD antitrust suits setlmt OKd 11-12, 800F2 Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875F3 CIS Relations Russia/Ukraine gas shipmts halt talks held 1-5—1-6, 3A3 Russia/Ukraine gas standoff talks held/deals signed, stolen shipmt alleged 1-10—1-19, dispute scored, debt setld/deliveries cont 1-20, 37F1, C2, E2–A3 Russian rights atty (Markelov) slaying probe urged 1-20, 36F3 Econ partnerships opposed/formalized, incentives offrd 4-28, 5-7, 336F3 Georgia pol conflict end urged 5-25, 378F1 Georgia breakaway region electns questnd 6-1, 378E2 CTSO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423B3

1034 EUROSTAR— Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn vetoed 6-15, 406A2 Russia mil exercises open 6-29, Georgia, OSCE/UN monitors exit 6-30, 450B1, E1 Azerbaijan bloggers arrests questnd 7-20, 544D1 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe sought 8-18, 607E1 Czech/Russian diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645F2 Uzbek nixes CSTO jt mil exercises 8-26, 664A1 Moldova PM (Filat), cabt sworn 9-25, 666F3 Georgia/Russia war rpt issued 9-30, 665E3 Russia/Serbia loan set 10-5, 728B3 Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764G2 Meml awarded rights prize 12-16, 939E1 Conferences & Summits ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 Emergency summits set 2-11, 100D3 Informal mtg urged 2-11, 136A2 Econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116C3 Belgium, Poland mtgs held 3-1, 136G1, F2, B3 Belgium summit held 3-19—3-20, 188F2 Czech summit held 4-5, 214F2 Belgium summit held, Lisbon treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432D1 Portugal summit treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, Czech signing vowed, charter exemptns sought 10-7—10-8, 685E1, F2 Portugal summit treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 685F3 Portugal summit treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, complaints nixed, Klaus signs 11-2, 765F1 Pres (Van Rompuy), forgn policy chief (Ashton) named 11-19, 802F2 Belgium premr (Leterme) named 11-25, 820D2 Economic & Monetary Union (EMU) Slovakia joins eurozone 1-1, 53F1 Euro Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Ger stimulus plan hiked 1-13, 22G3 Interest rate cut 1-15, 23D1 Lithuania loan set 1-16, 37E3 Eurozone exits denied 1-21, 53G1–A2 UK auto indus govt aid set 1-27, 52F2 Euro Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 Interest rate retained 2-5, 68F3 Eurozone ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-13, 100A3 Euro adoptn curbs ease backed 3-1, 136C2–D2 Euro Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 Interest rate cut, unltd bank loans offrd 3-5, 155E2, B3 Forint hits low vs Euro 3-6, 189D1 Eurozone finance mins mtg held 3-9, 163D1 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163E1, G1 Euro Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Interest rate cut 4-2, 254B1 ‘07-10 financial indus losses seen 4-21; econ forecast issued 4-22, IMF mtg held 4-25—4-26, 283C2, G3–284A1 Euro May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Interest rate cut 5-7, 311B2 Euro Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 G-8 summit held 6-13, 405B1 Eurozone banks cont write-downs seen 6-15, 417D2 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417B2 Hungary embs, consulates shut 6-16, 512C2 Financial regulatns plan OKd 6-19, 432A2 1-yr funds loaned 6-23, 433A1 Euro Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 Jun ‘09 jobless rate (9.4%) 7-31, 545E1 Euro Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 Eurozone ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-13, 545C1 Cont econ recovery seen 8-21, 571D2 Euro Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 Bulgaria farm aid released 9-7, 727F2 Deutsche Telekom/France Telecom UK brands merger set 9-8, 626A3 US$ loans halted 9-24, 651B3 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Euro Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 IMF econ forecast issued 10-1, 675D1 Interest rate retained 10-8, 675C2 Euro value rise rptd 10-21, 713G2 Sep ‘09 jobless rate 10-30, 803C1 Euro Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 Romania loan paymts delayed 11-6, 821C3 Eurozone ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-13, 802G3 Euro Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 Greek credit watch set, rating cut 12-7—12-8, 855G3, 856B1–C1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875E2, D3 Euro ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3

FACTS Energy Infrastructure funds urged 1-20, 37A3 IEA oil reserve estimates questnd 11-9, 811F3 Environment & Pollution Developed nations emissns cut urged 5-20, 405F2 Australia climate chng bill blocked 8-13, 623F3 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644C3, E3 US’s Obama sets climate treaty talks role 11-25, 828C1 Copenhagen climate chng talks held, aid set 12-7—12-19, 883C1; table 883A1 European Commission Barroso at World Econ Forum 1-30, 58C2 France auto indus govt loans opposed 2-9, 84F2 Eurozone ‘09 GDP forecast, jobless rate projected 5-4, 311E2–F2 Intel antitrust fine set 5-13, 343F1 Barroso reelected pres 6-18, 432B2 Bulgaria aid released, graft curbs rptd 6-18, 449B1 Oracle/Sun buy probe opens 9-3, 601G1 Barroso pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627B3 Adam Opel/Vauxhall buy blocked 10-16, Ger loan clarified 10-19, 767C2 Members named 11-27, 835C2, E2, A3 European Parliament US stimulus package scored 3-25, 188D3 Italy’s Berlusconi candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29; wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328F1–G1 Electns held 6-4—6-7, 396G1, D2, E3; table 396F2 UK’s Brown shuffles cabt 6-5, 397E1 UK conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432D2–E2 France justice min (Alliot-Marie) named 6-23, 432F3 European Relations (non-EU nations) Abkhazia pres vote mulled 12-13—12-14, 874E2–F2 Serbia/Montenegro/Macedonia visa curbs lifted 12-19, 940E1 Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants Italy entry OKd, binding rules urged 4-19, 262B2–C2 French camp raided/migrants held, UK asylum bids denied 9-22, 666B2 Kosovo Conflict Albanians migrant boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777G1 Local electn runoffs hailed 12-15, 938A2 Munic electns vote hailed 11-16-17, 803G1 Labor & Employment Feb ‘09 jobless rate (8.5%) 4-1, 254E1 Latin American Relations Bolivia const referendum held 1-25, 50B2 Cuba cabt shuffled 3-2, 134F2 US/Cuba trade embargo end urged 3-30, 249D1 Honduran aid halted 7-20, 493F2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) returns 9-21, 643D2 Honduras pres electn held 11-29, 634A2 Membership Issues Latvia, Lithuania violnc erupts 1-13—1-16, 37B3 Bulgaria riots erupts 1-14, 52D2 Montenegro parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226C1–D1 Latvia premr (Godmanis), cabt quits 2-20, 117F1 Czech govt confidnc vote passes parlt, pres role cont 3-24, 188A2–C2 Romania $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207C3 Hungary’s Bajnai named/confrmd premr, early electns sought 3-30—4-14, 273D1, G1 Turkey entry mulled 4-5, 214F2 Macedonia entry vowed 4-5, 225C2 Moldova protests turn violent, Romania role alleged 4-6—4-8; ambs recalled/ousted, visa entry set 4-8, ties mulled 4-9, 225D3, F3–G3 Czech interim premr (Fischer) named 4-9, 225A1–B1 Turkey/Armenia ties hike ‘road map’ OKd 4-22, 296A2 Iceland parlt electns held 4-25, entry deal sought 4-26, 295C3, F3–G3, 296D1 Albania formal applicatn set 4-28, 511F2, C3 Macedonia entry vowed 5-12, 344D2 Lithuania pres electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344C1 Kosovo/Bosnia/Serbia entries backed 5-19—5-21, 378A2, F2–G2 Montenegrin govt OKd 6-10, 463D3 Bosnian Serb (Mladic) home tapes aired 6-10, 512A1 Bosnia entry bid woes seen 6-22, 448E3 Turkey’s Erdogan visits hq 6-26, 706G3

Croatia entry block scored 7-4, efforts vowed 7-7, 463B1–C1, A2 Bulgaria parlt electns held 7-5; vote backed, results rptd 7-6—7-7, Borissov govt sought 7-16, 482C2 Lithuania pres (Grybauskaite) sworn 7-12, 512F3–G3 Iceland entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512D2 US’s Biden visits Ukraine, Georgia 7-21—7-23, 496C2 Slovakia minority language curbs complaint set 8-3, Hungary’s Solyom entry nixed 8-21, 608D3, F3 Turkey Kurdish rebels peace initiative set 8-11, 728F2 Greece wildfires emergency declared 8-22, 577G1 Bosnian Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8, 628F1 Bulgaria’ Borissov visits hq 9-9, 727D2 Slovenia lifts Croatia entry block, Adriatic waters claim dropped 9-11, 628C2 Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627D2 Albania PM (Berisha) reelectn backed 9-17, 625F3, 626A1 Greece parlt electns held 10-4, 686F2 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707B1 Turkey entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706C3 Croatian war crime suspects chrgd 10-19, 822C3 Bosnia govt reforms nixed, talks cont 10-20—10-21, 727D1 Nazi war crimes suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, 854C1 Sudan’s Bashir Turkey visit mulled 11-6—11-8, 788C3, F3 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787E3 Turkey Kurdish rights hike proposal unveiled 11-13, 804A1–B1 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846C1–D1 Serbia interim free trade deal OKd 12-7, entry bid submitted 12-22, 939B2 Turkey Kurdish party banned 12-11, 893B2 Croatian pres electn results rptd 12-27, 936E2 Middle East Relations Gaza reconstructn aid nixed 1-19, border crossings patrol urged 1-20, 31G2, B3 Iran resistnc group Iraq attack plans rptd 1-20, 38F2 Iran oppositn group terror delisting set 1-26, 101B1 Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 227C2 Italy’s Frattini Iran visit nixed 5-20, 362B1 Hezbollah, Leb aid talks rptd 5-27, 380C2 Israel’s Netanyahu Palestinian state backing mulled 6-12, 403F2 Iran chrg d’affaires summoned 6-23, 423A2 Iran/UK emb workers held, freed 6-28—7-2, 439A2–B2 UK/Israel arms exports banned 7-13, 546A2 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1, E1 Iran A-program talks held 10-1, 651C1 W Bank border crossing opens 11-10, 790D3 Palestinian state backing mulled 11-16—11-17, proposal rptd, opposed 12-1, 838A3–B3 Obituaries Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 451G3 Press & Broadcasting Serbia rptrs threats concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Religious Issues Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 837B1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15A3 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, warning issued 2-3, 74E1 Cuba base detainees resetlmt aid seen, backed 2-3—2-4, 64A1 Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112A1 Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164A2 Cuba base detainee transfers mulled 3-16, 165D3 Obama urges stimulus hike 3-24, 181A3 Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323D3 Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389A2 Cuba base detainees transfer deal set 6-15, 416C3 May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477A2 Cuba base detainees Ireland entry OKd 7-29, 506F1 Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535A3 Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619F1 Cuba base detainees Ireland transfer rptd 9-27, 718E2

ON FILE

Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699F3 Biden tours Eastn Eur 10-21—10-23, 750D2 Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798A2 Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866B1 WTO Issues Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615C3 China raw materials export curbs complaint filed 11-5, 776A2 China raw materials export curbs case accepted 12-21, 932E1

EUROSTAR English Channel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3

EUTHANASIA—See MEDICINE—Death Issues EVANGELICALS Warren at Obama inauguratn 1-21, 25D2 Ex-pastor (Haggard) sex partner church paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3 Pope visits Africa 3-17—3-23, 195E3 McDonnell wins Va gov GOP primary 6-9, 391D1 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) thesis rptd 8-30, 716F3 AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682F1 Illegal immigrants citizenship path urged 10-8, 711G3 Palin bk published 11-17, 797C2 Roberts dies 12-15, 880G2

EVANGELICALS, National Association of Illegal immigrants citizenship path urged 10-8, 711G3

EVANOVICH, Janet Plum Spooky on best-seller list 2-2, 72A1 Plum Lucky on best-seller list 2-2, 72C1 Finger Lickin’ 15 on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

EVANS, Chris Warns Afghan refugees deportatn 10-12; on asylum seekers Indonesian interceptns 10-15, hikes detentn ctr 10-30, 931D1, D2, G2

EVANS, Rear Adm. Marsha (ret.) Named interim LPGA comr 7-13, 595B2 Replacemt (Whan) named 10-28, 949C3

EVANS Jr., Rowland (1921-2001) Novak dies 8-18, 564D3

EVANS, Tyreke In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, D1

EVENGA, Christian In NBA draft 6-25, 451C2

EVENING Standard (British tabloid) Lebedev sets stake buy 1-21, 76F2–G2

EVERETT, Rupert Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3

EVERGLADES National Park (Fla.) Sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3

EVERS, Medgar Wiley (1925-63) Miss judge (DeLaughter) quits, pleads guilty 7-30; sentncd 11-13, disbarmt sought 11-30, 888E2

EVERYDAY Rapture (play) Opens in NYC 5-2, 348F1

EVGRAFOV, Aleksandr Attacked 12-16, 935B2

EVIGAN, Briana Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

EVOLUTION Early primate fossil rptd, unveiled 5-15—5-19, 952B2 Early primate fossil, human link questnd 10-21, 952E2

EXECUTIVE Orders—See under OBAMA EXELON Corp. Chamber of Commerce exit set 9-28, 654B3–C3

EXERCISE—See MEDICINE—Diet EXILES Chechen dissident (Israilov), atty slain 1-13, 1-19, 36A3–B3 Iran resistnc group Iraq attack plans rptd 1-20, 38F2 Somalia power-sharing parlt sworn 1-28, 66B3 Dalai Lama marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, 171D3, 172A1 Jouwe returns to Indonesia 3-18, 272E1 Dalai Lama, S Africa entry blocked 3-23, 327E1 Tibet’s Dalai Lama, S Africa entry block scored 3-24, 325C3 Tibet’s Dalai Lama computer info hack seen 3-30, 342D1 Thai’s Thaksin nixes govt talks 4-3, 250B1 Cuba money flow ease urged 4-8, 249A1

2009 Index US/Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, 271E2 US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261A3 Mideast peace talks Hamas role seen 5-5, 313E2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi cont detentn protested 5-24, 360D2 Russian tycoon (Berezovsky) convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 Afghan ex-gen (Dostum) denies ‘01 mass slaying 7-17, 499C2 Iran oppositn group Iraq raid kills 8, camp shut/US role mulled 7-28—7-29, 501F2 Uyghur Cong ldr (Kadeer) visits Japan/Australia, 10 Conditns premiered 7-28—8-11, 606D1 China ethnic violnc disappearncs claimed 7-29, 509E3 Myanmar dissidents mtg held 8-12—8-13, 559B1 Afghan’s Dostum returns 8-16; hosts Karzai rally 8-17, denies deal 8-19, 549B3 Iraq pol party ldr (Hakim) dies 8-26; funeral held 8-27, body returned 8-28, 592B2 Dalai Lama visits Taiwan, prayer svc held 8-30—9-1, 625B2 Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933F2 Cuba peace concert protested 9-20, 661F2–G2 Iran secret A-sites claimed 9-24, 650F2 Tibet’s Dalai Lama visits US/Obama mtg delay mulled, gets Lantos award 10-5—10-6, 712B3, F3 Iraq frees Iran oppositn group 10-7, 688G3 Iran pres electn protesters death sentnc rptd 10-10, 768A2 Dalai Lama, India/China border visit protested 10-22, 806A2 Thai’s Thaksin named Cambodia govt econ adviser 11-4, 785B1 Thai’s Thaksin sees movemt members, leaves Cambodia/returns 11-13—12-13, 872D1 Pak’s Zardari amnesty ends 11-28, 839E1 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878G2

EXIT the King (play) Opens in NYC 3-26, 255G3 Rush wins Tony 6-7, 400D1

EXODUS 1947 (ship) Aranne dies 12-23, 954F3

EXPLOSIONS—See FIRES EXPORT-Import Bank of the United States (Eximbank) ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488D3–E3

EXTINCTION—See ENDANGERED EXTORTION—See CRIME—Bribery EXTRADITION & Deportation Africa Rwanda ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10; sent to Tanzania 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680G1 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680F1 Asia/Pacific Rim Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-5—1-6, 39A2 Thai captured refugees abandoning policy denied 1-16, 52D1 Limmt chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 227D3 Taiwan ex-student ldr (Wu’er) held 6-3, deported 6-4, 395E2 Thai blocks Russian alleged dealer (Bout) US extraditn 8-11, appeal filed 8-13, 534F1 N Korea deports Hyundai worker (Yoo) 8-13, 558G1 Australia/Afghan refugees deportatn warned 10-12, 931G2–A3 Iraq ex-MP (Daini) held in Malaysia 10-16, 729F3 Thai’s Thaksin Cambodia extraditn sought, nixed 11-4—11-11, 785B1, F1 US citizens Pak deportatn nixed 12-14, 878F3 Cambodia deports Chinese Uighurs 12-19, 931F3 Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934A2, G2 Commonwealth of Independent States Chechen ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slain 3-28; Russian MP (Delimkhanov) order alleged 4-5, Dubai probe mulled 4-6—4-7, 273D3 Russian tycoon (Berezovsky) convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 Chechen ldr successor (Delimkhanov) named 9-24, 706E1

—FARMER 1035 Russian ex-spy poisoning suspect (Lugovoi) UK extraditn request mulled 11-2, 766E2 Europe France admits Holocaust Ger deportatns 2-16, 99E2–G2 UK terror suspects freed 4-22, 272E3 UK terror suspect (Qatada) release sought 5-30, 370D1 US terror training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719D2 US terror suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833G2 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653B2–C2 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855B3, D3 Iran arms trafficker (Ardebili) guilty plea rptd 12-2, sentncd 12-14, 876G3 Latin America Colombia alleged drug lord (Herrera) held 4-15, 526F3 Antigua financial svc regulator (King) chrgd, held 6-19—6-23, 457F2 FARC ex-cmdr (Aguilar) sent to US 7-16, 526C3 Middle East Europn/Palestinian aid ship blocked 2-5, 157A3 Iraq insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121F2 Iraq/Syria border troops deployed 9-4, 610F2 United States Cuba base cont detentns support polled 1-13—1-16, 28D2 Terrorist (Jassem) deported 2-26, arrives in Sudan 3-3, 411A3 Cops deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151G1 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239D3–G3 Central Amer deportatns mulled 3-30, 205B1 USF ex-student (Megahed) held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816A1 Alleged Nazi guard (Demjanjuk) deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352D2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337D3 Fla brain-damaged illegal (Jiminez) ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3 Nazi ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560B2 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718D3 Colo balloon hoax parents plea deal OKd, plead guilty/mom deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, 817E2–F2

EXTREME Measures (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

EXXON Mobil Corp. Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-5, 789E3 Iraq oil fields dvpt rights auctnd 12-11—12-12, 877A2 XTO Energy buy set 12-14, 886G3

EYES & Eyesight India’s Gandhi items auctnd 3-5, 158F1 UK’s Brown denies blind rumors 9-27, 666C3

EZZEDINE, Salah Fraud chrgd 9-12, 877C3–E3

F FAA—See FEDERAL Aviation Administration FAARAX, Cabdulaahi Ahmed Assoc (Abdow) held, indicted 10-9—10-14, chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–D1, F1–G1

FABER, Mary Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

FACEBOOK (Web site) Iran access blocked, returned 5-23, 5-26, 362G1–A2 Palin questns health care reform ‘death panels’ 8-7, 551C3 White House crashers post photos 11-24, 829B3 Italy’s Berlusconi attack mulled 12-15, 875D1–E1

FACE the Nation (TV show) Emanuel interviewed 3-1, 146D2

Cheney interviewed 5-10, 353E2 Powell interviewed 5-25, 353B2 Summers interviewed 8-2, 521D1 White House press secy (Gibbs) interviewed 8-16, 551D2 Sen Snowe interviewed 9-13, 617E2 GOP chair (Steele) interviewed 9-20, 639A3 Lieberman interviewed 12-13, 863D2

FACTSCHECK.org (Web site) Obama Hawaii birth records confrmd 7-27, 552F3

FACUSSE, Adolfo Zelaya return backing rptd 9-30, 662C1

FAHADAWI, Qasim Abed alHurt in blast 12-30, 942C3

FAHIM, Muhammad Qassim Named Karzai running mate 5-4, 313F3, 314A1 Named vp 12-19, 894A1

FAINA (Ukrainian vessel) Ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66E3

FAIRFIELD Greenwich Group Civil chrgs filed 4-1, 245F1 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442A3 Madoff scheme role Mass setlmt OKd 9-8, 603E3

FAIRLEIGH Dickinson University (Hackensack, N.J.) Obama stumps 10-21, 717C1

FAISAL, Saud alVisits US, nixes Mideast peace talks concessns 7-31, 545G3

FAISAL bin Abdullah, Prince (Saudi Arabia) Named educ min 2-14, 943D3

FAKTOR Plus (TV show) Baze attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2

FALANA, Femi Files Yar’Adua power transfer suit 12-15, 923E1

FALCONE, Pierre Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, 765D3

FALK, Richard On Gaza invasn 3-23, 210B2

FALKLAND (Malvinas) Islands (British colony) Obituaries Henderson, Sir Nicholas 3-16, 192A3

FALLON, Kieren Youmzain 2d in Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807G2

FALLS, Robert Desire Under the Elms revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

FALSE Claims Act (1986) Custer Battles, Iraq fraud liability found 4-10, 255D1–F1

FAME, The (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1; 12-19, 956E1

FAME and Glory (racehorse) 2d in English Derby 6-6, 399G2 Wins Irish Derby 6-28, 807C3

FAMILIES & Family Life Obamas move to DC 1-4, 6A2 US slain troops ‘John Doe’ letters mistake rptd 1-7, 267C1 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15B2 Canada fscl yr ‘09 budget unveiled 1-28, 50B3 Middle-class task force set 1-30, 63B3 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60A3 French tax cuts, low-income benefits hike set 2-18, 117A1 Gupta drops surgeon gen bid 3-5, 145B3 Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 BP, Tex refinery ‘05 blast fine upheld 3-12, 917B1 Russia $90 bln econ recovery plan outlined 4-6, 273E3 US/Cuba visit curbs lifted 4-13, 248A3 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3, F3–406B1 Yemen/Comoros flight crash victims families paymt set 7-1, 440A1 US ‘07-08 homless rise seen 7-9, 538C2 Ill abortn parental notificatn requiremt upheld, delayed 7-14—8-5, 587E2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses rpt issued 8-24, 565B3, 566D1 N/S Korea reunions talks held, OKd 8-26—8-28, 600E2–F2 Myanmar/China refugees estimated 8-30, 590B3 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 716G3

IRA victims/Libya compensatn sought, nixed 9-6—9-7, 636F3–637A1 Health care reform Sen proposal issued, scored 9-16, 617A2–B2 UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, 937F2 N/S Korea reunions held 9-26—10-1, 652B3 Cuba/US diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661A2 Illegal immigrants citizenship path Sen com hearing held 10-8, 712A1 Indonesia quakes damage rptd 10-14, 724E3 N/S Korea cont reunions mulled 10-16, 712F2–G2 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914B3 Health care reform Sen bill issued 11-18, 796D2, F2, A3, E3 UK cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3 Wash cops slaying suspect (Clemmons) kin chrgd 12-1—12-9, 888B2 Va Tech shooting rpt chngd 12-4, 920G3–921C1 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904F2, 906B2; key provisns listed 905C1

FAMILIES of Flight 93 Meml deal OKd 1-16, 65A2 Pa meml land deals set 8-31, 620E3

FAMILIES USA Health insurnc reforms plan outlined 3-27, 245G2

FAMILY Planning—See BIRTH Control FAMILY Research Council Values Voter Summit held 9-18—9-19, 639C1

FANNIE Mae (formerly Federal National Mortgage Association) Fscl yr ‘09 deficit forecast issued 1-7, 7F1 HUD secy nominee (Donovan) confrmatn hearing held 1-13, confrmd 1-22, 30C1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92G1–A2 ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid sought 2-26, 127A3 Homeowner rescue plan launched 3-4, 128C2–E2 Fed OKs mortgages buy 3-18, 163B3–C3 Bonus paymts rptd, scored 4-3, 220F2 Allison named $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, Williams tapped 4-20, 264F1 ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid sought 5-9, 319E2 Fed bonds buys cont 6-24, 427B3 ‘09 2d 1/4 loss rptd 8-6, 909G3 Fed mortgage-backed securities buy program cont 8-12, 535F2 Fed mortgage-backed securities buy end set 9-23, 640E1 Fed debt buys cut 11-4, 759B2 ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 11-5, 909G3 Unltd govt aid OKd, execs compensatn rptd 12-24, 909A3

FANNING, Dakota Coraline on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

FANTASTIC Mr. Fox (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

FANTASY Island (TV show) Montalban dies 1-14, 24E3

FANTHORPE, U(rsula) A(skham) (1929-2009) Dies 4-28, 316G2

FAO (Food & Agriculture Organization)—See UNITED Nations—Food FAOUR, Yousef Fraud chrgd 9-12, 877D3

FAQIH, Marwan Held 2-16, 312A3

FAR Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong magazine) Shut 9-21, Singapore fine upheld 10-7, 936E1

FAREASTONE Telecommunications Co. China Mobile sets stake buy 4-29, 310A1 China/Taiwan investmt hike authrzn rptd 5-28, 415E3

FARHAN, Sattam Iraq transfer sought 8-25, 592A3

FARLEY, Katherine G. Named Lincoln Ctr chrmn 6-8, 400A2

FARMER, Holley Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

1036 FARMER— FARMER, Philip Jose (1918-2009) Dies 2-25, 192E2

FARMIGA, Vera Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2 Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

FARMS & Farmers—See AGRICULTURE FAROOQ, Umer Visits Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1, arrest confrmd, IDd 12-9—12-10, 858A1 Pak/US deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1

FARR, Gareth Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

FARRELL, Colin Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2

FARRELL, Patrick Farrell wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

FARRELL, Stephen Seized/freed, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3–F3

FASHION—See CLOTHING FASSBENDER, Michael Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

FAST & Furious (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

FAST-Food Restaurants—See RESTAURANTS FATS—See OILS FATTAHIAN, Ehsan Executed 11-11, 857A2

FATTAL, Joshua Held, IDd 7-31—8-1, 530C2 Spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857E3 Iran trial set 12-14, 876F3

FATTAL, Wissam Mahmoud Sydney mil base attack plotting seen 3-28, held, chrgd 8-4, 930D2–E2

FAULKNER, John Seeks Afghan troops exit 10-21, 851B3

FAULL, Jonathan Named Europn Comm civil svc dir gen 11-27, 835G2

FAUZI, Gamawan On Sumatra quakes victims burial 10-7, hikes death toll, rpts aid 10-14, 724D3, F3, 725B1

FAVRE, Brett Manning named NFL MVP 1-2, 55B2–C2 Retires 2-11, 176B2 Jets/Browns swap Ratliff, Coleman, Elam, picks/pick 4-25, 299A1 Joins Vikings, debuts 8-18—9-13, injury disclosure mulled, Jets fined 9-10—9-16, 631E3

FAVREAU, Jon G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

FAWCETT, Farrah (1947-2009) Dies 6-25, 436D3

FAWEHINMI, Gani(yu Oyesola) (1938-2009) Dies 9-5, 612D3

FAYEZ, Noura alNamed educ dep min 2-14, 943D3

FAYYAD, Salam Quits 3-7, 157C1–F1 Seeks W Bank, Israeli raids halt 6-25, 546B3 Seeks ‘11 indep state, plan hailed 8-25—8-26, 593E1–F1, B2 On intl aid 9-16, 615A1 On W Bank setlmts bldg freeze 11-25, 838D2

FAZLULLAH, Maulana Malakand Islamic law OKd 2-16, 103A1 On cease-fire extensn 2-24, 138D2 Tribal areas militants exit faked 4-24, 298A2 Army search-and-destroy missn opens 5-12, 346F2 Injury rptd 7-8, 466C3–E3 Health rptd 7-23, 514E2–F2

FBI—See FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation FCC—See FEDERAL Communications Commission FCC v. Fox Television Stations Inc. (2009) FCC TV obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 291A1

FACTS ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307D1

FDA—See FOOD & Drug Administration FEARLESS (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1; 3-28, 212D1

FEARLESS: Platinum Edition (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840E1; 12-19, 956E1

FEARNLEY, Kurt Wins NYC marathon 11-1, 791D3

FEATHERSTON, Katie Paranormal Activity on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772B2

FEDERAL—For departments, agencies and organizations not listed below, see key words FEDERAL Aviation Administration, U.S. (FAA) (of Transportation) Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29D3 Southwest inspectn woes fine paymt set 3-2, 151G2–A3 Air Force One, NYC flyover pub info release OKd 4-3, White House ofcl (Caldera) informed, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357F3 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 208E1 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357F3 NJ air traffic workers suspended 8-13, 538G1 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782B2 Pilot training requiremts hike passes House 10-14, 744B2 United, US Airways fined 10-14, 817C1 Colo balloon released/lands, boy found 10-15, 745C3 Northwest flight overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; pilots licenses revoked 10-27, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-29, 743C3 Boeing 787 Dreamliner test flight held 12-15, 921D2 Colo balloon hoax fine sought 12-24, 919F2

FEDERAL Bureau of Investigation, U.S. (FBI) (of Justice) Appointments & Resignations Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, 30B3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321G1 Corruption & Ethics Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43F3 GOP chair (Steele) defends sister co paymts 2-8, 146A3 Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft trial prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13, 199A2 Fed chief info ofcr (Kundra) ex-ofc raided, target denied 3-12, 145E2 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 218C3, 219C1 Gov Blagojevich brother/Sen Burris wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27, questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, 477G3, 478B1 St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458A2 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503E3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521C2–D2 NM gov (Richardson) graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620D1 House com ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779A3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797G2 Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 832B1 Sen Burris admonished 11-20, 814C2–D2 Crime & Law Enforcement A-plant thief (Oakley) pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3 Army biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266E3 Natls prospect fake ID rptd 2-18; execs fired 2-26, Gm (Bowden) quits 3-1, 277B3–C3 Financier Stanford SEC complaint served 2-19, Pendergest-Holt held 2-26, 148C1–D1 LBJ aide Valenti FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176G2

Somali pirates US hostage standoff opens, captors slain/capt freed 4-9—4-12, 237F2 White supremacists probe rptd 4-17, 263F1 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269E2 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393D2 Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) murder claims probe aid sought 5-11, 377D1 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412E1 Kan abortn clinic vandalized 5-23—5-30, 370B3 Iraq contractor slaying suspects held, release claimed 6-7, 398B3 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888C1 ‘08 violent crime drop rptd 9-14, 887D3–E3 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781E3 Late model (Smith) probe rptd 10-7, 920F1 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700F3 False mil decoratns claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan), imam ties questnd 11-9—11-11, intell probe sought 11-12, 777E3, 778A1, C1 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect warning rptd 11-13, 832F3 Cruise ship safety measures pass House 11-17, 908F1 ‘09 1st 1/2 violent crime drop rptd 12-21, 887F3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Sci (Nozette) leaves US/returns, pleads guilty 1-6—1-8; sees undercover agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3, 761C1 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3 Libby pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166C3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24, chrgs dropped 5-1, 206B2, F2 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392F3 Iraq’s Hussein interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465A2 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474A3 China econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 Air Force ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888E3 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766F2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815A3 Israeli/US atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2 Personnel Issues Freeh testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3 Terrorism Issues Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D1 Somali group ties suspect admits role, pleads guilty 2-9—8-12, 780C3, E3 Detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261B2 Detainees CIA harsh interrogatns scored 4-27, 289B3, 290B1 Watch list woes rptd, recommendatns implementatn seen 5-6, 411C2–F2 Sears Tower plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374B3 Detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322C1, E1, E2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3 NYC suspects held 5-20, 375A1 Ark mil recruiting booth shooter (Muhammad) Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-2—6-4, 392C2 Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434F3 Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499A2 NY ‘02 arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816E2 Alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572C3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release scored 8-21, 567D3 Suspects cont renditns rptd 8-22, interrogatn unit order signed 8-24, 567C2, G2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782C2 Bomb plot suspects questnd, held 9-16—9-19, mass transit alert issued 9-18, 641E2, F3, 642B1, E1

ON FILE

NYC apartmt raided 9-22, bomb plot suspect (Zazi) accomplices role seen 10-8, 678G1, B2 Tex bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678A3 Ill bomb plot suspect (Finton) held, chrgd 9-24, 678C3 9/11 suspect (Higazy) detentn suit setld 9-24, 914F2 Somali group ties suspect (Abdow) questnd, held 10-8—10-9, indicted 10-14, 849F1–A2 Material aid suspect (Mehanna) chrgd 10-21, 816E1 Hezbollah aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Suspects chrgd/held, Mich raid kills 1 10-28—10-31, 763F2–A3 Tex mil base shooting suspect (Hasan) suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757F2 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-10, 862D2 Ft Hood shooting probes set, Hasan/imam e-mails mulled 11-19—11-21, 812F3 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821F2 Suspects visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, video detailed 12-9, questnd 12-10, 858A1, C1–D1

FEDERAL Communications Commission, U.S. (FCC) Genachowski chair nominatn seen 1-14, Martin quits 1-15, 49F2 Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, bill passes Sen/fails in House, clears Cong 1-26—2-4, 63B1 Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing cleared 1-16, probe questnd 1-17, 242E2 Genachowshi named chair 3-3, 145A2 Broadband Internet access plan seen 4-8, cost rptd 9-29, 761F2 TV obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 290G3–291E1 ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307B1 Digital TV switch success seen 6-12, 412G1 Chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) confrmd 6-25, 458C1 IPhone/Google app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; probes set, AT&T role denied 8-1—10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744B3, D3, G3–745A1 Cable ownership cap nixed 8-28, 912C1 ‘Net neutrality’ rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting backed 9-21—10-22, 744D2

FEDERAL Deposit Insurance Corp., U.S. (FDIC) IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32D2 Bair chair post cont 1-7, 6E2 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 77E1 Bank fees hiked 2-27, 127B3–C3 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539D3 AIG bonus paymts return authrzn sought 3-18, 161F2 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177B2–D2, B3 Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178G2–B3 Home foreclosure curbs pass Sen 5-6, 319E3–F3 Banks stress-test results issued, Morgan Stanley bonds sale rptd 5-7—5-8, 318F2, 319D1 Seidman dies 5-13, 348D3 Home foreclosures curbs clear House, signed 5-19—5-20, 354C3–D3 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan delayed 6-3, $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387B2, F3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407D3 Citigroup memo rptd, CIT Group cont aid nixed 7-15, 490E3, 491C1 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast cut 8-25, 570C3 Failed banks buyout rules OKd 8-26, deposit fund low seen, cont credit woes mulled 8-27, 585F1, D2 Financial indus ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, 640F3 Bank of Amer corp bonds guarantee program exited 9-21, 641D1 Deposits insurnc funds sought 9-29, 658A1 Banks compensatn policies scored 10-18, 715B2 Financial indus reforms proposal unveiled 11-10, 779B1 Deposit fund negative balnc rptd 11-24, 813G2

FEDERAL Election Commission, U.S. (FEC) Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656A2

2009 Index Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1, E1–F1

FEDERAL Emergency Management Agency, U.S. (FEMA) (of Homeland Security) Fugate named dir 3-4, 145F2 Amer Samoa tsunami aid sent 9-29, 662F3 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3

FEDERAL Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. (FERC) NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917D2 FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745D2

FEDERAL Home Loan Mortgage Corp., U.S. (Freddie Mac) Fscl yr ‘09 deficit forecast issued 1-7, 7F1 HUD secy nominee (Donovan) confrmatn hearing held 1-13, confrmd 1-22, 30C1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92G1–A2 Moffett quits 3-2, 127B3 Homeowner rescue plan launched 3-4, 128C2–E2 ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 3-11, 220B3 Interim CEO (Koskinen) named, acctg probe rptd 3-11, 264C2–D2 Fed OKs mortgages buy 3-18, 163B3–C3 HUD asst secy (Stevens) named 3-23, 200B2 Bonus paymts rptd, scored 4-3, 220F2 Kellerman found dead/suicide seen, acctg probe link denied 4-22, 264A2 ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid sought 5-12, 319F2–G2 Fed bonds buys cont 6-24, 427B3 Haldeman named CEO 7-21, 910A1 ‘09 2d 1/4 loss rptd 8-7, 909G3 Fed mortgage-backed securities buy program cont 8-12, 535F2 Fed mortgage-backed securities buy end set 9-23, 640E1 Fed debt buys cut 11-4, 759B2 ‘09 3d 1/4 loss rptd 11-6, 909G3 Unltd govt aid OKd, execs compensatn rptd 12-24, 909A3

FEDERAL Housing Administration, U.S. (FHA) (of HUD) Stevens named chief 3-23, 200A2 Home foreclosure curbs pass Sen 5-6, 319E3 Home foreclosures curbs clear House, signed 5-19—5-20, 354C3 Cash reserves drop rptd 11-12, 813F3

FEDERAL Housing Finance Agency, U.S. (FHFA) Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac bonus paymts rptd 4-3, 220F2, A3 Lockhart quits 8-5, DeMarco named 8-25, 910A1 Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae execs compensatn rptd 12-24, 909E3–F3

FEDERALISM—See STATES FEDERAL Reserve System, U.S. (including Federal Reserve Board) Appointments & Resignations Geithner confrmd treasury secy 1-26, replacemt (Dudley) named 1-27, 44D1, F1, A2 NY bd chair (Friedman) quits 5-7, 571F2 NY bd chair (Huges) named 8-24, Bernanke renominated 8-25, 571C1, F2 Minn pres (Stern) sets retiremt 9-3, Kocherlakota named, takes post 9-30—10-8, 740B1 Bernanke confrmatn block vowed 12-2—12-3, testifies to Sen com 12-3, 847E1 Bernanke renominatn backed by Sen com 12-17, 865E3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals Sen com hearing held 3-3, 126E1 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371A2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section ‘Beige bk’ issued 1-14, 15F3 Bank of Amer/Merrill buy defended 1-16, 32E1 Home loans term chngs set 1-27, 45A3 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 $700 bln financial indus aid fraud warned 2-5, 62B1 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 76G3, 77A2 Bernanke testifies to Cong 2-24—2-25, 111A1 AIG aid plan chngd 3-2, Sen com hearing held 3-3, 126E2, F3, 127A1–B1 ‘Beige bk’ issued 3-4, 147A3 AIG bonus paymts revealed/scored, return mulled 3-10—3-19, 161D1, D2 Financial indus reforms House com hearing held 3-24, 178A3

—FERNANDEZ Goldman shares sold 4-14, 241A2 ‘Beige bk’ issued 4-15, 241B1 Tax code reform proposals sought 4-15, 243A1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291A2, F2–G2 Credit-card indus reforms pass House 4-30, 305F1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 5-5, 319B2 Credit-card reforms clear Cong, signed 5-19—5-22, 354E2 ‘Beige bk’ issued 6-10, 389B2 Financial indus reforms proposed, Sen com hearing held 6-17—6-18, 407C1, A2, 408G1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-25, 456G2, B3–F3 CIT Group cont aid nixed 7-15, 491C1 Financial crisis response House com hearing held 7-17, 504G1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487C3 ‘Beige bk’ issued 7-29, 522A2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 523F1 Annual conf held 8-21, 571C2 ‘Beige bk’ issued 9-9, 619C2 Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, Bernanke sees recessn end 9-15, 618F1, A2 Banks exec pay curbs mulled 9-18—9-19, 640F2 Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) sets resignatn 9-30, 657F2 AIG bonus paymts scored 10-14, 715B3 ‘Beige bk’ issued 10-21, 739F3 Financial indus exec pay rules set 10-22, 742B1, B2 Financial indus reforms proposal unveiled 11-10, 778F3–779B1 AIG trading partners paymts questnd 11-16—11-17, 799A1 ‘Beige bk’ issued 12-2, 866D1 $700 bln financial indus aid cont 12-9, 865B1 Bernanke named Time ‘Person of Yr’ 12-16, 880C1 Monetary Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 UK interest rate cut 1-8, 8C2 Europn interest rate cut 1-15, 23E1 Treasury securities buy mulled 1-28, 45F2–G2 Interest rate retained 1-28, 45B2 Lending program hike, launch set 3-3, 127E2 Interest rate retained, treasury securities/mortgages buy OKd 3-18, 163A3 Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177F2, B3 EU interest rate cut 4-2, 254C1 Treasury securities buy tallied, program cont 4-28—4-29, interest rates retained 4-29, 291F3–291A1 10-yr T-note yield rate rise rptd, buys hike nixed 6-3, 371B3–C3, 372C1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger, 387B2 Europn 1-yr funds loaned 6-23, 433D1 Interest rate retained 6-24, 427F2 Lending programs cut, cont 6-25, 456G3 Interest rate retained, treasury securities program end set/mortgage-backed securities buy cont 8-12, 535C2 Outstanding loans tallied 8-12, program cont 8-17, 571A3–B3 Interest rate retained, mortgage-backed securities buy end set 9-23, 640A1 Banks overdraft fees ltd 9-23—9-24, 716A1 Lending program cut 9-24, 651A3–B3 $ value drops 10-13—10-14, 699E3 Banks compensatn policies scored 10-18, 715B2 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739D3 Interest rate retained, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae debt buys cut 11-4, 759F1 Banks overdraft fees ltd 11-12, 779G1 $ value drop mulled 11-16, 798D2 Reverse repurchase agrmts proposed 11-30, 909A2 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865G2–A3 Interest rates retained 12-16, 865A3 ‘Term deposits’ proposed, balance sheet rise rptd 12-28, 909D1 Statistics Dec ‘08 indl output, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 Dec ‘08 factory rate, Nov revised 1-16, 46C2 ‘09 GDP, jobless rate forecast 2-18, 111A1 Jan ‘09 indl output, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112D1 Jan ‘09 factory rate, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112D1

Feb ‘09 indl output, Jan revised 3-16, 183A2 Feb ‘09 factory rate, Jan revised 3-16, 183A2 Mar ‘09 indl output, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 Mar ‘09 factory rate, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 Apr ‘09 indl output, Mar revised 5-15, 355A3 Apr ‘09 factory rate, Mar revised 5-15, 355A3 May ‘09 factory rate 6-16, 477A3 May ‘09 indl output 6-16, 477A3 Jun ‘09 indl output 7-15, 477G2 Jun ‘09 factory rate 7-15, 477G2 Jul ‘09 indl output, Jun revised 8-14, 572G1 Jul ‘09 factory rate, Jun revised 8-14, 572G1 Aug ‘09 indl output, Jul revised 9-16, 640A2 Aug ‘09 factory rate, Jul revised 9-16, 640A2 Sep ‘09 indl output, Aug revised 10-16, 740A2 Sep ‘09 factory rate, Aug revised 10-16, 740A2 Oct ‘09 indl output, Sep revised 11-17, 813D2 Oct ‘09 factory rate, Sep revised 11-17, 813D2 Nov ‘09 indl output, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 Nov ‘09 factory rate, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2

FEDERAL Trade Commission, U.S. (FTC) Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 151D1 Vladeck named consumer div head 4-14, 375D1 Apple/Google bd dirs overlap probe rptd 5-5, Schmidt, Levinson quit 8-4—10-12, 744F3 Intel, EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343B2 Ad disclosure rules hiked 10-5, 761G1 Intel/AMD antitrust suits setlmt OKd 11-12, 800F2 Intel antitrust suit filed 12-16, 911D3

FEDERATION of American Hospital Systems White House health care summit held 3-5, 145G3 Health care reform Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863D3

FEDERATION of American Scientists Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, Pak scientist (Khan) interview translated 9-8, 600C1, E1

FEDERER, Roger ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 Loses Australian Open 2-1, 71A1–B1 Wins Madrid Open 5-17, 399D1 Wins French Open, ties Grand Slam wins mark 6-7, 398C3 Wins Wimbledon, sets Grand Slam wins mark 7-5, 467E1 Tops ATP rankings 7-6, 467C2 Wins Cincinnati Open 8-23, 631G2 Loses US Open 9-14, 631A1 3d in AP ‘00-09 top athlete voting 12-16, 879C2

FEDOROV, Sergei Joins Russia’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk 6-25, 731D1

FEDOTENKO, Ruslan Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1

FEHN, Sverre (1924-2009) Dies 2-23, 176B3

FEHR, Donald On players ‘03 drug tests results 2-9, 87E2–F2 Sets resignatn 6-22, 483F3–G3, 484D1–E1 Successor (Weiner) OKd, takes post 12-2, 989F1–G1

FEINBERG, Kenneth Named exec pay ‘spec master’ 6-10, 387G2, C3–D3 AIG CEO (Benmosche) compensatn rptd 8-17, 585E3 AIG bonus paymts return sought 10-14, Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) ‘09 pay nixed 10-15, 715F2–G2, C3 Cuts $700 bln financial indus aid cos pay 10-22, 742B1–C1, F1–G1, B2

FEINGOLD, Russell D. (U.S. senator from Wis., 1993- ; Democrat) On NSA warrantless spying legality 7-10, 475E1 On health care reform pub option 8-17, 551F2 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603C1

1037

Vs defns ‘10 authrzn, hate crimes bill 10-22, 742E3 Vs health care reform pub option drop 12-8, 847E3 Backs defns ‘10 funds 12-18—12-19, 886E2

FEINSTEIN, Dianne (U.S. senator from Calif., 1992- ; Democrat) Questns Panetta CIA dir apptmt 1-5, Obama calls, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5D3–F3 Seated Intell chair 1-6, 5C2 At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26A2 On CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns 1-28, 65E3 Sets NSA unlawful data collectn hearing 4-15, 243C3 Seeks CIA interrogatn prosecutns decisn delay 4-20, 258E2 On Obama ‘10 budget proposals 5-7, 321G2, D3 On CIA shuttered Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program, Cong concealmt 6-23, 474A2 Jarvis named NPS dir 7-10, 491E1 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 470D2, F2, 471F2 On planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program 8-20, 586B3–C3

FEITH, Douglas Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329D2

FELA! (play) Opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954E1

FELA Anikulapo-Kuti (Fela Ranasome-Kuti) (1938-97) Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954E1

FELDMAN, Scott Among AL wins ldrs 10-6, 690F2

FELDSHUH, Tovah Irena’s Vow opens on Bway 3-29, 256D1

FELINSKI, Zygmunt Szcezensy (1822-95) Canonized 10-11, 739F1

FELIX, Allyson Wins 200-m world champ gold 8-21, 579C3

FELIZ, Pedro Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770B3

FELLAY, Bishop Bernard Hails bps reinstatn 1-24, regrets Williamson Holocaust denial remarks 1-27, 43B2, E2

FELLINI, Federico (1920-93) Pinelli dies 3-7, 192E3

FELT, W(illiam) Mark (1913-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

FELTMAN, Jeffrey Sees Syria amb (Moustapha) 2-26, visit set 3-3, 123C3–D3 Visits Syria 3-7, 143B1

FELTON, Tom Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

FENTY, Adrian M. (Washington, D.C. mayor, 2007- ; Democrat) Gay marriage recognitn OKd 5-5, 304B2 Gay marriage bill introduced 10-6, 699F1 Gay marriage measure OKd 12-15, 868E1

FEOKTISTOV, Konstantin Petrovich (1926-2009) Dies 11-21, 860C3

FERBER, Edna (1885-1968) Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

FERBER, Edna (1887-1968) Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

FERGIE (Stacy Ann Ferguson) Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

FERGUSON, Martin Sets Timor Sea oil rig leak probe 11-2, 874C2

FERLITO, Vanessa Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

FERMI National Accelerator Laboratory (Batavia, Ill.) Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824B2 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2

FERNANDEZ, Anibal On marijuana arrests nix 8-25, 589F3

FERNANDEZ, Carlos Castresana On atty (Rosenberg) slaying arrests 9-11, 682D2

1038 FERNANDEZ— FERNANDEZ Barrueco, Ricardo Banks seized, assets liquidated/reopenings set 11-20—12-11, held 12-4, 929A2, C2

FERNANDEZ de Kirchner, Cristina (Argentine president, 2007- ) Soybeans export tax talks open, proposes revenue sharing plan 2-24—3-19; farmers stirke 3-21—3-27, electns date chng OKd 3-26, 203G3–204B1, D1–F1 Pres bid Venez funds muzzler sentncd 3-16, 205D1–E1 At progressive ldrs summit 3-27, 204F3 On Honduras pres (Zelaya) ouster 6-28, return mulled 6-29, 438D2–E2 Cong electns held 6-28, husband drops party ldrship 6-29, 446B3–D3, F3–447A1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 At UNASUR summit 8-10, 541C3 Vetoes farmers tax break 8-25, strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 Media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682A2 Signs media curbs bill 10-10, 926C1

FERRANTE, Art(hur Richard) (1921-2009) Dies 9-19, 708A3

FERREIRA Leite, Manuela Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667F1, B2

FERRELL, Will You’re Welcome Amer opens in NYC 2-5, 211G3 In O’Brien ‘Tonight Show’ debut 6-1, 383F3

FERRER, David Loses Barclays Dubai Champ 2-28, 139B1 Loses Barcelona Open 4-26, 399F1

FERRER, Mel (Melchior Gaston) (1917-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

FERRERO-Waldner, Benita Nixes Hamas Gaza reconstructn aid 1-19, 31G2

FERROCARRILL Mexicano (Ferromex) Union Pacific drug smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269G1

FERTILIZERS & Manure Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723D1 Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2 Afghan chem stash seized 11-11, 775B3

FEUSTEL, Andrew Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 5-11—5-24, 372B3–F3

FEVER/Dream (play) Opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

FEWELL, Perry Named Bills interim coach 11-17, 948A2

FEY, Tina Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24G2

FEZZANI, Moez Ben Abdelkader Transferred to Itlay 12-20, 914A1

FIAT S.p.A. Chrysler jt venture set 1-20, 47G3 Chrysler restructuring plan set 2-17, 92G3–93A1 Chrysler merger ordrd 3-29, 197E2, 198C3 Chrysler merger set 4-30, 282G2, G3 Susanna Agnelli dies 5-15, 364F2 Opel financial info sought 5-29, Chrysler reorgn OKd, appeal filed 5-31—6-4, 367A1, F1 Chrysler merger upheld, completed 6-10, 385A1 AvtoVAZ 27600 cuts set 9-24, 788B3 Chrysler future plans detailed 11-4, 758E2

FICKMAN, Andy Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

FICO, Robert (Slovak premier, 2006- ) Pres vote held, runoff set 3-21, Gasparovic reelected 4-4, 226G1 On Hungary’s Solyom entry nix 8-21, 608E3

FIDLER, Judge Larry Paul Sentncs music producer (Spector) 5-29, 525D1

FIDRYCH, Mark Steven (1954-2009) Found dead 4-13, dump truck mishap cited 4-16, 256B3

FACTS FIELD, Christopher Sees climate chng rate hike 2-14, 124E1–F1

FIELD, Bishop Raymond Quits 12-24, 938F1

FIELDER, Prince Wins HR Derby 7-13, 483D3 NL RBI ldr, among HR ldrs 10-6, 690E3

FIELDS, Dorothy (1905-74) Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

FIELDS, Herbert (1897-1966) Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

FIFTH Third Bancorp. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1

50 Cent (Curtis James Jackson 3rd) ‘Crack a Bottle’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1

FIGGINS, Chone Among AL runs/steals ldrs 10-6, 690F2 Angels lose pennant 10-25, 751F3 Joins Mariners 12-8, 948G3

FIGHTING (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

FIGURE in a Garden (painting) Fetches 4 mln euros 2-23, 160D1

FIJI, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Floods kill 11, aid set/hiked 1-8—1-16, 68F1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Pacific Island Forum ouster set 5-2, 852C2 NZ’s Reeves visits 9-9—9-11, 852D2 Forgn meddling alleged 11-1; Sri Lankan judges arrived 11-2, Australia/NZ diplomat ouster exchngd, Rudd scores junta 11-3—11-4, 852A1, C1, E1 Civil Strife Emergency declared 4-10, Law Society pres (Naidu) held, freed 4-14—4-15, 251E3, 252C1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Commonwealth suspensn set 9-1, 852A2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233E2 Govt ruled illegal, Bainimarama sets resignatn/renamed PM 4-9—4-10, const nixed 4-10, moves questnd, electns block seen 4-11, 251D3 Judges named 5-22, new const plans set, proposal scored 7-1—7-6, 510E1, B2 Iloilo retiremt set 7-28, Nailatikau named 7-30, 527C2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733E2 Pres (Nailatikau), judges sworn 11-5, 852F1 Monetary Issues Reserve Bank gov ousted/Reddy named, currency exchng curbs set 4-14, F$ devalued 4-15, 252D1 Press & Broadcasting ABC stations shut, rptr ousted 4-14, 251E3, 252C1

FIJI Law Society Naidu held, freed 4-14—4-15, 252C1

FILAT, Vladimir (Moldovan prime minister, 2009- ) Sworn 9-25, 666D3–F3 Facts on 9-25, 667A1

FILIP, Mark Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmatn vote delayed 1-21, 30A3 Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14, 94E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322D3

FILKINS, Dexter Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

FILLON, Francois (French premier, 2007- ) Nixes stimulus package hike 3-19, 206F3 CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937F1

FILM Critics, National Society of Awards announced 1-3, 24A3

FILM Journal International (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

FILMS—See MOTION Pictures FILNER, Bob (U.S. representative from Calif., 1993- ; Republican) Reseated Vets Affairs chair 1-6, 5C1

FILPPULA, Valtteri Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420C1, F1

FINAL Destination, The (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

FINANCIAL Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Mark-to-mkt acctg rules eased 4-2, 220D3, 221A1

FINANCIAL Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) SEC chair nominee (Schapiro) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17D2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148C2–D2

FINANCIAL Services India ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-29, 382F1 CIT Group cont govt aid nixed 7-15; financing set 7-20, assets sale mulled 7-21, 491A1 US indus reforms seen 9-14, 618G1 UK cos, Iran deals banned 10-12, 711D2 CIT Group bankruptcy filed 11-1, 758D3

FINANCIAL Times (British newspaper) US natl security adviser (Hadley) interviewed 1-19, 36D1 Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) interviewed 2-23, 135E1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina interviewed 3-23, 184F3 Mex’s Calderon interviewed 3-27, 186C1 Taiwan’s Liu interviewed 5-20, 415G3 Pak forgn min (Qureshi) interviewed 6-15, 418C2 Japan’s Fuji interviewed 9-9, 624F3 De Beers CEO (Khama) interviewed 10-19, 722E2

FINCH, Peter (Frederick George Peter Ingle-Finch) (1916-76) Ledger wins Oscar 2-22, 120E1

FINCHER, David Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

FINDLEY, Deborah Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

FINDLEY, Robbie Real Salt Lake wins MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

FINE, Glenn Rpts Justice Dept ex-ofcl (Schlozman) violatns 1-13, 16G3 On FBI terror watch list woes 5-6, 411C2 Sets ACORN grants probe 9-21, 638C3

FINGER Lickin’ Fifteen (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

FINIAN‘S Rainbow (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

FININVEST SpA ‘91 bribery found 10-3, verdict scored 10-5, 687F1–A2 Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, 750D1

FINKE, Michael Returns to Earth 4-8, 239G2–A3*

FINLAND, Republic of African Relations Rwanda ex-pastor (Bazaramba) trial opens 9-1, Kigali testimony heard 9-15, 680A2 Environment & Pollution French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 European Relations Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233F2; 10-1, 733F2 Sports Women’s Hockey World Champs results 4-12, 670C3 NHL game hosted 10-2, 730B3 Transportation Ship (Arctic Sea) departs, registered in Malta/hijacking seen 7-23—7-31; found/suspects held, negative radiatn test rptd 8-17—8-18, details emerge, probe set/crew returns to Russia 8-20, 550C3 Ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27, arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1, A2

FINNERAN, Katie Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

FINTON, Michael Held, chrgd 9-24, 678B3

ON FILE

FIORINA, Carly Sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1

FIREARMS—See under ARMAMENTS; GUNS; ARMAMENTS; GUNS; ARMAMENTS; GUNS FIRE Burning (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

FIRED Up! (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

FIREFIGHTERS Conn civil svc exam bias case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27C3 Australian bushfires erupt, mil aid OKd 2-7—2-12, 83B2, B3 Obama on econ crisis 2-9, 78B1 China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, 251F2 Australia bushfires cont 2-19, 98B1 Calif ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) convctd 3-6, sentncd 6-5, 359E3 LA pension fund paymt Searle role rptd 4-21, 265A3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350D2 Calif arsonist (Oyler) sentncd 6-5, 920F2 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19, ofcrs censured, ruling scored 6-24, 621A1–C1 Conn test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2, 444A1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470C3–D3, 471D2, B3 Greece wildfires erupt/emergency declared, water-dropping plane crash kills 1 8-21—8-27, 577G1–A2 ‘Smoke jump’ pioneer (Cooley) dies 11-9, 860B3 Russian arms depot blasts kill 2 11-13, 855E1

FIREFLIES (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

FIRES & Explosions Accidents & Disasters Thai club blaze kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22B3 Kenya blazes kill 158+ 1-28, 1-31, 203B2 Australian bushfires kill 181+, mil aid OKd/bodies search opens 2-7—2-12; arson blamed, probe opens 2-9, natl mourning day declared 2-12, 83A2, C2, B3, D3; map 83E2 China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251F2 Australia bushfires suspect held, IDd 2-13—2-16, blazes cont, death toll hiked 2-19, 98B1 China mine blast kills 74+, survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251D2 BP ‘05 Tex refinery blast fine upheld 3-12, 917A1–B1 Turkmen gas pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, Russia flow cutoff cited 4-10, 473E2–F2 Afghan asylum seekers survive boat blast 4-16, Australian refugee status OKd, deportatn warned 10-12, 931F2 Bayer W Va blast info block seen, rpt issued 4-21—4-23, 412E3 Southn Calif wildfires hit, disaster declared 5-5—5-9, 393F2 Mex day-care blaze kills 47, smoke inhalatn deaths seen 6-5—6-7; damaged air conditioner cited 6-10, state finance min ofcls held, fed probe set 6-22—6-24, 431F2 ConAgra NC factory blast kills 3 6-9, natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412B3 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19; punishmts set, scored 6-24—7-10, check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A1, F1 Italy RR derailmt, blast kills 16 6-29, 449G2 Mex day-care owners arrest sought 7-2, blaze probe comm set 8-6, 556G3 US surgeon gen (Benjamin) named 7-13, 476C1 Leb/Israeli truce zone blast hits 7-14, 615C1 Iran/Armenia flight crash kills 168 7-15, 483A1 Iran plane crash kills 17+ 7-24, 941B3 Cafritz house blaze destroys art trove 7-29, 548A3 Russian power plant blast kills 17+ 8-17, 560A3 Greece wildfires erupt, emergency declared/probe opens 8-21—8-24, firefighting plane crash kills 1 8-27, 577E1 Kazakh hosp blaze kills 37 9-13, 936A1 BP Tex refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1 Timor Sea rig leak fire extinguished 11-1, 874G1 PI fire kills 17 11-2, calamity declared 11-8, 891F1 Russian arms depot blasts kill 10+ 11-13—11-23, 855E1

2009 Index China mine blast kills 104+ 11-21, ofcls, rptrs chrgd 11-30, 932G3 Russia club fire kills 124+ 12-5; workers held 12-6, regional govt quits 12-9, 854F3 Arson Calif house party Santa Claus gunman victims IDd 1-13, 247F3 Calif ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) convctd 3-6, sentncd 6-5, 359E3 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149B1 Calif arsonist (Oyler) sentncd 6-5, 920F2 Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatn home burned 8-3, 609D2, G2 Kuwait wedding blaze kills 41+ 8-15, suspect held 8-17, 943B2 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Gov Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700C1–G1, A3–C3 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914A3 W Bank mosque burned 12-11; Holocaust synagogue blazes compared 12-14, suspect held 12-31, 945C1 US ‘09 1st 1/2 drop rptd 12-21, 887G3 Demonstrations & Protests Calif subway passenger slaying protests turn violent 1-7, 247D1 Tibetan monk sets self ablaze 3-10, 172B1–C1 NATO summit held, protests turn violent 4-4, 213E2 Hungary protests held 4-14, 273G1 Honduras protests turn violent 6-28—6-29, 438B1 S African township protests turn violent 7-12—7-28, 526F1 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Egypt’s Hosni loses electn 9-17—9-22, 675A3 Iran/US emb seizure anniv marked 11-4, 767E3 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857B1 Political & Legislative Issues Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939A2 Riots & Unrest Indonesia/Egypt emb firebombed 1-20, security hiked 1-21, 153E3 Moldova riots death rptd 4-12, 273D2 Pak tribal areas civilns flee 5-5—5-7, 315B1 Iraq rape US troop (Green) sentncd 5-21, 362A3 Australian/Indian student attacked 5-24, 509A1 Iran bank blaze kills 5 6-1, 398A2 Lakers NBA title win riots erupt 6-14, 419E2 Iran pres electn protests turn violent 6-16—6-18, 402D2 China ethnic clashes erupt 6-25—7-7, 461C1 Bosnian Serbs (Lukics) convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511E3 Pak riots kill 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612F1 Mex prison clash kills 19+ 8-14, 556D3 Gabon/Senegal emb, France consulate burned 9-3, 604G1, E2 Iraq blast kills 15+ 9-25, 668E1 China ethnic clashes suspects convctd, sentncd 10-12, 702G3 Tibet ‘08 violnc executns rptd, confrmd 10-20—10-27, 785E3 S/N Korea naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 796B1 PI logging co blaze set 11-11, 819G3 Northn Mariana gunman kills 4, self 11-20, 888D2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/in hosp 12-25, chrgd, transferred 12-26—12-27, 897A1, D1 Iran protests turn violent 12-27, 940D2 Pak blast sparks violnc 12-28, 947A1 Safety Issues Ford vehicles recall set 10-13, 758A3

FIREWORKS Thai club blaze kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22C3 China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251F2 Serbia soccer fans warning issued 10-8, 687C3 Turkey Kurdish rebels greeted 10-21, 728C2 Nicaragua/US amb (Callahan) flees attack 10-30, 784E3 Russia club fire kills 124+ 12-5; workers held 12-6, regional govt quits 12-9, 854G3, 855B1

FIRST Bank of Nigeria PLC Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, dad warning rptd 12-27, 897C3

FIRST Boston Corp. Wasserstein dies 10-14, 731F3

—FLORIDA FIRST Family (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

FIRST Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co. US/Iraq emb constructn woes rptd 10-22, 739C1

FIRST Tycoon, The: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (book) Stiles wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

FIRTH, Colin Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

FISCH, Joseph On ex-health comr (Novello) authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64A3

FISCHER, Bobby (Robert James) (1941-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

FISCHER, Judge Dale Sentncs Hollywood PI (Pellicano) assocs 3-3—3-9, 247B3

FISCHER, Jan (Czech premier, 2009) Named Czech interim premr 4-9, 224G3–225B1 Vows EU treaty Czech signing 10-7, 685A2–B2

FISH (& Fishing Industry) Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7A2 Thai abandoned refugees boat found 1-14, 52C1 Arctic ban OKd 2-5, 268A1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181F3 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512A3 Coastal ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2 S Korea boat seized 7-30, 518C1 Ocean fisheries populatn woes rptd 7-31, 550E2 US freshwater mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655A2 Timor Sea rig leak opens/halted, fire extinguished 8-21—11-3, damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874B2 Actor (Piven), B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596F1 S Korea fishermen, boat freed 8-29, 600D2 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis/signed, fed policies review set 11-4—11-13, 887B2, F2–G2 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2

FISH & Wildlife Service, U.S. (of Interior) Fed projects endangered species review restored 3-2, 131C2 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisting upheld 3-6, 267E3 Bat caves entry nix urged 3-26, 356B3 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781B3 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3

FISHER, Carrie Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Wishful Drinking opens in NYC 10-4, 860G2

FISHER, Derek Lakers win NBA title 6-14, 419C2

FISHER, Donald George (1928-2009) Art trove relocatn set 9-25, dies 9-27, 708B3

FISHER, Doris Art trove relocatn set 9-25, husband dies 9-27, 708B3

FISHER, Isla Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

FISHER, Jimbo Named Fla State coach 12-2, 879E3

FISHER, Ross US Open results 6-22, 435G1 British Open results 7-19, 500E1 Wins World Match Play Champ 11-1, 840F1

FISICHELLA, Giancarlo Joins Ferrari 9-3, 647C2

FITCH Ratings Inc. Russian credit outlook cut 2-4, 69B2 Berkshire credit rating cut 3-12, 241G3

Mex credit rating cut 11-23, 929C1 Greek credit rating cut 12-8, 855E3, 856A1 Greece budget deficit cut vowed 12-14, 875E2, C3 Greek debt rating cut, negative credit outlook set 12-22, 938C1

FITGERALD, Glenn This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

FITNA (film) Wilders UK entry barred 2-12, 136D3

FITZGERALD, Christopher Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

FITZGERALD, F(rancis) Scott (1896-1940) Button gets Oscar nominatns 1-22, 40D1

FITZGERALD, Larry Cardinals win NFC champ 1-18, 39B3–C3 Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70A2, D2, A3, D3–E3 NFC wins Pro Bowl, named MVP 2-8, 176C1

FITZGERALD, Patrick Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43G3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815A3–C3

FITZGERALD, Justice Thomas Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43D3

FITZGERALD v. Barnstable School Committee (2009) Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48D3

FITZSIMONS, Danny Iraq shooting kills 2, held 8-9, 545F2, A3

FLACCO, Joe Ravens lose AFC champ 1-18, 39F3

FLAGS & Emblems US slain troops coffin media ban mulled 2-9, review ordrd 2-11, 79C2 Turkmen Flag Day marked 2-19, 135B2 War dead coffins return media ban lifted 2-26, 132B1 US surveillnc ship Chinese harassmt alleged, protested 3-8—3-9, 153A2 China riots erupt, suspects held 3-21—3-22, 327B1 Moldova protests turn violent, blame mulled 4-6—4-8, 225C3, G3 Somali pirates US hijacking fails 4-8, 237A1 Hungary protests held 4-14, 273G1 N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404B1 Obama citizenship questnd 6-30, 552E3 US/Cuba missn sign removal rptd 7-28, 527F1 Israeli/Gaza war civiln casualties rptd 8-13, 593A3 Afghan/US slain troops return 10-29, 750D3* Iran/US emb seizure anniv marked 11-4, 767E3 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857B1 Somalia blast protested 12-7, Islamists clash erupts 132-8, 889C2–D2

FLAHERTY, Jim Unveils fscl yr ‘09 budget 1-27, 50B2 At G-8 mtg 6-13, 417G2

FLAHERTY, Stephen Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

FLAIR (magazine) Fleur Cowles dies 6-5, 420E3

FLAKE, Jeff (U.S. representative from Ariz., 2001- ; Republican) Defns ‘10 funds pass 7-30, 523E3 Seeks PMA ex-clients defns funding nix 10-30, 779A3

FLANAGAN, Barry (1941-2009) Dies 8-31, 648E2

FLANNERY, Peter Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3

FLAT Belly Diet (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

FLATT, Rachael 2d in US champ 1-25, 139C2 5th in world champs 3-28, 211D2

FLEISCHER, Brad Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

FLEISHER, Julian Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

FLEMYNG, Jason Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

1039

FLETCHER, Anne Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

FLEURY, Marc-Andre Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1, G1–B2

FLICKR (Web site) Tiananmen sq crackdown anniv marked 6-4, 395D2

FLINT, Caroline Quits 6-5, 397A2

FLOODS—See STORMS FLORES-Figueroa, Ignacio ID theft law curbed Sup Ct 5-4, 444F3

FLORES-Figueroa v. United States (2009) ID theft law curbed by Sup Ct 5-4, 444E3

FLORES Pereira, Jose Mar Hijacks AeroMex flight, frees passengers/held 9-9, 682F1

FLORIDA Accidents & Disasters Golfer Woods crashes car 11-27; blames self 11-29, cited, cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839A2, D2 Jamaica flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930B1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Afghan/US emb contractors misconduct rptd 9-2, 594A3 Ponzi scheme suspect (Rothstein) chrgd, pleads not guilty 12-1, 910A3 Crime & Law Enforcement FBI terror watch list woes rptd 5-6, 411E2 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held, chrgd 6-24—7-29, 574A2 NFL’s Stallworth pleads guilty 6-15, 632C1 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A3 Demonstrations & Protests Cuba peace concert protested 9-20, 661G2 Energy FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745D2 Environment & Pollution Sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3 Obama visits solar energy installatn 10-27, 743A1 Family Issues Travolta son mourned 1-8, 9B3 Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Brazil boy, dad return 12-24, 926C2 Immigration & Refugee Issues ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 268G3 USF ex-student (Megahed) held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816A1 Haiti migrant boat sinking kills 15+, survivors found/rescue search ends 7-26—7-29, 527A2 Brain-damaged illegal (Jiminez) ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3 Labor & Employment Obama on econ crisis 2-9, 78B1 Medicine & Health Care Smoker death damages awarded 2-18, 357E1 Greer gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Chinese drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850C1 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3–919A1 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-29, 906F1; 12-30, 906F1 Military Issues Obama visits Naval Air Statn 10-26, 750C3 Obituaries Hawkins, Paula 12-4, 880A2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Bush nixes Sen bid 1-6, 5G2 Obama visits 2-10, 79D1 Fugate named FEMA dir 3-4, 145F2 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302C3 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537E2 LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 584G3 Rep Wexler sets resignatn 10-14, 717A2 Electn results 11-3, 756F3 Press & Broadcasting CQ sale sought 1-28, 168C1 St Petersburg Times/Miami Herald win Pulitzers 4-20, 279F1, A3–C3 S Fla Blade, 411 shut 11-16, 912E3 Religious Issues Scientology violnc use alleged 6-21, 787C3 Space & Space Flights Discovery launches 3-15, lands 3-28, 239B2, F2 Atlantis launched 5-11, 372A3 Endeavour launched 7-15, lands 7-31, 519F1, F2 Discovery launches 8-28, 615F3 Atlantis launched 11-16, returns 11-27, 902C1, F1

1040 FLO Rida— Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1 Orange/Capital 1/Gator/Outback Bowl results 1-1, 24E1–F1 Dolphins exit playoffs 1-4, 40B1 BCS Champ results 1-8, 23C3 Dolphins stake sale completed 1-20, 55G2 Eclipse Awards presented 1-26, 119D3 Super Bowl results 2-1, 70B1; photo 70E1 Daytona 500 results 2-15, 103F3 MLB’s Rodriguez news conf held 2-17, sees MLB ofcls 3-1, 158E3–F3 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 191A1 Honda Classic results 3-8, 255A3 WGC-CA Champ results 3-15, 255A3 Transitns Champ results 3-22, 255G2 Arnold Palmer Invitatnl results 3-29, 255F2 Sony Ericsson Open results 4-4—4-5, 399G1 Magic win divisn, Heat make playoffs 4-15, 278B2 US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383B3–D3 Players Champ results 5-10, 564B1 Magic loses NBA title 6-14, 419C1, G1, G2–B3 Indy 300 results 10-10, 950D2 Ford 400 results 11-22, 859E3 St Petersburg/Champs Sports results 12-19—12-29, 948A3, C3 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

FLO Rida (Tremar Dillard) ‘Right Round’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1

FLORIDA, University of (Gainesville) BSC title won 1-8, ‘08 rank topped 1-9, 23B3 Harvin in NFL draft 4-25, 298E3 Women’s Coll World Series lost 6-2, 484A3 ‘09 football preseason polls topped 8-7—8-22, 579E3–F3 Football coach (Meyer) in hosp 12-6; quits, cites health woes 12-26, sets leave, sees return 12-27, 948C2 Tebow 5th in Heisman voting 12-12, 879E2, A3

FLORIDA Immigration Advocacy Center ICE detentn ctr med care questnd 3-17, 268G3

FLORIDA International University (Miami) Thomas named men’s basketball coach 4-15, 279C1

FLORIDA Power & Light Co. (FPL) ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745D2–F2

FLORIDA State University (Tallahassee) Douglas in NBA draft 6-25, 451G1, C2 Bowden sets retiremt, Fisher named 12-2, 879E3

FLOUR—See GRAIN FLOWERS, Kobie Named Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty 10-7, 719E1

FLOYD, Keith (1943-2009) Dies 9-14, 708C3

FLYNN, Jonny In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, E1

FLYNN, Vince Extreme Measures on best-seller list 9-28, 672C1 Pursuit of Honor on best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

FOFANA, Youssouf Anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1–G1

FOGLER, Dan Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

FOLEY, Eamon Everyday Rapture opens in NYC 5-2, 348G1

FOLMAN, Ari Waltz With Bashir wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3

FONDA, Jane 33 Variatns opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3

FONDREN Jr., Lt. Col. James (ret.) Convctd 9-25, 888D3

FONG, Peter Quits 10-5, 753C3

FACTS FONSEKA, Gen. Sarath US questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769F3–G3 Quits 11-12, 823C2–D2

FONSEKA, Gen. Sarath (ret.) Sets pres bid 11-29, 947C2–F2

FONTANA, D(ominic) J(oseph) Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3

FONTANA, Santino Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

FOOD (& Food Industry) Accidents & Disasters ConAgra NC factory blast kills 3 6-9, natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412B3 Indonesia rescue efforts halted 10-5, 725B1 Appointments & Resignations FDA comr apptmt seen 1-30, 63B2 FDA comr (Hamburg), dep comr (Sharfstein) named 3-14, 182F1–A2 FDA comr nominee (Hamburg) Sen com hearing held 5-13, confrmd 5-18, 354D1 Frieden named CDC dir 5-15, 354G1 Budget & Spending Programs Obama on econ crisis 2-9, 78B1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 US agri ‘10 funds pass Sen 8-4, 537F3 Cuban govt lunchrooms shut 10-1, 784E1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Swimmer Phelps Kellogg endorsemt deal dropped 2-5, 71D2 Peanut Corp bankruptcy filed, Va plant shut 2-13, 95E3–F3 Polar Venez govt seizure warned 3-4, 204D3 Contamination Issues Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, 63E1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11, 95B3 Peanut Corp Tex plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2 Setton pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2 CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340A3 Nestle cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Lobbyist (Boulanger) pleads guilty 1-30, 60E2 GOP chair (Steele) defends sister co paymts 2-8, 146A3 Medicare fraud suspects held 7-29, 574C2 Venez banks owner (Fernandez) held 12-4, 929A2 Crime Issues Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64D1 N Ireland attack hurts 1 3-7, 154D3 Saudi widow (Sawadi) sentncd 3-9, punishmt drop urged 12-14, 944F1 Iraq merchants ‘92 slayers convctd, sentncd 3-11, 156C2 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247A3 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 260B1, B3 Iraq blast kills 28 4-23, 296A3 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614B2 Honduras curfew eased 9-23, 643B3 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709D2 Food Stamp Program $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15A2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90F2, C3 US enrollmt rise rptd 7-8, USDA ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489F1–A2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761E1 US ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886E2 Health & Safety Issues GM-animals rules issued 1-15, 64B3 Peanut Corp, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63C2 Peanut Corp Tex plant shut 2-12, 95F3 China natl cong held 3-5—3-13, 187C1 Setton NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9, 268E2 US safety House com hearing held 3-11, reforms set, ‘downer cattle’ use banned 3-14, 167C2 US tracing woes rptd 3-26, 268C3–E3 US illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268A3 US reforms urged 7-7, 524B2 FDA safety bill nixed, passes House 7-29—7-30, 524E1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907E2

Hunger Strikes Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) opens strike 1-21, 135D1 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued 2-20, 112D3 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4, 330A2 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374E2 Caracas mayor (Ledezma) strike ends 7-8, 494A1 Afghan/US detainees protests rptd 7-16, 499C1 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) entry blocked, strike opens 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3 India new state plan set 12-9, 946A1–B1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626C2 Nutrition Issues Indonesia abandoned refugees boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, Thai mil policy mulled, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99B1, A2 Italian woman (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6; dies 2-9, autopsy rptd 2-11, 117C1 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, refugee svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187E3 Iran exiled oppositn group Iraq camp surrounded 3-13, 174D3 Darfur concerns rptd 3-18—3-20, 185D1 PI militants deliveries cut 3-24, 205A3 Madagascar aid ‘catastrophe’ warned 4-23, children risk seen 4-25, 308C3–D3 World Bank AIDS programs woes seen 4-30, 387G1 Sri Lanka rebels defeat seen 5-17, civiln displacemts tallied 5-18, 334D1, E2 US rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396D1 Worldwide hunger rate estimated 6-19, 440E2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses documts issued 8-24, 567C1 Guatemala crisis calamity declared 9-8, 623B3 US/Sudan policy shift set, mulled 10-19—11-1, 762A1 US insecurity rptd 11-16, 798B1 N Korea’s won revalued 11-30, 873F2 Obituaries Ali, Ben 10-7, 731G2 Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2 Carasso, Daniel 5-17, 364B3 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 Lenotre, Gaston 1-8, 40F2 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3 Samak Sundaravej 11-24, 880C3 Price Issues Madagascar riots erupt 1-26—1-27, 66E1 Haiti intl aid conf held 4-14, 270B2 India ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-31, 594E3 Trade & Aid Issues Sri Lanka rebel city mil capture rptd 1-2, 9F2 UN/Gaza aid cont 1-9, warehouse destroyed 1-15, 13F1, C3 Gaza UN shipmt seized, aid halted/cont 2-6—2-9, entry sought 2-10, 86E1 Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2–A3 Somali pirates US hijackings fail 4-8; capt held/freed, captors slain 4-8—4-12, ships return to Kenya port, crew flies home 4-11—4-16, 237A1, 238D3 Somali pirates seize Leb ship 4-14, freed 4-20, 269F3 World Bank dvpt loans set 4-21, 284B1 Sudan convoy attack kills 40 6-12, 431A1 WFP ‘09 funding woes seen 6-12, 440B3 G-8 vows African aid, Obama visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 472C2, C3 Storm Ketsana, PI aid sought 9-26, 664B2 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681A2 Amer Samoa tsunami aid sent 9-30, 662E3 PI storms aid sought 10-6, 684F3 N/S Korea aid offrd 10-26, 764A1 India rice imports tariffs halted 10-28, 791D2 Pak tribal areas UN dvpt programs cut 11-2, 769G1 El Salvador floods/mudslides aid sent 11-10, 818D1 UN security summit held, hunger drop goals OKd/met 11-16—11-18, 812A1, E1, A2 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2

ON FILE

FOOD & Agriculture Organization (FAO)—See under UNITED Nations FOOD & Drug Administration, U.S. (FDA) (of PHS) Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907A2, E2 Appointments & Resignations Comr apptmt seen 1-30, 63B2 Comr (Hamburg), dep comr (Sharfstein) named 3-14, 182F1 Comr nominee (Hamburg) Sen com hearing held 5-13, confrmd 5-18, 354D1 Tobacco regulatn dir (Deyton) named 8-19, 642G3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489G1 Drug Trials & Approvals Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd 1-21, 49B2 Experimental cancer drugs Medicare coverage chng rptd 1-27, 133E1 Anticlotting protein (Atryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202A1 Ranbaxy false test results rptd, applicatns halted 2-25, 221F2 ‘Plan B’ limits review ordrd 3-23, 184D2 Swine flu vaccine test opens 8-7, progress seen 8-21, 584B1 Swine flu vaccines OKd 9-16, 696G3 Swine flu vaccine delays seen 10-16—10-23, 741C3 HPV vaccine (Gardasil) male use OKd 10-16, 799C3 Health & Safety Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses, deaths tallied 1-29, 49D3–E3, G3 GM-animals rules issued 1-15, 64B3 Med devices efficacy/safety reviews questnd 1-15, 64D3 Antipsychotic drug (Zyprexa) mktg suit setld 1-15, 64E3 Pfizer $2.3 bln chrg set 1-26, 49G1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, review set 2-2, 63E1–B2 Setton NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9; pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2–E2 Food safety House com hearing held 3-11, reforms set 3-14, 167F2, A3–B3 Tobacco regulatn bill backed, passes House 4-1—4-2, 221G1 Food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268B3–C3 US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383C3 ‘Plan B’ sale curbs eased 4-22, 539A1 Weight-loss supplemt (Hydroxycut) warning issued 5-1, 412D2–E2 Tobacco regulatn bill passes Sen 6-11, 390A2 Tobacco regulatn bill clears House/signed, free-speech challenge seen 6-12—6-22, 428G2, C3 Nestle cookie dough E Coli positive test rptd 6-22, 524A3–B3 Painkillers (Percocet/Vicodin) ban urged 6-30, 538E3 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524D2, F2 Food safety bill nixed, passes House 7-29—7-30, 524E1–A2 Dental fillings risk nixed 7-29, 555B2 Pfizer drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587B2 Flavored cigarettes banned 9-22, suit filed 9-23, 642D3 Cheaper drugs import measures fail in Sen 12-15, 864A1–B1 Labeling Issues Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130A3–B3 Medical Devices Approval process probe sought 9-23, knee device ‘08 OK scored 9-24, 720E1

FOOD, Drug and Cosmetic Act (1938) Pfrizer drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587A2

FOOD Policy Research Institute Impoverished natns forgn farmland sales rptd 11-17, 812D2

FOOD Safety & Inspection Service, U.S. (of Agriculture) ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 489A2

FOOD Stamp Program—See under FOOD FOOL (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140A1

2009 Index FOOTBALL Awards & Honors Manning named NFL MVP 1-2, 55A2 Smith named NFL top coach 1-4, 55E2 Harrison named NFL top defensive player 1-5, 55E2 Brees named NFL top offensive player 1-6, 55D2 Tebow named BCS Champ MVP 1-8, 23E3 HOF elects Hayes/McDaniel/Smith/Thomas/Woods on/Wilson 1-31, 176C2 Holmes named Super Bowl MVP 2-1, 70C1 Fitzgerald named Pro Bowl MVP 2-8, 176C1 HOF inducts Hayes/Thomas/McDaniel/Smith/Woods on/Wilson 8-8, 632G1 Ingram wins Heisman Trophy 12-12, 879D2 Broadcasting AFC Wild Card Nielsen rating 1-3, 72A2 AFC Champ Nielsen rating 1-18, 72A2 Super Bowl/postgame Nielsen ratings 2-1, 72A2 Super Bowl ratings mark rptd 2-3, 70A2 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307C1 NFL Preseason Nielsen rating 8-30, 596A2 NFL Thurs Spec Nielsen rating 9-10, 672A2 Sun Night Football Nielsen rating 9-20, 672A2; 11-15, 840A2 ‘Sun Night Football’ Nielsen rating 12-13, 956A2 Coaching & Executive Changes BC’s Jagodzinski Jets interview rptd 1-5, fired 1-7, 24F1 Yale names Williams 1-7, 24A2 Browns name Mangini 1-7, 55A3 Colts’ Dungy sets retiremt, Caldwell named 1-12, 55D3 Broncos name McDaniels 1-12, 55E3 Chiefs name GM (Pioli) 1-13, 55C3 Lions name Schwartz 1-15, 55C3 Buccaneers fire Gruden 1-16, Morris tapped, Dominik named GM 1-17, 55B3 Rams name Spagnuolo 1-17, 55A3 Jets name Ryan 1-19, 55G2 Chiefs fire Edwards 1-23, 55F2 Raiders name Cable 2-3, 176C2 Chiefs name Haley 2-6, 176C2 Bills fire Jauron, Fewell named interim coach 11-17, 948A2 Notre Dame fires Weis 11-30, Kelly named 12-11, 879F3 Fla State’s Bowden sets retiremt, Fisher named 12-2, 879E3 Fla U coach (Meyer) quits, cites health woes 12-26, sets leave, sees return 12-27, 948C2 Collegiate BCS antitrust probe opens 1-6, Fla tops yr-end polls 1-9, 23E3–24C1 Fla tops ‘09 preseason polls 8-7—8-22, 579E3 Ala tops yr-end polls 12-6, 879A3 Crime Issues Stallworth pleads guilty 6-15, 632C1 Vick completes sentnc 7-20, 564D1 Pierce chrgs nixed 8-4, Burress pleads guilty 8-20, 632A1 Terror suspects chrgd/held, Mich raid kills 1 10-28—10-31, 760A3 Health & Safety Issues NFL head injuries House com hearing held 10-28; concussns policies chngd 11-24—12-2, probe cochrmn quit, study halted/Boston Univ role set 11-24—12-20, 947F3 Labor & Salary Issues NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176D1 Giants ex-receiver (Burress) bonus paymt ordrd 4-6, 299E1 Stafford signs Lions deal 4-25, 298C3 NFLPA, retired players suit setld 6-4, 632B2 Manning signs Giants deal 8-14, 632F1 Obituaries Blanchard, Doc 4-19, 280B3 Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316F3 McAfee, George A 3-4, 192D3 McNair, Steve 7-8, 468B3 People Favre retires 2-11, 176B2 Brady weds 2-26, 160E2 Rooney named Ireland amb 3-17, 182D2–E2 Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381A2 McNair found dead, girlfriend gun buy rptd/murder-suicide ruled 7-4—7-8, mourned 7-8—7-9, 467A3

—FOREIGN 1041 Vick holds news conf 8-14, 564A2 Madden named NFL spec adviser 9-10, 632D1 Johnson posts gay slur 10-25, 948A2 Fla U football coach (Meyer) in hosp 12-6, 948D2 Henry in truck mishap, dies 12-16—12-17, 948E1 Professional NFL draft held 4-25—4-26, 298A3; table 298D2 NFL season opens 9-10, 631B3 NFL teams clinch playoff bids 12-13—12-28, 947G2, C3 Purchases, Sales & Moves Ross buys Dolphins stake 1-20, 55G2 Limbaugh, Rams buyout bid questnd 10-13, role dropped 10-14, 948B2 Records & Achievements Steelers win 6th Super Bowl 2-1, 70C1 Harrison sets Super Bowl longest play mark 2-1, 70D1 Heisman close vote mark set 12-12, 879G2 Stadiums Cowboy Stadium video screens lift nixed 8-28, 632E1 Substance Abuse Issues Pace suspended 7-2, 632A2 Suspensions & Fines Vick sees Goodell, suspensn partially lifted 7-22, 7-27, 564D1 Stallworth suspended 8-13, 632D1 Burress suspended 8-20, 632B1 Vick suspensn lift set 9-3, 631D3 Favre injury disclosure mulled, Jets fined 9-10—9-16, 631G3–632A1 Trades, Signings & Releases Cowboys cut Jones 1-7, 55E3 Haynesworth joins Redskins 2-27, 176A2 Patriots/Chiefs swap Cassel, Vrabel/pick 2-28, 176G1 Cowboys cut Owens, release mulled 3-5—3-11, joins Bills 3-7, 176E1 Broncos/Bears swap Cutler, pick/Orton, picks 4-2, 299F1 Giants cut Burress 4-3, 299D1 Falcons/Chiefs swap pick/Gonzalez 4-23, 299B1 Jets/Browns swap Ratliff, Coleman, Elam, picks/pick 4-25, 299A1 Falcons cut Vick 6-12, 564G1 Vick signs Eagles deal, joins practice 8-13—8-15, 564E1, A2 Favre joins Vikings 8-18, 631F3 Raiders/Patriots swap pick/Seymour 9-6, 632E1 Chiefs cut Johnson 11-10, joins Bengals 11-17, 948G1 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Armed Forces Bowl, Air Force 12-31, 948G2 BCS Champ, Fla 1-8, 23B3 Capital 1 Bowl, Ga 1-1, 24F1 Champs Sports Bowl, Wis 12-29, 948A3 Chick-fil-A Bowl, Va Tech 12-31, 948F2 Cotton Bowl, Miss 1-2, 24D1 EagleBank Bowl, UCLA 12-29, 948A3 Emerald Bowl, USC 12-26, 948B3 Fiesta Bowl, Tex 1-5, 24C1 Gator Bowl, Neb 1-1, 24E1 GMAC Bowl, Tulsa 1-6, 24D1 Grey Cup, Alouettes 11-29, 951C3 Hawaii Bowl, SMU 12-24, 948B3 Holiday Bowl, Neb 12-30, 948G2 Humanitarian Bowl, Idaho 12-30, 948G2 Indep Bowl, Ga 12-28, 948A3 Insight Bowl, Iowa State 12-31, 948F2 Intl Bowl, Conn 1-3, 24D1 Las Vegas Bowl, BYU 12-22, 948C3 Liberty Bowl, Ky 1-2, 24E1 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, Marshall 12-26, 948B3 Meineke Car Care Bowl, Pitt 12-26, 948B3 Music City Bowl, Clemson 12-27, 948A3 New Orleans Bowl, Middle Tenn 12-20, 948C3 NFL conf: Steelers/Cardinals 1-18, 39E2, A3 NFL divisn playoffs: Cardinals/Ravens/Chrgrs/Steelers 1-10—1-11, 39C3, 40A1 NFL Pro Bowl, NFC 2-8, 176B1 NFL wild-card round: Chrgrs/Cardinals/Eagles/Ravens 1-3—1-4, 39E3, 40B1 NM Bowl, Wyo 12-19, 948D3 Orange Bowl, Va Tech 1-2, 24E1 Outback Bowl, Iowa 1-1, 24F1 Poinsettia Bowl, Utah 12-23, 948C3 Rose Bowl, USC 1-1, 24C1 St Petersburg Bowl, Rutgers 12-19, 948C3 Sugar Bowl, Utah 1-2, 24A1 Sun Bowl, Okla 12-31, 948F2 Super Bowl, Steelers 2-1, 70B1, B2, B3; photo 70E1 Tex Bowl, Navy 12-31, 948F2

FOOTBALL, International Federation of Association (FIFA)—See SOCCER FOOTBALL Hall of Fame, Pro (Canton, Ohio)—See FOOTBALL—Awards FOOTE, Daisy Dad dies 3-4, 140G2

FOOTE, Hallie Dad dies 3-4, 140G2 Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

FOOTE, Horton (Albert Horton Foote Jr.) (1916-2009) Dies 3-4, 140F2 Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

FORBES (magazine) World’s richest rptd 3-11, Mex drug cartel head (Guzman) listing scored 3-12, 171E2

FORD, Charles Henri (1913-2002) Sister dies 8-12, 580B3

FORD, Gerald Rudolph (Leslie Lynch King Jr.) (1913-2006) (U.S. president, 1974-77; Republican) Bush hosts Obama, ex-pres lunch 1-7, 6A2 Brinegar dies 3-13, 192A2 Seidman dies 5-13, 348D3 Assassin try woman (Fromme) freed 8-14, 554F2 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880D3

FORD, Col. Kevin Pilots Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3

FORD, Mary (Iris Colleen Summers) (1924-77) Ex-husband dies 8-13, 564F3

FORD, Ruth (Elizabeth) (1911-2009) Dies 8-12, 580A3

FORD County (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840A1

FORD Motor Co. Dec ‘08 US sales issued 1-6; Treasury talks rptd 1-16, ‘08 loss rptd, credit lines drawn 1-29, 47E3–F3, 48D1–E1 Jan ‘09 sales rptd 2-3, 62B3 UAW auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92D3 US Feb ‘09 sales rptd 3-3, 164D3 Debt reductn plan set, hiked 3-4—3-23, UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1, B2 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164B3 ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd 4-24, 282E3 GM key events listed 6-1, 366A3 Factory fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536C2 McNamara dies 7-6, 468D3 Jul ‘09 sales rptd 8-3, rise questnd 8-6, 536E1, A2 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program ends 8-24, 586F2 Mazda/Chonqing jt venture set 9-25, 932D2, G2 Vehicles recall set 10-13, 758A3 Geely/Volvo buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2 UAW concessns vote mulled 10-30; chngs nixed, Canada workers deal OKd 10-31, ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757C3, 758A1–E1 China Oct ‘09 sales rptd 11-9, 932C2

FORD‘S Theatre (Washington, D.C.) Reopens 2-8, 211D3

FOREIGN Aid (U.S.) Guinea funds halted 1-6, 34F3 Family planning intl funding reinstated 1-23, 47C1 Pak funds hike sought 2-10, 103B1 Palestinian funds vowed 3-2, 123D2 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 176A1 Mex border security hiked 3-24, drug violnc aid sought 3-27, 185E3, 186D1 Afghan electns aid vowed 3-30, 195D2 Darfur groups return sought 3-30, 196B3 Pak mil funds House com hearing held 4-2, 229A1 Mex antidrug funds delay rptd 4-5, 249B3 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242G1–A2 Kerry visits Pak 4-14, intl aid conf held 4-17, 276F1, C3 Clinton visits Iraq 4-25, 297D3 Pak funds hike sought 4-30—5-5, 315D2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321C1 Pak tribal areas refugees funds vowed 5-19, 346A2 Suplmtl funds measures nixed, bill passes Sen 5-21, 355E1–A2 Biden visits Leb 5-22, 380A2

Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, 391C3 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, Hezbollah concedes, results rptd 6-8, 398B1 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588G2–A3 Pak nonmil funds pass House 6-11, 418F3 Honduras pres (Zelaya) ouster mulled 6-28, 438B2 Honduras funds halted 7-8, 460B2 ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488G2, C3 Sri Lanka, IMF loan OKd 7-24, 578G3–579A1 Taiwan typhoon aid set 8-13, 559E3 Honduras funds halt urged, OKd 9-2—9-4, 623C2–E2 Colombia rights record improvemts seen 9-11, 818A1 Swine flu vaccines donatns set 9-17, 697E1 Pak aid bill passes Cong 9-24—9-30, 669F3 Pak funds mulled, bill signed 10-6—10-15, 695A2 Mali mil aid hiked 10-20, 903B3 Pak funds vowed 10-28, 737B2 PI flooding aid vowed 11-12, 819B2 Clinton visits Afghan 11-18, 805F3 S Africa AIDS funding set 12-1, 850D3 Mex antidrug funds spending rptd 12-3, mil abuses alleged 12-8, 928B3, D3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1

FOREIGN Corrupt Practices Act (1977) Blackwater ‘07 Iraq bribes authrzn rptd 11-11, 789G2

FOREIGN Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G2 Warrantless spying ‘08 ruling issued 1-15, 20A3–B3, D3 Bates named chief judge 4-6, 244G1 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, 243G2 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445A3, C3 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474G2, F3, 475B1–D1 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20, 915E3

FOREIGN Missions Act (1982) Libya’s Qaddafi travel ltd 8-28, 583B3

FOREIGN Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (1999) Obama lists Mex drug kingpins 4-15, 271E1

FOREIGN Policy (U.S.) Obama visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64F1 Munich Security Conf held 2-6—2-8, 74G1, F2, B3, 75A1 Iran’s Khamenei scores Obama 3-4, 142B2 Bin Laden recording posted 7-28, 621C2 Obituaries Lefever, Ernest W 7-29, 532G1

FOREIGN Relations, Council on India’s Singh addresses 11-23, 810A1, A2

FOREIGN Service—See STATE, U.S. Department of FOREIGN Sovereign Immunities Act (1976) Saudi royals/charities, Al Qaeda funding linked 6-24, 9/11 victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491A3

FOREIGN Trade (U.S.)—See also country, region, group and commodity names Administration Policy Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 42E1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58E2 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, EU warning issued 2-3, 74D1–E1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90D3, 91A1 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, tariffs opposed 6-28, 445D1 Africa Clinton tours 8-4—8-13, 540A1 Sudan sanctns cont 10-27, 762D1 Appointments & Resignations Rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-2—3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182A1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181G3–182A1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D2 Arms Deals—See ARMAMENTS Asia/Pacific Rim S Korea pact parlt vote delayed, block ends 1-6, 51B3 China, WTO counterfeit complaint dismissed 1-26, 440A2 China chicken imports complaint filed 4-17, 615G2 Pork trade halted, bans opposed 4-27—4-28, 282A2–B2

1042 FOREMAN— GM, S Korea imports hike proposal rptd/opposed 5-11, 5-15, 339G1 China, WTO complaint filed 6-23, 440C1 China Web filter requiremt complaint filed 6-24, 448C1–D1 Chinese tires tariffs urged 6-29, 557D2 Clinton visits India 7-17—7-20, 486B1 China media import rules oppositn by WTO 8-12, 557G1, B2–C2 China auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615A3 China steel pipe duties, tire tariffs set 9-10—9-11, auto parts, chicken exports probed 9-13, 615F1, D2, A3 China sets polycaprolactam tariffs 10-19, 776E2 China poultry cont imports seen 10-21, 761F1 China deals OKd 10-29, 776C2 Chinese steel pipe tariffs set, protectnism seen 11-5, adipic acid duties imposed 11-8, 776D1, F2 Obama visits China, S Korea 11-15—11-19, 795A3, E3–F3 China steel pipe duties OKd 12-30, 932C1 Automobile Issues—See AUTOMOBILES Canada Peanut Corp export block rptd 1-30, 63A2 Econ recovery plan measures opposed 2-18, Obama visits 2-19, 91G1–B2 Harper visits 9-16—9-17, 643A1–B1, D1 Computer Issues—See COMPUTERS Europe Enriched uranium antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 Latin America Cuba’s Castro hails Obama 1-2, 8D1 Cuba embargo failure seen 2-23, 249E1 Cuba curbs ease clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144E2–F2 Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, tariffs set, take effect 3-16—3-17, 171F2 Brazil’s da Silva seeks protectnism end 3-11, visits, urges Cuba embargo drop 3-14—3-16, 186C2–F2 El Salvador’s Funes visits emb 3-16, 170B3 Mex trucking program mulled 3-20—3-26, 185G3, 186E1 Cuba cont embargo seen 3-28, 204G3 Cuba embargo end urged 3-30, reps visit 4-3—4-7, 248B3, F3, 249D1, G1 Cuba embargo lift support polled 4-14—4-16, end urged 4-17, 271C2–D2, F2 Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271E1–G1 Panama deal passage seen 4-23, finalizatn sought 5-4, 309E1–F1 GM, Mex imports hike proposal rptd/opposed 5-11, 5-15, 339G1 El Salvador pres (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394B3 Mex trucking program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested 6-12, 431F3 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541E1 Brazil goods sanctns OKd by WTO 8-31, 590B1 Cuba family travel, remittnc curbs eased 9-3, 604C3 Cuba embargo extensn signed 9-15, 661C2–D2 Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652C2 NYC orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, 723A2 Cuba cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784C1 Cuba cont embargo scored 11-18, 928G1 Brazil boy return ordrd 12-22, 926D2 Middle East Iran jet smuggling suspect (Monsieur) chrgd 8-27, 600G1 Nuclear Materials & Equipment—See NUCLEAR Power Statistics Nov ‘08 gap, Oct revised 1-13, 15A3–B3 Dec ‘08 trade gap, Nov revised 2-11, 111E3, 112A1 Jan ‘09 gap, Dec ‘08 revised 3-13, 164F1, A2 ‘08 4th 1/4 paymts gap, 3d 1/4 revised 3-18, 240F2 Feb ‘09 gap, Jan revised 4-9, 240A2–B2 Mar ‘09 gap, Feb revised 5-12, 323A3, D3 Apr ‘09 gap, Mar revised 6-10, 389E1, A2 ‘09 1st 1/4 paymts gap, ‘08 4th 1/4 revised 6-17, 572C2 May ‘09 gap, Apr revised 7-10, 477F1, A2 Jun ‘09 gap, May revised 8-12, 535B3 Jul ‘09 gap, Jun revised 9-10, 619C1, F1 ‘09 2d 1/4 paymts gap, 1st 1/4 revised 9-16, 640D2 Aug ‘09 gap, Jul revised 10-9, 699B3 Sep ‘09 gap, Aug revised 11-13, 798F1, A2

FACTS Oct ‘09 gap, Sep revised 12-10, 865F3, 866A1 ‘09 3d 1/4 paymnts gap 12-16, 911B2 Steel Issues—See STEEL WTO Issues Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615C3–E3 China raw materials export curbs complaint filed 11-5, 776A2 China media imports ruling appeal denied, raw materials export curbs case accepted 12-21, 932D1–E1

FOREMAN, Capt. Michael (ret.) Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 11-16—11-27, 902D1–E1

FOREMAN, Richard Idiot Savant opens in NYC 11-4, 896B1

FORENSIC Science Crime lab methods questnd 2-18, 307A3–B3 A-materials bill passes Cong 3-24, 12-22, 908C1 Iraq detainees slayings suspect (Weemer) cleared 4-9, 255A1 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393E2 Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed by Sup Ct 6-25, 444E1 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7, 780G2 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc questnd 8-17—9-7, comm members replaced, probe set/Gov Perry role mulled 9-30—10-14, 700C1, F1, B2 Israel ‘90s organ harvesting confrmd 12-18, 945G2

FOREST Grove School District v. T.A. (2009) Sec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426G1

FOREST Laboratories Inc. Chrgd 2-25, 201E3

FOREST Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale, Calif.) Jackson buried 9-3, 612E2

FORESTS & Forestry Russian rebels hideout raid kills 21+ 3-19—3-22, 274A1 Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447C2 Brazil econ nun (Stang) slaying suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2 US natl protectns reinstated 8-5, 555E1 Greece wildfires erupt, probe opens 8-21—8-24, 577F1, A2–B2 Bulgaria ex-agri min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgd 9-8, 727C2, E2 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781B3 US ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2 Italy mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, 705G1 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802E2 Brazil plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926D2 Venez swine flu spread mulled 11-5, 811D1 Brazil emissns cut set 11-14, 828C2 Colombia gov (Cuellar) seized, found dead 12-21—12-22, 927D2–E2 Logging—See LUMBER Obituaries Cooley, Earl E 11-9, 860B3

FOREST Service, U.S. (of Agriculture) Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65F2 Bat caves ordrd shut 5-1, 5-21, 356B3 ‘10 funds pass House 6-26, 488C1 Protectns reinstated 8-5, 555E1 ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 Cooley dies 11-9, 860B3

FOREVER in a Day (recording) On best-seller list 5-2, 316D1

FOREVER Together (racehorse) Named ‘08 top female turf horse 1-26, 119F3

FOREVER War, The (book) Filkins wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

FOR Human Rights Ponomaryov egged 3-11; tires slashed 3-30, attacked 3-31, 273F3 Antifascists violnc drop urged 11-19, 822A2

FORMAN, Gar Named Bulls GM 5-20, 419D3

FORREST, Vernon (1971-2009) Slain, suspects held 7-25—8-6, 531F3

FORRESTER, Col. Patrick (ret.) Flies Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3

FORSTER, E. M. (1879-1970) Amazon regrets bks lost sales ratings 4-13, 782E1

FORSTER, Robert Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

FORTIS NV Belgium premr (Leterme) named 11-25, 820D2

48 Hours Mystery (TV show) Halderman held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, 692F1

FORUM on China-Africa Cooperation Egypt mtg held 11-8, 776C3

FOSS, Lukas (Lukas Fuchs) (1922-2009) Dies 2-1, 72E1

FOSSETT, Steve (James Stephen) (1944-2007) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3 Plane crash rpt issued 7-9, 538A2

FOSTER, Hunter Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

FOSTER, Sir Norman Dallas opera house opens 10-18, 953D3

FOSTER Care—See CHILDREN—Adoption FOTHERGILL, Alastair Earth on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

FOTOUHI, Dara Iran jet smuggling chrgd 8-27, 600G1

FOULDS, Adam On Costa shortlist 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139F3 On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692C1

FOULKE, Edwin Ex-consultant (Kimlin) paymts questnd 3-31, 340D3

FOUNDATIONS Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged 2-11, appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-27—2-28, 243G3–244D1 Clinton donors wife interventn rptd 1-13, secy of state confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13—1-15, 16F1 State secy nominee (Clinton) confrmatn vote delayed 1-20, 28A1 Clinton confrmd state secy 1-21, 29G2 Kenya protests held 3-5, activists slain, targeting alleged/probe urged 3-5—3-6, 203C1–D1, G1–A2 Holy Land ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914B2 US/Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804C3–D3 Alavi Foundatn ex-head (Jahedi) pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2 Obituaries Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1

FOUNDATION to Protect the Rights of Victims of Repression Prudetsky slain 12-10, 939F1

FOUNDING of a Republic, The (film) Released 10-1, 683G1

411 (magazine) Shut 11-16, 912E3

FOWLER, Dexter Among NL 3B ldrs 10-6, 690E3

FOWLER, Robert Freed 4-22, 326E1

FOX, Megan Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

FOX, Michael J. Always Looking Up on best-seller list 5-4, 316B1

FOX Broadcasting Co. (of News Corp.) Appointments & Resignations Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 Obituaries Novak, Robert 8-18, 564E3 Programming & Sponsorship FCC obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 291B1

FOX News Channel (cable TV channel) Bush support polled 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62B2 ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242E3 Cheney interviewed 4-20, 258G2 Obama interviewed 7-7, 454B2 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602E2

ON FILE

White House sr adviser (Axelrod) sees Ailes 10-6; bias alleged, remarks scored 10-11—10-18, Obama interview snub rptd 10-12, 717C2 White House communicatns dir (Dunn) quits 11-10, 798A1 Obama interviewed 11-18, 794B2

FOX News Sunday (TV show) Sen McCain interviewed 12-20, 906A1

FOX Quesada, Vicente (Mexican president, 2000-06) Cong, local electns held 7-5, party pres (Martinez) quits 7-7, 460E2 Drugs possessn decriminalizatn bill signed 8-20, 589E3

FOXX, Jamie Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2 ‘Blame It’ on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1 Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

FOYE, Randy Traded to Wizards 6-23, 451D1

FOYER, Mats Visits US rptrs held in N Korea 3-30, 5-15, 360F2

FRANCE (French Republic) Accidents & Disasters Le Triomphant/UK A-sub collide 2-3; incident rptd 2-6, crash confrmd 2-16, 91C3 Brazil flight disappears 5-31—6-1; wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369E2, G2, E3 Brazil/Paris missing flight air sensors replacemt mulled 6-6—6-9; bodies, wreckage found 6-6—6-11, A-sub search opens 6-10, 387A1–E1 Brazil missing flight victims search halted 6-26, ocean impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473E1 Yemen/Comoros flight departs, crash kills 152 6-29—6-30; safety woes rptd, victims families paymt set 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439B3, D3–F3, 440A1–B1 Tour de France cop motorcycle crash kills 1 7-18, 515G2 African Relations Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154B2 Sudan aid worker seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2 Madagascar pres electns timetable questnd 3-19, 168F2 Madagascar coup seen 3-20, 184E3 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht (Tanit) 4-4; commandos raid kills 3, probe set 4-10—4-11, ‘mother ship’ captured 4-15, 237C1, 238G1, D3 Algeria pres (Bouteflika) reelectn hailed 4-10, 248C1 Somali pirates in Kenya ct 4-23, 269E3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Gabon’s Bongo honored 6-8, 394C1–E1 Sarkozy, Chirac at Gabon’s Bongo funeral 6-16, 604A3 Mauritania emb blast hurts 2 8-8, 704C2 Gabon pres electn held, results rptd/vote mulled 8-30—9-4; protests turn violent, Total workers exit ordrd/troops deployed 9-3—9-10, Sarkozy backs Bongo win 9-8, 604B1, D2–E2, A2, G2 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial held 9-7, 623A1 Guinea’s Diallo arrives 10-1, 660C3 Guinea ties mulled 10-4—10-6, 701D3–E3 Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1–B1 Mali forgner seized 11-26; kidnapping claimed 12-8, release talks rptd 12-28, 903F2, A3 Guinea’s Camara health rptd 12-9, 870D2 Arts & Culture Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; St Laurent/Berge art trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, Chinese buyer reneges, sale nixed 3-2—3-3, 159G3–160A1, G1–A2 Cannes Film Fest prizes awarded, Audiard film honored 5-24, 363F3, 364A1 Egypt/Lourve Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952F2 NDiaye wins Goncourt Prize 11-2, 792B1 Bk scanning program funds set 12-14, Google violatns ruled 12-18, 936E2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China/EU summit OKd 1-30, 98D2 Afghan troop slain 3-14, 195C3 Sarkozy sees China’s Hu 4-1, 194A2 China/EU summit held 5-20, 448B2 Afghan troop slain 8-1, 547D1 Tongan ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590F3

2009 Index Myanmar sanctns hike urged 8-11, 543A2 Afghan air strike scored 9-5, security transfer conf urged 9-6, 611D2, B3–C3 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-21, 635C3 Italy/Afghan Taliban paymts probe sought 10-16, 751A3–B3 Afghan troop levels mulled 11-2, 826F1 N Korea spec envoy (Lang) dispatched, talks held 11-9—11-10, 934A1 Afghan mil operatn launched 11-15, rocket attack kills 3+ 11-16, 806F1 Cambodia oppositn ldr (Rainsy) immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 12-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935F3 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844G1 Awards & Honors D’Espagnat wins Templeton 3-16, 191G2 CIS Relations Sarkozy visits Kazakh 10-6, 739D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues African ldrs embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394F1 Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644F1 Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired 10-5, defends 10-8, 707F2 Villepin suspended sentnc sought 10-20, smear trial ends 10-23, 765A3–B3 African ldrs embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833D3 Chirac graft trial ordrd, chrgs denied 10-30, 765C2 Crime & Civil Disorders 3M/Caterpillar mgrs held, freed 3-24—3-31, 207B1–D1 NATO summit protests turn violent 4-4, 213D2–E2 Anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1 Tour de France riders shot 7-17, 515F2 Scientology branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787F2 Defense & Disarmament Issues S Africa’s Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 22A1 Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2 Mongolian woman slaying, Armaris paymt linked 3-5, Malaysian cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223G3–224A1 NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 172D3 NATO summit hosted 4-3—4-4, 213A1, C2–E2 S Africa’s Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222C1 UAE mil base opened 5-26, 893B3 Kazakh deal signed 10-6, 739D2 Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, Chirac backing claimed 10-29, 765B3 Ger WWI defeat anniv marked 11-11, 788G1 Economy & Business Auto indus govt loans set 2-9, 84F2 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-13, 100B3–C3 Tax cuts, low-income benefits hike set 2-18, 116G3 Auto indus govt aid plan chngd, backed 2-28, 3-1, 136B3 New stimulus package opposed 3-12, 163B1 Stimulus package hike nixed 3-19; Valeo CEO severnc rptd, socred 3-24, govt aid cos exec bonuses banned 3-30, 206G3 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-13, 545B1 Cont econ recovery seen 8-21, 571D2 Google bk scanning setlmt OKd 9-8, 601C1 GDP measuremt chng backed 9-14, 644F3 Sarkozy son EPAD chair bid defended, ended 10-14—10-22; elected to mgmt bd 10-23, backing regretted 11-5, 787A2 Financial indus crisis tax backed 11-7, 775G3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-13, 803B1 Paris stock exchng drops 11-26, 829D1 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2 Stimulus package unveiled 12-14, 936B3 Paris ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900A3 Energy Total/Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68A3 GdF Suez execs bonus pay nixed 3-26, 207B1 Total, Myanmar junta bolstering allegatns mulled 9-10, 684B1 Total, GDF/Kazakh offshore gas deal finalized 10-6, 739D2 ECOWAS sets Niger sanctns 10-17, 761D3

—FRANKEN 1043 Environment & Pollution Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1 Carbon tax set 9-11, 644F2 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636B2 CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1 European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 EU protectnsm mulled 3-1, 136D2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396D2, A3 Hungary shuts Lyon consulate 6-16, 512B2 EU financial regulatns plan OKd 6-19, 432B2 Turkey’s Erdogan visits EU hq 6-26, 706G3 Spain blasts kill 2, ETA blamed 7-29—7-30, 513A2–B2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637B1, E1 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, 627E3 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, C2, E2 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, Czech signing vowed, charter exemptns sought 10-7—10-8, 685F1, A3 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686B1 Film dir (Polanski) appeal nixed 10-6, 707C2, E2 Czech pres (Klaus) signs EU treaty 11-2, 765B2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787F3, 788E1 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855C3 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835E2 Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 836G3–837A1 Family Issues Pinault/Hayek wed 2-14, 120E2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US/Syria delegatn visit set 3-3, 123A3 Commonwealth mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845D3 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233G2 Sarkozy survives confidnc vote 3-17, 172F3 Sarkozy addresses parlt 6-22, cabt shuffled 6-23, 432C3 Sarkozy collapses, enters/exits hosp 7-26—7-27, vows rest 7-29, 528F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733F2 Mitterrand resignatn urged 10-5—10-7, 707G2–A3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Calais camp raided/migrants held, warning rptd 9-22, 666E1 Natl ID debate opens, unity seen/bias fight vowed 11-2—12-8, 936F3 Egypt/Algeria World Cup qualifying match clashes erupt 11-14, 859C1 Iraqi Conflict Sarkozy visits 2-10, 101F2 Arms sale set 7-2, 465B1 Kosovo Conflict IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318G1 Labor & Employment Unions strike held, talks vowed 1-29, 68D2 Peugeot-Citroen 12000 cuts set 2-11, 84A3 Workers strike 3-19, 206D3 May Day rallies held 5-1, 330A1 Museum workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, Pompidou Ctr reopens 12-17, 876D1 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez hails Ramirez 11-20, 929A3 Medicine & Health Care Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-18, 195G3 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1 Sanofi-Aventis swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, donatns set 9-17, 696G3, 697F1 HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671C1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697A2 Swine flu child vaccine recalled 12-15, 901A2 Middle East Relations Israel/Hamas ceasefire talks nixed 1-5, proposal unveiled 1-6, 1C3, 2B3 Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31E1 Iran Holocaust denial questnd 2-7, 74D3, 75A1

Egypt blast kills 1 2-22, 117D2 Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 Iran protests crack down scored 6-21, 423B2 Iran emb workers trial cont, freed on bail 8-8—8-16, 562C1–D1 Jerusalem clashes erupt 9-27, 689E3 Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 769A1 Israel’s Netanyahu visits 11-11, 790A3 Egypt’s Mubarak visits 12-14, 952F2 Monetary Issues Gabon’s Bongo bank accts frozen 2-26, 394A2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Intl tax havens pressure cont 3-16, 163E2 Societe Generale bd members bonus plans dropped 3-22, 207A1 Bank bonuses tax backed, legis seen 12-10, 854C2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis Holocaust Ger deportatns admitted 2-16, 99D2 D-Day marked 6-6, 386B2–C2 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Enriched uranium US antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 US A-plant thief (Oakley) pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3 Areva, India deal signed 2-4, 158A2 Areva/Kazatomprom fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739E2 Iran uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711B1–C1, E1 Iran uranium transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2–E2 Iran uranium transfer proposals mulled 11-6—11-18, 804G2 Iran uranium swap offrd 12-12, 876E2 Obituaries Berri, Claude 1-12, 40F2 Carasso, Daniel 5-17, 364B3 Dausset, Jean 6-6, 452G1 Druon, Maurice 4-14, 280C3 Jarre, Maurice 3-28, 212G2 Lenotre, Gaston 1-8, 40F2 Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1 Planchon, Roger 5-12, 400E3 Rocher, Yves 12-26, 955D3 Ronis, Willy 9-12, 708E3 Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3 Press & Broadcasting Italy press freedoms rally held 10-3, 687D2 Religious Issues Burqa use opposed 6-22, probe comm set 6-23, 432F2 Emerainville Muslim swimsuits ban rptd 8-12, 561E1 Nun (Jugan) canonized 10-11, 739F1 Science & Technology Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824F1 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2 EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 876A1 Sports French Open results 6-4—6-7, 398C3 Beaubois in NBA draft 6-25, 451F1, B2 Tour de France results 7-26, 515G1 Evian Masters results 7-26, 595A3 Partizan Belgrade/Toulouse match held 9-17, 687F2–G2, C3 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe results 10-4, 807G2 World Cup qualifying matches held 11-14—11-18, Ireland seeks replay, nixed 11-19—11-20, 858E3 Paris Masters results 11-15, 951D1 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858F2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704A2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F2 G-20 finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 163A1 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193C1–E1 G-7 mtg held 4-24, 298G2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1 Greece wildfires emergency declared 8-22, 577G1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2, G2 Transportation Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Israel/Hamas ceasefire nixed 1-9, Sec Cncl res vote mulled 1-12, 14G1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt mulled 3-5, 123B1

N Korea missile launch Sec Cncl mtg held 4-5, 215E2 Racism conf held, delegates walkout 4-20, 262A1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277C2 Ban visits Myanmar 7-3—7-4, 462F1 Iraq sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498D1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn/sentnc res urged 8-12, 543G1 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599E3 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675D2 Iran A-program sanctns mulled 9-23, 634B2 Iran secret A-site revealed, talks held 9-25—10-1, 649A1–B1, 650E1, 651A1 Iran med uranium talks set 10-4, 688C1 Gaza war crimes rpt res vote abstained 10-16, 730D2 Gaza war crimes rpt vote abstained 11-5, 790C2 NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-9, 862A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mitchell opens Mideast/Eur tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2 Obama visits 4-3, 213F2 Obama visit set 5-8, 318D1 Amb named 5-27, 354D1 Obamas visit 6-6, 386C1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base ex-detainees convctns nixed 2-24, 150D2 Cuba base detainne transfer set 4-3, 213B3 Cuba base detainee (Boumediene) transfer OKd, confrmd 4-3, 5-6, 305D3 Cuba base detainee transferred 12-1, 861D2–E2

FRANCE Jr., Bill (William Clifton France) (1933-2007) Inducted to NASCAR HOF 10-14, 860A1

FRANCE Sr., Bill (1909-92) Inducted to NASCAR HOF 10-14, 860A1

FRANCESCHINI, Dario Named interim party ldr 2-18, 100C1 Bersani elected party ldr 10-25, 749F3

FRANCE Telecom SA Deutsche Telekom UK brands merger set 9-8, 626E2

FRANCHITTI, Dario Wins Indy 300, clinches IRL Title 10-10, 950D2

FRANCISCO, Ben Traded to Phillies 7-29, 531B2

FRANCK‘S Pharmacy US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383C3–D3

FRANCOP (German ship) Seized, arms found 11-4, Iran role rptd 11-11, 878F1, A2 Arms embargo violatns seen 12-10, 876E3

FRANJIC, Nico (d. 2008) Slaying suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2, A3

FRANK, Barney (U.S. representative from Mass., 1981- ; Democrat) Seated Financial Svcs chair 1-6, 5B1 Proposes $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use 1-9, 15B1 Questns bank execs 2-11, 77B3 Merrill execs subpoenaed 3-4, bonus paymts info release ordrd 3-18, 220E2 AIG bonus paymts detailed, urges govt funds return/seeks worker names 3-17—3-18, 161F2, C3, 162A1 On financial indus reforms 9-14, 618G1 Proposes financial indus reforms 9-23, 641A1–B1 On credit card reforms hike 11-4, 779F1 Financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 779B1 On financial indus reform bill 12-11, 865G1

FRANK, Lawrence Fired 11-29, 951F2

FRANKEL, Scott Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

FRANKEN, Al (U.S. senator from Minn., 2009- ; Democrat) Declared Minn Sen race winner 1-5, suit filed 1-6, 5F1 Sen race absentee votes review ltd 3-31, 201B2 Minn Sen race recount rptd 4-7, win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242F2 Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, 284D2 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) filibuster doubted 5-27, 350D1 Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, win certified 6-30, 441A1, F1 Defns ‘10 funds cleared 12-19, 886C2

1044 FRANKFURT— Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906E3, 907C3

FRANKFURT Stock Exchange Index drops 11-26, 829D1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900E2, A3

FRANKLIN, Aretha At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26A2

FRANKLIN, John Hope (1915-2009) Dies 3-25, 192F2

FRANKLIN, Ryan Among NL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G3

FRANKLIN, Shirley Clarke (Atlanta, Ga. mayor, 2002- ; Democrat) Runoff held 12-1, results rptd 12-9, 848C3

FRANKS, Gen. Tommy (ret.) Bin Laden ‘01 Afghan escape rptd 11-30, 845B1

FRANKSOM, Sarah Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

FRANZEN, Johan Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1, D1

FRASER, Brendan Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

FRASER, Shelly-Ann Wins 100-m world champ gold 8-17, 579C3

FRATTINI, Franco Nixes Iran visit 5-20, 362C1

FRAUD—See CRIME—Bribery FRAY, Stephen Hijacks CanJet plane 4-19, held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871C3–D3

FRAY, The (music group) Fray on best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

FRAY, The (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

FRAZER, Jendayi Carson sees Zimbabwe’s Mugabe 7-2, mtg scored 7-5, 459G2

FRAZIER, Gibson Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

FRCKOVSKI, Ljubomir Pres runoff electn held, concedes loss 4-5, 225A2

FREDERIKSEN, Claus Hjort Named Denmark finance min 4-7, 225F1

FREED, Amy You Nero opens in Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3

FREEDBERG, A(braham) Stone (1908-2009) Dies 8-25, 955F1

FREEDOM Communications Inc. Bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1

FREEDOM of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (1994) Kan abortn MD (Tiller) fed slaying probe set 6-5, 445A2

FREEDOM of Information Act (1966) Obama admin records release curbs eased 1-22, 29A2 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129D2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257B1 Terror detainees abuse photos release set 4-24, 290F2 Detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 331A1 Detainee abuse photos omit pass Sen 5-21, 355A2 Iraq’s Hussein interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465B2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt rpt disclosed 8-6, 600C1 Illegal immigrants detentn deaths rptg omits seen 8-17, 573C3 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses ‘04 rpt issued 8-24, 565C3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes release nixed 9-30, 719E1 Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781A3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815A3 US detainee abuse photos release block backed 11-13, 867D2 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A2–B2 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908C2

FREEDOMWORKS ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242E3

FACTS Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619B3–C3

FREE Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677A3

FREEH, Louis Testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3

FREEH, Louis Joseph Testifies in atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing 1-16, 30B3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60E3

FREEMAN, Betty (Betty Wishnick) (1921-2009) Dies 1-3, 56G1

FREEMAN Jr., Charles Natl intell cncl chrmn nominatn scored 2-19—3-9; Sen com hearing held, withdraws 3-10, clarifies China remarks, AIPAC role seen 3-11—3-12, 144F2–145C1

FREEMAN, Josh In NFL draft 4-25, 298D3

FREEMAN, Morgan Miss car-crash victim suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792C2 Invictus on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956E2

FREEMEN Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slaying suspect held 5-31, 370A3

FREEPORT-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. Indonesia violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, arrests rptd/chrgs set, mine worker linked 7-21—7-31, 542C2, G2–B3

FREI Montalva, Eduardo (1911-82) (Chilean president, 1964-70) Poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7; electn held 12-13, results rptd, son earns runoff 12-14, 871E2, G2–B3

FREI Ruiz-Tagle, Eduardo Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, earns runoff 12-14, 871F1, D2–E2

FRENCH, Dawn Coraline on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

FRENCH, Marilyn (Marilyn Edwards) (1929-2009) Dies 5-2, 332D3

FRENCH, Patrick Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191E3

FRENCH Guiana (French colony) ESA orbiting telescope launched 5-14, 373E1

FRENCH National Library Digitizatn program funds set 12-14, 936A3

FRESNO State University—See CALIFORNIA State University System FREUD, Sir Clement (Raphael) (1924-2009) Dies 4-15, 280D3

FREUD, Lucian Brother dies 4-15, 280D3

FREUD, Sigmund (1856-1939) Grandson dies 4-15, 280D3

FREUDENTHAL, Thor Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

FREYRE, Alejandro Gay marriage license issued 11-16, wedding blocked, held 11-30—12-29, 926D1

FRIDAY the 13th (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

FRIDMAN, Mikhail Named TNK-BP chair 5-27, 379A1

FRIED, Justice Bernard Orders Merrill bonus paymts info release 3-18, 220B2

FRIED, Daniel Named Cuba base mil prison closure ofcl 3-13, 166G1 Visits Hungary, Cuba base detainee transfer OKd 9-16, 718C2

FRIEDEN, Thomas Named CDC dir 5-15, 354F1 Sees swine flu vaccine delays 10-23, 741C3 Sets swine flu child drug release 10-30, urges vaccine distributn, sees peak 11-5—11-6, 810A3–B3, 811A1 On swine flu cases 12-10, 901F1–G1

FRIEDMAN, Michael Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens in NYC 5-17, 348F1

FRIEDMAN, Milton (1912-2006) Widow dies 8-18, 580C3 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880D3

FRIEDMAN, Judge Paul Sentncs Iraqi insurgent (Delaema) 4-16, 275E2

FRIEDMAN, Peter Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

FRIEDMAN, Rose (Rose Director) (1910-2009) Dies 8-18, 580C3

FRIEDMAN, Stephen Quits 5-7, 571F2–G2

FRIEHLING, David Chrgd, surrenders/freed on bail 3-18, 245A2–B2 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 442E2 Pleads not guilty 7-17, 603D3 Fraud setlmt OKd, pleads guilty 11-3, 800A1–D1

FRIEHLING & Horowitz CPAs PC Friehling chrgd, surrenders/freed on bail 3-18, 245B2

FRIIS, Janus Files Skype copyright suit 9-16, 761C2

FRIST, Bill Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1

FRITZL, Elisabeth Dad pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172A3, C3

FRITZL, Josef Pleads guilty, daughter testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2–C3

FROM Dead to Worse (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596C1; 9-28, 672C1

FROMME, Lynette (Squeaky) Freed on parole 8-14, 554E2

FROSCH, Carl Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

FROST, Judge Gregory Delays inmate (Broom) executn 9-18, 9-22, 719B3 Nixes inmate (Biros) executn delay 12-7, 849C3–D3

FROST/Nixon (play/film) Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40A2, D2 Oscars denied 2-22, 120A2

FROZEN River (film) Leo gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

FRUITS & Vegetables USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268C3 Iraq blast kills 76+ 6-24, 433G1 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524E2 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2

FTC—See FEDERAL Trade Commission FUCHS, Bernie (Bernard Leo) (1932-2009) Dies 9-17, 708C3

FUELE, Stefan Named Europn Comm enlargemt comr 11-27, 835B3

FUENTES, Brian AL saves ldr 10-6, 690G2

FUENTES Esperon, Jose Francisco Opens state legis bid campaign 9-4; slain 9-5, robbery rptd 9-6, 605F1–A2

FUGARD, Athol Coming Home opens in New Haven 1-21, 211B3 Mokae dies 9-11, 672E3 Have You Seen Us? opens in New Haven 12-2, 954F1

FUGATE, W. Craig Named FEMA dir 3-4, 145F2–G2

FUGLESANG, Christer Flies Discovery missn, conducts space walks 8-28—9-11, 615G3–616A1

FUHRMANN, Isabelle Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2

FUJAIRA—See UNITED Arab Emirates FUJII, Hirohisa Sees econ stimulus cuts 9-9, named finance min 9-16, 624E3–F3

ON FILE

On Yen govt action 9-29, 703E3–F3 On tax revenue drop 10-20, questns econ assessmt 10-27, 786C3, E3 Sees spending measures 12-22; in hosp 12-28, holds news conf 12-30, 933C1, E1

FUJII, Katsuyoshi Trial held, convctd/sentncd 8-2—8-6, 557C3

FUJIMORI, Alberto (Peruvian president, 1990-2000) Convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222D3 Admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508A2 Pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682E2

FUJIMORI, Keiko Dad convctd, sentncd 4-7, 223C1 Dad admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508E2–F2

FUKINO, Chiyome Confrms Obama birth records 7-27, 552B3

FUKUDA, Keiji Nixes swine flu lab accident claim 5-14, sees alert chngsd 5-22, 351D3, G3, 352G1

FUKUDA, Yasuo (Japanese premier, 2007-08) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1

FUKUSHIMA, Mizuho Named consumer affairs min 9-16, 625A1

FULLER, Linda Husband dies 2-3, 72F1

FULLER, Millard Dean (1935-2009) Dies 2-3, 72F1

FULLER Center for Housing Founder dies 2-3, 72E2

FUNERAL Industry Actor Travolta son mourned 1-8, 9B3 Pak blast kills 28+ 2-20, 138E3 N Ireland slain cop (Carroll) mourned 3-13, 173E1 Iraq blast kills 19+ 3-23, 189C2 Italy quake victim Good Friday svc OKd 4-8, 224F3 Italy quake victims mourned 4-10, 253C3 Guatemala slain atty (Rosenberg) mourned 5-11, 376F3 S Korea ex-pres (Roh) state funeral ordrd 5-23, 360F3 Music producer (Spector) murder victim paymt ordrd 5-29, 525E1 Iraq blast kills 37+ 8-7, 545G1 E Timor massacre suspect (Bere) held 8-8, 835F1 Zimbabwe vp (Msika) dies 8-10, 588C3 Shriver mourned 8-14, 580F3 Sen Kennedy Boston processn held 8-27, 570F2 Sen Kennedy mourned, buried 8-29, 584A2 Jackson buried 9-3, 612F2 Red Cross sets storm Ketsana, Cambodia aid 9-30, 664A3 Iraq blast kills 66+ 10-5, 688F3 Chilean singer (Jara) reburied 12-4, 954E3 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) mourned 12-21, 883B2; photo 883E2 Mex spec forces member (Cordova) buried 12-21, 928E2–F2

FUNES Cartagena, Mauricio (Salvadoran president, 2009- ) Munic electn held 1-18, results rptd 1-24, 50F3 Pres electn held 3-15, win rptd, visits US emb 3-16, 170C2 Facts on 3-15, 170E2 Sworn 6-1, 394E2 Declares floods, mudslides emergency 11-9, 818D1

FUNG, Melissa Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 435C1

FUNGI—See BIOLOGY FUNK, Fred Loses Sr UK Open 7-26, 708F1 Wins US Sr Open 8-2, 708F1

FUNK, Nolan Gerard Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

FURCHGOTT, Robert Francis (1916-2009) Dies 5-19, 384G2

FURGESON, Judge W. Royal Sentncs Army ex-maj (Cockerham) 12-2, 856D3

FURMAN, Ed Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

FURNISH, David Ukraine adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708G2

FURNITURE Gray ‘dragon chair’ fetches 21.9 mln euros 2-24, 160E1* UK parlt expenses misuse rptd, temporary reforms OKd 5-8—5-19, 343A3, G3

2009 Index Nazi ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560C2 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918F1 Obituaries Maloof, Sam 5-21, 400C3

FURTHEST Land (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile 11-7, 807F2

FUTUREGEN Industrial Alliance Inc. ‘08 nix math woes cited 3-11, funding set, revived 5-15—6-12, 445G3–446G1

FUTURES—See COMMODITIES

—GAS GAINSBOURG, Charlotte Wins Cannes actress prize 5-24, 364C1

GAISANOV, Rashad Named Ingush pres 7-3, 497D2

GALBRAITH, Peter Scores Afghan envoy (Eide), questns pres vote 9-28—10-4, 674E1–G1 Ousted 9-30, 668E3–G3 Afghan pres electn fraud admitted 10-11, 696F1, A2 Afghan’s Karzai ouster plan alleged, denies 12-10—12-17, Eide quits 12-11, 894D1–F1

GALEAO Airport (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

G GABON (Gabonese Republic) African Relations Borders shut, reopened 6-8, 6-10, 393C3–D3 Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 Senegal emb burned 9-3, 604F1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Bongo French bank accts frozen 2-26, embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394F1 Bongo French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3 Crime & Civil Disorders Calm urged 6-9, 393D3 Electn protests turn violent, suspects held 9-3—9-10, 604E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233A3 Bongo wife dies 3-14, 393B3 Bongo drops duties, in Spain hosp/dies 5-6—6-8; mourning set, body returned 6-8—6-11, Rogombe sworn 6-10, 393A3, F3 Bongo funeral held, buried 6-14—6-18, 604A3 Obame party ouster seen, pres candidates drop bids 8-23—8-28, 604D1–E1 Pres electn held 8-30; results rptd, Bongo win confrmd/backed 9-3—9-8, recount urged, oppositn ldrs travel banned 9-7—9-10, 604A1, F2–G2 Facts on Bongo 8-30, 604A2 Pres electn recount set, boycotted 9-27—9-29; results confrmd, ruling scored 10-12—10-14, Bongo sworn 10-16, 722E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-16, 733A3 Obituaries Bongo Ondimba, El Hadj Omar 6-8, 400E2 Oil & Gas Developments Total workers exit ordrd 9-5, 604E2 Science & Technology Internet access shut 6-8, 393C3

GABRIEL Capital Corp. Merkin chrgd 4-6, 245D1

GABRIELSON, Ryan Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D2

GACHECHILADZE, Levan Addresses protesters 4-9, 253B2 Sees Saakashvili 5-11, 328B1

GADABORSHEV, Col. Magomed Shot 7-7, dies 7-10, 545A1

GADAHN, Adam Yahiye 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816G1

GADIROV, Farda Kills 12, self 4-30, suspects held 5-1—5-4, 377A3–C3

GADKARI, Nitin Named party pres 12-18, 946C2

GAGNON, Trevor Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

GAIDAR, Yegor Timurovich (1956-2009) Dies 12-16, 880F1

GAIMAN, Neil Wins Newbery Medal 1-26, 56A1 Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

GAINES, Chryste ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

GAINEY, Bob Takes coach role 3-9, 159C2 Names coach (Martin) 6-1, 435G3

France flight disappears 5-31—6-1, 369F2

GALIFIANAKIS, Zach Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

GALLAGHER Jr., John Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

GALLARDO, Yovani Among NL Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F3

GALLAS, William France makes World Cup 11-18, 858F3

GALLEON Group Insider trading suspects chrgd/held, bail set 10-16, investmts liquidated 10-21, 743D2, F2, B3 Insider trading suspects chrgd, plead guilty 11-5, 814D1 Rajaratnam indicted 12-15, pleads not guilty 12-21, 910F1

GALLIGAN, Col. John Sees client (Hasan) 11-9, 777G2–A3 Client (Hasan) confinemt ordrd 11-20; cont hosp stay OKd 11-21, on paralysis 11-22, 813E1–F1

GALLO, Andrew Thomas In car crash 4-9, chrgd 4-10, 277F3

GALLOWAY, George Canada entry nixed 3-20, 413F1

GALLOWAY, Jenny Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

GALLUP Poll (Gallup Organization Inc.) (Princeton, N.J.) Bush support polled 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Honduras ex-pres (Zelaya) ouster support polled 7-9, 480G2 Capital punishmt support polled 10-1—10-4, 719F3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya), de facto ldr (Micheletti) support polled 10-28, 763A1

GALVAN Galvan, Guillermo On Acapulco gunfight 6-7, 431C2

GALVAO, Regivaldo Econ nun (Stang) murder suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447C2

GAMBARI, Ibrahim Visits Myanmar 1-31—2-3, 187F3–188B1; 6-26—6-27, 462C2

GAMBIA, Republic of the Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B3; 10-1, 733B3 Middle East Relations Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits 11-22, 885E2

GAMBINO Family (crime group) Hit man (Carneglia) convctd 3-17, sentncd 9-17, 920B2 Gotti mistrial declared, freed 12-1, 888F1

GAMBLING Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-18—4-22, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429C2 Russian curbs open, hiked 7-1, 7-21, 513A1 Macao chief exec (Chui) named 7-26, 510D1 Poland casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1; party ldr, mins quit 10-1—10-7, Anti-Corruptn Bureau head abuse alleged 10-6, 705B2–D2 Russian mobster (Ivankov) dies 10-9, 788G2 Blowing the Whistle excerpts posted, Random House drop rptd 10-28, Donaghy freed 11-4, 771C3 UK composer (Davies) defrauder sentncd 11-2, 792E2 Ohio OKs casinos measure 11-3, 756D2

Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831G3, 832C1 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859E2, B3 Rembrandt portrait fetches $33 mln 12-8, IDd 12-19, 953E2 Australia Web filters set 12-15, 931D3

GAMEZ, Jeronimo Prison transfer convoy ambush kills 8 4-21, 359G2

GAMMONS, Peter Interviews Rodriguez 2-9, 87G1

GANCZARSKI, Christian Convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154B2–F2

GANDHI, Indira Priyadarshini (1917-84) (Indian prime minister, 1966-77/1980-84) Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346D1

GANDHI, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-1948) Belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158E1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843F3

GANDHI, Rahul Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346C1, E1 Singh, cabt sworn 5-22—5-28, 382E1

GANDHI, Rajiv (1944-91) (Indian prime minister, 1984-89) Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346C1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 5-19, 333A2, 334A2, C2 Singh, cabt sworn 5-22—5-28, 382E1

GANDHI, Sonia Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346C1 Singh, cabt sworn 5-22—5-28, 382E1

GANDOLFINI, James God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

GANNETT Co. USA Today ed/publisher quit, replacemts named 2-1—4-28, 913E2 Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393F1

GANNETT Fleming Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse setlmt rptd 3-26, 357A3

GANS, Danny (Daniel Davies) (1956-2009) Dies 5-1, 384E3

GANT, Rodney Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266D1–E1

GAO—See GOVERNMENT Accountability Office GAO Yaojie Hosts US’s Clinton 2-23, 110A1

GAP Inc, The Fisher dies 9-27, 708B3

GARAMENDI, John Rep Tauscher vacates House seat 6-26, 478B3 House seat primary held 9-1, 585D1–E1 Elected to House 11-3, sworn 11-5, 756E1

GARCIA, Amalia Sees Zacatecas prison break workers role 5-17, 359C2

GARCIA, Ismael Oppositn ldr (Rosales) sentncg documt rptd 4-22, 326D2

GARCIA Belaunde, Jose Antonia Scores Bolivia’s Morales 6-16, 432B1

GARCIA Hurtado, Miguel Quits, surrenders 5-27, 369B2

GARCIA Linera, Alvaro Shootout kills 3 4-16, thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294C1–D1

GARCIA Luna, Genaro On AeroMex flight hijacking 9-9, 682E1

GARCIA Marquez, Gabriel Escalona dies 5-13, 364D3

GARCIA Perez, Alan (Peruvian president, 1985-90/2006- ) Declares indigenous protests emergency 5-9, sees Venez/Bolivia influence 6-7, 394D3, 395A1 Regrets Amazon dvpt backing 6-17, support polled 6-21, 431E3–G3, 432B1–C1

1045

Gen strike held 7-7—7-8, shuffles cabt, names PM (Velasquez) 7-11, 481C1, F1 US/Colombia mil base use mulled 8-10, 541E3

GARDA, Bahr Idriss Abu Chrgd, surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375D3–F3

GARDENHIRE, Ron 2d in AL top mgr voting 11-18, 824B1

GARDENS & Gardening UK parlt expenses misuse rptd 5-8—5-14, 343A3 UK’s Brown/Clegg expenses repaymt sought, OKd 10-12, 727B3–C3 Bush library design unveiled 11-18, 814G3

GARDEPHE, Judge Paul Nixes toys lead, phthalates curbs omit 2-5, 375E1

GARDNER, Lisa Say Goodbye on best-seller list 6-1, 384C1

GARDNER, Paul On clients White House invite 11-27, 829G3

GARFIELD, James Abram (1831-81) (U.S. president, 1881; Republican) Obama resworn 1-21, 25C2

GARI, Fakri Hadi Captured 7-24, 530D1

GARNEAU, Marc Named Liberals Quebec organizer 10-7, 681E3

GARNER, Jennifer Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

GARNER, Rich Iraq ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789F2

GARNETT, Kevin Playoff role doubted 4-16, 278E3

GARON, Mathieu Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420G1

GARRIDO, Nancy Held, pleads not guilty 8-26—8-28, 587A3

GARRIDO, Phillip Noticed, held/pleads not guilty 8-25—8-28; backyard compound/bone fragmt found, cops missed chances admitted 8-26—8-31, kidnapping victim, family reunited 8-27, 587A3–588A1

GARRISON, Mary Catherine Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

GARUDA Indonesia, PT Sell off set 7-5, 461C3

GARZON, Judge Baltasar Bermejo quits 2-23, 226C3–D3 Cuba base detainees abuse probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, opens probe 4-29, 329E1–D2 Universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884D3

GAS, Natural Accidents & Disasters Turkmen pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, Russia flow cutoff cited 4-10, 473E2–F2 ConAgra NC factory blast kills 3 6-9, gas cloud cited 6-18, 412C3 Italy RR derailmt, blast kills 16 6-29, 449G2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section GdF execs bonus pay nixed 3-26, 207C1 Fed land use royalty paymt woes rptd 9-14—9-15, House com hearing held 9-16, 917E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Chevron/Total, Myanmar junta bolstering allegatns mulled 9-9—9-10, 684B1 US govt, Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868D2 Exploration & Drilling US Dec ‘08 leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1 China sets Brazil reserves exploratn funding 2-19, 197G1 Alaska land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409C3, E3 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 Turkmen field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935C3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684G1 Baker Hughes/BJ Svcs buy set 8-31, 660F1 Exxon Mobil/XTO Energy buy set 12-14, 886G3 Offshore & Wilderness Developments Ukraine/Romania sea border chngd 2-3, 137E1–F1 US offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 131F3–G3

1046 GASOL— Gov Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 108G2 NY floating terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917B2 Total, GDF/Kazakh offshore deal finalized 10-6, 739D2–E2 Political & Legislative Issues Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627C2 Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851B1 Price & Production Issues Climate chng measures consensus sought 11-10, 828B3 Riots & Unrest Bulgaria riots erupt 1-14, 52D2 Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3 Tax Issues Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125C2 Terrorism & Sabotage Russia gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892B2 Trade & Aid Issues Russia/Ukraine shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3F1, F2, A3 Russia/Ukraine talks held/deals signed, stolen shipmt alleged 1-10—1-19, dispute scored, debt setld/deliveries cont 1-20, 37D1, B2, F2 US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69A3 Russia/Ukraine gas dispute scored 3-6, 142A3 Turkey/Armenia ties hike ‘road map’ opposed 4-23, 296B2 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416F2 Turkmen/China deal OKd 6-24, Russia price talks fail 6-26, 473B2 Iraq auctns fail 6-29, 437D2 Russia/Azerbaijan deal signed 6-29, 513B1 Turkey/EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1 Turkey/Russia gas pipeline deal signed 8-6, 561A1 Russia’s Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko, letter scored 8-11—8-13, 609E1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled 8-24, 568A1, B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 584C1, G1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, UK/Libya deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636D2 Intl cartel mulled 9-7, 616F3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704B3 Turkey/Syria deal signed 10-13, 696A3 Russia/China piplelines deal signed 10-13—10-15, 739C2 Russia/Serbia storage plan OKd 10-20, 728E3 Europn Comm energy comr (Oettinger) named 11-27, 835D3 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935E2 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935F2 Ukraine, IMF loan chngd 12-30, 939G3

GASOL, Pau Lakers win NBA title 6-14, 419B2

GASOLINE & Motor Oil—See AUTOMOBILES—Fuel GASPAR, Montejo Cousin ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573E3

GASPARD, Patrick Sees NY gov (Paterson), reelectn bid oppositn seen 9-14—9-20, 639A2

GASPAROVIC, Ivan (Slovak president, 2004- ) Vote held, earns runoff 3-21, reelected 4-4, 226F1 Sworn 6-15, 497B3 Facts on 6-15, 497C3

GASS, Simon Summoned 12-29, 940F3

GASTEYER, Ana Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

GATES, Justice Anthony Named Fiji high ct chief justice 5-22, 510B2 Claims Australian meddling 11-1, swears pres (Nailatikau) 11-4, 852C1, F1

FACTS GATES Jr., Henry Louis Held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, at White House mtg 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-2, 504D3–505A1, C1, E1–A2

GATES, Robert Michael (U.S. defense secretary, 2006- ) Africa On Somali antipiracy plan 4-13, 238F2 Appointments & Resignations Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, 60D1 Backs Mullen renominatn 3-18, 629C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286A2 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 354B1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381D1–E1 Gen McChrystal confrmd Afghan cmdr/takes post, mulls strategy 6-10—6-16, 434B1–C1 Armaments Urges A-arms arsenal maintenance 1-8, 266G3 F-22 fighter jet crash kills 1 3-25, 266B3 F-22s buys authrzn, F-35 engine chng nixed by Sen 7-21—7-23, 489F3–G3, 490E1 Sets Air Force aerial tanker bidding 9-16, 915C2 Asia/Pacific Rim Testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, 54B2 Denies N Korea satellite launch interfernc plans 3-29, 215A3 Testifies to Sen com 4-30, 315A3 Visits Afghan 5-7, ousts cmdr (McKiernan)/sees mil career end, names McChrystal 5-11, 317A1–E1, D2–F2 Sets N Korea missile launch curbs 6-18, 462C3 OKs PI Islamic militants combat cont aid 8-21, 819C2 On Afghan troop increase 9-1, 594E1 Urges Afghan dying troop/AP photo block, scores release 9-3—9-4, 621A3 On Afghan troop hike request, vs exit deadline 9-27, 669B1, D1 Mulls Afghan ltd missn, on Qaeda threat 10-5, 673D1, 674C1 Backs Pak tribal areas mil operatn 10-20, 709D2–E2 On Afghan troop levels 10-20, 711A1 Visits Japan, mil base relocatn plans mulled 10-20—10-21, 747D2 Visits S Korea 10-21—10-22, 712A3 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-23, 751E2 Testifies to Cong 12-2—12-3, 827D2–F2, A3 Visits Afghan 12-8, 844B3 Budget & Spending Programs Unveils fscl ‘10 proposal 4-6, 217C1, C2–E2, A3–C3 On Obama suplmtl funds request 4-9, 242F1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320A3 Europe Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1, C1, A2 Iraq Policy Vows clinic shooting probe 5-11, 330F2 Visits, sees troops exit hike 7-28—7-29, 501B2–E2 Visits 12-10, 856D2 Middle East Israeli/Iran A-program raid plan oppositn rptd 1-10, 75F1, A2 On Iran A-bomb dvpt capabilities 3-1, 174F1 Visits Israel, mulls Iran direct talks offer 7-27, 530E2 On Iran A-program mil strike 9-25, 649D1 On Iran A-program sanctns 12-11, 876B3 Personnel Issues Post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245B1 Orders slain troops coffin media ban review 2-11, 79C2 Lifts war dead coffin return media ban 2-26, 132A1–C1 Sees Army troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end 3-18, 183C2–F2 Sets Army troops hike 7-20, 491B2–D2 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought 11-12, 778C1 Sets Ft Hood shooting probes 11-19, 812A3–B3, D3 Security Issues On CIA interrogatn memos release 4-23, 261B1 On terror detainees abuse photos release 4-24, 290A3 Testifies to Sen com 4-30, 305E2–F2 Detainees IDs/Red Cross access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621E2, A3 Cuba base prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718F1 Backs detainee abuse photos release block 11-13, 867D2

Ill prison buy seen 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set 12-15, 861C1

GATES Foundation, Bill and Melinda Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2

GATORADE Golfer Woods backed 12-1, 839C3

GATTI, Arturo (1972-2009) Found dead 7-11, wife held 7-12, 500C3 Buried 7-20; death reclassified suicide, widow freed 7-30, body exhumed, autopsy held 7-31—8-1, 548F2

GATX Corp. Italy RR derailmt, blast kills 16 6-29, 449B3

GAUCI, Tony Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636F2

GAUDIN, Steve Terror detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289C3, 290B1

GAY, Brian Wins Verizon Heritage 4-19, 564C1 Wins St Jude Classic 6-14, 563F3

GAY, Tyson Wins 100-m world champ silver 8-16, 579A2

GAYA, Saad Pleads guilty 9-28, 723F1

GAY and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) Mass married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150B1

GAYDAMAK, Arkadi Chrgd 10-1, 768G3 Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, 765D3

GAYS—See HOMOSEXUALITY GAZ, OAO Magna/Opel buy set, deal mulled 5-30—6-3, 366G1, E2 Opel/Vauxhall buy set 9-10, 608G3 Deripaska ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766B3 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767E1

GAZGIREYEVA, Aza Slain 6-10, 417E1

GAZPROM, OAO Russia/Ukraine gas shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3F1, D2–F2, A3 Ukraine gas standoff talks held/deals signed, stolen shipmt alleged 1-10—1-19, dispute scored, debt setld/deliveries cont 1-20, 37E1, G1, B2–E2 Turkmen gas pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, flow cutoff cited 4-10, 473F2–G2 Nigeria jt venture signed 6-24, 455E1 Turkmen gas price talks fail 6-26, 473G2 Russian gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892B2

GBAGBO, Laurent (Ivory Coast president, 2000- ) Electn delayed 12-3, 922B2–C2, E2

GBAO, Augustine Convctd 2-25, 134G1–A2 Sentncd 4-8, 325B1

GBOMO, Jomo On govt peace talks 11-15, questns Yar’Adua role 12-18, 923G1, C2

GDF Suez SA Execs bonus pay nixed 3-26, 207C1 Kazakh offshore gas deal finalized 10-6, 739D2

GDP (Gross Domestic Product)—See under BUSINESS GEARHART, Devon Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

GEBRESELASSIE, Haile Wins Berlin marathon 9-20, 647E2 2d in Majors 11-1, 792A1

GEHRIG, Lou (1903-41) Jeter sets Yankees hits mark 9-11, 691A1

GEIMER, Samantha Polanski held 9-26, 653G3 Polanski assault civil setlmt rptd 10-2, appeal nixed 10-6, 707C2–D2

GEISEL, Harold On Iraq emb costs, nixes consulates opening 8-25, 592E3

ON FILE

GEITHNER, Timothy (U.S. treasury secretary, 2009- ) Appointments & Resignations Tax paymt woes rptd, sees Sen com 1-13, Treasury secy confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17C1–B2 Treasury secy Sen com hearing held/testimony issued, confrmatn backed 1-21—1-22, 30D1–D2 Confrmd treasury secy 1-26; Fed replacemt (Dudley) named, lobbying curbs set 1-27, nixes bank natlzns 1-28, 44D1–C2, E3–F3 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59B2 Dep secy (Wolin)/intl affairs undersecy (Brainard) named, Levey cont role set 3-23, 200A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286D1 Budget & Spending Programs Testifies to House com 3-3, 126C1–D1 Sees Soc Sec reforms 5-12, 324C1 On fscl ‘09 deficit 10-16, 713E1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section $700 bln financial indus aid oversight Sen com hearing held 2-5, 62A1 Obama on financial indus rescue plan 2-9, 79D1 Econ recovery plan passes Sen 2-10, 73F1 Unveils $2 trln financial indus rescue plan, testifies to Sen coms 2-10—2-11, 76A3–G3, 77F1–E2 Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93E1 On homeowner rescue plan 3-4, 127E3 AIG bonus paymts revealed/scored, return mulled 3-10—3-19, role defended 3-18, 161C1, B2–C2, E2, 162C2 Small business aid set 3-16, 164E1 Sets auto parts suppliers aid fund 3-19, 164B3 Details banks’ troubled assets sale plan 3-23, 177C1, E1–F1 Testifies to House com 3-24, 3-26, 178A2, A3, D3 On $700 bln financial indus aid remaining funds 3-29, 241E3 On banks stress-test results 5-7, 318D2–E2 Proposes credit derivative rules, sets $700 bln financial indus aid small banks loans 5-13, 320C1, F1, A2–C2 Proposes exec pay shareholders role 6-10, 387D3–E3 On financial indus reforms proposal, testifies to Sen com 6-17—6-18, 407F2, 408E1–G1 On exec pay curbs 7-31, 523D1 Sets mutual fund indus aid end 9-10, 618C2–F2 On banks exec pay curbs 9-19, testifies to House com 9-23, 640C3, 641B1 On financial indus reforms proposal 11-10, 779C1 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-16—11-17, 799C1 Cont $700 bln financial indus aid 12-9, testifies to Cong 12-10, 865A1–B1 Fair Trade Issues Cuba travel, trade curbs ease clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144F2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section China currency manipulatn denied 1-23, 45A1 Yuan fluctuatns defended 1-29, 98E2 Urges IMF funds commitmt hike 3-11, 163D1 At G-20 finance mins mtg 3-13—3-14, 162D3 On intl reserve currency chng proposal 3-25, 194F1–G1 China currency rpt issued 4-15, 283B3 Visits China 5-31—6-2, 414A2 At Italy summit 6-13, 404E3 Maliki visits 7-21—7-22, 498D1 Holds China strategic talks 7-27—7-28, 509B2, E2 Urges debt limit hike 8-7, rise rptd 9-30, 713C2 Hosts Australia’s Rudd 11-30, 851A3 Tax Issues On middle-class hike 8-2, 521C1–D1

GELB, Albert (d. 1976) Slaying suspect (Carneglia) cleared 3-17, 920C2

GELBART, Larry Simon (1928-2009) Dies 9-11, 632A3

GELFAND, Israel Moiseevich (1913-2009) Dies 10-5, 731B3

GENACHOWSKI, Julius FCC chair nominatn seen 1-14, 49A3 Named FCC chair 3-3, 145A2 Confrmd FCC chair 6-25, 458C1 Proposes ‘net neutrality’ rules, concerns seen 9-21, 10-16, 744D2–E2, B3

2009 Index GENEL Energy International Ltd. Iraq prov oil exports halted 10-9, 730G1

GENENTECH Inc. Roche hikes offer 1-30, deal OKd 3-12, 151A1, E1 Levinson quits Google bd 10-12, 744F3

GENERACION Y (Web site) Sanchez NYC trip nixed 10-14, 723D2 Bloggers detentn/abuse alleged, scored 11-6—11-9, Obama interview posted 11-18, 928C1

GENERAL Assembly—See under UNITED Nations GENERAL Electric Co. (GE) Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud 1-7, 55A1 Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100G2 Share dividend cut 2-27, 127E1 Credit rating cut 3-12, 3-23, 242C1 NBC stake buy OKd 11-30, Comcast buyout set 12-3, 830B3–C3

GENERAL Motors Co. (GM) Dec ‘08 US sales rptd, ‘08 global sales issued 1-6—1-21; GMAC chair (Merkin) quits 1-9, jobs banks program end set 1-28, 47E3, 48C1–E1, G1 Toyota ‘08 global sales rptd 1-20, 51B2 UK auto indus govt aid set 1-27, 52A3 Worker buyouts offrd, Jan ‘09 sales rptd 2-3, 62C2, A3 France auto indus govt loans set 2-9, 84C3 Lutz sets retiremt 2-9; restructuring plan set/govt loans completed, UAW deal chngs seen 2-17, bankruptcy mulled, cont bailouts opposed 2-19, 92D2, A3 US Feb ‘09 sales rptd 3-3, 164D3 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184D1–E1, A2 Auto indus task force head (Rattner) pension fund probe linked 3-17, 265F3 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164E2, B3–C3 Bondholders equity swap offer scored, worker buyouts tallied 3-27; Chevy Volt cost questnd, reorgn plan nixed/Wagoner ousted 3-29, govt backs warranties, split mulled 3-30, 197A2, F3, 198C2, E2 Govt aid hiked 4-24, 282D3 Govt stake mulled 4-29, 285C2 GMAC stress-test results issued 5-7, 319D1 Hydrogen cars dvpt funding cut 5-7, plans cont 5-11, 917B2 S Korea/Mex imports hike proposal rptd, opposed 5-11—5-15, dealerships dropped, govt role denied 5-15—5-20, 338D3, G3, 339G1–A2 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339F2 UAW deal chngd/share price rptd, Opel sale mulled 5-29—6-3; debt swap OKd, bankruptcy filed/govt stake set 5-31—6-1, factories shut/jobs cut, Hummer bought 6-1—6-2, 365A1–367A2; key events listed 366A1 Dow ouster set 6-1, 372C2 Saturn sale set 6-5, Whitacre named chair 6-9, 475A2, A3–B3 Govt role Sen com hearing held 6-10, 385E2, G2, C3, 386A1 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387A3 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417A2 Reorgn OKd/bankruptcy exited, Adam Opel buyout offers rptd 7-5—7-10, 475F1, F2, A3 Auto task force chief (Rattner) quits, Bloom named 7-13, 475E3 Car dealerships closure block passes House 7-16, 489D1 ‘Cash for clunkers’ program opens, renewal funds clear Cong/signed 7-27—8-7; Jul ‘09 sales rptd, worker buyouts offrd/cont cuts seen 8-3—8-4, Volt release set 8-11, 536C1, E1–F1, A2 Toyota shuts Calif factory 8-27, 679F3 Opel/Vauxhall sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3 Saturn sale nixed, closure set 9-30, 679A3 eBay partnership ended 9-30, 679E3 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679B1, D2–E2, G2 Tengzhong/Hummer buy OKd 10-9, 758A3 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sales blocked 10-16, Ger aid clarified 10-19, 767C2–D2 Exec pay cut 10-22, 742C1 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766A3 Ford ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757E3–F3, 758B1 Govt loan repaymt doubted 11-2, 758F1–C2

—GEORGIA Delphi stake buy OKd 11-2, 758F2 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sales nixed, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loans return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1 China Oct ‘09 sales rptd 11-9, 932C2, F2 IPO mulled 11-10; GMAC CEO (Molina) ousted, Carpenter named 11-11, govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798B3, F3 Koenigsegg/Saab buyout offer dropped 11-24, 822C3 Henderson quits 12-1, govt role denied 12-2, 831D1 $700 bln financial indus aid Cong hearing held 12-10, 865C1 Dropped dealerships arbitratn measure clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867D1 Saab tech/designs sale set, OKd 12-14—12-23; Spyker bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, deadline extended 12-30, 902F2–A3 Govt loans repaymt set 12-15, 887D1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910B1

GENERAL Services Administration, U.S. (GSA) Stem cell fed funding rules proposed 4-17, 268G1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1

GENETICS & Genetic Engineering Appointments & Resignations NIH dir (Collins) named 7-8, 491G1 Awards & Honors Rowley gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 Gurdon/Yamanaka win Lasker 9-14, 671F2–A3 Nobel prizes announced 10-5—10-7, 694A1, F1, A2 Cloning & Stem Cell Issues Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd by FDA 1-21, 49B2 US stem cell fed funding ban lift seen 3-6, exec order signed 3-9, 143A2 US fed funding rules proposed 4-17, 268B1 Obama addresses Notre Dame graduatn 5-17, 338B3 Final stem cell funding rules set 7-6, take effect 7-7, 476B3 Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473A1–C1 Mice skin cells reprogramming seen 7-23, 580F1 S Korea scientist (Hwang) convctd, sentnc suspended 10-26, 764C2 Calif stem cell grants set 10-28, lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918C2 Health & Safety Issues GM-animals rules issued 1-15, 64B3 Anticlotting protein (ATryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202A1 HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671B1 Identification Issues Justice Dept DNA sampling program hiked 1-9, 202D2 MLB’s Clemens trainer syringes DNA found 2-3, 87F3 NM death penalty ban passes legis, signed 2-11—3-18, 167A2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak info sought 2-12, 103B3 MLB’s Clemens trainers syringes drugs found 3-10, 159A1 Calif ‘70-80s slayings suspect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393E2 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425C3 Adventurer (Fossett) plane crash rpt issued 7-9, 538B2 Indonesia bombers IDs sought 7-21, 495B1, D1 US/Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, 622D2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) questnd 9-16—9-18, 641G3 Indonesia terror suspect (Noordin) death confrmd 9-19, 644A1 Yale student (Le) slaying affidavit unsealed 11-13, 920D1 Death row inmate (Cooper) appeal denied 11-30, 868D1 Obituaries Katzir, Ephraim 5-30, 384G3 Yang, Jerry 2-5, 160G3 Research & Treatment—See also ‘Cloning Issues’ above Neanderthal genome draft completed 2-12, 280E1 Cow genome deciphered 4-23—4-24, 516C1 Survey traces African ancestry 4-30, 515G3

GENEVA Conventions Obama doubts Bush terror policies probe 2-9, 78F3

Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued, questnd 2-20, 112C3 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15, 183B3 US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261A2 Detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 289D2 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked 5-5, 378A1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843A3

GENEVA (Switzerland) Observatory Small extrasolar planet find rptd 4-21, 952D1

GENG Jinping Sentncd 1-22, 35D2 Executed 11-24, 932E3

GENIE Awards Presented 4-4, 280B1

GENTILE, Louis Scores E Timor massacre suspect (Bere) release 10-12, 835A2

GENTRY, Alvin Named Suns interim coach 2-16, 159E1

GEO (Pakistani TV channel) Broadcast halted 3-13, 175B3–C3

GEOANA, Mircea Pres bid support polled 10-7, 705C3 Electn held, earns runoff 11-22, coalitn deal OKd 11-24, 821A3–B3 Runoff held 12-6; loss rptd 12-7, questns vote 12-8, 854D3–E3 Runoff recount ordrd 12-11, Basescu reelectn confrmd, sworn 12-14—12-16, 875B2

GEOBRA Brandstaetter GmbH & Co. KG Beck dies 1-30, 104A3

GEOLOGICAL Survey, U.S. (of Interior) Indonesia quake kills 4+ 1-4, 153D3 N Korea A-bomb test blast measured 5-25, 351C1 Wash/Alaska glaciers loss rptd 8-6, 655D2 Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557F3 Freshwater fish mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655A2 Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662G1

GEOLOGY Pak/Polish hostage (Stanczek) beheading tape issued, confrmd 2-8—2-9, 103B2 Kenyan mob kills UK geologist (Bridges) 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3

GEOMETRY Gromov wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255D3

GEOPOWER Basel Geothermal drilling halted, designer (Haering) Trial opens/cleared 12-10—12-21, 939B3

GEORGE, Devean Traded to Raptors 7-9, 771B2

GEORGE, Lord (Eddie) (Edward Alan John) (1938-2009) Dies 4-18, 280D3

GEORGE, George W. Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

GEORGE, Justice Ronald Upholds gay marriage ban 5-26, 352B3–D3

GEORGE Mason University (Fairfax, Va.) Obama addresses 1-8, 6B3 Aksyonov dies 7-6, 500D2

GEORGETOWN University (Washington, D.C.) Sen Leahy addresses 2-9, 80E1 Obama addresses 4-14, 240A1 Vladeck named FTC consumer div head 4-14, 375D1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322C2

GEORGE Washington University (Washington, D.C.) Iraq’s Hussein interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465A2 Bush admin e-mails found 12-14, 908D2

GEORGIA (state) Arts & Culture Rapper (TI) performs in Atlanta 5-24, 364E2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Salmonella-linked peanut butter recalled 1-13; Blakely plant soruce confrmd 1-21, violatns rptd 1-27, 49E3, G3 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set 1-30, 63G1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11, 95B3–C3

1047

SunTrust stress-test results issued 5-7, 319F1 Crime & Law Enforcement Rapper (TI) sentncd 3-27, 212E1 Rapper (TI) jailed 5-26, 364E2 Terror training suspects convctd 6-10, 8-12, 833D2 Boxer (Forrest) slain in Atlanta, suspects held 7-25—8-6, 531G3 Death row inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd by Sup Ct 8-17, 553G1 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780D2 Rapper (TI) freed, enters halfway home 12-22, 954A3 Demonstrations & Protests Atlanta ‘tea party’ protest held 4-15, 242E3 Environment & Pollution Rep McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656D2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Military Issues Reactivated troop (Pagan) brings kids, svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267B1 Army Lt (Calley) regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1 Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2 Obituaries Bell, Griffin B 1-5, 9C3 Fuller, Millard D 2-3, 72F1 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Atlanta town hall mtg held 9-15, 617C3 Electn results 11-3, 756D3 Atlanta mayoral runoff held 12-1, results rptd 12-9, 848A3 Press & Broadcasting Southn Voice, David Atlanta shut 11-16, 912E3 Social Issues SCLC LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505E2 Sports Falcons exit playoffs 1-3, 39E3 Masters results 4-12, 255G1 Hawks make playoffs 4-15, 278B2 Tour Champ results 9-27, 670F1 Chick-fil-A Bowl results 12-31, 948F2 Transportation SC gov (Sanford) returns from Argentina 6-24, 424B1, G1

GEORGIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19; arrest rptd 12-20, protests held, 937F1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan troops hike set 12-7, 844F1 Thai seizes plane, N Korean arms found 12-12, 862D3 Breakaway Regions ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F1 S Ossetia border cop slain 1-16; Abkhazia/Russian naval base plans seen 1-26, jets deploymt claimed, denied 2-6, 85D1 Indep states recognitn nixed 2-7, 74G2–A3 Russia/NATO Cncl revived 3-5, 142F1 Obama nixes indep recognitn 4-1, 194B1 NATO exercises claimed, held 4-17—5-6, Russia security deals OKd, NATO cncl reopened 4-29, 311C1–E1 Russia’s Lavrov visits US 5-7, 311B2 S Ossetia electns held 5-31, results rptd, vote mulled 6-1, 378C2 Abkhazia RR blast hits 6-2, 378A2 Abkhazia/S Ossetia indep mulled 6-5, 423D3–E3 Abkhazia UN missn extensn vetoed, vote mulled 6-15—6-16, 406C1, A2 OSCE missn scored, monitors exit 6-17—6-30, 450C1 US/Russia cont mil cooperatn OKd 7-6, 454A1 Russia’s Medvedev visits S Ossetia 7-13, 496D3 Russia’s Putin visits Abkhazia, aid set 8-12, 534D2 Russian war/Ukraine aid alleged, denied 8-24—8-25, 609B2 Abkhazia sea border violatns threat issued, warning questnd 9-2, 607B2–C2 Venez sets S Ossetia/Abkhazia indep recognitn, positn scored 9-10, 616A3–B3 Russian defns deals signed 9-15; ships seizure warned, Black Sea patrols open/violatn claimed 9-15—9-22, indep recognitn opposed 9-22, 645A2 EU issues Russia war rpt 9-30, 665E3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707G1 UK’s Miliband visits Russia 11-2, 766F2

1048 GEORGIA— Russian/Europn pact sought 11-12, 803C3 Abkhazia pres electn held/results rptd, vote mulled 12-12—12-13, Nauru sets regions recognitn 12-15—12-16, 874D2, A3 CIS Relations Exit set 6-12, 450G1 Russia mil exercises open 6-29, 449F3 Group usefulness questnd 10-10, 777E1 Civil Strife Tbilisi troops mutiny thwarted 5-5, 311G1 Tbilisi protests turn violent, demonstrators held/freed 5-6—5-7, oppositn talks sought, held 5-7—5-11, 327C3, 328A1 Tbilisi troops mutiny suspect slain, arrests rptd 5-21—5-23; pol conflict end urged 5-25, protests turn violent 5-26—6-1, 378D1, B2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Mil parade nixed 5-26, 378D1 NATO entry mulled 7-6, Obama backs sovereignty 7-7, 454A1, D3 US mil aid request rptd 7-22—7-23, 497A1 Troops, US training aid set 8-14, 560C1 Russia/NATO missile defns future link seen 9-18, 645F1 European Relations Turkish tanker (Buket) seized, capt (Ozturk) sentncd/freed 8-14—9-8, Davutoglu visits 9-8, 607F1 Lithuania amb (Laurinkus) recalled 12-15, 903D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Saakashvili resignatn urged 1-29; Mgaloblishvili quits, health cited 1-30—1-31, replacemt (Gilauri) confrmd 2-6, 84D3 Facts on Gilauri 2-6, 85A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B3 Protests held, crowd estimated 4-9—4-16, 253F1 Saakashvili resignatn urged 5-12, 328B1 Defns min (Sikharulidze) ousted, Akhalaia named 8-27, 607C2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733B3 Imereti gov fired 12-20, Saakashvili turns 42 12-21, 937G1–A2 Labor & Employment F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1 Religious Issues Abkhaz Orthodox split set 9-15, 728F3 Trade, Aid & Investment EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 UN Policy & Developments Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees Saakashvili 2-8, 74A3 Biden visits 7-22—7-23, 496B2, C3

GEORGIA, University of (Athens) Capital 1 Bowl won 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 24A1, E1 Stafford tops NFL draft, Moreno picked 4-25, 298E2–F2, B3 Indep Bowl won 12-28, 948A3

GEOTHERMAL Energy US emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, 201F2 Ger drilling spurs quake 8-15, 939D3 Swiss drilling halted, designer (Haering) trial opens/cleared 12-10—12-21, Calif project shut, US efforts cont 12-11, 939G2

GEO X GmbH Geothermal drilling spurs quake 8-15, 939D3

GERBER, Judge Robert OKs GM reogrn 7-5, 475B2–D2

GERBERDING, Dr. Julie L. Quits 1-9, 65C1

GERGORIN, Jean-Louis Smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644C2

GERHART, Toby 2d in Heisman voting 12-12, 879G2

GERICAULT, Theodore (1791-1824) Portrait of Alfred and Elisabeth Dedreu fetches 9 mln euros 2-24, 160D1–E1*

GERMANY, Federal Republic of Accidents & Disasters Geothermal drilling spurs quake 8-15, 939D3 African Relations Mali tourist held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, freed 4-22, 326F1 Somali pirates in Kenya ct 4-23, 269E3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3

FACTS Congo rebel ldrs held 11-17; cont detentn ordrd 11-18, army link alleged 11-25—12-7, 922B1, D1 Arts & Culture Mueller wins Nobel 10-8, 693D2 Hoeller wins Grawemeyer Award 11-30, 860G1 France/Egypt artifacts returned 12-14, 952B3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China ‘07 GDP revised 1-14, 35B2 Afghan blast kills 3 1-17, 54C3 China’s Wen visits 1-29, 98E2 China ethnic violnc activists role seen 7-6, 461G1 Tongan ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590F3 Afghan air strike kills 24+, civiln deaths mulled/probe set 9-4—9-8, security transfer conf urged 9-6, 611F1, B2–F2, B3–C3 Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607D3 Afghan air strike civiln deaths rptd 9-17, 630G1 Afghan troop levels mulled 11-2, 826F1 Afghan cont missn seen 11-18, 806C1 Afghan air strike civiln deaths info withheld 11-26, missn extended 12-3, 835G3–836A1 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844G1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section BMW drops Formula 1 role 7-29, 647B1 CIS Relations Latvia Nazi march held 3-16, 207F2 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764C3–E3 Crime & Civil Disorders BMW heiress (Klatten) blackmailer pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207D1 Winnenden gunman kills 15, self 3-11, Internet warning mulled 3-12, 154G2 NATO summit protests turn violent 4-4, 213D2–E2 May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329F3–G3 Ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482F2 Ger/Turkish parlt candidates threat probe opens 9-22, 665C3–D3 Ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2 Defense & Disarmament Issues France NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 173A1 NATO summit hosted 4-3—4-4, 213A1, D2–E2 Schneiderhan quits, Wichert ousted 11-26, 835G3–836A1 Economy & Business Vermoegensverwaltung owner (Merckle) found dead 1-5, suicide rptd 1-6, 8F1 Govt business loans fund set 1-12, stimulus plan hiked 1-13, 22F3 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-13, 100B3 New stimulus package opposed 3-12, 163B1 ‘09 GDP forecast 4-29, 311F2 Chrysler bankruptcy declared 4-30, 283E1 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-14, 361B2 Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536E1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-13, 545B1 Cont econ recovery seen 8-21, 571D2 Google bk scanning setlmt OKd 9-8, 601C1 Tax cuts vowed, corp reform mulled 9-18—9-28, 665A2, E2 Balanced budget doubted 10-25, 749A3 Financial indus crisis tax backed 11-7, 775G3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-13, 803B1 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, Frankfurt stock exchng drops 11-26, 829D1–E1 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2 Budget deficit cut vowed 12-16, tax cuts stimulus package passes parlt 12-18, 892B1 Frankfurt ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900E2, A3 Energy Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107F1 Environment & Pollution Climate chng conf hosted 6-1—6-12, 405C2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B2; table 883A1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Saudi royals/charities, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491B3 European Relations Poland WWII mass grave find rptd 1-7, 136F3–G3

France auto indus govt loans opposed 2-9, 84B3 EU econ crisis mtg hosted 2-22, 116C3–D3 EU mtg held 3-1, 136G1, C2–D2 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188B3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396D2–F2 Hungary shuts Dusseldorf consulate 6-16, 512B2 Turkey’s Erdogan visits EU hq 6-26, 706G3 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, 627E3 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685A3 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686B1 EU treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, Klaus signs 11-2, 765A2–B2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835D3 Family Issues Szaggars weds Redford 7-11, 516E1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Munich Security Conf held 2-6—2-8, 74G1 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Econ min (Glos) quits 2-8, Guttenberg named 2-9, 99A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233B3 Steinmeier chancellor bid set 4-19, 361A2 Steinmeier sets chancellor bid 4-19, 361A2 Koehler reelected 5-23, 361E1 Econ min (Guttenberg) resignatn nixed 5-30, 366D3 State electns held 8-30; Thuringia premr (Althaus) quits 9-3, parties support polled 9-9, 607D2 Steinmeier/Merkel debate held 9-13, 665F2 Parlt electns held, results rptd 9-27, coalitn plans set 9-28, 664B3, G3, 665G1; table 665A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 9-27, 733B3 Govt coalitn deal set 10-24, Merkel sworn 10-28, 749C2, G2 Labor min (Jung) quits/Leyden tapped, Koehler named families min 11-27, 835E3 Iraqi Conflict Steinmeier visits 2-17, 101C3 Kosovo Conflict IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318G1 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2 Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-18, 196A1 Swine flu cases confrmd 4-29, 281D1, 282G1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Magna/Opel buy mulled 5-29—6-3, 366F1, F2 Adam Opel/Beijing Auto buyout offer confrmd 7-8, 475C3 Opel sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3, 609B1–C1 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale blocked 10-16, aid clarified 10-19, 767C2–D2 GM nixes Adam Opel sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1–E1, A2 Middle East Relations Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31E1 Egypt blast hurts 1 2-22, 117E2 Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 Iran pres electn recount urged 6-21, 423B2 Merkel sets Egypt’s Mubarak mtg 7-8, 482C3 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599E3 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1 Iran A-program sanctns mulled 9-23, 634B2 Israeli troop (Shalit) tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689D2 Iran A-program talks held 10-1, 649B1 Iran protesters freed 11-7, 857A3 Iran A-program mtg nixed 12-15, 876C3 Monetary Issues Commerzbank govt stake bought 1-8, 8A2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Intl tax havens pressure cont 3-16, 163E2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis Fugitive MD (Heim) ‘92 Egypt death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155D3–G3 France admits Holocaust deportatns 2-16, 99E2

ON FILE

WWII guard (Demjanjuk) warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239B3, E3, G3 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) US deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; arrives 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352D2 Pope Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335C2–D2 Ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560E1 WWII start anniv marked, Russian intell documts issued 9-1, 591C2–F2, B3 War crimes suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, Storms chrgd 11-17, 854B1, D1 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3 Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1 Auschwitz death camp sign stolen/recovered, suspects held 12-18—12-20, neo-Nazi link nixed 12-21, 892F1 Obituaries Bausch, Pina 6-30, 468E2 Beck, Hans 1-30, 104A3 Behrens, Hildegard 8-18, 596G1 Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 451G3 Dannenberg, Konrad 2-16, 160B3 Foss, Lukas 2-1, 72E1 Lambsdorff, Count Otto 12-5, 896G2 Mohn, Reinhard 10-3, 731E3 Religious Issues RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial remarks clarificatn sought 2-3, Benedict calls Merkel 2-8, 76B1–C1 Reunification Issues UK documts published 9-11, 637B1 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787D3, 788B1; photo 788A1 Science & Technology Early primate fossil rptd, unveiled 5-15—5-19, 952D2 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix results 5-3, 399E1 Werder Bremen loses UEFA Cup 5-20, 950A1 Wolfsburg wins Bundesliga title 5-23, 950A1 IOC exec bd mtg hosted 8-13, 691A2 Track world champ results 8-15—8-23, 579F1 Berlin marathon results 9-20, 647E2 Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895A3 Mercedes sets Brawn team buy 11-16, 950F1 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859E2–G2, D3 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2–G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636G2 Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665G2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58C2 G-20 finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 163A1 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193C1–E1 G-7 mtg held 4-24, 298G2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 G-8 mtg held 6-13, 417A3 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1, A2 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2, G2 Indonesia quakes aid rptd 10-2, 725C1 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-10, 862C2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits 4-3, 213F2, C3 Holder visits 4-30, 305B3, D3 Obama visit set 5-8, 318D1 Obama visits 6-5, 386C1 Merkel, Obama jt news conf held 6-26, 439E2 Merkel visits 11-3, 755D1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees resetlmt aid backed 2-4, 64B1 Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150G1 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, 769B2

GERON Inc. Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd by FDA 1-21, 49B2–E2

GERSHON, Gina Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

2009 Index GERSHON, Judge Nina Orders ACORN cont fed funding 12-11, 908E2–F2

GERSHWIN, George (1898-1937) Anne Brown dies 3-13, 192B2 Beach Boys’ Wilson project OKd 10-8, 708C2

GESLANI, Col. Medardo On MILF bases capture 7-23, 527C3–D3

GETSY, Jason Clemency urged, nixed 7-17—8-14; stay rejected by Sup Ct 8-17, executed 8-18, 553E2–A3

GETTELFINGER, Ron Sees auto workers deal chngs 2-17, 92C3 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339E2 On GM workers deal chng 5-29, 366C1 On Ford workers concessns vote 10-30, 758C1

GETZLAF, Ryan Among NHL assists ldrs 4-12, 299A3

G-Force (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

G4S PLC Iraq shooting kills 2, worker held 8-9, 545G2

GHABRA, Mohammed alAssets freeze case heard 10-5, 686G1

GHAILANI, Ahmed Khalfan In ct, pleads not guilty 6-9, 391D3–F3 Death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718B3–C3

GHAITH, Sheikh Ibrahim alFired 2-14, 943E3

GHALEBI, Hamzeh Freed 8-31, 610G1

GHAN, Ashraf Karzai support polled 6-15, 434B3

GHANA, Republic of Drugs & Drug Trafficking Malian narcoterror suspects held 12-16, 914F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres electn lead seen, final vote boycott warned/held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7E2 Facts on Atta Mills 1-7, 7A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233C3; 10-1, 733C3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Migrants rescued 4-16; Italy entry OKd 4-19, origins rptd 4-20, 262E2 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits, addresses parlt 7-10—7-11, 471D3, 472D1; excerpts 472A1 Clinton tours Africa 8-4—8-13, 540B1

GHANAATI (racehorse) Wins 1000 Guineas 5-3, 347A3

GHANI, Ashraf In pres debate 7-23, 513C3–D3 Pres electn held, questns vote 8-20, 549C2 Questns pres electn vote 8-25, 577F2 Karzai ouster plan mulled 12-10—12-17, cabt named 12-19, 894C1, E1

GHARANI, Mohammed el Release ordrd 1-14, 20G2 Transferred to Chad 6-11, 391E2

GHARIB, Jaouad 3d in London Marathon 4-26, 332F1 3d in NYC marathon 11-1, 791A3

GHEDINE, Niccolo Files Berlusconi defamatn suits 8-28, 626F3

GHEIT, Ahmed Aboul On Gaza antismuggling pact 1-16, 31E1 Visits US 5-27, 380B3

GHIMPU, Mihai (Moldovan president, 2009- ) Confrmd pres 9-17, 627B1–C1 Lifts Romania visa curbs 9-17, 666G3 Hosts CIS summit, questns usefulness 10-8—10-10, 777E1

GHOST, The (painting) Fetches 11 mln euros 2-23, 160C1

GHOSTS of Girlfriends Past (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

GIACOMETTI, Alberto (1901-66) Lord dies 8-23, 672G2

GIAMATTI, Paul Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24G2

—GISH Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

GIAMBI, Jason Joins A’s 1-7, 278D1 Rodriguez admits steroids use 2-9, 87A3

GIANT (book/play) Play opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

GIBBONS, Jim (Nev. governor from Nev., 2007- ; Republican) Vetoes domestic partnership law 5-25, 371E1, G1

GIBBS, Adrian Swine flu lab accident claim nixed 5-14, 352G1

GIBBS, Robert On Obama cont e-mail use 1-22, 29D2 On Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) case 1-29, 47B1 On FDA comr apptmt 1-30, 63B2 On labor secy nominee (Solis) husband tax woes 2-5, 60B1 On 2d econ stimulus bill 2-17, 89G1 On GM/Chrysler restructuring plans 2-17, 93A1 On Limbaugh econ views 3-2, 146D2 On surveillnc ship Chinese harassmt 3-9, 153C2 On DC schl vouchers program 3-11, 144B2 On Cheney remarks 3-16, 166A3–B3 On vets pvt insurnc med paymt proposal 3-18, 244F3 On Obama Spec Olympics joke 3-20, 182A3 On Obama Internet pub forum drug questn 3-26, 200B1 On Obama bank execs mtg 3-27, 220C3 On Obama suplmtl funds request 4-9, 242E1 On N Korea A-program talks halt 4-14, 239D1 Backs auto indus task force head (Rattner) 4-17, 265E3 On Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc 4-18, 274E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D3 On Biden swine flu outbreak remarks 4-30, 282E1 Sets Obama Jun speech 5-8, 318A1, C1–D1 On Natl Guard lt (Choi) mil ouster 5-12, 392A3 On Obama Egypt speech 6-4, 369F1 On rptrs N Korea detentn 6-8, 396D1 On Israel’s Netanyahu Palestinian state backing 6-14, 403D2 On Afghan hostages escape 6-21, 434G3 China ethnic violnc restraint urged 7-6, 461C2 On short-term emissns cuts deal 7-9, 453E1 On Obama, Pope visit 7-10, 473B1 On Harvard prof (Gates) arrest White House mtg 7-30, 505F1 On $700 bln financial indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay 7-31, 522D3 On middle-class tax hike 8-3, 521B1, D1 On Clinton N Korea trip 8-4, 517F1 Sees 10% jobless rate 8-7, 535E1 On health care reform pub option 8-16—8-17, 551A2, D2, G2 On Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) Libya welcome 8-21, 567D3 On Afghan troop increase 9-1, 594E1 Defends econ stimulus package 9-4, 601D3 Defends China tire tariffs 9-11, 615C2 On Coast Guard/Potomac exercise 9-11, 782D2 On health care reform Sen proposal, denies debate race tone 9-16, 617C2, D3 Cuba base prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718F1 Sees Fox News bias 10-13, 717G2 On Cheney Afghan remarks 10-22, 751F2 On Obama fundraising role 10-26, Denies Obama campaign donors, White House access claims 10-28, 780F1, B2 On S/N Korea naval clash 11-10, 796F1 On China ‘carbon intensity’ cut 11-26, 828G1 On Iran A-program secret site censure 11-27, 837A2 On White House ofcls House com testimony 12-3, 830G1 On Obama climate treaty conf role 12-4, 841E1

GIBLIN, Paul Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D2–E2

GIBSON, Charles Sets retiremt 9-2, 612G2

GIBSON, Henry (James Bateman) (1935-2009) Dies 9-14, 708D3

GIBSON, Melissa James This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

GIBSON, Ruth My Wonderful Day opens in NYC 11-18, 954B2

GIBSON, Sgt. Shawn Spain/Iraq rptr slaying chrgs reinstated 5-21, 344F3

GIBSON, Taj In NBA draft 6-25, 451B2

GIBSON, Tyrese Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

GICANDA, Queen Rosalie (d. 1994) (Rwanda) Ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680C1

GIGUERE, Francois Fired 4-13, 299D3

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

GILAD, Amos On Hamas cease-fire conditns 2-18, fired, regrets remarks/reinstated 2-23—2-25, 157D2

GILAURI, Nika Confrmd premr 2-6, 84D3, F3 Facts on 2-6, 85A1

GILES, Hannah ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, suit seen 9-23, 638B3, E3

GILKISON, Jason Burn the Floor opens in NYC 8-2, 564B2

GILLANI, Yousaf Raza (Pakistani prime minister, 2008- ) Reinstates Sup Ct justices 3-16, 175E1, C2–D2, E3 On PML-N coalitn talks 3-19, 228A3 Hosts US’s Panetta 3-21, 229A3 On tribal areas ceasefire 4-13, 276B1 Sets tribal areas mil offensive launch 5-7, 314E3 Seeks tribal areas refugees aid 5-14, 346B2 Sets tribal areas refugees return 7-9, hosts US’s Holbrooke 7-22, 514C1, C2 Sees India’s Singh, sets terror intell sharing deal 7-26, 500A1 A-arms control transferred 11-27, 839A1 Denies bin Laden cont hideout 12-3, 845C1

GILLARD, Julia Hosts China’s Li 10-29, 802D2 On climate chng bill reintroductn 12-2, 851A2

GILLETTE Co. (of Procter & Gamble) Woods ads ltd 12-12, 879A2

GILLIBRAND, Kirsten (U.S. representative from N.Y., 2007-09; senator, 2009- ; Democrat) Kennedy drops Sen seat bid 1-22, 32G3 Named to Sen 1-23; visits NYC, on gun control 1-24—1-25, sworn 1-27, 46E2 House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201F1 House seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared 4-24, 292C2 Rep Maloney nixes seat bid 8-7, 537C3 Gov Paterson reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, 639C2 Giuliani nixes seat bid, backs Lazio 12-22, 908E3

GILLIES, Tyson Traded to Phillies 12-16, 948F3

GILLISPIE, Billy Fired 3-27, 230F3

GILROY, Matt Wins Hobey Baker Award (top coll player) 4-10, 300C1

GILROY, Tony Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

GIMENO, Andres Inducted to HOF 7-11, 631A3

GIMSON, Bill Replaces CDC dir 1-20, 65C1

GINGRICH, Newt At ‘tea party’ protest 4-15, 242F3 Regrets Judge Sotomayor ‘racist’ remarks 6-3, 389C3 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31, 756C1

GINOBILI, Manu NBA season ends 4-15, 278F3

GINSBERG, Benjamin Vows Minn Sen race absentee votes ruling appeal 3-31, 201B2

1049

GINSBURG, Ruth Bader (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1993- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Stays Chrysler/Fiat merger 6-8, 385C2 Backs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444E2 Campaign & Election Issues Vs minority voting power protectns limit 3-9, 167F1 Rehears campaign finance law argumts 9-9, 603G1 Capital Punishment Orders Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review 6-1, 374A2 Orders Ga inmate (Davis) hearing 8-17, 553C2 Backs Ohio inmate (Getsy) stay 8-17, 553E2 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc appeal denied 11-10, 780A3 Censorship Issues Vs FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1–E1 Defendants’ Rights Curbs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266D1 Backs suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374E1 Backs convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426E1 Backs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3–B3 Environmental Issues Vs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307C2 Vs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Backs ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337G3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Judicial Issues Vs evidnc exclusionary rule limits 1-14, 21B1 Upholds judge sentncg power 1-14, 21E1 Clarifies judges campaign contributns recusal rule 6-8, 390E1 Labor Issues Backs pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Returns 2-25, 131B1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301D2, 302D1 Judge Sotomayor named justice 5-26, 350B2 Ky sen (Bunning) nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503B2 Anemia treatmt rptd, in hosp/exits 9-24—9-25, opens ‘09-10 term 10-5, 677G3 Collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718C1 Racial Bias Backs Conn firefighters test nix 6-29, 444A1–B1 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3, 131A1 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443D1

GINZBURG, Vitaly Lazarevich (1916-2009) Dies 11-8, 792C3

GIOIA, Dana NEA successor (Landesman) named 5-13, 332C2

GIONFRIDDO, Gina Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

GIO PONTI (racehorse) 2d in Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807A2

GIRALDO, Gustavo Anibal Escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817D3

GIRARDI, Joe On Rodriguez steroids use 2-10, 87A3 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 751D3 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770D1, G1 3d in AL top mgr voting 11-18, 824B1

GIRAUDEAU, Philippe Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

GIRLS from Ames, The: A Story of Women and a Forty-year Friendship (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316B1

GIRLS in Their Summer Clothes (recording) Springsteen wins Grammy 2-8, 88G2

GISH Prize, Dorothy and Lillian Seeger gets 9-3, 880A1

1050 GISLADOTTIR— GISLADOTTIR, Ingibjorg Sigurdardottir sworn premr 2-1, 69B1

GIULIANI, Giampaolo On Abruzzo quake warning 4-6, 224E3

GIULIANI, Rudolph W. Chapin dies 3-7, 192C2 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, 639B2 NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1–C1 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-15, 793A2 Gov/Sen bids nixed, backs Lazio 11-19, 12-22, 908E3

GJ 1214 (star) Mostly water planet find rptd 12-16, 952C1

GLADSTONE Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (San Francisco, Calif.) Yamanaka wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2

GLADWELL, Malcolm Outliers on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1 What the Dog Saw on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

GLASGOW Airport (Scotland) Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) returns to Libya 8-20, 550C1

GLASS & Porcelain Kao wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1–D1

GLASSPOOL, Rev. Canon Mary Named LA bp 8-1—8-2, 539A2 Elected LA asst bp, selectn questnd 12-5, 868B3–D3

GLASS Room, The (book) Mawer on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692D1

GLAVINE, Tom Released 6-3, 484B2

GLAXOSMITHKLINE PLC Pfizer AIDS drug partnership set 4-16, 352A2 US swine flu vaccine funding set 5-22, 352B1 Antismoking drug (Zyban) warning ordrd by FDA 7-1, 555C2 Swine flu vaccine delays seen 10-16—10-23, 741C3

GLEASON, Joanna Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

GLEESON, Brendan Wins Emmy 9-20, 648A1

GLIDEMASTER (racehorse) Muscle Hill sets Hambletonian mark 8-8, 807B3

GLIESE 581 (star) Small extrasolar planet find rptd 4-21, 952E1

GLITNER Bank hf Restructuring plan set 7-20, 512A3

GLOBAL Solutions for Infectious Diseases HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671C1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697A2

GLOBAL Warming—See CLIMATE Change GLOBE and Mail (Canadian newspaper) Pol parties support polled 10-5, 681C3

GLOBOVISION (Venezuelan TV station) Pres (Zuloaga) home raided, protests held 5-21—6-27, 493F3–494A1 Caracas hq attacked 8-3, 576B1 Chrgs hiked 9-5, 623D3

GLORIA de Campeao (racehorse) 2d in Dubai World Cup 3-28, 347B3

GLOS, Michael Quits 2-8, 99A3

GLOVER, Crispin 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

GLOVER, Danny 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

GLOVER, John Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2 Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

GLOVER, Lucas Wins US Open 6-22, 435E1

GLOVER, Motego Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

GLUCK, Will Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

FACTS GMAC (General Motors Acceptance Corp.)—See GENERAL Motors Co. GM (Genetically-Modified) Food—See FOOD GOBIND Singh Deo Suspended 3-16, 223G2

GODBER, Sir George (Edward) (1908-2009) Dies 2-7, 160C3

GODDARD, Terry Files papers antitrust complaint 5-15, 393F1

GODMANIS, Ivars (Latvian premier, 2007-09) Quits 2-20, 117F1–A2 Coalitn govt OKd 3-12, 173B2–C2

GOD of Carnage (play) Olivier Award won 3-8, 231F1 Opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Tonys won 6-7, 400A1, D1–E1

GODOY, Leonel On Michoacan drug raids 5-26, 359G1–A2 Half-brother warrant issued 7-14, 480G3

GODOY Toscano, Cesar Warrant issued 7-14, 480G3

GOEBBELS, Joseph (1897-1945) Remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939A2

GOEDERT, Bishop Raymond Details Chicago diocese abuse victims cover-up 7-21, 712E1

GOEL, Rajiv Chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3

GOFFER, Zvi Chrgd 11-5, 814D1

GOGGIN, Matthew British Open results 7-19, 500E1

GOING Rogue: An American Life (book) Palin interviewed 11-16—11-17; published 11-17, opens tour 11-18, 797D1 On best-seller list 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

GOLAN Heights—See MIDDLE East Peace Talks—Syrian GOLD Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193E2 Mongolia minerals tax reppeal passes parlt 8-25, Oyu Tolgoi mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25, 922A1 Crime Issues Iraq MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117B3 Indonesia violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, arrests rptd/chrgs set, Freeport worker linked 7-21—7-31, 542C2 Environmental Issues Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2, A3 Exploration & Mining Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd 9-23, 952D3 Labor Issues S African mine workers strike, deal set 7-27—7-28, 526B1 Political & Legislative Issues Mongolia premr (Bayar) in hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763G1–A2 Statistics Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6F3 Feb ‘09 financial update 2-2, 61F1 Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128C1 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198C1 May ‘09 financial update 5-1, 304C3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371F3 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442F1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522C1 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586F1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657C3 Nov ‘09 financial update 11-2, 759C1 Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831C1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900F3, 910F3

GOLD, Sam Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

GOLDBERG, Charles WTC site bldg fire check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A2

GOLDBERG, Philip Bolivia diplomat (Fernandez) ousted 3-9, 204A2

Asia tour set 8-13, 568E3

GOLDEN Boy Promotions De La Hoya reties 4-14, 383A3

GOLDEN Girls, The (TV show) Arthur dies 4-25, 300C3

GOLDEN Globe Awards Presented 1-11, 24D2

GOLDIKOVA (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile 11-7, 807E2

GOLDMAN, David Son status mulled 3-14, 186G2 Son return ordrd 12-22, reunites, flies to Fla 12-24, 926B2–C2

GOLDMAN, Sean US return ordrd 12-22, sees dad, flies to Fla 12-24, 926B2–D2

GOLDMAN Sachs Group Inc. Dudley named Fed member 1-27, 44A2 Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100G2 Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-13, shares sold 4-14, 241E1 Chrysler debt-for-cash swap backed 4-30, 282D2 Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319G1 NY Fed bd chair (Friedman) quits 5-7, 571G2 Corzine wins NJ gov Dem primary 6-2, 373E3 ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd, share price rises 7-16, 490F1 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3, 523A1 ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd, compensatn reserves seen/charity donatn set 10-15, 715B1–C1, A2, C2 NJ gov debate held 10-16, 716B3 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766A3 Blankfein White House visits rptd 10-30, 780E1 Corzine loses NJ gov electn 11-3, 755A3 Swine flu vaccine distributn mulled 11-5—11-6, 810B3 Small business lending program launched 11-17, 864F3 Cash bonuses nixed 12-10, exec misses Obama mtg 12-14, 864B3–C3

GOLD Medal, Congressional Borlaug dies 9-12, 632G2

GOLDSMITH, Edward Rene David (1928-2009) Dies 8-21, 648E2

GOLDSMITH, Jack CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257F2

GOLDSMITH, Sir James Michael (1933-97) Brother dies 8-21, 648E2

GOLDSTEIN, Neil Indicted 7-28, 621F1–G1

GOLDSTEIN, Thomas Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48F2

GOLDSTONE, Richard Named Gaza war crimes probe ldr 4-3, 313C1 Opens Israel/Gaza invasn abuses probe opens, mulls cooperatn 6-1—7-7, 546C2 Alleges Gaza war crimes 9-15, 614D2 Gaza war crimes rpt mulled 11-5, 790B2, E2

GOLDWYN, Tony Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

GOLEZ, Adm. Ferdinand On militia bases raid 8-12, 559F1

GOLF Awards & Honors Ochoa named LPGA top player 11-23, 949G2 Woods named AP ‘00-09 top athlete 12-16, 879C2 Woods named top male, PGA player 12-17—12-18, 949F2 Obituaries Jameson, Betty 1-31, 88F3 Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 Olympics ‘16 inclusn urged 8-13, 691B2–C2 People Woods returns 2-25, 139D1 Mickelson wife bares cancer, suspends season 5-20, returns 6-10, 435C2 Woods affairs alleged/in car crash, blames self 11-25—12-1; drops tourn role, admits transgressns 11-30—12-1, sponsors back, cited/cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839G1, A3

ON FILE

Woods sets ‘indefinite break’, endorsemt deals mulled 12-11—12-17, 879C1, A2 Tag Heuer halts Woods image use 12-18, AT&T ties cut 12-31, 949D2 Professional Montgomery named Eur Ryder Cup capt 1-28, 139A2 LPGA comr (Bivens) ldrship questnd/quits, Evans named interim comr 7-6—7-13, 595D1, F1 Whan named LPGA comr 10-28, 949C3 Records & Achievements Perez sets Bob Hope Classic opening rounds mark 1-21—1-22, 139B2 Westwood tops Europn earnings 11-22, 839D3 Substance Abuse Issues Woods MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951F3 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Arnold Palmer Invitatnl, Woods 3-29, 255F2 AT&T Natl, Woods 7-5, 563E3 Australian Masters, Woods 11-15, 839F3 Barclays, Slocum 8-30, 670D2 BMW Champ, Woods 9-13, 670E2 Bob Hope Classic, Perez 1-25, 139A2 Bridgestone Invitatl, Woods 8-9, 563B3 British Open, Cink 7-19, 500B1 Buick Invitatnl, Watney 2-8, 139G1 Buick Open, Woods 8-2, 563C3 Byron Nelson Classic, Sabbatini 5-24, 564A1 Canadian Open, Green 7-27, 563C3 Corona Champ, Ochoa 4-26, 332B2 Crowne Plaza Invitatnl, Stricker 5-31, 563G3 Deutsche Bank Champ, Stricker 9-7, 670E2 Dubai World Champ, Westwood 11-22, 839D3 Evian Masters, Miyazato 7-26, 595A3 FBR Open, Perry 2-1, 139G1 FedEx Cup, Woods 9-27, 670F1 Honda Classic, Yang 3-8, 255A3 Houston Open, Casey 4-5, 255E2 HSBC Champs tourn, Mickelson 11-8, 839G3 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, Yi 7-5, 595A3 JELD-WEN Traditn, Reid 8-23, 708E1 John Deere Classic, Stricker 7-12, 563D3 Kraft Nabisco Champ, Lincicome 4-5, 332G1 Lorena Ochoa Invitatnl, Wie 11-15, 949B3 LPGA Champ, Nordqvist 6-14, 595D2 LPGA Tour Champ, Nordqvist 11-23, 949A3 Masters, Cabrera 4-12, 255G1 Match Play Champ, Ogilvy 3-1, 139C1 Meml Tourn, Woods 6-7, 563F3 Mercedes-Benz Champ, Ogilvy 1-11, 139B2 Northn Trust Open, Mickelson 2-22, 139E1 Pebble Beach Natl Pro-Am, Johnson 2-16, 139F1 PGA Champ, Yang 8-16, 563D2 Players Champ, Stenson 5-10, 564B1 Pres Cup, US 10-11, 708A1 Quail Hollow Champ, O’Hair 5-3, 564B1 Safeway Classic, Hur 8-30, 595G2 Solheim Cup, US 8-23, 595E2 Sony Open, Johnson 1-18, 139B2 Sr PGA Champ, Allen 5-23, 708G1 Sr Players Champ, Haas 10-4, 708D1 Sr UK Open, Roberts 7-26, 708F1 State Farm Classic, Kim 6-7, 595B3 St Jude Classic, Gay 6-14, 563F3 Sybase Classic, Oh 5-17, 595B3 Tex Open, Johnson 5-17, 564A1 Tour Champ, Mickelson 9-27, 670F1 Transitns Champ, Goosen 3-22, 255G2 Travelers Champ, Perry 6-28, 563E3 US Amateur Champ, An 8-30, 670F2 US Open, Glover 6-22, 435D1 US Sr Open, Funk 8-2, 708F1 US Women’s Open, Ji 7-12, 595D1 Verizon Heritage, Gay 4-19, 564C1 WGC-CA Champ, Mickelson 3-15, 255A3 Women’s British Open, Matthew 8-2, 595B2 World Match Play Champ, Fisher 11-1, 840F1 Wyndham Champ, Moore 8-23, 670G2 Zurich Classic, Kelly 4-26, 564C1

GOLF Association, U.S. (USGA)—See GOLF GOLF Writers Association of America Woods named top male golfer 12-17, 949F2

GOLUB, Harvey Named AIG chair 8-6, 585D3

GOLUB, Leon (1922-2004) Widow dies 10-18, 824G3

GOMES Junior, Carlos (Guinea-Bissau premier, 2004-05/09- ) Seeks ECOWAS aid 3-3, 134E1 Pres runoff held 7-26, results rptd 7-29, 507E2

2009 Index GOMEZ, Garrett Named ‘08 top jockey 1-26, 119G3 Pioneer of the Nile 2d in Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315G3 Life Is Sweet wins Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic 11-6, 807D2

GOMEZ, Mateo Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

GOMEZ, Scott Traded to Canadiens 6-30, 731C1

GOMEZ Mont, Fernando Sets Sonoro day-care fire fed probe 6-24, 431B3

GONCHAR, Sergei Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420E1

GONCOURT Prize Druon dies 4-14, 280C3 NDiaye wins 11-2, 792B1

GONE Tomorrow (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

GONO, Gideon Revalues Z$ 2-2, 67G2–A3 Ouster sought 2-12, 81E3 Ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 Admits pvt accts cash removal 4-20, 589A1 Ouster nixed 5-25, 588G3 Bilateral aid doubted 9-16, 681B1

GONZAGA University (Spokane, Wash.) Johnson, Teague in NBA draft 6-25, 451A2 Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16, tourn results 4-6 6, 230B3, D3

GONZALES, Alberto R. Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130D1 Rep Harman, AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd 4-19, 263A2, D2 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329D2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289G3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 5-1, 306D2–E2 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445E3 Tex Tech poly sci teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574D2 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 475A1 Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, documts issued 8-11, 536A3

GONZALES v. Carhart (2007) Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470D2, 471A2

GONZALEZ, Adrian Among NL HR ldrs 10-6, 690E3

GONZALEZ, Albert Chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554C1, E1–F1 Pleads guilty 8-28, 918C1

GONZALEZ, Judge Arthur OKs Chrysler reorgn plan 5-31, 367F1–G1 OKs Chrysler dealerships closure 6-9, 385F2

GONZALEZ, Esmailyn (Carlos Daniel Alvarez Lugo) Fake ID rptd 2-18, 277B3–C3

GONZALEZ, Fernando Loses French Open semi 6-5, 399A1

GONZALEZ, Nazario Moreno Cartel arrests rptd 10-22, 747A2

GONZALEZ, Tony Traded to Falcons 4-23, 299B1

GONZALEZ Galeana, Jose Daniel (d. 2009) Slaying suspects held, ICE informant status confrmd 8-10, 556A3

GONZALEZ Lastra, Rafael On slaying suspects arrests 12-23, 928G2

GONZI, Lawrence (Maltese prime minister, 2004- ) African migrants Italy entry OKd 4-19, 262B2

GOOD, Michael Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 5-11—5-24, 372B3, D3, F3

GOODALE, Ralph On parlt suspensn 12-30, 926B3

GOODE, Matthew Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

GOODELL, Roger Sees Vick, partially lifts suspensn 7-27, 564E1

—GOVERNORS Suspends Stallworth 8-13, 632D1 Suspends Burress 8-20, 632B1 Nixes Cowboy Stadium video screens lift 8-28, 632E1 Sets Vick suspensn lift 9-3, 631D3 Madden named spec adviser 9-10, 632D1 Questns Limbaugh, Rams buyout bid 10-13, 948B2 Testifies to House come 10-28, 948B1*

GOOD Friends N Korea swine flu outbreak rptd, S Korea aid offrd/OKd 12-8—12-10, 873F3

GOODMAN, John Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2

GOODMAN-Hill, Tom Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

GOOD Morning America (TV show) Sawyer named ABC World News anchor 9-2, 612A3 Stephanopoulos named anchor 12-10, debuts 12-14, 880E1

GOOD Negro, The (play) Opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

GOOD Night Shirt (racehorse) Named ‘08 top steeplechaser 1-26, 119G3

GOODS, The: Live Hard, Sell Hard (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

GOODWIN, Sir Fred Pension return mulled 2-26—2-27, 155D2 Home attacked 3-25, 207B2–D2

GOODWIN, Ginnifer He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2

GOODY, Jade Cerisa Lorraine (1981-2009) Weds Tweed 2-22, 139G3 Dies 3-22, 192G2

GOODYEAR Tire & Rubber Co. Gender pay parity bills pass House 1-14, 20B1 Gender pay parity bill clears Cong 1-22—1-27, signed 1-29, 47A3

GOOGLE Inc. Apple bd dirs overlap probe set 5-5, Schmidt, Levinson quit 8-4—10-12, 744F3 China Web-filter software requiremt opposed 6-8, 414B3 China scores porno links 6-18; search tool shut, forgn sites curbs ordrd 6-19, acces blocked 6-24—6-25, 448D1 US bk publishers setlmt review confrmd 7-2, oppositn rptd 8-20, 601D1–E1 Microsoft/Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523B2, E2 IPhone app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; FCC probes set, AT&T role denied 8-1—10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744B3 Europn bk publishers setlmt OKd 9-8, House com hearing held 9-10, 601A1 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744G2 Bk publishers setlmt questnd, chngs OKd 9-18—11-19; Chinese author suit filed, text removed/hearing held 11-19—12-29, French violatns ruled 12-18, 936E2 Iraq museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1 EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875G3

GOOLD, Rupert Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

GOOSBY, Eric Named PEPFAR head 4-27, 369F3

GOOSEN, Ratief Wins Transitns Champ 3-22, 255G2 Loses Canadian Open 7-27, 563D3

GORBACHEV, Mikhail Sergeyevich (Soviet president, 1988-91; CP general secretary, 1985-91) Lebedev sets Evening Standard stake buy 1-21, 76G2 Yukos atty (Bakhmina) freed 4-21, 328C3 Varennikov dies 5-6, 332G3 On ‘90-01 alcoholism deaths rpt 6-30, 513D1 Hosts US’s Obama 7-6, 454C1, E2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637E1–F1 On Putin ‘12 pres bid remarks 9-20, 667F2 Scores local electns vote 10-19, 728B1

Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 787D3, 788C1; photo 788A1 US A-arms treaty cont use seen, expires 12-4—12-5, 885G2

GORDHAN, Pravin Named S Africa finance min 5-10, 325F2

GORDON, Bart (U.S. representative from Tenn., 1985- ; Democrat) Reseated Science chair 1-6, 5C1 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1 Nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3

GORDON, Ben Joins Pistons 7-2, 771D1

GORDON, Dan Irena’s Vow opens on Bway 3-29, 256D1

GORDON, Jeff Hendrick Motorsports wins NASCAR team champ 11-22, 859F3

GORDON, Joe (1915-78) Inducted to HOF 7-26, 531C2

GORDON, Philip Vs Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn 9-22, 645D2

GORDON-Levitt, Joseph GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

GORDON-Reed, Annette Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2

GORDY, Berry Jackson dies 6-25, 436D1 At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468A1

GORE, Al (Albert Arnold Gore Jr.) (U.S. vice president, 1993-2001; Democrat) Current TV rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215E3 Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3 Rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396B1, E1 Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517A2, 518A1 Laliberte visits intl space statn 9-30—10-11, 731D2 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693F1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B3

GORELKIN, Alexander Slain 3-5, 274D1

GORMAN, James Named Morgan Stanley CEO 9-10, 657G3

GORRITI, Gustavo Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 223A1

GOSS, Porter CIA interrogatns ‘02 briefing rptd 4-22, 261A3 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306C1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, 323A1, C1 CIA planned Al Qaeda assassinatn program ‘04 halt rptd 7-15, 474A1 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20, 586D3

GOTENBERG, University of (Sweden) Adults energy-burning fat cells found 4-9, 580C1

GOTTI, John A. (Junior) Mistrial declared, freed 12-1, 888F1

GOTTLIEB, Myron Sentncd 8-5, 548F2

GOTTSCHALK, Alfred (1930-2009) Dies 9-12, 648F2

GOUCHER, Kara 3d in Boston Marathon 4-20, 332E1

GOULD, Madelyn Kids sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link seen 6-15, 555E2 Sees kids sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link 6-15, 555F2

GOUMRI, Abderrahim 2d in Chicago marathon 10-11, 791F3

GOUNDER, Judge Daniel Named Fiji high ct judge 5-22, 510B2

GOURMET (magazine) Shut 10-5, 913A1

GOVERNING (magazine) E.Repub sets buy 11-20, 913C2

GOVERNMENT Accountability Office, U.S. (GAO) Marine mammal species protectns lack rptd 1-7, 7D2 Med devices efficacy/safety FDA reviews questnd 1-15, 64D3

1051

Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing cleared 1-16, probe questnd 1-17, 242E2 $700 bln financial indus aid use mulled, oversight questnd 1-30, 62C1–D1 Afghan arms mil oversight questnd 2-12, 102G2 Cops illegal immigrants deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151G1 Iraq troops exit costs forecast issued 3-24, 189B3 Labor Dept divisn complaints handling questnd 3-25, 340F3 Defns Dept arms contracts ‘08 cost overruns rptd 3-30, 217A2–B2 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 Defns procuremt reforms signed 5-22, 355A1 Mex gun smuggling curbs questnd 6-18, 481B1 ICE/DEA intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 Colombia drug trafficking/Venez govt role alleged, denied 7-16—7-23, 929D3 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487F3 Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing upheld 7-21, 721A2 Oil cos fed land royalty paymt woes rptd 9-14—9-15, 917G2 Mex border fence progress blasted 9-17, 721G3 AIG financial stability seen 9-21, 641D1 GM/Chrysler govt loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758F1–C2 Drug price rise probe sought 11-18, 797A1 Mex antidrug aid spending rptd 12-3, 928D3 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908A3

GOVERNMENT College University (Lahore, Pak.) US’s Clinton addresses 10-29, 737D2

GOVERNMENT Executive (magazine) Sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479F1

GOVERNMENT Leaders—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

GOVERNMENT of Singapore Investment Corp. (GIC) Citigroup govt aid plan chngd 2-27, 127B2

GOVERNORS (U.S.) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 NM’s Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6B1 Ill sen nominee (Burris) issues affidavit to Blagojevich ouster com 1-5, 93E2 Ill’s Blagojevich ouster com hearing held, impeachmt urged 1-8, 4F3–G3 Va’s Kaine named DNC chair 1-8, 6B2 States’ fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn urged 1-21, 47E2 Ill’s Blagojevich impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted, Quinn sworn 1-29, 43A3, E3 Sen Burris issues 2d affidavit to Blagojevich ouster com 2-4, 93G2 Sen Burris on Blagojevich brother talks, full disclosure urged 2-15; admits fund-raising bid, probes open 2-16—2-17, seeks Chicago backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1, C3 $787 bln econ recovery plan signed 2-17, 89C2 La’s Jindal, Miss’s Barbour nix $787 econ recovery funds use 2-20—2-21, 111A2 Natl mtg held 2-21—2-24, 111C2 La’s Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105G2 Mex/Tex border troops sought 2-25, 171D1 Kan’s Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd 2-28, nominated 3-2, 129C1 Ala ex-gov (Siegelman) chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, convctn review sought 4-3, 218G2 Ill’s Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 218B3, 219A1 Blagojevich pleads not guilty, reality TV deal rptd 4-14—4-16, 243A2 NYS gay marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, 266B2 Kan’s Parkinson sworn 4-28, 285B3 Alaska’s Palin bk deal revealed 5-12, 455C3 NH gay marriage bill chngs sought 5-14, 353C1 Utah’s Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 353D3 Calif’s Schwarzenegger salary cut 5-20, 340A2 NJ primaries held 6-2, 373A3 Minn’s Pawlenty nixes reelectn bid 6-2, 441G2 Va primaries held 6-9, 391D1 SC’s Sanford hiking trip claimed, returns from Argentina/admits affair 6-22—6-24; drops GOP assoc post, Barbour named 6-24, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1, B2

1052 GOVERNORS— Obama sees govs 6-24, 427A2 SC’s Sanford issues apology 6-26; details affair, wife scores 6-30—7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455D3 Alaska’s Palin sets resignatn 7-3, travel funds complaint filed 7-6, 455A2, A3 NYS lt gov (Ravitch) named 7-8, 524E3 NYS gay marriage bill vote delayed 7-10, 505E2 Sen Hutchison sets Tex bid 7-13, 503D2 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700A2–B2 NM’s Richardson hosts N Korea delegatn 8-19—8-20, 558F2 NM’s Richardson fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620C1 Va candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30; debate held 10-12, Clinton stumps 10-20, 716E3 NY’s Paterson reelectn bid mulled, Lazio sets run 9-14—9-22; Obama interfernc scored, visits 9-20—9-21, lt gov (Ravitch) apptmt upheld 9-22, 639G1, A3, C3 Newsom Calif gov bid backed 9-15, Whitman declares run 9-22, 639D3 NJ debates held, Daggett bid backed 10-1—10-16; Biden/Clinton/Obama stump 10-19—10-21, Christie ex-colleague campaign role questnd 10-20, 716F2, 717C1–D1 Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1 Calif candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757B1 Electn results 11-3, 755A2, G2, C3 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) clemency nixed 11-10, 780B3 Palin bk published 11-17, 797D1 NC’s Sanford civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1–G1 White sets Tex bid 12-4, 869C1 SC’s Sanford censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869G1

GOVERNORS Association, National DC mtg held 2-21—2-24, 111C2

GOYETTE, Richard Pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539C3

GOZNEY, Sir Richard On Cuba base detainees Bermuda transfer 6-11, 391G2

GQ (magazine) GOP chair (Steele) interviewed 3-12, 146B3 Putin article publishing omits rptd 9-4, 667B3

GRACE, Jennifer Our Town revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2

GRACE, Maggie Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

GRACE, Shantia S Fla wins NIT, named tourn MVP 4-4, 230E2

GRACE & Co., W. R. Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356C2 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492G2

GRADY, Judge John Nixes Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ suit 10-20, 781C3

GRAFTON, Sue U Is for Undertow on best-seller list 12-21, 956A1

GRAHAM, Bob (Robert) Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, denies role 5-14, 323D1–E1

GRAHAM, Heather Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

GRAHAM, Jim On DC Metro train upgrades cost 6-24, 429D1

GRAHAM, Lauren Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

GRAHAM, Lindsey (U.S. senator from S.C., 2003- ; Republican) Visits Pak/Afghan/Iraq 1-9—1-12, 16D2 On econ recovery plan debate 2-5, 73C3 On terror detainees harsh interrogatns hearing 5-13, 322D1, E2

FACTS Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 469E2, 470C2, F3, 471D1, E2, A3 Backs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) 7-28, 503B1 Vows climate chng debate partisanship drop 10-11, 743B2 Climate chng bill talks sought 11-4, 760B1 Issues climate bill framework 12-10, 883F1

GRAHAM, Trevor ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1

GRAHAM-Cumming, John Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

GRAHAM v. Florida Accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 307B1

GRAIN—See also specific kinds Gaza UN shipmt seized, returned 2-6—2-9, 86E1 Argentina natl bd mulled 3-3, farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3, 204C1–D1 Zimbabwe pvt bank accts cash removal admitted 4-20, 589B1 Iraq trade min raid nets arrests 4-29, 311B3 Iraq min (Sudani) submits resignatn/questnd, OKd 5-14—5-27, 362D2 Sudan vp cabt shuffled 5-30, 431F1 Argentina cong electns held 6-28, 446F3 Argentina farmers strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2

GRAMMY Awards Obituaries Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436B3 People TI sentncd 3-27, 212E1 Brown pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 Coolio pleads guilty, sentncd 6-26, 564F2 Presentations Presented 2-8, 88E1

GRANADO, Alejandro US low-income oil aid program cont 1-7, 22D2, F2

GRANDAGE, Michael Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1 Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

GRANDERSON, Curtis AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483A3 Traded to Yankees 12-9, 949A1

GRANDMASTER Flash and the Furious Five (music group) Run-DMC inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 280A1

GRANGER, Clive W(illiam) J(ohn) (1934-2009) Dies 5-27, 384F3

GRANGER, Danny Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3 Named NBA most improved player 5-12, 332B1

GRANGER, Kay (U.S. representative from Tex., 1997- ; Republican) IMF/World Bank loans curbs pass 7-9, 488E3

GRANHOLM, Jennifer (Mich. governor, 2003- ; Democrat) On GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nix 3-29, 199B1 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2

GRANMA (Cuban newspaper) Castro essay published 4-22, 271A3

GRANN, David Questns Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt 9-7, 700B3

GRANT, Drew Slain 7-11, 542E2

GRANT, Hugh Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

GRANT, John Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447C3–D3, F3 Treasury favoritism probe rpt issued 8-4, 851E3

GRANT, Kate Jennings Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

GRANT, Oscar Slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held/chrgd, pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247C1–D1

GRAN Torino (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

GRAPHS—See TABLES GRASSES of a Thousand Colors (play) Opens in London 5-18, 451G2

GRASSLEY, Charles E. (U.S. senator from Iowa, 1981- ; Republican) On Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes 1-13, 17E1 $700 bln financial indus aid banks use disclosure sought 1-22, 32B3 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) regrets tax error 2-2, 59C3 Scores AIG bonus paymts 3-16, 161G2 Scores Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae bonus paymts 4-3, 220G2 Scoress DEA/ICE coordinatn woes 4-20, 341D1 Proposes overperforming MDs Medicare paymt hike 4-29, 324E1 Health care reforms proposal mulled 6-2—6-11, 390B3 Sees Sen Baucus 6-18, 427E1 Holds health care reform town-hall mtg 8-12, drops end-of-life counseling measure 8-13, 551D3, F3 Health care reform oppositn rptd 9-2, Baucus mtg failure seen 9-8, 598B3 On health care reform proposal 9-15, 617D2 On CBO health reform bill estimate 10-7, 676A3 Vs health care reform bill 10-13, 698E1

GRATION, Maj. Gen. J. Scott (ret.) Named Sudan spec envoy 3-18, 185A2 On Darfur ‘genocide’ 6-17, 446D2–E2 Darfur rebel factns peace talks role set 8-22, 924G2–A3 Sets Sudan policy shift 10-19, 762D1–E1

GRAVES, Samule B. (U.S. representative from Mo., 2001- ; Republican) Ethics probe nixed 10-29, 779C3

GRAVEYARD Book, The (book) Gaiman wins Newbery Medal 1-26, 56A1

GRAVIANO, Giuseppe Berlusconi, Sicilian Mafia ties alleged 12-4, 875G1

GRAVITY (recording) Mayer wins Grammy 2-8, 88G2

GRAWEMEYER Award for Music Composition Hoeller wins 11-30, 860G1

GRAY, Eileen (1878-1976) ‘Dragon chair’ fetches 21.9 mln euros 2-24, 160E1*

GRAY, F(elix) Gary Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

GRAY, Harry J. (Harry Jack Grusin) (1919-2009) Dies 7-8, 516A3

GRAY, Robert Sees male circumcisn, STDs risk drop 3-26, 595F3

GRAY, Simon James Holliday (1936-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

GRAYSON, Alan (U.S. representative from Fla., 2009- ; Democrat) Blasts health care reform GOP oppositn, remarks scored 9-29, nixes apology 9-30, 656A1–C1

GRAYSON, Trey Sen Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503B2

GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland, United Kingdom of (UK) Accidents & Disasters Vanguard/French A-sub collide 2-3, crash confrmd, Scotland return rptd 2-16, 91C3 African Relations Somali captured pirates Kenya turn over set 1-26, 66G3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai sworn PM 2-11, 81D1 Zimbabwe sanctns lift mulled 2-14, 96E3, 97C2 Ldrs visit 3-16, 170C1 Somali pirates in Kenya ct 4-23, 269D3 Nigeria oil tanker, crew seized 5-13, 358B2 Somalia forgn fighters seen 5-15, 341C3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Kenyan mob kills geologist (Bridges) 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial held 9-7, 623A1 Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt diamond field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1 Botswana gen electns held 10-16; results rptd 10-18, sworn 10-20, 722A2

ON FILE

Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801G1 Equatorial Guinea coup plotter (Mann) pardoned, freed/returns 11-3—11-4, 925D1 Pvt yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20, Somalia pirates seize chem tanker (St James Park) 12-28, 903D2–E2 Uganda gay curbs bill scored 12-12, 924G3, 925B1 Arts & Culture ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts/loses final, in hosp 4-11—5-31, 383G3 Duffy named poet laureate 5-2, 316G1 Walcott exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364A2–D2 Greece seeks Elgin Marbles return 6-20, 449B2–F2 Salinger bk ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484C3 Opera singer (DiDonato) breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2 Man Booker shortlist announced 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692A1* Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd, value hiked 9-23—11-25, 952C3 Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708D2 Google/bk publishers setlmt chngs OKd 11-19, 936E3 Old Master records set in London 12-8—12-9, 953D2–F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China ‘07 GDP revised 1-14, 35B2 Afghan, Eur role hike urged 1-15, 54A3 Thai royal family insults suspect (Ungpakorn) chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154F1 China’s Wen visits 2-1—2-2, Cambridge Univ shoe toss tape aired 2-3, 98F2–B3 Sri Lanka rebel cease-fire offer nixed 2-23, 119C2 Afghan troops slain 3-15, 195B3 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175E3 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277C2 Brown visits Afghan, vows troops hike 4-27, 4-29, 314A2 Miliband visits Sri Lanka 4-29; rebel conflict scored 5-12, end declared 5-19, 333B1, 334A1, C3 Afghan insurgency ldr (Mansur) slaying claimed 6-2, 381D3 China’s Wen, Cambridge Univ shoe toss suspect cleared 6-2, 482A1 Khmer Rouge forgn prisoners slayings rptd 6-17, 414A2 Afghan mil offensives launched, troops slain 6-19—7-6, 466D1, F1 Afghan troops slain/mourned, role hailed 7-10—7-22; equipmt, troop levels mulled 7-11—7-16, support polled 7-13, 498D2 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494A3–B3 Afghan operatn phase ends, Taliban reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, Jul casualties tallied 7-30, 513C2 Malaysia protests held, dispersed 8-1; arrests rptd, Sivarasa freed on bail/chrgs seen 8-2—8-17, crackdown scored 8-3, 542C3, G3 Afghan troop slain 8-4, 547F1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi trial scored 8-11, 543A2 Afghan troop slain 8-20, 549E2, F2 Afghan casualties tallied 8-25, 577D3 Brown visits Afghan 8-29, troops slain 8-31, 594D2 Afghan war defended 9-4; security transfer conf sought 9-6, NYT rptr freed/translator slain, raid defended 9-9—9-10, 611G2, D3, F3 Ger/Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607F3 Afghan ltd missn debated, Gen McChrystal sees Brown 10-1, troop levels mulled 10-6, 673B2, G2, B3 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-6—10-8, 685D3–E3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sees diplomat 10-9, 725B3, E3 Pak A-arms security mulled 10-11, 695F1 Afghan troops hiked 10-14, 695D3 Brown calls Afghan’s Karzai, hails pres electn runoff 10-19—10-20, 710G1, A3 Dalai Lama, India/China border visit protested 10-22, 806B2 Afgan pres (Karzai) reelectn questnd, troops slain 11-3, 753D2, 754C1 Afghan troops support questnd, Karzai govt corruptn scored 11-6, Brown regrets name misspelling 11-10, 775B2–D2 Japan teacher slaying suspect (Ichihashi) held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2 Afghan troops hike urged 11-13, Karzai sworn 11-19, 805E3, 806B1 Afghan troops hike set 11-30, 826F1–G2 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844F1, A2

2009 Index PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890F2 Brown visits Afghan 12-13, Karzai cabt named 12-19, 893F3, 894F2 Afghan troop kills US/Italy troops 12-29, 899D3 Awards & Honors Costa shortlist announced 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139D3 Acad Awards presented 2-8, 104E1 Olivier Awards presented 3-8, 231D1 Hawking gets US Pres Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Serb ex-pol (Krajisnik) transferred 9-7, 628B2 Harvey named Karadzic atty, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1 CIS Relations Russian tycoon (Berezovsky) convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 Chechen fighting alleged 9-24, 706F1 Miliband visits Russia 11-2, 766C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Expenses misuse rptd, regretted 4-7—5-15; pols suspended 5-14—5-20, reforms urged, temporary measures OKd 5-19, 343B3–E3, 344A1 Brown, MPs expenses repaymt sought 10-12, 727G2 Crime & Civil Disorders Boy George sentncd 1-16, 71D3 Atty (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99D3 RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207B2 G-20 summit protests turn violent 4-1, 194D2 G-20 protests death video rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cops suspended 4-9—4-15, 253G2 Boy George freed 5-11, 348A3 WWII code-breaker (Turing) treatmt regretted 9-10, 648B1 Composer Davies defrauder sentncd 11-2, 792E2 Universal jurisdictn legal chngs sought 12-15, 884E2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2 Israel arms exports banned 7-13, 546A2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Laos suspect (Orobator) pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3; transfer set, arrives 7-27—8-7, appeal filed 12-8, 933D2 China smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932B3 Economy & Business London Jan ‘09 stock exchng rptd 1-2, 6D3 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 1-23, 52B3 Auto indus govt aid set 1-27, 52E2 London Feb ‘09 stock exchng rptd 2-2, 61D1 London Mar ‘09 stock exchng rptd 3-2, 128A1 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141F2, B3–C3 London Apr ‘09 stock exchng rptd 4-2, 198A1 Budget unveiled, econ forecast issued 4-22, tax hike defended 4-23, 272E2 London May ‘09 stock exchng rptd 5-1, 304A3 London Jun ‘09 stock exchng rptd 6-1, 371D3 London Jul ‘09 stock exchng rptd 7-1, 442D1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 7-24, 545D1 London Aug ‘09 stock exchng rptd 8-3, 522A1 London Sep ‘09 stock exchng rptd 9-1, 586D1 London Oct ‘09 stock exchng rptd 10-1, 657A3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 10-23, 803E1 London Nov ‘09 stock exchng rptd 11-2, 759A1 Financial indus crisis tax backed 11-7, 775G3 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, London stock exchng drops 11-26, 829D1–E1 London Dec ‘09 stock exchng rptd 12-1, 831A1 Budget unveiled 12-9, 854D1 Check clearing system ‘18 end set 12-16, 937D3 London ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900E2, A3 Energy BP Tex refinery ‘05 blast fine upheld 3-12, 916G3 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 TNK-BP chair (Fridman) named 5-27, Summers deal ends 6-1, 379A1 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3 BP/Iraq oil field bid set, OKd 6-29—7-1, 437G2

—GREAT BP Tex refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1 BP/Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-3, 789D3 Shell buys Iraq oil field dvpt rights 12-12, 877D1 Tex BP ‘07 chem release damages awarded 12-18, 916D3 Shell, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-20, 943B1 Turkmen gas field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935D3 Environment & Pollution E Anglia Univ climate chng scientists e-mails posted 11-20; hack confrmd 11-21, Jones steps down 12-1, 828D2 Climate chng data manipulatn probe set 12-5, scientists leaked e-mails mulled 12-8, 842A1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, scored 12-7—12-21, 881C3; table 883B1 European Relations Dutch MP (Wilders) entry barred 2-12, 136C3 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 EU protectnsm mulled 3-1, 136D2 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188G2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396E2, A3–B3, E3, 397B1 EU financial regulatns plan opposed 6-19, 432A2 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432D2–E2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637B1 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, 627E3 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653C2 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 664F3 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685C2, G2–A3 EU treaty referendum urged 10-4, 685F3 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884D3 Atty (Mills) Italy convctn upheld 10-27, 750C1 Czech pres (Klaus) signs EU treaty 11-2, 765B2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787F3, 788E1 Aston named EU forgn policy chief 11-19, 802F2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835D2, F2–G2 Girl Italian slaying suspects convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, US support cont 12-7, 854E2 Family Issues Goody/Tweed wed 2-22, 139G3 Singer John Ukrainian adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708F2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Progressive ldrs summit held 3-27, 204F3 Commonwealth mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845C3–D3, F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F2 MacKay/Malik/Martin quit, Hogg nixes reelectn bid 5-14—5-19, electns sought 5-20, 343D2, B3–C3 Brown shuffles cabt 6-2—6-5; local electns held 6-4, party backing won, reforms proposed 6-8—6-10, 397D1 Defns min aide quits 9-3, 611A3 Liberal Democrats conf held 9-19—9-23, 686C1 Labour Party conf held, Brown interviewed 9-27—10-31, support polled, Sun backs Tories 9-28—9-30, 666C2, B3 Sup Ct sworn 10-1, 686D1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736F2 Tories conf held, Cameron turns 43 10-5—10-9, parties support polled 10-7, 685B3, 686C1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Forgn extremists banned 5-5, 310D2 French camp raided/migrants held, asylum bids denied 9-22, 666E1, A2 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818A2, E2–G2 Iraqi Conflict Basra airport security transferred 1-1, 81E3 Bus crash kills 7 2-17, 101A2 Troops cut set 3-8, 156G1 Hostage tape issued 3-21, 189D3 Basra base control transferred 3-31, 208B3 Maliki visits, troops missn ended 4-30, 297C2–D2 Aid worker (Hassan) slaying suspect convctd, sentcd 6-2, 380F1 Militant freed, cease-fire declared 6-9, 398G2

War probe opens, questnd 6-15—6-18; ltd pub hearings OKd 6-18, rules chng nixed 6-24, 449C1 Hostages remains returned, IDd 6-20—6-21, 433C3 Hostages slayings rptd, insurgent group violnc dropped 7-29—8-3; war probe opens 7-30, troops exit completed 7-31, 529C3–D3, 530A1–B1, G1 Baghdad shooting kills 2, security contractor held 8-9, 545F2 Shiite US detainees release mulled 8-17, 563E1 Slain hostage remains returned 9-2, 610B3 Hostage (MacLachlan) body recovered 9-2, 941D3 Sailors security pact passes parlt 10-13, deported refugees entry nixed 10-15, 730A1, D1 Documts leaked 11-21—11-23, probe opens 11-24, 820F3, 821E1 Hostage (Moore) freed, prisoner exchng deneid/Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 941C3, 942E1; photo 941E3 Kosovo Conflict IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318G1 Munic electns vote mulled 11-16—11-17, 803G1 Labor & Employment Jobless rise rptd 1-21, 52C3 Total/Irem constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68A3 Feb ‘09 jobless rate (6.7%) 4-22, 272D3 Latin American Relations Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, Brown survives confidnc vote 6-19—6-20, 447D1 Lockerbie Crash Bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, retuns to Libya 8-20, 550B1, B2 Bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3, 568A2 Bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 582D3, 583F1, A3–B3 Bomber (Megrahi) release, oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636B2, C3 Bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704A3–C3 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2 Pfizer/GlaxoSmithKline AIDS drug parternship set 4-16, 352A2 Swine flu cases confrmd 4-27—4-29, 281D1, 282G1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Gurdon wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2 AstraZeneca swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, donatns set 9-17, 697A1, F1 Assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, 937D2 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Evening Standard stake buy set 1-21, 76F2 Magna/Opel buy mulled 5-30—6-3, 366E2, D3 Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nixed 6-5, 481A2 Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626C2 Deutsche Telekom/France Telecom brands merger set 9-8, 626E2 Vauxhall sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale blocked 10-16, 767D2 GM nixes Vauxhall sale 11-3, 767D1, A2 Middle East Relations Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31E1 Hezbollah talks set, hailed 3-5—3-6, 156D3 Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 Iran’s Khamenei scores protests role 6-19, diplomats exit ordrd 6-22—6-23, 421E2, 422A1, 423A2 Iran emb workers held, freed 6-28—7-2, 439A2 Iran emb worker trial set 7-3, 464G2 Peace talks hosted 7-6, 546B1 Iran emb worker freed 7-18, 485B2 Iran emb worker (Rassam) trial cont 8-8, 562C1 Israel’s Barak visits, arrest warrant sought 9-29, Ya’alon nixes UK trip 10-5, 689G3 Financial svcs Iran deals banned 10-12, 711D2 Iran blast intell links claimed 10-19, 729G1 Iran emb workers (Rassam) sentncd 10-29, 768D1 W Bank border crossing opens 11-10, 790D3

1053

Iran seizes yacht 11-25, sailors freed 12-2, 857A3 Israeli forgn min (Livni) warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; visit urged 12-16, Hamas com role rptd 12-21, 884B2 Iran protests crack down scored 12-28, role claimed, amb (Gass) summoned 12-29, 940E3–F3 Monetary Issues Pound Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Interest rate cut 1-8, 8B2 Lloyds sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 1-9, 863D1 Banks rescue plan set, RBS govt stake buy set/natlzn denied 1-19, 36E1 Pound drops 1-23, 52C3 Pound Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 Interest rate cut 2-5, 68E3 Bank regulator (Crosby) quits 2-11, Lloyds ‘08 loss seen 2-13, 155A2–B2 RBS bonuses cut, exec pay frozen 2-17; ‘08 loss rptd, govt aid hiked 2-26, ex-CEO (Goodwin) pension mulled 2-26—2-27,, 155B2 HSBC US unit shut 3-2, 127D1 Pound Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 Interest rate cut, Bank of England bonds buy set 3-5, 155E2–F2 Lloyds govt stake buy OKd 3-6, 155F1 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Bank secrecy ease pressure cont 3-16, 163F2 Pound Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Pound May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Interest rate retained 5-7, 311D2 Pound Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 Europn 1-yr funds loaned 6-23, 433D1 Pound Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 Pound Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 Pound Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 Bank of England US$ loans halted 9-24, 651B3 Pound Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 Interest rate retained 10-6, 675C2 Pound Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 Pound Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 Bank bonuses tax set, proposal backed 12-9—12-10, 854D1 Pound ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3, D3 Nazis & Neo-Nazis D-Day marked 6-6, 386B2–C2 Obituaries Allingham, Henry W 7-18, 516A2 Annakin, Ken 4-22, 300B3 Ashley, Sir Bernard 2-14, 160A3 Ballard, JG 4-19, 280G2 Cardiff, Jack 4-22, 300D3 Cohen, Jerry 8-5, 580F2 Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 452E1 Dean, Millvina 5-31, 384F1 Downes, Sir Edward 7-10, 516F2 Fanthorpe, U A 4-28, 316G2 Flanagan, Barry 8-31, 648E2 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 George, Lord (Eddie) 4-18, 280D3 Godber, Sir George 2-7, 160C3 Goldsmith, Edward 8-21, 648E2 Goody, Jade 3-22, 192G2 Henderson, Sir Nicholas 3-16, 192A3 Jones, Jack 4-21, 300E3 Kaplicky, Jan 1-14, 56A2 Kennedy, Sir Ludovic 10-18, 752B3 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 La Rue, Danny 5-31, 400B3 Maddox, Sir John 4-12, 280F3 Martyn, John 1-29, 104F3 Maw, Nicholas 5-19, 364F3 McGoohan, Patrick J 1-13, 40G2 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Morris, Jeremy N 10-28, 880D2 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 Patch, Harry 7-25, 516F3 Phair, Venetia 4-30, 332F3 Richard, Wendy 2-26, 192F3 Richardson, Natasha 3-18, 176C3 Robson, Sir Bobby 7-31, 564G3 Salih, Tayeb 2-28, 176F3 Sugden, Mollie 7-1, 484G3 Todd, Richard 12-3, 896F3 Upward, Edward F 2-13, 160F3 Walters, Sir Alan 1-3, 40E3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Woodward, Edward 11-16, 840F3 Press & Broadcasting Gaza violnc victims aid appeal airing nixed, shown 1-22—1-26, 42B3–C3 BBC fined 4-3, 256C2 Iraq gen (Atta) files misquote suit 4-13, 254D3 Iran rptr freed 7-5, 464F2 Australia opens E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, probe reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931E3 Leb rptr (Collett) body find rptd 11-23, 877F3 Afghan, Guardian rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2

1054 GRECEANII— Religious Issues RC bp (Williamson) denies Holocaust 1-22; reinstated 1-24, remarks regretted, silence ordrd 1-27, 43D2 Muslim spec swimming sessns rptd 8-15, 561C2 Science & Technology Kao wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1, E1 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Stanford, cricket bd talks halted 2-17, 148C3 Man United wins Carling Cup 3-1, 950C1 London Marathon results 4-26, 332E1 2000/1000 Guineas results 5-2—5-3, 347A3 Man United wins Eng Premr League 5-16, 950B1 Rangers win Scot Premr League 5-24, 949G3 Man United loses Eur Champ Cup 5-27, 949F3 FA Cup results 5-30, 949F3 English Derby results 6-6, 399G2 Wimbledon results 7-4—7-5, 467E1 British Open results 7-19, 500C1–D1 Sr UK Open results 7-26, 708F1 Women’s British Open results 8-2, 595B2 Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895A3 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859G2 ATP World Tour Finals results 11-29, 951C1 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2–G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Pak Al Qaeda arrests rptd 1-21, 38F3 Documt photo block sought/posted, ofcl (Quick) quits 4-8—4-9, raids launched, thwarted plot claimed/suspect freed 4-8—4-11, 253C2 Suspects freed 4-22, 272D3 London ‘05 blasts suspects cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310A3 Detainee (Qatada) release sought 5-30, Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1 Ga terror training suspects held 6-10, 8-12, 833D2 Suspect (Ahmed) ‘06 exit, Pak torture link seen 7-7, 544F2–G2 Suspects torture role probe urged 8-4, allegatns denied 8-9—8-10, 544E1 US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, B2 US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626E1 Suspects assets freeze case heard 10-5, 686F1–G1 Hezbollah aid suspect chrgd 10-27, 815F3 London cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3 US flights bomb plotter convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, jt probes set 12-28, 897D3, 898D1 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58E1, G2 G-20 finance mins mtg hosted 3-13—3-14, 162A3–C3 G-20 summit hosted 4-1—4-2, 193A1, A2 G-7 mtg held 4-24, 298G2–A3 Afghan aid hiked 4-27, 314B2 Iceland loans deal OKd 6-6, 512B3 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1, G1 Sri Lanka, IMF loan OKd 7-24, 578G3–579A1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2, G2 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681G1 Indonesia quakes aid arrives 10-3, 724F3, 725A1 G-20 mtg hosted 11-6—11-7, 775D3 Transportation Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt mulled 3-5, 123B1 N Korea missile launch Sec Cncl mtg held 4-5, 215E2 Racism conf held, delegates walkout 4-20, 262A1 Ban Myanmar visit cooperatn scored 7-4, 462B2 Iraq sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498D1 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599E3 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1 Brown addresses Gen Assemb 9-23, 633E2 Iran A-program sanctns mulled 9-23, 634B2

FACTS Iran secret A-site revealed, talks held 9-25—10-1, 649A1–B1, 650E1 Gaza war crimes rpt res vote abstained 10-16, 730D2 Gaza war crimes rpt vote abstained 11-5, 790C2 NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-10, 862C2 UN Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Cayley) named 12-2, 890B2 Iran A-program mtg nixed 12-15, 876C3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Blair gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2 Mitchell opens Mideast/Eur tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2 Brown visits, Sen Kennedy honorary knighthood set 3-3—3-4, 124A2 Obamas visit 4-1, 193F1, 194B2 Amb named 5-27, 354D1 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 570E2 Clinton visits, reaffrms ‘spec’ ties 10-11—10-12, 704F2 Sup Ct justice (Ginsburg) collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718C1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release ordrd 1-14, 20A3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, intell cooperatn drop threat denied 2-5, 80G2–A3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) transfer deal OKd, monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112E1, B2–E2 Suspects renditns aid admitted 2-26, detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150B2, G2 Detainee (Mohamed) failed plea deal documts issued 3-23, probe urged 3-26, 290B2–E2 Cuba base detainees transfer sought 4-29, 305C3 Cuba base detainees Bermuda transfer rptd 6-11, 391A2, G2 Intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, 544D2

GRECEANII, Zinaida (Moldovan prime minister, 2008- ) Pres vote fails 6-3, confidnc vote won 6-10, 397D2–E2, A3 Parlt dissolved, electns set 6-15, 416F3 Parlt electns held, results rptd 7-29—8-4, 529C1 Voronin quits 9-11, 627E1

GRECH, Godwin Alleges car dealer/Treasury favoritism e-mail, declared fake 6-19—6-22, role mulled 6-23, 447B3, G3 Car dealer favoritism probe rpt issued, admits fake e-mail 8-4, misleading Sen com testimony seen 11-25, 851D3–G3

GREECE (Hellenic Republic) Accidents & Disasters Wildfires erupt, emergency declared/probe opens 8-21—8-24, firefighting plane crash kills 1 8-27, 577E1 Leb ship sinking kills 6 12-11, 943F2 African Relations Somalia pirates seize oil tanker (Maran Centaurus), cargo ship (Navios Apollon) 11-30—12-28, 903D2 Arts & Culture Acropolis Museum opens, Elgin Marbles return sought 6-20, 449B2 Crime & Civil Disorders May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329F3, 330A1 Cop slain 6-17, 591F1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia/NATO mtg hosted 6-27, 450F1 Economy & Labor Stock/bond mkts drop 12-7—12-8, 855F3 Budget deficit cut vowed 12-14, 875D2 Stock mkt rises 12-22, ‘10 budget passes parlt 12-24, 938A1 European Relations EU mtg held 3-1, 136B2 Macedonia ties mulled 4-3—4-5, 225C2–D2 Macedonia ties hike vowed 5-12, 344D2–E2 Georgia, OSCE monitors exit 6-30, 450C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D3 Parlt electns set 9-2, 591A1 Parlt electns held, Karamanlis drops party post 10-4, Papandreou sworn premr, names cabt 10-6, 686A2, C3; photo 686A3 Facts on Papandreou 10-6, 686E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-6, 733D3 Immigration & Refugee Issues French camp raided/migrants held, UK asylum bids denied 9-22, 666B2

Iraqi Conflict Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629E1 Kosovo Conflict NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423G3 Monetary Issues 10-yr bonds rise 12-15, 875B3 Obituaries Makarezos, Nikolaos 8-3o, 564C3 Press & Broadcasting Iran rptr freed 7-5, 464F2 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Athens blast hits McDonald’s 7-4, 591F1 Stock exchng blast hurts 1 9-2, 591D1 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit rating cut 1-14, 53C1 Credit watch set, rating cut 12-7—12-8, 855E3 Credit rating cut 12-16, 875E2 Debt rating cut, negative credit outlook set 12-22, 938C1–D1

GREEN, Al Wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

GREEN, Archie (Aaron) (1917-2009) Dies 3-22, 231E3

GREEN, Cody West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

GREEN, Gene (U.S. representative from Tex., 1993- ; Republican) Seated Ethics chair 1-6, 5A1

GREEN, Mike Among NHL power-play goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

GREEN, Nathan Wins Canadian Open 7-27, 563C3

GREEN, Pfc. Steven Convctd 5-7, 331D1–E1 Sentncd 5-21, 362F2–A3 Formally sentncd 9-4, 610D2–E2

GREENBERG, Bryan Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

GREENBERG, Cathy L. What Happy Working Mothers Know on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

GREENBERG, Maurice (Hank) Testifies to House com, AIG tenure mulled 4-2, 242A1 AIG damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506C3 AIG damages paymt nix upheld, setlmt seen 8-31, 585F3

GREENBERG, Richard Amer Plan revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3

GREEN Collar Economy, The (book) Jones quits 9-6, 602A3

GREEN Day (music group) 21st Century Breakdown on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1 Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

GREENHOUSE Gases—See CLIMATE Change GREENS (environmental group) Iceland’s Gisladottir govt sought 1-27, 53B1 Australia stimulus package set, passes House/nixed by Sen 2-3—2-13, revised bill passes Sen 2-13, 494D1 Ill House seat spec electn held 4-7, 219A2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396B2, G2–A3 Australia climate chng bill passes House/blocked, reintroductn vowed 6-4—8-13, renewable energy bill scored 8-20, 624B1 Mex parlt, local electns held 7-5, 460E2 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 665A1, D1

GREENSPAN, David Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

GREENWICH, Ellie (Eleanor Louise) (1940-2009) Dies 8-26, 596F2

GREENWOOD, Bruce Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

GREENWOOD, Paul Held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3

GREER Jr., Pedro Jose Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

GREF, German On Opel stake buy 5-30, 366E2

ON FILE

GREGG, Judd (U.S. senator from N.H., 1993- ; Republican) Named commerce secy 2-3, ex-aide (Koonce) lobbying ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D1, D2 Misses econ recovery plan vote 2-9, 73E2 Drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79E2 On Chrysler restructuring plan 2-19, 93C1 Locke named commerce secy 2-25, 113A1 On Obama budget proposals 3-20, 180E3–F3 Locke confrmd commerce secy 3-24, 181E3 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 354B1 IMF funds drop nixed 5-21, 355G1 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 On health care reform bill 10-7, 676B3

GREGOIRE, Christine (Wash. governor, 2005- ; Democrat) Gay domestic partnership bill passes legis 3-10—4-15, 266A3 Domestic partnerships law upheld 11-3, 756C2 Seattle mayoral electn results rptd 11-9, 780A1

GREGORY, Andre Grasses of a 1000 Colors opens in London 5-18, 451G2

GREGORY, Philippa White Queen on best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

GREIDER, Carol W. Wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3, 694A1–B1

GREIF, Michael Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2 Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

GREINKE, Zack AL ERA ldr, among Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F2 Wins AL Cy Young 11-17, 823B3

GREITNER, Gabriella Held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, freed 4-22, 326F1

GRENADA Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D3; 10-1, 733E3 Obituaries McDonald, Wesley L 2-8, 160D3

GRENIER, Zach 33 Variatns opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3

GRETZKY, Wayne On Coyotes sale 1-15, 159F2 Quits 9-24, 730E3–F3

GREUTERT, Kevin Saw VI on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

GREVIOUX, Kevin Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

GREY, Christopher Chrgs Ft Hood gunman (Hasan), mulls shooting 11-12, 777A3, D3

GREY, Lita (Lillita Louise MacMurray) (1908-95) Son dies 3-3, 192D2

GREY Gardens (TV show) Emmys won 9-20, 647E3, 648A1

GREY‘S Anatomy (TV show) Nielsen rating 5-14, 384A2

GRIER, David Alan Race opens in NYC 12-6, 954D2

GRIES, Jon Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

GRIFFEY Jr., Ken Joins Mariners 2-18, 278C1

GRIFFIN, Blake Named AP top player, wins Naismith Award 4-3—4-7, 230F2–G2 Wins Wooden Award 4-10, 951D3 Tops NBA draft 6-25, 450G3, 451A1

GRIFFIN, Kathy Ofcl Bk Club Selectn on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

GRIFFIN, Michael Quits 1-20, 373F1 Testifies to House com 9-15, 745C2

GRIFFIN, W.E. B. (William Edmund Butterworth 3rd) Black Ops on best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

GRIFFITH, Parker (U.S. representative from Ala., 2009- ; Democrat/Republican) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1 Joins GOP 12-22, 885A3–D3 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906E3, 907C3

2009 Index GRIFFITHS, Courtenay Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480D1, A2

GRIFFITHS, Richard Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

GRIGORYEVA, Lidiya 3d in Chicago marathon 10-11, 791G3

GRIM, Judge Arthur Named juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges review spec master 2-11, convctns nixed 3-26, 247D2–F2

GRIMSSON, Olafur Ragnar (Icelandic president, 1996- ) Seeks Gisladottir govt 1-27, 53A1

GRINDLEY, David Amer Plan revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3 Philanthropist revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2

GRINT, Rupert Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

GRISHAM, John Appeal on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212C1 Assoc on best-seller list 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1; 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1 Ford Cnty on best-seller list 11-30, 840A1

GROENEFELD, Anna-Lena Wins Wimbledon mixed doubles 7-5, 467A3

GROENER, Harry Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

GROGAN, John Marley & Me on best-seller list 2-2, 72C1

GROMOV, Mikhail L. Wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255B3–C3

GRONSTAL, Michael Vs gay marriage const amendmt 4-3, 216F1

GROSS, Bill On banks’ troubled assets sale plan 3-23, 178C1

GROSS, Paul Passchendaele wins Genies 4-4, 280C1–D1

GROSS, Ralph Sees Soc Sec assigned numbering system weakness 7-6, 574F1

GROSS Domestic Product (GDP)—See BUSINESS—GDP GROSSMAN, Allen Wins Bollingen Prize 2-16, 953D1

GROUNDSWELL (play) Opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

GROUPO Clarin Media curbs bill passes Sen, signed 10-10, 926C1

GROUP of Eight—See GROUP of Seven GROUP of Seven (G-7) Africa aid hike vow missed 1-16, 169E3 Japan finance min (Nakagawa) quits 2-17, 98E3 African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169E3 DC mtg held 4-24, 283G2 Italy summit held 6-13, 404C3, 405A1 Italy mtg held 6-13, 417G2 Italy’s Berlusconi visits Obama 6-15, 416E3 Iran protests crack down scored 6-26, 439G2 Italian pol scandals truce set 6-29, 463A3 Italy summit opens, emissns cuts vowed 7-8—7-9, 453A1, F1, D2, C3 Ger’s Merkel/Egypt’s Mubarak mtg set 7-8, 482C3 African aid vowed 7-10, 471D3, 472G2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored 8-21, 568D1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651F1, B2 UN food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812C1, G2

GROUP of 77 Climate treaty talks open 12-7—12-9, 841E2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held/boycotted, pol statemt scored 12-7—12-19, 881D2, 882D2, F2

GROUP of Twenty ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E1 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108C2 UK’s Brown visits US 3-3—3-4, 124B2 African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3

—GUNS UK finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 162A3 OPEC output levels retained 3-15, 180D2 Intl tax havens pressure cont 3-16, 163F2 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188G2 Intl stimulus package urged 3-25, 193B3 Progressive ldrs summit held 3-27, 204G3 London summit held, protests turn violent 4-1—4-2, 193A1, A2, 194D2 UK summit protests death video rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cops suspended 4-9—4-15, 253G2 G-7, IMF mtgs held 4-24—4-26, 283B2–C2, C3 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-25, 649B1 Pa summit held, reforms OKd 9-25, 651E1, D2 World Bank, IMF mtgs held 10-6—10-7, 674G2–A3, C3, 675C1 UK/US ‘spec’ ties reaffrmd 10-11, 704D3 Scotland mtg held 11-6—11-7, 775D3, 776A1

GROVES, Robert Confrmd 7-13; cuts ACORN ties, denies contract 9-11—9-23, testifies to House com 9-22, 659D1, G1, B2

GRUBBS, Jaimee Golfer Woods affair alleged 12-1, 839F2–G2

GRUDEN, Jon Fired 1-16, 55B3

GRUEVSKI, Nikola (Macedonian premier, 2006- ) Pres electn runoff held 4-5, 225B2

GRUNSFELD, John Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 5-11—5-24, 372B3–G3

GRUPO Clarin Argentina media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682A2

GRUPO Ferrovial SA Madrid blast hits ofc 2-9, 226F2

GRUPO Santander Banco de Venez natlzn deal signed 5-22, 395F1

GRUTTER v. Bollinger (2003) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302A2

GRUZVZRYVPROM Georgia WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19, dir held 12-20, 937G1

GRYBAUSKAITE, Dalia (Lithuanian president, 2009- ) Pres electn held 5-17, win rptd 5-21, 344C1–F1 Sworn 7-12, 512C3 Facts on 7-12, 512E3 Recalls Georgia amb (Laurinkus) 12-15, 903D1

GRYDER, Aaron Well Armed wins Dubai World Cup 3-28, 347B3

G-7—See GROUP of Seven GTC Biotherapeutics Inc. Anticlotting protein (ATryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202B1

G-20—See GROUP of Twenty GUADELOUPE (French overseas department) Protests turn violent 2-17, econ aid offrd 2-19, 117B1

GUAM (U.S. territory) Japan troops redeploymt deal signed 2-16, 109D2 Japan/US mil base relocatn plan mulled 10-20—10-21, 747G2 Japan/US mil base deal working group mulled 11-13—11-16, 795C1

GUANDIQUE, Ingmar Slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149E1*, A2 Chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 919G3

GUANTANAMO Bay—For terror capitves issues, see DEFENSE, U.S.—Secruity GUARDIAN (British newspaper) Afghan war support polled 7-13, 498F3 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump/Trafigura knowledge seen, libel suit warned 9-16, 654F1–G1 Moorhouse dies 11-26, 880D2 Afghan rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2

GUARNERI, Bartolomeo Giuseppe (1698-1744) Rosand violin fetches $10 mln 10-22, 752A3

GUATEMALA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Landslide buries 87, search halted 1-4—1-7, 83C1

Crime & Civil Disorders Exporter (Musa), daughter/atty slain 4-14—5-10, Rosenberg funeral held, murder warning tape issued/Colom denies role 5-11, 376F3, 377C1 Atty (Rosenberg) slaying suspects held 9-11, 682C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233E3 Colom resignatn urged 5-11, 377E1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733E3 Human Rights Ex-gen (Sanchez) convctd, sentncd 12-3, 929F3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 US brain-damaged illegal (Jiminez) ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3 Latin American Relations Honduras ex-pres (Zelaya) urges govt overthrow 7-14, 480A3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) returns 9-21, 643G1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Obituaries Laugerud, Kjell 12-9, 955B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1 Welfare & Social Services Food crisis calamity declared 9-8, 623B3

GUAY, Louis Freed 4-22, 326E1

GUDURIC, Bojan Chrgd 10-26, 822A3

GUEBUZA, Armando Emilio (Mozambican president, 2005- ) Vote held 10-28; candidates nix scored 10-29, reelectn rptd, appeal vowed 11-1—11-12, 783A1–B1, E1 At SADC spec summit 11-4—11-5, 783B2

GUEDE, Rudy UK girl Italian slaying suspcts convctd, sentncd 12-5, 854E2

GUERMA, Teguest On HIV drug treatmt rise 9-30, 697F2

GUERRERO, Vladimir Angels lose pennant 10-25, 752A1

GUERRORO-Espinoza, Juan Carlos Sentncd 3-19, 268F3

GUGGENHEIM Partners LLC E5/Nielsen publicatns buy set 12-10, 912B3

GUGINO, Carla Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Desire Under the Elms revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

GUIDING Light (TV show) CBS drops 4-1, last episode aired 9-18, 953G3–954A1

GUILL, Julianna Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

GUILLAUME, Daniel On Emerainville Muslim swimsuit ban 8-12, 561A2

GUILTY: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

GUINEA, Republic of African Relations AU sanctns set 2-5, 82A3 AU sanctns warned 9-18, 660E2 Forgn interventn urged, nixed 12-13—12-14, 871B1 Civil Strife Elite pres guards apology aired 7-24, 660F3 Anti-junta rally banned, protests turn violent 9-27—9-28; mil blamed, probe ordrd 9-29, crackdown scored 9-29—9-30, 660A2, F2, C3 Junta/oppositn talks mediator sent 10-5; protesters attack scored, probes set 10-7—10-14, Camara trial sought 10-14, 701A3 Sep protests crackdown rpt issued 10-27, UN probe arrives 11-25, 870B3, 871D1 Junta ldr (Camara) shot/transferred to Morocco, oppositn crackdown opens 12-3—12-4; health rptd, guard admits role 12-9—12-17, Sep protests mulled 12-14—12-17, 870A2, F2, B3, 871D1; photo 870E2 Junta ldr (Camara), aides ICC chrgs urged 12-21, 925F1

1055

Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-premr, mines mins freed 4-2, 660G3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Army infighting warned 10-1, 660C3 Arms embargos set 10-17—10-27, 871C1–D1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Conte son held 2-23; admits trafficking 2-25, chrgs lack rptd 9-29, 660E3 Economy & Labor Gen strike held, backed 10-12—10-13, 702A1 European Relations Diallo flees to France 10-1, 660C3 French ties mulled 10-4—10-6, 701E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Govt named 1-14, 34E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233E3 Camara pres bid mulled 8-23, unity govt urged, nixed 9-30—10-1, 660D2, B3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733F3 Camara resignatn urged 10-7, 701G3 Konate returns, takes control/urges army unity 12-5—12-9, civiln rule return urged, junta/oppositn talks halted 12-6—12-9, 870D2, 871A1 Trade, Aid & Investment China infrastructure investmt rptd 10-13, 702B1 China loans offrd 11-8, 776C3

GUINEA-Bissau, Republic of African Relations AU cont membership OKd, ECOWAS delegatn sent 3-3, 134C1 Civil Strife Army chief (Tagme) survives attack 1-5, 133F3 Army chief (Tagme)/pres (Vieira) slain, link mulled 3-1—3-2, 133A3, F3, 134C1 Coup suspects (Dabo/Proenca) slain, Embali held 6-5, 459E3–F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Mil rule nixed 3-2; Pereira sworn pres 3-3, electns intl aid sought 3-4, 134B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233F3 Pres electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458A3 Pres runoff held 7-26; vote backed 7-28, results rptd 7-29, 507C2 Facts on Sanha 7-26, 507G2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733F3 Obituaries Cabral, Luis 5-30, 400E2 Vieira, Joao Bernardo 3-2, 140G3 Trade, Aid & Investment Intl aid sought 3-3—3-4, 134B1, E1

GUINEA Human Rights Organization Anti-junta rally clashes deaths rptd 9-29, 660G2

GUITART, Francisco Coll y (1812-75) Canonized 10-11, 739G1

GUL, Abdullah (Turkish premier, 2002-03; president, 2007- ) Coup plot suspects held, sees mil chief (Basbug) 1-7—1-11, 23C1 Visits Iraq 3-23, 189C2, F2 At NATO summit, OKs Rasmussen secy gen apptmt 4-3—4-4, 213C2 Scores Obama, Armenia genocide remarks 4-25, 296E2 At Armenia soccer match 10-14, 707A2 On Sudan’s Bashir visit 11-6, 7888E3

GULF of Mexico—See MEXICO, Gulf of GULLICKSON, Carly Wins US Open mixed doubles 9-10, 631F2

GUNHUS, Lt. Col. Erik On Afghan violnc rise 6-11, 434C2 On Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt 10-5, 720E2–F2

GUNN, Anna Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

GUNN, Dr. David (d. 1993) Federal probe in killing of abortion doctor 6-5, 445B2

GUNS & Gun Control Crime & Law Enforcement Blackwater/Iraq civiln deaths suspects plead not guilty 1-6, 9A1 MBC Sri Lanka studios attacked 1-6, 9A3 Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-6, 39F1–G1 Liberia’s Taylor son sentncd 1-9, 50B1 Chechen exile/rights atty/student rptr slain 1-13—1-19, Novaya Gazeta staff permits sought 1-22, 36E2, B3, D3, G3 Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs commuted 1-19, 33E3 Rapper DMX sentncd 1-30, 88D3 Tenn church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247D3 Zimbabwe oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held, chrgs mulled/in ct 2-13—2-18, 97C1–D1

1056 GUO— Mex state gov convoy attack kills 1 2-22, 171F2 Mex/US flow scored 2-24; crackdown rptd, House com hearing held 2-25, Ariz store owner (Iknadosian) trial opens 3-9, 171C1, F1–B2 Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247E3 Kyrgyz oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, chrgd, jailing ordrd 3-11, 187C2–D2 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149A1 Ger HS ex-student kills 15, self 3-11, Internet warning mulled 3-12, 154G2–C3 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 Calif cops shootout kills 5 3-21—3-24, 246F3–247A1 US/Mex border security hiked, violnc mulled 3-24—3-25, 185D3, 186B1 Rapper (TI) sentncd 3-27, 212E1 NYS immigrant ctr shooter kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246C2 Giants cut Burress 4-3, 299D1 Pa gunman kills 3 4-4, racist postings rptd 4-7, 246B3 US right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, 263A1–B1 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429A2, D2–E2 Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1 Bolivia shootout kills 3, Morales thwarted assassinatn plot claimed 4-16, 294A1–B1 US/Somali group ties suspects plead guilty 4-17—7-28, 781A1 Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871B3 Azerbaijan univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, suspects held 5-1—5-4, 377G2 Wesleyan U gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1 Mex prison break frees 53 5-16, 359C2 Mex state raids net suspects 5-26, 359A2 Rapper (TI) jailed 5-26, 364E2 Music producer (Spector) sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525D1 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, shooting scored, suspect held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370A2, F2, D3 Mex violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431B2–D2 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, shut 6-11, 391G3 Mex/US smuggling curbs questnd 6-18, 481B1 Somalia thieves convctd, pub amputatns held 6-21—6-25, 430B3 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888B1 Zimbabwe agri dep min nominee (Bennett) trial set 7-1, 680B3 NFL ex-player (McNair), girlfriend found dead 7-4, gun buy rptd, murder-suicide ruled 7-5—7-8, 467B3–C3 Mumbai terror attack suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499E3–F3 Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921C1 Boxer (Forrest) slain, suspects held 7-25—8-6, 531G3 Pa gym gunman kills 3, self 8-4, guns buy rptd 8-7, 554A2 Mex shootout kills 12+ 8-6, 556B3 Mex customs inspectors replaced 8-14—8-16, 556D3 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 NFL’s Burress pleads guilty 8-20, 632A1 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses rpt issued 8-24, 565B3, 566C1, F1 Myanmar homes raided 8-24, 684D2 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying cases merger ordrd 9-3, 667G3 UK terror suspect (Stewart-Whyte) pleads guilty 9-7, 608G1 US ‘08 violent crime drop rptd 9-14, 887E3 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726B3 Mex shooting kills 2, victims IDd 9-27—9-28, 682A1 Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817D3 Zimbabwe dep min nominee (Bennett) held/chrgd, freed on bail 10-14—10-16, 746C2

FACTS US terror aid suspect (Mehanna) chrgd 10-21, 816E1 Hezbollah aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Mich imam (Abdullah) slain 10-28, 760F2, B3 Canadian biker gang slaying suspects convctd 10-29, 927F1 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1, D2; photo 757A3 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled, intell probe sought 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777A2, 778B1 Northn Mariana gunman kills 4, self 11-20, motive mulled 11-22, 888C2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821F2 Hungary univ shooting kills 1, gunman surrenders/detentn ordrd 11-26—11-28, 876F1 Wash shooting kills 4 11-29, suspect (Clemmons) slain, kin chrgd 12-1—12-9, 888A2 Wash Jewish Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920A2 Rapper (TI) freed, enters halfway home 12-22, 954A3 W Bank shooting kills 1 12-24, 945F1 NBA’s Arenas probes rptd 12-24—12-28, 951E2 Political & Legislative Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11E2 Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20G3 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, on advocacy 1-25, 46A3, C3 DC House vote bill passes Sen 2-26, 146F3 Natl parks rule blocked 3-19, measure clears Cong, signed 5-12—5-22, 354F2 US’s Holder/Napolitano visit Mex 4-2—4-3, 249G2, B3 Obama visits Mex 4-15—4-16, 270E3, 271A1–C1 Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266E1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, NRA oppositn set 7-13—7-16, 471F1, B2–C2, C3; excerpts 470G2 Health care reform town-hall mtgs held 8-11—8-17, 552E1 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2 Amtrak passengers arms carrying measure passes Sen 9-17, 658A3 Ill curbs case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848A3 Amtrak checked baggage authrzn clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866G3 PI martial law lifted 12-12, 874A1

GUO Quan Sentncd 10-16, 724C3

GUPTA, Sanjay Surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 Drops surgeon gen bid 3-5, 145B3

GURA, Alan Ill gun curbs case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677A2

GURDON, John Wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2–A3

GURIRA, Danai Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

GUSMAO, Jose Alexandre (Xanana) (East Timorese president, 2002-07; premier, 2007- ) Orders Suai massacre suspect (Bere) release 8-30; survives confidnc vote 10-12, claims opportunism 10-13, 835A1–F1, A2

GUSTAFSON, Sophie Loses Evian Masters 7-26, 595A3

GUTERRES, Antonio (Portuguese premier, 1995-99) Rptd UNHCR high comr 1-1, 3B2 Visits Myanmar 3-7—3-12, 187B3–C3, E3 Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667D1

GUTHRIE, Brett (U.S. representative from Ky., 2009- ; Republican) Pvt student lenders ban measure nixed 9-17, 641D2

GUTIERREZ Borbua, Lucio Pres electn held 4-26, loss seen 4-28, 294C2 Pres electn final results issued 5-5, 308E3

GUTTENBERG, Karl-Theodor zu Named econ min 2-8, 99A3

Vs Magna/Opel buy 5-30, 366C3 Sworn defns min 10-28, 749B3 Visits Afghan 12-11, 894A3

GUTTENBERG, Karl-Theodr zu On Afghan air strike civiln deaths withheld info 11-26, 836A1

GUYANA, Cooperative Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233F3; 10-1, 733G3 Obituaries Jagan, Janet 3-31, 212E2

GUYS and Dolls (play) Revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

GUZMAN, Sergio US border rush fails, held 9-22, 724C2

GUZMAN Loera, Joaquin Among Forbes richest 3-11, listing scored 3-12, 171E2 US chrgs set 8-20, 556E2 Beltran Leyva slain 12-16, 928E2

GWATHMEY, Charles (1938-2009) Dies 8-3, 531G3

GYARI, Lodi On Dalai Lama/Obama mtg delay 10-6, 712D3–E3

GYGAX, (Ernest) Gary (1938-2008) Arneson dies 4-7, 256D2

GYLLENHAAL, Maggie Weds Sarsgaard 5-2, 348B3

GYMNASTICS Awards & Honors Johnson wins Sullivan Award 4-15, 951B3

GYPSIES (Roma) Serb ex-fighters held, chrgd 11-5—11-6, 822E2

GYURSCANY, Ferenc (Hungarian premier, 2004-09) Proposes Eastn Eur econ rescue plan 3-1, 136F2 Reelected party chair, quits 3-21—3-23, 188F3–189B1 Successor (Bajnai) named, confrmd 4-14, 272G3, 273B1–D1

H HAARDE, Geir (Icelandic premier, 2006-09) Protests held, sets early electns 1-21—1-23; quits 1-26, Gisladottir premr bid nixed, govt sought 1-26—1-27, 52D3–E3, G3–53A1 Replacemt (Sigurdardottir) sworn 2-1, 68G3 Parlt electns held 4-25, 295D3, 296B1

HAARETZ (Israeli newspaper) Elon dies 5-25, 384E2 Palestinian state proposal rptd 12-1, 838B3

HAAS, Jay Wins Sr Players Champ 10-4, 708D1

HAAS, Tommy Loses Wimbledon semi 7-3, 467B2

HABEAS Corpus, Writ of—See CRIME—Prisons HABITAT for Humanity Millard Fuller dies 2-3, 72F1

HABIT of Art, The (play) Opens in London 11-17, 896B1

HABYARIMANA, Maj. Gen. Juvenal (1937-94) (Rwandan president, 1973-94) Brother-in-law (Zigiranyirazo) convctn nixed 11-16, 923D2

HADDAD, Hassan Bahai spying trial opens 8-18, 941G2

HADER, Bill Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

HADID, Zaha Rome museum (Maxxi) launched 11-14, 953F2

HADLEY, Stephen J. (U.S. national security adviser, 2005- ) On N Korea A-program uranium enrichmt 1-7, 1-19, 36B1, D1

HADZIC, Goran Serbia submits EU entry bid 12-22, 939C2

ON FILE

HAERING, Marcus Trial opens 12-15, cleared 12-21, 939B3

HAFETZ, Jonathan Terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn case denied by Sup Ct 3-6, 148F3

HAFEZ, Amin al- (1926-2009) (Lebanese premier, 1973) Dies 7-13, 955A2

HAFEZ, Amin el- (1921?-2009) Dies 7-13, 955A2

HAGEL, Chuck (U.S. senator from Neb., 1997-2009; Republican) Named intell advisory bd member 10-28, 916E1

HAGER, Jenna Dad gives farewell address 1-15, 19B1 Joins ‘Today’ show 8-31, 595G3

HAGGARD, Pastor Ted Sex partner church paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3

HAHN, Kathryn Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

HAIDER, Aminatou Wins RFK Civil Courage Prize 10-20; Westn Sahara entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3, F3–904B1

HAIDER, Joerg (1950-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

HAIR (play) Opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1 Tony won 6-7, 400D1

HAIRSTON Jr., Jerry Yankees win pennant 10-25, 751G3

HAITI, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Migrant boat sinking kills 15+, survivors found/rescue search ends 7-26—7-29, 527G1 UN plane crash kills 11 10-9, 818D1 Arts & Culture Danticat wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233G3 Sen electns held 4-19, results delay seen 4-20, 270C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 733G3 Fanmi Lavalas party banned 11-25, 930A1 Immigration & Refugee Issues US immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Intl aid vowed 4-14, 270B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 4-16, 270F1

HAJIZADA, Adnan Held 7-8; arrests questnd 7-17—7-20, pretrial release nixed 7-20, 544B1–C1 Chrgs hiked 8-21, 607A1 Convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820A2

HAJJ, Gen. Ali Custody transfer sought 3-1, 211B1 Freed 4-29, 312C2

HAKIKAT (Russian newspaper) Akhmedilov found dead 8-11, 544E3

HAKIM, Abdul Aziz alDies 8-26; funeral held, flown to Iraq 8-27—8-28, buried 8-29, 592B1, B2

HAKIM, Ammar alDad dies 8-26; urges Maliki coalitn role 8-28, named party ldr 8-31, 592D2

HAKIM, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir al- (d. 2003) Brother dies 8-26, 592B2

HALDEMAN Jr., Charles Named Freddie Mac CEO 7-21, 910A1 ‘09 compensatn rptd 12-24, 909E3

HALDERMAN, Robert J. Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692F1

HALE, Robert On Obama ‘10 budget final proposals 5-7, 320A3

HALE, Tony Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

HALEY, Bryan Gran Torino on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

HALEY, Jackie Earle Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

HALEY, Todd Named Chiefs coach 2-6, 176C2

2009 Index HALF the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (book) Herrera wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191G3

HALF Yard Productions White House crashers TV show role seen 11-26, 829C3

HALIMI, Ilan (d. 2006) Murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1–G1

HALL, Andrew Occidental/Phibro buy set 10-9, 742A2–B2

HALL, Katori Mountaintop opens in London 7-20, 564D2

HALL, Lee Wins Tony, misses for best score 6-7, 399F3, 400E1

HALL, Ryan 3d in Boston Marathon 4-20, 332D1

HALL, Willis (1929-2005) Waterhouse dies 9-4, 648E3

HALLADAY, Roy AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 Trade deadline passes 7-31, 531A2 Among AL ERA/wins/Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F2 Traded to Phillies, signs extensn 12-16, 948D3

HALLIBURTON Co. Defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2

HALPERIN, Ian Unmasked on best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

HALPRIN, Lawrence (1916-2009) Dies 10-25, 792D3

HALYBURTON (U.S. frigate) Somali pirates hostage standoff joined 4-10, 237E2

HAM, Gen. Carter Named Ft Hood shooting probe ldr 11-23, 812E3–F3

HAMAD, Fathi On rocket attacks halt 11-21, 838G3

HAMADA, Yasukazu On Somalia antipiracy forces deploymt 1-28, 76D2

HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement)—See PALESTINIANS HAMBALI US terror detainees interrogatn techniques defended 8-24, 566B3

HAMBURG, John I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

HAMBURG, Dr. Margaret Named FDA comr 3-14, 182F1 FDA comr nominatn Sen com hearing held 5-13, confrmd 5-18, 354D1 Cheaper drugs import measures fail in Sen 12-15, 864B1

HAMDAN, Moussa Ali Chrgd 11-24, 878D2

HAMDAN, Gen. Mustafa Custody transfer sought 3-1, 211C1 Freed 4-29, 312C2

HAMDAN, Naji Convctd 10-12, 893G2

HAMDAN, Salim Ahmed ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12A1 Freed 1-8, 20D2

HAMDANI, Gen. Raad Majid alReconciliatn talks halt rptd 4-26, 297E1

HAMDI v. Ashcroft (2004) Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428E2

HAMELS, Cole Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752G1 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770E2–F2, A3

HAMIDZADA, Humayun Sees pres electn ‘illegitimate’ vote 1-29, 54G1

HAMILTON, Alexander (1755-1804) Secy Geithner defended 3-18, 162D2

HAMILTON, Josh AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3

HAMILTON, Tyler Admits positive test, sets retiremt 4-17, banned 6-16, 515E3

HAMLET (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

HAMLIN, Denny Wins Ford 400 11-22, 859E3

HAMMAMY, Hedi Cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506D1

—HAREWOOD 1057 HAMMARSTEN, Gustaf Bruno on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

HAMMER, Christopher Justice Dept backs Defns of Marriage Act 6-12, 408F2–G2

HAMON, Benoit Urges Mitterrand resignatn 10-7, 707A3

HAMPTON, Brandon Mom admits Sen Ensign affair 6-17, 410F1

HAMPTON, Christopher God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Philanthropist revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2 God of Carnage wins Tonys 6-7, 400A1

HAMPTON, Cynthia Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, IDs self 6-17, 410D1–F1 Sen Ensign parents paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9; harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, reelectn bid cont 7-13, 478F1, A2, C2

HAMPTON, Douglas Wife admits Sen Ensign affair 6-17, 410E1–F1 Sen Ensign parents paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9; alleges wife harassmt, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, reelectn bid cont 7-13, 478G1–C2

HAMPTON (Va.) Coliseum Phish reunion tour opens 3-6, 176F2

HAMUTENYA, Hidipo Electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850B2

HAN, Hee-Won 3d in Women’s British Open 8-2, 595D2

HANCE, Ken On Gonzales poly sci teaching job 7-30, 574E2

HANCOCK, John Lee Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

HANCOCK, Sheila Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

HANDICAPPED—See DISABLED Persons HANDLE with Care (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212A1

HANEEF, Fahmeeda Syed Mohammed Convctd, sentncd 7-27, 8-6, 594F3

HANEKE, Michael White Ribbon wins Cannes top prize 5-24, 363G3–364A1

HANES, Melodee Sen Baucus ties rptd 12-5, atty apptmt backing confrmd 12-6, 908B3–C3

HANEY, Paul Prichard (1928-2009) Dies 5-28, 400A3

HANGGI, Kristin Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

HANGOVER, The (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

HANG Seng Index—See HONG Kong Stock Exchange HANIYA, Ismail Addresses Gaza mosque 4-17, 313A2 Hosts US’s Carter 6-16, 546D3 On forgn Islamists Gaza role 8-14, 563C2 Marks Hamas founding anniv 12-14, 945C3

HANKS, Colin 33 Variatns opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3

HANKS, Tom Angels & Demons on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

HANNAFORD Bros. Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554D1

HANNAH Montana: The Movie (film/recording) Film on top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Recording on best-seller list 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1

HANNAH Montana 3 (TV show/recording) Recording on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

HANNITY, Sean Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62B2

HANNOUN, Muhammad Held 4-29, 311C3

HANOI Stock Exchange Index drops 11-25, 935D1

HANOUNE, Louisa Pres electn held 4-9, loss rptd 4-10, 248B1

HANSA India (Iranian ship) Arms embargo violatns seen 12-10, 876E3

HANSBROUGH, Tyler UNC wins NCAA basketball title 4-6, 229E3, 230E1 In NBA draft 6-25, 451C1

HANSEN, Clifford Peter (1912-2009) (Wyo. governor, 1963-67; U.S. senator, 1967-78; Republican) Dies 10-20, 772F1

HAN Seung Soo (South Korean premier, 2008- ) Mulls long-range missile dvpt 4-6, 215B3 Ex-pres (Roh) mourning blocked 5-23, 360F3

HANSON, Alexander Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954A2

HANSON, Judge Robert Iowa gay marriage ban nixed 4-3, 216D1

HANSON, Tommy 3d in NL top rookie voting 11-16, 824E1

HANSSON, Martin Refs World Cup qualifying match 11-18, Ireland seeks replay, nixed 11-19—11-20, 858F3

HANTUCHOVA, Daniela Loses Australian Open doubles 1-30, 71G1

HAPP, J. A. Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752A2 2d in NL top rookie voting 11-16, 824E1

HAPPINESS (play) Opens in NYC 3-30, 256B1

HAPPY-Go-Lucky (film) Natl Film Critics awards won 1-3, 24A3, B3* Hawkins wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2

HAQ, alDir (Jabarin) W Bank exit blocked 3-10, prize presented 3-13, 210F3

HAQ, Naveed Afzal Convctd 12-15, 920G1

HAQ, Nayyera On Citigroup tax break 12-15, 909E2

HAQQANI, Jalaluddin US benchmarks Sen com hearing held 4-3, 229E1 Pak border clashes kill 29 5-29, 381F3 Insurgent network threat seen 9-20, 635F2 Pak tribes, army deals rptd 10-19, 710C1

HAQQANI, Sirajuddin Insurgent network threat seen 9-20, 635F2 Pak tribes, army deals rptd 10-19, 710C1 US drone missile strike kills 13 12-26, 947A2

HARA, Dean Files Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit 3-3, 150D1–E1

HARA, Tatsunori Japan wins World Baseball Classic 3-23, 190A3

HARAKAH (Malaysian newspaper) Press ban set, lifted 3-23, 4-3, 223B2

HARAMAIN Islamic Foundation, AlNSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged 2-11, appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-27—2-28, 243G3–244A1, E1 Warrantless spying classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen 5-29, govt sanctns nixed, case upheld 6-3, 410F2 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit attys clearnc order nix sought 11-10, 916B1–C1

HARANDI, Mohammad Hossein Saffar Quits 7-26, 519C1

HARASZTI, Miklos On Dogan fine 9-16, 706D2 Questns Kazakh press freedoms 9-22, 663C2

HARB, Dib Hani Chrgd 11-24, 878D2

HARBI, Mohamed Atiq Awayd al-—See AWFI, Abu Hareth Muhammad alHARBORS & Ports Accidents & Disasters UK/French A-subs collide 2-3, Vanguard Scotland return rptd 2-16, 91D3, F3 Chinese cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124E2 Saudi flooding kills 150 11-25, 944G1 Leb ships sinkings kill 18+, survivors rescued 12-11—12-20, 943E2–F2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Venez ports seizure ordrd 3-15, 204F2 GdF execs bonus pay nixed 3-26, 207C1 Demonstrations & Protests Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Mex cops attacks kill 5+ 7-11; suspects held 7-12, corpses found, IDd 7-13—7-14, 480F3 Mex meth ingredients seized 10-2, 747C2 Mex drug cartel alleged members held in US 10-21—10-22, 747E1 Military Issues Georgia breakaway region, Russian naval base plans seen 1-26, 85F1 WWII start anniv marked 9-1, 591D2 UK sailors Iraq security deal passes parlt 10-13, 730D1 Japan/US secret deals probe opposed 10-21, 747C3 USS NY exits Va 10-29, 914D3 Russia nixes Crimea FSB role 12-1, 892D3 Safety Issues US cruise ship safety measures pass House 11-17, 908E1 Terrorism & Sabotage Saudi seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, 21B2 Seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66E3 Mumbai attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103A3 Somalia towns control lost 5-17—5-18, 341C3 Somalia port blockade urged 5-20, 430A3 Somalia, AU peacekeepers hike opposed 7-3, 459D2 Mumbai attack suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499E3 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking probe set 8-20, 550D3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616F1 Somalia Islamists infighting seen 9-30, bombings warned 12-7, 889D2, F2 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4, Iran role rptd 11-11, 878F1, A2 Trade & Aid Issues N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404B1 Russian oil pipeline opens 12-28, 938G3

HARBURG, E(dgar) Y(ipsel) (1896-1981) Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

HARDBALL (TV show) Matthews nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5A3

HARDEN, James In NBA draft 6-25, 451A1, D1

HARDEN, Marcia Gay God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Wins Tony 6-7, 400A1, D1

HARDIN, Melora 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

HARDING, Raymond Chrgd 4-15, 265A3

HARDING, Warren Gamaliel (1865-1923) (U.S. president, 1921-23; Republican) Obama resworn 1-21, 25C2

HARDRICT, Cory Gran Torino on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

HARD Rock International Inc. Jackson memorabilia auctnd 11-24, 840G1

HARE, Sir David Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

HAREL, Gen. Dan On Gaza war crimes probe rpt 4-22, 312F3

HAREN, Dan Among NL Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F3

HAREWOOD, David Mountaintop opens in London 7-20, 564D2

1058 HARIRI— HARIRI, Rafik Bahaa Edine al(1944-2005) (Lebanese premier, 1992-98/2000-04) Slaying probe suspects freed 2-25, UN tribunal opens 3-1, 210G3 US/Syria delegatn visit set 3-3, 123A3 Slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312A2 US’s Clinton visits Leb 4-26, 297G3 Hezbollah slaying role alleged, denied 5-23, 380D2 Parlt electns held 6-7, results rptd 6-8, 397G3 US amb restoratn set 6-23, 465E2 Son named premr 6-27, 450B2, D2–F2 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707F3 Son visits Syria 12-19—12-20, 945E3

HARIRI, Saad (Lebanese premier, 2009- ) Parlt electns held 6-7, results rptd 6-8, 397G3 Sees Nasrallah, named premr 6-25—6-27, 450A2 Facts on 6-27, 450E2 Drops unity govt bid, steps down 9-10, 610C3 Renamed premr 9-16, unity govt set, reforms vowed 11-9, 790C1 Unity govt OKd 12-10, 877A3 Visits Syria 12-19—12-20, 945D3–F3

HARKIN, Tom (Thomas Richard) (U.S. senator from Iowa, 1985- ; Democrat) Reseated Agri chair 1-6, 5A2 Sees USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) confrmatn 1-14, 18C1 Introduces workers unionizing vote options bill 3-10, 164E3 Named health com chair 9-9, 599F1

HARMAN, Jane (U.S. representative from Calif., 1993-99/2001- ; Democrat) AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; NYT rptg delay mulled 4-20, com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263F1, F2 AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24, NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, 206B2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, 323D1 Israeli/US atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916B2

HARMER, David House seat primary held 9-1, 585E1 Loses electn 11-3, 756F1

HARPER, Stephen Joseph (Canadian prime minister, 2006- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Fscl yr ‘09 budget unveiled 1-27, 50D2, F2 Vs US econ recovery plan measures 2-18, hosts Obama 2-19, 91F1 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) repatriatn request ordrd 4-23, 719A1–B1 Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723C1 Toronto terror plotter freed 5-22, 413C1 Marks D-Day 6-6, 386B2 At N Amer summit 8-9—8-10, 541E1 Sees Layton 8-25, confidnc vote seen 9-1, 589D1–G1 Visits US 9-16—9-17, 643A1 Survives confidnc vote 10-1, party support polled 10-5, 681F2, D3 Suspends parlt 12-30, 926G2, 927D1

HARPERCOLLINS Publishers Inc. (of News Corp.) Gov Palin bk deal revealed 5-12, 455C3 Palin bk published 11-17, 797C2

HARRACH, Bekkay Al Qaeda threats suspect held 9-24, 665A3

HARRELSON, Woody 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

HARRINGTON, Padraig ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Tour Champ results 9-27, 670B2

HARRIS, Charlaine Dead and Gone on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1 Living Dead in Dallas on best-seller list 6-29, 452C1 Dead Until Dark on best-seller list 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532C1 From Dead to Worse on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1; 9-28, 672C1

HARRIS, Cheryl Son Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38E2

HARRIS, Danneel Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

FACTS HARRIS, E(verette) Lynn (1955-2009) Dies 7-23, autopsy rpt issued 7-29, 532F1

HARRIS, Franco Son loses Pittsburgh mayoral electn 11-3, 756G3

HARRIS, Franco Don Loses Pittsburgh mayoral electn 11-3, 756G3

HARRIS, James Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

HARRIS, John Indicted 4-2, 218F3 Pleads not guilty 4-16, 243C2

HARRIS, Josh We Live in Public wins Sundance Festival award 1-24, 104C2

HARRIS, Lydia Death Row records sold 1-15, 104F2

HARRIS, Naomie Ninja Assassin on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

HARRIS, Neil Patrick Hosts Tonys 6-7, 399D3 Hosts Emmys 9-20, 647B3

HARRIS, Rachel Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

HARRIS, Rosemary Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

HARRISON, James Named NFL top defensive player 1-5, 55E2 Steelers win Super Bowl, sets longest play mark 2-1, 70D1, C2, C3

HARRISON, Randy Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

HARRISON, Selig On N Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim 1-17, 35C3, E3–F3

HARRYHAUSEN, Ray Schneer dies 1-21, 72E3

HARRY Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

HARSHBERGER, Scott Named ACORN internal probe ldr 9-22, 638D3

HART, John (1917-2009) Dies 9-20, 731C3

HARTFORD (U.S. submarine) Navy transport collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266B3

HARTFORD Financial Services Group Inc. Sen Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638C2

HARTING, Carla Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

HARTMAN, Florence Comptempt found, fined 9-14, 628B1–E1

HARTSBURG, Craig Fired 2-2, 159E2

HARTWIG, Justin Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70D2, E3

HARVARD University (Cambridge, Mass.) Kagan named solicitor gen 1-5, 6D2 Sunstein named info/regulatory affairs ofc head 1-7, 6G2 Genachowski FCC chair nominatn seen 1-14, 49A3 Genachowski named FCC chair 3-3, 145A2 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2 Beer dies 4-7, 280A3 May dies 6-1, 420G3 Matthiessen prof endowmt set 6-2, 574F2 Leach named NEH chair 6-3, 373A3 Prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-2, 504D3, 505A2 Freedberg dies 8-25, 955F1 Regulatory chief nominee (Sunstein) confrmd 9-10, 656E2 Kirchner dies 9-17, 708E3 Huybers/Mahadevan win MacArthurs 9-22, 671B2 Mahadevan wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Szostak wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3 Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918E2

Mostly water planet find rptd 12-16, 952B1

HARVEY, Anne-Charlotte Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

HARVEY, Doug Elected to HOF 12-7, 949A2

HARVEY, Paul (Paul Harvey Aurandt) (1918-2009) Dies 2-28, 140E3

HARVEY, Richard Named Karadzic atty, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1–C1

HARVEY, Steve Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1

HARVICK, Kevin 2d in Daytona 500 2-15, 103G3

HARVIN, Percy Fla wins BCS Champ 1-8, 23D3 In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

HASAN, Abdul Rakib Convctd 10-16, 930G1

HASAN, Maj. Nidal Malik Ft Hood shooting kills 13, held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757F1–B2, D2–G2; photo 757A3 Shooting mulled, intell probe sought/’07 speech rptd 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777A2, E3, G3–778D1 Ft Hood shooting probes set/Ham named ldr, Sen com hearings open 11-19—11-23; confinemt ordrd/cont hosp stay OKd, paralysis rptd 11-20—11-22, imam e-mails mulled 11-21, 812C3, E3–813A1, C1, E1 Chrgs hiked 12-2, 915D1 Yemeni cleric (Awlaki) death mulled 12-24—12-25, 944A3

HASANOV, Ali On Tazadlar ed, rptr sentncs 4-8, 252F3

HASAN Wirayuda Questns Myanmar ‘10 electns 7-23, 495A1

HASEK, Dominik Ovechkin wins Hart Trophy 6-18, 435F2

HASHEMI, Faezeh Arrest rptd 6-21, 422A2 At Tehran protests, held 12-7, 857E1

HASHEMI, Maysoon al- (d. 2006) Baghdad cops arrest rptd 2-23, 117F3

HASHEMI, Tariq alBaghdad cops arrest rptd 2-23, 117F3 Vetoes electn law 11-18, 804F3–805B1 Chngd electns law passes parlt 11-23, 837A3–B3 Electn law passes parlt 12-6, 856A3–B3

HASINA Wazed, Sheik (Bangladeshi prime minister, 1996-2001/09- ) Sworn 1-6, 9B1 Facts on 1-6, 9D1 OKs paramil border guards peace deal 2-25; deploys tanks 2-26, sets spec tribunal 2-27, 137A3–D3

HASLETT, Jim Replacemt (Spagnuolo) named 1-17, 55A3

HASSAN, Anwar Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

HASSAN, Kamal Admits Somali terror group role, pleads guilty 2-9—8-12, 780C3–F3 Assoc (Mohamed) held 11-19, pleads not guilty 11-24, 849C2

HASSAN, Margaret (d. 2004) Slaying suspect (Rawi) convctd, sentncd 6-2, 380F1

HASSAN, Maulawi Slaying rptd 3-23, 195A2

HASSAN, Mohamed Abdullahi Chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–C1

HASSAN, Sabawi Ibrahim alConvctd, sentncd 3-11, 156D2

HASSAN, Watban Ibrahim alConvctd, sentncd 3-11, 156D2

HASTINGS, Special Master George Nixes MMR vaccine, autism link 2-12, 133B1–C1

HASTINGS College of the Law (San Francisco, Calif.) Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1

ON FILE

HATCH, Orrin G. (U.S. senator from Utah, 1977- ; Republican) Backs labor secy nominee (Solis) confrmatn 1-9, 18B2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107D3 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 470G2 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569C3 Mourns Sen Kennedy 8-28, mulls successn apptmt 8-30, 584F2, E3 Health care reform measure nixed 9-30, 655D3

HATCHER, Teri Coraline on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

HATHAWAY, Anne Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2 Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

HATHAWAY, Melissa Proposes cybersecurity guidelines 5-29, 410C3 Nixes cybersecurity czar applicatn 8-3, econ advisers clash rptd 8-4, 602B3–D3

HATIM, Saeed Release ordrd 12-16, 862A1

HATLEY, Master Sgt. John Army medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118F2–G2 Slayings troop (Mayo) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-30, 208F3 Convctd, sentncd 4-15—4-16, 254E3–G3

HATOYAMA, Ichiro (1883-1959) (Japanese premier, 1954-56) Grandson elected party ldr 5-16, 342E2 Parlt electns held 8-30, 581B2

HATOYAMA, Kunio Quits 6-12, 482A2

HATOYAMA, Miyuki Parlt electns held 8-30, 582F1

HATOYAMA, Yasuko Son regrets campaign donatns misrptg 11-30, 873B2

HATOYAMA, Yukio (Japanese premier, 2009- ) Elected party ldr 5-16, 342D2, F2 Aso dissolves parlt, sets electns 7-13, 482F1 Nixes shrine visits, debates Aso 8-11—8-12; parlt electns held 8-30, hails win, calls Obama/sees US amb 8-31—9-3, 581A1, B2, F2, 582E1, B2, D2, A3–C3; photo 581B3 Facts on 8-30, 582E1 Names party secy gen (Ozawa) 9-4; vows emissns cut hike, coalitn set 9-7—9-9, sworn, cabt unveiled 9-16, 624F2, D3–E3, 625A1, D1–E1 Sees China’s Hu/Wen, S Korea’s Lee 9-21—10-10, 703G2–A3 At UN climate chng summit 9-22, 636B2 Tokyo loses ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691F1 At China/S Korea summit, mulls N Korea A-program 10-9—10-10, 712A2–C2 US/Afghan ships refueling missn end set 10-13, 703C2–D2, F2 Hosts US’s Gates 10-20—10-21, on mil base relocatn plans 10-25, 747D2–E2, A3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748G2 Seeks pvt-sector growth, urges ‘equal’ US ties 10-26, 786E2, F3 Afghan aid set 11-10, 775G2 Hosts US’s Obama 11-13, on mil base deal working group 11-16, 794D3, 795A1, C1–E1 Regrets campaign donatns misrptg 11-30, written acct sought 12-2, 873A2 Postal svc pvtizatn halted 12-4, stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 872D3, 873E1 US troops relocatn deal halted 12-8, review cont 12-15, 933F1 Ex-aides indicted, regrets campaign finance violatns 12-24, 933A2 Econ long-term growth plan OKd 12-30, 933D1

HATTON, Ricky Stopped by Pacquiao, loses IBO title 5-2, 384D2, G2

HAUSNER, Dale Convctd, sentncd 3-13—3-30, 525F1

HAVE a Little Faith: A True Story (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

HAVEL, Vaclav (Czechosloavk president, 1989-92; Czech president, 1993-2003) Hosts Obama 4-5, 214G1

HAVE You Seen Us? (play) Opens in New Haven 12-2, 954F1

2009 Index HAWAII Accidents & Disasters Amer Samoa, Natl Guard deployed 9-30, 662E3 Environment & Pollution Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7C2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Obama birth records confrmd 7-27, 552A3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits Japan 11-13, 795A1 Native American Issues Indigenous land claims nixed by Sup Ct 3-31, 246C1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Statehood anniv res passes House 7-27, 552G3 Religious Issues De Veuster canonized 10-11, 739E1 Space & Space Flights Jupiter comet impact seen, telescopes use chngd 7-19—7-23, 547F3 Sports Mercedes-Benz Champ results 1-11, 139B2 Sony Open results 1-18, 139B2 Pro Bowl results 2-8, 176C1 Hawaii Bowl results 12-24, 948B3 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

HAWAII v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs (2009) Indigenous Hawaiian land claims nixed by Sup Ct 3-31, 246D1

HAWASS, Zahi Lourve Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952A3

HAWKER, Lindsay (d. 2007) Slaying suspect (Ichihashi) held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2

HAWKING, Stephen Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

HAWKINS, Paula (Paula Fickes) (1927-2009) Dies 12-4, 880A2

HAWKINS, Sally Wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3* Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2

HAWRAMI, Ashti Halts prov oil exports 10-9, 730F1

HAWSAWI, Mustafa Ahmed alTrial set/debated, Sen com hearing set 11-13—11-18, 793B1; photo 794A2

HAWTHORNE Group Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655B1

HAYAT, Al (British newspaper) Iraq gen (Atta) files misquote suit 4-13, 254D3

HAYDEN, Carl Trumbell (1878-1972) (U.S. senator from Ariz., 1927-69; Democrat) Byrd sets Cong tenure mark 11-18, 815A1

HAYDEN, Gen. Michael V. (U.S. CIA director, 2006-09) Successor nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued, Sen com hearing held 2-4—2-6; nominatn backed 2-11, confrmd 2-12, 93D3 Vs CIA interrogatn memos release 4-17, 258D1 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24, 306G2 On planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program 8-20, 586D3

HAYDN, Franz Joseph (1732-1809) Landon dies 11-20, 880C2

HAYEK, Salma Weds Pinault 2-14, 120E2

HAYES, Bob (Robert Lee) (1942-2002) Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

HAYES, Isaac (Isaac Lee Hayes Jr.) (1942-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C3

HAYNES 2nd, William James Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329E2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 289A2–B2

HAYNESWORTH, Albert Joins Redskins 2-27, 176A2

—HENLEY HBOS PLC Bank regulator (Crosby) quits 2-11, Lloyds ‘08 loss seen 2-13, 155A2–B2

HE, Lin Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

HEADLEY, David Held 10-3, 845F1 Chrgd 10-27, Mumbai terror attacks role probed 11-22, 816A2 US citizens visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/tape detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 858F1 Mumbai terror attacks chrgd 12-7, pleads not guilty 12-9, 845D1–C2, E2

HEAD of a Muse (drawing) Fetches $48 mln 12-8, 953E2

HEADS of State—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

HEALEY, Kerry Mass Sen seat successn candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584E3

HEALTH—See MEDICINE HEALTH & Human Services, U.S. Department of (HHS) Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Daschle) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-8, 6F2 Secy nominee (Daschle) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-8, tax records probe cont 1-15, 17E2 Secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regrets error 1-30—2-2; Obama backs 2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59A2 Sebelius secy offer rptd 2-28, nominated 3-2, 129C1 Secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, tax woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221B1 Secy nominee (Sebelius) backed 4-21, confrmd, sworn 4-28, 285A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E1 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 Electronic records dvpt grants set 8-20, 816F2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761E1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3 Corruption & Ethics Issues FDA drug researchers paymt conflicts rptd 1-12, 65B1 Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, 29E1 Pfrizer drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587F1 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3, 919B1 Health & Safety Issues Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2–B2 MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 133D1 Moral/religious treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146F1 White House health care summit held 3-5, 146A1 Food safety reforms set 3-14, 167D2 Food tracing woes rptd 3-26, 268C3 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed 5-11, 339C3 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, 574A2–B2 Swine flu vaccine funding set 5-22, 352C1 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492E2 Antiviral drug (Tamiflu) Latin Amer donatn set 7-2, 502D2 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524C2 Health care reform pub option mulled 8-16, 551A2 Swine flu vaccine Oct readiness seen 9-16, 697A1 Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1 Health care reform Sen bills merging talks held 10-14, 698G2 Swine flu emergency declared 10-23, 741B2 Mammograms cut urged 11-16, policy chngs doubted 11-18, 799B2, G2 Drug price rise probe sought 11-18, 797B1 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-21, 809A2

HEALTH Reform Dialogue Unions exit set 3-6, 146D1 Plan outlined 3-27, 245C2, A3

HEALTH Research and Educational Trust

Balloon hoax bill set 12-21; sentncd 12-23, FAA fine sought 12-24, 919E2

Employer health benefits drop rptd 9-15, 617G3

HEGE, Ofcr. John

HEALTH Statistics, National Center for

HEIGL, Katherine

US ‘07 birth rate rptd 3-18, 201C3

HEALY, Jerramiah (Jersey City, N.J. mayor, 2004- ; Democrat) Pol consultant (Shaw) found dead 7-28, 504D1

HEARD, Amber Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

HEARD, Dustin Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942E2

HEARST, Patricia ‘74 kidnapper (Olson) freed 3-17, 202F2 ‘70s radical (Kilgore) freed 5-10, 539C2

HEARST Corp. Seattle P-I sale sought 1-9; printing end set 3-16, Web-only shift opens 3-17, 167C3 San Fran Chronicle sale sought 2-24, 167F3 Bennack sets Lincoln Ctr departure 6-8, 400A2

HEART—See under MEDICINE HEART and Soul (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140A1

HEARTLAND Payment Systems Inc. Credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133B2, D2 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554D1, F2

HEARTLESS (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1

HEART‘S Needle (book) Snodgrass dies 1-13, 40D3

HEATHROW International Airport (London) Dutch MP (Wilders) entry barred 2-12, 136C3 US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608G1, B2

HEATLEY, Dany Traded to Sharks 9-12, 730G3

HEAT Lightning (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

HEAVENS Are Hung in Black, The (play) Opens in DC 2-8, 211D3

HEAVEN‘s Gate (film) Bach dies 3-25, 256E2

HEBRANG, Andrija Pres electn results rptd 12-27, 936D2

HEBREW Union College-Hebrew Institute of Religion Gottschalk dies 9-12, 648F2

HECK, Bill Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

HEDDA Gabler (play) Revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

HEDEGAARD, Connie Named Europn Comm climate comr 11-27, 835C3 Ends climate chng treaty talks boycott 12-14, 882E2

HEENE, Falcon Balloon released/lands, found 10-15; mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, mom confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745B3–E3 Parents plea deal OKd, plead guilty/mom deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817C2

HEENE, Mayumi Balloon released/lands, son found 10-15; mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745A3, F3 Plea deal OKd, pleads guilty/deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817C2–G2 Balloon hoax bill set 12-21; sentncd 12-23, FAA fine sought 12-24, 919E2

HEENE, Richard Balloon released/lands, son found 10-15; mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, wife confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745A3, E3 Plea deal OKd, pleads guilty 11-12—11-13, TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817C2–G2

1059

Shot, dies 3-21—3-24, 246G3–247A1 Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

HEIM, Aribert (Tarek Hussein Farid) (d. 1992) Egypt death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155C3–156A1

HEIM, Ruediger On dad ‘92 Egypt death 2-4, 155F3

HEKMATYAR, Gulbuddin US benchmarks Sen com hearing held 4-3, 229E1 Insurgent faction threat seen 9-20, 635G2

HELGERSON, John CIA interrogatn memos footnote detailed 4-20, 258D2 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306A1 Terror detainees interrogatn abuses probe spec prosecutor named, documts issued 8-24, 565B1, C2, E2–G2, C3, 566A1–B1, A2, D3, 567F1–G1

HELLER, Claude Seeks Sri Lanka rebel clashes end 4-22, 277B2

HELLER, Dean (U.S. representative from Nev., 2008- ; Republican) Nixes Sen seat bid 8-11, cites Ensign affair scandal 8-12, 552D2

HELLERSTEIN, Judge Alvin CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129C2–D2 OKs CIA interrogatn memos release delay 4-2, 257E1 Nixes CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes release 9-30, 719E1–F1

HELMS, Ed Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

HELMS, Jesse Alexander (1921-2008) (U.S. senator from N.C., 1973-2003; Republican) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HELP, The (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532A1; 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 12-21, 956A1

HELTON, Todd Among NL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D3

HEMINGWAY, Ernest (1899-1961) Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

HEMMINGSES of Monticello, The: An American Family (book) Gordon-Reed wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2

HENAO, Zulay Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

HENDARMAN Supandji Anti-corruptn ofcls held 10-29, wiretaps rptd 10-30, 786D1

HENDEL, Stephen Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

HENDERSON, Frederick (Fritz) Named GM CEO 3-29, 198F2 Dealerships closure info sought 6-9, 385G2 On bankruptcy exit 7-10, 475E2–F2 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale nixed 11-3, sees financing 11-5, 767A2–B2 IPO mulled 11-10, sets govt loans repaymt 11-16, 798B3–C3, E3 Quits 12-1, govt role denied 12-2, 831E1, G1 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887G1

HENDERSON, Gerald In NBA draft 6-25, 451C1

HENDERSON, Sir (John) Nicholas (1919-2009) Dies 3-16, 192A3

HENDERSON, Rickey Elected to HOF 1-12, 71E2 Inducted to HOF 7-26, 531C2

HENDERSON, Judge Thelton Nixes prison health care ofcr ouster 3-2, 356B2

HENDLER, Stewart Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

HENIN, Justine Sets return 9-22, 647G2

HENLEY, Col. Stephen Issues Cuba base detainees 9/11 role claim 3-10, 244B3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan/sees Karzai 8-24, 573B1 Cuba base detainees trial delay sought, OKd 9-16—9-21, 718E3–G3

1060 HENNAGAN— HENNAGAN, Monique ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

HENRICH, Tommy (Thomas David) (1913-2009) Dies 12-1, 880A2

HENRIQUES, Judge Richard Sentncs UK/US flights bomb plotters 9-14, 626E1, G1–A2

HENRY, Chris In truck mishap 12-16, dies 12-17, 948E1

HENRY, Thierry France makes World Cup 11-18, 858F3–G3

HENRY VIII, King (1491-1547) (England) RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711B3

HENSARLING, Jeb (U.S. representative from Tex., 2003- ; Republican) On Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae execs ‘09 pay 12-24, 909E3

HENSON, Taraji P. Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

HENZELL, Perry (1936-2006) Rhone dies 9-15, 692E2

HEPBURN, Audrey (Audrey Kathleen Ruston) (1929-93) Willoughby dies 12-18, 956G2

HER, Ahney Gran Torino on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

HERBERT, Gary Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 353G3

HERBERT, Terry Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd, value hiked 9-23—11-25, 952E3

HERMAN, Richard U Ill admissns manipulatn alleged 8-6, regrets role 8-11, 554E3, G3–555A1 Resignatn OKd, set 10-17—10-20, NMSU pres bid rptd, dropped 10-27—11-11, 817A1

HERMANSEN, Tor Erik Wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

HERMITAGE Capital Management Atty (Magnitsky) dies, buried 11-16—11-20; Russian prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 821E3–F3, 822A1–B1 Atty (Magnitsky) death rpt issued 12-28, 938A3

HERNANDEZ, Felix AL wins ldr, among ERA/Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F2 2d in AL Cy Young voting 11-17, 823E3

HERNANDEZ, Gorkeys Traded to Pirates 6-3, 484D2

HERNANDEZ, Jose Flies Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3

HERRERA, Balbina Pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 308G3, 309C1–D1 Martinelli sworn pres 7-1, 493A3

HERRERA, Daniel Rendon Held 4-15, 526E3

HERRERA, Juan Felipe Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191G3

HERRERA, Naudemar Cleared 5-12, 374F3

HERRING, Bennie Dean Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20F3–G3

HERRING v. United States (2009) Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd by Sup Ct 1-14, 20F3

HERSCHEL Telescope Launched 5-14, 373E1

HERSETH Sandlin, Stephanie (U.S. representative from S.D., 2004- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1

HERSHEY Co. Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626E2

HERSMAN, Deborah On DC Metro train crash 6-23, 429B1–D1 On NYC plane/copter collisn pilots credentials 8-9, 538G1

HERZOG, Jacques Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300G1

FACTS HERZOG, Whitey Elected to HOF 12-7, 949A2

HE‘S Just Not That Into You (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140C2*

HESS, Elaine Husband smoking death damages awarded 2-18, 357E1

HESS, Stuart (d. 1997) Widow damages awarded 2-18, 357E1

HESTON, Charlton (John Charles Carter) (1923-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HEUSINGER, Patrick Next Fall opens in NYC 6-3, 564D2

HEVESI, Alan Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd, probe cont 3-19, 265C2–D2 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 476A1

HEWITT, Don(ald Shepard) (1922-2009) Dies 8-19, 564A3

HEWLETT-Packard Co. Fiorina sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800A3

HEYN, Andrew Sees Myanmar’s Suu Kyi 10-9, 725E3

HEYWARD-Bey, Darrius In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

HEZBOLLAH (Party of God) Leb/Israel rocket fire denied 1-8, 2A3 Leb/Israel rockets fired 1-14, 13B2 Obama mulls Iran ties 2-9, 78C2 Leb/Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312F2–C3 UK talks set, hailed 3-5—3-6, 156D3 W Bank ax attack kills 1 4-2, 313A3 Leb’s Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312D2 Clinton visits Leb 4-26, 297F3–298A1 US’s Biden visits Leb 5-22; Hariri slaying role alleged, denied 5-23—5-24, IMF/EU aid talks rptd 5-27, 380A2, C2–D2 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, loss conceded, results rptd 6-8, 397B3 Leb’s Hariri sees Nasrallah 6-25, Beirut clashes erupt 6-28, 450B2–D2, G2–A3 Leb/Israeli truce zone blast hits 7-14, 615C1 Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593B1 Leb’s Hariri drops unity govt bid, steps down 9-10, 610D3–E3 Leb financier (Ezzedine) chrgd 9-12, 877D3–E3 Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925B1 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936G1–B2 Saudi king visits Syria, Leb natl unity govt urged 10-7—10-8, 707E3–F3 Material aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4; Iran role rptd 11-11, US smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878E1 Leb unity govt set 11-9, 790D1–F1 Leb unity govt OKd 12-10, 877A3–B3 Leb’s Hariri visits Syria 12-19—12-20, 945F3 Leb blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945E2

HFV Asset Management Wissman guilty plea rptd 4-15, 265B3

HHS—See HEALTH & Human Services HICHEUR, Adlene Held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704B2

HICKENLOOPER, John (Denver, Colo. mayor, 2003- ; Democrat) Bennet named to Sen 1-3, 5F2

HICKEY, John Benjamin Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

HICKS, Tom On Rodriguez steroids use 2-10, 87A3

HIGAZY, Abdallah FBI detentn suit setld 9-24, 914F2

HIGGINS, Chris Traded to Rangers 6-30, 731C1

HIGGINS, John Michael Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

HIGGINS, Kathryn Holds NYS plane crash hearing 5-12—5-14, 357C2

HIGGINS, Judge Rosalyn Rptd World Ct pres 1-1, 3B1

HIGHMORE, Freddie Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

HIGH Schools—See EDUCATION (U.S.) HIGHTOWER, Tim Cardinals win NFC champ 1-18, 39C3

HIGHWAYS—See ROADS HIJACKINGS—See under AVIATION HILAL Bank, Al Dubai debt buy set 11-25, 829A1

HILDALGO, Gen. Miguel Fires police ofcl (Murga) 12-1, 930D1

HILL, Aaron AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 Among AL RBI/HR/hits ldrs 10-6, 690E2

HILL, Christopher Named Iraq amb 2-2, 57C3; 2-27, 121D1 Confrmd 4-21, 275E2 Clinton visits Iraq 4-25, 297B3 Blast hits convoy 7-12, 483D2 On Iraq electns law passage 11-8, 789C2

HILL, Jay OKs budget parlt updates 1-28, 50C2

HILL, Jon Michael Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

HILL, Jordan In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

HILL, The (newspaper) McCain interviewed 11-16, 797B2

HILLARY, Sir Edmund Percival (1919-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HILLARY: The Movie (film) Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444C3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1

HILLCOAT, John Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

HILLERMAN, Tony (Anthony Grove) (1925-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HILLKIRK, John Named USA Today ed 4-28, 913E2

HILLS, Richard Ghanaati wins 1000 Guineas 5-3, 347A3

HILSCHER, Emily Jane (d. 2007) Va Tech shooting chngd rpt issued 12-4, 920G3

HILSON, Keri ‘Knock You Down’ on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1

HILTY, Megan 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

HIMMELFARB, Gertrude Husband dies 9-18, 648A3

HINCH, A. J. Named Diamondbacks mgr 5-8, 484E2

HINDERY Jr., Leo Daschle late tax paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2, withdraws HHS secy nominatn 2-3, 59B2–C2, F3–G3

HINDS, Ciaran Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3 Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

HINDUS & Hinduism Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27F2 Natl Prayer Svc held 1-21, 29D2 Thai/Cambodia border clash kills 3 4-3—4-5, 310G1 India parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346A1–B1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 5-19, 333B1 Nepal blast kills 2 5-23, 363E1 Sikh ldr (Nand) slain, India riots erupt/paramil troops deployed 5-24—5-25, 417D3 India MP (Kumar) elected lower house speaker 6-3, 417C3 India ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 823B1 India gay sex curbs nixed 7-2, appeal hearing OKd 7-9, 514B1 India bootleg liquor deaths linked 7-12, 530A3 India party ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726F2

ON FILE

Cambodia/Thai border spec forces removed 11-13, 872D1, C2 India parlt house oppositn ldr (Swaraj) named 12-18, 946B2

HINGLE, Pat (Martin Patterson Hingle) (1924-2009) Dies 1-3, 104C3

HIRSHHORN Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.) Koshalek named dir 2-26, 160F2

HIRTLE, Lt. Col. Ronald (ret.) Iraq reconstructn deal probe rptd 2-15, 101E3

HISPANIC Americans Awards & Honors Rivera gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Census Issues Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659F1 Crime & Law Enforcement Harvard prof (Gates) arrest mulled 7-22, 911 call racism denied, tapes issued 7-26—7-29, 505B1, B2 Education Obama reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149A3 Gonzales, Tex Tech teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574E2 Employment & Business Dec ‘08 jobless rate 1-9, 14G2 Conn firefighters civil svc exam bias case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 Natl banks bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Jan ‘09 jobless rate 2-6, 80D1 Feb ‘09 jobless rate 3-6, 147F2 Mar ‘09 jobless rate 4-3, 219B3 Apr ‘09 jobless rate 5-8, 323G2 May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 389D1 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2–E2 Jun ‘09 jobless rate 7-2, 456B2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 471D2, B3 Jul ‘09 jobless rate 8-7, 535B2 Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 602B1 ‘08 incomes rptd 9-10, 619C1 Sep ‘09 jobless rate 10-2, 676G1 Oct ‘09 jobless rate 11-6, 778C3 Nov ‘09 jobless rate 12-4, 846B3 Environment & Pollution Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655C1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Cuba money flow ease urge 4-8, family visits, remittnc curbs lifted 4-13, 248B3–C3, F3–249B1 US/Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271C2, E2 Cuba family travel, remittnc curbs eased 9-3, 604C3 Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652D2 Obituaries Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24D3 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56A3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6E1 Labor secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18A2 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46B3 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, Census/White House direct rptg set, pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60A2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79G2 White House urban affairs dir (Carrion) named 2-19, 113C1 LA’s Villaraigosa reelected 3-3, 131B2 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D1 Judge Sotomayor sees Obama, named to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, B3, 350A1–C1, B2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) personal background remarks mulled, attacks scored 5-29—6-3, Sen com confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389E2, B3–C3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469B1, D1, F1–G1, G2, 470D1 Calif House seat electn held 7-14, 478G2 Obama addresses NAACP 7-16, 492B1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed by Sen com 7-28, 503D1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519A3 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537B3 Sotomayor sworn Sup Ct justice 8-8, White House event held 8-12, 536E2–F2 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585A1 Electn results 11-3, 756F3 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907E3

2009 Index Social Issues Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916A3

HISPANIC Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. Obama educ reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149A3

HISS, Jehuda Confirms ‘90s organ theft 12-18, 945G2

HISSENE, Mahamat On Sudan attack 5-5, 376D1

HISTORY & Historiography Tibet ofcl history issued 3-2, 172F1 Lincoln watch opened, inscriptn confrmd 3-10, 300F2 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed 4-3, 306G3 Gordon-Reed/Meacham/Blackmon win Pulitzers 4-20, 279A2–B2, F2–G2 Harvard prof (Gates) held 7-16, 504D3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707A2 Washington ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860A3 French documts scanning funds set 12-14, 936A3 Obituaries Beer, Samuel H 4-7, 280A3 Bernstein, Peter L 6-5, 420A3 Donald, David H 5-13, 364C3 Elon, Amos 5-25, 384G1 Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Kiraly, Bela K 7-4, 516B3 May, Ernest R 6-1, 420G3 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Pavic, Milorad 11-30, 955C3 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3

HITI, Mustafa alLoses parlt speaker electn 4-19, 275E1

HITLER, Adolf (1889-1945) (German head of state, 1933-45) Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637D1 US health care reform debate racism seen 9-15, 617C3 Remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842A3, 843D2

HITSCHMANN, Peter MDC ofcl (Bennett) trial testimony OKd 11-11, 783D2–G2

HITTNER, Judge David Revokes financier (Stanford) bail 6-30, 457C2

HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)—See AIDS HIZENGA, Wayne Dolphins stake sale completed 1-20, 55G2

HO, Edmund Macao chief exec (Chui) named 7-26, 510B1

HOARE, Darren Slain 8-9, 545G2

HOBAUGH, Col. Charles Cmnds Atlantis missn 11-16—11-27, 902D1

HO Chi Minh Stock Exchange Index drops 11-25, 935D1

HOCKEY, Ice Awards & Honors Vetter named NCAA women’s tourn MVP 3-22, 300E1 Gilroy wins Hobey Baker Award (top coll player) 4-10, 300C1 Malkin wins Ross Trophy (NHL top scorer) 4-12, 299E2 Ovechkin wins Richard Trophy (NHL goals ldr) 4-12, 299F2 Penguins win Stanley Cup, named MVP 6-12, 419F3 Ovechkin wins Hart Trophy (NHL MVP) 6-18, 435E2 Ovechkin wins Pearson Trophy (NHL players’ MVP) 6-18, 435F2 Mason wins Calder Trophy (NHL top rookie) 6-18, 435F2 Thomas wins Vezina Trophy (NHL top goalie) 6-18, 435G2 Chara wins Norris Trophy (NHL top defnsman) 6-18, 435G2 Datsyuk wins Selke Trophy (NHL top defns forward) 6-18, 435A3 Datsyuk wins Lady Byng Trophy (NHL top sportsman) 6-18, 435A3 Julien wins Adams Trophy (NHL top coach) 6-18, 435A3 Moreau wins King Clancy Trophy (NHL top humanitarian) 6-18, 435A3 Sullivan wins Masterson Trophy (NHL top sportsman) 6-18, 435B3

—HOLIDAYS 1061 HOF elects Yzerman/Leetch/Hull/Robitaille 6-23, 435D3 Sakic # retired 10-1, 730G2–A3 HOF inducts Yzerman/Leetch/Hull/Robitaille/Lamori ello/Davidson 11-9, 951D2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643C1 Coaching & Executive Changes Coyotes chrmn (Shumway) quits 1-23, 159F2 Sens fire Hartsburg, Clouston named 2-2, 159E2 Penguins fire Therrien, Blysma named interim coach 2-15, 159D2 Rangers fire Renney/Pearn, Tortorella named 2-23, 159D2 Canadiens fire Carbonneau, Gainey takes role 3-9, 159C2 Wild coach (Lemaire) retires 4-12, GM (Risebrough) fired 4-16, 299E3 Avalanche fire GM (Giguere) 4-13, 299D3 Penguins name full-time coach (Blysma) 4-27, 299F2 Keenan fired 5-22, 435F3 Oilers named Quinn 5-26, 436A1 Canadiens name Martin 6-1, 435G3 Nieuwendyk named Stars GM 6-1, 435G3 Sutter quits Devils 6-9, named Flames coach 6-23, 435F3 Wild name Richards 6-16, 435E3 Devils name Lemaire 7-13, 731A1 Coyotes’ Gretzky quits, Tippett named 9-24, 730E3–F3 Labor & Salary Issues Fedorov signs Metallurg Magnitogorsk deal 6-25, 731D1 NHLPA exec dir (Kelly) ousted, Penny named interim replacemt 8-31, 730G3 Obituaries Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 People Sakic sets retiremt 7-9, 730A3 Professional Wrigley Field game held 1-1, 159G2 NHL season ends 4-12, 299G1 NHL draft held 6-26, 731D1 NHL season opens 10-1, Finland, Sweden games held 10-2, 730G2 Purchases, Sales & Moves Coyotes investors sought 1-15, 159F2 Coyotes bankruptcy declared, appeal filed 5-5—5-7, sale nixed 6-15, 435B3 Coyotes buyout offer nixed/ruling hailed, NHL bid set 7-29—9-30, 730C3 Coyotes, NHL sale OKd 11-3, Ice Edge Holdings buy seen 12-11, 951C2 Records & Achievements Brodeur sets career wins mark 3-17, 299E3 Brodeur sets goaltender minutes/games played marks 11-27—12-18, sets regular-season shutouts mark 12-21, 951A2 Statistics NHL ‘08-09 final standings/stat ldrs 4-12, 299A2, A3 Suspensions & Fines Lidstrom/Datsyuk miss All-Star Game, suspended 1-25, protest filed 2-25, 159B2 Trades, Signings & Releases Canadiens/Rangers swap Higgins, McDonagh, Valentenko/Pyatt, Gomez, Busto 6-30, 731C1 Hossa joins Blackhawks 7-1, 731C1 Koivu joins Ducks 7-8, 731B1 Sens/Sharks swap Heatley, pick/Michalek, Cheechoo, pick 9-12, 730G3 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1 NCAA title (men’s), Boston U 4-11, 299G3 NCAA title (women’s), Wis 3-22, 300D1 NHL All-Star Game, East 1-25, 159G1 Stanley Cup, Penguins 6-12, 419E3, 420A1, C2–D2 World Champs (men’s), Russia 5-18, 670B3 World Champs (women’s), US 4-12, 670C3

HOCKEY, Joe 3d in party ldrship vote 12-1, 851E2

HOCKEY Writers’ Association, Professional NHL awards announced 6-18, 435E2

HOCKNEY, David Beverly Hills Housewife fetches $7.9 mln 5-13, 953C2

HODGE, Douglas Wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231D2

HODROJ, Hassan Chrgd 11-24, 878D2

HOECHST Marion Roussel Inc. Sen Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638C2

HOEKSTRA, Peter (U.S. representative from Mich., 1993- ; Republican) On Obama terror detainees policy 1-21, 28B2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd 5-5, 323G1–A2 Introduces Cuba base detainees US release curbs bill 5-7, 305A3 On CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program 7-9, 474E1

HOELLER, York Wins Grawemeyer Award 11-30, 860A2

HOFFMAN, Charley 2d in FBR Open 2-1, 139A2

HOFFMAN, Doug Scozzafava drops House bid, backs Owens 11-1; Thompson stumps 11-2, loses electn 11-3, 755F2, G3, 756C1–E1

HOFFMAN, Philip Seymoour Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

HOFFMAN, Trevor Rivera earns 500th save 6-28, 484B2 Among NL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G3

HOFMANN, Albert (1906-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HOGAN, Barbara Scores Tibet’s Dalai Lama entry block 3-24, replacemt (Motsoaledi) named 5-10, 325B3

HOGAN, P(aul) J(ohn) Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

HOGAN, Judge Thomas Upholds Cuba base detainee (Madhwani) cont detentn 12-14, 861B3–C3

HOGG, Douglas Nixes reelectn bid 5-19, 343B3

HOGGETT, Steven Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

HOGS—See LIVESTOCK HOH, Matthew Resignatn rptd 10-27, 751F2

HOILES, R.C. Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913F1

HOLBROOKE, Richard C. Named Afghan/Pak spec envoy 1-22, 29G2 At Munich Security Conf 2-8, 75B1 Afghan troops cont stay seen 2-9, 78B3 Visits Pak 2-9—2-12, on Malakand Islamic law deal 2-16, 103A1–C1 Visits Afghan, sees iran role 2-12—2-15, 102D2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103C3–D3 Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claim mulled 2-15—3-26, 274D2–A3 Visits India 2-16, 103B1 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F3, 176A1 Sees Iran’s Akhundzadeh 3-31, 195G1–B2 Visits Afghan/Pak/India 4-5—4-8, 229G1 Testifies to House com 5-5, sees Pak’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 315D2, G2 Visits Pak 6-3—6-5, 419A1 On Afghan antidrug policy chng 6-27, 466C2–E2 Visits Pak 7-22, seeks Taliban ldr (Mehsud) eliminatn 7-27, 515B2–C2 On Afghan reconciliatn talks 7-27, 513A3 Afghan drug traffickers targeting set 8-11, 547B2 Visits Pak 8-18, 578E1 Visits Afghan 8-20, 549E1 Sees Afghan’s Karzai, argumt rptd/denied 8-21—8-29, 594A2–B2 On Afghan pres electn vote 8-23, 577G2 On Pak civiln aid bill 9-24, 669G3 Afghan’s Karzai/Kerry mtg mulled 10-20, 710B3 Backs Afghan’s Karzai cabt picks 12-20, 894A1

HOLDEN, Tim (U.S. representative from Pa., 1993- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1

HOLDER Jr., Eric (U.S. attorney general, 2009- ) Appointments & Resignations Atty gen confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16E2, A3–F3 Atty gen Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30F2, B3 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 45A2

Atty gen nominatn backed 1-28; confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60D3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E2 White House counsel (Craig) sets resignatn 11-13, 797D3–E3 Civil Rights Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Hikes Medicare fraud task force team 5-20, 574A2 Crime & Law Enforcement On Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slaying 5-31, 370E3 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Sees Mex’s Medina-Mora 2-24, mulls border violnc crackdown, House com hearing held 2-25, 171C1, F1–G1 Nixes med marijuana raids, remarks clarified 2-25—3-18, 165A2–C2 Clinton visits Mex 3-25—3-26, 186A1 Visits Mex 4-2—4-3, 249D2 DEA/ICE coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341D1 Chrgs Mex drug smuggling suspects 8-20, 556D2 On med marijuana prosecutns ease 10-19, 720B1 On Mex cartel arrests 10-22, 747C1, F1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, 243A3 Rep Harman, AIPAC secrets transfer role denied 4-21, 263G2 AIPAC secrets transfer case dropped 5-1, 206B2 Sets ‘state secrets’ use curbs 9-23, 642D2 Politics Bush signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145D1 Drops Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft chrgs 4-1, 199D1–E1 Ala ex-gov (Siegelman) convctn review sought 4-3; ex-Sen Stevens prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, replaces ethics chief 4-8, 218C2, E2, G2 Terrorism Issues Detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14, 95B1 Names Cuba base detainees task force ldr (Olson) 2-20, visits prison 2-23, 112D3–F3 Names Bush admin terror policies review task force 3-11, sees EU ofcls 3-16, 165D3, 166A2 CIA detainees torture indep probe sought 3-17, 183D3 CIA interrogatn probe urged 4-2; memos issued, mulls prosecutns 4-16, authrzn timeline revealed 4-22, 257D1, B2–C2, 258F1, 261D3 Visits Ger 4-29, 305B3 Ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305D2 Detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322D3 On Cuba base detainees Bermuda transfer 6-11, 391F2 Detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed 8-19, names Durham 8-24, 565A1–E1, G1–A2, F2 On bomb plot threat 9-24, 642C2 Nixes Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty 10-2, doubts prison closure deadline 10-6, 718E1–F1, A2, B3–C3 Hails bomb plot suspect (Zazi) case work 10-6, 678C2 Sets Cuba base detainees trials 11-13, testifies to Sen com 11-18, 793A1–B1, D1, F1, B2–E2, B3, 794B1–C1, F1 Ill prison fed buy seen 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set 12-15, 861B1–C1

HOLDERMAN, Judge James OKs Gov Blagojevich brother, Sen Burris wiretap release 5-26, 478B1

HOLDER v. Humanitarian Law Project Accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677F2

HOLD Me Back (racehorse) 2d in Travers Stake 8-29, 807B3

HOLD Tight (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

HOLIDAY, Jrue In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

HOLIDAYS & Special Events Thai club blaze kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22C3 Calif house party Santa Claus gunman victims IDd 1-13, 247F3 Dalai Lama govt ouster anniv Tibet holiday set 1-19, Losar festivities boycott urged 2-15, 115C2, E2 Viet’s Tet holiday opens 1-26, 84E2 China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251F2 Italy quake victim Good Friday funeral svc OKd 4-8, 224F3

1062 HOLLAND— Thai New Year’s festival nixed, cont 4-13—4-14, 250E3 Eur May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329F3 Obama gives Meml Day speech, sends wreaths 5-25, 355C2 Iraq natl holiday declared 6-30, 437A1 N Korea missiles launched, violatn scored 7-2—7-6, 462A3 US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Ramadan opens 8-22, 592G3 Vatican Christmas Eve mass held 12-24, 901G2–A3

HOLLAND—See NETHERLANDS HOLLIDAY, Matt Traded to Cardinals 7-24, 531B2

HOLLINS, Lionel Named Grizzlies coach 1-25, 159F1

HOLLYWOOD Foreign Press Association Golden Globes presented 1-11, 24D2

HOLLYWOOD Reporter (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

HOLMES, J. B. Loses Houston Open 4-5, 255E2

HOLMES, Sir John On Gaza violnc casualties 1-8, 1D1 Urges Sri Lanka rebel conflict halt 4-26—4-27, 335A1 On Darfur aid groups return 6-11, 446A2 Seeks PI storms aid 10-6, 684E3–F3 On PI storms aid 10-13, 704D1 Visits Indonesia quakes affected area 10-14, aid rptd 10-15, 725D1 Urges Sri Lankan refugees release 11-19, 823C2

HOLMES, Santonio Steelers win AFC champ 1-18, 39F3 Steelers win Super Bowl, named MVP 2-1, 70B1–C1, A3, D3, F3; photo 70E1

HOLOCAUST—See NAZIS; WORLD War II HOLOCAUST Museum (Washington, D.C.) Shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, shut 6-11, 391G3

HOLT Jr., Rush (U.S. representative from N.J., 1999- ; Democrat) Issues CIA, Cong intell briefings letter 7-8, 474C1 Terror detainees interrogatn taping measure passes 10-8, 719A2

HOLY Land Foundation for Relief and Development Ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914B2

HOLZER, Hans (1920-2009) Dies 4-26, 332E3

HOMELAND Security, U.S. Department of Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Napolitano) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17A1–B1 Napolitano confirmation hearings begin 1-15, 17B1 Napolitano confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C1 Cybersecurity ofcl (Kown) quits 8-8, 602E3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488E1 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714F2 ‘10 funds signed 10-28, 799G3 Crime & Law Enforcement Census worker found dead 9-12, 722F1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs commuted 1-19, 33D3 Wash raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd, employer focus seen 2-25, 202F1 Mex border drug violnc House com hearing held 2-25, 171C1 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185A3 Napolitano visits Mex 4-2—4-3, 249D2 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341D1 Mex border drug smuggling troops plan mulled 4-25, 359F2 Raids rules set 4-30, 341A1 Illegals detentn ctrs standards sought 6-25, 573A3 Fed contractors ‘E-Verify’ use set, workers Soc Sec match program dropped 7-8, 573F1, A2 Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, 573D2–E2, A3 Mex border fence progress blasted 9-17, 722A1 Mex border rush fails, suspects held 9-22, 724A2 Fed detentn system overhaul set 10-6, 721E2–F2

FACTS Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766G2 Sri Lanka army gen (Fonseka) questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769F3 Safety & Security Issues Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D1 Obama inauguratn threat probe rptd 1-20, 28E1 Privacy ofcrs bill passes House 3-24, 908D1 Right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, vets profiling scored/defended, regretted 4-14—4-16, 262F3, 263A1 Cybersecurity coordinatn urged 4-21, 411B1, D1 Cuba base prison closure backed 5-24, 353C3 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed, denied 8-9—8-21, 572F2, A3, F3 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620C2 Mass transit alert issued 9-18, 642E1 Improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 Airline safety review ordrd, security measures hiked 12-25—12-26; sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27 Netherlands scanners use urged 12-29, 897C2–D2, 898B3, 899B1

HOMELESSNESS—See under HOUSING HOMOSEXUALITY AIDS Issues—See AIDS Arts & Culture Amazon bks lost sales ratings regretted 4-13, 782E1 Crime Issues Boy George sentncd 1-16, 71D3 LBJ aide (Valenti) FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176G2 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920F1 Fed hate-crimes hike passes Cong 4-29, 7-23, 489D3 Boy George freed 5-11, 348A3 Russia rally broken up, demonstrators held 5-16, 379B1 India sex curbs nixed 7-2, appeal hearing OKd 7-9, 514A1 Israel shooting kills 2 8-1, 768F3 Iraq men abuse rptd 8-17, 563D1 WWII code-breaker (Turing) UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648B1 Serbia pride parade nixed, pub gatherings banned/ultranatlists held 9-19—9-20, 687D3 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700D3, F3–G3, 701B1 Uganda curbs bill introduced/scored, chngd 10-14—12-23, 924F3 Hate crimes bill clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742B3–C3, E3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907A2 Education Harvard, Matthiessen prof endowmt set 6-2, 574F2 Family Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Calif gay marriage ban ballot initiative donors list release ordrd, issued 1-29, 2-2, 150A1 Mass married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150B1 Calif marriage ban hearing held 3-5, 149C3 Wash domestic partnerships bill passes legis 3-10—4-15, 266G2 Vt marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/const amendmt opposed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216A1, F2, 217A1; table 216A2 Sweden marriage bill passes parlt 4-1, law enacted 5-1, 939E2 NYS marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, GOP stance chng urged 4-17, 266B2, F2 Iowa marriages open, NH bill clears legis 4-27—5-6; DC recognitn OKd 5-5, Maine measure clears legis, signed 5-5—5-6, 304A1, E1–F1, B2 NYS marriage bill passes Assemb 5-12, Sen vote urged 5-17, 353G1 NH marriage bill chngs sought, nixed by House 5-14—5-20, Sen negotiating team OKd 5-27, 353C1 Calif marriage ban suit filed, opposed 5-22—5-27, ban upheld, protests held/ballot initiative set 5-26, 352A3, 353F3–G3 Nev domestic partnerships bill vetoed, override passes legis 5-25—5-31, NH marriage deal OKd, clears legis/signed 5-29—6-3, 371A1, E1 SCLC LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2 Justice Dept/Defns of Marriage Act backing set, scored 6-12, 408E2

Census sets marriages recognitn 6-19, 659E2 DC marriage recognitn opens 7-7, 492G1 Fed marriage law Mass suit filed 7-8, 492G1 NYS marriage bill vote delayed 7-10, 505E2 Calif marriage ballot initiative delayed 8-12, DOMA repeal sought, Justice Dept stance chngd 8-17, 553B3–E3, 554A1 Calif gay marriage ban trial set 8-19; Vt marriages open 8-31, Maine ballot propositn set 9-2, 699F2–A3 Singer John Ukrainian adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708G2 Nev domestic partnerships open, Tex couple divorce OKd 10-1; DC gay marriage bill introduced 10-6, Calif recognitn bill signed 10-11, 699B1, F1, A2–B2 Argentina gay marriage license issued 11-16, wedding blocked, held 11-30—12-29, 926D1 NYS spousal govt benefits ordrd 11-20, 832D2–E2 Marriage bill passes DC cncl 12-1, NYS bill nixed 12-2, 832B2, F2 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2–A3 NJ marriage Sen vote nixed 12-9, DC measure OKd 12-15, 868E1, A2 Mex City marriage bill passes assemb 12-21, veto nixed, law published 12-29, 928G3 Labor & Employment Practices Fed workers benefits hiked 6-17, 408A2 Military Issues Natl Guard lt (Choi) comes out 3-19, 392A3 Air Force ofcr (Witt) ouster block appeal deadline passes 5-3, Natl Guard lt (Choi) ouster block sought, denied 5-11—5-12, 392D2 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412D1 US policy case denied by Sup Ct 6-8, 390F1 US gay troops policy questnd, repeal urged 9-30, 699D2 Obituaries Cunningham, Merce 7-26, 516B2 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580B3 Gottschalk, Alfred 9-12, 648G2 Harris, E Lynn 7-23, 532F1 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 MacGinnis, Marc C 6-2, 955G2 Norse, Harold 6-8, 484E3 Purdy, James 3-13, 176C3 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 4-12, 280G3 Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 People Duffy named UK poet laureate 5-2, 316F2 France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707B3 Calif Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699D1–E1 Political & Legislative Issues Iceland’s Sigurdardottir sworn 2-1, 69A1 GOP chair (Steele) denies sexuality choice 3-12, 146B3 Iceland parlt electns held 4-26, 296C1, E1 Europn Parlt, UK conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 Alaska city bias ban passes assemb 8-11, vetoed 8-17, 553G3 Milk/King get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548D1, A2 Nosanchuck named Justice Dept liaison 8-18, 553E3–F3 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 717A1 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 665D1 Obama addresses HRC, DC march held 10-10—10-11, 698C3 Ger v chancellor/forgn min (Westerwelle) sworn 10-28, 749E2 Electn results, Maine OKs marriage ban/Wash domestic partnership law upheld 11-3, 756G1, F3 Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 868F3 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2 Press & Broadcasting Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 9-3, 627A1 Wash Blade shut 11-16, 912D3 Religious Issues Calif Episcopal split dioceses property rights nixed 1-5, 132E3 Robinson at Obama preinaugural concert 1-18, Warren at inauguratn 1-21, 25D2, B3 Ex-pastor (Haggard) sex partner church paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2

ON FILE

Episcopal bps OKd, nominatns set 7-12—8-2, couples ceremonies OKd 7-17, 539B1, G1 Lutheran clergy curbs eased 8-21, 573G3 Episcopal Calif split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3 RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711F2 Pope sees Archbp of Canterbury 11-21, 811A2 LA Episcopal diocese asst bp (Glasspool) elected, choice questnd 12-5, 868B3 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868A1 Social Issues Radio host (Savage), Rev Phelps UK bans set 5-5, 310D2–E2 China pride festival held 6-7—6-14, 481F3 Sports Issues Chiefs running back (Johnson) posts gay slur 10-25; cut 11-10, joins Bengals 11-17, 948G1

HONDA Motor Co. Ltd. Hydrogen cars dvpt US funding cut 5-7, plans cont 5-11, 917B2 Chrysler dealerships dropped 5-14, 339D1 Formula 1 role dropped 7-29, 647B1 Dongfeng jt venture plans seen 12-22, 932E2

HONDURAS, Republic of Crime & Civil Disorders Teguigalpa protests turn violent 6-28—6-29, 438B1–D1 Zelaya arrest warned, return blocked 7-5, 459D3 Zelaya ouster protests held, govt overthrow urged 7-10—7-16, 480G2–A3 Zelaya supporters, cops clash 7-24—7-30, 508C1–D1 Protests held, Tegucigalpa curfew reinstated 8-11, 575C3 Curfew set/eased, Zelaya ouster protests turn violent 9-21—9-23, 643C2, A3 Protests cont, arrests rptd 9-25—10-1, emergency declared, lift mulled 9-27—9-28, 661A3, 662D1 Honduras emergency rule lifted 10-5, 763C1 Electn protests broken up 11-29, 834A2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Gen Vasquez fired, reinstatemt ordrd 6-24—6-25, 438F1, A2 Coup mil role defended 8-4, 575A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Cont intl pressure urged 7-24, envoy sought 7-29, 508D1, F1 N Amer ldrs back Zelaya 8-9—8-10, 541F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A1 Const reforms pub referendum ban passes Cong, vote thwarted 6-23—6-28, defns min (Orellana) quits 6-24, 438D1 Zelaya ousted, ‘resignatn’ OKd/Micheletti named pres 6-28; return mulled 6-28—7-1, electn date chng seen 6-30—7-2, 437B3, 438B2 Zelaya/Micheletti talks set, open 7-7—7-9, 460A2–C2 Zelaya ouster support polled, return talks fail 7-9—7-10; Micheletti resignatn mulled 7-15, unity govt deal rptd 7-16, 480D2 Zelaya return plans proposed, nixed 7-18—7-22, ouster upheld 7-20, 493G1, D2 Zelaya crosses border, return deal mulled 7-24—7-30, 507F3 Zelaya return deal nixed 8-22; talks fail 8-24—8-25, interim govt plan issued 8-27, 575B2 Zelaya returns, Brazil emb handover urged 9-21, Micheletti nixes ofc cede, talks offrd 9-22—9-23, 643F1, A3; photo 643E2 Zelaya return talks held 9-27—9-30, 662B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734A1 Zelaya return talks held/failure seen, support polled 10-7—10-28; protests held 10-28, deal signed/mulled, electn recognitn seen 10-29—11-4, 762F2 Unity govt claimed 11-5; Zelaya return deal failure seen, cont talks urged 11-6, pres electn results mulled, OAS monitors nixed 11-6—11-10, 784A2 Zelaya reinstatemt nixed 11-20—12-2; pres electn held, results rptd 11-29, govt recognitn mulled, vote questnd 11-29—12-1, 833G3 Facts on Lobo 11-29, 834A1 Human Rights Coup rights abuses probed, rpts issued 8-17—8-21, 575B3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 US visas ltd 8-25, 575E3 Latin American Relations OAS gen mtg hosted 6-4, 376A3, C3

2009 Index Zelaya flown to CR, Venez troops alert hiked 6-28; regional ldrs mtg held 6-29, OAS ouster warned 7-1, 437C3, 438C2–A3 Zelaya at Panama pres (Martinelli) inauguratn 7-1, 493B3 OAS secy gen (Insulza) visits 7-3; membership suspended 7-4, Nicaraguan border troops deploymt seen 7-5, 460C1–E1 Venez diplomats ousted 7-21, 493E2–F2 Argentina diplomats ousters exchngd 8-13—8-18, 575D3 OAS emergency mtg held 9-21; Brazilian emb svcs cut, restored 9-22—9-23, force use nixed 9-23, 643E2, B3, D3 Brazil emb harassmt halt ordrd, warning issued 9-25—9-27, OAS diplomats entry nixed 9-27, 661F3–662A1 Zelaya Brazil emb sheltering halt urged 10-28, 763B1 Press & Broadcasting TV/radio stations, Internet access shut 6-28—6-29, 438B1–C1 Radio Globo/Channel 36 shut 9-28, 661E3–F3 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 Trade, Aid & Investment US mil aid halted 7-8, 460B2 EU aid halted 7-20, 493F2 Econ sanctns mulled 8-25, 575D2 US aid halt urged, OKs 9-2—9-4, 623C2–E2 Transportation Airports shut 9-21, 643C2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1 Zelaya/Clinton mtg OKd, held 7-6—7-7, 460F1 De facto govt visas suspended 7-28, 508G1 Coup response mulled 8-5—8-6, 575F3 Interim govt visas nix urged, rptd 9-2—9-12, Clinton sees Zelaya, pres electn oppositn set 9-4, 623G1 Clinton calls Zelaya, Micheletti 10-23, Shannon visits 10-28, 762E3–763A1 Kelly visits 11-10, 784A3

HONG Kong (Chinese region) Arts & Culture Prisoner of the State published 5-29, 395B3 Chinese history bk (Chinese Civilizatn Revisited) published 9-25, 683E1 Economy & Labor Hang Seng index drops 11-27, 829A2 Hang Sang ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900B2 European Relations Hungary shuts consulate 6-16, 512B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G3; 10-1, 732G3 Medicine & Health Care Mex visitor swine flu positive test rptd, hotel quarantined 4-30—5-1; response scored, return flight OKd 5-2—5-4, cases tallied 5-7, 303E1, B3 Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, 163B2 HK$ ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3 Press & Broadcasting Far Eastn Econ Review shut 9-21, 936E1 Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112B1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164B2 US Feb ‘09 trade gap 4-9, 240B2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323E3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389B2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477B2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619G1 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699G3 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798B2 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866B1 Transportation Macao/mainland bridge constructn opens 12-15, 933A1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Palin visitss 9-23, 639E1

HONG Kong Electronics N Korea A-program sanctns pass Sec Cncl 7-16, 495A2

HONG Kong Stock Exchange Hang Seng index drops 11-27, 829A2 Hang Sang ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900B2

—HOSTAGES 1063 HONOLULU Advertiser (newspaper) Obama Hawaii birth records confrmd 7-27, 552G3

HONOR Thyself (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

HOOD, Evander In NFL draft 4-25, 298G3

HOOD, Gavin X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

HOOKS, Benjamin Wilson dies 8-11, 612G3

HOON, Geoff Quits 6-4, 397B2

HOOSE, Phillip Wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

HOOVER, J(ohn) Edgar (1895-1972) LBJ aide (Valenti) spying rptd 2-19, 176A3

HOPE (Iranian satellite) Launched 2-3, 86F2

HORMONES MLB’s Clemens perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, 87G3 Toys testing hike delayed 1-30, phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 MLB’s Rodriguez ‘03 positive testosterone test rptd 2-7, 87B2 MLB’s Tejada chrgd 2-10, pleads guilty 2-11, 87E3 World Baseball Classic drug testing rptd 3-4, 191C1 ‘Plan B’ FDA limits review ordrd 3-23, 184E2 MLB’s Ramirez suspended, HCG prescriptn admitted 5-7, 347E3–348A1 NBA’s Lewis suspended, admits banned substnc use 8-6, 771B3 S African runner (Semenya) gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; IAAF probe ordrd 8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns 8-24—8-25, 579D2–E2 Canadian MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951F3

HORMUZ, Straight of Navy sub/transport collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266B3

HORN, Richard ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3–C3, E3–916A1, C1

HORNAFRIK (Somali radio station) Dir (Ahmed) slain 2-4, 66C3–D3

HORNE v. Flores Accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1

HOROWITZ, Glenn McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954D3

HORROCKS, Jane Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

HORSEBACK Riding US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383B3 CIA/Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, 903A1

HORSE Racing Awards & Honors Curlin named ‘08 top horse/older male 1-26, 119C3 Midshipman/Stardom Bound named ‘08 top 2-yr olds 1-26, 119F3 Big Brown/Proud Spell named ‘08 top 3-yr olds 1-26, 119F3 Zenyatta named ‘08 top older female 1-26, 119F3 Benny the Bull/Indian Blessing named ‘08 top sprinters 1-26, 119F3 Conduit/Forever Together named ‘08 top turf horses 1-26, 119F3 Good Night Shirt named ‘08 top steeplechaser 1-26, 119G3 Stronach Stables named ‘08 top owner 1-26, 119G3 Adena Springs named ‘08 top breeder 1-26, 119G3 Asmussen named ‘08 top trainer 1-26, 119G3 Gomez named ‘08 top jockey 1-26, 119G3 Lopez named ‘08 top apprentice jockey 1-26, 119G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, Md eminent domain authrzn passes legis 4-13, 347D2 Rachel Alexandra sold 5-6, 347E1

Preakness attendnc drop rptd 5-16, 347D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1 Injuries & Euthanasia Alysheba put down 3-27, 347B3 Qaulity Rd exits Kentucky Derby 4-27, 315E3 I Want Revenge exits Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315D3–E3 Obituaries Dreyfus Jr, Jack J 3-27, 231E3 Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 O’Brien, Vincent 6-1, 400E3 Race Entrants Indy Express Preakness entry warned, Luv Gov withdrawal mulled 5-10, 347A2 Rachel Alexandra Belmont Stakes entry mulled 5-17, 347A2 Rachel Alexandra Belmont Stakes entry nixed 5-29, 399B2 Rachel Alexandra Breeders’ Cup Classic entry nixed 9-11, ‘09 campaign ends 10-9, 807F1–G1 Records & Achievements O’Brien sets Irish Derby wins mark 6-28, 807C3 Muscle Hill sets Hambletonian mark 8-8, 807B3 Sports Dubai World Cup, Well Armed 3-28, 347B3 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1 Belmont Stakes, Summer Bird 6-6, 399A2 Breeders’ Cup Classic, Zenyatta 11-7, 807D1, G1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Furthest Land 11-7, 807F2 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, Informed Decisn 11-6, 807D2 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, Midday 11-6, 807C2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Vale of York 11-7, 807E2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, She Be Wild 11-6, 807C2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, Tapitsfly 11-6, 807C2 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, Pounced 11-7, 807D2 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic, Life Is Sweet 11-6, 807D2 Breeders’ Cup Marathon, Man of Iron 11-6, 807B2 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Dancing in Silks 11-7, 807E2 Breeders’ Cup Turf, Conduit 11-7, 807F2 Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile, Goldikova 11-7, 807E2 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, Calif Flag 11-7, 807E2 English Derby, Sea the Stars 6-6, 399G2 Hambletonian, Muscle Hill 8-8, 807B3 Haskell Invitatnl, Rachel Alexandra 8-2, 807F1 Irish Derby, Fame and Glory 6-28, 807C3 Kentucky Derby, Mine That Bird 5-2, 315D3 Kentucky Oaks, Rachel Alexandra 5-1, 315F3 Melbourne Cup, Shocking 11-3, 807A3 1000 Guineas, Ghanaati 5-3, 347A3 Preakness, Rachel Alexandra 5-16, 347C1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Sea the Stars 10-4, 807G2 Travers Stakes, Summer Bird 8-29, 807B3 2000 Guineas, Sea the Stars 5-2, 347A3 Woodward Stakes, Rachel Alexandra 9-5, 807F1

HORSES Wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1 US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383B3 US wild horses preserves proposed 10-7, 800F3 Nev wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917D3

HORSE Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452B1

HORST, Gussje Ter Sets US flights body scanners use 12-30, 898G2–A3

HORSTMAN, Donald On Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing probe rpt 5-5, 324C2–D2

HORTEFEUX, Brice Named interior min 6-23, 432G3

HOSKINS, Bob Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

HOSKINS, Steve Bonds perjury trial evidnc OKd 2-19, 158A3

HOSNI, Farouk UNESCO dir gen votes held/Achille Lauro hijackers escape aid alleged, loses electn 9-17—9-22, claims smear campaigns 9-23—10-2, 675F2–B3 Lourve Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952B3–C3

HOSPITAL Corp. of America Cost cuts OKd 7-8, 457F2

HOSPITALS—See under MEDICINE HOSSA, Marian Among NHL goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3 Joins Blackhawks 7-1, 731C1

HOSSEINI-Beheshti, Alireza Held 9-7—9-8, 610A1 Freed 9-13, 628F3

HOST, The (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72A1; 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1

HOSTAGES & Hostage Issues African Developments Mali tourists held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, captives freed 4-22, 326E1 Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens 1-26, 43D1 Nigeria cease-fire ends, forgn oil tanker/workers seized 1-30—5-13, 358A2–B2 Seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66E3 Sierra Leone rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134F1 Sudan aid workers seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2–D2 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht, French commandos raid kills 3 4-4—4-10; US ship capt held/freed, captors slain 4-8—4-12, hostages tallied 4-16, 237A1, A2, 238G1, E2 Somali pirate (Muse) flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2–C2, F2 Darfur hostages freed 5-29, 376A1 UK detainee (Qatada) release sought 5-30, Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405E3 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking rptd 7-31; found, suspects held 8-17, details emerge, probe set/crew returns to Russia 8-18—8-20, 550D3, 551B1, G1 Ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27, 616B2 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801A1 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801G1 Somalia forgn rptrs freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 N African forgners seized, kidnappings claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903E2 Uganda rebels abuses rptd 12-21, 924D3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments PI aid worker seized, call Red Cross ofc 1-15—3-19; mil offensive kills 10+, scored 3-16—3-24, hostage threat rptd, local freed 3-25—4-2, 205F2 Pak/UN refugees aid chief (Solecki) seized 2-2, 69E3 Pak tapes issued, Polish captive beheading confrmd 2-8—2-13, Chinese engineer freed 2-14, 103G1–C2 N Korea/Japan abductees relatives frustratn rptd 2-17, 109B2 Pak cops acad attack kills 8 3-30, UN refugees aid chief (Solecki) found alive 4-4, 228C3, 229E2 Pak separatists seized/found dead, riots erupt 4-2—4-9, 276E3 PI hostages freed 4-2—4-18; rescue opeartn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415E2 Sri Lanka captives rescue claimed 4-20, 277F1 Pak troops/cops held, freed 4-28—4-29, 298G1–A2 Afghan govt bldgs captives held, freed 5-12, 317C3 PI captives seized/freed, probe ordrd 5-19—7-12, 528A1, B2 Sri Lanka rebel conflict war crimes probe nixed 5-21, 363E2 Pak students seized, freed 6-1—6-2, 382G2

1064 HOSTELS— Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2 Myanmar/China border militia clashes erupt, cops kidnapping blamed 8-8—8-31, 590B2 PI militant clashes kill 54+ 8-12—8-19, 559E1, G1 Afghan captives seized 9-5, rptr freed/translator slain, raid defended 9-9—9-10, 611D3 Pak army hq seized, captives held/freed 10-10—10-11, prisoners exchng sought 10-12, 694F2, 695C1, E1 RC priest (Sinnott) seized, PI kidnappers surrounded 10-11—10-13; tape issued, ransom sought/nixed 10-31, freed, release mulled 11-12, 820B1 PI captive (Canizares) slain 11-8, 819D3 PI gov candidate nominatn convoy seized/bodies found, pvt militia role seen 11-23—11-25; cops suspended 11-24, suspects chrgd, held 11-26, 818C3, E3–819A1, F1 PI schl gunmen seize 125, hostages freed 12-10—12-13, suspects chrgd 12-15, 891D1 Afghan, Guardian rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2 CIS Developments Exiled Chechen (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58C2 Rosneft vp son (Stavsky) seized 4-13, kidnapping rptd, confrmd 6-1—6-2, 378F3 Rosneft vp son (Stavsky) freed 6-18, 497A3 Russian activist (Estemirova) seized, found dead 7-15, 497B1 Chechen charity head (Sadulayeva)/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, abductns rise seen 8-12, 544A3 Chechnya ‘02-03 kidnappings paymts ordrd 9-24, 728E1 European Developments Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2 French factory mgrs held, freed 3-24—3-31, 207B1–D1 France anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1 Iraqi Developments MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117A3 Baghdad cops arrest rptd 2-23, 117F3 UK hostages tape issued 3-21, 189D3 Troops seized, freed 3-28—3-29, 208F2 UK aid worker (Hassan) slaying suspect convctd, sentcd 6-2, 380F1 Militant freed, cease-fire declared 6-9, 398G2 UK captives remains returned, IDd 6-20—6-21, 433C3 Slain captive remains returned 9-2, 610B3 UK hostage (MacLachlan) body recovered 9-2, 941D3 Villagers seized, slain 11-15—11-16, 805E1 UK hostage (Moore) freed, prisoner exchng denied/Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 941C3, 942E1; photo 941E3 Latin Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Colombia rebel hostages freed 2-1—2-5, 67D3 Mex ex-gen, assocs seized 2-2, found slain 2-3, 97E2 US hails Colombia kidnapping drop 2-25, 180A2 Peru’s Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222D3, 223A1 Jamaica plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871C3 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested 6-12, 431C3–432C1 FARC ex-cmdr (Aguilar) sent to US 7-16, 526C3 US blocks, issues Mex rights abuses rpt 8-5, 8-13, 556C2 Argentina ‘dirty war’ mil ofcrs convctd, sentncd 8-13, ex-pres (Bignone) trial opens 11-12, 925C3–D3 Colombia rebels chrgd 9-28, held 12-3, 927G2 Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817E3 Colombia gov (Cuellar) seized/found dead, FARC role alleged 12-21—12-22, 927C2 Middle East Developments Gaza cont blockade seen 1-20, 31B3

FACTS Israel/Hamas cease-fire, Gaza border opening deals conditn set 2-15—2-18, envoy fired, reinstated 2-23—2-25, 157A2 Israeli troop (Shalit) release talks fail 3-17, 210E2 US constructn co pres seized, found dead in Iraq 5-21—5-22, 352G3 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367D3, 368B3 Yemen forgn natls seized 6-12, found slain 6-15, 646A2 Iraq/UK hostages slayings rptd 7-29, 530B1 Israeli troop (Shalit) parents letter issued 9-9, 615D1 Israeli troop (Shalit) tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689C2 Leb/UK rptr (Collett) body find rptd 11-23, 877F3 U.S. Developments Mex/Ariz border violnc rise seen 2-23, 171E1

HOSTELS—See HOTELS HOT August Night/NYC (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

HOTEL for Dogs (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

HOTELS & Motels US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38D3 Obamas move to DC 1-4, 6A2 Poland WWII mass grave find rptd 1-7, 137A1 AU summit held 2-1—2-4, 82D2 Wells Fargo Las Vegas conf nixed 2-3, 61E2 China blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251F2 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20, evidnc rptd 4-25, 429F1–G1, B2, F2 Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300A2 Bolivia shootout kills 3 4-16, 294A1, C1 Madagascar parallel PM (Rakotonirina) held 4-29, 308F2 Mex/HK visitor swine flu positive test rptd 4-30; hotel quarantined 5-1—5-2, return flight OKd 5-4, 303B3 Iraq/Spain rptr slaying US troops chrgd 5-21, 344F3 Actor (Carradine) found dead 6-4, suffocatn seen 6-5, 400G2 Mex violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431C2 Pak blast kill 18 6-9, 418F2 Mex cops attacks kill 5+ 7-11; suspects held 7-12, corpses found, IDd 7-13—7-14, 480D3 US troops Spanish rptrs slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483B2 US’s Clinton visits India 7-17—7-20, 486B2 Indonesia blasts kill 7, Yudhoyono visits/standby troops rptd 7-17—7-18; JI role seen, bombers laptop found/IDs sought 7-18—7-22, Noordin wife held 7-22, 494E2, 495B1 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 504A1 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533B2 Indonesia blasts suspects held, slain 8-7—8-8, victim ID mulled, probe ends 8-8—8-12, 542A1, E1 China economist (Tohti) freed 8-22, govt criticism halt warned 8-24, 606A2 Myanmar/China refugees estimated 8-30, 590B3 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) Colo hotel stay seen 9-6, alert issued 9-21, 642G1, B2 Indonesia terror raid kills 4/computer files found, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643F3, 644D1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20, 635D2 9/11 suspect (Higazy) FBI detentn suit setld 9-24, 914G2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) Colo room search rptd 9-26, 678B2–C2 USA Today circulatn drop rptd 10-26, 912B2 Afghan UN workers slain 10-28, 751A1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sees US diplomats 11-4, 763A3 Macao resort, Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove bought 11-21, 840E2 Somalia blast kills 22+, protests held 12-3—12-7, 889A1, D1, C2 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845A2 S Africa World Cup availability assured 12-8, 858D3 Afghan blast kills 8+ 12-15, 894C2 Ger tax cuts stimulus package passes parlt 12-18, 892D1 Afghan blast kills 8 12-24, 899E3

HOTI, Amir Haider Khan On Malakand Islamic law deal 2-16, 102D3

HOT Mess (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

HOUCK, Judge C. Weston Orders Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ prosecutn halt 5-22, 781D3

HOUDYSHELL, Jayne Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

HOUSE in the Night, The (book) Krommes wins Caldecott Medal 1-26, 56B1

HOUSE of Representatives, U.S. Agriculture, Committee on Peterson reseated chair 1-6, 5A1 Appropriations, Committee on Obey reseated chair 1-6, 5A1 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 14C3, 15E1 Livestock methane emissns rptg block backed 6-18, 488D1 Armed Services, Committee on Skelton reseated chair 1-6, 5A1 Afghan mil goals hearing held 1-26, 54C2 Pak mil aid hearing held 4-2, 229A1 Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal mulled 4-6, 217A2 Cybersecurity hearing held 5-5, 411A1 McHugh named Army secy 6-2, 373D2 Afghan troops hike hearing held 12-8, 844C2 Budget, Committee on the Spratt reseated chair 1-6, 5A1 Obama ‘10 proposals hearing held 3-3, 126D1 Blueprint backed 3-25, 181C1 Bernanke testifies 6-3, 371A2 Fscl ‘09 deficit scored 10-16, 713G1 Commerce and Energy, Committee on Salmonella linked peanut butter hearing held 2-11, 95B3 Democrats Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5D1; facts on 4A1–E1 Education and Labor, Committee on Miller reseated chair 1-6, 5A1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Health care reforms draft bill issued 6-9, 390B3 Health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 426D3 Health care reform bill OKd 7-17, 487A3 Energy and Commerce, Committee on Waxman seated chair 1-6, 5A1 Food safety hearing held 3-11, 167A3 Emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, 201E2 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Bayer W Va plant blast info block rptd 4-21, 412F3 Emissns ‘cap-and-trade’ bill hearing held 4-22, 266D2 Climate chng bill backed 5-21, 409F2 Health care reforms draft bill issued 6-9, 390B3 Health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 426D3 Health care reform deal set, bill backed 7-29—7-31, 520A1 Health insurnc cos financial info sought 8-17, 552A2 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, 744A3 Ethics Committee (Committee on Standards of Official Conduct) Green seated chair 1-6, 5A1 Rep Rangel probe hiked 10-8, 679A2 Probes leaked, Calif reps investigatns set 10-29, 779B2, B3, D3 Financial Services, Committee on Frank reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use proposed 1-9, 15B1 Madoff fraud scheme hearing held 2-4, 114A1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos execs hearing held 2-11, 77G2 Bernanke testifies 2-25, 111B1 Merrill execs subpoenaed 3-4, bonus paymts info release ordrd 3-18, 220E2 AIG bonus paymts return sought, hearing held 3-17—3-18, 161F2, B3 Financial indus reforms hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178C2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291D2 Leach named NEH chair 6-3, 373G2 Bernanke testifies 7-21, 487D3 Indus reforms seen 9-14, 618G1 Indus reforms proposed, hearing held 9-23, 641A1–B1 Financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 779B1 Foreign Affairs, Committee on Berman seated chair 1-6, 5B1 US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69C3

ON FILE

Payne visits Somali, plane attacked 4-13, 238G2 Pak aid hearing held 5-5, 315E2, G2 Pak aid package defended 10-14, 695F2 Afghan troops hike hearing held 12-2, 827E2 Homeland Security, Committee on Thompson reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 Mex border drug violnc hearing held 2-25, 171C1 White House crashing hearing held 12-3, 830F1 Intelligence, Select Committee on Reyes reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, 243A3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21, com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263G1, C2 CIA interrogatns ‘02 briefing rptd 4-22, 261G2–A3 Rep Harman NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, 306C2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd, documts issued 5-5—5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 322F3, 323A1, E1, G1 CIA shuttered Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program hearing held 6-24, intell briefings mulled 6-26—7-12, 474A1, C1–E1, A2, D2 Judiciary, Committee on the Conyers reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposal opposed 2-9, 80A2* Miers, Rove testimony set 3-4, 536E3 CIA interrogatns probe urged 4-2, prosecutns mulled 4-17, 258E1 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, 243A3 Judge Kent resignatn urged 5-11; impeachmt backed 6-10, quits 6-24, 469B3–C3 Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias hearing held 7-29—7-30, documts issued 8-11, 536G2, B3–D3 Google bk scanning setlmt hearing held 9-10, 601E1 NFL head injuries hearing held 10-28, 947F3 Fed judge (Porteous) suit filed 11-13, impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831F3, 832D1, G1 Membership ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 110th adjourns 1-2, 3E3 111th convenes 1-6, 3D3 Party ldrs, com chairs listed 1-6, 5A1; facts on 4A1 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46E2 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146B3 Pelosi visits Vatican, sees Pope 2-18, 132A3 DC vote bill passes Sen 2-26, 146F3 OneUnited/Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243D1 NYS seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201E1 Ill seat spec electn held 4-7, 219A2 Rep Jackson Sen seat apptmt bid probe confrmd 4-8, 219D1 NY seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared, sworn 4-24, 4-29, 292B2 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24, NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, 306B2 Pelosi visits Iraq 5-10, 330B3 Calif seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 Rep Visclosky fed subpoenas confrmd 5-29, 779A3 Rep Tauscher vacates seat 6-26, 478A3 Calif seat spec electn held 7-14, 478E2 Calif seat primary held 9-1, 585E1 Rep Wilson, Obama speech outburst rebuke passes 9-15, 617G2 Canada’s Harper sees Pelosi, Boehner 9-17, 643E1 NY’s McHugh quits 9-21, 656A2 Fla’s Wexler sets resignatn 10-14, 717A2 Electn results 11-3, Calif’s Garamendi sworn 11-5, 755A2, F3, 756E1 Rep Kennedy Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831B3 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885A3 Natural Resources, Committee on Rahall reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 Oil cos fed land royalty program hearing held 9-16, 917E2 Oversight and Government Reform, Committee on ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1 Towns seated chair 1-6, 5B1 Afghan arms mil oversight hearing held 2-12, 102A3 Mail delivery cut hearing held 3-25, 324F3

2009 Index AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) tenure hearing held 4-2, 242A1 AIG restructuring hearing held 5-13, 319D2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts sought 6-9, hearing held 6-11, 388E1, A2 MLB’s Sosa ‘03 positive test rptd 6-16, testimony probe opens 6-17, 484F1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger hearing held 6-25, 456A3 Financial crisis response hearing held 7-17, 504E1 $700 bln finanical indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay hearing set 7-31, 522C3 Census hearing held 9-22, 659G1 AIG bonus paymt hearing held 10-14, 715B3 Oversignt and Government Reform, Committee on Citigroup tax break probe set 12-17, 909B2 Republicans Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5E1; facts on 4E1, C2 Rules, Committee on Slaughter reseated chair 1-6, 5B1 Science and Technology, Committee on Gordon reseated chair 1-6, 5C1 Clean coal project ‘08 nix math woes cited 6-12, 446F1 NASA shuttle program future plans hearing held 9-15, 745B2–C2 Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3 Small Business, Committee on Velazquez reseated chair 1-6, 5C1 Transportation and Infrastructure, Committee on Oberstar reseated chair 1-6, 5C1 Veterans’ Affairs, Committee on Filner reseated chair 1-6, 5C1 Ways and Means, Committee on Rangel reseated chair 1-6, 5C1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals hearing held 3-3, 126C1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Universal health care taxes opposed 5-6, 340A1 Health care reforms draft bill issued 6-9, 390B3 Health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 426D3 Income tax hike proposed 7-10, 476E2 Health care reform bill OKd 7-17, 487D2 Rangel admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 619G3 Rangel chair ouster bid fails 10-7, 679E1

HOUSEWARES Window shades/blinds recalled 12-15, 918B2

HOUSING Accidents & Disasters Australian bushfires erupt, probe set 2-7—2-12, 83A3, D3 NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12, 95C2 Southn Calif wildfires hit 5-5—5-9, 393F2 China quake reconstructn rptd 5-11, 327A1 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh, emergency aid sought 5-25—5-31, 383A2 Brazil flooding damage rptd 5-26, 447A2 Tropical storm Nangka hits PI 6-24—6-26, 528G2 Italy RR derailmt, blast kills 16 6-29, 449A3 Sri Lanka refugee camp flooded 8-15, 578C3 Greece wildfires erupt 8-21—8-24, 577E1, B2 Australia water use curbs lifted 9-24, 682F3 Storm Ketsana hits Viet 9-29, 664F2 Amer Samoa tsunami aid rptd 9-30, 662F3 India flooding hits 10-1—10-5, 791C2 Storm Ketsana/PI displacemts rptd, flood waters mulled 10-3—10-6, aid sought 10-6, 684E3–F3 Italy mudslides aid vowed 10-4, 705F1 PI storms displacemts tallied 10-11, 704B1 Iraq drought displacemts rptd 10-13, 730E1 Indonesia quakes damage rptd 10-14, 724E3 El Salvador floods, mudslides damage rptd 11-7—11-9, 818C1 PI volcano alert level hiked 12-14, evacuatns mulled 12-17—12-22, 891C1 Appointments & Resignations HUD secy nominee (Donovan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, confrmd 1-22, 30B1 White House urban affairs dir (Carrion) named 2-19, 113B1

—HOUSING 1065 Freddie Mac CEO (Moffett) quits 3-2, 127B3 Freddie Mac interim CEO (Koskinen) named 3-11, 264D2 HUD asst secy (Stevens) named 3-23, 200A2 Allison named $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, Williams named Fannie Mae CEO 4-20, 264F1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287A2 FHFA dir (Lockhart) quits 8-5, DeMarco named 8-25, 910A1 Budget & Spending Programs Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, 74B1–C1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90E2, A3 Obama ‘10 proposals 2-26, 124D3 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 HUD stimulus funds issued 7-9, 538F2 HUD ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-23, 9-17, 658F2, B3 Uruguay pres electn held 10-25, 746F3 US ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866F3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65F2 Fannie Mae ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid sought 2-26, 127A3 Freddie Mac ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 3-11, 220B3 Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bonus paymts rptd, scored 4-3, 220F2 US energy efficiency spending savings seen 7-29, 917B3 Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac ‘09 2d 1/4 losses rptd 8-6—8-7, 909G3 Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac ‘09 3d 1/4 losses rptd 11-5—11-6, 909G3 Woods wife home buy rptd 12-1, 879E1 Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae unltd govt aid OKd, execs compensatn rptd 12-24, 909A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Freddie Mac acctg probe rptd 3-11, 264C2 UK MP (Morley) suspended 5-14; pol expenses misuse rptd, MacKay/Malik quit 5-14—5-15, Hogg nixes reelectn bid, temporary reforms OKd 5-19, 343G2, G3 Countrywide ex-execs chrgd 6-4, 388C2 US rep (Rangel) admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 620B1 ACORN fed funding bans pass Cong 9-14—9-17; probes set, ldr (Harshberger) named 9-20—9-22, suits seen, IRS partnership ended 9-23, 638F2, A3, C3 ACORN grants ban passes Sen 9-17, 658A3 UK’s Cameron mortgage interest claim documentatn sought 10-12, 727B3 African ldrs French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3 NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 New Financial Century ex-execs chrgd 12-7, 910C2 Crime Issues RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207B2 Freddie Mac CFO (Kellerman) found dead, suicide seen 4-22, 264A2 Pak tribal areas civilns flee 5-5—5-7, 315B1 Nigeria mil offensive displacemts rptd 5-21, 358F2 S Africa township protests turn violent 7-12—7-28, 525C3 Nigeria Islamic sect violnc displacemts return 8-5, 525G2 NYC apartmt raided 9-22, 678G1 Cuba base detainees transferred, Palau aid rptd 10-31—11-1, 760D2 French natl ID debate opens 11-2, 937D1 Health & Safety Issues Chinese drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850D1 Homeless Issues Obama paints teen shelter 1-19, 28B1 China city redvpt plans rptd 4-2, 461E2–F2 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412D1 Georgia govt protests held 5-26, 378E1 ‘07-08 rise seen 7-9, 538C2 Census House com hearing held 9-22, 659A2 EU issues Georgia/Russia war rpt 9-30, 665F3 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709D2 RC/DC social svcs halted 11-11, 832A3 Labor Issues Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846E3

Mortgage Rate Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10B1, D1 IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32D2–E2 FDIC chair (Bair) post cont 1-7, 6E2 Fscl yr ‘09 deficit forecast issued 1-7, Obama econ recovery plan tax cuts questnd 1-8, 7C1, F1 $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use proposed, 2d 1/2 funds block nixed by Sen 1-9—1-15, Bank of Amer/Citigroup shares drop 1-14, 15A1–D1, D2, F2 $700 bln financial indus aid use scored 1-9, 32G2 Merrill ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 1-16, 32C1 UK banks rescue plan set 1-19, 36G1 Spain credit rating cut 1-19, 53E1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 30A2 Fed home loans term chngs set 1-27, 45A3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 42C1 US banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44E2, A3 Canada fscl yr ‘09 budget unveiled 1-28, 50B3 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F1 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled, Cong hearings held 2-10—2-11, 76D3, 77A1, D1, F1, F2, B3 UBS ‘08 loss rptd 2-10, 100E2 Citigroup/Bank of Amer/JP Morgan foreclosures halt vowed 2-13, 127G3 ‘08 delinquent loans rptd, $275 bln foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92A1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106F1, A3–B3, F3 Banks ‘stress tests’ open, plan detailed 2-25, 110C2, E2, A3 Citigroup govt aid plan chngd 2-27, 127A2 AIG ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid plan chngd 3-2, 126E2–G2 HSBC US unit shut 3-2, 127D1 Homeowner govt rescue plan launched 3-4, 127D3, 128G1 Bankruptcy judge chngs authrzn bill passes House, deliquencies tallied 3-5, 147B1 AIG bonus paymts revealed/scored, return mulled 3-10—3-19, Geithner defended 3-18, 161E1, 162C1, D2 GE credit rating cut 3-12, 3-23, 242C1 Treasury small business aid set 3-16, 164C1 Fed OKs mortgages buy 3-18, 163A3 Banks’ troubled assets sale US plan detailed 3-23, 177A1, 178B1 Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178B2 Obama defends budget proposals 3-24, 181E2 CCM seized 3-29, 208F1 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193C2 US financial indus mark-to-mkt acctg rules eased 4-2, 221A1 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) tenure mulled 4-2, 242B1 Wells Fargo ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares rise 4-9, 241A3, C3 Obama sees cont foreclosures 4-14, 240A1 JP Morgan ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, govt aid return sought 4-16, 241G2 IMF worldwide econ forecast issued 4-22, 283F3 Fed/Treasury securities buy tallied, program cont 4-28—4-29, 292A1 US foreclosure curbs plan chngd 4-28; measure nixed 4-30, bill passes Sen 5-6, 319A3, G3 AIG/Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac ‘09 1st 1/4 losses rptd 5-7—5-12, 319D2–E2 US home foreclosures curbs clear House, signed 5-19—5-20, 354B3 30-yr fixed rate avg interest rptd 6-3, 371C3 Citigroup CEO (Pandit) ouster push seen 6-5, 388D1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387A2 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407C2–D2, F3–G3, 408B1 Fed mortgages buy cont 6-24, 427A3–B3 Fed lending programs cut 6-25, 457C1 JP Morgan ‘09 2d 1/4 profit rptd 7-16, 490F2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537E1 Sens Dodd/Conrad gift violatns cleared, ruling scored 8-7, 537B2, E2 AIG ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 8-7, 585A3 Fed securities buy program cont 8-12, 535F2 Financial indus reforms proposed 9-20—9-23, 640G3, 641B1 Bank of Amer assets govt guarantee program exited 9-21, 641C1

Fed securities buy end set 9-23, 640C1–D1 Japan debt paymt moratorium denied 9-29, 703C3 IMF financial stability rpt issued 9-30, 675G1 JP Morgan ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-14, 715E1 Bear Stearns hedge fund ex-mgrs (Cioffi/Tannin) trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814C1 Fed cuts Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac debt buys 11-4, 759B2 FHA cash reserves drop rptd 11-12, 813D3 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-17, 799B1 Lenders loan chngs urged 11-30, 865E1 Japan banks lending urged 11-30, econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 872G3, 873C1 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847A2 $700 bln finanical indus aid cont rpt issued 12-9, Obama sees execs 12-14, 864E2, 865A1, D1 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865D2 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875G2 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910C1–D1 Obituaries Fuller, Millard D 2-3, 72F1 Saulnier, Raymond J 4-30, 348C3 Rights Issues NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538G2 UK legis agenda set 11-18, 821B2 Statistics US Dec ‘08 starts, Nov revised 1-22, 45C3 US Dec ‘08 resales/prices, Nov revised 1-26, 45E3 US Dec ‘08 new-home sales/prices, Nov revised 1-29, 45G3 US Jan ‘09 starts, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 111C3 US Jan ‘09 resales/prices, Dec ‘08 revised 2-25, 129A1 US Jan ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Dec ‘08 revised 2-26, 128F3 US Feb ‘09 starts, Jan revised 3-17, 183D1 US Feb ‘09 resales/prices, Jan revised 3-23, 183C1 US Feb ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jan revised 3-25, 183B1 US Mar ‘09 starts, Feb revised 4-16, 292C1 US Mar ‘09 resales/prices, Feb revised 4-23, 292D1 US Mar ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Feb revised 4-24, 292F1 US Apr ‘09 starts, Mar revised 5-19, 355E3 US Apr ‘09 resales/prices, Mar revised 5-27, 372A2 US Apr ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Mar revised 5-28, 372F1 US May ‘09 starts, Apr revised 6-16, 428C1 US May ‘09 resales/prices, Apr revised 6-23, 456D2 US May ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Apr revised 6-24, 428A1 US Jun ‘09 starts, May revised 7-17, 504B3 US Jun ‘09 resales/prices, May revised 7-23, 504A3 US Jun ‘09 new-home sales/prices, May revised 7-27, 504E2 US Jul ‘09 starts, Jun revised 8-18, 572D1 US Jul ‘09 resales/prices, Jun revised 8-21, 571G3 US Jul ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jun revised 8-26, 572C1 US Aug ‘09 starts, Jul revised 9-17, 640E1 US Aug ‘09 resales/prices, Jul revised 9-24, 657B1 US Aug ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jul revised 9-25, 657C1 US Sep ‘09 starts, Aug revised 10-20, 740E2 US Sep ‘09 resales/prices, Aug revised 10-23, 740D2 US Sep ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Aug revised 10-28, 740C2 US Oct ‘09 starts, Sep revised 11-18, 831C2 US Oct ‘09 resales/prices, Sep revised 11-23, 831A2 US Oct ‘09 new-home sales, Sep revised 11-25, 831D2 US Nov ‘09 starts, Oct revised 12-16, 911G1 US Nov ‘09 resales/pricess, Oct revised 12-22, 911E1 US Nov ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Oct revised 12-23, 911A2 Tax Issues $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89D3, 90B1, D1 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, paymt woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221C1 US ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739D3 US buyers credit measure clears Cong, signed 11-4—11-6, 778F2–G2

1066 HOUSING— HOUSING & Urban Development, U.S. Department of (HUD) Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Donovan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, confrmd 1-22, 30B1 Stevens named asst secy 3-23, 200A2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287A2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 Stimulus funds issued 7-9, 538F2 ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-23, 9-17, 658F2, B3 FHA cash reserves drop rptd 11-12, 813F3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866F3 Obituaries Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316G3 Rights Issues NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538A3 Statistics Dec ‘08 housing starts, Nov revised 1-22, 45C3 Dec ‘08 new-home sales/prices, Nov revised 1-29, 45G3 ‘08 delinquent home loans 2-18, 92D1 Jan ‘09 housing starts, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 111C3 Jan ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Dec ‘08 revised 2-26, 128F3 Feb ‘09 housing starts, Jan revised 3-17, 183D1 Feb ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jan revised 3-25, 183B1 Mar ‘09 housing starts, Feb revised 4-16, 292C1 Mar ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Feb revised 4-24, 292F1 Apr ‘09 housing starts, Mar revised 5-19, 355E3 Apr ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Mar revised 5-28, 372F1 May ‘09 housing starts, Apr revised 6-16, 428C1 May ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Apr revised 6-24, 428A1 ‘07-08 homless families rise seen 7-9, 538C2, F2 Jun ‘09 housing starts, May revised 7-17, 504B3 Jun ‘09 new-home sales/prices, May revised 7-27, 504E2 Jul ‘09 housing starts, Jun revised 8-18, 572D1 Jul ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jun revised 8-26, 572C1 Aug ‘09 housing starts, Jul revised 9-17, 640E1 Aug ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Jul revised 9-25, 657C1 Sep ‘09 housing starts, Aug revised 10-20, 740E2 Sep ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Aug revised 10-28, 740C2 Oct ‘09 new-home sales, Sep revised 11-25, 831D2 Nov ‘09 housing starts, Oct revised 12-16, 911G1 Nov ‘09 new-home sales/prices, Oct revised 12-23, 911A2

HOUSTON, Charles Snead (1913-99) Dies 9-27, 731D3

HOUSTON (Tex.), University of Armed Forces Bowl lost 12-31, 948G2

HOUSTON, Whitney I Look to You on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

HOUSTON Voice (newspaper) Shut 11-16, 912E3

HOUT, Shafiq al- (1932-2009) Dies 8-2, 548C3

HOUTHI, Abdul-Malik alInjury rptd, tape posted 12-27—12-31, 944F3

HOVDE, Matt Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

HOVING, Thomas Pearsall Field (1931-2009) Dies 12-10, 896D2

HOVING, Walter (1897-1989) Son dies 12-10, 896E2

HOWARD, Arlene Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D1

HOWARD, Arliss Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

HOWARD, Dwight NBA rebounding/blocks ldr 4-15, named top defensive player 4-21, 278G2, B3–C3, D3 Suspended 4-30, 419B3 Magic lose NBA title 6-14, 419A2–B2, A3

FACTS HOWARD, John Winston (Australian prime minister, 1996-2007) Gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2 Aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, racial discriminatn act reinstatmt seen 8-17, 624B2 Migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818C2

HOWARD, Joseph Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

HOWARD, Leo GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

HOWARD, Ron Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Angels & Demons on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

HOWARD, Ryan Among NL RBI/HR/runs ldrs 10-6, 690E3–F3 Phillies win pennant, named NCLS MVP 10-21, 752A2–B2, D2 3d in NL MVP voting 11-23, 823B3

HOWARD, Terrence Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

HOWE, Fanny Wins Lilly Poetry Prize 4-14, 364F1

HOXHA, Enver (1908-85) (Albanian Communist Party first secretary, 1944-85) Berisha confrmd PM 9-17, 626B1

HOYER, Steny H. (U.S. representative from Md., 1981- ; Democrat) Facts on 1-6, 4D1 Reseated majority ldr 1-6, 5D1 On health care reform bill 12-15, 864C1 Health care reform passes Sen 12-24, 906C2

HSBC Holdings PLC Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27—1-29, 114G1 US unit shut 3-2, 127D1–E1 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829E1

HSIA, Andrew Quits 8-18, 559F3

HSIEH Hsian-chuan Offers resignatns 8-19, 560A1

HSU, Norman Pleads guilty, convctd 5-7—5-19, sentncd 9-29, 656D3

HU, Stern Held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481A3 Formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3

HUA Guofeng (1920?-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HUANG, JianHua Cavaliers stake bought 5-24, 419C3

HUANG Jui-ching Pleads guilty 1-21, 135D1 Husband sentncd 9-11, 625G2

HUANG Qi Trial held 8-5, 557G1 China safety activist (Qi) convctd, sentncd 11-23, 872D2–F2

HUBBARD, Freddie (Frederick Dewayne) (1938-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HUBBARD, Kathy Partner elected Houston mayor 12-13, 868G3

HUBBARD, L. Ron (1911-86) French Scientology branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787B3–C3

HUBBLE Space Telescope Atlantis flies repair missn 5-11—5-24, svc halt seen 5-19—5-23, 372F2, 373B1, D1

HUBER, Liezel Wins French Open mixed doubles 6-4, 399D1 Loses US Open doubles 9-14, 631E2

HUCKABEE, Mike Addresses Values Voter Summit 9-18—9-19, 639D1 Wash coffee shop shooting kills 4 11-29, suspect slain, family chrgd 12-1—12-9 11-29, 888A2

HUD—See HOUSING & Urban Development HUDDLE Jr., Franklin DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915C3, G3

HUDSON, Ernie Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

HUDSON, Jennifer At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468A1

HUDSON, Kate Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

HUDSON, Rock (Roy Harold Scherer Jr.) (1925-85) Ex-lover dies 6-2, 955G2

HUDSON River US Airways jet engine failure spurs crash-landing 1-15, 33F1

HUDSON Valley Community College (Troy, N.Y.) Obama addresses 9-21, 639E2

HUERTA Rios, Hector (La Burra) Held 3-24, 186A2

HUFF, Keith Steady Rain opens in NYC 9-29, 792G1

HUFFINGTON Post (Web site) Rptr at Obama news conf 2-9, 77E3

HUGHES, Denis Named NY Fed bd chair 8-24, 571F2

HUGHES, Doug Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1 Oleanna opens in NYC 10-11, 860F2

HUGHES, Emily Misses US champ 1-25, 139C2

HUGHES, Gene Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48C2–D2

HUGHES, John (John Wilden Hughes Jr.) (1950-2009) Dies 8-6, 548D3

HUGHES, Nicholas (1962-2009) Kills self 3-16, 192B1

HUGHES, Phil Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752C1

HUGHES, Ted (Edward James) (1930-98) Son kills self 3-16, 192B1 Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

HU Haifeng Namibia bribery suspects held, firm govt deal probed 7-22, 601D2–E2

HUIYUAN Juice Group Coca-Cola buy blocked 3-18, protectnsm denied 3-25, 251C2

HU Jintao (Chinese Communist Party general secretary, 2002- ; president, 2003- ) Declares drought emergency 2-5, 251E2 Tours Africa 2-12—2-17, 170E1 Hosts US’s Clinton 2-21, 109F3 Stimulus spending disclosure urged 3-4, 186F3 Dalai Lama remarks scored 3-10, 172A1 Sees Obama 4-1, 193B1, 194A2 Sees France’s Sarkozy 4-1, 194A2 Marks Sichuan quake anniv 5-12, 326F3–G3 Hosts Brazil’s da Silva 5-19, 448C2 Hosts Taiwan’s Wu 5-26, 415C3 Hosts US’s Geithner 6-2, 414E2 At SCO summit 6-15—6-16, sees Medvedev/Putin 6-17—6-18, 406G2, E3 Hails Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn 6-16, 403D1 Xinjiang ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460E3, 461B2 Exits MEF summit 7-8, 453E1 Namibia bribery suspects held, son firm govt deal probed 7-22, 601D2, F2 Ma telegrams exchngd 7-27, 511A2 Visits Xinjiang 8-22—8-25, Urumqi CP secy (Li) ousted 9-5, 606A1–B1 Xi named to central mil com 9-15—9-18, 683A2 Sees Japan’s Hatoyama 9-21, 703A3 At UN climate chng summit 9-22, 636E1–F1 Marks Communist rule anniv 10-1, 682G3–683A1 Hosts US’s Obama 11-17, 795E2–F2, D3 Iran A-program sanctns hike mulled 11-17, 804E2* India’s Singh visits US 11-23—11-24, 810G1 Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837A2 At Central Asian pipeline openings 12-12—12-14, 935F2, A3

ON FILE

HULL, Brett Replacemt (Nieuwendyk) named 6-1, 436A1 Elected to HOF 6-23, 435E3 Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

HUMAID, Saleh bin Named Islamic law ct head 2-14, 943F3

HUMAIN, Abdel Aziz bin Named religious cops head 2-14, 943F3

HUMANA Inc. Medicare mailings halt ordrd 9-21, 638B1 Health care reform mailings halt order lifted 10-16, 714D1

HUMAN Rights—See also WAR Crimes Africa Liberia’s Taylor son sentncd 1-9, 50A1–C1 Zimbabwe oppositn secy gen (Biti) freed 2-6, 81G2 Zimbabwe oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held, security force intimidatn rptd 2-13—2-15, 96G3–97A1 US lists Zimbabwe/Congo abuses 2-25, 180B1–E1 Zimbabwe activists bail OKd/freed, Mukoko in hosp 2-27—3-3, 152D3–E3 Kenyan activists slain, probe urged/targeting alleged 3-5—3-6; protests turn violent 3-5—3-10, mass exit seen 3-28, 203B1 Uganda troops exit Congo 3-15, 924E3 Eritrea widespread abuses alleged 4-16, 341A2 Libya activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 359B1 Zimbabwe Atty Gen (Tomana) ouster nixed 5-25, 589A1 Darfur refugee camps rape rise seen 5-30, 376F1 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3, F3 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416G2 Darfur civiln attacks seen 6-16, abuses monitoring cont 6-18, 446F2 Nigeria ‘08 sectarian violnc rpt issued 7-20, 525A3 Nigeria Islamic sect ldr (Yusuf) death rptd, arrest mulled 7-30—7-31, probe ordrd 8-5, 525E2–F2 EU delegatn visits Zimbabwe, sanctns lift nixed 9-12—9-13, 661D1 Guinea anti-junta rally banned, protests turn violent 9-27—9-28; mil blamed, probe ordrd 9-29, crackdown scored 9-29—9-30, 660A2, G2 Zimbabwe activists chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, 680E2 Kenya pol reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702A2 Guinea protesters attack scored, probes set 10-7—10-14, 701A3 China/Guinea infrastructure deal rptd 10-13, 702C1–D1 Guinea arms embargo set, Sep protests crackdown mulled 10-17—12-17, 870B2, E3, 871C1–D1 US/Sudan policy shift set, mulled 10-19—11-1, 762A1, F1–A2 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins civil courage prize 10-20; return blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3 Tunisia pres electn held 10-25, 746C1 UN torture probe ldr (Nowak) Zimbabwe entry blocked, sent to S Africa 10-28—10-29, 783G2 Kimberly Process summit held 11-2—11-6; Zimbabwe suspensn nixed, monitoring set 11-5, Marange field exports halted 11-10, 783C3, E3–F3 China loans offrd 11-8, 776C3–D3 Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25—12-7, civiln deaths, sex violnc rptd 12-14, 921C3–D3, 922D1 Rwanda joins Commonwealth 11-28, 845G3 Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) power transfer suit filed 12-15, 923E1 Uganda rebel ldrs trials sought, Sudan/Congo abuses rptd 12-21, 924A3 Asia/Pacific Rim Thai captured refugees mil abuse photos issued 1-15; abandoning policy denied 1-20, probe set 1-29, 52E1–F1 Cuba base detainees resetlmt sought 2-3, 63F3 ASEAN ethnic minorities abuse halt urged 2-8, Thai captured refugees abandoning policy denied, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99E1–F1, A2, C2 Tibet anticrime campaign rptd 1-25; ‘08 rioters, protesters sentncd 2-11—2-19, demonstratns held 2-16, 116F2–G2, B3 China/US ties mulled, Clinton visits 2-20—2-23, 109B1, D3–E3, 110A1 Afghan/US mil detainees policy cont 2-20, 112G2 Sri Lanka rebel, govt forces abuse claimed 2-20, 119D2

2009 Index Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set 2-20, 160G1 US lists China abuse 2-25, rpt scored 2-26, 180B1, F1–A2 ASEAN mtg boycott warned 2-28, 135C3 Tibetan monk sets self ablaze 3-10, 172C1 China record mulled 3-11, 309E2 Afghan women curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213E1–A2 Pak tribal areas Islamic law deal passes parlt, signed 4-13, 276B1 China ‘Action Plan’ set 4-13, 309G1 Afghan women curbs protested 4-15, Karzai names running mate (Fahim) 5-4, 313G3, 314C2 Taiwan WHO observer status block dropped 4-29, 309D3 Tiananmen sq protests prisoners estimated 5-12, ‘hooligan’ (Liu) freed 5-18, 395E3–F3 Sri Lanka rebel ldr (Prabhakaran) death claimed 5-18, 334F1 China Web-filter software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414G2, C3 S Korea ex-pres (Roh) kills self 5-23, 360C3, 361B1 Afghan air strike civiln deaths rpt issued 5-26, 381F2 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, 381C2–D2 PI/US citizen kidnapping mil role claimed 6-2, 528C2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, Iraq/Chad/Bermuda transfers rptd 6-11, 391C2 Afghan detainees, Canadian troops abuse claims nixed 6-9, 413A1 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447C1 Thai Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 745F3 China dissident (Liu) held 6-23, 448G1 UN’s Ban visits Myanmar 7-3—7-4, 462B2 Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499A2 Sri Lanka aid workers ‘06 slayings army role nixed 7-14; IMF loan OKd 7-24, local electns held 8-8, 578G2, G3–579A1, C1 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16, release set 7-29, 505E3, G3 Myanmar abuses scored, Suu Kyi release urged 7-21—7-23, 495E2, D3–E3 China/US talks held 7-27—7-28, 509D2 PI’s Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528A3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-12, 543C2 Afghan’s Dostum returns 8-16; hosts Karzai rally 8-17, denies deal 8-19, 549C3 Afghan/US detainees IDs, Red Cross acess rptd 8-22, 621G2 Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn seen 8-27, 624E1, G1 Sri Lankan rptr (Tissainayagam) sentncd 8-31, 770A1–B1 E Timor massacre suspect (Bere) release scored 8-31, 835C1, G1–A2 China dissident (Xie) sentncd 9-1, 606F2 Chevron/Total, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684B1 Afghan detainee appeals authrzn seen 9-13, 630E2 N Korea chngd const issued 9-28, 653G1 US’s Campbell sees Myanmar’s Thuang 9-29, 652B3 Myanmar sanctns lift mulled 10-9, 725E3 China prof (Guo) sentncd 10-16, 724C3 N Korea prison camps use rptd 10-17, UN rpt issued, ofcls questng set 10-22, 764D1 Sri Lanka govt, rebels war abuses rptd, probe urged 10-19—10-22, Gen Fonseka US questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769D2, D3 China disappearncs seen 10-21, 785B3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748E1, C2 Sri Lankan gen (Fonseka) quits 11-12, 823D2 Obama visits China 11-15—11-18, 795F2, C3 Canadian/Afghan detainees abuse parlt hearings held 11-18—12-9; govt stance chngd 12-9, com mtg skipped 12-15, 926F3 India’s Singh visits US 11-23—11-24, 810E1, B2 PI pol family (Ampatuans) probe set 12-9, 853D1 China dissident (Liu) indicted 12-10, 872A3–B3 Cambodia deports Chinese Uighurs 12-19, 931F3–932A1 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 12-25, 899E3

—HUMAN 1067 Chinese activist (Liu) convctd, sentncd 12-25, 932D3 Canada parlt suspended 12-30, 926C3–E3 Commonwealth of Independent States Chechen exile/atty/student rptr slain 1-13—1-19, 36E2, G3–37C1 Exiled Chechen (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58B2–C2 Russian rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69A2 Turkmen abuse rpt issued 2-12, 135C2 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects cleared 2-19, 100D1 Uzbek rptr (Sayyid) held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 891G3 US lists Russia abuse 2-25, 180B1, D1 Russian activist (Ponomaryov) egged 3-11; tires slashed 3-30, attacked 3-31, 273F3 Chechen missing detainees setlmts ordrd 5-28, 378C3 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects acquittals nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497F2 Russian activist (Estemirova) found dead, Meml shut 7-15—7-20; Kadyrov role alleged/denied, suit opens 7-16—7-20, UN indep probe nixed 7-22, 497B1, D1 Azerbaijan bloggers arrests questnd 7-17, 544D1 Kazakh car crash kills 1, drunk driving alleged 7-26; Zhovtis convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1 Chechen charity head (Sadulayeva)/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, rights groups woes seen 8-11, 544B3–C3 Russian activist (Ponomaryov) held 8-31, 667F3 Kazakh OSCE chair bid backed 10-6, 739G2 Chechnya pres (Kadyrov) libeling ruled, Memorial/Orlov damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Russian activists attacks concern seen 10-14, 706A1 Russian oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, 766F1–G1, B2 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764A3–C3 Russian activist (Khachukayev) detentn rptd 11-4, abductn alleged 11-5, 855C2 Russian atty (Markelov) slaying suspects held 11-5, 855B2 Russian antifascist activist (Khutorskoi) slain 11-16; motive mulled 11-17, Young Russia role denied, violnc drop urged 11-18—11-19, 822E1 Russia death penalty ban cont 11-19, 855D1 Russian activist group dir (Prudetsky) slain 12-10, 939F1 Russian rptr (Yevloyev) slaying suspect convctd/sentncd, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2 Meml awarded EU prize, Chechnya work cont 12-16, 939E1 Uzbek pre-electn oppositn crackdown scored 12-21, 934E3 Russian atty (Magnitsky) prison death rpt issued 12-28, 9238G2 Europe Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23, torture mulled 2-23, 112A2, D2–F2 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416E2 UK terror suspect (Ahmed) ‘06 exit, Pak torture link seen 7-7, 544F2–G2 UK terror suspects torture role probe urged 8-4, allegatns denied 8-9—8-10, 544E1, E2 Turkey Kurdish rebels peace initiative set 8-11, 728F2 French town Muslim swimsuit ban rptd 8-12, 561A2 Serbia unbiased protectns vowed 9-18, gay pride parade nixed, pub gatherings banned/ultranatlists held 9-19—9-20, 687F3 French camp raided/migrants held, asylum bids denied 9-22, 666F1 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884A3 Turkey Kurdish rights hike proposal unveiled 11-13, PKK ldr (Ocalan) solitary confinemt ends 11-17, 803E3, 804B1 International Organizations UN cncl members electn held 5-12, 336E2 Robinson get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Latin America US hails Colombia abuse drop 2-25, 180B1, A2

Peru’s Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222D3 Summit of the Amers held, US/Cuba ties mulled 4-17—4-19, 271B2, G2 Mex drug cartels prosecutn mil abuses rptd 4-29, arrests tallied 5-1, 359D2 US/Cuba immigratn talks return set 5-30, OAS reentry OKd 6-4, 376C2, D3 Venez ‘media crimes’ bill introduced 7-31, 576C1 US blocks, issues Mex abuses rpt 8-5, 8-13, 556G1 Argentina ‘dirty war’ ofcrs convctd, sentncd 8-13, ex-pres (Bignone), ex-capt (Astiz) trials open 11-2—12-11, 925B3, D3 Honduras coup rights abuses probed, rpts issued 8-17—8-21, 575B3 Mex atty gen (Medina Mora) quits 9-7, 604G3 Colombia record improvemts seen 9-11, 817G3 Colombia intell agency nix set 9-18, 817F3 Mex atty gen nominee (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1 Peru’s Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682F2 Cuba abuses scored 11-18, 928E1 Guatemala ex-gen (Sanchez) convctd, sentncd 12-3, 929G3 Brazil ‘03-09 drug fight casualties tallied 12-8, 926E2 Mex mil abuses alleged 12-8, 928A3 Middle East Israeli forces white phosphorus use alleged 1-10, war crimes probe urged 1-14, 13B2, 14A1 Europn/Palestinian aid ship blocked 2-5, 157A3 Iraq prison reopened 2-20, rptr access OKd 2-21, 118B2–C2 Chrgd Iraq MP (Daini) bodyguards tortured testimony claimed 2-23, 117B3 Syria ct abuses alleged 2-24, 465G2 US’s Feltman sees Syria amb (Moustapha) 2-26, delegatn visit set 3-3, 123D3 Palestinian activist (Jabarin) W Bank exit blocked 3-10, prize presented 3-13, 210F3 Gaza invasn abuses alleged, mil probe launched/nixed 3-19—3-30, 209F3 Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc rptd 4-18; case review ordrd 4-19—4-20, Ebadi named atty 4-20, 275A1, C1 Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331G2 Libya prisoner (Libi) sees advocates 4-27, 331B2 Obama Egypt speech set 5-8, 318D1–E1 Afghan/US mil cmdr (McChrystal) named 5-11, 317D2 Saudi munic electns held 5-18, 944A1 UK terror suspect (Qatada) release sought 5-30, 370D1 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367C2; excerpts 368C3 Ark mil recruiting booth shooter (Muhammad) Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-4, 392D2 Iraq prison abuse talks sought, cops chrgd/probe opens 6-11—6-18, MP (Obaidi) slain 6-12, 433D2–G2 Iran protests cont, arrests tallied 6-20—6-25, 421B2, 422A3 Iran pres electn protests arrests tallied 7-8, 464E2 Iran detainees freed, deaths rptd 7-28; dissidents trial opens 8-1, confessns aired 8-2, 518A3, 519A1 Iran prisoners abuse admitted, deaths mulled 8-8—8-9; rape alleged/dismissed, probe urged 8-9—8-18, electn violnc slayings tallied 8-11, 561E2, A3–D3 Israeli/Gaza war civiln casualties rptd 8-13, 593A3 Iraq gay men abuse rptd 8-17, 563D1 Iraq/US detainees IDs, Red Cross acess rptd 8-22, 621G2 Iran prison abuse probe set, mil ct control ceded 8-29—9-9; Ruholamini death rptd 8-31, rights orgn ofc sealed 9-7—9-8, 610A1, E1 Iraq detainees torture suit nixed 9-11, Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629D1–E1, A2 Iran prison abuses denied/detailed, Moussavi aide freed 9-12—9-14, dissidents trial cont 9-14, 628D3–F3 Iran’s Jalili sees US’s Burns 10-1, 651D1 Iraq’s Maliki coalitn set 10-1, 688B3 US citizen (Hamdan) convctd in UAE 10-12, 893A3 Iraq ‘04-08 casualties tallied 10-13, 729C3 Gaza water shortage seen 10-27, 754D3

Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 766A1 Iran oppositn rallies held 11-4, 768B1 Iraq prov minorities abuse rptd 11-10, 789B3 Iran abuses res passes UN 11-20, 857D2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Brazil visit protested 11-22—11-23, 885A2 Abu Dhabi Shiekh torture trial rptd 12-10, 893G2 Iran protest arrests rptd 12-28—12-29, 940C3–D3 Obituaries Alfonsin, Raul 3-31, 212F1 Bussi, Hortensia 6-18, 451F3 Chavez Cano, Esther 12-25, 955E1 Fawehinmi, Gani 9-5, 612D3 Kim Dae Jung 8-18, 564B3 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3 United States Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen 1-5, Brennan named White House advisor 1-8, 5G3–6A1 Johnsen named legal counsel ofc head 1-5, 6D2 Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28F3 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) treatmt defended 1-13, abuse confrmd 1-14, 20D1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16A3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 18D3, 19B2 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 CIA terror suspects interrogatn tactics ltd, natl intll dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28G1–A2, E2–B3 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 45F1–A2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46G3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60F3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, 80F2–A3 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 2-5—2-6, 93F3–G3 Terror detainee torture info release opposed 2-9, 80C2 Human Rights Watch sr adviser (Des Forges) dies in plane crash 2-12, 95A3 Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, Justice Dept ex-ofcls responses seen 2-17, 94C3, F3–95B1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1, B2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 Terror detainees renditns UK aid admitted 2-26, interrogatns abuse forgn govts role rptd 2-27, 150E1, B3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn Sen com probe rptd 2-27, 130D2 CIA detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129C2 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129G3, 130G1 Bush signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145E1 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15; indep probe urged 3-17, Bush admin documts release mulled 3-23, 183G2 Terror detainee (Mohamed) failed plea deal documts issued 3-23, UK probe urged 3-26, 290B2–E2 Terror detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199C3, G3 Terror detainees abuse CIA rpts release sought 3-31, 290B3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 CIA interrogatn memos release delayed, House com rpt issued 4-2, 257E1, 258F1–G1 Terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244C2 Md cops spying curbs pass legis, signed/enacted 4-8—10-1, 919A3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled/footnotes detailed 4-16—4-23, Sen com rpt released/detainees psych analyzed, timeline revealed 4-21—4-22, 257A1–261E3; excerpts 259A1–260G3 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329F1, C2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns ‘05 memo rptd 4-21, 322C2 Detainees interrogatn documts issued, photos release set 4-24; intell questnd 4-25—4-26, CIA methods scored, Bybee memos defended/Sen com testimony sought 4-27—4-29, 289A2–290F3

1068 HUMAN— US terror detainees abuse ban defended 4-29, 285D2–E2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns defended 4-29, 306E1 Fed hate-crimes hike passes Cong 4-29, 7-23, 489D3 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 305E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322G2 Cuba base detainee (Ahmed) cont detentn nixed 5-4, 506B2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd, documts issued 5-5—5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 323F3, 324G1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held, Zelikow memo found 5-13, Cheney documts request denied 5-14, 322B1, E1, A2, F2 Detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 330G3 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337B3, D3 Obama anti-terror policies questnd 5-21, 337E2–F2 Detainees abuse FOIA omit passes Sen 5-21, 355A2 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367F3, 368C2 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428F1, A2–B2, D2 Detainees abuse photos ban passes Sen 6-17, 425A1 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed/Durham named, interrogatn unit order signed 8-19—8-24; cont renditns rptd 8-22—8-24, documts issued, techniques defended 8-24, 565A1–567A3 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587D1, F1 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816A2 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633E1 Justice Dept ‘state secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642E2 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) release ordrd 9-25, 718A3 Tibet’s Dalai Lama visits US/Obama mtg delay mulled, gets Lantos award 10-5—10-6, 712D3, F3 Cuba base detainees mil comm trials chngs bill signed 10-28, 794D1 9/11 plot suspects trials set 11-13, 793G2, B3 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867G1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842B3, 843F1, A3, C3–D3

HUMAN Rights Campaign (HRC) Justice Dept/Defns of Marriage Act scored 6-15, 408A3 Obama addresses 10-10, 698G3

HUMAN Rights Commission of Pakistan Tribal areas Taliban bodies found 8-25, 578G1

HUMAN Rights in China Nanjing Normal Univ prof (Guo) sentncd 10-16, 724C3

HUMAN Rights Watch Israeli mil white phosphorus use alleged 1-10, 13B2 Des Forges dies in plane crash 2-12, 95A3 Sri Lanka govt, rebel forces abuse claimed 2-20, 119D2 Syria ct abuses alleged 2-24, 465G2 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt mulled 3-4, 123E1 ICE detentn ctr med care questnd 3-17, 268G3 Gaza invasn white phosphorus use rptd 3-25, 210C2–D2 Eritrea widespread abuses alleged 4-16, 341A2 Hamas pol slayings claimed 4-20, 313C1 Libya prisoner (Libi) sees advocates 4-27, 331B2 Mex drug cartels prosecutn mil abuses rptd 4-29, 359E2 US, Human Rights Cncl electn hailed 5-12, 336C3 Israel/Gaza invasn drone missile strikes use scored 6-30, 546D2 Nigeria ‘08 sectarian violnc rpt issued 7-20, 525A3 Nigeria Islamic sect ldr (Yusuf) death rptd, arrest mulled 7-30—7-31, probe ordrd 8-5, 525E2 Chechnya rights groups woes rptd 8-11, 544C3 Israeli/Gaza war civiln casualties rptd 8-13, 593A3 Iraq gay men abuse rptd 8-17, 563D1

FACTS Turkmen students studying abroad ban set 8-31, 625B3 China ethnic violnc mulled 9-6, 605G3 China disappearncs seen 10-21, 785B3 EU/Uzbek sanctns lift scored 10-27, 764C3 Guinea Sep protests crackdown mulled 10-27—12-17, 871D1 Iraq prov minorities abuse rptd 11-10, 789B3 Cuba abuses scored 11-18, 928E1–F1 Brazil ‘03-09 drug fight casualties tallied 12-8, 926E2 China dissident (Liu) indicted 12-10, 872B3 Uzbek pre-electn oppositn crackdown scored 12-21, 934E3

HUMER, Franz Genentech offer hiked 1-30, deal OKd 3-12, 151F1

HUMPHRIES, Kris Traded to Mavericks 7-9, 771B2

HUNGARY, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Kosovo Albanians migrant boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777F1–G1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Malaysia emb, HK/Australian consulates shut 6-16, 512A2 Canadian Relations Toronto consulate shut 6-16, 512A2 Crime & Civil Disorders Sci Univ shooting kills 1, gunman surrenders/detentn ordrd 11-26—11-28, 876F1 Energy Turkey gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935C3 European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 EU mtg held 3-1, 136B2, F2 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188C3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396E2, 397C1 Lux emb, Ger/France/Poland consulates shut 6-16, 512A2 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 Slovakia minority curbs complaint set, law enacted 8-3—9-1, Solyom entry nixed 8-21, 608B3–D3 EU treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, 765A2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 788E1–F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Gyurcsany reelected party chair, quits 3-21—3-23, parlt dissolutn sought 3-22, 188F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-23, 234A1 Bajnai named/confrmd premr, vote boycotted 3-30—4-14, early electns sought 4-14, 272F3 Facts on Bajnai 4-14, 273A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734A1 Iraqi Conflict Pvt contractor slain 3-26, US troop (Stovall) chrgd 4-5, 228E1 Latin American Relations Bolivia shootout kills 3 4-16, Morales thwarted assassinatn plot claimed, denied 4-16—4-21, 294B1, G1–A2 Chile/Venez embs, Brazil consulate shut 6-16, 512A2 Monetary Issues Euro adoptn curbs ease backed 3-1, 136D2 Forint hits low vs Euro 3-6, 189C1–D1 EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Obituaries Kiraly, Bela K 7-4, 516B3 Sports Hungarian Grand Prix results 7-25, 647A2 Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2, 859C3 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee transfer OKd 9-16—9-30, 718C2–D2 Cuba base detainee transferred 12-1, 861D2

HUNGER Strikes—See under FOOD HUNGWE, Justice Charles Orders Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt diamond field ouster 10-1, 681F1

HUNKE, David Named USA Today publisher 4-28, 913E2

HUNKELER, Edith Wins NYC marathon 11-1, 791D3–E3

HUN Sen (Cambodian premier, 1985- ) Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) UN trial opens 2-17, 98A2 Warns Thai border violnc 3-31, clash kills 3, denies war 4-3—4-5, 310A2–B2 Vs Khmer Rouge tribunal cont indictmts 3-31, 413G3 At ASEAN summit, offers Thai’s Thaksin asylum 10-23—10-25, 748A2–B2 Thai’s Thaksin named econ adviser 11-4, emb protested 11-12, 785A1, A2 Thai student exchng nixed, aid halted 11-27—11-30, spy (Siwarak) pardoned 12-11, 872E1, A2, C2

HUNT, (Harold) Guy (1933-2009) Dies 1-30, 72E2

HUNT, Waldo Henley (1920-2009) Dies 11-6, 860D3

HUNT Family HFV mgr dir (Wissman) guilty plea rptd 4-15, 265B3

HUNTING Spain justice min (Bermejo) quits 2-23, 226C3 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, hunting OKd 9-8, 655F1 Regulatory chief nominee (Sunstein) confrmd 9-10, 656G2 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930A2

HUNTINGDON Life Sciences (HLS) Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatn home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609E2, A3

HUNTINGTON, Samuel Phillips (1927-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

HUNTLEY, Brandon Canadian asylum bid OKd 8-27; protest filed 9-1, review set 9-3, 927G1

HUNTSMAN Jr., Jon (Utah governor, 2005-09; Republican) Named China amb 5-16, 353D3 Leach named NEH chair 6-3, 373C2

HUNTSMAN Sr., Jon Son named China amb 5-16, 353F3

HUPPUCH, Birgit Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

HUR, M.J. Wins Safeway Classic 8-30, 595G2

HURD, Douglas Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637D1

HURDLE, Clint Fired 5-29, 484D2 Tracy named NL top mgr 11-18, 824C1

HUREWITZ, Judge Kenneth Nixes USF ex-student (Megahed) deportatn case 8-21, 815G3

HURLEY, Col. Douglas Pilots Endeavour missn 7-15—7-31, 519G1

HURRIYET (Turkish newspaper) Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706C2

HURST, Gerald Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd 8-17, Gov Perry documts release nixed 10-11, 700G1–B2, E2

HUSAINI, Haitham Kadhim alSlain 1-16, 38C1

HUSHOVD, Thor Named Tour de France top sprinter 7-26, 515E2

HU Shuli Quits 10-12—11-9, 785E3–F3

HUSSAIN, Nabeel Assoc convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3

HUSSAIN, Qari Mil captures Kotkai 10-24, 737C3

HUSSAIN, Tanvir Convctd 9-7, 608D1, C2 Sentncd 9-14, 626F1

HUSSAYEN, Sami Omari alTerror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659C3–D3

HUSSEIN, Lubna ‘Indecent’ clothing arrest rptd 7-3; immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622B3–E3, G3–623B1

ON FILE

HUSSEIN, Nur Hassan (Somali interim premier, 2007- ) Ahmed elected, sworn pres 1-31, 66F2–G2

HUSSEIN Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, Saddam (1937-2006) (Iraqi president, 1979-2003; premier, 1994-2003) Ex-palace security transferred 1-1, 8F3 Govt damages case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 France’s Sarkozy visits 2-10, 101A3 Abu Ghraib prisoners transferred 2-20, rptr access OKd 2-21, 118C2 Shiite ‘99 uprising suppressn suspects cleared, Majid convctd 3-2, 121B3 Baghdad merchants ‘92 slayers convctd, sentncd 3-11, 156A2 Obama visits 4-7, 215A1 US detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261B3 Afghan/US mil cmdr (McChrystal) named 5-11, 317A2 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367G3, 368B2 US interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465A2 US troops cont attacks urged 7-1, 437A2 UN sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498C1 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707F3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3 Electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789D1 UK war role probe opens 11-24, 821B1–C1

HUSSEIN bin Ali bin Abu Tabib (626-680) Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8A3 Death anniv mourning ends 2-15, 101E1 Iran protests turn violent 12-27, 940E2 Pak blast kills 30 12-28, 947A1

HUSSEINI, Hamdiya alOn electns law veto 11-18, 805B1

HUTCHERSON, Josh Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

HUTCHINS, Carleen (Carleen Maley) (1911-2009) Dies 8-7, 580D3

HUTCHISON, Kay Bailey (Kathryn Ann) (U.S. senator from Tex., 1993- ; Republican) Chrysler funds block nixed 5-21, 355B2 On auto indus dealerships closure 6-9, 386B1 Sets gov bid 7-13, sees Sen resignatn 7-29, 503D2 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537B3 White sets gov bid 12-4, 869D1

HUTTON, Betty (Elizabeth June Thornburg) (1921-2007) Ex-husband dies 3-13, 192C3

HUTTON, Col. James On Iran drone Iraq shoot down 3-16, 174A3

HUTTON, John Afghan, Eur role hike urged 1-15, 54A3 Admits US terror suspects renditn aid 2-26, 150G2, B3–E3 Quits 6-4, 397B2

HUVELLE, Judge Ellen Scores Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn 7-16, orders repatriatn 7-30, 505F3, 506B1

HUYBERS, Peter Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

HWANG, David Henry Shi Pei Pu dies 6-30, 516G3

HWANG Woo Suk Convctd, sentnc suspended 10-26, 764C2

HYDE Pierce, David Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

HYDROELECTRIC Power—See ELECTRIC Power HYDROGEN Cars dvpt US funding cut 5-7, GM/Honda/Toyota plans cont 5-11, 917A2 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 696A3*, C3 Moon water confrmed 11-13, 824F2–G2

HYPO Alpe-Adria Bank International AG Natlzn set 12-14, 875E3

HYTNER, Nicholas England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3 Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3 Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

HYUNDAI Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd. UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944E2

2009 Index HYUNDAI Group Hyun visits N Korea, worker freed/deported 8-10—8-17, 558B1, F1–G1

HYUN In Taek Named S Korea unificatn min 1-19, 51A3 Hosts N Korea delegatn 8-22, 568B3

HYUN Jun Eun Visits N Korea 8-10—8-17, 558B1, D1

HYUN Soo Kim Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191C1

I IAEA—See UNITED Nations—International Atomic Energy Agency IAKOBASHVILI, Timur On Russia war rpt findings 9-30, 666C1

I, Alex Cross (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

I Am...Sasha Fierce (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

IAVARONI, Marc Fired 1-22, 159F1

IBANEZ, Raul NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752G1

IBERIABANK Govt aid returned 3-31, 241D3

IBM (International Business Machines Corp.) Oracle/Sun buy set 4-20, 601C2 Moffat chrgd, held 10-16, 743G2 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800A3

IBRAHIM, Mo ‘09 ldrship prize foregone 10-19, 731F2

IBRAHIM, Wisam Ali Khazim Forgn/finance min bldgs attack confessn tape aired 8-23, 592G2

IBRAHIMBEKOV, Rustam Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3

IBRAHIMOVA, Elmira On pres ex-staff chief (Sadyrkulov) death 3-16, 172D2

IBRAHIM Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, Mo ‘09 award foregone 10-19, 731F2

IBROHIM Slain 8-8, IDd 8-12, 542E1

IBSEN, Henrik (1828-1906) Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

ICC (International Criminal Court)—See UNITED Nations—International Criminal Court ICE, Thomas Judge sentncg power upheld by Sup Ct 1-14, 21D1

ICE, Tim Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399F2

ICE Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954E1

ICE Edge Holdings Coyotes, NHL sale OKd 11-3, Ice Edge Holdings buy seen 12-11, 951C2

ICELAND, Republic of Arts & Culture Eurovisn results rptd 5-16, 607C1 European Relations EU entry deal sought 4-26, 295F3 EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Protests held, early electns set 1-21—1-23; Haarde, cabt quit 1-26, Gisladottir premr bid nixed, govt sought 1-26—1-27, 52D3 Sigurdardottir sworn 2-1, 68F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B1 Parlt electns held 4-25, 295C3 Facts on Sigurdardottir 4-25, 296A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734B1 Monetary Issues Bank govs resignatn sought 2-2, 69A1

—IMJIN Banks restructuring plan set 7-20, 512A3 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 Iceland loans deal OKd 6-6, 512B3

ICE Skating Winners US figure champ (men’s), Abbott 1-25, 139D2 US figure champ (women’s), Czisny 1-25, 139C2 US figure champ (pair’s), McLaughlin/Brubaker 1-24, 139E2 US figure champ (dancing), Davis/White 1-24, 139E2 World figure champ (men’s), Lysacek 3-26, 211E2 World figure champ (women’s), Kim 3-28, 211D2 World figure champ (pair’s), Savchenko/Szolkowy 3-25, 211F2 World figure champ (dancing), Domnina/Shabalin 3-27, 211G2

ICHIHASHI, Tatsuya Held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2

ICL Industrial Products Inc. Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918E1

IDAHO Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, hunting OKd 9-8, 655G1 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781B3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Military Issues Afghan troop hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2 Sports Humanitarian Bowl results 12-30, 948G2

IDAHO, University of (Moscow) Humanitarian Bowl won 12-30, 948G2

IDIOT Savant (play) Opens in NYC 11-4, 896B1

IDITAROD—See DOG Racing IDRAC, Anne-Marie At World Econ Forum 2-1, 58F2

I Dreamed a Dream (recording) On best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

I Dreamed a Dream (song) ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts 4-11, 383G3

IEA—See INTERNATIONAL Energy Agency IENG Sary Chrgd 12-16, 889F3, 890C1

IENG Thirith Chrgd 12-21, 890C1

IERONYMOS (archbishop of Greece) Swears premr (Papandreou) 10-6, 686B2

I4i Inc. Microsoft word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911G3–912A1

IGBC Index—See BOGOTA Stock Exchange IGLESIAS, David Ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, 536F3–537A1

IGNAGNI, Karen Sets insurnc premiums gender disparity end 5-5, 340F1 Scores Sen health care reform bill 10-11—10-12, 698B2

IGNATIEFF, Michael Backs budget plan, seeks parlt updates 1-28, 50C2, F2, A3 Hosts Obama 2-19, 91E2 Sees Harper govt confidnc vote 9-1, 589C1–F1 Quebec party organizer (Coderre) quits 9-28; govt survives confidnc vote 10-1, support polled 10-5, 681G2–A3, C3–E3

I Gotta Feeling (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1

IHSANOGLU, Ekmeleddin Scores Swiss mosque minarets ban 11-29, 837C1

IKNADOSIAN, George Trial opens 3-9, 171A2–B2

I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1

Il GIORNALE (Italian newspaper) Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 9-3, 626G3–627A1

ILIA II, Patriarch (Georgia) Urges oppositn members release 5-7, 32F3 Urges early electns urged 5-28, 378F1

ILIADIS, Dennis Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

ILLEGAL Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (1996) Cops deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151A2

ILLINOIS Arts & Culture Chicago Art Inst contemporary wing opens 5-16, 953B3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Caterpillar ‘08 fed funded projects rptd 1-21, 29E3 Sears Tower renamed 7-16, 914G1 Boeing freighter jet delays chrg set 10-6, 744C1 Boeing 787 Dreamliner test flight held 12-15, 921C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Sen nominee (Burris) issues affidavit to gov ouster com 1-5, 93E2 Blagojevich ouster com hearing held, impeachmt urged 1-8, 4F3–G3 Gov Blagojevich impeachmt passes state House 1-9, 18F2 Gov Blagojevich impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43A3, E3 Sen Burris issues 2d affidavit to gov ouster com 2-4; on Blagojevich brother talks, explanatn sought 2-15, 93F2–B3 Sen Burris admits Blagojevich fund-raising bid 2-16, seeks Chicago backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1, C3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, Rep Jackson probe confrmd 4-8, 218B3, 219A1, D1 Blagojevich, assocs plead not guilty 4-14—4-16, 243A2 Blagojevich brother/Sen Burris wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27, questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, 478B1–E1 Sen Burris admonished 11-20, 814B2, D2 Crime & Law Enforcement Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129B3 Maryville church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect (Sedlacek) chrgd 3-9, 247E3 Terror detainee (Marri) transported 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 184A1 Terror suspect (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2 Craigslist CEO (Buckmaster) sees atty gen 5-5, 429A3 Sears Tower terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374A3 Springfield bomb plot suspect (Finton) held, chrgd 9-24, 678B3 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760D1 Cuba base detainees transfer mulled 11-14—11-16, 794D2–G2 Sears Tower terror plotters sentncd 11-18—12-19, 914G1 Thomson prison fed buy seen 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set, plans mulled 12-15—12-16, 861A1, D1, G1–B2 Cuba base detainees, Thomson prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914A1 Demonstrations & Protests Calif gay marriage ban ct ruling protested 5-26, 352F3 Energy Clean coal project ‘08 nix math woes cited 3-11, funding set, revived 5-15—6-12, 446C1, E1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Hungary shuts Chicago consulate 6-16, 512B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Burris Sen apptmt certificatn sought 1-2; seating blocked 1-6, sees Reid, Durbin 1-7, 3D3; photo 3E3

1069

Labor & Employment Caterpillar rehiring mulled 2-11, 79E1 Pension reforms signed 4-3, 219F1 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Abortn parental notificatn requiremt upheld, delayed 7-14—8-5, 587E2 Obituaries Duckworth, Ruth 10-18, 772E1 Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3 Taylor, Koko 6-3, 400F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Burris Sen apptmt certified 1-9; credentials OKd 1-12, sworn 1-15, 18B2 Quinn sworn gov 1-29, 43A3 Obama visits 2-11, 79E1 House seat spec electn Dem primary held 3-3, 131C1 House seat spec electn held 4-7, 219A2 Sen Burris nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 477F3 Press & Broadcasting Sun-Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393G1 Sun-Times Media sale OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3 Winfrey sets talk show end 11-20, 824B3 Wash Post shuts Chicago bureau 11-24, 912C3 Religious Issues Chicago RC diocese abuse victims paymts set 7-21, 712D1 School Issues U Ill bd chair (Shah) quits 8-3, admissns manipulatn alleged, regretted 8-6—8-11, 554D3 Ill U chancellor (Herman) resignatn OKd, rptd 10-17—10-20, 817A1 Chicago bd pres (Scott) found dead 11-16, suicide seen, ruling questnd/defended 11-16—11-17, 816C3 Sports Wrigley Field hosts hockey game 1-1, 159G2 Blackhawks make playoffs 4-12, 299C2 Bulls make playoffs 4-15, 278A2, D3 Blackhawks exit playoffs 5-27, 420D2 State Farm Classic results 6-7, 595B3 John Deere Classic results 7-12, 563D3 Solheim Cup results 8-23, 595E2 BMW Champ results 9-13, 670E2 Chicago loses ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691C1–F1 Marathon results 10-11, 791E3, 792A1 Cubs bankruptcy filed 10-12, sold 10-27, 949D1 Fire lose MLS Champ semi 11-14, 894G3

ILLINOIS, University of (Urbana-Champaign) Davis in NFL draft 4-25, 298F3 Bd chair (Shah) quits 8-3, admissns manipulatn alleged, regretted 8-6—8-11, 554D3 Rogers wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2

ILLINOIS Asphalt Pavement Association Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29F3

ILLSTON, Judge Susan Unseals MLB’s Bonds perjury trial documts 2-4, on drug tests admissn 2-5, 87B3–C3 MLB’s Bonds perjury evidnc nixed, appeal filed/scored 2-19—2-27; trial delayed 2-27, ex-trainer (Anderson) testimony mulled 2-27—2-28, 158F2–A3

ILLUSTRATIONS—See TABLES ILO (International Labor Organization)—See UNITED Nations—International Labor Organization ILOILO, Ratu Josefa (Fijian president, 2000-09) Nixes const, renames Bainimarama PM 4-10, move questnd 4-11, 251D3–252A1 Pacific Island Forum ouster set 5-2, 852C2 Judges named 5-22, new const plans set, proposal scored 7-1—7-6, 510F1, B2 Retiremt set 7-28, Nailatikau named 7-30, 527C2 Sri Lankan judges arrive 11-2, successor (Nailatikau) sworn 11-5, 852D1, F1

I Look to You (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

I Love You, Man (film) On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

ILYUSHIN (Russian aircraft) Iran plane crash kills 17+ 7-24, 941B3

I‘M a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (TV show) Ill ex-gov (Blagojevich) deal rptd 4-16, 243D2

IMF—See INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund IMJIN River N/S Korea rivers flood control talks held 10-14, 712E2

1070 IMMIGRATION— IMMIGRATION & Customs Enforcement, U.S. Bureau of (ICE) (of Homeland Security) Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151F2 Cops deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151A2, C2–D2 Detentn ctr med care questnd 3-17, 269A1 Agriprocessors ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, ex-mgr (Beillmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185B3 DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 Workplace raids rules set 4-30, 341A1 Mex gun smuggling curbs questnd 6-18, 481B1 DEA intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 Slain Mex drug smuggler (Gonzalez) informant status confrmd 8-6, 556B3 Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, deaths rptg omits seen 8-17, 573C2, B3 Fed detentn system scored, overhaul set 10-6, 721E2–A3

IMMIGRATION & Refugees Africa Zimbabwe oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held, in ct/chrg nixed 2-13—2-18, 96E3, 97D1 Sudan aid groups ousted 3-4, 122E2–F2 Libya migrants boat capsizing kills 230+, survivors search ends 3-30—4-2, overcrowding rptd 4-1, 262E2 Mediterranean migrants rescued, origins rptd 4-16—4-20, Italy entry OKd, EU rules urged 4-19, 262G1 Eritrea rights abuses alleged 4-16, 341B2 Darfur refugee camps rape rise seen 5-30, 376F1 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416E2 Somali refugees Gulf of Aden drownings rptd 9-1, 646D1 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680C1 UN ofcl (Nowak) Zimbabwe entry blocked, sent to S Africa 10-28, 783A3 Ivory Coast pres electn delayed 12-3, 922E2 Somalia natl soccer team seeks asylum 12-18, 903A2 Asia/Pacific Rim Thai captured refugees abandoning policy seen/denied, boat found 1-12—1-20; mil abuse photos issued, probe urged/set 1-15—1-29, UN access sought/OKd, convctns rptd 1-20—1-29, 51F3, 52A1, D1 Australian Open fans clash 1-23, 71G1 Rohingya refugees Myanmar origin denied, abuse halt urged 1-30—2-8; Indonesia abandoned boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, Thai mil policy mulled, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99B1, F1, A2 Sri Lanka rebel, govt forces abuse claimed 2-20, 119F2 Abandoned refugees ASEAN talks failure rptd 3-2, 135E2, A3–C3 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187B3 Current TV rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215F3 Pak tribal areas displacemts tallied 5-2; aid sought, US funds vowed 5-14—5-19, curfew lifted 5-15, 346E1 Pak tribal areas refugee camps set 5-5, 315E1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect held 5-14, 327A3 Sri Lanka rebel conflict displacemts tallied 5-18, 334E2 UN’s Ban visits Sri Lanka refugees camp, intl aid access hike nixed 5-23—5-24, 363A2–C2 US’s Holbrooke visits Pak tribal areas 6-3—6-5, 419A1 Myanmar refugees flee to Thai 6-5—6-10, 415A2 Pak tribal areas slain militants tallied 7-8, 466F3 Pak tribal areas refugees return set/opens, progress rptd 7-9—7-27, UN ofcl slain 7-16, 514C1, C3 Sri Lanka local electns held 8-8, Tamil refugee camp flooded 8-15, 578F2–C3 Myanmar/China border militia clashes erupt/mass exit seen, end sought 8-8—8-28; refugees estimated 8-30, returns rptd 8-31, 590B2–C2, G2–A3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect (Yettaw) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 543E1 US rptrs N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23, 600F3

FACTS Australia OKs Afghans, rise mulled 10-12—11-9; Indonesia interceptns rptd, med/ID checks set 10-12—11-18, Sri Lankan boats rescued/memo signed, detentn ctr hiked 10-18—11-9, 930C3–931A3 Sri Lanka govt, rebel war abuses rptd 10-19—10-22, Tamils resetlmt hiked 10-21—11-2, 769A3, C3 Cambodia offers Thai’s Thaksin asylum 10-23, 748A2 Afghan refugees Tajik exit rise seen 10-23, 765C1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818A2–C2, E2–F2, B3 Sri Lanka Tamils release hike urged, freed 11-19—11-21, 823A2 Sri Lanka ex-gen (Fonseka) sets pres bid 11-29, 947E2 Pak, UN workers cut set 12-30, 947D1 Canada Cuba base detainees resetlmt sought 2-3, 63D3 UK MP (Galloway) entry nixed 3-20, 413F1 Rwandan genocide suspect (Munyaneza) convctd 5-22, 680D2 Mex, Czech visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 S African refugee (Huntley) asylum bid OKd 8-27; protest filed 9-1, review set 9-3, 927G1 Commonwealth of Independent States Russia, African attacks survey issued 8-31, 667D3 Europe Chechen exile (Israilov) slaying probe urged 1-22, 37B1 Dutch MP (Wilders) UK entry barred 2-12, 136C3 UK terror suspect freed 4-11, 253F2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 397A1–B1 Italian town Muslim swimsuit fines rptd 8-19, 561B2 Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627E2 Ger/Turkish parlt candidates threat probe opens 9-22, 665C3–D3 French camp raided/migrants held, warning rptd 9-22, 666E1 Kosovo Albanians migrant boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777F1 Turkey Kurdish rebels surrender, freed 10-19—10-20, 728B2 French natl ID debate opens, unity seen/bias fight vowed 11-2—12-8, 936F3 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787F3 Egypt/Algeria World Cup qualifying match France clashes erupt 11-14, 859C1 Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1 Italian ID theft suspects held 11-21, 821G2 Swiss mosque minarets banned 11-29, 836D3, 837C1 Cuba base detainees Italy transfer rptd 11-30, 861D2 UK girl Italian slaying suspects convctd 12-5, 854G2 Latin America US reps visit Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249G1 CIA ex-agent (Posada) chrgd 4-8, 375C1 Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271B2 Mex ‘07-08 immigratn drop seen 5-15, 447F2 US/Cuba cont talks sought, OKd 5-22—5-30, 376A2 Middle East Iraq prov electn early voting held 1-28, 53G3 Yemen offensive launched 8-11; refugee camp strike kills 80, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, truce OKd, violatns alleged 9-18—9-20, 645E3 Iraq drought mass exit rptd 10-13, UK deported refugees entry nixed 10-15, 730A1, E1 Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes displacemts rptd 11-9, 805D2 Iraq chngd electns law passes parlt 11-23, deal seen 11-26, 837C3 Leb blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945F2 Obituaries Bacon, Kenneth H 8-15, 648F1 United States—For Cuban or Haitian emigres, see ‘Latin’ above Labor secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18A2 Justice Dept DNA sampling program hiked 1-9, 202D2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17B2

Medicaid curbs ease passes House 1-14, 19G3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C3 Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs commuted 1-19, 33F3 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46B3 Mex ‘08 remittncs drop rptd 1-27, 83G1–A2 Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 Fed health care curbs ease clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62E3 Fugitive aliens arrest program questnd 2-4, 202A2 Wash plant raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd, employers focus seen 2-25, 202F1 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149E1* Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151E2–F2 ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 268G3 Agriprocessors ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, 268F3 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 Obama aunt asylum bid extended 4-1, 231G2 NYS immigrant ctr shooter kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246D2 Right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, 263A1–B1 Agriprocessors ex-mgr (Billmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Bersin named ‘border cazr’ 4-15, 341G1 Clinton visits Haiti 4-16, 270G1–A2 Illegals tax documts use scored 4-16, 341E1 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 920A1 Reforms bill mulled 4-29, 285G2 Workplace raids rules set 4-30, 341A1 ID theft law curbed Sup Ct 5-4, 444E3–F3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321G2 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349C1 Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408D2 Health care reform draft bill circulated 6-18, 427E1 ICE/DEA intell sharing OKd 6-18, 573F3 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488B2 Illegal immigrants detentn ctrs standards sought 6-25, 573G2–A3 Fed contractors ‘E-Verify’ use set, workers Soc Sec match program dropped 7-8, 573F1 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1, F1 Mass universal health care suit filed 7-15, 520D3 Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, deaths rptg omits seen 8-17, 573C2, B3 Reform plans delayed 8-10, 541C2 Ariz migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588E1 Honduras visas ltd 8-25, 575E3 Obama addresses Cong, Rep Wilson interrupts/regrets remarks 9-9—9-10, rejected health care reform measure claimed 9-10, 597G2, 598B1, D1–E1, 599B3 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, IRS partnership ended, suit seen 9-23, 638C3 Mex border fence progress blasted 9-17, 721G3 LA detentn facility conditns suit setld 9-17, 722A1 Fed detentn system scored, overhaul set 10-6, 721D2, A3 Ariz sheriff illegals detentn authrzn nixed 10-6, 721E3 Illegals citizenship path Sen com hearing held 10-8, 711G3 Visa overstays seen 10-12, 721D3 DHS ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3, D3–E3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717F3 Forgn AIDS patients travel ban ended 10-30, 799A3 Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2 Health care reform bill passes House 11-7, 774B1 Iowa meat plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3

ON FILE

IMPECCABLE (U.S. surveillance ship) Chinese harassmt alleged, protested 3-8—3-9, locatn mulled, destroyer sent 3-10—3-12, 153A2–D2

IMPRESSIONISM (play) Opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

IN An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing (book) Woodruff returns to Iraq 7-13, 500A2

IN Bruges (film) Farrell wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2

INCEST Austria dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, daughter testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2 Pope scores Maputo Protocol 3-20, 196A2 Mamas and Papas frontman daughter claims affair 9-23, 671F3 Health care reform abortn curbs nixed 9-30, 655E3

INCOMES Obama staff pay frozen 1-21, 29B1 Cuba 2d job curbs eased 6-29—6-30, 784A2 US rep (Rangel) admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 619G3 US ‘08 medians 9-10, 619A1 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 645A1 Rep Rangel com chair ouster bid fails 10-7, probe hiked 10-8, 679F1 Pvt univ/coll pres ‘07-08 salaries rptd 11-2, 816E3 Tax Issues—See TAXES

INCONVENIENT Truth, An (film) Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B3

INDAMA, Furuji Militia bases raid kills 44+ 8-12, 559E1

INDEPENDENT (British newspaper) UK pol parties support polled 9-28, 666A3

INDIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Cyclone Aila hits 5-25—5-26, 383A2–C2 ‘09 drought rptd 9-30, 791D2 Flooding kills 240 10-1—10-5, 791B2 Arts & Culture Slumdog Millionaire, Smile Pinki win Oscars 2-22, 120B1–C1, A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan regional security talks mulled 1-27, 54E2 Dalai Lama marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, 171D3 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 195D1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277D2 Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 4-28, 333A2, 334A2; map 333D1 Australian students attacked/suspects held, violnc mulled 5-24—6-9; Rudd calls Singh, Selja visit nixed 5-29—6-11, actor nixes degree, film union boycott set 5-30—6-4, 508C3, 509B1–D1, F1 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 N Korea ship anchored, detained 8-5—8-10, 568F3 Singh in Tawang, China scores 10-3—10-13, Dalai Lama trip OKd/protested, visits 10-22—111-15, 806A2 Afghan emb blast kills 17 10-8, 674D2 Tibet ‘08 riots executns rptd, confrmd 10-20—10-27, 785D3 Bangladesh transfers separist ldr (Rajkhowa) 12-4, 946C2 Crime & Civil Disorders Parlt electns voting attacks kill 17+ 4-16, 276D3 Punjab riots erupt, paramil troops deployed 5-24—5-25, 417D3 Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 822G3 Gay sex curbs nixed 7-2, appeal hearing OKd 7-9, 514A1 Gujarat bootleg liquor deaths linked 7-12, 530F2 Chattisgarh rebel attack kills 27+ 7-12, 791B1 Maharashtra rebel attack kills 17 10-8, 790E3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2 Arunachal Pradesh troop deploymt set 6-8, 806D2 Economy & Labor Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud/quits, Sensex index drops 1-7, bd dissolved, suspects held 1-9—1-11, 54F3 ‘08 GDP rptd 2-27, 157F3 Tata Nano car sale launched 3-23, 418A1 Satyam acctg fraud suspects chrgd 4-7, 450E3 Sensex index rises 5-18, 345A3

2009 Index ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-29, 382F1 ‘09-10 fscl yr budget unveiled, Sensex index drops 7-6, 513F3 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-31, 594D3 Tribal groups econ growth role sought 11-4, 791B1 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-30, 946E2 Andhra Pradesh gen strike held 12-11, 946E1 Bombay ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900C1, B2 Energy US forgn aid ‘10 funds (House) 7-9, 488D3 Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684B2 IEA annual oil outlook issued 11-10, 811B3 Environment & Pollution Mercury emissns treaty oppositn dropped 2-16, 124B1 China climate chng memo signed 10-21, 791G1 ‘Carbon intensity’ cut vowed 12-3, 828E1, A2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1, 882F1, C2, C3; table 883A1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues US sci (Nozette) leaves 1-6; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760E3, 761A1 Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342D1 European Relations Sikh ldr (Nand) slain 5-24, 417D3 Mother Teresa remains transfer nixed 10-13, 711D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Singh has surgery, exits hosp 1-24—2-1, 158C2 Parlt electns set 3-2, 157E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B1 Parlt electns open 4-16, 275D3 Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13; BJP ldr (Advani) quits 5-16, UPA coalitn win declared, results rptd 5-16—5-17, 345B2, D3; table 345E2 Singh, cabt sworn 5-22—5-28, 382A1 MP (Kumar) elected lower house speaker 6-3, 417C3 BJP ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734B1 State electns held 10-13, results rptd 10-22, 791F1 New state plans OKd/sought, protests erupt 12-9—12-24; assemb authrzn ordrd/adjourns, resignatns warned 12-14—12-15, consultatns urged 12-23, 945G3 BJP parlt house ldr, pres replaced 12-18, 946B2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 52B1 Kashmir Conflict Violnc kills 25+, US/Pak talks rptd 3-20—3-25, 229G2–A3 Ltd US role seen 11-24, 810C1 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2 Ranbaxy drugs false test results rptd, FDA applicatns halted 2-25, 221F2 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Tech Mahindra/Satyam stake buy set 4-13, 450B3 Monetary Issues Interest rate cut, cash reserves requiremt lowered 1-2, 158A1 Interest rate cut 3-4, 157G3; 4-21, 382G1–A2 Bank reserve levels hike set, interest rate retained 10-27, 791D1 Rupee ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Areva deal signed 2-4, 158A2 Obituaries Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Gayatri, Devi 7-29, 531D3 Jois, Pattabhi 5-18, 420F3 Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452F2 Venkataraman, Ramaswany 1-27, 56G3 Space & Space Flights Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1 Unmanned moon satellite (Chandrayaan-1) contact lost 8-29, missn ended 8-31, 612D1 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697C3–D3 Sports Cricket tourn hosting nixed 3-22, S Africa move set 3-24, 275G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E2 Mumbai attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-5—1-6, suspect (Kasab) citizenship confrmd 1-7, 39D1

—INGLOURIOUS 1071 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted, suspect capture rptd 2-12; threat seen 2-13, CIA intell sharing bared 2-16, 103C2 Mumbai attack suspects chrgd 2-25, 158D1–E1 Mumbai attacks Pak suspect arrest rptd 4-13, 275D3 Mumbai attacks suspect (Kasab) tiral opens 4-17, pleads not guilty 5-6, 417F3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Saeed) release ordrd 6-2, 382F3, 383A1–B1, E1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20; death penalty mulled 7-20—7-22, trial cont 7-23, 499A3 Mumbai ‘03 bombers convctd, sentncd 7-27, 8-6, 594F3 Mumbai attack suspects Pak trial set 9-19; extremist ldr (Saeed) movemt ltd 9-21, cont threat seen 9-30, 669B2–C3 Hezbollah aid suspect (Nayyar) chrgd, pleads not guilty 10-27, 815F3 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821D2 Danish Muhammad cartoonist/ed slayings plot suspects, Mumbai attacks role probed 11-22, 816C2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects chrgd, pleads not guilty/trial opens 11-25—12-7, 845D1, G2–A3 Mumbai attack suspect (Kasab) acct chngd 12-18, 946G1 Trade, Aid & Investment G-20, IMF mtg held 4-24—4-26, 283C2, C3 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406F2, C3 Asian Dvpt Bank loan OKd 6-15, 806D2 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405C1–F1 G-8, MEF summits held 7-9, 453D1, B2 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644A3 World Bank loan OKd 9-23, 791E1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 World Bank, IMF mtgs held 10-6—10-7, 674A3–B3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2, C3–D3, G3 Rice imports tariffs cut 10-28, 791D2 Transportation Kalam frisked 4-21, Continental Airlines regrets 7-22, 646F2 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 UN Policy & Developments Somali pirates seize Leb ship 4-14, freed 4-20, 269E3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Holbrooke visits 2-16, 103A1 Gandhi belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158E1 Holbrooke, Mullen visit 4-8, 229A2 Roemer named amb 5-27, 354C1 Clinton visits 7-17—7-20, 486A1 Actor (Khan) airport questng spraks outrage 8-14, 646D2 Singh visits 11-23—11-24, 809C2, 810A1, D1 Singh White House dinner crashing rptd 11-25, 829A3; photo 830A1

INDIA.Arie (India Arie Simpson) Testimony: Vol 2 on best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

INDIANA Arts & Culture Stam crowned Miss Amer 1-24, 56D1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Old Natl govt aid repaid 3-31, 241D3 Chrysler reorgn plan appeal filed 6-4, 367A2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Labor & Employment Delphi plant sale set 10-6, 679E2 Obituaries Lilly, Ruth 12-30, 955F2 Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits 2-9, 77D3, 78A1, F1, A2, 79D1 Sports Colts exit playoffs 1-3, 40C1 Indy 500 results 5-24, 363G2 US Sr Open results 8-2, 708F1 Fever loses WNBA title 10-9, 807D3, F3, 808A1 Colts clinch AFC playoffs top seed 12-13, 947G2 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

INDIANAPOLIS, University of Stam crowned Miss Amer 1-24, 56D1

INDIANA University (Bloomington) Johnsen named legal counsel ofc head 1-5, 6D2

Brand dies 9-16, 648B2 Ostrom wins Nobel 10-12, 694B2, E2

INDIAN Blessing (racehorse) Named ‘08 top female sprinter 1-26, 119F3

INDIAN Express (Indian newspaper) Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 822G3, 823C1–D1

INDIAN Ocean Somali pirates US hijackings fail, ships return to port 4-8—4-16; hostage standoff opens/captors slain, capt freed 4-9—4-12, ‘mother ship’ captured 4-15, 237A1, 238E3; map 238D2 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Pirates patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801G2 Somalia pirates ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2

INDIANS, American—See NATIVE Americans INDIAN Space Research Organization (ISRO) Unmanned moon satellite (Chandrayaan-1) contact lost, missn ended 8-29—8-31, 612D1–E1

INDIRA Gandhi International Airport (India) Ex-pres (Kalam) frisked 4-21, apology issued 7-22, 646F2

INDIVIDUALS With Disabilities Education Act (1975) Spec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426G1, E2

INDONESIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Quake kills 4+ 1-4, 153D3 Ferry sinks, survivors rptd/victims search ends 1-11—1-20, capt (Sabir) held 1-19, 84B2 Rainstorm hits Tangerang 3-26; dam collapse kills 100+, Yudhoyono visits/maintenance woes cited 3-27—3-28, victim compensatn, search cont 3-29—4-1, 271G3 Java quakes hit, tsunami alert issued/safety review ordrd 9-2—9-7; Yudhoyono visits Cianjur 9-3, damage rptd 9-4 9-2, 606C3 Quakes hit, death toll mulled 9-30—10-1, aid arrives, Yudhoyono returns 10-1, 662E1, C2 Sumatra quakes aid mulled/intl teams arrive, rescue efforts halted 10-2—10-15; victims burial seen 10-7, quakes spur Jakarta evacuatns 10-15—10-16, 724D3, 725C1, E1 Timor Sea oil rig leak damage assessed 10-23, 874B2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Jakarta blasts probe Malaysia aid sought 7-19, 494G3 Myanmar ‘10 electns questnd 7-21, ASEAN summit held 7-23, 495G2, 496A1 E Timor massacre suspect (Bere) held 8-8; release ordrd, scored 8-30—8-31, Gusmao survives confidnc vote 10-12, 835B1–C1, E1 Myanmar exiled dissidents mtg hosted 8-12—8-13, 559B1 Australia opens E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, probe reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931D3 Yudhoyono sees Australia’s Rudd 10-20, 931A2 Civil Strife Drive-by shooting kills 1 3-14, suspect (Antasari) held 5-4, 342G1 Jouwe returns 3-18; sees welfare min 3-20, visits separatists, protests held 3-22—3-24, 272E1 Papua cops attacked 7-8, 461D3 Papua violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, arrests rptd/chrgs set, mine worker linked 7-21—7-31, 542C2, E2, A3 Cops ofcl (Susno) quits 11-4, drive-by shooting suspect (Antasari) framing claimed, denied 11-10—11-11, 786A2, D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Central bank ex-gov (Abdullah) sentnc appeal nixed 2-9, 462B1–C1 Central bank ex-dep gov (Pohan) convctd, sentncd 6-17, 462A1 Anti-corruptn ofcls named suspects, held/freed 9-15—11-3; comm reforms pass House, aid sought 9-29—11-5, wiretaps issued, case probed/protests held 10-30—11-9, 786A1, D1

Economy & Labor Stock exchng hike set 7-5, econ advancemt vowed 7-8, 461B3–C3 Jakarta ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234C1 Legis electns held 4-9, vote mulled 4-11—4-16, 295A1 Pres vote eligibility hiked 7-6; electn held 7-8, results rptd 7-9, 461G2, F3 Pres electn final results issued, upheld 7-24, 8-12, 542F1 Yudhoyono sworn 10-20, 786B2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-22, 734C1 Dep atty gen (Abdul) quits 11-4, 786A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai abandoned refugees found 1-14, 52C1 Abandoned refugees boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, 99B1–D1 Thai abandoned refugees ASEAN talks failure rptd 3-2, 135A3 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187E3 Sri Lankan asylum seekers ship halted, smuggler held 10-12—10-19; Australia role mulled 10-13—10-20, boats rescued, ID/med checks OKd 10-18—11-18, 931B1, G1 Obituaries Wahid, Abdurrahman 12-30, 956E2 Press & Broadcasting Time wins Suharto allegatns appeal 4-16, 935G3 Sinar Harapan rptr attacked, in hosp 6-26; protests held 6-28—7-1, apology rptd 6-30, 461D3–E3 Religious Issues US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367F2, 368C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Egypt emb firebombed 1-20, security hiked 1-21, 153E3 PI separatists peace talks urged 7-16, 527G2 Jakarta blasts kill 7, Yudhoyono visits/standby troops rptd 7-17—7-18; JI role seen, bombers laptop found/IDs sought 7-18—7-22, Noordin wife held 7-22, 494E2, C3, F3, 495B1 Jakarta hotel blasts suspects held, slain 8-7—8-8; Yudhoyono assassinatn foiled plot claimed 8-8, victim ID mulled, probe ends 8-8—8-12, 542A1 Suspects held 9-15—9-16, raid kills 4/computer files found, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643E3, 644C1 Abu Sayyaf alleged co-founder (Latip) held in PI 12-16, 890C3 Trade, Aid & Investment World Bank loan OKd 3-3, 272D1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 2-18, 108G3, 109D2 Obama calls Yudhoyono 7-18, 494E3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28G3

INDONESIAN Stock Exchange Jakarta ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900B2

INDUSTRY—See BUSINESS INDUTA, Jose Zamora On army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) slayings 3-2, 134A1

INDY Express (racehorse) Preakness entry warned 5-10, 347A2

INDYMAC Federal Bank (formerly IndyMac Bancorp) Sale OKd 1-2, 32D2 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407C3

INFLATION—See under ECONOMY INFORMANT!, The (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

INFORMATION Security Forum Schmidt named White House cybersecurity coordinator 12-22, 886F2

INFORMED Decision (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint 11-6, 807D2

INGE, Peter Questns Afghan troops support 11-6, 775E2

INGENIX Inc. UnitedHealth NYS paymts suit setld 1-13, 64F2–A3

INGLEHART, James Monroe Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

INGLOURIOUS Basterds (film) Waltz wins Cannes actor prize 5-24, 364B1 On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

1072 INGRAM— INGRAM, Mark Wins Heisman Trophy 12-12, 879D2

INGUSHETIA.org (Web site) Aushev slain 10-25, 766G1 Yevloyev slaying suspect convctd/sentncd, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2

INHOFE, James M. (U.S. senator from Okla., 1994- ; Republican) Boycotts climate chng bill com debate 11-3, 759G3 Terror detentn facilities measure nixed 11-17, 815E2–F2 At climate treaty talks 12-8, 842B1 Misses health care reform vote 12-22, 906C1

INITIATIVES—See POLITICS—Referendums INKHEART (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

INNOCENCE Project Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425G3 Tex executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd 9-7, 700B3

INONI, Ephraim (Cameroonian prime minister, 2004-09) Ousted 6-30, 722D3

INOUBLI, Ahmed Pres electn held 10-25, loss rptd 10-26, 746B1

INOUE, Rena 3d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

INOUYE, Daniel K. (U.S. senator from Hawaii, 1963- ; Democrat) Seated Appropriatns chair 1-6, 5A2

INSECTS & Spiders Setton NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9, 268E2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 259G2–A3 China town quarantined 8-3, blockade lifted 8-8, 557A3 Child preventable deaths drop rptd 9-10, 901E2

INSIDER (Serbian TV show) Outlaw soccer clubs crimes alleged 12-3; rptr (Stankovic) threats suspects held 12-8, concern seen 12-9, 893C1

INSIDER Trading—See STOCKS—Crime INSOLIA, Francesco Sentncd 1-27, 202C2

INSTITUT des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (Bures-sur-Yvette, France) Gromov wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255C3

INSTITUTE for Science and International Security Pak A-program hike seen 5-19, 346E3 Iran A-program progress mulled 10-2—10-4, 688F1 Iran A-program further secret sites seen 11-16, 804E1

INSULZA, Jose Miguel Urges Cuba OAS entry 4-17, 271D2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return mulled 6-29, 438E2 Visits Honduras 7-3; membership suspended 7-4, Zelaya return blocked 7-5, 460A1, E1 On Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks failure 8-25, 575C2 Nixes Honduras pres electn monitors 11-10, 784A3

INSURANCE Appointments & Resignations Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387A3 AIG execs (Benmosche/Golub) named, compensatn rptd 8-3—8-17, 585C3 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Banking Issues FDIC bank fees hiked 2-27, 127B3–C3 Troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177F1–G1 FDIC deposit fund low seen 8-27, 585F1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled 2-10, 77E1 AIG govt aid sought 2-25, 110B2, 111C1 RBS govt aid hiked 2-26, 155C2 AIG ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid plan chngd/shares drop 3-2, Sen com hearing held 3-3, 126C2, E3, 127C1 AIG bonus paymts revealed, distributed 3-10—3-17; funds return mulled, tax passes House 3-11—3-19, aid use detailed, com hearing held 3-15—3-18, 161A1–162G2

FACTS AIG bonus paymts return set 3-23, 219F3, 220B1 Obama on AIG bonus paymts 3-24, 181B3 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) tenure mulled, House com hearing held 4-2, 242A1 MetLife stress-test results issued 5-7, AIG ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd, House com hearing held 5-7—5-12, 319A2, C2 WTC site arbitratn sought 5-21, 620G2 Travelers, Dow role set 6-1, 372D2, F2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537F1 AIG ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd, shares rise 8-7—8-27, 585G2 AIG financial stability seen 9-21, 641D1 Nev domestic partnerships open 10-1, 699C2 AIG bonus paymts scored, return sought 10-14, 715A3 AIG exec pay cut 10-22, 742B1 AIG ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-6, trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-16—11-17, 799A1–B1 FHA cash reserves drop rptd 11-12, 813D3–F3, 814A1 FDIC deposit fund negative balnc rptd, customers security vowed 11-24, 813G2 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847C2 $700 bln financial indus aid Cong hearing held 12-10, 865C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued 2-4, 94A1 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506C3 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nix upheld, setlmt seen 8-31, 585F3 Crime Issues Calif ‘70-80s slayings suspect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) ransom demands rptd 8-18, 551D1 Labor Issues Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408B2 Life Insurance Census worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817A2 Medical and Malpractice Insurance—See MEDICINE—Insurance Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures IndyMac sale OKd 1-2, 32F2 Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100E2 Lloyds govt stake buy OKd 3-6, 155G1 Nan Shan sale set 10-13, 715D3 Property & Casualty Insurance US flood insurnc ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886D2 Regulatory Issues US financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178D2–E2, 179B1 Home foreclosure curbs pass Sen 5-6, 319E3–F3 US credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320E1–F1 Home foreclosures curbs clear House, signed 5-19—5-20, 354C3–D3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407A2 EU financial regulatns plan OKd 6-19, 432A2

INTEL Corp. EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343F1 Goel chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3 Antitrust suit filed 11-4, AMD setlmt OKd 11-12, 800C2, G2–B3 Europn Comm competitn comr (Almunia) named 11-27, 835A3 FTC antitrust suit filed 12-16, 911D3

INTELLIGENT Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, The (play) Opens in London 6-8, 451G2

INTER-American Commission on Human Rights Honduras coup rights abuses probed, rpt issued 8-17—8-21, 575B3

INTEREST Rates—See under BANKS INTERFAX (Russian news agency) Intell archivist (Khristoforov) interviewed 12-7, 939G1

INTER-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Ethiopia sanctns urged 5-20, 341E3

INTERIOR, Lux (Erick Lee Purkhiser) (1946-2009) Dies 2-4, 120C3

INTERIOR, U.S. Department of the Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisting set 1-14, halted 1-21, 65C2 Secy nominee (Salazar) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17D3 Oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe ordrd 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1 Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65A2 Salazar confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 131E3 Devaney named $787 bln econ recovery plan monitor head 2-23, 111D2 Fed projects endangered species review restored 3-2, 131D2 Northn Rocky Mts gary wolf delisting upheld 3-6, 267E3 Bird populatn drop seen 3-19, 267A3 Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409B3–E3 Mt mining rules chng nix sought 4-27, 356C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286B3 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, 655F1 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 Polar bears habitat, emissns curbs nix upheld 5-8, 555G1 ‘10 funds pass House 6-26, 488C1–D1 Ore logging curbs ease dropped 7-16, 555F1 Water ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658E3 Mt mining rules chng upheld 8-13, 655B2 Freshwater fish mercury finds rptd 8-19, 655A2 Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, 620D3, F3 Oil cos fed land royalty paymt woes rptd 9-14—9-15, House com hearing held 9-16, 917E2 ‘10 funds pass Sen 9-24, 658D2 Wild horse preserves proposed 10-7, 800F3 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800E3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 10-29—10-30, 799E3, G3 Calif water policies review set 11-8, 887G2 Brown pelican delisting set 11-11, 918B1 Salazar climate treaty talks role set 11-25, 828A1 Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2, E2, A3

INTERMEDIA Advisors LLP HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59C2

INTERNAL Revenue Service, U.S. (IRS) (of Treasury) Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17F1–A2 Teasury secy nominee (Geithner) confrmd 1-26, 44F1 Alexander dies 2-2, 104G2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59D3 Nonprofit hosps tax status questnd 2-12, 201G3 UBS tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100C2 US trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2, 182E1 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) admits tax woes 3-31, 221C1 Sun-Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393A2 Illegal immigrants tax documts use scored 4-16, 341E1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489B1–C1 UBS tax evasn data handover deal set 8-19, 560B3–F3 Operatn Rescue funds lack seen 9-14, 833C1 ACORN partnership ended 9-23, 638C3 French Scientology branch convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787A3 Pvt schl pres ‘07-08 salaries rptd 11-2, 816F3 Madoff acctant (Freihling) pleads guilty 11-3, 800C1 Tax breaks pass House 12-9, 886F1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867C1 Citigroup tax break OKd 12-11, House com probe set 12-17, 909B2–C2

INTERNATIONAL, The (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140D2*

INTERNATIONAL Boxing Federation (IBF)—See BOXING INTERNATIONAL Briquettes Holding SA (IBH) Subsidiaries natlzn ordrd 5-21, 395F1

ON FILE

INTERNATIONAL Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law Kazakh car crash kills 1, drunk driving alleged 7-26; Zhovtis convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1

INTERNATIONAL Business Machines Corp. (IBM)—See IBM INTERNATIONAL Campaign for Human Rights Iran protester arrests rptd 6-24, 422A3

INTERNATIONAL Creative Management (ICM) Cohn dies 5-6, 332G2

INTERNATIONAL Crisis Group (ICG) Thai Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 747D3 EU/Uzbek sanctns lift scored 10-27, 764C3 Afghan’s Karzai ouster plan alleged 12-10, 894E1

INTERNATIONAL Energy Agency (IEA) Non-OPEC ‘09 output forecast issued 3-13, 180F2–G2 OPEC oil-field investmt forecast cut 7-9, 486F2 Oil reserve estimates questnd/defended, annual outlook issued 11-9—11-10, 811F2–812A1 Climate chng measures consensus sought 11-10, 828B3

INTERNATIONAL Federation for Human Rights Iran pres electn protests arrests rptd 6-28, 439B2

INTERNATIONAL Gymnastics Federation—See GYMNASTICS INTERNATIONAL Institute for Strategic Studies (London, Eng.) Gen McChrystal addresses 10-1, 673B2

INTERNATIONAL Islamic Relief Organization Terror funding alleged 6-24, 491B3

INTERNATIONAL Islamic University (Islamabad, Pak.) Blasts kill 6+ 10-20, 710D1

INTERNATIONAL Labor Organization (ILO)—See under UNITED Nations INTERNATIONAL Maritime Bureau (IMB) Somalia pirates seized ships tallied 1-9, 21E2 Somali pirate attacks tallied 4-16, 237G1 ‘09 worldwide pirate attacks tallied 4-21, 269G2 Somalia pirates ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2

INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E1 Strauss-Kahn rptd dir 1-1, 3C1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17D1*, A2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 30E1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) confrmd 1-26, 44E1 Iceland’s Haarde, cabt quit 1-26, 52F3 ‘09 global econ growth forecast 1-28, 58E1 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116E3 ASEAN currency pool hiked 2-22, omit seen 2-23, 135F3–G3 Ukraine credit rating cut 2-25, 137C1 Lat devaluatn opposed 2-26, 110B2 Eastn Eur econ rescue EU proposal opposed 3-1, 136G2 Armenia $540 mln loan OKd 3-6, 206D2 African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169B3, D3, F3 Funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163D1 Ger/France new stimulus packages opposed 3-12, 163C1 Latvian coalitn govt OKd 3-12, 173A3 G-20 finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 162C3 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188B3 Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, 194D1, F1 Lending curbs ease seen 3-25, 193G2, B3 Romania $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207B3–C3 G-20 summit held, funding hiked 4-1—4-2, 193B1, A2 Ukraine pres vote chng OKd, parlt electn mulled 4-1—4-4, chamber doors blocked 4-2, 227F1–G1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250G1 Tajik natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272D2 Ukraine spending cut 4-14, 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274F1 Poland/Colombia funds sought 4-14—4-21, Mex loan OKd 4-17, 283F2

2009 Index Pak intl aid conf held 4-17, 276C3 ‘07-10 financial indus losses seen 4-21; worldwide econ forecast issued 4-22, DC mtg held 4-25—4-26, 283A2, D3 UK econ forecast issued 4-22, 272A3 S Africa ‘09 GDP forecast 4-22, 293F3 Iceland parlt electns held 4-25, 295E3 Kosovo entry OKd 5-5, 318E1 Bosnia loan OKd 5-5, 343B1 Suplmtl funds draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338B2 Serbia loan hiked 5-15, 482D3 Lithuania pres electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344F1 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355F1 Hezbollah, Leb aid talks rptd 5-27, 380C2 Iceland/UK, Dutch loans OKd 6-6, 512B3 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404C3 Europn banks cont write-downs seen 6-15, 417F2 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405E1 Hungary embs, consulates shut 6-16, 512C2 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424E3 Bosnia loan postponed 6-23, 448C3 China forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440C2 Bosnia loan OKd 7-8, 512B1 ‘09 worldwide econ forecast revised 7-9, 453A2 Loans curbs pass House 7-9, 488E3 Sri Lanka loan OKd 7-24, 578F3 Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555F3 China bonds buy rptd 9-2, 683E2–F2 Zimbabwe funds loaned 9-4, 661E1 Zimbabwe bilateral aid doubted 9-16, 681B1 G-20 reforms OKd 9-25, 651C2 Financial stability, econ forecast issued 9-30—10-1; Strauss-Kahn addresses Bilgi Univ/student tosses shoe, insurnc fund mulled 10-1—10-2, Turkey mtg held, protested 10-6—10-7, 674F2, D3, 675A1–B1 ‘Undervalued’ renminbi seen 10-2, 683A3 World Bank/Serbia loan vowed 10-5, 728D3 Romania govt loses confidnc vote 10-13, 705A3 Romania loan paymts delayed 11-6, 821C3 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776F3–G3 Romania govt OKd, sworn 12-23, 938D2–E2 Ukraine loan chngd 12-30, 939G3 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900E3

INTERNATIONAL Organization for Migration (IOM) Libya migrants boat capsizing kills 230+, survivors search ends/overcrowding rptd 3-30—4-2, 262E2–F2

INTERNATIONAL Press Institute PI rptrs slayings mulled 11-25, 819B1

INTERNATIONAL Republican Institute Pak polls issued 5-11, 346F2 Afghan’s Karzai support polled 6-15, 434A3 US/Pak drone missile strikes support polled 10-1, 695B3

INTERNATIONAL Rescue Committee Sudan group ousted 3-4, 122E2

INTERNET (computer network) Appointments & Resignations Yahoo CEO (Bartz) named 1-13, 523E2 Genachowski FCC chair nominatn seen 1-14, 49A3–B3 Genachowski named FCC chair 3-3, 145A2–B2 Levinson quits Google bd 10-12, 744G3 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886F2 Awards & Honors St Petersburg Time PolitiFact project wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279G1 Kao wins Nobel 10-6, 694D1 Cuban blogger (Sanchez) NYC trip nixed 10-14, 723C2–D2 Budget & Spending Programs Earmarks reform urged, House Dems OK 3-11, 144A1 Obama proposals support urged 3-21, 181B1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Seattle P-I Web-only shift opens 3-17, 167D3–E3 US postal svc ‘09 1st 1/2 loss rptd 5-6, 324E3 Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393F1 Bing unveiled 5-28, 523C2 Jackson meml svc aired 7-7, 467G3 GM/eBay partnership ends 9-30, 679E3

—INTERPOL Ad disclosure rules hiked by FTC 10-5, 761G1 Newsday sets Web access chrg 10-22, 913E1 Papers circulatn drop rptd 10-26, 912A2 Iraq museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1 EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875F3–876A1 Censorship Issues Thai royal family insulting sites blocked 3-5, 154A2 Tibet uprising anniv marked 3-10, 172B1 Tibet ‘08 riots cop beating tape questnd, China blocks YouTube/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 Moldova svc cut 4-7, 225C3 Amazon bks lost sales ratings regretted 4-13, e-bks deleted 7-17, 782D1 Thai Web sites shut 4-14, 251A1 Craigslist curbs set 4-21; Ill/Conn/Mo atty gens mtg held, ‘misuse’ drop seen 5-5, erotic svcs shut 5-13, 429G2 UAE Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331E3 Black UK ban set 5-5, 310E2 China PC software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414F2 Iran Facebook access blocked, returns 5-23, 5-26, 362G1–A2 Tiananmen sq crackdown anniv marked 6-4, 395C2 Gabon access shut 6-8, 393C3 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402F2–G2 China scores Google porno links, forgn sites search block ordrd/access disrupted 6-18—6-25; sex health curbs set 6-24, filter requiremt complaint filed, postponed 6-24—6-30, 448B1, D1 Honduras access shut 6-29, 438C1 China city svc cut 7-6, 461C1 Kazakh media curbs law signed 7-10, 510B3 IPhone/Google app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; FCC probes set, AT&T role denied 8-1—10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744B3 China filter software requiremt dropped 8-13, 557E2 Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht rptr (Voitenko) flees Russia 9-3, firing claimed, denied 9-4—9-7, 616C2 Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781A3 China region svc curbed 10-29, 785D3 Thai king (Bhumibol) health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891C3–D3 Obama urges China curbs drop 11-16, 795D2–E2 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857A1 Australia filters set 12-15, 931C3 Iran blocks Twitter, oppositn sites blocked 12-17—12-18, 884C1–D1 Copyright & Patent Issues Sweden file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284B1 Sweden file-sharing ban opens 4-1, 284F1–G1 Google bk scanning setlmt review confrmd, oppositn rptd 7-2—8-20; Europn publishers deal OKd 9-8, House com hearing held 9-10, 601A1 Internet radio music royalty rates chngd 7-8, 781G3 Skype copyright suit filed 9-16, 761C2 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd, chngs OKd 9-18—11-19; Chinese author suit filed, text removed/hearing held 11-19—12-29, French violatns ruled 12-14, 936E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues GOP chair (Steele) defends sister co paymts 2-8, 146A3 Apple/Google bd dirs overlap probe set 5-5, 744F3 Australian car dealer/Treasury favoritism probe rpt issued, fake e-mail admitted 8-4, Sen com testimony mulled 11-25, 851C3 ACORN tax evasn tapes suits seen 9-23, 638A3, E3 Couple crashes White House, photos issued 11-24, e-mails rptd 11-30—12-2, 829B3 Crime & Piracy Issues Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247C1 Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, 920D2 Bin Laden Israel attacks urge message posted 1-14, 13G2

Pak terror group crackdown rptd 1-15, 39D2 COPA nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103F2 Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ suit filed, nixed 3-5—10-20, prosecutn bid halted 5-22, 781C3 Ger gunman (Kretschmer) warning mulled 3-12, 154B3 Thai royals insulter (Suwicha) pleads guilty, sentncd 4-3, 727C1 US electric grid cybersecurity questnd 4-7, grid hacked 4-8, 411A2 UK antiterror documt photo block sought, posted 4-8, 253E2 ‘Craigslist’ women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20, further victims sought 4-22—4-23, 429G1, G2 Iraq blasts claimed 4-20, 275A2 US jet program hacked 4-21; security coordinatn urged, mil cmnd post seen/policies questnd 4-21—4-29, House com hearing held, guidelines proposed/ofc set 5-5—5-29, 410B3, F3, 411E1 Terror suspect (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411G2 UK terror suspect (Qatada) release sought 5-30, Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1, E1 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, suspect held, chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370C3 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4, chrgd 6-5, 392F3 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, 391F1 Music piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782C1 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888A1 MySpace suicide insults convctn nixed 7-2, 539B2 US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486F2 Azerbaijan bloggers held 7-8; arrests questnd 7-17—7-20, pretrial release nixed 7-20, 544B1 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2 Bin Laden recording posted 7-28, 621A2 Azerbaijan bloggers chrgs hiked 8-21, 607A1 China economist (Tohti) freed 8-22, govt criticism halt warned 8-24, 606B2 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608F2 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) seeks chem 9-8, chrgd 9-24, 642B2–C2 Terror training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719C2 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816F1 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665G2 Tex bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678A3 ‘Phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781E3 Bear Stearns hedge fund ex-mgrs (Cioffi/Tannin) trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814C1 Russian oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, 766G1 Myanmar rptrs arrests rptd 10-31, 763F2 Tex mil base shooting suspect (Hasan) suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757F2 Russian cops false arrests claimed 11-6, 855A2 Cuban bloggers detentn/abuse alleged, scored 11-6—11-9, 928B1 Tex mil base shooting hailed, gunman (Hasan)/imam ties questnd 11-9—11-11, 777F3–778B1 Azerbaijan bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820A2 Tex mil base shooting probes set, Hasan/imam e-mails mulled 11-19—11-21, 812F3–813A1 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859B3 E Anglia Univ climate scientists e-mails posted 11-20; hack confrmd 11-21, Jones steps down 12-1, 828D2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821E2 Russia RR blasts claimed 12-2, 836C2 China dissident (Liu) indicted 12-10, 872A3 Turkey’s Ocalan abuse rumors spark protests 12-10, 893D2 Russian rptr (Yevloyev) slaying suspect convctd/sentncd in absentia, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2

1073

Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 12-25, 899D3 Mich flight failed blast claiemd 12-27, suspect (Abdulmutallab) postings rptd 12-29, 898D1–F1 Iran protests death tape doubted 12-31, 940B3 Yemen rebel ldr (Houthi) tape posted 12-31, 944F3 Demonstrations & Protests ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242D3 G-20 summit protests cop suspended 4-15, 253C3 Iran protester shooting video posted 6-20; rptrs ousted, held 6-21—6-23, Moussavi vows cont fight 6-22—6-25, 421D1, C2, 422C1, C3–D3 Health & Safety Issues AIDS awareness campaign launched 4-7, 555G2 Labor Issues AOL 2500 cuts set 11-19, 830G3 Leaks & Disclosures House com probes leaked 10-29, 779D2 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3 Climate chng data manipulatn probe set 12-5, scientists leaked e-mails mulled 12-8, 842A1 US/Israeli atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures CQ sale sought 1-28, 168C1 Time Warner/AOL split set 5-28, 393B2 CQ sale set 7-21, 913B2 Yahoo/Microsoft search partnership set 7-29, 523B2 EBay/Skype stake sale set 9-1, 761B2 Telecom Co of Iran stake bought 9-27, 688E2 Time Warner sets AOL spin-off date 11-16, 830G3 Obituaries Motwani, Rajeev 6-5, 452G3 Political & Legislative Issues Obama cont e-mail use set 1-22, 29D2 Malaysia state assemb speaker (Sivakumar) ousted, protests held 5-7, 415B1 Govt agencies data Web site (Data.gov) unveiled, White House citizen suggestns sought 5-21, 761E2 Australia car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447A3, E3–F3, 448A1 US govt contracts Web site (USAspending.gov) unveiled 6-30, 761D2 Iran pres electn fraud documts issued 7-4, 464E1 Health care reform campaign opens 8-4, 520C2 Health care reform disinfo curbs e-mail/Web site launched, shut 8-4—8-18, 552F1 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744D2 US/ICANN oversight cut 9-30, non-Latin character addresses OKd 10-30, 901F3 French natl ID debate opens 11-2, 936F3 Bush admin e-mails found 12-14, 908C2 Presidential News Conferences—See OBAMA—PRESS Privacy Issues NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445G2 SC gov (Sanford) mistress e-mails rptd 6-24—6-25, 424F1 Golfer Woods sets ‘indefinite break’ 12-11, 879D1 Religious Issues Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179E3 Service & Safety Issues US broadband access plan seen 4-8, cost rptd 9-29, 761F2 E Africa broadband svc opens 7-23, 681D2 Typhoon Parma hits PI 10-3, 684A3 Space Issues Laliberte visits intl statn 9-30—10-11, 731D2 Trade Issues China media import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557A2 US/Cuba curbs eased 9-3, 604E3

INTERNET Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) US oversight cut 9-30, non-Latin character addresses OKd 10-30, 901F3

INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) Venez oppositn ldr (Rosales) intl warrant issued 4-23, 326E2 Chechnya ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slaying suspect intl warrant issued, Delimkhanov extraditn nixed 4-27, 329A1 Sri Lankan rebel ldr (Pathmanathan) named, held 7-21, 8-6, 578F3

1074 INTER-Risk— Iran’s Vahidi defns min apptmt seen 8-20, 562D2 Iran defns min (Vahidi) confrmd 9-3, 609E3 Chechen ldr successor (Kadyrov) named 9-24, 706E1 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680A1, E1 S Africa ex-police natl comr (Selebi) trial opens 10-5, 923D3

INTER-Risk Ofcs raided 9-19, 670B1

INTERSTATE Industrial Corp. NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1

IN the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play (play) Opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954F1

IN the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596B1

INTO the Storm (TV show) Gleeson wins Emmy 9-20, 648A1

IN Treatment (TV show) Byrne wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2

INVENTIONS & Inventors Boyle/Smith win Nobel 10-6, 694E1 Obituaries Cover, Jack 2-7, 120B3 Hutchins, Carleen 8-7, 580D3 Kolff, Willem J 2-11, 120D3 Low, Frank J 6-11, 452F3 Paul, Les 8-13, 564F3 Rogallo, Francis M 9-1, 648D3

INVICTUS (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956E2

INZKO, Valentin Sees Dayton accords subversn, nixes Bosnian Serb law 6-19, 448E2, A3–B3 Sees Bosnia ‘paralysis’ 10-21, 727A2

IONESCO, Eugene (1909-94) Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 255G3

IOVATE Health Sciences USA Inc. Weight-loss supplemt (Hydroxycut) warning issued 5-1, 412E2

IOWA Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay marriage ban nixed, const amendmt opposed 4-3, applicatns opening set 4-7, 216A1; table 216B2 Gay marriages open 4-27, 304F1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151E2 Agriproccessors ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, ex-mgr (Beillmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Agriprocessors plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Palin opens bk tour 11-18, 797A2

IOWA, University of (Iowa City) Outback Bowl won 1-1, 24F1 Barrett wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2 Ponseti dies 10-18, 772G3

IOWA State University (Ames) Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231B1 Insight Bowl won 12-31, 948F2

IPC (stock index)—See MEXICO City Stock Exchange IPSOS Apoyo Peru’s Garcia support polled 6-21, 432C1

IQBAL, Javaid Detentn abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3–D3, F3

IQBAL, Mohagher On mil offensive cease-fire 7-24, 527B3 Claims RC priest (Sinnott) release role 11-12, 820D1

IQBAL, Muhammad Saad Alleges Cuba base detentn abuse 1-6, seeks compensatn 1-18, 28F3–29A1

IRAN, Islamic Republic of Accidents & Disasters Armenia flight crash kills 168, black box found/probe ordrd 7-15, 482F3 Plane crash kills 17+ 7-24, 941B3

FACTS African Relations Ahmadinejad/AU summit role confrmd, nixed 6-30—7-1, 459C3 Ahmadinejad visits Gambia, Senegal 11-22, 11-26, 885E2 Arab Relations Gaza aid ship blocked 1-13, 14B1 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, Hezbollah concedes, results rptd 6-8, 397E3, 398A1 Quds Day sermons set 9-16, rally held 9-18, 645A3 Yemen refugee camp strike kills 80, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, 645G3 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707G3 Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes erupt, naval blockade set 11-4—11-10, forgn interfernc scored 11-10—11-11, 805F2–A3 Islamic conf held 11-9, 789A1 Arts & Culture Arts acad head (Moussavi) fired 12-22, 941B1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Pak/Afghan summit hosted 5-24, 370F1 China ethnic violnc questnd 7-12, 509G3 Pak/US drone missile strike bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, 514A3–B3 Pak border guards held, freed 10-26—10-27, 941F2 Afghan role seen 12-15, 102D2 CIS Relations Ahmadinejad visits Kazakh 4-6, 254B2 Crime & Civil Disorders Burial site protesters held 2-23, 189A2 ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904C1 Pres electn protests turn violent, demonstrators held 6-13—6-18, Tehran Univ paramil raid probe urged, ordrd 6-16—6-17, 401A1, B3, 402D2–F2; photos 401F1, 402A1 Protest clashes cont, deaths/arrests rptd 6-19—6-25; Khomeini shrine bombed 6-20, Moussavi vows fight, rights defended 6-21—6-25, 421A1–423A1 Oppositn ldrs punishmt urged 6-26—7-1; protests cont, arrests rptd 6-28, woman slaying probe sought, militia imposters role seen 6-29—6-30, 439F1 Oppositn warning issued, crack down end urged 7-6; forgn interfernc scored, cont electn protests set/dispersed 7-6—7-9, arrests tallied 7-8, 463E3, 464F1, A2 Pres electn protests crack down mulled 7-8, 453B1, D2 Sunni rebels executed 7-14—7-16; electn protests cont, crackdown scored 7-17—7-21, govt critics warned 7-20, 485A1, G1–A2, C3 Detainees freed, deaths rptd 7-28; protests cont 7-30, dissidents trial opens, confessns aired 8-1—8-2, 518F1, D2, A3 Dissidents trial cont/scored, chrgs hiked 8-8—8-16; prisoners abuse admitted, rape allegatns mulled 8-8—8-18, electn violnc deaths tallied 8-11, 561D2, 562A1 Oppositn govt ouster bid denied/arrests sought, ofcs raided 8-26—9-8; prison abuse probe set, mil ct control ceded 8-29—9-9, Ruholamini death rptd, Ghalebi freed 8-31, 609G3, 610E1 Protests warning issued, Karroubi role set/arrest ordrd 9-11—9-15; prison abuses denied/detailed, dissidents trial cont 9-12—9-14, Moussavi aide freed/clerics kin held 9-13—9-14, 628F2 Protests cont, clashes erupt 9-18, 645A3 Basij militia ldr (Naqdi) named 10-5, 688D2 Electn protesters sentncs rptd 10-8—10-10; Karroubi/Moussavi aide attacked, prayer ceremony raided 10-23—10-25, scholar (Tajbakhsh) sentncd, ex-vp (Alviri) freed 10-18—10-31, 768B1 Forgn natls freed 11-7, post-electn protesters sentncd 11-17, 857F1, A3 Tehran protests turn violent, arrests rptd 12-5—12-8, 856E3 Khomeini photo destructn scored, suspects held 12-13—12-14, protesters prison deaths admitted, chrgs filed 12-19, 883E3 Ex-pres spokesman sentncd, protests turn violent/arrests rptd 12-24—12-30; body seized, autopsy claimed/funeral held 12-27—12-30, cops slaying tape doubted 12-31, 940A2, C3, 941A1 Defense & Disarmament Issues US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69B3–C3 Russia border missile deploymt delayed 1-28, 69E2 Satellite launched 2-3, 86F2 Pak A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, 75F2 A-program drop urged 2-7, 74B2, C3

A-program uranium enrichmt mulled, bomb dvpt capabilities debated 2-17—3-8, Sen com hearing held 3-10, 173F3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 A-program mulled, Russian missiles sale halt urged 3-5—3-6, 142D1, C2–D2, F2, A3 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196C3* Obama, Medvedev mull cooperatn 4-1, 194A1 Intl A-fuel bank proposed, Kazakh locatn mulled 4-5—4-6, 214D1–E1 Uranium enrichmt hike rptd 4-6, A-program intl resolutn sought 4-15, 254A2–C2 Limmt chrgd, mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217C2, B3 A-program, Mideast peace talks linked 4-23, Israeli threat mulled 5-4, 313C2 Israel’s Netanyahu visits Obama 5-18, 336E1–A2 Long-range missile tested 5-20, Bolivia/Venez A-program aid alleged, denied 5-25—5-26, 361D3 US’s Obama visits Saudi 6-3, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367C3–E3, 369D1–E1, A2; excerpts 368A3 A-program opposed 6-14, 403D2 A-program US talks mulled 6-23, 423E1 US/Eastn Eur missile defns plans mulled 7-6, 454G1 A-arms dvpt mulled 7-7, 464B3 A-program, Gen Assemb talks set 7-8, 453D2–E2 A-program cont talks proposal seen 7-11; Aghazadeh resignatn rptd 7-16, arms dvpt US response mulled 7-22, 485E2 A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600B1 Russian missiles sale mulled 8-18—8-19, 616G1–A2 Jet smuggling suspect chrgd, N Korea ship seized 8-27—8-28; A-program progress seen/talks offrd, Pak aid revealed 8-28—9-9, Sec Cncl proposals mulled 9-9—9-10, 599G1, G3, 598D1–G1 Pak A-scientest (Khan) movement limits lifted, reinstated 8-28—9-2, 595B1 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, Russian arms sales concern rptd 9-9, 616E1, E2 A-program talks proposals posted 9-10; US role set 9-11, talks OKd, mulled 9-14—9-15, 613C3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped, short-range threat interceptors seen 9-17, 613A1–C1, G1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645C1–D1 Secret A-site rptd, Sec Cncl res violatn seen/IAEA inspectns OKd 9-21—10-3; mil strike mulled, talks held 9-25—10-1, missiles tested 9-27—9-28, 649A1–651E1; maps 649E1, 650A1 A-program sanctns mulled, med uranium buy seen 9-23—9-24, arms spread res passes Sec Cncl 9-24, 633A2, 634F1 A-program progess mulled, IAEA dir (ElBaradei) visits/Qom site inspectns set 10-2—10-4; med uranium talks OKd, enrichmt deal denied 10-4, scientist disappearnc rptd 10-7, 688A1, E1 A-program mulled 10-13—10-14, 705D3 A-program curbs sought, uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21—10-22, 711B1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield components plan OKd 10-21—10-23, 750B2 A-program secret site inspected 10-24—10-25, uranium transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2, B3 Hamas rockets test rptd 11-3, 754C3 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755F1 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4, role rptd 11-11, 878E1, A2–B2 A-program uranium transfer proposals mulled, sanctns cont/hike backed 11-6—11-19; US properties seizure sought 11-12, further secret sites seen 11-16, 804D1, D2, C3 US’s Obama visits China 11-15—11-18, 795C3 A-program secret site censured, res scored/IAEA ties drop seen 11-27—11-30; plants bldg vowed 11-29, enrichmt levels mulled 12-2, 837D1, D2 A-program sanctns backing sought 12-7, 846B1 Arms embargo violatns seen, A-program sanctns extensn passes House 12-10—12-15; uranium swap offrd, bomb advances mulled 12-12—12-15, missile test held 12-16, 876A2, D2, F2, A3

ON FILE

Thai seizes plane, N Korean arms found 12-12, 862C3 Denies A-bomb trigger testing, US role mulled 12-18—12-20; uranium transfer deadline nixed, Turkey deal proposed 12-22—12-24, Kazakh import plans rptd 12-29, 941C1 Economy & Labor Petrochem plant opens 6-25, 423F1 Tehran businesses shut, strike held 7-7—7-9, 464D1 Education Student protesters punishmt rptd 9-4—9-5, 610D1 Student protests held, Ahmadinejad speech nixed/Daneshjoo appearnc cut 9-28—9-29, ldrs arrested 10-2, 688A2 Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Intell min sr ofcls fired 8-10, 561C3 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe sought 8-18, 607D1 Bahai spying trial opens 8-18, 941G2 US hikers trial set 12-14, 876F3 European Relations Italy’s Frattini visit nixed 5-20, 362B1 Swiss amb summoned 6-17, 402D3 Diplomats exit ordrd, Czech summons chrg d’affaires 6-22—6-23, 422A2 UK emb workers held, freed 6-28—7-2, 439A2–B2 UK emb worker trial set 7-3, 464G2 UK emb worker freed 7-18, 485B2 UK/French emb workers trial cont, freed on bail 8-8—8-16, 562C1–D1 UK emb worker (Rassam) sentnc rptd 10-29, 768D1 Yacht seized 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857A3 UK amb (Gass) summoned 12-29, 940F3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits Ger, Holocaust marked 6-5, 386E1 US’s Mitchell visits Syria 7-26, 546E2 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846C1, E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Ahmadinejad itinerary nixed 1-21; reelectn bid confrmd 1-28, Khatami bid set 2-8, 86C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234C1 Moussavi sets pres bid 3-10, Khatami mtg held, bid dropped 3-16—3-17, 174C2 Moussavi scores Ahmadinejad 4-6; Rezai sets pres bid 4-22, candidates cleared 5-20, 362D1 Pres candidates debate, rallies held/insults scored 6-3—6-10, 401E1, A2 Pres electn held, vote questnd/results rptd 6-12—6-13, probe ordrd, recount OKd/mtg set 6-15—6-18, 401A1–403E1; photos 411E1 Facts on govt 6-12, 403A1 Electn results mulled/upheld 6-19—6-23, Rezai sees Cncl/appeal dropped, Ahmadinejad celebratn held 6-20—6-24, 421A1–422B3; photo 421E1 Pres vote review com set, Moussavi/Karroubi drop role 6-26—6-27; results mulled, certified 6-27—7-1, Ahmadinejad govt questnd 6-30, 438B3 Pres electn questnd, fraud documts issued 7-4, 464E1 Ahmadinejad govt questnd/referendum sought, fraud probe defended 7-17—7-20, vp (Mashai) named, choice mulled 7-17—7-22, 485A1, F1, B2 Ahmadinejad vp apptmt chngd, delay questnd 7-24—7-25; shuffles cabt 7-25—7-26, pre-inauguratn ceremony held, sworn 8-3—8-5, 518E1, 519B1 Khamenei ldrship questnd, ouster sought, Moussavi launches dem movemt 8-15, 561D3 Judiciary chief/prosecutor gen apptmts set, Ahmadinejad names cabt 8-15—8-19, defends choices, defns/justice min picks seen 8-20, 562E1 Reformist pol parties ban urged 8-25, Ahmadinejad cabt confrmatn backed, OKd 9-2—9-3, 609B3, 610C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734D1 Pres electn results questng scored 10-28, oppositn rallies held 11-4, 767A3 Dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883B2; photo 883E2 Human Rights Abuses res passes UN 11-20, 857D2 Iraqi Conflict Blast kills 35+ 1-4; women shrine visitors banned 1-6, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8D2–E2 Exiled resistnc group attack plan rptd 1-20, 38F2 Alleged militia ldr (Zameli) held 1-23, 53C3 Prov electns held 1-31, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57A2 Mottaki visits 2-11—2-13, 101B3

2009 Index Exiled oppositn camp surrounded 3-13, drone shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174G2 Larijani visits 3-25, 179B3 Exiled resistnc group relocatn set 3-27, 209B1 Blasts kill 107+ 4-23—4-24, US role alleged 4-25, 296B3, D3–E3 US detainees freed 7-9, 464C3–D3 Rockets attack suspects held 7-18, pilgrims attacked 7-22, 498E1–F1 Exiled oppositn group raid kills 8, camp shut/US role mulled 7-28—7-29, 501F2 Rockets seized 8-18, 563B1 Forgn/finance min bldgs attack claimed 8-25; Shiite pol party ldr (Hakim) dies 8-26, funeral held 8-27, 592B2–C2, B3 Exiled oppositn group freed 10-7, 688G3 Baghdad emb blast kills 4+ 12-15, 877B2 Troops cross border, oil field seized/retreat seen 12-18—12-20, UK hostage (Moore) kidnapping role mulled 12-30—12-31, 942E1, F3 Kurds Activist (Fattahian) executed 11-11, 857A2 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Venez uranium detectn aid mulled 9-25—9-26, 682G2 Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925B1 Venez’s Chavez hails Ahmadinejad 11-20, 929B3 Ahmadinejad visits Brazil/Bolivia/Venez, Brazil mtg protested 11-23—11-25, 885E1 Medicine & Health Care Prison MD (Pourandarjani) dies 11-10; probe launched 11-17, suicide seen, drug overdose rptd 11-18—12-2, 857B2 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Telecom Co of Iran stake bought 9-27, 688E2–F2 Middle East Developments A-program enriched uranium proposals mulled 11-2, 766C2 Monetary Issues Lloyds sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 1-9, 863D1 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1–D1 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Bushehr A-plant test opens 2-25, 174A2 Fuel plant opened 4-9, 254F1 Obituaries Montazeri, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali 12-20, 896B3 Oil & Gas Developments US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488D3 Press & Broadcasting US rptr (Saberi) held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1 Rptr (Saberi) release sought 3-5, 142C2 US rptr (Saberi) spying chrgs set, release urged 4-8, 217F2 US rptr (Saberi) secret trial held 4-13, 254C2 US rptr (Saberi) sentnc rptd, self-incriminatn questnd 4-18; case review ordrd, Iraq detainees link denied 4-19—4-20, atty (Ebadi) named, appeal filed 4-20—4-21, 274C3 US rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318B1, A2 Street rptg banned 6-16, 402F2–G2 Forgn rptrs ousted, held 6-21—6-23, 421C1–D1, C2 Paper shut 7-1, 439E1 Wash Times rptr (Athanasiadis) freed 7-5, rptrs held 7-7, 464F2 Papers shut 10-6, 688C2 Newsweek rptr (Bahari) freed on bail 10-17, 768F1 Religious Issues Hajj ofcl ouster scored, reinstated 5-4, 362A2 Ramadan events drop seen 9-7, 610D1 Science & Technology Facebook access blocked, returns 5-23, 5-26, 362G1–A2 Cell phone svc cont, blocked 7-1, 7-6, 464D1 Twitter, oppostin site blocked 12-17—12-18, 884C1–D1 Sports Natl soccer team misses World Cup 6-17, players banned 6-23, 423C2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Oppositn group US listing cont, EU delisting set 1-7—1-26, 101B1 Bin Laden son locatn mulled 1-16, 38G3 Saudi terror suspects list issued 2-3, 119B1

—IRAQ 1075 Zahedan violnc kills 37, militants hanged 5-28—6-2, Ahwaz flight bomb defused/suspects held, Khatami flying schedule rptd 5-30—6-2, 398B1, F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636G2 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936A2 Sistan-Baluchistan blast kills 42+, forgn intell links claimed 10-18—10-19, 729B1 Bin Laden kids house arrest rptd 12-23, 941B2 Trade, Aid & Investment SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406F2, D3 UK financial svcs deals banned 10-12, US govt divestmt bill passes House 10-14, 711C2 UN Policy & Developments Afghan summit role urged 3-5, 142B1, A2–B2 Afghan security conf held 3-31, 195A2 Racism conf held, Ahmadinejad speech spurs walkout 4-20, nonprofits banned 4-23, 261F3, 262D1, F1 Chaired mtgs, US role ban nixed 7-1, 902B2 Women’s agencies merger opposed 9-14, 902A2 Ahmadinejad addresses Gen Assemb, protests held 9-23, 633C1, 634A1–B1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16A1–B1 Talks mulled 1-15—2-10, 86G1, A3 Obama sees ties progress 1-27, 42B2 Talks mulled 2-6—2-7, 74A2, B3 Obama on ties 2-9, 78B2 Clinton doubts talks offer response 3-1, 123G1, B2, A3, F3 Obama forgn policy scored 3-4, 142B2 Obama video message sent, dismissed 3-20—3-25, 179C1; text 179E1 Akhundzadeh sees Holbrooke 3-31, 195G1 Obama on protests crack down/remarks scored, Indep Day invitatns nixed 6-20—6-25, 423A1 Obama socres protests crack down, remarks scored 6-26—6-27, govt recognitn mulled 6-29, 439D1, E2 Cont engagemt seen 7-6, 464A3 Direct talks offer mulled 7-27, hikers held, arrests confrmd 7-31—8-1, 518C2 Mottaki visits, Jalili sees Burns 9-30—10-1, 651D1–E1 Emb seizure anniv marked 11-4, 767A3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814D3 Arms trafficker (Ardebili) guilty plea rptd 12-2, sentncd 12-14, 877A1* Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842B3, 843E3 Alavi Foundatn ex-head (Jahedi) pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2

IRAN-Contra Arms Scandal Bell dies 1-5, 9D3

IRAN-Iraq War (1980-88) Iran burial site protesters held 2-23, 189A2 Iran’s Larijani dismisses Obama video message 3-25, 179B3 Iraq jets ownership seen, Serbia return set 8-30, 592C3 Iran troops cross Iraq border, oil field seized/retreat seen 12-18—12-20, 942G3 Iran protests turn violent 12-27, 940E2

IRAQ, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Bus crash kills 7 2-17, 101A2 US copter crash kills 1 9-19, Bashika blast kills 15+ 9-25, 668E1, F2 Northn drought displacemts rptd 10-13, 730E1 Arts & Culture Natl museum reopened 2-23, 118G1 Natl Museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Ex-MP (Daini) held in Malaysia 10-16, 729E3 Civil Strife & Military Developments Security transfers marked 1-1; violnc kills scores, women shrine visitors banned 1-1—1-8, Blackwater civiln deaths suspects plead not guilty 1-6, 8D2, D3, 9A1 US mil translators ltd mask use OKd 1-7, 102B1 Govt damages case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 Ansar al-Sunna ldr (Surawi) capture rptd 1-11; blasts kill 8 1-12, US troop (Mayo) ct-martial set 1-13, 23D2*, E2–F2

Wasit prov cop chief replaced 1-16; violnc kills scores 1-16—1-21, Iran resistnc group attack plans rptd 1-20, 38A1, F2 Female suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 57F2 Violnc kills scores, Blackwater ousted/State Dept contractor proposals sought 1-23—1-29, 53A2, G2, G3 Scattered electn violnc rptd 1-31, blast kills 14+ 2-5, 57A1, E2 Casualties tallied 2-5, 58A1 Violnc kills scores, reconciliatn urged 2-6—2-17; US troops security deal violatns claimed 2-7, mil translators mask ban reversal rptd 2-13, 101D1, B2, 102A1 US Army medic (Leahy) convctd, ofcrs slaying suspect guilty plea nix rptd 2-20—2-21; violnc kills scores, drop seen 2-20—2-24, Baghdad cops arrest rptd 2-23, 117D3, 118E2 MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117G2 Insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2 Pilgrims attackers sentncd 2-26, 122A1 Shiite ‘99 uprising suppressn suspects cleared, Majid convctd 3-2, 121B3 Casualties tallied 3-5, 121F1 Blasts kill 73+ 3-5—3-10, Baghdad merchants ‘92 slayers convctd, sentncd 3-11, 156A1, A2 Gunmen attack kills 6 3-13, 175D1 UK hostage tape issued 3-21, insurgent activity mulled, violnc kills scores 3-22—3-25, 189C2, A3, D3 Attacks drop seen, violnc kills scores 3-26—3-31; Awakening Cncl members held, disbanded 3-28—3-31, US troop pleads guilty/sentncd, Basra control transferred 3-31, 208A2–209C1 Hungarian pvt contractor slain 3-26, 228E1 Casualties tallied 4-2, 208A3 Violnc kills scores, Baghdad fall anniv marked 4-2—4-9; US troop (Stovall) pvt contractor slaying chrgd 4-5, Baath party ldr tape aired 4-7, 217D3 Violnc kills scores, attacks claimed 4-10—4-15, Awakening Cncl ldrs arrests monitoring set 4-15, 254F2 Insurgent (Delaema) sentncd 4-16; violnc kills scores 4-16—4-22, attacks claimed 4-20, 275F1, E2 Violnc kills scores, insurgent ldr capture rptd/photo issued 4-23—4-29, reconciliatn talks halt seen, US raid scored 4-26, 296F2, 297C1, F1 Casualties tallied 4-30, 296F3 Violnc kills scores 4-30—5-6; insurgent US mil interrogatn block rptd 5-1, Awakening Cncl ldr (Jubouri) held, release seen 5-2—5-4, 311G3, 312C1–G1 Insurgent (Baghdadi) US mil interrogatn block rptd 5-1, 312F1 US troop (Green) convctd 5-7, violnc kills scores, mil base clinic shooting suspect held/chrgd 5-7—5-12, 330B2, 331D1, C2, E2–F2 Syria sanctns cont, insurgents border crossing rptd/halt urged 5-8—5-11; Sunni ldrs held, violnc kills scores 5-18—5-21, Spanish rptr slaying troops chrgd 5-21, 344E2, C3, E3, 345A1 Rape US troop (Green) sentncd 5-21; violnc kills scores 5-21—5-27,, 362E2, 362D3–G3 Blasts kill 21+ 5-29—6-3; May death toll drop rptd 6-1, aid worker slaying suspect (Rawi) convctd, sentncd 6-2, 380C1, F1 Casualties tallied 6-4, 380A1 Insurgency children use seen 6-6; US contractor slaying suspects held, release claimed 6-7—6-11, violnc kills 37, militant freed/cease-fire declared 6-8—6-10, 398B2, E2, A3 US contractors freed, transferred 6-10—6-14; violnc kills scores, slaying suspect held 6-12—6-25, UK hostages remains returned, IDd 6-20—6-21, 433E1, G1, C2, G2–C3, F3 Violnc kills scores 6-26—6-30, US troops cont attacks urged 7-1, 437A2–C2 Casualties tallied 7-2, 437F1 Biolnc kills scores, cont attacks urged 7-3—7-9, 465B1, F1 Violnc kills scores 7-10—7-13, 483F1, D2–E2 Violnc kills scores, rockets attack suspects held 7-15—7-21, 498D1 Sunnis held 7-24—7-30; clashes kill scores 7-28—8-3, insurgent group drop violnc 8-3, 529G1, E3, 530D1, F1 US troop arrest try scored 7-25, 501D2–E2

Baghdad blast barriers removal set 8-5, violnc kills scores, UK security contractor held 8-7—8-11, 545F1, C2, F2 Casualties tallied 8-6, 529F3 Violnc kills scores, troops/cops held 8-13—8-20; Shiite gay men abuse alleged 8-17, rockets seized 8-18, 562F2, 563C1–D1 Violnc kills scores 8-20—8-31, forgn/finance min bldgs attack mulled, death toll hiked 8-21—8-29, 592E2, B3–593A1 Violnc kills scores 9-2—9-10; bank robbery suspects cleared/convctd, rape US troop (Green) sentncd 9-2—9-4, troops deployed, cops/army ofcrs chrgd 9-4—9-8, 610A2, D2, F2–B3 UK hostage (MacLachlan) body recovered 9-2, 941D3 Casualties tallied 9-3, 592F1 Violnc kills scores 9-12—9-16, 629B1, A2 Iraq violnc kills 25+ 9-18—9-28, tae kwon do team slaying suspects held 9-24, 668E1, C2 Pvt contractors held/freed, abuse mulled 9-28—10-7, 689A1 Casualties tallied 10-1, 668A2 Insurgents arrest rptd 10-2, Anbar blasts kill 16+ 10-5—10-6, 688D3, 689C1 Violnc kills scores, ‘04-08 casualties tallied 10-11—10-20, 729E2 Blasts kill 167+, suspects held/security lack arrests rptd 10-25—10-29, 738B1, 739B1; photo 738A2 Violnc kills scores, northn minorities abuse rptd 10-31—11-10, 789B3, E3–G3 Casualties tallied 11-12, 789F1 Villagers seized, slain 11-15—11-16, 805E1 Awakening Cncl ex-ldr sentncd 11-19; Blackwater guard civiln deaths chrgs drop sought 11-20, violnc kills scores, Nov ‘09 casualties tallied 11-25—11-30, 837F3, 838C1–D1 Casualties tallied 12-3, 838F1 Violnc kills 127+, Baghdad mil head replaced/attack claimed 12-7—12-10, 856G1 Blackwater raids role rptd, deal denied 12-10—12-11, 884E3–F3, 885B1 Iraq blasts kill 8+ 12-15, US drone aircrafts hacking rptd 12-17, 877A2 Violnc kills scores, bombers sentncd 12-19—12-30; UK hostage freed, exchng denied/Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, Blackwater chrgs dropped 12-31, 941C3–943E1; photo 941E3 Casualties tallied 12-31, 942A1 Corruption & Ethics Issues US contractor (Custer Battles) fraud liability found 4-10, 255C1 Trade min raid nets arrests 4-29; explanatn sought 5-2, Sudani resignatn urged 5-3, 311A3 Govt graft scored 5-9, trade min brother held 5-10, 330D3 Trade min (Sudani) questnd 5-16, graft arrests ordrd 5-27, 362C2–E2 Ex-trade min (Sudani) held 5-30, 379D3 Aecom overbilling rptd 10-30, Blackwater ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789D2, 790A1 Defense & Disarmament Issues France arms deal set 7-2, 465A1 Fighter jets ownership seen, Serbia return set 8-30, 592C3 Economy & Labor Fscl ‘09 budget cut 1-25, 54A1 Fscl ‘09 budget passes parlt 3-5, 156D2 Education Mustansiriya Univ shut 10-14, 730B1 Family Issues Widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Samarraie parlt speaker nominatn seen 1-8; boycott warned 1-10, selectn delayed 1-11, 23F1 Prov electn voting urged 1-19, 38F1 Prov electn early voting held 1-28, 53F3 Prov electns held 1-31; voter fraud probe opens 2-3, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57A1, E1 Prov electns fraud rptd 2-15, 101G3 Prov electns final results issued 2-19, 118B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234D1 Talabani nixes reelectn bid 3-13, 175B1 Prov electn results ratified 3-26, 209D1 Baath party founding anniv marked 4-6, 228B1 Sammaraie elected parlt speaker 4-19, Kirkuk govt options detailed 4-22, 275D1, C2 Trade min (Sudani) submits resignatn, OKd 5-14—5-25, Maliki ofc takes over 5-27, 362B2 Parlt electns set 5-18, 344G3 Coalitn formed, Maliki role urged 8-24—8-28; ISCI ldr (Hakim) dies, funeral held/buried 8-26—8-29, son named successor 8-31, 592A1, B2 Maliki coalitn set 10-1, 688G2

1076 IRAQ— ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734D1 Parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729A2 Gen electns law deal seen 10-26; passage fails 10-27, parlt adjourns 10-29, 738G2 Electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789B1 Electns boycott warned 11-17, law vetoed 11-18, 804F3 Chngd electns law passes parlt 11-23; deal seen 11-26, vote delay mulled 12-2, 837A3 Electn law passes parlt 12-6, date set 12-8, 856A2, G2 Immigration & Refugee Issues US immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 French camp raided, migrants held 9-22, 666F1 UK deported refugees reentry nixed 10-15, 730A1 Iranian Relations Israeli A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75E1 Mottaki visits 2-11—2-13, 101B3 Exiled oppositn group camp surrounded 3-13, drone US mil shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174G2 Exiled resistnc group relocatn set 3-27, 209B1 Exiled oppositn group raid kill 8, camp shut/US role mulled 7-28—7-29, 501F2 US hikers held 7-31, 530C2 A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649F1, 650B1 Exiled oppositn group freed 10-7, 688G3 US hikers Iran spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857D3–E3 Kurds Kirkuk prov territorial claims draft const passes parlt 6-24, 501F1 Kurdistan war warned 7-16, 498A1 Kurdistan electns held, results rptd 7-25—7-29, Kirkuk prov autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, 501E1 Maliki sees Barzani 8-3, 530D1 Turkey peace initiative set 8-11; rebels surrender/freed, hailed 10-19—10-21, welcome ceremony scored 10-21, 728C2, A3 Medicine & Health Care Mental health survey published 3-7, 156F2 Oil & Gas Developments Kurdistan oil exports deal set 5-10, 331D2 Kurdistan exports open 5-27, 362B3 Auctns fail, BP/CNPC bid OKd 6-29—7-1, 437D2 Turkey/EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561C1 Kurdistan oil exports halted 10-9, 730F1 Oil fields dvpt deals signed 11-2—11-5, 789D3 Oil fields dvpt rights auctnd, productn hike seen 12-11—12-12, 877A1 Iran troops cross border, oil field seized/retreat seen 12-18—12-20; Turkey pipeline attack halts exports 12-20, dvpt deals signed 12-20—12-30, 942F3, 943B1, D1 Religious Issues Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8E2, A3 Shrine pilgrimage ends 7-18, 498F1 Ramadan opens 8-22, 592G3 Ramadan ends 9-21—9-23, 668F1 Sports Natl soccer team match hosted 7-13, 483C2 Soccer natl team FIFA suspensn set 11-20, 859G1 Trade, Aid & Investment KBR reconstructn deal questnd 1-13, 23D2 Reconstructn deals probe rptd 2-15, 101E3 US fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126B2 US reconstructn funds returned 3-16, 175A1 S Korea extortn scheme mil ofcrs convctd, sentncd 5-5, 311F3 State Dept ex-worker (Razo) indicted 10-19, 729D3 UN Policy & Developments Ban visits 2-6, 101G3 Persian Gulf War reparatns cut sought 6-18, 433D3 Security envoy arrives 11-1, 789G3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Gates visits 12-10, 856D2–E2

IRAQ v. Beaty Accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1

IRAQ War Coalition Troops Issues—For violence related developments, see IRAQ—Civil ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C2

FACTS US troops security deal takes effect 1-1, 8G3 Post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245C1 US slain troops ‘John Doe’ family letters mistake rptd 1-7, 267C1 US troops exit plan mulled 1-14, 23B2 Troops exit mulled 1-21, 29B2 Obama seeks troops exit plans, early withdrawal opposed 1-21—1-22, base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38A2, D2 US slain troops coffin media ban mulled 2-9, review ordrd 2-11, 79C2 US troops Aug ‘10 exit mulled, set 2-26—2-27, 121A1, E1, C2 US troops Sep ‘09 cut set 3-8, 156E1 US Army troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183C2, F2 US troops exit costs forecast issued 3-24, 189B3 US right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, vets profiling scored/defended, regretted 4-14—4-16, 262F3 US troops cities cont stay seen 4-27, UK missn ended 4-30, 297A2 US troops cities exit deadline backed 5-4, 312B1 US mil clinics, pvt contractors reimbursemt woes rptd 5-4, 412A1 US troops cont cities stay set 5-8, mental health probe vowed 5-10, 330F2, E3 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412D1 Security transfer mulled, US troops exit cities 6-28—7-1, 437A1 US troops jt patrols halt ordrd 7-2, 498C2 US troops security deal enforcemt seen 7-18, 498B2 Army troops hike set 7-20, 491B2, D2 US troop electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27; troops exit referendum deadline missed, hike urged 7-30—7-31, UK missn ends 7-31, 529F2, 530A2 US troops exit hike mulled 7-29, 501B2 Georgia troops, US training aid set 8-14, 560C1 Sinjar US troops deploymt proposed, security deal referendum seen 8-17, 562G3–563A1 US contractor slain, troop held 9-13, 629G1 Afghan levels mulled 9-15, 629A3–B3 US troops exit mulled 9-17—9-29, contractor slaying troop (Velez) chrgd 9-21, 668A1, E2 US ofcr (Watada) resignatn OKd 9-25, 720C3 Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720E2 US false decoratn claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2 UK sailors security deal passes parlt 10-13, US mil base slayings troop (Russell) behavior rptd 10-16, 729F3, 730D1 Impregnated troops ct-martials set 11-4, punishmt curbed, ban nixed 12-22—12-24, 915B1 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held 11-5, 757D2–E2 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought 11-6—11-12, 778D1 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805D1 US vets ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815D2 Tex mil base shooting probes set, Ham named ldr 11-19—11-23, 812C3, F3 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 826F1–G2 US Army ex-maj (Cockerham) sentncd 12-2, 856D3 Diplomatic & Political Developments US emb dedicated 1-5, 8F3 US State Dept pvt security contractors questnd 1-9, 23A3 Cardinal Laghi dies 1-10, 56B2 US sens (Biden/Graham) visit 1-12, 16C2 Bush news conf held 1-12, gives farewell address 1-15, 18D3, G3, 19E1, D3 Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16C1 Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, confrmd 1-20, 30A1 Obama gives inaugural addresss 1-20, 25B1, 27F2 Obama visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64E1 US amb (Hill) named 2-2, 57C3 Munich Security Conf held 2-8, 74B1 Obama touts electns 2-9, 78A3 France’s Sarkozy, Ger’s Steinmeier visit 2-10, 2-17, 101F2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108A1, D1 US role scored 2-26, 180A2 Cheney touts success 3-15, 166F2 Bush bk work confrmd 3-19, 166F3*

Turkey’s Gul visits 3-23, 189C2 Iran’s Larijani visits 3-25, 179B3 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196F2 US diplomats security deal awarded 4-1, 208G3 Abbas visits 4-5, 228F1 Obama visits 4-7, 214D3 US amb nomineee (Hill) confrmd 4-21, 275E2 US’s Clinton visits 4-25, 297A3 Maliki visits UK 4-30, 297C2 US’s Pelosi visits 5-10, 330B3 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367F3–G3; excerpts 368F1 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E3 State Dept, Blackwater security overpaymts seen 6-15, 433E3 UK probe opens, questnd 6-15—6-18; ltd pub hearings OKd 6-18, rules chng nixed 6-24, 449C1 US’s Biden visits 7-2—7-4, 464D3 Maliki visits US, sees UN’s Ban 7-21—7-22, emb overstaffing rptd 7-22, 497F3, 498A2 Maliki ends US trip 7-25, Gates visits 7-28—7-29, 501C2–E2 US’s Mitchell visits Syria 7-26, 546F2 UK probe opens 7-30, 530G1 Sen Specter Dem ties questnd 8-4, 521B3 Maliki visits Syria 8-19, 562B3 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569D3 US emb costs forecast issued, consulates opening nixed 8-25, 592E3 Xe diplomat transport deal extended 9-2, 586G3–587A1 US’s Biden visits 9-15—9-17, 628F3 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633E1 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685A3 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707E3 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693B2 US emb constructn woes rptd 10-22, 739B1 UK probe opens 11-24, 820F3 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842E2 Economic Developments Obama budget proposals mulled 2-21, ‘fscl responsibility’ summit held 2-23, 111F1–G1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124G3, 125C1–D1 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F2 Suplmtl funds pass House 5-14, 338D1 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355D1 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424B3, E3 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes Cong 6-25, 7-23, 489A3–B3, 490A1 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523A3 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599D3 US ‘10 defns funds pass Sen 10-6, 701A2 US ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 700D3 US defns ‘10 authrzn clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742B3, E3 US/Afghan mil strategy mtg held 11-23, 810A1 US ‘10 aid clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 12-16, 866A3 US defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886B2–C2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907C1 Intelligence Issues Iran/US rptr (Saberi) spying chrgs detailed 5-12, 330A2 ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3 Hussein US interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465A2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3 International Terrorism Iran oppositn group US listing cont, EU delisting set 1-7—1-26, 101C1 Cuba base detainees transferred 1-17, 28E3 Cuba base ex-detainees detentn rptd 2-17, 101D3 US suspects renditn UK aid admitted 2-26, 150G2, B3, D3, F3 US interrogatns, Al Qaeda link pressure confrmd 4-21, Sen com rpt issued 4-22, 261A3 Qaeda operative (Libi) sees rights advocates 4-27, death rptd 5-10, 331G1 Cuba base detainee (Sadkhan) transferred 6-11, 391E2 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C2 Bin Laden recording posted 9-13, 621C2

ON FILE

Military Offensive & Developments—See IRAQ—Civil Press & Broadcasting Bush news conf shoe toss rptr (Zaidi) trial opens, delayed 2-19, 118D1 US war dead coffin return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132E1 Bush news conf shoe toss rptr (Zaidi) convctd, sentncd 3-12, 174E3 Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) sentnc cut 4-7, 228F1 Awakening Cncl ldrs arrests coverage scored, Gen Atta files misquote suit 4-13, 254C3–D3 Stars and Stripes rptr banned 6-24, 721E1 Woodruff returns to Iraq 7-13, 500A2 US troops Spanish rptrs slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483B2 Rptr ‘06 slaying suspect held 8-3, 530B1 US rptrs profiling seen, Rendon contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721B1 Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629C1 UK documts leaked 11-21—11-23, 821E1 Prisoners of War (POWs) Abu Ghraib prisoners transferred 2-20, rptr access OKd 2-21, 118B2 Detainee slaying suspect (Behenna) convctd, sentncd 2-27—2-28, 156B3 US detainees status mulled 3-22, 189C3 Detainees slayings suspects cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-9—4-16, 254E3 US rptr (Saberi) sentnc, Iran detainees link denied 4-20, 275B1 US detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261C1 US detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 330G3 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, 381C2 US detainees IDs/Red Cross access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621D2, G2 Iranian detainees freed 7-9, 464C3–D3 Shiite US detainees release mulled 8-17, 563E1 US contractors, detainees abuse suit nixed 9-11, Camp Buca closure set 9-16, 629E1, A2 Inmates escape, recaptured 9-23—9-25, 668D2 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867G1, B2

IRELAND, Republic of (Eire) Asian/Pacific Rim Relations RC priest (Sinnott) seized in PI, freed 10-11—11-12, 820B1 Awards & Honors Robinson gets US Pres Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Economy & Labor Budget unveiled 12-9, 856E1 Education RC schls abuse rpt issued 5-20; emergency mtg held, govt role regretted 5-26, compensatn talks set 5-27, 361B2, G2 European Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 EU mtg held 3-1, 136B2 EU summit held, Lisbon treaty concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432D1 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 628A1 EU treaty referendum held 10-2, 685E1 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 685F3, 686A1 EU treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, complaints nixed, Klaus signs 11-2, 765F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234D1; 10-1, 734E1 Latin American Relations Bolivia shootout kills 3 4-16, Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/questnd, probe set 4-16—4-20, 294B1, A2–B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Obituaries Clancy, Liam 12-4, 896B2 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 Nolan, Christopher J 2-20, 160E3 O’Brien, Vincent 6-1, 400E3 Religious Issues Christian Brothers child abuse setlmt rptd 11-25, RC role regretted 11-26, 836B1 RC child abuse rpt mulled 12-11, bps quit 12-17—12-24, 938D1 Sports Irish Derby results 6-28, 807C3 World Cup qualifying matches held 11-14—11-18, replay sought, nixed 11-19—11-20, 858E3 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit rating watch set 1-9, 53D1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875D3

2009 Index U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Rooney named amb, Cowen visits 3-17, 182C2 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 570E2, G2 Clinton visits 10-11, 704E3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees entry OKd 7-29, 506E1 Cuba base detainees transferred 9-27, 718D2

IRELAND, Marin Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1 After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

IREM SpA Total UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68B3

IRENA‘S Vow (play) Opens in NYC 3-29, 256C1

IRIDIUM Satellite LLC Iridium 33/Russian defunct mil satellite collide 2-10, 91A3

IRIDIUM 33 (U.S. satellite) In Russian defunct mil satellite collisn 2-10, debris tracking rptd 2-13, 91A3

IRON—See STEEL IRONS, Jeremy Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

IRWIN, Bill Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2 Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

ISAMUDIN, Jerla Sees Urumqi order return 7-8, 461F1

ISEMAN, Vicki NYT suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151C3–E3

ISHAM, Heyward (1926-2009) Dies 6-18, 452E2

ISINBAYEVA, Yelena Fails at world champ 8-17, 579C3

ISLAM—See also country names African Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 Somalia/Ethiopian troops exit 1-2—1-13, UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21G2–E3 Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21D2 S Sudan peace deal anniv marked 1-9, 185G2 Sudan oppositn ldr (Turbai) held 1-14, rebels link chrgs seen 1-19, 116A2 Mali tourists held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, captives freed 4-22, 326F1 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, 65C3 Somalia’s Ahmed elected, sworn pres 1-31, 66D2 Somali interim premr (Sharmarke) named, OKd 2-13—2-14; cabt appointed, sworn 2-20—2-21, violnc kills scores, AU troops cont stay sought 2-22—2-25, 115B1–G1 Somalia sharia law set, OKd 2-28—3-10, US rep plane attacked 4-13, 237D1, 238G2, C3, E3 Sudan’s Bashir indicted 3-4, 122F1 Sudan oppositn ldr (Turabi) freed 3-9, Bashir Arab League trip opposed 3-22, 185G1, D2 Algeria electn boycott urged, vote held/attacks launched 4-6—4-9, 248F1, A2 Somalia sharia law passes parlt 4-18, 270B1 Somalia intl aid conf held 4-23, 269G3–270A1 Somalia militant ldr (Aweys) returns, AU troops exit sought 4-23—4-28; clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20, forgn fighters seen, Eritrea sanctns urged/role denied 5-15—5-21, 341C2, E3–342A1 Somalia port blockade urged 5-20, 430A3 UK detainee (Qatada) release sought 5-30, Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1, D1 Sudan southn violnc casualties rise seen 6-1, summit held 6-23, 430E3 Gabon’s Bongo dies 6-8, 393G3 Somalia clashes kill scores, emergency declared 6-18—6-22; thieves convctd, pub amputatns held 6-21—6-25, forgn troops fighting vowed 6-24, 430A1–D1, F1, A2, D2, B3 CIA Algeria ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 502D3 Mauritania aid worker slain, attack claimed 6-23—6-25, 493D1–E1

—ISLAM 1077 Somalia crisis warned 7-1, AU peacekeepers hike opposed 7-3, 459D2 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622C3, E3–G3 Algeria/Chinese businesses security warning issued 7-14, 510A1 Nigeria ‘08 sectarian violnc rpt issued 7-20, 525A3 Sudan N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507C3 Nigeria sect violnc kills scores, containmt ordrd 7-26—7-30; ldr death rptd, probe set 7-30—8-5, displacemts return 8-5, 525A2 Somalia’s Ahmed sees US’s Clinton 8-6, 540A2 US/Somali terror group ties suspect admits role, pleads guilty 8-12, 780D3 Somali-Amer (Kastigar) death rptd 9-11, 781D1 US/Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, revenge attacks vowed/forgn fighters role urged, blasts kill 14+ 9-15—9-17, 622B2, E2, G2 Somali terror group ties suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833F2 Somalia’s Ahmed addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 652A1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Somalia’s Ahmed visits US 10-4, 781D1 Tunisia pres electn held 10-25, 746D1, F1 Sudan electns registratn opens 11-1, 801C3 Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801C2 Somalia flight passenger held 11-13, bombing try rptd 12-30, 899B1 Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) in Saudi hosp 11-23—12-31, 923C1 N African forgners seized, kidnappings claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903E2 Somalia violnc kills scores, Kismayo seized 9-30—12-21; Al Shabab denies blast role 12-4, protests held, further attacks warned 12-7, 889A1–E1, A2, D2–E2 Eritrea/Somalia militants backing sanctns set 12-23, 903E1–G1 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) Yemen stay rptd 12-28, Web postings seen 12-29, 898A1, D1–E1 Sudan southn succesn vote law passes parlt 12-29, 923G3 Arab-Israeli Conflict—See ARAB-Israeli Developments Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Pak/Afghan jt anti-terror stategy vowed 1-6, 54E3 Pak tribal area violnc kills 86 1-9—1-11, bin Laden son locatn mulled 1-16, 39A1–B12 Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 52A1 PI aid workers seized 1-15, 205E2 Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64C1 Afghan pres electn delayed 1-29, 54D1 Cuba base detainees resetlmt sought 2-3, China oppositn set, Eur warning rptd 2-5, 63C3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 Afghan/US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 79A2 US envoy (Holbrooke) visits Pak 2-9—2-12, Malakand sharia OKd 2-16, 102B3, 103B1 Afghan violnc kills 20 2-11, US troops deploymt ordrd 2-17, 102C1, F2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103D2, A3, C3 Japan/Afghan cops, rebldg funding set, 110B1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 US’s Clinton visits Indonesia 2-18, 109D2 Pak blast kills 28+ 2-20, 138E3 Pak tribal areas cease-fire extended 2-24, 138E2 Sharif pol return block denied, banned 2-25, 138D2 Mumbai terror attack suspects chrgd 2-25, 158D1–E1 US terror detainees renditns UK aid admitted 2-26, 150A3 Abandoned refugees ASEAN talks failure rptd 3-2, 135B3 Sri Lanka natl cricket team Pak attack kills 8+ 3-3, 138A1–B1 Afghan summit proposed 3-5, 142C1, A2 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, refugee svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187D3–E3 US ‘enemy combatant’ term use dropped 3-13, 165C3

Pak govt coalitn mulled 3-19, prov exec rule lifted 3-28, 228E2, A3 Pak violnc kills scores, attacks claimed 3-30—4-5, tribal areas girl whipping tape aired, probe ordrd 4-2—4-6, 228D3–E3, 229B2–C2 Afghan women rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213E1–F1 US terror detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 4-2, 199E3 PI hostages freed 4-2—4-18; rescue operatn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415E2 China city redvpt plans rptd 4-2, 461F2 Indonesian legis electns held 4-9, 295E1 Pak tribal areas sharia deal passes parlt/signed, Mumbai terror attacks suspect arrest rptd 4-13, Islamabad mosque cleric (Aziz) freed on bail, addresses followers 4-15—4-17, 275E3, 276F2–G2, D3 Afghan women rights curbs protested 4-15, Karzai names running mate (Fahim), 314A1, C2 India ex-pres (Kalam) frisked 4-21, Continental Airlines regrets 7-22, 646F2 Pak tribal areas militants exit faked, blast kills 12 4-24—4-25; mil offensives open, Buner control regained/troops hike mulled 4-26—4-29, captives held, freed 4-28—4-29, 298B1–C1 Pak militants threat seen 4-29, 285F2 Afghan drug smuggler (Noorzai) sentncd 4-30, 539G2 Pak tribal areas sharia ct set, recognitn nixed 5-2—5-3, civilns flee 5-5—5-7, 314D3, G3, 315C1 Pak tribal areas displacemts tallied 5-2, refugees aid sought 5-14, 346F1, D2 Afghan/US mil cmdr (McKiernan) ousted 5-11, 317E1 Afghan/Pak summit held 5-24, 370F1–G1 Pak’s Sharif electn ban lifted 5-26; violnc kills scores, Lahore blast claimed 5-27—5-30, Mumbai terror attacks suspect release ordrd 6-2, 382B2, F3, 383D1, G1 Thai violnc kills 27, mosque attack mil role denied/insurgency victims aid bill OKd 6-6—6-9, 416D1, A2 Afghan detainees, Canadian troops abuse claims nixed 6-9, 413B1 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447C1 Pak tribal areas cleric slain 6-12, mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418C1–D1, F1, D2 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406A3 PI separatist bases captured 6-15; militants held 6-23, cease-fire ordrd 7-23, 527F2, A3, E3–F3 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill scores, tribal areas militant ldr hurt 6-18—7-8, 466F2, D3 Thai schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 747D3 China ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460F3, 461A1 India ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 823A1–B1 Afghan/US mil operatn launched 7-2, 465D3 India gay sex curbs nixed 7-2, 514B1 Pak tribal areas refugees return set, blast kills 9+ 7-9—7-13; bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, cleric (Muhammad) held 7-26, 514D1, D2, B3, F3 Afghan/UK troops sain 7-10, 498E2 China ethnic violnc deaths mulled/mosques cont closure ordrd, security forces shootings admitted 7-10—7-19; businesses reopen 7-12, disappearncs claimed 7-29, 509C3, F3–510A1 Pak’s Sharif hijacking chrgs cleared 7-13, 515A1 Pak militants battle backed 7-17, 486C2 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494A3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499D3 China/US talks held 7-27—7-28, 509D2 Afghan reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513D2, F2 Mumbai ‘03 bombers convctd, sentncd 7-27—8-6, 594G3 Pak riots kill 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612G1–A2 Pak ‘07 emergency order ruled illegal 7-31, 530B3–C3 Afghan civiln deaths ‘09 rise rptd 7-31, 546E3 Malaysia protests dispersed 8-1, crackdown scored 8-3, 543A1 Australia raids net terror suspects 8-4, 930C2–D2

Pak/US drone missile strike kills 12, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-9, 533A1, C1, C2 Indonesia hotel blasts suspects held/slain, victim ID mulled 8-8—8-12, 542D1 PI militant clashes kill 54+, mosque seized/membership mulled 8-12—8-20, 559C1, F1, A2 Afghan pres/local electns held 8-20, 549A1 Pak Taliban ldr (Mehsud) slaying confrmd 8-25, 577E3 Afghan pres electn initial results rptd 8-25—8-26, 577B3 Thai violnc kills scores, insurgency fight spending rptd 8-25—10-10; casualties tallied 9-14, suspects held 10-12, 748A1–C1 Afghan strategy chng urged 9-1, 594B3 China ethnic protests renewed, clashes kill 5 9-3—9-5, 605D3, 606C1 Afghan pres electn results vetting urged 9-8, 611F1 Pak militants capture rptd 9-11, 630F2–G2 Afghan/US troop levels mulled 9-15, 629D2 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643D1 Indonesia terror raid kills 4, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643F3 Pak blast kills 25+ 9-18; extremist ldr (Saeed) chrgd, movemts ltd 9-18—9-21, cont threat seen 9-30, 669A2, C2, D3, 670C1 Afghan Taliban warning posted 9-19, US troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635A1, F2, 636A1 PI militant base seized 9-20; counterinsurgency US aid cont 11-12, peace deal urged 11-13, 819B2, D2, A3 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn seen 9-25, 668D3 Afghan/Pak Qaeda threat cut 10-4—10-6, US troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673A1, 674D1 Pak militants attack warned, army hq seized/captives freed 10-5—10-11; US aid questnd 10-7, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder (Saeed) chrgs dropped 10-12, 694G2–A3, 695D1, A2, D2, C3 Chinese Uighurs jihad urged 10-8, 703B2 PI RC priest (Sinnott) seized, kidnappers surrounded 10-11—10-13; tape issued, ransom nixed 10-31, freed, separatists release role claimed 11-12, 820C1–D1 Afghan/UK troops hike set 10-14, 695G3 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930B2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, blasts kill 6+ 10-20, 709A1–B1, 710D1 Afghan pres electn runoff OKd 10-20, 710G1 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717E3 Afghan blasts kill 8 10-27, 750F2 Pak blast kills 101 10-28, 737B1 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, blasts kill 35 11-2, 769D1, A2 Afghan pres candidate (Abdullah) drops bid 11-1, Karzai win declared 11-2, 753B1 China crime, terror fighting vowed 11-3, 785C3 China’s Wen addresses Arab League 11-7, 777B1–C1 Afghan troop levels mulled 11-11, 775C1 Pak tribal areas mil offensive hike urged 11-13—11-14, progress seen 11-17, 806G2, E3 Afghan’s Karzai sworn 11-19, 805C3 Pak extremism crack down urged 11-23, Afghan/US mil strategy unveiling seen 11-24, 809C2, 810B1 PI prov troops deploymt set 11-24, 819E1 PI prov violnc mulled 11-26—12-3, ARMM control transfer ordrd 11-27, 853E3, 854A1, D2 Pak A-arms control transferred 11-27, 839C1 US citizens arrive in Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/video detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 857G3, 858B1–G1 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 825A1, F1, C3, 827E1, B2 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844C1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845E1 PI rebels peace talks open 12-8, prison break frees militants 12-13, 890D2, A3 Pak militant (Saifullah) sought 12-12; US citizens deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878F3 Khmer Rouge genocide suspects chrgd 12-16—12-21, 890A1 Afghan cops hq attack thwarted 12-21, 894A2 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 12-25, CIA hub blast kills 7+ 12-30, 899E1, E3 Pak blasts kill 40 12-26—12-28, 946F3

1078 ISLAM— Canadian Developments UK MP (Galloway) entry nixed 3-20, 413F1 Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723D1–E1 Toronto terror plotter freed 5-22, 413C1 Cartoons Controversy Denmark’s Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen 8-3, 534E1 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect (Headley) held 10-3, 845F1 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings suspect (Syed) chrgd 12-7, 845F2 CIS Developments Chechen col (Budanov) freed 1-15, 36G2 Exiled Chechen (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58A2 Chechnya capital dep mayor slain 2-5, 85A2 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects cleared 2-19, 100D1 Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310C3 Chechnya violnc kills scores 5-15—5-25, 378B3, D3 Uzbek terror attacks kill 5+, IMU ldr (Makhmudov) death rptd 5-26—9-9, 663E2–F2, B3–D3 Russian ofcls slain 6-5—6-13, 417C1 Chechen activist (Estemirova) seized, found dead 7-15, 497C1 Russia blast kills 21 8-17, 560F2 Chechnya blasts kill 8 8-21—8-28, 591G1, B2 Chechen slain ldr (Kadyrov) statues removed 9-10, 706A2 Russian cleric (Bostanov) slain 9-20, 728F1 Russia violnc kills 3 9-27, 728E1 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936A2 Tajik shootout kills 4 10-18, 764F3 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764A3, D3 Russian Orthodox priest (Sysoyev) slain 11-19, motive mulled, christenings rptd 11-20, 822D1–E1 Russia RR blasts kill 27 11-27—11-30; suspects described 11-30, attacks claimed 12-2, 836B2–C2, e2 Russia gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892C2 Ecumenical Developments Pope visits Africa 3-17—3-23, 195E3, 196E1 Pope Benedict visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-8—5-15, 335B1, D1–E1, A3, G3–336A1 European Developments—For Bosnian civil war, see BOSNIA Turkey coup plot suspects held, mil/govt talks held 1-7—1-11, 23B1 Dutch MP (Wilders) UK entry barred 2-12, 136C3 US’s Clinton visits Turkey 3-7, 142C3–D3 Turkey local electns held 3-29, AKP losses mulled 3-30, 226F3 Rasmussen NATO secy gen bid OKd 4-4, 213A2–B2 Obama visits Turkey 4-6—4-7, 214G1, C3 Obama, Armenia genocide remarks scored 4-25, 296E2 UK ‘05 blasts suspects cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310A3 France anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512E1 UK forgn extremists banned 5-5, 310D2–E2, F2, A3 Bosnia, IMF loan OKd 5-5, 343C1 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 397A1 France burqa use opposed, probe comm set 6-22—6-23, Sarkozy shuffles cabt 6-23, 432F2–B3, F3 Ger terror claim convctn appeal heard, ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482F2–B3 Bosnia, IMF loan OKd 7-8, 512B1 French town Muslim swimsuits ban rptd, Italy town fines set 8-12—8-19, UK spec swimming sessns rptd 8-15, 561E1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608B1, F1, D2 Dogan fined 9-7, 706E2–F2 UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626E1–F1 French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704C2 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707C1, F1 Turkey nixes NATO jt mil exercise 10-11, 696E2–F2 Bosnia govt reforms nixed, talks cont 10-20—10-21, 727E1 Serb ldr (Karadzic) trial opens 10-27, 749E1–F1, A2 French natl ID debate opens, unity seen/bias fight vowed 11-2—12-8, 936G3–937C1

FACTS Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3 Turkey conf held 11-9, 788C3 Ger ctroom attack suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses Italian women 11-15—11-16, 812E2 Swiss mosque minarets banned, referendum mulled 11-29—11-30, 836E2, C3, 837A1 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846C1, F1 Turkey Kurdish party banned 12-11, 893B2–C2 Latin Developments Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925B1 Middle East Developments ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10D2 Iraq blasts kill scores 1-1—1-8; women shrine visitors banned 1-6, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8D2 Iraq parlt speaker nominee (Samarraie) seen 1-8; boycott warned 1-10, selectn delayed 1-11, 23G1–A2 Iraq violnc kills scores 1-16—1-21, 38B1–F1 Iraq female suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 57G2 Iraq/US mil copters crash, violnc kills scores 1-26—1-29, 53G2–A3, C3–E3 Iran oppositn group EU terror delisting set 1-26, 101C1 Obama Al-Arabiya interview aired 1-27, 42F1 Iraq prov electns held 1-31; voting fraud probe opens 2-3, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57B1–C1, E1–D2 Nazi fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155F3 Iraq violnc kills scores, Arbaeen marked 2-7—2-17, 101D1, B2, E2 Iran/US talks mulled 2-10, 86A2 Saudi cabt shuffled 2-14, munic electns delayed 5-18, 943D3–F3, 944A1 Leb/Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312F2 Iraq prov electns final results issued 2-19; natl museum reopened 2-23, cops arrest rptd, violnc kills scores 2-23—2-24, 117E3–F3, 118B1–C1, A2 Egypt blast kills 1 2-22, suspects held 2-23, 117F2 Iraq MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22; bodyguards tortured testimony claimed, Maliki govt probe urged 2-23—2-24, return ordrd, immunity mulled/freed 2-25, 117G2–C3 Syria ct abuses alleged 2-24, 465A3 Iraq pilgrims attackers sentncd 2-26, 122A1–B1 Iraq ‘99 uprising suppressn suspects cleared, Majid convctd 3-2, 121C3 Iraq blasts kill 73+, US troops Sep ‘09 cut set 3-5—3-10, 156B1, D1, A2 UK/Hezbollah talks set, hailed 3-5—3-6, 156E3–F3 Iraq’s Talabani nixes reelectn bid 3-13, Iran drone US mil shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174C3, 175C1 Yemen blast kills 4+, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646C2 Obama/Iran video message sent 3-20, 179E1, A2–B2, E2 Baghdad violnc rise seen 3-22, blast kills 8+ 3-23, 189D2, D3 Iran’s Larijani visits Iraq 3-25, 179B3 Iraq violnc kills scores, Awakening Cncl members held/disbanded 3-28—3-31, Basra control transferred 3-31, 208A2–B2, D2, C3, 209A1 Iraq violnc kills scores, Baghdad fall anniv marked 4-2—4-9, Abbas visits 4-5, 227D3, 228A2 Iraq blasts 23+, attacks claimed 4-10—4-15, Awakening Cncl ldrs arrests monitoring set 4-15, 254A3–B3 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd 4-15, 243D3 Iraq violnc kills scores, attacks claimed 4-16—4-20; parlt speaker (Sammaraie) elected 4-19, Kirkuk govt options detailed 4-22, 275D1–E1, A2–B2, D2 Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc, Iraq detainees link denied 4-20, 275B1 Leb’s Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312D2 Iraq violnc kills scores, reconciliatn talks halted 4-23—4-29, US troops raid scored, cities cont stay seen 4-26—4-27,, 296A3–D3, 297A1–B1, E1–F1, B2 Egypt pigs cull opens 4-29, 282B2 Iraq violnc kills scores, insurgent US mil interrogatn blocked 5-1—5-2, Awakening Cncl ldr (Jubouri) held, release seen 5-2—5-4, 312B1–D1, F1 Iran hajj ofcl ouster scored, reinstated 5-4, 362A2 Obama Egypt speech set 5-8, 318A1

Iraq/US troops cont cities stay set 5-8, blasts kill 10 5-11—5-12, 330F3, 331C2 Sears Tower terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374B3 Kuwait parlt electns held 5-16, 345D1 Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411D3–E3 Iraq parlt electns set, Sunni ldrs held 5-18, violnc kills scores 5-20—5-21, 344F2–B3, 345A1 Iran long-range missile tested 5-20, 362A1 US’s Biden visits Leb 5-22, 380A2 Iraq blast kills 8 5-24, 352E3 Iran mosque blast kills 25, militants hanged/role denied 5-28—5-30, 398C1–D1 Iraq blasts kill 21+ 5-29—6-3, aid worker slaying suspect (Rawi) convctd, sentncd 6-2, 380D1–F1 US’s Obama visits Saudi 6-3; bin Laden tapes aired 6-3—6-4, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367B2, B3, D3–E3, 369B1, D1, G1, B2–C2; excerpts 369A1 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, Hezbollah concedes, results rptd 6-8, 397C3, F3, 398A1 Iraq blasts kill 37 6-8—6-10, militant freed, cease-fire declared 6-9, 398C2–D2, G2 Iraq violnc kills scores, MP slaying suspect held 6-12—6-25, 433E1, G1, C2, A3 Iran electn results backed, protests cont 6-19—6-25, 421A2, F2 Saudi royals/charities, militants funding linked 6-24, 491B3–D3 Leb’s Berri reelected parlt speaker 6-25; Hariri sees Nasrallah, named premr 6-25—6-27, Beirut clashes erupt 6-28, 450B2, F2–A3 Iran pres electn protests cont, results certified 6-28—6-29, 438B3, 439C1, G1 Iraq/US troops cities exit hailed, cont attacks urged 7-1, 437A2–B2 Iran pres electn results questnd 7-4, protests dispersed 7-9, 464B1, G1 Iraq violnc kills scores, cont attacks urged 7-8—7-9, 465C1–D1, F1 Iraq blasts kill scores 7-11—7-13, 483F1–G1, E2 Iran rebels executed 7-14—7-16, 485C3 Violnc kills scores, rockets attack suspects held 7-15—7-22; Kurdistan war warned 7-16, Maliki visits US 7-21—7-22, 498A1–B1, E1–F1, A2 Iraq Sunnis held 7-24—7-30; clashes kill scores, insurgent group violnc dropped 7-30—8-3, US troops exit hike urged 7-31, 529G1, A3, E3, 530D1, F1 Iraq regional electns held/results rptd, prov autonomy proposal nixed 7-25—7-29, Iran oppositn group raid kills 8, camp shut/US role mulled 7-28—7-29, 501C1, E1, B3–C3 Iraq smoking ban bill introduced 8-6, blasts kill scores 8-7—8-11, 545F1–C2, E2 Iran dissidents trial cont 8-8, prisoners rape alleged 8-9, 561F2, 562B1 Yemen offensive launched 8-11; refugee camp strike kills 80, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, truce OKd, violatns alleged 9-18—9-20, 645F3–646A1, C1 Iraq/US detainees release mulled, gay men abuse rptd 8-17, rockets seized 8-18, 563C1–E1 Iran/Israel spying trial opens 8-18, 941A3 Ramadan opens/Iraq violnc kills scores, pol coalitn set 8-22—8-24; forgn/finance min bldgs attack claimed 8-25, party ldr (Hakim) dies, funeral held/buried 8-26—8-29, 592A1, B2, B3, G3 Iran reformist pol parties ban urged 8-25, Ramadan events drop seen 9-7, 610C1–D1 Iraq violnc kills scores, bank robbers sentncd/suspect cleared 9-2—9-10, 610B2, D2, A3–B3 Iraq blasts kill 3 9-12, 629A2 Leb financier (Ezzedine) chrgd 9-12, 877D3–E3 Iran clerics kin held 9-14, 628C3 Iraq violnc kills 18+ 9-28, US troops cont exit seen 9-29, 668C1, F1 Iran A-program talks held 10-1, 651C1 Iraq’s Maliki coalitn set 10-1; insurgents arrests rptd 10-2, blasts kill 16+ 10-5—10-6, 688A3–C3, E3, 689C1 Saudi king visits Syria, Leb natl unity govt urged 10-7—10-8, 707E3, G3 Iraq univ shut, violnc kills scores 10-14—10-16, ex-MP (Daini) held in Malaysia 10-16, 729A3–B3, E3, 730B1 Iran blast kills 42+ 10-18, 729C1–D1

ON FILE

Iran A-program secret site inspected 10-24—10-25, 768C3 Iraq blasts kill 167+ 10-25—10-26, 738G1, 739B1 Hezbollah aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Iraq violnc kills 17+ 11-1, electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789D1, F3 Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes erupt, naval blockade set 11-4—11-10, forgn interfernc scored 11-10—11-11, 805A3 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4; Iran role rptd 11-11, US smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878E1 Iran forgn natls freed 11-7, 857A3 Leb unity govt set 11-9, 790D1 US hikers Iran spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857D3 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit attys clearance order nix sought 11-10, 916B1 Iraq villagers seized, slain 11-15—11-16, electns law vetoed 11-18, 804F3, 805E1 Iraq Awakening Cncl ex-ldr sentncd 11-19; chngd electns law passes parlt, deal seen 11-23—11-26, natl museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 837A3–D3, 838B1, E1 UK/Iraq war documts leaked 11-23, 821F1 Jordan parlt dissolved 11-23, 877F2 Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837F1 Saudi pilgrimage swine flu cases tallied 11-29, 944B2 Iraq electns law passes parlt 12-6, violnc kills scores 12-7—12-8, 856D2, F2, A3 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857B1–C1 Leb unity govt OKd 12-10, 877A3 US drone aircrafts Iraq hacking rptd 12-17, 877C2 Leb’s Hariri visits Syria 12-19—12-20, 945F3 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883B2; photo 883E2 Iran ex-pres spokesman sentncd 12-24, protests turn violent, arrests rptd 12-27—12-29, 940A2, D3, 941A1 Iraq blasts kill 48+ 12-24—12-30, UK hostage (Moore) freed, Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 941D3, 942F1, D3 Leb blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945F2 Obituaries Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Hafez, Amin al- 7-13, 955A2 Nimeiry, Gafaar 5-20, 400D3 Wahid, Abdurrahman 12-30, 956E2 U.S. Developments Charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged 2-11, appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-27—2-28, 243G3 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 25B1, 27F2, A3, 28E1 Natl Prayer Svc held 1-21, 29D2 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 Terror suspect (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411A3 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3, C3, E3 NYC terror suspects held 5-20, 375A1 Warrantless spying classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen 5-29, govt sanctns nixed, case upheld 6-3, 410F2 Holy Land ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914B2 Ark mil recruiting booth attack kills 1 6-1, shooter held/pleads guilty, Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-1—6-4, 392A2–B2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, Iraq/Chad/Bermuda transfers rptd 6-11, 391B2–C2, G2–A3 Obama addresses NAACP 7-16, 492B1 Terror aid, Marine attack plot suspects chrgd 7-27—9-24, 679B1 Army recruiter slaying suspect (Muhammad) pleads not guilty 7-31, 720G3 Indian actor (Khan) NJ airport questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646D2–E2 ‘Strategic communicatns’ scored 8-28, 721G1 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816G1 Ill bomb plot suspect (Finton) held, chrgd 9-24, 678C3 US/Somali terror ties suspects stopped/questnd, held 10-9—11-19; Abdow indicted 10-14, chrgs hiked, Mohamed pleads not guilty 11-23—11-24, 849B1, E1 Obama Nobel Peace Prize choice defended 10-13, 693C2 Terror suspects chrgd/held, Mich raid kills 1 10-28—10-31, 763F2 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E2, C3 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled, intell probe sought/’07 speech rptd 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777E2, E3–F3, 778A1, E1–F1

2009 Index Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, further secret sites seen 11-16, 804D1, D3 Tex mil base shooting probes set/Ham named ldr, Sen com hearings open 11-19—11-23; gunman (Hasan) confinemt ordrd/cont hosp stay OKd, paralysis rptd 11-20—11-22, imam e-mails mulled 11-21, 812C3, 813C1 Wash Jewish Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920B2 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 US Dvpts Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374F2–G2

ISLAM, Saif alOn Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) return flight 8-20, 550E1

ISLAM, Umar (Brian Young) Verdicts split 9-7, 608F1 Sentncd 9-14, 626F1

ISLAMIC Conference, Organization of the (OIC) Turkey conf held 11-9, 788C3 Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 837C1

ISLAMIC Jihad (Holy War) W Bank ax attack kills 1 4-2, 313A3 Pak extremist ldr (Saeed) role chrgd 9-18, 669C2 Gaza air strike kills 3 9-25, Israeli frees prisoners 10-2—10-4, 689G2, 690B1 Somalia Islamists infighting seen 9-30, 889F2, A3

ISLAMIC Republic of Iran Shipping Lines UK financial svcs deals banned 10-12, 711D2

ISLAMIC University (Iraq) Blast kills 4 1-21, 38F1

ISMAIL, Abu (d. 2008) Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499F3

ISMAIL, Mustafa Osman On US policy shift, cont sanctns 10-24, 11-1, 762A2–B2

ISRAEL, State of Accidents & Disasters Leb ship sinking kills 6 12-11, 943F2 African Relations Sudan airstrike attack alleged, role mulled 3-26, 196F3–197C1 CIS Relations Peres sees Russia’s Medvedev 8-18, Netanyahu visit rptd, confrmd 9-9—9-12, 616A2, E2 Azerbaijan emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936F1 Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 Contested Territories—See ARAB-Israeli Developments; MIDDLE East Peace Talks Corruption & Ethics Issues Lieberman questnd 4-2, 209F3 Forgn min (Lieberman) indictmt urged 8-2, 689A2 Olmert indicted 8-30, 593A1 Olmert trial opens 9-25, 689D1 Olmert pleads not guilty 12-21, 943A2 Crime & Civil Disorders Protests turn violent 3-24, 190G1–A2 Tel Aviv shooting kills 2 8-1, 768F3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2 UK arms exports banned 7-13, 546A2 Turkey nixes NATO jt mil exercise 10-11, 696D2 A-program whistleblower (Vanunu) house arrest rptd 12-29, 943E1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Leb spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312E2 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3–C3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; NYT rptg delay mulled 4-20, com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263G1–A2, C2, G2 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24; NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, chrgs dropped 5-1, 306G1, C2, F2 Leb spy suspects escape seen, chrgd 5-5—6-5, 877G3 Iran spying trial opens 8-18, 941A3 US sci (Nozette) sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760D3, F3, 761C1–D1 US atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2

—ITALY 1079 European Relations Netanyahu tours 8-24—8-27, 593C2 Barak visits UK, arrest warrant sought 9-29, Ya’alon nixes trip 10-5, 689G3 Turkey ties mulled 10-11—10-13, 696F2–G2 Turkey airs Gaza war crimes dramatizatn 10-14, criticisms exchngd 10-15—10-16, 754B1 Netanyahu visits France 11-11, 790A3 Livni UK warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; visit urged 12-16, Hamas com role rptd 12-21, 884B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10D2 Arab parties parlt electns banned, reinstated 1-12, 1-21, 86B1–C1 Parlt electns held, wins claimed 2-10; party ldrs meet 2-11, results issued 2-12, 85E2, E3 Lieberman backs Likud, Kadima oppositn seen 2-19, Netanyahu govt sought, sees Livni/Barak 2-20—2-23, 118C3 Livni nixes coalitn role, parties join/talks cont 2-27—3-25, 189E3, 190B1, F1 Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209E1 Facts on Netanyahu 3-31, 209A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-31, 234E1 Citizens loyalty oaths bill nixed 5-31, 769B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734E1 Livni govt coalitn role offrd, nixed 12-24—12-28, 943G1 Latin American Relations Venez ousts amb 1-6, diplomatic ties cut 1-14, 270C3 Peres visits Brazil 11-19, 885A2 Lebanon—See LEBANON Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-29, 281D1, 282A2 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Pathologists ‘90s organ theft confrmd 12-18, 945G2 Middle East Relations Iran missiles tested 9-27—9-28, 649A1, 650A3–B3; map 650B1 Monetary Issues Bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 768G3 Obituaries Aranne, Ike 12-23, 954F3 Elon, Amos 5-25, 384G1 Katzir, Ephraim 5-30, 384G3 Peace Initiatives—See MIDDLE East Peace Talks Press & Broadcasting Rptrs Gaza entry OKd 1-12, 1-15, 13D2 Religious Issues Rabbinate (Wiener) warns Vatican mtg drop 1-27, pope Auschwitz remarks backed 1-28, 43F2 RC pope visit seen 2-12, 76D1 Pope Benedict visits 5-11—5-15, 335B1, G1, A3, G3 Science & Technology Yonath wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1 Ships & Submarines Israeli/Gaza strikes cont 1-1—1-8, 1C1 Sports Casspi in NBA draft 6-25, 451B2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Haifa blast fails 3-21, 210C3 Radical settler (Teitel) held, chrgd 11-1, 768C3 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58A3 US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488B3–C3 Kimberly Process summit held 11-2—11-6, 784B1 US ‘10 aid clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 UN Policy & Developments Ouster urged 1-16, 31C1–D1 Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 261F3–262B1 Human Rights Cncl members electn held 5-12, 336G2 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675A3 Netanyahu addresses Gen Assemb 9-23, 633C1, 634C1, E1–F1 US/Cuba cont embargo backed 10-28, 784C1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mitchell opens Mideast tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2–D2 Mitchell visits 1-29—1-30, 157D2 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) scored 2-19—3-9; Sen com hearing held, withdraws 3-10, AIPAC role rptd 3-12, 144G2–D3, G3, 145C1 Mitchell sees Netanyahu 2-26, Clinton visits 3-3, 123F1, E2–F2 Michell visits 4-16, Obama/Netanyahu mtg invite set 4-21, 313E1

Netanyahu visits Obama 5-18, 336D1, B2 Mitchell visits 6-10, 403G2 Gates visits 7-27, 530E2 Bin Laden recording posted 7-28, 621B2–C2 Clinton visits 10-31, 754F1 Netanyahu visits 11-8—11-10, 790E2

ISRAEL, Steve J. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 2001- ; Democrat) Gov Paterson reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, 639C2 Visits Afghan 12-28—12-29, 899A3

ISRAEL Aerospace Industrioes Ltd. US sci (Nozette) sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760F3

ISRAILOV, Umar (d. 2009) Slain, suspect held 1-13, protectn request rptd, probe urged 1-22, 36B3, G3–37B1 Slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 68A2–C2 Chechnya capital dep mayor slain 2-5, 85B2 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497A2

ISSA, Darrell (U.S. representative from Calif., 2001- ; Republican) Vs census pol oversight 2-4, 60C2

ISSA, Oumar Held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2

ISSA bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Sheikh Torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, held 5-11, 331A3–E3 Torture trial rptd 12-10, 893G2

ISSE, Abdifatah Yusuf Held, chrgd/pleads guilty 2-24—7-13, 780F3–781A1 Assoc (Mohamed) held 11-19, pleads not guilty 11-24, 849C2

ISSE, Abdiweli Yassin Assoc (Abdow) held, indicted 10-9—10-14, chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–D1, F1–G1

ISSOUFOU, Mahamadou Graft chrgd 9-14; warrant issued 10-29, returns 10-30, 761E3

ITALY (Italian Republic) Accidents & Disasters Abruzzo quake hits, Berlusconi visits/emergency declared 4-6; warning mulled, rescue cont/death toll rptd 4-6—4-9, aid set, hiked 4-7—4-9, 224B1, D3; photo 224E1; map 224A2 Abruzzo quake victims funeral held 4-10; bldg standards probe set 4-11, historic churches damage rptd, reconstructn cost estimated 4-13—4-14, 253C3 Viareggio RR derailmt, blast (16) 6-29, 449G2 Quake hits L’Aquila 7-3, 453B3 Sicily mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, Berlusconi visits 10-4, 705F1 African Relations Sudan aid worker seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2 Somalia forgn fighters seen 5-15, 341C3 Libya’s Qaddafi visits 6-10—6-12, 416C2 Berlusconi visits Libya 8-30, 583G2 Libya’s Qaddafi holds women mtgs 11-15—11-16, 812E2 Mauritania forgners car found 12-19, kidnapping claimed 12-28, 903F2 Arts & Culture Maxxi museum opens 11-14, 953F2 Warhol painting ‘08 $100 mln sale rptd 11-26, 953A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations PI aid worker seized, call Red Cross ofc 1-15—3-19; mil offensive kills 10+, scored 3-16—3-24, hostage threat rptd 3-25, 205F2 PI hostage (Vagni) rescue opeartn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415G2–A3 PI hostage freed 7-12, 528A1 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 Afghan troops slain, exit sought 9-17, 630A2 Slain troops mourned 9-21, 635D3 Afghan Taliban paymts alleged, denied 10-15, French probe urged 10-16, 751A3 Afghan troops hike set 12-3, 844E1 Afghan troops slain 12-29, 899C3 CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 12-3, 892A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues UK atty (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99D3 Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5; escort use claimed, denied 6-17—6-24, truce set 6-29, 463A2, A3

Berlusconi escort recordings posted 7-23; scandal coverage mulled, papers suit filed/Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 8-12—9-3, prostitutn svcs alleged, denied 9-9—9-10, 626A3, F3 Berlusconi alleged escort interviewed 10-1; Fininvest bribery role found, verdict scored 10-3—10-5, immunity law nixed, ruling dismissed 10-7, 687A1, E1, D2 Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, UK atty (Mills) convctn upheld 10-27, 750B1 Crime & Civil Disorders Abruzzo quake looting hike seen 4-8, 224E3 Egypt’s Hosni, Achille Lauro hijackers escape aid alleged 9-19, 675C3 UK girl slaying suspects convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, US support cont 12-7, 854E2 Berlusconi attacked, in hosp/intruder hel 12-13—12-16, suspect regrets/premeditatn seen, psych ward transfer nixed 12-15—12-16, 874B3, 875B1; photo 874E3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Bari dealing suspect (Tarantini) held 9-18, 687E2 Energy Eni/Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-2, 789D3 Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 European Relations Total/Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68B3, D3 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 EU protectnsm mulled 3-1, 136D2 Berlusconi Europn Parlt candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29, 328F1–G1 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396D2, C3, 397A1 ID theft suspects held 11-21, 821F2–G2 Swiss mosque minarets ban backed 11-29, 837C1 Family Issues Gyllenhaal/Sarsgaard wed 5-2, 348A3 Berlusconi wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 Dem ldr (Veltroni) regrets Sardinia gov race party loss 2-17, quits 2-18, 100A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E1 Berlusconi cites popular support 6-29, 463B3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734F1 Lazio govt head (Marrazzo) quits 10-24, Bersani elected Dem ldr 10-25, 749E3 Anti-Berlusconi rally held 12-5, Bersani visits hosp 12-14, 874D3, 875C1 Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants rescued 4-16, entry OKd 4-19, 262G1 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Medicine & Health Care Udine patient (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6; dies 2-9, autopsy rptd 2-11, 117C1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Swine flu vaccine donatns set 9-17, 697F1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Chrysler/Fiat jt venture set 1-20, 47G3 Chrysler/Fiat merger ordrd 3-29, 197E2, 198D3 Chrysler/Fiat merger set 4-30, 282G2 Fiat seeks Opel financial info 5-29, Chrysler reorgn OKd, appeal filed 5-31—6-4, 367A1, G1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10, 385A1 Middle East Relations Frattini Iran visit nixed 5-20, 362B1 Monetary Issues EBRD sets UniCredit subsidiaries investmt 5-7, 335E3 Obituaries Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2 Casssin, Riccardo 8-6, 564G2 Compagnoni, Achille 5-13, 364C3 Lacedelli, Lino 11-20, 880B2 Pinelli, Tullio 3-7, 192E3 Organized Crime (including Mafia) Sicilian ldr, Berlusconi ties alleged 12-4, arrests rptd 12-5, 875F1 Press & Broadcasting Rome rally held 10-3, 687C2 Religious Issues Abruzzo quake victim Good Friday funeral svc OKd 4-8, 224F3 Varallo Sesia Muslim swimsuits fines set 8-19, 561F1, B2 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190F3

1080 IT'S— Beckham, Milan loan cont 3-7; returns to Galaxy, jeered/in fan clash 7-16—7-19, Milan ‘10 loan set 11-2, 895B1 Rome Masters results 5-3, 399E1 Italian Open results 5-9, 399E1 Inter Milan wins Serie A title 5-16, 950B1 Eur Champ Cup results 5-27, 949F3 Giro d’Italia results 5-31, 515F3 Jennings in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1 Swimming World Champ results 7-26—8-2, 547A3 Fed Cup won 11-8, 951A2 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2, A3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Mumbai attacks suspects held 11-21, 821D2 Trade, Aid & Investment G-7 mtg held 4-24, 298G2 G-8 summit hosted 6-13, 404D3, F3, 405A1 G-8 mtg hosted 6-13, 417G2 G-8 forgn mins mtg hosted 6-26, 439G2 G-8, MEF summits hosted 7-8—7-9, 453A1, F2 G-8 summit ends 7-10, 471D3, 472G2 Greece wildfires emergency declared 8-22, 577G1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 UN Policy & Developments UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675C3 Food security summit hosted 11-16—11-18, 812B1–C1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Berlusconi visits 6-15, 416B3 Obama calls Berlusconi 12-15, 874D3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506D1 Cuba base detainees transfer OKd, EU deal set 6-15, 416B3 Egyptian cleric ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3 Cuba base detainees transferred 12-1, 861B2 Cuba base detainee (Fezzani) transferred 12-20, 913G3–914A1

IT‘S Complicated (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

IT‘S Not Me, It’s You (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

ITV News (British news agency) Pvt yacht owner capture rptd 10-29, 801B2

IVANHOE Mines Ltd. Mongolia pres electn held 5-24, 377E2 Mongolia mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725E2

IVANKOV, Vyacheslav Dies 10-9, 788F2

IVANOV, Georgi (Macedonian president, 2009- ) Pres runoff electn held, Frckovski concedes/mulls goals 4-5, 225G1 Sworn pres, vows EU/NATO entry 5-12, 344G1 Facts on 5-12, 344A2

IVANOV, Sergei Sees US ties hike, Kyrgyz mil base closure 2-8, 74E2–F2

IVANOV, Viktor On opiate trade rise 3-6, 274C1

IVANOVIC, Ana Loses BNP Paribas Open 3-22, 399A2

IVANS, Jeffrey Ronald Slain, IDd 9-27—9-28, 682A1

IVERSON, Allen NBA season ends 4-15, 278F3 Joins Grizzlies 9-2, 771C2 Takes leave, cut 11-7—11-16; sets retiremt 11-25, joins 76ers 12-2, 951G2

IVINS, Bruce (1946-2008) Army biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266E3 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393E2

IVORY Coast, Republic of the (Cote D’Ivoire) African Relations Guinea forgn interventn urged, nixed 12-13—12-14, 871B1 Environment & Pollution Abidjan toxic waste dump, health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 233D1; 10-1, 733D1 Pres electn delayed 11-11—12-3, registratn extended/challenges mulled, voters tallied 12-29—12-31, 922B2

FACTS Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3

IWAKUM, Hisashi Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191C1

I Want Revenge (racehorse) Exits Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315D3

IYAZ (Keidran Jones) ‘Replay’ on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

IZVESTIA (Russian newspaper) Patrushev interviewed 10-14, 706C1

J JAAFARI, Ibrahim al- (Iraqi premier, 2005-06) Pol coalitn set 8-24, 592D1

JABARIN, Shawan W Bank exit blocked 3-10, accepts rigthts prize 3-13, 210F3

JABBAROV, Oybek Ireland transfer rptd 9-27, 718D2

JABURI, Ahmed Fatthi alSlain 2-11, 101B2

JACKANDPANTHER LLC NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373A2

JACKMAN, Hugh Hosts Oscars 2-22, 120A1 X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Steady Rain opens in NYC 9-29, 792A2

JACKSON, Andrew (1767-1845) (U.S. president, 1829-37; Democratic-Republican) Meacham wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279G2 Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens in NYC 5-17, 348F1

JACKSON, Angus Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

JACKSON, Austin Traded to Tigers 12-9, 949A1

JACKSON, Bo Heisman close vote mark set 12-12, 879G2

JACKSON, Cheyenne Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

JACKSON, Edwin Traded to Diamondbacks 12-9, 949A1

JACKSON, Jackie Brother dies 6-25, 436C1

JACKSON, Janet FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307C1 Brother dies 6-25, 436D3

JACKSON, Jermaine La Jaune (Muhammad Abdul-Aziz) Brother dies 6-25, 436C1 At brother’s meml svc 7-7, 468B1

JACKSON, Jess Buys Rachel Alexandra 5-6; filly wins Preakness 5-16;, mulls Belmont Stakes entry 5-17, 347E1, C2 Nixes Rachel Alexandra Belmont Stakes entry 5-29, 399B2 Nixes Rachel Alexandra Breeders’ Cup Classic entry 9-11, ends ‘09 campaign 10-9, 807F1–G1

JACKSON Jr., Jesse L. (U.S. representative from Ill., 1995- ; Democrat) Sen seat apptmt bid probe confrmd 4-8, 219D1

JACKSON, Joe (Joseph Walter) Son’s will filed 7-1, 468B2

JACKSON, Judge John Defends executed inmate (Willingham) evidnc 8-28, 700G2–A3

JACKSON, Katherine Named son’s estate executor, kids custody OKd 6-29, role nixed 7-6, 468A2–B2 Grandkids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531E2

JACKSON, LaTanya Richardson Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

JACKSON, LaToya Brother dies 6-25, 436D3

JACKSON, Les Replacemt (Nieuwendyk) named 6-1, 436A1

JACKSON, Lisa (U.S. EPA director, 2009- ) EPA admin Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 17F3 States’ fuel econ waiver reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47C2–E2 Confrmd EPA admin 1-22, 30D1 Sets coal plants CO2 emissns review 2-17, 94C2–D2* Urges, sets mt mining permits reviews 3-24, 267E2 Signs emissns ruling 4-17, 267C2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288A2 Sets Tenn power plant coal ash spill cleanup 5-11, 555B1 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339E2 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478D3 Sets auto emissns, fuel econ rules 9-15, 621D3 On ‘08 smog rules 9-16, 781F2 On emissns cut proposal 9-30, 654C2 On emissns threat 12-8, 841C2

JACKSON, Marlon David Brother dies 6-25, 436C1 At brother’s meml svc 7-7, 468B1

JACKSON II, Prince Michael

JACOBSON, Judge Morris Nixes subway passenger shooting fair trial, orders move 10-16—11-19, 920E2

JADE‘S Progress (TV show) Goody weds 2-22, 140E1

JAFARI, Gen. Mohammad Ali Defends electn protests crack down 7-6, 464D2 Sees Sistan-Baluchistan blast, forgn intell links 10-19, 729G1

JAFFE, Robert SEC civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442B2

JAGAN, Dr. Cheddi B. (1918-97) (Guyanese prime minister 1953/57-64; president, 1992-97) Widow dies 3-31, 212E2

JAGAN, Janet (Janet Rosalie Rosenberg) (1920-2009) (Guyanese president, 1997-99) Dies 3-31, 212E2

JAGLAND, Thorbjoern (Norwegian premier, 1996-97) Defends Obama Nobel Prize 10-13, 693C2

JAGODZINSKI, Jeff Jets interview rptd 1-5, fired 1-7, 24F1

JAHEDI, Farshid Pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2

At dad’s meml svc 7-7, 468E1 Grandma custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531E2

JAHMI, Fathi al-

JACKSON Jr., Michael Joseph (Prince Michael)

JAHNKE, Martin

At dad’s meml svc 7-7, 468E1 Grandma custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531E2

JACKSON, Michael Joseph (1958-2009) Neverland trove displayed, auctn halted 4-14, 256B2 Dies 6-25, 436A1, E1, B2; photo 436A3 Will filed/executors named, kids custody set 6-29—7-6; meml svc held 7-7, LA cost rptd 7-8, 467E3, 468F1–G1 Mom/kids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, will admitted 8-3, 531E2 Unmasked on best-seller list 8-3, 532B1 Propofol injectn, death linked 8-25, 580A2 Gabon’s Bongo elected pres 8-30, 604B2 Death called ‘homicide’ 8-30, buried 9-3, 612E2 Michael Jackson’s This Is It released, concert film grossing mark set 10-28—11-1, 771E3 Michael Jackson’s This Is It on top-grossing film list 10-28—10-29, 772D2 ‘Moonwalk’ glove fetches $350,000 11-21, 840G1 Michael Jackson’s This Is It on best-seller list 11-28, 840E1

JACKSON, Nathan Louis Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

JACKSON, Paris Michael Katherine At dad’s meml svc 7-7, 468E1 Grandma custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531E2

JACKSON, Phil Lakers win NBA title, sets mark/return seen 6-14, 419C1

JACKSON, Randy Brother dies 6-25, 436C1

JACKSON, Rebbie Brother dies 6-25, 436D3

JACKSON, Reggie Utley ties World Series HR mark 11-4, 770G1

JACKSON, Samuel L. Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

JACKSON, Shirley Anne ‘07-08 salary rptd 11-2, 816F3

JACKSON, Tito Brother dies 6-25, 436C1

JACKSON, Tyson In NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3

JACKSON, Wanda Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3

JACKSON 5, The (music group) Michael dies 6-25, 436C1–E1

JACOBI, Derek Wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231G1

JACOBI, Lou (Louis Harold Jacobovitch) (1913-2009) Dies 10-23, 860E3

JACOBS, Anna K. Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

JACOBS, Michael Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

ON FILE

In hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 358G3 At China’s Wen speech, throws shoe 2-2, tape aired 2-3, 98A3 Cleared 6-2, 482A1

JAI Ho (song) Oscar won 2-22, 120C1

JAKA Santosa, Col. On ferry sinking survivors 1-20, 84C2

JAKI, Stanley Ladislas (1924-2009) Dies 4-7, 256C3

JALALI, Ahmed Ali Karzai ouster plan mulled 12-10—12-17, 894E1

JALILI, Saeed In A-program talks, sees US’s Burns 10-1, mulls IAEA inspectns 10-3, 651A1, C1–D1

JALOLOV, Najmiddin Kamolitdinovich Slain 9-14, 670D1

JAMAICA Accidents & Disasters Miami flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930B1 Crime & Civil Disorders CanJet plane hijacked 4-19, suspect held, convctd/sentncd 4-20—10-8, 871B3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cuba/US spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234F1; 10-1, 734F1 Obituaries Rhone, Trevor 9-15, 692E2 Sports Track world champ held 8-15—8-23, 579E1–F1

JAMAL, Mohammed Omar Convctd 10-16, 930G1

JAMES, Chifundo (Mercy) Madonna adoptn bid foiled, appeal set 4-3, 231E2 Madonna adoptn bid appeal succeeds 6-12, 420F2

JAMES, Edgerrin Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70C3

JAMES, Geraldine Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

JAMES, Kevin Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

JAMES, LeBron Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3 Named NBA MVP 5-4, 331G3 Cavaliers exit playoffs 5-30, fined 6-4, 419A3 O’Neal traded to Cavaliers 6-25, 451D2

JAMESON, Betty (Elizabeth May) (1919-2009) Dies 1-31, 88F3

JAMES Webb Space Telescope Orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373E1

JAMIESON, Cody Syracuse wins NCAA lacrosse title 5-25, 399B3

2009 Index JAM Master Jay (Jason Mizell) (1965-2002) Run-DMC inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 280A1

JANDOC, Edward Seized 5-19, 528B2–C2

JANG Song Taek Elected to Natl Defns Comm 4-9, 215D3

JANJUA, Aamer Yaqub Held 11-21, 821E2

JANJUA, Muhammad Yaqub Held 11-21, 821E2

JANKOVIC, Jelena Exits Australian Open 1-25, 71B1 Williams tops rankings 2-2, 71A1 Wins Westn & Southn Financial Group Women’s Open 8-16, 631G2

JANNATI, Ayatollah Ahmad On UK emb worker trial 7-3, 464G2

JANNEY, Allison 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

JAPAN Accidents & Disasters Tsunamis hit 1-4, 153E3 Quakes hit 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Typhoon Etau kills 13 8-10, 560B1 African Relations Somalia antipiracy forces deploymt set 1-28, 76C2 Arts & Culture Departures wins Oscar 2-22, 120C2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China ‘07 GDP revised 1-14, 35B2 N Korea missile test preparatns seen 2-3, 84E1 N Korea missile test shoot down ordrd 3-27, rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, 215F1, C2, A3 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1, D2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn conspiracy claimed 5-22, 360A1 N Korea A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast scored 5-25—5-26, 350C3, 351D1, B2, E2 N Korea’s Kim successn mulled 6-6, 404A3–B3 N Korea mil exercises set 6-22, missiles launch scored 7-2, 462C3 N Korea A-program mulled, ASEAN summit held 7-22—7-23, 495E2, 496D1 Uyghur Cong ldr (Kadeer) visits, China amb summoned 7-28, 606F1–G1 China ethnic violnc disappearncs claimed 7-29, 509E3 Tongan ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590F3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-11, 543B2 Hatoyama nixes shrine visits 8-11, WWII surrender anniv marked 8-15, 582B3–C3 Korea liberatn anniv marked 8-15, 558F1 Afghan blast kills 43 8-25, 577C3 Samoan driving side switched 9-8, 726C1 Hatoyama sees China’s Hu/Wen, S Korea’s Lee 9-21—10-10, 703A3 Afghan troops training aid mulled 10-7, 703E2 S Korea/China summit held, N Korea A-program mulled 10-9—10-10, 712E1, A2 N Korea A-program talks sought 11-2, 763E3 PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890F2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Honda drops Formula 1 role 7-29, 647B1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ozawa aide (Okubo) held 3-3, indicted, denies allegatns 3-24, 252E2 Hatoyama regrets campaign donatns misrptg 11-30, written acct sought 12-2, 873A2 Hatoyama ex-aides indicted, regrets campaign finance violatns 12-24, 933A2 Crime & Civil Disorders Jury trial system opens 8-6, 557B3 Osaka teacher slaying suspect (Ichihashi) held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2 US troops deal chngs sought 7-23, 582C2 US/Afghan ships refueling missn end set 10-13, 703C2 US ships refueling missn hailed 10-20; mil base relocatn plan mulled 10-20—10-25, A-rms secret deals probe opposed 10-21, 747D2

—JAYA 1081 US mil base deal working group mulled 11-13—11-16, 795C1 US troops relocatn deal halted 12-8; review cont 12-15, Clinton sees amb 12-22, 933F1 Economy & Business Nikkei Jan ‘09 index rptd 1-2, 6D3 Domestic ‘08 auto sales rptd 1-5, 51B2 Econ outlook mulled 1-20—1-22; govt stake buys seen, Nikkei index rises 1-27, stimulus plan passes parlt, Aso vows speedy recovery 1-27—1-28, 50G3, 51C1, F1 Toyota pres (Toyoda) named, ‘08 global sales rptd 1-20, 51G1 Toyota tops ‘08 global sales 1-21, 48E1 Nikkei Feb ‘09 index rptd 2-2, 61D1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd, crisis seen 2-16, 98B3 Nikkei Mar ‘09 index rptd 3-2, 128A1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP revised 3-11, 252A2 Nikkei Apr ‘09 index rptd 4-2, 198A1 Econ stimulus plan unveiled, scored 4-9—4-10, 252F1 ‘07-10 financial indus losses seen 4-21, 283F3 Nikkei May ‘09 index rptd 5-1, 304A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd, revised 5-20—6-11; Apr ‘09 indl output risen seen 5-29, suplmtl funds pass Diet 5-30, 414E3, 415A1 Nikkei Jun ‘09 index rptd 6-1, 371D3 Nikkei Jul ‘09 index rptd 7-1, 442D1 Nikkei Aug ‘09 index rptd 8-3, 522A1 Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536E1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-17, 576C2 Cont econ recovery seen 8-21, 571D2 Nikkei Sep ‘09 index rptd 9-1, 586D1 Econ stimulus cuts seen 9-9, postal svc pvtizatn plans nixed 9-16, 624F3–G3 Stimulus package cut 9-18, Japan Post IPO halt sought 9-20, 703A3 Nikkei Oct ‘09 index rptd 10-1, 657A3 IMF econ forecast issued 10-1, 675D1 Econ stimulus programs nixed 10-16; tax revenue drop seen, pvt-sector growth sought 10-20—10-26, econ assessmt questnd, Sep ‘09 CPI rptd 10-27—10-30, 786E2 Nikkei Nov ‘09 index rptd 11-2, 759A1 Nikkei index drops 11-27, 829A2 Deflatn seen 11-30; postal svc pvtizatn halted, move scored 12-4—12-8, stimulus package unveiled, ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 12-8—12-9, 872C3, 873D1 Nikkei Dec ‘09 index rptd 12-1, 831A1 Spending measures seen 12-22; fscl ‘10 budget unveiled 12-25, long-term growth plan OKd 12-30, 933C1 Nikkei ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900C2, A3 Energy Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107F1 IEA oil reserve estimates questnd 11-9, 811F3 Environment & Pollution Emissns cut set 6-10, 405A3 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636B2 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882C1, D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Aso ldrship scored 2-12, finance min (Nakagawa) quits 2-17, 98E3–G3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234G1 DPJ party ldr (Ozawa) quits 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342C2 Interior min (Hatoyama) quits, local electns held 6-12—7-12; parlt dissolved, electns set 7-13, Aso censured 7-14, 482B1, E1 Aso/Hatoyama debate, parlt electn campaign opens 8-12—8-18; vote held 8-30, DPJ win hailed 8-30—8-31, 581A1, D1, C2, 582E2, A3; photo 581B3; table 581F1 Facts on DPJ/Hatoyama 8-30, 582A1, E1 DPJ secy gen (Ozawa) named 9-4; coalitn set 9-9, Hatoyama sworn, cabt unveiled 9-16, 624F2, D3, 625B1 LDP party ldr (Tanigaki) elected 9-28, 703F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734G1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Colo balloon hoax parents plea deal OKd, plead guilty/mom deportatn threat denied 11-12—11-13, 817E2–F2 Labor & Employment Apr ‘09 jobless rate (5%) 5-29, 415A1 Toyota shuts Calif factory 8-27, 679F3 Sep ‘09 jobless rate (5.3%) 10-30, 786F3 Latin American Relations Peru’s Fujimori convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222F3 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508D2

Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases found, tallied 5-10—5-27, measures set, eased 5-20—5-26, 351G2, 352A1 Yamanaka wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2 US cheaper drugs import measure fails in Sen 12-15, 863G3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Nikko sale sought 1-19, 32C2 Citigroup unit sold 5-1, 319B1 Mazda/Ford/Chonqing jt venture set 9-25, 932D2 Honda/Dongfeng jt venture plans seen 12-22, 932E2 Monetary Issues Yen Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Yen Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 ASEAN currency pool hiked 2-22, IMF omit seen 2-23, 135E3–F3 Yen Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 Bank of Japan govt bonds buy hike set 3-18, 163G3 Yen Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Yen May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Yen Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 Yen Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 Yen Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 Yen Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 Yen 8-mo high hit, govt action mulled 9-28—9-29, debt paymt moratorium denied 9-29, 703C3, E3 Yen Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 Bank of Japan corp debt buys ended 10-29, 786D3 Yen Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 Banks lending urged 11-30, short-term loans set 12-1, 873C1–D1 Yen Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 Yen ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900B3, D3 Nuclear Power & Safeguards UAE A-plants bldg contract awarded 12-27, 944D2, F2 Obituaries Nakagawa, Shoichi (found) 10-4, 955B3 Press & Broadcasting Iran rptr arrest rptd 11-6, 857G2 Space & Space Flights Wakata flies Discovery missn, space statn stay opens 3-15—3-17, 239D2 Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1 Intl statn lab installed 7-23, 519E1, C2–D2 Unmanned vessel intl statn missn flown 9-10—9-17, 616C1 Sports World Baseball Classic won 3-23, 190B2–G3 Tokyo loses ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691C1–D1, F1 Toyota drops Formula 1 role 11-4, 950B2 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15A3 Dec ‘08 exports drop rptd 1-21, 51F1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58E1, G1 Australia stimulus package set 2-2, 494F1 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112A1 Indonesia loan OKd 3-3, 272D1 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164A2 Russian car import tariffs protested 3-15, 274B1 Feb ‘09 exports drop rptd 3-25, 252A2 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193E1 US Feb ‘09 trade gap 4-9, 240A2 Pak intl aid conf hosted 4-17, 276C3 G-7, IMF mtg held 4-24—4-26, 283C2, G2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323D3 Apr ‘09 exports rise seen 5-27, 414G3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389A2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477A2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535A3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619F1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2, E2 Storm Ketsana, PI aid set 9-26, 664B2 Indonesia quakes aid vowed 10-1, 662F2 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699F3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2–G2, F3 Afghan aid set 11-10, 775F2 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798A2 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866A1 Transportation US ‘open skies’ deal OKd 12-11, 933C2 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 N Korea missile launch Sec Cncl mtg held 4-5, 215F2 N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404A1 Amano elected IAEA head 7-2, 502E2 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675E2

U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton opens tour 2-16—2-17, Aso visits Obama 2-24, 108G3–109B1, E1, 110A1 Obama calls Aso 5-25, 351B2 Amb named 5-27, 354D1 Taxi driver slaying seaman convctd, sentncd 7-30, 557G3 Hatoyama calls Obama, sees amb 9-3, 582A3 Bosworth visits 9-3—9-6, 600B3 Okada sees Clinton 9-21, 653C1 Gates visits 10-20—10-21, 747D2 ‘Equal’ ties sought 10-26, 786F3 Obama visits 11-13, 794B3, D3

JAPAN Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Unmanned vessel intl statn missn flown 9-10—9-17, 616C1

JAPAN Automobile Dealers’ Association ‘08 domestic auto sales rptd 1-5, 51B2

JAPAN Post Interior min (Hatoyama) quits 6-12, 482A2 IPO halt sought 9-20, 703D3 Pvtizatn halted, move scored 12-4—12-8, 873D1–G1

JARA, Alan Freed 2-3, 67F3

JARA, Joan Leads husband’s funeral processn 12-4, 954E3

JARA, Victor (Victor Lidio Jara Martinez) (1932-73) Reburied 12-4, 954E3

JARAMILLO, Jose US border rush fails, held 9-22, 724C2

JARRAH, Ali alLeb/Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312B3–C3

JARRE, Maurice Alexis (1924-2009) Dies 3-28, 212G2

JARRETT, H. Marshall Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14, status sought 2-15, 95B1–C1 Reassigned 4-8, 218E2

JARRETT, Valerie Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C3 Tibet spec coordinator (Otero) named 10-1, 712E3

JARVIS, Jon Named NPS dir 7-10, 491D1

JARVIS, Mitchell Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

JASSEM, Khaled Mohammed el(Khalid Danham Al-Jawari) Freed 2-19; deported 2-26, arrives in Sudan 3-3, 411A3

JASSIM, Gen. Hakeem Slain 5-9, 331E2

JATUPORN Phromphan On govt talks 4-1, 206A2 Vows cont protests 4-9, 250B2

JAURON, Dick Fired 11-17, 948A2

JAVACHEFF, Christo Wife dies 11-18, 824E3

JAVACHEFF, Jeanne-Claude (Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon) (1915-2009) Dies 11-18, 824E3

JAVANFEKR, Ali Akbar Confrms Ahmadinejad reelectn bid 1-28, 87A1 On US rptr (Saberi) release 5-11, 318F1

JAVANI, Gen. Yadollah Issues oppositn warning 7-6, 464D2

JAVIER Maryorga, Francisco Named agri min 9-7, 605D1

JAWAD, Mohammed Cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505G2, C3, E3–506B1 Freed, flown to Afghan/sees Karzai 8-24, 573A1

JAWAD, Said Tayeb Sees pres electn votes nix 10-14—10-15, 696B2–C2

JAWAI, Nathan Traded to Mavericks 7-9, 771B2

JAY, Charles Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

JAYA Lestari (Indonesian ship) Halted, Sri Lankan asylum seekers interceptn rptd 10-12—10-13, smuggler (Lauhenaspessy) held 10-19, 931B1, E1–F1

1082 JAYARAMAN— JAYARAMAN, Devi Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399F2

JAYARAMAN, K.K. Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399F2

JAY Leno Show (TV show) Nielsen rating 9-14, 672A2

JAY Sean (Khamaljit Singh Jhooti) ‘Down’ on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

JAY-Z (Shawn Carter) Wins Grammy, performs 2-8, 88D2, A3 ‘Run This Town’ on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Blueprint 3 on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 ‘Empire State of Mind’ on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

JAZEERA, Al- (Qatari TV channel) Al Qaeda’s bin Laden tape aired 3-14, 369D2 Egypt’s Mubarak skips Arab League summit 3-30, 196C3* Iraq Baath party ldr tape aired 4-7, 228C1 Al Qaeda’s bin Laden tapes aired 6-3—6-4, 369A2, C2

JBARA, Gregory Wins Tony 6-7, 399F3, 400E1

JEALOUSY of Pierrot, The (painting) Fetches 5 mln euros 2-23, 160D1

JEAN, Michaelle ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2 Hosts Obama 2-19, 91G1 Parlt suspended 12-30, 926A3, E3

JEANNE-Claude—See JAVACHEFF, Jeanne-Claude JEFFERIES, Annalee Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

JEFFERSON, Richard Traded to Spurs 6-23, 451E2

JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826) (U.S. president, 1801-09; Democrat Republican) Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19B3

JEFFERSON, William J. (U.S. representative from La., 1991-2009; Democrat) Bribery trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Sentncd 11-13, 797D2

JEFFORDS, James M. Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, 284B2

JEFFREY, Robert John Chrgd 4-24, 297E2

JEFFS, Warren Polygamists (Jessop/Keate) convctd, sentncd 11-5—12-17, 919D2

JELLICOE Road (book) Marchetta wins Printz Award 1-26, 56C1

JENKINS, Malcolm In NFL draft 4-25, 298G2

JENKINS, Richard Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40A2

JENKS, Bobby Buehrle sets consecutive outs mark 7-28, 531F1

JENNIFER‘S Body (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

JENNINGS, Alex Habit of Art opens in London 11-17, 896B1

JENNINGS, Brandon In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

JENSEN, Erik Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

JENSEN, Siv Parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627E2

JEPKOSGEI, Janeth Wins 800-m world champ silver 8-19, 579B2

JERNIGAN, Daniel On swine flu outbreak 5-15, sees elderly resistnc 5-20, 352D1–E1

JERRY, Peria In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

JERSEY Boys (play) Olivier Award won 3-8, 231F1

JERUSALEM—See under ARAB-Israeli Developments JERUSALEM (play) Opens in London 7-15, 564C2

FACTS JESSEN, Bruce US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261C2

JESSOP, Raymond Convctd 11-5, sentncd 11-10, 919B2–C2

JESUS Christ (Jesus of Nazareth) RC bps reinstated 1-24, 43C2 RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial remarks retractn sought 2-4, 75G3 Pope Benedict visits Palestine/Israel 5-13—5-15, 335E3, G3, 336B1

JETER, Derek AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 Sets MLB shortstop hits mark 8-16, 691A1 Sets Yankees hits mark 9-11, 690C3 Among AL hits/batting/runs ldrs 10-6, 690D2, F2 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770D1 3d in AL MVP voting 11-23, 823A3

JEUNE Arabe (painting) Fetches $13.8 mln 11-4, 953B2

JEWELRY & Precious Gems Madoff mailings rptd 1-5, 113A3 Lincoln watch opened, inscriptn confrmd 3-10, 300F2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 260D1 Iraq stores robbed 4-19, 275B2–C2 US/Myanmar sanctns extensn signed 7-28, EU hike urged 8-11, 543A2, B3 Kenyan mob kills UK geologist (Bridges) 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3 Iraq robbery kills 8 10-14, 729B3 Golfer Woods image use halted 12-18, 949E2

JEWEL v. Bush Suit opposed 4-3, 244G1

JEWISH Federations of North America Israel’s Netanyahu addresses 11-9, 790F2

JEWS & Judaism African Developments Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416G2–A3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845A2 Ecumenical Developments RC bp (Williamson) denies Holocaust, remarks regretted/silence ordrd 1-22—1-27; Israel’s Wiener Vatican mtg drop warned 1-27, pope Auschwitz visit mulled 1-28, 43C2 RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican ties mulled 2-4, Benedict calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit seen 2-8—2-12, 75D3, G3, 76C1 Pope Benedict visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-8—5-15, 335B1, A2–D2, A3, G3–336A1 Pope Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn signed 12-19, step defended 12-23, 901D3–E3 European Developments France anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512D1 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 397B1 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653D3 Alleged Nazi death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3, 854A1 International Developments UN racism conf held, Iran’s Ahmadinejad speech spurs walkout 4-20, nonprofits banned 4-23, 262B1–C1, F1 Latin Developments Venez synagogues attacked 1-31—2-26, cops chrgd 3-26, 270A3 Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925A1 Middle East Developments Iran’s Vahidi defns min apptmt seen 8-20, 562D2 Iran defns min (Vahidi) confrmd 9-3, 609E3 Egypt’s Hosni claims smear campaigns 9-23—10-2, 675D3 Nazi War Crimes Fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155E3 France admits Holocaust Ger deportatns 2-16, 99E2, G2 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239C3 Obama visits Ger, marks Holocaust 6-5, 386D1 WWII start anniv marked 9-1, 591F2–G2 Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu address UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 634A1, C1, E1

Obituaries Aranne, Ike 12-23, 954F3 Arouch, Salamo 4-26, 364G2 Edelman, Marek 10-2, 692B2 Gelfand, Israel M 10-5, 731B3 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Gottschalk, Alfred 9-12, 648F2 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3 U.S. Developments Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27F2 Natl Prayer Svc held 1-21, 29D2 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151F2 Pa gunman racist postings rptd 4-7, 246E3 Wesleyan U gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1 Sears Tower terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374B3 Allen/Amer Apparel suit setld 5-18, 348F2 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, museum shut 6-11, 391G3, 392E1–F1 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503F3–G3 Iowa raided plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3 Wash Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920A2

J. Holiday (Nahum Grymes) Round 2 on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

JI, Eun-Hee Wins US Women’s Open 7-12, 595D1

JIANG Yu On Hu African tour 2-12, 170E1

JIANG Zemin (Chinese Communist Party general secretary, 1989-2002; president, 1993-2003) Marks Communist rule anniv 10-1, 683A1

JIMENEZ, Miguel Angel British Open results 7-19, 500E1

JIMENEZ, Terry Named Newsday ed 9-23, 913D1

JIMINEZ, Luis ‘03 hosp deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3

JINDAL, Bobby (La. governor, 2008; Republican) Nixes econ recovery plan funds use 2-20, at natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111A2 On econ recovery plan funds nix 2-22, 108F2 Gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105G2

JINNAH, Mohammed Ali (1876-1948) India party ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2

JINNAH: India-Partition-Independence (book) Singh ousted 8-19, 791E2

JOB Bias—See under LABOR JOBIM, Nelson On missing Air France plane wreckage/oil slick finds, nixes terrorism 6-2—6-4, 369E2, C3

JOBLESS Rate, U.S.—See LABOR—Employment JOCIC, Sreten Chrgd 10-26, 822F2

JOE Turner’s Come and Gone (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2 Robinson wins Tony 6-7, 400E1

JOHANNESSON, Torvaldur Parlt electns held 4-26, 296C1

JOHANNS, Mike (U.S. senator from Neb., 2009- ; Republican) ACORN fed funding bans pass 9-14—9-17, 638G2–A3

JOHANSEN, Iris Dark Summer on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1 Deadlock on best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

JOHANSSON, Ingemar (1932-2009) Dies 1-30, 88G3

JOHANSSON, Scarlett He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2*

JOHN, Sir Elton (Reginald Kenneth Dwight) Misses best-score Tony 6-7, 399F3 Ukraine adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708F2

JOHN Adams (TV series) Golden Globes won 1-11, 24F2–G2

ON FILE

JOHN Galt Corp. WTC site bldg fire check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621G1

JOHN Paul II, Pope (Karol Jozef Wojtyla) (1920-2005) Laghi dies 1-10, 56B2 Bps reinstated 1-24, 43B2 Benedict visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-8—5-15, 335C1 Cuba peace concert held 9-20, 661E2 ‘Heroic virtues’ recognitn signed 12-19, 901B3–C3

JOHNS, Stephen Slain, suspect in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, 392B1, D1

JOHNSEN, Dawn Named legal counsel ofc head 1-5, 6D2

JOHNS Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.) Grossman wins Bollingen Prize 2-16, 953D1 Male circumcisn, STDs risk drop seen 3-26, 595F3 Greider wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3

JOHNSON, Aaron Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954E1

JOHNSON, Alan Named home secy 6-5, 397F1 Denies terror suspects torture role 8-9, 544A2

JOHNSON, Anjelah Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

JOHNSON, Boris On antiterror ofcl (Quick) resignatn, names Yates 4-9, 253E2 Urges EU treaty referendum 10-4, 685F3

JOHNSON, Brendan Named US atty 7-14, 908D3

JOHNSON, Carmel When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, 451C3

JOHNSON, David On ‘08 uninsured rpt 9-10, 598D3

JOHNSON, Dustin Wins Pebble Beach Natl Pro-Am 2-16, 139F1

JOHNSON, Dwayne Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

JOHNSON, Gary Iraq ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789E2

JOHNSON, Capt. Gregory C. Pilots Atlantis missn 5-11—5-24, 372B3

JOHNSON, Harvey Jackson mayoral electn held 5-5, 306F3

JOHNSON, James In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

JOHNSON, Jimmie In Daytona 500 crash 2-15, 104A1 5th in Ford 400, wins NASCAR title/sets mark 11-22, 859E3 Named AP top athlete 12-21, 950B2

JOHNSON, Junior Inducted to NASCAR HOF 10-14, 860A1

JOHNSON, Kevin (boxer) Decisnd by Klitschko 12-12, 895F2

JOHNSON, Kevin (Sacramento, Calif. mayor, 2008- ; Democrat) Natl community svc inspector gen (Walpin) fired 6-11, St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458G1–A2

JOHNSON, Larry Posts gay slur 10-25; cut 11-10, joins Bengals 11-17, 948G1

JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines (1908-73) (U.S. president, 1963-69; Democrat) Valenti FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176G2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 126B1 McNamara dies 7-6, 468C3 Va gov electn results 11-3, 755E3 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880D3

JOHNSON, Magic (Earvin) At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468C1

JOHNSON, Nick Joins Yankees 12-18, 949B1

JOHNSON, Randy Schilling retires 3-23, 278B1 Earns 300th win 6-4, 484C2 Buehrle pitches perfect game 7-23, 531D1

JOHNSON, Dr. Robert Walter (1899-1971) Inducted to HOF 7-11, 631A3

JOHNSON, Shawn Wins Sullivan Award 4-15, 951B3

2009 Index JOHNSON, Stephen (U.S. EPA director, 2005-09) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 Coal plants CO2 emissns review set 2-17, 94C2–D2* Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478D3

JOHNSON, Tim (U.S. senator from S.D., 1997- ; Democrat) Son named US atty 7-14, 908D3

JOHNSON, Van (Charles Van Dell Johnson) (1916-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D3

JOHNSON, Zach Wins Sony Open 1-18, 139B2 Wins Tex Open 5-17, 564A1

JOHNSON-Sirleaf, Ellen (Liberian president, 2006- ) Visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Pol ban urged 7-7, 925A2 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-13, 540E3

JOHNSTON, John Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1

JOHNSTON, Kristen Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

JOHNSTON, Levi On Palin breakup 3-11, 160D2 Palin scores Playgirl shoot 11-16, 797F1 Mom sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3

JOHNSTON, Sherry Sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3

JOINT Chiefs of Staff, U.S. ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 Iraq translators ltd mask use OKd 1-7, 102B1 Obama visits 1-28, 64D1 War dead coffin return media ban lifted 2-26, 132D1 Mullen renominatn urged 3-18, 629C3 Mullen visits Afghan/Pak/India 4-5—4-8, 229A2 Mullen sees Pak’s Kiyani 4-22—4-23, 276D2 Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted 5-11, 317D1 Pak A-program Sen com hearing held 5-14, 347A1 Iran A-arms dvpt mulled 7-7, 464B3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release scored 8-23, 567E3 Muslim world ‘strategic communicatns’ scored 8-28, 721F1 Mullen Sen com confrmatn hearing held 9-15, 629C2 Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1, C1 Mullen confrmd 9-25, 669D1 Afghan troop hike sought 9-25, 669A1 Women submarines role backed 9-25, 720A3 US gay troops policy questnd, repeal urged 9-30, 699E2

JOIS, Krishna Pattabhi (1915-2009) Dies 5-18, 420F3

JOLIE, Angelina Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

JOLTID Ltd. Skype copyright suit filed 9-16, 761C2

JONATHAN, Goodluck Yar’Adua in Saudi hosp, ouster suits filed 11-23—12-31, 922E3, 923C1–E1

JONES, Adam (Pacman) (football player) Cut 1-7, 55E3

JONES, Adam (baseball player) AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483A3

JONES, Bill T. Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954E1

JONES, Brendan Exits Match Play Champ 2-25, 139D1

JONES, Carwin Pleads no contest, ‘06 beating victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525B1

JONES, Dan Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

JONES, Jack (James Larkin Jones) (1913-2009) Dies 4-21, 300E3

JONES, James Earl Earth on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

JONES Jr., Gen. James L. (ret.) At Munich Security Conf 2-6, 74D3 Mex border drug violnc House com hearing held 2-25, 171C1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288B3 Sees Pak’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 315D2 On Pak’s Mehsud slaying 8-9, 533E1

—JUSTICE On N Korea’s Kim cont control 8-9, 568F3, 569A1–B1 Marks WWII start anniv 9-1, 591D3 Mulls Afghan ltd missn, sees Qaeda threat cut 10-4, 673E2, C3, 674C1 On Iran A-program progress 10-4, 688G1 Visits Pak 11-13—11-14, 806D3–E3

JONES, Jamie Leigh Defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2

JONES, Jennifer (Phyllis Lee Isley) (1919-2009) Dies 12-17, 896F2

JONES, Jerry On Owens release 3-11, 176F1

JONES, Marion ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950D3

JONES, Michele E-mails, calls White House crashers 11-24—11-25, denies invitatn 11-30, 830C1–E1

JONES, Nancy Defends educ bd pres (Scott) suicide ruling 11-17, 816D3*

JONES, Phil Climate chng ‘99 e-mail leaked 11-21, setps down 12-1, 828E2–F2

JONES, Quincy Jackson dies 6-25, 436F1–G1, B2

JONES, Rashida I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

JONES, Rebecca Naomi Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

JONES, Richard Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3 Defends oil reserve estimates 11-10, 812A1

JONES, Sadie On Costa shortlist 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139E3

JONES, Van Calif speech video posted, regrets 9/11 petitn signing 9-1—9-3; resignatn urged 9-4, quits 9-6, 602B2–A3

JONZE, Spike Where the Wild Things Are on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

JOO, Dong Moon Fired 11-9, 913F2

JOOSS, Kurt (1901-79) Bausch dies 6-30, 468E2

JORDAN, Hashemite Kingdom of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa visits 5-16, 334E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A2; 10-1, 734A2 Parlt dissolved, electns set 11-23; premr (Dahabi) quits, Rifai named 12-9, cabt OKd 12-14, 877E2 Iraqi Conflict Chrgd MP (Daini) return ordrd 2-25, 117A3 Reconciliatn talks halt rptd 4-26, 297E1 Natl tae kwon do team slaying suspects held 9-24, 668D2 Blast destroys bridge 10-17, 729G2 Blackwater ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789F2 Religious Issues Pope Benedict visits 5-8—5-10, 335B1, D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations UK suspect (Qatada) release sought 5-30, 370D1 US aid suspects chrgd 7-27, 679A1 Trade, Aid & Investment US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488C3 UN Policy & Developments Haiti plane crash kills 11 10-9, 818E1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mitchell opens Mideast tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2 Mitchell tour ends 9-18, 634A3 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805D1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3

JORDAN, Eddie Saunders signs Wizards deal 4-21, 279B1 Named 76ers coach 6-1, 419B3

JORDAN, (William) Hamilton (McWhorter) (1944-2008) Powell dies 9-14, 632D3

JORDAN, Jim (U.S. representative from Ohio, 2007- ; Republican) Questns Treasury ex-secy (Paulson) 7-17, 504C2

JORDAN, Michael Elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3

JORDAN, (William) Hamilton (McWhorter) (1944-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

JOSE Marti International Airport (Havana, Cuba) US contractor held 12-5, 927E3

JOSEPH, Rajiv Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

JOSIPOVIC, Ivo Pres electn results rptd, earns runoff 12-27, 936B2, D2

JOSLIN Diabetes Center Adults energy-burning fat cells found 4-9, 580C1

JO Sung Rae On US missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest 12-29, 933B3

JOUBERT, Brian 3d in world champs 3-26, 211E2

JOURNALISM—See PRESS JOUWE, Nicolas Returns to Indonesia 3-18; sees welfare min 3-20, visits separatists, protests held 3-22—3-24, 272E1

JOWELL, Tessa Estranged husband (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99G3

JOY, Chad Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft trial prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13, 199A2

JOYJOY, Mono Aide (Cuero) captured 6-11, 526D3

J-Rui Lucky Shipping Co. Ltd. Cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2, F2

JUANES (Juan Esteban Aristizabal Vasquez) Holds Havana peace concert 9-20, 661E2–G2

JUBOURI, Nadhim alHeld 5-2, release seen 5-4, 312D1

JUDEH, Nasser Nixes Mideast peace talks concessns 8-3, 545B1

JUDGES—See COURTS JUDICIARY, U.S. Justice Souter sets retiremt, indep hailed 5-1; replacemt mulled 5-3—5-4, Sen com GOP ranking member (Sessions) named 5-5, 301A1, D1, G2, 303A1; photo 301E1; key votes listed 302A1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Sotomayor sees Obama, named to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, D2, 350E1, C2; photo 349F1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed by Sen com, hearings scored 7-28, 503A1 Sotomayor sworn Sup Ct justice 8-8, White House event held 8-12, 536D2 Fed judge (Porteous) House com suit filed 11-13, impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831F3, 832D1, G1

JUGAN, Jeanne (1792-1879) Canonized 10-11, 739F1

JUGNAUTH, Sir Anerood (Mauritian prime minister, 1982-95/2000-03; president, 2003- ) Hosts China’s Hu 2-17, 170B2

JUJAMCYN Theaters (New York, N.Y.) Landesman named NEA chair 5-13, 332C2

JULES, Jenny Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

JULIE & Julia (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

JULIEN, Claude Wins Adams Trophy 6-18, 435A3

JULIEN Auctions Jackson ranch trove displayed, sale halted 4-14, 256B2

1083

JUNCKER, Jean-Claude (Luxembourgian premier, 1995- ) Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3

JUNG, Franz Josef Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607E3 Defends Afghan air strike 9-6, 611C2 Quits 11-27, 835E3, 836A1

JUNG Keun Bong Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191C1

JUNHUI Computer System Engineering Co. China Web-filter software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414D3

JUPITER (planet) Comet impact seen, telescope use chngd 7-19—7-23, 547E3

JUPPE, Alain (French premier, 1995-97) Chirac graft trial ordrd 10-30, 765E2

JURJENS, Jair Among NL ERA ldrs 10-6, 690F3

JUST Dance (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72C1; 2-28, 140D1

JUST Henry (book) Magorian on Costa shortlist 1-5, 139E3

JUSTICE, U.S. Department of Antitrust Division & Actions Probes hike seen 5-11, 343C2 Google bk scanning setlmt review set 7-2, 601D1 Oracle/Sun buy OKd 8-20, 601A2 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd 9-18, 936D3 Williamson wins Nobel 10-12, 694F2 Appointments & Resignations Legal counsel ofc head (Johnsen), solicitor gen (Kagan) named 1-5, 6D2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16E2–F2, A3–B3, E3–F3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30F2, A3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) backed 1-28; confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60D3 Cuba base detainees task force ldr (Olson) named 2-20, 112D3 Drug czar (Kerlikowske) named 3-11, 165F1 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2 Levey cont Treasury role set 3-23, 200G2 Ethics chief (Brown) named 4-8, 218E2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E2 Gonzales, Tex Tech poly sci teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574D2 Fed prosecutors ouster pol bias House com hearing held 7-29—7-30, documts issued 8-11, 536A3, 537A1 Nosanchuck named civil rights liaison 8-18, 553E3 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed, Durham named 8-19—8-24, 565A1, C1–D1, F1, A2, C2, F2 Sen Baucus girlfriend atty apptmt rptd 12-5, backing confrmd 12-6, 908C3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, E2, G2 ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488C2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866B3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section UBS tax evasn data handover deal set 8-19, 560E3 Civil Rights NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538A3 Pa swim club race bias probe opens 7-17, 492E1 DOMA stance chngd 8-17, 553A3 Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Sen Gregg ex-aide (Koonce) lobbying ties probe rptd 2-4, 60F2 Ala ex-gov (Siegelman) chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, convctn review sought 4-3, 218A3 Freddie Mac acctg probe rptd 3-11, 264C2 Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft chrgs dropped 4-1, 199D1, F1, C2 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218A2–D2 Rep Conyers cleared in wife bribes case 6-26, 553D1 Sen Ensign parents, mistress paymts probe urged 7-9, 478B2 NM gov (Richardson) graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620D1 ACORN grants probe set 9-21, 638C3

1084 JUST Take— Fed judge (Porteous) impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 832C1, F1 Crime & Law Enforcement Bush admin antiterror memos revoked 1-15, 130B1 Border Patrol ex-agents prison sentncs commuted 1-19, 33D3 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3, F3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 47A1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set 1-30, 63E1 Terror detainee torture info release opposed 2-9, 80C2, E2 Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, ex-ofcls responses seen 2-17, 94C3–E3, 95A1–D1 Forensic lab methods questnd 2-18, 307A3 Afghan detainees policy cont 2-20, 112F2, B3 Holder visits Cuba base prison 2-23, 112F3 Drug co (Forest) chrgd 2-25, 201E3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129F3, 130A1–B1 Terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148F3 Bush admin terror policies review task force named 3-11; ‘enemy combatant’ term dropped, detentn policy mulled 3-13—3-14, Holder sees EU ofcls 3-16, 165F2, A3–D3, 166B2 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239C3 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200C1, E1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 CIA interrogatn memos release delayed 4-2; issued, prosecutns mulled 4-16—4-21, authrzn timeline revealed 4-22, 257A1, D1–E1, B2, D2–F2, C3, 258D1, B2, 261E3; excerpts 259A1–260G3 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262E3 Terror detainees abuse photos release set 4-24; intell questnd 4-25, Bybee memos defended, Sen com testimony sought 4-28—4-29, 289E2, 290F2, E3 Ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305D2 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306A1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322G2–D3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322B2–C2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held, chrgd 6-24—6-29, 574G1–B2 Kan abortn MD slaying probe set 6-5, 445F1, A2–B2 Cuba base detainees Bermuda transfer rptd 6-11, 391A2, C2, F2 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447C1 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428F1, C2–D2 SFG exec (Stanford) indictmt unsealed, assets mulled 6-19, 457A2, E2 Somali terror group ties suspects chrgd 7-13, 780F3 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505G2, 506A1–B1 NY ‘02 terror arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2 Terror alert system pol pressure alleged 8-9, 572A3 Thai blocks Russian arms dealing suspect (Bout) extraditn 8-11, 534A2 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554B1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release scored 8-21, 567E3 Terror detainees CIA abuses documts issued, interrogatn unit order signed 8-24, 565F2, B3, 566A2–B2, F2, 567B1, D1–E1, G1, B2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan/sees Karzai 8-24, 573C1 Cuba base detainees Portugal transfer rptd 8-28, 718B2 Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659G2, B3–C3, F3–G3 Afghan detainee appeals authrzn seen 9-13, 630D2

FACTS Cuba base cont detentns authrzn legis request nixed 9-23, 642A3 Bomb plot threat mulled 9-24, 642C2 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd 9-26—10-9; Ghailani death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718E1, E2–F2, D3 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) case work hailed 10-6, 678C2 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700E3–F3 Cuba base detainees transferred 10-31—11-1, 760C2 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 793A1 Somali terror ties suspects chrgs hiked 11-23, 849A1 Cuba base detainees transferred 12-1; suicide suit papers filed 12-4, Ill prison fed buy seen, transfer plans mulled 12-11—12-15, 861B1, D2, 862F1–A2 Gotti mistrial declared, freed 12-1, 888G1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley), Muhammad cartoonist/ed slaying suspect chrgd 12-7, 845E1, D2–E2 Terror suspects Pak arrests role rptd 12-9, 858C1 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3, 919B1 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913D3 Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942F2, B3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Med marijuana raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, 165A2–B2 Holder visits Mex 4-2—4-3, 249D2 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341C1 Crack cocaine sentncs House com hearing held 4-29, 307C2–D2, G2 Mex smuggling suspects chrgd 8-20, 556D2 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 719G3, 720B1–D1 Mex cartel alleged workers held 10-21—10-22, 747C1 Environmental Issues Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 EPA power plants mercury curbs omit nix appeal dropped 2-6, 94G2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged, appeal nixed/classified documts use mulled 2-11—2-28, civil liberties suit opposed 4-3, 244B1–D1, F1 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263E3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129C2–D2 CIA terror detainees torture indep probe sought 3-17, Bush admin documts release mulled 3-23, 183D3–E3 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, House com hearing set 4-16, 243D2, F2, A3, D3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21, 263A2, F2 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24; NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, chrgs dropped 5-1, 306F1, A2, C2–D2 Warrantless wiretapping classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen 5-29, govt sanctns nixed, case upheld 6-3, 410A3 Cuba spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445E3 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474F2, A3, F3–475A1, D1–E1 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3–B3, F3 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587B1 ‘State secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642D2, F2 Intell oversight bd, atty gen rptg ordrd 10-28, 916D1 DHS improper monitoring rptd 12-16, 916F1 Family Issues Defns of Marriage Act backing set, scored 6-12—6-15, 408E2 Health & Safety Issues Antipsychotic drug (Zyprexa) mktg suit setld 1-15, 64E3 Pfizer $2.3 bln chrg set 1-26, 49G1 Pfrizer drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587F1, A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues DNA sampling program hiked 1-9, 202D2

Iraqi Conflict Govt damages case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 US reconstructn funds returned 3-16, 175B1 Mil fuel scheme suspect (Jeffrey) chrgd 4-24, 297F2 Army ofcr (Watada) resignatn OKd 9-25, 720D3 Obituaries Bell, Griffin B 1-5, 9C3 Miller Jr, Herbert J 11-14, 860F3 Shubin, Lester D 11-20, 896E3 Wilkey, Malcolm R 8-15, 648F3 Personnel Issues Ex-ofcl (Schlozman) violatns rptd 1-13, 16G3–17A1 Holder visits Ger 4-29, 305B3 Political Issues Bush signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145D1 UN, Iran/Syria/Cuba chaired mtgs ban nixed 7-1, 902B2 Voting Rights Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1–C1

JUST Take My Heart (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

JUVENTUD Rebelde (Cuban newspaper) Castro photos published 8-23, 575E1

JYLLANDS-Posten (Danish newspaper) Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2

ON FILE

Statues removed 9-10, 706F1

KADYROV, Ramzan Exiled dissident (Israilov) slain 1-13, honors slain rights atty 1-20, 36B3, E3, G3–37C1 Exiled dissident (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58B2 Grozny dep mayor slain 2-5, 85B2 Ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slain 3-28; info denied, sees dad slaying role 3-30—4-6, MP (Delimkhanov) order alleged, probe mulled 4-5—4-7, 273F2–D3 Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310E3–F3 Nixes rebels amnesty deal 5-16, 378F2–G2 Ingushetia anti-insurgent aid sought 6-22, 449E3 Cops slain 7-4, 497C2 Activist (Estemirova) slaying role alleged/denied, suit opens 7-16—7-20, 497D1–F1 Yamadayev survives attack 7-28, suspect arrest sought 7-29, 544G3 Dad statues removed 9-10, names successor (Delimkhanov) 9-24, 706D1, G1 Libeling ruled, Memorial/Orlov damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Rights activist (Khachukayev) detentn rptd 11-4, abductn alleged 11-5, 855C2

KAGAME, Gen. Paul (Rwandan president, 2000- ) Visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Marks genocide anniv 4-7, 248C2–E2 Ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680D1

KAGAN, Elena

K KABALU, Eid Denies prison break role 12-14, 890B3

KABERUKA, Donald Sees Zimbabwe’s Biti 2-26, 153C1 Sees African Dvpt Bank cont loans 3-11, 170A1 Visits UK 3-16, 170C1

KABILA, Maj. Gen. Joseph (Congolese president, 2001- ) Rwanda forces enter, jt offensive mulled 1-20, Nkunda held 1-22, 34E1, A3 Warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens 1-26—1-27, 43E1 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-10—8-11, 540F2, B3 UN peacekeeping missn extended 12-23, 921B3

KABILA, Laurent Desire (1939-2001) (Congolese president, 1997-2001) Rebel ldr (Nkunda) held 1-22, 34E1 Warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens 1-26—1-27, 43E1

KABWELA, Chansa Cleared 11-16, 925G2

KACHIKIAN, Kevin Sentncd 3-9, 247C3

KACZYNSKI, Jaroslaw (Polish premier, 2006-07) Anti-Corruptn Bureau head abuse alleged 10-6, 705E2

KACZYNSKI, Lech (Polish president, 2005- ) Marks WWII start anniv 9-1, 591C2, F2, A3 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685G1–A2

KADEER, Rebiya China ethnic clashes erupt, role seen 7-5—7-6, 461A1, G1–B2 Visits Japan/Australia, 10 Conditns premiered 7-28—8-11, 606D1 Claims China ethnic violnc disappearncs 7-29, 509E3 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802B2

KADHIM, Imam Musa (c. 700s A.D.) Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4, women shrine visitors banned 1-6, 8D2 Iraq blasts kill 60+ 4-24, 296C3

KADYRALIEV, Sanjar Slain 4-14, 272G1

KADYROV, Akhmed Abdulkhamidovich (1951-2004) Exiled dissident (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58C2 Ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slaying role seen 4-6, 273A3 Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310E3

Confrmd solicitor gen 3-19, 246B2 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2 Sotomayor nominated to Sup Ct 5-26, 350C2 Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 374C1 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603D1–E1

KAGAN, Kenneth Client (Watada) mil resignatn OKd 9-25, 720E3

KAHANE, Rabbi Meir W Bank mosque blaze suspect held 12-31, 945E1

KAHN 3rd, Charles N. At White House health care forum 3-5, 145G3

KAHN, Ronald Finds adults energy-burning fat cells 4-9, 580C1

KAIL, Thomas Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

KAINE, Timothy (Va. governor, 2006- ; Democrat) Named DNC chair 1-8, 6B2 Dem chair nominatn OKd 1-21, 62B2 Signs bars/restaurants smoking ban 3-9, 357D1 Chief info ofcr (Kundra) reinstatn backed 3-18, 200C3 NJ gov primaries held 6-2, 373B3 Gov primaries held 6-9, 391E1, G1 Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, indep probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921B1–C1, E1 Gov debate held 10-12, 716E3 Electn results 11-3, 755E3 Nixes DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) clemency 11-10, 780B3

KAIRA, Qamar Zaman Denies A-program hike 5-20, 346G3 On tribal areas mil operatn 10-17, 709C2

KAISER Family Foundation, Henry J. Employer health benefits drop rptd 9-15, 617G3 Medicaid ‘09 enrollmt hike seen 9-30, 919C1

KAISER Permanente Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2, 479A1

KAISER Permanente Bellflower Medical Center (Calif.) Octuplets born 1-26, 114E3

KAISI, Fajer alAftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

KAIZU, Betim Indicted 9-24, 833E2

KALAM, A.P.J. Abdul (Indian president, 2002-07) Frisked 4-21, Continental Airlines regrets 7-22, 646E2–F2

KALAS, Harry (Harold Norbert) (1936-2009) Dies 4-13, 280E3

2009 Index KALIMANZIRA, Callixte Convctd, sentncd 6-22, 923A3

KALLA, Jusuf Pres vote eligibility hiked 7-6; electn held 7-8, loss rptd 7-9, 461A3, G3 Pres electn final results issued, upheld 7-24, 8-12, 542F1–B2

KALLER, Sheryl Next Fall opens in NYC 6-3, 564D2

KALLO, Mamadi On China infrastructure deal 10-13, 702B1

KALLON, Morris Convctd 2-25, 134G1–A2 Sentncd 4-8, 325B1

KALMANOVITZ, Shabtai Slain 11-2, 766D3

KALYAN, Adhir Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

KAM Air Afghan/China flight diverted 8-9, 606B2–C2

KAMEI, Shizuka Named financial svc/postal reform min, nixes pvtizatn plans 9-16, 624G3 Seeks Japan Post IPO halt 9-20, denies debt paymt moratorium 9-29, 703C3–D3 Banks lending urged 11-30, econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 873A1, C1

KAMIN, Mohammed Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 794C1 Chrgs dropped 12-10, 861F2

KAMINKSI, Marius Abuse alleged 10-6, 705D2–E2

KAMRAVA, Dr. Michael Octuplets born 1-26; probe opens 2-6, mom treatmt bared 2-9 2-9, 114F3

KAN, Naoto On econ stimulus plan 4-9, 252D2 Named dep premr 9-16, 624D3

KANG Kek Ieu (Duch) Trial set 1-19, 68E1 UN trial opens 2-17, 98F1, A2–B2 Trial cont, detentn nixed 3-31—6-15, 413C3–E3, 414B1, E1 Trial closing argumts heard 11-23—11-27, 890D1–E1

KANG Man Soo Ousted 1-19, 51F2

KANG Nam 1 (North Korean vessel) Departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462E3–F3

KANG Sok Ju Hosts US’s Bosworth 12-8—12-10, 873C3

KANSAS Accidents & Disasters Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A3 Crime & Law Enforcement Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302A3 Kan abortn clinic vandalized 5-23—5-30; MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, shooting scored, suspect held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370A2, F2, D3 Abortn MD fed slaying probe set 6-5, 445G1–A2 Army secy nominee (McHugh) confrmd 9-16, 656B2 Cuba base detainees transfer efforts fail 12-16, 861B1 Abortn MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns nixed 12-22, 919C3 Environment & Pollution Westar emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu emergency declared 4-26, 281D3 Slain abortn MD (Tiller) clinic shut/Operatn Rescue buy mulled, assoc cont practice set 6-9—6-10, 445C2–E2 Diseases research lab funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714C3 Obituaries Pearson, James B 1-13, 56F2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd 2-28, nominated 3-2, 129C1, E1, G1 Parkinson sworn gov 4-28, 285B3 Sports Women’s basketball NIT tourn results 4-4, 230E2

KANSAS, University of (Lawrence) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1

—KAUFMAN 1085 Self named AP top coach 4-3, men’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 230A1, F2 Women’s basketball NIT tourn final lost 4-4, 230E2 Men’s basketball preseason rankings topped 10-29, 771F1–G1

KANSAS City Star (newspaper) Kan MD slaying suspect (Roeder) interviewed 11-9, 832B3

KANSAS State University (KSU) (Manhattan) Freeman in NFL draft 4-25, 298D3

KANSAS v. Marsh (2006) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302A3

KAO, Charles K. Wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1

KAPLAN, Judge Lewis Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-5, 718B3

KAPLAN, Stanley H. (1919-2009) Dies 8-23, 596G2

KAPLER, Gabe Buehrle pitches perfect game 7-23, 531E1

KAPLICKY, Jan (1937-2009) Dies 1-14, 56A2

KAPOOR, Anil Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

KAPOOR, Dr. Sandeep Chrgd, pleads not guilty 3-12, 5-13, 920D1

KAPTUR, Marcy (U.S. representative from Ohio, 1983- ; Democrat) Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

KARADZIC, Radovan ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 Immunity claim mulled, appeal denied 2-15—4-7; kin harassmt alleged 4-2, poems pubisher punished 4-10, 274D2 Trial date seen 9-8, 628F1 Seeks trial delay, boycotts 10-26, counsel mulled, argumts open/adjourned 10-27, 749A1, A2 In ct 11-3, atty apptmt ordrd, trial delayed 11-5, 767E2 Atty (Harvey) named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1

KARAKI, Hasan Antar Chrgd 11-24, 878D2

KARALUS, Paul Ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5, 591A1

KARAMANLIS, Costas (Greek premier, 2004-09) Wildfires erupt, mourns firefighting pilot death 8-21—8-27, 577F1, A2 Sets parlt electns 9-2, 591A1–C1 Parlt electns held, quits party post 10-4, Papandreou sworn, names cabt 10-6, 686A2, C2, E2–F2, F3

KARAMIRAD, Mohammad On IAEA ties 11-28, 837C2

KARASIN, Grigori Scores Georgia, OSCE missn 6-17, 450E1

KARIMOV, Islam A. (Uzbekistan president, 1990- ) At Central Asian/China pipeline opening 12-14, 935F2 Parlt electns held/vote mulled, results rptd 12-27—12-31, 934B3

KARPAL Singh Chrgd 3-17, 223F2–G2

KARROUBI, Mehdi Moussavi sets pres bid 3-10, Khatami drops out 3-17, 174E2 Pres bid cleared 5-20, 362E1–F1 Pres electn held 6-12; results rptd 6-13, seeks vote nix, Guardian Cncl mtg set 6-14—6-18, 401B2–D2, 402C1 Seeks electn results nix, vote upheld 6-19—6-23, vows cont legal fight 6-25, 421C1, G2, 422C3 Pres vote review com role set, dropped 6-26—6-27; results mulled, certified 6-27—6-29, questns Ahmadinejad govt, linked paper shut 6-30—7-1, 438D3, 439A1, D1 Blasts electn protests crack down 7-6, 464E1 At Rafsanjani sermon, cops assault claimed 7-17, 485D1 Protests cont, boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 7-30—8-5, 518A2–B2, C3 Alleges prisoners rape 8-9, 561D2–E2, A3 Arrest urged 8-28, ofcs raided 9-7—9-8, 609G3–610B1

Oppositn protests warning issued, role set/arrest order claimed 9-11—9-15, prison abuses denied, detailed 9-12—9-14, 628G2–B3, E3 Protests cont, clashes erupt 9-18, 645C3 Attacked 10-23; aide (Alviri) freed 10-31, in oppositn rallies 11-4, 767G3, 768D1, F1 Tehran protests role blocked 12-7—12-8, 857D1 At dissident cleric (Montazeri) funeral 12-21, 883C3

KARUA, Martha At unity govt reforms conf 3-30—3-31, 203B1 Quits 4-6, 221A3–D3

KARZAI, Ahmed Wali Electn fraud role seen 9-1, 594F1 CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 751E1–G1

KARZAI, Hamid (Afghanistan president, 2002- ) Civil Strife Scores US troops raid 1-25, 54B3 US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 79A2 ‘08 civiln deaths rise seen 2-17, 102C2 On US strategy chng 3-28, 195D1 Civiln casualties scored 5-6, 314E1 US air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434E2 Scores pvt security guards prosecutor ofc raid 6-29, US mil operatn launched 7-2, 466C1, C2 Taliban ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499F1, B2 Sees freed Cuba base detainee (Jawad), vows justice reforms 8-24, 573E1 On US air strike civiln deaths 9-4, 611B2 US troops hike mulled 9-20, 635E1 UN workers slain 10-28, 750F3 US troops hike set, ties backed 12-1—12-2, 826B3, 827B1–C1 Alleges intl forces attack civiln deaths, probe confrms 12-28—12-30, 899F1, A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Hosts Pak’s Zardari 1-6, 54E3 Hosts US sens (Biden/Graham) 1-10, 16C2 At Munich Security Conf 2-8, 74B1–C1 Visits US 5-6, 314F1 Sees US ofcls, Pak’s Zardari 5-6, 315F1 Visits US 5-10, 317G2 Hosts US amb (Eikenberry) 5-19, NATO cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381E1–F1, G2–A3 At Iran/Pak summit 5-24, 370F1 Hails Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn 6-14, 403D1 At SCO summit 6-15—6-16, 406G2–A3 Sees US’s Holbrooke, argumt claimed/denied 8-21—8-29, 594A2–C2 US ties questnd 10-6, 673D1 US’s Khalilzad visits 10-14, 696D2 Hosts US’s Kerry, Clinton/UK’s Brown call 10-16—10-20, 710G2–D3, 711A1 Obama calls 11-2, 753A2 Hosts US’s Clinton 11-19, 805F3 Hosts US’s Gates, Cong hearings held 12-8, 844D2, B3 Hosts UK’s Brown 12-13, 894F2 Hosts US lawmakers 12-28—12-29, 899G2 Politics Pres electn delayed, ‘illegitimate’ vote seen 1-29, 54D1, G1–B2 Urges early electns 2-28, 137A2, C2–E2 Electns date chng upheld, ofc stay seen 3-7—3-29, 195D2–F2 Shirzai mtg held, exits race 5-1—5-2, bid formalized, Fahim named running mate 5-4, 313F3 Support polled 6-15, 434A3 Drops debate role 7-22; addresses rally 7-24, Taliban reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513D2, F2–B3 Dostum hosts rally, deal denied 8-17—8-19, electn held 8-20, 549A1–C1, B3 Pres electn vote mulled, initial results rptd 8-23—8-26, 577C2–A3 Electn fraud claims rise, brother role seen 9-1, partial results issued 9-2, 594A1, F1–A2 Electn ballots excluded/reinstated, vote mulled 9-6—9-9, partial results rptd, recount ordrd 9-8, 610G3–611E1 Electn recount ordrd/fraud denied, preliminary results rptd 9-15—9-16, 629F3–630A1, C1, E1 Govt graft scored 9-19—9-20, 635B2, 636A1 Reelectn seen, recount set 9-25, 668G2 Pres vote questnd, recount opens 10-3—10-5, 674D1, F1, A2 Pres electn fraud admitted, alleges forgn interfernc 10-11; Barakzai quits probe 10-12, votes nix seen 10-14—10-15, 696G1–C2

Pres electn rpts issued, runoff OKd 10-19—10-21, 710F1 Nixes power-sharing deal 10-24—10-25, electn ofcl (Lodin) resignatn urged 10-26, 751B1–D1 Abdullah drops bid 11-1; runoff nixed, win declared 11-2, vows corruptn fight, reelectn questnd 11-3—11-4, 753A1, D2–E2, B3, 754B1; photo 753F1 Govt corruptn scored 11-6—11-12, 775B1, F1–B2 Mines min (Adel) bribes alleged 11-18, sworn, vows corruptn fight 11-19, 805A3, 806F1 Ouster plan mulled 12-10—12-17, cabt named, backed 12-19—12-20, 893D3, 894E1–F1 May ‘10 parlt electns plan cont 12-29, 899E2 Social Issues Signs women rights curbs 3-31, sets review 4-4, 213E1–G1 Women rights curbs protested 4-15, 314D2

KARZAI, Mahmoud Mines min (Adel) bribe alleged 11-18, 806F1

KASAB, Muhammad Ajmal Mumbai attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-5—1-6, citizenship confrmd 1-7, 39F1, C2 Chrgd 2-25, 158D1 Trial opens 4-17, pleads not guilty 5-6, 417F3 Confesses 7-20; death penalty mulled 7-20—7-22, trial cont 7-23, 499A3–G3 Lashkar-e-Taiba cont threat seen 9-30, 669B3 Mumbai terror attacks acct chngd 12-18, 946G1

KASHKARI, Neel Replacemt (Allison) named 4-17, 264G1

KASHMIR—See under INDIA KASHMIRI, Ilyas Slain 9-7, 670E1 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot role probed 12-7, 845E2

KASIT Piromya On captured refugees mil abuse probe 1-29, 52E1 Scores Samart govt seizure 11-19, 872G1

KASKAD (Russian TV channel) Kotovskaya stake seized 11-10, dies in fall 11-16, 893B1

KASPAROV, Garry In Moscow protests, held 1-31, 69G1

KASPER, Cardinal Walter On bps reinstatn 1-25, 43C2 On Vatican, Jewish ties 2-4, 75G3

KASSIR, Oussama Abdullah Convctd 5-12, 411G2 Sentncd 9-15, 719C2

KASTEN, Stan On DR prospect fake ID 2-18, names interim GM (Rizzo) 3-4, 277B3, D3

KASTIGAR, Troy Death rptd 9-11, 781C1

KATANGA, Germain ICC trial opens 11-24, 922E1

KATA Pajajariyapong Held, chrgd 11-1, 891D3

KATAWAL, Gen. Rookmangud Fired, ouster blocked/const mulled 5-3, 314F2 Nepal elected, sworn premr 5-23, 5-25, 363C1

KATSELI, Louka Named econ min 10-6, 686C3

KATSINA-Alu, Aloysius Sworn 12-30, 923A1

KATZ, Lauren Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

KATZIR, Ephraim (Ephraim Katchalski) (1916-2009) Dies 5-30, 384G3

KATZIR-Katchalski, Aharon (1914-72) Brother dies 5-30, 384G3

KAUFMAN, Darrel Sees Arctic cooling trend reversal 9-4, 842B2

KAUFMAN, Edward (U.S. senator from Del., 2009- ; Democrat) Biden quits 1-15, 16E2 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 Rep Castle sets seat bid 10-6, 679D1

KAUFMAN, George S(imon) (1889-1961) Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

KAUFMAN, Millard (1917-2009) Dies 3-14, 192A3

1086 KAUFMAN— KAUFMAN, Moises 33 Variatns opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3 Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

KAUMOV, Anvar Sentncd 10-19, 765C1

KAUPTHING Bank hf Restructuring plan set 7-20, 512A3

KAWAGUCHI, Yuko 3d in world champs 3-25, 211F2

KAZAA (Web site) Music piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782C1

KAZAKHSTAN, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Hosp fire kills 37 9-13, 936A1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found/crew chrgd 12-12—12-14, ties denied 12-14, 862G2, 863A1 CIS Relations Kyrgyz pres ex-staff chief (Sadyrkulov) car crash kills 3, fundraising rptd 3-13—3-14, 172A2, D2 Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Nazarbayev at Kyrgyz’s Bakiyev inauguratn 8-2, 576F3 Summit skipped 10-8—10-9, 777D1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Environmt ex-min (Iskakov) arrest rptd 3-30, trial opens 6-16, 510A3 Defns dep min (Mayermanov) held 4-10, 510A3 Crime & Civil Disorders Car crash kills 1, drunk driving alleged 7-26; driver (Zhovtis) convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1 Boxer (Serikov) slain 8-11, suspects surrender 8-17, 576A3 Kyrgyz rptr (Pavlyuk) dies in fall, bound hands/feet rptd 12-16—12-22, travel mulled, Bakiyev role denied 12-22—12-23, 935F1 Defense & Disarmament Issues CSTO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2, A3 CSTO rapid reactn force exercises hosted 10-2—10-16, 904F1–G1 French troops transport deal signed, OSCE chair bid backed 10-6, 739D2, F2 Energy Central Asia power grid exited 2-26, 935F2 Central Asian gas pipeline opens 12-12—12-14, 935F2–A3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Alma-Ata Info secrets publishing suspects held, convctd 1-6—8-8, sentncs set/scored, upheld 8-8—8-13, 576E2 European Relations France’s Sarkozy visits 10-6, 739D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A2 Defens min (Akhmetov) fired 6-17, 510A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734A2 Middle East Relations Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits 4-9, 254B2 Monetary Issues BTA, Alliance govt stakes bought 2-2, tenge value drops 2-4, 68A1 BTA allegatns spur bank run 3-6, 663B2 EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Intl fuel bank proposed, locatn mulled 4-5—4-6, 214E1 A-agency head (Dzhakishev) fired, held/funds misuse alleged 5-21—6-1; arrest questnd 6-10, wife exit blocked 6-13, 510D2 Areva/Kazatomprom fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739E2 Iran uranium export plans seen 12-29, 941G1 Oil & Gas Developments Total/GDF offshore gas deal finalized, oil pipeline contract awarded 10-6, 739D2–E2 Press & Broadcasting Internet curbs law signed 7-10, 510B3 Respublika fined, info freedom questnd/papers seized 9-9—9-22, Taszhargan closure rptd 9-18, 663A2 Space & Space Flights Russian Soyuz launches 3-26, lands 4-8, 239A3* Soyuz launched 5-27, 519B2 Intl statn missn launched 9-30, 731B2 Trade, Aid & Investment WTO entry sought 6-9, 405G1 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2 Russia/WTO entry US backing sought 9-18, 645G1 Russia, Belarus customs union deal signed 11-27, 863E1

FACTS KAZAN, Elia (Elia Kazanjoglous) (1909-2003) Malden dies 7-1, 468G2 Schulberg dies 8-5, 532G2

KAZATOMPROM Areva A-fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739E2

KAZEMI, Sahel Found dead, gun buy rptd/boyfriend murder-suicide ruled 7-4—7-8, 467B3–C3

KAZEMI, Shapour In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

KAZIAKHMEDOV, Seyfudin Slain 5-21, 378E3

KAZMI, Hamid Saeed Hurt 9-2, 630E3

KAZMIR, Scott Traded to Angels 8-28, 691A1

KAZYMOV, Gafur Univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, held 5-4, 377B3–C3

KBR Inc. Iraq reconstructn deal questnd 1-13, 23D2 US troop (Maseth), Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38E2 Iraq/US troop electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27, 530A2 Iraq contractor slain, US troop held 9-13, 629G1 Iraq worker slaying troop (Velez) chrgd 9-21, 668E2 Defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2

KEATE, Allen Eugene Convctd 12-15, sentncd 12-17, 919A2–C2

KEBEDE, Tsegaye 2d in London Marathon 4-26, 332F1

KEENAN, Judge John Sentncs terror training camp founder (Kassir) 9-15, 719C2

KEENAN, Mike Fired 5-22, 435F3

KEENE, Donald Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

KEENER, Catherine Where the Wild Things Are on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

KEFLEZIGHI, Meb Wins NYC marathon 11-1, 791G2

KEITH, Duncan Among NHL plus-minus ldrs 4-12, 299C3

KEKA, Aleksander Slain, drugs/arms smuggling alleged 6-18, 511B3

KELL, George Clyde (1922-2009) Dies 3-24, 212F3

KELLENBERGER, Jakob On Gaza hosp med supplies 1-13, 14A1

KELLER, Bill Lobbyist (Iseman) suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151D3 On Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptg delay 4-20, 263E2 Afghan seized rptr escapes 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434F3

KELLER, Judge Sharon Inmate (Richard) executn comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3

KELLERMAN, David Freddie Mac CEO found dead 4-22, 264A2

KELLERMAN, Jonathan Bones on best-seller list 3-30, 212B1 True Detectives on best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

KELLOGG Co. Swimmer Phelps endorsemt deal dropped 2-5, 71D2

KELLY, Brian Named Notre Dame coach 12-11, 879G3

KELLY, Christopher Indicted 4-2, 218F3 Pleads not guilty 4-16, 243C2

KELLY, Craig Visits Honduras 11-10, 784A3

KELLY, Edward Named Citigroup CFO 3-20, on cash reserves 4-17, 265A1–C1

KELLY, Gene (Eugene) Curran (1912-96) Ex-wife dies 3-13, 192F1

KELLY, Ian On Honduras pres electn 9-4, 623G1 Urges Afghan pres electn results vetting 9-8, 611E1 On Cuba diplomatic talks 9-29, 661B2 Urges Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks 11-6, 784G2 On Zimbabwe diamond exports halt 11-10, 783D3

KELLY, Jerry Wins Zurich Classic 4-26, 564C1

KELLY, Paul Ousted 8-31, 731A1

KELLY, R(obert) Untitled on best-seller list 12-19, 956E1

KELLY, Raymond On alleged bomb plot arrests 9-20, 642A1–B1

KELSO, J. Clark Ouster sought, nixed 1-28, 3-24, 356A2

KELTON, Elmer Stephen (1926-2009) Dies 8-22, 612D3

KEMP, Jack French (1935-2009) Dies 5-2, 316F3 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548E1

KEMP, Joanne Accepts husband’s Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548E1

KEMP, Matt Among NL steals ldr 10-6, 690F3

KEMPRECOS, Paul Medusa on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

KENDALL, Gordon Douglas Slain, IDd 9-27—9-28, 682A1

KENDALL, Mary Oil shale research leases offer probe sought 10-20, 917F1

KENDRICK, Anna Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

KENDRICK, Howie Angels lose pennant 10-25, 752B1

KENNEALLY, David Chrgd 12-7, 910C2

KENNEDY, Anthony M. (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1988- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Vs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444G2 Campaign & Election Issues Limits minority voting power protectns 3-9, 167C1–E1 Capital Punishment Ga inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553D2 Censorship Issues Upholds FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1 Defendants’ Rights Backs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266F1 Eases suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374C1 Nixes convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426C1 Vs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444A2, C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307A2 Backs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426G2–B3, 426B3 Federal Powers Nixes ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337B3, D3, F3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Judicial Issues Limits evidnc exclusionary rule 1-14, 21B1 Upholds judge sentncg power 1-14, 21E1 Clarifies judges campaign contributns recusal rule 6-8, 390C1–E1 Labor Issues Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2, C3 Racial Bias Finds Conn firefighters test nix bias 6-29, 443G2, D3–E3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 442E3, 443C1

ON FILE

KENNEDY, Caroline Drops NY Sen seat bid 1-22, 32D3 Rep Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46F2, A3

KENNEDY Jr., Edward Mourns dad 8-29, 584C2

KENNEDY, Edward Moore (1932-2009) (U.S. senator from Mass., 1962-2009; Democrat) Reseated Health/Labor chair 1-6, 5B2 At Obama inauguratn, has seizure/in hosp 1-20—1-21, 26A3–B3 Misses $787 bln econ recovery plan vote 2-13, 89C2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107D3 UK honorary knighthood set 3-4, 124C2 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Obamas puppy gift rptd 4-12, 256G1 AmeriCorps expansion bill signed 4-21, 355C1 Obama sends letter 6-3, health care reforms draft, bill issued 6-5—6-9, 390E2–B3, F3 Health care reform proposal cost estimated, mulled/debate opens 6-15—6-17, 408C3, 409C1 House health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 426D3 Sen Byrd exits hosp 6-30, 441A2 Health care reform proposal chngd, uninsured seen 7-2, 458A1 Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473D1 Health care reform bill backed 7-15, 476F2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537A2 Misses Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn vote 8-6, 519C3 Sister dies 8-11, 548F3, G3 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548F1 Misses sister’s funeral 8-14, 580F3 Seeks seat successn law chng 8-19, 570F1 Dies, ldrship hailed/Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, seat successn law chng backed 8-27, 569A2–570A3; photos 569F3, 570A1 Mourned, funeral held/buried 8-28—8-29; replacemt candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, law chng hearing set, spec electn set 8-31, 584A2, F2, D3 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585C1 Nephew nixes replacemt bid 9-7; gov apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, Kirk named 9-24, 638F1 Obama addresses Cong, Dodd nixes com chair post 9-9, 598A1, 599E1 Health care reform proposal chngs mulled 9-19—9-24, 637D3–E3 True Compass on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1 Son backs abortn funding 10-21; RC bp scores 10-22—11-9 Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831C3 Obama eulogizes Ft Hood shooting victims 11-10, 777F2 Health care reform Sen bill issued 11-18, 796C3 Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848C2 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 906B1–C1 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907D3

KENNEDY Jr., Judge Henry Upholds mt mining rules chng 8-13, 655B2

KENNEDY, Ian Traded to Diamondbacks 12-9, 949A1

KENNEDY, Jane Quits 6-5, 397A2

KENNEDY, Joan Bennett Ex-husband dies 8-25, 569A3

KENNEDY, John Fitzgerald (1917-63) (U.S. president, 1961-63; Democrat) Daughter drops NY Sen seat bid 1-22, 32D3 Rep Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46F2 McNamara dies 7-6, 468C3 Sister dies 8-11, 548F3 Brother dies, Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, 569B2–C2, 570C2, F2–G2 Brother buried 8-29, Sen successor candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584C2, F3 Cuba family travel, remittnc curbs eased 9-3, 604C3 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633D2 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880D3

KENNEDY 2nd, Joseph P. On Venez low-income oil aid program halt 1-5, 22C2–D2 Uncle successn candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584D3 Nixes Sen seat bid 9-7, 638A2

KENNEDY, Joseph Patrick (1888-1969) Son dies 8-25, 570A3

KENNEDY Jr., Joseph Patrick (1915-44) Sister dies 8-11, 548F3

2009 Index KENNEDY, Kara Accepts dad’s Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548F1

KENNEDY, Sir Ludovic (Henry Coverley) (1919-2009) Dies 10-18, 752B3

KENNEDY, Patrick J. (U.S. representative from R.I., 1995- ; Democrat) Mourns dad 8-29, 584C2 Backs abortn funding 10-21; RC bp scores 10-22—11-9, Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831B3

KENNEDY, Robert Francis (1925-68) (U.S. attorney general, 1961-64; senator from N.Y., 1965-68; Democrat) Sister dies 8-11, 548F3 Brother dies, Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, 569B2–C2, E2, 570G2 Brother buried 8-29, successn candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584C2, D3

KENNEDY, Rose Fitzgerald (1890-1995) Son dies 8-25, 570A3

KENNEDY, Rosemary (1918-2005) Sister dies 8-11, 548F3

KENNEDY, Tyler Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420E1, G1

KENNEDY, Victoria Reggie Husband dies, Obama calls 8-25, 569A3, 570B2 Husband successn apptmt backed 8-30, 584E3

KENNEDY Center for Justice and Human Rights, Robert F. Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins civil courage prize 10-20, 903G3

KENNEDY Center for the Performing Arts, John F. (Washington, D.C.) Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-26, 752F2 Arts awards presented, gala held 12-5—12-6, 895C3

KENNEDY Civil Courage Prize, Robert F. Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins 10-20, 903G3

KENNEDY Presidential Library and Museum, John F. (Boston, Mass.) Sen Kennedy processn held 8-27, 570F2 Sen Kennedy mourned 8-28, 584D2 Sen Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638B2

KENNEDY v. Louisiana (2008) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 307A1

KENNEY, Jason Nixes UK MP (Galloway) entry 3-20, 413F1

KENSETH, Matt Wins Daytona 500 2-15, 103E3

KENT, Judge Samuel Pleads guilty, sentncd 2-23—5-11; alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 479E2–C3

KENTUCKY Accidents & Disasters Ice storms cut power 1-27—2-11; damage rptd 2-5, disaster declared 2-5, 133E2–G2 Census Issues Clay Cnty canvassing halted 9-27, 722E1 Crime & Law Enforcement Census worker found dead 9-12, 722D1–E1 Census worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817E1–F1, C2 Executns halted 11-25, appeal nixed 12-4, 849D3 Environment & Pollution Mt mining permit review urged 3-23, 267F2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sen Bunning nixes reelectn bid 7-27, 503F1 Sports Racehorse (Alysheba) put down 3-27, 347B3 Kentucky Oaks, Derby results 5-1—5-2, 315D3

KENTUCKY, University of (Lexington) Liberty Bowl won 1-2, 24E1 Gillispie fired 3-27, Calipari named 3-31, 230F3 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1

—KHAN 1087 Music City Bowl lost 12-27, 948B3

KENYA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Blazes kill 158+ 1-28, 1-31, 203B2 African Relations Ghana pres electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7F3 Somali captured pirates turn over set 1-26, seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66E3, G3 Zimbabwe unity govt deal scroed 1-26, 67D2 AU summit held 2-1—2-4, 82E2–F2 Somali pirates in ct 4-23, 269D3–E3 Somalia mil aid sought 6-20; troops deploymt nixed 6-22, MPs flee 6-24, 430B2–D2 Somalia freed forgn rptrs arrive 11-26, 889C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Cabt govt funds misuse alleged 3-16, 203A1 Anti-corruptn chief (Ringera) reapptmt set/nixed, quits 8-31—9-30, 702B3 Crime & Civil Disorders Post-electn violnc tribunal measure fails in parlt, suspects list ICC handover mulled 2-12—2-24, 202D3–F3 UN rpt issued 2-25; activists slain, probe urged/targeting alleged 3-5—3-6, protests turn violent, mass exit seen 3-5—3-28, 203B1 Karatina clashes kill 24+, vigilante attacks rptd 4-20—4-21, 358E3 Alleged poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375A2 Post-electn violnc suspects list handed to ICC 7-9; govt rpt issued 7-17, local trials set 7-30, 540F3 Post-electn violnc trial plans scored 8-4, 540F1 UK geologist (Bridges) slain 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3 Cops ofcls fired 9-8; electn violnc ICC chrgs vowed, probe cooperatn set/Moreno-Ocampo visit delay urged 9-30—10-13, arms stockpiling seen 10-7, 702B2, E2 Northn cattle raids rptd 9-29, 681C2 Poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) freed 10-23, 922B3 ICC chief prosecutor (Moreno-Ocampo) visits, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922F2 Environment & Pollution Mercury emissns mtg hosted 2-16—2-20, 124A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Kibaki cabt shuffled 1-23, 65G3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B2 Unity govt reforms conf held 3-30—3-31, 202A3 Unity govt talks fail 4-4—4-5, Karua, Mungatana quit 4-6—4-7, 221A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734B2 Pol reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702E1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Obama aunt US asylum bid extended 4-1, 231G2 Somalia natl soccer team seeks asylum 12-18, 903A2 Science & Technology Broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US/Somalia strike kills 1+, Nabhan terror role rptd 9-14—9-15, 622A2–B2 Trade, Aid & Investment Somali pirates US hijackings fail, ships return to port 4-8—4-16, 237A1, D2, 238F1, D3; map 238D1 Africa/US trade conf hosted 8-4, 540C1 Drought aid sought 9-29, 681A2 Transportation Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2 US ship (Maersk Alabama) pirate attack repelled 11-18, 801E2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Obama step-grandmother at inauguratn 1-20, 26C2 Obama citizenship questnd, Hawaii birth records confrmd 6-30—7-27, 552C3–D3 Clinton visits 8-4—8-6, 540A1, C1–D1 Travel sanctns warned, threat scored 9-24—9-26, 702A3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) pleads not guilty 6-9, 391E3 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718B3

KENYATTA, Jomo (1890?-1978) Son named finance min 1-23, 65G3

KENYATTA, Uhuru Named finance min 1-23, 65G3 Named post-electn violnc suspect 7-17, 541D1

KERCHER, Meredith (d. 2007) Slaying suspects convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, 854E2, G2–A3

KERIK, Bernard Pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1

KERKORIAN, Kirk GM key events listed 6-1, 366A2

KERLIKOWSKE, R. Gil Named drug czar 3-11, 165C1–F1

KERR, Cristie 2d in Kraft Nabisco Champ 4-5, 332A2 3d in US Women’s Open 7-12, 595F1

KERRY, John F. (U.S. senator from Mass., 1985- ; Democrat) Seated Forgn Relatns chair 1-6, 5B2 On Obama terror detainees policy 1-21, 28B2 Visits Gaza 2-19, 157E2 Army troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183D2 Visits Pak 4-14, 276F1 IMF funds drop nixed 5-21, 355G1 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572D3, F3 Vs Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-17, 550C2 Mass seat successn law chng sought, backed 8-19—8-27, 570A2 Sen seat successn law chng hearing set 8-31, 584C3 Sen seat apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638D2 Introduces emissns cut bill 9-29, 654F2 Vows climate chng debate partisanship drop 10-11; unveils bill 10-23, com hearings open 10-27, 742G3, 743B1, D1, B2 Hosts Pak’s Qureshi 10-14, 695F2 Visits Afghan, Karzai mtgs mulled 10-16—10-20, 710A2, G2 Visits Pak 10-19, 710A1 Seeks climate chng bill talks 11-4, 760B1 Rep Kennedy Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831E3 Issues climate bill framework 12-10, 883F1

KERSHAW, Clayton Among NL ERA ldrs 10-6, 690F3 Dodgers lose pennant 10-21, 752F1

KESHA (Kesha Rose Sebert) ‘Right Round’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1 ‘Tik Tok’ on best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

KESHAVARZ, Sousan Named educ min 8-19, 562B2 Educ min nominatn nixed 9-3, 609D3

KESSLER, Judge Gladys Nixes Cuba base detainee (Ahmed) cont detentn 5-4, 506B2

KESSLER, Mikkel Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

KESSLER, Ronald In President’s Secret Service on best-seller list 8-31, 596B1

KETTERING, Brian Vows cont census role 9-11, 659C2

KEYCORP Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1

KEYES, Alan (Lee) Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

KEYNES, John Maynard (1883-1946) Samuelson dies 12-13, 880D3

KEYS, Alicia Wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3 ‘Empire State of Mind’ on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

KHABIBULIN, Nikolai Among NHL goals-vs avg ldrs 4-12, 299D3

KHACHUKAYEV, Arbi Detentn rptd 11-4, abductn alleged 11-5, 855C2

KHADR, Omar Atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7; repatriatn request ordrd 4-23, ruling upheld, appeal filed 8-14, 719A1–D1 Mil trial set 11-13, 794C1

KHADZHIMBA, Raul Pres electn held, loss rptd 12-12—12-13, 874G2

KHADZIKURBANOV, Sergei Cleared 2-19, 100D1 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying acquittal nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497G2

KHAID, Said Pleads guilty 5-4, sentncd 9-3, 723E1

KHALAF, Gen. Abdul-Karim On Blackwater ouster 1-29, 53C2, E2 On Baghdad cops arrest 2-23, 117F3

KHALID, Redouane French convctn nixed 2-27, 150E2

KHALID bin Faisal, Prince (Saudi Arabia) Flooding deaths probe ordrd 11-30, 944B2

KHALIFA bin Zayed al-Nuhayyan, Sheikh (United Arab Emirates president, 2004- ) Brother torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, held 5-11, 331A3

KHALIL, Riad Indicted 7-28, 621F1–A2

KHALILI, Abdul Karim Renamed Karzai running mate 5-4, 314A1 Named vp 12-19, 894A1

KHALILZAD, Zalmay Visits Afghan 10-14, 696C2–D2

KHAMA, Ian (Botswanan president, 2008- ) Scores Zimbabwe unity govt deal 1-26, 67D2 Gen electns held 10-16; results rptd 10-18, sworn 10-20, 722A2

KHAMA, Sir Seretse (1921-80) (Botswanan president, 1966-80) Gen electns held 10-16; results rptd 10-18, son sworn 10-20, 722B2

KHAMA, Sheila Sees worldwide diamond mkt recovery 10-19, 722D2

KHAMENEI, Ayatollah Mohammed Ali (Iranian president, 1981-89; supreme religious leader, 1989- ) Crime & Civil Disorders Zahedan mosque blast kills 25 5-28, 398E1 Issues oppositn protests warning, Karroubi arrest order claimed 9-11, 628F2 Names Basij militia ldr (Naqdi) 10-5, 688D2 Tehran protests turn violent, arrests rptd 12-7—12-8, 857C1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section US talks mulled 2-10, 86D2 On Obama forgn policy 3-4, 142B2 Dismisses Obama video message 3-21, 179D1, D2 Alleges Iraq blasts US troops role 4-25, 296E3 On US’s Obama Egypt speech 6-4, 369D1 Obama letter rptd 6-24, 423F1 Iraq/UK hostage (Moore) kidnapping role mulled 12-30—12-31, 942A2 Politics Khatami sets pres bid 2-8, 86D3, G3 Scores Ahmadinejad, hajj ofcl reinstated 5-4, 362A2 Ahmadinejad insults scored 6-9; electn held, protests turn violent 6-12—6-18, orders fraud probe 6-15, 401B1–D1, A2, D2, 402B2 Backs electn results, warns protesters 6-19, delays certificatn 6-23, 421B1, E2, 422B1, C2–D2; photo 421E1 Electn results backed 6-27, 439A1 Scores electn protests forgn influence 7-6, 464C2 Electn fraud probe questnd, referendum sought 7-17—7-19; warns critics 7-20, urges 1st dep premr choice drop 7-21, 485D1, G1, D2 Vp apptmt chngd, delay questnd 7-24—7-25; cabt shuffled 7-25—7-26, pre-inauguratn ceremony held, sworn 8-3—8-5, 518F1, 519B1–C1 Intell min sr ofcls fired 8-10, ldrship questnd, ouster sought 8-15, 561D3–F3 Names judiciary chief (Larijani), Ahmadinejad cabt picks set 8-15—8-19, 562A2, C2, E2 Backs Ahmadinejad cabt confrmatn 9-2, 609F3–G3 Scores pres electn results questng 10-28, 767D3 Scores Khomeini photo destructn 12-13; dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883E2, A3, C3, 884B1 Moussavi fired 12-22, 941B1

KHAN, Abdul Qadeer Intl arms smuggling suspect (Tinner) bust aid claimed 1-22, brother freed 1-23, 75B3–C3 Release ordrd, freed 2-6, restraints cont 2-9, 75C2–A3 On Iran A-program aid 8-31, 600D1 Movemt limits lifted, reinstated 9-1, 8-28, 595A1 Iran A-program progress mulled 10-4, 688F1

1088 KHAN— KHAN, Ali Akbar (1926-2009) Dies 6-18, 452F2

KHAN, Allaudin (d. 1972) Son dies 6-18, 452F2

KHAN, Arafat Waheed Cleared 9-7, 608E1 Retrial sought 9-11, 626B2

KHAN, Irrfan Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

KHAN, Ismail Survives convoy blast 9-27, 669F1 Named electric/water min 12-19, 894A1

KHAN, Mahmood Capture rptd 9-11, 630B3

KHAN, Muslim Capture rptd 9-11, 630F2–A3

KHAN, Naiz NYC apartmt raided 9-22, cont surveillnc rptd 10-8, 678G1–A2

KHAN, Roomy Insider trading suspects chrgd/held, bail set 10-16, Galleon investmts liquidated 10-21, 743F2–G2 Chrgd, pleads guilty 11-5, 814E1

KHAN, Sarfaraz Slain 12-27, 947G1

KHAN, Shahrukh NJ airport questng spraks outrage 8-14, 646D2–E2

KHAN, Waqar Pak/US deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1

KHANNOUCHI, Khalid Wanjiru sets Chicago marathon time mark 10-11, 791F3

KHAN Resources Inc. Mongolia uranium deposits state ownership stake set 7-16, 725G2

KHARBASH, Mohammed Khalfan Bin Chrgd 4-8, 893C3

KHARITONOV, Dmitri Claims client (Magnitsky) prison neglignc 11-18, autopsy denied 11-21, 821F3–G3

KHASIS, Yevgenia Held 11-5, 855A2

KHATAMI, Ayatollah Ahmed Urges protest ldrs punishmt 6-26, 439G1 Quds Day sermon set 9-16, 645E3

KHATAMI, Hojatolislam Mohammed (Iranian president, 1997-2005) Sets pres bid 2-8, 86C3 Sees Moussavi 3-16, drops pres bid 3-17, 174C2 Ahwaz flight bomb defused, flying schedule rptd 5-30—6-1, 398F1–G1 Electn held 6-12, 401D1 Denies protesters forgn influenc 6-21, arrests tallied 6-24, 422A2, A3 On pres electn results, scores protests crack down 7-1, 439F1 Scores electn protests crack down 7-6, 464E1 Seeks Ahmadinejad govt referendum 7-19, 485F1 Dissidents trial opens 8-1, boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 8-5, 518A2, F2 Protests cont, clashes erupt 9-18, 645C3–D3 Ex-spokesman (Ramezanzadeh) sentncd 12-24, 941A1

KHATIB, Adam Convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3

KHAYRE, Yacqub Held, chrgd 8-4, 930D2

KHAZALI, Laith alFreed 6-9, 398F2–G2 Brother transferred 12-30, UK hostage exchng denied 12-31, 942C1

KHAZALI, Qais alBrother freed 6-9, 398F2 Transferred 12-30, UK hostage exchng denied 12-31, 942C1–D1

KHAZBIYEV, Magomed On car blast cops search 12-17, 938E3

KHAZEI, Alan 3d in Sen seat Dem primary 12-8, 848E2

KHAZRAJI, Abdul Jabbar alHeld 5-18, 345B1

KHELIL, Chakib On OPEC output 3-15, 180D2

KHIEU Samphan Chrgd 12-18, 890B1–C1

KHIN Khin Win Convctd, sentncd 8-11, 543E1

FACTS KHIN Moe Moe Testifies in Suu Kyi trial 7-10, 543C2–E2

KHIN Nyunt, Gen. (Myanmar premier, 2003-04) Prisoners freed 2-20, 188D1

KHIN Yi Demotes security ofcrs, rpts oppositn arrests 8-7, 543G3–544A1

KHMER Rouge—See CAMBODIA KHODORKOVSKY, Mikhail Borisovich Trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Pleads not guilty 4-21, 328D3, G3 Dogan fine mulled 10-5, 706A3

KHOGALI, Manal Awad On client (Hussein) trial 9-7, 623A1

KHOMEINI, Hassan Boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 8-5, 518B2

KHOMEINI, Ayatollah Ruhollah (1900-89) Iran shrine blast claimed 6-20, 422E1 Grandson boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 8-5, 518B2 Tehran protests turn violent, arrests rptd 12-7—12-8, 857C1 Photo destructn scored 12-13; Dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883D2, B3, 884B1

KHOURY, Bassem Sees Israel’s Shalom 9-2, 614D3

KHOURY, Michel elSyria amb apptmt OKd 1-27, 211D1

KHRISTOFOROV, Gen. Vasily On Hitler remains destructn 12-7, 939G1

KHU, Felicisimo Convoy attacked 12-10, 853F1

KHUMALO, Sizakele Gen electns held 4-22, 293C3 At husband inaguratn 5-6, 325B2

KHUPE, Thokozani Sworn dep PM 2-11, 81B1

KHUTORSKOI, Ivan Slain 11-16; motive mulled 11-17, Young Russia role denied 11-18, 822E1

KHUZAMI, Robert Named SEC enforcemt dir 2-19, 114C1

KIALY, Bela Kalman (1912-2009) Dies 7-4, 516B3

KIBAKI, Mwai (Kenyan president, 2002- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Cabt shuffled 1-23, 65G3 Activists slain, targeting alleged 3-5—3-6, skips unity govt reforms conf 3-30—3-31, 202B3–D3, 203B1–C1 Unity govt talks fail 4-4—4-5, Karua, Mungatana quit 4-6—4-7, 221A3–D3, F3 Sets post-electn violnc local trials 7-30, 540F3–541A1, C1 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-5, 540D1–E1 Anti-corruptn chief reapptmt set/nixed, quits 8-31—9-30; scores US sanctns warning 9-26, pol reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702F1–G1, B3–E3 ICC chief prosecutor (Moreno-Ocampo) visits, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922A3

KID Cudi (Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi) ‘Day ‘N’ Nite’ on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

KIDD, Abdullah alAshcroft suit upheld 9-4, 659G2–F3

KIDD, Jason Among NBA assists ldrs 4-15, 278B3

KIDMAN, Nicole Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

KIDNAPPING—See under CRIME KIFFIN, Lane Replacemt (Cable) named 2-3, 176C2

KIIR Mayardit, Salva Opens disarmamt campaign 5-27; shuffles cat 5-30, party split set 6-8, 431E1–G1 On southn indep referendum 10-26—10-31, electns registratn opens 11-1, 801D3, F3, 802D1

KIKWETE, Jakaya Mrisho (Tanzanian president, 2005- ) Hosts China’s Hu 2-14—2-15, 170A2 At African econ crisis mtg 3-10—3-11, 169E3 Visits UK 3-16, 170D1

KILGORE, James Freed on parole 5-10, 539D2

KILGORE, Tom On power plant retaining walls 1-8, 33A3

KILLEFER, Nancy Withdraws chief performnc ofcr nominatn 2-3, 59D2 Zients named White House chief performnc ofcr 4-20, 264E1

KILLING the Blues (recording) Plant/Krauss win Grammy 2-8, 88F1

KILONZA, Mutula Anti-corruptn chief (Ringera) reapptmt set/nixed, quits 8-31—9-30, 702D3

KILONZO, Mutula Vows electn violnc ICC probe cooperatn 10-2, urges Moreno-Ocampo visit delay 10-13, 702G2

KILPATRICK, Kwame Detroit mayoral primary electn held 2-25, 131F1 Detroit Free Press wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A3 Detroit mayoral electn held 5-5, 306A3–B3 Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) pleads guilty 6-26, mayoral primary held 8-4, 553F1 Electn results 11-3, 756E3*

KIM, Maj. Convctd, sentncd 5-5, 311F3

KIM, Anthony Loses World Match Play Champ 11-1, 840F1

KIM, Christina 3d in Women’s British Open 8-2, 595D2

KIM, In-Kyung Wins State Farm Classic 6-7, 595B3 3d in US Women’s Open 7-12, 595F1

KIM, Col. Jerome HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697C2

KIMBALL, Chad Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

KIMBERLEY Process, The—See DIAMONDS KIMBRO, Warren Aloysious (1934-2009) Dies 2-3, 104D3

KIMBROUGH, Charles Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

KIM Dae Jung (1924-2009) (South Korean president, 1998-2003) On ex-pres (Roh) suicide 5-23, 360E3, 361C1 Dies 8-18, 564B3 Death marked, N Korea delegatn set 8-19, 558E2 Hosts N Korea delegatn 8-23, 568D2, A3, C3 Flash flood kills 6, bodies found 9-6—9-7, N Korea explanatn issued, scored 9-7, 600D2

KIM Gye Gwan Hosts US’s Clinton 8-4, 517E2 Hosts US’s Bosworth 12-8—12-10, 873C3

KIM Ha Joong Ousted 1-19, 51A3

KIM Il Sung (Kim Song Ju) (1912-94) (North Korean head of state, 1948-94) Son successn mulled 6-2—6-10, 404E2 Death anniv marked 7-8, 495D2

KIM Jong Chun Dad successn mulled 6-2—6-10, 404A3

KIM Jong Il (North Korean head of state, 1997- ) Cabt shuffled, parlt electns set 1-6—1-7, 51D2 Hosts Chinese envoys 1-23, 84F1 Successn mulled 2-19, 109B1, B3 Parlt electns held, voter turnout/results rptd 3-7—3-9, 153G3–154B1 Rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, reapptmt OKd 4-9, 215G1–A2, B3 Son Natl Defns Comm job rptd 4-27, 351B1 N Korea A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast scored 5-25—5-26, 350A1 Mourns S Korea ex-pres (Roh) 5-25, 361C1 Successn mulled 6-2—6-10, 404E2–F2, B3 US rptrs relase sought 6-8, 396F1 Marks dad death anniv 7-8, cancer rptd 7-13, 495B2 Hosts US’s Clinton, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, 517A1, G1, E2 Cont control seen 8-9, delegatn visits S Korea 8-21—8-23, 568E2, B2, F3 Hosts Chinese ofcl, mulls A-program talks 9-18, 653A1

ON FILE

Chngd const issued 9-28, 653E1–F1 Hosts China’s Wen 10-5, 712G1 S Korea ofcl mtgs rptd 10-22, 764C1 UN rights rpt issued 10-22, 764F1 Won revalued 11-30, 873G2 Obama letter delivery confrmd 12-16, 873D3* US missionary (Park) entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933C3

KIM Jong Nam On dad successn 6-6, 404A3–B3

KIM Jong Un Parlt electns held, voter turnout/results rptd 3-7—3-9, 154B1 Natl Defns Comm job rptd 4-27, 351B1 Dad successn mulled 6-2—6-10, 404E2–G2, B3 N Korea chngd const issued 9-28, 653G1

KIM Ki Nam Visits S Korea 8-21—8-23, 568A3, C3

KIMLIN, Randy OSHA paymts questnd 3-31, 340C3

KIM Sou-hwan, Cardinal Stephen (1922-2009) Dies 2-16, 140F3

KIMUNYA, Amos Named trade min 1-23, 66A1

KIM Yang Gon Visits S Korea 8-21—8-23, 568A3

KIM Yu Na Wins world champs 3-28, 211D2

KINANE, Mick Sea the Stars wins 2000 Guineas 5-2, 347A3 Sea the Stars wins English Derby 6-6, 399G2 Sea the Stars wins Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807G2

KINATAY (film) Mendoza wins Cannes dir prize 5-24, 364B1

KINDHEARTS for Charitable Humanitarian Development Inc. Assets freeze nixed 8-18, 678D3

KINFOUSSIA, Guy Romain Pres vote held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, files appeal, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn upheld 7-23—7-25, 507D1

KING, Allan Winton (1930-2009) Dies 6-15, 452E3

KING, Billie Jean Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

KING, Jaime My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

KING, Leroy Chrgd, fired/held 6-19—6-25, 457E2–F2

KING, Loretta On Kan abortn MD (Tiller) fed slaying probe 6-5, 445B2

KING Jr., Rev. Martin Luther (1929-68) Birthday marked 1-19, 28B1 Obama scores Iran protests crack down 6-20, 423D1 Obama visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 472E2 Mountaintop opens in London 7-20, 564D2 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633D2 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693F1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842G2, 843B1, C2, F3

KING, Peter T. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1993- ; Republican) Introduces Cuba base detainees US release curbs bill 5-7, 305A3 Seeks White House social secy subpoena 12-3, 830F1

KING, Richard Wins Oscar 2-22, 120D1

KING, Stephen Under the Dome on best-seller list 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

KING, Vania Loses French Open mixed doubles 6-4, 399D1

KINGARA, Oscar Kamau Slain 3-5, probe urged 3-6, 203B1, E1–F1

KINGDOM of Bahrain (yacht) Seized 11-25, sailors freed 12-2, 857B3

KING Nut Cos. Peanut butter recalled 1-11, Salmonella positive test rptd 1-12, 49D3

KING of the Hill (TV show) Murphy dies 12-20, 896C3

KINGS of Leon (music group) Wins Grammy 2-8, 88G2 ‘Use Somebody’ on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

2009 Index Only by the Night on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

KINGSTON, Sean ‘Fire Burning’ on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

KINGTON, Raynard Successor (Collins) named 7-8, 491A2

KINI, Usama al- (Mohammed Ally Msalam) Slain 1-1, IDd 1-8—1-10, 38B3–E3

KINNEAR, Rory Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3

KINNEY, Terry Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1

KINSELLA, Sophie Confessns of a Shopaholic on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

KINS of Leon (music group) ‘Use Somebody’ on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

KIPPENBERGER, Martin Self-portrait fetches $4.1 mln 5-12, 953C2

KIPRUSOFF, Mikka NHL wins ldr 4-12, 299C3

KIPRUTO, Vincent 3d in Chicago marathon 10-11, 791F3

KIRCHNER, Leon (1919-2009) Dies 9-17, 708E3

KIRCHNER, Nestor Carlos (Argentine president, 2003-07) Cong electns held 6-28, drops party ldrship 6-29, 446B3–447A1

KIRIBATI, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B2; 10-1, 734B2

KIRILL I, Patriarch (Vladimir Gundyayev) (Russian Orthodox Church) Named patriarch 1-27, enthronemt held 2-1, 85D2

KIRK, Mark S. (U.S. representative from Ill., 2001- ; Republican) Vs Cuba base detainees transfer proposal 11-15, 794F2 On Cuba base detainees, Thomson prison transfer 12-15, 861A2

KIRK Jr., Paul (U.S. senator from Mass., 2009- ; Democrat) Health care reform proposal chngs mulled 9-19—9-24, 637E3 Mass Sen seat apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, named 9-24, 638F1 Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848D2

KIRK, Ronald (U.S. trade representative, 2009- ) Tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-2—3-9; nominatn backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182A1 Sees Panama free trade deal passage 4-23, 309F1 On pork trade halt 4-28, 282B2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D2 On China, WTO complaint 6-23, 440D1 Files China Web filter requiremt complaint 6-24, 448C1 On China media import rules oppositn 8-12, 557B2 China jt ventures govt contracts curbs eased 10-29, 776D2

KIRKBRIDE, Julie Husband quits 5-14, 343D3

KIRKLEY, Rev. John Named LA bp 8-1—8-2, 539A2

KIRKPATRICK, Melanie Contempt found 3-19, 936D1

KIRKUP, James Falconer (1918-2009) Dies 5-10, 364E3

KIRKUS Reviews (publication) Shut 12-10, 912A3

KISSELL, Larry (U.S. representative from N.C., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1

KISSINGER, Henry Alfred Marks China diplomatic ties anniv 1-12, 251C3 Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid role revealed 8-16, 569F1

KISS Me Thru the Phone (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1; 5-2, 316D1

KISS of a Demon King (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

—KOSKINEN 1089 KITAZAWA, Toshimi Sets US ships refueling missn end 10-13, 703C2 Hosts US’s Gates 10-21, 747E2, B3

KITT, Eartha (Eartha Mae Keith) (1930-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

KITT, Tom Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2 Wins Tonys 6-7, 399G3, 400E1

KITTERMAN, Jim Slaying suspects held, release claimed 6-7, 6-10, 398A3

KIWANIS International Army Lt (Calley) regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1

KIYANI, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175E3–G3 Hosts US’s Mullen 4-7, 229A2 Sees US’s Mullen 4-22—4-23, 276D2 Hosts US’s McChrystal/Holbrooke/Petraeus 8-17—8-19, 578D1 Sees Gen McChrystal 10-6, questns US aid package 10-7, 695A2, E2

KIYEMBA v. Obama Accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717D3

KLATTEN, Susanne Blackmailer (Sgarbi) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207E1–G1

KLAUS, Vaclav (Czech premier, 1992-97; president, 2003- ) Topolanek govt confidnc vote passes parlt, quits 3-24—3-26, 188B2 Hosts Obama 4-5, 214F1 Names interim premr (Fischer) 4-9, 224G3–225A1 On EU treaty Ireland concessns 6-19, 432G1 EU treaty signing vowed 10-7, seeks charter exemptns 10-8, 685A2–B2 EU treaty concessn OKd 10-29, complaints nixed, signs 11-2, 765F1–A2

KLEE, Paul (1879-1940) Figure in a Garden fetches 4 mln euros 2-23, 160C1–D1

KLEIN, Allen (1931-2009) Dies 7-4, 516D3

KLEIN, Herbert George (1918-2009) Dies 7-2, 468F2

KLEINZAHLER, August Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191G3

KLICH, Bogdan Sets Afghan troops hike 12-2, 844F1

KLITSCHKO, Vitali Decisns Johnson, retains WBC title 12-12, 895F2

KLOBUCHAR, Amy (U.S. senator from Minn., 2007- ; Democrat) Sen seat race recount rptd 4-7, Franken win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242B3 Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441D2

KLOSE, Christian China quake, dam seismic strain linked 2-6, 153B3

KLUGE Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences, John W. Kolakowski dies 7-17, 516E3

KLUGE Prize for the Study of Humanity, John W. Franklin dies 3-25, 192F2

KNEEDLER, Edwin Seeks mil detentn case govt brief Sup Ct deadline delay 1-22, 28D3 Seeks terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn case drop 2-26, 129D3

KNIGHT, Bob Brand dies 9-16, 648B2

KNIGHT, Gladys Sings at Jackson funeral 9-3, 612F2

KNIGHT, Marie (Marie Roach) (1920-2009) Dies 8-30, 632B3

KNIGHT, Marion (Suge) Death Row records sold 1-15, 104E2

KNOANA-Mashabane, Maite Named S Africa forgn affairs min 5-10, 325D3

KNOCKOUT (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

KNOCK You Down (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1

KNOPF Jr., Alfred A. (1918-2009) Dies 2-14, 160C3

KNOWING (film) On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

KNOWLES, Mark Loses Australian Open doubles 1-31, 71A2 Wins Wimbledon mixed doubles 7-5, 467A3 Loses US Open doubles 9-13, 631E2

KNOX, Amanda Convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, US support cont 12-7, 854E2–C3

KNYAZEV, Aleksandr Attacked 12-9, 935B2

KOBAYASHI, Makoto ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

KOCH, Edward I. NYC mayoral electn results 11-3, 756G2

KOCH, Martin Wins Tony 6-7, 400A1

KOCHERLAKOTA, Narayana Named Minn Fed pres, takes post 9-30, 10-8, 740B1–C1

KOECHNER, David Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

KOEHLER, Horst (German president, 2004- ) Reelected 5-23, 361E1

KOEHLER, Kristina Named families min 11-27, 836B1

KOELTL, Judge John Terror aid atty (Stewart) resentncg ordrd 11-17, 914D2

KOENIGSEGG Group AB Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417A2 GM bankruptcy exited 7-10, 475C3 Beijing Auto Indus/Saab stake buy OKd 9-9, buyout offer dropped 11-24, 822C3–F3 Saab buyout bids deadline extended 12-30, 902B3

KOH, Harold Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2

KOHL, Helmut (German chancellor, 1982-98) Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637C1 Parlt electns held 9-27, 664E3

KOHL, Herbert H. (U.S. senator from Wis., 1989- ; Democrat) Reseated Aging chair 1-6, 5C2 Scores Sup Ct justice nominees Sen com confrmatn hearings 7-28, 503E1

KOIVU, Saku Joins Ducks 7-8, 731B1

KOIZUMI, Junichiro (Japanese premier, 2001-06) Scores Aso ldrship 2-12, 98G3–99A1 Visits shrine 8-15, 582C3

KOKINOV, Nikolay Sets ex-agri min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgs 9-8, 727B2

KOKOITY, Eduard Electns held 5-31, results rptd, backs indep 6-1, 378D2–E2

KOLB, Kevin McNabb hurt 9-13, 631C3

KOLFF, Willem Johan (1911-2009) Dies 2-11, 120C3

KOLLAR-Kotelly, Judge Colleen Blocks natl parks gun rule 3-19, 354G2 Orders Cuba base detainees release 7-29—9-25, 718F2–A3

KOLOAKOWSKI, Leszek (1927-2009) Dies 7-17, 516E3

KOLUMBA Art Museum (Cologne, Germany) Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300B2

KOMARA, Kabine (Guinean premier, 2008- ) Govt named 1-14, 34F3

KOMATI, Mahmoud On UK secret mtg nix 3-6, 157A1

KOMEN Foundation, Susan G. Brinker gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548G1

KOMMERSANT (Russian newspaper) Moscow mayor (Luzhkov) defamatn paymts ordrd 11-30, 892F3

KONATE, Gen. Sekouba Returns, takes control 12-5, urges army unity 12-9, 870C2–D2, 871A1; photo 870E2

KONCHALOVSKY, Andrei Father dies 8-27, 612E3

KONO, Taro Loses party ldrship electn 9-28, 703G3

KONONOV, Justice Anatoly Resignatn rptd 12-2, 892C3

KONY, Joseph ICC trial sought 12-21, 924B3

KOOLHAAS, Rem China hotel blaze kills 1 2-9—2-10, suspects held 2-12, 251G2 Wyly Theater opens in Dallas 10-18, 953D3

KOONCE, Kevin Lobbyist (Boulanger) pleads guilty 1-30; Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, Abramoff ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D2

KOONTZ, Dean Relentless on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1 Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

KOPECHNE, Mary Jo (1941-69) Kennedy dies 8-25, 569E2

KOPRA, Col. Timothy Flies Endeavour missn, joins intl statn/conducts space walk 7-15—7-18, 519A2–B2 Returns to Earth 9-8—9-11, 616A1

KORABELNIKOV, Gen. Valentin Ousted 4-24, 328A3

KORAN, The (book) Dutch MP (Wilders) UK entry barred 2-12, 136D3 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367F2, 368F3 Pak riots kill 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612G1 Iraq bomb found 9-12, 629A2 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses Italian women 11-15—11-16, 812E2 US citizens visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/tape detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 858E1

KORDAN, Ali Named spec inspector 7-26, 519D1

KOREA, Democratic People’s Republic of (North Korea)—See NORTH Korea KOREA, Republic of (South Korea)—See SOUTH Korea KOREA Electric Power Corp. (Kepco) UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944E2

KOREA Gas Corp. Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684B2 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-2, 789D3

KOREAN War (1950-53) N/S Korea attack warned 5-27, 351D2 S Korea fishing boat seized 7-30, 518D1 N/S Korea family reunions talks held 8-26—8-28, 600F2 N/S Korean family reunions held 9-26—10-1, 652B3 N/S Korea cont family reunions mulled 10-16, 712G2 US vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F2

KOREA Stock Exchange Index drops 11-27, 829A2 Kospi ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900G1

KORIE, Michael Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

KORMAN, Judge Edward Orders ‘Plan B’ FDA limits review 3-23, 184D2

KOROTASH, Stephen On SFG fraud probe 2-17, 148F1

KORRUPTSIYA i Prestupnost (Russian newspaper) Ed (Yaroshenko) found unconscious 4-30, dies, probe opens 6-29, 497E2

KOSGEI, Salina Wins Boston Marathon 4-20, 332C1

KOSHALEK, Richard Named Hirshhorn dir 2-26, 160F2

KOSIK, Judge Edwin Nixes juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges plea deals 7-30, 869E3, G3

KOSKINEN, John Named Freddie Mac interim CEO 3-11, 264D2 Replacemt (Haldeman) named 7-21, 910A1

1090 KOSMAS—

FACTS

KOSMAS, Suzanne (U.S. representative from Fla., 2009- ; Democrat)

KRATOVIL Jr., Frank (U.S. representative from Md., 2009- ; Democrat)

Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G1

Health care reform town-hall protesters questnd 8-5, 520E2 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

KOSOR, Jadranka (Croatian premier, 2009- ) Elected party ldr/premr, sworn 7-4—7-7, 463C1–D1 Facts on 7-7, 463E1 Sees Slovenia’s Pahor, drops Adriatic waters claim 9-11, 628C2

KOSOVO, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Albanians migrant boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777F1 Civil Strife Serbia ex-pres (Milutinovic) cleared/release ordrd, war crime suspects convctd 2-26, 110C1, E1 NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423E3 Pols attacked 11-11—11-12, 803C2–D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234C2; 10-1, 734D2 Munic electns held, vote mulled/results rptd 11-15—11-17, 803F1 Local electn runoffs held 12-13; results rptd 12-14, vote hailed, revote ordrd 12-15—12-28, 938G1 Independence Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G1 Debate cont 5-20—5-21, 379G2–A3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US aid suspects chrgd 7-27, 679A1 US suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833G2 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318E1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 5-20, 379G1, A3

KOSS, Mitch N Korea/China border footage seizure claimed 8-23, 600G3

KOTA Wajar (Singaporean ship) Seized 10-15, pvt yacht owner capture rptd 10-29, 801B2

KOTCHMAN, Casey Traded to Red Sox 7-31, 531A2

KOTOVA, Tatyana Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, 950F3

KOTOVSKAYA, Olga Kaskad stake seized 11-10, dies in fall 11-16, 893B1

KOTZ, David On Madoff fraud scheme probe missteps 9-2—9-4, 603B2–G2 Proposes SEC reforms 9-29, 716B1–D1

KOUCHNER, Bernard Visits Sri Lanka 4-29, 335A1 Scores Iran protests crack down 6-21, 423B2 Denies Gabon pres electn manipulatn role 9-4, 604E2 Scores Afghan air strike 9-5, 611D2 On Afghan troops hike 9-21, 635C3 On film dir (Polanski) arrest 9-27—9-28, 653E2–F2 On Guinea ties 10-4, 701D3 On Swiss mosque minarets ban 11-29, 837A1

KOVAC, Robert Sees Taiwan arms sale 12-9, 891A3

KOVALCHUK, Ilya Among NHL goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3

KOVALEV, Alexei East wins All-Star Game 1-25, 159A2

KOWALIK, Trent Wins Tony 6-7, 399E3, 400D1

KRAFT Foods Inc. Setton Pistachio salmonella find rptd 3-24, 268B2 Cadbury nixes buyout offer 9-7, 626C2

KRAIGHER, Alenka Idiot Savant opens in NYC 11-4, 896B1

KRAJISNIK, Momcilo Convctns nixed, sentnc cut 3-17, sent to UK 9-7, 628B2

KRAKAUER, Jon Where Men Win Glory on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

KRAMER, Jack (John Albert) (1921-2009) Dies 9-12, 632C3

KRASINSKI, John Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2 It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

KRAUSS, Alison Wins Grammys 2-8, 88E1, E2–F2 Raising Sand on best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

KRAVITZ, Lenny Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

KREBS, Edwin Gerhard (1918-2009) Dies 12-21, 955B2

KREEGER, Doug Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

KREJCI, David NHL plus-minus ldr 4-12, 299C3

KRENEK, Debby Named Newsday ed 12-11, 913D1

KRESA, Kent Named GM bd interim head 3-27, 198F2

KRETECK International Inc. Flavored cigarettes banned 9-22, FDA suit filed 9-23, 642F3

KRETSCHMER, Tim Kills 15, self 3-11, Internet warning mulled 3-12, 154G2–C3

KREUTZER, Sgt. William Pleads guilty 3-11, sentncd 3-24, 269D1

KRIEGSTEIN, Henry T rex predecessor fossil buy rptd 9-17, 670F3–G3

KRISHNA, S. M. Sworn forgn min 5-22—5-28, 382C1 Urges Australian students violnc restraint 6-9, 509G1 US’s Clinton talks set 7-20, 486B1 Sees Pak’s Qureshi 9-27, 669E2–F2

KRISSOFF, Dr. Bill Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D3

KRISSOFF, First Lt. Nathan (d. 2006) Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D3

KRISTOL, Irving William (1920-2009) Dies 9-18, 648G2

KRISTOL, William NYT final column runs 1-26, Wash Post monthly column cont 1-27, 56C1 Father dies 9-18, 648A3

KRITZER, Leslie Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

KROCS, Neelie Blocks Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale 10-16, 767C2

KROES, Neelie On Intel antitrust fine 5-13, 343A2 Successor (Almunia) named 11-27, 835A3

KROGSGAARD, Niels Arrest rptd 11-5, 857G2

KROMMES, Beth Wins Caldecott Medal 1-26, 56B1

KRONWALL, Niklas Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420F1

KRUG, Judith (Judith Rose Fingeret) (1940-2009) Dies 4-11, 256D3

KRUGER, Diane Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

KRUGMAN, Paul ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

K2 (mountain) Compagnoni dies 5-13, 364C3 Lacedelli dies 11-20, 880B2

KUBAYSI, Uglah Abid Siqir alCleared 3-2, 121D3

KUBILIUS, Andrius (Lithuanian premier, 2008- ) On Vilnius riots 1-16, 37D3 Pres electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344E1–F1

KUCHMA, Leonid (Ukrainian premier, 1992-93; president, 1994-2005) US’s Biden visits 7-21—7-22, 496D2

KUCINICH, Dennis J. (U.S. representative from Ohio, 1997- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2 Sets Citigroup tax break probe 12-17, 909B2

KUDISCH, Marc 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

KUDRIN, Alexei Belarus loan talks fail 5-28, 423C3

Sets Serbia loan, nixes Belarus/Ukraine aid 10-5, 728B3, D3

KUDROW, Lisa Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

KUEBLER, Lt. Cmdr. William Ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7, 719C1–D1

KUESTER, John Named Pistons coach 7-8, 771A2

KUFUOR, John (Ghanaian president, 2001-09) Electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7E2, G2, B3 Hosts US’s Obama 7-11, 472D1 Denied ‘09 African ldrship prize 10-19, 731F2

KUHRT, Mark Pleads not guilty 6-25, 457C2

KUJUNDZIC, Predrag Sentncd 10-30, 820E3

KU Klux Klan (KKK) Ex-ldr (Duke) held 4-24, exit ordrd 4-25, 378B1 Black UK ban set 5-5, 310E2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) ‘01 remarks regretted, attacks mulled 5-29—6-3, 389C3 Seale appeal denied 11-2, 886C3

KULISH, Kiril Wins Tony 6-7, 399E3, 400D1

KUMAGAI, Toshihito Elected Chiba mayor 6-14, 482F1

KUMAR, Anil Chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3

KUMAR, Meia Elected speaker 6-3, 417C3

KUMARATUNGA, Chandrika (Sri Lankan prime minister, 1994; president, 1994-2005) LTTE conflict end declared 5-19, 334B2

KUNDRA, Vivek Named fed chief info ofcr 3-5, ex-ofc raided, target denied/leave set 3-12, 145C2–E2 Ex-ofc worker held 3-12, reinstatn confrmd, backed 3-17—3-18, 200B3 White House chief tech, performnc ofcrs named 4-20, 264E1 Unveils govt contracts Web site (USAspending.gov) 6-30, 761D2

KUNG, Candie 2d in US Women’s Open 7-12, 595F1

KUNGAYEVA, Elza (d. 2000) Col (Budanov) freed 1-15, family atty (Markelov) slain 1-19, 37F2–G2

KUNGAYEVAS (Chechen exiled family) Slain atty (Markelov) death threats rptd 1-19, 36B3

KUNZEL Jr., Erich (1935-2009) Dies 9-1, 648B3

KUO, Thai Shen Air Force ex-lt col (Fondren) convctd 9-25, 888E3

KUPALBA, Garry Denies Russian jets deploymt claim 2-6, 85E1

KURDS Iraq terror ldr (Surawi) capture rptd 1-11, 23G2 Iraq violnc kills scores 1-16—1-21, 38B1, E1 Iraq prov electns held 1-31, preliminary results rptd, blast kills 14+ 2-5, 57C1, D2–E2 Turkey parlt speech spurs uproar 2-24, 227A1 Iraq’s Talabani nixes reelectn bid 3-13, 175C1 Turkey’s Gul visits Iraq 3-23, 189G2 Turkey local electns held 3-29, AKP losses mulled 3-30, 226G3 Turkey arrests rptd 4-14, violnc kills 13 4-27—4-29, 329D3 Iraq prov govt options detailed 4-22, 275D2 Turkey wedding party attack kills 45 5-4, suspects held, families feud cited 5-5, 329B3 Iraq prov oil export deal set 5-10, blasts kill 10 5-11—5-12, 331D2 Iraq parlt electns set 5-18, 345A1 Iraq prov oil exports open 5-27, 362C3 Iraq blast kills 82+ 6-20, 433E1 Iraq prov territorial claims draft const passes parlt 6-24, 501F1 Iraq blast kills 33+ 6-30, 437C2 US’s Biden visits Iraq 7-2—7-4, 464A1 Iraq blast kills 4+ 7-11, 483E2 Iraq, Kurdistan war warned 7-16, 498A1

ON FILE

Kurdistan electns held, results rptd 7-25—7-29; Kirkuk autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, Arab tensions seen, Barzani sees Gates 7-28—7-29, 501A1, E2–F2 US hikers held in Iran 7-31, 530C2 Iraq’s Maliki, Barzani mtg held 8-2, 530E1 Iraq violnc kills scores 8-10, 545A2–B2 Turkey peace initiative set 8-11; rebels surrender/freed, hailed 10-19—10-21, welcome ceremony scored 10-21, 728B2 Iraq blasts kill 21 8-13, US troops deploymt proposed 8-17, 562F3–G3 Iraq pol party ofcs attack kills 5 8-20, pol coalitn omit set 8-24, 592D1, 593A1 Iraq blast kills 20+ 9-10, 610A2 US/Iraq troops cont exit seen 9-29, 668C1 US terror ‘material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G2 Iraq’s Maliki coalitn set 10-1, 688B3 Iraq prov exports halted 10-9, parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729D2, 730F1 Turkey/Syria ties cncl mtg held 10-13, 696B3 Iraq gen electns law deal seen 10-26; passage fails 10-27, parlt adjourns 10-29, 738D3, 739A1 Iraq electns law passes parlt 11-8, prov minority groups abuses rptd 11-10, 789C1, E1, B3 Iran activist (Fattahian) executed 11-11, 857A2 Turkey rights hike proposal unveiled 11-13, PKK ldr (Ocalan) solitary confinemt ends 11-17, 803E3, 804B1 Iraq electns boycott warned 11-17, 804G3–805 Iraq chngd electns law passes parlt 11-23, deal seen 11-26, 837C3–D3 Turkey troops slain, attack claimed 12-7—12-10, pol party banned, ruling opposed/protests turn violent 12-10—12-15, 893F1

KURKOVA, Karolina GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

KURLAND, Mark Chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3

KURSK (play) Opens in London 6-8, 451A3

KUSAMA, Karyn Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

KUSHNER, Tony Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451G2

KUTIGI, Idris Legbo Successor (Kastina-Alu) sworn 12-30, 923A1

KUWAIT, State of Arab Relations Arab League summit hosted 1-19, 31A3 Crime & Civil Disorders Wedding fire kills 41+ 8-15, suspect held 8-17, 943B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Premr, cabt quit 3-16, parlt dissolved, electns set 3-18, 228A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-16, 234D2 Parlt electns held 5-16, Nasser renamed premr 5-20, 345B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734D2 Iraqi Conflict Iraq seeks Persian Gulf War reparatns cut 6-18, 433D3 UN sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498C1–D1 UK troops exit completed 7-31, 529D3 US Army ex-maj (Cockerham) sentncd 12-2, 856D3 Monetary Issues Natl Bank offers Madoff fraud scheme repaymts 1-29, 114E1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US mil base attack plot suspects held 8-11, 943C2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 4-24, 297A3–B3 Pub Warehousing indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805C1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfer ordrd 7-29—9-25, 718F2–G2 Cuba base detainee (Mutairi) transfer rptd 10-9, 718F2 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) freed, transferred 12-9, chrgs dropped 12-10, 861E2

KUZNETSOVA, Svetlana Wins Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 5-3, 399E1 Loses Italian Open 5-9, 399E1 Wins French Open 6-6, 398C3, 399A1

KWANGMYONGSONG-2 (North Korean satellite) Launched, success mulled 4-5, 215G1

2009 Index KWAPIS, Ken He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2

KWON, Mischel Quits 8-8, named RSA vp 8-10, 602E3–F3

KWON, Judge O-Gon Vows Serb ldr (Karadzic) cont trial 10-26, 749B1 Orders Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty apptmt 11-5, 767G2

KWON Yang Sook Businessman paymts admitted 4-7, husband kills self 5-23, 360G3

KYAW Ny On troops movemt 6-18, 415D2

KYL, Jon (U.S. senator from Ariz., 1995- ; Republican) Facts on 1-6, 4D3 Seated minority whip 1-6, 5E2 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 469E2 On Obama address 9-9, 598A2 Scores health care reform proposal 9-22, 637F3

KYLER, Lindsey Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

KYOTO Protocol (1997) Climate chng conf held 6-1—6-12, Japan emissns cut set 6-10, 413C2, A3 Intl short-term emissns cuts deal seen 7-9, 453F1 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636B1 US climate chng bill passage doubted 10-2, 743A2 US’s Obama, China’s Wen set climate talks roles 11-25—11-26, 827E3 Commonwealth mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845E3 Obama climate conf role chngd 12-4, successor talks open 12-7—12-9, 841A1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881B1, 882A2–C2, E2, A3, 883A2

KYOTO University (Japan) Yamanaka wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2

KYRGYZSTAN (Kyrgyz Republic) Accidents & Disasters Pres ex-staff chief car crash kills 3 3-13, assassinatn claimed, denied 3-16, 172G1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan terror threat end seen, NATO strikes civiln deaths scored 2-4, 59F1 Afghan/China flight diverted 8-9, 606C2 CIS Relations Bakiyev visits Russia 2-3, 58D3 Pres ex-staff chief (Sadydrkulov) Russian ties oppositn rptd, Kazakh fundraising claimed 3-14, 172C2–D2 Uzbek clashes erupt 5-26; border shut 8-28—9-14, tensns rptd 9-15, 663C3–E3 Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Atambayev visits Russia 7-27, 511B1 Tajik border clashes erupt 10-15; shootout kills 4, suspects held 10-18—10-19, militants sentncd 10-19, 764G3–765A1 Uzbek parlt electns held 12-27, 935A1 Russian child workers freed, natls held 12-28, 939D1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) power abuse chrgd, denied 3-5—3-11, 187E2 Crime & Civil Disorders Rptr (Abdyldayev) stabbed 3-3; attack scored 3-4, work link seen 3-5, 187F2 Oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, chrgd, jailing ordrd 3-11, 187C2 Rptrs attacked 3-25, 272A2 MP (Kadyraliev) slain 4-14, 272G1 Rptr (Tashiyev) attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1 Oppositn arrests rptd, protested 7-29—7-30, 511B1 Oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) house arrest transfer rptd 8-15, 576C3 Defense & Disarmament Issues US mil base closure seen, regretted 2-3—2-5, 58D3, 59C1 US mil base closure mulled 2-7—2-8, 74E2 CSTO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2 US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, Russian oppositn rptd, denied 6-24—6-25, 440C3 CSTO rapid reactn force, Uzbek oppositn rptd 6-23; Kazakh mil exercises held 10-2—10-16, Belarus signs treaty 10-20, 904F1

—LABOR 1091 Russia base deal signed, opposed 8-1, 8-3, 534B3 Education Turkmen nixes AUCA recognitn 9-5, 625C3 Energy Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres staff chief (Sadyrkulov) quits, forgn min offer nixed 1-8, 1-19, 172B2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E2 Early electns set 3-20, protests held 3-27, 252B3 Pres electn held, Atambayev drops bid 7-23; vote mulled 7-24—7-25, results rptd, Bakiyev gives TV speech 7-27—7-28, 510D3, 511D1 Bakiyev sworn 8-2, 576E3 Govt reforms set, Chudinov quits/Usenov named 10-20, 722F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-20, 734E2 Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Press & Broadcasting Indep rptr (Abdyldayev) pol asylum sought 8-14, 576D3 Rptrs attacked 12-9—12-16; Pavlyuk dies in Kazakh fall, bound hands/feet rptd 12-16—12-22, travel mulled, Bakiyev role denied 12-22—12-23, 935F1 Trade, Aid & Investment Russia loan, aid set 2-3, 59A1–D1 Russia aid arrives 3-31, 252D3–E3 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2, A3 Russia/Kazakh/Belarus customs union deal signed 11-27, 863F1

L LABELING—See CONTAINERS LaBEOUF, Shia Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

LABOR (U.S.) Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18F1 Secy nominee (Solis) husband tax woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60A1 Secy nominee (Solis) backed 2-11, confrmd 2-24, 113D1 White House urban affairs dir (Carrion) named 2-19, 113B1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287C1 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, D1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3 Contract Negotiations & Settlements Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29C3 UAW auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92C3–D3, 93B1 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1 UAW auto workers deal chngs urged 3-26, GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197D2, D3–E3, 198F1–G1, B2, E3–G3 Chrysler unions deal chngd 4-26—4-29, 282A3, 283G1 NYT, Boston Globe unions OK concessns 5-4, Newspaper Guild deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 393A1 GM/UAW deal chngd 5-29, 365C1, B3 Ford, UAW concessns vote mulled 10-30, chngs nixed 10-31, 758A1 Corruption & Ethics Issues OSHA ex-consultant (Kimlin) paymts questnd 3-31, 340C3 Employment & Unemployment Fscl yr ‘09 deficit forecast issued 1-7, 7F1 Dec ‘08 jobless rate (7.2%) 1-9, 14A2, E2 $825 bln econ recovery plan backed, proposed 1-10, 1-15, 15F1, A2 Pfizer 800 cuts set 1-13, 49A2 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27C1, B2, C3 Chrysler, GM jobs bank program end 1-22—1-28, Ford 1200 cuts set 1-29, 48E1, G1 Econ recovery plan forecast issued, passes House 1-26, 1-28, 41F1–G1, D2, G2

Mex ‘08 remittncs drop rptd 1-27, 83G1 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73E1, C2, 74A1 GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62C2 Jan ‘09 jobless rate (7.6%) 2-6, 79E3, 80B1 Obama visits Ind/Fla/Va/Ill, recovery plan mulled 2-9—2-12, 77C3, 78A1–A2, 79A1 Caterpillar rehiring mulled 2-11, 79E1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89C1, G1, D2–E2, 90G1, C2–F2, B3 GM/Chrysler restructuring plans issued 2-17, 92F2, B3, F3 ‘09 jobless rate forecast 2-18, 111A1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B1, E1, G1–C2, F3 Banks ‘stress tests’ open, plan detailed 2-25, 110C2, F2, A3 Feb ‘09 jobless rate (8.1%) 3-6, 147F1, E2 Obama defends budget proposals 3-24, 181E2 Postal svc cuts House com hearing held 3-25, 324G3 GM worker buyouts tallied 3-27, 198A2 Mar ‘09 jobless rate (8.5%) 4-3, 219B2, G2 Obama sees cont job losses 4-14, 240A1, D1 Apr ‘09 jobless rate (8.9%) 5-8, 323A2–B2, E2 GM factories shut, jobs cut 6-1, Hummer bought 6-2, 365C1, 367E1 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424F2–G2 May ‘09 jobless rate (9.4%) 6-5, 388C3–D3, 389B1 Welfare recipients rise seen 6-30, 479B2–D2 Jun ‘09 jobless rate (9.5%) 7-2, 456B1–C1, A2 Food stamp enrollmt rise rptd 7-8, 489G1 Obama defends stimulus package/econ policies, sees cont job losses 7-12—7-14, 476F3–477B1, D1 GM/Chrysler car dealerships closure block passes House 7-16, 489D1 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 487G3 F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1 Continental sets 1700 cuts 7-21, 744B2 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523E3 GM worker buyouts offrd, cont cuts seen 8-3—8-4, 536F1 Jul ‘09 jobless rate (9.4%) 8-7, 535A1, G1 Toyota shuts Calif factory 8-27, 679F3 Aug ‘09 jobless rate (9.7%) 9-4, 601A3, G3 Bernanke sees recessn end 9-15, 618A2 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641B2–C2 Jobless benefits extensn passes House 9-22, 676A2 Saturn closure set 9-30, 679D3 Medicaid ‘09 enrollmt rise seen 9-30, 919D1 Sep ‘09 jobless rate (9.8%) 10-2, 676A1, E1 Delphi plants sale set 10-6, 679E2 JP Morgan ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-14, 715E1 House climate chng Sen bill job losses seen 10-14, 743E1–F1 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd 10-16, 713B2 $787 bln econ recovery plan job data rptd, questnd 10-30, 778D2–E2 Jobless benefits hike clears Cong, signed 11-4—11-6, 778F2 Oct ‘09 jobless rate (10.2%) 11-6, 778G1–A2, A3 Cuba base detainees Ill transfer proposal backed 11-15, 794D2–G2 AOL 2500 cuts set 11-19, 830G3 Census worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817G1 Wash Times cuts set 12-2, 913C3 $787 econ recovery plan job data questnd, probe set 12-3—12-4, Obama holds jobs summit, opens tour/unveils proposals 12-3—12-8, 846C2–D2, C3, 847D1 Fed chair (Bernanke) confrmatn Sen com hearing held 12-3, 847B2 Nov ‘09 jobless rate (10.0%) 12-4, 846A2, F2 Fscl ‘10 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, $154 bln econ stimulus package, jobless benefits hike pass House 12-16, 866E2, G2–A3 Jobless benefits ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886E2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907B3 Government Employment Calif state workers furloughing order upheld, opens 1-29, 2-6, 114E2 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill signed 3-11, 144B1

Calif budget ballot measures nixed 5-20, 340A2 Domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408A2 Calif budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503F2 Census worker found dead 9-12, 722C1 Retirees $250 paymt proposed 10-14, 714G1 Harassment Issues Worker retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338A1 Health & Safety Issues ‘03 worker safety iniative procedures questnd 3-31, 340E3 Universal health care taxes mulled 5-6—5-20, 339G3–340A1 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492D2 Health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 427A1 Insurnc mandate backed 6-30, 458A1 Benefits drop rptd 9-15, 617G3–618A1 Health care reform Sen bill doubts seen 10-7, 676G3 BP Tex refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1 Health care reform bill passes House 11-7, 773A2, 774C2 BP ‘07 chem release damages awarded 12-18, 916D3, F3 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904C3, 905D3 Immigration Issues Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 Wash raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd, employer focus seen 2-25, 202F1 Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151E2–F2 Agriprocessors ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, ex-mgr (Beillmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Clinton visits Haiti 4-16, 270G1 Workplace raids rules set 4-30, 341B1 Mex ‘07-08 immigratn drop seen 5-15, 447G2 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488B2–C2 Fed contractors ‘E-Verify’ use set, workers Soc Sec match program dropped 7-8, 573F1 Iowa meat plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916C3–D3 Job Bias & Quotas Conn firefighters civil svc exam bias case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 Gender pay parity bills pass House 1-14, 20A1 Gender pay parity bill clears Cong 1-22—1-27, signed 1-29, 47G2 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2, F3, 444C1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 471D2, B3; excerpts 470C3 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 717A1 Wash Times bias claim filed 11-17, 913B3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907E1 Obituaries Green, Archie 3-22, 231E3 Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 Sutton, Crystal Lee 9-11, 708G3 Pensions & Retirement—See PENSIONS Politics Electn results 11-3, 755C3, 756C1 Sports Issues NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176D1 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350A2, F2 NFLPA, retired players suit setld 6-4, 632B2 MLBPA exec dir (Fehr) sets resignatn 6-22, 483F3 MLB ex-pitcher (Cone) testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3–C3 NHLPA exec dir (Kelly) ousted, Penny named interim replacemt 8-31, 730G3 NBA refs contract ends 9-1; lockout opens 9-18, deal set, OKd 10-20—10-23, 771B1–C1 MLBPA exec dir nominee (Weiner) OKd, takes post 12-2, 989F1 Unions—See also other subheads in this section Educ secy nominee (Duncan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18D1 ‘08 new members tallied 1-28, fed contractors reforms ordrd 1-30, 63D2, A3 White House health care summit held 3-5, 145D3 Health care reform coalitn exits set 3-6, 146C1 Obama educ reform proposals opposed 3-10, 149D2 Workers vote options bill introduced 3-10, 164E3

1092 LABOR— Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, 171A3 Mex trucking program mulled 3-20, 186F1 Sen Specter vs curbs ease bill 3-24, 284D3 Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal scored 4-6—4-7, 217G1 Chrysler bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282B3, G3 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed 5-11, 339D3 GM, S Korea/Mex imports hike proposal opposed 5-15, 339G1 GM/UAW stake set 6-1, 365B1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10, 385D1, B2 Chinese tires tariffs urged 6-29, 557D2 GM bankruptcy exited 7-10, 475G1 Harvard prof (Gates) arrest backed 7-22, Obama remarks apology sought 7-24, 505A1, C1 Rep Sestak sets Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521F2 AFL-CIO, SEIU health care reform support seen 8-14, 551G3 NY Fed bd chair (Hughes) named 8-24, 571F2 Obama addresses AFL-CIO rally 9-7, 598B2 China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615A2, C2 AFL-CIO conv held 9-15, 617F3 Health care reform Sen proposal chngd 9-21—9-22, 637F2 Health care reform bill backed by Sen com 10-13, bill scored 10-14, 698E1–A2* SEIU pres (Stern) White House visits rptd 10-30, 780C1 Chinese steel pipe tariffs set, protectnism claimed 11-5, 776F1 States $4 bln schls program set 11-12, 869A3 TSA dir nominee (Southers) Sen confrmatn vote mulled 12-29, 898D3 Wages, Hours & Productivity Dec ‘08 avg wages/workwk 1-9, 14F2 Minneapolis Star bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168B1 Jan ‘09 avg wages/workwk 2-6, 80C1 Feb ‘09 avg wages/workwk 3-6, 147E2 Labor Dept divisn complaints handling questnd 3-25, 340F3 Mar ‘09 avg wages/workwk 4-3, 219A3 Apr ‘09 avg wages/workwk 5-8, 323F2 May ‘09 avg wages/workwk 6-5, 389C1 Jun ‘09 avg wages/workwk 7-2, 456B2 Boston Globe workers pay, benefits cut OKd 7-20, 912F2 Jul ‘09 avg wages/workwk 8-7, 535A2 Aug ‘09 avg wages/workwk 9-4, 602A1 Sep ‘09 avg wages/workwk 10-2, 676F1 Oct ‘09 avg wages/workwk 11-6, 778B3 Nov ‘09 avg wages/workwk 12-4, 846G2

LABOR, U.S. Department of Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Solis) backed 2-11, confrmd 2-24, 113D1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287C1 Calif House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, D1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3 Health & Safety Issues ‘03 worker safety iniative procedures questnd 3-31, 340E3 Statistics Dec ‘08 jobless rate (7.2%) 1-9, 14A2, E2 Dec ‘08 producer prices 1-15, 46E1 Dec ‘08 CPI 1-16, 46C1 Jan ‘09 jobless rate (7.6%) 2-6, 79F3, 80B1 Jan ‘09 producer prices 2-19, 111G2 Jan ‘09 CPI 2-20, 111E2 Feb ‘09 jobless rate (8.1%) 3-6, 147F1, E2 Feb ‘09 producer prices 3-17, 219C3 Feb ‘09 CPI 3-18, 182E3 Mar ‘09 jobless rate (8.5%) 4-3, 219B2, G2 Mar ‘09 producer prices 4-14, 240D3, 241A1 Mar ‘09 CPI 4-15, 240G2 Apr ‘09 jobless rate (8.9%) 5-8, 323B2, F2 Apr ‘09 producer prices 5-14, 355B3 Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355E2 May ‘09 jobless rate (9.4%) 6-5, 388D3, 389B1 May ‘09 producer prices 6-16, 427F3 May ‘09 CPI 6-17, 427D3 Jun ‘09 jobless rate (9.5%) 7-2, 456C1, E1–F1, A2 Jun ‘09 producer prices 7-14, 477D3 Jun ‘09 CPI 7-15, 477D2 Jul ‘09 jobless rate (9.4%) 8-7, 535A1, E1, G1

FACTS Jul ‘09 CPI 8-14, 571C3 Jul ‘09 producer prices 8-18, 571E3 Aug ‘09 jobless rate (9.7%) 9-4, 601A3, G3 Aug ‘09 producer prices 9-15, 640C2 Aug ‘09 CPI 9-16, 619A2 Sep ‘09 jobless rate (9.8%) 10-2, 676A1, E1 Sep ‘09 CPI 10-15, 700A1 12-mo CPI 10-15, 714E1 Sep ‘09 producer prices 10-20, 740D1 Oct ‘09 jobless rate (10.2%) 11-6, 778G1, A3 Oct ‘09 producer prices 11-17, 798A3 Oct ‘09 CPI 11-18, 798F2 Nov ‘09 jobless rate (10.0%) 12-4, 846A2, D2, F2 Nov ‘09 producer prices 12-15, 911D1 Nov ‘09 CPI 12-16, 910C3

LABOR Organization, International (ILO)—See UNITED Nations—International Labor Organization LaBUTE, Neil Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1

La CAGE aux Folles (play) Hodge wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231D2

LACALLE, Luis Alberto (Uruguayan president, 1990-94) Electn held, results rptd/earns runoff 10-25—10-26, Bordaberry concedes, backs bid 10-26, 746B3–C3, F3–747A1 Runoff held, loss rptd 11-29, 834G2–D3, G3

LACEDELLI, Lino (1925-2009) Compagnoni dies 5-13, 364C3 Dies 11-20, 880B2

LACEY, Maggie Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

LaCHIUSA, Michael John Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

LACKER, Jeffrey Backs Treasury securities buy 1-28, 45A3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-25, 456E3

LACKEY, John Angels lose pennant 10-25, 751F3 Joins Red Sox 12-14, 949C1

LACROSSE Winners NCAA title (men), Syracuse 5-25, 399A3 NCAA title (women), Northwestn 5-24, 399C3

LADY, Robert Seldon Convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrest ordrd 11-4, 766B1

LADY Antebellum (music group) ‘Need You Know’ on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1

LADY Gaga (Stefanie Joanne Angelina Germanotta) ‘Just Dance’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72C1; 2-28, 140D1 ‘Poker Face’ on best-seller list 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1 Fame on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1; 12-19, 956E1 ‘LoveGame’ on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1 ‘Bad Romance’ on best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

LAFAYETTE, Marquis de (Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier) (1757-1834) Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary US citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2

LAFONTAINE, Oskar State electns held 8-30, urges Afghan troops exit 9-9, 607C3, 608A1 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 665E1

LAGE Davila, Carlos Ousted, Castro power grab denied 3-2—3-3, 134G2–B3 Resignatn rptd 3-5, 249B2–C2

LAGHI, Cardinal Pio (1922-2009) Dies 1-10, 56B2

LAGHMANI, Abdullah Slain 9-2, 594E2–F2

LaGUARDIA Airport (N.Y., N.Y.) US Airways jet engine failure spurs river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33G1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) hurts ankle 6-8, 389F3

LAHMAR, Saber Transferred to France 12-1, 861E2

LaHOOD, Ray (U.S. representative from Ill., 1995-2009; transportation secretary, 2009- ; Republican) Caterpillar ‘08 fed funding rptd 1-14; transportatn secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, confrmd 1-22, 29C3–E3 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, 60D1 Mulls Mex trucking program 3-20—3-24, 186E1, G1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E2 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 354B1 Vows ‘cash for clunkers’ dealership paymts 8-19, 586D2 Sets auto emissns, fuel econ rules 9-15, 621D3

LAHOUD, Imad Gergorin smear trial opens 9-21, 644C2

LAHTI, Christine Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

LAISURE, Donald Lee Ex-wife dies 9-24, 672E1

LAKHVI, Zaki ur-Rehman Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103F2 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) confesses 7-20, 499D3 Chrgd, pleads not guilty/trial opens 11-25, 845G2

LAMAMRA, Ramtane On Madagascar pol dispute talks 7-1, 459A3

La MARTINIERE Groupe Google bk scanning violatns ruled, damages ordrd 12-18, 936G2

La MAUVAISE vie (book) Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2

LAMBERTH, Judge Royce Warns DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns 7-20; orders attys clearance, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd, ruling nix sought 11-3—11-10, 915D3–916C1

LAMBSDORFF, Count Otto (Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge, Graf Lambsdorff) (1926-2009) Dies 12-5, 896G2

LAMORIELLO, Lou Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

LAN Airlines Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871C2

LANCET (British journal) Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-27, 195C1

LANDAU, Martin 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

LANDAU, Tina Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

LANDESMAN, Rocco Named NEA chair 5-13, 332C2 Confrmd, sworn NEA chair 8-7, 8-12, 548D2

LAND Management, U.S. Bureau of (BLM) (of Interior) Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1, D1–E1 Wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1 Nev wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917D3

LANDMARK Media Enterprises LLC Batten dies 9-10, 648G1

LANDON, H(oward) C(handler) Robbins (1926-2009) Dies 11-20, 880C2

LANDRIEU, Mary (U.S. senator from La., 1997- ; Democrat) Seated Small Business chair 1-6, 5C2 Health care reform bill issued 11-18, 796G3 Backs health care reform bill debate 11-21, 809D1–F1 Seeks health care reform CBO analysis 12-9, 848A1

LANDSBANKI Isladns hf Restructuring plan set 7-20, 512A3

LANDSLIDES—See AVALANCHES LANE, Burton (1912-97) Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

LANE, Nathan Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2

ON FILE

Astro Boy on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

LaNEVE, Mark On eBay partnership 9-30, 679E3

LANG, Jack Dispatched, N Korea talks held 11-9—11-10, 934A1

LANG, Michelle Slain 12-30, 899B3

LANG, Stephen Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

LANGE, Jessica Wins Emmy 9-20, 647D3, 648A1

LANGELLA, Frank Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40A2

LANGUAGE & Linguistics Awards & Honors McHugh wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Computer Issues ICANN non-Latin characters addresses OKd 10-30, 901F3 Crime Issues Iraq violnc kills scores 2-9, US mil translators mask ban reversal rptd 2-13, 101D2, 102A1 Iraq/US mil translators slain 2-23—2-24, 117E3, G3 Dalai Lama marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, 171F3 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269E2 Sri Lanka rebel ofcls surrender rptd 4-22, 277A2 Ark mil recruiting booth shooter (Muhammad) Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-4, 392D2 Afghan translator seized/slain, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3 US contractors, Iraq detainees abuse suit nixed 9-11, 629B2 Afghan translator slain 10-27, 750G2 Cuba base detainees transferred, Palau aid rptd 10-31—11-1, 760D2 US/Israeli atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Ariz barrier aid funding case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, 246D2, A3 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659E1–G1 Slovakia minority curbs complaint set 8-3, law enacted 9-1, 608G2 Military Issues US/Iraq translators ltd mask use OKd 1-7, 102B1 Gay Natl Guard lt (Choi) ouster block sought, denied 5-11—5-12, 392A3 Obituaries Elon, Amos D 5-25, 384G1 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 Safire, William 9-27, 672G3 Soderstrom, Elisabeth 11-20, 896E3 Yang Xianyl 11-23, 956G3 Political Issues Turkey parlt speech spurs uproar 2-24, 227A1 Iran, Persian New Year messages sent 3-20, 179C1, C2 US/China amb (Huntsman) named 5-16, 353F3 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368D2, F2, 369F1 Turkey Kurdish rights hike proposal unveiled 11-13, 803F3, 804A1 Sports Issues LPGA comr (Bivens) quits 7-13, 595B2

LANGUAGE of God, The: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (book) Collins named NIH dir 7-8, 491A2

LANIER, Cathy Vehicle checkpoints authrzn nixed 11-16, 870G1

LANSBURY, Angela Blithe Spirit revival opens in NYC 3-15, 255F3 Wins Tony 6-7, 400C1, E1 Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954A2

LANSBURY, David Groundswell opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

LANTOS, Tom (1928-2008) (U.S. representative from Calif., 1981-2008; Democrat) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3 Dalai Lama awarded rigths prize 10-6, 712F3

LANTOS Human Rights Prize Dalai Lama honored 10-6, 712F3

LANZA, Brig. Gen. Stpehen On Iraq violnc drop 6-24, 433A2

2009 Index LAOS (Lao People’s Democratic Republic) Accidents & Disasters Storm Ketsana hits, missing rptd 10-1, 664C1, B3 Storm Ketsana death toll rptd 10-2, 684D3 Civil Strife Calif coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933F2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Trafficker (Orobator) pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3; UK transfer set, leaves 7-27—8-7, appeal filed 12-8, 933D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E2; 10-1, 734E2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934A2, A3 Trade, Aid & Investment ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748E2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sen Webb tours region 8-14—8-17, 558A3

LAPUS, Jesli On teacher kidnappings 11-9, 819E3

La REPUBBLICA (Italian newspaper) Berlusconi defamatn suit filed 8-28, 626F3

LARGE Hadron Collider French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704B2 Restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824F1 Particle acceleratn mark set 11-30, 952A2

LARIJANI, Ali At Munich Security Conf 2-6, 74C3–D3, 75A1 Visits Iraq, dismisses Obama video message 3-25, 179A3–B3 Seeks Tehran Univ paramil raid probe 6-16, 402A2 At Khamenei address 6-19; on electn results 6-21, boycotts Ahmadinejad celebratn 6-24, 421G2, 422D2, C3 Dismisses prisoners rape allegatns 8-12, 561G2 Delays Ahmadinejad cabt confrmatn vote 8-19, 562F1, E2 Ahmadinejad cabt confrmatn backed 9-2, 609G3

LARIJANI, Sadeq Named judiciary chief 8-15, names prosecutor gen (Mohseni-Ejei) 8-19, 562E2–F2 Sets prison abuse probe 8-29, 610G1 Dissidents trial cont 9-14, 628E3

LARIO, Veronica On husband Europn Parlt candidates recruiting 4-28; seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328C1–G1 Husband escort use alleged 6-17, 463G2 Husband escort recordings posted 7-23, 626F3

La RIVA, Gloria Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

LaROCHE, Adam Traded to Red Sox, Braves 7-22, 7-31, 531A2

LARRY King Live (TV show) Colo balloon incident family interviewed 10-18, 745D3

LARSON, John B. (U.S. representative from Conn., 1999- ; Democrat) Seated Dem Caucus chair 1-6, 5D1

LARTER, Ali Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

La RUE, Danny (Daniel Patrick Carroll) (1927-2009) Dies 5-31, 400B3

La RUE, Frank On PI prov slayings 12-3, 853C2

La RUSSA, Tony 2d in NL top mgr voting 11-18, 824C1

LASKER Foundation, Albert and Mary Awards announced 9-14, 671E2

LASKER Medical Research Awards, Albert Announced 9-14, 671E2 Blackburn/Szostak/Greider win Nobel 10-5, 694B1

LASKO, Regina Weds Letterman 3-19, 192A1 Husband regrets affairs 10-5, 692A2

—LEBANON 1093 LAST, The (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

LAST House on the Left, The (film) On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

LAST Lecture, The (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-29, 452B1

LAST Name (recording) Underwood wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

LAST Song, The (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672A1

LAS Vegas Sun (newspaper) Pulitzer won 4-20, 279B2

LATE Show (TV show) Letterman regrets Gov Palin daughter joke 6-15, 455C3 Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1

LATIN America—See country and organization names LATINOS—See HISPANIC Americans LATIP, Abdul Basir Held 12-16, 890B3–C3

LATTER-Day Saints, The Church of Jesus Christ of—See MORMONS LATVIA, Republic of Crime & Civil Disorders Riots erupt 1-13, 37B3, E3 Economy & Labor ‘09 GDP forecast 2-18, 117G1 Crisis warned 3-11, 173C2 European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 EU mtg held 3-1, 136B2 EU summit held 3-19—3-20, 188C3 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Early electns sought 1-13, parlt ouster vote seen 1-14, 37F3–G3 Godmanis, cabt quit 2-20, Dombrovskis named premr 2-26, 117F1 Govt coalitn OKd 3-12, 173A2 Facts on Dombrovskis 3-12, 173D2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-12, 234F2; 10-1, 734F2 Monetary Issues Lat devaluatn opposed 2-26, 110B2–C2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis Riga march held 3-16, 207E2 Sports Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859C3 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit outlook cut 2-24, 117C2 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1

LAU, Rabbi Yisrael Meir On Pope Benedict Holocaust meml remarks 5-11, 335E2

LAUFFER, Mike Sells Rachel Alexandra 5-6, filly wins Preakness 5-16, 347D1

LAUGERUD Garcia, Kjell Eugenio (1930-2009) (Guatemaluan president, 1974-78) Dies 12-9, 955B2

LAUHENASPESSY, Abraham (Captain Bram) Ship halted 10-12, held 10-19, 931F1

LAUNCH Vehicles—See SPACE—Satellites LAURENT, Melanie Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

LAURENTS, Arthur West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

LAURIA, Thomas Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld 6-5—6-9, 385E2

LAURIE, Hugh Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

LAURINKUS, Mecys Recalled 12-15, 903C1

LAUTENBERG, Frank R. (U.S. senator from N.J., 1982-2000/2003- ; Democrat) Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720A2

Intl abortn aid measure dropped 12-10, 867B1 Brazil boy return ordrd 12-22, 926D2

LAUTNER, Taylor Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

LAVENDER Morning (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840C1

LAVERY, Bryony Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

LAVI, Lara Buys Death Row records 1-15, 104E2

La VIE en Rose (film) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2

LAVROV, Sergei On Georgia breakaway region border cop slaying 1-16, 85G1 Sees US’s Clinton 3-6, 142D2 On Moldova riots 4-8, 225G3 N Korea A-program talks exit confrmd 4-24, 342C3 Vs EU econ partnerships 4-28, 336G3 Warns NATO cncl mtg boycott 5-5, 311F1 Visits US 5-7, 311A2 On Czech diplomat ousters 8-17, 645E2 Denies hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt 9-8, 616D1, F1 Backs Iran A-program Sec Cncl proposals 9-10, 599E3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707C1 Hosts US’s Clinton 10-13, 705D3 Hosts UK’s Miliband 11-2, 766C2–E2

LAW, Jude Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1 Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

LAW Abiding Citizen (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

LAWRENCE, Andrea Mead (Andrea Bario Mead) (1932-2009) Dies 3-30, 256D3

LAWRENCE, D(avid) H(erbert) (1885-1930) Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

LAWRENCE, Jack (Jack Lawrence Schwartz) (1912-2009) Dies 3-15, 192B3

LAWRENCE, Marc Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

LAWRIE, Danielle Wash wins women’s Coll World Series, named MVP 6-2, 484A3

LAWSON, Nigel (Baron Lawson of Blaby) Walters dies 1-3, 40E3

LAWSON, Ty UNC wins NCAA basketball title 4-6, 229E3, 230E1 In NBA draft, traded to Nuggets 6-25, 451E1, A2

LAWYERS—See COURTS LAYTON, Jack Sees Liberals/Conservatives ‘new coalitn’ 1-28, 50A3 Sees Harper 8-25, 589G1

LAZARD Ltd. Wasserstein dies 10-14, 731G3

LAZAREVIC, Vladimir Convctd 2-26, 110F1

LAZIO, Rick Sets NY gov bid 9-22, 639C2 Giuliani backs Sen bid 12-22, 908F3

LBC (Lebanese TV station) Saudi talk show offenders sentncd, rptr (Yami) punishmt suspended 10-7—10-26, 944F1

LE, Annie Disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; suspect (Clark) chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920B1

LEACH, Jim (James A. S.) Named NEH chair 6-3, 373C2 Confrmd, sworn NEH chair 8-7, 8-12, 548D2

LEAD Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, 33F2, A3 Toys testing hike delayed 1-30, curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340A3 China smelters shut/plant stormed, child poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2

Toy chems find rptd 11-24, lead testing delayed 12-18, 918G1

LEADER of the Pack (song/play) Greenwich dies 8-26, 596F2

LEAHY Jr., Sgt. Michael Convctd 2-20, 118E2–G2 Slayings troop (Mayo) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-30, 208E3 Iraq detainees slayings troop (Hatley) convctd, sentncd 4-15—4-16, 254F3

LEAHY, Patrick J. (U.S. senator from Vt., 1975- ; Democrat) Reseated Judiciary chair 1-6, 5C2 On atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmatn vote delay 1-21, 30A3 Obama doubts Bush admin probe 2-9, 78E3, 79B2 Proposes Bush terror policies probe indep comm 2-9, 80E1–A2* Bush admin policies truth comm proposal hearing held 3-4, 130A2 Seeks Bybee CIA interrogatn testimony 4-29, 290E3–F3 On Justice Souter replacemt nominatn 5-3, 302D1–E1 Sets Sotomayor Sup Ct confrmatn hearing date 6-9, 389E2, G2–A3 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 469B1, C2, 470C1, 471A3 Backs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) 7-28, 503D1 Blocks Mex rights abuses rpt 8-5, 556B2–C2 Backs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn 8-6, 519E3 Seeks Tex mil base shooting probe results 11-19, 813E1 Scores Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans 12-27, 934E2

LEAN, Sir David (1908-91) Jarre dies 3-28, 212E3 Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

LEAR Corp. Lear bankruptcy filed 7-7, financing OKd 7-30, 536B2

LEARY, Denis Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

LEATHER & Leather Products Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2

LEAVE This Town (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

LEBANON, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Ships sinkings kill 18+, survivors rescued 12-11—12-20, 943D2 Arab Relations Syria amb apptmts OKd, Demascus embassy opens 3-16, 211D1–E1 Palestinian party conf held 8-4—8-11, 545F3 Hariri visits Syria 12-19—12-20, 945D3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Army Corps bribery Afghan worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, Apr renditn confrmd 8-22, 567G2 Civil Strife & Military Developments Israel rockets fired 1-8, 2G2; 1-14, 13A2–B2 Hariri slaying probe suspects freed 2-25, UN tribunal opens 3-1, 210G3 US/Syria delegatn visit set 3-3, 123A3, C3–D3 Palestinian refugee camp blast kills 4 3-23, 211E1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196F2 Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312A2 Hariri slaying Hezbollah role alleged, denied 5-23—5-24, 380D2 Beirut clashes erupt 6-28, 450A3 Israeli truce zone blast hits 7-14, 615C1 Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593B1 Rockets fired, Israeli troops clash 9-11, 615B1 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936G1 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707F3 Hezbollah aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4; Iran role rptd 11-11, US smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878E1, D2 Venez’s Chavez hails Ramirez 11-20, 929A3 UK rptr (Collett) body find rptd 11-23, 877F3 Blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945E2 Economy & Labor Financier (Ezzedine) chrgd 9-12, 877C3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312E2 Israel spy suspects escape seen, chrgd 5-5—6-5, 877G3

1094 LEBEDEV— European Relations UK/Hezbollah talks set, hailed 3-5—3-6, 156D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234F2 Parlt electns held 6-7, Hezbollah concedes, results rptd 6-8, 397B3 Parlt speaker (Berri) reelected 6-25, Hariri sees Nasrallah, named premr 6-25—6-27, 450A2 Facts on Hariri 6-27, 450E2 Hariri drops unity govt bid, steps down 9-10, 610C3 Hariri renamed premr 9-16, unity govt set, reforms vowed 11-9, 790C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734F2 Natl unity govt urged 10-8, 707D3–E3 Unity govt OKd 12-10, 877G2 Human Rights US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368E3 Latin American Relations Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925B1 Obituaries Hafez, Amin al- 7-13, 955A2 Press & Broadcasting Saudi talk show offenders sentncd, rptr (Yami) punishmt suspended 10-7—10-26, 944F1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Australia raids net suspects 8-4, 930C2 Trade, Aid & Investment Hezbollah/IMF, EU aid talks rptd 5-27, 380C2 UN Policy & Developments UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675G2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 144D3 Clinton visits 4-26, 297A3, E3 Biden visits 5-22, 380G1 Mitchell tour ends 9-18, 634A3

LEBEDEV, Aleksandr Sets Evening Standard stake buy 1-21, 76F2 Seeks paper staff gun permits 1-22, 36D3 Sochi mayoral bid nixed 4-13, 328F2

LEBEDEV, Platon Trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Pleads not guilty 4-21, 328G3

LECKRONE, David Sees orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt 5-19—5-23, 373B1

Le CLEZIO, Jean-Marie Gustave ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

LeCROY, Charles SEC chrgs challenge set 11-4, 910B3

LEDBETTER, Lilly Gender pay parity bills pass House 1-14, 20B1 Gender pay parity bill clears Cong 1-22—1-27, signed 1-29, 47A3–B3

LEDERER Jr., William Julius (1912-2009) Dies 12-5, 955C2

LEDEZMA, Antonio Hunger strike ends 7-8, 494A1

LEDGER, Heath(cliff Andrew) (1979-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3 Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2 Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2 Wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104G1 Wins Oscar 2-22, 120D1–E1, C2

LEDWIDGE, Michael Run For Your Life on best-seller list 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1 Quickie on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

LED Zeppelin (music group) Plant wins Grammys 2-8, 88G1

LEE, Maj. Convctd, sentncd 5-5, 311F3

LEE, Barbara (U.S. representative from Calif., 1998- ; Democrat) Visits Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249F1–A2

LEE, Cliff Traded to Phillies 7-29, 531B2 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752B2 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770A2–B2, D3–E3 Traded to Mariners 12-16, 948D3

LEE, Courtney Magic lose NBA title 6-14, 419A2 Traded to Nets 6-25, 451D2

LEE, Danny An wins US Amateur Champ 8-30, 670F2

LEE, David Among NBA rebounding ldrs 4-15, 278B3

FACTS LEE, Derrek Among NL RBI ldrs 10-6, 690E3

LEE, Rev. Eric SCLC natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2

LEE, Euna Held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215E3 Sweden’s Foyer visits 3-30—5-15; indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14,, 360E2–F2 N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396A1, C1 Amnesty sought, ‘guest house’ detentn rptd 7-9—7-10, 517C1–D1, G2, B3 Clinton visits N Korea, freed/returns 8-4—8-5, 517B1–D1, A2, B3, 518A1–B1 N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, China claims rejected 9-3, 600D3–G3

LEE, Judge Gerald Bruce Sentncs Bush assassinatn plotter (Ali) 7-27, 678E3

LEE, Jason Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

LEE Enterprises Inc. Antitrust complaint filed 5-15, Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393F1

LEE Hoi Chang Ex-pres (Roh) mourning blocked 5-23, 360F3

LEE Hu Rak (1924-2009) Dies 10-31, 955D2

LEE Myung Bak (South Korean president, 2008- ) N Korea hostile posture declared, border alert hiked 1-17, 36A1 Cabt shuffled 1-19, 51F2, A3 Urges N Korea talks return 1-30, 84C1–D1 N Korea issues passenger flights warning 3-5, 143D1 Visits Thai, hotel protested/ASEAN summit nixed 4-11, 250D2 N Korea jt industrial park talks held 4-21—4-22, deals nixed 5-15, 343A1 On ex-pres (Roh) suicide, orders state funeral 5-23, 360E3–F3, 361C1 N Korea A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast scored 5-25—5-26, 350C3, 351B2 On N Korea A-program talk 6-6, visits US 6-16, 404F1 Media indus reforms pass parlt 7-22, 764E2 Hyundai chair (Hyun) visits N Korea, border curbs eased 8-10—8-17, marks Japanese liberatn anniv 8-15, 558C1, F1 Hosts N Korea delegatn 8-23, 568D2, B3–C3 Flash flood kills 6, bodies found 9-6—9-7, N Korea explanatn issued, scored 9-7, 600D2 On N Korea A-program talks 9-21, 653C1 At China/Japan summit, mulls N Korea A-program 10-9—10-10, backs flood control talks 10-14, 712A2–C2, F2 Sees Japan’s Hatoyama 10-10, 703A3 N Korea ofcl mtgs rptd 10-22, food aid offrd 10-26, 764A1, C1 Hosts US’s Obama 11-19, 795D3–E3 Halts natl capital split 11-27, 934E1 Offers N Korea swine flu outbreak aid 12-8, 873E3, G3 Pardons Samsung ex-chair (Lee) 12-29, 934B1

LEE Sush-der Keeps finance min post 9-9—9-10, 625A2

LEETCH, Brian Elected to HOF 6-23, 435E3 Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

LEFEBVRE, Archbishop Marcel (1905-91) Bps reinstated 1-24, 43A2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179C3

LEFEVER, Ernest Warren (1919-2009) Dies 7-29, 532G1

LEGACY of Light (play) Opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

LEGAL Profession—See COURTS LEGEND, John (John Stephens) Wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

LEGG, Sir Thomas Seeks Brown, MPs expenses repaymt 10-12, 727A3–C3

LEGGET, Chris Slain 6-23; attack claimed 6-25, suspects held, Mali entry seen 7-17—7-18, 493E1

LEGG Mason Inc. Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 178B1

LEGISLATION, U.S.—See CONGRESS; specific law (e.g., CLEAN Air Act) LEGUIZAMO, John Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

LEGUIZAMON, Benigna Alleges child Lugo paternity 4-20, 294D3, F3

LEHMAN Brothers Holdings Inc. ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10C1 Money-mkt security hike proposed 6-24, 716E2 CIT Group cont govt aid nixed 7-15, Goldman ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16, 490G1, 491B1 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Mutual fund indus govt aid end set 9-10, Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, 618C1, C2

LEIBERMAN, Avigdor Party joins coalitn, forgn min apptmt set 3-15, 190F1

LEIBOWITZ, Jon On Intel/AMD antitrust suits setlmt 11-12, 800F2

LEIBOWITZ, Shamai Kedem Pleads guilty 12-17, 916A2, B2

LEIGH, Amari Rose Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

LEIGH, Mike Wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3

LEIGH Day & Co. Ivory Coast toxic waste dump setlmt OKd, health woes link doubted 9-20—9-23, 654C1

LEKOTA, Mosiuoa Dandala pres bid set 2-20, 152B1–C1

LEL, Martin Wanjiru sets London Marathon mark 4-26, 332E1

LELLOUCHE, Pierre On Holocaust denial 2-6, 74D3

LEMACON, Florent Pvt yacht (Tanit) seized 4-4, slain 4-10, 238D2

LEMAIRE, Jacques Retires 4-12, 299E3 Richards named replacemt 6-16, 435E3 Named Devils coach 7-13, 731A1

LeMIEUX, George Named to Sen 8-28, 584G3–585C1

LEMIEUX, Mario Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 419F3

Le MONDE (French newspaper) Natl ID bias fight vowed 12-8, 937B1

LEMORIN, Lyglenson Sears Tower terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, 374F3

LENARD, Judge Joan Sentncs Argentina’s Fernandez de Kirchner pres bid Venez funds muzzler 3-16, 205C1 Sears Tower terror plot trial juror ouster rptd 5-12, 374G3 Sentncs Sears Tower terror plotters 11-18—12-19, 914F1, G1

LENIHAN, Brian Unveils budget 12-9, 856E1–F1

LENO, Jay Ends ‘Tonight Show’ run 5-29, O’Brien replaces 6-1, 383F3 Primetime show debuts 9-14, 632D2 Show tops Nielsens 9-14, 672A2

LENOTRE, Gaston (Albert Celestin) (1920-2009) Dies 1-12, 40F2

Le NOUVEL Obervateur (French newspaper) Italy’s Berlusconi defamatn suit filed 8-28, 626F3

LEO, Melissa Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

LEON, Judge Richard Orders Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release 1-14, 20F2–G2 Upholds Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status 1-28, 64B1–C1

ON FILE

Upholds Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn 4-2, 506C1

LEONARD, Hugh (John Joseph Byrne) (1926-2009) Dies 2-12, 120D3

LEONARDIA, Evelio Declares fire calamity 11-8, 891F1

LEOSDOTTIR, Jonina Parlt electns held 4-26, 296C1

LEPAROUX, Julien She Be Wild wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies 11-6, 807C2 Informed Decisn wins Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint 11-6, 807D2 Furthest Land wins Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile 11-7, 807F2

Le PEN, Marine On Mitterrand sex tourism claims, urges resignatn 10-5, 707G2

LERER, Seth Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

LESBIANS—See HOMOSEXUALITY LESIN, Mikhail Fired 11-18, 892G3

LESLIE, Lisa Sparks loses WNBA conf finals, retires 9-26, 807G3

LESNIAK, Raymond Nixes gay marriage Sen vote 12-9, 868A2

LESOTHO, Kingdom of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234G2; 10-1, 734F2

LESTER, Jon Among AL ERA/Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F2

LETANG, Kris Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420D1

LETANG, Petra My Wonderful Day opens in NYC 11-18, 954B2

LETERME, Yves (Belgian premier, 2008) Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3 Named premr 11-25, 820C2

LETIZIA, Noemi Berlusconi birthday party attendnc mulled 4-28, 328F1–G1

Le TRIOMPHANT (French submarine) In UK A-sub collisn 2-3; incident rptd 2-6, crash confrmd 2-16, 91E3

LETTERMAN, David Weds Lasko 3-19, 192A1 Regrets Gov Palin daughter joke 6-15, 455C3 Reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1

LETTERMAN, Harry At parents’ wedding 3-19, 192A1

LETTERMAN, Rob Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

LETTER to Me (recording) Paisley wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

LET the Great World Spin (book) McCann wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860B1

LETTS, Tracy Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

LEVEY, Stuart Cont Treasury role set 3-23, 200G2

LEVI, Zachary Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

LEVIN, Carl (U.S. senator from Mich., 1979- ; Democrat) Reseated Armed Svcs chair 1-6, 5A2 Dep defns secy nominee (Lynn) confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29G1 On GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nix 3-30, 199C1 On terror detainees interrogatn abuse 4-21, 261D1 Holds Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing 6-2, 381C2 Questns Jt Chiefs chair (Mullen) 9-13, 629G2–A3 Backs hate crimes bill 10-8, 700F3

LEVIN, Daniel Terror detainees CIA interrogatn documts issued 8-24, 567B1

LEVIN, Mark R. Liberty and Tyranny on best-seller list 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1 Conservative Manifesto on best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

2009 Index LEVIN, Sandor M. (U.S. representative from Mich., 1983- ; Democrat) On auto indus bankruptcies 2-19, 93B1

LEVINE, David (1926-2009) Dies 12-29, 955E2

LEVINE, Diana Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130F2–A3

LEVINSON, Arthur Apple/Google bd dirs overlap probe rptd 5-5, quits 10-12, 744F3

LEVINSON, Daniel On food tracing woes 3-26, 268C3

LEVINSON, Robert Locatn sought 3-31, 195C2

LEVI-Strauss, Claude (1908-2009) Dies 10-30, 772G1; photo 772F2

LEVITT, Helen (1913-2009) Dies 3-29, 212G3

LEVITT, Steven D. SuperFreakonomics on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

LEVY, Caissie Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

LEVY, Chandra (1977-2001) Slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149D1 Slaying suspect (Guandique) chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 920A1

LEVY, Shawn Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

LEWINSKY, Monica S. Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, 410F1 SC gov (Sanford) admits affair 6-24, 424D2 Bacon dies 8-15, 648F1

LEWIS, Andrew Denies balloon hoax mom deportatn threat 11-13, 817F2

LEWIS, Jenifer Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

LEWIS, Jerry (U.S. representative from Calif., 1979- ; Republican) Cuba base closure funds block nixed 6-18, 488F2

LEWIS, Jim Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954E1

LEWIS, John (U.S. representative from Ga., 1987- ; Republican) Seeks drug price rise probe 11-18, 797B1

LEWIS, Kenneth Bonus paymt nixed 1-6, on Merrill buy 1-16, 32D1–E1, A2 Merrill execs subpoenaed 3-4, bonus paymts info release ordrd 3-18, 220E2 Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-20, 264C3, E3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, Lewis chair ouster OKd 4-29, 291A2, D2–A3 Testifies to House com 6-11, 388E1, B2 Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-25, 456A3–C3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 7-17, 504G1–A2 Sets resignatn 9-30, 657D2 ‘09 pay nixed 10-15, on Bank of Amer loan losses 10-16, 715F1, F2–G2 On govt aid repaymt deal 12-2, 830F2–G2 Successor (Moynihan) named 12-16, 909G2

LEWIS, Rashard Magic lose NBA title 6-14, 419C2 Suspended, admits banned substnc use 8-6, 771B3

LEYDEN, Ursula von der Named labor min 11-27, 836B1

LI, Jet Founding of a Repub released 10-1, 683G1

LIBBY, I. Lewis (Scooter) Pardon backed 1-21, 33F3–G3 Pardon nix mulled 3-15, 166C3–D3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815B3, D3

LIBEL & Slander Lobbyist (Iseman)/NYT suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151B3 BTA allegatns spark bank run 3-6; Resublika fined, papers seized 9-9—9-18, Kazakh press freedoms questnd 9-22, 663A2 WSJ Asia ed (Kirkpatrick) contempt found 3-19, Far Eastn Econ Review fine upheld 10-7, 936D1

—LINCOLN 1095 Tazadlar ed/rptr convctd, sentncd 4-7; punishmts opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, Azadlyg rptr (Zakhidov) freed, cont imprisonmts rptd 4-9, 252F3 Time wins Indonesia’s Suharto allegatns appeal 4-16, 935G3 Italy’s Berlusconi scandal coverage mulled 8-12, defamatn suits filed 8-28, 626F3 Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft alleged 8-17, claims scored 8-23, 593E2 Novaya Gazeta, Stalin grandson suit opens 9-15, 667G2 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump libel suit warned 9-16, 654F1–G1 Chechnya pres (Kadyrov) libeling ruled, Memorial/Orlov damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Stalin grandson suit nixed 10-13, 767A1 Russian cops false arrests claimed 11-6, whistleblower fired, probe set 11-8, 855A2 Moscow mayor (Luzhkov) defamatn paymts ordrd 11-30, 892F3 Canadian curbs backed by Sup Ct 12-22, 927E1

LIBERIA, Republic of African Relations Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2 Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A1, C1, G1–A2 Guinea anti-junta rally crack down scored 9-29—9-30, 660E3 Guinea forgn interventn urged, nixed 12-13—12-14, 871B1 Civil Strife Truth Comm final rpt issued 7-7, 925A2 Conflict end Nigeria role hailed 8-12, 540C3 European Relations Johnson-Sirleaf visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234G2 Johnson-Sirleaf pol ban urged 7-7, 925A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734G2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Migrants rescued 4-16; Italy entry OKd 4-19, origins rptd 4-20, 262E2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Taylor’s son sentncd 1-9, 50A1 Clinton visits 8-13, 540A1, C3, E3

LIBERTY, Evan Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942E2

LIBERTY and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1

LIBERTY Sun (U.S. cargo ship) Somali pirates hijacking fails 4-14, arrives in Kenya 4-16, 238D3

LIBI, Abu Yahia alChinese Uighurs jihad urged 10-8, 703B2

LIBI, Ibn al-Shaykh alSees rights advocates 4-27, death rptd 5-10, 331A2–B2

LIBRARIES Bushes return to Tex 1-20, 26A3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108B3 Google bk scanning setlmt opposed 8-20, 601E1 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd, chngs OKd 9-18—11-19; Chinese author suit filed, text removed/hearing held 11-19—12-29, French violatns ruled 12-14, 936F2, A3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, bldg design unveiled 11-18, 814G2, F3 Obituaries Krug, Judith 4-11, 256D3

LIBRARY of Congress, U.S. Ryan renamed US poet laureate 4-13, 280F2

LIBYA (Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) Accidents & Disasters Migrants boat capsizing kills 230+, survivors search ends/overcrowding rptd 3-30—4-2, 262E2 African Relations AU summit held, Qaddafi elected chair 2-1—2-4, 82F1, G2 AU summit hosted 7-1—7-3, 459A1 Niger, Mali rebels peace deal set 10-6, 903A3 Arab Relations Arab League summit held 3-30, 196E3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890G2

Defense & Disarmament Issues Intl arms smuggling suspect (Tinner) bust aid claimed 1-22, 75C3 Pak A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, 75F2 Pak A-scientest (Khan) movement limits lifted, reinstated 8-28—9-2, 595B1 European Relations Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416C2 Italy’s Berlusconi visits 8-30, 583G2 IRA victims compensatn sought, nixed 9-6—9-7, 636E3 Qaddafi addresses Italian women 11-16, 812E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A3 Qaddafi coup anniv marked 9-1, 583E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734G2 Human Rights Activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 358G3 Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants rescued 4-16, Italy entry OKd 4-19, 262A2, D2 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Middle East Relations Iran’s Ahmadinejad/AU summit role confrmd, nixed 6-30—7-1, 459C3 Monetary Issues Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Sports Qaddafi sets Egypt/Algeria World Cup qualifying dispute mediatn 11-24, 859F1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Al Qaeda operative (Libi) death rptd 5-10, 331G1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns 8-20, 550B1, B2–D2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, return welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3, 568A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 582D3, 583F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636C2–D2, B3–D3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704A3–C3 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Israel/Hamas ceasefire nixed 1-3, 3D1 Sudan’s Bashir chrgs drop urged 3-6, 185B1 Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn vote abstained 6-15, 406A2 Qaddafi NYC travel ltd, Gen Assemb visit mulled 8-28—9-2, 583A3–C3 Qaddafi NY tent stay nixed 9-22, addressses Gen Assemb 9-23, 633B1, D2, G2, B3 Treki closes Gen Assem debate 9-29, 651D3 Qaddafi addresses food security summit 11-17, 812C2 Eritrea sanctns opposed 12-23, 903E1

LICHTENBELT, Wouter van Marken Finds adults energy-burning fat cells 4-9, 580B1

LIDDY, Edward On govt aid funds use 3-2, 126A3 Bonus paymts return sought, scored 3-11—3-14, testifies to House com 3-18, 161B1, B2–C2, B3–C3 Testifies to House com 5-13, 319D2 Successor (Benmosche) named 8-3; on ‘09 2d 1/4 profit 8-7, steps down 8-10, 585B3, D3

LIDGE, Brad Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752G1 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770B3–C3, E3

LIDSTROM, Niklas Misses All-Star Game, suspended 1-25, protest filed 2-25, 159B2

LIEBERMAN, Avigdor Arab parties parlt electns banned, reinstated 1-12, 1-21, 86C1 Parlt electns held 2-10; sees party ldrs 2-11, results issued 2-12, 85G2, C3, 86A1 Backs Likud 2-19, 118D3–E3 Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31; on Palestinian talks 4-1, questnd 4-2, 209G2, E3–F3 Citizens loyalty oaths bill nixed 5-31, 769B1

Drops Palestinian peace talks role 7-6, 546D1 Indictmt urged 8-2, 689A2–B2 Doubts Palestinian peace deal 10-8, 730E2

LIEBERMAN, Joseph I. (U.S. senator from Conn., 1989- ; Independent) Reseated Homeland & Govt Affairs chair 1-6, 5B2 Questns natl intell dir (Blair) 3-10, 145C1 Seeks debt reductn measures 10-19, 713F2 Vs health care reform pub option 10-27, 741A2 Climate chng bill talks sought 11-4, 760B1 On health care reform bill 11-8, 774G2 Opens Ft Hood shooting hearings 11-19, 813A1 Backs health care reform bill debate 11-21, 809F1 Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 848A1 Issues climate bill framework 12-10, 883F1 On health care reform, sees Reid/Emanuel 12-13, Medicare hike dropped 12-14, 863C2–A3 Backs health care reform bill 12-24, 905G1

LIECHTENSTEIN, Principality of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A3; 10-1, 734A3 Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-12, 163A2, C2

LI Fangwei Chrgd, denies Iran mil aid 4-7—4-8, 217B3–D3

LIFE Is Sweet (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic 11-6, 807D2

LIFELOCK Inc. Mercury sponsorship deal set 6-1, 808D1

LIGHTING & Light Fixtures Energy efficency standards ordrd 2-5, 94B2

LIGHTSEY, Sammy Pleads 5th to House com hearing 2-11, 95C3–D3

LI Keqiang On Turkmen gas deal 6-24, 473D2 Visits Australia/NZ/PNG 10-29—11-5, 802A2

LILLY, Ruth (1915-2009) Dies 12-30, 955F2

LILLY & Co., Eli Ruth Lilly dies 12-30, 955F2

LILLY Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (2009) Signed 1-29, 47B3

LILLY Poetry Prize, Ruth Howe wins 4-14, 364F1 Lilly dies 12-30, 955F2

LIL Wayne (Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.) Wins Grammys, performs 2-8, 88B2, D2, A3–B3 ‘Down’ on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

LIMBAUGH, Rush Addresses CPAC 2-28; in White House clash 3-1—3-2, scores GOP chair (Steele) remarks, apology issued 3-2, 146B2, F2–G2 Cheney remarks scored 3-16, 166A3 Questns Gen Powell GOP role 5-6, remarks scored 5-25, 353E2–G2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearing date set 6-9, 389C3 Questns Obama citizenship 7-21, 552D3 Rams buyout bid questnd 10-13, role dropped 10-14, 948B2

LIMINOV, Eduard In Moscow protests, held 1-31, 69G1

LIMMT Economic & Trade Co. Chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 217B3–C3

LIMONOV, Eduard Held 8-31, 667F3

LIN, Justin Fast & Furious on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

LINCECUM, Tim NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483D3 NL Ks ldr, among ERA ldrs 10-6, 690F3 Wins NL Cy Young 11-19, 823B3

LINCICOME, Brittany Wins Kraft Nabisco Champ 4-5, 332G1

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-65) (U.S. president, 1861-65; Republican) Ford’s Theatre reopens 2-8, 211D3 Watch opened, inscriptn confrmd 3-10, 300F2 Biographer (Donald) dies 5-13, 364C3

1096 LINCOLN— LINCOLN, Blanche Lambert (U.S. senator from Ark., 1999- ; Democrat) Health care reform bill doubts seen 10-7, 676G3* Health care reform bill issued 11-18, 796G3 Backs health care reform bill debate 11-21, 809D1–E1 Seeks health care reform CBO analysis 12-9, 848A1

LINCOLN Center for the Performing Arts (N.Y., N.Y.) Farley named chrmn 6-8, 400A2

LIND, Adam Among AL RBI/HR ldrs 10-6, 690E2

LINDGREN Memorial Award for Literature, Astrid Tamer Institute wins 3-24, 255D3

LINDHOME, Riki Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

LINDHOUT, Amanda Freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3

LINDSEY, Johanna No Choice but Seductn on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

LINEHAN, Rosaleen New Electric Ballroom opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

LING, Laura Held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215E3 Sweden’s Foyer visits 3-30—5-15; indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14,, 360E2–F2 N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396A1, C1 Amnesty sought, ‘guest house’ detentn rptd 7-9—7-10, 517C1–D1, G2, B3 Clinton visits N Korea, freed/returns 8-4—8-5, arrest, detentn detailed 8-6, 517B1–D1, A2, B3, 518A1–B1 N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, China claims rejected 9-3, 600D3–G3

LING, Lisa Sister N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396C1 Sister seeks N Korea amnesty 7-9; freed, returns 8-4—8-5, details arrest, detentn 8-6, 517D1, 518B1

LINNEY, Laura Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24G2

LINS e Silva, Joao Paulo Stepson US return ordrd 12-22, 926C2

LINSMEIER, Thomas Vs financial indus mark-to-mkt rules ease 4-2, 221A1

LION Called Christian, A: The True Story of the Remarkable Bond Between Two Friends and a Lion (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

LISCOMB, Ronald Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848G3

LI Shufu Vows Volvo indep mgmt 12-28, 902F2

LISSAN, Ahmed Tugod Halts Darfur peace talks 3-4, 122D3

LISSOUBA, Pascal (Congolese president, 1992-97) Sassou-Nguesso reelected 7-12, 507B1, F1

LITERACY & Illiteracy Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Pak’s Zardari addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 652A2

LITERATURE Awards & Honors Costa shortlist announced 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139D3 Newbery/Caldecott/Printz announced 1-26, 55G3, 561 O’Neill wins PEN/Faulkner Award 2-25, 160B2 Natl Bk Critics Circle 3-12, 191B3 Tamer Institute wins Lindgren Award 3-24, 255D3 Pulitzer Prizes announced 4-20, 279A2, F2–G2 Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364C1 Hawking gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Man Booker shortlist announced 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692A1* Danticat, Eisenberg win MacArthurs 9-22, 671A2–B2

FACTS Mueller wins Nobel 10-8, 693D2 NDiaye wins Goncourt Prize 11-2, 792B1 Natl Bk Awards presented 11-18, 860B1 Best Sellers (fiction) Agincourt, Cornwell 2-2, 72A1 Alex Cross’s Trial, Patterson 9-28, 672A1 Angel’s Game, Ruiz Zafon 6-29, 452A1 Assoc, Grisham 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1 Best Friends Forever, Weiner 8-3, 532A1 Black Hills, Roberts 8-3, 532A1 Blacks Ops, Griffin 2-2, 72A1 Cemetery Dance, Preston/Child 6-1, 384A1 Corsair, Cussler/Du Brul 3-30, 212A1 Dead and Gone, Harris 6-1, 384A1 Dreamfever, Moning 8-31, 596A1 8th Confessn, Patterson 6-1, 384A1 Finger Lickin’ 15, Evanovich 8-3, 532A1 First Family, Baldacci 5-4, 316A1 Fool, Moore 3-2, 140A1 Ford Cnty, Grisham 11-30, 840A1 Gone Tomorrow, Child 6-1, 384A1 Handle with Care, Picoult 3-30, 212A1 Heart and Soul, Binchy 3-2, 140A1 Help, Stockett 8-3, 532A1; 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 12-21, 956A1 Host, Meyer 2-2, 72A1; 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1 I Alex Cross, Patterson 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1 Just Take My Heart, Clark 5-4, 316A1 KnockOut, Coulter 6-29, 452A1 Last Song, Sparks 9-28, 672A1 Loitering with Intent, Woods 5-4, 316A1 Lost Symbol, Brown 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1 Medusa, Cussler/Kemprecos 6-29, 452A1 Nine Dragons, Connelly 11-2, 772A1 Perfect Poison, Quick 5-4, 316A1 Plum Spooky, Evanovich 2-2, 72A1 Pursuit of Honor, Flynn 11-2, 772A1 Relentless, Koontz 6-29, 452A1 Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception, Lustbader 6-29, 452A1 Run For Your Life, Patterson/Ledwidge 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1 Scarpetta Factor, Cornwell 11-2, 772A1 South of Broad, Conroy 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1 Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Wroblewski 2-2, 72A1 Swimsuit, Patterson/Paetro 8-3, 532A1 Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, McCall Smith 5-4, 316A1 That Old Cape Magic, Russo 8-31, 596A1 U Is for Undertow, Grafton 12-21, 956A1 Under the Dome, King 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1 White Queen, Gregory 8-31, 596A1 Wicked Prey, Sandford 6-1, 384A1 Wrecker, Cussler 11-30, 840A1 Best Sellers (general) Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man, Harvey 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1 Always Looking Up, Fox 5-4, 316B1 Appeal, Grisham 3-2, 140B1 Arguing with Idiots, Beck 11-2, 772B1; 12-21, 956B1 Catastrophe, Morris/McGann 8-3, 532B1 Columbine, Cullen 5-4, 316B1 Culture of Corruption, Malkin 8-31, 596B1 Dewey, Myron/Witter 2-2, 72B1 Flat Belly Diet, Vaccariello/Sass 2-2, 72B1 Girls from Ames, Zaslow 5-4, 316B1 Going Rogue, Palin 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1 Guilty, Coulter 2-2, 72B1 Have a Little Faith, Albom 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1 Honor Thyself, Steel 3-2, 140B1 Horse Soldiers, Stanton 6-29, 452B1 In the President’s Secret Service, Kessler 8-31, 596B1 Last Lecture, Pausch/Zaslow 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-29, 452B1 Liberty and Tyranny, Levin 5-4, 316B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1 Lion Called Christian, Bourke/Rendall 3-30, 212B1 Mastering Art of French Cooking, Child/Beck/Bertholle 8-31, 596B1; 9-28, 672B1 Master Your Metabolism, Michaels/van Aalst 6-1, 384B1 Ofcl Bk Club Selectn, Griffin 9-28, 672B1 Open, Agassi 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1 Outliers, Gladwell 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1 Resilience, Edwards 6-1, 384B1 Revolutnary Rd, Yates 3-2, 140B1 Secrets, Deveraux 3-2, 140B1 Stones into Schls, Mortenson 12-21, 956B1 SuperFreakonomics, Levitt/Dubner 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

Too Big to Fail, Sorkin 11-2, 772B1 True Compass, Kennedy 9-28, 672B1 Uncommon, Dungy/Whitaker 3-2, 140B1 Unmasked, Halperin 8-3, 532B1 What Happy Working Mothers Know, Greenberg/Avigdor 9-28, 672B1 What the Dog Saw, Gladwell 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1 Where Men Win Glory, Krakauer 9-28, 672B1 Yankee Yrs, Torre/Verducci 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1 Best Sellers (mass market paperbacks) Angels & Demons, Brown 5-4, 316C1; 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1 Appeal, Grisham 2-2, 72B1; 3-30, 212C1 Arctic Drift, Cusslers 12-21, 956C1 Assoc, Grisham 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1 Bones, Kellerman 3-30, 212B1 Brass Verdict, Connelly 8-31, 596C1 Confessns of a Shopaholic, Kinsella 3-2, 140B1 Cross Country, Patterson 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1 Danger in a Red Dress, Dodd 3-30, 212C1 Dark Summer, Johansen 5-4, 316C1 Deadlock, Johansen 11-2, 772C1 Dead Until Dark, Harris 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532C1 Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, Koontz 8-31, 596C1 Dear John, Sparks 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1 Divine Justice, Baldacci 9-28, 672C1 Extreme Measures, Flynn 9-28, 672C1 From Dead to Worse, Harris 8-31, 596C1; 9-28, 672C1 Heat Lightning, Sandford 11-2, 772C1 Hold Tight, Coben 3-30, 212B1 Kiss of a Demon King, Cole 2-2, 72B1 Lavender Morning, Deveraux 11-30, 840C1 Living Dead in Dallas, Harris 6-29, 452C1 Marley & Me, Grogan 2-2, 72C1 Moscow Rules, Silva 8-3, 532C1 My Life in France, Child/Prud’homme 8-31, 596C1 My Sister’s Keeper, Picoult 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532B1 92 Pacific Blvd, Macomber 9-28, 672C1 No Choice but Seductn, Lindsey 5-4, 316C1 Phantom Prey, Sandford 6-1, 384C1 Plum Lucky, Evanovich 2-2, 72C1 Quickie, Patterson/Ledwidge 8-31, 596C1 Revolutionary Rd, Yates 2-2, 72B1 Road, McCarthy 12-21, 956C1 Rogue, Steel 6-29, 452C1 Sail, Patterson 6-1, 384C1 Say Goodbye, Gardner 6-1, 384C1 Scarpeeta, Cornwell 9-28, 672C1 Smoke Screen, Brown 8-3, 532C1 TailSpin, Coulter 8-3, 532C1 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Convictn, Michaels 11-30, 840C1 Tribute, Roberts 5-4, 316C1 True Detectives, Kellerman 11-2, 772C1 Where Are You Now?, Clark 5-4, 316C1 Whole Truth, Baldacci 3-30, 212B1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section French bk scanning program funds set 12-14, 936A3 Censorship Issues Thai royal family insulter (Nicolaides) pleads guilty 1-19; pardoned 2-19, returns to Australia 2-22, 154C1 Thai royal family insults suspect (Ungpakorn) chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154E1 Amazon bks lost sales ratings regretted 4-13, e-bks deleted 7-17, 782D1 KKK ex-ldr (Duke) held 4-24, Czech exit ordrd 4-25, 378C1 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Egypt’s Hosni loses electn 9-17—9-22, 675A3 Turkey’s Pamuk, Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, protectns urged 10-14, 706D3–E3 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5, 928A1 Copyrights & Royalties Salinger bk ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484B3 Google bk scanning setlmt review confrmd, oppositn rptd 7-2—8-20; Europn publishers deal OKd 9-8, House com hearing held 9-10, 601A1 Google/bk publishers setlmt questnd, chngs OKd 9-18—11-19; Chinese author suit filed, text removed/hearing held 11-19—12-29, French violatns ruled 12-18, 936E2 Crime Issues Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, 628C1, E1 Libel Issues—See LIBEL Obituaries Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2

ON FILE

Aksyonov, Vasily P 7-6, 500C2 Bach, Steven 3-25, 256E2 Ballard, JG 4-19, 280G2 Benedetti, Mario 5-17, 364A3 Blair, Betsy 3-13, 192F1 Boal, Augusto 5-2, 332F2 Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Browne, Ray B 10-22, 792B3 Calisher, Hortense 1-13, 56E1 Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 Cheng, Nien 11-2, 824D3 Cowles, Fleur 6-5, 420E3 Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Des Forges, Alison 2-12, 104C3 Donald, David H 5-13, 364C3 Druon, Maurice 4-14, 280C3 Dunne, Dominick 8-26, 580G2 Elon, Amos 5-25, 384G1 Farmer, Philip J 2-25, 192E2 French, Marilyn 5-2, 332D3 Friedman, Rose 8-18, 580C3 Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3 Green, Archie 3-22, 231E3 Harris, E Lynn 7-23, 532F1 Holzer, Hans 4-26, 332E3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Kaufman, Millard 3-14, 192A3 Kelton, Elmer S 8-22, 612D3 Kennedy, Sir Ludovic 10-18, 752B3 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 Krug, Judith 4-11, 256D3 Lederer Jr, William J 12-5, 955C2 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1 Lord, James 8-23, 672G2 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 Naess, Arne 1-12, 56D2 Nolan, Christopher J 2-20, 160E3 Norse, Harold 6-8, 484E3 Pavic, Milorad 11-30, 955C3 Poirier, Richard 8-15, 612F3 Purdy, James 3-13, 176B3 Safire, William 9-27, 672G3 Salih, Tayeb 2-28, 176F3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532G2 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 4-12, 280G3 Snodgrass, W D 1-13, 40D3 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56A3 Updike, John 1-27, 56B3; photo 56B3 Upward, Edward F 2-13, 160F3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Yang Xianyi 11-23, 956G3 People Obama bk contract chngd, signs new deal 1-9—1-15, bares royalty paymts 3-19, 201B1 Obama ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1 Gov Palin bk deal revealed 5-12, 455C3 Vargas Llosa, Venez’s Chavez exchng barbs 5-29, 413D2 India party ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2 Mamas and Papas frontman daughter claims incest 9-23, 671G3 France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2–A3 McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Publications MLB steroid dealer (Radomski) claims denied 1-20—1-21, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88A1 Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 Bush bk work confrmd 3-18—3-19, 166D3 Prisoner of the State published 5-19, 5-29, 395B3 Chinese Civilizatn Revisited mulled 9-24, HK sales open 9-25, 683E1–F1 Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708D2 My Brothers Fidel & Raul published 10-26, 762C2 Blowing the Whistle excerpts posted, Random House drop rptd 10-28, 771C3 Open published 11-9, 951E1 Palin interviewed 11-16—11-17; bk published 11-17, opens tour 11-18, 797D1 Trade Issues China import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557A2

LITHGOW, John Confessns of a Shopaholic on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

LITHUANIA, Republic of CIS Relations Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 Crime & Civil Disorders Riots erupt 1-16, 37B3–C3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia border missiles deploymt delayed 1-28, 69C2 NATO/Russia Cncl revival opposed 3-5, 142F1 Russia/Poland border missile deploymt mulled 9-19—9-21, 645E1

2009 Index European Relations Georgia amb (Laurinkus) recalled 12-15, 903D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234A3 Pres electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344C1 Grybauskaite sworn pres 7-12, 512C3 Facts on Grybauskaite 7-12, 512E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734A3 State security dir (Malakauskas) quits 12-14, 903C1 Trade, Aid & Investment Europn Investmt Bank loan set 1-16, 37E3 Credit outlook review set 2-24, 117C2 UN Policy & Developments NYC missn suspicious letter arrives 11-11, 862E2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfer sought 4-29, 305D3 CIA secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, 902D3

LITT, Marc On Madoff indictmt deadline delay 2-11, 113D2

LITTLE Anthony & the Imperials (music group) Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279G3–280A1

LITTLE Dorrit (book/TV miniseries) emmy won 9-20, 647E3, G3

LITTLE League—See BASEBALL LITTLE Night Music, A (play) Revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954G1

LITTLE Stranger, The (book) Waters on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692D1

LITVINENKO, Alexander (1962-2006) Poisoning suspect (Lugovoi) UK extraditn request mulled 11-2, 766D2–E2

LIU Chaoshiuan (Taiwanese premier, 2008-09) On China investmt hike 5-20, 415G3 Defnse min, cabt secy resignatns offrd 8-19, 560A1 Quits 9-7, replacemts named, sworn 9-7—9-10, 625F1, A2 Local electns held 12-5, 891D2

LIU Xiaobo Held 6-23, 448G1 Indicted 12-10, 872A3–B3 Convctd, sentncd 12-25, 932D3

LIU Yaohua Ousted 9-5, 606A1

LIU Zhihua Freed 5-18, 395E3

LIVENT Inc. Ex-execs sentncd 8-5, 548E2

LIVESTOCK Ebola strain pig-to-human PI spread rptd 1-23, pigs infectn confrmd 7-10, 528B3 Yang dies 2-5, 160G3 Anticlotting protein (ATryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202B1 Iraq blast kills 12+ 3-5, 156B1 S Sudan violnc kills 200+ 3-5—3-13, 185F2 USDA ‘downer cattle’ use banned 3-14, 167B3 Argentina farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3 Cow genome deciphered 4-23—4-24, 516C1 Feedlots methane emissns rptg measures backed 6-18—6-25, EPA ‘10 funds pass House 6-26, 488E1 Greece wildfires probe opens 8-24, 577A2 Kenya cattle raids rptd 9-29, 681C2 US wild horses preserves proposed 10-7, 800F3 Leb ship sinking kills 12+, survivors rescued 12-17—12-20, 943E2 Nev wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917E3 Obituaries Hansen, Clifford P 10-20, 772F1

LIVE Your Life (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

LIVIERES Plano, Bishop Rogelio On Lugo paternity claims 4-21, 294F3

LIVING Dead in Dallas (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452C1

LIVINGSTON, Alan Wendell (1917-2009) Dies 3-13, 192C3

LIVINGSTON, Jay (1915-2001) Brother dies 3-13, 192C3

—LOPEZ LIVINGSTON, Ron Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

LIVNI, Tzipi Denies Gaza crisis 1-1, rejects ceasefire talks 1-5, 1C2, C3 Hamas ceasefire mulled, visits US 1-15, 14D1 Signs Gaza antismuggling pact 1-16, sees cont blockade 1-20, 31D1, B3 Parlt electns held, claims win 2-10; sees Lieberman 2-11, results issued 2-12, 85E2, E3–F3, 86A1 Sees party oppositn 2-19; Netanyahu govt sought 2-20, mtg held 2-22, 118C3, E3–F3 Refuses to join Likud coalition 2-27, 190A1 Hosts US’s Clinton 3-3, 123E2, G2 UK warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; visit urged 12-16, Hamas com role rptd 12-21, 884B2, E2–F2 Govt coalitn role offrd, nixed 12-24—12-28, 943G1

LI Xiaochao On ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 7-16, 494C2

LI Yizhong Drops Web-filter software requiremt 8-13, 557E2

LI Zhi Sees Urumqi order return, warns death penalty 7-8, 461F1 Ousted 9-5, 605G3

LI Zhongren Kills 4, self 11-20, motive mulled 11-22, 888D2

LLORENS, Hugo In Zelaya return talks 9-27, 662C1

LLOYD, Phyllida Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

LLOYD, Reginald Gov Sanford issues apology 6-26, probes affair travel costs 7-2, 455G3, 456B1

LLOYD-Hughes, Henry Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

LLOYD Jones, Justice David Nixes Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release 2-4, 80F2

LLOYDS Banking Group PLC RBS govt stake buy set 1-19, 36B2 ‘08 loss seen 2-13, 155A2 Govt stake buy OKd 3-6, 155F1

LLOYDS TSB Lloyds sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 1-9, 863D1

LOBAO, Edison On power outages 11-11, 871F3

LOBBYING & Lobbyists Appointments & Resignations NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373A2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Obama sees financial indus execs 12-14, 864G2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ill gov (Blagojevich) ouster com hearing held 1-8, 93F2 Obama admin curbs hiked 1-21, dep defns secy nominee (Lynn) confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29B1 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1 Treasury curbs set 1-27, 44E3 Boulanger pleads guilty 1-30, Sen Gregg ex-aide (Koonce) Abramoff ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59F2–G2, E3 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148E2 Iseman/NYT suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151B3 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219B1 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; House com chair threat revealed 4-21, briefing admitted 4-22, 263G1–A2 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role Cong briefing delay rptd 4-24; NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, case dropped 5-1, 306F1 UK parlt peers suspensn urged, OKd 5-14, 5-19, 344B1 Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2, 478G3 Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523E3

Poland casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1; party ldr/mins quit 10-1—10-7, Anti-Corruptn Bureau head abuse alleged 10-6, 705A2 House com probes leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients defns funding nix sought 10-30, 779E2 Health Care Reform Experimental cancer drugs Medicare coverage hike rptd 1-27, 133F1 White House health care summit held 3-5, 145D3–G3 Obama sees vets 3-16, pvt insurnc paymt proposal dropped 3-18, 244F3 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed 5-11, 339D3 House bill unveiled 10-29, 741C1 Sen bill mulled, Medicare hike plan dropped 12-13—12-14, 863D3 Obituaries Wexler, Anne 8-7, 580G3 Political Issues ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242E3 NYS gay marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, 266D2 NYS pension fund investmt reforms set 4-22, 265C3 FDA tobacco regulatn bill clears House, signed 6-12—6-22, 428A3 Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655A1 Honduras intl envoy sought 7-29, 508F1 Calif ‘cap-and-trade’ emissns proposal set 11-24, 917G3 Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 869C1

LOBO, Rosa Elena de Husband elected pres 11-29, 834C1

LOBO Sosa, Porfirio (Pepe) Pres electn held, win rptd 11-29, govt recognitn mulled, vote questnd 11-29—12-1, 833G3, 834D1, C2–D2 Facts on 11-29, 834A1

LOCKE, Gary Vs NY floating gas terminal plans 4-13, 917B2

LOCKE, Gary (U.S. commerce secretary, 2009- ) Named commerce secy 2-25, 112G3 Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, tariffs set, take effect 3-16—3-17, 171B3 Commerce secy confrmatn Sen com hearing held 3-18; nominatn backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286G3 Visits China 6-16, 481C3 Files China Web filter requiremt complaint 6-24, 448C1

LOCKE, Gene Earns Houston mayoral runoff 11-3, 756F3 Loses Houston mayoral runoff 12-13, 868F3–869C1

LOCKE, Jeff Traded to Pirates 6-3, 484D2

LOCKE, Robert Grace Mont asbestos trial testimony questnd, upheld 4-17, 4-28, 356A3

LOCKHART 3rd, James Defends Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae bonus paymts 4-3, 220A3 Quits 8-5, 910A1

LOCKHEED Martin Corp. Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, 217C2–D2 US surveillnc satellites replacemt plan OKd, rptd 4-6—4-8, 244B2 Defns Dept jet program info hacked 4-21, 411G1 Pres copters deal ends 5-16, 411G3 F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1

LODGE, Judge Edward Terror ‘material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659A3–B3

LODIN, Azizullah Resignatn urged 10-26, 751B1–D1 Pres candidate (Abdullah) drops bid, alleges bias 11-1, 753E2

LODING, Azizullah On pres electn delay 1-29, 54D1–F1, A2

LOEMBA, Andre Raphael Named oil min 9-15, 722G3

LOESSER, Frank (1910-69) Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

LOFGREN, Zoe (U.S. representative from Calif., 1995- ; Democrat) On com probes leak 10-29, 779C2

LOGAN, Boone Traded to Yankees 12-22, 949B1

1097

LOGLISCI, David Chrgd 3-19, 265B2–D2

LOITERING with Intent (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

LOKSHINA, Tatyana On Chechnya rights groups woes 8-12, 544C3

LOMAS, Paul Smith Seeks E Africa drought aid 9-29, 681B2

LOMBARDI, Rev. Federico On pope condom use remarks 3-19, 195B1 Defends Pope Benedict Holocaust meml remarks 5-12, on Israel’s Netanyahu mtg 5-14, 335F2, 336A1 Defends Pope Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn 12-23, 901D3 On Pope security 12-25, 901B3

LONCHAKOV, Yury Returns to Earth 4-8, 239G2–A3*

LONDON—See GREAT Britain LONDON, University College (England) Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, dad warning rptd 12-27, 897D3

LONDON School of Economics Dahrendorf dies 6-17, 452E1

LONDON Stock Exchange Index drops 11-26, 829D1 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128A1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900E2, A3

LONDON Theatre, Society of Olivier Awards presented 3-8, 231D1

LONEGAN, Steven Loses NJ gov GOP primary 6-2, 373B3

LONE Ranger, The (fictional character) Hart dies 9-20, 731C3

LONERGAN, Kenneth Starry Messenger opens in NYC 11-23, 954E2

LONG, Chuck Heisman close vote mark set 12-12, 879G2

LONG, Justin He’s Just Not That Into You on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

LONG & Foster Cos. Stevesn named HUD asst secy 3-23, 200B2

LONGBOTTOM, Robert Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

LONG Island University (N.Y., N.Y.) Polk Awards announced 2-16, 139F2

LONGLEY, James Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

LONGORIA, Evan Among AL RBI ldrs 10-6, 690E2

LONG Xiaowei Freed 2-14, 103C2

LOPEZ, Carlos Warns Brazilian emb 9-27, 662A1

LOPEZ, Felipe Among NL batting/hits ldrs 10-6, 690D3–E3

LOPEZ, Gilberto Pleads not guilty 6-25, 457C2

LOPEZ, Jose Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191B1

LOPEZ, Orlando (Cachaito) (1934-2009) Dies 2-9, 104E3

LOPEZ, Pascacio Named ‘08 top apprentice jockey 1-26, 119G3

LOPEZ, Patxi Regional electns held 3-1, coalitn deal OKd 3-30, 226D2

LOPEZ, Santiago Meza Held 1-23, 97A3

LOPEZ, Sigifredo Freed 2-5, 67F3

LOPEZ Obrador, Andres Manuel Cong, local electns held 7-5, 460F2–G2

1098 LORD— LORD, James (1922-2009) Dies 8-23, 672G2

LORD, Phil Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

LOREN, Sophia Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

LORILLARD Inc. Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622F1

LOS Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory Rosen dies 8-20, 648D3

LOS Angeles International Airport Coolio pleads guilty, sentncd 6-26, 564F2

LOS Angeles Times (newspaper) Boxall/Cart win Pulitzer 4-20, 279C2 Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817E3 Nelson dies 10-21, 752E3 Penner dies 11-27, 880E2

LOST Symbol, The (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

LOTT, Sheriff Leon Nixes Phelps pot smoking chrgs 2-16, 159F3

LOTT, Trent Judge (DeLaughter) quits, pleads guilty 7-30; sentncd 11-13, disbarmt sought 11-30, 888E2

LOUISIANA Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Gov Jindal nixes econ recovery funds 2-20, 111A2 Gov Jindal nixes econ recovery plan funds 2-22, 108F2 IberiaBank govt aid repaid 3-31, 241D3 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Jefferson bribery trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797D2, F2 Crime & Law Enforcement Jena teen beating suspects plead no contest, victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 524G3 Medicare fraud suspects held 7-29, 574C2 KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886D3 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780D2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Gov Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105G2 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Sports Sugar Bowl results 1-2, 24A1 Hornets make playoffs 4-15, 278C2 Zurich Classic results 4-26, 564C1 New Orleans/Indep Bowls results 12-20—12-28, 948A3, C3 Saints clinch NFC playoffs top seed 12-28, 947C3

LOUISIANA State University (LSU) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Jackson in NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3 Men’s Coll World Series won 6-25, 484E2 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7, 579G3 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30, 771F2

LOUISIANA Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550F2

LOUISVILLE (Ky.), University of Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, title lost 4-7, 229C3, 230F1, C2, E3, 231A3 Wood in NFL draft 4-25, 298F3 Williams, Clark in NBA draft 6-25, 451C1, A2 Grawemeyer Award winner named 11-30, 860G1

LOUVRE Museum (Paris) Egypt ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952G2–A3 Workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, reopens 12-4 11-23—12-9, 876D1

LOVE, Faizon Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

FACTS LOVEGAME (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

LOVE Happens (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

LOVE Is the Answer (recording) On best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

LOVE, Loss, and What I Wore (play) Opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

LOVE Story (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

LOVE VS Money (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

LOW, Frank James (1933-2009) Dies 6-11, 452F3

LOWE, Derek Joins Braves 1-13, 278C1

LOWENSOHN, Elena Idiot Savant opens in NYC 11-4, 896B1

LOWERY, Rev. Joseph At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26C2 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. Iraq detainees abuse suit nixed 9-11, 629B2

LUBAN, David Testifies to Sen com 5-13, 322C2–D2

LUBANGA Dyilo, Thomas ICC trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 42D3

LUBCHENCO, Jane Confrmd NOAA admin 3-19, 267G2 On climate chng effects rpt 6-16, 409E2

LUBET, Judge Marc Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3

LUCAS, Rey Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

LUDIN, Tahir Escapes captivity, details ordeal 6-20—6-22, 434D3, G3–435A1

LUDWIG, Alexander Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

LUGAR, Richard Green (U.S. senator from Ind., 1977- ; Republican) Backs Clinton secy of state nominatn 1-13, 1-15, 16G1 On Cuba trade embargo failure 2-23, urges end 3-30, 249D1–E1 Honduras coup response mulled 8-6, 575F3

LUGO Mendez, Fernando (Paraguayan president, 2008- ) Paternity suit filed 4-8; admits illegitimate child 4-13, further allegatns mulled 4-20—4-24, 294A3, D3, E3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 Sets Brazil dam power deal 7-25, 508F2 At UNASUR summit 8-10, 541C3 Fires cmdrs/swears replacemts, denies coup plot 11-4—11-6, 818F1

LUGOVOI, Andrei UK extraditn request mulled 11-2, 766E2

LUHAIBI, Ahmed Abid Uwaid alHeld 6-17, 433E2–F2

LUHAIBI, Hassan Zaidan alSlain 1-18, 38D1

LUHAIDAN, Sheik Saleh alFired 2-14, 943E3

LUIS Varela, Jose Swears Martinelli pres 7-1, 493A3

LUKASHENKO, Aleksandr (Belarusian president, 1994- ) Russia loan talks fail, nixes further aid requests 5-28—5-29; on Georgia breakaway regions indep 6-5, boycotts CSTO summit, vs agrmt 6-14—6-15, 423F2, B3–E3 Signs CSTO rapid reactn force treaty 10-20, 904E1

LUKE, Derek Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

LUKETIC, Robert Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

LUKIC, Milan Convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511D3, F3

LUKIC, Sredoje Convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511D3, F3

LUKIC, Sreten Convctd 2-26, 110F1

LUKIN, Vladimir On Yukos atty (Bakhmina) release 4-21, 328F3

LUKINS, Sheila (Sheila Gail Block) (1942-2009) Dies 8-30, 648C3

LUKOIL, OAO Delegatn visits Egypt, Africa 6-23—6-26, 455C1 Iraq oil field dvpt rights bought 12-12, 877D1 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-29, 943C1

LUMBER (& Lumber Products) Plum Creek fed land road paving request nixed 1-5, 65F2 US pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 AbitibiBowater bankruptcy filed 4-16—4-17, 413E1 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17, repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, 431C3, F3 Afghan blast kills 25+ 7-9, 499G2 Ore logging curbs ease dropped 7-16, 555F1 Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) departs/registered in Malta, hijacking rptd 7-23—7-31; found/suspects held, negative radiatn test rptd 8-17—8-18, details emerge, probe set/crew returns to Russia 8-18—8-20, 551E1 US natl forests protectns reinstated 8-5, 555E1 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802E2 PI loggers slain 11-11, 819G3

LUMENA Resources Corp. Duoji/Hummer stake buy OKd 10-9, 758B3

LUMUMBA, Patrick Defaming suspect (Knox) convctd 12-5, 854F2–G2

LUNA, Genaro Garcia Atty gen (Medina Mora) quits 9-7, 605A1

LUNAR Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (U.S. spacecraft) Launched 6-18, crashed 10-9, 697E3–F3 Moon water confrmd 11-13, 824D2–E2

LUNAR Reconnaissance (U.S. spacecraft) Launched 6-18, moon craters sunlight lack rptd 9-17, 697E3, G3 Moon water confrmd 11-13, 824D2

LUNDQVIST, Henrik Among NHL wins ldrs 4-12, 299C3

LUNDSTROM, Carl Trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1

LUNGS—See MEDICINE—Heart LUONGO, Roberto

ON FILE

On Georgia WWII monumt demolitn 12-19, 937C2

LUZ y Fuerza del Centro (LFC) Electricians protest/riot cops deployed, shut 10-8—10-11; pvtizatn denied 10-11, reversal sought 10-12, 724C1–F1

LYDON, Nicholas B. Wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3

LYLES, Latifa Loses NOW pres electn 6-20, 492B2

LYNCH, Jane Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

LYNCH, John Carroll Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

LYNCH, John (N.H. governor, 2005- ; Democrat) Names Newman to Sen 2-3, 60G1 Gay marriage bill passes House 3-26, 217B1 Gay marriage bill clears legis 4-29, 5-5, 304E1–F1 Seeks gay marriage bill chngs sought, nixed by House 5-14—5-20, Sen negotiating team OKd 5-27, 353C1–F1 Signs gay marriage bill 6-3, 371A1–D1 Vetoes med marijuana bill 7-10, 538D3

LYNCH, Michele Everyday Rapture opens in NYC 5-2, 348G1

LYNN 2nd, William Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, dep defns secy confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29E1–G1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59G2

LYNN Rival (private yacht) Departs Seychelles, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2

LYNSKEY, Melanie Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

LYONNE, Natasha Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

LYONS, Ben Replaced 8-5, 548B3

LYSACEK, Evan 3d in US champ 1-25, 139D2 Wins world champs 3-26, 211E2

LYSENKO, Tatyana Wlodarczyk sets hammer throw mark 8-22, 579B3

LYTLE, Mark La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797E2

LYTTLE, Bradford Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

LYTVYN, Volodymyr Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 496B3

Among NHL shutouts/goals-vs avg/save % ldrs 4-12, 299C3–D3

LUPU, Marian

M

Sets party exit 6-4—6-10, 397A3–B3

LUSSIER, Patrick My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

LUSTBADER, Eric Van Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

LUTHERANS Sweden gay marriage bill passes parlt 4-1, law enacted 5-1, 939F2 Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, 370A2 Gay clergy curbs eased 8-21, 573G3

LUTZ, Robert Sets retiremt 2-9, 92D3

LUV Gov (racehorse) Preakness withdrawal mulled 5-10, 347A2

LUXEMBOURG, Grand Duchy of European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 EU forgn mins mtg hosted 4-27, 360E1 Hungary emb shut 6-16, 512A2 Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B3; 10-1, 734B3 Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-13, 163A2–B2

LUZHKOV, Yuri Defamatn paymts ordrd 11-30, 892F3

MA, Hoffman Buys Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove 11-21, 840F2

MA, Yo-Yo At Obama inauguratn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

MAANDA, Trust On client (Bennett) chrgs 2-16, 97C1 On client (Bennett) trial 7-1, 680B3

MAASTRICHT University (Netherlands) Adults energy-burning fat cells found 4-9, 580B1

MAC, Bernie (Bernard Jeffrey McCullough) (1957-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

MACAO (Chinese region) ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G3 Chief exec (Chui) named 7-26, 510B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732G3 Resort, Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove bought 11-21, 840F2 HK/mainland bridge constructn opens 12-15, 933A1

MACAPAGAL-Arroyo, Gloria (Philippine president, 2001- ) Holds security mtg 7-7, orders MILF mil offensive cease-fire 7-23, 527E2, 528A2

2009 Index Visits US 7-30, 528A3 Seeks storm Ketsana aid 9-26, palace aid use set 9-28, 664A2 Hikes calamity declaratn 10-2, 684A3–B3 Orders Islamic militia combat hike 11-9, hosts US’s Clinton 11-12, 819B2, E2, E3 Vows Mangudadatu violnc justice 11-23; declares emergency 11-24, sets mourning day, Ampatuans ousted 11-25, 819C1–D1, F1, A2 Orders ARMM control transfer 11-27, declares Maguindanao martial law 12-4, 852E2–A3, 853A1 Rebels peace talks mulled 12-8—12-14, 890F2, B3 Lifts martial law 12-12, 874A1–B1

MacARTHUR Fellowships Des Forges dies 2-12, 104C3 Maloof dies 5-21, 400C3 Ali Akbar Khan dies 6-18, 452G2 Benjamin named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1 Awarded 9-22, 671F1 Gelfand dies 10-5, 731C3

MacARTHUR Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. Benjamin named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1 Fellowships awarded 9-22, 671F1

MacASKILL, Kenny On Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-20, 550C1–D1, A2, C2 Defends Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-24, 567B3, D3–E3, G3–568B1, C2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 583E1, A2

MacDERMOT, Galt Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

MacDONALD, Kevin State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

MACEDONIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Lake Ohrid boat sinking kills 15 9-5, 728G3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations India nixes Mother Teresa remains transfer 10-13, 711E3 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO entry vowed 4-5, 225C2; 5-12, 344D2 European Relations Greece ties mulled, EU entry vowed 4-3—4-5, 225C2–D2 Greece ties hike, EU entry vowed 5-12, 344D2–E2 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512F2 EU visa curbs lifted 12-19, 940E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres runoff electn held, Frckovski concedes/vote hailed 4-5, 225G1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 4-5, 234B3 Ivanov sworn pres 5-12, 344G1 Facts on Ivanov 5-12, 344A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734B3

MacFADDIN, Douglas SEC chrgs challenge set 11-4, 910B3

MacGINNIS, Marc Christian (1953-2009) Dies 6-2, 955G2

MACHAR, Riek On southn indep referendum 10-16, 802E1

MACIAS, Raul (1934-2009) Dies 3-23, 231F3

MacISAAC, Martha Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

MACK, Alex In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

MACK, John On credit value adjustmt 4-22, 265E1 Sets resignatn 9-10, 657G3

MacKAY, Andrew Quits 5-14, 343C3

MacKAY, Peter Chngs Afghan detainees abuse stance 12-9, 927C1

MACKEY, Antoine Indicted 4-29, 539F2

MACKEY, Lance Wins Iditarod 3-18, 211A2

MacLACHLAN, Alec Body recovered 9-2, 941D3

MACLAREN USA Inc. Baby strollers recalled 11-9, 850E1

—MAILLOL 1099 MacLEOD, Louis Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

MACLIN, Jeremy In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

MacNEIL, Al Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420A1

MACOMB Community College (Warren, Mich.) Obama rally hosted 7-14, 476G3

MACOMBER, Debbie 92 Pacific Blvd on best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

MACRI, Mauricio Cong electns held 6-28, 447A1

MADAGASCAR, Republic of African Relations AU suspensn OKd 3-20, Ravalomanana in Swazi 3-24, 184E3–F3 SADC suspensn OKd 3-30, interfernc scored 3-31, 203D2 SADC exit, visa curbs warned 9-29, 652E1 AU suspensn cont 11-7, 782G3 Civil Strife Antananarivo riots erupt 1-26—1-27, 66F1 Protests turn violent 2-7; Rajoelina UN protectn rptd 3-9, pres palace seized 3-16, 169C1–D1, G1, C2 Coup seen 3-20, Ravalomanana backers rally held 3-23, 184E3, G3 Antananarivo protests turn violent 3-28, 203A3 Antananarivo protests banned, turn violent 4-20—4-27; Rakotonirina held 4-29, calm rptd 5-6, 308A2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ravalomanana convctd in absentia 6-3, amnesty OKd 8-9, 555D3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Mil mutiny launched/backed, pol dispute interventn mulled 3-8—3-12; Rasolomahandry ousted 3-11, tanks deployed 3-13, 169F1–B2 Economy & Labor Gen strike urged 2-2, 66F1 Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Antananarivo mayor (Rajoelina) declared ldr 1-31; cabt apptmts vowed, ousted/protests held 2-2—2-4, replacemts named 2-3—2-4, 66A1 Defns mins quit 2-9—3-10; pol dispute talks nixed 2-25—3-12, Rajoelina rally held, Ravalomanana referendum offrd 3-14—3-15, 169D1–F1, A2–C2 Ravalomanana quits, mil names Rajoelina pres 3-17; Const Ct backs, electns vowed 3-18, parlt dissolved 3-19, 168A2; photos 168A3, 169A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-17, 234C3 Rajoelina sworn 3-21, electns vowed 3-23, 184A3, F3 Rajoelina names cabt 3-31, 203B3 Pol dispute talks fail 4-8—6-16, AU cont role set 7-1, 459A3 Pres electn urged, guarantee nixed 4-20—5-1, 308G2 Power-sharing deal signed 8-9; Rajoelina cont ldrship seen 8-14, 555A3 Rajoelina names govt 9-8, 652F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734C3 Power-sharing deal OKd 10-6, Mangalaza named PM 10-11, 782D3–E3 Power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782A3, D3 Parlt electns set 12-16; PM ousted, Camille named/power-sharing deal nixed 12-18—12-20, protest held 12-22, 925C2 Trade, Aid & Investment Norway halts aid 3-19, 168G2 Saudi investmt set 5-3, 308D3 UN Policy & Developments UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675G2 Rajoelina Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, 652B1

MADAME de Sade (play) Opens in London 3-18, 256D1

MADAME L.R. (sculpture) Fetches 29.2 mln euros 2-23, 160C1

MAD Cow Disease—See under MEDICINE MADDEN, John Sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 Named NFL spec adviser 9-10, 632D1

MADDON, Joe AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3

MADDOX, Sir John (Royden) (1925-2009) Dies 4-12, 280F3

MADE, Joseph Sworn agri min 2-13, cabt mtg held 2-17, 97A2

MADELEY, Anna Philanthropist revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2

MADHWANI, Musa’ab al Cont detentn upheld 12-14, 861C3, 862A1

MADINOV, Roman Taszhargan closure rptd 9-18, 663D2

MAD Men (TV show) Golden Globe won 1-11, 24F2 Emmy won 9-20, 647B3, F3

MADOFF, Andrew Dad SEC partial setlmt OKd 2-9, 113F2 Dad pleads guilty 3-12, 141C3

MADOFF, Bernard L. ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F2 Bank Medici seized, post-arrest jewelry mailings bared 1-2—1-5; signed checks find rptd, brother confessn claimed 1-8—1-10, indictmt deadline delayed, bail release upheld 1-9—1-14, 113D2, G2–A3, D3, 114F1 GMAC chair (Merkin) quits 1-9, 48F1 SEC chair nominee (Schapiro) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17C2 Cong hearings held, banks repaymt mulled 1-27—2-4; SEC partial setlmt OKd, indictmt deadline delayed/wife withdrawal rptd 2-9—2-11, client investmts find nixed 2-20, 113E1–114A2 Financier (Stanford) SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148B1, G1 Waives grand jury right 3-6; hearing held, govt probe cont 3-10, pleads guilty, bail revoked/jailed 3-12, 141A1, C2; photo 141E1 Assocs chrgd, Friehling surrenders/freed on bail 3-18—4-6, 245D1, G1 Investor (Picower) claim filed, hiked 5-12—9-30, dies, suit cont 10-25, 800A2 Banco Santader setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2–B3 ‘Feeder’ fund, adviser chrgd 6-22; asset seizure limit set 6-26, sentncd 6-29, 441A3, 442A2–F2 Opens prison sentnc 7-14, 506G2 Assoc (Friehling) pleads not guilty 7-17, wife suit filed 7-29, 603D3, F3 Assoc (DiPascali) pleads guilty 8-11, 603A3 Fraud scheme SEC probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, ‘feeder fund’ Mass civil chrgs setld 9-8, 503A2, E3 SEC reforms proposed 9-29, 716B1 Fraud scheme losses tallied 10-28; Friehling setlmt OKd, pleads guilty 11-3, assocs held, chrgd 11-13, 800A1, E1–F1

MADOFF, Mark Dad SEC partial setlmt OKd 2-9, 113F2 Dad pleads guilty 3-12, 141C3

MADOFF, Peter Brother fraud scandal confessn rptd 1-10, 113D3 Brother pleads guilty 3-12, 141C3

MADOFF, Ruth Husband brokerage firm withdrawal rptd 2-11, 113B3–C3 Drops assets claim 6-26, on husband fraud scheme 6-29, 442C1, F2 Husband clients suit filed 7-29, 603F3

MADOFF, Shana Husband cleared in dad fraud scheme probe 9-4, 603A3

MADONNA (Madonna Louise Ciccone) Malawi 2d adoptn bid foiled, appeal set 4-3, 231D2 Malawi 2d adoptn bid appeal succeeds 6-12, 420F2

MADRID—See SPAIN MADRID, Judge Alejandro Sees ex-pres (Frei) poisoning, issues indictmt 12-7, 871G2–A3

MADSON, Ryan Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770D3–E3

MADZORERA, Henry Named health min 2-10, 81B3 Sworn health min 2-13, 97G1

MAERSK Alabama (U.S. ship) Somali pirates hijacking fails 4-8; capt held/freed, captors slain 4-8—4-12, returns to port, crew flies home 4-11—4-16, 237A1–B1, A2–D2, B3; map 238C2 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269B2–C2

Pirates attack repelled 11-18, 801E2

MAERSK Line Ltd. Somali pirates hijacking fails, ship returns to Kenya port/crew flies home 4-8—4-16, 237B2

MAFIA—See CRIME—Organized Crime MAGAZINES—See PRESS; PUBLISHING Industry; specific magazine name (e.g., NEWSWEEK) MAGEE, Mike Galaxy lose MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

MAGI, Judge Oscar Convcts/sentncs Egyptian cleric ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents, orderes arrests 11-4, 766B1–D1

MAGNA Enter tainment Corp. Bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347D2–F2

MAGNA International Inc. Opel buy mulled 5-29—6-3, 366F1–G1, C2–E2, G2, 367A1 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417B2 Adam Opel/Beijing Auto buyout offer confmrd 7-8, 475C3 Opel/Vauxhall buy set 9-10, 608G3, 609B1–C1 Adam Opel/Vauxhall buy blocked 10-16, Ger loan clarified 10-19, 767C2 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1–E1, C2 Saab buyout bids deadline extended 12-30, 902C3

MAGNETS & Magnetic Fields—See PHYSICS MAGNITSKY, Sergei (d. 2009) Dies, buried 11-16—11-20; prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 821E3–822A1 Prison ofcls, tax crime head fired 12-11—12-15; probe rpt issued 12-28, pre-trial jailings curbed 12-29, 938G2–C3

MAGNUS, Sandra Space statn stay ends, lands 3-25—3-28, 239D2

MAGOMEDOV, Abdulmalik (d. 2008) Kin slain 11-13, 855F1

MAGOMEDTAGIROV, Adilgirey Slain 6-5, 417C2

MAGORIAN, Michelle On Costa shortlist 1-5, Barry wins 1-27, 139E3

MAGUID, Abusana Suspended 11-24, 819E1

MAGUIRE, Matthew Nigeria oil tanker, crew seized 5-13, 358B2

MAHADEVAN, L(akshminarayanan) Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

MAHAN, Hunter US Open results 6-22, 435A2

MAHATHIR bin Mohamad (Malaysian prime minister, 1981-2003) Rejoins UNMO 4-4, 223C2, B3

MAHA Vajiralongkorn, Crown Prince (Thailand) Thaksin on king reign, remarks mulled 11-9—11-10, 785C2

MAHDI, Adel Abdul Bank robbed 7-28, pres guard members held 8-1, 529C2 Bank robbers sentncd 9-2, 610A3 Hashemi vetoes electn law 11-18, 805B1

MAHDI, Muhammad al- (deceased) Iraq pilgrims attackers sentncd 2-26, 122B1

MAHECIC, Andrej On Somali refugees Gulf of Aden drownings 9-1, 646D1

MAHESH Yogi, Maharishi (Mahesh Prasad Varma/Mahesh Srivastava) (1917?-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

MAHFUD, Judge Mohammad Upholds pres electn results 8-12, 542G1

MAHJOUB, Tajussir Denies govt arms distributn 6-16, 431C1

MAHMOUD, Abdel-Meguid On oppositn ldr (Nour) release 2-18, 100F3

MAHONEY, Mark Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D3

MAHONY, Cardinal Roger (archbishop of Los Angeles) Diocese child abuse oversight grand jury probe rptd 1-29, 132C3

MAHSOULI, Sadeq Zahedan mosque blast kills 25 5-28, 398E1

MAILLOL, Aristide (1861-1944) Vierny dies 1-20, 72F3

1100 MAINE— MAINE Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Gay marriage bill clears legis, signed 5-5—5-6, 304A1 Gay marriage ballot propositn set 9-2, 699F2 Labor & Employment Obama on econ crisis 2-9, 78B1 Obituaries Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Electn results 11-3, 756G1, D2

MAIOLO, Susanna Knocks down Pope/Cardinal Etechegaray, held 12-24, 901G2–A3

MAJID, Ali Hassan alConvctd 3-2, 122A1; 3-11, 156B2

MAJORS, Lee Ex-wife dies 6-25, 436D3

MAKAREZOS, Nikolaos (1919-2009) Dies 8-3, 564C3

MAKAROV, Nikolai On Poland border missiles deploymt 9-21, 645E1

MAKEBA, Miriam Zenzi (1932-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3*

MAKHMADOV, Sultan Convctd, sentncd 8-8, 576F2

MAKHMUDOV, Dzhabrail Cleared 2-19, 100D1–E1, G1 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying acquittal nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497G2

MAKHMUDOV, Ibragim Cleared 2-19, 100D1–E1 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying acquittal nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497G2

MAKHMUDOV, Rustam Brothers cleared 2-19, 100E1 Brothers slaying acquittals nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497A3

MAKHMUDOV, Shaukat Tashkent shootout kills 3+ 8-29, death rptd 9-9, 663F2–A3

MAKIMBAY, Bakytgul Taszhargan closure rptd 9-18, 663E2

MAKSUDOV, Maksud Slain 9-11, 728A2

MALAGASY Broadcasting System Antananarivo station attacked 1-26—1-27, 66D1

MALAKAUSKAS, Povilas Quits 12-14, 903C1

MALAWI, Republic of Corruption & Ethics Issues Muluzi held 2-26, 358D1 Family Issues Madonna 2d adoptn bid foiled, appeal set 4-3, 231D2 Madonna 2d adoptn bid appeal succeeds 6-12, 420F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234D3 Muluzi pres bid nixed 5-16; electns held 5-19, vote mulled, results rptd/Mutharika sworn 5-21—5-22, 358A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734D3

MALAYSIA Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai’s Abhisit visits 6-8, 416G1–A2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi birthday marked 6-19, 462F2 Indonesia blasts JI role seen 7-18, probe aid sought 7-19, 494F3–G3 Sri Lankan rebel ldr (Pathmanathan) held 8-6, 578E3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-11, 543B2 PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890D2, F2 Civil Strife Mongolian woman slaying, Armaris paymt link claimed 3-5, cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223D3 Detainees release set, freed 4-3, 4-5, 223G1 Perak protests held, arrests rptd 5-7, 415B1 Protests held, dispersed 8-1; arrests rptd, Sivarasa freed on bail/chrgs seen 8-2—8-17, crackdown scored 8-3, 542C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Perak oppositn ldr (Nizar) chrgd 3-17, 223F2 Economy & Labor ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-27, stimulus package set 3-10, 223F1

FACTS Energy Petronas buys Iraq oil field dvpt rights 12-12, 877D1 Petronas, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-20, 943B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132G1 European Relations Hungary emb shut 6-16, 512A2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Perak chief min (Nizar) ousted, reinstatemt ordrd/ruling nixed 2-5—5-11, assemb speaker (Sivakumar) ousted 5-7, 415B1, E1 MP (Gobind) suspended 3-16, 223G2 Najib sworn PM, names cabt 4-3—4-9; Mahathir rejoins UNMO 4-4, parlt by-electns held 4-7, 223D1, C2–D2 Facts on Najib 4-3, 223A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 4-9, 234D3; 10-1, 734D3 Human Rights ASEAN mtg held 2-28, 135E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187E3 Iraqi Conflict Ex-MP (Daini) arrest rptd 10-16, 729E3 Press & Broadcasting Oppositn papers ban set, lifted 3-23, 4-3, 223B2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Indonesia raid kills 4, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643G3 Trade, Aid & Investment ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Detainees interrogatn techniques defended 8-24, 566B3

MALCOLM X (Malcolm Little) (1925-65) Sutton dies 12-26, 955F3

MALDEN, Karl (Mladen George Sekulovich) (1912-2009) Dies 7-1, 468G2

MALDIVES, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E3; 10-1, 734E3

MALDONADO, Abel Deficit cut deal passes legis 2-19, 114A3–D3

MALI, Republic of African Relations Mauritania aid worker slaying suspects held, border entry seen 7-17—7-18, 493F1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu visits 2-13, 170E1, G1 Civil Strife Tourists held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, hostages freed 4-22, 326E1 UK terror suspect (Qatada) release sought 5-30, hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1–C1 Tuareg peace deal set 10-6, 903A3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Narcoterror suspects chrgd held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E3; 10-1, 734E3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Al Qaeda fight vowed 7-6, US mil aid hiked 10-20, 903B3 Forgner seized, kidnapping claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903F2–G2

MALIC, Nenad Convctd 12-7, 893E1

MALICK, Wendie Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

MALIELEGAOI, Tuilaepa Sailele (Samoan premier, 1998- ) Driving side switched 9-8, orders bus chngs 9-11, 726B1, F1 On tsunami damage 10-1, 662G3

MALIK, Abdul Slain 11-8, 807B1

MALIK, Rehman Admits Mumbai terror attacks planning 2-12, 103E2–B3 On Sri Lanka natl cricket team attack 3-3, 137F3 On Mumbai terror attacks suspect arrest 4-13, 276D3

On Mehsuds slayings 8-7—8-8, 533C1, F2–G2 Sets Mumbai terror attack suspects trials, nixes Saeed arrest 9-19, 669C2–D2 Doubts Taliban’s Mehsud video 10-6, vows mil operatn 10-10, 694D3, 695B1 Amnesty nixed 12-16, 878F2

MALIK, Shahid Low rent rptd, quits 5-15, 343B3

MALIKI, Nouri Kamel al- (Iraqi premier, 2006- ) Arts & Culture Reopens Natl Museum 2-23, 118G1 Civil Strife ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10D2 Hussein ex-palace security transferred, US troops security deal takes effect 1-1, 8F3 Replaces Wasit prov cop chief, violnc kills scores 1-16—1-21, 38B1, G1–A2 Visits Mosul, assoc (Ahmed) slain 1-29, 53A3 Violnc role probe urged 2-24, 117C3 US troops Aug ‘10 exit mulled 2-26, 121D1 Awakening Cncl ldr held, violnc erupts 3-28—3-29, 208B2 On Baghdad car blasts 4-7, 228A1–B1 Urges Baghdad blasts probe 4-24; scores US troops raid, reconciliatn talks halted 4-26, on insurgent ldr capture 4-28, 296D3, 297D1–E1, G1 Awakening Cncl ldr (Jubouri) held 5-2, 312D1 Militant freed, cease-fire declared 6-9, 398F2 Prisoner abuse porbe opens 6-18; sees Turkmen ldrs 6-20, blasts kill scores 6-20—6-24, 433F1, C2, F2 US troops exit cities, declares holiday 6-30, 437A1, D1 Scores US troop arrest try 7-25, shuts Iran exiled oppositn camp 7-28, 501E2, B3 US troops cont stay referendum deadline missed 7-30, insurgent group violnc dropped 8-3, 529B3–C3, 530A1 Proposes US troops security deal referendum 8-17, mulls Baghdad blasts 8-19, 562C3, 563A1 On forgn/finance min bldgs attack 8-25, 592A3–B3 Deploys Syria border troops 9-4, 610F2 Shuts Mustansiriya Univ 10-14, ex-MP (Daini) held in Malaysia 10-16, 729E3, 730B1 Visits Baghdad blasts scene 10-25, 738F1, C2 Ousts Baghdad mil head (Qanbar), names Ouda 12-9, 856C2 UK hostage (Moore) kidnapping Iran role mulled 12-30, 942A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Hosts France’s Sarkozy, Ger’s Steinmeier 2-10, 2-17, 101F2–C3 Bush news conf shoe toss rptr (Zaidi) convctd, sentncd 3-12, 174G3 Hosts Turkey’s Gul 3-23, 189F2 Hosts Abbas 4-5, 228G1 Hosts Obama 4-7, 214D3, 215C1 Visits UK 4-30, 297C2 Hosts US’s Pelosi 5-10, 330B3 Hosts US’s Biden 7-3, 464E3–F3 Visits US, sees UN’s Ban 7-21—7-22, 497F3, 498A2 Ends US trip 7-25, hosts Gates, Odierno 7-28, 501E2 Sees Kurdistan pres (Barzani) 8-2, 530D1 Visits Syria 8-19, 562B3 Hosts US’s Biden 9-15—9-17, 629A1 Obama calls 10-25, 738D2 US’s Gates mtg delayed 12-2, 856E2 Politics Prov electns held 1-31, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57A1, E1–F1 Prov electns final results issued 2-19, 118B1–C1 Talabani nixes reelectn bid 3-13, 175C1 Sammaraie elected parlt speaker 4-19, 275D1 Urges trade min (Sudani) resignatn 5-3, 311D3 Scores govt corruptn 5-9, 330D3 Trade min (Sudani) submits resignatn/questnd, OKd 5-14—5-25, ofc takes over, graft arrests ordrd 5-27, 362C2, E2 Ex-trade min (Sudani) held 5-30, 379E3–G3 Coalitn formed/role urged, mourns ISCI ldr (Hakim) 8-24—8-29, 592A1, D2 ‘10 electns coalitn set 10-1, 688G2 Parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729B2 Gen electns law deal seen 10-26, 738C3 Electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789B2 Scores electn law veto 11-18, 805A1

ON FILE

MALKIN, Evgeni NHL pts/assists ldr, wins Ross Trophy 4-12, 299E2, A3 Penguins win Stanley Cup, named MVP 6-12, 419F3, 420C1, C2

MALKIN, Michelle Culture of Corruptn on best-seller list 8-31, 596B1

MALLAHAN, Joe Seattle mayoral electn undecided 11-3—11-5, 757A1 Seattle mayoral electn loss rptd 11-9, 779F3, 780A1

MALLYA, Vijay Gandhi items bought 3-5, 158G1

MALONE, Moses James named NBA MVP 5-4, 332A1

MALONEY, Carolyn B. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1993- ; Democrat) Nixes Sen seat bid 8-7, 537C3

MALONEY, Dan Names coach (Tippett) 9-24, 730F3

MALOOF, Sam(uel Solomon) (1916-2009) Dies 5-21, 400C3

MALOOF Family Monarchs shut 11-20, dispersal draft held 12-14, 952A1

MALTA, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234E3; 10-1, 734E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants rescued, origins rptd 4-16—4-20, Italy entry OKd, EU rules urged 4-19, 262G1–D2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636F2–G2 Transportation Cargo ship (Arctic Sea) registered 7-24, hijacking rptd 7-31, 551B1 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) return set 9-16, 616F1

MALVO, Lee Boyd (John Lee Malvo) Muhammad executed 11-10, 780D2

MAMAS and the Papas, The (music group) Phillips daughter claims incest 9-23, 671F3

MAMBO, Kevin Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

MAMBOUNDOU, Pierre Pres electn held/results rptd, protests turn violent 8-30—9-3, 604D1, F1 Pres electn recount set, boycotted 9-27—9-29; results confrmd 10-12, Bongo sworn 10-16, 722G2–A3

MAMET, David Speed-the-Plow, Piven contract row setld 8-27, 596E1 Oleanna opens in NYC 10-11, 860F2 Race opens in NYC 12-6, 954D2

MAMET, Edham Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

MAMMEDOV, Novruzali Dies 8-17, indep probe urged 8-18, 607D1

MAMMEDOVA, Zumrud Convctd, sentncd 4-7, punishmt opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, 252F3, 253A1

MANAS Air Base (Kyrgyzstan)—See KYRGYZSTAN—Defense MAN Booker International Prize Munro wins 5-27, 364C1

MAN Booker Prize for Fiction Shortlist announced 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692A1*

MANCINI, John Replaced 12-11, 913D1

MANDELA, Nelson Rolihlahla (South African president, 1994-99) Suzman dies 1-1, 9G3 At ANC rally 2-15, 96D2 Peace conf nixed 3-24, 327G1 Gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 293B1, G2 At Zuma inaguratn 5-9, 325A2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843B1 Brutus dies 12-26, 955A1

MANDELSON, Lord Peter Sets auto indus govt aid 1-27, 52E2–F2 Powers hiked 6-5, 397G1

MANDUDADATU, Esmael Gov nominatn convoy attack kills 57+, justice vowed/wife rape rptd 11-23—11-24, 818E3–F3, 819A1, C1

2009 Index MANDYLOR, Costas Saw VI on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

MANERI, Joe (Joseph Gabriel Esther) (1927-2009) Dies 8-24, 752C3

MANGAL, Asadullah Fellow captives escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3, 435A1–B1

MANGALAZA, Eugene Named Madagascan PM 10-11, 782E3

MANGINI, Eric Named Browns coach 1-7, 55A3 Favre injury disclosure mulled, fined 9-10—9-16, 632A1

MANGOMA, Elton Sees Z$ use halt 4-12, 589B1

MANGUDADATU, Esmael Sets Madguindanao gov bid 11-27, kin slaying suspects chrgd 12-1, 852C3, G3, 853A2

MANKIEWICZ, Ben Replaced 8-5, 548B3

MANLEY International Airport, Norman (Kingston, Jamaica) Miami flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930B1

MANN, Leslie 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

MANN, Michael Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

MANN, Simon Pardoned, freed/returns to UK 11-3—11-4, 925D1

MANN, Tamela J. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

MANNING, Eli Signs Giants deal 8-14, 632F1

MANNING, Frankie (Frank Benjamin) (1914-2009) Dies 4-27, 300F3

MANNING, Patrick (Trinidad & Tobago prime minister, 2001- ) Signs Summit of the Amers declaratn 4-19, 271E3–F3

MANNING, Peyton Named NFL MVP 1-2, 55A2 Colts clinch AFC playoffs top seed 12-13, 947A3

MAN of Iron (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Marathon 11-6, 807B2

MAN on Wire (film) Oscar won 2-22, 120B2–C2

MANOROHANTA, Cecile Quits 2-9, 169D1

MANSLAUGHTER—See CRIME—Murder MANSON, Charles Milles Ford assassin try woman (Fromme) freed 8-14, 554F2 Atkins dies 9-24, 672E1 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653E3

MANSUR, Mullah Slaying claimed, denied 6-2, 381D3

MANTASHE, Gwede On Zuma graft chrgs drop 4-6, 222F2–G2 On Zille criticism 5-13, 326C1 On Zuma, Zimbabwe diplomacy 8-26, 588E2

MANTEL, Hilary On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, wins 10-6, 692A1*, B1–C1

MANTELLO, Joe 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

MANTSHO, Kate Gen electns held 4-22, 293C3

MANUEL, Charlie NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 751D3 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770F1, A2

MANUEL, Trevor On G-8 Africa aid hike vow miss 1-16, 169E3 Unveils budget 2-11, 96A3–B3 At SADC mtg 2-26—2-27, 153C1 Named S Africa natl planning comm head 5-10, 325E2

MANUFACTURERS, National Association of (NAM) Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445E1

—MARRIAGE 1101 EPA emissns threat seen 12-8, 841C2

MANUFACTURING—See BUSINESS MANZULLO, Donald (U.S. representative from Ill., 1993- ; Republican) Vs Cuba base detainees transfer proposal 11-15, 794F2

MAO Xinyu, Gen. Named maj gen 9-25, 683B2

MAO Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) (1893-1976) (Chinese leader, 1949-76) Dalai Lama marks Tibet uprising anniv, scores Chinese rule 3-10, 172A1 Grandson named maj gen 9-25, 683B2 Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 682G3–683A1

MAPS Israel/Gaza ground war 1-3, 2A1 Australian bushfires 2-7, 83E2 Italy earthquake 4-6, 224A2 Somali pirate attacks 4-12, 238A1 Sri Lanka 5-19, 333D1 Iran A-sites, missiles range 9-25—9-28, 649E1, 650A1 Pak tribal areas mil operatn 10-17, 709E1

MARA, Ratu Sir Kamisese (Kamisese Kapalwai Tuimaciliai Mara) (1920-2004) (Fijian prime minister, 1982-87/87-92; president, 1994-2000) Son-in-law sworn pres 11-5, 852F1

MARADONA, Diego Scores media 10-14, suspended, fined 11-14, 859A2

MARAN Centaurus (Greek tanker) Seized 11-30, 903D2

MARATHONS Records & Achievements Wanjiru sets London Marathon mark 4-26, 332E1 Wanjiru sets US race time mark 10-11, 791E3 Wanjiru/Mikitenko top Majors list 11-1, 791G3 Winners Berlin, Gebrselassie/Besuye 9-20, 647E2 Boston, Merga/Kosgei 4-20, 332C1 Chicago, Wanjiru/Shobukhova 10-11, 791E3 London, Wanjiru/Mikitenko 4-26, 332E1 New York, Keflezighi/Tulu 11-1, 791G2 New York (wheelchair), Fearnley/Hunkeler 11-1, 791D3

MARBER, Patrick After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

MARBLEY, Judge Algenon Sentncs Natl Century ex-execs 3-27, 539A3

MARBURY, Stephon Released 2-24; terms rptd 2-25, joins Celtics 2-27, 159C1

MARCHETTA, Melina Wins Printz Award 1-26, 56C1

MARCHIONNE, Sergio Seeks Opel financial info, on Chrysler buy 5-29, 367A1–B1 Chrysler/Fiat merger completed 6-10, 385B1 Execs (Fong/Accavitti) quit, Press exit seen 10-5, 758C3 Details future business plans 11-4, 758D2

MARCH of Dimes Worldwide premature births rptd 10-4, 901C2

MARCIEL, Scot Visits Myanmar, mulls trip 11-3—11-5, 763B2, G2–B3

MARCOS, Ferdinand Edralin (1917-89) (Philippine president, 1965-86) Aquino dies 8-1, 531G2

MARCUS; or the Secret of Sweet (play) Opens in Princeton 5-22, 451A3

MARERRO, Judge Victor Sentncs Dem donor (Hsu) 9-29, 656D3

MARGULIES, Donald Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

MARIA Di Bello, Jose Gay marriage license issued 11-16, wedding blocked, held 11-30—12-29, 926D1

MARINE Corps, U.S. Iraq troops ‘09 exit urged 1-23, 54B1 Japan troops redeploymt deal signed 2-16, 109D2

PI rapist (Smith) accuser testimony chngd/atty role mulled, probe sought 3-12—3-24, 205G1 Fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, 217B3 Detainees slayings suspect (Weemer) cleared 4-9, 254G3–255A1 PI rapist (Smith) convctn nixed, freed 4-23, exits 4-24, 309F2 Bolden named NASA admin 5-23, 373F1–G1 Afghan operatn launched, troop slain 7-2, 466D3 Hurley pilots Endeavour missn 7-15—7-31, 519G1 Georgia troops training aid set 8-14, 560C1 Stuckow cmnds Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3 Afghan dying troop/AP photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621A3 PI storms troop redeploymt sought 10-9, 704G1 Plane, copter crash kills 9 10-29, 915E2 Hobaugh/Bresnik fly Atlantis missn 11-16—11-27, 902D1 Bases, Military—See under DEFENSE, U.S.

MARINELLI, Rob Replacemt (Schwartz) named 1-15, 55C3

MARINO, Dan Brees named NFL top offensive player 1-6, 55D2

MARINO, Ignazio Bersani elected party ldr 10-25, 749F3

MARINO, Steve Loses Crowne Plaza Invitatnl 5-31, 563G3

MARION, Shawn Traded to Mavericks 7-9, 771B2

MARITIME Bulletin-Sovrakht (Web site) Rptr (Voitenko) flees Russia 9-3, firing claimed, denied 9-4—9-7, 616C2–D2

MARITIME Industry—See SHIPS MARKELOV, Stanislav (d. 2009) Col (Budanov) freed 1-15; slain, death threats rptd/case link denied 1-19, probe urged, rallies held/honored 1-20—1-21, 36E2–A3, D3–F3 Grozny dep mayor slain 2-5, 85B2 Activist (Ponomaryov) egged 3-11; tires slashed 3-30, attacked 3-31, 273G3 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497B2 Slaying suspects held 11-5, 855B2 Antifascist activist (Khutorskoi) slain 11-16, 822B2

MARKEY, Betsy (U.S. representative from Colo., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MARKEY, Edward J. (U.S. representative from Mass., 1976- ; Democrat) Introduces emissions cap bill 3-31, 201E2 Climate chng bill backed 5-21, 409F2 Questns emissns cut fake oppositn letters notificatn timeline 8-5, 655C1 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, 744A3

MARKOFF, Philip ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429F1–A2, D2, F2

MARKOPOLOS, Harry Testifies to House com 2-4, 114A1 Madoff fraud scheme SEC probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, 603F2

MARKOWITZ, Deborah Sets civil unions end 4-7, 217A1

MARKS, Ken Our Town revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2

MARLEAU, Patrick Among NHL short-handed/game-winning goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

MARLEY & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72C1

MAROEVIC, Frane On Bosnian Serb law annulmt 6-19, 448A3

MARONI, Roberto On Abruzzo quake rescue search 4-9, 224A2 On Abruzzo quake rebldg cost 4-14, 254A1 On Berlusconi attack 12-15, 875D1–E1

MAROULIS, Constantine Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

MARQUEZ, Gustavo Recalled 7-28, 526F2 Returns to Colombia 8-8, 541G3

MARQUEZ, Ivan FARC ties evidnc rptd 8-3, 526B3

MARQUEZ, John Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

MARQUEZ, Juan Manuel Mayweather bout set 5-2, 383G2 Decisnd by Mayweather 9-19, 647D2–E2

MARR, Andrew Interviews Brown 9-27, 666C3

MARRI, Ali Saleh Kahlah alMil detentn review ordrd, govt brief Sup Ct deadline delay sought 1-22, 28C3–D3 Chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3–E3 Mil detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148C3–D3, F3 Bail nixed 3-18; transported to Ill 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 183F3–184B1 Pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2–D2 Sentncd 10-29, 760D1

MARRI, al- v. Spagone Denied by Sup Ct 3-6, 148D3

MARRIAGE & Engagement Accidents & Disasters Indonesia quakes victims burial mulled 10-7, 725A1 Crime & Law Enforcement Sierra Leone rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134A2 Turkey wedding party attack kills 45 5-4, suspects held, families feud cited 5-5, 329A3 Iraq wedding party blast kills 1 7-8, 465E1 Kuwait blaze kills 41+ 8-15, suspect held 8-17, 943B2 Yale student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13, 920B1 Polygamists (Jessop/Keate) convctd, sentncd 11-5—12-17, 919A2 People Hayek/Pinault 2-14, 120E2 Goody/Tweed 2-22, 139G3 Brady/Buendchen 2-26, 160E2 Letterman/Lasko 3-19, 192A1 Gyllenhaal/Sarsgaard 5-2, 348B3 Redford/Szaggars 7-11, 516E1 Political & Legislative Issues Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 717A1 US forgn natls spouse deaths measure clears Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714D3–E3 Maine OKs gay marriage ban, Wash domestic partnership law upheld 11-3, 756G1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2–A3 Religious Issues RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711E2–F2, A3–B3 Anglican priests RC conversn rules set 11-9, 811D2 Wash Times bias claim filed 11-17, 913B3 Rights Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Calif gay marriage ban ballot initiative donors list release ordrd, issued 1-29, 2-2, 150A1 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132E2 Calif gay marriage ban hearing held 3-5, 149C3 Wash gay domestic partnership bill passes legis 3-10—4-15, 266G2 Vt gay marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/ruling backed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216A1, F2, 217A1; table 216A2 Afghan women rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213E1 Sweden gay marriage bill passes parlt 4-1, law enacted 5-1, 939E2 Afghan women curbs protested 4-15, 314C2 NYS gay marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, GOP stance chng urged 4-17, 266B2, F2 Iowa gay marriages open 4-27; NH bill clears legis 4-29—5-6, DC recognitn OKd, Maine measure clears legis/signed 5-5—5-6, 304A1, E1–F1, B2 NYS gay marriage bill passes Assemb 5-12, Sen vote urged 5-17, 353G1 NH gay marriage bill chngs sought, nixed by House 5-14—5-20, Sen negotiating team OKd 5-27, 353C1 Calif gay marriage ban suits filed, opposed 5-22—5-27, ban upheld, protests held/ballot initiative set 5-26, 352A3, F3–G3

1102 MARS— Nev gay domestic partnerships bill vetoed, override passes legis 5-25—5-31, NH marriage deal OKd, clears legis/signed 5-29—6-3, 371A1, E1 SCLC LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2 Justice Dept/Defns of Marriage Act backing set, scored 6-12—6-15, 408E2 Census sets gay marriages recognitn 6-19, 659E2 DC gay marriage recognitn opens 7-7, 492G1 Fed law, Mass suit filed 7-8, 492F1 NYS gay marriage bill vote delayed 7-10, 505E2 Calif gay marriage ballot initiative delayed 8-12, DOMA repeal sought, Justice Dept stance chngd 8-17, 553A3, 554A1 Calif gay marriage ban trial set 8-19; Vt marriages open 8-31, Maine ballot propositn set 9-2, 699F2–A3 Nev domestic partnerships open 10-1; DC gay marriage bill introduced, Calif recognitn bill signed 10-6—10-11, Obama addresses HRC, march held 10-10—10-11, 698D3–F3, 699A1–B1, F1, B2 Argentina gay marriage license issued 11-16, wedding blocked, held 11-30—12-29, 926D1 DC gay marriage bill passes cncl 12-1, NYS bill nixed 12-2, 832B2, F2 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1 NJ gay marriage Sen vote nixed 12-9, DC measure OKd 12-15, 868E1, A2 Mex City gay marriage bill passes assemb 12-21, veto nixed, law published 12-29, 928G3

MARS (planet) Orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373C1 US space programs review panel named 6-1, 506E2 Apollo 11 moon landing anniv marked 7-20, 506E2 US missn pursuit seen 7-21, 506F2 NASA shuttle program future plans review issued 10-22, 745B1, D1, A2

MARSAN, Eddie Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

MARSHALL, Anthony D. Convctd 10-8, 708A2 Sentncd 12-21, 896D1

MARSHALL, Charlene Husband sentncd 12-21, 896E1

MARSHALL, Gen. George Catlett (1880-1959) Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843B1

MARSHALL, James C. (U.S. representative form Ga., 2003- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MARSHALL 2nd, J. Howard (1905-95) Smith FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920G1

MARSHALL, Rob Nine on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

MARSHALL, Thurgood (1908-93) (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1967-91) Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2

MARSHALL Islands, Republic of the Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234F3; 10-21, 734F3 Tomeing loses confidnc vote, Zackhras named acting pres 10-21, Zedkaia elected 10-26, 787A1 UN Policy & Developments US/Cuba cont embargo oppositn res vote abstained 10-28, 784C1

MARSHALL University (Huntington, W.V.) Little Caesars Pizza Bowl won 12-26, 948B3

MARSHALS Service, U.S. (of Justice) Abortn providers protectn set 5-31, 370E3

MARSHBURN, Dr. Thomas Flies Endeavour missn, conducts space walks 7-15—7-31, 519A2, C2

MARS Inc. Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626E2

FACTS MARS Volta, The (music group) Wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

MARTA Joins LA Sol 1-8, named FIFA top player 1-12, 159C3 Sol lose WPS title 8-22, 612B2 Named FIFA top player 12-21, 949D3

MARTE, Damaso Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770F3

MARTEL, Yann Mantel wins Man Booker 10-6, 692B1

MARTIAL Arts Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 471B2 Iran/Armenia flight crash kills 168 7-15, 483B1 ‘16 Olympics inclusn nixed 8-13, 691B2 Iraq tae kwon do team slaying suspects held 9-24, 668C2

MARTIN, Andrea Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 256A1

MARTIN, Ben 2d in US Amateur Champ 8-30, 670F2

MARTIN, Dewey (Walter Milton Dewayen Midkiff) (1940-2009) Found dead 2-1, 120E3

MARTIN, Dick (Thomas Richard) (1922-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

MARTIN, Jacques Named Canadiens coach 6-1, 435G3

MARTIN, Kevin J. Quits FCC 1-15, 42F2–G2 Successor (Genachowski) named 3-3, 145A2

MARTIN, Mark Hendrick Motorsports wins NASCAR team champ 11-22, 859F3

MARTIN, Michael Quits, on parlt expenses temporary reforms 5-19, 343D2–E2, G3

MARTIN, Nicholas Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

MARTIN, Steve It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

MARTINELLI Berrocal, Ricardo (Panamanian president, 2009- ) Facts on 5-3, 308A1 Pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 308F3 Sworn 7-1, 493A3

MARTINEZ, Staff Sgt. Alberto Slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118A3–B3

MARTINEZ, Francisco Ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204F1–A2

MARTINEZ, German Mex parlt, local electns held 7-5, quits party ldrship 7-7, 460A3

MARTINEZ, Marcos Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

MARTINEZ, Melquiades R. (U.S. senator from Fla., 2005-09; Republican) Bush nixes successor bid 1-6, 5G2 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 Sets resignatn 8-7, 537E2 Successor (LeMieux) named 8-28, 585A1 Rep Wexler sets resignatn 10-14, 717B2

MARTINEZ, Pedro Joins Phillies 7-15, 531D2 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752A2 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770C2–D2, F3–G3

MARTINEZ, Victor Traded to Red Sox 7-31, 531G1 Among AL RBI ldrs 10-6, 690E2

MARTIN Memorial Medical Center (Fla.) Brain-damaged illegal immigrant (Jiminez) ‘03 deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3

MARTINO, Al (Jasper Cini) (1927-2009) Dies 10-13, 752D3

MARTYN, John (Iain David McGeachy) (1948-2009) Dies 1-29, 104F3

MARUF, Zakaria Chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–C1

MARVEL Entertainment Inc. Disney sets buy 8-31, 660E1

MARYLAND Accidents & Disasters DC Metro train crash kills 9 6-22, 428G3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Obama visits storage co 10-21, 742E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Balitmore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd 12-1, retrial sought 12-5, 848D3 Crime & Law Enforcement Cops spying curbs pass legis, signed/enacted 4-8—10-1, 919G2 ‘02 DC-area sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7; case denied by Sup Ct, clemency nixed 11-9—11-10, executed 11-10, 780C2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216B2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Mideast peace talks mulled 4-1, 209D3–E3 Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Cuba contractor held 12-5; Dvpt Alternatives work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927D3 Medicine & Health Care Sharfstein named FDA dep comr 3-14, 182F1 Swine flu cases rptd 4-30, 282E1 Military Issues Army biodefns lab work halted 2-3, 266D3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section NOW pres (O’Neill) elected 6-20, 492B2 Obama rally held 9-17, 617F3 Sports Ravens lose AFC champ 1-18, 39F2, E3, 40B1 Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, eminent domain authrzn passes legis 4-13, 347F2 Preakness results 5-16, 347C1 NCAA women’s lacrosse champ results 5-24, 399C3 LPGA Champ results 6-14, 595D2 AT&T Natl results 7-5, 563E3 Sr Players Champ results 10-4, 708D1

MARYLAND, University of (College Park) Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn results 4-7, 230E3, 231A3 Heyward-Bey in NFL draft 4-25, 298F2 Obama rally held 9-17, 617F3

MARYLAND v. Shatzer Accepted by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 Suspect atty request case argumts heard by Sup Ct 10-5, 677D2

MARY Stuart (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

MARZILI, Asif Convctd, sentncd 4-7, punishmt opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, 252F3

MARZOUK, Moussa Abu Seeks Gaza blockade end 1-18, 31D2

MASEBE, Thabo On Dalai Lama, S Africa entry block 3-23, 327A2

MASETH, Staff Sgt. Ryan (1983-2008) Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38D2 Electrocutn death rpt issued 7-27, 530A2

M.A.S.H. (TV show) Gelbart dies 9-11, 632A3

MASHAI, Esfandiar Rahim Named pres 1st dep 7-17; choice scored 7-18, drop urged, nixed 7-21—7-22, 485C2–D2 Vp apptmt dropped, delay questnd 7-24—7-25, named Ahmadinejad staff chief 7-25, 519B1–C1 Ahmadinejad names cabt 8-16—8-19, 562A2, F2

MASHAIRE, Sheila Attacked 10-26, 746E2

MASHHADANI, Adil Held, violnc erupts 3-28—3-29, 208D2, G2 Sentncd 11-19, 838D1

MASHHADANI, Mahmoud alSamarraie replacemt seen 1-8; boycott warned 1-10, selectn delayed 1-11, 23G1 Successor (Sammaraie) elected 4-19, 275D1

MASHHADANI, Saif al-Din alCleared 3-2, 121D3

MASKAWA, Toshide ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

ON FILE

MASON, Marsha Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

MASON, Steve NHL shutouts ldr, among goals-vs avg 4-12, 299C3–D3 Wins Calder Trophy 6-18, 435F2

MASRI, Abu Hamza alAssoc (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411A3

MASSA, Eric (U.S. representative from N.Y., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MASSA, Felipe Hurt, has surgery/exits coma 7-25—7-27, returns home 8-3, 647A2

MASSACHUSETTS Accidents & Disasters Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse constructn cos setlmt rptd 3-26, 357G2 MLB ex-pitcher (Fidrych) dies 4-13, dump truck mishap cited 4-16, 256B3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section OneUnited/Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243E1 Fairfield Greenwich chrgd 4-1, 245F1 State Street stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 Madoff ‘feeder fund’ setlmt OKd 9-8, 603E3 Crime & Law Enforcement ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429F1, B2, F2 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425F3 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-2, 504D3–E3, G3–505D1, G1, C2 Medicare fraud suspects held 7-29, 574C2 Demonstrations & Protests Calif gay marriage ban ct ruling protested 5-26, 352F3 Family Issues Gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150C1–E1 Vt gay marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/ruling backed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216B1; table 217B2 Fed marriage law suit filed 7-8, 492F1 Shriver funeral held 8-14, 580F3 Tex gay couple divorce OKd 10-1, 699A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Michael Bianco founder (Insolia) sentncd 1-27, 202C2 Obama aunt asylum bid extended 4-1, 231C3 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Anticlotting protein (ATryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202B1 Universal care suit filed 7-15, paymt chng backed 7-16, 520A3 Onie wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2 Obituaries Kennedy, Edward M 8-25, 580F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Kennedy gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548F1 Sen seat successn law chng sought 8-19, 570F1 Kennedy dies, ldrship hailed/Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, seat successn law chng backed 8-27, 569A2–570A3; photos 569F3, 570A1 Obama news conf held 8-25, 571E1 Sen Kennedy mourned, funeral held 8-28—8-29; replacemt candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, law chng hearing set, spec electn set 8-31, 584A2, F2, D3 Kennedy nephew nixes replacemt bid 9-7; gov apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, Kirk named 9-24, 638F1 Electn results 11-3, 756E3 Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848C2 Press & Broadcasting Boston Globe shutdown warned/averted, unions OK concessns 4-3—5-4, Newspaper Guild deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 39A1 Boston Globe pay/benefits cut OKd 7-20; sale nixed, Ainsley quits/Mayer named 10-14—10-29, Telegram & Gazette buyout offers sought, sale nixed 10-14—12-7, 912D2 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D1, F1 NYT/Red Sox stake sale sought 2-19, 168G1

2009 Index NCAA women’s hockey champ results 3-22, 300E1 Basketball HOF elects Jordan/Stockton/Robinson/Stringer/Slo an 4-6, 279A1 Bruins win divisn 4-12, 299A2, E2 Celtics win divisn 4-15, 278G1–A2 Boston Marathon results 4-20, 332C1 Celtics exit playoffs 5-17, 419A3 NCAA men’s lacrosse champ results 5-25, 399A3 Deutsche Bank Champ results 9-7, 670E2 Basketball HOF inducts Jordan/Stockton/Robinson/Sloan/String er 9-11, 670A3 Red Sox make playoffs 9-29, 690D1, B2–C2 Red Sox exit playoffs 10-11, 752F1 Patriots clinch divisn 12-27, 947B3

MASSACHUSETTS Institute of Technology (MIT) (Cambridge) Duflo wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2 Obama addresses 10-23, 743C2 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880E3

MASSEY, Walter Named Bank of Amer chair 4-29, 291B3

MASSEY Energy Co. Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390C1

MASSIMINO, Michael Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 5-11—5-24, 372B3, D3, F3

MASSOGLIA, Chris Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

MASSOUD, Ahmed Shah (d. 2001) Brother home bombed 12-15, 894B2

MASSOUD, Ahmed Zia Home bombed 12-15, 894B2

MASS Transit Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247B1 Calif ex-cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—1-10, passenger shooting fair trial nixed, move ordrd 10-16—11-19, 920D2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90C3 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2 US ‘08 use rise rptd 3-9, 202C1 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 273D1 Swine flu outbreak mulled, Biden remarks clarified 4-30, 282D1–E1 UK forgn extremists banned 5-5, 310G2 WTC site arbitratn sought 5-21, 620G2 DC Metro train upgrades cost mulled 6-24, 429D1–E1 Terror alert issued, NYC security hiked 9-18—9-22, bomb plot suspect (Zazi) evidnc rptd 9-20, 642B1, D1 Power outages hit Brazil 11-10, 871E3

MASTERCARD International Inc. Heartland credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133D2

MASTERING the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596B1; 9-28, 672B1

MASTEROFTHEHORSE (racehorse) 3d in English Derby 6-6, 399G2

MASTERSON, Justin Traded to Indians 7-31, 531G1

MASTERS Tournament—See GOLF MASTER Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body! (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384B1

MASUZOE, Yoichi On swine flu response 5-20, 352A1

MATERA, Barbara Europn Parlt bid set 4-29, 328G1

MATHEMATICS Gromov wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255B3 Mahadevan wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Obituaries Gelfand, Israel M 10-5, 731B3

MATHESON, Jim (James David) (U.S. representative from Utah, 2001-; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MATHIS, Jeff Angels lose pennant 10-25, 752B1

MATHIS, Samantha 33 Variatns opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3

MATINENGA, Eric Named const/parlt affairs min 2-10, 81B3 Sworn const affairs min 2-13, 97G1

—McCAIN MATISSE, Henri (1869-1954) Cuckoos fetches $46 mln 2-23, 160B1–C1

MATSUI, Doris (U.S. representative from Calif., 2005- ; Democrat) Cruise ship safety measures pass 11-17, 908F1

MATSUI, Hideki Yankees win World Series, ties single game RBI mark/named MVP 11-4, 770E1–F1, D2, G3 Joins Angels 12-16, 949B1

MATSUURA, Koichiro Rptd UNESCO dir gen 1-1, 3B2 Successor votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675E2

MATSUZAKA, Daisuke Japan wins World Baseball Classic, named to all-tourn team/MVP 3-23, 190C3, 191C1

MATTHES, Clay In NFL draft 4-25, 298F3

MATTHEW, Catriona Wins Women’s British Open 8-2, 595B2

MATTHEWS, Chris Nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5G2

MATTHIESSON, F. O. (1902-50) Prof endowmt set 6-2, 574F2

MAUDE (TV show) Arthur dies 4-25, 300C3

MAUER, Joe AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 AL batting ldr 10-6, 690D2 Wins AL MVP 11-23, 823E2

MAURER, Ron Introduces med marijuana govt control bill 3-11, 165E2

MAURESMO, Amelie Exits Wimbledon 6-29, 467F2

MAURITANIA, Islamic Republic of African Relations AU sanctns set 2-5, 82A3 AU reentry OKd, sanctns lifted 7-1, 459E2 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins civil courage prize 10-20; return blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903E3 Civil Strife Ex-premr (Waghf) freed 6-4, 493C1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Abdel Aziz quits mil 4-15, 492D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres electn set 1-23, 82C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234F3 Pres electn delayed 6-2, power-sharing deal signed 6-27, 493A1 Facts on Abdel Aziz 7-18, 492E3 Pres electn held, results rptd 7-18—7-19; appeal filed, probe urged 7-22—7-23, electoral comm head quits 7-23, 492A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734F3 Middle East Relations Israeli ties cut 1-16, 31C1 Sports Dakar Rally held in Argentina 1-17, 104C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US aid worker slain 6-23; attack claimed 6-25, suspects held, Mali entry seen 7-17—7-18, 493E1 French emb blast hurts 2 8-8, 704C2 Forgners seized, kidnappings claimed/release talks rptd 11-29—12-28, 903F2–G2

MAURITIUS Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu visits 2-16—2-17, 170E1, B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234F3; 10-1, 734F3 Science & Technology E Africa broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2

MAW, (John) Nicholas (1935-2009) Dies 5-19, 364F3

MAWER, Simon On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692D1

MAXIMOVA, Ekaterina Sergeyevna (1938?-2009) Dies 4-28, 300G3

MAXWELL BLACKsummers’night on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

MAXWELL, Jan Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

MAXXI (Rome, Italy) Opens 11-14, 953F2

MAY, Ernest Richard (1928-2009) Dies 6-1, 420G3

MAYARDIT, Salva Kiir Visits US 1-5, 116G1

MAYAWATI, Kumari Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 346A1–B1

MAYBIN, Aaron In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

MAYER, Christopher Named Boston Globe publisher 10-29, 912G2

MAYER, John Wins Grammys 2-8, 88F2–G2

MAYER, Michael Everyday Rapture opens in NYC 5-2, 348G1 Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

MAYERMANOV, Kazhimurat held 4-10, 510A3

MAYFIELD, Jeremy Suspended, positive test mulled 5-9—5-18, atty hiring rptd 5-21, 363D3–E3

MAYILA, Louis-Gaspon Hurt in pres electn protests 9-3, 604F1

MA Ying-jeou (Taiwanese president, 2008- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Chen pleads not guilty, opens hunger strike/claims pol motivatn 1-19—2-23, kin pleads guilty 1-21—2-10, 135B1, E1 China talks mulled 3-5, 187B1 WHO observer status block dropped 4-29, 309D3 China policies protested, improved ties touted 5-17—5-20; marks inauguratn anniv 5-20, Wu visits China 5-25—6-1, 415C3, E3–F3, 416A1 Elected party ldr 7-26, Hu telegrams exchngd 7-27, 511A2 Typhoon Morakot hits 8-7—8-9; denies forgn aid block, regrets govt response 8-13—8-18, death toll estimated 8-20, 559C3, F3–G3 Dalai Lama visits 8-30—9-1; Liu, cabt quit 9-7, replacemts named, sworn 9-7—9-10, 625G1–A2, C2 Chen convctd, sentncd 9-11, 625E2 Local electns held 12-5, 891C2–E2

MAYNOR, Eric In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

MAYO, Sgt. First Class Joseph Ct-martial set 1-13, 23D2* Army medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118F2–G2 Pleads guilty, sentncd 3-30, 208D3–F3 Iraq detainees slayings troop (Hatley) convctd, sentncd 4-15, 254F3

MAYOR, Michel Small extrasolar planet find rptd 4-21, 952D1

MAYORS (U.S.) White House mtg held 2-20, 111C2 Miss’s Melton mistrial declared 2-24; electn held 5-5, dies 5-7, 306D3 Detroit primary electn held 2-25, 131G1 LA’s Villaraigosa reelected 3-3, 131A2 Detroit electn held, Bing vows ofc integrity return 5-5, 306A3 St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458G1–A2 Detroit primary held, Bing/Barrow race set 8-4, 553F1 Seattle primary held 8-18, 779G3–780A1 NYC’s Bloomberg wins Lasker 9-14, 671C3 Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1 Electn results 11-3, 756E2, D3 Seattle electn results rptd 11-9, 779E3 Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848D3 Atlanta runoff held 12-1, results rptd 12-9, 848A3 White sets Tex gov bid 12-4, Houston runoff held 12-13, 868F3, 869C1

MAYOTTE (French territory) Yemen/Comoros flight crash kills 152 6-30, 439E3

MAYS, Billy (William Darrell) (1958-2009) Dies 6-28, cocaine link rptd 8-7, 955A3

MAYS, Jayma Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

MAYWEATHER Jr., Floyd Sets boxing return 5-2, 384F2, A3 Decisns Marquez 9-19, 647D2

1103

Pacquiao fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2

MAZDA Motor Corp. Ford/Chonqing jt venture set 9-25, 932D2

MAZUZ, Menachem Forgn min (Lieberman) indictmt urged 8-2, 689B2 Indicts Olmert 8-30, 593A1

MBA, Leon (1902-67) (Gabonese prime minister, 1959-61; president, 1961-67) Bongo dies 6-8, 393F3

MBATHA-Raw, Gugu Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

MBC Networks (Sri Lankan TV channel) Studios attacked 1-6, 9A3

MBEKI, Thabo (South African president, 1999-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 ANC electn campaign opens 1-10; Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 22A1–C1, G1 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai sworn PM 2-11, 82C2 Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, denies interfernc 4-9, 222D1–F1, E2 Gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 293G1, A2–C2, D2, F2–A3 At Zuma inaguratn 5-9, cabt named 5-10, 325A2–D2, G2 Workers strike, deals set 7-8—7-31, 525D3 US’s Clinton visits 8-7—8-9, 540C2 Zuma/Zimbabwe diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588B2, E2 On Darfur conflict, spec cts proposed 10-8, 924C2–D2 Denied ‘09 African ldrship prize 10-19, 731F2 Govt AIDS policy hiked, apology sought 12-1, 850F2–A3

MBOWENI, Tito Cuts interest rate 2-5, 96F2; 5-28, 359C1

M. Butterfly (play/film) Shi Pei Pu dies 6-30, 516G3

McADAMS, Rachel State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2 Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

McAFEE, George Anderson (1918-2009) Dies 3-4, 192D3

McANUFF, Des Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3

McARTHUR, Megan Flies Atlantis missn 5-11—5-24, 372B3–C3

McAULIFFE, Terry Loses Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391F1

McBRIDE, Danny Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

McCABE, Ruth New Electric Ballroom opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

McCAIG, William Asbestos trial opens, evidnc nixed 2-19—4-23; witness testimony questnd, upheld 4-17—4-28, chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, 356E2–F2

McCAIN, John Sidney (U.S. senator from Ariz., 1987- ; Republican) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Pres electn electoral coll votes certified 1-8, 6F1 Honored 1-19, 28C1 Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 Lobbyist (Iseman)/NYT suit setld, romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151C3–D3 On Iraq troops Aug ‘10 exit 2-27, 121D2 Fscl ‘09 omnibus earmarks drop nixed 3-3, 144C1–D1 Fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126B2–C2 Drug cos/health insurers campaign contributns rptd 3-8, 146E1 Alt budget plan nixed 4-2, 218F1 GOP gay marriage stance chng urged 4-17, 266F2 Scores terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, 337D1 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 354A1 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455A3 Vs F-22s buys authrzn 7-21, 490C1 Obama Hawaii birth records confrmd 7-27, 553A1 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569D3 Mourns Sen Kennedy 8-28, 584F2

1104 McCAIN-Feingold— On health care reform proposals 9-9, 598G1 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603C1 Questns Jt Chiefs chair (Mullen) 9-15, 629A3–B3 On Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613G2, B3 ACORN voter registratn halt mulled 9-17, 639B1 On Afghan troop levels 10-6, 673B1–D1 Hails Obama Nobel Prize choice 10-9, 693G1 On Palin bk 11-16, 797A2–C2 Questns Afghan troops exit date 12-2, 827E2 Questns Afghan troops exit timeline 12-8, 844G2 Tenn rep (Gordon) nixes reelectn bid 12-14, Ala’s Griffith joins GOP 12-22, 885C3, F3 On health care reform vote 12-20, 906A1

McCAIN-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform—See BIPARTISAN Campaign Reform Act McCALL, Carl Cuomo sees Obama 9-21, 639F2

McCALL Smith, Alexander Tea Time for the Traditionally Built on best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

McCANN, Colum Wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860B1

McCARTHY, Carolyn (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1997- ; Democrat) Vs natl parks gun measure 3-20, 354A3

McCARTHY, Cormac Typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Road on best-seller list 12-21, 956C1

McCARTHY, Leonard Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222A2–C2

McCHRYSTAL, Gen. Stanley Named Afghan cmdr 5-11, 317A1 Testifies to Sen com 6-2, 381A1–G1 Confrmd Afghan cmdr/takes post, mulls strategy 6-10—6-16, air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434A1, G2 Afghan operatn launched 7-2, 465G3 On Afghan civiln deaths ‘09 rise 7-31, cmnd structure chngd 8-4, 547A1, F2 Visits Pak 8-17, 578E1 Urges Afghan strategy chng, seeks civiln deaths curbs 9-1, 593B3–E3, 594A1–C1 Vows Afghan air strike probe 9-4, 611A2, D2 Seeks Afghan troops hike, scores govt graft 9-20, denies Obama rift 9-24, 635A1–C1, G1–F2, A3–C3, E3–F3 Seeks Afghan troops hike 9-27, 669A1–B1 Iraq troops cont exit seen 9-29, 668C1 Vs Afghan ltd missn, sees Brown/Obama 10-1—10-6; violnc kills scores 10-2—10-6, troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673C1, B2, 674C2 Sees Pak’s Kiyani 10-6, 695E2 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-8—10-14, 695F3, 696C1–D1 At NATO defns mins mtg, Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-23—10-28, 751B2, D2–E2 Afghan troop levels mulled 11-11, 775D1 Afghan mil strategy mtg held/plan unveiling seen, troop levels mulled 11-23—11-24, 809F2 Backs Afghan troops hike 12-1, sees civilns role 12-2, 825E2–F2, B3, 826B1 Testifies to Cong 12-8, 844B2 Afghan/NATO air strike civiln deaths alleged 12-31, 899C2

McCLAIN, John Files Jackson will 7-1, named estate coexecutor 7-6, 468A2–B2

McCLAIN, Leroy Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

McCLAIN, Lori Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

McCLELLAN, Mark Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1

McCLELLAND, Robert Proposes terrorism law chngs 8-13, 930A3–B3

McCOLLUM, William Questns health care reform Sen bill measure 12-29, 906F1

McCONAUGHEY, Matthew Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

McCONNELL, Mike (John) (U.S. director of national intelligence, 2007-09) On bin Laden son locatn 1-16, 38G3

Successor nominee (Blair) Sen com hearing held, testimony issued/confrmd 1-22—1-28, 45E1

McCONNELL, Mitch (Addison M. McConnell Jr.) (U.S. senator from Ky., 1985- ; Republican) Facts on 1-6, 4B3 Reseated minority ldr 1-6, 5E2 On econ recovery plan 2-10, 73E1 On Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125F3 Drug cos/health insurers campaign contributns rptd 3-8, 146E1 On $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax 3-23, 220D1 On Alaska seat ‘08 race 4-1, 199C2 On Obama budget cuts 4-20, 264A1 On Sen Specter party switch 4-28, 285D1 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D3 On health care reform proposal cost estimate 6-16, 408E3 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503F1 Vs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn 8-6, 519D3 On health care reform proposal 9-16, 617C2 Hosts Canada’s Harper 9-17, 643E1 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-13, 793E1 On health care reform bill 11-18, 796D3 Vs $700 bln financial indus aid stimulus use 12-8, 847A1

McCONNELLOGUE, Ken On prof (Churchill) ouster 4-3, doubts reinstatn 4-9, 308A1–B1

McCONNELL v. Federal Election Commission (2003) Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603D1

McCORMICK, Harold Buys Rachel Alexandra 5-6, filly wins Preakness 5-16, 347E1

McCORMICK, Nelson Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

McCORVEY, Norma (Jane Roe) Protests Obama Notre Dame address 5-17, 338A3 Protests Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings 7-13—7-16, 469F2

McCOUGHTRY, Angel Tops WNBA draft 4-9, 808C1 Named WNBA top rookie 10-1, 808C1

McCOURT, Frank (Francis) (1930-2009) Sees Ramirez 5-9, 348C1 Dies 7-19, 500E3

McCOURT, Malachy Brother dies 7-19, 500E3

McCOY, Colt 3d in Heisman voting 12-12, 879G2

McCRANEY, Tarell Alvin Marcus opens in Princeton 5-22, 451A3

McCREARY County v. ACLU Kentucky (2005) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B1

McDADE, Staff Sgt. Aubrey Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D3

McDANIEL, Randall Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

McDANIELS, Josh Named Broncos coach 1-12, 55E3

McDEVITT, Thomas Fired 11-9, 913F2

McDONAGH, Ryan Traded to Rangers 6-30, 731C1

McDONALD, Jessica UNC wins NCAA title, named MVP 12-6, 895A2

McDONALD, Wesley Lee (1924-2009) Dies 2-8, 160D3

McDONALD‘S Corp. Greek blast hits 7-4, 591F1 LPGA comr (Bivens) ldrship questnd 7-6, quits 7-13, 595A2

McDONALD v. Chicago Accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G1

McDONNELL, Bob Wins Va gov GOP primary 6-9, 391D1, A2

McDONNELL, Emily Grasses of a 1000 Colors opens in London 5-18, 451G2

McDONNELL, Robert Coll thesis rptd 8-30, in gov debate held 10-12, 716E3–717B1 Elected Va gov 11-3, 755D2, C3

FACTS McDOWELL, Robert Confrmd 6-25, 458C1–D1

McENULTY, Frank Edward Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

McEWAN, Ian Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

McFARLAND, Stephen Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) murder claims probe aid sought 5-11, 377D1

McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

McGAHEE, Willis Ravens lose AFC champ 1-18, 39F3–G3

McGANN, Eileen Catastrophe on best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

McGILL, Anthony At Obama inauguratn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

McGILL, Bruce Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

McGINN, Mike Seattle mayoral electn undecided 11-3—11-5, 757A1 Seattle mayoral electn win rptd 11-9, 779E3

McGOOHAN, Patrick Joseph (1928-2009) Dies 1-13, 40G2

McGOWAN, Ross 2d in Dubai World Champ 11-22, 839E3

McGRADY, Tracy NBA season ends 4-15, 278F3

McGRAW, Tim Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

McGRAW, Justice Warren Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390C1

McGRAW-Hill Co. BusinessWk sale set 10-13, Yrangiel named ed 11-17, 912F3

McGREGOR, Ewan Angels & Demons on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

McGUIGAN, Paul Slain 8-9, 545G2

McGUINNESS, Martin Scores N Ireland cop slaying 3-10, 173D1 Hosts US’s Clinton 10-12, 705B1, D1

McGWIRE, Mark Misses HOF electn 1-12, 71B3

McHALE, Joel Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

McHALE, Kevin Fired 6-17, 451F1 Replacemt (Rambis) named 8-11, 771A2

McHENRY, Patrick (U.S. representative from N.C., 2005- ; Republican) Vs census pol oversight 2-4, 60C2

McHUGH, Heather Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

McHUGH, John (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1993-2009; Republican) Named Army secy 6-2, 373B2, D2–E2 Confrmd/sworn Army secy, quits Cong 9-16—9-21, 656G1 Electn results 11-3, 755G3 Sets Arlington Natl Cemetery record-keeping woes probe 11-13, 915F1

McILROY, Rory 3d in PGA Champ 8-16, 563B3 2d in Dubai World Champ 11-22, 839E3

McINTYRE, Mike (U.S. representative from N.C., 1997- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

McKAY, Adam You’re Welcome Amer opens in NYC 2-5, 211G3

McKEAN, Michael Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

McKIERNAN, Gen. David Ousted, mil career hailed/end seen 5-11—5-12, 317A1 Detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 331B1 Gen McChrystal confrmd successor/takes post, mulls strategy 6-10—6-16, 434A1

McKINNEY, Cynthia Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656B2

ON FILE

McKINNON, Ray Blind Side on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2

McKINSEY & Co. Killefer withdraws chief performnc ofcr nominatn 2-3, 59D2 Energy efficiency spending savings rptd 7-29, 917B3 Kumar chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3

McKNEELY, Joey West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

McLARIN, Curtis Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

McLAUGHLIN, Annette Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

McLAUGHLIN, Keauna Wins US champ 1-24, 139E2

McLEAN, Jane Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

McLEAN, Jordan Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

McLEAVY, Robin Streetcar Named Desire revival opens in DC 10-31, 896D1

McLENDON, Michael (1982-2009) Kills 10, self 3-10, 149A1–D1

McLOUTH, Nate Traded to Braves 6-3, 484D2

McMAHON, Ed (Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr.) (1923-2009) Dies 6-23, 436F3

McMAHON, Michael E. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

McMASTER, Henry Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ prosecutn halt ordrd 5-22, 781D3 Gov Sanford censure urged 12-9, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869B2 Questns health care reform Sen bill measure 12-30, 906E1

McMENAMIN, James Our Town revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2

McMENEMY, Alan Iraq hostage (Moore) freed 12-30, 941D3

McMILLAN, Jeanice Dies in DC Metro train crash 6-22, computer failure seen 6-23, 429A1–B1

McMORRIS Rogers, Cathy (U.S. representative from Wash., 2005- ; Republican) Seated GOP Conf v chair 1-6, 5E1

McNABB, Donovan Eagles lose NFC champ 1-18, 39B3 Vick signs Eagles deal 8-13, 564F1 Hurt 9-13, 631C3

McNAIR, Mechelle Husband, girlfriend found dead 7-4, gun buy rptd, murder-suicide ruled 7-5—7-8, 467C3

McNAIR, Steve LaTreal (1973-2009) Manning named NFL MVP 1-2, 55B2 Found slain, girlfriend gun buy rptd/murder-suicide ruled 7-4—7-8, mourned 7-8—7-9, 467A3

McNALLY, Kevin R. Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1

McNALLY, Terrence Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

McNAMARA, Archbishop Kevin (d. 1987) Child abuse role regretted 11-26, 836D1

McNAMARA, Robert Strange (1916-2009) Dies 7-6, 468C3; photo 468E3

McNAMEE, Brian Clemens perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, syringe DNA found 2-3, 88A1 Clemens syringes drugs found 3-10, 159A1

McNULTY, Mark Loses Sr UK Open 7-26, 708F1

McPHEE, Ian Issues car dealer, Treasury favoritism probe rpt 8-4, 851C3

McPHERSON, Kristy 2d in Kraft Nabisco Champ 4-5, 332A2

McQUAID, Archbishop John Charles (d. 1973) Child abuse role regretted 11-26, 836D1

2009 Index McTEER, Janet Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

McTEIGUE, James Ninja Assassin on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

McVEIGH, Timothy J. (1968-2001) Vets profiling scored 4-14, 263C1

MEACHAM, Jon Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2, F2–G2

MEAD, Laura Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

MEADORS, Marynell Named WNBA top coach 10-1, 808C1

MEADOWS, Jennifer Wins 800-m world champ bronze 8-19, 579B2

MEANEY, Colm Law Abiding Citizen on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

MEAT (& Meat Products) Agriprocessors ex-mgr (De La Rosa-Loera) sentncd 3-3, 151E2 Agriprocessors ex-supervisor (Guerrero-Espinoza) sentncd 3-19, ex-mgr (Beillmeyer) pleads guilty 4-13, 268F3 Labor Dept divisn complaints handling questnd 3-25, 340G3 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268B3 Cow genome deciphered 4-23—4-24, 516D1 US/Mex pork trade halted, bans opposed 4-27—4-28, 282A2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321D1 China/Brazil imports hiked 5-19, 448D2 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524E2 HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1 Argentina farmers strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 China lifts US pork imports block, poultry curbs eased 10-29, 776C2 Iowa raided plant mgr (Rubashkin) convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) Web posting rptd 12-29, 898E1

MEBE Ngo’o, Edgar Alain Named defns min 6-30, 722E3

MECHAM, Anne Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44B1

MEDAL of Freedom, Presidential Presented 1-13, 24B2; 8-12, 548D1 Calif Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699E1 Obituaries Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3 Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40F3

MEDAL of Honor Afghan slain troop (Monti) honored 9-17, 636A1

MEDELLIN, Jose (1975-2008) Tex executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31E3, G3

MEDERKULOV, Taalaybek Brother power abuse chrgd 3-5, 187F2

MEDHAT, Kamal Slain 3-23, 211E1–F1

MEDIASET SpA Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, 750B1

MEDIAWEEK (trade publication) Sale set 12-10, 912B3

MEDICAID—See under MEDICINE MEDICAL Research Council S Africa rape survey rptd 6-17, 923E3

MEDICAL Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, England) Ramakrishnan wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1

MEDICARE—See under MEDICINE MEDICARE & Medicaid Services, U.S. Centers for (of HHS) ‘07 health care spending rptd 1-5, 80F3 RI Medicaid reforms waiver takes effect 1-19, 95G3–96A1 Experimental cancer drugs Medicare coverage hike rptd 1-27, 133E1 ‘09 health care spending rise seen 2-24, 146B1 DeParle named White House health reform dir 3-2, 129B2 Health care reform mailings halt order lifted 10-16, 714C1

—MEDICINE 1105 Medicare Part B ‘10 premium rise set 10-16, 714C2

MEDICARE Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) Cost-cutting measures urged 6-15, 409F1–G1

MEDICI, Gen. Emilio Garrastazu (1905-85) (Brazilian president, 1969-74) Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid role revealed, documts release urged 8-16—8-18, 569D1–E1

MEDICINE & Health Care Abortion Issues—See ABORTION AIDS—See AIDS Allergies Russian rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 Appointments & Resignations Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-8, tax records probe cont 1-15, 17E2 CDC dir (Gerberding) quits 1-9, 65C1 Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, 29E1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regrets error 1-30—2-2; Obama backs 2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59A2, A3, D3–E3 FDA comr apptmt seen 1-30, 63B2 Gov Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd, nominated 2-28—3-2, health reform dir (DeParle) named 3-2, 129C1–A2 Gupta drops surgeon gen bid 3-5, 145B3 FDA comr (Hamburg), dep comr (Sharfstein) named 3-14, 182F1–C2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, paymt woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221B1 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) backed 4-21, confrmd, sworn 4-28, 285A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E1 FDA comr nominee (Hamburg) Sen com hearing held 5-13, confrmd 5-18, 354D1 Frieden named CDC dir 5-15, 354F1 NIH dir (Collins) named 7-8, 491G1 Benjamin named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1 Awards & Honors Brinker/Greer/Rowley get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548G1–A2, C2 Laksers announced 9-14, 671E2 Onie/Seaman wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2–D2 Blackburn/Greider/Szostak win Nobel 10-5, 693B3 Bird Flu China/Viet/Egypt cases rptd, alert issued 1-6—2-11, 76F1 China/US chicken imports complaint filed 4-17, 615G2 China seeks US poultry imports ban probe 6-23, 440E1 Brain & Nervous System NFL head injuries House com hearing held 10-28; concussns policies chngd 11-24—12-2, probe cochrmn quit, study halted/Boston Univ role set 11-24—12-20, 947F3 Cancer—See CANCER Childbirth—See CHILDBIRTH Death Issues Italian woman (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6; dies 2-9, autopsy rptd 2-11, 117C1 Wash assisted suicide authrzn opens 3-5, 184F2 US life expectancy rise rptd 8-19, 816G2 Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580A2 Child preventable deaths drop rptd 9-10, 901E2 UK assisted suic ide prosecutns curbed 9-23, Swiss legis proposed 10-28, 937D2 Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3 Dentistry Silver fillings health risk nixed by FDA 7-29, 555B2 Diet & Exercise Monkeys calorie curbs, longer life linked 7-9, 595D3 France’s Sarkozya collapses, enters/exits hosp 7-26—7-27, vows rest 7-29, 528F3 Pa gym gunman kills 3, self 8-4, guns buy rptd 8-7, 554A2 Ad disclosure rules hiked by FTC 10-5, 761A2 Disabilities—See DISABLED Persons Diseases & Epidemics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2 Zimbabwe cholera outbreak deaths/illnesses tallied 2-5, 67C1

Zimbabwe cholera outbreak deaths tallied 2-12, 81G1–A2 Zimbabwe cholera outbreak illnesses, deaths tallied 2-17, 97G1–A2 Darfur concerns rptd 3-18—3-20, 185C1 Swine flu cases confrmd, emergencies declared/WHO alert hiked 4-21—4-30; Mex curbs set, aid OKd 4-24—4-30, US measures mulled, Biden remarks clarified 4-28—4-30, 281A1–282A2 Madagascar children risk seen 4-25, 308D3 Swine flu outbreak curbs mulled 4-29, 285B2 Mex/HK visitor swine flu positive test rptd 4-30; hotel quarantined, response scored 5-1—5-2, return flight OKd 5-4, 303B3 Swine flu spread cont/cases tallied, threat mulled 5-1—5-7; WHO alert level clarified/retained, US median age rptd 5-3—5-7, schls, businesses reopened 5-5—5-6, 303D1, B2, F2, F3 Swine Flu spread cont/cases tallied, WHO alert chngs seen 5-10—5-27; threat mulled/lab accident claim nixed, elderly resistnc rptd 5-13—5-20, Mex/Japan measures eased 5-20—5-26, 351E2–352A2 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338F1, D2 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355E1 Swine flu US spread rptd 6-1—6-11; biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, pandemic declared 6-11, 386D2, B3 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424F3 Cases tallied, elderly rise rptd 6-26—7-24; antiviral drug (Tamiflu) swine flu resistnc mulled, US/Latin Amer donatn set 6-29—7-2, spread seen, WHO tracking halted 7-16, 502A1, C2–E2 Mex parlt, local electns held 7-5, 460A3 ASEAN mtgs, summit held 7-20—7-23, 495A3 China town quarantined 8-3, blockade lifted 8-8, 557G2 Swine flu schl curbs urged, seasons plan issued 8-7—8-24; CR/Colombia pres infected, US spread cont 8-11—8-21, turkeys cases rptd/mutatn mulled, severe form warned 8-21—8-28, 583D3, 584C1–D1 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541E1 Russia’s Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko 8-11, 609F1 Mex’ Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605D2 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633A1, D2 Swine flu cases tallied 9-27, US spread mulled 10-1, 696E3, 697B1 Chronic fatigue syndrome, XMRV virus link seen 10-8, 952F3 Kan research lab funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714C3 Swine flu complicatns warned, deaths/cases tallied 10-16—10-17; Minn pig positive test seen, confrmd 10-17—10-19, US spread rptd, emergency declared 10-23, 741B2, E3–F3 US/Sudan policy shift set, mulled 10-19—11-1, 762A1 China lifts US pork imports block, poultry curbs eased 10-29, 776C2 Swine flu child drug release set 10-30; Ukrine curbs set, Venez/US spread mulled 10-30—11-12, deaths/cases tallied, Europn peak seen 11-1—11-12, 810C2, 811A1 Swine flu peak mulled, cases/deaths tallied 11-20—12-31, bacterial infectns rise rptd 11-25, 901B1 Saudi pilgrimage swine flu cases tallied 11-29, 944B2–C2 N Korea swine flu outbreak rptd, S Korea aid offrd/OKd 12-8—12-10, 873D3 Autism diagnosis rise seen 12-18, 918C3 Doctors—See ‘Physicians’ below Drugs & Health-Care Products ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 Vermoegensverwaltung owner (Merckle) found dead 1-5, suicide rptd 1-6, 8G1 Med devices efficacy/safety FDA reviews questnd 1-15, 64D3 Antipsychotic drug (Zyprexa) mktg suit setld 1-15, 64E3 Atypical antipsychotics heart risk warned 1-15, 64G3 Girl student strip search case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 48G3 Pfizer $2.3 bln chrg set 1-26, 49G1 Anticlotting protein (Atryn) OKd by FDA 2-6, 202A1 Japan finance min (Nakagawa) quits 2-17, 98E3

Film dir (Polanski) ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653D2 Forest chrgd 2-25, 201E3 Ranbaxy false test results rptd, FDA applicatns halted 2-25, 221F2 Wyeth state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130E2 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920E1 Medtronic heart device deaths link seen 3-13, 221E2 US safety reforms set 3-14, 167E2, G2 Darfur concerns rptd 3-18—3-20, 185D1 Merck shareholders suit case accepted by Sup Ct 5-26, 677C3 Kids sudden deaths, ADHD drugs link seen 6-15, 555E2 CIA Algeria ex-chief (Warren) rape chrgd 6-18, 502C3–D3 Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425E2–G2 Painkillers (Percocet/Vicodin) ban urged 6-30, 538E3 Antismoking drugs warning ordrd by FDA 7-1, 555C2 S African workers stirke 7-20, 526D1 Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatn home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609D2 Antidepressants use rise rptd 8-3, 816A3 Jackson death ruled ‘homicide’ 8-30, 612F2 Pfizer off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587F1 FDA device approval process probe sought 9-23, knee device ‘08 OK scored 9-24, 720E1 UK’s Brown denies pills use 9-27, 666C3 PI flood victims antibiotics use rptd 10-19, 890G3 Russian indus dvpt urged 11-12, 803E2 Ohio lethal injectn method chngd, inmate (Biros) use OKd/appeal denied 11-13—12-4, delay sought/nixed, stay rejected by Sup Ct 12-4—12-8, executed 12-8, 849E2, G2–A3 Price rise rptd 11-16, probes sought 11-18, 797A1 Alaska dealer (Johnston) sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3 Ethics Issues FDA drug researchers paymt conflicts rptd 1-12, 65B1 Moral/religious treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64G1 NYS ex-health comr (Novello) authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64A3 Moral/religious treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146F1 Insurers, drug cos Cong campaign contributns rptd 3-8, 145E1 Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2, C3 ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 268G3 Natl Century ex-execs sentncd 3-27, 539A3 Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 479A1 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump/Trafigura knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654B1–D1, G1 US immigratn detentn system overhaul set 10-6, 721D2 Canadian MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951E3 Ex-smoker (Naugie) damages awarded 12-1, 919F1 Federal Aid $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15A2 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1 Obama on econ recovery plan 2-8, 78D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89E1, 90F1–G1, D2; highlights listed 90B2 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144A2 Obama nixes budget proposals cut, Cong blueprints unveiled/backed 3-20—3-26, 181A1, D1–E1, A2–B2 Fscl ‘10 budget blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 217G3 US fscl ‘10 budget blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 285G3, 286B1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321A1, D1, F1 Vets ‘10 funds pass House 6-23, 489E2 US ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 523F3 Electronic records dvpt grants set 8-20, 816F2 HHS ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-7—10-8, signed 10-21, 761E1 US vets ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815C2–D2 UK budget unveiled 12-9, 854D2

1106 MEDICINE— ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866D3 US ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886E2 Food Contamination—See FOOD—Contamination Genetics—See GENETICS Handicapped—See DISABLED Persons Heart & Lungs Madoff investor (Picower) dies 10-25, 800A2 Conductor (Slatkin) suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, 792F2 Hospitals & Health-Care Facilities Gaza crisis mulled 1-13—1-14, 14A1 Calif prison health care ofcr ouster sought, nixed 1-28—3-24, conditns violatn ruled, populatn cap ordrd 3-2, 356D1, A2–C2 Sri Lanka site shelling kills 12+ 2-1—2-4, 119G2 Nonprofit hosps tax status questnd 2-12, 201G3 Japan/Afghan funding set, 110B1 Argentina soybean export tax revenue-sharing plan proposed 3-19, farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 204B1 Italy quake hits 4-6, 224C3 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377F3 Sri Lanka site shelling kills 100+, MDs flee 5-12—5-14, 334D3 Assocs cost cuts OKd 7-8, 457F2 Obama visits Ghana site 7-11, 472D1 Fla illegal immigrant (Jiminez) ‘03 deportatn upheld 7-27, 573D3 US troops/Afghan site raid alleged, denied 9-7—9-8, 612A1 Kazakh hosp blaze kills 37 9-13, 936A1 Indonesia quakes hit, aid arrives 9-30—10-1, 662D2–E2 Quake/tsunami hit Tonga 9-30, 663B1 CR ex-pres (Calderon) convctd 10-5, 818B1 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3 Zambia porn case rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925A3 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia 11-24, 885C2 Insurance—See also ‘Medicaid’ below; ‘Medicare’ below US ‘07 spending rptd 1-5, 80F3 S African party electn campaign opens 1-10, 22F1 UnitedHealth NYS paymts suit setld 1-13, ‘out-of-network’ chrgs paymt OKd 1-15, 64D2 CHIP funds hike passes House 1-14, 19G1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27C1, A2–B2 China health care overhaul set, detailed 1-21, 4-7, 251A3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D1, F2 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58C2 CHIP funding hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62C3 GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62D2 UAW auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92C3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, B2; text 107B2 US ‘09 cost rise seen 2-24, 146B1 Obama health care reform oppositn set 2-25, 340D1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124B3, 125B1, E1, E2 Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150D1 China stimulus spending disclosure urged, detailed 3-4—3-5, 186E3 White House health care forum held 3-5, 145C3 Health care reform coalitn exits set 3-6, 146C1 Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1, A2–B2 Obama sees vets 3-16; pvt med insurers paymt proposal dropped 3-18, electronic unified records set 4-9, 244C3, F3 Preexisting illness pricing end OKd 3-24, 245E3 Obama holds Internet pub forum 3-26, 200G3 GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197F3, 198F1, B2, D2, D3 Health care reform Cong talks rptd 4-1, 245A3 Reform coalitn plan outlined 4-1, 245A3 Obama defends econ plan 4-14, 240B1–C1 Chrysler/UAW deal chngd 4-29, 283G1 Iraq/Afghan mil clinics, pvt contractors reimbursemt woes rptd 5-4, 412A1

FACTS Women premiums disparity end set, universal care taxes mulled 5-5—5-20; Obama reform oppositn ads rptd, talks secrecy scored 5-11, spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339G2, 340B1, D1, F1 GM/UAW deal chngd 5-29, bankruptcy declared, govt stake set 6-1, 365F2, C3, 366B2 Health care spending rpt issued, Sen reforms proposal debated 6-2—6-11, draft, bill issued 6-5—6-9, 390E2, D3, 391B1 Chrysler/Fiat merger completed 6-10, 385D1 Health care co-ops proposed, Sen Baucus reform draft mulled/costs cut 6-10—6-25; House proposal issued, Obama backs pub option/town hall held 6-19—6-24, support polled 6-21—6-24, 426C3, 427B1, F1, D2 Health care reform proposals cost estimated, mulled/debate opens 6-15—6-17, 408C3, 409A1 Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408B2–D2 Health benefits tax debated, mandate backed 6-28—7-8; Obama holds town hall, reform plan chngd 7-1—7-2, pub option mulled 7-6—7-7, 457C3, F3, 458A1 Fed marriage law Mass suit filed 7-8, 492F1 Conn universal health care bill vetoed, override passes legis 7-8, 7-20, 520G3 Income tax hike mulled, health care reform House proposal issued/backed 7-10—7-16; Sen com bill backed 7-15, costs warning issued 7-16, 476D1, F2, A3 Obama backs reform efforts 7-12, 477F1 Mass universal care suit filed 7-15, paymt chng backed 7-16, 520A3 House reform bill backed, deficit hike seen/scored 7-17—7-21; vote mulled 7-21—7-22, Obama backs reform, Aug deadline dropped 7-22—7-23, 487A1, D2, A3; excerpts 487E1 Calif budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503E2–F2, C3 Sen reform vote mulled 7-23—7-30; Obama lobbying cont/pub support polled, town-hall protesters questnd 7-28—8-5, House deal set, bill backed 7-29—7-31, 520A1, A2, C2 US middle-class tax hike mulled, dismissed 8-2—8-3, 521G1 End-of-life proposal questnd/dropped, reform defended 8-7—8-16; town-halls held, religious ldrs mtg held 8-11—8-19, pub option mulled, ad spending rptd/support polled 8-15—8-18, 551A2, A3, 552D1 Preventive health care costs questnd, ‘08 highest bills rptd 8-7—8-11; LA free care offrd 8-11—8-18, cos ‘03-08 revenue, compensatn info sought 8-17, 552G1–C2 Reform pub support polled 8-21; Sen vote mulled 8-23, oppositn rptd 8-29—9-2, 597D1, 598A3–C3 Mass Sen seat successn law chng hearing set 8-31, 584C3 Canada govt confidnc vote seen 9-1, 589F1 Reform draft circulated/mtg failure seen, Sen com work set 9-5—9-9; rallies held, uninsured tallied 9-7—9-10, Obama addresses Cong/sees Dem legis, GOP respond 9-9—9-10, 597A1–598D3; excerpts 599A1 Obama holds reform rallies, debate mulled/support polled 9-12—9-17; pub option opposed, Sen proposal issued/scored 9-13—9-16, employer benefits drop rptd 9-15, 617A1, B2, C3–E3, G3 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619A3, C3–D3, F3 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 645A1 EPA ‘08 smog rules mulled 9-16, 781F2 Obama reform push cont 9-18—9-20; Sen proposal chngs mulled, com debate opens 9-19—9-24, Medicare mailings halt ordrd 9-21, 637A2, E3, 638D1 Values Voter Summit held 9-18—9-19, 639C1 Reform ‘death panels’ proposal questnd 9-23, 639F1 Reform support polled 9-25; states ‘mandate’ bans seen 9-29, Sen measures mulled, Rep Grayson remarks scored/apology nixed 9-29—10-1, 655E2, C3, 656A1, D1–F1 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 Canada prov, tobacco cos suit filed 9-29, 681F3–G3

Sen com reform debate ends, cost estimated/vote set 10-2—10-8; support mulled 10-5—10-7, House bills work cont, analysis sought 10-7—10-8, 676C2, D3 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679D2, F2 Sen reform bill scored, indus rpt questnd 10-11—10-14; com backs 10-13, combined bills mulled 10-14, 698A1, A2, F2 Fox News bias alleged 10-11, 717F2 Soc Sec $250 paymt proposed 10-14, 714B2 US fscl ‘09 deficit rptd 10-16, 713A2 Medicare mailings halt order lifted 10-16; pub option mulled, support polled 10-20—10-21, antitrust exemptn end bill backed 10-21, 713E3–F3 Uruguay pres electn held 10-25, 746F3 Sen reform bill pub option mulled, support polled 10-26—10-28, House bill unveiled/hailed, deficit cut seen 10-29, 740A3, 741E1 Ford, Canadian workers deal OKd 10-31, ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757G3, 758E1 Health care reform GOP proposal mulled/cost estimated, nixed by House 11-1—11-7; protests held 11-5, Pelosi sees RC bps anti-abortn assoc dir (Doerflinger) 11-6, 773C2, B3 US electn results 11-3, 755E2 US Oct ‘09 jobless rate scored 11-6, 778E2 Reform bill passes House 11-7; Sen vote mulled, ad spending rptd 11-8—11-10, abortn curbs debated 11-9, 773A1, C2, 774E1; highlights 774A1; votes listed 774E1 Reform support polled 11-17, Sen bill issued 11-18, 796A2, D3, 797C1 Reform bill Sen debate opens 11-20—11-21, 809A1 NYS gay spousal govt benefits ordrd 11-20, 832E2 Reform bill premiums drop seen, Sen debate opens 11-30; measures OKd/nixed, Obama sees Sen Dems 12-3—12-8, pub option deal set, CBO analysis sought 12-8—12-9, 847F2, 848C1 Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846E3 Health care reform Sen bill mulled/support polled, Medicare hike dropped 12-10—12-17, uninsured tallied, cheaper drugs import measures fail/Obama sees Dems 12-15,, 863A2, E3, 864C1 US jobless benefits extensn passes House 12-16, 866A3 US defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886E2 Reform abortn deal set 12-18—12-19; Sen reading rule invoked/vote mulled, procedural votes held 12-18—12-23, bill passes, measures questnd 12-24—12-30, 904A2–906C2; key provisns listed 905A1 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885B3–C3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906G2–C3, 907E1, B2 Japan econ long-term growth plan OKd 12-30, 933E1 Kidneys & Liver China tainted milk victim parents compensatn OKd 1-16, 35B3 Medicaid US immigrant curbs ease passes House 1-14, 19G3 RI reform waiver takes effect 1-19, enrollmt hike rptd 1-22, 95G3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41E2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90F1, B2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F3 Paymts cut urged 6-3, 390G3 Health care reform draft bill circulated 6-18, House proposal issued 6-19, 426G3, 427B1 ‘09 enrollmt hike seen 9-30, 919C1 Medicare Obama econ recovery plan quick action urged 1-8, 7B1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17F1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2 Experimental cancer drugs coverage chng rptd 1-27, 133E1 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 108A1, C1 Patients hosp returns rise seen 4-1, 324A2 Overperforming MDs paymt hike proposed 4-29, 324F1

ON FILE

Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F3 ‘17 insolvency seen 5-12, 323G3 Fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held, chrgd 6-24—6-29, 574G1 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371G2 Paymts cut urged 6-3, 390G3–391A1 Obama urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458F2 Cost-cutting measures urged 6-15, 409E1 Drug cos price cuts deal set 6-22, 427B2 Indep cncl savings cut 7-25, 520D2 Drug prices negotiating powers mulled 8-5, 552B1 Premium freeze passes House 9-24, ‘10 rise set 10-16, 714C2 MDs paymt reform blocked by Sen 10-21, 713A3 Fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3 Mental Health US post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245B1 Iraq female suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 57G2 US Army ‘08 suicides rise rptd 1-29, 245B1 MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 132F3 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued 2-20, 112D3 Iraq survey published 3-7, 156F2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16; Sen com rpt released, Iraq/Al Qaeda link pressure seen 4-21, detainees disparity rptd 4-22, 259G2, G3–260A1, 261C2, C3 Iraq/US mil clinic shooting kills 5, probe vowed 5-11, troop (Russell) held, chrgd 5-11—5-12, 330B2–F2 Colo vets advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412D1 Iraq rape US troop (Green) sentncd 5-21, 362A3 Va Tech shooter (Cho) records found/issued, probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, 921C1 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7, 780F2 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 Iraq/US mil base slayings troop (Russell) behavior rptd 10-16, 729G3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717G3 Ohio corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3, 888D1 Soccer’s Enke kills self 11-10, depressn rptd 11-11, 949F3 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867C3–F3 Wash Jewish Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920A2 Vatican Christmas Eve mass held, Pope knocked down/woman held 12-24, 901F2 UK/China drug smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932B3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49B1 Roche/Genentech offer hiked 1-30, deal OKd 3-12, 151A1, E1 Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 150F3 Obituaries Close, William T 1-15, 104A3 Dausset, Jean 6-6, 452G1 Dreyfus Jr, Jack J 3-27, 231D3 Edelman, Marek 10-2, 692B2 Freedberg, A Stone 8-25, 955F1 Furchgott, Robert F 5-19, 384G2 Gelfand, Israel M 10-5, 731B3 Godber, Sir George 2-7, 160C3 Houston, Charles S 9-27, 731D3 Kolff, Willem J 2-11, 120C3 Krebs, Edwin G 12-21, 955B2 Morris, Jeremy N 10-28, 880D2 Nielsen, Jerri 6-23, 484D3 Ponseti, Ignacio 10-18, 772G3 Roberts, Oral 12-15, 880A3 Segal, Sheldon J 10-17, 792F3 Tshabalala-Msimang, Mmanto 12-16, 956G1 People Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28G3–29A1 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) abuse confrmd 1-14, 20A2 Iran’s Ahamdinejad itinerary nixed 1-21, 87A1 N Korea’s Kim hosts Chinese envoys 1-23, 84G1–A2 Georgia premr (Mgaloblishvili) quits, cites health 1-30—1-31, 84D3–E3 Egypt oppositn ldr (Nour) freed 2-18, 100F3 Cuba’s Castro walks rptd 2-27—3-3, 134C3–D3 S Africa’s Shaik freed 3-3, 222D1 Zimbabwe PM (Tsvangirai) in hosp, transferred to Botswana 3-6—3-9, 152C2–D2

2009 Index Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect chrgd 3-9, 247F3 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239F3–G3 W Bank protester in hosp 3-13—4-2, 210E3 PI hostage rescue operatn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, 415G2–A3 Libya activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 358G3–359B1 Alleged Nazi guard (Demjanjuk) US deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352E2 Porn star (Chambers) autopsy rpt issued 5-18, 348G2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi cont detentn mulled 5-19—5-26, 360C1, C2 ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) in hosp 5-31, 384F1 Russia repub pres convoy, Yevkurov in hosp 6-22—6-23, 449B3 Sen Byrd exits hosp 6-30, 441A2 Formula 1 driver (Massa) hurt, has surgery/exits coma 7-27—8-3, 647A2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect (Yettaw) in hosp 8-3—8-11, 543F1 Australian ex-Treasury ofcl (Grech) fake e-mail admitted 8-4, Sen com testimony mulled 11-25, 851G3 N Korea’s Kim cont control seen 8-9, 568G3 Russian repub pres (Yevkurov) exits hosp 8-10, 544F3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect (Yettaw) examined in Thai 8-16—8-19, 558G3 Talyshi Sado ex-ed (Mammedov) dies 8-17, indep probe sought 8-18, 607E1 Zimbabwe’s Mugabe/UAE treatmt claimed, denied 8-26, 588B3 Stanford CEO in hosp 8-27, 814A2 Iran legis (Ghalebi) freed 8-31, 610A2 Israeli hostage (Shalit) parents letter issued 9-9, 615D1 Thai king in hosp, health rptd 9-19—10-15, 726E3 Justice Ginsburg anemia treatmt rptd, in hosp/exits 9-24—9-25, 677G3 Guinea’s Diallo flees to France 10-1, 660C3 Film dir (Polanski) health woes claimed 10-11, 707D2 RC priest (Sinnott) seized in PI, freed 10-11—11-12, 820C1 Sup Ct justice (Ginsburg) collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718C1 Mongolia premr (Bayar) in hosp, quits 10-27, 763D1 Thai king health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891C3–D3 Nigeria’s Yar’Adua in Saudi hosp, ouster suits filed 11-23—12-31; signs ‘09 suplmtl funds 12-29, chief justice (Katsina-Alu) sworn 12-30, 922E3, 923E1 Woods in car crash, treated 11-27, 839G1, C2 Alleged Nazi death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853D3 Guinea’s Camara shot, transferred to Morocco/health rptd 12-3—12-17, 870C2–D2 PI prov gov (Ampatuan) in hosp 12-6, 853B1 Fla U football coach (Meyer) in hosp 12-6; quits, cites health woes 12-26, sets leave, sees return 12-27, 948D2 Atty (Magnitsky) death rpt issued 12-11, 938G2–B3 Italy’s Berlusconi attacked, in hosp/intruder held 12-13—12-16, suspect regrets, psych ward transfer nixed 12-15—12-16, 874B3; photo 874E3 Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) peace talks role mulled 12-18—12-19, 923C2 Mich flight sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, 899A1 Japan finance min (Fujii) in hosp 12-28, 933E1 Physicians & Medical Personnel Gaza violnc death toll rptd 1-15, 13B1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D3 Palestinian MD daughters Israeli mil slaying admitted 2-4, 157B3 Army medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118E2 Sudan aid workers seized, freed 3-11—3-14, 185C2 Gaza invasn abuses alleged 3-23, 210B2–C2 US terror detainees torture role seen 4-6, 244C2 Drug cos gift curbs urged 4-28, 538F3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi MD held, visit blocked 5-7, sees 2d MD 5-8—5-11, 327E2–F2 Obama addresses AMA 6-15, 409D1

—MEIR Sen Coburn nixes Ensign affair testimony 7-13, 478D2 Slovakia minority language curbs enacted 9-1, 608A3 China ethnic clashes suspects convctd, sentncd 10-10, 703D1 Afghan/US noncombat troops hike OKd 10-13, 696E1 Ger health min (Roesler) sworn 10-28, 749D3 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought, gunman (Hasan)/imam ties questnd 11-6—11-12, chrgs set 11-12, 777B2, G2, G3, 778D1–F1 Iran prison MD (Pourandarjani) dies 11-10; probe launched 11-17, suicide seen, drug overdose rptd 11-18—12-2, 857B2 Tex mil base shooting probe set/Ham named ldr, imam e-mails mulled 11-19—11-23, Hasan confinemt ordrd/cont hosp stay OKd, paralysis rptd 11-20—11-22, 812B3–E3, 813E1 Chile ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871A3 Pregnancy—See CHILDBIRTH Surgery India’s Singh has heart bypass, exits hosp 1-24, 2-1, 158C2 MLB’s Rodriguez sees MD, has hip surgery 3-4, 3-9, 158C3 Ex-1st lady (B Bush) in hosp/has surgery, exits 3-4—3-13, 176E2 Male circumcisn, STDs risk drop seen 3-26, 595E3 Trade & Aid Issues Gaza UN warehouse destroyed 1-15, 13F1 Australia/Zimbabwe aid set 3-11, 153D1 World Bank dvpt loans set 4-21, 284B1 Sri Lanka intl aid sought 4-23, 277G1 Taiwan WHO observer status block dropped 4-29, 309C3 Iran uranium buy seen 9-23, 634D2 Amer Samoa tsunami aid sent 9-30, 662E3–F3 African RC bps synod held 10-4—10-14, 712B1 PI storms aid sought 10-6, 684F3 N/S Korea aid offrd 10-26, 764A1 Transplants ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 ‘08 face recipient IDd 5-6, 332D2 Organ trafficking suspect (Rosenbaum) held, chrgd 7-23, 503G3, 504E1 Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft alleged 8-17; Reinfeldt nixes comments 8-22, claims scored 8-23, 593D2 Israeli, Palestinians ‘90s organ theft confrmd 12-18, 945A3

MEDINA, Capt. Ernest L. (ret.) Lt Calley regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588D1

MEDINA, Julio Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C3

MEDINA Garrigues, Anabel Wins French Open doubles 6-5, 399C1

MEDINA Mora, Eduardo Sees US’s Holder 2-24, 171G1 Hosts US’s Holder/Napolitano, vows border security hike 4-2—4-3, 249E2, A3 On Sonoro day-care fire cause 6-10, 431G2 Seeks day-care owners arrest 7-2, 557A1 Tallies drug arrests 9-2, 605C2 Quits 9-7, 604F3 Successor (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1

MEDITERRANEAN Sea Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416E2

MEDLEY, Chuck On Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting 11-6, 777C3

MEDTRONIC Inc. Faulty heart device deaths link seen 3-13, 221E2

MEDUSA (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

MEDVEDEV, Alexander On Ukraine debt setlmt 1-20, 37B2, D2

MEDVEDEV, Dmitri A. (Russian president, 2008- ) Accidents & Disasters Perm club fire kills 124+ 12-5, 855A1 Africa Visits Nigeria/Namibia/Angola 6-24—6-26, 455B1, E1 Asia/Pacific Rim Backs Afghan, US/NATO mil coordinatn 2-3, 59C1

Commonwealth of Independent States Sets Kyrgyz loan, aid 2-3, 59A1 Hosts CSTO summit, defends agrmt 6-14—6-15, 423F2–G2 Visits Azerbaijan, signs gas deal 6-29, 513B1 Kyrgyz oppositn pres candidate (Atambayev) visits 7-27, 511B1 Blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko/letter scored, delays amb deploymt 8-11—8-13, 609D1 At summit 10-8—10-9, 777E1 Signs Kazakh, Belarus customs union deal 11-27, 863E1 Crime & Civil Disorders Yukos founder (Khodorkovsky) trial opens 3-31, 207G3 Lifts Chechnya terror curbs 4-16, 310C3 Chechnya violnc kills 10 5-13—5-16, 378B3, F3 On Caucasus violnc 6-9, 417B1, D1 On Nazran blast, seeks anti-insurgent aid 6-22, 449D3–E3 On Chechen activist (Estemirova) slaying 7-16, 497F1 Scores Ingush cops 8-17, 560D2 Reformist pol (Starovoitova) slaying probe reopened 9-7, 767C1 Orders Hermitage atty (Magnitsky) death probe 11-24, 821G3 Fires prison ofcls, tax crime head 12-11—12-15; atty (Magnitsky) death rpt issued 12-28, curbs pre-trial jailings 12-29, 938F2–G2, C3 Defense & Disarmament Issues US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 Ousts mil intell head (Korabelnikov) 4-24, 328A3 On Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use 6-25, 440G3 Mil exercises open 6-29, 449G3 Signs Kyrgyz mil base deal 8-1, 534B3 On US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613D2 A-strikes mulled 10-14, 706D1 Sees US A-arms treaty cont use 12-5, 885F2 Energy On Ukraine gas deal addendum 1-11, 37D2 Environment & Pollution Emissns cut vowed 11-18, 828C2 Europe On Georgia breakaway regions, NATO excercises 4-17, 311E1 Visits S Ossetia 7-13, 496C2, D3 Visits Serbia 10-20, 728C3, E3 Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 787E3, 788E1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section WTO entry sought 6-9, 405A2 At SCO summit 6-15—6-16, hosts China’s Hu 6-17—6-18, 406B3–D3, F3 Health Issues On ‘90-01 alcoholism deaths rpt 6-30, 513D1 Latin America Hosts Cuba’s Castro, signs deal 1-30, 85C2 Hosts Venez’s Chavez 9-10, 616F2, A3 Middle East Hails Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn 6-16, 403D1 Visits Egypt 6-23, 455B1 Sees Israel’s Peres, Iran arms sale mulled 8-18—8-19, 616A2 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-23, urges IAEA cooperatn 9-25, 650D2–E2 Backs Iran A-program sanctns hike 11-7, 11-15, 804D2–E2* Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837A2 Politics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 Moscow rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69D1 Names Ingush pres (Gaisanov) 7-3, 497D2 Putin mulls ‘12 pres bid, remarks scored 9-11—9-20, 667D2–E2 On local electns vote 10-12, Duma members return 10-21, 727E3, 728A1 On Stalin historical treatmt 10-29, 767B1 Addresses parlt 11-12, 803E2 Fires media adviser (Lesin) 11-18, 892G3 On ‘12 reelectn bid 12-3, 892A3 Press & Broadcasting Grants Novaya Gazeta interview 4-13, 329B1 Religious Issues At Orthodox patriarch (Kirill I) enthronemt 2-1, 85D2 Sees Pope, Vatican diplomatic ties OKd 12-3, 892A3 United States Calls Obama 1-26, 69C2 A-pact talks OKd 3-6, 142E2 Sees Obama 4-1, 193B1, C3

1107

Hosts Obama 7-6, 453C3, 454E1–F1, C2 Sees Obama 9-23, 633D1, 634F1, A2 Hosts Clinton 10-13, 705G3 Sees Obama 11-15, 795B2

MEEK, Kendrick B. (U.S. representative from Fla., 2003- ; Democrat) Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537A3 LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585B1

MEESCHAERT Gestion Prive Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27—1-29, 114F1

MEET The Press (TV show) La gov (Jindal) interviewed 2-22, 108F2 Natl Security Adisvor (Jones) interviewed 8-9, 533E1 Sen Schumer interviewed 8-23, 598C3

MEGAHED, Youssef Samir Cleared 4-3; held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816A1

MEGAWATI Sukarnoputri (Indonesian president, 2001-04) Legis electns held 4-9, 295A1 Pres vote eligibility hiked 7-6; electn held 7-8, loss rptd 7-9, 461A3–B3, G3 Electn final results issued, upheld 7-24, 8-12, 542F1–B2

MEGRAHI, Abdel Basset Ali alRelease mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns to Libya 8-20, 550B1, B2–C2 Release mulled, Libya welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3–G3, 568C1–E1, G1–A2 Release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 583A1–E2, C3 Release, UK oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; posts evidnc 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636C2–F2, A3–D3 Libya’s Qaddafi NY tent stay nixed 9-22, addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633B3 Release defended 10-12, 704A3–C3

MEGRAHIMYSTORY.net (Web site) Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636E2

MEHANNA, Tarek Chrgd 10-21, 816D1

MEHROTRA, Arvind Walcott exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364B2–C2

MEHSERLE, Ofcr. Johannes Kills subway passenger, quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held/chrgd, pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247C1–D1 Threatened 1-5—1-10; suspect (Carneglia) pleads guilty, sentncd 8-14—12-15, passenger shooting fair trial nixed, move ordrd 10-16—11-19, 920D2

MEHSUD, Baitullah (d. 2009) US drone missile strike kills 30+ 2-14, 103E1 Capture sought 3-25, 533D2 Claims cops acad attack, issues threats 3-31, 228E3–F3 Lahore blast claimed 5-27, 382C3 Tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418D1–E1 US drone missile strikes kill scores, tribal areas truce abandoned 6-18—7-8, 466F2–B3, G3, 467B1 Bhutto assassinatn probe team arrives 7-16, eliminatn sought 7-27, 514B2, E3 US drone missile strike launched, slaying mulled 8-5—8-9, 533A1–F1, A2–F2, B3–C3 Taliban ldrship mulled, death confrmd 8-19—8-25, 577E3–578A1, C1 Pak blasts kill 16+ 9-26, 669E3 Taliban attack warned 10-4, 694A1 Tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, tribes, army deals rptd 10-19, 709E1, 710B1

MEHSUD, Hakimullah Claims Chakwal attack, issues threat 4-5, 229D2 Hangu blast kills 20+ 4-18, 276B3 Claims Lahore blast 5-28, 382C3, E3–F3 Taliban ldrship dispute seen, slaying mulled 8-8—8-10, 533E1–F1, G2, B3 Taliban ldrship successn mulled, confrms Mehsud slaying 8-22—8-25, 577F3, 578A1–B1 Warns Taliban attack 10-4, tape issued, doubted 10-5—10-6, 695A1–B1 Tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709D1 Mil captures Kotkai 10-24, 737C3 Bounty set 11-2, 769F1 Kurram blast kills 6 12-27, 947G1

MEIR, Golda (1898-1978) (Israeli prime minister, 1969-74) Parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85B3

1108 MEISSNER— MEISSNER, Kimmie Misses US champ 1-25, 139C2

MEKDAD, Fayssal Visits US 9-28, 708A1

MELAMED, Eliezer Rabbi Israeli mil ties cut 12-13, 945C1

MELANCON, Charles (U.S. representative from La., 2005- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MELENDEZ-Diaz, Juan Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed by Sup Ct 6-25, 444F1

MELENDEZ-Diaz v. Massachusetts (2009) Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed by Sup Ct 6-25, 444F1

MELES Zenawi (Ethiopian head of state, 1991- ) Visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Nixes Somalia full-scale interventn 6-24, 430E1 On climate chng aid fund 12-16, 882G2

MELNICK, Daniel (1932-2009) Dies 10-13, 772F3

MELO, Marcelo Loses French Open mixed doubles 6-4, 399D1

MELTON, Frank (1949-2009) (Jackson, Miss. mayor, 2005-09; Democrat) Mistrial declared 2-24; electn held 5-5, dies 5-7, 306D3–F3

MELVIN, Bob Fired 5-7, 484E2

MELVIN, Leland Flies Atlantis missn 11-16—11-27, 902D1

MEMORIAL (Russian rights group) Activist (Estemirova) seized, found dead 7-15; Kadyrov role alleged/denied, suit opens 7-16—7-20, operatns shut, UN indep probe nixed 7-20—7-22, 497C1–D1 Chechen pres (Kadyrov) libeling ruled, damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Activist (Khachukayev) abductn alleged 11-5, 855C2 Antifascists violnc drop urged 11-19, 822A2 Chechnya work cont, EU prize awarded 12-16, 939E1

MEMORIAL Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (N.Y., N.Y.) Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537C1 Sawyers wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3

MEMPHIS (play) Opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

MEMPHIS (Tenn.), University of ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1 Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16, tourn results 4-6, 230B1, D3 Evans in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, D1

MENCHOV, Denis Team doping probe questng rptd, denies role 5-27, wins Giro d’Italia 5-31, 515F3

MENDELBLIT, Gen. Avichai Launches, nixes Gaza invasn abuses probe 3-19, 3-30, 210E1–F1

MENDELSOHN, Ben Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

MENDES, Judge Gilmar Orders US boy return 12-22, 926A2

MENDES, Sam Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

MENDOZA, Brillante Wins Cannes dir prize 5-24, 364B1

MENEM, Carlos Saul (Argentine president, 1989-99) Alfonsin dies 3-31, 212G1 Chrgd 10-1, 925G3

MENENDEZ, Robert (U.S. senator from N.J., 2006- ; Democrat) Vs Cuba travel, trade curbs ease 3-5, 144E2 Backs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn 8-6, 519G3 Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720A2

MENEZES, Jean Charles de (d. 2005) UK cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3

MENG Jianzhu On Urumqi syringe attacks 9-6, 605E3

FACTS MENG Sutie On Myanmar refugees 8-30, 590A3

MENINO, Thomas (Boston, Mass. mayor, 1993- ; Democrat) Reelected 11-3, 756E3

MENJIVAR, Violeta Electn held 1-18, loss rptd 1-24, 50E3

MENKEN, Alan Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

MENKERIOS, Haile Madagascar pol dispute talks nixed 2-25, 169E1

MENON, Shiv Shankar Sees Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role 1-5, 39G1–A2

MENTALIST, The (TV show) Nielsen rating 2-10, 140A2; 3-24, 212B2; 4-28, 316B2; 5-5, 5-19, 384A2; 6-30, 532A2; 12-10, 956A2

MENZEL, Ron Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

MERAFHE, Mompati Vs Sudan’s Bashir, ICC warrant/AU res 7-7, 459E1–F1

MERCADO Jr., Ralph (1941-2009) Dies 3-10, 192E3

MERCAL Banks owner (Fernandez) held 12-4, 929A2

MERCK & Co. Inc. MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 133A1* Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 150F3 Shareholders suit case accepted by Sup Ct 5-26, 677C3 HPV vaccine (Gardasil) male use OKd by FDA 10-16, recommendatns issued 10-21, 799C3

MERCK & Co. v. Reynolds Accepted by Sup Ct 5-26, 677C3

MERCKLE, Adolf Found dead 1-5, suicide rptd 1-6, 8F1

MERCURY (element) EPA power plants curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94A3* MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 133A1* Emissns treaty mulled, draft talks OKd 2-16—2-20, 123G3 Dental fillings risk nixed by FDA 7-29, 555B2 Freshwater fish finds rptd 8-19, 655A2 Actor (Piven), B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596F1 Swine flu vaccine delays seen, doses estimated/availability vowed 10-16—10-28, 741D3 EPA power plant curbs suit setld 10-23, 781F1

MERCY Corps Darfur return seen 6-11, 446C2

MERCYHURST College (Erie, Pa.) NCAA women’s hockey title lost 3-22, 300E1

MERGA, Deriba Wins Boston Marathon 4-20, 332C1

MERICLE, Robert Pleads guilty 10-29, 870B1–C1

MERIDOR, Dan Iran A-weapons dvpt mulled 7-22, 485F2 Confrms Netanyahu Russia visit 9-12, 616E2

MERKEL, Angela (German chancellor, 2005- ) Asia/Pacific Rim Hosts China’s Wen 1-29, 98E2 Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607E3, G3 Seeks Afghan security transfer conf 9-6, defends air strike 9-8, 611D2, F2, B3 On Afghan troop levels 12-2, 826F1 Crime & Civil Disorders On Winnenden slayings 3-11, 154A3 Economy & Labor Hikes econ stimulus plan 1-13, 22F3–G3 Backs euro adoptn curbs ease, vs Eastn Eur econ rescue proposal 3-1, 136C2, F2–G2 Vs new stimulus package 3-12, 163B1 Opel sale backed, deal set 9-10, 609C1 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767E1–F1 Tax cuts stimulus package passes parlt 12-18, 892B1–F1 Europe At EU summit 4-5, 214G2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396E2

EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686B1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section At World Econ Forum 1-28—1-30, 58C2, F2 At G-20 summit 4-1—4-2, 193C1–E1 Middle East Urges Iran pres electn recount 6-21, 423B2 Sets Egypt’s Mubarak mtg 7-8, 482C3 Military Issues Marks WWII start anniv 9-1, 591D2–E2 Marks WWI defeat anniv 11-11, 788G1 Politics Econ min (Glos) quits 2-8, names Guttenberg 2-9, 99A3–C3 Steinmeier sets chancellor bid 4-19, Koehler reelected 5-23, 361E1, A2 Econ min (Guttenberg) resignatn nixed 5-30, 366D3 State electns held 8-30; Thuringia premr (Althaus) quits 9-3, parties support polled 9-9, 607D2 Debates Steinmeier 9-13; vows tax cuts 9-18—9-28, electns held, sets coalitn plans 9-27—9-28, 664B3, 665D1, G1, D2 Govt coalitn deal set 10-24, sworn 10-28, 749C2, A3 Labor min (Jung) quits/Leyden tapped, Koehler named families min 11-27, 835E3, 836B1 Religious Issues On RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial remarks 2-3, calls Benedict 2-8, 76B1 Reunification Issues Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 787D3, 788B1; photo 788A1 United States Hosts Obama 4-3, 213C3; 6-5, 386D1, G1–A2 Obama jt news conf held 6-26, 439E2 Visits US 11-3, 755D1

MERKIN, J. Ezra Quits 1-9, 48E1–F1 Civil chrgs filed 4-6, 245D1–E1 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442A3

MERKLEY, Jeff (U.S. senator from Ore., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs Fed chair (Bernanke) renominatn 12-17, 865E3

MERON, Judge Theodor Hikes Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc 5-5, 377G3 Nixes Rwanda ex-pres brother-in-law (Zigiranyirazo) convctn 11-16, 923F2

MERORES, Leo Rptd ECOSOC pres 1-1, 3B1

MERRILL Lynch & Co. Inc. Bank of Amer buy finalized 1-1, 15D2 ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, Bank of Amer buy mulled 1-16, CEO (Thain) quits 1-22, 32A1–F1 Thain ofc chngs repaymt vowed 1-26, 44D3 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued 2-4, 94A1 Bonus paymts revealed 2-11; execs subpoenaed 3-4, info release ordrd 3-18, 220B2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-20, 264G2 Bank of Amer merger documts issued 4-23, Lewis chair ouster OKd 4-29, 291A2–A3 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 350G2 Bank of Amer merger House com hearing held 6-11, 388E1; 6-25, 456A3–D3; 7-17, 504F1, A2–B2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, Bank of Amer SEC chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 522C3, 523E1–A2 Bernanke renamed Fed chair 8-25, 571A2 Bank of Amer merger fraud chrgs warned, subpoenas issued 9-8—9-17, SEC setlmt nixed 9-14, 618G2–B3, G3 Bank of Amer assests govt guarantee programs exited 9-21, 641C1 Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) sets resignatn 9-30, 657D2–G2, E3 Bank of Amer govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830E2

MERRITT, Stephin Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

MERVAL Stock Index—See BUENOS Aires Stock Exchange MERWIN, W. S. Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2, F2

ON FILE

MERZ, Hans-Rudolf (Swiss president, 2009- ) On bank secrecy laws ease 3-13, 163D2–E2

MESHAL, Khaled Scores Israeli mil Gaza offensive 1-10, 13F2 Urges Palestinians cont fighting 1-16, 31C1 On Mideast peace talks role 5-5, 313D2–E2 On Israeli peace talks demands 7-31, 546D1–E1

MESIC, Stipe (Stjepan) (Croatian president, 2000- ) Kosor elected, sworn premr 7-7, 463G1 Electn results rptd, Josipovic/Bandic runoff set 12-27, 936C2

MESSER, Uri Olmert indicted 8-30, 593D1 Olmert graft trial opens 9-25, 689G1

MESSI, Lionel Barcelona wins Eur Champ Cup 5-27, 949G3 Named FIFA top player 12-21, 949D3

MESSINA, Chris Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

METALLICA (music group) Wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3 Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279G3

METALS (& Metal Products) Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, 33F2, A3 Peanut Corp Canada export block rptd 1-30, 63A2 African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426A3 China smelters shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2 Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd 9-23, 952E3 China export curbs WTO complaint filed 11-5, 776B2 Chinese drywall, hydrogen sulfide rise linked 11-23, 850D1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia, mining deal signed 11-24, 885C2

METCALF, Laurie Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

METHANE Gas—See COAL METHODIST Hospital (Houston, Tex.) Ex-1st lady (B Bush) has surgery, exits 3-4—3-13, 176E2

METHODISTS White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 S Africa’s Dandala pres bid set 2-20, 152C1 Lowery gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2

METLIFE Inc. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 Benmosche named AIG CEO 8-3, 585D3

METROMEDIA Inc. Klein dies 7-2, 468F2

METROPOLITAN Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)’ad 1 Leonore Annenberg dies 3-12, 192E1

METROPOLITAN Museum of Art (N.Y., N.Y.) Hoving dies 12-10, 896D2

METROPOLITAN Opera (N.Y., N.Y.) Chapin dies 3-7, 192C2

METTRAUX, Guenael Vows client (Hartman) appeal 9-14, 628E1

METZENBAUM, Howard Morton (1917-2008) (U.S. senator from Ohio, 1974/77-95; Democrat) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

METZGER, Rabbi Yona Visits W Bank burnt mosque 12-14, 945D1

MEXICO (United Mexican States) Accidents & Disasters Sonoro day-care fire kills 47, smoke inhalatn deaths seen 6-5—6-7; damaged air conditioner cited 6-10, state finance min ofcls held, fed probe set 6-22—6-24, 431F2 Sonoro day-care owners arrest sought 7-2, fire probe comm set 8-6, 556G3 Crime & Civil Disorders Ex-gen (Tello), assocs seized 2-2; found slain 2-3, suspects held 2-9, 97D2 Sinaloa cops slain 2-6, 97A3 Chihuahua gov convoy attack kills 1 2-22, troops, fed cops hike rptd 3-14, 171C2, F2 Zacatecas prison break frees 53 5-16, workers role seen, warden/guards held 5-17, 359C2

2009 Index Nicolas Bravo raid nets auto rifles 6-11, fake troops rptd 6-14, 481A1 Michoacan cops attacks kill 5+ 7-11; suspects held 7-12, corpses found, IDd 7-13—7-14, 480B3 Pachuca shootout kills 12+ 8-6, 556B3 Chiapas ‘97 massacre convcts release ordrd 8-12, 556E3 Gomez Palacio prison riots kill 19+ 8-14, 556D3 Tabasco state legis candidate (Fuentes), family slain 9-5, robbery rptd 9-6, 605F1 Puerto Vallarta shooting kills 2, victims IDd 9-27—9-28, 682A1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Cartel murder victims dissolving suspect held 1-23, 97A3 SFG complaint filed 2-17, 148A2 Violnc troops deploymt mulled 2-19—2-27, 171D2 Ariz border violnc rise seen/gun flow scored, crackdown rptd 2-23—2-25; House com hearing held, troops mulled 2-25—3-11, gun store owner trial opens 3-9, 170D3, 171E1 US drug czar (Kerlikowske) named 3-11, 165E1 Cartel head (Guzman) among Forbes richest 3-11, list scored 3-12, 171E2 Drug cartel head (Guzman) among Forbes richest 3-11, listing scored 3-12, 171E2 Union Pacific smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269F1 Suspects held, most-wanted listed 3-19—3-24, US border security hiked, violnc mulled/aid sought 3-24—3-27, 185A3, G3, 186G1 Alleged cartel ldr (Carrillo Leyva) held 4-2, 249D3 Alleged cartel ldr (Carrillo Leyva) arrest rptd 4-2, 249D3 US lists kingpins 4-15, 271D1 Colombia suspect (Herrera) held 4-15, 526F3 Prisoner convoy ambush kills 8 4-21, 359G2 US border drug smuggling troops plan mulled 4-25, 359F2 Cartels prosecutn mil abuses rptd 4-29, arrests tallied 5-1, 359D2 Michoacan raids net suspects 5-26, ex-prosecutor (Garcia Hurtada) surrenders 5-27, 359D1 Nuevo Leon local cops held 6-1; Acapulco violnc kills 18 6-6, mil tip rptd 6-7, 431B2, E2 Panama pres (Martinelli) sworn 7-1, 493B3 La Familia founder lt (Rueda) held 7-11, Michoacan gov half-brother warrant issued 7-14, 480C3, G3 Calderon strategy chng urged 7-28, 556D2 Smuggler (Gonzalez) slaying suspects held, ICE informant status confrmd 8-10, 556A3 Possessn decriminalizatn bill signed 8-20, 589B3 Treatmt ctr attack kills 18, suspect held 9-2—9-5, 605D1 Arrests tallied 9-2, 605C2 Ciudad Juarez clinic shooting kills 10 9-15, drug war blamed 9-16, 682D1* Meth ingredients seized 10-2, 747C2 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720E1 La Familia cartel alleged workers held 10-21—10-22, 747C1 Violnc kills scores, Beltran Leyva death mulled 11-27—12-22; US aid spending rptd 12-3 slaying suspects held 12-23, 928A2, E2, C3–E3 Economy & Labor Stimulus plan set 1-7, ‘09 GDP forecast 1-8—1-27, 83E1 Calderon budget proposals unveiled 9-8, 605F2 Electricians protest/riot cops deployed, LFC shut 10-8—10-11; pvtizatn denied 10-11, reversal sought 10-12, 724C1 IPC ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900D2 Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132B2 US spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622D1 Family Issues Mex City gay marriage bill passes assemb 12-21, veto nixed, law published 12-29, 928G3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section N Amer summit hosted 8-9—8-10, 541E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234G3

—MICHIGAN 1109 Michoacan prosecutor (Garcia Hurtdao) quits 5-27, 359B2 Cong, local electns held 7-5, PAN pres (Martinez) quits 7-7, 460D2 Chamber sworn 9-1, Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605A2 Tabasco state legis campaign opens 9-4, atty gen (Medina Mora) quits/Chavez named, agri min replaced 9-7, 604F3, 605G1 Atty gen nominee (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734G3 Cordero named finance min 12-9, 929D1 Electn law reforms proposed 12-15, 929A1 Human Rights US blocks, issues abuses rpt 8-5, 8-13, 556G1 Mil abuses rptd 12-8, 928A3 Immigration & Refugee Issues US ‘08 remittncs drop rptd 1-27, 83G1–A2 Wash raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd 2-25, 202G1 US ‘border czar’ (Bersin) named 4-15, 341G1 ‘07-08 immigratn drop seen 5-15, 447F2 Canada visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 Customs inspectors replaced 8-14—8-16, 556C3 US border fence progress blasted 9-17, 721G3 US border rush fails, suspects held 9-22, 724A2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied, outbreak curbs set/emergency declared 4-24—4-30, 281C1–D1, G1, B2, 282C1–D1, E1 HK visitor swine flu positive test rptd 4-30; hotel quarantined, response scored 5-1—5-2, return OKd 5-4, 303B3–D3 Swine flu threat cut 5-1—5-3; businesses/schls reopened, Tex patient dies 5-5—5-6, cases tallied 5-7, 303D1, B2, F2–G2 Swine flu threat mulled 5-13; measures eased 5-22—5-26, cases tallied 5-27, 351A3–B3, 352B1 Swine flu severe form warned 8-28, 583F3 Swine flu cases tallied 9-27, 696E3 Swine flu cases, deaths tallied 11-8, 810F2 US intl abortn aid measure dropped 12-10, 867B1 Swine flu cases, deaths tallied 12-27, 901B1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Slim/NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1 Monetary Issues Peso Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Lending rate cut 1-16, 83F1 Peso Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 SFG bank seized 2-19, 148G2 Peso Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 Peso Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Peso May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Peso Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 Peso Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 Peso Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 Peso Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 Peso Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 Peso Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 Peso Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 Central bank gov (Carstens) named 12-9, 929D1 Peso ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Obituaries Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2 Chavez, Esther 12-25, 955E1 Macias, Raul 3-23, 231F3 Oil & Gas Developments Pemex CEO (Heroles) ousted, Suarez Coppel named 9-7, 605C1 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E3, 191A1 Corona Champ results 4-26, 332B2 CONCACAF champ won 7-26, 859C2 Reynosa loses Little League World Series semi 8-30, 612D2 Lorena Ochoa Invitatnl results 11-15, 949B3 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858F2, B3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations AeroMex flight hijacked, passengers freed/suspect held 9-9, 682E1 Somali group ties suspect (Abdow) stopped/questnd, held 10-6—10-9, 849G1–A2 Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15A3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112A1 Obama visits Canada 2-18, 91B2 US trucking program end signed 3-11, tariffs set, take effect 3-16—3-17, 171F2 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164A2

US aid delay rptd 4-5, 249B3 IMF loan OKd 4-17, 283F2 Swine flu outbreak aid set 4-26, pork trade halted 4-27, 281G2, B3, 282A2 GM imports hike proposal rptd, opposed 5-11, 5-15, 339G1 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323D3 GM/UAW deal chngd 5-29, 366C1 US trucking program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389A2 G-8 summit held 7-9, 453B2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477A2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535A3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619F1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699F3 China raw materials export curbs complaint filed 11-5, 776A2 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798A2 Credit ratings cut 11-23, 12-14, 929C1 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866A1 China raw materials export curbs case accepted by WTO 12-21, 932E1 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes end sought 4-22, 277B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Tex inmate (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31E3–F3 Medina-Mora sees Holder 2-24, 171G1 Holder/Napolitano visit, border security hike vowed 4-2—4-3, 249D2 Obama visits 4-16—4-17, 270E3–F3 Gun smuggling curbs questnd 6-18, 481B1 US border kidnapping suspects indicted 8-13, 556F2

MEXICO, Gulf of Coastal ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2

MEXICO City Stock Exchange IPC ‘09 yr-end stock exchng rptd 12-31, 900D2

MEYER, Breckin Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

MEYER, Demaris Freeman car-crash suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792C2

MEYER, Stephenie Host on best-seller list 2-2, 72A1; 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1

MEYER, Urban Fla wins BCS Champ 1-8, 23C3 In hosp 12-6; quits, cites health woes 12-26, sets leave, sees return 12-27, 948C2

MEYERS, Dean Harold (1949-2002) DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7, executed 11-10, 780E2–F2

MEYERS, Nancy It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

MEZAIN, Mohammed ElSentncd 5-28, 914B2

MGALOBLISHVILI, Grigol (Georgian premier, 2008-09) Quits 1-30, cites health 1-31, 84D3–F3, 85B1

MGM Mirage (of Tracinda) Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829F3

M.I.A. (Mathangi Arulpragasam) Performs at Grammys 2-8, 88D2 Gives birth 2-11, 104D2

MIAMI, University of (Coral Gables, Fla.) Champs Sports Bowl lost 12-29, 948A3

MIAMI Herald (newspaper) Farrell wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

MIAMI University (Ohio) NCAA men’s hockey title lost 4-11, 299G3

MIAN Mian Files Google bk scanning suit, text removed/hearing held 10-23—12-29, 936E3–F3

MICE—See RODENTS MICHAEL, Col. Nelson HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697C2

MICHAEL Bianco Inc. Insolia sentncd 1-27, 202C2

MICHAEL Jackson’s This Is It (film/recording) Released, concert film grossing mark set 10-28—11-1, 771E3 On top-grossing list 10-28—10-29, 772D2

Recording on best-seller list 11-28, 840E1

MICHAELS, David (Grant Blackwood) Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Convictn on best-seller list 11-30, 840C1

MICHAELS, Jillian Master Your Metabolism on best-seller list 6-1, 384B1

MICHALEK, Milan Traded to Sens 9-12, 730G3

MICHELETTI, Roberto Named, sworn pres 6-28; warns Zelaya arrest 6-30, mulls electn date chng 7-2, 438A1, F2–A3 OAS secy gen (Insulza) visits 7-3; vows Zelaya arrest 7-5, talks open 7-9, 460B1–C1, E1, B2–C2 Zelaya return talks fail 7-9—7-10, resignatn mulled 7-15, 480D2–F2, B3 Zelaya return plans proposed, nixed 7-18—7-22; ouster upheld 7-20, EU aid halted, Venez diplomats expelled 7-20—7-21, 493A2–B2, D2–G2 Zelaya crosses border/return deal mulled, seeks intl envoy 7-24—7-30, 508A1, E1–F1 Argentina diplomats ousters exchngd 8-13—8-18; Zelaya return plan nixed, OAS talks fail/govt plan issued 8-22—8-27; rights abuses probed, rpts released 8-17—8-21, 575C2–E2, B3, D3 US pres electn oppositn set 9-4, visa nix rptd 9-12, 623A2, D2 Zelaya returns, urges Brazil emb handover/nixes force use 9-21—9-23; sets curfew, protests turn violent 9-21—9-23, nixes ofc cede, offers talks 9-22—9-23, 643B2–D2, B3 On emergency declaratn lift 9-27, 661B3–D3 Lifts emergency rule 10-5; Zelaya return talks held/failure seen, support polled 10-7—10-28, deal signed/mulled, electn recognitn seen 10-29—11-4, 762G2–A3, F3–763C1 Claims completed unity govt 11-5, Zelaya return deal failure seen/cont talks urged, pres electn results mulled 11-6, 784B2–F2 Pres electn held, results rptd 11-29, 834E1

MICHIGAN Arts & Culture Detroit ochrestra conductor (Slatkin) suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, nixes shows role 11-11, 792F2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Chrysler Financial govt loan set, Ford/Treasury talks rptd 1-16, 47D3–E3 Jan ‘09 auto sales rptd 2-3, 62B3 GM/Chrysler restructring plans issued, govt loans completed 2-17, 92D2 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164E2 GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197A2, B3, 198F1 Chrysler bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282C2, D3 GMAC stress-test results issued 5-7, 319D1 Autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339F2 GM share price rptd, Opel sale mulled 5-29—6-3; bondholders debt swap OKd 5-31, bankruptcy filed/govt stake set, Hummer bought 6-1—6-2, 365A1, G1, 366A1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10; shut dealerships mulled 6-9—6-10, govt loan set/Sen com hearing held, Press named CEO 6-10, 385A1, E2 GM/Saturn sale set 6-5, 475B3 GM reorgn OKd/bankrupcty exited, Adam Opel offers rptd 7-5—7-10, 475F1 Lear bankruptcy filed 7-7, financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536E1 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program ends 8-24, 586F2 Saturn buy nixed, closure set 9-30, 679A3–B3 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679B2 Ford ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd 11-2, 757C3–E3 GM/Chrysler govt loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758D2 GM govt loans repaymt set 11-16, 798C3 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887D1 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) pleads guilty 6-26, missing city property probe sought 8-7, 553B1 Crime & Law Enforcement Medicare fraud suspects indicted 6-24, 574G1 Terror suspects chrgd/held, raid kills 1 10-28—10-31, 760F2 Cuba base detainees transfer mulled 11-13, 794E2

1110 MICHIGAN— Cuba base detainees transfer efforts fail 12-16, 861B1 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914C1 Detroit flight blast fails, suspect (Abdulmutallab) held/in hosp 12-25; chrgd, transferred 12-26—12-27, sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, 897A1, 899A1; photo 897E1 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Labor & Employment GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62C2 UAW auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92D3 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1–D1 Delphi plant sale set 10-6, 679E2 Medicine & Health Care Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, 165C2 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3–919A1 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Obituaries Asheton, Ron 1-6, 24C3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146B3 Detroit mayoral primary electn held 2-25, 131E1 Detroit mayoral electn held, Bing vows ofc integrity return 5-5, 306A3 Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) quits 6-29, mayoral primary held 8-4, 553B1 Obama rally held 7-14, 476F3, 477A1–B1 Electn results 11-3, 756E3* Palin opens bk tour 11-18, 797A2 Press & Broadcasting Detroit Free Press wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D2, A3 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1 NCAA men’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 229C3, 230D1, B2 Red Wings win divisn 4-12, 299C2 Pistons make playoffs 4-15, 278A2 Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 419D3, 420A1, C2 Buick Open results 8-2, 563C3 Shock lose WNBA conf finals 9-26, 808A1 Shock relocatn set 10-20, 808B1 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl results 12-26, 948B3 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

MICHIGAN, University of (Ann Arbor) Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302A2 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1 Detroit flight blast fails, suspect (Abdulmutallab) held/in hosp 12-25, 897D1

MICHIGAN State University (East Lansing) Capital 1 Bowl lost 1-1, 24F1 Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16, title lost 4-6, 229B3, 230A1, C1, D3 Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231B1 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2

MICHIGAN v. Jackson (1986) Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 373G3, 374B1–D1

MICHIKO, Empress (Japan) Hosts US’s Obama 11-13, 795B1

MICHUKI, John Replacemt (Kenyatta) named 1-23, 65G3

MICKELSON, Amy Bares cancer 5-20, 435C2

MICKELSON, Phil Wins Northn Trust Open 2-22, 139E1 Wins WGC-CA Champ 3-15, 255A3 5th in Masters 4-12, 255G1 Wife bares cancer, suspends season 5-20, returns 6-10, 435C2 2d in US Open 6-22, 435G1–B2 Wins Tour Champ, 2d in FedEx Cup 9-27, 670F1 Wins HSBC Champs tourn 11-8, 839G3

MICRONESIA, Federated States of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A1; 10-1, 735A1

FACTS Immigration & Refugee Issues US church shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 UN Policy & Developments US/Cuba cont embargo oppositn res vote abstained 10-28, 784C1

MICROSOFT Corp. Intel, EU antitrust fine set 5-13, 343G1 Bing unveiled 5-28, Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523B2 China Web-filter software requiremt opposed 6-8, 414B3 Word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911F3 Google bk scanning setlmt opposed 8-20, 601E1 China software copyright infringemt suspects convctd, sentncd 8-20, 615B3 Europn Comm competitn comr (Almunia) named 11-27, 835A3 EU antitrust case setld 12-16, 875F3 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886C3

MIDDAY (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Fily & Mare Turf 11-6, 807C2

MIDDLE East Peace and Economic Cooperation Fla rep (Wexler) sets resignatn 10-14, 717A2

MIDDLE East Peace Talks Palestinian-Israeli Talks Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16C1 US spec envoy (Mitchell) named 1-22, 29A3–B3 Obama seeks deal 1-22, 31B3 Obama sees deal 1-27, 42F1 US cont role vowed 3-1—3-4, 123G1–A2, E2 Obama seeks deal 3-24, 181C3 Israel govt coalitn role mulled 3-24, Netanyahu vows cont talks 3-25, 190E1 Talks mulled 4-1, 209G2, D3–E3 Obama backs Palestinian indep state 4-6, 215B3 Peace deal sought, Israeli recognitn mulled 4-17—4-27; Iran A-program linked 4-23, Netanyahu vows pursuit, Hamas role seen 5-4—5-5, 313E1 Pope Benedict backs Palestine indep 5-13, 335B1, C3 Israel’s Netanyahu visits Obama 5-18, 336D1, B2 US’s Obama visits Saudi 6-3, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367C2, A3, 369B1–D1, G1; excerpts 368AC2 Cont talks urged 6-5, 386G1 Israel’s Netanyahu backs Palestinian state 6-14, 403E1, D2 Russia summit urged 6-23, 455D1 Mtgs held, Israeli forgn min (Lieberman) drops role 6-30—7-28; Arab ldrs concessns sought, Saudi/Jordan nix 7-13—8-3, Hamas demands sought 7-31, 545G3 Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473B1 Obama hosts Egypt’s Mubarak 8-18; Netanyahu visits Eur, sees US’s Mitchell 8-24—8-27, Palestinian ‘11 indep state sought, plan hailed 8-25—8-26, 593E1 Khoury sees Sholom 9-2, Mitchell visits Netanyahu, Abbas 9-15—9-16, 614B3 US’s Mitchell ends tour 9-18; Obama sees Netanyahu/Abbas 9-22, UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633E1, 634E2 Talks threat seen 10-1, 689B3 Saudi king visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707E3 Israeli/Palestinian deal doubted, US’s Mitchell visits 10-8—10-11, 730D2–F2 US’s Clinton sees Abbas/Netanyahu, talks reopening offer nixed 10-31—11-2, 754E1 Palestinian state backing sought, EU role mulled/proposal opposed 11-15—12-1, talks urged 11-25, 838A3 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846E1 Syrian-Israeli Talks Talks mulled 5-26, 546F2 US’s Mitchell visits Syria’s Assad 7-26, 546E2

MIDDLE East Policy Council US natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 144B3

MIDDLE Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro) New Orleans Bowl won 12-20, 948C3

M.I. Devlopments Inc. Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347E2

MIDSHIPMAN (racehorse) Named ‘08 top 2-yr old male 1-26, 119F3

MIERASSA, Clement Pres vote held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, files appeal, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn upheld 7-23—7-25, 507D1, A2

MIERS, Harriet Ellan House com testimony set 3-4, 536E3 Testifies to House com 7-29—7-30, 536D3, G3

MIGIRO, Asha-Rose Urges Millennium Dvpt Goals cont focus 3-12, 170B1–C1

MIGLIORE, Richard Breeders’ Cup Classic results 11-7, 807G1

MIGRANT Workers China jobless estimated 2-2, 134D3 China Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 683D1

MIGRATION Policy Institute US fugitive aliens arrest program questnd 2-4, 202A2

MIHM, Judge Michael Sentncs ex-enemy combatant (Marri) 10-29, 760D1, F1

MIKHAILKIN, Gen. Anatoly Fired 12-15, 938C3

MIKHALKOV, Nikita Burnt by the Sun opens in London 3-3, 211B3 Father dies 8-27, 612E3

MIKHALKOV, Sergei Vladimirovich (1913-2009) Dies 8-27, 612E3

MIKITENKO, Irina Wins London Marathon 4-26, 332E1 2d in Chicago marathon 10-11, 791F3 Tops Majors list 11-1, 791G3

MIKOVITS, Judy Sees chronic fatigue syndrome, XMRV virus link 10-8, 953A1

MILES, Ben Ninja Assassin on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

MILES, Nate UConn recruiting violatns alleged 3-25, 230G3

MILES-Clark, Jearl ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

MILIBAND, David On US intell cooperatn threat 2-5, 80A3 Dutch MP (Wilders) entry nix protested 2-12, 136E3 On Zimbabwe sanctns lift 2-14, 97C2 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F3 Visits Sri Lanka 4-29, scores rebel conflict 5-12, 334C3, 335A1 Cont cabt post set 6-5, 397A2 On Iraq hostages remains return 6-20, 433C3 Urges Afghan reconciliatn talks 7-27, 513C2–G2 US terror intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, denies suspects torture role 8-9, 544A2, D2 On Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 9-2, 583D2 Mulls Pak A-arms security 10-11, 695F1 Hosts US’s Clinton 10-11, 704G2 Defends Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 10-12, 704B3 Visits Russia 11-2, 766C2–D2 On Kosovo munic electns 11-16, 803G1 Ashton named EU forgn policy chief 11-19, 802E3 At Afghan’s Karzai inauguratn 11-19, 805E3 Seeks universal jurisdictn legal chngs 12-15, 884E2 Scores Iran protests crack down 12-28, 940E3 On Iraq hostage (Moore) release 12-30, 941C3, E3

MILITARY Academy, U.S. (West Point, N.Y.) Blanchard dies 4-19, 280B3 Obama addresses 12-1, 825B1; text 826A1

MILITARY Bases—See DEFENSE, U.S.—Bases MILITARY Commissions Act (2006) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12A1 Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20E2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46E3 Obama sets terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, 337A1, D1 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505E3

ON FILE

Chngs signed 10-28, Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 793B1, 794D1

MILK (film) Penn wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3 Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40F1, A2–B2, D2 Oscars won 2-22, 120F1, B2–C2 Calif Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699E1

MILK, Harvey (1930-78) Penn wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3 Milk wins Oscars 2-22, 120F1 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548D1–E1 Calif recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699D1–E1

MILK, Stuart Accepts uncle’s Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548E1

MILLAN, Kieran Boston U wins NCAA title 4-11, 300A1

MILLER, Alan Cleared 4-17, 363B3

MILLER, Alano Marcus opens in Princeton 5-22, 451A3 Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

MILLER, Aleksei Ukraine gas shipmts halt ordrd 1-5, 3F2

MILLER, Bode Quits World Cup tour 3-3, 191F1

MILLER, Christopher Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2

MILLER, George (U.S. representative from Calif., 1975- ; Democrat) Reseated Educ & Labor chair 1-6, 5A1 Introduces workers unionizing vote options bill 3-10, 164E3 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Health care reform talks secrecy scored 5-11, 340C1 Health care reforms draft bill issued 6-9, 390B3 Issues health care reform proposal 6-19, 426D3

MILLER, George (ex-Roman Catholic priest) Sentncd 1-30, 132B3

MILLER, Heath Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70B3–C3

MILLER Jr., Herbert John (1924-2009) Dies 11-14, 860F3

MILLER, John On terror watch list recommendatns 5-6, 411F2

MILLER, Jonny Lee After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

MILLER, Judith CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815D3

MILLER, Mike Traded to Wizards 6-23, 451D1

MILLER, Patina Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

MILLER, Rob Obama speech, Wilson outburst rebuke passes House 9-15, 617B3

MILLER, Robert Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records find rptd 7-22—7-23, 921D1–E1

MILLER, Ross Domestic partnerships open 10-1, 699B2

MILLER, Sienna After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

MILLI, Emin Held 7-8; arrests questnd 7-17—7-20, pretrial release nixed 7-20, 544B1–C1 Chrgs hiked 8-21, 607A1 Convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820A2

MILLS, David Convctd 2-17, 99D3–G3 Berlusconi immunity law nixed 10-7, 687A2 Convctn upheld 10-27, 750C1

MILLS, Ernestina Naadu Ghana pres electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7F3

MILLS, John Atta (Ghanaian president, 2009- ) Pres electn lead seen, final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, sworn 1-7, 7E2 Facts on 1-7, 7A3 Hosts US’s Obama 7-10, 471F3, 472D1

MILNE, A(lan) A(lexander) (1892-1956) Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708D2

2009 Index MILOSEVIC, Slobodan (1941-2006) (Serbian president, 1989-97; Yugoslav president, 1997-2000) Serbia ex-pres (Milutinovic) cleared 2-26, 110D1 Sudan’s Bashir indicted 3-4, 122E1 Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, 628D1 Serb ldr (Karadzic) seeks trial delay/boycotts, counsel mulled 10-26—10-27, argumts open/adjourned, Plavsic freed 10-27, 749D1, A2

MILOVANOVIC, Zeljko Chrgd 10-26, 822G2–A3

MILUTINOVIC, Milan Cleared, release ordrd 2-26, 110C1–E1

MINDAOUDOU, Aichatou On ECOWAS suspensn 10-21, 761C3

MINES (& Mining) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Caterpillar ‘08 fed funded projects rptd 1-14, 29E3 S Africa ‘08 GDP estimate rptd 2-12, 96A3 S Africa ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-26, 359C1 Rio Tinto shares offrd 6-5, 481B2, F2 Mongolia minerals tax reppeal passes parlt 8-25, Oyu Tolgoi mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725D2 Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt diamond field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1 Australia interest rate hiked 10-6, 675B2 Worldwide diamond mkt recovery seen 10-19, 722D2 Venez ‘09 GDP rptd 12-29, 929C3 Crime & Corruption Issues Zimbabwe diamonds field abuses probed 6-30—7-4, 783G3 Chinese workers held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481G2 Indonesia violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, arrests rptd/chrgs set, Freeport worker linked 7-21—7-31, 542C2, E2–F2, A3 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480C1 Chinese workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3 Kenyan mob kills UK geologist (Bridges) 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922D3 India rebel attack kills 17 10-8, 790G3–791A1 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802B2 Kimberly Process summit held, Zimbabwe suspensn nixed/monitoring set 11-2—11-6, Marange field exports halted 11-10, 783E3 Afghan mines min (Adel) bribe alleged 11-18, 806E1 China mine blast ofcls, rptrs chrgd 11-21, 932G3 Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25, 922A1–B1 US govt, Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868D2 Environmental Issues Mt curbs nixed 2-13, 94F2 Grace Mont asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356D2 US pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Mt mining permits EPA reviews urged, set 3-24, 267F2 US mt rules chng nix sought 4-27, 356C3 Mont asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492D2, F2–G2 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2, A3–B3 US mt rules chng upheld 8-13, 655B2 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2, A3–B3 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800E3 Labor Issues S Africa workers strike, deals set 7-27—7-31, 525B3, 526B1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nixed, BHP Billiton jt venture set 6-5, 481A2 Russia/Mongolia uranium jt venture set 8-25, 725F2 Political & Legislative Issues Mongolia pres electn held 5-24, 377E2 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17, repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, 431C3 Niger pres term limits hike referendum held, results rptd 8-4—8-7, 574E3

—MISSOURI Mongolia premr (Bayar) in hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd 10-28—10-29, vows cont policies 10-28, 763G1–A2 Research Dark matter detectn seen 12-17, 952G1 Riots & Unrest Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3 Statistics US Dec ‘08 indl output, Nov revised 1-16, 46D2 US Dec ‘08 factory rate, Nov revised 1-16, 46D2 US Jan ‘09 indl output, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 US Jan ‘09 factory rate, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 US Feb ‘09 indl output, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 US Feb ‘09 factory rate, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 US Mar ‘09 indl output, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Mar ‘09 factory rate, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Apr ‘09 indl output, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 US Apr ‘09 factory rate, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 US May ‘09 factory rate 6-16, 477B3 US May ‘09 indl output 6-16, 477B3 US Jun ‘09 indl output 7-15, 477A3 US Jun ‘09 factory rate 7-15, 477A3 US Jul ‘09 indl output, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 US Jul ‘09 factory rate, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 US Aug ‘09 indl output, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 US Aug ‘09 factory rate, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 US Sep ‘09 indl output, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 US Sep ‘09 factory rate, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 US Oct ‘09 factory rate, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 US Oct ‘09 indl output, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 US Nov ‘09 indl output, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 US Nov ‘09 factory rate, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 Trade Issues Myanmar/China border militia clashes end urged 8-28, 590G2 Zimbabwe bilateral aid doubted 9-16, investmt rise seen 9-17, 681C1, E1 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3–777A1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia, deal signed 11-24, 885C2 China/Venez deals signed 12-22, 929F2

MINE That Bird (racehorse) Wins Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315D3 2d in Preakness 5-16, 347D1, F1–C2 3d in Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399B2–E2

MINGHELLA, Anthony (1954-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E3

MINITER, Richard Files Wash Times bias claim 11-17, 913A3–B3

MINNEAPOLIS-St. Paul (Minn.) International Airport Ex-Sen Craig nixes ‘07 guilty plea withdrawal appeal 1-8, 5B3 Northwest flight overshoots, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licences revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743C3

MINNEAPOLIS Star Tribune (newspaper) Bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168A1

MINNER, Ruth Ann (Del. governor, 2001- ; Democrat) Biden quits Sen 1-15, 16E2

MINNESOTA Accidents & Disasters Minneapolis bridge collapse victims setlmt OKd 4-16, 292F2 Arts & Culture Gaiman wins Newbery Medal 1-26, 56A1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section US Bancorp stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 Fed pres (Stern) sets retiremt 9-3, Kocherlakota named, takes post 9-30—10-8, 740B1 Crime & Law Enforcement Ex-Sen Craig nixes ‘07 guilty plea withdrawal appeal 1-8, 5A3 Somali terror group ties suspects admit role/held, chrgd/plead guilty 2-9—8-12, 780C3, E3, G3

Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106C2 FBI terror watch list woes rptd 5-6, 411E2 Music piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782B1 Somali terror ties suspects stopped/questnd, held 10-6—11-19, chrgs hiked 11-23, 849E1–F1, B2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Somalia’s Ahmed visits 10-4, 781D1 Medicine & Health Care Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses, deaths tallied 1-29, 49C3–D3 Pig swine flu positive test seen, confrmd 10-17—10-19, 741E3 Obituaries Pohlad, Carl R 1-5, 40C3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A2 Franken declared Sen race winner 1-5, suit filed 1-6, 3D3, 5F1 Sen race absentee votes review ltd 3-31, 201B2 Sen seat race recount rptd 4-7, Franken win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242F2 Gov Pawlenty nixes reelectn bid 6-2, 441G2 Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441A1, F1 Obama rally held 9-12, 617E3 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 907C3 Press & Broadcasting Minneapolis Star Tribune bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168A1 Star Tribune reorgn filed, OKd 6-18—9-17, exits bankruptcy 9-28, 913B1 Religious Issues Episcopal bps named 8-1—8-2, 539G1 Lutheran natl assemb held 8-21, 574A1 Science & Technology Dark matter detectn seen 12-17, 952G1 Sports Vikings exit playoffs 1-4, 39E3 PGA Champ results 8-16, 563D2 Twins win divisn 10-6, 690D1, A2 Twins exit playoffs 10-11, 752E1 Vikings clinch divisn 12-20, 947D3 Transportation Northwest flight overshoots airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licenses revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743C3, F3, 744A1

MINNESOTA, University of (Minneapolis) Kocherlakota named Minn Fed pres, takes post 9-30—10-8, 740C1 Insight Bowl lost 12-31, 948F2

MINNI, Ahmed Pak/US deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1

MINNICK, Walt (U.S. representative from Idaho, 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MINORITIES—See also specific groups (e.g., BLACK Americans); for foreign issues, see country names Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33C1 Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62E1, A2 NYS cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538A3 Voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 166G3–167E1 Right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, 263A1 Digital TV switch success seen 6-12, 412C2 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425D1, B2 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444E2 Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Gonzales, Tex Tech teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574E2 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1 ACORN fed funding bans pass Cong, voter registratn halt mulled 9-14—9-17; probes set, ldr (Harshberger) named 9-20—9-22, suits seen, IRS partnership ended 9-23, 638F2 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916A3

1111

MINTER, Shannon At Calif gay marriage ban hearing 3-5, 149E3

MINTY, Abdul Samad IAEA head successor votes held, loses electn 3-26—7-2, 502G2–A3

MIRKAZEMI, Massoud Named oil min 8-19, 562A2

MIRREN, Dame Helen Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

MIRZA, Sania Loses Australian Open 2-1, 71A2

MIRZAN Zainal Abidin, Sultan (Malaysia) Swears PM (Najib) 4-3, 223D1

MISCAVIGE, David Violnc use alleged 6-21, 787C3

MISHCHENKO, Maxim Denies antifascist activist (Khutorskoi) slaying role 11-18, 822A2

MISHIMA, Yukio (Kimitake Hiraoka) (1925-70) Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

MISS America (beauty pageant) Miss Ind (Stam) crowned 1-24, 56D1

MISSILE Defense Systems—See ARMAMENTS—Star Wars Issues MISS Independent (recording) Grammys won 2-8, 88G2–A3

MISSISSIPPI Accidents & Disasters Actor (Freeman) car-crash victim suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792C2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Gov Barbour nixes econ recovery funds 2-21, 111A2 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Jackson mayor (Melton) mistrial declared 2-24, 306E3 Ex-judge (DeLaughter) pleads guilty 7-30, sentncd 11-13, 888D2 Crime & Law Enforcement KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886D3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Medicine & Health Care ‘06 teen birth rate rptd 1-7, 96F1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Jackson mayoral electn held 5-5, Melton dies 5-7, 306D3 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Press & Broadcasting Mitchell wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2 School Issues Obama educ reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149F2

MISSISSIPPI, University of (University) Cotton Bowl won 1-2, 24D1 Oher, Jerry in NFL draft 4-25, 298E3 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579F3–G3

MISSISSIPPI River Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2

MISSOURI Crime & Law Enforcement Neosho church shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2 Craigslist CEO (Buckmaster) sees atty gen 5-5, 429A3 MySpace suicide insults convctn nixed 7-2, 539B2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Bond nixes reelectn bid 1-8, 5A3 Sports NCAA women’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 229C3, 231B2 Blues make playoffs 4-12, 299C2 MLB All-Star Game results 7-14, 483G2, D3 Cardinals win divisn 9-26, 690F1, B3 Cardinals exit playoffs 10-10, 752E2 Limbaugh, Rams buyout bid questnd 10-13, role dropped 10-14, 948B2

1112 MISSOURI— MISSOURI, University of Columbia Campus Maclin, Hood in NFL draft 4-25, 298E3, G3 Carroll in NBA draft 6-25, 451B2 Tex Bowl lost 12-31, 948F2 Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16, tourn results 4-6 6, 230B1, D3

MR. Magoo (cartoon character) Kaufman dies 3-14, 192A3

MISUARI, Nur On militant clashes 8-20, 559B2

MITCHELL, Ako Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

MITCHELL, George J. Denies MLB steroid dealer (Radomski) claims 1-20, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88B1 Named Mideast spec envoy 1-22, 29G2 Obama seeks Israeli/Palestinian peace deal 1-22, 31D3 Opens Mideast/Eur tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2–D2 Visits Israel, W Bank 1-29—1-30, 157D2 Sees Israel’s Netanyahu 2-26, 123F2 Visits Israel, Palestine 4-16—4-17, 313E1–G1 Visits Israel, W Bank 6-9—6-10, 403G2–A3 Visits Syria 6-13, 465F2 Holds Mideast peace talks 6-30—7-28, 546B1–C1 Sees Israel’s Netanyahu 8-26, 593C2 Visits Israel’s Netanyahu, Palestinian’s Abbas 9-15—9-16, 614B3 Ends Mideast tour 9-18, 634A3 Visits Mideast 10-8—10-11, 730D2 Iran uranium transfer proposals backed 10-30, 768G2 On W Bank setlmts bldg freeze 11-25, 838D2

MITCHELL, James US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, mental disparity seen 4-22, 261C2–E2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289F3

MITCHELL, Jared LSU wins Coll World Series, named MVP 6-25, 484F2

MITCHELL, Jerry Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

MITCHELL, Laurence Kursk opens in London 6-8, 451A3

MITRA, Rhona Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

MITTAL, Madhur Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

MITTERRAND, Francois Maurice (1916-96) (French president, 1981-95) Son named culture min 6-23, 432E3 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637B1–C1 Nephew sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707B3 Son convctd 10-27, 765C3

MITTERRAND, Frederic Named culture min 6-23, 432E3 On film dir (Polanski) arrest 9-27, 653G2 Sees museum workers cont cuts 12-2, 876F1

MITTERRAND, Jean-Christophe Convctd, sentnc suspended 10-27, 765C3

MIXON, Katy All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

MIXON, Lovelle Kills 4/slain, sex assault link seen 3-21—3-24, 246F3–247B1

MIYAMOTO, Yuji Summoned 7-28, 606G1

MIYAZATO, Ai Wins Evian Masters 7-26, 595A3 3d in Women’s British Open 8-2, 595D2

MIZIDY, Bonaventure Pres vote held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, files appeal, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn upheld 7-23—7-25, 507D1

MIZZY, Vic(tor) (1916-2009) Dies 10-17, 752D3

MLADIC, Gen. Ratko Home videos aired 6-10, 511G3 Karadzic trial date seen 9-8, 628F1 Serbia submits EU entry bid 12-22, 939C2–D2

FACTS MLB (Major League Baseball)—See BASEBALL MLB Channel (cable TV channel) Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830D3

MLS (Major League Soccer)—See SOCCER MNANGAGWA, Emmerson Named to Mugabe cabt 2-12, 81D3 Sworn defns min 2-13, cabt mtg held, law chngs urged 2-17, 97A2–B2

MOAYED, Arian Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

MOBUTU Sese Seko (Joseph Desire Mobutu) (1930-97) (Zairian president, 1965-97) Close dies 1-15, 104A3 Swiss assets release ordrd 7-14, 922G1

MODELS & Modeling Buendchen weds 2-26, 160E2 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920D1 Italy’s Berlusconi Europn Parlt candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29; wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328F1 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses Italian women 11-15—11-16, 812E2 Obituaries Chambers, Marilyn 4-12, 256A3 Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436D3 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Sims, Naomi 8-1, 532G3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3 Wilson, Charis 11-20, 956E3

MODERN Bride (magazine) Shut 10-5, 913A1

MODI, Narendra Bootleg liquor deaths linked 7-12, 530A3

MOFFAT, Robert Chrgd, held 10-16, 743G2

MOFFETT, David Quits 3-2, 127B3 Freddie Mac CEO (Haldeman) named 7-21, 910B1

MOGAE, Festus (Botswanan president, 1998-2008) Gen electns held 10-16; results rptd 10-18, Khama sworn 10-20, 722B2

MOGHADDAM, Ismail Ahmadi Warns oppositn protesters 12-30, 940G3

MOHADI, Kembo Sworn home affairs min 2-13, cabt mtg held, law chngs urged 2-17, 97A2–B2

MOHAMAD, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mocks Darfur civiln deaths US criticism 2-3, on govt, Darfur rebels peace talks 2-17, 115E3, 116E1

MOHAMED, Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Assoc (Megahed) cleared 4-3; held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816A1

MOHAMED, Binyam Failed plea deal documts issued 3-23; UK probe urged 3-26, CIA renditn aid info release suit reinstated 4-25, 290E1, B2–E2 US/UK terror intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, Cuba base detainees torture role denied 8-9—8-10, 544C2–E2

MOHAMED, Omar Abdi Held 11-19, pleads not guilty 11-24, 849B2–C2

MOHAMMAD, Maulvi Faqir Claims Taliban interim ldrship 8-19, 578B1 Survives US drone missile strike 10-24, 738B1

MOHAMMAD-Zadeh, Rajab Ali Slain 10-18, 729E1

MOHAMMED (prophet of Islam)—See MUHAMMAD MOHAMMED, Ali Mansour (d. 2008) Slaying suspect (Behenna) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 156C3–D3

MOHAMMED, Binyam Ahmed Cuba base detentn documts release nixed 2-4, 80D2, F2, A3 UK transfer deal OKd, monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112E1–B2

MOHAMMED, Isse On seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paymt 2-6, 66F3

MOHAMMED, Jude Kenan Chrgd 7-27, 679B1

MOHAMMED, Khalid Sheikh ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B1 Obama terror detainees policy questnd 1-21, 28C2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46E3 Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154E2 Claims 9/11 role 3-10, 244A3 Detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199F3 CIA interrogatn memos footnote detailed 4-20, 258C2 CIA interrogatn intell questnd 4-26, methods scored 4-27, 289D3, 290B1–D1 Ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305C2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses documts issued 8-24, 566E1, C2, B3–D3, 567C1, F1 Trial delay sought, OKd 9-16—9-21, 718E3–F3 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1 Trial set/debated, Sen com hearing set 11-13—11-18, 793B1, E1–F1, D2–E2, G2, C3, 794F1–G1; photo 794A2 White House counsel (Craig) sets resignatn 11-13, 797E3 Ill prison fed buy seen 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set 12-15, 861F1 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913E3

MOHAMMED, Noor Uthman Mil trial set 11-13, 794C1

MOHAMMED bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, Prince (Saudi Arabia) Hurt in blast 8-27, 943G2–A3

MOHAMUD, Omar Suicide blast kills 21, role probed 9-17—9-25, 781B1–C1

MOHN, Reinhard (1921-2009) Dies 10-3, 731E3

MOHSENI-Ejei, Gholam-Hossein Fired 7-26, 519C1 On protesters prosecutn 12-8, 857D1

MOIR, Scott 3d in world champs 3-27, 211G2

MOJAVE Desert (Calif.) Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1

MOKAE, Zakes Makgona (1934-2009) Dies 9-11, 672G2

MOLDOVA, Republic of CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Summit hosted, usefulness questnd 10-8—10-10, 777D1 Crime & Civil Disorders Protests turn violent, blame mulled 4-6—4-8, 225E2, B3, E3 Protests urged, held 4-6—4-12; riots death rptd 4-12, chrgs set 4-16—4-24, 273C2–E2 Chisinau grenade attack hurts 40+ 10-14, suspect held 10-17, 750E1 European Relations Romania ambs recalled/ousted, visa entry set 4-8, ties mulled 4-9, 225E3 Romania visa curbs lifted 9-17, 666G3–667A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A1 Parlt electns held, results rptd/vote review OKd 4-5—4-9, 225E2 Parlt electns recount urged, nixed 4-10—4-14, results rptd 4-22, 273A2 Pres vote fails 6-3; Lupu sets party exit 6-4—6-10, Greceanii confidnc vote won 6-10, 397D2 Parlt dissolved, electns set 6-15, 416E3 Parlt electns held, results rptd 7-29—8-4, 529B1 Voronin quits 9-11, Ghimpu confrmd pres 9-17, 627B1 Filat, cabt sworn 9-25, 666D3 Facts on Filat 9-25, 667A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735A1 Trade, Aid & Investment EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden tours region 10-21—10-23, 750D2

MOLINA, Yadier NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483D3

MOLLEN, Gerald On immigrant ctr attack response 4-5, 246F2

ON FILE

MOLLOY, Judge Donald Questns, upholds Grace asbestos trial testimony 4-17—4-28; nixes evidnc 4-23, chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-27, 356F2–A3 OKs Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf hunting 9-8, 655F1 Restores Yellowstone grizzlies curbs 9-21, 781A3

MOLOTO, Judge Bakone Finds ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt 9-14, 628C1

MOMENI, Esha Release sought 3-31, 195C2

MONACO, Principality of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B1; 10-1, 735B1 Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-16, 163A2, C2 Sports Monte Carlo Masters results 4-19, 399F1

MONARCHS—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

MONDRIAN, Piet (1872-1944) Compositn With Blue Red Yellow & Black fetches 21.6 mln euros 2-23, 160B1–C1

MONEY Laundering Drug Cartels Mex suspect (Carrillo Leyva) arrest rptd 4-2, 249E3 US lists Mex drug kingpins 4-15, 271E1 Financial Services Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148A2 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141A2, B3 PEMGroup ex-head (Pang) held 4-28, 506F3 Hermitage CEO (Browder) funds subpoena OKd 7-31, 822C1 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1 Government/Business Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) pleads not guilty, opens hunger strike/claims pol motivatn 1-19—2-23, kin pleads guilty 1-21—2-10, 135A1–D1 CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132F1 Info tech deals bribery suspects held 3-12, 200D3–E3 Israel’s Lieberman questnd 4-2, 209F3 S Africa’s Zuma chrgs dropped 4-6, 222C1 S Africa gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 293F1 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 504D1 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Israel forgn min (Lieberman) indictmt urged 8-2, 689A2 Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) convctd, sentncd 9-11, 625E2, G2 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, IRS partnership ended, suit seen 9-23, 638C3 Niger oppositn ldr (Issoufou) chrgd 9-14; warrant issued 10-29, returns 10-30, 761E3 France’s Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644A2 Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 768G3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797D2 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878D3 Law Enforcement Iran jet smuggling suspects chrgd 8-27, 600G1 US spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622C2 Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges indicted 9-9, 870A1 Italian ID theft suspects held 11-21, 821G2 Military Issues Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25, 922B1 US Army ex-maj (Cockerham) sentncd 12-2, 856E3 People Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter slain 4-14, 377B1

MONFILS, Gael Loses Paris Masters 11-15, 951D1

MONGIARDO, Dan Sen Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503B2

MONGOLIA Economy & Labor Minerals tax reppeal passes parlt 8-25, Oyu Tolgoi mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725D2

2009 Index Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B1 Pres electn held 5-24, results rptd, Enkhbayar concedes/Elbegdorj win hailed 5-25, 377F1 Facts on Elbegdorj 5-24, 377A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735B1 Bayar in hosp, quits 10-27; Batbold named, confrmd 10-28—10-29, cont policies vowed 10-29, 763D1 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Uranium deposits state ownership stake set 7-16, Russian mining jt venture set 8-25, 725F2–A3 Trade, Aid & Investment SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406F2

MONING, Karen Marie Dreamfever on best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

MO‘NIQUE (Monique Imes) Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

MONK, Alonzo (Lon) Gov Blagojevich ouster com hearing held 1-8, 93F2 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 44A1 Indicted 4-2, 218F3

MONKEYS & Apes Early primate fossil rptd, unveiled 5-15—5-19, human link questnd 10-21, 952B2, E2 Calorie curbs, longer life linked 7-9, 595D3 HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1 Human predecessor skeleton displayed 10-1, 691A3–B3

MONOPOLIES—See ANTITRUST Actions MONROE, Eugene In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

MONSERRATE, Hiram Switches parties, Espada rejoins Dems 6-8—7-9, 524C3

MONSIEUR, Jacques Iran jet smuggling chrgd 8-27, 600G1

MONSTERS vs. Aliens (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954E1

MONTAGNIER, Luc ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

MONTALBAN, Ricardo (Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino) (1920-2009) Dies 1-14, 24D3

MONTANA Crime & Law Enforcement Cuba base detainees transfer mulled 11-14, 794E2 Environment & Pollution Grace asbestos trial opens/evidnc nixed, witness testimony questnd/upheld 2-19—4-28; Walsh/McCaig chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-30, Eschenbach/Wolter/Bettachi cleared 5-8, 356D2, F2 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, hunting OKd 9-8, 655G1 Libby, Troy asbestos health emergency declared 6-17, 492C2 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781B3 Family Issues Letterman/Lasko wed 3-19, 192A1 Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Medicine & Health Care Assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3 Obituaries Cooley, Earl E 11-9, 860B3 Science & Technology Paleontologist (Murphy) pleads guilty 4-14, 280B2–C2

MONTAZERI, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali (1922-2009) Backs protesters rights 6-25, 423A1 Urges oppositn backing 9-14, 628D3 Dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883B2; photo 883E2 Protests turn violent 12-27, 940C2–D2

MONTEJO, Jesse Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 374A1

MONTEJO v. Louisiana (2009) Suspect questng curbs eased by Sup Ct 5-26, 374A1, C1

MONTENEGRO, Republic of European Relations EU visa curbs lifted 12-19, 940E1

—MORLEY 1113 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B1 Djukanovic govt OKd 6-10, 463C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735B1

MONTEREALE, Barbara Berlusconi escort use alleged 6-17, 463F2

MONTERO, Gabriela At Obama inauguratn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

MONTESINOS, Vladimiro Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508A2–D2

MONTES Parra, Margarito Slain 11-27, 928E3

MONTGOMERY, Colin Named Eur Ryder Cup capt 1-28, 139A2

MONTGOMERY, Lucy Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

MONTGOMERY, Renee UConn wins NCAA title 4-7, 229G3, 230G1

MONTGOMERY, Ritchie Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

MONTI, Sgt. First Class Jared (1975-2006) Medal of Honor awarded 9-17, 636A1

MONTIEL, Dito Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

MONUMENTS & Memorials Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7A2 Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65E1 US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94C1 Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677E1 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3 Thai protests turn violent 4-7—4-14, 250B2 Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300C2 Abolitionist (Truth) DC statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2 Dutch parade car attack kills 8, Queen targeting admitted/driver dies 4-30—5-1, 328A2 Pope Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335G1 Obama sends Meml Day wreaths 5-25, 355D2 Obama visits France, marks D-Day 6-6, 386B2 Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, Capitol Bldg plaque unveiled 9-9, 620D3 Slovakia minority language curbs enacted 9-1, 608A3 Chechen slain ldr (Kadyrov) statues removed 9-10, 706G1–A2 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620A2 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914B3 Georgia WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19; arrest rptd, gov fired 12-20, protests held 12-21, 937F1

MOODIE, Wesley Loses French Open doubles 6-6, 399C1

MOODY‘S Investors Service Inc. GE credit rating cut 3-23, 242C1 Berkshire credit rating cut 4-8, 241F3 Insider trading suspects chrgd, held 10-16, 743B3 Greece credit rating retained 12-16, 875C3 Greek debt rating cut, negative credit outlook set 12-22, 938C1–D1

MOON (terrestrial satellite) Orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373C1 US space programs review panel named 6-1, 506E2 Moon orbiter, LCROSS launched 6-18, 697E3 Apollo 11 anniv marked 7-20, 506C2 US new missn pursuit doubted 7-21, 506F2 Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548C1 India unmanned satellite (Chandrayaan-1) contact lost, missn ended 8-29—8-31, 612D1 S pole craters sunlight lack rptd 9-17, 697G3 Water signs seen 9-24, 696G2 NASA rocket, LCROSS crashed 10-9, 697E3 US sci (Nozette) spying chrgd 10-19, 760D3

NASA shuttle program future plans review issued 10-22, 745B1, A2 Water confrmd 11-13, 824C2

MOON, Craig Quits 3-31, 913F2

MOON, Rev. Sun Myung Wash Times execs fired 11-9, bias claim filed 11-17, 913A3–B3

MOON to Dance By, A (play) Opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

MOORE, Brian (presidential candidate) Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

MOORE, Brian Keith (inmate) Executn halted 11-25, 849F3–G3

MOORE, Charles Eddie Slayer (Seale) appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-2, 886D3

MOORE, Christopher Fool on best-seller list 3-2, 140A1

MOORE, Clayton (Jack Carlton Moore) (1914-99) Hart dies 9-20, 731C3

MOORE, Dennis (U.S. representative from Kan., 1999- ; Democrat) Rep Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3

MOORE, Maya Named AP top player, wins Naismith Award 4-4—4-7, UConn wins NCAA title 4-7, 230G1, F2–G2 Wins Wooden Award 4-10, 951E3

MOORE, Peter Hostage tape issued 3-21, 189E3 Fellow hostages slayings rptd 7-29, 530B1 Iraq/US detainees release mulled 8-17, 563F1 Freed, prisoner exchng deneid/Iran role mulled 12-30—12-31, 941C3–E3, 942C1–F1, B2; photo 941E3

MOORE, Ryan Wins Wyndham Champ 8-23, 670G2 Conduit wins Breeders’ Cup Turf 11-7, 807F2

MOORHOUSE, Geoffrey (Geoffrey Heald) (1931-2009) Dies 11-26, 880D2

MORALES, Kendry Among AL RBI ldrs 10-6, 690E2 Angels lose pennant 10-25, 752C1

MORALES, Ray Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 869A1

MORALES Aima, Evo (Bolivian president, 2006- ) Const referendum held 1-25, 50D1, G1–A2 DEA agents exit 1-29, ousts US diplomat (Martinez) 3-9, 204F1–B2 Shootout kills 3 4-16; thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, US role mulled 4-18—4-19, 294A1 Peru amb recalled, named enemy 6-16, 432B1 At UNASUR summit 8-10, 541C3 At UNASUR mtg 8-28, 589E2 Hosts Iran’s Ahmadinejad 11-24, 885C2, E2 Vote held 12-6, reelectn seen 12-8, 850E3

MORAN, Brian Loses Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391F1

MORAN, Damiana Alleges child Lugo paternity 4-22, 294E3–F3

MORAN, Ellen Successor (Dunn) quits 11-10, 798A1

MORAN Jr., James P. (U.S. representative from Va., 1991- ; Democrat) Brother loses Va gov Dem primary 6-9, 391F1 Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

MORAR, Natalia Urges protests 4-6, chrgs seen, set 4-16—4-23, 273E2

MORATINOS, Miguel Angel On Cuba base detainees transfer 2-24, 165G3

MOREAU, Ethan Wins King Clancy Trophy 6-18, 435A3

MOREHOUSE College (Atlanta, Ga.) Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291B3

MOREL, Pierre Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

MORENO, Justice Carlos Vs gay marriage ban 5-26, 352E3

MORENO, Knowshon In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

MORENO Gonzalez, Nazario Lt (Rueda) held 7-11, 480C3

MORENO-Ocampo, Luis Opens Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial 1-26, 43D1 Sudan’s Bashir arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—22-3, 115B3, D3 Sudan’s Bashir indicted 3-4, 122D1, G1, B2 On Sudan’s Bashir warrant/AU res 7-5, 459A2 Vows Kenya electn violnc chrgs 9-30, visit delay urged 10-13, 702E2–A3 Opens Guinea protesters attack probe 10-14, 701A3 Visits Kenya, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922F2, A3

MORGAN, Betsy Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

MORGAN, Cass Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

MORGAN Jr., Charles (1930-2009) Dies 1-8, 40B3

MORGAN, Jeffrey Dean Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

MORGAN, Nyjer Among NL batting/steals ldrs 10-6, 690D3, F3

MORGAN, Tracy G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

MORGAN, Judge W. Charles Sentncs Calif ‘06 wild fires arsonist (Oyler) 6-5, 539E3 Sentncs arsonist (Oyler) 6-5, 920F2

MORGAN Chase & Co. Inc., J. P. State racial bias probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27—1-29, 114A2 Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 Home foreclosure halt vowed 2-13, 127G3 Homeowner govt rescue plan launched 3-4, 127G3 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539D3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219C1 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, govt aid return sought 4-16, 241E2 Chrysler debt-for-cash swap backed 4-30, 282D2 Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319G1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2 ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16, 490G1, D2 Lear financing OKd 7-30, 536B2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3, 523A1 Overdraft fees ltd 9-23, 715E3–F3 ‘09 3d 1/4 profit rptd, compensatn reserves seen 10-14, 715B1–D1, A2–B2 Dimon White House visits rptd 10-30, 780E1 Securities unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910A3

MORGAN Stanley & Co. Inc. Citigroup jt venture set 1-13, 15E2 Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd 4-22, 265D1 Chrysler debt-for-cash swap backed 4-30, 282D2 Stress-test results issued, stock sale rptd 5-7—5-8, 319C1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2–D2 ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-22, 490A2, A3, F3 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3 Mack sets resignatn, Gorman named 9-10, 657G3 ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-21, 715D1, G1 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766A3 Exec misses Obama mtg 12-14, 864B3

MORGENTHAU, Robert Sets Limmt Iran mil aid chrgs 4-7, 217B3–C3 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1–C1

MORIARTY, Bishop James Resignatn offer rptd 12-23, 938F1

MORIN, Thierry Severnc pay rptd, scored 3-24, 206G3

MORLEY, Elliot Suspended 5-14, 343C3

1114 MORMONS— MORMONS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) Census nixes abroad missionaries count 8-18, 659D2 Polygamists (Jessop/Keate) convctd, sentncd 11-5—12-17, 919A2–D2

MORNEAU, Justin Mauer wins AL MVP 11-23, 823G2

MOROCCO, Kingdom of African Relations Guinea’s Camara shot, airlifted 12-3—12-4, 870C2 Guinea junta ldr (Camara), aides ICC chrgs urged 12-21, 925G1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section US/Mideast/Northn Africa forgn mins conf hosted 11-2, 754F1, C2–D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C1; 10-1, 735C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Suspects torture UK role denied 8-9—8-10, 544C2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112A2, E2 Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150G1 Detainee (Mohamed) failed plea deal documts issued 3-23, 290B2 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3 Suspects cont renditns rptd 8-24, 567E2 Western Sahara—See SAHARA, Western

MORRELL, Geoff On Cuba base ex-detainees recidivism rise 1-13, 166D1–E1 On Pak tribal areas mil offensives 4-29, 298B2 On Iran missile test 12-16, 876A3

MORRICE, Brad Chrgd 12-7, 910C2

MORRIS, Alison Ruth Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817E3

MORRIS, Brendan Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, probe ordrd 4-7, 218C2

MORRIS, Dick Catastrophe on best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

MORRIS, Henry (Hank) Chrgd 3-19, Obama auto indus task force (Rattner) linked 4-17, 265B2–G2 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 476A1

MORRIS, Jeremy Noah (1910-2009) Dies 10-28, 880D2

MORRIS, Raheem Named Buccaneers coach 1-17, 55B3

MORRISON, Dolphus Sells Rachel Alexandra 5-6, filly wins Preakness 5-16, 347D1

MORRISSEY Jr., Francis X. Convctd 10-8, 708B2 Sentncd 12-21, 896E1

MORTAZAVI, Saeed US rptr (Saberi) case review ordrd 4-19, 274F3

MORTENSEN, Viggo Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

MORTENSON, Greg Stones into Schls on best-seller list 12-21, 956B1

MORTGAGE Bankers Association (MBA) Delinquent mortgages tallied 3-5, 147D1 30-yr fixed rate avg interest rptd 6-3, 371C3

MORTIER, Gerard Steel named NYC Opera dir 1-22, 40E2

MORTIMER, Emily Father dies 1-16, 56C2

MORTIMER, Sir John (Clifford) (1923-2009) Dies 1-16, 56C2 Kirkup dies 5-10, 364E3

MORTIMER, Penelope (Penelope Ruth Fletcher) (1918-99) Ex-husband dies 1-16, 56C2

MORTON, Charlie Traded to Pirates 6-3, 484D2

MORTON, John Sets illegal immigrants detentn reforms 8-6, 573D2–E2

FACTS MOSCONE, George (1929-78) Calif Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699D1

MOSCOW—See RUSSIA MOSCOW Helsinki Group Antifascists violnc drop urged 11-19, 822A2

MOSCOW Rules (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

MOSCOW (Russia) State University Student (Baburova) slain 1-19, 36C3 US’s Clinton addresses 10-14, 706A1

MOSELEY, Robin Heavens Are Hung in Black opens in DC 2-8, 211D3

MOSKALENKO, Karinna On client (Politkovskaya) slaying trial verdicts 2-19, 100F1

MOSKOVSKIY Komsomolets-Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz newspaper) Rptrs attacked 3-25, 272A2

MOSLEHI, Heidar Named intell min 8-19, 562A2–B2 Confrmd intell min 9-3, 609F3

MOSLEMS—See ISLAM MOSLEY, Max Top teams breakaway warned 6-19; talks held, dispute setld 6-20—6-24, reelectn bid mulled 6-25—7-15, 647C1, F1–G1 On Renault race-fixing, 646G3–647A1 Successor (Todt) elected 10-23, 950A2

MOSQUES Pak blasts kills 22+ 3-27—4-5, 229C2, F2 Obama visits Turkey site 4-7, 214C3 Iraq site blast kills 8+ 4-7, 228C1 Pak cleric (Aziz) freed on bail 4-15, addresses followers 4-17, 276E2–G2 Hamas ldrs address Gaza sites 4-17, 313A2 Iraq site blast kills 5 4-22, 275B2 Iraq blasts kill 62+ 4-24—4-29, 296D3, 297B1 Iraq blast kills 3 5-11, 331C2 Pope Benedict visits Jordan 5-19, 335D1 Iran blast kills 25, militants hanged/role denied 5-28—5-30, 398B1 Thai site shooting kills 11, mil role denied 6-8—6-9, 416C1 Pak cleric (Naeemi) slain, protests held 6-12—6-13, 418D2–E2 Iraq violnc kills scores 6-12—6-20, 433E1, D2 Iran pres electn slain protesters mourning urged 6-17, 402E2 India ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 823A1–G1 China ethnic violnc protested 7-6, 461D1 China mosques cont closure ordrd 7-10, 509F3 Iran rebels executed 7-14—7-16, 486A1 Iraq site blasts kill 29+ 7-31, 529G1 Iraq site blast kills 37+ 8-7, 545G1 Gaza Islamists clash kills 22+ 8-14—8-15, 563A2 PI site seized 8-15, 559A2 Afghan intell ofcr (Laghmani) slain 9-2, 594E2 Thai militia men slain 9-13, insurgency casualties tallied 9-14, 748B1, D1 Iraq attack kills 13+ 10-16, 729A3 Mich imam (Abdullah) slain 10-28, 760B3 Bosnia Muslim community compensatn nixed 11-5, 820C3 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan), imam ties questnd 11-9, 777F3 US/Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Swiss minarets banned, referendum mulled 11-29—11-30, 836E2, C3, 837A1 Pak attack kills 36+ 12-4, 858B2 French natl ID bias fight vowed 12-8, 937B1 W Bank site burned 12-11; Holocaust synagogue blazes compared 12-14, suspect held 12-31, 945C1

MOSS, Ann Zenyatta wins Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807B2

MOSS, Elisabeth Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

MOSS, Jerry Zenyatta wins Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807B2

MOSSOUD, Ahmed Zia Karzai names running mate (Fahim) 5-4, 314A1

MOTAKKI, Manouchehr On A-program cont talks 7-11, 485C3

MOTELS—See HOTELS MOTI, Julian Australia chrgs dropped 12-15, 931A3

MOTION, Andrew Poet laureate successor (Duffy) named 5-2, 316G1

MOTION Picture Arts and Sciences, Academy of Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40C1 Oscars presented 2-22, 120A1 Malden dies 7-1, 468A3

MOTION Pictures Appointments & Resignations ‘At the Movies’ co-hosts replaced 8-5, 548B3 Awards & Honors ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2 Natl Film Critics awards announced 1-3, 24A3 Golden Globes presented 1-11, 24D2–E2 Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40C1 Sundance Festival awards 1-24, 104A2 UK Acad Awards presented 2-8, 104E1 Oscar presentatns 2-22, 120A1 Genies presented 4-4, 280B1 Cannes prizes awarded 5-24, 363F3 Indian actor (Bachchan) nixes Queensland Univ honorary degree 5-30, 509E1 Longley wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Brooks/De Niro honored by Kennedy Ctr 12-5—12-6, 895C3, D3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Founding of a Repub released 10-1, 683G1 Michael Jackson’s This Is It released, sets concert film grossing mark 10-28—11-1, 771E3 Film Expo trade shows rights sale set 12-10, 912B3 French films scanning funds set 12-14, 936A3 Censorship Issues Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1 Copyrights & Royalties Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, 920E2 Sweden Internet file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1 Crime & Law Enforcement Actor DMX sentncd 1-30, 88C3 Polanski ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, E2, C3 Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1 Polanski civil setlmt rptd 10-2; appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2, B3 Polanski bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855A3 Sheen held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2 Labor Issues Indian union sets Australia filming boycott 6-4, 509D1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Obituaries Anderson, Robert W 2-9, 120F2 Annakin, Ken 4-22, 300B3 Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Bach, Steven 3-25, 256E2 Barry, Gene 12-9, 896G1 Berri, Claude 1-12, 40F2 Blair, Betsy 3-13, 192F1 Cardiff, Jack 4-22, 300D3 Carradine, David 6-4, 400G2 Chambers, Marilyn 4-12, 256G2 Chaplin, Sydney 3-3, 192D2 Cohn, Sam 5-6, 332G2 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Disney, Roy E 12-16, 896C2 Dunne, Dominick 8-26, 580G2 Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436E3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Gibson, Henry 9-14, 708D3 Hingle, Pat 1-3, 104C3 Hughes, John 8-6, 548D3 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 Jarre, Maurice 3-28, 212G2 Jones, Jennifer 12-17, 896F2 Kaufman, Millard 3-14, 192A3 Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452G2 King, Allan 6-15, 452E3 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468G2 Martino, Al 10-13, 752D3 McGoohan, Patrick J 1-13, 40A3 Melnick, Daniel 10-13, 772F3 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672E3 Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24D3 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2

ON FILE

Murphy, Britanny 12-20, 896C3 Pinelli, Tullio 3-7, 192E3 Planchon, Roger 5-12, 400E3 Presnell, Harve 6-30, 500F3 Rhone, Trevor 9-15, 692E2 Richardson, Natasha 3-18, 176C3 Schneer, Charles H 1-21, 72E3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532G2 Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3 Tavel, Ronald 3-23, 956F1 Todd, Richard 12-3, 896F3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Wendkos, Paul 11-12, 956F2 Whitmore, James 2-6, 120G3 Willoughby, Bob 12-18, 956G2 Wiseman, Joseph 10-19, 792G3 Woodward, Edward 11-16, 840F3 Zieff, Howard 2-22, 192G3 People Travolta/Preston son dies 1-2, cremated 1-5, memlized 1-8, 9B3 Hayek weds 2-14, 120E2 Valenti FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176G2 Freeman car-crash victim suit filed, setld 2-25, 11-5, 792C2 Gyllenhaal/Sarsgaard wed 5-2, 348B3 Amer Apparel/Allen lawsuit setld 5-18, 348E2 Chambers autopsy rpt issued 5-18, 348G2 Broderick/Parker surrogate twins born 6-22, 516F1 Redford weds 7-11, 516E1 Uyghur Cong ldr (Kadeer) visits Australia, 10 Conditns premiered 8-8—8-11, China v forgn min trip nix rptd 8-18, 606D1–F1 Poitier gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Khan NJ airport questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646D2 Disney museum opens 10-1, 953B3 Top-Grossing Films ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G2, 12F2 ‘09 top 10 listed 12-31, 954B1 All About Steve, 20th Century Fox 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel, 20th Century Fox 12-25—12-31, 956C2* Angels & Demons, Sony 5-22—5-28, 384C2 Astro Boy, Summit 10-23—10-29, 772D2 Avatar, 20th Century Fox 12-25—12-31, 956B2 Away We Go, Focus 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Blind Side, Warner Bros 11-27—12-3, 840C2; 12-25—12-31, 956C2 Bride Wars, 20th Century Fox 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Bruno, Universal 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Cirque Du Freak, Universal 10-23—10-29, 772D2 Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Sony 9-18—9-24, 672B2; 10-23—10-29, 772D2 Confessns of a Shopaholic, Disney 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Coraline, Focus 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Couples Retreat, Universal 10-23—10-29, 772C2 Crank: High Voltage, Lionsgate 4-24—4-30, 316E2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Paramount 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Dance Flick, Paramount 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Defiance, Paramount Vantage 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Sony 12-25—12-31, 956D2 Disney’s A Christmas Carol, Disney 11-27—12-3, 840D2 Dist 9, Sony 8-21—8-27, 596C2 Duplicity, Universal 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Earth, Disney 4-24—4-30, 316C2 Fantastic Mr Fox, 20th Century Fox 11-27—12-3, 840E2 Fast & Furious, Universal 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Fighting, Universal 4-24—4-30, 316C2 Final Destinatn, Warner Bros 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Fired Up!, Sony 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Friday the 13th, Warner Bros 2-20—2-26, 140D2 G-Force, Disney 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Warner Bros 5-22—5-28, 384D2 GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, Paramount 8-21—8-27, 596C2 Goods, Paramount Vantage 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Gran Torino, Warner Bros 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Hangover, Warner Bros 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Hannah Montana, Disney 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Warner Bros 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

2009 Index He’s Just Not That Into You, Warner Bros 2-20—2-26, 140C2* Hotel for Dogs, Paramount 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, 20th Century Fox 7-24—7-30, 532D2 I Love You Man, Paramount 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Informant, Warner Bros 9-18—9-24, 672C2 Inglourious Basterds, Weinstein 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Inkheart, Warner Bros 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Intl, Sony 2-20—2-26, 140D2* Invictus, Warner Bros 12-25—12-31, 956E2 It’s Complicated, Universal 12-25—12-31, 956C2 Jennifer’s Body, 20th Century Fox 9-18—9-24, 672C2 Julie & Julia, Sony 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Knowing, Summit 3-20—3-26, 212B2 Last House on the Left, Universal 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Law Abiding Citizen, Overture 10-23—10-29, 772C2 Love Happens, Universal 9-18—9-24, 672C2 Michael Jackson’s This Is It, Sony 10-28—10-29, 772D2 Monsters vs Aliens, Paramount 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Lionsgate 1-23—1-29, 72D2 My Sister’s Keeper, Warner Bros 6-26—7-2, 452C2 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, 20th Century Fox 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Nine, Weinstein Co 12-25—12-31, 956D2 9, Focus Festures 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Ninja Assassin, Warner Bros 11-27—12-3, 840D2 Obsessed, Sony 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Old Dogs, Disney 11-27—12-3, 840C2 Orphan, Warner Bros 7-24—7-30, 532C2 Paranormal Activity, Paramount 10-23—10-29, 772B2 Paul Blart, Sony 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Planet 51, Sony 11-27—12-3, 840D2 Precious, Lionsgate 11-27—12-3, 840D2 Princess and the Frog, Disney 12-25—12-31, 956D2 Proposal, Disney 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Public Enemies, Universal 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Race to Witch Mt, Disney 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Road, Weinstein Co 11-27—12-3, 840E2 Saw VI, Lionsgate 10-23—10-29, 772C2 17 Again, Warner Bros 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Sherlock Holmes, Warner Bros 12-25—12-31, 956C2 Shorts, Warner Bros 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Searchlight 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Soloist, Paramount 4-24—4-30, 316C2 Sorority Row, Summit Entertainmt 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Star Trek, Paramount 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 State of Play, Universal 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Stepfather, Sony 10-23—10-29, 772D2 Taken, 20th Century Fox 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Taking of Pelham 123, Sony 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Terminator Salvatn, Warner Bros 5-22—5-28, 384C2 Time Traveler’s Wife, Warner Bros 8-21—8-27, 596C2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Paramount 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 2012, Sony 11-27—12-3, 840C2 Twilight Saga: New Moon, Summit 11-27—12-3, 840B2 Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Lionsgate 9-18—9-24, 672C2 Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail, Lionsgate 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Ugly Truth, Sony 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Sony 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Up, Disney 6-26—7-2, 452C2 Up in the Air, Paramount 12-25—12-31, 956D2 Watchmen, Warner Bros 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Where the Wild Things Are, Warner Bros 10-23—10-29, 772C2

—MUGABE 1115 Wolverine, 20th Century Fox 5-22—5-28, 384D2 Year One, Sony 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Trade Issues China import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557A2–B2 China imports WTO ruling appeal filed 9-22, ‘pub morals’ protectn claimed 9-23, 776G2

MOTLANTHE, Kgalema (South African president, 2008-09) Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 22B1 Sets gen electns 2-10, 96A2 At Zimbabwe cabt swearing ceremony 2-13, 97E1 Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222F1 At Zuma inaguratn 5-9, named dep pres 5-10, 325A2–B2, B3–C3

MOTOR & Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (MEMA) $25.5 bln govt aid sought 2-2, 62B3

MOTORCYCLES & Motorcycling Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter slain 4-14, 377A1 Iraq blast kills 76+ 6-24, 433G1 Iraq blasts kill 43+ 6-26—6-30, 437C2 Pak blast hurts 30 7-2, 467C1 PI blast kills 6 7-7, 528F1 Iraq blast kills 8+ 7-28, 529D2 Iraq blast kills 2 8-29, 592E3 Pak attack kills 1 9-2, 630E3 Colombia guerrilla ldr (Giraldo) escort attacked, freed 10-7, 817D3 Canadian gang slaying suspects convctd 10-29, 927F1 Iran protests turn violent 12-27, 940D2

MOTORS Liquidation Co. GM bankruptcy exited 7-10, 475A2

MOTOWN Record Corp. (of Universal) Jackson dies 6-25, 436D1–E1 Jackson meml svc held 7-7, 468A1

MOTSOALEDI, Dr. Aaron Named S Africa health min 5-10, 325B3

MOTTAKI, Manouchehr Visits Iraq 2-11—2-13, 101B3 On China ethnic violnc 7-12, 510A1 Named forgn min 8-19, 562C2 Visits US, seeks talks 9-30—10-1, 651E1 On A-scientist disappearnc 10-7, 688D1 On Israeli arms seizure 11-4, 878A2 On Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes 11-10, 805F2 On A-program uranium transfer proposals 11-18, 804A3 Offers uranium swap 12-12, sets US hikers trial 12-14, 876D2, F3 Proposes Turkey uranium transfer deal 12-24, 941E1

MOTWANI, Rajeev (1962-2009) Foun dead 6-5, 452G3

MOUALEM, Walid alHosts US’s Feltman, Shapiro 3-7, 143B1 On Israeli arms seizure 11-4, 878A2

MOUNTAINEERING US hikers held in Iran 7-31, 530C2 US hikers Iran spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857D3 Obituaries Casssin, Riccardo 8-6, 564G2 Compagnoni, Achille 5-13, 364C3 Houston, Charles S 9-27, 731D3 Lacedelli, Lino 11-20, 880B2

MOUNTAINTOP, The (play) Opens in London 7-20, 564D2

MOURNING, Alonzo Sets retiremt 1-22, 159F1

MOUSSA, Abdel Latif Gaza Islamists clash kills 22+ 8-14—8-15, 563G1–B2

MOUSSA, Amr At Arab League summit 3-30, 196G2 Sees Russia’s Medvedev 6-23, 455D1 On Israeli, W Bank setlmts constructn halt offer 11-2, 754D2

MOUSSAVI, Ali Slain, body seized 12-27, autopsy claimed 12-28, funeral held, assassinatn seen 12-30, 940G2–A3

MOUSSAVI, Mir Hussein (Iranian prime minister, 1981-89) Sets pres bid 3-10, sees Khatami mtg held 3-16, 174C2–F2 Scores Ahmadinejad 4-6, pres bid cleared 5-20, 362E1–F1 Ahwaz flight bomb defused, Khatami flying schedule rptd 5-30—6-1, 398G1 In pres debate/Ahmadinejad insults scored, rallies held 6-3—6-10, 401E1

Vote held/questnd, loss rptd 6-12—6-13, protests turn violent, Guardian Cncl mtg set 6-13—6-18, 401A1, C2–D2, B3–C3, 402C1–D1, D2–E2, C3; photos 401F1, 402A1 Seeks electn results nix, vote upheld 6-19—6-23, defends protesters, vows cont fight 6-21—6-25, 421A1, F2–G2, C3, 422B1, F1, A2, G2, C3 Pres vote review com role set, dropped 6-26—6-27; protests cont, punishmt/probe urged 6-26—7-1, results mulled, certified 6-27—7-1, 438C3–D3, 439A1–B1, E1–G1, D2–F2 Issues electn fraud documts 7-4, sets cont protests/vs crack down, denouncemts scored 6-6, 463F3–464B1, E1, C2–D2 A-program head (Aghazadeh) resignatn rptd 7-16; Ahmadinejad govt legitimacy questnd, referendum urged 7-17—7-19, 485B1, E1–F1, B3 Protests cont 7-30; dissidents trial open 8-1, boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 8-5, 518A2, F2, C3 Launches dem movemt 8-15; on dissidents trial, chrgs urged 8-15—8-16, alleges prisoners rape 8-18, 561A3, G3–562A1, E1 Arrest urged 8-28; Ghalebi freed 8-31, ofcs raided 9-7—9-8, 609G3–610B1, G1 Oppositn protests warning issued, Karroubi arrest order claimed 9-11, aide freed 9-13, 628G2–B3, F3 Protests cont, clashes erupt 9-18, 645C3–D3 Aide (Beheshti) attacked 10-25, oppositn rallies role blocked 11-4, 768A1, F1 Tehran protests role blocked 12-7—12-8, 857D1 At dissident cleric (Montazeri) funeral 12-21, 883C3 Fired 12-22; protests turn violent, nephew slain/body seized 12-27; autopsy claimed, funeral held/assassinatn claimed 12-28—12-30, 940G2, D3, 941B1

MOUSSAWI, Gen. Qassim Atta alOn Ansar al-Sunna ldr (Surawi) capture 1-11, 23F2 On Baghdad blasts 8-19, 562C3 On Baghdad blasts security lack arrests 10-29, 738E2–F2

MOUSTAPHA, Imad Sees US envoy (Feltman) 2-26, 123C3–D3

MOVEON.org (Web site) Sen health care reform bill scored 10-14, 698G1 Health care reform Sen bill oppositn rptd 12-24, 905F2

MOVIES—See MOTION Pictures MOVSISYAN, Yura Real Salt Lake wins MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

MOWJCAMP.com (Iranian Web site) Access blocked 12-18, 884D1

MOYES, Jerry Coyotes investor sought 1-15, 159F2 Coyotes bankruptcy declared, appeal filed 5-5—5-7, sale nixed 6-15, 435C3 Coyotes buyout offer nixed/ruling hailed, NHL bid set 7-29—9-30, 730C3

MOYNAHAN, Bridget Brady weds Buendchen 2-26, 160E2

MOYNAHAN, John Edward Thomas At dad’s wedding 2-26, 160E2

MOYNIHAN, Brian Named Merrill CEO 1-22, 32G1 Named Bank of Amer pres, CEO 12-16, 909F2–G2

MOYO, Lovemore Const conf opens/adjourned, relaunched 7-13—7-14, 588F3

MOZAMBIQUE, Republic of African Relations Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555A3–B3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours region 10-20—10-23, 746A3 SADC spec summit hosted 11-4—11-5, 783B2 SADC spec summit held 11-4—11-5, 783B2 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782A3 Madagascar power-sharing deal nixed 12-20, 925D2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Rwanda joins Commonwealth 11-28, 845G3

Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C1; 10-1, 735C1 Electns held 10-28; candidates nix scored 10-29, results rptd, appeal vowed 11-1—11-12, 783A1 Science & Technology Broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2

MOZILLA Foundation EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 875G3

MOZILO, Angelo Chrgd 6-4, 388C2–D2, G2–C3 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537E1 Sens Dodd/Conrad discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared, ruling scored 8-7, 537C2

MPOFU, Obert Zimbabwe field abuses probed 6-30—7-4, at Kimberly Process summit 11-2—11-6, 783G3–784A1

MPSHE, Mokotedi Drops Zuma graft chrgs 4-6, 222A1, A2–E2, G2

MRKSIC, Mile Sentnc upheld 5-5, 377F3, 378A1

MROZ, Brandon 2d in US champ 1-25, 139D2 9th in world champs 3-26, 211E2

MSAMATI, Lucian Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

MSIKA, Joseph Dies 8-5, funeral held 8-10, 588C3

MSNBC (cable TV channel) Matthews nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5A3 Comcast buy set 12-3, 830D3

MSWATI III, King (Swaziland) At SADC spec summit 11-4—11-5, 783B2

MTV (Music Television) (cable TV network) West interrupts Swift speech 9-13, 632C2

MTV1 (Bolivian TV station) Morales thwarted assassinatn plot ldr (Rozsa) interview aired 4-21, 294F1–A2

MUBARAK, Hosni (Egyptian president, 1981- ) Unveils Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal 1-6, 2B3 Israel/Hamas ceasefire declared 1-17, 31A2 Oppositn ldr (Nour) freed 2-18, 100E3, 101A1 Hosts Sudan’s Bashir 3-25, 185F1 Skips Arab League summit 3-30, 196C3* Obama mtg invite set 4-21, 313A2 Obama Jun speech set 5-8, 318D1 Hosts US’s Obama 6-4, 369A2 Hosts Russia’s Medvedev 6-23, 455D1 Ger’s Merkel sets mtg 7-8, 482C3 Visits US’s Obama 8-18, 593B2–C2 Hosts US’s Clinton 11-3, 754F2 Issues Egpytians attacks warning 11-21, 859E1 Visits France, artifacts returned 12-14, 952F2

MUBARAK, Massouma alWins parlt electn 5-16, 345C1

MUDAVADI, Musalia At unity govt reforms conf 3-30—3-31, 203B1

MUDGE, Jennifer Philanthropist revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2

MUELLER, Brooke Husband held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2

MUELLER, Herta Wins Nobel 10-8, 693D2–G2

MUELLER 3rd, Robert (U.S. FBI director, 2001- ) Terror detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 290B1 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337B3, D3 NY ‘02 arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816E2 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572C3 Scores Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-21, 567D3–E3 Tex mil base shooting intell probe sought 11-12, 778C1

MUELLER-Stahl, Armin Intl on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

MUGABE, Grace Visits Tsvangirai in hosp 3-6, 162D2, A3

MUGABE, Robert (Zimbabwean head of state, 1980- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3

1116 MUGHNIYAH— Unity govt talks held, deal OKd/scored 1-19—1-30, PM post amendmt passes parlt 2-5, 67A1, E1, G1, B2, D2 Cabt named 2-10—2-12; Tsvangirai sworn 2-11, Reserve Bank gov ouster sought 2-12, 81B1–D1, E2–F2, A3–E3, 82B1, D1, A2–B2 MDC ofcl (Bennett) held, arrest questnd 2-13—2-14, security forces oppositn intimdatn rptd 2-15, 96D3–F3, 97A1–B1 Cabt mtg held 2-17, 97A2 Turns 85 2-21, party held 2-28, 153A1 Nixes reserve bank gov (Gono), atty gen (Tomana) ousters 2-26, 152F3 Activist (Mukoko) bail OKd/freed, in hosp 2-27—3-3, 152D3 Sees white farmers cont land seizures 2-28, 153A1 Visits Tsvangirai in hosp 3-6, mourns wife 3-10, 152A2, D2–G2 SADC aid vowed 3-30, 203D3 Nixes Reserve Bank gov, Atty Gen ousters 5-25, 588G3 Agri dep min nominee (Bennett) trial set 7-1, 680B3 Sees US’s Carson 7-2, scores mtg 7-5, 459F2 Mourns vp (Msika) 8-10, 588C3 MPs held 8-19, 680F3 UAE med treatmt claimed, denied 8-26, S Africa’s Zuma diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588A2, B3 Hosts EU delegatn 9-12—9-13, marks unity deal anniv, vows cont reforms 9-15, 661A1, D1 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 651F3 Activists chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, 680F2, A3 Addresses parlt 10-6, 680F3 Bennett held, chrgd 10-14; MDC boycott set 10-16, Tsvangirai tours region/sees cont unity govt, mtg held 10-20—10-26, 746B2–C2, E2–A3 UN torture probe ldr (Nowak) entry blocked, MDC ofcl (Bennett) trial opens 10-28—11-9; at SADC mtg, govt boycott dropped/power-sharing deal goals set 11-5, cabt mtg held 11-11 Kimberly Process summit held, suspensn nixed/monitoring set 11-2—11-6, 783F3 Addresses UN food security summit 11-17, 812A2 Venez’s Chavez defends 11-20, 929B3

MUGHNIYAH, Imad (d. 2008) W Bank ax attack kills 1 4-2, 313A3 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936B2

MUHAMMAD (prophet of Islam) (570-632) Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8A3 Grandson death anniv mourning ends 2-15, 101E1 Denmark’s Rasmussen NATO secy gen bid OKd 4-4, 213B2 Denmark’s Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen 8-3, 534E1 Danish cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect (Headley) held 10-3, 845F1 Danish cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2 Swiss mosque minarets banned 11-29, 836B3 Iran protests turn violent 12-27, 940E2 Pak blast kills 30 12-28, 947A1

MUHAMMAD, Abdulhakim Mujahid Ark mil recruiting booth attack kills 1 6-1, held/pleads guilty, Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-1—6-4, 392A2–D2 Pleads not guilty 7-31, 720G3

MUHAMMAD, John Allen (John Allen Williams) (1960-2009) Death sentnc upheld 8-7; case denied by Sup Ct, clemency nixed 11-9—11-10, executed 11-10, 780C2, F2–B3

MUHAMMAD, Maulana Sufi Malakand Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102G3–103A1 Nixes Islamic law ct recognitn 5-3, 315C1 Held 7-26, 514D2–E2

MUHAMMAD, Maulvi Said Held 8-17, 578F1

MUHAMMAD Hussein Addow Slain 6-19, 430A2

MUJAMI, Sheik Riyadh alHeld 5-18, 345A1

MUJIBUR Rahman, Shiekh (1920-75) (Bangladeshi prime minister, 1971-75) Daughter sworn PM 1-6, 9D1

MUJICA, Jose Alberto (Pepe) Pres electn held, results rptd/earns runoff 10-25—10-26, Bordaberry concedes, backs Lacalle 10-26, 746B3–E3, 747A1

FACTS Runoff held, win rptd 11-29, 834G2–C3 Facts on 11-29, 834E3

MUKASEY, Michael B. (U.S. attorney general, 2007-09) Successor nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16B3 Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, ex-ofcls responses seen 2-17, 94C3, 95C1–D1 Vs CIA interrogatn memos release 4-17, 258D1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322C3 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565A2

MUKASEY v. ACLU Denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3

MUKEZAMFURA, Alfred Sentncd in absentia 9-3, 680B2

MUKHERJEE, Pranab Takes PM duties 1-24—2-1, 158C2 Sees Pak global terror threat 2-13, 103B3 On Sri Lanka rebel clashes 4-22, 277E2 Sworn finance min 5-22—5-28, 382C1 Unveils ‘09-10 fscl yr budget 7-6, 513F3

MUKHTAR, Chaudhry Ahmed Amnesty nixed 12-16, 878F2

MUKHTAR, Omar al- (d. 1931) Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10, 416D2

MUKOKO, Jestina Bail OKd/freed, in hosp 2-27—3-3, 152D3 Chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, 680E2–G2, B3

MUKTAR, Ustadz Slain 9-21, 819B3

MULCAIR, Thomas Backs Conservatives 10-1, 681B3

MULHOLLAND, Conrad Stanisclaus Chrgd 10-27, 815G3

MULLEN, Adm. Michael ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 OKs Iraq translators mask use 1-7, 102B1 War dead coffin return media ban lifted 2-26, 132D1 On Iran A-program uranium enrichmt 3-1, 173G3, 174E1 Renominatn urged 3-18, 629C3 Visits Afghan/Pak/India 4-5—4-8, 229A2 Sees Pak’s Kiyani 4-22—4-23, 276D2 Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted 5-11, 317D1 Testifies to Sen com 5-14, 347A1 On Iran A-bomb dvpt 7-7, 464B3 Scores Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-23, 567E3 Scores Muslim world ‘strategic communicatns’ 8-28, 721F1 Testifies to Sen com 9-15, 629C2 Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613A1 Confrmd 9-25, 669D1 Afghan troop hike sought 9-25, 669A1 Backs women submarines role 9-25, 720A3 Gay troops policy questnd, repeal urged 9-30, 699E2 Testifies to Cong 12-2—12-3, 827D2, G2–A3

MULLENS, B.J. In NBA draft, traded to Thunder 6-25, 451F1, B2

MULLINS, Justice Debbie Drops Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs 12-15, 931A3

MULUZI, Bakili (Malawian president, 1994-2004) Held 2-26; pres bid nixed 5-16, on Mutharika reelectn 5-21, 358C1–D1

MUNADI, Sultan Seized/slain, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3–E3, G3

MUNDUS, Khair Militia bases raid kills 44+ 8-12, 559E1

MUNGATANA, Danson Quits 4-7, 221D3

MUNICH Conference on Security Policy Annual conf held 2-6—2-8, 74G1, 75A1

MUNLEY, Sgt. Kimberly Shoots Ft Hood gunman, hurt 11-5, 757A2 Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled 11-6—11-12, 777C3–D3

MUNOZ, Alejandro Electricians protest, LFC shut 10-8—10-11, 724F1

MUNOZ, Felipe Sets agency nix 9-18, 817F3

MUNOZ, Heraldo Arrives in Pak 7-16, 514E3

MUNRO, Alice Wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364C1–D1

MUNSON, Thurman (1947-79) Mauer wins AL MVP 11-23, 823F2

MUNTARBHORN, Vitit Issues N Korea rights rpt 10-22, 764D1

MUNYANEZA, Desire Convctd 5-22, 680C2

MURALEETHARAN, Col. Vinayagamoorthy (Karuna) LTTE conflict end declared 5-19, 334A3

MURATOV, Dmitri On Stalin grandson libel suit 9-15, 667A3

MURDER—See under CRIME MURDOCH, Rupert Clarity Media sets Wkly Standard buy 6-17, 913D2 Sun backs Tories 9-30, 666B3

MURFI, Mikel New Electric Ballroom opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

MURGA, Gen. Felix Alleges body fat slayings 11-19, fired 12-1, 930D1

MURKOWSKI, Lisa (U.S. senator from Alaska, 2002- ; Republican) Emissns regulatn limits measure nixed 9-24, 658E2

MURPHY, Brittany (1977-2009) Dies 12-20, 896C3

MURPHY, Nathan On ‘02 fossils find 1-22, pleads guilty 4-14, 280B2

MURPHY, Pat Vs gay marriage const amendmt 4-3, 216F1

MURPHY, Scott (U.S. representative from N.Y., 2009- ; Democrat) NYS House seat vote held 3-31, lead seen 4-1, 201E1, A2 House seat spec electn win declared, sworn 4-24, 4-29, 292B2–E2 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

MURPHY, Troy Among NBA rebounding ldrs 4-15, 278B3

MURRAY, Andy Loses BNP Paribas Open 3-22, 399G1 Wins Sony Ericsson Open 4-5, 399G1 Loses Wimbledon semi 7-3, 467B2 Wins Rogers Cup 8-16, 631A3

MURRAY, Bill Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

MURRAY, Dr. Conrad Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580B2

MURRAY, Bishop Donal Quits 12-17, 938E1

MURRAY, Patty (U.S. senator from Wash., 1993- ; Democrat) Reseated Dem conf secy 1-6, 5E2

MURRIETA, Abel On Sonoro finance min arrests 6-22, 431A3

MURTAGH, Johnny Fame and Glory wins Irish Derby 6-28, 807C3 Man of Iron wins Breeders’ Cup Marathon 11-6, 807B2

MURTHA Jr., John P. (U.S. representative from Pa., 1974- ; Democrat) Introduces F-22s parts funding allocatn measure, defns ‘10 funds pass 7-30, 523B3–C3, E3 Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779E2–F2

MURWANASHYAKA, Ignace Held 11-17, Ger detentn ordrd 11-18, 922D1

MUSA, Khalil Slain 4-14, 377A1–C1

MUSA, Marjorie Slain 4-14, 377A1–C1

MUSA, Ridwan Slain 11-3, 819C3

MUSAWE, Ali alOn ex-MP (Daini) Malaysia arrest 10-16, 729E3

MUSAYEV, Murad On rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying trial verdicts 2-19, 100G1

MUSBURGER, Todd On client (Jackson) return 6-14, 419E1

MUSCLE Hill (racehorse) Wins Hambletonian, sets race mark 8-8, 807B3

ON FILE

MUSE, Abduwali Abdukhadir Flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2–F2

MUSEUM of Contemporary Art (MOCA) (Los Angeles) Strick named Nasher Ctr dir 1-30, 120D2 Koshalek named Hirshhorn dir 2-26, 160F2

MUSEUM of Modern Art (MOMA) (N.Y., N.Y.) Kippenberger self-portrait fetches $4.1 mln 5-12, 953C2

MUSEUMS Bushes return to Tex 1-20, 26A3 Dallas’s Nasher Ctr dir (Strick) named 1-30, 120D2 China/Taiwan art loan set 2-16, 310B1 Iraq natl museum reopened 2-23, 118G1 Hirshhorn dir (Koshalek) named 2-26, 160F2 Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300B2 Chicago museum extensn opens 5-16, 953B3 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, museum shut 6-11, 391G3 Greece Acropolis Museum opens, Elgin Marbles return sought 6-20, 449B2 Philly Art Museum dir (Rub) named 6-29, 516G1 Gap founders art trove relocatn set 9-25, 708B3 Disney museum opens 10-1, 953B3 Egypt/Lourve ties cut, artifacts returned 10-7—12-14, 952G2–A3 Armenian arts ctr opens 11-8, 953A3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, bldg design unveiled 11-18, 814G2, F3 Rome’s Maxxi opens 11-14, 953F2 US’s Obama, China speech access ltd 11-17, 795E2 French workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, Pompidou Ctr reopens 12-17, 876D1 Iraq site artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1 Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard value hiked 11-25, 952E3 French archives scanning funds set 12-14, 936A3 Obituaries Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Jones, Jennifer 12-17, 896F2 Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772E3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3

MUSHARRAF, Gen. Pervez (Pakistani head of state, 1999-2001; president, 2001-08) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E3 A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, 75A3 Sharif pol return block denied, banned 2-25, 138A2–C2 Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175A2, B3, G3 Chaudhry returns to Sup Ct 3-22, 228D2 Sharif hijacking chrgs cleared 7-13, 515A1–B1 Bhutto assassinatn probe team arrives 7-16, 514E3 Summoned 7-22, skips Sup Ct appearnc 7-29, 515D1 ‘07 emergency order ruled illegal 7-31, 530A3 US drone missile strike kills Kashmiri 9-7, 670E1 US’s Clinton visits 10-29, 737E2 A-arms control transferred 11-27, Zardari amnesty ends 11-28, 839B1, D1, F1 Pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878G2–A3

MUSHIKIWABO, Louise On Commonwealth entry 11-28, 845G3

MUSIC Appointments & Resignations NYC Opera dir (Steel) named 1-22, 40D2 Awards & Honors Grammys presented 2-8, 88E1 Rock HOF inductns held 4-4, 279D3 Reich wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2, E2 Eurovision final held 5-16, 379B1 Eurovisn results rptd 5-16, 607C1 Kitt/Yorkey/Starobin/Koch win Tonys 6-7, 399G3–400A1, E1 Rivera gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Seeger gets Gish Prize 9-3, 880A1 Hoeller wins Grawemeyer Award 11-30, 860G1 Brubeck/Bumbry/Springsteen honored by Kennedy Ctr 12-5—12-6, 895D3 Best Sellers (albums) All I Ever Wanted, Clarkson 3-28, 212D1 Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, Dave Matthews Band 6-27, 452D1 BLACKsummers’night, Maxwell 8-1, 532D1 Blueprint 3, Jay-Z 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Chickenfoot, Chickenfoot 6-27, 452D1 Circle, Bon Jovi 11-28, 840D1

2009 Index Crazy Love, Buble 10-31, 772D1 Crime Pays, Cam’Ron 5-30, 384D1 Dark Horse, Nickleback 1-31, 72D1 808s & Heartbreak, West 1-31, 72D1 E.N.D., Black Eyed Peas 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532E1; 8-29, 596D1 Fame, Lady GaGa 5-30, 384D1 Fame, Lady Gaga 12-19, 956E1 Fearless, Swift 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1; 3-28, 212D1; 11-28, 840E1; 12-19, 956E1 Forever in a Day, DAY26 5-2, 316D1 Fray, Fray 2-28, 140D1 Hannah Montana (soundtrack) 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1 Hannah Montana 3 (soundtrack) 8-1, 532D1 Hot Aug Night/NYC, Diamond 8-29, 596D1 Hot Mess, Cobra Starship 8-29, 596D1 I Am...Sasha Fierce, Beyonce 1-31, 72D1 I Dreamed a Dream, Boyle 12-19, 956D1 I Look to You, Houston 9-26, 672D1 It’s Not Me It’s You, Allen 2-28, 140D1 Last, Aventura 6-27, 452D1 Leave This Town, Daughtry 8-1, 532D1 Love Is the Answer, Streisand 10-31, 772D1 Love VS Money, The-Dream 3-28, 212D1 Michael Jackson’s This Is It (soundtrack) 11-28, 840E1 My Christmas, Bocelli 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1 No Line on the Horizon, U2 3-28, 212D1 Notorious (soundtrack) 1-31, 72D1 Now 30, Various Artists 5-2, 316E1 Now 31, Various Artists 8-1, 532D1 #1s...and Then Some, Brooks & Dunn 9-26, 672D1 Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt 2, Raekwon 9-26, 672D1 Only by the Night, Kings of Leon 8-29, 596D1 Play On, Underwood 11-28, 840E1 Raising Sand, Plant/Krauss 2-28, 140D1 Relapse, Eminem 6-27, 452D1 Round 2, Holiday 3-28, 212D1 Testimony: Vol 2, India.Arie 2-28, 140D1 Time of Our Lives, Cyrus 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Twang, Strait 8-29, 596D1 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day 5-30, 384D1 Twilight Saga: New Moon (soundtrack) 10-31, 772D1 Twilight (soundtrack) 5-2, 316E1 Unstoppable, Rascal Flatts 5-2, 316E1; 5-30, 384D1 Untitled, Kelly 12-19, 956E1 Best Sellers (singles) ‘Bad Romance’, Lady Gaga 12-19, 956D1 ‘Best I Ever Had’, Drake 8-1, 532D1 ‘Blame It’, Foxx/T-Pain 5-30, 384D1 ‘Boom Boom Pow’, Black Eyed Peas 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1 ‘Climb’, Cyrus 5-2, 316D1 ‘Crack a Bottle’, Eminem/Dr Dre/50 Cent 2-28, 140C1 ‘Day ‘N’ Nite’, Kid Cudi 5-30, 384D1 ‘Dead and Gone’, TI/Timberlake 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1 ‘Down’, Jay Sean/Lil Wayne 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 ‘Empire State of Mind’, Jay-Z/Keys 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1 ‘Fire Burning’, Kingston 8-1, 532D1 ‘Fireflies’, Owl City 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1 ‘Heartless’, West 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1 ‘I Gotta Feeling’, Black Eyed Peas 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1 ‘I Know You Want Me’, Pitbull 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1 ‘Just Dance’, Lady GaGa/O’Donis 1-31, 72C1; 2-28, 140D1 ‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone’, Soulja Boy Tell ‘em/Sammie 3-28, 212D1; 5-2, 316D1 ‘Knock You Down’, Hilson/West/Ne-Yo 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1 ‘Live Your Life’, TI/Rihanna 1-31, 72D1 ‘LoveGame’, Lady Gaga 6-27, 452D1 ‘Love Story’, Swift 1-31, 72D1 ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’, Clarkson 3-28, 212D1 ‘Need You Know’, Lady Antebellum 11-28, 840D1 ‘Party in USA’, Cyrus 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 ‘Poker Face’, Lady GaGa 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1 ‘Replay’, Iyaz 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1 ‘Right Round’, Flo Rida/Kesha 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1 ‘Run This Town’, Jay-Z/Rihanna/West 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 ‘Single Ladies’, Beyonce 1-31, 72D1 ‘3’, Spears 10-31, 772D1

—MYANMAR ‘Tik Tok’, Kesha 12-19, 956D1 ‘Use Somebody’, Kings of Leon 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1 ‘Whatcha Say’, DeRulo 10-31, 772D1; 11-28, 840D1 ‘You Belong With Me’, Swift 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Death Row records sold 1-15, 104E2 Michael Jackson’s This Is It released, sets concert film grossing mark 10-28—11-1, 771E3 NYC’s Harlem Boys Choir demise confrmd 12-13, 954A1 Censorship Issues Pak tribal areas ban set 3-4, 138E2 Azerbaijan/Armenia Eurovisn voters questnd 5-16, 607B1 Concerts & Tours Copenhagen concert hall opens 1-17, 953E3 Phish reunion tour opens 3-6, drug confiscatns rptd 3-9, 176F2 Palestinian youth orch Holocaust survivors show held/scored, dir banned 3-25—3-29, 210A3 Mex swine flu emergency declared 4-25, 281F2 TI performs in Atlanta 5-24, 364E2 Cuba peace concert held 9-20, 661D2 NYC orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, 723G1 Dallas opera house launched 10-18, 953C3 Copyrights & Royalties Sweden Internet file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1–D1 Piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782B1 Internet radio royalty rates chngd 7-8, 781G3 Crime & Law Enforcement Boy George sentncd 1-16, 71D3 DMX sentncd 1-30, 88C3 Rihanna in hosp, Brown held/freed on bail 2-8—2-9, 88E2 TI sentncd 3-27, 212E1 Spector convctd 4-13, 269B1 Detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289F3 Boy George freed 5-11, 348A3 TI jailed 5-26, 364E2 Spector sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525D1 Brown pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 Coolio pleads guilty/sentncd 6-26, 564F2 Brown sentncd 8-25, 580D2 Russian businessman (Kalmanovitz) slain 11-2, 766D3 TI freed, enters halfway home 12-22, 954A3 UK/China drug smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932C3 Obituaries Allen, Betty 6-22, 500E2 Almeida, Juan 9-11, 648D1 Asheton, Ron 1-6, 24C3 Behrens, Hildegard 8-18, 596G1 Bellson, Louie 2-14, 140F1 Bennett, Estelle 2-11, 120A3 Bogle, Bob 6-14, 420B3 Brown, Anne W 3-13, 192B2 Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 Chapin, Schuyler G 3-7, 192C2 Clancy, Liam 12-4, 896B2 Cohn, Sam 5-6, 332G2 Connor, Chris 8-29, 612C3 Cooper, Leroy 1-15, 71F3 Crawford, Hank 1-29, 71F3 Cuba, Joe 2-15, 160B3 Dearie, Bossom 2-7, 88E3 DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 De Larrocha, Alicia 9-25, 672F1 Downes, Sir Edward 7-10, 516F2 Druon, Maurice 4-14, 280C3 Escalona, Rafael 5-13, 364D3 Ferrante, Art 9-19, 708A3 Foss, Lukas 2-1, 72E1 Freeman, Betty 1-3, 56G1 Greenwich, Ellie 8-26, 596F2 Hutchins, Carleen 8-7, 580D3 Interior, Lux 2-4, 120C3 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436A1, E1, B2; photo 436A3 Jarre, Maurice 3-28, 212G2 Khan, Ali Akbar 6-18, 452F2 Kirchner, Leon 9-17, 708E3 Klein, Allen 7-4, 516D3 Knight, Marie 8-30, 632B3 Kunzel, Erich 9-1, 648B3 Landon, H C Robbins 11-20, 880C2 Lawrence, Jack 3-15, 192B3 Livingston, Alan W 3-13, 192C3 Lopez, Orlando (Cachaito) 2-9, 104E3 Maneri, Joe 8-24, 752C3 Martin, Dewey 2-1, 120E3 Martino, Al 10-13, 752D3 Martyn, John 1-29, 104F3 Maw, Nicholas 5-19, 364F3

Mercado Jr, Ralph 3-10, 192E3 Mizzy, Vic 10-17, 752D3 Newman, David (Fathead) 1-20, 56D2 Paul, Les 8-13, 564F3 Perle, George 1-23, 72F2 Russell, George A 7-27, 532F2 Seals, Dan 3-25, 256E3 Seeger, Mike 8-7, 792E3 Shank, Bud 4-2, 256F3 Shi Pei Pu 6-30, 516G3 Soderstorm, Elisabeth 11-20, 896E3 Sosa, Mercedes 10-4, 692F2 Taylor, Koko 6-3, 400F3 Tisdale, Wayman L 5-15, 348F3 Travers, Mary 9-16, 632F3 People MIA gives birth 2-11, 104D2 Madonna 2d Malawi adoptn bid foiled, appeal set 4-3, 231D2 ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts/loses final, in hosp 4-11—5-31, 383G3 Jackson ranch trove displayed, auctn halted 4-14, 256B2 Madonna 2d Malawi adoptn bid appeal succeeds 6-12, 420F2 Jackson will filed/executors named, kids custody set 6-29—7-6; meml svc held 7-7, LA cost rptd 7-8, 467E3, 468F1–G1 Soprano (DiDonato) breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2 Jackson mom/kids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, will admitted 8-3, 531E2 Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580A2 Jackson death called ‘homicide’ 8-30, buried 9-3, 612E2 West interrupts Swift speech 9-13, regrets, Obama calls ‘jackass’ 9-14, 632C2 John Ukrainian adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708F2 Phillips daughter claims incest 9-23, 671F3 Beach Boys’ Wilson, Gershwin project OKd 10-8, 708C2 Rosand sells violin for $10 mln, sets donatn 10-22, 752G2 Slatkin suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, nixes shows role 11-11, 792F2 UK composer (Davies) defrauder sentncd 11-2, 792E2 Jackson ‘moonwalk’ glove fetches $350,000 11-21, 840G1 Chilean singer (Jara) reburied 12-4, 954E3 Political Issues Obama preinaugural concert held 1-18; sworn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 25B3, 26A2 GOP chair electn held 1-30, 62A2 Obamas visit UK Queen 4-1, 194C2 Trade Issues China import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557A2 China imports WTO ruling appeal filed 9-22, ‘pub morals’ protectn claimed 9-23, 776A3

MUSKER, John Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

MUSKET Man (racehorse) 3d in Kentucky Derby 5-2, 316E1 3d in Preakness 5-16, 347C2

MUSLIM Public Affairs Council Tex mil base shooting scored 11-5, 757C3

MUSONI, Straton Held 11-17, Ger detentn ordrd 11-18, 922D1

MUSSO, Mitchel Tate Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

MUSTAFA, Imad US amb restoratn set 6-23, 465E2

MUSTAFA, Nawshirwan Kurdistan electns held, results rptd 7-25—7-29, 501D1

MUSTANSIRIYA University (Baghdad, Iraq) Shut down 10-14, 730B1

MUSTAPHA, Khaled Ben French convctn nixed 2-27, 150E2

MUSYOKA, Kalonzo Alleges govt funds misuse 3-16, 203A1

MUTAIRI, Khalid Abdullah Mishal al Release ordrd 7-29, Kuwaiti transfer rptd 10-9, 718F2

MUTALLAB, Alhaji Umaru Mich flight blast fails, son held 12-25, warning rptd 12-27, 897B3–C3, 898B1

MUTAMBARA, Arthur PM post amendmt passes parlt 2-5, 67C2

1117

Sworn dep PM 2-11, 81B1, E1 S Africa’s Zuma visits 8-27—8-28, 588C2

MUTASA, Didymus Named to Mugabe cabt 2-12, 81D3

MUTHARIKA, Bingu wa (Malawian president, 2004- ) Muluzi pres bid nixed 5-16; electn held 5-19, vote mulled, win rptd/sworn 5-21—5-22, 358A1

MUTLAQ, Saleh alProv electns held 1-31, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57C2 Prov electns final results issued 2-19, urges Maliki govt violnc role probe 2-24, 117C3, 118C1

MUTSEKWA, Giles Named home affairs min 2-10, 81A3 Sworn home affairs min 2-13, 97F1

MUTUA, Alfred Links activists, criminal gang 3-5, 203A2 Nixes Somalia troops deploymt 6-22, 430D2

MVOUBA, Isidore (Congolese prime minister, 2005-09) Post nixed 9-15, 722F3

MV Theresa VIII (Virgin Islands tanker) Seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2

MWAMBA, Alexis Madagascar’s Rajoelina, UN Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, 652D1

MWANAWASA, Levy Patrick (1948-2008) (Zambian president, 2002-08) Chiluba cleared 8-17, 556A1, C1

MWANDA, Chinoona In car crash 3-6, chrgd 3-9, 152B3

MYANMAR, Union of (formerly Burma) Accidents & Disasters ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10B2 Landslides kill 30 7-4, intl aid rptd 7-15, 528D3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai exiles protests held 5-24, 360D2 N Korea ship departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462F3 ASEAN ouster urged, nixed 7-22—7-23, 496A1 Exiled dissidents Thai mtg held 8-12—8-13, 559A1 Suu Kyi sees Australian diplomat 10-9, 725A3 Civil Strife Student union member sentncd 1-3; prisoners freed 1-14—2-20, Yangon blasts hit 3-3, 188C1, G1 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspects held, chrgs scored 5-6—5-14, 327C2, A3 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn conspiracy claimed, cont detentn mulled 5-22—5-26; suspects plead not guilty, testimony heard/witnesses blocked 5-22—5-27, trial scored 5-26, 359A3–360G1 Eastn offensive launched 6-3, govt success claimed, Karen troops movemt seen 6-18, 415C2–E2 Govt, Suu Kyi detentn critics mtg held 6-5; oppositn members sentncd, held 6-16—8-7, pol prisoners amnesty mulled 7-13, 543C3 Suu Kyi trial witnesses block appeal filed, upheld 6-11—6-29; birthday marked 6-19, trial delayed 7-3, 462D2, F2 Suu Kyi trial cont, ends 7-10—7-28; house arrest violatn mulled, security ofcrs demoted 7-28—8-7, verdict speculatn warning issued/delay set, testimony rptd 7-29—8-3, 543C2, 544A1 Rights abuses scored, Suu Kyi release urged 7-21—7-23, 495D2, D3–496A1 China border militia clashes erupt/end sought, victory claimed 8-8—8-30, civiln deaths rptd, cops kidnapping blamed 8-30—8-31, 590D1, F1, E2 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspects convctd/sentncd, appeals set 8-11—8-12, 543C1, F1 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect (Yettaw) freed 8-16, 558B3, D3, G3 Prisoners release set/freed, amnesty rise vowed 9-17—9-28, Suu Kyi convctn appeal argued/nixed, sentnc hiked 9-18—10-2, 683B3, F3 Suu Kyi sees Aung Kyi 10-3—10-7, party mtg seen 10-9, 725C3–D3 Suu Kyi sends Than Shwe letter 11-11; sees party ldrs 12-16, appeal hearing held 12-21, 936B1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843C3, E3 Defense & Disarmament Issues N Korea mil ties concern seen 7-21, 495B3 UN arms ban urged 8-11, 543A2

1118 MYANMAR— Thai seizes plane, N Korean arms found 12-12, 862C3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Tachilek homes raided 8-24, Thai border seizure rptd 10-1, 684C2 Energy Offshore gas project investmt set 8-25, Total/Chevron junta bolstering allegatns mulled 9-9—9-10, 684B1, G1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915B3–C3 European Relations EU sanctns hike urged, extensn set 8-11—8-13, 543A2, B3 EU sanctns lift aid offrd 9-25, 683E3 Suu Kyi sees UK diplomat 10-9, 725A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C1; 10-1, 735C1 Suu Kyi sees health min 10-3, 683E3–F3 Human Rights ASEAN mtg boycott warned 2-28, 135C3 PI’s Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528A3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 51G3 Rohingya refugees origin denied, abuse halt urged 1-30—2-8; Indonesia abandoned boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, Thai mil policy mulled 2-13, 99B1, E1, C2 Abandoned refugees ASEAN talks failure rptd 3-2, 135B3 UN’s Guterres visits, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187B3 Refugees flee to Thai 6-5—6-10, 415A2 China mass exit seen 8-8—8-25; refugees estimated 8-30, return rptd 8-31, 590B2–C2, A3 Medicine & Health Care Suu Kyi MD visit blocked 5-7, sees 2d MD 5-8—5-11, 327E2–F2 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect (Yettaw) in hosp 8-3—8-11, 543F1 Monetary Issues Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Press & Broadcasting Rptrs arrests rptd 10-31, 763F2 Trade, Aid & Investment US investmt ban cont 5-15, 494G3 Sanctns lift mulled 10-7—10-9, 725E3–g3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748A2, E2, A3–C3 UN Policy & Developments Gambari visits 1-31—2-3, 187F3 Ban sets visit 5-20, 360B2 Gambari/Ban visit, pol prisoners release urged 6-26—7-4, 462D1, C2 Thein Sein addresses Gen Assemb, sees Ban 9-28, 652D2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Policy review set 2-18, 109G2 Yettaw sees dissidents, enters 5-2, 327B3 Sanctns cont 5-15, 360D1 Sanctns extended 7-28, 543A3 Sen Webb visits, Suu Kyi mtg mulled 8-14—8-17, 558A3, D3 Diplomatic policy chngd 9-24, 634B3 Sanctns lift aid offrd 9-25, 683E3 Mtgs held 9-28—9-29, 651D3, 652A3 Suu Kyi sees diplomat 10-9, 725A3 Diplomatic trip mulled, Campbell/Marciel visit 10-30—11-5, 763B2 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814D3

MYANMAR Oil and Gas Enterprise Daewoo sets offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684G1–A2

MY Apocalypse (recording) Metallica wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

MY Awakening (book) Duke held 4-24, Czech exit ordrd 4-25, 378C1

MY Bloody Valentine 3-D (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

MY Brothers Fidel and Raul: The Secret Story (book) Published 10-26, 762C2

MY Christmas (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

MYERS, Bruce Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

MYERS, Gwendolyn Held 6-4, chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3–G3 Pleads guilty 11-20, 833F1, A2–B2

FACTS MYERS, Walter Held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3–G3 Pleads guilty 11-20, 833F1–B2

MY Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq (book) Sabar wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

MYINT Thein, Gen. On Suu Kyi cont detentn 5-26, 360C1

MY Life in France (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

MY Life Would Suck Without You (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

MY Name is Khan (film) Khan NJ airport questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646D2

MYRON, Vicki Dewey on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

MY Sister’s Keeper (book/film) On best-seller list 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532B1 Film on top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452C1

MYSPACE.com (Web site) Calif suicide insults convctn nixed 7-2, 539B2

MY Wonderful Day (play) Opens in NYC 11-18, 954A2

NAHAYAN, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed alSigns US A-power deal 1-15, 69F2 Sees US’s Clinton 3-1, 123B2

NAIDU, Dorsami Held, freed 4-14—4-15, 252C1

NAILATIKAU, Epeli (Fijian president, 2009- ) Named Fijian pres 7-30, 527C2 Sworn, swears judges 11-5, 852F1–G1

NAIPAUL, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) French wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191E3 Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364E1

NAJIB Razak (Malaysian prime minister, 2009- ) Sworn PM, frees detainees/lifts press ban 4-3; Mahathir rejoins party, parlt by-electns held/names cabt 4-4—4-9, Mongolian woman slaying cops convctd 4-9, 223D1–E1, G1, B2–E2, G2, C3–D3 Facts on 4-3, 223A3 Perak assemb speaker (Sivakumar) ousted 5-7, 415D1 Hosts Thai’s Abhisit 6-8, 416A2 Protests held, dispersed 8-1; arrests rptd, Sivarasa freed on bail/chrgs seen 8-2—8-17, crackdown scored 8-3, 542G3–543A1 On PI rebels peace talks 12-8, 890F2

NAJJAR, Mostafa Mohammad On long-range missile test 5-20, 361G3 Named interior min 8-19, 562B2 Confrmd interior min 9-3, 609F3

NAKAGAWA, Shoichi (1953-2009)

N NAACP—See NATIONAL Association for the Advancement of Colored People NABE, Lounceny Freed 4-2, 660G3

NABHAN, Saleh Ali Saleh Slain, terror role rptd 9-14—9-15, 622A2–D2, F2

NABOKOV, Evgeni Among NHL wins/shutouts ldrs 4-12, 299C3

NABULSI, Bassam Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331B3–C3, F3

NACCHIO, Joseph Witness testimony nix upheld 2-26; opens prison sentnc 4-14, appeal denied by Sup Ct 10-5, 677E3–F3

NACIONAL (Croatian newspaper) ‘08 blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822B3

NADAL, Rafael ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 Wins Australian Open 2-1, 70G3, 71B1 Wins BNP Paribas Open 3-22, 399G1 Wins Monte Carlo Masters 4-19, 399F1 Wins Barcelona Open 4-26, 399F1 Wins Rome Masters 5-3, 399E1 Loses Madrid Open 5-17, 399D1 Exits French Open 5-31, 398E3 Drops Wimbledon role 6-19, 467C2 Loses ATP top ranking 7-6, 467C2 Loses US Open semi 9-13, 631D1–E1

NADER, Ralph Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

NADESAN, Balasingham Found dead 5-19, 334C1

NADHOIM, Idi On Yemen/Comoros flight plane safety woes 7-1, 440A1

NAEEMI, Sarfaz Ahmed Slain 6-12, 418D2–E2

NAESS, Arne Dekke Eide (1912-2009) Dies 1-12, 56D2

NAFTA—See NORTH American Free Trade Agreement NAFTOGAZ Ukrainy, NJSC Russia gas shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3E2

NAGAI, Jordan Up on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

NAGY, Imre (1896-1958) Kiraly dies 7-4, 516B3

In erratic news conf 2-14, quits 2-17, 98E3–F3 Found dead 10-4, 955B3

NAKASONE, Hirofumi Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn conspiracy claimed 5-18, 360A1

NAKLI, Laith Aftermath opens in NYC 9-15, 792D1

NALBANDIAN, Edward Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd 4-22, 296A2 Signs Turkey diplomatic ties deal 10-10, 707A1, C1

NALBANDOV, Alexander On Russian mil exercises 6-29, 450B1

NAMBU, Yoichiro ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

NAMCHONGANG Trading Corp. A-program sanctns pass Sec Cncl 7-16, 495A2

NAMIBIA, Republic of CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 6-25, 455B1, F1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Bribery suspects held/defns force chief suspended, Chinese firms probed 7-22—7-31, 601C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D1; 10-1, 735D1 Electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850A2 Trade, Aid & Investment Kimberly Process summit hosted 11-2—11-6, 783D3, 784B1

NAND, Sant Rama Slain, India riots erupt 5-24—5-25, 417E3

NANJING Normal University (China) Prof (Guo) sentncd 10-16, 724C3

NAN Shan Life Insurance Co. AIG sets sale 10-13, 715D3

NAOUYAMA, Francois Named CAR environmt/ecology min 1-19, 34C3

NAPOLITANO, Giorgio (Italian president, 2006- ) Nixes woman (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt order 2-6, 117D1 Sets pol scandals truce 6-29, 463A3–B3 Berlusconi alleges bias 10-8, 687B1

NAPOLITANO, Janet (Ariz. governor, 2003-09; U.S. homeland security secretary, 2009- ; Democrat) Homeland Security secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17A1 Confrmd homeland security secy 1-20, 26C3 Wash plant raid nets illegals 2-24, orders review, sees employers focus 2-25, 202F1 Testifies to House com 2-25, 171C1 On FEMA dir nominee (Fugate) 3-4, 145G2

ON FILE

Hikes Mex border security 3-24, 185A3–E3, 186A1 Visits Mex 4-2—4-3, 249D2 Defends, regrets right-wing extremism warning 4-15—4-16, 263D1–E1 Names ‘border cazr’ (Bersin) 4-15, 341G1 DEA/ICE coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341D1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C1 Sotomayor nominated to Sup Ct 5-26, 350C2 Drops immigrant workers Soc Sec match program 7-8, 573A2 Marks 9/11 8th anniv 9-11, 620C2 Hikes air security, urges Dutch scanners use 12-26—12-29; on Mich flight blast try 12-27—12-28, intell mulled 12-31, 897D2, F2–G2, 898E2, A3

NAQDI, Gen. Mohammad Reza Named Basij militia ldr 10-5, 688D2

NARCOTICS & Dangerous Drugs—See DRUGS NARDELLI, Robert Nixes bankruptcy 2-17, 93A1 Sets resignatn 4-30, 282B3

NARUBE, Savenaca Ousted 4-14, 252E1

NAS—See NATIONAL Academy of Sciences NASA—See NATIONAL Aeronautics & Space Administration NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)—See AUTOMOBILE Racing NASD Inc. Nasdaq Composite Index Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 financial update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128A1 Index rises 3-23, 178A1 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 financial update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900E1, 910E3

NASH, Rick Among NHL goals/short-handed goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3–B3

NASH, Steve Among NBA assists ldrs 4-15, 278B3

NASHER, Raymond D. (1921-2007) Sculpture Ctr dir (Strick) named 1-30, 120D2

NASHER Sculpture Center (Dallas, Tex.) Dir (Strick) named 1-30, 120D2

NASHIRI, Abd al-Rahim alCuba base mil comm arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46D3–47B1 Chrgs dropped 2-6, 80D3–E3 CIA interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129D2 CIA interrogatn abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named, ‘04 rpt issued 8-24, 565B2, 566C1–D1 Mil trial set 11-13, 794B1

NASR, Osama Mustafa Hassan Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrests ordrd 11-4, 765F3, 766A1, D1

NASRALLAH, Hassan Parlt electns held 6-7, concedes, results rptd 6-8, 397F3 Sees Hariri 6-25, 450C2 On financier (Ezzedine) ties 9-12, 877E3

NASRUDIN Zulkarnaen (d. 2009) Slain 3-14, suspect (Antasari) held 5-4, 342A2 Slaying suspect (Antasari) framing claimed, denied 11-10—11-11, 786D2

NASSERI, Mohammed Tahir Riyadh Transferred to Italy 11-30, 861C2

NATH, Kamal Sworn transportatn/highways min 5-22—5-28, 382D1

NATHAN, Joe Among AL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G2

NATIONAL—For departments, agencies and organizations not listed below, see key words NATIONAL Abortion Federation Abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, 370C2

2009 Index NATIONAL Academy of Sciences (NAS) Forensic crime lab methods questnd 2-18, 307A3 Drug cos MD gift curbs urged 4-28, 538F3 US mil cybersecurity policies questnd 4-29, 411E1 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393D2 FDA med devices approval process probe sought 9-23, 720C2 Kan diseases research lab funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714C3

NATIONAL Aeronautics & Space Administration, U.S. (NASA) Appointments & Resignations Griffin quits 1-20, Bolden named 5-23, 373F1 Admin nominee (Bolden) confrmd 7-15, 506F2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Bush admin programs review panel named 6-1, 506E2 ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488C2, E2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Sci (Nozette) leaves US 1-6; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3, E3, G3, 761B1 Crime Issues Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3 Interplanetary Projects Jupiter comet impact seen, telescopes use chngd 7-19—7-23, 547F3 Saturn giant ring find rptd 10-6—10-7, 731F1 Manned Flight Apollo 11 moon landing anniv marked 7-20, 506E2 Obituaries Haney, Paul P 5-28, 400A3 Research & Development Arctic ‘08-09 ice levels rptd 4-6, 550A3 Rocket model test-fired 9-10, 616D1 Moon craters sunlight lack rptd 9-17, 697G3 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697B3–D3 Moon water confrmd 11-13, 824C2–D2 Satellites & Launch Vehicles Communicatn/Russian defunct mil satellites collide 2-10, 91G2, C3 Climate satellite launched, crashes 2-24, 131C3–D3 Orbiting equipmt svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373B1, D1 Moon orbiter, LCROSS launched 6-18, 697E3 Moon rocket, LCROSS crashed 10-9, 697E3 Shuttle Program Discovery intl statn missn delayed 2-3—3-11, 239C2* Atlantis flies Hubble repair missn 5-11—5-24, 372A3, G3–373A1 Endeavour intl statn missn flown 7-15—7-31, 519F1 Shuttle program future plans review issued 10-22, 745B1, E1–F1

NATIONAL Archives & Records Administration, U.S. Terror detainees abuse photos release set, documts issued 4-24, 290B3–C3 Obama defends terror detentn policies 5-21, 337E1, D2 Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid revealed 8-16, 569D1 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908A2

NATIONAL Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655C1 Obama addresses 7-16, 491G3 Wilson dies 8-11, 612G3 Bond addresses DC gay rights march 10-10, 698F3

NATIONAL Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587D1, F1 9/11 plot suspect (Mohammed) defns aid dropped 11-13, 794F1

NATIONAL Bank Act (1864) Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444D2

NATIONAL Bank of Kuwait Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-29, 114E1

—NATIONAL NATIONAL Basketball Association (NBA)—See BASKETBALL NATIONAL Book Awards Presented 11-18, 860B1

NATIONAL Book Critics Circle Awards presented 3-12, 191C3–G3

NATIONAL Broadcasting Co. (NBC) (of GE) Appointments & Resignations Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 Leno ends ‘Tonight Show’ run 5-29, O’Brien replaces 6-1, 383F3 Bush daughter joins ‘Today’ show 8-31, 596G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section GE stake buy OKd 11-30, Comcast buyout set 12-3, 830A3 Interviews & Debates Obama 2-3, 59E2 Octuplets mom 2-9, 114F3 Obama 5-29, 389E3; 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Nielsen Ratings—See under TELEVISION Obituaries McMahon, Ed 6-23, 436F3 Polls & Surveys Health care reform pub support 7-30, 520F2 Health care reform support, Obama approval rating 8-18, 552C1 Health care reform pub option support 10-28, 741D1 Health care reform support 12-17, 864E1 Programming & Sponsorship Golden Globes aired 1-11, 24D2 Ill ex-gov (Blagojevich) reality show deal rptd 4-16, 243C2–D2 Leno primetime show debuts 9-14, 632D2

NATIONAL Center for Lesbian Rights Calif gay marriage ban hearing held 3-5, 149E3

NATIONAL Century Financial Enterprises Inc. Natl Century ex-execs sentncd 3-27, 539A3

NATIONAL Citizens Committee for Broadcasting Hoving dies 12-10, 896D2

NATIONAL Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Brand dies 9-16, 648B2

NATIONAL Counterterrorism Center, U.S. Obama visits 10-6, 678E2

NATIONAL Economic Council, U.S. (NEC) $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds block nixed by Sen 1-15, 15D1 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93E1 Summers financial disclosure form issued 4-3, 265G3 Econ ‘free fall’ end seen 4-9, 240D2 Cybersecurity ofc creation seen 5-29, 410F3 Middle-class tax hike mulled 8-2, 521C1 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886B3

NATIONAL Endowment for the Arts, U.S. (NEA) Pell dies 1-1, 9E3 Landesman named chair 5-13, 332C2 Chair nominee (Landesman) confrmd, sworn 8-7, 8-12, 548D2

NATIONAL Endowment for the Humanities, U.S. (NEH) Pell dies 1-1, 9E3 Leach named chair 6-3, 373C2 Leach confrmd, sworn chair 8-7, 8-12, 548D2

NATIONAL Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64B2

NATIONAL Federation of Independent Business Health insurnc reforms plan outlined 3-27, 245G2

NATIONAL Football League (NFL)—See FOOTBALL NATIONAL Guard, U.S. Iraq ofcrs slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118A3 Mex border deploymt mulled 3-11, 170E3, 171A1 Troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183E2 Lt Choi comes out 3-19, ouster block sought, denied 5-11—5-12, 392G2 Mex border smuggling troops plan mulled 4-25, 359F2

Amer Samoa tsunami aid deploymt sent 9-30, 662E3 ‘10 defns authrzn passes House 10-8, 701G1 Fscl ‘09 successful recruiting goals rptd 10-13, 720G2 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848G2

NATIONAL Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. (NHTSA) (of Transportation) Buses safety lapses cited 4-21, 324F2 Cell phone use, driving risk withheld data seen 7-21, 538C1 Toyota cars pedal risk seen 9-29, 850F1

NATIONAL Hockey League (NHL)—See HOCKEY, Ice NATIONAL Institute for Agrarian Reform Tegucigalpa ofc raided 10-1, 662E1

NATIONAL Institute of Biological Sciences (China) Mice skin cell reprogramming seen 7-23, 580A2

NATIONAL Institutes of Health, U.S. (NIH) (of PHS) Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Stem cell fed funding ban lift signed 3-9, 143A3 Stem cell funding rules proposed 4-17, 268B1–C1 Final stem cell funding rules set 7-6, take effect 7-7, 476B3–C3 Collins named dir 7-8, 491G1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 524A1 Swine flu vaccine test opens 8-7, progress seen 8-21, 584B1 Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918C2

NATIONAL Intelligence Council, U.S. Chrmn nominee (Freeman) scored 2-19—3-9; Sen com hearing held, withdraws 3-10, China remarks clarified, AIPAC role rptd 3-11—3-12, 144F2, A3, 145B1–C1

NATIONAL Journal (magazine) Sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479F1

NATIONAL Labor Relations Act (1935) Fed contractors pro-union reforms ordrd 1-30, 63F2

NATIONAL Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. (of NOAA) Marine mammal species protectns lack rptd 1-7, 7D2 Fed projects endangered species review restored 3-2, 131C2

NATIONAL Medal of Arts Obituaries DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 Halprin, Lawrence 10-25, 792D3 Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40G3

NATIONAL Museum (Baghdad, Iraq) Artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1

NATIONAL Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. (NOAA) (of Commerce) Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1, E1 Arctic fishing ban OKd 2-5, 267G3 Lubchenco confrmd admin 3-19, 267A3 Climate chng effects rpt issued 6-16, 409E2 Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550F2 Ocean surface temperature high seen 8-14, 842C2 ‘09 Atlantic hurricanes low rptd 11-30, 921E2

NATIONAL Organization for Marriage Maine OKs gay marriage ban 11-3, 756B2

NATIONAL Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Obama Internet pub forum drug questn mulled 3-26, 200B1

NATIONAL Organization for Women (NOW) O’Neill elected pres 6-20, 492B2

NATIONAL Palace Museum (Taipei, Taiwan) China art loan set 2-16, 310B1

NATIONAL Parks Conservation Association NPS dir (Jarvis) named 7-10, 491E1

NATIONAL Park Service, U.S. (of Interior) Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65F1–A2 US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94C1

1119

Pub lands curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Jarvis named dir 7-10, 491D1 Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, 620E3

NATIONAL Public Radio (NPR) Iran rptr (Saberi) held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318C1 Cornyn interviewed 5-29, 389D3 Obama interviewed 6-1, 380A3 Cronkite dies 7-17, 500B3

NATIONAL Railroad Passenger Corp.—See AMTRAK NATIONAL Research Council—See NATIONAL Academy of Sciences NATIONAL Rifle Association (NRA) NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46A3 Judge Sotomayor Sup Ct nominatn opposed 7-16, 471C3

NATIONAL Science Foundation, U.S. (NSF) Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1

NATIONAL Security Act (1947) CIA, Cong intell briefings letter sent, released 6-26—7-8, 474C1

NATIONAL Security Agency, U.S. (NSA) (of Defense) Islamic charity warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged/appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-11—2-28, civil liberties suit opposed 4-3, 243E3–F3, 244F1 Warrantless spying probe urged 4-2, 258G1 Unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, House com hearing set 4-16, 243D2, D3 Rep Harman AIPAC secrets transfer role rptd 4-19, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-22, 263G1, A3 Cybersecurity govt coordinatn urged 4-21; House com hearing held 5-5, guidelines proposed 5-29, 410D3, 411A1–D1 Rep Harman wiretapping denied 4-27, 306B2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288B3 Warrantless wiretapping classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen 5-29, govt sanctns nixed, case upheld 6-3, 410E2 E-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445G2 Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474F2, D3, G3–475A1, C1 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit attys clearnc order nix sought 11-10, 916B1

NATIONAL Security Archive Bush admin e-mails found 12-14, 908D2

NATIONAL Security Council, U.S. (NSC) Cuba family visit/remittnc/telecom curbs lifted 4-13, 248E3 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306B1 Cybersecurity ofc creation seen 5-29, 410F3 Terror detainees interrogatn unit order signed 8-24, 567B2 White House cybersecurity coordinator (Schmidt) named 12-22, 886A3

NATIONAL Symphony Orchestra (Washington, D.C.) Kunzel dies 9-1, 648B3

NATIONAL Transportation Safety Board, U.S. (NTSB) US Airways jet engine woes seen 1-13; failure spurs river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33A2, C2–D2 NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot error seen 2-15—2-18, 95D2–E2 Calif RR collisn hearing held 3-3, 357B3 ‘08 charter flights accidents tallied 4-2, 412G3 Minn bridge collapse victims setlmt OKd 4-16, 292G2 NHTSA buses safety lapses cited 4-21, 324F2 NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357G1, G2 DC Metro train crash computer failure seen 6-23—6-24, 429B1–C1 Adventurer (Fossett) plane crash rpt issued 7-9, 538B2 NYC plane/copter collisn probe set, pilots credentials rptd 8-9, 538D1, G1 Pilot training requiremts hike passes House 10-14, 744B2 Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot rpt issued 10-26, 743E3–F3, 744A1 Jamaica flight missed landing probe set 12-23, 930C1

1120 NATIONAL— NATIONAL Turf Writers Associaion Eclipse Awards announced 1-26, 119D3

NATIVE Americans Bolivia const referendum held 1-25, 50D1, F1 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447D2 Hawaii land claims nixed by Sup Ct 3-31, 246C1 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed 4-3, 306G3 Peru protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6; Pizango arrest sought, seeks Nicaragua pol asylum/OKd 6-6—6-9, Nonimgo takes ldrship, Venez/Bolivia influence seen 6-7, 394C3 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17; repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, crack down probe sought 6-19, 431C3–432C1 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, seeks reinstatemt 7-21, 554A3 Peru PM (Velasquez) named 7-11, 481D1 Crow gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Mex ‘97 massacre convcts release ordrd 8-12, 556E3 Ecuador, Chevron suit judge (Nunez) ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3 Ecuador protests turn violent/death mulled, probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723D2 Brazil plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926E2 Venez swine flu spread mulled 11-5, 811D1 Guatemala ex-gen (Sanchez) convctd, sentncd 12-3, 929G3 Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851A1, C1 US govt land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2

NATO—See NORTH Atlantic Treaty Organization NATTAWUT Siakur Protests turn violent, surrenders 4-7—4-12, 250G3

NATURAL Gas—See GAS NATURAL Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Water monitoring benefits seen 8-23, 701F2

NATURE (journal) Maddox dies 4-12, 280F3

NATYNCZYNK, Gen. Walter Testifies to parlt com 12-8—12-9, 927A1, C1

NAUFFTS, Geoffrey Next Fall opens in NYC 6-3, 564D2

NAUGIE, Cindy Damages awarded 11-19, 919F1

NAURU, Republic of European Relations Georgia breakaway regions recognitn set 12-15—12-16, 874A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D1; 10-1, 735D1 Trade, Aid & Investment Russia aid sought 12-14, 874A3

NAVAJA, Flaco Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

NAVAL Academy, U.S. (Annapolis, Md.) Tex Bowl won 12-31, 948F2

NAVARRO, Kimberly 3d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

NAVES, Judge Larry U Colo prof (Churchill) reinstatn mulled 4-3—4-9, 308A1 Upholds U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3–C3

NAVY, U.S. Department of the Accidents & Disasters Sub/transport collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266B3 African Developments Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21C2 Seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66E3 Somali pirates US ship hijacking fails, returned to port 4-8—4-11; hostage standoff opens, captors slain/capt freed 4-8—4-12, 237A1, D2–E2, C3 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269C2 Ship (Maersk Alabama) pirate attack repelled 11-18, 801E2

FACTS Appointments & Resignations Adm Stavridis named/sworn NATO cmdr, takes post 5-12—7-2, 534B1 Arms Issues USS NY exits port 10-29; arrives in NYC 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914D3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Destroyer deployed 3-12, 153D2 N Korea ship departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462E3 Amer Samoa tsunami aid sent 9-29, 662F3 PI storms redeploymt sought 10-9, typhoon warning issued 10-15, 704C1, G1 Bases, Military—See under DEFENSE, U.S. Budget & Spending Programs Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, 217A3 Obituaries McDonald, Wesley L 2-8, 160D3 Personnel Issues Evans named interim LPGA comr 7-13, 595B2 Persian Gulf MIA troop (Speicher) remains found 8-2, 720E3 Women submarines role backed 9-25, 720B3 Security Issues Terror suspect (Marri) detentn review ordrd, govt brief Sup Ct deadline delay sought 1-22, 28D3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46F3 Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3 Terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148D3 Terror detainee (Marri) bail nixed 3-18; transported to Ill 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 183G3 Cuba base detainee atty (Kuebler) ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7, 719C1 Terror suspect (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428G1 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565B2 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1 Space Flights Antonelli pilots Discovery missn 3-15—3-28, 239C2* Altman, Johnson fly Atlantis missn 5-11—5-24, 372B3 Cassidy flies Endeavour missn 7-15—7-31, 519A2 Wilmore, Foreman fly Atlantis missn 11-16—11-27, 902D1

NAYYAR, Patrick Held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 9-24, 10-27, 815F3

NAZARBAYEV, Nursultan A. (Kazakhstan president, 1990- ) A-agency head (Dzhakishev) arrest questnd 6-10, 510G2 Fires defns min (Akhmetov) 6-17, 510A3 At Kyrgyz’s Bakiyev inauguratn 8-2, 576F3 Hosts France’s Sarkozy 10-6, 739G2 At Central Asian/China pipeline openings 12-12—12-14, 935F2

NAZARIO Jr., Sgt. Jose Luis Iraq detainees slayings suspect (Weemer) cleared 4-9, 255B1

NAZIR, Maulvi Tribe, army deal rptd 10-19, 710B1–C1

NAZIS & Neo-Nazis Czech Republic KKK ex-ldr (Duke) held 4-24, exit ordrd 4-25, 378B1–C1 France Holocaust Ger deportatns admitted 2-16, 99D2 Obama visits, D-Day anniv marked 6-5—6-6, 386C1 Germany Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637D1 Turkish parlt candidates threat probe opens 9-22, 665D3 War crimes suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, Storms chrgd 11-17, 854A1 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3 Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1

Iran Holocaust denial questnd 2-7, 74D3 UN racism conf held, Iran’s Ahmadinejad spech spurs walkout 4-20, 261G3, 262B1–C1 Ahmadinejad marks Quds Day 9-18, 645D3 Israel Netanyahu adresses UN Gen Assemb 9-24, 633C1, 634C1–D1 Latvia March held 3-16, 207E2 Middle East Fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155C3 Pope Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335G1 Gaza schls, Holocaust teaching scored 8-31, 615D1 W Bank mosque burned 12-11, Holocaust synagogue blazes compared 12-14, 945E1 Obituaries Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Poland WWII start anniv marked 9-1, 591D2, A3 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653D3 Auschwitz death camp sign stolen/recovered, suspects held 12-18—12-20, neo-Nazi link nixed 12-21, 892F1 Roman Catholic Church Bp (Williamson) denies Holocaust, reinstated 1-22—1-24; remarks regretted/silence ordrd 1-27, pope Auschwitz visits mulled 1-28, 43C2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican, Jewish ties mulled 2-4, Benedict calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit set 2-8—2-12, 75D3, 76B1 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179C3, E3, G3 Pope Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn defended 12-23, 901D3–E3 Serbia US’s Biden visits 5-20, 379A3 United States WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239B3, F3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, 306E3–F3 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352D2 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, museum shut 6-11, 391G3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F3 Health care reform debate racism seen 9-15, 617C3 Rep Grayson health care remarks scored, nixes apology 9-29, 656C1

NBA (National Basketball Association)—See BASKETBALL NBC—See NATIONAL Broadcasting Co. NCAA—See NATIONAL Collegiate Athletic Association NCIS (TV show) Nielsen rating 2-10, 140A2; 3-24, 212B2; 4-7, 316A2; 5-5, 384A2; 7-7, 532A2; 8-18, 596A2; 9-22, 672A2; 10-20, 772A2; 11-10, 840A2; 12-15, 956A2

NCIS: Los Angeles (TV show) Nielsen rating 9-22, 672A2; 12-15, 956A2

NDAHIMANA, Gregoire Held 8-10; sent to Tanzania 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680F1

NDESANDJO, Mark Sees half-brother 11-17, 795D3

NDIAYE, Marie Wins Goncourt Prize 11-2, 792B1

NDIAYE, Soulayemane Ndene Named PM 4-30, 326G1

NDINGE, Didjob Divungi Di Bongo dies 6-8, 393E3

NDONG, Jean Eyeghe (Gabonese prime minister, 2006- ) Denies, confrms Bongo death 6-8, 393A3, C3 Pres electn recount set, boycotted 9-27—9-29; results confrmd, scores ruling 10-12—10-14, Bongo sworn 10-16, 722B3

ON FILE

NEBRASKA Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Berkshire ‘08 profit rptd 2-28, credit rating cut 3-12—4-8, 241F3 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759F2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Union Pacific smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269F1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Medicine & Health Care Abortn MD (Carhart) cont practice set 6-10, 445E2 Health care reform abortn deal set, bill passes Sen/measure questnd 12-18—12-30, 905E3, 906E1 Sports Men’s Coll World Series results 6-25, 484E2

NEBRASKA, University of (Lincoln) Gator Bowl won 1-1, 24E1 Suh 4th in Heisman voting 12-12, 879A3 Holiday Bowl won 12-30, 948G2

NEDA Institute for Political and Scientific Research UN racism conf ban set 4-23, 262F1

NEED You Know (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1

NEESON, Liam Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Wife dies 3-18, 176D3

NEGGA, Ruth Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

NEHRU, Jawaharlal (1889-1964) (Indian prime minister, 1947-64) Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 345A3, 346C1 BJP ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2

NEIJ, Frederik Trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1

NEILS Bohr Institute (Copenhagen, Denmark) Ex-dir dies 9-8, 632F2

NEILSEN Media Research Inc. Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, bill passes Sen/fails in House, clears Cong 1-26—2-4, 63A1

NELLIE Morse (1921-41) (racehorse) Rachel Alexandra wins Preakness 5-16, 347C1

NELSON, Ben (U.S. senator from Neb., 2001- ; Democrat) Econ recovery plan passes 2-10, 73B3 Health care reform bill issued 11-18, 796G3

NELSON, Bill (U.S. senator from Fla., 2001- ; Democrat) Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 Cuba travel, trade curbs ease signed 3-11, 144E2 NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373G1–A2 Nosanchuk named to Justice Dept civil rights divisn 8-18, 553F3 Health care reform measures proposed, nixed 9-23—9-24, 638B1–C1 On health care reform abortn curbs 11-9, 773F2 Seeks drug price rise probe 11-18, 797B1 Backs health care reform bill debate 11-20—11-21, 809D1–E1 Health care reform abortn curbs nixed 12-6, seeks CBO analysis 12-9, 848A1, D1 On health care reform 12-13, 863B3, E3–F3 Health care reform abortn deal set, backs bill 12-18—12-24, 904F3, 905F1, G3

NELSON, David Fla wins BCS Champ 1-8, 23E3

NELSON, Jack (John Howard) (1929-2009) Dies 10-21, 752E3

NELSON, Jameer NBA season ends 4-15, 278F3

NELSON, Sgt. Jermaine Iraq detainees slayings suspect (Weemer) cleared 4-9, 255B1

NEMAZEE, Hassan Indicted 9-21, pleads not guilty 9-23, 656F3

NEMETH, Miklos (Hungarian premier, 1988-90) Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788E1–F1

NEMETH, Zsolt On embs, consulates closure 6-16, 512C2

NEMTSOV, Boris Sochi mayoral electn held 4-26, results rptd, claims exit poll runoff 4-27, 328D2–E2

2009 Index Files mayoral electn suit 5-14, 379C1 On Medvedev parlt speech 11-12, 803C3 Moscow mayor (Luzhkov) defamatn paymts ordrd 11-30, 892F3

NEPAL, Kingdom of Civil Strife Kathmandu blast kills 2 5-23, 363D1–E1 Maoists protests held/arrests rptd, land seized 11-12—12-22, 946A3–E3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Army chief (Katawal) fired, ouster blocked 5-3, 314D2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E1 Party exits coalitn 5-3; Prachanda quits 5-4, protests held 5-4—5-7, 314D2 Ruling coalitn deal OKd 5-17, Nepal elected, sworn premr 5-23—5-25, 363A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735E1 Maoists natl govt sought 12-22, 946G2 Iraqi Conflict US mil fuel scheme suspect (Jeffrey) chrgd 4-24, 297G2 Space & Space Flights Total solar eclipse seen 7-22, 548B1

NEPAL, Madhav Kumar (Nepalese premier, 2009- ) Elected, sworn premr 5-23, 5-25, 363A1–C1

NESHYBA-Hodges, Charlie Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

NESTERENKO, Andrei On Chinese cargo ship sinking 2-19, 124E2

NESTLE SA Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud 1-7, 55A1 US cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2, B3 Kraft/Cadbury buyout offer nixed 9-7, 626E2

NESTOR, Daniel Wins Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2

NETANYAHU, Benjamin (Israeli prime minister, 1996-99/2009- ) Contested Territories On W Bank setlmts policy 6-1, 380F2, A3, C3 Sees cont E Jerusalem setlmt bldg 7-19, 546F1 Gaza war crimes indep probe nixed 9-15, 614G2 Captured troop (Shalit) tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689E2 On Gaza war crimes rpt 10-1, 689B3 W Bank setlmts constructn halt offer mulled 10-31—11-2, 754A2–B2 On troop (Shalit) release deal 11-24, sets W Bank setlmts bldg freeze 11-25, 838A2–D2, F2, D3 W Bank mosque burned 12-11, 945D1 Scores Livni UK warrant 12-17, 884C2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Backs Iran uranium transfer proposals 10-30, 768G2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Sees US’s Mitchell 2-26, hosts Clinton 3-3, 123F2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 4-16; Obama mtg invite set 4-21, on peace deal pursuit 5-4, 313E1 Hosts Pope Benedict 5-14—5-15, 335C1, 336A1–B1, D1 Visits US’s Obama 5-18, 336D1, B2, D2–E2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 6-9, 403G2; 7-28, 546C1 Scores Palestinians organ theft allegatns 8-23, visits Eur, sees US’s Mitchell 8-24—8-27, 593A2, C2–E2 Security installatn visit rptd 9-7, Russia trip seen, confrmd 9-9—9-12, 616E2 Hosts US’s Mitchell 9-15—9-16, 614B3 US’s Mitchell ends tour 9-18; sees Obama 9-22, addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-24, 633C1, 634C1–E1, E2–F2, A3 US’s Mitchell visits 10-8—10-11, 730E2 Sees US’s Clinton 10-31, 754F1, A2–B2 Sudan’s Bashir Turkey visit mulled 11-8, 788G3 Visits US, France 11-8—11-11, 790E2 Peace Initiatives Obama backs Palestinian indep state 4-6, 215B3 Syria talks mulled 5-26, 546F2 Backs Palestinian state 6-14, 403E1, D2–F2 Shalom sees Palestinian’s Khoury 9-2, 615A1

—NEW 1121 Politics Arab parties parlt electns banned, reinstated 1-12, 1-21, 86C1 Parlt electns held, claims win 2-10; sees Lieberman 2-11, results issued 2-12, 85E2, F3–86A1, C1 Govt sought 2-20, sees Livni, Barak 2-22—2-23, 118C3 Livni nixes coalitn role, parties join/talks cont 2-27—3-25, vows Palestinians peace talks 3-25, 189E3, 190C1–D1, F1 Confrmd PM 3-31, 209E1 Facts on 3-31, 209A2 Forgn min (Lieberman) indictmt urged 8-2, 689B2 Livni govt coalitn role offrd, nixed 12-24—12-28, 943G1

NETANYAHU, Sara Husband confrmd PM 3-31, 209D3

NETANYAHU, Yonatan (1946-76) Brother confrmd PM 3-31, 209A2

NETHERLAND (book) O’Neill wins PEN/Faulkner Award 2-25, 160B2

NETHERLANDS, Kingdom of the Accidents & Disasters Turkey flight crash kills 9 2-25, preliminary rpt issued 3-4, 173B3 African Relations Somali pirates NATO arrests authrzn mulled 4-20, 269D3 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial held 9-7, 623A1 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1 Arts & Culture Rotterdam orch guest-conductor (Slatkin) suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, 792F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Jouwe returns to Indonesia 3-18—3-24, 272E1 Indonesia dam collapse kills 100+ 3-27, maintenance woes cited 3-28, 272B1 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844A2 Awards & Honors Palestinian activist (Jabarin) W Bank exit blocked 3-10, prize presented 3-13, 210F3 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Serb (Mladic) home tapes aired 6-10, 512A1 Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8, 628F1 Serbia tribunal cooperatn hike rptd 12-3, 939D2 CIS Relations EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764E3 Crime & Civil Disorders Apeldoorn parade car attack kills 8, Queen targeting admitted/driver dies 4-30—5-1, 328A2 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO summit held 4-3—4-4, 213B1 NATO secy gen (de Hoop) steps down 8-3, 534D1 Energy NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3 Shell/Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-5, 789E3 Shell buys Iraq oil field dvpt rights 12-12, 877D1 Shell, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-20, 943B1 European Relations MP (Wilders) UK entry barred 2-12, 136C3 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 397A1 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432E2 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, Czech signing vowed, charter exemptns sought 10-7—10-8, 685F1 Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835A3 Swiss mosque minarets ban backed 11-29, 837C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E1; 10-1, 735E1

Iraqi Conflict Insurgent (Delaema) pleads guilty 2-26, 121E2–G2 Insurgent (Delaema) sentncd 4-16, 275E2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-30, 281D1, 282A2 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 768G3 Spyker/Saab buyout bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, 902B3 Middle East Relations Yemen aid workers seized 6-12, found slain 6-15, 646A2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis War crimes suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, 854B1–C1 Obituaries Kolff, Willem J 2-11, 120C3 Van Es, Hubert 5-15, 348G3 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190F3, 191B1 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2, A3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Somali group ties suspect (Omar) held 11-8, US chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held, jt probes set 12-25—12-28, sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, 897B1, 898D1, 899A1 Trade, Aid & Investment Iceland loans deal OKd 6-6, 512B3 Transportation US flights body scanners use urged, set 12-29—12-30, 898G2 UN Policy & Developments Afghan summit proposed 3-5, 142C1 Afghan security conf hosted 3-31, 195A2 Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 Afghan pres electn probe panel member (Barakzai) quits 10-12, 696B2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees resetlmt EU aid backed 2-4, 64B1

NETTLES, Jennifer Wins Grammys 2-8, 88B3

NEUES Museuem (Berlin, Ger.) France/Egypt artifacts returned 12-14, 952A3

NEUHAUS, Richard John (1936-2009) Dies 1-8, 24F3

NEUMANN, St. John (1811-60) (bishop of Philadelphia) Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473D1

NEUTRALITY Act (1794) Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933G2

NEVADA Arts & Culture Miss Amer crowned 1-24, 56E1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Wells Fargo Las Vegas conf nixed 2-3, 61E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Sen Ensign parents/mistress paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9, harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, 478F1 Crime & Law Enforcement Somali terror ties suspect (Abdow) stopped/questnd, held 10-6—10-9, 849G1–A2 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781D3 Environment & Pollution Wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917D3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Gay domestic partnerships bill vetoed, override passes legis 5-25—5-31, 371E1 Domestic partnerships open 10-1, 699B2 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321E3 Energy/water ‘10 funds pass Cong 10-1, 10-15, 715A1 Obituaries Gans, Danny 5-1, 384E3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, drops GOP post, woman comes forward 6-17, 410B1 Sen Ensign reelectn bid vowed 7-13, 478E2

Rep Heller nixes Sen seat bid 8-11, cites Ensign affair scandal 8-12, 552D2 Press & Broadcasting Las Vegas Sun wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2 Sports Pacquiao/Hatton bout held 5-2, 384D2 Mayweather/Marquez bout held 9-19, 647D2 Pacquiao/Cotto bout held 11-14, 895B2 Pacquiao/Mayweather fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2 Las Vegas Bowl results 12-22, 948C3

NEVADA, University of Reno Campus Hawaii Bowl lost 12-24, 948B3

NEVELDINE, Mark Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

NEWARK (N.J.) Liberty International Airport Indian actor (Khan) questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646D2

NEWBERY Medal, John Gaiman wins 1-26, 55G3–56A1

NEW Castle Partners LLC Kurland, Chiesi chrgd, held 10-16, 743A3 Chiesi indicted 12-15, pleads not guilty 12-21, 910F1

NEW Century Financial Corp. Ex-execs chrgd 12-7, 910C2

NEW Economic School (Moscow, Russia) Obama addresses 7-7, 454E2

NEW Electric Ballroom, The (play) Opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

NEWELL, Bethany U Colo prof (Churchill) reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554C3

NEW England Conservatory (Boston, Mass.) Russell dies 7-27, 532F2 Maneri dies 8-24, 752C3

NEW Hampshire Family Issues Gay marriage bill passes House 3-26, 217A1; table 216C2 Gay marriage bill clears legis 4-29, 5-6, 304E1 Gay marriage bill chngs sought, nixed by House 5-14—5-20, Sen negotiating team OKd 5-27, 353C1 Gay marriage deal OKd, clears legis/signed 5-29—6-3, 371A1 Medicine & Health Care ‘06 teen birth rate rptd 1-7, 96F1 Med marijuana bill clears legis 6-24, vetoed 7-10, 538D3 Health care reform town-hall mtg held 8-11, 551E3, 552E1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Gregg named commerce secy, Newman tapped Sen replacemt 2-3, 60D1, G1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C1, E1, A2, 302G1

NEW Jersey Accidents & Disasters NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot error seen 2-15—2-18, 95C2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Heartland credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133B2 Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49E1 Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse, Sika setlmt rptd 3-26, 357A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503E3 Gov candidate (Christie) ex-colleague campaign role questnd 10-20, 716C3 Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Gay marriage Sen vote nixed 12-9, 868A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Libya’s Qaddafi travel ltd 8-28, 583B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Gov primaries held, Biden backs Corzine 6-2, 373A3 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130F2 Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 150F3, 151B1 Swine flu outbreak mulled 5-26, 352D1 Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720F1, A2 Obituaries Unruh, Howard B 10-19, 752G3

1122 NEW— Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Hoboken mayor (Cammarano) takes ofc 7-1; community affairs comr (Doria), Secaucus’s Elwell quit 7-23—7-28, pol consultant (Shaw) found dead 7-28, 504A1–C1 Gov debates held 10-1—10-16; Daggett bid backed 10-11, Biden/Clinton/Obama stump 10-19—10-21, 716F2, 717C1–D1 Obama stumps 11-1, electn results 11-3, 755A2, G2 Sports Devils win divisn 4-12, 299A2 Sybase Classic results 5-17, 595B3 CONCACAF champ results 7-26, 859C2 Haskell Invitatnl results 8-2, 807F1 Hambletonian results 8-8, 807B3 Sky Blue wins WPS title 8-22, 612A2 Barclays results 8-30, 670D2 Prokhorov sets Nets stake buy 9-23, approval vote seen 10-22, 771D2 Nets set NBA worst-start mark 12-4, 951F2 Transportation Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 308F1 NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357A2–B2 Teterboro air traffic workers suspended 8-13, 538G1

NEW Life Church (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Ex-pastor (Haggard) sex partner paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3

NEW Light of Myanmar (Myanmar newspaper) Suu Kyi trial verdict speculatn warning issued 7-29, 543E2

NEWMAN, Bonnie Named to Sen 2-3, 60G1

NEWMAN, David (Fathead) (1933-2009) Dies 1-20, 56D2

NEWMAN, Paul (Leonard) (1925-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

NEWMAN, Troy On abortn MD (Tiller) slaying 5-31, 370F3 On Kan abortn MD clinic buy 6-10, 445E2–F2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect donatn claimed, denied 7-21—7-24, on funds lack 9-14, 833B1–C1

NEW Mexico Corruption & Ethics Issues Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19; Obama auto indus task force (Rattner) linked 4-17, Searle role rptd 4-20, 265B2, A3 Gov Richardson fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620C1, E1 Crime & Law Enforcement Death penalty ban passes legis, signed 2-11—3-18, 167G1 ‘09 executns rise rptd 12-17, 921B2 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 PNM exits Chamber of Commerce 9-24, 654D3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Richardson hosts N Korea delegatn 8-19—8-20, 558F2 Medicine & Health Care ‘06 teen birth rate rptd 1-7, 96F1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6B1 School Issues Herman NMSU pres bid rptd, dropped 10-27—11-11, 817C1 Space & Space Flights Virgin space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884A2 Sports NM Bowl results 12-19, 948D3

NEW Mexico State University (Las Cruces) Herman pres bid rptd, dropped 10-27, 11-11, 817C1

NEW Orleans (U.S. amphibious transport) Navy sub collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266B3

NEWS Corp. Ltd. Clarity Media sets Wkly Standard buy 6-17, 913D2

FACTS NEWSDAY (Long Island, N.Y. newspaper) Publisher/ed quit, replacemts named 9-23—12-11, Web access chrg set 10-22, 913D1

NEWS of the World (British tabloid) Swimmer Phelps pot smoking photo issued 2-1, 71C2

NEWSOM, Gavin (San Francisco, Calif. mayor, 2004- ; Democrat) Gov bid backed 9-15, 639G3–640A1

NEWSPAPER Association of America Papers ad revenue drop rptd 11-19, 912A2

NEWSPAPER Guild NYT workers OK concessns 5-4, Boston Globe deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 393A1–E1

NEWSPAPERS—See PRESS; specific newspaper name (e.g., NEW York Times) NEWSWEEK (magazine) Meacham wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279F2 Iran rptr held 6-21, 421C1 Iran rptr (Bahari) trial opens 8-1, 518G2 Iran rptr (Bahari) freed on bail 10-17, 768F1 Samuelson dies 12-13, 880E3

NEWTON, Thandie 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

NEW United Motor Manufacturing Inc. Shut 8-27, 679G3

NEW York (U.S. transport ship) Exits port 10-29; arrives in NYC 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914D3

NEW York, State University of (SUNY) Buffalo Campus Intl Bowl lost 1-3, 24D1

NEW York City Accidents & Disasters US Airways jet engine failure spurs river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33F1 Hudson River plane/copter collisn kills 9 8-8; probe set, pilots credentials rptd 8-9, NJ air traffic workers suspended 8-13, 538D1 Arts & Culture NYC Opera dir (Steel) named 1-22, 40D2 India’s Gandhi belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158E1 Spring auctns held 5-5—5-14, 953B2 Lincoln Ctr chrmn (Farley) named 6-8, 400A2 Cunningham legacy trust set 6-9, 420G2 Downes wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2 Philharmonic orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, 723G1 Fall auctns held 11-3—11-12, 953E1–G1 Jackson memorabilia auctnd 11-24, 840G1 Christie’s auctn held 12-4, 860A3 Author McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Harlem Boys Choir demise confrmd 12-13, 954A1 Awards & Honors Pulitzer Prizes announced 4-20, 279D1 Tonys presented 6-7, 399D3 Seeger gets Gish Prize 9-3, 880A1 Cuban blogger (Sanchez) trip nixed 10-14, 723C2 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins RFK Civil Courage Prize 10-20, 903F3 Natl Bk Awards presented 11-18, 860B1 Heisman Trophy awarded 12-12, 879D2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Merrill ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd 1-16, Thain quits 1-22, 32A1 Citigroup ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, split plan unveiled 1-16; shares drop, Nikko sale sought 1-16—1-19, Parsons named chrmn 1-21, 32A2 Ross buys Dolphins stake 1-20, 55G2 Pfizer/Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49E1 Wall St workers bonus paymts rptd, scored 1-28—1-29, 44B3 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141B1, F2 Goldman ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares sold 4-13—4-14, 241F1 JP Morgan ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, govt aid return sought 4-16, 241E2 Citigroup ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-17, 264E3 Morgan Stanley ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd 4-22, 265D1 Banks stress-test results issued, Morgan Stanley stock sale rptd 5-7—5-8, 319A1, C1, G1 OppenheimerFunds drops Chrysler reorgn oppositn 5-8, 339E1

‘08-09 Bway season tallied 5-26, 400F1 Cohmad, execs chrgd 6-22, 442A2 Goldman/JP Morgan/Citigroup/Morgan Stanley ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16—7-22, CIT Group financing set 7-20, 490F1, D2, A3, F3, 491A1 Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger fraud chrgs warned, subpoenas issued 9-8—9-17, SEC setlmt nixed 9-14, 618A3, G3 Obama addresses Wall St 9-14, 618B1 Elliott/Delphi stake bought 10-6, 679C2 Banks ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-14—10-21, 715C1, E1, G1 CIT Group bankruptcy filed 11-1, 758D3 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910A3 Hermitage CEO (Browder) laundered funds subpoena OKd 11-22, 822C1 GE/NBC stake buy OKd 11-30, Comcast buyout set 12-3, 830B3 Goldman cash bonuses nixed 12-10; Citigroup govt aid repaymt set 12-14, shares demand drop, Treasury stake sale delayed 12-17, 864G1, C3 Citigroup tax break OKd, defended 12-11—12-15, House com probe set 12-17, 909B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19, Obama auto indus task force (Rattner) linked 4-17, 265B2, A3 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503G3 Ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 Crime & Law Enforcement ‘73 failed bomber (Jassem) freed 2-19; deported 2-26, arrives in Sudan 3-3, 411B3 Gambino hit man (Carneglia) convctd 3-17, sentncd 9-17, 920B2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337C3 Terror suspects held 5-20, 375A1 NFL’s Pierce chrgs nixed 8-4, Burress pleads guilty 8-20, 632B1 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred, chrgd 8-19, 816D1 Bomb plot suspect (Zazi) chem sought, visits 9-8—9-12; mass transit alert issued, security hiked 9-18—9-22, held/evidnc rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641E2, D3–F3, 642A1–B1, E1–F1, C2 Apartmt raided/bomb plot suspect (Zazi) transferred 9-22—9-25; pleads not guilty, chrgs questnd 9-29, case work hailed, accomplices role seen/Khan cont surveillnc rptd 10-6—10-8, 678F1–A2 Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692F1 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862A2, D2 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896D1 Alavi Foundatn ex-head (Jahedi) pleads guilty 12-30, 941A2 Demonstrations & Protests ‘Tea party’ protest held 4-15, 242F3 Calif gay marriage ban ct ruling protested 5-26, 352F3 Environment & Pollution States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Mideast peace talks hosted 6-30, 546B1 Libya’s Qaddafi travel ltd 8-28, 583A3 S Korea’s Lee gives speech 9-21, 653C1 Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Medicine & Health Care Hamburg named FDA comr 3-14, 182F1, B2 Actress Richardson in hosp 3-17; dies 3-18, brain hemorrhage cited 3-19, 176E3 Swine flu cases confrmd 4-26, rise seen 4-28, 282A1 Frieden named CDC dir 5-15, 354F1 Swine flu vaccine distributn mulled 11-5—11-6, 810B3 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 918G3–919A1 Military Issues USS NY arrives 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914D3 Obituaries Allen, Betty 6-22, 500E2 Bond Jr, J Max 2-18, 192G1, A2 Calisher, Hortense 1-13, 56E1 Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 Chapin, Schuyler G 3-7, 192C2 Cohn, Sam 5-6, 332G2 Cunningham, Merce 7-26, 516C2

ON FILE

DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 Dreyfus Jr, Jack J 3-27, 231D3 Eikerenkoetter II, Frederick J (Rev Ike) 7-29, 531E3 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Gwathmey, Charles 8-3, 531G3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Javacheff, Jeanne-Claud 11-18, 824E3 Kaplan, Stanley H 8-23, 596G2 Levitt, Helen 3-29, 212G3 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 O’Horgan, Tom 1-11, 56E2 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Wasserstein, Bruce J 10-14, 731F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sen Gillibrand visits 1-24, 46C3 Carrion named White House urban affairs dir 2-19, 113B1 Judge Sotomayor sees Obama, named to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, C1, E1, 350A1–B1, A2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469B2, 471B3 Obama addresses NAACP 7-16, 492A1 Bloomberg wins Lasker 9-14, 671C3 DNC fund-raiser held 10-20, 717E1 Electn results 11-3, 756E2 Press & Broadcasting Slim/NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1 NYT 1/4 dividends halted 2-19, 168G1 NYT hq leaseback deal set 3-9, 168F1 NYT wins Pulitzers 4-20, 279D1, C2, B3–C3 Wash Post bureau shut 11-24, 912C3 Religious Issues Dolan named RC archbp 2-23, 132D2 School Issues ‘09-10 coll tuition rise seen 10-20, 887A3 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Giants exit playoffs 1-11, 39D3 Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 Westminster dog show results 2-10, 159B3 Men’s basketball NIT tourn results 4-2, 230D2 Rangers make playoffs 4-12, 299A2 NFL draft held 4-25, 298B3 US Open results 9-10—9-14, 631A1 Prokhorov sets Nets stake buy 9-23, approval vote seen 10-22, 771C2 Yankees win divisn 9-27, 690D1, B2 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 751C3, E3, 752E1 Marathon results 11-1, 791G2, D3, G3–792A1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770C1–G3 Transportation Air Force One flyover pub info release OKd 4-3, White House ofcl (Caldera) informed, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357F3 Air Force One flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 308C1 Air Force One flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357D3 Hudson River air traffic mulled 8-8—8-10, 538F1 World Trade Center Terrorist Attack Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C1 Detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199F3 Silverstein/Port Auth mtg held 5-21, 620A3 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19; punishmts set, scored 6-24—7-10, check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A1, F1 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3 WTC site arbitratn sought, govt financial risk scored 8-4, 620E2 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620G1, C2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782A2 9/11 suspect (Higazy) FBI detentn suit setld 9-24, 914G2 9/11 remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914A3 9/11 plot suspects trials set/debated, Sen com hearing held 11-13—11-18, 793A1, F1; photos 794A1, A2, A3 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3

NEW York City Opera Steel named dir 1-22, 40D2

NEW Yorker (magazine) Calisher dies 1-13, 56E1 Updike dies 1-27, 56B3

NEW York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) US crude oil price rptd 3-5, 156E2 US crude oil prices rptd 3-16, 180C2; 5-27—5-28, 486D2 Crude oil price rptd 6-10, 389G1 US crude oil price rptd 8-12, 535E3

2009 Index $ value rptd 11-9, 776B1 Euro value rptd 11-13, 798C2 Crude oil prices rptd 12-22, 901A1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900F3

NEW York Review of Books (magazine) Levine dies 12-29, 955E2

NEW York State Accidents & Disasters Clarence Ctr plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot error seen 2-15—2-18, 95B2 Buffalo plane crash pilot test woes rptd 5-11, hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357G1 Wal-Mart ‘08 customer trampling cited 5-26, 412D3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Natl banks racial bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Setton plant inspectn failed 3-9, 268E2 AIG bonus paymts info sought 3-16, issues details 3-17, 162A1 Madoff assocs chrgd 3-18—4-6, 245D1, B2 Signature govt aid repaid 3-31, 241D3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291G1 Fed bd chair (Friedman) quits, Hughes named 5-7, 8-24, 571F2 Stairway Capital drops Chrysler reorgn oppositn 5-8, 339E1 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444F2, A3 $700 bln finanical indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay rptd, curbs pass House/com hearing set 7-31, 522F2 Intel antitrust suit filed 11-4, AMD setlmt OKd 11-12, 800F2–G2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ex-health comr (Novello) authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64A3 Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19—4-15, reforms set 4-22, 265A2–E2, B3–C3 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 476A1 Rep Rangel probe hiked 10-8, 679A2 Crime & Law Enforcement Binghamton immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246C2 Lackawanna ‘02 terror arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2 Medicare fraud suspects held 7-29, 574C2 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Laws reform passes legis/signed, sentncs cut rptd 3-4—12-18, 919D3 Energy Long Island floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917B2 Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Gay marriage bill introduced, mulled 4-16—4-17, 266B2 Gay marriage bill passes Assemb 5-12, Sen vote urged 5-17, 353F1 Gay marriage bill vote delayed 7-10, 505E2 Gay spousal govt benefits ordrd 11-20, marriage bill nixed 12-2, 832B2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Libya’s Qaddafi tent stay nixed 9-22, 633F2 Housing Westchester Cnty desegregatn efforts failure ruled 2-24, setlmt OKd 8-10, 538G2 Labor & Employment Delphi plant sale set 10-6, 679E2 Medicine & Health Care UnitedHealth paymts suit setld 1-13, 64F2 Swine flu emergency declared 4-26, 281D3 Swine flu outbreak mulled 5-26, 352D1 New York City—See NEW York City Obituaries Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316F3 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56A3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Kennedy drops Sen seat bid 1-22, 32D3 Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, sworn 1-27, 46E2 House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201E1 House seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared, sworn 4-24, 4-29, 292B2 Rep McHugh named Army secy 6-2, 373B2

—NICOLE State sens switch parties, Ravitch named lt gov/Espada rejoins Dems 6-8—7-9, 524B3 Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444C3 Rep Maloney nixes Sen seat bid 8-7, 537C3 Kemp gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548E1 Gov Paterson reelectn bid mulled, Lazio sets run 9-14—9-22; Obama interfernc scored, visits 9-20—9-21, lt gov (Ravitch) apptmt upheld 9-22, 639G1, A3, C3 Rep McHugh quits 9-21, 656G1, D2 Rep Rangel com chair ouster bid fails 10-7, 679F1 House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid, backs Owens 10-31—11-1; Biden, Thompson stump 11-2, electn results 11-3, 755A2, F3 Giuliani nixes gov/Sen bids, backs Lazio 11-19, 12-22, 908E3 Press & Broadcasting Glen Falls Post-Star wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D3 Newsday publisher/ed quit, replacemts named 9-23—12-11, Web access chrgs set 10-22, 913D1 School Issues Pvt univ/coll pres ‘07-08 salaries rptd 11-2, 816F3 Sports Baseball HOF elects Henderson, Rice 1-12, 71E2 Belmont Stakes results 6-6, 399A2 US Open results 6-22, 435E1 Baseball HOF inducts Henderson/Rice/Gordon 7-26, 531C2 Travers Stakes results 8-29, 807B3 Woodward Stakes results 9-5, 807F1 Baseball HOF elects Herzog/Harvey 12-7, 949A2

NEW York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Bank of Amer/Citigroup shares drop 1-14, 15E2, G2 Citigroup share price rptd 1-16, 32C2 Bank of Amer share price rptd 1-22, 32G1 Citigroup, AIG shares drop 2-27, 3-2, 127D1, E2 Wells Fargo shares rise 4-9, 241B3 Citigroup, Bank of Amer shares drop 4-17, 4-20, 264C3, F3 Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Goldman/Citigroup/Bank of Amer share prices rptd 7-16—7-17, 490A2, B3 AIG shares rise 8-27, 585C3 Marvel share prices rptd 8-28, 660F1 BJ Svcs share price rptd 8-28, 660G1 Perot Systems shares rptd 9-18, 660D1 Bank of Amer shares drop 9-30, 657D3 Burlington share price rptd 11-2, 759G2 XTO Energy share price rptd 12-11, 887C1

NEW York Times (newspaper) Appointments & Resignations Scott named ‘At the Movies’ co-host 8-5, 548B3 Articles & Editorials Kristol final column runs 1-26, 56C1 Obama defends health care reform 8-16, 551F3 Climate chng debate partisanship drop vowed 10-11, 743B2 Awards & Honors Barstow/Bearak/Dugger/Talese win Polk Awards 2-16, 139G2, C3 Filkins wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3 Pulitzers won 4-20, 279D1, C2, B3–C3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Circulatn drop rptd 4-27, 912C2; 10-26, 912G1 Censorship Rep Harman, AIPAC secrets transfer case role alleged 4-19, rptg delay mulled 4-20, 263D2–E2 Interviews & Debates Paleontologist (Murphy) 1-22, 280D2 Somali pirate (Mohammed) 2-6, 66F3 Obama 3-8, 195F1 NYS gov (Paterson) 4-17, 266E2 Hamas ldr (Meshal) 5-5, 313D2 Obama, Biden 7-6, 464A3 Gen McChrystal 9-24, 635E3 Afghan/US amb (Jawad) 10-14—10-15, 696B2 Blackwater ex-execs 11-11, 789E2 Tex mil base shooting cop (Todd) 11-12, 777D3 Afghan/UN spec envoy ex-dep, US spec rep 12-17, 12-20, 894A1, F1 Bin Laden son, wife 12-23, 941C2, E2 Labor Issues Newspaper Guild workers pay cut OKd 5-4, 393E1

Leaks & Disclosures CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3–D3 Libel Issues Lobbyist (Iseman) suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151B3 Obituaries Safire, William 9-27, 672F3 People Afghan seized rptr escapes 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3–F3, 435A1–C1 Afghan rptr seized/freed, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3–E3, G3–612A1 Polls & Surveys Bush support 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Obama pub expectatns 1-18, 25C3 Obama support 2-18—2-22, 105E2 Health care reform support 6-21, 427E2 Obama approval rating, health care reform support 9-25, 656F1

NEW York Times Co. Slim stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1 Red Sox stake sale sought, 1/4 dividends halted 2-19, 168G1 NYC hq leaseback deal set 3-9, 168F1 Boston Globe shutdown warned/averted, unions OK concessns 4-3—5-4, Newspaper Guild deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 393A1–D1 Boston Globe sale nixed 10-14, Telegram & Gazette buyout offer sought, sale nixed 10-14—12-7, 912D2–A3

NEW York University (NYU) Gromov wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255B3 Valentine wins Wallace Stevens Award 9-14, 953C1 Kristol dies 9-18, 648A3

NEW York v. Belton (1981) Warrantless car searches curbed by Sup Ct 4-21, 266C1, F1

NEW Zealand, Dominion of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1 Fiji const nix questnd 4-11, 252B1 Khmer Rouge forgn prisoners slayings rptd 6-17, 414A2 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 Tonga ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590E3 Samoan driving side switched 9-8, 726B1–C1 Reeves visits Fiji 9-9—9-11, diplomatic ousters exchngd 11-3—11-4, 852A1–B1, E1, B2 China’s Li visits 11-1—11-3, 802B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235F1; 10-1, 735F1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818E2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-29, 281D1, 282G1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Swine flu vaccine donatns set 9-17, 697F1 Press & Broadcasting Australia opens E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, probe reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931E3 Sports Pak cricket tour nixed 3-3, 138C1 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Trade, Aid & Investment Fiji floods aid set, hiked 1-14—1-16, 68G1 ASEAN free trade deal singed 2-27, 135G2 Samoa tsunami aid vowed 10-1, 663A1 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748D3 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl entry bid dropped 3-31, 336B3 Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1

NEXT Fall (play) Opens in NYC 6-3, 564D2

NEXT to Normal (play) Opens on Bdway 4-15, 348B2 Tonys won 6-7, 399G3, 400D1, E1

NE-Yo (Shaffer Smith) Wins Grammys 2-8, 88A3 ‘Knock You Down’ on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1

NFL (National Football League)—See FOOTBALL NGAUJAH, Ayesha Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

NGAUJAH, Sahr Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

1123

NGCUKA, Bulelani Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222A2–B2

NGOUABI, Marien (1938-77) (Congolese president, 1969-77) Sassou-Nguesso reelected 7-12, 507E1

NGYUYEN Xuan Quy Ferry sinking kills 40+, held 1-25, 84E2

NHL (National Hockey League)—See HOCKEY, Ice NIAM, Tadjadine On Garda surrender 5-17, 375F3

NICA, Dan Alleges pres electn rigging plans 9-25; ousted 9-28, coalitn nixed 9-30, 705F2–G2

NICARAGUA, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai’s Thaksin named ‘amb’ 4-15, 251A1 CIS Relations Georgia breakaway regions indep states recognitn nixed 2-7, 74A3 Georgia breakaway region electns held 5-31, 378F2 European Relations Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn opposed 9-22, 645D2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Venez sets Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn 9-10, 616B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235G1; 10-1, 735G1 Pres term limits nix sought/backed by Sup Ct, cong debate declined 10-15—10-28, 784B3 Latin American Relations OAS gen mtg held 6-3—6-4, 376D3 Peru indigenous ldr (Pizango) seeks pol asylum, OKd 6-8—6-9, 394G3–395A1 Regional ldrs mtg held 6-29, 438E2 Honduras border troops deploymt seen, denied 7-5, 460C1, B2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) crosses border 7-24, 507G3 Obituaries Arguello, Alexis 7-1, 468D2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1 Emb protested 10-29, amb (Callahan) flees fireworks attack 10-30, 784E3

NICHERIE, Abner Sentncd 3-3, 247C3

NICHOLAS 3rd, Henry Stock backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 910B2

NICHOLS, Alison Eur loses Solheim Cup 8-23, 595F2

NICHOLS, Darius Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

NICHOLS, Mary Urges fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn 1-21, 47E2

NICHOLSON, Judge Chris Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 22B1–C1 Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222E1, G1

NICHOLSON, Harold Chrgd, pleads not guilty 1-29, 132E1–C2 Son pleads guilty 8-27, 622B1–E1

NICHOLSON, Jack Film dir (Polanski) ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653D2

NICHOLSON, Julianne This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

NICHOLSON, Nathaniel Chrgd, pleads not guilty 1-29, 132F1, A2–B2 Pleads guilty 8-27, 622B1–D1

NICKELBACK (music group) Dark Horse on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

NICKELS, Greg (Seattle, Wash. mayor, 2002- ) 3d in primary 8-18, 779G3

NICKLAUS, Jack Woods sets golf ‘indefinite break’ 12-11, 879F1

NICKLES, Peter Nixes DC vehicle checkpoints ruling appeal 11-16, 870G1

NICKS, Hakeem In NFL draft 4-25, 298F3

NICOLAIDES, Harry Pleads guilty 1-19; pardoned 2-19, returns to Australia 2-22, 154C1–D1*

NICOLE (Philippine rape victim) Testimony chngd/atty role mulled, probe sought 3-12—3-24, 205A2–D2

1124 NICOTINE— NICOTINE—See TOBACCO NICS, Dan Accuses Romania’s Democratic Liberal Party of planning to rig presidential elections 9-25, 705G2

NIEHAUS, Carl Admits govt funds personal use 2-13, 96C2

NIELSEN, Kristine Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

NIELSEN FitzGerald, Jerri (Jerri Lin Cahill) (1952-2009) Dies 6-23, 484D3

NIELSEN Media Research Inc. Digital TV switch readiness questnd 6-10, 412B2 Ed & Publisher/Kirkus Reviews shut, publicatns sale set 12-10, 912A3

NIELSEN Ratings—See under TELEVISION NIEUWENDYK, Joe Named Stars GM 6-1, 436A1

NIGAM, Anjul Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

NIGER, Republic of African Relations N African forgners seized, kidnapping claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903G2 Civil Strife Tuareg peace deal set 10-6, 903A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Oppositn ldr (Issoufou) chrgd 9-14; warrant issued 10-29, returns 10-30, 761E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235G1 Pres term limit hike referendum nixed, parlt dissolved 5-25—6-12, 574C3–D3 Emergency rule ordrd, Const Ct ousted 6-26—6-29; pres term limit hike referendum held/backed, results rptd 8-4—8-14, parlt vote set 8-19, 574A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735A2 Parlt electns held, boycotted 10-20, results rptd 10-24, 761A3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Migrants rescued 4-16; Italy entry OKd 4-19, origins rptd 4-20, 262E2 Trade, Aid & Investment ECOWAS sanctns imposed 10-17; suspended 10-20, cont talks seen 10-21, 761C3–D3

NIGERIA, Federal Republic of African Relations Ghana pres electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7F3 AU summit held 2-1—2-4, 82F2; 7-1—7-3, 459C2 Darfur conflict end seen 8-26, 924E2 Darfur conflict spec cts proposed 10-30, 924A2 Arts & Culture Soyinka play revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3 CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 6-24, 455B1, E1 Civil Strife—See also ‘Oil & Gas Developments’ below Jos ‘08 sectarian violnc rpt issued 7-20, 525A3 Islamic sect violnc kills scores, containmt ordrd 7-26—7-30; ldr death rptd, probe set 7-30—8-5, displacemts return 8-5, 525A2 Niger Delta militants amnesty program ends 10-4; peace talks held/hailed, cease-fire declared 10-19—11-15, Yar’Adua role mulled, pipeline attacked 12-18—12-19, 923F1 Economy & Labor ‘09 suplmtl funds signed 12-29, 923A1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Fiji, Commonwealth suspensn set 9-1, 852C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A2; 10-1, 735A2 Yar’Adua in Saudi hosp, ouster suits filed 11-23—12-31, chief justice (Katsina-Alu) sworn 12-30, 922E3, 923E1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Migrants rescued 4-16; Italy entry OKd 4-19, origins rptd 4-20, 262E2 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2

FACTS Obituaries Fawehinmi, Gani 9-5, 612D3 Oil & Gas Developments MEND cease-fire ends, tanker/workers seized 1-30—5-13; mil offensive launched, war declared 5-15, violnc erupts/civiln deaths rptd, govt talks sought 5-21—5-27, 358F1, E2, B3–C3 Shell rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3, F3 Delta militia ldr (Okah) freed, amnesty deals OKd/open 7-13—8-6; success declared 8-22, factn violnc return vowed, plans halt urged 8-22—8-24, 574G3 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/chrgd 12-25—12-26; plot warnings seen 12-27—12-30, Yemen stay rptd, probes linked 12-28, 897A1, B3, 898D2; photo 897E1 UN Policy & Developments UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675G2 Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521C2 Clinton visits 8-12, 540A1, C3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797G2

NIGERIAN National Petroleum Corp. Tanker, crew seized 5-13, 358B2 Gazprom jt venture signed 6-24, 455E1

NIGHT, Timothy Sets resignatn 9-23, 913D1

NIGHT at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

NIGHTCLUBS—See RESTAURANTS NIGHT Watcher, The (play) Opens in NYC 10-6, 860F2

NIGHY, Bill Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2 G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

NIH—See NATIONAL Institutes of Health NIKAI, Toshihiro Aso dissolves parlt, sets electns 7-13, 482G1

NIKBAKHT, Saleh On client (Saberi) spying chrgs 5-12, 318A2, 330A2–B2

NIKE Inc. Chamber of Commerce bd role dropped 9-30, 654F3 Golfer Woods backed 12-1, 839C3 Woods ties cont 12-14, 879B2

NIKKO Cordial Securities Sale sought 1-19, 32C2

NIMEIRY, Gafaar Mohammed el(1930-2009) (Sudanese president, 1969-85) Dies 5-20, 400C3

NIMS, Kenny Syracuse wins NCAA lacrosse title 5-25, 399B3

NINE (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

9 (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

NINE Dragons (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

9/11 Family Steering Committee Eckert dies in plane crash 2-12, 95A3

9/11 (September 11, 2001 terror attacks) Issues—See TERRORIST Attacks, U.S. 911TRUTH.org (Web site) ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) regrets petitn signing 9-6, 602D2

1984 (book) Amazon electronic copies deleted 7-17, 782F1

9 to 5: The Musical (play) Opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

92 Pacific Boulevard (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

NINJA Assassin (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

NISHIKAWA, Yoshifumi Ousted 10-20, scores pvtizatn halt 12-8, 873F1

NISHIMURA, Yasutoshi Loses party ldrship electn 9-28, 703G3

NISPEL, Marcus Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

NISSAN Motor Co. Ltd. Factory fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536C2 Penske/Saturn buy nixed, closure set 9-30, 679C3

NIVOSE (French frigate) Somali pirate ‘mother ship’ seized 4-15, 238E3

NIWEIGHA, Ken Held 5-26, slain 5-27, 358C3–D3

NIXON, Richard Milhous (1913-94) (U.S. president, 1969-74; Republican) Bush hosts Obama, ex-pres lunch 1-7, 6A2 Alexander dies 2-2, 104G2 Brinegar dies 3-13, 192A2 Braden dies 4-3, 256F2 Waldie dies 4-3, 256G3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns defended 4-29, 306E1 Saulnier dies 4-30, 348C3 Klein dies 7-2, 468F2 Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid role revealed 8-16, 569D1–E1 Safire dies 9-27, 672F3 Bellmon dies 9-29, 731A3 Herbert Miller dies 11-14, 860F3

NIYAZOV, Saparmurad Ateyevich (1940-2006) (Turkmenistan president, 1990-2006) Prisoners pardoned 2-16, Flag Day marked 2-19, 135B2–C2

NIYONGURUZA, Gen. Juvenal Slain 9-17, 622A3

NIZAR Jamaluddin, Mohammad Ousted 2-5; reinstatemt ordrd 5-11, ruling nixed 5-22, 415F1–G1 Wins parlt by-electn 4-7, 223E2

NIZEYIMANA, Idelphonse Held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680A1–B1, D1–F1

NJOGU, Ann On Kenya activists mass exit 3-28, 203D1

NJOYA, Robert (d. 2006) Slayer (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375A2, D2, F2 Slayer (Cholmondeley) freed 10-23, 922B3

NKOANA-Mashabane, Maite Hosts US’s Clinton 8-7, 540B2

NKOMO, Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo (1917-99) Tsvangirai sworn PM 2-11, 81F2

NKUNDA, Laurent Staff chief (Ntaganda) defects 1-16; Rwanda troops enter, jt offensive mulled 1-20, held 1-22, 34A1–E2

NOAA—See NATIONAL Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOBEL Prizes Awards ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2 Announced 10-5—10-12, Obama peace prize choice mulled 10-9—10-13, 693A1–694F2 Obama accepts peace prize 12-10, 842D2, D3; excerpts 843A1 Obituaries Bohr, Aage 9-8, 632E2 Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632G2 Dausset, Jean 6-6, 452G1 Furchgott, Robert F 5-19, 384G2 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Granger, Clive WJ 5-27, 384F3 Kim Dae Jung 8-18, 564B3 Krebs, Edwin G 12-21, 955B2 Samuelson, Paul A 12-13, 880D3 People Chu Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17A3 Dalai Lama, S Africa entry blocked 3-23, peace conf nixed 3-24 3-23, 327F1–G1 ElBaradei successor votes held, Amano elected 3-26—7-2, 502F2 Tutu questns Zuma pres bid 4-2, 222C3 Ebadi named Iran rptr (Saberi) atty 4-20, 275C1 Ebadi Iran rptr (Saberi) rep nixed 5-5, 330D1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspects held, chrgs scored 5-6—5-14, 327D2 Walcott exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12, 364B2

ON FILE

Myanmar’s Suu Kyi pleads not guilty 5-22, testifies 5-26, 359B3 Suu Kyi birthday marked 6-19, 462G2 Arias, Honduras pres ouster talks role set 7-7, 460A2 Suu Kyi release urged 7-21, 495D3 Suu Kyi convctd, sentncd 8-11, 843C1 Tutu/Yunus get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 S Korea’s Kim mourned 8-21—8-23, 568A3 Coetzee on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692D1 Suu Kyi appeal nixed 10-2, 683B3 Turkey’s Pamuk, Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, protectns urged 10-14, 706D3 India nixes Mother Teresa remains transfer 10-13, 711D3

NO Child Left Behind Act (2001) Educ secy nominee (Duncan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18E1 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569C3

NOCHIMSON, Josh UConn recruiting violatns alleged 3-25, 231C1

NO Choice but Seduction (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

NO Country for Old Men (film) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2

NOLAN, Christopher John (1965-2009) Dies 2-20, 160E3

NO Line on the Horizon (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

NOLL, Christiane Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

NO More Deaths Ariz migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588G1

NONIMGO, Champion Takes indigenous protests lead 6-7, 395A1

NOORDIN Muhamad Top Indonesia blasts kill 7, JI role seen 7-17—7-18; Malaysia aid sought, bombers IDs sought 7-19—7-21, wife held 7-22, 494F3–G3, 495C1–F1 Slaying claimed, victim ID chngd 8-8—8-12, 542D1 Slain/computer files found, death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643E3–644D1

NOORI, Adel Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

NOORZAI, Haji Bashir Sentncd 4-30, 539F2, G2

NORD, Nancy Replacemt (Tenenbaum) named 5-5, 340A3

NORDEGREN-Woods, Elin Husband affairs alleged/in car crash, blames self 11-25—12-1; admits transgressns 12-1, cited, cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839A2–B2, B3 Sweden home buy rptd 12-1, husband sets ‘indefinite break’ 12-11, 879D1–E1

NORDQVIST, Anna Wins LPGA Champ 6-14, 595D2 Wins LPGA Tour Champ 11-23, 949A3–B3

NORIEGA, Manuel Antonio Endara dies 9-28, 672E2

NORMAN, Dick Loses French Open doubles 6-6, 399C1

NORMAN, Greg Intl loses Pres Cup 10-11, 708C1

NORMAN Conquests, The (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-23, 348D2 Tony won 6-7, 400B1, D1

NORMA Rae (film) Sutton dies 9-11, 708G3

NORNG Chan Pal Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) UN trial opens 2-17, 98B2

NORRIS, Kate Eastwood Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

NORRIS, Rufus Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

NORSE, Harold (Harold Rosen) (1916-2009) Dies 6-8, 484E3

NORTEL Networks Corp. Bankruptcy filed, shares price rptd 1-14, 67A3

NORTH America Premature births tallied 10-4, 901D2

NORTH American Aerospace Defense Command Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot fighter jets alert rptd 10-27, 744A1

2009 Index NORTH American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) US electric grid cybersecurity questnd 4-7, 411B2 FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745D2–E2

NORTH American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Obama visits Canada 2-19, 91B2 US/Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, 171A3 US/Mex trucking program mulled 3-20, 186E1–F1 Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271F1 US/Mex trucking program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541A2

NORTH Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) African Developments Norway ship hijacking halted, Somali pirates freed 4-19, arrests authrzn mulled 4-20, 269C3–D3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) rescue mulled 8-20, 551G1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Appointments & Resignations Rasmussen secy gen apptmt OKd 4-4, 217B1, A2 Denmark’s Rasmussen quits 4-5, 225C1, E1 Adm Stavridis named/sworn cmdr, takes post 5-12—7-2, Rasmussen assumes secy gen role 8-3, 534B1 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Pak/Afghan transport route reopened 1-2, 39C1 Afghan troops hike urged 1-15; Gates testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, pres electn delayed 1-29, 54E1, F2, A3 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 Afghan civiln deaths scored 2-4, 59F1 Pak/Afghan supply route bridge reopened 2-6, 103F1 Afghan/US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 79A2 Afghan/Spain troops hike nixed 2-10, US deploymt ordrd 2-17, 102E1–F1, A2 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 176A1 Taliban cmdr slain 3-23; US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, UN security conf held 3-31, 194D3, 195A2, A3 Pak cops acad attack claimed 3-31, Afghan war Cong com hearing held 4-2—4-3, 228E3, 229C1 Ger/France nix Afghan troops hike 4-3, 213C3–D3 Afghan air strike kills 6+ 4-13, 314E1, A2 Pak tribal areas mil offensives open 4-26—4-28, 298E1 Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723E1 Pak tribal areas civilns flee 5-5—5-7, 315B1 Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted, McChrystal named 5-11, 317A1 Afghan air strike kills 8, civiln deaths mulled 5-19—5-20, US cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381B1, B3 Afghan detainees, Canadian troops abuse claims nixed 6-9, 413B1 Gen McChrystal confrmd Afghan cmdr/takes post, strategy mulled 6-10—6-16, violnc rise seen, Europn troops hike set 6-11—6-12, 434A1, G1–A2, C2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418E1 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466C3 Afghan mil operatns launched, violnc kills scores 6-19—7-6, 465E3, G3, 466D1, F1 Afghan/UK troops equipmt lack seen 7-11; copter crash kills 16 7-19, casualties tallied 7-23, 498B3, 499B1, F2 Afghan’s Karzai seeks forgn troops control deal 7-24, reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513D2, E3 Afghan civiln deaths ‘09 rise rptd 7-31, cmnd structure chngd 8-4, 546E3, 547F2 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533A2 Afghan violnc kills scores 8-15—8-18, pres/local electns held 8-20, 549E1, A2, F2 McChrystal visits Pak 8-17, 578E1 Pak/Afghan trasport pass violnc kills scores, civiln exit seen 8-27—9-14, 630D3 Afghan strategy chng urged 9-1, 593B3

—NORTH Afghan opium poppies farmland drop seen 9-3; troops hike urged 9-4, air strike civiln deaths seen, probe set 9-4—9-8, 611A2, C2, G2–B3, 612C1 Ger/Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607D3–F3 Afghan/US troop levels mulled 9-15, civiln deaths rptd 9-17, 629E2, 630D1, F1–G1 Canada’s Harper visits US 9-16—9-17, 643D1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635A1–B1, C3 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, bin Laden/Taliban messages issued 9-24—9-25, 665B3 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn seen, troops hike sought 9-25; strategy review backed 9-29, casualties tallied 10-1, 668G2, 669A1, C1, A2 Afghan ltd missn debated, McChrystal sees Obama/Brown 10-1—10-5; violnc kills scores 103—10-6 troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673C1, 674C2; photo 674A1 Gen McChrystal sees Pak’s Kiyani 10-6, 695E2, A3 Afghan/UK troops hike set 10-14, 695E3–F3 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709B3 Afghan pres electn rpt issued, runoff OKd 10-19—10-20, 710G1 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-23, blasts kill 8 10-27, 750G2, 751D2–E2 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764D3 Afghan pres runoff nixed, Karzai reelectn declared 11-2, UK troops slain 11-3, 753B2, 754A1, D1 Afghan violnc kills scores, bodies found 11-4—11-11; Japan aid set 11-10, troop levels mulled 11-11, 775D1, G2–A3 UK/Afghan troops hike urged 11-13; violnc kills scores 11-13—11-19, Karzai sworn 11-19, 805E3, 806B1, D1, A2 Afghan mil strategy mtg held/plan unveiling seen, troop levels mulled 11-23—11-24, 809F2, 810C1 US/Afghan troops hike set, role mulled 12-1—12-2, 825E1, D3 Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844B1 Turkey/Afghan troop levels mulled 12-7, 846B1, F1 US/Afghan troop hostage tape issued 12-25; civiln deaths alleged, probe set 12-28—12-31, Canadian troops slain 12-30, 899A2–C2, B3, D3 Canada parlt suspended 12-30, 926C3 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) EU peacekeeping missn extended 11-18, 940G1 Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940C1–D1 CIS Developments Russia border missiles deploymt delayed 1-28, 69D2 Kyrgyz/US mil base closure seen, Russia coordinatn vowed 2-3, 58D3, 59C1 Russia cooperatn hike urged 2-7, 74A2–B2 Georgia entry mulled 2-8, 74B3 Estonia defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, Yakovlev intl warrant issued, breach mulled 2-25—2-26, 136A1, E1–F1 Russia Cncl revived 3-5, 142E1 Georgia excercises claimed, held 4-17—5-6; breakaway regions Russia security deals questnd, cncl reopened/mtg boycott warned 4-29—5-5, envoys ousted 4-30, 311B1, E1 Georgia breakaway region electns questnd 6-1, 378E2 CTSO summit held 6-14, 423F2 Russia links cont 6-27, mil exercises open 6-29, 449G3, 450B1, F1 Russia’s Putin visits Georgia breakaway region 8-12, 534A3 Russia missile defns future link seen 9-18, 645F1 Russian A-strikes mulled 10-14, 706C1 Russian/Europn pact sought 11-12, 803B3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Forgn mins mtg held 3-5, 142E1–G1, 143A1 France/Ger summit held, protests turn violent 4-3—4-4, 213A1, A2, D2 Turkey/Israel jt mil exercise nixed 10-11, 696D2–E2 Turkey airs Gaza war crimes dramatizatn 10-14, Israeli criticisms exchngd 10-15—10-16, 755C1 European Developments UK/French A-subs collide 2-3, 91F3 France cmnd return set 3-11, 172D3 Albania parlt electns vote mulled 6-29, 511A3

US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop backed 9-17, 613D2 Iraqi Developments UK troops exit completed 7-31, 529D3 Kosovo Role US’s Biden visits Kosovo/Bosnia/Serbia 5-19—5-21, 378B2–C2 Peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423E3 Membership Issues Montenegro parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226C1 Croatia/Albania join 4-1, 214C2 Macedonia pres runoff vote hailed, entry vowed 4-5, 225C2–D2 Macedonia entry vowed 5-12, 344D2 Bosnia entry backed 5-19, 378F2 Montenegrin govt OKd 6-10, 463D3 Bosnia entry bid woes seen 6-22, 448E3 Croatia premr (Sanader) quits 7-1, 463D1 Georgia/Ukraine entry mulled 7-6, Obama backs sovereignty 7-7, 454B1, 455A1 US’s Biden visits Ukraine, Georgia 7-21—7-23, 496C2, G2 Russia’s Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko, letter scored 8-11—8-13, 609F1 CIA/Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, 903A1 Bosnia govt reforms nixed, talks cont 10-20—10-21, 727E1 US’s Vershbow visits Georgia 10-20, 750C2–D2 Middle East Developments Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31E1 Obituaries McDonald, Wesley L 2-8, 160D3 U.S. Developments Clinton sees ldrs 3-4, 123G1 Obama sees Rasmussen 9-29, 669C1

NORTH Carolina Accidents & Disasters ConAgra factory blast kills 3 6-9, natural gas cloud cited 6-18, 412B3 Bengals receiver in truck mishap, dies 12-16—12-17, 948E1 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Bank of Amer exec (Lewis) bonus nixed 1-6; ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt stake buy set 1-16, Merrill deal defended, shares drop 1-16—1-22, 32A1 Blackwater Iraq ouster rptd 1-29, 53B2 Blackwater name chngd 2-13, 208G3; for subsequent developments, see XE Bank of Amer ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares drop 4-20, 264E2 Bank of Amer/BB&T stress-test results issued, stock offerings set 5-7—5-8, 318D3, 319A2 Bank of Amer ‘09 2d 1/4 profit rptd 7-16, 490G2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger fraud chrgs warned, subpoenas issued 98—9-17, SEC setlmt nixed 9-14, 618G2 Bank of Amer assests govt guarantee programs exited 9-21, 641B1 Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) sets resignatn, shares drop 9-30, 657D2 Bank of Amer ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-16, 715E1 Blackwater ‘07 Iraq bribes authrzn rptd 11-11, 789E2 Bank of Amer govt aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830C2 Bank of Amer lending hike vowed 12-14, 864A3 Bank of Amer pres, CEO (Moynihan) named 12-16, 909F2 Crime & Law Enforcement Madoff opens prison sentnc 7-14, 506A3 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781D3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942C2 Medicine & Health Care FDA tobacco regulatn bill opposed 4-2, 221C2 Military Issues Obama addresses Camp Lejeune 2-27, 121B1 Reactivated troop (Pagan) brings kids, svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267B1 Ft Bragg base ‘95 sniper pleads guilty 3-11, sentncd 3-24, 269D1 Obituaries Sutton, Crystal Lee 9-11, 708G3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Minority voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 167A1–B1

1125

Sports Panthers exit playoffs 1-10, 39C3 Hurricanes make playoffs 4-12, 299B2 Quail Hollow Champ results 5-3, 564B1 Coca-Cola 600 delayed, results 5-24—5-25, 363C3 Hurricanes exit playoffs 5-26, 420C2 Wyndham Champ results 8-23, 670G2 NASCAR HOF inducts Frances/Pettyu/Earnhardt/Johnson 10-14, 859G3 NCAA men’s soccer champ results 12-13, 895F1 Meineke Car Care Bowl results 12-26, 948B3

NORTH Carolina, University of (UNC) (Chapel Hill) Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16, title won 4-6, 229B3, 230D1–F1, B3, D3 Nicks in NFL draft 4-25, 298F3 Adler named to CPSC comm 5-5, 340G2 Women’s lacrosse title lost 5-24, 399C3 Hansbrough/Lawson/Ellington in NBA draft 6-25, 451C1, E1, A2, C2 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2 Women’s soccer title won 12-6, 895A2 Men’s soccer tourn semi lost 12-11, 895G1 Meineke Car Care Bowl lost 12-26, 948B3

NORTH Carolina State University (Raleigh) Yow dies 1-24, 72G3

NORTH Dakota Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1

NORTH Eastern Monthly (defunct Sri Lankan magazine) Rptr (Tissainayagam) sentncd 8-31, 770A1

NORTHERN Arizona University (Flagstaff) Arctic cooling trend reversal seen 9-4, 842B2

NORTHERN Illinois University (DeKalb) English in NFL draft 4-25, 298G2 Pa gym shooter guns buy rptd 8-7, 554D2

NORTHERN Ireland (Ulster) Obituaries Daly, Cardinal Cahal 12-31, 955F1 Peace Initiatives US/Mideast spec envoy (Mitchell) named 1-22, 29A3 INLA ‘armed struggle’ end declared 10-11, 705C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations UK intell ofcrs probe rptd 3-6; IRA attacks kill 3/claimed, victims mourned 3-7—3-11, suspects held 3-10, 154D3, 155B1 Cop slaying scored, funeral held 3-10—3-13; suspects held, riots erupt 3-14—3-15, 173A1 IRA victims/Libya compensatn sought, nixed 9-6—9-7, 636E3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton addresses prov assemb 10-12, 704G2, E3

NORTHERN Mariana Islands (U.S. commonwealth) Bush names marine monumt 1-6, 7B2 Gunman kills 4, self 11-20, motive mulled 11-22, 888C2

NORTHERN Trust Corp. $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2–D2

NORTH Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) African Relations Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Chinese envoys visit 1-23, 84F1 Japan abductees relatives frustratn rptd 2-17, 109B2 Ship (San) anchored in Indian waters, detained 8-5—8-10, 568E3–F3 Chinese ofcl visits 9-18, Wen trip set 9-28, 653A1, D1 China’s Wen visits 10-4—10-6, 712E1 CIS Relations Russian gambling curbs open, hiked 7-1, 7-21, 513B1 Defense & Disarmament Issues A-program uranium warning issued, enrichmt mulled 1-7—1-19, ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35C3, 36B1 A-program halt cont 1-30, missile test preparatns seen 2-3, 84E1 US/Russia cooperatn hike urged 2-7, 74B2

1126 NORTH— A-program dismantling mulled, missile test plans scored 2-16—2-24, 108F3, 109A2–B2, E3, 110B1 A-program mulled 3-6, 142D2 Satellite launch interfernc warning issued 3-9, plans set 3-11, 143F1–G1 Satellite launch interfernc warnings issued 3-24—4-1; Japan shoot down ordrd/US plans denied 3-27—3-29, rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, 215D1, E2 Obama seeks A-arms end 4-5, 214B1, D1 Rocket launch Sec Cncl res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, A-program talks halted, Yongbyon facilities reopened/IAEA inspectors ousted 4-14, 238G3, 239E1 Rocket launch sanctns OKd, further tests warned 4-24—4-29, A-program talks dropped, plutonium reprocessing cont/activity seen 4-24—5-13, 342A3, D3 Japan oppositn ldr (Ozawa) quits 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342G2 A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast mulled 5-25—5-26, Yongbyon facility reopening seen 5-27, 350A3, 351B1, F1 Missile launch preparatns seen 5-30, 404E1 A-program mulled, attack warned 6-6—6-13; sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl, retaliatn vowed 6-12—6-13, May ‘09 test analysis issued 6-15, 403E3, 404C1, F1, C2 A-program mulled, talks return urged 6-15—6-18, 406A3, F3–G3 Mil exercises set/held, missiles launch scored 6-22—7-6, uranium enrichnmt cont, A-program cos linked 6-30, 462A3, G3 A-program mulled 6-23—6-24, 481E3 A-program sanctns pass Sec Cncl 7-16, 495F1 A-program mulled, Myanmar mil ties concern seen 7-22—7-23, 495D2, C3–D3, 496D1 A-program mulled 7-27—7-28, 509C2, G2–A3 A-program US bilateral talks sought 7-27, 517D3, 518A1 PI’s Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528A3 Pak A-scientest (Khan) movement limits lifted, reinstated 8-28—9-2, 595B1 Iran arms shipmt seizure rptd 8-28, 600F1 A-program progress claimed, sanctns enforcemt urged 9-3—9-6, 600A3 A-program talks mulled 9-11—9-21, 652F3 A-arms spread res passes Sec Cncl 9-24, 633A2 A-program talks mulled/plutonium plant cont use seen, sanctns backed 10-4—10-10, missiles fired 10-12, 712E1, A3 A-program curbs sought 10-21, 711B2 A-program talks return urged 10-24, 748A3 A-program envoy (Ri) visits US 10-24; talks sought 11-2, plutonium reprocessing rptd 11-3, 763D3 US’s Obama visits China, S Korea 11-15—11-19, 795C3, E3–F3 Thai seizes plane, arms found/crew chrgd 12-12—12-14, flight plan rptd, Ukraine probe set/Kazakh ties denied 12-14, 862F2 European Relations France spec envoy (Lang) dispatched, talks held 11-9—11-10, 934A1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Myanmar’s Thaung sees US’s Campbell 9-29, 652B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Cabt shuffled, parlt electns set 1-6—1-7, 51C2 Kim successn mulled 2-19, 109B1, A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234B2 Parlt electns held, voter turnout/results rptd 3-7—3-9, 153G3 Kim reapptmt OKd, Jang elected to Natl Defns Comm 4-9, 215B3 Kim son Natl Defns Comm job rptd 4-27, 351B1 Kim successn mulled 6-2—6-10, 404D2 Kim marks dad death anniv 7-8, cancer rptd 7-13, 495B2 Kim cont control seen 8-9, 568F3 Chngd const issued 9-28, 653E1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734C2 Human Rights Prison camps use claimed 10-17, UN rights rpt issued, ofcls questng set 10-22, 764D1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu outbreak rptd, S Korea aid offrd/OKd 12-8—12-10, 873D3

FACTS Monetary Issues Won revalued 11-30, 873D2 Press & Broadcasting US rptrs held, detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31,, 215D3 Sweden’s Foyer visits US rptrs 3-30—5-15; indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14,, 360E2 US rptrs trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 395G3 US rptrs amnesty sought, ‘guest house’ detentn rptd 7-9—7-10, 517C1–D1, G2, B3 US rptrs freed, return 8-4—8-5, arrest, detentn detailed 8-6, 517A1, F1, E2, 518A1 US rptrs footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, China claims rejected 9-3, 600D3 Science & Technology US/S Korea cyberattacks rptd 7-8, mil order seen 7-10, 486A3–D3 South Korean Relations Hostile posture declared, border alert hiked 1-17, 36A1 Hyun named unificatn min 1-19, 51A3 Cooperatn deals halted, talks return urged 1-30, war threat mulled 2-1, 84A1 Passenger flights warning issued 3-5, mil alert hiked, hotline shut 3-9, border crossings cont 3-10, 143C1 Jt industrial park talks held 4-21—4-22, deals nixed 5-15, 342F3 Ex-pres (Roh) kills self, Kim mourns 5-23—5-25, 361B1 Fishing boat seized 7-30, 518C1 Hyundai chair (Hyun) visits, worker freed/deported 8-10—8-17; border curbs eased, family reunions set 8-17, Kim death marked 8-19, 558A1, G1, E2 Delegatn visits 8-21—8-23; satellite launch scored 8-25, relatives reunion talks open 8-26, 568D2, A3, 569C1 Family reunions OKd, fishermen/boat freed 8-28—8-29; border reopened 9-1, flash flood kills 6, explanatn issued/scored 9-6—9-7, 600A2, D2 Indl park workers wage hike sought, dropped 9-10—9-11, family reunions held 9-26—10-1, 652B3 S Korea rivers flood control talks held 10-14; warships infringemt claimed 10-15, cont family reunions seen 10-16, 712E2 Ofcl mtgs rptd 10-22, 764C1 Naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 795G3 Disputed waters firing warned 12-21, 933F3 Mil communicatn lines upgrade set 12-22, 933G3 Space & Space Flights Satellite launch set 2-24, 109C2 Sports Soccer natl team makes World Cup 6-17, 859D2 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Trade, Aid & Investment WFP ‘09 funding woes seen 6-12, 440B3 S Korea food aid offrd 10-26, 764A1 Transportation Ship departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462E3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits, returns 8-4—8-5, 517A1, F1, E2, 518A1 Envoy (Goldberg) regional tour set 8-13, talks sought 8-25, 568D3 Richardson hosts delegatn 8-19—8-20, 558F2 Bosworth visit set 11-9, plan cont 11-11, 796F1 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814D3 Bosworth visits, talks mulled/Obama letter delivery confrmd 12-8—12-16, 873A3 Missionary (Park) entry/arrest rptd, State Dept role seen 12-29, 933A3

NORTH Pole—See ARCTIC Regions NORTHROP Grumman Corp. Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615E3 Air Force aerial tanker bidding rules questnd 12-1, 915D2

NORTHWEST Airlines Corp. Calif flight overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licenses revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743C3, E3 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914C1

Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held/in hosp 12-25; chrgd, transferred 12-26—12-27, sick passenger sparks false alarm 12-27, 897A1–B1, 899A1; photo 897E1

NORTHWEST Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (2009) Accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33A1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425C1

NORTHWESTERN University (Evanston, Ill.) Women’s lacrosse title won 5-24, 399C3

NORTON, Jim Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

NORWAY, Kingdom of Accidents & Disasters Timor Sea oil rig leak opens/halted, fire put out 8-21—11-3; damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1 African Relations S Africa peace conf nixed 3-24, 327G1 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Arts & Culture Eurovisn results rptd 5-16, 607C1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations LTTE conflict end declared 5-19, 334B2 PI govt, Communists peace talks set 7-8, 528F2 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 PI communist militants peace talks delayed 8-28, 820A1 Afghan war aid hiked 12-10, 844A1 Awards & Honors Abel Prize awarded 3-26, 255B3 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9; acceptnc seen 10-10, choice defended 10-13, 693A1, D1, C2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842D2, D3; excerpts 843A1 CIS Relations Chechen slain atty (Markelov) death threats rptd 1-19, 36B3 Energy Iraq prov oil exports halted 10-9, 730G1 Statoil buys Iraq oil field dvpt rights 12-12, 877D1 Statoil, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-29, 943C1 Environment & Pollution French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A2 Parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd, coalitn policy mulled 9-15, 627F1, C2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-20, 735B2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu vaccine donatns set 9-17, 697F1 Obituaries Brown, Anne W 3-13, 192C2 Fehn, Sverre 2-23, 176B3 Naess, Arne 1-12, 56D2 Press & Broadcasting Ivory Coast toxic waste dump libel suit warned 9-16, 654F1 Trade, Aid & Investment Madagascar aid halted 3-19, 168G2 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl members electn held 3-31, 336B3 Afghan spec envoy (Eide) quits 12-11, 894C1

NORWOOD, Mary Earns Atlanta mayoral runoff 11-3, 756D3 Runoff held 12-1, loss declared 12-9, 848B3–C3

NOSANCHUK, Matt Justice Dept civil rights divisn apptmt confrmd 8-18, 553E3–F3

NOTE, Kessai (Marshall Islands president, 2000-08) Tomeing loses confidnc vote 10-21, loses electn 10-26, 787B1, C1

NOTORIOUS (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

NOTRE Dame, University of (South Bend, Ind.) Obama addresses graduatn 5-17, 338D2 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2 Weis fired 11-30, Kelly named 12-11, 879F3 Women’s soccer tourn semi lost 12-4, 895A2

NOTRE Dame Cathedral (Paris) Missing Brazil/France flight passengers mourned 6-3, 369E3 Workers strike/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, 876E1

ON FILE

NOTTAGE, Lynn Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2

NOUAR, Nizar (d. 2002) Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154C2–D2

NOUAR, Walid Convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154B2–F2

NOUR, Ayman Freed 2-18, 100E3–101A1

NOUVEL, Jean Copenhagen Concert Hall opens 1-17, 953E3

NOVAK, Robert D(avid Sanders) (1931-2009) Dies 8-18, 564D3 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815A3, D3

NOVARTIS AG US swine flu vaccine funding set 5-22, 352B1 Swine flu vaccine productn woes seen 7-16, 501F1 Vasella vacatn home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609D2 Lydon wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3–C3 Swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, 696G3

NOVAYA Gazeta (Russian newspaper) Slain student rptr, rights atty links rptd 1-19, staff gun permits sought 1-22, 36C3–D3 Lebedev sets Evening Standard stake buy 1-21, 76G2 Rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 Medvedev interviewed 4-13, 329B1 Obama interviewed 7-6, 454A2 Stalin grandson libel suit opens 9-15, 667G2 Stalin grandson libel suit nixed 10-13, 767A1

NOVELLO, Antonia Authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64A3

NOWAK, Cmdr. Lisa Pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3

NOWAK, Manfred Zimbabwe entry blocked, sent to S Africa 10-28—10-29, 783G2–B3

NOWITZKI, Dirk Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3

NOW That’s What I Call Music Vol. 30 (recording) On best-seller list 5-2, 316E1

NOW That’s What I Call Music Vol. 31 (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1

NOZETTE, Stewart Leaves US/returns, pleads guilty 1-6—1-8; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3–761D1

NSENGIMANA, Hormisdas Cleared 11-17, 923F2

NTAMABYARIRO, Agnes Convctd 1-19, sentncd 1-20, 34G3

NTSB—See NATIONAL Transportation Safety Board NUCLEAR Power Appointments & Resignations Energy secy (Chu) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17C3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321E3 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488A2–B2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Iran plant test opens 2-25, 174A2 UAE A-plants bldg deal awarded 12-27, 944D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Kazakh A-agency head (Dzhakishev) fired, held/funds misuse alleged 5-21—6-1; arrest questnd 6-10, wife exit blocked 6-13, 510D2 Health & Safety Issues Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Labor Issues French unions strike held 1-29, 68F2 UK plants workers strike 2-2, 68B3 Political & Legislative Issues Ger’s Merkel/Steimeier debate 9-13, parlt electns held 9-27, 665C2, G2 US climate chng bill talks sought 11-4, 760C1 Research & Development Russian indus dvpt urged 11-12, 803E2 Security Issues US plant thief (Oakley) pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3 US reactors jet attack curbs OKd 2-17, 479D3

2009 Index Tests—See ARMAMENTS—Nuclear Trade Issues UAE/US deal signed 1-15, 69F2 Areva, India deal signed 2-4, 158A2 Intl fuel bank proposed, Kazakh locatn mulled 4-5—4-6, 214D1–E1 Intl fuel bank proposal backed 4-6, Iran plant opened 4-9, 254F1 US/UAE deal OKd, finalized 5-21—12-17, 893F2 Russian delegatn visits Egypt, Africa 6-23—6-26, 455B1, G1 US/India strategic talks set 7-20, 486D1–E1 Russia/Mongolia uranium mine jt venture set 8-25, 725F2 Venez uranium detectn Iran aid mulled 9-25—9-26, 682G2 Areva/Kazatomprom fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739E2 Iran plant, Russian bldg delayed 11-16, 804B3–C3 India’s Singh visits US 11-24, 810F1 Waste Disposal Issues Enriched uranium antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 Yucca Mt A-waste ‘10 funds pass Cong 10-1—10-15, 715A1 Weapons—See ARMAMENTS—Nuclear

NUCLEAR Power Corp. Areva deal signed 2-4, 158A2

NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission, U.S. (NRC) A-reactors jet attack curbs OKd 2-17, 479D3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321E3

NUCLEAR Weapons—See under ARMAMENTS NUCTECH Co. Ltd. Namibia bribery suspects held/defns force chief suspended, govt deal probed 7-22, 601D2–G2

#1s...and Then Some (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

NUNEZ, Judge Juan Ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31, ousted 9-4, 723C3, E3–F3

NUNEZ, Rene Vs pres term limits nix debate 10-28, 784D3

NUNN, Sir Trevor Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954A2

NUON Chea Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial opens 2-17, 98G1 Khmer Rouge tribunal cont indictmts opposed 3-31, 413E3 Chrgd 12-16, 889F3

NUR, Abdel Wahed alSudan govt, Darfur rebels peace talks deal omitted 2-17, 115F3

NUR, Sheikh Adan Mohamed (Somali interim president, 2008- ) UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21D3

NUR Bekri On ethnic violnc security forces shootings 7-19, 509C3

NUR Sahid Jakarta blasts kill 7 7-17, IDd bomber 7-21, 495E1

NURSES—See MEDICINE—Physicians NUTS Salmonella outbreak seen, peanut butter linked 1-7—1-12; recalls set, Ga plant source confrmd/violatns rptd 1-11—1-28, illnesses/deaths tallied 1-29, 49C3 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63E1 Salmonella-linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11; Peanut Corp Tex/Va plants shut, recall set 2-12—2-13, bankruptcy filed, illnesses/deaths tallied 2-13—2-19, 95B3 Peanut Corp Tex plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2 Setton NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9; pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412A3

NYAN Win Claims Suu Kyi house arrest violatn conspiracy 5-18, 360A1 Hosts UN’s Gambari 6-26—6-27, 462C2

—OBAMA 1127 Hosts US sen (Webb) 8-15, 558D3 On client (Suu Kyi) appeal nix 10-2, 683D3 On US diplomats visit 10-31, 763E2

NYE, Glenn (U.S. representative from Va., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

NZIMANDE, Blade Named higher educ/training min 5-10, 325C3

O OAKLEY, Annie (Phoebe Ann Mosey) (1860-1926) Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

OAKLEY, Roy Lynn Pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3

OAS—See ORGANIZATION of American States OASIS Enterprises Inc. Salahis crash White House 11-24, 829E3

OATES, Joyce Carol Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364E1

OBAID, Thoraya Ahmed Rptd UNFPA exec dir 1-1, 3C2

OBAIDI, Harith alSeeks prisons abuse talks 6-11; slain 6-12, buried, suspect held 6-13—6-17, 433C2–E2

OBAMA, Barack Hussein (U.S. president, 2009- ; Democrat) ABORTION & Birth Control Reinstates overseas aid 1-23, 47C1 Addresses Notre Dame graduatn 5-17, 338D2 AGRICULTURE Vilsack confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 108A1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125E1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, D1 Signs USDA ‘10 funds 10-21, 761E1 APPOINTMENTS Boards, Commissions & Councils Adler, CPSC comm 5-5, 340G2 Allison, $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, 264F1 Bair, FDIC chair 1-7, 6E2 Bernanke, Fed chair 8-25, 571C1 Bloom, auto task force chief 7-13, 475F3 Bolden, NASA admin 5-23, 373F1 Bolden, NASA admin confrmd 7-15, 506F2 Boren, intell advisory bd member 10-28, 916E1 Devaney, econ recovery monitor head 2-23, 111D2 Frieden, CDC dir 5-15, 354F1 Genachowski, FCC chair 1-14, 49G2; 3-3, 145A2 Genachowski, FCC chair confrmd 6-25, 458D1 Goosby, PEPFAR head 4-27, 369F3 Hagel, intell advisory bd member 10-28, 916E1 Hamburg, FDA comr confrmd 5-18, 352D1 Leach, NEH chair 6-3, 373C2 McDowell, FCC comr 6-25, 458C1 Schapiro, SEC chair confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Sharfstein, FDA dep comr 3-14, 182F1 Tenenbaum, CPSC chair 5-5, 340F2 Volcker, econ advisory bd ldr 2-6, 79D3 Cabinet & Subcabinet Benjamin, surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1 Blair, natl intell dir confrmd 1-28, 45E1, A2 Brainard, Treasury intl affairs undersecy 3-23, 200F2 Chu, energy secy confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Clinton, state secy confrmd 1-21, 29F2 Collins, NIH dir 7-8, 491G1 DeMarco, FHFA dir 8-25, 910A1 Donovan, HUD secy confrmd 1-22, 30B1 Duncan, educ secy confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Fugate, FEMA dir 3-4, 145F2 Geithner, treasury secy confrmd 1-26, 44E1 Gregg, commerce secy 2-3, 60D1 Groves, Census chief confrmd 7-13, 659D1

Gupta, surgeon gen 1-7, 6C2 Hamburg, FDA comr 3-14, 182F1 Holder, atty gen confrmd 2-2, 60D3 Jackson, EPA admin confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Jarvis, NPS dir 7-10, 491D1 Johnsen, legal counsel ofc head 1-5, 6D2 Kagan, solicitor gen 1-5, confrmd 3-19, 6D2, 246B2 Kerlikowske, drug czar 3-11, 165C1 LaHood, transportatn secy confrmd 1-22, 29C3 Locke, commerce secy 2-25, confrmd 3-24, 112G3–113B1, 181E3 Lubchenco, NOAA admin confrmd 3-19, 267G2 Napolitano, homeland security secy confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Orszag, OMB dir confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Panetta, CIA dir 1-5, confrmd 2-12, 5C3, 93C3 Rice, UN amb confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Salazar, interior secy confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Sebelius, HHS secy 3-2, confrmd 4-28, 129C1, 285A3 Shinseki, vets affairs secy confrmd 1-20, 29F3 Solis, labor secy confrmd 2-24, 113D1 Stevens, HUD asst secy 3-23, 200A2 Tauscher, arms control undersecy confrmd 6-25, 478A3 Vilsack, agri secy confrmd 1-20, 26C3 Wolin, Treasury dep secy 3-23, 200E2 Diplomatic Eikenberry, Afghan amb 3-11; confrmd 4-3, 381A3 Gration, Sudan envoy 3-18, 185A2 Hill, Iraq amb 2-2, 57C3 Holbrooke, Afghan/Pak spec envoy 1-22, 29A3 Huntsman, China amb 5-16, 353D3–E3, 354A1–B1 Mitchell, Mideast spec envoy 1-22, 29A3 Roemer, India amb 5-27, 354C1 Rooney, Ireland amb 3-17, 182C2 Judicial Bogden, fed proscutor 7-31, 537A1 Johnson, US atty 7-14, 908D3 Sotomayor, Sup Ct justice 5-26, confrmd 8-6, 349A1, 519A3; photo 349F1 Military McChrystal, Afghan cmdr 5-11, 317A1 McHugh, Army secy 6-2, 373B2 McHugh, Army secy confrmd 9-16, 656A2 Rodriguez, Afghan dep cmdr 5-11, 317A1 White House Staff Bauer, counsel 11-13, 797B3 Brennan, counterterror advisor 1-8, 6A1 Carrion, urban affairs dir 2-19, 113B1 Chopra, chief tech ofcr 4-20, 264D1 DeParle, health reform dir 3-2, 129D1 DuBois, faith-based ofc head 1-29, 60A3 Kundra, chief info ofcr 3-5, 145C2 Schmidt, cybersecurity coordinator 12-22, 886F2 Sunstein, info/regulatory affairs ofc head 1-7, 6G2 Sunstein, regulatory chief confrmd 9-10, 656E2 Zients, chief performnc ofcr 4-20, 264D1 ARMAMENTS Russia border missile deploymt delayed 1-28, 69C2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 108A1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320B3–C3, 321E3 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338C2 Signs defns procuremt reforms 5-22, 354E3, 355A1 Questns F-22s buy costs 7-21, 489A3–B3, F3 Czech/Russian diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645G2 Drops Eastn Eur missile shield plans, sees short-range threat interceptors 9-17, 613A1, C2, F2–G2, B3 Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645B1–E1 ARTS & Culture Calls rapper West ‘jackass’ 9-14, 632D2 AWARDS & Honors Presents Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548D1 Wins Nobel Peace Prize, sees acceptnc/choice mulled 10-9—10-13, 693A1 Accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842D2, D3; excerpts 843A1 BANKS & Banking Gives Cong address 2-24, 105F1; text 106E2 On ‘stress tests’ 2-25, 110B2, F2 Troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177C1 Sees execs 3-27, 220C3 Defends econ plan 4-14, 240F1 Sees credit-card indus execs, seeks reforms 4-23, 305C1 On govt stakes 4-29, 285C2–D2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos funding return OKd 6-9, 387B2

Proposes financial indus reforms 6-17, 407A1, A3–B3, 408E1 BLACK Americans Mulls race 3-24, 181D3 Sends Meml Day wreaths 5-25, 355D2 Addresses NAACP 7-16, 491G3 On Harvard prof (Gates) arrest 7-22; regrets remarks 7-24, holds White House mtg 7-30, 505A1 BUDGET & Spending Programs Warns $1 trln deficit 1-6; fscl yr forecast issued 1-7, econ recovery plan questnd 1-8, 7E1–G1 Orszag confrmd OMB dir 1-20, 26C3 Obama on deficit 2-9, 78E1, 79C1 Hosts city mayors 2-20; on proposals 2-21, holds ‘fscl responsibility’ summit 2-23, 111E1, C2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, E1, A2; text 107B1, G3 Submits, defends ‘10 proposals 2-26—2-28, Cong hearings held 3-3, 124A3–126E1; highlights listed 125A1 Orders fed contractors review 3-4, 126F1 Signs fscl ‘09 omnibus bill, urges earmarks reform 3-11, 143F3–144E1 Plan questnd 3-15, 166G2 Proposals mulled, deficit forecast hiked 3-20—3-24, Cong blueprints unveiled, backed 3-24—3-26, 180A3, E3–181C2 Defends proposals 3-24, 181D2 GOP alt plan proposed, nixed by House 3-26—4-2, fscl ‘10 blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 217E3–218C1, E1 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 Rep Boehner scores proposals 4-14, 240G1 Sees programs end 4-18, seeks cuts 4-20, 263E3 Backs pay-as-you-go rules 4-25, fscl ‘10 blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 285D3, 289F1 ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D2–F2, B3–D3, 321F2; tables 320E3, 321A1 Sees Soc Sec reforms 5-12, 324C1 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338D1 Urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458C2 Signs suplmtl funds 6-24, 424B3 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast cut, 10-yr hiked 8-25, 571A1–B1 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd, mark set 10-16, 713C1, F1, A2–B2 Signs stopgap funds 10-30, 799E3 Signs fscl ‘10 omnibus bill 12-16, 866G1, C2–E2 Debt cut comm proposal backing sought 12-24, limit hike clears Sen, signs 12-24—12-28, 907B1, F2, F3 BUSINESS & Industry Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A2, 106F3, 108A1 AIG bonus paymts revealed 3-12; scores 3-16, return mulled, defends Geithner 3-18, 161A1, C2, E2–F2, 162A2, C2 Sets small business aid 3-16, 164B1–D1 On $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax 3-22, 219G3, 220E1 On AIG bonus paymts 3-24, 181A3–B3 Urges auto bondholders chngs 3-26; Chrysler/GM reorgn plans nixed, Wagoner ousted 3-29, backs indus 3-30, 197A2, C2, D3–E3, 198E2, 199A1, C1 On GM, Chrylser govt stakes 4-29, 285C2–D2 Declares Chrysler bankruptcy 4-30, 282C2, F2, E3, 283A1 Urges overseas profits tax breaks curbs 5-4, 304D2 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Sets auto fuel econ fed standards 5-19, 339A2, D2–F2 Signs credit-card reforms 5-22, 354A2 GM bankruptcy declared, govt aid set 6-1, 365F1 Chrysler/Fiat merger completed 6-10, 385G1 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387B3 Proposes financial indus reforms 6-17, 407A1, A3–B3, 408E1 On GM bankruptcy exit 7-10, 475F1, A2, E2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay mulled 7-31, 522D3 Signs ‘Cash for Clunkers’ renewal funds 8-7, 536B1 Touts ‘cash for clunkers’ program success 8-20, 586D2 Addresses Wall St 9-14, 618B1 Sets small business aid plan 10-21, 742D2 Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830E3 On financial indus reform 12-12, 865B2 Scores lending lack 12-13, sees financial indus execs 12-14, 864D2 CABINET & White House Staff Staff pay frozen, lobbying ties rules hiked/records release curbs eased 1-21, 29B1 Members listed 3-3, 236B3; 4-28, 286A1–288G3; 10-1, 736B3

1128 OBAMA— Communicatns dir (Dunn) quits Pfeiffer tapped 11-10, counsel (Craig) sets resignatn, Bauer named 11-13, 797B3, G3 CIVIL Rights Marks MLK day 1-19, 28B1 Addresses NAACP 7-16, 491G3 CONGRESSIONAL Relations Urges Ill Sen seat apptmt resolutn 1-5, 3E3, 4F1–G1, F2 Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen, questnd 1-5, calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5C3 Sees ldrs 1-5, urges econ recovery plan quick action 1-8, 6A3 Scores partisanship 2-5; on econ recovery plan delay 2-6, hails deal 2-11, 73C1, G1 On bipartisanship lack 2-9, 78E2, 79A1 Gives address 2-24, 105A1, E1, B2–C2; text 106A1–108E3 Defends budget proposals 3-24, 181F2 Visits Sen Dems 3-25, 181C2 Seeks swine flu outbreak funds 4-28, 282B1 Sees Dem Sens 6-2, sends letter 6-3, 390D3 Urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458C2 Warns intell autrhzn bill veto 7-8, 474B2 Sees Dem Reps 7-21, 487D2 Sees Sen Dems 8-4, 520C2 Addresses jt sessn, Rep Wilson interrupts/regrets remarks 9-9—9-10, sees Dems 9-10, 597A1–598A2; excerpts 599A1 Rep Wilson speech outburst rebuke passes House 9-15, 617G2 Afghan troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673A1 Ft Hood shooting probe results sought 11-19, 813E1 Hosts lawmakers 12-9, 847A1 Sees Sen Dems 12-15, 864C1 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885B3, E3 111th Cong adjourns 12-24, 906D2, G2, F3, 907A1–E1, A2, D2 COURTS & Legal Profession Names legal counsel ofc head (Johnsen), solicitor gen (Kagan) 1-5, 6D2 Sees Sup Ct justices 1-14, 21F1 Justice Souter sets retiremt, hails indep 5-1, replacemt mulled 5-3—5-4, Sen com GOP ranking member (Sessions) named 5-5, 301A1, G2, 303B1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1–C1 Sees Sotomayor, names to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, 349A1, D2, 350E1, B2; photo 349F1 On Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) personal background remarks 5-29, Sen com confrmatn hearing date set 6-9, 389E2, E3 Sup Ct ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443E1, C3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 7-13—7-16, 469A1, E1, C2, 471C1, G1 Names US atty (Johnson) 7-14, 908D3 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed by Sen com 7-28, 503A1 Names fed proscutor (Bogden) 7-31, 537A1 On Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn 8-6, 519A3–B3, F3 Hosts Justice Sotomayor 8-12, 536F2 CRIME & Law Enforcement Gives Cong address 2-24, 106B2 Addresses Ohio police-recruits 3-6, 147C2 Pa gunman racist postings rptd 4-7, 246E3 Right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, vets profiling scored/defended, regretted 4-14—4-16, 262F3, 263A1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321G1 On Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slaying 5-31, 370D3–E3 On Holocaust museum shooting 6-10, 392D1 On Harvard prof (Gates) arrest 7-22; regrets remarks 7-24, holds White House mtg 7-30, 505A1 Census worker found dead 9-12, 722G1 Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-28, 653F2 DEFENSE & Armed Forces—For Afghan/Iraq war issues, see under FOREIGN Policy in this section below Visits wounded troops 1-19, 28C1 Visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64D1 Kyrgyz mil base closure seen 2-3, 59B1 On slain troops coffin media ban 2-11, 79C2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 108D1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124G3, 125C1–D1 Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1

FACTS Jt Chiefs chair (Mullen) renominatn urged 3-18, 629C3 Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposals unveiled 4-6, 217F1 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320G2, 321A1 Gay Natl Guard lt (Choi) ouster block sought, denied 5-11—5-12, 392G2–A3 Signs defns procuremt reforms 5-22, 354E3, 355A1 Gives Meml Day speech, sends wreaths 5-25, 355C2 Names Army secy (McHugh) 6-3, 373B2 Visits France, marks D-Day 6-6, 386C1 Gay troops policy case denied by Sup Ct 6-8, 390G1 Awards Sgt Monti Medal of Honor 9-17, 636A1 Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720F2 Signs defns ‘10 authrzn 10-28, 794D1 On Tex mil base shooting 11-5, 757B2 Seeks Ft Hood shooting intell probe 11-6—11-12, eulogizes victims 11-10, 777A2, 778C1 Japan mil base deal working group mulled 11-13—11-16, 795C1 Ft Hood shooting probe results sought 11-19, 813E1 Signs ‘10 funds 12-22, 886A2–B2 DEPRESSED & Disaster Areas Declares Ky, Ark ice storm disasters 2-5—2-6, 133F2 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A3 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125E1 Italy quake aid set 4-7, 224D2 Declares Amer Samoa disaster 9-29, 662D3 DISARMAMENT & Arms Control Russia A-pact talks OKd 3-6, 142E2 Seeks A-arms end 4-5, 213A1, 214A1 Iran A-program talks role set 4-8, 217E2 On N Korea A-bomb test 5-25, 351B2 On Iran A-program 6-4, 367C3, 369E1, A2; excerpts 368A3 On N Korea A-program 6-6, 6-16, 404F1–A2 Seeks Iran A-program halt 6-16, 402C3 On Iran A-program talks 6-23, 423E1; 6-26, 439F2 On Israel/Iran A-program attack 7-5, 464B3 OKs Russia A-arms cut 7-6, urges spread curbs 7-7, 453C3, 454D1–E1, A3 Reveals Iran secret A-site 9-22—9-25, hails talks 10-1, 649A1, C1, B3, 650E1, D2, 651D1 A-arms spread res passes Sec Cncl 9-24, 633G1–A2 Iran uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711A2 Sees Russia’s Medvedev 11-15, 795B2 Iran A-program sanctns hike mulled 11-15—11-19, 804E2*, F2 Urges Iran A-program peaceful push 11-22, 885B2 Sees Russia A-arms treaty cont use 12-4, 885F2 DRUGS & Drug Abuse Names drug czar (Kerlikowske) 3-11, 165C1–D1 Mulls Mex border troops 3-11, 170D3 On Mex violnc 3-24, 185F3 On majiuana legalizatn 3-26, 200A1 Lists Mex kingpins 4-15, visits 4-16—4-17, 270E3–271D1 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720B1 ECONOMY Recovery plan tax cuts seen 1-4; Cong ldrs mtg held 1-5, urges quick action 1-8, 6A3 Backs stimulus plan 1-10; $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds sought 1-12, block nixed by Sen 1-15, 14B3–C3, 15C1–G1, B2 $700 bln financial indus aid 2d 1/2 funds block passes House 1-22, 32C3 Seeks banking indus aid 1-27, econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41B1–C1, E1, A2, 42A1 Scores Wall St bonuses 1-29, 44B3 On ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP 1-30, 61B2 Limits financial indus govt aid cos exec pay 2-4, 61C2–D2, E3 Urges recovery plan Cong backing 2-5—2-9; opens tour 2-9, hails deal 2-11, 73C1, F1–G1, F2 Unveils advisory bd 2-6, 79C3 Visits Ind/Fla/Va/Ill, recovery plan mulled 2-9—2-12, 77C3, 78A1–A2, E2–G2 79A1 Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93D1 Signs $787 bln recovery plan 2-17, 89A1, C2; highlights listed 90A1 Names $787 bln recovery plan monitor head 2-23, 111D2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, E1; text 106E1, G1, E2 On stock mkt drop 3-3, 127F1

Touts investmt hike 3-14, 187F1–G1 Defends budget proposals 3-24, 181E2, G2–A3 Summers financial disclosure form issued 4-3, 266A1 Sees recovery hope, defends policies 4-14, 240A1 Proposes financial indus reforms 6-17, 407A1, A3–B3, 408E1 On stimulus plan 7-12, defends policies 7-14, 476F3 On ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 7-31, 521F3 On econ indicators 8-7, 535C1–D1 Renames Bernanke Fed chair 8-25, 571C1–E1 On ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP 10-29, 739B3 Palin scores policies 11-17, 797G1 Hosts lawmakers 12-9, 847A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900D1 EDUCATION Duncan confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 On econ recovery plan 2-9, 78D1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, A2–B2; text 107F2 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125B1, E1, B3 Outlines reform proposals 3-10, 149A2 Nixes budget proposals cut 3-20, 181A1 Defends policy proposals 4-14, 240B1–C1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, F1 Addresses Notre Dame graduatn 5-17, 338D2 Unveils community coll program 7-14, 476F3 Back-to-schl speech activity chngd 9-2; propaganda concerns dismissed, transcript posted 9-6—9-7, addresses students 9-8, 602C1 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641E2 ENERGY & Power UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69A3 Chu confrmd secy 1-20, 26C3 Orders appliances, electronics efficency standards 2-5, 94F1 On econ recovery plan 2-9, 78D1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, C2; text 107E1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125C2, G2–B3, G3 Nixes budget proposals cut 3-20, 181A1 Defends policy proposals 4-14, 240B1–C1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321A1, E3 OKs UAE A-energy deal 5-21, 893F2 Defends reform efforts 7-12, 477F1 Signs energy ‘10 funds 10-28, 799G3 ENVIRONMENT & Pollution Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65G2 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolves delisting halted 1-21, 65D2 EPA admin nominee (Jackson) confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Orders states’ fuel econ waiver EPA reexaminatn 1-26, 47G1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105C2, 107E1, 108A3 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124B3, 125B1, G2 Restores fed projects endangered species review 3-2, 131C2 Northn Rocky Mts gary wolf delisting upheld 3-6, 267E3 Emissns EPA ruling set/signed, issued 3-20—4-17, House com hearing held 4-22, 267F1, D2 Signs pub land curbs hike 3-30, 245G3 Emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, proposal spec procedural vote nixed 4-1, 201F2, B3 Signs toxic chem emissns rptg hike 4-1, 356E3 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 Sets autos fuel econ fed standards 5-19, 339A2, D2–F2 Backs climate chng bill 6-26, vs tariffs 6-28, 445A1, D1–E1 Calif fuel econ waiver OKd 6-30, 478E3–F3 Intl short-term emissns cuts deal seen 7-9, 453E1 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602C2, F2 Auto emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621E3 At UN climate chng summit 9-22, 636G1 EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654E2 Urges climate chng bill passage 10-23, visits Fla solar energy installatn 10-27, 743A1, G1, B2–C2 Signs EPA ‘10 funds 10-30, 799E3 Climate treaty talks role set, emissns cut mulled 11-25, 827C3, F3–828B1 Hosts Australia’s Rudd 11-30, 851A3 Climate treaty conf role chngd 12-4; talks open 12-7—12-9, emissns threat seen 12-8, 841D1–E1, A2–B2, 842C1

ON FILE

At climate chng treaty talks, pol statemt set 12-18, 881A1–B1, 882D1–G1, C3, 883A2 EXECUTIVE Orders Signs Cuba base prison closure, CIA interrogatn tactics limits 1-22, 28F1, C3 Signs pro-union fed contractors policies 1-30, 63D2, B3 Signs White House faith-based ofc update 2-5, 60F2 US stem cell fed funding ban lift signed 3-9, 143A2 Signs fed workers domestic partners benefits hike 6-17, 408A2, C2–D2 Signs terror detainees interrogatn unit order 8-24, 567A2 Signs intell oversight bd, atty gen rptg order 10-28, 916D1 Chngs declassificatn policy 12-29, 908A2 FAMILIES & Family Life Gives Cong address 2-24, 106C2, G3, 107E3 Justice Dept/Defns of Marriage Act backing set, scored 6-12—6-15, signs fed workers domestic partners benefits hike 6-17, 408A2, C2–E2, A3–B3 Seeks DOMA repeal 8-17, 553D3–E3 FOREIGN Aid Reinstates abortns intl aid 1-23, 47C1 Pak funds hike sought 2-10, 103C1 Seeks Darfur groups return 3-30, 196B3 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242A2 Pak funds House com hearing held 5-5, 315E2–F2 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321C1 Pak nonmil funds pass House 6-11, 418G3 Signs Pak funds 10-14, 695F2 FOREIGN Policy Afghanistan Names spec envoy (Holbrooke) 1-22, 29A3 Gates testifies to Cong 1-26—1-27, 54C2–D2, A3 Visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64D1 Sees troops cont stay, on coffins return media ban 2-9, 78A3, 79A2, C2 Orders troops deploymt 2-17, 102C1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125C1–D1 On Taliban talks 3-8, 195F1 Names amb (Eikenberry) 3-11, 381A3 Unveils strategy chng 3-27, 194F2, 195B1, D1 Scores women rights curbs 4-4, 213D1, F1 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 Sees Karzai 5-6, 315F1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F2, D3 McKiernan ousted, McChrystal named cmdr 5-11, 317A1, C1–D1 Suplmtl funds pass House 5-14, 338D1 Sees war necessity 6-4, 367E3, 369A2; excerpts 368F1 Afghan mil operatn launched 7-2, 465F3 Hails UK role 7-11, mulls ‘01 mass slayings probe nix claims 7-13, 498E3, 499C2 ‘09 casualties rise rptd 7-31, 547B1 Holbrooke visits, pres electn held 8-20, 549E1, A2 Pub support polled 8-20, strategy chng urged, troop levels mulled 9-1, 593D3–F3, 594C1–D1 Detainee appeals authrzn seen 9-13, troop levels mulled 9-15—9-16, 629E2, B3–C3, 630C2, E2 Taliban warning issued 9-19, troops hike mulled, mil rift denied 9-20—9-24, 635D1, F1–G1, A3, D3–G3 Ltd missn debated, sees McChrystal 10-1—10-5; sees Qaeda threat cut 10-6, troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673A1, C2, E2–F2, B3 Troop levels mulled 10-8—10-14, 696C1 Hails pres electn runoff, mulls troop levels 10-20—10-21, 710C3–D3, 711A1 Mil strategy mulled 10-21—10-28; hails sacrifices 10-26, slain troops return 10-29, 750C3–E3, 751E2–F2 Calls Karzai 11-2, 753A2 Sees prov govs cooperatn hike 11-9, mulls troop levels 11-11, 775C1–D1, A2 On troop levels 11-18, 805G3, 806C1 Holds strategy mtg, sees plan unveiling 11-23—11-24, 809C2 Australian troop levels mulled 11-30, 851A3 Sets troops hike 12-1, 825A1–827A3; text 826A1 NATO troops hike set 12-4, Cong hearings held 12-8—12-9, 844C1, A2–B2 Africa AU summit held 2-1—2-4, 82F2 Clinton tours 8-4—8-13, 540B1–C1 Americas At Trinidad summit 4-17—4-19, 270E3, 271A2–D2, B3 APEC At Singapore forum 11-14—11-15, 794B3, 795F1

2009 Index Armenia Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd 4-22, marks genocide anniv, remarks scored 4-24—4-25, 296A2, C2 ASEAN Sees ldrs 11-15, 795A2 Australia Hosts Rudd 11-30, 851A3 Bolivia Denies Morales thwarted assissinatn plot role 4-19, 294F1 Brazil Hosts da Silva 3-14, 186B2 Sends da Silva letter 11-22, 885B2 Canada Visits 2-19, 91F1 At N Amer summit 8-9—8-10, 541E1–G1, C2–D2 Hosts Harper 9-16, 643A1 China Defns policy talks held 2-27—2-28, 153F2 Hosts Yang 3-12, 309F2 Sees Hu 4-1, 193B1, 194A2 Names amb (Huntsman) 5-16, 353D3–E3, 354A1–B1 WTO complaint filed 6-23, 440F1 Ethnic violnc restraint urged 7-6, 461C2 Strategic talks held 7-27—7-28, 509A2–D2 Tire tariffs set 9-11, 615B2–C2 Visits 11-15—11-18, 794B3, 795B2, E2 Cuba Castro hails 1-2, 8E1 Embargo end urged 3-30, lifts family visit/remittnc/telecom curbs 4-13, 248A3, 249D1 Curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, ties hike urged 4-17-, 271A2–F2 Missn sign removal rptd 7-28, 527F1 Family travel, remittance curbs eased 9-3, 604C3 Signs embargo extensn 9-15, diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661A2, C2 Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652B2 Cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784D1 Blogger interview posted 11-18, 928D1 Czech Republic Missile shield drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 207A1 Visits 4-5, 214A1 Russian diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645G2 Drops missile shield plans 9-17, 613A1, C2, F2–G2, B3 Egypt Oppositn ldr (Nour) freed 2-18, 101A1 Jun speech set 5-8, 318A1 Speech boycott urged 6-2, visits, gives Cairo Univ address 6-4, 367B2, 369A2, C2; excerpts 368A1 Hosts Mubarak 8-18, 593B2–C2 El Salvador Pres (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394B3 Europe Skips WWII start anniv 9-1, 591D3 European Union On pres, forgn policy chief apptmts 11-19, 802E3 France Visits 4-3, 213F2 Names amb 5-27, 354D1 Visits, marks D-Day 6-6, 386C1 G-8 At Italy summit 7-8—7-9, 453D1 Gabon Honors Bongo 6-8, 394F1 Georgia Biden visits 7-22—7-23, 496C2, E3 Germany Visits 4-3, 213C3 Visits, marks Holocaust 6-5, 386C1 Merkel jt news conf held 6-26, 439E2 Hosts Merkel 11-3, 755D1 Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788E1 Ghana Visits, addresses parlt 7-10—7-11, 471D3, 472D1; excerpts 472A1 Great Britain Hosts Brown 3-3, 124A2 Hezbollah talks mulled 3-12, 157B1 Visits 4-1, 193F1, 194B2 Names amb 5-27, 354D1 Hails Afghan war role 7-11, 498E3 ‘Spec’ ties reaffrmd 10-11, 704D3 G-20 At London summit 4-1—4-2, 193A1, C2 Honduras On Zelaya ouster 6-29, 438B2 Interim govt oppositn urged 7-5, 459F3 India Names amb (Roemer) 5-27, 354C1 Hosts Singh 11-24, 810C2, 811C1–D1 Indonesia Scores Jakarta blasts 7-17, calls Yudhoyono 7-18, 494D3–E3 Vows quakes aid 10-2, 725C1

—OBAMA 1129 Iran Sees ties progress 1-27, 42B2 Mulls ties 2-9, 78B2, 79F1 Seeks talks 2-9, 86A2–B2, D2, B3 Eastn Eur missile shield drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 207A1 Khamenei scores 3-4, 142B2 Drone Iraq shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174A3 Video message sent, dismissed 3-20—3-25, 179C1; text 179E1 A-program talks role set 4-8, 217E2 Rptr (Saberi) sentnc scored 4-18, 274E3 On rptr (Saberi) release 5-11, 318F1 Long-range missile test mulled 5-20, 362A1 On A-program 6-4, 367C3, 369E1, A2; excerpts 368A3 On pres electn protests 6-15—6-17, 402A3–C3 On protests crack down, mulls A-program talks 6-20—6-23, Khamenei letter rptd 6-24, 423A1 On protests crack down 6-26, Ahmadinejad scores remarks 6-27, 439E2 On Israel A-program attack, sees cont engagemt 7-5—7-6, 464A3–B3 A-program talks role set 9-11, 614D1 Reveals secret A-site 9-23—9-25, hails talks 10-1, 649A1, C1–D1, B3, 650E1, D2, 651D1 Venez uranium detectn aid mulled 9-25—9-26, 682A3 Uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711A2 Oppositn rallies held 11-4, 768A1 A-program sanctns hike mulled 11-15—11-19, 804E2*, F2 Urges A-program peaceful push 11-22, 885B2 Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837A2 A-program sanctns extensn passes House 12-15, 876B3 A-bomb trigger testing rpts role denied 12-18, 941D1 Backs oppositn protests 12-28, 940E3 Iraq Troops exit plan mulled 1-14, 23B2 Mulls troops exit 1-21, 29B2 Seeks troops exit plans 1-21, 38A2 Visits Jt Chiefs 1-28, 64D1 Hill named amb 2-2, 57C3 Touts electns, on slain troops return media ban 2-9, 78A3, 79C2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124G3, 125C1–D1 Sets troops Aug ‘10 exit 2-27, 121A1, E1, C2–D2 Sep ‘09 troops cut set 3-8, 156F1 Visits 4-7, 214D3 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242D1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F2 Renews Syria sanctns 5-8, 344D3 Vows mil clinic shooting probe 5-11, 330F2 Suplmtl funds pass House 5-14, 338D1 Calls ‘war of choice’ 6-4, 367F3–G3; excerpts 368F1 US troops exit cities 6-30, 437C1, E1 Biden visits 7-2—7-4, 464E3 Hosts Maliki 7-22, 497F3–498B1 Mourns Shiite pol party ldr (Hakim) 8-29, 592D2 Calls Maliki, Talabani 10-25, 738D2 Hails electns law passage 11-8, 789B2 Ireland Names amb (Rooney), hosts Cowen 3-17, 182C2–E2 Italy Quake aid set 4-7, 224D2 Hosts Berlusconi 6-15, 416B3 Calls Berlusconi 12-15, 874D3 Japan Aso visit sought 2-16, hosts mtg 2-24, 109F1, 110A1 Calls Aso 5-25, 351B2 Names amb 5-27, 354D1 Calls Hatoyama 9-3, 582A3 Mil base relocatn plan mulled 10-25, 747A3 Visits 11-13, 794B3, D3, 795C1 Kenya Sanctns warning scored 9-26, 702B3 Kyrgyzstan Mil base closure seen 2-3, 59B1 Mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, 440E3 Lebanon UK/Hezbollah talks mulled 3-12, 157B1 On parlt electns 6-7, 398A1 Libya Scores Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) welcome 8-21, 567D3 Mexico Mulls border troops 3-11, 170D3 Signs trucking program end 3-11, 171B3 Trucking program mulled 3-20—3-24, on drug violnc 3-24, 185F3, 186A1, F1

Lists drug kingpins 4-15, visits 4-16—4-17, 270E3–271F1 Apr visit ofcl swine flu case rptd 4-30, 282F1 At N Amer summit 8-9—8-10, 541E1–G1, C2–D2 Middle East On Gaza violnc 1-6, 3D1–E1 Names spec envoy (Mitchell) 1-22, 29A3 Seeks Israeli/Palestinian peace deal 1-22, 31E2, B3 Sees Israeli/Palestininan peace deal 1-27, 42F1 Israeli parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85F3 Seeks Israeli/Palestinian peace deal 3-24, 181C3 On Israel govt coalitn peace talks role 3-24, 190E1 Backs Palestinian indep state 4-6, 215B3 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242A2 Peace talks mtg invite set 4-21, 313E1, A2 Hosts Israel’s Netanyahu 5-18, 336D1, D2 Hosts Abbas, urges W Bank setlmts halt 5-28—6-1, 380E2–B3 Urges Israeli/Palestinian peace talks 6-4, 367B2, A3, 369B1–C1, G1; excerpts 368C2 Mitchell visits 6-9—6-10, Israel’s Netanyahu, Palestinian state backing mulled 6-14, 403G1, D2, G2 Seeks Arab ldrs concessns 7-13, 546B1 Hosts Egypt’s Mubarak 8-18, 593B2–C2 W Bank setlmts constructn halt offer mulled 10-31—11-2, 754D2 Gaza war crimes rpt oppositn res passes House 11-3, hosts Netanyahu 11-9, 790D2, E2 Myanmar Extends sanctns 5-15, scores Suu Kyi detentn, trial 5-26, 360D1, F1 Extends investmt ban 5-15, 495G3 Signs sanctns extensn 7-28, scores Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc 8-11, 543B2, A3 Urges Suu Kyi release 11-15, 795A2 NATO At summit 4-3—4-4, 213A1, C2 Sees Rasmussen 9-29, 669C1 North Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ plutonium claim rptd 1-17, 35E3–F3 On rocket launch 4-5, 215C2 On A-bomb test 5-25, 351B2 On A-program 6-6, 6-16, 404F1–A2 Clinton trip mulled 8-4—8-5, 517F1, D2, G2, B3–C3, 518B1 Kim letter delivery confrmd 12-16, 873D3 Norway Accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842D2, D3; excerpts 843A1 Pakistan Names spec envoy (Holbrooke) 1-22, 29A3 Drone missile strike kills 20 1-23, 70A1 Aid hike sought 2-10, 103C1 On Taliban talks 3-8, 195F1 Seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242A2 Sees Islamic militants threat 4-29, 285F2 Aid House com hearing held 5-5, sees Zardari 5-6, 315F1, E2–F2 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 On extremists violnc 6-4, 368B2, 369A1, A2 Nonmil aid funds pass House 6-11, 418G3 Sees Qaeda threat cut 10-6, 673B3 Signs aid package 10-14, 695F2 Tribal ares mil offensive hike urged 11-13—11-14, 806E3 Sets Afghan troops hike 12-1, 825A1–827B2; text 826C3 Philippines Hosts Arroyo 7-30, 528A3 Poland Missile shield drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 207A1 Drops missile shield plans 9-17, 613A1, C2, F2–G2, B3 Russia Calls Medvedev 1-26, Lithuania/Poland border missile deploymt delayed 1-28, 69C2 Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 A-pact talks OKd 3-6, 142E2 Sees Medvedev 4-1, 193B1, C3 Hosts Lavrov 5-7, 311A2 Mil exercises open 6-29, 449G3 On Cold War pol 7-2, visits 7-6—7-7, 453C3, 454C1, A2, E2 Czech diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645G2 Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645B1–E1 Sees Medvedev 9-23, 633D1, 634F1, 650D2 Clinton visit 10-13—10-14, 706A1 Sees Medvedev 11-15, 795B2

Sees Russia A-arms treaty cont use 12-4, 885F2 Saudi Arabia Calls King Abdullah 3-13, 180E2 Visits 6-3, 369G1 Somalia Pirates US hostage standoff opens, captors slain/capt freed 4-9—4-12, seeks halt 4-13, 237C3, 238F2 Arms shipmt rptd 6-25, 430G2 South Korea Trade pact parlt vote delayed, block ends 1-6, 51B3 Calls Lee 5-25, 351B2 Hosts Lee 6-16, 404F1 Visits 11-19, 794B3, 795D3 Sri Lanka Scores civiln deaths 5-13, 334C3 Sudan Names spec envoy (Gration) 3-18, 185A2 Seeks Darfur aid groups return 3-30, 196B3 Darfur ‘genocide’ mulled 6-17, 446D2 Sets policy shift, sanctns cont 10-19—10-27, 761G3, 762A1, C1–D1, B2 Syria Renews sanctns 5-8, 344D3 Amb restoratn set 6-23, 465D2 Tibet Dalai Lama mtg delay mulled 10-6, 712B3 Trinidad and Tobago Visits 4-17—4-19, 270E3, 271A2 Turkey Visit set 3-7, 142B3 Visits 4-6—4-7, 214G1, G2* Hosts Erdogan 12-7, 846A1 United Arab Emirates OKs A-energy deal 5-21, 893F2 United Nations UN amb nominee (Rice) confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Addresses Gen Assemb, chairs Sec Cncl mtg 9-23—9-24, 633A1, D1, G1–A2, B3–C3 Venezuela Chavez sees talks 2-14, 97G3–98A1 Chavez calls ‘ignorant’ 3-22, 270G2 Greets Chavez 4-17, defends exchng 4-19, 271B3 Uranium detectn Iran aid mulled 9-25—9-26, 682A3 Zimbabwe Sanctns cont 3-4, 153E1 FOREIGN Trade S Korea pact parlt vote delayed, block ends 1-6, 51B3 Misses World Econ Forum 1-28—2-1, 58D2 Cuba embargo end urged 3-30, 249D1 Visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271F1 China WTO complaint filed 6-23, 440F1 Vs climate chng bill tariffs 6-28, 445D1 China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615B2–C2 Signs Cuba embargo extensn 9-15, 661C2–D2 HOMOSEXUALS Addresses HRC 10-10, DC march held 10-11, 698D3, G3–699B1 HOUSING Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65G2 Paints teen homeless shelter 1-19, 28B1 HUD secy nominee (Donovan) confrmd 1-22, 30B1 Unveils $275 bln foreclosure curbs plan 2-18, 92A1–B1, A2–B2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 106F1, A3–B3, F3 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124D3 Mortgage chngs bill passes House 3-5, 147E1 Names HUD asst secy (Stevens) 3-23, 200A2 Defends budget proposals 3-24, 181E2 Sees cont foreclosures 4-14, 240A1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1 Signs home foreclosure curbs 5-20, 354B3 Names FHFA dir (DeMarco) 8-25, 910A1 Signs home buyers tax credit 11-6, 778F2 HUMAN Rights Gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108B2 IMMIGRATION & Refugees On reforms bill 4-29, 285G2 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321G2 Delays reform 8-10, 541C2–D2 Signs Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res 11-6, 792B2 INAUGURATION Preinaugural concert held 1-17, 28B3 Sworn 1-20, 25A1–28F1; photo 25E1; text 27A1 Resworn 1-21, 25B2 INTELLIGENCE Issues Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen, questnd 1-5, calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5C3 Limits CIA terror suspects interrogatn tactics 1-22, 28F1 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) confrmd 1-28, 45A2

1130 OBAMA— CIA dir nominee (Panetta) confrmd 2-12, 93C3 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2 OKs surveillnc satellites replacemt plan 4-6, 244B2 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262B3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled 4-16—4-21, visits hq 4-20, 257D1, F1–A2, 258D2, B3 Warns intell authrzn bill veto 7-8, 474B2 Justice Dept ‘state secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642E2 Orders oversight bd/atty gen rptg, names advisory bd members 10-28, 916D1 Chngs declassificatn policy 12-29, 908A2 LABOR On Dec ‘08 jobless rate 1-9, 14C2 Gender pay parity bills pass House 1-14, 20D1 Signs gender pay parity bill 1-29, 47G2–A3 Orders fed contractors pro-union reforms, middle-class task force set 1-30, 63D2, B3–C3 On Jan ‘09 jobless rate 2-6, 79G3–80A1 Visits Ind/Fla/Va/Ill, recovery plan mulled 2-9—2-12, 77C3, 78A1–A2, 79A1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 106B1, E1, G1–C2, F3 On Feb ‘09 jobless rate 3-6, 147A2, C2 Workers unionizing vote options bill introduced 3-10, 165A1 Defends budget proposals 3-24, 181E2 Urges UAW deal chngs 3-26, 197E3 Sees cont job losses 4-14, 240A1, D1 On Apr ‘09 jobless rate 5-8, 323C2 May ‘09 jobless rate mulled 6-5, 388E3 Signs fed workers domestic partners benefits hike 6-17, 408B2–D2 Sees cont job losses 7-14, 477D1 On Jul ‘09 jobless rate 8-7, 535C1–D1 On Oct jobless rate, signs benefits hike 11-6, 778C2–F2 Holds jobs summit 12-3; on Dec ‘09 jobless rate 12-4, unveils proposals 12-8, 846B2–D2, C3 LEGISLATION Signed Gender pay parity bill 1-29, 47G2–A3 CHIP funding hike 2-4, 62C3–D3, F3 $787 bln econ recovery plan 2-17, 89A1, C2; highlights listed 90A1 Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill 3-11, 143F3 Pub lands curbs hike 3-30, 245G3 AmeriCorps expansion bill 4-21, 355B1 9/11 remembrnc bill 4-21, 620A2 Home foreclosures curbs 5-20, 354B3 Credit-card reforms 5-22, 354A2 Defns procuremt reforms 5-22, 354E3, 355A1 FDA tobacco regulatn bill 6-22, 428G2 Suplmtl funds 6-24, 424B3 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ renewal funds 8-7, 536B1 Cuba embargo extensn 9-15, 661C2 Pak aid 10-14, 695F2 USDA/HHS ‘10 funds 10-21, 761E1 Defns ‘10 authrzn, hate crimes bill 10-28, 739B3–D3 Defns ‘10 authrzn 10-28, 794D1 Energy/Water/DHS ‘10 funds 10-28, 799G3 AIDS treatmt bill 10-30, 799A3 EPA/Interior/stopgap funds 10-30, 799E3 Jobless benefits hike, home buyers tax credit 11-6, 778F2 Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res 11-6, 792B2 Fscl ‘10 omnibus bill 12-16, 866G1 Defns ‘10 funds 12-22, 886A2 Debt limit hike 12-28, 907B1 MEDICINE & Health Care Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 CHIP funds hike passes House 1-14, 19F3 Embryonic stem cell human trial OKd by FDA 1-21, 49D2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2; backs nominatn 2-2, withdrawn 2-3, 59A2, D2, C3 FDA comr apptmt seen 1-30, sets operatns review 2-2, 63B2–C2 On econ recovery plan 2-9, 78D1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105A1, D1, B2; text 107B2 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124B3, 125B1, E1, E2 Gov Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd, nominated 2-28—3-2, names health reform dir (DeParle) 3-2, 129C1–A2 Hosts health care summit 3-5, 145C3 Stem cell fed funding ban lift seen 3-6, signs exec order 3-9, 143A2 Sets food safety reforms 3-14, 167C2 Names FDA comr, dep comr 3-14, 182F1 Sees vets 3-16; pvt insurnc paymt proposal dropped 3-18, electronic unified records set 4-9, 244C3–F3 Nixes budget proposals cut 3-20, 181A1

FACTS Defends policy proposals 4-14, 240B1–C1 Stem cell funding rules proposed 4-17, 268D1 Names PEPFAR head (Goosby) 4-27, 369F3 Seeks swine flu outbreak funds, warns vs panic 4-28, Mex trip ofcl case rptd 4-30, 282B1, F1 On swine flu outbreak, abortn rights bill 4-29, 285B2, G2 Holds swine flu outbreak mtg 5-1, 303B3 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321A1, D1, F1 Health care reform oppositn ads rptd, talks secrecy scored 5-11, indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339G2–B3, E3–F3, 340C1–D1 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, 338F1 Names CDC dir (Frieden) 5-15, 354F1 Sees Dem Sens 6-2; sends letter 6-3, holds town hall mtg 6-11, 390D3 Swine flu biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3 Tobacco FDA regulatn bill passes Sen 6-11, 390B2 Addresses AMA, reform proposals cost estimated 6-15, 408D3, G3–409A1, D1 Medicare cost-cutting measures urged 6-15, 409B2 On drug cos Medicare price cuts deal 6-22; backs pub insurnc option 6-23, holds town hall 6-24, 426E3, 427F1, B2 Signs FDA tobacco regulatn bill 6-22, admits smoking 6-23, 428G2–A3, F3 Health insurnc mandate backed, holds Va town-hall 6-30—7-1; backs pub option 7-7, hosp assocs cost cuts OKd 7-8, 457G2, D3–E3, 458A1 Final stem cell funding rules set 7-6, take effect 7-7, 476C3 Names NIH dir (Collins) 7-8, 491G1 Defends reform efforts 7-12, 477F1 Names surgeon gen (Benjamin) 7-13, 476B1 Backs health care reform House proposal 7-14, 476F1 Vs health care reform deficit hike 7-18; sees Reps 7-21, backs reform need 7-22, 487A1, B3; excerpts 487E1 Indep Medicare cncl savings cut 7-25; at AARP forum, health care reform pub support polled 7-28—7-30, sees Sen Dems, Internet campaign opens 8-4, 520B1, B2 Holds town-hall mtgs, sees religious ldrs 8-11—8-18; mulls pub option 8-15, defends reform efforts, support polled 8-16—8-18, 551A2, C3, E3–F3, 552C1–D1 Reform pub support polled 8-21, 597D1 Holds reform rallies 9-7—9-10; addresses Cong 9-9, sees Dem legis 9-10, 597A1–598B2; excerpts 599A1 Holds health care reform rallies, pub option drop urged 9-12—9-17; support polled 9-14, debate racism seen, denied 9-15—9-16, 617C1, C2, E2, C3–E3, 618A1 Sets swine flu vaccine donatns 9-17, 697E1 Reform push cont 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Reform support polled 9-25, Sen measures mulled, Rep Grayson remarks scored/apology nixed 9-29—10-1, 655F2, G3, 656C1–D1, F1 Sen reform bill scored 10-11—10-12, com backs 10-13, 698C1, E2 Medicare payment reform blocked by Sen 10-21, sees Reid, pub option backed 10-22, 713A3, D3, 714B1 Signs HHS ‘10 funds 10-21, 761E1 Declares swine flu emergency 10-23, 741B2, A3 Hails House reform bill 10-29, 741A1 Signs AIDS treatmt bill, ends forgners travel ban 10-30, 799A3 Reform bill passes House 11-7, urges Sen vote, seeks abortn curbs drop 11-9, 773C1, E1, G2, 774E1, E2 Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918D2 Sees Sen Dems 12-6, backs pub option deal 12-8, 848B1, A2 Health care reform support polled 12-10—12-17; Medicare hike plan dropped 12-14, sees Sen Dems 12-15, 863E2, D3, 864C1 Reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904B2–C2, 906C2 MESSAGES to Congress Gives address 2-24, 105A1, E1, B2–C2; text 106A1–108E3 Gov Jindal gives GOP response 2-24, 105G2 Gives address 9-9, 597A1–598F1; excerpts 599A1

NATIVE Americans Land trust suit setld 12-8, 868A3 PERSONAL Family moves to DC 1-4, 6A2 Bk contract chngd, signs new deal 1-9—1-15, bares royalty paymts 3-19, 201B1 Travels to DC 1-17, 28C1 Aunt pol asylum bid extended 4-1, 231G2 Family puppy gift rptd 4-12, Bo introduced 4-14, 256G1 ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1 US citizenship questnd 6-30—7-21, Hawaii statehood anniv res passes House, birth records confrmd 7-27, 552A3, D3 Ben’s Chili Bowl owner dies 10-7, 731A3 White House dinner crashing rptd 11-25, photo issued 11-27, 829B3; photo 830A1 POLITICS ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 At White House lunch 1-7, 6G1 Names DNC chair (Kaine) 1-8, 6B2 Ill’s Burris Sen apptmt certified 1-9; credentials OKd 1-12, sworn 1-15, 18C2, F2 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 18B3, 19B1 Reads Bush note 1-21, 29C2 Kaine OKd Dem chair 1-21, 62B2 Gov Blagojevich ousted 1-29, 43B3, 44B1–C1 Steele elected GOP chair 1-30, 62E1 Sen Burris admits Blagojevich fund-raising bid 2-16, 93G1 Rove, Miers House com testimony set 3-4, 536E3 Orders Bush signing statemts review 3-9, 145D1 Bush nixes criticism 3-17, 166D3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, Rep Jackson probe confrmd 4-8, 218D3, 219D1 Auto indus task force head (Rattner) pension fund probe linked 4-17, 265A2 Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, hosts 4-29, 284B2, B3, 285D1 Gen Powell GOP role questnd 5-6—5-10, remarks scored 5-25, 353C2, F2 Gov Blagojevich brother/Sen Burris wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27; questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, rules out ‘10 run 7-10, 477G3 NJ gov (Corzine) reelectn backed 6-2, 373D3 Rep Sestak sets Pa Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521F2 Hails Sen Kennedy ldrship 8-25, 569A2, 570D1, B2–D2, F2 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585C1 Eulogizes Sen Kennedy 8-29, 584A2 White House visitors pub log set 9-4; at fundraiser, campaign donors access questnd 10-26—10-28, list issued 10-30, 780B1, D1–A2 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2–D3, F3 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, interfernc scored, visits 9-20—9-21, 639A2–E2, A3–B3 Backs ACORN tax evasn tapes probe 9-20, 638F3, 639B1 At DNC fund-raisers 10-15—10-20, stumps in NJ 10-21, 717C1 Stumps in NJ 11-1, electn results 11-3, 755A2, D2–E2, G2, D3–E3, 756C1, B3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814B3–C3, E3–F3 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908F2 POLLS & Surveys Pres pub expectatns 1-18, 25C3 Support polled 2-18—2-22, 105D1, E2 Cuba curbs lift support 4-14—4-16, 271F2 Support polled 4-21—4-28, 285A3 Approval rating 7-27—8-6, 520A3 Health care reform pub support 7-30, 520G2 Health care reform support, approval rating 8-18, 552C1 Afghan war pub support 8-20, 593F3 Approval rating, health care reform support 8-21, 597D1 Approval rating 9-14, 618A1 Health care reform support, approval rating 9-25, 656F1 Approval rating 11-17, 797C1; 12-16, 864E1 POPULATION Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1 PRESIDENTIAL Campaign (2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Electoral coll votes certified 1-8, 6F1 Electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2

ON FILE

Budget proposals support urged 3-21, 181B1 Pulitizers announced 4-20, 279B3–C3 Fundraiser (Nemazee) indicted 9-21, pleads not guilty 9-23, 656G3 Donors White House access questnd, defended 10-28, 780F1 PRESS & Broadcasting Wkly radio/Internet address 1-10, 15F1 Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, bill passes Sen/fails in House, clears Cong 1-26—2-4, 63A1, D1 Al Arabiya interview aired 1-27, 42F1 Wash Post op-ed published 2-5, 73B2 News conf 2-9, 77C3, 79A1, F1; excerpts 78A1 Wkly radio/Internet address 2-21, 111G1 Cong address 2-24, 105A1 Wkly radio, Internet address 2-28, 126B1 Interviewed 3-8, 195F1 Sees Mex border rptrs 3-11, 170D3 Wkly radio/Internet address 3-14, 167E2 On ‘Tonight Show’, regrets Spec Olympics joke 3-19—3-20, 182F2 News conf 3-24, 181D2 Internet pub forum held 3-26, 200E3 G-20 news conf 4-2, 193C2 Wkly radio/Internet address 4-18, 264D1 Pulitizers announced 4-20, 279B3–C3 Wkly radio/Internet address 4-25, 289F1 News conf 4-29, 285G1 On Iran rptr (Saberi) release 5-11, 318F1 NBC interview aired 5-29, 389E3 Egypt address 6-4, 369F1 Interviewed 6-16, 402B3, 717A3 News conf 6-23, 423A1 Ger’s Merkel jt news conf 6-26, 439E2 AP/Novaya Gazeta/Fox News interviews 7-2—7-7, 454A2–B2, D2 Interviewed 7-6, 464A3 CNN interview 7-13, 499C2 News conf 7-22, 487E1; excerpts 487E1; 8-25, 571D1 Interviews aired 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Axelrod sees Fox News CEO (Ailes) 10-6; bias alleged, remarks scored 10-11—10-18, interview omit rptd 10-12, 717E2–F2, A3 Interviewed 11-9, 775A2 Japan news conf 11-13, Fox News interview 11-18, 793E1, 794B2 China speech broadcast ltd 11-16, S Korea jt news conf held 11-19, 795E2, E3 Interviewed 11-18, 805G3 Cuban blog interview posted 11-18, 928D1 Winfrey sets talk show end 11-20, 824B3 Norway news conf 12-10, 842D3 Wkly radio/Internet address 12-12, 865B2 Interviewed 12-13, 864F2 RELIGION At Natl Prayer Svc 1-21, 29C2 Names White House faith-based ofc head (DuBois) 1-29, orders updates 2-5, 60F2 Egypt speech set 5-8, 318A1 Visits Saudi 6-3, gives Egypt address 6-4, 367B2–369A2; excerpts 368A1 Visits Pope 7-10, 473A1 Seeks ldrs health care reform support 8-19, 552E1 De Veuster canonized 10-11, 739E1 RESIGNATIONS Boards, Commissions & Councils Griffin, NASA admin 1-20, 373F1 Rattner, auto task force chief 7-13, 475D3 Walpin, community svc inspector gen 6-11, 458E1 Cabinet & Subcabinet Daschle, HHS secy 2-3, 59A2, D2, C3 Gregg, commerce secy 2-12, 79E2 Gupta, surgeon gen 3-5, 145B3 Kwon, DHS cybersecurity ofcl 8-8, 602E3 Richardson, commerce secy 1-4, 6B1 Judicial Souter, Sup Ct justice 5-1, 301A1 Military Carter, Defns Dept dep asst secy 11-20, 914E1 McKiernan, Afghan cmdr 5-11, 317A1 White House Staff Craig, counsel 11-13, 797B3 Hathaway, cybersecurity czar 8-3, 602B3 Jones, environmt jobs adviser 9-6, 602B2 Killefer, chief performnc ofcr 2-3, 59C2 SCIENCE & Technology Cont e-mail use set 1-22, 29D2 Gives Cong address 2-24, 107G1 Signs ‘integrity’ memo 3-9, 143B3 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 On cybersecurity ofc 5-29, 410F3 SOCIAL Security Proposes $250 paymt 10-14, 714G1, B2 SPACE & Space Flights ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373C1 Names NASA admin (Bolden) 5-23, 373F1 NASA admin nominee (Bolden) confrmd 7-15, 506F2 Marks Apollo 11 moon landing anniv 7-20, 506C2–D2

2009 Index SPORTS On MLB’s Rodriguez steroids use 2-9, 77E3, 78D3, 79D2 On ‘Tonight Show’, regrets Spec Olympics joke 3-19—3-20, 182F2 At MLB All-Star Game 7-14, 483A3 Backs Chicago ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691E1 TAXES Econ recovery plan cuts seen, questnd 1-4—1-8, 6A3 On Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) paymt woes 1-14, 17C1–F1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2; backs nominatn 2-2, withdrawn 2-3, 59A2, D2, C3 Chief performnc ofcr nominee (Killefer) withdraws 2-3, 59C2 On econ recovery plan 2-9, 78D1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 106C2, 108A1–B1 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, Cong hearings held 3-3, 124A3, F3, 125A1, F1, E3–F3, 126A1, D1–E1 ‘Tea party’ protests held, defends policies 4-15, 242C3–D3, G3–243A1 Urges overseas profits tax breaks curbs 5-4, 304D2 Middle-class hike mulled, dismissed 8-2—8-3, 521B1 Signs home buyers credit, sees job creatn cuts 11-6, 778D2, F2 TERRORIST Attacks (& aftermath) Brennan White House advisor apptmt seen 1-8, 6A1 Orders Cuba base detainee hearings halt 1-20; Cong briefed 1-21, signs prison closure, CIA interrogatn tactics limits 1-22, 28F1, G2, B3–C3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46C3 Sees victims families 2-6, 80B3 On Bush policies probe indep comm 2-9, 80B2 Detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14, 94F3 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued, task force ldr (Olson) named 2-20, Holder visits prison 2-23, 112C3, E3–F3 Gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108A2 Cuba base detainees claim 9/11 role 3-10, 244B3–C3 ‘Enemy combatant’ term dropped 3-13, Cuba base detainee transfers mulled 3-16, 165G2–A3, E3 Cheney questns policies 3-15, remarks scored 3-16, 166B2, A3 Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199B3 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262B3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled 4-16—4-21, 257D1, F1–A2, 258F2, B3 Signs 9/11 remembrnc bill 4-21, 620A2 Defends detainees abuse ban 4-29, 285D2–E2 Vows state secrets use curbs 4-29, 290F1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321E2 Vs detainees abuse photos release 5-13, 330G3 Suplmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, Cuba base prison closure funds nixed 5-20, 338A2 Sets detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, defends policies 5-21, 337A1–D1, D2, F2–G2 Cuba base prison closure backed 5-24, 353A3 Sees Afghan war necessity 6-4, 367E3–F3, 368B1, A2–C2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, Bermuda transfers rptd 6-11, 391D2 Swine flu biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3 Detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428B2 Cuba base detainees Italy transfer OKd 6-15, 416B3 Cuba base detainees Ireland entry OKd 7-29, 506E1 Signs detainees interrogatn unit order, CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565F1, 567A2 Marks 8th anniv 9-11, 620A2–B2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, review rptd 10-27, 782A2, C2, F2 Cuba base detentns authrzn request nixed 9-23, 642C3 Sees Qaeda threat cut 10-6, 673B3 Hails bomb plot suspect (Zazi) case work, briefings rptd 10-6, 678E2–F2 Cuba base prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718E1 Signs Cuba base detainees mil comm trials chngs bill 10-28, 794D1

—OFFICE 1131 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-13, Cuba base detainees Ill transfers mulled, sees prison closure miss 11-14—11-18, 793E1, 794D1, B2, G2 Defns Dept dep asst secy (Carter) quits 11-20, 914E1 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867B2–C2 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914B1–D1 Mich flight blast fails/Abdulmutallab held, orders security review 12-25—12-27; hikes air marshals role 12-28, mulls intell woes 12-29—12-31, 897A2–C2, G2, 898B2 TRANSPORTATION Orders autos fuel econ reforms 1-26, 47G1 Gives Cong address 2-24, 106B2, F2–A3, F3, 107D1, A2–B2 ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 124D3 Auto parts suppliers govt aid fund set 3-19, 164F2, C3 Urges high-speed RR system 4-16, 324A3 Scores Air Force One/NYC flyover, orders probe 4-28, 308G1 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, E1 Auto emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621E3 Orders airline security review 12-25—12-27; hikes air marshals role 12-28, TSA dir nominee Sen confrmatn vote mulled 12-29, 897B2–C2, G2, 898D3 VETERANS Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) confrmd 1-20, 29F3 Gives Cong address 2-24, 108A2 Sees vets 3-16; pvt med insurers paymt proposal dropped 3-18, electronic unified records set 4-9, 244C3–F3 ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, F1 Marks Vets Day 11-11, 775B2 VOLUNTEERISM Gives Cong address 2-24, 107D3 Signs AmeriCorps expansion bill 4-21, 355B1 Fires community svc inspector gen 6-11, 458E1

End Obama OBAMA, Malia Family moves to DC 1-4, 6B2 Dad sworn 1-20, 25D1 Puppy gift rptd 4-12, 256A2

OBAMA, Michelle Family moves to DC 1-4, 6A2 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19B1 Husband sworn 1-20, 25D1, 26D2, F2; photo 25E1 Gender pay parity bill signed 1-29, 47B3 Husband addresses Cong 2-24, 106A1 Sees UK’s Browns, Queen 4-1, 194B2–C2 Puppy gift rptd 4-12, 256A2 ‘08 tax return rptd 4-15, 243B1 At abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiling 4-28, 300E2 Visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 472D1, F2 Backs Chicago ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691E1

OBAMA, Sarah At Obama inauguratn 1-20, 26C2

OBAMA, Sasha Family moves to DC 1-4, 6B2 Dad sworn 1-20, 25D1 Puppy gift rptd 4-12, 256A2 Visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 472D1

OBAME, Andre Mba Party ouster seen, pres candidates drop bids 8-23—8-28, electn held, results rptd/Bongo win confrmd 8-30—9-4, 604D1–E1 Pres electn recount set, boycotted 9-27—9-29; results confrmd 10-12, Bongo sworn 10-16, 722G2–A3

OBASANJO, Gen. Olusegun (Nigerian head of state, 1976-79; president, 1999-2007) Denied ‘09 African ldrship prize 10-19, 731F2 Yar’Adua in Saudi hosp 11-23—12-31, 923D1

OBERSTAR, James L. (U.S. representative from Minn., 1975- ; Democrat) Reseated Transport chair 1-6, 5C1

OBERTO, Fabricio Traded to Bucks 6-23, 451E2

OBESITY—See WEIGHT OBEY, David R. (U.S. representative from Wis., 1969- ; Democrat) Reseated Appropriatns chair 1-6, 5A1 On $825 bln econ recovery plan 1-15, 15F1

OBIANG Nguema Mbasogo, Brig. Gen. Teodoro (Equatorial Guinea president, 1979- ) French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394G1 Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833D3 Coup plotters pardoned, freed/Mann returns to UK 11-3—11-4, 925D1 Electn held/vote mulled, results rptd 11-29—12-3, 833A3

O‘BRIEN, Aidan Fame and Glory wins Irish Derby 6-28, 807C3

O‘BRIEN, Conan On ‘Tonight Show’ 5-29, starts hosting 6-1, 383F3

O‘BRIEN, (Donal) Conor (David Dermot Donat) Cruise (1917-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

O‘BRIEN, Jack Impressionism opens in NYC 3-24, 256C1

O‘BRIEN, (Michael) Vincent (1917-2009) Dies 6-1, 400E3

O‘BRIEN, Shane Among NHL penalty minutes ldrs 4-12, 299C3

OBSCENITY—See PORNOGRAPHY OBSERVER (British newspaper) Sudan rptr (Hussein) interviewed 8-2, 622E3

OBSESSED (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

O‘BYRNE, Brian International on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2*

OCALAN, Abdullah Followers surrender, freed 10-19—10-20, 728D2 Solitary confinemt ends 11-17, 804B1–C1 Mistreatmt rumors spark protests 12-10, 893D2

OCCIDENTAL Petroleum Corp. Phibro buy set 10-9, 742B2 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-2, 789D3 Iraq oil fields dvpt rights auctnd 12-11—12-12, 877A2

OCCUPATIONAL Safety & Health Administration, U.S. (OSHA) (of Labor) Ex-consultant (Kimlin) paymts questnd 3-31, 340C3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321D1 Wal-Mart ‘08 customer trampling cited 5-26, 412D3 BP, Tex refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1

OCEANS & Oceanography Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7A2 Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1 Arctic fishing ban OKd 2-5, 268A1 US offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 131F3, 132A1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181F3 NOAA admin nominee (Lubchenco) confrmd 3-19, 267A3 Brazil/France flight disappears 5-31—6-1, wreckage/oil slick seen 6-2—6-4, 369D2 Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, crash impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473E1 Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2 Fisheries populatn woes rptd 7-31, 550E2 Surface temperature high seen 8-14, 842C2 Brazil oil reserves dvpt limits proposed 8-31, 926E1

OCHOA, Lorena Wins Corona Champ 4-26, 332B2 2d in LPGA Tour Champ, named top player 11-23, 949G2

O‘CONNELL, Deirdre Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

O‘CONNELL, Jerry Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

O‘CONNOR, Sandra Day (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1981-2006) Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2 ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 442D3 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678B1

ODEADATA Julia Attacked, in hosp 6-26; protests held 6-28—7-1, apology rptd 6-30, 461E3

ODEH, Abdulrahman Sentncd 5-28, 914B2

ODETTA (Odetta Holmes) (1930-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

ODIERNO, Gen. Raymond Iraq troops Aug ‘10 exit set 2-27, 121E1 Sees Clinton 4-25, 297B3 On Iraq troops cities cont stay 5-8, detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 330E3, 331B1 Urges insurgents Iraq/Syria border crossing halt 5-8, 344D3 On Iraq troops cities security transfer 6-28, 437A2 Sees Biden 7-3, 464E3 Hosts Gates/sees Maliki, on Iran exiled oppositn camp raid 7-28, 501C2, E2–F2, C3 On Iraq troops exit hike urge 7-31, 529A3 Proposes Iraq city troops deploymt, mulls Shiite detainees release 8-17, 562G3, 563E1 On Iraq troops exit 9-29, 668A1–C1 On Iraq electns law veto 11-18, 805C1

ODINGA, Raila (Kenyan prime minister, 2008- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 On violnc suspects list ICC handover 2-17; sees state failure 3-6, skips unity govt reforms conf 3-30—3-31, 202B3–E3, 203B1, A2 Unity govt talks fail 4-4—4-5, Karua, Mungatana quit 4-6—4-7, 221B3, F3 Post-electn violnc suspects list handed over to ICC 7-9; govt rpt issued 7-17, local trials set 7-30, 541A1, C1 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-5, 540D1 Pol reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702F1–G1 ICC chief prosecutor (Moreno-Ocampo) visits, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922A3

ODOM, Lamar Lakers win NBA title 6-14, 419B2

O‘DONIS, Colby ‘Just Dance’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72C1; 2-28, 140D1

O‘DONNELL, Keir Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

O‘DONNELL, Rosie Love Loss and What I Wore opens in NYC 10-1, 860E2

O‘DONOGHUE, Patrick Nixes RC priest (Sinnott) ransom paymt 10-11, 820E1

OECD—See ORGANIZATION for Economic Cooperation and Development OETTINGER, Guenther Named Europn Comm energy comr 11-27, 835D3

OFFICE Equipment Author (McCarthy) typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Computers—See COMPUTERS

OFFICEMAX Inc. ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918D1

OFFICE of Management & Budget, U.S. (OMB) Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen, questnd 1-5, Obama calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5D3 Ex-dir (Stockman) chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3 Orszag confrmd dir 1-20, 26C3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals House com hearing held 3-3, 126D1 Fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126A2 Obama proposals deficit forecast mulled 3-20, Cong blueprints backed 3-25, 180C3, 181C2 Emissns EPA ruling set 3-20, 267C2 FDA tobacco regulatn bill backed 4-1, 221B2 Defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, 217G1 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242G1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, ‘09-10 deficits estimated 5-11, 320D2, 321F3

1132 OFFICIAL— Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371C2–D2 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424G2 Bernanke testifies to Cong 7-21—7-22, 488A1 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast cut, 10-yr hike seen 8-25, 570A3–B3, 571A1 Regulatory chief nominee (Sunstein) confrmd 9-10, 656E2 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, 676G2 Climate chng effects ‘07 suppressed rpt issued 10-13, 781A3 Health care reform Sen bills merging talks held 10-14, 698G2 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd, mark set 10-16, 713D1, A2 Orszag in Afghan strategy mtg 11-23, 809D3

OFFICIAL Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

OGDEN, David Eases med marijuana prosecutns 10-19, 720A1

OGILVY, Geoff Wins Mercedes-Benz Champ 1-11, 139B2 Wins Match Play Champ 3-1, 139C1

OGNIANOVA, Nina On Azerbaijan rptrs cont imprisonmts 4-9, 253B1

OH, Ji Young Wins Sybase Classic 5-17, 595B3

O‘HAIR, Sean Wins Quail Hollow Champ 5-3, 564B1 3d in Tour Champ 9-27, 670B2–C2

O‘HARA, Catherine Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

O‘HARA, Jerome Chrgd, held 11-13, 800E1

O‘HARA, Robert Marcus opens in Princeton 5-22, 451A3

O‘HARE, Denis Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

OHER, Michael In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

OHIO Arts & Culture Cleveland hosts Rock HOF inductns 4-4, 279D3–E3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section King Nut peanut butter recall set 1-11, salmonella positive test rptd 1-12, 49E3 5th 3d Bancorp, KeyCorp stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1 Crime & Law Enforcement Obama addresses Columbus police-recruits 3-6, 147C2 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239C3, F3 Executn method chngd 5-19, 719G2 Mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd by Sup Ct 6-1, 374G1 Death row inmate (Getsy) clemency urged, nixed 7-17—8-14; stay rejected by Sup Ct 8-17, executed 8-18, 553F2–G2 Inmate (Broom) executn fails, delays ordrd/stays issued 9-15—10-5, injectn method chngs mulled 10-6, 719E2, A3, E3 Cleveland corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3,, 888D1 Lethal injectn method chngd, inmate (Biros) use OKd 11-13—11-25; appeal denied, delay sought/nixed 12-4—12-7, stay rejected by Sup Ct, executed 12-8, 849D2, F2, A3–C3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216C2 Actors Broderick/Parker surrogate twins born 6-22, 516F1 Medicine & Health Care ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B2 Swine flu emergency declared 4-26, 281D3 ‘08 face transplant recipient IDd 5-6, 332D2 Obituaries Kunzel, Erich 9-1, 648B3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Electn results 11-3, 756D2

FACTS Sports US figure skating champ results 1-24—1-25, 139C2 Football HOF elects Hayes/McDaniel/Smith/Thomas/Woods on/Wilson 1-31, 176C2 Blue Jackets make playoffs 4-12, 299C2 Cavaliers win divisn 4-15, 278F1–A2, E2 Blue Jackets exit playoffs 4-23, 420E2 Sr PGA Champ results 5-23, 708G1 Cavaliers stake sold 5-24, 419C3 Cavaliers exit playoffs 5-30, 419G2 Meml Tourn results 6-7, 563F3 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic results 7-5, 595A3 Football HOF inducts Hayes/Thomas/McDaniel/Smith/Woods on/Wilson 8-8, 632A2 Bridgestone Invitatl results 8-9, 563B3 Westn & Southn Financial Group Women’s Open results 8-16, 631G2 Cincinnati Open results 8-23, 631G2 Pavlik/Espino bout held 12-19, 895A3 Bengals clinch divisn 12-27, 947B3

OHIO State University (Columbus) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Fiesta Bowl lost 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23G3, C1 Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn results 4-7, 230E3, 231B1 Jenkins, Wells in NFL draft 4-25, 298G2, G3 Mullens in NBA draft 6-25, 451F1, B2 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579F3–G3 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2 Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss rptd 11-2—11-24, 842F1

OHIO University (Athens) Little Caesars Pizza Bowl lost 12-26, 948B3

O‘HORGAN, Tom (1924-2009) Dies 1-11, 56E2

OIL—See PETROLEUM OIL and Natural Gas Corp. Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684B2

OILS & Fats Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2 Argentina farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3 Adults energy-burning fat cells found 4-9, 580A1 Frieden named CDC dir 5-15, 354G1 Bloomberg wins Lasker 9-14, 671D3 Peru body fat slayings alleged 11-19, police ofcl (Murga) fired 12-1, 930D1

OIL Spills & Fires US Navy sub/transport collisn spills fuel 3-20, 266C3 Missing Brazil/France flight oil slick seen 6-4, 369C3 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 406C1 Russian power plant blast kills 17+ 8-17, 560B3 Timor Sea rig leak opens/halted, fire extinguished 8-21—11-3; damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1, A2

OJDANIC, Dragoljub Convctd 2-26, 110F1

OKADA, Katsuya Named forgn min 9-16, 624D3 Sees US’s Clinton 9-21, 653C1 On Afghan troops training aid 10-7, 703E2 Hosts US’s Gates 10-20—10-21, 747E2 Halts US troops relocatn deal 12-8, 933F1

OKAFOR, Emeka Among NBA rebounding ldrs 4-15, 278B3

OKAH, Henry Freed, amnesty OKd 7-13, 575A1 Sees Yar’Adua 10-19—11-14, 923F1–G1

OKAZ, Elvi Ali Shot 7-1, 482B3

O‘KEEFE 3rd, James ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, suit seen 9-23, 638B3, E3

OKLAHOMA Crime & Law Enforcement Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425F3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Sri Lanka army gen (Fonseka) questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769F3

Medicine & Health Care Abortn, ultrasound requiremt nixed 8-18, 587C2 Obituaries Bellmon, Henry L 9-29, 731A3 Roberts, Oral 12-15, 880A3 Oklahoma City Bombing Vets profiling scored 4-14, 263C1 Sports Women’s Coll World Series results 6-2, 484A3 US Amateur Champ results 8-30, 670F2 Shock relocatn set 10-20, 808B1

OKLAHOMA, University of (Norman) BSC title lost 1-8, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23B3 Men’s/women’s basketball yr-end ranks 3-9—3-17; Griffin named AP top player, wins Naismith Award 4-3—4-7, tourn results 4-5—4-6, 230C2, B3, D3–E3, 231B3 Griffin wins Wooden Award 4-10, 951D3 Tisdale dies 5-15, 348F3 Griffin tops NBA draft 6-25, 450G3, 451A1 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579E3–F3 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 11-4, 771G2 Sun Bowl won 12-31, 948F2

OKLAHOMA State University (Stillwater) Pettigrew in NFL draft 4-25, 298E3 Football preseason rank rptd 8-22, 579F3

OKUBO, Takanori Held 3-3, indicted, denies allegatns 3-24, 252E2–G2 Ozawa drops party ldrship 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342D2

OLAJUWON, Hakeem Howard tops NBA rebounding, blocks 4-15, 278C3

OLD Dogs (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

OLDENBURG, Claes Wife dies 1-10, 56F3

OLDHAM, Spooner Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279G3

OLDMAN, Gary Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2 Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

OLD Man and the Sea, The (play) Opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

OLD National Bancorp Govt aid returned 3-31, 241D3

OLEANNA (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-11, 860F2

OLFSON, Mark Sees antidepressants use rise 8-3, 816B3

OLIVAS, John (Danny) Flies Discovery missn, conducts space walks 8-28—9-11, 615G3–616A1

OLIVE Kitteridge (book) Strout wins Pulitizer 4-20, 279A2

OLIVETTI S.p.A. Author McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3

OLIVIER Awards, Laurence Presented 3-8, 231D1

OLIVO, Americo Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

OLIVO, Karen West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1 Wins Tony 6-7, 400E1

OLMERT, Ehud (Israeli prime minister, 2006-09) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10D2 Sees Gaza mil goals 1-11; on Sec Cncl res vote 1-12, defends UN warehouse destructn, mulls Hamas ceasefire 1-15, 13F1, D2, 15C1–D1, F1–G1 Delcares Hamas ceasefire 1-17, sees cont Gaza blockade 1-20, 31G1–A2, A3 Sets Gaza offensive war crimes suspects legal aid 1-25, 42B3 Parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85G3 Sets Hamas cease-fire conditn 2-15, fires, reinstates envoy 2-23—2-25, 157G1, C2–D2 On kidnapped troop (Shalit) release talks 3-17, 210E2–F2 On antiterror strikes 3-26, 197A1 Indicted 8-30, 593A1 Graft trial opens 9-25, 689D1 Pleads not guilty 12-21, 943A2

ON FILE

OLSEN, Eric Christian Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

OLSON, Matthew Named Cuba base detainees task force ldr 2-20, 112D3

OLSON, Sara Jane (Kathleen Soliah) Freed 3-17, 202E2

OLSON, Theodore Files Calif gay marriage ban suit 5-27, 353B1

OLYMPIC Committee, International (IOC) Women’s boxing ‘12 additn OKd, golf/rugby ‘16 inclusn urged 8-13, 691A2–D2 Rio wins ‘16 Summer Games bid 10-2, 691C1, F1, A2 Sprinter Jones ‘00 medals redistributed 12-9, relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950D3 Samsung ex-chair (Lee) pardoned 12-29, 934C1

OLYMPIC Games Beijing (2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C2 US lists China rights abuse 2-25, 180F1 China Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 683C1–D1 London (2012) Atty (Mills) convctd 2-17, 99G3 Women’s boxing additn OKd 8-13, 691B2 Obituaries Brutus, Dennis 12-26, 955A1 Daly, Chuck 5-9, 332A3 Lawrence, Andrea Mead 3-30, 256D3 Tisdale, Wayman L 5-15, 348F3 Yow, Kay 1-24, 72G3 People Gymnast Johnson wins Sullivan Award 4-15, 951B3 Bryant named NBA Finals MVP 6-14, 419D1 Chicago educ bd pres (Scott) found dead, suicide seen 11-16, 816E3 Rio de Janeiro (2016) Golf/rugby inclusn urged 8-13, 691B2 Rio wins bid 10-2, 691C1 ‘03-09 drug fight casualties tallied 12-8, 926F2 Sochi (2014) Mayoral electn held 4-26, results rptd 4-27, 328D2 Substance Abuse Issues Swimmer Phelps pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended, Kellogg endorsemt dropped 2-5, 71B2 Swimmer Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3 Sprinter Jones ‘00 medals redistributed 12-9, relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950D3 Vancouver (2010) Canada parlt suspended 12-30, 926E3

OMAAR, Mohamed Abdullahi Seeks Mogadishu stability, sees govt return 2-24, 115B2

O‘MALLEY, Martin (Md. governor, 2007- ; Democrat) Signs cops spying curbs 5-19, 919G2 Successor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848G3

OMAN, Sultanate of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B2; 10-1, 735C2 Middle East Relations Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649G2, 650C2

OMAR, Abdulkadir Ali Named, sworn interior min 2-20—2-21, 115F1

OMAR, Ahmed Ali Chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–C1

OMAR, Mohamud Said Held 11-8, chrgd 11-23, 849B1, D1

OMAR, Mullah Muhammad US drone missile strikes hike seen 3-19, benchmarks Sen com hearing held 4-3, 229E1–F1 Issues US troops warning 9-19, faction threat seen 9-20, 635F2, G3 US/Pak aid package questnd 10-7, 695D2 Karzai brother CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 751F1 CIA operatns hike rptd 12-2, 827A2

OMAR, Waheed May ‘10 parlt electns plan cont 12-29, 899E2–F2

OMAR Hashi Aden Slain 6-18, 430G1

2009 Index OMB—See OFFICE of Management & Budget O‘NEAL, Jermaine Among NBA blocks ldrs 4-15, 278C3

O‘NEAL, Redmond Mom dies 6-25, 436E3

O‘NEAL, Ryan Fawcett dies 6-25, 436E3

O‘NEAL, Shaquille West wins All-Star Game, named co-MVP 2-15, 159B1 Traded to Cavaliers 6-25, 451G1

O‘NEILL, Eugene (1888-1953) Desire Under the Elms revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

O‘NEILL, Joseph Wins PEN/Faulkner Award 2-25, 160B2–C2

O‘NEILL, Rodney Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679A3

O‘NEILL, Terry Elected NOW pres 6-20, 492B2

ONEUNITED Bank Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243E1–F1

ONIE, Rebecca Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2

ONKELINX, Laurette Scores pope condoms use remarks 3-18, 195G3

ONLY Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt 2 (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

ONLY by the Night (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

ONTARIO Teachers’ Pension Plan Board Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3

ONYANGO, Zeituni Pol asylum bid extended 4-1, 231G2

OPEC—See ORGANIZATION of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEN: An Autobiography (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

OPEN Constitution Initiative (Gongmeng) Shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557B1–C1 Xu asst held/cont detentn seen, freed 7-29—8-23, 606D2

OPEN Society Institute Iran scholar (Tajbakhsh) sentncd 10-18, 768C1

OPERATION Rescue Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, shooting mulled, suspect held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370C3, F3 Kan slain abortn MD (Tiller) clinic buy mulled 6-10, 445E2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect donatn claimed, denied 7-23—7-24, funds lack seen 9-14, 833A1

OPINION Research Corp. War dead coffins return media ban lift support polled 2-26, 132D1 Afghan war pub support polled 9-15, 629D3

OPIUM—See DRUGS OPM—See PERSONNEL Management OPPENHEIMERFUNDS Inc. Chrysler bankruptcy reorgn oppositn dropped 5-8, 339E1

OPRAH Winfrey Show, The (TV show) Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting cops interviewed 11-11, 777C3 End set 11-20, 824A3

ORACLE Corp. Sun buy set, OKd 4-20—8-20, EU antitrust probe opens 9-3, 601G1

ORAKPO, Brian In NFL draft 4-25, 298G2

ORAL Robert University (Tulsa, Okla.) Roberts dies 12-15, 880A3

ORANGE County Register (newspaper) Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1

ORBITING Carbon Observatory (U.S. satellite) Launched, crashes 2-24, 131C3–D3

—OXFAM 1133 ORDE, Hugh On UK intell ofcrs probe 3-6, scores IRA attacks, seeks info 3-9, 155A1–C1

ORDONEZ, Magglio Among AL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D2

OREGON Crime & Law Enforcement Judge sentncg power upheld by Sup Ct 1-14, 21D1 Terror suspect (Kassir) convctd 5-12, 411G2 Terror training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719C2 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, govt control bill introduced 3-11, 165C2–E2 Ore smoking death damages case denied by Sup Ct 3-31, 246F1–A2 School Issues Spec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426B2–C2 Sports Trailblazers make playoffs 4-15, 278C2 JELD-WEN Traditn results 8-23, 708E1 Safeway Classic results 8-30, 595G2 Welfare & Social Services Recipients rise seen 6-22, 479C2 Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

OREGON, University of (Eugene) ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23G3–24A1 Brand dies 9-16, 648B2

OREGON Health & Science University Druker wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3

OREGON State University (Corvallis) Lubchenco confrmd NOAA admin 3-19, 267A3 Las Vegas Bowl lost 12-22, 948C3

OREGON v. Ice (2009) Judge sentncg power upheld by Sup Ct 1-14, 21C1

ORELLANA, Edmundo Quits 6-24, 438G11

OREN, Michael On W Bank setlmt bldg freeze 11-25, 838F2

ORENDER, Donna Sets Shock relocatn 10-20, 808B1 Monarchs shut 11-20, dispersal draft held 12-14, 952A1

ORGANIZATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ‘09 econ output forecast 3-31, 194E2–F2 Japan natl debt cut vowed 10-26, 786C3

ORGANIZATION for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (Helsinki Agreement) Montenegro parlt electns vote backed 3-30, 226E1 Georgia missn scored, monitors exit 6-17—6-30, 450C1 Albania parlt electns vote mulled 6-29, 511A3 Bulgaria parlt electns vote backed 7-6, 482E2 Kazakh Internet curbs law scored 7-10, 510C3 Kyrgyz pres electn vote scored 7-24, 510F3 Alma-Ata Info ed (Esergepov) sentnc scored 8-11, 576G2–A3 Slovakia minority language curbs backed 9-1, 608C3 Kazakh rights activist (Zhovtis) convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd 9-4, 663F1 Dogan fine mulled 9-16, 706D2 Albania PM (Berisha) reelectn backed 9-17, 625G3 Kazakh press freedoms questnd 9-22, 663C2 Kazakh chair bid backed 10-6, 739F2 Serbia rptrs threats concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Uzbek parlt electns held/vote mulled, results rptd 12-27—12-31, 934D3

ORGANIZATION of American States (OAS) Bolivia const referendum held 1-25, 50B2 Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271A2, C2–D2 Venez/US amb (Chaderton) named 4-18, 271C3 Honduras mtg held, Cuba reentry OKd 6-3—6-4, 376G2

Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return mulled, reinstatemt urged 6-29—7-1, 438E2, G2–A3 Insulza visits Honduras 7-3; membership suspended 7-4, Zelaya return blocked 7-5, 460A1, D1 Caracas mayor (Ledezma) hunger strike ends 7-8, 494B1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks fail 8-24—8-25, 575B2 Emergency mtg held 9-21, 643D2–E2 Diplomats Honduras entry nixed, emergency mtg held 9-27, 661F3–G3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks held/exit warned, failure seen 10-7—10-23, 762F3 Honduras pres electn monitors nixed 11-10, 784A3 Honduras pres electn held 11-29, 634A2

ORGANIZATION of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Actual output avg rptd 3-13, 486E2 Output levels retained 3-25, 180B2 Output retained 5-28, 486C2 Oil-field investmt forecast cut 7-9, 486E2 Gas intl cartel mulled 9-7, 616F3 Output retained 9-9, 900G3; 12-22, 900G3

ORGANIZED Crime—See under CRIME ORIGINAL Copasetics (dance group) Brown dies 8-21, 612B3

ORION (U.S. spacecraft series)—See SPACE ORLOV, Oleg Alleges activist (Estemirova) slaying Kadyrov role, suit opens 7-16—7-20, 497D1–E1 Kodyrov libeling ruled, damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2

ORMOND, Julia Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

OROBATOR, Samantha Pleads guilty, sentncd 6-3; UK transfer set, arrives 7-27—8-7, appeal filed 12-8, 933D2

ORPHAN (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532C2

ORPHANS‘ Home Cycle (play cycle) Opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

ORR, Colton Among NHL penalty minutes ldrs 4-12, 299C3

ORSER, Leland Taken on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

ORSZAG, Peter (White House budget director, 2009- ) Confrmd OMB dir 1-20, 26C3 Testifies to House com 3-3, 126D1 Fed contractors review ordrd 3-4, 126A2 On Obama proposals deficit forecast 3-20, backs Cong blueprints 3-25, 180C3, 181C2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C2 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424A3 On fscl ‘09 deficit forecast cut, 10-yr hike 8-25, 571A1–B1 On health care reform Sen bill cost estimate 10-7, 676G2 In health care reform bills merging talks 10-14, 698G2 On fscl ‘09 deficit 10-16, 713E1 In Afghan strategy mtg 11-23, 809D3

ORTEGA, Kenny Michael Jackson’s This Is It on top-grossing film list 10-28—10-29, 772D2

ORTEGA, Luisa Introduces ‘media crimes’ bill 7-31, 576C1

ORTEGA Saavedra, Daniel (Nicaraguan president, 1985-90/2007- ) Sees Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) 6-29, 438E2 Denies Honduras border troops deploymt 7-5, 460C1 Term limits nix sought/backed by Sup Ct, cong debate declined 10-15—10-28, 784B3

ORTEZ Williams, Carmen Eleonora Ousted 8-13, 575D3

ORTIZ, David ‘03 positive test rptd 7-30, 530E3 On ‘03 positive test 8-8, 691B1

ORTIZ, Edilberto Berrio Chrgd, held 9-28, 12-3, 927F2

ORTIZ, Guillermo On ‘09 GDP forecast 1-27, 83F1

Replacemt (Carstens) named 12-9, 929D1

ORTIZ, Michael Body IDd 1-13, 247G3

ORTON, Kyle Traded to Broncos 4-2, 299F1

ORWELL, George (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-50) Amazon e-bks deleted 7-17, 782F1

ORZA, Gene Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test rptd 2-7, admits use 2-9, 87B2–C2, F2

OSBORNE, William DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425D3–G3, 426D1

OSBURN, Steve Seeks client (Roeder) necessity defns use 11-23, 832E3

OSCAR Foundation Protests held 3-5, ldrs slain, targeting alleged/probe urged 3-5—3-6, 203C1–D1, G1–A2

OSGOOD, Chris Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1, E1, A2–B2

OSHA—See OCCUPATIONAL Safety & Health Administration OSMENT, Emily Hannah Montana on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

OSTROM, Elinor Wins Nobel 10-12, 694B2–C2

OSTROM, Vincent Wife wins Nobel 10-12, 694E2

OTELLINI, Michael Antitrust suit filed 11-4, 800B3–C3

OTERO, Maria Named Tibet spec coordinator 10-1, hosts Dalai Lama 10-5, 712E3

OTHMAN, Ibrahim Claims Israel/Syria air strike site missile facility 2-24, 465C3

OTIS, James Gandhi belongings auctn halt ordrd 3-3, items sold 3-5, 158G1

OTT, Sharon You Nero opens in Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3

OTTAWA Citizen (Canadian newspaper) Libel curbs backed by Sup Ct 12-22, 927F1

OTTER, C. L. (Butch) (Idaho governor, 2007- ; Republican) At natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111B2

OUATTARA, Alasane Pres electn delayed 12-3, 922B2

OUDA, Gen. Ahmed Named Baghdad mil head 12-9, 856C2

OULU, Paul Slain 3-5, probe urged 3-6, 203B1, E1–F1

OUR Town (play) Revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2

OUTCAST, The (book) Jones on Costa shortlist 1-5, 139E3

OUTLIERS: The Story of Success (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-1, 384B1; 6-29, 452B1; 8-3, 532B1; 8-31, 596B1

OVECHKIN, Alexander NHL goals ldr, among power-play/game-winning goals ldrs/wins Richard Trophy 4-12, 299F2, A3–B3 Capitals exit playoffs 5-13, 420C2 Wins Hart, Pearson Trophies 6-18, 435E2

OVENDEN, Julian Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

OWEN, Clive Intl on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2 Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

OWENS, Bill Scozzafava backs House bid 11-1; Biden stumps 11-2, elected 11-3, 755E2, F3–756A1, E1

OWENS, Terrell Cowboys cut, release mulled 3-5—3-11, joins Bills 3-7, 176E1

OWL City (music group) ‘Fireflies’ on best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

OXFAM International Sudan group ousted 3-4, 122E2 Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681G1–B2

1134 OXFORD— OXFORD University (England) Walcott exits poetry prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364A2 Dahrendorf dies 6-17, 452E1 Kolakowski dies 7-17, 516E3 Iran’s Kordan named spec inspector 7-26, 519D1 Cohen dies 8-5, 580F2

OXYGEN US terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244E2 Gulf of Mex ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 696A3*, C3 Moon water confrmed 11-13, 824F2, A3

OYLER, Raymond Convctd 3-6, sentncd 6-5, 539E3 Sentncd 6-5, 920F2

OZAWA, Ichiro Hosts US’s Clinton 2-17, 109G1–A2 Okubo held 3-3, indicted, denies allegatns 3-24, 252E2, A3 Drops party ldrship 5-11, Hatoyama elected 5-16, 342C2–G2 Parlt electns held 8-30, 581C2, 582C1, F2 Named party secy gen 9-4, 625A1–B1

OZBEK, Selcuk At Strauss-Kahn address, throws shoe/held 10-1, 675A1

OZEN, Ceylan Summoned 10-15, 755B1

OZONE EPA ‘08 smog rules mulled 9-16, 781E2

OZTURK, Mehmet Tanker seized/sentncd, freed 8-14—9-8, 607F1–A2

OZUCELIK, Yalin When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, 451C3

FACTS PADEL, Ruth Walcott exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12; elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364A2–D2

PADILLA, Jose Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129D3 CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289D3 Detentn suit upheld 6-12, 428F1, D2–F2

PADILLA, Vicente Dodgers lose pennant 10-21, 752A2, D2

PADRON, Cecilio Juan Kidnapping suspects chrgd, held 9-28, 12-3, 927G2

PAES, Leander Wins French Open doubles 6-6, 399C1 Loses Wimbledon mixed doubles 7-5, 467A3 Loses US Open mixed doubles 9-10, wins men’s doubles 9-13, 631E2

PAETRO, Maxine Swimsuit on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

PAGAN, Angel Among NL 3B ldrs 10-6, 690E3

PAGAN, Lisa Brings kids to Fort Benning, mil svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267A1

PAGE, Anthony Waiting for Godot revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2

PAGE, Bettie (Mae) (1923-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

PAGE, Cristen Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

PAGE, Jimmy Plant wins Grammys 2-8, 88A2

PAGE, Larry Motwani found dead 6-5, 452G3

PAGLIUCA, Stephen 4th in Sen seat Dem primary 12-8, 848E2

P PA (Palestinian Authority)—See PALESTINIANS PAABO, Svante On Neanderthal genome draft 2-12, 280F1–A2

PACE, Calvin Suspended 7-2, 632A2

PACHAURI, Rajendra Sets climate chng data manipulatn probe 12-5, on scientists leaked e-mails 12-8, 841C3, 842A1

PA Child Care LLC Juveniles sentnc kickback judges suspended 1-26, pleads guilty 2-12, 247A2

PACIFIC Investment Management Co. (Pimco) Banks’ troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 178B1

PACIFIC Islands Forum Fiji const nix questnd 4-11, 252B1 Fiji ouster set 5-2, 852C2

PACIFIC Ocean Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7A2, C2

PACIFIC Tsunami Warning Center (Hawaii) S Pacific warning issued, rescinded 9-29, 662C3

PACKAGING—See CONTAINERS PACQUIAO, Manny Stops Hatton, wins IBO title 5-2, 384D2, A3 Mayweather decisns Marquez 9-19, 647E2 Stops Cotto, wins WBO title 11-14, 895B2 Mayweather fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2

PADALECKI, Jared Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

PADALKA, Gennady Flies Soyuz missn, intl space statn stay opens 3-26—3-28, 239A3* Returns to Earth 10-11, 731C2

PADCO (Planning and Development Collaborative International) Darfur return seen 6-11, 446C2

PAHLAVI, Shah Mohammed Reza (Iran) (1919-80) US talks mulled 2-10, 86A2 Tehran protests turn violent, arrests rptd 12-7—12-8, 856F3 Montazeri dies 12-20, 896B3 Protests turn violent 12-27, 940E2

PAHOR, Borut (Slovenian premier, 2008- ) Hosts Croatia’s Kosor, lifts EU entry block 9-11, 628C2

PAINT Industry Iceland govt protested 1-21, 52G3 Ssangyong factory raided 8-4—8-5, 787E1 UK’s Brown expenses repaymt sought, OKd 10-12, 727B3

PAINTING & Sculpture Putin painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71C3 Dallas’s Nasher Ctr dir (Strick) named 1-30, 120D2 Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; St Laurent/Berge trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, Chinese buyer reneges, sale nixed 3-2—3-3, 159G3, 160F1 Iraq natl museum reopened 2-23, 118G1 Hirshhorn dir (Koshalek) named 2-26, 160F2 NYC spring auctns held 5-5—5-14, 953B2 Chicago museum extensn opens 5-16, 953B3 Greece Acropolis Museum opens, Elgin Marbles return sought 6-20, 449B2–F2 Philly Art Museum dir (Rub) named 6-29, 516G1 Szaggars weds Redford 7-11, 516E1 Cafritz house blaze destroys trove 7-29, 548A3 Bradford/Downes/Utterback win MacArthurs 9-22, 671A2, E2 Gap founders art trove relocatn set 9-25, 708B3 NYC fall auctns held 11-3—11-12, 953E1–F1 Armenian arts ctr opens 11-8, 953A3 Rome museum (Maxxi) launched 11-14, 953F2 Iraq museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838A1 Eight Elvises ‘08 $100 mln sale rptd 11-26, 953A2 Warhol musical (Pop!) opens 12-3, 954C2 Old Master records set in London 12-8—12-9, 953D2–F2 Obituaries Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1 Colescott, Robert H 6-4, 420D3 Cowles, Fleur 6-5, 420E3

Duckworth, Ruth 10-18, 772E1 Flanagan, Barry 8-31, 648E2 Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Javacheff, Jeanne-Claude 11-18, 824E3 Jones, Jennifer 12-17, 896F2 Levine, David 12-29, 955E2 Lord, James 8-23, 672G2 Sharrer, Honore D 4-17, 348E3 Spero, Nancy 10-18, 824G3 Van Bruggen, Coosje 1-10, 56F3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3 Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40F3

PAISLEY, Brad Wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

PAK, Se Ri Yang wins PGA Champ 8-16, 563F2

PAKHOMOV, Anatoly Sochi mayoral electn held 4-26, win rptd, exit poll runoff claimed 4-27, 328C2–E2 Nemtsov files mayoral electn suit 5-14, 379C1

PAKISTAN, Islamic Republic of African Relations Somalia forgn fighters seen 5-15, 341C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan transport route reopened 1-2, 39C1 Afghan copter crash kills 1 1-17, 54C3 Afghan regional security talks mulled 1-27, 54E2 Afghan supply route bridge reopens 2-6, 103F1 Afghan/US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 78B3, 79B2 Afghan violnc kills 20 2-11, 102F2 Afghan Taliban talks mulled 3-8, 195F1 Afghan terror attack ISI role alleged 3-19, 229F1 Afghan Taliban united front set 3-27, US strategy chngd, plan hailed 3-27—3-28, 194G2, B3, 195B1 Afghan/US mil cmdr (McKiernan) ousted 5-11, 317E1 Afghan border violnc kills 29 5-28, US cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381C1, E3 Afghan/US air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434F2 Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3–E3, 435A1 Afghan border troops deployed 7-2, 466A1, C2 India party ldr (Singh) ousted 8-19, 791E2 Afghan troops hike mulled, threats IDd 9-20, 635D1, E2–G2 Afghan violnc kills scores 10-2—10-8, 674B2, D2, F2 Afghan fertilizer stash seized 11-11, 775C3 Afghan’s Karzai sworn 11-19, 805E3 US/Afghan troop hike set 12-1, 12-2, 825F1–A2, 826B2–C2, C3, 827D1–E1 Afghan, Guardian rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2 Afghan CIA base blast kills 7+ 12-30, 899D1–E1 Civil Strife Tribal areas violnc kills 86 1-9—1-11, 39B1 Triabal areas violnc kills 52 2-6; hostage tapes issued, Chinese engineer freed 2-8—2-14, Malakand Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102B3, 103F1–C2 Tribal area blast kills 28+ 2-20, 138E3 Tribal areas militant cease-fire declared/extended, defeat claimed 2-23—2-28, 138D2 Protests turn violent/suspects held, rallies banned 3-11—3-15, Sharif house arrest ordrd, defies 3-15 3-11—3-15, 175F1, F2 ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904D1 Tribal areas girl whipping tape aired 4-2, probe ordrd 4-6, 229B2 Baluchistan separatists seized/found dead, riots kill 1 4-2—4-9, 276E3 Tribal areas militants arrival rptd/violnc kills 20+, Zardari role questnd 4-14—4-22, dists seized, Buner truce signed/army dispatched 4-21—4-23, 276D1, F1, A3 Islamabad mosque cleric (Aziz) freed on bail 4-15, 276E2 Tribal areas militants exit faked, blast kills 12 4-24—4-25; mil offensives open, Buner control regained/troops hike mulled 4-26—4-29, captives held, freed 4-28—4-29, 298B1, F1 Islamic militants threat seen 4-29, 285F2 Karachi violnc kills 34+ 4-29—4-30, 315B3 Tribal areas peace talks fail 5-2—5-3; clashes kill scores, curfew lifted 5-3—5-6, civilns flee, mil offensive launch formalized 5-5—5-7, 314D3

ON FILE

Tribal areas displacemts/deaths tallied, aid sought 5-2—5-21; Taliban peace deal support polled, army missn opens/hailed 5-11—5-19, curfew lifted 5-15, 346E1, A3 Tribal areas violnc kills 38, Mingora control regained 5-27—5-30, students seized, freed 6-1—6-2, 382A2, G2, F3–G3 Tribal areas violnc kills scores, Taliban role claimed 6-5—6-17, permanent mil force seen, operatn preparatns ordrd 6-12—6-16, 418C1, D2, F2, B3 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424D3 Tribal areas violnc kills scores/militants deaths tallied, truce abandoned 6-23—7-8, 466C3, G3 Tribal areas refugees return set/opens, returns tallied 7-9—7-27; UN ofcl slain, Bhutto assassinatn probe arrives 7-16, Mehsud eliminatn sought 7-27, 514C1, C3–D3 Sharif hijacking chrgs cleared 7-13, 514G3 Musharraf summoned 7-22, skips Sup Ct appearnc 7-29, 515D1 Gojra riots kills 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612F1 Musharraf ‘07 emergency order ruled illegal 7-31, 530A3 Tribal areas rockets launched 8-11, clashes erupt 8-12, 533C3, 534A1 Tribal areas violnc kills scores, bodies found 8-15—8-25, 578E1 Violnc kills scores, Khyber civilns exit seen 8-27—9-14, Swat militants capture rptd 9-11, 630F2, D3–E3 Taliban cmdr (Qasab) held/dies, violnc kills scores 9-16—9-26, Inter-Risk ofc raided 9-19, 669E3, 670A1–C1 Taliban clashes mulled, violnc kills scores 10-4—10-15; Army hq seized, captives held/freed 10-10—10-11, prisoners exchng sought 10-12, 694F2, 695B1 Tribal areas mil operatn launched/backed, violnc kills scores 10-17—10-22, tribes deals rptd 10-19, 709A1, D2, 710A1, E1; map 709E1 Mil captures Kotkai, tribal areas offensive casualties tallied 10-24, 737B3 Army ofcr attacks hurt 1 10-27—11-6, tribal areas mil offensive hike urge mulled 11-16, progress seen 11-17, 806F2, 807C1 Taliban ldr (Mehsud) bounty set 11-2, 769F1 Violnc kills scores 12-4—12-8, 858G1 Tribal areas violnc kills scores, civiln deaths tallied 12-22—12-27, 947F1–B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Zardari amnesty ends 11-28, 839E1 Zardari illegal assets rptd 12-15, amnesty nixed 12-16, 878E2 Defense & Disarmament Issues N Korea A-program uranium warning issued 1-7, 36D1 Mil ldrship govt cooperatn claimed 1-7, 39B2 Khan release ordrd, freed 2-6, restraints cont 2-9, 75C2 Missile test held 4-23, 630F3 A-program Sen com hearing held 5-14, hike seen, denied 5-19—5-20, 346E3 Khan movemt limits lifted, reinstated 8-28, 9-1, 595A1 US antiship missile chngs alleged 8-30, 630F3 Iran A-program aid revealed 8-31, 600D1 A-arms security mulled 10-11, 695F1 A-arms control transferred 11-27, 839A1 Economy & Labor Jobless rate concern polled 5-11, 346G2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Intell agency govt orders claimed 1-7, 39B2 European Relations Italian ID theft suspects held 11-21, 821F2–G2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Munich Security Conf held 2-8, 74B1 US/Afghan mtg held, regular talks seen 2-24—2-26, 138D3 Zardari sees US ofcls, Afghan’s Karzai 5-5—5-6, 315F1 Afghan/Iran summit held 5-24, 370F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E3 Natl security adviser (Durrani) fired 1-7, 39C2 Sharif pol return block denied, banned/protests held 2-25—2-27, 138F1 Tribal areas rules OKd 3-4, 138E2 Info min (Rehman) quits 3-13; Sharifs pol ban mulled 3-14, Sup Ct justices reinstated, move hailed 3-16, 175E1, C3–D3, 176B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-13, 235B2 PPP/PML-N coalitn mulled 3-19; Chaudhry returns to Sup Ct, Sharif pol ban overturned 3-22—3-31, Punjab exec rule lifted 3-28, 228C2

2009 Index Tribal areas Islamic law deal passes parlt, signed 4-13, 275E3 Tribal areas Islamic law ct opens 5-2, recognitn nixed 5-3, 315C1 Zardari support polled 5-11, 346G2 Sharif electn ban lifted 5-26, 383F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735C2 Zardari nixes resignatn 12-16, 878C3 Immigration & Refugee Issues US immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 French camp raided, migrants held 9-22, 666F1 Indian Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E2 Mumbai attacks ‘agencies’ role seen 1-5—1-6, suspect (Kasab) citizenship confrmd 1-7, 39F1 Mumbai terror attacks planning admitted, suspect capture rptd 2-12; threat seen 2-13, CIA intell sharing bared 2-16, 103C2 Mumbai terror attacks gunman (Kasab) chrgd 2-25, 158D1 Cricket tourn hosting nixed 3-22, 275A3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect arrest rptd 4-13, 276D3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) trial opens 4-17, pleads not guilty 5-6, 417F3 Mumbai terror attack suspect (Saeed) release ordrd 6-2, 383A1 Zardari sees Singh 6-16, 418E3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) confesses, death penalty mulled/trial cont 7-20—7-23, Gillani sees Singh 7-26, 499C3–E3, 500A1 Mumbai ‘03 bombers convctd, sentncd 7-27—8-6, 594G3 Mumbai terror attack suspects trial set, Saeed arrest nixed 9-19, Qureshi sees Krishna 9-27, 669C2–E2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821D2 Singh backs peace talks, China role mulled 11-23—11-24, 810B1–C1, A2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects chrgd, pleads not guilty/trial opens 11-25—12-7, 845E1, G1–C2, G2 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) acct chngd 12-18, 946G1 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2 Middle East Relations Iran mosque blast kills 25 5-28, 398C1 Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649F2, 650B2 Iran blast role denied, intell links claimed 10-18—10-19, 729F1–G1 Iran border guards held, freed 10-26—10-27, 941F2 Monetary Issues Inflatn concern polled 5-11, 346G2 Muslim Cartoons Controversy Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect chrgd 12-7, 845D2 Press & Broadcasting Geo broadcast halted 3-13, 175B3–C3 Religious Issues Islamabad mosque cleric (Aziz) addresess followers 4-17, 276G2 Sports NZ cricket tour nixed 3-3, 138C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US drone strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10; bin Laden son locatn mulled 1-16, Al Qaeda members held 1-21, 38A3, F3–G3 Lashkar-e-Taiba crack down rptd 1-15, 39D2 US drone missile strike kills 20 1-23, 69G3 Afghan supply route bridge destroyed 2-3, 69D3 US drone strikes scored, kill 60 2-10—2-16, 103D1–E1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 CIA operatns cont 2-25, 138B3 US detainees renditns UK aid admitted 2-26, 150A3, F3 Sri Lanka cricket team attack kills 8+, arrests mulled/security questnd 3-3—3-4, 137D3 US drone missile strikes hike seen 3-18, 229F1 Violnc kill scores, attacks claimed/threats issued 3-23—4-5, US drone missile strike launched 4-1, 228B3, 229G1, C2, F2, B3 UK suspects freed 4-22, 272E3 UK ‘05 blasts suspects cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310B3 US drone missile strikes support polled 5-11; mil jt missns seen 5-12, video footage aid rptd 5-14, 346B3 Lahore blast kills 24 5-27, attack claimed 5-28, 382B3

—PALIN US’s Obama visits Saudi/gives Egypt address, bin Laden tape aired 6-3—6-4, 368B2, 369A1, A2–B2 US drone missile strike kills 5+ 6-14, 418G1–A2 Sri Lanka cricket team attack suspect held 6-17, 595C1 US drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466E2 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut 6-23, 473F3 Saudi royals/charities, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491C3 Rawalpindi blast hurts 30 7-2, 467C1 US/Russia cooperatn sought 7-7, 454A3 Punjab blast kills 9+ 7-13; bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, Fazlullah health status rptd, cleric (Muhammad) held 7-23—7-26, 514D2, F2, F3 Militants battle backed 7-17, 486C2 US drone missile strikes kill 20+ 8-5—8-11, Mehsuds deaths mulled 8-7—8-10, 533A1, G1, F2 Suspects torture UK role denied 8-9—8-10, 544C2, E2 Taliban’s Muhammad held 8-17, ldrship successn mulled, Mehsud slaying confrmd 8-19—8-25, 577E3 US drone missile strikes Xe work seen 8-21, 586E3–F3 Tajik ‘90s attackers sentncd 8-31, 765D1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C1, D2–E2 US drone missile strikes kill 2 9-7—9-17; Lashkar-e-Taiba ldr (Saeed) chrgd 9-18, movemts ltd, cont threat seen 9-21-9-30, 669A2, F2, 670D1 UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626A2 US bomb plot suspect (Zazi) denies terror link 9-15; questnd/plea deal mulled 9-16—9-18, held, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641D3, F3, 641A2 US benchmarks issued 9-16, 635F3 US suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833F2 US drone missile strikes support polled 10-1; Taliban’s Mehsud tape issued, doubted 10-5—10-6, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder (Saeed) chrgs dropped 10-12, 696B1, B3 Qaeda threat cut 10-4—10-6, 673C3, 674C1–D1 UK suspects assets freeze case heard 10-5, 686G1 Blasts kill 11 10-16—10-20, 710D1 Australian plotters convctd 10-16, 930B2 Blasts kill 116+ 10-23—10-28, US drone missile strike launched 10-24, 737A1, 738B1; photo 737F1 Al Qaeda fight mulled 10-30, blasts kill 35 11-2, 769C1, C2 Blasts kill scores 11-8—11-18, 806F3 US citizens arrive, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/video detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held 12-10, 857G3 CIA operatns hike rptd 12-2, 827G1–A2 Blackwater drone missile strikes deal nixed 12-11, 883D1 Islamic militant (Saifullah) sought 12-12; US citizens deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 878F3 US drone missile strike rptd, Karachi blasts kill 30 12-26—12-28, 946F3, 947A2 Trade, Aid & Investment US aid hike sought 2-10, 103B1 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 US Cong com hearings held 4-2—4-3, 229A1 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242A2 Intl aid conf held 4-17, 276B3 US aid hike sought 4-30—5-5, 315D2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3 US refugees aid vowed 5-19, 346A2 US suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355A2 US nonmil funds passes House 6-11, tribal areas civiln aid sought 6-15, 418C2, F3 SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406F2 US aid bill passes Cong 9-24—9-30, 669F3 US aid mulled 10-6—10-16, bill signed 10-14, 695A2 US aid vowed 10-28, 737B2 US ‘10 aid clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 UN Policy & Developments Refugees aid chief (Solecki) seized 2-2, 69E3 Afghan security conf held 3-31, 195A2 Refugees aid chief (Solecki) found alive 4-4, 229E2 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675G2 Zardari addresses Gen Assemb 9-25, 652F1 Tribal areas dvpt programs cut 11-2, 769F1–G1

Staff exit set 12-30, 947D1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sens Biden, Graham visit 1-9, 16C2 Spec envoy (Holbrooke) named 1-22, 29A3 Holbrooke visits 2-9—2-12, 103B1 Panetta/Holbrooke/Mullen visit 3-21—4-5, 229G1, A3 Sen Kerry visits 4-14, Mullen sees Kiyani 4-22—4-23, 276F1, D2 Accused of altering U.S. missiles 4-23, 8-30, 630F3 Petraeus visits 5-27, 382D3 Holbrooke visits 6-3—6-5, 419A1; 7-22, 514C2 Holbrooke/McCrystal/Petraeus visit 8-17—8-19, 578D1–E1 Kiyani sees Gen McChrystal 10-6, Qureshi visits 10-12—10-15, 695E2 Sen Kerry, Gen Petraeus visit 10-19, 710A1 Clinton visits 10-28—10-29, 737D1 Clinton visit ends 10-30, 769C2 Jones visits 11-13—11-14, 806D3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28G3–29A1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112F1 Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150B2 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506D1 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337D3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717E3 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found 10-29, 769G1 Cuba base detainees transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760B2

PAKISTAN International Airlines Ofc blast kills 4+ 12-24, 947B2

PAK Ui Chun Hosts France spec envoy (Lang) 11-10, 934A1

PALACE Museum (Beijing, China) Taiwan art loan set 2-16, 310B1

PALACE of Versailles (Paris) Workers strike/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, 876E1

PALAU, Republic of (formerly Palau Islands) Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C2; 10-1, 735C2 UN Policy & Developments US/Cuba cont embargo backed 10-28, 784D1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, 391B2, A3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717G3 Cuba base detainees transferred, support rptd 10-31—11-1, China oppositn seen 11-2, 760G1

PALEONTOLOGY Murphy admits pvt property fossils find 1-22, pleads guilty 4-14, 280B2 Neanderthal genome draft completed 2-12, 280E1 Early primate fossil rptd, unveiled 5-15—5-19, 952B2 T rex predecessor fossil found 9-17, 670D3 Human predecessor skeleton displayed 10-1, 691D2 Human predecessor Ardipithecus fossil rptd 10-1, 691E2 Early primate fossil, human link questnd 10-21, 952E2

PALESTINIAN Center for Human Rights Gaza invasn casualties tallied 3-26, 210A1

PALESTINIANS (including PLO) Aid & Development Issues Gaza humanitarian crisis denied 1-1; corrider opening set 1-6, UN operatns halted, Red Cross workers block claimed 1-8, 1C2, 2F1–G1, E2–F2 Refugees crisis seen 1-12; Iran aid ship blocked 1-13, hosp med supplies mulled 1-13—1-14, 13B3 Gaza blockade end sought/denied, reconstructn aid mulled 1-18—1-20, Arab League summit held, EU funds nixed 1-19, 31D2, G2

1135

Victims aid appeal airing nixed, shown 1-22—1-26; border crossings entry mulled 1-23, Hamas funds set 1-25, 42F2, A3–C3 Europn aid ship blocked 2-5, 157A3 Gaza UN shipmt seized, aid halted/cont 2-6—2-9, entry sought 2-10, 86E1 Intl aid conf held 3-2, 123A2, C2–D2 Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242A2 US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488C3 Forgn aid lack seen 9-16, 615A1 Gaza water shortage seen 10-27, 754D3 Arts & Culture Tamer Institute wins Lindgren award 3-24, 255D3 Youth orch Holocaust survivors concert held/scored, dir (Youni) banned 3-25—3-29, 209A3 Awards & Honors Rights activist (Jabarin) W Bank exit blocked 3-10, prize presented 3-13, 210F3 Contested Territories—See ARAB-Israeli Developments; MIDDLE East Peace Talks Education Gaza schls, Holocaust teaching scored 8-31, 615D1 Factional Strife Hamas, Fatah talks open 3-10, 157D1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196C3* Hamas/Fatah talks end 4-28, 313E2 Hamas/Fatah talks sessn ends 5-18, 345A2 Hamas/PA forces clash, protests held 5-31, 380E3 W Bank clash kills 3 6-4, 403E3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US spec envoy (Mitchell) visits 1-29, 42C2–D2 US’s Mitchell visits W Bank 1-29—1-30, 157D2 US’s Baird/Ellison/Kerry visit Gaza 2-19, 157E2–F2 US’s Clinton visits W Bank 3-4, 123D3–F3 UK MP (Galloway) Canada entry nixed 3-20, 413F1 Abbas visits Iraq 4-5, 228F1 US’s Mitchell visits 4-17, Obama/Abbas mtg invite set 4-21, 313E1 Abbas visits US, sees Obama 5-28, 380F2–G2 US’s Mitchell visits 6-10, 403G2 US’s Carter visits Gaza 6-16, 546D3 Iran annual rally held 9-18, 645B3 Egypt’s Hosni, Achille Lauro hijackers escape aid alleged 9-19, 675C3 Abbas visits Brazil 11-12, 885G1 Hamas war crimes com, Europn attys ties rptd 12-21, 884F2 Egypt/Gaza border wall mulled 12-21—12-22, 945F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Fayyad, cabt quit 3-7, 157C1 Fayyad sworn premr 5-19, 345F1 Fatah conf held, Abbas reelected ldr/central com vote held 8-4—8-11, 545A3 Electns set 10-23, Abbas doubts reelectn bid 11-5, 754F2 Abbas reelectn bid urged 11-7; Arafat death anniv marked 11-11, electns delayed 11-12, 790B3–C3 Hamas founding anniv marked 12-14, Abbas term extended 12-16, 945B3–C3 Obituaries Hout, Shafiq al- 8-2, 548C3 Peace Initiatives—See MIDDLE East Peace Talks Religious Issues Pope Benedict visits W Bank 5-13, 335B1, C3 Sports Soccer natl team friendly lost 7-13, 483C2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Obama mulls Iran ties 2-9, 78C2 US terrorist (Jassem) freed 2-19; deported 2-26, arrives in Sudan 3-3, 411B3 Leb refugee camp blast kills 4 3-23, 211E1 Holy Land ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914B2 US aid suspects chrgd 7-27, 679A1 Gaza Islamists clash kills 22+ 8-14—8-15, 563F1 KindHearts assets freeze nixed 8-18, 678E3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) evidnc posted 9-18, 636G2 Cuba base detainee Hungary transfer seen 9-30, 718D2 Leb/UK rptr (Collett) body find rptd 11-23, 877F3 Cuba base detainee transferred 12-1, 861D2 Leb blast kills 2+ 12-27, 945E2

PALIN, Bristol Johnston breakup rptd 3-11, 160D2 Mom scores Johnston Playgirl shoot 11-16, bk published 11-17, 797F1, B2

1136 PALIN— Johnston mom sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3

PALIN, Sarah (Alaska governor, 2007-09; Republican) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Pres electn electoral coll votes certified 1-8, 6F1 At natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111B2 Daughter/Johnston breakup rptd 3-11, 160D2 Bk deal revealed 5-12, 455C3 Letterman regrets daughter joke 6-15, 455C3 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537C3 Questns health care reform ‘death panels’ 8-7, 551C3 Visits HK 9-23, 639E1 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31, 756B1 Interviewed 11-16—11-17; bk published 11-17, opens tour 11-18, 797D1 Johnston mom sentncd 11-20, freed 12-21, 954B3 Going Rogue on best-seller list 11-30, 840B1; 12-21, 956B1

PALIN, Todd Wife sets resignatn 7-3, 455F2

PALIN, Willow Letterman regrets joke 6-15, 455C3

PALLONE Jr., Frank (U.S. representative from N.J., 1988- ; Democrat) Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720A2

PALMA, Ernesto Alonso Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

PALMER, Richard Details future business plans 11-4, 758E2

PALMOR, Yigal On Pope Benedict Palestine remarks 5-13, 335F3

PAMUK, Orhan Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, protectns urged 10-14, 706D3–E3

PANABAKER, Danielle Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

PANAMA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Leb ship sinking kills 12+ 12-17, 943D2 African Relations Somalia pirates seize cargo ship (Navios Apollon) 12-28, 903D2 Crime & Civil Disorders Colombia kidnapping suspects chrgd 9-28, held 12-3, 927G2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C2 Facts on Martinelli 5-3, 308A1 Pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 308F3 Martinelli sworn pres 7-1, 493A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735D2 Latin American Relations Honduras pres electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 634B2 Monetary Issues SFG bank seized 2-18, 148G2 Obituaries Endara, Guillermo 9-28, 672E2 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190F3 Trade, Aid & Investment US trade rep nominee (Kirk) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182C1 US trade deal passage seen 4-23, finalizatn sought 5-4, 309E1–F1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden sees rep 3-30, 205A1

PAN-American Health Organization US sets antiviral drug (Tamiflu) donatn 7-2, 502D2

PAN American World Airways (Pan Am) Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, appeal dropped 8-17—8-18, freed, returns to Libya 8-20, 550B1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, Libya welcome scored/cancer prognosis doubted 8-21—8-25, 567B3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 583A1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, oil deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636C2, F2

PANCHARATHNAM, Kumar Surrender rptd 4-22, 277A2

FACTS PANDIT, Vikram On Citigroup split 1-16, 32B2–C2 Testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 Ouster push seen 6-5, 388C1–D1

PANETTA, Leon E. (U.S. CIA director, 2009- ) CIA dir apptmt seen, questnd 1-5, Obama calls Feinstein/Rockefeller, backing set 1-6—1-7, 5C3 Financial disclosure forms issued, CIA dir Sen com hearing held 2-4—2-6; nominatn backed 2-11, confrmd 2-12, 93C3 Pakistan predator campaign to continue 2-25, 138B3, D3 Visits Pak 3-21, 229A3 Shuts secret prisons 4-9, 262A3–E3 Interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257D1 Questns terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info 5-5, 323G1 Sees Pak’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 315D2 Shuts planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14, previous halts rptd 7-15—7-16, 473A3–C3, 474A1–B1, D1, A2 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20, Blackwater role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21, 586A3, D3 On terror detainees interrogatn abuses ‘04 rpt, vs spec prosecutor apptmt 8-24, 565E2 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes release nixed 9-30, 719F1 Blackwater drone missile strikes work nixed 12-11, 885C1–D1

PANG, Danny SEC chrgs filed 4-27; held 4-28, clients losses tallied 6-25, 506E3 In hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1

PANITCHPAKDI, Supachai Rptd UNCTAD secy gen 1-1, 3A2

PANKOV, Nikolai On mil gens proficiency tests 4-28, 328B3

PAPACONSTANTINOU, George Named finance min 10-6, 686C3 On deficit woes 12-9, 856C1

PAPADOPOULOS, George (1919-99) Makarezos dies 8-3o, 564C3

PAPANDREOU, Andreas George (1919-96) (Greek premier, 1981-89/93-96) Son sworn premr 10-6, 686E3

PAPANDREOU, George (Greek premier, 2009- ) Parlt electns held 10-4, sworn premr, names cabt 10-6, 686A2, C3–D3; photo 686A3 Facts on 10-6, 686E3 Credit watch set, rating cut 12-7—12-8, 856A1 Vows budget deficit cut 12-14, 875D2–E2, G2–B3 ‘10 budget passes parlt 12-24, 938A1–B1

PAPANDREOU, George (1888-1968) (Greek premier, 1963-65) Grandson sworn premr 10-6, 686E3

PAPELBON, Jonathan NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483E3 Among AL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G2

PAPER (& Paper Products) AbitibiBowater bankruptcy filed 4-16—4-17, 413E1 S African workers stirke 7-20, 526D1 Barrett wins MacArthur 9-22, 671A2

PAPOULIAS, Karolos (Greek president, 2005- ) Acropolis Museum opens, seeks Elgin Marbles return 6-20, 449B2–C2

PAPUA New Guinea, Independent State of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Li visits 11-3—11-5, 802B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D2; 10-1, 735D2

PAQUIN, Anna Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2

PARADE (magazine) Lukins dies 8-30, 648C3

PARAGUAY, Republic of Defense & Disarmament Issues Cmdrs fired/replacemts sworn, coup plot denied 11-4—11-6, 818F1 Energy Brazil dam power deal set 7-25, 508F2 Power outages hit 11-10, cause mulled 11-11, 871D3

Family Issues Lugo paternity suit filed 4-8; admits illegitimate child 4-13, further allegatns mulled 4-20—4-24, 294A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D2; 10-1, 735E2 Latin American Relations Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 UNASUR summit held 8-10, 541C3 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3

PARANA River Brazil/Paraguay dam power deal set 7-25, 508G2 Power outages hit Brazil, Paraguay 11-10, 871F3

PARANORMAL Activity (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772B2

PARDO, Bruce Victims IDd 1-13, 247F3, G3

PARDO, Orlando Luis Detentn, abuse alleged 11-6, 928C1

PARDO, Sylvia (d. 2008) Body IDd 1-13, 247G3

PARENTS and Parenting—See FAMILIES PARIS Bourse (stock exchange) Index drops 11-26, 829D1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900A3

PARISE, Zach Among NHL pts/goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3

PARIS Perfect (racehorse) 3d in Dubai World Cup 3-28, 347B3

PARISSE, Annie Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3

PARIS-Sud University (France) D’Espagnat wins Templeton Prize 3-16, 191A3

PARK, Capt. Convctd, sentncd 5-5, 311F3

PARK Chung Hee (1917-79) (South Korean president, 1961-79) Lee Hu Rak dies 10-31, 955D2

PARKER, Annise Earns Houston mayoral runoff 11-3, 756F3 Wins Houston mayoral runoff 12-13, 868F3–869C1

PARKER, Candace Gives birth 5-13, returns 7-5, 808D1

PARKER, Jack Boston U wins NCAA title 4-11, 299G3–300A1

PARKER, Mary-Louise Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

PARKER, Sarah Jessica Surrogate twins born 6-22, 516F1 Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

PARKER, Willie Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70D3

PARKINSON, Mark (Kan. governor, 2009- ; Democrat) Sworn gov 4-28, 285B3

PARKS, Rosa (Rosa Louise McCauley) (1913-2005) Hoose wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860E1

PARKS & Recreation Areas Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65F1, B2 US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94C1–D1 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3 Myanmar blasts hit 3-3, 188G1 Natl parks gun rule blocked 3-19, measure clears Cong, signed 5-12—5-22, 354F2–G2 Kyrgyz protests held 3-27, 252C3 DC ‘tea party’ protest held 4-15, 242F3 S/N Korea jt industrial park talks held 4-21—4-22, deals nixed 5-15, 342F3 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416B3 NPS dir (Jarvis) named 7-10, 491D1 Calif budget cuts signed 7-28, 503C3 Hyundai chair (Hyun) visits N Korea, border curbs eased 8-10—8-17, 558B1, D1–E1 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781A3 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802E2 N/S Korea mil communicatn lines upgrade set 12-22, 934A1 Obituaries Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2

ON FILE

PARK Yeon Cha Roh wife paymts admitted 4-7, 360G3–361A1

PARNELL, Sean Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455A2

PARNELL, Stewart Pleads 5th to House com hearing, e-mails issued 2-11, 95C3–E3

PARNEVIK, Jesper Woods affairs alleged 11-25—12-1, 839C3

PAROUBEK, Jiri Topolanek govt confidnc vote passes parlt 3-24, 188E2 Fischer named interim premr 4-9, 225B1

PARREIRA, Carlos Alberto Named S Africa coach 10-23, 859B2

PARRETT, Rebecca Sentncd 3-27, 539B3

PARRISH, Col. Patrick Blocks, OKs Cuba base detainee atty (Kuebler) ouster 4-7, 10-7, 719D1

PARROTT, Travis Wins US Open mixed doubles 9-10, 631F2

PARSONS, Richard D. Named Citigroup chrmn 1-21, 32D2

PARTON, Dolly 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

PARTY in the U.S.A. (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

PARVA, Michael Irena’s Vow opens on Bway 3-29, 256D1

PARVANOV, Georgi (Bulgarian president, 2001- ) Seeks Borissov govt coalitn sought 7-16, 482D2 Swears premr (Borissov), cabt 7-27, 576G3

PASHA, Gen. Ahmed Shuja On intell agency govt orders 1-7, 39B2 Hosts US’s Holbrooke 4-7, 229A2

PASQUA, Charles Sentncd 10-27, Chirac backing claimed 10-29, 765B3–E3

PASQUALE, Steven Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1

PASSCHENDAELE (film) Genies won 4-4, 280B1

PASSPORTS—See VISAS PATAKI, George E. Drug laws reform passes legis/signed, sentncs cut rptd 3-4—12-18, 919F3 Scores NY gov race Obama interfernc 9-20, 639B3

PATCH, Harry (Henry John) (1898-2009) Dies 7-25, 516F3

PATEL, Dev Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

PATEL, Ebrahim Named S Africa econ dvpt min 5-10, seeks job creatn 5-13, 325F2, A3

PATENTS & Trademarks Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 151B1 Business methods patent case accepted by Sup Ct 6-1, 374E1 Microsoft word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911G3–912A1

PATERNITY Paraguay’s Lugo suit filed 4-8; admits fathering illegitimate child 4-13, further allegatns mulled 4-20—4-24, 294A3

PATERNO, Joe Fla State’s Bowden sets retiremt 12-2, 879E3

PATERSON, David (N.Y. governor, 2008- ; Democrat) Kennedy drops Sen seat bid 1-22, 32E3, G3 Names Rep Gillibrand to Sen 1-23, 46E2–F2 House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201F1 Long Island floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917D2 Introduces gay marriage bill, mulls passage 4-16—4-17, 266B2–E2 House seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared 4-24, 292C2 Signs drug laws reform 4-24, 919D3 Urges gay marriage bill Sen vote 5-17, 353G1 At Silverstein/Port Auth mtg 5-21, 620A3 Names lt gov (Ravitch) 7-8, 524E3 Delays gay marriage bill vote 7-10, 505E2 WTC site arbitratn sought 8-4, 620C3 Rep Maloney nixes Sen seat bid 8-7, 537D3

2009 Index Marks 9/11 8th anniv 9-11, 620C2 Reelectn bid mulled, Lazio sets run 9-14—9-22; Obama interfernc scored, visits 9-20—9-21, lt gov (Ravitch) apptmt upheld 9-22, 639G1–E2, A3–D3 At USS NY commissioning 11-7, 914D3 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-16, 793C2 Giuliani gov, Sen bids nixed 11-19—12-22, 908G3–909A1 Gay marriage bill nixed 12-2, 832B2

PATEY, Sir William Testifies in Iraq war probe 11-24, 821D1

PATHIK, Judge Devendra Named Fiji high ct judge 7-1, 510B2

PATHMANATHAN, Selvarasa Sees defeat 5-17, denies Prabhakaran death 5-19, 333B3, 334D1 Sees violnc end, confirms Prabhakaran death 5-24, 363E1–G1 Named LTTE ldr, held 7-21, 8-6, 578D3

PATRIC, Jason My Sister’s Keeper on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

PATRICK, Ben Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70C2, C3

PATRICK, Danica 3d in Indy 500 5-24, 363A3 Sets NASCAR Natnwide Series role 12-8, 950C2

PATRICK, Deval (Mass. governor, 2007- ; Democrat) Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2 Universal health care suit filed 7-15, 520D3–E3 Sen seat successn law chng sought 8-19, backs legis 8-27, 570F1–G1 Sets Sen seat spec electn 8-31, 584F2, A3 NY gov race Obama interfernc scored 9-20, 639B3 Sen seat apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, names Kirk 9-24, 638F1, B2, D2 Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848D2

PATRIOT Act—See USA Patriot Act PATRUSHEV, Nikolai Mulls A-strikes 10-14, 706C1–D1

PATTAKOS, Stylianos Makarezos dies 8-3o, 564C3

PATTERSON, Floyd (1935-2006) Johansson dies 1-30, 88G3

PATTERSON, James Run For Your Life on best-seller list 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1 8th Confessn on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1 Sail on best-seller list 6-1, 384C1 Swimsuit on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1 Quickie on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1 Alex Cross’s Trial on best-seller list 9-28, 672A1 Cross Country on best-seller list 11-2, 772C1; 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1 I Alex Cross on best-seller list 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

PATTINSON, Robert Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

PATTON, Gen. George S. (1885-1945) D-Day anniv marked 6-6, 386C2

PATTON, Paula Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

PAUL, Chris NBA assists ldr, among scoring ldrs 4-15, 278F2, A3–B3

PAUL, Les (Lester William Polsfuss) (1915-2009) Dies 8-13, 564F3

PAUL, Ronald E. (U.S. representative from Tex., 1976-77/79-85/97- ; Republican) Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2 Vs Tibet repressn end urge 3-11, 172E1

PAUL Blart: Mall Cop (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

PAULSON Jr., Henry (Hank) (U.S. treasury secretary, 2006-09) FDIC chair (Bair) post cont 1-7, 6E2 Bank of Amer/Merrill buy defended 1-16, 32E1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291A2, E2–G2 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-11, 388F1, B2–C2 Testifies to House com 7-17, 504E1

PAULSON, Kenneth Quits 2-1, 913E2

—PENNSYLVANIA PAULUS, Diane Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

PAUSCH, Randy (Randolph Frederick) (1960-2008) Last Lecture on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1; 6-29, 452B1

PAVIC, Milorad (1929-2009) Dies 11-30, 955C3

PAVKOVIC, Nebojsa Convctd 2-26, 110F1

PAVLE, Patriarch (1914-2009) (Serbian Orthodox Church) Dies 11-15, 822C2

PAVLIK, Kelly Stops Espino, retains WBC/WBO titles 12-19, 895G2

PAVLOVIC, Sasha Traded to Suns 6-25, 451C2

PAVLYUK, Gennady Dies in fall, bound hands/feet rptd 12-16—12-22, travel mulled, Bakiyev role denied 12-22—12-23, 935F1–B2

PAWLENTY, Tim (Minn. governor, 2003- ; Republican) Nixes reelectn bid 6-2, certifies Franken Sen seat win 6-30, 441F1, G2 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455C2 Addresses Values Voter Summit 9-18—9-19, 639D1

PAX Koreana US missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933B3–C3

PAXSON, John Forman named Bulls GM 5-20, 419D3

PAYETTE, Julie Flies Endeavour missn 7-15—7-31, 519A2

PAYMENT Card Industry Security Standards Council Credit card theft curbs hiked 7-16, 554G1

PAYNE, Donald M. (U.S. representative from N.J., 1989- ; Democrat) Visits Somali, plane attacked 4-13, 238G2–A3

PEACE and Punishment (book) Hartman contempt found, fined 9-14, 628C1

PEACE Corps, U.S. Indonesia return mulled 2-18, 109F2

PEANUT Butter—See NUTS PEANUT Corp. of America Salmonella-linked peanut butter recalls set 1-11—1-28, Ga plant source confrmd, violatns rptd 1-21—1-27, 49E3 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63E1, G1–A2, C2 Salmonella linked peanut butter House com hearing held 2-11; Tex/Va plant shut, recall set 2-12—2-13, bankruptcy filed, illnesses/deaths tallied 2-13—2-19, 95B3–C3, E3–F3 Tex plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2, A3

PEARCE, David CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, 65B3

PEARL, Daniel (1963-2002) Pak/Polish hostage (Stanczak) beheading tape issued, confrmd 2-8—2-9, 103B2

PEARN, Perry Fired 2-23, 159D2

PEARSON, James Blackwood (1920-2009) Dies 1-13, 56F2

PEARSON, Sybille Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348G1

PEARSON v. Callahan (2009) Utah cops drug dealer home entry upheld by Sup Ct 1-21, 48F3

PEAVY, Jake Traded to White Sox 7-31, 531G1

PECHEROV, Oleksiy Traded to Timberwolves 6-23, 451D1

PECK, Judge Andrew Holds Somali pirate ct hearing 4-21, 269E2

PEDRAZ, Judge Santiago Reinstates Iraq rptr slaying US troops chrgs 5-21, 344E3 Drops US troops, Iraq rptrs slaying chrgs 7-14, 483C2

PEDROIA, Dustin Exits World Baseball Classic 3-15, 190F2 AL runs ldr, among 2B ldrs 10-6, 690E2–F2

PEEK, (Lawrence) Kim (1951-2009) Dies 12-19, 955C3

PEER, Shahar UAE visa denied, Barclays Dubai Champ open 2-15; US broadcast nixed 2-16, ‘10 event mulled/fine issued 2-16—2-20, Roddick sets boycott 2-21, 138G3–139B1

PEET, Amanda 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

PEGG, Simon Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

PELI, Oren Paranormal Activity on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772B2

PELL, Claiborne deBorda (1918-2009) Dies 1-1, 9D3

PELL Grants—See EDUCATION—Tuition PELLICANO, Anthony Assocs sentncd 3-3—3-9, 247B3

PELLIZOTTI, Franco Named Tour de France top climber 7-26, 515E2

PELOSI, Nancy (U.S. representative from Calif., 1987- ; Democrat) Awards & Honors At abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiling 4-28, 300E2 Awards Lantos prize 10-6, 712F3 Budget & Spending Programs Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144D2 Backs Soc Sec $250 paymt proposal 10-14, 714B2 Crime & Law Enforcement Backs hate crimes bill 10-8, 700G3 Tex mil base shooting Sen com hearings open 11-19, 813D1 Economy & Labor Seeks tax cuts repeal 1-8, 7C1 On Obama mtg 12-9, 847B1 On financial indus reform bill 12-11, 865G1 Environmental Issues On emissns cap bill 3-31, 201B3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd 4-19; House com chair threat revealed 4-21, briefing admitted 4-22, 263B2–C2, A3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role briefing delay rptd 4-24, 306D2 Family Issues On DC gay marriage recognitn block 5-5, 304C2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section On Afghan troop levels 9-10, 629E3 On Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613D2 Hosts Canada’s Harper 9-17, 643E1 Questns Afghan’s Karzai 10-6, 673D1 On Afghan troop levels 11-24, 809B3 Iraqi Conflict On troops Aug ‘10 exit 2-27, 121C2 Visits 5-10, 330B3 Medicine & Health Care On health care reform vote 7-22, 487C2 Sen health care reform measures nixed 9-29, 655B3 Health care reform bills mulled, seeks cost analysis 10-7—10-8, 676C3–D3 Backs health care reform pub option 10-20, 713F3 Unveils health care reform bill 10-29, 740A3, D3, 741C1 Sees RC bps anti-abortn assoc dir (Doerflinger) 11-6, health care reform passes 11-7, 773D1, D2 On health care reform Sen bill 12-10, 863B3–C3 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906E1, C2 Politics Facts on 1-6, 4A1 Reseated speaker 1-6, 5D1 Honors Rep Dingell 2-10, 146C3–E3 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106A1 Swears NY rep (Murphy) 4-29, 292C2 Rep Rangel com chair ouster fails 10-7, 679A2 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F2 Religious Issues Visits Vatican, sees Pope 2-18, 132A3 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Backs Bush admin policies indep probe, CIA interrogatns ‘02 briefing rptd 4-22, 261A1, G2

1137

Detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, techniques use mulled 5-7—5-14, 322F3 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefings mulled 6-23—7-14, 474F1

PELTON, Charles Sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 479B1–C1

PENA, Carlos AL HR ldr 10-6, 690E2

PENCE, Michael (U.S. representative from Ind., 2001- ; Republican) Seated GOP Conf chair 1-6, 5E1 Urges’green jobs’ adviser (Jones) resignatn 9-4, 602F2 At conservatives Capitol rally 9-12, 619E3

PENDERGEST-Holt, Laura Indicted 5-12, pleads not guilty 6-25, 457C2

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction O’Neill wins 2-25, 160B2

PENN, Arthur Brother dies 10-7, 692D2

PENN, Irving (1917-2009) Dies 10-7, 692D2

PENN, Robin Wright State of Play on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

PENN, Sean Wins Natl Film Critics award 1-3, 24A3 Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40A2 Wins Oscar 2-22, 120F1

PENNER, Mike (Michael) (1957-2009) Dies 11-27, 880E2

PENNINGTON, Chad 2d in NFL MVP voting 1-2, 55C2

PENNSYLVANIA Arts & Culture Philly Art Museum dir (Rub) named 6-29, 516G1 Rosand sells violin for $10 mln, sets donatn 10-22, 752A3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse, Gannett Fleming setlmt rptd 3-26, 357A3 PNC Financial stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1 Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges suspended 1-26; plead guilty 2-12, suit filed 2-13, 247F1, A2 Juvenile ctrs owner, builder plead guilty 7-1—9-2, judges plea deals nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, 869E3, 870A1 Crime & Law Enforcement Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65F1 Juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judge cases review spec master named 2-11, convctns nixed 3-26, 247D2 Pittsburgh gunman kills 3 4-4, racist postings rptd 4-7, 246B3 Collier Township gym gunman kills 3, self 8-4; guns buy rptd 8-7, grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554A2 Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, 620D3 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620G1, D2 Juvenile convctns nixed 10-29, 869A3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect warning rptd 11-13, 833A1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section G-20 protesters clash, summit hosted 9-24—9-25, 651F1, D2 Labor & Employment Defns ‘10 funds pass House 7-30, 523E3 AFL-CIO conv held 9-15, 617F3 Medicine & Health Care Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302A1 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Obituaries Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Wyeth, Andrew 1-16, 40F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Matthews nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5A3 Obamas travel to DC 1-17, 28C1 Toomey sets Sen seat bid 4-15, Specter switches parties 4-28, 284A2, A3–C3 Electn results 11-3, 756G3 Obama visits Allentown 12-4, 846C2 Press & Broadcasting Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168A1 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1

1138 PENNSYLVANIA— Religious Issues Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473D1 Social Issues Philly daycamp kids visit Huntingdon Valley swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Huntingdon Valley swim club bias found, fine set 9-22, 916G2 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1, G1 Steelers win AFC champ, Eagles exit playoffs 1-18, 39E2, A3, D3–E3, 40A1 Steelers win Super Bowl, mark set 2-1, 70B1, B2, B3; photo 70E1 Penguins, Flyers make playoffs 4-12, 299A2 76ers make playoffs 4-15, 278G1–A2 Flyers exit playoffs 4-25, 420D2 76ers exit playoffs 4-30, 419B3 Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 419D3, 420A1, C2 US Women’s Open results 7-12, 595E1 Little League World Series results 8-30, 612D2 NFL season opens 9-10, 631B3 Phillies win divisn 9-30, 690E1, A3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 751C3, 752F1, D2 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770C1–G3 Eagles clinch playoffs bid 12-20, 947E3 Welfare & Social Services Poverty rate rptd 9-29, 798E1

PENNSYLVANIA State University (University Park) Rose Bowl lost 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23G3–24A1, C1 Men’s basketball wins NIT tourn 4-2, 230D2–E2 Maybin in NFL draft 4-25, 298F2 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579F3–G3 Shapiro wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

PENNY, Ian Named NHLPA interim exec dir 8-31, 731A1

PENSION Benefit Guaranty Corp., U.S. (PBCG) (of Labor) Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679G2

PENSIONS & Retirement Budget & Spending Programs Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 Business/Labor Issues French unions strike held 1-29, 68G2 GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62D2 UAW auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92C3 RBS ex-CEO (Goodwen) pension return mulled 2-26—2-27, 155D2 Ford/UAW deal chngd 3-9, 184C1, F1, A2 RBS ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207C2 Postal svc cuts House com hearing held 3-25, 324G3 GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197F2, F3, 198B2 Chrysler/UAW deal chngd 4-29, debt-for-cash swap nixed 4-30, 283C1, G1 GM bankruptcy declared, govt stake set 6-1, Chrysler reorgn plan appeal filed 6-4, 365F2, 366B1, 367A2 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld 6-5—6-9, 385A2 Delphi bankruptcy exited 10-6, 679D2, F2–G2 French museum workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, Pompidou Ctr reopens 12-17, 876E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges plead guilty 2-12, 247A2 Madoff client investmt find nixed 2-20, 113C2 WG Trading investmt fraud suspects held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141D1 Quadrangle pub funds paymt suspects chrgd 3-19—4-15; Obama auto indus task force head (Rattner) linked, backed 4-17, Searle role rptd, NYS reforms set 4-20—4-22, 265A2, F2, A3, E3 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, Ill pension reforms signed 4-3, 219B1, F1 Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 475F3 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 441B3 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506C3 Auto task force chief (Rattner) quits 7-13, 475E3 AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nix upheld 8-31, 585G3

FACTS Family Issues Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150E1 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338A1, C1 People Gay Air Force ofcr (Witt) ouster block appeal deadline passes 5-3, 392F2 Reform Plans Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27B2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106G3 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 273D1 Bosnia, IMF loan OKd 5-5, 343C1 Universal health care taxes opposed 5-6, 340A1 Argentina cong electns held 6-28, 446F3 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C2

PENSKE, Roger Saturn buy nixed, closure set 9-30, 679B3–C3

PENSKE Automotive Group Inc. Saturn buy set 6-5, 475B3 Saturn buy nixed, closure set 9-30, 679B3–C3

PENTAGON—See DEFENSE, U.S.; for terrorist attack, see under WASHINGTON, D.C. PEOPLE for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Iditarod dog deaths probe urged 3-24, 211C2 Md cops spying curbs pass legis, signed/enacted 4-8—10-1, 919A3 NFL’s Vick signs Eagles deal, joins practice 8-13—8-15, 564B2

PEOPLE‘S Bank of China Forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440B2

PEOPLE‘S Friendship Unviersity (Russia) Venez’s Chavez addresses 9-9, 616G2

PEPPERDINE Univeristy (Malibu, Calif.) Calif gay marriage ban ct ruling hailed 5-26, 353A1

PERABO, Piper Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1

PEREIRA, Raimundo (Guinea-Bissau interim president, 2009- ) Sworn pres 3-3, seeks intl aid 3-4, 134B1 Electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458C3

PERELLA, Joseph Wasserstein dies 10-14, 731F3

PERES, Shimon (Israeli prime minister, 1984-86/95-96; president, 2007- ) At World Econ Forum, in Turkey’s Erdogan clash 1-28—2-1, 58A3–C3 Parlt electns held 2-10, results issued 2-12, 85C3 Seeks Netanyahu govt 2-20, 118C3 Iran message aired 3-20, 179C2 Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209A3 Hosts Pope Benedict 5-11—5-15, 335A2, 336D1 Hosts US’s Mitchell 6-9, 403G2 On Gaza war crimes rpt 9-16, 614F2 On troop (Shalit) release 9-30, 689A3 Urges Abbas reelectn bid 11-7, 790C3 Visits Brazil 11-19, 885A2

PEREYRA, Iris Son slaying suspects convctd, sentncd 8-13, 925C3

PEREZ, George Chrgd, held 11-13, 800E1

PEREZ, Pablo Seaport seizure ordrd 3-15, 204A3

PEREZ, Pat Sets Bob Hope Classic opening rounds mark 1-21—1-22, wins tourn 1-25, 139A2

PEREZ Balladares, Ernesto (Panamanian president, 1994-99) Endara dies 9-28, 672F2

PEREZ Molina, Otto Urges Colom resignatn 5-11, 377E1

PEREZ Roque, Felipe Ousted, Castro power grab denied 3-2—3-3, 134E2–F2, B3 Resignatn rptd 3-5, 249B2

PERFECT Poison, The (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

PERJURY—See under CRIME PERKINS, Maj. Gen. David On violnc drop 2-22, 118A1 Sets Sep ‘09 troops cut 3-8, 156E1–A2

On Iraq violnc drop 3-25, 189A3; 3-26, 209C1 On Iraq clinic shooting suspect 5-11, 330D2

PERKINS Coie LLP Bauer named White House counsel 11-13, 797F3

PERLE, George (1915-2009) Dies 1-23, 72F2

PERLMAN, Arthur Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

PERLMAN, Yitzhak At Obama inauguratn 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

PERMANENT Court of Arbitration Sudan region control deal set 6-23, 431A1 Sudan N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507B3–C3 Chevron files Ecuador judicial system claim 9-23, 724A1 Yukos shareholders damages bid OKd 11-30, 892E3

PEROT, Ross (Henry Ross) Dell/Perot Systems buy set 9-18, 660D1

PEROT Systems Corp. Dell sets buy 9-21, 660C1

PERRIELLO, Tom (U.S. representative from Va., 2009- ; Democrat) Emissns cut oppositn letters found 6-24—8-18; ACCCE disavows 8-3, Cong notificatn timeline questnd 8-5, 655B1

PERRY, Rev. Bonnie Named Minn bp 8-1—8-2, 539A2

PERRY, Kenny Wins FBR Open 2-1, 139G1 Loses Masters 4-12, 255G1 Wins Travelers Champ 6-28, 563E3 Tour Champ results 9-27, 670B2

PERRY, Matthew 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

PERRY, Nanceen ‘00 Olympic relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

PERRY, Rick (Tex. governor, 2000- ; Republican) At natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111B2 Seeks Mex border troops 2-25, 171D1 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185E3 Backs state secessn right 4-15, 869E1 Hutchison sets gov bid 7-13, 503D2 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537C3 Executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd 8-17; replaces forensic comm members 9-30—10-8, role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700A2–B2 White sets gov bid 12-4, 869D1, F1

PERRY, Tyler Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

PERSHING LLC Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148E1

PERSIAN Gulf War (1991) NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373G1 Iraq reparatns cut sought 6-18, 433D3 Iraq sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498B1 US MIA troop (Speicher) remains found 8-2, 720E3 UK/Iraq war probe opens 11-24, 821D1

PERSONNEL Management Obama staff pay frozen 1-21, 29B1 NYS ex-health comr (Novello) authority abuse rptd 1-27, 64B3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Iraq/US emb overstaffing rptd 7-22, 498B2

PERSONNEL Management, U.S. Office of (OPM) Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 847B3–D3 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904F2, 905B3

PERU, Republic of Corruption & Ethics Issues Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508A2 Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682E2

ON FILE

Crime & Civil Disorders Indigenous protests emergency declared 5-9; clashes kill 31+, cops role cited 6-5—6-6, ldr arrest sought, disappearncs rptd 6-6—6-7, 394C3 Protests turn violent 6-12, crack down probe urged 6-19, 431C3 Protests held, arrests rptd 7-7—7-8, 481F1 Body fat slayings alleged 11-19, police ofcl (Murga) fired 12-1, 930D1 Economy & Labor Gen strike held 7-7—7-8, 481F1 Environment & Pollution Amazon dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17; repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, 431C3, D3, F3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132B2 US spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622D1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US/Colombia mil base use mulled 8-10, 541E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E2 Simon sets resignatn 6-16, Garcia support polled 6-21, 431G3, 43C12 Velasquez named PM, cabt shuffled 7-11, 481C1, F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735E2 Human Rights Fujimoiri convctd, sentncd 4-7, 222D3 Latin American Relations Venez’s Rosales arrives 4-19, pol asylum OKd, amb recalled 4-27, 326B2, E2 Indigenous unrest Venez/Bolivia influence seen 6-7, ldr (Pizango) seeks Nicaragua pol asylum, OKd 6-8—6-9, 394G3–395A1 Bolivia amb recalled, Morales scored 6-16, 432A1–B1 Honduras pres electn held, govt recognitn mulled 11-29—12-1, 634B2 Monetary Issues SFG businesses seized 2-19, 148G2 UN Policy & Developments Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2

PESANTEZ, Washington On bribery tapes 8-31, ousts Chevron suit judge (Nunez) 9-4, 723C3, F3

PESLIER, Olivier Goldikova wins Breeders’ Cup Turf Mile 11-7, 807E2

PESTICIDES Chem testing ordrd 4-15, 356D3 Brown pelican delisting set 11-11, 918B1

PETER, Paul and Mary (music group) Travers dies 9-16, 632F3

PETERS, Marybeth Testifies to House com 9-10, 601F1

PETERSON, Bob Up on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2

PETERSON, Carl Fired 1-13, 55C3

PETERSON, Collin C. (U.S. representative from Minn., 1991- ; Democrat) Reseated Agri chair 1-6, 5A1 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

PETIT, Philippe Man on Wire wins Oscar 2-22, 120B2 Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2 McCann wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860C1

PETIT, Robert Quits 9-1, 890B2–C2

PETKOFF, Robert Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

PETRAEUS, Gen. David On Afghan transport routes deals 1-20, 39D1 Mulls Iraq troops exit 1-21, 29B2 Afghan regional security talks mulled 1-27, 54F2 At Munich Security Conf 2-8, 74A1 Afghan troops cont stay seen 2-9, 78B3 Seeks Afghan troops hike 4-1, 195A1 Testifies to Cong 4-2—4-3, 229A1 Sees Pak’s Zardari, Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 315D2 Afghan cmdr (McKiernan) ousted 5-11, 317D1, F1 Visits Pak 5-27, 382D3 Sees Afghan violnc rise 6-11, 434B2–C2 Visits Pak 8-19, 578E1 Afghan strategy chng urged 9-1, 593C3 Afghan troop hike sought 9-25, 669A1 Cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720D2 Visits Pak 10-19, 710A1 Visits Tajik 10-26, 765B1 Testifies to Sen com 12-9, 844A3

2009 Index On Iraq/UK hostage (Moore) kidnapping Iran role 12-13, 942B2

PETRO-Canada Suncor sets buy 2-23, 204C2

PETROLEO Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) Sinopec/CNPC oil deals signed, China sets reserves exploratn funding 2-19, 197E1–G1 China laon set 5-19, 448C2 Deep-sea oil reserves dvpt limits proposed 8-31, 926F1, A2

PETROLEOS de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) US low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5, 1-7, 22C2 Oil svc deals cut 3-3, 270G2 Ex-defns min (Baduel) held 4-2, 325A3 Hydrocarbon seizure authrzn passes Natl Assemb, oil assets natlzn set 5-7, 395D1

PETROLEOS Mexicanos S.A. (Pemex) Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605E2 Heroles ousted, Suarez Coppel named 9-7, 605C1

PETROLEUM (& Petroleum Products) Accidents & Disasters Canada copter crash kills 17 3-12; rescue rptd 3-13, sudden oil loss cited 3-23, 413G1 Air Pollution—See ENVIRONMENT Appointments & Resignations Pemex CEO (Heroles) ousted, Suarez Coppel named 9-7, 605C1 Automobile Fuel Issues—See AUTOMOBILES—Fuel Budget & Spending Programs Venez svc deals cut 3-3, 270G2 US forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488D3 Saudi fscl ‘10 budget OKd 12-21, 944C1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Venez seizure authrzn passes Natl Assemb, assets natlzn set 5-7, 395B1 Fed land use royalty paymt woes rptd 9-14—9-15, House com hearing held 9-16, 917E2 Yukos shareholders damages bid OKd 11-30, 892E3 Venez ‘09 GDP rptd 12-29, 929C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Bolivia/US diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204A2 Venez oppositn ldr (Rosales) chrgd 3-19, ex-defns min (Baduel) held 4-2, 326B2, A3 Yukos founder (Khodorkovsky) trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft chrgs dropped 4-1, 199A2 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218D2 Yukos atty (Bakhmina) freed, embezzling suspects plead not guilty 4-21, 328B3, G3 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3, F3 US govt, Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868D2 Exploration & Drilling Bush names marine monumts 1-6, 7A2 Venez/Westn cos dvpt bids sought 1-15, 22F2 Oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe ordrd 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1 US Dec ‘08 leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1 China sets Brazil reserves exploratn funding 2-19, 197F1–G1 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 Alaska land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409B3 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 OPEC investmt forecast cut 7-9, 486E2–F2 Iraq fields dvpt deals signed 11-2—11-5, 789D3–E3 Iraq oil fields dvpt rights auctnd 12-11—12-12, 877A1 Iraq oil fields dvpt deals signed 12-20—12-30, 943B1 Labor Issues Total/Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68A3–C3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Suncor/Petro-Canada buy set 3-23, 204C2 Gazprom/Nigeria jt venture signed 6-24, 455E1–F1

—PHILADELPHIA 1139 Baker Hughes/BJ Svcs buy set 8-31, 660F1 Russia/China refinery jt venture set 10-13—10-15, 739B2 Exxon Mobil/XTO Energy buy set 12-14, 886G3 Offshore & Wilderness Developments Interior secy nominee (Salazar) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17E3 Ukraine/Romania sea border chngd 2-3, 137E1–F1, A2 US offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 131F3–G3 Gov Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 108G2 Calif offshore drilling concessns nixed 7-20, 503B3 Brazil deep-sea reserves dvpt limits proposed 8-31, 926E1 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800E3 US climate chng bill talks sought 11-4, 760C1 Oil Spills & Fires—See OIL Spills People Albania rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2 Political & Legislative Issues US emissns output tracking proposed 3-10, 267C3 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested, regretted 6-12—6-17, repeal urged, passes Cong 6-15—6-18, 431C3, F3 Sudan region control deal set 6-23, 430G3 Sudan N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507D3 Iraq prov autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, 501E1 Iraq’s Maliki/Barzani mtg held 8-2, 530E1 Niger pres term limits hike referendum held, results rptd 8-4—8-7, 574E3 Mex’ Calderon addresses Cong 9-2, 605E2 Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627C2 Gabon pres (Bongo) sworn 10-16, 722A3, D3 Iraq electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789C1 Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) in Saudi hosp 11-23—12-31, 923B1–C1 Sudan successn vote laws pass parlt 12-29—12-30, 924B1, D1 Price & Production Issues—See also ‘Statistics’ below ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10E1 Venez ‘08 econ growth rptd 1-8, 22G2 Russian ruble benchmark set, value drops 1-22—2-2, 69D1 Iraq fscl ‘09 budget cut 1-25, US crude prices rptd 1-26, 54A1 Kazakh tenge value drops 2-4, 68D1 Iran A-bomb dvpt capabilities doubted 3-1, 174F1 Iraq fscl ‘09 budget passes parlt, US crude price rptd 3-5, 156D2 Non-OPEC ‘09 output forecast issued 3-13, 180F2–G2 OPEC actual output avg rptd 3-13, 486E2 OPEC output levels retained 3-15, US crude prices rptd 3-16, 180B2 Venez ‘09 budget chngs set 3-21, cuts vowed 3-22, 270C2–D2, F2 Ecuador pres vote held 4-26, 294G2 US crude prices rptd, OPEC output retained 5-27—5-28, 486C2 US crude price rptd 6-10, 389G1 Iraq auctns fail, BP/CNPC bid OKd 6-29—7-1, 437D2 US crude price rptd 8-12, 535E3 OPEC output retained 9-9, 900G3 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2, A3 IEA oil reserve estimates questnd/defended, annual outlook issued 11-9—11-10, 811F2, E3 Climate chng measures consensus sought 11-10, 828B3 OPEC output retained 12-22, 900G3 US crude prices rptd 12-22, 901A1 Riots & Unrest Nigeria cease-fire ends, tanker/workers seized 1-30—5-13; mil offensive launched, war declared 5-15, violnc erupts/civiln deaths rptd, govt talks sought 5-21—5-27, 358F1, E2, B3–C3 Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3, F3 China ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460F3

Nigeria militia ldr (Okah) freed, amnesty deals OKd/open 7-13—8-6; success declared 8-22, factn violnc return vowed, plans halt urged 8-22—8-24, 574G3 Gabon pres electn protests turn violent, Total workers exit ordrd 9-3—9-5, 604G1, D2–E2 Nigeria militants amnesty program ends 10-4; peace talks held/hailed, cease-fire declared 10-19—11-15, Yar’Adua role mulled, pipeline attacked 12-18—12-19, 923F1, B2–C2 Iran troops cross Iraq border, oil field seized/retreat seen 12-18—12-20, 942F3 Statistics Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6F3 Feb ‘09 financial update 1-25, 2-2, 61F1 Mar ‘09 financial update 2-22, 3-2, 128C1 Apr ‘09 financial update 3-22, 4-2, 198C1 May ‘09 financial update 4-26, 5-1, 304C3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371F3 Jul ‘09 financial update 6-28, 7-1, 442F1 Aug ‘09 financial update 7-26, 8-3, 522C1 Sep ‘09 financial update 8-23, 9-1, 586F1 Oct ‘09 financial update 9-27, 10-1, 657C3 Nov ‘09 financial update 10-25, 11-2, 759C1 Dec ‘09 financial update 11-22, 12-1, 831C1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-21, 12-31, 900F3, 910F3 Tax Issues Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 125C2, G3 Terrorism & Sabotage Saudi seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, 21A2–B2 Rosneft vp son (Stavsky) seized 4-13, kidnapping rptd, confrmd 6-1—6-2, 378F3 Iraq facililty blast kills 11+ 4-15, 254D3 Norway tanker hijacking halted, Somali pirates freed 4-19, 269C3 Iraq attack claimed 4-20, 275A2 Rosneft vp son (Stavsky) freed 6-18, 497A3 Al Qaeda Yemen members sentncd 7-13, 646G1 UK refineries bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C1 Somalia pirates seize oil tanker (Maran Centaurus) 11-30, 903D2 Iraq/Turkey pipeline attack halts exports 12-20, 943D1 Trade & Aid Issues Venez/US low-income aid program halted, cont 1-5, 1-7, 22C2 US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69A3 China’s Hu tours Africa 2-12—2-17, 170F1 Obama visits Canada 2-18, 91C2 Petrobras signs Sinopec/CNPC deals 2-19, 197E1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106E1, 107B1 ASEAN discounted prices OKd 3-1, 135A3 Abbas visits Iraq 4-5, 228G1 Turkey/Armenia ties hike ‘road map’ opposed 4-23, 296B2 Iraq prov export deal set 5-10, 331D2 China/Petrobras laon set 5-19, 448C2 Iraq prov exports open 5-27, 362C3 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416F2 Chevron/USAID/Angola agri deal signed 8-9, 540D2–E2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled 8-24, 568A1, F1, B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 582D3, 583G1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, UK/Libya deal ties seen 9-4—9-5; evidnc posted 9-18, res passes US Sen 9-23, 636D2, C3 China steel pipes duites set 9-10, 615A3 French/Kazakh pipeline deal awarded 10-6, 739E2 Iraq prov oil exports halted 10-9, 730F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release defended 10-12, 704B3 Russia sets Energy Charter Treaty exit 10-19, 892E3 US sets Chinese steel pipe tariffs, protectnism claimed 11-5, 776D1 A-program sanctns extensn passes House 12-15, 876B3 China/Venez deals signed 12-22, 929F2 Russian pipeline opens 12-28, 938G3 US/China steel pipe duties OKd 12-30, 932C1

PETROLIAM Nasional Berhad (Petronas) Iraq oil field dvpt rights bought 12-11, 877D1

Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-20, 943B1

PETROPERU Indigenous clashes kill 31+ 6-6, 394F3

PETROVA, Ludmila 2d in NYC marathon 11-1, 791B3

PETS & Pet Food—See ANIMALS PETTERSEN, Suzann 2d in Corona Champ 4-26, 332B2 Loses Safeway Classic 8-30, 595G2

PETTIE, Darren This opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

PETTIGREW, Brandon In NFL draft 4-25, 298E3

PETTITTE, Andy Rodriguez admits steroids use 2-9, 87A3 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752A1, D1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770D1, G1, E2, A3, F3

PETTY, Richard Inducted to NASCAR HOF 10-14, 860A1

PETZOLD, Marianne Held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, freed 4-22, 326E1

PEUGEOT-Citroen, PSA Govt loans offrd 2-9, 12000 cuts set 2-11, 84G2–B3

PEW Research Center Coll Oct ‘08 student enrollmt rise seen, HS ‘08 drop outs rptd 10-29, 816G3

PEYANKOV, Yasen Superior Donuts opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

PFEIFFER, Dan Named White House communicatns dir 11-10, 797G3

PFIZER Inc. 800 cuts set 1-13, 49A2 Painkiller (Bextra) mktg $2.3 bln setlmt seen, Wyeth buy set 1-26, 49B1 Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 150G3 GlaxoSmithKline AIDS drug partnership set 4-16, 352A2 Antismoking drug (Chantix) warning ordrd by FDA 7-1, 555C2 Drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587F1

PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association)—See GOLF PG&E Corp. Chamber of Commerce exit set 9-22, 654D3

PHAIR, Venetia (Venetia Katherine Burney) (1918-2009) Dies 4-30, 332F3

PHANOR, Stanley Grant Convctd 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374E3 Sentncd 12-19, 914A2

PHANTOM Prey (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384C1

PHARMACEUTICAL Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Health insurnc reforms plan outlined 3-27, 245G2 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3 Medicare price cuts deal set 6-22, 427B2–C2 Medicare drug prices negotiating powers mulled 8-5, 552B1

PHARMACEUTICALS—See MEDICINE—Drugs PHARMACIA & Upjohn Co. Drugs off-label uses mktg chrgs setld 9-2, 587A2

PHEDRE (play) Revival opens in London 6-2, screened 6-25, 451B3

PHELPS, Rev. Fred UK ban set 5-5, 310D2

PHELPS, Michael ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C2 Pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended, Kellogg endorsemt dropped 2-5, 71B2 Pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3 2d in World Champ 200-m freestyle 7-28, swimsuit ban mulled, set 7-28—7-31, 547A3–D3

PHELPS-Roser, Shirley UK ban set 5-5, 310E2

PHIBRO LLC Occidental sets buy 10-9, 742A2–B2

PHILADELPHIA Daily News (newspaper) Bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168B1 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1

PHILADELPHIA Inquirer (newspaper) Bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168B1

1140 PHILADELPHIA— Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1

PHILADELPHIA (Pa.) Museum of Art Rub named dir 6-29, 516G1

PHILADELPHIA Newspapers (of Philadelphia Media Holdings) Bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168B1 Bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1

PHILANTHROPIST, The (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-26, 348D2

PHILANTHROPY Arts & Culture Putin painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71C3 St Laurent/Berge trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, 160B1 Awards & Honors Brinker gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548G1 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals 2-26, 125A2–B2 Obama seeks cuts 4-20, 264C1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Goldman Sachs donatn set 10-15, 715D2 Crime & Corruption Issues Islamic charity warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged 2-11, appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-27—2-28, 243E3–G3 Pak terror group crack down rptd 1-15, 39D2 Madoff client investmts find nixed 1-27, 113C2 Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, 134C2 WG Trading investmt fraud suspects held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141D1 Madoff investor (Picower) claim filed, hiked 5-12—9-30, dies, suit cont 10-25, 800A2 Warrantless spying classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen 5-29, govt sanctns nixed, case upheld 6-3, 410F2 Holy Land ex-ofcls sentncd 5-28, 914B2 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Saeed) release ordrd 6-2, 383C1 Saudi charities, Al Qaeda/Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 9/11 victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491E2–B3 Madoff sentncd 6-29, 441B3 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503G3, 504D1 Chechen charity head (Sadulayeva)/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, 544A3 KindHearts assets freeze nixed 8-18, 678D3 Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593C1 Pa juvenile ctrc builder (Mericle) pleads guilty 9-2, 870C1 Pak extremist ldr (Saeed) banned charity fundraising alleged 9-18, 669C2 Israel’s Olmert graft trial opens 9-25, 689G1 Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 769A1 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 Pak militant (Saeed) chrgs dropped 10-12, 695C3 Iran scholar (Tajbakhsh) sentncd 10-18, 768C1 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit attys clearance order nix sought 11-10, 916B1 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896D1 Israel ex-PM (Olmert) pleads not guilty 12-21, 943A2 Medicine & Health Care Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2 Madagascar ‘catastrophe’ warned 4-23, children risk seen 4-25, 308B3 Operatn Rescue funds lack seen 9-14, 833B1–C1 Obituaries Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2 Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1 Batten Sr, Frank 9-10, 648A2 Fisher, Donald G 9-27, 708B3 Freeman, Betty 1-3, 56G1 Fuller, Millard D 2-3, 72F1 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436F2 Lilly, Ruth 12-30, 955F2 Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 Price, Sol 12-14, 896D3 People Zimbabwe PM (Tsvangirai) car crash kills wife 3-6, 152A3 NFL ex-player (McNair) found dead 7-4, 467D3 Israel’s Ya’alon nixes UK visit 10-5, 689G3 Golfer Woods drops tourn role 11-30, 839D2

FACTS Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842C3 Political Issues Clinton foundatn donors wife interventn rptd 1-13, secy of state confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13—1-15, 16F1 State secy nominee (Clinton) confrmatn vote delayed 1-20, 28A1 Clinton confrmd state secy 1-21, 29G2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late tax paymt rptd, regretted 1-30—2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59C2 US trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2, 182D1 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, tax woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221C1 Obamas/Bidens ‘08 tax returns rptd 4-15, 243C1 Religious Issues Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3 RC/DC social svcs halted 11-11, 832G2–A3 Social Issues NH gay marriage deal OKd/clears legis, signed 5-29—6-3, 371C1

PHILIP, Prince (Duke of Edinburgh) (Great Britain) Hosts Obamas 4-1, 194B2

PHILIP Morris USA v. Williams Denied by Sup Ct 3-31, 246F1

PHILIPPINES, Republic of the Accidents & Disasters Tropical storm Nangka hits, death toll rptd 6-24—6-26, 528G2 Ferry sinking kills 9 9-6; passenger rescued 9-7, probe rpt finished 10-16, 891G1 Storm Ketsana hits, calamity declared 9-26; deaths/missing rptd, aid mulled 9-26—9-29, rainfall estimated 9-28, 664C1–D1, A2 Calamity declaratn expanded/storm Ketsana death toll hiked, displacemts rptd 10-2—10-3; Typhoon Parma hits 10-3, flood waters mulled, aid sought 10-6, 684F2, A3, C3, F3 Landslides/flooding cont, dams released 10-8—10-10; evacuatns rptd, US troops sought/aid mulled 10-9—10-13, displacemts/death tallied, typhoon warning issued 10-11—10-15, 704A1, D1 Storm Ketsana/Typhoon Parma aid sought, anitibiotics use rptd 10-18—10-19; deaths tallied 10-24, Lupit misses, Mirinae hits 10-24—10-31, 890E3 Bacolod City fire kills 17 11-2, calamity declared 11-8, 891F1 Volcano alert level hiked 12-14, evacuatns mulled 12-17—12-22, 891B1 African Relations Sailors Gulf of Aden travel banned 4-20, Somali pirates free chem tanker 4-21, 269B3 Nigeria oil tanker, crew seized 5-13, 358B2 Arts & Culture Mendoza wins Cannes dir prize 5-24, 364B1 Civil Strife Aid workers seized, call Red Cross ofc 1-15—3-19; mil offensive kills 10+, scored 3-16—3-24, hostage threat rptd, freed 3-25—4-2, 205F2 Jolo hostages freed 4-2—4-18; rescue opeartn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415E2 Hostages seized/freed, militants held 5-19—7-12; mil offensive launched/MILF bases captured, violnc kills scores 6-4—7-7; peace talks urged, cease-fire set/opens 7-16—7-24, 527E2–528D2 Communists peace talks set 7-8, 528E2 Militant clashes kill 54+, Palawan mosque seized/membership mulled 8-12—8-20, 559C1, G1 Communist militants peace talks delayed 8-28, 820A1 Islamic militant (Sailani) capture rptd/base seized, violnc kills scores 9-1—11-20; combat hike ordrd, casualties tallied 11-9—11-20, peace deal urged 11-13, 819D2–820A1 Irish RC priest (Sinnott) seized, kidnappers surrounded 10-11—10-13; tape issued, ransom nixed 10-31, freed, Islamic separatists release role claimed 11-12, 820B1 Maguindanao violnc kills 57+, militia role seen/disarmamt set 11-23—11-25; rape rptd, emergency declared/cops suspended 11-24, troops deployed, suspects chrgd/held 11-24—11-26, 818C3–819A2

Maguindanao violnc mulled, suspects chrgd/held 11-27—12-9; cops ousted, clashes erupt 12-3—12-10, martial law declared/opposed, Cong jt sessn held 12-4—12-10, 852E2, B3, 853B1, C2 Rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8; prison break frees militants, MILF role denied/talks cont 12-13—12-14, camp attack kills 10 12-15, 890D2, G2 Schl gunmen seize 125, hostages freed 12-10—12-13, suspects chrgd 12-15, 891D1 Martial law lifted, emergency cont 12-12, 874A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E2; 10-1, 735F2 Ampatuans party ouster set 11-25, 819G1 Mangudadatu sets Maguindanao gov bid, govt ouster set 11-27, ARMM control transfer ordrd, acting gov sworn 11-27—12-10, 853A1, A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues US immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 Medicine & Health Care Ebola strain pig-to-human spread rptd 1-23, pigs infectn confrmd 7-10, 528B3 Maguindanao gov (Ampatuan) in hosp 12-6, 853B1 Obituaries Aquino, Corazon C 8-1, 531G2; photo 531A3 Press & Broadcasting Rptrs slain, deaths mulled 11-23—11-25, 819A1 Rptrs violnc protested 11-30, 853E2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Indonesia raid kills 4, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 643G3 Abu Sayyaf alleged co-founder (Latip) held 12-16, 890B3–C3 Trade, Aid & Investment US/Mex pork imports halted 4-27, 282A2 India, Asian Dvpt Bank loan OKd 6-15, 806D2 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748E2 US aid set 11-12, 819B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Marine rapist (Smith) accuser testimony chngd/atty role mulled, probe sought 3-12—3-24, 205F1 Marine rapist (Smith) convctn nixed, freed 4-23, exits 4-24, 309F2 Arroyo visits US 7-30, 528A3 Islamic militants combat cont aid OKd 8-21, 819C2 Clinton visits 11-12—11-13, 819A2

PHILIPPON, Dr. Marc Sees MLB’s Rodriguez 3-4, performs surgery 3-9, 158C3–D3

PHILIPS Arena (Atlanta, Ga.) TI performs 5-24, 364E2

PHILLIES, George Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

PHILLIPS, John (astronaut) Flies Discovery missn 3-15—3-28, 239C2

PHILLIPS, John (1935-2001) Daughter claims incest 9-23, 671F3

PHILLIPS, Jonathan Fla wins BCS Champ 1-8, 23E3

PHILLIPS, Mackenzie Claims dad affair 9-23, 671F3

PHILLIPS, Michael Named ‘At the Movies’ co-host 8-5, 548B3

PHILLIPS, Michelle Denies stepdaughter, husband incest claim 9-23, 671G3

PHILLIPS, Lord Nichols Sworn Sup Ct pres 10-1, 686D1

PHILLIPS, Richard Somali pirates ship hijacking fails 4-8; held/freed, captors slain 4-8—4-12, returns to Kenya port, flies home 4-16, 237B1, C2, E2–F2, C3, 238D1–F1 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269C2

PHILLIPS, Todd Hangover on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

PHILOSOPHY Venez protests held 9-5, 616G3 Obituaries Brand, Myles N 9-16, 648B2 Cohen, Jerry 8-5, 580F2 Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 451G3 Jaki, Stanley L 4-7, 256C3 Kolakowski, Leszek 7-17, 516E3 Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1

ON FILE

Naess, Arne 1-12, 56D2

PHISH (music group) Opens reunion tour 3-6, drug confiscatns rptd 3-9, 176F2

PHOEBE (Saturn moon) Giant ring find rptd 10-7, 731A2

PHONOGRAPHIC Industry, International Federation of the Sweden file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284D1

PHOTOGRAPHS Burris 1-6, 3E3 Obama inauguration 1-20, 25E1 Updike 1-27, 56B3 Super Bowl 2-1, 70E1 Madoff 3-10, 141E1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina, Ravalomanana 3-17, 168A3, 169A1 Italy earthquake 4-6, 224E1 S Africa’s Zuma 4-25, 292E3 Sen Specter 4-29, 284E2 Justice Souter 5-1, 301E1 Judge Sotomayor 5-26, 349F1 Iran pres electn, protests 6-12—6-18, 401F1, 402A1, 403E1 Iran’s Khamenei 6-19, 421E1 Jackson 6-25, 436A3 McNamara 7-6, 468E3 Cronkite 7-17, 500A3 Cunningham 7-26, 516C2 Aquino 8-1, 531A3 Afghan pres electn 8-20, 549F1 Kennedy 8-25, 569F3, 570A1 Japan’s Hatoyama 8-30, 581B3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) 9-24, 643E2 Gen McChrystal 10-1, 674A1 Guinea’s Camara, Konate 10-2, 870E2 Greece’s Papandreou 10-6, 686A3 Iraq blasts 10-25, 738A2 Pak blast 10-28, 737F1 Levi-Strauss 10-30, 772F2 Afghan’s Karzai, Abdullah 11-1—11-2, 753F1, F2 Tex mil base shooting suspect (Hasan) 11-5, 757A3 Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788A1 9/11 plot suspects 11-13, 794A1, A2, A3 White House crashers 11-24, 830A1 Dubai island 11-25, 829E1 Berlusconi attack 12-13, 874E3 Samuelson 12-13, 880F3 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) funeral 12-21, 883E2 Abdulmutallab 12-25, 897E1 UK/Iraq freed hostage (Moore) 12-30, 941E3

PHOTOGRAPHY & Photographers Awards & Honors Farrell/Winter win Pulitzers 4-20, 279E1, C3 Addario wins MacArthur 9-22, 671G1 Boyle/Smith win Nobels 10-6, 694E1 Censorship Issues Iran rptrs ousted, held 6-21—6-23, 421D1 Palin scores Johnston Playgirl shoot 11-16, 797F1 Zambia porn case rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5, escort use claimed 6-17, 463B2–C2, E2 Crime Issues Thai captured refugees mil abuse photos issued 1-15, 52E1 Australian bushfires suspect held, IDd 2-13, 2-16, 98D1 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920F1 Thai royals insulter (Suwicha) pleads guilty, sentncd 4-3, 727C1 NYS immigrant ctr gunman TV channel letter arrives 4-6, 246A3 UK antiterror documt photo block sought/posted, ofcl (Quick) quits 4-8—4-9, raids launched, thwarted plot claimed/suspect freed 4-8—4-11, 253C2 Terror detainees abuse photos release set 4-24, 290E2 US detainees abuse photos release opposed 5-13, 330G3 Obama terror detentn policies questnd 5-21, 337F2 US detainees abuse FOIA omit passes Sen 5-21, 355A2 Detainees abuse photos ban passes Sen 6-17, 425A1 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888B1 Myanmar oppositn members sentncd 7-12, 544A1 Bin Laden recording posted 7-28, 621B2 Pa gym shooter grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554E2 Nazi ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560A2

2009 Index Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd 8-20, 587B1–D1 US cont renditns rptd 8-22, 567G2 US detainee abuse photos release block backed 11-13, 867D2 Somalia forgn rptr (Brennan) freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867G1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845E1 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857B1 Iran’s Khomeini photo destructn scored, suspects held 12-13—12-14, 884B1–C1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) acct chngd 12-18, 946A2 Mex spec forces member (Cordova) buried 12-21, kin slain 12-22, 928F2 Mich flight failed blast claimed 12-27, 898F1 Defense & Security Issues N Korea missile test preparatns seen 2-3, 84F1 LBJ aide (Valenti) FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176A3 Air Force One/NYC flyover pub info release OKd 4-3, White House ofcl (Caldera) informed, reads details 4-20—4-27, 357F3 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 308D1–E1 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357E3 Pak A-program hike seen 5-19, 346F3 Myanmar/N Korea mil ties concern seen 7-22, 495C3 Afghan dying troop/AP photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621A3 Exploration & Research Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss rptd 11-2—11-24, 842E1 Iraq War Coverage US slain troops coffin media ban mulled 2-9, review ordrd 2-11, 79C2 Prison rptr access OKd 2-21, 118B2 War dead coffins return media ban lifted 2-26, 132A1 ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3 Obituaries DeCarava, Roy R 10-27, 771G3 Levitt, Helen 3-29, 212G3 Penn, Irving 10-7, 692D2 Ronis, Willy 9-12, 708E3 Shulman, Julius 7-15, 532F3 Sultan, Larry 12-13, 955E3 Van Es, Hubert 5-15, 348G3 Willoughby, Bob 12-18, 956G2 Wilson, Charis 11-20, 956E3 Political Issues N Korea’s Kim hosts Chinese envoys 1-23, 84A2 Cuba’s Castro photo published 2-17, 575A2 Malaysia state assemb speaker (Sivakumar) ousted, protests held 5-7, 415B1 Libya’s Qaddafi visits Italy 6-10, 416D2 US’s Clinton N Korea visit 8-4, 517F2 Cuba’s Castro photos published 8-23, 575E1 Couple crashes White House, photos issued 11-24—11-27, 829B3 Space & Space Flights Atlantis flies Hubble repair missn 5-11—5-24, 372A3, C3, E3–F3 India unmanned moon satellite (Chandrayaan-1) contact lost, missn ended 8-29—8-31, 612E1 Saturn giant ring find rptd 10-7, 731F1–G1 Sports Swimmer Phelps pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended, Kellogg endorsemt dropped 2-5, 71B2 Swimmer Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3

PHURBU Tsering Rinpoche Trial opens 4-21, verdict delayed 4-27, 327E1

PHYSICIANS—See under MEDICINE PHYSICIANS for Human Rights Gaza invasn abuses alleged 3-23, 210B2 Darfur refugee camps rape rise seen 5-30, 376F1

PHYSICS D’Espagnat wins Templeton Prize 3-16, 191G2–A3 Gromov wins Abel Prize 3-26, 255D3 Hawking gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Rogers wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2 Kao/Boyle/Smith win Nobel 10-6, 694B1

—PLANT French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, Al Qaeda ties probe opened 10-12, 704A2 Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824F1 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2 Dark matter detectn seen 12-17, 952F1 Obituaries Bohr, Aage 9-8, 632E2 Cover, Jack 2-7, 120B3 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Jaki, Stanley L 4-7, 256C3 Katzir, Ephraim 5-30, 384G3 Maddox, Sir John 4-12, 280F3 Rosen, Louis 8-20, 648D3 York, Herbert F 5-19, 400G3

PIAF (play) Roger wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231C2

PIANO, Renzo Chicago Art Inst contemporary wing opens 5-16, 953B3

PICARD, Irving Nixes Madoff client investmts find 2-20, 113E1, A2–C2 Files, hikes Madoff investor (Picower) claim 5-12—9-30, dies, sees cont suit 10-25, 800F1, A2 Banco Santander, Madoff fruad scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2–A3 Files Madoff wife suit 7-29, 603F3

PICASSO, Pablo (1881-1973) Lord dies 8-23, 672G2

PICKENS, Madeleine Wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1

PICKENS, T. Boone Wife wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1

PICOULT, Jodi Handle with Care on best-seller list 3-30, 212A1 My Sister’s Keeper on best-seller list 6-1, 384C1; 6-29, 452C1; 8-3, 532B1

PICOWER, Barbara Husband Madoff investmt claim filed, hiked 5-12—9-30, dies, suit cont 10-25, 800B2

PICOWER, Jeffrey Madoff fraud scheme claim filed, hiked 5-12—9-30, dies, suit cont 10-25, 800A2 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442A3

PIERCE, Antonio Chrgs nixed 8-4, 632B1–C1

PIERCE, Wendell Broke-ology opens in NYC 10-5, 860B2

PIERRE, Juan Among NL steals ldr 10-6, 690F3

PIERRE-Louis, Michele (Haitian prime minister, 2008- ) Intl aid vowed 4-14, 270B2

PIETRANGELO v. Gates Denied by Sup Ct 6-8, 390G1

PIGNATO, Vanda Husband elected pres 3-15, 170G3

PIGOT, Neil When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, 451C3

PIGOTT-Smith, Tom Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

PIGS Swine flu cases confrmd 4-21—4-30; pork trade halted, bans opposed 4-27—4-28, Egypt cull opens 4-29, 281A1–282B2 Canadian swine flu positive tests rptd 5-2, 303F3 Minn pig swine flu positive test seen, confrmd 10-17—10-19, 741E3

PIKE, Rosamund Madame de Sade opens in London 3-18, 256D1

PILGRIMS & Pilgrimages Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4; women shrine visitors banned 1-6, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8D2 Iraq violnc kills scores, Arbaeen marked 2-7—2-17, 101D1, E2 Iraq attackers sentncd 2-26, 122A1 Iraq blasts kills 107+ 4-23—4-24, 296B3, D3 Iran hajj ofcl ouster scored, reinstated 5-4, 362A2 Iraq shrine pilgrimage ends 7-18, Iran convoy attack kills 5 7-22, 498F1 Iraq blasts kill 12+ 8-7, 545A2 Iran A-scientist disappearnc rptd 10-4, 688D1 Saudi swine flu cases tallied 11-29, 944B2–C2

Iraq blasts kill 24 12-24—12-30, 942D3–E3

PILLAY, Navanethem Rptd UNCHR high comr 1-1, 3B2 On Darfur humanitarian crisis 2-3, 116C1–D1 On racism conf documt 4-21, bans nonprofits 4-23, 262E1 On US, Human Rights Cncl electn 5-12, 336C3 Scores Swiss mosque minarets ban 11-29, 837A1 Seeks Uganda rebel ldrs trials 12-21, 924A3

PILON, Benoit Wins Genie 4-4, 280D1

PINAULT, Francois Son weds 2-14, 120E2

PINAULT, Francois-Henri Weds Hayek 2-14, 120E2

PINE, Chris Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

PINELLI, Tullio (1908-2009) Dies 3-7, 192E3

PINERA Echenique, Sebastian Pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, earns runoff 12-14, 871E1–F1, A2–C2

PING, Jean On Madagascar pol crisis 4-30, 308A3 On Somali forgn mil aid request 6-22, 430C2 On Somalia crisis 7-1, 459D2

PINOCHET Ugarte, Gen. Augusto (1915-2006) (Chilean president, 1974-90) Cuba base detainees abuse Spain probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329G1 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884D3 Jara reburied 12-4, 954E3 Ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7; electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871A2, A3

PINTER, Harold (1920-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

PINTO, Freida Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

PIOLI, Scott Named Chiefs GM 1-13, 55C3

PIONEER of the Nile (racehorse) 2d in Kentucky Derby 5-2, 315G3

PIPES, Leah Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

PIQUET, Nelson Son fired, Renault race-fixing probe set 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, team banned 9-21, 646D3

PIQUET Jr., Nelson Fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, Briatore/Symonds quit, team banned 9-16—9-21, 646A3–G3

PIRATE Bay (Web site) Founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284B1–F1

PIRATES & Piracy ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 Somalia anti-piracy intl force set, held ships tallied 1-8—1-9; Saudi tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, missing body found 1-11, 21A2 Somali captured pirates Kenya turn over set 1-26, seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid/freed, paymt mulled 2-5—2-6, 66D3 Somalia antipiracy Japan forces deploymt set 1-28, 76C2 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht (Tanit) 4-4; French commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 237C1, 238G1 Somali pirates US hijackings fail, ships return to port 4-8—4-16; hostage standoff opens/captors slain, capt freed 4-9—4-12, plans mulled, targeting vowed 4-13—4-15, 237A1, A2, 238F2; map 238A1 Somali pirates seize ships 4-14—4-15; ‘mother ship’ captured 4-15, attacks tallied, info sought 4-16, 237E1, 238B3–D3 Somali pirates seize Leb ship 4-14, freed 4-20, 269E3–F3

1141

Norway ship hijacking halted, Somali pirates freed 4-19, 269C3 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2 PI sailors Gulf of Aden travel banned, chem tanker freed 4-20—4-21, 269A3 NATO mulls Somali pirate arrests 4-20, suspects in Kenya ct 4-23, 269D3–E3 Worldwide attacks tallied 4-21, 269G2–A3 Somalia port blockade urged 5-20, 430A3 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes House 6-25, 489C3 Ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27, 616B2 Somalia’s Ahmed addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-25, 652A1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs Seychelles, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2–C2 Israeli arms seizure denied 11-4, 878B2 Somali pirates patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801G2 Singapore ship (Kota Wajar) seized 11-15, 801B2 Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2 US ship (Maersk Alabama) attack repelled 11-18, 801E2 Somalia/UK yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20; ships seized, China ransom paymt claimed/crew freed 11-30—12-28, ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843G2

PITBULL (Armando Christian Rafael Perez) ‘I Know You Want Me’ on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1; 6-27, 452D1

PITT, Brad Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40D1, A2 Curious Case of Benjamin Button on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

PITTSBURGH (Pa.), University of Men’s basketball yr-end rank 3-16; Dixon wins Naismith Award 4-5—4-7, tourn results 4-7, 230G2, A3, D3 Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231B3 Meineke Car Care Bowl won 12-26, 948B3

PIUS XII, Pope (Eugenio Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli) (1876-1958) Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335B2 ‘Heroic virtues’ recognitn signed 12-19, step defended 12-23, 901C3–E3

PIVEN, Jeremy Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2 B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596E1

PIZANGO, Alberto Clashes kill 31+, cites cops role/arrest sought 6-5—6-6, seeks Nicaragua pol asylum, OKd 6-8—6-9, 394E3, G3

PLAME, Valerie (Valerie Wilson) Novak dies 8-18, 564E3 ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815A3–D3

PLAN B—See BIRTH Control PLANCHON, Roger (1931-2009) Dies 5-12, 400E3

PLANCK Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max (Leipzig, Germany) Neanderthal genome draft completed 2-12, 280F1

PLANET 51 (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

PLANET Hollywood Resort and Casino (Las Vegas, Nev.) Miss Amer crowned 1-24, 56E1

PLANETS—See ASTRONOMY PLANNED Parenthood Federation of America Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64B2

PLANNED Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992) Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2, 302A1

PLANT, Robert Wins Grammys 2-8, 88E1, E2–F2 Raising Sand on best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

1142 PLANTADIT— PLANTADIT, Karine Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

PLANTIER, Jean-Christophe IDs HIV subtype 8-2, 580E1

PLASTIC & Reconstructive Surgery Jackson dies 6-25, 436D2 Japan teacher slaying suspect (Ichihashi) held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2 Health care reform Sen bill issued 11-18, 796A3

PLASTICS Boeing 787 Dreamliner test flight held 12-15, 921C2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25, 897C1

PLATH, Sylvia (1932-63) Son kills self 3-16, 192B1

PLATINUM Equity LLC Copley Press buy set 3-18, 167G3 Boston Globe buy nixed 10-14, 912D2

PLATT, Oliver Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3 Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2 2012 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

PLAVSIC, Biljana Release OKd 9-15, 628G1–A2 Freed 10-27, 749B2

PLAYBOY (magazine) Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920D1

PLAYGIRL (Web site) Palin scores Johnston shoot 11-16, 797F1

PLAY On (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840E1

PLAYS—See THEATER PLEASANT Grove City v. Summum (2009) Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3

PLEASE Read the Letter (recording) Grammy won 2-8, 88F1, E2

PLESHETTE, Suzanne (1937-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

PLIYEV, Musa Scores client (Yevloyev) slaying case ruling 12-11, 892E2

PLO—See PALESTINIANS PLUM Creek Timber Co. Fed land road paving request nixed 1-5, 65F2

PLUM Lucky (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72C1

PLUMMER, Christopher Up on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

PLUM Spooky (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

PLURIBUS Capital Management E5/Nielsen publicatns buy set 12-10, 912B3

PLUTO (plutoid) Phair dies 4-30, 332F3

PLUTONIUM N Korea A-program ‘weaponized’ claim rptd 1-17, 35C3, 36B1 N Korea A-program dismantling sought 2-16, 109C1–D1 N Korea A-program facility reopened 4-14, 239B1 N Korea A-program talks dropped, reprocessing cont/activity seen 4-24—5-13, 342A3, C3–D3 N Korea A-program reopening seen 5-27, 351E1 N Korea A-program cont processing vowed 6-13, 404D1 N Korea cont uranium enrichmt seen 6-30, 462G3 N Korea A-program progress claimed 9-3, 600B3 N Korea A-plant cont use seen 10-7, 712D2 N Korea reprocessing rptd 11-3, 763D3

PMA Group Defns ‘10 funds pass 7-30, 523E3 House com probes leaked 10-29, ex-clients defns funding nix sought 10-30, 779E2–A3

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1

FACTS PNM Resources Inc. Chamber of Commerce exit set 9-24, 654D3

POCOCK, Tim X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

PODESTA, John D. Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, 63D1 Visits N Korea 8-4, 517F2–G2 White House visits rptd 10-30, 780D1

POE, Richard Why Torture Is Wrong opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

POETRY Foulds on Costa shortlist 1-5, 140F3 Obama sworn 1-20, 26B2–C2 Grossman wins Bollingen Prize 2-16, 953D1 Kleinzahler/Herrera win Natl Bk Critics Circle awards 3-12, 191G3 Hughes/Plath son kills self 3-16, 192B1 Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) poems publishing punishmt rptd 4-10, 274B3 Ryan renamed US poet laureate 4-13, 280F2 Howe wins Lilly Prize 4-14, 364F1 Merwin wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2, F2 Duffy named UK laureate 5-1, 316G1 Walcott exits Oxford prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364A2–D2 Justice Souter honored 6-29, 443E1–F1 Valentine wins Wallace Stevens Award 9-14, 953B1 McHugh wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Waldron wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860F1 Obituaries Benedetti, Mario 5-17, 364A3 Brutus, Dennis 12-26, 954G3 Carroll, Jim 9-11, 648C2 Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Fanthorpe, U A 4-28, 316G2 Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 Lilly, Ruth 12-30, 955F2 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Nolan, Christopher J 2-20, 160E3 Norse, Harold 6-8, 484E3 Snodgrass, W D 1-13, 40D3 Updike, John 1-27, 56B3

POETRY Foundation (Chicago, Ill.) Lilly Prize winner named 4-14, 364F1

POHAMBA, Hifikepunye (Namibian president, 2005- ) Hosts Russia’s Medvedev 6-25, 455F1 Suspends defns force chief 7-22, 601F2 Electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850A2–B2

POHAN, Aulia Convctd, sentncd 6-17, 462A1

POHL, Judge James Nixes Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay 1-29, 46D3–E3, 47B1

POHLAD, Carl Ray (1915-2009) Dies 1-5, 40C3

POIRIER, Richard William (1925-2009) Dies 8-15, 612F3

POISONS & Poisoning China tainted milk sentncs issued 1-22, 35E2 China mine blast kills 74+, survivors rescued/in hosp 2-22—2-24, 251E2 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268C3 Russian rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 China smelters shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—10-19, 724D2 Actor (Piven), B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596F1 China needle attackers convctd, sentncd 9-12—9-17, 703F1–G1 Russian ex-spy slaying suspect (Lugovoi) UK extraditn mulled 11-2, 766D2 Chile ex-pres (Frei) poisoning seen, suspects indicted 12-7, 871G2

POITIER, Sidney Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2

POIZNER, Steve Whitman declares gov bid 9-22, 639G3 Gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757C1

POJAMARN Shinawatra Govt ofcs protested 3-26—4-2, 205F3

POKER Face (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1; 5-30, 384D1

POLACHECK, John Joseph Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

POLAMALU, Troy Steelers win AFC champ 1-18, 39G3

Hurt 9-10, 631C3

POLAND, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan hostage beheading tape issued, confrmd 2-8—2-9, 103A2 Afghan troops hike set 12-2, 844F1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1, Anti-Corruptn Bureau head abuse alleged 10-6, 705C2–E2 Crime & Civil Disorders WWII mass grave find rptd 1-7, 136F3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia border missiles deploymt delayed 1-28, 69C2, E2 US missile shield plans mulled 2-7, 74C2 US missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 US missile shield plans mulled 3-6, 142F2 US missile defns plans mulled 7-6, 454B1 US missile shield plans dropped, missles deploymt cont 9-17, 613A1, F1, C2, G2, C3 US missile shield plans drop hailed, Russian border missile deploymt mulled 9-18—9-21, 645C1, E1 US ‘10 defns funds passes House 10-6, 701E2 US’s Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 706B1 US missile shield components plan OKd 10-21, 750A2 European Relations EU mtgs held 3-1, 136D2, G2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396D2, C3, E3 Hungary shuts Krakow consulate 6-16, 512B2 Europn Parlt conservatives grouping chngd 6-22, 432D2 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, F2, B3, D3 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685G1 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686A1 Film dir (Polanski) appeal nixed 10-6, 707C2, E2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787D3; photo 788A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235F2 Civic Platform party ldr, mins quit 10-1—10-7, 705A2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735F2 Nazis & Neo-Nazis France admits Holocaust Ger deportatns 2-16, 99G2 WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239C3, E3 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) US deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352E2 Pope Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-15, 335B2, F2–G2, 336C1 WWII start anniv marked, Russian intell documts issued 9-1, 591C2–F2 Alleged death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3, E3–854A1 Auschwitz death camp sign stolen/recovered, suspects held 12-18—12-20, neo-Nazi link nixed 12-21, 892F1 Obituaries Edelman, Marek 10-2, 692B2 Kolakowski, Leszek 7-17, 516E3 Religious Issues Bp Felinski canonized 10-11, 739F1 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF loan sought 4-14, 283F2 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf boycotted 4-20, 262A1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 10-21, 750G1–A2 Nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3 CIA/Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, 903C1

POLANSKI, Roman ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, E2, C3 Sex assault victim civil setlmt rptd 10-2; appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2, F2, B3 Bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855A3

ON FILE

POLANSKI, Roman: Wanted and Desired Polanksi ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen 2-17, 653F3

POLANSKY, Mark Cmnds Endeavour missn 7-15—7-31, 519G1

POLAR Bears—See WHALES & Marine Mammals POLICE Appointments & Resignations Iraq prov chief replaced 1-16, 38G1–A2 Saudi religious cops head (Ghaith) fired, Humain named 2-14, 943E3–F3 US drug czar (Kerlikowske) named 3-11, 165C1 UK antiterror ofcl (Quick) quits, Yates named 4-9, 253C2 Iraq town chief fired 6-10, 398C2 China region chief (Liu) ousted, Zhu named 9-5, 606A1 Kenyan ofcls fired 9-8, 702A2–B2 Indonesia ofcl (Susno) quits 11-4, 786A2 Palin bk published 11-17, 797B2 Peru ofcl (Murga) fired 12-1, 930D1 Brutality Issues Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held/chrgd, pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247B1 Kenya cops violnc rpt issued 2-25, state failure seen 3-6, 203E1–F1, A2 Iraq ex-detainees slain 3-13, 175D1 Tibet cop beating tape questnd, China blocks YouTube/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 UK G-20 summit protests death video rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cops suspended 4-9—4-15, 253G2 UAE Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331A3 Georgia protests turn violent 5-6, 327C3 Russia gay rally broken up, demonstrators held 5-16, 379B1 Georgia protests turn violent 6-1, 378G1–A2 Iraq cops held 6-16, 433G2 Kyrgyz rptr (Tashiyev) attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1 China ethnic violnc shootings admitted 7-19, 509A3 Malaysia protests dispersed 8-1, crackdown scored 8-3, 542E3, 543A1 US blocks, issues Mex abuses rpt 8-5, 8-13, 556B2 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, 723D2, F2–G2 UK cops mistaken shooting setlmt OKd 11-23, 937B3 Brazil ‘03-09 drug fight casualties tallied 12-8, 926E2 Russian rptr (Yevloyev) slaying suspect convctd/sentncd, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2 Calif stun gun use ltd 12-28, 920G2 Budget & Spending Programs Japan/Afghan funding set, 110B1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 106B2 COPS ‘09-14 reauthrzn passes House 4-23, 908A1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321G1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld 6-5—6-9, 385A2 Singer Jackson meml svc LA costs rptd 7-8, 468F1 US hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700E3 Japan/Afghan aid set 11-10, 775F2 UK budget unveiled 12-9, 854D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Venez synagogue attacked 1-31, cops chrgd 3-26, 270A3 Mex ex-gen slaying suspect (Delgado) held 2-9, 97F2 Iraq cops arrest rptd 2-23, US troops attack kills 2 2-24, 117D3 Bolivia/US diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204G1 Kenya slayings probe sought 4-5, 221F3 Malaysian cops convctd in Mongolian woman slaying 4-9, 223G2, D3 LA pension fund paymt Searle role rptd 4-21, 265A3 Mex local cops held 6-1, 431E2 Iraq cmdrs held 8-20, 562C3 Iraq negligent cops chrgd 9-8, 610G2 S Africa ex-natl comr (Selebi) trial opens 10-5, 923C3 Mex cartel alleged members held 10-22, 747G1 Bosnian Serb ex-cops held 10-28, 820B3 Iraq blasts security lack arrests rptd 10-29, 738E2 Indonesia anti-corruptn ofcls case wiretaps issued 10-30—11-3, drive-by shooting suspect (Antasari) framing claimed, denied 11-10—11-11, 786D1, G1, D2 Afghan/UK troops slain 11-3, 754C1

2009 Index NYC ex-comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 Russian cops false arrests claimed 11-6, whistleblower fired, probe set 11-8, 855G1 Peru body fat slayings alleged 11-19, 930E1 PI cops suspended, chrgd 11-24—11-26, 819E1, G1 PI prov violnc suspects chrgd, IDd 12-1—12-9, cops ousted 12-3, 852C3, 853B1, E1 Iraq/UK hostage (Moore) freed 12-30, 941C3 Crime & Law Enforcement Iraq cops slain 1-1, 8D3 Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, passenger shooting fair trial nixed, move ordrd 10-16—11-19, 920D2 Bulgaria riots erupts 1-14, 52C2 Georgia cop slain 1-16, 85G1 Somalia cop slain 1-24, 66C3 Iraq cops slain 1-28, 53G3 Colombia rebel hostages freed 2-1—2-5, 67E3 Afghan blast kills 21 2-2, 102A3 Mex cops slain 2-6, 97A3 Iraq cops slain 2-9—2-10, 101D2 Russian cops slain 2-12, 274E1 Mex/Ariz border violnc rise seen, House com hearing held 2-23—2-25; troops deploymt mulled 3-11, Chihuahua troops hike rptd 3-14, 171A1, E1, C2 Sri Lanka natl cricket team Pak attack kills 8+ 3-3, 137E3–F3 US cops illegal immigrants deportatn powers questnd 3-4, 151A2–B2 Russian cops slain 3-5, 274D1 Iraq recruits slain 3-8, 156C1 N Ireland cop slain 3-9, suspects held 3-10, 154E3, 156B1 N Ireland cop slaying scored, funeral held 3-10, suspects held, violnc erupts 3-14—3-15, 173B1, D1, F1–G1 Ger cops hurt 3-11, 154A3 Israeli cops slain 3-15, 210D3 Afghan cops slain 3-16—3-30, 195G2, B3 China blast hits unoccupied station 3-17, Qinghai clashes erupt, suspects held 3-21—3-22, 327A1, C1 Calif cops shootout kills 5 3-21—3-24, 246F3 Iraq cop slain 3-23, 189F2 Pak cops slain 3-23—3-27, acad attack kills 8 3-30, 228B3, 229F2, B3 Israeli cops hurt 3-24, 190A2 Mex drug violnc mulled 3-25, 186B1 Iraq cops slain 3-29—3-31, 208E2, 209A1 Pa cops slain 4-4, gunman racist postings rptd 4-7, 246B3 Pak cop slain 4-9, 276E3 Iraq cops slain 4-10, 254F2–A3 Mex cops slain 4-21, 359G2 Turkey cop slain 4-27, 329E3 Eur May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329G3 PI cop chief slain 5-7, 415E2 Chechen cops slain 5-13—5-25, 378A3, D3–E3 Iraq cops slain 5-21, 344B3; 5-24, 352F3 Uzbek cops slain 5-26—8-29, 663F2, C3 W Bank cop slain 6-4, 403E3 Russian cops hurt, slain 6-5—6-12, 417D1, F1 Peru cops slain 6-6, 394C3–F3 PI cops hurt 6-13, 528C1 Somalia chief (Ali) slain 6-17, 430A2 Afghan prov cop chief slain 6-29, 466A2–C2 Chechen cops slain 7-4, 497C2 Iraq cops slain 7-6—7-9, 465D1–E1 Russia repub ofcl (Gadaborshev) shot 7-7, dies 7-10, 545A1 Indonesia cops attacked 7-8, 461D3 DC vehicle checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1–G1 Mex cops attacks kill 5+ 7-11; suspects held 7-12, corpses found, IDd 7-13—7-14, 480C3 India cops slain 7-12, 791B1 Indonesia cop found dead, ambushes hurt 5 7-13—7-22, 542F2–A3 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, tapes issued 7-26—7-29, 504F3–505D1, G1–C2 Iraq cops slain 7-20, 498G1 Spain blasts kill 2, ETA blamed 7-29—7-30, 513F1–G1 Iraq blast kills 4+ 7-30, 529E2 Mex cops slain 8-6, 556B3 Iraq cops slain 8-7, 545A2 Myanmar/China border militia clashes erupt, cops kidnapping blamed 8-8—8-31, 590B2 Afghan cops slain 8-10, 547G1

—POLITICS 1143 Russia cops slain 8-13—8-17, 560D2, G2–A3 Gaza cops slain 8-14—8-15, 563B2 Chechnya cops slain 8-21—8-28, 591G1–A2 Calif kidnapping victim find missed chances admitted 8-28, 588A1–B1 Iraq cops slain 9-7, 610D2 Chechen cops hurt 9-16, 728A2 Russian cop slain 9-27, 728D1 Iraq cops slain 9-28, 668F1–G1 US immigratn detentn system scored 10-6, 721B3 Ariz sheriff illegal immigrants detentn authrzn nixed 10-6, 721E3 India cops slain 10-8, 790F3 Iraq cops slain 10-11—10-20, 729E2–F2, A3 Pak cops slain 10-15, 694C3 Terror suspects chrgd/held, Mich raid kills 1 10-28—10-31, 760A3 Iraq cops slain 11-1, 789F3 Cops assault suspect (Clemmons) freed on bail 11-23; shooting kills 4 11-29, slain, family held 12-1—12-9, 888A2 Russian cop found slain 11-24, 855C1 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3 Afghan cops slain 12-15, hq attack thwarted 12-21, 894G1 Russian car blasts kill 2, cops search rptd/bomber (Dzhaniyev) IDd 12-16—12-18, 938D3–F3 Afghan cops slain 12-22, 899G3 Iran protests turn violent 12-27; oppositn warned 12-30, truck slaying tape doubted 12-31, 940D2, B3, G3 Labor Issues Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C2 Obituaries Shubin, Lester D 11-20, 896E3 Political & Legislative Issues Md spying curbs pass legis/signed, enacted 4-8—10-1, 919G2 Dayton accords subversn seen, Bosnian Serb law nixed 6-19, 448G2 Afghan reforms vowed 8-24, 573F1 Slovakia minority language curbs enacted 9-1, 608A3 US’s Clinton visits Northn Ireland 10-12, 704F3, 705A1 Supreme Court Rulings Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd 1-14, 20E3 Utah cops drug dealer home entry upheld 1-21, 48F3 Suspect atty request expiratn case accepted 1-26, 48G2 Warrantless car searches curbed 4-21, 266B1 Suspect questng curbs eased 5-26, 373F3 Calif cop text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867F3 Training Issues Obama addresses Ohio police-recruits 3-6, 147C2 Europns vow Afghan troops hike 4-4, 213C1 Afghan/Australian aid rptd 11-30, 851C3 US’s Gates visits Afghan 12-8, Sen com hearing held 12-9, 844A3, C3 Norway hikes Afghan aid 12-10, 844A1

POLING, Douglas AIG bonus paymt detailed 3-17, 162B1

POLITICAL Science Gonzales, Tex Tech teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574D2 Obituaries Beer, Samuel H 4-7, 280A3

POLITICS (U.S.) Awards & Honors Milk/Kemp/Kennedy get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548D1–F1 Campaign Finances & Practices Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6C1–D1 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148E2–F2 Health insurers, drug cos Cong contributns rptd 3-8, 145E1 Judges contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 389G3 Finance law rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444A3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 602G3 Sup Ct ex-justice (O’Connor) sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678C1 Obama fundraising role mulled 10-26, 780A2–B2 Bauer named White House counsel 11-13, 797F3 Ponzi scheme suspect (Rothstein) chrgd, pleads not guilty 12-1, 910A3 Congressional Candidates Fla’s Bush nixes Sen bid 1-6, 5G2 Pa’s Matthews nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5A3 Sen Bond nixes reelectn bid 1-8, 5A3

GOP chair (Steele) defends sister co paymts 2-8, 146A3 Toomey sets Pa Sen seat bid 4-15, 284A3 Sen Burris nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 477F3 Sen Ensign vows reelectn bid 7-13, 478E2 Ky sen (Bunning) nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503F1 Rep Sestak sets Pa Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521E2 Rep Maloney nixes NYS Sen seat bid 8-7, 537C3 Rep Heller nixes Nev Sen seat bid 8-11, cites Ensign affair scandal 8-12, 552D2 Sen Kennedy successor candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584D3 Kennedy nephew nixes Sen seat bid 9-7, 638A2 Del rep (Castle) sets Sen seat bid 10-6, 679C1 NY House seat candidate (Scozzafava) drops bid 10-31; backs Owens 11-1, Biden, Thompson stump 11-2, 755F2, 756A1, E1 Fiorina sets Calif Sen seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Rep Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3 Giuliani nixes Sen bid, backs Lazio 12-22, 908E3 Corruption & Ethics Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Ill sen seat nominee (Burris) issues affidavit to gov ouster com 1-5, 93E2 Ill gov (Blagojevich) ouster com hearing held, impeachmt urged 1-8, 4F3–G3 Ill’s Blagojevich impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43A3, E3 Lobbyist (Boulanger) pleads guilty 1-30, Gregg ex-aide (Koonce) Abramoff ties probe rptd 2-4, 60D2 Sen Burris issues 2d affidavit to gov ouster com 2-4, on Blagojevich brother talks, explanatn sought 2-15, 93G2–B3 Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13, chrgs dropped 4-1, 199D1 Sen Burris admits Blagojevich fund-raising bid 2-16; probes open 2-17, seeks Chicago backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1, C3 Ala ex-gov (Siegelman) chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, convctn review sought 4-3, 218G2 Fed chief info ofcr (Kundra) ex-ofc raided, target denied/leave set 3-12, 145E2 OneUnited/Treasury ofcls mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243D1 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, Rep Jackson probe confrmd 4-8, 218B3, 219A1, D1 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218F1 Ill ex-gov (Blagojevich), assocs plead not guilty 4-14—4-16, 243A2 Gov Blagojevich brother/Sen Burris wiretap release OKd, campaign paymt denied 5-26—5-27, questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, 478B1–E1 Rep Visclosky fed subpoenas confrmd 5-29, 779A3 Sen Ensign parents/mistress paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9, harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, 478F1 Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) pleads guilty 6-26, missing city property probe sought 8-7, 553B1 Gov Palin travel funds complaint filed 7-6, 455F2 NJ pols bribery suspects held, chrgd 7-23, 503E3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521A2 Sens Dodd/Conrad discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared, ruling scored 8-7, 537B2 Rep Rangel admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 619G3 NM gov (Richardson) fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620C1 Rep Rangel com chair ouster bid fails 10-7, probe hiked 10-8, 679E1 US atty ofc ex-worker (Brown), Christie NJ gov bid role questnd 10-20, 716C3 House com probes leaked, Calif reps investigatns set 10-29, 779B2, E2, B3 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910B3 Balitmore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd 12-1, retrial sought 12-5, 848D3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797D2 Sen Burris admonished 11-20, 814B2

NC gov (Sanford) civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1 Democratic Party Gov Kaine named DNC chair 1-8, 6B2 Party chair nominee (Kaine) OKd 1-21, 62B2 Health care reform town-hall protesters questnd 8-5, 520F22 DNC fund-raisers held 10-15—10-20, 717E1–F1 Elections (congressional) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201E1 Minn Sen race absentee votes review ltd 3-31, 201B2 Alaska Sen seat ‘08 race mulled 4-1, spec electn urged 4-2, 199C2 Ill House seat spec electn held 4-7, 219A2 Minn Sen race recount rptd 4-7, Franken win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242F2 NY House seat spec electn winner (Murphy) declared 4-24, 292B2 Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441A1, F1 Calif House seat electn held 7-14, 478E2 Results 11-3, 755A2, F3, 756E1 Elections (gubernatorial) Results 11-3, 755A2, G2, C3 Elections (mayoral) Detroit elects Bing 5-5, 306A3 Results 11-3, 756F2, D3 Seattle results rptd 11-9, 779E3 Atlanta runoff held 12-1, results rptd 12-9, 848A3 Houston runoff held 12-13, 868F3 Obituaries Annenberg, Leonore 3-12, 192D1 Barker, Bernard L 6-5, 400C2 Beer, Samuel H 4-7, 280A3 Bellmon, Henry L 9-29, 731A3 Hansen, Clifford P 10-20, 772F1 Hawkins, Paula 12-4, 880A2 Hunt, Guy 1-30, 72E2 Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316F3 Kennedy, Edward M 8-25, 580F3 Klein, Herbert G 7-2, 468F2 Kristol, Irving 9-18, 648G2 Neuhaus, Richard J 1-8, 24F3 Pearson, James B 1-13, 56F2 Pell, Claiborne 1-1, 9D3 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Safire, William 9-27, 672F3 Samuelson, Paul A 12-13, 880D3 Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955F3 Waldie, Jerome R 4-3, 256G3 Wexler, Anne 8-7, 580G3 Wilkey, Malcolm R 8-15, 648G3 Wilson, William A 12-5, 956F3 People Sen Ensign admits affair 6-16, drops GOP post, woman comes forward 6-17, 410B1 SC gov (Sanford) hiking trip claimed, returns from Argentina/admits affair 6-22—6-24, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1 Sen Byrd exits hosp 6-30, 441A2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537C1 Sen Kennedy dies, ldrship hailed/Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, 569A2–570A3; photos 569F3, 570A1 Sen Kennedy mourned, funeral held/buried 8-28—8-29, 584A2 Byrd sets Cong tenure mark 11-18, turns 92 11-20, 815A1 SC gov (Sanford) censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869G1 Presidential Candidates—See PRESIDENTIAL Campaign (2008) Primaries & Caucuses Detroit mayoral primary electn held 2-25, 131E1 Ill House seat spec electn Dem primary held 3-3, 131C1 Calif House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 NJ gov primaries held 6-2, 373A3 Va gov primaries held 6-9, 391D1 Seattle mayoral primary held 8-18, 779G3–780A1 Calif House seat primary 9-1, 585D1 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848C2 Referendums & Special Elections ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F1 Calif gay marriage ban ballot initiative donors list release ordrd, issued 1-29, 2-2, 150A1 Calif budget ballot measures nixed 5-20, 340G1 Calif gay marriage ballot initiative set 5-26, 352G3 Rep Tauscher vacates House seat 6-26, 478A3

1144 POLITKOVSKAYA— Mass Sen seat successn law chng sought, backed 8-19, 8-27, 570F1 Calif gay marriage ban trial set 8-19, Maine ballot propositn set 9-2, 699F2, A3 Mass Sen seat spec electn set 8-31, 584F2 Results 11-3, 756G1, C2 Republican Party Steele elected party chair 1-30, 62E1 Gov Jindal gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105G2 CPAC mtg held 2-28; Limbaugh/White House clash 3-1—3-2, Steele remarks scored/regretted, GQ interview published 3-12, 146B2, F2 Gay marriage stance chng urged 4-17, 266F2 Gen Powell role questnd 5-6—5-10, remarks scored 5-24, 353A2 SC gov (Sanford) drops assoc post, Barbour named 6-24, 424C2 Health care reform debate racism denied 9-16, 617D3 Fox News bias alleged 10-11, 717C2, E2 Ala rep (Griffith) switches parties 12-22, 885A3 State & Local Candidates Tex sen (Hutchison) sets gov bid 7-13, 503D2 Detroit mayoral primary held, Bing/Barrow race set 8-4, 553F1 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30; debate held 10-12, Clinton stumps 10-20, 716E3 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled, Lazio sets run 9-14—9-22, Obama interfernc scored, visits 9-20—9-21, 639G1, A3 Newsom Calif gov bid backed 9-15, Whitman declares run 9-22, 639D3 NJ gov debates held 10-1—10-16; Daggett bid backed 10-11, Biden/Clinton/Obama stump 10-19—10-21, 716F2, 717C1–D1 Calif gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757B1 Obama stumps in NJ 11-1, 755G2 White sets Tex gov bid 12-4, 869C1 Giuliani nixes Sen bid, backs Lazio 12-22, 908E3 Voting Issues Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33A1 Census pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60C2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79A3 DC House vote bill passes Sen 2-26, 146F3 Minority power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 166G3 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181G3 States’ chngs fed authrzn argumts heard, upheld by Sup Ct 4-29, 6-22, 425B1 Fed proscutor (Bogden) named 7-31, 537B1 Census/ACORN ties cut 9-11, 659C2 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908A3

POLITKOVSKAYA, Anna (1958-2006) Rights atty/student rptr slain, Novaya Gazeta links rptd 1-19, 36F2, C3–D3 Slaying suspects cleared 2-19, 100C1 Novaya Gazeta rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 Slaying suspects acquittals nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497F2 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497B2 Slaying cases merger ordrd 9-3, 667G3

POLITKOVSKAYA, Ilya On mom slaying trial verdicts 2-19, 100F1

POLK Awards, George Announced 2-16, 139F2

POLLACK, Sydney Irwin (1934-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

POLLIN, Abe (Abraham) (1923-2009) Dies 11-24, 880F2

POLLS & Pollsters Crime Issues Cuba base cont detentns support 1-13—1-16, 28C2 S Africa rape survey 6-17, 923E3 Russia, African attacks 8-31, 667D3 US death penalty support 10-1—10-4, 719F3 Environmental Issues Climate chng US belief 11-25, 828A3 Foreign Political Issues Bulgaria govt support 1-14, 52D2 Afghan’s Karzai support 6-15, 434A3 Peru’s Garcia approval 6-21, 432B1 Italy’s Berlusconi cites popular support 6-29, 463B3 Honduras ex-pres (Zelaya) ouster support 7-9, 480G2

FACTS Ger pol parties support 9-9, 607C3 UK pol parties support 9-28, 666A3 Canadian parties support 10-5, 681C3 UK parties support 10-7, 686C1 Romanian pres electn race 10-7, 705C3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return support 10-28, 763A1 Health Issues Health insurnc reform support 6-21, 6-24, 427D2 Health care reform pub support 7-30, 520F2–G2 Health care reform support 8-18, 552C1 Health care reform pub support 8-21, 597D1 Health care reform support 9-14, 618A1; 9-25, 656F1 Health care reform pub option support 10-20, 714B1; 10-28, 741D1 Health care reform support 11-17, 797C1; 12-16—12-17, 864E1 Military Issues US war dead coffins return media ban lift support 2-26, 132D1 Pak directn support 5-11, 346F2 Afghan war, UK support 7-13, 498F3 Afghan war pub support 8-20, 593F3 Afghan/US war pub support 9-15, 629D3 US/Pak drone missile strikes support 10-1, 695B3 Sports Coll football yr-end final rankings 1-9, 23E3–G3 ‘09 coll football preseason rankings 8-7—8-22, 579E3 Trade Issues US/Cuba curbs lift support 4-14—4-16, 271E2 U.S. Political Issues Bush support 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Obama pub expectatns 1-18, 25C3 Obama support 2-18—2-22, 105D1, E2 Obama support polled 4-21—4-28, 285A3 Sen Specter switches parties 4-28, 284D2 Obama approval 7-27—8-6, 520A3 Obama approval rating 8-18, 552C1 Obama approval 8-21, 597D1; 9-14, 618A1 Obama approval rating 9-25, 656F1 Obama approval 11-17, 797C1; 12-16, 864E1

POLLUTION—See ENVIRONMENT POL Pot (Saloth Sar) (1925?-98) Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial opens 2-17, 98A2 Khmer Rouge tribunal cont indictmts opposed 3-31, prison chief (Duch) trial cont 6-17, 413E3, 414G1

POMPIDOU Center, Georges (Paris) Workers strike/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, reopens 12-17, 876E1

PONOMARYOV, Lev Egged 3-11; tires slashed 3-30, hurt in attack 3-31, 273F3 Held 8-31, 667F3

PONSETI Vives, Ignacio (1914-2009) Dies 10-18, 772G3

PONTIFICAL Gregorian University Archbishop of Canterbury speaks at 11-19, 811B2

POOR, Mohammed Shah Torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331B3, D3

POP! (play) Opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

POP, Iggy (James Osterberg) Asheton found dead 1-6, 24C3

POPES—specific papal names (e.g. BENEDICT) POPES and Papacy—See ROMAN Catholic Church; specific papal names (e.g., BENEDICT XVI) POPLAWSKI, Richard Kills 3 4-4, racist postings rptd 4-7, 246B3–E3

POPOVKIN, Vladimir Nixes Poland border missiles deploymt 9-19, 645E1

POPULATION Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, Census/White House direct rptg set, pol oversight opposed 2-4, 60A2 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79G2–A3 DC House vote bill passes Sen 2-26, 147A1 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181F3–G3 World Bank AIDS programs woes seen 4-30, 387G1 Obama ‘10 budet proposals detailed 5-7, 321D2

Mex ‘07-08 immigratn drop seen 5-15, 447F2 Sudan natl census issued 5-21, 430G3, 431A2 Census ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488D2 Census sets gay marriages recognitn 6-19, 659E2 Census chief nominee (Groves) confrmd 7-13, 659D1 Shanghai 2d child urged 7-24, 576F1–G1 Iraq prov autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, 501A2 Census nixes abroad missionaries count 8-18, 659D2 Census/ACORN ties cut, cont work seen/contract denied 9-11—9-23, House com hearing held 9-22, 659G1–A2 Census worker (Sparkman) found dead 9-12, Ky cnty canvassing halted 9-27, 722C1 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 Census worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817E1 Census ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866C3

PORCELLO, Rick 3d in AL top rookie voting 11-16, 824D1

PORGY and Bess (opera) Anne Brown dies 3-13, 192B2

PORNOGRAPHY & Obscenity FCC chair (Martin) quits 1-15, 42G2 COPA nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48B3 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43E3 Australian child porn suspect held, IDd 2-13, 2-16, 98D1 UK home secy (Smith) regrets expense claims 4-7, parlt misuse rptd 5-8—5-14, 343A3, E3 FCC TV obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 290G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307C1 Chambers autopsy rpt issued 5-18, 348G2 China Web-filter software requiremt ordrd 5-19; curbs mulled 6-8—6-16, Solid Oak stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414G2 China scores Google links, forgn sites search block ordrd/access disrupted 6-18—6-25; sex health curbs set 6-24, filter requiremt complaint filed, postponed 6-24—6-30, 448B1, D1, F1 US fed proscutor (Bogden) named 7-31, 537B1 China Web-filter software requiremt dropped 8-13, 557F2 Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, 624C2 Tennis’s Williams threatens lineswoman, fined/outburst regretted 9-12—9-14, 631A2 Palin scores Johnston Playgirl shoot 11-16, 797F1 Zambia rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925G2 Tennis’ S Williams fined 11-30, 951G1 Australia Web filters set 12-15, 931C3 Obituaries Chambers, Marilyn 4-12, 256G2

PORT Authority of Allegheny County (Pa.) Collier Township gym shooter grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554E2

PORT Authority of New York and New Jersey Silverstein mtg held 5-21, WTC site arbitratn sought, govt financial risk scored 8-4, 620F2–C3

PORTEOUS Jr., Judge G. Thomas House com suit filed 11-13, impeachmt hearings open 11-17, 831F3–G3, 832B1–A2

PORTER Jr., George Death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A3–E3

PORTER, Terry Fired 2-16, 159E1

PORTER v. McCollum (2009) War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867A3

PORTFOLIO (magazine) Shut 4-27, 913A1

PORTRAIT of Alfred and Elisabeth Dedreu (painting) Fetches 9 mln euros 2-24, 160E1*

ON FILE

PORTRAIT of a Man Half-Length, With His Arms Akimbo (painting) Fetches $33 mln 12-8, buyer IDd 12-19, 953D2

PORTRAIT of Madame M (painting) Fetches $6.1 mln 5-6, 953C2

PORTS—See HARBORS PORTUGAL (Portuguese Republic) African Relations Guinea-Bissau pres (Vieira) slaying scored 3-3, 134D1 European Relations Total/Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68B3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396E2 Barroso reelected Europn Comm pres 6-18, 432C2 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 627C3–D3 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235F2 Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735G2 Minority govt set 10-22, 729A1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Obituaries Cintron, Conchita 2-17, 140E2 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit rating cut 1-21, 53C1 Credit outlook cut 12-8, 856D1–E1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875D3 Transportation Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) radio contact rptd 7-31, 551C1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees resetlmt aid backed 2-4, 64B1 Cuba base detainees transfer sought 4-29, 305D3 Cuba base detainees entry mulled 7-29, 506F1 Cuba base detainees transferred 8-28, 718B2

PORTUGAL, Murilo On Serbia loan hike 5-15, 482E3

POSADA, Jorge Yankees win pennant 10-25, 752B1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770D1, C3

POSADA Carriles, Luis Chrgd 4-8, 375C1

POSSE Comitatus Act (1878) Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130C1 NY ‘02 terror arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816D2

POSTAL Service, U.S. Delivery cut House com hearing held 3-25, 324F3 Fscl ‘09 1st 1/2 loss rptd 5-6, rate hiked 5-11, 324D3 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-10, 862D2

POSTAL Services Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141E1 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539C3 US delivery cut House com hearing held 3-25, 324F3–G3 Sun-Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393A2 US fscl ‘09 1st 1/2 loss rptd 5-6, rate hiked 5-11, 324D3 Dem donor (Hsu) pleads guilty 5-7, sentncd 9-29, 656E3 ‘01 anthrax mailings case review set 5-8, 393D2, F2 US/Cuba talks OKd 5-30, 376B2–C2 Japan interior min (Hatoyama) quits 6-12, 482A2 SFG exec (Stanford) surrenders, indictmt unsealed/assets mulled 6-18—6-19, pleads not guilty, bail set/revoked 6-25—6-30, 457F1 Miss ex-judge (DeLaughter) pleads guilty 7-30, 888F2 Kenya post ofc head (Ali) named 9-8, 702C2 Japan pvtizatn plans nized 9-16, 624G3 Cuba/US cont svc mulled 9-17, 661A2 Japan Post IPO halt sought 9-20, 703D3 Medicare health care reform mailings halt ordrd 9-21, 638B1 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 Indonesia anti-corruptn fight aid sought 9-29, 786B2 Medicare health care reform mailings halt order lifted 10-16, 714C1

2009 Index Japan Post pres (Nishikawa) ousted 10-20, Saito named 10-21, 873F1 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862A2 Japan pvtizatn halted, move scored 12-4—12-8, 873D1 Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 869B1 Obituaries Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3

POST-Star (Glen Falls, N.Y. newspaper) Mahoney wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279D3

POTOMAC River Coast Guard exercise spurs panic, review set/rptd 9-11—10-27, 782G1, B2

POTTER, John Testifies to House com 3-25, 324F3

POTTER, Monica Last House on the Left on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

POULADI, Farhad Held 11-4, 857F2

POULSEN, Lance Sentncd 3-27, 539A3

POULTRY China bird flu alert issued 1-7, 76F1 US food-borne illnesses rpt issued 4-9, 268B3 China/US chicken imports complaint filed 4-17, 615G2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321D1 China/Brazil imports hiked 5-19, 448D2 China seeks US imports ban WTO probe 6-23, 440E1 Food safety reforms urged 7-7, 524E2 China imports cont ban passes House 7-9, 489A2 US agri ‘10 funds pass Sen 8-4, 537G3 China probes US exports 9-13, 615G1, D2 China/US cont imports seen 10-21, 761F1 US eases Chinese import curbs 10-29, 776E1, C2

POUNCED (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf 11-7, 807D2

POUNDER, C(arol) C(hristine) H(ilaria) Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2

POURANDARJANI, Dr. Ramin Dies 11-10; probe launched 11-17, suicide seen, drug overdose rptd 11-18—12-2, 857B2–C2

POVERTY—See WELFARE POWE, Leon Hurts knee 4-20, 278F3

POWELL, Asafa Wins 100-m world champ bronze 8-16, 579A2

POWELL, Gen. Colin L. (ret.) CIA interrogatns authrzn timeline issued 4-22, 261E3 GOP role questnd 5-6—5-10, scores remarks 5-24, 353A2, A3 Marks 9/11 8th anniv 9-11, 620D2

POWELL, Jody (Joseph Lester Powell Jr.) (1943-2009) Dies 9-14, 632D3

POWELL, Michael (1906-90) Cardiff dies 4-22, 300D3

POWELL, Judge Randall Rules govt illegal 4-9; apptmt nixed 4-10, sees electns block 4-11, 252B1

POWELL, Robert Pleads guilty 7-1, 870B1–C1

POWER—See ENERGY POWER of Yes, The (play) Opens in London 10-6, 860G2

POWERS, Jenny Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

PRABHAKARAN, Vellupillai (1954-2009) LTTE ofcls surrender rptd 4-22, 277B2 Death claimed, denied 5-18—5-19, body IDd/tape issued 5-19, 333A1, B3, 334B1, B3 Death confrmd 5-24, 363E1–G1 Successor (Pathmanathan) named, held 7-21, 8-6, 578E3

PRACHANDA, Comrade (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) (Nepalese premier, 2008-09) Fires army chief/Communist Party exits coalitn, order blocked 5-3; const mulled, quits 5-4, protests held 5-4—5-7, 314D2–E2, A3–B3

—PRESS Ruling coalitn deal OKd 5-17, Nepal elected, sworn successor 5-23—5-25, 363A1–C1 Seeks natl govt 12-22, 946B3–C3, E3

PRADO, Martin Among NL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D3

PRAISE Song for the Day (poem) Obama sworn 1-20, 26B2

PRAKASH, Col. Om Questns gay troops policy, urges repeal 9-30, 699E2

PREBBLE, Lucy Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire (film) Sundance Festival awards won 1-24, 104B2 On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

PREGNANCY—See CHILDBIRTH PREGNANCY Discrimination Act (1978) Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338A1

PREMADASA, Ranasinghe (1923-93) (Sri Lankan president, 1988-93) LTTE conflict end declared 4-28, 333A2, 334B2

PREMIERS & Premierships—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

PREM Tinsulanonda, Gen. (Thai premier, 1980-88) Home protested, resignatn urged 4-8, 250A2 Protests held 9-19, 726A2

PRENDERGEST-Holt, Laura Testifies to SEC 2-10; fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, held 2-26, 148A1, D1

PRESIDENTIAL Campaign (2000), U.S. Justice Souter key votes listed 5-1, 302B3 Clinton compares Nigeria pols 8-12, 540D3

PRESIDENTIAL Campaign (2004), U.S. Terror alert system pol pressure claimed, denied 8-9—8-21, 572F2, D3, F3

PRESIDENTIAL Campaign (2008), U.S. Candidates McCain honored 1-19, 28C1 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455A3 Obama Hawaii birth records confrmd 7-27, 553A1 Palin interviewed 11-16—11-17; bk published 11-17, opens tour 11-18, 797D1, A2–B2 Economy & Labor Obama budget proposals support urged 3-21, 181B1 Election & Transition ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1 Electoral coll votes certified 1-8, 6F1 Preinaugural concert held 1-17, 28B3 Obama, Biden sworn 1-20, 25A1–28F1 Obama resworn 1-21, 25B2 Final results rptd 1-22, 656A2 Endorsements Gen Powell GOP role questnd 5-6—5-10, remarks scored 5-24, 353F2 Family Issues GOP gay marriage stance chng urged 4-17, 266F2 Finances Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 Dem donor (Hsu) pleads guilty, convctd 5-7—5-19, sentncd 9-29, 656D3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1 Dem fundraiser (Nemazee) indicted 9-21, pleads not guilty 9-23, 656G3–657A1 Obama donors/White House access questnd, defended 10-28, 780F1 Inauguration—See ‘Election & Transition’ above Personal Palin daughter/Johnston breakup rptd 3-11, 160D2 Polls & Surveys Obama pub expectatns 1-18, 25C3 Press & Broadcasting Pulitizers announced 4-20, 279F1, A3–C3 Voting Issues ACORN registratn program halt mulled 9-17, 639A1–B1

PRESIDENTS & Presidency—See also specific country, personal names Bush hosts Obama, ex-pres lunch 1-7, 6G1 Obama sworn 1-20, 25A1–28F1 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129F3, 130A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3 Bush signing statemts review ordrd 3-9, 145G1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470F2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732A1–736G3

PRESIDENT‘S Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. Africa ‘03-07 AIDS death toll drop rptd, HIV infectns efficacy questnd 4-6, 369G3 Goosby named head 4-27, 369F3

PRESLEY, Elvis Aron (1935-77) Jackson/Fontana/Black inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3*

PRESLEY, Lisa Marie Jackson dies 6-25, 436E2

PRESNELL, Harve (George Harvey) (1933-2009) Dies 6-30, 500F3

PRESS Appointments & Resignations USA Today ed/publisher quit, replacemts named 2-1—4-28, 913E2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D3 Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 9-3, 626G3 Newsday publisher/ed quit, replacemts named 9-23—12-11, 913D1 Boston Globe publisher (Ainsley) sets resignatn, Mayer named 10-29, 912G2 Wash Times exec ed (Solomon) quits 11-6, execs fired, Slevin named acting pres/publisher 11-9, 913F2 Awards & Honors Polk Awards announced 2-16, 139F2 Pulitzers announced 4-20, 279D1; table 279B2 Addario, Mitchell win MacArthurs 9-22, 671G1, C2 Bribery, Fraud & Extortion Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677D3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Minneapolis Star bankruptcy filed 1-15, 168A1 NYT 1/4 dividends halted 2-19, 168G1 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 2-22, 168B1 Rocky Mt News shut 2-27, 167D3 NYT hq leaseback deal set 3-9, 168F1 Seattle P-I printing ends 3-16, Web-only shift opens 3-17, 167C3 Sun Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393G1 Boston Globe shutodwn warned 4-3, nixed 5-4, 393A1 AbitibiBowater bankruptcy filed 4-16—4-17, 413D1 Circulatn drop rptd 4-27, 912C2 Ariz papers antitrust complaint filed 5-15, Tucson Citizen printing ends 5-16, 393E1 Star Tribune reorgn filed, OKd 6-18—9-17, exits bankruptcy 9-28, 913B1 Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913F1 Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1 Taszhargan closure rptd 9-18, 663D2 Papers circulatn, ad revenue drop rptd 10-26, 11-19, 912E1 Window Media shuts gay publicatns 11-16, 912D3 Wash Post shuts US bureaus 11-24, 912C3 Censorship Issues Rptrs Gaza entry OKd 1-12, 1-15, 13D2 War dead coffins return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132A1 Malaysia oppositn papers ban set, lifted 3-23, 4-3, 223B2 Sweden’s Foyer visits US rptrs 3-30—5-15; indictmt rptd 4-24, trial set 5-14,, 360E2 US/Cuba talks mulled 4-16—4-17, 271G2 Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310D3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptg delay mulled 4-20, 263E2 US terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 261D2 China quake student death toll issued 5-7, 326E3 Nigeria mil offensive civiln deaths alleged, displacemts rptd 5-21, 358G2 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402E2–F2 Iran rptrs held 6-21—6-23, 421C1–D1, C2

1145

Sri Lanka cncl return mulled 6-24, local electns held 8-8, 578G2, 579B1 Stars and Stripes Iraq rptr banned 6-24, 721E1 Iran paper shut 7-1, 439E1 Fiji new const plan set 7-1, 510A2 Obama scores Russian curbs 7-7, 454C3 China ethnic clashes erupt 7-7, 461E1 Iran rptrs held 7-7, 464F2 Afghan electn violnc coverage ban set 8-19, 549E2 US war rptrs profiling seen, Rendon contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721A1 Myanmar/China refugee camp forgn rptg curbs ordrd 9-1, 590C3 Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht rptr (Voitenko) flees 9-3, firing claimed, denied 9-4—9-7, 616C2 Afghan dying troop/AP photo block urged, release scored 9-3—9-4, 621A3 Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706A2, G2, C3–D3 Yemen refugee camp strike kills 80, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, 646A1 Italy rally held 10-3, 687C2 Honduras emergency rule lifted 10-5, 763C1 Iran papers shut 10-6, 688C2 Thai’s Thaksin royalty remarks banned 11-10, 785C2 Zambia porn case rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925G2 Pak tribal areas mil offensive progress seen 11-17, 806G2, B3 Cuba abuses scored 11-18, 928F1 Equatorial Guinea pres electn questnd 11-30, 833D3 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) funeral coverage blocked 12-21, 883C3 Thai/Laos refugees returned 12-28, 934B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Stanford fraud scandal Antigua woes seen 2-18, 148B3 Wash Post sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 478G3 Colombia intell agency nix set 9-18, 817F3 Crime & Law Enforcement Alma-Ata Info ed (Esergepov) held, convctd 1-6—8-8, sentnc set/scored, upheld 8-8—8-13, 576E2 Sunday Ldr ed (Wickramatunga) slain 1-8, 9G2 Russian student rptr (Baburova) slain, Novaya Gazeta links rptd 1-19, probe urged 1-20, staff gun permits sought 1-22, 36E2, C3, F3 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects cleared 2-19, 100D1 Uzbek rptr (Sayyid) held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 891G3 US lists Russia abuse 2-25, 180D1 Kyrgyz rptr (Abdyldayev) stabbed 3-3; attack scored 3-4, work link seen 3-5, 187F2 Iran rptr (Saberi) release urged 3-5, 142C2 Kyrgyz rptrs attacked 3-25, 272A2 Iran/US rptr (Saberi) release sought 3-31, 195C2 UK G-20 summit protests death video rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cops suspended 4-9—4-15, 253G2 Russian rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 Calif paper ed (Chauncey) slaying suspects indicted 4-29, Broussard pleads guilty 5-7, 539E2 Korruptsiya i Prestupnost ed (Yaroshenko) found unconscious 4-30, dies, probe opens 6-29, 497E2 Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 434D3 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects acquittals nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497F2 Sinar Harapan rptr attacked, in hosp 6-26; protests held 6-28—7-1, apology rptd 6-30, 461D3–E3 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622B3–C3, 623B1 Kyrgyz rptr (Tashiyev) attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1 Wash Post cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Iran rptr (Bahari) trial opens 8-1, 518G2 Hakikat rptr (Akhmedilov) found dead 8-11, 544E3 Australia opens E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, Indonesia reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931D3 Thai royals insulter (Daranee) convctd, sentncd 8-28, 727B1 Russian rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying cases merger ordrd 9-3, 667G3 Rwanda ex-parlt speaker (Mukezamfura) sentncd in absentia 9-3, 680C2

1146 PRESS— NYT Afghan rptr seized/freed, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 611D3 Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, 628B1, E1 Myanmar prisoners freed 9-18, 683G3 Russian rptrs attacks concern seen 10-14, 706A1 Iran rptr (Bahari) freed on bail 10-17, 768F1 Croatia ‘08 blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2 Myanmar rptrs arrests rptd 10-31, 763F2 Russian protesters held 10-31, 766G3 Albania rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2 Iran rptrs held 11-4—11-5, 857F2 Russian rptr (Baburova) slaying suspects held 11-5, 855B2 PI rptrs slain, deaths mulled 11-23—11-25, 819A1 Leb/UK rptr (Collett) body find rptd 11-23, 877F3 Somalia forgn rptrs freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 PI prov violnc mulled, spec ct urged 11-27, protests held 11-30, 852F3, 853E2 China mine blast rptrs chrgd 11-30, 932G3 Kyrgyz rptrs attacked 12-9—12-16; Pavlyuk falls in Kazakh fall, bound hands/feet rptd 12-16—12-22, travel mulled, Bakiyev role denied 12-22—12-23, 935F1 Argentina ‘dirty war’ capt (Astiz) trial opens 12-11, 925F3 Afghan, Guardian rptrs freed 12-16, 894E2 Pak press club blast kills 3 12-22, 947B2 Iran protest arrests rptd 12-28—12-29, 940C3–D3 Afghan/Canadian rptr slain 12-30, 899B3 Crime Issues Sri Lanka rptr (Tissainayagam) sentncd 8-31, 770A1 Iraq War—See IRAQ War Labor Issues NYT, Boston Globe unions OK concessns 5-4, Newspaper Guild deal nixed, cuts set/complaint filed 6-8—6-9, 393A1 Boston Globe workers pay, benefits cut OKd 7-20, 912F2 Wash Times bias claim filed 11-17, cust set 12-2, 913B3–C3 Leaks & Disclosures Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411E3 India ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 822G3 Australian ex-Treasury ofcl (Grech) fake e-mail admitted 8-4, Sen com testimony mulled 11-25, 851F3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release UK ofcl correspondnc leaked 8-30, 583F1 House com probes leaked 10-29, 779B2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815F2 UK/Iraq war documts leaked 11-21—11-23, 821E1 Congo army, rebels link alleged 11-25, 921G3 Afghan air strike civiln deaths Ger info withheld 11-26, 836A1 Iran A-bomb advances claimed 12-13, 876A2 Libel Issues—See LIBEL Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Seattle P-I sale sought 1-9, 167D3 Slim/NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1 Evening Standard stake buy set 1-21, 76F2 San Fran Chronicle sale sought 2-24, 167F3 Platinum/Copley Press buy set 3-18, 167G3 CQ, Governing sales set 7-21—11-20, 913B2 Sun-Times Media sale OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3 Boston Globe sale nixed 10-14, Telegram & Gazette buyout offers sought, sale nixed 10-14—12-7, 912D2 Muslim Cartoons Controversy Denmark’s Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen 8-3, 534E1 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspect (Headley) held 10-3, 845F1 Danish Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings suspect (Syed) chrgd 12-7, 845E2 Obituaries Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2 Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Bacon, Kenneth H 8-15, 648F1

FACTS Batten Sr, Frank 9-10, 648G1 Bellows, James G 3-6, 192E1 Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Cowles, Fleur 6-5, 420E3 Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500F2 Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Dunne, Dominick 8-26, 580G2 Elon, Amos 5-25, 384G1 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 Goldsmith, Edward 8-21, 648E2 Kennedy, Sir Ludovic 10-18, 752B3 Klein, Herbert G 7-2, 468F2 Kristol, Irving 9-18, 648A3 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Lukins, Sheila 8-30, 648C3 Maddox, Sir John 4-12, 280F3 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Nelson, Jack 10-21, 752E3 Novak, Robert D 8-18, 564D3 Penner, Mike 11-27, 880E2 Poirier, Richard 8-15, 612F3 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Safire, William 9-27, 672F3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532G2 Torres, Jose 1-19, 56A3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648F3 People Kristol NYT final column runs 1-26, Wash Post monthly column cont 1-27, 56C1 Russia’s Medvedev grants Novaya Gazeta 4-13, 329B1 Kyrgyz rptr (Abdyldayev) pol asylum sought 8-2, 576D3 Political & Legislative Issues Abortns intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47D1 S Korea indus reforms pass parlt 7-22, law upheld 10-29, 764E2 Presidential News Conferences—See OBAMA—PRESS Sports Argentia soccer natl coach (Maradona) scores media 10-14, suspended, fined 11-14, 859A2

PRESS, James On dealerships drop 5-14, 339D1 Exit seen 10-5, 753D3

PRESS, Jim Dealerships closure info sought 6-9, Press named CEO 6-10, 385G2

PRESSBURGER, Emeric (1902-88) Cardiff dies 4-22, 300D3

PRESSEL, Morgan Loses Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic 7-5, 595B3

PRESSLY, Jaime I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

PRESS TV (Iranian TV station) Iraq’s Talabani interviewed 3-13, 175B1

PRESTON, Douglas Cemetery Dance on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

PRESTON, Kelly Son dies 1-2; cremated 1-5, mourns 1-8, 9B3 Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

PREVAL, Rene Garcia (Haitian premier, 1991; president, 1996-2001/06) Sen electns held 4-19, 270E1

PRICE, Claire Power of Yes opens in London 10-6, 860G2

PRICE, Sol (1916-2009) Dies 12-14, 896D3

PRICE, Tom (U.S. representative from Ga., 2005- ; Republican) At conservatives Capitol rally 9-12, 619E3 Vs Rep Grayson health care reform remarks 9-29—9-30, 656C1

PRICE-Fixing—See ANTITRUST Actions PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLP Satyam chair (Raju) admits fraud 1-7, 55G1 Saytam acctg fraud suspects chrgd 4-7, 450E3

PRIME Ministers—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

PRIMUS Financial Holdings Ltd. Nan Shan buy set 10-13, 715D3

PRINCE-Ramus, Joshua Wyly Theater opens in Dallas 10-18, 953C3–D3

PRINCESS and the Frog, The (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

PRINCESS Ashika (Tongan ferry) Capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590E3, G3–591A1

PRINCETON (N.J.) University Leach named NEH chair 6-3, 373A3 Sigman wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

PRINTZ Award, Michael L. Marchetta wins 1-26, 56B1

PRISONER, The (TV show) McGoohan dies 1-13, 40A3

PRISONER of the State (book) Published 5-19, 5-29, 395B3

PRISONERS of War (POWs) Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377G3–378A1 US detainees IDs/Red Cross access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621D2 Afghan/US detainees protests rptd 7-16, 499B1 N/S Korea family reunions talks held 8-26—8-28, 600F2 Alleged Nazi death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853E3

PRISONS—See under CRIME PRISONS, U.S. Bureau of (of Justice) Intern (Levy) slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149F1 Madoff opens prison sentnc 7-14, 506G2 Ill prison buy seen 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set 12-15, 861C1

PRITZKER Prize Fehn dies 2-23, 176B3 Zumthor wins 4-13, 300F1

PRIUS, Andre Assures World Cup security 12-5, 858B3

PRIVACY Issues Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 45E1 US war dead coffins return media ban lifted, support polled 2-26, 132E1 DHS ofcrs bill passes House 3-24, 908D1 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257E1 Cybersecurity govt coordinatn urged 4-21, 411C1 Terror detainees abuse photos release set 4-24, 290A3 Warrantless spying cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410A2, D2 Italy’s Berlusconi party photos seized 6-5, 463C2 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445B3 IPhone/Google app sale mulled 8-22, 744D3 S Africa runner Semenya World Champ medal upheld 11-19, 950A3 Golfer Woods admits transgressns 12-1, 839A3 Netherlands/US flights body scanners use urged, OKd 12-29—12-30, 898B3–C3

PRIVATE Equity Management Group Inc. (PEMGroup) Pang chrgd, held 4-27—4-28, clients losses rptd 6-25, 506E3 Pang in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1

PROBO Koala (Panamanian ship) Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654B1, G1

PROBST, Jeff Wins Emmy 9-20, 648A1

PROBYN, Carl Stepdaughter found, on family reunion 8-26—8-27, 587C3–D3

PROCTER & Gamble Co., The Chambers dies 4-12, 256A3 ‘As the World Turns’ dropped 12-8, 953G3 Tag Heuer halts golfer Woods image use 12-18, 949E2

PRODI, Romano (Italian premier, 1996-98/2006-08) Bersani elected Dem ldr 10-25, 749E3

PROENCA, Helder Slain 6-5, 458F3

PROJECT on Government Oversight Afghan/US emb contractors misconduct rptd 9-2, 594G2–B3

PROKHOROV, Mikhail Sets Nets stake buy 9-23, approval vote seen 10-22, 771C2–D2, A3

PROPERTY—See REAL Estate PROPHET, A (Un Prophete) (film) Cannes 2d prize won 5-24, 364A1

ON FILE

PROPOSAL, The (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

PROSTITUTION Iraq violnc kills 8 1-23, 53B3 Ex-pastor (Haggard) sex partner church paymts revealed 1-25, 151F3 Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ suit filed, nixed 3-5—10-20, prosecutn bid halted 5-22, 781C3 Italy’s Berlusconi escort use claimed, denied 6-17—6-24, truce set, popular support cited 6-29, 463A2, B3 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425E3 Italy’s Berlusconi escort recordings posted 7-23; scandal coverage mulled, papers suit filed/Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 8-12—9-3, prostitutn svcs alleged, denied 9-9—9-10, 626A3, F3 Russian women slain 8-13, 560G2 Census/ACORN ties cut 9-11, 659C2 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, IRS partnership ended, suit seen 9-23, 638B3–C3 Italian drug dealing suspect (Tarantini) held 9-18, 687E2 Italy’s Berlusconi alleged escort interviewed 10-1, immunity law nixed 10-7, 687C1, D2 Italy regional govt head (Marrazzo) quits 10-24, 750A1 Russia/Ukraine, HIV ‘epidemics’ rptd 11-24, 876C1 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908A3

PROTECT America Act (2007) Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20B3

PROTESTANTISM Northern Ireland Conflict—See NORTHERN Ireland

PROUD Spell (racehorse) Named ‘08 top 3-yr old female 1-26, 119F3

PROVIDENCE Equity Partners LLC Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913F1

PROVIDENCE Journal (newspaper) Rep Kennedy interviewed 11-20, 831C3

PROYAS, Alex Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

PRUDETSKY, Gennady Slain 12-10, 939F1

PRUD‘HOMME, Alex My Life in France on best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

PRUM, Richard Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2

PRUSENKOVA, Nadezhda On slain student rptr, rights atty paper links 1-19, 36D3

PRYOR, Mark (U.S. senator from Ark., 2003- ; Democrat) Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 847D3

PSIHOYOS, Louie Cove wins Sundance Festival award 1-24, 104C2

PTT Exploration and Production Public Comapny Ltd. (PTTEP) Timor Sea oil rig leak opens/halted, fire put out 8-21—11-3; damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, role scored 11-2, 874C1, E1–F1, A2, C2

PUBLIC Broadcasting, U.S. Corporation for (CPB) ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 524D1

PUBLIC Enemies (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

PUBLIC Health Service, U.S. (PHS) (of HHS) Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 Gupta drops surgeon gen bid 3-5, 145B3 Benjamin named surgeon gen 7-13, 476B1

PUBLIC Interest Research Group, U.S. (USPIRG) Toy chems find rptd 11-24, 918A2

PUBLIC Utilities—See UTILITIES PUBLIC Warehousing Co. KSC Indicted, civil suit hiked 11-16, 805C1

PUBLISHING Industry Appointments & Resignations Caijing staff, ed quit 10-12—11-9, 785E3 BusinessWk ed (Tyrangiel) named 11-17, 912G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section 1st Lady Bush bk deal rptd 1-5, 24B3 Domino shut 1-28, 913A1 Portfolio shut 4-27, 913A1 Vibe shut 6-30, 913D2

2009 Index Far Eastn Econ Review shut 9-21, 936E1 Conde Nast shut magazines 10-5, 912G3 David Atlanta, 411 shut 11-16, 912E3 Censorship Issues Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) poems publishing punishmt rptd 4-10, 274B3 GQ, Putin article publishing omits rptd 9-4, 667B3 Copyrights & Royalties Google bk scanning setlmt review confrmd, oppositn rptd 7-2—8-20; Europn publishers deal OKd 9-8, House com hearing held 9-10, 601A1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Atlantic sponsored salons defended 7-6, 479F1 Yirenpeng Ctr raided 7-29, 557D1 Fininvest ‘91 bribery found, paymt ordrd 10-3, 687F1 Libel Issues—See LIBEL Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures CQ sale sought 1-28, 168C1 Clarity Media sets Wkly Standard buy 6-17, 913D2 CQ, Governing sales set 7-21—11-20, 913B2 BusinessWk sale set 10-13, 912F3 Nielsen publicatns sale set 12-10, 912B3 Ed & Publisher/Kirkus Reviews sale set 12-10, 912A3 Obituaries Cowles, Fleur 6-5, 420E3 Fuchs, Bernie 9-17, 708C3 Hunt, Waldo H 11-6, 860D3 Knopf Jr, Alfred A 2-14, 160C3 Mohn, Reinhard 10-3, 731E3 Poirier, Richard 8-15, 612F3 Trade Issues China import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557A2

PUERTO Rico (U.S. commonwealth) Crime & Law Enforcement Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16F2–G2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, 30C3 Labor & Employment Jobless benefits extensn passes House 9-22, 676B2 Obituaries Torres, Jose 1-19, 56G2 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190F3, 191A1

PUJOLS, Albert NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 NL HR/runs ldr, among batting/RBI/2B ldrs 10-6, 690D3–F3 Wins NL MVP 11-24, 823E2

PUKANIC, Ivo (d. 2008) Slaying suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2, A3

PULASKI, Casimir (1745-79) Honorary US citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2

PULIDO, Rosanna Quigley House seat spec electn race set 3-3, 131D1 Loses Ill House seat spec electn 4-7, 219A2

PULITZER Prizes Awards Announced 4-20, 279D1; table 279A2 Obituaries Donald, David H 5-13, 364C3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Kirchner, Leon 9-17, 708E3 McCourt, Frank 7-19, 500E3 Nelson, Jack 10-21, 752E3 Perle, George 1-23, 72G2 Safire, William 9-27, 672G3 Snodgrass, W D 1-13, 40D3 Updike, John 1-27, 56E3 People Afghan seized rptr (Rohde) escapes 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 435C1 Author McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3

PULLIAM, Keshia Knight Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

PULLMAN, Bill Oleanna opens in NYC 10-11, 860F2

PUNK Rock (play) Opens in London 9-8, 792F1

PUNO, Ronaldo Sets Ampatuan pol regime removal 11-27; ARMM control transfer ordrd, swears acting govt (Alonto-Adiong) 11-27—12-10, ousts cops 12-3, 853A1–B1, A2

—QAEDA PURDUE University (West Lafayette, Ind.) Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claim backed 2-15, 274E2 Men’s/women’s basketball tourn results 4-6—4-7, 230B1, 231B3 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1

PURDY, James Otis (1914-2009) Dies 3-13, 176B3

PURNELL, James Quits 6-4, 397B2

PURSUIT of Honor (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

PURVIS, Bryant Pleads no contest, ‘06 beating victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525B1

PUTIN, Vladimir V. (Russian president, 2000-08; premier, 2008- ) Accidents & Disasters Perm club fire kills 124+ 12-5, 855A1 Crime Issues Chechen exile (Israilov) slaing 1-13, 37C1 Exiled Chechen (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 58C2 Yukos atty (Bakhmina) freed 4-21, 328D3 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497F1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Marks WWII start anniv 9-1, 591D2, A3–B3 Hails US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop, seeks WTO entry backing 9-18, 645B1 Sees new weapons dvpt 12-29, 939B1 Economy & Labor Outlines $90 bln econ recovery plan 4-6, 273E3 Opel sale mulled 5-30—6-3, 366F2 Scores Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale nix 11-5, 767E1 Energy Orders Ukraine gas shipmts halt 1-5, alleges profits pol use 1-8, 3F2, C3 In Ukraine gas standoff talks, signs deal 1-10—1-19, 37D1, B2–C2, F2, A3 Signs Turkey gas pipeline deal 8-6, 561A1, D1 At Siberian oil pipeline opening 12-28, 938G3–939A1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section At World Econ Fourm 1-28, 58B2, D2 On Armenia loan 2-27, 206G2 Belarus loan talks fail 5-28, 423C3 Hosts China’s Hu 6-17—6-18, 406E3 On Cold War pol 7-2; marks Bush’s birthday 7-6, hosts Obama 7-7, 454A2 US’s Biden visits Ukraine, Georgia 7-21—7-23, 496C2 Visits Georgia breakaway region, sets aid 8-12, 534D2 Hosts Venez’s Chavez 9-9—9-11, 616F2 Visits China 10-13—10-15, 739A2 On Iran A-program sanctns 10-14, 705F3, 706B1 On Georgia WWII monumt demolitn 12-19, 937C2 Personal Painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71C3 Politics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 Moscow rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69D1 Munic/regional parlt electns held 3-1; results rptd 3-2, vote questnd 3-3, 208B1 Vladivostok protests held 3-15, 274B1 Sochi mayoral electn held 4-26, results rptd 4-27, 328C2 Mulls ‘12 pres bid, remarks scored 9-11—9-20, 667D2 Local electns held 10-11, 727D3 Stalin historical treatmt mulled 10-29, 767B1 Medvedev addresses parlt 11-12, 803F2, D3 Govt media adviser (Lesin) fired 11-18, 892G3 On ‘12 pres bid 12-3, 892G2 Press & Broadcasting GQ article publishing omits rptd 9-4, 667B3 Novaya Gazeta, Stalin grandson suit opens 9-15, 667A3 Religion At Orthodox patriarch (Kirill I) enthronemt 2-1, 85D2

PUTNAM Investments Freddie Mac CEO (Haldeman) named 7-21, 910B1

PYATT, Tom Traded to Canadiens 6-30, 731C1

Q QADDAFI, Col. Muammer el- (Libyan head of state, 1969- ) At AU summit, elected chair 2-1—2-4, 82F10G1, D2–A3, C3 At Arab League summit 3-30, 196D3–E3 Activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 359A1 Visits Italy 6-10—6-12, 416C2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad/AU summit role confrmd, nixed 6-30—7-1, hosts summit 7-1—7-3, 459B1, A2, C2, C3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) freed, returns 8-20, 550E1, D2 Welcomes Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) 8-21, 568A1, G1–A2 NYC travel ltd 8-28; hosts Italy’s Berlusconi, coup anniv marked 8-30—9-1, Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 583B1–C1, E2 IRA victims compensatn sought, nixed 9-6—9-7, 637A1 NY tent stay nixed 9-22, addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633B1, B2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release res passes Sen 9-23, 636B3 Holds Italian women mtgs 11-15—11-16, addresses food security summit 11-17, 812C2–E2 Sets Egypt/Algeria World Cup qualifying dispute mediatn 11-24, 859F1 Wilson dies 12-5, 956F3

QADDAFI, Saif al-Islam elOn Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release 8-21, 568A1, A2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release mulled, UK ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-2, 584C1 Nixes IRA victims compensatn 9-7, 637A1

QADI, Abdul-Khaleq alOn Yemen/Comoros flight plane safety woes 6-30, 439G3

QAEDA, Al- (terrorist organization) US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, bin Laden son locatn mulled 1-16, members held 1-21, 38A3–G3 Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20D2 Bin Laden Israel attacks urge message posted 1-14, 13G2, B3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19E1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 25B1 Obama inauguratn threat probe rptd 1-20, 28E1 Mali tourists held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, captives freed 4-22, 326F1 Cuba base ex-detainees entry tape issued 1-23, Saudi suspects list issued 2-3, 119B1–D1 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, 65E3 Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154C2, E2 US/Russia ties hike urged 2-7, 74B2 Afghan/US troops cont stay seen 2-9, 78B3–D3, 79A2–B2 Pak/US drone missile strike kills 30+ 2-14, Malakand Islamic law OKd 2-16, 102B3, 103E1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108D1 Cuba base ex-detainees French convctn nixed 2-24, 150E2 CIA Pak efforts cont 2-25, 138A3 US suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3 US/Taliban talks mulled 3-8, 195F1 ‘Enemy combatant’ term dropped, Cuba base detainee transfers mulled 3-13, 165A3, C3, 166B1 Bin Laden tape aired 3-14, 369D2 Cheney antiterror remarks scored 3-16, 166B3 US detainee (Marri) bail nixed 3-18; transported 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 184B1 Somali interim pres ouster tape posted 3-19, bin Laden remarks scored 3-28, 238F3 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 194G2, B3, 195B1 US detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199D3–200B1 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200D1 US ‘war on terror’ term dropped 3-30, 200F1

1147

Pak cops acad attack claimed 3-31, 228E3, 229A1 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506D1 Cont threat seend 4-3, Afghan ouster sought 4-4, 213G1, F2 Algeria electn boycott urged, vote held/attacks launched 4-6—4-9, 248F1, A2 Saudi suspects held 4-7—8-2, blast hurts prince 8-27, 943G2–C3 UK raids net suspects, thwarted plot claimed 4-8—4-9, 253E2 US vets profiling scored 4-14, 263C1 Pak tribal areas militants arrival rptd 4-14, 276D1 CIA interrogatn memos issued, harsh methods defended 4-16; Sen com rpt released 4-21, detainees mental disparity seen 4-22, 258D1, B3, 260F3, 261B1, D2, A3 Pak tribal areas mil offensives open 4-26—4-28, 298E1 US detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289E3 US ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305B2–C2 Pak tribal areas civilns flee, Obama sees Zardari/Afghan’s Karzai 5-5—5-7, 315B1, A2 Libya prisoner (Libi) death rptd 5-10, 331G1–A2 Pak concern polled 5-11; jt drone missile strikes seen 5-12, A-program Sen com hearing held, tribal areas mil efforts hailed 5-14—5-19, 346E2, A3, C3, 347B1 Sears Tower plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374A3–B3 Eritrea’s Afwerki denies Somalia conflict role 5-21, 342A1 Uzbek attacks kill 5+, IMU ldr (Makhmudov) death rptd 5-26—9-9, 663G2 Iran mosque blast kills 25, attack claimed 5-28, 398D1 UK detainee (Qatada) release sought 5-30, Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1 Pak tribal areas violnc kills 27+ 5-30, Mumbai terror attacks susptect (Saeed) release ordrd 6-2, 382F2, 383D1–E1 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374F2 Zawahiri, bin Laden tapes issued 6-2—6-4, US’s Obama gives Egpyt address 6-4, 368A2, 369B2 US/Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381C1 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) pleads not guilty 6-9, 391E3 Yemen financier (Alwanin) held 6-12; forgn natls seized, found slain 6-12—6-15, members sentncd 7-13, 646F1, B2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn preperatns ordrd 6-16, 418E1 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill scores 6-18—7-8, 466B3 Thai Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 747F3 CIA planned assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14; ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473A3 Mauritania aid worker slain, attack claimed 6-23—6-25, suspects held 7-17, 493E1 Saudi royals, charities funding linked 6-24, 9/11 victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491E2, C3 US/Somalia arms shipmt rptd 6-25, 430F2 Mali fight vowed 7-6, US mil aid hiked 10-20, 903B3 UK suspect (Ahmed) ‘06 exit, Pak torture link seen 7-7, 544G2 Iran rebels executed 7-14—7-16, 486A1 China ethnic violnc retaliatn attacks urged 7-14, 510A1 PI separatists peace talks urged 7-16, 527G2 Bin Laden son slaying seen 7-22, 514G2, B3 Afghan reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513A3 Pak/US drone missile strikes kill 20+, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-5—8-11, 533A2, D2–F2 US alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572B3, F3 Kuwait/US mil base attack plot suspects held 8-11, 943C2 PI militant clashes kill 44+ 8-12—8-13, 559D1 Gaza Islamists clash kills 22+ 8-14—8-15, 563A2 US planned assassinatn program mulled 8-20; Blackwater role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21, drone missile strikes work seen 8-21, 586G2, E3 Detainees CIA interrogatn abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named, documts issued/techniques defended 8-24, 565C2, 566E1, G2, C3, 567A1, E1 Tajik ‘90s attackers sentncd 8-31, 765D1

1148 QAEDA— Afghan civiln deaths curbs sought 9-1, 594C1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C1, D2 Flight 93 meml plaque unveiled 9-9; 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, Bin Laden recording posted 9-13, 620A2, D2, G3, 621A2–B2 UK/US flights bomb plot retrial sought 9-11, plotters sentncd 9-14, 626A2 US/Somalia strike kills 1+, Nabhan terror role rptd 9-14—9-15, 622A2, C2, F2 NYC apartmts raided 9-14; bomb plot suspect (Zazi) denies link, questnd/plea deal mulled 9-15—9-18, held, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641B3, D3, F3, 642A1, A2 Afghan/US troop levels mulled 9-15—9-16, 629E2 US training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719D2 Indonesia raid kills 4/computer files found, Noordin death confrmd 9-17—9-19, 644A1–B1 US/Pak drone missile strike kills Jalolov 9-17, 670D1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-20—9-21, 635D1, C2, E2–F2, C3 9/11 anniv tape issued 9-22, 816F1 Cuba base detentns authrzn request nixed 9-23, 642B3 Ger threats suspect held, bin Laden message posted 9-24—9-25, 665G2 Tex bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678A3 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn seen 9-25, US troops exit deadline opposed 9-27, 668D3, 669D1 Somalia Islamists infighting seen 9-30, blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889E1, G2 Afghan/Pak threat cut seen 10-4—10-6, troop levels mulled 10-6—10-7, 673F1, A2, B3 UK suspects assets freeze case heard 10-5, 686G1 Azerbaijan/Israeli emb attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936G1–A2 Chinese Uighurs jihad urged 10-8, 703B2 French physicist (Hicheur) held 10-8; freed 10-10, probe opened 10-12, 704A2 Pak army hq seized, captives held/freed 10-10—10-11, 695D1 Afghan/UK troops hike set 10-14, 696A1 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched, backed 10-17—10-20, 709B1, C3 Iran blast kills 42+ 10-18, 729C1 Afghan mil strategy mulled 10-23—10-28, US troops sacrifices hailed 10-26, 750C3, 751B2–C2 Danish Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings plot suspects chrgd 10-27—10-28, 816B2 US’s Clinton visits Pak 10-28—10-29, 737B2, E2 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, army fight mulled 10-30, 769B2–C2 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan), imam links questnd 11-9, 777F3 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-10, 862D2 US’s Clinton visits PI 11-12—11-13, 819D2 Cuba base detainees trials set/debated, Sen com hearing held 11-13—11-18, Ill transfers mulled 11-15, 793C1, C3, 794G2 Pak tribal areas mil offensive progress seen 11-17, 806C3 Sears Tower attack plotters sentncd 11-18—12-19, 914F1 Tex mil base shooting probes open 11-19, 812C3 N African forgners seized, kidnappings claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903E2 Bin Laden ‘01 escape rptd 11-30, Afghan troops hike Cong hearing held 12-8, 844F2, 845A1 US citizens visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/video detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 858B1 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 825B1, D1, F1, A2, 826A1, A2–C2, 827D1–E1, G1, F2–G2 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings suspect (Syed) chrgd 12-7, 845E2 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) freed/flown to Kuwait, chrgs dropped 12-9—12-10, indefinite detentns rptd, 861A2, F2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842A3, 843D2 Afghan blast kills 8+ 12-15, 894C2 Abu Sayyaf alleged co-founder (Latip) held in PI 12-16, 890C3

FACTS Malian narcoterror suspects chrgd held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2 Yemen offensive kills 64+/deaths mulled, raid nets suspect 12-17—12-30, forgn aid sought, US role hike seen 12-29—12-30, 944F2 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer plan delay seen 12-23, 914D1 Bin Laden kids Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941B2, D2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25; attack claimed, intell mulled/response scored 12-27—12-31, jt probes set, Yemen drone missile strikes rptd 12-28—12-30, 897A1, 898D1–E1, D2, F2 Afghan CIA base blast kills 7+ 12-30, 899E1

QAEDA in Iraq, Al-—See IRAQ QAHROUDI, Mostafa Khaksar Ouster scored, reinstated 5-4, 362A2

QAHTANI, Mohammed al‘08 top stories reviewed, 12B1 Cuba base detentn treatmt defended 1-13, abuse confrmd 1-14, 20E1–C2

QANBAR, Gen. Aboud Fired 12-9, 856C2

QARAGHULI, Mohammed Abdullah AlIraq blast kills 23+ 1-2, 8B3

QARASE, Laisenia (Fijian prime minister, 2000-06) Bainimarama govt ruled illegal 4-9, 251F3–G3 Iloilo retiremt set 7-28, 527D2

QARAWI, Abdullah alNamed Saudi terror suspect 2-3, 119B1

QASAB, Sher Muhammad Held 9-16, dies 9-20, 670A1

QASHQAVI, Hassan On A-program talks 9-14, 614C1 On secret A-site 9-28, 649B3

QATADA, Abu (Omar Uthman Abu Omar) Release sought 5-30, 370D1

QATAR, State of African Relations Sudan govt/Darfur rebels peace talks mulled, set 2-10—2-17, 115E2, D3 Chad/Sudan peace deal signed 5-3, Darfur talks cont 5-6, 375G3, 376D1 Darfur peace talks fail 6-19, 446G2 Arab Relations Sudan’s Bashir summit trip opposed 3-22, 185G1 Arab League summit hosted 3-30, 196D2, C3*, E3 Economy & Labor Wataniya, W Bank site opens 11-10, 790D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235G2; 10-1, 735A3 Middle East Relations Israeli ties cut 1-16, 31C1 Sports WTA finale results 11-1, 951F1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Bin Laden kids Iran house arrest escape rptd 12-23, 941D2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129B3 Ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1

QATI, Matiullah (d. 2009) Slain 6-29, 466C2 Karzai brother CIA paymts rptd 10-28, 751A2

QIAN Qichen Marks US diplomatic ties anniv 1-12, 251C3

QIN Gang Vs Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt 3-5, 123B1

QUAI Branly Museum (Paris) Levi-Strauss dies 10-30, 772E3

QUALITY Road (racehorse) Exits Kentucky Derby 4-27, 315E3

QUANDT, Herbert Daughter blackmailer (Sgarbi) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207G1

QUANTOCK, Brig. Gen. David On Iraq detainees status 3-22, 189C3

QUEALLY, Thomas Midday wins Breeders’ Cup Fily & Mare Turf 11-6, 807C2 3d in Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807A2

QUEBEC—See CANADA QUEEN Latifah (Dana Owens) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

QUEENSLAND University of Technology (Australia) Indian actor (Bachchan) nixes honorary degree 5-30, 509E1

QUICK, Amanda Perfect Poison on best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

QUICK, Bob Antiterror documt photo block sought/posted, quits 4-8—4-9, 253C2, E2 Terror suspects freed 4-22, 272F3

QUICKENING Maze, The (book) Foulds on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692C1

QUICKIE, The (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596C1

QUIGLEY, Sgt. Charles Army medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118G2

QUIGLEY, Mike Wins Ill House seat spec electn Dem primary 3-3, 131C1 Wins Ill House seat spec electn 4-7, 219A2

QUIJANO, Norman San Salvador mayoral electn held 1-18, win rptd 1-24, 50E3

QUINN, Pat (Ill. governor, 2009- ; Democrat) Sworn 1-29, 43B3, 44C1 Seeks Sen Burris full disclosure 2-15, 93B3 Signs pension reforms 4-3, 219F1 Sen Burris nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 478E1 U Ill bd chair (Shah) quits 8-3, admissns manipulatn alleged 8-6, 554E3, G3 Backs Cuba base detainees transfer proposal 11-15, 794F2 Thomson prison fed buy plans rptd 12-11, Cuba base detainees transfer set 12-15, 861A1

QUINN, Pat (hockey coach) Named Oilers coach 5-26, 436A1

QUINTERO, Asdrubal On client (Rosales) sentncg documt 4-22, 326D2

QUINTO, Zachary Star Trek on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

QUON, Sgt. Jeff Text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867F3

QURESHI, Shah Mahmood On mil ldrship cooperatn 1-7, 39B2 Scores US drone strikes 2-10, 103D1 Seeks tribal areas civiln aid 6-15, 418C2 On Taliban ldr (Mehsud) slaying 8-7, 533C1–D1 Sees India’s Krishna 9-27, 669E2 Visits US 10-12—10-15, 695E2–F2 Vows cont Taliban fight 10-28, 737E1 Scores tribal areas mil offensive push 11-16, 806E3

QWEST Communications International Inc. Ex-CEO (Nacchio) witness testimony nix upheld 2-26, opens prison sentnc 4-14, 677F3 Ex-CEO (Nacchio) appeal denied by Sup Ct 10-5, 677E3

QIRBI, Abu Bakr alSeeks counterterror forgn aid 12-29, 944C3

QI Zhou

R

Reprograms mice skin cells 7-23, 580G1

QOSI, Ibrahim al Mil trial set 11-13, 794C1

QUADRANGLE Group LLC Pensn fund paymt suspects chrgd 3-19, Rattner linked 4-17, 265A2, C2, E2–G2, E3 Rattner quits auto task force 7-13, 475E3

ON FILE

RABEEAH, Abdullah alOn pilgrimage swine flu cases 11-29, 944C2

RABIAH, Fouad alRelease ordrd 9-25, 718G2–A3 Freed, flown to Kuwait 12-9, chrgs dropped 12-10, 861E2–F2

RABIN, Yitzhak (1922-95) (Israeli prime minister, 1974-77/92-95) Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209C2

RACE (play) Opens in NYC 12-6, 954C2

RACE Relations Crime & Law Enforcement Pa gunman racist postings rptd 4-7, 246E3 US right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7; vets profiling mulled 4-14—4-16, FBI white supremacists probe rptd 4-17, 262F3, 263F1 Kenya alleged poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375A2 US ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337D3 Australian/Indian students attacked, protests held 5-24—6-8, film union boycott set 6-4, 508D3, F3, 509D1 US Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, museum shut 6-11, 391G3, 392E1–F1 White supremacist blogger (Turner) held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888A1 La teen beating suspects plead no contest, victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525A1, C1 Harvard prof (Gates) held, chrgs filed/dropped 7-16—7-21; arrest mulled, White House mtg held 7-21—7-30, 911 call racism denied, recordings issued 7-26—7-2, 504C3, 505B1, B2–C2 Russia, African attacks survey issued 8-31, 667D3 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700E3, 701B1 Kenya poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) freed 10-23, 922B3 Cambodia oppositn ldr (Rainsy) immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 112-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935F3 Darfur Developments—See SUDAN—Civil War Employment & Business Zimbabwe white farmers land seizures cont 2-28, dep min (Bennett) freed 3-12, 152C3, G3–153A1 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2, F3, 444A1 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444E2 Obituaries Franklin, John H 3-25, 192F2 Political Issues Obama sworn 1-20, 26B1, C2, 27E3 GOP chair electn held 1-30, 62G1 Minority voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 167D1, F1 UN conf held, documt OKd 4-20—4-21, nonprofits banned 4-23, 261F3, 262D1 Judge Sotomayor named to Sup Ct 5-26, 349F2, B3, 350E2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) ‘01 remarks regretted, attacks mulled 5-29—6-3, 389C3–F3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470D3, 471F1, D2 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602F2 Rep Wilson/Obama speech outburst racism seen, health care reform debate mulled 9-15—9-16, 617B3–D3 Obama health care reform push cont 9-18—9-20, 638E1 Ger/Turkish parlt candidates threat probe opens 9-22, 665C3–D3 Religious Issues Swiss mosque minarets banned 11-29, 836D3, 837C1 School Issues—For U.S. Issues, see EDUCATION (U.S.) Social Issues Survey traces African ancestry 4-30, 516B1 Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, act reinstatemt seen 8-17, 624C2–E2 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916G2 South African Developments—See SOUTH Africa

RACE to Witch Mountain (film) RABE, Lily Amer Plan revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3

On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

RACHEL Alexandra (racehorse) Wins Kentucky Oaks 5-1, 315F3

2009 Index Wins Preakness 5-16, Belmont Stakes entry mulled 5-17, 347C1 Belmont Stakes entry nixed 5-29, 399B2 Wins Haskell Invitatnl 8-2, 807F1 Wins Woodward Stakes 9-5, 807F1 Breeders’ Cup Classic role nixed 9-11, ‘09 campaign ends 10-9, 807E1–G1

RACHEL Getting Married (film) Hathaway gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

RACHEL Maddow Show, The (TV show) Natl Guard’s Choi interviewed 5-11, 392A3

RACINE, Jean (1639-99) Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

RACKERS, Neil Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70C3, E3

RADAR US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613D1, F1, A2 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed 9-18, 645C1–D1 Azerbaijan/Russian station attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936G1 US’s Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 706B1 US sci (Nozette) spying chrgd 10-19, 760D3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield components plan OKd 10-21—10-23, 750B2

RADCLIFFE, Daniel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

RADCLIFFE, Paula 4th in NYC marathon 11-1, 791B3

RADIATION UK/French A-subs collide 2-3, 91D3 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112F1 Italy quake warning mulled 4-6, 224E3 N Korea A-bomb test blast measured 5-25, 351D1 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) negative test rptd 8-18, 551F1 Gen Petraeus cancer treatmt rptd 10-5, 720E2 Mammograms cut urged 11-16, 799D2–E2

RADICOVA, Iveta Pres electn held, earns runoff 3-21, loses 4-4, 226G1, B2

RADIO—See TELEVISION RADIO Caracas Television (Venezuelan TV station) Broadcasting rules chngd 7-9, 493E3

RADIO France Internationale (French radio station) Guinea’s Camara interviewed 9-29, 660A3 Guinea pres guard (Diakite) interviewed 12-16, 870B2, F2

RADIO Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Azerbaijan forgn broadcasting curbs open 1-1, 206B3 Kyrgyz rptr (Abdyldayev) interviewed 3-5, 187A3 Brown dies 11-16, 896A2

RADIO Globo (Honduran radio station) Shut 9-28, 661E3

RADIOSHACK Corp. Cyclist Armstrong sets ‘10 team 7-23, 515C2

RADOMSKI, Kirk MLB drug probe claims denied 1-20—1-21, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88A1

RADULOV, Alex Russia wins World Champs 5-18, 670B3

RAEKWON (Corey Woods) Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt 2 on best-seller list 9-26, 672D1

RAFALSKI, Brian Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420F1

RAFFARIN, Jean-Pierre (French premier, 2002-05) Villepin smear trial opens 9-21, 644E2

RAFSANJANI, Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi (Iranian president, 1989-97) Scores Ahmadinejad insults 6-3, electn held 6-12, 401D1–E1 Ahmadinejad attacks scored 6-19, kin arrests rptd 6-21, 421B3–C3, 422A1, G1

—RANAIVONIARIVO 1149 Electn results backed 6-27, 439B1 Electn results quesntd 7-6, 464F1 Questns Ahmadinejad govt, scores protests crack down 7-17, Guardian Cncl cooperatn lack seen 7-20, 485A1, A2 Dissidents trial opens 8-1, boycotts Ahmadinejad inauguratn 8-5, 518A2, F2 Prisoners rape alleged 8-9, Khamenei rule questnd 8-15 8-9, 561E2, E3 Karroubi arrest order claimed 9-11, 628B3 Quds Day sermon nixed 9-16, protests cont, clashes erupt 9-18, 645C3, E3 Daughter held 12-7, 857E1

RAGE, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Denies Mogadishu blast role 12-4, 889B2

RAGTIME (book/play) Play revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

RAHALL 2nd, Nick Joe (U.S. representative from W. Va., 1977- ; Democrat) Reseated Natural Resources chair 1-6, 5B1

RAHIM, Syed Mohammed Haneef Abdul Convctd, sentncd 7-27, 8-6, 594F3

RAHMA, Ariana Arrest rptd 7-22, 495E1

RAHMAN, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

RAHMAN, A(llah) R(akha) (A.S. Dileep Kumar) Wins Oscars 2-22, 120C1

RAHNAYARD, Zahra On protests crack down 6-24, 422B3 At Tehran Univ protests 12-7, 857E1

RAHUMAGI, Jaanus On defns ex-ofcl (Simm) breach 2-25, 136E1

RAI (Italian TV channel) Berlusconi alleged prostitute interviewed 10-1, Rome press freedoms rally held 10-3, 687C2–D2

RAICH, Benjamin 2d in World Cup race 3-14, 191E1

RAILROADS Obamas, Bidens arrive in DC 1-17, 28C1 French unions strike held 1-29, 68F2 N Korea missile test preparatns seen 2-3, 84F1 Spain blast hits 2-9, 226F2–A3 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90B3–D3 N Ireland cop slaying supsects held, riots erupt 3-14, 173G1 Union Pacific drug smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269F1 US high-speed system urged 4-16, 324A3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321E1 Australian/Indian students attacked, protests held 5-24—5-31, 508D3, 509A1 Georgia RR blast hits 6-2, 378A2 US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-23, 9-17, 658G2–B3 Chinese firm, Namibia govt deal probed 7-31, 601G2 Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667B2 Storm Ketsana hits Viet 9-29, 664A3 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759F2 Power outages hit Brazil 11-10, 871E3 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3 Russian blasts kill 27 11-27—11-30; suspects described 11-30, attacks claimed 12-2, 836G1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866G3 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Kasab) acct chngd 12-18, 946A2 Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3 Russian oil pipeline opens 12-28, 939A1 Accidents—See ACCIDENTS—Rail Amtrak—See AMTRAK Obituaries Brinegar, Claude S 3-13, 192A2

RAIN (Jeong Ji-hoon) Ninja Assassin on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

RAINE, Jessica Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

RAIN Man (film) Peek dies 12-19, 955C3

RAINSY, Sam Immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 12-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935E3

RAISING Sand (recording) Plant/Krauss win Grammys 2-8, 88F1, F2 On best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

RAJAPAKSA, Basil Frees Tamil refugees 11-21, 823A2

RAJAPAKSA, Gotabaya Sunday Ldr ed slain 1-8, 9G2 Gen Fonseka US questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769G3

RAJAPAKSA, Mahinda (Sri Lankan prime minister, 2004-05; president, 2005- ) On Kilinochchi capture 1-2, 9C2–D2, G2 Sees rebel conflict end 2-4, 119G1 Vows LTTE defeat, claims hostage rescue 4-20, 277B1, F1, A2 LTTE conflict halt urged, Sweden’s Bildt entry blocked 4-26—4-28, sees/declares govt victory, visits Jordan 5-14—5-19, 333A1, B2–F2, 334E1, A3, B3, D3, 335A1 On LTTE conflict war crimes probe 5-21, nixes refugees camp intl aid access hike 5-24, 363A2 IMF loan OKd, 7-24, local electns held 8-8, 578C2, A3–B3, 579A1 LTTE war abuses rptd 10-19—10-22; Tamils resetlmt hiked 10-21—11-2, Gen Fonseka US questng nixed 11-2—11-4, 769A3, C3, G3 Australia’s Rudd calls 11-2, 931A1 Gen Fonseka quits 11-12; Tamil refugees release hike urged, freed 11-19—11-21, sets electns 11-23, 823A2, D2 Fonseka sets pres bid, scores rule 11-29, 947C2–E2

RAJARATNAM, Raj Chrgd/held, bail set 10-16, Galleon investmts liquidated 10-21, 743D2–A3 Assocs chrgd 11-5, 814D1 Indicted 12-15, pleads not guilty 12-21, 910F1

RAJI, B.J. In NFL draft 4-25, 298F2

RAJKHOWA, Arabinda Transferred to India 12-4, 946C2

RAJOELINA, Andry (Madagascan president, 2009- ) Antananarivo riots erupt, declared ldr 1-26—1-31; cabt apptmts vowed, urges gen strike 2-2, fired, protests held 2-3—2-4, 66B1, D1–B2 Protests turn violent, pol dispute talks nixed 2-7—3-12; mil backs, UN protectn rptd 3-8—3-9, rally held, pres palace seized 3-14—3-16, 169C1–D2 Named pres, Const Ct backs/vows electns 3-17—3-18; nixes Daewoo land deal 3-18, dissolves parlt 3-19, 168A2–D2, D3–F3, 169C1, E2; photo 168A3 Sworn 3-21, vows electns 3-23, 184A3–C3, F3 Protests turn violent 3-28; SADC suspensn OKd, scores interfernc 3-30—331, names cabt 3-31, 203D2–A3 Pol dispute talks fail 4-8—6-16, AU cont role set 7-1, 459A3 Electn urged, guarantee nixed 4-20—5-1; Antananarivo protests banned, turn violent 4-20—4-27, Rakotonirina held, on Saudi investmt 4-29—5-3, 308B2–D2, F2–B3, D3 Signs power-sharing deal 8-9, sees cont ldrship role 8-14, 555B3, D3 Names govt 9-8; Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, exit warned, visa curbs threat issued 9-29, 652B1–E1 Power-sharing deal OKd 10-6, Mangalaza named PM 10-11, 782D3–E3 OKs, signs power-sharing deal 11-6—11-7, 782A3–G3 Parlt electns set 12-16; PM ousted, Camille named/power-sharing deal nixed 12-18—12-20, protest held 12-22, 925C2

RAJU, B. Ramalinga Admits fraud/quits, Sensex index drops 1-7, bd dissolved, held 1-9, 54F3–G3, 55B1–F1 Chrgd 4-7, Tech Mahindra/Satyam stake buy set 4-13, 450C3–E3

RAJU, Rama Brother admits fraud 1-7, held 1-9, 55F1 Chrgd 4-7, Tech Mahindra/Satyam stake buy set 4-13, 450E3

RAKHMONOV, Imamali (Tajikistan president, 1994- ) Hosts US gen (Petraeus) 10-26, 765B1

RAKOFF, Judge Jed AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506D3 Sentncs corp debt defrauder (Dreier) 7-14, 506A3 Withholds Bank of Amer bonus paymts setlmt approval 8-5, 523A2 Upholds AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nix 8-31, 585F3 Nixes Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt 9-14, 618F2, A3, C3–F3

RAKOTONIRINA, Manadafy Named parallel PM 4-20, held 4-29, 308E2–F2

RAKOTOVAHINY, Emmanuel Named co-pres 11-6, 782D3

RALIJAONA, Andry On Rajoelina ouster 2-3, 66G1

RAM, Andy Loses Australian Open mixed doubles 2-1, 71A2 UAE entry OKd 2-19, 139B1

RAMA, Edi Parlt electns held 6-28; party joins coalitn 7-4, results rptd 7-28, 511F2

RAMAKRISHNAN, Venkatraman Wins Nobel 10-7, 694F1

RAMAROSON, Hyppolite Ravalomanana quits, names Rajoelina pres 3-17, 168B2–C2

RAMBIS, Kurt Named Lakers coach 8-11, 771A2

RAMESH, Jairam Hosts US’s Clinton 7-19, 486F1–A2 Signs China climate chng cooperatn deal 10-21, 791A2 Vows ‘carbon intensity’ cut 12-3, 828A2–B2

RAMEZANZADEH, Abdollah Sentncd 12-24, 941A1

RAMGOOLAM, Navinchandra (Mauritian prime minister, 2005- ) Hosts China’s Hu 2-17, 170B2

RAMIREZ, Efren Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

RAMIREZ, Hanley NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 NL batting ldr, among hits ldrs 10-6, 690D3–E3 2d in NL MVP voting 11-23, 823B3

RAMIREZ, Juan Traded to Phillies 12-16, 948F3

RAMIREZ, Manny Signs Dodgers deal 3-4, 278B1 Appeal dropped/suspended, HCG perscriptn admitted 5-6—5-7; sees Dodgers owner, issues apology 5-9—5-15, positive test knowledge rptd 5-18, 347C3 Returns 7-3, ‘03 positive test rptd 7-30, 530E3

RAMIREZ, Rafael Cuts oil svc deals 3-3, 270F2

RAMIREZ Sanchez, Illich (Carlos the Jackal) Chavez hails 11-20, 929A3

RAMIS, Harold Yr One on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

RAMMELL, Bill Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release UK ofcl correspondnc leaked, issued 8-30—9-1, 583D2

RAMOS, Gen. Fidel V. (Philippine president, 1992-98) Aquino dies 8-1, 531C3

RAMOS, Ignacio Sentnc commuted 1-19, 33E3–F3

RAMOS, Spec. Belmor Slayings troop (Mayo) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-30, 208E3

RAMOS-Horta, Jose (East Timoreses premier, 2006-07; president, 2007- ) Suai massacre suspect (Bere) held 8-8, release ordrd 8-30, UN Gen Assemb travel blocked 9-8, 835C1–D1, F1, A2

RAMUSSEN, Lars Lokke (Danish premier, 2009- ) Takes ofc, names cabt 4-5—4-7, 225C1

RANA, Tahawwur Hussain Chrgd 10-27—10-28, Mumbai terror attacks role probed 11-22, 816B2 Muhammad cartoonist, ed slayings suspect (Syed) chrgd 12-7, 845E2

RANAIVONIARIVO, Mamy Named defns min 2-9, quits 3-10, 169D1, A2

1150 RANBAXY— RANBAXY Laboratories Ltd. Drugs false test results rptd, FDA applicatns halted 2-25, 221F2

RANDAZZO, Florencio Proposes grains natl bd 3-3, 204C1

RANDOM House Inc. (of Bertelsmann) Blowing the Whistle drop rptd 10-28, 771D3

RANDRIANARISOA, Guy Rivo Named Antananarivo caretaker mayor 2-3, 66A2

RANGEL, Charles B. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1971- ; Democrat) Reseated Ways & Means chair 1-6, 5C1 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax passes 3-19, 162F1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Vs universal health care taxes 5-6, reform talks secrecy scored 5-11, 340A1, C1 Health care reforms draft bill issued, mulls tax 6-9, 390B3–C3 Issues Health care reform proposal 6-19, 426D3 On income tax hike 7-10, 476E2 Admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 619G3 Com chair ouster bid fails 10-7, probe hiked 10-8, 679E1 Ethics probes set 10-29, 779D3–E3 Seeks drug price rise probe 11-18, 797B1

RANNEBERGER, Michael Sets Somali captured pirates Kenya turn over 1-26, 66G3 Urges Kenyan activists slayings probe 3-6, 203F1 Warns Kenya sanctns 9-24, 702A3

RAO, K. Chandrasekhar Andhra Pradesh state plan set 12-9, 946A1

RAPE—For U.S. capital punishment issues, see CRIME—Capital Punishment Crime & Law Enforcement CIA Algeria chief (Warren) allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3 Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, daughter testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172G2, B3 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247A3 Afghan women rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213E1 Calif ‘70-80s slayings suspect (Thomas) held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888C3 Afghan women rights curbs protested 4-15, 314C2 S Africa’s Zuma elected, sworn pres 5-6—5-9, Zille remarks rptd, scored 5-12, 325A2, F3 Convicts DNA testing right nixed by Sup Ct 6-18, 425E3 CIA Algeria ex-chief (Warren) chrgd 6-18, 502A3 China ethnic clashes erupt 6-25—6-26, 461B1 Iran prisoners rape alleged/dismissed, probe urged 8-9—8-18, 561D2 Calif suspects held, plead not guilty 8-26—8-28, 587A3, C3, F3 Iran prison abuses denied, detailed 9-12—9-14, 628E3 Mex atty gen nominee (Chavez) confrmd 9-25, 682C1 China ethnic clashes suspects convctd, sentncd 10-10, 703E1 Calif HS student attacked/raped, exits hosp 10-24—10-28; arrests reward offrd 10-27, suspects plead not guilty 12-1, 888G2 Ohio corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, suspect (Sowell) indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3, 888D1 Japan teacher slaying suspect (Ichihashi) held 11-10, chrgd 12-23, 933B2 Wash suspect (Clemmons) freed on bail 11-23; shooting kills 4 11-29, slain, family held 12-1—12-9, 888B2 PI prov violnc mulled 11-27, 852G3 Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931A3 Medicine & Health Care Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64C2 Pope scores Maputo Protocol 3-20, 196A2 S Africa AIDS policy hiked 6-8, 850C3 Health care reform abortn curbs nixed 9-30, 655E3

FACTS Military Issues PI/US marine (Smith) accuser testimony chngd, atty role mulled 3-12—3-16, probe sought 3-24, 205F1 PI/US Marine (Smith) convctn nixed, freed 4-23, exits 4-24, 309F2 Iraq/US troop (Green) formally sentncd 9-4, 610E2 US defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2 Obituaries Chavez Cano, Esther 12-25, 955E1 People Mamas and Papas frontman daughter claims incest 9-23, 671F3 Statistics S Africa survey rptd 6-17, 923E3 US ‘08 drop rptd 9-14, 887E3 US ‘09 1st 1/2 drop rptd 12-21, 888A1 War Crimes Rwanda troops enter Congo, jt offensive mulled 1-20, 34G2 Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens 1-26, 43D1 US lists Congo abuse 2-25, 180D1 Iraq/US troop (Green) convctd 5-7, 331D1 Iraq rape US troop (Green) sentncd 5-21, 362F2–A3 Rwandan suspect (Munyaneza) convctd 5-22, 680D2 Darfur refugee camps victims rise seen 5-30, 376F1 Zimbabwe diamonds field abuses probed 6-30—7-4, 783F3 Myanmar rights abuses scored 7-21, 495E3 Iraq rptr (Bahjat) ‘06 slaying suspect held 8-3, 530C1 Congo violnc scored, US aid vowed/Clinton visits victims 8-10—8-11, 540F2 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses rpt issued 8-24, 566D1 Guinea anti-junta protests turn violent 9-28, 660F2 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675F3–G3 Guinea Sep protests crackdown mulled 10-27—12-17, 870B2 Bosnian Serb army ex-cmdr (Kujundzic) sentncd 10-30, 820E3 Congo warlords ICC trial opens 11-24, 922F1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843C3 Uganda rebels abuses rptd 12-21, 924D3 Guinea junta ldr (Camara), aides ICC chrgs urged 12-21, 925G1

RAPHAEL (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) (1483-1520) Head of a Muse fetches $48 mln 12-8, 953E2

RAPHAELSON, Samson (1894-1983) Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1

RAPP, Stephen Warns Sierra Leone tribunal funds lack 2-23, 134C2 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480C2 Issues Sri Lankan govt, rebel war abuses rpt, urges probe 10-22, 769D3–E3

RARITAN: A Quarterly Review (journal) Poirier dies 8-15, 612F3

RAS al Khalma—See UNITED Arab Emirates RASCAL Flatts (music group) Unstoppable on best-seller list 5-2, 316E1; 5-30, 384D1

RASHAD, Phylicia Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752G2

RASLAVICH, Judge Stephen OKs Philadelphia Newspapers creditors bid 10-8, 913A2

RASMUSSEN, Anders Fogh (Danish premier, 2001-09) NATO secy gen apptmt OKd 4-4, 213B1, A2–C2 Quits 4-5, 225C1, E1 Takes NATO secy gen post 8-3, 534B1, D1 On US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613D2 Sees NATO/Russia missile defns future link 9-19, 645F1 Sees Obama 9-29, 669C1 Holds defns mins mtg, backs Afghan mil strategy 10-23, 751D2 Vows Afghan troops hike 12-2, 826E1 Sets Afghan troops hike 12-4, 844B1–E1, B2

RASMUSSEN, Lars Loekke (Danish premier, 2009- ) Sworn premr 4-5, names finance min (Frederiksen) 4-7, 224B1–C1, F1 Facts on 4-5, 225E1

On climate treaty talks Obama role 11-25, 828B1 Opens climate treaty talks 12-7, 841C1

RASOLOMAHANDRY, Edmond Sets mil interventn deadline 3-10, ousted 3-11, 169G1–A2

RASSAM, Hossein Trial cont 8-8, 562C1 Sentncd 10-29, 768D1

RATHER, Dan CBS ouster suit dismissed 9-30, 671E3

RATLIFF, Brett Traded to Browns 4-25, 299A1

RATNER, Bruce Prokhorov sets Nets stake buy 9-23, approval vote seen 10-22, 771D2

RATS—See RODENTS RATSIRAKA, Didier (Madagascan president, 1975-93/97-2002) Rajoelina declared ldr/cabt apptmts vowed, fired 1-31—2-3, 66D1–E1, C2–D2 Ravalomanana quits, mil names Rajoelina pres 3-17, 168G2, C3, F3–G3 Signs power-sharing deal 8-9, 555B3, E3 Names PM (Mangalaza) 10-11, power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782B3, E3

RATSIVALAKA, Michel Named Antananarivo mayor 2-4, 66B2

RATTEALO, Markus Slain 7-12, 542F2

RATTNER, Steven Sees GM CEO (Wagoner) 3-27, 198E2 Quadrangle pub funds paymt probe linked, Obama backs 4-17, 265A2, C2, E3 Quits 7-13, 475D3

RAUF, Rashid (d. 2008) UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608E2

RAUSCHENBERG, Robert (Milton Ernest) (1925-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

RAVALOMANANA, Marc (Madagascan president, 2002-09) Antananarivo riots erupt 1-26—1-27, mayor (Rajoelina) declared ldr/cabt apptmts vowed, fires 1-31—2-3, 66B1–E1, G1–D2 Protests turn violent, supporters rally 2-7—2-11; defns mins quit, pol dispute talks nixed 2-9—3-12, mil mutiny launched/urges neutrality, offers referendum 3-8—3-15, 169D1, F1, A2–D2 Quits, mil names Rajoelina 3-17; Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, parlt dissolved 3-19, 168A2–E2, G2, D3–F3, 169C1, E2; photo 169A1 Rajoelina sworn 3-21; backers rally held 3-23, in Swazi 3-24, 184A3, F3–G3 Protests turn violent 3-28, at SADC summit 3-30, 203D2–A3 Pol dispute talks fail 4-8—6-16, AU cont role set 7-1, 459B3 Seeks electn 4-20; Antananarivo protests turn violent 4-20—4-27, names parallel govt 4-28, 308A2–E2, B3 Convctd 6-3, signs power-sharing deal 8-9, 555A3–E3 SADC visa curbs warned 9-29, 652E1 Power-sharing deal OKd 10-6, 782D3 OKs, signs power-sharing deal 11-6—11-7, 782A3, C3–D3

RAVENSTHAL, Luke (Pittsburgh, Pa. mayor, 2007- ; Democrat) Wins electn 11-3, 756G3

RAVITCH, Richard Named NYS lt gov 7-8, 524E3–F3 Lt gov apptmt upheld 9-22, 639C3–D3

RAWI, Ali Lufti alConvctd, sentncd 6-2, 380F1

RAWL, Charles Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148D2

RAWLINGS, Jerry (Ghana head of state, 1979/81-2001) Atta Mills sworn pres 1-7, 7G2, B3, F3 Hosts US’s Obama 7-11, 472D1

RAY, Wayne Warns atypical antipsychotics heart risk 1-15, 65A1

RAYNE, Stephen Heavens Are Hung in Black opens in DC 2-8, 211D3

RAYTHEON Corp. Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, dep defns secy nominee (Lynn) Sen confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29F1

ON FILE

RAYYAN, Nizar Slain 1-1, 1F1–G1

RAZO, Richard Lopez Indicted 10-19, 729D3

RAZZANO, Virginie Loses Barclays Dubai Champ 2-22, 139A1

RBS—See ROYAL Bank of Scotland RDF USA Colo balloon hoax family TV show talks rptd 11-14, 817F2–G2

READER, The (film) Winslet wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2 Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40F1, A2–B2, D2 Winslet wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104F1 Winslet wins Oscar 2-22, 120G1, C2

REAGAN, Ronald Wilson (1911-2004) (U.S. president, 1981-89; Republican) Bush hosts Obama, ex-pres lunch 1-7, 6A2 Neuhaus dies 1-8, 24F3 Pending fed regulatns halted 1-20, 28B1 Abortns intl aid reinstated 1-23, 47C1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 126B1 Annenberg dies 3-12, 192E1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2 Forgn aid family planning funds measure backed 7-6, 489A1 Lefever dies 7-29, 532G1 Sprinkel dies 8-22, 596F3 Sen Kennedy dies 8-25, 569G2, 570C1 Kristol dies 9-18, 648A3 Wilson dies 12-5, 956F3

REAGAN Washington National Airport (Arlington, Va.) Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782B2

REALCLEARPOLITICS.com (Web site) Bush support polled 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Obama support polled 4-21—4-28, 285A3 Obama approval rating 7-27—8-6, 520A3

REAL Estate Accidents & Disasters Australian bushfires erupt 2-7—2-12, 83B2 Greece wildfires probe opens 8-24, 577A2 Italy mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, 705G1 Swiss geothermal drilling halted, designer (Haering) trial opens/cleared 12-10—12-21, 939A3–B3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section AIG ‘08 4th 1/4 loss rptd, govt aid plan chngd 3-2, 126D3 GE credit rating cut 3-12, 3-23, 242C1 Morgan Stanley ‘09 1st 1/4 loss rptd 4-22, 265D1 Fed/Treasury outstanding loans tallied 8-12, program cont 8-17, 571A3–B3 FDIC deposit fund low seen 8-27, 585D2 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 828E3–F3, 829B1 Abu Dhabi sets Nakheel bailout, interest-bearing bonds rptd 12-14—12-17, 878B1–C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Paleontologist (Murphy) admits pvt property fossil find 1-22, pleads guilty 4-14, 280B2 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, Antigua catastrophy seen, assets seized 2-18—2-25, 147F3, 148B3 Zimbabwe dep agri min (Bennnett) freed 3-12, 152C3 UAE graft suspects chrgd 4-8, 893C3 African ldrs French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394G1 Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3 Bulgaria ex-agri min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgd 9-8, 727B2 Total/Chevron, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684F1 Taiwan ex-pres (Chen) convctd, sentncd 9-11, 625E2 Rep Richardson foreclosure benefits probe set 10-29, 779C3 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859A3 Crime Issues Turkey wedding party attack kills 45 5-4, 329C3 Kenya alleged poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375A2 Kenya poacher slayer (Cholmondeley) freed 10-23, 922B3 Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848F3 US/Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804C3 Nepal Maoists seize govt land 12-4, 946D3 Environmental Issues US oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe sought 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1

2009 Index US Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases blocked, nixed 1-17, 2-4, 94B1, E1 Wild horses sanctuary plan nixed 3-2, 357A1 US pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 245G3 Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447C2 Fla sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3 Australia emissns cut backed 12-2, 851G2 Nev wild horses relocatn opens 12-28, 917D3 Land Reform China unrest curbs urged 2-2, 134G3 Zimbabwe white farmers land seizures cont 2-28, 152G3–153A1 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested 6-12, 431F3 Kenya reforms urged 10-4—10-7, 702A2 India rebel attack kills 17 10-8, 790F3 Obituaries Crow, Trammell 1-14, 56F1 Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3 People Ross buys Dolphins stake 1-20, 55G2 Farley named Lincoln Ctr chrmn 6-8, 400A2 Political & Legislative Issues Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65F2 Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29F3 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, 74C1 $275 bln home foreclosure curbs plan unveiled 2-18, 92C1 Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1–E1 Homeowner rescue plan launched 3-4, 128C2 Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2 HUD asst secy (Stevens) named 3-23, 200A2–B2 Fed land use energy cos royalty paymt woes rptd 9-14—9-15, House com hearing held 9-16, 917E2 Religious Issues Episcopal split dioceses ownership rights nixed 1-5, 132E3 NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132F2 Episcopal Calif split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3 Rights Issues Natl banks racial bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65F1–B2 Uzbek rptr (Sayyid) held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 892A1 Indigenous Hawaiian claims nixed by Sup Ct 3-31, 246C1 Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, 620D3–F3 Libya’s Qaddafi NY tent stay nixed 9-22, 633F2 Cambodia/Thai border spec forces removed 11-13, 872D1, C2 Cambodia oppositn ldr (Rainsy) immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 112-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935E3 US govt, Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2 Tax Issues US electn results 11-3, 755B3

REAL Housewives of DC (TV show) White House crashers role seen 11-26, 829C3

REAL Quiet (racehorse) Summer Bird wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399D2

REALTORS, National Association of Home Resales & Prices Dec ‘08 data, Nov revised 1-26, 45E3–F3 Jan ‘09 data, Dec ‘08 revised 2-25, 129A1 Feb ‘09 data, Jan revised 3-23, 183C1 Mar ‘09 data, Feb revised 4-23, 292D1 Apr ‘09 data, Mar revised 5-27, 372A2 May ‘09 data, Apr revised 6-23, 456D2 Jun ‘09 data, May revised 7-23, 504A3 Jul ‘09 data, Jun revised 8-21, 571G3 Aug ‘09 data, Jul revised 9-30, 657B1 Sep ‘09 data, Aug revised 10-23, 740D2 Oct ‘09 data, Sep revised 11-18, 831B2 Nov ‘09 data, Oct revised 12-22, 911D1

REASONS to Be Pretty (play) Opens in NYC 4-2, 256E1

RECASNER, Dr. Tony Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C3

RECESSION—See ECONOMY—Inflation RECORD Industry Association of America (RIAA) Music piracy suspect (Thomas-Rasset) found liable, fined 6-18, 782C1

—RELL 1151 RECORDING Arts and Sciences, Academy of Grammys presented 2-8, 88E1

RECORDS, Max Where the Wild Things Are on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

RECOVERY.gov (Web site) Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106E2

RED Cross, American Named interim LPGA comr 7-13, 595B2

RED Cross, Australian Bushfires death toll hiked 2-19, 98B1

RED Cross, International (International Red Cross Committee and League of Red Cross Societies) Gaza wounded treatmt block rptd 1-8, 2F1, E2, G2 Gaza hosp med supplies rptd 1-13, 14A1 PI workers seized, call ofc 1-15—3-19, 205F2–G2 Colombia rebel hostages freed 2-1—2-5, 67F3 Sri Lanka violnc kills scores 2-1—2-4, 119B2, G2 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 2-5—2-6, 93E3 US terror suspects renditn UK aid admitted 2-26, 150B3 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15, indep probe urged 3-17, 183G2–B3, D3 US terror detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 200B1 PI hostages freed 4-2—4-18; rescue opeartn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415F2 US terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244D2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, Sen com rpt issued 4-21, 257F1, 261D2 Sri Lanka rebel clashes humanitarian crisis seen 4-21, 277A1, D1 Afghan/US air strike civiln deaths rptd 5-6, 314D1 Pak tribal areas mass exit rptd 5-7, 314E3 PI hostage rescue try ambushed 6-13, Vagni freed 7-12, 528A1 US detainees IDs access urged, rptd 6-17—8-22, 621D2 Honduras protests turn violent 6-29, 438C1 Afghan/US detainees protests rptd 7-16, 499C1 Nigeria Islamic sect violnc displacemts return 8-5, 525G2 N/S Korea family reunion talks open 8-26, 568G2 N/S Korea family reunions talks held, OKd 8-26—8-28, 600F2 French camp raided, migrants held 9-22, 666A2 Storm Ketsana, Cambodia aid set 9-30, 664A3 Samoa tsunami aid rptd 10-1, 662G3 N/S Korea cont family reunions mulled 10-16, 712F2 N/S Korea food aid offrd 10-26, 764B1 EU/Uzbek sanctns lifted 10-27, 764B3 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913G3

REDDING, Savana Schl strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425D2–F2, B3

REDDY, Sada Named Reserve Bank gov, devalues F$ 4-15, 252D1–E1

REDFORD, Robert Weds Szaggars 7-11, 516E1

REDGRAVE, Lynn Niece dies 3-18, 176D3

REDGRAVE, Sir Michael (Scudamore) (1908-85) Granddaughter dies 3-18, 176D3

REDGRAVE, Vanessa Daughter dies 3-18, 176D3

REDISTRICTING—See POLITICS—Voting REDMAN, Michele Loses Safeway Classic 8-30, 595G2

REED, Jeff Steelers win AFC champ 1-18, 39F3 Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70B2, D2, B3, D3

REED, Kasim Earns Atlanta mayoral runoff 11-3, 756D3 Runoff held 12-1, win declared 12-9, 848A3

REED Jr., Judge Lowell COPA nix appeal denied by Sup Ct 1-21, 48C3

REESE, Col. Timothy Urges Iraq troops exit hike 7-31, 529F2–A3

REEVES, Paul Visits Fiji 9-9—9-11, 852B2–D2

REFUGEES—See IMMIGRATION REFUGEES, Office of the High Commissioner for (UNHCR)—See under UNITED Nations REFUGEES International (Washington, D.C.) Bacon dies 8-15, 648F1

REGALADO, Tomas Elected Miami mayor 11-3, 756F3

REGAL Ransom (racehorse) Breeders’ Cup Classic results 11-7, 807G1–A2

REGEN Biologics Inc. Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720F1, B2

REGENT University (Virginia Beach, Va.) Gov candidate (McDonnell) thesis rptd 8-30, 716F3

REGEV, Mark On Gaza war crimes rpt 9-16, 614G2

REGIONS Financial Corp. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319E1

REHANA, Shiekh Sister sworn PM 1-6, 9D1

REHBEIN, David Scores vets profiling 4-15, 263C1, E1

REHMAN, Sherry On protests crackdown 3-11, quits 3-13, 175A3, C3

REHMAN, Wali-ur Taliban ldrship dispute seen, Mehsud slaying mulled 8-8—8-10, 533G2 Confrms Mehsud slaying, denies ldrship successn rift 8-25, 577F3, 578A1

REHN, Olli Backs Albania PM (Berisha) reelectn 9-17, 625F3–G3 Turkey entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706D3–E3 Named Europn Comm econ/monetary affairs comr 11-27, 835B3

REHNQUIST, William Hubbs (1924-2005) (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1972-86; chief justice, 1986-2005) Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301D2

REICH, Steve Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2, E2

REICHEL, Matt Loses Ill House seat spec electn 4-7, 219A2

REID, Harry M. (U.S. senator from Nev., 1987- ; Democrat) Budget & Spending Programs ‘10 salary freeze signed 3-11, 144D2 Fscl ‘10 blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 218D1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321E3 On suplmtl funds 5-21, 355E1 Energy/water ‘10 funds pass 10-15, 715A1 Debt reductn measures sought 10-19, 713F2 Economy & Labor Halts $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax vote 3-23, on retro-active limits 4-1, 220C1–D1, A2 On ‘cash for clunkers’ renewal funds 8-6, 536E1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Hosts Canada’s Harper 9-17, 643E1 Iraqi Conflict On troops Aug ‘10 exit 2-26, 121C2 Medicine & Health Care Vs health benefits tax 7-8, 457C3 On health care reform 7-23, 487A2 On health care reform vote delay 7-23, 520B2 Sets health care reform com vote 10-8, 676E3 Opens health care reform bills merging talks 10-14, 698F2 Medicare paymt reform blocked 10-21, sees Obama, backs pub option 10-22, 713A3, 714B1 Backs health care reform pub option 10-26, 741E1 On health reform reform vote 11-10, 773E1 Issues health care reform bill 11-18, 796A2, C2, G2, 797A1 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-21, 809A1–D1, F1 Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 847D3–E3

Sees Lieberman, Emanuel 12-13, drops health care reform Medicare hike 12-14, 863C2–E2 Health care reform reading rule invoked, abortn deal set 12-18—12-19; bill passes 12-24, measures questnd 12-29—12-30, 904D2, E3, G3, 905F3, 906E1 Politics Ill seat apptmt resolutn urged 1-5, sees Burris 1-7, 3D3, 4F1–G1, G2, F3 Facts on 1-6, 4D2 Reseated majority ldr 1-6, 5D2 Ill’s Burris apptmt certified, credentials OKd/sworn 1-9—1-15, 18D2 On Franken swearing 6-30, 441F1 Fed proscutor (Bogden) named 7-31, 537B1 Rep Heller nixes seat bid 8-11, cites Ensign affair scandal 8-12, 552D2 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906A3 On TSA dir nominee (Southers) confrmatn vote 12-29, 898C3–D3, 899A1 Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) On Bush admin terror policies indep probe 4-23, 261A1 On Cuba base prison closing funds nix 5-20, 338A2

REID, Mike Wins JELD-WEN Traditn 8-23, 708E1

REID, Richard Mich flight blast fails, suspect (Abdulmutallab) held 12-25, 897C1

REIFSYNDER, Daniel Drops mercury emissns treaty oppositn 2-16, 124A1–B1

REILLY, John C. 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2 Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

REIMER, Alexander Fired 12-11, 938C3

REINES, Arianna Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

REINFELDT, Fredrik (Swedish premier, 2006- ) Nixes Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft claims comment 8-22, 593F2 Croatia drops Adriatic waters claim 9-11, 628C2 Czech’s Klaus seeks EU treaty exemptns 10-8, 685B2 Serbia submits EU entry bid 12-22, 939B2

REISS, Clotilde Trial cont, freed on bail 8-8—8-16, 562C1–D1

REISZ, Karel (1926-2002) Widow dies 3-13, 192F1

REITMAN, Jason Up in the Air on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

RELAPSE (recording) On best-seller list 6-27, 452D1

RELENTLESS (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

RELIABLE Sources (TV show) White House communicatns dir (Dunn) interviewed 10-11, 717D2

RELIANCE Industries Ltd. US forgn aid ‘10 funds (House) 7-9, 488D3

RELIGION—See also more specific headings (e.g., ROMAN Catholic Church) Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2, C3 Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64C2 White House faith-based ofc head (DuBois) named 1-29, updates ordrd 2-5, 60F2 Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1 Med care denial curbs ease review set, nixed 2-27, 3-6, 146A2 D’Espagnat wins Templeton Prize 3-16, 191A3 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C2; key votes listed 302B1 NH gay marriage bill chngs sought, nixed by House 5-14—5-20, Sen negotiating team OKd 5-27, 353C1 NH gay marriage deal OKd/clears legis, signed 5-29—6-3, 371C1 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700E3, 701B1 Obituaries Neuhaus, Richard J 1-8, 24F3

RELIGIOUS Cults Rev Ike dies 7-29, 531E3 Atkins dies 9-24, 672E1

RELL, Jodi (Conn. governor, 2004- ; Republican) Vetoes universal health care bill, override passes legis 7-8, 7-20, 520G3

1152 REMBRANDT— REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-69) 1658 portrait fetches $33 mln 12-8, buyer IDd 12-19, 953D2–E2

REMITTANCES US/Mex ‘08 drop rptd 1-27, 83G1 US/Cuba curbs lifted 4-13, 248A3 US/Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16; Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, taxes drop nixed 4-22, 271C2, F2, A3 Clinton visits Haiti 4-16, 270G1 Ecuador pres vote held 4-26, 294A3 El Salvador pres (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394B3 US/Cuba curbs eased 9-3, 604B3 Cuba/US diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661A2 US/Cuba cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784D1

REMONDE, Cerge Sets storm Ketsana, pres palace aid use 9-28, 664D2

REMOTE Area Medical LA free health care offrd 8-11—8-18, 552A2

RENAULT S.A. Govt loans set 2-9, 84G2 Formula 1/top teams breakaway warned, ct threat issued 6-19, talks held, dispute setld 6-20—6-24, 647D1 Formula 1 driver (Piquet) fired, race-fixing probe set 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, Symonds/Briatore quit, team banned 9-16—9-21, 647B1 AvtoVAZ 27600 cuts set 9-24, 788B3 Penske/Saturn buy nixed, closure set 9-30, 679C3

RENDALL, John Lion Called Christian on best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

RENDELL, Edward G. (Pa. governor, 2003- ; Democrat) Rep Sestak sets Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521F2

RENDON Group, The War rptrs profiling seen, contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721B1–D1

RENGIFO, Alejandro Palacios Chrgd, held 9-28, 12-3, 927F2

RENNEY, Tom Fired 2-23, 159D2

RENSLOW, Capt. Marvin (d. 2009) Dies in plane crash 2-12, errors seen 2-15—2-18, 95F2 Flight test woes rptd 5-11, NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357B2, D2–F2

RENSSELAER Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.) Pres ‘07-08 salary rptd 11-2, 816F3

REORGANIZATIONS—See BANKRUPTCIES REPARATIONS Slavery apology res passes Sen 6-18, 492A2 Bosnia Muslim community compensatn nixed 11-5, 820C3

REPATRIATION—See IMMIGRATION REPLAY (recording) On best-seller list 11-28, 840D1; 12-19, 956D1

REPORTER-Bishkek (Kyrgyz newspaper) Rptr (Abdyldayev) stabbed 3-3; attack scored 3-4, work link seen 3-5, 187G2

REPORTERS Without Borders Alma-Ata Info ed (Esergepov) sentnc scored 8-10, 576G2 EU/Uzbek sanctns lift scored 10-27, 764C3 PI rptrs slayings scored 11-23, 819B1 Equatorial Guinea pres electn questnd 11-30, 833D3

REPRODUCTION—See CHILDBIRTH REPUBLICAN Party’s Vision for the Family, The: The Compelling Issue of the Decade (thesis) Va gov candidate (McDonnell) writing rptd 8-30, 716G3

RESERVE Bank of Australia Interest rate cut 4-7, 494F1 Interest rate hiked 10-6, 675A2

RESERVE Bank of Fiji Narube ousted/Reddy named gov, currency exchng curbs set 4-14, F$ devalued 4-15, 252D1–E1

FACTS RESERVE Bank of India Interest rate cut 1-2, 158A1; 3-4, 157G3; 4-21, 382G1–A2 Reserve levels hike set, interest rates retained 10-27, 791D1

RESERVE Bank of South Africa Interest rate cut 2-5, 96F2; 5-28, 359C1

RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe Z$ revalued 2-2, 67G2 Gono ouster sought 2-12, 81E3 Gono ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 Bilateral aid doubted 9-16, 681B1

RESERVOIRS—See DAMS RESIGNATIONS, U.S.—See under OBAMA RESILIENCE: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384B1

RESNICK, Patricia 9 to 5 opens in NYC 4-30, 348C2

RESPUBLIKA (Kazakhstan newspaper) BTA allegatns spark bank run 3-6; fined 9-9, papers seized, press freedoms qustnd 9-18—9-22, 663A2–B2

RESTAURANTS & Nightclubs Accidents & Disasters Thai club blaze kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22B3 Russia club fire kills 124+ 12-5; workers held 12-6, regional govt quits 12-9, 854F3 Appointments & Resignations Frieden named CDC dir 5-15, 354G1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Mex businesses shut 4-25, 281F2 Mex sit-down svc cont 5-6, 303E2 Crime & Law Enforcement PI/US marine rapist (Smith) accuser testimony chngd 3-12—3-16, 205B2 Giants cut Burress 4-3, 299D1 Iraq blast kills 47+ 4-23, 296B3 Iraq blast kills 34+ 5-20, 344F2 Mex state raids net suspects 5-26, 359A2 Gabon bars shut 6-8, 393D3 Greek blast hits McDonald’s 7-4, 591F1 Azerbaijan bloggers held 7-8, 544B1–C1 NFL’s Pierce chrgs nixed 8-4, Burress pleads guilty 8-20, 632B1–C1 Iraq blasts kill 21 8-13, 562E3 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554E1 Azerbaijan bloggers chrgs hiked 8-21, 607A1 Thai blast hurts 42 8-25, 748C1 Mex cartel alleged members held 10-21—10-22, 747B2 Albanian rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853A3 Azerbaijan bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820B2 UK girl Italian slaying suspects convctd 12-5, 854F2 Health & Safety Issues Va smoking ban clears legis, signed 2-19—3-9, 357D1 Bloomberg wins Lasker 9-14, 671D3 Va smoking ban enacted 12-1, 919E1 Obituaries Ali, Ben 10-7, 731G2 Brinker, Norman E 6-9, 420C3 Brown, Ernest 8-21, 612B3 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 La Rue, Danny 5-31, 400B3 Mercado Jr, Ralph 3-10, 192E3 People Golfer Woods affairs alleged 11-25—12-1, 839A2, F2 Tax Issues US breaks pass House 12-9, 886E1

RESTREPO, Dan On Cuba curbs lift 4-13, 248E3 On Cuba, OAS reentry 6-4, 376D3

RETAIL Trade Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section S Africa ‘08 GDP estimate rptd 2-12, 96A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Amazon regrets bks lost sales ratings 4-13, e-bks deleted 7-17, 782D1 Crime Issues Credit card theft curbs hiked 7-16, suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554E1, G1–A2 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918D1 Health & Safety Issues Toys lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375F1

Wal-Mart ‘08 customer trampling cited 5-26, 412D3 Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622F1 Toy chems find rptd 11-24, lead testing delayed 12-18, 918A2 Window shades/blinds recalled 12-15, 918B2 Labor Issues Health insurnc mandate backed 6-30, 458A1 Obituaries Fisher, Donald G 9-27, 708B3 Price, Sol 12-14, 896D3 People Pinault weds 2-14, 120E2 Statistics US Dec ‘08 sales, Nov revised 1-14, 15E3 US Jan ‘09 sales, Dec ‘08 revised 2-12, 111B3 US Feb ‘09 sales, Jan revised 3-12, 219E3 US Mar ‘09 sales, Feb revised 4-14, 240C3 US Apr ‘09 sales, Mar revised 5-13, 323E3, 355G3 US May ‘09 sales, Apr revised 6-11, 428E1 US Jun ‘09 sales, May revised 7-14, 477B3 US Jul ‘09 sales, Jun revised 8-13, 535E3 US Aug ‘09 sales 9-15, 618B2 US Sep ‘09 sales, Aug revised 10-14, 740F1 Eurozone ‘09 3d 1/4 sales drop seen 11-16, 803D1 US Oct ‘09 retail sales, Sep revised 11-16, 813B2 US Nov ‘09 sales, Oct revised 12-11, 911E2 Tax Issues US breaks pass House 12-9, 886E1

RETIREMENT—See PENSIONS RETURN to the Hundred Acre Wood (book) Published 10-5, 708D2

REUNION (French overseas department) Yemen/Comoros flight crash kills 152 6-30, 439E3

REUTEMANN, Carlos Cong electns held 6-28, 447A1

REUTERS Group PLC African Dvpt Bank pres (Kaberuka) interviewed 3-11, 170A1 UN dep secy gen (Migiro) interviewed 3-12, 170B1 Eritrea’s Afwerki 5-21, 341G3 Pak’s Mehsud interviewed 8-10, 533B3 US missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933D3

REUTIMANN, David Wins Coca-Cola 600 5-25, 363B3

REVEREND Ike—See EIKERENKOETTER II, Frederick Joseph REVOLUTIONARY Road (book/film) Winslet wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2 Shannon gets Oscar nominatn, Winslet denied 1-22, 40G1, B2 On best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1 Winslet wins UK Acad Award for Reader 2-8, 104F1

REVOLUTIONARY War, U.S. (1775-83) Polish nobleman (Pulaski) honorary citizenship res signed 11-6, 792B2

REYES, Gregory Convctn nixed 8-18, retrial set 12-2, 910E2

REYES, Raul (Luis Edgar Devia Silva) (1948-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D2

REYES, Silvestre (U.S. representative from Tex., 1997- ; Democrat) Reseated Intell chair 1-6, 5B1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd 5-5, 323G1 Sends CIA, Cong intell briefings letter 7-8, probe urged 7-10, 474D1–E1

REYES Beza, Jose Survives convoy attack 2-22, 171F2

REYES Ferriz, Jose On clinic shooting 9-16, 682D1*

REYES Heroles, Jesus Ousted 9-7, 605C1

REYES Villa, Manfred Pres electn held 12-6, loss seen 12-8, 850F3

REYNARD, Mike On Sen Bunning missed votes 12-24, 906D1

ON FILE

REYNOLDS Jr., Lawrence Executn delay ordrd, stay nix sought/issued 10-5, 719C3–E3

REYNOLDS, Mark Among NL HR ldrs 10-6, 690E3

REYNOLDS, Ryan Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

REYNOLDS American Inc. Tobacco ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622F1 Canada prov suit filed 9-29, 681G3

REYNOLDS v. Sims (1964) Morgan dies 1-8, 40B3

REZA, Yasmina God of Carnage wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231F1 God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 God of Carnage wins Tonys 6-7, 400A1

REZAI, Mohsen Pres bid set, cleared 4-22, 5-20, 362E1–F1 Pres electn held 6-12; results rptd 6-13, Guardian Cncl mtg set 6-18, 401B2–D2 Electn results backed 6-19; sees Guardian Cncl 6-20, drops appeal 6-24, 421G2, 422E1 Son prison death rptd 7-28, 519A1 Son death rptd 8-31, 610E1

REZKO, Antoin (Tony) Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 218F3–G3, 219C1

RHAMES, Ving Goods on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

RHJ International SA Adam Opel/Beijing Auto buyout offer confrmd 7-8, 475D3 Opel/Vauxhall buy opposed 9-10, 609A1

RHODE Island Crime & Law Enforcement ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed, suspect (Markoff) held 4-16—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd 4-25, 429G1, F2 Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Medicine & Health Care Treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64A2 Medicaid reforms waiver takes effect 1-19, 95G3 Obituaries Pell, Claiborne 1-1, 9D3 Religious Issues Rep Kennedy backs abortn funding 10-21; Bp Tobin scores 10-22—11-9, Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831B3 Sports Tennis HOF inducts Seles/Gimeno/Dell/Johnson 7-11, 631A3

RHONE, Trevor Dave (1940-2009) Dies 9-15, 692E2

RIAZ, Shahid Jamil Arrest rptd 4-13, 275D3

RIBORDY, Spec. Steven Slayings troop (Mayo) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-30, 208E3

RICCI, Frank Testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471A3–B3

RICCI v. DeStefano (2009) Accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33D1 Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470C3, 471D2, B3

RICE Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 52B1 Gaza UN shipmt seized, returned 2-6—2-9, 86E1 Chinese cargo ship sinking rptd, blocked shipmt claimed 2-15—2-22, 124F2–G2 Venez plants govt seizure ordrd 2-28, 3-4, 204C3 Brazil OKs Amazon reserve 3-19, 447D2 Borlaug dies 9-12, 632F2 Storm Ketsana, PI aid set 9-29, 664C2 Typhoon Parma hits PI 10-3, 684A3 India imports tariffs halted 10-28, 791D2 UN food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812B1

RICE, Condoleezza (U.S. secretary of state, 2005-09) On Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal 1-8, 3D1 Sees Israel’s Livni 1-15, 14D1 Signs UAE A-power deal 1-15, 69F2 Signs Gaza antismuggling pact 1-16, 31D1 CIA interrogatns authrzn role rptd, timeline issued 4-22, 261F2, D3

2009 Index Terror detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 280C2 Defends terror detainees harsh interrogatns 4-29, CIA ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 305F3, 306B1, E1 Libya activist (Jahmi) in hosp 5-5, dies 5-21, 359A1 NY ‘02 arrests mil use mulled 7-25, 816E2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3

RICE, Emma Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

RICE, Jim Elected to HOF 1-12, 71E2 Inducted to HOF 7-26, 531C2

RICE, Susan Testifies to Sen com 1-15, 16A2 Confrmd UN amb 1-22, 30D1 On Darfur civiln deaths 2-3, 116D1 Backs Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt 3-4, 123D1 On Rwanda genocide 4-7, 248F2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288E2 Seeks Human Rights Cncl entry 5-12, 336A3 On Libya’s Qaddafi Gen Assemb visit 9-2, 583C3 Sets Sudan policy shift 10-19, 762D1–E1

RICH, Marc Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16F2–A3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30G2, B3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) backed 1-28; confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60F3–G3

RICHARD, Michael (d. 2007) Judge Keller comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3

RICHARD, Wendy (Wendy Emerton) (1943-2009) Dies 2-26, 192F3

RICHARDS, Lori Testifies to Sen com 1-27, 113F3

RICHARDS, Mike Among NHL short-handed goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

RICHARDS, Todd Named Wild coach 6-16, 435E3

RICHARDSON, Bill (N.M. governor, 2003- ; Democrat) Nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6B1 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, 60D1 Sen Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79B3 Locke named commerce secy 2-25, 112G3 Signs death penalty ban 3-18, 167G1–A2 Locke confrmd commerce secy 3-24, 181E3 Rptrs N Korea relase sought 6-8, 396E1 Hosts N Korea delegatn 8-19—8-20, 558F2–G2 Fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620C1 At Virgin space tourism ship unveiling 12-7, 884A2

RICHARDSON, Bobby Matsui ties World Series single game RBI mark 11-4, 770E1

RICHARDSON, Joely Sister dies 3-18, 176D3

RICHARDSON, Laura (U.S. representative from Calif., 2007- ; Democrat) Visits Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249A2 Financial disclosure probe set 10-29, 779B3, D3

RICHARDSON, Miranda Grasses of a 1000 Colors opens in London 5-18, 451G2

RICHARDSON, Natasha Jane (1963-2009) In skiing fall, flown to NYC 3-16—3-17; dies 3-18, brain hemorrhage cited 3-19, 176C3

RICHARDSON, Nolan Named Shock coach 10-20, 808C1

RICHARDSON, Passion ‘00 Olympic relay appeal nixed 12-18, 951A1

RICHARDSON, Sam Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

RICHARDSON, Tony (Cecil Antonio) (1928-91) Daughter dies 3-18, 176D3

RICH Woman (recording) Plant/Krauss win Grammy 2-8, 88F1

—ROADS RICKETTS, Joe Family buys Cubs 10-27, 949D1–E1

RICKETTS, Sir Peter Testifies in Iraq war probe 11-24, 821C1–D1

RICKS, Christopher Oxford poetry prof successor (Padel) elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364D2

RICKSON, Ian Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3 Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

RIDGE, Tom (Thomas J.) Backs Cuba base prison closure 5-24, 353C3 Claims terror alert system pol pressure 8-9, 572F2, A3–F3

RIDGEWAY, Jeremy Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942F2

RIESCH, Maria 2d in World Cup race 3-15, 191G1

RIFAI, Samir alNamed premr 12-9, cabt OKd 12-14, 877E2

RIFAI, Zaid alSon named premr 12-9, 877F2

RIGGLEMAN, Jim Named Natls mgr 7-13, 484G1 Named Natls full-time mgr 11-11, 949A2

RIGHETTI, Amanda Friday the 13th on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

RIGHT Round (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1; 5-2, 316D1

RI Gun Visits US 10-24, 763G3

RIHANNA (Robyn Rihanna Fenty) ‘Live Your Life’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 In hosp, misses Grammys 2-8, 88E2 Brown pleads guilty 6-22, 451D3 Brown sentncd 8-25, 580D2 ‘Run This Town’ on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

RI Hung Sik On A-program talks 7-22, 495G1

RIJO, Jose DR prospect fake ID rptd 2-18, fired 2-26, 277C3–D3

RIMANDO, Nick Real Salt Lake wins MLS Champ, named MVP 11-22, 894F3

RINGERA, Aaron Reapptmt set/nixed, quits 8-31—9-30, 702B3–E3

RINNE, Pekka Among NHL shutouts ldrs 4-12, 299C3

RIOS, Fabiana Gay wedding held 12-29, 926E1

RIO Tinto PLC Mongolia pres electn held 5-24, 377E2 Chinalco investmt deal nixed, BHP jt venture set/shares offrd 6-5, Chinese workers held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481A2, G2 Chinese workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3–C3 Mongolia mine dvpt deal signed 10-6, 725E2 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802B2

RIOTS & Rioting African Developments Madagascar violnc erupt 1-26—1-27, 66F1 Kenya protests turn violent 3-10, 203A2 S African township protests turn violent 7-12—7-28, 526D1 Gabon pres electn protests turn violent 9-3—9-10, 604E1 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial protested 9-7, 622G3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Tibet ‘08 rioters sentncd 2-11, 116A3 Tibet cop beating tape questnd, China blocks YouTube/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 Tibet ‘08 rioters sentncd, abbot trial opens/verdict delayed 4-8—4-27, 327D1–E1 Pak clashes erupt 4-9, 276E3 Thai violnc scored 4-23, 295B2 India violnc erupt, paramil troops deployed 5-24—5-25, 417D3 China ethnic clashes erupt, death toll rptd/forgn activists cited 6-25—7-7, curfew set, security force deployed/order claimed 7-6—7-8, 460C3, 461D1, F1–G1

India ‘92 clashes comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 822G3 China ethnic violnc deaths mulled/mosques cont closure ordrd, security forces shootings admitted 7-10—7-19; businesses reopen 7-12, disappearncs claimed 7-29, 509A3, F3 Pak clashes kill 8, suspects held 7-30—8-2, 612F1 China economist (Tohti) freed, govt criticism halt warned 8-22—8-24, Xinjiang ethnic violnc arrests mulled 8-24—8-25, 606G1 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726B3 China ethnic clashes chrgs rptd 9-25, suspects convctd, sentncd 10-10—10-15, 702G3, 703C1 China sentncs set/upheld, disappearncs seen 10-15—11-9; Internet/telecom svcs curbed, crime fighting vowed 10-29—11-3, convctns/executns rptd, chrgs cont 11-9, 785E2 Tibet ‘08 violnc executns rptd, confrmd 10-20—10-27, 785D3–E3 Pak blast sparks violnc 12-28, 947A1 European Developments Latvia, Lithuania violnc erupts 1-13—1-16, 37B3–F3 Bulgaria violnc erupts 1-14, 52B2 Latvia premr (Godmanis), cabt quits 2-20, 117G1 N Ireland cop slaying suspects held, violnc erupts 3-14, 173A1 G-20 summit protests turn violent 4-1, 194E2 Romania protests turn violent, blame mulled 4-6—4-8, 225E2, B3, E3 Moldova death rptd 4-12, chrgs seen, set 4-16—4-23, 273D2 May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329G3 Moldova parlt dissolved, electns set 6-15, 416G3 French natl ID debate opens 11-2, 937D1 Latin Developments Mex prison clash kills 19+ 8-14, 556D3 Mex City cops deployed, LFC shut 10-10—10-11, 724D1 Middle East Developments Iran pres electn protests turn violent 6-13—6-18, 401C3 Iran protesters warned 6-19, 421F2 Iran electn protests dispersed 7-9, 463F3 Iran protests cont 7-30—8-5, 518B2 E Jerusalem protesters/cops clash, Palestinians held 10-9—10-25, 755A1 Iran protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857D1 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883B3 U.S. Developments Lakers NBA title win riots erupt 6-14, 419E2

RIPLEY, Alice Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2 Wins Tony 6-7, 399G3, 400D1

RISEBROUGH, Doug Fired 4-16, 299E3

RISEN, James CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, 473G3

RITCHIE, Guy Ex-wife 2d Malawi adoptn bid foiled 4-3, 231E2 Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

RITONGA, Abdul Rakim Quits 11-4, 786A2

RITTER, Bill (Colo. governor, 2007- ; Democrat) Names Sen apptmt (Bennet) 1-3, 5G1

RIVERA, Chita Rivera gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2

RIVERA, Jorge Micheletti mulls resignatn 7-15, 480B3 Zelaya return plan issued 8-27, 575E2

RIVERA, Mariano Earns 500th save 6-28, 484B2 AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483A3, E3 Among AL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G2 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 751E3, 752D1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770D1, C2, E2, A3–C3, F3

RIVERA, Michael Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

RIVERA Torres, Otto Ousted 3-2, 134A3

RIVEROS, Gen. Santiago Omar (ret.) Convctd, sentncd 8-13, 925B3–C3, E3

1153

RIVERS, Doc Doubts Garnett playoff role 4-16, 278E3

RIVERS & Waterways Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2–C3 US Airways jet engine failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33F1 Viet ferry sinking kills 40+ 1-25, 84D2 Mt mining curbs nixed 2-13, 94G2 Mt mining permits EPA reviews urged, set 3-23—3-24, 267F2 NATO summit held, protests turn violent 4-4, 213D2 Mt mining rules chng nix sought 4-27, 356C3 US ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305D2 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307E1–G1 Tenn power plant coal ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11, cause rptd 6-25, 555C1–D1 Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 406C1 Alaska lake waste dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2 Myanmar landslides kill 30 7-4, 528E3 NPS dir (Jarvis) named 7-10, 491F1 Mt mining rules chng upheld 8-13, 655C2 Russian power plant blast kills 17+ 8-17, 560A3 Ecuador, Chevron suit judge (Nunez) ousted 9-4, arbitratn claim filed 9-23, 723C3 S Korea flash flood kills 6, bodies found 9-6—9-7, N Korea explanatn issued, scored 9-7, 600A2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782G1, B2 Harriman power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 N/S Korea flood control talks held 10-14, 712E2 Brazil plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926D2 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis, signed 11-4—11-13, 887B2–F2 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935D2 Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939A2

RIVKIN, David Testifies to Sen com 3-4, 130C2

RIVLIN, Reuven On Pope Benedict Holocaust meml remarks 5-12, 335E2

RIZVI, Ishrat Sets Pak staff exit 12-30, 947D1

RIZZO, John CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 257F2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 289B2

RIZZO, Mike Named Natls interim GM 3-4, 277D3

ROAD, The (book/film) Film on top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840E2 McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954C3 Bk on best-seller list 12-21, 956C1

ROADS & Highways Accidents & Disasters Guatemala landslide buries 87, search halted 1-4—1-7, 83C1–D1 Zimbabwe PM car crash kills wife 3-6; probe opens 3-7, foul play denied, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152F1, D2 Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse constructn cos setlmt rptd 3-26, 357A3 Minn bridge collapse victims setlmt OKd 4-16, 292F2 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh, emergency aid sought 5-25—5-31, 383B2 Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan 8-7—8-9, 559D3 Quakes hit Japan 8-9—8-11, 557E3 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627G2 Storm Ketsana hits PI, Viet 9-26—9-29, 664A2, G2 PI landslides, flooding cont 10-8—10-10, 704E1 El Salvador floods/mudslides kill 144+, emergency declared 11-7—11-10, 818C1 Jamaica flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930C1 Budget & Spending Programs Plum Creek fed lands road paving request dropped 1-5, 65F2 Obama sworn 1-20, 27A2, 28D1 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41G2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90C3–D3 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2, 107D1

1154 ROBB— Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866F3 US highway ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886D2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section US ‘08 travel drop rptd 2-19, 202E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Bulgaria graft curbs set 6-18, 449B1 Serbia toll embezzlers sentncd 11-11, 855G2 Crime & Law Enforcement Pak/UN refugees aid chief (Solecki) seized 2-2, 69F3 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130F1 Ala gunman kills 10, self 3-10, 149C1 Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310D3 Pak tribal areas curfew lifted 5-15, 346G1 DC vehicle checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1 Indonesia violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, 542E2, G2–A3 Iraq blasts kill 95+ 8-19, 562A3 Pak tribes, army deals rptd 10-19, 710B1 Pak tribal areas mil offensive progress seen 11-17, 806A3 Colombia gov (Cuellar) seized, found dead 12-21—12-22, 927D2 Afghan MP slain 12-23, 899G3 Demonstrations & Protests Pak protests turn violent/suspects held, rallies banned 3-11—3-15, 175A3 Argentina farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3 Thai protests turn violent 4-7—4-14, 250B2 Georgia protests held 4-10—4-16, 253A2 Georgia blockade warned 5-7, 328A1 Peru indigenous protests emergency declared, clashes kill 31+/cops blamed 5-9—6-6, 394D3–E3 Peru Amazon dvpt laws protested 6-12, 431D3 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared 9-19, violnc halt urged, troops exit sought 9-20, 726B3 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled 9-28—10-1, 723D2, A3 Environmental Issues US natl forests protectns reinstated 8-5, 555E1 Foreign Developments—See also other subheads in this section W Bank highway, Palestinians use ordrd 12-29, 945B2 Safety & Security Issues Samoan driving side switch suit nixed 8-31; protests held, preparatns set 9-7, switch made, buses lack rptd/chngs ordrd 9-8—9-11, 726A1 Tax Issues Venez local, state fees nixed 3-15, 204A3 Trade & Aid Issues US/Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, 171A3 US/Mex trucking program mulled 3-20, 186E1–F1 US/Mex trucking program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 World Bank/Serbia loan vowed 10-5, 728D3 Congo/China ‘08 minerals deal chngd 11-11, 776G3 Cambodia/Thai highway loan nixed 11-27, 872B2

ROBB, Anna-Sophia Race to Witch Mt on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

ROBBE-Grillet, Alain (1922-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

ROBBERY—See under CRIME ROBBINS, Jerome (Jerome Rabinowitz) (1918-98) West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

ROBBINS, Noah Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

ROBERT, Denis Smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644D2

ROBERT Ludlum’s the Bourne Deception (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

ROBERTS, Brian AL 2B ldr, among runs ldrs 10-6, 690E2–F2

ROBERTS, Emma Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

FACTS ROBERTS, (Granville) Oral (1918-2009) Dies 12-15, 880G2

ROBERTS Jr., John Glover (U.S. Supreme Court chief justice, 2005- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Vs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444G2 Campaign & Election Issues Limits minority voting power protectns 3-9, 167C1 Upholds states’ voting chngs fed authrzn 6-22, 425D1–E1, A2–B2 Rehears campaign finance law argumts 9-9, 603E1 Capital Punishment Ga inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553D2 Censorship Issues Upholds FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1 Defendants’ Rights Backs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266F1 Eases suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374C1 Nixes convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 425D3, 426A1–C1 Vs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307A2 Backs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Nixes ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337F3 Health & Safety Issues Backs drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130B3 Judicial Issues Limits evidnc exclusionary rule 1-14, 21A1 Vs judge sentncg power 1-14, 21F1 Names FISA chief judge (Bates) 4-6, 244A2 Vs judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarificatn 6-8, 390E1–F1 Labor Issues Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338B1 Personal Hosts Obama, Biden 1-14, 21G1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D2 Swears Obama 1-20, readministers oath 1-21, 25C1–D1, A2–B2; photo 25E1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301E2 Nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389G2 Honors Justice Souter 6-29, 443E1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469E1, 470D2, 471C1–D1, F1 Justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519B3 Swears Justice Sotomayor 8-8, 536E2 Racial Bias Finds Conn firefighters test nix bias 6-29, 443E3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 442F3, 443D1–E1

ROBERTS, Julia Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

ROBERTS, Keith Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

ROBERTS, Ken (Saul Trochman) (1910-2009) Dies 6-19, 500G3

ROBERTS, Loren Wins Sr UK Open 7-26, 708F1

ROBERTS, Nora Tribute on best-seller list 5-4, 316C1 Black Hills on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

ROBERTS, Pat (U.S. senator from Kan., 1997- ; Republican) McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656B2

ROBERTS, Richard Dad dies 12-15, 880B3

ROBERTS, Selena Rpts Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test 2-7, cites rumors 2-8, 87D2

ROBERTS, Tony Father dies 6-19, 500G3

Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

ROBERTSON, Rev. Pat (Marion Gordon) McDonnell wins Va gov GOP primary 6-9, 391D1 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) thesis rptd 8-30, 716F3

ROBERTSON, Judge Vicki Nixes Okla abortn, ultrasound requiremt 8-18, 587C2

ROBINSON, Ashley Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348A2

ROBINSON, David Elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3

ROBINSON, Judge Deborah Nixes spy suspect (Nozette) bail, 760F3

ROBINSON, Eugene Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B3

ROBINSON, Jack 2d in Mass Sen seat GOP primary 12-8, 848F2

ROBINSON, Lara Knowing on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212B2

ROBINSON, Leajato Amara Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

ROBINSON, Mary Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2

ROBINSON, Judge Patrick On Bosnian Serbs (Lukics) crimes 7-20, 511E3 OKs Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Plavsic) release 9-15, 628G1–A2

ROBINSON, Peter Hosts US’s Clinton 10-12, 705A1–B1

ROBINSON, Roger Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2 Wins Tony 6-7, 400E1

ROBINSON, Smokey At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468A1

ROBINSON, Bishop V. Gene At Obama preinaugural concert 1-18, 25B3 Episcopal gay bps OKd 7-12—7-14, 539C1 LA Episcopal diocese asst bp elected, Glasspool choice questnd 12-5, 868E3

ROBITAILLE, Luc Elected to HOF 6-23, 435E3 Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

ROBOTS & Robotics Intl space statn solar arrays installed 3-19, 239D2 DC ‘tea party’ protest halted 4-15, 242F3 Hubble repairs open 5-13, 372C3 Intl space statn arm use opens, cont 7-23—7-26, 519D2

ROBRENO, Judge Eduardo Nixes Philadelphia Newspapers creditors bid 11-10, 913A2

ROBSON, Sir Bobby (Robert William) (1933-2009) Dies 7-31, 564G3

ROCHE Holding AG Genentech offer hiked 1-30, deal OKd 3-12, 151A1, E1

ROCHER, Yves (1930-2009) Dies 12-26, 955D3

ROCHETTE, Joannie 2d in world champs 3-28, 211D2

ROCK and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (Cleveland, Ohio) Inductns held 4-4, 279D3 Obituaries Bennett, Estelle 2-11, 120A3 Bogle, Bob 6-14, 420B3 Martin, Dewey 2-1, 120E3 Paul, Les 8-13, 564F3

ROCKEFELLER, Jay (John D. Rockefeller IV) (U.S. senator from W. Va., 1985- ; Democrat) Questns Panetta CIA dir apptmt 1-5, Obama calls 1-6, 5D3–F3 Seated Commerce chair 1-6, 5A2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, 323D1 Seeks Chrysler/GM dealerships closure info 6-9, 385G2 On health care reform pub option 8-17, 551F2 Health care reform measure nixed 9-29, 655A3 Health care reform bill doubts seen 10-7, 676F3

ON FILE

ROCKEFELLER, Nelson Aldrich (1908-79) (N.Y. governor, 1959-73; U.S. vice president, 1974-77; Republican) NYS drug laws reform passes legis/signed, sentncs cut rptd 3-4—12-18, 919D3

ROCKEFELLER University (N.Y., N.Y.) Stem cell lines fed funding OKd 12-2, 918E2

ROCKFERRY (recording) Duffy wins Grammy 2-8, 88F2

ROCKING the Boat (nonprofit group) Seeger gets Gish Prize 9-3, 880B1

ROCK of Ages (play) Opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

ROCKWELL, Sam G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

ROCKY Mountain News (newspaper) Shut 2-27, 167D3

ROD Blagojevich Superstar! (play) Opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

RODDICK, Andy Loses Austrlian Open semi, 71D1 Sets Barclays Dubai Champ boycott 2-21, 139B1 Loses Wimbledon 7-5, 467E1–B2

RODENTS Peanut Corp Tex plant shut, recall set 2-12, 95F3 Mice skin cell reprogramming seen 7-23, 580F1 China town quarantined 8-3, blockade lifted 8-8, 557A3

RODGERS-Cromartie, Dominique Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70D3

RODRIGUES, Amanda Husband found dead 7-11, held 7-12, 500D3 Husband’s death reclassified suicide, freed 7-30, 548F2

RODRIGUEZ, Adam Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

RODRIGUEZ, Alex Torre’s Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 ‘03 positive steroids test rptd/results mulled, rumors cited 2-7—2-9; admits use 2-9, reactns rptd 2-10, 87B1, D2, G2 Obama on steroids use 2-9, 77E3, 78D3, 79D2 Drug use scored 2-12; holds news conf, interviewed 2-17—3-1, sees MD, has surgery 3-4—3-9, 158C3 World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190G2 MLB season opens 4-5, 277G2 Ramirez suspended 5-7, 347D3 Sosa ‘03 positive test rptd 6-16, 484E1 Ramirez, Ortiz ‘03 positive tests rptd 7-30, 531A1 Yankees win pennant 10-25, 751G3, 752B1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770F2, C3

RODRIGUEZ, Ali On banks seizures 12-2—12-4, 929B2–C2

RODRIGUEZ, Bruno Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652B2–C2

RODRIGUEZ, Dagoberto US diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661G1, B2

RODRIGUEZ, Lt. Gen. David Named Afghan dep cmdr 5-11, 317B1, B2 Afghan dep cmdr post OKd 6-11—6-12, 434G1 NATO cmnd structure chngd 8-4, 547F2

RODRIGUEZ, Ivan Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191B1 Mauer wins AL MVP 11-23, 823F2

RODRIGUEZ Jr., Jose CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129G2

RODRIGUEZ, Michelle Fast & Furious on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2 Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

RODRIGUEZ, Raini Paul Blart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72B2; 2-20—2-26, 140D2

RODRIGUEZ, Robert Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

RODRIGUEZ, Silivio Performs at Cuba peace concert 9-20, 661G2

RODRIGUEZ Aprilla, Bruno Named Cuba forgn min 3-2, 134F2

RODRIGUEZ Chacin, Ramon FARC ties evidnc rptd 8-3, 526B3

2009 Index RODRIGUEZ Dorado, Ruben Held 8-10, 556A3

ROEDER, Scott Kan abortn clinic vandalized 5-23—5-30; MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, shooting scored, held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370B2, F2–C3 Kan abortn MD fed slaying probe set 6-5, 445G1, C2 Operatn Rescue donatn claimed/denied, FBI warning rptd 7-21—11-13; auctn blocked, held/shut 10-27—11-2, admits/backs Kan MD slaying, necessity defns use sought 11-9—11-23, 832B3–F3, 833C1–D1 Abortn MD (Tiller) slaying defns nixed 12-22, 919C3

ROEMER, Sarah Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

ROEMER, Timothy Named India amb 5-27, 354C1

ROESLER, Dr. Philipp Sworn health min 10-28, 749C3

ROETHLISBERGER, Ben Steelers win AFC champ 1-18, 39F3, 40A1 Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70D1, B2, A3–F3

ROE v. Wade (1973) Anniv protested 1-22, overseas aid reinstated 1-23, 47D1, F1 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301B2, 302A1 Obama Notre Dame address protested 5-17, 338A3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469F2, 471G1

ROGALLO, Francis Melvin (1912-2009) Dies 9-1, 648D3

ROGEN, Seth Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

ROGER, Elena Wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231C2

ROGERS, Desiree House com testimony sought, subpoena nixed 12-3, 830F1

ROGERS, John A. Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671C2

ROGERS, KenYatta Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

ROGERS, Lorene Lane (1914-2009) Dies 1-11, 56G2

ROGERS, Reg Royal Family revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

ROGERS, Richard (1902-79) Obamas visit UK Queen 4-1, 194C2

ROGGE, Jacques Names ‘16 Olympics host city 10-2, 691A2

ROGOMBE, Rose Francine (Gabonese interim president, 2009- ) Sworn 6-10, 393D3

ROGOWSKA, Anna Wins world champ gold 8-17, 579C3

ROGOZIN, Dmitri On mil exercises 6-29, 449G3 On hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) rescue 8-20, 551G1

ROGUE (book) On best-seller list 6-29, 452C1

ROHDE, David Escapes captivity, details ordeal 6-20—6-22, 434D3, G3–435C1 Afghan rptr seized/freed, raid defended 9-5—9-10, 612A1

ROH Moo Hyun (1946-2009) (South Korean president, 2003-08) Ex-aide held, businessman/wife paymts admitted 4-7; image discarded, questnd 4-22—4-30, kills self, state funeral ordrd/N Korea’s Kim mourns 5-23—5-25, 360A3, G3, 361B1 Kim Dae Jung dies 8-18, 564B3 Natl capital split halted 11-27, 934E1

ROINDEFO, Monja Mangalaza named PM 10-11, 782F3

ROINDEFO, Monja (Madagascan prime minister, 2009- ) Antananarivo protests banned, turn violent 4-20—4-27, on electns urge 45-1, 208B2, A3

ROJAS, Fernando Recalled 6-16, 432B1

—ROSEN 1155 ROLL Call Group (of Economist Group) CQ buy set 7-21, 913B2

ROLLER Skating ‘16 Olympics inclusn nixed 8-13, 691B2

ROLLING Stones, The (music group) Klein dies 7-4, 516D3

ROLLINS, Jimmy Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191B1 Among NL 2B/steals ldrs 10-6, 690E3–F3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752C2

ROMAN Catholic Church African Developments Rwanda priest (Rukundo) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2 Pope visits Africa, condoms use remarks scored 3-17—3-27, 195C3, F3, 196E1–F1 Bps synod held 10-4—10-14, 712A1 Rwanda priest (Nsengimana) cleared 11-17, 923F2 Appointments & Resignations Bps reinstated 1-24, Jewish liaison (Kasper) talks nixed 1-25, 43A2 Russian Orthodox patriarch (Kirill I) named 1-27, enthronemt held 2-1, 85D2 Wagner named auxiliary bp 1-31, 76E1 Dolan named NYC archbp 2-23, 132D2 Vatican bank head (Caloia) quits, Tedeschi named 9-23, 712C1 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Nepal blast kills 2 5-23, 363E1 PI blasts kill 12, attack scored 7-5—7-7, 528D1–E1, A2 PI priest (Sinnott) seized, kidnappers surrounded 10-11—10-13; tape issued, ransom nixed 10-31, freed, Islamic separatists release role claimed 11-12, 820B1 India nixes Mother Teresa remains transfer 10-13, 711D3 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818D2 CIS Developments Russia’s Medvedev sees Pope, Vatican diplomatic ties OKd 12-3, 892A3 Ecumenical Developments UK bp (Williamson) denies Holocaust, remarks regretted/silence ordrd 1-22—1-27; Israel’s Wiener warns Vatican mtg drop 1-27, pope Auschwitz visit mulled 1-28, 43D2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican, Jewish ties mulled 2-4, Benedict calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit seen 2-8—2-12, 75D3, 76B1 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179B3, G3 Anglican converts OKd, Archbp Williams knowledge mulled/rift denied 10-20, 711E2 Anglican priests conversn rules set 11-9; Williams addresses Pontifical Gregorian Univ 11-19, sees Pope, invite denied 11-21, 811E1, B2, D2 Pope Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn defended 12-23, 901D3–E3 European Developments Italian woman (Englaro) feeding-tube removal halt ordrd 2-6; dies 2-9, autopsy rptd 2-11, 117D1 Italy quake victim Good Friday funeral svc OKd 4-8, 224F3 Italy quake victims funeral mass held 4-10, historic churches damage rptd 4-13, 253E3 Ireland schls abuse rpt issued 5-20; emergency mtg held, govt role regretted 5-26, compensatn talks set 5-27, 361B2, G2 Italy’s Berlusconi scandal coverage mulled 8-12, Boffo quits 9-3, 626G3–627A1 Christian Brothers child abuse setlmt rptd 11-25, Ireland role regretted 11-26, 836B1 Ireland child abuse rpt mulled 12-11, bps quit 12-17—12-24, 938D1 Italy’s Berlusconi attacked, in hosp 12-13—12-15, 874D3 Vatican Christmas Eve mass held, Pope/Cardinal Etchegaray knocked down 12-24, woman held, security mulled 12-24—12-25, 901F2 Latin Developments Paraguay’s Lugo suit filed 4-8; admits fathering illegitimate child 4-13, further allegatns mulled 4-20—4-24, 294A3–F3 Argentina marijuana arrests nixed 8-25, 589G3 Argentina ‘dirty war’ capt (Astiz) trial opens 12-11, 925F3

Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871B2 Middle East Developments Pope Benedict visits Jordan/Israel/Palestine 5-8—5-15, 335B1–336D1 Northern Ireland Conflict—See NORTHERN Ireland Obituaries Daly, Cardinal Cahal 12-31, 955E1 Jaki, Stanley L 4-7, 256C3 Kim, Cardinal 2-16, 140F3 Laghi, Cardinal Pio 1-10, 56B2 Neuhaus, Richard J 1-8, 24F3 Wilson, William A 12-5, 956F3 Theological Issues Sts canonized 10-11, 739D1 Popes (John Paul II/Pius XII) ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn signed 12-19, 901B3 UN Policy & Developments Pope addresses food security summit 11-16, 812F2 U.S. Developments LA diocese child abuse oversight grand jury probe rptd 1-29, cooperatn set 2-1, 132C3 LA ex-priest (Miller) sentncd 1-30, 132B3 White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60B3 Pelosi visits Vatican, sees Pope 2-18, 132A3 NYC students swine flu cases confrmd 4-26, 282A1 Maine gay marriage bill signed 5-6, 304B1 Obama addresses Notre Dame graduatn 5-17, 338E2, A3 Obama visits Pope 7-10, 473A1 Chicago diocese abuse victims paymt set 7-21, 712D1 Sen Kennedy funeral held 8-29, 584A2 Del diocese bankruptcy filed 10-18, 711C3 Rep Kennedy backs abortn funding 10-21; Bp Tobin scores 10-22—11-9, Communion denial rptd 11-20—11-22, 831B3 Bps pro-choice assoc dir (Doerflinger) sees Rep Pelosi 11-6, 773D2 Gay marriage bill passes DC cncl, social svc deals halted 11-11, 832G2–A3

ROMANENKO, Roman Flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519A2

ROMANIA Arts & Culture Mueller wins Nobel 10-8, 693D2–E2 CIS Relations Ukraine sea border chngd 2-3, 137D1 Moldova visa curbs lifted 9-17, 666G3 Energy Turkey gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935C3 European Relations EU mtg held 3-1, 136B2 Moldova protests turn violent, blame alleged 4-6—4-8; ambs recalled/ousted, visa entry set 4-8, ties mulled 4-9, 225C3–D3, F3–G3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A3 Pres electn rigging plans alleged, candidates support polled 9-25—10-7; interior min (Nica) ousted 9-28, coalitn nixed, govt loses confidnc vote 9-30—10-13, ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735A3 Pres electn held/runoff set, parlt chngs OKd 11-22, coalitn deal set 11-24, 821A3 Pres runoff held 12-6; Basescu reelectn rptd 12-7, vote questnd 12-8, 854D3 Runoff recount ordrd 12-11, Basescu reelectn confrmd, sworn 12-14—12-16, 875B2 Boc govt OKd, sworn 12-23, 938C2 Kosovo Conflict NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423G3 Trade, Aid & Investment $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207B3 IMF/EU loan paymts delayed 11-6, 821C3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 10-22, 750G1, D2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3 CIA/Lithuania secret prisons alleged, denied 8-20—12-23, 903C1

ROMANO 3rd, Col. Joseph Convctd/sentncd in absentia, arrest ordrd 11-4, 766C1

ROMANO, Ray Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

ROMANS, Sgt. Ervin Slain 3-21, 247A1

ROMER, Christina Obama admin listed 4-28, 288F1 On May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 388E3 On ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP 7-31, 521G3 10-yr deficit forecast hiked 8-25, 570D3–E3

ROMERO, Anthony Scores terror detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, 337C1 On Cuba base detainees trials 11-13, 794F1

ROMERO, J.C. Suspended 1-6, 278E1

ROME University (Italy) Libya’s Qaddafi addresses 6-11, 416A3

ROMNEY, Mitt (Willard Mitt) Mass Sen seat successn law chng sought, backed 8-19—8-27, 570A2 Mass Sen seat successn law chng hearing set 8-31, 584C3 Addresses Values Voter Summit 9-18—9-19, 639D1 Sen seat apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, Kennedy replacemt (Kirk) named 9-24, 638D2

RONALDO, Cristiano Named FIFA top player 1-12, 159C3

RONDOT, Gen. Philippe Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; Sarkozy sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644B2

RONELL, Avital Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

RONETTES, The (music group) Estelle Bennett found dead 2-11, 120A3

RONIS, Willy (1910-2009) Dies 9-12, 708E3

RONO, Daniel 2d in Boston Marathon 4-20, 332D1

ROONEY II, Arthur J. (Art) Dad named Ireland amb 3-17, 182D2

ROONEY, Brian Charles Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

ROONEY, Dan Named Ireland amb 3-17, 182C2

ROOSEVELT, Franklin Delano (1882-1945) (U.S. president, 1933-45; Democrat) Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, 126B1 Obama 100th day news conf held 4-29, 285A2

ROOSEVELT, Theodore E. (1858-1919) (U.S. president, 1901-09; Republican) Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107F2; 9-9, 599A1 Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693E1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842C3

ROOSEVELT Memorial, Franklin D. (Washington, D.C.) Halprin dies 10-25, 792D3

ROPER v. Simmons (2005) Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 307A1

RORSCHACH, Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace) Husband dies 2-4, 120C3

ROSA, Henrique Pres electn held 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 459A1

ROSALES, Manuel Chrgd, flees 3-19—4-19; holds news conf, sentncg documt rptd 4-20—4-22, warrants issued, Peru pol asylum OKd 4-22—4-27, 326B2–E2, A3

ROSAND, Aaron Sells violin for $10 mln, sets donatn 10-22, 752G2

ROSARIO, Joel Dancing in Silks wins Breeders’ Cup Sprint 11-7, 807E2

ROSE, Anika Nomi Princess and the Frog on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

ROSE, Derrick Named NBA top rookie 4-22, 278D3

ROSEN, Louis (1918-2009) Dies 8-20, 648D3

ROSEN, Steven Scores natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) 2-19, 144F3–G3 Secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24; Rep Harman case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-23, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263A2, B3–D3 Rep Harman NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, chrgs dropped 5-1, 306F1–B2

1156 ROSENBERG— ROSENBERG, Alain Convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787F2

ROSENBERG Marzano, Rodrigo (d. 2009) Clients shot 4-14; films murder warning, slain 5-6—5-10, funeral held, tape issued/Colom denies role 5-11, 376F3–377E1 Slaying suspects held 9-11, 682D2

ROSENBUAM, Levy Izhak Held, chrgd 7-23, 504E1

ROSENKER, Mark Holds NYS plane crash hearing 5-12—5-14, 357B2

ROSENTHAL, Judge Lee Upholds BP ‘05 Tex refinery blast fine 3-12, 916G3, 917B1

ROS-Lehtinen, Ileana (U.S. representative from Fla., 1989- ; Republican) UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69C3 Vs Cuba immigratn talks return offer 5-22, 376E2

ROSMAH Mansor Husband sworn PM 4-3, 223C3

ROSNEFT, OAO Vp son (Stavsky) seized 4-13, kidnapping rptd, confrmd 6-1—6-2, 378F3 Vp son (Stavsky) freed 6-18, 497A3 Delegatn visits Egypt, Africa 6-23—6-26, 455C1

ROSS, Diana Jackson ‘02 will filed 7-1, 468B2

ROSS, Jonathan BBC fined 4-3, 256C2

ROSS, Mike (Michael A.) (U.S. representative from Ark., 2001- ; Democrat) On health care reforms proposal 6-3, 391B1 Sees Obama 7-21, on health care reform vote 7-22, 487C2–D2 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774F2

ROSS, Stephen Buys Dolphins stake 1-20, 55G2

ROSSIDES, Gale Sets flight safety measures pilots authrzn 12-28, 897E2

ROSSINI, Gioacchino (1792-1868) Barber of Seville soprano role breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2

ROSSO, Julee Lukins dies 8-30, 648C3

ROTARY International Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76A2

ROTH, Eli Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

ROTHMAN, Steven R. (U.S. representative from N.J., 1997- ; Democrat) Libya’s Qaddafi NYC travel ltd 8-28, 583A3 Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720A2

ROTHSTEIN, Scott Chrgd, pleads not guilty 12-1, 910F2

ROTHSTEIN Rosenfeldt Adler P.A. Rothstein chrgd, pleads not guilty 12-1, 910G2

ROTTERDAM Philharmonic Guest-conductor (Slatkin) has onstage heart attack 11-1, 792F2

ROUEN, University of (France) HIV subtype IDd 8-2, 580E1

ROUND 2 (recording) On best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

ROURKE, Mickey Wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2 Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40A2 Wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104G1

ROUSE, Pete Obama admin listed 4-28, 288C3

ROUSSELET, Luc Held, freed 3-24—3-26, 207B1

ROUX, Francois Client (Duch) UN trial opens 2-17, 98B2 Opens client (Duch) closing argumts 12-16, 890G1–A2

ROVE, Karl C. House com testimony set 3-4, 536E3 Testifies to House com 7-29—7-30, prosecutors ouster pol bias documts issued 8-11, 536G2, D3 Fox News bias alleged 10-11, 717E2 CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3

FACTS ROWAN & Martin’s Laugh-In (TV show) Gibson dies 9-14, 708D3

ROWE, Debbie Jackson dies 6-25, 436E2 Kids custody deal set, OKd 7-30—8-3, 531F2

ROWE, John On Chamber of Commerce exit 9-28, 654C3

ROWLEY, Janet Davison Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2

ROXAS, Melissa Seized 5-19; freed, returns to US 5-25—6-1, mil role claimed, probe ordrd 6-2—6-3, 528B2–D2

ROY, Brandon Among NBA scoring ldrs 4-15, 278A3

ROY, Patrick Brodeur sets career wins mark 3-17, 299E3 Brodeur sets goaltender minutes/games played marks, 951B2

ROYAL Bank of Scotland Group PLC Govt stake buy set/natlzn denied, shares drop 1-19, 36B2–D2 Bonuses cut, exec pay frozen 2-17; ‘08 loss rptd, govt aid hiked 2-26, ex-CEO (Goodwin) pension mulled 2-26—2-27,, 155A2–B2 Ex-CEO (Goodwin) home attacked 3-25, 207B2 G-20 summit protests turn violent 4-1, 194D2

ROYAL Dutch Shell PLC Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2 Beaufort Sea exploratn plans delayed 5-6, 409F3 Nigerian rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405B3, F3 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-5, 789E3 Iraq oil field dvpt rights bought 12-11, 877D1 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-20, 943B1

ROYAL Family, The (play) Revival opens in NYC 10-8, 792G1

ROYAL Opera House (London) DiDonato breaks leg, cont performnc 7-4, 7-7, 500B2 Downes kills self 7-10, 516F2

ROYALTIES—See COPYRIGHTS ROZSA Flores, Jorge Eduardo Slain 4-16, Bolivia’s Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294B1, F1–A2

RUANO Pascual, Virginia Wins French Open doubles 6-5, 399C1

RUB, Timothy Named Philly Art Museum dir 6-29, 516G1

RUBAIE, Judge Abdul Amir alDelays Bush shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) trial 2-19, 118E1

RUBAIE, Mowaffak alOn Iranian exiled group attack plan 1-20, 38F2 On Iran oppositn group relocatn 3-27, 209B1

RUBALCABA, Alfredo Perez On ETA blasts 7-30, 513A2

RUBASHKIN, Sholom Convctd 11-12, chrgs dropped 11-19, 916B3–C3

RUBBER (& Rubber Products) Gender wage parity bills pass House 1-9, 20B1 US/Chinese tires tariffs urged 6-29, 557D2 Timor Sea rig leak opens 8-21, 874D1 US/China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615F1, E2 Japan’s Hatoyama regrets campaign donatns misrptg 11-30, 873B2

RUBIN, David Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6C1–D1 NM gov (Richardson) fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620E1

RUBIN, Robert E. Sets retiremt 1-9, 15G2

RUBIO, Marco Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537A3 LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585B1

RUBIO, Ricky In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, E1 Foregoes NBA career 8-31, 771B2

RUBY, (Richard) Lloyd (1928-2009) Dies 3-23, 231G3

RUDAINEH, Nabil Abu Sees Israeli peace talks halt 11-1, 754C2

RUDD, Kevin (Australian prime minister, 2007- ) Sets stimulus package 2-2, 494C1–E1 Victoria bushfires mil aid OKd 2-8; blames arson 2-9, declares natl mourning day 2-12, 83B3, 84A1 Vows Afghan troops hike 4-29, 314B2 Calls India’s Singh 5-29, scores student attacks 6-1, 509B1 Car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447A3–E3 Denies Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nix role 6-5, on spy suspects detentn 7-15, 481E2, B3 Scores Indonesia blasts 7-17, 494D3 Car dealer/Treasury favoritism probe rpt issued 8-4, 851C3 On Melbourne terror raids 8-4, 930G2–A3 Climate chng bill reintroductn vowed 8-13, 624A1–B1 Aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, racial discriminatn act reinstatmt seen 8-17, 624B2, D2 Asylum seekers Indonesia interceptns rptd, sees Yudoyono 10-12—10-20; Sri Lankan refugees boat sinking kills 12 11-1, calls Rajapaksa 11-2, 930E3, 931A1, C1, E1, A2–B2 Joins ASEAN summit 10-25, 748E3 Hosts China’s Li 10-30, 802A2, E2 Scores Timor Sea oil rig leak 11-2, 874B2 Scores Fiji junta 11-4, 852E1 Regrets migrant child abuse 11-16, 818A2–B2, G2 Visits US 11-30, 851A3 Climate chng bill nixed by Sen 11-2, vs emissns cut 12-3, 851A2–B2, A3

RUDD, Paul I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2 Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

RUDOLPH, Eric Backs Kan MD (Tiller) slaying 11-9, 832F3

RUDOLPH, Maya Away We Go on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

RUDZINSKI, Capt. Lisa Rules Census worker death suicide 11-24, 817E1–F1, A2

RUE, Betsy My Bloody Valentine 3-D on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

RUEDA Medina, Arnold Held 7-11, 480C3

RUEHL, Mercedes Amer Plan revival opens in NYC 1-22, 211A3

RUEHLE, William Stock backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 910B2

RUFF, Roslyn Coming Home opens in New Haven 1-21, 211B3

RUFFALO, Mark Where the Wild Things Are on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

RUGBY Olympics ‘16 inclusn urged 8-13, 691B2–C2

RUHL, Sarah In the Next Room opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954G1

RUHOLAMINI, Mohsen (d. 2009) Prison death rptd 7-28, 519A1 Prison abuse rptd 8-31, 610E1–F1 Prison MD (Pourandarjani) dies 11-10; probe launched 11-17, suicide seen, drug overdose rptd 11-18—12-2, 857B2 Slaying suspects chrgd 12-19, 884B1

RUINED (play) Nottage wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2

RUIZ, Carlos Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752C2 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770A3

RUIZ Mateos, Gerardo Sets US tariffs 3-16, 171F2

RUIZ Zafon, Carlos Angel’s Game on best-seller list 6-29, 452A1

RUKUNDO, Emmanuel Convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2–G2

ON FILE

RULE of Law Institute Markelov slain 1-19, 36B3

RUMPOLE of the Bailey (TV show) Mortimer dies 1-16, 56C2

RUMSFELD, Donald H. Terror detainees interrogatn Sen com rpt issued 4-21, CIA authrzn timeline released 4-22, 261C1–F1, A2, A3, E3 Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411C3–F3 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, 381C2 Terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572A3, C3 Bin Laden ‘01 Afghan escape rptd 11-30, 845B1

RUN-DMC (music group) Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 280A1

RUN For Your Life (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140A1; 3-30, 212A1

RUNGE, Jeffrey Cell phone use, driving risk withheld data seen 7-21, 538C1

RUN This Town (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

RUPF, Warren Admits kidnapping victim find missed chances 8-28, 588A1

RURAL Affairs HHS secy nominee (Daschle) confrmatn hearing held 1-8, 17G2 S African party electn campaign opens 1-10, 22G1 NY’s Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46G2 China ‘09 econ woes seen 2-1, jobless migrants estimated 2-2, 134D3–E3, 135A1 Armenia, World Bank loan set 2-26, 206G2 Moral/religious med treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146A2 Madagascar’s Rajoelina sworn 3-21, 184D3 Thai protests cont 4-7—4-14, 250A1 India parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 345D3 Haiti Sen electn results delay seen 4-20, 270E1 Iowa gay marriages open 4-27, 304B2 Overperforming MDs Medicare paymt hike proposed 4-29, 324F1 China quake reconstructn rptd 5-11, 327A1 India ‘09-10 fscl yr budget unveiled 7-6, 513F3 US ‘07-08 homless families rise seen 7-9, 538D2 G-8 vows African aid 7-10, 472C3 FCC sets Google Voice probe 10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744G3 Health care reform House bill unveiled 10-29, 740D3 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis, signed 11-4—11-13, 887D2 Pak tribal areas mil offensive progress seen 11-17, 806A3 Swiss mosque minarets banned 11-29, 836E3 Colombia gov (Cuellar) seized, found dead 12-21—12-22, 927D2

RUSAL, UC Deripaska ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766C3

RUSH, Bobby (U.S. representative from Ill., 1993- ; Democrat) Visits Cuba 4-3—4-7, 249A2

RUSH, Geoffrey Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 256A1 Wins Tony 6-7, 400D1

RUSH Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot (book) Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441F2

RUSSELL, Gary Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70C2, B3

RUSSELL, George Allen (1923-2009) Dies 7-27, 532F2

RUSSELL, Sgt. John Iraq clinic shooting kills 5, held/chrgd 5-11—5-12, 330C2–E2 Erratic behavior seen 10-16, 729G3

RUSSELL, Ronnie Real Salt Lake wins MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

RUSSELL, Judge Thomas Sentncs Iraq/US troop (Green) 9-4, 610D2–E2

RUSSELL, Wilburn On son mil dischrg threats 5-12, 330E2

RUSSERT, Tim(othy John) (1950-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

2009 Index RUSSIA (Russian Federation) Accidents & Disasters Siberia power plant blast kills 17 8-17, 560A3 Mil cargo plane engine woes seen 10-7; crash kills 11 11-1, fleet grounded 11-3, 766E3 Naval plane crash kills 11 11-6, 855F1 Naval arms depot blasts kill 10+ 11-13—11-23, 855E1 Perm club fire kills 124+ 12-5, workers held 12-6, 854F3 African Relations Somalia anti-piracy intl force set 1-8, 21D2 Medvedev visits Nigeria/Namibia/Angola 6-24—6-26, 455B1, E1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Arts & Culture Putin painting fetches $1.1 mln 1-17, 71C3 Eurovision final held 5-16, 379B1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan transport route deal set 1-2, 39D1 Afghan, US/NATO mil coordinatn backed 2-3, 59C1 Chinese cargo ship exits Nakhodka port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2 US/Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 195D1 Lavrov visits N Korea, A-program talks exit confrmd 4-24, 342C3 N Korea A-bomb/short-range missiles tested, blast mulled 5-25—5-26, 350C3, 351D1, A2 N Korea May ‘09 A-test analysis issued 6-15, 404D2 China’s Hu sees Putin, Medvedev 6-17—6-18, 406F3 N Korea A-program mulled 7-22, 495D1 Thai blocks arms dealing suspect (Bout) US extraditn 8-11, 534F1, C2 N Korea A-program talks mulled 10-4—10-10, 712G1 Putin visits China 10-13—10-15, 739A2 N Korea A-program talks sought 11-2, 763E3 Chechnya Conflict US Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged 2-11, appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-27—2-28, 244A1 Shootings kill 3, suspect held 1-13—1-19; col (Budanov) freed, case death threats rptd/probes urged 1-15—1-22, rallies held, Markelov honored/slayings scored 1-20—1-21, 36D2, E3, G3 Exiled dissident (Israilov) slaying suspects held in Austria 1-28, 68A2 Grozny dep mayor (Shepiyev) slain 2-5, 85A2 Ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slain 3-28; Kadyrov info denied, sees dad slaying role 3-30—4-6, MP (Delimkhanov) order alleged, probe mulled 4-5—4-7, 273F2, C3 Terror curbs lifted 4-16; troops slain 4-22, measures reinstated 4-24, 310C3, G3 Ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slaying suspect intl warrant issued, Delimkhanov extraditn nixed 4-27, 329A1 Violnc kills scores, rebels amnesty deal nixed 5-13—5-25, missing detainees setlmts ordrd 5-28, 378F2, C3–F3 Somalia forgn fighters seen 5-15, 341C3 Missing detainees family paymts ordrd 6-11, 417G1 Afghan/US air strike woes admitted 6-19, 434F2 Cops slain 7-4, 497C2 Activist (Estemirova) found dead 7-15; Kadyrov role alleged/denied, suit opens 7-16—7-20, UN indep probe nixed 7-22, 497B1, D1 Oppositn ldr (Yamadayev) survives attack 7-28, suspect arrest sought 7-29, 544G3 Charity head (Sadulayeva)/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11; rights groups woes rptd 8-11, abductns rise seen 8-12, 544A3 Shootout kills 6 8-13, 560A3 Blasts kill 8 8-21—8-28, 591G1 Kadyrov’s dad statues removed 9-10, Delimkhanov named successor 9-24, 706D1, F1 Blast hurts 8+ 9-16, 728G1 ‘02-03 kidnappings paymts ordrd 9-24, 728E1 Kadyrov libeling ruled, Memorial/Orlov damages ordrd 10-6, 855D2 Rights activist (Khachukayev) detentn rptd 11-4, abductn alleged 11-5, 855C2 Jan shooting suspects held 11-5, 855A2 RR blasts kill 27 11-27—11-30; suspects described 11-30, attacks claimed 12-2, 836G1 Meml work cont 12-16, 939E1

—RUSSIA 1157 CIS Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F1 Georgia breakaway region border cop slain 1-16; Abkhazia naval base plans seen 1-26, jets deploymt claimed, denied 2-6, 85D1 Kyrgyz’s Bakiyev visits 2-3, 58D3 Gilauri confrmd Georgia premr 2-6, 84D3–E3 Georgia breakaway regions indep states recognitn nixed 2-7, 74F2 Ukraine parlt doors blocked 4-2, 227G1 Moldova riots mulled 4-8, 225D3, G3–226A1 Georgia protests held, crowd estimated 4-9, 253G1 Georgia breakaway regions/NATO excercises claimed, held 4-17—5-6; security deals OKd 4-29, troops mutiny thwarted 5-5, 311D1–E1, G1 Georgia troops mutiny suspect slain, arrests rptd 5-21—5-23, RR bombed 6-2, 378A2, C2 Georgia breakaway region electns held 5-31, results rptd, vote mulled 6-1, 378C2–F2 Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Kyrgyz/US mil base cont use deal set, passes parlt 6-22—6-24, oppositn rptd, denied 6-24—6-25, 440F3–G3 Medvedev visits Azerbaijan 6-29, 513B1 Kyrgyz oppositn pres candidate (Atambayev) visits 7-27, 511A1 Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko/letter scored, amb deploymt delayed 8-11—8-13, Georgia war aid alleged, denied 8-24—8-25, 609D1, B2 Azerbaijan radar attack plotters convctd, sentncd 10-5, 936G1– Summit held 10-8—10-9, 777E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Novorssiysk cops false arrests claimed 11-6, whistleblower fired, probe set 11-8, 855G1 Crime & Civil Disorders Kabardino-Balkaria rebels slain 2-11, 274E1 Nazran blast kills 6+ 2-12, 274E1 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects cleared 2-19, 100C1 Ingushetia blast kills 5+ 3-5, 274D1 Activist (Ponomaryov) egged 3-11; tires slashed 3-30, hurt in attack 3-31, 273F3 Dagestan raid kills 21+ 3-19—3-22, 274A1 Yukos founder (Khodorkovsky) trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329D1 Rosneft vp son (Stavsky) seized 4-13, kidnapping rptd, confrmd 6-1—6-2, 378F3 Yukos atty (Bakhmina) freed, embezzling suspects plead not guilty 4-21, 328B3, G3 Gay rights rally broken up, demonstrators held 5-16, 379B1 Caucasus sr ofcls slain, ‘freaks’ blamed 6-5—6-13, 417A1 Nazaran ct bailiff (Ugurchiev) slain 6-5, 417G1 Makhachkala shootings kill 4 6-12, 417F1 Ingushetia blast hits pres convoy/Yevkurov in hosp, anit-insurgent aid sought 6-22—6-23, 449B3 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying suspects acquittals nixed, retrial set 6-25, 497F2 Berezovsky convctd in absentia 6-25, 513E1 Ingush, Dagestan violnc kills scores 7-7—8-12, Yevkurov exits hosp 8-10, 544D3–545A1 Anti-govt rallies halted, protesters held 7-31—8-31, 667E3 Southn violnc kills 32, Ingush cops scored 8-13—8-17, 560D2 Missing ship (Arctic Sea) found, hijacking suspects held 8-17; details emerge 8-18—8-19, probe set, crew returns 8-20, 550C3–D3, 551A1, D1–F1 Ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27, arms shipmt denied, probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1 Moscow, African attacks survey issued 8-31, 667D3 Rptr (Politkovskaya) slaying cases merger ordrd 9-3, 667G3 Reformist pol (Starovoitova) slaying probe reopened 9-7, 767C1 Dagestani dep prosecutor (Maksudov) slain 9-11, 728A2 Karachayevo-Cherkessia Muslim cleric (Bostanov) slain 9-20, 728F1 Dagestani violnc kills 3 9-27, Alkhamatov slaying suspects sought 9-29, 728C1 Moscow protesters held 10-12—10-16, 727G3 Ingush oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, Yevkurov challenge seen 10-26, 766E1

Moscow protesters held 10-31, 766F3 Moscow shooting kills 1 11-2, 766D3 Gubden blast kills 3 11-13, 855F1 Hermitage atty (Magnitsky) dies, buried 11-16—11-20; prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 821E3 Antifascist activist (Khutorskoi) slain 11-16; motive mulled 11-17, Young Russia role denied, violnc drop urged 11-18—11-19, 822E1 Orthodox priest (Sysoyev) slain 11-19, 822C1 Death penalty ban cont 11-19, 855C1 Kabardino-Balkeria cop, ct bailiff found slain 11-24, 855C1 Rights activist group dir (Prudetsky) slain 12-10, 939F1 Rptr (Yevloyev) slaying suspect convctd/sentncd in absentia, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2 Prison ofcls, tax crime head fired 12-11—12-15; atty (Magnitsky) death rpt issued 12-28, pre-trial jailings curbed 12-29, 938F2 Car blasts kill 2, cops search rptd/bomber (Dzhaniyev) IDd 12-16—12-18, 938D3 Crime & Civil Disorders Kyrgyz natls held, child workers freed 12-28, 939D1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Poland border missiles deploymt delayed 1-28, 69B2 Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86G2–A3 NATO cooperatn hike urged, US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans mulled 2-7, 74A2–D2, B3 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop offer rptd, denied 3-2—3-3, 208A1 NATO Cncl revived 3-5, 142E1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans mulled 4-5, 214F1 Gens proficiency tests failure rptd 4-28, 328B3 NATO Cncl reopened 4-29; envoys ousted 4-30, mtg boycott warned 5-5, 311B1, E1 CSTO summit hosted, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423D2 CSTO rapid reactn force, Uzbek oppositn rptd 6-23; Kazakh mil exercises held 10-2—10-16, Belarus signs treaty 10-20, 904E1–F1 NATO links cont 6-27, mil exercises open 6-29, 449F3, 450F1 US mil cooperatn/A-arms cut OKd, Eastn Eur missile defns plans mulled 7-6, 453C3, 454C1 Kyrgyz base deal signed, opposed 8-1, 8-3, 534B3 Uzbek nixes CSTO jt mil exercises 8-26, 664A1 Venez arms deal set 9-11, 616F2, C3 Georgia breakaway regions deals signed 9-15; ship seizures warned, Black Sea patrols open 9-15—9-20, violatn claimed 9-22, 645A2 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613F1–B2, D2, G2 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans drop hailed, NATO future link seen 9-18, Poland border missiles deploymt mulled 9-19—9-21, 645B1 A-strikes mulled 10-14, 706C1 US/Eastn Eur missile shield components plan OKd 10-21—10-23, 750A2, D2 US A-arms treaty use cont, expires 12-4—12-5, 885F2 New weapons dvpt seen 12-29, 939B1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Opiate trade rise seen 3-6, 274C1 Ingushetia internal affairs head (Tochiev) slain 6-3, 417A2 Economy & Labor $90 bln econ recovery plan outlined 4-6, 273E3 Gambling curbs open, hiked 7-1, 7-21, 513A1 Hermitage CEO (Browder) laundered funds subpoena OKd 7-31, 822C1 AvtoVAZ 27600 cuts set 9-24, 788B3 Financial indus crisis tax opposed 11-7, 776A1 RTS ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900C1, E2 Energy Europn Comm energy comr (Oettinger) named 11-27, 835D3 Ukraine, IMF loan chngd 12-30, 939G3 Environment & Pollution Emissns cut vowed 11-18, 828C2 CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883A1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues CIA ex-ofcl (Nicholson)/son chrgd, plead not guilty 1-29, 132E1–F1, A2 Estonia defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, Yakovlev intl warrant issued, breach mulled 2-25—2-26, 136B1–C1, F1 Global computers spying operatin rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342E1

US electric grid hacked 4-8, 411A2–B2 Mil divisn head (Korabelnikov) ousted, Shlyakturov named 4-24, 328A3 US spy (Nicholson) son pleads guilty 8-27, 622C1–D1 Crimea FSB role nixed 12-1, 892D3 European Relations EU econ partnerships opposed 4-28, 336G3 Georgia/OSCE missn scored, monitors exit 6-17—6-30, 450C1–E1 Medvedev visits S Ossetia 7-13, 496C2, C3–D3 Putin visits Georgia breakaway region 8-12, 534D2 Czech diplomat ousters exchngd 8-17—8-18, delay rptd 8-20, 645E2 Georgia breakaway region sea border violatns threat issued, warning questnd 9-2, 607F1, C2 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637E1 Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn opposed 9-22, 645D2 EU issues Georgia war rpt 9-30, 665E3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707B1–C1, F1 Medvedev visits Serbia 10-20, 728C3, E3 UK’s Miliband visits 11-2, 766C2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787D3–E3; photo 788A1 Medvedev visits Italy 12-3, 892A3 Abkhazia pres vote held, Bagapsh reelectn rptd/hailed 12-12—12-14, 874D2–E2, G2–A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section India’s Singh sees Pak’s Zardari 6-16, 418E3 Georgia troops, US training aid set 8-14, 560D1–E1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 Moscow rallies held, arrests rptd 1-31—2-1, 69C1 Munic/regional parlt electns held 3-1; results rptd 3-2, vote questnd 3-3, 208B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235A3 Vladivostok protests held 3-15, 274B1 Sochi mayoral candidate (Pakhomov) bid nixed 4-13; vote held 4-26, results rptd, exit poll runoff claimed 4-27, 328C2 Sochi mayoral electn suit filed 5-14, 379C1 Ingush pres (Yevkurov) recovery rptd, Gaisanov named replacemt 7-3, 497D2 Putin mulls ‘12 pres bid, remarks scored 9-11—9-20, 667D2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735A3 Local electns held/vote mulled, protests held 10-11—10-19, Duma members walk out, return 10-14—10-21, 727D3, 728A1 Stalin historical treatmt mulled 10-29, 767B1 Medvedev addresses parlt 11-12, 803E2 Const Ct judges quit 12-2, 892B3 Putin, Medvedev mull ‘12 pres bids 12-3, 892G2 Perm govt quits 12-9, 855A1 Human Rights US lists abuse 2-25, 180B1, D1 Meml awarded EU prize 12-16, 939E1 Kosovo Conflict ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G1 IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318G1 Latin American Relations Cuba’s Castro visits 1-30, 85C2 Venez’s Chavez visits 9-9—9-11, 616F2 Venez uranium detectn aid rptd 9-26, 682A3 Medicine & Health Care ‘90-01 alcoholism deaths rptd 6-26, curbs mulled 6-29—6-30, 513C1 Swine flu cases tallied 11-6, 811D1 HIV ‘epidemic’ rptd 11-24, 876B1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Lebedev sets Evening Standard stake buy 1-21, 76F2 Opel sale mulled 5-30—6-3, 366G1, F2 Opel/Vauxhall buy set 9-10, 608G3 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767E1 Middle East Relations Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn hailed 6-16, 402A3, 403D1 Medvedev visits Egypt 6-23, 455B1 Israel’s Peres sees Medvedev 8-18, Netanyahu visit rptd, confrmd 9-9—9-12, 616A2, E2 Israeli bank ofcls conspiring suspect (Gaydamak) chrgd 10-1, 768G3 Iran emb protested 11-4, 767F3 W Bank border crossing opens 11-10, 790D3

1158 RUSSIAN— Monetary Issues Ruble benchmark set, value drops 1-22—2-2, 69A2 China bank loans set 10-13—10-15, 739B2 Ruble ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Nazis & Neo-Nazis WWII start anniv marked, intell documts issued 9-1, 591D2, F2 Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Iran A-plant test opens 2-25, 174B2 Mongolia uranium mine jt venture set 8-25, 725F2 Iran uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711B1–D1, G1 Iran uranium transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2–C2, E2 Iran uranium transfer proposals mulled 11-6—11-18, A-plant bldg delayed 11-16, 804G2, B3–C3 Iran uranium swap offrd 12-12, 876E2 Obituaries Aksyonov, Vasily P 7-6, 500C2 Feoktistov, Konstantin P 11-21, 860C3 Gaidar, Yegor T 12-16, 880F1 Gelfand, Israel M 10-5, 731B3 Ginzburg, Vitaly L 11-8, 792C3 Maximova, Ekaterina 4-28, 300G3 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Varennikov, Valentin I 5-6, 332G3 Oil & Gas Developments Ukraine gas shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3F1, F2, A3 Ukraine gas standoff talks held/deals signed, stolen shipmt alleged 1-10—1-19, dispute scored, debt setld/shipmts cont 1-20, 37D1, B2, F2 Bulgaria riots erupt 1-14, 52D2 OPEC output levels retained 3-25, 180F2 Turkmen gas pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, flow cutoff cited 4-10, 473E2–F2 TNK-BP chair (Fridman) named 5-27, Summers deal ends 6-1, 379A1 Turkmen gas price talks fail 6-26, 473F2–G2 Azerbaijan gas deal signed 6-29, 513B1 Turkey gas pipeline deal signed 8-6, 561A1 China deals signed 10-13—10-15, 739B2 Energy Charter Treaty exited 10-19, 892E3 Serbia gas storage plan OKd 10-20, 728E3 Yukos shareholders damages bid OKd 11-30, 892E3 Lukoil buys Iraq oil field dvpt rights, productn hike seen 12-12, 877D1, E1 Gas pipeline bombs found, defused 12-13—12-14, 892B2 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935A3–C3 Siberian oil pipeline opens 12-28, 938G3 Lukoil, Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-29, 943C1 Organized Crime (including Mafia) Ivankov dies 10-9, 788F2 Press & Broadcasting Novaya Gazeta staff gun permits sought 1-22, 36D3 Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht rptr (Voitenko) flees 9-3, firing claimed, denied 9-4—9-7, 616C2 GQ, Putin article publishing omits rptd 9-4, 667B3 Novaya Gazeta, Stalin grandson libel suit opens 9-15, 667G2 Stalin libel suit nixed 10-13, 767A1 Kaskad stake seized 11-10, rptr (Kotovskaya) dies in fall 11-16, 893B1 Moscow mayor (Luzhkov) defamatn paymts ordrd 11-30, 892F3 Kyrgyz rptrs attacked 12-9—12-16, Pavlyuk dies in Kazakh fall, bound hands/feet rptd 12-16—12-22, 935F1, B2 Religious Issues Kirill I elected Orthodox patriarch 1-27, enthronemt held 2-1, 85C2 Medvedev sees Pope, Vatican diplomatic ties OKd 12-3, 892A3 Space & Space Flights US communicatn/defunct mil satellites collide 2-10, 91F2, A31 Intl statn crew exchngd 3-28—4-8, 239G2–A3* Soyuz launched, intl statn crew hiked 5-27—5-29, 519B2 Intl statn crew exchngd, tourist visits 9-30—10-11, 731A2, C2 Sports Men’s Hockey World Champs won 5-18, 670B3 Track world champ held 8-15—8-23, 579F1

FACTS Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103F2 Ingush suicide attacks threat seen 9-2, 591B2 Moscow alleged attack plotter slain 9-4, 728A2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58G1–A2 Kyrgyz loan, aid set 2-3, 59A1 Credit outlook cut 2-4, 69B2 Armenia loan mulled 2-27, 206G2 Kyrgyz aid arrives 3-31, 252E3 Ukraine/IMF 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274B2–C2 IMF mtg held 4-25—4-26, 283C2 US/Mex pork imports halted 4-27, 282A2 Belarus loan talks fail 5-28, dairy products ban set, lifted 6-19—6-17, 423F2, B3 WTO entry sought 6-9, 405G1–B2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404F3 SCO summit hosted 6-15—6-16, 406E2 Emerging econs summit hosted 6-16, 405C1–F1 G-8 summit opens 7-8—7-9, 453A1 Georgia breakaway region aid set 8-12, 534D2 WTO entry US backing sought 9-18, 645G1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Belarus, Ukraine aid nixed 10-5, Serbia loan set, finalized 10-5—10-20, 728B3 World Bank, IMF mtgs held 10-6—10-7, 674B3 China sets constructn cos investmt 10-13—10-15, 739B2 SCO mtg held 10-14, 705F3 Kazakh, Belarus customs union deal signed 11-27, 863E1 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt opposed 3-5, 123B1 N Korea rocket launch Sec Cncl res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, 239E1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277C2 Myanmar pol prisoners release urged 5-22, 360A2 N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404A1 Georgia breakaway region monitoring missn extensn vetoed, vote mulled 6-15—6-16, 406C1, C2–D2 Iraq sanctns lift sought 7-22, 498D1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn/sentnc res opposed 8-12, 543A2 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599E3 Iran A-program talks OKd 9-14, 614A1 Iran A-program sanctns backed, arms spread res passes 9-23—9-24, 633A2, 634F1–B2 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-23—9-24; IAEA cooperatn urged 9-25, talks held 10-1, 649B1, 650E2–F2, 651A1 Iran med uranium talks set 10-4, 688C1 Gaza war crimes rpt res passes Human Rights Cncl 10-16, 730C2 Gaza war crimes rpt vote abstained 11-5, 790C2 Iran A-program sanctns hike backed 11-7, 11-15, 804D2 NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-11, 862E2 Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837G1–A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Medvedev calls Obama 1-26, 69C2 Ties mulled 2-7—2-8, 74A2–B2, F2 Lavrov sees US’s Clinton 3-6, 142D2 Medvedev sees Obama 4-1, 193B1, C3 Lavrov visits 5-7, 311A2 Cold War pol mulled 7-2—7-3; Putin marks Bush’s birthday 7-6, Obama visits 7-6—7-7, 453C3, 454C1, A2, E2 Medvedev sees Obama 9-23, 633D1, 634F1 Clinton visits 10-13—10-14, 705D3 Aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766F2 Medvedev sees Obama 11-15, 795B2

RUTAN, Burt Virgin space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884F1

RUTGERS University (New Brunswick, N.J.) Stringer elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231B3 Britt in NFL draft 4-25, 298G3 Poirier dies 8-15, 612F3 Stringer inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3 Gelfand dies 10-5, 731C3 Clinton stumps 10-20, 717C1 St Petersburg Bowl won 12-19, 948C3

RUTO, William Named post-electn violnc suspect 7-17, 541D1

RWANDA, Republic of African Relations Troops enter Congo 1-20, rebel ldr (Nkunda) held 1-22 1-22, 34A1 Troops exit Congo 2-25, 921C3 Congo violnc scored 8-10, 540F2 Congo rebel ldrs held, Ger detentn ordrd 11-17—11-18; army link alleged 11-25—12-7, UN peacekeepers jt operatn end set, missn extended 12-16—12-23, 921A3–C3, 922D1–E1 Civil War Ex-justice min (Ntamabyariro) convctd 1-19, sentncd 1-20, 34G3 RC priest (Rukundo) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2 Genocide anniv marked 4-7, 248B2 Genocide suspect (Munyaneza) convctd 5-22, 680C2 Ex-interior min (Kalimanzira) convctd, sentncd 6-22, 923A3 Kivumu ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10; sent to Tanzania 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680F1 Ex-pastor (Bazaramba) trial opens 9-1, Kigali testimony heard 9-15, 680A2 Ex-parlt speaker (Mukezamfura) sentncd in absentia 9-3, 680B2 Intell ex-ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680A1 Ex-pres brother-in-law (Zigiranyirazo) convctn nixed, RC priest (Nsengimana) cleared 11-16—11-17; tribunal boycott warned 11-21, mandate extended 12-16, 923D2 European Relations Kagame visits UK 3-16, 170D1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Joins Commonwealth 11-28, 845F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B3; 10-1, 735B3 UN Policy & Developments Darfur peacekeepers equipmt delivery ordrd 1-5, 116F1

RYAGUZOV, Pavel Cleared 2-19, 100E1

RYAN, Archbishop Dermot (d. 1984) Child abuse role regretted 11-26, 836D1

RYAN, Kay Renamed US poet laureate 4-13, 280F2

RYAN, Paul (U.S. representative from Wis., 1999- ; Republican) On fscl ‘09 deficit 10-16, 713G1

RYAN, Rex Named Jets coach 1-19, 55G2

RYLANCE, Mark Jerusalem opens in London 7-15, 564C2

RYNESS, Bryce Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

RZAYEV, Gen. Rail (d. 2009) Slain 2-11, 206A3

S

‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900E2

Govt media adviser (Lesin) fired 11-18, 893A1

RUSSO, Richard That Old Cape Magic on best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

RUSSOTTO, Michael Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

Beijing Auto Indus stake buy OKd 9-9, Koenigsegg buyout offer dropped, Swedish govt bailout nixed 11-24, 822C3 China Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932F2 Beijing Auto sets, OKs tech/designs buy 12-14—12-23; Spyker brand bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, GM deadline extended 12-30, 902F2–A3

SAAKASHVILI, Mikheil (Georgian president, 2004- ) Resignatn urged 1-29, 84F3–G3, 85B1–C1 Sees US’s Biden 2-8, 74A3 Protests held, crowd estimated 4-9, 253F1, A2–B2 On Tbilisi troops mutiny 5-5, 311G1 Tbilisi protests turn violent, demonstrators held/freed 5-6—5-7, oppositn talks sought, held 5-7—5-11, resignatn urged 5-12, 327D3, F3–328C1 Govt protests held 5-26, electns urged 5-28, 378E1 Hosts US’s Biden, mil aid request rptd 7-22—7-23, 496D2, D3, G3–497A1 Russia’s Putin visits Abkhazia 8-12, 534F2 Ousts defns min (Sikharulidze), names Akhalaia 8-27, 607C2–D2 Hosts Turkey’s Davutoglu 9-8, 607A2 Russia war rpt issued 9-30, 666D1 Sets Afghan troops hike 12-7, 844F1 WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19; fires Imereti gov 12-20, turns 42 12-21, 937G1–C2

SAAVEDRA, Jose Alfredo On Zelaya return deal 11-2, 762D3

Sabah, NASSER Mohammed al-Ahmed al- (Kuwaiti premier, 2006-09/09- ) Quits 3-16, parlt dissolved, electns set 3-18, 228A2 Parlt electns held 5-16, renamed premr 5-20, 345B1–D1

Sabah, Sheik SABAH al-Ahmed al(Kuwaiti premier, 2003-06; emir, 2006) Premr, cabt quit 3-16, dissolves parlt, sets electns 3-18, 228B2 Renames Nasser premr 5-20, 345B1 Cuba base detainee (Rabiah) freed, transferred 12-9, 861F2

SABAN, Haim Rep Harman House com chair threat rptd 4-21, 263C2

SABAN, Nick Ala tops yr-end polls, title game berth set 12-6, 879B3

SABAR, Ariel Wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191F3

SABATHIA, C. C. Among AL ERA/wins ldrs 10-6, 690F2 Yankees win pennant, named ALCS MVP 10-25, 751E3, 752B1, D1 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770G1–B2, B3

SABBATINI, Rory Wins Byron Nelson Classic 5-24, 564A1

SABERI, Reza Held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1–G1 On daughter’s detentn 3-1, 189E1 Doubts daughter’s self-incriminatn 4-18, 274E3

SABERI, Roxana Held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1–G1 Release sought 3-5, 142C2; 3-31, 195C2 Spy chrgs set, release urged 4-8, 217F2–A3 Secret trial held 4-13, 254D2–E2 Sentnc rptd, self-incriminatn questnd 4-18; case review ordrd, Iraq detainees link denied 4-19—4-20, atty (Ebadi) named, appeal filed 4-20—4-21, 274C3–275C1 In hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318B1–A2

SABIR

RUSSIAN Trading System RUSSIA Today (Russian TV channel)

ON FILE

Ferry sinks 1-11, held 1-19, 84C2

SACA, Elias Antonio (Tony) (Salvadoran president, 2004- ) Electn held 3-15, results rptd 3-16, 170D2 Successor (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394F2

SACHS, Andrew S., Eugene Nazi ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560C2

SAAB Automobile AB Bankruptcy declared 2-20, buyout talks seen 6-2, 367C1 Koenigsegg buy OKd 6-16, 417A2 Venez/FARC arms link confrmd 7-26—7-28, 526C2

BBC fined 4-3, 256C2

SACHS, Lee Treasury post vacancy cont 3-23, 200A3

SADEQUEE, Ehsanul Islam Convctd 8-12, 833E2

SADIQ, Hamad Amin Capture rptd 2-12, 103G2 Chrgd/pleads not guilty, trial opens 11-25, 845G2

2009 Index SADKHAN, Jawad Jabber Transferred to Iraq 6-11, 391E2

SADOSKI, Thomas Becky Shaw opens in NYC 1-8, 211A3 Reasons to Be Pretty opens on Bdwy 4-2, 256E1

SADOVY, Liza Annie Get Your Gun revival opens in London 10-16, 895F3

SADR, Moqtada al‘08 top stories reviewed, 10D2 Prov electns held 1-31, preliminary results rptd 2-5, 57F1–G1 On US troops cities exit 7-1, 437B2 Mosque blasts kill 29+ 7-31, 529A2 Gay men abuse rptd 8-17, 563D1 Pol coalitn set 8-24, 592D1 Maliki sets ‘10 electns coalitn 10-1, 688C3 UK/Iraq war documts leaked 11-23, 821G1

SADULAYEVA, Zarema (d. 2009) Seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, 544A3, C3 Ingush oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, 766B2

SADYRKULOV, Medet (1953-2009) Quits, forgn min offer nixed 1-8—1-19; dies in car crash, Russian ties oppositn rptd/Kazakh fundraising seen 3-13—3-14, assassinatn claimed, denied 3-16, 172G1–E2 MP (Kadyraliev) slain 4-14, 269A2

SAEED, Hafiz Muhammad Release ordrd, terror ties seen 6-2, 383A1–E1 Chrgd/arrest nixed, movemts ltd 9-18—9-21, cont threat seen 9-30, 669A2–D2, A3–B3 Chrgs dropped 10-12, 695B3–C3

SAFFORD Unified School District v. Redding (2009) Accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 48G3 Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425D2

SAFIN, Marat Sister loses French Open 6-6, 399B1

SAFINA, Dinara Loses Australian Open 1-31, 70G3, 71B1 Loses Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 5-3, 399E1 Wins Italian Open 5-9, 399E1 Wins Madrid Open 5-17, 399D1 Loses French Open 6-6, 398C3, 399A1 Loses Wimbledon semi 7-2, 467E2–F2 Loses Westn & Southn Financial Group Women’s Open 8-16, 631G2

SAFIRE, William (William Lewis Safir) (1929-2009) Dies 9-27, 672F3

SAFWAT, Samir Slain 2-18, 101C2

SAGANA Shipping Somali pirates free chem tanker 4-21, 269B3

SAHARA, Western (formerly Spanish Sahara) Indep activist (Haider) civil courage prize won 10-20; entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903C3

SAHEBI, Abdul Ahad Sentncd 12-7, returns to work 12-8, 844E3

SAIDY, Fred (1907-82) Finian’s Rainbow revival opens in NYC 10-29, 896A1

SAIFULLAH Arrest sought 12-12, 879B1

SAIL (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384C1

SAILANI, Hajer Capture rptd 9-1, 819C3

SAIMON, Eiken Elam Pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247G2

SAINOVIC, Nikola Convctd 2-26, 110F1

St. ANDREWS University (Scotland) Iran pres electn study issued 6-21, 422E2

St. CHRISTOPHER (St. Kitts) and Nevis, Federation of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235B3; 10-1, 735C3

St. JAMES Park (British tanker) Seized 12-28, 903D2

—SANFORD 1159 St. KITTS—See St. CHRISTOPHER (St. Kitts) and Nevis Saint LAURENT, Yves (Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent) (1936-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3 Chinese ‘heads’ return conditns set, suit dismissed 2-20—2-23; art trove auctnd 2-23—2-25, Chinese buyer reneges, sale nixed 3-2—3-3 2-23—2-25, 159G3

St. LUCIA Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C3; 10-1, 735C3

St. PETERSBURG Times (newspaper) CQ sale sought 1-28, 168C1–D1 Pulitzers won 4-20, 279F1, A3–B3

St. VINCENT and the Grenadines Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C3; 10-1, 735C3

SAIPOV, Alisher (d. 2007) Kyrgyz oppositn ldr (Dzhekshenkulov) held, slaying scene link rptd 3-9, chrgd, jailing ordrd 3-11, 187E2

SAITO, Jiro Named Japan Post pres 10-21, 873F1–G1

SAKAI, Sgt. Daniel Slain 3-21, 247A1

SAKANDAL, Mubin (Abdurajak) Arrest rptd 6-23, 527F3–G3

SAKHAROV Prize for Freedom of Thought Meml awarded 12-16, 939E1

SAKIC, Joe Sets retiremt 7-9, # retired 10-1, 730G2–A3

SAKS, Elyn Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

SALAHADIN, Ghazi On US policy shift 10-19, 762A2

SALAHI, Michaele Crashes White House/photos issued, e-mails rptd 11-24—12-2; TV show role seen, incident regretted/questnd 11-26—11-28, interviewed, misses House com hearing 11-29—12-3, 829A3–E3, G3, 830C1, F1; photo 830A1

SALAHI, Tareq Crashes White House/photos issued, e-mails rptd 11-24—12-2; TV show role seen, incident regretted/questnd 11-26—11-28, interviewed, misses House com hearing 11-29—12-3, 829A3–E3, G3, 830C1, F1; photo 830A1

SALA II (Togolese ship) Sinking kills 6 12-11, 943F2

SALAMEH, Hassan Israeli troop (Shalit) release talks fail 3-17, 210F2

SALARIES—See LABOR—Wages SALAS, Henrique Seaport seizure ordrd 3-15, 204G2

SALAT, Mustafa Ali Chrgs hiked 11-23, 849B1–C1

SALAZAR, Alberto Keflezighi wins NYC marathon 11-1, 791A3

SALAZAR, Antonio de Oliveira (1889-1970) (Portugal prime minister, 1932-68) Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667E1

SALAZAR, Ken (U.S. senator from Colo., 2005-09; interior secretary, 2009- ; Democrat) Colo seat replacemt (Bennet) named 1-3, 5F2 Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6E1 Interior secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17D3–E3 Confrmd interior secy 1-20, 26C3 Nixes Dec ‘08 oil, gas leases 2-4, 94B1 Extends offshore drilling comment period 2-10, 131E3–F3, 132A1 Nixes oil shale research leases offer 2-25, seeks probe 10-20, 917E1 Upholds Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisting 3-6, 267D3 Seeks mt mining rules chng nix 4-27, 356C3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286B3

Upholds polar bears habitat, emissns curbs nix 5-8, 555G1 Drops Ore logging curbs ease 7-16, 555F1 Mt mining rules chng upheld 8-13, 655C2 On freshwater fish mercury finds 8-19, 655A2 Fla’s LeMieux named to Sen 8-28, 585C1 Sets Flight 93 meml land deals 8-31, 620D3–E3 Testifies to House com 9-16, 917E2 Proposes wild horse preserves 10-7, 800F3 Sets Calif water policies review 11-8, 887G2 Climate treaty talks role set 11-25, 828A1 Native Amer land trust suit setld 12-8, 868C2

SALAZAR, Octavio Named interior min 7-11, 481E1

SALAZAR v. Buono Accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1

SALCEDA, Jose (Joey) Sets volcano forced evacuatns 12-17, 891B1

SALDANA, Zoe Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

SALDANHA, Carlos Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

SALEEM, Mabrouk Mubarak On forgn airstrike attack 3-26, 197C1

SALEEM, Sadeer Cleared 4-28, 310B3

SALEH, Abdulrahman alOn Dubai debt guarantee nix 11-30, 829D2

SALEHI, Ali Akbar On secret A-site 9-29, 649C3 On med uranium talks 10-4, 688B1 On A-program secret site IAEA censure 11-30, 837F2

SALES, Soupy (Milton Supman) (1926-2009) Dies 10-22, 752F3

SALGADO, Elena Named finance min 4-7, 226B3

SALIH, Muhammed Ahmad Abdallah (Al Hanashi) Kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374B2–G2

SALIH, Tayeb (1928-2009) Dies 2-28, 176F3

SALINGER, J(erome) D(avid) Colting bk US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484B3

SALLIE Mae—See STUDENT Loan Marketing Association SALMAN bin Abdul Aziz, Prince (Saudi Arabia) Charity, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491C3

SALMOND, Alex Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release UK ofcl correspondnc leaked, issued 8-30—9-1, 583C2

SALOPEK, Paul Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139B3*

SALTSMAN, Chip Loses GOP chair electn 1-30, 62G1

SAMAK Sundaravej (1935-2009) (Thai premier, 2008) Dies 11-24, 880C3

SAMAR, Sima Urges Sudan southn violnc govt curbs 6-4, 431D1 Sees Darfur cont civiln attacks 6-16, 446F2

SAMARRAIE, Ayad alParlt speaker nominatn seen 1-8; boycott warned 1-10, selectn delayed 1-11, 23A2 Elected parlt speaker 4-19, 275D1–E1 Hosts US’s Pelosi 5-10, 330B3

SAMART Corp. Seized, govt move scored 11-19, 872F1–A2

SAMBOL, David Chrgd 6-4, 388D2, G2–A3

SAMMIE (Sammie Bush) ‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone’ on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1; 5-2, 316D1

SAMOA, Independent State of (formerly Western Samoa) Accidents & Disasters Quake, tsunami hit 9-29, death toll/damage rptd, aid vowed 9-29—10-1, 662G2, G3

Tsunami victims search ends 10-2; mass burial held, svcs restored/water warning lifted 10-6—10-7, death toll hiked, Tonga aid set 10-7, 685A1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662A2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235C3; 10-1, 735D3 Transportation Driving side switch suit nixed 8-31; protests held, preparatns set 9-7, switch made, buses lack rptd/chngs ordrd 9-8—9-11, 726A1

SAMORE, Gary On Iran long-range missile test 5-20, 362A1

SAMPRAS, Pete Federer loses Australian Open 2-1, 71D1 Federer ties Grand Slam wins mark 6-7, 398C3 Federer sets Grand Slam wins mark 7-5, 467F1

SAMSUNG Group UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944F2 Ex-chair (Lee) pardoned 12-29, 934B1

SAMUELSON, Emily 2d in US champ 1-24, 139E2

SAMUELSON, Paul Anthony (1915-2009) Dies 12-13, 880D3; photo 880F3

SAN (North Korean ship) Anchored in Indian waters, detained 8-5—8-10, 568F3

SANADER, Ivo (Croatian premier, 2003-09) Quits 7-1; scores EU entry block 7-4, Kosor elected, sworn premr 7-7, 463A1, D1, G1

SANCHEZ, Joe Loses Miami mayoral electn 11-3, 756F3

SANCHEZ, Jonathan Pitches no-hitter 7-10, 484A2

SANCHEZ, Gen. Marco Antonio Convctd, sentncd 12-3, 929F3

SANCHEZ, Mark In NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, 299A1

SANCHEZ, Pedro Keeps energy min post 7-11, 481E1

SANCHEZ, Robert (d. 2008) RR collisn hearing held 3-3, 357B3

SANCHEZ, Yoani US travel denied 10-14, 723C2–D2 Alleges detentn, abuse 11-6, posts Obama interview 11-18, 928B1–D1

SANDERS, Bernard (U.S. senator from Vt., 2007- ; Independent) Vows Bernanke confrmatn block 12-2, 847D2 Withdraws health care reform measure 12-16, questns bill 12-17, 863E3–F3

SANDERSON, Sara All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

SANDFORD, John Wicked Prey on best-seller list 6-1, 384A1 Phantom Prey on best-seller list 6-1, 384C1 Heat Lightning on best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

SAN Diego—See CALIFORNIA SAN Diego Union-Tribune (newspaper) Platinum/Copley Press buy set 3-18, 167G3 Breen wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

SANDINO Moreno, Catalina Starry Messenger opens in NYC 11-23, 954E2

SANDOVAL, Pablo Among NL batting/hits ldrs 10-6, 690D3–E3

SANFORD, Jenny On husband locatn 6-22, affair admitted 6-24, 424C1, E1 On husband affair 7-2, 455G3 Files divorce 12-11, 869C2

SANFORD, Mark (S.C. governor, 2003- ; Republican) At natl govs mtg 2-21—2-24, 111B2 Stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424E2–A3 Hiking trip claimed, returns from Argentina/admits affair 6-22—6-25; drops GOP govs assoc post 6-24, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1, B2 Issues apology 6-26; details affair, wife scores 6-30—7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455D3 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, 455C2 Civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1–G1

1160 SAN Francisco— Censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869G1

SAN Francisco—See CALIFORNIA SAN Francisco Chronicle (newspaper) Sale sought 2-24, 167F3

SAN Francisco Museum of Modern Art Gap founders art trove relocatn set 9-25, 708B3

SANGEEN, Mullah Pak border clashes kill 29 5-29, 381F3

SANHA, Malam Bacai Pres electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff role set 7-2, 458B3, D3, F3–459A1 Pres runoff held 7-26; vote backed 7-28, win rptd 7-29, 507C2 Facts on 7-26, 507G2

SANKOH, Foday (d. 2003) RUF ldrs convctd 2-25, 134G1

SAN Marino, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D3; 10-1, 735D3

SANOFI-Aventis SA US swine flu vaccine funding set 5-22, 352B1 Swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, 696G3 Swine flu child vaccine recalled 12-15, 901A2

SANOFI Pasteur SA HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671A1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697A2

SANTA Fe (N.M.) Institute McCarthy typewriter auctnd 12-4, 954D3

SANTANA, Joel Fired 10-19, 859B2

SANTELLI, Rick ‘Tea party’ protests held 4-15, 242D3

SANTIAGO Perez Investigation y Estudios Ecuador pres vote held 4-26, 294F2

SANTINE, John Death row inmate (Getsy) clemency urged, nixed 7-17—8-14; stay rejected by Sup Ct 8-17, executed 8-18, 553G2–A3

SANTOS, Elvin Pres electn held, loss rptd 11-29, 834D1

SANTULLI, Christopher Issues WTC site bldg collapse reprimands 7-10, 621D1

SANZ, Rodolfo Claims uranium detectn Iran aid 9-25, 682G2

SAO Paulo Stock Exchange (Brazil) ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900D2

SAO Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235D3; 10-1, 735E3

SAPPHIRE (Ramona Lofton) Push film wins Sundance Festival awards 1-24, 104B2 Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

SAPRYKIN, Oleg Russia wins World Champs 5-18, 670B3

SARANDON, Susan Exit the King revival opens in NYC 3-26, 256A1

SARBANES-Oxley Act (2002) Indep acctg oversight bds case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677A3

SARGSYAN, Serge (Armenian premier, 2007-08; president, 2008- ) On Turkey genocide admissn 9-1, 591G3 At Turkey soccer match 10-14, 707A2

SARKOZY, Jean EPAD chair bid defended, ended 10-14—10-22; elected to mgmt bd 10-23, dad regrets backing 11-5, 787A2–D2

SARKOZY, Nicolas (French president, 2007- ) Africa Sees Madagascar coup 3-20, 184E3 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht (Tanit) 4-4; commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 238E2 Hails Algeria pres (Bouteflika) reelectn 4-10, 248C1

FACTS Honors Gabon’s Bongo 6-8, 394E1 At Gabon’s Bongo funeral 6-16, 604A3 Backs Gabon’s Bongo electn win 9-8, 604G2 Westn Sahara activist (Haider) in hosp, ends hunger strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904B1 Asia/Pacific Rim China/EU summit OKd 1-30, 98D2 Sees China’s Hu 4-1, 194A2 China/EU summit held 5-20, 448B2 Seeks Myanmar/EU sanctns hike 8-11, 543A2 Afghan security transfer conf sought 9-6, 611C3 Italy/Afghan Taliban paymts probe urged 10-16, 751B3 Dispatches N Korea spec envoy (Lang) 11-9, 934A1 On Afghan troop levels 12-2, 826F1 Commonwealth of Independent States Visits Kazakh 10-6, 739D2, F2–G2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Sets NATO cmnd return 3-11, 172D3 UAE mil base opened 5-26, 893B3 Marks D-Day 6-6, 386B2 Economy & Labor On unions strike, vows talks 1-29, 68D2, F2–G2 Sets auto indus govt loans 2-9, 84F2 Sets tax cuts/low-income benefits hike, offers overseas econ aid 2-18, 116G3 Vs new stimulus package 3-12, 163B1 Workers strike 3-19; Societe Generale bd bonus pay plans dropped 3-22, scores Valeo ex-CEO severnc pay 3-24, 206D3–E3, G3 Backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 644F3–645A1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 12-13, 100C3 Unveils stimulus package 12-14, 936A3–B3 Environment & Pollution Sets carbon tax 9-11, 644F2 At UN climate chng summit 9-22, 636B2 CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1 Europe At EU summit 4-5, 214G2 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396A3 Ger terror claim convctn appeal heard, ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482B3 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 686B1 Marks Berlin Wall fall anniv 11-9, 788E1 Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 836G3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section US/Syria delegatn visit set 3-3, 123A3 At G-20 summit 4-1—4-2, 193D1 At Commonwealth mtg 12-8, 845D3–E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Natl ID debate opens, unity seen/bias fight vowed 11-2—12-8, 936F3, 937A1–B1 Middle East Israel/Hamas ceasefire talks nixed 1-5, 1C3 Visits Iraq 2-10, 101F2–A3 Reveals Iran secret A-site 9-25, 649A1, A2 Hosts Israel’s Netanyahu 11-11, 790A3 Returns Egpyt artifacts 12-14, 952F2 Military Issues Marks Ger WWI defeat anniv 11-11, 788G1 Personal Collapses, enters/exits hosp 7-26—7-27, vows rest 7-29, 528F3 Politics Survives confidnc vote 3-17, 172F3 Addresses parlt 6-22, shuffles cabt 6-23, 432F2, C3–E3 Villepin smear trial opens 9-21; sees defendants guilt 9-23, prejudicing claimed 9-24, 644F1–B2, E2 Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707B3 Son EPAD chair bid defended, ended 10-14—10-22; elected to mgmt bd 10-23, regrets backing 11-5, 787A2, C2–E2 Villepin suspended sentnc sought 10-20, smear trial ends 10-23, 765A3–B3 Religion Emerainville Muslim swimsuit ban rptd 8-12, 561F1 United States Hosts Obama 4-3, 213B3 OKs Cuba base detainee (Boumediene) transfer 4-3, 305D3

SARO-Wiwa Jr., Ken On Shell/Nigeria rights abuse suit setlmt 6-8—6-9, 406B1

SARO-Wiwa, Ken (d. 1995) Shell rights abuse suit setld, deal hailed 6-8—6-9, 405D3, 406B1

SARSGAARD, Peter Weds Gyllenhaal 5-2, 348B3 Orphan on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2

SARWAR, Assad Convctd 9-7, 608D1 Sentncd 9-14, 626F1

SASKIN, Ted Kelly ousted 8-31, 731A1

SASS, Cynthia Flat Belly Diet on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

SASSI, Nizar French convctn nixed 2-27, 150E2

SASSOU-Nguesso, Gen. Denis (Congolese president, 1979-92/97- ) Daughter dies 3-14, French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 393B3, 394F1 Vote held 7-12; reelectn rptd 7-15, appeals filed nxied 7-23—7-25, 507A1 Facts on 7-12, 507D1 Nixes PM post, shuffles cabt 9-15, 722F3 French embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833D3

SASTRE, Carlos ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D1

SATCHER Jr., Robert Flies Atlantis missn, conducts space walks 11-16—11-27, 902D1–E1

SATELLITES—See under SPACE SATURDAY Night Live (TV show) Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441E2

SATURN (planet) Giant ring find rptd 10-6—10-7, 731F1

SATYAM Computer Services Ltd. Raju admits fraud/quits, shares drop 1-7, suspects held, bd dissolved 1-9—1-11, 54F3–55G1 Fraud suspects chrgd 4-7, Tech Mahindra sets stake buy 4-13, 450B3

SAUDABAYEV, Kanat Rights activist (Zhovtis) trial questnd 9-4, 663F1

SAUDI Arabia, Kingdom of Accidents & Disasters Floods kill 150, probe ordrd/ofcls held 11-25—12-28, 944G1 African Relations Seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, 21A2 High Comm, Somali warlord arms linked 6-24, 491B3 Somalia pirates seize oil tanker (Maran Centaurus) 11-30, 903D2 Arab-Israeli Issues Peace talks concessns nixed 7-31, 545G3 Arab Relations Arab League summit held 1-19, 31A3; 3-30, 196E3 King visits Syria 10-7—10-8, 707C3 Yemeni rebel clashes erupt, withdrawal urged 11-4—11-10, troop hostage tape issued 11-9, naval blockade set, forgn interfernc scored 11-10—11-11, 805G1, E2 Leb unity govt set 11-9, 790G1 Yemen rebel clashes kill scores, ldr injury rptd/cease-fire mulled 12-13—12-31, 944E3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Royals/charities, Pak militants funding linked 6-24, 491B3 Sharif hijacking chrgs cleared 7-13, 515B1 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Royals/charities, Islamic militants funding alleged 6-24, 491B3 Crime & Civil Disorders Widow (Sawadi) sentncd 3-9, punishmt drop urged 12-14, 944F1–G1 ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904C1 Economy & Labor Citigroup govt aid plan chngd 2-27, 127B2 Fscl ‘10 budget OKd 12-21, 944B1 Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Cabt shuffled 2-14, munic electns delayed 5-18, 943C3, G3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E3; 10-1, 735E3 Medicine & Health Care Nigeria’s Yar’Adua in hosp 11-23—12-31, 922E3–F3 Pilgrimage swine flu cases tallied 11-29, 944B2–C2

ON FILE

Nigeria pres (Yar’Adua) peace talks role mulled 12-18—12-19, 923C2 Middle East Relations Egypt blast hurts 3 2-22, 117E2 Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649G1, 650B1 Iran A-scientist disappearnc rptd 10-7, 688D1 Oil & Gas Developments Actual output avg rptd 3-13, 486E2 OPEC output levels retained 3-15, 180D2 Iraq oil productn hike seen 12-12, 877F1 Press & Broadcasting Talk show offenders sentncd, rptr (Yami) punishmt suspended 10-7—10-26, 944C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Pak Al Qaeda arrests rptd 1-21, 38F3 Rehabilitatn graduates arrest rptd 1-26, suspects list issued 2-3, 118G3 AIPAC secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263B3 Suspects held 4-7—8-2; blast hurts prince 8-27, arms cache found 11-1, 943F2, B3 Al Qaeda financier (Alwanin) held 6-12, Yemen members sentncd 7-13, 646F1 Royals/charities, Al Qaeda funding linked 6-24, 9/11 victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491E2 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit attys clearnc order nix sought 11-10, 916B1 Somali group ties suspects US chrgs hiked 11-23, 849E1 Bin Laden kids Iran house arrest rptd 12-23, 941C2–D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Pak intl aid conf held 4-17, 276C3 Madagascar investmt set 5-3, 308D3 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Forgn farmland buys rptd 11-17, 812D2 UN Policy & Developments Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mitchell opens Mideast tour 1-26—1-29, 42C2 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 144F2–G2, C3, G3 Obama calls King Abdullah 3-13, 180E2 Obama visits 6-3, 369F1 Faisal visits 7-31, 545A1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release ordrd 1-14, 20A3 Cuba base ex-detainees Al Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, 119C1–D1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs dropped 2-6, 80D3 Cuba base detainees transfer talks rptd 3-13, 166A1–D1 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 259B1 ‘Material witness’ suit upheld 9-4, 659C3 Cuba base suicide suit papers filed 12-4, 862F1 Mich flight failed blast claimed 12-27, 898G1

SAULNIER, Raymond Joseph (1908-2009) Dies 4-30, 348C3

SAUNDERS, Flip Signs Wizards deal 4-21, 279B1

SAUNDERS, Josh Galaxy lose MLS Champ 11-22, 894E3

SAVAGE, Michael UK ban set, vows suit 5-5, 310D2, G2

SAVANT, Ibrahim Cleared 9-7, 608E1 Retrial sought 9-11, 626B2

SAVCHENKO, Aliona Wins world champs 3-25, 211F2

SAVE Darfur Coalition Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt hailed 3-4, 123E1

SAVE the Children Sudan group ousted 3-4, 122E2 Darfur return seen 6-11, 446C2

SAVE the Generations Sadulayeva/husband seized, found dead 8-10—8-11, 544A3

SAVUTH, Kar Opens client (Duch) closing argumts 11-25, 890G1–A2

SAWADI, Khamisa Sentncd, punishmt drop urged 3-9, 12-14, 944F1–G1

SAWCHUK, Terry (1929-70) Brodeur sets regular-season shutouts mark 12-21, 951A2

SAW VI (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

SAWYER, Diane Named ABC World News anchor 9-2, 612A3 ‘Good Morning Amer’ successor (Stephanopoulos) named 12-10, 880E1

2009 Index Interviews Iran’s Ahmadinejad 12-18, 941D1

SAWYERS, Charles L. Wins Lasker 9-14, 671B3

SAXE, Gareth Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

SAY (recording) Mayer wins Grammy 2-8, 88F2

SAYED, Nayef el Held, chrgd 10-16, 930D2

SAY Goodbye (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384C1

SAYYAD, Sam Tax woes rptd, wife labor secy Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60B1 Wife confrmd labor secy 2-24, 113D1

SAYYAF, Abdul Rasul Survives blast 11-20, 845D1

SAYYED, Gen. Jamil Custody transfer sought 3-1, 211B1 Freed 4-29, 312C2

SAYYID, Dilmurod Held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 891G3

SBA—See SMALL Business Administration SBERBANK, OAO Magna/Opel buy set, deal mulled 5-30—6-3, 366G1, E2 Opel/Vauxhall buy set 9-10, 608G3 GM nixes Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767E1

SCAGLIONE, Josefina West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1

SCALIA, Antonin (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1986- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Backs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444E2 Campaign & Election Issues Limits minority voting power protectns 3-9, 167C1, E1 Capital Punishment Vs Ga inmate (Davis) hearing 8-17, 553D2 Censorship Issues Upholds FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291C1–D1 Defendants’ Rights Curbs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266D1 Eases suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374B1–C1 Nixes convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426C1 Backs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444E1, G1, B2–C2 Education Issues Vs spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426F2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307A2 Backs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Nixes ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337F3 Health & Safety Issues Backs drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130B3 Judicial Issues Limits evidnc exclusionary rule 1-14, 21B1 Vs judge sentncg power 1-14, 21F1 Vs judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarificatn 6-8, 390F1 Labor Issues Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301F2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 470B3, 471C2 Racial Bias Finds Conn firefighters test nix bias 6-29, 443E3–G3 On KKK member (Seale) appeal 11-2, 886D3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3, G3 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443C1

SCANLAN, Dick Everyday Rapture opens in NYC 5-2, 348G1

—SCOTT 1161 SCARLETT, Sir John Denies terror suspects torture role allegatns 8-10, 544E1–F1

SCARPETTA (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672C1

SCARPETTA Factor, The (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772A1

SCHABORT, Krige 2d in NYC marathon 11-1, 791D3

SCHAEFER, Jim Wins Polk Award 2-16, 139C3

SCHAEUBLE, Wolfgang On balanced budget 10-25, sworn finance min 10-28, 749G2 Vows budget deficit cut 12-16, 892E1

SCHAFFER, Maj. Gen. Glen Iraq ‘03 invasn rpt, Bible quotes use revealed 5-17, Bush link doubted 5-18, 411D3–E3

SCHAKOWSKY, Jan (U.S. representatives from Ill., 1999- ; Democrat) Seeks CIA, Cong intell briefings probe 7-10, 474E1

SCHAPIRO, Mary SEC chair Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17B2–D2 Confrmd SEC chair 1-22, 30D1 Vows financial crime crack down 2-6, 114C1 On Madoff fraud scheme probe missteps 9-2, 603G2

SCHECHTER, Martin Sees prescribed heroin treatmt efficacy 8-19, 691G3

SCHEIDER, Roy Richard (1932-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F3

SCHEIE, Danny You Nero opens in Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3

SCHEININ, Martin Sees terror detainees abuse forgn govts role 2-27, 150F1–B2

SCHERING-Plough Corp. Merck sets buy 3-9, 150F3

SCHERZER, Max Traded to Tigers 12-9, 949A1

SCHETYNA, Grzegorz Quits 10-7, 705B2

SCHEUNGRABER, Josef Convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560F1–C2 Nazi war crimes suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, 854D1

SCHIEFFER, Tom White sets gov bid 12-4, 869F1

SCHILLER, Jophann Christoph Friedrich von (1759-1805) Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

SCHILLING, Curt Retires 3-23, 278A1 Mulls Mass Sen seat bid 9-2, 584E3

SCHJELDERUP, Thorleif (1920-2006) Ex-wife dies 3-13, 192C2

SCHLECK, Andy 2d in Tour de France, named top young rider 7-26, 515A2, D2, F2

SCHLERETH, Daniel Traded to Tigers 12-9, 949A1

SCHLESINGER, James R. Urges A-arms arsenal maintenance 1-8, 266G3

SCHLOZMAN, Bradley Justice Dept violatns rptd 1-13, 17A1

SCHMIDT, Eric Apple/Google bd dirs overlap probe rptd 5-5, quits 8-4, 744F3 Sets Iraq museum artifacts virtual copies 11-24, 838A1

SCHMIDT, Howard Named White House cybersecurity coordinator 12-22, 886F2–G2, B3

SCHMIDT, John Opens Sen Burris probe 2-17, 93A2 Questns Sen Burris 6-15, nixes perjury chrgs 6-19, 478D1–E1

SCHMIDT, Steve Urges GOP gay marriage stance chng 4-17, 266F2

SCHMOLL, Ken Rus Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

SCHNEER, Charles Hirsh (1920-2009) Dies 1-21, 72E3

SCHNEIDER, Peter Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

SCHNEIDERHAN, Gen. Wolfgang Quits 11-26, 835G3

SCHNETZER, Stephen Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

SCHOOLS—See EDUCATION (U.S.) SCHRECK, Heidi Circle Mirror Transformatn opens in NYC 10-13, 860C2

SCHREIBER, Liev Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2 X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

SCHREIBER, Pablo Desire Under the Elms revival opens in NYC 4-27, 348F1

SCHROEDER, Brian Sets 9/11 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914B3

SCHROEDER, Fritz Questns prostate test efficacy 3-18, 191F2

SCHROEDER, Gerhard (German chancellor, 1998-2005) On Afghan troops exit 9-5, 608A1

SCHUCHAT, Anne On swine flu outbreak 5-26, 352D1 On swine flu spread 10-1, 697B1 Sees swine flu vaccine delays 10-16, 741A3 On swine flu vaccine distributn 11-6, mulls spread 11-12, 810E2, C3

SCHUELKE 3rd, Henry Named ex-Sen Stevens graft trial prosecutors probe ldr 4-7, 218A2

SCHULBERG, B(enjamin) P(ercival) (1892-1957) Son dies 8-5, 532G2

SCHULBERG, Budd (Seymour Wilson) (1914-2009) Dies 8-5, 532G2

SCHULZ, Martin Vs Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn 9-15, 627E3

SCHUMACHER, Michael Joins Ferrari 7-29, nixes Formula 1 return 8-11, 647B2 Ends retiremt, joins Mercedes Grand Prix 12-23, 950G1

SCHUMER, Charles E. (U.S. senator from N.Y., 1999- ; Democrat) Seated Rules chair/Dem Caucus v chair/campaign com chair 1-6, 5C2–D2 On econ recovery plan debate 2-5, 73B3 Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148F2 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 145A1 Scores Air Force One, NYC flyover 4-27, 308F1 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) 7-13—7-16, 469D2 Introduces texting/driving ban bill 7-29, 538A1 Rep Maloney nixes NYS seat bid 8-7, 537D3 On health care reform vote 8-23, 598B3–C3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release res passes 9-23, 636B3 Health care reform measure nixed 9-29, 655A3 Health care reform pub option backed 10-26, 741F1 Health care reform pub option deal set 12-8, 847E3

SCHWAN, Gesine Loses pres electn 5-23, 361F1–G1

SCHWARTZ, Eric Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934G2

SCHWARTZMAN, Jason Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

SCHWARZENBERG, Karl On Russian diplomat ousters 8-18, 645F2

SCHWARZENEGGER, Arnold (Calif. governor, 2003- ; Republican) Urges fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn 1-21, 47E2 State workers furloughing order upheld, opens 1-29, 2-6, 114E2 Signs deficit cut deal 2-20, 114B2, D2, A3, D3 Prison conditns violatn ruled, populatn cap ordrd 3-2, 356G1 Declares southn wildfires emergency 5-6, 393G2 Budget ballot measures nixed 5-20, 340G1–A2, C2

Sets, signs budget deal 7-20—7-28, 503E2, A3–B3 Mother-in-law dies 8-11, 548G3 Newsom gov bid backed 9-15, Whitman declares run 9-22, 639F3 Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1 Signs gay marriage, Milk recognitn bills 10-11, 699C1–E1 Gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757C1 Signs water system overhaul bills, fed policies review set 11-6—11-13, 887B2, G2 At Virgin space tourism ship unveiling 12-7, 884A2

SCHWATZ, Jim Named Lions coach 1-15, 55C3

SCHWEIGER, Til Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

SCHWEITZER, Dr. Albert (1875-1965) Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843B1

SCHWENTKE, Robert Time Traveler’s Wife on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

SCIENCE & Technology—See also specific science Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26C1, 27A2 Cuba/Russia deal signed 1-30, 85C2 Fed chief info ofcr (Kundra) naemd 3-5, ex-ofc raided, target denied/leave set 3-12, 145D2 Pres memo signed 3-9, 143B3 COPS ‘09-14 reauthrzn passes House 4-23, 908B1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 US govt contracts Web site (USAspending.gov) unveiled 6-30, 761D2 Broadcam stocks backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 910A2

SCIENCE (journal) Papers on human predecessor Ardipithecus fossil published 10-2, 691F2

SCIENTIFIC University (Pecs, Hungary) Shooting kills 1, gunman surrenders/detentn ordrd 11-26—11-28, 876F1

SCIENTOLOGY, Church of Violnc use alleged 6-21, French branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787F2

SCIOSCIA, Mike Named AL top mgr 11-18, 824A1

SCOFIELD, (David) Paul (1922-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

SCOLESE, Chris Takes NASA acting admin post 1-20, 373F1

SCOLI, Daniel Named party ldr 6-29, 446G3

SCORSESE, Martin Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-27, 653A3

SCOTLAND—See GREAT Britain SCOTLAND, Baroness Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23, torture mulled 2-23, 112F2 Urges US terror detainee (Mohamed) torture probe 3-26, 290D2

SCOTT, A(nthony) O. Named ‘At the Movies’ co-host 8-5, 548B3

SCOTT, Byron Fired 11-12, 951A3

SCOTT, Larry On Peer UAE visa nix 2-15, 2-19, 138F3, 139A1

SCOTT, Margaret Seeks client (Megrahi) release 8-18, 550G1

SCOTT, Michael Found dead 11-16, suicide seen, ruling questnd/defended 11-16—11-17, 816C3–D3*

SCOTT, Richard Sets Obama health care reform oppositn 2-25, ads spending rptd 5-11, 340D1

SCOTT, Sherie Rene Everyday Rapture opens in NYC 5-2, 348G1

SCOTT, Tony Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

SCOTT, Zachary (1914-65) 2d wife dies 8-12, 580A3

1162 SCOZZAFAVA— SCOZZAFAVA, Dede Drops NY House seat bid, backs Owens 10-31—11-1, 755F2, 756A1–E1

SCRIPPS Co., E. W. Rocky Mt News shut 2-27, 167D3

SCRUGGS, Richard Miss judge (DeLaughter) quits, pleads guilty 7-30; sentncd 11-13, disbarmt sought 11-30, 888E2

SCUDERI, Rob Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420A2

SEACOM E Africa broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2

SEADRILL Ltd. Timor Sea oil rig leak opens/halted, fire put out 8-21—11-3; damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1

SEA Horse (Lebanese ship) Somali pirates seize 4-14, freed 4-20, 269E3

SEALE, James Ford Appeal denied by Sup Ct 11-2, 886C3–D3

SEALS, Dan(ny Wayland) (1948-2009) Dies 3-25, 256E3

SEALS & Sea Lions—See WILDLIFE SEAMAN, Jill Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

SEARCY, Nick Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

SEARLE & Co. Pensn funds paymt role rptd 4-20, 265F2–A3 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 476A1

SEARS, Brian Muscle Hill wins Hambletonian, sets race mark 8-8, 807B3

SEARS, Justice Leah Ward Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2

SEARS Tower (Chicago, Ill.) Terror plot suspects convctd, cleared 5-12, juror ouster rptd 5-16, 374A3 Renamed 7-16, terror plotters sentncd 11-18—12-19, 914G1

SEA the Stars (racehorse) Wins 2000 Guineas 5-2, 347A3 Wins English Derby 6-6, 399G2 Wins Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807G2

SEATTLE Post-Intelligencer (newspaper) Sale sought 1-9; printing end set 3-16, Web-only shift opens 3-17, 167C3–D3

SEATTLE Times (newspaper) Seattle P-I printing ends 3-16, 167F3

SEBELIUS, Kathleen (Kan. governor, 2003-09; U.S. HHS secretary, 2009- ; Democrat) HHS secy offer rptd 2-28, nominated 3-2, 129C1 White House health care forum held 3-5, 146A1 HHS secy nominatn Sen com confrmatn hearings held, tax woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221B1–F1 HHS secy nominatn backed 4-21, confrmd, sworn 4-28, 285A3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E1 Hikes Medicare fraud task force team 5-20, 574A2 Sets swine flu vaccine funding 5-22, 352C1 Urges food safety reforms 7-7, 524C2 On health care reform pub option, remarks mulled 8-16—8-17, 551A2, C2, F2–G2 Electronic records dvpt grants set 8-20, 816F2 Sees swine flu vaccine Oct readiness 9-16, 697A1 In health care reform bills merging talks 10-14, 698G2 Swine flu emergency declared 10-23, vows vaccine availability 10-26, 741B2–C2, C3 Doubts mammograms policy chngs 11-18, 799G2

SEC—See SECURITIES & Exchange Commission SECHIN, Igor On OPEC output 3-15, 180F2

FACTS SECRETARIAT, U.N.—See under UNITED Nations SECRETS (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

SECRET Scripture, The (book) Barry wins Costa award 1-27, 139D3

SECRET Service, U.S. (of Homeland Security) On Heartland credit card data breach 1-20, 133D2 Iraq detainees slayings suspect (Weemer) cleared 4-9, 255A1 DC ‘tea party’ protest halted 4-15, 242F3 Health care reform town-hall mtgs held 8-11—8-17, 552E1 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554F1 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782C2 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3 Couple crashes White House 11-24; incident regretted, questns Salahis 11-27—11-28, House com hearing held 12-3, 829A3, F3, 830G1

SECURITIES—See STOCKS SECURITIES & Exchange Commission, U.S. (SEC) Appointments & Resignations Chair nominee (Schapiro) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17B2 Schapiro confrmd chair 1-22, 30D1 Enforcemt dir (Thomsen) quits 2-9, Khuzami named 2-219, 114C1 Budget & Spending Programs ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291D2 Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537E1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus paymts setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 523E1–F1, A2 Bank of Amer setlmt nixed 9-14, 618F2 Bank of Amer shares drop 9-30, 657E3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Madoff scandal Cong hearings held 1-27—2-4; financial crime crack down vowed 2-6, partial setlmt OKd, client investmts find nixed 2-9—2-20, 113G1, E2, E3–114C1 Stanford exec (Prendergest-Holt) testifies 2-10, fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 147C3, 148D1–G1, C2–E2 WG Trading investmt fraud suspects civil complaints filed 2-25, 539G3 Freddie Mac acctg probe rptd 3-11, 264C2 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141C1, A2, F2 Madoff assocs chrgd 3-18—4-1, 245G1, B2 Pensn funds paymt suspects chrgd 3-19, 265B2–D2, G2 Fairfield Greenwich chrgd 4-1, 245G1 PEMGroup ex-head (Pang) chrgd, held 4-27—4-28, clients losses rptd 6-25, 506E3 Carlyle pension fund paymt probe setld 5-14, 475G3 Countrywide ex-execs chrgd 6-4, 388C2, G2, B3 SFG exec (Stanford) indictmt unsealed, pleads not guilty 6-19, 6-25, 457B2, E2 Madoff ‘feeder’ fund, adviser civil chrgs filed 6-22, 442A2 Credit card theft suspects chrgd, indicted, 554E1, G1–A2 Madoff assoc (DiPascali) partial setlmt OKd 8-11, 603D3 Madoff fraud scheme probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, 503A2 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1 Galleon insider trading suspect (Rajaratnam) chrgd 10-16, 743F2 Madoff acctant (Freihling) setlmt OKd, pleads guilty 11-3, 800C1 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910A3 New Finanial Century ex-execs chrgd 12-7, 910C2 Regulatory Issues Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178F2 Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320B2 Indep acctg oversight bds case accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677B3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407D3, 408D1 Money-mkt security hike proposed 6-24, 716D2 ‘Naked’ short-selling ltd 7-28, 716B2 Uptick rule reinstatemt proposed 8-17, 716A2

Credit-ratings agencies oversight measures, flash orders ban proposed 9-17, 716E1–F1 Reforms proposed 9-29, 716A1, D1 Financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 778F3

SECURITIES Investor Protection Corp. Madoff client investmts find nixed 2-20, 113A2 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442B3 Madoff scheme losses rptd 10-28, 800G1

SECURITY Council—See under UNITED Nations SEDARIS, Amy Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky (1950-2009) Dies 4-12, 280G3

SEDLACEK, Terry Ill church shooting kills 1 3-8, suspect (Sedlacek) chrgd 3-9, 247E3

SEDNEY, David In China defns policy talks 2-27—2-28, 153F2

SEEGER, Mike (Michael) (1933-2009) Dies 8-7, 792E3

SEEGER, Pete Half-brother dies 8-7, 792E3 Gets Gish Prize 9-3, 880A1

SEGAL, Sheldon Jerome (1926-2009) Dies 10-17, 792F3

SEGEL, Jason I Love You Man on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

SEIDMAN, L(ewis) William (1921-2009) Dies 5-13, 348D3

SEIFFER, Erik Early primate fossil, human link questnd 10-21, 952E2

SEIGNER, Emanuelle Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855C3

SEJDIU, Fatmir (Kosovar president, 2008- ) On war crimes tribunal verdicts 2-26, 110G1 Munic electns held, results rptd 11-15—11-17, 803A2–B2 Local electn runoffs held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 938B2

SEKERAMAYI, Sydney Named to Mugabe cabt 2-12, 81D3 Sworn state security min 2-13, cabt mtg held, law chngs urged 2-17, 97A2–B2

SEKERINSKA, Radmila Scores Kyrgyz pres electn vote 7-24, 510F3

SELANNE, Teemu Among NHL power-play goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

SELBY, David Heavens Are Hung in Black opens in DC 2-8, 211D3

SELEBI, Jackie Trial opens 10-5, 923C3

SELES, Monica Inducted to HOF 7-11, 631A3

SELF, Bill Named AP top coach 4-3, 230F2

SELIG, Bud (Allan H.) Scores Rodriguez drug use 2-12, 158E3

SELIG, Henry Coraline on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

SELINGO, Jeffrey On pvt univ/coll pres ‘07-08 salaries 11-2, 816F3

SELJA, Kumari Nixes Australia visit 6-11, 509C1

SELYA, John Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

SELZNICK, David O. (1902-65) Ex-wife dies 12-17, 896F2

SEMENYA, Caster S Africa gender test held 8-7, 950B3 Wins 800-m world champ gold/gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; Chuene quits, IAAF probe ordrd 8-22—8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns 8-24—8-25, 549B2–A3

ON FILE

Gender controversy regretted, ASA pres/bd suspended 11-5, World Champ medal upheld, test results release nixed 11-19, 950F2–C3

SENATE, U.S. Aging, Special Committee on Kohl reseated chair 1-6, 5C2 Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Committee on Harkin reseated chair 1-6, 5A2 USDA secy nominee (Vilsack) confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Appropriations, Committee on Inouye seated chair 1-6, 5A2 Cuba base prison closure hearing held 4-30, 305E2 Pak emergency aid hearing held 4-30, 315A3 Suplmtl funds draft OKd 5-14, 338F1 Livestock methane emissns rptg block backed 6-25, 488E1 Forgn aid family planning funds meaasure backed 7-6, 488F3 Armed Services, Committee on Levin reseated chair 1-6, 5A2 Dep defns secy nominee (Lynn) confrmatn vote delayed 1-22, 29G1 Afghan mil goals hearing held 1-27, 54B2–C2 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) hearing held 3-10, 145B1 Pak/Afghan benchmarks hearing held 4-3, 229D1 Cuba base detainees interrogatn rpt issued 4-21, 261C1, C2, A3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns intell questnd 4-25, 289B2 Pak A-program hearing held 5-14, 347A1 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381B1, G1 F-22s buys authrzn backed, nixed 6-25, 7-21, 489F3, 490C1 Jt Chiefs chair (Mullen) confrmatn hearing held 9-16, 629C2 Afghan troops hike hearing held 12-2, 827E2; 12-8, 844C2, G2 Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Committee on Dodd reseated chair 1-6, 5A2 HUD secy nominee (Donovan) confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 30B1 SEC chair nominee (Schapiro) confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17B2 Madoff fraud scheme hearing held 1-27, 113E3 $700 bln financial indus aid oversight hearing held 2-5, 61G3 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan hearing held 2-10, 76E3, G3 Bernanke testifies 2-24, 111A1 Credit-card indus reforms backed 3-31, 305G1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291D2 Auto indus govt role hearing held 6-10, 385B3 Financial indus reforms proposal questnd 6-17, hearing held 6-18, 407B2, 408E1 Bernanke testifies 7-22, 488B1 Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537D1, A2 Dodd discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared 8-7, 537D2 Financial indus ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, 640E3 Financial indus reforms proposal unveiled 11-10, 778D3, 779D1 Bernanke confrmatn hearing held 12-3, 847F1 Fed chair (Bernanke) renominatn backed 12-17, 865E3 Budget, Committee on the Conrad reseated chair 1-6, 5A2 Gregg named commerce secy 2-3, 60D1 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan hearing held 2-11, 76F3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals questnd 2-26, 125G3 Obama ‘10 proposals hearing held 3-3, 126E1 AIG govt aid hearing held 3-3, 127B1 Obama budget proposals scored, blueprint unveiled/backed 3-24—3-26, 180F3–G3, 181C1 IMF funds drop nixed 5-21, 355G1 Health care reform hearing held 7-16, 476A3 Commerce, Science and Transportation, Committee on Rockefeller seated chair 1-6, 5B2 Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 29C3 Lobbyist (Iseman)/NYT suit setld, McCain romantic ties nixed 2-19, 151D3 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) confrmatn hearing held 3-18, backed 3-19, 181F3 NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373G1 GM/Chrysler dealerships clsoure info sought 6-9, 385F2

2009 Index NASA shuttle program future plans hearing held 9-16, 745B2 Confirmation Issues Obama cabt nominees OKd 1-20, 26B3 Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) OKd 1-20, 29F3 State secy nominee (Clinton) OKd 1-21, 29F2 Transportatn secy nominee (LaHood) confrmd 1-22, 29C3 HUD secy nominee (Donovan) OKd 1-22, 30B1 EPA admin nominee (Jackson) OKd 1-22, 30D1 Schapiro confrmd SEC chair 1-22, 30D1 UN amb nominee (Rice) OKd 1-22, 30D1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) OKd 1-26, 44D1 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) OKd 1-28, 45D1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) OKd 2-2, 60D3 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) OKd 2-12, 93C3 Labor secy nominee (Solis) OKd 2-24, 113D1 Afghan amb nominee (Eikenberry) OKd 3-11, 381A3 Trade rep nominee (Kirk) OKd 3-18, 182A1, E1 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) OKd 3-19, 246B2 NOAA admin nominee (Lubchenco) OKd 3-19, 267G2 Commerce secy nominee (Locke) OKd 3-24, 181E3 Iraq amb nominee (Hill) OKd 4-21, 275E2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) OKd 4-28, 285A3 FDA comr nominee (Hamburg) OKd 5-18, 354D1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) sees Sens 6-2—6-8, 389F3 Afghan cmdr (McChrystal) OKd 6-10, 434B1–C1 FCC chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) OKd 6-25, 458C1 Arms control undersecy nominee (Tauscher) OKd 6-25, 478A3 Census chief nominee (Groves) OKd 7-13, 659D1 NASA admin nominee (Bolden) OKd 7-15, 506F2 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd 8-6, 519A3 NEH/NEA chrmn nominees OKd 8-7, 548E2 Regulatory chief nominee (Sunstein) confrmd 9-10, 656E2 Army secy nominee (McHugh) OKd 9-16, 656G1 Joint Chiefs chair (Mullen) renominatn OKd 9-25, 669D1 Bernanke block vowed 12-2—12-3, 847E2 TSA dir nominee (Southers) vote mulled 12-29, 898C3 Democrats Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5D2; facts on 4D2, A3 Obama mtg held 8-4, 520C2 Energy and Natural Resources, Committee on Bingaman reseated chair 1-6, 5B2 Energy secy nominee (Chu) confrmatn hearing held 1-13, 17A3 Interior secy nominee (Salazar) confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17D3 Environment and Public Works, Committee on Boxer reseated chair 1-6, 5B2 EPA admin nominee (Jackson) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 17F3 Climate chng bill hearings open 10-27, 742F3 Ethics, Select Committee on Boxer reseated chair 1-6, 5B2 Ill’s Burris probe opens 2-17, 93A2 Ensign parents, mistress paymts probe urged 6-24, Coburn testimony nixed 7-9, 478B2, D2 Dodd/Conrad discounted mortgages gift violatns cleared, ruling scored 8-7, 537B2 Burris admonished 11-20, 814B2 Finance, Committee on Baucus reseated chair 1-6, 5B2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17C1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) tax records probe cont 1-15, 17G2 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) hearing held/testimony issued, confrmatn backed 1-21—1-22, 30D1 $700 bln financial indus aid banks use disclosure sought 1-22, 32B3 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) regrets tax error 2-2, 59B3, D3

—SENEGAL Trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd 3-2; confrmatn hearing held 3-9, backed 3-12, 182A1, D1–E1 AIG bonus paymts scored 3-16, 161G2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) admits tax woes 3-31, confrmatn hearing held 4-2, 221C1, E1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac bonus paymts scored 4-3, 220G2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) backed 4-21, 285C3 Overperforming MDs Medicare paymt hike proposed 4-29, 324F1 Overseas profits tax breaks curbs mulled 5-4, 304G3 Universal health care taxes mulled 5-20, 339G3 Health care reforms proposal mulled 6-2—6-11, 390A3–B3, D3, 391C1 Health care reform proposal cost estimated 6-16, 409A1 Health care reform draft bill circulated, Baucus sees Sens 6-18, costs cut 6-25, 426E3, 427B1, E1 Health benefits tax opposed 7-8, 457A3 Health care reform vote delay seen 7-30, 520A2 Health care reform end-of-life counseling mulled, measure dropped 8-12—8-13, cooperative proposal backed 8-15, 551E2, D3, F3 Baucus health care reform draft circulated/mtg failure seen, com work set 9-5—9-9, 598C2 Health care reform proposal mulled, issued 9-15—9-16, 617A1, D2 Health care reform proposal chngs mulled, debate opens 9-19—9-24, 637A2, C3, E3 Health care reform measures mulled 9-29—10-1, 655E2, C3 Health care reform debate ends, cost estimated/vote set 10-2—10-8, support mulled 10-5—10-7, 676C2–D2, E3 Health care reform proposal scored, indus rpt questnd 10-11—10-12, bill backed 10-13, merging talks held 10-14, 698A1, C2, F2 Health care reform pub option mulled 10-26, 741G1 Health care reform merged bill issued 11-18, 796A2 Baucus girlfriend atty apptmt rptd 12-5, backing confrmd 12-6, 908B3 Foreign Relations, Committee on Kerry seated chair 1-6, 5B2 Biden, Graham visit Pak/Afghan/Iraq 1-9—1-12, 16D2 Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16A1 UN amb nominee (Rice) confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16A2 Kerry visits Gaza 2-19, 157E2 Cuba trade embargo end urged 3-30, 249D1 Kerry visits Pak 4-14, 276F1 IMF funds drop nixed 5-21, 355G1 Afghan drug traffickers targeting set 8-11, 547A2, C2 Webb tours Southeast Asia 8-14—8-17, 558A3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release opposed 8-17, 550C2 Pak aid package defended 10-14, 695F2 Kerry visits Afghan, Karzai mtgs mulled 10-16—10-20, 710A2 Kerry visits Pak 10-19, 710A1 Bin Laden ‘01 Afghan escape rptd 11-30, 845A1 Afghan troops hike hearing held 12-3, 827A3; 12-9, 844A3 Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Committee on Kennedy reseated chair 1-6, 5B2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) confrmatn hearing held 1-8, 6F2, 17E2 Labor secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18F1 Educ secy nominee (Duncan) confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18D1 Labor secy nominee (Solis) vote delayed 2-5, 60A1 Labor secy nominee (Solis) backed 2-11, 113D1 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) confrmatn hearing held 3-31, 221E1 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 FDA comr nominee (Hamburg) confrmatn hearing held 5-13, 354E1 Obama sees Dems 6-2, health care reforms bill issued 6-9, 390E2, D3 Health care reform proposal debate opens 6-17, 409C1 House health care reform proposal issued 6-19, 426D3 Health care reform proposal chngd, uninsured seen 7-2, 457F3 Passes health care overhaul bill 7-15, 476F2

Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537A2 Kennedy dies 8-25, 570D1 Dodd nixes chair post, Harkin named 9-9, 599E1 Health care reform bills merging talks held 10-14, 698F2 Health care reform merged bill issued 11-18, 796A2 Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Committee on Homeland Security secy nominee (Napolitano) confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17A1 Tex mil base shooting hearings open 11-19, 812B3, 813A1 Indian Affairs, Select Committee on Dorgan reseated chair 1-6, 5C2 Intelligence, Select Committee on Feinstein seated chair 1-6, 5C2 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28G2 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) confrmatn hearing held, testimony issued 1-22—1-28, 45E1 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns hearing held 1-28, 65E3 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure forms issued 2-4; confrmatn hearing held 2-5—2-6, nominatn backed 2-11, 93D3–E3 CIA terror detainees probe rptd 2-27, 130C2 Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) experience questnd 3-9, 145B1 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd/admitted, hearing set 4-15—4-16, 243A3, C3 CIA interrogatn prosecutns decisn delay sought 4-20, ‘02 briefing rptd, authrzn timeline issued 4-22, 258F2, 261G2, C3 CIA shuttered Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program hearing held 6-24, intell briefings mulled 6-26—7-12, 474A1, C1, A2, D2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600C1 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor apptmt opposed 8-19, 565E1 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20, 586B3 Judiciary, Committee on the Leahy reseated chair 1-6, 5C2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16E2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmatn hearing cont 1-16, vote delayed 1-21, 30F2 Atty gen nominee (Holder) backed 1-28, 60F3 Obama doubts Bush terror policies probe 2-9, 79B2 Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1 Bush admin policies truth comm proposal hearing held 3-4, 130A2 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, 243A3 Bybee CIA interrogatn testimony sought 4-29, 290E3 Crack cocaine sentncs hearing held 4-29, 307C2 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3—5-4, Sessions named GOP ranking member 5-5, 302D1, 303A1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns hearing held 5-13, 322B1 Sup Ct justice nominatn mulled, filibuster doubted 5-26—5-27, 349E2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) attacks scored 5-29; sees Sens/hurts ankle, submits query 6-2—6-8, confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389E2, D3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) confrmatn hearings held, filibuster nixed 7-13—7-16, 469A1–471C3; excerpts 470A1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed, confrmatn hearings scored 7-28, 503A1 Illegal immigrants citizenship path hearing held 10-8, 712A1 Insurnc cos antitrust exemptn end backed 10-21, 713E3 9/11 plot suspects trials hearing held 11-13, 793F1–G1, D2 Membership ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A1, 11F1 110th Cong adjourns 1-2, 3E3 Ill’s Burris apptmt certificatn sought, resolutn urged 1-2—1-5; seating blocked, sees Reid/Durbin 1-6—1-7, testifies to gov ouster com 1-8, 3D3; photo 3E3 Colo seat replacemt (Bennet) named 1-3, 5G1 Franken declared Minn race winner 1-5, suit filed 1-6, 5F1

1163

Ill seat nominee (Burris) issues affidavit to gov ouster com 1-5, 93E2 111th Cong convenes 1-6, 3D3 Party ldrs, com chairs listed 1-6, 5A1, facts on 4A1 Bush nixes Fla seat bid 1-6, 5G2 Matthews nixes Pa seat bid 1-7, 5A3 Bond nixes reelectn bid 1-8, 5A3 Ill’s Burris apptmt certified 1-9; credentials OKd 1-12, sworn 1-15, 18B2 Biden quits 1-15, 16E2 Kennedy drops NY seat bid 1-22, 32D3 Rep Gillibrand named to NY seat 1-23, sworn 1-27, 46E2 Ill gov (Blagojevich) ousted 1-29, 43B3, 44B1 Gregg named commerce secy, Newman tapped 2-3, 60D1, G1 Gregg drops commerce secy nominatn 2-12, 79E2 Ill’s Burris 2d gov ouster com affidavit rptd, on Blagojevich brother talks/explanatn sought 2-14—2-15; admits fund-raising bid, probes open 2-16—2-17, seeks Chicago backing, resignatn urged 2-18, 93F1, F2–C3 Minn Sen race absentee votes review ltd 3-31, 201B2 Alaska seat ‘08 race mulled 4-1, spec electn urged 4-2, 199C2 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, Rep Jackson probe confrmd 4-8, 218D3, 219D1 Minn seat race recount rptd 4-7, Franken win declared, cont appeals vowed 4-13, 242F2 Specter swtiches parties/voting record rptd, sees Obama 4-28—4-29, 284A2, D2, 285B1, D1; photo 284E2 Ill’s Burris/Blagojevich brother wiretap release OKd, denies campaign paymt 5-26—5-27; questnd, perjury chrgs nixed 6-15—6-19, nixes ‘10 run 7-10, 477F3 Ensign admits affair 6-16, drops GOP post, woman comes forward 6-17, 410B1 Ensign parents/mistress paymts rptd, probe urged 6-24—7-9; harassmt alleged, Sen Coburn testimony nixed 7-8—7-9, reelectn bid cont 7-13, 478F1 Minn race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441A1, F1 Sen Byrd exits hosp 6-30, 441A2 Tex’s Hutchison sets gov bid 7-13, sees resignatn 7-29, 503D2 Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503F1 Rep Sestak sets Pa seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521E2 Fla’s Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537E2 Rep Maloney nixes NYS seat bid 8-7, 537C3 Rep Heller nixes Nev seat bid 8-11, cites Ensign affair scandal 8-12, 552D2 Mass seat successn law chng sought 8-19, 570F1 Kennedy dies, ldrship hailed/Boston processn held 8-25—8-27, seat successn law chng backed 8-27, 569A2–570A3; photos 569F3, 570A1 Sen Kennedy mourned, funeral held/buried 8-28—8-29; replacemt candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, law chng hearing set, spec electn set 8-31, 584A2, F2, D3 LeMieux named to Fla seat 8-28, 584G3 Kennedy nephew nixes replacemt bid 9-7; Mass gov apptmt bill passes legis 9-23, Kirk named 9-24, 638F1 Canada’s Harper sees Reid, McConnell 9-17, 643E1 Del rep (Castle) sets bid 10-6, 679C1 Fiorina sets Calif seat bid 11-4, 757D1 Byrd sets Cong tenure mark 11-18, turns 92 11-20, 815A1 Mass seat primaries held 12-8, 848C2 Oversight and Government Reform, Committee on Lieberman reseated chair 1-6, 5C2 Public Works and Environment, Committee on Climate chng bill debate opens, EPA experts testify 11-3—11-4; Kerry seeks separate talks 11-4, bill backed 11-5, 759E3 Republicans Party ldrs listed 1-6, 5E2; facts on 4B3, D3 Rules and Administration, Committee on Schumer seated chair 1-6, 5C2 Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Committee on Landrieu seated chair 1-6, 5C2 Veterans Affairs Committee Akaka reseated chair 1-6, 5C2 Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 29G3

SENEGAL, Republic of African Relations Gabon emb burned 9-3, 604F1

1164 SENGBLOH— Guinea’s Diallo flees 10-1, 660C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu visits 2-13—2-14, 170E1, A2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E3 Local electns held 3-22, Soumare quits, Ndiaye named 4-30, 326G1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 735F3 Middle East Relations Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits 11-26, 885E2 Obituaries Dia, Mamadou 1-25, 71F3 UN Policy & Developments Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt questnd 3-5, 123C1 Human Rights Cncl seat OKd 5-12, 336F2 Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812G1

SENGBLOH, Saycon Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

SENGER, Craig Slain 7-17, 494F2

SENGHOR, Leopold Sedar (1906-2001) (Senegalese president, 1960-80) Dia dies 1-25, 71F3

SENIOR Citizens—See AGE SENSEX Index—See BOMBAY Stock Exchange SENTELLE, Judge David Rules DC vehicle checkpoints unconst 7-10, 870D1

SEPARATION—See DIVORCE SERBIA, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Kosovo Albanians migrant boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777F1 Bosnian War (& other conflicts)—See BOSNIA—Civil War CIS Relations Russia’s Medvedev visits 10-20, 728C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Roads toll embezzlers sentncd 11-11, 855G2 Crime & Civil Disorders Soccer fan beaten/dies, suspects chrgd 9-17—9-29; ultranatlist groups ban sought 9-25, meml held 10-1, 687F2 Unbiased protectns vowed 9-18, gay pride parade nixed, pub gatherings banned/ultranatlists held 9-19—9-20, 687D3 Outlaw soccer clubs crimes alleged 12-3; rptr (Stankovic) threat suspects held 12-8, concern seen 12-9, 893C1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Bujanovac army base opens 11-23, 855E2 Energy Russian gas storage plan OKd 10-20, 728E3 European Relations Montenegro parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226C1 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 Croatia blast suspects chrgd 10-26, 822F2 EU visa curbs lifted 12-19, 940E1 EU entry bid submitted 12-22, 939B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235F3; 10-1, 735F3 Iraqi Conflict Fighter jets ownership seen, return set 8-30, 592C3 Kosovo Conflict—See KOSOVO, Republic of Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Obituaries Pavic, Milorad 11-30, 955C3 Religious Issues Patriarch Pavle dies 11-15, 822C2 Sports Australian Open fans clash 1-23, 71E1–F1 Partizan Belgrade/Toulouse match held 9-17; clubs ban sought 10-1, fan behavior warning issued 10-8, 687G2–B3 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 IMF loan hiked 5-15, 482D3 World Bank funds vowed 10-5, Russia loan set, finalized 10-5—10-20, 728B3 EU interim free trade deal OKd 12-7, 939D2

FACTS U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 5-20, 379G1, F2

SERDYUKOV, Anatoly On cargo ship (Arctic Sea) hijacking, sets probe 8-17—8-20, 550C3–D3, 551D1 Signs Georgia breakaway regions defns deals 9-15, 645A2

SERENO, Paul T rex predecessor fossil find rptd 9-17, 670F3–G3

SERIKOV, Yermek Slain 8-11, suspects surrender 8-17, 576A3–B3

SERKIS, Andy Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

SERVANTS of Reconstruction Iran pres electn results questnd 7-4, 464F1

SERVICE Employees International Union (SEIU) Health care reform coalitn exited 3-6, 146C1 Health insurnc reforms plan opposed 3-27, 245A3 Health care indus spending growth halt vowed, denied 5-11—5-14, 339D3 Health insurnc mandate backed 6-30, 458A1 Health care reform support seen 8-14, 551G3 Stern White House visits rptd 10-30, 780C1

SERVICE Industries Corruption & Ethics Issues UK’s Brown expenses repaymt sought, OKd 10-12, 727B3 Labor Issues Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn hearing delayed 1-13, 17B2 Insurnc mandate backed 6-30, 458B1 Statistics US Nov ‘08 trade gap, Oct revised 1-13, 15C3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap, Nov revised 2-11, 111E3 US Jan ‘09 trade gap, Dec ‘08 revised 3-13, 164G1 US Feb ‘09 trade gap, Jan revised 4-9, 240B2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323B3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap, Mar revised 6-10, 389E1 US May ‘09 trade gap, Apr revised 7-10, 477G1 US Jun ‘09 trade gap, May revised 8-12, 535B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap, Jun revised 9-10, 619D1 France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 645A1 US Aug ‘09 trade gap, Jul revised 10-9, 699B3 US Sep ‘09 trade gap, Aug revised 11-13, 798G1 US Oct ‘09 trade gap, Sep revised 12-10, 865G3 Tax Issues Chief performnc ofcr nominee (Killefer) withdraws 2-3, 59D2 Trade Issues Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405F1

SESAY, Issa Hassan Convctd 2-25, 134G1–A2 Sentncd 4-8, 325B1

SESSIONS 3rd, Jefferson B. (U.S. senator from Ala., 1997- ; Republican) On Sup Ct justice nominee confrmatn process 5-4, named com GOP ranking member 5-5, 303A1 On Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) 5-26, doubts filibuster 5-27, 349D2, 350D1 On Sotomayor Sup Ct confrmatn hearing date 6-9, 389F2 Questns Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor), nixes filibuster 7-13—7-16, 469D2, 470F1, A2, C3, 471G2 Vs Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) 7-28, 503C1 McHugh confrmd Army secy 9-16, 656C2–D2 On ‘10 defns funds measure 10-2, 701E2 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-18, 793F1

SESSIONS, Pete (U.S. representative from Tex., 1997- ; Republican) Seated GOP Cong com chair 1-6, 5E1

SESTAK, Joe (U.S. representative from Pa., 2007- ; Democrat) Sets Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521F2

SETON Hall University (South Orange, N.J.) Cuba base ex-detainees recidivism rise doubted 1-15, 166F1 Jaki dies 4-7, 256C3 Cuba base suicides probe questnd 12-7, 862B1–C1

SETTON International Foods Inc. NYS plant inspectn failed 3-9; pistachios salmonella finds rptd 3-24—4-7, recall set, hike sought 3-30—4-6, 268A2–D2

SEVELE, Feleti (Fred) (Tongan prime minister, 2006- ) Doubts capsized ferry (Princess Ashika) survivors find 8-7, 590F3, 591A1

17 Again (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

SEX & Sexuality Interior secy nominee (Salazar) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17E3 ‘Scientific integrity’ pres memo signed 3-9, 143C3 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; evidnc rptd, further victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, curbs set/’misuse’ drop seen, erotic svcs shut 4-21—5-13, 429G1–A2, D2, G2–C3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321F3 Actor (Carradine) found dead 6-4, suffocatn seen 6-5, 400A3 Letterman regrets Gov Palin daughter joke 6-15, 455C3 China health Web sites block set 6-24, 448F1 S African runner (Semenya) gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; IAAF probe ordrd 8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns 8-24—8-25, 579B2 Saudi talk show offenders sentncd, rptr (Yami) punishmt suspended 10-7—10-26, 944D1–E1 FCC sets Google Voice probe 10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 745A1 FIA pres (Todt) elected 10-23, 950A2 Anglican priests RC conversn rules set 11-9, 811D2 Calif cop text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867G3 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) Web posting rptd 12-29, 898E1 Adultery—See ADULTERY Birth Control—See BIRTH Control Homosexuality—See HOMOSEXUALITY Obituaries Chambers, Marilyn 4-12, 256A3 Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436D3 Paternity—See PATERNITY Pornography—See PORNOGRAPHY Sexually Transmitted Diseases—See SEXUALLY Transmitted Diseases

SEX Bias—See WOMEN’S Issues SEX Crime & Harassment Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed by Sup Ct 1-21, 48D3 Worker retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2 Fuller dies 2-3, 72G1 Polanski ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, E2, C3 Judge Kent pleads guilty, sentncd 2-23—5-11; alcoholism cited, resignatn urged 5-11, impeachmt backed, quits 6-10—6-24, 479E2–F2 US mil fscl ‘08 sex assaults rise seen 3-17, 267A1 Pope scores Angola violnc 3-20, 196G1 Mo church ‘07 shooter (Saimon) pleads guilty, sentncd 3-20, 247A3 Calif cops shootout gunman (Mixon) assault link seen 3-23, 247B1 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 260C1–D1 Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 920A1 Walcott exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364B2 Sen Ensign, mistress harassmt alleged 6-24, 478B2 Avvenire ed (Boffo) quits 9-3, 627A1 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675D3 Film dir (Polanski), assault victim setlmt rptd 10-2; appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2

ON FILE

France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2 Guinea protesters attack probe opened 10-14, 701B3 Serb ex-fighters held, chrgd 11-5—11-6, 822E2 US cruise ship safety measures pass House 11-17, 908F1 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855B3–C3 Congo abuses rptd 12-14, 921D3 Defns ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886C2 Child Abuse—See under CHILDREN Incest—See INCEST Pornography—See PORNOGRAPHY Prostitution—See PROSTITUTION Rape—See RAPE

SEX on Fire (recording) Kings of Leon win Grammy 2-8, 88G2

SEXUALLY Transmitted Diseases (STDs) Male circumcisn risk drop seen 3-26, 595E3 HPV vaccine (Gardasil) male use OKd by FDA 10-16, recommendatns issued 10-21, 799C3 AIDS—See AIDS

SEXWALE, Tokyo Named human setlmt min 5-10, 325C3

SEYCHELLES, Republic of African Relations Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs, rptd missing/capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2 Pvt yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20, 903E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235F3; 10-1, 735F3 Transportation Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seizure rptd 11-17, 801F2

SEYFRIED, Amanda Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SEYMOUR, Richard Traded to Raiders 9-6, 632E1

SF1 (Swiss TV station) Intl arms smuggling documentary aired 1-22, 75C3

SGARBI, Helg Pleads guilty, sentncd 3-9, 207D1–A2

SHAARIIBUU, Altantuya (d. 2006) Slaying, Armaris paymt link claimed 3-5, cops convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223D3–224A1

SHABALIN, Maxim Wins world champs 3-27, 211G2

SHADOW of Sirius, The (book) Merwin wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2, F2

SHAH, Niranjan Quits 8-3, 554G3

SHAH, Zarar Named Mumbai terror attacks suspect 2-12, 103G2 Chrgd/pleads not guilty, trial opens 11-25, 845A3

SHAHIN, Zack Chrgd 4-8, 893C3

SHAHRISTANI, Hussain alOn oil fields dvpt deals 11-5, 789E3 Sees oil productn hike 12-12, 877E1

SHAHROKHI, Ali On Moussavi cont protests call 6-22, 422G2

SHAHROUDI, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Orders US rptr (Saberi) case review 4-20, 275A1 Replacemt (Larijani) named 8-15, 562E2

SHAIK, Schabir Zuma graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 21G3–22A1 Freed 3-3, Zuma graft chrgs dropped 4-6, 222D1 Gen electns held 4-22, 293B2

SHAIKH, Akmal Executed 12-29, 932B3

SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616) Hamlet revival opens in NYC 10-6, 792F1 Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 895G3

SHAKIL, Mohammed Cleared, convctd/sentncd 4-28—4-29, 310B3

SHAKIRA (Shakira Mebarak Ripoll) Laliberte visits intl space statn 9-30—10-11, 731D2

2009 Index SHALEV, Avner On Pope Benedict Holocaust meml remarks 5-11, 335D2

SHALIT, Cpl. Gilad Gaza blockade end nixed 1-20, 31B3 Hamas cease-fire, Gaza border opening deals linked 2-15, 2-18, 157A2–D2 Release talks fail 3-17, 210E2, A3 Palestinian ex-parlt speaker (Duwaik) freed 6-23, Hamas prisoners swap offrd 7-31, 546E1, C3 Parents letter issued 9-9, 615C1 Tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689C2–F2, A3 Release deal mulled 11-23—11-29, 838C3, E3 Hamas founding anniv marked 12-14, 945D3

SHALLI, Gen. Martin Suspended 7-22, 601F2

SHALOM, Silvan Sees Palestinian’s Khoury 9-2, 614D3 On Turkey ties 10-13, 696G2

SHALWITZ, Howard Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

SHAMBA, Sergei On UN missn extensn veto 6-15, 406E2

SHAMIR, Yitzhak (Israeli prime minister, 1983-84/86-92) Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209C2

SHAMROCK Holdings Inc. Disney dies 12-16, 896C2

SHAMU, Webster Lifts BBC/CNN rptg curbs 7-29, 588E3

SHANAHAN, Mike Replacemt (McDaniels) named 1-12, 55E3 Broncos/Bears swap Cutler, pick/Orton, picks 4-2, 299F1

SHANGHAI Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC) Ssangyong reorgn plan issued 9-15, 787G1 Ssangyong reorgn plan OKd 12-17, 934D1

SHANGHAI Cooperation Organization (SCO) Russian summit held 6-15—6-16, 406F2–E3 China mtg held 10-14, 705F3

SHANGHAI Stock Exchange ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900G1

SHANK, Bud (Clifford Everett Shank Jr.) (1926-2009) Dies 4-2, 256F3

SHANKAR, Ravi Ali Akbar Khan dies 6-18, 452F2

SHANNON, Michael Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

SHANNON, Shelley Kan MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns auctn blocked 10-27—11-2, 833E1

SHANNON, Thomas Visits Honduras, in Zelaya return talks 10-28, 762E3

SHANOFF, T.J. Rod Blagojevich Superstar! opens in Chicago 2-10, 211E3

SHAORONG Gao Reprograms mice skin cells 7-23, 580A2

SHAPIRO, Anna D. Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

SHAPIRO, Beth Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

SHAPIRO, Daniel Syria visit set 3-3, 123C3 Visits Syria 3-7, 143B1

SHAPIRO, David On illegal immigrants detentn deaths rptg omits 8-17, 573C3

SHAPIRO, Nick On chief info ofcr (Kundra) reinstatn 3-17, 200B3–C3

SHARABI, Abdul-Karim alSlain 2-12, 101B2

SHARAPOVA, Maria Loses Rogers Cup 8-23, 631F2

SHARFSTEIN, Joshua Named FDA dep comr 3-14, 182F1, A2, C2 FDA comr nominee (Hamburg) Sen com hearing held 5-13, confrmd 5-18, 354E1 Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720E1, C2

SHARIF, Nawaz (Pakistani prime minister, 1990-93/97-99) Pol return block denied 2-25, banned, protests held 2-25—2-27, 138E1

—SHIPS 1165 Protests turn violent/suspects held, rallies banned 3-11—3-15; pol ban mulled, house arrest ordrd/defied 3-14—3-15, Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F1–A2, D2, A3, D3–F3 Brother pol ban overturned 3-31, 228F2, A3 US aid House com hearing held 5-5, 315A3 Electn ban lifted 5-26, 383F1 Hijacking chrgs cleared 7-13, sees Zardari 7-17, 514G3

SHARIF, Shahbaz Banned 2-25, 138F1 Pol ban mulled 3-14, Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F1, E2, D3 Pol ban overturned 3-31, 228F2–G2 Electn ban lifted 5-26, 383F1

SHARIF University (Iran) Student protests held, Daneshjoo appearnc cut 9-28—9-29, 688A2, C2

SHARJA—See UNITED Arab Emirates SHARMA, Anand Sworn commerce/indus min 5-22—5-28, 382D1

SHARMA, Kamalesh On Fiji suspensn 9-1, 852A2 Sets crisis summit 11-23, 845C3

SHARMARKE, Abdirashid Ali (1919-69) (Somali president, 1967-69) Son named, OKd interim premr 2-13—2-14, 115A1

SHEIK, Kacie Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

SHELBY, Richard C. (U.S. senator from Ala., 1987- ; Republican) Questns Madoff fraud scheme SEC handling 1-27, 113G3 Questns $2 trln financial indus rescue plan 2-10, 76E3 Questns financial indus reforms proposal 6-18, 408F1 Questns Fed chair (Bernanke) 12-3, 847C2

SHEPARD, E(rnest) H(oward) (1879-1976) Pooh sequel published 10-5, 708E2

SHEPARD, Matthew (1977-98) Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700G3–701A1

SHEPHERD Jr., Mark (1923-2009) Dies 2-4, 120F3

SHEPIYEV, Gilani Slain 2-5, 85A2

SHEPPARD, Darcy Dies in car crash 8-31, 927B2

SHER, Bartlett Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

SHERBINI, Marwa el- (d. 2009) Terror claim convctn appeal heard, slain 7-1, 482G2–A3 Muslim woman slaying suspect (Wiens) convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2–E2

SHARMARKE, Omar Abdirashid Ali (Somali interim premier, 2009- )

SHERIFI, Hysen

Named, OKd interim premr 2-13—2-14, appoints cabt 2-20, 115A1, E1–F1 Seeks pirate attacks info 4-16, 238B3

SHERIN, Edwin

SHARON, Ariel (Israeli prime minister, 2001-06) Netanyahu confrmd PM 3-31, 209F1, B3–C3 Jerusalem clashes erupt 9-27—10-6, 689F3

SHARPTON, Rev. Al Sen Gillibrand visits 1-24, 46C3 At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468D1 Speaks at Jackson funeral 9-3, 612F2

SHARQIYA, Al (Iraqi TV station) Gen Atta files misquote suit 4-13, 254D3

SHARRER, Honore Desmond (1920-2009) Dies 4-17, 348E3

SHATZER, Michael Atty request expiratn case accepted by Sup Ct 1-26, 48A3 Atty request case argumts heard by Sup Ct 10-5, 677D2–E2

SHAW, Jack Chrgd 7-23, found dead, suicide seen 7-28, 504C1

SHAW, Rebecca (d. 2009) NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357A2, D2

SHAW, Theodore Pleads no contest, ‘06 beating victim setlmt OKd 6-26, 525B1

SHAWN, Wallace Grasses of a 1000 Colors opens in London 5-18, 451G2

SHCHEKOCHIKIN, Yuri (d. 2003) Death probe ends 4-9, 329D1

SHEARER, Moira (Moira Shearer King) (1926-2006) Widower dies 10-18, 752C3

SHE Be Wild (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies 11-6, 807C2

SHEEHY, Michael Terror detainees harsh interrogatns briefing rptd 5-9, 323F1

SHEEN, Charlie (Carlos Irwin Estevez) Held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2

SHEEN, Martin Love Happens on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SHEEN, Michael Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

SHEERAN, Josette Rptd WFP exec dir 1-1, 3C2 Sees WFP ‘09 funding shortfalls 6-12, 440B3

SHEFFIELD, Gary Released 3-31; joins Mets 4-3, hits 500th HR 4-17, 277D3

Chrgd 7-27—9-24, 679B1 Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

SHERLOCK Holmes (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

SHERPA African ldrs French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394F1 Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 African ldrs embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3

SHERRILL, George Traded to Dodgers 7-30, 531B2 Dodgers lose pennant 10-21, 752G1

SHEVARDNADZE, Eduard Amvrosiyevich (Georgian head of state, 1992-2003) Urges Saakashvili resignatn 5-12, 328B1 US’s Biden visits 7-22, 496G3

SHIBH, Ramzi bin alUS detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289E3 Trial set/debated, Sen com hearing set 11-13—11-18, 793B1; photo 794A3

SHIELDS, Brooke At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468B1

SHIHRI, Said Ali alAl Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, 119D1

SHIJIAZHUANG Sanlu Group Co. Ex-chair (Tian) sentncd 1-22, 35E2

SHILL, Steve Obsessed on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316B2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

SHILOWA, Mbhazima Dandala pres bid set 2-20, 152C1

SHIMKUS, John (U.S. representative from Ill., 2003- ; Republican) Exits Obama address 9-9, 598F1

SHIMOMURA, Osamu ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

SHIN, Jiyai 3d in LPGA Champ 6-14, 595D2 8th in LPGA Tour Champ 11-23, 949A3

SHIN, Phone Kyar (Peng Jiasheng) Home raid spurs clashes 8-8, 590A2

SHINN, Christopher Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

SHINSEKI, Gen. Eric (ret.) (U.S. VA secretary, 2009- ) Vets affairs secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, confrmd 1-20, 29F3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E3 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F3

SHIN-Yuan Lai Keeps China ties cncl chair 9-9—9-10, 625A2

SHI Pei Pu Dies 6-30, 516G3

SHIPMAN, Solleen Colleague (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3

SHIPS (& Shipping) Accidents—See ACCIDENTS—Marine Budget & Spending Programs Defns ‘10 authrzn passes House 6-25, 489C3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Greece parlt electns held 10-4, 686E2 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875G2 Crime & Corruption Issues Somalia pirates held ships tallied, Saudi seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid/freed 1-9, 21A2 Somalia antipiracy Japan forces deploymt set 1-28, 76D2 Seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid/freed, paymt mulled 2-5—2-6, 66D3 Somali pirates seize pvt yacht (Tanit) 4-4; French commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 237C1, 238G1 Pirates hijackings fail, ships return to port 4-8—4-16; hostage standoff opens/captors slain, capt freed 4-9—4-12, plans mulled, targeting vowed 4-13—4-15, 237A1, A2, 238F2; map 238A1 Somali pirates seize ships 4-14—4-15; ‘mother ship’ captured 4-15, attacks tallied, info sought 4-16, 237E1, 238B3–D3 Somali pirates seize Leb ship 4-14, freed 4-20, 269E3–F3 Norway ship hijacking halted, Somali pirates freed 4-19, 269C3 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2 PI sailors Gulf of Aden travel banned, chem tanker freed 4-20—4-21, 269A3 NATO mulls Somali pirate arrests 4-20, suspects in Kenya ct 4-23, 269D3–E3 Worldwide attacks tallied 4-21, 269G2–A3 N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404A1–B1 N Korea ship departs 6-17; Myanmar destinatn denied 6-25, returns 7-6, 462E3 Arctic Sea departs/in Malta, hijacking seen 7-23—7-31; found/suspects held, negative radiatn test rptd 8-17—8-18, details emerge, probe set/crew returns 8-18—8-20, 550C3, 551B1 N Korean ship (San) anchored in Indian waters, detained 8-5—8-10, 568E3–F3 Turkey tanker (Buket) seized/freed, capt (Ozturk) sentncd 8-14—9-8, Davutoglu visits Georgia 9-8, 607F1 Arctic Sea hijacking suspects chrgd 8-27; Russian rptr (Voitenko) flees, firing claimed/denied 9-3—9-7, arms shipmt denied, probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616D1, C2 N Korea/Iran arms shipmt seizure rptd 8-28, 600F1 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654B1, G1 Egypt’s Hosni, Achille Lauro hijackers escape aid alleged 9-19, 675C3 Russian, Black Sea seizures warned 9-20, 645C2–D2 UK financial svcs cos, Iran deals banned 10-12, 711D2 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4; Iran role rptd 11-11, US smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878E1 Somali pirates patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801A3 US ship (Maersk Alabama) pirates attack repelled 11-18, 801E2 Somalia pirates seize ships 11-30—12-28; China ransom paymt claimed, crew freed 12-27—12-28, ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2–D2 Environmental Issues Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Thai captured refugees UN access sought 1-20, 52G1 African migrants rescued, origins rptd 4-16—4-20, Italy entry OKd, EU rules urged 4-19, 262G1–A2, E2 Somali refugees drowning rptd 9-1, 646D1 Indonesian ship (Jaya Lestari) halted, Sri Lankan asylum seekers interceptn rptd 10-12—10-13, smuggler (Lauhenaspessy) held 10-19, 931B1–G1 Obituaries Aranne, Ike 12-23, 954F3

1166 SHIRAKAWA— Service & Safety Issues Chinese cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2 S Korea joins Proliferatn Security Initiative 5-26, 351C2–D2 Timor Sea rig leak opens 8-21, 874D1 US cruise ship safety measures pass House 11-17, 908E1 Trade & Aid Issues Gaza aid shipmt blocked 2-5, 157A3 Panama pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 309D1

SHIRAKAWA, Masaaki Sees econ deflatn 11-30, 872E3

SHIRNAGHA, Mohammad Younus Slain 12-23, 899F3

SHIRREFS, John Zenyatta wins Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807B2

SHIRZAI, Gul Agha Sees Karzai 5-1, drops pres bid 5-2, 314B1–C1

SHLYAKTUROV, Gen. Alexander Named mil intell head 4-24, 328A3

SHMATKO, Sergei On Iran A-plant bldg delay 11-16, 804C3

SHOBUKHOVA, Liliya 3d in London Marathon 4-26, 332F1 Wins Chicago marathon 10-11, 791F3 3d in Majors 11-1, 792A1

SHOCKING (racehorse) Wins Melbourne Cup 11-3, 807A3

SHOES China’s Wen gives speech, Cambridge Univ researcher throws shoe 2-2, tape aired 2-3, 98A3 Iraq rptr (Zaidi) Bush shoe-toss trial opens, delayed 2-19, 118D1 India’s Gandhi items auctnd 3-5, 158F1 Bush Iraq news conf rptr (Zaidi) convctd, sentncd 3-12, 174E3 Bush Iraq news conf rptr (Zaidi) sentnc cut 4-7, 228F1 S Korea businessman, ex-pres (Roh) wife paymts admitted 4-7, 360G3 China’s Wen, Cambridge Univ shoe toss suspect cleared 6-2, 482A1 Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629C1 IMF’s Strauss-Kahn addresses Bilgi Univ, student tosses shoe 10-1, 675A1–B1 Medicare fraud suspects indicted, held 12-15, 919A1 EU extends China, Viet duties 12-22, 932E1

SHOPPING Malls Israeli blast fails 3-21, 210C3 US terror aid suspect (Mehanna) chrgd 10-21, 816E1 Obituaries Simon, Melvin 9-17, 708F3

SHORTS (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

SHOURD, Sarah Held, IDd 7-31—8-1, 530C2 Spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857E3 Iran trial set 12-14, 876F3

SHOUSHTARI, Gen. Nour Ali Slain 10-18, 729E1

SHRIMP—See FISH SHRIVER, Eunice Kennedy (Eunice Mary Kennedy) (1921-2009) Dies 8-11, 548F3 Brother gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548F1 Funeral held 8-14, 580F3 Brother dies 8-25, 570A3

SHRIVER, Maria Mother dies 8-11, 548G3

SHRIVER Jr., R(obert) Sargent Wife dies 8-11, 548F3

SHRIVER, Tim Obama regrets Spec Olympics joke 3-19, 182A3

SHUBIN, Lester Donald (1925-2009) Dies 11-20, 896E3

SHULER, Heath (U.S. representative from N.C., 2007- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G2

SHULMAN, Douglas On UBS tax evasn data handover deal 8-19, 560B3–D3

SHULMAN, Julius (1910-2009) Dies 7-15, 532F3

SHUMWAY, Jeff Quits 1-23, 159F2

SHURTLEFF, Mark Opens BCS antitrust probe 1-6, 24B1

FACTS SHUTTLE Program—See under SPACE SHUVALOV, Igor On Kazakh/Belarus customs union deal 11-27, 863F1

SIAD, Maslah Mohamed Loses pres electn 1-31, 66G2

SIAD Barre, Maj. Gen. Mohamed (d. 1995) (Somali head of state, 1969-91) Son loses pres electn 1-31, 66G2

SIAM, Said Slain 1-15, 13E1

SICHUAN Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Hummer buy OKd 6-2, 367D1–F1 GM bankruptcy exited 7-10, 475B3 Hummer buy OKd 10-9, 758A3

SIDDIQ, Mohammed Zuhair Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, 312E2

SIDIBE, Gabourey Precious on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

SIDIBE, Michael Rptd UNAIDS exec dir 1-1, 3A2

SIDLEY Austin LLP Atty (Schroeder) job offer nixed 11-2, 914C3

SIEBELS, Craig Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

SIEGEL, Charles Gwathmey dies 8-3, 532E1

SIEGELMAN, Don Chrgs upheld, sentnc chngd 3-6, seeks ‘06 convctn review 4-3, 218G2

SIERACKI, Eric Chrgd 6-4, 388D2, G2–A3

SIERRA Club Coal plants CO2 emissns review set by EPA 2-17, 94D2*

SIERRA Leone, Republic of African Relations Liberia Truth Comm rpt issued 7-7, 925B2 Guinea anti-junta rally crack down scored 9-29—9-30, 660E3 Guinea forgn interventn urged, nixed 12-13—12-14, 871B1 CIS Relations Cargo ship exits Russian port 2-12; sinking rptd/regretted, capt blamed 2-15—2-21, protest filed, rice shipmt block claimed 2-20—2-22, 124D2 Civil Strife Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2–C2 Rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134E1 Liberia’s Taylor acquittal sought, nixed 4-6—4-8, ex-rebels sentncd 4-8, 325A1 Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A1, F1 Conflict end Nigeria role hailed 8-12, 540C3 Ex-rebel cmdrs appeals nixed 10-26, 925E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235E3; 10-1, 735G3

SIGMAN, Daniel Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

SIGNATURE Bank Govt aid returned 3-31, 241D3

SIGUDARDOTTIR, Johanna (Icelandic premier, 2009- ) Sworn premr 2-1, seeks bank govs resignatns 2-2, 68F3, 69A1–C1 Parlt electns held 4-25, seeks EU entry deal 4-26, 295C3–D3, F3, 296D1 Facts on 4-25, 296A1 On UK/Dutch loans deal 6-6, 512B3 EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512D2

SIHAMONI, King Norodom (Cambodia) Thai’s Thaksin named govt econ adviser 11-4, 785A1 Pardons Thai spy (Siwarak) 12-11, 872E1

SIKA Corp. Boston ‘Big Dig’ tunnel collapse setlmt rptd 3-26, 357A3

SIKHARULIDZE, Vasil (David) Ousted 8-27, 607D2

SIKORSKI, Radek Confirms Afghan hostage beheading tape 2-9, 103A2 On Poland missiles deploymt 9-17, 613C2 Seeks film dir (Polanski) release 9-28, 653F2

SILLS, Beverly (Belle Miriam Silverman) (1929-2007) Farley named Lincoln Ctr chrmn 6-8, 400B2

SILVA, Carlos Traded to Cubs 12-18, 948G3

SILVA, Daniel Moscow Rules on best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

SILVA, Gabriel Defends, signs US mil base access deal 10-27, 10-30, 817B3, D3 On Caqueta gov (Cuellar) slaying 12-22, 927C2

SILVER Exploration & Mining Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard find rptd 9-23, 952D3 Statistics Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6F3 Feb ‘09 financial update 2-2, 61F1 Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128C1 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198C1 May ‘09 financial update 5-1, 304C3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371F3 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442F1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522C1 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586F1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657C3 Nov ‘09 financial update 11-2, 759C1 Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831C1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 910F3

SILVER, Ron(ald Arthur) (1946-2009) Dies 3-15, 176G3

SILVER Lake Partners Skype stake buy set 9-1, copyrights suit filed 9-16, 761B2

SILVERMAN, Leigh Coraline opens in NYC 6-1, 451F2

SILVER Palate (book series) Lukins dies 8-30, 648C3

SILVER Point Capital Delphi stake bought 10-6, 679C2

SILVERSTEIN, Larry Port Auth mtg held 5-21, seeks WTC site arbitratn, govt financial risk scored 8-4, 620E2–C3

SILVERSTEIN Properties Inc. Port Auth mtg held 5-21, seeks WTC site arbitratn, govt financial risk scored 8-4, 620E2

SILVERSTONE, Alicia Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

SILVESTER, Paul Pensn funds paymt suspects chrgd 3-19—4-15, 265D3

SIMANGO, Daviz Pres electn held 10-28, loss rptd 11-1—11-11, 783C1

SIMENTAL, Teodoro Garcia Cartel murder victims dissolving suspect held 1-23, 97B3

SIMEONI, Xaviere Orders Chirac graft trial 10-30, 765C2, F2

SIMEON II, King (Simeon Saxe-Coburg) (Bulgarian premier, 2001-05) Borissov sworn premr 7-27, 577B1

SIMM, Herman Pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, breach mulled 2-26, 136A1–E1

SIMMONS, Johnny Hotel for Dogs on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2 Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SIMMONS, J(onathan) K(imble) Jennifer’s Body on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SIMMONS, Robert R. Sen Dodd reveals prostate cancer 7-31, 537E1

SIMON, Herb Brother dies 9-17, 708F3

SIMON, Melvin (1926-2009) Dies 9-17, 708F3

SIMON, Neil Brighton Beach Memoirs revival opens in NYC 10-25, closes 10-31, 895G3

SIMON, Norton Winfred (1907-93) Widow dies 12-17, 896F2

SIMON, Yehude (Peruvian prime minister, 2008-09) On Pizango Nicaragua pol asylum bid 6-8, 394G3 Sees Amazon dvpt protesters, urges repeal 6-15, sets resignatn 6-16, 431G3 Replacemt (Velasquez) named 7-11, 481D1

ON FILE

SIMON & Schuster Inc. (of CBS) 1st Lady Bush bk deal rptd 1-5, 24B3

SIMON Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C.) Erickson dies 5-20, 384F2

SIMON Property Group Founder dies 9-17, 708F3

SIMONYI, Charles Flies Soyuz intl space statn missn 3-26—4-8, 239A3*

SIMPSON, O. J. (Orenthal James) Dunne dies 8-26, 580G2

SIMPSON, Richard Questns Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) cancer prognosis 8-25, 568C2

SIMS, Naomi Ruth (1948-2009) Dies 8-1, 532G3

SINAR Harapan (Indonesian newspaper) Rptr attacked, in hosp 6-26; protests held 6-28—7-1, apology rptd 6-30, 461D3

SINATRA, Frank (Francis Albert) (1915-98) Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

SINGAPORE, Republic of African Relations Ship (Kota Wajar) seized 10-15, 801B2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494G2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-11, 543B2 Economy & Labor Citigroup govt aid plan chngd 2-27, 127B2 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 7-14, 511F1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 235G3; 10-1, 736A1 Monetary Issues Tax haven blacklisting set 3-5, bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-6, 163B2 Total/Chevron, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684E1 Press & Broadcasting WSJ Asia ed (Kirkpatrick) contempt found 3-19, Far Eastn Econ Review fine upheld 10-7, 936D1 Sports Formula 1 driver (Piquet) fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, Briatore/Symonds quit, team banned 9-16—9-21, 646A3–B3 Trade, Aid & Investment US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112B1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164B2 US Feb ‘09 trade gap 4-9, 240B2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323E3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389B2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477B2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619G1 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699G3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748E2 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798B2 APEC forum hosted 11-14—11-15, 794C3, 795F1 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866B1

SINGH, Amrit Scores CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn 3-2, 129F2

SINGH, Baljinder Attacked 5-24, 509A1

SINGH, Jaswant Ousted 8-19, 791E2

SINGH, Kalyan Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt leaked 11-23, denies claims 11-24, 823E1–F1

SINGH, Manmohan (Indian prime minister, 2004- ) Sees Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role 1-6, 39E1–F1 Has surgery, exits hosp 1-24—2-1, 158C2 Parlt electns held 4-16—5-13; declares win 5-16, results rptd 5-17, 345C2, A3, 346D1 Sworn 5-22, 382A1 Australia’s Rudd calls 5-29, 509C1 Sees Pak’s Zardari 6-16, 418E3 ‘92 riots comm rpt submitted, leaked/issued 6-30—11-24, claims denied 11-24, 823C1 Sees Pak’s Gillani, sets terror intell sharing deal 7-26, 500A1 Visits Tawang 10-3, China scores trip 10-13, 806E2 At ASEAN summit 10-23—10-25, 748C3–D3 Seeks tribal groups econ growth role 11-4, 791B1 Visits US 11-23—11-24, 809D2, 810A1, D1

2009 Index White House dinner crashing rptd 11-25, 829A3; photo 830A1 Hails Mumbai terror attacks Pak trials 11-25, 845A3 At Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks, pol statemt set 12-18, 882F1

SINGH, Rajnath Drops party pres role 12-18, 946C2

SINGLE Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (recording) On best-seller list 1-31, 72D1

SINIORA, Fouad (Lebanese premier, 2005- ) Hosts US’s Clinton 4-26, 297F3–G3 Hosts US’s Biden 5-22, 380B2 Successor (Hariri) named 6-27, 450B2

SINNOTT, Michael Seized, kidnappers surrounded 10-11—10-13; tape issued, ransom nixed 10-31, freed, Islamic separatists release role claimed 11-12, 820B1–C1, E1–G1

SIRIUS Star (Saudi supertanker) Ransom paid, freed 1-9, 21A2

SIRUL Azhar Umar Convctd, sentncd 4-9, 223D3, F3

SISTANI, Grand Ayatollah Ali alUrges prov electns voting 1-19, 38F1 Iran’s Larijani dismisses Obama video message 3-25, 179B3

SISTER Act (film/play) Play opens in London 6-2, 451C3

SIVAKUMAR, V. Ousted, protests held 5-7, 415B1–C1, E1

SIVAN, Troye X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

SIVARASA Rasiah At protests, held 8-1; freed on bail 8-2, chrgs seen 8-17, 542F3

SIWARAK Chothipong Held, release aid sought 11-12—11-19, convctd, pardoned/freed 12-8—12-14, 872C1, E1, G1

60 Minutes (TV show) Nielsen rating 8-16, 596A2 Hewitt dies 8-19, 564A3 Obama interviewed 12-13, 864F2 Nielsen rating 12-13, 956A2

60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye (book) US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484B3

SIZER, Theodore Ryland (1932-2009) Dies 10-21, 840G2

SKELEMANI, Phandu On ICC cont cooperatn 7-5, 459G1

SKELTON, Ike (U.S. representative from Mo., 1977- ; Democrat) Reseated Armed Svcs chair 1-6, 5A1 On defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal 4-6, 217A2 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G2

SKIING Obituaries Lawrence, Andrea Mead 3-30, 256D3 People Miller quits World Cup tour 3-3, 191F1 Records & Achievements Vonn sets US women’s World Cup title wins mark 3-11, 191G1 Men’s World Cup race margin, pt total mark set 3-14, 191E1 Winners World Cup, Vonn/Svindal 3-11—3-14, 191D1, G1

SKILLING, Jeffrey Convctn upheld, sentnc cut 1-6, appeal accepted by Sup Ct 10-13, 718A1

SKILLING v. United States Accepted by Sup Ct 10-13, 718A1

SKY News Gaza victims aid appeal airing nixed 1-22, 42C3

SKYPE Ltd. EBay sets stake sale 9-1, copyrights sale set 9-16, 761B2

SLANDER—See LIBEL SLATKIN, Leonard Suffers onstage heart attack, has surgery 11-1, nixes shows role 11-11, 792F2

SLATTEN, Nicholas Chrgs drop sought 11-20, 838C1 Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942E2

SLAUGHTER, Louise (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1987- ; Democrat) Reseated Rules chair 1-6, 5B1

—SOCCER 1167 SLAVERY Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens 1-26, 43D1 Sierra Leone rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134F1, A2 Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172B3 Abolitionist (Truth) DC statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2 Apology res passes Sen 6-18, 492A2 Obama visits Ghana 7-10—7-11, 472F2 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480E1 France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707G2 Bosnian Serb army ex-cmdr (Kujundzic) sentncd 10-30, 820E3 Congo warlords ICC trial opens 11-24, 922F1 Russian child workers freed, Kyrgyz natls held 12-28, 939D1

SLAVERY by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (book) Blackmon wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2

SLEEP Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 29A1 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) abuse confrmd 1-14, 20F1 Army medic (Leahy) convctd 2-20, 118F2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, Sen com rpt released 4-21, 259E2–F2, 260A2–D2, B3, 261F1, D2 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306D1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspects plead not guilty 5-22, testimony heard 5-26—5-27, 359F3 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses documts issued 8-24, 566A2, 567C1 Jackson death, propofol injectn linked 8-25, 580B2 Northwest flight/Minn airport overshoot rpt issued 10-26, 743G3

SLEEPING It Off in Rapid City (book) Kleinzahler wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191G3

SLEPIAN, Dr. Barnett (1946-98) Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, 370B2

SLEVIN, Jonathan Named Wash Times acting pres, publisher 11-9, 913F2

SLIM Helu, Carlos NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1

SLJIVANCANIN, Veselin Sentnc hiked 5-5, 377D3–378A1

SLOAN, Jerry Elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3

SLOAT, Micah Paranormal Activity on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772B2

SLOCUM, Heath Wins Barclays 8-30, 670D2

SLOUGH, Paul Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942E2

SLOVAKIA (Slovak Republic) Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) poems publishing punishmt rptd 4-10, 274B3 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO defns mins mtg hosted 10-23, 751D2 European Relations France auto indus govt loans opposed 2-9, 84B3 Hungary’s Solyom entry nixed 8-21, 608D3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236A1 Pres electn held, runoff set 3-21, Gasparovic wins 4-4, 226F1 Gasparovic sworn 6-15, 497B3 Facts on Gasparovic 6-15, 497C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736A1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Minority language curbs complaint set 8-3, law enacted 9-1, 608G2 Kosovo Conflict NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423G3 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3 Trade, Aid & Investment Joins eurozone 1-1, 53F1

SLOVENIA, Republic of European Relations Croatia/EU entry block scored, border dispute mulled 7-4, 463B1–C1 Croatia’s Kosor visits, EU entry block lifted/Adriatic waters claim dropped 9-11, 628C2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236A1; 10-1, 736A1 Sports Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2, 859C3 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2

SLUMDOG Millionaire (film) Golden Globes won 1-11, 24E2 Oscar nominatns announced 1-22, 40E1, A2, D2 On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2 UK Acad Awards won 2-8, 104E1 Oscars won 2-22, 120A1, B2–C2

SMADI, Hosam Maher Husein Chrgd 9-24, 678A3 Visa exit monitoring questnd 10-12, 721E3

SMALL Business Administration, U.S. (SBA) Treasury small business aid set 3-16, 164D1–E1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 Small business govt aid plan set 10-21, 742G2 Wash Blade shut 11-16, 912E3

SMART, Amy Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

SMELT, Arthur Justice Dept backs Defns of Marriage Act 6-12, 408F2–G2

SMILE (song) Jackson meml svc held 7-7, 468B1

SMILE Pinki (film) Oscar won 2-22, 120A2, C2

SMILES of a Summer Night (film) Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954G1

SMIRNOFF, Karina Burn the Floor opens in NYC 8-2, 564B2

SMIRNOV, Alexander 3d in world champs 3-25, 211F2

SMITH, Andre In NFL draft 4-25, 298E2

SMITH, Anna Nicole (Vickie Lynn Hogan) (1967-2007) Atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920D1

SMITH 2nd, Benjamin (1916-91) (U.S. senator from Mass., 1960-62) Kennedy successn candidates mulled 8-30—9-3, 584F3

SMITH, Bruce Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

SMITH, Clive Stafford On client (Mohammed) documts release nix 2-4, 80A3

SMITH, Lance Cpl. Daniel Rape accuser testimony chngd/atty role mulled, probe sought 3-12, 205G1–C2 Rape convctn nixed, freed 4-23, exits PI 4-24, 309G2–B3

SMITH, DeMaurice Named NFLPA exec dir 3-15, 176D1

SMITH, George E. Wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1–E1

SMITH, Rear Adm. Gregory Rpts Rendon war rptrs profiling contract nix 8-31, 721B1

SMITH, Jacqui Regrets expenses misuse 4-7, 343E3 On forgn extremists ban 5-5, 310F2 Quits 6-2, 397G1

SMITH, Jason In NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3

SMITH, Jean Kennedy Sister dies 8-11, 548G3 Brother dies 8-25, 570G2

SMITH, Lamar S. (U.S. representative from Tex., 1987- ; Republican) Vs Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposal 2-9, 80A2* Urges Judge Kent resignatn 5-11, 479B3

SMITH, Malcolm Sens switch parties, Espada rejoins Dems 6-8—7-9, 524D3

SMITH, Mike (football coach) Named NFL top coach 1-4, 55E2

SMITH, Mike (jockey) Mine That Bird 2d in Preakness 5-16, 347D1, B2 Zenyatta wins Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807D1

SMITH Jr., Judge Milan Upholds terror ‘material witness’ suit 9-4, 659F3

SMITH, Molly Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

SMITH, Stephen Sets Zimbabwe aid 3-11, 153D1 On Chinese mine workers detentn 7-8, 481G2 On Somali group terror status 8-5, 930G2 Visits Sri Lanka, signs asylum seekers memo 11-9, 931A1–B1

SMITH, William Kennedy Uncle dies 8-25, 569G2–A3

SMITH Barney Inc. Citigroup/Morgan Stanley jt venture set 1-13, 15E2 Citigroup ‘09 2d 1/4 profit rptd 7-17, 490A3

SMITHSONIAN Institution (Washington, D.C.) Hirshhorn dir (Koshalek) named 2-26, 160F2 Lincoln watch opened, inscriptn confrmd 3-10, 300F2 Sharrer dies 4-17, 348E3

SMIT-McPhee, Kodi Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

SMOKE Screen (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

SMOKING—See TOBACCO SMOLTZ, John Joins Red Sox 1-8, 278D1 Released 8-7, joins Cardinals 8-19, 691B1

SNODGRASS, W(illiam) D(eWitt) (1926-2009) Dies 1-13, 40D3

SNOW, Tony (Robert Anthony) (1955-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

SNOW and Ice Center, U.S. National Arctic ‘08-09 ice levels rptd 4-6, 550A3 Arctic summer ice loss rptd 9-17, 842F1

SNOWE, Olympia J. (U.S. senator from Me., 1995- ; Republican) Backs econ recovery plan 2-6—2-10, 73E2–F2 Backs $787 bln econ recovery plan 2-13, 89C2 On Sen Specter party switch 4-28, 285C1 Baucus health care reform mtg failure seen 9-8, 598B3 Vs health care reform pub option 9-13, mulls Sen proposal 9-16, 617E2 On health care reform proposal chngs 9-19, 637C3–D3 Backs health care reform bill 10-13, merging talks held 10-14, 698B1–D1, A3 Vs health care reform pub option 10-26, 741G1–A2 Health care reform bill mulled 12-16, 863F3

SNYDER, Zach Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

SOBESEDNIK (Russian magazine) Const Ct judge quits 12-2, 892B3

SOCCER Awards & Honors Ronaldo/Marta named FIFA top players 1-12, 159C3 Arena named MLS top coach 11-11, 895A1 Donovan named MLS MVP 11-19, 895A1 Rimando named MLS Champ MVP 11-22, 894F3 McDonald named NCAA champ MVP 12-6, 895A2 Messi/Marta named FIFA top players 12-21, 949D3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Poland casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1, 705D2 Coaching & Executive Changes S Africa natl coach (Santana) fired, Parreira named 10-19, 10-23, 859B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859E2, B3

1168 SOCIALISM— Crime & Law Enforcement Indonesia blasts kill 7, Man United match nixed 7-17, 494B3 Obituaries Robson, Sir Bobby 7-31, 564G3 People Beckham, Milan loan cont 3-7; returns to Galaxy, jeered/in fan clash 7-16—7-19, Milan ‘10 loan set 11-2, 895B1 Enke kills self 11-10, depressn rptd 11-11, 949E3 Chile pres electn held 12-13, results rptd, Pinera/Frei runoff set 12-14, 871C2 Somalia natl soccer team seeks asylum 12-18, 903A2 Professional MLS season opens 3-19, 895A1 WPS season opens 3-29, 612C2 WPS season ends 8-9, 612C2 MLS season ends 10-25, 895A1 Riots & Hooliganism Serb fan beaten/dies, suspects chrgd 9-17—9-29; meml held 10-1, fan clubs ban sought, behavior warning issued 10-1—10-8, 687F2, B3 Serbia outlaw clubs crimes alleged 12-3; rptr (Stankovic) threats suspects held 12-8, concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Stadiums & Parks Georgia govt protests held 5-26, 378D1 Suspensions & Fines Iran natl team players banned 6-23, 423C2 Argentina natl coach (Maradona) scores media 10-14, suspended, fined 11-14, 859A2 Iraq natl team FIFA suspensn set 11-20, 859G1 Trades, Signings & Releases Marta joins LA Sol 1-8, 159D3 Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 Carling Cup, Man United 3-1, 950C1 CONCACAF, Mex 7-26, 859C2 Confederatns Cup, Brazil 6-28, 859D2 Eng Premr League, Man United 5-16, 950B1 Eur Champ Cup, Barcelona 5-27, 949F3 FA Cup, Chelsea 5-30, 949F3 Ger League, Wolfsburg 5-23, 950A1 Intl match, Iraq 7-13, 483C2 MLS Champ, Real Salt Lake 11-22, 894D3 NCAA men’s title, UVA 12-13, 895F1 NCAA women’s title, UNC 12-6, 895A2 Scot Premr League, Rangers 5-24, 949G3 Serie A title, Inter Milan 5-16, 950B1 Spanish League Cup, Barcelona 5-16, 950B1 UEFA Cup, Shakhtar Donetsk 5-20, 950A1 WPS title, Sky Blue 8-22, 612A2 World Cup, 2010 (men’s) (South Africa) S Africa budget unveiled 2-11, 96B3 Dalai Lama entry blocked 3-23, peace conf nixed 3-24, 327F1 S Africa ‘09 GDP forecast 4-22, 293G3 S Korea/Iran qualifying match held 6-17, 423C2 N Korea qualifies 6-17, 859D2 Constructn workers stirke, deal set 7-8—7-15, 526C1 Turkey/Armenia qualifying match held 10-11, 707A2 Qualifying matches held 11-14—11-18; Ireland seeks replay, nixed 11-19—11-20, Egypt riots erupt, Algeria amb recalled/Qaddafi mediatn set 11-19—11-24, 858E3, 859A1 World Cup spec cts set 11-21, 858D3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-24, 923C3 Seeding set 12-2; draw held 12-4, security, hotel availability assured 12-5—12-8, 858C2, B3

SOCIALISM Asia/Pacific Rim India parlt electns held 4-16—5-13, results rptd 5-17, 345D2 China Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 683A1–B1 Italy/Afghan Taliban paymts, French probe urged 10-16, 751B3 Commonwealth of Independent States Georgia breakaway region electns held 5-31, results rptd 6-1, 378D2 Europe Bulgaria riots erupts 1-14, 52B2 French unions strike held 1-29, 68E2 Spain regional electns held 3-1, Basque coalitn deal OKd 3-30, 226C2–E2, A3 France NATO cmnd return set 3-11, 172G3 Hungary’s Gyurcsany elected party ldr, quits 3-21—3-23, 188F3, 189A1–B1 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 272G3, 273C1

FACTS Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396B2–C2, F2, A3, D3, 397C1 Bulgaria govt protested 6-16, 448F3 France culture min (Mitterrand) named 6-23, 432E3 Albania parlt electns held, vote mulled 6-28—6-29; party joins coalitn 7-4, results rptd 7-28, 511E2–F2, A3 Bulgaria parlt electns held 7-5; vote backed, results rptd 7-6—7-7, Borissov govt sought 7-16, 482B2 Greece parlt electns set 9-2, 591C1 Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd, on coalitn policy 9-15, 627G1 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, 627D3 Albania PM (Berisha) confrmd 9-17, 625E3–F3 UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675E2 French migrant camp raid scored 9-22, 666G1 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 664F3 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C1 Greece parlt electns held 10-4, Papandreou sworn premr, names cabt 10-6, 686A2 France’s Mitterrand resignatn urged 10-7, 707G2, B3 Portugal minority govt set 10-22, 729A1 French natl ID debate opens 11-2, 937A1 Greek credit watch set, rating cut 12-7—12-8, 856A1 Greece budget deficit cut vowed 12-14, 875B3 French CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937E1 Latin America Cuba cont use seen 8-1, 527D1 Venez electn reforms pass Natl Assemb 8-2, 576E1 US/Brazil, Chile’s Allende ‘70 ouster bid revealed 8-16, 569E1 Venez banks natlizatn mulled 12-2, 929A2 Obituaries Jagan, Janet 3-31, 212E2 United States Limbaugh scores Obama econ policy 3-2, 146E2 Pres back-to-schl speech activity chngd 9-2; propaganda concerns dismissed, transcript posted 9-6—9-7, Obama addresses students 9-8, 602E1–F1 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619F2

SOCIALITES & Society Fleur Cowles dies 6-5, 420E3 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896D1

SOCIAL Security Administration (& System), U.S. Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17F1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58C2 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90G2, B3 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 108C1 Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150D1 Obama defends econ plan 4-14, 240C1 Illegal immigrants tax documts use scored 4-16, 341E1 ‘10-11 ‘cost-of-living’ raise nix seen 4-22, 324D1 ID theft law curbed Sup Ct 5-4, 444E3–F3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 320F3, 321C1 ‘37 insolvency seen, reforms seen 5-12, 323G3 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371G2 Obama urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458F2 Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408D2 Assigned numbering system weakness seen 7-6, 574C1 Immigrant workers number match program dropped 7-8, 573A2–C2 ‘10 admin funds pass House 7-24, 524D1 Sen Specter Dem ties questnd 8-4, 521B3 $250 paymt proposed 10-14, benefits freeze set 10-15, 714D1 Medicare Part B ‘10 premium rise set 10-16, 714D2

SOCIEDADE Nacional de Combustiveis de Angola (Sonangol) Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-30, 943C1

SOCIETE Generale SA AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1

Bd members bonus plans dropped 3-22, 207A1 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-17, 799E1

SOCIETY of Saint Pius X RC bps reinstated 1-24, Holocaust denier (Williamson) silence ordrd 1-27, 43A2–B2, F2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12, 75E3–76B1 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179C3

SOCIOLOGY Dahrendorf dies 6-17, 451G3 Obituaries Levi-Strauss, Claude 10-30, 772G1

SOCRATES Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, Jose (Portuguese premier, 2005- ) Natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C1 Sets minority govt 10-22, 729A1

SODANN, Peter Loses pres electn 5-23, 361G1

SODERBERGH, Steven Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

SODERLING, Robin Loses French Open 6-7, 398C3, E3, G3–399A1

SODERSTROM, Elisabeth (1927-2009) Dies 11-20, 896E3

SODINI, George Kills 3, self 8-4; guns buy rptd 8-7, grenade brandishing probe rptd 8-10, 554A2–E2

SOFIYANSKI, Stefan Borissov sworn premr 7-27, 577C1

SOFTBALL—See BASEBALL SOFT-Drinks—See BEVERAGES SOFTLEY, Iain Inkheart on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

SOFTWARE—See COMPUTERS SOGRATL (Russian newspaper) Akhmedilov found dead 8-11, 544E3

SOIL & Soil Conservation Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A2 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697D3 Italy mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, 705G1 Moon rocket, LCROSS crashed 10-9, 697E3

SOKALUK, Brendan Held, IDd bushfires suspect 2-13, 2-16, 98D1

SOLANA Madariaga, Javier Iran A-program talks US role set 4-8, 217D2 On Bosnian Serb law annulmt 6-22, 448B3 Sees Bosnia, EU entry bid woes 6-22, 448E3 Iran A-program talks held 10-1, 651C1

SOLAR Energy Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A2 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2, 107F1, A2 Intl space statn arrays delivered, installed 3-17—3-20, 239A2 Solyndra panel dvpt deal awarded 3-20, 479F3 US emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, 201F2 Japn econ stimulus plan unveiled 4-9—4-10, 252B2 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445C1 Intl space statn batteries installed 7-22—7-24, 519D2–E2 Australia renewable energy bill passes parlt, scored 8-20, 624D1 Obama visits Fla installatn 10-27, 743A1

SOLBES, Pedro On CCM seizure 3-29, 208D1–E1 Ousted 4-7, 226B3–C3

SOLECKI, John Seized 2-2, 69E3 Hostage tape issued 2-13, 103G1 Pak separatists seized, found dead/riots erupt 4-2—4-9, 276E3 Found alive 4-4, 229E2

SOLID Oak Software Inc. China Web-filter software stolen data claimed, block sought 6-12, 414D3

ON FILE

SOLIS, Hilda L. (U.S. representative from Calif., 2001-09; labor secretary, 2009- ; Democrat) Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6E1 Labor secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18F1–B2 Husband tax woes rptd, labor secy Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60A1–B1 Labor secy nominatn backed 2-11, confrmd 2-24, 113D1 On econ stimulus 4-3, 219D2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287C1 House seat spec Dem primary electn held 5-20, 340D2 On Jun ‘09 rate 7-2, 456E1 House seat electn held 7-14, 478F2 On econ recovery 8-7, 535E1

SOLIS, Judge Jorge Sentncs Holy Land foundatn ex-ofcls 5-28, 914B2

SOLLECITO, Rafaelle Convctd, sentncd 12-5, 854E2–A3

SOLOIST, The (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

SOLOMAN, Marc Sets gay marriage ballot initiative 5-26, 352G3

SOLOMAN, Susan Sees atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise 1-27, 124E1

SOLOMON, John Quits 11-6, 913G2

SOLOMONESE, Joe Scores Defns of Marriage Act backing 6-15, 408A3

SOLOMON Islands Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Ex-atty gen (Moti) Australia chrgs nixed 12-15, 931A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236A1; 10-1, 736B1

SOLOW Realty & Development Co. Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506B3

SOLTANIEH, Ali Ashghar On uranium transfer draft deal 10-21, 711C1 Seeks uranium transfer proposals chngs 11-2, 768B3 On IAEA ties 11-27, 837B2

SOLYNDRA Inc. Solar panel dvpt deal awarded 3-20, 479F3

SOLYOM, Laszlo (Hungarian president, 2005- ) Slovakia entry nixed 8-21, 608D3–E

SOLZHENITSYN, Alexander Isayevich (1918-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

SOMALIA, Republic of African Relations AU missn extensn OKd 5-26, 430D1 Mil aid sought, Kenya deploymt nixed 6-20—6-22, Ethiopia full-scale interventn denied, forgn troops fighting vowed 6-24, 430D1–F1, B2–D2 Islamists warn Uganda/Burundi attacks, security hiked 10-22—10-27, 889D3 Civil War—For offshore piracy, see subhead below ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 Ethiopia tropos exit 1-2—1-13, UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21F2 Violnc kills 16 1-24—2-4; Ethiopia troops exit completed 1-25, Baidoa seized 1-26, 66E2, A3, C3–D3 Violnc kills scores, AU peacekeeping force cont stay urged/attacks scored 2-22—2-25, Mogadishu stability sought 2-24, Hudur seized 2-25, 115G1 Islamist ldr (Aweys) returns, AU troops exit sought 4-23—4-28; clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20, forgn fighters seen, Eritrea sanctns urged/role denied 5-15—5-21, 341C2, E3 Islamists clashes kill scores, emergency declared 6-17—6-22; thieves convctd, hands/feet amputated 6-21—6-25, displacemts tallied 6-25, 430A1, G1, B3 Saudi High Comm, warlord arms linked 6-24, 491E3 Humanitarian crisis warned 7-1, 459D2 US Islamic convert (Kastigar) death rptd 9-11, 781D1 Violnc kills scores, Kismayo seized 9-30—12-21; Al Shabab denies Mogadishu blast role 12-4, protests held, further attacks warned 12-7, 889A1, F1, F2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843G2

2009 Index Eritrea Islamists backing sanctns set 12-23, 903D1 Defense & Disarmament Issues US arms shipmt rptd, Sec Cncl authrzn seen 6-25, 430E2–F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 Power-sharing parlt sworn, mandate extended 1-28, 66B3 Ahmed elected, sworn pres 1-31, disavows extremists 2-1, 66D2 Sharmarke named, OKd premr 2-13—2-14; cabt appointed, sworn 2-20—2-21, Mogadishu govt return bid seen 2-23—2-25, 115A1, B2–C2 Islamic law set, OKd 2-28—3-10, Ahmed ouster tape posted, remarks scored 3-19—3-28, 238E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236B1 Islamic law passes parlt 4-18, 270B1 MPs flee 6-24, 430B2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736B1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Migrants rescued 4-16; Italy entry OKd 4-19, origins rptd 4-20, 262E2 Refugees Gulf of Aden drownings rptd 9-1, 646D1 Offshore Piracy Intl anti-piracy force set, held ships tallied 1-8—1-9; Saudi seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, missing pirate body found 1-11, 21A2 Captured pirates Kenya turn over set 1-26, seized Ukrainian ship (Faina) ransom paid/freed, paymt mulled 2-5—2-6, 66D3 Antipiracy Japan forces deploymt set 1-28, 76C2 Pvt yacht (Tanit) seized 4-4; French commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 237C1, 238G1 US hijackings fail, ships return to port 4-8—4-16; hostage standoff opens/capt freed, captors slain 4-9—4-12, plans mulled, targeting vowed 4-13—4-15, 237A1, A2, 238F2; map 238A1 Ships seized 4-14—4-15; ‘mother ship’ captured 4-15, attacks tallied, info sought 4-16, 237E1, 238B3–D3 Leb ship seized 4-14, freed 4-20, 269E3–F3 Norway ship hijacking halted, pirates freed 4-19, 269C3 Pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269A2 PI sailors Gulf of Aden travel banned, chem tanker freed 4-20—4-21, 269A3 NATO mulls pirate arrests 4-20, suspects in Kenya ct 4-23, 269D3–E3 Worldwide attacks tallied 4-21, 269A3 Kismayo port blockade urged 5-20, 430A3 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Singapore ship (Kota Wajar) seized, pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-15—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801C2 Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 Patrolling reps mtg held 11-6—11-7, 801G2 Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2 US ship (Maersk Alabama) attack repelled 11-18, 801E2 UK yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20; ships seized, China ransom paymt claimed/crew freed 11-30—12-28, ‘09 attacks mark set 12-29, 903B2 Press & Broadcasting Forgn rptrs freed 11-25, sent to Kenya 11-26, 889B3 Sports Natl soccer team asylum sought 12-18, 903A2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Obama inauguratn threat probe rptd 1-20, 28E1 Al Shabab ties suspects admit role/held, chrgd/plead guilty 2-9—8-12, 780C3, F3 Australia raids net suspects, Al Shabab terror status mulled 8-4—8-5, 930C2, F2 US strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, revenge attacks vowed/forgn fighters role urged, blasts kill 14+ 9-15—9-17, 622A2, G2 Mogadishu blast kills 21, US suspect (Mohamud) role probed 9-17—9-25, 781B1 Al Shabab ties suspect (Kaizu) indicted 9-24, 833F2

—SOUTH Al Shabab ties suspects stopped/questnd, held 10-9—11-19; Abdow indicted 10-14, chrgs hiked, Mohamed pleads not guilty 11-23—11-24, 849A1, F1, B2 US aid suspect (Mehanna) chrgd 10-21, 816F1 Airline passenger held 11-17, bombing try rptd 12-30, 899B1 Trade, Aid & Investment EU funds vowed 4-22, intl aid conf held 4-23, 269F3 UN Policy & Developments Ahmed addresses Gen Assemb 9-25, 651G3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Rep Payne visits, plane attacked 4-13, 238G2 Ahmed sees Clinton 8-6, 540A2 Ahmed visits 10-4, 781D1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913F3

SOME People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens (essay) U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed 4-3, 306F3

SOMERVILLE, Phyllis Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

SOMEWHERE Towards the End (book) Athill on Costa shortlist 1-5, 139F3

SOMKID Jatusriphithak Coup rumors spread, denied 8-3—8-4, 726D3–E3

SOMMER, Scott Dog wins Westminster 2-10, 159C3

SOMMERS, Stephen GI Joe: Rise of Cobra on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

SOMOZA Debayle, Gen. Anastasio (1925-80) (Nicaraguan president, 1967-72/74-79) Pres term limits nix sought/backed by Sup Ct, cong debate declined 10-15—10-28, 784F3

SOMYOS Prueksakasemsuk At Bangkok protests 4-25, 295E2

SONAR UK/French A-subs collide 2-3, 91E3, G3

SONDHEIM, Stephen West Side Story revival opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1 Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954G1

SONDHI Limthongkul Shot 4-17; mil arms use mulled 4-23—4-24, exits hosp 4-25, 295F2–G2, B3

SONGAILA, Darius Traded to Timberwolves 6-23, 451D1

SONNENFELDT, Richard Wolfgang (1923-2009) Dies 10-9, 731E3

SON Sen (d. 1997) Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial cont 6-17, 414G1

SOOSAI Found dead 5-19, 334C1

SORENSTAM, Annika ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1

SORKIN, Andrew Ross Too Big to Fail on best-seller list 11-2, 772B1

SORKIN, Ira Lee Client (Madoff) cont representatn OKd, sees guilty plea 3-10, 141B2 On client (Madoff) sentncg 6-29, 442A1

SORO, Guillaume (Ivory Coast premier, 2007- ) Pres electn delayed 12-3, 922B2, E2

SORORITY Row (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

SOROS, George US/Iranian scholar (Tajbakhsh) sentncd 10-18, 768C1

SOSA, (Haydee) Mercedes (1935-2009) Dies 10-4, 692F2

SOSA, Sammy ‘03 positive test rptd 6-16, House com testimony probe opens 6-17, 484F1 Ramirez, Ortiz ‘03 positive tests rptd 7-30, 531A1

SOTHEBY‘S Holdings Inc. NYC spring auctns held 5-5—5-14, 953C2

NYC fall auctns held 11-4—11-11, 953F1–A2 Van Dyke record set 12-9, 953F2

SOTOMAYOR, Sonia (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 2009- ) Campaign & Election Issues Rehears campaign finance law argumts 9-9, 603F1 Capital Punishment Ga inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553D2 Backs Ohio inmate (Getsy) stay 8-17, 553E2 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc appeal denied 11-10, 780A3 Labor Issues Conn firefighters test nix bias found by Sup Ct 6-29, 443D2, 444C1 Military Issues Sits out detainee abuse photos release case 11-13, 867F2 Personal Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302E1 Sees Obama, nominated to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, D2, 350E1, C2; photo 349F1 Facts on 5-26, 350A1 Background remarks mulled 5-29—6-3; sees Sens/hurts ankle, com query submitted 6-2—6-8, Sup Ct confrmatn hearing date set 6-9, 389E2 Sup Ct ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443E1, C3 Sup Ct nominatn Sen com confrmatn hearings held, filibuster nixed/NRA oppositn set 7-13—7-16, 469A1–471C3; excerpts 470A1 Confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519A3 Sen Martinez sets resignatn 8-7, 537B3 Sworn 8-8, White House event held 8-12, 536D2 Formally seated 9-8, 603F1 Opens ‘09-10 term 10-5, 677B1 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907E3

SOTSKOV, Lev Russian WWII documts issued 9-1, 591C3

SOUARE, Ahmed Tidiane (Guinean premier, 2008) Freed 4-2, 660G3

SOUFAN, Ali Scores terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns 4-27, 289C3, E3–290B1 Testifies to Sen com 5-13, 322E1–F1

SOULJA Boy Tell ‘em (DeAndre Way) ‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone’ on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1; 5-2, 316D1

SOUMARE, Cheikh Hadjibou (Senegalese prime minister, 2007- ) Quits, replacemt (Ndiaye) named 4-30, 326G1

SOUNDEXCHANGE Internet radio music royalty rates chngd 7-8, 781G3

SOUTER, David Hackett (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1990-2009) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Backs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444E2 Campaign & Election Issues Vs minority voting power protectns limit 3-9, 167F1 Censorship Issues Vs FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1 Defendants’ Rights Curbs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266D1 Backs suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374E1 Backs convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426E1 Backs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Vs spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426E2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425E2–A3 Environmental Issues Vs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307C2 Vs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Backs ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337F3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Judicial Issues Vs evidnc exclusionary rule limits 1-14, 21C1 Vs judge sentncg power 1-14, 21F1 Clarifies judges campaign contributns recusal rule 6-8, 390E1

1169

Labor Issues Backs sex harassmt retaliatn curbs 1-26, 48D2 Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338B1 Membership Sotomayor named replacemt 5-26, 349A1, A2, 350E1 Personal Sets retiremt, indep hailed 5-1, 301A1, D1, G2; photo 301E1; key votes listed 302A1 Facts on 5-1, 302F1 Replacemt nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389E2 Honored 6-29, 443E1–F1 Judge Sotomayor Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469C1 Replacemt nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519B3 Racial Bias Backs Conn firefighters test nix 6-29, 443D2, 444B1 Religious Issues Vs Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130F3 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443D1; table 444B3

SOUTH Africa, Republic of African Relations Zimbabwe unity govt talks held, SADC mtgs hosted 1-19—1-30, 67D1, g1, B2 AU summit held 2-1—2-4, 82F2 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai sworn PM 2-11, 82C2 Zimbabwe cabt sworn oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held 2-13, 96E3, 97E1 Madagascar’s Ravalomanana news conf held 4-20, 308B3 Gabon’s Bongo honored 6-8, 394F1 AU summit held 7-1—7-3, 459C2 Zimbabwe’s Mugabe illness treatmt claimed 8-26, Zuma diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588A2, B3 Darfur conflict mulled, spec cts proposed 10-8, 924C2 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours region 10-20—10-23, 746G2 Equatorial Guinea coup plotters pardoned, freed 11-3, 925D1 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782C3 Namibia electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Dalai Lama entry blocked 3-23, 327E1 Tibet’s Dalai Lama entry block scored 3-24, 325C3 Awards & Honors Tutu gets US Pres Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 Corruption Zuma graft trial date set 2-4, ANC spokesman (Niehaus) admits govt funds use 2-13, 96B2–C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Zuma chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 21E3 Zuma chrgs dropped, case mulled 4-6—4-9, 222A1, A2, F2 Ex-police natl comr (Selebi) trial opens 10-5, 923C3 Crime & Civil Disorders Rape survey rptd 6-17, 923E3 Township protests turn violent, forgnrs seek refuge/crack down vowed 7-12—7-28, 526D1 World Cup spec cts set 11-21, 858D3 Economy & Labor Budget unveiled 2-11, ‘08 GDP estimate rptd 2-12, 96G2–B3 ‘09 GDP forecast 4-22, 293F3–G3 Job creatn vowed 5-13, 325A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-26, 359B1 Poverty end vowed 6-3, 525E3 Strikes open, deals set 7-8—7-31, ‘09 2d 1/4 jobless rate rptd 7-28, 525B3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-24, 923B3 Environment & Pollution Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1, D3, 882F1, C3; table 883B1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Peace conf nixed 3-24, 327G1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 ANC electn campaign opens 1-10, 22F1 Forgn natls voting OKd 2-9; gen electns set 2-10, ANC rally held 2-15, 96A2 Dandala pres bid set 2-20, 152A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236B1 Forgn natls voting OK upheld 3-12, 152E1 Tutu questns Zuma pres bid 4-2, 222C3

1170 SOUTH— Zuma campaign rally held 4-19; gen electns held 4-22, results rptd, unity urged 4-25, 292A3, 293E1, E3; photo 292E3 Facts on Zuma 4-25, 293A1 Zuma elected/sworn pres, names cabt 5-6—5-10, Westn Cape premr (Zille) sworn/cabt named, remarks mulled 5-6—5-13, 325E1, E2, E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736B1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Refugee (Huntley) Canadian asylum bid OKd 8-27; protest filed 9-1, review set 9-3, 927G1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818E2 Medicine & Health Care HIV infectn rate rptd 6-8, 850B3 Zuma hikes AIDS policy, Mbeki apology sought 12-1, 850E2 Monetary Issues Dec ‘08 inflatn drop rptd 1-28, interest rate cut 2-5, 96F2 Interest rate cut 5-28, 359C1 Rand ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Obituaries Brutus, Dennis 12-26, 954G3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672G2 Suzman, Helen 1-1, 9F3 Tshabalala-Msimang, Mmanto 12-16, 956G1 Science & Technology Broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E3 India cricket tourn move set 3-24, opens 4-18, 275A3 Confederatns Cup results 6-28, 859D2 Runner Semenya gender test held 8-7, 950B3 Semenya gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; Chuene quits, IAAF probe ordrd 8-22—8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns 8-24—8-25, 549B2 Soccer natl coach (Santana) fired, Parreira named 10-19, 10-23, 859B2 Runner Semenya gender controversy regretted, ASA pres/bd suspended 11-5, World Champ medal upheld, test results release nixed 11-19, 950F2, A3–C3 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, security, hotel availability assured 12-5—12-8, 858C2, B3 Trade, Aid & Investment G-8 Africa aid hike vow missed 1-16, 169E3 SADC finance mins mtg hosted 2-26—2-27, 153B1–C1 African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3 G-8 summit held 7-9, 453B2 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 US AIDS funding set 12-1, 850D3 Transportation Chinese ship (De Xin Hai) seized 10-19, 801A3 UN Policy & Developments IAEA head successor votes held, Minty loses electn 3-26—7-2, 502G2 Gaza war crimes probe ldr (Goldstone) named 4-3, 313C1 Racism conf held 4-20, 262B1 Israel/Gaza invasn abuses probe opens 6-1, 546C2 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614D2 Torture probe ldr (Nowak) Zimbabwe entry blocked, arrives 10-28—10-29, 783A3 Gaza war crimes rpt mulled 11-3—11-6, 790B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 8-6—8-9, 540A1, B2

SOUTH America—See LATIN America SOUTH Carolina Accidents & Disasters Fighter jets collisn kills 1 10-15, 915F2 Budget & Spending Programs Stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424E2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Gov Sanford hiking trip claimed, returns from Argentina/admits affair 6-22—6-25, mistress e-mails rptd, ‘08 ofcl visit repaymt set 6-24—6-25, 424A1, F1 Gov Sanford issues apology 6-26; details affair, wife scores 6-30—7-2, travel costs probed, censured 7-2—7-6, 455D3 Gov Sanford civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1

FACTS Crime & Law Enforcement Craigslist ‘adult svcs’ prosecutn halt ordrd 5-22, 781D3 Cuba base detainees transfer efforts fail 12-16, 861B1 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Swimmer Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906E1 Military Issues Terror suspect (Marri) detentn review ordrd, govt brief Sup Ct deadline delay sought 1-22, 28D3 Terror suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3, C3 Terror suspect (Marri) detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148D3 Terror detainee (Marri) bail nixed 3-18, transported to Ill 3-20, 183G3 Terror suspect (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428G1 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760E1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Gov Sanford drops GOP assoc post 6-24, 424C2 Rep Wilson interrupts Obama address, regrets remarks 9-9—9-10, 598B1 Gov Sanford censure urged 12-9; wife files divorce 12-11, impeachmt res nixed 12-16, 869G1 School Issues Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108B3–C3 Tenenbaum named CPSC chair 5-5, 340F2 Sports Verizon Heritage results 4-19, 564C1 Welfare & Social Services Recipients rise seen 6-22, 479C2

SOUTH Carolina, University of (Columbia) Outback Bowl lost 1-1, 24F1 Swimmer Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159F3

SOUTH Dakota Environment & Pollution Coal plant constructn blocked by EPA 1-22, 94B3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1

SOUTHERN African Development Community (SADC) Zimbabwe unity govt talks held, deal OKd 1-19—1-30, 67D1, F1–B2 Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai sworn PM 2-11, 81F1 Finance mins mtg held 2-26—2-27, 152G3, 153B1–C1 Madagascar’s Ravalomanana ouster scored 3-19, 168E2 Madagascar’s Ravalomanana in Swazi 3-24, 184F3 Swazi summit held, Madagascar suspended 3-30, 203D2– Madagascar protests turn violent 4-20—4-27, 208C2 Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555A3, F3 S Africa’s Zuma visits Zimbabwe 8-27—8-28, 588D2 Congo summit held 9-7—9-8, 661C1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina Gen Assemb speech blocked 9-24—9-25, exit warned, visa curbs threat issued 9-29, 652B1–F1 Zimbabwe const chngs seen 10-2, 680D3 Zimbabwe delegatn arrives 10-28, 746A3 Mozambique electns held 10-28, 783F1 Zimbabwe mtgs held 10-29—10-30, 783A3 Mozambique spec summit held 11-4—11-5, 783B2 Madagascar power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782C3

SOUTHERN California, University of (USC) (Los Angeles) Rose Bowl won 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23F3–G3, 24C1 Sanchez, Cushing, Matthews in NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, G2, F3, 299A1 DeRozan, Gibson in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, B2

Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579E3–F3 Saks wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2 Emerald Bowl won 12-26, 948B3

SOUTHERN Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) LA pres (Lee) natl board appearnc ordrd 5-27, ouster threat rptd 7-11, 505D2

SOUTHERN Co. States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2

SOUTHERN Methodist University (SMU) (Dallas, Tex.) Bushes return 1-20, 26A3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, library design unveiled 11-18, 814G2, E3, G3 Hawaii Bowl won 12-24, 948B3

SOUTHERN Mississppi, University of (Hattiesburg) New Orleans Bowl lost 12-20, 948C3

SOUTHERN Poverty Law Center Holocaust museum shooting suspect (von Brunn) anti-Semitic links rptd 6-10, 392F1

SOUTHERN Voice (newspaper) Shut 11-16, 912E3

SOUTHERS, Erroll Sen confrmatn vote mulled 12-29, 898D3

SOUTH Florida, University of Ex-student (Megahed) cleared 4-3; held 4-6, deportatn case nixed, freed 8-21, 816A1 Women’s basketball NIT tourn won 4-4, 230E2

SOUTH Florida Blade (newspaper) Shut 11-16, 912E3

SOUTH Korea (Republic of Korea) Accidents & Disasters Flash flood kills 6, bodies found 9-6—9-7, N Korea explanatn issued, scored 9-7, 600A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1, D2 Indonesia blasts kill 7 7-17, 494A3 Japan’s Hatoyama nixes shrine visits 8-11, WWII surrender anniv marked 8-15, 582B3 Japan/China summit held 10-9—10-10, 712E1, B2 Lee sees Japan’s Hatoyama 10-10, 703A3 Afghan troops hike set 12-8, 844G1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Roh ex-aide held, businessman/wife paymts admitted 4-7; image discarded, questnd 4-22—4-30, kills self 5-23, 360A3, G3, 361B1 Crime & Civil Disorders Stem cell scientist (Hwang) convctd, sentnc suspended 10-26, 764C2 Defense & Disarmament Issues US jt mil exercises open 3-9, 143E1–F1 Long-range missiles dvpt mulled 4-6, 215B3 Proliferatn Security Initiative role mulled 4-13, 239G1 Proliferatn Security Initiative entry set 5-26, 351C2 Economy & Labor Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107E1 Madagascar, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E2–F2, A3 Ssangyong labor talks fail, factory raided 8-2—8-5; deal OKd 8-6, reorgn plan set 9-15, 787D1 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 10-26, 764B2 Kopsi index drops 11-27, 829A2 Samsung ex-chair (Lee) pardoned 12-29, 934B1 Kospi ‘09 yr-end index rptd 12-31, 900G1 Energy Daewoo sets Myanmar offshore gas project investmt 8-25, 684G1 Korea Gas/Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 11-2, 789D3 Turkmen gas field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935D3 Environment & Pollution Emissns cut vowed 11-17, 828C2 CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Lee cabt shuffled 1-19, 51F2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 234C2 Ex-pres (Roh) state funeral ordrd 5-23, 360F3 Japanese liberatn anniv marked 8-15, 558F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 734C2 Natl capital split halted 11-27, 934E1 Iraqi Conflict Extortn scheme mil ofcrs convctd 5-5, 311F3 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1

ON FILE

Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Hyundai/Baotou jt venture set 12-20, 932E2 Middle East Relations Yemen blast kills 4, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646B2 Iran A-program sanctns hike mulled 11-19, 804F2 Monetary Issues ASEAN currency pool hiked 2-22, IMF omit seen 2-23, 135E3–F3 Interest rate hiked 10-9, 764C2 North Korean Relations Cabt shuffled, parlt electns set 1-6—1-7, 51E2 Hostile posture declared, border alert hiked 1-17, 36A1 Cooperatn deals halted, talks return urged 1-30; war threat mulled 2-1, missile test preparatns seen 2-3, 84A1, E1 Passenger flights warning issued 3-5, mil alert hiked, hotline shut 3-9, border crossings cont 3-10, 143C1 Current TV rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215F3 Rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, 215F1, D2 Jt industrial park talks held 4-21—4-22, deals nixed 5-15, 342F3 Kim son Natl Defns Comm job rptd 4-27, 351B1 Short-range missiles tested 5-25; A-program reopening seen 5-27, attack warned, alert hiked 5-27—5-28, 350B3–C3, 351E1, B2–C2 Kim mourns ex-pres (Roh) 5-25, 361C1 Kim successn mulled 6-2—6-10; A-attack warned 6-9, talks chng seen 6-12, 404F1, B2, D2–F2 Cont uranium enrichmt seen 6-30; missiles launch scored 7-2, ship return rptd 7-6, 462C3, E3, G3 A-program mulled 7-22, 495D1 Fishing boat seized 7-30, 518C1 Hyundai chair (Hyun) visits, worker freed/deported 8-10—8-17; border curbs eased, family reunions set 8-17, Kim death marked 8-19, 558A1, G1, E2 Delegatn visits 8-21—8-23, relatives reunion talks open 8-26, 568D2, A3, D3 Indl park workers wage hike sought, dropped 9-10—9-11; A-program talks mulled 9-21, family reunions held, chngd const issued 9-26—10-1, 652B3, 653C1, E1 A-program sanctns, talks backed 10-10; missiles fired, ships infringemt claimed 10-12—10-15, rivers flood control mulled, cont family reunions seen 10-14—10-16, 712A2–B2, E2 Prison camps use claimed 10-17; ofcl mtgs rptd 10-22, A-program talks sought 11-2, 763E3, 764C1, A2 Naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 795G3 Swine flu outbreak rptd, aid offrd/OKd 12-8—12-10, 873D3 Disputed waters firing warned 12-21, 933F3 Mil communicatn lines upgrade set 12-22, 933G3 US missionary (Park) entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933A3–B3 Nuclear Power & Safeguards UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944D2 Obituaries Kim, Cardinal 2-16, 140F3 Kim Dae Jung 8-18, 564B3 Lee Hu Rak 10-31, 955D2 Roh Moo-hyun 5-23, 364G3 Press & Broadcasting Indus reforms pass parlt 7-22, law upheld 10-29, 764E2 Science & Technology Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486F2 ICANN mtg hosted 10-30, 901F3 Space & Space Flights Satellite launch nixed 8-19, 558A2 Satellite launched 8-25, 569C1 Sports World Baseball Classic lost 3-23, 190B2–G3 Iran soccer match held 6-17, 423C2 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858G2 Trade, Aid & Investment US pact parlt vote delayed, block ends 1-6, 51B3 US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112B1 US trade rep nominee (Kirk) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182C1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164B2 Russian car import tariffs protested 3-15, 274B1 US Feb ‘09 trade gap 4-9, 240B2 GM imports hike proposal rptd, opposed 5-11, 5-15, 339G1 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323E3

2009 Index US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389B2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477B2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535B3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619G1 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Indonesia quakes aid vowed 10-1, 662F2 Indonesia quakes aid arrives 10-3, 724F3, 725C1 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699G3 EU free trade deal signed 10-15, 934F1 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748F2 N Korea food aid offrd 10-26, 764A1 China sets adipic acid duties 11-8, 776F2 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798B2 Forgn farmland buys rptd 11-17, 812D2 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866B1 UN Policy & Developments N Korea sanctns hike OKd by Sec Cncl 6-12, 404A1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 2-19, 108G3, 109B1, A3, D3 Lee visits 6-16, 404F1 Bosworth visits 9-3—9-6, 600B3 Gates visits 10-21—10-22, 712A3 Obama visits 11-19, 794B3, 795D3

SOUTH of Broad (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1

SOUTH Pole—See ANTARCTIC Regions SOUTHWEST Airlines Co. FAA inspectn woes fine paymt set 3-2, 151G2

SOVIET Union—See COMMONWEALTH of Independent States; CIS or European subheads; specific country names SOWELL, Anthony Corpses/skull found, victim IDd 10-29—11-4, indicted/pleads not guilty, death penalty sought 12-1—12-3,, 888D1

SOYBEANS Brazil Jan ‘09 trade gap rptd 2-2, 82E3 Argentina export tax talks open, revenue-sharing plan proposed 2-24—3-20; grains natl bd mulled 3-3, farmers strike 3-21—3-27, 203F3 Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412G2 US prices drop 4-27, 282A2 Argentina farmers strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 Argentina media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682A2

SOYINKA, Wole Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

SPACE & Space Flights Appointments & Resignations NASA admin (Griffin) quits 1-20, Bolden named 5-23, 373F1 US programs review panel named 6-1, 506E2 NASA admin nominee (Bolden) confrmd 7-15, 506F2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321C1 NASA ‘10 funds pass House 6-18, 488C2, E2 NASA ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues US sci (Nozette) leaves 1-6; sees undercover FBI agent 9-3, chrgd/pleads not guilty, bail nixed 10-19—10-29, 760C3, F3–G3, 761B1, D1 China/US econ spy (Chung) convctd 7-16, 888F3 Crime Issues Astronaut (Nowak) pleads guilty 11-10, 920C3 Manned Flight—See also more specific subheads in this section Apollo 11 moon landing anniv marked 7-20, 506C2 Virgin space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884D1 Obituaries Dannenberg, Konrad 2-16, 160B3 Feoktistov, Konstantin P 11-21, 860C3 Haney, Paul P 5-28, 400A3 Research & Development Russian indus dvpt urged 11-12, 803E2 Satellites & Launch Vehicles Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86F2, B3 US/Russian satellites collide 2-10, debris tracking rptd 2-13, 91F2 Leb/Israeli spy suspect held 2-16, 312B3 N Korea satellite launch set 2-24, 109C2 NASA climate satellite launched, crashes 2-24, 131C3 N Korea launch interfernc warning issued 3-9, plans set 3-11, 143F1–G1

—SPITZER N Korea launch interfernc warnings issued 3-24—4-1; Japan shoot down ordrd, US plans denied 3-27—3-29, rocket launched, success mulled 4-5, 215D1 US defns fscl ‘10 budget proposal unveiled 4-6, spy satellites replacemt set 4-7, 217G2, D3 US surveillnc satellites replacemt plan OKd, rptd 4-6—4-7, 244B2 N Korea rocket launch Sec Cncl res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, 239C1 ESA orbiting telescope launched 5-14, 373E1 Pak A-program hike seen 5-19, 346F3 Orbiting equipmt NASA svc missns halt seen 5-19—5-23, 373B1 N Korea A-program reopening seen 5-27, 351E1 Moon orbiter, LCROSS launched 6-18, 697E3 S Korea launch nixed 8-19, 558A2, D2 S Korea satellite launched 8-25, 569C1 India unmanned moon satellite (Chandrayaan-1) contact lost, missn ended 8-29—8-31, 612D1 Japan unmanned vessel intl statn missn flown 9-10—9-17, 616C1 Moon craters sunlight lack rptd 9-17, 697G3 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 696G2 Moon rocket, LCROSS crashed 10-9, 697E3 Moon water confrmd 11-13, 824C2 Shuttle Program Discovery intl statn missn delayed 2-3—3-11, 239C2* Discovery intl statn missn flown 3-15—3-28, 239A2 Atlantis flies Hubble repair missn 5-11—5-24, 372F2 Endeavour intl statn missn flown 7-15—7-31, 519E1 Discovery intl statn missn flown 8-28—9-11, 615F3 NASA rocket model test-fired 9-10, 616D1 Future plans review issued 10-22, 745B1 Atlantis intl statn missn flown 11-16—11-27, 902C1 Space Stations Intl statn astronauts in collisn scare 3-12, 239F2 Intl statn solar arrays delivered/installed, crew exchngd 3-17—4-8, 239A2, G2* Intl statn water recycling opens 5-20, 519G2 Crew hiked 5-29, 519B2 Crew exchngd, toilet breaks/fixed 7-17—7-28, lab porch installed/robotic arm use opens, solar batteries 7-18—7-27, 519B2–F2 Intl statn ammonia tank replaced, crew exchngd 8-30—9-8, 616A1–B1 Intl statn crew exchngd, tourist visits 9-30—10-11, 731A2 Intl statn equipmt installed, crew exits 11-18—11-23, 902D1–E1

SPACESHIPONE (spacecraft) Successor unveiled 12-7, 884F1

SPACESHIPTWO (spacecraft) Unveiled 12-7, 884E1–G1

SPADER, James Shorts on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Race opens in NYC 12-6, 954D2

SPAGNUOLO, Steve Named Rams coach 1-17, 55A3

SPAIN, Kingdom of Accidents & Disasters Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, 473A2 African Relations Gabon’s Bongo in hosp 5-21; dies 6-8, body returned 6-11, 393A3–B3, F3 Fishing boat (Alakrana) seized, Somali pirates held/chrgd 10-2—11-16; vessel, crew freed 11-17, release probe urged 11-18, 801A1 Mauritania aid workers seized 11-29; kidnappings claimed 12-8, release talks rptd 12-28, 903F2, A3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Wen visits 1-30, 98F2 Afghan troops hike nixed 2-10, 102B2 Afghan troops hike set 12-17, 894C2 Basques Madrid blast hits 2-9, 226F2–A3 Blasts kill 2, ETA blamed 7-29—7-30, 513F1 Crime & Civil Disorders Universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884G2 Economy & Labor Dec ‘08 jobless rate (13.9%) 1-23, 53F1 ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd, auto indus aid set 2-13, 100B3–C3 ‘09 1st 1/4 jobless rate 4-24, 311G2–A3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-13, 803B1

Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 European Relations EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116D3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396E2, D3 Zapatero, Italy’s Berlusconi jt news conf held 9-10, 626C3 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 664F3 Czech pres (Klaus) signs EU treaty 11-2, 765B2 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Progressive ldrs summit held 3-27, 204F3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Bermejo quits 2-23, 226C3–D3 Regional electns held 3-1, Basque coalitn deal OKd 3-30, 226C2 Zapatero shuffles cabt 4-7, 226A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 4-7, 236C1; 10-1, 736C1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1 Iraqi Conflict Rptr slaying US troops chrgd 5-21, 344E3 US troops rptrs slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483B2 Kosovo Conflict NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423G3 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez takes intl tour 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-27, 281D1, 282G1 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale blocked 10-16, 767D2 Monetary Issues Banco Santander offers Madoff fraud scheme repaymts 1-27, 114D1 CCM seized 3-29, 208D1 Banco de Venez natlzn deal signed 5-22, 395F1 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2 Obituaries De Larrocha, Alicia 9-25, 672F1 Press & Broadcasting Italy press freedoms rally held 10-3, 687D2 Religious Issues Monks canonized 10-11, 739G1 Sports ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 Cyclist Armstrong breaks collar-bone 3-23, 515C2 Barcelona Open results 4-26, 399F1 Barcelona wins Primera Liga title 5-16, 950B1 Madrid Open results 5-17, 399D1 Barcelona wins Eur Champ Cup 5-27, 949F3 Rubio/Claver/Evenga in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, E1, C2 Rubio foregoes NBA career 8-31, 771B2 Madrid loses ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691C1–D1, F1 World Match Play Champ results 11-1, 840F1 ‘10 World Cup seeding set 12-2, draw held 12-4, 858F2, A3 Davis Cup won 12-4—12-6, 951D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103F2 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit rating cut 1-19, 53C1 Credit outlook cut 12-9, 856D1 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875D3 UN Policy & Developments UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675C3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees transfer mulled 2-24, 165G3 Cuba base detainees abuse probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329E1, C2 Cuba base detainees transfer sought 4-29, 305D3 Cuba base detainees entry mulled 7-29, 506F1

SPAN, Denard Among AL batting/3B ldrs 10-6, 690D2–E2

SPANGER, Amy Rock of Ages opens in NYC 4-7, 256E1

1171

SPANISH-Americans—See HISPANIC Americans SPANISH Language—See LANGUAGE SPANO, Andrew Gay spousal govt benefits ordrd 11-20, 832E2

SPANO, Joe Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

SPANTA, Rangeen Dadfar Karzai reelectn seen 9-25, 668A3, E3 US ties mulled 12-2, 827C1–D1 Replacemt named 12-19, 893F3

SPARKMAN, Bill (d. 2009) Found dead 9-12, 722D1–G1 Suicide ruled 11-24, 817E1–C2

SPARKS, Nicholas Last Song on best-seller list 9-28, 672A1 Dear John on best-seller list 11-30, 840C1; 12-21, 956C1

SPARKS, Paul Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

SPATUZZA, Gaspare Alleges Berlusconi, Sicilian Mafia ties 12-4, 875F1–G1

SPEARMAN, Wallace Wins 200-m world champ bronze 8-20, 579A2

SPEARS, Britney ‘3’ on best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

SPECIAL Olympics Obama on ‘Tonight Show’, regrets joke 3-19—3-20, 182G2–A3 Shriver dies 8-11, 548F3

SPECTER, Arlen (U.S. senator from Pa., 1981- ; Republican/Democrat) Matthews nixes seat bid 1-7, 5A3 Delays atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmatn vote 1-21, 30G2 Backs econ recovery plan 2-6—2-10, 73E2–F2 Backs $787 bln econ recovery plan 2-13, 89C2 Workers unionizing vote options bill vote mulled 3-10, 165B1–C1 Vs union curbs ease bill 3-24; Toomey sets seat bid 4-15, switches parties/voting record rptd, sees Obama 4-28—4-29, 284A2, D2, 285B1, D1; photo 284E2 Backs fscl ‘10 budget blueprint 4-29, 285E3 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, Sessions named com GOP ranking member 5-5, 302D3, 303B1 Gen Powell GOP role questnd 5-6—5-10, remarks scored 5-25, 353D2 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) filibuster doubted 5-27, 350E1 McHugh named Army secy 6-2, 373F2 Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, 6-30, 441A2 Rep Sestak sets seat bid, Dem ties questnd/touts experience 8-4, 521E2 NY gov (Paterson) reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, Obama interfenc scored 9-20—9-21, 639A3 Vs Afghan troops hike 12-2, 827A3 Ala rep (Griffith) joins GOP 12-22, 885D3 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906D3, 907C3

SPECTOR, Phil Estelle Bennett found dead 2-11, 120A3 Convctd 4-13, 269B1 Sentncd 5-29, incarcerated 6-22, 525D1 Greenwich dies 8-26, 596F2

SPECTOR, Ronnie Bennett Sister found dead 2-11, 120A3

SPEED-the-Plow (play) Piven contract row setld 8-27, 596E1

SPEICHER, Capt. Michael (d. 1991) Remains found 8-2, 720E3

SPENCER, Baldwin (Antiguan prime minister, 2004- ) On SIB fraud scandal 2-18, 148B3

SPENCER, J. Robert Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2

SPERO, Nancy (1926-2009) Dies 10-18, 824G3

SPEZZA, Jason Canada loses World Champs 5-18, 670B3

SPHAEREN (Spheres) (music composition) Hoeller wins Grawemeyer Award 11-30, 860A2

SPIES & Spying—See ESPIONAGE SPINELLA, Stephen Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide opens in Minneapolis 5-22, 451A3

SPITZER, Eliot Natl banks racial bias state probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1

1172 SPITZER— NYT wins breaking-news Pulitzer 4-20, 279C2 Natl banks state suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444F2 Ravitch named NYS lt gov 7-8, 524F3 Gov Paterson reelectn bid mulled 9-14—9-20, 639D2 Giuliani gov, Sen bids nixed 11-19—12-22, 909A1

SPITZER Space Telescope Saturn giant ring find rptd 10-6—10-7, 731F1

SPORTS & Sports Equipment—Only general sports developments are listed below. For specific sport or event, see sport (e.g., BASEBALL) or event (e.g., OLYMPIC Games). Lobbyist (Boulanger) pleads guilty 1-30, 60E2 Mex swine flu emergency declared 4-25, 281F2 US stadiums terror alert issued 9-21, 642D1 Obituaries Brand, Myles N 9-16, 648B2

SPORTS Illustrated (magazine) MLB’s Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test rptd 2-7, rumors cited 2-8, 87C1, B2–D2 Schulberg dies 8-5, 532E3

SPRATT Jr., John M. (U.S. representative from S.C., 1983- ; Democrat) Reseated Budget chair 1-6, 5A1 Budget blueprint backed 3-25, 181A2

SPRINGSTEEN, Bruce Wins Grammy 2-8, 88G2 Kennedy Ctr honors 12-5—12-6, 895D3

SPRINKEL, Beryl Wayne (1923-2009) Dies 8-22, 596F3

SPROAT, Judge John Toronto terror plotter freed 5-22, 413C1

SPYKER Cars NV Saab buyout bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, 902B3

SRI Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of Accidents & Disasters Tamil refugee camps flooded 8-15, 578C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Natl cricket team Pak attack kills 8+, arrests mulled/security questnd 3-3—3-4, 137D3 Natl cricket team Pak attack suspect held 6-17, 595B1 Judges Fiji role block claimed 11-1; arrive 11-2, sworn 11-5, 852C1–D1, G1 Australia’s Rudd calls Rajapaksa 11-2, Smith visits 11-9, 931A1 Thai seized plane flight plan rptd 12-14, 862B3 Civil Strife Kilinochchi mil capture rptd/Jaffna rebel ouster sought, Colombo blast kills 3 1-2—1-3, 9B2 Violnc kills scores, rebel air strip/naval base seized 1-25—2-20; conflict end seen 2-4, abuses claimed, cease-fire offer nixed 2-20—2-23, 119E1, D2, A3 LTTE clashes halted, civilns exit/humanitarian crisis seen 4-12—4-23; last defns broken, surrender mulled/resistnc cont 4-20—4-23, intl aid sought 4-23, 276F3, 277E1, B2 Govt offensive halt urged, air strikes use nix vowed 4-26—4-27, 334G2, 335A1 LTTE conflict mulled, deaths/displacemts tallied 5-11—5-18, ldrs found dead/IDd, defeat declared 5-18—5-19, 333A1, B3, 334D2; map 333D1; key events listed 334A1 LTTE conflict war crimes probe nixed 5-21; casualties tallied 5-22, violnc end seen, Prabhakaran death confrmd 5-24, 363F1, D2–E2 Aid workers ‘06 slayings army role nixed 7-14, Pathmanathan named LTTE ldr, held 7-21—8-6, 578D3, 579C1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Gen Fonseka quits 11-19, 823C2–D2 European Relations Sweden’s Bildt entry blocked 4-28, UK’s Miliband, France’s Kouchner visit 4-29, 335A1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section LTTE ban reinstated 1-7, 9E2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C1 Local electns held 8-8, 578B2, F2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736C1 Snap electns set 11-23, 823D2 Fonseka sets pres bid, scores Rajapaksa 11-29, 947C2

FACTS Human Rights LTTE war abuses rptd, probe urged 10-19—10-22, Gen Fonseka US questng sought, nixed 11-1—11-4, 769D2, D3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Ban visits refugee camp 5-23, intl aid access hike nixed 5-24, 363A2 Asylum seekers Indonesia interceptns rptd, ID/med checks OKd 10-12—11-18, sinking boats rescued, Australia rise mulled/memo signed 10-18—11-9, 930D3, 931B1, G1 Tamils resetlmt hike seen 10-22—11-2, 769C3 Tamil refugees release hike urged, freed 11-19—11-21, 823A2 Middle East Relations Rajapaksa visits Jordan 5-16, 334E1 Obituaries Prabhakaran, Velupillai 5-18, 348B3 Press & Broadcasting MBC studios attacked 1-6, Sunday Ldr ed slain 1-8, 9G2–A3 Press cncl return mulled 6-24, 579B1 Rptr (Tissainayagam) sentncd 8-31, 770A1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US ‘material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G2 Trade, Aid & Investment IMF loan OKd 7-24, 578F3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Gen Fonseka visits 11-4, 769F3

SRINIVAS, Vadlamani Held 1-11, 55F1

SSANGYONG Motor Co. Labor talks fail, factory raided 8-2—8-5; deal OKd 8-6, reorgn plan set 9-15, 787D1 Reorgn plan OKd 12-17, 934D1

STAAL, Eric Among NHL goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3

STAAL, Jordan Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420E1, G1

STACKHOUSE, Jerry Traded to Grizzlies 7-9, 771C2

STADLER, Kevin Loses Wyndham Champ 8-23, 670G2

STAFFORD, Matt Signs Lions deal 4-24, tops NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, A3

STAIRS, Matt Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752C2

STAIRWAY Capital Management LP Chrysler bankruptcy reorgn oppositn dropped 5-8, 339E1

STALIN, Joseph (Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) (1879-1953) (Soviet head of state, 1924-53) Medvedev blasts Ukraine’s Yushchenko 8-11, 609G1 Grandson Novaya Gazeta libel suit opens 9-15, 667G2 Libel suit nixed 10-13, historical treatmt mulled 10-29, 767A1

STALLWORTH, Donte Pleads guilty, suspended 6-15—8-13, 632C1–D1

STAM, Katie Crowned Miss Amer 1-24, 56D1

STAMOS, John Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

STANCZAK, Piotr Beheading tape issued, confrmd 2-8—2-9, 103B2

STANDARD & Poor’s Corp. (of McGraw-Hill) Credit Watch & Ratings Ireland watch set 1-9, Greece/Spain/Portugal ratings cut 1-14—1-21, 53C1 Calif debt rating cut 2-3, 114G2–A3 Credit outlook cut 2-24, 117C2 Ukraine credit rating cut 2-25, 137B1–C1 GE rating cut 3-12, 242C1 US debt limit hike urged 8-7, 713E2 Greece credit watch set 12-7, Portugal, Spain outlook cut 12-8—12-9, 855F3, 856A1, D1–E1 Mex credit rating cut 12-14, 929C1 Greece rating cut 12-16, 875E2, C3 Greek debt rating cut, negative credit outlook set 12-22, 938C1 S&P 100 Madoff pleads guilty 3-12, 141E2 S&P 500 Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 financial update 2-2, 61D1

Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128A1 Index rises 3-23, 178A1 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 financial update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900E1, 910E3

STANDARD Chartered PLC Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829E1

STANDING Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) quits 9-6, 602E2

STANFORD, R. Allen UK cricket bd talks halted, hq raided/assets frozen 2-17; SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, Antigua land seized 2-25, 147D3–148C3 Surrenders/assets mulled, indictmt unsealed 6-18—6-19, pleads not guilty, bail set/revoked 6-25—6-30, 457E1–E2 In hosp, Davis pleads guilty 8-27, 814A2

STANFORD Financial Group (SFG) Prendergest-Holt testifies/held, SEC fraud probe rptd 2-10—2-27; UK cricket bd talks halted, assets frozen/seized 2-17—2-25, complaint filed/chngd, hq raided 2-17—2-27, 147D3–148A3 Pendergest-Holt indicted 5-12, 457C2 Stanford surrenders/assets mulled, indictmt unsealed 6-18—6-19, pleads not guilty, bail set/revoked 6-25—6-30, 457E1, C2–D2 Stanford in hosp, Davis pleads guilty 8-27, 814G1

STANFORD International Bank Ltd. (SIB) SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, assets seized 2-18—2-25, 147D3–148B1, F1, A2–C2, G2–B3 Antigua regulator (King) chrgd, fired/held 6-19—6-25, Stanford pleads not guilty 6-25, 457A2, E2

STANFORD (Calif.) University ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1 Global warming rate hike seen 2-14, 124E1 Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn semi lost 4-5, 230C2, E3, 231B1 Africa ‘03-07 AIDS death toll drop rptd, PEPFAR/HIV infectns efficacy questnd 4-6, 370A1 Rice visits 4-29, 306E1 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2 Motwani found dead 6-5, 452G3 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2 Women’s soccer title lost 12-6, 895A2 Gerhart 2d in Heisman voting 12-12, 879G2 Sun Bowl lost 12-31, 948F2

STANG, Sister Dorothy (1931-2006) Slaying suspects retrial ordrd 4-7, 447B2

STANISHEV, Sergei (Bulgarian premier, 2005-09) Govt support polled 1-14, 52D2 Parlt electns held 7-5; vote backed, results rptd 7-6—7-7, Borissov govt coalitn sought 7-16, 482D2 Successor (Borissov) sworn 7-27, 577E1 Ex-agri min (Tsvetanov), forestry head (Yuroukov) chrgd 9-8, 727C2

STANKOVIC, Brankica Alleges outlaw soccer clubs crimes 12-3, threat suspects held 12-8, 893C1

STANTON, Doug Horse Soldiers on best-seller list 6-29, 452B1

STANTON, Sophie England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3

STARDOM Bound (racehorse) Named ‘08 top 2-yr old female 1-26, 119F3

STARK, Pete (Fortney H. Stark Jr.) (U.S. representative from Calif., 1973- ; Democrat) Seeks drug price rise probe 11-18, 797B1

STAR-Ledger (newspaper) Daggett NJ govt bid backed 10-11, 716A3

STARMER, Keir Curbs assisted suicide prosecutns 9-23, 937D2–E2, G2

ON FILE

STAROBIN, Michael Wins Tony 6-7, 399G3

STAROVOITOVA, Galina (d. 1998) Slaying probe reopened 9-7, 767C1

STAROVOITOVA, Olga On sister slaying probe reopening 9-7, 767C1

STARR, Kenneth W. At Calif gay marriage ban hearing 3-5, 149F3 On gay marriage ban ct ruling 5-26, 353A1

STARR International Co. AIG ex-CEO (Greenberg) damages paymt nixed 7-7, 506C3

STARRY Messenger, The (play) Opens in NYC 11-23, 954E2

STARS and Stripes (newspaper) Iraq rptr ban rptd 6-24, mil profiling seen, Rendon contract nix rptd 8-24—8-31, 721A1–E1

STAR Trek (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

STAR Tribune Media Co. Reorgn filed, OKd 6-18—9-17, exits bankruptcy 9-28, 913B1

STAR Tribune (newspaper) Reorgn filed, OKd 6-18—9-17, exits bankruptcy 9-28, 913B1

STAR Wars Issues—See under ARMAMENTS STATE (newspaper) SC gov (Sanford) returns from Argentina, admits affair 6-24, mistress e-mails rptd 6-24—6-25, 424B1, F1, A2

STATE, U.S. Department of African Developments Somali captured pirates Kenya turn over set 1-26, 66G3 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65A3–B3 Kenyan activists slayings probe urged 3-6, 203F1 Sudan aid groups ouster scored 3-17, 185A2 Rwanda genocide mulled 4-7, 248F2 Algeria pres electn vote questnd 4-10, 248E1 Somali antipiracy plan mulled 4-15, 238F2 Somali pirates release scored 4-20, 269C3 Darfur ‘genocide’ mulled 6-17—6-18, 446D2–E2 Carson sees Zimbabwe’s Mugabe 7-2, mtg scored 7-5, 459F2 Clinton tours 8-4—8-13, 540A1–E3 Kenya post-electn violnc trial plans scored 8-4, 540F1 Zimbabwe’s Mugabe scores Clinton criticism 8-10, 588D3 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) Libya welcome warning issued 8-24, 567F3 Libya’s Qaddafi NYC travel ltd, Gen Assemb visit mulled 8-28—9-2, 583A3–C3 Kenya sanctns warned 9-24, 702A3 Guinea protesters attack scored 10-7, 701E3 Sudan policy shift set 10-19, 762D1 Zimbabwe diamonds field exports halted 11-10, 783D3 Uganda gay curbs bill scored 12-18, 925A1 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) warning rptd 12-27, 897B3, 898B1 Appointments & Resignations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10A2 Clinton husband foundatn donors interventn rptd 1-13, Sen com confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13—1-15, 16A1 UN amb nominee (Rice) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16A2 Clinton confrmatn vote delayed 1-20, 26D3 Clinton confrmd secy 1-21, Mitchell, Holbrooke named spec envoys 1-22, 29F2–G2 UN amb nominee (Rice) confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Iraq amb (Hill) named 2-2, 57C3 Afghan amb (Eikenberry) named, confrmd 3-11, 4-3, 381A3 Cuba base mil prison closure ofcl (Fried) named 3-13, 166G1 Rooney named Ireland amb 3-17, 182C2 Gration named Sudan spec envoy 3-18, 185A2 Iraq amb nominee (Hill) confmrd 4-21, 275E2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286A1, 288E2 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 353D3 India/UK/France/Japan ambs named 5-27, 354C1 Arms control undersecy nominee (Tauscher) confrmd 6-25, 478A3

2009 Index Rep Maloney nixes NYS Sen seat bid 8-7, 537D3 Otero named Tibet spec coordinator 10-1, 712E3 Afghan ofcl (Hoh) resignatn rptd 10-27, 751G2 Arts & Culture Kennedy Ctr arts awards presented 12-5, 895C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Mumbai terror attacks Pak role seen 1-5, 39D2 China diplomatic ties anniv marked 1-12, 251C3 Afghan govt ties mulled 1-27, 54G2 N Korea A-program cont halt seen 1-30, 84D1 Pak A-scientist (Klan) release opposed 2-6, 75D2 Boucher visits Bangladesh, Myanmar ethnic minorities abuse halt urged 2-8, 99F1 Holbrooke visits Pak 2-9—2-12, 103B1 Holbrooke visits Afghan 2-12—2-15, 102D2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103C3 Holbrooke visits India 2-16, 103A1 Clinton tours 2-16—2-23, 108F3–110A1 Pak/Afghan regular mtgs set 2-26, 138D3 Afghan govt transitn mulled 3-4, 137E2 S Korea jt mil exercises mulled 3-9, 143F1 Surveillnc ship Chinese harassmt protested 3-9, 153B2 Clinton hosts China’s Yang 3-11, 309E2 PI marine (Smith) accuser testimony chngd/atty role mulled, probe sought 3-12—3-24, 205G1 Pak Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175E3 Current TV rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31, 215G3 Pak’s Mehsud capture sought 3-25, 533D2 Afghan electns aid vowed 3-30, 195D2 Pak mil aid House com hearing held 4-2, Holbrooke visits Afghan/Pak/India 4-5—4-8, 229C1, G1 Pak separatists seized/found dead, riots erupt 4-2—4-9, 276E3 Pak’s Zardari militants abdicatn seen 4-22, 276D2 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277D2 PI Marine rapist (Smith) exits 4-24, 309B3 Clinton hosts Afghan’s Karzai 5-6, 314F1 Pak tribal areas mil offensive hailed 5-6, 315C2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspects held, chrgs scored 5-6—5-14, 327G2, B3 Pak tribal areas refugees funds vowed 5-19, 346A2 Afghan amb (Eikenberry) visits battle survivors 5-19, 381G2 Tiananmen sq pub acctg urged, remarks scored 6-3—6-4, 395A3 Holbrooke visits Pak tribal areas 6-3—6-5, 419A1 Rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396A1, D1 China Web-filter software requiremt opposed 6-8, 414B3 N Korea A-program cos linked 6-30, 462D3 Fiji new const plans scored 7-6, 510A2 Rptrs N Korea amnesty sought 7-10, 517D1 Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499A2 Clinton visits India 7-17—7-20, 486A1 N Korea A-program/missile tests mulled, Myanmar rights abuses scored 7-20—7-22; ASEAN treaty signed 7-22, Thai summit held 7-23, 495B3 Holbrooke visits Pak 7-22, 515B2 China strategic talks held 7-27—7-28, 509B2 Afghan reconciliatn talks urged 7-27, 513A3 Afghan rockets launched 8-4, 547F1 Thai blocks Russian alleged dealer (Bout) extraditn 8-11, 534B2 Goldberg regional tour set 8-13, N Korea talks sought 8-25, 568D3 Sen Webb, Myanmar trip mulled 8-14, 558C3 Holbrooke visits Pak 8-18, 578E1 Holbrooke visits Afghan, pres vote questnd 8-20, 549E1, C2 Eikenberry sees Afghan’s Karzai, argumt rptd/denied 8-21—8-29, emb contractors misconduct rptd 9-2, 594B2, G2–B3 Afghan pres electn vote mulled 8-23, 577G2 Japan’s Hatoyama sees amb 9-3, 582A3

—STATE 1173 Bosworth tours, urges N Korea A-program sanctns enforcemt 9-3, 600B3 Afghan pres electn results vetting urged 9-8, 611E1 N Korea A-program talks mulled 9-11, Clinton sees Japan’s Okada 9-21, 652G3–653B1 Afghan troops hike mulled 9-21, 635F1 Myanmar policy chngd 9-24, 634B3 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn seen 9-25, 668A3 Campbell sees Myanmar’s Thuang 9-29, 652A3 Otero hosts Tibet’s Dalai Lama 10-5, 712E3 Pak aid package questnd 10-7, A-arms security mulled 10-11, 695F1, G2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi sees diplomat 10-9, 725B3 Khalilzad visits 10-14, 696D2 Afghan pres electn runoff talks aid sought, Clinton calls Karzai/Kerry mtg mulled 10-16—10-20, 710G2–B3 N Korea A-program curbs sought 10-21, 711B2 Sri Lankan govt, rebel war abuses rptd, probe urged 10-22, 769E2, D3–E3 Clinton visits Pak 10-28—10-29, 737E1 Myanmar diplomatic trip mulled, Campbell/Marciel visit 10-30—11-5, 763B2–C2 Clinton Pak visit ends 10-30, 769C2 Afghan pres candidate (Abdullah) bid drop mulled 11-1, 753C3 Bosworth N Korea visit set 11-9, plan cont 11-11, 796F1 Afghan troop levels mulled 11-12, 775B1 Clinton visits PI 11-12—11-13, 819A2 Obama, Japan emperor bow defended 11-13, China student questns asked 11-15, 795B1, D2 Clinton visits Afghan 11-18—11-19, 805E3–F3 Australia’s Rudd visits 11-30, 851A3 Afghan ties backed, Clinton testifies to Cong 12-2—12-3, 829D1 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, Cong hearings held 12-8, 844D1, D2 Bosworth visits N Korea, talks mulled/Obama letter delivery confrmd 12-8—12-16, 873A3 Taiwan arms sale seen 12-9, 891A3 Thai/N Korea arms seizure hailed 12-14, 862A3 Karzai cabt picks backed 12-20, 894A1 Clinton sees Japan amb 12-22, 933G1 Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-28, 934D2, G2 Missionary (Park) N Korea entry, arrest rptd 12-29, 933E3 Budget & Spending Programs Obama seeks suplmtl funds 4-9, 242G1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 320D3, 321B1 Suplmtl funds pass House 5-14, 338E1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488G2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867A1 CIS Developments Kyrgyz mil base closure regretted 2-5, 59G1 Clinton hosts Russia’s Lavrov 5-7, 311A2 Kazakh rights activist (Zhovtis) trial questnd 9-4, 663G1 Turkmen nixes AUCA recognitn 9-5, 625C3–D3 Clinton visits Russia 10-13—10-14, 705D3 Azerbaijan bloggers trial secracy scored 11-11, 820B2 Embassy Security Issues US/Pak drone missile strike kills 2, victims IDd 1-1—1-10, 38C3 Al Qaeda Yemen members sentncd 7-13, 646F1 Inter-Risk Pak ofcs raided 9-19, 670B1 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718B3, D3 Iran emb seizure anniv marked 11-4, 767B3, D3 Afghan emb security deal renewal nixed 12-8, 844G3 Environment & Pollution Mercury emissns treaty mulled, draft talks OKd 2-16—2-20, 124A1 Climate chng bill backed 6-26, 445E1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882F1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cuba spying suspects held 6-4; chrgd 6-5, Castro hails 6-6, 392B3–C3, E3 Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed 8-26—9-12, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915A3, C3 Cuba spies plead guilty 11-20, 833F1–G1, B2

European Developments Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claims mulled 2-15—3-26, 274D2–F2 Clinton visits Belgium 3-4, 123G1 Clinton tours 3-5—3-7, 142B1–143A1 Fried visits Hungary 9-16, 718C2 Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn opposed 9-22, 645D2 Film dir (Polanski) release sought 9-28, 653F2 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707C1 Clinton visits Ireland/UK, reaffrms ‘spec’ ties 10-11—10-12, 704F2 Bosnia govt reforms talks mulled 10-21, 727G1 French Scientology branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787A3 Italy ‘03 kidnapping CIA agents convctns mulled 11-4, 766D1 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 788E1 UK girl Italian slaying trial appeals support cont 12-7, 854C3 Human Rights, Bureau of Annual rpt issued, scored 2-25—2-26, 180B1, A2 Iraqi Developments Hussein ex-palace security transferred 1-1, emb dedicated 1-5, 8F3 Pvt security contractors questnd 1-9, 23A3 Iran resistnc group attack plans rptd 1-20, 38F2 Blackwater ousted, security contractor proposals sought 1-23—1-29, 53B2–C2, E2 Hill named amb 2-27, 121D1 Iran exiled resistnc group relocatn set 3-27, 209B1 Diplomats security deal awarded 4-1, 208F3 Workers slain 4-20, 275A2 Clinton visits 4-24—4-26, 297A3 Iraq blasts troops role denied 4-25, Baghdad troops cont stay set 4-27, 296E3, 297C2 Barnich slain 5-25, 362D3 Blackwater security overpaymts seen 6-15, 433E3 Blast hits amb (Hill) convoy 7-12, 483D2 Maliki visits, Baghdad emb overstaffing rptd 7-21—7-22, 498D1, B2 Emb costs forecast issued, consulates opening nixed 8-25, 592E3 Xe diplomat transport deal extended 9-2, 586G3 Mortar shell attacks kill 3 9-15—9-16, 629B1 Ex-worker (Razo) indicted 10-19, 729D3 Emb constructn woes rptd 10-22, 739B1 Electns law passes parlt 11-8, Blackwater ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789C2, A3 Natl Museum artifacts virtual copies set 11-24, 838B1 Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942G2 Latin Developments Bolivia diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204F1 El Salvador’s Funes visits emb 3-16, 170B3 Mex trucking program mulled 3-20, Clinton visits 3-25—3-26, 185G3, 186E1 Mex antidrug aid delay rptd 4-5, 249C3 Clinton visits Haiti 4-16, 270F1 Cuba talks mulled 4-17, 271G2 Venez amb (Chaderton) named 4-18, 271C3–D3 Guatemala slain atty (Rosenberg) murder claims probe sought 5-11, 377D1 Cuba immigratn talks return sought, OKd 5-22—5-30, 376A2–D2 El Salvador pres (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394A3 Mex trucking program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 Honduras pres (Zelaya) ouster mulled 6-28, 438A2–B2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya)/Clinton mtg OKd, held 7-6—7-7, 460F1 Honduran de facto govt visas suspended 7-28, 508G1 Mex rights abuses rpt blocked, issued 8-5, 8-13, 556G1, B2–C2 Honduras coup response mulled 8-5—8-6, visas ltd 8-25, 575E3–F3 Colombia mil base use provisional deal set 8-18, 589C2 Clinton sees Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya)/aid halted, electn opposed 9-4, 623G1, C2–D2 Colombia rights record improvemts seen 9-11, 817G3 Venez arms buy mulled 9-14, 616D3 Cuba cont mail svc mulled, diplomatic talks rptd 9-17—9-29, 661G1, B2–C2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks held 9-27, 662C1

NYC orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, 723B2 Clinton calls Honduras ousted pres/de facto ldr 10-23; Shannon visits 10-28, return deal hailed 10-30, 762D3–E3 Nicaragua pres term limits nix scored 10-28; emb protested 10-29, Callahan flees fireworks attack 10-30, 784E3 Colombia mil base access deal signed 10-30, 817A3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return talks urged 11-6, Kelly visits 11-10, 784G2–A3 Cuba bloggers detentn, abuse scored 11-9, 928D1 Honduras pres electn backed 11-30, 834D2 Mex antidrug aid spending rptd 12-3, 928E3 Brazil boy return ordrd 12-22, son/dad reunited, fly to Fla 12-24, 926C2 Middle East Developments Israel/Hamas ceasefire proposal mulled 1-8, 2D3* Israel’s Livni visits DC 1-15, 14D1 UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69F2 Gaza antismuggling pact signed 1-16, 31D1 Iran talks mulled 1-27—2-10, 86A2, A3 Mitchell sees Israel’s Netanyahu 2-26, 123F2 Feltman sees Syria amb (Moustapha) 2-26, 123B3–D3 Clinton tours, Syria delegatn visit set 3-1—3-4, 123F1, B2, G2 Feltman, Shapiro visit Syria 3-7, 143B1 Holbrooke sees Iran’s Akhundzadeh 3-31, 195G1, B2 Iran A-program talks role set 4-8, 227C2 Mitchell visits Israel, Palestine 4-16, Iran A-program, peace talks linked 4-23, 313E1 Clinton tours Mideast 4-24—4-26, 297A3, E3 Iran rptr (Saberi) release hailed 5-11, 330F1 Clinton hosts Egypt’s Gheit, W Bank setlmlts halt urged 5-27, 380B3 W Bank setlmts secret deal denied 6-5, Mitchell visits 6-9—6-10, 403G2, B3 Mitchell visits Syria 6-13, amb restoratn set 6-23, 465D2 Indep Day celebratns Iran invitatns nixed 6-24, 423F1 Iran govt recognitn mulled 6-29, 439C1 Mitchell holds peace talks 6-30—7-28, 546B1, E2 Iran A-weapons dvpt mulled 7-22, 485E2–F2 US hikers held in Iran 7-31, 530D2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600B1 Mitchell sees Israel’s Netanyahu 8-26, 593C2 Iran A-program talks mulled 9-15, 614C1 Mitchell tour ends 9-18, 634A3 Iran A-program talks held, Burns sees Jalili 10-1, 651C1 Iran A-scientist disappearnc rptd 10-7, 688D1 Mitchell visits 10-8—10-11, 730D2 Iran blast scored, role denied 10-18, 729F1 Iran A-program curbs sought 10-21, 711A2 Iran uranium transfer proposals backed 10-30—11-2, 768G2–A3 Clinton sees Abbas/Netanyahu, peace talks return offer nixed 10-31—11-2, visits Egypt 11-3, 754E1 Gaza war crimes rpt oppositn res passes House 11-3, 790D2 Hikers Iran spy chrgs questnd 11-9, 857E3 Israeli/Palestinian talks urged, W Bank setlmt bldg halt backed 11-25, 838E2 Hikers Iran trial mulled 12-14, 876F3 Obituaries Isham, Heyward 6-18, 452E2 Lefever, Ernest W 7-29, 532G1 Wilkey, Malcolm R 8-15, 648F3 Wilson, William A 12-5, 956F3 Passports & Visas Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766G2 Personnel Issues Clinton at Natl Prayer Svc 1-21, 29C2 Freeman drops natl intell cncl chrmn nominatn 3-10, 144F2 Clinton at abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiling 4-28, 300E2 Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444C3 Clinton at Sen Kennedy funeral 8-29, 584B2 Campaign finance law argumts reheard by Sup Ct 9-9, 603B1 Politics Obama Hawaii birth records confrmd 7-27, 552F3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 Iran oppositn group terror listing cont 1-7—1-26, 101D1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19F1

1174 STATE— ‘War on terror’ term use dropped 3-30, 200F1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held, Zelikow memo found 5-13, 322A2, C2 UK intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, 544D2 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release opposed 8-18, 550B2 Suspects cont renditns rptd 8-24, 567F2 ‘Material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677A3 USS NY commissioned 11-7, 914D3 Cuba base detainees, Ill prison transfer set 12-15, 861C1 UN Policy & Developments Darfur civiln deaths scored 2-3, 116D1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt backed 3-4, 123D1 Human Rights Cncl seat sought 3-31, elected 5-12, 336E2 Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn veto mulled 6-15, 406B2 Iran/Syria/Cuba chaired mtgs ban nixed 7-1, 902B2 Iran A-program progess warned 9-9, 599G1 A-arms test ban mtg opens 9-24, 633B2 Sex violnc res passes Sec Cncl 9-30, 675E3 Gaza war crimes rpt res veto sought 10-20, 730D2

STATE Bank of Vietnam Dong devaluatn set, interest rate hiked 11-25, 935A1–B1

STATE, County & Municipal Employees, American Federation of (AFSCME) Health care reform coalitn exited 3-6, 146C1

STATE-Federal Relations—See STATES STATE Legislatures, National Conference of Welfare recipients rise seen 6-30, 479A2

STATE of Play (film) On top-grossing list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

STATE of the Union (TV show) Adm Mullen appears 3-1, 174E1 Cheney interviewed 3-15, 166C2 Jones interviewed 10-4, 688A2

STATE of War (book) CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, 473G3

STATES & States’ Rights Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Obama econ recovery plan quick action urged 1-8, 7B1 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 15A2 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41C2, E2 Econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, 74A1 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321G2 SC stimulus funds request ordrd 6-4, 424E2 Natl banks suits backed by Sup Ct 6-29, 444D2 $154 bln econ stimulus package passes House 12-16, 866G2 Crime & Law Enforcement NM death penalty ban passes legis, signed 2-11—3-18, 167G1, B2 Ill gun curbs case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G1–B2 Mex drug cartel alleged members held 10-21—10-22, 747D1 Energy Issues Venez low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5, 1-7, 22C2 Fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn urged, ordrd 1-21, 1-26, 47A2–E2 Environment & Pollution Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf hunting OKd 9-8, 655F1 Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2 Family Issues Vt gay marriage bill passes/vetoed, override OKd 3-23—4-7; NH bill passes House, DC recognitn backed 3-26, Iowa ban nixed/ruling backed, applicatns set 4-3—4-7, 216A1, F2, 217A1; table 216A2 DC gay marriage bill introduced, Calif recognitn bill signed 10-6—10-11, DC march held 10-11, 698E3–F3, 699C1, G1 Maine OKs gay marriage ban, Wash domestic partnership law upheld 11-3, 756G1–A2

FACTS Labor & Employment Jobless benefits extensn passes House 9-22, 676B2 Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846D3 Medicine & Health Care CHIP funding hike passes House 1-14, 19G1, 20A1 Med treatmt denial curbs ease suit filed 1-15, 64G1–C2 RI Medicaid reforms waiver takes effect 1-19, enrollmt hike rptd 1-22, 95G3–96E1 CHIP funding hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62E3 Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, Ore govt control bill introduced 3-11, 165A2–E2 GOP chair (Steele) sees abortn choice 3-12, 146B3 Conn universal health care bill vetoed, override passes legis 7-8, 7-20, 520G3 Mass universal health care suit filed 7-15, paymt chng backed 7-16, 520A3 Health care reform House bill backed 7-31, 520F1 Health insurnce ‘mandate’ bans seen 9-29, 656D1 Medicaid ‘09 enrollmt rise seen 9-30, 919C1 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, 676A3 Sen health care reform bill scored 10-11—10-12, merging talks held 10-14, 698D2, A3 Med marijuana prosecutns eased 10-19, 720C1 Swine flu emergency declared 10-23, 741C2 Sen health care reform pub option backed 10-26, 741E1 Health care reform bill passes House 11-7, 774A2 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-21, 809A2 Va pub smoking ban enacted 12-1, 919F1 Health care reform abortn deal set, bill passes Sen/measures questnd 12-18—12-30, 904G3, 905D2, E3, 906E1 Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33C1 Minority voting power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 167A1–B1 Tex’s Perry backs secessn right 4-15, 869E1 Voting chngs fed authrzn argumts heard 4-29, upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425B1–A2 Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified by Sup Ct 6-8, 390A1 White House counsel (Craig) sets resignatn 11-13, 797C3 School Issues Obama educ reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149C2 $4 bln schls program set 11-12, 869E2 Transportation Cell phone use, driving risk withheld data seen 7-21, texting ban bill introduced 7-29, 538A1, C1 Welfare & Social Services Welfare recipients rise seen 6-30, 479A2 Poverty rates rptd 9-29, 798E1

STATE Street Corp. Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3

STATHAM, Jason Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

STATOIL ASA Iraq oil field dvpt rights bought 12-12, 877D1 Iraq oil field dvpt deal signed 12-29, 943C1

STATON, Walt Sentncd 8-11, 588F1–G1

STAVRIDIS, Adm. James Named/sworn NATO cmdr, takes post 5-12—7-2, takes over Europn Cmnd 6-30, 534B1–C1

STAVSKY, Mikhail Seized 4-13, kidnapping rptd, confrmd 6-1—6-2, 378F3 Freed 6-18, 497A3

STAY (recording) Sugarland wins Grammys 2-8, 88B3

STAY With Me (by the Sea) (recording) Green/Legend win Grammy 2-8, 88A3

STEADY Rain, A (play) Opens in NYC 9-29, 792G1

STEEL, Danielle Honor Thyself on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1 Rogue on best-seller list 6-29, 452C1

STEEL, George Named NYC Opera dir 1-14, 40D2

STEEL & Iron Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 42E1 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58E2 US econ recovery plan debate opens, bill passes Sen 2-2—2-10, EU warning issued 2-3, 74D1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90D3 Bing wins Detroit mayoral primary electn 2-25, 131G1 Ukraine pres vote chngd, parlt electns mulled 4-1—4-4, 227F1 Venez natlzn ordrd 5-21, 395E1–F1 Rio Tinto/Chinalco investmt deal nixed, BHP Billiton jt venture set 6-5, Chinese workers held/spying chrgd, due process urged 7-5—7-16, 481F2, A3, D3 EU/US file China WTO complaint 6-23, 440D1 Chineses mine workers formally chrgd 8-11, 606A3–B3 China pipes duites set 9-10, 615A3 Australia interest rate hiked 10-6, 675B2 Exits port 10-29; arrives in NYC 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914D3 US sets Chinese oil pipe tariffs, protectnism claimed 11-5, 776D1 Dark matter detectn seen 12-17, 952G1 Egypt/Gaza border wall bldg mulled 12-21—12-22, 945F2 China sets EU fasteners import duties 12-23, 932E1 US/China oil pipe duties OKd 12-30, 932C1

STEELE, Michael Elected GOP chair 1-30, 62E1–F1, A2 Defends sister co paymt 2-8; Limbaugh scores remarks, issues apology 3-2, GQ interview published 3-12, 146F2–B3 On Sen Specter party switch 4-28, 285B1 On health care reform deficit hike 7-20, 487B3 On Carter racism remarks 9-16, 617D3 Scores Obama NY gov race interfernc 9-20, 639A3 On Obama Nobel Prize choice 10-9, 693F1* Questns Obama donors, White House access 10-28, 780A2 On health care reform Sen vote 12-21, 905G3

STEELWORKERS of America, United (USW) (AFL-CIO) Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93E1 China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615A2 Chinese steel pipe tariffs set, protectnism claimed 11-5, 776F1

STEENBURGEN, Mary Proposal on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452C2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 Did You Hear About the Morgans? on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

STEERS, Burr 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

STEGER, Charles Campus shooting chngd rpt issued 12-4, 921A1–B1

STEGGERT, Bobby Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

STEINBERG, Jim On Bosnia govt reforms talks 10-21, 727G1

STEINBRUECK, Peer Econ min (Glos) quits 2-8, 99B3 At G-20 finance mins mtg 3-13—3-14, 163A1 On Magna/Opel buy 5-30, 366F1, F2 At G-8 mtg 6-13, 417A3

STEINER, Achim Rptd UNEP exec dir 1-1, 3B2

STEINITZ, Yuval On Palestinian ‘11 indep state plan 8-25, 593A2

STEINKELLER, Bill Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

STEINKELLER, Cheri Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

STEINMEIER, Frank-Walter Visits Iraq 2-17, 101C3

ON FILE

Sets chancellor bid 4-19, 361A2 State electns held 8-30, parties support polled 9-9, 607G2–A3 Afghan troops exit mulled 9-5—9-9, 607G3 Debates Merkel 9-13, electns held 9-27, 664D3, 665F2

STEITZ, Thomas Wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1

STENSON, Henrik Wins Players Champ 5-10, 564B1

STEPFATHER, The (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

STEPHANOPOULOS, George Named ‘Good Morning Amer’ anchor 12-10, debuts 12-14, 880E1

STEPHENS, Simon Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

STERN (German magazine) Pol parties support polled 9-9, 607C3

STERN, A. M. Bush library design unveiled 11-18, 814F3

STERN, Andrew White House visits rptd 10-30, 780C1

STERN, David Sees Nets ownership chng vote 10-22, 771A3

STERN, Gary Sets retiremt 9-3, 740C1

STERN, Gerald Valentine wins Wallace Stevens Award 9-14, 953C1

STERN, Howard K. Chrgd, pleads not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920D1

STERN, Todd On climate treaty talks 12-9, 841G2, B3–C3

STERNHELL, Zeev Home blast suspect (Teitel) held, chrgd 11-1, 768F3

STEROIDS MLB’s Clemens perjury grand jury probe rptd 1-12, 87G3 MLB’s Bonds perjury trial evidnc block sought 1-15; documts unsealed 2-4, drug tests admissn mulled 2-5, 87C3 MLB dealer (Radomski) claims denied 1-20—1-21, Bases Loaded published 1-27, 88A1 Rodriguez ‘03 positive steroids test rptd/results mulled, rumors cited 2-7—2-9; admits use 2-9, reactns rptd 2-10, 87B1, D2, G2 Obama on MLB’s Rodriguez use 2-9, 77E3, 78D3, 79D2 MLB’s Bonds perjury trial evidnc OKd 2-19, 158A3 Red Sox clubhouse firings revealed 8-1, 531C1 MLB’s Ortiz on ‘03 positive test 8-8, 691B1

STEVENS, David Named HUD asst secy 3-23, 200A2

STEVENS, John Paul (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1975- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Backs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444E2 Campaign & Election Issues Vs minority voting power protectns limit 3-9, 167F1 Capital Punishment Orders Ga inmate (Davis) hearing 8-17, 553C2 Backs Ohio inmate (Getsy) stay 8-17, 553E2 On DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc 11-10, 780A3–B3 Censorship Issues Vs FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1–E1 Defendants’ Rights Curbs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266C1–D1 Backs suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374D1–E1 Backs convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426D1–E1 Backs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Upholds spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426D2 Vs student strip search 6-25, 425A3–B3 Environmental Issues Vs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307B2 Vs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Backs ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337G3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Judicial Issues Vs evidnc exclusionary rule limits 1-14, 21C1

2009 Index Upholds judge sentncg power 1-14, 21E1 Clarifies judges campaign contributns recusal rule 6-8, 390E1 Labor Issues Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Swears Biden 1-20, 25C2 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301D2 Clerks lack rptd 10-5, 678B1 Racial Bias Backs Conn firefighters test nix 6-29, 444B1 On KKK member (Seale) appeal 11-2, 886D3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3, 131A1 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443D1

STEVENS, Robert Animal abuse video case accepted by Sup Ct 4-20, 266A2

STEVENS, Ted (Theodore E.) (U.S. senator from Alaska, 1968-2009; Republican) Graft trial prosecutors contempt ordrd 2-13; chrgs dropped 4-1, ‘08 race mulled, spec electn urged 4-1—4-2, 199D1 Convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218F1 Rep Rangel admits assets disclosure failure 8-12, chngd filings rptd, com chair ouster urged 8-25—8-28, 620C1

STEVENS, Thomas Robert Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

STEVENS, William On Turkmen/AUCA recognitn nix 9-5, 625C3–D3

STEVENSON, Ray Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

STEWART, Kristen Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

STEWART, Lynne Convctn upheld 11-17, opens sentnc 11-19, 914C2

STEWART, Michael (Michael Rubin) (1924-87) Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

STEWART-Whyte, Donald Cleared 9-7, 608F1

STIGLITZ, Jospeh France’s Sarkozy backs GDP measuremt chng 9-14, 644G3

STILES, Julia Oleanna opens in NYC 10-11, 860F2

STILES, T. J. Wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

STILL, James Heavens Are Hung in Black opens in DC 2-8, 211D3

STILLER, Ben Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

STILLS, Stephen Martin found dead 2-1, 120E3

STILL Unforgettable (recording) Cole wins Grammy 2-8, 88F2

STOCKETT, Kathryn Help on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1; 8-31, 596A1; 9-28, 672A1; 11-2, 772A1; 12-21, 956A1

STOCK Exchange Executive Council Media Group (SEEC) Caijing staff, ed quit 10-12—11-9, 785G3

STOCK Exchange of Thailand Index drops 10-14—10-15, 726F3 King (Bhumibol) health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891D3

STOCKMAN, David Chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3

STOCKS, Bonds & Securities Appointments & Resignations SEC chair nominee (Schapiro) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17B2 SEC chair nominee (Schapiro) confrmd 1-22, 30D1 SEC enforcemt dir (Thomsen) quits 2-9, Khuzami named 2-19, 114C1 Budget & Spending Programs SEC ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6C1–D1 Crime & Stock Manipulation ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11F2

—STORMS 1175 Madoff jewelry mailings bared 1-5; signed checks find rptd, brother confessn claimed 1-8—1-10, indictmt deadline delayed, bail release upheld 1-9—1-14, 113D2, G2–A3, D3, 114F1 GMAC chair (Merkin) quits 1-9, 48F1 Collins ex-execs chrgs dropped 1-9, 506F3 Madoff fraud Cong hearings held, banks repaymt offrd 1-27—2-4; SEC partial setlmt OKd, indictmt delayed/wife withdrawal rptd 2-9—2-11, client investmts find nixed 2-20, 113E1–114A2 SFG exec (Prendergest-Holt) testifies/held, SEC probe rptd 2-10—2-27; hq raided, assets frozen/seized 2-17—2-25, complaint filed, chngd 2-17—2-27, 147C3, 148C1, E1, G2 WG Trading fraud suspects held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3 Qwest ex-CEO (Nacchio) witness testimony nix upheld 2-26; opens prison sentnc 4-14, appeal denied by Sup Ct 10-5, 677F3 Madoff grand jury right waived 3-6; hearing held, govt probe cont 3-10, pleads guilty, bail revoked/jailed 3-12, 141A1, C2; photo 141E1 Madoff assocs chrgd, Friehling surrenders/freed on bail 3-18—4-6, 245D1, G1 Natl Century ex-execs sentncd 3-27, 539B3 HFV mgr dir (Wissman) guilty plea rptd 4-15, 265B3 PEMGroup ex-head (Pang) chrgd, held 4-27—4-28, clients losses tallied 6-25, 506E3 Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723B1 Corp debt defrauder (Dreier) pleads guilty 5-11, sentncd 7-14, 506A3 SFG exec (Pendergest-Holt) indicted 5-12, 457C2 Madoff investor (Picower) claim filed, hiked 5-12—9-30, dies, suit cont 10-25, 800A2 Banco Santader, Madoff fraud scheme setlmt OKd 5-26, 442G2 Merck shareholders suit case accepted by Sup Ct 5-26, 677C3 Countrywide ex-execs chrgd 6-4, 388C2 SFG exec (Stanford) surrenders, indictmt unsealed/assets mulled 6-18—6-19, pleads not guilty, bail set/revoked 6-25—6-30, 457E1 Madoff ‘feeder’ fund, invester chrgd 6-22; assets seizure limit set, wife drops claim 6-226, sentncd 6-29, 441A3, 442A2 NYSE cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Madoff opens prison sentnc 7-14, 506A3 Madoff assoc (Friehling) pleads not guilty 7-17, 603D3 Madoff wife suit filed 7-29, 603F3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 523E1 Madoff assoc (DiPascali) pleads guilty, SEC partial setlmt OKd 8-11, 603A3 Brocade ex-CEO (Reyes) convctn nixed 8-18, retrial set 12-2, 910E2 Stanford CFO (Davis) pleads guilty, Stanford in hosp 8-27, 814G1 Madoff fraud scheme SEC probe missteps rptd 9-2—9-4, 603A2 Madoff ‘feeder fund’ Mass setlmt OKd 9-8, 603E3 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) in hosp, dies 9-11—9-12, suicide seen 9-21, 814F1 Leb financier (Ezzedine) chrgd 9-12, 877C3 Bear Stearns hedge fund ex-mgrs (Cioffi/Tannin) trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814B1 Insider trading suspects chrgd/held, bail set 10-16, Galleon investmts liquidated 10-21, 743D2 Madoff scheme losses tallied 10-28; Friehling setlmt OKd, pleads guilty 11-3, assocs chrgd, held 11-13, 800A1, E1–F1 Rep Waters bank aid role probe set 10-29, 779B3 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910A3 Insider trading suspects chrgd, plead guilty 11-5, 814D1 Ponzi scheme suspect (Rothstein) chrgd, pleads not guilty 12-1, 910F2 New Financial Century ex-execs chrgd 12-7, 910C2 Insider trading suspects (Rajaratnam/Chiesi) indicted, plead not guilty 12-15, 12-21, 910F1 Broadcam backdating chrgs nixed 12-15, 910A2

Dow Jones Industrial Average Jan ‘09 closings, vol table 1-2—1-30, 61A3 Index drops 1-30, 61B2 Feb ‘09 closings, vol table 2-2—2-27, 128A3 Index drops 2-10, 76B3 Index drops, rises 2-23—2-24, 110D2, 111B1 Index drops 3-2—3-3, 127C1 Mar ‘09 closings, vol table 3-2—3-31, 198A3 Index rises 3-18, 163E3; 3-23, 177A1, 178A1 Apr ‘09 closings, vol table 4-1—4-30, 305A1 Index rises 4-9, 241B3 Index drops 4-14, 240C3–D3; 4-20, 264E2, D3 May ‘09 closings, vol table 5-1—5-29, 372A1 Index rises 5-8, 318C2 Index drops 5-13, 323F3 GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365A2 Citigroup/GM ouster set, Cisco Systems/Travelers tapped 6-1, 372C2 Jun ‘09 closings, vol table 6-1—6-30, 441E3 Jul ‘09 closings, vol table 7-1—7-31, 522E3 Index drops 7-2, 456D1 Aug ‘09 closings, vol table 8-3—8-31, 586A2 Index rises 8-7, 535E1; 8-12, 535G2; 8-21, 572A1 Sep ‘09 closings, vol table 9-1—9-30, 657E1 Oct ‘09 closings, vol table 10-1—10-30, 759A3 Index rises, drops 10-14—10-16, 715B1, D1, F1 Nov ‘09 closings, vol table 11-2—11-30, 831E2 Index rises 11-9, 775E3, 776A1 Index drops 11-27, 829B2 Dec ‘09 closings, vol table 12-1—12-31, 911A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900D1, 910E3 Foreign Market Developments India index drops 1-7, 55E1 Japan index rises 1-27, 51B1 India index rises 5-18, 345A3 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404E3 India index drops 7-6, 513G3 Greece stock exchng blast hurts 1, trading opens 9-2, 591D1 Thai index drops 10-14—10-15, 726F3 Thai king (Bhumibol) health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891D3 Viet mkts drop 11-25, 935D1 Mkts drop, recover 11-26—12-2, 828C3, 829C1, C2 Greek mkts drop 12-7—12-8, 855F3 Government Securities Ireland credit watch set 1-9, Greece/Spain/Portugal ratings cut 1-14—1-21, 53E1 Fed, Treasury securities buy mulled 1-28, 45F2, A3 US’s Clinton visits China 2-21, 109G3 Bank of England bonds buy set 3-5, 155F2 China’s Wen questns US bonds 3-13, investmt hike touted 3-14, 187D1 Bank of Japan govt bonds buy hike set 3-18, 163G3 Fed OKs Treasury securities buy, 10-yr note drops 3-18, 163A3 US stimulus package scored 3-25, 188D3 Fed/Treasury securities buy tallied, program cont 4-28—4-29, 292A1 10-yr T-note yield rate rise rptd 6-3, 371A3 10-yr T-notes yield rises 6-5, 388F3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405E1 Fed T-securities buys cont 6-24, 427B3–C3 Fed lending programs cut 6-25, 457C1 China forgn reserves currency chng sought 6-26, 440D2 China/US talks held 7-27—7-28, 509E2 Fed, Treasury securities buy program end set 8-12, 535D2 China/IMF bonds buy rptd 9-2; Yuan bonds sale set 9-8, offrd 9-28, 683C2 India bank reserve levels hike set 10-27, 791D1 Greece 10-yr bonds rise 12-15, 875B3 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128A1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657A3

Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 900B1, A3, 910E3; table 900A1 Obituaries Bernstein, Peter L 6-5, 420A3 Dreyfus Jr, Jack J 3-27, 231D3 Wasserstein, Bruce J 10-14, 731F3 Offerings, Options & Buybacks Japan Post IPO halt sought 9-20, 703D3 GM/Chrysler govt loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758B2 GM IPO mulled 11-10, 798E3 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887G1 Regulatory Issues EU reforms urged 3-19—3-20, 188F2 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193D1–E1, B2 Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320C1 G-8 summit held 6-13, 405A1 Financial indus reforms proposed, Sen com hearing held 6-17—6-18, 407A1–408A2 Money-mkt security hike proposed 6-24, 716D2 ‘Naked’ short-selling ltd 7-28, 716C2 Uptick rule reinstatemt urged 8-17, 716A2 Credit-ratings agencies oversight measures, flash-orders ban proposed 9-17, 716E1–F1 SEC reforms proposed 9-29, 716A1, D1

STOCKTON, John Elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3

STOJBERG, Inger Named Denmark employmt min 4-7, 225F1

STOLEN Valor Act (2005) False mil decoratn claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2

STOLTENBERG, Jens (Norwegian premier, 2000-01/05- ) Parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd, on coalitn policy 9-15, 627F1–A2 Holds Obama news conf, hikes Afghan aid 12-10, 842D3, 844A1

STOLT Strength (Philippine chemical tanker) Somali pirates free 4-21, 269A3

STONE Angel, The (book/film) Burstyn wins Genie 4-4, 280D1

STONES into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Iraq (book) On best-seller list 12-21, 956B1

STONESTREET Stables Rachel Alexandra bought 5-6, 347E1

STONY Brook University (Stony Brook, NY) Early primate fossil, human link questnd 10-21, 952E2

STOOGES, The (music group) Asheton found dead 1-6, 24C3

STOOKEY, Paul Travers dies 9-16, 632F3

STORK Craft Manufacturing Inc. Baby cribs recalled 11-23, 850B1

STORM, Gale (Josephine Owaissa Cottle) (1922-2009) Dies 6-27, 484F3

STORMARE, Peter Hedda Gabler revival opens in NYC 1-25, 211D3

STORMFRONT (Web site) Pa gunman racist postings rptd 4-7, 246E3

STORMS, Adolf Chrgd 11-17, 854B1

STORMS & Floods Cyclones, Hurricanes & Typhoons ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10B2 Bush news conf held 1-12, gives farewell address 1-15, 18G3, 19C3 Austria RC auxiliary bp (Wagner) named 1-31, 76E1 La gov (Jindal) gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105C3, 108F3 FEMA dir (Fugate) named 3-4, 145A3 Haiti intl aid conf held 4-14, 270D1, A2 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh, emergency aid sought 5-25—5-31, 383A2 US/Cuba talks OKd 5-30, 376B2 Tropical storm Nangka hits PI, death toll rptd 6-24—6-26, 528G2 US surgeon gen (Benjamin) named 7-13, 476C1 Cuba Communist cong postponed 7-31, 527A1 Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan 8-7—8-9; rescue copter crash kills 3/troops deployed, govt response regretted 8-11—8-18, forgn aid mulled, death toll estimated 8-13—8-20, 559C3 Typhoon Etau hits Japan, kills 13 8-10, 560B1

1176 STORTINI— Dalai Lama visits Taiwan, prayer svc held 8-30—9-1; Liu, cabt quit 9-7, replacemts named, sworn 9-7—9-10, 625F1, B2 Storm Ketsana hits PI/Viet/Cambodia/Laos, calamity declared/aid set, 9-26—10-1; airport reopened, rainfall estimated 9-27—9-29, missing rptd 10-1, 664C1–D1, A2, E2 Myanmar’s Thein Sein addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652F2 Cuba/US diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661B2 PI calamity declaratn hiked/storm Ketsana death toll rises, displacemts rptd 10-2—10-3; Typhoon Parma hits 10-3, flood waters mulled, aid sought 10-6, 684F2, A3, C3, F3 PI flooding cont, dams released 10-8—10-10; evacuatns rptd, US troops redeploymt sought/aid mulled 10-9—10-13, displacemts/deaths tallied, typhoon warning issued 10-11—10-15, 704A1, D1 PI seeks Storm Ketsana/Typhoon Parma aid, antibiotics use rptd 10-18—10-19; deaths tallied 10-24, Lupit misses, Mirinae hits 10-24—10-31, 890E3 Storm Mirinae hits Viet, death toll rptd 11-2—11-6, 935E1 US/PI aid vowed 11-12, 819B2 ‘09 Atlantic hurricanes low rptd 11-30, ‘10 forecast set 12-9, 921E2 Taiwan local electns held 12-5, 891D2 Lightning Brazil/France flight disappears 5-31—6-1; wreckage/oil slick seen, terrorism nixed 6-2—6-4, meml held 6-3, 369G2–A3 Brazil/France missing flight victims search halted 6-26, crash impact mulled, black box hunt cont 7-2, 473F1 Rainstorms & Monsoons Sri Lanka rebel city mil capture rptd 1-2, 9E2 Fiji floods kill 11, aid set/hiked 1-8—1-16, 68F1 Indonesia ferry sinks, capt held 1-11—1-19, 84B2, D2 China drought emergency declared 2-5, 251F2 Daytona 500 results 2-15, 103F3 Pebble Beach Natl Pro-Am results 2-16, 139F1 Rainstorm hits Indonesia 3-26; dam collapse kills 100+, Yudhoyono visits/maintenance woes cited 3-27—3-28, victim compensatn, search cont 3-29—4-1, 272B1 Australia storms kill 2, emergencies declared 5-19—5-24, 413E2 Coca-Cola 600 delayed, results 5-24—5-25, 363C3 Brazil flooding deaths, damage rptd 5-26, 447A2 US climate chng effects rpt issued 6-16, 409C2 US Open results 6-22, 435E1 Wimbledon roof closed 6-29, 467F2 Sri Lanka refugee camp flooded 8-15, 578C3 Water monitoring benefits seen 8-23, 701G2 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627F2 US Open delayed 9-11, 631B1 Indonesia quakes hit, landslides halt aid 9-30—10-1, 662E2 US flood ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 715A1 India flooding kills 240, monsoon deaths tallied 10-1—10-5, 791B2 Italy mudslides kill 23+ 10-2, Berlusconi visits 10-4, 705F1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized 10-2, 801B1 Calif water system overhaul bills pass legis, signed 11-4—11-13, 887B2 El Salvador floods/mudslides kill 144+, emergency declared 11-7—11-10, 818C1 Saudi floods kill 150, probe ordrd/ofcls held 11-25—12-28, 944G1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B2 Leb ships sinkings kill 18+ 12-11—12-17, 943D2–E2 US flood insurnc ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886D2 Jamaica flight missed landing hurts 50+ 12-22, probe set 12-23, 930C1 Sandstorms Australia dust storm blankets southeastn coast, air pollutn levels rptd 9-23, water use curbs lifted 9-24, 682B3 Snowstorms Ky, Ark ice storms cut power 1-27—2-11; damage rptd 2-3—2-5, disasters declared 2-5—2-6, 133E2 Afghan pres electn delayed 1-29, 54F1 China drought emergency declared 2-5, 251F2

FACTS Afghan natl electns delay reaffrmd 3-4, 137D2 Afghan/US troops ‘09 casualties tallied 6-3, 381C3 Afghan pres electn runoff set 10-20, 710F2 Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937G3 Tidal Waves Tsunamis hit Japan 1-4, 153E3 Indonesia tsunami alert issued, nixed 9-2, 606D3 Quake/tsunami hit Samoa, Tonga 9-29; deaths/damage rptd, emergency declared 9-29—10-1, aid sent 9-30—10-1, 662G2, D3, G3, 663B1 Indonesia tsunami warning issued, lifted 9-30, 662B2 Samoa tsunami victims search ends 10-2; mass burial held 10-6, death toll hiked, Tonga aid set 10-7, 685A1 Tornadoes Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A3 Kan diseases research lab funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714C3

STORTINI, Zachery Among NHL penalty minutes ldrs 4-12, 299C3

STORY of Edgar Sawtelle, The (book) On best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

STOSUR, Samantha Loses French Open semi 6-4, 399B1 Loses Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2

STOTT, Nicole Joins intl space statn, conducts space walk 8-28—9-6, 615G3–616A1 Turns 47 11-19, returns to Earth 11-25—11-27, 902D1

STOVALL 3rd, Pfc. Carl Iraq pvt contractor slain 3-26, chrgd 4-5, 228E1

STRAIT, George Wins Grammy 2-8, 88E2, B3 Twang on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

STRANDLOF, Richard (Rick Duncan) Held 5-12, vets group disbanded 5-14, 412D1–E1 Held 10-8, 915A2

STRATEGIC Counsel Canadian parties support polled 10-5, 681C3

STRAUSS-Kahn, Dominique Rptd IMF dir 1-1, 3C1 At African econ crisis mtg 3-10—3-11, 169D3, G3 At IMF mtg 4-25—4-26, 283B2 Addresses Bilgi Univ, student tosses shoe 10-1; proposes global insurnc fund 10-2, IMF mtg held 10-6—10-7, 674C3, 675A1–B1 Sees ‘undervalued’ renminbi 10-2, 683A3

STRAW, Jack US terror suspects renditn aid admitted 2-26, 150E3 On Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, ofcl correspondnc leaked/issued 8-30—9-1, 583A2–C2 Sees Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release, Libya oil deal ties 9-5, 636C3

STREEP, Meryl Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2 Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2 Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2 It’s Complicated on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

STREET, Picabo Vonn clinches World Cup 3-11, 191A2

STREETCAR Named Desire, A (play) Revival opens in DC 10-31, 896D1

STREISAND, Barbra Love Is the Answer on best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

STRICK, Jeremy Named Nasher Ctr dir 1-30, 120D2

STRICKER, Steve Wins Crowne Plaza Invitatnl 5-31, 563G3 Wins John Deere Classic 7-12, 563D3 Wins Deutsche Bank Champ 9-7, 670E2

STRICKLAND, Ted (Ohio governor, 2007- ; Democrat) Nixes death row inmate (Getsy) clemency 8-14, 553G2 Delays inmates executns 9-15—10-5, issues stays 10-5, 719E2, B3–E3 Lethal injectn method chngd 11-13, 849E2, A3

STRIKE, Sylvaine District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

STRINDBERG, August (1849-1912) After Miss Julie opens in NYC 10-22, 895E3

STRINGER, C. Vivian Elected to HOF 4-6, 279A1 Inducted to HOF 9-11, 670A3

STRINGFIELD, Sherry Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

STROILOV, Pavel Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637E1

STROMAN, Susan Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

STRONACH, Frank Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347F2

STRONACH Stables Named ‘08 top racehorse owner 1-26, 119G3 Magna bankruptcy declared 3-5, 347F2

STRONG, Mark Sherlock Holmes on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2

STROUSE, Charles Bye Bye Birdie opens in NYC 10-15, 860C2

STROUT, Elizabeth Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279A2

STUART, Brad Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420B1

STUBBS, Rennae Loses Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2

STUCKOW, Col. Rick Cmnds Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3

STUDDS, Gerry (U.S. representative from Mass., Democrat, 1973-1997) Gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150D1–E1

STUDENT Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) Obama ‘10 budget proposals, shares drop 2-26, 125E3 Pvt student lenders ban passes House 9-17, 641C2

STUPAK, Bartholomew (Bart) T. (U.S. representative from Mich., 1993- ; Democrat) Seeks health insurnc cos info 8-17, 552G1

STURANOVIC, Zeljko (Montenegrin premier, 2006-08) Parlt electn set 1-27, vote held/backed, resutls rptd 3-29—3-30, 226D1

STURRIDGE, Tom Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

STV (Swedish TV station) RC bp (Williamson) 1-27, 43D2

SUAIB, Wahidah On legis electns vote 4-11, 295F1–G1

SUARA Keadilan (Malaysian newspaper) Press ban set, lifted 3-23, 4-3, 223B2

SUAREZ, Ernesto US diplomat (Martinez) ousted 3-9, exits 3-12, 204G1

SUAREZ Coppel, Juan Jose Named Pemex CEO 9-7, 605C1

SUBSTANCE Abuse—See specific substance (e.g., DRUGS) SUBURBS—See CITIES SUBWAYS—See MASS Transit SUDAN, Republic of the African Relations ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Chad border peacekeepers control transferred 3-15, Bashir visits Eritrea 3-23, 185E1–F1 Chad peace deal signed 5-3; attack claimed, rebels put down 5-5—5-7, border raids rptd 5-17, 376C1 Uganda rebels abuses rptd 12-21, 924B3–F3 Arab Relations Bashir Arab League summit trip opposed 3-22, visits Egypt 3-25, 185F1–G1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196D2 Bashir skips Islamic conf 11-9, 788C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu tours Africa 2-12—2-17, 170F1 China/Africa summit held 11-8, 788D3 Civil War ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Darfur UN peacekeepers equipmt delivery ordrd, troops hike set 1-5—1-19; Bashir ICC surrender urged 1-12, oppositn ldr (Turabi) held, rebels link chrgs seen 1-14—1-19, 116F1, A2

ON FILE

South peace deal anniv marked 1-9, disarmamt opens 2-10, 185G2–A3 Darfur violnc kills scores, Muhajiriya offensive mulled 1-24—2-18; govt, rebels peace talks set 2-10—2-17, Bashir ICC arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—2-23, 115E2, 116A1 South violnc erupts 2-24—3-13, 185E2 Bashir indicted, peace talks halted 3-4, protests held, ruling mulled 3-4—3-5, 122C1, E2, 122D3 Oppositn ldr (Turabi) freed 3-9; Darfur aid workers seized/released, Bashir rally held 3-11—3-14, peacekeeper slain, rebel/govt talks halted 3-17—3-20, 185A2–B2 Forgn airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 196F3 Darfur peace talks cont, civiln attack denied/rape rise seen 5-6—5-30; rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, hostages freed, towns recaptured/air strike kills 2 5-29—6-1, 375G2–376G1 Southn disarmamt campaign opens, violnc casualties rise seen/clash kills 40 5-27—6-12; govt role urged, arms distributn alleged/denied 6-4—6-16, peace summit held 6-23, 430D3, 431A1 Darfur civiln attacks seen, abuse monitoring cont 6-16—6-18; ‘genocide’ mulled 6-17—6-18, peace talks fail 6-19, 446D2, G2 Bashir, ICC warrant/AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, res oppositn rptd 7-3—7-7, 459A1 ‘Indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622B3 Obama scores Darfur conflict 7-11, 472C2 N/S border dipute ruling issued 7-22, 507B3 Darfur rebel factns peace talks role set 8-22, conflict end seen 8-26, 924E2–A3 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633B1 Darfur conflict res mulled, spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924A2 Bashir genocide role denied 11-8, 788F3 Electn workers attacks warned 11-9, southn villages violnc kills 47+ 11-16, 801A1, F1 Khartoum protests held 12-7—12-14; southn violnc mulled 12-12—2-14, security reform passes parlt 12-20, 924E1, G1 Environment & Pollution Climate treaty talks open 12-7—12-9, 841E2 European Relations Bashir Turkey visit mulled 11-6—11-8, 788D3–E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236D1 Kiir shuffles cabt 5-30, party split set 6-8, 431F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736D1 Bashir reelectn bid set 10-5, 802D1 Southn indep referendum mulled, parlt boycott opens/cont 10-16—11-17, voter registratn launched, extensn sought 11-1—11-16, 801A3, 802D1 Southn successn referendum deal set, laws pass parlt 12-13—12-29, Abyei vote law passes 12-30, 923F3 Monetary Issues Lloyds sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 1-9, 863D1 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Obituaries Nimeiry, Gafaar 5-20, 400C3 Salih, Tayeb 2-28, 176F3 Population Natl census issued 5-21, 430G3, 431A2 Sports World Cup qualifying match hosted, cops deployed 11-18, 859C1–D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US terrorist (Jassem) deported 2-26, arrives 3-3, 411A3 Venez’s Chavez hails Ramirez 11-20, 929B3 Trade, Aid & Investment Westn aid groups ousted, UN role cont 3-4, 122E2 Aid groups ouster scored 3-6—3-17; workers exit 3-8, order hiked, Darfur concerns rptd 3-16—3-20, 185A1, A2 Aid groups return sought 3-30, 196B3 Darfur aid groups readmitted 6-11, 446A2 Drought aid sought 9-29, 681B2 China loans offrd 11-8, 776C3 UN Policy & Developments Women’s agencies merger opposed 9-14, 902A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Mayardit visits 1-5, 116G1 Spec envoy (Gration) named 3-18, 185A2

2009 Index Policy shift set/mulled, sanctns cont 10-19—11-1, 761F3, 762A2

SUDANI, Abdul Falah alMin raid nets arrests 4-29; explanatn sought 5-2, resignatn urged 5-3, 311C3–D3 Brother held 5-10, 330D3 Submits resignatn/questnd, OKd 5-14—5-25, Maliki ofc takes over 5-27, 362B2–C2 Held 5-30, 379D3–G3, 380B1

SUDANI, Sabah alHeld 5-10, 330D3

SUFAAT, Yazid US terror detainees interrogatn techniques defended 8-24, 566B3

SUGARLAND (music group) Wins Grammys 2-8, 88B3

SUGDEN, Mollie (Mary Isobel) (1922-2009) Dies 7-1, 484G3

SUGIYAMA, Ai Loses Australian Open doubles 1-30, 71G1

SUH, Ndamukong 4th in Heisman voting 12-12, 879A3

SUHARTO (1921-2008) (Indonesian president, 1967-98) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3 Legis electns held 4-9, vote mulled 4-11—4-16, 295A1 Time allegatns appeal won 4-16, 935G3 Papua violnc kills 3 7-11—7-22, 542E2

SUICIDE Health & Safety Issues Wash assisted suicide authrzn opens 3-5, 184F2 UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, Swiss legis proposed 10-28, 937D2 Mont assisted suicide law upheld 12-31, 918B3 Statistics US Army ‘08 rise rptd 1-29, 244G3 Army ‘09 troops high seen 11-17, 915D1 Suicides & Attempts Ger billinaire (Merckle) 1-5, 8F1 Ala gunman (McLendon) 3-10, 149A1 Ger gunman (Kretschmer) 3-11, 154A3 AIG bonus paymts scored 3-16, 161B3 Poets’ son (Hughes) 3-16, 192B1 NYS immigrant ctr gunman (Wong) 4-3, 246C2 Freddie Mac CFO (Kellerman) 4-22, 264B2 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbery/slaying suspect (Markoff) watch ordrd 4-23, 429C2 Azerbaijan univ gunman (Gadirov) 4-30, 377G2 Qaeda operative (Libi) death rptd 5-10, 331B2 S Korea ex-pres (Roh) 5-23, 360A3 Cuba base detainee (Salih) 6-1, 374B2 Nicaraguan boxer (Arguello) 7-1, 468D2 MySpace suicide insults convctn nixed 7-2, 539B2 NFL ex-player (McNair) girlfriend 7-4, 467C3 UK conductor (Downes)/wife 7-10, 516G2 Va Tech shooter (Cho) records found/issued, probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, 921F1 NJ pol consultant (Shaw) 7-28, 504C1 Boxer Gatti’s death reclassified 7-30, 548F2 Pa gym shooter (Sodini) 8-4, 554A2 Coors ‘60 killer (Corbett) 8-24, 792A3 Census worker 9-12, 722F1 Pvt Equity Mgmt exec (Pang) 9-12, 814G1 Iraq/US mil base slayings troop (Russell) behavior rptd 10-16, 729G3 Iran prison MD (Pourandarjani) 11-10, 857C2 Soccer’s Enke 11-10, 949E3 Serbia roads toll embezzlers 11-11, 855A3 Chicago educ bd pres (Scott) 11-16, 816C3–D3* Russian rptr (Kotovskaya) 11-16, 893B1 Northn Mariana gunman (Li) 11-20, 888D2 Census worker death ruled suicide 11-24, 817E1 LA Times transsexual sportswriter (Penner) 11-27, 880E2 Cuba base suicides suit filed 12-4, probe questnd 12-7, 862B1 Mex drug cartel member 12-16, 928C2

SULEIMAN, Gen. Michel (Lebanese president, 2008- ) Hosts US’s Clinton 4-26, 297E3 Hosts US’s Biden 5-22, 380B2 Names premr (Hariri) 6-27, 450A2, G2 Hariri drops unity govt bid, steps down 9-10, 610D3–E3

—SUPREME 1177 Renames Hariri premr 9-16, unity govt set 11-9, 790C1–D1 Hariri unity govt OKd 12-10, 877A3

SULEMAN, Nadya Gives birth 1-26; fertility MD probe opens 2-6, on clinic 2-9, 114E3–G3

SULLENBERGER III, Chesley US Airways jet engine failure spurs river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33A2, D2

SULLENGER, Cheryl Kan abortn MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, suspect held, chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370C3

SULLIVAN, Gen. C. S. Named Afghan air strike probe ldr 9-8, 611G2

SULLIVAN, Dan (Anchorage, Alaska mayor, 2009- Republican) Vetoes gay bias ban 8-17, 553F3

SULLIVAN, Daniel Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3 Accent on Youth revival opens in NYC 4-29, 348E1 Night Watcher opens in NYC 10-6, 860F2

SULLIVAN, Judge Emmet Orders Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft trial prosecutors contempt 2-13, 199F1–A2 Nixes ex-Sen Stevens convctn, orders prosecutors probe 4-7, 218F1–B2, E2

SULLIVAN, Kathleen Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2

SULLIVAN, Mark Regrets White House crashing 11-27, testifies to House com 12-3, 829F3, 830G1

SULLIVAN, Judge Richard Denies Madoff assoc (DiPascali) bail 8-11, 603A3–B3

SULLIVAN, Steve Wins Masterson Trophy 6-18, 435B3

SULLIVAN Award Gymnast Johnson wins 4-15, 951B3

SULLIVAN v. Florida Accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 307B1

SULTAN, Abdul Samad On UK deported refugees entry nix 10-17, 730A1

SULTAN, Kamal Mustafa Pub Warehousing civil suit hiked 11-16, 805E1

SULTAN, Larry (Lawrence Allen) (1946-2009) Dies 12-13, 955E3

SULTAN bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, Prince (Saudi Arabia) On Yemeni rebel clashes, urges withdrawal 11-7—11-10, 805C2, E2

SULZBERGER Jr., Arthur Slim/NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1

SUMITOMO Mitsui Financial Group Citigroup unit bought 5-1, 319B1

SUMMER Bird (racehorse) Wins Belmont Stakes 6-6, 399A2 Wins Travers Stake 8-29, 807B3

SUMMERS, Lawrence H. On $700 bln financial indus funds use 1-15, 15D1 Banks natlzns nixed 1-28, 44C2 Auto indus task force set 2-16, 93E1 On AIG bonus paymts 3-15, 161D2 On Mar ‘09 jobless rate 4-3, 219E2 Financial disclosure form issued 4-3, 265G3–266A1 Sees econ ‘free fall’ end 4-9, 240D2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D3 On middle-class tax hike 8-2, 521C1–D1

SUMMERS, Tim TNK-BP deal ends 6-1, 379A1

SUMMERTIME (book) Coetzee on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, 692C1

SUMMITT, Pat Wins 1000th game, U Tenn deal extended 2-5, 159A3

SUMMUM Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3, G3

SUMNER, John District 9 on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

SUN (British newspaper) Tories backing set 9-30, 666B3 Dannatt interviewed 10-1, 673G2 Gen Dannatt interviewed 10-6, 685E3

SUNCOR Energy Inc. Petro-Canada buy set 2-23, 204C2

SUNDANCE Film Festival Held 1-15—1-25, awards presented 1-24, 104A2

SUNDAY Leader (Sri Lankan newspaper) Wickramatunga slain 1-8, 9G2

SUNDAY Telegraph (British newspaper) Terror suspects torture role denied 8-9, 544A2

SUNDAY Times (British newspaper) Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release ofcl correspondnc leaked 8-30, 583F1, A2 London mayor (Johnson) interviewed 10-4, 685F3

SUNDE, Peter Trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1, F1

SUNDLOF, Stephen Sets salmonella-linked peanut butter probe 1-30, 63E1

SUNG Kim N Korea talks sought 8-25, 568D3 Hosts N Korea’s Ri 10-24, 763G3

SUN Microsystems Inc. Oracle buy set, OKd 4-20—8-20, EU antitrust probe opens 9-3, 601G1

SUNSTEIN, Cass Named info/regulatory affairs ofc head 1-7, 6G2 Confrmd 9-10, 656E2

SUN-Times Media Group Inc. Bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393G1 Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted by Sup Ct 5-18, 677D3 Sale OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3

SUNTRUST Banks Inc. Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319F1

SUNUNU, John E. (U.S. senator from N.H., 2003- ; Republican) Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301E1

SUPARI, Siti Fadillah Estimates quake victims 10-1, 662D2

SUPER Bowl—See FOOTBALL SUPERCOMPUTERS—See COMPUTERS SUPERFERRY 9 (Philippine ferry) Sinking kills 9 9-6; passenger rescued 9-7, rpt finished 10-16, 891G1

SUPERFREAKONOMICS: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

SUPERFUND—See ENVIRONMENT SUPERIOR Donuts (play) Opens in NYC 10-1, 792A2

SUPERMARKETS & Chain Stores Chechen exile (Israilov) slain 1-13, 37A1 Kenya blaze kills 28 1-28, 203C2 Panama pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 309D1

SUPERWOMAN (recording) Keys wins Grammy 2-8, 88A3

SUPPLEMENTAL Security Income (SSI)—See SOCIAL Security SUPREME Court, U.S. Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Natl banks racial bias state probes case accepted 1-16, 49A1 Enriched uranium antidumping duties upheld 1-26, 48G2 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed 3-4, 130E2 Ore smoking death damages case denied 3-31, 246E1 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd 5-4, 307E1–F1 Indep acctg oversight bds case acepted 5-18, 677A3 Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted 5-18, 677D3 Merk shareholders suit case accepted 5-26, 677C3 Patent case accepted 6-1, 374E1 Chrysler/Fiat merger stayed, upheld 6-8—6-9, 385G1, C2 Natl banks state suits backed 6-29, 444D2 Qwest ex-exec (Nacchio) appeal denied 10-5, 677E3 Enron ex-exec (Skilling) appeal accepted 10-13, 718A1 Campaign & Election Issues Voting Rights Act case accepted 1-9, 33A1 Minority voting power protectns ltd 3-9, 166G3

States’ voting chngs fed authrzn argumts heard, upheld 4-29, 6-22, 425B1 Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified 6-8, 389G3 Campaign finance law rehearing ordrd 6-29, 444A3 Campaign finance law argumts reheard 9-9, 602G3 Capital Punishment Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd 6-1, 374G1 Ga inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553G1 Ohio inmate (Getsy) executn stay nixed 8-17, 553E2 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc appeal denied 11-10, 780A3–B3 War vet (Porter) appeal OKd 11-30, 867F2 Inmate (Cooper) appeal denied 11-30, 868C1 Ohio inmate (Biros) stay nixed 12-8, 849D3 Censorship Issues COPA nix appeal denied 1-21, 48B3 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld 2-25, 130C3 Animal abuse video case accepted 4-20, 266G1 FCC TV obscenity curbs upheld 4-28, 290G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd 5-4, 307B1 Defendants’ Rights ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G1 Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd 1-14, 20E3 Judge sentncg power upheld 1-14, 21C1 Cops drug dealer home entry upheld 1-21, 48E3 Mil detentn case govt brief deadline delay sought 1-22, 28D3 Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed 1-26, 48F2 Suspect atty request expiratn case accepted 1-26, 48G2 Terror suspect (Marri) mil detentn authrzn ruling nixed, case denied 3-6, 148C3 Warrantless car searches curbed 4-21, 266B1 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted 5-4, 306G3 Alleged Nazi guard (Demjanjuk) deportatn appeal denied 5-7, 352E2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed 5-18, 337A3 Hollinger ex-exec (Black) appeal accepted 5-18, 677D3 Suspect questng curbs eased 5-26, 373F3 Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd 6-1, 374G1 Convicts DNA testing right nixed 6-18, 425C3 Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed 6-25, 444E1 Atty request case argumts heard 10-5, 677D2 Enron ex-exec (Skilling) appeal accepted 10-13, 718A1 Cuba base detainees case accepted 10-20, 717D3 KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886C3 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd 11-30, 867F2 Education Issues Girl strip search case accepted 1-16, 48G3 Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed 1-21, 48D3 Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2 Spec ed reimbursemts upheld 6-22, 426F1 Student strip search opposed 6-25, 425D2 Environmental Issues EPA power plants mercury curbs appeal dropped 2-6, 94G2 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd 4-1, 307E1 Alaska lake waste dumping backed 6-22, 426F2 Family Issues Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed 5-18, 338A1 Federal Powers Iraq govt damages case accepted 1-9, 33E1 Mil detentn govt brief deadline delay sought 1-22, 31D3 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) suit nixed 5-18, 337A3 Terror ‘material support’ case accepted 9-30, 677F2 Cuba base detainees case accepted 10-20, 717D3 Health & Safety Issues Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed 3-4, 130E2 Ore smoking death damages case denied 3-31, 246E1 Merck shareholders suit case accepted 5-26, 677C3 Student strip search opposed 6-25, 425C2 Immigration Issues Ariz language barrier aid funding case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33E1 ID theft law curbed 5-4, 444E3

1178 SURAWI— Cuba base detainees case accepted 10-20, 717D3 Judicial Issues Evidnc exclusionary rule ltd 1-14, 20E3 Judge sentncg power upheld 1-14, 21C1 Sex harassmt schl suit pursuit backed 1-21, 48D3 Mil detentn govt brief deadline delay sought 1-22, 31D3 Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed 1-26, 48F2 Suspect atty request expiratn case accepted 1-26, 48G2 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed 3-4, 130E2 Ore smoking death damages case denied 3-31, 246E1 Warrantless car searches curbed 4-21, 266B1 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted 5-4, 306G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd 5-4, 307C1 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed 5-18, 337A3 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed 5-18, 338A1 Suspect questng curbs eased 5-26, 373F3 Merck shareholders suit case accepted 5-26, 677C3 Ohio mentally retarded death sentnc nix review ordrd 6-1, 374G1 Judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarified 6-8, 389G3 Student strip search opposed 6-25, 425C2 Lab analysts testimony requiremt backed 6-25, 444E1 Natl banks state suits backed 6-29, 444D2 Ga death row inmate (Davis) hearing ordrd 8-17, 553G1 Suspects atty request case argumts heard 10-5, 677D2 Enron ex-exec (Skilling) appeal accepted 10-13, 718A1 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F2 Labor Issues Conn firefighters civil svc exam bias case accepted 1-9, 33D1 Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed 1-26, 48B2 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed 5-18, 338A1 Conn firefighter test nix bias found 6-29, 443D2, F3, 444C1 Cop text messaging case accepted 12-14, 867F3 Membership Justices host Obama/Biden 1-14, 21F1 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D2 Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65D1 Ginsburg returns 2-25, 131B1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C3 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2 Justice Souter sets retiremt, indep hailed 5-1; replacemt mulled 5-3—5-4, Sen com GOP ranking member (Sessions) named 5-5, 301A1, D1, G2, 303A1; photo 301E1; key votes listed 302A1 Facts on Souter 5-1, 302F1 Sotomayor sees Obama, nominated 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349A1, D2, 350E1, C2; photo 349F1 Facts on Sotomayor 5-26, 350A1 Judge Sotomayor personal background remarks mulled 5-29—6-3; sees Sens/hurts ankle, com query submitted 6-2—6-8, confrmatn hearing date set 6-9, 389E2 Justice Souter honored 6-29, 443E1–F1 Sotomayor Sen com confrmatn hearings held, filibuster nixed/NRA oppositn set 7-13—7-16, 469A1–471C3; excerpts 470A1 Sotomayor nominatn backed by Sen com, confrmatn hearings scored 7-28, 503A1 Sotomayor confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519A3 Sotomayor sworn 8-8, White House event held 8-12, 536D2 O’Connor gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Sotomayor formally seated 9-8, 603F1 Ginsburg anemia treatmt rptd, in hosp/exits 9-24—9-25, 677G3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736C3 O’Connor sees ‘dismantled’ decisns 10-4, 678B1 Stevens clerks lack rptd 10-5, 678B1 Justice Ginsburg collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718C1 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907E3 Military Issues Fed lands cross display case accepted 2-23, 677D1 Terror suspect (Marri) detentn authrzn ruling nixed, case denied 3-6, 148C3

FACTS Gay troops policy case denied 6-8, 390F1 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed 11-30, 867G1 War vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd 11-30, 867F2 Patents & Copyrights Business methods patent case accepted 6-1, 374E1 Racial Bias Conn firefighters civil svc exam case accepted 1-9, 33D1 Natl banks bias state probes case accepted 1-16, 49A1 Minority voting power protectns ltd 3-9, 166G3 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn argumts heard, upheld 4-29, 6-22, 425B1 Conn firefighters test nix bias found 6-29, 443D2, F3, 444C1 KKK member (Seale) appeal denied 11-2, 886C3 Religious Issues Fed land cross display case accepted 2-23, 677D1 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld 2-25, 130C3 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted 12-7, 868A1 State & Local Rights ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11E2 Voting Rights Act case accepted 1-9, 33A1 Ariz language barrier aid funding case accepted 1-9, 33E1 Natl banks racial bias probes case accepted 1-16, 49A1 Utah pub park religious gift nix upheld 2-25, 130C3 Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed 3-4, 130E2 Minority voting power protectns ltd 3-9, 166G3 Indigenous Hawaiian land claims nixed 3-31, 246C1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn argumts heard, upheld 4-29, 6-22, 425B1 Spec ed reimbursemts upheld 6-22, 426F1 Natl banks state suits backed 6-29, 444D2 Ill curbs case accepted 9-30, 677G1 Tax Issues Enriched uranium antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 442C3; table 443A1 ‘09-10 term opens, key cases listed 10-5, 677B1–F3

SURAWI, Thayer Kadhim Abid Salman alCapture rptd 1-11, 23F2

SURAYEV, Maxim Joins intl space statn 9-30—10-2, 731C2

SURGEON General, U.S.—See PUBLIC Health Service, U.S. SURGERY—See MEDICINE SURINAME, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E1; 10-1, 736E1

SURIYA Ritrabue Bangkok club fire kills 65+ 1-1, held 1-5, 22D3

SURVIVOR (TV show) Probst wins Emmy 9-20, 648A1

SUSNO Duadji Quits 10-29, 786A2

SUSSKIND, David (1920-87) Melnick dies 10-13, 772F3

SUTCLIFFE, Rick Greinke wins AL Cy Young 11-17, 823C3

SUTHEP Thaugsuban Scores Thaksin remarks 3-30, offers talks, nixes new electns 4-1, 206E1, G1–A2

SUTHERLAND, Kiefer Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

SUTTER, Brent Quits 6-9, named Flames coach 6-23, 435F3 Devils replacemt (Lemaire) named 7-13, 731A1

SUTTER, Darryl Hires brother 5-22, 435F3

SUTTON, Crystal Lee (Crystal Lee Pulley) (1940-2009) Dies 9-11, 708G3

SUTTON, Julia Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

SUTTON, Percy Ellis (1920-2009) Dies 12-26, 955F3

SUU Kyi, Aung San prisoners freed 1-14—2-20, hosts UN’s Gambari 2-2, 187F3, 188D1–E1 ASEAN rights mtg held 2-28, 135E3 US’s Yettaw held/chrgd, house visit rptd 5-6—5-14; sees MD 5-8—5-11, arrested, chrgs scored 5-14, 327D2–C3 Cont detentn mulled, house arrest violatn conspiracy claimed 5-19—5-26; suspects plead not guilty, Thai protests held 5-22—5-24, testimony heard/witnesses blocked, trial scored 5-26—5-27, 359A3–360D2 Govt, detentn critics mtg held 6-5, oppositn members sentncd, held 6-16—8-7, 543E3–F3, 544A1 Witnesses block appeal filed/upheld, trial delayed 6-11—7-3; birthday marked 6-19, UN’s Gambari, Ban visit 6-26—7-4, 462D1, F1–A2, C2–D2, F2 Trial cont, ends 7-10—7-28; house arrest violatn mulled, security ofcrs demoted 7-28—8-7, verdict speculatn warning issued/delay set, testimony rptd 7-29—8-3, 543C2–A3, 544A1 ‘10 electns questnd, release urged 7-21—7-22, ASEAN ouster sought, nixed 7-22—7-23, 495D3, F3 Convctd/sentncd, appeal set 8-11—8-12, 543C1, F1–C2 Hosts US sen (Webb), sanctns lift mulled 8-15—8-17, house arrest violatatn suspect (Yettaw) freed/examined in Thai, returns to US 8-16—8-19, 558B3, D3, 559A1–B1 Convctn appeal argued/nixed, sentnc hiked 9-18—10-2, offers sanctns lift aid 9-25, sees health min 10-3, 683B3 US policy chng backed 9-24, 634C3–D3 Thein Sein sees UN’s Ban 9-28, 652G2 Sees Aung Kyi 10-3—10-7, diplomat mtgs OKd/held, party mtg seen 10-9, 725A3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748A2, C3 US diplomats visit mulled 10-31, mtg held 11-4, 763E2, G2 Sends Than Shwe letter 11-11; sees party ldrs 12-16, appeal hearing held 12-21, 936B1 Obama urges release 11-15, 795A2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843E3

SUWICHA Thakhor Pleads guilty, sentncd 4-3, 727C1

SUZMAN, Helen (Helen Gavronsky) (1917-2009) Dies 1-1, 9F3

SUZUKI, Ichiro Japan wins World Baseball Classic 3-23, 190B3–C3 AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 AL hits ldr, among batting ldrs 10-6, 690D2, F2

SVINDAL, Aksel Lund Clinches World Cup, sets race margin/pt total marks 3-14, 191D1

SVONAVEC Inc. Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65G1–B2

SWAGGA Like Us (recording) Jay-Z/TI/West/Lil Wayne win Grammy 2-8, 88D2, A3

SWALLOW, Emily Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

SWAN, Kim On Brown confidnc vote 6-20, 447E1

SWAN, Wayne Car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, oppositn role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447A3, D3, F3 Car dealer favoritism probe rpt issued 12-2, 851C3, D3, E3

SWANSON, Eric Cleared in Madoff fraud scheme probe 9-4, 603G2

SWANSON, Steven Flies Discovery missn, conducts spacewalks 3-15—3-28, 239C2–D2

SWANSON, Susan Marie Krommes wins Caldecott Medal 1-26, 56B1

SWARAJ, Sushma Named parlt house party ldr 12-18, 946B2

SWARUP, Vikas Beaufoy wins Oscar 2-22, 120C1

SWAYZE, Patrick (Wayne) (1952-2009) Dies 9-14, 632E3

ON FILE

SWAZILAND, Kingdom of African Relations Madagascar’s Ravalomanana arrival rptd 3-24, 184F3 SADC spec summit held 11-4—11-5, 783B2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E1; 10-1, 736E1

SWEDAN, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Slain 1-1, IDd 1-8—1-10, 38C3

SWEDEN, Kingdom of African Relations Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai tours US/Eur 6-7—6-25, 588A3 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing trial held 9-7, 623A1 Arts & Culture Catcher in the Rye ‘sequel’ US publicatn nixed 7-1, 484B3 Awards & Honors Lindgren Award winner named 3-24, 255E3 Nobel Prizes awarded 10-5—10-12, 693A1, D2, B3, 694B1, F1, B2 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) Serb ex-pres (Plavsic) release OKd 9-15, 628A2 Govt reforms talks mulled 10-21, 727G1 Serb ex-pres (Plavsic) freed 10-27, 749B2 CIS Relations Azerbaijan bloggers arrests questnd 7-20, 544D1 Crime & Civil Disorders Internet file-sharing co founders trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284B1 File-sharing ban opens 4-1, 284F1–G1 Defense & Disarmament Issues Venez/FARC arms link confrmd 7-26—7-28, 526B2–D2 Venez/Colombia amb returns 8-8, army patrol border crossing alleged 8-9, 541F3 Economy & Labor Saab bankruptcy declared 2-20, 367C1 Saab govt bailout nixed 11-24, 822F3 Environment & Pollution French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 881D3 European Relations France auto indus govt loans opposed 2-9, 84A3–B3 Croatia drops Adriatic waters claim 9-11, 628C2 Czech’s Klaus seeks EU treaty exemptns 10-8, 685B2 Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 837B1 Serbia submits EU entry bid 12-22, 939B2 Family Issues Gay marriage bill passes parlt 4-1, law enacted 5-1, 939E2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Foyer visits US rptrs held in N Korea 3-30, 5-15, 360F2 US rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396B1–C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E1; 10-1, 736F1 Housing Golfer Woods wife home buy rptd 12-1, 879E1 Kosovo Conflict Local electn runoffs hailed 12-15, 938A2 Medicine & Health Care Prostate cancer conf hosted 3-18, 191B2 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Saab buyout talks seen 6-2, 367C1 Koenigsegg/Saab buy OKd 6-16, 417A2 Geely/Volvo buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2 Koenigsegg/Saab buyout offer dropped 11-24, 822C3 Beijing Auto sets, OKs Saab tech/designs buy 12-14—12-23; Spyker bid nixed, chngd 12-18—12-20, deadline extended 12-30, 902G2, C3 Obituaries Johansson, Ingemar 1-30, 88G3 Soderstorm, Elisabeth 11-20, 896E3 Press & Broadcasting Israeli troops, Palestinians organ theft alleged 8-17; Reinfeldt nixes comments 8-22, claims scored 8-23, 593D2–F2 Israeli/Palestinians ‘90s organ theft confrmd 12-18, 945A3 Space & Space Flights Fuglesang flies Discovery missn 8-28—9-11, 615G3

2009 Index Sports Alpine skiing races results 3-11—3-14, 191E1, G1 NHL game hosted 10-2, 730B3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US training camp founder (Kassir) sentncd 9-15, 719C2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58G2 Transportation Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) radio contact rptd 7-31, 551C1

SWEDISH Committee for Afghanistan US troops, Afghan hosp raid alleged 9-7, 612A1

SWEENEY, John E. Rep Gillibrand named to Sen 1-23, 46G2

SWENSON, Will Hair revival opens in NYC 3-31, 256B1

SWIFT, Taylor ‘Love Story’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 Fearless on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1; 3-28, 212D1 ‘You Belong With Me’ on best-seller list 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1 West interrupts speech 9-13, apology issued 9-14, 632C2 Fearless: Platinum Edition on best-seller list 11-28, 840E1; 12-19, 956D1

SWIMMING & Diving Meets World Champ 7-26—8-2, 547G2 Olympics ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C2 Records & Achievements Biedermann sets 400-m/200-m freestyles marks 7-26—7-28, 547B3–C3 Rules & Regulations Swimsuits ban mulled, set 7-28—7-31, 547A3, C3–D3 French town Muslim swimsuits ban rptd, Italy town fines set 8-12—8-19, UK spec swimming sessns rptd 8-15, 561E1 Social Issues Pa daycamp visits swim club 6-29, race bias probes open 7-9—7-17, 492D1 Pa swim club bias found, fine set 12-22, 916G2 Substance Abuse Issues Phelps pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended, Kellogg endorsemt dropped 2-5, 71B2 Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159E3 Torres MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951F3

SWIMSUIT (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

SWINDLEHURST, Jason (d. 2009) Remains returned, IDd 6-20—6-21, 433C3 Iraq hostage (Moore) freed 12-30, 941D3

SWINGLEY, Doug Mackey wins 3d straight Iditarod 3-18, 211A2

SWISS National Bank US$ loans halted 9-24, 651B3

SWISS Reinsurance Co. Berkshire sets stake buy 2-5, 100E2

SWITZERLAND (Swiss Confederation) African Relations Mali tourist held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, freed 4-22, 326F1 Kenya unity govt reforms conf held 3-30—3-31, 202A3, G3 Arts & Culture Zumthor wins Pritzker 4-13, 300F1 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations PI aid worker seized, call Red Cross ofc 1-15—3-19; mil offensive kills 10+, scored 3-16—3-24, hostage threat rptd 3-25, 205F2, A3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi birthday marked 6-19, 462F2 Pak pols amnesty nixed 12-16, 878D3 CIS Relations Georgia/Russia war rpt issued 9-30, 665G3 Crime & Civil Disorders Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, E2, C3 Film dir (Polanski) appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2–C2 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855A3 Defense & Disarmament Issues Intl arms smuggling suspect (Tinner) bust aid claimed 1-22, brother freed 1-23, 75B3–C3

—TABLES 1179 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Prescribed heroin addictn treatmt efficacy found 8-19, 691G3 Economy & Labor Nestle US cookie dough recalled 6-19; linked E Coli cases tallied 6-22, positive test rptd 6-29, 524F2 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought 11-25, 829E1 Energy Geothermal drilling halted 12-10, designer (Haering) trial opens, cleared 12-15—12-21, 939G2 Environment & Pollution Atmospheric CO2 ‘inevitable’ rise seen 1-27, 124C1 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 European Relations Armenia/Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd 4-22, 296A2 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties seen 8-31, 591F3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707A1–B1 Italy’s Berlusconi seeks treatmt 12-16, 874C3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US’s Holbrooke sees Iran’s Akhundzadeh 3-31, 195C2 US hikers held in Iran 7-31, 530D2 Iran A-program talks offrd, proposals mulled 9-7—9-10, 599G2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F1; 10-1, 736F1 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu cases confrmd 4-30, 281D1, 282A2 Swine flu cases tallied 5-7, 303E1 UK conductor/wife kill selves 7-10, 516G2 Swine flu vaccine productn woes rptd 7-16, 502F1 Novartis CEO (Vasella) vacatn home burned, attacks scored 8-3—8-11, 609D2, G2 Novartis swine flu vaccine OKd by FDA 9-16, donatns set 9-17, 696G3, 697F1 UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, legis proposed 10-28, 937F2–A3 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Roche/Genentech offer hiked 1-30, deal OKd 3-12, 151A1 Berkshire/Swiss Re stake buy set 2-5, 100E2 UBS govt stake sold 8-20, 560G3 Middle East Relations Iran amb summoned 6-17, 402D3 Iran A-program talks hosted 10-1, 650C3, 651D1 Monetary Issues Franc Jan ‘09 rate 1-2, 6E3 Franc Feb ‘09 rate 2-2, 61E1 UBS ‘08 loss rptd 2-10; US tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100A2 Franc Mar ‘09 rate 3-2, 128B1 Bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-13, pressure cont 3-16, 163G1, F2–G2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 Franc Apr ‘09 rate 4-2, 198B1 Franc May ‘09 rate 5-1, 304B3 Franc Jun ‘09 rate 6-1, 371E3 Franc Jul ‘09 rate 7-1, 442E1 Congo’s Mobutu assets release ordrd 7-14, 922G1 WTC site bldg fire check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A2 Franc Aug ‘09 rate 8-3, 522B1 UBS tax evasn data handover deal set 8-19, 560B3 Franc Sep ‘09 rate 9-1, 586E1 Bank of England US$ loans halted 9-24, 651B3 Franc Oct ‘09 rate 10-1, 657B3 Franc Nov ‘09 rate 11-2, 759B1 Franc Dec ‘09 rate 12-1, 831B1 Credit Suisse sanctns violatn setlmt OKd 12-16, 863B1 Franc ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Religious Issues Mosque minarets banned, referendum mulled 11-29—11-30, 836E2, C3, 837A1 Science & Technology Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824F1 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2 Sports Men’s Hockey World Champs results 5-18, 670B3 Soccer match-fixing suspects held, intl scheme rptd 11-19—11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2–G2 ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858A3

Klitschko/Johnson bout held 12-12, 895F2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum hosted 1-28—2-1, 58D1, D2, A3 UN Policy & Developments Racism conf hosted 4-20, 261G3 WHO emergency mtg hosted 6-11, 386F2 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614F2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 3-6, 142C1, D2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees entry mulled 7-29, 506F1 Cuba base detainee transfer OKd 12-16, 861G2

SWITZERLAND (Swiss Republic) Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US hikers Iran spy chrgs rptd 11-9, 857F3

SYDNEY Stock Exchange—See AUSTRALIAN Stock Exchange SYED, Abdur Rehman Hashim Chrgd 12-7, 845D2

SYKORA, Petr Among NHL game-winning goals ldrs 4-12, 299B3

SYLLA, Ousmane Freed 4-2, 660G3

SYMONDS, Pat Piquet fired, Renault race-fixing probe opens 8-3—8-30; criminal proceedings open, immunity offrd 9-11, quits, banned 9-16—9-21, 646A3–B3, D3, F3–G3

SYNAGOGUES Venez sites attacked 1-31—2-26, cops chrgd 3-26, 270A3 Tunisia site ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154B2 NYC terror suspects held 5-20, 375A1 W Bank mosque burned 12-11, Holocaust blazes compared 12-14, 945E1

SYNAGRO Technologies Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) pleads guilty 6-26, quits 6-29, 553C1–D1

SYRACUSE (N.Y.) University

Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, gens freed 4-29, 312C2–E2 Leb parlt electns held 6-7, Hezbollah concedes, results rptd 6-8, 397E3, 398A1 Israel seizes ship (Francop), arms found 11-4; Iran role rptd 11-11, US smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878A2–C2 Unity govt set 11-9, 790G1 Hariri visits 12-19—12-20, 945D3 Obituaries Hafez, Amin el- 12-17, 955A2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Yemen Al Qaeda members sentncd 7-13, 646F1 Honduras narco-terror suspect (Yousef) transferred to US, chrgd 8-19, 816C1 UN Policy & Developments Chaired mtgs, US role ban nixed 7-1, 902B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16A1 Moustapaha sees envoy (Feltman) 2-26, delegatn visit set 3-3, 123F1, E2 Feltman, Shapiro visit 3-7, 143B1 Mitchell visits 6-13, amb restoratn set 6-23, 465D2 Mekdad visits US 9-28, 708A1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainees Portugal transfer OKd 8-28, 718B2

SY Savane, Souleymane Groundswell opens in NYC 5-18, 348A2

SYSOYEV, Daniil Slain 11-19, religious motive seen, Muslim christenings rptd 11-20, 822C1–E1

SZAGGARS, Sibylle Weds Redford 7-11, 516E1

SZEJNFELD, Adam Quits 10-7, 705B2

SZOLKOWY, Robin Wins world champs 3-25, 211F2

SZOSTAK, Jack W. Wins Nobel 10-5, 693C3, 694A1–B1

SZWEDOWSKI, Piotr On WWII mass grave find 1-7, 137A1

Men’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 230B3 Men’s lacrosse title won 5-25, 399A3 Flynn in NBA draft 6-25, 451B1, E1

SYRIA (Syrian Arab Republic) Accidents & Disasters Leb ship sinking kills 12+, survivors rescued 12-17—12-20, 943E2 Arab Relations Palestinian party conf held 8-4—8-11, 545F3 Saudi king visits 10-7—10-8, 707C3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Ct abuses alleged 2-24, 465G2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Myanmar/N Korea mil ties concern seen 7-22, 495D3 Hijacked ship (Arctic Sea) arms shipmt denied, Russian probe ends 9-8—9-16, 616E1 Iran arms embargo violatns seen 12-10, 876E3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Leb/Israeli spy suspects held, chrgd 2-16—5-4, 312F2 European Relations Turkey ties cncl mtg held 10-13, 696A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits Leb 4-26, 297A3, 298A1 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236G1; 10-1, 736G1 Iraqi Conflict US sanctns cont, insurgents border crossing rptd/halt urged 5-8—5-11, 344C3 Maliki visits 8-19, 562B3 Forgn/finance min bldgs attack confessn tape aired 8-23, suspects handover sought 8-25, 592G2–A3 Border troops deployed 9-4, 610F2 Blast destroys bridge 10-17, 729G2 Israeli Relations—See ARAB-Israeli Developments; MIDDLE East Peace Talks Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez visits 9-3, 616F2, D3 Argentina ex-pres (Menem) chrgd 10-1, 925A1 Lebanese Relations Amb apptmts OKd, embassy opens 1-27—3-24; Hairi slaying probe suspects freed 2-25, UN tribunal opens 3-1, 211A1–E1

T T. A. (Oregon student) Spec ed reimbursemts upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 426B2–C2

TABATABEE, Shahab Tehran prayer ceremony raided, oppositn members held 10-23, 768E1

TABBOU, Karim On pres electn 4-10, 248D1

TABLES & Graphs Budget US ‘10 fed outlays 5-7, 320E3, 321A1 Dow Jones Industrial Average Jan ‘09 closings, vol table 1-2—1-30, 61A3 Feb ‘09 closings, vol table 2-2—2-27, 128A3 Mar ‘09 closings, vol table 3-2—3-31, 198A3 Apr ‘09 closings, vol table 4-1—4-30, 305A1 May ‘09 closings, vol table 5-1—5-29, 372A1 Jun ‘09 closings, vol table 6-1—6-30, 441E3 Jul ‘09 closings, vol table 7-1—7-31, 522E3 Aug ‘09 closings, vol table 8-3—8-31, 586A2 Sep ‘09 closings, vol table 9-1—9-30, 657E1 Oct ‘09 closings, vol table 10-1—10-30, 759A3 Nov ‘09 closings, vol table 11-2—11-30, 831E2 Dec ‘09 closings, vol table 12-1—12-31, 911A1 ‘09 yr-end 12-31, 900A1 Environmental Issues Global surface temperature 12-18, 881E1 CO2 emissns 12-18, 883A1 Family Issues State gay marriage laws 4-7, 216A2 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128A1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371D3

1180 TACCONE— Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900A3, 910E3 Politics & Government (non-U.S.) India parlt electns 4-16—5-13, 345E2 Japan parlt electn 8-30, 581F1 Ger natl electns 9-27, 665A1 Sports NCAA coll basketball tourns 4-6—4-7, 230A1, 231A1 NBA ‘08-09 final standings/stat ldrs 4-15, 278A2, A3 MLB 1st 1/2 standings 7-14, 484A1

TACCONE, Tony Wishful Drinking opens in NYC 10-4, 860G2

TACI, Rezart Rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, bodyguards held, detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2–B3

TADIC, Boris (Serbian president, 2004- ) Hosts US’s Biden 5-20, 378F2–G2 Vows unbiased protectns 9-18, 687E3 At slain soccer fan meml 10-1, 687B3 Submits EU entry bid 12-22, 939B2–C2

TADIK, Mario Held 4-16, Bolivia’s Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294B1

TAEB, Hossein On militia imposters 6-30, 439D2

TAEKWANG Industrial Co. Park, ex-pres (Roh) wife paymts admitted 4-7, 360G3

TAE Kyun Kim Named to World Baseball Classic all-tourn team 3-23, 191B1

TAGAYEV, Akhmed Slain 5-25, 378D3

TAG Heuer Golfer Woods image use halted 12-18, 949E2

TAGLIAVINJI, Heidi Issues Georgia/Russia war rpt 9-30, 665G3

TAGME Na Waie, Gen. Batista (1949-2009) Survives attack 1-5, slain 3-1, 133A3, D3–134A1 Pres electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458C3

TAIE, Spec. Ahmed alIraq/US detainees release mulled 8-17, 563F1

TAIFI, Zabi, ulArrest rptd 1-21, 38F3

TAILSPIN (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532C1

TAIWAN (Republic of China) Accidents & Disasters Typhoon Morakot hits, rescue copter crash kills 3 8-7—8-11; troops deployed, govt response regretted 8-13—8-18, death toll estimated 8-20, 559C3 Dalai Lama visits, typhoon victims prayer svc held 8-30—9-1, 625B2 Arts & Culture China art loan set 2-16, 310B1 Beijing Relations—See CHINA—Taiwan Relations Corruption & Ethics Issues Chen pleads not guilty, opens hunger strike/claims pol motivatn 1-19—2-23, kin pleads guilty 1-21—2-10, 135A1 Chen/kin convctd, sentncd 9-2—9-11, 625D2 Defense & Disarmament Issues US arms sale seen, plan cont 12-9—12-15, 891G2 Economy & Labor ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-18, 135G1 ‘09 1st 1/4 GDP rptd 5-21, 416B1 ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 8-21, 891B3 ‘09 3d 1/4 GDP rptd 11-26, 891B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11D1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232G3 Ma inauguratn anniv marked 5-20, 415E3 Ma elected party ldr 7-26, 511A2 Forgn v min quits 8-18, defns min, cabt secy resignatns offrd 8-19, 559F3, 560A1 Liu, cabt quit 9-7, replacemts named, sworn 9-7—9-10, 625F1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 732G3 Local electns held 12-5, 891B2

FACTS Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures China Mobile/FarEasTone stake buy set 4-29, 310A1 Nan Shan sale set 10-13, 715D3 Monetary Issues Interest rate cut 2-18, 135G1–A2 T$ ‘09 yr-end rate 12-31, 900C3 Sports World Baseball Classic results 3-5—3-23, 190E3 Taoyuan loses Little League World Series 8-30, 612D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Dec ‘08 exports drop rptd 1-7, 135A2 US Nov ‘08 trade gap 1-13, 15B3 US Dec ‘08 trade gap 2-11, 112B1 US Jan ‘09 trade gap 3-13, 164B2 US Feb ‘09 trade gap 4-9, 240B2 US Mar ‘09 trade gap 5-12, 323E3 US Apr ‘09 trade gap 6-10, 389B2 US May ‘09 trade gap 7-10, 477B2 US Jun ‘09 trade gap 8-12, 535B3 Typhoon Morakot aid sought, block mulled 8-13—8-14, 559E3–F3 US Jul ‘09 trade gap 9-10, 619G1 US Aug ‘09 trade gap 10-9, 699G3 US Sep ‘09 trade gap 11-13, 798B2 US Oct ‘09 trade gap 12-10, 866B1 UN Policy & Developments WHO observer status block dropped 4-29, 309C3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section PEMGroup clients losses tallied 6-25, 506E3

TAJBAKHSH, Tian Sentncd 10-18, 768B1–C1

TAJIKISTAN, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Afghan border violnc kills 5 3-22, 195A3 CIS Relations Uzbek border clashes erupt 5-26, 663E3 Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Summit skipped 10-8—10-9, 777D1 Uzbek parlt electns held 12-27, 935A1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Natl bank funds misuse rptd 4-13, 272C2 Crime & Civil Disorders Kyrgyz border clashes erupt 10-15; shootout kills 4, suspects held 10-18—10-19, militants sentncd 10-19, 764F3, 765C1 Defense & Disarmament Issues CSTO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2 CSTO rapid reactn force, Uzbek oppositn rptd 6-23; Kazakh mil exercises held 10-2—10-16, Belarus signs treaty 10-20, 904F1 Energy Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935C2–E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236A2; 10-1, 736A2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Afghan refugees exit rise seen 10-23, 765C1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations ‘90s attackers sentncd 8-31, 765D1 Trade, Aid & Investment SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2, A3 Russia/Kazakh/Belarus customs union deal signed 11-27, 863F1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Gen Petraeus visits 10-26, 765B1

TAKAHASHI, Masaaki Slaying seaman convctd, sentncd 7-30, 558A1

TAKEN (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

TAKHI, Yasser Mohammed Hamad Held 8-3, 530C1

TAKING of Pelham 123, The (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

TALABANI, Jalal (Iraqi president, 2005- ) Hosts US sens (Biden/Graham) 1-12, 16C2 Hosts France’s Sarkozy 2-10, 101F2 Nixes reelectn bid 3-13, 175B1 Hosts Turkey’s Gul 3-23, 189F2–G2 Hosts Abbas 4-5, 228G1 US’s Biden mtg nixed 7-4, 465A1 Hosts US’s Biden 9-15—9-17, 629A1 Parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729B2 Obama calls 10-25, electns law deal seen 10-26, 738D2, C3 Hashemi vetoes electn law 11-18, 805B1 Hosts US’s Gates 12-10, 856E2

TALANSKY, Morris Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593C1–D1 Israel’s Olmert graft trial opens 9-25, 689F1, A2

TALBOT, Maxime Penguins win Stanley Cup 6-12, 420D1–E1, A2–B2

TALESE, Gay Wins career Polk Award 2-16, 139C3

TALLEY, Nedra Cousin found dead 2-11, 120A3

TALMO, Joseph Calif Flag wins Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint 11-7, 807E2

TALYSHI Sado (defunct Azerbaijan newspaper) Mammedov dies 8-17, indep probe sought 8-18, 607D1

TAMADDON, Morteza On electn protests 7-9, 464B1

TAMER Institute (Ramallah) Lindgren Award won 3-24, 255D3–E3

TAMILNET.com (Web site) Prabhakaran death confrmd 5-24, 363F1–G1

TAMILS—See SRI Lanka TAMIMI, Shiek Taysir At Pope Benedict interfaith mtg 5-11, 335G2–A3

TAN, Abdusakur On militants hostage threat 3-25, 205B3 Orders hostage rescue operatn 4-22, 415A3

TANCREDO, Tom Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearing date set 6-9, 389C3

TANDAN, Loveleen Slumdog Millionaire on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2; 2-20—2-26, 140C2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

TANDJA, Mamadou (Niger president, 1999- ) Pres term limit hike referendum nixed, dissolves parlt 5-25—6-12, 574C3–D3 Orders emergency rule, ousts Const Ct 6-26—6-29; pres term limit hike referendum held/backed, results rptd 8-4—8-14, sets parlt vote 8-19, 574A3–F3 Parlt electns held, boycotted 10-20, results rptd 10-24, 761A3–B3, D3

TANIGAKI, Sadakazu Elected party ldr 9-28, 703F3–G3

TANIT (yacht) Seized 4-4; French commandos raid kills 3 4-10, probe set 4-11, 238G1

TANNENBAUM, Mike On Favre injury disclosure, fined 9-10—9-16, 632A1

TANNER, Bruce On Defns Dpet jet program info hack 4-21, 411G1

TANNER, John S. (U.S. representative from Tenn., 1989- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G2 Rep Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3

TANNIN, Matthew Trial opens 10-14, cleared 11-10, 814B1

TANON, Olga Performs at Cuba peace concert 9-20, 661G2

TANZANIA, United Republic of African Relations Kikwete visits UK 3-16, 170D1 AU summit held 7-1—7-3, 459C2 Kenyan mob kills UK geologist (Bridges) 8-11, suspects chrgd 9-17, 922C3 Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) departs Seychelles, rptd missing/owners capture detailed 10-22—11-13; ransom sought, nixed 10-30—10-31, Somali pirates infighting seen 11-2, 801A2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu visits 2-14—2-16, 170E1, A2–B2 Environment & Pollution Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss rptd 11-2—11-24, 842D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236A2; 10-1, 736A2 Science & Technology Broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2 Trade, Aid & Investment African econ crisis mtg hosted 3-10—3-11, 169B3 Drought aid sought 9-29, 681B2

ON FILE

UN Policy & Developments Rwanda RC priest (Rukuundo) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, extradited 10-6, 680B1, F1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) pleads not guilty 6-9, 391E3 Cuba base detainee (Ghailani) death penalty nixed 10-2—10-5, 718B3

TAN Zuoren Trial held 8-12, 557E1

TAPITSFLY (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf 11-6, 807B2

TAPSCOTT, Ed Replacemt (Saunders) signs deal 4-21, 279B1

TARANTINI, Giampaolo Berlusconi escort use alleged 6-17, 463G2 Berlusconi prostitutn svcs alleged, denied 9-9—9-10, 626B3–E3 Held 9-18, 687E2

TARANTINO, Quentin Waltz wins Cannes actor prize 5-24, 364B1 Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

TARA Soranarak, Col. Denies captured refugees abandoning policy 1-16, 52D1

TARIFFS—See FOREIGN Trade TARTAGLIA, Massimo Attacks Berlusconi 12-13; premeditatn seen, regrets 12-15, psych ward transfer nixed 12-16, 874C3, 875D1–E1, A2

TASEER, Salman Named Punjab interim chief min 2-25, 138G1

TASER International Inc. Cover dies 2-7, 120B3 Calif cops stun gun use ltd 12-28, 920B3

TASHIYEV, Almazbek Attacked 7-4; dies 7-12, cop confessn rptd 7-14, 511E1

TASZHARGAN (Kazakhstan newspaper) Closure rptd 9-18, 663D2

TATA Motors Ltd. Nano car sale launched 3-23, 418A1

TATCHELL, Peter Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

TATE, Emma Planet 51 on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

TATE, Sharon (1943-69) Atkins dies 9-24, 672E1 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653E3

TATON, Brice Beaten/dies, suspects chrgd 9-17—9-29, meml held 10-1, 687F2–G2, B3

TATOPOULOS, Patrick Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

TATUM, Channing Fighting on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2 Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

TATY Loutard, Jean-Baptiste Ousted 9-15, 722G3

TAURASI, Diana Mercury wins WNBA title, named finals MVP 10-9, 807D3 Named WNBA MVP 10-9, 807E3

TAUSCHER, Ellen (U.S. representative from Calif., 1997-2009; Democrat) Confrmd arms control undersecy 6-25, vacates House seat 6-26, 478A3 Seat primary held 9-1, 585E1 Electn results 11-3, 756F1

TAVARES, John Tops NHL draft 6-26, 731D1

TAVASSOLI, Leila In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

TAVEL, Ronald (1936-2009) Dies 3-23, 956F1

TAXES African Developments S Africa finance min (Gordhan) named 5-10, 325F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Developments Japan fscl ‘11 hike seen 1-28, 51E1 Australia stimulus package set, passes House/nixed by Sen 2-3—2-13, revised bill passes Sen 2-13, 494C1, E1 Sri Lanka rebels air strike kills 2 2-20, 119A3

2009 Index China stimulus spending disclosure urged, detailed 3-4—3-5, 186E3 Japan econ stimulus plan unveiled 4-9—4-10, 252F1, C2 China exports credit hiked 5-26, 440G1 Gongmeng shut, founder (Xu) held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557C1 Gongmeng founder (Xu) asst held/cont detentn seen, freed 7-29—8-23, 606D2–E2 Mongolia minerals tax reppeal passes parlt 8-25, 725E2 China auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615A3 Afghan insurgent threats IDd 9-20, 635E2 Japan revenue drop seen 10-20, 786C3 Japan econ stimulus package unveiled 12-8, 872F3, 873B1 China Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932B2 India new state plan set 12-9, 946E1 Samsung ex-chair (Lee) pardoned 12-29, 934C1 Budget & Spending Programs IRS ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489B1–C1 Fscl ‘09 deficit forecast issued 8-25, 570G3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Nonprofit hosps status questnd 2-12, 201G3 Sun-Times bankruptcy filed 3-31, 393A2 Medicare, Soc Sec involvency forecast issued 4-9, 324B1 Operatn Rescue funds lack seen 9-14, 833C1 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd, mark set 10-16, 713B1, E1, A2 Citigroup break OKd, defended 12-11—12-15, House com probe set 12-17, 909B2 CIS Developments Russian rallies held 1-31—2-1, 69A2 Yukos founder (Khodorkovsky) trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Kazakh businessman (Makhmadov) convctd, sentncd 8-8, 576F2 Uzbek oppositn ldr (Umarov) freed 11-7, 891F3 Hermitage atty (Magnitsky) dies, buried 11-16—11-20; Russian prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 821E3, 822A1–B1 Russian crime ofc head fired 12-15; atty (Magnitsky) death rpt issued 12-28, pre-trial jailings curbed 12-29, 938G2–A3, C3 European Developments Ireland credit watch set 1-9, Greece/Spain/Portugal ratings cut 1-14—1-21, 53D1 Ger econ stimulus plan hiked 1-13, 22F3 Lithuania riots erupt 1-16, 37C3 Econ min (Glos) quits 2-8, 99B3–C3 French cuts set 2-18, 116G3 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 French stimulus package hike nixed 3-19, 206E3 Romania $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207D3 Hungary’s Bajnai named, confrmd premr 3-30—4-14, 273D1 Ger’s Steinmeier sets chancellor bid 4-19, 361A2 UK budget unveiled 4-22, tax hike defended 4-23, 272E2 EU treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432E1 France’s Sarkozy addresses parlt 6-22, 432D3 Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706A2, C2, A3, C3–D3 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644F2 Norway parlt electns held 9-14, results rptd 9-15, 627C2, E2 Ger cuts vowed, corp reform mulled 9-18—9-28, 665A2–C2, E2 UK Labour Party conf held 9-27—10-1, 666E2 Portugal natl electns held 9-27, coalitn mulled 9-28, 667C2 Poland casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1, party ldr, mins quit 10-1—10-7, 705B2–D2 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, 685D2 Greece parlt electns held 10-4, 686F2 Italy mudslides aid vowed 10-4, 705F1 Turkey, IMF protests held 10-6, 675A1 Balanced budget nixed 10-25, Merkel sworn 10-28, 749D2, B3 UK budget unveiled 12-9, bank bonuses tax set/proposal backed, French legis seen 12-10, 854D1 Ireland budget unveiled 12-9, 856F1 Greece budget deficit cut vowed 12-14, 875G2 Ger stimulus package passes parlt 12-18, 892B1 Greece ‘10 budget passes parlt 12-24, 938A1–B1

—TAYLOR 1181 French CO2 emissns tax nixed 12-30, 937D1 Latin Developments Chile econ stimulus plan set 1-5, 35B1 Argentina soybean export tax talks open, revenue-sharing plan proposed 2-24—3-19; grains natl bd mulled 3-3, farmers strike set, held 3-20—3-27, 203F3 Venez ports seizure ordrd 3-15, 204A3 Venez ‘09 budget chngs set 3-21, 270E2 Cuba remittncs tax drop nixed 4-22, 271A3 Panama pres electn held 5-3, results rptd 5-6, 309E1 Venez hydrocarbon seizure authrzn passes Natl Assemb, oil assets natlzn set 5-7, 395E1 Argentina cong electns held 6-28, 446F3 Venez radio licenses revoked 7-3, 493F3 Venez TV, radio statns shut 7-31—8-2, 576B1 Mex customs inspectors replaced 8-14—8-16, 556C3 Argentina farmers breaks vetoed 8-25, strike held 8-28—9-4, 623F2 Mex budget proposals unveiled 9-8, 605A3 Brazil ‘09 2d 1/4 GDP rptd 9-11, 623B3 Argentina media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682A2 Uruguay pres electn held 10-25, 746F3 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834D3 Middle East Developments Palestinian ‘11 indep state sought 8-25, 593G1 Iraq oil fields dvpt deals signed 11-2—11-5, 789D3 Jordan parlt dissolved 11-23, 877F2 W Bank setlmt breaks OKd 12-13, 945B1 Obituaries Alexander, Donald C 2-2, 104G2 Kemp, Jack 5-2, 316F3 Saulnier, Raymond J 4-30, 348C3 Personal Income Issues Obamas/Bidens ‘08 tax returns rptd 4-15, 243B1 Reform & Tax Changes Obama econ recovery plan cuts seen, questnd 1-5—1-8, 6B3, 7A1–C1 US tobacco hike passes House 1-14, 19G2, F3 $825 bln econ recovery plan proposed 1-15, 14C3, 15F1, B2 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2 Econ recovery plan forecast issued, GOP proposal nixed/bill passes House 1-26—1-28, 41G1–B2, B3, 42D1–E1 Cigarette hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62E3 Econ recovery plan debated, passes Sen 2-2—2-10, Cong talks held, deal OKd 2-11—2-12, 73D1, G2, C3, 74A1–C1, F1 Obama on econ crisis 2-9, 78D1, 79B1 $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 89A1, G2, 90C2, E2; highlights listed 90A1 Calif deficit cut deal passes legis, signed 2-19—2-20, 114A2, C2–D2, F2, B3 La gov (Jindal) nixes econ recovery funds 2-20, 111A2 La gov (Jindal) defends econ recovery plan funds nix 2-22, 108F2 Obama hosts ‘fscl responsibility’ summit 2-23, 111G1, 111F1 Calif marijuana legalizatn bill introduced 2-23, 165F2 La gov (Jindal) gives Obama speech response 2-24, 105B3, 108F2 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106C2, 108A1–B1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals 2-26, Cong hearings held 3-3, 124A3, F3, 125A1, F1, E3–F3, 126A1, D1–E1 Mass gay married couples fed benefits suit filed 3-3, 150D1 White House health care summit held 3-5, 145E3 G-20 finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 163A1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax passes House 3-19, 161A1, 162F1 $700 bln financial indus aid cos bonus paymts tax opposed 3-22; Sen vote halted 3-23, retro-active limits pass House 4-1, 220C1 Cong budget blueprints unveiled, backed 3-24—3-26, 181D1–A2 Obama defends budget proposals 3-24, 181F2, B3 Obama holds Internet pub forum 3-26, 200A1 GOP alt budget plan proposed 3-26—4-2, fscl ‘10 blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 217F3, 218B1–C1, E1 GM/Chrysler autos buy incentives seen 3-30, 197C3 US emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, 201A3

G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193D1 Fed tobacco hike takes effect 4-1, 357C1 ‘Tea party’ protests held, Obama defends policies 4-15, 242C3 Obama seeks budget cuts 4-20, 264A1–C1 IMF worldwide econ forecast issued 4-22, 283E3 Pay-as-you-go rules backed, vowed 4-25—4-28, fscl ‘10 budget blueprint passes Cong 4-29, 285F3, 286C1 US pay-as-you-go rules backed, vowed 4-25—4-28, 289F1 Overseas profits tax breaks curbs urged 5-4, 304D2 Universal health care taxes mulled 5-6—5-20, 339G3–340A1 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, deductn curbs revenue estimate cut 5-11, 320E3–F3, 322A1 Cybersecurity guidelines proposed 5-29, 410E3 Health care reforms proposal mulled 6-2—6-9, 390C3–E3 Bernanke testifies to House com 6-3, 371G2 Obama urges pay-as-you-go rules 6-9, 458C2, G2 Health care reform proposals cost estimated 6-15—6-16, 408G3–409B1 Fed workers domestic partners benefits hiked 6-17, 408D2 House health care reform proposal issued 6-19, Obama backs pub option 6-23, 426F3, 427A1, A2 Health benefits tax mulled 6-28—7-8, 457C3, E3 Income tax hike mulled, health care reform House proposal issued 7-10—7-14, 476E1, G1–E2 Obama mulls health benefits tax 7-22, 487B1 Middle-class hike mulled, dismissed 8-2—8-3, 521B1 Health care reform draft circulated, com work set 9-5—9-9, Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 597G1, C2, 598G2, 599E3 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619B3 Health care reform Sen proposal issued 9-16, 617A2 Obama health care reform push cont 9-18—9-20, Sen proposal chngd 9-21—9-22, 637E2–F2, 638E1 Jobless benefits extensn passes House 9-22, 676B2 Sen health care reform measure nixed 10-1, 655G3 Financial indus global insurnc fund mulled 10-2, 674C3 Health care reform Sen bill cost estimated 10-7, 676E2, A3 Sen health care reform bill scored, merging talks held 10-14, 698G1–A2, A3 Health care reform House bill unveiled, deficit cut seen 10-29, 740G3 Health care reform GOP proposal seen 11-1, 773C3 US home buyers credit clears Cong/signed, job creatn cuts seen 11-4—11-6, 778D2, F2 G-20 mtg held 11-6—11-7, financial indus crisis tax backed 11-7, 775F3–G3 Health care reform passes House 11-7, Sen vote mulled 11-8, 773A2–B2, 774D2; highlights 774B3 Health care reform Sen bill issued 11-18, 796D2, G2–A3, D3 Afghan mil strategy mtg held 11-23, 810A1 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 827A1 Health care reform curbs measures pass/nixed by Sen 12-3—12-8, 848D1–E1 Estate tax extensn passes House, blocked by Sen 12-3—12-16, breaks pass House 12-9, 885G3, 886D1 Obama unveils jobs hike proposals 12-8, 846D3–E3 Financial indus reform bill passes House 12-11, 865A2 Health care reform bill passes Sen 12-24, 904E2, D3–E3, 905B2, D2, A3, F3, 906A2 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907A1, B3 State & City Issues States tobacco hike mulled 3-21, 357C1 Calif budget ballot measures nixed 5-20, 340B2 Mass universal health care suit filed 7-15, 520C3 Calif budget deal set/passes legis, signed 7-20—7-28, 503A3 DC ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867E1

Tax Evasion (& other irregularities) Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17C1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) Sen com probe cont 1-15, 17A3 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, 30E1 Treasury secy nominee (Geithner) confrmd 1-26, 44E1–F1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) late paymt rptd, regrets error 1-30—2-2; Obama backs 2-2, withdraws 2-3, 59A2, F2, B3 Chief performnc ofcr nominee (Killefer) withdraws 2-3, 59D2 Labor secy nominee (Solis) husband woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn vote delayed 2-5, 60A1 Labor secy nominee (Solis) backed 2-11, confrmd 2-24, 113D1 Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges plead guilty 2-12, 247F1 UBS fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100A2 Gov Sebelius HHS secy offer rptd, nominated 2-28—3-2, 129E1 Trade rep nominee (Kirk) paymt woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-2—3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182D1–E1 Tax havens blacklist issued 3-5; bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-6—3-16, pressure cont 3-16, 163G1, E2 Treasury secy (Geithner) defended 3-18, 162G2 HHS secy nominee (Sebelius) Sen com confrmatn hearings held, paymt woes admitted 3-31—4-2, 221B1 G-20 summit held 4-1—4-2, 193B2 S Korea businessman, ex-pres (Roh) wife paymts admitted 4-7, 360G3 Racecar driver (Castroneves), assocs cleared 4-17, conspiracy chrg dropped 5-22, 363A3–B3 Klein dies 7-4, 516D3 WTC site bldg blaze check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621G1 Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges plea deal nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, 869E3, 870A1 UBS, US clients data handover deal set 8-19, 560B3 ACORN fed funding bans backed 9-14—9-17, IRS partnership ended, suit seen 9-23, 638G2, C3 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653D3 Italy’s Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, 750B1 Mich imam (Abdullah) slain 10-28, 760B3 Albanian rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2, B3 NYC ex-police comr (Kerik) pleads guilty 11-5, 909B1 U.S. Political Campaign Issues NJ gov primaries held 6-2, 373E3 NJ gov debate held 10-1, 716A3 Va gov debate held 10-12, 716E3 Electn results 11-3, 755A3–C3, 756B1

TAXICABS & Private Fleets Chechen driver slain 5-15, 378A3 Harvard prof (Gates) arrest 911 call tapes issued 7-27, 505A2 Japan driver slaying seaman convctd, sentncd 7-30, 557G3 Israel radical settler (Teitel) held, chrgd 11-1, 768D3

TAXPAYERS for Common Sense Fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144E1 Fscl ‘10 omnibus bill earmarks rptd 12-16, 866C2

TAYA, Col. Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed (Mauritanian president, 1984-2005) Abdel Aziz elected pres 7-18, 492F3

TAYEB, Abu Afghan seized rptrs escape 6-20, details rptd 6-22, 435A1

TAYLOR, Brian Crank: High Voltage on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316E2

TAYLOR, Charles Ghankay (Liberian president, 1997-2003) Son sentncd 1-9, 50A1 War crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2–C2 Sudan’s Bashir indicted 3-4, 122E1 Johnson-Sirleaf pol ban urged 7-7, 925B2 War crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A1, F1 Sierra Leone ex-rebel cmdrs appeals nixed 10-26, 925F2 Cayley named Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor 12-2, 890C2

TAYLOR, Elizabeth At Jackson funeral 9-3, 612F2

1182 TAYLOR— TAYLOR, Gene (U.S. representative from Miss., 1989- ; Democrat) Backs Rep Rangel com chair ouster 10-7, 679G1 Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G2

TAYLOR, Jermain Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

TAYLOR, Koko (Cora Walton) (1928-2009) Dies 6-3, 400F3

TAYLOR, Lawrence Sees Moon water signs 9-24, 697B3–C3

TAYLOR, Michael Traded to Blue Jays, A’s 12-16, 948F3

TAYLOR, Stephen Boston Globe buy nixed 10-14, 912D2

TAYLOR, Lord Thomas Suspensn urged, OKd 5-14, 5-19, 344B1

TAZADLAR (Azerbaijani newspaper) Ed/rptr convctd, sentncd 4-7, punishmts opposed, nixed 4-8—4-9, 252G3

TAZHIN, Marat Alma-Ata Info ed (Esergepov) sentnc scored 8-11, 576A3

TCHIBINDA Kouangou, Jean Francois Pres vote held 7-12; results rptd 7-15, files appeal, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn upheld 7-23—7-25, 507D1

TEA African econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3 US antitax protests held, Obama defends policies 4-15, 242C3

TEACHERS, American Federation of (AFT) (AFL-CIO) Educ secy nominee (Duncan) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-12, 18D1

TEAGUE, Harry (U.S. representative from N.M., 2009- ; Democrat) Vs health care reform bill 11-7, 774G2

TEAGUE, Jeff In NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

TEAMSTERS, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America, International Brotherhood of Mex trucking program end signed 3-11, 171A3

TEBOW, Tim Fla wins BCS Champ, named MVP 1-8, 23D3–E3 5th in Heisman voting 12-12, 879A3

TEBRIZI, Mousavi In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940D3

TECH Mahindra Ltd. Satyam stake buy set 4-13, 450B3–C3

TECHNOLOGY—See SCIENCE TEDESCHI, Ettore Gotti Named Vatican bank head 9-23, 712C1

TEDISCO, James NYS House seat vote held 3-31, Murphy lead seen 4-1, 201E1, A2 House seat spec electn loss declared 4-24, 292B2

TEENAGERS—See YOUTH Issues TEERANUN Wipuchanin Held, chrgd 11-1, 891D3

TEHRAN University (Iran) Paramil raid kills 5 6-14, probe sought, ordrd 6-16—6-18, 402B2 Khamenei addresses 6-19, 421E2 Electn protests dispersed 7-9, 463E3, G3 Rafsanjani addresses 7-17, 485B1 Khamenei addresses 9-11, 628F2 Quds Day sermons given 9-18, 645D3 Student protests held, Ahmadinejad speech nixed 9-28—9-29, 688A2–B2 Protests turn violent 12-7—12-8, 857B1, E1

TEICHER, Lou(is Milton) (1924-2008) Ferrante dies 9-19, 708A3

TEITEL, Yaakov (Jack) Tel Aviv shooting kills 2 8-1, 768F3 Held, chrgd 11-1, 768D3–E3

TEIXEIRA, Mark AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 AL RBI ldr, among HR ldrs 10-6, 690E2 Yankees win World Series 11-4, 770F2, C3 2d in AL MVP voting 11-23, 823A3

TEJADA, Miguel Chrgd 2-10, pleads guilty 2-11, 87D3 Sentncd 3-26, 277G3 NL 2B ldr, among batting/hits ldrs 10-6, 690D3–E3

FACTS TELECOMMUNICATIONS Appointments & Resignations Genachowski FCC chair nominatn seen 1-14, Martin quits 1-15, 49F2 Genachowski named FCC chair 3-3, 145B2 FCC chair (Genachowski), comr (McDowell) confrmd 6-25, 458D1 Arts & Culture Chinese ‘heads’ auctnd 2-25, buyer reneges 3-2, 160A2 Awards & Honors Kao wins Nobel 10-6, 694C1–D1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Nortel bankruptcy filed, shares price rptd 1-14, 67A3 Digital TV switch success seen 6-12, 412C2 Cable ownership cap nixed 8-28, 912B1 Skype copyrights sale set 9-16, 761C2 Wataniya, W Bank site opens 11-10, 790D3 AT&T, Woods ties mulled 12-11, 879B2 AT&T cuts golfer Woods ties 12-31, 949D2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Zimbabwe oppositn ofcl (Bennett) held, chrgs mulled/in ct 2-13—2-18, 97C1 Sen Burris admits Blagojevich fund-raising bid 2-16, 93B2 Qwest ex-CEO (Nacchio) witness testimony nix upheld 2-26, opens prison sentnc 4-14, 677F3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521C2 Qwest ex-CEO (Nacchio) appeal denied by Sup Ct 10-5, 677E3 La ex-rep (Jefferson) sentncd 11-13, 797G2 Crime & Piracy Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak ‘agencies’ role seen 1-6, 39F1–G1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearings open 1-15, 16D3 Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20B3–C3 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43E3, G3 Tunisia synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd 2-5, 154D2 Mumbai terror attacks Pak planning admitted 2-12, 103E2–F2 MLB’s Bonds perjury trial evidnc OKd 2-19, 158A3 Hollywood PI (Pellicano) assocs sentncd 3-3—3-9, 247B3 Tibet uprising anniv marked 3-10, 172B1 Blagojevich, assocs indicted 4-2, 219C1 EFF, NSA warrantless spying suit opposed 4-3, 244F1 ‘Craigslist’ ad women robbed/slain, suspect (Markoff) held 4-10—4-20; chrgd/pleads not guilty, suicide watch ordrd 4-18—4-23, evidnc rptd, victims sought/response mulled 4-20—6-20, 429B2 Rep Harman, AIPAC secrets transfer role rptd 4-19, 263G1–A2 Azerbaijan univ gunman kills 12, self 4-30, suspects held 5-4, 377C3 Malaysia state assemb speaker (Sivakumar) ousted, protests held 5-7, 415B1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 5-18, 333G2 Warrantless spying cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410A2–D2 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402F2 Iran rptrs ousted, held 6-21—6-23, 421D1 Somalia thieves convctd, pub amputatns held 6-21—6-25, 430B3 Iran cell svc cont, blocked 7-1, 7-6, 464D1 PI blast kills 6 7-5, 528E1 Harvard prof (Gates) arrest 911 call racism denied, tapes issued 7-26—7-29, 505G1 Australia raids net terror suspects 8-4, 930C2 Thai blast hurts 42 8-25, 748C1 NYC apartmts raided 9-14; bomb plot suspect (Zazi) questnd 9-16—9-18, held/evidnc rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641B3, G3, 642C1–D1 Tex bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678A3 Insider trading suspects chrgd, held 10-16, 743F2–G2 Mumbai terror attacks suspects held in Italy 11-21, 821E2 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5; Dvpt Alternatives work rptd 12-14, subversn, violatns claimed 12-19—12-20, 927D3, F3–G3 Calif cop text messaging case accepted by Sup Ct 12-14, 867F3

Labor Issues Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338B1 Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Slim/NYT stake buy OKd 1-19, 168E1 China Mobile/FarEasTone stake buy set 4-29, 310A1 Skype stake sale set 9-1, 761B2 T-Mobile/Orange UK merger set 9-8, 626E2 Telcom Co of Iran stake bought 9-27, 688E2 Political & Legislative Issues Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 Service & Safety Issues Calif RR collisn hearing held 3-3, 357B3 AIDS awareness campaign launched 4-7, 555G2 China city mobile svc cut 7-6, 461C1 Cell phone use, driving risk withheld data seen 7-21; texting link rptd 7-28, ban bill introduced 7-29, 538A1 IPhone/Google app ban rptd, sale mulled 7-29—9-18; FCC probes set, AT&T role denied 8-1—10-9, blocked calls rptd 10-28, 744B3 NJ air traffic workers suspended 8-13, 538A2 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744D2 Honduras/Brazil emb svc cut 9-22, 643B3 Quake/tsunami hit Samoa 9-29, 662B3 Indonesia quakes victims estimated 10-1, 662E2 Typhoon Parma hits PI 10-3, 684A3 Amer Samoa svc restored 10-6, 685D1 China region svc curbed 10-29, 785D3 Trade Issues US/Cuba curbs lifted 4-13, 248A3, C3 US/Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271C2 China/Taiwan investmt hike authrzn rptd 5-28, 415D3 US’s Mitchell visits Syria 7-26, 546F2 US/Cuba curbs eased 9-3, 604E3

TELECOMMUNICATIONS Company of Iran Guards set stake buy 9-27, 688E2

TELEFONICA SA Deutsche Telekom/France Telecom UK brands merger set 9-8, 626F2

TELEGRAPH (British newspaper) Anglican archbp (Williams) interviewed 12-12, 925B1

TELEMUNDO (TV station) Comcast buy set 12-3, 830D3

TELEPHONE (play) Opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

TELEPHONE Book, The: Technology, Schizophremia, Electric Speech (book) Telephone opens in NYC 2-9, 211E3

TELEPHONES & Telegraph—See TELECOMMUNICATIONS TELESUR (Venezuelan TV station) Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) interviewed 7-5, 459F3

TELEVISION & Radio Advertisements Obama health care reform oppositn spending rptd 5-11, 340D1 Health care reform spending rptd 8-16, 552A1 Appointments & Resignations FCC chair (Martin) quits 1-15, 42G2 Leno ends ‘Tonight Show’ run 5-29, O’Brien replaces 6-1, 383F3 ‘At the Movies’ co-hosts replaced 8-5, 548B3 Bush daughter joins ‘Today’ show 8-31, 596G3 World News anchor (Gibson) sets retiremt, Sawyer named 9-2, 612G2 Rather, CBS ouster suit dismissed 9-30, 671E3 Russian govt media adviser (Lesin) fired 11-18, 893A1 Stephanopoulos named ‘Good Morning Amer’ anchor 12-10, debuts 12-14, 880E1 Awards & Honors Golden Globes presented 1-11, 24D2, F2 Emmys (primetime) presented 9-20, 647A3, F3 Kao wins Nobel 10-6, 694D1 Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752F2 Budget & Spending Programs US pub broadcasting ‘10 funds pass House 7-24, 524D1

ON FILE

Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Digital TV switch delay backed 1-16, bill passes Sen/fails in House, clears Cong 1-26—2-4, 62G3 Digital TV switch readiness questnd 6-10, success seen 6-12, 412F1 Internet radio music royalty rates chngd 7-8, 781G3 Freedom Communicatns bankruptcy filed 9-1, 913E1 Cable Television Mkt ownership cap nixed 8-28, 912B1 Censorship Issues Azerbaijan forgn broadcasting curbs open 1-1, 206B3 US slain troops coffin filming ban mulled 2-9, review ordrd 2-11, 79C2 Saudi Islamic ct head (Luhaidan) fired, Humaid named 2-14, 943E3 Geo broadcast halted 3-13, 175B3–C3 BBC fined 4-3, 256C2 Thai satellite TV station shut 4-14, 251A1 Fiji broadcaster shut, rptr ousted 4-14, 251E3, 252C1 Madagascar protests turn violent 4-20—4-27, 208D2 UAE Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331E3 FCC obscenity curbs upheld by Sup Ct 4-28, 290G3 FCC ‘04 Super Bowl mishap fine review ordrd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307B1 Globovision pres (Zuloaga) Venez home raided, protests held 5-21—6-27, radio licenses revoked, broadcasting rules chngd 7-3—7-9, 493C3 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402E2–F2 Honduras stations shut 6-28—6-29, 438B1–C1 Obama scores Russian curbs 7-7, 454C3 Zimbabwe rptg curbs lifted 7-29, 588E3 Venez ‘media crimes’ bill introduced 7-31; statns shut 7-31—8-2, Globovisn hq stormed 8-3, 575G3 Venez radio statns shut, Globovisn chrgs hiked 9-5, 623B3 Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706A2, G2, C3–D3 Argentina media curbs bill passes Chamber 9-17, 682G1 Radio Globo, Channel 36 shut 9-28, 661E3–F3 Italy rally held 10-3, 687C2 Honduras emergency rule lifted 10-5, 763C1 Saudi talk show offenders sentncd, rptr (Yami) punishmt suspended 10-7—10-26, 944C1 Media curbs bill passes Sen, signed 10-10, 926B1 Serbia outlaw clubs crimes alleged 12-3; rptr (Stankovic) threats suspects held 12-8, concern seen 12-9, 893D1 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5, 928A1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing cleared 1-16, probe questnd 1-17, 242B2 Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing probe rpt revoked 5-5, 324A2 Defns Dept propaganda, pub affairs operatns mixing upheld 7-21, 721A2 Peru’s Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682E2 Italy’s Berlusconi cont trial date set 10-26, 750B1 Kaskad stake seized 11-10, 893B1 Crime & Law Enforcement Coverage Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247C1 NYS immigrant ctr gunman letter arrives 4-6, 246A3 Iran ousts BBC rptr 6-21, protester confessns aired 6-23, 621C1, 622G2–A3 Iran’s Khomeini photo destructn scored, suspects held 12-13—12-14, 884C1 Environmental Issues Calif flat-panel energy efficiency rules OKd 11-18, 918A1 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918F1 Iraq War Coverage Al Baghdadia rptrs slain 3-8, 156D1 Baath party ldr tape aired 4-7, 228C1 Spain rptr slaying US troops chrgd 5-21, 344E3 US troops Spanish rptrs slaying chrgs dropped 7-14, 483B2 Rptr (Bahjat) ‘06 slaying suspect held 8-3, 530B1 Labor Issues S Africa workers strike 7-29—7-30, 525B3, 526D1

2009 Index Libel Issues—See LIBEL Mergers, Acquisitions & Joint Ventures Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Comcast Sportsnet stake sold 10-27, 949D1 GE/NBC stake buy OKd 11-30, Comcast buyout set 12-3, 830A3 Nielsen Ratings Academy Awards, ABC 2-22, 140A2 AFC Champ, CBS 1-18, 72A2 AFC Wild Card, NBC 1-3, 72A2 America’s Got Talent, NBC 7-21, 532A2 Amer Idol, Fox 1-14, 72A2; 2-4, 140A2; 3-25, 212A2; 4-1, 316A2; 5-20, 384A2 Amer’s Got Talent, NBC 8-4, 596A2 Bachelor, ABC 3-2, 212A2 CSI, CBS 3-5, 212A2; 11-12, 840A2 Dancing With the Stars, ABC 3-9, 212A2; 4-20, 316A2; 5-4, 5-19, 384A2; 9-21, 672A2; 10-26, 772A2; 11-23, 840A2 Grey’s Anatomy, ABC 5-14, 384A2 Jay Leno Show, NBC 9-14, 672A2 Mentalist, CBS 2-10, 140A2; 3-24, 212B2; 4-28, 316B2; 5-5, 5-19, 384A2; 6-30, 532A2; 12-10, 956A2 MLB All-Star Game/pregame, Fox 7-14, 532A2 NBA Finals 6-4—6-14, 452A2 NCAA men’s basketball champ, CBS 4-6, 316B2 NCIS, CBS 2-10, 140A2; 3-24, 212B2; 4-7, 316A2; 5-5, 384A2; 7-7, 532A2; 8-18, 596A2; 9-22, 672A2; 10-20, 772A2; 11-10, 840A2; 12-15, 956A2 NCIS: LA, CBS 9-22, 672A2 NCIS LA, CBS 12-15, 956A2 NFL Preseason Football, NBC 8-30, 596A2 NFL Thurs Spec, NBC 9-10, 672A2 60 Minutes, CBS 8-16, 596A2; 12-13, 956A2 Sun Night Football, NBC 9-20, 672A2; 11-15, 840A2; 12-13, 956A2 Super Bowl XLIII/postgame, NBC 2-1, 72A2 Two and a Half Men, CBS 8-24, 596B2 World Series, Fox 10-28, 10-29, 11-1, 772A2 World Series Game 6, Fox 11-4, 840A2 Obituaries Archerd, Army 9-8, 648E1 Arthur, Bea 4-25, 300C3 Barry, Gene 12-9, 896F1 Batten Sr, Frank 9-10, 648A2 Bellows, James G 3-6, 192E1 Braden, Tom 4-3, 256F2 Brown, James F 11-16, 896A2 Carradine, David 6-4, 400G2 Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500F2; photo 500A3 Dearie, Bossom 2-7, 88E3 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Eikerenkoetter II, Frederick J (Rev Ike) 7-29, 531E3 Fawcett, Farrah 6-25, 436D3 Floyd, Keith 9-14, 708C3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Freud, Sir Clement 4-15, 280D3 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Gibson, Henry 9-14, 708D3 Goody, Jade 3-22, 192G2 Haney, Paul P 5-28, 400A3 Hart, John 9-20, 731C3 Harvey, Paul 2-28, 140E3 Hewitt, Don 8-19, 564A3 Hingle, Pat 1-3, 104C3 Holzer, Hans 4-26, 332E3 Hoving, Thomas PF 12-10, 896D2 Jackson, Michael 6-25, 436D1–E1, A2 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 Kalas, Harry 4-13, 280E3 Kell, George 3-24, 212F3 Kennedy, Sir Ludovic 10-18, 752B3 Klein, Herbert G 7-2, 468F2 Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 Landon, H C Robbins 11-20, 880C2 La Rue, Danny 5-31, 400B3 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Livingston, Alan W 3-13, 192C3 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468G2 Mays, Billy 6-28, 955A3 McGoohan, Patrick J 1-13, 40G2 McMahon, Ed 6-23, 436F3 Melnick, Daniel 10-13, 772F3 Mizzy, Vic 10-17, 752D3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672E3 Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24D3 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 Murphy, Britanny 12-20, 896C3 Nelson, Jack 10-21, 752E3 Novak, Robert D 8-18, 564D3 Powell, Jody 9-14, 632D3 Presnell, Harve 6-30, 500F3 Richard, Wendy 2-26, 192F3 Roberts, Ken 6-19, 500G3 Roberts, Oral 12-15, 880G2 Sales, Soupy 10-22, 752F3 Samak Sundaravej 11-24, 880C3 Schulberg, Budd 8-5, 532E3

—TENNIS Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Storm, Gale 6-27, 484F3 Sugden, Mollie 7-1, 484G3 Sutton, Percy E 12-26, 955G3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Wendkos, Paul 11-12, 956F2 Whitmore, James 2-6, 120G3 Wiseman, Joseph 10-19, 792G3 Woodward, Edward 11-16, 840F3 Zieff, Howard 2-22, 192G3 People Matthews nixes Sen bid 1-7, 5G2 Gupta surgeon gen apptmt seen 1-7, 6C2 Iran rptr (Saberi) held/detentn mulled, probe end seen 1-31—3-24, 189E1 Madagascar capital mayor (Rajoelina) ousted 2-3, 66B1–D1 UK reality TV star (Goody) weds 2-22, 139G3 Limbaugh addresses CPAC 2-28; in White House clash 3-1—3-2, scores GOP chair (Steele) remarks, apology issued 3-2, 146B2, F2–G2 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, Funes win rptd 3-16, 170C2, F2–G2, F3 Madagascar’s Rajoelina named pres 3-17, 168D3–E3, G3 US rptrs held, N Korea detentn confrmd 3-17—3-21; talks open 3-19, trial set 3-31,, 215D3 Letterman weds 3-19, 192A1 Madagascar’s Rajoelina sworn 3-21, 184C3 Iran rptr (Saberi) spy chrgs set, release urged 4-8, 217F2 Iran rptr (Saberi) secret trial held 4-13, 254C2 Iran rptr (Saberi) sentnc rptd, self-incriminatn questnd 4-18; case review ordrd, Iraq detainees link denied 4-19—4-20, atty (Ebadi) named, appeal filed 4-20—4-21, 274C3 Italy’s Berlusconi Europn Parlt candidates recruiting seen, list issued 4-28—4-29; wife seeks divorce 5-3, pub apology urged 5-4, 328F1–G1 Iran rptr (Saberi) in hosp 5-4; attys chngd, appeal set 5-5, freed, chrgs detailed 5-11—5-12, 318B1, A2 Radio host (Savage) UK ban set, vows suit 5-5, 310D2 Georgia protests turn violetn, demonstrators held/freed 5-6, 327D3–E3 US rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 395G3 Minn Sen race appeal nixed/Coleman concedes loss, Franken win certified 6-30, 441E2–F2 US rptrs N Korea amnesty sought, ‘guest house’ detentn rptd 7-9—7-10, 517C1–D1, G2, B3 US’s Clinton visits N Korea, rptrs freed/return 8-4—8-5, arrest, detentn detailed 8-6, 517A1, F1, E2, 518A1 US rptrs N Korea footage seizure claimed 8-23; arrest detailed 9-1, China claims rejected 9-3, 600D3 Phillips claims dad incest 9-23, 671F3 Letterman reveals sex scandal 10-1; extortn suspect held, pleads not guilty 10-1—10-2, staffer (Birkitt) IDd, regrets affairs 10-2—10-5, 692E1 Limbaugh, Rams buyout bid questnd 10-13, role dropped 10-14, 948B2 Winfrey White House visit rptd 10-30, 780E1 Albania rptr (Baze) attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853G2 Russian rptr (Kotovskaya) dies in fall 11-16, 893B1 Winfrey sets talk show end 11-20, 824A3 Sheen held, freed on bail 12-25, 954F2 Political & Legislative Issues S Korea indus reforms pass parlt 7-22, law upheld 10-29, 764E2 Presidential Conferences—See OBAMA—PRESS Programming & Sponsorship Gaza violnc victims aid appeal airing nixed, shown 1-22—1-26, 42B3–C3 China’s Wen Cambridge Univ shoe toss tape aired 2-3, 98B3 US’s Clinton visits Turkey 3-7, 142D3 Israel’s Peres, Iran message aired 3-20, 179C2 CBS cancels ‘Guiding Light’ 4-1, last episode aired 9-18, 953G3–954A1 Pak girl whipping tape aired 4-2, probe ordrd 4-6, 229B2 ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts/loses final, in hosp 4-11—5-31, 383G3 Ill ex-gov (Blagojevich) reality TV deal rptd 4-16, 243C2–D2

Sri Lanka rebel conflict end declared 5-18, 333G2 Venez’s Chavez talk show aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413B2 Letterman regrets Gov Palin daughter joke 6-15, 455C3 Jackson meml svc aired 7-7, 467G3 Leno primetime show debuts 9-14, 632D2 Quake/tsunami hit Samoa 9-29, 662C3 China Communist rule anniv marked 10-1, 683C1 Israeli troop (Shalit) hostage tape aired 10-2, 689F2 Turkey airs Gaza war crimes dramatizatn 10-14, Israeli criticisms exchngd 10-15—10-16, 755B1 Colo balloon released/lands, boy found 10-15; family mulls incident, failed TV show pitch rptd 10-15—10-16, hoax seen, wife confessn posted 10-18—10-23, 745B3, D3–G3 Indonesia anti-corruptn ofcls wiretaps aired 11-3, 786F1 Colo balloon hoax parents plead guilty 11-13, show talks rptd 11-14, 817D2, F2–G2 ‘As the World Turns’ dropped 12-8, 953F3 Satellite Television & Radio Cuba broadcast curbs lifted 4-13, 248C3 Service & Safety Issues Georgia protests held 4-10—4-16, 253A2 Sports Super Bowl ratings mark rptd 2-3, 70A2 Barclays Dubai Champ US broadcast nixed 2-16, 139A1 NFL’s Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 Hockey HOF inducts Davidson 11-9, 951D2 Golfer Woods sets ‘indefinite break’ 12-11, 879F1–G1 Terrorism & Sabotage MBC studios attacked 1-6, 9A3 Madagascar TV station attacked 1-26—1-27, 66F1 HornAfrik dir (Ahmed) slain 2-4, 66C3–D3 U.S. Political Issues Campaign finance case rehearing ordrd by Sup Ct 6-29, 444B3–C3 White House sr adviser (Axelrod) sees Ailes 10-6; bias alleged, remarks scored 10-11—10-18, Obama interview snub rptd 10-12, 717C2 Va gov debate held 10-12, 716E3 NJ gov debate held 10-16, 716G2, A3

TELEVISION Arts and Sciences, Academy of Emmys (primetme) presented 9-20, 647A3

TELLO Quinones, Gen. Mauro Enrique Seized 2-2; found slain 2-3, suspects held 2-9, 97D2–E2

TEMA (Albanian newspaper) Baze attacked, in hosp/exits 11-2—11-3, suspects held, Taci detentn ordrd/surrenders 11-3—11-5, 853A3

TEMBO, John Pres electn held 5-19, loss rptd 5-22, 358B1, E1

TEMIME, Herve Visits client (Polanski) 10-9, on health woes 10-11, 707D2–E2

TEMPERATURE—See WEATHER TEMPLETON, Sir John (Marks) (1912-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

TEMPLETON Prize D’Espagnat wins 3-16, 191G2 Obituaries Jaki, Stanley L 4-7, 256C3

TEMPLE University (Philadelphia, Pa.) EagleBank Bowl lost 12-29, 948A3

TENARIS SA Local unit natlzn ordrd 5-21, 395F1

TEN Commandments—See BIBLE, The 10 Conditions of Love, The (film) Kadeer visits Australia, premiere held 8-8—8-11, China v forgn min trip nix rptd 8-18, 606D1

TENENBAUM, Inez Moore Named CPSC chair 5-5, 340F2, A3

TENET, George J. CIA interrogatns authrzn role rptd, timeline issued 4-22, 261E2, D3 Terror detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 306B1 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program ‘04 halt rptd 7-15, 474A1 DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20, 915D3 Terror detainees CIA interrogatn documts issued 8-24, 567F1

1183

CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815B3

TENNESSEE Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Auto indus fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536C2 Crime & Law Enforcement Knoxville church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247C3 NFL ex-player (McNair), girlfriend found dead 7-4, gun buy rptd, murder-suicide ruled 7-5—7-8, 467B3–C3 Environment & Pollution Harriman power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, retaining wall failures rptd 1-8, 33E2, B3–C3 Harriman power plant coal ash spill EPA cleanup set 5-11, cause rptd 6-25, 555B1 Harriman power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Rep Gordon nixes reelectn bid 12-14, 885F3 School Issues Sex harassmt retaliatn curbs backed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48B2 Sports Liberty Bowl results 1-2, 24E1 Titans exit playoffs 1-10, 40B1 St Jude Classic results 6-14, 563F3 Music City Bowl results 12-27, 948A3 Transportation NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357B2

TENNESSEE River Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-2, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33G2, C3

TENNESSEE System, University of ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12C1 Summitt wins 1000th game, deal extended 2-5, 159A3 Ayers in NFL draft 4-25, 298D3 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 697C3 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1 Women’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-30—11-4, 771F2–G2 Chick-fil-A Bowl lost 12-31, 948F2

TENNESSEE Valley Authority, U.S. (TVA) Power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2, retaining wall failures rptd 1-8, 33F2, A3 Power plant coal ash spill cleanup set 5-11, cause rptd 6-25, 555C1 Power plant coal ash spill cleanup spending set 9-14, 655E1 States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2

TENNIS Awards & Honors HOF inducts Seles/Gimeno/Dell/Johnson 7-11, 631A3 Federer 2d in AP ‘00-09 top athlete voting 12-16, 879D2 S Williams named AP top female athlete 12-22, 951G1 Broadcasting Barclays Dubai Champ US broadcast nixed 2-16, 139A1 Crime Issues Australian Open fans clash 1-23, 71E1 Obituaries Kramer, Jack 9-12, 632C3 People ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G1 Israel’s Peer UAE visa denied 2-15; Ram entry OKd 2-19, Roddick sets Barclays Dubai Champ boycott 2-21, 138F3 King gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548A2 Henin sets return 9-22, 647G2 Professional Williams tops women’s rankings 2-2, 71A1 Federer tops ATP rankings 7-6, 467C2 Records & Achievements Australian Open match time mark set 1-30, 71D1 Federer ties Grand Slam wins mark 6-7, 398C3 Federer sets Grand Slam wins mark 7-5, 467E1 Rules & Regulations Wimbledon roof closed 6-29, 467F2 Substance Abuse Issues Agassi drug use admitted 10-27, Open published 11-9, 951E1 Suspensions & Fines Barclays Dubai Champ ‘10 omit warned 2-19, fine issued 2-20, 139A1 Williams fined, regrets outburst 9-13—9-14, 631B2–C2 S Williams fined 11-30, 951G1

1184 TENNIS— Winners ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12D2 ATP World Tour Finals, Davydenko 11-29, 951C1 Australian Open (singles), Williams/Nadal 1-31—2-1, 70G3, 71B1 Australian Open (men’s doubles), Bryan/Bryan 1-31, 71A2 Australian Open (women’s doubles), Williams/Williams 1-30, 71G1 Australian Open (mixed doubles), Bhupati/Mirza 2-1, 71A2 Barcelona Open, Nadal 4-26, 399F1 Barclays Dubai Champ, Williams/Djokovic 2-22, 2-28, 139A1–B1 BNP Paribas Open, Zvonareva/Nadal 3-22, 399G1 Cincinnati Open, Djokovic 8-23, 631G2 Davis Cup, Spain 12-4—12-6, 951D1 Fed Cup, Italy 11-8, 951A2 French Open (singles), Kuznetsova/Federer 6-6—6-7, 398C3 French Open (men’s doubles), Dloughy/Paes 6-6, 399C1 French Open (women’s doubles), Medina Garrigues/Ruano Pascual 6-5, 399C1 French Open (mixed doubles), Bryan/Huber 6-4, 399D1 Italian Open, Safina 5-9, 399E1 Madrid Open, Safina/Federer 5-17, 399D1 Monte Carlo Masters, Nadal 4-19, 399F1 Paris Masters, Djokovic 11-15, 951D1 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Kuznetsova 5-3, 399E1 Rogers Cup, Murray/Dementieva 8-16, 8-23, 631F2, A3 Rome Masters, Nadal 5-3, 399E1 Sony Ericsson Open, Azarenka/Murray 4-4—4-5, 399G1 US Open (singles), Clijster/del Porto 9-13—9-14, 631A1, E1–F1 US Open (men’s doubles), Dlouhy/Paes 9-13, 631E2 US Open (women’s doubles), S/V Williams 9-14, 631E2 US Open (mixed doubles), Gullickson/Parrott 9-10, 631E2 Westn & Southn Financial Group Women’s Open, Jankovic 8-16, 631G2 Wimbledon (singles), S Williams/Federer 7-4—7-5, 467E1, C2 Wimbledon (men’s doubles), Nestor/Zimonjic 7-4, 467G2 Wimbledon (women’s doubles), V/S Williams 7-4, 467G2 Wimbledon (mixed doubles), Knowles/Groenefeld 7-5, 467A3 WTA finale, S Williams 11-1, 951F1

TENNIS Channel (cable TV channel) Barclays Dubai Champ broadcast nixed 2-16, 139A1

TEODORO, Gilbert Storm Ketsana, pres palace aid use set 9-28, 664D2 On flood waters 10-6, 684E3 Seeks US troops redeploymt 10-9, 704F1

TERATAI Prima (Indonesian ferry) Sinks, survivors rptd/victims search ends 1-11—1-20, capt held 1-19, 84C2

TERERA, Giles Death and the King’s Horseman revival opens in London 3-26, 255G3

TERESA, Mother (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) (1910-97) India nixes remains transfer 10-13, 711D3

TERKEL, Studs (Lewis) (1912-2008) (see CORR end of file) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3*

TERMIJE, Abu Slain 11-20, 819E3–F3

TERMINATOR Salvation (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

TERRORISM, International US aid suspects chrgd 7-27, 679A1

TERRORIST Attacks, U.S. (& aftermath) Attacks & Recovery Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65E1 Victim widow (Eckert) dies in plane crash 2-12, 95A3 9/11 remembrnc bill signed 4-21, 620A2 Air Force One, NYC flyover spurs panic 4-27, incident scored/regretted, probe set 4-27—4-28, 208D1 Air Force One/NYC flyover photo issued, White House ofcl (Caldera) quits 5-8, 357D3 Silverstein/Port Auth mtg held 5-21, 620A3 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19; punishmts set, scored 6-24—7-10, check cashing scheme suspects indicted 7-28, 621A1, F1 WTC site arbitratn sought, govt financial risk scored 8-4, 620E2

FACTS Flight 93 meml land deals set 8-31, Capitol Bldg plaque unveiled 9-9, 620D3 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620G1 Pak militants capture rptd 9-11, 630A3 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816F1 Suspect (Higazy) detentn suit setld 9-24, 914F2 WTC remains storage blaze erupts 10-31; suspect (Schroeder) surrenders, freed on bail 10-31—11-1, job offer nixed 11-2, 914A3 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3 Bin Laden kids Iran house arrest escape rptd 12-23, 941D2 Criminal Investigation Suspect (Marri) chrgd 2-26, indictmt unsealed, mil detentn case drop sought 2-27, 129A3 Suspect (Marri) mil detentn authrzn nix oppositn dropped, ruling vacated/case denied by Sup Ct 3-4—3-6, 148C3 Cuba base detainees claim 9/11 role 3-10, 244G2 ICE/DEA coordinatn woes scored 4-20, 341E1 Cuba base detainees trial delay sought, OKd 9-16—9-21, 718E3 Ex-enemy combatant (Marri) sentncd 10-29, 760D1 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, 769G1 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan), imam links questnd 11-9—11-11, 777F3, 778B1 9/11 plot suspects trials set/debated, Sen com hearing held 11-13—11-18, 793A1, F1, E2; photos 794A1, A2, A3 Domestic Security Issues A-reactors jet attack curbs OKd 2-17, 479D3 Bayer W Va plant blast info block rptd 4-21, 412F3 FBI watch list woes rptd, recommendatns implementatn seen 5-6, 411C2 Swine flu biodefns funds use opposed 6-7, 386C3–D3 NSA e-mail collectn rptd 6-17, 445C3, F3 Alert system pol pressure claimed, denied 8-9—8-21, 572F2, A3, E3 Indian actor (Khan) NJ airport questng sparks outrage 8-14, 646E2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782A2, C2 Economic & Social Issues RC bp (Williamson) reinstated 1-24, 43E2 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, reinstatn sought/opposed, suit warned 4-3—4-9, 307E3 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387C3 Saudi royals/charities, Al Qeada funding linked 6-24, victim families suit nix upheld 6-29, 491E2, E3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3 Forgn aid ‘10 funds pass House 7-9, 488B3, E3 ‘Material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677F2 National Commission Probe Roemer named India amb 5-27, 354C1 May dies 6-1, 420G3 Political/Military Response ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G1, 12A1–B1 Panetta CIA dir apptmt seen 1-5, Brennan named White House advisor 1-8, 5G3–6A1 Johnsen named legal counsel ofc head 1-5, 6D2 Cuba base ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse alleged 1-6, compensatn sought 1-18, 28F3 Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20D2 Bush news conf held 1-12, gives farewell address 1-15, 18C3, F3; text 19C1 Cuba base detainee (Qahtani) treatmt defended 1-13, abuse confrmd 1-14, 20D1 Cuba base cont detentns support polled 1-13—1-16, detainees transferred 1-17, 28C2, E3 Cuba base ex-detainees recidivism rise rptd, claims doubted 1-13—1-15, 166D1 Cuba base detainee (Gharani) release ordrd 1-14, 20F2 Bush admin antiterror memos revoked 1-15, 130B1 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 Cuba base detainee hearings halted 1-20; Obama policy chngs outlined 1-21, prison closure ordrd, CIA interrogatns ltd 1-22, 28F1, D2

Cuba base ex-detainees Al Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, Saudi terror suspects list issued 2-3, 119A1, C1–D1 Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64B1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46C3 Kyrgyz mil base closure seen 2-3, 59D1 Cuba base detainees Canada resetlmt sought 2-3, 63C3 Cuba base detainees resetlmt EU aid seen, backed 2-3—2-4, 64A1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release nixed 2-4, US/UK intell cooperatn threat denied 2-5, 80F2–A3 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) chrgs dropped 2-6, 80D3 Obama sees victims families 2-6, 80B3 Obama on victims families mtg, doubts Bush admin probe 2-9, 78C3, F3, 79 Bush policies probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1 Detainee torture documts release opposed 2-9, 80C2 Detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, Justice Dept ex-ofcls responses seen 2-17, 94C3, 95A1, C1 Cuba base ex-detainees Iraq detentn rptd 2-17, 101D3 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95E1 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, electonic monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23; torture mulled 2-23, arrives, questnd/freed 2-24, 112E1, B2 Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt issued, questnd 2-20, Olson named task force ldr, Holder visits 2-20—2-23, 112C3 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 105D2, 108A2 Cuba base ex-detainees French convctns nixed 2-24; renditns UK aid admitted 2-26, abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150F1, D2, G2 Cuba base detainees Spain transfer mulled 2-24, 165G3 CIA terror detainees interrogatn Sen com probe rptd 2-27, 130D2 CIA detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129C2 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 129F3, 130A1 Bush admin policies truth comm proposal Sen com hearing held 3-4, 130A2 Bush admin policies review task force named 3-11, 166A2 Cuba base closure ofcl named, detainee transfers mulled 3-12—3-16; ‘enemy combatant’ term dropped 3-13, Obama policy questnd 3-14, 165G2, D3, 166G1 Obama policies questnd 3-15, Cheney remarks scored 3-16, 166B2, A3 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15; indep probe sought 3-17, Bush admin documts release mulled 3-23, 183G2 Army troops ‘stop-loss’ policy end seen 3-18, 183E2 Detainee (Marri) bail nixed 3-18; transported to Ill 3-20, pleads not guilty 3-23, 183F3 Bush bk work confrmd 3-19, 166F3* Detainee (Mohamed) failed plea deal documts issued 3-23, UK probe urged 3-26, 290B2–E2 Afghan strategy chngd 3-27, 194A3–B3 Detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199C3, 200G3 ‘War on terror’ term dropped 3-30, 200F1 Detainees abuse CIA rpts release urged 3-31, 290B3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199D2 CIA interrogatn memos release delayed, House com rpt issued 4-2, 257E1, 258F1–G1 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506C1 Cuba base detainne France transfer set 4-3, 213B3 Cuba base detainee (Boumediene) France transfer OKd, confrmd 4-3, 5-6, 305D3 Cuba base detainee (Khadr) atty ousted, move blocked/OKd 4-3—10-7; Canada repatriatn ordrd 4-23, ruling upheld, appeal filed 8-14, 719A1 Detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244C2 CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262A3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutns mulled/footnotes detailed 4-16—4-23, Sen com rpt released, timeline revealed 4-21—4-22, 257A1–261E3; excerpts 259A1–260G3

ON FILE

Cuba base detainees abuse Spain probe opposed 4-16—4-17; criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, probe launched, US govt info sought 4-29—5-5, 329E1, C2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns ‘05 memo rptd 4-21, 322C2 Detainees interrogatn info issued/photos release set, intell questnd 4-24—4-26, CIA methods scored, Bybee defends memos/Sen com testimony sought 4-27—4-29, 289A2–290F3 Terror detainees CIA renditns aid info release suit reinstated 4-28, state secrets use curbs vowed 4-29, 290D1 Detainees abuse ban defended 4-29, 285D2–E2 Cuba base detainees Europn entry urged 4-29, Sen com hearing held 4-30, 305E2, B3 Ex-’enemy combatant’ (Marri) pleads guilty 4-30, 305A2 Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301C2; key votes listed 302B2 Detainees CIA harsh interrogatns ‘04 halt rptd 5-4, 305E3 Detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322G2 Cuba base detainee (Ahmed) cont detentn nixed 5-4, 506B2 Detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing info questnd, documts issued 5-5—5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 322F3, 323G1 Cuba base detainees US release curbs bill introduced 5-7, 305A3 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321D2 Detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held, Zelikow memo found 5-13, Cheney documt request denied 5-14, 322B1, E1, A2, F2 Supltmtl funds pass House, draft OKd by Sen com 5-14, Cuba base prison closure funds nixed 5-20, 338F1 Obama sets detainees mil comm trials return 5-15, policies mulled 5-21, 337A1, E1, C2 Ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 337A3 Suplmtl funds pass Sen 5-21, 355F1, A2 Cuba base prison closure backed 5-24, 353A3 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374B2 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com hearing held 6-2, 381C2–D2 Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 367E3–F3, 368B1, A2–C2 Cuba base detainees Palau entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10; Ghailani in ct, pleads not guilty 6-9, Bermuda/Iraq/Chad transfers rptd 6-11, 391A2, A3, D3 Cuba base detainees transferred to Bermuda 6-11, 447B1–C1 Detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428E1, C2 Cuba base detainees Italy transfer OKd, EU deal set 6-15, 416B3 Suplmtl funds clear Cong, signed 6-17—6-24, 424G3–425A1 Cuba base closure funds block nixed by House 6-18, 488F2 CIA planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program shut, Cong intell briefing mulled 6-23—7-14; ‘06 rptg noted 7-14, previous halts seen 7-15—7-16, 473A3, 474A1, G1, B2 Homeland Security ‘10 funds pass Cong 6-24, 7-9, 488G1–A2 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505G2, C3, F3 Cuba base prison task forces deadline miss mulled 7-20, 506G1 Cuba base detainees Ireland entry OKd 7-29, 506E1 UK intell sharing curbs warned 7-29, Cuba base detainees torture role denied 8-9—8-10, 544B2–D2 Cuba base detainee (Mutairi) release ordrd 7-29, 718F2 CIA abuses probe atty apptmt opposed/Durham named, cont renditns rptd 8-19—8-24, interrogatn unit order signed, documts issued/techniques defended 8-24, 565A1–567A3 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program mulled 8-20, Blackwater role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21, 586F2 Cuba base detainee attys probe rptd, scored 8-20—8-21, 587A1 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) freed, returns to Afghan/sees Karzai 8-24, 573A1 Cuba base detainees Portugal transfer rptd 8-28, 718B2 Ashcroft ‘material witness’ use suit upheld 9-4, 659F2, E3 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) regrets petitn signing 9-6, 602D2

2009 Index Army secy nominee (McHugh) confrmd 9-16, 656B2 Cuba base detainee transfers rptd, interrogatn tapes withheld/measure passes House 9-16—10-9; death penalty nixed 10-2, closure mulled 10-6, 718E1, C2–B3, 719E1 UN Gen Assemb debate opens 9-23, 633E1 Cuba base cont detentns authrzn legis request nixed 9-23, 642A3 Cuba base detainees transfer measures backed, bill clears Cong 10-1—10-20, 714A3–B3 ‘10 defns funds pass Sen 10-6, 701D2 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884B3 Cuba base detainees case accepted by Sup Ct 10-20, 717D3 Afghan/US troops sacrifices hailed 10-26, 750D3 Cuba base detainees mil comm trials chngs bill signed 10-28, 794D1 USS NY exits port 10-29; arrives in NYC 11-2, commissioned 11-7, 914E3 Cuba base detainees transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760G1 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, Ill transfers mulled, closure deadline miss seen 11-14—11-18, 793B1, 794B1 White House counsel (Craig) sets resignatn 11-13, 797C3–E3 US detainee abuse photos release block backed 11-13, 867D2 Detentn facilities measure nixed by Sen 11-17, 815E2–F2 Defns Dept dep asst secy (Carter) quits 11-20, 914E1 Cuba base detainees transferred 11-30—12-1, 861B2 Detainee abuse photos release ruling nixed by Sup Ct 11-30, 867G1 Cuba base suicides suit argumt filed/probe questnd 12-4—12-7; detentns end/cont, chrgs dropped 12-9—12-16, Ill prison buy seen/transfers mulled 12-11—12-16, 861A1–862A2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843A3 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, Ill prison plan delay seen 12-23, 913D3, 914A1 Mich flight failed blast claimed 12-27, intell woes scored 12-31, 898G1, G2

TERRY, Jason Named NBA top 6th man 5-12, 332C1

TERRY, Michelle England People Very Nice opens in London 2-11, 211C3

TERRY, Randall On abortn MD (Tiller) slaying 5-31—6-1, 370G3

TESLA Motors Factory fuel econ upgrades aid set 6-23, 536D2

TESTIMONY: Vol. 2, Love & Politics (recording) On best-seller list 2-28, 140D1

TEST of Our Times, The: America Under Seige... and How We Can Be Safe Again (book) Terror alert system pol pressure claimed 8-9, 572G2

TEVATRON Large Hadron Collider restarted 11-20, collisns rptd 11-23, 824B2 Large Hadron Collider sets mark 11-30, 952A2

TEXACO Inc.—See CHEVRON Corp. TEXAS Accidents & Disasters BP refinery ‘05 blast fine upheld 3-12, 916G3 BP refinery safety violatns fine set 10-30, 917C1 BP ‘07 chem release damages awarded 12-18, 916D3, G3 Arts & Culture Nasher Ctr dir (Strick) named 1-30, 120D2 Dallas arts district theater/opera house open 10-18, 953C3 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section SFG exec testifies/held, SEC fraud probe rptd 2-10—2-27; hq raided, assets frozen/seized 2-17—2-25, complaint filed, chngd 2-17—2-27, 147D3, 148A1, C1–D1 Peanut Corp plant shut, recall set 2-12, 95F3 HFV mgr dir (Wissman) guilty plea rptd 4-15, 265B3 SFG exec (Pendergest-Holt) indicted 5-12, 457C2

—THAILAND 1185 SFG exec (Stanford) surrenders, indictmt unsealed/assets mulled 6-18—6-19, pleads not guilty, bail set/revoked 6-25—6-30, 457E1 Baker Hughes/BJ Svcs buy set 8-31, 660G1 Dell/Perot buy set 9-21, 660C1 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759F2 Exxon Mobil/XTO Energy buy set 12-14, 886G3–887A1 Crime & Law Enforcement Mex natl (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31E3 Inmate (Richard) executn judge comm proceedings open 2-19, defns brief filed 3-24, 429F3 White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539C3 Medicare fraud task force team hiked 5-20, suspects held 7-29, 574B2–C2 Ford assassin try woman (Fromme) freed 8-14, 554F2 Executed inmate (Willingham) guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700C1–C3 Dallas bomb plot suspect (Smadi) chrgd 9-24, 678G2 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 701A1 Polygamists (Jessop/Keate) convctd, sentncd 11-5—12-17, 919B2–C2 UN missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862D2–E2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Mex border troops sought 2-25, 171D1 Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185E3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Gay couple divorce OKd 10-1, 699A2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Iran A-program linked properties seizure sought 11-12, 804D3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, 573F2 Visas exit monitoring questnd 10-12, 721E3 Medicine & Health Care ‘06 teen birth rate rptd 1-7, 96F1 Peanut plant salmonella positive test rptd 2-24, fined 4-9, 268F2–G2 Ex-1st lady (B Bush) in hosp/has surgery, exits 3-4—3-13, 176E2 Swine flu cases confrmed, Mex boy dies 4-23—4-29; emergency declared 4-26, shut schls tallied 4-30, 281A2, D3, 282C1–D1, F1 Harlingen swine flu patient dies 5-5, 303F2 Stanford CEO in hosp 8-27, 814A2 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Military Issues Ft Hood shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held/suicide bombers praise seen 11-5, 757E1, F2; photo 757A3 Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled, intell probe sought/’07 speech rptd 11-6—11-12; victims IDd, mourned 11-7—11-10, atty mtg held/chrgs set, imam ties questnd 11-9—11-12, 777A2, E3 Ft Hood shooting probes set/Ham named ldr, Sen com hearings open 11-19—11-23; gunman (Hasan) confinemt ordrd/cont hosp stay OKd, paralysis rptd 11-20—11-22, imam e-mails mulled 11-21, 812A3, 813A1, E1 Ft Hood shooting suspect (Hasan) chrgs hiked 12-2, 915D1 Obituaries Brinker, Norman E 6-9, 420C3 Crow, Trammell 1-14, 56F1 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Kelton, Elmer S 8-22, 612D3 Shepherd Jr, Mark 2-4, 120F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1–C1 Bushes return 1-20, 26F2 US trade rep nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-2—3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182A1, D1 Perry backs secessn right 4-15, 869E1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425C1–D1, F1, 425F1 Hutchison sets gov bid 7-13, sees Sen resignatn 7-29, 503D2 Electn results 11-3, 756F3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, library design unveiled 11-18, 814G2 White sets gov bid 12-4, Houston mayoral runoff held 12-13, 868F3, 869C1

Press & Broadcasting Houston Voice shut 11-16, 912E3 Sports Cotton Bowl results 1-2, 24D1 Houston Open results 4-5, 255E2 Spurs wins divisn, Rockets/Mavericks make playoffs 4-15, 278C2 Rockets exit playoffs 5-17, 419F2 Tex Open results 5-17, 564A1 Byron Nelson Classic results 5-24, 564A1 Crowne Plaza Invitatnl results 5-31, 563G3 Cowboy Stadium video screens lift nixed 8-28, 632E1 San Antonio loses Little League World Series semi 8-30, 612D2 Dynamo lose MLS Champ semi 11-13, 894G3 LPGA Tour Champ results 11-23, 949G2 NCAA women’s soccer champ results 12-6, 895A2 Cowboys clinch playoffs bid 12-27, 947E3 Armed Forces/Sun/Tex Bowls results 12-31, 948F2–G2 Transportation Southwest inspectn woes fine paymt set 3-2, 151G2

TEXAS A&M University (College Station) Women’s basketball yr-end rank 3-9—3-17, tourn results 4-7, 230E3, 231A1 Borlaug dies 9-12, 632G2 Indep Bowl lost 12-28, 948A3

TEXAS Christian University (TCU) (Fort Worth) ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23G3–24A1 Football yr-end rank rptd 12-6, 879C3–D3

TEXAS Instruments Inc. Shepherd dies 2-4, 120F3

TEXAS System, University of Austin Campus Fiesta Bowl won 1-1, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23F3–24A1, C1 Orakpo in NFL draft 4-25, 298G2 Men’s Coll World Series lost 6-25, 484E2 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579E3–F3 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1 Football yr-end rank rptd, title game berth set 12-6, 879A3 McCoy 3d in Heisman voting 12-12, 879F2–G2 Obituaries Rogers, Lorene L 1-11, 56G2

TEXAS Tech University (Lubbock) Cotton Bowl lost 1-2, 24D1 Crabtree in NFL draft 4-25, 298F2 Gonzales poly sci teaching job rptd 7-8, hiring mulled 7-30, 574D2

TEXTILES Guatemala exporter (Musa), daughter/atty slain 4-14—5-10, 377A1 Turkey flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627A3 Flame retardant (DecaBDE) use halt OKd 12-19, 918F1 Obituaries Ashley, Sir Bernard 2-14, 160A3 Sutton, Crystal Lee 9-11, 708G3

TEXTS & Text Excerpts Bush farewell address 1-15, 19A1 Obama inaugural address 1-20, 27A1 Obama news conf 2-9, 78A1 Obama Cong address 2-24, 106A1–108E3 Obama/Iran video message 3-20, 179E1 CIA interrogatn memos 4-16, 259A1–260G3 Obama Egypt address 6-4, 368A1 Obama, Ghana parlt address 7-11, 472A1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings 7-13—7-16, 470A1 Obama news conf 7-22, 487E1 Obama Cong address 9-9, 599A1 Obama Afghan war speech 12-1, 826A1 Obama Nobel Peace Prize acceptnc speech 12-10, 843A1

TF1 (French TV channel) Mitterrand interviewed 10-8, 707A3

TGSCOM Inc. Pa gym shooter guns buy rptd 8-7, 554D2

THABEET, Hasheem In NBA draft 6-25, 451A1, C1

THA Carter III (recording) Lil Wayne wins Grammys 2-8, 88B2, B3

THACI, Hashim (Kosovar premier, 2008- ) Convoy attacked 11-11, munic electns held, results rptd 11-15—11-17, 803B2–C2 Local electn runoffs held 12-13, results rptd 12-14, 938B2

THAILAND, Kingdom of Accidents & Disasters Bangkok club fire kills 65+ 1-1; owner held 1-5, safety inspectns set 1-7, 22B3 Actor (Carradine) found dead 6-4, suffocatn seen 6-5, 400G2 Timor Sea rig leak opens/halted, fire extinguished 8-21—11-3, damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1 Arts & Culture New Year’s festival nixed, cont 4-13—4-14, 250E3–F3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Cambodia border violnc warned 3-31; clash kills 3, war denied 4-3—4-5, com mtg held 4-5—4-7, 310F1 ASEAN cont plans vowed 4-8, summit nixed, ldrs exit 4-11, 249G3, 250E1, B2–C2 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi cont detentn mulled 5-19, protest held 5-24, 360B2 Abhisit visits Malaysia 6-8, 416G1 ASEAN mtgs, summit hosted 7-18—7-23, 495D2–F2, B3, G3, 496 Sri Lankan rebel ldr (Pathmanathan) held 8-6, 578E3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc scored 8-12, 543C2 Cambodia offers Thaksin asylum 10-23, 748A2 Thaksin named Cambodia econ adviser, extraditn denied/arrives 11-4—11-12; ambs recalled, emb protested/1st secys ousted 11-5—11-12, bay claims memo nixed 11-10, 784G3, 785E1–B2 Cambodia 1st secy ousters exchngd, border spec forces removed 11-12—11-13; Thaksin sees movemt members, leaves/returns 11-13—12-13, Samart seizure scored 11-19, 872D1, G1, C2 Plane lands/seized, arms found 12-11—12-12, crew chrgd, flight plan rptd 12-14, 862F2 Civil Strife ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C1 Govt ofcs protested, entry block drop ordrd 3-26—4-2; Thaksin speeches aired, remarks scored 3-27—3-30, force use nixed, ‘08 demonstrators chrgd 3-30, 205C3, 206A1, F1 Protests turn violent, provocatn mulled 4-7—4-14; emergencies declared 4-11—4-12, peace urged, ldrs held 4-13—4-14, 249F3–250G3 Sondhi shot/exits hosp, mil arms use mulled 4-17—4-25; violnc scored, emergency rule lifted 4-23—4-24, protests cont 4-25, 295A2, D2, F2 Violnc kills 27, mosque attack mil role denied/insurgency victims compensatn bill OKd 6-6—6-9, 416C1 Coup rumors spread, denied 8-3—8-4; security act invoked, protests held 9-18—10-24, Hindu temple clashes hurt 17, emergency declared/violnc halt urged 9-19—9-20, 726G1, F2, D3 Violnc kills scores, Islamic insurgency fight spending rptd 8-25—10-10; casualties tallied 9-14, suspects held 10-12, 748A1–D1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Thaksin pardon petitn questnd, presented 7-31, 8-17, 559C2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Iran satellite launched 2-3, 86A3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Myanmar homes raided 8-24, border seizure rptd 10-1, 684C2–E2 Economy & Labor ‘08 4th 1/4 GDP rptd 2-23, ‘09 estimate cut 4-22, 310D1 Stock exchng drops 10-14—10-15, 726F3 Education Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 747D3 Energy Total/Chevron, Myanmar junta bolstering alleged 9-10, 684D1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cambodia spying suspect held, release aid sought 11-12—11-19, convctd/pardoned, freed 12-8—12-14, 872B1, G1 European Relations France’ Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US’s Yettaw sees Myanmar dissidents 5-2, 327B3 US diplomats visit Myanmar 11-3—11-4, 763G2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11C1 Parlt by-electns held 1-11, 51C3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236B2

1186 THAIN— Abhisit cabt mtg nixed, Thaksin talks offrd 3-31—4-1, 206F1 Thaksin/govt talks mulled 4-3—4-16, early electns mulled 4-5—4-16, 250C1, 251B1–C1 Thaksin rally held, addresses supporters 6-27—8-17, 559F2, A3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736B2 Immigration & Refugee Issues Captured refugees abandoning policy seen/denied, boat found 1-12—1-20; mil abuse photos issued, probe urged/set 1-15—1-29, UN access sought/OKd, convctns rptd 1-20—1-29, 51F3, 52A1, D1 Indonesia abandoned refugees boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, mil policy mulled, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99D1, A2 Abandoned refugees ASEAN talks failure rptd 3-2, 135B3 UN’s Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187C3 Myanmar refugees flee 6-5—6-10, 415A2 Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934A2, G2 Latin American Relations Thai’s Thaksin passport revoked 4-12, named Nicaraguan ‘amb’ 4-15, 251A1 Medicine & Health Care HIV vaccine ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671C1–D1 HIV vaccine trial success questnd 10-5, 697C2 Monetary Issues Interest rate cut 4-8, 310E1 Obituaries Samak Sundaravej 11-24, 880C3 Press & Broadcasting Satellite TV station, Web sites shut 4-14, 251A1 Royal Family Insulter (Nicolaides) pleads guilty 1-19; pardoned 2-19, returns to Australia 2-22, 154C1 Royal family insults suspect (Ungpakorn) chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154E1 Insulting Web sites blocked 3-5, law review set, probes tallied 3-6, 154F1–A2 Insulter (Suwicha) pleads guilty, sentncd 4-3, 727C1 King Bhumibol sees ‘ruin’ 8-21; insulter (Daranee) convctd, sentncd 8-28, in hosp, health rptd 9-19—10-15, 726E3, 727B1 King health rumors post suspects held, chrgd 11-1, 891C3 Thaksin on King reign, remarks mulled 11-9—11-10, 785B2 Trade, Aid & Investment ASEAN summit hosted 2-27—3-1, 135D2–E2, G2 Abhisit at G-20 summit 3-31, 206C2 ASEAN summit hosted 10-23—10-25, 748D1–F1, A2–B2, F2 Cambodia highway loan nixed 11-27, aid halted 11-30, 872A2 UN Policy & Developments Abhisit mtg held 3-30, 206C1 Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Arms dealing suspect (Bout) extraditn blocked 8-11, appeal set 8-13, 534F1–G1, B2–D2 Sen Webb visits, Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect examined/returns 8-17—8-19, 558A3, G3–559A1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) CIA secret prisons shut 4-9, 262C3 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, Zubaydah questng divide rptd 4-18, 258C1 Detainees CIA interrogatn methods scored 4-27, 289D3, 290B1

THAIN, John Quits 1-22, 32E1–G1 Vows ofc renovatns repaymt 1-26, 44D3–E3 Merrill execs subpoenaed 3-4, bonus paymts info release ordrd 3-18, 220E2

THAKSIN Shinawatra (Thai premier, 2001-06) Parlt by-electns held 1-11, 51E3 Royal family insults suspect (Ungpakorn) chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154F1 Govt ofcs protested, entry block drop ordrd 3-26—4-2; speeches aired, remarks scored 3-27—3-30, force use nixed, talks offrd 3-30—4-1, 205D3–206A1, G1–A2 On govt talks 4-3—4-16; protests turn violent, urges peace 4-7—4-14, passport nixed, named Nicarguan ‘amb’ 4-12—4-15, 249F3, 250A1–C1, A2, E2–F2, A3, C3–D3, G3–251A1, C1

FACTS Sondhi shot, exits hosp 4-17—4-25; emergency rule lifted 4-24, protests cont 4-25, 295A2, E2–F2 Thai Islamic schls militancy recruiting seen 6-22, 747G3 Bangkok protests held 6-27; royal pardon petitn questnd, presented 7-31—8-17, addresses supporteers 8-17, 559C2, A3 Coup rumors spread/denied, royal insulter convctd 8-3—8-28; security act invoked, protests held 9-18—10-24, Hindu temple clashes hurt 17 9-19, 726G1, F2–G2, D3, 727B1 ASEAN summit held, Cambodia asylum offrd 10-23—10-25, 758F1, A2 Named Cambodia econ adviser, extraditn nixed/arrives 11-4—11-12; ambs recalled, emb protested/1st secys ousted 11-5—11-12, mulls royalty, addresses finance min 11-9—11-12, 784G3, 785E1, B2 Spying suspect held, release aid sought/freed 11-12—12-13, sees Thai movemt members, leaves Cambodia/returns 11-13—12-13, 872B1, C2 Samak dies 11-24, 880C3

THANI, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al(Qatar emir, 1995- ) At Arab League summit 3-30, 196E3

THANOU, Ekaterini Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, 950E3–F3

THAN Shwe, Gen. (Myanmar premier, 1992-2003) UN’s Gambari visits 1-31—2-3, 188B1 Hosts UN’s Ban 7-3, 462D1, F1–A2 Suu Kyi convctd, sentncd 8-11, 843C1 Hosts US sen (Webb), OKs Suu Kyi house arrest violatn suspect release 8-15, 558A3–B3, D3–E3 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, Suu Kyi offers sanctns lift aid 10-2, 683E3, 684A1 Suu Kyi sees diplomats 10-9, 725C3 US diplomats visit 11-3—11-4, 763A3 Suu Kyi sends letter 11-11, 936C1

THARP, Twyla Come Fly With Me opens in Atlanta 9-23, 792E1

THARPE, Sister Rosetta (Rosetta Nubin) (1915-73) Knight dies 8-30, 632B3

THATCHER, Margaret (Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven) (British prime minister, 1979-90) Walters dies 1-3, 40E3 Henderson dies 3-16, 192A3 Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637B1 Equatorial Guinea coup plotter (Mann) pardoned, freed/returns 11-3—11-4, 925E1

THATCHER, Sir Mark Equatorial Guinea coup plotter (Mann) pardoned, freed/returns 11-3—11-4, 925E1

THAT Old Cape Magic (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

THAUNG, U Sees US’s Campbell 9-29, 652A3

THAUNG Htun Vs Myanmar sanctns lift 10-7, 725F3

THEATER Appointments & Resignations Landesman named NEA chair 5-13, 332C2 NEA chair nominee (Landesman) confrmd, sworn 8-7, 8-12, 548D2 Awards & Honors Olivier Awards presented 3-8, 231D1 Nottage wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B2 Tonys presented 6-7, 399C3 Rivera gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Brooks honored by Kennedy Ctr 12-5—12-6, 895C3 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section ‘08-09 Bway season tallied 5-26, 400F1 Phedre London productn screened 6-25, 451B3 Wyly Theater opens in Dallas 10-18, 953C3 Brighton Beach Memoirs closes on Bdwy 10-31, 895G3 Our Town revival sets mark 12-16, 954B2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Livent ex-execs sentncd 8-5, 548E2 Obituaries Anderson, Robert W 2-9, 120F2 Arthur, Bea 4-25, 300C3 Barry, Gene 12-9, 896G1 Bellson, Louie 2-14, 140G1 Benedetti, Mario 5-17, 364A3

Boal, Augusto 5-2, 332F2 Chaplin, Sydney 3-3, 192D2 Cohn, Sam 5-6, 332G2 DeLuise, Dom 5-4, 332B3 Foote, Horton 3-4, 140F2 Ford, Ruth 8-12, 580A3 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Greenwich, Ellie 8-26, 596F2 Hingle, Pat 1-3, 104C3 Jacobi, Lou 10-23, 860E3 La Rue, Danny 5-31, 400B3 Lawrence, Jack 3-15, 192B3 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Malden, Karl 7-1, 468G2 Manning, Frankie 4-27, 300F3 McGoohan, Patrick J 1-13, 40G2 Melnick, Daniel 10-13, 772F3 Mikhalkov, Sergei V 8-27, 612E3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672G2 Montalban, Ricardo 1-14, 24D3 Mortimer, Sir John 1-16, 56C2 O’Horgan, Tom 1-11, 56E2 Planchon, Roger 5-12, 400E3 Presnell, Harve 6-30, 500F3 Purdy, James 3-13, 176B3 Rhone, Trevor 9-15, 692E2 Richardson, Natasha 3-18, 176C3 Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Snodgrass, W D 1-13, 40D3 Swayze, Patrick 9-14, 632E3 Tavel, Ronald 3-23, 956F1 Waterhouse, Keith 9-4, 648E3 Whitmore, James 2-6, 120G3 Wiseman, Joseph 10-19, 792G3 Woodward, Edward 11-16, 840F3 Openings (& Revivals) Accent on Youth, NYC 4-29, 348E1 Aftermath, NYC 9-15, 792D1 After Miss Julie, NYC 10-22, 895E3 Amer Idiot, Berkeley 9-16, 860B2 Amer Plan, NYC 1-22, 211A3 Annie Get Your Gun, London 10-16, 895F3 Becky Shaw, NYC 1-8, 211A3 Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Culver City 5-17, 348E1 Blithe Spirit, NYC 3-15, 255F3 Bloody Bloody andrew Jackson, NYC 5-17, 348E1 Brief Encounter, San Fran 9-16, 792D1 Brighton Beach Memoirs, NYC 10-25, 895F3 Broke-ology, NYC 10-5, 860B2 Burnt by the Sun, London 3-3, 211B3 Burn the Floor, NYC 8-2, 564B2 Bye Bye Birdie, NYC 10-15, 860C2 Circle Mirror Transformatn, NYC 10-13, 860C2 Cnty of Kings, NYC 10-12, 860D2 Come Fly With Me, Atlanta 9-23, 792E1 Coming Home, New Haven 1-21, 211B3 Coraline, NYC 6-1, 451F2 Death and the King’s Horseman, London 4-8, 255G3 Desire Under the Elms, NYC 4-27, 348F1 Eclipsed, DC 9-6, 792E1 Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Chicago 10-5, 860D2 England People Very Nice, London 2-11, 211C3 Enron, Chichester 7-23, 564C2 Equivocatn, LA 11-17, 895G3 Everyday Rapture, NYC 5-2, 348F1 Exit the King, NYC 3-26, 255G3 Fela!, NYC 11-23, 954E1 Fever/Dream, DC 6-7, 451F2 Finian’s Rainbow, NYC 10-29, 896A1 Giant, Arlington 5-10, 348G1 God of Carnage, NYC 3-22, 256A1 Good Negro, NYC 3-16, 256A1 Grasses of a 1000 Colors, London 5-18, 451G2 Groundswell, NYC 5-18, 348A2 Guys and Dolls, NYC 3-1, 211C3 Habit of Art, London 11-17, 896B1 Hair, NYC 3-31, 256B1 Hamlet, NYC 10-6, 792F1 Happiness, NYC 3-30, 256B1 Have You Seen Us?, New Haven 12-2, 954F1 Heavens Are Hung in Black, DC 2-8, 211D3 Hedda Gabler, NYC 1-25, 211D3 Idiot Savant, NYC 11-4, 896B1 Impressionism, NYC 3-24, 256C1 Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide, Minneapolis 5-22, 451G2 In the Next Room, Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954F1 Irena’s Vow, NYC 3-29, 256C1 Jerusalem, London 7-15, 564C2 Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, NYC 4-16, 348A2 Kursk, London 6-8, 451A3 Legacy of Light, Arlington 5-14, 348B2 Little Night Music, NYC 12-13, 954G1 Love Loss and What I Wore, NYC 10-1, 860E2 Madame de Sade, London 3-18, 256D1 Marcus, Princeton 5-22, 451A3 Mary Stuart, NYC 4-19, 348B2

ON FILE

Memphis, NYC 10-19, 860E2 Moon to Dance By, New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2 Mountaintop, London 7-20, 564D2 My Wonderful Day, NYC 11-18, 954A2 New Electric Ballroom, NYC 10-29, 896C1 Next Fall, NYC 6-3, 564D2 Next to Normal, NYC 4-15, 348B2 Night Watcher, NYC 10-6, 860F2 9 to 5, NYC 4-30, 348C2 Norman Conquests, NYC 4-23, 348D2 Old Man and the Sea, New Haven 4-8, 256D1 Oleanna, NYC 10-11, 860F2 Orphans’ Home Cycle, Hartford 10-17, 896C1 Our Town, NYC 2-26, 954B2 Phedre, London 6-9, 451B3 Philanthropist, NYC 4-26, 348D2 Pop!, New Haven 12-3, 954C2 Power of Yes, London 10-6, 860G2 Punk Rock, London 9-8, 792F1 Race, NYC 12-6, 954C2 Ragtime, DC 4-25; NYC 11-15, 954D2 Reasons to Be Pretty, NYC 4-2, 256E1 Rock of Ages, NYC 4-7, 256E1 Rod Blaogjevich Spuerstar!, Chicago 2-10, 211E3 Royal Family, NYC 10-8, 792G1 Sister Act, London 6-2, 451C3 Starry Messenger, NYC 11-23, 954E2 Steady Rain, NYC 9-29, 792G1 Streetcar Named Desire, DC 10-31, 896C1 Superior Donuts, NYC 10-1, 792A2 Telephone, NYC 2-9, 211E3 Third Story, NYC 2-2, 211E3 33 Variatns, NYC 3-9, 211F3 This, NYC 12-2, 954E2 Time stands Still, LA 2-11, 211F3 Up, Chicago 6-28, 564E2 Waiting for Godot, NYC 4-30, 348E2 West Side Story, NYC 3-19, 256F1 When the Rain Stops Falling, Sydney 5-11, London 5-21, 451C3 Why Torture Is Wrong, NYC 4-6, 256F1 Wishful Drinking, NYC 10-4, 860G2 You Nero, Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3 You’re Welcome Amer, NYC 2-5, 211G3 People Piven B’way contract row setld 8-27, 596E1

THE-Dream (Terius Youngdell Nash) Love VS Money on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1

THEERTHALA, Sravan Kumar Attacked 5-24, 508G3

THEIN Sein (Myanmar premier, 2007) Hosts UN’s Gambari 2-3, 188B1 Hosts US sen (Webb) 8-15, 558D3 Addresses UN Gen Assemb, sees Ban/US’s Webb 9-28, 652D2–A3 ASEAN summit held 10-23—10-25, 748C3 Hosts US diplomats 11-3—11-4, 763G2 Sees Obama 11-15, 795A2

THERE Will Be Blood (film) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F2

THERON, Charlize Road on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2 At ‘10 World Cup draw 12-4, 858E2

THERRIEN, Michel Fired 2-15, 159D2 Successor (Blysma) named full-time coach 4-27, 299G2

THIRD Story, The (play) Opens in NYC 2-2, 211E3

THIRD World—See DEVELOPING Nations THIRSK, Bob Flies Soyuz missn, joins intl statn 5-27—5-29, 519B2

30 Rock (TV show) Golden Globes won 1-11, 24F2–G2 Emmys won 9-20, 647C3, G3

33 Variations (play) Opens in NYC 3-9, 211F3

THIS (play) Opens in NYC 12-2, 954E2

THIS Week (TV show) Summers interviewed 3-15, 161D2 Secy Geithner interviewed 3-29, 241E3 Emanuel interviewed 4-19, 258A2 Biden interviewed 7-6, 464A3 Geithner interviewed 8-2, 521D1 Obama interviewed 9-20, 638F3 Stephanopoulos named ‘Good Morning Amer’ anchor 12-10, 880E1

THO, Le Duc (Phan Dinh Khal) (1911-90) Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693E1

THOMAS, Betty Alvin and the Chipmunks: Squeakquel on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956C2*

2009 Index THOMAS, Clarence (U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1991- ) Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Vs natl banks state suits 6-29, 444F2–G2 Campaign & Election Issues Limits minority voting power protectns 3-9, 167C1, E1 Vs states’ voting chngs fed authrzn 6-22, 425C2 Capital Punishment Vs Ga inmate (Davis) hearing 8-17, 553D2 Censorship Issues Upholds FCC TV obscenity curbs 4-28, 291D1–E1 Defendants’ Rights Curbs warrantless car searches 4-21, 266D1 Eases suspect questng curbs 5-26, 374C1 Nixes convicts DNA testing right 6-18, 426C1 Backs lab analysts testimony requiremt 6-25, 444C2 Education Issues Vs spec ed reimbursemts 6-22, 426F2 Backs student strip search 6-25, 425C3 Environmental Issues Backs EPA cost-benefit analysis 4-1, 307A2 Backs Alaska lake waste dumping 6-22, 426B3 Federal Powers Nixes ex-detainee (Iqbal) abuse suit 5-18, 337F3 Health & Safety Issues Nixes drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield 3-4, 130A3 Judicial Issues Limits evidnc exclusionary rule 1-14, 21B1 Vs judge sentncg power 1-14, 21F1 Vs judges campaign contributns recusal rule clarificatn 6-8, 390F1 Labor Issues Backs sex harassmt retaliatn curbs 1-26, 48E2 Nixes pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits 5-18, 338C1 Personal Justice Souter sets retiremt 5-1, 301F2 Racial Bias Finds Conn firefighters test nix bias 6-29, 443E3–F3 Religious Issues Upholds Utah pub park religious gift nix 2-25, 130E3, G3 Term Reviews ‘08-09 term reviewed 6-29, 443C1

THOMAS, Derrick (1967-2000) Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

THOMAS, Etan Traded to Timberwolves 6-23, 451D1

THOMAS Jr., Floyd Held 3-31; chrgd, pleads not guilty 4-2—9-23, DNA sample use rptd 4-29, 888B3

THOMAS, Isiah Named FIU men’s basketball coach 4-15, 279C1

THOMAS, Justice John Nixes Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) documts release 2-4, 80F2

THOMAS, Kurt Traded to Bucks 6-23, 451E2

THOMAS, Richard Race opens in NYC 12-6, 954D2

THOMAS, Robin Time Stands Still opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

THOMAS, Thom Moon to Dance By opens in New Brunswick 11-20, 954A2

THOMAS, Tim NHL goals-vs avg/save % ldr 4-12, 299D3 Wins Vezina Trophy 6-18, 435G2

THOMAS-Rasset, Jammie Found liable, fined 6-18, 782C1

THOMPSON, Bennie (U.S. representative from Miss., 1993- ; Democrat) Reseated Homeland Security chair 1-6, 5B1 Holds White House crashing hearing 12-3, 830F1

THOMPSON, Bill Loses NYC mayoral electn 11-3, 756E2, A3–B3

THOMPSON, Fred Dalton Stumps in NY 11-2, 756E1

—TOBACCO 1187 THOMPSON, Katie Giant opens in Arlington 5-10, 348A2

THOMPSON, Lonnie Sees Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss 11-2—11-24, 842F1

THOMPSON, Tommy G. Health care reform backed 10-5—10-6, 677A1

THOMSEN, Linda Testifies to Cong 1-27—2-4, quits 2-9, 113F3, 114B1–C1

THOMSEN, Ulrich Intl on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

THOMSON, Robert On GM/Citigroup, Dow ousters 6-1, 372E2

THORNELOE, Col. Rupert Slain 7-1, 466E1

THORON, Elise Cnty of Kings opens in NYC 10-12, 860D2

THOROUGHBRED Racing Association, National Eclipse Awards announced 1-26, 119D3

THORPE, Ian Biedermann sets 400-m freestyle mark 7-26, 547C3

3 (recording) On best-seller list 10-31, 772D1

350.org (Web site) Climate chng rallies held 10-24, 828C3

3M Co. France factory mgr held, freed 3-24—3-26, 207B1

THREE Powerful Women (book) NDiaye wins Goncourt Prize 11-2, 792B1

THRIFT Supervision, U.S. Office of (OTS) (of Treasury) White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539D3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407B3–C3 Financial indus ‘super-regulator’ proposal rptd 9-20, 640F3 Financial indus reforms proposed 11-10, 779B1

THUNE, John (U.S. senator from S.D., 2005- ; Republican) Seated GOP Conf v chair 1-6, 5E2 Seeks auto indus govt shares sell-off deadline 6-11, 386A1

THURMEIER, Michael Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

THURMOND, (James) Strom (1902-2003) (U.S. senator from S.C., 1954-56/57-2003; Republican) Kennedy dies 8-25, 589C2

T.I. (Clifford Harris Jr.) ‘Live Your Life’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 Wins Grammy, performs 2-8, 88D2, A3 ‘Dead and Gone’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1 Sentncd 3-27, 212E1 Performs 5-24, jailed 5-26, 364E2 Freed, enters halfway home 12-22, 954A3

TIAHRT, Todd (U.S. representative from Kan., 1995- ; Republican) Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

TIAMZON-Mangudadatu, Genalyn (d. 2009) Slain/rape seen, rptrs deaths mulled 11-23—11-25, 818E3–F3, 819B1 Slaying mulled 11-27, 853G3

TIAN Wenhua Sentncd 1-22, 35E2

TIBET (Chinese territory) Dalai Lama govt ouster anniv holiday set 1-19, anticrime campaign rptd 1-25, 115D2, G2 China security threats named 1-20, 251B2 ‘08 rioters, demonstrators sentncd 2-11—2-19; Losar boycott urged, protests held 2-15—2-16, businesses shut, security forces hiked/monks warning issued 2-17—2-19, 116B2, A3 Chinese sculptures return mulled 2-20, 160G1 US lists China abuse 2-25, 180F1 Monk sets self ablaze, ofcl history issued 2-28—3-2; uprising anniv marked, Chinese rule scored 3-10, repressn end urge passes HOuse 3-11, 171C3, 172D1 Dalai Lama, S Africa entry blocked 3-23, peace conf nixed 3-24, 327E1

Dalai Lama, S Africa entry block scored 3-24, 325C3 Cop beating tape questnd, China blocks YouTube/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled/Dalai Lama info hack seen 3-29—3-30, 342D1, F1 Forgn tourists entry OKd 3-30, arrive 4-5, 327A2 ‘08 rioters sentncd, abbot trial opens/verdict delayed 4-8—4-27, 327D1–E1 China Web-filter software requiremt opposed 6-8, 414C3 Dalai Lama visits Taiwan, prayer svc held 8-30—9-1, 625B2 Forgn tourists entry banned 9-22, 683B1, D1 US’s Otero named spec coordinator 10-1, Dalai Lama visits/Obama mtg delay mulled, gets Lantos award 10-5—10-6, 712B3 Spain universal jurisdictn curbs pass parlt 10-15, 884B3 ‘08 riots executns rptd, confrmd 10-20—10-27, 785D3 Dalai Lama/India border trip OKd, protested 10-22, visits 11-8—11-15, 806A2 Obama urges Dalai Lama, China talks 11-17, 795F2

TIDWELL, Mark Stanford SEC fraud probe rptd, complaint filed/chngd 2-17—2-27, 148D2

TIEGER, Alain Opens Serb ldr (Karadzic) trial 10-27, 749E1

TIERNEY, Brian Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, creditors bid OKd, nixed 10-8—11-10, 913G1

TIFFANY, John Wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231E1

TIGHE, Kevin Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

TIKHONOV, Nikita Held 11-5, 855A2

TIK Tok (recording) On best-seller list 12-19, 956D1

TILLER, Dr. George (1941-2009) Abortn clinic vandalized 5-23—5-30; slain 5-31, shooting scored, suspect held/chrgd 5-31—6-2, 370A2–F2, A3–C3, F3–G3 Fed slaying probe set 6-5, clinic shut/Operatn Rescue buy mulled, assoc practice cont 6-9—6-10, 445G1, C2 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1 6-10, 392A2 Rescue Operatn funds lack seen, slaying suspect (Roeder) defns auctn blocked 9-14—11-2; slaying backed, admitted 11-9, FBI warning rptd, necessity defns use sought 11-13—11-23, 832B3–D3, G3, 833B1–C1, E1 Slaying suspect (Roeder) defns nixed 12-22, 919C3

TILLERSON, Rex On XTO Energy buy 12-14, 887A1

TILLMAN, Pat (1976-2004) Afghan/US mil cmdr (McChrystal) named 5-11, 317C2 Afghan cmdr nominee (McChrystal) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 6-2, 381G1 Where Men Win Glory on best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

TILLY, Jennifer Grasses of a 1000 Colors opens in London 5-18, 451G2

TIMBERLAKE, Justin ‘Dead and Gone’ on best-seller list 2-28, 140C1; 3-28, 212C1

TIMBERS, Alex Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens in NYC 5-17, 348F1

TIME (magazine) Indonesia’s Suharto allegatns appeal won 4-16, 935G3 Tyrangiel named BusinessWk ed 11-17, 912G3 Bernanke named ‘Person of Yr’ 12-16, 880C1

TIME for the Traditionally Built (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

TIME of Our Lives, The (recording) On best-seller list 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1

TIMES (British newspaper) Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) interviewed 8-22, 568B2 Thai’s Thaksin interviewed 11-9, transcript posted 11-10, 785B2–D2 Iran A-bomb trigger testing denied 12-18, 941C1–D1

TIMES of India, The (Indian newspaper) US’s Clinton column published 7-17, 486B2

TIMES Publishing Co. CQ sale sought 1-28, 168C1–D1 CQ, Governing sales set 7-21, 11-20, 913B2

TIME Stands Still (play) Opens in LA 2-11, 211F3

TIME Traveler’s Wife, The (film) On top-grossing list 8-21—8-27, 596C2

TIME Warner Inc. Parsons named Citigroup chrmn 1-21, 32D2 AOL split set 5-28, 393B2 AOL spin-off date set 11-16, 830F3

TIMONER, Ondi We Live in Public wins Sundance Festival award 1-24, 104C2

TIMOR Leste—See EAST Timor TIMOR Sea Timor Sea rig leak opens/halted, fire extinguished 8-21—11-3, damage assessed 10-23, Australia probe set, PTTEP scored 11-2, 874C1, B2

TINETTI, Mary Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671D2

TING, Eric Old Man and the Sea opens in New Haven 4-8, 256D1

TINNER, Friedrich Son freed 1-23, 75B3

TINNER, Marco Freed 1-23, 75A3–B3

TINNER, Urs Claims intl arms smuggling bust aid 1-22, brother freed 1-23, 75B3–C3

TIPPETT, Dave Named Coyotes coach 9-24, 730F3

TISDALE, Wayman Lawrence (1964-2009) Dies 5-15, 348F3

TISHKOF, Sara Traces African ancestry 4-30, 516B1

TISSAINAYAGAM, J.S. Sentncd 8-31, 770A1

TISZA River Kosovo Albanians boat capsizing kills 16, smuggling paymt rptd 10-14—10-26, 777F1

TITANIC (British ocean liner) Dean dies 5-31, 384F1

TITIZIAN, Hrach Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

TITLE I—See ELEMENTARY and Secondary Education Act TITLE VII—See CIVIL Rights Act TJX Cos. Credit card theft curbs hiked 7-16, suspects chrgd, indicted 8-17, 554F1–A2 ID theft hacker (Gonzalez) pleads guilty 8-28, 918C1

TLALI, Tlali Sets World Cup spec cts 11-21, 858D3

TNK-BP, OAO Fridman named chair 5-27, Summers deal ends 6-1, 379A1

TOASO, Elod Held 4-16, Bolivia’s Morales thwarted assissinatn plot claimed/denied, probe set 4-16—4-21, 294B1

TOBACCO Budget & Spending Programs UK budget unveiled 4-22, 272F2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section US Apr ‘09 CPI 5-15, 355G2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Obama admin lobbying ties curbs hiked 1-21, 29F1 Crime Issues Terror detainees CIA interrogatn abuses rpt issued 8-24, 566A2 Health & Safety Issues Smoker death damages awarded 2-18, 357E1 Va bars/restaurants smoking ban clears legis, signed 2-19—3-9, 357D1 Smoking death damages case declined by Sup Ct 3-31, 246E1

1188 TOBIN— FDA regulatn bill backed, passes House 4-1—4-2, 221G1 FDA regulatn bill passes Sen 6-11, 390A2 FDA regulatn bill clears House, signed 6-12—6-22; free-speech challenge seen 6-16, Obama smoking mulled 6-23, 428G2 Antismoking drugs warning ordrd by FDA 7-1, 555D2 Iraq smoking ban bill introduced 8-6, 545E2 FDA regulatn dir (Deyton) named 8-19, 642G3 Calif smoker (Bullock) death damages awarded 8-24, 660A1 Ad curbs suit filed 8-31, 622E1 Bloomberg wins Lasker 9-14, 671C3–D3 Flavored cigarettes banned 9-22, FDA suit filed 9-23, 642D3 Canada prov suit filed 9-29, 681F3 Ex-smoker (Naugie) damages awarded 11-19, 919F1 Va pub smoking ban enacted 12-1, 919E1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907A2 Tax Issues US hike passes House 1-14, 19G2, F3 US hike clears Cong 1-29—2-4, signed 2-4, 62E3 State hikes mulled 3-21, fed increase takes effect 4-1, 357B1

TOBIN, Bishop Thomas Scores Rep Kennedy abortn funding stance 10-22—11-9, confrms Communion denial 11-22, 831B3–E3

TOCHIEV, Isa Slain 6-3, 417A2

TODAY (TV show) Bush daughter joins 8-31, 596G3 Colo balloon incident boy interviewed 10-16, 745E3 White House crashers interviewed 12-1, 829E3

TODD, Richard (Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd) (1919-2009) Dies 12-3, 896F3

TODD, Sr. Sgt. Mark Ft Hood gunman (Hasan) shooting mulled 11-6—11-12, 777C3–D3

TODT, Jean Elected FIA pres 10-23, 950A2

TOGO, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236B2; 10-1, 736B2

TOHTI, Illham Freed 8-22, govt criticism halt warned 8-24, 606A2–B2

TOILETRIES—See COSMETICS TOKYO Stock Exchange Index rises 1-27, 51B1 Index drops 11-27, 829A2 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128A1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900C2, A3

TOLL, Bruce Philadelphia Newspapers bankruptcy filed 8-20, 913G1

TOLO TV (Afghanistan TV channel) US’s Holbrooke interviewed 2-15, 102D2 Karzai drops pres debate role 7-22, debate held 7-23, 513C3

TOMANA, Johannes Ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3; 5-25, 588G3

TOM Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840C1

TOMEI, Marisa Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2

TOMEING, Litokwa (Marshall Islands president, 2008-09) Confidnc vote lost, Zackhras named acting replacemt 10-21, Zedkaia elected 10-26, 787A1–B1

TOMLIN, Mike Steelers win AFC champ 1-18, 39G2 Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70C1

FACTS TOMLINSON, Ian Dies 4-1; cop beating tape rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cop suspended 4-9, 253G2–B3

TOMMY, Liesl Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1 Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

TONGA, Kingdom of Accidents & Disasters Ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing kills 2+ 8-5; survivors find doubted, rescue search halted 8-7, rust cited 8-10, 590D3 Quake/tsunami hit, death toll rptd, 662G2, 663B1 Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662A2 Tsunami death toll hiked, Samoa aid set 10-7, 685A1–B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C2; 10-1, 736C2

TONGA, Loleini Fiancee in truck mishap, dies 12-16—12-17, 948E1

TONG Yi HK entry OKd 6-4, 395F2

TONIGHT Show (TV show) Obama appears 3-19, 182F2 Leno ends run 5-29, O’Brien replaces 6-1, 383F3 McMahon dies 6-23, 436F3

TONY Awards (Antoinette Perry) Obituaries Arthur, Bea 4-25, 300C3 Chaplin, Sydney 3-3, 192D2 Gelbart, Larry 9-11, 632A3 Leonard, Hugh 2-12, 120D3 Manning, Frankie 4-27, 300F3 Mokae, Zakes 9-11, 672E3 Richardson, Natasha 3-18, 176D3 Silver, Ron 3-15, 176G3 Presentations Presented 6-7, 399D3

TOO Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772B1

TOOMEY, Pat Sets Pa Sen seat bid 4-15, Specter switches parties 4-28, 284A3 Rep Sestak sets Sen seat bid, Specter Dem ties questnd/experience touted 8-4, 521A3

TOPI, Bamir (Albanian president, 2007- ) Renames Berisha PM 9-17, 626D1

TOPOLANEK, Mirek (Czech premier, 2006-09) Visits Russia, Ukraine 1-10—1-11, 37C2 Govt confidnc vote passes parlt 3-24, quits 3-26, 188A2–E2 Scores US stimulus package 3-25, 188D3–E3 Hosts Obama 4-5, 214F1 Fischer named interim replacemt 4-9, 225A1 Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5, 463C2 On US missile shield plans drop 9-17, 613D2–E2

TOPOLANSKY, Lucia Husband elected pres 11-29, 834G3

TORIBIONG, Johnson (Palauan president, 2009- ) Cuba base detainees entry sought, OKd 6-4—6-10, 391A3 On transferred Cuba base detainees 11-1, 760D2

TORONTO, University of (Canada) Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342B1

TORONTO Star (Canadian newspaper) Libel curbs backed by Sup Ct 12-22, 927F1

TORONTO Stock Exchange Terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723B1 Monthly Financial Update Jan ‘09 update 1-2, 6D3 Feb ‘09 update 2-2, 61D1 Mar ‘09 update 3-2, 128A1 Apr ‘09 update 4-2, 198A1 May ‘09 update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 update 6-1, 371D3 Jul ‘09 update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 update 8-3, 522A1 Sep ‘09 update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 update 11-2, 759A1 Dec ‘09 update 12-1, 831A1 ‘09 yr-end update 12-31, 900D2, A3

TORRE, Joe Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 Yankee Yrs on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1 On Ramirez suspensn 5-7, 348C1 3d in NL top mgr voting 11-18, 824C1

TORRES, Dana MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951F3

TORRES, Edward Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity opens in Chicago 10-5, 860D2

TORRES, Jose (Luis) (1936-2009) Dies 1-19, 56G2

TORRES, Pedro Banks seized 12-4, 929C2

TORRES de Colom, Sandra Atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6; slain 5-10, tape issued 5-11, 377A1, C1

TORRIJOS Espino, Martin (Panamanian president, 2004-09) Electn held, results rptd 5-3—5-6, US free trade deal finalizing sought 5-4, 309C1, E1 Successor (Martinelli) sworn 7-1, 493A3

TORTORELLA, John Named Rangers coach 2-23, 159D2

TORTURE and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention Against (1984) Terror detainees harsh interrogatns defended 4-29, 306E1

TOSHIBA Corp. UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944F2

TOTAL SA Irem UK constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68A3–C3 Gabon pres electn protests turn violent, workers exit ordrd 9-3—9-5, 604D2–E2 Myanmar junta bolstering allegatns mulled 9-9—9-10, 684B1–F1 Kazakh offshore gas deal finalized 10-6, 739D2

TOUADERA, Faustin Archange (Central African Republic premier, 2008-09/09- ) Govt ousted 1-18, renamed premr, cabt set 1-19, 34C3

TOUNGUI, Paul Bongo dies 6-8, 393E3

TOUR de France—See CYCLING TOURE, Amadou Toumani (Malian president, 2002- ) Hosts China’s Hu 2-13, 170G1 Vows Al Qaeda fight 7-6, 903B3

TOURE, Harouna Held 12-16, chrgd 12-18, 914E2

TOURISM—See TRAVEL TOURSON, Ahmad Transferred/Palau aid rptd, China oppositn seen 10-31—11-2, 760C2

TOWNS, Edolphus (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1983- ; Democrat) Seated Oversight chair 1-6, 5B1 Questns Treasury ex-secy (Paulson) 7-17, 504C2 Sets $700 bln financial indus aid cos ‘08 bonus pay hearing 7-31, 522C3

TOWNSEND, Frances Fragos Denies terror alert system pol pressure 8-9, 572D3–E3 Testifies to Sen com 11-19, 813C1

TOWNSEND, Stanley Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

TOYODA, Kiichiro Named Toyota pres 1-20, 51G1–A2

TOYOTA Motor Corp. Ltd. Toyoda named pres, ‘08 global sales rptd 1-20, 51G1 GM ‘08 global sales drop rptd 1-21, 48E1 Hydrogen cars dvpt US funding cut 5-7, plans cont 5-11, 917B2 Chrysler dealerships dropped 5-14, 339D1 GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365C1, 366B2 Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536E1 Calif factory shut 8-27, 679F3 Cars recalled, pedal risk seen/replacemts set 9-29—11-25, 850F1 Formula 1 role dropped 11-4, 950B2

TOYS & Games US chem testing hike delayed 1-30, lead/phthalates curbs omit nixed, rules take effect 2-5—2-10, 375E1, G1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 107E3

ON FILE

NFL’s Madden sets retiremt 4-16, 299C1 CPSC chair (Tenenbaum) named, Adler comm apptmt set 5-5, 340A3 Disney/Marvel buy set 8-31, 660E1 Chems find rptd 11-24, lead testing delayed 12-18, 918G1 Obituaries Arneson, Dave 4-7, 256D2 Beck, Hans 1-30, 104A3

TOZZI, Tahyna X-Men Origins: Wolverine on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

T-Pain (Faheen Najm) ‘Blame It’ on best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

TRACHTENBERG, Duchy O’Neill elected NOW pres 6-20, 492B2

TRACHTENBERG, Michelle 17 Again on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

TRACK & Field Appointments & Resignations S Africa body pres (Chuene) quits 8-22, 579A3 Meets African Jr Champ 7-31, 579B2 World Champ 8-15—8-23, 579E1, B2, B3–D3 People Bolt turns 23 8-21, 579G1 Records & Achievements Bolt sets 100-m mark 8-16, 579G1 Bolt sets 200-m mark 8-20, 579A2 Wlodarczyk sets hammer throw mark 8-22, 579B3 Rules & Regulations S Africa tests Semenya gender 8-7, 950B3 Semenya gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; IAAF probe ordrd 8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns to S Africa 8-24—8-25, 579B2 Semenya gender controversy regretted 11-5, World Champ medal upheld, test results release nixed 11-19, 950F2 Substance Abuse Issues ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E1 Sprinter Jones ‘00 Olympic medals redistributed 12-9, relay teammates appeal nixed 12-18, 950D3 Suspensions & Fines S African body pres, bd suspended 11-5, 950B3

TRACY, Jim Named Rockies mgr 5-29, 484D2 Named NL top mgr 11-18, 824A1

TRADE, Foreign—See FOREIGN Trade TRADE Commission, U.S. International Chinese tires tariffs urged 6-29, 557D2 China tire tariffs set 9-11, 615A2–B2 Chinese steel pipe tariffs set, protectnism claimed 11-5, 776G1 China steel pipe duties OKd 12-30, 932C1

TRADEMARKS—See PATENTS TRADE Representative, Office of the U.S. Nominee (Kirk) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-2—3-9; backed 3-12, confrmd 3-18, 182A1 Mex trucking program mulled 3-20, 186E1 Panama trade deal passage seen 4-23, finalizatn sought 5-4, 309F1 Pork bans opposed 4-28, 282B2 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288D2 China, WTO complaint filed 6-23, 440D1 China Web filter requiremt complaint filed 6-24, 448C1 China media import rules opposed by WTO 8-12, 557B2 China jt ventures govt contracts curbs eased 10-29, 776D2

TRADING with the Enemy Act (1917) Cuba embargo extensn signed 9-15, 661C2–D2

TRAFIGURA Group Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1

TRAILL, Phil All About Steve on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

TRAMMELL Crow Co. Founder dies 1-14, 56F1

TRANSCANADA Pipelines Ltd. NY floating gas terminal plans opposed 4-13, 917C2

TRANSCENDENTAL Studies: A Trilogy (book) Waldron wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

2009 Index TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2 ‘09 top-grossing film 12-31, 954C1

TRANSPARENCY International African ldrs French embezzlemt suit upheld 5-5, 394F1 Congo Repub pres vote held 7-12, Sassou-Nguesso reelectn rptd 7-15, 507B2 African ldrs embezzlemt suit halted 10-29, 833E3–F3

TRANSPLANTS—See under MEDICINE TRANSPORTATION Gov Richardson nixes commerce secy nominatn 1-4, 6C1 Ger econ stimulus plan hiked 1-13, 22F3 US secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, confrmd 1-22, 29C3 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41G2 French unions strike held 1-29, 68E2 US fscl ‘09 omnibus bill clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144A2 French workers strike 3-19, 206E3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, E1 US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-23, 9-17, 658F2 Palestinian ‘11 indep state sought 8-25, 593G1 NM gov (Richardson) fed graft probe drop rptd 8-27, 620E1 TSA ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3 US electn results 11-3, 755C3 US ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866F3 Mass Transit—See MASS Transit

TRANSPORTATION, U.S. Department of Secy nominee (LaHood) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-21, confrmd 1-22, 29C3 Autos fuel econ reforms ordrd 1-26, 47A2, F2 ‘08 road travel drop rptd 2-19, 202E1 Brinegar dies 3-13, 192A2 Mex trucking program mulled 3-20—3-24, 186E1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E2 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, E1 ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-23, 9-17, 658F2, B3 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ dealerships paymt vowed 8-19, 586D2 Auto emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621D3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866F3

TRANSPORTATION Security Administration, U.S. (of Homeland Security) Privacy ofcrs bill passes House 3-24, 908D1 ‘10 funds clear Cong 10-15, 10-20, 714A3 Airline safety review ordrd 12-25; security measures pilots authrzn set 12-28, dir nominee (Southers) Sen confrmatn vote mulled 12-29, 897C2, E2, 898C3

TRANSSEXUALITY LA Times sportswriter (Penner) dies 11-27, 880E2

TRAVEL & Tourism Africa Mali captives held 1-22; seizure claimed 2-18, hostages freed 4-22, 326E1 Mauritania, AU sanctns set 2-5, 82B3 US/Zimbabwe govt sanctns cont 3-4, 153E1 Econ crisis mtg held 3-10—3-11, 169C3 Madagascar’s Ravalomanana quits, mil names Rajoelina pres 3-17, 169E2 Madagascar protests turn violent 4-20—4-27, Saudi investmt set 5-3, 208C2, D3 Mali hostage (Dyer) slaying claimed 6-3, 370B1–C1 Australia raids net terror suspects 8-4, 930F2 Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555F3 Zimbabwe sanctns lift urged 9-8, 661C1 US/Kenya sanctns warned 9-24, threat scored 9-26, 702A3 Zimbabwe activists chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, Mugabe seeks sanctns lift 10-6, 680G2, G3 US/Sudan sanctns cont 10-27, 762D1 N African forgners seized, kidnapping claimed/release talks rptd 11-26—12-28, 903F2–A3

—TREASURY 1189 S Africa World Cup security, hotel availabilty assured 12-5—12-8, 858C3–D3 Eritrea/Somalia militants backing sanctns set 12-23, 903E1 Asia/Pacific Rim Thai captured refugees mil abuse photos issued 1-15, 52E1 Tibet forgn tourists entry OKd 3-30, arrive 4-5, 327A2 Thai protests turn violent, New Year’s festival nixed 4-7—4-14, 250B2, E3–F3 Fiji $ devalued 4-15, 252D1 Afghan asylum seekers survive boat blast 4-16, Australian refugee status OKd, deportatn warned 10-12, 931F2 China/Taiwan investmt hike authrzn rptd 5-28, 415D3 Taiwan ex-student ldr (Wu’er) held 6-3, deported 6-4, 395E2 N Korea A-program sanctns pass Sec Cncl 7-16, 495A2 Macao chief exec (Chui) named 7-26, 510D1 Hyundai chair (Hyun) visits N Korea, border curbs eased 8-10—8-17, 558B1–C1, E1 Myanmar, EU sanctns 8-13, 543B3 Pak A-scientest (Khan) movement limits lifted, reinstated 8-28—9-2, 595A1 N/S Korea family reunions OKd 8-28, border crossing curbs lifted 9-1, 600F2–G2 E Timor pres (Ramos-Horta) UN Gen Assemb travel blocked 9-8, 835A2–B2 Tibet forgn tourists entry banned 9-22, 683E1 Storm Ketsana hits Viet 9-29, 664G2 Indonesia quakes hit 9-30—10-1, 662A2 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930A2 Fiji forgn meddling alleged, Australia/NZ diplomatic ousters exchngd 11-1—11-4, Sri Lankan judges arrive, sworn 11-2—11-5, 852C1–D1 Thai/Cambodia spying suspect held, release aid sought 11-12—11-19, convctd, pardoned/freed 12-8—12-14, 872B1 Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931A3 Afghan MP slain 12-23, 899G3 UK/China drug smuggler (Shaikh) executed 12-29, 932C3 Canada Toronto terror plotters plead guilty, sentncd 5-4—10-8, 723B1 Mex, Czech visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 Commonwealth of Independent States Chechnya terror curbs lifted 4-16, 310D3 Turkmen students studying abroad ban set 8-31, 625B3 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 US visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766F2 Ukraine swine flu curbs ordrd 10-30, 811A1 Kyrgyz rptr (Pavlyuk) Kazakh travel mulled 12-22, 935A2 Europe Poland WWII mass grave find rptd 1-7, 137A1 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512A3 Macedonia boat sinking kills 15 9-5, 728G3 UK assisted suicide prosecutns curbed 9-23, legis proposed 10-28, 937F2–A3 Cuba base detainees Ireland transfer rpd 9-27, 718E2 Greece parlt electns held 10-4, 686E2 UK terror suspects assets freeze case heard 10-5, 686G1 Israel’s Ya’alon nixes UK visit 10-5, 690A1 France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787G3 French museum workers strike opens/cuts cont, ends 11-23—12-9, Pompidou Ctr reopens 12-17, 876D1 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855D3 Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875G2 Eurostar tunnel svc halted/cont, probe opens 12-19—12-22, 937F3 Latin America Cuba/Russia deal signed 1-30, 85C2 Honduras interim govt/US visas nix urged, rptd 9-2—9-12, 623E2 Mex budget proposals unveiled 9-8, 605A3 US/Cuba contractor held 12-5, 928A1 Middle East Egypt blast kills 1 2-22, 117D2 Yemen blast kills 4, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646B2 Al Qaeda Yemen members sentncd 7-13, 646F1

Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593C1 Israel’s Olmert graft trial opens 9-25, 689G1 Jerusalem clashes erupt 9-27—10-6, 689E3 Saudi pilgrimage swine flu cases tallied 11-29, 944B2–C2 Iran dissident cleric (Montazeri) dies 12-20, funeral held 12-21, 883B3 Israel A-program whistleblower (Vanunu) house arrest rptd 12-29, 943F1 Obituaries Kirkup, James F 5-10, 364E3 Moorhouse, Geoffrey 11-26, 880D2 Space & Space Flights Laliberte visits intl statn 9-30, 731B2, D2 United States Cuba’s Castro hails Obama 1-2, 8E1 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59D3 ‘08 road travel drop rptd 2-19, 202E1 Cuba curbs ease clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144E2 Cuba ban lift bill introduced 3-31, family visit curbs ended 4-13, 248A3, 249D1 Cuba curbs lift support polled 4-14—4-16, Summit of the Amers held 4-17—4-19, 271C2, E2–F2 High-speed RR system urged 4-16, 324A3 Swine flu cases confrmd 4-28, WHO alert hiked, Biden remarks clarified 4-30, 281E1, G2, 282A1, D1–E1 SC gov (Sanford) affair costs probed 7-2, 455G3–456A1 Gov Palin sets resignatn 7-3, funds use complaint filed 7-6, 455E2–F2 DC vehicle checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870F1 Hudson River air traffic mulled 8-8—8-10, 538F1 Cuba curbs eased 9-3, 604B3 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-23, 633C2 Cuba’s Rodriguez addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-28, 652C2 Cuba diplomatic talks rptd 9-29, 661A2 NYC orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, blogger (Sanchez) trip nixed 10-14, 723G1 Somali terror ties suspects stopped/questnd, held 10-6—10-9, chrgs hiked 11-23, 849C1, E1–A2 US visa overstays seen 10-12, 721E3 USA Today circulatn drop rptd 10-26, 912B2 Cuba cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784D1 Forgn AIDS patients travel ban ended 10-30, 799A3 NC gov (Sanford) civil chrgs filed, impeachmt mulled/hearings open 11-23—11-24, 815C1, F1–G1 Hastings Coll Christian group recognitn case accepted by Sup Ct 12-7, 868B1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866G3 Amtrak checked baggage gun authrzn clears Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866G3 DC gay marriage measure OKd 12-15, 868G1

TRAVELERS Cos. Dow role set 6-1, 372D2–E2

TRAVERS, Mary Allin (1936-2009) Dies 9-16, 632F3

TRAVOLTA, Ella Blue Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

TRAVOLTA, Jett (1992-2009) Dies 1-2; cremated 1-5, mourned 1-8, 9B3

TRAVOLTA, John Son dies 1-2; cremated 1-5, mourns 1-8, 9B3 Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2 French Scientology branch/ldrs convctd, sentncd 10-27, 787B3 Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

TRBIC, Gen. Milorad Convctd/cleared, sentncd 10-16, 820F2, A3

TREASURY, U.S. Department of the Appointments & Resignations Secy nominee (Geithner) tax paymt woes rptd, Sen com pvt mtg held 1-13, confrmatn hearing delayed, rescheduled 1-13—1-14, 17C1 Secy nominee (Geithner) Sen com hearing held/testimony issued, confrmatn backed 1-21—1-22, 30D1 Geithner confrmd secy 1-26, 44D1 Dep secy (Wolin)/intl affairs undersecy (Brainard) named, Levey cont role set 3-23, 200D2

Allison named $700 bln financial indus aid overseer 4-17, 264F1–G1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286D1 Exec pay ‘spec master’ (Feinberg) named 6-10, 387G2 Banking Issues Bin Laden son assets frozen 1-16, 39A1 Lobbying curbs set 1-27, natlzns nixed 1-28, 44B2, E3–45A1 Lending program hike, launch set 3-3, 127E2 Troubled assets sale plan detailed 3-23, 177A1, A2, 178A1 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger documts issued 4-23, 291A2 Stress-test results issued 5-7, 318D2–E2 $700 bln financial indus aid small banks loans set 5-13, 320C2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos funding return OKd 6-9, Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch merger House com hearing held 6-11, 387A2, 388F1 Europn banks stress tests urged 6-13, 417A3 Goldman/Wells Fargo ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-16—7-22, 490D2, G3 Bank of Amer/Merrill Lynch bonus pay chrgs setlmt set, approval withheld 8-2—8-5, 523F1 Outstanding loans tallied 8-12, program cont 8-17, 571A3–B3 FDIC deposit fund low seen 8-27, 585C2 Exec pay curbs backed 9-21, 640B3, D3 FDIC deposits insurnc funds sought 9-29, 658E1 Bank of Amer CEO (Lewis) sets resignatn 9-30, 657F2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos lending urged 11-30, 865E1 Bank of Amer aid repaymt deal set 12-2, 830G2 $700 bln financial indus aid cont/rpt issued, Cong hearing held 12-9—12-10; Wells Fargo/Citigroup aid repaymt set 12-14, Citigroup stake sale delayed 12-17, 864A2–D2, 865A1 Citigroup tax break OKd, defended 12-11—12-15, House com probe set 12-17, 909C2–E2 Budget & Spending Programs Obama ‘10 proposals House com hearing held 3-3, 126C1 Small business aid set 3-16, 164B1 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, tax deductn curbs revenue estimate cut 5-11, 321B1, 322A1 Soc Sec reforms seen 5-12, 324C1 ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 Fscl ‘09 deficit rptd, mark set 10-16, 713A1–B1, E1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867C1 Debt limit hike passes House 12-16, 866F2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section $700 bln financial indus aid foreclosure curbs use proposed 1-9, 15B1 $700 bln financial indus aid use scored 1-9; curbs, 2d 1/2 funds block pass House 1-21—1-22, banks disclosure sought 1-22, 32F2 Bank of Amer/Merrill buy defended 1-16, 32E1 Chrysler Financial govt laon set, Ford/auto parts indus talks rptd 1-16—1-26, 47D3–F3 $700 bln financial indus aid use mulled, oversight questnd 1-30, Sen com hearing held, fraud warned 2-5, 61F3 MEMA $25.5 bln aid sought 2-2, 62B3 Obama on financial indus rescue plan 2-9, 79D1 Econ recovery plan passes Sen 2-10, 73F1 $2 trln financial indus rescue plan unveiled, Cong hearings held 2-10—2-11, 76A3–77C3 Auto indus task force set 2-16, bankruptcies mulled 2-19, 93C1, E1 AIG aid plan chngd 3-2, 126F2, E3 Homeowner rescue plan launched 3-4, 127D3–E3, 128E2 AIG bonus paymts revealed/scored, return mulled 3-10—3-19, Geithner role defended 3-18, 161B1, E2, 162C2–F2 Freddie Mac funds sought 3-11, 220B3 OneUnited mtg, Rep Waters role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243E1 Auto parts suppliers aid fund set 3-19, 164D2–E2, A3–B3 Financial indus reforms House com hearings held 3-24, 3-26, 178A2 Chrysler/Fiat merger ordrd 3-29, 198C3 $700 bln financial indus aid remaining funds rptd 3-29, 241E3 $700 bln financial indus aid cos retro-active bonus limits pass House 4-1, 220A2 Goldman shares sold 4-14, 241A2, D2 Chrsyler’s Nardelli sets resignatn 4-30, 282B3

1190 TREATIES— Overseas profits tax breaks curbs urged 5-4, 304F2–G2, E3 Credit derivative rules proposed 5-13, 320C1 GM/Chrysler dealerships drop role denied 5-14—5-15, 338E3 GM bondholders debt swap OKd 5-31, Chrysler reorgn plan appeal filed 6-4, 366D1, 367B2 Chrysler/Fiat merger completed 6-10, 385E1 Exec pay shareholders role proposed 6-10, 387D3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407F2, D3 GM reorgn OKd, bankruptcy exited 7-5—7-10, 475C2–D2 CIT Group cont aid nixed 7-15, 491A1 Financial crisis response House com hearing held 7-17, 504E1, B2, D2 Exec pay curbs backed 7-31, 523E1 Financial indus aid block fails in Sen 8-6, 536E1 Mutual fund indus aid end set 9-10, 618C2 FPL ‘08 blackout setlmt OKd 10-8, 745E2 AIG bonus paymts scored 10-14, 715A3–B3 Small business aid plan set 10-21, 742E2 $700 bln financial indus aid cos pay cut 10-22, 742A1–B1, E1–F1 GM/Chrysler loans repaymt doubted 11-2, 758F1, A2–B2 Financial indus reforms proposal backed 11-10, 779C1 GM IPO mulled 11-10, GMAC CEO (Molina) ousted, Carpenter named 11-11, 798E3–G3 FHA cash reserves drop rptd 11-12, 813G3 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-16—11-17, 799A1, C1, G1 GM CEO (Henderson) ouster role denied 12-2, 831F1 $700 bln financial indus aid losses forecast cut 12-7, credit offers hike seen 12-8, 846E3–F3, 847C1 GM sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887E1–F1 Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae unltd aid OKd 12-24, 909A3–C3 GMAC govt aid set 12-30, 910B1–E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Auto indus task force head (Rattner) pension fund probe linked 3-17, 265F3 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908A3 Crime Issues Saudi royals/charities, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491B3 KindHearts assets freeze nixed 8-18, 678D3 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Cuba travel, trade curbs ease clears Cong, signed 2-25—3-11, 144F2 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163D1 G-20 finance mins mtg held 3-13—3-14, 162D3 Limmt chrgd, Iran mil aid denied 4-7—4-8, 217C3 Cuba family visit/remittnc/telecom curbs lifted 4-13, 248F3 Geithner visits China 5-31—6-2, 414A2 G-8 summit held 6-13, 404E3 N Korea A-program cos linked 6-30, 462D3 Maliki visits 7-21—7-22, 498D1 China strategic talks held 7-27—7-28, 509B2 Cuba family travel, remittance curbs eased 9-3, 604B3, E3 NYC orch, Cuba concert plans nixed 10-1, 723A2–B2 Currency exchng rpt issued 10-15, 724B3 Australia’s Rudd visits 11-30, 851A3 Government Securities Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6D3 Fed buys mulled 1-28, 45F2, A3 Feb ‘09 financial update 2-2, 61D1 Clinton visits China 2-21, 109G3 Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128A1 China’s Wen questns bonds 3-13, investmt hike touted 3-14, 187D1 Fed OKs securities buy, 10-yr note drops 3-18, 163A3 Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, Geithner mulls 3-25, 194E1–F1 Stimulus package scored 3-25, 188D3 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198A1 Fed securities buy tallied, program cont 4-28—4-29, 292A1 May ‘09 financial update 5-1, 304A3 Jun ‘09 financiall update 6-1, 371D3 10-yr note yield rate rise rptd 6-3, 371A3 10-yr notes yield rises 6-5, 388F3

FACTS Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405E1 Fed buys cont 6-24, 427B3–C3 Fed lending programs cut 6-25, 457C1 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442D1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522A1 Debt limit hike urged 8-7, rise rptd 9-30, 713C2 Fed buying program end set 8-12, 535D2 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586D1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657A3 Nov ‘09 financial update 11-2, 759A1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 910E3 Governments Securities Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831A1 Health Issues Obama holds health care reform rally 9-12, 617E3 Monetary Issues Yuan fluctuatns defended 1-29, 98E2 China currency rpt issued 4-15, 283B3 $ value drop mulled 11-16, 798E2 Tax Issues Illegal immigrants documts use scored 4-16, 341E1 Middle-class hike mulled, dismissed 8-2—8-3, 521C1, E1

TREATIES & Pacts Civil Strife Dayton accords subversn seen, Bosnian Serb law nix set/backed 6-19—6-22, 448E2–B3 Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, 624D2 Defense & Disarmament US secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16D1 Russia/US A-pact talks OKd 3-6, 142E2 Obama, Medvedev mull disarmamt deals 4-1, 193B1, C3, 194C1–D1 Obama seeks A-arms end 4-5, 214C1 S Korea long-range missile dvpt seen 4-6, 215B3 Russia’s Lavrov visits US 5-7, 311B2 Russia/US A-arms cut OKd 7-6, 454C1–D1 A-arms test ban mtg opens 9-24, 633B2 US/Russia A-arms treaty talks mulled 10-13, 705G3 Belarus joins CSTO rapid reactn force 10-20, 904E1 Iran A-program secret site censured, IAEA ties drop seen 11-27—11-28, 837F1, C2 US/Russia A-arms treaty use cont, expires 12-4—12-5, 885F2 Russian weapons dvpt seen 12-29, 939C1 Environment & Pollution Mercury emissns treaty mulled, draft talks OKd 2-16—2-20, 123G3 UN climate chng summit held 9-22, 636C1, A2–B2 US climate chng bill passage doubted 10-2, 743G1 India/China climate chng cooperatn deal signed 10-21, 791A2 Climate chng rallies held 10-24, 828C3 US’s Obama, China’s Wen set climate talks roles 11-25—11-26, 827C3, E3 Obama climate conf role chngd 12-4, talks open 12-7—12-9, 841A1, F1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1–C1, 882A2–B2, E2, C3 Trade & Cooperation ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A2 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F2 US/ASEAN deal mulled 2-18, 109G2 Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271B1–C1 EU treaty Ireland concessns set 6-18—6-19, 432D1 US signs ASEAN treaty 7-22, 495B1 Italy’s Berlusconi visits Libya 8-30, 583G2 Barroso Europn Comm pres nominatn debated 9-15, reelected 9-16, 628A1 EU treaty Ireland referendum held 10-2, Czech signing vowed, charter exemptns sought 10-7—10-8, 685E1, F2 EU treaty UK referendum urged 10-4, 685F3 Russia sets Energy Charter Treaty exit 10-19, 892E3 EU treaty Czech concessn OKd 10-29, complaints nixed, Klaus signs 11-2, 765F1 IEA annual oil outlook issued 11-10, 811C3–D3

TREATMENT Action Campaign (TAC) S Africa AIDS policy hiked 12-1, 850D3

TREKI, Ali Abdussalam On Madagascar’s Rajoelina, UN Gen Assemb speech 9-25, closes debate 9-29, 651D3, 652C1–D1

TREUHAFT, Robert Edward (1912-2001) Walker dies 8-13, 596G3

TRIBUNE Co. Cubs bankruptcy filed 10-12, sold 10-27, 949D1–E1

TRIBUTE (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

TRICHET, Jean-Claude Denies eurozone exits 1-21, 53G1 Offers unltd bank loans 3-5, 155B3 On EU interest rate cut 4-2, 254B1, D1 On Eurozone econ downturn 5-7, 311C2 On econ recovery 8-21, 571D2

TRINIDAD and Tobago, Republic of Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Summit of the Amers hosted 4-17—4-19, 270E3, 271A2, E3 Commonwealth crisis summit set 11-23, biennial mtg hosted 11-27—11-29, 845B3–C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C2; 10-1, 736C2

TRINNEER, Connor Equivocatn opens in LA 11-17, 896A1

TRIPLE Canopy Inc. State Dept Iraq security proposal sought 1-29, 53F2 Iraq/US diplomats security deal won 4-1, 208F3 Blackwater ‘07 Iraq bribes authrzn rptd 11-11, 789A3

TRIUMPH of the Spirit (film) Arouch dies 4-26, 364G2

TROPIC Thunder (film) Downey gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40B2

TROUBADOUR (recording) Strait wins Grammy 2-8, 88E2, B3

TRUCKS (& Trucking) Gaza humanitarian crisis denied 1-1, 1C2 Gaza border crossings shut 1-27, 42F2 Kyrgyz/US mil base closure seen 2-3, 59E1 Gaza UN shipmt seized, aid halted/cont 2-6—2-9, entry sought 2-10, 86E1–F1 Tenn church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247C3 US/Mex program end signed 3-11, tariffs set, take effect 3-16—3-17, 171G2–A3 US/Mex program mulled 3-20—3-26, 185G3, 186E1 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 197A1 US fuel econ standards hike set 3-27, 324C3 Obama visits Mex 4-16—4-17, 271F1 Pak tribal areas curfew lifted 5-15, 346G1 US fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339C2 US/Mex program end claim filed 6-1, 447E2 Pak blast kills 18 6-9, 418F1, F2, A3 Iraq blast kills 82+ 6-20, 433E1 Afghan blast kills 25+ 7-9, 499G2 Iraq driver slain 7-10, 483E2 Mex shootout kills 12+ 8-6, 556B3 N Amer summit held 8-9—8-10, 541A2 Emissns, fuel econ rules set 9-15, 621E3–F3 French camp raided/migrants held, UK asylum bids denied 9-22, 666A2 Hezbollah aid suspects chrgd 10-27, 815F3 Berkshire/Burlington stake buy set 11-3, 759D3

TRUE Blood (TV show) Paquin wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24F2

TRUE Compass: A Memoir (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

TRUE Detectives (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772C1

TRUJILLO, Sergio Guys and Dolls revival opens in NYC 3-1, 211C3 Memphis opens in NYC 10-19, 860E2

TRUMP, Donald Libya’s Qaddafi NY tent stay nixed 9-22, 633F2

TRUSCOTT, Lord Peter Suspensn urged, OKd 5-14, 5-19, 344B1

TRUTH, Sojourner (Isabella Baumtree) (1797?-1883) DC statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2

TSCHUMI, Bernard Acropolis Museum opens 6-20, 449E2

TSHABALALA-Msimang, Manto (1940-2009) Motsoaledi named health min 5-10, 325B3 Dies 12-16, 956G1

ON FILE

TSIEN, Roger ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

TSVANGIRAI, Edwin On Mugabe remarks 3-10, 152G2

TSVANGIRAI, Morgan (Zimbabwean prime minister, 2009- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Unity govt talks held, deal OKd 1-19—1-30, PM post amendmt passes parlt 2-5, 67B1, E1, G1–C2 Names cabt 2-10; sworn PM 2-11, activists release deal rptd 2-12, 81A1, G2 Facts on 2-11, 82A1 Cabt sworn 2-13, 97E1–F1 On Bennett arrest 2-14, urges law chngs 2-17, 97A1–B1, B2 In car crash, transferred to Botswana/wife mourned 3-6—3-11; probe opens, denies foul play/truck driver chrgd 3-7—3-9, turns 57 3-10, 152F1–B3 Australia aid set 3-11, 153D1 Tours US/Eur, on China aid vow 6-7—6-30, 588G2 US’s Carson sees Mugabe 7-2, mtg scored 7-5, 459A3 MPs held 8-19, 680E3 S Africa’s Zuma diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588A2 Questns unity govt 9-1, 589A1 Holds rally, scores supporters cont harassmt 9-13, unity deal anniv marked 9-15, 661B1, D1 Sees mining indus investmt rise 9-17, 681E1 Activists chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, 680A3 Sets boycott 10-16; tours region, sees cont unity govt 10-20—10-23, Mugabe mtg held 10-26, 746A2–B2, F2–G2 UN ofcl (Nowak) entry blocked 10-28; at SADC summit, drops govt boycott/sets power-sharing deal goal 11-4—11-5, holds cabt mtg 11-11, 783G1–B2, A3–B3

TSVANGIRAI, Susan Husband sworn PM 2-11, 82D2 Dies in car crash, mourned 3-6—3-11; probe opens 3-7, foul play denied, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152F1, B2–C2, F2–A3

TSVETANOV, Valeri Chrgd 9-8, 727B2, E2

TUCCI, Maria Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

TUCCI, Stanley Julie & Julia on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596D2

TUCSON Citizen (newspaper) Antitrust complaint filed 5-15, printing ends 5-16, 393E1

TUDJMAN, Franjo (1922-99) (Croatian president, 1990-99) Sanader quits 7-1, 463B1

TULSA (Okla.), University of GMAC Bowl won 1-6, 24D1

TULSA Pro Hoops LLC Shock buy set 10-20, 808B1

TULU, Derartu Wins NYC marathon 11-1, 791G2

TUNDO, Carl Cholmondeley convctd, sentncd 5-7, 5-14, 375D2

TUNE, Dire 2d in Boston Marathon 4-20, 332D1–E1 2d in Majors 11-1, 792A1

TUNISIA, Republic of Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C2; 10-1, 736C2 Electns held 10-25, results rptd 10-26, 746A1 Facts on Ben Ali 10-25, 746D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Synagogue ‘02 blast suspects convctd, sentncd in France 2-5, 154B2 Cuba base detainee (Hammamy) cont detentn upheld 4-2, 506C1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Afghan detainee habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199E2 Cuba base detainees Italy transfer OKd 6-15, 416C3 Cuba base detainees transferred 12-1, 861B2–D2 Cuba base detainee (Fezzani) transferred to Itlay 12-20, 913G3

TUNNELS—See BRIDGES TUPOLEV (Russian aircraft) Iran/Armenia flight crash kills 168 7-15, 483B1

TUPUTUPU, Maka On ferry (Princess Ashika) capsizing 8-10, 590G3

2009 Index TURABI, Hassan alUrges Bashir ICC surrender 1-12; held 1-14, rebels link chrgs seen 1-19, 116A2 Freed 3-9, 185D2

TURIAF, Ronny Among NBA blocks ldrs 4-15, 278C3

TURK, Ahmet Gives Kurdish parlt speech 2-24, 227A1 Pol party banned 12-11, 893G1

TURKEY, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Dutch flight crash kills 9 2-25, preliminary rpt issued 3-4, 173B3 Flash floods kill 32+ 9-9, 627F2 African Relations Sudan’s Bashir visit mulled, genocide role denied 11-6—11-8, 788C3 Arab Relations Islamic conf hosted 11-9, 788C3 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China ethnic violnc scored 7-10, 509F3 Afghan ex-gen (Dostum) denies ‘01 mass slaying 7-17, 499C2 Afghan’s Dostum returns 8-16, 549C3 NATO/Afghan troops hike set 12-4, 844A2 PI rebels peace talks open, deal seen 12-8, 890F2 Crime & Civil Disorders Coup plot suspects held, mil/govt talks held 1-7—1-11, 23A1 Alleged coup plot suspects indicted 3-25, 227B1 May Day rallies turn violent 5-1, 329F3, 330A1 Bilge wedding party attack kills 45 5-4, suspects held, families feud cited 5-5, 329A3 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO summit held, Rasmussen secy gen apptmt OKd 4-3—4-4, 213A2–C2 Rasmussen takes NATO secy gen 8-3, 534E1 NATO jt mil exercise nixed 10-11, 696D2 Energy EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561A1 Russia gas pipeline deal signed 8-6, 561A1 Iraq prov oil exports halted 10-9, 730G1 Central Asian/China gas pipeline opens 12-14, 935C3 Iraq pipeline attack halts exports 12-20, 943D1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues US mil jet program info hacked 4-21, 411G1 European Relations EU entry mulled 4-5, 214F2 Armenia ties hike ‘road map’ OKd, opposed 4-22—4-23, genocide anniv marked, Obama remarks scored 4-24—4-25, 296E1, C2 Erdogan visits EU hq 6-26, 706G3 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512F2 Tanker (Buket) seized, capt (Ozturk) sentncd/freed 8-14—9-8, Davutoglu visits 9-8, 607F1 Armenia diplomatic ties seen 8-31, border opening set, genocide admissn mulled 9-1, 591E3 Ambs dinner hosted 9-14, 706G2 Armenia diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10; Nagorno-Karabakh troops exit sought 10-11, Sargsyan visits 10-14, 707A1, A2 EU entry progress rpt issued 10-14, 706C3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section US/Syria delegatn visit set 3-3, 123A3 Obama Egypt speech set 5-8, 318B1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236D2 Local electns held 3-29, AKP losses mulled 3-30, 226E3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736D2 Human Rights Novalist (Pamuk), Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, 706E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues African migrants rescued, origins rptd 4-16—4-20, Italy entry OKd, EU rules urged 4-19, 262G1–A2, E2 Ger parlt candidates threat probe opens 9-22, 665C3 Iraqi Conflict Gul visits 3-23, 189C2 Kurds Turk gives parlt speech 2-24, 227A1 DTP members held 4-14, violnc kills 13 4-27—4-29, 329C3–E3 Peace initiative set 8-11; rebels surrender/freed, hailed 10-19—10-21, welcome ceremony scored 10-21, 728B2

—UGANDA US terror ‘material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677G2 Rights hike proposal unveiled 11-13, PKK ldr (Ocalan) solitary confinemt ends 11-17, 803E3, 804B1 Troops slain, attack claimed 12-7—12-10, DTP party banned, ruling opposed/protests turn violent 12-10—12-15, 893F1 Middle East Relations Gaza border crossings patrol urged 1-20, 31B3 Israeli troops, Gaza ground invasion debated 1-29, 58A3 A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649E1, 650B1 Israeli ties mulled 10-11—10-13, Syria cooperatn cncl mtg held 10-13, 696F2–A3 Gaza war crimes dramatizatn aired 10-14, Isreali criticisms exchngd 10-15—10-16, 754B1 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Iran uranium transfer deal proposed 11-6, 804G2; 12-24, 941F1 Oil & Gas Developments Iraq prov exports open 5-27, 362C3 Press & Broadcasting Dogan fined, penalty mulled 9-7—10-14, collateral filed, nixed 10-9—10-12, 706A2, G2 Addario wins MacArthur 9-22, 671G1 Sports UEFA Cup results 5-20, 950A1 Armenia soccer match won 10-14, 707A2 Soccer match-fixing intl scheme rptd 11-20; Champs League role mulled 11-23, emergency mtg held 11-25, 859F2 Trade, Aid & Investment World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58A3 G-20 summit held 9-25, 651B2 Strauss-Kahn addresses Bilgi Univ, student tosses shoe 10-1, World Bank/IMF mtgs hosted, protests held 10-6—10-7, 674F2, D3, 675A1–B1 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Israel ouster urged 1-16, 31C1 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton visits 3-7, 142C1, B3 Obama visits 4-6—4-7, 214G1, G2* Gates visits mil base 7-29, 501C2, E2 Erdogan visits 12-7, 846A1 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, 769B2

TURKI al-Faisal, Prince (Saudi Arabia) Charity, Islamic militants funding linked 6-24, 491D3

TURKMENGAZ China loan OKd 6-24, 473C2

TURKMENISTAN, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Gas pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, Russia flow cut cited 4-10, 473E2–F2 CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Summit skipped 10-8—10-9, 777D1 Crime & Civil Disorders Prisoners pardoned 2-16, 135B2 Education Studying abroad ban set 8-31, AUCA recognitn nixed 9-5, 625B3 Energy Kazakh exits Central Asia power grid 2-26, 935F2 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935C2 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, S Iolotan dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935F2–C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Flag Day marked 2-19, 135B2 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236D2; 10-1, 736D2 Human Rights Abuse rpt issued 2-12, 135C2 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez visits 9-7, 616F2, E3 Middle East Relations Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649E2, 650B2 Oil & Gas Developments China gas deal OKd 6-24, Russia price talks fail 6-26, 473B2

TURKOGLU, Hedo Magic lose NBA title 6-14, 419A2 Traded to Raptors 7-9, 771B2

TURKS and Caicos Islands (British dependency) Haiti migrant boat sinking kills 15+, survivors found/rescue search ends 7-26—7-29, 527A2–B2

TURNBULL, Malcolm Car dealer, Treasury favoritism denied 6-4—6-23, e-mail alleged/forgery declared, role mulled 6-19—6-25, 447B3, F3, 448A1 Seeks asylum seekers rise probe 10-30, 930F3 Regrets migrant child abuse 11-16, 818A2 Backs climate chng bill 11-24; cabt resignatn set 11-27, ousted 12-1, 851C2–E2

TURNBULL, Walter (1944-2007) Harlem Boys Choir demise confrmd 12-13, 954A1

TURNER, Hal Held 6-24; FBI paymts claimed, rptd 8-19—11-29, mistrial declared 12-7, 888A1

TURNER, Kathleen Third Story opens in NYC 2-2, 211E3

TURNER, Michael (U.S. representative from Ohio, 2003- ; Republican) Questns Treasury ex-secy (Paulson) 7-17, 504D2

TURNER, Michael (football player) 2d in NFL MVP voting 1-2, 55C2

TURNER, Patrick Baltimore mayor (Dixon) trial opens 11-9; convctd, retuns to work 12-1—12-2, retrial sought 12-5, 848F3

TURNER, Rayford Earl Sentncd 3-3, 247B3

TURTURRO, John Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452B2; 7-24—7-30, 532D2

TURYGIN, Yuri IDs car bomber (Dzhaniyev) 12-18, 938F3

TUSK, Donald (Polish premier, 2007) On film dir (Polanski) arrest 9-30, 653B3 Casinos tax hike block vow rptd 10-1; party ldr, mins quit 10-1—10-7, Anti-Corruptn Bureau head abuse claimed 10-6, 705A2–E2

1191

Chiefs running back (Johnson) posts gay slur 10-25; cut 11-10, joins Bengals 11-17, 948A2 Iran access blocked 12-18, 884D1

TWO and a Half Men (TV show) Nielsen rating 8-24, 596B2 Sheen held, freed on bail 12-25, 954G2

200 One Dollar Bills (painting) Fetches $43.7 mln 11-11, 953G1

TWOMEY, Milo Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

TYKWER, Tom Intl on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

TYLER Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself (film) On top-grossing list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

TYLER Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail (film) On top-grossing list 2-20—2-26, 140B2; 3-20—3-26, 212D2

TYMOSHENKO, Yulia (Ukrainian premier, 2005/07- ) In Russian gas standoff talks, signs deal 1-10—1-19, 37D1, B2–D2, F2, A3 Pres vote chng OKd, parlt electn mulled 4-1—4-4, chamber doors blocked 4-2, 227E1, A2 Spending cut 4-14, IMF 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274A2–B2 Pres staff chief (Baloha) quits 5-19, 379E1 Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 496D2, F2, B3 Orders swine flu curbs 10-30, sets pres bid 10-31, 811A1–B1

TYRANGIEL, Josh Named BusinessWk 11-17, 912G3

TYREE, James Sun-Times Media buy OKd, finalized 10-8, 10-26, 912F3

TYRELL, Steven On Stanford assets 6-19, 457A2

TYZACK, Margaret Wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231G1 Phedre revival opens in London 6-9, screened 6-25, 451B3

TUTU, Archbishop Desmond M. Peace conf nixed 3-24, 327G1 Questns Zuma pres bid 4-2, 222C3 Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2 At ‘10 World Cup draw 12-4, 858E2

U

TUVALU Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E2; 10-1, 736E2

TU Wentao On Sichuan quake student death toll 5-7, 326D3

TVEIT, Aaron Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2

TWAIN Prize For American Humor, Mark Cosby honored 10-26, 752F2

TWANG (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1

TWEED, Jack Weds Goody 2-22, 139G3

TWELFTH Night (play) Jacobi wins Olivier Award 3-8, 231C2

21ST Century Breakdown (recording) On best-seller list 5-30, 384D1

2666 (book) Bolano wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191C3–D3

2012 (film) On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

20/20 (TV show) Hoving dies 12-10, 896D2

TWICE Over (racehorse) 3d in Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807A2

TWILIGHT (film/recording) Recording on best-seller list 5-2, 316E1

TWILIGHT Saga, The: New Moon (film/recording) Recording on best-seller list 10-31, 772D1 On top-grossing list 11-27—12-3, 840B2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

TWITTER (Web site) Tiananmen sq crackdown anniv marked 6-4, 395C2 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402G2

UAE—See UNITED Arab Emirates UB Group Mallya buys Gandhi items 3-5, 158G1

UBS AG Madoff fraud scheme repaymts offrd 1-27—1-29, 114F1–G1 ‘08 loss rptd 2-10; US tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100A2 Swiss bank secrecy laws ease vowed 3-13, 163G2 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162E1 US clients tax evasn data handover deal set 8-19, govt stake sold 8-20, 560C3–G3 AIG trading partners paymts, Fed role questnd 11-17, 799E1

UCHITEL, Rachel Golfer Woods affair alleged/denied, hires atty 11-25—11-29, 839A2, F2

UDALAGAMA, Judge Nissanka Nixes aid workers ‘06 slayings army role 7-14, 579C1

UDDIN, Mohammed Shamin Assoc convctd, sentncd 12-8, 937C3

UGAILI, Rahim alOn graft arrests order 5-27, 362D2–E2

UGANDA, Republic of African Relations AU peacekeepers cont stay urged 2-22, 115A2 Troops exit Congo 3-15, 924E3 Somalia, AU peacekeepers hike opposed 7-3, 459D2 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680A1 Somali mortar attack kills 30, Islamists warn attacks/security hiked 10-22—10-27, Mogadishu blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889C1, D3 Civil Strife ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B1 Rebel ldrs trials sought 12-21, 924A3

1192 UGBOGU— Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E2; 10-1, 736E2 Human Rights Gay curbs bill introduced/scored, chngd 10-14—12-23, 924F3 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez hails Amin 11-20, 929B3 Medicine & Health Care Male circumcisn, STDs risk drop seen 3-26, 595E3 Science & Technology Broadband Internet svc opens 7-23, 681D2 Trade, Aid & Investment Drought aid sought 9-29, 681A2 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sudan’s Bashir chrgs drop urged 3-6, 185C1 Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn vote abstained 6-15, 406A2

UGBOGU, Olatunbosun Convctd, sentncd 7-30, 557G3

UGLY American, The (book) Lederer dies 12-5, 955C2

UGLY Truth, The (film) On top-grossing list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

UGURCHIEV, Timur Slain 6-5, 417G1

U Is for Undertow (book) On best-seller list 12-21, 956A1

UK—See GREAT Britain UKRAINE, Republic of African Relations Seized ship (Faina) ransom paid, freed 2-5, 66D3 CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Russia’s Medvedev blasts Yushchenko/letter scored, amb deploymt delayed 8-11—8-13, Georgia war aid alleged, denied 8-24—8-25, 609D1, B2 Summit held, usefulness questnd 10-8—10-10, 777E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Gas profits pol use alleged 1-8, 3C3 Defense & Disarmament Issues NATO entry mulled 7-6, Obama backs sovereignty 7-7, 454A1, D3 Russia/NATO missile defns future link seen 9-18, 645F1 Economy & Labor Spending cut, tax reforms set 4-14, 274G1 Energy Russia gas shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3F1, F2, A3 Russian gas standoff talks held/deals signed, stolen shipmt alleged 1-10—1-19, dispute scored, debt setld/shipmts cont 1-20, 37D1, B2, F2 Bulgaria riots erupt 1-14, 52D2 Russia gas dispute scored 3-6, 142A3 Turkey/EU gas pipeline deal signed 7-13, 561B1 Environment & Pollution CO2 emissns tallied 12-18, 883B1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Russia nixes Crimea FSB role 12-1, 892D3 European Relations Romania sea border chngd 2-3, 137D1 EU econ crisis mtg held 2-22, 116F3 Europn Comm members named 11-27, 835B3 Family Issues Singer John adoptn bid nixed 9-14, 708F2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F2 Oppositn protests held 3-27—4-3; pres vote chng OKd, parlt electn mulled 4-1—4-4, chamber doors blocked 4-2, 227D1, A2 Pres electn date chngd 5-13, 379F1 Pres staff chief (Baloha) quits 5-19, 379D1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736F2 Medicine & Health Care Swine flu curbs ordrd 10-30, deaths tallied 11-1, 811A1 HIV ‘epidemic’ rptd 11-24, 876B1 Monetary Issues EBRD sets banks investmt 5-7, 336E3 Nazis & Neo-Nazis WWII guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239C3, E3

FACTS Sports Shakhtar Donetsk wins UEFA Cup 5-20, 950A1 Trade, Aid & Investment Credit rating cut 2-25, 137B1 IMF funds commitmt hike urged 3-11, 163F1 IMF 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274F1 EU econ partnership set, incentives offrd 5-7, 336F3 Russia loan nixed 10-5, 728D3 IMF loan chngd 12-30, 939F3 Transportation Plane refuels 12-8; Thai seizes, N Korean arms found 12-12, probe set 12-14, 862D3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Biden visits 7-21—7-22, 496B2, E2–B3 Biden tours region 10-21—10-23, 750C2–D2

ULLMANN, Liv Streetcar Named Desire revival opens in DC 10-31, 896D1

ULSTER—See NORTHERN Ireland UMAROV, Doku Claims RR blasts 12-2, 836B2, D2

UMAROV, Sandzhar Freed, moves to US 11-7, 891F3

UMM a Quwain—See UNITED Arab Emirates UMOH, Stephanie Ragtime revival opens in DC 4-25, NYC 11-15, 954D2

UNCOMMON: Finding Your Path to Significance (book) On best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

UNDER the Dome (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840A1; 12-21, 956A1

UNDERWOOD, Carrie Wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3 Play On on best-seller list 11-28, 840E1

UNDERWORLD: Rise of the Lycans (film) On top-grossing list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

UNGALAAQ, Natar Wins Genie 4-4, 280B1

UNGPAKORN, Giles Ji Royal family insults chrgd 1-20, flees 2-6, 154E1–F1

UNICREDIT SpA EBRD sets Eastn Eur/Central Asia investmt 5-7, 336E3

UNIFICATION Church Wash Times execs fired 11-9, bias claim filed 11-17, 913A3–B3

UNION des Etudiants Juifs de France UN racism conf ban set 4-23, 262F1

UNION of Civic Organizations Kyrgyz pres electn vote abuses alleged 7-24, 510F3

UNION of South American Nations (UNASUR) Ecuador summit held 8-10, 541G2, D3–E3 Argentina mtg held 8-28, 589B2, D2, B3

UNION Pacific Railroad Co. Drug smuggling suit filed 3-18, 269F1

UNITARIAN Universalist Association of North America Tenn church shooter (Adkisson) pleads guilty 2-9, 247D3

UNITED—For organizations not listed below, see key words UNITED Airlines Inc. (of UAL Corp.) Flight 93 meml deal OKd 1-16, 65F1 9/11 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620D2 Fined 10-14, 817C1

UNITED Arab Emirates (UAE) African Relations Zimbabwe’s Mugabe med treatmt claimed, denied 8-26, 588C3 Arab Relations Leb’s Hariri slaying case Dubai arrest rptd 4-20, 312E2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Thai govt ofcs protested, Thaksin speeches aired 3-26—4-2, 205G3 CIS Relations Chechen ex-rebel (Yamadayev) slain 3-28; Kadyrov info denied, sees dad slaying role 3-30—4-6, Russian MP (Delimkhanov) order alleged, probe mulled 4-5—4-7, 273F2, C3–E3 Chechen ldr successor (Delimkhanov) named 9-24, 706E1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Graft suspects chrgd 4-8, 893C3

Defense & Disarmament Issues N Korea arms shipmt seized 8-28, Iran A-program, Pak aid revealed 8-31, 600D1, F1 Economy & Labor Dubai debt buy set 2-22, 829A1 Dubai debt repaymt halt sought, buys set 11-25; mkts shut, drop 11-26—11-30, restructuring plan unveiled, guarantee nixed 11-30, 828C3, 829C1, C2; photo 829E1 Abu Dhabi sets Nakheel bailout/interest-baring bonds rptd, Dubai bankruptcy chngs seen 12-14—12-17, 878B1 European Relations France mil base opened 5-26, 893B3 French town Muslim swimsuit ban rptd 8-12, 561G1 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section Iran seizes yacht 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F2; 10-1, 736F2 Human Rights Abu Dhabi Shiekh torture trial rptd 12-10, 893G2 Iraqi Conflict Ex-trade min (Sudani) flight return ordrd 5-30, 379F3–G3 Middle East Relations Kuwait parlt electns held 5-16, 345E1 Iran A-program sites, missiles range maps 9-25—9-28, 649G1, 650C2 Clinton visits 10-31, 754F1 Monetary Issues Local, forgn banks lending set 11-29, 829C2 Nuclear Power & Safeguards US deal signed 1-15, 69F2 US deal OKd, finalized 5-21, 12-17, 893F2 A-plants bldg contract awarded 12-27, 944D2 Oil & Gas Developments Turkmen gas field dvpt deals signed 12-29, 935D3 Royal Family Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331G2 Sports Israeli tennis players entry mulled 2-15—2-19; Barclays Dubai Champ US broadcast nixed, ‘10 event omit warned/fine issued 2-16—2-20, Roddick boycotts, results 2-21—2-28, 138F3 Dubai World Cup results 3-28, 347B3 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix results 11-1, 950E1 Aabar Investmts sets Brawn team stake buy 11-16, 950F1 Dubai World Champ results 11-22, 839D3 Golfer Woods, Dubai resort plans cont 12-17, 879B2 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations US citizen (Hamdan) convctd 10-12, 893G2 Trade, Aid & Investment Greece credit rating cut 12-16, 875D3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Clinton sees Nahahyan 3-1, 123B2

UNITED Artists Pictures (of MGM) Bach dies 3-25, 256E2

UNITED Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) (AFL-CIO) Chrysler, GM jobs bank programs end set 1-22, 1-28, 48A2 GM/Chrysler worker buyouts offrd 2-3, 62E2–F2 Auto workers deal chngs seen 2-17, 92C3 Ford workers deal chngd 3-9, 184C1, F1, A2 Auto workers deal chngs urged 3-26, GM/Chrysler reorgn plans nixed 3-29, 197D2, A3–B3, D3–E3, 198F1–G1, B2, D3, G3 Chrysler deal chngd 4-29, Nardelli sets resignatn, bankruptcy declared 4-30, 282A3–B3, G3, 283G1 GM, S Korea/Mex imports hike proposal opposed 5-15, 339G1 US autos fuel econ fed standards set 5-19, 339E2 GM workers deal chngd 5-29; bondholders debt swap OKd 5-31, bankrupcty declared, stake set 6-1, 365B1, F2, B3, 366A1–B1, D1 Chrysler/Fiat merger upheld, completed 6-5—6-10, 385D1, B2 GM reorgn OKd, bankruptcy exited 7-5—7-10, 475G1

ON FILE

Toyota shuts Calif factory 8-27, 679G3 Ford workers concessns vote mulled, chngs nixed 10-30—10-31, 758A1 GM CEO (Henderson) quits 12-1, govt role denied 12-2, 831G1

UNITEDHEALTH Group Inc. NYS paymts suit setld 1-13, ‘out-of-network’ chrgs paymt OKd 1-15, 64D2 HHS secy nominee (Daschle) withdraws 2-3, 59E3

UNITED Kingdom—See GREAT Britain UNITED Nations Afghanistan Role Pres electn delayed 1-29, 54G1 ‘08 civiln deaths rise seen 2-17, 102B2 Natl electns delay reaffrmd 3-4, 137B2 Summit proposed 3-5, 142C1, G1 US vows electns aid 3-30, security conf held 3-31, 195A2, D2 Civiln deaths ‘09 rise rptd 7-31, US mil drug trafficker targeting set 8-11, 546E3–547C1 Workers slain 8-18, pres electn backed 8-20, 549E1, F2 Security transfer conf urged 9-6, pres electn partial results rptd, recount ordrd 9-8, 611B1, C3 Pres electn fraud probe criteria rptd 9-15, 630A1 Afghan’s Karzai reelectn seen, recount set 9-25; civiln deaths rptd 9-26, spec rep dep (Galbraith) ousted 9-30, 668B3–C3, E3, 669E1 Envoy (Eide) scored, pres electn recount opens 9-28—10-4, 674D1 Pres electn fraud admitted 10-11, Barakzai quits probe 10-12, 696F1 Pres electn rpt issued, runoff OKd 10-19—10-20, 710F1, A2, C2, E2 Workers slain 10-28, 750E3 Abdullah pres bid drop hailed, runoff nixed 11-1—11-2; Ban visits, vows cont aid 11-2, workers relocated 11-5, 753C3, 754A1–C1 Karzai ouster plan mulled, spec envoy (Eide) quits 12-10—12-17, 894C1 Afghan ‘09 1st 3/4 civiln casualties tallied, May ‘10 parlt electns plan cont 12-29, 899D2–E2 Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on Global warming rate hike seen 2-14, 124F1 Ger conf held 6-1—6-12, 413C2–D2 Australia protests held 6-13, 624D1 Intl short-term emissns cuts deal seen 7-9, 453F1 French carbon tax set 9-11, 644E3 Summit held 9-22, 636B1 EPA emissns cut proposal issued 9-30, 654B2 US’s Obama, China’s Wen set climate treaty talks roles 11-25—11-26, 827C3 Data manipulatn probe set, scientists leaked e-mails mulled 12-5—12-8, treaty talks open 12-7—12-9, 841A1–B1, C3 Copenhagen treaty talks held, pol statemt set 12-7—12-19, 881A1, 882A1–C1, A2, A3–B3 Congo, UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the (MONUC) Rwanda troops enter, jt offensive mulled/role sought 1-20—1-22, rebel ldr (Nkunda) held 1-21, 34A2, E2, B3 Army, rebels link alleged 11-25—12-7, peacekeepers jt operatn end set, missn extended 12-16—12-23, 921G2, G3, 922B1–C1 Darfur, UN-AU Mission in (UNAMID) Equipmt delivery ordrd, troops hike set 1-5—1-19; Muhajiriya offensive mulled 1-24—2-4, civiln deaths mulled, govt/rebels peace talks set 2-3—2-17, 115G2, E3, 116B1–C1, E1–F1 Peacekeeper slain 3-17, 185C2 Darfur rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375C3 Darfur conflict end seen 8-26, 924E2 Development Program, UN (UNDP) Dervis rptd admin 1-1, 3A2 Drugs & Crime, UN Office on (UNODC) Afghan opium poppies farmland drop seen 9-3, 612C1 Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) Merores rptd pres 1-1, 3B1 Environment Program, UN (UNEP) Steiner rptd exec dir 1-1, 3B2 Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) Diouf rptd dir gen 1-1, 3C1 World hunger rate estimated 6-19, 440E2–G2 Food security summit held, hunger drop goals OKd/met 11-16—11-18, 812A1, E1, A2

2009 Index General Assembly D’Escoto Brokmann rptd pres 1-1, 3A1 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) addresses 6-30, 438F2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 459G3 Iran A-program talks set 7-8, 453D2 Libya’s Qaddafi NYC travel ltd, visit mulled 8-28—9-2, 583A3, C3 E Timor pres (Ramos-Horta) travel blocked 9-8, 835A2 Women’s agencies merger OKd 9-14, 902F1 Debate opens 9-23—9-24, 633A1–634F1 Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi) release res passes Sen 9-23, 636B3 Debate ends 9-25—9-29, 651C3–652A3 UK/US ‘spec’ ties reaffrmd 10-11, 704D3 US/Cuba cont embargo oppositn res backed 10-28, 784C1 Gaza war crimes rpt backed 11-5, 790A2 Haiti, UN Stabilization Mission in (MINUSTAH) Plane crash kills 11 10-9, 818D1 HIV/AIDS, Joint UN Program on (UNAIDS) Sidibe rptd exec dir 1-1, 3A2 Condoms use backed 3-19, 196A1 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697D2 Ukraine/Russia ‘epidemics’ rptd 11-24, 876B1 Humanitarian Affairs, UN Office for the Coordination of Gaza violnc casualties tallied 1-8, 1D1 Zimbabwe jobless rate (94%) rptd 1-29, 67C1 E Jerusalem evictns seen 5-1, 313F2–G2 Darfur aid groups return seen 6-11, 446A2 PI storms aid sought 10-6, 684E3 PI storms aid mulled 10-13, 704C1–D1 Holmes visits Indonesia quakes affected area 10-14, aid rptd 10-15, 725D1 PI storms aid sought 10-18, 891A1 Sri Lankan refugees release urged 11-19, 823C2 Human Rights, Commission on (UNCHR) Pillay rptd high comr 1-1, 3B2 Darfur humanitarian crisis mulled 2-3, 116C1 US terror detainees abuse forgn govts role seen 2-27, 150F1 Robinson gets US Pres Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 E Timor massacre suspect (Bere) release scored 8-31, 835A2 Swiss mosque minarets ban scored 11-29, 837A1–B1 Uganda rebel ldrs trials sought 12-21, 924A3 Human Rights Council, UN Gaza invasn abuses hearing held 3-23, 210A2–B2 US seat sought 3-31, members electn held 5-12, 336E2 Goldstone named Gaza war crimes probe ldr 4-3, rpt issued 5-5, 313C1–D1 Darfur civiln attacks seen 6-16, abuses monitoring cont 6-18, 446F2 Sri Lanka, IMF loan OKd 7-24, 579A1 Slovakia minority language curbs complaint set 8-3, 608D3 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, rpt scored, indep probes nixed 9-15—9-16, 614E1, E2, A3 Gaza war crimes rpt support mulled/peace talks threat seen, action nixed 10-1—10-7, 689A3 Gaza war crimes rpt backed, res passes/vote scored 10-8—10-16, US veto sought 10-20, 730A2 N Korea ofcls questng set 10-22, 764E1–F1 Israeli forgn min (Livni) UK warrant issued 12-12, 884G2 IMF—See INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund Industrial Development Organization, UN Yumkella rptd dir gen 1-1, 3B2 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ElBaradei rptd dir gen 1-1, 3C1 UAE/US A-power deal signed 1-15, 69G2 Iran compliance sought 2-3, 86B3 Pak A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, 75F2 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 2-17—3-1, 173F3, 174A1–D1 Israel/Syria air strike site uranium find mulled 2-19, missile facility claimed 2-24, 465B3 ElBaradei successor votes held, Amano elected 3-26—7-2, 502E2 Iran A-fuel plant opened, uranium enrichmt hike rptd 4-9, 254A2–B2 N Korea A-program facility reopened, inspectors ousted 4-14, 239A1–B1

—UNITED 1193 N Korea A-program talks exit confrmd 4-24, plutonium reprocessing cont -4-25, 342B3 Iran A-program progress seen, ‘stalemate’ seen 8-28—9-9, 599G1, F3–G3 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-21—9-25; cooperatn urged 9-25, inspectns OKd, timing mulled 10-1—10-3, 649B2, D2, 650G1, E2, C3–D3 Iran A-program progess mulled, ElBaradei visits/Qom site inspectns set 10-2—10-4, 688A1, E1 Iran uranium transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711C1, F1 Iran A-program secret site inspected 10-24—10-25, uranium transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2, E2, B3 Iran A-program further secret sites seen 11-16, 804D1 Israel/Syria air strike uranium find mulled 11-16, 804B2 Iran seizes yacht 11-25, UK sailors freed 12-2, 857C3 Iran A-program secret site censured, res scored/ties drop seen 11-27—11-30, 837D1 Iran uranium swap offrd 12-12, 876E2 Iran/Kazakh uranium trade plans seen 12-29, 941G1 International Criminal Court (ICC) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Sudan’s Bashir surrender urged 1-12, arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—2-23, 115A3–C3, 116A2 Congo rebel staff chief (Ntaganda) defects 1-16, 34C2 Congo warlord (Lubanga) trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 42D3 Kenya violnc suspects list handover mulled 2-17, 2-24, 202E3–F3 Sudan’s Bashir indicted, protests held/ruling mulled 3-4—3-5, 122C1, E2–F2, B3–C3, 123A1–E1 Sudan aid groups ouster questnd, order hiked 3-6—3-16; Bashir holds Darfur rally, visits Eritrea/Egypt 3-18—3-25, peace talks halted 3-20, 185A1–B1, F1, A2–B2 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, Israeli/US roles mulled 3-26, 197D1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196D2 Darfur peace talks cont 5-6, rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375G2, G3 Darfur aid groups return seen 6-11, 446B2 Sudan’s Bashir warrant, AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, res oppositn rptd 7-3—7-7, 459A1 Kenya post-electn violnc suspects list handed over 7-9; govt rpt issued 7-17, local trials set 7-30, 540G3, 541C1 US’s Clinton visits Kenya 8-5, 540F1 Kenya electn violnc chrgs vowed 9-30; probe cooperatn set 10-2, Moreno-Ocampo visit delay urged 10-13, 702C2, E2 Darfur conflict spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924B2–C2 Guinea protesters attack probe opens 10-14, 701A3 Gaza war crimes rpt res passes Human Rights Cncl 10-16, 730B2 US/Sudan policy shift set 10-19, 762G1 Chief prosecutor (Moreno-Ocampo) visits Kenya, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922F2 Sudan’s Bashir Turkey visit mulled, genocide role denied 11-6—11-8, at China/Africa summit, skips Islamic summit 11-8—11-9, 788C3, E3 Congo warlords trial opens 11-24, 922E1 Guinea Sep protests crackdown mulled 12-17, 871E1 Uganda rebel ldrs trials sought 12-21, 924A3–C3 Guinea junta ldr (Camara), aides chrgs urged 12-21, 925F1 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 Bosnian Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claim mulled 2-15—3-26; kin harassmt alleged 4-2, appeal denied 4-7, 274D2 Serbia ex-pres (Milutinovic) cleared/release ordrd, war crime suspects convctd 2-26, 110C1, E1, G1 Bosnian Serb ex-pol (Krajisnik) convctns nixed, sentnc cut 3-17, transferred 9-7, 628B2 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377D3, 378A1 Mladic home videos aired 6-10, Serbs (Lukics) convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511D3, G3–512A1

Bosnian Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8; ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, ex-pres (Plavsic) release OKd 9-15, 628B1, G1 Serb ldr (Karadzic) seeks trial delay/boycotts, counsel mulled 10-26—10-27, argumts open/adjourned, Plavsic freed 10-27, 749A1, A2 Serb ldr (Karadzic) in ct 11-3, atty apptmt ordrd, trial delayed 11-5, 767E2 Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1 Serbia cooperatn hike rptd 12-3, EU entry bid submitted 12-22, 939C2–D2 International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Bage rptd pres 1-1, 3C1 International Labor Organization (ILO) ‘09 worldwide job losses seen 1-28, 58G1 Iraq Role Ban visits 2-6, 101G3 Kirkuk prov govt options detailed 4-22, 275C2 Hussein US interrogatn rpts issued 6-29, 465B2 Maliki sees Ban 7-22, 498B1, D1 Kirkuk autonomy proposal nixed 7-28, 501E1 Parlt adjourns, electns legis mulled 10-21, 729B2 Baghdad security envoy arrives 11-1, electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789C1, A2, G3 UK probe opens 11-24, 821D1 Electn law passes parlt 12-6, 856B3 Kosovo Role ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G1 IMF entry OKd 5-5, 318F1 NATO peacekeepers cut 6-11, 423G3 Population Fund, UN (UNFPA) Obaid rptd exec dir 1-1, 3C2 US aid reinstated 1-23, 47F1 Refugees, Office of the High Commissioner for (UNHCR) Guterres rptd high comr 1-1, 3B2 Thai held refugees access sought, mtgs held 1-20—1-29, mil abuse probe urged 1-29, 52F1–A2 Pak chief (Solecki) seized 2-2, 69E3 Indonesia abandoned boat survivors status sought 2-8, 99D1 Pak hostage (Solecki) tape issued 2-13, 103A2 Guterres visits Myanmar, svcs hiked 3-7—3-12, 187B3 African migrants Italy entry OKd/origins rptd, EU binding rules urged 4-19—4-20, 262B2–D2 Pak tribal areas displacemts tallied 5-2, 346F1 Somalia displacemts tallied 6-25, 430B1–C1 Pak ofcl slain 7-16, 514C3 Myanmar/China refugees estimated 8-30, 590A3 Somali refugees Gulf of Aden drownings rptd 9-1, Yemen camp strike kills 80+, mil probe set 9-16—9-17, 646B1, D1 Asylum seekers Indonesian interceptns rptd 10-15, ID/med checks OKd 11-13, 931E1, D2 Afghan refugees Tajik exit rise seen 10-23, 765C1 Relief and Works Agency, UN (UNRWA) Gaza sites attacked, aid operatns halted 1-5—1-8, 1C3 Gaza food aid cont 1-9; Israeli strike stray mortar claimed, refugee crisis seen 1-11—1-12, warehouse destroyed 1-15, 13E1–F1, B3 Gaza schl strike kills 2 1-17, violnc death toll rptd 1-19, 30F3, 31A1–D1 Gaza shipmt seized, aid halted/cont 2-6—2-9, entry urged 2-10, 86E1 Gaza schls, Holocaust teaching scored 8-31, 615D1 Rwandan War Role RC priest (Rukundo) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2 Genocide anniv marked 4-7, 248C2–E2 Ex-interior min (Kalimanzira) convctd, sentncd 6-22, 923A3 Kivumu ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10; extradited 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680F1, A2 Ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680B1, F1 Ex-pres brother-in-law (Zigiranyirazo) convctn nixed, RC priest (Nsengimana) cleared 11-16—11-17; boycott warned 11-21, mandate extended 12-16, 923D2–G2 Secretariat & Headquarters Ban rptd secy gen 1-1, 3B1 Sri Lanka rebel city mil capture rptd 1-2, 9F2

N/S Korea sea border recognitn nixed 1-30, 84B1 Somalia’s Ahmed elected, sworn pres 1-31, 66E2 Gambari visits Myanmar 1-31—2-3, 187F3 Sri Lanka conflict end seen 2-4, 119B2 Somali interim premr (Sharmarke) named, OKd 2-13—2-14, 115E1 Mercury emissns treaty mulled, draft talks OKd 2-16—2-20, 124A1 Madagascar pol dispute talks nixed 2-25; Rajoelina protectn rptd 3-9, Daewoo land deal nixed 3-18, 169E1, G1, A3 Kenya cops violnc rpt issued 2-25, unity govt reforms conf held 3-30—3-31, 202A3, 203E1 Guinea-Bissau army chief (Tagme), pres (Vieira) slain 3-1—3-2, 133D3 Leb’s Hariri slaying tribunal opens 3-1, 211A1 Cuba cabt shuffled 3-2, 134F2 Millennium Dvpt Goals cont focus urged 3-12, 170B1–C1 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170E2, G2 Chad peacekeeping force control transferred 3-15, 185E1 G-20 intl stimulus package urged 3-25, 193B3 Thai ofc protested 3-30, 206C1 US/Cuba trade embargo end urged 3-30, 249D1 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250F1 Madagascar pol dispute talks fail 4-8—6-16, cont role set 7-1, 459B3 Swiss racism conf held, documt OKd 4-20—4-21, nonprofits banned 4-23, 261F3, 262D1 Sri Lanka ‘09 civiln deaths estimated 4-20, 277D1 Gaza war crimes probe rpt issued 4-22, 313A1 Mali envoy (Fowler), asst freed 4-22, 326E1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict halt urged 4-26—4-27; violnc scored, civiln deaths/displacemts tallied 5-11—5-18, end declared 5-19, 333D2, 334C2 Somalia AU troops exit sought 4-28; Islamists clashes kill 175+, displacemts tallied 5-8—5-20, forgn fighters seen, Eritrea sanctns urged 5-15—5-20, 341D2–E2, B3, E3–F3 Nepal army chief (Katawal) fired, ouster blocked 5-3, 314F2 Guatemala slain atty (Rosenberg) murder claims probe sought 5-11, 377D1 Ban sets Myanmar visit 5-20, 360A2 Sri Lanka rebel conflict casualties tallied 5-22; Ban visits refugees camp 5-23, intl aid access hike nixed 5-24, 363A2, D2 Leb’s Hariri slaying Hezbollah role alleged, denied 5-23—5-24, 380D2 Pak tribal areas violnc kills 27+ 5-30, Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Saeed) release ordrd 6-2, 382E2, 383D1 El Salvador pres (Funes) sworn 6-1, 394G2 Israel/Gaza invasn abuses probe opens, cooperatn nixed 6-1—7-7, 546C2 US rptrs N Korea trial opens 6-5, convctd/sentncd, release sought 6-8, 396B1 Pak hotel blast kills 18 6-9, 418G2–A3 Emerging econs summit held 6-16, 405D1 N Korea A-program talks return urged 6-17, 406F3 Peru protests crack down probe urged 6-19, 432C1 Iran protesters rights backed 6-23, 423B2 Gambari/Ban visit Myanmar, pol prisoners release urged 6-26—7-4, 462D1, C2 Georgia breakaway regions monitors exit 6-30, 450D1–E1 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622B3, E3 China ethnic violnc restraint urged 7-6, 461C2 Myanmar pol prisoners amnesty mulled 7-13; oppositn members held 8-7, Suu Kyi convctn/sentnc, arms embargo urged 8-11, 543F1, A2 Leb/Israeli truce zone blast hits 7-14, 615C1 Pak’s Bhutto assassinatn probe team arrives 7-16, 514D3 Chechen activist (Estemirova) slaying probe nixed 7-22, 497G1 PI separatists cease-fire ordrd, opens 7-23—7-24, 527C3 N Korea A-program US bilateral talks sought 7-27, 517D3 S Korea fishing boat seized 7-30, 518D1 US’s Clinton visits N Korea 8-4, 517G1 Kenya post-electn violnc trial plans scored 8-4, 540G1 Australia raids net terror suspects 8-4, 930F2 Madagascar power-sharing deal signed 8-9, 555C3

1194 UNITED— Australia aborigine program probed, discriminatn seen 8-16—8-27, 624E1, G1 S Korea satellite launch nixed 8-19, 558B2 Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) slaying suspects held 9-11, 682C2 US/Somalia strike launched, Nabhan death rptd 9-14—9-15, blasts kill 14+ 9-17, 622E2, A3 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump, health woes link seen 9-16, 654D1 Pak extremist ldr (Saeed) banned charity fundraising alleged 9-18, Qureshi sees India’s Krishna 9-27, 669C2, E2 Japan’s Hatoyama sees China’s Hu 9-21, 703A3 Russian Black Sea patrols violatn claimed 9-22, 645B2 Guinea anti-junta rally crack down scored 9-29—9-30, 660D3 US terror ‘material support’ case accepted by Sup Ct 9-30, 677A3 Indonesia quakes death toll mulled 10-1, 662F1 Spanish boat (Alakrana) seized, freed 10-2—11-17, 801E1 Annan visits Kenya, urges pol reforms 10-4—10-7, 702E1 Myanmar sanctns lift opposed 10-7, 725F3 Guinea protesters attack trials urged 10-13, 702A1 Westn Sahara indep activist (Haider) wins civil courage prize 10-20; return blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 903F3 N Korea rights rpt issued 10-22, 764D1 French/Angola arms bribery suspects convctd, sentncd 10-27, Chirac backing claimed 10-29, 765C3 Nowak Zimbabwe entry blocked, sent to S Africa 10-28—10-29, 783G2 NYC missns suspicious letters arrive, harmless powder rptd 11-9—11-11, 862A2 W Bank border crossing opens 11-10, 790D3 S/N Korea naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 796A1 Iran rights abuses res passes 11-20, 857D2 Guinea Sep protests crackdown probe arrives 11-25, 870A3–B3 Commonwealth mtg held 11-27—11-29, 845E3 Honduras pres electn held 11-29, 834B2 PI prov slayings mulled 12-3, 853C2 Somalia blast kills 22+ 12-3, 889A1, A2 Leb unity govt OKd 12-10, 877B3 Leb ships sinkings kill 18+, survivors rescued 12-11—12-20, 943E2–F2 Cambodia deports Chinese Uighurs 12-19, 931F3 N/S Korea disputed waters firing warned 12-21, 933F3 Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934D2, F2, A3 Security Council Membership listed 1-1, 3A1 Israeli/Hamas ceasefire urged 1-8, 1B1, 2D3* Israel/Hamas ceasefire nixed 1-9, res vote mulled 1-12, 14E1–F1 Somalia peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21B3 Israel ouster urged 1-16, 31C1–D1 Iran compliance sought 2-3, 86B3 Somalia AU peacekeeping force attacks scored 2-25, 115D2 Guinea-Bissau pres (Vieira) slaying scored 3-3, 134D1 Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt mulled 3-5, 123A1–B1 Sudan aid groups ouster questnd 3-6, 185B1–C1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196A3 N Korea missile launch mtg held 4-5, 215E2 N Korea rocket launch res set, OKd 4-12—4-13, A-program talks halted, Yongbyon facility reopened/IAEA inspectors ousted, 238G3, 239E1 Sri Lanka rebel clashes mulled 4-22, 277B2–C2 N Korea rocket launch sanctns OKd 4-24, 342B3, D3 Sudan missn extensn OKd 5-1, 431D1 Darfur peace talks cont 5-6, rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375C3, 376A1 Sri Lanka rebel conflict civiln deaths scored 5-13, 334C3 Somalia port blockade urged 5-20, AU missn extensn OKd 5-26, 430D1, A3 Myanmar pol prisoners release urged 5-22, 360G1 N Korea A-test scored 5-25, 350A3, 351F1

FACTS Darfur aid groups return seen 6-11, 446A2 N Korea sanctns hike OKd 6-12, 403E3, 404D1 Georgia breakaway region monitoring missn extensn vetoed, vote mulled 6-15—6-16, 406C1, A2 Iraq seeks Persian Gulf War reparatns cut 6-18, 433D3 US/Somalia arms shipmt authrzn seen 6-25, 430F2 Croatia premr (Sanader) quits 7-1, 463D1 N Korea missiles launched, violatn scored 7-2—7-6, 462A3, D3 Sudan’s Bashir, ICC warrant/AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, 459D1 N Korea A-program sanctns OKd 7-16, 495F1 Indonesia blasts scored 7-17, 494D3 N Korea A-program mulled 7-22, 496E1; 7-27—7-28, 509G2 N Korea ship detained 8-10, US’s Goldberg sets Asia tour 8-13, 568E3–F3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi convctn, sentnc res mulled 8-12, 543G1 N Korea arms shipmt seizure rptd 8-28, Iran A-program proposals offrd, backed 9-9—9-10, 599G2, F3, 600F1 Iran A-program talks proposals posted 9-10, 614B1 Libya’s Qaddafi scores cncl 9-23, Iran A-program sanctns backed, arms spread res passes 9-23—9-24, 633C1, G1, C2, 634G1, B2 Iran secret A-site revealed 9-25; res violatn seen 9-29, talks held 10-1, 649B1, C2, 650D2 Honduras/Brazilian emb harassmt halt ordrd 9-25, 662B1 Guinea anti-junta rally crack down scored 9-30, 660D3 Sex violnc res passes 9-30, 675D3 Gaza war crimes support mulled, action nixed 10-1—10-7, 689B3–C3 Iran militia ldr (Naqdi) named 10-5, 688E2 Gaza war crimes rpt res passes Human Rights Cncl, vote scored 10-16, US veto sought 10-20, 730B2 Iran uranium transfer proposals backed 10-30, 768A3 France/N Korea spec envoy (Lang) dispatched, talks held 11-9—11-10, 934B1 Palestinian state backing sought 11-15, 838A3 Bosnia/EU peacekeeping missn extended 11-18, 940F1 Iran A-program secret site censured 11-27, 837G1 Turkey’s Erdogan visits US 12-7, 846E1 Iran arms embargo violatns seen 12-10, 876E3 Thai seizes plane, N Korea arms found/sanctns hailed 12-12—12-14, 862A3 Congo peacekeepers/army jt operatn end set, missn extended 12-16—12-23, 921G2 Rwanda tribunal mandate extended 12-16, 923G2 Eritrea/Somalia Islamists backing sanctns set 12-23, 903D1 Iran/Kazakh uranium trade deal seen 12-29, 941A2 Sierra Leone, UN Mission in (UNAMSIL) Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134E1 Rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134E1 Liberia’s Taylor acquittal sought, nixed 4-6—4-8, ex-rebels sentncd 4-8, 325A1, C1 Liberia Truth Comm rpt issued 7-7, 925B2 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A1 Ex-rebel cmdrs appeals nixed 10-26, 925E2 Sudan, UN Mission in (UNMIS) Cont role seen 3-4, 122D2, F2–A3 Extensn OKd 5-1; southn violnc casualties rise seen 6-1, govt role urged 6-4, 430D3, 431D1 Electns registratn opens 11-1, southn villages violnc kills 47+ 11-16, 801F3, 802F1 Southn violnc mulled 12-12, 924A2 Torture, Committee Against CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 260C3 UNCTAD (Trade & Development, UN Conference on) Panitchpakdi rptd secy gen 1-1, 3A2 UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Matsuura rptd dir gen 1-1, 3B2 Iraq natl museum reopened 2-23, 118A2 Yemen blast kills 4+, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646B2

Dir gen votes held, Bokova elected 9-17—9-22; Hosni bid smears claimed 9-23—10-2, climate chng role hike seen 9-23, 675D2, G2, C3 Egypt/Lourve Museum ties cut 10-7, artifacts returned 12-14, 952B3 Iraq drought refugees rptd 10-13, 730E1 UNICEF (UN Children’s Fund) Veneman rptd exec dir 1-1, 3A2 Madagascar risk seen 4-25, 308C3 Preventable child deaths drop rptd 9-10, 901E2 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697D2 Saudi mil/Yemeni rebel clashes displacemts rptd 11-9, 805C2 UNOMIG (UN Observer Mission in Gerogia) Missn extensn vetoed, Sec Cncl vote mulled 6-15—6-16, 406C1, A2 UNTAC (UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia) Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial set 1-19, 68D1 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial opens 2-17, 98E1 Khmer Rouge tribunal further indictmts opposed 3-31, prison chief (Duch) trial cont, detentn nixed 3-31—6-15, 413B3, D3, F3 Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, Cayley named 12-2, 890B2 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial closing argumts heard 11-23—11-27, 890E1 Khmer Rouge genocide suspects chrgd 12-16—12-21, 889F3, 890A1–C1 U.S. Policy & Developments Amb nominee (Rice) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 16A2 Amb nominee (Rice) confrmd 1-22, 30D1 Obama admin listed 4-28, 288E2 Iran/Syria/Cuba chaired mtgs ban nixed 7-1, 902A2 Sudan policy shift set 10-19, 762D1 Diplomats visit Myanmar 11-3—11-4, 763B2 World Bank—See WORLD Bank Group World Court (International Court of Justice) Higgins rptd pres 1-1, 3B1 Tex/Mex inmate (Medellin) executn violatn ruled 1-19, 31D3 Ukraine/Romania sea border chngd 2-3, 137D1 Thai/Cambodia border violnc warned 3-31, clash kills 3, denies war 4-3—4-5, 310A2 US’s Biden visits Kosovo/Bosnia/Serbia 5-19—5-21, 378B2 Thai/Cambodia border temple clashes hurt 17 9-19, 726A3 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) Brazil emb sheltering halt sought 10-28, 763B1 World Food Program (WFP) Sheeran rptd exec dir 1-1, 3C2 Somali pirates free Leb ship 4-20, 269E3–F3 Sudan convoy attack kills 40 6-12, 431A1 ‘09 funding shortfalls seen 6-12, 440B3 Myanmar landslides aid rptd 7-15, 528E3 Guatemala food crisis calamity declared 9-8, 623C3 Storm Ketsana, PI aid set 9-29, 664B2 Pak blast kills 5 10-5, 694A3 PI storms aid sought 10-6, 684G3 N/S Korea food aid offrd 10-26, 764B1 Pak tribal areas programs cut 11-2, 769F1–G1 El Salvador floods, mudslides aid set 11-10, 818D1 Pak workers cut set 12-30, 947D1 World Health Organization (WHO) Chan rptd dir gen 1-1, 3C2 Bird flu cases/deaths tallied 1-6, 76G1 Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2 Zimbabwe cholera outbreak illnesses, deaths tallied 2-17, 97G1 Iraq mental health survey published 3-7, 156F2 TB/HIV infectns rtpd 3-24, 352C2 Swine flu cases confrmd, alert hiked/Egypt pigs cull opens 4-24—4-30, 281A1, D2–E2, B2 Taiwan observer status block dropped 4-29, 309C3 Swine flu outbreak alert level clarified/retained, cases tallied 5-3—5-7, 303D1, F1 Swine flu lab accident claim nixed 5-14; threat mulled, alert chngs seen 5-18—5-22, cases tallied 5-27, 351E2, C3–D3, 352A2 Swine flu pandemic declared 6-11, 386D2 Antiviral drug (Tamiflu) swine flu resistnc mulled 6-30; cases tallied, elderly rise rptd 7-6—7-24, vaccinatns priority sought, spread seen/tracking halted 7-13—7-16, 502A1, G1, E2 Severe swine flu form seen 8-28, 583D3

ON FILE

Swine flu cases tallied 9-27, vaccinatns open 10-7, 696E3–F3 HIV drug treatmt rise seen 9-30, 697D2, F2 Worldwide premature births rptd 10-4, 901C2 Swine flu complicatns warned 10-16, cases, deaths tallied 10-17, 741E2, F3 Ukraine swine flu aid sent 10-30, cases, deaths tallied 11-8, 810F2, 811B1 Swine flu peak mulled, cases/deaths tallied 11-20—12-31, 901A1–C1 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ‘00-09 warming data issued 12-8, 842C1 World Trade Organization (WTO)—See WORLD Trade Organization

UNITED Press International (UPI) (of Middle East Broadcasting) Van Es dies 5-15, 348G3

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Pacquiao/Mayweather fight drug testing rift rptd 12-22, 895E2

U.S. Bancorp Stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return OKd 6-9, 387C2

U.S. Global Change Research Project Climate chng effects rpt issued 6-16, 409B2

U.S. GOVERNMENT—See specific department or agency (e.g., CONGRESS) or subject (e.g., CRIME) UNITED States of Tara (TV show) Collette wins Emmy 9-20, 647D3, G3

U.S. Sugar Corp. Fla sugar fields land deal chngd 4-1, 356E3

UNITED States v. Eurodif (2009) Enriched uranium antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2

UNITED States v. Seale Denied by Sup Ct 11-2, 886E3

UNITED States v. Stevens Accepted by Sup Ct 4-20, 266G1

UNITED Technology Corp. Gray dies 7-8, 516A3

UNIVERSITIES—See EDUCATION (U.S.) UNIVERSITY of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Penn.) Survey traces African ancestry 4-30, 516B1

UNIVISION Communications Inc. Obama interviewed 9-18—9-20, 638D1 Cuba’s Castro sister interviewed 10-25, 762C2

UNMASKED: The Final Years of Michael Jackson (book) On best-seller list 8-3, 532B1

UNRUH, Howard Barton (1921-2009) Dies 10-19, 752G3

UNSINKABLE Molly Brown, The (play/film) Presnell dies 6-30, 500F3

UNSTOPPABLE (recording) On best-seller list 5-2, 316E1; 5-30, 384D1

UNTITLED (recording) On best-seller list 12-19, 956E1

UP (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452C2 Among ‘09 top-grossing films 12-31, 954D1

UP (play) Opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

UPDIKE, John Hoyer (1932-2009) Dies 1-27, 56B3; photo 56B3

UPI—See UNITED Press International UP in the Air (film) On top-grossing list 12-25—12-31, 956D2

UPPER Volta—See BURKINA Faso UPSHAW, Gene (Eugene Thurman Upshaw Jr.) (1945-2008) NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176D1

UPTON, B. J. Among AL steals ldrs 10-6, 690F2

UPWARD, Edward Falaise (1903-2009) Dies 2-13, 160F3

URANIUM N Korea A-program warning issued 1-7, enrichmt mulled 1-19, 36B1 US/UAE A-power deal signed 1-15, 69A3–B3 Israeli/Iran A-program raid US oppositn rptd 1-20, 75E1 US antidumping duties upheld by Sup Ct 1-26, 48G2 A-plant thief (Oakley) pleads guilty 1-26, sentncd 6-18, 917A3 N Korea A-program dismantling sought 2-16, 109C1–D1

2009 Index Iran A-program enrichmt mulled/bomb dvpt capabilities debated, Sen com hearing held 2-17—3-10, plant test opens 2-25, 173G3–174E1, A2 Israel/Syria air strike site find mulled 2-19, 465B3 Intl A-fuel bank backed 4-6, Iran enrichmt hike rptd 4-9, 254A2–B2 Kazakh A-agency head (Dzhakishev) fired, held/funds misuse alleged 5-21—6-1; arrest questnd 6-10, wife exit blocked 6-13, 510D2–F2 Iran A-program Bolivia/Venez aid alleged, denied 5-25—5-26, 362D1 N Korea A-program enrichmt vowed 6-13, 404D1 Russia’s Medvedev visits Namibia 6-25, 455F1 N Korea cont enrichmt seen 6-30, 462G3 Pak blast hurts 30 7-2, 467D1 Mongolia deposits state ownership stake set 7-16, Russian mining jt venture set 8-25, 725F2–A3 Niger pres term limits hike referendum held, results rptd 8-4—8-7, 574E3 Iran A-program uranium enrichmt mulled 8-6, 600B1 Iran A-program progess seen, talks offrd 8-28—9-9, 599E2–F2, F3–G3 N Korea A-program progress claimed 9-3, 600A3 Iran A-program talks proposals posted 9-10, talks OKd 9-14, 614B1–C1 Iran secret A-site revealed, IAEA inspectns OKd 9-21—10-1, talks held 10-1, 649A2, E2, 650C3, 651A1–B1; map 649F1 Iran A-program sanctns mulled, med purposes buy seen 9-23, 634G1, D2–E2 Venez detectn Iran aid mulled 9-25, 682G2 IAEA dir (ElBaradei) visits Iran, A-site inspectns set 10-2—10-4, med uranium talks OKd, enrichmt deal denied 10-4, 688C12 Areva/Kazatomprom A-fuel mktg jt venture set 10-6, 739F2 Iran transfer draft deal OKd 10-21, 711B1 Iran transfer proposals nixed, plan backed/chngs sought 10-29—11-2, 768B2 Iran A-program proposals mulled 11-2, 766D2 Iran A-program transfer proposals mulled, sanctns hike backed 11-6—11-19, further secret sites seen 11-16, 804F1–G1, B2, D2, F2–B3 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits S Amer 11-23—11-25, 885F1 Iran A-program secret site censured, res scored/IAEA ties drop seen 11-27—11-30; plants bldg vowed 11-29, enrichmt levels mulled 12-2, 837E1, E2, A3 Namibia electns held 11-27—11-28; results rptd 12-5, vote challenge set 12-6, 850D2 Iran A-program enriched swap offrd 12-12, bomb advances seen 12-13, 876C2–D2 Iran transfer deadline nixe 12-22; Turkey deal proposed 12-24, Kazakh import plans seen 12-29, 941E1–F1

URBAN, Jerheme Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70E3

URBAN Affairs—See CITIES URBINA, Judge Ricardo Blocks Dec ‘08 oil/gas leases 1-17, 94D1–E1 Cuba base detainees release order nixed 2-18, 95F1–A2 Iraq guard (Slatten) civiln deaths chrgs drop sought 11-20, 838C1 Orders Cuba base detainee (Hatim) release 12-16, 862A1 Drops Blackwater, Iraq civiln deaths chrgs 12-31, 942C2–B3

URIBE, Juan Sanchez pitches no-hitter 7-10, 484A2

URIBE Velez, Alvaro (Colombian president, 2002- ) Gets Medal of Freedom 1-13, 24C2 FARC hostages freed 2-1—2-5, 67D3 On Venez/FARC arms link 7-26, 526B2 Misses UNASUR summit 8-10, 541D3–E3 Pres term limits hike passes Cong 8-19—9-1, 623D1–E1 At UNASUR mtg 8-28, 589F2 Swine flu positive test rptd 8-30, 584D1 Gov (Cuellar) seized, found dead/FARC role alleged 12-21—12-22, 927D2–E2

URLACHER, Brian Hurt 9-13, 631C3

URSUA, Evalyn On client testimony chng, seeks probe 3-16, 3-24, 205B2–C

—VAHIDI 1195 URSULA, Dawn Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

URUGUAY, Oriental Republic of Accidents & Disasters Leb ship sinking kills 12+, survivors rescued 12-17—12-20, 943E2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236C3; 10-1, 736C3 Electns held, results rptd 10-25—10-26, Bordaberry concedes/backs Lacalle, runoff set 10-26, 746B3, 747A1 Pres runoff held, results rptd 11-29, 834G2 Facts on Mujica 11-29, 834E3 Obituaries Benedetti, Mario 5-17, 364A3 Sports ‘10 World Cup draw held 12-4, 858F2 UN Policy & Developments Haiti plane crash kills 11 10-9, 818E1

US Airways Group Inc. Jet engine woes seen 1-13; failure spurs NYC river crash-landing 1-15, plane retrieved, engine found 1-17—1-21, 33F1, E2 Fined 10-14, 817C1

USA Network (cable TV channel) Comcast buy set 12-3, 830D3

USA Patriot Act (2001) Extensn passes House 12-16, 866A3 ‘10 funds clear Cong 12-16—12-19, signed 12-22, 886D2

USASPENDING.gov (Web site) Unveiled 6-30, 761D2

USA Swimming Swimmer Phelps pot smoking photo issued, regretted 2-1, suspended 2-5, 71B2 Phelps pot smoking chrgs nixed 2-16, 159F3

USA Today (newspaper) Bush support polled 1-6—1-16, 18E3 Coll football yr-end final rankings 1-9, 23E3 Ed/publisher quit, replacemts named 2-1—4-28, 913E2 ‘08-09 coll basketball yr-end rankings 3-9—3-16, 230D3 Circulatn drop rptd 4-27, 912C2 ‘09 coll football preseason rankings 8-7, 579E3–F3 Circulatn, ad revenue drop rptd 10-26—11-19, 912F1, B2 ‘09-10 coll basketball preseason rankings rptd 10-29—11-4, 771E1, G1, E2, G2

USCATEGUI, Gen. Jaime Humberto (ret.) Convctd 11-23, 927A3

USENOV, Daniyar Named Kyrgyz premr 10-20, 722G1

USE Somebody (recording) On best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1

USMAN, Zill-eSlain 7-16, 514C3

UTAH Accidents & Disasters NHTSA buses safety lapses cited 4-21, 324F2 Crandall Canyon mine collapse setlmt OKd 5-12, 538B2 Arts & Culture Sundance Film Festival held 1-15—1-25, 104A2 Census Issues Abroad missionaries count nixed 8-18, 659D2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Cops dealer home entry upheld by Sup Ct 1-21, 48E3 Energy Oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe ordrd 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Medicine & Health Care Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section House vote hike bill passes Sen 2-26, 146G3–147A1 Huntsman named China amb 5-16, 353D3 Religious Issues Pleasant Grove pub park religious gift nix upheld by Sup Ct 2-25, 130C3 Sports BCS antitrust probe opens 1-6, 24B1

Jazz make playoffs 4-15, 278C2 Jazz exit playoffs 5-17, 419G2 Real Salt Lake wins MLS Champ 11-22, 894D3

UTAH, University of (Salt Lake City) Sugar Bowl won 1-2, ‘08 natl rank 1-9, 23F3–24A1 Kolff dies 2-11, 120C3 Poinsettia Bowl won 12-23, 948C3

U Than Swe On pol prisoners amnesty 7-13, 543C3–D3

UTIASHVILI, Shota On Tbilisi violent protests 5-6, 327D3–E3 Questns Abkhazia sea border violatns threat 9-2, 607B2

UTILITIES Environmental Issues Clean coal project revived 6-12, 445G3 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445E1 Chamber of Commerce exits set 9-28, 654B3–E3 Statistics US Dec ‘08 indl output, Nov revised 1-16, 46D2 US Dec ‘08 factory rate, Nov revised 1-16, 46D2 US Jan ‘09 indl output, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 US Jan ‘09 factory rate, Dec ‘08 revised 2-18, 112E1 US Feb ‘09 indl output, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 US Feb ‘09 factory rate, Jan revised 3-16, 183B2 US Mar ‘09 indl output, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Mar ‘09 factory rate, Feb revised 4-15, 241D1 US Apr ‘09 indl output, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 US Apr ‘09 factory rate, Mar revised 5-15, 355B3 US May ‘09 factory rate 6-16, 477B3 US May ‘09 indl output 6-16, 477B3 US Jun ‘09 indl output 7-15, 477A3 US Jun ‘09 factory rate 7-15, 477A3 US Jul ‘09 indl output, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 US Jul ‘09 factory rate, Jun revised 8-14, 572A2 US Aug ‘09 indl output, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 US Aug ‘09 factory rate, Jul revised 9-16, 640B2 US Sep ‘09 indl output, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 US Sep ‘09 factory rate, Aug revised 10-16, 740B2 US Oct ‘09 factory rate, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 US Oct ‘09 indl output, Sep revised 11-17, 813E2 US Nov ‘09 indl output, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2 US Nov ‘09 factory rate, Oct revised 12-15, 911D2

UTLEY, Chase NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 Among NL runs ldr 10-6, 690F3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752A2 Phillies lose World Series, ties HR mark 11-4, 770F1, B2

UTTERBACK, Camille Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671E2

U2 (music group) No Line on the Horizon on best-seller list 3-28, 212D1 Laliberte visits intl space statn 9-30—10-11, 731D2

UZBEKISTAN, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Turkmen gas pipeline blast halts shipmts 4-9, 473E2 African Relations Somalia forgn fighters seen 5-15, 341C3 CIS Relations Georgia exit set 6-12, 450A2 Kyrgyz border shut 8-28—9-14, tensns rptd 9-15, 663E3 Summit skipped 10-8—10-9, 777D1 Tajik/Kyrgyz border clashes erupt 10-15; shootout kills 4, suspects held 10-18—10-19, militants sentncd 10-19, 764F3–G3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Oppositn ldr (Umarov) freed 11-7, 891F3 Crime & Civil Disorders ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904D1 Defense & Disarmament Issues CTSO summit boycotted, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423E2, A3 CSTO rapid reactn force oppositn rptd 6-23, 904F1 Russia/Kyrgyz mil base deal opposed 8-3, 534C3

Mil base constructn seen, CSTO jt exercises nixed 8-26, 664A1 Economy & Labor Cotton picking child labor rptd 11-11, 891E3 Energy Central Asia power grid exited 12-1, 935C2 Central Asian/China pipeline opens 12-14, 935F2–G2 European Relations EU sanctns lifted 10-27, 764G2 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236D3; 10-1, 736D3 Parlt electns held/vote mulled, results rptd 12-27—12-31, 934B3 Human Rights Pre-electn oppositn crackdown scored 12-21, 934E3 Press & Broadcasting Rptr (Sayyid) held, convctd/sentncd 2-22—7-30, 891G3 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Attacks kill 5+, IMU ldr (Makhmudov) death rptd 5-26—9-9, 663E2, C3 US/Pak drone missile strike kills Jalolov 9-17, 670D1 Trade, Aid & Investment SCO summit held 6-15—6-16, 406E2 UN Policy & Developments NYC missn suspicious letter arrives, harmless powder rptd 11-9, 862A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Oppositn ldr (Umarov) arrives 11-7, 891F3 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) Detainees abuse role seen 2-27, 150A2 Cuba base detainees Ireland entry OKd 7-29, 506F1 Cuba base detainees Ireland transfer rptd 9-27, 718D2 Cuba base detainee Swiss transfer OKd 12-16, 861G2, B3

V VACCARIELLO, Liz Flat Belly Diet on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

VACCINES & Vaccinations Polio eradicatn funds set 1-21, 76B2 MMR vaccine, autism link nixed 2-12, 132F3 Moral/religious med treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146A2 Swine flu vaccine dvpt mulled 4-29, 282C1 Swine flu outbreak curbs mulled 4-29, 285B2 Swine flu vaccine hike mulled 5-6, purchasing rights rptd 5-7, 303D3 US swine flu funding set 5-22, 352A1, C1 US swine flu program set 7-9; priorities mulled 7-13—7-29, productn woes rptd 7-16, 502F1, A2 US swine flu trials open, progress seen 8-7—8-21, 584A1 Swine flu single shot efficacy rptd 9-10—9-21; vaccines OKd by FDA, Oct readiness seen 9-16, donatns set 9-17, 696G3–697A1, D1 Child preventable deaths drop rptd 9-10, 901E2 HIV trial ltd efficacy seen 9-24, 671A1 Swine flu vaccinatns open 10-5—10-7, 696C3 HIV trial success questnd 10-5, 697G1 Swine flu delays seen, doses estimated/availability vowed 10-16—10-28, 741C2, A3 HPV vaccine (Gardasil) male use OKd by FDA 10-16, recommendatns issued 10-21, 799C3 Brazil plane crash kills 2 10-31, 926E2 Swine flu vaccine dosage set 11-2, US distributn mulled 11-4—11-7, 810G2 Swine flu review issued 12-4, child vaccine recalled 12-15, 901G1–A2

VADLAMANI, Srinivas Chrgd 4-7, 450E3

VAGNI, Eugenio Rescue opeartn ordrd, fails 4-22—5-7, violnc kills 25+ 5-7—5-11, 415G2–A3 Rescue try ambushed 6-13, freed 7-12, 528A1–C1

VAHIDI, Gen. Ahmad Defns min apptmt seen 8-20, 562D2 Confrmd defns min 9-3, 609E3

1196 VAJPAYEE— VAJPAYEE, Atal Bihari (Indian prime minister, 1996/98-2004) Ayodhya ‘92 riots comm rpt leaked 11-23, 823D1

VALAMANESH, Hossein When the Rain Stops Falling opens in Sydney 5-11, London 5-21, 451C3

VALDEZ, Gregorio Atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6; slain 5-10, tape issued 5-11, 377A1

VALDEZ Menendez, Ramiro Named Cuba cabt vp 3-2, 134A3

VALENTENKO, Pavel Traded to Rangers 6-30, 731C1

VALENTI, Jack Joseph (1921-2007) FBI spying rptd 2-19, 176G2

VALENTINE, Jean Wins Wallace Stevens Award 9-14, 953B1

VALENZUELA, Arturo On Honduras pres electn 11-30, 834D2

VALE of York (racehorse) Wins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile 11-7, 807E2

VALEO SA Ex-CEO (Morin) severnc pay rptd, scored 3-24, 206G3

VALL, Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Abdel Aziz elected pres 7-18, 492F3

VALVERDE, Alejandro Nixes Tour de France role 6-23, 515G2

Van AALST, Mariska Master Your Metabolism on best-seller list 6-1, 384B1

Van BRUGGEN, Coosje (1942-2009) Dies 1-10, 56F3

VAND, Sheila Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo opens in Culver City 5-17, 348E1

Van de KAMP v. Goldstein (2009) Overturned convctn prosecutor suit nixed by Sup Ct 1-26, 48F2

VANDERBILT, Cornelius (1794-1877) Stiles wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860D1

VANDERBILT University (Nashville, Tenn.) Atypical antipyschotics heart risk warned 1-15, 65A1 Women’s basketball tourn results 4-7, 231A3

VANDEVELD, Lt. Col. Darrel Cuba base detainee (Jawad) cont detentn scored 7-16; status chngd 7-24, release sought/set, repatriatn ordrd 7-28—7-30, 505E3

VANDEWEGHE, Kiki Named Nets coach 12-3, NBA worst-start mark set 12-4, 951F2

Van DONGEN, Kees (1877-1968) Jeune Arabe fetches $13.8 mln 11-4, 953B2

Van DYCK, Sir Anthony (1599-1641) Self-portrait fetches $13.5 mln 12-9, 953F2

Van DYCK, Jennifer Third Story opens in NYC 2-2, 211E3

VANEK, Thomas NHL power-play goals ldr, among goals ldrs 4-12, 299A3–B3

Van ES, Hubert (1941-2009) Dies 5-15, 348G3

VANG, Bee Gran Torino on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72C2

VANG Pao Chrgs dropped 9-18, 933F2

VANGUARD (British submarine) In French A-sub collisn 2-3, crash confrmd, Scotland return rptd 2-16, 91E3–F3

Van GUNDY, Stan Magic lose NBA title 6-14, 419F1

Van HOLLEN Jr., Chris (U.S. representative from Md., 2003- ; Democrat) Reseated Dem campaign com chair 1-6, 5E1

VANITY Fair (magazine) Dunne dies 8-26, 580G2

Van LAAST, Anthony Sister Act opens in London 6-2, 451C3

Van ROMPUY, Herman (Belgian premier, 2008-09) Named EU pres 11-19, 802F2 Successor (Leterme) named 11-25, 820D2–E2

FACTS Van SANT, Gus Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40F1, D2

VanSANTEN, Shantel Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

Van SCHALKWYK, Marthinus Assures World Cup hotel availability 12-8, 858D3

VANUATU, Republic of Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Solomons ex-atty gen (Moti) chrgs dropped 12-15, 931B3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236D3; 10-1, 736D3

VANUNU, Mordechai House arrest rptd 12-29, 943E1

VARENNIKOV, Valentin Ivanovich (1923-2009) Dies 5-6, 332G3

VARGAS, Ben Testifies to Sen com 7-16, 471B3

VARGAS Llosa, Mario Munro wins Intl Man Booker 5-27, 364E1 Exchngs Venez’s Chavez barbs 5-29, 413D2

VARIETY (magazine) Archerd dies 9-8, 648E1

VARIETY Stores—See DEPARTMENT & Variety Stores VARNUM v. Brien Iowa gay marriage ban nixed 4-3, 216D1

VASELLA, Daniel Vacatn home burned, scores attacks 8-3—8-11, 609D2

VASHADZE, Grigol Claims Abkhazia, Russian jets deploymt 2-6, 85D1 On Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn veto 6-16, 406C2

VASILIEV, Vladimir Wife dies 4-28, 300G3

VASQUEZ, Javier Traded to Yankees 12-22, 949B1

VASQUEZ Velasquez, Gen. Romeo Fired 6-24, reinstatemt ordrd 6-25, 438F1, A2, B2 Backs diplomatic talks 9-29, 662D1

VATICAN—See ROMAN Catholic Church VAUGHN, Vince Couples Retreat on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

VAUXHALL Sale backed, deal set 9-10, 608F3 Sale blocked 10-16, Ger aid clarified 10-19, 767C2 GM nixes sale, reversal scored 11-3—11-5; Ger loan return sought 11-4, financing seen 11-5, 767D1, A2 Saab buyout bids deadline extended 12-30, 902B3

VAZQUEZ, Javier Among NL Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F3

VAZQUEZ Rosas, Tabare (Uruguayan president, 2005- ) Electns held, results rptd 10-25—10-26, 746E3–G3 Runoff held, Mujica elected 11-29, 834A3, C3, F3

VECO Corp. Alaska ex-sen (Stevens) graft chrgs dropped 4-1, 199A2 Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, prosecutors probe ordrd 4-7, 218D2

VEERA Musikapong Protests turn violent, surrenders 4-7—4-12, 250G3

VELA International Marine Ltd. Seized tanker (Sirius Star) ransom paid, freed 1-9, 21A2

VELASCO, Judge Eloy Named Cuba base detainees abuse criminal complaint overseer 4-23, seeks US govt info 5-5, 329C2, G2

VELASQUEZ Quesquen, Javier Named PM 7-11, 481C1–E1

VELAZQUEZ, Nydia M. (U.S. representative from N.Y., 1993- ; Democrat) Reseated Small Business chair 1-6, 5C1

VELAZQUEZ Castillo, Gen. Juan Oscar Named mil cmdr 11-6, 818F1

VELEZ, Spec. Beyshee Chrgd 9-21, 668E2

VELTRONI, Walter Regrets Sardinia gov race party loss 2-17, quits 2-18, 100A1–C1 Bersani elected party ldr 10-25, 749F3

VENACIO, Ansar Arrest rptd 6-23, 527F3, 528A1

VENEMAN, Ann Rptd UNICEF exec dir 1-1, 3A2

VENEREAL Disease (VD)—See SEXUALLY Transmitted Diseases VENEZUELA, Bolivarian Republic of African Relations Chavez visits Libya, Algeria 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Chavez marks Libya’s Qaddafi coup anniv 9-1, 583F2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Zhang visits 12-22, 929F2 CIS Relations Chavez visits Belarus/Turkmen/Russia 8-31—9-11, 616F2, E3 Civil Strife Synagogues attacked 1-31—2-26, cops chrgd 3-26, 270A3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Oppositn ldr (Rosales) chrgd, flees 3-19—4-19; holds news conf, sentncg documt rptd 4-20—4-22, warrants issued 4-22—4-23, 326A2 Ex-defns min (Baduel) held 4-2, 325F2 Banks owner, pres held 12-4—12-5, arrests, warrants rptd 12-8, 929A2, D2–E2 Defense & Disarmament Issues Russia arms deal set 9-11, 616F2, C3 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Colombia trafficking govt role alleged, denied 7-16—7-23, 929D3 Economy & Labor ‘08 econ growth rptd 1-8, 22G2 Rice plants seizure ordrd 2-28, 3-4, 204C3 ‘09 budget chngs set 3-21, cuts vowed 3-22, 270C2 ‘09 3d 1/4, ‘09 GDP rptd 12-17, 12-29, 929C3 European Relations Hungary emb shut 6-16, 512A2 Chavez visits Spain/Italy 8-31—9-11, 616F2 Georgia breakaway regions indep recognitn opposed 9-22, 645D2 Abkhazia pres vote held 12-12, 874A3 Foreign Relations—See also other subheads in this section N Amer ldrs back Zelaya 8-9—8-10, 541F2 US/Colombia mil base access deal scored 10-30, 817C3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Pres term limits end referendum held 2-15, 97B3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E3 Caracas mayor (Ledezma) hunger strike ends 7-8, 494A1 Electn reforms pass Natl Assemb 8-2, 576D1 Chavez pol powers hike protested 9-4—9-5, 616F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736E3 Chavez gives speech 11-20, 929A3 Sci/tech min (Chacon) quits 12-6, 929D2 Ex-pres (Carazo) ‘homage’ nixed 12-24, 955D1 Latin American Relations Cuba’s Castro walks rptd 2-27, 134D3 El Salvador pres electn held 3-15, 170D3 Argentina’s Fernandez de Kirchner pres bid funds muzzler sentncd 3-16, 205C1–E1 Oppositn ldr (Rosales) Peru pol asylum OKd, amb recalled 4-27, 326E2 OAS gen mtg held 6-3—6-4, 376D3 Peru indigenous unrest influence seen 6-7, 395A1 Peru/Bolivia amb (Rojas) recalled, Morales scored 6-16, 432B1 Honduras const reforms pub referendum thwarted, Zelaya ouster scored/troops alert hiked 6-28, regional ldrs mtg held 6-29, 438E1, C2 Honduras ousted pres (Zelaya) return blocked 7-5, 460A1 Honduras diplomats ousted 7-21, 493E2–F2 Colombia ties review set 7-21; FARC arms find confrmd/ties denied, computer evidnc rptd 7-26—7-28, amb recaleed 7-28, 526B2, F2, A3–B3 Colombia amb returns 8-8, army patrol border crossing alleged 8-9, 541F3–542A1 Cuba’s Castro tape aired 8-23, 575A2 Colombia ties cut warned 8-25, UNASUR mtg held 8-28, 589D2 Uruguay pres runoff held 11-29, 834C3

ON FILE

Medicine & Health Care Swine flu spread mulled 11-5, 811D1 Middle East Relations Israeli amb ousted 1-6, diplomatic ties cut 1-14, 270C3 Iran A-program aid alleged, denied 5-25—5-26, 362D1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad reelectn hailed 6-17, 403E1 Chavez visits Syria, Iran 8-31—9-11, 616D3, F3 Iran’s Ahmadinejad visits 11-25, 885E1, D2 Monetary Issues ‘08 inflatn rate rptd 1-8, 22G2 SIB branch seized 2-19, 148B2, G2–A3 Banks seized, reopenings set 11-20—12-11; assets liquidated 11-30, natlizatn mulled 12-2—12-4, 929E1 Nuclear Power & Safeguards Uranium detectn Iran aid mulled 9-25—9-26, 682G2 Obituaries Caldera, Rafael 12-24, 955B1 Oil & Gas Developments US low-income oil aid program halted, cont 1-5—1-7, Westn cos dvpt bids sought 1-15, 22C2 Oil svc deals cut 3-3, 270G2 Hydrocarbon seizure authrzn passes Natl Assemb, oil assets natlzn set 5-7, 395B1 Press & Broadcasting Globovision pres (Zuloaga) home raided, protests held 5-21—6-27, radio licenses revoked, broadcasting rules chngd 7-3—7-9, 493C3 Chavez talk show aired, broadcast halted 5-28—5-31, 413B2 ‘Media crimes’ bill introduced 7-31; radio/TV statns shut 7-31—8-2, Globovisn hq stormed 8-3, 575G3 Radio statns shut, Globovisn chrgs hiked 9-5, 623D3 Sports World Baseball Classic semi lost 3-21, 190E2, D3, F3, 191A1 US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383B3 Trade, Aid & Investment Colombia trade halted, cont try seen 7-28—7-29, 526F2 Transportation Seaports seizure ordrd 3-15, 204F2 UN Policy & Developments Chavez addresses Gen Assemb 9-24, 633B3 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Chavez sees talks 2-14, 97G3 Obama greets Chavez, exchng mulled 4-17—4-19, Chaderton named amb 4-18, 271B3 Bush pub policy institute set 11-12, 814D3

VENEZUELAN Central Bank Venez ‘09 3d 1/4, ‘09 GDP rptd 12-17, 12-29, 929C3

VENKATARAMAN, Ramaswany (1910-2009) Dies 1-27, 56G3

VENTURA, Jeff On House ‘carbon-neutral’ plan drop 2-27, 131A3

VENTURES, The (music group) Bogle dies 6-14, 420B3

VERBISCER, Anne On Saturn giant ring find 10-7, 731G1–A2

VERDASCO, Fernando Loses Austrlian Open semi 1-30, 71D1

VERDUCCI, Tom Yankee Yrs published 2-3, 88D1 Yankee Yrs on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1

VERHAGEN, Maxime On MP (Wilders) UK entry nix 2-12, 136E3 Somali pirates NATO arrests authrzn mulled 4-20, 269D3

VERISIMILITUDE (book) Nicolaides pleads guilty 1-19; pardoned 2-19, returns to Australia 2-22, 154D1*

VERIZON Center (Washington, D.C.) Pollin dies 11-24, 880F2

VERLANDER, Justin AL Ks ldr, among wins ldrs 10-6, 690F2 3d in AL Cy Young voting 11-17, 823E3

VERMOEGENSVERWALTUNG GmbH Merckle found dead 1-5, suicide rptd 1-6, 8G1

VERMONT Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2

2009 Index Family Issues Gay marriage bill passes legis 3-23—4-2; vetoed 4-6, override backed 4-7, 216A1, F2; table 216D2 Gay marriages open 8-31, 699G2 Medicine & Health Care Drug co (Wyeth) state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130F2–G2

VERMONT, University of (Burlington) NCAA men’s hockey tourn semi lost 4-9, 300B1

VERNON, Conrad Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

VERSHBOW, Sandy Visits Georgia 10-20, 750C2

VERSUS (cable TV channel) Comcast/NBC buy set 12-3, 830D3

VERVE Records Dearie dies 2-7, 88E3

VERZOSA, Jesus IDs Maguindanao violnc suspects 12-9, 853E1

VESNINA, Elena Loses French Open doubles 6-5, 399C1

VETERANS (U.S.) Appointments & Resignations Labor secy nominee (Solis) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-9, 18A2 Vets affairs secy nominee (Shinseki) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, confrmd 1-20, 29F3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E3 Budget & Spending Programs $787 bln econ recovery plan clears Cong, signed 2-13—2-17, 90G2, B3 Obama ‘10 proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, F1 ‘10 funds pass House 6-23, 489D2 Stopgap funds clear Cong 9-25, 9-30, 658A2 $250 paymt proposed 10-14, 714G1 VA ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815A2 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866E3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Colo advocate (Strandlof) held 5-12, group disbanded 5-14, 412C1 False decoratn claims suspect (Strandlof) held 10-8, 915A2 Crime Issues Right-wing extremism warning issued 4-7, profiling scored/defended, regretted 4-14—4-16, 262G3–263A1 Korea vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F2 Health & Safety Issues Post-traumatic troops award nixed 1-6, 245C1 Atypical antipyschotics heart risk warned 1-15, 65A1 Obama gives Cong address 2-24, 108A2 Obama sees vets 3-16; pvt med insurers paymt proposal dropped 3-18, electronic unified records set 4-9, 244C3, F3 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599C2 Monuments & Memorials Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677E1 D-Day anniv marked 6-6, 386C2 Vets Day marked 11-11, 775B2 Political & Legislative Issues Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2

VETERANS Affairs, U.S. Department of Secy nominee (Shinseki) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, confrmd 1-20, 29F3 Pvt med insurers paymt proposal dropped 3-18, electronic unified records set 4-9, 244C3–F3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 287E3 Obama ‘10 budget proposals detailed 5-7, 321B1, F1 ‘10 funds pass House 6-23, 489D2 Deyton named FDA tobacco regulatn dir 8-19, 642G3 Obama addresses Cong 9-9, 599C2 Amer Samoa tsunami victims treatmt set 9-30, 662F3 ‘10 funds pass Sen 11-17, 815A2 Korea vet (Porter) death sentnc appeal OKd by Sup Ct 11-30, 867F3 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 866E3

VETERANS of Foreign Wars (VFW) Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677E1

VETERINARY Medicine US Open Polo Champ match nixed, horses die 4-19—4-20; supplemt mixing woes admitted 4-23, overdose cited 4-28, 383B3

—VILAS VETTEL, Sebastian Wins Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, 2d in Formula 1 title standings 11-1, 950E1

VETTER, Jessie Wis wins NCAA title, named tourn MVP 3-22, 300E1 US wins World Champs 4-12, 670C3

VIANO, Dr. David Quits 11-24, 948B1*

VIBE (magazine) Shut 6-30, 913D2

VICK, Michael Smith named NFL top coach 1-4, 55E2 Falcons cut, completes sentnc 6-12—7-20; sees Goodell, suspensn lifted 7-22—7-27, signs Eagles deal, holds news conf/joins practice 8-13—8-15, 564D1 Suspensn lift set 9-3, 631D3

VICKERY, John You Nero opens in Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3

VICKY Cristina Barcelona (film) Golden Globe won 1-11, 24E2 Cruz gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40C2 Cruz wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104A2* Cruz wins Oscar 2-22, 120G1, C2

VICTORINO, Shane NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483D3 NL 3B ldr 10-6, 690E3 Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752B2

VICTORIOUS (U.S. surveillance ship) Chinese harassmt alleged, protested 3-4—3-9, 153B2

VIDAL, Gore Wins special Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860F1

VIDEOS & Videotapes Arts & Culture ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts 4-11, 384E1 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section EU, Microsoft antitrust case setld 12-16, 876B1 Intel antitrust suit filed 12-16, 911D3 Corruption & Ethics Issues Animal abuse tapes case accepted by Sup Ct 4-20, 266F1 Kazakh A-agency head (Dzhakishev) funds misuse alleged 5-25, 510F2 Peru’s Fujimori admits graft 7-13; testifies 7-17, convctd, sentncd 7-20, 508D2 La ex-rep (Jefferson) trial ends 7-30, convctd 8-5, 521C2 Ecuador ofcls bribery tapes issued 8-31, 723D3–F3 Census/ACORN ties cut 9-11, 659C2 ACORN fed funding bans pass Cong, voter registratn halt mulled 9-14—9-17; probes set, ldr (Harshberger) named 9-20—9-22, suits seen, IRS partnership ended 9-23, 638G2–A3, F3 Italy regional govt head (Marrazzo) quits 10-24, 750A1 Russian cops false arrests claimed 11-6, whistleblower fired, probe set 11-8, 855A2 ACORN cont fed funding ordrd 12-11, 908A3 Crime & Law Enforcement Calif subway passenger slain, cop quits/probe set 1-1—1-10; protests turn violent 1-7—1-14, held, chrgd/pleads not guilty 1-13—1-15, 247B1 CIA Algeria chief (Warren) rape allegatns rptd 1-28, 65D3 Pak hostage tapes issued, Polish captive beheading confrmd 2-8—2-13, 103G1–A2 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes destructn rptd, ct order violatn scored 3-2, 129C2 Sri Lanka natl cricket team Pak attack kills 8+ 3-3, 138A1 Late model (Smith) atty/MDs chrgd, plead not guilty 3-12—9-23, 920F1 Austria incest dad (Fritzl) pleads guilty, testimony tape aired 3-16—3-18, sentncd 3-19, 172B3 Tibet ‘08 riots cop beating tape questnd, China blocks YouTube/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 Pak girl whipping tape aired 4-2, probe ordrd 4-6, 229B2 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16, 260C1 Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture tape aired 4-22; probe vowed 4-29, Issa held 5-11, 331G2 Guatemala atty (Rosenberg) films murder warning 5-6; slain 5-10, tape issued, Colom denies role 5-11, 376F3, 377E1 Pak/US drone missile strikes video footage aid rptd 5-14, 346D3 Sri Lanka rebel ldr (Prabhakaran) body tape issued 5-19, 333C3

Bosnian Serb (Mladic) home tapes aired 6-10, 511G3 Ga terror training suspects convctd 6-10, 8-12, 833D2 Iran protester shooting footage posted 6-20, rptrs ousted, held 6-21—6-23, 421D1, 422C1–D1 Azerbaijan bloggers held 7-8, 544C1 Iran dissidents trial opens 8-1, confessns aired 8-2, 518F2, A3 Pak’s Mehsud slaying claimed 8-9, 533E1 Azerbaijan bloggers chrgs hiked 8-21, 607B1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C2–D2 NYC apartmts raided 9-14, bomb plot suspect (Zazi) evidnc rptd 9-20, 642B1 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816F1 Ger Al Qaeda threats suspect held, Taliban tape issued 9-24—9-25, 665G2 Israeli troop (Shalit) tape release set, issued 9-30—10-2, 689C2 CIA terror detainees interrogatn tapes release nixed 9-30, measure passes House 10-8, 719E1 Pak Taliban ldr tape aired, doubted 10-5—10-6, 695B1 Chinese Uighurs jihad urged 10-8, 703B2 PI RC priest (Sinnott) hostage tape issued 10-31, 820E1 Saudi troop hostage tape issued 11-9, 805D2 Azerbaijan bloggers convctd/sentncd, trial secracy scored 11-11, 820A2 Pvt yacht couple hostage tape aired 11-20, 903E2 Cuba/US contractor held 12-5, 928A1 Abu Dhabi Sheikh torture trial rptd 12-10, 893G2 Pak militant (Saifullah) sought 12-12, 879B1 Airline security measures hiked 12-26, 897E2 Iran protests death tape doubted 12-31, 940B3 Crime Issues Calif HS student attacked/raped, exits hosp 10-24—10-28; arrests reward offrd 10-27, suspects plead not guilty 12-1, 888G2 US citizens visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/tape detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 858A1, C1–D1 Mumbai terror attacks suspect (Headley) chrgd 12-7, 845E1, B2 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 12-25, 899D3 Iraqi Conflict Female suicide bomber recruiter confessn tape issued 2-3, 67F2–G2 MP (Daini) chrgd 2-22, 117A3 UK hostages tape issued 3-21, 189D3 Rptr (Bahjat) ‘06 slaying suspect held 8-3, 530C1 Iraq forgn/finance min bldgs attack confessn tape aired 8-23, 592G2 US drone aircrafts hacking rptd 12-17, 877C2 Military Issues Cuba base ex-detainees Al Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, 119C1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 47A1 Iran drone US shoot down rptd 3-15—3-16, 174B3 Defns ‘10 authrzn passes House 6-25, 489B3 Afghan/US troop hostage tape issued 7-18, 499D2 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565B2–C2 Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782B2 People Palestinian activist (Jabarin) W Bank exit blocked 3-10, prize presented 3-13, 210F3 Political & Legislative Issues Obama/Iran message sent, dismissed 3-20—3-25, 179C1; text 179E1 Obama budget proposals support urged 3-21, 181B1 Obama holds Internet pub forum 3-26, 200E3–F3 Thai’s Thaksin speeches aired 3-27—3-28, 206A1 UK G-20 summit protests death video rptd, probe set 4-7—4-8, cops suspended 4-9—4-15, 253G2, C3 Obama citizenship questnd 6-30, 552E3 Health care reform campaign opens 8-4, town-hall protesters questnd 8-5, 520C2, F2 Afghan pres electn ballot stuffing tape issued 8-25, 577E2

1197

‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) speech video posted, remarks regretted 9-1—9-3, 602D2 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744G2–A3 Thai’s Thaksin addresses supporters 9-19, 726C2 Stalin historical treatmt mulled 10-29, 767B1 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 788E1 Sports Issues Cowboy Stadium screens lift nixed 8-28, 632E1 NBA hikes instant replay use 10-2, 771A3 World Cup qualifying match held 11-18, Ireland seeks replay, nixed 11-19—11-20, 858G3

VIEIRA, Joao Bernardo (1939-2009) (Guinea-Bissau president, 1980-99/2005-09) Slain 3-2, 133A3–134C1 Cabral dies 5-30, 400F2 Dabo slain 6-5; electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff set 7-2, 458A3–B3, E3, 459A1 Runoff held 7-26, results rptd 7-29, 507E2, A3

VIENNA Convention on Consular Relations Tex/Mex inmate (Medellin) executn ICJ violatn ruled 1-19, 31F3

VIERNY, Dina (1919-2009) Dies 1-20, 72F3

VIETNAM, Socialist Republic of Accidents & Disasters Ferry sinking kills 40+ 1-25, 84D2 Storm Ketsana hits, rainfall estimated 9-29, travelers stranded, deaths/missing rptd 9-29—10-1, 664C1, E2 Storm Ketsana death toll hiked 10-3, 684D3 Storm Mirinae hits, death toll rptd 11-2—11-6, 935E1 Arts & Culture Tet holiday opens 1-26, 84E2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations Khmer Rouge tribunal cont indictmts opposed 3-31, 413F3 Cambodia oppositn ldr (Rainsy) immunity nixed 11-16; skips ct appearnc 12-28, warrant issued 12-29, 935E3 Khmer Rouge genocide suspects chrgd 12-16—12-21, 889G3, 890B1 Economy & Labor Stock mkts drop 11-25, 935D1 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Global computers spying operatn rptd, China govt role mulled 3-29, 342C1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E3; 10-1, 736E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues NYS immigrant ctr gunman kills 13, self 4-3, 246D2 Medicine & Health Care Bird flu case rptd 1-6, 76F1 Monetary Issues Currency devaluatn set, interest rate hiked 11-25, 935A1 UN Policy & Developments Cncl seat noted 1-1, 3B1 Sudan’s Bashir chrgs drop urged 3-6, 185C1 Georgia breakaway region UN missn extensn vote abstained 6-15, 406A2 Food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812A2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sen Webb tours region 8-14—8-17, 558A3

VIETNAM War US Army ‘08 suicides rise rptd 1-29, 245B1 Iraq ofcrs slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118B3 NASA admin (Bolden) named 5-23, 373G1 Army Lt (Calley) regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1 Laos coup plot indictmt chngd 9-18, 933G2 US/Afghan troops hike set 12-1, 825B2 Thai/Laos refugees transfer plans mulled, returned 12-24—12-28, 934C2 Obituaries Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500G2 Isham, Heyward 6-18, 452F2 McDonald, Wesley L 2-8, 160D3 McNamara, Robert 7-6, 468C3 Pearson, James B 1-13, 56F2 Van Es, Hubert 5-15, 348G3

VIKE-Freiberga, Vaira (Latvian president, 1999- ) Belgium’s Van Rompuy named EU pres 11-19, 802C3

VILAS, Guillermo Del Porto wins US Open 9-13, 631E1

1198 VILLANOVA— VILLANOVA (Pa.) University Men’s basketball tourn semi lost 4-4, 230F1, A3 Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1

VILLANUEVA, Charlie Joins Pistons 7-2, 771A2

VILLANUEVA, Gen. Ralph US citizen kidnapping probe ordrd 6-3, 528D2

VILLARAIGOSA, Antonio (Los Angeles mayor, 2005- ; Democrat) Reelected 3-3, 131A2

VILLECHAIZE, Herve (1943-93) Montalban dies 1-14, 24E3

VILSACK, Tom (U.S. agriculture secretary, 2009- ) USDA secy Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-14, 18A1 Confrmd agri secy 1-20, 26C3 Bans ‘downer cattle’ use 3-14, 167B3 Obama admin listed 4-28, 286E3 Urges food safety reforms 7-7, 524C2

VINCENT, Lynn Palin bk published 11-17, 797C2

VINCENT, Tony Amer Idiot opens in Berkeley 9-16, 860B2

VINCENT, Troy NFLPA exec dir (Smith) named 3-15, 176E1

VINES, Lt. Gen. John Ofrcs slaying suspect (Martinez) guilty plea nix rptd 2-21, 118B3

VINIAR, David Defends workers compensatn 7-16, 490C2 Defends exec compensatn policies 10-15, 715C2

VINSON, Lucas (d. 2009) Slaying troop (Velez) chrgd 9-22, 668E2

VIRGIN Galactic LLC Space tourism ship unveiled 12-7, 884D1

VIRGINIA Arts & Culture Phish reunion tour opens in Va 3-6, drug confiscatns rptd 3-9, 176F2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Salmonella-linked peanut butter recalled 1-13, 49E3 State Dept Iraq security contractor proposals sought 1-29, 53F2 Salmonella-linked peanut butter probe set, Canada export block rptd 1-30, USDA deals halted 2-5, 63F1 Peanut Corp plant shut 2-13, 95F3 Triple Canopy awarded Iraq diplomat security deal 4-1, 208F3 Peanut Corp fined 4-9, 268F2 Capital 1 stress-test results issued 5-7, 319A2 Colgan, NYS plane crash pilot test woes rptd 5-11, hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357A2 Nestle cookie dough E Coli positive test rptd 6-29, 524B3 Iraq workers held, abuse mulled 9-28—10-7, 689A1 Crime & Law Enforcement Calif ex-transit cop (Mehserle) threatened, poster pleads guilty/sentncd 1-5—12-15, 920D2 Va Tech shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, indep probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921C1 ‘02 DC-area sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7; case denied by Sup Ct, clemency nixed 11-9—11-10, executed 11-10, 780C2–E2, A3–B3 Army Corps bribery Afghan worker (Azar) pleads guilty 8-18, Apr renditn confrmd 8-22, 567A3 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section Muslims visit Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1; arrests confrmd, Justice Dept role seen/video detailed 12-9, FBI interviews held, suspect IDd 12-10, 857G3 Pak deportatns nixed 12-14, 879A1 Medicine & Health Care Bars/restaurants smoking ban clears legis, signed 2-19—3-9, 357D1 Late-term abortn ban upheld 6-24, 587F2 Pub smoking ban enacted 12-1, 919E1 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1

FACTS Military Issues Coast Guard/Potomac exercise spurs panic 9-11, 782A2, C2 Marine base attack plot suspects chrgd 9-24, 679B1 USS NY exits 10-29, 914D3 Obituaries Batten Sr, Frank 9-10, 648G1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Gov Kaine named DNC chair 1-8, 6B2 Voting Rights Act case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33B1 Kaine OKd Dem chair 1-21, 62B2 Obama visits 2-11, 79E1 Gov primaries held 6-9, 391D1 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn upheld by Sup Ct 6-22, 425F1 Obama holds town hall 7-1, 457E3 Gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 716G3 Gov debate held 10-12, Clinton stumps 10-20, 716E3, 717D1 Electn results 11-3, 755A2, C3 Religious Issues Ft Hood gunman (Hasan), imam ties questnd 11-9, 777E3

VIRGINIA, University of (Charlottesville) Monroe in NFL draft 4-25, 298F2 Batten dies 9-10, 648A2 Saturn giant ring find rptd 10-7, 731A2 Men’s soccer title won 12-13, 895F1

VIRGINIA Commonwealth University (Richmond) Maynor in NBA draft 6-25, 451A2

VIRGINIAN-Pilot (Norfolk newspaper) Batten dies 9-10, 648G1

VIRGINIA Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) (Blacksburg) Orange Bowl won 1-1, 24E1 Shooter (Cho) mental records found/issued, indep probe reopening sought 7-22—8-19, rpt chngd 12-4, 920D3, 921C1 Texting/driving risk rptd 7-28, 538B1 Pa gym shooter guns buy rptd 8-7, 554D2 Football preseason rank rptd 8-7—8-22, 579F3–G3 Chick-fil-A Bowl won 12-31, 948F2

VIRGIN Islands (U.S. territory) Chem tanker (MV Theresa VIII) seized 11-16, capt death rptd 11-18, 801F2

VIRTUE, Tessa 3d in world champs 3-27, 211G2

VISA Inc. Heartland credit card data breach rptd 1-20, 133D2

VISAS & Passports Africa AU summit held 2-1—2-4, Mauritania/Guinea sanctns set 2-5, 82D2, B3 Madagascar, SADC visa curbs warned 9-29, 652E1 Westn Sahara activist (Haider) entry blocked, opens hunger strike 11-14, in hosp, ends strike/returns 12-16—12-18, 904A1–B1 Asia/Pacific Rim Thai’s Thaksin passport revoked 4-12, named Nicaraguan ‘amb’ 4-15, 251A1 Japan swine flu measures eased 5-26, 352B1 Uyghur Cong ldr (Kadeer) visits Australia, 10 Conditions premieres 8-8—8-11, China v forgn min trip nix rptd 8-18, 606E1 9/11 suspect (Bahaji) passport found in Pak 10-29, 769G1 Canada Mex, Czech visa rules set 7-14, 541E2 Commonwealth of Independent States Hermitage atty (Magnitsky) dies, buried 11-16—11-20; Russian prison neglignc claimed 11-18, autopsy denied, probe ordrd 11-21—11-24, 822A1 Europe Estonia spy assoc (Yakovlev) intl warrant issued 2-25, 136C1 Romania/Moldova entry curbs set 4-8, 225F3 Albania voters IDs lack seen 6-24, 511A3 Iceland/EU entry bid backed 7-16; applicatn set 7-17, assessmt opens 7-27, 512A3 Moldova/Romania visa curbs lifted 9-17, 666G3 Turkey/Syria visa curbs lifted 10-13, 696A3 EU lifts Serbia/Montenegro/Macedonia visa curbs 12-19, 940E1 Middle East Gaza forgners mass exit OKd 1-2, 1C2

Israeli tennis players UAE entry mulled 2-15—2-19; Barclays Dubai Champ US broadcast nixed, ‘10 event omit warned/fine issued 2-16—2-20, Roddick sets boycott 2-21, 138G3–139B1 Saudi peace talks concessns nixed 7-31, 545G3 United States ‘70s radical (Kilgore) freed 5-10, 539D2 Cuba immigratn talks return OKd 5-31, 376F2 Ark mil recruiting booth shooter (Muhammad) Yemen imprisoning rptd 6-4, 392D2 Honduras de facto govt visas suspended 7-28, 508G1 Honduras visas ltd 8-25, 575E3 Honduras interim govt visas nix urged, rptd 9-2—9-12, 623E2 Visa overstays seen 10-12, 721D3 Russian aluminum tycoon (Deripaska) ‘09 visits rptd, business mtgs cited 10-30, 766G2–A3 Arms smuggling suspects chrgd 11-24, 878D2 Mich flight failed blast suspect (Abdulmutallab) warning rptd 12-27, 898B1

VISCLOSKY, Peter J. (U.S. representative from Ind., 1985- ; Democrat) Fed subpoenas confrmd 5-29, 779A3 Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

VISITOR, The (film) Jenkins gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40A2

VISO, Olga Hirshhorn successor (Koshalek) named 2-26, 160F2

VITAMINS FDA comr (Hamburg), dep comr (Sharfstein) named 3-14, 182A2 MLB’s Ortiz on ‘03 positive test 8-8, 691B1

VITTER, David (U.S. senator from La., 2005- ; Republican) Vs Clinton secy of state nominatn 1-15, 16A2 Vs state secy nominee (Clinton) confrmatn 1-21, 29F2 ‘10 salary freeze signed 3-11, 144C2

VIVA (Madagascan TV/radio station) Rajoelina ousted 2-3, 66C1 Rajoelina named pres 3-17, 168E3, G3

VIVA la Vida (recording) Coldplay wins Grammys 2-8, 88C2, F2

VIVA la Vida or Death and All His Friends (recording) Coldplay wins Grammys 2-8, 88C2, G2

VIVENDI SA NBC stake sale OKd 11-30, 830C3

VIZCAINO, Arodys Traded to Braves 12-22, 949B1

VLADECK, David Named FTC consumer div head 4-14, 375D1

VODAFONE Group PLC Deutsche Telekom/France Telecom UK brands merger set 9-8, 626F2

VOGELHUBER, Trent

ON FILE

Tax code reform proposals sought 4-15, 243A1 Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, 392E1

VOLKSWAGEN AG Auto sales rise questnd 8-6, 536E1

VOLLEBAEK, Knut On Slovakia minority language curbs 9-1, 608C3

VOLVO AB France indus govt loans offrd 2-9, 84A3 Geely buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2 China Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932G2

Von BRAUN, Wernher (1912-77) Dannenberg dies 2-16, 160B3

Von BRUNN, James Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, 392A1–F1

Von DORNUM, Deirdre At client (Muse) ct hearing 4-21, 269F2

Von ESCHENBACH, Dr. Andrew C. Successor (Hamburg) named 3-14, 182B2 Knee device ‘08 FDA OK scored 9-24, 720B2

VONN, Lindsey Clinches World Cup, sets US women wins mark 3-11, ends season 3-15, 191D1, G1

Von TRIER, Lars Gainsbourg wins Cannes actress prize 5-24, 364C1

VORONIN, Vladimir (Moldovan president, 2001-09) Parlt electns held, results rptd 4-5—4-9, on riots 4-8, 225G2, F3 Parlt electns recount results rptd 4-22, 273B2 Successor vote fails 6-3, 397D2, G2–A3 Dissolves parlt, sets electns 6-15, 416E3–F3, 417A1 Parlt electns held, results rptd 7-29—8-4, 529B1 Quits 9-11, 627B1, E1 Moldova/Romania visa curbs lifted 9-17, 666G3

VORONOV, Vitaly Questns client (Zhovtis) trial 9-4, 663E1

VOTER Initiatives—See POLITICS—Referendums VOTING Issues—See under POLITICS VOTING Rights Act (1965) Preclearnc case accepted by Sup Ct 1-9, 33A1 Minority power protectns ltd by Sup Ct 3-9, 166G3 States’ voting chngs fed authrzn argumts heard, upheld by Sup Ct 4-29, 6-22, 425B1

VOTTO, Joey Among NL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D3

VRABEL, Mike Traded to Chiefs 2-28, 176G1

VUJANOVIC, Filip (Montenegrin premier, 1998-2002; president, 2003- ) Sets parlt electns 1-27, 226D1

VYRYSHEVA, Judge Irina Orders Yukos atty (Bakhmina) release 4-21, 328E3

Miami U loses NCAA title 4-11, 300A1

VOGUE (magazine) Penn dies 10-7, 692D2

VOICE of America, U.S. (VOA) (of USIA)

W

Azerbaijan forgn broadcasting curbs open 1-1, 206B3 Iran street rptg banned 6-16, 402F2 Iran electn protests role alleged 7-9, 464C1

VOINOVICH, George V. (U.S. senator from Ohio, 1999- ; Republican) Ky’s Bunning nixes relectn bid 7-27, 503C2 On Coast Guard/Potomac exercise 9-11, 782C2 Misses health care reform bill debate vote 11-21, 809B1 Backs debt limit hike 12-24, 907F1

VOITENKO, Mikhail Flees Russia 9-3, firing claimed, denied 9-4—9-7, 616C2–D2

VOKOUN, Tomas Among NHL save % ldrs 4-12, 299D3

VOLCANOES & Volcanic Eruptions PI alert level hiked 12-14, evacuatns mulled 12-17—12-22, 891B1

VOLCKER, Paul Adolph Named Obama econ advisory bd ldr 2-6, 79D3

W., Alex Egyptian terror claim convctn appeal heard, ctroom attack kills 1 7-1, 482A3

WAAYEEL, Ahmed Abdulahi Slain 12-3, 889F1

WACHOVIA Corp. AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 Wells Fargo ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-22, 490G3

WADE, Abdoulaye (Senegalese president, 2000- ) Hosts China’s Hu 2-13, 170A2 On Sudan’s Bashir ICC indictmt 3-5, 123C1 Local electns held 3-22, names premr (Ndiaye) 4-30, 326G1–A2 Guinea’s Diallo flees 10-1, 660C3

WADE, Dwyane NBA scoring ldr 4-15, 278F2, A3 3d in NBA MVP voting 5-4, 332B1

2009 Index WAFA, Asadullah On intl forces attack civiln deaths 12-30, 899A2

WAGES—See under LABOR WAGHF, Yahya Ould Ahmed (Mauritanian premier, 2008) Freed 6-4, 493C1

WAGNER, Rev. Gerhard Named Linz auxiliary bp 1-31, 76E1

WAGNER, Richard Wife wins Nobel 10-8, 693E2

WAGONER Jr., Richard Sees Obama sr adviser (Rattner) 3-27, ousted 3-29, 197C2, 198E2, 199B1 GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365B2, 366A3 Henderson quits 12-1, govt role denied 12-2, 831E1

WAHID, Abdurrahman ad-Dakhil (1940-2009) Dies 12-30, 956E2

WAINWRIGHT, Adam NL wins ldr, among ERA/Ks ldrs 10-6, 690F3 3d in NL Cy Young voting 11-19, 823F3

WAITE, Genevieve Denies stepdaughter, ex-husband incest claim 9-23, 671G3

WAITING for Godot (play) Revival opens in NYC 4-30, 348E2

WAKABAYASHI, Masatoshi Hatoyama sworn 9-16, 624A3

WAKATA, Koichi Flies Discovery missn, space statn stay opens 3-15—3-17, 239D2, G2* Returns to Earth 7-28—7-31, 519A2

WAKE Forest University (Winston-Salem, N.C.) Curry in NFL draft 4-25, 298E2, C3 Johnson, Teague in NBA draft 6-25, 451A2 Men’s soccer tourn semi lost 12-11, 895G1

WAKI, Judge Philip Violnc suspects list ICC handover mulled 2-17, 2-24, 202E3

WAKO, Amos Ouster urged 2-25, 203F1

WALCOTT, Derek Exits Oxford poetry prof race 5-12; Padel elected 5-16, quits 5-25, 364B2–C2

WALDEN, Greg (U.S. representative from Oregon, 1999- ; Republican) Grills Peanut Corp pres, plant mgr 2-11, 95D3

WALDIE, Jerome Russell (1925-2009) Dies 4-3, 256G3

WALDRON, Keith Wins Natl Bk Award 11-18, 860F1

WALES—See GREAT Britain WALESA, Lech (Polish president, 1990-95) Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787D3, 788C1, E1; photo 788A1

WALKER, Benjamin Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens in NYC 5-17, 348F1

WALKER, Doris Brin (Doris Lorraine Brin) (1919-2009) Dies 8-13, 596G3

WALKER, Paul

—WAR WALLACE, Rasheed Joins Celtics 7-8, 771D1

WALLACE Stevens Award Valentine wins 9-14, 953B1

WALL-E (film) Oscar won 2-22, 120C2

WALLES, Jacob On Palestinian ‘11 indep state plan 8-25, 593A2

WALL Street Journal (newspaper) Brazil’s da Silva interviewed 3-11, 186C2 Pak’s Gillani interviewed 3-19, 228A3 Kirkpatrick contempt found 3-19, 936D1 Mukasey, Hayden op-ed published 4-17, 258D1 Circulatn drop rptd 4-27, 912C2 S Korea’s Lee interviewed 6-12, 404B2 Gen McChrystal interviewed 6-12, 434D1 Honduras’s Micheletti interviewed 6-30, 438G2 Health care reform pub support polled 7-30, 520F2 Hamas chief (Meshal) interviewed 7-31, 546D1 Bacon dies 8-15, 648F1 Palestinian’s Fayyad interviewed 9-16, 615A1 Kristol dies 9-18, 648A3 Turkey’s Erdogan interviewed 10-5, 706A3 Circulatn drop rptd 10-26, 912F1, A2 Health care reform pub option support polled 10-28, 741D1 Japan Post ex-pres (Nishikawa) interviewed 12-8, 873F1 UK’s Brown, France’s Sarkozy op-ed published 12-10, 854C2 Health care reform support 12-17, 864E1 WHO dir (Chan) interviewed 12-31, 901D1

WAL-Mart Stores Inc. NY ‘08 customer trampling cited 5-26, 412D3 Health insurnc mandate backed 6-30, 458A1

WALPIN, Gerald Mtg behavior questnd 5-20; fired 6-11, St Hope funds misuse obstructn probe rptd 6-17, 458E1

WALSH, Catherine New Electric Ballroom opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

WALSH, Dylan Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

WALSH, Bishop Eamonn Quits 12-24, 938F1

WALSH, Enda New Electric Ballroom opens in NYC 10-29, 896C1

WALSH, Adm. Patrick Issues Cuba base detainees treatmt rpt 2-20, 112C3

WALSH, Robert Asbestos trial opens, evidnc nixed 2-19—4-23; witness testimony questnd, upheld 4-17—4-28, chrgs drop sought, OKd 4-23—4-27, 356E2–F2

WALSH, Stephen Held/chrgd, civil complaints filed 2-25, 539F3

WALTER, Judge Donald Declares white supremacist blogger (Turner) mistrial 12-7, 888A1

WALTER, Harriet

Fast & Furious on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2

Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

WALKER, Robert Hudson (1918-51)

WALTER Reed Army Medical Center (Washington, D.C.)

Ex-wife dies 12-17, 896F2

WALKER, Judge Vaughn OKs Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit 1-5; suspensn urged, classified documts ltd use sought 2-11—2-27, civil liberties suit opposed 4-3, 243E3–F3, 244A1–D1, G1 Seeks warrantless spying classified documts protocol, nixes govt sanctns/upholds case 5-22—6-3, dismisses telecom cos suits 6-3, 410G1–A2, C2, E2–F2, A3 Sets Calif gay marriage ban trial 8-19, 699A3

WALLACE, Ben Howard tops NBA rebounding, blocks 4-15, 278C3 Traded to Suns 6-25, 451G1

WALLACE, Brett Traded to Blue Jays 12-16, 948F3

WALLACE, David Foster (1962-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

Obama visits wounded troops 1-19, 28C1 Tex mil base shooting kills 13, suspect (Hasan) held 11-5, 757F2 Tex mil base gunman (Hasan), imam ties questnd 11-9—11-11, ‘07 speech rptd 11-10, 777G3, 778F1 Ft Hood shooting probes set 11-21, 812E3

WALTERS, Sir Alan (Arthur) (1926-2009) Dies 1-3, 40E3

WALTERS, Barbara Interviews Palin 11-17, 797G1

WALTERS, Larry (Lawrence Richard) (1949-93) Up opens in Chicago 6-28, 564E2

WALTON, Bill Howard tops NBA rebounding, blocks 4-15, 278C3 Issues Tenn power plant coal ash spill study 6-25, 555D1

WALTON, David Fired Up! on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

WALTZ, Christoph Wins Cannes actor prize 5-24, 364B1 Inglourious Basterds on top-grossing film list 8-21—8-27, 596C2; 9-18—9-24, 672D2

WALTZ With Bashir (film) Natl Film Critics award won 1-3, 24A3

WAMBOLDT, Jeffrey J. Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

WAMUNYINI, Wafula On Somalia blast 12-3, 889A2

WANG Jiarui Visits N Korea 1-23, 84A2

WANG Lequan Urumqi CP secy (Li) ousted 9-5, 606A1

WANG Qishan Holds US strategic talks 7-27—7-28, 509B2, G2

WANJIRU, Sammy Wins London Marathon, sets course mark 4-26, 332E1 Wins Chicgo marathon, sets US race time mark 10-11, 791E3 Tops Majors list 11-1, 791G3

WARCHUS, Matthew God of Carnage opens in NYC 3-22, 256A1 Wins Tony 6-7, 400A1–B1, E1

WAR Crimes Africa ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Sudan’s Bashir ICC surrender urged 1-12, arrest warrant decisn seen 2-12—2-23, 115A3–B3, 116A2 Congo rebel staff chief (Ntaganda) defects 1-16; Rwanda troops enter, jt offensive mulled 1-20, Nkunda held 1-22, 34B1, D1, C2–D2, G2–A3 Rwanda ex-justice min (Ntamabyariro) convctd 1-19, sentncd 1-20, 34G3 Congo warlord (Lubanga) ICC trial opens, witness testifies 1-26—1-28, 42D3 Liberia’s Taylor war crimes trial cont 1-30; tribunal funds lack seen 2-23, prosecutn rests 2-27, 134B2–C2 Sierra Leone rebel ldrs convctd 2-25, 134E1 Rwanda RC priest (Rukuundo) convctd, sentncd 2-27, 248F2 Sudan’s Bashir indicted, protests held/ruling mulled 3-4—3-5, 122C1, E2, D3 Sudan oppositn ldr (Turabi) freed 3-9; aid workers seized, released 3-11—14, groups exit ordrd 3-16, 185A1, D2–E2 Sudan airstrike attack alleged, US/Israeli roles mulled 3-26, 197C1–D1 Arab League summit held 3-30, 196D2 Liberia’s Taylor acquittal sought, nixed 4-6—4-8, Sierra Leone ex-rebels sentncd 4-8, 325A1, C1 Rwanda genocide anniv marked 4-7, 248B2 Darfur rebel ldrs chrgd, Garda surrenders/in ct 5-7—5-18, 375G2 Rwandan genocide suspect (Munyaneza) convctd 5-22, 680C2 Darfur ‘genocide’ mulled 6-17—6-18, 446D2 Rwanda ex-interior min (Kalimanzira) convctd 6-22, 923A3 Sudan’s Bashir, ICC warrant/AU cooperatn nixed 7-3, res oppositn rptd 7-3—7-7, 459A1 Liberia Truth Comm rpt issued 7-7, 925A2 Kenya post-electn violnc suspects list handed over to ICC 7-9; govt rpt issued 7-17, local trials set 7-30, 540F3 Liberia’s Taylor trial cont 7-13—7-16, 480A1, F1 Rwanda ex-mayor (Ndahimana) held 8-10; sent to Tanzania 9-20, pleads not guilty 9-28, 680F1–G1 Rwanda ex-pastor (Bazaramba) trial opens 9-1, Kigali testimony heard 9-15, 680A2 Rwanda ex-parlt speaker (Mukezamfura) sentncd in absentia 9-3, 680B2 Rwanda ex-intell ofcr (Nizeyimana) held 10-5, Uganda arrest rptd, sent to Tanzania 10-6, 680A1 Darfur conflict mulled, spec cts proposed 10-8—10-30, 924A2 Sierra Leone ex-rebel cmdrs appeals nixed 10-26, 925F2 ICC chief prosecutor (Moreno-Ocampo) visits Kenya, post-electn violnc formal probe sought 11-5—11-26, 922F2 Sudan’s Bashir Turkey visit mulled, genocide role denied 11-6—11-8, at China/Africa summit, skips Islamic summit 11-8—11-9, 788C3, F3–789A1

1199

Rwanda ex-pres brother-in-law (Zigiranyirazo) convctn nixed, RC priest (Nsengimana) cleared 11-16—11-17; boycott warned 11-21, mandate extended 12-16, 923D2 Congo rebel ldrs held 11-17, Ger detentn ordrd 11-18, 922D1–E1 Congo warlords ICC trial opens 11-24, 922E1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843C3 Guinea junta ldr (Camara), aides ICC chrgs urged 12-21, 925F1 Asia/Pacific Rim Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial opens 1-19, 68D1 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) UN trial opens 2-17, 98E1 Khmer Rouge tribunal further indictmts opposed 3-31; prison chief (Duch) trial cont, detentn nixed 3-31—6-15, forgner slayings rptd 6-17, 414A2 Sri Lanka rebel conflict probe nixed 5-21, 363E2 Japan’s Hatoyama nixes shrine visits 8-11, WWII surrender anniv marked 8-15, 582B3 Army Lt (Calley) regrets My Lai massacre 8-19, 588C1 Australia opens E Timor rptrs ‘75 slayings probe, Indonesia reopening nixed 8-20—9-9, 931D3 Khmer Rouge tribunal prosecutor (Petit) quits 9-1, Cayley named 12-2, 890B2 Khmer Rouge prison chief (Duch) trial closing argumts heard 11-23—11-27, 890E1 Khmer Rouge genocide suspects chrgd 12-16—12-21, 889E3 Afghan electric/water min (Khan) named 12-19, 894A1 Bosnian War (& other conflicts) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11B2 Serb ex-pres (Karadzic) immunity claim mulled, appeal denied 2-15—4-7; kin harassmt alleged 4-2, poems publisher punished 4-10, 274D2 Serb ex-pol (Krajisnik) convctns nixed, sentnc cut 3-17, transferred 9-7, 628B2 Serb army ex-ofcr (Sljivancanin) sentnc hiked, superior (Mrksic) sentnc upheld 5-5, 377D3 Mladic home videos aired 6-10, Serbs (Lukics) convctd, sentncd 7-20, 511D3, G3 Serb ex-ldr (Karadzic) trial date seen 9-8; Hague ct ex-ofcl (Hartman) contempt found, fined 9-14, ex-pres (Plavsic) release OKd 9-15, 628D1, F1–B2 Serb ex-gen (Trbic) convctd/cleared, sentncd 10-16; ex-cops held 10-28, army ex-cmdr (Kujundzic) sentncd 10-30, 820F2, E3 Croatian suspects chrgd 10-19, 822B3 Serb ldr (Karadzic) seeks trial delay/boycotts, counsel mulled 10-26—10-27, argumts open/adjourned, Plavsic freed 10-27, 749A1, A2 Serb ldr (Karadzic) in ct 11-3, atty apptmt ordrd, trial delayed 11-5, 767E2 Muslim army ex-dep cmdr (Bojadzic) held 11-4, Banja Luka community compensatn nixed 11-5, 820C3–D3 Serb ex-fighters held, chrgd 11-5—11-6, 822E2 Serb ldr (Karadzic) atty named, ouster sought/nixed 11-20—12-23, 940A1 Serbia tribunal cooperatn hike rptd 12-3, EU entry bid submitted 12-22, 939C2–D2 Serb ex-troop (Malic) convctd 12-7, 893E1 Commonwealth of Independent States EU issues Russia/Georgia war rpt 9-30, 665E3 Europe Obama visits Turkey 4-6—4-7, 214G2* Armenia/Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd, opposed 4-22—4-23, genocide anniv marked, Obama remarks scored 4-24—4-25, 296G1, C2 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties seen 8-31, border opening set, genocide admissn mulled 9-1, 591G3–592A1 Turkey’s Pamuk, Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, 706E3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707D1 Kosovo Conflict Serbia ex-pres (Milutinovic) cleared/release ordrd, suspects convctd 2-26, 110C1, E1 Middle East Gaza UN schl strike kills 2 1-17, 31B1 Israeli troops legal aid set 1-25, 42A3 Israel/Palestinian arms embargo urged 2-23, 157A3 Gaza probe ldr (Goldstone) named, rpts issued 4-3—5-5, 312D3 Israel/Gaza invasn abuses probe opens, cooperatn nixed 6-1—7-7; drone missile strikes scored 6-30, Hamas rocket launches cited 7-30, 546B2–D2

1200 WARD— Israel/Gaza war scored 9-3, 616D3 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, rpt scored, indep probes nixed 9-15—9-16, 614E1, E2 Gaza rpt questnd 9-17—9-18, Israel’s Netanyahu addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-24, 633C1, 634E1–F1 Israel’s Barak visits UK, arrest warrant sought 9-29, Ya’alon nixes trip 10-5, 689G3 Gaza war crimes rpt backed, res passes UN Cncl/vote scored 10-8—10-16, US veto sought 10-20, 730A2 Gaza rpt mulled 11-3—11-6, 790A2 Israeli forgn min (Livni) UK warrant issued/revoked, scored 12-12—12-17; visit urged 12-16, Hamas com role rptd 12-21, 884B2 United States Army ofcr (Watada) resignatn OKd 9-25, 720D3 Cuba base detainees chrgs dropped 12-10, 861F2 World War II Nazi guard (Demjanjuk) Ger warrant issued 3-11; US deportatn stay denied, OKd 4-10—4-14, case reopening nixed 4-16, 239B3, F3 Alleged Nazi guard (Demjanjuk) deportatn appeal denied by Sup Ct 5-7; sent to Ger 5-11, chrgd, health mulled 5-12—5-13, 352D2 Nazi ex-ofcr (Scheungraber) convctd, sentncd 8-11, 560E1 Sonnenfeldt dies 10-9, 731E3 Nazi suspect (Boere) trial opens, admits slayings 10-27—12-8, Storms chrgd 11-17, 854B1 Alleged Nazi death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3

WARD, Andre Super Six World Boxing Classic opens 10-17, 895B3

WARD, Cam Among NHL wins ldrs 4-12, 299C3

WARD, Hines Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70B3, D3

WARD, Sela Stepfather on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

WARDLAW, Judge Kim McLane Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2

WARG, Gottfrid Svartholm Trial opens 2-16, convctd/sentncd, appeal filed 4-17, 284C1

WARHOL, Andy (Andrew Warhola) (1928-87) Tavel dies 3-23, 956F1 200 One Dollar Bills fetches $43.7 mln 11-11, Eight Elvises ‘08 sale rptd 11-26, 953F1 Pop! opens in New Haven 12-3, 954C2

WARNER, Kurt Cardinals win NFC champ 1-18, 39A3–C3 Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70A2, C2–D2, A3, C3, E3

WARNER, Malcolm-Jamal Cosby gets Twain Prize 10-22, 752G2

WARNER, Mark R. (U.S. senator from Va., 2009- ; Democrat) Electn results 11-3, 755F3

WARREN, Andrew Rape allegatns rptd 1-28, Sen com hearing held 1-29, 65B3–D3 Rape chrgd 6-18, 502B3–D3

WARREN, Elizabeth Testifies to Sen com 2-5, 61F3

WARREN, Rev. Rick At Obama inauguratn 1-21, 25D2 Obama addresses HRC 10-10, 699A1

WARREN, Rick Scores Uganda gay curbs bill 12-10, 925A1

WASHBURN, Jarrod Traded to Tigers 7-31, 531A2

WASHINGTON (state) Arts & Culture Longley/McHugh win MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Microsoft/Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523D2 Microsoft word processor sales halt ordrd 8-11, appeal nixed 12-22, 911G3 Crime & Law Enforcement Somali terror ties suspect (Isse) held 2-24, 780G3 DC-area ‘02 sniper (Muhammad) executed 11-10, 780D2

FACTS Cops assault suspect (Clemmons) freed on bail 11-23; coffee shop shooting kills 4 11-29, suspect slain, family chrgd 12-1—12-9, 888A2 Seattle Jewish Fed shooter (Haq) convctd 12-15, 920A2 Drugs & Drug Trafficking Seattle cop chief (Kerlikowske) named drug czar 3-11, 165C1 Energy AltaRock geothermal project shut 12-11, 939D3 Environment & Pollution Glaciers loss rptd 8-6, 655D2 Family Issues Gay domestic partnership bill passes Sen 3-10, 266G2 Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Gay domestic partnership bill passes House 4-15, 266G2 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section UK girl Italian slaying suspects convctd/sentncd, trial questnd 12-5, 854A3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section Ex-gov (Locke) named commerce secy 2-25, 112G3–113A1 Immigration & Refugee Issues Bellingham plant raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd 2-25, 202F1 Labor & Employment F-22s buys authrzn nixed by Sen 7-21, 490B1 Medicine & Health Care Assisted suicide authrzn opens 3-5, 184F2 Health care reform Sen bill measure questnd 12-30, 906F1 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Commerce secy nominee (Locke) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 3-18; backed 3-19, confrmd 3-24, 181E3 Seattle mayoral primary held 8-18, 779G3 Electn results, Seattle mayoral race undecided 11-3—11-5, 756C2, 757A1 Seattle mayoral electn results rptd 11-9, 779E3 Press & Broadcasting Seattle P-I sale sought 1-9; printing ends 3-16, Web-only shift opens 3-17, 167C3 Sports MLS Champ results 11-22, 894D3 Transportation NYS plane crash hearing held 5-12—5-14, 357B2

WASHINGTON, Bushrod (1762-1829) Uncle’s ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860A3

WASHINGTON, Denzel Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

WASHINGTON, George (1732-99) (U.S. president, 1789-97; Federalist) Ltr fetches $3.2 mln 12-4, 860A3

WASHINGTON, Kerry Race opens in NYC 12-6, 954D2

WASHINGTON, Nate Steelers win Super Bowl 2-1, 70F3

WASHINGTON, University of (Seattle) Women’s Coll World Series won 6-2, 484G2 McHugh wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2 Krebs dies 12-21, 955B2

WASHINGTON Blade (newspaper) Shut 11-16, 912D3

WASHINGTON, D.C. Accidents & Disasters Metro train crash kills 9 6-22; computer failure seen 6-23—6-24, brake woes rptd, suit filed 6-24, 428F3 Cafritz house blaze destroys art trove 7-29, 548A3 Arts & Culture Ford’s Theatre reopens 2-8, 211D3 Hirshhorn dir (Koshalek) named 2-26, 160F2 Abolitionist (Truth) statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2 Kennedy Ctr arts awards presented, gala held 12-5—12-6, 895C3 Budget & Spending Programs ‘10 funds pass House 7-16, 489C1 ‘10 funds clear Cong, signed 12-10—12-16, 867D1 Crime & Law Enforcement Fed intern (Levy) slaying case mulled 2-21, suspect warrant issued 3-3, 149E1* Fed intern (Levy) slaying suspect chrgd/pleads not guilty, life sentnc sought 4-22—12-15, 919G3

Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, 391G3 Ga terror training suspect held 6-10, 833D2 Vehicle checkpoints ruled unconst 7-10, appeal nixed 11-16, 870D1 ‘02 area sniper (Muhammad) death sentnc upheld 8-7; case denied by Sup Ct, clemency nixed 11-9—11-10, executed 11-10, 780C2 Wizards’ Arenas gun probes rptd 12-24—12-28, 951E2 Demonstrations & Protests Roe v Wade anniv protested 1-22, 47F1 ‘Tea party’ protest held 4-15, 242F3 Conservatives rally held 9-12, 619F2 Gay rights march held 10-11, 698C3 Environment & Pollution Fuel econ EPA waiver reexaminatn ordrd 1-26, 47A2 Family Issues Gay marriage recognitn backed by city cncl 4-7, 217B1 Gay marriage recognitn OKd 5-5, 304B2 Gay marriage recognitn opens 7-7, 492G1 Gay marriage bill introduced 10-6, 699F1 Gay marriage bill passes cncl 12-1, 832F2 Gay marriage measure OKd 12-15, 868E1 Foreign Issues—See also other subheads in this section G-7/World Bank/IMF mtgs held 4-24—4-26, 283A2, G2, C3 Labor & Employment Jobless benefits extensn passes House 9-22, 676B2 Military Issues Coast Guard exercise spurs panic, review set/rptd 9-11—10-27, 782A2 Obituaries Ali, Ben 10-7, 731G2 Pollin, Abe 11-24, 880F2 Wexler, Anne 8-7, 580G3 Pentagon Terrorist Attack Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19D1 8th anniv marked 9-11, 620G1–A2 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section CPAC mtg held 2-28, 146C2 Kundra named fed chief info ofcr 3-5, ex-ofc raided, target denied/leave set 3-12, 145C2 Values Voter Summit held 9-18—9-19, 639C1 Press & Broadcasting Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptg delay mulled 4-20, 263E2 Wash Post wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279B3 Wash Blade shut 11-16, 912D3 Wash Post shuts US bureaus 11-24, 912C3 School Issues Voucher program mulled 3-11, 144A2 Science & Technology Human predecessor skeleton displayed 10-1, 691F2 Sports NCAA men’s hockey champ results 4-11, 299G3 Capitals win divisn 4-12, 299B2 Capitals exit playoffs 5-13, 420C2 EagleBank Bowl results 12-29, 948A3 Transportation DC Metro train upgrades cost mulled 6-24, 429D1–E1

WASHINGTON Hospital Center (Washington, D.C.) Justice Ginsburg enters, exits 9-24—9-25, 678A1 Sup Ct justice (Ginsburg) collapses/in hosp, exits 10-14—10-15, 718D1

WASHINGTON Mutual Inc. White powder letters sender (Goyette) pleads guilty 3-16, sentncd 6-4, 539D3 Financial indus reforms proposed 6-17, 407C3

WASHINGTON Post (newspaper) Cuba base cont detentns support polled 1-13—1-16, 28C2 Defns ofcl (Crawford) 1-14, 20E1 Kristol column resumptn set 1-27, 56D1 Obama op-ed published 2-5, 73B2 Obama support polled 2-19—2-22, 105G2 Robinson wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279E1, B3 Thai’s Abhisit interviewed 4-23, 295B2 Hubble sr scientist (Leckrone) interviewed 5-23, 373B1 Gen McChrystal interviewed 6-16, 434E1 Health care reform support polled 6-24, 427D2 Honduras’s Micheletti interviewed 7-2, 438A3

ON FILE

Sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 478G3, 479G1 Cyberattacks rptd 7-8, N Korea mil order seen 7-10, 486A3 Obama op-ed published 7-12, 477E1 Holbrooke interviewed 7-27, 514B2 Afghan war support polled 8-20, 593F3 Obama approval, health care reform support polled 8-21, 597D1; 9-10, 618A1 UN/Afghan envoy (Eide) scored 10-4, 674F1 Health care reform pub option support polled 10-20, 714B1 Health care reform support/Obama approval polled 11-17, 797C1 US bureaus shut 11-24, 912C3 Climate chng belief polled 11-25, 828A3 Health care reform support, Obama approval polled 12-16, 864E1

WASHINGTON Times (newspaper) Iran rptr held 6-23, 421C1 Iran rptr (Athanasiadis) release rptd 7-5, 464F2 Exec ed (Solomon) quits 11-6; execs fired, Slevin named acting pres/publisher 11-9, bias claim filed, cuts set 11-17—12-2, 913F2

WASHINGTON University (St. Louis, Mo.) Prostate test efficacy questnd 3-18, 191E2

WASSERSTEIN, Bruce Jay (1947-2009) Dies 10-14, 731F3

WASSERSTEIN, Wendy (1950-2006) Brother dies 10-14, 731G3

WASTE, Solid Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2 World Baseball Classic drug testing rptd 3-4, 191C1 Australia/Zimbabwe aid set 3-11, 153D1 Space statn water-recycling system part delivered 3-17, 239B2 Intl space statn water recycling opens 5-20, toilet breaks, fixed 7-19—7-20, 519F2–G2 Iraq blast kills 3 5-25, 362D3 Alaska lake dumping backed by Sup Ct 6-22, 426F2 Detroit city cncl member (Conyers) pleads guilty 6-26; quits 6-29, missing city property probe sought 8-7, 553B1–D1 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614B2 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump knowledge seen, libel threat issued 9-16; health woes link mulled 9-16—9-23, suit setlmt OKd, paymts rptd 9-20—9-23, 654A1 LA illegal immigrants detentn conditns suit setld 9-17, 722B1 JP Morgan unit bribery chrgs setld 11-4, 910B3 Saudi flooding kills 150 11-25, 944A2

WATADA, Ehren Resignatn OKd 9-25, 720C3

WATANABE, Katsuaki Successor (Toyoda) named 1-20, 51A2

WATANABE, Ken Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

WATANIYA Telecom Maldives Pvt. Ltd. W Bank site opens 11-10, 790D3

WATCHMEN (film) On top-grossing list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

WATER Accidents & Disasters Tenn power plant coal ash spill water toxins found 1-1—1-2; retaining wall leaks rptd 1-8, Ala waste pond spills 1-9, 33E2, G2–A3 Ky, Ark ice storm disasters declared 2-5—2-6, 133E2 NYS plane crash kills 50 2-12; ice cited 2-13, pilot errors seen 2-15—2-18, 95D2–E2 WTC site bldg baze rpt issued 6-19, ofcrs censured, ruling scored 6-24, 621C1 Storm Ketsana hits PI, aid sought 9-26, 664A2–B2 Indonesia rescue efforts halted 10-5, 725B1 PI storms aid sought 10-6, 684F3 Amer Samoa svcs restored, warning lifted 10-6—10-7, 685D1 Budget & Spending Programs US ‘10 funds pass Cong 7-17, 7-29, 658D3 US ‘10 funding bill set, passes Cong 9-30—10-15, 714E3 US ‘10 funds signed 10-28, 799G3 Conservation Issues US’s Clinton visits China 2-21, 109F3 Arctic ‘08-09 ice levels rptd 4-6, 550A3 US glaciers loss rptd 8-6, 655D2 Arctic summer ice loss rptd 9-17, 842F1

2009 Index Laliberte visits intl space statn 9-30—10-11, 731D2 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3 Mt Kilimanjaro ice cap loss rptd 11-2—11-24, 842D1 Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks held 12-7—12-19, 882B2 Contamination Issues Zimbabwe cholera outbreak deaths tallied 2-12, 81G1 Sri Lanka refugee camp flooded 8-15, 578C3 Crime Issues Thai captured refugees abandoning policy rptd 1-12, 52B1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing opens 1-15, 16A3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 19C2 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A3 Natl intell dir nominee (Blair) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-22, 28A3, 45F1–A2 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46G3 Atty gen nominee (Holder) confrmd 2-2, sworn 2-3, 60F3 Indonesia abandoned refugees boat found, survivors status sought 2-2—2-8, Thai mil policy mulled, probe opens 2-12—2-18, 99B1, A2 CIA dir nominee (Panetta) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 2-5—2-6, 93F3 CIA terror detainees torture alleged 3-15, 183C3–D3 US terror detainee (Zubaydah) waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199C3, 200A1 US terror detainees abuse rpts release sought 3-31, 290C3 US terror detainees torture med workers role seen 4-6, 244E2 CIA interrogatn memos issued, footnotes detailed 4-16—4-20, Sen com rpt issued 4-21, authrzn roles rptd 4-22, 257C1, G2, B3, 258C2, 259E1, A3–C3, E3–260A1, F1–A2, D2–B3, 261D2, F2 US terror detainees harsh interrogatn intell questnd 4-25, 289E2 US terror detainees abuse ban defended 4-29, 285E2 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 322F3–323A1, D1, F1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322F1, E2 Ireland RC schls abuse rpt issued 5-20, 361E2 Ariz migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588F1–G1 Terror detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named, ‘04 rpt issued/techniques defended 8-24, 565C2, 566A2–C2, G2, D3 Gaza war crimes alleged 9-15, 614B2 Bush news conf shoe-toss rptr (Zaidi) freed, abuse claimed 9-15, 629D1 9/11 anniv Al Qaeda tape issued 9-22, 816A2 Pak tribal areas mil operatn launched 10-17, 709D2 Iraq blasts kill 155 10-25, 738E1 9/11 plot suspects trials set 11-13, 793G2 Honduras protests broken up 11-29, 834A2 Space Issues Space statn recycling system part delivered 3-17, 239B2 Small extrasolar planet find rptd 4-21, 952E1 Intl space statn recycling system opens 5-20, 519G2 Moon water signs seen 9-24, 696G2 Moon rocket, LCROSS crashed 10-9, 697F3 US sci (Nozette) spying chrgd 10-19, 760D3 Moon water confrmd 11-13, 824C2 Mostly water planet find rptd 12-16, 952B1 Supply & Service Issues Gaza crisis mulled 1-14, 14A1 PI militants deliveries cut 3-24, 205A3 Sri Lanka intl aid sought 4-23, 277G1 S Africa township protests turn violent 7-12—7-28, 525C3 LA illegal immigrants detentn conditns suit setld 9-17, 722B1 Honduras/Brazil emb svc cut 9-22, 643B3 Australia use curbs lifted 9-24, 682F3 Honduras/Brazil emb harassmt halt ordrd 9-25, 662B1 Ecuador Indian protests turn violent, death mulled/probe set 9-28—10-5, ldrs see Correa 10-5, 723E2, A3–B3 Gaza shortage seen 10-27, 754D3

—WESLEYAN Calif system overhaul bills pass legis/signed, fed policies review set 11-4—11-13, 887A2 Uzbek exits Central Asia power grid 12-1, 935D2–E2 Trade & Aid Issues Australia/Zimbabwe aid set 3-11, 153D1 Darfur concerns rptd 3-18—3-20, 185D1 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh, emergency aid sought 5-25—5-31, 383B2 E Africa drought aid sought 9-29, 681A2 Samoa/Amer Samoa tsunami aid sent 9-30—10-1, 662E3, 663A1

WATERGATE Issue Barker dies 6-5, 400C2 Nixon lawyer (Miller) dies 11-14, 860F3

WATERHOUSE, Keith Spencer (1929-2009) Dies 9-4, 648E3

WATER Pollution—See ENVIRONMENT WATERS, Les In the Next Room opens in Berkeley 2-4, NYC 11-19, 954G1

WATERS, Mark Ghosts of Girlfriends Past on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WATERS, Maxine (U.S. representative from Calif., 1991- ; Democrat) OneUnited, Treasury ofcls mtg role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, denies conflict 3-13, 243D1 Bank fed aid role probe set 10-29, 779B3, D3

WATERS, Sarah On Man Booker shortlist 9-8, Mantel wins 10-6, 692D1

WATERSTON, Sam Have You Seen Us? opens in New Haven 12-2, 954F1

WATERWAYS—See RIVERS WATNEY, Nick Wins Buick Invitatnl 2-8, 139G1

WATSON, Emma Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

WATSON, Tom 2d in British Open 7-19, 500B1 2d in Sr Players Champ 10-4, 708D1

WATTS, Naomi Intl on top-grossing film list 2-20—2-26, 140D2

WAVE Knight (British naval vessel) Pvt yacht (Lynn Rival) capture rptd 11-13, 801D2

WAXMAN, Henry A. (U.S. representative from Calif., 1975- ; Democrat) Seated Energy/Commerce chair 1-6, 5A1 Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146D3–E3 Introduces emissions cap bill 3-31, 201E2 Health care reform talks rptd 4-1, 245C3 Health care reform talks secrecy scored 5-11, 340C1 Climate chng bill backed 5-21, 409F2 Health care reforms draft bill issued 6-9, 390B3 Issues Health care reform proposal 6-19, 426D3 Seeks health insurnc cos info 8-17, 552G1 Backs ‘net neutrality’ bill 9-17, 744A3 Seeks drug price rise probe 11-18, 797B1

WAX Simulacra (recording) Mars Volta wins Grammy 2-8, 88B3

WAYANS, Craig Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WAYANS, Damien Dante Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WAYANS Jr., Damon Dance Flick on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WAZED Miah, M.A. Wife sworn PM 1-6, 9D1

WAZEER, Khaled Ibrahim alOn Yemen/Comoros flight plane safety woes 6-30, 439G3

WEATHER Russia/Ukraine gas shipmts halted, supply distruptns rptd 1-1—1-8; siphoning alleged 1-2, EU talks held 1-5—1-6, 3D2 Australian bushfires erupt 2-7—2-12, 83C2 Huybers wins MacArthur 9-22, 671B2

Climate Change—See CLIMATE Change Storms & Floods—See STORMS

WEATHER Channel (cable TV station) Batten dies 9-10, 648A2

WEAVER, Jeffrey Threatens ex-transit cop 1-5—1-10; pleads guilty 8-14, sentncd 12-15, 920D2

WEAVER, Sigourney Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

WEBB, Brandon Greinke wins AL Cy Young 11-17, 823C3

WEBB, Haley Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

WEBB, James (U.S. senator from Va., 2007- ; Democrat) Tours Southeast Asia 8-14—8-17, 558A3, D3, G3 Sees Myanmar’s Thein Sein 9-28, 652A3 On 9/11 plot suspects trials 11-13, 793F1

WEBB, Karrie 2d in Women’s British Open 8-2, 595C2

WEBBER, Mark Wins Brazilian Grand Prix 10-18, 950D1

WEDGE, Eric Fired 9-30, 690B3

WEEKLY Standard (magazine) Sale set 6-17, 913D2

WEEMER, Sgt. Ryan Cleared 4-9, 254G3–255B1

WEICH, Ronald Sees terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release 5-4, 322G2–A3

WEIDMAN, John Happiness opens in NYC 3-30, 256C1

WEIGHT & Weight Loss Adults energy-burning fat cells found 4-9, 580D1 Supplemt (Hydroxycut) warning issued 5-1, 412D2 Ad disclosure rules hiked by FTC 10-5, 761A2 NJ gov debate held 10-16, 716A3

WEIL, Raoul UBS, US tax fraud case setld 2-18, clients ID suit filed 2-19, 100D2

WEILL, Ted Pres electn final results rptd 1-22, 656C2

WEINBERG, Loretta Nixes gay marriage Sen vote 12-9, 868A2

WEINDRUCH, Richard Links monkeys calorie curbs, longer life 7-9, 595E3

WEINER, Jennifer Best Friends Forever on best-seller list 8-3, 532A1

WEINER, Michael Fehr sets resignatn 6-22, 483G3 MLBPA exec dir nominatn OKd, takes post 12-2, 989F1

WEINSTEIN, Philip At client (Muse) ct hearing 4-21, 269D2–E2

WEIR, Jonny 5th in US champ 1-25, 139D2

WEIR, Mike US Open results 6-22, 435F1–G1

WEIS, Charlie Fired 11-30, 879F3

WEISS, Pierre Sets Semenya gender test 8-19, 579C2

WEISSMAN, Keith Secrets transfer trial documts use OKd 2-24; Rep Harman case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-23, chrgs drop seen 4-22, 263A2, B3–D3 Rep Harman NSA wiretapping denied 4-27, chrgs dropped 5-1, 306F1–B2

WEITZ, Chris Twilight Saga: New Moon on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840B2

WEITZ, Paul Cirque Du Freak on top-grossing film list 10-23—10-29, 772D2

WEIZMANN Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) Katzir dies 5-30, 384G3 Yonath wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1

WELCH, William Ex-Sen Stevens convctn nixed, probe ordrd 4-7, 218B2

1201

WELFARE & Poverty White House faith-based ofc updates ordrd 2-5, 60G2 US recipients rise seen 6-22, 479A2 Australia aborigine interventn program probed, discriminatn ruled 8-16—8-27, 624A2, C2 US ‘08 poverty rate rptd 9-10, 619A1 US states poverty rates rptd 9-29, 798E1 Australian migrant child abuse regretted 11-16, 818F2 UK legis agenda set 11-18, 821B2 Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851B1

WE Live in Public (film) Sundance Festival award won 1-24, 104C2

WELL Armed (racehorse) Wins Dubai World Cup 3-28, 347B3

WELLS, Chris In NFL draft 4-25, 298G3

WELLS Fargo & Co. State racial bias probes case accepted by Sup Ct 1-16, 49A1 Las Vegas worker conf nixed 2-3, 61E2 Exec testifies to House com 2-11, 77A3 AIG govt aid funds use detailed 3-15, 162D1 HUD asst secy (Stevens) named 3-23, 200B2 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd, shares rise 4-9, 241A3 ‘09 1st 1/4 profit rptd 4-22, 265G1 Stress-test results issued, stock sale rptd 5-7—5-8, 319C1 $700 bln financial indus aid funding return denied 6-9, 387E2 ‘09 2d 1/4 earnings rptd 7-22, 490F3–G3 ‘08 bonus pay rptd 7-31, 522C3 Overdraft fees ltd 9-24, 715G3 Internet ‘phishing’ suspects held 10-7, 781F3 ‘09 3d 1/4 earnings rptd 10-21, 715G1 Govt aid repaymt set 12-14, 864G1

WELT am Sonntag (German newspaper) Finance min nominee (Schaeuble) interviewed 10-25, 749A3

WENDKOS, (Abraham) Paul (1925-2009) Dies 11-12, 956F2

WENG Tojirakarn Protests turn violent, surrenders 4-7—4-12, 250G3

WENHAM, David Public Enemies on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532D2

WEN Jiabao (Chinese premier, 2003- ) Opens World Econ Forum 1-28, 58A2, D2 Tours Eur 1-29—2-2, Cambridge Univ shoe toss tape aired 2-3, 98C2 Declares drought emergency 2-5, 251E2 Hosts US’s Clinton 2-21, 109F3 Addresses natl cong 3-5, holds news conf 3-13, 186D3–E3, 187A1, D1 Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, 194E1 Visits Thai, hotel protested/ASEAN summit nixed 4-11, 250D2 At EU summit 5-20, 448B2 Hosts US’s Geithner 6-2, 414E2 Cambridge Univ shoe toss suspect cleared 6-2, 482A1 N Korea visit set 9-28, 653D1 Visits N Korea 10-4—10-6, at Japan/S Korea summit, backs A-program talks 10-9—10-10, 712E1–B2 Sees Japan’s Hatoyama 10-10, 703A3 At ASEAN summit 10-23—10-25, 748C3–D3 Visits Egypt, addresses Arab League/sets African loans 11-7—11-8, 776B3–C3, E3, 777B1 Hosts US’s Obama 11-17, 795A3 Denmark climate treaty talks role set 11-26, 828E1 In EU talks, back yuan value 11-29—11-30, 932F1 At Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks, pol statemt set 12-18, 882D1–F1, D2

WERBER, Bill (William Murray) (1908-2009) Dies 1-22, 104G3

WERTH, Jayson Phillies win pennant 10-21, 752D2 Phillies lose World Series 11-4, 770F2

WERTHMANN, Colleen Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens in NYC 5-17, 348F1

WESLEY, Anthony Sees Jupiter comet impact 7-19, 547F3

WESLEYAN University (Middleton, Conn.) Gunman kills 1 5-6, 392G1

1202 WEST— WEST, Kanye ‘Heartless’ on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1; 2-28, 140D1 808s & Heartbreak on best-seller list 1-31, 72D1 Wins Grammy, performs 2-8, 88D2, A3 ‘Knock You Down’ on best-seller list 6-27, 452D1; 8-1, 532D1 ‘Run This Town’ on best-seller list 8-29, 596D1; 9-26, 672D1; 10-31, 772D1 Interrupts Swift speech 9-13, regrets, Obama calls ‘jackass’ 9-14, 632C2

WEST, Samuel Enron opens in Chichester 7-23, 564C2

WEST, Togo Ft Hood shooting probes set 11-19, 812D3

WEST, Tony On DOMA stance chng 8-17, 553D3

WESTAR Energy Emissn curbs tech suit filed 2-4, 94B3

WEST Bank—See under ARAB-Israeli Developments WEST Coast IVF Clinic (Beverly Hills, Calif.) Octuplets born 1-26, mom treatmt bared 2-9, 108E1

WESTERN PA Child Care LLC Juveniles sentnc kickback judges suspended 1-26, pleads guilty 2-12, 247A2

WESTERWELLE, Guido Parlt electns held 9-27, coalitn plans set 9-28, 665D1, G1 Sworn v chancellor/forgn min 10-28, 749E2

WESTINGHOUSE Electric Co. UAE A-plants bldg contract won 12-27, 944F2

WESTON, Edward (1886-1958) Wilson dies 11-20, 956E3

WEST Side Story (play) Opens in NYC 3-19, 256F1 Olivo wins Tony 6-7, 400E1

WEST Virginia Accidents & Disasters Bayer plant blast info block seen, rpt issued 4-21—4-23, 412E3 Environment & Pollution Pub land curbs hike clears Cong 3-19—3-25, signed 3-30, 246A1 Mt mining permit nix urged 3-23, 267F2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216D2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Sen Byrd sets Cong tenure mark 11-18, turns 92 11-20, 815A1

WEST Virginia University (Morgantown) Men’s basketball preseason rank rptd 10-29, 771F1–G1

WESTWOOD, Lee 3d in British Open 7-19, 500G1 3d in PGA Champ 8-16, 563B3 Wins Dubai World Champ, tops Europn earnings 11-22, 839D3

WEVILL, Assia (1927-69) Hughes/Plath son kills self 3-16, 192C1

WEXLER, Anne (Anne Levy) (1930-2009) Dies 8-7, 580G3

WEXLER, Robert (U.S. representative from Fla., 1997- ; Democrat) Sets resignatn 10-14, 717A2

WEYMOUTH, Katherine Sponsored salons rptd, dropped 7-2; internal review set 7-6, ethics scored 7-12, 478G3, 479B1–C1

WEYRICH, Paul Michael (1942-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

WG Trading Co. Founders held/chrgd civil complaints filed 2-25, 539G3

WG Trading Investors LP Founders held/chrgd civil complaints filed 2-25, 539G3

WHALEN, Lucia Denies Harvard prof (Gates) arrest 911 call racism, recordings issued 7-26—7-29, 505A2–C2

WHALES & Marine Mammals US protectns lack rptd 1-7, 7D2 Shell, Alaska exploratn plans ruling vacated 3-6, 410A1 Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409D3 EPA cost-benefit analysis OKd by Sup Ct 5-4, 307E1–F1 Polar bears habitat, emissns curbs nix upheld 5-8, 555A2

FACTS Coastal ‘dead zone’ threat cut 7-27, 550G2 Polar bears Alaska habitat proposed 10-22, 800D3 Timor Sea rig leak damage assessed 10-23, 874A2

WHAN, Michael Named LPGA comr 10-28, 949C3

WHATCHA Say (recording) On best-seller list 10-31, 772D1; 11-28, 840D1

WHAT Happy Working Mothers Know: How New Findings in Positive Psychology Can Lead to a Healthy and Happy Work/Life Balance (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

WHAT the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (book) On best-seller list 11-2, 772B1; 11-30, 840B1

WHEAT Accidents & Disasters China drought emergency declared 2-5, 251E2 Business Issues—See also other subheads in this section Prospective Plantings ‘09 rpt issued 3-31, 412G2 Obituaries Borlaug, Norman E 9-12, 632F2 Statistics Jan ‘09 financial update 1-2, 6F3 Feb ‘09 financial update 1-25, 2-2, 61F1 Mar ‘09 financial update 3-2, 128C1 Apr ‘09 financial update 4-2, 198C1 May ‘09 financial update 5-1, 304C3 Jun ‘09 financial update 6-1, 371F3 Jul ‘09 financial update 7-1, 442F1 Aug ‘09 financial update 8-3, 522C1 Sep ‘09 financial update 9-1, 586F1 Oct ‘09 financial update 10-1, 657C3 Nov ‘09 financial update 10-25, 11-2, 759C1 Dec ‘09 financial update 12-1, 831C1 ‘09 yr-end financial update 12-31, 910F3 Trade & Aid Issues Brazil Jan ‘09 trade gap rptd 2-2, 82E3 UN food security summit held 11-16—11-18, 812B1

WHEELER, Blake Among NHL plus-minus ldrs 4-12, 299C3

WHEELER, Hugh (1912-87) Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954G1

WHEELER, John Archibald (1911-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

WHEELER, Marcy CIA interrogatn memos footnote detailed 4-20, 257C2

WHELDON, Dan 2d in Indy 500 5-24, 363A3

WHEN the Rain Stops Falling (play) Opens in Sydney 5-11, London 5-21, 451C3

WHERE Are You Now? (book) On best-seller list 5-4, 316C1

WHERE Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (book) On best-seller list 9-28, 672B1

WHERE the Wild Things Are (film) On top-grossing list 10-23—10-29, 772C2

WHISENHUNT, Ken Cardinals win NFC champ 1-18, 39G2 Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70D1

WHITACRE Jr., Edward Named GM chair 6-9, takes post 7-10, 475A2 Adam Opel/Vauxhall sale nixed 11-3, 767G1 On GM IPO 11-10, 798E3 Sets CEO (Henderson) resignatn 12-1, 831D1–E1 Sets govt loans repaymt 12-15, 887D1, F1–G1

WHITAKER, Nathan Uncommon on best-seller list 3-2, 140B1

WHITBREAD Book of the Year Award—See COSTA Book of the Year Award WHITCOMB, Richard Travis (1921-2009) Dies 10-13, 860G3

WHITE, Bill (Houston, Tex. mayor, 2004- ; Democrat) Sets gov bid 12-4, 869C1

WHITE, B. Joseph U Ill admissns manipulatn alleged 8-6, regrets role 8-11, 554E3

WHITE, Brian J. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

WHITE, Charlie Wins US champ 1-24, 139E2

WHITE, Dan (1946-85) Calif Milk recognitn day bill signed 10-11, 699D1

WHITE, Judge Jeffrey Upholds terror detainee (Padilla) suit 6-12, 428E1, B2–D2, F2

WHITE, Jesse Burris Sen apptmt certificatn sought 1-2; seating blocked 1-6, Reid/Durbin mtg held 1-7, 4F2, F3 Certifies Burris Sen apptmt 1-9, 18D2–E2

WHITE, Lillias Fela! opens on Bdwy 11-23, 954F1

WHITE, Tim Displays human predecessor skeleton 10-1, 691F2 Human predecessor Ardipithecus fossil rptd 10-1, 691F2

WHITE House (Washington, D.C.) Couple crashes/photos issued, e-mails rptd 11-24—12-2; TV show role seen, incident regretted/questnd 11-26—11-28, interviewed, House com hearing held 11-29—12-3, 829A3, F3, 830C1, F1; photo 830A1

WHITEHOUSE, James W. Wife dies 9-24, 672F1

WHITEHOUSE, Sheldon (U.S. senator from R.I., 2007- ; Democrat) Seeks terror detainees interrogatn rpt status 2-16, 95C1–D1 Questns terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt review 3-31, 322E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn attys rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322G2–A3 Holds terror detainees harsh interrogatns hearing 5-13, 322C1, G1, D2

WHITEHOUSE.gov (Web site) Obama holds pub forum 3-26, 200F3 Citizen suggestns sought 5-21, 761E2

WHITE House Staff, U.S.—See CABINET WHITEMORE, Hugh Turing UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648C1

WHITE Queen, The (book) On best-seller list 8-31, 596A1

WHITE Ribbon, The (Das Weisse Band) (film) Cannes top prize won 5-24, 363G3

WHITMAN, Bryan On terror suspects renditn UK aid 2-26, 150F3

WHITMAN, Christine Todd Christie wins NJ gov GOP primary 6-2, 373D3

WHITMAN, Meg Declares Calif gov bid 9-22, 639D3 Gov candidate (Newsom) drops bid 10-30, 757C1

WHITMIRE, John Sets forensic comm ousters probe 10-12, 700E2

WHITMORE, James (1921-2009) Dies 2-6, 120G3

WHITNEY, Marylou Mulls Luv Gov Preakness withdrawal 5-10, 347A2

WHITTEMORE Peterson Institute (Reno, Nev.) Chronic fatigue syndrome, XMRV virus link seen 10-8, 953A1

WHITTEN, Jamie Lloyd (1910-95) (U.S. representative from Miss., 1941-95; Democrat) Rep Dingell honored 2-10, sets House tenure mark 2-11, 146C3

WHITTINGHAM, Kyle Utah wins Sugar Bowl 1-2, 24B1

WHO (World Health Organization)—See under UNITED Nations WHOLE Truth, The (book) On best-seller list 3-30, 212B1

WHY Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them (play) Opens in NYC 4-6, 256F1

WICHERT, Peter Ousted 11-26, 835G3

WICKED Prey (book) On best-seller list 6-1, 384A1

ON FILE

WICKMAYER, Yanina Loses US Open semi 9-12, 631D2

WICKRAMATUNGA, Lasantha Slain 1-8, 9G2

WICKS Group Vibe shut 6-30, 913E2

WIDEAWAKE Entertainment Group Death Row records bought 1-15, 104E2

WIDMARK, Richard (1914-2008) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12G3

WIDMER-Schlumpf, Eveline Proposes assisted suicide curbs 10-28, 937G2

WIE, Michelle Wins Lorena Ochoa Invitatnl 11-15, 949B3

WIEGMANN, Brad Named Bush admin terror policies review overseer 3-11, 166A2

WIENER, Oded Warns Vatican mtg drop 1-27, on pope Auschwitz remarks 1-28, 43E2–G2

WIENS, Alexander Convctd/sentncd, punishmt hailed 11-11—11-12, 788C2–F2

WIESEL, Elie UNESCO dir gen votes held, Bulgaria’s Bokova elected 9-17—9-22, 675B3

WIESENTHAL Center, Simon (Israel) Nazi fugitive MD (Heim) Egypt ‘92 death mulled 2-4—2-5, 155E3, 156A1

WIFE Swap (TV show) Colo balloon incident family failed show pitch rptd 10-16, 745F3 Colo balloon hoax parents plead guilty 11-13, show talks rptd 11-14, 817G2

WIGGINS, Hal Rachel Alexandra wins Preakness 5-16, 347F1

WIKILEAKS.org (Web site) 9/11 pager messages leaked 11-25, 914F3

WILBERT, Judge Warren Nixes abortn MD (Tiller) slaying suspect defns 12-22, 919C3

WILDER, Thornton (1897-1975) Our Town revival opens in NYC 2-26, sets record 12-16, 954B2

WILDERS, Geert UK entry barred 2-12, 136C3–E3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 397A1

WILDLIFE & Wildlife Refuges Northn Rocky Mts gray wolves delisting set 1-14, halted 1-21, 65C2 Northn Rocky Mts gary wolf delisting upheld 3-6, 267D3 Bat caves entry nix urged 3-26, ordrd shut 5-1—5-21, 356B3 Alaska oil/gas, land leases sales nixed 4-17, 409D3 Northn Rocky Mts gray wolf delisted 5-4, hunting OKd 9-8, 655F1 Cyclone Aila hits India/Bangladesh 5-25—5-26, 383C2 Ariz migrant aid volunteer (Staton) sentncd 8-11, 588F1–G1 Regulatory chief nominee (Sunstein) confrmd 9-10, 656G2 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781A3 China’s Li visits Australia 10-29—11-1, 802E2

WILIARDI Wizar Claims drive-by shooting suspect (Antasari) framing 11-10, 786D2–E2

WILKEY, Malcolm Richard (1918-2009) Dies 8-15, 648F3

WILKINSON, Tom Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

WILLIAM & Mary, College of (Williamsburg, Va.) Sup Ct ex-justice (O’Connor) addresses 10-4, 678C1

WILLIAMS, Bisa Cuba cont mail svc mulled, diplomatic talks rptd 9-17—9-29, 661G1, B2

WILLIAMS, Chandler Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

WILLIAMS, Deron Among NBA assists ldrs 4-15, 278B3

WILLIAMS, Jesse (d. 1997) Smoking death damages case denied by Sup Ct 3-31, 246G1

WILLIAMS, Joey Joins intl space statn 9-30—10-2, 731C2

WILLIAMS, John ‘Air and Simple Gifts’ debuted 1-20, pre-recorded performnc rptd 1-22, 26A2

2009 Index WILLIAMS, Mayola Husband smoking damages case denied by Sup Ct 3-31, 246G1

WILLIAMS, Michael Named Fannie Mae CEO 4-20, 264A2 ‘09 compensatn rptd 12-24, 909E3

WILLIAMS, Robin Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2 Old Dogs on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840C2

WILLIAMS, Rev. Rowan (archbishop of Canterbury) On Anglican Church split 7-27, 539E1 On RC converts invite, denies rift 10-20, 711A3 Addresses Pontifical Gregorian Univ 11-19, sees Pope, invite denied 11-21, 811E1, B2 Questns LA Episcopal diocese asst bp choice 12-5, 868D3–E3 Scores Uganda gay curbs bill 12-12, 925B1

WILLIAMS, Roy UNC wins NCAA men’s basketball title 4-6, 229D3

WILLIAMS, Serena Wins Australian Open doubles 1-30, 71G1 Wins Australian Open 1-31, 70G3 Tops women’s rankings 2-2, 71A1 Loses Sony Ericsson Open 4-4, 399G1 Wins Wimbledon 7-4, 467E1, C2 Wins Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2 Loses US Open semi, fined/regrets outburst 9-12—9-14, 631G1–D2 Wins US Open doubles 9-14, 631E2 Wins WTA finale 11-1, 951F1 Fined 11-30, 951G1 Named AP top female athlete 12-22, 951G1

WILLIAMS, Sidney OneUnited, Treasury ofcls mtg wife role questnd 3-12, govt aid rptd, conflict denied 3-13, 243E1

WILLIAMS, Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) (1911-83) Streetcar Named Desire revival opens in DC 10-31, 896C1

WILLIAMS, Terrence In NBA draft 6-25, 451B1

WILLIAMS, Tom Named Yale football coach 1-7, 24A2

WILLIAMS, Venus Wins Australian Open doubles 1-30, 71G1 Wins Barclays Dubai Champ 2-22, 139A1 Loses Wimbledon 7-4, 467E1, C2–E2 Wins Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2 Wins US Open doubles 9-14, 631E2 Loses WTA finale 11-1, 951F1

WILLIAMSON, Mykelti Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

WILLIAMSON, Oliver E. Wins Nobel 10-12, 694B2, E2

WILLIAMSON, Bishop Richard Denies Holocaust 1-22; reinstated 1-24, remarks regretted, silence ordrd 1-27, 43D2–F2 Holocaust denial remarks opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican, Jewish ties mulled 2-4, Benedict calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit seen 2-8—2-12, 75D3–76C1 Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179C3–G3 Pope condoms use remarks scored 3-17—3-27, 196D1

WILLINGHAM, Cameron Todd (d. 2004) Guilt questnd, evidnc defended 8-17—9-7; forensic comm members replaced 9-30—10-8, Perry role mulled 10-11—10-14, 700D1–C3

WILLIS, Ernest ‘86 fire case review issued 8-17, 700D1

WILLIS, Michael Fever/Dream opens in DC 6-7, 451F2

WILLIS, Rumer Sorority Row on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

WILLOUGHBY, Bob (Robert Hanley) (1927-2009) Dies 12-18, 956G2

WILLS & Estates Pak tribal areas inheritnc reforms set 3-4, 138E2 Fscl ‘10 budget blueprints pass Cong 4-2, 218C1 Actor Hudson ex-lover dies 6-2, 955G2 Singer Jackson dies 6-25, 436G2

—WOMACK Singer Jackson estate executors named, ‘02 will filed 6-29—7-6, 468A2–B2 Jackson will admitted to probate 8-3, 531F2 Late model (Smith) FBI probe rptd 10-7, 920G1 Astor son, atty convctd 10-8, 708A2 Beach Boys’ Wilson, Gershwin project OKd 10-8, 708C2 US estate tax extensn passes House, blocked by Sen 12-3—12-16, 885G3 Astor son, atty sentncd 12-21, 896D1 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907B3

WILMORE, Capt. Barry (Butch) Pilots Atlantis missn 11-16—11-27, 902D1

WILSON, Adrian Cardinals lose Super Bowl 2-1, 70D3

WILSON, August (Frederick August Kittle) (1945-2005) Joe Turner’s Come and Gone revival opens in NYC 4-16, 348A2

WILSON, Brian Among NL saves ldrs 10-6, 690G3 Gershwin project OKd 10-8, 708C2

WILSON, (Helen) Charis (1914-2009) Dies 11-20, 956E3

WILSON, Hope Olaide Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

WILSON, J. Douglas Named Bush admin terror policies review overseer 3-11, 166A2

WILSON, Joe (U.S. representative from S.C., 2001- ; Republican) Interrupts Obama address/regrets remarks, on rejected reform measure 9-9—9-10, 598B1–E1 Conservatives Capitol rally held 9-12, 619D3 Obama speech outburst rebuke passes House, racism seen 9-15, 617G2 Rep Grayson health care reform remarks scored, apology nixed 9-29—9-30, 656C1

WILSON 4th, Joseph CIA agent ID leak Cheney interview notes issued 10-30, 815C3

WILSON, Kerry Student strip search opposed by Sup Ct 6-25, 425D2–E2, G2, B3

WILSON, Liz Femi Eclipsed opens in DC 9-6, 792E1

WILSON, Margaret Bush (Margaret Berenice Bush) (1919-2009) Dies 8-11, 612G3

WILSON, Michael Orphans’ Home Cycle opens in Hartford 10-17, 896C1

WILSON, Norries Yale football coach (Williams) named 1-7, 24A2

WILSON, Owen Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2; 6-26—7-2, 452D2

WILSON, Patrick Watchmen on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212D2

WILSON, Rainn Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WILSON Jr., Ralph Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

WILSON, Judge Samuel Sentncs ex-transit cop threat poster (Weaver) 12-15, 920E2

WILSON, Thomas F. Informant on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672C2

WILSON, Tracey Scott Good Negro opens in NYC 3-16, 256A1

WILSON, William Albert (1914-2009) Dies 12-5, 956F3

WILSON, Woodrow (1856-1924) (U.S. president, 1913-21; Democrat) Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize 10-9, 693E1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 842C3, 843F1

WIMAN, Christian Names Lilly Prize winner (Howe) 4-14, 364G1

WIMMER, Natasha Accepts Bolano award 3-12, 191D3

WINDOW Media LLC Gay publicatns shut 11-16, 912D3

WIND Power Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 27A2 Econ recovery plan passes House 1-28, 41D2 US offshore drilling comment period extended 2-10, 132A1 Obama addresses Cong 2-24, 106B2, 107A2 US emissns cap bill introduced 3-31, 201F2 Climate chng bill passes House 6-26, 445C1 US fed funds authrzn passes House 9-9, 659B1 US/China tech curbs eased 10-29, 776C2

WINEHOUSE, Amy UK artists win Grammys 2-8, 88B2

WINFREY, Oprah White House visit rptd 10-30, 780E1 Interviews Palin 11-16, 797E1–F1 Sets talk show end 11-20, 824A3

WINGLES, Tommy Miami U loses NCAA title 4-11, 300A1

WINICK, Gary Bride Wars on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

WIN Ma Ma Convctd, sentncd 8-11, 543E1

WINNIE-the-Pooh (fictional character) Benedictus sequel published 10-5, 708D2

WINSLET, Kate Wins Golden Globes 1-11, 24E2–F2 Gets Oscar nominatn 1-22, 40F1–G1, B2 Wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104F1 Wins Oscar 2-22, 120F1, C2

WINSPEAR Opera House, Margot and Bill (Dallas, Tex.) Opens 10-18, 953C3

WINTER, Damon Wins Pulitzer 4-20, 279C3

WINTER, Eric Ugly Truth on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

WIRAJUDA, Hassan Seeks abandoned boat survivors status, urges ASEAN ethnic minorities abuse end 2-8, 99D1–E1 Hosts US’s Clinton 2-18, 109E2

WIRETAPPING & Electronic Surveillance ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11G2 Islamic charity NSA warrantless spying suit OKd 1-5; suspensn urged/appeal nixed, classified documts use mulled 2-11—2-28, civil liberties suit opposed 4-3, 243E3, 244F1 Atty gen nominee (Holder) Sen com confrmatn hearing opens 1-15, 16E3 Bush gives farewell address 1-15, 18D3 Warrantless spying FISA ruling issued 1-15, 20A3 Obama gives inaugural address 1-20, 26E1 Ill gov (Blagojevich) impeachmt trial held 1-27; speech sought, delivered 1-28—1-29, ousted 1-29, 43E3 Bush terror policies probe indep comm proposed 2-9, 80E1 Sen Burris admits Blagojevich fund-raising bid 2-16, 93B2 Cuba base detainee (Mohammed) UK transfer deal OKd, monitoring nix rptd 2-20—2-23, 112D2 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130F1 Hollywood PI (Pellicano) assocs sentncd 3-3—3-9, 247B3 NSA warrantless spying probe urged 4-2, 258G1 NSA unlawful data collectn rptd, admitted 4-15—4-16, Sen com hearing set 4-16, 243F2–G2, D3–E3 Rep Harman/AIPAC secrets transfer case role rptd, denied 4-19—4-21; NYT rptg delay mulled 4-20, House com chair threat revealed, Pelosi briefing admitted 4-21—4-22, 263G1–A2, D2, A3 Rep Harman NSA warrantless spying denied 4-27, 306B2 Obama anti-terror policies questnd 5-21, 337E2 Warrantless spying classified documts ct use protocol sought 5-22; natl security threat seen, govt sanctns nixed/case upheld 5-29—6-3, telecom cos suits dismissed 6-3, 410G1, D2 Gov Blagojevich brother, Sen Burris wiretap release OKd 5-26, 478C1 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474E2, D3, 475D1–E1

1203

DEA ex-agent (Horn) ‘92 spying suit sanctns warned 7-20; attys clearance ordrd, ruling stayed/nix sought 8-26—11-10, setlmt rptd 11-3, 915B3, 916B1–C1 Israel’s Olmert indicted 8-30, 593E1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608C2, E2 ACORN tax evasn tapes suits seen 9-23, 638E3 Justice Dept ‘state secrets’ use ltd 9-23, 642E2 Peru’s Fujimori pleads guilty 9-28, sentncd 9-30, 682E2 Indonesia anti-corruptn comm reforms pass House 9-29; ofcls held, wiretaps rptd 10-29—11-3, dep atty gen, cops ofcl quit 11-4, 786C1–D1 Insider trading suspects chrgd, held 10-16, 743F2–G2 Australia terror plotters convctd 10-16, 930A2 Sen Burris admonished 11-20, 814C2–D2 US/Israeli atty (Leibowitz) pleads guilty 12-17, 916B2

WISCONSIN Environment & Pollution Power cos emissns suit cont 9-21, 781E2 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216E2 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Obama town hall mtg hosted 6-11, 391A1 Religious Issues NYC archbp (Dolan) named 2-23, 132D2–E2 Sports Packers clinch playoffs bid 12-27, 947D3 Transportation Northwest flight overshoots Minn airport, returns/lands 10-21; rpt issued, pilots licenses revoked 10-26—10-27, fighter jets alert rptd, mil notificatn delay questnd 10-27—10-29, 743D3

WISCONSIN, University of (Madison) NCAA women’s hockey title won 3-22, 300D1 Monkeys calorie curbs, longer life linked 7-9, 595E3 Champs Sports Bowl won 12-29, 948A3

WISE, Dewayne Buehrle pitches perfect game 7-23, 531D1

WISEMAN, Joseph (1918-2009) Dies 10-19, 792G3

WISHFUL Drinking (play) Opens in NYC 10-4, 860G2

WISSMAN, Barrett Guilty plea rptd 4-15, 265B3

WISUM, Bosco In Indian protests, slain 9-28—9-30, death mulled, probe set 10-1—10-5, 723F2–G2, B3

WITHERSPOON, Reese Monsters vs Aliens on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316D2; 5-22—5-28, 384D2

WITT, Maj. Margaret Mil ouster block appeal deadline passes 5-3, 392E2

WITTER, Bret Dewey on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1

WLODARCZYK, Anita Wins world champ gold, sets mark 8-22, 579B3

WOJNAR, Amber US troop (Maseth), Iraq base electrocutn homicide ruling rptd 1-22, 38D2

WOLF, Dr. David Flies Endeavour missn, conducts space walks 7-15—7-31, 519A2–D2

WOLFE, Cmdr. Duane Slain 5-25, 362E3

WOLF Hall (book) Mantel on Man Booker shortlist 9-8, wins 10-6, 692A1*, B1

WOLFORD, Capt. Philip Spain/Iraq rptr slaying chrgs reinstated 5-21, 344F3

WOLFOWITZ, Paul D. Afghan ‘01 mass slaying probe nix rptd 7-11, 499A2

WOLIN, Neal Named Treasury dep secy 3-23, 200E2, A3

WOLODARSKY, Wallace Fantastic Mr Fox on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840E2

WOLTER, Jack Asbestos trial opens, evidnc nixed 2-19—4-23; witness testimony questnd, upheld 4-17—4-28, cleared 5-8, 356E2

WOMACK, Bobby Inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279E3

1204 WOMEN— WOMEN‘S Health Care Services (Wichita, Kan.) Vandalized 5-23—5-30, MD (Tiller) slain 5-31, 370C2

WOMEN‘S Issues Abortion—See ABORTION Awards & Honors Abolitionist (Truth) DC statue unveiled 4-28, 300D2 King/O’Connor/Robinson get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548A2, B2 O’Connor, Robinson get Medals of Freedom 8-12, 548B2 Nobel Prizes announced 10-5—10-12, 694A2–C2 Birth Control & Family Planning—See BIRTH Control Crime & Law Enforcement Iraq blast kills 35+ 1-4; women shrine visitors banned 1-6, Ashura celebratns held 1-7, 8E2, G2–A3 Iraq suicide bomber recruiter held 1-21, confessn tape issued 2-3, 57F2 Saudi widow (Sawadi) sentncd, punishmt drop urged 3-9—12-14, rptr (Yami) sentnc set, suspended 10-24—10-26, 944C1 G-20 summit protests cop suspended 4-15, 253C3 Sudan ‘indecent’ clothing arrests rptd 7-3; Hussein immunity mulled, law challenge sought 7-29—8-4, trial protested, convctd/freed 9-7—9-8, 622C3–G3 Pa gym gunman kills 3, self 8-4, guns buy rptd 8-7, 554A2–B2 Ford assassin try woman (Fromme) freed 8-14, 554F2 Kuwait wedding blaze kills 41+ 8-15, suspect held 8-17, 943B2 Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700D3 Hate crimes bill clears Sen 10-22, signed 10-28, 742B3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 906C3, 907A2 Employment & Business US Dec ‘08 jobless rate 1-9, 14A3 Gender wage parity bills pass House 1-9, 20A1 Gender pay parity bill clears Cong 1-22—1-27, signed 1-29, 47A3 US Jan ‘09 jobless rate 2-6, 80D1 US Feb ‘09 jobless rate 3-6, 147G2 US Mar ‘09 jobless rate 4-3, 219B3 US Apr ‘09 jobless rate 5-8, 323A3 Pre-’78 pregnancy leave suits nixed by Sup Ct 5-18, 338C1 US May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 389D1 Libya’s Qaddafi addresses Italian professionals 6-11, 416A3 US Jun ‘09 jobless rate 7-2, 456C2 US Jul ‘09 jobless rate 8-7, 535B2 Va gov candidate (McDonnell) coll thesis rptd 8-30, 717A1 US Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 602B1 US Sep ‘09 jobless rate 10-2, 676A2 US Oct ‘09 jobless rate 11-6, 778C3 UK legis agenda set 11-18, 821B2 US Nov ‘09 jobless rate 12-4, 846B3 Cong ‘09 legis roundup 12-24, 907E1 Family Issues Iraqi widows tallied 3-8, 156A3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Illegals detentn reforms set 8-6, 573G2 Medicine & Health Care—See also CHILDBIRTH Justice Ginsburg has surgery 2-5, 65E1 Moral/religious treatmt denial curbs ease review set, nix seen 2-27, 3-6, 146A2 Iraq mental health survey published 3-7, 156G2 ICE detentn ctrs med care questnd 3-17, 269A1 Insurnc premiums disparity end set 5-5, 340F1 US surgeon gen (Benjamin) named 7-13, 476C1–D1 Mammograms cut urged 11-16, 799B2–A3 Pap test guidelines chngd 11-20, 918E3 Health care reform bill debate opens 11-21, 809G1, B2 Health care reform mammograms measure passes Sen 12-3, 848E1–F1 Military Issues Gaza schl attack kills 5 1-6, violnc casualties tallied 1-8, 1D1, D3 Gaza violnc death toll rptd 1-15, 13B1; 1-19, 30F3 US reactivated troop (Pagan) brings kids, svc release set 3-2, honorable dischrg rptd 3-8, 267B1 US Navy submarines role backed 9-25, 720B3 Obituaries Agnelli, Susanna 5-15, 364F2 Aquino, Corazon C 8-1, 531G2 Chavez, Esther 12-25, 955E1 Cintron, Conchita 2-17, 140E2

FACTS Das, Kamala 5-31, 452F1 French, Marilyn 5-2, 332D3 Gottschalk, Alfred 9-12, 648F2 Hawkins, Paula 12-4, 880A2 Jagan, Janet 3-31, 212E2 Rogers, Lorene L 1-11, 56G2 Spero, Nancy 10-18, 824G3 Wexler, Anne 8-7, 580G3 Wilson, Margaret Bush 8-11, 612G3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Homeland Security secy nominee (Napolitano) Sen com confrmatn hearing held 1-15, 17B1 Saudi cabt shuffled 2-14, munic electns delayed 5-18, 943D3, F3–944A1 Solicitor gen nominee (Kagan) confrmd 3-19, 246B2 Denmark cabt named 4-7, 225F1 Algeria pres electn held 4-9, 248B1 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D1 Kuwait parlt electns held 5-16, 345C1–D1 Lithuania pres electn held 5-17, results rptd 5-21, 344D1 Judge Sotomayor sees Obama, named to Sup Ct 5-21—5-26, filibuster doubted 5-27, 349B1, F2, B3, 350B2–C2 Malawi’s Banda sworn vp 5-22, 358B1 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) remarks regretted 5-29, Sen com confrmatn hearing set 6-9, 389E2, B3 India MP (Kumar) elected lower house speaker 6-3, 417C3 UK’s Brown shuffles cabt 6-5, 397A2 Iran pres electn held 6-12, 401B2 NOW pres (O’Neill) elected 6-20, 492B2 Croatia premr (Kosor) elected 7-7, 463E1 Lithuanian pres (Grybauskaite) sworn 7-12, 512C3 Sup Ct nominee (Sotomayor) Sen com confrmatn hearings held 7-13—7-16, 469B1, D1, F1, G2, B3, 470D1, 471B1 Calif House seat electn held 7-14, 478F2 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) backed by Sen com 7-28, 503D1 Sup Ct justice nominee (Sotomayor) confrmd by Sen 8-6, 519D3–E3 Sotomayor sworn Sup Ct justice 8-8, 536E2 Iran’s Ahmadinejad names cabt 8-16—8-19, 562B2 Iran health min (Dastgerdi) confrmd, enery/educ nominatns nixed 9-3, 609B3, D3 Ger parlt electns held 9-27, 665D2 Iraq electns law passes parlt 11-8, 789A2 Mass Sen seat primaries held 12-8, 848A3 India parlt house oppositn ldr (Swaraj) named 12-18, 946B2 Cong ‘09 roundup 12-24, 906F3, 907E3 Population Chinese lack seen 4-10, 933B1 Religious Issues RC bp (Williamson) reinstated 1-24, 43E2 US’s Clinton visits Indonesia 2-18, 109E2 Pak tribal areas Islamic law deal passes parlt, signed 4-13, 276B1–C1 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368E3 France burqa use opposed 6-22, probe comm set 6-23, 432F2–B3 French town Muslim swimsuit ban rptd, Italy town fines set 8-12—8-19, UK spec swimming sessns seen 8-15, 561E1–C2 Episcopal Calif split diocese property surrendered 10-12, 711F3 RC OKs Anglican converts 10-20, 711F2 French burqa ban cont 11-12, 937A1 Archbp of Canterbury addresses Pontifcal Gregorian Univ 11-19, sees Pope 11-21, 811A2–B2 LA Episcopal diocese asst bps elected, Glasspool choice questnd 12-4—12-5, 868B3–C3 Rights Issues US secy of state nominee (Clinton) confrmatn hearing held, nominatn backed 1-13, 1-15, 16D1 Pak tribal areas inheritnc reforms set 3-4, 138E2–F2 UN agencies merger OKd 9-14, 902F1 Social Issues Afghan rights curbs signed 3-31, review set 4-4, 213F1 Sports S Africa tests runner Semenya gender 8-7, 950B3 S Africa’s Semenya gender test set, birth certificate rptd 8-19—8-21; IAAF probe ordrd 8-23, high testosterone levels seen, returns 8-24—8-25, 579B2 Runner Semenya gender controversy regretted, S African pres/bd suspended 11-5, World Champ medal upheld, test results release nixed 11-19, 950F2 Patrick sets NASCAR Natnwide Series role 12-8, 950C2

Welfare & Social Services Bolivia pres vote held 12-6, Morales reelectn seen 12-8, 851B1

WONDER, Stevie At Jackson meml svc 7-7, 468A1

WONG, Jiverly Kills 13, self 4-3; note found, TV channel letter arrives 4-3—4-6, attack response mulled 4-5—4-6, 246D2–E2, G2–A3

WONG, Penny Vows climate chng bill reintroductn 8-13, 624A1

WOOD, Chris 3d in British Open 7-19, 500G1

WOOD, Judge Diane Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2 Sotomayor nominated to Sup Ct 5-26, 350C2

WOOD, Elijah 9 on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

WOOD, Eric In NFL draft 4-25, 298F3

WOOD, Frank Taking of Pelham 123 on top-grossing film list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

WOODARD, Charlayne Night Watcher opens in NYC 10-6, 860F2

WOODEN Award, John R.—See BASKETBALL—Awards WOODESON, Nicholas Mary Stuart revival opens in NYC 4-19, 348B2

WOODRUFF, Bob Returns to Iraq 7-13, 500A2

WOODRUFF, Lee Husband returns to Iraq 7-13, 500A2

WOODS, Charlie Dad in car crash 11-27, 839B2

WOODS, Sam Dad in car crash 11-27, 839B2

WOODS, Shelly 2d in NYC marathon 11-1, 791E3

WOODS, Stuart Loitering with Intent on best-seller list 5-4, 316A1

WOODS, Tiger (Eldrick) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12F1 Returns 2-25, exits Match Play Champ 2-26, 139C1 Wins Arnold Palmer Invitatnl 3-29, 255F2 6th in Masters 4-12, 255G1 Wins Meml Tourn 6-7, 563F3 6th in US Open 6-22, 435A2–B2 Wins AT&T Natl 7-5, 563E3 Wins Buick Open 8-2, 563C3 Wins Bridgestone Invitatl 8-9, 563B3 Golf ‘16 Olympics inclusn urged 8-13, 691C2 2d in PGA Champ 8-16, 563D2 2d in Barclays 8-30, 670D2 Wins BMW Champ 9-13, 670E2 2d in Tour Champ, wins FedEx Cup 9-27, 670F1 US wins Pres Cup 10-11, 708C1 MD (Galea) held 10-15, chrgd 12-18, 951E3 Wins Australian Masters 11-15, 839F3 Affairs alleged/in car crash, blames self 11-25—12-1; drops tourn role, admits transgressns 11-30—12-1, sponsors back, cited/cops rpt issued 12-1—12-2, 839G1, A3 Wife house buy rptd 12-1; sets golf ‘indefinite break’, endorsemt deals mulled 12-11—12-17, named AP ‘00-09 top athlete 12-16, 879C1, A2, C2 Named top male, PGA player 12-17—12-18; Tag Heuer image use halted 12-18, AT&T ties cut 12-31, 949D2

WOODSON, Rod Elected to HOF 1-31, 176D2 Inducted to HOF 8-8, 632G1

WOODWARD, Edward (Albert Arthur) (1930-2009) Dies 11-16, 840F3

WOOLLEY Jr., Bennie (Chip) Mine That Bird wins Kentucky Derby 5-2, 316E1

WORCESTER Telegram & Gazette (newspaper) Buyout offers sought 10-14, sale nixed 12-7, 912D2, A3

WORLD (magazine) Palin bk published 11-17, 797C2

WORLD Bank Group UN Afghan security conf held 3-31, 195A2

ON FILE

International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (World Bank) Zoellick rptd pres 1-1, 3C2 Armenia loan set 2-26, 206G2 Eastn Eur banks loan set, cash need rptd 2-27, 136A3 Indonesia loan OKd 3-3, 272C1 Econ stimulus funds forgn aid use urged 3-10, 169F3 Latvian coalitn govt OKd 3-12, 173A3 Romania $20 bln loan set 3-25, 207C3 ‘09 econ output forecast 3-31, 194E2–F2 Thai cont plans vowed 4-8, protests held, ASEAN summit nixed 4-10—4-11, 250G1 Dvpt loans set 4-21—4-23, DC mtg held 4-25—4-26, 283A2, 284A1 Mex swine flu aid set 4-26, 281G2 AIDS programs woes seen 4-30, 387F1 Hungary embs, consulates shut 6-16, 512C2 McNamara dies 7-6, 468D3 Loans curbs pass House 7-9, 488E3 Afghan pres electn held 8-20, 549C2 Zimbabwe econ growth seen 9-11, 681D1 India loan OKd 9-23, 791E1 Emerging econs voting shares hiked 9-25, 651C2 US$ reserve currency use drop seen 9-28, 683G2 Turkey mtg held 10-6—10-7, 674F2

WORLD Economic Forum Davos mtg held 1-28—2-1, 58D1 Total/Irem Uk constructn contract awarded 1-28, energy workers strike, Lindsey refinery deal OKd 1-28—2-5, 68C3–D3

WORLD Is What It Is, The: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul (book) French wins Natl Bk Critics Circle award 3-12, 191E3

WORLD Leaders—See also specific country, personal names ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 232A1–236G3; 10-1, 732A1–736G3

WORLD Trade Organization (WTO) US, China counterfeit complaint dismissed 1-26, 440A2 World Econ Forum held 1-28—2-1, 58F2 ‘09 forecast issued 3-23, free trade drop warned 3-26, 193F2 China/US chicken imports complaint filed 4-17, 615G2 Russia/Kazakh/Belarus entry sought 6-9, 405G1 CTSO summit held, agrmt defended 6-14—6-15, 423A3 EU/US file China complaint 6-23, 440C1 China Web filter requiremt complaint filed 6-24, 448D1 China media import rules opposed 8-12, 557G1 China auto parts imports tax cut set 8-28, 615G2 Brazil/US goods sanctns OKd 8-31, 590B1 Airbus govt aid ruled illegal 9-4, 615C3 China probes US auto parts, chicken exports 9-13, 615G1, B2, D2–E2 Russia entry US backing sought 9-18, 645G1–A2 China media import ruling appeal filed 9-22, ‘pub morals’ protectn claimed 9-23, 776G2 China raw materials export curbs complaint filed 11-5, 776A2 Russia/Kazakh/Belarus customs union deal signed 11-27, 863G1 China media imports ruling appeal denied, raw materials export curbs case accepted 12-21, 932D1–E1

WORLD Uighur Congress China ethnic violnc role seen 7-6, 461G1

WORLD War I (1914-18) Fed lands cross display case accepted by Sup Ct 2-23, 677D1 Obama visits Turkey 4-6—4-7, 215A3 Armenia/Turkey ties hike ‘road map’ OKd, opposed 4-22—4-23, genocide anniv marked, Obama remarks scored 4-24—4-25, 296F1 Turkey/Armenia diplomatic ties seen 8-31, border opening set, genocide admissn mulled 9-1, 591G3 Slovakia minority language curbs enacted 9-1, 608B3 Turkey’s Pamuk, Armenia genocide ‘05 remarks suit OKd 10-7, 706E3 Armenia/Turkey diplomatic ties deal signed 10-10, 707D1 Ger defeat anniv marked 11-11, 788G1 Obituaries Allingham, Henry W 7-18, 516A2 Patch, Harry 7-25, 516F3

WORLD War II (1939-45) Anniversaries & Commemorations Latvia Nazi march held 3-16, 207E2 Obama sets France visit 4-3, 213B3

2009 Index Obama visits Ger/France, D-Day anniv marked 6-5—6-6, 386C1 Japan’s Hatoyama nixes shrine visits 8-11, surrender anniv marked 8-15, 582B3–C3 ‘39 start anniv marked 9-1, 591C2, F2 US/Eastn Eur missile shield plans dropped 9-17, 613C3 Berlin Wall fall anniv marked 11-9, 787F3 Georgia WWII monumt demolitn debris kills 2 12-19; arrest rptd, gov fired 12-20, protests held 12-21, 937G1, B2 Espionage & Intelligence Issues Ger reunificatn documts published 9-11, 637B1 Obama declassificatn policy chngd 12-29, 908A2 Holocaust Issues RC bp (Williamson) denies Holocaust, reinstated 1-22—1-24; remarks regretted/silence ordrd 1-27, pope Auschwitz visits mulled 1-28, 43C2 RC bp (Williamson) Holocaust denial opposed, retractn sought 2-3—2-12; Vatican, Jewish ties mulled 2-4, Benedict calls Ger’s Merkel, Israel visit seen 2-8—2-12, 75D3, 76B1 Nazi MD fugitive (Heim) ‘92 Egypt death rptd, confrmd 2-4—2-5, 155C3 Iran Holocaust denial questnd 2-7, 74D3 France admits Holocaust Ger deportatns 2-16, 99D2 Holocaust denial bp (Williamson) Argentina exit ordrd, leaves 2-19—3-24, rehabilitatn regretted 3-12, 179C3, E3, G3 Palestinian orch Holocaust survivors concert held/scored, dir banned 3-25—3-29, 210A3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster nixed, 9/11 essay cited 4-3, 307E3–F3 UN racism conf held, Iran’s Ahmadinejad spech spurs walkout 4-20, 261G3, 262B1–C1 KKK ex-ldr (Duke) held 4-24, Czech exit ordrd 4-25, 378B1–C1 Pope Benedict visits Israel, Holocaust meml remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335G1 US’s Obama gives Egypt address 6-4, 368D2, 369D1 US Holocaust museum shooting kills 1, suspect (von Brunn) in hosp/chrgd 6-10—6-11, museum shut 6-11, 391G3 U Colo prof (Churchill) ouster upheld 7-7, reinstatemt sought 7-21, 554B3 Gaza schls, Holocaust teaching scored 8-31, 615D1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad marks Quds Day 9-18, 645D3 Israel’s Netanyahu addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-24, 633C1, 634C1–D1 Film dir (Polanski) held 9-26, 653D3 US rep (Grayson) health care remarks scored, nixes apology 9-29, 656C1 Ger’s Merkel addresses US Cong 11-3, 755F1 Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Brazil visit protested 11-22—11-23, 885A2 Alleged Nazi death camp guard (Demjanjuk) trial opens, adjourns 11-30—12-2, 853C3, E3 W Bank mosque burned 12-11, synagogue blazes compared 12-14, 945E1 Auschwitz death camp sign stolen/recovered, suspects held 12-18—12-20, neo-Nazi link nixed 12-21, 892F1 Pope Pius XII ‘heroic virtues’ recognitn defended 12-23, 901D3–E3 MIA/POW Issues Poland mass grave find rptd 1-7, 136F3 Military Issues GM bankruptcy declared 6-1, 365A2 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843F1 Obituaries Albury, Charles D 5-23, 400B2 Arouch, Salamo 4-26, 364G2 Ballard, JG 4-19, 280G2 Cronkite, Walter 7-17, 500F2 Dahrendorf, Lord 6-17, 451G3 Dannenberg, Konrad 2-16, 160B3 Druon, Maurice 4-14, 280C3 Edelman, Marek 10-2, 692B2 Henrich, Tommy 12-1, 880A2 Kiraly, Bela K 7-4, 516C3 Kolff, Willem J 2-11, 120C3 Lambsdorff, Count Otto 12-5, 896A3 Rosen, Louis 8-20, 648E3 Sonnenfeldt, Richard W 10-9, 731E3 Todd, Richard 12-3, 896F3 Vierny, Dina 1-20, 72F3 People Hitler/wife/Goebbels remains destructn rptd 12-7, 939G1 Veterans Issues Code-breaker (Turing) UK treatmt regretted 9-10, 648B1

—YANG WORLD Wide Services Foundation Yemen workers seized 6-12, found slain 6-15, 646A2

WORLD Wildlife Fund (WWF) Climate chng conf held 6-1—6-12, 413E2 Timor Sea oil rig leak damage assessed 10-23, 874A2

WORM, Boris Sees ocean fisheries populatn woes 7-31, 550F2

WORTHINGTON, Sam Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2 Avatar on top-grossing film list 12-25—12-31, 956B2

WORTHY, Rick Duplicity on top-grossing film list 3-20—3-26, 212C2

WOZNIACKI, Caroline Loses Madrid Open 5-17, 399D1 Loses US Open 9-13, 631B1, D2

WRECKER, The (book) On best-seller list 11-30, 840A1

WRESTLER, The (film) Rourke wins Golden Globe 1-11, 24E2 Rourke/Tomei get Oscar nominatns 1-22, 40A2, C2 Rourke wins UK Acad Award 2-8, 104G1

WRIGHT, Althea On daycampers, swim club visit 7-9, 492E1

WYNN, Steve Buys Rembrandt portrait 12-8, IDd 12-19, 953E2

Business & Economy—See also other subheads in this section Fed annual conf held 8-21, 571D2 Crime & Law Enforcement Hate crimes bill passes House 10-8, 700G3 Energy Oil shale research leases offrd/nixed, probe ordrd 1-15—10-20, offer chngd 10-20, 917E1 Environment & Pollution Northn Rocky Mts gray wolves delisting set 1-14, halted 1-21, 65C2 Yellowstone grizzlies curbs restored 9-21, 781B3 Family Issues Gay marriage laws listed 4-7, 216E2 Labor & Employment Delphi plant sale set 10-6, 679E2 Obituaries Close, William T 1-15, 104B3 Hansen, Clifford P 10-20, 772F1 School Issues Obama educ reform proposals outlined 3-10, 149F2

WYOMING, University of (Laramie) NM Bowl won 12-19, 948C3

Traded to Raptors 7-9, 771B2

X

WRIGHT, David US loses World Baseball Classic semi 3-22, 191A1 NL loses All-Star Game 7-14, 483C3 Among NL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D3

WRIGHT, Jeremiah White House visit rptd 10-30, 780E1 Soloist on top-grossing film list 4-24—4-30, 316C2

WRIGHT, Lindsey 2d in LPGA Champ 6-14, 595D2

WRIGHT, (Muriel) Teresa (1918-2005) Ex-husband dies 2-9, 120G2

WRIGHT, Terrance Confrms Harlem Boys Choir demise 12-13, 954A1

WROBLEWSKI, David Story of Edgar Sawtelle on best-seller list 2-2, 72A1

WTO—See WORLD Trade Organization WU, Judge George Nixes MySpace suicide insults convctn 7-2, 539A2

WU, Sophie Punk Rock opens in London 9-8, 792F1

WU Ching-mao Pleads guilty 1-21, 135D1

WU‘ER Kaixi Held 6-3, deported to Taiwan 6-4, 395E2

WUHAYSHI, Nasir alNamed Saudi terror suspect 2-3, 119A1

WU Poh-hsiung Visits China 5-25—6-1, 415B3–C3

WU Shu-chen Pleads guilty 2-10, 135A1–D1 Convctd, sentncd 9-2—9-11, 625D2, A3

WYDEN, Ron (U.S. senator from Ore., 1996- ; Democrat) Iraq translators mask use OKd 2-13, 102B1 Health care reform bill doubts seen 10-7, 676F3

WYETH, Andrew (Andrew Newell Wyeth 3rd) (1917-2009) Dies 1-16, 40F3

WYETH, Jamie Father dies 1-16, 40G3

WYETH, N(ewell) C(onverse) (1882-1945) Son dies 1-16, 40F3

WYETH Pharmaceuticals Pfizer sets buy 1-26, 49B1 State ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130F2, A3 Merck/Schering-Plough buy set 3-9, 151A1

WYETH v. Levine (2009) Drug cos state ct suits shield nixed by Sup Ct 3-4, 130F2

WYLY Theater, Dee and Charles (Dallas, Tex.) Opens 10-18, 953C3

Asst held/cont detentn seen, freed 7-29—8-23, 606D2–E2

WYOMING

WRIGHT, Antonie

WRIGHT, Joe

1205

XAVIER University (New Orleans, La.) Men’s basketball tourn results 4-6, 230A3

X-Caliber Guns Iknadosian trial opens 3-9, 171A2

XCEL Energy Inc. States’ emissns suit cont 9-21, 781D2

XE Services (formerly Blackwater Worldwide) Triple Canopy awarded US/Iraq diplomat security deal 4-1, 208F3 State Dept ‘04-08 security overpaymts seen 6-15, 433E3 Planned Al Qaeda ldrs assassinatn program role rptd, profit denied 8-20—8-21; drone missile strikes work seen 8-21, Iraq diplomat transport deal extended 9-2, 586F2, A3–B3, E3 Inter-Risk Pak ofcs raided 9-19, 670B1 Iraq ‘07 bribes authrzn rptd, probe ordrd 11-11, 789D2 Iraq guard (Slatten) civiln deaths chrgs drop sought 11-20, 838C1 Afghan/Iraq raids, CIA renditn flights security role rptd 12-10, deal denied, drone missile strike work nixed 12-11, 884E3–885D1 Iraq civiln deaths chrgs dropped 12-31, 942C2

XIAO Jiansheng On Chinese Civilizatn Revisited 9-24, HK sales open 9-25, 683F1

XIE Changfa Sentncd 9-1, 606F2–G2

XIE Zhenhua Signs India climate chng cooperatn deal 10-21, 791A2

XI Jinping Visits Brazil 2-19, 197F1 Named to central mil com 9-15—9-18, 683A2 Visits Cambodia, signs deals 12-20—12-21, 932A1

XIONG Weiping On Rio Tinto investmt deal nix 6-5, 481F2

XIONG Yan HK entry OKd 6-4, 395F2

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (film) On top-grossing list 5-22—5-28, 384D2

X-Rays US/Mex border security hiked 3-24, 185C3 US/Mex antidrug aid delay rptd 4-5, 249C3 Ramakrishan/Steitz/Yonath win Nobels 10-7, 694A2

XTO Energy Inc. Share price rptd 12-11, Exxon sets buy 12-14, 887A1–C1

XU Zhiyong Gongmeng shut, held/chrgd 7-18—8-12, 557B1

Y YA‘ALON, Moshe Nixes UK trip 10-5, 689G3

YACIMIENTOS Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YFPB) US diplomat (Fernandez) ousted 3-9, 204A2

YADAV, Dr. Ram Baran (Nepali president, 2008- ) Blocks army chief ouster, const mulled 5-3—5-4, 314F2–A3 Nepal elected, sworn premr 5-23, 5-25, 363C1 Maoists natl govt sought 12-22, 946C3

YADEL, Brahim French convctn nixed 2-27, 150E2

YADLIN, Gen. Amos On Iran A-bomb dvpt capabilities 3-8, 174F1 On Hamas, Iranian rockets test 11-3, 754C3

YAD Vashem Holocaust Museum (Israel) Pope Benedict visits, remarks mulled 5-11—5-12, 335A2–E2

YAHIA, Antar Algeria makes World Cup 11-18, 859D1

YAHOO Inc. Bartz named CEO 1-13, Yahoo search partnership set 7-29, 523B2 Google bk scanning setlmt opposed 8-20, 601E1 UK/US flights bomb plotters convctd, suspects cleared 9-7, 608F2

YAKOVLEV, Sergei Estonia defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, intl warrant issued 2-25, 136C1

YAKUNIN, Vladimir On RR blast 11-27, 836A2

YALA, Kumba (Guinea-Bissau president, 2000-03) Electn held, vote backed 6-28, results rptd, runoff role set 7-2, 458B3, D3, F3–G3 Runoff held 7-26, loss rptd 7-29, 507D2, A3

YALE University (New Haven, Conn.) Williams named football coach 1-7, 24A2 Bollingen Prize awarded 2-16, 953D1 Justice Souter replacemt mulled 5-3, 302D2 Student (Le) disappears, found dead 9-8—9-13; suspect (Clark) chrgd 9-17, motive mulled, affidavit unsealed 9-18—11-13, 920B1 Prum/Tinetti win MacArthurs 9-22, 671C2–D2 Steitz wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1

YAMADAYEV, Isa Survives attack 7-28, suspect arrest sought 7-29, 544G3

YAMADAYEV, Ruslan (d. 2008) Brother slain 3-28, 273G2 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497B2 Brother survives attack 7-28, suspect arrest sought 7-29, 545A1

YAMADAYEV, Sulim (1973-2009) Slain 3-28; Kadyrov info denied, sees dad slaying role 3-30—4-6, Russian MP (Delimkhanov) order alleged, probe mulled 4-5—4-7, 273F2–A3, C3 Slaying suspect (Delimkhanov) intl warrant issued, extraditn nixed 4-27, 329A1 Chechen activist (Estemirova) found slain 7-15, 497A2–B2 Brother survives attack 7-28, suspect arrest sought 7-29, 545A1 Delimkhanov named Chechen ldr successor 9-24, 706E1

YAMANAKA, Shinya Wins Lasker 9-14, 671F2, A3

YAMATO Engine Specialists Wash plant raid nets illegals 2-24, review ordrd 2-25, 202F1

YAMAUCHI, Mara 2d in London Marathon 4-26, 332F1

YAMI, Rozana alSentnc set, suspended 10-24—10-26, 944D1

YANG, Gladys (1919-99) Widower dies 11-23, 956G3

1206 YANG— YANG, Jerry Replacemt (Bartz) named 1-13, 523E2

YANG, Philemon (Cameroonian prime minister, 2009- ) Named PM 6-30, 722D3

YANG, Xiangzhong (Jerry) (1959-2009) Dies 2-5, 160G3

YANG, Yong-Eun (Y.E.) Wins Honda Classic 3-8, 255A3 Wins PGA Champ 8-16, 563D2 Intl loses Pres Cup 10-11, 708C1

YANG Jiechi Hosts US’s Clinton 2-21, 109F3–G3 Visits US 3-11—3-12, 309E2

YANG Xianyi (1915-2009) Dies 11-23, 956G3

YANKEE Stadium (N.Y., N.Y.) Carrion named White House urban affairs dir 2-19, 113C1

YANKEE Years, The (book) Published 2-3, 88D1 On best-seller list 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1

YANUKOVICH, Viktor F. (Ukrainian premier, 2002-04/06-07) Holds protests 3-27—4-3; pres vote chng OKd, parlt electn mulled 4-1—4-4, chamber doors blocked 4-2, 227A2–B2 IMF 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274C2 Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 496F2, B3

YAN Yiming Stimulus spending disclosure urged 3-4, 186G3

YAR‘ADUA, Umaru (Nigerian president, 2007- ) MEND talks sought 5-27, 358A3 Hosts Russia’s Medvedev 6-24, 455E1 Orders Islamic sect violnc containmt 7-28, sets ldr death probe 8-5, 525C2, F2 Opens Delta militia amnesty deal 8-6, 574G3 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-12, 540C3 Sees militant ldr (Okah), mtg hailed 10-19—11-15, 923F1–G1 In Saudi hosp, ouster suits filed 11-23—12-31; signs ‘09 suplmtl funds 12-29, chief justice (Katsina-Alu) sworn 12-30, 922E3–F3, 923A1–C1, E1 Militant peace talks role mulled, pipeline attacked 12-18—12-19, 923C2

YARBOROUGH, Cale Johnson sets straight NASCAR title wins mark 11-22, 859E3

YARDBIRDS, The (music group) Beck inducted to Rock HOF 4-4, 279F3

YAROSHENKO, Vyacheslav Found unconscious 4-30, dies, probe opens 6-29, 497E2

YAROSLAVTSEV, Justice Vladimir Resignatn rptd 12-2, 892B3

YARROW, Peter Travers dies 9-16, 632F3

YASTRZEMSKI, Carl Henderson, Rice elected to HOF 1-12, 71B3

YATES, David Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532C2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

YATES, John Named London antiterror ofcl 4-9, 253E2

YATES, Richard (1926-92) Revolutnary Rd on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1

YATSENYUK, Arseniy Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 496B3

YAVLINSKY, Grigory Novaya Gazeta rptr (Shchekochikin) death probe ends 4-9, 329E1

YAZDI, Ibrahim In protests, arrest rptd 12-27—12-29, 940C3

YEAR One (film) On top-grossing list 6-26—7-2, 452D2

YEATMAN Jr., Hoyt H. G-Force on top-grossing film list 7-24—7-30, 532B2; 8-21—8-27, 596D2

YELCHIN, Anton Terminator Salvatn on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

YELLAND, Hannah Brief Encounter opens in San Fran 9-16, 792D1

YELLOW Sea S/N Korea naval clash erupts, pay back vowed 11-10—11-12, 796A1, F1

FACTS YELLOWSTONE National Park (Wyo.) Grizzly bears curbs restored 9-21, 781A3

YELTSIN, Boris Nikolayevich (1931-2007) (Russian president, 1990-99) Govt media adviser (Lesin) fired 11-18, 893A1 Const Ct judges quit 12-2, 892B3

YEMEN, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Comoros flight departs, crash kills 152 6-29—6-30; safety woes rptd, victims families paymt set 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439C3–G3 African Relations Somali pirate attacks map 4-12, 238A1 Somalia mil aid sought 6-20, 430C2 Arab Relations Saudi mil clashes erupt, withdrawal urged 11-4—11-10, troop hostage tape issued 11-9, naval blockade set, forgn interfernc scored 11-10—11-11, 805G1, E2 Crime & Civil Disorders Forgn natls seized, found slain 6-12—6-15; violnc kills scores, refugee camp air strike probe set 7-23—9-20, truce OKd, violatns alleged 9-18—9-20, 645E3, 646E1, A2 Rebel clashes kill scores, ldr injury seen/tape posted 12-13—12-31, Saudi cease-fire sought 12-31, 944E3 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236E3; 10-1, 736E3 Immigration & Refugee Issues Somali refugees Gulf of Aden drownings rptd 9-1, 646D1 Terrorism & Terrorist Organizations Saudi terror suspects list issued 2-3, 119A1 US/Somali group ties suspect (Hassan) admits role 2-9, 780E3 Shibam blast kills 4+, suspects held 3-15—3-16, 646B2 Al Qaeda financier (Alwanin) held 6-12, members sentncd 7-13, 646F1 Detainees CIA abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named 8-24, 565B2 Saudi blast hurts prince 8-27, 943A3 Tex mil base shooting probes open 11-19, 812C3 Offensive kills 64+/deaths mulled, raid nets suspect 12-17—12-30, forgn aid sought, US role hike seen 12-29—12-30, 944F2 Mich flight blast fails, Abdulmutallab held 12-25; attack claimed, stay rptd/jt probes set 12-27—12-28, intell mulled, US drone strikes seen 12-30, 897E1, C3, 898A1, D1–F1, A2, D2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Ark mil recruiting booth shooter (Muhammad) imprisoning rptd 6-2—6-4, 392C2–D2 U.S. Terrorist Attacks (& aftermath) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12A1 Cuba base ex-detainee (Hamdan) freed 1-8, 20D2 Cuba base ex-detainees Al Qaeda entry tape issued 1-23, 119C1–D1 Cuba base detainee (Bihani) combatant status upheld 1-28, 64B1 Cuba base detainee (Nashiri) arraignmt delay nixed 1-29, 46F3 Obama sees victims families 2-6, 80C3 Cuba base detainees Saudi transfer talks rptd, opposed 3-13, 166B1–C1 Cuba base detainee (Batarfi) release set 3-30, 200C1–D1 Afghan detainees habeas rights ordrd 4-2, 199E2 Cuba base detainee (Ahmed) cont detentn nixed 5-4, 506B2 Cuba base detainee (Salih) kills self 6-1; probe sought 6-3, chrgs mulled 6-4, 374C2–D2, G2 Cuba base detainees transfer rptd 9-26, 718E2 Cuba base detainees trials set 11-13, 794B1 Cuba base suicides suit papers filed 12-4; detainee (Madhwani) cont detentn upheld 12-14, Hatim release ordrd 12-16, 861C3, 862A1, F1 Cuba base detainees transfers rptd, threat doubted 12-19—12-20, 913F3, 914D1

YEMENIA Airways Yemen/Comoros flight departs, crash kills 152 6-29—6-30; safety woes rptd, victims families paymt set 6-30—7-1, blackbox found, survivor IDd 7-1, 439A3–B3, F3–G3

YEMER, Aman Pak/US deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1

YESHIVA University (N.Y., N.Y.) Fugitive aliens arrest program questnd 2-4, 202B2

YETTAW, John Sees Myanmar dissidents 5-2; held 5-6, chrgd, Suu Kyi house visit rptd 5-14, 327A3–C3 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi house arrest violatn conspiracy claimed, pleads not guilty 5-22, testifies 5-27, 359C3–F3, 360A1, D1 Suu Kyi house arrest violatn mulled, security ofcrs demoted 7-28—8-7; in hosp 8-3—8-11, convctd/sentncd, appeal set 8-11—8-12, 543E1, F2, 544A1 Freed, examined in Thai/returns to US 8-16—8-19, 558D3, G3

YEVKUROV, Yunus-Bek Hurt in blast, in hosp 6-22—6-23, 449B3–D3 Recovery rptd, replacemt (Gaisanov) named 7-3, 497D2 Exits hosp 8-10, 544F3 On Nazran blast 8-17, 560E2 On suicide terrorists threat 9-2, 591B2 Oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, sees authority challenge 10-26, 766F1, A2

YEVLOYEV, Ibragim Convctd/sentncd in absentia, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2, G2

YEVLOYEV, Magomed (d. 2008) Oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, 766A2 Slaying suspect (Yevloyev) convctd/sentncd in absentia, ruling scored 12-11, 892D2

YEVSTRATIKOV, Boris Slain 11-27, 836A2

YHOMBI-Opango, Joachim (Congolese president, 1977-79) Sassou-Nguesso reelected 7-12, 507E1

YI, Eunjung Wins Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic 7-5, 595A3

YIRENPENG Center Ofc raided 7-29, 557D1

YOGA Ashtangi founder (Jois) dies 5-18, 420F3

YONATH, Ada Wins Nobel 10-7, 694G1

YONGZHENG, Emperor (China) (1678-1735) Beijing museum, Taiwan art loan set 2-16, 310C1

YOO, John Terror detainees interrogatn rpt delayed 2-14; status sought 2-16, response seen 2-17, 94D3–G3, 95D1 Bush admin antiterror memos issued 3-2, 130C1, F1 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn rpt review questnd 3-31, 322E3 CIA interrogatn memos issued, prosecutn mulled 4-16—4-21, 257F2, 258B2 Cuba base detainees abuse Spain criminal complaint oversight reassigned 4-23, 329D2 Bybee CIA interrogatn memos defended 4-28, 290E3 Terror detainees harsh interrogatns authrzn rpt release seen 5-4—5-6, 322B3–D3 Terror detainee (Padilla) suit upheld 6-12, 428E1, C2–F2 NSA warrantless spying efficacy, legality questnd 7-10, 474A3, F3, 475A1

YOON Jeung Hyun Named S Korea finance min 1-19, 51F2

YOON Sang Hyun On N Korea prison camps closure 10-17, 764A2

YOO Seong Jiun Freed, deported 8-13, 558G1

YORK, Herbert Frank (1921-2009) Dies 5-19, 400G3

YORKEY, Brian Next to Normal opens on Bdway 4-15, 348C2 Wins Tony 6-7, 399G3, 400E1

YOSANO, Kaoru On econ crisis 2-16, named finance min 2-17, 98D3, F3 Aso dissolves parlt, sets electns 7-13, 482G1

YOU Belong With Me (recording) On best-seller list 8-1, 532D1; 8-29, 596D1

ON FILE

YOUGOV UK pol parties support 10-7, 686C1

YOUMZAIN (racehorse) 2d in Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 10-4, 807G2

YOU, Nero (play) Opens in Costa Mesa 1-9, 211G3

YOUNG, Bill (C. W.) (U.S. representative from Fla., 1971- ; Republican) Ethics probe leaked 10-29, PMA ex-clients funding nix sought 10-30, 779F2

YOUNG, Michael AL wins All-Star Game 7-14, 483B3 Among AL batting ldrs 10-6, 690D2

YOUNG, Neil Martin found dead 2-1, 120E3

YOUNIS, Wafaa Holocaust survivors held/scored, banned 3-25—3-29, 210B3

YOUNOUSMU, Adoum On Sudan border raids 5-17, 376E1

YOU‘RE Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush (play) Opens in NYC 2-5, 211G3

YOUSEF, Ahmed On Gaza war crimes probe 9-16, 614A3

YOUSEF, Jamal Transferred, chrgd 8-19, 816C1

YOUSEF, Ramzi Cuba base prison closure deadline doubted 10-6, 718A2

YOUSRY, Mohamed Convctn upheld 11-17, 914D2

YOUSSEF, Ahmed On US’s Obama Egypt speech 6-4, 369B1

YOUTH Issues Arts & Culture Palestinian orch Holocaust survivors concert held/scored, dir banned 3-25—3-29, 210A3 Awards & Honors Marchetta wins Printz 1-26, 56B1 Crime & Law Enforcement Pa juvenile ctrs sentnc kickback judges suspended, plead guilty 1-26—2-12, cases review spec master named/convctns nixed, suit filed 2-11—3-26, 247F1, A2–F2 Film dir (Polanski) ‘78 convctn ‘misconduct’ seen, appeal nixed 2-17; held 9-26, release mulled 9-27—9-30, 653A2, D2, B3 Med marijuana fed raids nixed, policy clarified 2-25—3-18, 165B2 Israel protests turn violent 3-24, 190A2 Iran ‘08 executns tallied 3-24, 904D1 Somali pirate flown to US, in ct/chrgd 4-20—4-21, 269D2–E2 France anti-semitic murder trial opens 4-29; defendants convctd, sentncd 7-10, retrial sought 7-13, 512E1 Juvenile life sentncs cases accepted by Sup Ct 5-4, 306G3 Canada terror plotter freed 5-22, 413C1 Australian/Indian student attacked, suspects held 5-24—5-29, 509A1 S Africa rape survey rptd 6-17, 923E3 Pa juvenile ctrs owner, builder plead guilty 7-1—9-2; judges plea deal nixed/chngd, indicted 7-30—9-15, convctns dismissed 10-29, 869A3, E3, 870A1 Cuba base detainee (Jawad) release set 7-29, 505C3 Israel shooting kills 2 8-1, 768F3 Argentina marijuana arrests nixed 8-25, 589E3 Uzbek/Kyrgyz tensns rptd 9-15, 663F3 Film dir (Polanski), sex assault victim civil setlmt rptd 10-2; appeal nixed 10-6, atty visits, health woes seen 10-9—10-11, 707B2 France’s Mitterrand sex tourism claims aired/defended, resignatn urged 10-5—10-8, 707F2 China disappearncs seen 10-21, 785B3 French natl ID debate opens 11-2, 937D1 Russian antifascist activist (Khutorskoi) slain 11-16; motive mulled 11-17, Young Russia role denied, violnc drop urged 11-18—11-19, 822F1–A2 Film dir (Polanski) bail/house arrest OKd 11-25, transferred 12-4, 855C3 Serbia rptr (Stankovic) threats suspects held 12-8, 893C1 W Bank mosque burned 12-11, suspect held 12-31, 945E1 Education—See EDUCATION (U.S.) Employment & Business US Jan ‘09 jobless rate 2-6, 80D1 US Feb ‘09 jobless rate 3-6, 147G2 Labor Dept divisn complaints handling questnd 3-25, 340G3 US Mar ‘09 jobless rate 4-3, 219B3 US Apr ‘09 jobless rate 5-8, 323A3 US May ‘09 jobless rate 6-5, 389D1 US Jun ‘09 jobless rate 7-2, 456C2

2009 Index US Jul ‘09 jobless rate 8-7, 535C2 US Aug ‘09 jobless rate 9-4, 602B1 US Sep ‘09 jobless rate 10-2, 676A2 US Oct ‘09 jobless rate 11-6, 778C3 US Nov ‘09 jobless rate 12-4, 846B3 Housing Obama paints homeless shelter 1-19, 28B1 Medicine & Health Care US ‘06 birth rates rptd 1-7, 96F1 US ‘07 birth rate rptd 3-18, 201D3 ‘Plan B’ FDA limits review ordrd 3-23, 184D2 S Africa HIV infectn rate rptd 6-8, 850B3 Ill abortn parental notificatn requiremt upheld, delayed 7-14—8-5, 587E2 Swine flu vaccine single shot efficacy rptd 9-21, 697E1 Flavored cigarettes banned 9-22, FDA suit filed 9-23, 642E3 Obituaries Hughes, John 8-6, 548D3 Politics & Government—See also other subheads in this section Madagascar’s Rajoelina sworn 3-21, 184C3 Population Chinese females lack seen 4-10, 933B1

YOUTUBE Inc. (of Google) Tibet ‘08 riots cop beating tape questnd, China block opens/access returns 3-24—3-27, 327B2 ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singer (Boyle) debuts 4-11, 384E1 Iran protester shooting video posted 6-20, 422C1 Obama citizenship questnd 6-30, 552E3 ‘Green jobs’ adviser (Jones) speech video posted, remarks regretted 9-1—9-3, 602D2 ‘Net neutrality’ bill backed 9-17, FCC rules proposed/concerns seen, drafting set 9-21—10-22, 744G2 Pak militant (Saifullah) sought 12-12, 879B1

YOW, (Sandra) Kay (1942-2009) Dies 1-24, 72G3

YUCCA Mountain—See NEVADA—Nuclear Power YUDHOYONO, Susilo Bambang (Indonesian president, 2004- ) Drive-by shooting kills 1 3-14, suspect (Antasari) held 5-4, 342B2 Jouwe returns 3-18, 272E1 Visits dam collapse 3-27, 272C1 Legis electns held 4-9, vote mulled 4-11—4-16, 295A1–B1, D1 Hikes stock exchng, vows econ advancemt 7-5—7-8; electn held 7-8, win rptd 7-9, 461G2 Scores Jakarta blasts 7-17, visits site, Obama calls 7-18, 494C3 Electn final results issued, upheld 7-24, 8-12, 542G1–B2 Assassinatn foiled plot claimed, 542B1–C1 Vistis Cianjur, sets quake aid 9-3, 606E3 On terror suspect (Noordin) death 9-17, 644B1 Returns, mulls quakes aid 10-1, 662F2 Obama calls, vows Sumatra quakes aid 10-2, 725C1 Sri Lankan asylum seekers ship halted, Australia role confrmd 10-12—10-13, sees Rudd 10-20, 931C1, A2–B2 Sworn 10-20; anti-corruptn ofcls case probed 11-2—11-9, seeks graft fight aid 11-5, 786E1, B2–C2

YUDOF, Mark Tuition hike OKd, protests held/arrests rptd 11-19—12-12, 916D2

YUKOS, OAO Khodorkovsky trial opens 3-31, 207F3 Bakhmina freed, embezzling suspects pleads not guilty 4-21, 328B3, G3 Dogan fine mulled 10-5, 706A3 Shareholders damages bid OKd 11-30, 892E3

YUMKELLA, Kandeh Rptd UNIDO dir gen 1-1, 3B2

YU Myung Hwan Hosts US’s Clinton 2-19, 109D3 On Proliferatn Security Initiative role 4-13, 239G1 On N Korea A-program talks 9-18, 653B1

YUN, Lawrence On home resales rise 1-26, 45F3

YUNE, Rick Ninja Assassin on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

YUNUS, Muhammad Gets Medal of Freedom 8-12, 548C2

YU Qingtai On climate treaty talks 12-9, 841C3

—ZELAYA YUROUKOV, Stefan Chrgd 9-8, 727C2, E2

YUSHCHENKO, Viktor Andriyovich (Ukrainian premier, 1999-2001; president, 2005- ) Russian gas deal signed/shipmts cont, dispute scored 1-19—1-20, 37A3 Oppositn protests held 3-27—4-3; pres vote chng OKd, parlt electn mulled 4-1—4-4, chamber doors blocked 4-2, 227D1–E1, A2 IMF 2d loan installmt release backed 4-17, 274C2 Electn date chngd 5-13, staff chief (Baloha) quits 5-19, 379D1, F1 Hosts US’s Biden 7-22, 496D2, F2, B3 Russia’s Medvedev blasts, letter scored 8-11—8-13, 609D1 At CIS summit, questns usefulness 10-8—10-10, 777E1

YUSUF, Mohammed Death rptd, arrest mulled 7-30—7-31, probe ordrd 8-5, 525D2–F2

YUSUF Ahmed, Abdullahi (Somali interim president, 2004-08) UN peacekeepers res mulled 1-12—1-13, 21C3 Ahmed elected, sworn pres 1-31, 66F2

YZERMAN, Steve Elected to HOF 6-23, 435E3 Inducted to HOF 11-9, 951D2

Z ZACARIAS, Karen Legacy of Light opens in Arlington 5-14, 348B2

ZACKHRAS, Ruben Named acting pres 10-21, 787C1

ZAFAR, Ali On client (Khan) release 2-6, 75C2

ZAFY, Albert (Madagascan president, 1993-96) Signs power-sharing deal 8-9, 555C3 Named vp 10-6, power-sharing deal OKd, signed 11-6—11-7, 782B3, E3

ZAHAR, Mahmoud Addresses Gaza mosque 4-17, 313A2

ZAHRANI, Yasser Talal Abdulah Yahya al- (d. 2006) Suicide suit papers filed 12-4, 862F1

ZAIDI, Muntader alTrial opens, delayed 2-19, 118D1–F1 Convctd, sentncd 3-12, 174E3–G3 Sentnc cut 4-7, 228F1 Freed, claims abuse 9-15, 629C1–E1

ZAINUDDIN, Qari Slain 6-23, 467A1–B1

ZAIRE—See CONGO, Democratic Republic of the ZAJAC, Travis Among NHL plus-minus ldrs 4-12, 299C3

ZAKEN, Shula Indicted 8-30, 593E1

ZAKHIDOV, Sakit Freed 4-9, 253B1

ZAKI, Abbas Palestinian refugee camp blast kills 4 3-23, 211F1

ZAKI Yasin, Judge Mohamad Convcts, sentncs Mongolian woman slaying cops 4-9, 223D3–E3

ZAMAN, Waheed Cleared 9-7, 608E1 Retrial sought 9-11, 626B2

ZAMANI, Muhammad-Reza AliDeath sentnc rptd 10-8—10-10, 768B2

ZAMBADA Garcia, Ismael (El Mayo) Son held 3-19, 186B2 US chrgs set 8-20, 556E2

ZAMBADA Niebla, Vicente Held 3-19, 186A2–B2

ZAMBIA, Republic of African Relations SADC spec summit held 11-4—11-5, 783B2 Asian/Pacific Rim Relations China’s Hu tours Africa 2-12—2-17, 170F1 Corruption & Ethics Issues Chiluba wife convctd 3-3, 556F1 Chiluba cleared 8-17, 555G3

Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F3; 10-1, 736F3 Press & Broadcasting Porn case rptr (Kabwela) cleared 11-16, 925G2

ZAMBRANO, Judge Nicolas Named to Chevron suit 9-4, 723F3

ZAMBRY Abdul Kadir Perak chief min apptmt ordrd 5-7, 415G1–A2

ZAMELI, Mohammed alHeld 1-23, 53C3

ZAMIR, Dany Gaza invasn abuses alleged 3-20, 210E1

ZAMZAM, Ramy Visits Pak, rptd missing 11-30—12-1, arrest confrmd, IDd 12-9—12-10, 858B1 Pak/US deportatn nixed 12-14, arrests, questng OKd 12-15, 879A1

ZANO, Nick Final Destinatn on top-grossing film list 9-18—9-24, 672D2

ZAPATA, Daysi Hails Amazon dvpt laws repeal 6-18, 432A1

ZAPATERO, Jose Luis Rodriguez (Spanish premier, 2004- ) Regional electns held 3-1, Basque coalitn deal OKd 3-30, 226F2 At progressive ldrs summit 3-27, 204F3 Shuffles cabt 4-7, 226A3 Europn Parlt electns held 6-4—6-7, 396D3 Blasts kill 2, ETA blamed 7-29—7-30, 513B2 Italy’s Berlusconi jt news conf held 9-10, 626C3 Madrid loses ‘16 Olympics bid 10-2, 691F1 On seized boat (Alakrana) release 11-17, probe urged 11-18, 801A1, D1

ZAPPADU, Antonello Italy’s Berlusconi party photos published, seized 6-5, 463C2

ZARDARI, Asif Ali (Pakistani president, 2008- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10F3 Visits Afghan 1-6, 54E3 Pak intell agency govt orders claimed 1-7, 39B2 Hosts US sens (Biden/Graham) 1-9, 16C2 A-scientist (Klan) release ordrd, freed 2-6, 75A3 Seeks US aid hike 2-10, 103B1 Denies Sharif pol return block 2-25, 138F1, A2–B2, D2 Protests turn violent/suspects held, rallies banned 3-11—3-15, Sup Ct justices reinstated 3-16, 175F1, A2–D2, C3, E3, 176B1 Chaudhry returns to Sup Ct 3-22, lifts Punjab exec rule 3-28, 228D2–F2, A3 On US/Afghan strategy chng 3-28, 195D1 Cops acad attack claimed 3-31, US benchmarks Sen com hearing held 4-3, 229A1, E1 Signs tribal areas Islamic law deal 4-13, militants abdicatn seen 4-22, 275E3, 276D2 Buner control regained 4-29, 298C1, E1 Sees US ofcls/Afghan’s Karzai, seeks aid hike 5-5—5-6, tribal areas civlins flee 5-5—5-7, 314G3, 315F1, D2 Pub support polled 5-11, jt drone missile strikes seen 5-12, 346C2, G2, E3 At Afghan/Iran summit 5-24, 370F1 Sharif electns ban lifted 5-26, Tribal areas violnc kills 27+ 5-30, 382E2, 383F1–G1 Sees permanent tribal areas mil force 6-12, scores cleric (Naeemi) slaying 6-13, 418B2, E2 Sees India’s Singh 6-16, 418E3 Sees Sharif 7-17, 515C1 Addresses UN Gen Assemb 9-29, 652F1, A2 US aid package questnd 10-7, 695B2–C2 Tribal ares mil offensive hike urged 11-13—11-14, 806E3 At Afghan’s Karzai inauguratn 11-19, 805E3 Transfers A-arms control 11-27, amnesty ends 11-28, 839A1 Illegal assets rptd 12-15, amnesty rejected, nixes resignatn 12-16, 878F2–E3 Scores Karachi blast 12-28, 947B1

ZARQAWI, Abu Musab al(1966-2006) Afghan/US mil cmdr (McChrystal) named 5-11, 317A2, D2

1207

ZASLOW, Jeffrey Last Lecture on best-seller list 2-2, 72B1; 3-2, 140B1; 3-30, 212B1 Girls from Ames on best-seller list 5-4, 316B1 Last Lecture on best-seller list 6-29, 452B1

ZATLERS, Valdis (Latvian president, 2007- ) Mulls parlt ouster vote 1-14, 37G3 Names premr (Dombrovskis) 2-26, 117A2 Govt coalitn OKd 3-12, 173A2, F2

ZAVTRA (Russian newspaper) Chechnya’s Kadyrov interviewed 9-24, 706D1

ZAWAHIRI, Ayman alObama Egypt speech boycott tape aired 6-2, 369C2 9/11 anniv tape issued 9-22, 816F1 Qaeda threat cut seen 10-4, 673D3

ZAW Myint Maung Prisoners freed 2-20, 188D1

ZAZI, Mohammed Held 9-19, chrgd, freed on bail 9-24, 641E2, A3, 642C1

ZAZI, Najibullah Colo hotel stay seen/chem sought, in NYC/exits 9-6—9-12; denies terror link/questnd, plea deal mulled 9-15—9-18, held/evidnce rptd, chrgd 9-19—9-24, 641E2–F3, 642A1–D1, F1, A2–C2 NYC apartmt raided/transferred, bomb constructn mulled 9-22—9-26; pleads not guilty, chrgs questnd 9-29, case work hailed, accomplices role seen/Khan cont surveillnc rptd 10-6—10-8, 678D1–F1, A2–B2, E2

ZEBARI, Hoshyar Hosts US’s Clinton 4-25, 297B3 Seeks UN sanctns lift 7-22, 498C1 On min bldgs attack 8-22, 592F2

ZEDKAIA, Jurelang Names acting pres (Zackhras) 10-21, elected 10-26, 787C1

ZELAYA Rosales, Manuel (Honduran president, 2006-09) At OAS gen mtg 6-4, 376A3 Const reforms pub referendum ban passes Cong, vote thwarted 6-23—6-28, fires Gen Vasquez/reinstatemt ordrd, defns min (Orellana) quits 6-24—6-25, 438D1–A2 Ousted/flown to CR, ‘resignatn’ OKd 6-28; protests held, return mulled/sees Latin Amer ldrs 6-28—7-1, addresses UN, arrest vowed/electn date chng seen 6-30—7-2, 437B3, 438B2–A3 At Panama pres (Martinelli) inauguratn 7-1, 493A3 Arrest warned, return blocked 7-5; US mtg OKd, sees Clinton 7-6—7-7, talks open 7-9, 459D3, 460D1–F1, C2 Zelaya ouster support polled, return talks fail/protests held 7-9—7-16; urges overthrow, Micheletti resignatn mulled 7-14—7-15, unity govt deal rptd 7-16, 480D2 Return plans proposed, nixed 7-18—7-22; ouster upheld 7-20, EU aid halted, Venez diplomats expelled 7-20—7-21, 493G1, D2–G2 Supporter clashes erupt, crosses border/return deal mulled 7-24—7-30, 507F3 Coup defended, protests held 8-4—8-11; US stance mulled 8-5—8-6, return plan nixed/talks fail, interim govt plan issued 8-22—8-27, 575B2, B3–F3 N Amer ldrs back 8-9—8-10, 541F2 Urges US aid halt, interim govt visas nix 9-2, sees Clinton, pres electn oppositn set 9-4, 623A2–E2 Returns, Brazil emb handover urged/OAS mtg held 9-21; curfew set, protests turn violent 9-21—9-23, Micheletti nixes ofc cede, talks offrd 9-22—9-23, 643F1, A3–D3; photo 643E2 Protests cont, arrests rptd 9-25—10-1; Brazil emb warned, emergency declared/lift mulled 9-27—9-28, return talks held, news outlets shut 9-27—9-30, 661A3–F3, 662A1–E1 In return talks/failure seen, support polled 10-7—10-28; Clinton calls, protests held/Brazil emb sheltering halt sought 10-23—10-28, signs deal, on electn recognitn 10-29—11-4, 762F2 Completed unity govt claimed 11-5; return deal failure seen/cont talks urged, pres electn results mulled 11-6, US’s Kelly visits 11-10, 784A2 Reinstatemt nixed 11-20—12-2; pres electn held, protests broken up 11-29, questns vote 11-30, 833G3, 834B1

1208 ZELIKOW— ZELIKOW, Philip Terror detainees harsh interrogatns ‘05 memo rptd 4-21, 322C2 Testifies to Sen com, terror detainees interrogatns memo found 5-13, 322A2–C2

ZE Maka, Remy Ousted 6-30, 722E3

ZEMECKIS, Robert Disney’s A Christmas Carol on top-grossing film list 11-27—12-3, 840D2

ZENG Li On husband convctn, sentnc 11-23, 872D2–F2

ZENITH National Insurance Corp. CIA dir nominee (Panetta) financial disclosure for ms issued 2-4, 94A1

ZENNSTROM, Niklas Files Skype copyright suit 9-16, 761C2

ZENTSOV, Valery Estonia defns ex-ofcl (Simm) pleads guilty/convctd, sentncd 2-25, 136C1

ZENYATTA (racehorse) Named ‘08 top older female 1-26, 119E3–F3 Wins Breeders’ Cup Classic 11-7, 807D1

ZERHOUNI, Noureddine On Bouteflika reelectn 4-10, 248A1, C1

ZETA-Jones, Catherine Little Night Music revival opens in NYC 12-13, 954A2

ZETTERBERG, Henrik Red Wings lose Stanley Cup 6-12, 420D1, F1

ZHAI Jun On Hu African tour 2-12, 170F1

ZHANG, Bryan On Web-filter software claims 6-8—6-12, 414D3

ZHANG, Caroline 3d in US champ 1-25, 139C2

ZHANG Dan 2d in world champs 3-25, 211F2

ZHANG Hao 2d in world champs 3-25, 211F2

ZHANG Hong On Urumqi ethnic violnc deaths 9-4, 605C3

ZHANG Ping Visits Venez, signs deals 12-22, 929F2

ZHANG Xiyun On cargo ship sinking 2-20, 124F2

ZHANG Yanzhang Sentncd 1-22, 35E2

ZHANG Yujun Sentncd 1-22, 35D2 Executed 11-24, 932E3

ZHAO Zhiyang (Chao Chi-yang) (1919-2005) (Chinese premier, 1980-87; Communist Party secretary general, 1987-89) Memoir published 5-19, 5-29, 395B3–D3

ZHEJIANG Geely Holding Group Co. Volvo buy sought, OKd 10-28—12-23, indep mgmt set 12-28, 902D2–F2 China Nov ‘09 car sales rptd 12-8, 932F2

ZHIRINOVSKY, Vladimir Munic/regional parlt electns held 3-1; results rptd 3-2, questns vote 3-3, 208C1

ZHIVKOV, Todor (1911-98) (Bulgarian head of state, 1954-89) Borissov sworn premr 7-27, 577B1

ZHOU Xiaochuan Intl reserve currency chng proposed 3-23, 194F1 Seeks forgn reserves currency chng 6-26, 440C2

ZHOVTIS, Yevgeny Car crash kills 1, drunk driving alleged 7-26; convctd, sentncd 9-3, trial questnd, defended 9-4—9-21, 663C1–A2

ZHUANG Lu Held, cont detentn seen 7-29—8-23, 606E2

ZHU Changjie Named Xinjiang cops chief 9-5, 606A1

FACTS ZHU Hailun Named Urumqi CP secy 9-5, 605G3

ZIA, Khaleda (Bangladeshi prime minister, 1991-96/2001-09) Concedes electn 1-1, Hasina sworn 1-6, 9F1, A2

ZIEFF, Howard (1927-2009) Dies 2-22, 192G3

ZIENTS, Jeffery Named White House chief performnc ofcr 4-20, 264D1

ZIGIRANYIRAZO, Protais Convctn nixed 11-16, 923D2–E2

ZIKUSKI, Joseph On immigrant ctr attack response 4-6, 246F2

ZILLE, Helen S African party electn campaign opens 1-10, 22A2 Gen electns held 4-22, results rptd 4-25, 292D3 Sworn Westn Cape premr 5-6; names cabt 5-8, scores Zuma, remarks mulled 5-10—5-13, 325D3–326C1

ZIMBABWE, Republic of Accidents & Disasters Tsvangirai car crash kills wife 3-6; probe opens 3-7, foul play denied, truck driver chrgd 3-9, 152F1, B2 African Relations Ghana pres electn final vote held 1-2; results rptd 1-3, Atta Mills sworn 1-7, 7F3 Tsvangirai transferred to Botswana 3-7—3-9, 152D2–E2 S Africa’s Zuma diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588A2 SADC summit held 9-7—9-8, 661C1 Tsvangirai tours region, SADC delegatn arrives 10-20—10-28, 746G2–A3 SADC mtgs held 10-29—11-5, 783B2, A3 Civil Strife Oppositn secy gen (Biti) freed 2-6, ex-MP (Bennett) hiding bared, activists release deal rptd 2-12, 81C2, G2, C3 MDC ofcl (Bennett) held, chrgs mulled/in ct 2-13—2-18; security force oppositn intimidatn rptd 2-15, law chngs urged 2-17, 96C3, 97B2 MDC ofcl (Bennett) freed 3-12, 152C3 Agri dep min nominee (Bennett) trial set 7-1, 680A3–B3 MPs held 8-19, 680C3 Tsvangirai supporters harassmt scored 9-13, 661D1 Activists chrgs nixed, suit filed 9-28—10-1, 680E2 MDC ofcl (Bennett) held/chrgd, freed on bail 10-14—10-16; party house raided 10-23, Mashaire attacked 10-26, 746A2 MDC ofcl (Bennett) trial opens 11-9; arms dealer (Hitschmann) testimony OKd 11-11, judge (Bhunu) ouster sought 11-12, 783C2 Corruption & Ethics Issues Pvt bank accts cash removal admitted 4-20, 589A1 Economy & Labor Jobless rate (94%) rptd 1-29, 67C1 White farmers land seizures cont 2-28, 152G3–153A1 ‘09 econ growth seen 9-11, 681D1 Zimbabwe Mining Dvpt diamond field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1 European Relations UK sanctns lift mulled 2-14, 97C2 EU delegatn visits, sanctns lift nixed 9-12—9-13, 661D1 Government & Politics—See also other subheads in this section ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Unity govt talks held, deal OKd/scored 1-19—1-30, PM post amendmt passes parlt 2-5, 67A1, D1, D2 Cabt named 2-10—2-12, Tsvangirai, dep PMs sworn 2-11, 81A1, G2 Facts on Tsvangirai 2-11, 82A1 Mugabe turns 85 2-21, party held 2-28, 153A1 Atty gen (Tomana) ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 3-3, 236F3 Tsvangirai turns 57, wife mourned/buried 3-10—3-11, 152F2–A3 Atty Gen (Tomana) ouster nixed 5-25, 588G3 Const chngs pub hearings held 6-24, conf opens/adjourned, relaunched 7-13—7-14, 588F3 Msika dies 8-5, funeral held 8-10, 588C3 Unity govt mulled 8-7, 540B2 Unity govt questnd 9-1, 589A1

Unity deal anniv marked, cont reforms vowed 9-15, 661A1 ‘09 govt ldrs listed 10-1, 736F3 Const chngs seen 10-2, 680D3 MDC boycott set 10-16; cont unity govt seen 10-23, Mugabe/Tsvangirai mtg held 10-20, 746A2, F2 Govt boycott dropped, power-sharing deal goal set 11-5, cabt mtg held 11-11, 783G1 Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize 12-10, 843E3 Human Rights US lists abuse 2-25, 180B1, E1 Activists bail OKd/freed, Mukoko in hosp 2-27—3-3, 152D3–E3 Marange diamonds field abuses probed 6-30—7-4, 783F3–G3 Latin American Relations Venez’s Chavez hails Mugabe 11-20, 929B3 Medicine & Health Care ‘08 top stories reviewed, 10G3 Cholera outbreak deaths/illnesses tallied 2-5, 67C1 Zimbabwe cholera outbreak deaths tallied 2-12, 81G1 Cholera outbreak illnesses, deaths tallied 2-17, 97G1–A2 Middle East Relations Mugabe/UAE med treatmt claimed, denied 8-26, 588B3 Monetary Issues Z$50 bln, Z$10 trln notes issued 1-12—1-16; forgn currencies use OKd 1-29, Z$ revalued 2-2, 67E2 Pub workers forgn currency paymts vowed 2-11, Reserve Bank gov ouster sought 2-12, 81A2, E3–F3 US$ paymts set 2-18, 97B2 Reserve bank gov ouster nixed 2-26, 152F3 Z$ use halt seen 4-12, 589B1 Reserve Bank gov (Gono) ouster nixed 5-25, 588G3 Press & Broadcasting CNN/BBC rptg curbs lifted 7-29, 588E3 Trade, Aid & Investment Forgn aid dependnc rptd 2-14, 97C2 SADC finance mins mtg held, Biti sees African Dvpt Bank pres 2-26—2-27, 153B1 Australia sets aid 3-11, 153D1 SADC aid vowed 3-30, 203C3 China aid vow rptd 6-30, 588B3 IMF funds loaned 9-4, 661E1 Bilateral aid doubted 9-16, mining indus investmt rise seen 9-17, 681B1–E1 Kimberly Process summit held 11-2—11-6; suspensn nixed, monitoring set 11-5, Marange field exports halted 11-10, 783B3 China loans offrd 11-8, 776C3 UN Policy & Developments Mugabe addresses Gen Assem 9-25, 651F3–G3 Torture probe ldr (Nowak) entry blocked 10-28, 783G2 Mugabe addresses food security summit 11-17, 812A2–B2 U.S. Relations—See also other subheads in this section Sanctns cont 3-4, 153E1 Mugabe sees Carson 7-2, mtg scored 7-5, 459F2

ZIMBABWE Mining Development Corp. Marange diamond field ouster ordrd 10-1, 681F1

ZIMMERMAN, Chris On DC Metro train upgrades cost 6-24, 429E1

ZIMMERMAN, Ryan Among NL runs ldr 10-6, 690F3

ZIMONJIC, Nenad Wins Wimbledon doubles 7-4, 467G2

ZINC China smelter shut/plant stormed, child lead poisoning cases tallied 8-6—8-22, 724F2 China export curbs WTO complaint filed 11-5, 776B2

ZIONIST Organization of America Natl intell cncl chrmn nominee (Freeman) withdraws 3-10, 145A1

ZOELLICK, Robert B. Rptd World Bank pres 1-1, 3C2 On Eastn Eur banks cash need 2-27, 136A3 Sees US$ reserve currency use drop 9-28, 683G2

ZOLI, Theodore Wins MacArthur 9-22, 671E2

ON FILE

ZUBAIR, Muhammad Held 6-17, 595C1

ZUBAYDAH, Abu CIA interrogatn tapes destructn rptd 3-2, 129D2 CIA detentn torture alleged 3-15, 183C3 Waterboarding use efficacy questnd 3-29, 199C3–200B1 CIA interrogatn memos issued 4-16; footnotes detailed 4-18—4-20, Sen com rpt released, timeline revealed 4-21—4-22, 257E2, G2, C3, 258A1, C1, C2–D2, 261B2, E2, D3; excerpts 259A1 CIA harsh interrogatns scored 4-27, Bybee memos defended 4-28, 289B3–290A1, D3 Interrogatn Cong briefing documts issued 5-7, techniques use mulled, Pelosi/Graham roles denied 5-7—5-14, 323A1, C1, F1 Interrogatn Sen com hearing held 5-13, 322E1–F1 CIA interrogatn abuses probe spec prosecutor (Durham) named, ‘04 rpt issued 8-24, 565B2, 566C2

ZULOAGA, Guillermo Home raided 5-21, 493F3

ZULPUEV, Said On Russia aid arrival 4-2, 252E3

ZUMA, Jacob (South African president, 2009- ) ‘08 top stories reviewed, 11A1 Launches electn campaign 1-10; graft chrgs reinstated 1-12, appeal vowed 1-14, 21E3, 22A2–B2 Graft trial date set 2-4, rally held 2-15, 96B2, D2 Dandala pres bid set 2-20, 152D1 Pres bid questnd 4-2, chrgs dropped, case mulled 4-6—4-9, 222A1, A2, F2 Final campaign rally held 4-19; gen electns held 4-22, results rptd, urges unity 4-25, 292A3, 293E1–G1, D2–F2, D3–E3; photo 292E3 Facts on 4-25, 293A1 Elected, sworn pres 5-6—5-9; names cabt 5-10, Zille remarks rptd, scored 5-12, 325E1, E2, E3 Vows poverty end 6-3, 525E3 Honors Gabon’s Bongo 6-8, 394F1 Strikes open, deals set 7-8—7-31, on township protests 7-23—7-25, 525B3, 526C1, G1 Hosts US’s Clinton 8-9, 540D2 Sees runner (Semenya) 8-25, 579A3 Zimbabwe diplomacy mulled, visits 8-26—8-28, 588A2, C3 Hikes AIDS policy 12-1, 850E2 At ‘10 World Cup draw 12-4, 858D2 At Copenhagen climate chng treaty talks, pol statemt set 12-18, 882F1

ZUMTHOR, Peter Wins Pritzker 4-13, 300F1–C2

ZURER, Ayelet Angels & Demons on top-grossing film list 5-22—5-28, 384C2

Zur HAUSEN, Harald ‘08 top stories reviewed, 12E2

ZUROFF, Efraim On Nazi fugitive MD (Heim) ‘92 Egypt death claims 2-5, 155G3

ZVONAREVA, Vera Loses Australian Open semi 1-29, 71B1 Wins BNP Paribas Open 3-22, 399A2

ZWICK, Edward Defiance on top-grossing film list 1-23—1-29, 72D2

ZYAZIKOV, Murat Oppositn ldr (Aushev) slain 10-25, Yevkurov challenge seen 10-26, 766E1–F1

ZYUGANOV, Gennady Munic/regional parlt electns held 3-1; results rptd 3-2, questns vote 3-3, 208C1

2009 Index CORRECTIONS 2D3—Jan. 8 approved (not Dec. 8) 12G2—Eddy (not Eddie) Arnold 12G3—Terkel died Oct. 31 (not Dec. 5) 12E3—anti-apartheid (not ant-apartheid) 17D1—The committee Jan. 14 (not Dec.) 23D2—court-martialed (not mashalled) 24B3—Sally (not Sadie) Hawkins 80A2—Rep. Lamar Smith (not Alexander) 94D2—Jackson’s move (not Johnson’s) 94A3—of mercury emissions (not mercy) 100F2—Swiss Re had (not Swis Re) 104A2—The Dark Knight. (not Batman Returns)

—ZYUGANOV 1209 133A1—three claims (not claimes) 139B3—Salopek was honored (not Slopek) 140D2—Brian O’Byrne (not O Byrne) 140C2—Scarlett (not Scarlet) Johansson 149E1—from El Salvador (not El Salavador) 154D1—crown prince (not price) 160E1—by Gray sometime (not Grey) 166F3—he was working (not ws) 196C3—Al Jazeera (not Jazaeera) 214G2—Avoids Armenian Genocide (not Amenian) 239C2—; John Phillips, 57; (name missing)

239G2—flight of Discovery (not Discovery) 239A3—Lonchakov and (not Lonchakovand) 279F3—died of a brain tumor in 1965 (not 1985) 505B3—constitutional right (not consitutional) 676G3—worried that (not worrited) 682D1—Reyes Ferriz the following day said the violence was linked (phrase omitted) 692A1—King Henry VIII (not VIIII) 693F1—official statement issued Oct. 9 (not Oct. 10)

697A3—two hydrogen atoms (not hyrogen) 698A2—union workers (not union both workers) 750D3—18 Americans (not U.S. servicemen) 756E3—Kwame Kilpatrick (not Kirkpatrick) 804E2—in Singapore Nov. 15 (not Nov. 16) 816D3—Richard Daley (not Daly) 873D3—to supreme leader Kim Jong Il (title/full name missing) 877A1—according to (not accoring) 948B1—Greg Aiello (not Aeillo) 956C2—With Jason Lee... and the voice of Justin Long (not With the voices of)

A Review of the Top News Stories of 2009 Obama Sets 30,000 Additional Troops for Afghanistan U.S. President Barack Obama Dec. 1 announced that he would authorize the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, part of a strategy to weaken an insurgency by the fundamentalist Islamic group the Taliban and to prevent the country from again becoming a haven for the international terrorist network Al Qaeda. The reinforcements would come on top of the 21,000 troops Obama had authorized for deployment earlier in the year, and would bring the total U.S. troop presence in the country to 98,000. [See 2009, pp. 825A1, 194F2]

Afghan President Karzai Reelected

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Nov. 2 was declared the winner of an Aug. 20 presidential election, a day after his rival withdrew from a runoff contest. [See 2009, p. 753A1] Pakistani Army Launches Anti-Taliban Offensive

The Pakistani army Oct. 17 launched a major offensive against the Taliban forces operating within Pakistan, sending some 30,000 troops into the group’s stronghold in the country’s lawless northwest tribal areas. [See 2009, p. 709A1]

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Protests Rock Iran After Election Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad June 13 was declared the winner of a disputed presidential election held June 12, in which opponents said he committed fraud. The announcement triggered protests that spread across Tehran, the capital, and other cities. They were violently suppressed by security forces, but demonstrations continued throughout 2009. [See 2009, pp. 421A1, 401A1] The Obama administration Sept. 11 agreed to hold face-to-face talks with Iran over that country’s nuclear program. Obama Sept. 25 accused Iran of building a secret facility to enrich nuclear fuel near the Iranian holy city of Qom. [See 2009, pp. 649A1, 613C3]

Israeli Ground Troops Invade Gaza Israeli ground troops Jan. 3 invaded the Gaza Strip after a week of bombarding the territory, in what Israel said was a bid to stop the Palestinian militant group Hamas from launching rockets into Israel. Israel finished withdrawing its troops by Jan. 21. A U.N. factfinding team Sept. 15 reported that both sides had committed war crimes in the fighting. [See 2009, pp. 614E1, 30D3, 1A1]

Global Environment Climate ‘Political Statement’ Reached in Copenhagen Talks

Obama Dec. 18 announced that the U.S., China, Brazil, South Africa and India had agreed to a nonbinding “political statement” on climate change at U.N.-backed talks in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. However, representatives from 193 countries failed to reach a consensus on crafting a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol

emissions treaty, set to expire in 2012. [See 2009, p. 881A1]

Global Health WHO Warns of Worldwide Swine Influenza Pandemic Threat

The World Health Organization (WHO) April 29 raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, the second-highest designation, after it was confirmed that dozens of people in several countries had contracted the swine influenza virus. [See 2009, p. 281A1]

Religion Vatican Invites Anglican Converts

The Roman Catholic Church Oct. 20 said it would allow disaffected members of the Anglican Communion to convert while retaining some Anglican traditions. The move came amid a growing split between liberal and conservative factions of Anglicans, including in the U.S.’s Episcopal Church. [See 2009, pp. 868B3, 711D2, 539B1]

Middle East Obama Sets Iraq Withdrawal by August 2010

Obama Feb. 27 announced that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraq by August 2010. Iraq June 30 marked the deadline for

U.S. combat troops to withdraw from its cities. [See 2009, pp. 437A1, 121A1]…Two truck bombs targeting government buildings Oct. 25 killed 155 people in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital. [See 2009, p. 738C1]

Africa ICC Indicts Sudan’s President

The International Criminal Court March 4 indicted Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the conflict in the Darfur region.

Violence increased in southern Sudan in 2009 as a referendum on

independence approached. [See 2009, pp. 924B2, 923G3, 122C1] Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Sworn in as PM

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai Feb. 11 was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s prime minister as part of

a power-sharing deal with the longtime ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The MDC Nov. 5 ended a government boycott after alleging in October that the ZANU-PF was not adhering to the deal. [See 2009, pp. 783G1, 81A1] Military Ousts Madagascar Leader, Installs Rival

Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana ceded power to the armed forces March 17; control of the government was then turned over to Andry Rajoelina, a former mayor of Antananarivo, the capital. Rajoelina Dec. 20 reneged on a power-sharing deal. [See 2009, pp. 925D2, 168A2] Moderate Islamist Named Somali President

Somalia’s transitional parliament Jan. 31 elected moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed interim president. Meanwhile, violence between Islamist militants and government forces, backed by African Union troops, continued throughout 2009, and pirate attacks off the Somali coast increased. [See 2009, pp. 903D1, B2, 66E2] Guinea Junta Leader Shot; Troops Kill Protesters

Guinean ruling junta leader Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara Dec. 3 was shot and wounded by an aide, and was still receiving treatment in Morocco as of Dec. 31. The junta had been condemned for a Sept. 28 massacre of antigovernment protesters. [See 2009, pp. 925F1, 870A2] Other News

Ruling African National Congress candidate Jacob Zuma was elected South Africa’s president May 6 by the National Assembly. [See 2009, p. 325E1]…Soldiers March 2 assassinated GuineaBissau President Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira. Malam Bacai Sanha

July 29 was declared the winner of a runoff presidential vote. [See 2009, pp. 507C2, 133A3]…Rwanda Jan. 22 arrested Congolese ethnic Tutsi rebel leader Laurent Nkunda; fighting among rebels, Congo’s army and U.N. peacekeeping troops continued throughout 2009 in Congo’s east, as did abuses against civilians. [See 2009, pp. 921G2, 34A1]…The Nigerian government Aug. 6–Oct. 4 held an amnesty for rebels in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta, and Nov. 14 began talks with rebel leaders. [See 2009, p. 923F1]

Asia-Pacific Japan’s Opposition Ousts Long-Ruling LDP

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Yukio Hatoyama, won an overwhelming victory in Aug. 30 elections to

the lower house of Japan’s parliament, ousting the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). [See 2009, p. 581A1] North Korea Conducts Second Nuclear Test

North Korea April 14 said the country was ending its participation in six-nation talks on the dismantling of its nuclear program,

and North Korea May 25 announced that it had “successfully conducted” its second nuclear test. [See 2009, pp. 350A3, 238G3] Uighur Riots Erupt in Chinese Region

A protest by thousands of ethnic Uighurs in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang July 5 erupted into rioting and clashes between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese. By Dec. 31, 22 people had reportedly been sentenced to death in connection with the violence. [See 2009, p. 460C3]

Cambodia’s First Khmer Rouge Trial Begins

A joint United Nations–Cambodian tribunal Feb. 17 opened the trial of Kang Kek Ieu (Duch), the first former high-ranking member of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime to go on trial over mass killings during its 1975–79 rule. [See 2009, p. 98E1]

Ireland, who had rejected it in 2008. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the last holdout against the treaty, signed it Nov. 2. [See 2009, p. 765F1]…Leaders of the 27 EU member nations Nov. 19 named Belgian Prime Minister Herbert Van Rompuy the EU’s first full-time president, a post created by the Lisbon Treaty. [See 2009, p. 802G2] Merkel’s Coalition Wins German Elections

Suu Kyi Convicted by Myanmar Court

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Aug. 11 was convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest and was sentenced to one year and six months of house arrest. Suu Kyi had been arrested May 14 after a U.S. citizen entered her house and stayed there for two days without permission. [See pp. 543C1, 327D2] Other News

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition Sept. 27 won parliamentary elections, giving her a second term in office and ousting the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) from the government. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union had governed with the SPD in an uneasy “grand coalition” since 2005. [See 2009, p. 664B3] Obama Announces Change in Missile Defense Plan

The Philippines Dec. 8 began new peace talks with the Islamic separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, after a July 23 cease-fire by the Philippine military. [See 2009, pp. 890D2, 527E2]….Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian Sept. 11 was sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges. [See 2009, p. 625D2]

Obama Sept. 17 announced that his administration would abandon plans to build a missile defense shield with bases in the Czech Republic and Poland to protect against long-range nuclear missiles from Iran, in favor of a new system meant to protect against shorter-range missiles. [See 2009, p. 613A1]

South Asia

Americas

Congress Coalition Wins Indian Elections

Honduran President Zelaya Ousted in Bloodless Coup

The United Progressive Alliance, the ruling coalition led by the Congress party, May 16 declared victory in national elections for the lower house of India’s Parliament. [See 2009, p. 345B2] Sri Lanka Declares Victory Over Tamil Rebels

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa May 19 declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group, ending a civil war that had been fought on and off since 1983. [See 2009, p. 333A1] Nepali PM Resigns Over Army Dispute

Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as

Prachanda, resigned May 4, a day after his attempt to dismiss the

country’s army chief was thwarted. [See 2009, p. 314D2]

Europe EU Treaty Approved

The Lisbon Treaty, which reformed the European Union’s institutions and voting procedures, Oct. 2 was approved by voters in

The Honduran military June 28 stormed the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and deposed President Manuel Zelaya Rosales in a bloodless coup d’etat. [See 2009, p. 437B3] U.S. Eases Cuba Travel, Remittance Restrictions

Obama April 13 eased long-standing restrictions on the ability of U.S. nationals to visit and send money to relatives in Cuba, and ended a ban on telecommunications companies’ operating there. [See 2009, p. 248A3]

Other International News Obama June 4 addressed the Muslim world in a speech from Cairo, calling for a “new beginning” between it and the U.S. [See 2009, p. 367B2]…Scotland Aug. 20 freed Abdel Basset Ali alMegrahi, a terminally ill Libyan former intelligence agent who had been convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. [See 2009, pp. 636C2, 550B1]

UNITED STATES NEWS Obama Inaugurated, Becomes First Black President Barack Obama took the oath of office Jan. 20 to become the 44th U.S. president, succeeding George W. Bush. Obama became the first black president in U.S. history. Joseph Biden was sworn in as vice president. The Senate Jan. 21 confirmed Obama’s nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his main rival in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, as secretary of state. [See 2009, pp. 29F2, 25A1]

House, Senate Pass Versions of Health Care Reform The House Nov. 7 voted, 220–215, to pass a wide-ranging overhaul of the U.S. health care system that would cost an estimated $1.1 trillion over 10 years, and provide coverage to about 36 million uninsured people. The Senate Dec. 24 voted, 60–39, to pass a differing measure that would extend coverage to 31 million people over 10 years, at a cost of $871 billion. [See 2009, pp. 904A2, 773A1]

bound for Detroit, Mich., and was subdued by other passengers and crew members. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged Dec. 26 in connection with the failed attack. [See 2009, p. 897A1]

Other Terrorism News Bush Administration Legal Memos on Detainees Released

The Justice Department March 2 and April 16 released 13 memoranda produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under Bush. The memos claimed broad powers for the president

in responding to terrorism and outlined what interrogation techniques were allowed for use on terrorism detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). [See 2009, pp. 257A1, 129F3] 9/11 Suspects to Be Tried in U.S

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. Nov. 13 said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of involvement in Sept.

The Senate Aug. 6 confirmed federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She became the first Hispanic, and the third woman, in the court’s history. She had been nominated by Obama May 26 to succeed retiring Associate Justice David H. Souter. [See 2009, p. 519A3]

11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the U.S. would be transferred from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City to face trial in federal court. [See 2009, p. 793A1]...The Obama administration Dec. 15 announced that it planned to transfer some terrorism detainees from Guantanamo to a prison in Illinois as part of an effort to close Guantanamo. Financial obstacles were expected to delay the transfer until at least 2011. [See 2009, pp. 914A1, 861A1]

Army Major Charged in Mass Shooting at Base

Economy & Business

Sotomayor Becomes First Hispanic Justice

Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan Nov. 5 allegedly opened fire on military personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people. Investigators said Hasan was upset about U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had had contacts with a radical Muslim preacher in Yemen. [See 2009, p. 757E1]

Attempted Airplane Bombing Fails A Nigerian passenger Dec. 25 allegedly attempted to detonate an explosive device while traveling on a Northwest Airlines flight

Obama Signs $787 Billion Stimulus Package

Obama Feb. 17 signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a $787 billion stimulus package designed to boost economic growth amidst a severe recession. The unemployment rate in October had hit a 26-year high of 10.2%, the Labor Department reported Nov. 6. [See 2009, pp. 778G1, 89A1] Federal Deficit Grows to $1.4 Trillion

The Treasury Department Oct. 16 reported that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, was a record $1.42 tril-

lion, more than triple the previous record in dollar terms, $459 billion, set the previous year. As a share of U.S. gross domestic product, the deficit measured about 10%, the highest since 1945, when it reached 21.5% at the end of World War II. [See 2009, p. 713A1] Administration Forces Automakers Into Bankruptcy

Michigan-based automakers Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors (GM) Co. emerged from federally mandated bankruptcy

proceedings as smaller companies June 10 and July 10, respectively. Both had accepted billions of dollars in federal loans before the Obama administration forced them to restructure. As a result of the proceedings, the Treasury owned 8% of Chrysler and 61% of GM. The bulk of Chrysler, which had entered a partnership with Italy’s Fiat SpA, was owned by a labor union health trust. [See 2009, pp. 475F1, 385A1] Fed Unveils $1.2 Trillion Credit Markets Plan

The Federal Reserve March 18 announced a $1.2 trillion plan to buy long-term Treasury securities and increase its purchases of as-

sets backed by mortgages, in a bid to resolve a freeze in credit markets. [See 2009, p. 163A3] Financier Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years

A federal judge June 29 sentenced financier Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison for his orchestration of a multibillion-dollar

fraud. [See 2009, p. 441A3]

Civil Rights States Legalize Gay Marriage

The Iowa Supreme Court April 3 ruled that a state law banning gay marriage was unconstitutional, effectively legalizing the practice in the state. Vermont’s legislature April 7 overrode a veto of a bill allowing same-sex marriage in the state. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) June 3 signed into law a bill legalizing gay marriage. Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) May 6 signed into law a measure that legalized same-sex marriage, but voters Nov. 3 rejected the law in a referendum. [See 2009, pp. 756G1, 371A1, 304A1, 216A1]

Crime George Tiller, a physician who performed late-term abortions, May 31 was fatally shot at a church he attended in Wichita, Kan., becoming the eighth person murdered as a result of antiabortion violence since abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1973. Scott Roeder was charged with the murder June 2. [See 2009, pp. 832B3, 370A2]

Accidents & Disasters A U.S. Airways jet carrying 155 passengers and crew Jan. 15

crash-landed in New York’s Hudson River after both engines failed.

All 155 people aboard survived. [See 2009, p. 33F1]

MISCELLANEOUS Sports Auto Racing—Jimmie Johnson of the U.S. Nov. 22 clinched his record fourth straight NASCAR title. [See 2009, p. 859E3] Baseball—The New York Yankees Nov. 4 beat the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies, 7–3, to win the World Series, four games to two. [See 2009, p. 770C1]…Japan March 23 beat South Korea, 5–3, to win its second straight World Baseball Classic. [See 2009, p. 190B2]…Yankees star third baseman Alex Rodriguez Feb. 9 admitted to having used steroids from 2001 to 2003. [See 2009, p. 87C1]…Los Angeles Dodgers star left fielder Manny Ramirez May 7 was suspended for 50 games for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy. [See 2009, pp. 530E3, 347C3] Basketball—North Carolina April 6 beat Michigan State, 89–72, to win the NCAA Division I men’s basketball title. Connecticut April 7 routed Louisville, 76–54, to win the women’s title. [See 2009, p. 229C3]…The Los Angeles Lakers June 14 beat the Orlando Magic, 99–86, to win the NBA Finals, four games to one. [See 2009, p. 419B1] Boxing—Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines Nov. 14 beat Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto to claim Cotto’s World Boxing Organization welterweight title, Pacquiao’s seventh world title in a record seven weight divisions. [See 2009, p. 895B2] Cycling—Spains’s Alberto Contador July 26 won the 96th Tour de France, which featured the return from retirement of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong of the U.S., who placed third. [See 2009, p. 515G1] Football—Florida Jan. 8 beat Oklahoma, 24– 14, to win the Bowl Championship Series national title game and claim the NCAA Division I-A title. [See 2009, p. 23B3]…The Pittsburgh Steelers Feb. 1 defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 27–23, to win Super Bowl XLIII. [See 2009, p. 70B1] Golf—Tiger Woods of the U.S., the world’s top-ranked golfer, Dec. 11 said he was taking an “indefinite break” from the sport, after revelations that he had engaged in several extramarital affairs. [See 2009, p. 879D1] Hockey—The Pittsburgh Penguins June 12 beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2–1, to win the Stanley Cup, four games to three. [See 2009, p. 419E3] Horse Racing—Fillies and mares dominated the major races, with Rachel Alexandra winning

the Preakness Stakes May 16 and Zenyatta claiming the Breeders’ Cup Classic Nov. 7. [See 2009, pp. 807D1–G1, 347C1] Tennis—Roger Federer of Switzerland July 5 won Wimbledon, claiming his 15th Grand Slam title and surpassing the all-time record set by the U.S.’s Pete Sampras. [See 2009, p. 467E1] Track & Field—Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt Aug. 16 and Aug. 20 broke his own world records in the 100 and 200 meters. [See 2009, p. 579E1]

Awards Nobel Prizes: Peace—U.S. President Barack Obama. Literature—Herta Mueller, Germany (Romanian-born). Chemistry—Venkatraman Ramakrishan, Britain (he was Indian-born and a U.S. citizen), Thomas Steitz, U.S., and Ada Yonath, Israel. Economics—Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, both U.S. Physiology or Medicine—Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, all U.S. (Blackburn was Australian-born and held dual Australian-U.S. citizenship, while Szostak was British-born). Physics—Charles Kao, Britain-U.S. (he was Chinese-born), Willard Boyle, U.S.-Canada, George E. Smith, U.S. [See 2009, p. 693A1] Films—Academy Awards: Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire. Best Actor, Sean Penn, Milk. Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader. Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire. [See 2009, p. 120A1]. Top Grossing Film: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, $402.1 million. [See 2009, p. 954C1]

Deaths [For page references, see under DEATHS in the 2009 index.] Raul Alfonsin, 82, Argentine ex-president, March 31; Corazon Aquino, 76, Philippine expresident, Aug. 1; Alexis Arguello, 57, Nicaraguan boxer, July 1; Bea Arthur, 86, actress, April 25; J.G. Ballard, 78, British author, April 19; Pina Bausch, 68, German choreographer, June 30; Omar Bongo, 73, Gabonese president, March 14 (succeeded by his son Oct. 16); Norman Borlaug, 95, plant scientist, Sept. 12; Dennis Brutus, 85, South African poet and activist, Dec. 26; Rafael Caldera, 93, Venezuelan ex-president, Dec. 24; David Carradine, 72, actor, June 4; Walter Cronkite, 92, TV news anchor, July 17; Merce Cun-

ningham, 90, choreographer, July 26; Alicia de Larrocha, 86, Spanish pianist, Sept. 25; Dom DeLuise, 75, comedian, May 4; Farrah Fawcett, 62, model and actress, June 25; Horton Foote, 92, playwright, March 4; John Hope Franklin, 94, historian, March 25; Yegor Gaidar, 53, Russian economic planner, Dec. 16; Larry Gelbart, 81, comedy writer, Sept. 11; Paul Harvey, 90, radio commentator, Feb. 28; Don Hewitt, 86, TV news producer, Aug. 19; John Hughes, 59, screenwriter and film director, Aug. 6; Michael Jackson, 50, pop superstar, June 25; Jennifer Jones, 90, actress, Dec. 17; Jack Kemp, 73, U.S. representative

from New York and 1996 vice presidential candidate, May 2; Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, 77, U.S. senator from Massachusetts and leading liberal, Aug. 25; Kim Dae Jung, 85, South Korean expresident, Aug. 18; Jack Kramer, 88, tennis player, Sept. 12; Irving Kristol, 89, neoconservative intellectual, Sept. 18; Claude Levi-Strauss, 100, French anthropologist, Oct. 30; Karl Malden, 97, actor, July 1; Frank McCourt, 78, Irish-born memoirist, July 19; Ed McMahon, 86, Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” sidekick, June 23; Robert McNamara, 93, Vietnam War–era defense secretary, July 6; Ricardo Montalban, 88, Mexican-born actor, Jan. 14; John Mortimer, 85, creator of British TV’s “Rumpole of the Bailey” barrister, Jan. 16; Brittany Murphy, 32, actress, Dec. 20; Gaafar Nimeiry, 79, Sudanese ex-president, May 20; Robert Novak, 78, political columnist, Aug. 18; Les Paul, 94, guitarist and guitar designer, Aug. 13; Claiborne Pell, 90, long-serving U.S. senator (D, R.I.), Jan. 1; Irving Penn, 92, photographer; Oct. 7; Natasha Richardson, 45, British actress, March 18; Oral Roberts, 91, televangelist, Dec. 15; William Safire, 79, political columnist and language maven, Sept. 27; Paul Samuelson, 94, Nobel Prize–winning economist, Dec. 13; Budd Schulberg, 95, novelist and screenwriter, Aug. 5; Eunice Kennedy Shriver, 88, Special Olympics founder, Aug.. 11; Ron Silver, 62, actor, March 15; Mercedes Sosa, 74, Argentine singer, Oct. 4; Patrick Swayze, 57, actor, Sept. 14; Mary Travers, 72, the “Mary” in the folk-pop group Peter, Paul and Mary, Sept. 16; John Updike, author, 76, Jan. 27; Bruce Wasserstein, 61, banker, Oct. 14; Andrew Wyeth, 91, realist painter, Jan. 16.

QUICK ACCESS TO FACTS ON FILE 2009 The following is a quick guide to locating some of the most important stories and special features in Facts On File 2009. Complete access to all news stories in FACTS ON FILE is provided by the index. To access an enhanced online delivery of Facts On File, go to www.facts.com Pakistan: Taliban chief reported killed Aug. 7, 533A1;

update Dec. 28, 946F3

Special Features

Somalia: Moderate Islamist named president Jan. 31, 66D2;

update Dec. 23, 903D1 Sri Lanka: Victory declared over Tamil Tiger rebels May 19,

Chronologies and Tables 2008 Top News Stories in Reviews: 10A1-12G3 Budget: U.S. authority and overlays 321A1 Business & Finance: Dow Jones Industrial Average

900A1; year-end financial update 900A1, 910E3 Germany: Parliamentary elections 665A1 Global Environment: Surface temperatures 881E1 India: Parliamentary elections 345E2 Japan: Diet elections 581F1 Same-sex marriage: Laws by state 216A2 United Nations: Security Council members, agency heads 3A1 U.S. Government: Final presidential vote totals 656A2

Government Leaders World heads of state and government leaders 732A1-

736G3

Maps Australian bushfires 83E2 Gaza Strip ground war 2A1 Iran nuclear facilities, missiles range 649E1, 650A1 Italian earthquake 224A2 Pakistani military operation 709E1 Somalia pirate attacks 238A1 Sri Lanka-Tamil Tiger conflict zone 333D1

Major News Stories World News Afghanistan: Europeans pledge few new troops April 4,

213A1; update Dec. 30, 899D1 Global Environment: G-8 agrees to long-term

greenhouse gas emissions cuts July 8, 453A1; update Dec. 18, 881A1 Global Health: WHO warns of worldwide swine influenza pandemic threat April 29, 281A1; update Nov. 20, 901B1 Honduras: President Zelaya ousted by military June 28, 437B3; update Nov. 29, 833F3 India: Pakistani agencies blamed for Mumbai attacks Jan. 6, 39E1; update Dec.18, 946G1 Iran: Ahmadinejad signals interest in U.S. talks Feb. 10, 86G1; update Dec. 27, 940A2 Iraq: Suicide bomber kills Shiite pilgrims Jan. 4, 8D2; update Dec. 30, 941C3 Japan: Long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party ousted Aug. 30, 581A1; update Dec. 25, 933C1 Middle East: Israeli ground troops invade Gaza Strip Jan. 3, 1B1; update Dec. 28, 944G3 North Korea: Rocket launched, satellite success claimed April 5, 215D1; update Dec. 29, 933A3

333A1; update Nov. 29, 947C2 Sudan: ICC indicts Bashir for war crimes, crimes against

humanity March 4, 122C1; update Dec. 29, 923F3 United Nations: Annual general debate opens Sept. 23,

633A1; update Sept. 29, 651C3 Zimbabwe: Opposition agrees to join government Jan. 30,

67A1; update Nov. 11, 783G1

United States News Armaments: Obama abandons Eastern Europe missile

defense shield Sept. 17, 613A1; update Oct. 13, 705D3 Crime: Financier Madoff pleads guilty to $65 billion fraud

March 12, 141A1; update Nov. 3, 800A1 Economy: Obama rallies support for recovery plan Jan. 5,

6A3; update Dec. 24, 909A3; Automaker General Motors declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy June 1, 365A1; update Dec. 30, 910B1 Health Care Reform: Obama urges Congress in address to joint session Sept. 9, 597A1; update Dec. 24, 904A2 Music: Singer Michael Jackson dies June 25, 436A1; update Nov. 21, 840G1 Politics: Obama inaugurated Jan. 20, 25A1; Supreme Court Justice Souter announces retirement May 1, 301A1; update Aug. 8, 536D2 Terrorist Attacks aftermath: Memos authorizing CIA interrogations during Bush era released April 16, 257A1; update Dec. 25, 897A1

Miscellaneous Awards

Academy Awards Feb. 22, 120A1; Golden Globes Jan. 11, 24D2; Grammy Awards Feb. 8, 88E1; Emmy Awards Sept. 20, 647A3; Nobel Prizes Oct. 5–12, 693A1; Pulitzer Prizes April 20, 279D1; Tony Awards June 7, 399C3

Best Sellers December books, music, television, films 956A1

Sports Baseball World Series Nov. 4, 770C1; Basketball NBA

Championship June 14, 419C1; NCAA Championships April 3–4, 229B3; Football Super Bowl Feb. 1, 70B1

Texts and Text Excerpts Bush: farewell address 19A1 Health Care Reform: 774A1 Obama address: Afghanistan war 826A1; Congressional

106A1-108E3; Egypt 368A1; Ghana 472A1; health care reform 599A1; inaugural 27A1; Iran video message 179E1; news conference 78A1, 487E1; Nobel Peace Prize 843A1 Terrorist Attacks aftermath: Justice Department interrogation memos 259A1-260G3 U.S. Senate: Sotomayor hearings excerpt 470A1